Communication is a Trade

Oct 28, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Islam in Action: Washington’s Favorite Moslem Tied to Bin Laden, Al Qaeda

Oct 27, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

"On Wednesday, NBC News reported on a man who helped the Pentagon develop the Islamic chaplains program for the U.S. armed forces, a man who was later stopped with hundreds of thousands of dollars in his possession -- and some serious questions about his background. Now there is more, and if federal prosecutors are right, this is a man who moved from the shadowy world of terrorism to the centers of power in Washington and back again."

Comments the Concord Crier:

This suggests, as I've long suspected, that jihadis have infiltrated the highest levels of government, as the Reds had, because there is real philosophical acceptance of the tenets of Islam among the Washington types -- and I believe they may be more deeply entrenched and higher up than this man, who founded the U.S. military's Moslem program.

Fanatics

Oct 27, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Congratulations for Florida's Marlins!

Russia’s True Colors?

Oct 27, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

In the recent presidential election in Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov won with 81% of the vote, despite being so despised by the electorate that his own press secretary admitted that in free voting his man would receive no more than 5%. Fortunately for the Kremlin-backed gangster, the election was not free. The Chechens, Seth Mydans reported in the New York Times, were told, "You must vote for Kadyrov or there will be a mopping-up operation and you will lose all your young people."

...In [an] interview... Mr. Kadyrov said that "A dictator is needed here, in the literal sense of the word." He then went on to praise the NKVD and describe a pacification scheme he would implement were he in power, modeled on the NKVD's midnight visits....

This war is being waged not against terrorists but against civilians.... "The activities that the antiterrorist operation has sought to eradicate--violent hostage-taking, slavery, ransoms for 'live' goods--are now being performed by the new masters, the soldiers."

The atrocities Ms. Politkovskaya documents--routinized slave trading by Federal soldiers, filtration camps where ordinary Chechens are held in pits and tortured until their relatives can pay ransom, deliberate infliction of mass starvation on the population, the destruction of medical equipment at children's hospitals--are entirely comparable to those committed in Bosnia. Not only is there no accountability for soldiers who routinely massacre civilians; they are actively encouraged and given special commendations. Chechens may be rousted from their sleep and made to crawl on all fours for hours while being spat on and beaten by troops of the Ministry of the Interior.

Ford Foundation Funds Hate

Oct 26, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

In May and June of this year, USAID informed American tax-exempt charities it funds that if they partnered with any Palestinian NGOs [Non-Governmental Organizations], those NGOs would be required to sign a Certification Regarding Terrorist Financing. The certification pledges that no funds have made or will make their way into organizations to "advocate or support terrorist activities."

The Palestine NGO Network, or PNGO, an umbrella group of 90 Palestinian organizations that is funded in part by the Ford Foundation, was outraged. On July 12, PNGO published a statement declaring: "Some donor agencies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are setting unacceptable conditions for providing financial support to Palestinian NGOs. Such conditions include a pledge titled 'Certification Regarding Terrorist Financing'..."

PNGO program coordinator Renad Qubaj complained in a telephone interview, "Who defines what is terror? All funds received by the NGOs should be unconditioned--no political conditions."

Another Palestinian NGO railing against the terrorist certification was the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, which has received three Ford Foundation grants totaling $350,000, according to foundation records. In late August, Al Mezan's director was quoted in the Arabic press as stating: "There is no legal basis for this document. This document should be boycotted, including the local authorities, political parties, and universities. These institutions should reject this document completely, as it puts them in great danger. We should publicize a list of any institutions that agree to the conditions in the document."

...PNGO steering committee member Allam Jarrar said that although many of the umbrella group's members depend upon USAID for funds, PNGO itself gets much of its money from Ford, and "Ford does not make us sign this agreement. For us, Ford is a very credible organization."

Abetting Civilization’s Enemies

Oct 26, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Rowan Williams, the leader of the Church of England, recently declared that al-Qaeda terrorists may have "desirable" and "serious moral goals." Given that al-Qaeda's goals are the destruction of Western Civilization and the establishment of Islamic theocracies around the globe, Mr. Williams belief amounts to a moral sanction of evil. Someone should remind Mr. Williams that were al-Qaeda to succeed, all freedom (including the freedom of religion) would cease to exist (as would the Church of England). Mr. Williams belief is a glaring example of the moral bankruptcy of many intellectual leaders in the West--and of how they are abetting civilization's enemies.

Still In Denial over Islam

Oct 25, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Interesting item from the London Evening Standard last week:

"Evidence has emerged linking Washington sniper John Allen Muhammad with an Islamic terror group. Muhammad has been connected to Al Fuqra, a cult devoted to spiritual purification through violence. The group has been linked to British shoe bomber Richard Reid and the murderers of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan last year."

Hmm. Might be nothing. Might be just another coincidence. Lot of them around at the moment -- like that Saudi Cabinet minister who coincidentally stayed in the same hotel on the night of Sept. 10 as some of the 9/11 terrorists. Just one of those things. But the authorities seem to be taking the links more seriously than when they first surfaced a year ago.

Here's another coincidence: The guy who heads up the organization that certifies Muslim chaplains for the U.S. military was arrested at Dulles Airport last month and charged with illegally accepting money from Libya. The month before that, Abdurahman Alamoudi was caught by the British trying to smuggle some $340,000 into Syria.

As usual, it's worth reading the whole article.

Slavery: Then and Now

Oct 25, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

There are more slaves today than were seized from Africa in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The modern commerce in humans rivals illegal drug trafficking in its global reach--and in the destruction of lives.

Weapons Grade

Oct 23, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

AP reports today: Iran Turns Over Nuclear Documents to U.N.

Iran on Thursday turned over to the U.N. nuclear agency documents on its past atomic energy activities, but the dossier apparently did not include the origin of traces of weapons-grade uranium found in the country.

Murdering Babies in North Korea

Oct 23, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

More gruesome details at the UK Telegraph

To Know or Not To Know

Oct 23, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

One error is the assumption that you can and should know everything. For example, you discover a better way of doing something. "Why didn't I know this before?" You get down on yourself and on life for not knowing everything ahead of time.

The other error is the assumption that you can't know anything. "What do I know? Who am I to judge?" This kind of error not only undercuts self-respect and self-esteem; it also acts as kind of an excuse for not having to think and take responsibility for yourself.

You can't know everything all the time. Yet it doesn't follow from this that you can't know anything.

North Korea Says U.S. Security Offer Laughable.

Oct 22, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

Reuters reports: North Korea Says U.S. Security Offer Laughable.

Ledeen on the CIA’s Self-Imposed Blinders

Oct 22, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

The problem is cultural, and that cannot be fixed overnight....Put simply, there are things the CIA does not want to know, and it acts to ensure that it will not know them. Of these important things, the most important is Iran. For 25 years now, we have had bad intelligence on Iran....

[I]n the last few years, the CIA has repeatedly missed the vital Iranian role at the heart of the terror network, typically chanting the false mantra that "Sunnis and Shi'ites don't work together." That nonsense prevented them from seeing that, as the Washington Post wrote on Wednesday... Iran was in cahoots with Al Qaeda.

...The CIA does not seem to have accepted this intimate relationship. If they did, it would be impossible for the State Department to believe, as it clearly does, that we can enlist Iran in the war against terrorism, or that Iran would ever deliver to us top Al Qaeda leaders.

Yet that information was not hard to obtain. Much of it was on the public record, including official court transcripts from Germany and Italy. Other pieces came from European intelligence services, with whom the CIA's relationship is surely better than mine or the Washington Post's. Over the past two years, the CIA has repeatedly refused to take seriously information about Iran's financing of international terrorism, Iran's close working relationship (often brokered by the royal family of Dubai) with Saddam Hussein, and, as the Associated Press has just reported, the claim that there is a cache of enriched uranium in Iraq, a portion of which was transported to Iran several years ago...

More Arbitrary Decrees in Zimbabwe

Oct 22, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

For the second time in less than a year, Zimbabwe's justice minister has seized a farm after forcing its white owners to leave.

In February, Patrick Chinamasa, the minister of justice, legal and parliamentary affairs, sent the police to arrest Peter Baker, a white farmer. Mr Baker had refused to vacate his farm, Rocklands, after successfully challenging its seizure in court. He went into hiding for two months as police searched for him, although no charges were ever laid. Eight months after the seizure, the farm's water supply has been squandered, undermining its future productivity and that of the neighbouring farms.

This weekend, Richard and Cally Yates... fell victim to the justice minister. Although there were no legal grounds for Mr Chinamasa to seize the farm, Mr Yates was powerless to resist, having been told by the police that if the minister wanted it, the couple must leave. In July last year, Mr Yates had accepted a government offer to subdivide his farm between himself and state-appointed "settlers", in return for being able to continue operating. He believed that having made this compromise his future as a farmer in Zimbabwe was secure. But three months ago he was told that his farm had been allocated to Mr Chinamasa.

The minister claims that he has been justly allocated the farm by the state under the land reform programme.... He added: "The courts should rule only on matters of compensation and not on the process of acquisition."

Education in New York City

Oct 21, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

This September's re-education sessions for teachers drove home the party line relentlessly: Your students must not be sitting in rows. You must not stand at the head of the class. You must not do "chalk and talk" at the blackboard. You must have a "workshop" in every single reading period. Your students must be "active learners," and they must work in groups. As one circular distributed to principals put it: Your teachers must transform themselves from the "sage on the stage" to the "guide on the side."

Stern has a longer article on the subject in City Journal.

France: At Least They Stand Up For the Freedom to Smoke

Oct 21, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

For the first time in their history, [Paris] tobacconists were on strike, in protest against a 20 per cent rise in taxes on cigarettes. Their action, copied throughout the country, sent shivers through the government... Plastered to the shuttered kiosks of Paris were signs berating the government for its hypocrisy and calling on smokers, and all those who care for personal liberty, to support them.... In its editorial yesterday Le Monde warned the government not to let its obligation to public health lead it to become too nannyish. "Smoking is a right," the newspaper said. If the government seemed to be making smoking socially unacceptable or even somehow illegal, it would be crossing a dangerous line.

They Use Them for Farming

Oct 20, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

In the West Bank town of Nablus on Thursday, one person was killed in an explosion in the courtyard of the hospital. Palestinian security sources said the man apparently was playing with an anti-tank missile when it exploded.

America vs. Europe: Who’s Uncivilized?

Oct 20, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses

One of the few serious "hate crimes" to occur in the aftermath of Sept. 11 was the murder of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh, in Mesa, Ariz. Yesterday a jury sentenced the killer, Frank Roque, to death for his crime. "The jury brought justice back to our family," Lakhwinder Singh Sodhi, the victim's brother, tells Reuters. "They brought the truth in front of the whole world and showed that we are all Americans."

United Press International notes that today is "World Day Against the Death Penalty," on which "the European Union will use the occasion to stress its outright opposition to the death penalty and urge countries that still believe in capital punishment to abolish what it considers a medieval practice."