Obama’s Sleight of Mouth

by Bill Siegel

On February 4, 2009, President Barack Obama delivered an eloquent speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. Attempting to persuade the world that he wishes to be the great uniter, his speech focused on, among other things, what peoples throughout the world seem to have in common.

Yet, when viewed from a different perspective, Obama seems to have engaged in a little three card monty with his treatment of Islam. Specifically, Obama said:

“But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate. There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent being. This much we know.”

The problem here is that, to many Muslims, the Koran certainly does promote hate. Without entering into the distracting question as to whether “Islam is a religion of peace” as many prefer to believe, there is no doubt that many Muslims now and throughout history – not simply a few crazy extremists – are taught to hate the infidel and to treat the non-Muslim according to such hatred.

More significantly, in Islam, “innocent being” carries a different meaning than it does for those brought up in Judeo-Christian cultures. The ultimate judge of innocence is Allah. Under Sharia, anyone who is not a Muslim is by definition guilty. And while it is certainly true that Islam does not condone the killing of innocent Muslims (except where it does), the question of who is “innocent” has various answers depending upon which Muslim is asked.

Obama followed this ruse with another hidden distortion. He stated:

“We know too that whatever our differences, there is one law that binds all great religions together. Jesus told us to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” The Torah commands, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.” In Islam, there is a Hadith that reads “None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” And the same is true for Buddhists and Hindus; for followers of Confucius and for humanists. It is, of course, the Golden Rule- the call to love one another; to understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth.”

This is a wonderful concept – to Westerners and others. And it is an unambiguously correct read of Christianity and Judaism at their cores. Unfortunately, his inserted interpretation of Islam is not shared by many Muslims, especially those who have been schooled in their religion. Specifically, this Hadith- Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 12: Narrated Anas: is often stated (as with the University of Southern California-Muslim Students Association compendium) as: The Prophet said, "None of you will have faith till he wishes for his (Muslim) brother what he likes for himself." This is because to most Muslims, “brother” means a fellow Muslim.

This notion is replete throughout Islamic teaching as with another Hadith: Bukhari Volume 3, Book 43, Number 622: Narrated 'Abdullah bin Umar: Allah's Apostle said, "A Muslim is a brother of another Muslim, so he should not oppress him, nor should he hand him over to an oppressor. Whoever fulfilled the needs of his brother, Allah will fulfill his needs; whoever brought his (Muslim) brother out of a discomfort, Allah will bring him out of the discomforts of the Day of Resurrection, and whoever screened a Muslim, Allah will screen him on the Day of Resurrection."

Clearly, this intrinsically Islamic concept of distinguishing fellow Muslims from all others is in direct contradiction of the very notion Obama tried to sell at the Breakfast. Many Muslim rulers have learned how to talk to two audiences, simultaneously satisfying what each wants to hear. Sadat spoke of “peace with justice” which meant one thing to Muslims (the ultimate elimination of the Jewish state [see www.FarewellIsrael.com]) and another to the Israelis who welcomed his gesture so thoroughly. Yasser Arafat was notorious for telling the West one thing while fueling hatred of the West with his own people.

Perhaps Obama, as one who claims to have given up the Muslim faith into which he was born, is simply unfamiliar with the reality of Islam and Sharia. Or is it possible that Obama, who seems to have not turned Christian until well into his twenties, knows full well the age old Muslim art of how to simultaneously send one message to the Muslim world while sounding fully politically correct to the non-Muslim world? Either case presents a true danger.

P.S. In 1899, Winston Churchill wrote the following about Islam in his book The River War:

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property‹either as a child, a wife, or a concubine‹must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam

has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science‹the science against which it had vainly struggled‹the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."

Perhaps this is why Obama, unprovoked, has returned the bust of Churchill that U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair gave George W. Bush after 9/11. Is there another message here to Muslims?

How much will you pay for Wall Street bailout?

(Compiler's note: A must read article.)

By Chelsea Schilling

A grassroots online community dedicated to driving home the costs of the government's Wall Street bailout has created a calculator showing exactly how much each and every American family will pay for the spending spree. "Here's the deal," Right.org states. "A bunch of jet-set corporate executives made bad bets for their companies and lost, big time. Normally, these companies would go bankrupt. This time, our government is taking money from our families to prop up these insolvent companies."

Right.org describes itself as "a community of Americans who are intensely concerned about the bailout culture in Washington." One of those Americans, Evan Baehr, told WND the website grew out of conversations on an e-mail list of friends who work in journalism, finance, law and the non-profit sector.

"As the bailouts began in earnest last fall, two things dismayed us: First, how non-transparent they were; and second, how they contravened common sense and what we think as sound economics," he said.

Baehr said the government is forcing taxpayers to invest in assets the private sector won't touch and dodging inquiries into details about acquisition of the assets.

"Something had to be done, and we felt like there wasn't any voice out there gathering the opposition to these bailouts and bringing pressure to bear on Congress and the president," he said. "Americans deserve a better sense of what started the economic crisis, the types and sizes of bailout packages and what some possible ways out might be."

The website offers a calculator so every family may see how much they must pay in taxes to finance the Wall Street bailouts.

"TARP and the bailouts of Bear Stearns and Citigroup are just the tip of the iceberg," the website states. "So far, our government committed more than $8 trillion to funding failed companies (that's over $60,000 per family in America!). ..."

According to the calculator, with a total bailout of nearly $8.5 trillion divided among 300 million Americans, every man, woman and child in the U.S. would have a tax burden of $27,599. (The IRS reports there were only 138 million taxpayers in 2007, putting the load at $61,153.04 per taxpayer.)

The U.S. Census Bureau's 2005-2007 American Community Survey reports the median family income is approximately $60,374, and the average U.S. family is made up of three people. If every person were to pay for the Wall treet bailout, the calculator reveals that a family of three making $60,374 with a current income tax of $12,712 would face an additional tax of $5,333 each year to cover its costs – equal to a 42 percent tax increase.

In a period of 30 years at 5 percent interest, the calculator estimates the average family would pay $160,009 – or the cost of 12 Chevy Aveos

, six college tuitions, 123 iMacs and 40 vacations.

The website also offers an interactive bailout chart illustrating the government's cash commitments.

"What's worse? It's not making a difference," Right.org states. "The line for bailouts is growing, and includes the telecom industry, airlines, as well as city and state governments."

Calculations do not include costs to taxpayers associated with the Obama administration's newly approved $787 billion stimulus plan.

The website is circulating a petition to lawmakers demanding that they do force taxpayers to pay for corporate failures and asking them to sign the following oath:

I pledge to oppose all future bailout requests that would make my constituents pay for business or government failures that are not my constituents' fault. This pledge applies to bailouts in all forms, including loans or other financings, equity infusions or other investments, asset purchases, guarantees, and any other type of bailout transaction.

"This isn't so complicated: bailouts keep bad businesses afloat and prevent capital from flowing to productive areas of the economy," the petition states. "That puts jobs at risk and jeopardizes our competitive edge against foreign countries."

The group accuses President Obama of talking a "tough game about bailouts" but not following through on his promises.

"[H]is own stimulus package and his bank bailout proposal hand billions more of our dollars to failed companies," it says. "Urge the government to do what's right: Stop the bailouts!"

On Monday, Right.org will launch a video contest with a grand prize of $27,599 – the estimated tax burden for one American. Each contestant must submit a 30-second film explaining why they oppose the bailout.

"Spreading the word about the true size and impact of bailouts is the major push for us now," Baehr said. "Opposing bailouts isn't partisan. It's everyone's issue because it's everyone's dollar."

Obama backs Bush: No rights for Bagram prisoners

By NEDRA PICKLER and MATT APUZZO

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration, siding with the Bush White House, contended Friday that detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights.

In a two-sentence court filing, the Justice Department said it agreed that detainees at Bagram Airfield cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detention. The filing shocked human rights attorneys.

"The hope we all had in President Obama to lead us on a different path has not turned out as we'd hoped," said Tina Monshipour Foster, a human rights attorney representing a detainee at the Bagram Airfield. "We all expected better."

The Supreme Court last summer gave al-Qaida and Taliban suspects held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the right to challenge their detention. With about 600 detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and thousands more held in Iraq, courts are grappling with whether they, too, can sue to be released.

Three months after the Supreme Court's ruling on Guantanamo Bay, four Afghan citizens being detained at Bagram tried to challenge their detentions in U.S. District Court in Washington. Court filings alleged that the U.S. military had held them without charges, repeatedly interrogating them without any means to contact an attorney. Their petition was filed by relatives on their behalf since they had no way of getting access to the legal system.

The military has determined that all the detainees at Bagram are "enemy combatants." The Bush administration said in a response to the petition last year that the enemy combatant status of the Bagram detainees is reviewed every six months, taking into consideration classified intelligence and testimony from those involved in their capture and interrogation.

After Barack Obama took office, a federal judge in Washington gave the new administration a month to decide whether it wanted to stand by Bush's legal argument. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd says the filing speaks for itself.

"They've now embraced the Bush policy that you can create prisons outside the law," said Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who has represented several detainees.

The Justice Department argues that Bagram is different from Guantanamo Bay because it is in an overseas war zone and the prisoners there are being held as part of a military action. The government argues that releasing enemy combatants into the Afghan war zone, or even diverting U.S. personnel there to consider their legal cases, could threaten security.

The government also said if the Bagram detainees got access to the courts, it would allow all foreigners captured by the United States in conflicts worldwide to do the same.

It's not the first time that the Obama administration has used a Bush administration legal argument after promising to review it. Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced a review of every court case in which the Bush administration invoked the state secrets privilege, a separate legal tool it used to have lawsuits thrown out rather than reveal secrets.

The same day, however, Justice Department attorney Douglas Letter cited that privilege in asking an appeals court to uphold dismissal of a suit accusing a Boeing Co. subsidiary of illegally helping the CIA fly suspected terrorists to allied foreign nations that tortured them.

Letter said that Obama officials approved his argument.

AP Interview: Transportation secretary says taxing how much we drive may replace gasoline tax

By JOAN LOWY

WASHINGTON (AP) — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he wants to consider taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn — an idea that has angered drivers in some states where it has been proposed.

Gasoline taxes that for nearly half a century have paid for the federal share of highway and bridge construction can no longer be counted on to raise enough money to keep the nation's transportation system moving, LaHood said in an interview with The Associated Press.....

Obama tells Spanish radio: Immigration reform coming

NEW YORK – President Obama affirmed in an interview with a Spanish-language radio show that his administration is preparing to push for a new round of "comprehensive immigration reform."

The White House confirmed to WND Obama was a guest on the Univision show "Piolin por la Manana," or "Piolin for the morning," hosted by Eddie "Piolin" Sotelo. A transcript of the interview, however, was not posted on the White House website. ....

Barricaded NYU Protesters Demand Aid For Gaza Jihadis

from FoundingBlogger

Drudge is running the headline, “NYU Students Barricaded Up To Protest Budget…“

Yeah, it is true that they are demanding to know where their $50,000 per year tuition money goes, but you have to read all the way to the very bottom of the article to find this little gem:

There are also other demands that don’t concern the budget. The group wants 13 scholarships a year provided for students of the Gaza Strip, and to give surplus supplies to the Islamic university in Gaza.

Hopefully they all find out exactly where their money is going, and hopefully they are all thrown out of school.

Is Twitter useful afterall?

Announcing $35M in new funding last Friday Twitter was one of the few bright spots in a collapsing economy. The micro-blogging service has been attracting increasing attention within the mainstream, as the political classes adopt the service – most notably, congressman Pete Hokestra (R-Mich.)who produced a stream of tweets detailing his location as he traveled from Andrew’s Air Force base to Baghdad and back. Besides the disbelieving head shaking this particular series of political tweets attracted, it does highlight the amorphous nature of Twitter -- it isn’t clear what it really is.

Certainly, the revenue model remains unclear, as does its true utility or even what the unintended consequences of using the service may be. In a National Security sense Twitter emerged as a powerful networked communications platform during the Mumbai terrorist attacks, when a stream of tweets marked #Mumbai (# being the global tagging system Twitter employs) gave a seemingly real-time commentary on events as they unfolded in Mumbai. Similarly, Twitter has been used to communicate the message and activity surrounding the riots in Greece using the #Griot tag. These are examples of the network effect working with a rapid communications platform and developing a powerful narrative from many different observation points. The style is anarchic but increasingly compelling.

Therefore, one argument regarding the long-term use of Twitter, in the National Security space at least, is that Twitter in conjunction with other tools, continues the trend of making ordinary citizens active producers of potentially actionable intelligence. This equally applies to Microsoft Photosynth and the meshing of user created digital platforms is a future trend, which doesn’t seem too far away. One of Twitter’s more recent high profile moments was the picture of the USAirways plane in the Hudson taken by an ordinary citizen who happened to be on a ferry, which went to the scene. This picture quickly and succinctly explained the situation to any emergency service in the area. This same principal can clearly be globally extended in terms of data and geographic reach. In fact it is the increasing penetration of mobile devices, which would seem to offer a bright future for the Twitter platform.

An area, which the Twitter platform excels in are the tools that can be used to manipulate the information within Twitter. This is where the open feel of the service suggests it somehow has more potential than the well designed social networking platforms such as Facebook. Information is messy and Twitter fits around this principle.

In order to examine Twitter we established a Twitter feed at www.twitter/In_Terrain. The idea behind this was to use the RSS feed Twitter tool TwitterFeed to push content of interest (such as the CT Blog) to a Twitter account and then examine ways in which this could be consumed. The results so far have been impressive. Twitterrific available for Apple products displays the security information feed in a very useful way. Tweetr for windows does a similar thing for Microsoft based systems. If users join Twitter they can chose to ‘follow’ the In_Terrain feed and receive the same information and potentially reply to specific tweets they find interesting – thus creating the ‘conversation’ Twitter, desires. Similarly, if other security and intelligence focused twitter feeds become apparent the In_Terrain twitter feed can ‘follow’ those conversations – thus beginning the network effect.

Clearly, this is still experimental and there are other avenues to explore with regard to GPS Twitter applications. The aim with the In_Terrain Twitter account is to generate tweets from mainstream information sources as well as the 'lower frequencies'. Starting a National Security focused tweet seems like an interesting idea right now – so I welcome CTBlog readers to ‘join the conversation’ – and please make suggestions for improvements or content additions. Maybe it will even become useful.

Skype Users Beware: Big Brother May Be Listening

by Annie Jacobsen

How do terrorists who know they’re being monitored by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) communicate with one another? Whenever I get the opportunity to interview people in the intelligence community, I always ask this question. One of the more interesting ways, I once learned, was that some terrorists were using the blogging software WordPress.

There’s a feature on WordPress that allows one blogger to write a draft of something which he/she then “saves as draft” but doesn’t publish. Along comes a second blogger, with proprietary access to the WordPress account, who then reads the draft written by the first blogger (in this case, terrorist), erases those words, and types his/her own message, which is then also saved as a draft. At first, the NSA had a hard time accessing the WordPress system. But then they did. For obvious reasons, I was not told how.

As for me, I talk to my sources on Skype, a software program that allows users to make telephone calls over the Internet for free. The headset you need costs about $59. It is common knowledge that the NSA can’t hack into Skype, which is why it’s a popular tool for anyone who worries, with good reason, that the NSA might be listening in on them — journalists, whistleblowers, and terrorists alike.

Apparently not for long. Internet technology reporter Lewis Page writes in The Register that a source at the Counter Terror Expo in London says, “America’s super secret National Security Agency (NSA) is offering ‘billions’ to any firm which can offer reliable eavesdropping on Skype IM and voice traffic.”

But maybe, just maybe, the NSA and Skype are already in bed together, and the billion-dollar offer being made is just another way to keep the journalists, whistleblowers, and terrorists talking. What better place for the spreading of disinformation than the Counter Terror Expo — in London, no less. Dr. Moshe Yudkowsky believes this may in fact be the case. A physicist and speech technology expert who writes for emerging technology giant O’Reilly.com, Yudkowsky cites a bizarre case in Hungary in March 2007 to make his point.

That’s when a then-Hillary Clinton presidential campaign staffer, who recently left a job at the NSA, was arrested on espionage charges. Hungarian police had examined the staffer’s briefcase and found a transcript between the head of the Hungarian police, a man named Laszlo Bene, and the head of the police in Brussels, Belgium, a man named Stefan Feller. The Clinton staffer confessed to eavesdropping, which in turn produced the transcript of the conversation between the two police chiefs.

But the eavesdropping process, Yudkowsky explains, was far from what you might expect. There was no “bug” hidden in a vase under a mantelpiece or stuck to a lamp. Instead, the “bug” was in the form of the already existing microphone on the Hungarian police chief’s computer. The police chief — like journalists, whistleblowers, and terrorists — also used Skype to communicate. Yudkowsky explains:

Sources in the Hungarian police department revealed that the background traffic associated with running Skype on a personal computer provides an ideal method to hide the transfer of data from an individual’s computer without the owner’s knowledge or consent. Skype can “turn on a computer’s microphone on command,” said a highly placed source, “and no one will be the wiser.” The data are routed to servers that use speech recognition to look for suspicious phrases. Furthermore, algorithms can use the sound of keyclicks to guess at which keys are being struck, which allows anyone listening to determine not only what is being said but what is being typed.

Immediately after the bust, the European Commission opened an investigation. Alain Brun, the head of data protection at the Commission, told reporters, “The suspect [i.e., Clinton staffer] worked at the U.S. National Security Agency, where he learned of an agreement between Skype and Echelon to enable a ’spy’ mode on all Skype products.” What has yet to be explained is: What did Hillary Clinton’s staffer need this information for? And where has this former Clinton staffer gone?

Dr. Yudkowsky found a source at Dean Witter who believes the Skype-NSA-as-bedfellows idea could explain how Skype has been making money. After all, its users are able to use it for free. “Outside payments by government agencies would explain how Skype can hope to make a profit,” the source told Dr. Yudkowsky. “Otherwise the purchase of Skype by eBay [in 2005] still doesn’t make sense.”

Maybe the NSA has spent its “billions” already, after all.

Magic Madrassa Bus comes to San Fran

The Bay Area Chapter of the Islamic Circle of North America will launch a bus ad campaign in San Francisco on today to encourage people to break stereotypes about Muslims.

People can expect to see the hot line (877) WHY-ISLAM and the Web site www.whyislam.org on the sides of more than 140 buses because the ICNA wants to make a point. ....