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The Impact of Crude’s Collapse on the Islamic State

February 10, 2015/in Energy, Must Read, National Security, News/by Geoff D. Porter

As oil prices continue to fall, flirting with the US$40/bbl floor, there has been much talk of cheap oil’s winners and losers. The discussion has focused on big producer and consumer countries, but there may be another contender in the loser category – namely, the Islamic State (IS). In its gambit to become a state, it unwittingly became a hydrocarbon state, and as such has exposed itself to the same economic volatility that plagues other rentier states. However, unlike most hydrocarbon states, the IS has not had the benefit of having been around long enough to build a stabilization fund – the cash reserves that can smooth out the highs and lows of commodities markets – and in this sense it is likely to be even more of a loser than conventional oil reliant countries. (the IS’s own claims to have a budget surplus of US$250 million are not credible.) What this means is that with less revenue the nature and focus of the the IS’s military operations will change and that the IS will have to turn to other financing methods such as extortion and organized crime to address the revenue shortfall.

With the IS’s conquest of oil producing regions in Syria and Iraq during the summer of 2014, it quickly began to derive the lion’s share of its revenue from oil sales, orders of magnitude above its historic sources of revenue such as overseas donations and criminal activities. Because the IS did not have legal title to the oil, it was forced to sell it on the black market at a steep discount from global commodities prices. While crude (Brent) was trading in the neighborhood of US$100/bbl, the IS was selling its own crude for an estimated US$39/bbl. The IS’s average estimated combined production for Iraqi and Syrian fields was 160kbpd, which meant that on the upper end, the IS could have been earning as much US$6 million/day. According to a recent article in the Financial Times citing the local population around IS-controlled oil fields in Syria, anti-IS coalition efforts to disrupt IS hydrocarbons production have had little impact.

Although there is no available information about how exactly the IS allocated its oil revenue, it undoubtedly went a long way toward paying for the provision of social services, for public sector salaries, and most importantly for foreign fighters and military operations.

Since June, however, the price of crude (Brent) has fallen by 50%. Although black market crude prices do not directly track with prices on regulated commodities exchanges, it is safe to assume that black market crude prices collapsed in line with official prices. In other words, 2015 IS oil revenue is likely 50% of what it was in June 2014.

The consequences of missing oil revenue for IS are severe. IS is unlikely to decrease funding for its military operations so it will have to find ways to simultaneously cut costs elsewhere and raise new revenue – and both methods are likely to jeopardize popular support for the group.

In the immediate term, infrastructure projects and social services will have to be curtailed, thereby undermining IS’s efforts to portray itself as an Islamist utopia and likely exacerbating local populist animosity toward the group.

But the IS’s options for raising new revenue are limited. Because it claims to adhere to Sharia dictates regarding fixed tax rates (zakat for Muslims and jizya for Christians and Jews), it does not have recourse to tax hikes to offset falling oil sales. Instead, it could raise import duties, but these are already high and doing so would likely further erode already waning popular support. The IS could also resort to its predecessor’s preferred funding methods – relying on donations from foreign supporters and sympathizers. But there is little likelihood that donations would match oil sales’ value and the IS would face an inevitable financial crunch. It could also intensify its criminal activities like extortion and kidnap for ransom. Again, revenue from these activities would fall far short of oil receipts. Lastly, it could try to capture more oil. It could decide to cede non-oil producing territory and refocus its military efforts on seizing other oil-rich regions in Iraq. Falling oil revenue may also impact the nature of the IS’s military activities. Prior to having access to oil receipts the IS behave more like an insurgency, relying heavily on terrorist tactics, than conventional military strategy. In the face of falling oil prices, it could revert to this style of fighting.

The IS’s most likely way forward is to try some sort of combination – reduced services, increased import duties, overseas donations, heightened criminal activities, a strategic shift to capturing more oil fields and a return to overt terrorist tactics.

Meanwhile, the anti-IS coalition’s campaign to degrade its oil production capacity will continue so that even in the off chance that oil prices make a near term rebound, the IS will not have much oil to sell. The tough lesson for the IS is that when trying to form a new state, an oil state is not the best option.

EDITORS NOTE: The views presented are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, or any of its subordinate commands.

UPDATE: Victory for Iran — Hegemony Over the Arabian Peninsula

February 8, 2015/in Must Read, National Security, News, Policy/by Jerry Gordon

Iran has thrown a lasso around Arabian peninsula with Houthi Shia takeover in Yemen. Friends of ours here in Pensacola have two serving U.S. Marine Captains. One of them was in charge of Marine Security for our embassies in the Middle East. He called home to say that he was in the last group of 10 persons that vacated the U.S. Embassy in Saana, Yemen, He told his parents in a phone call of the circuitous trip to the airport in Yemen’s capital evading Houthi checkpoints. The flight took the group to safety in Dubai. Yemen is now a failed state that will likely devolve into sectarian war between the minority Houthi and the divided majority Sunni. It also marks another failure of this exemplar of the Obama ‘no name’ counterterrorism strategy.

Saudi Arabia’s fences on its northern and southern borders may become the equivalent of France’s Maginot Line that failed to stop the Nazi blitzkrieg in 1940 that saw the demise of Third Republic. The Kingdom has the largest number of Islamic State foreign fighters who will constitute a fifth column upon return to the Wahhabist realm. That gives Iran virtual control of Iraq, Syria, Yemen, plus Lebanon with Proxy Hezbollah. Then there are restive majority Shia in Bahrain and oppressed Shia sitting atop Saudi Arabia’s oil fields in the eastern province on the Persian Gulf. Some argue that Iran may have even been complicit fostering the rise of ISIS despite the alleged hatred between radical Islamist Salafist and Apocalyptic Twevlers in Tehran.

If President Obama’s quest for a nuclear pact with the Islamic Regime in Tehran occurs on March 24th with the P5+1 final agreement, Iran becomes a nuclear hegemon threatened the region, America’s ally Israel and the West. Remember that agreement excludes ICBMs that may be capable of covering Europe and beyond. Yesterday Uruguay arrested a senior Iranian diplomat alleged to be involved in a possible repeat in Montevideo of the Iranian sponsored 1992 Buenos Aires blast at the Israeli Embassy.

Obama’s ‘Strategic Patience” document released Thursday amounts to capitulation and appeasement of Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, IS, Taliban and Al Qaeda. To say nothing of his failed Russian reset with Imperialist Putin in the Ukraine and failed pivot to contain China’s saber rattling in East Asia He even changed the wording of his original war declaration against IS from “degrade and destroy” to “degrade and destroy”. He is worse than British PM Neville Chamberlain at Munich in 1938 that sold out pre-war Czechoslovakia. At least Chamberlain brought Sir Winston Churchill into his cabinet after the declaration of war against Nazi Germany on September 3, 1939 as First Lord of the Admiralty, a prelude to Churchill being asked by King George VI to form a government on May 10,1940 following Chamberlain’s resignation.

Obama and many Democratic Senators and Representatives deplore the proposed speech by Israel’s PM Netanyahu on the dangers of Iran and radical Islam before a Joint Session of Congress on March 3rd at the invitation of U.S. House Speaker John Boehner. If that does occur then the leader of America’s only democratic ally in the Middle East, who is said to speak in Churchillian cadence, will like the fabled UK wartime premier, have a third opportunity to present his prescient views.

NOTE: This Twitchy headline and tweeted comments posted on ‘Victory for Iran’: Shia rebels in ‘success story’ Yemen dissolve parliament, take charge

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of Houthi Shia rebels in Yemen.

FBI official: Islamic State is Recruiting U.S. Teens

February 5, 2015/in Must Read, National Security, News, Religion/by Jihad Watch

How could this be? Obama, Kerry, Biden, David Cameron, and everyone else assures us that the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam. So why is it so appealing to young Muslims in the West? Why are Muslim parents encouraging their children to join it? The cognitive dissonance is massive, and the FBI isn’t doing what it should be doing: calling upon U.S. Muslims to teach against the Islamic State’s ideology.

Right now, it is not being countered with any organized program in U.S. mosques or Islamic schools, and no one seems to care.

“FBI official: ISIS is recruiting U.S. teens,” by Pamela Brown and Wesley Bruer, CNN, February 4, 2015 (thanks to Aron):

Washington (CNN)For the head of the FBI’s counterterrorist division, Michael Steinbach, the unknown worries him the most.

Steinbach is leading the daunting effort to stay on top of the evolving threat landscape, which includes targeting and recruiting teenage Americans. In an exclusive interview with CNN inside the agency’s Strategic Information and Operations Center, he acknowledged it’s extremely difficult to track every American who might travel abroad to join terrorist groups like the Islamic State.

“I’m worried about individuals that we don’t know about that have training,” Steinbach said. “We know what we know. But there is a number that’s greater than that that we don’t know.”

Steinbach says U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies don’t track individuals leaving the United States to vacation in Europe.

“Once you get to Europe, you can easily get down to Turkey and into Syria” Steinbach says.

There’s growing concern about homegrown violent extremism in the aftermath of last month’s terror attacks in Paris. Those strikes underscored the threat posed to the West by small groups of terrorists with western passports who are influenced by the rhetoric espoused by ISIS. Steinbach is concerned that type of attack could happen on U.S. soil.

When asked if there are ISIS cells in the U.S., Steinbach said “there are individuals that have been in communication with groups like ISIL who have a desire to conduct an attack” and those people are living in the U.S. right now, but he says the term “sleeper cells” is too simplistic, because the threat is much more complicated and diffuse.

In the U.S., the FBI has seen children as young as 15 recruited by ISIS and Steinbach said he “can’t speak with 100% certainty that individuals of that age group have not gotten over there successfully.”

In some cases, Steinbach said parents even encourage their children to be involved with terror groups.

“There are individuals out there who are inspired by the message of terrorist groups and they encourage family members, including their children, to follow that path,” he said, adding in those cases, the FBI holds the parents responsible….

Jihad Mughniyah and the Burned Jordanian Pilot

February 5, 2015/in National Security, News, Policy, Religion, Video/by Defend The Border

This is really unbelievable! The Iranian Shi’a Hezbollah terrorists are initiating confrontation of Israel’s borders and just a hop, skip and a jump away, the Sunni Islamic State is burning a Jordanian pilot alive.

Tune in as we explain how thias can happen! In 2008 Mughniyah got whacked by the CIA/Mossad because he was responsible for hundreds of deaths of innocent Americans and Jews. Recently his terrorist son, Jihad Mughniyah was evaporated by a missile and now the Iranians are really mad, thus launching attacks against Israel.

Put all this against the instability of the Middle East and man, we got some serious problems. The more you unravel the Iranian quest for NUKES, the more frightening the story develops. Imagine, Apocalyptic Ayatollahs with mega-destructive toys, let loose in a Sunni sand box and guess what you get? Dead Americans, Dead Jews and Dead Muslims.

These Islamic Shia’ Supremacists want control of Saudi oil, Saudi Mecca and Jerusalem and they KNOW that the way to achieve their Satanic objectives is to get their hands on red hot Plutonium! Thank Allah, we have President Obama standing between the Free World and Armageddon! This three-part series will tell you all you need to know that President Obama is the worst person in the world to trust with smashing Iran.

God help us.

RELATED ARTICLES:

FBI official: Islamic State is recruiting U.S. teens

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Administration Fails to Recognize the Threat of Global Jihad?

January 30, 2015/in Must Read, National Security, News/by Jerry Gordon

As a Former Army Intelligence officer, we were trained to evaluate the credibility of sources and then delve into the Intel they were providing. We were also trained that if you didn’t identify the threat doctrine of your enemies then you couldn’t formulate a winning strategy, let alone protect your forces. The Obama Administration has been evading the capabilities of military intelligence echelons to assist it in fashioning a winning strategy in the war against Global Jihad. One would have thought that when the members of Seal Team Six killed the late Osama Bin Laden and scooped up disk drives and documents that the West Wing would have considered it a treasure trove. The vital raw intelligence would have determined the aims and global strategy of so-called “core Al Qaeda” and its burgeoning affiliates across the Muslim Ummah and the West. (Groups like AQAP, AQIM, al Nusrah, Al Shabaab and Boko Haram.) Unfortunately, as this Weekly Standard article by Fox News ‘Special Report’ panelist, Stephen F. Hayes illustrates, President Obama may have evaded his oath of office as Commander in Chief, Former Defense Intel Chief Blasts Obama.

Former DIA head Gen. Flynn’s cautionary tale.

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.) former DIA Head.

Hayes uses a speech by former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) chief, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to fellow intelligence professionals to illustrate why the Administration cannot be trusted. Flynn retired after being brushed off by the National Security team in the West Wing and the politicized CIA. He was seeking to deploy his resources at the DIA to evaluate and derive meaningful intelligence on Al Qaeda its aims and strategies from the treasure trove of Obama bin laden computer files captured during the Seal Team Six assault. This would have enabled the Commander in Chief and his national security team to articulate the threat of global radical Islam and fashion a strategy that would protect our forces engaged in a war against Islamic Jihad. Instead the Administration myopically evaded its responsibilities opting to promote the meaningless and opaque threat as “violent extremism.” Instead Flynn and his team of military intelligence analysts were brushed off after having unearthed the goals of “core Al Qaeda” and its network of empowered affiliates

Here are excerpts from the Hayes Weekly Standard article that illustrates these points:

Lt. General Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, [said], “The dangers to the U.S. do not arise from the arrogance of American power, but from unpreparedness or an excessive unwillingness to fight when fighting is necessary.” The Obama Administration doesn’t understand the threat, Flynn said, noting that the Administration refuses to use “Islamic militants” to describe the enemy.

“You cannot defeat an enemy you do not admit exists,” he said.

The administration, he continued, wants “us to think that our challenge is dealing with an undefined set of violent extremists or merely lone-wolf actors with no ideology or network. But that’s just not the straight truth.”

[…]

The failure to exploit the captured Bin Laden file.

The CIA was responsible for the first scrub of the collection of more than 1 million documents and retained “executive authority” over the cache when it was completed. But the CIA stopped analyzing or “exploiting” the documents after that first quick and incomplete assessment and the Agency made no attempt to systematically examine and codify all of the intelligence included in the intelligence haul.

Flynn assembled a team at the DIA to do exactly that, but the CIA initially refused to share the documents. After a lengthy bureaucratic battle, DIA analysts were given limited access to the bin Laden documents and undertook an exhaustive exploitation. The documents provided the U.S. government with its best look at al Qaeda and its operations and challenges—from the inside. There were letters between Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders, plans for future attacks, details about fundraising successes and failures, descriptions of relationships between al Qaeda and governments in the region. The documents remain unexploited to this day.

Derek Harvey, a senior DIA official and former director of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Center of Excellence at CENTCOM, led the DIA team that exploited the documents. He recently told TWS that the U.S. government hasn’t “done anything close to a full exploitation.”

And what was Flynn’s overall assessment?

In classified analyses based heavily on the documents, the DIA directly challenged the Obama administration’s claims that the threat from al Qaeda was diminished or fading. Flynn hinted at this in an interview he gave to James Kitfield of Breaking Defense shortly after he left government. “When asked if the terrorists were on the run, we couldn’t respond with any answer but ‘no.’ When asked if the terrorists were defeated, we had to say ‘no.’ Anyone who answers ‘yes’ to either of those questions either doesn’t know what they are talking about, they are misinformed, or they are flat-out lying,” Flynn said.

Enter former CENTCOM Commander Marine General Zinni on the lack of a Strategy.

Gen. Anthony Zinni, former CENTCOMM commander. Source: Pensacola News Journal.

Recently, we heard former CENTCOMM Commander, Four Star Marine Gen. (ret.) Anthony Zinni talk about the lack of a meaningful Obama Strategy in the war against the Islamic state. See; Pensacola News Journal article, “General discusses ‘Situation in the Middle East.”

Among those gathered to hear him were former colleagues at CENTCOMM. He was introduced by Marine Lt. Gen. Duane Thiesen, president and CEO of the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. Zinni shared his insights gained from long experience serving in the Middle East and his engagement in strategic defense studies about terrorism and stability or the lack thereof in the Arab World. He opened up his speech with an anecdote about a conversation with two Arab leaders in the UAE on the day when the US-led coalition invaded Iraq in 2003. His two interlocutors said this was a disaster, because” it would unleash the Persian threat and ignite a religious war between Sunni and Shia.” Zinni had disagreed with the Bush strategy that without overwhelming force to seal the borders of Iraq, that sectarian fissures and conflicts would arise and that victory would not be achieved. In his remarks referring to the current situation he said, “Obviously, it’s the rise of the extremists – their ability to recruit now and reach out globally having bases from which they can operate.” He was dismissive of regional and bi-lateral initiatives saying that “the nation’s leaders need to take a strategic look at the world. “This globalization is connected by a network” A network according to Zinni including space, cyberspace, sea, air, land communications and trade resulting in global impact.

Before his talk I chatted with him briefly and gave him my question for the Q+A:

We are now several months into Operation Inherent Resolve – a US led coalition “to degrade and destroy”, the Islamic State, formerly ISIS. What is your current assessment of the conduct of this Operation and what in your view could be done to achieve the ultimate objective?

He smiled and said, “The short answer is we should not be afraid to put boots on the ground.”

When the question was posed to him by the Tiger Bay moderator, Zinni differentiated between, a strategy for Iraq versus one for Syria. He suggested that perhaps two US brigades, coupled with Kurdish Peshmerga and both Iraqi Special Forces and Sunni militias with meaningful air support would enable the recovery of Mosul and Anbar province. He cautioned that the US now finds itself in the odd situation where Iran’s Quds Force is on the same side in Iraq. He noted this is part of a strategy by the Islamic Regime in Tehran to surround the Arabian Peninsula.That is illustrated by the US failure in Yemen, with the Houthi Shia rebels toppling the central government, the Shia majority in Bahrain, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Assad clinging to control in Syria. A Shia crescent cutting across the Gulf stretching as far as the Mediterranean coast. It is a hegemonic strategy that includes state sponsored terrorism and achievement of nuclear breakout, further destabilizing the region and threatening the Saudi Kingdom. As regards the Houthi uprising in Yemen, despite the death of King Abdullah and succession of King Salman, Zinni contended that the Saudis might move troops into Yemen. He suggested that US drone campaign against Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula would not aid in saving the failed state. He was dismissive of direct involvement in Syria as there are too many disparate sectarian forces both within the Sunni majority and among the minority Alawites, Christians, Druze and Kurds. As illustrated by the US coalition strategy in the four months struggle that succeeded in freeing the embattled city of Kobani on the Turkish border, the Kurdish YPG and Peshmerga Forces were the”boots on the ground.” His assessment is reflected in a recent Wall Street Journal article depicting the failure of CIA training of opposition Sunni militias in Syria. He believes that the map of the modern Middle East, created in the wake of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and by the WWI Sykes Picot Agreement, may not survive.

Both Gens. Flynn and Zinni decry the failure of strategic thinking by the Administration frozen in the headlights of an oncoming Global Jihad that it refuses to acknowledge as a threat to the West.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Crunch-Time for the Coalition

January 24, 2015/in Must Read, National Security, News, Religion/by Henry Jackson Society

What has Japan done? Most of us can agree that for years Western European and North American democracies have received a considerable degree of criticism – and applied a considerable degree of self-criticism – based on our recent and far-distant historical actions. In Britain and France the carving up of the Ottoman empire keeps coming back to us. In America its post-World War II engagement in the Middle East has been the focus.

But as Islamic State (IS) paraded its two Japanese hostages on camera this week there should be some reflection on this. Since 1945 it would be hard to find a more pacific and careful nation in foreign policy, let alone expressions of national exceptionalism, than Japan. It is an important economy and an important voice in the family of nations. But if there was a country at the opposite end of the spectrum of ‘world policeman’ it would be post-World War II Japan.

And yet here this week were two of their nationals prone in precisely the same gruesome position that American and British hostages, among others, have found themselves in recent months. This time it was their government having demands made of them and their leaders receiving the disorientating IS mixture of medievalist behaviour communicated via the most up-to-date technology.

As foreign ministers met in London to discuss how to deal with the IS threat this is a question worth mulling on. In the West we have media organisations and universities packed with people who wish to mull on our own foreign policy mistakes before mulling what to do about actual visible threats. A degree of self-criticism is of course a vital thing, and something which has distinguished our societies for centuries. Yet there is a time when such self-criticism becomes self-doubt, and self-doubt becomes a bar to action even in the easiest cases.

Such is the case with IS. President Obama has famously talked of containing IS, but as more and more nations around the world come face-to-face with the barbarism of IS it is easier than ever to gather international opinion to treat IS not as a problem that should be contained but as a threat that must be eliminated. It is very rare in international affairs to be able to single out any group or any action which is genuinely an affront to the entire international order and the whole community of nations – with their competing and international horse-trading arrangements. But IS is such a threat and such a challenge and it must be hoped that the foreign ministers meeting in London recognised that and can build a proper coalition to address that fact.

An American Caliphate: The Alternate Media are Catching Up to Me

January 24, 2015/in Commentary, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Don Hank

Back on June 15th of last year, I wrote an article so controversial and scary that some of my usual blog publishers passed on it. I knew they would and I knew why. I had come out and said that Washington D.C. was the seat of the Muslim caliphate, and I had provided details to demonstrate that.

Back during the Vietnam War years, there was a slogan among conservatives that went “America right or wrong.”

At one time, most Americans, conservatives in particular, didn’t like to criticize their government in war time because they thought that would be blasphemous to those brave young Americans who had died on the battlefield. Thus instead of laying the blame squarely on the shoulders of those politicians and foreign policy strategists who had cynically squandered these American lives for their own ideological purposes or self-aggrandizement, they chose to cover up the ignominy of the loss and pretend it was a good cause. That ill-conceived practice enabled more and more vain deaths, and is doing so to the present day.

It is a mindset that dies hard.

But if I had had a son back then who had been drafted and killed, I can’t imagine having pretended that he died for a holy cause, and I didn’t understand those parents who took that attitude. Why send more young men to die when you can stand up for what you believe in and hopefully halt the senseless killing?

I am not, of course, referring to justified war to truly protect the homeland. In fact, I cringed a few nights ago while watching a talk show on German cable channel Deutsche Welle where one freelance reporter who had been embedded with ISIS claimed that all the West needs to do to halt the hostility in the Muslim world is to stop the bombing. I immediately thought of Boko Haram, which has never been bombed or shot at, and which recently killed 2000 Christians. There’s no bombing to halt, stupid!

The article I found at American Thinker, which suggests there is at least some realization that the U.S. is pursuing a caliphate, states:

…Islam is on the march. Meanwhile, the West remains mired in cowardice and complicity. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in Europe, which is on the fast track to join the Caliphate.

Not to be outdone by Europe’s madness, the United States is traveling down the same bloody path, importing large numbers of Muslims from Islamic countries thanks to the Islamophile sitting in the Oval Office and a nation full of dhimmis.

This bold statement, reflecting my commentary from last June, suggests that America has now turned a bit of a corner, and that selling baseless wars has become a significantly tougher job for the warmongers in Washington, D.C., and that is partly because none other than Barrack Hussein Obama has joined the ranks of those war mongers and it is therefore politically correct for conservatives to talk plainly about this. It also shows that it is now ok to suggest that Washington DC is the seat of the caliphate, as I did back in June. Now if Mitt Romney were president, I would not bet that the comments, if any, would be this bold. After all, media, whether alternative or mainstream, are beholden to political groups. To put it bluntly, there is no fourth estate. Perhaps there never was.

We still have a long way to go before the public wakes up and realizes, for example, that the Ukraine debacle was a sales job to promote isolation of Russia, if not war with Russia, to the world. But even there, progress is being made by the inch, particularly in Europe.

On the other hand, let us never let anyone tell us that the best policy to use against heartless terrorists is to turn the other cheek.

We will eventually have to engage ISIS.

So how are we doing so far?

Aside from largely ineffectual drone attacks in Syria and Iraq, we’re sending 400 troops to train “moderates” in Syria in hopes of taking out the only man standing between Syrian Christians and death!

Almost all of the reports on this major advance in the war against Christians and innocent minorities in Syria are written with a mesmerizing blandness suggesting that all is well and that the lives of innocent Syrians are an acceptable price to pay to rid the world of Bashar al-Assad and replace him with a considerably more radical Islamist government that will install brutal sharia law enshrining violence against women and introducing death penalties to non-Muslims, for example, who speak their mind about the “prophet.”

Not a single feminist group has protested, of course. Their sole raison d’être is to annoy as many people as possible.

I found on article that sums up how U.S. policies kill Christians abroad as though it were our designated policy to kill them. The one comment in the forum accompanying the article was a mindless complaint about Christians “imposing their values” on others, as if trying to prevent the deaths of innocent Christians were an imposition of values peculiar to Christians. How quaint of us to oppose murder.

Meanwhile, the protests against U.S. Christian-killing policies such as the military opposition to al-Assad are scant and scarcely reported. The most successful ones that get past the media firewall are organized by leftist groups that oppose war on principle and would not fight even if their families were attacked.

Then there have been church protests, but mostly by Orthodox churches (e.g. Antiochian Orthodox in PA), as well as small, poorly organized worldwide protests during the crisis over Syria in 2013, involving a few hundred protesters each.

If the Satanic forces in Washington succeed in taking out Assad and plunging Syria into chaos, it is hard to imagine salvation for the U.S. What kind of God would forgive us? Not mine!

Ohio Muslim arrested for Islamic State-inspired plot to bomb U.S. Capitol

January 15, 2015/in Must Read, National Security, News, Policy, Politics/by Jihad Watch

“I believe that we should just wage jihad under our own orders and plan attacks and everything. I believe we should meet up and make our own group in alliance with the Islamic State here and plan operations ourselves.” There will be many other young Muslims acting on the same belief.

“Ohio Man Arrested for Alleged ISIS-Inspired Plot on US Capitol, FBI Says,” by Pierre Thomas, Jack Date, Mike Levine and Jack Cloherty, ABC News, January 14, 2015 (thanks to Anne Crockett):

The FBI has arrested an Ohio man for allegedly plotting an ISIS-inspired attack on the U.S. Capitol, where he hoped to set off a series of bombs aimed at lawmakers, whom he allegedly considered enemies.

Christopher Lee Cornell, 20, of Green Township, was arrested today on charges of attempting to kill a U.S. government official, authorities said.

According to government documents, he allegedly planned to detonate pipe bombs at the national landmark and open fire on any employees and officials fleeing after the explosions.

The FBI first noticed Cornell several months ago after an informant notified the agency that Cornell was allegedly voicing support for violent “jihad” on Twitter accounts under the alias “Raheel Mahrus Ubaydah,” according to charging documents. In addition, Cornell allegedly posted statements, videos and other content expressing support for ISIS — the brutal terrorist group also known as ISIL — that is wreaking havoc in Iraq and Syria.

“I believe that we should just wage jihad under our own orders and plan attacks and everything,” Cornell allegedly wrote in an online message to the informant in August, according to the FBI. “I believe we should meet up and make our own group in alliance with the Islamic State here and plan operations ourselves.”

In the message, Cornell said that such attacks “already got a thumbs up” from radical cleric Anwar Awlaki “before his martyrdom.”

Awlaki was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011, but his online messages calling for attacks on the West live on.

U.S. officials considered Awlaki an operational leader within al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen-based terror group tied to the deadly assault on a satirical magazine in Paris last week.

Cornell and the informant met in Cincinnati over two days in October, and then another two days in November. During the last meeting, Cornell told an FBI informant that members of Congress were enemies and that he wanted to launch an attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., according to charging documents.

Cornell then allegedly saved money to finance the attack and researched how to build bombs, the FBI said.

Earlier today, while also taking “final steps” to travel to Washington for the attack, Cornell allegedly bought two semi-automatic rifles and 600 rounds of ammunition from a store in Ohio, authorities said….

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VIDEOS: Our Response to the Charlie Hebdo Attacks

January 13, 2015/in National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Video/by Henry Jackson Society

Between 7 and 9 January, Paris witnessed a brutal and drawn-out terrorist attack which left 17 dead and sparked widespread debate on questions of security and freedom of speech. Though shocking, the attack is just one in a string of radical Islamic terrorist atrocities targeting civilians as well as the democratic and security institutions of Western nations.

As ever, The Henry Jackson Society was on hand to provide in-depth analysis to top news outlets in the UK and around the world, arguing vocally against any compromise in our right to freedom of speech.

Associate Director Douglas Murray led opinion with his thought leadership on the attack in both the Daily Mail and the Spectator (both are reprinted below).

Below is a selection of HJS’ latest TV and radio interviews on the topic. We will, of course, continue to promote our cause throughout the media and our appearances can always be viewed on our YouTube channel.

TV Appearances

7 January: Douglas Murray on Channel 4 News

7 January: Davis Lewin on France 24

7 January: Douglas Murray on WSJ Live

7 January: Robin Simcox on ITV News

7 January: Hannah Stuart on Al Arabiya

8 January: Alan Mendoza on CNBC

8 January: Douglas Murray on Sky News

8 January: Douglas Murray on Al Jazeera

8 January: Douglas Murray on BBC Daily Politics

10 January: Davis Lewin on France 24

11 January: Douglas Murray on BBC’s Big Questions

Radio Appearences

7 January: Douglas Murray on BBC World Service

7 January: Douglas Murray on BBC London

7 January: Robin Simcox on BBC 5 Live

7 January: Douglas Murray on BBC 5 Live

8 January: Douglas Murray on BBC World Service’s World Tonight

9 January: Emily Dyer on BBC Ulster

9 January: Douglas Murray on BBC World Serivce’s World Have Your Say

Thought Leadership

A threat to every single one of us: The cold-blooded outrage in Paris is about our right to be free to express ourselves

Douglas Murray in The Daily Mail

The cold-blooded outrage in Paris is not a story about one magazine or one country – and it is not just about freedom of the Press.

It is about the right of every single one of us to be free to express ourselves. And it is high time the nations of Europe woke up to how gravely that right is under threat.

Because what happened yesterday – though the most appalling incident of its kind yet – is in many ways far from unprecedented. It is just the latest chapter in a long, concerted campaign to shut down criticism and discussion of one religion, its founder and its teachings.

The aim of the campaign is to place that religion – Islam – above the level of all other religions or ideas and make it immune from criticism. And the tactic is working.

This campaign has been gathering pace for at least 25 years. It really started in the West in 1989 after the publication of Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, which contained passages considered deeply offensive by some Muslims.

The novel resulted in Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issuing a fatwa – a religious judgment, in this case a death sentence – on Rushdie that forced the author into hiding. Though Rushdie survived, the fatwa was followed by the murder of a translator of his works and knife attacks on two others.

Then, as now, some people claimed that Rushdie had been deliberately provocative. Then, as now, even if that were the case it would matter not a jot. Nosociety can be considered truly free if its members are terrorised into silence and hiding by fatwas and mortal threats.

Even so, ever since the Rushdie affair, most authors, artists and publishers have avoided producing anything that might stoke the ire of fundamentalist Muslims.

Of course it is important to state that the great majority of Muslims are peaceful, law-abiding citizens, who abhor violence. Indeed yesterday Muslim leaders in Britain were among the first to condemn the Paris atrocity.

Nevertheless, there have been a very troubling number of attacks carried out in the name of Islam on those in the West considered to have criticised or shown a lack of respect to the religion.

In 2004, the Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh was shot, stabbed and partially decapitated in broad daylight on a Dutch street. His killer, Mohammed Bouyeri, objected to a film van Gogh had made which criticised some of the Koran’s teachings about women.

Fear works. It breeds self-censorship. In 2005 the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten discovered that no illustrator in Denmark would depict Islam’s founder for a series of children’s books on world religions.

The paper commissioned a dozen cartoonists to break this apparent taboo and published the results. The subsequent furore saw burnings and lootings of Danish Embassies across the Middle East and threats against Danes worldwide.

Having investigated and written about the growth of Islamic fundamentalism and its effects on our society for some 15 years, I came to know some of those involved in that Danish newspaper, as well as those at Charlie Hebdo, the French magazine attacked yesterday.

I began to realise how they had to endure constant threats to their safety, yet they continued to publish because they believed supremely in the right to freedom of expression, the right to make jokes about anyone and any subject, however powerful or revered they may be. Charlie Hebdo is a satirical, secular, punchy magazine which has picked up themes most people wanted to ignore.

In the wake of the 2005 Danish cartoons furore, it was about the only magazine that, sticking to its principles, chose to print any depiction of Islam’s founding prophet.

The magazine, which laughs at all religions, politics and beliefs, argued that if you are to be free you cannot allow any ideology to hold such a privileged position as to be above criticism. And so they lampooned Mohammed, and ISIS – as well as other targets like critics of Islam and the Far Right politician Marine le Pen.

After an issue that played on the magazine’s name and sharia law with the title ‘Charia Hebdo’, and mercilessly mocked Islamic fundamentalists, a firebomb was thrown into its offices. Its editor – who died yesterday, along with his police protection officer – received constant death threats.

But Charlie Hebdo magazine was not alone in being targeted for daring to poke fun. In 2010 one of the Danish cartoonists was confronted in his home by an axe-wielding Islamist trained by the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab. A different cartoonist from Sweden, Lars Vilks, was targeted for death in a separate attack.

Across Europe I have encountered countless people – Muslim, ex-Muslim and non-Muslim – who have faced death threats.

Two years ago a 70-year-old friend of mine in Denmark – the historian and journalist Lars Hedegaard, who founded a Free Press Society in the wake of the cartoons affair – woke to a ring from the postman.

But the man at the door was not the postman. He was a young man with a gun who fired at Lars’s head at almost point-blank range. Miraculously he missed.

As Lars struggled with his would-be assassin on his own doorstep, the man fired again. The gun jammed and the culprit ran off. If you have seen and studied these cases of assassination and attempted assassination as many times as I have you notice certain patterns emerging.

One of the most common is for Western apologists for these terrorists to suggest that the victims have provoked the rage of fundamentalists – and they have therefore brought it upon themselves.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. The only people responsible for the carnage in this insidious and evil campaign to stamp out our freedoms are the thugs and murderers who carry it out.

In galleries, newspapers and magazines every day and week of the year there are works of art and articles that offend mainstream Christians.

Cartoons abound at Christmas depicting the Three Wise Men or the Virgin Mary with a humorous twist; there are revolting and puerile cards whose Christmas messages contain foul language.

Imagine that a Christian – any Christian – were to have responded to those cartoons or images by decapitating or gunning down the editor or staff of the magazine, newspaper or art gallery in question. Would we blame his victims, saying they had provoked the outrage? I think it highly unlikely.

Politicians in France have in the past dismissed Charlie Hebdo as radicals of the Left and ‘provocateurs’ – although one would hope yesterday’s events will shock them out of complacency.

The fact is this challenge to our freedoms from radical Islam is real and happening now. If mainstream politicians ignore or shy away from it, tragedy beckons for all of us.

Charlie Hebdo stood alone. What does that say about our ‘free’ press?

Douglas Murray in The Spectator

Over the coming hours and days there will be a lot of talk – largely by anonymous Twitter warriors – about the need to express ‘solidarity’ withCharlie Hebdo. Many others will say how important it is to ensure that ‘the terrorists and fundamentalists don’t win.’

But the terrorists and fundamentalists are winning and for the moment it looks like they will keep winning. Because even before today Charlie Hebdoalready stood alone. In the wake of the 2005 Danish cartoons affair no other major newspaper or magazine in Europe was willing to keep running depictions of Islam’s founder. Of course they said they didn’t publish, or republish, because they didn’t want to cause offence, or because they thought the (wholly innocuous) depictions were wilfully ‘provocative’ and the like. And of course Jyllands Posten is a conservative, ‘right-wing’ newspaper.

But they will say the same thing now. And the left-wing Charlie Hebdo will be abandoned now even more than the right-wing Jyllands Posten was back then. People will come up with various excuses, but in truth they won’t publish because they are afraid. The remaining staff of Charlie Hebdo could hardly be more alone.

There is only one way in which this couldn’t remain the case: if tomorrow, or some day this week every newspaper and magazine in Europe, the front-page of the BBC and Channel 4 News websites and every other major news site simultaneously published a set of Charlie Hebdo’s depictions of Mohammed among others. I put this suggestion to the BBC today during an interview and was told by the presenter that ‘in fairness’ to the BBC they had earlier retweeted Charlie Hebdo’s recent cartoon of ISIS’s leader al-Baghdadi. Which, of course, isn’t quite the same thing. Some readers may recall that during the Danish cartoon affair Channel 4 ran a live programme on freedom of speech which included a live vote as to whether or not Channel 4 should show the cartoons. The public voted that they should. And then Channel 4 unilaterally decided to ignore the public’s wishes and would not show the cartoons.

It was around the same time that Ayaan Hirsi Ali put it best. She suggested in the wake of the Danish cartoons affair that ‘we have to spread the risk.’ But the free press didn’t spread it around then. And I very much doubt that they will now. I know all the arguments. I know the fears – that someone from the typing pool or on the front desk will be the target. I’ve heard every possible argument over the years.

And that is why I can safely say that the free press will fail this latest test too. For all its historic traditions, its self back-slapping for its alleged ‘bravery’ and so on, there are only a couple of tiny outcrops of freedom. The rest of the vast, powerful, fearless, outspoken tradition that is the Western press is too intimidated to publish a single cartoon that might conveivably provoke a Muslim.

This is what it looks like to lose a freedom. Not many people will care today. But they will tomorrow, or another day in the future.

The Conundrum

January 12, 2015/in Commentary, National Security, Policy, Politics/by Vito Esposito

Conundrum as defined by Webster‛s dictionary as “an intricate and difficult problem”. An intricate problem. A difficult problem. A Conundrum!

This is the claim made by Major General Michael K. Nagata, Commander of U.S. Special Operations forces in the Middle East. American Special Operations Forces, the elite forces, volunteers dedicated to serving in our U.S. military. Let me first say, I have the utmost respect for General Nagata and his military pedigree, however his comments are perplexing.

Perplexing, as defined by Webster‛s dictionary: “Completely baffling; very puzzling” This is the conundrum we are left with, when comments by an esteemed man of the military sought help this summer in solving an urgent problem for the American military: “What makes the Islamic State so dangerous”? Really? In 2014, the 21st Century, we must ask the question; “What makes the Islamic State so dangerous? The Counter Jihad Report writes further: “Trying to decipher this complex enemy – a hybrid terrorist organization and a conventional army – is such a conundrum that General Nagata assembled an unofficial brain trust outside the traditional realms of expertise within the Pentagon.

Some thirteen plus years after America‛s homeland was attack by Islamic jihadists/terrorists our U.S. Military officials still ask the questions: “Who are these people”? “What makes them so dangerous”? How can a Major General who Commands American Special Operations make the following statement: “We do not understand the movement and until we do, we are not going to defeat it”.

One counter terrorism expert commented this statement is a dereliction of duty. I would agree! With the brilliance of our military, their ability to execute complex military missions, the ability to fly and operate drones from over 7,000 miles away, with pinpoint accuracy, yet we have high ranking military officials stating they do not understand ISIS, their movement or Islamic terrorism.This ignorance orated by our military leaders can lead directly back to the man in the White House, the POTUS. Mr. Obama makes the statement the Islamic State
is not Islamic, yet Mr. Obama continually refers to the Islamic State as “ISIL”.

ISIL stands for: (ready for this) Islamic State and the Levant. Yep, Islamic State is in the name of ISIL, which is not Islamic according to Mr. Obama. When you have the POTUS speaking out of both sides of his mouth, how can one not think the Commander in Chief‛s subordinates would be confused or in a conundrum?

After suffering America‛s most horrific attack on 9-11-01, at the hands of Islamic Jihadists, our military leaders, strategists and/or brain trusts are still in a conundrum. ISIS/ISIL/IS Muslim Confession of Faith: “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is the messenger of Allah”. Even the ISIS/ISIL/IS flag reads the same Muslim Confession. So where is the conundrum? The Quran is said to be the word of Allah, which is the book followed by 1.6 billion devout Muslims. The Quran is Muslims Constitution, it has not changed in over 1400 years.

ISIS/ISIL/IS follows the Quran. Gen. Nagata to understand the Islamic State‛s movement, one could look directly into the Quran for guidance – verses such as: Chapter 2 verse 244; or Chapter 4 verse 71; or Chapter 4 verse 81 or Chapter 9 verse 123, just to name a few. Please don‛t buy the excuse this is cherry picking verses either. Reliance of the Traveler, which is Islamic Jurisprudence, defines Islamic Law for the 1.6 billion Muslims around the world; Islamic Sacred Law defines Jihad, as written on Page 599 – the meaning of Jihad? Answer: To war against non-Muslims. This definition is qualified by Islamic Clerics who use individual verses from the Quran. No one accuses Islamic Clerics of “Cherry Picking” Quranic verses to justify the meaning of Jihad to “War against Non-Muslims”.

General Nagata is not alone in this ISIS/ISIL/IS conundrum. His frustrations are shared by other American officials. Frankly that‛s scary! However it speaks volumes as to the inroads the Muslim Brotherhood and other “Radical Islamists” have made infiltrating our US Government. From the Department of Homeland Security with devout Muslims such as; Mohamed Elbiary, Arif Alikhan and Kareem Shora writing and defining policy in the Department of Defense with Hesham Islam working for the Under Secretary of State and the man responsible for having a counterterrorism expert removed from advising the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Not to mention devout Muslims being appointed by Barack Hussein Obama to serve inside the White House. These devout Muslims serve(d) at the request of the POTUS – like Gallop‛s own devout Muslim Dahlia Mogahed. Ms. Mogahed was appointed by Barack Obama as an adviser for White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnership. An advisory position reporting directly to the POTUS.

Ah Dahlia Mogahed, the same woman who appeared on a fundamentalist Islamic TV show in England, hosted by Hizb ut-Tahrir and stated her belief: Sharia Law should supplant the U.S. Constitution. Did I mention Ms. Mogahed was a White House Adviser appointed by Mr. Obama and had direct access to him?

Another devout Muslim – Mohamed Elbiary was a Senior DHS Adviser who had known “radical beliefs”, such as this tweet from Mr. Elbiary: “As I‛ve said before inevitable that the “Caliphate” returns”, Elbiary tweeted in response to a question about the terror group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (also known as ISIS or the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) which is currently seeking to overthrow the Iraqi government and instate strict Sharia Law in that country. Or Mr. Elibary‛s belief “the United States is an Islamic country with Islamically compliant constitution”.

The conundrum for the American people: Why has the Commander-in-Chief purged our United States Military of the most brilliant dedicated General‛s, Admirals and other high ranking military officials? Were these great military minds knowing of the enemy (Islam)? What is the purpose of relieving these experts of their command or duties when Islam has not suspended their operations? Are the
comments made by our leading Military Commanders, such as Maj. Gen. Michael Nagata aiding and abetting the enemy? Or is it a safe assumption America‛s enemies are embolden by the comments of not understanding the ISIS movement, thereby giving the enemy confidence their dawa is working well within America?

Retired Three Star Army General Michael T. Flynn added: “The fact that someone as experienced in counterterrorism as Mike Nagata is asking these kind of questions shows what a really tough problem this is”.

The Quran is a wealth of knowledge and devout followers of Islam, such as ISIS, ISIL, IS, Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabab, Boko Haram, Hamas, CAIR, ISNA, MSA, Jamaat al-Fuqra, Hizb ut-Tahrir to name a few, believe as much.

General Allen: U.S. must “defeat the idea” of the Islamic State

January 4, 2015/in Must Read, National Security, News, Policy, Politics/by Jihad Watch

There is no indication that General Allen has any idea of what he is talking about. What “idea” does he propose to defeat? He probably means that he is going to destroy the idea that the Islamic State constitutes the new caliphate — which is no doubt one reason why the media establishment keeps churning out its endless stream of disingenuous and deceptive “ISIS is not Islamic” articles. But he is part of an Administration that has prohibited examination of the jihadis’ belief system; that is going to hamstring his efforts to combat it.

“Obama Envoy John Allen: No ‘Short-Term Solutions’ for Stopping Islamic State,” by Matthias Gebauer and Holger Stark, Spiegel, December 31, 2014:

In an interview, US General John Allen, Washington’s special envoy for countering the Islamic State, discusses why he believes the recent military campaign has reversed the terrorist group’s momentum but warns the battle to stop its ideology could take years.

General John Allen, 61, has served as special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State (IS) under US President Barack Obama since September. He previously served for three years as the deputy commander of the US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Allen uses the Arabic term “Daesh” when referring to IS in order to prevent having to say the word “state”.

No, it’s to avoid having to say the word “Islamic.”

…SPIEGEL: President Obama has stated he wants to “ultimately destroy and dismantle” IS. Was it a mistake to set such a maximalist goal that is almost impossible to reach?

Allen: It’s important to have a clear understanding of what we ultimately seek. I don’t believe that the president intended to imply the “annihilation” of Daesh. That is far beyond our thinking in this regard. We want to deny Daesh the ability to have safe havens either in Iraq or, ultimately, in Syria, to preclude its capacity to organize an existential threat to those countries. Annihilation requires a great deal of investment, resources and time. The defeating, dismantling and degrading of Daesh, and ultimately destroying the idea, is the long-term objective. It’s important to understand that what we’re undertaking as a coalition is much bigger, much broader, than simply the military role. The military role is the most conspicuous right now and attracts the most attention. We have five lines of effort that in the end converge to degrade and defeat Daesh: providing military support to our partners; impeding the flow of foreign fighters; stopping IS’s financing and funding; addressing humanitarian crises in the region; and exposing IS’s true nature….

SPIEGEL: Another huge challenge is IS’s propaganda. It was a brilliant move to declare an “Islamic State”. How are you going to deal with this?

Allen: We need not only to expose Daesh for the darkness that it is, but also to celebrate the values within countries that help defeat the attractiveness of Daesh. You asked about “destroying” before: We can only destroy Daesh when we destroy the attractiveness of its brand. When you can defeat the idea, then you have destroyed the organization. We want to build capacity in countries in the region and the Coalition to reduce its attractiveness for recruiting…

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The 10 Most Important Jihad Stories of 2014

January 3, 2015/in Must Read, National Security, News, Policy, Politics/by Jihad Watch

Over at PJ Media I recap ten of the year’s low-lights:

Here are the most significant advances made by Islamic supremacists this year.

10. The abduction of the Nigerian schoolgirls

Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Nigerian jihad group named the Congregation of the People of the Sunnah for Dawah and Jihad and better known as Boko Haram (“Western Education Is Sinful,” or “Books Bad”), disgusted and horrified the world last May, and even provoked a Michelle Obama hashtag, by abducting over three hundred schoolgirls and selling them into sex slavery. Shekau even published a video in which he gloats about the abduction, telling the girls’ grieving families:

I abducted your girls. I will sell them on the market, by Allah….There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell.

Shekau had a point: the Qur’an really does allow for the owning of sex slaves. Muslim men can take “captives of the right hand” (Qur’an 4:3, 4:24, 33:50). It also says: “O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given thee as spoils of war” (33:50). 4:3 and 4:24 extend this privilege to Muslim men in general, as does this passage:

Certainly will the believers have succeeded: They who are during their prayer humbly submissive, and they who turn away from ill speech, and they who are observant of zakah, and they who guard their private parts except from their wives or those their right hands possess, for indeed, they will not be blamed (Qur’an 23:1-6).

None – absolutely none – of the extensive international coverage of the abduction discussed the justifications for this practice within the Qur’an. This refusal to deal with the root causes only ensured that the practice would happen again, and it did later in the year, when the Islamic State pressed Yazidi and Christian women into sex slavery.

9. Britain’s capitulation on Muslim rape gangs

Britain’s Birmingham Mail reported in November that Birmingham’s City Council buried a report about Muslim cab drivers exploiting non-Muslim girls back in 1990.

A researcher, Dr. Jill Jesson, drafted a report on this issue. But, she explained,

the report was shelved, buried, it was never made public. I was shocked to be told that copies of the report were to be destroyed and that nothing further was to be said. Clearly, there was something in this report that someone in the department was worried about.

Authorities were worried because Jesson’s report illustrated that virtually all of the exploitative cab drivers were “Asians,” the British media euphemism for Muslims, and their victims were “white,” i.e., non-Muslim. The exploitation of these girls stems from Qur’an-based religious beliefs, but British officials were terrified because stopping this exploitation would appear “racist.”

Jesson elaborated:

There was a link between the sexual abuse of the girls and private hire drivers in the city. I thought at the time I did the work that there was an issue with race. Most of the girls were white. I was asked to take this link out, to erase it….Every time a news item has come on about sexual grooming of young girls and girls in care, and the link, too, between private hire drivers, I have thought “I told them about that in 1991 but they didn’t want to acknowledge it.”

“The sad part of this story,” Jesson concluded, “is not the suppression of evidence but that the relevant organisations have failed to address this problem.”

Indeed so – and that is because of its racial and religious aspects. British authorities persist in seeing this as a racial issue, when in fact these cabbies only preyed upon these girls because they were non-Muslims, and thus eligible to become “captives of the right hand” and used as sex slaves.

But the fact is they see it as a racial issue, and their anxiety to avoid “racism” led them to cover up these cases and allow thousands of girls to be victimized for 23 years. The officials responsible for this should be arrested, tried, and imprisoned. The race-mongers on the current British scene, such as far-Left smearmongers like Nick Lowles of Hope Not Hate and Fiyaz Mughal of Tell Mama UK, have been denounced by opinion-makers and policymakers from all points on the political spectrum — and should be tried also if their complicity in this behavior is found to have risen to criminal culpability.

Instead, British authorities looked for scapegoats. The BBC reported in November that “the police watchdog is to investigate 10 South Yorkshire Police officers over the handling of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham,” where 1,400 British non-Muslim children were gang-raped and brutalized by Muslims, and “several staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought as racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so.”

These managers are the ones who are really responsible for this, along with opinion-makers such as Lowles and Mughal who created the culture in which people cower in fear at charges of “racism.” These ten police officers who were being investigated were just being set up to take the fall; they originated neither the police policies nor the cultural climate that led to the abandonment of these 1,400 abused children to their fate. Those who created the climate in which those who knew about this hesitated to speak out, for fear of being called “racist,” are the ones who ought to be put on trial — Lowles and Mughal and their ilk. These police officers, if they did cover up the activities of these rape gangs, are just the symptoms of the problem, not its cause.

8. The Bergdahl trade

The British weren’t the only ones capitulating. When he announced on May 31 the exchange of five Guantanamo detainees for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who had been held by Islamic jihadists in Afghanistan since 2009, Barack Obama declared that the swap was “a reminder of America’s unwavering commitment to leave no man or woman in uniform behind on the battlefield.” However, as ever more damning information came to light about both the deal and Bergdahl himself, it became increasingly clear that the prisoner exchange was actually a reminder of Barack Obama’s unwavering commitment to appeasing and aiding jihadis.

The freed jihadis included, according to the Associated Press, “Abdul Haq Wasiq, who served as the Taliban deputy minister of intelligence”; “Khairullah Khairkhwa, who served in various Taliban positions including interior minister and had direct ties to Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden”; and “Mohammad Fazl, whom Human Rights Watch says could be prosecuted for war crimes for presiding over the mass killing of Shiite Muslims in Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001.”

What could possibly go wrong?

Even more disturbing were the questions swirling around Bergdahl himself. Former infantry officer Nathan Bradley Bethea, who served with Bergdahl, wrote in the Daily Beast that “Bergdahl was a deserter, and soldiers from his own unit died trying to track him down.” Refuting reports that Bergdahl got separated from his unit while on patrol, Bethea declared: “Make no mistake: Bergdahl did not ‘lag behind on a patrol,’ as was cited in news reports at the time. There was no patrol that night. Bergdahl was relieved from guard duty, and instead of going to sleep, he fled the outpost on foot. He deserted. I’ve talked to members of Bergdahl’s platoon—including the last Americans to see him before his capture. I’ve reviewed the relevant documents. That’s what happened.”

By the year’s end, the results of the investigation of Bergdahl’s conduct have – as the most pessimistic among us could have predicted – not been released.

7. The Islamic State beheadings

Bergdahl was one of the few captives of jihadis to come home alive. The Islamic State shocked and appalled the world as it carried out a series of beheadings of hostages and other prisoners, including Americans James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and Peter Kassig, and Britons David Haines and Alan Henning.

The White House response to these atrocities took on a clockwork predictability. Obama might as well have had a form ready for the next one: all he would have had to do would have been to fill in the blank and then take to the airwaves to say that the latest bloodshed had nothing to do with Islam.

In Kassig’s case, Obama seized on the hostage’s at-gunpoint conversion to Islam to assert: “ISIL’s actions represent no faith, least of all the Muslim faith which Abdul-Rahman adopted as his own.”

“Least of all”! As if it were possible that the Islamic State’s actions represented Buddhism, or Methodism, or Christian Science, or the Hardshell Baptists, or the Mandaeans, to greater or lesser degrees, but the most far-fetched association one could make, out of all the myriad faiths people hold throughout the world, would be to associate the Islamic State’s actions with…Islam. The Islamic State’s actions represented no faith, said the president, least of all Islam – as if it were more likely that the Islamic State were made up of Presbyterians or Lubavitcher Hasidim or Jains or Smartas than that it were made up of Muslims.

Yet anywhere that people read the phrase “when you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks” (Qur’an 47:4) as if it were a command of the Creator of the Universe, the fatuousness of Obama’s claim is revealed anew. The truth will out; indeed, it is already abundantly out. We can only hope that not too many more will have to feel the blade at their necks before Obama and the rest can no longer avoid taking realistic and effective action.

6. The Oklahoma beheadingOn September 21, the Islamic State’s spokesman, Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani, urged Muslims to murder non-Muslims in the West. “Rely upon Allah,” he thundered, “and kill him in any manner or way however it may be. Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict. Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military, for they have the same ruling.” He also addressed Western non-Muslims:

You will not feel secure even in your bedrooms. You will pay the price when this crusade of yours collapses, and thereafter we will strike you in your homeland, and you will never be able to harm anyone afterwards.

Five days later, Jah’Keem Yisrael (formerly Alton Alexander Nolen) beheaded one of his coworkers and was shot while in the process of trying to behead another in Vaughan Foods, a food processing plant in Moore, Oklahoma. No one made the connection between his actions and al-Adnani’s call, despite the fact that Yisrael’s Facebook was full of admiring material about the Islamic State, the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The beheader even had a graphic photo of a beheading captioned with another Qur’anic beheading verse (8:12) on his Facebook page.

Authorities did not classify his action as terrorism.

5. The Canadian jihad strikes

In October, Canada experienced two murderous jihad terror attacks in three days. Ahmad Rouleau, a convert to Islam, hit two Canadian soldiers with his car, murdering Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent. Then he led police on a high-speed chase, during which he called 911 and explained that he was doing it all “in the name of Allah.” The chase, and Rouleau’s jihad, ended when he flipped his car and then, brandishing a knife, charged police, who shot him dead. One of Rouleau’s close friends said:

It was a terrorist attack and Martin died like he wanted to. That’s what happened….He did this because he wanted to reach paradise and assure paradise for his family. He wanted to be a martyr….The caliphate called all the Muslims on earth to fight. He listened to what they had to say and he did his part here.

Two days later, another Muslim, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, went on a shooting rampage in Ottawa, murdering military reservist Corporal Nathan Cirillo and engaging in a gun battle inside Canada’s Parliament building. He had threatened to strike “in the name of Allah in response to Canadian foreign policy.”

Islamic State spokesmen Al-Adnani told Muslims in September to murder non-Muslims with any weapon at hand, or anything that could be used as a weapon: “If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him.” Zehaf-Bibeau found a bullet. Rouleau found a car.

In reality, what motivated him was blazingly obvious, but it was the one thing most Western government officials and all of the mainstream media have determined to ignore, and so the search was one for some other remotely plausible motive that could be sold to a public that is increasingly suspicious of what the government and media elites are telling them. Toronto’s Globe and Mail quoted a friend of Zehaf-Bibeau saying, “I think he must have been mentally ill.” It was a refrain we would increasingly hear in connection with jihad attacks as the year went on.

Meanwhile, the denial and unreality regarding the jihad threat took other forms as well…

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January 3, 2015/in Must Read, National Security, News/by Jihad Watch

I trust that John Kerry or Joe Biden is on his way to Broward County to explain to Sheheryar Alam Qazi and Raees Alam Qazi how they’re misunderstanding the Religion of Peace.

“Accused Oakland Park Terrorist’s Phone Conversations Can Be Used as Evidence, Feds Say,” by Chris Joseph, BrowardPalmBeach.com, January 2, 2015:

Oakland Park brothers Sheheryar Alam Qazi, and Raees Alam Qazi are set to go on trial this year on terrorism charges, and prosecutors are planning to use secretly recorded phone calls between one of the men and his wife as evidence against them.

The defense says that the phone conversations were obtained in violation of the marital confidential communications privilege, and therefore shouldn’t be allowed.

The Pakistani-born brothers have been charged by the FBI with conspiring to explode a weapon of mass destruction in the United States. They pleaded not guilty at a hearing in federal court in Fort Lauderdale in 2013.

The younger of the two, 22-year-old Raees, was charged by the FBI with conspiring to funnel “material support” to terrorists planning to explode a weapon of mass destruction somewhere in the United State. Raees allegedly planned to either blow himself up or detonate a bomb in New York that would cause massive casualties, according to federal prosecutors. Older brother Sheheryar, 32, financially supported Raees’ alleged plot.

According to court filings, Sheheryar and his wife’s phone conversations were wire-tapped between August and September of 2012. The calls include the couple discussing younger brother’s lack of income for their alleged plot, where the wife — whose name has not been made public — told her husband that his younger brother should get a job, particularly to help pay the bills at the couple’s home.

The wife complains that Raees should pay his own way, even in matters of trying to commit a terrorist act.

“Even if he is going for Jihad,” one of the conversations go, via the Sun-Sentinel, “Even so, he needs to do some hard work. He should not ask others for help … One should pay for one’s own expenses.”

She also apparently gave Sheheryar direction on how to encourage Raees to get off his lazy terrorist butt and get a job.

“Tell him, ‘You do a job’,” she says in one of the phone conversations. “Earning here is written into his destiny by God.”

Apparently, not getting a job was just one of the sort of clumsy way Raees went about trying to make Jihad on America.

While scouting locations to bomb in New York, Raees apparently read an al-Qaeda online magazine article titled “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom.”

Qazi also reportedly told authorities that he came to Broward to “practice” for a bombing and to build an explosive device. But the device failed.

In 2012, New Times reported that the brothers peddled an X-Box, a random assortment of videogames, and bicycles on Craigslist back in April 2010.

But the feds point to a troubled man in Raees, one who was ready to take his own life and possibly others as well in the process.

According to one phone call, Sheheryar tells his wife of a letter Raees showed him on his computer that talked about Osama bin Laden “uniting a Muslim army under one flag to wage Islamic war.”

“In a way, he has given up on himself,” Sheheryar tells his wife. “That is why he does not try to get … a permanent job so that, ‘I don’t get too tied up with something else and forget about God’s work.’”

Prosecutors point to the comments made about not getting a permanent job, and the line “God’s work,” as evidence that Raees was planning to do something that would harm or kill Americans. They also say that Sheheryar and his wife knew of Raees’ plans to commit a terrorist act, and that Sheheryar helped him financially to do so….

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Sheheryar Alam Qazi and Raees Alam Qazi.

U.S. Special Ops commander on Islamic State: “We do not understand the movement, and until we do, we are not going to defeat it”

December 30, 2014/in Must Read, National Security, News, Policy, Politics/by Jihad Watch

What Major General Nagata says is absolutely correct: the U.S. government and military does not understand the Islamic State, and as long as that continues, the U.S. will never defeat the Islamic State. But why don’t they understand the Islamic State? Because the Obama Administration has forbidden investigation of Islamic doctrine in connection with terrorism. The Obama Administration wants to pretend that jihad terror has nothing to do with Islam. As long as it persists in this delusion, the U.S. will never understand — or defeat — the Islamic State.

“In Battle to Defang ISIS, U.S. Targets Its Psychology,” by Eric Schmitt, New York Times, December 28, 2014 (thanks to Bill):

WASHINGTON — Maj. Gen. Michael K. Nagata, commander of American Special Operations forces in the Middle East, sought help this summer in solving an urgent problem for the American military: What makes the Islamic State so dangerous?

Trying to decipher this complex enemy — a hybrid terrorist organization and a conventional army — is such a conundrum that General Nagata assembled an unofficial brain trust outside the traditional realms of expertise within the Pentagon, State Department and intelligence agencies, in search of fresh ideas and inspiration. Business professors, for example, are examining the Islamic State’s marketing and branding strategies.

“We do not understand the movement, and until we do, we are not going to defeat it,” he said, according to the confidential minutes of a conference call he held with the experts. “We have not defeated the idea. We do not even understand the idea.”

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Despite the Horror, Syrian and Iraqi Christian Refugee Children (And Their Parents) Experience Christmas

December 29, 2014/in Culture War, Featured, News/by Reverend Bob Armstrong

Florida based Love-Link Ministries partnered with Christmas for Refugees to bring Christmas to the refugee-riddled Middle East. Rev. Bob Armstrong joined William J. Murray in bringing true joy to the war-ravaged lands. Bill is the author of seven books including his bestselling autobiography, “My Life Without God,” which detailed his childhood in the dysfunctional home of atheist/Marxist leader Madalyn Murray O’Hair. I have been on his board for three decades.

Rev. Bob with Syrian refugee children.

I have ministered in 45 countries, but nothing really prepared me for how great the need truly is, and how we (and your giving and prayers) had such a tremendous impact upon Middle East refugees. Several thousand Syrian and Iraqi Christian refugee children (and their parents) were given a genuine Christmas this year, in spite of their horrific circumstances.

Instead of spending money on renting event banquet halls, local churches were utilized for free. Plus, the local pastor obviously knew most of the precise, devastating situations and most of the refugees, as well as the dramatic needs of each family.

In Lebanon, in the city of Zahle near the Bekaa Valley, close to the Syrian border, the True Vine Church helped in this monumental effort to reach refugee children. The host pastor’s name — yes, his birth name – is Pastor Jihad!!!! You read that right! He has been to the United States several times before 9-11, but after 9-11, he was denied for five years simply because of his name! I understand why. What a terrific pastor!

Parents of the refugee children, having suffered so much when forced to flee their homeland in Syria to Lebanon by ISIL warriors, also participated in their own service while their children enjoyed a sumptuous meal in their own culture. BEFORE any child or adult received a meal or any food bags, the Christmas Gospel was taught to them. Many were Muslims. To hear Muslim children singing at the top of their lungs how Bethlehem was the place of the birth of the Savior of the world was absolutely breath-taking!!

Isam Ghattas and William J. Murray oversee the Christmas event for refugees.

Multiplied thousands of displaced Iraqi Christian refugees have recently come to Jordan because of the July, 2014 takeover of the city of Mosul by Islamic State Sunni fighters that was so heavily reported in the media. Most escaped with just the clothes on their backs. Islamic State Sunni fighters took their homes and gave them a choice: “Renounce your faith, leave or die.”

Many Christians chose to flee for their lives. One 72-year-old man, living in the basement of a Jordanian church, described his situation: “In one moment, I lived in a comfortable home with 1,800 square feet; and now I exist with my entire family in only 180 square feet!” (See the picture of me with him below)

To many, this might have been the very best Christmas these refugees have ever experienced, in spite of their urban plight. Many were forced from their mostly comfortable homes in Iraq.

We supplied Christmas dinner, the Christmas story, Christmas carols, a bag of candy, an entire week’s worth of food for an entire family (called a “Joy Bag”), and prayer the week before Christmas to those needy Christian refugees. Over 300 children and their parents received this humanitarian Christian program the week before Christmas at just one event held at the Orthodox Church. In all, over 1,000 refuge children in Jordan will be reached during the Christmas season.

Bible Society of Jordan participated as well by giving each family an adult Bible, a children’s picture Bible and children’s coloring and activity books with stories from the Old and New Testaments.

Even Santa Claus and Winnie the Pooh visited the new St. Ephrem Orthodox Church in Amman (headed by Priest Emmanuel) to give out bags of candy to the delight of the refugee children.

The United States’ media does not give the entire picture of what is happening in the Middle East. We are experiencing the worst refugee crisis since World War Two. As reported two weeks ago on CBS 60 Minutes, nearly two million Syrian refugees have crossed over into Lebanon and now make up one-fourth of that nation’s entire population. The population of Beirut has doubled just in the last three years!

Refugees with their Joy Bags.

Bill Murray and I had just entered Jordan from a few days in doing the same with Syrian refugees in Lebanon. We traveled extremely close to ISIL, or Islamic State (IS) -controlled enclaves to help develop relief to those who suffer.

I was within a football-field length from ISIL warriors and fighters!! In northeast Lebanon there is a place called “Private Tent City,” as opposed to the United Nations tent cities provided for some refugees. This “private” place charges money and at this one area, serves as a place for IS fighters to “regroup” in the winter months! Obviously, no pictures. No police go in there; no Lebanese army never enters the “private tent city.”

ISIL has kidnapped 26 Lebanese Army soldiers. ISIL has contacted the relatives of these kidnapped soldiers and has threatened them that if they do not blockade the main highway running north and south in Lebanon, their relative will be beheaded! So we had to drive around a couple of blockades. War is hell!

One of my very best friends, Bill Murray, the Christmas for Refugees founder, stressed: “Our main thrust is to assist Christian refugee children and their families. But if Muslim parents’ consent that their children can receive the Christmas message at the dinners, that is a part of the mission given us by the Lord. We doubled the amount of what we did last year at Christmas. We hope to double it again next year!”

Jordan’s Manara Ministries’ Isam Ghattas, our local Jordanian coordinator, urged: “No one can conceive how great the need really is. These refugees are creating a humanitarian crisis.” Our evangelical relief and development agency met many needs. The popular Ghattas was overwhelmed by grateful parents and children. One can tell from the smile on Isam’s face that the years of he constantly helping people is extremely rewarding to him personally. The exact same with Armstrong and Murray.

Most Iraqi refugees in Jordan fled their homeland with almost nothing. In one church basement (a church near Amman; no name mentioned for security reasons), 56 refugees live in 12 – 10’ x 10’ cubicles. Some are being moved to “trailer homes”. Forget the “double-wides,” these supposed “homes” are about one-third of a regular mobile home. Refugees use a different trailer for communal cooking for 20 families. Over 95% of Iraqi Christian refugees cannot get employment.

Most are considered “in transit” to permanent residence in another country that will take refugees. However, for most, that dream will always remain a dream.

We met with some leading pastors of the Assyrian and Chaldean churches, who also participated in the feeding programs. Here was the tragedy: looking into the “pleading” eyes of that Chaldean priest who showed the list of over 800 children he had registered for the meals. Unfortunately, the original budget was for only 100 meals. The priest had to make the tough decisions.

Refugee kids enjoy their Christmas dinner.

It is my prayer that next year, everyone who wants, will be fed and blessed. Fortunately, the program was able to increase the number to 200 children, all newly arrived Iraqi children from Mosul, at that church. We are actively exploring ways to expand this worthy outreach into Iraq itself and even Egypt.

Despite deplorable conditions and an extremely bleak future, the laughter of the children could be heard and the ear-to-ear smiles could be seen at distribution points in Jordan and Lebanon, as they experienced a true “Christmas to remember” especially in a very unfamiliar place.
Grateful refugee parents shed tears of joy at seeing the children being able to have a Christmas time despite the horrid situation they find themselves in currently.

The Christmas program events presented in both Lebanon and Jordan were truly non-denominational. Christmas events were held at evangelical, Orthodox and Catholic churches. The Christmas for Refugee program was accepted by and cooperation received from churches of all faiths in both nations.

In the face of the disgraceful refugee crisis this Christmas there was a positive outcome due to the generosity of many people. Multiplied thousands of refugee families greatly benefited, and were blessed, because of this successful program.

Again, my gratitude to those who made a financial investment into this worthy cause. Most importantly, thank you for your continued prayers for safety. Obviously, I am back home with Kim and Brittany for Christmas. But a part of my heart is with those dear children and parents in the Middle East.

I also want to thank MAOZ Israel for your substantial donation to this cause, where that offering shows that even Messianic Jewish Believers in Israel genuinely care about their fellowman, the Arabs.

I have already committed to next year to be a vital part of this worthy and effective outreach.

P. S. I also met personally with General Georges Sada while in Jordan. He was head of Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Air Force. As a strong Christian, (the only one of over 120 of Saddam’s Cabinet) he later headed the Evangelical Christians in Iraq. He was also my host in Iraq years ago. It was a great reunion. We are exploring ways to reach more Iraqi refugees.