Tag Archive for: jihad

The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America

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CatholicGraphs_gendividePope Francis is coming to America this week and will be addressing the U.S. Congress at the invitation of Speaker of the House Representative John Boehner. Pope Francis starts his visit to America on Tuesday, September 22nd and plans to stop in Washington, D.C., New York City and Philadelphia.

Indications are that Pope Francis will be talking about several issues including climate change and the refugee crisis in the Middle East. But there is one topic Pope Francis may not be talking about – spiritual matters important to American Catholics.

Perhaps Pope Francis should be using this opportunity to address how to stop the decline and fall of the Catholic Church in America?

In his seminal five volume work History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire published in 1782, Edward Gibbon, Esq. wrote:

After a diligent inquiry, I can discern four principal causes of the ruin of Rome, which continued to operate in a period of more than a thousand years. I. The injuries of time and nature. II. The hostile attacks of the Barbarians and Christians. III. The use and abuse of the materials. And, IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans.

The Roman Empire has gone with the wind. Will the Catholic Church in America suffer the same fate?

Let us look at each of these four principal causes of the ruin of Rome and compare them to the Vatican and American Catholics.

I. The art of man is able to construct monuments far more permanent than the narrow span of his own existence; yet these monuments, like himself, are perishable and frail; and in the boundless annals of time, his life and his labors must equally be measured as a fleeting moment.

The Catholic Church is witnessing a reduction of its monuments in the United States.

According to the non-profit Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, in 1990 there were 19,620 parishes in the U.S. In 2014 there were 17,483 parishes or a loss of nearly 11%. As parishes closed so did other Catholic monuments: churches, schools and hospitals.  In 1965 there were 10,667 Catholic Elementary Schools, in 2014 that number was 5,368 (a 50% loss of Catholic Elementary Schools). Catholic Secondary Secondary Schools went from a high of 1,986 in 1970 to 1,200 in 2014 (a 40% loss). Even Catholic Colleges and Universities declined from 305 in 1965 to 225 in 2014 (a 26% loss).

Time and nature has taken its toll on Catholic Churches in the U.S. As the Catholic population ages, parishes close. CARA notes, “As the largest religion in the U.S., Catholicism has the largest number of former members (some later return as reverts). Catholicism has a higher retention rate than most other religions in the U.S. (including all Protestant denominations).

It is the institutions that must survive to carry on the word of the Gospel. As the institutions decline so does the Catholic Church in America.

II. The hostile attacks of the Barbarians and Christians.

Today the hostile attacks are coming from the “new Barbarians”: Collectivists, Marxists, the Communist Party USA, atheists, the pro-choice movement, the feminist movement, homosexuals and government.  Today it is the followers of Mohammed who are attacking the people of the Cross globally and in America.

There is a coalition within America that is anti-Catholic, anti-Christian and anti-Semitic. Their tactics and strategy are to diminish the role of religion by removing God from the public square. As that has happened in America we now have Collectivists, atheists, abortionists, homosexuals (some of whom are practicing witchcraft) and the U.S. government taking positions and implementing policies which are anti-Catholic, anti-Christian and anti-Semitic.

As Sandy Ikeda in his article “Progressivism Is Illiberal” writes, “Progressivism [Collectivists] today goes beyond the liberal position that, for example, same-sex marriage should have the same legal status as heterosexual marriage, to the belief that the state should threaten physical violence against anyone who refuses to associate or do business with same-sex couples.”

In the Middle East Catholic Churches are being burned to the ground, Christians slaughtered, Christian children sold into sex slavery and Christians crucified as was done in ancient Rome.

The attacks against Catholicism are real and palpable. Daily news reports tell us that a unholy war is being conducted against the Catholic church.

III. The use and abuse of the materials.

Materialism is the God of many in America. The quest for power and riches outweigh the need for God and redemption. Collectivists demand submission to the state as does Islam, which literally translated means “to submit.” Government becomes God and by doing so restricts what the individual can and cannot do.

As Ayn Rand wrote, “The basic issue in the world today is between two principles: Individualism and Collectivism.” In a short 19 page paper Rand wrote:

“A great many people today hold the childish notion that society can do anything it pleases; that principles are unnecessary, rights are only an illusion and expediency is the practical guide to action.

It is true that society can abandon moral principles and turn itself into a herd running amuck to destruction. Just as it is true that a man can cut his own throat any time he chooses. But a man cannot do this if he wishes to survive. And society cannot abandon moral principles if it expects to exist.”

In America corn is used to produce Ethanol, a gasoline additive. Over 50% of the corn produced in America goes toward the production of Ethanol. According to the World Food Programme, “Some 795 million people (1 in 9) in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life.”

Using food for fuel is immoral.

The use and abuse of materials and the people is the greatest threat to Catholics and the Church. For whenever the individual is diminished so to is the role of the Catholic Church. Jesus was an individualist who fought government. Many question why won’t the Catholic Church follow in Jesus’ footsteps and fight against government and defend individual rights including religious liberty.

IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans.

The United States was founded on Judeo/Christian beliefs and values. Today the various Christian denominations are quarreling amongst themselves about social and political issues. This quarreling is occurring while all Christian and Jewish organizations are under attack from the new barbarians and the followers of Mohammed (see item II above).

CatholicGraphs_decline

Perhaps it is time for pastors, priests and rabbis to unite in one cause – to preserve their belief in God and the Judeo/Christian way of life.

The American way of life has led to great happiness and prosperity both in the homeland and throughout the Western world. A way of life that insures life, liberty and pursuit of happiness as guaranteed by United States Constitution. A way of life that celebrates life over death. A way of life that insures salvation and the return of the Kingdom of God to this earth.

There are lessons to be learned, for if we forget the history of the decline and fall of Rome, we are doomed to repeat it.

Perhaps Pope Francis would better serve the Church if he addressed Catholic persecution by the new barbarians and Muslims in America?

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The Clock is Ticking on “Islamophobia”

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In FrontPage today I discuss the exhortation “If you see something, say something” – which holds true unless the suspicious person is a Muslim.

Of all the people arrested over the past week, only Ahmed Mohamed of Irving, Texas was invited to the White House as a result. This is because Mohamed is fourteen years old, and a Muslim, and was arrested because of rampant “Islamophobia” in the U.S. – or at least so goes the media narrative that Barack Obama has eagerly abetted by issuing his invitation.

The facts of the case are not in dispute; only the intention behind them is. Mohamed built a working clock over the last weekend, and decided to take it school to show it to an engineering teacher. The problem was that it didn’t look like a conventional clock. Instead, it was a mess of wires and other gadgets mounted in a briefcase, and looking suspiciously like the briefcase bombs that have figured in countless movies and TV shows.

Questioned by teachers and then by police, according to WFAA: “officers said Ahmed was being ‘passive aggressive’ in his answers to their questions, and didn’t have a ‘reasonable answer’ as to what he was doing with the case. Investigators said the student told them that it was just a clock that he was messing around with.” Irving police officer James McLellan explained: “We attempted to question the juvenile about what it was and he would simply only say it was a clock. He didn’t offer any explanation as to what it was for, why he created this device, why he brought it to school.”

Why didn’t young Ahmed simply give McLellan the explanation he offered later, that he was planning to show the clock to an engineering teacher? This remains unexplained, but in part because of his non-cooperation, Ahmed Mohamed was arrested, and soon released without charge. An international firestorm ensued, with Obama inviting Ahmed to the White House, and a great deal of media handwringing over “Islamophobia.” Haroon Moghul wrote in CNN that “Ahmed just looked to some like someone who might want to make bombs. He’s that very menacing brownish color that racists and bigots associate with either everything south of Texas or some country they probably think is called Terroristan. As it happens, he’s of African, specifically Sudanese, descent. He’s got a doubly Muslim name.”

And it’s true: officials at Irving’s MacArthur High School, where Ahmed Mohamed is a student, ridiculously overreacted. They did so, however, not because of “Islamophobia,” but because of the general hysteria over school shootings that has led principals and teachers nationwide to react stupidly to innocuous actions. All over the country, school officials are on constant high alert for weapons — a high alert that has more than once spilled over into outright hysteria, with students being suspended for drawing guns, pointing fingers at people and saying ‘Bang,’ etc. Then there was Josh Welch, the kid who got in trouble for chewing his pop-tart into the shape of a gun. Josh Welch never got invited to the White House.

Josh Welch and the other children who have fallen victim to this hysteria didn’t run afoul of school administrators because they were Muslims — none of them were. They found themselves in hot water because administrators are so very afraid that their school will be the site of the next shooting that they leap on and magnify the smallest matters. Would Ahmed Mohamed’s clock have been suspicious if he were a white Methodist, and would he have been arrested anyway? Without any doubt. But his arrest has become an opportunity for the purveyors of the Muslims-as-victims myth, among whom Haroon Moghul is a leading propagandist, to push hard on their spurious and insidious claim that Muslims are suffering from unwarranted scrutiny, including counter-terror programs, which should accordingly be relaxed or scrapped altogether.

That will be the result of the apotheosis of Ahmed Mohamed to Exalted Victim Status. Ahmed Mohamed will most likely be the Rosa Parks of the counter-counter-terror movement. Because of this young man and his clock, Muslim students will henceforth be exempted from scrutiny for bringing suspicious objects to school: to subject them to such scrutiny would be “Islamophobic,” clearly an act of racism against “brown people.”

Because of this incident, the clock is now ticking on “Islamophobia” – that is, on reasonable scrutiny of Muslims behaving suspiciously. Such scrutiny is on its way out. And so it could happen some day: a young Muslim just as intelligent and enterprising as Ahmed Mohamed will spend a weekend building a bomb instead of a clock, and carry it with him to school on Monday morning. School officials, if they see it, will not dare utter a word of protest: they will have learned the lesson of Ahmed Mohamed, that young “brown” Muslim boys with suspicious objects are not to be questioned unless the questioner wants to be excoriated in the media and lose his job.

When that bomb goes off, will anyone recall the silly incident in the late summer of 2015 that paved the way for it, and how the President of the United States himself made it all possible? Or will they be too preoccupied with the bloody carnage to remember?

RELATED ARTICLE: Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison carries clock in solidarity with Ahmed Mohamed

Imam: Germany is not compassionate, wants workers, but we will conquer them

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Invasion of Europe, creation of a caliphate, so tell me again why we don’t believe what they say!  Hat tip: Kyle

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A Canadian Iranian’s Perspective

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In 1968, I was only three years old and very keen to start school early. With some help, I had finished reading Grade one text books along with eight English novels. My parents enrolled me in a private school, so that I could be in a more protected and secure environment. Nevertheless, given my tiny appearance, a few girls always bullied me and I lost my confidence during my years in elementary school. My mother had to come to school to literally feed me so that I would eat my lunch. I regained my self-confidence after signing up for martial arts courses for a few years, where I excelled to a brown belt in karate.

I was just 13 when Khomeini came into power by hijacking the people’s revolution and overnight all women, including elementary school girls, were forced to cover their bodies from head to toe and were ordered to only wear dark colours. We were no longer allowed to attend school with the opposite sex. Our once praised school curriculum was now replaced by Arabic, Islamic studies and the Quran; which most of us simply loathed. It was at this time that I had an awakening and started my activism. I was robbed of my teen years by a radical regime that sought to force its values on the masses by devastating force. My childhood memories were replaced by a reality created by a regime where women were now treated as second class citizens to men and even the most mundane detail of our lives was strictly controlled by Khomeini’s Revolutionary Guards and the morality police.

Like most teenagers in high school, I also spoke my mind about the changes that were happening in my country. In a modern society, teenagers attend school, openly spend time with friends, listen to their favorite music and do all the things that teenagers do. In going about their lives, they do not have to worry about political and religious consequences of engaging in normal everyday activities enforced by their government… They do not have to live in fear of expressing their opinion, no matter how unpopular that opinion. What we no longer had and would never have again under the Islamic Republic, simply put, was freedom of speech. Those who did speak up put themselves and their families in grave danger or simply disappeared behind the walls of the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. At that time even 12 year old children faced the firing squad for political dissidence.

Imagine for a moment a mother living a quiet uneventful life with her children in the safety of her own home. Imagine the horror of that same woman when in the early hours of the morning she comes face-to-face with the infamous Revolutionary Guards. Unannounced, they forced their way into her home and arrested their 16 year old daughter. The young girl, her only daughter and the eldest of her three children, was taken to the much feared Evin prison where she knew her child would be interrogated and tortured. She also knew that many mothers never saw their children again as that time people simply vanished without a trace. That child was me. I was arrested by five very large, heavy set guards. I remember distinctly four vehicles that came to our house to take me away; a 16 year old girl who barely weighed 90 pounds. Imagine the terror and anguish felt by that child. This may be unfathomable to the western mind, but this was to be my reality for the next 18 months.

In my young trustful mind, I did not think that a simple conversation, having an opinion and simply expressing it, would put my life in danger. I never considered the possibility of being tortured as a teenager and that my life would be forever changed and that I would be reminded of this torture every time I would look in the mirror and the terrible scar on my face.

My interrogator was a man known simply as the “rapist of Evin.” I never saw his face as we were always blindfolded. Both the guards and interrogators were very protective of their identity as if they knew that someday they may be the hunted like the Nazis. This gave me a clue that they knew well what they were doing was wrong or they simply could not look into the face of a child when they tortured her/him. As time went by, I realized that my interrogator had taken pity on me and decided to leave me outside the torture chambers from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day, blindfolded, cold and hungry, instead of physically torturing me. I can tell you that there is only one experience worse that being tortured; having to listen to others scream and beg, not for their lives but for their death.

At the end I was given an 18-month sentence but in reality I should have been hanged for my anti-Islamic and anti-revolutionary views. To this day I have no idea why and how my life was spared. But I do remember making a deal with God, in that corner of the torture chamber, that if he spared not me but my parents of the pain of my death, I would dedicate my life to fighting the Islamic Republic to my very last breath. I also silently promised each and every one of those who screamed in pain that I would live and bear witness for them. I wanted to live as surviving was the only act of resistance in Evin. At night I would count around 60-70 bullets which meant 60-70 souls had been executed and I was hearing the last shot they would give the victim in the head. Many of my beautiful cell mates were taken before my eyes. All left bravely and without fear in their eyes and soul. We had decided that dying proudly was our final act of resistance. We were children but we wanted to die like high ranking officers….proud and defiant.

After I was freed from the clutches of Evin, I decided to find out exactly why I was taken and why so many were killed.

I found out that the Islamic Republic of Iran demanded absolute compliance with the penalty of torture and death for those that dared question it. There is absolutely no room for error by the citizen and there is no forgiveness. There were teenagers who were shot for simply being in the possession of leaflets or books of the opposition. The Islamic Republic ran elections to give an image of democracy, while allowing the masses to choose only among its carefully handpicked candidates who had subscribed to the fundamental beliefs of the regime and had an invested interest in seeing the continued survival of a dictatorship.

What are these beliefs? That boys and girls are separated throughout their schooling. That girls as young as nine years of age are forced into marriages, traded like property. Women are treated as second class citizens only second to men. Islamic Republic of Iran demands compliance to the regime and does not tolerate dissent. Young men and women that speak against the regime are rounded up and sent to notorious prisons, where they are tortured and left with scars for life, and others executed, some in public settings to teach a lesson to others. Sex outside of the marriage is at times punished by a brutal practice of stoning to death.

Outside of Iran, the regime openly and covertly supports terrorist activities. The Islamic Republic of Iran supports terrorist organizations including, the Hezbollah and Hamas in the Middle East. Those who hold positions of authority in Iran have been found responsible for bombings in Argentina and murders in Germany, to name a few. These are not isolated cases, with growing evidence of Iranian covert and terrorist activities in the Americas. 1 Inspired by North Korea, it has sought to further guarantee its existence by building its nuclear know-how.

There has been a great deal of effort by the international community to persuade Iran to slow down its nuclear program. Promises of relaxing economic sanctions and opening up relations have been put on the table. In fear of Iran becoming a nuclear power, world leaders are willing to put aside the fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a dictatorship that continues to deny its people their fundamental rights and will remain on course to export its radical ideology. Removing sanctions and opening relations will make it easier for Iran to achieve this end.

The regime and its followers are trying hard to revive and better market a dictatorship that has brought so much pain and suffering to Iranian people for 35 years. I wish that Khomeini never started an Islamic revolution (or devolution) 35 years ago let alone try to revive it today.

The Islamic Republic of Iran enshrined the clergy and brought three decades of pain to an entire society and humanity as a whole. It speaks of moderation, reform and protecting the establishment yet during the regime’s time in power, has restricted human rights, engaged in mass executions, taken hostages, and stood in defiance of the world.

The reformists who are part of this establishment have blood on their hands. Today it is time for them and the regime which Khomeini was so instrumental in establishing to go.

Let’s hope this regime is overthrown soon so that our world is set free from this dangerous contamination. I hope that Iranians can live in a free society and have their deserved human rights which this regime has taken away from them completely. The truth about the Islamic Republic of Iran needs to reach the ears and hearts of the world for knowledge is the vessel of constructive change.

I believe that many world organizations and politicians have made the Islamic Republic stronger by refusing to hold it accountable for its dubious activities both inside and outside Iran. The regime has become even more brutal and vicious due to the impunity it has been given for the last 35 years by the international community.

References

  1. Prosecutor in Argentina Sees Iranian Plot in Latin America, New York Times website, 29 May 2013.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the Mackenzie Institute website. Featured photo courtesy of the Mackenzie Institute.

For $42 million, “4 or 5” U.S. trained Syrian “moderates” fighting Islamic State

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Why couldn’t U.S. officials find the 5,400 “moderate” fighters that they wanted to train? If the worldwide Muslim condemnations of the Islamic State were genuine, Muslims would be flocking from all over the world to fight against the Islamic State, instead of flocking from all over the world to join it. The abysmal failure of this program is a testament to how wrongheaded, willfully ignorant and foolish the U.S. government’s response to the Islamic State has been and continues to be.

“General Austin: Only ‘4 or 5’ US-Trained Syrian Rebels Fighting ISIS,” by Luis Martinez, ABC News, September 16, 2015:

General Lloyd Austin, the commander of U.S. Central Command leading the war on ISIS, told Congress today that only “four or five” of the first 54 U.S.trained moderate Syrian fighters remain in the fight against ISIS.

Christine Wormuth, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, also told the Senate Armed Services Committee that there are currently between 100 and 120 fighters in a program that was slated to have trained 5,400 fighters in its first 12 months.

Austin told the panel that goal was not going to be met and that options are being explored about how to retool the program which was intended to train moderate Syrian rebels to fight ISIS. So far, $42 million has been spent to develop the $500 million program which began training in April.

The first 54 graduates of the program were re-inserted into northern Syria in July and were quickly attacked by the Al Nusra Front, the dominant Islamist rebel group in Syria. Though the attack was repelled with U.S. airstrikes, it was characterized as a major setback for the viability of the progam [sic]. When Austin was asked how many trained fighters remained in the fight he responded “it’s a small number,” before adding “the ones that are in the fight, we’re talking four or five.”…

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Pope Karl Marx I: Blaming Capitalism

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In FrontPage today I discuss how the Pope has blamed the refugee crisis on…capitalism:

Did Karl Marx become Pope on March 13, 2013?

As the leader of a Church that encompasses the globe, one might expect Pope Francis to be a bit more…spiritual. Instead, he has more than once had recourse to Marxist analysis to explain global events, appearing to see economic deprivation as the cause of all the world’s evils. He did it again in an interview published last Monday, when he opined that the root cause of the refugee crisis engulfing Europe was economic inequality:

It is the tip of an iceberg. These poor people are fleeing war, hunger, but that is the tip of the iceberg. Because underneath that is the cause; and the cause is a bad and unjust socioeconomic system, in everything, in the world – speaking of the environmental problem –, in the socioeconomic society, in politics, the person always has to be in the centre. That is the dominant economic system nowadays, it has removed the person from the centre, placing the god money in its place, the idol of fashion. There are statistics, I don’t remember precisely, (I might have this wrong), but that 17% of the world’s population has 80% of the wealth.

Let’s see. Are the Syrian refugees fleeing war and hunger? Certainly. Are they, however, fleeing an unjust economic system? Are they fleeing Syria because Bashar Assad on the one hand and the Islamic State on the other are top-hatted plutocrats puffing cigars and chuckling as they send the proletariat off to back-breaking labor? Are Assad and the Islamic State fighting one another for an increased market share? Are the Syrian refugees streaming into Europe because Syria is in love with the god money and the idol of fashion? (The Pope actually may be on to something with that idol of fashion bit: certainly women in the Islamic State holdings in Syria will get killed if they don’t bow to the Islamic State’s idol of fashion and cover everything but their hands and face.)

In reality, the refugees are leaving Syria because the Sunnis of the Islamic State and other jihad groups are waging jihad against the Alawite regime of Assad and his Shi’ite Iranian allies, and have torn the country apart in the process. But to acknowledge that would require the Pope to admit that there is such a thing as jihad violence in the first place, and he is not at all disposed to do that; back in November 2013, he proclaimed his “respect for true followers of Islam” and declared that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.”

So the peaceful Koran couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this refugee crisis, could it? It must be those heartless Syrian tycoons, or more precisely the European and American ones who are presumably keeping the Syrians in a perpetual state of poverty and deprivation.

Meanwhile, the refugees are not all fleeing hardship in Syria at all. Last February, the Islamic State promised to flood Europe in the near future with as many as 500,000 refugees. And an Islamic State operative recently boasted that among the flood of refugees, 4,000 Islamic State jihadis had entered Europe. “They are going like refugees,” he said, but they were going with the plan of sowing blood and mayhem on European streets. As he told this to journalists, he smiled and said, “Just wait.” He explained: “It’s our dream that there should be a caliphate not only in Syria but in all the world, and we will have it soon, inshallah.”

And last Monday, Lebanese Education Minister Elias Bou Saab warned that Islamic jihadis make up as much as two percent of the Syrian refugees in his country alone. Since there are 1.1 million Syrians in refugee camps in Lebanon, that amounts to 20,000 jihadis. How many more are already in Europe?

Despite his Marxist analysis, in the same interview the Pope acknowledged the possibility that there could be Islamic jihadists among the refugees: “I recognize that, nowadays, border safety conditions are not what they once were. The truth is that just 400 kilometres from Sicily there is an incredibly cruel terrorist group. So there is a danger of infiltration, this is true.” He even admitted that Rome could be at risk: “Yes, nobody said Rome would be immune to this threat.”

Despite this, however, he reiterated his request that Catholic parishes take in refugees: “What I asked was that in each parish and each religious institute, every monastery, should take in one family. A family, not just one person. A family gives more guarantees of security and containment, so as to avoid infiltrations of another kind.” And he applauded Europe’s welcoming of the refugees: “I want to say that Europe has opened its eyes, and I thank it. I thank the European countries which have become opened their eyes to this.”

Yet in so many important ways his own eyes appear to remain firmly closed. Is societal suicide really a requirement of Christian charity? Must Europe allow itself to be overrun by hostile invaders in order to prove its lack of racism and willingness to extend help to the needy? These are questions that Church leaders ought to be considering, but they’re too busy with their “dialogue” sessions at the local mosque to busy themselves with such trivialities. No doubt that “dialogue” will result in calls for more redress of economic inequalities, in accord with the Pope’s own world view – and more money will be showered upon Muslim countries, enabling the purchase of more weaponry and the onset of more jihad. At least Europe, as the blade plunges into its collective throat, can congratulate itself that even unto death, it always welcomed the stranger.

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GOP Debate: Winners and Losers on National Security by Ryan Mauro

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American voters’ concern about Islamist extremism is at the highest level since 2002, with 66% of Republicans, 56% of Independents and 48% of Democrats describing it as a “critical threat.” National security is a major issue that received significant attention at last night’s Republican presidential debate.

The following is Clarion Project National Security Analyst Ryan Mauro’s compilation of the candidates’ expressed stances on fighting Islamist extremism at the debate and his personal assessment of the contest’s winners and losers among national security voters.

Winners

Businesswoman Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina is widely considered the biggest winner of the debate overall. Her performance included details on national security policy.

She criticized rivals who oppose the nuclear deal with Iran without presenting a broader strategy. She said she’d inform Iran that the regime would be prevented from moving money through the global financial system until it agrees to anytime-anywhere inspections.

Fiorina said the U.S. should not negotiate with Russia because it is on the side of Iran. She said she’d provide intelligence to Egypt and armaments to Jordan to fight the Islamic State, in addition to arming the Kurds.

She advocated a military buildup that includes increasing the 6thFleet, military exercises in the Baltic States, installing anti-ballistic missile systems in Poland, modernizing all three legs of the nuclear triad, increasing the Navy to 300-350 ships and adding 50 Army brigades and 36 Marine battalions.

Fiorina is currently in 8th place in an average of national polls with 3 percent. She is in 6th place in Iowa (5%), 4th place in New Hampshire (8%) and 6th place in South Carolina (4%).

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham

Graham is the winner of the undercard debate that featured the bottom four candidates and virtually every answer of his related to national security. Of all the candidates, he was the most impressive on dealing with the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL). He explicitly said he is running for president to “destroy radical Islam.” Graham said he would “rip the caliphate up by its roots” and “will kill every one of these [ISIS] bastards we can find.”

Graham’s standout moment was challenging every candidate to state whether they support increasing troop levels in Iraq from 3,500 to 10,000 to fight the Islamic State, asserting that anyone who refuses to do so lacks the seriousness to be commander-in-chief. Graham’s overall plan calls for increasing U.S. troop levels to 20,000, split between Iraq and Syria.

He argued that the Islamic State grew in Syria and then propelled into Iraq because the Obama Administration rejected his recommendation that the U.S. military establish a no-fly zone in Syria and support the Free Syrian Army rebel force before it became too late.

Graham said there is no one left to train inside Syria, so the only option is a U.S.-backed regional army that includes Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and others. He said the only solution to the refugee crisis is the removal of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

He pointed out that he’s the only candidate who has served in the military (he was in the Air Force for 33 years). Graham has spent 140 days on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan over the course of 35 trips to those countries.

Graham is currently in 14th place nationally (0.3%). He is in 14thplace in Iowa (0.3%); 12th place in New Hampshire (0.8%) and 7thplace in South Carolina (4%).

Florida Senator Marco Rubio

Rubio gave the most detailed and articulate answers about foreign policy during the debate. He argued for a more interventionist U.S. policy that includes supporting democratic activists, such as by meeting with opponents of Putin in Russia.

He argued that the Syrian revolution began as a popular uprising and the Islamist terrorist presence could have been minimized if the U.S. had armed moderate rebels in the beginning of the conflict.

Rubio said that the Russian military movement into Syria is part of an overall strategy to “destroy NATO,” save the Syrian dictatorship and convince countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia to ditch the U.S. for Russia.

He is currently in 5th place nationally (5%). He is in 5th place in Iowa (5%); 8th place in New Hampshire (3%) and 5th place in South Carolina (4%).

Rubio explained that he opposed giving President Obama authority to launch airstrikes on the Syrian regime after it used chemical weapons because the plan involved “pinprick” airstrikes. He said that he would only support military action that has victory as an objective.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie

Christie struck a chord when he spoke about his experience on 9/11 and prosecuting terrorists after the attack when he was the U.S. Attorney for the state of New Jersey. He defended the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks when Carson’s opposition was brought up. He also pledged not to have deals with or meet with leaders like those in Iran who chant “Death to America.”

He is currently in 11th place nationally (2%). He is in 11th place in Iowa (2%), 9th place in New Hampshire (3%) and 12th place in South Carolina (2%).

Losers

Businessman Donald Trump

Trump failed to show any grasp on foreign policy or to outline a strategy towards Islamist extremists when pressed. When he was asked about an embarrassing interview where he appeared not to know what the Iran-linked Al-Quds Force are and the names of prominent terrorist leaders, he simply stated that he’d hire a strong team that would keep him informed on national security.

He boasted of opposing the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein. He said the U.S. should stay out of the Syrian civil war and criticized President Obama for declaring that the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons would be an intolerable “red line.” Trump said that Rubio, Paul and Cruz should have supported President Obama’s request for authority to militarily enforce the “red line.”

Trump also expressed confidence that he could work well with Russian President Putin. Fiorina, on the other hand, said the U.S. should not negotiate with Russia.

He is currently in 1st place nationally (31%). He is in 1st place in Iowa (28%), 1st place in New Hampshire (30%) and 1st place in South Carolina (34%).

Dr. Ben Carson

Carson did not display an impressive knowledge of foreign affairs and national security. Serious damage may have been done when the moderator asked about his opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks. Carson explained that he told President Bush to focus instead on energy independence, which Christie politely took him to task for.

Carson also made sure to point out that he opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

He is currently in 2nd place nationally (20%). He is in 2nd place in Iowa (23%), 2nd place in New Hampshire (15%) and 2nd place in South Carolina (19%).

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul

Paul repeatedly stated his anti-interventionist view and said that U.S. military operations often backfire. A new poll shows that 69% of Republicans, 67% of Democrats and 57% of Independents favor having America active abroad.

Paul boasted that he “made a career” out of opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and argued that the U.S. should not topple secular dictators because they are replaced by radical Islamic forces. Paul and Trump were the only candidates to express opposition to a policy of overthrowing Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. He also said that U.S. backing of Syrian rebels would mean arming enemies of America.

He said it is “absurd” to immediately scrap the nuclear deal with Iran unless the regime violates it. He spoke in favor of continued diplomacy with Iran and Russia, pointing out that President Reagan met with the leaders of the Soviet Union.

Paul also said he opposes using U.S. ground forces in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State, but supports continued airstrikes and arming Kurds.

He is currently in 7th place nationally (3%). He is in 9th place in Iowa (4%), 7th place in New Hampshire (5%) and 11th place in South Carolina (2%).

Ohio Governor John Kasich

Kasich damaged his chances by refusing to say that he’d scrap the nuclear deal with Iran. He argued that the U.S. should move in coordination with allies and not withdraw from the agreement unilaterally. He said that the U.S. should sanction Iran if they violate the deal or sponsor terrorism. Rand Paul likewise said maintenance of the agreement would depend upon Iranian compliance.

He was also twice criticized by Graham during the undercard debate for supporting the closure of some U.S. military bases. Graham countered that he’d increase the number of bases.

He is currently in 10th place nationally (3%). He is in 10th place in Iowa (3%), 3rd place in New Hampshire (10%) and 8th place in South Carolina (4%).

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush

Bush criticized rivals who focused on their pledges to scrap the nuclear deal with Iran. He would not commit to doing so and said that the discussion needs to be about an Iran strategy rather than a strategy to tear up the deal.

Bush encouraged viewers to review his 9-point plan for fighting the Islamic State and the Syrian regime.

He is currently in 3rd place nationally (8%). He is in 4th place in Iowa (5%), 5th place in New Hampshire (8%) and 3rd place in South Carolina (7%).

Other Candidates

Texas Senator Ted Cruz

Cruz’s standout moment was when he promised to “rip to shreds” the “catastrophic” nuclear deal with Iran.

Cruz said that he opposed giving President Obama authority for airstrikes on the Syrian regime in response to its use of chemical weapons because vital national security interests were not at stake. He said that the administration could not answer his questions about how Syrian weapons of mass destruction would be prevented from falling into the hands of the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.

He is currently in 4th place nationally (7%). He is in 3rd place in Iowa (8%), 6th place in New Hampshire (6%) and 4th place in South Carolina (6%).

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee

Huckabee spoke passionately against the nuclear deal with Iran and said every candidate should announce that, if elected, he or she will not honor it and, as president, will “destroy” it.

He is currently in 6th place nationally (5%). He is in 8th place in Iowa (4%), 11th place in New Hampshire (1%) and 10th place in South Carolina (3%).

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal

Jindal’s standout moment was when he said that Muslim leaders must move beyond generic condemnations of terrorism and condemn terrorists by name. He called on Muslim leaders to preach that these terrorists do not qualify as “martyrs” and are destined for hell.

Jindal said that U.S. policy should be to force Syrian dictator Bashar Assad out of power.

He is currently in 13th place nationally (1%). He is in 11th place in Iowa (3%), 14th place in New Hampshire (0.3%) and 13th place in South Carolina (1%).

Former New York Governor George Pataki

Pataki said he would immediately scrap the nuclear deal with Iran and provide Israel with Massive Ordinance Penetrators (MOPs). However, he may have damaged himself by refusing to endorse Santorum’s call to target Iranian nuclear scientists. He also gave a vague answer about how he’d fight the Islamic State and expressed disagreement with Graham’s plan for a ground offensive with U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.

He is currently in 15th place nationally with less than a single percent of support. He is in 15th place in Iowa with less than one percent, 13th place in New Hampshire (0.3%) and in 15th place in South Carolina with less than one percent.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum

Santorum boasted that he authored legislation to sanction Iran and Syria when he was in the Senate. The moderator mentioned his past declaration that the U.S. should target Iranian nuclear scientists, which George Pataki refused to endorse.

He described the Iranian regime as an “apocalyptic death cult” and claimed that two-thirds of Iraqi and Iranian Shiites believe that the end of the world will happen in their lifetime. Santorum was making the point that the Iranian regime exports its radical ideology.

Santorum said he supports increasing U.S. troop levels in Iraq to 10,000 to fight against the Islamic State and that he’d support Lindsey Graham’s proposal for 20,000 troops if necessary. He stated that the legitimacy of the caliphate is based on its holding of territory.

He is currently in 12th place nationally (1%). He is in 12th place in Iowa (2%) and in 15th place in both New Hampshire and South Carolina with less than one percent.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker

Walker’s comments on foreign policy focused on criticizing the nuclear deal with Iran, which he promised to scrap during his first day in office.

He is currently in 9th place nationally (3%). He is in 7th place in Iowa (4%), 10th place in New Hampshire (3%) and 9th place in South Carolina (3%).

Former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore

Gilmore failed to make the cut for the debate because he scores less than 1% in national polls. He registers less than a single percent in each of the three early states.

ABOUT RYAN MAURO

Ryan Mauro is ClarionProject.org’s national security analyst, a fellow with Clarion Project and an adjunct professor of homeland security. Mauro is frequently interviewed on top-tier television and radio. Read more, contact or arrange a speaking engagement.

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U.S. Ambassador to UN Samantha Power: Bring more Muslim Syrian refugees to America

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This news is a day old, so who knows maybe Obama has already decided the magic number of Syrian (mostly Muslim) refugees he will be dropping into America towns and cities in the coming year.

Samantha Power

Obama appointee, UN Ambassador Samantha Power.

Last week we learned that Sec. of State Kerry consulted with key House and Senate committees, as the Refugee Act of 1980 requires, and it seems the number he was bandying about was 10,000 (some say Kerry said 5,000) for FY 2016.

If Obama approves a different number just two weeks before the start of the fiscal year, Kerry is required to go back to the Hill for additional “consultation,” and, in any case, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees are required to hold hearings on the Presidential Determination.

The fact that the lazy (scared?) committees have not held a refugee ‘consultation’ hearing since before 9/11 is no excuse not to have one for this very critical decision!

(The last hearing held on the President’s refugee determination appears to be this one from 1999.  Has there been no hearing since then because they didn’t want you to know how many Muslims were being admitted to the US through this program?—ed)

A hearing can’t stop the President, but it sure can help the American people understand what is about to happen to them!

Where are you Reps. Goodlatte and Gowdy?  Prove me wrong!  Tell us you are doing something and I will apologize!

Here is a bit of interesting news at Bloomberg (hat tip: Joanne).  Again, it is a day old, so who knows if Obama has made a decision.

Check out Samantha Power (bff George Soros)!  The nerve of this woman.  You can credit her, Hillary and Susan Rice with the destabilization of North Africa and the  invasion of Europe because she was a driving force behind the ousting of Col. Gaddafi (who was able to hold back the migrant hordes) and the subsequent destruction of Libya.

As Iraqi Refugee Czar in the early days of the Obama White House, Power famously said she was tired of doing ‘rinkey-dink-do-gooder’ stuff  like helping Iraqi Christians!  See our complete Samantha Power archive here.

Here is Josh Rogin at Bloomberg:

The Obama administration is preparing to announce a plan to admit more refugees over the next two years, but at this point the numbers being proposed are too small to relieve the crisis streaming out of Syria.

Wednesday at the White House, the most senior national security officials will discuss raising the limit on the number of refugees from around the world allowed to enter the United States — from 70,000 this year to 85,000 next year and 100,000 in fiscal 2017, three administration officials told me. If members of the National Security Council Principals Committee agree on the plan, it will be sent to President Obama’s desk, and administration sources say he is likely to quickly approve it.

The plan has the strong support of White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, whose priorities often differ on the Syria issue. McDonough is focused on the fight against ISIS. Power wants to confront Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and do more to protect the civilians being killed by both.  [So what does confront mean?  Does Power want the US military to bring down Assad?—ed]

The throngs of desperate migrants fleeing Syria and the images of children washing up on European shores have spurred the Obama administration into action, officials said.

Continue reading here.

Note that there is much discussion about how long it would take for the flow to get underway. Don’t believe it!  

We know that the UNHCR has 17,000 (or more by now) prepped to come to America from their camps which house Muslim Syrians.  As soon as October 1 is here, the floodgates will open!

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Islamic State’s top military commander was trained by U.S. Special Forces

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This article maintains that Abu Omar al Shishani was “radicalized” in a Saudi-funded mosque that challenged the moderate Islam that had hitherto prevailed in that region. Yet despite this supposedly prevailing moderation, its men gained a “reputation as crazy Islamic warriors.”

If this scenario is true, U.S. officials should think very carefully about the implications of the fact that there are hundreds of Saudi-funded mosques in the U.S. But they won’t.

And whether or not it is true that Abu Omar al Shishani was a “moderate” when he was trained by American special forces units, this story should make U.S. officials think carefully about the wisdom of such training, given that there is such a very fine line between “moderation” and “extremism.” But they won’t.

“U.S. training helped mold Islamic State’s top military commander,” by Mitchell Prothero, McClatchy, September 15, 2015:

…Abu Omar al Shishani, as he’s now known, had been born Tarkhan Batirashvili 27 years earlier in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, a tiny enclave of ethnic Chechens, known locally as Kists, whose roughly 10,000 residents represent virtually all of the Muslims in predominantly Orthodox Christian Georgia.

But analysts of extremist groups said Batirashvili’s impact has been far greater than the small numbers of Muslims in Georgia would suggest. Since he swore allegiance to the Islamic State in 2013, thousands of Muslims from the Caucasus have flocked to Syria to join the extremist cause.

“More than anything else, Batirashvili has legitimized ISIS in the Caucasus by the power of his exploits, which is amplified by slick ISIS propaganda,” said Michael Cecire, an analyst of extremism for the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Batirashvili’s battlefield successes, including orchestrating the capture of Syria’s Menagh Air Base after two years of failed attempts, “helped to legitimize ISIS in militant circles, including in the North Caucasus,” Cecire said.

“Batirashvili’s ability to demonstrate ISIS’ tactical prowess attracted fighters in droves from other factions and tipped the scales in foreign fighter flow and recruitment,” Cecire said. “In the North Caucasus, young people no longer wanted to fight in Syria with the increasingly marginalized Caucasus Emirate (groups), but wanted to fight with the winners – ISIS.”

Batirashvili’s story also was compelling, Cecire said: “A man with a modest background, sickly and impoverished before he went to Syria,” becomes “a great battlefield commander defying the world” . . . a “seemingly emulable, rags-to-riches story.”

Those seeking an explanation for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s insistence on sending military supplies and manpower to Syria to bolster the government of President Bashar Assad would do well to consider Batirashvili. Putin not only personally oversaw the Russian push into Georgia, but he has twice waged war against Islamist-led factions in Chechnya whose cause Batirashvili has supported since he was a teenager. Ethnic Chechens are thought to be the largest group of foreign fighters among Islamic State forces.

Now 30, Batirashvili is a key figure, reportedly a member of the group’s governing council, is said to be the Islamic State’s supreme military leader in northern Syria and Aleppo, and is perhaps the group’s most fearsome ground commander. His current status is an irony for a man once considered a Georgian soldier with a bright future.

“We trained him well, and we had lots of help from America,” said a former Georgian defense official who asked to not be identified because of the sensitivity of Batirashvili’s role in the Islamic State. “In fact, the only reason he didn’t go to Iraq to fight alongside America was that we needed his skills here in Georgia.”

Even before Georgia and Russia came to blows in 2008, Batirashvili had earned a reputation for fighting Russians. While a part of Georgia, the Pankisi Valley’s northern end abuts Chechnya, where separatists fought a brutal war for independence from Russia in the 1990s. Batirashvili’s mother was Chechen, and his father has told local journalists that young Batirashvili had seen a handful of military operations as a rebel in Chechnya before joining Georgia’s military in 2006 at age 20.

The choice of a military career was natural, say Georgian officials and journalists who knew him and his community. Pankisi is a tiny and isolated sliver of Georgia with little economic activity, and the choices for its youth are narrow: leave home to fight the Russians, become a subsistence farmer, join one of the legendarily nasty Chechen criminal gangs, or join the military.

According to Batirashvili’s ex-comrades in the Georgian military, Batirashvili was tapped immediately upon his enlistment to join Georgia’s U.S.-trained special forces.

“He was a perfect soldier from his first days, and everyone knew he was a star,” said one former comrade, who asked not to be identified because he remains on active duty and has been ordered not to give media interviews about his former colleague. “We were well trained by American special forces units, and he was the star pupil.”

Fighting the Russians in Chechnya would not have disqualified him, the former comrade said. “Having fought the Russians as a Chechen is hardly unusual and not the sort of thing that would have meant you were a bad guy,” he said. “It just means you’re from Pankisi.”

None of the people who knew Batirashvili during his military service noted any sort of dedication to Islam or jihadist tendencies, but that’s not considered particularly unusual in a country where Muslims tend to adhere to a moderate strain of Sufi Islam despite Chechnya’s reputation as a incubator of extremism.

Batirashvili’s exploits in the 2008 war with Russia are the stuff of local legend. Why he left the military isn’t clear.

“Chechens have a reputation as crazy Islamic warriors, but our Islam has always been moderate,” according to one Pankisi community and clan leader who’s been ordered by the government not to talk about the man many Georgians laughingly refer to as “Pankisi’s most famous son.”

That reputation for moderation, however, began to change in the wake of the Chechen wars, which devastated Chechnya, and by the construction in 2000 of a second mosque to serve the valley’s six small villages.

The new mosque, the community leader said, was built with a donation from Saudi Arabia and “preached a kind of alien Wahhabi-style Islam,” not the Sufi-style Islam that had characterized the regions for hundreds of years.

“It told our people that it was wrong to pray at graves of saints and ancestors, as our people have done for hundreds of years, and even to share our religious rites with our Christian brothers,” he said.

By the mid-2000s, multiple residents say, the situation had split the community, mostly by age, with the original Sufi mosque attended by the older members of the community, while the young people were radicalized by the new mosque. This led to significant tensions with police until it was resolved by a revolution almost 1,000 miles away.

“They all started leaving for Syria,” the community elder said. “Things are safer here now because all the radicals – our children – have gone to Syria.”

American and Georgian intelligence estimates put that number at between 150 and 200 young men who have left Pankisi to fight in Syria….

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Abu Omar al Shishani.

Is Pope Francis coming to U.S. to lecture Donald Trump on immigration?

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It sure sounds like it!  How dare he! And, who invited him to insert himself into our political system?

Oh, no surprise no surprise John Boehner*** invited him!

Previously we learned that Democrats are going to use the Pope’s visit to advance their goal of admitting 100,000 Syrians to the U.S. in the next year!

Is Boehner working for Obama and the Democrats (just asking!)?

Citizens concerned about saving Western Civilization should be out in New York and Washington, DC protesting the message the Pope, we are told, will be spewing!   According to the editor of a Catholic magazine he may even quote that historically inaccurate Emma Lazarus poem to guilt-trip you.  Please spare us that lecture!

In 2013, Pope Francis helped fuel the invasion of Europe by welcoming illegal aliens to the island of Lampedusa.

If you can’t be out with a protest sign next week, every Catholic who disagrees with this Pope on immigration should pen a letter to your local paper that begins with:

This Pope does not speak for me!

This is the news featured at Drudge earlier this morning!

And the church wonders why so many of us have left it!

From the Financial Times:

When Pope Francis makes his maiden visit to the US next week, he will accomplish something that has eluded the 2016 presidential contenders — overshadowing Donald Trump, the front runner for the Republican nomination.

US television networks ​will provide wall-to-wall coverage of the visit, which will include the first speech by a Pope to Congress. [Thanks John Boehner!—ed] But while the pontiff will steal some of Mr Trump’s media thunder, he is also expected to wade into ​a debate about immigration — an issue that has helped propel the brash real estate magnate to the front of the Republican pack.

Trump at the border

Since losing the 2012 election, party leaders have talked about the need to appeal to Hispanics, who are the fastest growing segment of the US electorate. But Mr Trump has upended that plan by campaigning against illegal Mexican immigrants, some of whom he has called “rapists”, and reopening a polarizing debate that the Republicans ​had ​hoped to avoid in 2016.

Vatican officials say Pope Francis will focus heavily on immigration during his visit, which would insert him into the middle of presidential politics and could unsettle conservatives even more than his critiques of capitalism and environmentalist rhetoric.

“The Pope obviously has a very soft spot in his heart for immigrants,” said one Holy See insider. “He won’t say, ‘open all borders’, but there’s no two ways about it, he will say, ‘let’s give our immigrant brothers and sisters a fair chance’.” [So, if not all borders, how many, whose borders, and how wide?  They will never answer those questions.—ed]

Give me a break!  Emma Lazurus blah! blah! blah!

Robert Mickens, the Rome-based editor-in-chief of Global Pulse, the Catholic magazine, said that concern for migrants had been “one of the central themes” of Pope Francis’ social teaching. “He doesn’t need to scold the lawmakers but I think he will challenge them not to abandon America’s long history of welcoming immigrants,” Mr Mickens said.

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Pope were to quote those evocative line’s from Emma Lazarus’s poem that adorns the Statue of Liberty — ‘give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore’.”

There is more if you can stand it, click here. (Update:  Looks like the Financial Times may only let you in one time, but its o.k. we snipped the important part)

And, one more thing!  The Pope has made no appeal to put the persecuted Syrian Christians ahead of Sunni Muslims for protection by western countries.  Correct me if I am wrong!

Here, Hungarian Bishop tells Pope he is wrong on Syrians arriving in Europe, calls them invaders.

***Is Boehner keeping the lid on the House Judiciary Committee on the Syrian refugee question until after the Pope leaves?  Hmm!

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North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones: Curb Obama’s power on refugees, start by cutting funds

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Of course I’m wondering if Speaker Boehner will be curbing Rep. Jones?

Interestingly, Rep. Walter Jones has been in Congress for 20 years. Does he know that North Carolina is a prime resettlement state?  NC is one of 12 states that received more than 2,000 refugees so far this year (as of August 31).

stabbing-deaths

Eh Lar Doh Htoo

Do you remember that gruesome machete murder in March when a Burmese refugee killed three small children.  It happened in New Bern (in Jones’ district).  Could that have caused his concern for the huge influx of refugees entering the U.S. and North Carolina?

Come to think of it, could the murderer be a Burmese Rohingya Muslim resettled among Christian Burmese, does anyone know?  We told you about it here when it first happened.  Eh Lar Doh Htoo, 18, killed three young brothers ages 1, 5, and 12 in New Bern, NC earlier this year.

Here is the story by Neil Munro today at Breitbart (hat tip: Richard at Blue Ridge Forum):

Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC)-today called on Congress to formally curb President Barack Obama’s legally unlimited powers to invite foreign refugees and migrants into the United States.

“We need to determine how much this program is costing taxpayers, and we need to make sure the people we are letting in aren’t radical Islamic terrorists,” said Jones, a conservative elected from North Carolina.

“Until then, the program ought to be suspended,” Jones said.

“We are over 18 trillion dollars in debt [and] we don’t even have money to fix roads and schools for Americans who pay taxes and already live here,” Jones said.

“Instead of taking in thousands of immigrants and refugees from countries that breed radical Islamic terrorists, we should be focusing our efforts on urging stable Middle Eastern countries to allow refugees to resettle closer to their homeland,” he said.

The only practical way for the GOP to limit Obama’s authority is to include restrictions in the annual spending bills, due for completion this fall.

For example, the Congress can include limiting language in the appropriations bill that is used for the refugee program.

Reporter Munro has more, continue reading here.

Glad to see that some House Members are doing something, so far as I know, nothing from the House Judiciary Committee that has jurisdiction over the refugee program and has some say over Obama’s determination for FY 2016.

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More undesirables from Mexico? Syrians!

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Breitbart has news yesterday that the Mexican government might be planning to ‘welcome’ Syrians to Mexico. And, then they could do what Trump says they do—send us their problem people!

Prominent Mexican officials are calling on their president to open the doors for 10,000 Syrian refugees, though thousands of Mexicans per year are fleeing their cartel-controlled nation and its violence and seeking asylum in the United States. The move comes on the heels of Mexico accepting 30 Syrian students. Other nations south of the porous U.S.-Mexico border have already opened their doors for people fleeing the Middle East.

Considering the Mexican government’s inability to govern its own territory and the willingness of Mexican officials to accept cash bribes, one could question whether their screening process would exclude potentially dangerous individuals. Even in the case of an individual being identified having a connection to a terrorist organization, a wealthy benefactor or ally of the individual could simply pay off a decision-maker and get the individual through.

Read on…..

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Calling out the phony evangelicals who want to save Muslims before Christians

Pope admits danger of Islamic State infiltration among refugees, still wants parishes to accept them

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What could possibly go wrong? Last February, the Islamic State promised to flood Europe in the near future with as many as 500,000 refugees. And an Islamic State operative recently boasted that among the flood of refugees, 4,000 Islamic State jihadis had entered Europe. “They are going like refugees,” he said, but they were going with the plan of sowing blood and mayhem on European streets. As he told this to journalists, he smiled and said, “Just wait.” He explained: “It’s our dream that there should be a caliphate not only in Syria but in all the world, and we will have it soon, inshallah.”

Is societal suicide really a requirement of Christian charity? So many Christian clerics seem to think so — either in regard to this refugee influx or in regard to accepting Islamic blasphemy restrictions on the freedom of speech — that apparently I am a misunderstander of Christianity.

“Pope: ‘I trust the young politicians. Corruption is a global problem,’” by Aura Miguel, Renascença, September 14, 2015 (thanks to Angemon):

But this challenge to welcome these refugees who are making their way into Europe, in your point of view, could it be positive for Europe? Could it be beneficial, a provocation? Is Europe finally waking up, changing track?

It may be. It’s true, I recognize that, nowadays, border safety conditions are not what they once were. The truth is that just 400 kilometres from Sicily there is an incredibly cruel terrorist group. So there is a danger of infiltration, this is true.

Which could reach Rome…

Yes, nobody said Rome would be immune to this threat. But you can take precautions, and put these people to work. But then there is another problem, that Europe is going through a very big labour crisis. There is a country… In fact, I am going to mention three countries, although I will not name them, but some of the most important in Europe, in which unemployment for under 25 year olds is, in one country 40%, in another 47% and in a third 50%. There is a labour crisis, young people can’t find work. So it is a mixture of things and we can’t be simplistic. Obviously, if a refugee arrives, despite all the safety precautions, we must welcome him, because this is a commandment from the Bible. Moses said to his people: “welcome the foreigner, because you also were a foreigner in the land of Egypt”.

But the ideal would be that they didn’t need to flee, that they could remain in their lands?

That’s right, Yes.

Your Holiness, during the Sunday Angelus you made this very concrete challenge to welcome refugees. Have there been reactions? What do you expect, exactly?

What I asked was that in each parish and each religious institute, every monastery, should take in one family. A family, not just one person. A family gives more guarantees of security and containment, so as to avoid infiltrations of another kind. When I say that a parish should welcome a family, I don’t mean that they should go and live in the priest’s house, in the rectory, but that each parish community should see if there is a place, a corner in the school which can be turned into a small apartment or, if necessary, that they may rent a small apartment for this family; but that they should be provided with a roof, welcomed and integrated into the community. I have had many, many reactions. There are convents which are almost empty…

Two years ago you had already made this request, what answers did you get?

Only four. One of them from the Jesuits [laughs]; well done, the Jesuits! But this is a serious subject, because there is also the temptation of the god money. Some religious orders say “no, now that the convent is empty we are going to make a hotel and we can have guests, and support ourselves that way, or make money”. Well, if that is what you want to do, then pay taxes! A religious school is tax-exempt because it is religious, but if it is functioning as a hotel, then it should pay taxes just like its neighbour. Otherwise it is not fair business.

And you have already said that you will be taking in two families, here in the Vatican…

Yes, two families. I was told yesterday that the families have already been identified, and the two Vatican parishes have undertaken to go and search for them.

They have been identified?

Yes, yes, yes, they have. Cardinal Comastri dealt with that – he is my vicar-general for the Vatican – along with Monsenhor Konrad Krajewski, who is the Apostolic Almoner, and who works with the homeless and was in charge of installing the showers underneath the colonnade, and the barbers – truly marvellous. He is the one who takes the homeless to see the museums and the Sistine Chapel…

And how long will these families be staying?

As long as the Lord wants. We don’t know how this will end, do we? Nonetheless, I want to say that Europe has opened its eyes, and I thank it. I thank the European countries which have become opened their eyes to this.

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Islamic State: Pakistan Taliban leader Adnan Rashid has pledged allegiance to the Caliphate

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Breaking News: Adnan Rashid commander of #Taliban Pakistan pledge allegiance to Islamic State. #Pakistan #TTP #KPK pic.twitter.com/wO1R8cKgUa

So claims Abu Talut Khorasani, who claims himself to be an ex-Taliban commander who has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. The Islamic State is making a concerted effort to win over the Taliban and gain a foothold in Pakistan and Afghanistan. If they succeed, they could present an even more formidable force against free people than they are now.

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John Kerry, Joe Biden, and the U.S. Catholic bishops are on their way to see Marchello McCain now, so as to explain to him how his brother was a misunderstander of Islam, and that only greasy Islamophobes think that putting Islam over everything means dedicating one’s life to killing Infidels.

“Brother of American killed fighting for ISIS is charged with lying to FBI,” by Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times, September 14, 2015 (thanks to Darcy):

The brother of an American citizen killed while fighting on behalf of ISIS was charged Monday with lying to the FBI when he denied knowing about his brother traveling to Syria.

Marchello Dsaun McCain, 33, already faced five counts of being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition and one count of possession of body armor. A charge of making false statements was added Monday.

Douglas McCain, who was born in Chicago and raised in Minnesota before living in San Diego, was killed in August 2014 while fighting for ISIS in Syria against the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, according to the National Security Council.

Douglas McCain attended San Diego City College, worked in a local restaurant, and was an aspiring rap singer. On a website, he left the message “It’s Islam Over Everything” and included a speech by a leader of the so-called Islamic State….

The charge of lying to the FBI includes accusations that he knew that his brother had gone to Syria and used a credit card to buy an airline ticket to Turkey en route to Syria. He is currently in federal jail without bail.

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