The night we waved goodbye to America... our last best hope on Earth

by Peter Hitchens

Anyone would think we had just elected a hip, skinny and youthful replacement for God, with a plan to modernise Heaven and Hell – or that at the very least John Lennon had come back from the dead.

The swooning frenzy over the choice of Barack Obama as President of the United States must be one of the most absurd waves of self-deception and swirling fantasy ever to sweep through an advanced civilisation. At least Mandela-worship – its nearest equivalent – is focused on a man who actually did something.

I really don’t see how the Obama devotees can ever in future mock the Moonies, the Scientologists or people who claim to have been abducted in flying saucers. This is a cult like the one which grew up around Princess Diana, bereft of reason and hostile to facts.

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The night America changed: Barack and Michelle Obama in Chicago

It already has all the signs of such a thing. The newspapers which recorded Obama’s victory have become valuable relics. You may buy Obama picture books and Obama calendars and if there isn’t yet a children’s picture version of his story, there soon will be.

Proper books, recording his sordid associates, his cowardly voting record, his astonishingly militant commitment to unrestricted abortion and his blundering trip to Africa, are little-read and hard to find.

If you can believe that this undistinguished and conventionally Left-wing machine politician is a sort of secular saviour, then you can believe anything. He plainly doesn’t believe it himself. His cliche-stuffed, PC clunker of an acceptance speech suffered badly from nerves. It was what you would expect from someone who knew he’d promised too much and that from now on the easy bit was over.

He needn’t worry too much. From now on, the rough boys and girls of America’s Democratic Party apparatus, many recycled from Bill Clinton’s stained and crumpled entourage, will crowd round him, to collect the rich spoils of his victory and also tell him what to do, which is what he is used to.

Just look at his sermon by the shores of Lake Michigan. He really did talk about a ‘new dawn’, and a ‘timeless creed’ (which was ‘yes, we can’). He proclaimed that ‘change has come’. He revealed that, despite having edited the Harvard Law Review, he doesn’t know what ‘enormity’ means. He reached depths of oratorical drivel never even plumbed by our own Mr Blair, burbling about putting our hands on the arc of history (or was it the ark of history?) and bending it once more toward the hope of a better day (Don’t try this at home).

I am not making this up. No wonder that awful old hack Jesse Jackson sobbed as he watched. How he must wish he, too, could get away with this sort of stuff.

And it was interesting how the President-elect failed to lift his admiring audience by repeated – but rather hesitant – invocations of the brainless slogan he was forced by his minders to adopt against his will – ‘Yes, we can’. They were supposed to thunder ‘Yes, we can!’ back at him, but they just wouldn’t join in. No wonder. Yes we can what exactly? Go home and keep a close eye on the tax rate, is my advice. He’d have been better off bursting into ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony’ which contains roughly the same message and might have attracted some valuable commercial sponsorship.

Perhaps, being a Chicago crowd, they knew some of the things that 52.5 per cent of America prefers not to know. They know Obama is the obedient servant of one of the most squalid and unshakeable political machines in America. They know that one of his alarmingly close associates, a state-subsidised slum landlord called Tony Rezko, has been convicted on fraud and corruption charges.

They also know the US is just as segregated as it was before Martin Luther King – in schools, streets, neighbourhoods, holidays, even in its TV-watching habits and its choice of fast-food joint. The difference is that it is now done by unspoken agreement rather than by law.

If Mr Obama’s election had threatened any of that, his feel-good white supporters would have scuttled off and voted for John McCain, or practically anyone. But it doesn’t. Mr Obama, thanks mainly to the now-departed grandmother he alternately praised as a saint and denounced as a racial bigot, has the huge advantages of an expensive private education. He did not have to grow up in the badlands of useless schools, shattered families and gangs which are the lot of so many young black men of his generation.

If the nonsensical claims made for this election were true, then every positive discrimination programme aimed at helping black people into jobs they otherwise wouldn’t get should be abandoned forthwith. Nothing of the kind will happen. On the contrary, there will probably be more of them.

And if those who voted for Obama were all proving their anti-racist nobility, that presumably means that those many millions who didn’t vote for him were proving themselves to be hopeless bigots. This is obviously untrue.

Yes we can what?: Barack Obama ran on the ticket of change

I was in Washington DC the night of the election. America’s beautiful capital has a sad secret. It is perhaps the most racially divided city in the world, with 15th Street – which runs due north from the White House – the unofficial frontier between black and white. But, like so much of America, it also now has a new division, and one which is in many ways much more important. I had attended an election-night party in a smart and liberal white area, but was staying the night less than a mile away on the edge of a suburb where Spanish is spoken as much as English, plus a smattering of tongues from such places as Ethiopia, Somalia and Afghanistan.

As I walked, I crossed another of Washington’s secret frontiers. There had been a few white people blowing car horns and shouting, as the result became clear. But among the Mexicans, Salvadorans and the other Third World nationalities, there was something like ecstasy.

They grasped the real significance of this moment. They knew it meant that America had finally switched sides in a global cultural war. Forget the Cold War, or even the Iraq War. The United States, having for the most part a deeply conservative people, had until now just about stood out against many of the mistakes which have ruined so much of the rest of the world.

Suspicious of welfare addiction, feeble justice and high taxes, totally committed to preserving its own national sovereignty, unabashedly Christian in a world part secular and part Muslim, suspicious of the Great Global Warming panic, it was unique.

These strengths had been fading for some time, mainly due to poorly controlled mass immigration and to the march of political correctness. They had also been weakened by the failure of America’s conservative party – the Republicans – to fight on the cultural and moral fronts.

They preferred to posture on the world stage. Scared of confronting Left-wing teachers and sexual revolutionaries at home, they could order soldiers to be brave on their behalf in far-off deserts. And now the US, like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World. How sad. Where now is our last best hope on Earth?

The Unreported War

from Strategy Page

Cyber Wars are already underway, but the practitioners are doing it covertly, lest there is a conventional counterattack. Nuclear weapons have kept the major nations from going to war with each other for the past half century. That will probably continue. But Cyber War provides an opportunity to fight an anonymous war against another nation, without leading to physical violence on a large scale. But only if your don't make the target nation really, really mad. This is a delicate balancing act.

This has been done in the past, largely by quietly supporting opposition or terrorist groups in enemy nations. The key here is hiding your tracks. The earliest signs of this was the highly damaging Code Red virus of 2001, which apparently came from China. The origin of the virus was traced back to China, but China denied any responsibility and got away with it.

China, unlike other nations hostile to America (North Korea, Cuba, Iran), has a large and growing Internet presence. China has thousands of skilled Internet programmers, and has admitted it is putting together military units for developing and using cyberweapons. So the next time there are tensions between the United States and China, there will be an outbreak of nasty, and hard to trace, Cyber War attacks on the United States. The only problem China faces with this approach is that if its weapons hit other nations as well, and China were found out, the diplomatic backlash would be damaging. Even if attacks only made against United States and were not traced back to China, China would still be the chief suspect. It would be a case of China being the only nation with the motive and means. Of course, China could always slip Iran or North Korea some choice cyber weapons and wait for those nations to take a shot at America. And the Chinese are no doubt aware that America could launch its own anonymous cyber attack on China. You wouldn't be able to hide the effects of such a covert war, nor the scrambling of diplomats to bring the undeclared war to an end. Meanwhile, China is content to use Cyber War tools mainly for espionage. So do many other nations.

These undeclared, and unofficial, Cyber Wars have been going on for over a decade now. And the tools available to the attackers are becoming more powerful. What's behind this are several dozen gangs that undertake large scale criminal operations on the Internet. Most people see the results in the form of spam email (over 70 percent of all email is spam) and operations that secretly take over personal and business PCs, so these computers can secretly transmit spam, or huge quantities of bogus messages that shut down targeted web sites (DDOS, or distributed denial or service attacks). The gangs also specialize on finding all manner of secret, or sensitive, information, and selling it. Intelligence agencies are often eager buyers.

It appears that China and Russia, or at least their security services, have made deals with some of the gangs. It works like this. If the secret police want some Internet based spying done, or a DDOS attack unleashed on someone, the gangs will do it, or help government Cyber War organizations do so. In return, the gangs have a safe haven. The gangs have to refrain from major operations against the country they are in, but most of the targets are in the West (that's where most of the money is). Of course, no one will admit to this sort of thing. But criminal gangs working for the secret police is an ancient practice in these two countries, something that goes back centuries.

Secure in their safe havens, some of these gangs are now going after the commercial services that try and control spam, DDOS attacks and all manner of computer crime. The gangs obviously have an interest in trying to interfere with these security companies, and are apparently feeling secure enough from retribution, and prosecution, to do so.

The U.S. is the main target for the Internet based espionage, and has not yet come up with a way to get the foreign hackers to stop. American officials don't want this stuff in the media either, because the losses are embarrassing, as is the lack of an effective plan to halt the plundering. Occasionally, some details leak out, like the military asking Congress for permission to use more aggressive methods in going after the cyber spies. This quiet war could have enormous implications for any future conventional conflict. The Chinese are going after military technology, and it's not always obvious what they've got, and what they haven't. This increases the probability of some nasty, and painful, surprises when the shooting starts.

The ‘Financial Rescue’ that Bankrupted America

by Cliff Kincaid

It is the story of our lifetimes: a financial crisis is underway and getting worse. As the recession deepens, our jobs and savings are threatened, and our children and grandchildren will probably live in a country with lower living standards and fewer opportunities than what we have enjoyed. America may be reduced to the status of a second- or third-rate economic power, dependent on international agencies like the International Monetary Fund and Arab governments for investment dollars and foreign aid handouts.

However, the looting of the taxpayers, which was initially $700 billion for Wall Street and has now ballooned to an estimated $1.8 trillion and is not over yet, was not labeled as corruption by our media. Instead, it was called a “rescue” and was demanded by many anchors and reporters. We were told it would stabilize the markets and help ordinary people. It didn’t.

Kevin Howley, Associate Professor of Communication at DePauw University, says this was deliberate propaganda on their part. He comments that “…the phrase ‘bailout’ – with its connotation that the government is letting Wall Street off the hook for questionable business practices – has given way to a far more agreeable term – ‘rescue plan.’ This phrasing appeals to the basic decency of the American people and suggests that we’re all in this thing together.”

In a real-life corruption case, which was just as suspiciously timed as the financial crisis itself, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was indicted and then convicted in this election year on all seven charges of making false statements on Senate financial documents. One of the charges was that he had received a $1,000 Alaskan sled dog puppy that he valued at only $250 and claimed had come from a charity.

This is chicken feed compared to what the politicians and their appointees have done by bringing the U.S. to the point of bankruptcy. But can we ever expect the Department of Justice to turn on the politicians for these financial crimes? Not likely.

Instead of getting to the bottom of what caused the financial crisis and how it affected the course of the campaign, Fox News Channel’s Carl Cameron aired a frivolous attack on GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin on November 5th, citing anonymous sources without corroboration as saying that the Alaska Governor didn’t know Africa was a continent and that she displayed “temper tantrums” during the campaign. The Cameron report has led to a proposal for a Boycott of Fox News by conservatives. Support for the boycott is running strong on the conservative Free Republic website.

Cameron spewed “unmitigated hearsay and garbage without one shred of supporting evidence,” noted one entry.

Rather than publicize smears of Palin, it might be advisable for Cameron, the chief political correspondent for Fox News, as well as the rest of the media, to find out what happened to Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s proposal for “a commission modeled on the government’s in-depth investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attack to probe what prompted the financial crisis,” as Jonathan Martin of Politico.com described it in a piece dated September 16th. One reason for such a proposal was the rational belief that Democrats, who are in charge of Congress, would have no reason to investigate how they refused to restructure and rein in the irresponsible lending practices of government mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and contributed to the financial crisis. Obama, not surprisingly, rejected the idea of a commission.

“Asked for more details about the proposal, a McCain spokesman said they would be forthcoming,” Politico’s Martin added at the time. But no details were forthcoming. Then, as we all know, McCain came to Washington, initially sympathized with House conservatives opposed to the bailout, and flip-flopped in support of it.

Was there something that scared him away from his call for a thorough investigation of the financial mess? Did he realize that it might touch his own campaign manager, Rick Davis, who had his own financial ties as a lobbyist to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

“We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us,” McCain said in his Republican presidential nomination acceptance speech. That was certainly true in regard to his visit to Washington, D.C., after suspending his campaign, to talk about the proposed bailout. He turned his back on the conservatives (and the public) and voted for the bailout, guaranteeing his defeat on November 4th.

He should have realized that he couldn’t fight Obama’s socialism by embracing Bush’s socialism. But he was not conservative enough to get it. He was not alone; many “conservatives” in the media, especially Fox News, and the blogosphere also backed the bailout.

In fairness, it should be noted that other GOP leaders, including all of them in the House – Reps. John Boehner, Roy Blunt, Adam Putnam, and Eric Cantor, as well as Paul Ryan of the Budget Committee – voted for the bailout, too. Boehner wants to remain as House Minority Leader while Cantor believes he deserves a promotion to the position of House Minority Whip, the number two leadership position. Cantor is reportedly now apologizing in private for his backing of the bailout bill.

Rep. Mike Pence, who is running for chairman of the House Republican Conference, the number three leadership post, opposed the bailout. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, chairman of the House Republican Conference Committee, called it “Fleece in our time.”

Happy Birthday Marines!

The U.S. Marine Corps was founded on Nov. 10th, 1775. To all those who have served in the U.S. Marine Corps -- thank you for your service and Semper Fidelis!

By order of Major Gen. Lajeune, General Commandant of the USMC, the following is read every year since 1921 to commemorate the Corps' birthday.

MARINE CORPS ORDER No. 47 (Series 1921)
HEADQUARTERS
U.S. MARINE CORPS Washington, November 1, 1921

The following will be read to the command on the 10th of November, 1921, and hereafter on the 10th of November of every year. Should the order not be received by the 10th of November, 1921, it will be read upon receipt.

On November 10, 1775, a Corps of Marines was created by a resolution of Continental Congress. Since that date many thousand men have borne the name "Marine". In memory of them it is fitting that we who are Marines should commemorate the birthday of our corps by calling to mind the glories of its long and illustrious history.

The record of our corps is one which will bear comparison with that of the most famous military organizations in the world's history. During 90 of the 146 years of its existence the Marine Corps has been in action against the Nation's foes. From the Battle of Trenton to the Argonne, Marines have won foremost honors in war, and in the long eras of tranquility at home, generation after generation of Marines have grown gray in war in both hemispheres and in every corner of the seven seas, that our country and its citizens might enjoy peace and security.

In every battle and skirmish since the birth of our corps, Marines have acquitted themselves with the greatest distinction, winning new honors on each occasion until the term "Marine" has come to signify all that is highest in military efficiency and soldierly virtue.

This high name of distinction and soldierly repute we who are Marines today have received from those who preceded us in the corps. With it we have also received from them the eternal spirit which has animated our corps from generation to generation and has been the distinguishing mark of the Marines in every age. So long as that spirit continues to flourish Marines will be found equal to every emergency in the future as they have been in the past, and the men of our Nation will regard us as worthy successors to the long line of illustrious men who have served as "Soldiers of the Sea" since the founding of the Corps.

JOHN A. LEJEUNE,
Major General
Commandant

Fed Defies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Disclose (Update1)

By Mark Pittman, Bob Ivry and Alison Fitzgerald

Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

``The collateral is not being adequately disclosed, and that's a big problem,'' said Dan Fuss, vice chairman of Boston- based Loomis Sayles & Co., where he co-manages $17 billion in bonds. ``In a liquid market, this wouldn't matter, but we're not. The market is very nervous and very thin.''

Bloomberg News has requested details of the Fed lending under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure.

The Fed made the loans under terms of 11 programs, eight of them created in the past 15 months, in the midst of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

``It's your money; it's not the Fed's money,'' said billionaire Ted Forstmann, senior partner of Forstmann Little & Co. in New York. ``Of course there should be transparency.''

Federal Reserve spokeswoman Michelle Smith declined to comment on the loans or the Bloomberg lawsuit. Treasury spokeswoman Michele Davis didn't respond to a phone call and an e-mail seeking comment.

$2 Trillion

The Fed's lending is significant because the central bank has stepped into a rescue role that was also the purpose of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, bailout plan -- without safeguards put into the TARP legislation by Congress.

Total Fed lending topped $2 trillion for the first time last week and has risen by 140 percent, or $1.172 trillion, in the seven weeks since Fed governors relaxed the collateral standards on Sept. 14. The difference includes a $788 billion increase in loans to banks through the Fed and $474 billion in other lending, mostly through the central bank's purchase of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds.

Before Sept. 14, the Fed accepted mostly top-rated government and asset-backed securities as collateral. After that date, the central bank widened standards to accept other kinds of securities, some with lower ratings. The Fed collects interest on all its loans.

`We Need Transparency'

The plan to purchase distressed securities through TARP called for buying at the ``lowest price that the secretary (of the Treasury) determines to be consistent with the purposes of this Act,'' according to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, the law that covers TARP.

The legislation didn't require any specific method for the purchases beyond saying mechanisms such as auctions or reverse auctions should be used ``when appropriate.'' In a reverse auction, bidders offer to sell securities at successively lower prices, helping to ensure that the Fed would pay less. The measure also included a five-member oversight board that includes Paulson and Bernanke.

At a Sept. 23 Senate Banking Committee hearing in Washington, Paulson called for transparency in the purchase of distressed assets under the TARP program.

``We need oversight,'' Paulson told lawmakers. ``We need protection. We need transparency. I want it. We all want it.''

Banks Resist Disclosure

At a joint House-Senate hearing the next day, Bernanke also stressed the importance of openness in the program. ``Transparency is a big issue,'' he said.

The Fed lent cash and government bonds to banks, which gave the Fed collateral in the form of equities and debt, including subprime and structured securities such as collateralized debt obligations, according to the Fed Web site. The borrowers have included the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Banks oppose any release of information because it might signal weakness and spur short-selling or a run by depositors, said Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs for the Financial Services Roundtable, a Washington trade group.

Frank Backs Fed

``You have to balance the need for transparency with protecting the public interest,'' Talbott said. ``Taxpayers have a right to know where their tax dollars are going, but one piece of information standing alone could undermine public confidence in the system.''

The nation's biggest banks, Citigroup, Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, declined to comment on whether they have borrowed money from the Fed. They received $120 billion in capital from the TARP, which was signed into law Oct. 3.

In an interview Nov. 6, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said the Fed's disclosure is sufficient and that the risk the central bank is taking on is appropriate in the current economic climate. Frank said he has discussed the program with Timothy F. Geithner, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a possible candidate to succeed Paulson as Treasury secretary.

``I talk to Geithner and he was pretty sure that they're OK,'' said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. ``If the risk is that the Fed takes a little bit of a haircut, well that's regrettable.'' Such losses would be acceptable, he said, if the program helps revive the economy.

`Unclog the Market'

Frank said the Fed shouldn't reveal the assets it holds or how it values them because of ``delicacy with respect to pricing.'' He said such disclosure would ``give people clues to what your pricing is and what they might be able to sell us and what your estimates are.'' He wouldn't say why he thought that information would be problematic.

Revealing how the Fed values collateral could help thaw frozen credit markets, said Ron D'Vari, chief executive officer of NewOak Capital LLC in New York and the former head of structured finance at BlackRock Inc.

``I'd love to hear the methodology, how the Fed priced the assets,'' D'Vari said. ``That would unclog the market very quickly.''

TARP's $700 billion so far is being used to buy preferred shares in banks to shore up their capital. The program was originally intended to hold banks' troubled assets while markets were frozen.

AIG Lending

The Bloomberg lawsuit argues that the collateral lists ``are central to understanding and assessing the government's response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression.''

The Fed has lent at least $81 billion to American International Group Inc., the world's largest insurer, so that it can pay obligations to banks. AIG today said it received an expanded government rescue package valued at more than $150 billion.

The central bank is also responsible for losses on a $26.8 billion portfolio guaranteed after Bear Stearns Cos. was bought by JPMorgan.

``As a taxpayer, it is absolutely important that we know how they're lending money and who they're lending it to,'' said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Arlington, Virginia- based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Ultimately, the Fed will have to remove some securities held as collateral from some programs because the central bank's rules call for instruments rated below investment grade to be taken back by the borrower and marked down in value. Losses on those assets could then be written off, partly through the capital recently injected into those banks by the Treasury.

Ratings Cuts

Moody's Investors Service alone has cut its ratings on 926 mortgage-backed securities worth $42 billion to junk from investment grade since Sept. 14, making them ineligible for collateral on some Fed loans.

The Fed's collateral ``absolutely should be made public,'' said Mark Cuban, an activist investor, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team and the creator of the Web site BailoutSleuth.com, which focuses on the secrecy shrouding the Fed's moves.

The Bloomberg lawsuit is Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 08-CV-9595, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

Stealth Jihad

(Compiler's note: Must read)

"In Stealth Jihad, Robert Spencer has performed an invaluable public service. He has 'connected the dots' on the enemy within, the Fifth Column that the Muslim Brotherhood and its foreign enablers have established in America -- and other nations of the West -- to advance the seditious program they call Sharia. This book should be required reading for every government official -- and everyone else committed to the survival of our country in the face of this ominous threat." -- Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy

Obama’s Afghanistan Challenge

During his quest for the presidency, president-elect Barack Obama scored considerable points with the American public when he stated that America must “get off the wrong battlefield in Iraq and take the fight to the terrorists in Pakistan.” That is where bin Laden and al Qaeda are, he emphasized.

Taking advantage of the Iraq war’s unpopularity, Obama promised to send more American troops to the Pakistan-Afghan front as they become available from Mesopotamia, making that proposal a central plank in his foreign policy platform. His pronouncement on the Afghan war theater was also meant to give Obama credibility in an area he was deemed weakest: foreign affairs.

But with the election now over, the challenges facing the incoming president in the turbulent Afghanistan-Pakistan region are much more complex than those espoused on the campaign trail. And their resolution will also require more than the two extra brigades Obama said he will send to Afghanistan next year. ....

A look at out future, 2009 - 2010 … and beyond

by Fabius Maximus

Professor Nouriel Roubini is a “Dr. Doom” (source: NY Times) for our time. His forecasts are both analytically clear and terrifying, as in “I fear the worst is yet to come” (The Times, 26 October 2008). As such he provides a clear reference point against which to compare other scenarios. How does my view contrast with his?The Professor sees this as a long, bad cycle. We both agree that the global economy suffered the equivalent of a cardiac arrest in October, the second phase of the global recession (which started in late 2007). Beyond that, however, the Professor is Dr. Pangloss compared with me (but not in any other sense). Our views differ in two respects.(A) In 2006 and 2007 I believed he was too early. The Battleship America (and even more so the world) turns very very slowly. This was not a typical post-WWII recession, a rapid slowdown caused by accumulation of excess inventory by businesses, or the Fed fighting inflation by increasing interest rates. This is something far larger, and hence was slower to develop.(B) Now he is IMO too optimistic. This is not a cyclical economic event. This is a historic cycle, the end of the post-WWII global geopolitical regime.

Results mean immigration still key issue

by Daniel González

The re-election of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and County Attorney Andrew Thomas keeps the issue of illegal immigration at the forefront of Arizona politics, even though it has fallen off the national radar.

"Thank goodness we still have great men in power. . . . At least they will help keep Phoenix safe," said Bill Chenausky, 41, of Phoenix.

Chenausky said he voted for Arpaio and Thomas because he is frustrated with illegal immigration and they seem to be the only ones doing anything about it.

Both Arpaio and Thomas vowed to continue to combat illegal immigration, and they suggested they may even step up their efforts in light of their victories....

Tracking terrorist financing on wane

by By PAMELA HESS

The international system for tracking and cutting off terrorist financing has achieved major successes but is fraying seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, two former Treasury Department officials report. sharia

WASHINGTON — The international system for tracking and cutting off terrorist financing has achieved major successes but is fraying seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, two former Treasury Department officials report. Some U.S. allies in the fight against terrorism pose the weakest links.

U.N. countries froze the assets of some 300 al-Qaida and Taliban members after the 2001 attacks. By early 2004, 112 countries had ratified an international effort to suppress terrorist financing. In addition, al-Qaida is not providing money for operations at past levels. Instead, local cells increasingly are self-funded and send money back to "corporate" al-Qaida.

But international interest in continuing to comply with U.N. enforcement rules is waning, according to the former officials, and terrorists have shifted from official financial institutions, frustrating government efforts to cut off their money streams.

"Few assets are now being frozen and, in fact, many countries still have not put in place the legal framework necessary to take action," the report states. The arms embargo and travel ban against those on the list have not been enforced.

Sources of support

Donors from Saudi Arabia are the chief sources of support for al-Qaida extremist groups, while the Iranian government keeps finance Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist groups, according to the report.

The research is intended as a road map for the incoming Obama administration to tighten the system and crack down on evolving terrorist financing schemes.

An advance copy of the report, "The Money Trail," was provided to The Associated Press. The authors, Matthew Levitt and Michael Jacobson, are presenting their findings to government agencies, as well as international organizations and think tanks.

Leavitt was deputy assistant treasury secretary for intelligence and analysis from 2005 to early 2007, while Jacobson worked in the department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. Both are now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. They spent 18 months interviewing government and financial executives around the world.

Problem with Kuwait

The report found that U.S. ally Kuwait presents a growing problem, and problems extend through the Gulf states.

"Several U.S. officials compared Kuwait's present efforts against terrorist financing to Saudi Arabia's before the May 2003 attack in Riyadh, when the Saudi's first realized the extent of the threat on their hands," the report said, citing interviews with unnamed State and Defense Department officials.

The United Arab Emirates runs its financial-monitoring system well "on the surface" but has just two analysts responsible for combating the financing of terrorist activities in one of the Middle East's major financial centers. The UAE government has only a limited understanding of how to "follow the money," an unidentified State Department official told the authors.

Foreign governments and banks, the report says, think their responsibility ends with adhering to the 40 rules and nine recommended practices established by an international finance group after Sept. 11.

Richard Barrett, the U.N coordinator for the monitoring committee on al-Qaida and Taliban penalties, said Friday the nine recommendations "set everybody up for failure," because no country can live up to them.

Much terrorist cash is funneled through traditional and generally unregulated cash couriers. Carrying vast amounts of cash in and out of Persian Gulf countries is common, and the governments in the region are reluctant to crack down on it, even if they were capable of doing so.

Even the U.S. has been unable to shut down the traditional cash-transfer networks, known as hawalas, on its own soil. It is now a criminal offense to operate an unlicensed money remitter in the U.S., but just 20 percent of the country's money-services bureaus have registered, according to State Department report from March.

Stored value cards

One emerging problem is stored value cards, which are similar to debit cards but can be issued anonymously. Current U.S. law does not regulate how much money can be stored on a card, so hundreds of thousands of dollars can be taken out of the country without any declaration.

The report does cite progress, even in the Gulf states:

• For the first time, the UAE has required hawalas to register with the government. As of May, 369 money brokers had submitted applications.

• Saudi Arabia has removed cash collection boxes from mosques to prevent donations from being sent abroad to Islamic extremists.

• Saudi charities now are banned from sending money outside the kingdom.

The report also finds terrorist cells have turned to crime to raise funds.

According to the report, which cited a French intelligence official, one cell netted about a million euros when a member whose job was to restock ATMs robbed several of them.

In another French case, a cell blew a hole in the wall of a cash-distribution center. Members would have walked away with 4 million euros had the hole not been too small to enter.

Islamic finance not immune to global woes

Sharia

Islamic finance gaining ground in Germany

Sharia

India keen to introduce Islamic banking and finance

Sharia

Islamic charity wins in court

PORTLAND — A federal judge in Oregon has ruled the government violated the constitutional rights of an Islamic charity by designating it as a terrorist organization without giving it adequate notice. ....

Obama planning US trials for Guantanamo detainees

By MATT APUZZO and LARA JAKES JORDAN

WASHINGTON -- President-elect Obama's advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.

During his campaign, Obama described Guantanamo as a "sad chapter in American history" and has said generally that the U.S. legal system is equipped to handle the detainees. But he has offered few details on what he planned to do once the facility is closed.

Under plans being put together in Obama's camp, some detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts.

A third group of detainees _ the ones whose cases are most entangled in highly classified information _ might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to advisers and Democrats involved in the talks. Advisers participating directly in the planning spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans aren't final.

The move would be a sharp deviation from the Bush administration, which established military tribunals to prosecute detainees at the Navy base in Cuba and strongly opposes bringing prisoners to the United States. Obama's Republican challenger, John McCain, had also pledged to close Guantanamo. But McCain opposed criminal trials, saying the Bush administration's tribunals should continue on U.S. soil.

The plan being developed by Obama's team has been championed by legal scholars from both political parties. But it is almost certain to face opposition from Republicans who oppose bringing terrorism suspects to the U.S. and from Democrats who oppose creating a new court system with fewer rights for detainees.

Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor and Obama legal adviser, said discussions about plans for Guantanamo had been "theoretical" before the election but would quickly become very focused because closing the prison is a top priority. Bringing the detainees to the United States will be controversial, he said, but could be accomplished.

"I think the answer is going to be, they can be as securely guarded on U.S. soil as anywhere else," Tribe said. "We can't put people in a dungeon forever without processing whether they deserve to be there."

The tougher challenge will be allaying fears by Democrats who believe the Bush administration's military commissions were a farce and dislike the idea of giving detainees anything less than the full constitutional rights normally enjoyed by everyone on U.S. soil.

"There would be concern about establishing a completely new system," said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the House Judiciary Committee and former federal prosecutor who is aware of the discussions in the Obama camp. "And in the sense that establishing a regimen of detention that includes American citizens and foreign nationals that takes place on U.S. soil and departs from the criminal justice system _ trying to establish that would be very difficult."

Obama has said the civilian and military court-martial systems provide "a framework for dealing with the terrorists," and Tribe said the administration would look to those venues before creating a new legal system. But discussions of what a new system would look like have already started.

"It would have to be some sort of hybrid that involves military commissions that actually administer justice rather than just serve as kangaroo courts," Tribe said. "It will have to both be and appear to be fundamentally fair in light of the circumstances. I think people are going to give an Obama administration the benefit of the doubt in that regard."

Though a hybrid court may be unpopular, other advisers and Democrats involved in the Guantanamo Bay discussions say Obama has few other options.

Prosecuting all detainees in federal courts raises a host of problems. Evidence gathered through military interrogation or from intelligence sources might be thrown out. Defendants would have the right to confront witnesses, meaning undercover CIA officers or terrorist turncoats might have to take the stand, jeopardizing their cover and revealing classified intelligence tactics.

In theory, Obama could try to transplant the Bush administration's military commission system from Guantanamo Bay to a U.S. prison. But Tribe said, and other advisers agreed, that was "a nonstarter." With lax evidence rules and intense secrecy, the military commissions have been criticized by human rights groups, defense attorneys and even some military prosecutors who quit the process in protest.

"I don't think we need to completely reinvent the wheel, but we need a better tribunal process that is more transparent," Schiff said.

That means something different would need to be done if detainees couldn't be released or prosecuted in traditional courts. Exactly what that something would look like remains unclear.

According to three advisers participating in the process, Obama is expected to propose a new court system, appointing a committee to decide how such a court would operate. Some detainees likely would be returned to the countries where they were first captured for further detention or rehabilitation. The rest could probably be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts, one adviser said. All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing talks, which have been private.

Whatever form it takes, Tribe said he expects Obama to move quickly.

"In reality and symbolically, the idea that we have people in legal black holes is an extremely serious black mark," Tribe said. "It has to be dealt with."

Source: Obama secretly pledged cooperation with Syria

By Aaron Klein

Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha

JERUSALEM – Representatives of President-elect Barack Obama recently told Syrian officials that Obama supports ending their county's isolation and that as president he would work to bring Damascus into the international community, a Syrian diplomatic source revealed to WND.

The source said the pledges were made this past summer in a meeting in Washington

, D.C., between Obama's policy aids and Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha. The source said Moustapha was asked at the time by Obama's camp not to comment on the meeting.

The source said Moustapha was told that Obama favors engagement and economic cooperation with Syria as opposed to the Bush administration's policy of isolating the country and imposing economic sanctions.

The source also disclosed Obama's team said the president-elect favors talks between Israel and Syria leading to an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, strategic, mountainous territory looking down on Israeli population centers that was twice used in the past by Syria to mount ground invasions into the Jewish state. ....

UK's Brown: Now is the time to build global society

by Jodie Ginsberg; Editing by Janet Lawrence

LONDON (Reuters) - The international financial crisis has given world leaders a unique opportunity to create a truly global society, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown will say in a keynote foreign policy speech on Monday.

In his annual speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet, Brown -- who has spearheaded calls for the reform of international financial institutions -- will say Britain, the United States and Europe are key to forging a new world order.

"The alliance between Britain and the U.S. -- and more broadly between Europe and the U.S. -- can and must provide leadership, not in order to make the rules ourselves, but to lead the global effort to build a stronger and more just international order," an excerpt from the speech says.

Brown and other leaders meet in Washington next weekend to discuss longer term solutions for dealing with economic issues following a series of coordinated moves on interest rates and to recapitalize banks in the wake of the financial crisis.

"Uniquely in this global age, it is now in our power to come together so that 2008 is remembered not just for the failure of a financial crash that engulfed the world but for the resilience and optimism with which we faced the storm, endured it and prevailed," Brown will say in his speech on Monday evening.

"...And if we learn from our experience of turning unity of purpose into unity of action, we can together seize this moment of change in our world to create a truly global society."

According to a summary of the speech released by his office, Brown will set out five great challenges the world faces.

These are: terrorism and extremism and the need to reassert faith in democracy; the global economy; climate change; conflict and mechanisms for rebuilding states after conflict; and meeting goals on tackling poverty and disease.

Brown will also identify five stages for tackling the economy, starting with recapitalizing banks so they can resume lending to families and businesses, and better international co-ordination of fiscal and monetary policy.

He also wants immediate action to stop the spread of the financial crisis to middle-income countries, with a new facility for the International Monetary Fund, and agreement on a global trade deal, as well as reform of the global financial system.

"My message is that we must be: internationalist not protectionist; interventionist not neutral; progressive not reactive; and forward looking not frozen by events. We can seize the moment and in doing so build a truly global society."

Secret order lets U.S. raid Al Qaeda around the world

by Gateway Pundit

for original article click here

Maybe this is just The New York Times' way of saying "so long" to President Bush...

The NY Times published another report on secret military operations today. Of course this information was fed to the paper by anonymous sources like all of the other secret operations they reported this last 8 years.
FOX News reported:

The U.S. military has conducted nearly a dozen secret operations against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Syria, Pakistan and other countries since 2004, The New York Times reported Sunday night.

Citing anonymous U.S. officials, the Times story said the operations were authorized by a broad classified order that then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed and President George W. Bush approved in spring 2004. The order gave the military authority to attack Al Qaeda anywhere in the world and to conduct operations in countries that were not at war with the U.S.

One such operation was an Oct. 26 raid inside Syria, the Times reported. Washington has not formally acknowledged the raid, but U.S. officials have said the target was a top Al Qaeda in Iraq figure. Syria has asked for proof and said eight civilians were killed in the attack.

In another mission, in 2006, Navy SEALs raided a suspected terrorist compound in Pakistan's tribal areas.

The raids have typically been conducted by U.S. Special Forces, often in conjunction with the Central Intelligence Agency, the newspaper said. Even though the process has been streamlined, specific missions have to be approved by the defense secretary or, in the cases of Syria and Pakistan, by the president.

Syrians mourn next the bodies of their relatives who were killed on October 26, 2008, in what the Syrian media reported as a deadly US military attack on the village of Sukkiraya, on the Syria-Iraq border. Iraq has said the deadly raid was targeting an area used by insurgents plotting attacks on its soil, as Damascus protested about what it branded a cold-blooded war crime by US forces. (AFP/Ramzi Haidar)

It will be interesting to see if these leaks continue during the Obama administration. They certainly damaged Bush.