Brother, If Lying Fails, Try Prayer. Or At Least Try Lying About Prayer.

There's a Civil-War era anecdote about two Confederate matrons discussing the prospects for success of the rebel cause.

Says the first lady, “I believe our side will prevail because Jeff is a praying man.”

To which the second matron replies, “But they say Abe is a praying man, too.”

To which the first responds, “That may be. But the Lord will believe Jeff.”

Thus marks the last time these pages ever suggest a comparison between legendary wiliness of the Emancipator and the, so far, bottomless narcissism of Detroit’s Kingpin mayor.

I’m reminded of the story because of a report in todays’ Detroit Free Press (“Mayor, backers pray as decision on charges looms”) of a City Hall “prayer session” staged, er, excuse me, convened Saturday with Kwame and 25 of his most spiritually atuned supporters, including spiritual giants Malik Shabbaz, race-hustler Rev. Horace Sheffield, III, and various unnamed union and business leaders. Notably not mentioned as attending was Kilpatrick’s own pastor, Rev. J. Drew Sheard.

Shabbaz, (who, if it weren’t for the Colonel Klink outfits he wears would undoubtedly be mistaken for St. Francis of Assisi), denied the prayer meeting had anything to do with Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s announcement yesterday that she had finally made up her mind about whether or not to charge Kilpatrick with perjury for the whoppers he swore to under oath in court.

“We went to pray,” Shabazz said. “Our mayor is a praying mayor. He believes in the power of prayer, and so do we.”

Okay, I'll buy that. For one, I don’t think Worthy had made her announcement before the prayer meeting was called. Second, since Worthy’s decision was already made, prayer would be too late. And third, if Worthy does announce a decision to charge Kilpatrick, or otherwise fails to let him completely off the hook, it will be Kym who needs prayers, not Kwame.

Then let's just leave aside the minor issue of how a municipal property from which all Nativity scenes have been forever banned can be used for a taxpayer-funded prayer meeting without public comment. I’m more interested in the image of Kwame on his knees for two hours petitioning the Lord--but for what?

Maybe he’s praying for a bolt of lightning to smite his persecutors. But a single bolt won’t do it, as the people who are calling for him to resign grows by the hour. Maybe better request a Noah’s Ark-style deluge to wipe out the 90% of Detroiters who think he’s a big fat liar, and then the remnant can be on your jury. And while it's raining we’d better ask Jehovah to submerge Cox, Dave Bing, and definitely Scott Lewis and Mildred Gaddis, and those certain someones on the City Council.

Or maybe Kwame was just “humbly, humbly,” asking the Lord to give him what he needs to keep on moving forward on behalf of the city he loves “with every part of his being.” You know, things like fortitude, courage, wisdom to do the right thing.

And beyond all that sissy stuff, what this particular hip-hop mayor also needs to run a city includes a whole mess of city grease to spread around to his patrons, his cronies, and his high-school posse, not to mention lots of clandestine nookie, procured with the assistance of dirty cops standing guard over tax-funded love nests, and a whole lot of darkness to cover it all up.

Which would be a big request, even if you're as devout as Kwame, and believe in the power of prayer. because at the moment, there happen to be about two dozen Joshuas who have commanded to sun to stand still for about the past 6 weeks, and there’s not a promise of a shadow in sight.

All of which means the Lord’s going to have to do a real miracle if Kwame’s ever going to get resume his necessary rejuvenating LOLing with the likes of Christine Beatty or the lady in mink without every news camera in the city peeping in the windows.

Anyway, it’s interesting to speculate about the Kwame prayer meeting. But there's one thing I’m pretty sure of. With guys like Shabbaz and Sheffield in your prayer corner, Kingpin won’t be praying for all those people he hurt, and continues to hurt--not for the policemen whose careers he ruined, nor the ones he’s corrupted beyond repair, nor the loyal administration and political accomplices forced to go out and lie for him day after day, nor the strippers and the escorts and the Jamaican chippies it takes to fuel his massive ego, nor the citizens he lies to and disserves so badly.

The ones he loves with every part of his being.

'Establishing Islam in Minnesota'

The following report from Katherine Kersten of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, (link thanks to Act! For America), describes how a Minnesota charter school--still a public school paid for by taxpayers--is in effect an Islamic academy.

In many ways Minneapolis is a sister city to Dearborn. It was the Minneapolis airport that installed footwashing stations at public expense for the convenience of its Muslim cabbies. It was the Minneapolis Community and Technical College that first launched the footbath-as safety-and-hygiene--not religion explanation that was then adopted by the UM-Dearborn later.

Read and you’ll find how many of the same cast of characters from the Muslim American Society of Minnesota (MAS-MN) whose fatwa to airport taxi drivers in 2006 led to Muslim cabbies refusing to transport leader dogs or passengers carrying packaged alcohol. Star Tribune writer Katherine Kersten has written many articles throwing light on the activities of the MAS-MN and CAIR in the Minneapolis area.

Are taxpayers footing bill for Islamic school in Minnesota?

By KATHERINE KERSTEN, Star Tribune

Last update: March 8, 2008 - 4:43 PM

Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) -- named for the Muslim general who conquered medieval Spain -- is a K-8 charter school in Inver Grove Heights. Its approximately 300 students are mostly the children of low-income Muslim immigrant families, many of them Somalis.

The school is in huge demand, with a waiting list of 1,500. Last fall, it opened a second campus in Blaine.

TIZA uses the language of culture rather than religion to describe its program in public documents. According to its mission statement, the school "recognizes and appreciates the traditions, histories, civilizations and accomplishments of the eastern world (Africa, Asia and Middle East)."

But the line between religion and culture is often blurry. There are strong indications that religion plays a central role at TIZA, which is a public school financed by Minnesota taxpayers. Under the U.S. and state constitutions, a public school can accommodate students' religious beliefs but cannot encourage or endorse religion.

TIZA raises troubling issues about taxpayer funding of schools that cross that line.

Asad Zaman, TIZA's principal, declined to allow me to visit the school or grant me an interview. He did not respond to e-mails seeking written replies.

TIZA's strong religious connections date from its founding in 2003. Its co-founders, Zaman and Hesham Hussein, were both imams, or Muslim religious leaders, as well as leaders of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota (MAS-MN).

Since then, they have played dual roles: Zaman as TIZA's principal and the current vice-president of MAS-MN, and Hussein as TIZA's school board chair and president of MAS-MN until his death in a car accident in Saudi Arabia in January.

MAS-MN came to Minnesotans' attention in 2006, when it issued a "fatwa," warning Muslim taxi drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport that transporting passengers with alcohol in their baggage is a violation of Islamic law.

Journalists whom Zaman has permitted to visit TIZA have described the school's Islamic atmosphere and practices.

"A visitor might well mistake Tarek ibn Ziyad for an Islamic school," reported Minnesota Monthly in 2007. "Head scarves are voluntary, but virtually all the girls wear them." The school has a central carpeted prayer space, and "vaguely religious-sounding language" is used.

According to the Pioneer Press, TIZA's student body prays daily and the school's cafeteria serves halal food (permissible under Islamic law). During Ramadan, all students fast from dawn to dusk, according to a parent quoted in the article.

In fact, TIZA was originally envisioned as a private Islamic school. In 2001, MAS-MN negotiated to buy the current TIZA/MAS-MN building for Al-Amal School, a private religious institution in Fridley, according to Bruce Rimstad of the Inver Grove Heights School District. But many immigrant families can't afford Al-Amal. In 2002, Islamic Relief -- headquartered in California -- agreed to sponsor a publicly funded charter school, TIZA, at the same location.
TIZA claims to be non-sectarian, as Minnesota law requires charters to be. But "after-school Islamic learning" takes place on weekdays in the same building under MAS-MN's auspices, according to the program for MAS-MN's 2007 convention. At that convention, a TIZA representative at the school's booth told me that students go directly to "Islamic studies" classes at 3:30, when TIZA's day ends. There, they learn "Qur'anic recitation, the Sunnah of the Prophet" and other religious subjects, he said.

TIZA's 2006 Contract Performance Review Report states that students engage in unspecified "electives" after school or do homework.

Publicly, TIZA emphasizes that it uses standard curricular materials like those found in other public schools. But when addressing Muslim audiences, school officials make the link to Islam clear. At MAS-MN's 2007 convention, for example, the program featured an advertisement for the "Muslim American Society of Minnesota," superimposed on a picture of a mosque. Under the motto "Establishing Islam in Minnesota," it asked: "Did you know that MAS-MN .. houses a full-time elementary school"? On the adjacent page was an application for TIZA.

In addition to the issues raised by TIZA's religious elements, there are reasons to be concerned about the organizations with which it is connected.

Group linked to Hamas
Islamic Relief-USA, the school's sponsor, is compared to the Red Cross in several TIZA documents. In 2006, however, the Israeli government announced that Islamic Relief Worldwide, the organization's parent group, "provides support and assistance" to Hamas, designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist group.

Meanwhile, MAS-MN offers on its web site "beneficial and enlightening information" about Islam, which includes statements like "Regularly make the intention to go on jihad with the ambition to die as a martyr."

At its 2007 convention, MAS-MN featured the notorious Shayk Khalid Yasin, who is well-known in Britain and Australia for teaching that husbands can beat disobedient wives, that gays should be executed and that the United States spreads the AIDS virus in Africa through vaccines for tropical diseases.

Yasin's topic? "Building a Successful Muslim Community in Minnesota."

TIZA has improved the reading and math performance of its mostly low-income students. That's commendable, but should Minnesota taxpayers be funding an Islamic public school?

'I Can't Believe What I Just Heard Me Say!'

From today's Detroit News:

DETROIT -- Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's office responded this morning to Gov. Jennifer Granholm's criticism of his use of a racial epithet in Tuesday night's State of the City address.

In the written statement issued this morning, Kilpatrick's Press Secretary Denise Tolliver explained the mayor felt compelled to use vivid terms to describe his dismay with what he says have been racially bigoted comments and threats of violence in the wake of a scandal that erupted over cell phone text messages between the mayor and his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty.

"The Mayor shares the feeling of shock expressed by the Governor," this morning's statement from Tolliver said. "He's shocked people would send vile e-mails and letters threatening his family. Shocked people would bombard his office with calls berating his staff with the n-word. Shocked people would attack him for describing his experience in vivid terms rather than confront those who sent the bigoted messages. Having actually been called the n-word, the Mayor feels compelled to protect his family, and to expose and condemn bigotry in no uncertain terms."

So Kilpatrick is shocked at his own use of the term, "nigger" on TV at his own State of the Union speech?

Oh, brother.

Wright May Be Gone, But His Message Still Scares Me

It looks as though Obama went farther than expected t distance himself from his longtime pastor and spiritual adviser, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, in his statements yesterday. ("Obama denounces pastor's inflammatory remarks Obama denounces pastor's inflammatory remarks").

According to the AP,

Obama called the pastor's statements widely aired on television and the Internet "completely unacceptable and inexcusable" in a Fox News television interview Friday night and said they did not reflect the kinds of sermons he had heard from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright while attending services at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ.

And he said in his blog statement:

"I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies," Obama said in his blog posting. "I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Reverend Wright that are at issue."

All things considered, in my opinion that's about as far as anyone can expect Obama to go in repudiating, denouncing, renouncing, etc.

(And I am so grateful that ABC and Brian Ross put this stuff out there where it badly needed to be).

So why am I still so disturbed by Wright and his hateful preaching? I'm not disturbed because I really think Obama's views are identical with Wright's, or that he's going to place Wright in a position of prominence in his administration. Obama is a lot smarter than that.

Wright's preaching bothers me on its own account. Because he represents what a lot of people--a whole lot of people--think about their own country. When I hear the audio of Wright goddamning America, or crowing about the 9/11 attack, or ranting about Nagasaki, it isn't his raspy, ugly voice that makes me want to turn it off. It's the deafening roar of the unnamed, unknown thousands in his congregation who are beside themselves with enthusiasm for what he is saying.

We already know that Michelle Obama--who has lived a much more privileged life than me or most of my family--would not list pride of country as one of her attributes. This episode with Wright is also the first time, really, that Obama has spoken of his love for country, and it should be borne in mind that he is only saying it in reaction to the firestorm over Wright.

The menace of Jeremiah Wright is not that he controls Obama, but that Obama, when he had a free choice wher to worship, and under what kind of leader, and in what kind of spiritual community, chose to be in a church that cheers when its pastor does a victory dance after 9/11, and tells his flock that it's "in the Bible" to say "god damn America."

It's human nature that we seek out those who think like us. It's even more the case that leaders and executives seek out those who think like them. Wright may be safely under the Obama bus, but there are thousands--millions--more out there who see America the way he does. How many of them will find their way into a President Obama administration?

C. Edmund Wright, no relation, wrote this yesterday for American Thinker.

Pastor Wright and Barack Obama: The media finally notices

C. Edmund Wright

Dr. Jeremiah Wright Jr. has been saying things like "God damn America" for a couple of decades to a congregation that has grown to the thousands, and his sermons only go out via webcast, podcast, telecast, broadcast, cable cast. And for the technologically challenged, audio cassettes and books. I mean, just how deep should we expect our intrepid media mavens to dig? It's hard to find that haystack in the needle, ain't it?

[Editor's note: American Thinker has been covering Pastor Wright's radicalism for a year now.]

But under the Biblical principle of being grateful for what you have, I am thankful that millions more are aware of this now than were just 48 hours ago. You know, back in the good ole days before "client number 9" was a household word.

(I must wonder, however, how this got past Clinton, Inc, for so long. Maybe it's just me, but since we've been told that white Iowans and so on loved the non-threatening post racial nature of Obama....I can't help but think that a little Jerry Wright sprinkled in early and often might have nipped this hoax in the bud. Just a thought.)

It is critical now, however, that more understanding of this dynamic be circulated. People need to understand the unique nature of a large independent church pastor and his congregation. It is very different from the relationship that exists in more traditional denominational churches.

Jeremiah Wright is not simply a pastor who was assigned to Trinity United Church of Christ by a synod or diocese as the latest in a long line of such assignments. Jeremiah Wright is the TUCC. Or, more accurately, the TUCC is simply one of "Jeremiah Wright's ministries." This is how it works with these independent churches.

These churches exist for the sole purpose of spreading the pastor's specific ministry. If there is a market for such a ministry (and in Chicago there has been one), then the church will grow. Most of these churches, in fact, are founded by (and for) the pastor.

TUCC was not founded by Wright. But almost. He has pastored it from a membership of 87 to one now of over 6000. It is his doctrine, direction, interpretation and emphasis that is TUCC. Wright is TUCC and TUCC is Wright. Period.

And with this dynamic, being an active member and significant benefactor of such a church for 20 years is by natural extension an endorsement of the pastor's message. With one of these churches, if you do not buy into the pastor's specific direction, you go to another church. It is not at all like going to your family's 3rd generation Methodist Church and having varying degrees of agreements with the numerous pastors as they flowed through the pulpit.

Barack Obama sought out the message of Jeremiah Wright, joined and remained in and supported TUCC because of that message, and in fact named his book after a sermon of that message. He even used that message so that black voters in Chicago would not focus on the half of Obama that is white, and on his privileged Hawaiian education. To paraphrase the good pastor, he "was riding dirty" on that message.

In other words, he embraced Wright and TUCC's agenda to get his black street cred and to escape his "white half." Now, he's trying to divert attention away from his black street cred. And a little sober reminder here... he is doing this so he can occupy the Oval Office.

The media will of course try to tie any conservative candidate to any outlandish statement made at any time by any pastor who endorses such a candidate. Last night, MSNCB was trying to change the subject by linking John McCain to one of John Hagee's statements about Catholics years ago. As far as I know, McCain and Hagee have never even met and the Catholic statement is not the founding principal of Hagee's ministry.

But if that's the standard, then it portends disaster for the Obama campaign. As long as the message can get out. Because Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright have met. Often. For decades. And hating America always has and always will be the driving principal of Jeremiah Wright and his followers.

God help us if the message does not get out and one of those followers ends up in the Oval Office.
C. Edmund Wright is not related to Pastor Wright.

'Death Comes for the Archbishop'

I always pay attention to Nina Shea's opinions based on her work at Freedom House.

Death Comes for the Archbishop
Paulos Faraj Rahho, R.I.P.

By Nina Shea

The Catholic Chaldean archbishop of Mosul, Paulos Faraj Rahho, was found dead Thursday in a shallow grave in that northern Iraq city. On February 29, Islamist extremists had abducted the 65-year-old prelate while he prayed, in Aramaic, the language of Jesus himself, the Lenten Stations of the Cross at his church.

There could be no starker statement that Christians are targeted for their faith in a ruthlessly intolerant Iraq. Cardinal Delly, the Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans, weeps in Baghdad; he weeps for his martyred friend, and for the bitter fate of Iraq’s ancient Christian Church.

Many other Iraqi Christians have been terrorized and murdered over the last four years: Fr. Paulos Iskander was beheaded, Fr. Mundhir al-Dayr assassinated in his Protestant church, Fr. Ragheed Ganni and three deacons gunned down and their car booby trapped as they went about their ministries. The list includes many lay people; even Christian children have turned up dead from torture, as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently documented.

From southern Basra to northern Kirkuk, all across Iraq, the Christian community has suffered bloody reprisals for failing to conform to Islamic behavior — in their dress, their social patterns, and their occupations, as well as in their worship. Forty churches have been bombed, mostly in Baghdad and Mosul. During the surge last summer, Sunni militants from a mosque in Baghdad’s religiously integrated Dora neighborhood issued a fatwa specifically commanding the 2,000 Christian families residing there to convert or be killed. Criminal gangs from the majority population have found easy prey in the religious minorities, who, dealing with indifferent security forces and lacking militias of their own, are utterly defenseless.

Iraqi-American Christians, who have joined together to form the Chaldean Assyrian Syriac Council, believe that religious persecution, above all, has driven out most of Iraq’s Christians — whether Chaldean Catholic, Assyrian, Syriac Orthodox, Armenian, or Protestant. Affirming this, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Migration & Refugee Services reported in July: “Especially critical is the plight of Iraq’s minority religious communities, including Christians and Mandeans (or Sabeans). These groups, whose home has been what is now Iraq for many centuries, are literally being obliterated — not because they are fleeing generalized violence but because they are being specifically and viciously victimized by Islamic extremists and, in some cases, common criminals.”

These exiles have taken temporary refuge across the border in Syria, Jordan, Turkey, and elsewhere. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reports that 40 percent of Iraqi refugees are Christian — a staggering number, considering that Christians accounted for only some 4 percent, or 1.5 million, of Iraq’s total pre-invasion population. Hundreds of thousands more have fled north to Iraq’s Nineveh Plains, a mostly vacant, fertile area outside Mosul and south of Kurdistan where many of the ethnic Assyrian Christians had ancestral villages (before being forcibly uprooted during a prior persecution).

Over the past 2,000 years, Iraq’s Christians suffered oppressions and great indignities. The ones who survived through the Hussein era, when dozens of their northern villages were obliterated, were reputed to be the die-hards: They hung on out of devotion to their unique churches, culture, and language (the dying Aramaic). Even now, Pascale Warda — a Chaldean women’s activist, a former cabinet minister in the transition government, and a survivor of four assassination attempts — is an exemplar of those who remain.

Apart from Christians, remnants of Iraq’s other non-Muslim communities are all rapidly shrinking into extinction: Jews number in the double digits (only seven remained in Baghdad as of last July); Mandeans count about 5,000 (the Patriarch of these followers of John the Baptist has recently counseled the community to leave); Yizidis, no more than 500,000 (residing in Nineveh and in the north). They all suffer severe persecution because of their religious status and their numbers continually shrink as their members flee into exile.

Archbishop Rahho was a dynamic leader, and a man of great hope. Despite the odds, he founded the new parish of St. Paul in Mosul, started a “Youth Week” in his diocese, and founded the Fraternity of Charity and Joy, with the aim of assisting sick people and guaranteeing them a dignified life. Anglican canon Andrew White, who works to help Iraqi Christians, eloquently expressed the reaction of that community to the murder of the archbishop: “We are devastated.” Condolences have poured in from around the world, from Christians and non-Christians. It feels like a defining moment.

The Bush administration has yet to acknowledge that the Christians and other defenseless minorities are persecuted for reasons of religion. No policies exist to address their specific needs in Iraq or facilitate their finding refuge abroad. No programs exist to train and support them to police their own villages — more critical than ever now that the military surge has flushed terror northward. No checks are in place to ensure that their villages in Nineveh and elsewhere in the north share equitably in U.S. largesse. No senior administration official has ever even met to hear the views of their American leaders as a group and forge solutions.

The archbishop knew the risks of staying but told his flock that he “wanted to remain in Iraq until the end.” Without urgent administration action, the end may well be near.

Saddam's Terrorist Ties Coming to Light

From yesterday's New York Sun:

Report Details Saddam's Terrorist Ties

BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
March 14, 2008

WASHINGTON — A Pentagon review of about 600,000 documents captured in the Iraq war attests to Saddam Hussein's willingness to use terrorism to target Americans and work closely with jihadist organizations throughout the Middle East.

The report, released this week by the Institute for Defense Analyses, says it found no "smoking gun" linking Iraq operationally to Al Qaeda. But it does say Saddam collaborated with known Al Qaeda affiliates and a wider constellation of Islamist terror groups.

The report, titled "Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents," finds that:

• The Iraqi Intelligence Service in a 1993 memo to Saddam agreed on a plan to train commandos from Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the group that assassinated Anwar Sadat and was founded by Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

• In the same year, Saddam ordered his intelligence service to "form a group to start hunting Americans present on Arab soil; especially Somalia." At the time, Al Qaeda was working with warlords against American forces there.

• Saddam's intelligence services maintained extensive support networks for a wide range of Palestinian Arab terrorist organizations, including but not limited to Hamas. Among the other Palestinian groups Saddam supported at the time was Force 17, the private army loyal to Yasser Arafat.

• Beginning in 1999, Iraq's intelligence service began providing "financial and moral support" for a small radical Islamist Kurdish sect the report does not name. A Kurdish Islamist group called Ansar al Islam in 2002 would try to assassinate the regional prime minister in the eastern Kurdish region, Barham Salih.

• In 2001, Saddam's intelligence service drafted a manual titled "Lessons in Secret Organization and Jihad Work—How to Organ ize and Overthrow the Saudi Royal Family." In the same year, his intelligence service submitted names of 10 volunteer "martyrs" for operations inside the Kingdom.

• In 2000, Iraq sent a suicide bomber through Northern Iraq who intended to travel to London to assassinate Ahmad Chalabi, at the time an Iraqi opposition leader who would later go on to be an Iraqi deputy prime minister. The mission was aborted after the bomber could not obtain a visa to enter the United Kingdom.

The report finds that Abdul Rahman Yasin, who is wanted by the FBI for mixing the chemicals for the 1993 World Center Attack, was a prisoner, and not a guest, in Iraq. An audio file of Saddam cited by the report indicates that the Iraqi dictator did not trust him and at one point said that he thought his testimony was too "organized." Saddam said on an audio file cited by the report that he suspected that the first attack could be the work of either Israel or American intelligence, or perhaps a Saudi or Egyptian faction.

The report also undercuts the claim made by many on the left and many at the CIA that Saddam, as a national socialist, was incapable of supporting or collaborating with the Islamist al Qaeda. The report concludes that instead Iraq's relationship with Osama bin Laden's organization was similar to the relationship between the rival Colombian cocaine cartels in the 1990s. Both were rivals in some sense for market share, but also allies when it came to expanding the size of the overall market.

The Pentagon study finds, "Recognizing Iraq as a second, or parallel, 'terror cartel' that was simultaneously threatened by and somewhat aligned with its rival helps to explain the evidence emerging from the detritus of Saddam's regime."

A long time skeptic of the connection between al Qaeda and Iraq and a former CIA senior Iraq analyst, Judith Yaphe yesterday said, "I think the report indicates that Saddam was willing to work with almost any group be it nationalist or Islamic, that was willing to work for his objectives. But in the long term he did not trust many of the Islamist groups, especially those linked to Saudi Arabia or Iran." She added, "He really did want to get anti-American operations going. The fact that they had little success shows in part their incompetence and unwilling surrogates."

A former Bush administration official who was a member of the counter-terrorism evaluation group that analyzed terror networks and links between terrorists and states, David Wurmser, said he felt the report began to vindicate his point of view.

"This is the beginning of the process of exposing Saddam's involvement in Islamic terror. But it is only the beginning. Time and declassification I'm sure will reveal yet more," he said. "Even so, this report is damning to those who doubted Saddam Hussein's involvement with Jihadist terrorist groups. It devastates one of the central myths plaguing our government prior to 9-11, that a Jihadist group would not cooperate with a secular regime and vice versa."

The report concludes that Saddam until the final months of his regime was willing to attack America. Its conclusion asks "Is there anything in the captured archives to indicate that Saddam had the will to use his terrorist capabilities directly against the United States?" It goes on, "Judging from Saddam's statements before the 1991 Gulf War with the United States, the answer is yes." As for after the Gulf War, the report states, "The rise of Islamist fundamentalism in the region gave Saddam the opportunity to make terrorism, one of the few tools remaining in Saddam's 'coercion' tool box." It goes on, "Evidence that was uncovered and analyzed attests to the existence of a terrorist capability and a willingness to use it until the day Saddam was forced to flee Baghdad by Coalition forces." The report does note that it is unclear whether Saddam would have authorized terrorism against American targets in the final months of his regime before Operation Iraqi Freedom five years ago. "The answer to the question of Saddam's will in the final months in power remains elusive," it says.

FBI Gets Edges Worn Off

FBI boosts training in Islamic 'sensitivity'

Weeks added to required 'enrichment' program:
'We all need to learn and understand each other'

Posted: March 06, 20087:33 pm Eastern© 2008 WorldNetDaily

The FBI believes its agents still aren't sensitive enough to Muslims and their culture, so the bureau has extended by "a few weeks" its Islamic cultural "enrichment" training program, WND has learned.

During a recent outreach event at a Washington-area mosque, FBI officials also reassured a large turnout of concerned Muslims that the bureau is not profiling Arabs and Muslims for terrorism, and has made investigating alleged "hate crimes" against them and other minorities "the second-highest priority in the criminal division of the FBI."

Among the officials who attended the Feb. 8 "town hall meeting" at the large ADAMS Center mosque were Timothy Healy, deputy assistant director for FBI intelligence, and Dave Bennett, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Washington field office.

The officials said terrorism is "not a new phenomenon" limited to Muslims, and they cited abortion-clinic bomber Eric Rudolph as an example of a Christian terrorist.

While they said they are concerned about the threat from "homegrown terror" perpetuated by second-generation Muslim immigrants, the officials assured the Muslim audience they are no more concerned about such homegrown attacks than they are "about bank robberies," and are not targeting the Muslim community for special surveillance.

One official offered that FBI headquarters has extended the bureau's Arabic curriculum, which includes Muslim culture, by "a few weeks" to expose agents to Islam and cultivate a better understanding of the faith.

"We all need to learn and understand each other," he said, adding that the Muslim sensitivity program is part of basic training for agents.

"One of the things that the FBI believes in is diversity," he said. "Diversity is important."

To that end, he says the bureau is "under a hiring push this year" and is heavily recruiting Muslim agents. The FBI wants to hire 900 FBI agents and 2,000 professional support staff, including Arabic translators, by Sept. 30.

"One of the things that we are critically seeking are special agents and support staff who are Arabic speakers," he announced to the audience at the ADAMS mosque, which was founded and funded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and has been one of the top distributors of Wahhabist anti-Semitic and anti-Christian dogma.

"We also need folks who, candidly, are familiar with Islam," the official said. "We're learning, many of us. And I've had many conversations with Muslims, and I've learned quite a bit. I'm a Roman Catholic, and there are so many similarities I have learned between Islam and Christianity that was a surprise to me."

ADAMS Center is not the only Muslim Brotherhood-tied organization where the FBI has recruited agents. In September, it also set up a recruitment booth at the annual Islamic Society of North America convention. Just four months earlier, federal prosecutors named ISNA as an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terror fundraising case, and listed it as a member of the U.S. branch of the radical Brotherhood.

What's more, the agency is advertising for agents in ISNA's magazine "Islamic Horizons," as well as on the website of the Saudi-backed Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, which has supported Hamas and other known terrorists.

Last November, Lebanese former FBI agent Nada Prouty was arrested and pleaded guilty to charges in connection with a Hezbollah espionage investigation.

As WND first reported, the FBI summarily rejected some 90 Jewish Arabic speakers who after 9/11 applied to become translators and language specialists at the FBI's New York field office.
As WND also first reported in 2003, national Arab-American and Muslim leaders have made presentations at an FBI training course on civil rights at the Washington offices of the FBI, and at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Va., as part of "Enrichment Training Sessions" for new special agents there.

In addition, the imam of a large Manhattan mosque has lectured veteran counterterrorism investigators at the FBI's New York field office about misinterpretation of the meaning of jihad in the Quran, the Muslim holy book.

The sensitivity training program, denounced by some active and former agents, was mandated after the 9/11 attacks by FBI Director Robert Mueller.

FBI headquarters defends the program as a way to reach out to the Muslim community in America.

"I hate the word 'sensitivity' training," said FBI spokesman Ed Cogswell. "I would call it an awareness training relative to cultural issues."

Mueller has met several times with Arab and Muslim groups since 9/11. He even agreed to be the keynote speaker at the American Muslim Council conference in Washington – a move that drew fire from AMC critics, who note the group has sung the praises of Islamic terrorist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, and was headed by al-Qaida fundraiser Abdurahman Alamoudi, now serving time in federal prison on terror charges.

"Mueller should lead the FBI in this war, and leave the sensitivity sessions to the human resources department or CNN," complained retired FBI special agent Don Lavey, who served 20 years in the bureau's counterterrorism unit.

"Let's just hope the director is leading the charge in this war against terrorism with an equal amount of zeal that he shows for cultural sensitivities," added Lavey, who claims Mueller is so politically correct he refuses to use "Islamic" and "terrorism" in the same sentence.

You Just Might Be Moving Out of Manoogian Mansion …

...if the City Council votes on a resolution calling on you to resign, even if it doesn’t pass the first time.

...if the Council of Baptist Pastors entertains a resolution of “no confidence,” even if it doesn’t pass the first time--(due to administration arm-twisting by the Mayor's "religious affairs adviser").

...if State Rep Andy Dillon, the House leader of your own party--the House you used to hold office in--says you may have to resign.

...if Dave Bing and other major business leaders in the city tell you you have lost credibility.

...if your own favored Chief of Police, who has proved her past loyalty to you by cooperating to sell out three of her own police officers, interfering in a murder investigation, and reassigning detectives to obstruct a case--all just to protect you--finally balks at showing up for a press conference your office called to feed more lies to reporters, TV cameras, and the public challenging the reality of growing evidence of the strippers, the Manoogian party, and the assault on Tamara Green.

...if the National Conference of Black Mayors, which historically has been extremely tolerant of hijinx among the brothers, changes its convention location at the last minute from Detroit to New Orleans, because "We just did not want that environment to interfere with our objectives”: in other words, the environment in post-Katrina New Orleans is less of a disaster area than the environment in post-Kwame Detroit.

...if the city’s Marxist/LGBT alternative entertainment newspaper—the one that is known for its pervert personals and the columns of ads from call-girl services—actually speaks DOWN to you when they run a cover page demanding you “Just Go."

...if (speaking of call girls), people are urging you to take disgraced Governor Spitzer, who just resigned quickly after getting busted consorting with a call girl and for unlawful money transactions, as an example you need to live UP to. And Spitzer didn’t even have his sex worker whacked and then try to cover it up!

...if 85% of respondents to a survey asking for responses to your State of the City address say they can’t believe anything you have to say.

...if Carmen Harlan, a straight-down-the line and respected news anchor who also happens to be black, has to straighten you out that you’re not the victim of a media “lynch mob mentality.”

...if the city’s most popular black radio talk show is taking call after call every morning for weeks from angry black Detroit voters asking, “How stupid does he think we are?”

...if you have no better defense to the rising tide of evidence of your corruption than to play the race, media, and God cards to a self-chosen peanut-gallery at your State of the City address.

'A Man Needs an Education These Days, If He Ever Hopes to Blow Up Some Jews'

Speaking of high-tech terrorists, the Free Press ran some comments Talal Chahine, the fugitive owner of the extinct La Shish restaurant chain, made in 2006. He made his comments from his Lebanese fastness, in answer to federal prosecutors claiming he has links with Hezbollah. (“Chahine's response to Hizballah claims”).

Chahine denies supporting terrorism, of course. He was only participating in a fundraiser for al- Mabarrat, to help out the orphans. (The orphans of suicide terrorists, that is). But Chahine doesn’t seem to believe there is much terrorism out there, anyway. It's exaggerated, like Communism during the Cold War.

"The war on terror is becoming the modern-day equivalent of McCarthyism. I strongly believe that the war against terrorism will not be won with a bullet, bomb or missile but by somehow giving hope to those people in the world who are without hope, and this can only be achieved by better communication and education."

We hear this a lot. Impoverished Msulims from throughout the Middle East, Africa, and sout Asia leave home and trek to Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iraq to blow themselves up in an act of depseration over their living conditions back home. Cure poverty, and you'll cure terrorism, it's said.

Yet it keeps turning out that better communication, education, and literacy don't seem to be quieting things down.

Chahine may not have heard, for instance, about Al Qaeda’s al-Sahab production company, the one that’s garnered such impressive notice from AP writer Kathy Gannon. (“AP Writer Bullish on Al Qaeda”).

It’s not poor people without hope or education joining up at all, (it never really was), but computer-savvy PhDs and professors. And as for better communication, that’s exactly how Al Qaeda’s winning recruits over--with slick videos.

Instead of using all this literacy and education and high-quality communication to win the war against terrorism, terrorists are using all these tools to recruit even more fighters to win their war against the West.

AP Writer Bullish on Al Qaeda

The Associated Press’s Kathy Gannon has written a rave review of Al Qaeda’s efforts to “go modern” in its recruitment and technology campaign. (“Al Qaeda courting tech-savvy geeks/Flashy productions help in recruiting”):

In the Internet age, Al Qaeda prizes geeks committed to jihad as much as would-be suicide bombers and gunmen.

The terrorist network is recruiting computer-savvy technicians to produce sophisticated Web documentaries and multimedia products aimed at Muslim audiences in the United States, Britain and other Western countries.

Ms. Gannon has been covering Pakistan and Afghanistan since 1988, and presently lives in Pakistan with her husband and daughter. According to her bio, she “was in Kabul when the Taliban regime took power in 1996 and was the only western journalist allowed to return to Kabul by the Taliban, three weeks before their collapse in November 2001.”

Being married to a Pakistani and pals with the Taliban doesn’t make her biased. But in an excerpt from her 2005 book, “I Is for Infidel,” she had this to say:

The West has to own up to the mistakes it has made such as with Abu Ghraib and the torture in Afghan prisons, in the errant attacks on civilians and in its disregard for the basic precept of a civilized legal system, which maintains that an accused person is innocent until proven guilty.

The nature of the torture at Abu Ghraib reflected the West's perception of Muslims, hence the women soldiers who seemed to take such delight in the outrages and the especially humiliating use of dogs - considered abhorrent to Muslims - and the practice of making prisoners perform demeaning sexual acts. The torture was based on a phobic perception of Islam. Had Saddam Hussein's soldiers carried out these abuses on American soldiers, the outrage would have been global and the retribution violent. But because it was American and British soldiers who committed the torture, the blame was attached only to a few, to soldiers we were told were an aberration.

So clearly no bias there.

Still, what really caught my attention in this small AP story in the Detroit Free Press was Ms. Gannon’s gee-whiz coverage of Al Qaeda’s modernizing strategy. Ms. Gannon writes about Al Qaeda’s high-tech call for suicide bombers like a Fortune editor going oogly-googly over a new hot startup with a green product and an uptrending youth share.

The terrorist network is recruiting computer-savvy technicians to produce sophisticated Web documentaries and multimedia products aimed at Muslim audiences in the United States, Britain and other Western countries.

Already, the movement's al-Sahab production company is turning out high-quality material. The documentaries appear regularly on Islamist Web sites, which Al Qaeda uses to recruit followers and rally supporters.

That requires people whose skills go beyond planting bombs and ambushing U.S. patrols in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The Al Qaeda men who are coming today are not farmers, illiterate people," said Qari Mohammed Yusuf, an Afghan who claims to be an al-Sahab cameraman. "They are PhDs, professors who know about this technology. ... Al Qaeda has asked them to come."

Try an experiment and substitute the phrase, “the auto supplier” or the “software developer” every place Ms. Gannon mentions “Al Qaeda” or “the terrorist network” or “the movement.” She does everything but include quotes from Wall Street money managers geeked on the terrorist video market, or comments from IT grads from Lawrence seriously weighing AQ’s competetive health plan and onsite day-care. You won't see one syllable consciously critical of Al Qaeda’s determined purpose to kill more people than ever. Ms. Gannon's too impressed with how slick and savvy these murderers' production values are getting.

A speech by deputy Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri issued to mark last year's 9/11 anniversary included U.S. television interviews with wounded soldiers, CIA analysts and talking-head journalists and experts, excerpts from a news conference with President George W. Bush, audiotape of Malcolm X and World War II footage -- all edited in to back al-Zawahri's case that the United States is losing the war on terrorism.

Internet use enables Al Qaeda to reach a broad audience within the worldwide Muslim community, rather than having to rely on Arabic-language satellite stations, whose audiences are limited to the Middle East and who exercise editorial control.

"What is really amazing to me is watching how would-be terrorists living in the West are drawn in and captivated by al-Sahab videos," said Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism consultant for Globalterroralert.com.

Gee! Golly! Western marketers can really learn a lesson from the way would-be terrorists are drawn in, captivated, and then launched out on an unsuspecting world to go Allah-BOOOM! Or, as the technicians term it, being de-captivated.

And I'll bet those stupid Americans will try everything in their corrupt national-security toolbox to compete. But Al Qaeda's shrewd managers even cover that.

Al Qaeda technicians have become skilled at evading U.S. detection techniques. Katz said they often use proxy servers to disguise the point of origin. Documentaries are sent in multiple files to improve security.

"The al-Sahab people know and study technology, the latest law enforcement techniques," Katz said.

Yusuf said Al Qaeda maintains its own cyberspace library, storing material in a secret server or servers so al-Sahab members do not have to keep incriminating material on laptops.

"There is a plan to make al-Sahab very big," Yusuf said. "It is part of the strategy. There are two parts. One is the fighting and the other part of the war is the media. We should carry out the media war because it inspires our people to come and fight."

Ms. Gannon’s is a member of the media. And she's doing her part.

Question Consensus

“Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.” -- Michael Crichton

Apparently many of the scientists attending the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, just concluded in New York City, decided to take seriously all those “Question Authority” bumper stickers they noticed when sightseeing near Columbia University.

American Thinker contributor, Marc Sheppard attended the conference, and writes a lengthy piece about it. He happily reports that “the struggle against the ravages of warming alarmism is not only alive, but healthier than ever”:

Granting a long overdue forum to noted dissenting scientists, economists and policy experts from around the world, the Heartland Institute-sponsored symposium at the Marriott Marquis offered welcomed reasoned analysis as alternative to last December's hysterical circus which was Bali. It also served as the perfect launch point for a long-awaited un-IPCC report -- Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate: Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change [PDF].

Sheppard’s thorough article, “NY Climate Conference: Journey to the Center of Warming Sanity,” can be seen here.

Rally for Gaza Attracts Little Notice

Protesters at one of Dearborn’s less impressive anti-Israel demonstrations were sending unclear messages Tuesday night, from what I can gather in an article on the event in yesterday’s Detroit News. (“Rally protests Gaza violence”). The protestors, numbered to be “dozens,” were “decrying a recent Israeli military offensive that has killed more than 100 Palestinians in Gaza.”

The demonstration was organized by we couldn’t learn whom from the News account; the whole thing sounded like a jumble of Jewish peace activists, confused students, and Palestinians repeating the usual stuff about “occupation.” Protesters were chanting, “No justice, no peace™,” an expression now the practical equivalent of beach bums yelling “Surf’s up!,” or, better yet, directors barking “action!” to signal when cameras should start to roll. In this case, I don't think anyone bothered to bring a camera.

And speaking of incoherence, “participants toted child-like dolls and raised signs that bore messages such as ‘We refuse to be enemies,’ ‘Occupation = Devastation’ and ‘Wake up to the Holocaust in Gaza!’”

Then Hasan Newash, director of the Palestine Office-Michigan, told the crowd the deaths of men women and children are "abominable." Says Newash: "We demand justice." Which, as we all know, means, "we will keep using our grievances as an excuse for wanton killing of Israelis."

As often happens with these short articles, there is limited space to report details fully, which is probably why the story nowhere mentions the point of the Israeli offensive. Israel is destroying the Hamas criminals who orchestrate Gazans to launch Kassam rockets into populated Israeli areas. And the Kassam rockets, we are given to understand, don’t bear chalked-on slogans declaring “We refuse to be enemies.”

Nor is there mention why the deaths of Palestinian civilians should be credited to Palestinian militants, rather than on the Israeli Defense Forces, when, as reiterated by an Israeli spokesman, the militants “hide behind their own civilians, using them as human shields, while actively targeting Israeli population centre. They bear the responsibility for the results.”

So Newash demands justice, (or else no peace); but then for some of Newash's fellow demonstrators, “the overriding concern was peace”?

Which is it?

‘Round-Up in Aisle 3’

Wal-Mart has just opened a new Dearborn store on Ford Road that, in addition to its ordinary fare, stocks in its ethnic aisle 3 items targeted at Hispanic, African-American, and Islamic shoppers, including a “a range of products from the Middle East and other areas includes a large variety of olives, halal meats, Lebanese spices, Greek olive oil, date-filled cookies from Saudi Arabia, chewing gum from Jordan, Turkish candies, frozen okra, Lebanese-style yogurt and Bulgarian feta cheese.” (“ETHNIC WAL-MART IN DEARBORN”).

From a newspaper account of Wednesday’s opening, (“New Wal-Mart draws crowd”), many in Dearborn’s Middle Eastern community seems quite happy about the opening. Rather than travel from store to store gathering ingredients, they can do it all in one place.

All the more reason for them to be wary, I’d say, in view of Senator Obama’s dark warning about the routine “rounding up” of Arab American families in America.

If Barack is telling the truth (need one even ask?), hadn’t Dearborn’s Muslims ought to be cautious that the new Wal-Mart isn’t just a ruse to lure them into a “one-stop” shopping trip that ends up being a “last-stop” trip to a convenient gathering place for easy “round-up,” thence to disappear into the American gulag?

I’m just asking. One of our correspondents checked out opening day, and he swears he saw two guys in leather trench coats, homburgs, and flag lapel pins lingering suspiciously near the pomegranates.

Worshippers of Death

By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ
The Wall Street Journal
March 3, 2008; Page A17

Zahra Maladan is an educated woman who edits a women's magazine in Lebanon. She is also a mother, who undoubtedly loves her son. She has ambitions for him, but they are different from those of most mothers in the West. She wants her son to become a suicide bomber.

At the recent funeral for the assassinated Hezbollah terrorist Imad Moughnaya -- the mass murderer responsible for killing 241 marines in 1983 and more than 100 women, children and men in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994 -- Ms. Maladan was quoted in the New York Times giving the following warning to her son: "if you're not going to follow the steps of the Islamic resistance martyrs, then I don't want you."

Zahra Maladan represents a dramatic shift in the way we must fight to protect our citizens against enemies who are sworn to kill them by killing themselves. The traditional paradigm was that mothers who love their children want them to live in peace, marry and produce grandchildren. Women in general, and mothers in particular, were seen as a counterweight to male belligerence. The picture of the mother weeping as her son is led off to battle -- even a just battle -- has been a constant and powerful image.

Now there is a new image of mothers urging their children to die, and then celebrating the martyrdom of their suicidal sons and daughters by distributing sweets and singing wedding songs. More and more young women -- some married with infant children -- are strapping bombs to their (sometimes pregnant) bellies, because they have been taught to love death rather than life. Look at what is being preached by some influential Islamic leaders:

"We are going to win, because they love life and we love death," said Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah. He has also said: "[E]ach of us lives his days and nights hoping more than anything to be killed for the sake of Allah." Shortly after 9/11, Osama bin Laden told a reporter: "We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us."

"The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death," explained Afghani al Qaeda operative Maulana Inyadullah. Sheik Feiz Mohammed, leader of the Global Islamic Youth Center in Sydney, Australia, preached: "We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid." Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech: "It is the zenith of honor for a man, a young person, boy or girl, to be prepared to sacrifice his life in order to serve the interests of his nation and his religion."

How should Western democracies fight against an enemy whose leaders preach a preference for death?

The two basic premises of conventional warfare have long been that soldiers and civilians prefer living to dying and can thus be deterred from killing by the fear of being killed; and that combatants (soldiers) can easily be distinguished from noncombatants (women, children, the elderly, the infirm and other ordinary citizens). These premises are being challenged by women like Zahra Maladan. Neither she nor her son -- if he listens to his mother -- can be deterred from killing by the fear of being killed. They must be prevented from succeeding in their ghoulish quest for martyrdom. Prevention, however, carries a high risk of error. The woman walking toward the group of soldiers or civilians might well be an innocent civilian. A moment's hesitation may cost innocent lives. But a failure to hesitate may also have a price.

Late last month, a young female bomber was shot as she approached some shops in central Baghdad. The Iraqi soldier who drew his gun hesitated as the bomber, hands raised, insisted that she wasn't armed. The soldier and a shop owner finally opened fire as she dashed for the stores; she was knocked to the ground but still managed to detonate the bomb, killing three and wounding eight. Had the soldier and other bystanders not called out a warning to others -- and had they not shot her before she could enter the shops -- the death toll certainly would have been higher. Had he not hesitated, it might have been lower.

As more women and children are recruited by their mothers and their religious leaders to become suicide bombers, more women and children will be shot at -- some mistakenly. That too is part of the grand plan of our enemies. They want us to kill their civilians, who they also consider martyrs, because when we accidentally kill a civilian, they win in the court of public opinion. One Western diplomat called this the "harsh arithmetic of pain," whereby civilian casualties on both sides "play in their favor." Democracies lose, both politically and emotionally, when they kill civilians, even inadvertently. As Golda Meir once put it: "We can perhaps someday forgive you for killing our children, but we cannot forgive you for making us kill your children."

Civilian casualties also increase when terrorists operate from within civilian enclaves and hide behind human shields. This relatively new phenomenon undercuts the second basic premise of conventional warfare: Combatants can easily be distinguished from noncombatants. Has Zahra Maladan become a combatant by urging her son to blow himself up? Have the religious leaders who preach a culture of death lost their status as noncombatants? What about "civilians" who willingly allow themselves to be used as human shields? Or their homes as launching pads for terrorist rockets?

The traditional sharp distinction between soldiers in uniform and civilians in nonmilitary garb has given way to a continuum. At the more civilian end are babies and true noncombatants; at the more military end are the religious leaders who incite mass murder; in the middle are ordinary citizens who facilitate, finance or encourage terrorism. There are no hard and fast lines of demarcation, and mistakes are inevitable -- as the terrorists well understand.

We need new rules, strategies and tactics to deal effectively and fairly with these dangerous new realities. We cannot simply wait until the son of Zahra Maladan -- and the sons and daughters of hundreds of others like her -- decide to follow his mother's demand. We must stop them before they export their sick and dangerous culture of death to our shores.

Mr. Dershowitz teaches law at Harvard University and is the author of "Finding Jefferson" (Wiley, 2007).

Arab-American Roundups?

One of our regular criticisms here at DU is directed to Islamic spokesmen who repeat the grossly unfair calumny that the Arab-American community in the United States is “under siege,” and that Dearborn’s Muslims live in constant fear of being arbitrarily set upon by law enforcement and disappeared into a limbo empty of legal protections.

Dawud Walid, of CAIR-Michigan, is one of the worst offenders: “Our community has been under siege since 9/11,” he says. (See for example, “CAIR Exploits Dearborn Vandalism,” “Press & Guide-ADC Merger in the Works,” and "Siege, Or No Siege?"

As statements from Walid, and from Osama Siblani of the ADC, and articles in the Dearborn Press & Guide, the Detroit News, and Detroit Free Press constantly reinforce, since 9-11 Arab-Americans have been besieged by Islamophobic attacks and an escalating “surge” of “hate crimes”--except they haven’t.

The statements are all the more outrageous because they aren’t just a twisting of facts, or an exaggeration of facts, but a pure invention.

Then there have been the media's frenzy of made-up news stories about "domestic spying" programs, and "profiling" of suspected terrorists, "just for being Muslim."

It is closer to the truth that American law enforcement has prosecuted hardly any one for terrorism since 9/11, in view of the large number of activists in the country explicitly endorsing religious violence against the nation.

I live in Dearborn, and I'm here to say there are no concentration camps, no black mariahs, no boxcars on one-way rides.

Shame on anyone who insists there are.

As I wrote last January,

How prosaic and ineffective it feels to write, simply, that there is no “siege” against the Arab community in Dearborn, not since 9/11, nor ever. The very suggestion is an insult to every resident of the area, Arab, Muslim, or non-Muslim.

Now I see presidential candidate Barack Obama feels he can get some mileage out of repeating the same charge--carelessly, thoughtlessly, and without a shred of basis in any facts.

Lance Fairchok shares our frustration, and has written about it at American Thinker: “Obama: Arab-American Families Being Rounded Up?”):

In a televised twelve-second campaign spot aired in Texas, Senator Obama gives a stirring speech to a standing ovation. It is the predictable litany of American faults he will miraculously correct: literacy, expensive prescription drugs and insufficient civil liberties. However, he seems particularly concerned for Arab-Americans. "If there is an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney, it threatens my civil liberties."

This was an astonishing statement, an infuriating statement and a statement that speaks volumes to Obama's ideology.

Arab-American families being rounded up would not only threaten all our civil liberties, it would raise such a universal outcry, it could not long endure. Even the suggestion it could occur is a profound insult to our nation and our citizenry. It is an image of the gulag, the death camp, the dictatorship, and so inappropriate in any discussion about America, it is beneath our contempt.

This despicable image of innocent families imprisoned and the ethnic cleansing it suggests is a theme the radical left nurtures. It is by design intended to portray an unjust and intolerant people, it was no error, no misstatement. It elicits moral outrage with false assumptions, endlessly repeating those assumptions until believed. It is behind the exaggeration of everything the U.S. does in the war on terror or against Islamic extremism. It is behind the hysteria over the Patriot Act.

As divorced from truth as it is, it is found everywhere in the propaganda of the left, from the Bush-Hitler signs, to the fabrications of American military wrongdoing in the press, to the invented Islamophobia in our populace. It is the motivation behind Michael Moore, Code Pink, MoveOn.Org and George Soros. It is unfortunately the message the media aids and abets….

The bleak fantasy of Arab-American families interred for being Arabs and, of course, for being Muslim is very plausible to the radicals that help write his speeches. Senator Obama holds a wretched America in his heart, a country he has no pride in nor wishes to preserve. If his vision starts from failure, where will it end? There is no truth in his words, just as there is no substance. One may speak well, but still speak lies. An Obama presidency would be a disaster.

That part goes without saying. To think that such a person might actually be in the White House next January is sobering indeed.

Patrons to La Shish: 'Buh-Bye Ghannooj!'

Photo: KATHLEEN GALLIGAN

So Talal Chahine's customers really did resent the idea that part of the cost of a plate of hummus was going to fund Hezbollah. ("La Shish chain closes amid accusations against owner").

Right on cue, Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News in Dearborn, told the Detroit Free Press that "federal prosecutors drove La Shish out of business by recklessly accusing Chahine of supporting Hizballah." ("La Shish closes 11 metro eateries").

As has been discussed here, and elsewhere, on many occasions, Chahine's ties with Hezbollah are hardly in doubt.

The Free Press wants to say the chain's demise began in April 2005, when "Federal agents raid his homes in Plymouth Township and Dearborn Heights and La Shish's headquarters in Dearborn...[seizing] computers and financial records." As if Chahine was just minding his own business, and down come the Feds for nothing. There are plenty of reasons to give credence to federal prosecutors' charges that Chahine has "connections at the highest levels of ... Hezbollah."

We know who's fault it is, and why all those people are now out of work.

Chahine in 2002 in a place of honor beside Hezbollah spiritual leader Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, at a Hezbollah fundraiser in Lebanon.

The Divine Right of King(pin)s

‘L'Etat c'est moi’, said Louis XIV: (‘I am the state’).

'Detroit c'est moi," says Mayor Kwame (Kingpin) Kilpatrick: ('I'm not going anywhere.')

Thursday's Detroit News reported:

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said Thursday afternoon he won't resign from office in the wake of the recent text message scandal.

"This is what I was born to do," the mayor said after visiting a group of senior citizens during his first public appearance since the release of secret documents related to three police whistle-blower cases that cost $8.4 million. ("Kilpatrick says he won't resign").

He's not going anywhere, because being mayor is his birthright. Just like being king was Louis's birthright.

Just ask his mom. Kwame's that is, not Louis's. Congresswoman ("We will appeal no matter how much it costs the city.") Cheeks Kilpatrick,

Or his dad, Bernard Kilpatrick, who likened Kwame's critics during his re-election to Nazis perpetrating "a big lie in Europe" in order to kill all the Jews.

It's all about the history, folks.

And the religion, too.

Didn't Kwame tell us he's “God’s guy,” who feels with all his heart and soul that God “anointed” him to be mayor of Detroit?

And didn't he say that something “bad would happen” to him if he ever “walked away from this blessing”? ("Mayor Kilpatrick's Growing Troubles Only Strengthen His Faith").

Oh, and by the way, even without his divine right to rule, he doesn't owe anything to the Detroit voters, because he's blameless:

The mayor said he did nothing to mislead City Council or Detroit residents.

"There was no cover-up," Kilpatrick said.

His Honor also went on to explain that he has no need to pay back any of the $8.4M he's cost the city by not doing anything wrong, because:

"I pay it back every day," he said. "When I go out and do an economic stimulus package for hundreds of millions of dollars. When I go find a way to do a deal on the (Detroit-Windsor) tunnel for $75 million dollars. … I work every day to make sure the city gets what it's owed."

So let's try to understand this. When Kwame does the job he was elected to do (divinely elected, that is), in turn bringing economic benefits to the city, that money is actually his, from which he can deduct payments for his personal debts, like the $8.4M he cost the city in the whistleblower suit and cover-up.

In which case it must follow that if Mayor Kingpin had not wasted city resources by his extra-mayoral kanoodling, his retaliatory discharges of city cops, and his fruitless legal shenanigans to cover it all up--in other words, if he'd just been an honest an honorable mayor and done his job--then the city would owe him an extra $8.4M over and above what he's already being paid for the economic improvements he brought to the city.

But this isn't about whether or not Kwame did anything wrong, because he hardly ever has.

Except once:

"I stole a Marathon bar from a convenience store when I was 10 years old. I was caught by the person who got me. And my mother gave a spanking and I put the Marathon bar back. That is the only crime that I've ever committed." ("Council may ask mayor to quit").

Now Kilpatrick didn't mention that when his mother, Caroline Cheeks Kilpatrick, who was then Michigan House rep, “gave a spanking” in the wake of her son’s thwarted theft, it wasn’t Kwame at all, but the store clerk upon whom the future First Mother opened up a can of patented family-brand whoop-ass. According to police reports long since suppressed, Kwame’s mother repeatedly bashed the store clerk with heavily loaded Louis Vuitton handbag while screaming “Don’t nobody gonna talk about my boy! We in a fight! Yes I can! Praise the Lord!” --and other prophetic words foreshadowing the coming advent of her offspring as God's man for the City of Detroit.

Now so far DU been able to confirm reports that Kilpatrick strictly ordered officers on his Executive Protection Unit to use the radio codename, “Marathon bar” when referring to Christine Beatty, his chief of staff and frequent hotel companion,the codename being Mayor's good-natured jibe at Ms. Beatty's cuckolded husband (now ex-husband), Lou Beatty.

Mr. Beatty is (was) one of Mayor Kingpin's oldest high school friends, and also the man whose wife he stole, (or one of the men), much more cleverly this time, it should be noted, than when Kwame was ten, this time without getting “caught by the person who got me.”

As revealed in K&B’s text messages, Kwame is a strict constructionist when it comes to what constitutes being “officially busted.”

When Kingpin was bragging in text messages to Beatty how their previous night’s sonic-love-boom had to have been heard by bodyguards posted right outside the hotel-room door, Beatty expressed mild anxiety about the couple being found out:

CB: So we are officially busted! LOL

KK: LOL LOL! Damn that. Never busted. Busted is what you see! LOL. ...

CB: LOL, LOL. Damn, so they have to walk in before you conceed busted! LOL.

KK: Hell yeah. Walk in.

So as you can see, the Mayor is only being consistent in his moral point of view. "Officialy busted" is when someone walks in, it's what someone sees.

Someone walked in and saw when he swiped that candy bar all those years ago, thus making it the only crime he admits having committed. If the clerk hadn't spotted him, (and I'm sure now that poor clerk wishes he hadn't), the young Kingpin would have retained his claim to the title "never busted," and, ergo, taking the candy bar would have been only one more morally approved example of the divine privilege to which Kwame Kilpatrick was born.

Now I know some of you moral absolutists and mayor-bashers out there are going to stubbornly refuse to recognize any distinction between Kilpatrick's actions and either a) doing something wrong or b) committing a crime, such as perjury, to cover up a).

Haven't you ever taken a class in history? Don't you people have any Bibles?

Geez.

Toledo: No to Marines, Yes to Muslim Brotherhood

Here’s another one of those fun coincidences we all enjoy.

Toledo, our neighbor to the south, just made news a couple weeks ago for its mayor’s blockheaded refusal to allow U.S. Marines their previously planned and approved urban training operation in a small portion of downtown Toledo, (which, by the way, is already deserted on weekends), because the Marines “frighten people.” (“Democratic Mayors: Semper Foolish?”).

Then we learn from Patrick Poole at Central Ohioans Against Terror that the Muslim Brotherhood--who really should frighten people, in our opinion--just held a conference at the University of Toledo. (“The Muslim Brotherhood's "Grand Jihad" in Toledo”).

Maybe the Inkhwan were the people Mayor Finkbeiner was concerned would have been frightened by the U.S. Marines--if they'd been allowed into town. Poole writes:

It might only be the shores of Lake Erie, but the Muslim Brotherhood has established an invasion beachhead in Toledo. The most recent landing by the international Islamic extremist organization was last weekend when the Muslim American Society (MAS) – the ideological arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the US, identified as such by the Department of Justice in a court filing back in December – held a conference at the University of Toledo. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the Department of Homeland Security recently added Toledo to the list of high-risk terrorism areas.

Among the speakers were national MAS leaders Esam Omeish and Mahdi Bray, respectively the MAS president and head of their Virginia Commission on Immigration just weeks after his appointment. According to a September 28, 2007 article in the Washington Post, Omeish was forced out when a video surfaced of Omeish preaching holy war against Israel at a December 22, 2000 Jerusalem Day rally in Washington DC, where he said:

“...you have learned the way, that you have known that the jihad way is the way to liberate your land...and we shall do everything we can to help your cause.”

Here’s the video with Omeish’s remarks (the full speech video is here; all videos courtesy of the Investigative Project)

Please read the rest of this article here.

Nor did the Toledo conference lack a local connection, as our own Dawud Walid was there, making some thoughtful remarks about blacks and Islam on behalf of CAIR. He was reported by the Toledo Blade to have said:

the history lesson about how Islam spread among blacks is tied to the "slavery psyche."

Dehumanization and discrimination had a negative impact on the black psyche, he said. Some blacks joined the Muslim movement as a protest of white supremacy in America, Mr. Walid said, and some joined in an effort to carve new identities for themselves. (“Muslims’ roots in America branch out; speakers at UT event talk of positive change”).

That's as may be. But by my logic, Dawud is staying that blacks in America who embraced Islam do so in reaction to having been beaten down and dehumanized by slavery and discrimination--in other words, the "slavery psyche" lends itself to Islam.

A statement with which, come to think of it, I completely agree.