Category: Uncategorized

The Spread of Christianity Under Force of Arms


Hunting people for Christ has become a part time job in Afghanistan.  No doubt that is legal, whereas US soldiers are prohibited from proselytizing people, huntingk tracking down and killing adversaries  is something the US military is allowed to do.  No doubt it will be claimed that hunting them for Christ and then killing them after they have accepted Christ as their savior is far more humane than merely killing them before witnessing.

It is against military rules to proselytize — a regulation one of the soldiers filmed by the network readily acknowledged. “You cannot proselytize, but you can give gifts,” says the soldier. It is a crime in Afghanistan to attempt to convert anyone from Islam to any other religion. “I also want to praise God because my church collected some money to get Bibles for Afghanistan. They came and sent the money out.” The footage is said to be roughly a year old.

“The Special Forces guys, they hunt men. Basically, we do the same things as Christians. We hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down. Get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into the Kingdom. That’s what we do, that’s our business,” he says.

If you think this is just an isolated phenomenon, check out this article which mentions even more examples of US military personnel behaving in the most un-christian like way while claiming to be Christ’s representatives on earth.  Evangelical notions of behavior have infiltrated the US military and manifest themselves in ways that are threatening and intimidating to believers and non believers alike.  Most likely the response to group which barges into your house with  guns  in one hand and a book in the other most probably will be to do whatever the person says who has the gun, even if it means taking the book they’re “offering” you which might be against your religious beliefs.   Of course, the people who are making this offer know that,  which is why proselytizing is illegal, so skip the formalities and say you’re hunting down your enemy to kill them.  That excuse is much more convenient and easier to say without having to lie and getting caught in your lies.  US forces have even been known to use special equipment which helps them spot the prey they are hunting in order to hound them into hell; the irony of this all is it’s happening under the “Muslim” administration of Barack Obama which begs the questions, when will these same US military forces set their “sights” on him?

Why Are We Still In Afghanistan?


In an amazing bit of candor, but not for American consumption it is important to note, US Defense Secretary had this to say about what’ s going on in Afghanistan

the Taliban (are) part of the “political fabric” of Afghanistan, but said any future role for it would depend on insurgents laying down their weapons.

“The question is whether they are prepared to play a legitimate role in the political fabric of Afghanistan going forward, meaning participating in elections, meaning not assassinating local officials and killing families,” Dr Gates said in Pakistan yesterday.

“The question is what do the Taliban want to make out of Afghanistan? When they tried before, we saw before what they wanted to make and it was a desert, culturally and every other way.”

The above statement seems to be an admission that what’s taking place is a civil war in Afghanistan within the Taliban movement between who are going to forsake armed struggle versus those who are willing to work towards political solutions to the problems of Afghanistan.  The president, Hamid Karzai has made similar statements over the years of the political viability of the Taliban movement and has even tried to incorporate many followers of that movement into his government.  The kicker for this observer is that many people on the outside looking in seem to think there’s not much difference between a Karzai run government and its predecessor the Taliban, except for the presence of an American occupying force propping up the latter.  Otherwise issues of intertribal warfare persist, the economic blight affecting the country and the status of women…..something always used to bring about change, but usually in the wrong direction, remain the same under Karzai.

Why then do American forces remain in Afghanistan?  There’s nothing in Gates’ comments which would legitimize a US military presence in Afghanistan, and especially an escalation of forces the likes Obama suggests is necessary.  It would appear the more the US attempts to rout Taliban forces by force of arms, the more precarious Karzai’s position becomes in Afghan society, which is no doubt why he, Karzai, is appealing to the Taliban himself without the good blessings of American policy makers in his attempts to bring Taliban under his wing.  What you have in Afghanistan therefore are two conflicting ideologies that are mutually exclusive; a military foreign occupier fighting a nationalistic movement that has been embraced by the government put into power by that military authority.  This scenario looks even more difficult than what the Russians faced during their occupation of that country.  The answer is not in escalation but rather in de-escalation, and for all those who say it’s about capturing OBL, I would remind them some of the biggest names in the al-Qaida hierarchy were caught not by US troops but by the CIA.

Good government, bad government


Sometimes there is reason to be hopeful that our Nation can self-correct and return to the principles it has finely tuned over the generations, of liberty, social responsibility and good citizenship.  The decision of the US Department of State to overturn the ban on academics Tariq Ramadan and Adam Habib are examples of hope and perhaps light at the end of the tunnel of darkness we have surrounded ourselves in over the last decade.  We’ve written extensively about Ramadan in the pages of Miscellany101 in what can only be termed an act of revenge against him and his family to keep him out of the mainstream of political, social and contemporary  dialogue.  When given the full weight of a judicial system, albeit imperfect, but still forming and trying to correct itself while being universally applicable, Ramadan’s visa revocation was first overturned by the judicial system in 2009  and then by the US Department of State just last week.  Initially he had been hired for  the Henry R. Luce Chair at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, but extremists who managed to infiltrate policy making positions in government were able to get the US government to revoke a visa they had originally granted him.  The reasons for it were spurious at best, lies at worse and so transparent that when given the light of day were thrown out post haste.  You can read one of Ramadan’s more recent musings here.  Good government.

Along with Ramadan’s decision the State Department overturned the revocation imposed on Adam Habib, a South African academic who is Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Innovation & Advancement at the University of Johannesburg. It goes without saying the case against him was as empty and irrational as the one made against Ramadan. In fact, it seemed the only people afraid of Habib, besides American Islamophobes, were South African communists, which should have made Habib a significantly important figure with a right wing conservative administration the likes of George  Bush’s.  Habib’s case, like that of Ramadan, was wrapped up in the Islamophobic notions of Campus Watch, the Daniel Pipes led organization. You can read about them here and here.   It didn’t take a Clinton led State Department very long to overturn her predecessor’s revocation for either of these two men; in fact less than a year after being in office.  Says alot about a fanatically led Bush administration and even more about “good government”.

Euphoria however is quickly dashed when one reads about the US Justice Department’s quick reaction to the story of the three “suicides” at Guantanamo Bay and especially the reporting of that story by MSNBC’s  Keith Olbermann.  Olbermann reported on his show how Justice was upset with his coverage of the story that was reported extensively by Scott Horton of Harper’s magazine and picked up by a lot of people on the blogosphere, including here at Miscellany101.  It seems the Justice Department is only willing to comment negatively about the story, that is, to say Olbermann did a sloppy job of reporting it, but doesn’t see the need to comment on the essence of the charges made by US military men who have gone on record to say the series of events are not consistent with what they observed or were told later when promised an investigation.  This is the worse case scenario for bad government.  The leader of the free world, a designation we have heaped upon ourselves and which we wear proudly,  and which is acknowledged by others the world over, doesn’t need to engage in this type of intimidation and stonewalling with a free press.  Transparency, something promised by the Obama administration, means making all the facts available of  investigations and going on record to actively and judiciously clear the name of government when tarnished by accusations the likes of which are in the Harper’s story.  To do anything less than that is bad government….something  we’ve been used to for the last decade.

Another Nail in the Islamophobia Coffin


I’m sure they’ll resurrect some scary headline grabbing anecdote of how Muslims are somehow a threat to the rights of non Muslims, but they can’t find it in the tragedy of the churches being burned in Malaysia.

Muslim groups in Malaysia are offering their help to prevent any further attacks on Christian places of worship amid a spree of attacks on churches in the multi-ethnic, Muslim-majority Asian country, The Star reported on Sunday, January 10. “This is an offer of peace and goodwill,” Nadzim Johan, the executive secretary of the Muslim Consumers Association of Malaysia (PPIM), told a news conference.

“We don’t want our Christian brothers to be in danger.”

PPIM is one of 130 Muslim NGOs that vowed to become the “eyes and ears” of the government to shield churches against attacks.

Seven churches have been fire-bombed or vandalized since Friday in an escalating row over a court ruling allowing Christians to use the word “Allah” as a translation for God in their publications.

The High Court overturned two weeks ago a government ban on the use of the word “Allah,” stirring protests by many Malay Muslims.

The NGOs would be offer volunteers who would be on the look out for any suspicious behaviors and alert the authorities.

“What is important that these people know that they are watched,” insisted Nadzim.

“This has got to stop.”


Somewhere there’s an Islamophobe who must be wringing his/her hands and shouting out ‘damnit’ at what can only be described as an unanimous response by the Muslims of Malaysia against this tragedy in their country.  Damnit indeed!

There is no Islamic militancy on American shores


Or so says this report out of Duke University.  I must say this is rather apparent to even the uninitiated in demagoguery; but unfortunately it’s not enough to stop people from making a profitable  cottage industry from fear and raising the frightening specter of  the menacing hordes of Muslims ready to pounce on and forcibly convert all who stand in their way.

The events came in rapid succession last year: Eight Raleigh-area men indicted on federal charges they conspired to commit terrorist acts. A Colorado man accused of conspiring to carry out a bomb attack in New York. An Army major who killed 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas.By all accounts there appeared to be a spike in the number of radicalized U.S. Muslims in 2009. Yet a new report from Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill says the problem of homegrown terrorism is “serious but limited.”

The report, issued this month, argues there is no widespread radicalization among American Muslims. Instead, it says American Muslims are becoming more American by engaging the political system and creating advocacy organizations to further their political goals.

“The level of the threat has been exaggerated,” said David Schanzer, a Duke professor who leads the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security and is one of the report’s three authors.

Perhaps it’s what is highlighted in red that scares people the most, much like the slave owners who wanted their slaves not to have the right to vote and thereby force a legislative end to their enslavement.   Having an accepted, respectable and respected American Muslim population that seeks legal redress on behalf of all Americans from the tyranny of big government, it’s invasive surveillance and abrogation of citizenship rights is not something people in power, and especially those in government want.

UPDATE:

LOONWATCH.COM does an excellent job of dispelling this myth of a militant Islam on the shores of America even further with some rather startling statistics gathered from a rather startling source.  Turns out the FBI and the Justice Department figures show that Islamic terrorism is at the bottom of the threat level barrel when it comes to Americans, only communist terrorists are lower in terms of the damage they have done on the shores of America since 1980.  If you want to know who are more terror inclined than Muslims check out loonwatch and ask yourself what is it government is trying to do by scaring you about Muslim terrorists and why.

What is it with racism among Semites?


Racism in any form is a crime against humanity, should be classifed as an international crime and dealt with in the most severe manner.  It’s especially appalling when it comes at the hands of people who claim to be somehow rightly guided, imbued with the essence of humanity who get that notion twisted in a manner which allows them to oppress whomever they like; America comes to mind, along with the chosen of Israel and the descendants of Muhammad.  All are nations or groups of people who have thrown out the essence of their beginnings and embraced their own self styled nationalism and cultural highhandedness which has become exclusive and oppressive.  They have to be reminded of where they came from when they get these high and haughty notions that have nothing in common with their “essence”.

Jonathan Cook has poignantly described the racism of political zionism existent in modern day Israel, against the black Jews of Ethiopia and it’s something those of us who are particularly sensitive to racism have read and seen all too often. I don’t think for a moment that the intent of the Israeli government is to control the birth rate of Ethiopians when sex has too often been used to experiment on people of color before.  In a country that needs people to populate a land and force other people out, limiting the births of Jews would seem to be counterproductive, or maybe the Israelis think they have a high enough birth rate to do that without the Ethiopians?  Go figure.

But the racism against people of color doesn’t stop with the Israelis.  It’s hard to say whether racism was imported to Iraq by western invading forces or was and has always been present there….the latter seems to be the case, but it’s abhorrent nonetheless and no less acceptable.  Reading the following text is almost like reading an American history book but it takes place in a land miles apart from America, but almost identical in its implication and result; the vision of dancing ‘darkies’ who seem to get their joy and happiness in providing it for others, as entertainers, troubadours, mimes, et.al.

The election of Barack Obama to the U.S. presidency was celebrated with special fervor by Iraqis of African descent in the southern port city of Basra.

Although they have lived in Iraq for more than 1,000 years, the black Basrawis say they are still discriminated against because of the color of their skin, and they see Obama as a role model. Long relegated to menial jobs or work as musicians and dancers, some of them have recently formed a group to advance their civil rights.

………

“People here see us as slaves,” says Jalal Diyaab, a 43-year-old civil rights activist. “They even call us abd, which means slave.”

Diyaab is the general secretary of the Free Iraqi movement. He sits with more than a dozen other men in a narrow, high-ceilinged room in a mud-brick building in Zubair, talking about a history of slavery and oppression that he says dates back to at least the ninth century.

“Black people worked on the plantations around Basra, doing the hard labor, until there was a slave uprising in the mid-800s,” says Diyaab. Black people ruled Basra for about 15 years, until the caliph sent troops. Many of the black rebels were massacred, and others were sold to the Arab tribes.

Slavery was abolished here in the 19th century, but Diyaab says black people in modern-day Iraq still face discrimination.

“[Arabs] here still look at us as being incapable of making decisions or even governing our lives. People here are 95 percent illiterate. They have terrible living conditions and very few jobs,” he says.

It’s interesting how  Obama is looked at as a role model by the dark skinned people of Iraq.  His presidency takes on  something of a world wide model for hope and good will.  I am distressed that Muslim Iraqis see something in common with a man who is the commander in chief of a military that still occupies their country and whose government seems intent on oppressing people merely because of the color of their skin or the religion they believe in.  Symbolism is frightening sometimes, isn’t it?

Be Very Aware of Government……Any Government!


Here are three very stark examples of where government that has politicians and their minions who don’t feel responsible to the people abuse their power and deny citizens their rights to liberty.  You’ve probably seen snippets of these news stories before, but I want to condense them to show how insulting power can become in the hands of the non approachable.

The internet, for now the only place where one can find a myriad of opinions, as well as a place of disinformation, has always been a sore spot for government, which can only monitor but not control it.  Well guess again.

In a 2008 academic paper, President Barack Obama’s appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs advocated “cognitive infiltration” of groups that advocate “conspiracy theories” like the ones surrounding 9/11.Cass Sunstein, a Harvard law professor, co-wrote an academic article entitled “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures,” in which he argued that the government should stealthily infiltrate groups that pose alternative theories on historical events via “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine” those groups.

Sunstein’s article, published in the Journal of Political Philosphy in 2008, states that “our primary claim is that conspiracy theories typically stem not from irrationality or mental illness of any kind but from a ‘crippled epistemology,’ in the form of a sharply limited number of (relevant) informational sources.”

By “crippled epistemology” Sunstein means that people who believe in conspiracy theories have a limited number of sources of information that they trust. Therefore, Sunstein argued in the article, it would not work to simply refute the conspiracy theories in public — the very sources that conspiracy theorists believe would have to be infiltrated.

One can only guess what government’s idea of “conspiracy theories” is or what Mr. Sunstein has in mind when he uses that term.  I doubt he wants to expand the number of sources available on the internet even though according to him there are a limited number which has caused this crippled epistemology, but instead he proposes infiltrating places where people talk about their limited sources.  Mind control comes to mind.  I hope Mr. Sunstein puts at the top of the conspiracy list the official/government’s  version of what happened on September 11, 2001, but I seriously doubt it.

We covered the story of the “suicides” of three Gitmo detainees, prisoners, who were blamed by the Bush administration for their own murder, even though that murder was done by the hands of people within the Bush government.  (Talk about blaming the victim)  Now there is more information about this story reported in great detail by Scott Horton of Harper’s Magazine with some very scary detail that is blood curdling, including the idea that Gitmo had horror/torture  chambers that even surpassed what was done at Gitmo itself.

According to the NCIS, each prisoner had fashioned a noose from torn sheets and T-shirts and tied it to the top of his cell’s eight-foot-high steel-mesh wall. Each prisoner was able somehow to bind his own hands, and, in at least one case, his own feet, then stuff more rags deep down into his own throat. We are then asked to believe that each prisoner, even as he was choking on those rags, climbed up on his washbasin, slipped his head through the noose, tightened it, and leapt from the washbasin to hang until he asphyxiated. The NCIS report also proposes that the three prisoners, who were held in non-adjoining cells, carried out each of these actions almost simultaneously.

The fact that at least two of the prisoners also had cloth masks affixed to their faces, presumably to prevent the expulsion of the rags from their mouths, went unremarked by the NCIS, as did the fact that standard operating procedure at Camp Delta required the Navy guards on duty after midnight to “conduct a visual search” of each cell and detainee every ten minutes. The report claimed that the prisoners had hung sheets or blankets to hide their activities and shaped more sheets and pillows to look like bodies sleeping in their beds, but it did not explain where they were able to acquire so much fabric beyond their tightly controlled allotment, or why the Navy guards would allow such an obvious and immediately observable deviation from permitted behavior. Nor did the report explain how the dead men managed to hang undetected for more than two hours or why the Navy guards on duty, having for whatever reason so grievously failed in their duties, were never disciplined.

……returned to Saudi Arabia was the body of Mani Al-Utaybi. Orphaned in youth, Mani grew up in his uncle’s home in the small town of Dawadmi. I spoke to one of the many cousins who shared that home, Faris Al-Utaybi. Mani, said Faris, had gone to Baluchistan—a rural, tribal area that straddles Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan—to do humanitarian work, and someone there had sold him to the Americans for $5,000. He said that Mani was a peaceful man who would harm no one. Indeed, U.S. authorities had decided to release Al-Utaybi and return him to Saudi Arabia. When he died, he was just a few weeks shy of his transfer.

The difference in the account found on the pages of Harper’s and others we’ve covered is that there are now names, people who were in Gitmo at the time of the deaths who have come forward to describe in detail what they saw and participated in during the fateful night of the deaths of the three prisoners.  What’s particularly disturbing is the new government of Obama, packed full of career government bureaucrats is continuing the legacy of Bush’s assault on the US constitution and the rule of law, covering up the testimony of those soldiers of conscience….not just one, or two or three, but more who have gone on record to say what they witnessed.  At a time when we are asked to honor the troops, it is more than hypocritical to discount the recollections of those troops who allege government malfeasance….but we do and with a straight face.  Again, our government at work for you; all of this is done in the name of the United States of America.

Finally, comes word that despite all the shortcuts given to members of the government to carry out legal surveillance against citizens and others, it simply wasn’t enough to satisfy a government run amok with an unquenchable thirst for invasion of the privacy too many of us were willing to give up.  In the mother of all understatement, an admission that the government lied in order to surveil people should come as no surprise after living through a decade that was full of deception, lies and deception.

The FBI illegally collected more than 2,000 U.S. telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records, according to internal bureau memos and interviews. FBI officials issued approvals after the fact to justify their actions.

FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni said in an interview Monday that the FBI technically violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act when agents invoked nonexistent emergencies to collect records.

“We should have stopped those requests from being made that way,” she said. The after-the-fact approvals were a “good-hearted but not well-thought-out” solution to put phone carriers at ease, she said. In true emergencies, Caproni said, agents always had the legal right to get phone records, and lawyers have now concluded there was no need for the after-the-fact approval process. “What this turned out to be was a self-inflicted wound,” she said.

Until the citizens of the republic of the United States make it clear that government’s role is to protect the rights guaranteed under the Constitution and not abrogate them with phony wars and lies, one can expect government will continue its spiral into fascism, and this country called America will cease to exist.

Talking Loud and Saying Nothing!!


Like a dull knife Just ain’t cutting Just talking loud Then saying nothing

You can’t tell me What I’m doing wrong When you keep driving and Singing that same old money song

You can’t tell me Which way to go Cause three times seven And then some more

You can’t tell me, hey You’re like a dull knife Just ain’t cutting You’re just talking loud And saying nothing

This should be the refrain sung by America to the Republicans who insist Obama isn’t doing anything to change the outcome of the war on terror, or whatever other euphemism one wants to use for these wars of military expansion and domination.  Theirs and the Nation’s selective memory should be refreshed with this rather sobering fact from the days, the year 2007,  of the Bush administration!

A new threat assessment from U.S. counterterrorism analysts says that al-Qaeda has used its safe haven along the Afghan-Pakistan border to restore its operating capabilities to a level unseen since the months before Sept. 11, 2001.A counterterrorism official familiar with a five-page summary of the document — titled “al-Qaeda better positioned to strike the West” — called it a stark appraisal. The analysis will be part of a broader meeting at the White House on Thursday about an upcoming National Intelligence Estimate.

………..

The findings suggests that the network that launched the most devastating terror attack on U.S. soil has been able to regroup despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at dismantling it.

Guess the Republicans haven’t done such a good job after all, huh?  Hat tip to Suzy Q’s excellent blog!

My Light Bulb Moment


I was really trying my damnest to understand what was the motive behind the 1225 terror attack on the airliner besides the obvious of scaring the bejesus out of citizens and turning up the hatred of people towards Muslims and people of color.  I was right in that regard but I had a momentary lapse and didn’t extend the argument to the logical conclusion.  The intent of this attack was to make it possible for  the government to scare people enough to willing hand over  more of their rights and freedom.

After a recent attempted terrorist attack set off a debate about full-body X-rays at airports, a new McClatchy-Ipsos poll finds that Americans lean more toward giving up some of their liberty in exchange for more safety.The survey found 51 percent of Americans agreeing that “it is necessary to give up some civil liberties in order to make the country safe from terrorism.”

…………………………

To stop terrorists, Americans look first to better governmental coordination and use of intelligence, the poll found, with 81 percent calling that effective and only 11 percent calling it ineffective.

Body scans or full body searches at airports ranked second, named by 74 percent as an effective way to stop terrorism. Nineteen percent called those measures ineffective.

Further restrictions on carry-on baggage ranked third, called effective by 57 percent, ineffective by 34 percent.

New in-flight restrictions such as banning the use of laptops and electronic equipment or restricting people to their seats ranked last, called effective by 50 percent and ineffective by 42 percent.

In other words this is the Obama administration’s attempt at picking up where the Bush administration left off in a somewhat kinder and gentler manner.  Change anyone??  Hand in hand with that is this bit of terrifying news about what could possibly happen to American citizens.  If you want to know what’s in store for you after you have so blindly handed over you rights as an American citizen read the story of Syed Fahad Hashmi, who like Jose Padilla another American citizen, has been brutalized by the government and had his citizenship discarded and ignored.  I wonder if all the tea baggers and birthers know about or feel any kinship with these two American citizens?

Liar, Liar, pants on fire! The NYT and its yellow journalism


We’ve chronicled many places here on the pages of Miscellany101 how the New York Times has been used by it’s racist, Islamophobic elites to falsely and misleadingly  incite public passions against the Muslim minority for the sake of public dissension and war, and they are at it again!  I really don’t understand how newspapers can keep finding harlots to lie and prostitute themselves for the good of the established elites but they somehow manage to keep up a pretty good stable of men and women willing to dispense and even take the kool-aid laced ethnic, religious and racial bigotry that keeps our country fueled for war.   This latest blunder began with  Elisabeth Bumiller’s piece that appeared in the NYT in May of  last year that erroneously stated a high recidivism rate among Guantanamo detainees.  Making stuff wholesale out of sack cloth and ashes Bumiller, like her predecessor, Judith Miller, created a story that was picked up and run with by the likes of Dick Darth Vader Cheney in such a blatant disregard for reality that even the NYT had to backtrack, retract and mea culpa themselves out of another embarrassing situation.

……the article on which he based that statement was seriously flawed and greatly overplayed. It demonstrated again the dangers when editors run with exclusive leaked material in politically charged circumstances and fail to push back skeptically. The lapse is especially unfortunate at The Times, given its history in covering the run-up to the Iraq war.The article seemed to adopt the Pentagon’s contention that freed prisoners had “returned” to terrorism, ignoring independent reporting by the Times and   others that some of them may not have been involved in terrorism before but were radicalized at Guantánamo. It failed to distinguish between former prisoners suspected of new acts of terrorism — more than half the cases — and those supposedly confirmed to have rejoined jihad against the West. Had only confirmed cases been considered, one in seven would have changed to one in 20.

Unfortunately, the NYT lied to us the public again.  Yes, their article was seriously flawed alright…..so much so that they decided to run it again and by the same person!  What’s worse, the Times buried this caveat deep in the article, “the White House had ‘been presented with no information that suggests that any of the detainees transferred by this administration have returned to the fight'” which appeared at the very bottom of the page, in the tenth paragraph of a twelve  paragraph piece.  Why is the NYT so intent in promoting war in as distant and remote a place as Yemen?  Do they think such a misadventure will increase their circulation at a time when advertising dollars and bureau budgets are tight?  Not hardly.  The NYT has an explicit interest like most of the other security consultants, analysts, contractors and assorted acronymed groups in keeping this Nation at war because if it’s not profitable for some of them, it’s profitable for others who in turn trickle down the profits they get from deceiving government and the Nation to fight in far away places.  It’s the old you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours symbiosis of truth, warfare and lies.  The NYT is pretty good at making that a seamless transition.  They’ve been doing it for far too long.

More terrorism news


The terror attack of December25, 2009 was meant to force the hand of the US to go to war in or with Yemen.  Thankfully the attack failed, but that hasn’t stopped the beating of war drums to attack and Joe Lieberman an ardent war supporter was one of the first to make that call.

Lieberman, the neoconservative solon who wanted to be the Secretary of Defense in the administration of John McCain (his 2008 candidate for president) and who would gladly play the same role in the administration of a Sarah Palin or any other saber-rattling Republican, is proposing the launch of a new preemptive war on Yemen……

Referencing his own travels to Yemen, and meetings with unnamed U.S. officials, the senator chirped: “Iraq was yesterday’s war, Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war.”

Lieberman, whose refusal to serve in the military when he could have during the Vietnam era has never prevented him from spouting hawkish views………….

Lieberman was also a sponsor of the Senate bill S.J. Res.46 which called for war with Iraq and never met a war he didn’t like, as long as he doesn’t have to fight it himself. Just what we need, a mini-Bush. Everyone is jumping on the blame the Obama administration bandwagon and that is no doubt one of the planned consequences of this failed attack, which was really meant to be Obama’s 911 trial by fire. There are some other rather interesting sidebars to this terror attack.

The name ICTS has surfaced again. You know who they are don’t you? The same people who were responsible for airport security at Logan International Airport, the departure point for two of the fatal aircraft of 911 were responsible for security at the Amsterdam airport, despite their statement to the contrary.  If anyone should be made to squirm under the light of scrutiny it should be ICTS who has been at the security helm during terrorist attacks on 911 and 12/25.  Don’t let the phony debate about technology divert you from the responsibility this company has for what happened on December, 25.  The airport in Amsterdam has 15, count them 15 full body image scanners which AbdulMuttaleb managed to evade under the watchful eye of ICTS personnel. There’s also the claim that the terrorist got on the plane without a passport or had someone speak on his behalf with gate agents to have him board without proper credentials.   That seems plausible, for if he had a passport with his name it should have set off alarm bells throughout the aviation community because his name was also attached to a terrorist watch list generated by the UK government and American CIA. Government officials have managed to deflect that criticism by pointing out there is more than one terrorism list.

The interesting issue about the hot potato of 12/25 is despite all the security we were told we needed after 911 and for all the reasons given for that increased security here we are  eight years later, with the same excuses given for the lapse in security and with the same response for our vulnerability, that of going to war in a foreign nondescript country, Yemen.  What happened to the increased efficiency we were told would result under the newly formed Department of Homeland Security that was supposed to facilitate communications between the various agencies responsible for America’s security so that the moment the suspect’s father informed the American embassy in his country of his suspicions about his son’s inclinations that message would go to the very top of the nation’s security apparatus? Instead we’re mired in the various degrees of watch lists and the distinction between watches and no-fly lists and suspects and terrorists.  Does anyone think increased expenditures  to a bloated federal agency will fine tune even this mess called Homeland Security?   How did a “security” company with all the latest up to date technological equipment at its disposal fail to use it on this  suspect?   Why the obvious ruse at the boarding gate, witnessed by two American lawyers, who have gone on record to say other far more incriminating things about the nature of security at the Amsterdam airport.

The only terror unleashed on 12/25 was the realization that despite all the country has gone through, and all the dollars spent, and all the experience those responsible for security should have gained over the last eight years, government is no more serious now about its security of citizens than it was  in 2001.  The event was just another in a long line of deceptions initiated to start another military campaign in some far region of the world and enrich the coffers of the 21st century’s welfare recipient, security companies.  Colin Powell, with whom I have serious misgivings at times said it best

are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. … The only thing that can really destroy us is us. We shouldn’t do it to ourselves, and we shouldn’t use fear for political purposes—scaring people to death so they will vote for you, or scaring people to death so that we create a terror-industrial complex.

We are well on the road to such a relationship between catastrophic events and burgeoning government contracts to the likes of ICTS whose existence depends on their own ineptitude, planned or chance.  Watch for another round of “security” individuals to pop up with their cures for a problem that was cured even well before 911.  We shouldn’t allow ourselves to be manipulated this way.

Voodoo Terror Alerts


In light of the recent attempt on December 25 to take down an airliner on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, a few things should be kept in  mind.  The alleged terrorist was on a watch list connecting him to terrorism for over two years, was a Nigerian citizen who was denied entry into the UK after graduating from there and still he was given a visa to come to the US!?  Moreover, his own father had alerted US authorities six months ago to his son’s extremist views and none of that previous history was enough to make people at airports in Nigeria or Amsterdam to even perform a pat down of the young man before he boarded a plane?  I know we just came off the Christmas holiday which can stretch credulity to its limits with images of Santa Claus and red nosed reign deer but to think that is plausible is to think 19 hijackers can collectively penetrate the most protected air space of any place in the world on orders from a man in a cave with a cell phone to attack some of the most secured buildings ever built.  Quite simply it just doesn’t happen, and if it does, people from TSA to Homeland Security to airport authorities and airline companies across three continents should have their heads lopped from their shoulders for incompetence.

It should be apparent to all concerned that all of the inconvenience and intrusiveness citizens have  gone through as we travel all over the world has nothing to do with our or the nation’s security, but is rather done to us or visited upon us by the new class of welfare queens and kings who are stealing from the nation’s coffers as they perpetuate one of  the biggest frauds known to man…that of the threat of terror.  This latest “terrorist” should have never been allowed to board a plane headed for America with all the attention he had supposedly received from his father to officials in the UK to bureaucrats in Delta, Northwestern and the bowels of the US federal government. Not one voice of dissent was raised when this young man bought his ticket in Nigeria; not one red flag or alarm was sounded as he travelled and it was only the brave acts of individual citizens who were seated near him that stopped a disaster that the government has been telling us for the last 8 years only it can stop at the expense of untold amounts of money and human suffering for the innocent.

So it should come as no surprise this story of vodoo terror alerts…you know the kind that never materialize because they aren’t really real…..where a man claimed he could decipher terror chatter from al-Jazeerah TV’s airwaves; this assertion was enough to cause the Bush administration to raise the terror alert level to level Orange, in of all months……December…… Merry Christmas……..just in time to claim that terrorism war was aimed at Christians celebrating Christmas, much like the attempted assassination or rather sacrifice made on the passengers of flight 253 on December 25, 2009 would have signified had it been successful.  In the case of the al-Jazeerah story, the fraudster Dennis Montgomery was discovered and outed as a liar and con man by people in government but not before literally stealing money from you and I while lying about what he could do.  As it turns out he couldn’t do anything he promised, and that seems to be the story of much of what has to do with terrorism and the federal government.  It can do very little to “protect” us and in some cases has been the source of much of our terror.  How else can you account for the fact that Umar Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab was able to purchase a ticket on an American airliner with all that is in place to prevent people like him from flying!  No doubt it will be said ‘more needs to be done’ and I would agree.  Let’s start by firing the idiots who don’t do their jobs and crediting the people who really saved lives…the passengers of flight 253.   Let me be one who says, like my brothers in arms of the 2nd amendment, we don’t need more laws we just need people to enforce the laws we already have.

No Comment


…Americans regard sexual infidelity as far more serious than invading countries on the basis of false charges and deception, invasions that have caused the deaths and displacement of millions of innocent people. Remember, the House impeached President Clinton not for his war crimes in Serbia, but for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Americans are more upset by Tiger Woods’ sexual affairs than they are by the Bush and Obama administrations’ destruction of US civil liberty. Americans don’t seem to mind that “their” government for the last 8 years has resorted to the detention practices of 1,000 years ago–simply grab a person and throw him into a dungeon forever without bringing charges and obtaining a conviction.

According to polls, Americans support torture, a violation of both US and international law, and Americans don’t mind that their government violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and spies on them without obtaining warrants from a court. Apparently, the brave citizens of the “sole remaining superpower” are so afraid of terrorists that they are content to give up liberty for safety, an impossible feat.

With stunning insouciance, Americans have given up the rule of law that protected their liberty. The silence of law schools and bar associations indicates that the age of liberty has passed. In short, the American people support tyranny. And that’s where they are headed.

–Paul Craig Roberts

Illegal Israeli Organ Harvesting


There was something to the story after all, that Israelis illegally took the organs of murdered Palestinians.  One can only wonder when the revelation will emerge that some Jews in the US had something to do with that.  The “academic” responsible for breaking this story is the same one who turned in or reported the Jewish Americans to authorities which broke the case here in the US.

Israel has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without their families’ permission.

The issue emerged with publication of an interview with the then-head of Israel’s Abu Kabir forensic institute, Jehuda Hiss. The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic, who released it because of a huge controversy last summer over an allegation by a Swedish newspaper that Israel was killing Palestinians to harvest their organs. Israel hotly denied the charge.

Parts of the interview were broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 TV over the weekend. In it, Hiss said: “We started to harvest corneas… Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family.”The Channel 2 report said in the 1990s, forensic specialists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives.

It’s interesting to note that while Israelis don’t want to donate their organs, they certainly don’t mind receiving them from anyone, which makes it all the more plausible that many Palestinians and Israelis were killed by the state of Israel in order to get their organs, must likely at a considerable profit for the folks like Levy Izhak Rosenbaum et.co who was arrested here in the US earlier this year.  One more feather in the cap for the murderous regime which has fooled everyone into thinking it is a light unto the Nations.

From your neighbors


Love for Jesus Can Bring Christians, Muslims Together – Ibrahim Hooper

“Behold! The angels said: ‘O Mary! God giveth thee glad tidings of a Word from Him. His name will be Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, held in honor in this world and the Hereafter and in (the company of) those nearest to God.’”

Before searching for this quote in the New Testament, you might first ask your Muslim co-worker, friend or neighbor for a copy of the Quran, Islam’s revealed text. The quote is from verse 45 of chapter 3 in the Quran.

It is well known, particularly in this holiday season, that Christians follow the teachings of Jesus. What is less well understood is that Muslims also love and revere Jesus as one of God’s greatest messengers to mankind.

Other verses in the Quran, regarded by Muslims as the direct word of God, state that Jesus was strengthened with the “Holy Spirit” (2:87) and is a “sign for the whole world.” (21:91) His virgin birth was confirmed when Mary is quoted as asking: “How can I have a son when no man has ever touched me?” (3:47)

The Quran shows Jesus speaking from the cradle and, with God’s permission, curing lepers and the blind. (5:110) God also states in the Quran: “We gave (Jesus) the Gospel (Injeel) and put compassion and mercy into the hearts of his followers.” (57:27)

As forces of hate in this country and worldwide try to pull Muslims and Christians apart, we are in desperate need of a unifying force that can bridge the widening gap of interfaith misunderstanding and mistrust. That force could be the message of love, peace and forgiveness taught by Jesus and accepted by followers of both faiths.

Christians and Muslims would do well to consider another verse in the Quran reaffirming God’s eternal message of spiritual unity: “Say ye: ‘We believe in God and the revelation given to us and to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to (all) Prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and it is unto Him that we surrender ourselves.’” (2:136)

The Prophet Muhammad himself sought to erase any distinctions between the message he taught and that taught by Jesus, who he called God’s “spirit and word.” Prophet Muhammad said: “Both in this world and in the Hereafter, I am the nearest of all people to Jesus, the son of Mary. The prophets are paternal brothers; their mothers are different, but their religion is one.”

When Muslims mention the Prophet Muhammad, they always add the phrase “peace be upon him.” Christians may be surprised to learn that the same phrase always follows a Muslim’s mention of Jesus or that we believe Jesus will return to earth in the last days before the final judgment. Disrespect toward Jesus, as we have seen all too often in our society, is very offensive to Muslims.

Unfortunately, violent events and hate-filled rhetoric around the world provide ample opportunity for promoting religious hostility. And yes, Muslims and Christians do have some differing perspectives on Jesus’ life and teachings. But his spiritual legacy offers an alternative opportunity for people of faith to recognize their shared religious heritage.

America’s Muslim community stands ready to honor that legacy by building bridges of interfaith understanding and challenging those who would divide our nation along religious or ethnic lines.

We have more in common than we think.

Right-click here to download pictures. To help protect your privacy, Outlook prevented automatic download of this picture from the Internet.

Europe’s Fascist Heritage


The world has already fought two large scale wars to extricate Europe from it’s racist tendencies and there appear to be more on the horizon.  Emboldened by the Swiss vote which was initiated because the Swiss People’s Party were intimidated by the four minaret already constructed in Switzerland and hence successfully passed a referendom which bans further contruction of minarets, France and its Islamophobic president, Nicholas Sarkozy et. co has stepped up the rhetoric against Muslims in Europe warning them they must embrace Europe’s historical values and avoid “ostentation or provocation” in the practice of their religion or else lose citizenship. France’s elected officials have thrown political responsibility aside and chosen mob rule and street rhetoric to address their citizens.  With the Muslim population of France approaching or even surpassing 5 million,  they have become an easy target for the likes of racists who want to threaten and intimidate Muslims with the tacit support of France’s political leaders, and other leaders of European parties who want to make Muslims targets of their hate and vitriol.

It’s good to see that not everyone is laying down and accepting the steam roller xenophobia on display in Europe these days.  GuillaumeMorand a Swiss businessman erected a minaret on his business establishment in protest of the vote banning minarets in his country and hints there may be other acts of civil disobedience on his part in the coming days as he wants all to know the ban is not something which all in Switzerland agree. On the British Isles, Rabbis Aaron Goldstein and Hillel Athias-Robles, of the Northwood and Pinner Liberal Synagogue have gone on record to denounce the tactics of the racist element in their country, saying

“We are writing to express our support for our Muslim friends and neighbours, especially those at Harrow Central Mosque, who are under attack from those whose only purpose is to spread hatred and fear.“We condemn outright the outrageous lies of the English Defence League and SIOE which are entirely without foundation.

“We share the desire of the Muslim community of Harrow to respect our mutual traditions, to learn from each other’s cultures and ways of life, and to live together in peace.

“The Jewish community knows all too well what happens when such poison is allowed to go unchallenged: once hatred and intolerance are allowed to spread we all become its victims. “The whole community must stand together against those that seek to divide us.”

‘Those that seek to divide us’ sound so much like Sarkozy and the leaders of parties like SVP which generate measures designed to return Europe to the days of fascism and with it the rest of the world. In order to stop that eventuality it will take courage and a strong stand by the likes of rabbis Goldstein and Robbles and Monsieur Morand.  We here at Miscellany101 join them in denouncing the hate with a strong statement.  Mr. Sarkozy, stop spreading hate and fear.

Guantanamo Bay-Terrorist Training Ground


Guantanamo Bay will most likely go down as the place which housed the most terrorist we ever faced in our war on terror, the phony war started  by George Bush, and those terrorists were US personnel who engaged in torture and even murder.  The latest news that three suicides and the resulting investigation was so botched as to lead to more questions than answers can only lead one to the conclusion that the “suicides” were indeed murder and lead to other questions of how many other deaths at Gitmo were at the hands of the captors and not the captive.  The facts from the only independent study conducted are three detainees were found swinging at the end of a ligature in their closely guarded cells with rags stuffed in their throats and one “suicide” victim had his internal organs, heart and kidneys and throat removed before his body was interred.
The removal of internal organs closely dovetails into another story we’ve covered in the pages of Miscellany101 as it regards Palestinians in the Occupied Territories who’ve died at the hands of their terrorist captors. That is scary enough, the parallel universe that seems to pervade all that the American and Israeli authorities do to Arab, semitic and Muslim peoples the world over; however, the lengths at which authorities went to blame even the victims for their murder at the hands of those same authorities (for how can a man both hang himself, stuff rags in his own throat and remained undetected for several hours long enough for rigor mortis to develop in a cell that was under 24 hour scrutiny by security guards because said occupant of the cell possessed the super human capability to break loose over power his guards and eventually find his way to the US mainland to wreak further havoc on innocent Americans) is a further nail in the coffin of US legitimacy and credibility.

Rear Adm Harris said he did not believe the men had killed themselves out of despair. “They are smart. They are creative, they are committed,” he said. “They have no regard for life, either ours or their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.”

Or how about this wildly insane comment from a former Bush Administration official who seemed to have the intent correct, i.e. publicity, although assigning it incorrectly to the victims

“It does sound like this is part of a strategy – in that they don’t value their own lives, and they certainly don’t value ours; and they use suicide bombings as a tactic,” Colleen Graffy, the deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, told BBC’s Newshour yesterday. “Taking their own lives was not necessary, but it certainly is a good PR move.”

What Guantanamo Bay became  and perhaps still is today was a battleground for a disgraced titular warrior and leader of the free world, George Bush and now Barack Obama, to play out fantasies of getting even with a perceived foe at the expense of the Nation’s Constitution and way of life.  He descended into the depths of every type of illegal and immoral activity to satisfy a blood lust to exorcise demons of inferiority and insecurity and in term projected that all onto the national consciousness that have seriously affected our judgement and moral compass until the present.