This is somewhat hilarious yet oddly factual.

Continuing my Memorial Day series… Here’s an analysis and OpEd piece done by Joe Lieberman.

Democrats and Our Enemies | Wall Street Journal

By JOSEPH LIEBERMAN
May 21, 2008; Page A19

How did the Democratic Party get here? How did the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy drift so far from the foreign policy and national security principles and policies that were at the core of its identity and its purpose?

Beginning in the 1940s, the Democratic Party was forced to confront two of the most dangerous enemies our nation has ever faced: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In response, Democrats under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy forged and conducted a foreign policy that was principled, internationalist, strong and successful.

This was the Democratic Party that I grew up in – a party that was unhesitatingly and proudly pro-American, a party that was unafraid to make moral judgments about the world beyond our borders. It was a party that understood that either the American people stood united with free nations and freedom fighters against the forces of totalitarianism, or that we would fall divided.

This was the Democratic Party of Harry Truman, who pledged that "it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."

And this was the Democratic Party of John F. Kennedy, who promised in his inaugural address that the United States would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of freedom."

This worldview began to come apart in the late 1960s, around the war in Vietnam. In its place, a very different view of the world took root in the Democratic Party.

Read the rest of this entry »

This would be funny if it weren’t true… Ex-Army Chaplain Cleared in Gitmo Spy Case to be Obama Delegate - America’s Election HQ

OLYMPIA, Wash. — A former Army chaplain at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who was cleared of spy accusations will be a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

Former Capt. James J. Yee, a Muslim, was among the delegates pledged to Sen. Barack Obama who were elected by precinct representatives Saturday. He’s representing the state’s 9th Congressional District at the party’s convention in Denver in August.

My question regarding the dismissed spying accusations would be whether they were dismissed for a good reason, or for political expediency, or even to protect confidential sources from having to be revealed.

What I recall about Yee is that he was maintaining lines of communication between Gitmo prisoners and the outside world, something that was against both standard counterterrorism rules and also the Gitmo prisoner policies. Even worse is that Yee was a commissioned officer in the army at the time and should have known better.

The only way Yee would have felt confident in doing this type of activity is if he felt it was his calling as a Muslim Imam / Army Chaplain to disregard the ‘laws of man’. If that were the case, it sounds like his flock converted him.

I don’t think anyone disputes the fact that Hussein wasn’t directly behind the 9/11 attacks. There are some strong indicators that he was still a threat, most of which I covered in a previous thesis / post.

Interesting information as always from Mark Eichenlaub’s Iraq Regime of Terror blog:

A closer reading of the study (see here, here, here, here, here and here) shows that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq cooperated with, financed and supported a number of Islamic terrorist groups, including al Qaeda proxies (at least five according to Thomas Joscelyn) and had a larger capacity for state apparatus terrorism (car bomb training, IED training, jihadist suicide bomber recruitment, etc.) than previously believed by many.

Of the many noteworthy findings in the report is the assertion made in the conclusion that Hussein had retained not only the capacity to launch anti-West terrorist attacks but the will to use those terrorist capabilities, including directly against the United States, which was also a matter of previous debate.

The report’s conclusion, while noting that a perfect grasp of Hussein’s mindset at the exact time of U.S. invasion remained elusive, states that "evidence that was uncovered and analyzed attests to the existence of a terrorist capability and a willingness to use it until the day Saddam was forced to flee Baghdad by Coalition forces."

Still, there are reasons that I have felt justified our actions.

My opinion on invading Iraq - three years later…

GWOT,iran,terrorism,propaganda

Quoted from FOXNews.com - Terror at Ground Zero - Bill O’Reilly | The O’Reilly Factor

Here’s what I don’t like about the Iranian government:

It is giving bombs to Iraqi terrorists and American soldiers are dying.

It funds Hezbollah, which started a war with Israel during which thousands of civilians were killed.

It is providing sanctuary to Al Qaeda big shots, including bin Laden’s son.

It is a fascist state, where dissent is punished and women are denied many freedoms.

It is actively trying to destroy Israel.

It is actively trying to develop a nuclear weapon, which puts the world at risk.

Iran is the world’s most dangerous nation. So when its President Ahmadinejad announced he was going to visit Ground Zero next Monday morning here in New York City, most Americans — including me — were appalled. And so was the NYPD. And it has denied Iran’s request for security reasons.

GWOT,hirabah,jihad,Counterinsurgency,COIN

Quoted from Counterterrorism Blog:

U.S. Muslim Brotherhood Groups Called “Threat Organization” in DOD Memo

By Douglas Farah

The following recent, unclassified memorandum, a military intelligence analysis of some of the Holy Land Foundation documents, was sent to me by a friend concerned with these issues. For the first time that I know of, the Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the United States are classified as “threat organization” in an official writing.

It also directly addresses the campaign by Truespeak Institute, led by Jim Giurard, to change the language of the war on terrorism.

J. Michael Waller is an important part of that campaign as well, and, in his recent monograph Fighting the War of Ideas Like a Real War: Messages to Defeat the Terrorists argues, a Giurard does, that one should classify Islamist terrorist attacks as _hirabah_ rather than _jihad_.

You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting someone who says they know what makes a suicide bomber. Equally split, the theories are that they hate being poor, or they hate Israel, or the United States under some Zionist conspiracy provoked them.

I learned as an investigator that for any crime theory to stick, you have to provide the MMO - Motive, Means, Opportunity. I apply the same basic deductive reasoning to most of my analysis of Current Events, particularly the Global War on Terror.

It broke down into three parts:

1. Trying to analyze what exactly makes people use Terrorism as a tactic.
2. Figuring out why the statistics point to terrorists being overwhelmingly Muslim.
3. Are any other countries going to help us with this, or do they stand against us simply by not participating?

Putin’s Russia - The Other White Meat

Let’s throw more fuel onto the fire with this analysis from RadioFreeEurope Russia: As Middle East Heats Up, Moscow Maintains Balancing Act:

Russia could, however, feasibly benefit from an escalation of hostilities in the Middle East. As a major energy exporter, Russia would benefit from the likely major rise in oil and gas prices. China and the EU, on the other hand, would likely face severe economic difficulties.

Not only would Russia profit financially, but could gain new geopolitical ground, with the EU more dependent on Russia for energy. That could also push China to rely more on Russian energy resources, causing Beijing to invest in building pipelines in Russia’s Far East.

I mean, are we going to win this thing? Clearly, it’s in Russia’s best interest to fan the flames. Oh yes, and they’re the ones with the loosely controlled Chem / Bio / Nuke technology.

I keep having that Bill Paxton / Hudson breakout role in Aliens moment:

We’re in some real pretty s**t right now. That’s it man, game over man, game over!

How Do You Win the GWOT Vs. Jihad When Nobody’s In Charge To Surrender?!?

By ‘win’ I mean that I want my kids to be able to go to a 7-Eleven without having someone strapping a bomb push a plunger. I don’t want to read about Chechen-style school takeovers. I definitely don’t want to have to take my Potassium Iodide because of a dirty bomb, RDD, low-yield nuke, or other nonsense. How do we make all of this go away?

Fighting Terrorism Is A Lot Like Fighting The Living Dead

I was playing my XBox 360 a few months ago. A game called Dead Rising. Self descriptive title but the point I’m trying to make is how do you win this kind of conflict when the enemy is all around and you don’t know who they are until they try to kill you?

What Makes A Suicide Bomber?

There are a plethora of books you could read to get the same information or corroborate this single-source analysis. This is straightforward analysis but as I was reading it, it seemed boilerplate for the typical “I hate Islam” stuff you would expect to see from any Pajamas Media crowd - except that I can’t refute this work.

Quoted from Jihad Watch: Islam 101:

Islam 101

by Gregory M. Davis
author, Religion of Peace? Islam’s War Against the World
producer/director, Islam: What the West Needs to Know — An Examination of Islam, Violence, and the Fate of the Non-Muslim World

Islam 101 is meant to help people become better educated about the fundamentals of Islam and to help the more knowledgeable better convey the facts to others.

Similarly, my book and documentary are meant to serve as concise explanations of the major moving parts of Islam and their implications for Western society. Islam 101 is a condensation of the book and documentary with the aim of lending clarity to the public understanding of Islam and of exposing the inadequacy of prevailing views. All should feel free to distribute and/or reproduce it.

Is the Glass Half-Full or Half-Empty? | With A Suicide Bomber, Are We Better Safe Than Sorry?

So to relieve my initial skepticism about Davis’ studies as a source I cross-referenced most of the data. I won’t bore you with links and bullets but unfortunately it comes down to who you want to believe.

• Muslim scholars say the Davis analysis is not true,
• …however actual linguistic analysis of the Koran similar to what Christian scholars do with the original Greek language of the New Testament reveals not only massive issues with the linguistic roots,
• … it also supports the theories of the intended speech of the Koran pointing towards violence.

Davis answers his critics:

It must be emphasized that all of the analysis provided here derives from the Islamic sources themselves and is not the product of critical Western scholarship. (Indeed, most modern Western scholarship of Islam is hardly “critical” in any meaningful sense.) It is Islam’s self-interpretation that necessitates and glorifies violence, not any foreign interpretation of it.

People are blowing themselves up, crashing planes into buildings, and killing little girls for not wearing headscarves and we’ve been calling them extremists. What if they’re the norm? What if the moderate Muslims are the ones who are not adhering to the Koran?

Whatever. This is grim and depressing news.

What’s it going to take? KGB-style retaliation?

Tell me what it’s going to take to win. After six years of research on the subject I’ve got my theories but I’m always open to new suggestions. You do the research. I’ll be playing my XBox 360. And stocking up on the Potassium Iodide.

islam,GWOT,jihad,wahabbism,suicide bomber,muslim,terrorism

Quoted from The NY Times…

New York City Police Report Explores Homegrown Terrorism - New York Times

The report identified four steps in the process of radicalization: pre-radicalization, self-identification, indoctrination and jihadization.

Pre-radicalization, it said, “describes an individual’s world — his or her pedigree, lifestyle, religion, social status, neighborhood and education — just prior to the start of their journey down the path of radicalization.”

Basically, how Johnny Jihadi was a good boy. So quiet and always went to prayers. Had an engineering degree and worked for a construction company.

Self-identification, it said, marks the point where people begin to explore militant Islam “while slowly migrating away from their former identity.”

The hardest part of combatting this is that when radicalized Muslims debate moderate Muslims, they always win their points. The Koran states key passages that support Jihad. And there’s always that First Amendment issue of free speech.

Personal crises — such as losing a job or suffering from racism — can serve as a catalyst for this “religious seeking,” the report said. While people can move gradually through the early phases, over two or three years, they can pivot quickly toward violence, the report said. The Internet, it said, can enable them.

This catalyst can be as easy as frustration in not being able to pursue their goals, and spinning adrift. As we’ve noted in recent posts, in Israel, there are Israelis who have personally known attempted Palestinian suicide bombers for years who then inexplicably strap on a bomb vest and try to go out in a blaze of glory.

Additionally, let’s remember that this is for the operational jihadi. The support jihadis are another picture all together.The recon jihadis are another picture all together. They contribute to the attack, but don’t carry it out. They may just do little errands or some such task that helps.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, chairman of the homeland security committee, said the report’s analyses, while similar to those of other studies, were a “breakthrough” in antiterrorism efforts.

Good God.  really wish that one of the GOP candidates would take him along as a VP now that he’s Independent. He has been the only voice of sanity from the Dems and they tried to annihilate him this last election.

Homeland Security,Terrorism,Domestic Terrorism,NYPD,jihad,GWOT,Homegrown Terrorism

Just a couple of sources for clear intelligence.

Detainee talks of terror camp in Hussein-era Iraq (Regime of Terror)

It is not clear when exactly Abed is saying the training took place in Fallujah but this is the city where Baathist/Wahhabist cooperation took place post invasion and a city in which, according to Ray Robison, Wahhabism may have been not only tolerated but assisted by the former regime.

al Qaeda video documents Hussein era training in Northern Iraq

Because of the totalitarian nature of Saddam Hussein’s regime it is difficult to imagine that camps of this nature, involving hundreds of terrorists with more than just small arms weapons, would be allowed to conduct their training on Iraqi soil if they posed a threat to the former regime. Instead, multiple attacks against local Kurdish officials seemed to be the directive of the group and in al Qaeda video terrorists were recorded attacking the Kurdish militia, a bitter enemy of Saddam regime.

Iraq war,GWOT,Al Qaeda,Terrorism,Saddam Hussein

Gateway Pundit: WANTED: Adnan Jumaa for Suspected Nuclear Attack on US:

“Osama bin Laden is planning to carry out new, more destructive attacks inside the United States, and there is someone working on this terror plot currently in the US, according to Hamid Mir, the famed Pakistani journalist who obtained the only post-9/11 interviews with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. In an interview quoted on the website of the al-Arabiya television network, Mir spoke about his last trip to Afghanistan and his meeting with al-Qaeda members and Taliban leaders.”

Gateway Pundit: Picture Proof: The Saddam-Al Qaeda Connections: “Picture Proof: The Saddam-Al Qaeda Connections

The following information did not make it into the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report released last Friday, that claimed Saddam’s government ‘did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward’ al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates.”

Gateway Pundit: WANTED: Adnan Jumaa for Suspected Nuclear Attack on US: From Pakistan comes news that Adnan G. El Shukrijumah has successfully smuggled nuclear material across the US and is planning an attack on the United States during the holy month of Ramadan which begins on September 24th.