General David Petraeus, the commander of the U.S. mission in Iraq, sits for an exclusive interview with PJM's Austin Bay.

Austin Bay’s Deep Background podcast series resumes with an extended 30-minute long interview with General David Petraeus, who called Austin from Baghdad on Monday. An edited version of this interview was also featured on this week’s edition of Pajamas Media’s PJM Political, on XM Satellite Radio’s POTUS ‘08 presidential election channel. ....

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/austin-bays-deep-background-8608-general-david-petraeus/

US-Mexico Border Tightened on Drug Cartel Warning

Associated Press -EL PASO, Texas -- Security is being heightened along the southern U.S. border because of a threat that warring Mexican cartels may send hit men into the United States, authorities said Monday.

Law enforcement officials would not discuss specific security measures being taken at the ports of entry, along the border or in the city of El Paso.

"We received credible information that drug cartels in Mexico have given permission to hit targets on the U.S. side of the border," El Paso police spokesman Officer Chris Mears said.

.... Drug cartel violence has claimed thousands of lives in Mexico this year. Nearly 800 people have been killed in Ciudad Juarez, a hardscrabble city of about 1.3 million people across the Rio Grande from El Paso.

The cartels, battling one another and the Mexican government for supremacy and control of lucrative drug and human smuggling routes, have become brazen in their attacks in recent months.

....The deadly wave of shootings and a rise in kidnappings for ransom in Mexico has prompted some of its citizens, including police officers and a prosecutor, to seek asylum in the U.S.

While the ongoing cartel war has been largely contained in Mexico, more than two dozen gunshot victims have been taken for medical treatment in El Paso, prompting security lockdowns at the county hospital.

Lopez said agents working at the ports, where those gunshot victims have been taken before coming into the U.S., are taking extra security precautions. Ambulances transporting gunshot victims are already being escorted by local law enforcement to the hospital, he said.

British Submission

By Douglas Stone

Foot baths for Muslim students at Michigan universities? Muslim cabbies in the Twin Cities who refuse to carry seeing-eye dogs? The FBI and other government agencies taking sensitivity training from radical Muslim organizations? You think we’ve lost the plot over here? Take a look at British submission to Islamofascist demands and threats, as that once great nation succumbs to creeping dhimmitude.

It has reached the point that in mid-April, the British Foreign Office instructed the Royal Navy not to return pirates to jurisdictions sporting sharia law (such as Somalia) for fear that their human rights will be violated. They have even been discouraged from capturing pirates, because the freebooters might ask to be granted asylum in Britain, a request with which the UK might have to comply under international and European Union human rights law.

This for a Navy that almost singlehandedly defeated piracy in the early 19th century, and a nation that retained the death penalty for this scourge of the high seas until the late 20^th century.

Welcome to Britain today.

Another recent outrage involves special handling of a traffic violation. Seems that a Muslim driver was stopped by police while speeding between two homes in the north of England. When he appeared in court, he explained his high speed – over twice the speed limit – was necessary to accommodate his two wives. His explanation was accepted, and he was allowed to keep his license.

That comes fast – very fast – on the heels of a decision by the British government to grant full spousal benefits to multiple wives. It won’t affect more than an estimated 1,000 individuals. And it mercifully won’t affect the indigenous Christian, Hindu or Jewish population, as traditional bigamy laws apply. Britons may rest easy, as it will only cover multiple wives married in a jurisdiction that practices Sharia law, such as Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.

These are not isolated instances; there are a myriad more: Swimming periods at pools restricted to Muslims only; the establishment of a BBC Arabic language station staffed by Arab broadcasters and managers with track records of being anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-Western; the refusal of female Muslim medical students to wash their arms as that practice might reveal the forbidden flesh between wrist and elbow; an attempt by a national union of university lecturers to call for a boycott of Israeli academics; and, a local Council ban on pig-themed toys, porcelain figures and calendars on workers’ desks because it might offend Muslims.

No comment from the Home Office or No. 10 Downing Street. No comment from the government, because it has been their policy to appease Britain’s large Muslim population in response to menacing behavior up to and including the bomb outrages of July 7, 2005.

It’s no coincidence that Muslims constitute a substantial portion of the Labour Party’s electoral support in London and in much of its heartland in northern England. In the expected close election for Parliament that will be held by mid-2010, an increasing Muslim population may be the difference between victory and defeat for the Labourites.

But Labour’s bien pensant hardly needs convincing. Like most on the left today, they fancy themselves champions of the underdog and the oppressed, and sympathy for Islam, and Arab and Muslim causes fits neatly into their intellectual program. Along with America and Israel-bashing, it goes to the very heart of how liberals view themselves and, more important, how they wish to be viewed by others. It supplies them with the appearance of a self-abnegation that is supposed to relieve their Western, middle-class guilt with a cleansing humility but is nothing but moral exhibitionism; and, as always, involves other people’s money, other people’s freedom, and other people’s comfort – never or very rarely their own.

A classic of political correctness run amok, wonderful as a burlesque if it weren’t slowly undermining Britain’s way of life and its will to oppose extreme Islamism.

Worse is that acceding to this nonsense gives Islamofascists confidence that they are on the winning side of history. That if they just shout a little louder and push a little harder, they may expect more of the same that becomes increasingly normative until it convinces the longer-settled among the UK’s population that they have no power to stop, let alone reverse, the process.

One might have become inured to the gutless behavior of France or Italy, but many in the U.S. are still under the impression that, like other countries in the Anglosphere, the British remain clear-eyed, realistic and most importantly resolute about the threats with which the West is confronted. But they aren’t; and while these cultural changes are in the realm of the comical right now, they are beginning to affect British public policy, domestic as well as foreign.

Why is this important to us? Because the ZaNuLabour Party’s tendency to pacifism and appeasement, and its devotion to political correctness, victim ideology, cultural relativism and liberal guilt is shared by our own Democrats.

Look for more of it in Britain, and don’t be surprised when it arrives full force here in America.

Leader of Muslim Brotherhood-linked organization gets standing ovation at Democratic Convention

Mattson, standing tall

The Muslim Brotherhood is engaged, in its own words, in "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

The Brotherhood document from which this quote is taken concludes with “a list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends.” Among these organizations is the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Ingrid Mattson is the President of the Islamic Society of North America. ISNA was also named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case.

Mattson herself has made a series of highly questionable remarks.

"Dems' message: 'Faith is what we live,'" by Aaron J. Lopez for the Rocky Mountain News, August 25 (thanks to Paul):

[...] "With all due respect to the commentators, we don't need to bring faith to the party. Faith is what we live," pronounced the Rev. Leah Daughtry.

"Democrats are, have been, and will continue to be people of faith. And people of faith are, have been, and will continue to be Democrats."

Daughtry, CEO of the Democratic National Convention Committee, served as emcee of an interfaith service - Faith in Action - that attracted about 3,000 people of various ages, races and religions to the Colorado Convention Center.

Among those in attendance were Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn and Gov. Bill Ritter, who welcomed the congregation to the first official event of the DNC.

"There is a tremendous intersection of faith and politics," Ritter said. "Politics at its deepest root is moral." [...]

Speakers included Rabbi Steven Foster, of Congregation Emmanuel in Denver; Bishop Charles Blake, of the Church of God in Christ; and Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America. [...]

[Blake] received one of several standing ovations.

Another was reserved for Mattson, who said she tells Islamic leaders abroad that Muslims in the United States still face discrimination constantly.

Despite the difficulties, Mattson said she remains convinced that the United States "is still the best place in the world to practice our faith."

Muslims in the United States still face discrimination constantly? Muslims in the United States enjoy more rights than they enjoy in many majority-Muslim countries. And CAIR's attempts to document "hate crimes" against Muslims in the U.S. have been shown to be tissues of fabrications.

But in making this wild claim before the Democratic Convention, Mattson is laying claim to Protected Victim Status for Muslims, which would place them beyond the scrutiny and criticism that is necessary today to head off the Brotherhood's "grand jihad."

In Nuclear Net’s Undoing, a Web of Shadowy Deals

The president of Switzerland stepped to a podium in Bern last May and read a statement confirming rumors that had swirled through the capital for months. The government, he acknowledged, had indeed destroyed a huge trove of computer files and other material documenting the business dealings of a family of Swiss engineers suspected of helping smuggle nuclear technology to Libya and Iran.

The files were of particular interest not only to Swiss prosecutors but to international atomic inspectors working to unwind the activities of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani bomb pioneer-turned-nuclear black marketeer. The Swiss engineers, Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, were accused of having deep associations with Dr. Khan, acting as middlemen in his dealings with rogue nations seeking nuclear equipment and expertise.

The Swiss president, Pascal Couchepin, took no questions. But he asserted that the files — which included an array of plans for nuclear arms and technologies, among them a highly sophisticated Pakistani bomb design — had been destroyed so that they would never fall into terrorist hands.

Behind that official explanation, though, is a far more intriguing tale of spies, moles and the compromises that governments make in the name of national security. ....

Understand Islamic Finance & Its Role in the Future of the Financial World: Providing 10 Key Articles in One Report

DUBLIN, Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/befeee/islamic_finance) has announced the addition of the "Islamic Finance - In Focus" report to their offering.

The sub-prime collapse in the US and the subsequent world economic downturn has led to a growth in transactions that are in compliance with Islamic law – Sharia. But why is this complicated method of finance proving so popular? What difficulties are facing western firms? And what role might Islamic finance play in the future of the financial world?

Find out by reading an incisive collection of ten key articles. This one-off report brings together articles from International Financial Law Review, EuroWeek, Derivatives Week, II Magazine and many others.

The articles include:

An Islamic Capitalism - International Financial Law Review

Sharia does not recognise the payment of interest or investment in prohibited areas, such as financial speculation or alcohol. This may help to make Islamic finance more attractive in a time when liberal capitalism is seen as unstable...

Sharia- Compliant Financing - Derivatives Week

Over the next five years it is expected the market for Sharia-compliant offerings will grow by about 15-20% a year. This builds on growth in recent years that has seen breakthroughs in sukuk, securitization and general Islamic banking and moves by the U.K. government to develop London as a world center for Islamic finance...

Lending on Faith - Institutional Investor Magazine

Islamic finance adheres to the Koranic prohibition against charging interest. On a corporate loan, an Islamic bank might draw income from equipment leased to the borrower...

Land of the Rising Sukuk - Emerging Markets

Britain recently confirmed its intentions to press ahead with plans to issue government bonds, that are compliant with Islamic law, in a bid to become the first non-Muslim nation to do so. But the UK faces...

Islamic Finance Market Booms but Unity is Far Off - EuroWeek

Islamic finance is also becoming an increasingly important source of capital for the Western private equity industry. A recent conference at London law firm SJ Berwin on Islamic finance was packed with private equity professionals eager to access Islamic pools of capital. Michael Halford, a partner specialising in private equity at SJ Berwin, says ...

Derivatives in Islamic Finance - Derivatives Week

Despite their importance for financial sector development as established tools for managing risks, derivatives are few and far between in countries where the compatibility of capital market transactions with Islamic law requires the development of sharia-compliant structures. The sharia bans...

Islamic Finance-Asia on the Lookout for Islamic LBOs - Asiamoney

The appearance of "leveraged" and "Islamic" in the same sentence rings alarm bells. In fact, there's nothing in sharia (Islamic) law against leverage, except for an aversion towards excessive indebtedness....

Hong Kong--An Islamic Finance Centre? - Asialaw

The growth potential of the Islamic finance sector is enormous not only because of the huge wealth of Muslim communities. Lawyers at the Dubai-based Emirates Advocates say in the forthcoming Asialaw & Practice book...

Ready for the Next Generation of Sukuks - EuroWeek

Sukuk bonds from the Middle East have not escaped the sharp spread widening in the global debt markets over the past four months. And while issuance...

Regulation Not Religion - International Financial Law Review

It has been the next big thing for years. It has provoked speculation and hype from lawyers and media alike. But now Islamic securitisation has broken...

Key Topics Covered:

- Islamic Law

- Sharia-compliant financing

- Sharia-compliant bonds

- Islamic Finance

Buy this collection today & you'll also receive two free weekly email alerts covering the latest issues in Islamic finance.

Companies Mentioned:

- Institutional Investor Magazine

- Emerging Markets

- Derivatives Week

- Asiamoney

- Asialaw

- EuroWeek

- International Financial Law Review

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/befeee/islamic_finance.

New Tactics Needed to Defeat Global Jihad and Islamic Supremacism

By Jeffrey Imm

In facing new threats, a fundamental focus must be on defining the identity of such threats and an associated awareness of the need to change our governmental and policy strategies accordingly. If the threats are not clearly identified and defined, the consequences are a series of desperate, fractured tactical efforts to address aspects of the threats as perceived by diverse governmental organizations, without a coordinated strategy. Such a tactical-centric approach to new threats would predictably draw upon old paradigms and processes used in addressing older, previous threats.

This remains the primary challenge to America in dealing with Jihad. Without defining Jihad's ideological basis, desperate governmental leaders and policy analysts revert to using outdated tactical measures that are focused on regional threats and Cold War statist measures. Without a strategy defining the ideological threat, government and policy leaders are confused, misguided, and frightened, and offer half-measure tactics. In today's America, this combination of factors has resulted in the current ambiguous "war on extremism."

To effectively deal with the war of ideas that Jihad represents, American government and policy leaders must honestly and clearly define the enemy ideology, and reject regional and statist tactics that are designed for a different enemy than we are fighting today.

The Regional Conflict Perspective to Jihad

On August 18, 2008 in the southern Philippines, new Jihadist atrocities were committed against the Philippine people, leaving 39 dead. News reports stated that "[s]ome of the civilians were hacked to death by machetes and there were reports that some were used as human shields during the violent rampage." This is the latest in a Jihadist struggle that has reportedly claimed 120,000 lives in the past 30 years in the southern Philippines - equivalent to forty 9/11 attacks. Yet this Jihadist atrocity does not get major mainstream news coverage, because of a counterterror position that is prevalent throughout much of America's intelligence agencies and analysts, which views Jihad in the Philippines as an isolated, regional conflict that has no links to Jihadist terrorism elsewhere in the world.

Analysts have remained focused on the geographical and ethnic issues in the Philippine Jihad struggle on the southern most Philippine island of Mindanao, which is 63% Christian, but where Islamic supremacists seek to have a segregated, separate territory. In fact, to try to achieve peace by accommodating segregationist goals of such separatists, the Philippine government created an Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) which has its own separate government (that the other Philippine citizens have to support 98% of its economy). The latest violence is the result of a Philippine Supreme Court decision that defies the Islamic ARMM territory from having the "right" to assimilate new cities and provinces to expand its separatist territory. The Philippine's Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Jihad attacks have been defended by terrorist leader Abdurahman Macapaar who threatens total war on the Philippine citizens and states that "in the eyes of Allah we are not terrorists," calling for "Islamic justice in Mindanao." The horror of the Jihadist atrocities in the Philippines is lost on the U.S. Ambassador to Philippines Kristie Kenney who urges the Philippine government to negotiate with this same MILF organization, and dismisses the latest attacks as merely "a few bad days."

The "regional conflict" perspective is so embedded among many policy analysts that there is no linkage between the Islamic supremacist ideology inspiring the Philippines Jihad resulting in 120,000 dead, the ongoing terror attacks (Jihad and Communist) in India with an estimated 60,000+ dead (TOI report, BJP report), the ongoing Jihad attacks in Thailand since 2004 with 2,700 dead, the thousands dead from Jihad in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the steady stream of Jihadist terror plots and Islamic supremacist abuses in the United Kingdom and Europe. The standard argument remains that a solution to this global threat must analyze the needs of the local communities in each area to find ways to discourage "extremism." Moreover, since the victims are not in Iraq, they get minimal to no American mainstream media news coverage, except for wire news reports. Jihadist terror that has resulted in hundreds of thousands dead in other regions of the world is just not "news" to many American media outlets.

Why American Government Leadership Doesn't Confront Jihad's Supremacist Ideology

On July 13, 2008, the Washington Post published a column by former CIA member Glenn Carle who stated "[w]e do not face a global jihadist 'movement' but a series of disparate ethnic and religious conflicts involving Muslim populations, each of which remains fundamentally regional in nature and almost all of which long predate the existence of al-Qaeda." This denial of anything "global" about Jihad and Islamic supremacism is the mantra of the mainstream media, intelligence agencies, government leaders, and too many in the counterterrorism community.

The idea that the Islamic supremacist ideology that is at the root of the women murdered by the Taliban in Pakistan on August 20, 2008 (crushing one of their faces) - is the same Islamic supremacist ideology that drove MILF Jihadists to dismember innocent Philippine citizens on August 18, 2008 - does not make sense to a policy world that view threats by regions, not by ideologies. Moreover, both U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson and U.S. Ambassador to Philippines Kristie Kenney have given credibility to proponents of this supremacist ideology in these countries. Ambassador Patterson has met with pro-Taliban, pro-Sharia leaders such as JUI-F's Maulana Fazlur Rehman to promote "free and fair elections." Ambassador Kenney has called for negotiations with MILF a day after MILF's jihadists were burning down buildings and dismembering Philippine citizens. This is who is representing America in the eyes of Islamic supremacists in these nations, which is another reason for the increasingly brazen acts by Jihadists in both countries.

To further prevent any confrontation of such an ideology, not only are threats specific to region, they are also considered to be nothing more than "extremism," as stated in the 2008 National Defense Strategy Report authorized by Secretary Gates. The ambiguous term "extremism" provides politically correct coverage that a "threat" has been acknowledged while allowing agencies to still deny the nature or identity of the threat. A threat that cannot defined, however, is certainly not a strategy.

Yet in facing other supremacist threats, America's counterterror analysts and governmental leaders did not take this tactic of creating barriers to ideological confrontation by creating regional categories and blurring the identity of the supremacist groups. This phenomenon is unique to the denial and fear of confrontation only when it comes to Islamic supremacism.

Why Denial is Not Part of American Historical Success against Supremacist Terror

Imagine the howls of outrage and disbelief from the majority of the American public and the mainstream media if 20th century counterterror analysts argued that white supremacist terrorism in Alabama was based on isolated incidents and local issues that were separate and different from white supremacist terrorism in Mississippi, in Michigan, on the West Coast, etc. Imagine how incredulous the public would be if analysts claimed if you had not spoken with whites in each of those community areas that you had no ability to recommend actions against white supremacism. Imagine the confusion if our government leaders had recommended that we not use the term "white supremacism" for fear that the very term would incite other whites to violence. Imagine the protests if analysts supported groups who praised scholars that supported segregationist policies or justified actions by white supremacist groups.

Yet these are precisely the failing tactics that American governmental and policy leaders are using and recommending regarding "extremism" (aka Islamic supremacism).

If 20th century counterterrorist and government leaders had used such tactics, we would have lost the war on white supremacism, and America would not have shown the courage of its convictions in defending the natural law that "all men are created equal." In fact, America's leadership was able to confront white supremacist ideology on a holistic, strategic basis, as a crushing, national effort against white supremacism throughout America in the 1960s through the 1980s. While that war continues today, the strength of national 20th century white supremacist ideology was smashed by a national relentless confrontation to every aspect of it that continues in cities, homes, offices, and public places today. As a result, the majority of the American public and mass media has zero tolerance for such white supremacism.

The question must be asked why American government leaders and policy analysts are now using tactics that fail to acknowledge our successes in fighting supremacism in the past.

Cold War Tactics to Fight Statists When Faced With Supremacists

In planning tactics against Jihad, an incorrect analogy gaining popularity in counterterrorism communities is the comparison of Islamic supremacism to the gradual Cold War efforts against Communism where some were encouraged to move from Communism to "Socialism" to merely being left-wing, as the nature of far-Left statists evolved over decades. But looking at the evolution of a statist ideology in the same way as looking at an identity-based supremacist ideology (based on race, religion, etc.), is simply erroneous from both an ideological and a historical perspective.

I have previously pointed out that while there are some similarities in the activist nature of both the ideologies of Communism and Islamic supremacism, the latter has a true transnational activist appeal in that Islamic supremacism is not targeted merely at the transformation of states, but is targeted at the transformation and assimilation of individuals on a global basis.

All supremacist ideologies seek the transformation of individuals and their behavior, but the activist nature of Islamic supremacism is more dangerous in that it seeks assimilation as well as transformation of individuals. White supremacist Americans sought to impact the behavior of black Americans based on their supremacist ideology, but they never sought to convert them into white supremacists. Aryan supremacists sought to impact the behavior of Jews, but also did not seek to convert them into Aryan supremacists either. This is a boundary inherent in race-based supremacism.

But Islamic supremacism has no such boundaries either of state or of individual converts. Islamic supremacism has no limitations on assimilating others under its ideology. Islamic supremacism has the singular goal of total assimilation or submission of those not assimilated.

Therefore, not only are Cold War statist-based tactics not applicable to such a supremacist challenge, but also the regional categorization of threats is not applicable to such a supremacist challenge. In short, America's predominant policies and tactics for fighting the Jihadist enemy are designed to fight a completely different enemy altogether. This inability by government leaders to recognize such shortcomings leaves America totally exposed in the war of ideas against Islamic supremacists. While the Islamic supremacist ideology behind Jihad is activist like Communism, the strategic lessons that need to be learned from history must be drawn from wars on identity-based supremacist ideologies.

Those who would seek to argue for cold war tactics against al Qaeda believe that the same Cold War approach to fighting Communism in shades of grey to "de-radicalize" individuals will work for supremacist ideologies as well. The challenge is that such tactical arguments fail to recognize that there are no "grey areas" in a supremacist ideology; it is a truly binary challenge.

Andrew Cochran's July 23, 2008 posting of a commentary by Professor Rabbi Daniel M. Zucker, Chairman of "Americans for Democracy in the Middle-East," states:

"We need to understand the mentality of our fanatic fundamentalist enemies. Life is totally black or white for them -- there are no shades of grey. Surviving a battle with the superior forces of their enemy is seen as a victory by them -- proof that we in the West are too soft to defeat them ultimately."

Yet those who would pursue Cold War tactics make the argument that by persuading individuals to take steps away from Islamic supremacist violence that we are winning a war of ideas. This argument believes that such "de-radicalization" successes can be demonstrated: (1) if an individual goes from actively supporting Al-Qaeda to "merely" supporting "defensive jihad" in Afghanistan and elsewhere, (2) if an individual goes from Jihad to political Islamism, (3) if an individual goes from terrorism to Wahhabism, Salafism, Khumeinism, or (4) if an individual still supports Islamic supremacism but is more a polite public "citizen" about their views. The "de-radicalization" theorists claim that such changes demonstrate western values winning a gradual war of ideas. In fact, this is only a change of tactics by supremacists, not a change in support for supremacist ideology at all.

A number in the counterterrorism community are comfortable with this incorrect argument that ignores the binary nature of supremacism, as such tactics suggest that persuasion (as opposed to confrontation) can be used to avoid inciting individuals to Jihadist terrorism and preventing them from "radicalization." Today's counterterrorism community is particularly vulnerable to this self-deception, due to its inherent focus on preventing terrorist violence, rather than a primary focus being the homeland security of our values of equality and liberty that defines America's identity.

The Cold War Thinking That Equality and Liberty is Someone Else's Fight

In addition to the failed government and policy perspectives focused on fighting an enemy different from Islamic supremacism, the actual change in the American sense of responsibility in our national defense is impacted by the Cold War history.

Of all the pernicious wrong-headed approaches that continue to be carried over from the Cold War, the worst of the Cold War ideas that are still alive in America is that our national security is someone else's fight. The approach during the Cold War in dealing with a communist, statist enemy with clearly defined military, troops, and weapons, such as the USSR, was to maintain a centralized, paternalistic military command.

The logical idea was that such centralized national security gave America the technology and the intelligence to fight a statist enemy with nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. While this tactical strategy was focused on the long term war with that specific enemy, the unintentional impact was that Americans became dependent on a centralized military and intelligence infrastructure to take on the majority of the burden of such a fight. After the elimination of the military conscription in 1973 (with a brief return in 1980), the call for the citizens to make a personal, significant sacrifice was blurred to only seeking tax dollars for volunteer military personnel and contracted equipment.

But with the 9/11 Jihadist attack on America's homeland, many of us hoped that these attitudes had changed. To some extent, attitudes have changed among some Americans. Individuals around the nation have risen to the ideological challenge in researching Jihad and debating the war of ideas.

However, the majority of the American public has yet to fully realize that the battle in dealing with Islamic supremacism is truly their war and their personal responsibility, requiring their personal sacrifice and commitment. To a society used to being "led" by analysts, politicians, experts, mainstream media, this American public still has not yet grasped that it has to do its own research, reach its own conclusions, and tell its government representatives (in detail) what it seeks to have done to win this war. Some in a baby-boomer post-Cold War society find this terribly unfair. After all, isn't this the government's job? The simple answer is yes, if we want to lose the war against Islamic supremacism. Because what such government leaders and analysts have clearly demonstrated is that they are taking the wrong path, and academia, the media, and many analysts are keeping us on that wrong path.

In a representative democracy, fighting against supremacism and defending our values of equality and liberty is everyone's fight. The Cold War is over. It is time for America's baby-boomers to grow up. This is our generation's challenge and defining moment.

Why Confrontation is Essential in Fighting Supremacism

Confrontation is unpleasant. Engagement is an easy sell to a confused, misinformed, frightened, uninspired, poorly led public. To American government leaders trying to develop tactics around "extremism," the rat hole of engagement with an undefined ideology or enemy actually sounds better at government meetings and political discussions than the dreaded idea of "confrontation." In our political world, Americans constantly seek "engagement," because we believe that we can somehow persuade others of our viewpoints. We fail to understand that this perspective is unique to pluralistic democracies that value equality of opinion and ideas, and that value liberty of freedom of speech and press.

Moreover, American history is not a popular subject with collegians or with political analysts, especially in considering world issues. America's pluralistic outlook to the world drives us to seek answers based on other experiences in the world and balance our views based on other ideologies. This willingness to be relativist on other cultures and values is usually laudable in an open-minded, creative nation.

However, when it come to dealing with Islamic supremacism, American leaders fail to recognize America's own successes in dealing with supremacist ideologies and fail to recognize that there are supremacist cultures that are fundamentally inimical to natural laws of equality and liberty. Supremacism is not a negotiating, relativist culture. There are no half-measures with supremacism. Fighting supremacism is a life or death matter for America's culture and for the defense of equality and liberty.

History shows that in fighting supremacist ideologies, only confrontation works. White supremacists were not persuaded to change their views on segregation and equality - they were confronted by force and by law. Aryan supremacists were not persuaded to change their views on Jewish individuals, homosexuals, and others - they were confronted by military force. Change in those who supported supremacist ideologies was not the result merely of arguments and fine words in literature and the press; changed happened due to direct confrontation. History shows that supremacists are not readily argued away, bought away, or persuaded away from their ideology in a process of "de-radicalization"; supremacists can change their tactics from time to time to allow non-supremacist authorities to let down their guard, to allow for rebuilding and infiltration, and to develop other less obvious tactics of recruitment. A supremacist's change in tactics is not the same as a change in ideology - a war of ideas that merely seeks to change supremacist tactics, not fight in defense of equality, is not a "war of ideas" at all -- and is merely a plea to be "left alone."

American counterterrorism analysts need only to consult their own national history for lessons on fighting supremacism. The 1869 federal grand jury declaration that the Ku Klux Klan was a terrorist group did not end white supremacist activism in America. The 1929 arrest of Ku Klux Klan leaders by the FBI did not end white supremacist activism in America. The 1960s arrest of Ku Klux Klan leaders by the FBI did not end white supremacist activism in America. Arrests of Ku Klux Klan terrorists, arguments to persuade white supremacists to change, none of these alone were sufficient to break the back of the white supremacist ideology. Consistent, total, and unwavering confrontation was required. What American history demonstrated was that there were no shades of grey in fighting white supremacism. Tolerating some supremacist activities merely allowed for the re-growth of other more violent supremacist activities to rise up again. It took America 100 years to learn this vital lesson that there are no "half-way" measures in defending equality and there are no "half-way" measures in fighting supremacism. Why is this costly, painful lesson ignored by those leaders who are responsible for fighting Islamic supremacism today? Because we are allowing them to ignore these lessons. Our government is representative of its people; it is past time that American citizens concerned about Islamic supremacism speak out on the imperative need to use lessons from our history in confronting today's challenges on Islamic supremacism.

A Solution in Defying Supremacism with Equality

Equality is the one thing that supremacists cannot and will not tolerate. The natural law that "all men are created equal" is America's strongest weapon against supremacists of every kind.

A proof of this is found in previous efforts of supremacist organizations to attempt to infiltrate and influence the American people. White supremacists could not and would not tolerate equality. When they were losing the war, they offered the segregationist compromise of "separate-but-equal" schools, public facilities, etc. Aryan supremacists also could not tolerate equality. The Nazi German American Bund that sought to infiltrate America did their best to pretend to be patriotic, complete with a birthday celebration to George Washington, and calls for "liberty." But the Nazi Aryan supremacists could not address the idea of equality, it choked in their throats.

In Europe, the continuing publicity by courageous women against Islamic supremacism has led to similar fractioning of Islamic supremacists. Even now, in the UK, Islamic supremacists are offering similar "separate-but-equal" new "rights" for women using a new charter under Sharia law (when British women already have equal rights under British law). The vast and obvious inequalities between men and women in Islamic supremacism are recognized as a fault line in the supremacists' global campaign. Of all the strategies that Americans should be concentrating on, the vital need to publicize the failure of Islamic supremacism when it comes to women's rights is the most promising near-term topic in the war of ideas.

Equality has been a threat to Islamic supremacists around the world and in international organizations. It is their greatest fear and is America's strongest weapon. But in promoting equality as a measure against Islamic supremacism, it must be understood that such confrontation will require a more aggressive war of ideas. Our respect for equality in a diverse nation is something that Islamic supremacists must attack. In fact, a nation dedicated to equality is indeed Islamic supremacists' greatest threat.

Those who seek to solely avoid additional violence will discourage this confrontation. Those who seek to demonstrate the courage of their convictions on equality and liberty will demand it.

Why Equality Will Defeat Supremacism

A supremacist society is dependent on its rigidity, conformance, and limited perspective in defining WHAT IS based on reinforcing the supremacist perspective. A supremacist society is dependent on its lie of a singular superiority of identity to control its populace. Without defending its lie of superiority, a supremacist society will crumble. When challenged by others who don't accept its supremacist ideology, a supremacist society will either crush those who don't conform, or if it is weak, it will call for so-called "separate-but-equal" segregation until it can gain more strength.

A nation dedicated to ensuring equality creates a transformational society. An egalitarian society utilizes its infinite diversity, creativity, and unlimited vision to define what COULD BE based on it acceptance of equality as a fundamental value. An egalitarian society can weather any storm and can transform its skills, talents, and focus to meet the needs of overall population. Its basis in the natural law of equality gives it transformational advantages over any other society. The concept of "separate-but-equal" segregation of the population is illogical in an egalitarian society which draws its strength from its diversity and unlimited ability to use its population in endlessly diverse combinations and permutations to promote human liberty and progress.

As a transformational, egalitarian society, Americans can seek to reinvent the American experience in ways that allow continuing new opportunities and liberties for fellow citizens to grow and contribute to their communities, their families, and themselves. Our societal development is based on the fundamental natural laws of individual equality and liberty. Our egalitarian ability to transform is multi-dimensional - it occurs on an individual, family, community, and national basis.

This is why supremacism will ultimately lose to America. No matter what weapons are used against Americans, no matter what attacks are made on America, its foundation in equality makes it a transformational society that allows infinite ways to defend itself, respond to attacks, rebuild and restore itself, and continue an endless war against its supremacist adversaries.

But every battle, like every journey, requires a first step. That first step for America in this war is in recognizing that it is neither "extremism" nor "terrorism" that it is fighting - it is fighting the very idea of Islamic supremacism.

Europe Must Realize: Jihadism is an Ideology - Not Just a Theology

Dr. Walid Phares
Europe Must Realize: Jihadism is an Ideology - Not Just a theology

Jihadi terrorism is one of the largest threats Europe and the international community are facing in this era. Hence, studying Jihadi terrorism beyond the formation and the dismantling of cells is highly relevant to Europeans because of the impact of its actions on security, politics, and economy.

Jihadism is putting significant pressure on European foreign policy regarding where and when Europe can intervene in an international crisis such as those in Afghanistan, Lebanon and Darfur. It is also putting pressure on the European economy through the choices made in foreign policies. But the inability to explain these pressures is a major reason behind the strategic failure in containing and reversing the threat which continues to expand and grow across the continent.

As one of the European Parliament (EPP) leaders, Jaime Major-Oreja said, the issue is about identification of that threat. We need to "ID" it so that we can address it properly. Western democracies have had a failure in perception of the threat; for the countries that have been fighting this movement are still debating it seven years after 9/11 and several years after the Madrid and London attacks. World War II took five years to win and, in the current confrontation, the identification of the menace is still not completed properly after seven years. Hence, we will offer a few suggestions of strategic guidelines to address this issue.

First: The Identification Problem

1. Self Identification: The Jihadists talk about themselves, their agenda and their views. Let's not ignore this literature, but let's analyze it and learn from it. These movements certainly use theology in their discourse, but they have developed an ideology. They do define themselves as Jihadis, Islamists, Takfiris, and others, but the most accurate term to identify them is "Jihadists."

2. European Debate: Today's debate in Europe about the origin and nature of the Jihadist movement is still struggling with the so-called "root causes" of this terror phenomenon. In my discussions across the continent, including my sessions with many of the 27 counter-terrorism teams at the European Union level, one can summarize the Euro-debate on this matter as follow. Four points and counter-points are made:

a. Many in the EU claim that Jihadism is a response to European (and Western) foreign policy. The counter-arguments are that Jihadism as an ideology and as a movement has preceded all relevant European policies in modern times. The Salafists rose in the 1920s, long before the UN and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Foreign policy impacts these movements but does not create them.

b. Others have stated that economic disenfranchisement is at the root of these movements. But there are many counter arguments: First, the Jihadi agenda does not talk about economic justice. Second, there are multiple layers of social classes among Jihadists from the lower social class, the middle class and the upper class as well. In addition, the Jihadi ideology creates takfeer which is a display of hatred between segments of societies. The Jihadists in Sudan, for example, have clearly displayed racism in Darfur.

c. New theories are claiming that the root causes are socio-psychological stresses such as racism. But the counter-argument is that racism is a phenomenon linked to immigration and exists for all immigrants, not just the Arab Muslim communities.

d. From the other side of the debate, some intellectuals are charging that the roots of terrorism are found in Islamic religious texts. But the counter-argument is that texts alone cannot mobilize and organize movements. There need to be ideological forces that create the movement while using references to theological texts.

Thus in the final analysis Jihadism is an ideology, not a theology.

Second: The Strategies of the Jihadists

If Europe and the West are facing an ideology, and thus a movement, one has to learn about their war room, their policies and strategies. We need to understand these so that governments and societies are able to confront them.

The Jihadists have had great debates about their strategies. Al Qaeda, the "hot headed," wants to target the United States and Europe with terror so that they can rise in the Arab and Muslim world. But you have the other "long-term" Jihadists who are creating the pools of indoctrination. With their large, well-funded mechanism they produce the young minds from among which al Qaeda recruits. I am not only concerned about those who have already became Jihadists between ages 15 and 25, but more so about those who are between ages 8 and 13. What we need today is strategic law enforcement in addition to the local one.

Why were we (governments and NGOs) not aware of this ideological warfare?

The answer is simply because the Jihadists are good in the war of ideas; good at deceiving their foes by raising other issues, using our system against us. Hence between 1945 and 1990, as the West was engaged in the cold war, they infiltrated the Arab Muslim. They have produced four generations with the support of oil production revenues. In a second war of ideas they put additional efforts inside the West and Europe. They have seized the microphone inside the Muslim communities and had an impact on a segment of these societies marginalizing the democracy seekers.

Since 2001, in a third war of ideas, the Jihadis have put pressure on our democracies in Europe to affect foreign policies that could help democracies in the Middle East and oppose the radicals. The various violent incidents in Europe are aimed at changing foreign policies so that Europe (and the West), instead of helping the weak as in Darfur and Lebanon, and instead of supporting women and minorities, would abandon them.

Three: Strategic Advice

Some strategic advice to address the challenge:

1. A European priority should be to define the ideology. Advance work has been done over the past years. The largest party at the European Parliament has produced a document clearly identifying the Jihadi terrorists as being at the root of the crisis. More has to be done at the level of other groups and the European Union.

2. Another priority should be to educate the European public about the ideology, movement and strategies of the Jihadists. The advantages of such massive public information are numerous. One, it will give direction to national communities to get to the root of the problem. It would reduce racism as it would separate radical ideology from religious communities. It would also help Muslim communities make that separation between the radical militants and the mainstream in their societies.

3. Last, but not least, a European priority should be to support pro-democracy forces inside the Muslim communities so that these communities are better protected against racism and back-clashes on the one hand, and are freed from control by the Jihadists on the other.

Who Serves in the U.S. Military? The Demographics of Enlisted Troops and Officers

....This report finds that:

1. U.S. military service disproportionately attracts enlisted personnel and officers who do not come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Previous Her­itage Foundation research demonstrated that the quality of enlisted troops has increased since the start of the Iraq war. This report demon­strates that the same is true of the officer corps.
2. Members of the all-volunteer military are sig­nificantly more likely to come from high-income neighborhoods than from low-income neighborhoods. Only 11 percent of enlisted recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth (quintile) of neighborhoods, while 25 per­cent came from the wealthiest quintile. These trends are even more pronounced in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) pro­gram, in which 40 percent of enrollees come from the wealthiest neighborhoods—a number that has increased substantially over the past four years.
3. American soldiers are more educated than their peers. A little more than 1 percent of enlisted per­sonnel lack a high school degree, compared to 21 percent of men 18–24 years old, and 95 percent of officer accessions have at least a bachelor’s degree.
4. Contrary to conventional wisdom, minorities are not overrepresented in military service. Enlisted troops are somewhat more likely to be white or black than their non-military peers. Whites are proportionately represented in the officer corps, and blacks are overrepresented, but their rate of overrepresentation has declined each year from 2004 to 2007. New recruits are also disproportionately likely to come from the South, which is in line with the history of South­ern military tradition.

The facts do not support the belief that many American soldiers volunteer because society offers them few other opportunities. The average enlisted person or officer could have had lucrative career opportunities in the private sector. Those who argue that American soldiers risk their lives because they have no other opportunities belittle the personal sacrifices of those who serve out of love for their country. ....

Federal Income Taxes: Who Pays and How Much

(Compiler's note: The original report is short and an easy "must read" rca)

The Internal Revenue Service recently released official data on the payment of income
taxes by different income groups, compiled from an intensive study of individual income tax
returns from 2006, the latest year available. The results are shocking given the political rhetoric we hear ....