Jihadi Massacre at Domodedovo International Demands an International Response to Jihad
Walid Phares, Ph.D.
Monday’s suicide bomb attack at Moscow Domodedovo International Airport (DME) that killed 35 and wounded scores more serves as a bloody reminder of the global Jihadist pandemic, with its various mutations and assorted agendas, that self-replicates in local, regional and international causes, turning them into unwitting hosts for its lethal advance in societies the world over. The blast that ripped through the baggage claim areas of Moscow's busiest airport will likely be attributed to Wahabi Jihadist networks out of the North Caucasus region who claim solidarity with Chechnyan and Dagestani secessionists.
For those of us who have observed and analyzed Jihadi terrorism for decades this horrible attack leaves us with two immediate thoughts:
Copycats
The jihadists behind the Moscow terror attack will boast of their “exploits” to incite other jihadists around the globe to follow their example and emulate their method. There is a crucial lesson to be learned from the Moscow airport massacre for security and law enforcement officials who are receptive to its teaching—Jihadi terrorists will innovate and adapt their methods to circumvent multiple layers of airport security and strike “targets of opportunity” as they did at Domodedovo International Airport in the international arrival terminal. Russian and other foreign travelers killed in the attack paid a terminal price for because airport security strategy and methods did not adapt in time to prevent this latest mutation of Jihadi terror. It is imperative that other nations of the world learn from the Domodedovo event, especially those nations targeted by Jihadi networks like al Qaeda. What happened at Domodedovo could happen at any airport in the free world.
Ideological Incitement
From the Nord-Ost siege (Moscow Theater Hostage Crisis) of 2002 to the Beslan School siege and massacre in 2004 to this latest terror attack at Russia’s busiest airport, a common theme emerges; the impetus behind all of these terror attacks is an overarching ideology known as Wahabi Jihadism or “combat Salafism.” In each of these cases, the perpetrators came from the northern Caucuses region. Connections between the Caucuses Jihadists and Central Asian and Afghani Jihadi networks are becoming increasingly active as a perusal of the Kafqaz and other Jihadi sites on the Web confirms. The rush to judgement by some Western observers that assigns blame for these attacks on Russian policies in Chechnya is ill advised. First, many Chechens do not support warfare against the Russians. Second, Chechens who happen to support a local guerilla do not necessarily favor strikes against civilian targets deep inside Russia. In point of fact, those who are inciting and carrying out these attacks subscribe to Jihadi ideology like that of al Qaeda, the Taliban or Shabab al Jihad in Somalia. All of these groups, that target civilians, cite Islamic dogma as the basis for their actions, not the ethnic and religious communities from which they come.
The Moscow airport terror attack should prompt the international community, with the United States and Russia in the lead, to escalate this issue as the top priority of world counter-terrorism strategy and launch a global campaign against Jihadi ideologies. Ideology aside, this campaign must also identify and punish the funding sources for radicalization, regardless the effects on political economies. The Jihadists have the world's economies and innocent civilians in their crosshairs. Regardless of national differences, the International community must unite against the Jihadists.
Dr Walid Phares is Fox News Terrorism Expert and a Professor of Global Strategies. he advises the anti-Terrorism Caucus in the US House of Representatives.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Friday, November 12, 2010
Community of the Impoverished
There are an estimated thirty-five such communities in the United States, the closest one to our Nation’s Capital located in Falls Church, Virginia less than nine miles from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Virginia, and less than twenty miles from Dulles International Airport (IAD) in Sterling, Virginia. They are Jamaat ul-Fuqra (JuF) (Arabic: Community of the Impoverished), an Islamist paramilitary organization based initially, in Pakistan and, since 1980, in the U.S. The Group’s founder and leader, Mubarik Ali Jilani Hasmi , is the Pakistani cleric WSJ reporter Danny Pearl was en route to interview at the Village Restaurant in downtown Karachi, Pakistan on January 23, 2002 when he was kidnapped, and nine days later beheaded, by his Islamist captors.
Jilani (alternately ‘Gilani’) founded the U.S. arm of Jamaat ul-Fuqra in Brooklyn, New York during his first visit to the U.S. in 1980. Since then, U.S. Fuqra jamaats (Arabic: assemblies or communities) have attracted many Muslim converts, including prison converts, swelling the Islamist militia’s size to an estimated 3,000, predominantly African-American, members. The group is currently headquartered in Hancock, New York.
A September 2004 National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) research report listed tax evasion; money laundering; worker’s compensation fraud; insurance fraud; bank fraud; wire fraud; marriage fraud; identification fraud; weapons violations; providing material support to terrorists; hazardous materials license fraud; and, immigration law violations among crimes for which Jamaat ul-Fuqra members have been prosecuted. Some Fuqra militiamen have been charged with conspiracy to commit capital murder. The list of Fuqra member prosecutions constitutes fourteen of the NW3C report’s ninety-four pages.
Other than distinguishing Jamaat ul-Fuqra as a magnet for recidivous ex-cons, white collar crime is not the group’s most worrisome enterprise. Basic training for Fuqra recruits has included AK-47 assault rifle, machine gun, rocket launcher, mortar and explosives training. Jamaat plebes have also been mentored in terrorism’s more nefarious methods included kidnapping, murder of hostages, sabotage, subversion, and urban warfare.
A partial list of JuF compounds in the U.S. (hat tip to The Foxhole ) includes: Deposit, NY; Hancock, NY (national HQ); Springfield, MA; Philadelphia, PA; Hyattsville, MD; Bethany, WV; Dover, TN; York County, SC; Augusta, GA; Commerce, GA; Macon, GA; Marion, AL; Houston, TX; Talihina, OK; Coldwater, MI; Buena Vista, CO (raided and shut down by CO authorities in 1992); Baladullah, CA (leader convicted of embezzling $1.3-million in 2006; compound abandoned); Oak Hill, CA; and Onalaska, WA.
The existence of Jamaat ul-Fuqra and similar groups in the United States is a matter of serious concern for federal, state and local law enforcement organizations, many of which maintain dossiers on militant groups that they distribute to partners and individuals with “a need to know.” This information is often withheld from the general public for a variety of reasons, particularly when disclosure might compromise an active investigation or prosecution. Nevertheless, forewarned is forearmed and infidels living within rocket or mortar range of JuF compounds ought to know about them as soon as reasonably possible, if for no other reason than to enlist their support.
A February 19, 2009 Human Events article by the indispensable Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch points out that Jamaat ul-Fuqra wasn’t on the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) , even though “Justice and DHS [were] obviously aware of what [was] going on.” CBS News acquitted itself with equal fecklessness in its reporting, according to Spencer, by ridiculing Christian Action Network’s (CAN) compelling, two-years-in-the-making video documentary on JuF that had premiered in Washington, D.C. the week before. The CAN documentary included damning video of Fuqra militia engaged in urban warfare exercises, footage the CAN investigative team captured at great risk to themselves by crossing the perimeter of many JuF compounds. True to form, CBS News ignored the compelling CAN video footage and emphasized the documentary’s “incendiary” content instead.
With the exception of FOX News and the Blogosphere, Jamaat ul-Fuqra has been largely ignored by Big Media. Despite numerous Internet postings exposing the group’s proclivity for terrorism, dedication to Islamic jihad, and Fuqra members’ aggregate criminal history, most Americans have never heard of the organization.
So what’s the big deal about 3,000 Islamist militiamen out of an 81% urban-dwelling U.S. population of 312 million? Well, it depends on which “house” you live in. In Islamic jurisprudence there are two. Anyone who isn’t Dar al-Islam (Arabic: “house of Islam”) is, by definition, Dar al-Harb (Arabic: “house of war”). All “infidels” (i.e. non-Muslims) are harbis which puts most Americans in the camp of “the enemy” Jilani and his cabal are “fighting to destroy.” “Live and let live” devotees should know that there are no “noncombatants” in Islamists’ twisted “rules of engagement” as the barbarous murders of Danny Pearl by self-identified members of The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty (NMRPS) in 2002 and Smadar Haran Kaiser’s family by Palestine Liberation Front terrorists in 1979 attest.
After abducting and beheading Pearl, his Islamist executioners divvied up his body and buried the Jewish journalist’s severed head and dissevered body, ten pieces in all, in a shallow grave in Gadap, about thirty miles north of Karachi. Kaiser’s account (The World Should Know What He Did to My Family) of the equally-gruesome murders of her husband and two daughters appeared in the Washington Post on May 18, 2003 under the title, “The World Should Know What He Did to My Husband” (section B, B02):
The murders of Danny Pearl and Smadar Haran Kaiser’s husband and two daughters are not anomalies on Islamists’ endless rap sheet. Putting a COEXIST bumper sticker on one's will accomplish nothing; only conversion to Islam will.
Fast forward to Wednesday, October 27, 2010, the day jihadist Farooque Ahmed of Ashburn, Virginia was arrested by the FBI. Before Ahmed’s arrest, FBI surveillance had determined that he was an al-Qa'ida spotter providing support to the international Islamist terror network’s plan to bomb multiple targets in the Washington area. Dr. Walid Phares, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C. and Director of FDD’s Future of Terrorism Project says Ahmed’s multi-site bombing plan reflects an ominous emerging trend in jihadi strategy in the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Phares also noted that the Ahmed case is consistent with his research and analysis findings which suggest a strategic, coordinated targeting of U.S. urban centers by jihadist groups operating inside our borders.
Use “coordinated” in conjunction with “targeting of U.S. urban centers” suggests that JuF is not the only U.S.-based Islamist group intent on using terrorism as a means of claiming America for Allah. In fact, there are several as a perusal of the Nine Eleven Finding Answers Foundation (NEFA Foundation) website makes readily apparent. This suggests that other groups like Jamaat ul-Fuqra got the same urban jihad memo that Ahmed did. Islamist groups like JuF exist for one overarching purpose—Jihad, and they will not remain latent forever.
Jamaat ul-Fuqra and similar groups are emboldened by U.S. authorities’ reluctance to shut them down, even when their stated ambitions are ample justification for doing so. Furthermore, Dar al-Islam interprets equivocation as weakness and weakness in Dar al-Harb is provocation to Dar al-Islam. Jihadist groups are seizing on America’s lack of resolve to increase their foothold and expand their operations in the United States.
A dangerous ideology-driven movement aided and abetted by bromidic public policy and superficial journalism, has been steadily accruing power and leverage within our legislative, legal, educational, military, national security and industrial establishments for decades while America fights herself out on preventing terrorism. Now in our tenth year since 9/11, many are just discovering that Islamist ideology is the animating principle behind Islamist terror and Islamists’ efforts to supplant our way of life with Shari’ah. The fact that the post-9/11 decade was only the first of fifteen-rounds in an epic fight for Western Civilization's survival is enough to make anyone want to throw in the towel. We might even want to shut our eyes like CBS News did, tap our heels together, and chant “Islam is a religion of peace” until ul-Fuqra goes away. If only.
Chanting “hopey-changey” platitudes might have worked in the Land of Oz, but Jihad is no allegory and “Islam” as “a religion of peace” is wishful thinking, wastes precious time and provokes our enemies. It is only a matter of precious time before Jamaat ul-Fuqra militiamen or members of some other Islamist terror group apply the training they have received, in a U.S. city.
Jilani (alternately ‘Gilani’) founded the U.S. arm of Jamaat ul-Fuqra in Brooklyn, New York during his first visit to the U.S. in 1980. Since then, U.S. Fuqra jamaats (Arabic: assemblies or communities) have attracted many Muslim converts, including prison converts, swelling the Islamist militia’s size to an estimated 3,000, predominantly African-American, members. The group is currently headquartered in Hancock, New York.
A September 2004 National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) research report listed tax evasion; money laundering; worker’s compensation fraud; insurance fraud; bank fraud; wire fraud; marriage fraud; identification fraud; weapons violations; providing material support to terrorists; hazardous materials license fraud; and, immigration law violations among crimes for which Jamaat ul-Fuqra members have been prosecuted. Some Fuqra militiamen have been charged with conspiracy to commit capital murder. The list of Fuqra member prosecutions constitutes fourteen of the NW3C report’s ninety-four pages.
Other than distinguishing Jamaat ul-Fuqra as a magnet for recidivous ex-cons, white collar crime is not the group’s most worrisome enterprise. Basic training for Fuqra recruits has included AK-47 assault rifle, machine gun, rocket launcher, mortar and explosives training. Jamaat plebes have also been mentored in terrorism’s more nefarious methods included kidnapping, murder of hostages, sabotage, subversion, and urban warfare.
A partial list of JuF compounds in the U.S. (hat tip to The Foxhole ) includes: Deposit, NY; Hancock, NY (national HQ); Springfield, MA; Philadelphia, PA; Hyattsville, MD; Bethany, WV; Dover, TN; York County, SC; Augusta, GA; Commerce, GA; Macon, GA; Marion, AL; Houston, TX; Talihina, OK; Coldwater, MI; Buena Vista, CO (raided and shut down by CO authorities in 1992); Baladullah, CA (leader convicted of embezzling $1.3-million in 2006; compound abandoned); Oak Hill, CA; and Onalaska, WA.
The existence of Jamaat ul-Fuqra and similar groups in the United States is a matter of serious concern for federal, state and local law enforcement organizations, many of which maintain dossiers on militant groups that they distribute to partners and individuals with “a need to know.” This information is often withheld from the general public for a variety of reasons, particularly when disclosure might compromise an active investigation or prosecution. Nevertheless, forewarned is forearmed and infidels living within rocket or mortar range of JuF compounds ought to know about them as soon as reasonably possible, if for no other reason than to enlist their support.
A February 19, 2009 Human Events article by the indispensable Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch points out that Jamaat ul-Fuqra wasn’t on the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) , even though “Justice and DHS [were] obviously aware of what [was] going on.” CBS News acquitted itself with equal fecklessness in its reporting, according to Spencer, by ridiculing Christian Action Network’s (CAN) compelling, two-years-in-the-making video documentary on JuF that had premiered in Washington, D.C. the week before. The CAN documentary included damning video of Fuqra militia engaged in urban warfare exercises, footage the CAN investigative team captured at great risk to themselves by crossing the perimeter of many JuF compounds. True to form, CBS News ignored the compelling CAN video footage and emphasized the documentary’s “incendiary” content instead.
With the exception of FOX News and the Blogosphere, Jamaat ul-Fuqra has been largely ignored by Big Media. Despite numerous Internet postings exposing the group’s proclivity for terrorism, dedication to Islamic jihad, and Fuqra members’ aggregate criminal history, most Americans have never heard of the organization.
So what’s the big deal about 3,000 Islamist militiamen out of an 81% urban-dwelling U.S. population of 312 million? Well, it depends on which “house” you live in. In Islamic jurisprudence there are two. Anyone who isn’t Dar al-Islam (Arabic: “house of Islam”) is, by definition, Dar al-Harb (Arabic: “house of war”). All “infidels” (i.e. non-Muslims) are harbis which puts most Americans in the camp of “the enemy” Jilani and his cabal are “fighting to destroy.” “Live and let live” devotees should know that there are no “noncombatants” in Islamists’ twisted “rules of engagement” as the barbarous murders of Danny Pearl by self-identified members of The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty (NMRPS) in 2002 and Smadar Haran Kaiser’s family by Palestine Liberation Front terrorists in 1979 attest.
After abducting and beheading Pearl, his Islamist executioners divvied up his body and buried the Jewish journalist’s severed head and dissevered body, ten pieces in all, in a shallow grave in Gadap, about thirty miles north of Karachi. Kaiser’s account (The World Should Know What He Did to My Family) of the equally-gruesome murders of her husband and two daughters appeared in the Washington Post on May 18, 2003 under the title, “The World Should Know What He Did to My Husband” (section B, B02):
It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My Husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around midnight ... four terrorists [from Lebanon], sent by Abu six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around midnight ... four terrorists [from Lebanon], sent by Abu Abbas … landed in a rubber boat on the beach [and] burst into our building … Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide … I went [into the crawl space over our bedroom] with Yael in my arms … Danny grabbed Einat and [dashed] out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat. They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael … [I, knowing] if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed … kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe … the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach … one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl’s skull in against a rock with his rifle butt … By the time we were rescued from the crawl space … Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her.
Fast forward to Wednesday, October 27, 2010, the day jihadist Farooque Ahmed of Ashburn, Virginia was arrested by the FBI. Before Ahmed’s arrest, FBI surveillance had determined that he was an al-Qa'ida spotter providing support to the international Islamist terror network’s plan to bomb multiple targets in the Washington area. Dr. Walid Phares, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C. and Director of FDD’s Future of Terrorism Project says Ahmed’s multi-site bombing plan reflects an ominous emerging trend in jihadi strategy in the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Phares also noted that the Ahmed case is consistent with his research and analysis findings which suggest a strategic, coordinated targeting of U.S. urban centers by jihadist groups operating inside our borders.
Use “coordinated” in conjunction with “targeting of U.S. urban centers” suggests that JuF is not the only U.S.-based Islamist group intent on using terrorism as a means of claiming America for Allah. In fact, there are several as a perusal of the Nine Eleven Finding Answers Foundation (NEFA Foundation) website makes readily apparent. This suggests that other groups like Jamaat ul-Fuqra got the same urban jihad memo that Ahmed did. Islamist groups like JuF exist for one overarching purpose—Jihad, and they will not remain latent forever.
Jamaat ul-Fuqra and similar groups are emboldened by U.S. authorities’ reluctance to shut them down, even when their stated ambitions are ample justification for doing so. Furthermore, Dar al-Islam interprets equivocation as weakness and weakness in Dar al-Harb is provocation to Dar al-Islam. Jihadist groups are seizing on America’s lack of resolve to increase their foothold and expand their operations in the United States.
A dangerous ideology-driven movement aided and abetted by bromidic public policy and superficial journalism, has been steadily accruing power and leverage within our legislative, legal, educational, military, national security and industrial establishments for decades while America fights herself out on preventing terrorism. Now in our tenth year since 9/11, many are just discovering that Islamist ideology is the animating principle behind Islamist terror and Islamists’ efforts to supplant our way of life with Shari’ah. The fact that the post-9/11 decade was only the first of fifteen-rounds in an epic fight for Western Civilization's survival is enough to make anyone want to throw in the towel. We might even want to shut our eyes like CBS News did, tap our heels together, and chant “Islam is a religion of peace” until ul-Fuqra goes away. If only.
Chanting “hopey-changey” platitudes might have worked in the Land of Oz, but Jihad is no allegory and “Islam” as “a religion of peace” is wishful thinking, wastes precious time and provokes our enemies. It is only a matter of precious time before Jamaat ul-Fuqra militiamen or members of some other Islamist terror group apply the training they have received, in a U.S. city.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
We dare not demean this holy trust
Yesterday, October 30, 2010, was the 275th birthday of Founder and 2nd U.S. President, John Adams. Almost one year to the day before he added his signature to the Declaration of Independence, on July 7, 1775, John Adams penned these sobering words in a three-page letter to his beloved Abigail:
Most of us could not tell how many times we have uttered Jesus’ words in “the Lord’s Prayer,” “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” And yet for some of us, our voting habits undermine the answer to that prayer. We demean our vote when we vote for candidates who favor unrighteous causes such as abortion or same sex unions. We must not treat voting as an optional, inconsequential, or unnecessary exercise or God will withdraw the privilege.
The Book of Proverbs tells us that “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.” (Proverbs 14:34) With so much, indeed, our liberty at stake in Tuesday’s election, it is unthinkable that any able-bodied Christian would not vote, much less vote for unprincipled candidates or candidates who support expansion of government’s role in our personal lives. If we exalt ungodly men by our vote, it reproaches Christ and debases His Church.
Charles G. Finney, a prominent Second Great Awakening preacher, said the following about a Christian’s vote,
Will our vote on Tuesday count for righteousness and preserve our right to choose our future leaders, or will it be the our last that really counts? America hangs in the balance and this vote will be a referendum on the Church and its leaders.
Your Description of the Distresses of the worthy Inhabitants of Boston, and the other Sea Port Towns, is enough to melt an Heart of stone. Our Consolation must be this, my dear, that Cities may be rebuilt, and a People reduced to Poverty, may acquire fresh Property: But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the People once surrender their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.” [italics mine]Our right to vote as American citizens is a gift bestowed by Almighty God; but it is more than a right or a privilege. Jesus said, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.” (Luke 12:48) The right to vote is also a holy trust given each of us by a righteous God who holds us accountable for our stewardship of that right. As an ordained minister and former pastor of five years myself, I am confident that clergy who neglect their duty to teach their flocks proper stewardship of the right and duty to vote will suffer stricter judgment.
Most of us could not tell how many times we have uttered Jesus’ words in “the Lord’s Prayer,” “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” And yet for some of us, our voting habits undermine the answer to that prayer. We demean our vote when we vote for candidates who favor unrighteous causes such as abortion or same sex unions. We must not treat voting as an optional, inconsequential, or unnecessary exercise or God will withdraw the privilege.
The Book of Proverbs tells us that “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.” (Proverbs 14:34) With so much, indeed, our liberty at stake in Tuesday’s election, it is unthinkable that any able-bodied Christian would not vote, much less vote for unprincipled candidates or candidates who support expansion of government’s role in our personal lives. If we exalt ungodly men by our vote, it reproaches Christ and debases His Church.
Charles G. Finney, a prominent Second Great Awakening preacher, said the following about a Christian’s vote,
“[T]he time has come that Christians must vote for honest men and take consistent ground in politics or the Lord will curse them ... Christians have been exceedingly guilty in this matter. But the time has come when they must act differently ... Christians seem to act as if they thought God did not see what they do in politics. But I tell you He does see it - and He will bless or curse this nation according to the course they [Christians] take [in politics].”Renowned Civil War era abolitionist leader, orator, writer, and statesman, the Rev. Frederick Douglas, himself a freed slave, characterized his political views thus:
“I have one great political idea … The best expression of it, I have found in the Bible. It is … ‘Righteous exalteth a nation; sin is a reproach to any people.’ This constitutes my politics, and the whole of my politics. The negative and positive of my politics.”Wall Builders' website (http://www.wallbuilders.com) succinctly spells out guiding principles for the Christian voter, indeed, for any patriotic American citizen who is committed to the Founders’ ideals as enumerated in America’s Founding Documents. Please watch the “Voter Responsibilities” video linked on the website’s homepage and if you are a pastor, please show the video in your church service(s) tomorrow.
Will our vote on Tuesday count for righteousness and preserve our right to choose our future leaders, or will it be the our last that really counts? America hangs in the balance and this vote will be a referendum on the Church and its leaders.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Eligibility's Onus
In a criminal trial, a defendant carries the benefit of assumption meaning he needs no evidence to support his claim. He is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Thus, the burden of proof (Latin: onus probandi) is said to rest with the prosecution.
Instead of putting of the onus on Barack Obama where it ought to be, our elected leaders, legal system and a decrepit, barkless, biteless, wino (watchdog in name only) media belittle or ignore American citizens who have a constitutional right to see the evidence they demand. This ambivalence toward a key provision in our Constitution by those charged with guarding and protecting it is a moral outrage and equates to tyranny! Article II, Section I, Clause 4 (the presidential eligibility clause), of the Constitution reads:
Experience has taught me not to flow with the current on issues others are ignoring because most people are wrong most of the time and what most people deem insignificant is often the locus of the crux of a matter. To date, everything conservatives have done to impede Mr. Obama's revolutionary agenda has been flatly ignored, but not the birth certificate issue; it is the one issue that concerns him enough to spend $1,000,000 to see that it doesn't see the light of day.
Granted, efforts to evict Barack Obama from the White House before November 2012 may fail, but if we shine the light of truth on his eligibility, we may put him on his heels and slow the advance of his progressive agenda. We might also reduce his chances of reelection in 2012. As an added benefit, we will educate the public on an important, though heretofore unneeded, Constitutional provision.
One of America's greatest Founders and second President, John Adams, once said, “Facts are stubborn things.” I would add that facts are sometimes frightening things because they make us face things we'd rather not. Has history not shown that sweeping truth under the rug is far riskier than facing it? Will we, like John Adams, defend what is true and just and virtuous about America, or will we allow truth and justice to be cast to the ground to prolong an illusory liberty?
Each state's Democratic Party is required to certify their Party's nominee as eligible to be President of the United States. Aspiring presidential candidates, on the other hand, are not presumed eligible to hold the office until someone proves otherwise; onus probandi rests with the presidential candidate who alleges his constitutional eligibility. Indeed, an aspiring presidential candidate must be presumed ineligible unless and until he produces evidence to support his claim. In other words, no birth certificate, no White House.
Instead of putting of the onus on Barack Obama where it ought to be, our elected leaders, legal system and a decrepit, barkless, biteless, wino (watchdog in name only) media belittle or ignore American citizens who have a constitutional right to see the evidence they demand. This ambivalence toward a key provision in our Constitution by those charged with guarding and protecting it is a moral outrage and equates to tyranny! Article II, Section I, Clause 4 (the presidential eligibility clause), of the Constitution reads:
No Person except a natural born Citizen or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.Despite numerous legal challenges, accusations, and firsthand accounts that raise legitimate doubts about his place of birth, Barack Obama has not produced a state-certified copy of his alleged Hawaiian birth certificate. Instead, he has spent roughly two-million dollars in legal fees to prevent access to it when "pocket change" would settle the matter once and for all. To make matters worse, our Government, the courts, and the media have brushed-off many Americans' pleas for them to investigate the matter more thoroughly. It is fair to say that these institutions have ceded benefit of assumption to Barack Obama and placed burden of proof on birthers. To those who are willing to give Barack Obama a pass on his birth and education records I ask:
- What is Mr. Obama hiding?
- Has our compulsion to be a "color blind" society blinded us?
- Did electing America's first black president prove we are a post-racial society or gullible one?
- Which is more important, being a post-racial society or a free society?
- Are we wiser than the Constitution’s signers?
- Do we really want our troops, our sons and daughters, under the command of a foreign Commander in Chief?
- Are we willing to have our nation transformed into something our forbears would not recognize, by an impostor who has no generational affiliation with it or affinity for it?
- Are we willing to watch a man of dubious citizenship dismantle our way of life?
- Are the personal “benefits” unconstitutional governance might heap on us individually more valuable to us than the time-tested constitutional principles that have prospered us so prodigiously, despite the fact that we have violated many of them for decades?
- Do we want to be known as the generation who threw away the greatest, Providence-inspired form of government in history, in exchange for a promise by a Marxist usurper who rode in on a Trojan horse named “Hope and Change?”
Experience has taught me not to flow with the current on issues others are ignoring because most people are wrong most of the time and what most people deem insignificant is often the locus of the crux of a matter. To date, everything conservatives have done to impede Mr. Obama's revolutionary agenda has been flatly ignored, but not the birth certificate issue; it is the one issue that concerns him enough to spend $1,000,000 to see that it doesn't see the light of day.
Granted, efforts to evict Barack Obama from the White House before November 2012 may fail, but if we shine the light of truth on his eligibility, we may put him on his heels and slow the advance of his progressive agenda. We might also reduce his chances of reelection in 2012. As an added benefit, we will educate the public on an important, though heretofore unneeded, Constitutional provision.
One of America's greatest Founders and second President, John Adams, once said, “Facts are stubborn things.” I would add that facts are sometimes frightening things because they make us face things we'd rather not. Has history not shown that sweeping truth under the rug is far riskier than facing it? Will we, like John Adams, defend what is true and just and virtuous about America, or will we allow truth and justice to be cast to the ground to prolong an illusory liberty?
Each state's Democratic Party is required to certify their Party's nominee as eligible to be President of the United States. Aspiring presidential candidates, on the other hand, are not presumed eligible to hold the office until someone proves otherwise; onus probandi rests with the presidential candidate who alleges his constitutional eligibility. Indeed, an aspiring presidential candidate must be presumed ineligible unless and until he produces evidence to support his claim. In other words, no birth certificate, no White House.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
America’s Most Credible News Source
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breathtaking speed, against the backdrop of a passive, hapless … people.From the mouth of Rush Limbaugh this statement gets lost in talk radio static. When a Russian journalistmakes it, however, every American ought to lean in and listen just as they might if E. F. Hutton was about to speak. It is the opening sentence in Stanislav Mishin’s article, American Capitalism Gone with a Whimper, which appeared in the April 27, 2009 edition of PRAVDA On-Line1, a Web-based reincarnation of the former official organ of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee, Pravda, which Russian Federation President Boris Yeltzin ordered shut down in 1991.2
Mishin derides American capitalist arrogance given our inability to arrest Marxism’s influence. He evinces sarcastic admiration for the speed with which upstart Marxist rookie, Barak Obama, and his comrades, are showing up Russia’s Bolsheviks, who “wrote the book” on social revolution. In particular, Mishin cites profligate Government deficit spending and private industry takeovers by the Obama Administration as examples of their bold and aggressive style.
The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more than another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.Mishin continues, citing various social strategies statists have implemented to weaken American resolve against totalitarianism:
… the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years … Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters … First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture … Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more than Sunday circuses …He concludes by exhorting fellow Russians who own businesses and industries in America to “look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.”
When the Russian media become a more reliable news source of information about goings-on in America than the American media, it is time to stop indulging America’s mainstream media.
© 2009 Unspun Publications.
1PRAVDA On-Line is an Internet-based newspaper run by former Pravda newspaper employees and is unrelated to Pravda. (Source: http://www.wikipedia.org/)
2Pravda (Russian: Правда, "Truth") was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991. The Pravda newspaper was started in 1912 in St. Petersburg. It was converted from a weekly Zvezda. It did not arrive in Moscow until 1918. During the Cold War, Pravda was well known in the West for its pronouncements as the official voice of Soviet Communism. (Similarly Investia was the official voice of the Soviet government.) After the paper was closed down in 1991 by decree of President Yeltsin, many of the staff founded a new print newspaper with the same name, which is now a tabloid-style Russian news source. (Source: http://www.wikipedia.org/)
2Pravda (Russian: Правда, "Truth") was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991. The Pravda newspaper was started in 1912 in St. Petersburg. It was converted from a weekly Zvezda. It did not arrive in Moscow until 1918. During the Cold War, Pravda was well known in the West for its pronouncements as the official voice of Soviet Communism. (Similarly Investia was the official voice of the Soviet government.) After the paper was closed down in 1991 by decree of President Yeltsin, many of the staff founded a new print newspaper with the same name, which is now a tabloid-style Russian news source. (Source: http://www.wikipedia.org/)
Monday, July 6, 2009
Anecdotal Castles
All sandcastles eventually melt into the rising tide, or blow away in swirling coastal winds. No sandcastle has ever stood the test of time or an ocean’s ebb and flow. Sandcastles are anecdotal.
Liberal Apologists’ justifications remind me of sandcastles. When cornered by irrefutable facts and sound reason, Liberals always resort to anecdotal evidence. They dare not stray too close to the rhythmic battering of objective analysis or their constructs will crumble like sandcastles at high tide. Liberalism is anecdotal.
Every time I channel surf into a debate between a Liberal and a Conservative, I listen carefully to the Liberal response to any Conservative point. If the original question doesn't get lost in obfuscation, the Liberal’s retort almost always begins with some form of “Yes, but." I call this Apologetics by Exception or Liberal Water Torture.
Conservatism’s house rests on foundational principles that have endured more than two centuries of assault by tyranny. Liberalism’s house is a sandcastle built on shifting sands of anecdotal, "Wrigley’s Believe It or Not," exceptions to the rule. It is easier to make a snowball out of sand than it is to understand Liberal reason, if it can be called “reason.”
The Liberal’s utopian dream is not built upon a solid foundation of time-tested truths, but upon seeming exceptions to those truths. If Liberals succeed in instantiating their idea of social utopia, America will enter the anecdotal narrative of nations that have succumbed to governance by exception.
Liberal Apologists’ justifications remind me of sandcastles. When cornered by irrefutable facts and sound reason, Liberals always resort to anecdotal evidence. They dare not stray too close to the rhythmic battering of objective analysis or their constructs will crumble like sandcastles at high tide. Liberalism is anecdotal.
Every time I channel surf into a debate between a Liberal and a Conservative, I listen carefully to the Liberal response to any Conservative point. If the original question doesn't get lost in obfuscation, the Liberal’s retort almost always begins with some form of “Yes, but." I call this Apologetics by Exception or Liberal Water Torture.
Conservatism’s house rests on foundational principles that have endured more than two centuries of assault by tyranny. Liberalism’s house is a sandcastle built on shifting sands of anecdotal, "Wrigley’s Believe It or Not," exceptions to the rule. It is easier to make a snowball out of sand than it is to understand Liberal reason, if it can be called “reason.”
The Liberal’s utopian dream is not built upon a solid foundation of time-tested truths, but upon seeming exceptions to those truths. If Liberals succeed in instantiating their idea of social utopia, America will enter the anecdotal narrative of nations that have succumbed to governance by exception.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
US Healthcare: An Open Letter to the Democratic Apparatchik
Fortunately for law-abiding citizens, dumb criminals eventually end up in jail. But I am concerned about another more dangerous “super criminal” that is destroying our beloved nation right under our noses! I refer to them as "smart criminals." These high-IQ outlaws don't dabble in petty theft. They always go for the BIG heist. These banditos are some of the smartest desperados ever to brandish—well, a vote, a filibuster or a veto.
Once seated, smart criminals waste no time. With the drive of a crack addict in search of a fix, smart criminals will trample any liberty that gets between them and power. They rush to enact laws that ‘legitimize’ pick pocketing the American people and embezzle their constituents legislatively. No longer is organized crime at war with Government; they are bedfellows!
For the time being, a bunch of these power junkies have gained majorities in the highest political assemblies in this Land, and the White House. As Americans have observed since the '08 presidential election, smart criminals and political power make a combustible mixture. To those who pay more than lip service to the Founders Dream, these faux patriots use the US Constitution as kindling for their national version of "Bonfire of the Vanities" and our liberties go up in smoke. Next up for the pyre—the best health care system in the world.
The Democratic Party has mastered its mendacious craft of misleading the American people continually and some Republicans have dissembled with them. They have become a brood of vipers and the “light that is in them is darkness.” Progressives disguise their nefarious legislation with euphemistic names and then pimp it to the American people. They slipped the “National Economic Suicide Act” by an unwary electorate under the name, “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.” Their next major legislative caper involved deleting the first two words from "End of Affordable Health Choices Act." I'd feel less violated by a thief pointing a gun in my face. At least the guy with the gun is honest!
Perhaps you think my line of reasoning is insulting or out of line. You should be grateful that a natural-born American citizen is willing to tell you the truth. There are a lot of naked emperors running around DC these days so consider my letter a friendly tap on the shoulder.
Now that the current brood of smart criminals has set its sights on the US healthcare system, and knowing they are always in a hurry to get back to uh—"the business of the American people," I have limited myself to one simple multiple-choice question.
Medicare and Medicaid: In 1945, President Harry Truman asked Congress for legislation to establish a national health insurance plan. Contentious debate ensued with forward-thinking opponents warning of “socialized medicine.” By the end of his administration, Truman had abandoned his plan for universal health coverage. Fast-forward 20 years and its déjà vu all over again. In an act reminiscent of “Night of the Living Dead,” Truman is reincarnated as Lyndon B. Johnson and on July 30, 1965, signs Truman's exhumed dream into law as Medicare and Medicaid. Before you throw yourself on the back of the hearse headed to Johnson’s “Great Society,” however, you might want to consider the following facts.
In 1966, 19 million people enrolled in Medicare and 4 million in Medicaid with combined federal outlays in 1967 totaling $4.4 billion. Today, the Truman/Johnson dream has morphed into one BIG nightmare and the Federal Government has night terrors that a sleepwalking American public might awaken to the abysmal state of federal health insurance programs. Today there are 43 million people enrolled in Medicare, 51 million in Medicaid, and combined federal outlays totaling $514 billion or 21% of the Federal budget! Facing the prospect of already below-cost Medicare payments being further reduced, Doctors are reluctant to participate or are fleeing Federal health insurance programs altogether. Can you blame me for wanting the Federal Government to keep its cotton-pickin’ hands off my healthcare?
Social Security: In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. The original Social Security tax rate was 1% for both employers and employees—on the first $3,000 earned. Seventy-four years later, the rate has nearly octupled to 7.65% for both employer and employee—on the first $102,000 earned. Social Security is expected to be unsustainable in a dozen years or so and rumor has it the current batch of criminals wants to do away with the cap altogether! I guess higher-paid Americans still aren't paying their ‘fair share.’ Do I have it about right?
Welfare: America’s poorest of the poor used to receive aid from private individuals and organizations such as churches, and small state-based programs. In 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) into law. This initial “welfare” bill provided $18 per month for one child and $12 for each additional child. Since its birth in 1935, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) has come a long way—baby! Says Michael Tanner in The Poverty of Welfare: Helping Others in Civil Society (August 2003),
Welfare may have started with the best of intentions, but it has clearly failed. It has failed to meet its stated goal of reducing poverty. But its real failure is even more disastrous. Welfare has torn apart the social fabric of our society. Everyone is worse off. The taxpayers must foot the bill for programs that don’t work. The poor are dehumanized, seduced into a system from which it is very hard to escape. Teenage girls give birth to children they will never be able to support. The work ethic has eroded. Crime rates soar. Such is the legacy of welfare. Tanner ought to know what he's talking about. As a Senior Fellow and Policy Scholar at the Cato Institute, Tanner also leads research into a variety of domestic policies with emphasis on health care reform, social welfare policy, and Social Security. I'll take my chances with Tanner. Why don’t you criminals have a chat with Turner before you destroy healthcare.
Federal Income Tax: President Abraham Lincoln signed the Revenue Act of 1862 into law to help fund the American Civil War. No problem there. The Act also established a Commissioner of the Revenue and instituted the Federal income tax as a "temporary measure" that would terminate in "the year eighteen hundred and sixty-six.” No problem there either—serious times demand serious action. The Revenue Act taxed incomes above $600 at a rate of 3% and those over $10,000 at 5% and required employers to withhold taxes from pay and send the money to the Commissioner. When the deadline to terminate the Federal income tax rolled around in "the year eighteen hundred and sixty-six,” total tax revenues had climbed to an all-time high of $310 million and a temporary Federal tax system that beneficent to the Federal Government wasn’t about to be terminated. By 2007, total tax revenues as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had mushroomed to 28.3%. Compared to the amount of taxes Americans paid under the temporary Revenue Act of 1862, today’s taxpayers quantify their taxes in the number of months out of each year they must work before The Godfather is paid off. Would someone who knows the actual meaning of temporary please speak up?!
"Stupid is as stupid does," so says Forrest Gump's Mama. How many times does a country need to be misled by smart criminals before it learns its lesson? Apparently, at least five. This legislation will push America closer to tyranny and finish off the Founders’ dream. Is this the legacy Democrats want to leave to posterity? Please, I implore you; do not do this to America. Do not do this to future generations of Americans.
Once seated, smart criminals waste no time. With the drive of a crack addict in search of a fix, smart criminals will trample any liberty that gets between them and power. They rush to enact laws that ‘legitimize’ pick pocketing the American people and embezzle their constituents legislatively. No longer is organized crime at war with Government; they are bedfellows!
For the time being, a bunch of these power junkies have gained majorities in the highest political assemblies in this Land, and the White House. As Americans have observed since the '08 presidential election, smart criminals and political power make a combustible mixture. To those who pay more than lip service to the Founders Dream, these faux patriots use the US Constitution as kindling for their national version of "Bonfire of the Vanities" and our liberties go up in smoke. Next up for the pyre—the best health care system in the world.
The Democratic Party has mastered its mendacious craft of misleading the American people continually and some Republicans have dissembled with them. They have become a brood of vipers and the “light that is in them is darkness.” Progressives disguise their nefarious legislation with euphemistic names and then pimp it to the American people. They slipped the “National Economic Suicide Act” by an unwary electorate under the name, “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.” Their next major legislative caper involved deleting the first two words from "End of Affordable Health Choices Act." I'd feel less violated by a thief pointing a gun in my face. At least the guy with the gun is honest!
Perhaps you think my line of reasoning is insulting or out of line. You should be grateful that a natural-born American citizen is willing to tell you the truth. There are a lot of naked emperors running around DC these days so consider my letter a friendly tap on the shoulder.
Now that the current brood of smart criminals has set its sights on the US healthcare system, and knowing they are always in a hurry to get back to uh—"the business of the American people," I have limited myself to one simple multiple-choice question.
Which of the following five major Federal social programs enacted since the dawn of the American Republic in 1776 has 1) been so successful that it justifies seizure of an additional 20% of American GDP by today’s Federal Government; 2) stayed within the bounds of its enacting legislation, and 3) not far exceeded its original intent beyond anything it’s originators could have imagined? Place a check mark next to each program that matches each of these criteria.To facilitate informed responses, historical background information for each program is provided below:
a Medicare
b Medicaid
c Social Security
d Welfare
e Federal Income Tax
f None of the above
Medicare and Medicaid: In 1945, President Harry Truman asked Congress for legislation to establish a national health insurance plan. Contentious debate ensued with forward-thinking opponents warning of “socialized medicine.” By the end of his administration, Truman had abandoned his plan for universal health coverage. Fast-forward 20 years and its déjà vu all over again. In an act reminiscent of “Night of the Living Dead,” Truman is reincarnated as Lyndon B. Johnson and on July 30, 1965, signs Truman's exhumed dream into law as Medicare and Medicaid. Before you throw yourself on the back of the hearse headed to Johnson’s “Great Society,” however, you might want to consider the following facts.
In 1966, 19 million people enrolled in Medicare and 4 million in Medicaid with combined federal outlays in 1967 totaling $4.4 billion. Today, the Truman/Johnson dream has morphed into one BIG nightmare and the Federal Government has night terrors that a sleepwalking American public might awaken to the abysmal state of federal health insurance programs. Today there are 43 million people enrolled in Medicare, 51 million in Medicaid, and combined federal outlays totaling $514 billion or 21% of the Federal budget! Facing the prospect of already below-cost Medicare payments being further reduced, Doctors are reluctant to participate or are fleeing Federal health insurance programs altogether. Can you blame me for wanting the Federal Government to keep its cotton-pickin’ hands off my healthcare?
Social Security: In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. The original Social Security tax rate was 1% for both employers and employees—on the first $3,000 earned. Seventy-four years later, the rate has nearly octupled to 7.65% for both employer and employee—on the first $102,000 earned. Social Security is expected to be unsustainable in a dozen years or so and rumor has it the current batch of criminals wants to do away with the cap altogether! I guess higher-paid Americans still aren't paying their ‘fair share.’ Do I have it about right?
Welfare: America’s poorest of the poor used to receive aid from private individuals and organizations such as churches, and small state-based programs. In 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) into law. This initial “welfare” bill provided $18 per month for one child and $12 for each additional child. Since its birth in 1935, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) has come a long way—baby! Says Michael Tanner in The Poverty of Welfare: Helping Others in Civil Society (August 2003),
Welfare may have started with the best of intentions, but it has clearly failed. It has failed to meet its stated goal of reducing poverty. But its real failure is even more disastrous. Welfare has torn apart the social fabric of our society. Everyone is worse off. The taxpayers must foot the bill for programs that don’t work. The poor are dehumanized, seduced into a system from which it is very hard to escape. Teenage girls give birth to children they will never be able to support. The work ethic has eroded. Crime rates soar. Such is the legacy of welfare. Tanner ought to know what he's talking about. As a Senior Fellow and Policy Scholar at the Cato Institute, Tanner also leads research into a variety of domestic policies with emphasis on health care reform, social welfare policy, and Social Security. I'll take my chances with Tanner. Why don’t you criminals have a chat with Turner before you destroy healthcare.
Federal Income Tax: President Abraham Lincoln signed the Revenue Act of 1862 into law to help fund the American Civil War. No problem there. The Act also established a Commissioner of the Revenue and instituted the Federal income tax as a "temporary measure" that would terminate in "the year eighteen hundred and sixty-six.” No problem there either—serious times demand serious action. The Revenue Act taxed incomes above $600 at a rate of 3% and those over $10,000 at 5% and required employers to withhold taxes from pay and send the money to the Commissioner. When the deadline to terminate the Federal income tax rolled around in "the year eighteen hundred and sixty-six,” total tax revenues had climbed to an all-time high of $310 million and a temporary Federal tax system that beneficent to the Federal Government wasn’t about to be terminated. By 2007, total tax revenues as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had mushroomed to 28.3%. Compared to the amount of taxes Americans paid under the temporary Revenue Act of 1862, today’s taxpayers quantify their taxes in the number of months out of each year they must work before The Godfather is paid off. Would someone who knows the actual meaning of temporary please speak up?!
"Stupid is as stupid does," so says Forrest Gump's Mama. How many times does a country need to be misled by smart criminals before it learns its lesson? Apparently, at least five. This legislation will push America closer to tyranny and finish off the Founders’ dream. Is this the legacy Democrats want to leave to posterity? Please, I implore you; do not do this to America. Do not do this to future generations of Americans.
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