Obama camp seeking 'totalitarian' state?

By Andrea Shea King

Ed Martin, co-founder of the American Issues Project, which made a television and Internet ad questioning Sen. Barack Obama's ties to William Ayers, is wondering whether the Democratic presidential nominee actually wants a "totalitarian" state.

"The attacks … from the Obama camp on the American Issues Project calling upon the Justice Department to shut us down and calling on stations to succumb to boycotts reminds me of a kind of place we've been blessed not to know – a kind of a totalitarian, or worse, state," Martin said.

Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor has characterized the ads, which raise questions about Obama's links to Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground organization responsible for bombings at the U.S. Capitol and Pentagon, as "false, despicable and outrageous."

Martin says, however, the ad's accuracy was checked carefully.

"We took the time and effort to back it all up – 168 pages of research documents backing up every word in the ad about William Ayers, his past, the bombs he built, the people who died because of his efforts. He actually had a terrorist group he formed and some of the people that he trained, that he helped, became part of the Weather Underground who went on and actually killed police officers. And you really get a sense this isn't a guy who kind of smoked a little weed and was upset about the draft. This was a guy who said 'I'm going to bomb the Capitol, bomb police stations, I'm going to kill people.' He was a fugitive from justice, in part because he had planned a big bombing of an Army office in New Jersey and the bomb blew up and killed three of his own gang, so he had to go on the lam for ten years. It just goes on and on, it reads like a movie," Martin said.

See the American Issues Project ad:

The controversy that erupted as the result of the TV ad placed by the American Issues Project is now in legal hands. WND has reported Obama has warned TV stations and asked the Justice Department to intervene in an attempt to block the ad from airing.

See also the ad here http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=158353 as long as it lasts

No shelter for those that stay in New Orleans as Gustav approaches

NEW ORLEANS — Police with bullhorns plan to go street to street this weekend with a tough message about getting out ahead of Hurricane Gustav: This time there will be no shelter of last resort. The doors to the Superdome will be locked. Those who stay will be on their own.

New forecasts Friday made it increasingly clear that New Orleans will get some kind of hit — direct or indirect — by early next week. That raised the likelihood people would have to flee, and the city suggested a full-scale evacuation call could come as soon as Sunday. ....

Who was blocking 'The Path to 9/11'?

By JEFFREY RESSNER

Over the past few years, perhaps no film controversy has inspired more outrage from conservatives than the Walt Disney Company’s handling of the ambitious 2006 miniseries “The Path to 9/11.” In the wake of Michael Moore’s 2004 anti-Bush documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” and the 2003 CBS biopic “The Reagans,” the Disney censorship fiasco has been a frequent bone of contention on right-wing blogs, AM talk radio and other media outlets. In addition to making cuts in its ABC-TV telefilm after complaints from political forces, the company also shelved plans for a subsequent DVD release.

The miniseries, a $40 million dramatization of events leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was set for its network debut when several members of President Bill Clinton’s administration, including former National Ssecurity Adviser Sandy Berger and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, insisted that several scenes were inaccurate or fictitious, and Clinton himself demanded the program be corrected or pulled. Five Democratic senators even sent a letter to Disney CEO Bob Iger that appeared to threaten the company’s broadcast license over the issue. Edits were made, a disclaimer was added and the two-parter ran as originally scheduled, but there has never been a repeat showing and a DVD has never been released.

Now the imbroglio has been revived for a direct-to-video documentary called "Blocking 'The Path to 9/11'," produced by right-wing rabble-rouser David Bossie and directed by former radio host John Ziegler. On its surface, the new video is a fascinating piece of behind-the-scenes investigative work. But, like the original telefilm and its quashing by the Clinton camp, it is not without its own political intrigue. Indeed, "Blocking 'The Path to 9/11'" raises even more questions and adds its own set of disconnected dots to this broadcasting dilemma.

The new documentary, currently available for sale on its website, will soon be offered at other locations, with plans also calling for select theatrical screenings in Southern California to coincide with the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks next month. Last week, the film’s worldwide premiere at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles drew a sold-out crowd that gave it a lengthy standing ovation.

Ziegler, who first raised questions about “Path’s” forced cuts and its cancelled DVD release on his radio show, is hopeful that his newest work will expose the machinations of Disney, Clinton and the Hollywood left.

“This is a conservative film, and that means there’s automatically two and a half strikes against it,” he said. Still, he believes his examination of the controversy should “hit a nerve” with others, and he’s still astounded Disney “decided to take a dive on their own movie” in order to placate the Clintons. According to Ziegler, Disney’s executives believed their liberal bona fides were so strong that they never suspected they’d be accused of a right-wing hit job and were “totally shocked” when Clinton’s camp complained. (Disney’s Iger has contributed to many Democrats running for office, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and has also donated to a handful of Republican candidates. Iger’s wife, former cable news anchor Willow Bay, is a top editorial executive at the decidedly leftist Huffington Post.)

Adding to the complexities: “The Path to 9/11” filmmakers' backgrounds provided plenty of fodder for critics. The director, David Cunningham, is the son of a controversial Christian missionary leader whose organization had shown an interest in media and movies. The screenwriter, Cyrus Nowrasteh, had friends and associates, including Rush Limbaugh, who hate Bill Clinton with a passion. (Both Cunningham and Nowrasteh insist “Path to 9/11” had no political tilt, explaining its chronological narrative meant the first section included Clinton’s faults in stopping Al Qaeda while the second part held the Bush administration up for scrutiny.)

“Blocking ‘The Path to 9/11’” presents strong evidence that many of the original docudrama’s harshest critics were also among its most ignorant. Ziegler smartly cuts together many of the Democrats — including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — admitting they had not seen the film that they were complaining about. “The Path to 9/11” was by no means a perfect docudrama, and the real-life figures certainly had a right to complain about their depiction and the way in which actual events were dramatized. But censorship is a dangerous thing, and “Blocking ‘The Path to 9/11’” is a look at behind-the-scenes power struggles in Hollywood that few people ever see.

One participant in the documentary has called Ziegler’s movie the Rosetta Stone to understanding how studio execs will bend over backward and even sacrifice potential shareholder profits in order to please, placate and protect friends such as the Clintons. Said the participant, who is weary of the argument that Hollywood only cares about making money and not furthering ideology: “It obliterates the canard that ‘it’s all about profits.’”

ODDS & ENDS:

Michelle Obama is returning to Los Angeles in early September for a fundraising double-header, according to the political website Wilshire & Washington. The first event on Sept. 3 will take place at the home of CAA partner Bryan Lourd and is being geared toward the gay and lesbian community, while a different affair later that evening will be held at the home of actor Samuel L. Jackson.

Jeffrey Barry of the William Morris Agency has been tapped to recruit country and western stars for the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., next month. While few Hollywood watchers are expecting the GOP to draw the same number of celebrities as the Democratic convention next week, it’s expected a fair share of right-leaning performers, including Kid Rock, the Beach Boys, Gretchen Wilson, the Charlie Daniels Band and several others, will attend.

Website for the movie is here

Imam: having sex-slaves "may no longer be fashionable," but it's still legal in Islam

A very revealing piece on sharia, marriage, and concubinage, as they relate to this story. "Why we passed Fatwa on Islamic preacher with 86 wives –Imam Ashafa," by Emeka Mamah, Kaduna for Vanguard, August 30: ....

Turkey goes over to the dark side

"Ahmadinejad got something just as valuable: a chance to spin his own image, court popularity and bash the United States and Israel."

Courtesy our friend and ally, Turkey.

"Then, as he left the mosque, Ahmadinejad got out of his car to encourage a crowd of about 300 to chant, 'Death to Israel! Death to America!'"

Courtesy our friend and ally, Turkey.

Islamization of Turkey Update: "Turkey bows to the dark side: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit is a sign that the West can no longer take Turkey for granted as a staunch ally against Iran," by Soner Cagaptay in the Los Angeles Times, August 19 (thanks to Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi):

ISTANBUL, TURKEY -- Praying in Istanbul's Blue Mosque on Friday, I witnessed firsthand Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's international publicity coup. .....

Even without this behavior, any visit from a leader representing an authoritarian, anti-Western autocracy would have created controversy in Turkey just a few years ago. Not today. The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government not only opened the Blue Mosque to Ahmadinejad but accommodated his refusal to pay respects at the mausoleum of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern, secular Turkey -- a major violation of protocol for an official visit.

... Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan asked the Turkish public to ignore the snub and instead "focus on the big picture." It is the "big picture," though, that is most disconcerting. By extending an invitation to Ahmadinejad, the first such move by any NATO or European Union member country, Turkey has broken ranks with the West. The West can no longer take Turkey for granted as a staunch ally against Tehran.

Feds in bed with terror sponsor?

by Joel Mowbray

What a difference a few months can make. That’s all it took for the federal government to go full-circle, from prosecuting an alleged terrorist to headlining and funding an event co-sponsored by one of his biggest supporters—a group that also happens to be still under investigation itself.

Through December of last year, the U.S. government was using its full force to convict the alleged North American leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sami al-Arian, of terrorism charges. By this March, the State Department dispatched its head of counterterrorism, Ambassador Hank Crumpton, to be the keynote speaker at a conference co-sponsored by one of al-Arian’s former principal funder, the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT). And for good measure, the Defense Department largely paid for the event.

Aside from the group’s history with al-Arian, IIIT’s co-founder and former longtime president—and an unindicted co-conspirator in the al-Arian trial—allegedly wrote a fatwa, or religious edict, years ago endorsing Jihad against Israelis. Though he wasn’t at the conference, Taha Jaber al-Alwani still sits on IIIT’s board. ....

Questions for Obama and McCain

By Robert Spencer

As the Democratic National Convention proceeds this week and the Republicans are gearing up for their own party, we are still not hearing the candidates being asked genuinely tough and illuminating questions about what they would do about jihad terrorism. And so I offer here, as a public service, a series of questions for interviewers and debate moderators to ask of the candidates. Will anyone have the good sense and chutzpah to ask Obama, McCain, Biden, or the Republican Vice Presidential nominee these questions?

1. What would you do to deal with the national security aspect of immigration? With plans afoot to bring large groups of Iraqis, including Iraqi Muslims, into the United States, what kind of screening will you implement to try to ensure that we are not importing jihad terrorists into the country? Will you reevaluate immigration levels from Muslim countries based on recognition of the fact that there is no reliable way to distinguish a peaceful Muslim from a jihadist sympathizer or potential jihadist?

2. Forty percent of the foreign jihadists fighting against American troops in Iraq< come from a putative ally of the United States<, Saudi Arabia<. The Kingdom is also one of the world’s leading bankrollers of terror. A Treasury Department official who tracks terror financing, Stuart Levey, recently remarked: “If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia<.” What will you do as President to work toward ending the absurd situation we find ourselves in today, of helping to finance by means of oil revenue our own destruction by means of jihad terrorism? What steps would you take to put our relationship with Saudi Arabia< on a more realistic footing than it is on today?

3. The Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies have adopted guidelines forbidding U.S.< government analysts and spokesmen from speaking about jihad or Islam in connection with Islamic jihad terrorism. Given that the terrorists themselves consistently use the language of classic Islamic jihad theology to explain their actions and make recruits among peaceful Muslims, doesn’t this policy create the risk that we will not understand our enemy’s motives and goals, and not be able to combat them as effectively as we otherwise could? And wouldn’t that be true even if the jihadist use of Islamic texts and teachings were, from an Islamic standpoint, improper and incorrect?

Also, there is evidence that this policy was adopted on the recommendation of Islamic scholars who are linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. The 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.”

Is this not reason enough in itself to reevaluate these new guidelines, if not to scrap them altogether?

4. Terrorism expert Stephen Emerson has called Hesham Islam, a top aide to the deputy secretary of defense, Gordon England“an Islamist with a pro-Muslim Brotherhood bent who has brought in groups to the Pentagon who have been unindicted co-conspirators.”

If that is true, it raises serious questions about the extent of jihadist infiltration within the highest levels of our defense apparatus.

If you are elected President, what will you do to root out possible Muslim Brotherhood operatives and other jihadist sympathizers from sensitive government positions? What kind of screening will you institute for Muslim military and intelligence officials in order to try to ensure their loyalty to the United States< and their rejection of the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism?

5. Last week, a torture chamber was discovered in a mosque in Baghdad. This revelation follows a large number of other incidents in which jihadists used mosques to plot terrorist attacks and to recruit. As President, would you favor the monitoring of mosques in the United States< in order to ensure that there is no terrorist activity and no seditious, Islamic supremacist activity going on in them? What other steps would you take? Would you call upon the Muslim community in America< to institute comprehensive and transparent programs in mosques and Islamic schools, teaching against the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism, and extolling the virtues of American pluralism, democracy, and the non-establishment of a state religion?

If not, why not?

Global Chess and the Russians are Winning - Why Are We Still Surprised?

By Dr. Robin McFee

"All war is based on deception"

Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

No wonder Russian chess masters rule the game! If the world is a chess board and the two key players are the U.S. and Russia, one of the teams doesn't realize this isn't a dress rehearsal. Want to go out on a limb to decide which country is being led by a chess master and which is not? Unfortunately we still don't get it! According to the Associated Press, the recent Russian decree on the independence of two breakaway regions of Georgia "stunned the West." Why? Earth calling - anyone home? Come on folks, let's convert oxygen to carbon dioxide and think this through. Russia, as they said in Poltergeist..."they're baaaack!"

As several of our pieces are off the board or in jeopardy of being taken in this geoglobal game, and the UN continues to be a spectator on all things important, we in the West remain "stunned." Russia has skillfully used emerging giants like China and India as pawns for various gambits; they are important in the game to be sure, but are clearly not the players. The latest move in which Russia invades Georgia underscores the chess game being played. It was perhaps a prelude to what most have considered the ultimate showdown since the days of Stalin; the stakes are high and the key players were and will always be "team democracy" (U.S.) playing against "team empire" (Russia). The move into Georgia wasn't even the opening play; that occurred a long time ago when the West wasn't watching very carefully. Some might argue we're still not too observant!

Russia's invasion of a sovereign, non-aggressor nation was instigated by a deception - the guise of protecting a vulnerable kindred region. Putin uses that ploy often to claim the role of rescuer instead of the rightful epithet of invader. Just another strategic move in a wave of mostly invisible or unrecognized maneuvers placing Russia closer to empire Russia, and with it placing the U.S. and our interests in a state of "check." Once again we are caught back on our heels playing catch up and wondering what happened? What begs to be asked - when will we amass the expertise and leadership to counter a series of losing moves that has placed the U.S. in such a precarious position globally, as we'll discuss momentarily? Secretary of State Rice, acknowledged as an expert on all things Russian, remains in the Middle East "hopeful" for a peace agreement. That's been a millennium of "hopeful" and counting - don't hold your breath! Perhaps we ought to focus in on one's "expertise" and work on live time predicaments - like Russia.

A Primer On Leadership

"It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Guess which part of the oft quoted military strategy Putin followed? ....

When Politics Trump Security Concerns

By Colonel Kenneth Allard (US Army, ret.)

....It is a classic line from a forgettable movie, a bygone era when Hollywood was joyfully even-handed. In the 1940 film Ghost Breakers, Claudette Colbert and Bob Hope are discussing zombies, those soulless, hollow-eyed creatures who blindly follow pointless orders. Hope deadpans, "You mean like Democrats"?

Actually, yes! As part of this newspaper's convention coverage, and while trying to be equally unfair to both parties, let me invite your attention to the recently rediscovered issue of national security. And to make certain that you catch my drift, let me underline the argument presented here and repeated next week: Both parties, in their own ways and for their own less-than-noble ends, placed narrow constituency interests ahead of their overriding responsibility to provide for the common defense.

The living memories are fading rapidly but presidents like Harry Truman, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson once made Democrats almost synonymous with national security. Vietnam partly shattered that consensus but things really got crazy after the Russians threw in the towel. Thereafter, it was only a short step from opposing Vietnam to squandering the peace dividend, never once conceding that peace had been the real dividend all along. Profligate peace-keeping under Bill Clinton was a temporary palliative for a confusing multi-polar world, although we studiously ignored genocide in Rwanda and overlooked four years of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia before intervening.

Along the way, a new Democrat generation apparently bought into an unspoken canon: that national security is not their party's core competency; that diplomacy and negotiations are the be-all of statecraft (although launching cruise missiles is sometimes permissible for signaling sore displeasure in non-confrontational ways); that defense budgets are, always and forever, needless diversions from social spending; above all, that retreat and withdrawal are the hallmarks of great statesmanship.

In 2006, the Democrats were finally able to put their West Wing instincts into practice after winning control of Congress. The nation clearly had ample grounds for frustration with the war policies of the Bush administration. But within days, Donald Rumsfeld had been dismissed, his policies reversed and Gen. David Petraeus appointed to lead the surge, a last-ditch attempt to prevent defeat, debacle and bloodbath in Iraq.

In his new book, The Strongest Tribe, former Marine grunt and war correspondent Bing West documents the turn-around which gained remarkable momentum throughout 2007. The strongest tribe in Iraq turned out to be the Americans, who finally arrived in the numbers and with the strategy capable of taking the deadly fight to al Qaeda - where it was always meant to be.

But West also recounts virulent opposition by a pantheon of Congressional Democrats. Chairman John Murtha, the kind of backroom-dealing politician "the mainstream press ordinarily despised" but lionized because of his anti-war stance; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who essentially called Petraeus a liar; even Sen. Joseph Biden, who said of the surge as recently as last September, "I give the strategy zero chance of succeeding. Zero." No matter how brilliantly Petraeus and his soldiers succeeded, the Democrats acted as if permanently stuck-on-stupid.

West argues that their attacks went far beyond policy disagreements, even permitting the "anti-military venom of the Vietnam era" to reappear and pollute an already difficult political dialogue. He mercilessly lays out why Democrat ambitions for 2008 ruled out any possibility of bipartisan cooperation in 2007: "There would be no compromise when rigid opposition garnered more votes for the presidency."

Opposition is one thing, governing another. A President Obama may find that his party's protracted record of silliness on national security issues is a huge handicap when dealing with the crises surely confronting the next administration. Two notable and local exceptions are Congressmen Charles Gonzales and Ciro Rodriguez, who deeply understand those cutting-edge issues (border security, cyber defenses and interoperability). Better yet: neither permitted opposition to the war to override deep-seated concerns for soldiers, veterans or their families.

Those are important first principles if the Democrats truly understand that a new consensus on national security is fundamental if they are ever to be trusted with governance - and inevitably judged by performance.

China, Iraq Strike $3 Billion Oil Deal

Shanghai, China (AP) - China and Iraq have signed a $3 billion deal revising an earlier agreement for China's biggest oil company to help develop the Ahdab oil field, an official at the Iraq's Oil Ministry said Thursday.

The deal, restoring a project canceled after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, was signed late Wednesday by Chinese officials and Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani.

"The initial agreement has been signed, and we are waiting to see the approval of both governments," said Sarhad Fatah, a spokesman at the Iraqi Embassy in Beijing. ....

Bacteria in water at Okla. E. coli outbreak site

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Bacterial contamination has been found in well water at a northeast Oklahoma restaurant linked to an E. coli outbreak that killed a man and sickened dozens of others, state health officials said Friday.

Department of Environmental Quality spokeswoman Skylar McElhaney said that more tests are needed to see if the bacteria found in the water includes the strain of E. coli implicated in the outbreak.

"While we cannot say this is the source of the outbreak, we also cannot rule it out," McElhaney said in an e-mail.

The outbreak connected to the Country Cottage restaurant in the town of Locust Grove sickened 116 people, and about 50 of those required hospitalization, health officials said.

Chad Ingle, 26, died Sunday, a week after eating at the restaurant. Several children sickened have needed dialysis treatment due to kidney failure. ....

California plans to drug depressed patients to death

...."AB 2747 allows a physician assistant or a nurse to opine that a patient is 'terminal,' and then push for unnatural death by 'palliative sedation,'" said Randy Thomasson, chief of the Campaign for Children and Families shortly after the vote.

"Depressed patients who succumb to this pressure will be drugged unconscious and die from dehydration, usually within five to 10 days. Nothing in the bill prohibits this horror," he said.

Forty-two Democrats in California voted in favor of the plan: 30 Republicans and two Democrats opposed the plan.....

Poll Results: Should Muslims who want Sharia be told to pack up and leave?

* Absolutely! Leave Now! came in at 94% of all votes

* No, they pose no threat received a mere 6 % of all votes

Great. Just goes to show that Winds of Jihad readers are seriously switched on and wonderfully non PC

New Poll starts today:

Which country in Europe will be the first to reverse the Muhammedan invasion?

UK

Germany

France

Italy

Spain

Denmark

others