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Turkey Uses the Islamic State as Excuse to Attack Kurds

July 27, 2015/in National Security, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Jihad Watch

Erdogan has been notably reluctant to attack the Islamic State, and when he finally does, he attacks the Kurds. Clearly he hopes that the Islamic State will take care of some of his enemies for him, and then Turkey can step in and reap the dividends.

“Turkey Uses ISIS as Excuse to Attack Kurds,” by Uzay Bulut, Gatestone Institute, July 26, 2015:

Turkey’s government seems to be waging a new war against the Kurds, now struggling to get an internationally recognized political status in Syrian Kurdistan.

On July 24, Turkish media sources reported that Turkish jet fighters bombed Kurdish PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) bases in Qandil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria.

Turkey is evidently unsettled by the rapprochement the PKK seems to be establishing with the U.S. and Europe. Possibly alarmed by the PKK’s victories against ISIS, as well as its strengthening international standing, Ankara, in addition to targeting ISIS positions in Syria, has been bombing the PKK positions in the Qandil mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, where the PKK headquarters are located.

There is no ISIS in Qandil.

As expected, many Turkish media outlets were more enthusiastic about the Turkish air force’s bombing the Kurdish militia than about bombing ISIS. “The camps of the PKK,” they excitedly reported, “have been covered with fire.”

It appears as if Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is using ISIS as a pretext to attack the PKK. Ankara just announced that its air base at Incirlik will soon be open to coalition forces, presumably to fight ISIS, but the moment Turkey started bombing, it targeted Kurdish positions. Those attacks not only open a new era of death and destruction, but also bring an end to all possibilities of resolving Turkey’s Kurdish issue non-violently.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced that

“a second wave operation against Daesh [ISIS] in Syria was started. Just after that, a very comprehensive operation was carried out against the camps of the terrorist organization PKK in northern Iraq. I am glad that the targets were hit with great success. We have given instructions to start a third wave operation in Syria and a second wave operation in Iraq.”

The “great success” of the Turkish military has brought much damage and injury to even Kurdish civilians — including children. The Kurdish newspaper Rudaw reportedthat two Kurdish villagers in Duhok’s Berwari region were carried to hospital in the aftermath of a Turkish artillery bombardment in the Amediye region. One of the victims was 12 years old. The second victim lost a leg in an airstrike. Four members of the PKK were killed and several others were injured.

Shortly after military operations against the PKK started, access to the websites of pro-Kurdish newspapers and news agencies was denied “by decree of court.” These websites — including Fırat News Agency (ANF), Dicle News Agency (DIHA), Hawar News Agency (ANHA), Ozgur Gundem newspaper, Yuksekova News, Rudaw and BasNews — are still blocked in Turkey.

ISIS, meanwhile, has not so far made any statement regarding Turkey’s so-called bombings of ISIS in any of its media outlets.

Had Turkish military attacked the PKK alone, and not in addition to attacking ISIS, it would probably have received widespread international condemnation. So to add “legitimacy” to its attacks against the Kurdish PKK — whose affiliate Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria and its armed wing, the Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) have been resisting ISIS and other Islamist terrorist groups since 2013 — Turkey declared that it will also attack ISIS. This would give it cover for its attacks against Kurdish fighters.

In 2014, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the plan he wanted to carry out in Syria and Iraq: “The problem in Syria should be taken into account. Iraq too should be considered similarly. Moreover, there needs to be a solution that will also deal with the Syrian wing [PYD] of the separatist terrorist organization [PKK].”

The AKP government, dissatisfied with the results of last month’s parliamentary elections, also seems to want to hold new elections, to push the mainly Kurdish HDP Party below the required 10% threshold, and thus force them out of parliament. Perhaps the government thinks that bombing the PKK will generate Turkish nationalist enthusiasm that will work in the AKP’s favor to help it regain a majority in early elections.

Apparently, Turkey does not need Kurdish deputies in its parliament. Apparently, the state prefers to slaughter or arrest the Kurds — as it has done for decades. Why hold talks and reach a democratic resolution when you have the power to murder people wholesale?[1]

Sadly, Turkey has preferred not to form a “Turkish-Kurdish alliance” to destroy ISIS. First, Turkey has opened its borders to ISIS, enabling the growth of the terrorist group. And now, at the first opportunity, it is bombing the Kurds again. According to this strategy, “peace” will be possible only when Kurds submit to Turkish supremacism and abandon their goal of being an equal nation.

In the meantime, Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkish minister of foreign affairs, said that the Incirlik air base in Turkey has not yet been opened for use by the U.S. and other coalition forces, but that it will be opened in the upcoming period.

Kurdish forces, therefore, are the only forces that are truly resisting the Islamic State.

They have been repressed by Baghdad and murdered by Turkey and Iran.

If this is how the states that rule over Kurds treat them, why is there even any question as to whether the Kurds should have their own self-government?

As a result of the ISIS attacks in the region, the Kurdish PKK — as well as its Syrian Kurdish affiliate, Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) — have emerged as the America’s most effective battlefield partners against ISIS. Ever since ISIS became a major force in Syria, the U.S. has apparently relied heavily on YPG to stop ISIS from advancing. According to Henri Barkey, a former State Department specialist on Turkey, “The U.S. has become the YPG’s air force and the YPG has become the U.S.’s ground force in Syria.”

[ … ]

Attacks on the Kurds were already under way last week. On July 20, a bomb attack in the Kurdish town of Suruc (Pirsus) in Turkey killed 32 people during a meeting of young humanitarian activists, who were discussing the reconstruction of the neighboring Kurdish town of Kobane.

The scene of the suicide bombing in Suruc, Turkey. An ISIS suicide bomber murdered 32 people and wounded more than 100 others in a July 20 attack on Kurdish humanitarian activists. (Image source: VOA video screenshot)

The blast took place while the activists were making a statement to the press in the garden of a cultural center. At least 100 others, mostly university students, were wounded. (Graphic video of the explosion)

The suicide bomber was identified through DNA testing, according to reports in the Turkish news media. Seyh Abdurrahman Alagoz was reportedly a 20-year-old Turkish university student, recently returned from Syria, and believed to have had ties to ISIS.

Alagoz targeted a meeting 300 secular activists, members of the Federation of Socialist Youth Associations (SGDF), who gathered at a cultural center in the province of Urfa, opposite the Kurdish town of Kobane in Syrian Kurdistan. As part of an effort to rebuild Kobane, they were preparing to provide aid, give toys to the children there and build a hospital, school, nursery, children’s park, library and a memorial forest for those who had lost their lives in Kobane.

“Work on the building of hospitals and schools needs to be done,” Oguz Yuzgec, the co-president of the federation, said before the explosion. “One of the things we will do is to build a children’s park in Kobane. We will name it after Emre Aslan, who died fighting in Kobane. We are collecting toys. We will participate in the construction of the nursery that the canton of Kobane is planning to build. We have the responsibility of helping the nursery function. We need everybody who knows how to draw and can teach children.”

Mazlum Demirtas, a survivor of the attack, said: “The main one responsible for this incident is the state of Turkey, the AKP fascism, the AKP dictatorship. … It attacked us with its gunmen and gangs. Since yesterday, parents have been collecting the dismembered body parts of their children. They are trying to identify the dismembered bodies. This is called fascism, inhumanity and barbarity.”

Pinar Gayip, another survivor of the attack, said in a telephone interview on the pro-government Haberturk TV that, “Instead of helping the wounded, the murderer-police of the murderer-AKP threw tear gas at the vehicles with which we carried the wounded.” She was taken off the air.

All across Turkish Kurdistan, there were protests condemning the massacre and the government’s alleged involvement in it. Police in Istanbul used plastic bullets and water cannons against people who gathered to remember those murdered in Suruc.

The Turkish authorities briefly blocked access to Twitter last Wednesday to prevent the people from viewing photos of the bombing in Suruc. Officials admitted that Turkey had asked Twitter to remove 107 URLs (web addresses) with images related to the bombing; before the ban, Twitter had already removed 50.

Selahattin Demirtas, the co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Party (HDP), said that state surveillance activities were intensive in Suruc, and that the intelligence service was recording the identity of everyone traveling to and from Suruc.

As Demirtas’s own convoy had recently not been permitted to enter Suruc, heemphasized the extent of state surveillance in the town, and said that nobody could argue that someone could have managed to infiltrate the crowd and carry out the suicide attack without state support.

“Today, we have witnessed in Suruc yet again what an army of barbarity and rape, an army that has lost human dignity, can do,” Demirtas said. “Those who have been silent in the face of ISIS, who have not dared even raise their voice to it, as well as the officials in Ankara who threaten even the HDP every day but caress the head of ISIS, are the accomplices of this barbarity.”

In the meantime, Mehmet Gormez, the head of the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), announced on its Twitter account that the perpetrators of the Suruc attack do not have religion.

However, three days before the massacre in Suruc, about 100 Islamists — alleged to be ISIS sympathizers — had performed mass Islamic Eid prayers in Istanbul. They demanded Islamic sharia law instead of democracy. ISIS sympathizers had performed the same Eid prayers at the same place the year before, as well.

Over the border in Syrian Kurdistan, shortly after the blast in Suruc, a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb at a checkpoint in Kobane. Two Kurdish fighters were killed in the explosion, according to Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Last month, a deadly blast hit the Kurdish province of Diyarbakir in Turkey, during an election rally of the pro-Kurdish HDP that was attended by tens of thousands of people. Just before the HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtas was going to speak, two bombsexploded at different places. Four people were killed, and more than 100 people are estimated to have been wounded. One of the wounded, Lisa Calan, 28, a Kurdish art director from Diyarbakir, lost both legs in the explosion.

As the wounded were being carried to hospitals, police used tear gas against people trying to run from the area in panic

The bomber was reported to be a member of ISIS.

[ … ]

In Turkey, millions of indigenous Kurds are continually terrorized and murdered, while ISIS terrorists can freely travel and use official border crossings to go to Syria and return to Turkey; they are even treated at Turkish hospitals. Emrah Cakan, for instance, a Turkish-born ISIS commander wounded in Syria, got medical treatment at the university hospital in Turkey’s Denizli province in March.

The Denizli governor’s office issued a written statement on 5 March:

“The treatment of Emrah C. at the Denizli hospital was started upon his own application. The procedural acts concerning his injury were conducted by our border city during his entry to our country and they still continue. And his treatment procedures continue as a part of his right to benefit from health services just like all our other citizens have.”

The “compassion” and hospitality that many Turkish institutions have for ISIS members is not even hidden. The silence of the West is mystifying and disappointing.

The U.S. government cooperates with oppressive regimes — including the terrorist regime of Iran, under which Kurds are forced to live — to the detriment of the Kurds, to the detriment other persecuted peoples, and to the detriment of the future of the West.

Many Middle Eastern regimes are ruled by Islamist, often genocidal governments — so there is not much to expect from them in terms of human rights and liberties.

The Kurds need real support, real arms and real recognition. Otherwise, there does not seem to be much difference between the dictatorial, genocidal Middle Eastern regimes and the West, which used to represent democracy and freedom.

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Bishop Mark Arndt: A Rare Example of a Christian Hierarch Speaking the Truth about Islam

July 26, 2015/in Culture War, National Security, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Jihad Watch

Islam is at its core anti-human… Reading the Quran, you will see that all of this [extremism] lies at the foundation of Islam. One must look truth in the eye: this is all anti-human, it is directed against humanity… Yes, there were times when Muslims tried to live in peace with their neighbors, they even acknowledged that we Christians are people, too. But for many, those times have passed, and now they reveal who they really are.

— Archbishop Mark (Arndt) of Berlin (Full interview below.)

Regular readers of Jihad Watch are likely familiar with the refusal of Roman Catholic bishops to address the global issue of Muslim persecution of Christians and Jews (and other non-Muslims) and its grounding in the Quran and the example of Muhammad. The prime example may be that of Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester Mass., whose infamous quote reads more like a parody from the Onion every day:

Talk about extreme, militant Islamists and the atrocities that they have perpetrated globally might undercut the positive achievements that we Catholics have attained in our inter-religious dialogue with devout Muslims.

Pope Francis of course leads this disturbing trend, his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudiumincluding the emphatic affirmation that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.”

It seems many Muslims have failed to read that particular epistle.

Sadly, things are not much different in the Orthodox Church. The world’s second largest Christian communion, comprising between 225 and 300 million members (source), retains a dwindling remnant in the Middle East, the “cradle of Christianity,” and is one of the main bodies suffering most from the resurgent global jihad.

Perhaps because of this suffering Levantine presence, there exists in world Orthodoxy what I would call a “latent dhimmitude.”

Globally, Orthodox Christian leaders, from priests, professors and theologians to bishops and patriarchs (bishops over a national Church, such as Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia), almost to a man shy away from ever openly ascribing the motivation behind Muslim terrorism and persecution of Christians to Islam, and instead offer unconvincing, pious platitudes, such as from Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who has written of a “dialogue of loving truth” with Islam, of Orthodoxy having for centuries “coexisted peacefully” with Islam, and of an “interfaith commitment… still felt and lived by Greeks [and] Turks.” ( Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew,Encountering the Mystery, Doubleday, 2008, pp xxxvii, 196, 174.)

Yet he writes this in spite of fourteen centuries of Islamic jihad against Christians, the enslavement of the Greek Orthodox after the conquering of Constantinople in 1453, and the blood-stained parade of neo-martyrs from the 15th to 19th centuries (including dozens of Ecumenical Patriarchs); in spite of the Turkish Muslim genocide against Orthodox Christians from 1894 to 1922, in which over 4 million Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians and others were killed; in spite of the Turkish Muslim pogroms against the Greek Orthodox (e.g., Istanbul, 1955) up through the present day, which includes the conversion of the great Hagia Sophia Church of Constantinople into a mosque, together with numerous other ‘Hagia Sophia’ churches throughout Turkey.

Here’s another whopper:

“Christians and Muslims are two lungs of one Eastern body,” the Greek Orthodox Patriarch said, “and we condemn anything that harms the reputation of the forgiving Islamic religion, with which we have experienced the peace and fraternity.” (Daily Star)

I am not familiar with any “forgiving Islamic religion.” I am familiar with the supremacist and militant Islamic religion, whose holy book and prophet have set forth commands which determine its reputation:

Fight against those who believe not in Allah… (Quran 9:29)

Kill the mushrikun [unbelievers] wherever you find them… (Quran 9:5)

I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks, and smite over all their fingers and toes. (Quran 8:12)

“I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah…” (Hadith from Sahih Bukhari, cited inReliance of the Traveller, Entry on Jihad, o9.0, o9.1, o9.8, o9.9.)

Here is an especially scandalous statement from a few decades ago:

“The Prophet Muhammad is an apostle, He is a man of God, who worked for the Kingdom of God… When I speak against Islam, then I am not found in agreement with God.” — Patriarch Parthenius of Alexandria (Orthodoxos Typos 854, May 1982)

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Patriarchs and bishops who seek to cover over the anti-human bloodlust inherent in Islam do not help, they merely confuse, frustrate and demoralize the faithful, who see for themselves what Islam is all about. The faithful need clear Christian teaching and inspiring examples of confessors and martyrs, to help them stand firm in their own trials, when the challenge comes to their doors.

This is why it is essential to extol those rare Christian hierarchs, like Bishop Mark of Berlin, who choose to ignore the politically correct climate of the day, and instead pattern their statements after fearless Church teachers of every age, such as Sophronius of Jerusalem (7th c.), John of Damascus (8th c.), Gregory Palamas, (14th c.), Kosmas of Aitolia (18th c.), Fr. Seraphim Rose (20th c.), and New-Martyr Fr. Daniil Sysoev (21st c.).

The below article, which I originally posted a year ago, is worth revisiting in the hopes that other Christian leaders — whether Catholic, Coptic, Protestant or Orthodox — will take courage and find again that authentic Christian voice in this titanic struggle against the temporal and spiritual tyranny of Islamic jihad.

Interview with Archbishop Mark (Arndt), Pravmir, July 31, 2014

Q – How should Christians react to the terrible epidemic of the genocide of our brothers and sisters in Christ in Syria, Metochia, Kosovo and Serbia? Is this active Islamization or the actions of radical extremists, bandits who only assume the mantle of Islam? His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, during a Liturgy in Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow read to his Russian flock the epistle of the Antiochian Patriarch, in which he painfully called to the whole world for help, stressing that the situation is at such a horrifying stage that help is needed not only through prayers to God, but in action. But in Christian society the reigning opinion is that we can help exclusively by prayer.

A – I reject the expression “help exclusively by prayer.” That we Christians are only capable of prayer is a false notion. Of course, prayer is our foundation and greatest strength. But if we think that all we can do is pray, we will go astray. Yes, we must pray, but we must also understand that people are often forced by circumstances to soften one’s language. If the Antiochian Patriarch says this, he bases it on the experience of his own nation, where Christians and Muslims always lived in peace. I think that it is incorrect to say that there are only extremists at work there.

Reading the Quran, you will see that all of this lies at the foundation of Islam. Extremism exists, of course. Other Eastern hierarchs openly state that they have known about this particular aspect of Islam all their lives. I often serve in Jerusalem. There, for instance, on the feast of the Holy Trinity, right next to the church a muezzin cries from his tower that they believe in the One God Who has no children, no Son and Holy Spirit, etc. He has no compunction to do so, though these people are not really extremists. What is this? Open, unabashed propaganda against Christianity! They know full well what they do, spewing these slogans during the main Christian holiday of the Pentecost, the celebration of the birth of the Church Herself.

Islam is at its core anti-human. Look at Ramadan—this is the mortification of the human being, of the human body. I saw how people were taken to hospitals during their observance of Ramadan. All day they eat nothing, drink nothing even during baking heat, and at night the cram there stomachs to the point of losing consciousness—it is madness! One must look truth in the eye: this is all anti-human, it is directed against humanity.

Yes, there were times when Muslims tried to live in peace with their neighbors, they even acknowledged that we Christians are people, too. But for many, those times have passed, andnow they reveal who they really are.

Q – In other words, when some say that what is happening in Syria and other fundamentally Christian nations, it is only political, not a religious war against Christianity, it is untrue? Regardless, can we say that the Christians who are murdered for their faith today are martyrs.

A – There is an intentional war being waged against Christians. Kosovo was the first in the list of such genocide from Christian territory. Then Chechnya. Understand what happened, a Christian nation was simply given away to the Muslims. The destruction of churches continues, tortures, wild fanaticism, murder. Kosovo, Chechnya, Syria, Egypt…

Q – The next goal for these people, whether they are extremists or not, is to declare Russia Muslim. What are we to do, strengthen our prayers?

A – The most important thing is to be real Christians. This means constant participation in the Mysteries of the Church. If the Lord grants someone the crown of martyrdom, it means the person earned it and must accept it with dignity.

EDITORS NOTE: Ralph Sidway is an Orthodox Christian researcher and writer, and author of Facing Islam: What the Ancient Church has to say about the Religion of Muhammad. He operates the Facing Islam blog.

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Florida: Stop Iran Nuke Deal Rally in Fort Lauderdale Highlights

July 25, 2015/in National Security, Politics, Video/by Defend The Border

As we conclude our penultimate week we bring you the highlights of our Stop Iran Rally in Fort Lauderdale, FL and direct from Israel, Michael Ganoe, founder of Face Book – Insight to Israel and Hershey’s for Heroes.

Our Rally has some powerful moments and in Israel, Michael is a Christian who worked for many years in politics in Washington, D.C. but followed God’s call and packed up, moved to Israel, with NOTHING, and for the past few years has been an Ambassador of Good Will all over the great country of Israel.

Please follow Michael’s amazing work with the soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces and support his work with a monthly donation that you can make on his Face Book page.

Et Tu, Schu?

July 25, 2015/in Featured, National Security, Policy, Politics/by Joan Swirsky

“Schumer is not a Shomer” were the words emblazoned on dozens of placards that were held by some of the 12,000 people who flooded Times Square last week to protest the “Death to America/Death to Israel” deal that Barack Obama and his cronies made on July 14th with––to this day, to this hour––a palpably belligerent, anti-Western, anti-Semitic Iran.

The placards––and the demonstration in front of the senator’s New York City office the next day––were to implore him to stop evading the subject with mealy-mouthed language (“I’ll go through the agreement with a fine-tooth comb”) and to reject the deal outright, vote against it in Congress, and convince at least 13 of his colleagues on the left to vote against the horrific deal. Congress is now reviewing the deal and will vote on September 17, in less than 50 days.

In short, to block the Iran deal, 67 Senators need to vote against it; 59 Senators are already committed to doing just that; and 14 are undecided, Sen. Schumer among them.

New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) said that, “We have listened to Senator Schumer for years and how he takes every opportunity to explain the origin of his name Schumer and what it means for him to be a proud “Shomer”––which in Hebrew means protector. Now is the time to live up to your claim and put your words into action.”

Last week, The New York Post asked Sen. Schumer 10 key questions about Iran––including if he had any input into the agreement, what he thought of its 24-day advance notice for inspections, and whether the deal raises new concerns for Israel––none of which he has answered to this day!

To Schumer’s lame statement that he is “studying the issue,” the Post responded: “Studying the issue? Please. There’s nothing to study: Just nix the deal, Chuck….Schumer doesn’t need to `study’ the deal. He needs to study his conscience.”

Personally, I can hardly remember a Sunday-night news broadcast since Schumer was elected to the Senate in 1998 when he wasn’t in front of the camera proposing actions to keep his uber-left constituents happy.

He was Chuckie-on-the-spot when it appeared that Adidas might outsource production overseas, in a plant where Schumer said 100 workers were at risk. But for the past three years, as the ayatollahs have menacingly threatened to annihilate Israel, deadly silence from Schumer. One-hundred potential injuries more important than over-six-million deaths!

He was an early and enthusiastic backer of the national disaster known as Obamacare, and is a reliable opponent of guns, an advocate of open borders, and a full-throated supporter of abortion.

When the Planned Parenthood medical ghouls came out last week to reveal their sale of infant body parts (and the exquisite care taken to “crush” the fetus in strategic places, the better to preserve those parts), deadly silence from Schumer. I guess the 1.2-million fetuses destroyed each year in the U.S. are, in Schumer’s mind, equal to over-six-million expendable Israelis, not even worthy of mention.

But I digress. This article is not to discuss the, ahem, value systems of leftists.

CLAMMING UP

In June 2008––five months before Barack Obama began to occupy the White House––Senator Schumer wrote an op-ed in The Wall St. Journal, stating that cooperative economic sanctions from the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China could topple Iran’s theocratic government.

Clearly, the passage of time and his current position have changed his tune. Today, Schumer is the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, behind Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin. But Schumer has his eyes on a bigger prize, to replace Harry Reid in 2017.

So there you have it. Schumer’s dilemma is clear––to be a loyal lackey to Barack Obama, the better not to lose his potential position of power, or to be the New York Jewish Senator he was in the past, a vocal and impassioned supporter of Israel.

For a full three years, Senator Schumer has known about every facet of the deal being made by the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) P(for permanent members)5+1 group (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France, plus Germany).

Schumer knew that when Obama said that the final deal would only lift nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, it was a lie–– but he said nothing.
Schumer knew that when Obama said “U.S. sanctions on Iran for terrorism, human rights abuses, and ballistic missiles will remain in place under the deal,” it was a lie––but he said nothing.
Schumer knew that the promise to maintain sanctions on ballistic missile development was a lie–––but he said nothing.
Schumer knew that when Obama said the deal would make it nearly impossible for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, police, intelligence services and paramilitary groups to do business, it was a lie—but he said nothing.
Schumer knew that Obama and Co. were keeping two key parts of the deal secret. As spelled out by blogger Jeff Dunetz, the two covert deals would be kept away from other nations from Congress, and from the American people. They include: (1) the inspection of the Parchin military complex and other Iranian military sites which are off-limits to nuclear inspectors under the agreement, sites long suspected of harboring both long-range ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, and (2) and Iran’s failure to disclose its past nuclear-related military and procurement activities. As the national president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton A. Klein, called the deal disturbing. “The U.S. and other powers having caved on every substantive issue which we were once assured would be included in the eventual agreement, like dismantling centrifuges, shuttering certain nuclear facilities, free and unfettered inspections, disclosure of past nuclear-related military and procurements activities, maintaining non-nuclear sanctions, and so on…” Yep––he said nothing.
Schumer knew that the deal gave Iran 24 days to allow any inspections of their nuclear facilities, more than ample time to clean them up––but he said nothing.
Schumer knew that Barack Obama, in order to bypass both the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Constitution he loathes, would send the agreement straight to that repository of socialists, communists, tin pot dictators, and anti-Semites on First Avenue, the United Nations, in order to make their approval “binding” upon all U.N. members, including the United States––but he said nothing.
Schumer knew that as a “signing bonus,” Iran–– already the world’s leading state sponsor of Islamic terrorism, which has violated 20 international treaties––is to receive $150-billion dollars in sanctions relief, with which no one doubts they will continue financing terrorist groups like ISIS and Hamas and Hezbollah, destabilizing Sunni Arab regimes, and calling incessantly for the death of all Jews, the annihilation of Israel, and the utter destruction of America––but he said nothing.
Most egregious, Schumer knew the most malevolent part of the deal, article 10, which promises to protect the Iran nuclear program from sabotage and attack, removing the last option Israel has to protect herself. The U.S. actually promised to intervene against Israel on Iran’s behalf! And Senator Schumer said nothing! Sec. of State John Kerry, the architect of this anti-American deal (surprise, surprise!) conceding to the Senate the other day that the US would defend Iran’s nuclear program from Israeli sabotage––but Schumer said nothing.

Silence, deafening silence, thundering silence, craven silence, immoral silence––week after week after month after month after year after year after year! Such is the picture of the abject lust for power, so overpowering that it eclipses even a vestige of the character and moral fiber that once existed.

A TIME OF RECKONING

Now is the time of reckoning, writes Jonathan S. Tobin in Commentary magazine online. “For once, Schumer must choose. It is one thing for those whose support for Israel has always been secondary to their left-wing ideology or pro-Obama partisanship (such as the J Street lobby or the National Jewish Democratic Council) to endorse this brazen act of appeasement. For Schumer, a man who has staked his career on being the shomer (guardian) of Israel’s security in Congress, it would be a stunning betrayal that he would never live down.”

Tobin then poses an ominous warning: “Even if [Schumer] chooses to vote in favor of a resolution that seeks to nullify the pact, he may also work behind the scenes to ensure that at least 34 Democrats back the president so as to ensure that an Obama veto won’t be overridden.”

Is there any doubt that Schumer––silent for three long years on this doomsday deal–is more than capable of this kind of treachery?

Rabbi Aryeh Spero, known as “America’s Rabbi,” is the author of Push Back and Why Israel Matters to You” and serves as the president of Caucus for America. Like Tobin, he questions Schumer’s seeming paralysis.

The Iran deal, he says, “is Plan A for the ultimate annihilation of Israel, annihilation through active offense and by making Israel’s defense impossible. To Iran, Mr. Obama has made the most earth-shattering compromises in the annals of history. Even Chamberlain did not provide Hitlerwith a $150 billion to arm–up.

“This whole deal would go nowhere, be dead on arrival, if the most powerful Democrat right now in the Senate would announce it as DOA,” Rabbi Spero continues. “That man is Sen. Chuck Schumer. Where is he? No one knows what he will do. Why should we be guessing? He should be out there, at this moment, saying No to this accord. Why should the Israelis have to live another moment in fear and anxiety? Where is his compassion? Schumer should stifle the accord now!”

My friend Howard Bockner from Canada echoes the rabbi’s sentiments. “The US and Europe are now in bed with Iran. Israel––like the Jews in pre-war Europe––is expendable. And if Israel is made expendable you can be sure that Jews in the Diaspora will be next. That has been Obama’s Plan A all along––installing the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt to cancel the Israel-Egypt Treaty, which failed. So he doubled down on Plan B––knocking out Israel’s nuclear hegemony in the Middle East. He is also guaranteeing U.S. help to Iran against any sabotage of its nuclear facilities, i.e., putting Israel into a straight jacket.

“However, this has not all played out,” Bockner adds. “Saudi Arabia and Egypt, now two allies of Israel, will shortly get the bomb courtesy of the Russians (who don’t care who they sell to). Turkey, Algeria, and others will also be lining up for nukes, and the possibility of these weapons falling into the hands of non-state players will increase. Therefore, the likelihood of a nuclear disaster is now much closer.”

Plan A, indeed. There is no measuring the lengths and depths Obama will go to when it comes to defending his indefensible deal. According to Lee Smith at Tablet magazine, “Obama is using a dog-whistle. He’s hinting broadly at anti-Semitic conceits—like dual loyalties, moneyed interests, Jewish lobby—to scare off Democrats tempted to vote against the [deal] because they think it’s a bad deal. If they do come out against the agreement—if they line up, for instance, with the new organization AIPAC formed, Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran—to warn the public “about the dangers of the proposed Iran deal,” then he’s going to tar them as dual loyalists who are willing to send Americans out to make war on behalf of Jewish causes.

According to writer Michael Ledeen, it is the mullahs who did not sign the deal in Vienna. “They don’t want to make a deal with the Great American Satan, even though they do want the American concessions, above all the huge sums of money we’ve promised them. Now comes Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei…talking as if the agreement itself is in question.”

Imagine that…Khamenei rejects the deal, but Schumer has to “go through the agreement with a fine-tooth comb”!

You’d think that just as a practical matter, Schumer’s choice would be easy. As Ari Lieberman writes in Front Page magazine, “Schumer will be around long after Obama is gone and will have to deal with the mess that will inevitably occur when Iran cheats—and let’s be clear, Iran will cheat. From building secretive underground centrifuge facilities at Fordow to illicit procurement activities in Germany, the Islamic Republic’s history is replete with a record of cheating and fabrication.”

Military historian Victor Davis Hanson warns of the perils of appeasement, be they to countries, an Iran-obsessed resident of the White House and his trusty lapdogs, or a squishy senator.

“While members of the Obama administration are high-fiving each other over a deal with the Iranian theocracy, they should remember unchanging laws that will surely haunt the U.S. later on.

“First, appeasement always brings short-term jubilation at the expense of long-term security. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was a beloved peacemaker after the Munich Agreement of 1938 with Adolf Hitler but derided as a conceited fool and naif by May 1940.
“Second, the appeasement of autocrats always pulls the rug out from under domestic reformers and idealists. After the Western capitulation at Munich, no dissenter in Germany dared to question the ascendant dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.
“Third, appeasers always wrongly insist that the only alternative to their foolish concessions is war. Just the opposite is true.
“Fourth, beneficiaries grow to hate their appeasers. We should remember that Hitler called his Munich appeasers 1worms’ and pushed them even further.
“Fifth, allies are always the big losers in appeasement. Britain and France ensured the destruction of third-party Czechoslovakia by conceding to Hitler’s demands in 1938 — and doomed Poland in 1939.

“In 2015, we naively hail peace with honor, but by 2020, sadder and wiser, we will lament war and shame.”

WHAT TO DO?

A lawsuit by Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch seeks to block Barack Obama’s perfidious treaty with Iran from being unconstitutionally ratified. The lawsuit names U.S. Senators Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson and Congressman Patrick Murphy, who all voted for the bill, and Obama who signed it into law. These representatives acted in disregard of their obligations to uphold the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida is posted at www.FreedomWatchUSA.org. The U.S. Constitution empowers a president to make a treaty only if two-thirds of the U.S. Senate votes to ratify it. A president is delegated no other power in the Constitution to make any other form of international agreement. The agreement, Klayman says, will existentially endanger not only Israel but Europe and the United States.

In addition to the Times Square rally and protest in front of Sen. Schumer’s office, a groundswell of concerned citizens is flooding the White House, urging their elected representatives to vote AGAINST the Iran Nuclear Accord.

Here is the Capitol Hill Switchboard number is: 1-202-224-3121

Here is how to reach Senator Schumer’s office: 1-202-224-6542

Here’s how to reach Congressman Steve Israel: 1-201-225-3335

Suggestion: add the above two numbers to your smartphone and make it a point to call them every day until the vote. Takes two minutes!

Call your local Congressperson: www.ContactingTheCongress.org
Contact your Senators and Representatives: U.S. Senate: Senators of the 114th Congress
Contact your Representatives here: U.S. House of Representatives Directory

Join the following organizations, which have been at the forefront of defending Israel and holding Schumer’s feet to the fire:

I didn’t mention Senator Kirsten Gillibrand because, as the NY Post says, she is simply Schumer’s “hapless little poodle.”

Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld, a finance expert in NY City who organized and emceed the Times Square rally, said that he recently saw a picture of the gone-missing Gillibrand on the a milk carton. He exhorted the crowd to put pressure on Schumer to nix the Iran deal. “Chuck, this is your moment! This is your time to make the decision…or we will throw you the hell out of office!”

I also didn’t mention Hillary Clinton, who could not find it within her the other day to counter an anti-Semitic question with a defense of Israel. Except for her first run for the Senate in 2009, when she pandered shamelessly for Jewish votes, she has never been a friend of Jews or Israel, the latest proof being that she endorsed the genocidal Iran deal.

She is like Obama, who has been known to say “I’ve got Israel’s back.” How true. Both of them have put a big fat target on Israel’s back, this one earmarked for nuclear war heads!

Would Muhammad Have Been a Good Rotarian?

July 25, 2015/in Commentary, National Security, Politics, Religion/by Roy White

The Four-Way Test is a nonpartisan and nonsectarian ethical guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships. The test has been translated into more than 100 languages, and Rotarians recite it at club meetings:

“Of the things we think, say or do”

Is it the TRUTH?
Is it FAIR to all concerned?
Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

In the 1988 Hamas Covenant Article 17, 22, 28, Rotary Clubs are singled out along with Lions and Freemasons clubs as mere puppets of the Zionists who are running American media, wealth institutions and the source of all evils placed upon Muslims.

This portion of Article 17, entitled the “Role of Women” tells Muslim women in particular to be wary of joining Rotary Clubs;

The Moslem woman has a role no less important than that of the moslem man in the battle of liberation….they consider that if they are able to direct and bring her up the way they wish, far from Islam, they would have won the battle. That is why you find them giving these attempts constant attention through… lackeys who are infiltrated through Zionist organizations under various names and shapes, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, espionage groups and others, which are all nothing more than cells of subversion and saboteurs…these organizations operate in the absence of Islam and its estrangement among its people. The day Islam is in control of guiding the affairs of life, these organizations, hostile to humanity and Islam, will be obliterated.

In order to be a “true” Muslim, one must repeat the Shahada that says “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.” This simple phrase said by all Muslims (five times a day, every day) means that to be a true Muslim one must behave as Muhammad to include his treatment of Muslims and Kafirs, i.e. non-Muslim Rotarians.

Applying the Four-Way Test, how does a “true” Muslim Rotarian answer these questions?

Is it the truth?

A Kafir Rotarian and “secular Muslim Rotarian” would answer yes, unequivocally.

A true Muslim would say, “it depends”. Why?

There are 99 terms to describe Allah. One of those comes from the Quran Sura 3:54 where it says in part, “for Allah is the best of deceivers.”

Thus, the Quran unashamedly calls Muhammad’s god the best liar and deceiver of them all! It even dares to say that ALL deception belongs completely to Allah:

And verily, those before them did deceive/scheme (makara), but all deception/scheming is Allah’s (falillahi al-makru). He knows what every person earns, and the disbelievers will know who gets the good end. Quran Sura. 13:42

Muhammad promoted the concept of “taqiyya”, which under Islamic ideology allows for deception or outright lying. Any statement, which if the truth were told would harm Islam, can become a “lie” in order to do no harm to “Islam”. Sahih al-Muslim (one of the most respected sources by a consensus of past and current Islamic scholars) where Muhammad is granting his approval to have a critic, like the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, killed even if lying is required:

“Allah’s Apostle said, “Who is willing to kill Ka’b bin Al-Ashraf who has hurt Allah and His Apostle?” Thereupon Muhammad bin Maslama got up saying, “O Allah’s Apostle! Would you like that I kill him?” The Prophet said, “Yes,” Muhammad bin Maslama said, “Then allow me to say a (false) thing (i.e. to deceive Kab). “The Prophet said, “You may say it.”

It is these “stories” or “hadith” that are taken as examples of behavior other Muslims should emulate,. http://www.alim.org/library/hadith/SHB/369/5

Is it Fair to all concerned?

The west Judeo-Christian heritage has as one of its underlying tenets the “Golden Rule”. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This concept is absent in the Islam that Muhammad preached. The Quran says 91 times to follow the example of the best Muslim who has ever lived and if he didn’t practice this, Muslims are not to practice it either.

Islam has no place for “fairness”. Islam translates to “submission”. The relationship is a “master/slave” relationship as described by Muhammad and Muslim scholars.

A “master” does whatever he wishes with no regard to the “slave” and in Islam/the Quran the same applies to any follower of Allah. Nothing the Muslim can say, do or believe in their heart can garner any since of fairness in how they are chosen on who goes to Paradise, except through Jihad martyrdom. Good deeds outweighing bad deeds is the goal for non-martyrs but even that is no guarantee as Allah determines what is “fair”.

Additionally, men are subservient to Allah, women are subservient to men, and non-Muslims are subservient to Muslims, hardly fair to all concerned.

Under Shariah law, sanctioned by the Islamic scripture, a non-Muslim is never to be put in a superior position over a Muslim.

Rotarians would never support promoting a more qualified individual into a position solely based upon their religious beliefs. Does that occur in the west where Shariah law is not applied? No.

The West has laws against that. But in countries where Shariah law is applied, such discrimination occurs and is sanctioned by Islam. So once again a truly “good” Muslim could never agree in principle to the second statement in the Four Way Test.

Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?

For an orthodox Muslim the Quran Sura 3:28 determines his response to this statement:

Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whoso doeth that hath no connection with Allah unless (it be) that ye but guard yourselves against them, taking (as it were) security. Allah biddeth you beware (only) of Himself. Unto Allah is the journeying. S. 3:28

Orthodox Muslims are directed by Muhammad to not befriend Christians, Jews and unbelievers. Based upon what has been laid out by Muhammad in the Quran (not some talking head or another Muslim), any Muslim Rotarian who is treating a Kafir Rotarian nicely and with respect is either (1) a “secular Muslim” and not being a “good” Muslim as defined by Muhammad or (2) is practicing deceit and taqiyya. Fortunately most Rotary Muslims fall into the former category versus the latter. The greatest abuser of Muslims are other Muslims and to speak out against the tyranny found in Islam against women, children and non-Muslims as well as Muslims who don’t follow the “true path”, Shariah law, comes at such a cost that most Muslims are silenced out of fear.

The question remains are those “good Rotary” Muslims then practicing some other form of Islam, “moderate” for example, that allows them to pick and choose those Suras that are found in the Quran as well as other tenets of orthodox Islam? Pure Islamic ideology has no room for that variance (see below).

Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

Treaties, constitutions and other formal agreements would be examples of how two parties settle a dispute and are “beneficial to all concerned”. Do we have examples of Muhammad signing agreements or treaties with others? How did he treat those agreements?

The first type of “agreement” that Muhammad promoted as “fair to all concern” was the concept of the “dhimmi” contract. In Arabic, dhimmi means “protection”. It was during Islam’s history and is today the legal and social rules Christians or Jews who live under Muslim control must operate under.

They are “allowed” by agreement to practice their religion under very strict guidelines; no repairing of non-Muslim religious shrines without approval, they must walk on the other side of the street if approached by a Muslim, they must provide housing to a Muslim who is traveling and most pay a “jizya” tax per person in the family to the local community for the privilege of living in the Islamic community.

This was practiced during Muhammad’s day and is practiced still today where Muslims are the majority and Christians and Jews are in the minority.

A current example of an agreement that could be “beneficial to all concerned” would be between Israel and the Palestinians. If the Palestinians stopped shooting rockets tomorrow, building tunnels in order to kill Israeli civilians and agreed to the right of Israel to exist as a state, some mutually beneficial agreement could be reached. However, if Israel laid down their arms, no one doubts a second Holocaust would occur overnight. In 1948, 1967 and in 1973 whenever mutually beneficial agreement negotiations occurred, the Palestinian leadership, i.e. Hamas, PLO, Muslims, reiterated its position that is found in the Hamas 1988 Covenant , “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”

How do you negotiate with a party that wishes to kill you? How is that mutually beneficial? Muhammad did this in his time with the Constitution of Medina eventually breaking that treaty and either enslaving, killing or making all Jews and Christians refugees from their homes in and around Medina.

These past and current examples are hardly “beneficial to all concern”.

No one is claiming all Muslims are going to lie, deceive, take advantage of others or not apply the ‘golden rule” when conducting their daily affairs. It would be ludicrous to say so.

The Muslims I encounter in my daily life are nice, kind and thoughtful, all traits that would make them on the surface a good Rotarian candidate for membership. A recent picnic with Afghan students, all Muslims, proved that point clearly.

Separating the ideology that expressly preaches against the “golden rule” and is the antithesis to the Four Way Test code should be an issue of honest debate among orthodox, secular Muslims and non-Muslims. Since 60% of the Quran describes relations for Muslims toward non-Muslims, the topic is relevant to non-Muslims and Muslims alike.

Back to the dilemma; can you be a “good Muslim” and believe all the statements below are true?

“The entire life (not parts of it) of Muhammad represents the example I should follow”
“I praise his example and declare, like the Quran does 91 times, that Muhammad is the role model for me and all Muslims to follow”
“I can be a good Rotarian and answer truthfully “yes” to the Rotary Four Way Test!”

As President Erdogan of Turkey said in 2007 when asked about “moderate Islam” during a television interview he replied with the following: “These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.”

One shouldn’t ask a talking head, another Muslim or even an Imam what a “good Muslim” is or is not. The only basis this judgment can be made upon is Muhammad and it’s all there in black and white to read in the Quran, the Hadiths and the stories of Muhammad. Muslims may answer differently but in the end, their opinions don’t matter, only Muhammad’s example stands as the example they will be judged by.

I’ll ask the question of Rotarians or any service club member;

Rotarians conduct “fireside chats” with prospective new members before voting on them. Who is most likely not to be accepted intoyour service club, Jesus, Gandhi, the Pope or Muhammad based upon the example they set?

Don’t be mislead, I didn’t say Muslims shouldn’t be Rotarians or members of any service group. As for Muslims or non-Muslims, the standard should be the same, one’s character, reputation, one’s trustworthiness, contributions to society, willingness to put service over self and ability to work with others.

Muslims are fine people who operate under the yoke of a “master/slave” relationship that most were born into. Many Muslims do not even know of the facts presented above so it is understandable they maybe offended.

However, not being given the facts doesn’t disqualify those same facts from being true. If one merely discards these new facts or make a less than serious gesture at finding a new truth, the cloak of ignorance can no longer be worn. Two options remain for any Muslim who discovers the truth; complicity in the lie, i.e. a “deceiver” like Allah, or encompassing these new facts toward a different life choice.

The Rotarian Four Way Test encompasses the values I’ve tried to teach my children, that I took an oath to uphold as a commissioned officer in the Air Force and one that my Christian faith holds dear. I suspect that many of the Muslim Rotarians around the world feel the same way as I do. They reject in their heart the violence of Muhammad and Islam. As non-Muslims our best option is to continue to practice the Four Way Test in all the things we think, do or say, particularly toward Muslims.

My statements are not opinions but fact backed upon the Quran, Hadiths and the four major schools of Islamic thought.

For anyone who feels my statements constitute “hate-speech” I pose this question, “Can telling the truth ever be construed as being hate-speech?” If you are looking for an answer, reference the First Amendment.

P.S. For any Rotarian who thinks relating Islam to Rotary violates the Third and Fourth Test, “Does it Build Good Will and Better Friendships” and “Will it be Beneficial to All Concerned” just recall what the Hamas Covenant said, “…The day Islam is in control of guiding the affairs of life, these organizations, hostile to humanity and Islam, will be obliterated”.

When I visited the Rotary Club in Prague, Czech Republic and asked how long one of the members there had been in Rotary, he answered, “since 1989, when the wall came down. It was the first time we were permitted to have Rotary Clubs”.

Defending our freedoms in advance is far less bloody than doing it too late. All Americans, Rotarians included, around the world need to realize that fact. Just ask the Czechs.

Georgia: Note left on Soldier’s Car, “Mohammad will show no mercy on you”

July 25, 2015/in National Security, Religion/by Jihad Watch

Last September, an Islamic State spokesman said: “If you can kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever […] including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be.”

“‘Death to you coward child killer – Mohammad will show no mercy on you: Chilling note found on serviceman’s car in Georgia promises revenge on U.S. military,” by Belinda Robinson,Dailymail.com, July 24, 2015 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

A chilling note was left on a serviceman’s car blasting him for being a ‘coward women child killer who Mohammad will show no mercy to’.

The warning was placed under the front windshield wiper of the vehicle after it had been parked near Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia on Wednesday.

The note, which was unsigned and had the heading ‘untitled’, promised revenge for U.S. military involvement in the Middle East – saying ‘attacks will come full force’ and ‘death is to come to you’.

The full message, all in lower case, reads: ‘dear american soldier, death to you coward women child killer and all the american military / Mohammad will show no mercy on you / attacks will come full force / death is to come to you.’

It appears to be a reproduction of a warning that has been posted to military Facebook pages, MyFoxAtlanta reports.

Cobb County Police Department is investigating who put the note on the car.

They said that the victim may have been targeted because his license plate identified him as a service member….

RELATED ARTICLES:

Belgium arrests two ex-Guantanamo inmates on jihad terrorism charges

Kerry warns Israel: Stopping Iran’s nuke program would be “a huge mistake”

His Absurdness Pope Francis: Koran and Holy Bible are the Same!

July 24, 2015/in Culture War, Must Read, Religion/by Dr. Rich Swier

Ayn Rand wrote, “The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.”

On Monday, Pope Francis, the Bishop Of Rome, addressed Catholic followers regarding the dire importance of exhibiting religious tolerance. During his hour-long speech, a smiling Pope Francis was quoted telling the Vatican’s guests that the Koran, and the spiritual teachings contained therein, are just as valid as the Holy Bible.

As a Catholic it pains me to read words like this when daily I see the persecution of Christians and Jews by the followers of Mohammed. The Catholic Church is retreating and Islam is gaining. At some point Islam will become the official ideology of the Vatican, the Islamic State promises so.

Rather than go into a long litany of reasons why the Holy Bible is different than the Quran, not the least of which is the Koran does not recognize that Jesus was crucified, died and then rose from the dead to forgive our sins. For it is the Holy Trinity which is the foundation of Catholicism and the Holy Catholic Church.

Rather I will focus on Quran versus 2: 191-193, which read:

And kill them [the non-believers] wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al- Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.

And if they cease, then indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.

Fight them until there is no [more] fitnah and [until] worship is [acknowledged to be] for Allah . But if they cease, then there is to be no aggression except against the oppressors.

Jews, Sikh, Christians, Hindus, Kurds, Buddhist, Ezidis, and anyone else who is not a Muslim is to be slaughtered if they do not embrace Islam.

Show me in the Holy Bible where it says that anyone who does not accept Jesus is to be slaughtered. One cannot.

When Pope Francis stated, “Authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence”, Robert Spencer wrote:

No one would even be interested in this question were it not for the abundant evidence to the contrary: the daily record of jihad violence carried out by Muslims who point to Islam and the Qur’an to justify their actions, including many who are burning churches and terrorizing Christians in Nigeria, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere. It is because of them that Pope Francis, David Cameron and others feel compelled to insist that, contrary to what we see happening every day, Islam is really peaceful. The question is whether they are doing the victims of jihad any real service by insisting this.

For if Pope Francis were to admit that Islam is a violent religion, that admission would imply the necessity of addressing Islamic intolerance of Christians.

The last thing that Pope Francis and certain world leaders want to do is to further enrage Fitnaphobes (i.e. the Muslim community). This is a false and dangerous position, as it ignores the social disease (existential threat) of Fitnaphobia, the known Islamic wolves at the gates of the Vatican.

Pope Francis is an Islamic apologist and Fitnaphobic.

Islam cannot be stopped unless and until Muslims, citizens, political and national security leaders at every level begin to profile and identify Fitnaphobic individuals, organizations and nation states.

When religious tolerance becomes a one way street, then the Vatican will fall to the Islamic Caliphate.

RELATED ARTICLES:

405,000 people, 104 bishops sign petition to Pope Francis asking for ‘clarification’ on marriage

Pope Francis’ overlooked sentence: An important statement on Islam and violence

APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION EVANGELII GAUDIUM OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS

Meet the 4 Americans Held Hostage By Iran

EDITORS NOTE: To learn more about why Muslims slaughter visit www.Fitnaphobia.com.

Stop Sharia Law Before it is Too Late

July 24, 2015/in Courts & Law, Culture War, National Security, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Ron Edwards

The brutality of shari’ah law embraces quite a number of laws and punishments that are contrary to long-held western ideas of justice and dignity of the human person. Nonetheless, the foundation for shari’ah in the west is already being laid and solidified. The shari’ah concept is totally incompatible with the basic concept of the United States citizenship and national loyalty and is fundamentally inconsistent with United States laws and the constitutional guarantees inherent in them.

This can easily be seen in comparing the fundamental rights guaranteed to United States sovereign citizens with very limited human rights recognized by shari’ah states. The United States and the west, at large, define human rights broadly and extend them to all human beings regardless of sex, religion, or creed. In stark brutal contrast, shai’ah defines human rights narrowly and limits them to muslims and qualifies them to be in complete conformity with shari’ah.

Specifically, the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution set forth a non-exhaustive list of rights and liberties that are guaranteed to all Americans in what is known as the Bill of Rights. Among these are the freedoms of speech and religion, the right to due process of law, and protection from cruel and unusual punishment.

Similarly, the Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the United Nations famous list of rights, exhibits a similar theme, beginning with an unequivocal acknowledgment of “the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family. The declaration goes on to emulate, inter alia, the rights to “Life, Liberty, and Security, of person,” freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; and rights to effective remedies under the law, and equal treatment or punishment; and rights to effective remedies under the law, and equal protection under the law.

These rights, liberties, and freedoms are guaranteed to all persons of all races, ethnicities, religions, and sexes simply by virtue of a person’s status as a human being who is endowed with “inherent dignity” and “inalienable rights.”

All fifty seven member states of the organization of the Islamic conference (OIC), however, disregard the aforementioned definition of human rights, which does not declare human rights to be “inherent” or “inalienable.” The Cairo declaration on human rights, which was submitted by the OIC on behalf of it’s member states to the world conference on human rights in 1993, affirms only some human rights, which are qualified both in scope and application. The Cairo declaration declares that all… “rights and freedoms are subject to the Islamic shari’ah and that the “Islamic shari’ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification of any [human rights]. As such, calling the Cairo declaration on human rights is a misnomer, for it does not declare the rights of humans at all, but rather sets forth the rights of only some humans or more specifically, humans who adhere to islam. HMMPH!

This fundamental difference in understanding human rights manifests itself explicitly in the incompatibility of the civil and criminal laws of shari’ah with those of the United States. Thus it is imperative that Americans are made abundantly clear about the crystal clear, fundamental differences between the Christian inspired Constitution along with the Bill of Rights and the dictates and the numerous bigoted aspects of shari’ah law.

America, time is fast running out for the possibility of restoring our great, but very troubled republic turned mob ruled democracy. The problems are massive, to say the very least, but not insurmountable. That is if only we are willing to once again adopt and adhere to the blessed principles that helped make America the one time envy of the world.

Many thanks to the American Center for Law and Justice for their assistance

Salman Rushdie: World Learned ‘Wrong Lessons’ from His Iran Fatwa

July 24, 2015/in Commentary, National Security, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Jihad Watch

‘Fear disguised as respect’

“The writer said that the controversy that surrounded the PEN prize to Charlie Hebdo this year convinced him that, if the attacks against ‘The Satanic Verses’ had occurred today, ‘these people would not come to my defence and would use the same arguments against me by accusing me of insulting an ethnic and cultural minority.’” Indeed so. That was what happened after our free speech event in Garland, Texas: the international media, including many “conservatives” such as Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingraham, excoriated Pamela Geller and declared that she should have shown more “respect” — which really meant that she should have submitted in fear, as they were doing.

The freedom of speech is seriously imperiled, and most Americans have bought into the idea that “hate speech,” which they assume to be an entity that can be objectively established, does not deserve protection. They have no idea that they’re thereby paving the way for authoritarianism and totalitarianism.

“Salman Rushdie says the world learned the ‘wrong lessons’ from his Iran fatwa ordeal,” Agence France-Presse, July 22, 2015:

More than a quarter century after being slapped with a fatwa from Iran [sic] calling for his murder over his book “The Satanic Verses”, Salman Rushdie says the world has learned the “wrong lessons” about freedom of expression.

The British author, in an interview published Wednesday by the French news magazine L’Express, said his ordeal by religious fanatics determined to violently avenge what they construed as blasphemy should have served as a wake-up call to the world.

Instead, after the September 11, 2001 attack on America and the massacre in Paris in January this year of cartoonists and staff at the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly, and with the ongoing rampage of the brutal Islamic State group in the Middle East, Rushdie saidsome writers and other people were too cowed to talk freely about Islam.

“It seems we learned the wrong lessons,” he said in the interview printed in French.“Instead of concluding we need to oppose these attacks on freedom of expression, we believed we should calm them through compromises and ceding.”

The “politically correct” positions voiced by some — including a few prominent authors who disagreed with Charlie Hebdo receiving a freedom of speech award at a PEN literary gala in New York in May — were motivated by fear, Rushdie said.

– ‘Fear disguised as respect’ –

“If people weren’t being killed right now, if bombs and Kalashnikovs weren’t speaking today, the debate would be very different. Fear is being disguised as respect,” he said….

The writer said that the controversy that surrounded the PEN prize to Charlie Hebdo this year convinced him that, if the attacks against “The Satanic Verses” had occurred today, “these people would not come to my defence and would use the same arguments against me by accusing me of insulting an ethnic and cultural minority”….

Sweden arrests two Muslims accused of jihad terrorism

Islamic State vows to “fill the streets of Paris with dead bodies”

Lone Wolf Islamic Terrorists versus Christian Sheepdog Patriots

July 22, 2015/in National Security, Video/by Bill Finlay

Lone wolf terrorists may soon find themselves opposed by U.S. Christian sheepdog patriots.

Kerry: Iran vow to defy U.S. “very disturbing”

July 22, 2015/in Featured, National Security, Policy, Politics/by Jihad Watch

It begins to dawn even upon the Secretary of State that he may not quite have achieved peace in our time. But he has already given away the store.

“Kerry says Iran vow to defy U.S. is ‘very disturbing,’Reuters, July 21, 2015:

DUBAI (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said a speech by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday vowing to defy American policies in the region despite a deal with world powers over Tehran’s nuclear program was “very disturbing”.

“I don’t know how to interpret it at this point in time, except to take it at face value, that that’s his policy,” he said in the interview with Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television, parts of which the network quoted on Tuesday.

“But I do know that often comments are made publicly and things can evolve that are different. If it is the policy, it’s very disturbing, it’s very troubling,” he added.

Ayatollah Khamenei told supporters on Saturday that U.S. policies in the region were “180 degrees” opposed to Iran’s, at a speech in a Tehran mosque punctuated by chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.

“Even after this deal our policy toward the arrogant U.S. will not change,” Khamenei said….

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UK PM David Cameron: ‘The root cause of the threat we face is the extremist [Islamic] ideology itself’

July 21, 2015/in Culture War, National Security, Policy/by Henry Jackson Society

Yesterday, The Henry Jackson Society (HJS) welcomed Prime Minister David Cameron’s bold speech outlining the government’s five-year plan for tackling extremism. Principles central to the Prime Minister’s vision closely resemble the ideas and policy recommendations consistently put forward in HJS work, while many of the manifestations of extremism referred to by Mr Cameron have been long-standing issues of concern for the staff of the Centre for the Response to Radicalisation and Terrorism (CRT). Key areas of influence include:

Identifying Islamist Ideology at the Root of Radicalisation

The Prime Minister explicitly recognised that “the root cause of the threat we face is the extremist ideology itself” and that countering the growing appeal of jihadist ideology is a generational struggle.

HJS has a long track record of evidence-based research showing that Islamist ideology is a fundamental component of radicalisation and can be an incubator of terrorism. The role of ideology was first identified in the Government’s Prevent strategy of 2011, for which HJS’ flagship work tracking Islamism-inspired terrorism offences and attacks in the UK since 1999 was the most-cited work.

Another crucial shift in emphasis was the recognition that “extremists are self-identifying as Muslims” and Mr Cameron’s statement on Islamist violence: “To deny it has anything to do with Islam means you disempower the critical reforming voices”.

HJS has long called for the government to acknowledge the religious element to extremism and has published a theological counter narrative to al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups showing that their arguments are not based on traditionally recognised interpretations of classical Islamic sources.

Challenging Extremist Propaganda

Mr Cameron challenged the prevalence of conspiracy theories surrounding counter-radicalisation efforts, in particular the growing belief that the Prevent strategy is about spying on Muslim communities and the criminalisation of Islam, ideas that have been deliberately fuelled by extremist groups.

HJS has repeatedly advocated the need to challenge such false claims head-on and show the extremist rationale behind them. After the pro-terrorist group CAGE came out in support of ‘Jihadi John’ earlier this year, CRT exposed the group’s long-standing jihadist ideology and pernicious anti-Prevent campaigns.

The Prime Minister singled out the National Union of Students (NUS) for criticism, saying: “When you choose to ally yourselves with an organisation like CAGE […] it really does, in my opinion, shame your organisation and your noble history of campaigning for justice”.

HJS’s campus extremism monitoring unit, Student Rights, recently publishedPreventing Prevent?, showing the scale of resistance among students to government attempts to challenge extremism at universities. Student Rights showed how extremist narratives have influenced the debate on campuses, highlighting in particular the NUS commitment to work with CAGE to campaign against Prevent.

Empowering Moderate Voices

The Prime Minister asserted that “We can’t stand neutral in this battle of ideas”. He pledged to help empower the “strong, positive Muslim voices that are being drowned out”, stating: “This means confronting groups and organisations that may not advocate violence – but which do promote other parts of the extremist narrative”.

HJS has long recommended that central and local government as well as civic institutions, including universities, community centres and charities, distance themselves from non-violent extremist groups. Most recently, HJS interviews with the North East Counter Terrorism Unit and West Yorkshire Police found that a key part of Prevent is both building trust and confidence with British Muslim communities and being prepared to have difficult conversations about the prevalence of extreme and intolerant beliefs.

Strengthening Regulation to Combat Islamist Entryism

The Prime Minister reiterated the government’s commitment to strengthening regulatory bodies in order to challenge extremism, mentioning specifically the failures of the education watchdog Ofsted during the ‘Trojan Horse’ scandal and pledging to “strengthen Ofcom’s role to enable us to take action against foreign channels broadcasting extremist content”.

For over five years, HJS staff have exposed instances of Islamist entryism – starting with the revolutionary Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir securing government funding for their educational charity and schools. Since then, HJS has repeatedly advocated greater powers, political will and training for regulatory bodies such as the Charity Commission, Ofsted and Ofcom to effectively challenge extremists seeking to take advantage of the UK’s charitable, education and broadcast media sectors.

Tackling ‘Honour’-based Abuse, FGM and Forced Marriage

HJS has led the “uncomfortable debates” referenced by Mr Cameron in his speech yesterday regarding cultural practices such as forced marriage and ‘honour’-based abuse that, he asserted, “run directly counter” to British values.

Earlier this year, HJS published a report on ‘honour’ killings in the UK, as part of the Britain’s Lost Women campaign led by Cosmopolitan Magazine and charity Karma Nirvana. A follow-up report raising awareness of institutional failures in care provision for victims of ‘honour’-based abuse was launched earlier this month on the UK’s first ever Day of Memory to an audience of 100 leading professionals.
HJS has provided thought leadership on Female Genital Mutilation, publicly asking why cultural sensitivities have been prioritised over protecting young girls living in this country. The Prime Minister echoed this sentiment in his speech yesterday, saying: “Too often we have lacked the confidence to enforce our values, for fear of causing offence. […] No more turning a blind eye on the false basis of cultural sensitivities.”

Working with Internet Companies to Challenge Online Extremism

The Prime Minister referred to the need for internet companies to help the government “identify potential terrorists online” and to “protect their users from the scourge of radicalisation”. Specifically, he said: “many of their commercial models are built around monitoring platforms for personal data, packaging it up and selling it on to third parties… they are happy to engineer technologies to track our likes and dislikes. But when it comes to doing what’s right in the fight against terrorism, we too often hear that it’s all too difficult. Well I’m sorry – I just don’t buy that”.

Mr Cameron’s position echoes the findings of a recent HJS report, Surveillance After Snowden, which explored the impact of Edward Snowden’s leaks of classified government information. The report examined the government’s relationship with communication service providers, finding that: “So much emphasis has been placed on the government’s collection of data that the activities of private companies have been given insufficient attention” and “…Better cooperation between the government and [internet companies] is needed urgently”.

Key HJS publications:

Britain’s Forgotten Women: Speaking to Survivors of ‘Honour’-Based Abuse, July 2015
Preventing Prevent? Challenges to Counter-Radicalisation Policy On Campus, July 2015
Surveillance after Snowden: Effective Espionage in an Age of Transparency, May 2015
Understanding CAGE: A Public Information Dossier, April 2015
Community Policing and Preventing Extremism: Lessons from Bradford, February 2015
‘Honour’ Killings in the UK, The Henry Jackson Society, January 2015
Banking Restrictions on Extremism-Linked Muslim Groups, November 2014
A Guide to Refuting Jihadism: Critiquing radical Islamist Claims to theological authenticity, February, 2014
Challenging Extremists: Practical frameworks for our universities, May, 2012
Islamist Terrorism: The British Connections July 2011

Thought Leadership

‘Britain has looked the other way for two long over FGM’, The Telegraph, July 2014
‘“Religion of peace” is not a harmless platitude’, The Spectator, June 2015
‘Don’t listen to Edward Snowden’s supporters – his leaks have been a gift for terrorists’, The Independent, 9 June 2015

Tomi Lahren: Dear President Obama Climate Change Did Not Slaughter 4 Marines in Chatanooga

July 21, 2015/in National Security, Video/by Dr. Rich Swier

One America News reporter Tomi Lahren doesn’t mince words. Tomi writes, “Radical Islamists, have brought the fight right here to the Red, White and Blue and it’s about time we bring it to them. Full force. Let’s show them what the U.S. of A looks like up close and personal. Show ’em what a B1 bomber looks like flying overhead. Show ’em what they’re messing with. Put the fear of OUR God in their desert. Because clearly our lack of strategy isn’t working.”

EDITORS NOTE: Watch ‘On Point with Tomi Lahren’ NIGHTLY 7:00 p.m. PT/10:00 p.m. ET on One America News (OAN). If you don’t have One America News Network, call DirecTV at 1 (800) 531-5000, DISH at (855) 318-0572 or your cable provider and demand it to be added to your lineup!

Refugee Resettlement Fact Sheet: What You Need to Know!

July 21, 2015/in Immigration, Must Read, Policy, Politics, Taxes/by Ann Corcoran

We first posted a fact sheet in 2007, updated it again in 2010 and again in 2013. Here are facts you need to know about refugee resettlement to the United States:

1. Since 1975, the U.S. has resettled over 3 million refugees, with annual admissions figures ranging from a high of 207,000 in 1980 to a low of 27,110 in 2002 (in the aftermath of 911) .

The average number of refugees admitted annually since 1980 is about 98,000. Additionally, in recent years, another 40,000 or more per year come in as asylum seekers and Cuban/Haitian entrants – all with the same rights and entitlements as refugees.

All these flows detonate their own chain migration flows in addition to the refugee influx. These follow-on flows have easily multiplied the original admission numbers by a factor of 4 or more.

The quota for 2013 is 70,000 and it looks like it will be met this year. There is strong political pressure to get refugee numbers back to over 100,000.

2. The U.S. takes more than twice as many refugees as all countries from the rest of the industrialized world combined.

3. One of the operative assumptions of those in the refugee industry is that, since the U.S. is behind most of the chaos in the world – Syria, here we come!, it is morally obligated to take the lead in resettling the world’s refugees. Yet, for 2012 the leading countries, in order of numbers of refugees sent to the U.S., were Bhutan, Burma, Iraq, Somalia, Cuba, Dem. Rep. Congo, Iran, Eritrea, Sudan. All America’s fault? In very recent memory the MSM was celebrating Bhutan and suggesting the U.S. had something to learn from the Bhutanese concept of a “Product of National Happiness”.

Ironically, the U.S. refugee program diverts resources from assistance on the ground to those very countries in the developing world which carry the main burden of refugee crises.

4. In recent years up to 95% of the refugees coming to the U.S. were referred by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or were the relatives of UN-picked refugees.　 Until the late 90’s the U.S. picked the large majority of refugees for resettlement in the U.S.

Considering that the refugee influx causes increases in all legal and illegal immigration as family and social networks are established in the U.S., the U.N. is effectively dictating much of U.S. immigration policy.

5. NIMBYists gone wild: As a Senator, Sam Brownback harshly rejected the resettlement of Somali Bantu in his own state even though he was a major advocate among evangelicals for increased refugee immigration to the U.S..

The state of Delaware has resettled less than 10 refugees annually in recent years even though then Sen. Joe Biden was a sponsor of the 1980 Refugee Act – the bill which defines the refugee program we have today.

Upon entry, a network of private, “nonprofit” agencies (so-called “voluntary agencies”) selects the communities where refugees will live. The agencies are either headquartered in Washington DC or have lobbying offices there.

Washington DC took less than 200 refugees between 2007 and 2012.

6. According to a July 2012 GAO report (Refugee Resettlement:

Greater Consultation with Community Stakeholders Could Strengthen Program: “most public entities such as public schools and health departments generally said that voluntary agencies notified them of the number of refugees expected to arrive in the coming year, but did not consult them regarding the number of refugees they could serve”.

7. This same GAO report quotes a state official who notes “that local affiliate funding is based on the number of refugees they serve, so affiliates (private contractors) have an incentive to maintain or increase the number of refugees they resettle each year rather than allowing the number to decrease.”

8. Refugee resettlement is a self-perpetuating global enterprise. Staff and management of the hundreds of taxpayer supported U.S. contractors are largely refugees or immigrants whose purpose is to gain entry for more refugees, usually for their co-ethnics.

9. According to David Robinson, a former acting director of the State Department’s refugee bureau, writing about the refugee contractors: “the federal government provides about ninety percent of its collective budget” and its lobbying umbrella “wields enormous influence over the Administration’s refugee admissions policy. It lobbies the Hill effectively to increase the number of refugees admitted for permanent resettlement each year ….If there is a conflict of interest, it is never mentioned…. The solution its members offer to every refugee crisis is simplistic and the same: increase the number of admissions to the United States without regard to budgets…” How Public Opinion Shaped Refugee Policy in Kosovo, 2000, David M. Robinson, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA432218

We hesitate to quibble with an authoritative source on the percentage of federal money floating the refugee industry, but from an accountant’s perspective that percentage is actually over 100 % given the amount of money the industry is able to pocket without any proof that it was spent on refugees.

10. According to Ken Tota, Deputy Director at HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement, Congress has never in his 25-year tenure questioned the refugee quota proposed by the administration. By law, Congress is supposed to consent to the annual quota but obviously refuses to take this role seriously.

11. Refugee “self-sufficiency” is an important measure of success and a basis for assigning refugees to agencies in future contracts. The definition of “self-sufficiency” has been steadily defined downward and today is virtually meaningless. A refugee can be considered “self-sufficient” while using all of the programs listed in item 16 below with the exception of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

12. Assimilation is no longer a goal for any agency involved in refugee resettlement – government or private contractor. The private contractors’ engagement with the refugee is so short – less than 4 months in most cases, that nothing approaching assimilation could even be considered. The term “assimilation” is no longer a part of government lexicon and does not even occur in dozens of recent reports and papers generated about refugee resettlement. The operative term in vogue now is “integration” with its clear intent of maintenance of ethnic identity.

13. A refugee or an asylum seeker must show a “well-founded” fear of persecution on account of a political view or membership in a racial, ethnic, religious or social group. The definition of a refugee has been widely stretched by all 3 branches of the government – the Judiciary, the Congress and the Administration.

In fact, Congress can name whatever group it wants to be a refugee or asylum seeker. For instance Congress passed a law declaring China’s one-child policy to be an example of persecution based upon a political view. Not surprising: China now heads up the list of successful asylum seekers.

People may seek asylum in the U.S. based upon domestic abuse, FGM and even lack of services for the disabled.

The government does not publicize rates of admission by category so it is not possible to tell, for instance, if the vague and easy to fake ‘social group’ category is more commonly used than the vague and easy to fake ‘political group’ category.

Because of the privacy rights accorded the new arrivals, we have no idea which category was used by Tamerlane Tsarnaev’s parents to gain admission to the world’s most generous immigration program.

14. The Obama administration has placed a priority on LGBTQI asylum seekers and refugees. This has resulted in an upsurge of asylum requests on this basis – even from countries like England! Since the State Department does not keep data about numbers admitted by reason for admission, we can’t obtain exact numbers of those admitted on the basis of LBGTQI persecution, but one private refugee agency has set up an office in Nairobi, Kenya to assist intending LBGTQI refugees. This office also advises about how to get into the refugee pipeline. In other words, a private contractor is recruiting refugees who will eventually become the contractor’s profit-generating clients. At the 2012 conference of refugee contractors sponsored by the DHHS Office of Refugee resettlement a refugee contractor demanded that Medicaid pay for sex change operations if needed by newly arrived refugees.

15. The program has gradually shifted towards the resettlement of refugees from Muslim countries. Some individuals from Muslim countries are Christians or other minorities, but most are Muslims. In the early 90’s the percentage of Muslim refugees was near 0; by 2000 the program was 44% Muslim. The Muslim component decreased after 911, but today is back up to about 40% and is set to rise from here.

Membership in a U.S.-registered Islamic terrorist group is not a bar to entry on the program as long as the refugee was not a “direct participant” in “terrorist” activity.

16. Refugees, successful asylum seekers, trafficking victim visa holders, “Cuban-Haitian Entrants” (which are mostly Cuban), S.I.V’s (for Iraqis and Afghanis) and other smaller humanitarian admission groups are eligible for ALL federal, state and local welfare programs 30 days after arrival.

Refugee access to welfare on the same basis as a U.S. citizen has made the program a global magnet.

The federal programs available to them include:

∙Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) formerly known as AFDC
Medicaid
Food Stamps
Public Housing
Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
Social Security Disability Insurance
Administration on Developmental Disabilities (ADD) (direct services only)
Child Care and Development Fund
Independent Living Program
Job Opportunities for Low Income Individuals (JOLI)
Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)
Postsecondary Education Loans and Grants
Refugee Assistance Programs
Title IV Foster Care and Adoption Assistance Payments (if parents are ⌠qualified immigrants – refugees, asylees, etc)
Title XX Social Services Block Grant Funds

17. Welfare use is staggering among refugees. Welfare usage is never counted by officials as part of the cost of the program. Yet, when it is included, the total cost of the refugee program soars to at least 10-20 billion a year.

As some Americans are pushed off of time-limited welfare programs many refugees are going on to life-time cash assistance programs. For instance, 12.7% of refugees are on SSI – a lifetime entitlement to a monthly check / Medicaid for elderly or disabled. This rate of usage is at least 4 times higher than the rate of usage for SSI among the native-born population and is reportedly rising from these already very high levels.

Permanent and intergenerational welfare dependence has been allowed to take hold to a significant degree in some refugee groups.

Find latest welfare usage among refugees here (latest data available is from 2009) click here.

Find table TABLE II-14: Public Assistance Utilization Among refugees who arrived during the 5 years previous to the survey 57.7% are on government medical assistance such as Medicaid, about 25% have no health insurance at all, 70.2% are receiving food stamps, 31.6% are in public housing (an additional percentage is on a public housing waiting list), and 38.3 % are getting cash assistance such as TANF or SSI.

The figure of 57.7% dependent upon government medical assistance is actually an undercount since it excludes children under 16.

18. Medium size towns, such as Bowling Green, KY, Nashville, TN, Ft. Wayne, IN, Boise, ID and Manchester, NH, are serving as the main reception centers for the refugee program.

19. Refugees are not tested for many diseases, such as HIV. Refugees are a major contributing factor to TB rates among the foreign-born. TB among the foreign-born now accounts for about half of the TB in America.

20. The money the U.S. spends bringing one refugee to the U.S. could have helped 500 individuals overseas in countries where they currently reside.

21. It has never been reported in the U.S. that 47% of loans made to refugees for transportation to the U.S. are unpaid leaving an unpaid balance of $450 million. This amount – slightly out of date, does not include interest or an unknown amount that has been written off. We will announce the new balance as soon as it is available.

22. Refugee resettlement is profitable to the organizations involved in it. They receive money from the federal government for each refugee they bring over. They have almost no real responsibilities for these refugees. After 4 months the “sponsoring” organization is not even required to know where the refugee lives.

There are 9 main major refugee resettlement organizations (Volags from “Voluntary Agency”) with approximately 450 affiliated organizations throughout the country; many are run by former refugees. Below are the 9 Volags that operate today:

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB),
Lutheran Immigrant Aid Society (LIRS),
International Rescue Committee (IRC),
World Relief Corporation,
Immigrant and Refugee Services of America (IRSA),
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS),
Church World Service (CWS),
Domestic and Foreign Missionary Service of the Episcopal Church of the USA,
Ethiopian Community Development Center (ECDC),

Below are some of the sources of income for Volags:

a. $1,850 per refugee (including children) from the State Department.

b. Up to $2,200 for each refugee by participating in a U.S. DHHS program known as Matching Grant. To get the $2,200, the Volag need only show it spent $200 and gave away $800 worth of donated clothes, furniture or cars.

c. The Volag pockets 25% of every transportation loan it collects from refugees it “sponsors”.

d. All Volag expenses and overhead in the Washington, DC HQ are paid by the U.S. government.

e. For their refugee programs, Volags collect money from all federal grant programs – “Marriage Initiative”, “Faith-based”, “Ownership Society”, etc., as well as from various state and local grants.

The program is so lucrative that in some towns the Catholic Church has lessened support for traditional charity works to put more effort into resettlement. It uses collection offerings to promote the refugee resettlement program.

23. Despite their rhetoric, refugee agencies have steadfastly refused to use their own resources to maintain the U.S. refugee resettlement program. Public money has thoroughly driven out private money.

A program known as the Private Sector Initiative allowed sponsoring agencies to bring over refugees if the agencies were willing to cover costs of resettlement and support. It was discontinued for lack of use in the mid-1990s. Today the agencies are on record as opposed to diverting more federal refugee dollars to overseas refugee assistance (where each dollar will go further in helping refugees) because it might mean fewer dollars for them!

As with other government-dependent industries there is a revolving door between the refugee industry and the federal government which pays its bills.

24. To give an idea of the staying power of the refugee program:

When we began taking Southeast Asian refugees in the late 70’s, the refugee agencies hired temporary workers, thinking the program would only go for a few months. More than 37 years after the last American left Vietnam we are still taking refugees from South East Asia. At least 1.5 million have come in as refugees alone. As well, it has detonated chain migration of non-refugee immigrants.

25. The program is rife with fraud and corruption at all levels. UN personnel often sell access to the program and once here refugees make false claims of family relationship in order to facilitate wider immigration. Government grant fraud is common among local refugee service providers.

26. The refugee program has a significant impact on U.S. foreign policy. It also affects internal and foreign policies of other nations by allowing them to rid themselves of unwanted minorities or close their borders to asylum seekers in the knowledge that the U.S. will take them in.

Click here for contact information for your state’s refugee coordinators

EDITORS NOTE: This fact sheet originally appeared on Refugee Resettlement Watch.

America Must Rethink Its Immigration Policy

July 20, 2015/in Commentary, Culture War, Immigration, Policy, Politics/by Raynard Jackson

It is high time for the American people to finally wake up and stop spending so much time trying to be politically correct. Politicians must stop obsessing about winning the next election and begin to focus on what’s best for America, especially in light of what happened last week in Chattanooga, TN.

Last week, a naturalized American citizen from Kuwait killed five members of our armed forces. Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, a 24 year old Muslim, was brought to the U.S. by his parents when he was six years old. He also retained Jordanian citizenship by his parents being from Jordan.

Within the intelligence community, Abdulazeez is what is called a sleeper. There are not only sleeper individuals in the U.S.; but one of law enforcements greatest fears is the “sleeper cells” in the country. Sleeper cells are terrorists in waiting. They are awaiting instructions to become active; but until such an order is issued, they are to assimilate into American society and stay below the radar of law enforcement (as Abulazeez seemed to have done).

Because it is unknowable how many sleeper cells or individuals are in the U.S., it is now time to shut down the border and to implement a three year moratorium on all immigration; and this includes foreigners wanting to attend university in the U.S.

We can no longer be the dumping ground for everyone seeking political asylum or a better life.

We must immediately cease from allowing immigrants from Muslim countries, period. We must immediately cease from allowing immigrants into the country who have no marketable skills to bring to the U.S. Family reunification should have absolutely no place in our future immigration policy.

Becoming an American citizen is a privilege not a right. America should not have to apologize for putting stringent conditions on who is eligible for citizenship. We can no longer allow foreigners to depress wages for Americans and to continue to allow Fortune 500 companies to import cheap labor at the expense of citizens.

If the shooting in Chattanooga didn’t scare the hell out of Americans, maybe these immigration trends will.

According to the Institute of International Education’s “Fields of Study of Students from Selected Places of origin 2013-14, “127,332 student visas were granted to students from 43 predominantly Muslim countries (14% of all student visas issued).”

The top five countries receiving visas were: Saudi Arabia (53,919), Iran (10,194), Nigeria (7,921), Indonesia (7,920), and Kuwait (7,288). This total of 87,242 represents almost 70% of all student visas issued from Muslim countries. This would explain why Arabic is the fastest growing language on college campuses.

According to the Modern Language Association (MLA), “Enrollment in Arabic classes grew 127% nationally.” The MLA listed Arabic as the 8^th most popular language learned in American institutions of higher education in 2013.

What rational person or sane country would allow people from the above countries to enter the U.S.? We know where the hotbeds of radical Islam are and yet we continue to allow people from those countries to come to the U.S. The F.B.I. has already admitted to Congress that terrorists from the Middle East have already come into the U.S. through Mexico and they have no idea where they are.

By most accounts, Muslims are least likely to assimilate than other groups of immigrants. This isolation makes them fertile targets for radicalization. France and Britain are currently experiencing this dilemma. America is on the verge of becoming another France or another Britain.

Yes, I am suggesting profiling those who want to enter into the U.S. To my liberal and politically correct friends, get over it. This is about national security and our safety.

Some will attempt to argue that this is discrimination; and I would agree with that assertion. Those who seek to legally enter into the U.S. have no inherent right to be accepted into our country; therefore America has the absolute right to be discriminating in regards to who enters the country.

We need not provide a reason nor give an explanation for changing our immigration policies. Our national interests and our national security trump all of their aspirations.

We must stop all immigration immediately; clear up the backlog of those in the pipeline, estimated to be just over 4 million people; and remove all those in the country illegally. This will give us a chance to digest and assimilate those who are already in the que for legal entry into the U.S.

How many more Americans must die because too many politicians want to play politics with our national security?