Saturday, February 25, 2006

Symposium: April 29, 2006

The Underlying Roots Of Terrorism: Terrorism's Threat to World Peace and National Security, A Symposium Sponsored by America's Truth Forum, is scheduled to be held in the greater Washington, D.C., area.

List of speakers: Dr. Andrew Bostom, Brigitte Gabriel, David Horowitz, Joe Kaufman, Harvey Kushner, Laura Mansfield, Robert Spencer, Paul Williams, and possibly Walid Shoebat. The credentials of these individuals can be found here; scroll down.

Go to this web page (People's Truth Forum) for registration forms.

Payment and registration are due by March 26!

Monday, February 20, 2006

This Is How It Was, 2006 – The Suburbs of Washington, D.C.

The blogmaster of Infidel Bloggers Alliance recently asked contributors to send in their thoughts on "This Is How It Was, 2006," and essays from around the world are being posted over the next two weeks. Below are my thoughts.

The faces in my classroom – how can I explain what I see?

I work with groups of homeschool students, ranging in age from ten to eighteen. The younger ones don’t remember what the world was like before 9/11. But the high school students do remember. Furthermore, these older students are news hounds and follow both national and international developments.

Here in the D.C. area, air cover and Norad drills occur with some frequency and can come at any hour of the day or night. Sometimes we know in advance of the drills, sometimes we don’t. And occasionally the military jets and helicopters roar overhead during class. If the noise is prolonged, I see the worry on the faces of my students. They look to me and to any parents present for affirmation that they are going to be safe. If the roaring goes on long enough, someone makes a cell-phone call to the outside, just to be sure.

Right after 9/11, the older students, especially the boys, would puff up and brag, “We’re going to beat the enemy. We’re going to kick them back.” But now, none of the students talk like that any more. The realization of the enemy’s strength and persistence has set in. And I see that realization on the young faces in my classes. Sometimes their faces don’t look so young. I see furrowed brows and worry lines, and eyes too old.

Since Ahmadinejad has ramped up his rhetoric, the mood in my classes – especially in my American government and American history classes – is solemn. Second-semester classes began in January, and this second semester my students are subdued, not their normal selves. They haven’t given up hope, but they are wary of what the future holds – their own futures and the future of the free world.

I reassure my students as much as I can. But I won’t avoid discussing the difficult facts of world developments. I won’t lie to my students, and I won’t utter meaningless platitudes. We talk openly of the Global Jihad and of how, in the past, other totalitarianisms have been defeated by sword and pen. I try to communicate both hope and reality, but sometimes world developments make that balance hard to attain.

The faces of my students remind me of how important the future is and of what’s at stake as the West faces the Islamofascist attacks upon and the Islamifying subversion of Western civilization. And even during class, I am always listening for the sound of scrambling jets, especially when the day holds a cerulean blue sky like the one we had on 9/11.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

O'Malley opposes ports deal

From the AP, via The Baltimore Sun:
Firm sues to block ports takeover by Arab company - baltimoresun.com
Baltimore mayor O'Malley calls deal 'outrageous, reckless'

... Martin O'Malley of Baltimore, on Saturday harshly criticized the president's approval of the ports deal as an "outrageous, reckless and irresponsible decision" and urged the White House to reconsider the sale. Baltimore is one of the affected ports, and O'Malley is co-chairman of the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Task Force on Homeland Security. O'Malley also is running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Maryland.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Some More Information about UAE

Update from Global Security Newswire, February 16, 2006:
"U.S. Watches Dubai Banks for Proliferation Ties

"WASHINGTON — U.S. Treasury Department representatives are monitoring the possibility that money flowing through banks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, could be supporting WMD proliferation by countries such as Iran, a Treasury official told a House of Representatives subcommittee today (see GSN, Feb. 13).

"The director of the agency’s Foreign Assets Control Office, Robert Werner, expressed continued concern in the wake of Dubai-based activities of the Dutch bank ABN Amro that in December 2005 led the United States to fine the bank $80 million for improper transactions with Libyan and Iranian clients. The case involved U.S.-prohibited wire transfers for Iranian and Libyan clients by the bank's Dubai employees.

“'I'm very concerned by the type of activities that the ABN Amro case demonstrated,' Werner told the Financial Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. 'We intend to look at other situations that maybe may involve other international banks involved in that kind of conduct.'

"Asked by subcommittee Chairwoman Sue Kelly (R-N.Y.) whether he was concerned ABN Amro had 'laundered' WMD-related Iranian transactions through Dubai, Werner said officials from his office recently met in the United Arab Emirates with officials of that country to discuss WMD proliferation.

"He said the office, which administers U.S. sanctions against entities of national-security concern, would continue to monitor Dubai as a possible hub for circumvention of WMD-related sanctions.

“'The possible use of UAE-incorporated companies by Iranian agencies or citizens is of great concern to us,' he said.

"Despite Kelly's suggestion that Treasury might designate Dubai as a 'jurisdiction of primary money-laundering concern,' Werner expressed confidence in his UAE interlocutors.

“'They are anxious to engage in a dialogue with us,' he said. 'My feeling is that they're striving to work with OFAC.'

"Replied the chairwoman, 'Perhaps a bit of cynicism on the part of Treasury in dealing with these people might be in order.'

"U.S. President George W. Bush issued an executive order in June 2005 on blocking transfers of U.S. assets to entities of proliferation concern. Eighteen suspect companies have been listed so far under the order, including six in Iran and 11 in North Korea. Among other activities, Werner's office conducts investigations that provide evidence for listings of suspect entities under the order."
According to a report on tonight's local news here in the D.C. area, the port of Baltimore is already under the supervision of the UAE company.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Who's Minding Our Ports?

Outsourcing which could jeopardize national security is about to be implemented.

From The Center for Security Policy, February 14, 2006:
"...[A] secretive government committee has decided to turn over the management of six of the Nation's most important ports - in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore and New Orleans - to Dubai Ports World following the UAE [United Arab Emirates] company's purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which previously had the contract....

"America's seaports have long been recognized by homeland security experts as among our most vulnerable targets....

"Entrusting information about key U.S. ports - including, presumably, government-approved plans for securing them, to say nothing of the responsibility for controlling physical access to these facilities - to a country known to have been penetrated by terrorists is not just irresponsible. It is recklessly so...."
Read the whole thing here.

To object to the above proposal, contact your elected representatives here and here. Do it now!

[Hat tip: Sixth Column]

Upcoming Event At Georgetown University

(All emphases by Always On Watch)
"It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country."

-- Noah Webster (On Education of Youth in America, 1790)
Reference: The Learning of Liberty, Prangle and Prangle (126);
original Noah Webster: Schoolmaster to America, Harry Warfel (42)
From the February 12, 2006 edition of the Washington Post:
Why Is Georgetown Providing a Platform for This Dangerous Group?

"This month Georgetown University plans to host the annual conference of an anti-Israel propaganda group called the Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM). The PSM certainly is controversial. It is also dangerous.

"The purported aim of the PSM is to encourage divestment from Israel. To this end, its conferences boast a cavalcade of anti-Israel speakers whose speeches often degenerate into anti-Semitism. At the 2004 conference at Duke University in North Carolina, for example, keynote speaker Mazin Qumsiyeh referred to Zionism as a 'disease.' Workshop leader Bob Brown deemed the Six-Day War 'the Jew War of '67.' Not to be outdone, Nasser Abufarha praised the terrorist activities of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

"The PSM maintains that it is a separate organization from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which sends foreign students to the West Bank and Gaza to foment anti-Israeli sentiment.

"All the same, the two groups seem to have intimate ties. At the 2004 PSM conference, for instance, the International Solidarity Movement ran a recruitment meeting called 'Volunteering in Palestine: Role and Value of International Activists.' In that session, the organization's co-founder, Huwaida Arraf, distributed recruitment brochures and encouraged students to enlist in the ISM, which, she acknowledged, cooperates with Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine....

"In the aftermath of the 2004 PSM meeting, conference organizer Rann Bar-On -- who is an ISM member -- informed the Duke student newspaper, 'I personally consider the Palestine Solidarity Movement conference a huge success, as it brought about a tripling of the number of Duke students visiting Israel-Palestine this year, making Duke the most represented American university in the West Bank this summer.' By Bar-On's own admission, recruitment into the ISM is the PSM's raison d'etre.

"In agreeing to host the PSM from Feb. 17 to Feb. 19, Georgetown can't even claim that its regard for free speech and expression trumps all. In 2005 the university's conference center refused to host an anti-terrorism conference sponsored by America's Truth Forum on the grounds that it was 'too controversial.' So why is free speech and expression of cardinal importance now? Perhaps it is related to the recent $20 million donation from Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, a prominent financier of the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. If Georgetown President John J. DeGioia is concerned for the safety of his student body, he will reject the 2006 Palestine Solidarity Movement conference. Pleasing donors is an important duty of a university president, but preventing the recruitment of Georgetown students into a dangerous, pro-terrorist organization is a more vital obligation."

--Eric Adler
--Jack Langer
are respectively, a lecturer in the history department at Rice University and a doctoral candidate in history at Duke University.
See more about Prince Alaweed's funding here.

What is the take of Georgetown's Imam Yahya Hendi on this upcoming conference? Dr. Hendi has previously stated the following:
"I have always worked to bridge the gap between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I have spoken against Osamah Ben laden and like wise. I have been and will continue to promote true respect of women in Muslim countries and the right of Christians to be fully equal under the law in those countries. I have traveled around the world in defence of American Jews....

"My life was threatened many times because of my views and I was called names like 'traitor to Islam; and a 'sellout' to Americans because I spoke in attack of those who dare to attack America. I still can not travel to some of those countries out of fear for my life...."
According to this December 2005 article by Northern Virginiastan,
"The Georgetown University Conference Hotel decides against hosting a conference of the People's Truth Forum for fear of reprisals from Muslim students at Georgetown University..."
Is there less danger in hosting the PSM's conference?

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Kinshasa on the Potomac

Always on Watch's entry on the Washington Post article on reactions of DC area Muslims was picked up by washingtonpost.com's blog trackback - thereby giving more visibility to this blog. It was through washingtonpost.com's blog trackback that I discovered another local blog Kinshasa On The Potomac, which has had excellent commentary on Muslim cartoon rage.

The concentration of Muslims in the DC area suggested the name "Northern Virginiastan" to me - just this morning, I went into the heart of Northern Virginiastan - near Baileys Crossroads and Skyline - but the name also suggests a Third World country. The author of Kinshasa on The Potomac must have had the same idea - Kinshasa is the capital of Congo in Africa.

Sensitivity Or Fear?

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

From Michael Kinsley's commentary, "The Ayotollah Joke Book," in the February 10, 2006 edition of the Washington Post:
"...A lively debate is going on about whether Islam really does forbid any portrayal of the prophet, however benign, or whether that is a recent innovation of some subset of the faithful with possible ulterior motives. This debate misses the point. Some Christians believe they are required to wear particular sorts of clothing. Some Jews and Muslims don't eat pork. They don't claim that their religion requires other people to wear special clothing or avoid eating pork....

"But the limits of free expression cannot be set by the sensitivities of people who don't believe in [a particular teaching]...."
From Charles Krauthammer's commentary, "Curse of the Moderates," in the February 2006 edition of the Washington Post:
"...A true Muslim moderate is one who protests desecrations of all faiths. Those who don't are not moderates but hypocrites, opportunists and agents for the rioters, merely using different means to advance the same goal: to impose upon the West, with its traditions of freedom of speech, a set of taboos that is exclusive to the Islamic faith. These are not defenders of religion but Muslim supremacists trying to force their dictates upon the liberal West....

"What is at issue is fear. The unspoken reason many newspapers do not want to republish is not sensitivity but simple fear. They know what happened to Theo van Gogh, who made a film about the Islamic treatment of women and got a knife through the chest with an Islamist manifesto attached.

"The worldwide riots and burnings are instruments of intimidation, reminders of van Gogh's fate. The Islamic 'moderates' are the mob's agents and interpreters, warning us not to do this again. And the Western 'moderates' are their terrified collaborators who say: Don't worry, we won't...."
From Andrew Sullivan's essay, "Your Taboo, Not Mine," in the February 13, 2006 edition of Time Magazine:
"...Muslim leaders say the cartoons are not just offensive. They're blasphemy--the mother of all offenses. That's because Islam forbids any visual depiction of the Prophet, even benign ones. Should non-Muslims respect this taboo? I see no reason why. You can respect a religion without honoring its taboos. I eat pork, and I'm not an anti-Semite. As a Catholic, I don't expect atheists to genuflect before an altar. If violating a taboo is necessary to illustrate a political point, then the call is an easy one. Freedom means learning to deal with being offended....

"Yes, there's no reason to offend people of any faith arbitrarily. We owe all faiths respect. But the Danish cartoons were not arbitrarily offensive. They were designed to reveal Islamic intolerance--and they have now done so, in abundance. The West's principles are clear enough. Tolerance? Yes. Faith? Absolutely. Freedom of speech? Nonnegotiable."
Catering to "Muslim sensitivities" over a bunch of satiric cartoons published in a free press, particularly if that catering stems from fear of reprisals, amounts to turning the clock back to the Middle Ages, when the establishment of religion as the rule of law was the norm. Furthermore, such catering comes too close for comfort to supporting the validity of anti-blasphemy laws. And sometimes blasphemy is in the eye of the beholder, which is to say, subjective. And subjectivity can be dangerous.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

MTP Cartoons--Reaction Of Area Muslims

From the February 5, 2006 Washington Post:
Area Muslims React With Tempered Anger
Some Say Depiction Overstepped Liberties


"...I've been getting a lot of e-mails about it, and I'm distributing them all,' said Omary, a Damascus native who sells real estate in Northern Virginia. 'There is a limit to freedom. There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. Let's have some respect.'

"A few miles away at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society mosque in Sterling, Zaki Al Barzinji, 16, was equally upset.

"'Just because you can say something doesn't mean you should say something,' the teenager said. 'If somebody showed a picture of the pope with a bomb on his head, that would cause a great public outcry. Nobody would be talking about freedom of speech.'"
A picture of the Pope with a bomb on his head would not result in the burning of embassies, placards proclaiming "Behead those who insult Christianity," and babies promoting fundamentalist religious law. You can bet on it.

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Protesting Cartoons

From "Irate Muslims Stage New Protests" :
"In London,...after Friday prayers..., some chanted, 'Jihad! Jihad!' and held up placards that read, 'Learn the lesson from 9/11'...."

Friday, February 03, 2006

A Dhimmi in Annandale

Found via Technorati:

Me, Myself & This Other Stuff: Anti Islamic Cartoons :: www.athiqueahmed.co.uk ::

It is unfortunate that freedom of speech is interpreted by some western media as the right to ridicule and insult some of the most venerable individuals who ever graced this earth. Certainly the Prophet Muhammad is not responsible for terrorism. The editors of Jyllands-Posten should be sacked, not for breaking the law - publishing cartoons that are in bad taste is not illegal - but for monumentally bad judgement that created outrage among our Muslim brethren.

Peter Kaufmann, Annandale, USA

Mr. Kaufmann no doubt knows something about "outrage among our Muslim brethren" as Annandale and the nearby area is one of the magnets for the Muslim community in the DC area.