Obama Released Taliban Prisoners in July from Gitmo to Encourage ‘Peace’ Talks.

(In late July five Taliban members who were held in the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were released)Under the proposal, some Taliban fighters or affiliates captured in the early days of the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and later sent to Guantanamo under the label of enemy combatants would be transferred out of full U.S. control but not released.

Taliban lash men in public in Afghanistan for "trying to kidnap a 10-year old boy".

                                          Taliban punishment in Pakistan.


Taliban lash men in public in Afghanistan for "trying to kidnap a 10-year old boy".(AA).Taliban militants lashed two men in public on Saturday, witnesses and officials said, just weeks after a video surfaced of a woman being executed for adultery before a crowd of cheering men. The men received 40 lashes each with a leather whip in front of more than a hundred people in Shash Qala village of Charkh district in Logar province, some 70 kilometers (40 miles) south of the capital Kabul. They were arrested by Taliban insurgents while trying to kidnap the son of a rich man three days earlier, Bashir, a villager, told AFP. “This morning, the Taliban called people on loudspeakers to gather and watch two men being lashed by them for trying to kidnap a 10-year old boy,” Bashir said. “They were lashed 40 times each by two armed Taliban whose faces were covered.” Charkh district chief Farooq Humayun said the local administration was aware of the incident and an investigation was under way. A local Taliban commander in the area, who did not want to be named, told AFP that they had carried out the punishment to establish sharia law in the country. Public punishments and executions were common when the Taliban regime was in power from 1996 until 2001, when they were ousted by a U.S.-led invasion and launched an insurgency against the Western-backed government. Afghan President Hamid Karzai this week admitted his administration was unable to deliver justice to the people, despite decade-long international efforts to rebuild the war-torn nation. “The reason that the people of Afghanistan in the villages and across the countryside, (even) in the cities, still seek justice through the traditional method is because the government neither has the ability to provide that justice nor can it be addressed on time,” he said. Because of corruption in the courts many Afghans prefer traditional justice systems, often local community councils, to settle their disputes. In parts of the country where Taliban insurgents are most active, the villagers turn to the Taliban's harsh interpretation of Islamic sharia law.Read the full story here.

via mfs-theothernews.com

well... I hate to say it... if I were faced with anarchy, I might turn to the Taliban and Sharia as well.

Americans cheered Gen. Patton when he urinated on the enemy

Patton urinating into the Rhine

(Fellowship of the Minds) The last soldier I heard of urinating on the enemy was Gen. George S. Patton. Should the general, who, as much as any other, was responsible for defeating the Nazis, have been driven from the military for such and act? You’d think so from the hysteric response building in the mainstream and Left-leaning press to a video allegedly showing marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters. Presuming it’s authentic, such reaction is absurd.

Is Obama Preparing to Surrender Afghanistan?

(Powerline) That is what Andrew McCarthy thinks. He notes the significance of President Obama’s recruiting Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi to mediate secret negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban:

The surrender is complete now. The Hindu reports that the Obama administration has turned to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leading jurist, to mediate secret negotiations between the United States and the Taliban. …
For those who may be unfamiliar with him, he is the most influential Sunni Islamist in the world, thanks to such ventures as his al-Jazeera TV program (Sharia and Life) and website (IslamOnline.net). In 2003, he issued a fatwa calling for the killing of American troops in Iraq. …
Qaradawi urges that Islam must dominate the world, under a global caliphate governed by sharia. He maintains that Islam “will conquer Europe [and] will conquer America.” …
Thus does Sheikh Qaradawi champion Hamas, mass-murder attacks, and suicide bombings. “They are not suicide operations,” he brays. “These are heroic martyrdom operations.” Indeed, he elaborates, “The martyr operations is [sic] the greatest of all sorts of jihad in the cause of Allah.”

You get the drift. So, what sort of deal is Qaradawi charge with negotiating?

After thousands of young Americans have laid down their lives to protect the United States from jihadist terror, President Obama apparently seeks to end the war by asking Qaradawi, a jihad-stoking enemy of the United States, to help him strike a deal that will install our Taliban enemies as part of the sharia state we have been building in Afghanistan. If the Hindu report is accurate, the price tag will include the release of Taliban prisoners from Gitmo — an element of the deal Reuters has also reported. The administration will also agree to the lifting of U.N. sanctions against the Taliban, and recognition of the Taliban as a legitimate political party (yes, just like the Muslim Brotherhood!). In return, the Taliban will pretend to forswear violence, to sever ties with al-Qaeda, and to cooperate with the rival Karzai regime.
It would mark one of the most shameful chapters in American history.

Yes, it would. But the Afghanistan war is deeply unpopular, and Obama wants to run for re-election next November on the boast that he “ended two wars.” The baleful consequences of re-installing the Taliban in Afghanistan will not appear until long after the next election campaign, which is all that Obama cares about. So if the outcome foreseen by Hindu and McCarthy comes to pass, it will be shameful indeed.
UPDATE: This AP news story of just a few hours ago appears relevant:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday welcomed remarks from the Obama administration saying that Taliban insurgents were not America’s enemies.
Earlier this month, Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with Newsweek magazine that the Islamist militants did not represent a threat to U.S. interests unless they continued to shelter al-Qaida.
Biden’s comments came amid reports that the Obama administration and other governments are trying to establish a peace process with the Taliban to help end the 10-year war.
“I am very happy that the American government has announced that the Taliban are not their enemies,” Karzai said in a speech to the Afghan Academy of Sciences. “We hope that this message will help the Afghans reach peace and stability.”
A senior U.S. official has told The Associated Press that Washington plans to continue a series of secret meetings with Taliban representatives in Europe and the Persian Gulf region next year.
The U.S. outreach this year had progressed to the point that there was active discussion of two steps the Taliban seeks as precursors to negotiations, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
Trust-building measures under discussion involve setting up a Taliban headquarters office and the release from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, of about five Afghan prisoners believed affiliated with the Taliban.

If we have to negotiate with the Taliban, couldn’t we appoint John Bolton to do it? But then, what point could such negotiations have other than to sugar-coat a surrender?

The Nour Party - Egyptian Wahhabis Exploiting the 'Salafi' Mask

(Nour Party chairman tries to ease fears | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today's News from Egypt - Emad Abdel Ghafour, the party’s chairman Photographed by Noha El-Hennawy)

(hudson-ny.org) The extreme Islamist "Nour Party" ["Party of the Light"], with 25% of the ballots, produced the biggest surprise of the first round of Egypt's parliamentary voting at the end of November. Its advance overshadowed, in media attention, the widely-anticipated 40% received by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Nour Party had formed a coalition, the "Democratic Alliance for Egypt," with the Brotherhood but withdrew from it in September. The Brotherhood and the Nour Party are now in bitter competition.

Commentaries, although reflecting shock in the Arab and international media on the Nour Party's rise, were predictable. The media have accommodated the Nour Party by referring to it under the party's preferred ideological banner as "Salafis," or by describing its supporters as "religious conservatives." The truth is different. The Nour Party embodies Wahhabism, the fanatical interpretation of Islam that is the sole official religious doctrine in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The media have tiptoed around the authentic character of the Nour Party, with leading sources noting only that the Nour Party's program is derived from or influenced by Saudi Wahhabism. But the Nour Party reproduces Wahhabism – the ideology that inspired Osama Bin Laden – in its entirety.
The term "Salafi" refers to a Muslim who emulates the first three generations of Muhammad's companions and successors. Traditional Muslims and conscientious historians recognize the falsity of the Wahhabis masquerading as "Salafis." For moderate Muslims, comparing oneself to the pioneering figures in Islamic history is offensively arrogant. In addition, a "Salafi" reform movement existed in the 19^th century, but unlike the Wahhabi "Salafis," the 19^th century "Salafis," such as Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), an Egyptian scholar and writer, were not violent and did not preach against the West.
The 19^th century "Salafis" sought to modernize Islam and adapt it to Western modes of thought. They also condemned spiritual Sufism, as do today's Wahhabi "Salafis." But unlike the recent Wahhabi "Salafis," the 19^th century group did not demand the right to expel Muslims from the global Islamic community over doctrinal differences, and then kill them as "apostates" – as the Wahhabi "Salafis" have been doing in Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Egypt, and Iraq, among other countries. The 19^th century "Salafi" reformers appealed to Muslims to imitate the personal integrity and dedication of the early Muslims, but did not seek to reinforce abuse of women, hatred of non-Muslims, or limitations on free thought. They, in fact, prized freedom of inquiry as an Islamic value.
Wahhabis know that Muslims hate and fear them for their terrorist acts and repressive practices in Saudi Arabia. Few Egyptians admire or to desire to live under a Saudi-Wahhabi system. That is why, with the complicity of Western media, the Egyptian Wahhabis have adopted the term "Salafi". But they should not be allowed to pretend that they are conservative imitators of the early Muslim generations when instead their views are radical.
There is no mistaking the Wahhabi foundation of the Nour Party's politics. Its male leaders and candidates affect the untrimmed beard cultivated by Wahhabis, in an alleged imitation of Muhammad. They claim to have a single real candidate: Muhammad. In an obvious mimicry of past Saudi-Wahhabi restrictions on women, the Nour Party relegated women candidates (whom Egyptian law required be included) to the bottom of their list to prevent any from being elected. The Nour Party's leader, Yasser Borhami, denounced participation by women in parliament as "corruption."
Nour Party representatives in Egypt have said they would reinstitute payment by all non-Muslims of the jizya tax, an obsolete Islamic practice that exists in no other Muslim country. Borhami has also called Egypt's Coptic Christian minority, who make up 10% of the population, "unbelievers." One prominent, if unsuccessful, Nour Party aspirant to office, Abdel Moneim Al-Shahat, referred to the writings of Egypt's Nobel Prize winning author, Naguib Mahfouz, as the "literature of prostitution." Al-Shahat, who appears frequently on television talk shows, appealed for the Pharaonic statues that are a part of Egypt's pre-Islamic cultural legacy to be covered with wax because they had, in the past, been worshipped as idols – the same attitude that impelled the Taliban to destroy the Bamiyan statues of Buddha in Afghanistan.
In addition to flattering the Nour Party by referring to it as "Salafi" or "conservative," the media have further softened the image of the Egyptian Wahhabis by labelling them "Puritan." This they are, but while "Puritan" has lost its edge as an item in Western religious history, Islamic Puritanism represents an exaggerated attempt to return to the world as it existed in Muhammad's time. Representatives of the Nour Party are vague when they discuss some of their most basic objectives, which include Shariah ["The Path:" Islamic religious law] as common law; gender segregation of unmarried or unrelated people; enforced full-body covering for women; promotion of "Islamic banking" as a leading economic institution, and a ban on alcohol among non-Muslims.
Except for Saudi Arabia, which supports a non-traditional, arbitrary form of Shariah as public law, and enclaves in Africa, Pakistan, and Indonesia, every Muslim country in the world has adopted Western canons of common law, and left the interpretation of Shariah as applicable exclusively to religious matters. Article 2 of the Egyptian Constitution now states that the "principal source of legislation by the state is Islamic jurisprudence (sharia)." This left space for the retention of non-religious law, since Islamic jurisprudence recognizes the validity of non-Islamic common law. A Shariah-state experiment in Sudan failed after the South Sudanese rejected it, and led to the division of the country. The current ruler of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, has threatened to adopt something like Egypt's law, likewise defining Shariah as a "principal source" of legislation, although his government has not yet done so. The Nour Party would subject Egypt to an experiment in applying religious jurisprudence as the only, rather than the "principal," basis for law.
Whether family or inheritance law should follow universal standards, or Shariah guidelines that discriminate against women, is widely argued in the Muslim countries. Morocco, for example, in 2004 adopted a family code that: makes women equal heirs to property; bars marriage of women against their will; allows wives to prohibit their husbands from engaging in polygamy, and to divorce their husbands if they take a second wife; places divorce under secular, rather than religious authority, and makes domestic violence by men a basis for divorce by women. The recent electoral success of a Muslim Brotherhood local branch, the Justice and Development Party, may affect the status of this law, but it is unlikely given that the law is supported by the king, Mohammed VI.
From early in Islamic history, Muslim scholars have argued that Shariah was legitimate only in dealing with matters of religion, and that Islamic law could draw on existing, pre-Islamic law and custom. In addition, Muhammad called on Muslims who migrate to non-Muslim lands to accept the laws and customs of the countries to which they move. This pattern – Shariah as appropriate only to aspects of faith – dominated the Islamic world for almost a millennium, ever since the Mongols, who conquered Baghdad in 1258 CE, accepted Islam but refused to abandon their Mongol customary law. The same pattern was seen in the Ottoman Empire, which preserved its Turkish customary law. If the radicals of the Nour Party were to have their way, however, the basic law of Egypt, which is borrowed from French law, would be abolished.
Even Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has eased the influence of extreme Wahhabis in the judiciary of his country. The Saudi monarch has reduced the financing of the infamous morals patrols or mutawiyin – often wrongly called the "morals police," but in reality a body of militia and volunteers. He also opened up opportunities for women to participate in professional and public life, although they are still not allowed to drive a car, travel, open a bank account, or see a doctor without the permission of a male relative or guardian. In reality, in rural areas, driving by women is common but overlooked.
The unmentioned factor in the emergence of the Nour Party has to do with its financing: Who provided funds for the organization of a new and expanding political party in Egypt? Before the election, Nour Party representatives discounted concerns by their Egyptian opponents that they were backed by Arabian Gulf states, which for decades had paid for Wahhabi "Salafi" mosques and networks of Islamic charities in Egypt. Kuwait and Qatar have been mentioned as backers of the Nour Party, but solid evidence is scarce. This is not surprising, as the Wahhabi "Salafis" are not known for transparency in their financing; to discover the source of Nour's backing still requires investigation. While the Saudis have been mentioned as a possible backer of the Nour Party, there is not yet any evidence to support that theory. The disconcerting gains of the Nour Party suggest that it has nevertheless benefitted from large financial donations, which might come from outside the country, or from political support from inside the existing Egyptian institutions, rather than because of a pure religious fervour animating a large pool of volunteers.
From a different perspective, on December 9, Time magazine quoted an Egyptian as saying, "I think the deal has already been made between the Islamists and SCAF [the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the Egyptian military that ousted Hosni Mubarak], and SCAF wants them in power," said Shadi al-Ghazaly Harb, a liberal young politician whose Awareness Party fared poorly. "I think SCAF wants to scare everyone with the Islamists — the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis — so that they will push an ex-military figure forward as the next presidential candidate. That will be the true end of the revolution."
One aspect of the appeal of the Egyptian Wahhabi "Salafi" movement – observed before, in the history of both the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islamist groups in South Asia – was noted in the London Financial Times of December 9 by Borzou Daragahi: "Nour's educated and professional supporters and leaders tend to hail from modest backgrounds – recent arrivals to the middle class, perhaps bitter that their education or newfound wealth did not bring them the status that comes with lineage and connections."
Wahhabi "Salafi" Islam often reflects frustrated upward mobility and rising expectations, rather than desperation and poverty. The overeducated and underemployed in Egypt and elsewhere have no plan they think can resolve their problems, so they withdraw into an irrational fantasy of Muslim life in the past. This view is not conservative, but radical; it is dangerous for Egypt, for Islam, and for the world.

Forty-five students found held in basement in chains by police raiding Islamic seminary thought to be 'Taliban training centre'

(dailymail.co.uk) Forty-five students, among them young children, were discovered held in chains in a basement when police raided an Islamic seminary in Pakistan last night. The male students, some said to be as young as 12 but appearing even younger, were found in what amounted to a dungeon at the Madrassa Zakarya in the Sohrab Goth district of Karachi.Led barefoot from their prison, captives told officers they had suffered regular beatings and been hung upside down as a form of punishment.

Freed: Young Pakistani students sit a room after being rescued following a police raid on Madrassa Zakarya in Karachi last night

A young student cries after being rescued. Pakistani police found 45 students found chained in the basement during the raid

A young student carries his belongings as he leaves the madrassa after the raid last night

Others said they had been visited by Taliban fighters and that 10 of their fellow students had disappeared in recent months.
One boy said that visiting Taliban members had told them to 'prepare for battle'. Some Pakistani madrassas have long been suspected of grooming Islamic militants.
Police arrested a cleric and two others at the scene, but the madrassa's administrator managed to escape during the raid, Pakistan's Express Tribune reported.

Local police Superintendent Rao Anwar told the paper: 'Those recovered are aged between 12 and 50 years and are mainly of Pakhtun ethnicity.
'A few drug addicts and mentally challenged persons were also among those who were recovered.'
'It seems that the administration was running a sort of religious school-cum-rehabilitation-centre and were receiving considerable sums of money from parents of those kept in for that purpose.'

Rescued Pakistani students sit in a police vehicle after the police raid

Not all the captives were young children, but all were of ethnic Pakhtun origin

The students had been kept chained and told of regular beatings and visits from Taliban fighters

Sanaa TV, a local station, showed footage of the raid and the chained students, who danced and cried as police began to free them.
'We were kept in chains and hung upside down and beaten with sticks if we didn't comply. We were told that we would be given training to fight in Afghanistan,' one boy said.
Another told how Taliban fighters had visited the seminary, led prayers and told them to prepare for battle.
The raid came after an anonymous tip-off to authorities. Police official Mukhtiar Khaskheli told Agence France-Presse that a full investigation would probe any possible links with militants.
'The madrassa officials claim that they had chained those students because they were drug addicts and they wanted to rehabilitate them and make them better Muslims,' he added.

Policemen continue to search the basement of Madrassa Zakarya

Pakistani policemen examine documents found at the Islamic seminary. One cleric and two others were arrested at the scene

According to the Press Trust of India, most of the captive students had been brought to Karachi from remote parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa province, a hotbed of Taliban activities.
'What we have learnt is that the parents used to pay the seminary for the education of their children who were sent to Karachi to get religious education,' a police official told the agency.
Pakistani government records seen by AFP suggest there are 15,148 seminaries in Pakistan, with more than two million students.
But officials suspect many more unregistered schools exist, providing the children of Pakistan's poverty-stricken majority with the only education they can afford.

Men in Glass Houses don't Dress Children in Basement

Taliban recapture U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl after 3 days on the run

(h/t @ChallahHuAckbar DailyMail) A U.S. soldier held by the Taliban since 2009 has been recaptured after he went on the run for three days.
Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl's daring escape failed when a manhunt was launched in Pakistan to find him, Taliban commanders said.
He is now facing his third Christmas in captivity.

Bowe Bergdahl, left, appeared without beard despite captors' claim he has converted to Islam in the latest video released by the Taliban last May

Sgt Bergdahl has been a prisoner of the Taliban since his capture on June 30, 2009, in Afghanistan.
Since then, he has appeared in a least five Taliban propoganda videos, one of which was released in May.
He is the only known U.S. soldier to be captive of the Taliban.

• Sgt Bergdahl made the attempt in late August or early September, after several months when his jailers became more trusting of him.

It is thought he learnt Pashto and converted to Islam to build up a rapport with his captors.
The soldier then reportedly jumped from a first-floor window of a mud-brick house in Pakistan where he was held, and made his escape into underbrush and forested mountains.

The 25-year-old made his daring break for freedom by jumping from a first-floor window before going on the run Pakistan

Sgt Bergdahl, who launched a daring escape attempt, was reported to have adopted the Muslim name Abdullah, according to his captors

His captors found him three days later hiding in a trench, covered with leaves and virtually naked, according to the report.
The sources described Sgt Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, fighting 'like a boxer' when found.
Quoting a Taliban source, The Daily Beast reported that Sgt Bergdahl told his captors that he wanted to find civilian villagers who would help him and notify the U.S..
But that hope proved futile as villagers had long since fled Pakistan's North Waziristan region because of the conflict.
Now he is back in captivity, Sgt Bergdahl is once more restrained at night and being moved frequently to avoid detection by U.S. forces.
Drone strikes have killed several senior militants in the area he is being held and sources say the Taliban is ready to make a deal to release the soldier.
A source told The Daily Beast: 'There's a fear that a dronecould hit the golden [goose].'
Colonel Tim Marsano, an Idaho National Guard spokesman based in Boise, was quoted in the report and has spoken with Sgt Bergdahl's family.
'There is certainly a lot of new information in that article that was news to the Sgt Bergdahl family,' he said. 'Any mother would be glad to hear that her son is alive and well at this point.'

Pre Taliban Afghan Leader killed in Suicide Terrorist Attack

For future reference to any Afghanistan politicians: The former president of Afghanistan – Burhanuddin Rabbani, a major figure who was leading peace talks aimed at ending the war – was killed in his home Tuesday by a suicide attacker wearing an exploding turban.(I bet THAT was messy.)
(english.aljazeera.net) Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president of Afghanistan, has been killed in a suicide attack in the country's capital, Kabul.
Rabbani, who served as president in the 1990s, was recently made the head of the High Peace Council, tasked by Hamid Karzai, the current president, to reach out to the Taliban.
Mohammad Zaher, Kabul's criminal investigations chief, said two men "negotiating with Rabbani on behalf of the Taliban" arrived at his house on Tuesday, one with explosives hidden in his turban.
"He approached Rabbani and detonated his explosives. Rabbani was martyred and four others including Masoom Stanekzai [his deputy] were injured".
Fazel Karim Aymaq, a member of the High Peace Council,  said the men claimed to have come with "special messages" from the Taliban and were thought to be "very trusted."
When Rabbani appeared, the man shook the former president's hand and bowed in a sign of respect, Aymaq said. "Then his turban exploded.''
The blast broke windows in Rabbani's home and shook nearby houses.
Initial reports said four bodyguards had been killed but Zaher said this was incorrect.
The latest in a series of targeted killings, Rabbani's is the most high-profile political killing since 2001.
He was president of the Afghan government that preceded the Taliban, a period of civil war that saw thousands of people killed.
After he was driven away from Kabul by the Taliban in 1996, he became the nominal head of the Northern Alliance, which swept to power in the capital after the Taliban's fall in 2001.
Failure
President Karzai, who cut short a trip to the United Nations in New York after hearing of the attack, called on Afghans to remain unified in the face of Rabbani's "martyrdom". An emergency cabinet meeting was called for on Wednesday.
The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned the killing and underscored the UN's commitment to "supporting Afghanistan and its people attaining peace and stability and to working in close co-operation with them," his spokesman said.
Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's president, and Yousuf Raza Gilani, the prime minister, also condemned the attack.
Amrullah Saleh, a former intelligence chief who fought against the Taliban under Rabbani, told Al Jazeera the attacks showed the government's failure in protecting high-profile figures.
"These attacks tell us that the policy of appeasement and deal making with the Taliban and Pakistan is not going to lead to peace.
"By adapting a vague policy of so called reconciliation, [the government] has created confusion in our society
and weakened the government to the extent that they can't even protect high-profiled leaders in the capital."
Rabbani's death could also unleash the resentment building up among some senior Northern Alliance members, who have criticised Karzai for his peace efforts with the Taliban.
"If Karzai wants to keep Afghanistan united, he has to launch massive massive investigations and bring the culprits to justice."

Political Settlement with the Taliban?

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has recently confirmed that “preliminary contacts” with Afghan Taliban guerrillas have been established, in the hope of working towards a peace deal with the various Islamist insurgent groups operating in Afghanistan, perhaps mediated by Pakistan.

via propagandistmag.com and image via pashtunforums.com

Better to decentralize the government and the police and give power to local tribes. The dichotomy of Karzai vs. Taliban is thinking inside of the box. For America to end it's occupation of Afghanistan the natural local alliances must be worked in.
propose the following decentralized substructure that works more along the lines of traditional organization of Pashtun society, drawing from the example of the long and largely peaceful reign of King Zahir Shah. His 40-year rule (1933-1973) was mainly due to a strategy of co-optation of and co-operation with village society.
Read the whole plan.  see how the mistakes in Afghanistan parallel the mistakes in Iraq 

Pakistanis vow to complete bin Laden's mission to kill Jews in Liberal Western Massachusetts

this is close to home. We have many Mosque's near Poughkeepsie NY.

From New England Town Crier.

Some Pakistani’s that have settled in Hampshire County may not share the views of the vast majority of their countrymen and fellow Muslims – that Bin Laden was the greatest Muslim hero since their prophet himself and that his death by the ‘Jew controlled Western powers’ must be avenged.
Pakistani Taliban in New England?

...@Hampshire Mosque...
image via amherstma.gov

Information found in Bin Laden’s home revealed that many Pakistani students (i.e. Taliban) have already been sent to America to plot attacks on Amtrak train routes that run thru Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and into many other small towns in New England. These Taliban students often sign up for a class or two at an American college in order to secure a temporary visa. Once in the United States they instantly become full citizens by marrying nice Muslim women provided by their community, who themselves may have just petitioned for citizenship.
Fortunately the members of the Hampshire Mosque follow “a middle path, a path of moderation” and the Western Massachusetts community can be sure that these tolerant, peace loving Muslims will do everything they can to eliminate hateful people, prophets, or other leaders who advocate violence and the killing of Jews, Christians, or other unbelievers…
… just as soon as they explain Dr. Hazratji’s exhortations to Muslim students last year to unite against nefarious Jews and the fitna that they cause in the world, and to become good Muslims by following their prophet’s Sunna by engaging in violence and warfare, whether they liked it or not.

And yet we continue to import them. This is not going to end well.
H/t: Creeping Sharia via eye-on-the-world.blogspot.com

U.S. meeting with the Taliban to "explore" "peace"

...Taliban fighters stand alongside kidnapped Polish geologist Piotr Stanczak
...minutes before he was beheaded...Reuters photo....

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (NYT) — American officials have met with a senior aide to the fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, at least three times in recent months in the first direct exploratory peace talks, officials in the region said.
The meetings have been facilitated by Germany and Qatar, but American officials have been present each time, meeting with Tayeb Agha, who is a close personal assistant to Mullah Omar, the officials said. The C.I.A. and the State Department have been involved in the meetings, one official said.
The meetings were first reported by The Washington Post last week and the German magazine Der Spiegel this week. A senior Afghan official and Western officials working in the region confirmed the reports on the condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to talk to the news media about the issue.
Begun well before the killing of Osama bin Laden on May 2, the meetings represent a clear shift in the attitude of the Obama administration toward peace talks with the Taliban, first signaled by a speech in February by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Western officials said. In that speech Mrs. Clinton said that previous requirements for starting talks could instead be considered “desired outcomes,” opening the way to exploratory meetings without preconditions. via bokertov.typepad.com

Obama's altruistic foreign policy

If only in the interest of intellectual hygiene, it would be refreshing if the Obama administration would stop ascribing moral impetuses to its foreign policy.
Today, US forces are engaged in a slowly escalating war on behalf of al-Qaida penetrated antiregime forces in Libya. It is difficult to know the significance of al-Qaida's role in the opposition forces because to date, the self-proclaimed rebel government has only disclosed 10 of its 31 members.
Indeed, according to The New York Times, the NATO-backed opposition to dictator Muammar Gaddafi is so disorganized that it cannot even agree about who the commander of its forces is.
And yet, despite the fact that the Obama administration has no clear notion of who is leading the fight against Gaddafi or what they stand for, this week the White House informed Congress that it will begin directly funding the al-Qaida-linked rebels, starting with $25 million in non-lethal material. This aid, like the NATO no-fly zone preventing Gaddafi from using his air force, and the British military trainers now being deployed to Libya to teach the rebels to fight, will probably end up serving no greater end then prolonging the current stalemate. With the Obama administration unwilling to enforce the no-fly zone with US combat aircraft, unwilling to take action to depose Gaddafi and unwilling to cultivate responsible, pro-Western successors to Gaddafi, the angry tyrant will probably remain in power indefinitely.
In and of itself, the fact that the war has already reached a stalemate constitutes a complete failure of the administration's stated aim of protecting innocent Libyan civilians from slaughter.
Not only are both the regime forces and the rebel forces killing civilians daily. Due to both sides' willingness to use civilians as human shields, NATO forces unable to differentiate between fighters and civilians and so they too are killing their share of civilians.
In deciding in favor of military intervention on the basis of a transnational legal doctrine never accepted as law by the US Congress called "responsibility to protect," President Barack Obama was reportedly swayed by the arguments of his senior national security adviser Samantha Power. Over the past 15 years, Power has fashioned herself into a celebrity policy wonk by cultivating a public persona of herself as a woman moved by the desire to prevent genocide. In a profile of Power in the current issue of the National Journal, Jacob Heilbrunn explains, "Power is not just an advocate for human rights. She is an outspoken crusader against genocide..."
Heilbrunn writes that Power's influence over Obama and her celebrity status has made her the leader of a new US foreign policy elite. "This elite," he writes, "is united by a shared belief that American foreign policy must be fundamentally transformed from an obsession with national interests into a broader agenda that seeks justice for women and minorities, and promotes democracy whenever and wherever it can -- at the point of a cruise missile if necessary."
As the prolonged slaughter in Libya and expected continued failure of the NATO mission make clear, Power and her new foreign policy elite have so far distinguished themselves mainly by their gross incompetence.
But then, even if the Libyan mission were crowned in success, it wouldn't make the moral pretentions of the US adventure there any less disingenuous. And this is not simply because the administration-backed rebels include al-Qaida fighters.
The fact is that the moral arguments used for intervening militarily on behalf of Gaddafi's opposition pale in comparison to the moral arguments for intervening in multiple conflicts where the Obama administration refuses to lift a finger. At a minimum, this moral inconsistency renders it impossible for the Obama administration to credibly embrace the mantel of moral actor on the world stage.
Consider the administration's Afghanistan policy.
Over the past week, the White House and the State Department have both acknowledged that administration officials are conducting negotiations with the Taliban.
Last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended the administration's policy. During a memorial service for the late ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who at the time of his death last December was the most outspoken administration figure advocating engaging Mullah Omar and his followers, Clinton said, "Those who found negotiations with the Taliban distasteful got a very powerful response from Richard - diplomacy would be easy if we only had to talk to our friends."
Of course, the Taliban are not simply not America's friends. They are the enemy of every good and decent human impulse. The US went to war against the Taliban in 2001 because the Bush administration rightly held them accountable for Osama bin Laden and his terror army which the Taliban sponsored, hosted and sheltered on its territory.
But the Taliban are America's enemy not just because they bear responsibility for the September 11 attacks on the US. They are the enemy of the US because they are evil monsters.
Apparently, the supposedly moral, anti-genocidal, pro-women Obama administration needs to be reminded why it is not merely distasteful but immoral to engage the Taliban. So here it goes.
Under the Taliban, the women and girls of Afghanistan were the most oppressed, most terrorized, most endangered group of people in the world. Women and girls were denied every single human right. They were effectively prisoners in their homes, allowed on the streets only when fully covered and escorted by a male relative.
They were denied the right to education, work and medical care. Women who failed to abide in full by these merciless rules were beaten, imprisoned, tortured, and stoned to death.
The Taliban's barbaric treatment of women and girls probably couldn't have justified their overthrow at the hands of the US military. But it certainly justified the US's refusal to even consider treating them like legitimate political actors in the 10 years since NATO forces first arrived in Afghanistan. And yet, the self-proclaimed champions of the downtrodden in the administration are doing the morally unjustifiable. They are negotiating, and so legitimizing the most diabolical sexual tyranny known to man. Obama, Clinton, Power and their colleagues are now shamelessly advancing a policy that increases the likelihood that the Taliban will again rise to power and enslave Afghanistan's women and girls once more.
Then there is Syria. In acts of stunning courage, despite massive regime violence that has killed approximately two hundred people in three weeks, anti-regime protesters in Syria are not standing down. Instead, they are consistently escalating their protests. They have promised that the demonstrations after Friday prayers this week will dwarf the already unprecedented country-wide protests we have seen to date.
In the midst of the Syrian demonstrators' calls for freedom from one of the most repressive regimes in the Middle East, the Obama administration has sided with their murderous dictator Bashar Assad, referring to him as a "reformer."
As Heibrunn notes in his profile of Power, she and her colleagues find concerns about US national interests parochial at best and immoral at worst. Her clear aim -- and that of her boss - has been to separate US foreign policy from US interests by tethering it to transnational organizations like the UN.
Given the administration's contempt for policy based on US national interests, it would be too much to expect the White House to notice that Syria's Assad regime is one of the greatest state supporters of terrorism in the world and that its overthrow would be a body blow to Iran, Venezuela, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaida and therefore a boon for US national security.
In theory, the Syrian opposition presents the likes of Obama and Power with what ought to be a serious moral dilemma. First, they seem to fit the precise definition of the sort of people that the transnationalists have a responsibility to protect.
They are being gunned down by the dozen as they march with olive branches and demand change they can believe in. Moreover, their plan for ousting Assad involves subordinating him to the transnationalists at the UN.
According to a report last week in The Washington Times, Washington-based representatives of several Syrian opposition groups have asked the administration to do three things in support of the opposition, all of which are consonant with the administration's own oft stated foreign policy preferences.
They have requested that Obama condemn the regime's murderous actions in front of television cameras. They have asked the administration to initiate an investigation of Assad's murderous response to the demonstrations at the UN Human Rights Council. And they have asked the administration to enact unilateral sanctions against a few Syrian leaders who have given troops the orders to kill the protesters.
The administration has not responded to the request to act against Assad at the UN Human Rights Council. It has refused the opposition's other two requests.
These responses are no surprise in light of the Obama administration's abject and consistent refusal to take any steps that could help Iran's pro-democracy, pro-women's rights, pro-Western opposition Green Movement in its nearly two-year-old struggle to overthrow the nuclear proliferating, terror-supporting, genocide-inciting, elections-stealing mullocracy.
Power's personal contribution to the shocking moral failings of the administration's foreign policy is of a piece with her known hostility towards Israel. That hostility, which involves a moral inversion of the reality of the Palestinian war against Israel, was most graphically exposed in a 2002 interview. Then, at the height of the Palestinian terror war against Israel, when Palestinian terrorists from Hamas and Fatah alike were carrying out daily attacks whose clear aim was the massacre of as many Israeli civilians as possible simply because they were Israelis, Power said in a filmed interview that she supported deploying a "mammoth" US military force to Israel to protect the Palestinians from the IDF.
In periodic attempts to convince credulous pro-Israel writers that she doesn't actually support invading Israel, Power has claimed that her statements calling for just such an invasion and additional remarks in which she blamed American Jews for US support of Israel were inexplicable lapses of judgment.
But then there have been so many lapses in judgment in her behavior and in the actions of the administration she serves that it is hard to see where the lapses begin and the judgment ends. Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran and Israel are only the tip of the iceberg. Everywhere from Honduras to Venezuela, from Britain to Russia, from Colombia to Cuba, Japan to China, Egypt to Lebanon, to Poland and the Czech Republic and beyond, those lapses in judgment are informing policies that place the US consistently on the side of aggressors against their victims.
Back in the pre-Obama days, when US foreign policy was supposed to serve US interests, it would have mattered that these policies all weaken the US and its allies and empower its foes. But now, in the era of the purely altruistic Obama administration, none of that matters.
What does matter is that the purely altruistic Obama foreign policy is empowering genocidal, misogynist, bigoted tyrants worldwide.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

by Caroline Glick via docstalk.blogspot.com

Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Gorbachev Has Advice for US: Victory in Afghanistan Is Impossible

Mikhail Gorbachev, who pulled Soviet troops out of Afghanistan more than 20 years ago after a bloody decadelong war there, says victory in Afghanistan is “impossible,” and that America is risking another Vietnam if it doesn’t withdraw its own troops soon.The Red Army was forced to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989, after being routed by U.S.-backed mujahedeen fighters — some of whom later joined the Taliban and are NATO’s enemies in the war today. Gorbachev recognized that irony in an interview with the BBC aired today.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said in an interview with the BBC that “Obama is right to pull the troops out” of Afghanistan.
“We had hoped America would abide by the agreement that we reached that Afghanistan should be a neutral, democratic country that would have good relations with its neighbors and with both the U.S. and the USSR,” the 79-year-old former Soviet leader said. “The Americans always said they supported this, but at the same time they were training militants — the same ones who today are terrorizing Afghanistan and more and more of Pakistan.”
The complex history of the U.S. in Afghanistan, where it first armed Islamist fighters during the Cold War and is now fighting against them, makes it more difficult for U.S. troops to abandon the country, Gorbachev said.
“But what’s the alternative — another Vietnam? Sending in half a million troops? That wouldn’t work,” he said. “Victory is impossible in Afghanistan. [Barack] Obama is right to pull the troops out. No matter how difficult it will be.”
More than 150,000 NATO troops, mostly Americans and Britons, have been fighting in Afghanistan for nine years. The Obama administration has pledged to begin drawing down the number of U.S. troops there next year, though American forces are expected to remain in smaller numbers for several years.
Meanwhile, Russian troops may once again be pulled into conflict in Afghanistan, according to new NATO proposals for cooperation with Moscow. The plans, which are being discussed ahead of a NATO summit next month in Lisbon, include Russia’s possible contribution of helicopters and crews to train Afghan pilots, and increased cooperation on counternarcotics and border security, The Guardian reported.
Russia’s envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, dismissed the report today, telling the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, “We’ve already been in Afghanistan, and we didn’t like it much.”
Gorbachev’s comments to the BBC come amid of flurry of interviews he’s given recently, including several in which he’s been boldly critical of Russia’s current leadership.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who once had Gorbachev’s support, has now undermined his country’s democracy, the former Soviet leader told The New York Times. “He thinks that democracy stands in his way,” Gorbachev said.
Sponsored Links “I am afraid that they have been saddled with this idea that this unmanageable country needs authoritarianism,” Gorbachev continued, referring to both Putin and his close ally, President Dmitry Medvedev. “They think they cannot do without it.”
Gorbachev said officials of Putin’s United Russia party are too concerned with clinging onto their own power and don’t want Russians to participate in their nation’s civic life. It’s the same frustrated tone he struck in another interview with Moscow-based Snob magazine last week, in which he warned that Russia’s leadership must start listening to the people or risk mass protests and disorder.
“Our government fears its own citizens,” Gorbachev told the magazine, according to Bloomberg News. “When people finally realize that their opinion is ignored and that nothing depends on them, they’ll go out on the street.
“The most dangerous thing is if the tension building up in society suddenly bursts onto the street with such a force that we’ll all be in trouble.”
Read more at AOL.

via matzav.com

noahdavidsimon's posterous

Saudi Arabia is providing the Taliban and Al-Qaeda with weapons

....which it recently received from the U.S. , according to a Dari-language daily.
The Dari-language newspaper Roznama Arman-e-Milli cited an Iranian media source as saying that Saudi Arabia's purchase of U.S. weapons is aimed at supporting terrorists.
The U.S. has given weapons worth $60 billion to Saudi Arabia to strengthen its security, the report noted.
Source: Roznama Arman-e-Milli, Afghanistan, September 26, 2010

via thememriblog.org

Saudi Arabia Wants to Go Nuclear.

Not Enough Oil?

Saudi Arabia could be interested in developing a uranium enrichment capability as part of the kingdom's efforts to establish a civilian atomic power sector, an adviser hired by the Middle Eastern state to devise its nuclear strategy said Wednesday (see GSN, Aug. 24, 2009).

The uranium enrichment process can produce nuclear-weapon material as well as fuel for civilian applications.
Over time, Riyadh is expected to want to be involved in as many parts of the atomic energy production process as it can be, said David Cox, a consultant whose firm was hired by Saudi Arabia to prepare the nuclear strategy.
"Enrichment could happen there and the same with mining uranium," Cox said, adding that "outsourcing will happen initially."
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy chose Cox's firm, Poyry, to analyze the potential for Saudi participation in all aspects of the atomic-energy production process, Reuters quoted the consultant as saying.
Cox said his firm's study "is to evaluate what part of [nuclear energy production] is possible at a reasonable economic cost."
The feasibility study would be finished in several months and would contain comprehensive guidance on the economic, institutional and technical aspects needed for beginning nuclear plant construction, he said (Reuters/Daily Star, June 18).

via gsn.nti.org

I'm not going to act shocked. I'm just not. Jordan is doing it with Obama... and the Saudis are terrified of Iran. This is what happens when you encourage this.

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Three New Poems by so called American Taliban John Walker Lindh

An Islamist organization devoted to supporting Guantanamo Bay detainees and other prisoners held on charges of terrorism has posted three poems that it said it received from John Walker Lindh. An American citizen, Lindh was captured in Afghanistan in 2001, and is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after agreeing to a plea bargain.
Each of the poems is signed "Abu Sulayman Al-Irlandi, Detainee #001," and dated Ramadan 1431 (i.e. August-September 2010). "Al-Irlandi" means "the Irishman," and the poems themselves contain additional nods to Lindh's Irish heritage, including a reference to himself as "a Mussulman [i.e. Muslim] Paddy."
The first poem, "The Ballad of the Fleas," is about the war in Afghanistan, and depicts the Americans as callous Crusaders, their local allies as un-Islamic hypocrites, and the Taliban as noble soldiers who have been unjustly maligned: "For wolves may foam and bark and bite / And gnash and gnaw and hiss / But if a sheep should dare bite back / He'd be a terrorist." The second poem, "Ode to Omar Khadr," is dedicated to a Guantanamo Bay detainee who is accused of having been a teenage Al-Qaeda operative. Much of this poem deals with alleged misconduct in Khadr's detention and trial: "I end with a message to every oppressor / To each gavel-grasping bench-squatting cross-dresser / As you judge you'll be judged and my closing remark is / A victory jig on the back of your carcass." The third poem, "A Mussulman Paddy's Epistle to Barry," is addressed to President Obama, and uses an inversion of Revolutionary War-era imagery to promise him defeat in Afghanistan: "So lie on the ground like a parcel of noodles / And sing how the Yankees were beat by Pushtoodles [i.e. the Pushtun]."
In a related matter, in August 2010 Lindh and another Muslim inmate have asked a federal judge in Indianapolis, where he is incarcerated, to allow them and other Muslims to pray as a group. The ACLU subsequently filed a motion on Lindh's behalf, claiming that the prison's policy violates the prisoners' First Amendment right to free religious expression.

via memri.org

Me thinks the Irishman is good with words, but lacking wisdom. Witty... like his heritage and unfortunately confused. The Irish and Arabs have much in common with their focus on prose and rhythm. It is too bad poor Lindh followed his own radicalism to his fate... he might of been amusing to of listened to in an Irish bar. John Walker Lindh might of been a better writer if he had looked at the source of the homophobia that led to his fate instead of writing prose that demonizes cross dressing. Poor Lindh was a child of the sexual revolution and his cross dressing Irish daddy in San Fransisco is the source of his fears. In psychological terms this is called projection.

noahdavidsimon's posterous

Petraeus Condemns U.S. Church Plan to Burn Qurans and Mosque Supporters Double Standards of Freedom Religion

so now the Mosque supporters want to limit the freedom of religion of Christians?  ...I don't get it. 

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said the planned burning of Qurans on Sept. 11 by a small Florida church could put the lives of American troops in danger and damage the war effort.  Gen. David Petraeus said the Taliban would exploit the demonstration for propaganda purposes, drumming up anger toward the U.S. and making it harder for allied troops to carry out their mission of protecting Afghan civilians.

It is not in the spirit of the constitution for a military high ranking official to speak out against a group of believers when he is obviously enabling another very violent ideology. He is only highlighting why we can't trust him. It also becomes very obvious that the reason these wars have become less violent in the short term is because we have surrendered to Islam. The Jizya has become soldiers blood. will we learn anything from the history of Khaibar? we don't even address why Hamas has called their missiles Khaibar.  

"It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort," Gen. Petraeus said in an interview. "It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community."

Hundreds of Afghans attended a demonstration in Kabul on Monday to protest the plans of Florida pastor Terry Jones, who has said he will burn copies of Islam's holy book to mark the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Afghan protesters chanted "death to America," and speakers called on the U.S. to withdraw its troops. Some

Military officials fear the protests will likely spread to other Afghan cities, especially if the event is broadcast or ends up on Internet video.

Mr. Jones, head of the 50-member Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., said in a statement that "We understand the General's concerns. We are sure that his concerns are legitimate." Nonetheless, he added, "We must send a clear message to the radical element of Islam. We will no longer be controlled and dominated by their fears and threats."
Mr. Jones has been denied a permit for the demonstration, but has said he plans to go forward with the protest.

via online.wsj.com

The hypocrisy here is that these people were making false defenses to freedom of religion and now they want to censor a church. The only thing consistent is a Sharia enabling world view. The fact remains that religious practice is not protected by our Constitution, only religious belief.

It is their church. They decided to burn the Quran. Even if our government continues to call a hateful violent ideology like Islam a religion then this actually is not permitted because like I was saying before there is a difference between religious belief and religious practice or assemblage. Treat the goose like the gander. If you have to protect hate because it is a religion then you have to protect hate because it is a religion.  (I would argue that hating Islam is not hate) The best solution is to realize that hate is not a religion... btw.  Islam as practiced and dictated by Wahabists and Al Azahar is not a religion... it is hate. and I understand full well that other faiths consider the Quran holy, but Mosque supporters can not have it both ways. 

noahdavidsimon's posterous

Hamas $540 million budget for 2010, mostly Iranian aid.

$30 million of Hamas funds would be relayed to bolster the Islamic presence in Jerusalem.

The Hamas parliament approved the 2010 budget on Dec. 31, but legislators provided no details. One parliamentarian, Jamal Nasser, said that no more than $60 million of the budget would come from taxes and fees.

"The rest would come from gifts and foreign aid," Nasser said.

Nasser announced the passage of the Hamas budget on Jan. 2. He did not identify the foreign aid, but Palestinian sources said Iran would be the main donor

via worldtribune.com

Who was it that said that Shi'i and Sunni terrorists didn't work together?

"Two common assumptions handicap an understanding of terrorist networks. The first is that Shi'i and Sunni groups or governments do not cooperate. Hence, some scholars argue that it is impossible that the Iranian regime could supply arms to the Taliban. In 2007, Juan Cole, a professor at the University of Michigan, wrote, "Among the more fantastic charges that Bush made against Iran was that its government was actively arming and helping the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. In fact, the Taliban are extremist Sunnis who hate and have killed large numbers of Shiites. Shiite Iran is unlikely to support them." The evidence that they have done so, however, is overwhelming as U.S. forces have seized truckloads of Iranian weaponry en route to the Taliban" via meforum.org

oh that's right... Juan Cole, a professor at the University of Michigan