Turkey: The Sleeping Giant Of Islam

From World Affairs Journal.Org

Today is a turning point in history. Nothing will ever be the same again.” So said Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan shortly after nine Turks aboard a Turkish ship died in a May 2010 clash with Israelis. The ship had challenged Israel’s embargo on terror-related goods bound for Gaza. Some observers said that the prime minister shook visibly as he spoke that day.

Erdogan was indeed marking a historic turning point. But not in Turkish-Israeli relations. Rather, he should have been seen—and in fact has been seen throughout the Middle East—as signaling a much broader and more ambitious regional agenda for Turkey, one that will impact its relations with Iran. And to the degree that this agenda succeeds, Erdogan’s words will be seen as prophetic: nothing hereafter will be the same.

Among Turks there seems little doubt that the Erdogan government was complicit in the “flotilla affair,” and that the prime minister looked forward to a confrontation that, one way or another, would show him dramatically standing against Israel. Under his leadership, Turkey’s once firm relations with Israel had already decayed. The Turkish radicals on board the ship heading toward Gaza were not surprised when an Israeli ship interdicted them; violence seems to have been in their plans. Investigations are under way. But this is a region resistant to the niceties of depositions; it sees a higher truth in this affair.

The Middle East has known for some time of Erdogan’s determination to change the nature of his country’s strategic vision. Under his tightening leadership, Turkey is distancing itself from a century of Western orientation and half a century of Western alliances. It pursues a patient and careful course toward a leading, or even dominant, role in the greater Gulf region, and perhaps in the universe of Muslim-majority countries more generally.

No explicit declaration marked this change, for none was wise or needed. Erdogan still calls Turkey a bridge to the Muslim world and tells Westerners that he will be an honest broker between them and it. But the Muslim world understands very well that Turkey has tilted toward the East. Until recently, Erdogan had quietly pursued this shift in three main ways: positioning Turkey to benefit from the decline of the Arab states whose leadership of the region has dramatically deteriorated in the past decade; reaching out to Iran, the most openly aggressive claimant for regional leadership and standard bearer for hostility toward the West; and slowly redefining Turkey’s domestic priorities and politics. Few expected the EU to embrace Turkish membership, but Erdogan adroitly used the EU rejection to undermine Ataturk’s Westernizing legacy. There is a certain artistry, if not originality, in plotting behind the brim of Ataturk’s Western ideals to favor the headscarf.

There have, of course, been less subtle signs of the shift eastward. In 2003, Turkey barred the passage of US troops into Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. In 2005, Erdogan honored Iran’s newly elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the halls of Istanbul, despite Ahmadinejad’s calls for genocide. And in 2006, Erdogan embraced Hamas after its victory in Palestinian elections, and then Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, despite his indictment for war crimes in Darfur. Even before the flotilla sailed for Gaza, Erdogan’s criticism of Israel had already grown shrill. But the change in Turkey’s posture toward Israel has in large part been a tool to advance the country’s reorientation, rather than in any sense its cause.

Erdogan’s comments following the flotilla affair marked a new stage in his quest rather than a change in his goals. He has declared Turkey’s intent to step to the fore as a leader of angry, threatening, anti-Western elements that seek to control the Islamic world. “Turkey’s hostility,” Erdogan pointedly proclaimed in his “turning point” speech, “is as strong as its friendship is valuable.” It was an advertisement for Middle Eastern consumers: we will be the enemy of your enemies, a shelter to our friends.

In the Muslim realm, radical and jihadi precincts included, Erdogan’s message was understood and applauded. Arab publics cheered Turkey as a new leader of hostility against Israel. The deputy head of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, taking for granted Turkey’s role as chief instigator of the flotilla, urged the heirs of the Ottomans toward even more forceful action against Israel—advice he has repeated since. Zawahiri recalled with praise centuries of “Turkish” rule of the Muslim world.

Al-Qaeda’s endorsement confirms Erdogan’s push to be seen not merely as a leader of the Muslim world, but the leader. While he had previously played merely a supportive role to Iran, with the flotilla affair Erdogan pressed Turkey’s case. One of the many subtle implications of his “turning point” remark is that Turkey and Iran are now rivals, as well as collaborators in the drive to create an internationally more aggressive Middle East. It is unlikely that Ahmadinejad missed this nuance.

This development should not be entirely surprising. Once Erdogan and his party chose to redefine Turkish identity in a more Islamic, and perhaps Islamist, way, and once Turkey set its eyes east and south toward the ancient Muslim heartlands, a rivalry with Iran was likely.

Iran’s regional ambitions are hardwired into the theocratic regime both by its revolutionary doctrine and the limited legitimacy of its rulers. This is especially true now as different factions of the mullahs’ ruling elite compete for ownership of the “revolution.” As the Arab states’ power and influence in the region has declined, Iran has sought, with some success, to take their place. These ambitions have been advanced in the short term by the removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein and by the erratic recovery in Iraq and continuing conflict in Afghanistan, but far more by Iran’s unchecked pursuit of nuclear weapons. Iran draws, too, upon the attraction of its enormous proven reserves in natural gas and oil (second and third largest, respectively, in the world). But the mullahs’ regional ambitions wash up against Iran’s ancient rival, Turkey.

In the form of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey for centuries led the greater Middle East. Today its population and economy are slightly larger than Iran’s, and its economy and conventional military are stronger. Despite limits in its democratic processes, Turkey’s government enjoys substantially more stability and legitimacy at home and abroad than Iran’s does. In addition, the Iranian political elite must deal with a traditional “quietist” school of Shiite Islam, now prospering in neighboring Iraq, that scorns theocratic rule. By contrast, as a Sunni country, Turkey may more readily garner support in a largely Sunni Middle East. Indeed, the country has historically invoked its role as the natural leader of the Sunnis to buy peace at home and fend off pressures from abroad. In Ottoman times, it did so in the aftermath of a losing war in the eighteenth century, and again in the late nineteenth. In that era, Sunnis as far afield as India responded positively to that claim; the recent statements of al-Qaeda’s Zawahiri show that Turkey may again attract such support.

The emergence of a Turkish-Iranian rivalry was somewhat delayed by the political problems Erdogan faced when he took power in 2002 with only a minority of the electorate behind him. Turkey’s longstanding secular political tradition meant that he had to move cautiously and cleverly in pursuing the domestic redefinition of Turkish identity. For Erdogan knew his history: the Turkish military had repeatedly thwarted previous Islamist-oriented parties, including, only a decade earlier, one in which Erdogan was a leading figure. So he pursued, initially, the safe course of leaning more toward Iran, and following its lead, albeit at a distance. Hence the warm reception accorded Ahmadinejad and other friendly gestures.

But Erdogan’s party was reelected in 2007 with an increased plurality and a greater majority in Parliament. Since then, he has further weakened internal opposition. While it will not be easy for him to gain and keep broad Turkish support for his plans, there are signs of his progress so far. He recently rejected with virtually no protest several of the military’s candidates for senior promotions; and civilians, not the military, will draft the new National Security Document—both changes from past patterns. Meanwhile, the opposition press has been systematically muzzled—a dash of tax intimidation, a touch of party-supported competition, a measure of prison for alleged seditious activity. Most recently, the constitutional referendum held in September passed with an unexpectedly large majority. Several of the amendments it approved significantly enhance Erdogan’s power. One of them will allow him to take greater control of the heretofore independent judiciary, which had remained a source of opposition; a second reduces the military’s control of its own criteria for membership, especially its power to exclude soldiers on religious grounds. Moreover, the referendum sets the stage for a complete rewriting of the Constitution, which had already been proposed.

In the meantime, Erdogan’s government is pursuing the prosecution of high-level officers for their role in an alleged coup planned in 2003. There are increasingly credible claims among Turks that this is a fraudulent prosecution, knowingly based on forged documents. This might cause Erdogan some domestic difficulties, but the appearance of ruthless dishonesty may confirm for both supporters and opponents alike the depth of his desire for control.

Having fewer constraints on the bases of his power, the prime minister can act with a freer hand in the foreign sphere. Indeed, the two areas at this point may be mutually reinforcing. Erdogan’s behavior in the flotilla crisis won him massive domestic demonstrations of support as he headed into the referendum campaign and positioned his party for the next general elections in 2011.

It is perhaps only a historical oddity, but still a curious one, that a modern struggle for leadership of the greater Middle East and its ancient Muslim heartlands brings to mind rivalries there five hundred years ago. Turkey and Iran are the diminished heirs of two great Muslim Empires of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the Sunni Ottoman Empire and the Shiite Safavid Empire. The Ottomans’ four-hundred-year rule (1517–1917) of vast, especially Arab, Muslim lands arose amidst its rivalry with the Safavid state, a state founded on the basis of new, radical Shiite teachings. Indeed, the Shiite Safavids claimed a particularly close connection with the divine. Their soldiers believed the Safavid leader a divine incarnation, and they attacked the Ottoman border with millenarian utopian fervor, fomenting Shiite rebellions in Anatolia. The present border between Turkey and Iran roughly tracks the border that emerged from Ottoman-Safavid wars, and this rivalry led to long-lasting changes throughout the region. Before the conflict, the Ottomans were more preeminently a European power with an Anatolian hinterland. Afterward, Ottoman ambitions had expanded, and by a chain of events they had not only defeated the Safavids but found themselves quickly in control of present-day Iraq, Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and North Africa. From that time forward, the Ottomans became the standard bearer of Sunnis and put forward a claim, often accepted, to the ancient and prestigious title of caliph.

The defeated Safavid Empire left its own lasting legacy: the conversion of Iran from a majority Sunni to an uneasy Shiite land. The essentially theocratic Islamic Revolution of 1979 revived radical Shiism and its ambitions, toppled a regional order based on the Shah, and projected power into Syria, Iraq, the Gulf, Lebanon, Central Asia, and more recently the Palestinian community. In time, Shiite-Sunni conflict intensified, infamously in Iraq but also in Lebanon and Pakistan. The political and military struggle between Sunnis and Shiites, Turks and Persians, for preeminence in the ancient Muslim heartlands, especially Iraq, may not determine the Middle East’s future, but its influence has stalked this region’s politics for centuries.

Atop these ancient layers lie more modern sources of rivalry created by the current regional framework of states and their particular characteristics. For example, Turkey remains interested in having an influential role in Azerbaijan. A high-level Turkish delegation recently visited and concluded agreements there. Azeris are Shiites, but they are ethnically Turkish and Turkish speaking and maintain a tense relationship with Iran, which must remain concerned with Turkish-Azeri relations because approximately one-quarter of its population is Azeri and rests uneasily under “Persian rule.”

Iraq, too, presents an arena of competition because of its genuine desire to protect itself from Iranian ambitions, the internal Shiite-Sunni divide, and the Kurdish question, which looms large in Iraqi and Turkish politics, and even in Iran, with its own large Kurdish minority. (Recently there have been notably violent attacks on Iranian officials and soldiers in Iran’s “Kurdistan,” though the provenance of these attacks is not clear.)

Lebanon and Syria present yet another Muslim arena for competition. Lebanon is nearby and riven internally, not least along a Sunni-Shia divide. In the recent past, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s support for Kurdish separatists led to an actively hostile Turkish-Syrian border. Turkey has in the last few years undertaken a rapprochement with Syria. Nevertheless, both Syria and Lebanon have increasingly become satellites of Iran. Turkey must inevitably be concerned about further consolidation of Iranian influence near its borders—for example, through the enhanced power of Hezbollah.

Ahmadinejad’s recent state visit to Lebanon (his first) and the enthusiastic reception he received have real as well as symbolic implications. The trip endorsed, and provided support for, the ever-growing power of Hezbollah but also declared how far the ruling mullahs feel that Iranian writ may run. Iran is in effect claiming an “imperial sphere” that reaches across Turkey’s southern border. Iranian flags lined Lebanese roads and signs declared, “Welcome to the protector of Lebanon.” A Lebanese politician observed that “Lebanon will become an Iranian base on the shores of the Mediterranean.” Moreover, Ahmadinejad made the centerpiece of his visit the declaration of renewed hostility to Israel and the United States, saying, “Our world today stands on the verge of change, a change that is starting from our region. Lebanon is an example . . . for the unwavering resistance to the world’s tyrants and a university for jihad.” Ahmadinejad thus announced his own version of a “turning point” and emphasized, as he has in the past, an abiding goal that the “Zionists be wiped out.” Although his visit served several of his own purposes, including domestic ones, one of its most important initiatives was to renew a claim for the leadership role that Erdogan sought to grab through the flotilla affair.

Conflicting interests can be resolved; history is not destiny. The course of Turkish-Iranian relations and the region remains unknown and subject, in part, to Erdogan’s domestic goals, the agendas of others (including the Iranian drive for nuclear weapons), and the roles the Great Powers play.

In the near term, Erdogan may revert to a more cautious mode. He might be satisfied with “profit taking” after the flotilla affair. (One indication of this is the next installment in the Turkish film series Valley of the Wolves—very popular in Turkey and elsewhere—which will open with a flotilla scene. As a Turkish film critic recently said, the film will thus capitalize on Turkey’s regional popularity. Erdogan will capitalize, too.) He has sent a high-level delegation to Washington to reaffirm Turkish-American ties. This fits his ongoing claim that Turkey has not turned decisively to the Muslim East and remains a “bridge” between the West and Islam—a claim that is no longer easily credible, but which serves his other ends. Erdogan continues to seek more control over domestic Turkish politics—further rewriting the Constitution to enhance his power, curbing Kurdish separatists, and controlling the military with measures like the prosecution of officers for alleged conspiracies. In the long term, Erdogan may find that it will not suffice merely to bring the military under control; he may want to put his imprint on it and incorporate it into his foreign and domestic designs.

Erdogan has reasons to prefer a cautious approach, but history reveals, especially in the region, that it is hard to tame a radical agenda: Others act on their fears or hopes; Erdogan must know that the prestige of being Israel’s greatest enemy exposes him to crises created by others. The consolidation of control by Iran’s most revolutionary elements may permit, or even force, him to adopt a more aggressive policy to stay in the game. Hamas or Hezbollah may act for reasons of their own. Erdogan may find it tricky to limit entanglement without jeopardizing his desired role. In the spring of 1967, Syria sparked an escalation of Arab threats and military preparations that soon swept Egypt and other Arab states into an unwanted Six-Day War for which they were ill prepared. Events may not follow Erdogan’s chosen course or calendar, despite caution or cleverness.

Erdogan may even see some advantage in Iran’s determined drive for nuclear weapons. Assertive heirs of the Ottomans may not welcome Iranian nuclear weapons, but after observing diplomacy between Ahmadinejad and the West, Erdogan may well conclude that only a successful Israeli strike will slow Iran. By joining Brazil to mediate a transparently unacceptable nuclear deal with Iran, Erdogan raises his profile and hedges his bets: If the West falters, or if it succeeds, he has not weakened the Muslim world or exposed Turkey to Iran. In the near term, there are other opportunities for Turkish regional gains: Iran’s nuclear bid has weakened its economy and stirred up opposition among Sunni states; in the wake of an Israeli strike, should one occur, Turkey will raise its public voice in anger, even if among its leaders there is some private relief.

But Turkey’s own nuclear ambitions—and not just Iran’s—loom in Erdogan’s maneuvers. In the shadow of Iran’s headlong rush, Turkey has quietly pursued a nuclear course of its own. In 2006, Erdogan revived the country’s long-delayed plans for nuclear power; in 2007, the Turkish Parliament acted affirmatively; in 2010, Turkey and Russia agreed to build a nuclear plant in Turkey this decade. Nuclear power may or may not make economic sense for earthquake-prone, resource-poor Turkey, given that it straddles major energy transit lines. Nuclear technology presents an entirely separate strategic calculation. The Iranian example shows that nuclear enrichment capabilities are best won quietly, a task for which Erdogan is well suited. But as Turkey seeks a leading and aggressive Muslim identity, loosening Western ties, will Erdogan see Turkey’s safety or prestige ensured by having nuclear weapons only in the hands of Russians, Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis, and Western powers—and likely Iran’s as well?

Today Turkey and Iran pursue their regional ambitions with a watchful eye on the interests of greater outside powers. At the moment, there is a powerful and growing belief in the region that the United States is withdrawing—not only from Iraq, but from any forceful role in the region. This may not properly reflect President Obama’s policy; and even if it did, some may claim it is not possible for years to come. However, there is enough ambiguity, for example, in our policies toward Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Israel, to inflame our enemies and cause uncertainty among our friends. They know the perversity of this region where persistent efforts may win gains, while lesser efforts likely fail. On the occasion of Ahmadinejad’s Lebanese tour, for instance, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared, “We would hope that no visitor would do anything or say anything that would give cause to greater tension or instability in that country.” Many in the region share that hope, but they will be most interested in what deeds accompany our words.

Looking at Western European states, the Middle East cannot help but see rising domestic Muslim constituencies and declining interest in international efforts that might clash with determined Islamist aims. It also sees Russia, China, and India becoming more assertive, not to mention more willing to bargain for their own ends. This reflects not only these nations’ growing power in the world but also their increasing interest in energy resources, transportation infrastructure, and the heightened regional roles of states closer to them—states like Turkey and Iran.

So the Great Powers offer (or just as importantly, seem to offer) the leaders of Turkey and Iran new pieces in a game long played in the lands that stretch from the Bosphorus to the Straits of Hormuz. For example, the new Turkish national security strategy reportedly will remove Russia from its list of enemies, and Russia and Turkey are focused on pipelines critical to both that would have enormous strategic impact on Europe. Meanwhile, Iran has used Russian and Chinese interests to forestall UN sanctions. Even in earlier days, the Ottomans or Persians time and again allied with Russia to struggle against one another. The region is practiced in such maneuvers.

Turkey and Iran may yet follow anti-Western paths more similar than not. American problems might deepen if Turkey or Iran manipulates outside powers for support. Recently Turkey staged one of its regular “Anatolian Eagle” joint military maneuvers. This time, atypically, American and Israeli forces were absent, replaced by Chinese planes and pilots. The Chinese reached Turkey by flying, with Tehran’s permission, through Iranian airspace.

Dealing with this new configuration of power and ambition calls for a determined policy by America, one that deals realistically with the landscape we face, not the one we wish for. There are prospects for us in this landscape, but diplomacy, however adept, will accomplish little if, correctly or incorrectly, the region doubts our will to follow through.

In the 1930s, Ataturk admonished Turks to free their public life from dysfunctional ways. He warned that the choice was not ideological or aesthetic but pragmatic. “Civilization,” he said, “is a fearful fire which consumes those who ignore it.” And fire spreads—especially when fed by a volatile mix of gas, oil, religion, and ambition.

- Prophecy News Watch

Subscribe to the comments for this post

Mideast turmoil rattles Iran-Saudi standoff

From News.Yahoo.Com

Saudi Arabia’s rulers answered the Arab world’s winter of rage with money: throwing $36 billion into housing and other social assistance channels in attempts to quell rumblings of dissent. Iran’s president offered more bombast as Tehran tries to project sympathy for protesters.

The two approaches this week — largesse versus rhetoric — captures the style and stakes for the region’s heavyweight rivals as Iran hunts for gains and Saudi tries hard to stamp out any threats.

Already, the region has been reshaped by the fall of decades-old regimes and growing pressures on others, including Moammar Gadhafi’s 42-year rule in Libya. But the ultimate questions for many are whether the pro-Western Saudi monarchy can ride out the unrest, and if Iran will capitalize on the changes with more footholds and influence in areas closely tied to Washington’s interests.

“If an uprising occurs in Saudi Arabia, it will have a dramatic impact that is off the charts,” said Theodore Karasik, a regional affairs expert at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis. “Policymakers will have to grapple with it for decades.”

Both nations have been touched by the region’s two-month-old turmoil: Iran with a renewal of street clashes and Saudi’s rulers facing rare challenges to their absolute power, including a call for protests March 11.

Their responses, meanwhile, have reflected their mutual suspicions and their own survival instincts.

Saudi authorities have stood strongly behind Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy, which is under siege by a revolt from that tiny kingdom’s Shiite majority after decades of grievances over discrimination and other abuses. For the Saudis — and the rest of the Gulf’s Sunni rulers — the Shiites in Bahrain represent a potential beachhead for Shiite powerhouse Iran.

On Wednesday, Bahrain’s monarch held urgent talks in neighboring Saudi Arabia with King Abdullah only hours after he returned home from recuperating from back surgery. In a clear sign of concern, Abdullah made the decree for the flood of cash into social programs and bank funds even before his plane touched down from Morocco.

Social media sites have been buzzing with appeals for a pro-reform march next month and calls for more freedoms, including lifting some of the strict limits on women such as bans on driving and voting. Activists also are pushing for the release of university professors jailed for forming a political party.

“We are witnessing a rebellion of the Arab peoples throughout the Arab world,” said Nicholas Burns, Nicholas Burns, a former top State Department diplomat with long experience in the region. “While it may be most acute in Bahrain and Libya, there is every reason to believe that it will continue to spread for the time being.”

Iran, meanwhile, has shown again its split personality. Its leaders, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have portrayed Iran as a sort of father figure for the pro-democracy movements, which they claim have taken inspiration from its Islamic Revolution against the U.S.-backed shah.

At the same time, Iranian authorities are showing no mercy to oppositions groups in a country rejuvenated by the chain-reaction uprisings. Protesters’ chants were similar to those during the chaos after Ahmadinejad’s disputed elections in 2009, but with a current twist.

“Ben Ali, Mubarak, it’s Seyed Ali’s turn,” protesters cried last week, linking the toppled Tunisian and Egyptian presidents with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Riot police moved in with tear gas and batons.

“It is unimaginable that there is someone who kills and bombards his own people. This is very grotesque,” Ahmadinejad said Wednesday on national TV after Gadhafi’s forces attacked protesters.

More than once, the Obama administration and others have taken jabs at Tehran’s “hypocrisy.”

But Western policy makers cannot so easily dismiss the prospect that Iran could come out of the Mideast shake-ups with some new opportunities — just as the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cleared the way for Iran gaining major influence with Shiite brethren.

One longtime foe, Hosni Mubarak, is gone. Egypt’s emerging political class, which includes Islamist groups, is unlikely to be so tightly glued to U.S. policies on Iran. The Shiite-led uprising in Bahrain and relentless pressure on the American-allied president in Yemen also could hand Iran some new political space in the region.

And any significant cracks in the king’s hold on Saudi Arabia, which has a small Shiite minority, would undoubtedly be hailed by Tehran.

Iran sent two warships through the Suez Canal this week for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution on a voyage to Syria that could take the vessels just outside Israeli waters.

Iran’s plans for the Mediterranean were announced before Egypt’s protests threatened Mubarak’s regime. But it was a significant display of Tehran’s confidence and efforts to expand its military reach beyond the Gulf, where the Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet is the Pentagon’s main counterweight.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard sent ships on a courtesy call to Qatar in January and held navy maneuvers with Oman this month in further signs of expanding ties in the Gulf.

The Dubai-based analyst Karasik said Iran increasingly views itself “as a pure regional hegemon because of the uprisings.”

“They’re taking advantage of the strategic change,” he said.

It also suggests that Washington’s clout could be slipping as its old-guard friends fall way or face demands for serious political overhauls.

“The rising tide of people power is so intense that the Middle East will either become democratic or will come under more stern control,” said Ehsan Ahrari, a regional analyst and commentator based in Alexandria, Virginia. “Either way, the days of U.S. capabilities to influence events seem to be numbered.”

There is still no clear signal about how far the protest wave with reach. The next test may come in Kuwait, where the nation’s strong opposition groups have called for rallies outside parliament on March 8.

Many experts see a messy interregnum in the region with various groups competing for the upper hand and international investors running scared. The only obvious takeaway so far is that the political voices in the new Mideast will be far younger, deeply Web savvy and come in greater varieties — all of which could alter the rules of the Saudi-Iran standoff that has defined the region for decades.

The players include Egypt’s once-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and Bahrain’s majority Shiites who have long been under the thumb of the kingdom’s Sunni rulers.

“There will be trial and error in the combat for a new era,” said Labib Kamhawi, a political analyst in Jordan. “But people, especially the young generation, seem strong and determined to succeed.”

- Prophecy News Watch

Subscribe to the comments for this post

Lessons From The Middle East – If you want peace, prepare for war

From WND.Com

My soul has dwelt too long with one who hates peace. I am for peace; But when I speak, they are for war. (Psalm 120:6-7)

How do we pray concerning the Israel-Egypt peace treaty? Do we pray for it to be protected, upheld and perpetuated? For the majority who wish to see Israel live in peace with her neighbors, this question would seem a no brainer.

And yet, I cannot pray so readily for this.

Let me paint a picture:

A friend has contracted cancer that, unless caught in its early stages, will grow progressively more threatening to his life. On learning of the disease, you urge him to have the tumor removed, but he prefers to continue living as normal a life as possible, taking basic medication to numb him to the pain, and even help him forget he was ill.

The more time passes, the more perilous his condition becomes. He would carry on regardless, but a sudden turn of events forces him to reassess. While the attack on his body is set to intensify, he’s not ready to deal with it.

You have the chance to remind him that, had he agreed to it at the start, he would have undergone a painful but relatively straightforward procedure while his body was strong enough to survive. The passage of time and progression of the cancer has weakened him. Although it is still possible to save his life, he must have the surgery now.

Thing is, it’s no longer a small operation. What he requires at this point will be agonizing; the risks far higher. As his friend, you must choose whether to pressure him to go under the knife by telling him some unpleasant home truths, or allow him to continue in self-delusion as he drifts towards his date with doom.

“Everybody’s” pleading with him to, “for heaven’s sake, leave well enough alone! Anything is better than the alternative.”

But do we really believe this?

Let’s take a closer look at what this Israel-Egypt peace treaty really is: how it was drawn up, what it cost Israel to sign, how it has played out, what its effects have been, and where its perpetuation will lead.

The Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, and the Egyptian military dictator, Anwar Sadat, signed the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, known as the Camp David Agreement, in 1978.

In other words, it was signed between an elected representative of the Israeli people on the one side, and a military ruler representing no-one on the other.

The details – or more accurately – the parties to the agreement – were hammered together by the American president, Jimmy Carter.

As close advisor to Begin, the late Shmuel Katz, outlined in his book “The Hollow Peace,” (Dvir Publishing; Israel; 1981), Carter held a gun to Israel’s head and, wielding blackmail and deception, mercilessly pressured Begin into agreeing to the treaty terms – the tangible fruits of which were all in Egypt’s – and America’s – favor.

Sadat, who had his forces launch the aggressive wars of 1967 and 1973 with the intent of obliterating the Jewish state, was rewarded for his belligerence by being given the Sinai Peninsula (which was not Egyptian sovereign territory before), and by being universally applauded as a courageous peacemaker.

By relinquishing the Sinai, Israel lost access to sources of oil that supplied upwards of 60 percent of its oil needs. It lost the ultra-modern military airfields it had built in the Sinai, and the billions of dollars it had to spend building substitute airfields in the Negev.

Israel lost the strategic depth that protected it against another Egyptian onslaught. It lost the only way it had of ensuring Israeli ships retain free access to the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea. It lost the Jewish communities it had established in the Sinai – the process of uprooting them leaving deep scars in the Israeli national conscious and sowing seeds for civil disagreement and strife among Israel’s Jews.

And in the agreement Israel forfeited the possibility of annexing Judea, Samaria and Gaza, instead binding itself to negotiate with the Palestinian Arabs to give them self-rule in those areas to which they – the Arabs – had no prior historical claim.

The United States rewarded Egypt richly; over the ensuing years giving the country billions of dollars worth of modern and sophisticated weaponry, and training Egyptian soldiers and security forces. All the while Egypt’s army – twice as large as Israel’s – has been playing yearly war games in which it practices attacking and destroying the Jewish state.

Egypt, first under Sadat and then under Hosni Mubarak, lived up to nothing in return but a pledge not to launch attacks on Israel from Egyptian soil. That did not stop it from pursuing that other, political, war – delegitimizing the Jewish state and fomenting hatred of Israel at home and abroad.

While Israeli leaders frequently visited Egypt for consultations with Mubarak and his officials, the Egyptian ruler absolutely refused to reciprocate. His solo trip to Jerusalem was for the funeral of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Israeli tourists flocked with their money to Egypt, but Egyptians basically never came to tour Israel. The Mubarak-controlled media in Egypt regularly vilified the Jewish state and its Jewish citizens, while Israel’s free media almost always related to their southern neighbor in terms of being a partner in peace.

Meanwhile, included in the Carter-sanctioned agreement, with the American president’s full awareness and in fact collusion, was Egypt’s right to declare war on Israel if Israel should get into another conflict with any other Arab state.

As The Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick told an audience in the Israeli capital last week, what has existed between Israel and Egypt for the last 32 years has been not a state of peace but a readily reversible ceasefire.

Apart from badly compromising Israel’s security at the start, when it was formulated and signed, the agreement led Israel to further weaken itself as the years, then the decades, went by.

Glick pointed out that Israel, lulled into sleepiness by the exciting ‘peace agreement,’ long ago stopped training its forces for desert warfare. It also stopped collecting intelligence on the Egyptian military. All the while, Cairo was building up its war machine – with a billion dollars in aid from the United States every year.

“Egypt received massive military assistance from the United States. Those forces – which are trained by the US military – have been training for war against Israel for the last 32 years… The Egyptian army is twice the size of the IDF. Nearly a million Egyptian boys come of call-up age every year.”

Egypt is not “just” anti-Israel; it is one of the most anti-Semitic countries in the world, warned the Post reporter.

It must be noted, Glick added, that the new military junta ruling Egypt, despite being under intense pressure from the United States to commit itself to honoring the Israel-Egypt treat, was willing to go no further than make a general commitment to all its international treaties.

This should not be overlooked.

So what do we have? Israel signed a treaty with an Egyptian strongman which, yes, helped keep the southern border quiet for 32 years, and enabled millions of Israeli tourists to visit the Sinai and enjoy its beautiful coastline. But it also led to Israel weakening itself strategically, relaxing its guard and effectively rendering itself less able to deal with a future Egyptian assault.

Meanwhile the Egyptian side massively modernized its military while uninterruptedly fuelling hatred of the Jews and their state. Egypt used its “credentials” (influential Arab state with Western-backing) to keep itself in the center of the “peace process.” From Cairo, Hosni Mubarak edged ahead with his anti-Israel agenda, encouraging American administrations and Israeli leftists to work against Israel’s security interests.

Many, mostly liberal, experts are decrying the “scaremongers” who believe that the Muslim Brotherhood will soon ascend to power in Egypt. The revolution there has been widely described as the birthing of democracy in the Arab world and therefore promising a better future for Israel-Egypt relations. But democracy and Islam are oil and water – they cannot be mixed, and Israel’s presence in the Arab’s Muslim midst can never be tolerated. It must be expunged.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while calling Israel-Egyptian peace a “cornerstone of Mideast stability” and “hoping for the best” has said that Israel must “prepare for the worst” in its relations with its southern neighbor. Leftist Israelis have torn strips off him for doing so, calling instead for an appeasing approach that would not risk heightening tensions between the two countries during this transition period.

What is best for Israel? What should we pray for? The survival of a peace treaty that strengthens Egypt – whose political future is at best uncertain – and keeps Israel weak – making its future survival uncertain?

Or do we pray for Israel to prepare for the possibility that Egypt will tear up the treaty and throw it away – even if Israel’s very act of preparation is used as a justification by Egypt to abrogate Camp David?

Should we pray for God to help Israel prepare for what the Bible foretells and Middle East geo-political reality confirms is on the way – a war the Jewish people don’t want, but which will be unleashed against her? And if, as the IDF is bolstered in the south and Israel moves to make up its deficit in intelligence on Egypt, the Egyptian side reacts by scrapping the treaty, so be it?

Latin scholar Vegetius said: Si vis pacem, para bellum (If you want peace, prepare for war).

With the Israel-Egypt treaty, Israel has prepared for peace, but Egypt has has used it to gear up for war.

- Prophecy News Watch

Subscribe to the comments for this post

Choking America’s Lifeblood – High Oil Prices Could Devastate The Economy

The Economic Collapse Blog.Com

One of the quickest ways to bring down the U.S. economy would be to dramatically increase the price of oil. Oil is the lifeblood of our economic system. Without it, our entire economy would come to a grinding halt. Almost every type of economic activity in this country depends on oil, and even a small rise in the price of oil can have a dramatic impact on economic growth.

That is why so many economists are incredibly alarmed about what is happening in the Middle East right now. The revolution in Libya caused the price of WTI crude to soar more than 7 dollars on Tuesday alone. It closed at $93.57 on Tuesday and Brent crude actually hit $108.57 a barrel before settling back to $105.78 at the end of the day. Some analysts are warning that we could even see 5 dollar gas in the United States by the end of the year if rioting spreads to other oil producing nations such as Saudi Arabia.

With the Middle East in such a state of chaos right now it is hard to know exactly what is going to happen, but almost everyone agrees that if oil prices continue to rise at a rapid pace over the next several months it is going to have a devastating impact on economic growth all over the globe.

Right now the eyes of the world are on Libya. Libya is the 17th largest oil producer on the globe and it has the biggest proven oil reserves on the continent of Africa.

Libya only produces 2 percent of the oil in the world, but with global supplies so tight at the moment even a minor production disruption can have a dramatic impact on the price of oil.

Before this crisis, Libya was producing approximately 1.6 million barrels of oil per day. Now the rest of the world is wondering what may happen if revolution spreads to other major oil producing nations such as Kuwait (2.5 million barrels of oil per day) or Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia produces 8.4 million barrels of oil a day. It produces more oil than anyone else in OPEC.

If revolution strikes in Saudi Arabia and a major production disruption happens it could be catastrophic for the global economy.

David Rosenberg, the chief economist at Gluskin Sheff & Associates, is warning that if there is major civil unrest in Saudi Arabia we could end up seeing oil go up to $200 a barrel….

“If Libya can spark a $10-a-barrel response, imagine what a similar uprising in Saudi Arabia could unleash. Do the math: we’d be talking about $200 oil.”
200 dollar oil?

Don’t laugh – it could happen.

In fact, if it does happen the global economy would probably go into cardiac arrest.

The truth is that if the flow of oil from Saudi Arabia gets disrupted there is not enough spare capacity from the rest of the globe to make up for it.

Paul Horsnell, the head of oil research at Barclays Capital, recently said that the world does not currently have enough spare capacity to be able to guarantee that an oil “price shock” will not happen….

“The world has only 4.5m barrels-per-day (bpd) of spare capacity, which is not comfortable.”

Horsnell also said that even in the midst of potential supply problems, the global demand for oil continues to grow at a very robust pace….

“In just two years, the world has grown so fast as to consume additional volume equal to the output of Iraq and Kuwait combined.”
For now, Saudi officials are saying all the right things. They say that there will be no revolution in Saudi Arabia and that there are not going to be any supply problems.

For example, Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi recently announced that the rest of the world should not worry because his country is definitely going to be able to make up for any shortage in the global supply of oil….

“What I would like you to convey to the market: right now there is absolutely no shortage of supply.”

But what happens if revolution comes to Saudi Arabia?

Suddenly the whole game would change.

But even with a peaceful Saudi Arabia the price of gasoline in the United States is already rising to alarming levels.

The average price of gasoline in the United States reached $3.14 a gallon last week. This closely mirrors what happened back in 2008. Three years ago at this time the average price of gasoline was right around $3.13 a gallon.

Let’s certainly hope that we don’t see a repeat of what happened to oil prices back in mid-2008. The price of oil reached an all-time record of $147 a barrel and gas prices in the United States absolutely skyrocketed.

So how high will the price of gas in the U.S. go in 2011?

We haven’t even come close to 4 dollar gas yet, but a large number of analysts believe that it is coming this summer.

Is there even a possibility that we could see 5 dollar gas in America at some point in the next couple of years?

Well, there are some in the oil industry that are convinced that it could actually happen. Just consider the following quotes….

Darin Newsom, senior analyst at energy tracker DTN….

“If this thing escalates and there’s a good chance that there’d be a shift in supplies, $5 gas isn’t out of the question.”
Peter Beutel, president of energy adviser Cameron Hanover….

“If you are looking at the disruption of movement and production in countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, you’re easily talking $5 gas.”
John Hofmeister, the former president of Shell Oil, on his belief that we could see 5 dollar gas by 2012….

“I’m predicting actually the worst outcome over the next two years which takes us to 2012 with higher gasoline prices.”
So why is everyone so concerned about gas prices?

Well, because it affects the price of almost everything else in the economy.

David Wyss, the chief economist at Standard & Poor’s, says that every extra dollar that is spent on gasoline is a dollar that will not be spent somewhere else….

“The money that you spend filling up your car is money you don’t have to spend at the shopping mall.”
Not only that, but when gasoline costs more it has a negative effect on economic growth. Almost all economic activities involve the use of oil in one form or another. When the price of oil starts getting really high it motivates people to start cutting back on many of those activities.

The truth is that our whole economic system is based on the ability to use massive amounts of very cheap oil. Now that the price of oil is rapidly rising again, many economists are becoming very alarmed.

Nobuo Tanaka, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, recently told CNBC that his organization is extremely concerned about what high oil prices could do to the global economy….

“That is our concern, regardless of the margins of disruption, if the $100 per barrel of oil is continued in 2011, the burden of oil to the global economy is as bad as 2008.”

So what was so bad about 2008? Well, the price of oil soared to $147 a barrel in mid-2008 and this was a huge factor in the financial collapse that happened a few months later. Now oil prices are returning to levels that we have not seen since 2008….

So if the price of oil breaks the all-time record this year will we see another global financial crisis?

It is hard to say. But what almost everyone agrees on is that it will not be good for the global economy at all.

In addition, a higher price for oil will also have a huge impact on the trade deficit. Because oil prices were at such a high level back in 2008, oil imports actually made up almost 50 percent of the U.S. trade deficit that year.

In 2010, the U.S. trade deficit was just a whisker under $500 billion. If the price of oil gets up to 140 or 150 dollars a barrel we could easily see the U.S. trade deficit explode to 700 or 800 billion dollars in 2011.

That would be really, really bad for the U.S. economy.

So where are oil prices going next?

Well, if you could predict that with 100 percent certainty you could make a whole lot of money. Nobody knows for sure.

But almost everyone believes that the price of oil is going to go up. In fact, a lot number of investors have been making some very large bets that the price of oil is going to go up very significantly this year.

Recently, large numbers of investors have been betting that the price of oil will rise to $125 a barrel by May. Shockingly, some investors have even been betting that the price of oil will rise to $250 a barrel by next December.

Let us hope that the price of oil does not rise that rapidly, but as the past couple of months have demonstrated, the world is becoming a very unstable place. Just about anything is possible at this point.

If the price of oil rises significantly above $100 a barrel and it stays there for an extended period of time, it is going to be absolutely devastating for the U.S. economy.

- Prophecy News Watch

Subscribe to the comments for this post

FBI: Muslim Brotherhood deeply rooted inside U.S.

From WND.Com

Staff investigators with the House and Senate intelligence committees say they are probing the domestic security threat posed by the radical Muslim Brotherhood and, specifically, whether Brotherhood operatives have penetrated the U.S. government.

The true nature, ambitions and global reach of the Cairo-based Muslim Brotherhood suddenly have become the focus of debate in Washington, following unrest in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East.

As the Muslim Brotherhood threatens to effectively replace Egypt’s secular, pro-Western regime, the tentacles of its worldwide jihadist movement have reached deep into the Muslim community in America.

Shockingly, federal court documents reveal that virtually every major Muslim organization in America is a front group for the Brotherhood. They also show that its U.S. network has raised millions of dollars for Hamas, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

“The most prominent Islamic organizations in the United States are all controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood,” said FBI veteran John Guandolo, who worked several Brotherhood-related terror cases out of the bureau’s Washington field office as a special agent after 9/11.

While the FBI has cut off ties to some of the well-established organizations, many others continue to participate in outreach programs with the Homeland Security and Justice departments, the former special agent says. Some of their leaders are even advising the government on how to respond to events in Egypt and elsewhere.

American Muslim activists deny the Muslim Brotherhood operates inside America. Even Muslims who have attached themselves to the Republican Party have pooh-poohed the internal threat.

“There’s no Muslim Brotherhood in the United States,” former Bush administration official Suhail A. Khan insisted earlier this month at the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference meeting in Washington.

However, the U.S. Justice Department has identified no fewer than 61 Muslim Brotherhood figures and entities operating within the U.S. They include:

The Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, the umbrella organization for most of the Muslim groups in the U.S. and Canada;

The North American Islamic Trust, or NAIT, which holds title to most of the major mosques in America, including one in the Washington suburbs attended by both the Fort Hood terrorist and some of the 9/11 hijackers; and,

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, the largest Muslim-rights group in the country.

All are heavily funded by wealthy patrons in Saudi Arabia and other Mideast nations, according to sensitive embassy cables, tax records, bank wire transfers and other documents cited in the book, “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America,” an expose of the Muslim Brotherhood and its American front groups.

Their names were entered into evidence as “co-conspirators” during a federal trial which ended in 2008 with the convictions of several Muslim Brotherhood leaders on terrorism charges. The “list of unindicted co-conspirators” implicated these otherwise mainstream Muslim groups in a criminal scheme to funnel millions of dollars to Palestinian terrorists under the guise of charity.

The 11-page document, submitted by federal prosecutors as “Attachment A” in court filings, has not been widely distributed or reported by the national media. Surprisingly few members of Congress are familiar with the list, Hill sources say.

The largest Muslim charity in America – the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, or HLF – was at the center of the Muslim Brotherhood’s terror-fundraising network. The government shut down HLF after 9/11 and recently convicted the organization on charges of laundering more than $12 million in donations for Hamas suicide bombers and their families. HLF was formerly known as the Occupied Land Fund, or OLF, where it operated under ISNA and shared checking accounts with the group.

“ISNA and NAIT, in fact, shared more with HLF than just a parent organization [the Muslim Brotherhood]. They were intimately connected with the HLF and its assigned task of providing financial support to Hamas,” federal prosecutors said in a 2008 memo to a U.S. District Court in Dallas, HLF’s national headquarters.

“Shortly after Hamas was founded in 1987, as an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood, the International Muslim Brotherhood ordered the Muslim Brotherhood chapters throughout the world to create Palestine Committees, whose job it was to support Hamas with ‘media, money and men,’” the memo continued. “The U.S.-Muslim Brotherhood created the U.S. Palestine Committee, which documents reflect was initially comprised of three organizations: the OLF (HLF), the IAP [Islamic Association for Palestine], and the UASR [United Association for Studies and Research]. CAIR was later added to these organizations.”

Prosecutors concluded: “The mandate of these organizations, per the International Muslim Brotherhood, was to support Hamas.”

Fairfax County Nexus

The Muslim Brotherhood’s origins in America go back more than four decades. In the 1960s, radical Muslim immigrants began organizing in America and developing a criminal underworld that largely escaped federal law enforcement scrutiny. They eventually incorporated nonprofit organizations with benign-sounding names, and told anybody who asked they were simply forming a social network or “cultural society” for Muslims.

But in the wake of 9/11, Washington allowed case agents to start connecting the dots, and they began to see a lot of overlap in the operations of the Muslim groups and their leaders – along with a lot of Saudi money and suspicious activity. This confirmed the hunches of veteran counterterrorism investigators, who believed the groups were connected in an international conspiracy against America and its key Mideast ally, Israel.

Although the groups appear independent of one another, many of them co-mingle funds and even share the same staff and office space.

For example, some 40 active Muslim charities and businesses have operated at one time or another out of the same office building in Herndon, Va. And several others have been headquartered out of the same non-descript office park in Alexandria, Va., in the shadow of the nation’s capital, as first reported in the book, “Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington.”

After 9/11, federal and local authorities identified more than 110 suspected shell companies, cut-outs and other fronts associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and its hub in Northern Virginia, known collectively as the “Safa Group.” Their ongoing investigation of the Herndon-based Safa Group, which allegedly funneled money to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups, generated a separate list of suspected Brotherhood entities. The 13-page document, submitted by federal investigators as “Attachment C” among court filings, includes known al-Qaida charitable fronts as well.

Both the Herndon and Alexandria nexuses are located within Fairfax County, Va., across the Potomac from the nation’s capital.

“There’s only three degrees of separation between international terrorism and what happens in Fairfax County,” observed a senior Fairfax County Police Department detective, as quoted in “Muslim Mafia.” “Our society here is totally infiltrated by the bad guys.”

Investigators also discovered the groups have interlocking boards of directors. One top Brotherhood leader, Abdurahman Alamoudi, sat on the boards of no fewer than 16 Islamic organizations, including CAIR. Many of the leaders live next door to each other on private, secluded streets.

“When we started to really look at this thing, we found it’s all the same people. It’s all the same guys,” noted an FBI official in Washington.

Investigators also confirmed that many of the groups were laundering terrorist-bound funds through a maze of business conduits. They even used religious charities and think tanks as cover to carry out their illicit activities.

Soon, case agents and the assistant U.S. attorneys they worked with realized they were dealing with a vast criminal conspiracy, and began to look for ways to roll up the entire network, including using the RICO statute commonly aimed at the mafia.

Smoking Gun

Their first big break came several years ago with the search of one of the Brotherhood leaders’ homes in Annandale, Va., following his arrest on suspicion he had cased the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and other bridges for possible terrorist attack. There, in a sub-basement of suspect Ismail Elbarasse’s basement, FBI agents uncovered a stash of secret manifestos, charters and other documents revealing the depth of the conspiracy.

After translating the Arabic-written papers into English, investigators realized they had seized the archives of the U.S. branch of the militant International Muslim Brotherhood.

The trove of papers exposes the jihadist inner workings of the U.S. Brotherhood, and outlines its broader conspiracy of infiltrating and destroying the American government “from within.”

One secret document found during the raid of Elbarasse’s home lays bare the Brotherhood’s ambitious plans for a U.S. takeover, replacing the U.S. Constitution with Shariah, or Islamic law.

Written in 1991 by another U.S. Brotherhood agent, Mohammed Akram Adlouni, the strategy paper describes the group’s long-term goal of “sabotaging” the U.S. system. It’s a blueprint for a stealth “grand jihad.” Under the heading, “The role of the Muslim Brother in North America,” it states:

The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within, and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by the hands of the believers, so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.

“It is a genuine conspiracy to overthrow the government,” the FBI official said, “and they have organizations to do it, and they have written doctrines outlining their plan.”

The same document also lists 29 organizations working in the U.S. to further the Brotherhood’s goals. In addition to ISNA, NAIT and CAIR’s forerunner IAP, they include:

The International Institute for Islamic Thought, or IIIT, the largest Islamic think tank in America;

The Muslims Students Association, or MSA, which actively recruits on college campuses across the country;

The Fiqh Council of North America, which renders religious rulings, or fatwahs, based on Islamic law for Muslim-Americans; and,

The Islamic Circle of North America, or ICNA, which recently merged with the Muslim American Society, or MAS, another Brotherhood front organization based in the Washington suburbs.

For years, politicians and journalists have described these organizations as “mainstream” and “moderate.” Investigators now warn they are U.S. franchises of the radical Brotherhood, established with a markedly different purpose than what they publicly claim.

Their secret manifesto is “a clear threat statement of hostile intent,” says Pentagon consultant Maj. Stephen Coughlin, “with stated objectives that overlap with al-Qaida’s.”

The U.S. Brotherhood privately refers to its own organizations as “fronts.”

“The Brothers in Egypt don’t have fronts in the same broad way we have in America,” Zeid al-Noman, a Brotherhood leader confides in one document seized by authorities.

Though the movement has been banned in Egypt, it still has popular support and operates relatively openly in that Muslim nation — something the Brotherhood is loath to do here, especially after 9/11, investigators say.

The U.S. Brotherhood even set up a committee to study the legal aspects of establishing charities in America. The charities are critical because the Brothers have used them as a “side” or “facade,” as they put it in their writings, to launder illegal payments to terrorists.

U.S. prosecutors entered the secret documents as evidence in the Holy Land Foundation terror trial. The chilling courtroom exhibits were unopposed by the defense, further attesting to their authenticity.

Terrorists in suits

The government put away several Brotherhood leaders on conspiracy charges in the case. Shukri Abu Baker, Mohammad El Mezain, and CAIR founding director Ghassan Elashi were sentenced to, in effect, life terms for funneling millions of dollars to Palestinian terrorists. Three other Brothers caught up in the investigation have also been imprisoned.

Omar Ahmad, founding chairman of CAIR, was identified at trial as an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror-fundraising scheme. Ahmad, a key Brotherhood leader, has privately told Muslim audiences the Quran should replace the Constitution as “the highest authority in America.”

“The only difference between the guys in the suits and the guys with the AK-47s is timing and tactics,” an FBI official in Washington was quoted as saying in “Muslim Mafia.”

Indeed, the former head of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s shura council was one of al-Qaida’s top fundraisers in America, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. Abdurahman Alamoudi, who infiltrated both the Clinton and Bush administrations, is now serving 23 years in federal prison for plotting terrorism.

In 1996, Alamoudi told a Muslim audience in Illinois: “Either we do it now or we do it after a hundred years, but this country will become a Muslim country.”

Alamoudi also set up the Pentagon’s Muslim chaplains program, training and certifying most of the Islamic clerics and lay leaders serving in the U.S. military today.

Sami al-Arian, a former Tampa professor, is another Muslim Brotherhood leader convicted of terrorism. One of his alleged collaborators is senior ISNA official Louay Safi, whom prosecutors named an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror case.

Unwittingly, the Pentagon invited Safi to Fort Hood to counsel troops about Islam after a Muslim officer gunned down dozens of soldiers who were preparing to deploy to Afghanistan from the Army base. Safi and ISNA continue to certify Muslim chaplains for the military.

Ret. Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, former deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence in the Pentagon, says the Muslim Brotherhood is a terror-supporting Fifth Column.

“The Muslim Brotherhood is very much alive. It is very real,” Boykin said in a recent speech. “And we need to be very concerned about it.”

‘Jihad is Our Way’

The Muslim Brotherhood proudly raises the banner of jihad. Its crest features a Quran with crossed swords. Its credo: “Allah is our goal; the Prophet is our guide; the Quran is our constitution; Jihad is our way; and death for the glory of Allah is our greatest ambition.”

Established 80 years ago in Cairo, where the “mother group” is based, the Brotherhood remains a largely secretive society which gave birth to the entire terrorist juggernaut threatening the West and Israel today. In addition to Hamas, its offspring include Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which merged with al-Qaida.

“They all share the same roots – The Muslim Brotherhood,” said Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim reformer and director of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

Before joining al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, his deputy Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed were all adherents of the transnational Muslim Brotherhood – or Ikhwan al-Muslimi, as it is known in Arabic.

The former Supreme Guide of the International Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Akef, recently was asked: “Regarding resistance and jihad, do you consider Osama bin Laden a terrorist or an Islamic mujahid (freedom fighter)?”

Akef replied, “In all certainty, a mujahid, and I have no doubt in his sincerity in resisting the occupation, close to Allah on high.”

Exiled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak outlawed the Brotherhood after it plotted to assassinate him, following its successful assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who signed the country’s historic peace treaty with Israel.

The Brotherhood now claims to eschew violence. But it still clandestinely supports violent jihad, while reportedly maintaining a well-armed wing of thousands of trained fighters. It seeks to free dozens of its terrorist members from Egyptian prisons.

“Elements of the Muslim Brotherhood here and overseas have supported terrorism,” FBI Director Robert Mueller confirmed earlier this month during a House intelligence committee hearing.

According to covert FBI recordings cited in “Muslim Mafia,” Brotherhood leaders in America have described suicide bombings and other mass murders in the name of jihad as “beautiful.”

“The Muslim Brotherhood has figured that they can be successful promoting radical change from within the U.S. while supporting the armed struggle outside the U.S., primarily through fundraising and closely associated Palestinian terrorist organizations,” says former FBI special agent George Sadler, who after 9/11 investigated the Brotherhood from the bureau’s Washington field office.

While its secret writings call for conquering the U.S. through political infiltration, mass conversion and immigration, it does not rule out violent jihad when the time is right and all its “infrastructure” is in place and strong, Guandolo says. To that end, the Brotherhood has set up jihad training camps inside America where its foot soldiers conduct paramilitary exercises, including firearms and other weapons training.

After 9/11, a top CAIR official in Washington led a group of young Muslim men in Northern Virginia in jihadi weapons training here and in Pakistan.

Court records reveal the group chauffeured the 9/11 hijackers’ spiritual counselor, Anwar Awlaki, to their Falls Church, Va., meetings, before Awlaki fled to Yemen, where he now directs al-Qaida terrorist attacks against America.

Earlier this month, the leader of a North Carolina terrorist ring influenced by the Brotherhood pleaded guilty to charges of waging violent jihad.

The FBI recorded Daniel Patrick Boyd, a Muslim convert, saying he would “make jihad right here in America.” Boyd allegedly cased the U.S. Marine Corps headquarters in Quantico, Va., for terrorist attack. Agents found 24 guns and more than 27,000 rounds of ammunition during a raid of his home.

They also found a copy of “In the Shade of the Quran,” a book written by the late Muslim Brotherhood leader Sayyid Qutb of Egypt, bin Laden’s spiritual mentor.

Despite public claims to the contrary, the Brotherhood is still a dangerous organization, investigators and prosecutors agree. It has stated clearly in its recently declassified U.S. charter that it considers the United States to be its enemy.

Ultimately, “the Muslim Brotherhood is in America to destroy our Constitution and replace it with Shariah,” warns a group of former military and law enforcement officials writing in “Shariah: The Threat to America,” a book published by the Washington-based Center for Security Policy. The officials are using the book to help brief lawmakers and other government officials about the threat, warning them that they are prime targets of ongoing Brotherhood influence and espionage operations.

Inside the wire

Still, the Obama administration has actively courted the Brotherhood.

During the Cairo rioting, which was organized in part by the Brotherhood, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs urged Mubarak to open elections to “important non-secular actors” such as the Brotherhood.

In a stunning policy reversal, the administration in early 2009 lifted the ban preventing Egyptian Muslim activist Tariq Ramadan from entering the U.S. Ramadan, the grandson of Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, was barred in 2004 after allegedly raising money for terrorists.

Under the advisement of a Muslim White House aide tied to the Brotherhood, Obama invited the Muslim Brotherhood to his 2009 Cairo speech to Muslims worldwide, in spite of the group’s ban.

Currently, “many Muslim advisers to the U.S. government are Muslim Brothers or sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood cause,” Guandolo said. And they are “advising the U.S. national leadership and our national security apparatus on how to respond to the events in Egypt and elsewhere.”

Republican Rep. Sue Myrick of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence accused the administration of “watering down the stated goals and ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood so they could create space to engage the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt,” as well as at home.

Democrats aren’t the only ones downplaying the threat.

Khan, an American Conservative Union board member, asserts that ISNA and CAIR are not fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood, and have not conspired to raise money inside the U.S. for terrorists.

He says they never should have been designated unindicted co-conspirators by the government.

“The federal government has looked into these accusations [and] found they’re completely baseless,” Khan claimed.

In fact, the FBI has cut off ties to CAIR’s national office and its 30 chapters across the country pending further investigation of its ties to Hamas.

“Until we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and Hamas, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner,” said assistant FBI Director Richard Powers in a 2009 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The FBI has suspended all formal outreach activities with CAIR.”

Mueller earlier this month reiterated the ban remains in effect: “We do not have a relationship with CAIR.”

U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis, moreover, has refused ISNA’s and CAIR’s requests to strike their names from court documents listing them as unindicted co-conspirators in the HLF trial, the largest terror-financing case in U.S. history.

His 20-page ruling, written in July 2009 and recently unsealed, cites “ample evidence” that ISNA, NAIT and CAIR participated in a “criminal conspiracy” to support Hamas terrorists. (An appellate court in Denver said in a recent opinion that the list, which was attached to the government’s pre-trial brief, should not have been published, since unindicted co-conspirator lists are not ordinarily made public. It did not, however, grant the groups’ request for a court pronouncement that they were not connected to terrorists.)

As it turns out, Khan’s late father, Mahboob Khan, helped found ISNA. Each year, ISNA bestows an annual Muslim “community service” award in his memory.

Mahboob Khan also established a mosque – MCA of Santa Clara, Calif. – which the U.S. Brotherhood lists as one of “our organizations” in its secret manifesto seized by the FBI and recently declassified.

What’s more, Khan’s mother, Malika Khan, serves on the executive committee of CAIR’s San Francisco chapter. CAIR-SFBA recently posted a flyer on its website urging Muslims not to cooperate with the FBI in terrorism investigations.

Suhail Khan himself has served on ISNA and CAIR committees and panels and spoken at their conferences and other events.

- Prophecy News Watch

Subscribe to the comments for this post

Before its News: Daily Featured 5 Stories – 25th February 2011

From Before its News.Com

Daily Featured 5 Stories

Welcome to the Before It’s News Daily Featured 5 Stories. Each weekday we deliver the most important and interesting alternative stories to your inbox. Be the first among your friends and colleagues to get the scoop on the stories everyone should be talking about today.

---

FEMA Orders $1 Billion In Dehydrated Food, Terror Threats Rising

In an article Tuesday from the Beaufort Observer, many of the largest suppliers of dehydrated foods in the country are dropping their distributors and customers to dedicate their resources to supplying a billion dollar FEMA request and purchase…

Click here to read, “FEMA Orders”$1 Billion “In dehydrated food,Terror Threats Rising”…

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Ten Reasons To Get Rid Of Microwave Ovens

From the conclusions of the Swiss, Russian and German scientific clinical studies, we can no longer ignore the microwave oven sitting in our kitchens. The use of artificial microwave transmissions for subliminal psychological control, a.k.a. “brainwashing”, has also been proven…

Click here to read, “Ten Reasons To Get Rid Of Microwave Ovens”…

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Philippine Department Of Energy Verifies Self-Charging Electric Car

We are talking about an electric vehicle that can drive down the road without having to stop to re-charge, because the energy is derived on board from the surroundings, in real time; in the tradition of Nikola Tesla’s Pierce Arrow…

Click here to read, “Philippine Department Of Energy Verifies Self-Charging Electric Car”…

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

11 Charts That Explain Everything Wrong With America: “It’s The Inequality, Stupid”

Mother Jones writers Dave Gilson and Carolyn Perot have compiled 11 eye-popping charts that reveal what is wrong with America.  They sum it up with these words: “It’s the inequality, stupid.”   The charts reveal the super-rich have gotten richer while everybody else has been treading water…

Click here to read, “11 Charts That Explain Everything Wrong With America: “It’s The Inequality, Stupid”"…

………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Bailout Rejected: Please Help the Rich (video)

Wealthy financial institutions don’t have enough of your money yet. It’s time that more Americans step up and do their part to help Wall Street. Because everyone knows how good it feels to help those not in need!…

Click here to watch, “Bailout Rejected: Please Help the Rich”…

Subscribe to the comments for this post

Turkish Government Repression Steadily Escalates

From Rubin Reports.Blogspot.Com

Turkish Government Repression Steadily Escalates

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 09:45 AM PST

By Barry Rubin

Repression in Turkey steadily increases and is ignored by the international community. The latest event is the jailing of a famous columnist for Hurriyet, Soner Yalcin, and three journalists for a website publication called Odatv.

The crackdown came the day after Odatv reported that it had videos showing the state’s case in the Ergenekon conspiracy, the made-up case used to imprison military officers and dissidents–to be false. Odatv had reported:

“These videos will change hundreds have been arrested and held without bail, including intellectuals critical of the regime and scores of people who are obviously innocent. The trial has been going on for almost two and a half years without any convictions.”

The next day, the station was closed down.

Finally, the U.S. government got up the nerve to criticize mildly the ongoing repression of journalists in this case. The ruling Islamist AKP government responded sternly: ”Ambassadors cannot interfere with our domestic matters, they cannot design our domestic policies.”

So criticism and demand for reform is something supposed to happen in Egypt or Bahrain. The problem with unfriendly regimes is that they ignore the United States and bark back in an intimidating fashion, after which the U.S. government generally gives up. Friendly governments, in contrast, are pressured to make concessions. There’s something wrong going on with this kind of  policy.

Subscribe to the comments for this post

Egypt’s Revolution: The More They Reassure Us, The More We Worry

From Rubin Reports.Blogspot.Com

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Egypt’s Revolution: The More They Reassure Us, The More We Worry

Please be subscriber 18,887 (daily reader 33,287). Put email address in upper right-hand box: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com

We need your contribution. Tax-deductible donation by PayPal or credit card: click Donate button: http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com. Checks: “American Friends of IDC.” “For GLORIA Center” on memo line. Mail: American Friends of IDC, 116 East 16th St., 11th Fl., NY, NY 10003.

By Barry Rubin

I think I was the first person to warn that the Egyptian revolution wasn’t all roses but also had a dangerous amount of thorns. And the more Western governments and media reassure us, the more we worry. Why? Because it shows they have no idea what they are facing and no idea of what they are doing.

Well, there is a welcome exception, Michael Slackman, writing from the Gulf, has obviously been talking to some Arabs there trying to make the Americans see reality. His article is entitled, “Arab Unrest Propels Iran as Saudi Influence Declines” and here’s the lead:

“The popular revolts shaking the Arab world have begun to shift the balance of power in the region, bolstering Iran’s position while weakening and unnerving its rival, Saudi Arabia, regional experts said….Iran has already benefited from the ouster or undermining of Arab leaders who were its strong adversaries and has begun to project its growing influence, the analysts said.”

Unfortunately, this is not affecting coverage further west, where the “loco weed” (see note) of Israel makes observers insane.

Here are some of the things we’ve seen so far:

–Well over a million people chanting, “To Jerusalem we are heading! Martyrs in the millions!” Might this entail some future deterioration of Egypt’s relations not only with Israel but also with the Palestinian Authority?

–An Iranian-made Grad missile fired at the Israeli city of Beersheva. These have been rare in the past because they are hard to smuggle into the Gaza Strip. But now, through bribery, indifference, and ideological agreement, smuggling weapons to Hamas has become far easier. Might this not lead to a new Israel-Hamas or even Israel-Hamas-Egypt war?

–Two Iranian warships were allowed by Egypt to transit the Suez Canal for the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Could this perhaps produce a stronger Iran and a weaker U.S. position?

–In 2009, Qaradawi called on the Arabs to get nuclear weapons in order to overturn the peace which Israel wants.

–Egypt has begun opening the border with the Gaza Strip.

–The Muslim Brotherhood has begun a campaign to replace Egypt’s top clergy with its own men, a move that would give them control of mosques, religious education, and lots of money and media access.

–The Brotherhood also has a long record of helping Hamas. Meanwhile, Hamas, showing growing confidence, is more likely to attack Israel believing–wrongly or rightly–that Egypt will “guard its back.”

Now the American media at least is covering Israel’s concerns (a story that could have been written three weeks ago)  but only to show that they are wrong! Take a recent article in the New York Times (albeit three weeks after this point became obvious):

“Israelis worry that Arab democracy movements will ultimately be dominated by extremists, as happened in Iran after the 1979 revolution that ousted the shah. They worry about the chaotic transition between revolt and democratic stability, if it ever comes. They see Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, even if it remains a minority of Egyptian opinion, as pressing for more solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Brotherhood. And they fear that Israel’s regional partners in checking Iran are under threat or falling.”

Shouldn’t these factors also bother U.S. policy?

For example, another story reports:

“Senior Hamas military commander Ayman Nofal, who escaped from confinement in Egypt during a mass prison break, returned to Gaza where he told an interviewer: `We’re preparing for the next battle.’ Two Israeli officials familiar with intelligence reports said this week that Hamas, emboldened by Mubarak’s resignation and its own successful crackdown on popular discontent at home, had stepped up the smuggling of militants and weapons through Egypt to be stockpiled in Gaza for use against Israel. `It’s not just terrorists coming in. It’s dangerous equipment–Grad-type missiles, anti-aircraft missiles,’ a senior Israeli official said.”

This was said before the Grad missile hit Beersheva. Shouldn’t this also be a U.S. and European concern?

Going back to the New York Times piece, it answers Israeli concerns with a “reassuring” response:

“Arab analysts counter that new Arab realities and democracies should be welcomed by Israel, because the new Arab generation shares many of the same values as Israel and the West. [That remains to be seen, doesn't it? BR] They argue that there is no support among Egypt’s leaders for the abrogation of the 1979 peace treaty, though it is unpopular with the public, and that the Egyptian Army will not disrupt foreign policy.”

No support? The two best-known reformist leaders–Ayman Nour and Muhammad ElBaradei–have called for revising the treaty. So has the Muslim Brotherhood, which can mobilize millions of people. Even the extremely moderate Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey takes for granted that the treaty will be unilaterally altered.

“`There is no regime that is going to be against or hostile toward Israel in the near term,’” said Mohamed Darif, a political scientist at Morocco’s King Hassan II University. `There has been an evolution in the Arab world, among political elites and in civil society. Israel is a fact.’”

Notice the phrase “near term,” meaning over the coming months. The medium term and long term are, however, also matters of strategic interest, aren’t they? Also the statement misses the most obvious point: it is precisely the existing elites that are being challenged or overthrown. And, of course, this does not apply to those now ruling Syria, Lebanon, and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

I’ll go here with the assessment of the radical Arab (who is also a consultant to the U.S. Defense Department) As’ad Abu Khalil ridiculing the idea that the “overthrow of the regime would not change Egyptian foreign policy….”

More than a century ago, the great German Socialist leader August Bebel said that antisemitism was the “socialism of fools. Might it also turn out–as happened in Germany later–to be the “democracy of fools” in our own era?

After all, there has been no Arab leader more consistently anti-Israel than Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi. Yet in posters and effigies, opposition demonstrators are putting a Star of David on him to suggest that he’s an Israeli agent! That gives some sense that huge numbers of people in the Arab world–perhaps even a higher percentage among those rebelling against existing regimes–view Israel as a demonic evil behind everything they don’t like at home and in the region.

[I will resist the opportunity to compare this view to that held by various European politicians, journalists, and academics.]

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron told students in Qatar that some Middle Eastern rulers were using the Israel-Palestine conflict as a distraction from their own oppressive regimes. That’s true. The problem is that it is such a good distraction precisely because doing so is wildly popular with the Arab masses, who may well want more militancy than those governments are willing to provide.

Qadhafi: The Israeli/Jewish Devil (Reuters)
The New York Times article continues:

“But new governments are more likely to increase their support for the Palestinian cause, with Egypt already reopening the crossing with Hamas-run Gaza. That new attitude could pressure Israel to do more to find a settlement, some analysts argue. Most others believe that Israel will instead resist, arguing that it cannot make concessions because it is now encircled by more hostile neighbors.”

You think?  In other words, if Syria, Iran, Egypt, Hizballah-ruled Lebanon, and Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip give more help to Hamas; if the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia are intimidated and take a harder line to survive, then does that tell us Israel should make more concessions? That’s sort of like saying that when next-door Germany was taken over by a new government in the 1930s it was the ideal moment for France to give up the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.

Remember that the concessions made by Israel in the 1990s to the Palestinian Authority did not advance a comprehensive peace and that Egypt seems close to changing its own peace treaty to Israel. Why should Israel expect that another agreement would not be overturned by some new revolution, change of mind, or cynical long-term plan?

And what is the thrust of this article? Why that instead of supporting Israel against the heightened strategic danger, the Western response should be to pressure Israel for more concessions (supposedly for its own good). In other words, all of the events of the last year–correction: the last two decades–have taught these people absolutely nothing. That’s why Israel will ignore their suicidal advice.

Often such articles say something so stupid that you know the author has no idea what he’s talking about. In this case, the writer goes extolls how wonderful it is that Turkey is becoming more influential and then adds:

“The Turkish model would be a good outcome for Israel, many Israelis agree. But as they also noted, relations with Turkey have been deeply strained by its new closeness to Muslim neighbors like Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.”

Yes, many Israelis agree that “the Turkish model” would be “a good outcome for Israel,” but only in the context that a revolutionary Islamist or radical nationalist Egypt would be much worse!

If you want to be well-informed about the Middle East, I’m sorry to say that reading Western newspapers is largely counterproductive.

Let me repeat what I’ve been saying for years:

The main threat in the Middle East is revolutionary Islamism as embodied by the Iran-Syria-Hamas (controls Gaza Strip)-Hizballah (controls Lebanon)-Iraqi insurgent-Turkish government alliance and also by the Egyptian and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood.

The required strategy is to put together a counter-alliance of the United States, Europe, relatively moderate Arab regimes, and Israel. This also means supporting the oppositions in Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran.

The Egyptian revolution removes the most powerful Arab country countering the Islamists (and opposing Iran). It will produce a new government that will not be allied to the United States but will work more closely with its enemies. Eventually, a revolutionary Islamist government may emerge.

Even Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gets it, noting, “It is quite probable that hard times are ahead [in the Middle East]including the arrival at power of fanatics. This will mean fires for decades and the spread of extremism.”

Yet almost everyone in the Western establishment is telling us that this is a good thing. Go figure.

Note: Loco weed, the name given a plant in the old American west that when eaten by horses made them go crazy. See also, drinking the (poisoned) kool-aid.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His books include Islamic Fundamentalists in Egyptian Politics and The Muslim Brotherhood (Palgrave-Macmillan); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East, a study of Arab reform movements (Wiley). GLORIA Center site: http://www.gloria-center.org His blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.

Subscribe to the comments for this post

The Grad rocket attacks are back

From American Thinker.Com

February 24, 2011

The Grad rocket attacks are back

Mladen Andrijasevic

In retrospect, what was troubling about yesterday’s Grad rocket attack on Beer Sheva was not only that it happened, but the near routine reaction of my whole family to the imminent rocket impact. My wife at first thought that the siren was a continuation of a helicopter crash scene from the TV series Lost she  had been watching, but then realized that it was coming  from outside and dragged our son who was in the middle of brushing his teeth to his room which serves as the safe room.  We could hear the noise of the heavy metal covers shielding the windows slide into position in other apartments. A few more moments and then a boom. My son located the emergency transistor radio and my daughter tuned in to hear what was going on — indeed there had been an explosion.

This morning the only difference in our schedule was that our son was escorted all the way to the gate of his school so that we could react appropriately in case there was another attack.

What was wrong with this scenario is that we were getting used to rocket attacks. As if this were a normal way to live. Just as we all were getting used to be stripped and x-rayed all over the world  airports. Instead of solving the problem we were giving in and accepting this abnormal world.

But this will not work for long. The documentary Iranium suggests that Iran could attack the US with missiles tipped with nuclear warheads from barges positioned a hundred miles from the US shores

Taking into account what Bernard Lewis has reiterated in the movie, i.e. “With these people, with their apocalyptic mindset, mutual assured destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement ” I find it strange that no one mentioned the possibility that the Iranian warships that just sailed through the Suez Canal might have had the very same purpose —  to launch a N. Korean atom bomb on Tel Aviv.   After all, Israel’s three Dolphin class submarine deterrent would have according to Bernard Lewis just served as an inducement.

Were the Iranian ships rehearsing a future scenario?  I hope the Israeli government, if not the Obama administration, know what they are doing.

Subscribe to the comments for this post

Muslim Separatists Plan Bloodbath for 2014 Sochi Olympics

From American Thinker.Com

February 22, 2011

Muslim Separatists Plan Bloodbath for 2014 Sochi Olympics

Ignoring repeated and unmistakable warnings, President Obama still intends to allow American athletes to walk into what can only be called the meat grinder of the 2014 Olympic Games. It’s time to ask whether the U.S. President has lost his mind or, worse, is recklessly and willfully disregarding the safety of American citizens for personal political gain

Last week, the Putin regime attempted to stage the first round of test events for the Winter Olympic Games of 2014, which are to be held in the Russian city of Sochi.  In the mountains outside the city, Jean-Claude Killy, President of the IOC, declared “I have to be fully satisfied with what I’ve seen.”

Had Killy been a bit more attentive on those mountaintops, though, and glanced to the East some 200 miles, he might have glimpsed wisps of smoke curling over Kabardino-Balkaria.

For even as Killy was speaking, one platoon of Caucasian separatists had forced a car full of five skiers from Moscow off the road and shot them all down, killing three.  Simultaneously, at a nearby resort on Mt. Elbrus, another platoon detonated bombs that brought down an entire ski lift.

The message from the separatists to the world could not have been more clear:  If you send your athletes to Sochi three years from now, the white Russians snows will be stained red with their blood.  Don’t do it. The Kremlin has admitted it can’t protect tourists at Mt. Elbrus and warned them to stay away.

A short time earlier Doku Umarov, leader of the separatists in Chechnya, had brought his war home to Moscow itself.  Suicide bombers struck the city’s Domodedovo airport, to Moscow what La Guardia is to New York City, and Umarv warned:  “More attacks will follow, month by month, God willing, even week by week. 2011 has just started and I promise you that this year will be a year of blood and tears for you Russians. We will bomb and burn you in your cities, war will come to your homes, and do not blame us for these results.  Blame Putin and his pack of dogs, who started the war in the Caucasus.”

Chechnya itself is just a few hundred miles from Sochi.  The rebel fighters see the Olympics staging as a direct provocation, and Russian officials have admitted that the rebels are targeting the games as a result.  Russia, one of the most politically and socially corrupt countries on the planet and a land plagued by desperate poverty, can hardly stop them all.

The Chechens aren’t the only ones aggrieved by Putin.  Radio Liberty reports that “the Circassians, a Muslim Caucasian people now scattered around the globe, have been actively lobbying for the Winter Olympics to be moved to another site” because “the year 2014 coincides with the 150th anniversary of a Russian military campaign that wiped out 300,000 Circassians in and around Sochi.” As such, they see Sochi as sacred ground and the government’s festivities as a blasphemous insult.

The fact is, athletes from democratic countries should not be going to Sochi in 2014 even if there were no risk of violence.  Take your pick from among the reasons:  (a) Russia’s wanton imperialist violence in Georgia; (b) Russia’s profligate and corrupt destruction of the Sochi ecology or (c) its brutal disregard of local property rights while building the games; (d) the fact that Russia, with an average wage less than $3/hour and an average life expectancy outside the top 125 countries in the world can’t afford the games; (e) Russia’s relentless crackdown on democracy and civil society across the nation or (f) Russia’s brutal violence, including many convictions for state-sponsored murder, kidnapping and torture throughout the Caucasus region.

But the risk of violence is now undeniable and overwhelming.  Never before in sports history have world leaders so recklessly placed athletes in harm’s way, forced them directly into the jaws of a horrific political struggle that has been raging for decades.  The world looks to Obama for leadership, but finds none because of Obama’s crass political goals.

Obama chooses to ignore the looming Sochi catastrophe, or is unable to heed it, because of his desperate struggle to collect propaganda he can use in his reelection bid. Months ago he settled on Russia, hoping he can claim victory in achieving a nuclear arms reduction treaty and in withdrawal of Russian support for Iran.  Whether any ground has been gained on either front is an open question, but what cannot be denied is that regardless of such gains there has been a horrifying net loss in democracy and human rights and a terrifying gamble with human lives in Sochi.

If the games go forward with American athletes present, there can be no doubt that Obama will have blood, American blood, on his hands.

By Kim Zigfeld

Subscribe to the comments for this post