CNN: "Humiliation" causes jihad terrorism

by Robert Spencer

Jihad doctrine and Islamic supremacism? Pah!

Of course, this is the kind of thinking that leads Obama to believe that if he reaches out with enough flattery and concessions, the jihad will end. He is in for a surprise.

"Experts: Many young Muslim terrorists spurred by humiliation," by John Blake for CNN, August 13 (thanks to all who sent this in):

[...] People often assume that Muslim youth who turn to violence are ill-educated fanatics inspired by visions of meeting virgins in paradise. But that portrait is rarely true, terror experts say.

Actually, they're well-educated fanatics. Studies show that jihadists are generally better educated than their peers.

"They are not crazy people," says James Jones, author of "Blood That Cries Out From the Earth," a book that examines the psychology of religious terrorism.

"They [terrorist groups] won't recruit psychotic people," Jones says. "Crazy people are unstable. That's exactly what you don't want."

Indeed. They're not crazy. They're driven.

Then who are these Muslim men and women who turn to violence? Terror experts say they are shaped by several common factors.

They see no way up or out

Fathali M. Moghaddam, director of the conflict resolution program at Georgetown University in Washington, says some Muslim youth may embrace violent causes because they believe they have no chance for upward mobility in their country.

"Imagine if you're a 20-year-old and you want to get on in Egypt or Saudi Arabia," Moghaddam says. "You better be connected by family or know somebody important."

That explains why there are so many Haitian suicide bombers.

Many don't view politics as a plausible vehicle for social change, Moghaddam says. Their countries are often run by dictators who crush secular opposition groups -- with the tacit support of the U .S. government, these youth believe, Moghaddam says.

The only opposition groups that these Middle East dictators dare not attack are those based in the mosque, Moghaddam says. Those mosque-based groups, though, tend to be open to the influence of fundamentalists.

"There's no opportunity for voice, no opportunity to express yourself," Moghaddam says. "Politics is out of the question for the secular opposition -- you're either dead or go to jail."

Politics, though, is part of the answer for Hamas, an Islamic fundamentalist group that rules Gaza. The group, which has admitted responsibility for attacks against Israel soldiers and civilians, won a landslide victory in the 2006 Palestinian legislative election.

"Some young people are inevitably attracted to the more risky positions and actions taken by a group such as Hamas because Hamas is critical of corrupt and inept dictators in the Arab world," Moghaddam says. "This resonates with Arab youth."

They're driven by a sense of humiliation

Some Muslim youth may turn to violence for another reason: revenge.

Basel Saleh, an assistant economics professor at Radford University in Virginia, recently studied the socioeconomic factors that helped shape 82 Palestinian suicide bombers and 240 militants.

He says he knows those factors firsthand.

Saleh's father's village was razed by the Israelis in 1948 and is now an Israeli settlement. He says he grew up in the West Bank where he once considered using violence to vent his anger after a group of Israeli soldiers came to his family's home unannounced and interrogated him while his younger sister cried.

"But I was on the verge of getting there," he says. "I almost crossed that line."

Most Palestinian youth who did cross that line weren't driven by religion, Saleh says.

"Many weren't motivated by Islamic fundamentalism," Saleh says of the Palestinian militants in his study. "They were motivated primarily by personal grievances. They had been arrested, shot or seen family arrested."...

Arrested, shot -- for what? For participating in the...jihad against Israel.

But it's all because Palestinians are oppressed, you see:

Saleh says if Israel did more to help improve Palestinians' living conditions, fewer Palestinian youths would turn to violence.

"You have to open a new path for them [Palestinians]," he says. "They want freedom of movement. Give them an airport, a port. Don't demolish their schools and their universities. Pay attention to basic human rights."...

Propaganda. For the facts, see here.

Jones says the appeal of terrorist groups taps into an even deeper yearning in many youth, no matter their religion or culture: the desire to give one's self to a transcendent cause.

Jones, who joined civil rights demonstrations in the South during the 1960s, says he knows how exhilarating it can be for young people to join a cause that they believe demands some form of sacrifice.

Any effort to turn Muslim youth away from violent groups must make a similar appeal, and come from fellow Muslims, Jones says.

"We need something that has an equal amount of passion and moral seriousness that makes them believe they are making the world better," he says. "We need something with those elements but something that's more constructive than blowing yourself up."

You'll never get that without addressing the roots of the jihad violence in a serious manner.

Fighting Fraud in Afghanistan's Elections

By ANAND GOPAL

KABUL -- Afghanistan's presidential election next week is proving to be a complicated exercise in democracy. A raging insurgency threatens to close voting centers. Some of the 38 candidates maintain ties to armed militias. Others have threatened violence if they lose. And reports of widespread fraud endanger the poll's credibility. ....

Border Guard plan has hit a roadblock

By Lolita C. Baldor

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - A government plan to use National Guard troops to help stem Mexican drug violence along the Southern border is stymied by disagreements over who will pay for the soldiers and how they would be used.

Ordered by President Obama in June to help secure the border with Mexico, the Pentagon and the Homeland Security Department drafted a $225 million plan to deploy temporarily 1,500 Guard troops to supplement Border Patrol agents.

The agencies are wrangling over how to structure the deployment, but the primary sticking point is the money, senior administration officials say.

The funding stalemate lingers even after Obama renewed his commitment to Mexican officials Monday to reinforce the border and to help Mexico battle the drug cartels. Fierce battles between Mexican law enforcement and the cartels have left as many as 11,000 people dead and fueled concerns about violence spilling into this country.

"The United States will also meet its responsibilities by continuing our efforts to reduce the demand for drugs and continuing to strengthening the security of our shared border," Obama said.

Meanwhile, state leaders are getting antsy. Texas Gov. Rick Perry is still waiting for a response to his request for 1,000 more troops. "It's a federal responsibility but a Texas problem," Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said.

Early drafts of the Pentagon's plan seek reimbursement for its costs of the program, which is slated to last one year, giving the Border Patrol time to build up its force of agents. The Homeland Security Department, which expects to get roughly $44 billion in its 2010 budget compared with the Pentagon's $636 billion, is also reluctant to bear the costs.

Military officials have also balked at having a highly visible uniformed presence at border crossings. An initial Pentagon draft was rejected by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates because it suggested that Guard troops could be used to help screen commercial vehicles at the border. Defense leaders have insisted the United States avoid any appearance of militarizing the border, and they are opposed to using the soldiers at entry points to openly inspect vehicles.

Defense officials have been uneasy about the Guard plan from the start, insisting the effort be temporary and not tied to any program that could be extended or made permanent. They are also concerned that while the program would be federally funded, Guard members would be under the control of the border states.

Pentagon officials have grumbled that the latest demands come as the United States is still fighting two wars, including an escalation of fighting in Afghanistan, and that Guard units are still needed for battlefield duties

A new draft that drops those border inspections from the list of Guard missions has been prepared, and a senior official said Gates and DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano agreed on that move. Other debates have involved where the soldiers would be stationed and what tasks they would perform.

"The two agencies are resolving a handful of issues that remain," said Paul Stockton, the Pentagon's assistant secretary for homeland defense.

One senior official said a resolution to the matter was still some weeks away. There are about 19,500 border patrol agents, with roughly 17,200 on the Southern border.

Taliban, Foes Clash In Pakistan

By REHMAT MEHSUD and MATTHEW ROSENBERG

Taliban fighters attacked rival militants backed by the government in Pakistan's tribal areas, sparking clashes that intelligence officials and tribal elders said left dozens dead.

There were few details of Wednesday's fighting, on the edge of the isolated South Waziristan tribal area, a key Taliban and al Qaeda stronghold.

Two intelligence officials in the area said it began when the region's dominant Taliban faction -- whose leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was believed to have been killed last week in a U.S. missile strike -- attacked a tribal faction backed by the government. The two sides battled in and around the village of Sura Ghar with assault weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, the officials said. One official said Pakistani forces tried to help the government-backed militants repel the Taliban, but gave no details.

One intelligence official put the death toll near or above 70 while the other put it at less than 30, all of them fighters. Both acknowledged that authorities didn't yet have a clear reading of the situation. The fighting raged for five hours, an intelligence official told the Associated Press.

The leader of the government-backed faction, Turkistan Bitani, said 90 fighters were killed and more than 40 houses destroyed after Mehsud loyalists attacked his men, the AP reported.

The fighting came as the Pakistan Taliban try to stem infighting among their ranks following Mr. Mehsud's apparent death. He was instrumental in uniting a number of competing militant groups in 2007 to form the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an offshoot of the Afghan Taliban. Government officials and tribal elders in South Waziristan said members of Mr. Mehsud's faction may have attacked their government-backed rivals in an effort to keep the group united.

U.S. and Pakistani officials say they are almost certain that Mr. Mehsud was killed a week ago by a missile fired from a U.S. pilotless drone. The Taliban have denied he is dead.

US military team in Syria for security talks

(AFP)

DAMASCUS — A senior American military delegation arrived in Syria on Wednesday for talks on regional security, the second such visit in nearly two months, a US diplomatic source said.

Major General Michael Moeller of the US Central Command (CENTCOM) is heading the delegation which also includes Frederic Hof, the deputy to US Middle East special envoy George Mitchell who was in Damascus on July 26.

"The focus is on continuing dialogue concerning opportunities for cooperation on regional security matters," the US source said, without elaborating.

A US military delegation held talks with Syrian officials in Damascus in June -- the first visit of its kind since 2004 -- pro-government media and the American embassy said at the time.

Al-Watan newspaper said the June 13 visit came "at the request of the Americans" and focused on "ways to begin cooperation on security matters between the two parties in Iraq." However, the US embassy did not mention Iraq. ....

NIST publishes final version of new cybersecurity recommendations for government

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released the final version of ‘NIST Special Publication 800-53, Recommended Security Controls for Federal Information Systems and Organizations’. The document was released in draft form for public review in June.

“This final publication represents a solidification of the partnership between the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, and NIST and their efforts to bring common security solutions to the federal government and its support contractors,” said Ron Ross, of NIST’s computer security division. “The aim is to provide greater protection for federal information systems against cyber attacks.”

Comments received from the public since June did not result in any major changes in the final publication.

Historically, information systems at civilian agencies have operated under different security controls than military and intelligence information systems. When complete, the unified framework will result in the defense, intelligence and civil communities using a common strategy to protect critical federal information systems and associated infrastructure.

A copy of the publication is available here as a PDF.

GOP congressional hopeful says post-9/11 intelligence efforts have fallen way short

By Dan Popkey

Republican congressional candidate Vaughn Ward on Wednesday criticized the Bush administration and a Congress then controlled by Republicans for failing to consolidate intelligence services earlier this decade.

Ward, a former CIA employee and Marine officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is seeking the nomination to challenge Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick in 2010.

Ward said turf battles between the CIA, Pentagon, National Security Agency and other agencies compromise the effectiveness of U.S. intelligence.

"There's no sharing of information," Ward told the Rotary Club of Southwest Boise. "Why? They don't get along. There's these fiefdoms, their ideas of separate entities. They need to work more together."

"What should we do? Force them to work together, have one person in charge of intelligence, not four or five," Ward added.

Ward said battles between former Bush officials — including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and CIA Director George Tenet — frustrated efforts at reform that should have been made after 9/11. Instead, President Bush and Congress created the Department of Homeland Security.

"It was terrible, it's been a terrible experience with DHS," Ward said. "It is getting better, but only because there's legislation now trying to figure it out. And yes, it will get better, and I hope that it will be a more effective resource."

Report forecasts need for more Defense Department budget cuts

(Analyst's note: Wonder how all this will wash with the obvious requirement to replace hardware after years of war?)

By Megan Scully

Facing the prospect of several lean years after a decade of rapidly expanding budgets, the Defense Department will need to make difficult spending decisions, potentially including more cuts to weapons systems in FY11 and beyond, according to a report.

Today's report from the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments concluded that an expected flat-line in defense spending - combined with anticipated growth in personnel costs - will restrict growth in research and development and in procurement accounts.

The Army, for instance, is enlarging its troop strength by 22,000 soldiers over the next three years, with an annual price tag around $1 billion. Meanwhile, healthcare costs across all the services, which total $47 billion next fiscal year, are expected to nearly double in the next 10 years, according to the report.

"Options for dealing with the tightening budget situation are limited," the report says. "In the coming years, pressure will likely continue to grow for DOD to scale back its plans, including both major modernization efforts and force structure plans."

The Defense Department's budget request for FY10 totals $668 billion, which includes $130 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the $538 billion base budget marks a 3.4 percent real increase in spending over the amount appropriated this year for the department, future budgets are expected to grow only slightly more than the rate of inflation.

Projections of more cuts to military hardware come as Congress continues to grapple with changes Defense Secretary Gates proposed to dozens of procurement programs for FY10, including the termination of some high-profile programs such as the manned ground vehicle portion of the Army's Future Combat Systems.

Pentagon officials are reviewing their budgetary options during the congressionally mandated Quadrennial Defense Review of military capabilities and requirements. Already, officials estimate that they need $50 billion to $60 billion worth of technological "enhancements" over the next five years - meaning cuts will have to come in other areas.

Todd Harrison, author of the CSBA report, says he expects programs that have limited missions or purposes - such as the Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle -- to become targets for cuts. More versatile programs needed for conventional and unconventional warfare are more likely to be safe from the budgetary ax, he said.

"Whatever path is selected, effectively addressing the growing cost of DOD's plans and the growing size of the federal deficit will require making some hard decisions," the report says. "And the sooner those decisions are made the less painful they will be to carry out."

Why Are Afghans Smiling?

by Carol Graham

Afghanistan has been at war more or less continuously for more than 30 years. The country has been invaded and effectively destroyed multiple times. With frequent reports of clashes and strife over the upcoming presidential election, most polls depict Afghans on the brink of an abyss and cite growing frustration with the violence, the United States and the international community. But research we conducted this year reveals that, relative to international norms, Afghans remain surprisingly happy. And unless we understand what makes Afghans so counterintuitively cheerful, we are unlikely to ultimately win their "hearts and minds." .... a U.S. strategy focused on violence and security and directed at the Taliban or at drug lords may not match Afghan concerns.

Outside View: National security in the 21st century

WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Last Sunday Barack Obama's national security adviser, retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, made the television morning talk show rounds. Perhaps the most provocative question fired at him was why he was playing a far less visible -- and critics would add even an invisible -- role than his more famous predecessors such as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Jones' answer was simple and direct as befitting a former commandant of the Marine Corps and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

"This is a different century," Jones calmly replied, meaning that however tough and dangerous the major issues were in the past, in today's more complex and complicated world, new ideas, tools, methods and organizational schemes were crucial both inside and out of government. That understanding is far more important than the visibility of the personalities who have sat in his White House office. ....

Terrorists kidnap, torture boy to bully Iraqi policeman

Finance Committee to drop end-of-life provisions

Obama's environmental czar started group targeting Beck Attacks follow Fox News host's reporting of White House adviser's radical activism

By Aaron Klein

Van Jones

President Obama's "green jobs

czar" is co-founder of an African-American activist organization that has led a campaign prompting major advertisers to withdraw from Glenn Beck's top-rated Fox News Channel program.

In recent weeks, Beck has done several critical segments about Van Jones, who was appointed as the special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Beck's segments were based in part on WND's reporting that Jones was as an admitted radical communist and black nationalist leader.

Now Colors of Change, an activist organization seeking to "strengthen Black America's political voice" has led a furious campaign against Beck culminating in major companies such as Geico and Lawyers.com pulling their spots from the Fox News star's daily show. The group also says it has garnered about 75,000 signatories for an online petition against Beck to be sent to advertisers.

Colors of Change says the controversy stems from Beck's recent comment while a guest on another Fox News show that Obama is a "racist" with "a deep-seated hatred for white people."

Bill Shine of Fox News' programming department clarified Beck was expressing "a personal opinion which represented his own views, not those of the Fox News Channel. And as with all commentators in the cable news arena, he is given the freedom to express his opinions."

Colors of Change did not return a WND request for comment about whether its crusade is tied to Beck's recent reporting about Van Jones' radical connections.....

Warning over US cash-for-clunkers scheme

The popular US cash-for-clunkers programme may be drawing money from other consumer purchases and could also undermine future car sales, US economists have warned. ....

Sarah Palin: Concerning the "Death Panels"

National Guard drill at high school to prepare for possible H1N1 riot

An exchange with an Islamic scholar here in the U.S.

This is a most interesting exchange. sharia

Map of Potentially Impacted States if 2010 Census Doesn't Ask About Citizenship Status

(Analyst's note: You absolutely must read this article. Is it just me, or do you see a long-term plan emerging by the democrats currently in power. Hmm-m-m-m. Once again we need to follow the "rule book." Our Constitution talks about how our "Representatives" numbers are established. Our "Representatives" do NOT represent non-citizens, so once again "We the People" must stand up and demand to be properly representative inaccordance with our Constitution. Remember the rule -- if you're up for reelection, your out. )

By cchmielenski

A recent story in the Wall Street Journal identified states that could have fewer Representatives in the House if the 2010 census doesn't ask about citizenship status. The Constitutionally mandated count not only impacts the reapportionment in the House, but also the Electoral College.

A recent story in the Wall Street Journal identified states that could have fewer Representatives in the House if the 2010 census doesn't ask about citizenship status. The Constitutionally mandated count not only impacts the reapportionment in the House, but also the Electoral College.

LSU law professor John S. Baker and demographer Elliott Stonecipher called for a count of only citizens in their Wall Street Journal editorial. According to the most recent survey conducted by the American Community Survey, more than 7 percent of the nation's total population consists of non-citizens (including illegal aliens). Ten states have non-citizen populations higher than the national average, which could cause them to gain representation, while many other states could suffer.

In the article, Baker and Stonecipher referenced a quote from Census Bureau executive Dr. Elizabeth Greico who said the survey form that will be used for the 2010 census will not ask about citizenship because "Congress has not asked us to do that."

If the 2010 census doesn't ask for citizenship status, California's population of 5.6 million non-citizens would result in the Golden State keeping or gaining more than five seats in the House. Other states would have to lose seats to make up for California's win. Not only would the reapportionment impact Congressional representation, but it would also impact the electoral college for the 2012 presidential election.

Check out our map of states that will be impacted if the 2010 census counts non-citizens (including illegal aliens), and if your state could be negatively impacted, visit your Action Buffet for a fax to send to your three Members of Congress.

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Map of States Impacted if 2010 Census Doesn's Ask About Citizenship Status

The U.S. Constitution requires the federal government to count all Americans every 10 years for reapportioning seats in the House of Representatives. But the 2010 census will likely use a short survey form that doesn't ask individuals citizenship status. If this happens, it could cause an unfair distribution of House seats. States that contain a higher than average percentage of non-citizens could receive a disproportionately high number of House seats than states with a lower number of non-citizens.

The most recent American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau shows a total population of 298 million individuals living in the United States with more than 21 million being non-citizens. Counting only U.S. citizens would result in districts with approximately 635,000 people, whereby counting all individuals regardless of citizenship would create districts with more than 685,000 people. Therefore, the state of California that has 5.7 million non-citizen residents could gain five or more seats in the House.

In the map below, states colored in dark purple are likely to have fewer Representatives in the House if non-citizens (including illegal aliens) are included in reapportionment than if only citizens are considered. The states colored in lighter purple are vulnerable to having fewer. The states colored in orange are poised to benefit if non-citizens are included in apportionment.

Possible Winners/Losers after 2010 census

Spencer: A Slow-Motion Honor Killing

by Robert Spencer

A seventeen-year-old girl from Ohio, Rifqa Bary, fears for her life today. She is afraid that her own parents will murder her. Her father, she explains, “said he would kill me. Or he’d have me sent back to Sri Lanka where they’d put me in the asylum.” Her crime in their eyes? She has converted to Christianity from Islam – bringing to the fore once again the prevalence within Islamic communities in the West of attitudes and beliefs that foster honor killings and the murder of apostates from Islam. Sharia

Rifqa has fled to Florida, where she has become the center of a bitter custody battle with her parents – and she herself is adamant that if she is forced to return to her parents, her life will be in danger: “if I had stayed in Ohio,” she says flatly, “I wouldn’t be alive.” If she is made to return, she says, “I will die within a week. My life is at stake. My dad threatened me.” Rifqa is under threat both because of Islam’s apostasy law and because, as she herself explains, by converting to Christianity she has besmirched the family’s honor: “in 150 generations of my family no one has known Jesus. I am the first one. Imagine the honor in killing me. There is great honor in that.”

Rifqa appeared to be aware that many Westerners would be surprised to hear that she considers herself under the threat of death because of Islam’s stance toward those who leave the faith: “Islam,” she explained, “is very different than you guys think. They have to kill me. My blood is now halal, which means that because I am now a Christian, I’m from a Muslim background, it’s an honor. If they love God more than me, they have to do this. And I’m fighting for my life.”

She might have had in mind the smooth deceptions that Imam Hatim Hamidullah of the Islamic Society of Central Florida spread Monday during his appearance at her custody hearing in Orange Circuit Court in Florida. “It is not Islam,” said Hamidullah, “for the father to bring harm upon his blood daughter or any other human being because of anger. Our position is to exhaust all measures that would bring peace and harmony back to the family. Being angry and threatening the life of someone is not one of those methods.” Hamidullah chose his words carefully: he didn’t actually say that Islam doesn’t prescribe the death penalty for apostasy. He just said that the father shouldn’t harm his daughter because he is angry with her. This leaves the door open for the father to murder his daughter for apostasy or honor, as long as he does it dispassionately....

The Creeping Homegrown Terror Threat

(Analyst's note: Absolutely must read.)

by Steven Emerson

The arrest of seven North Carolina residents, including Daniel Boyd and his two sons, on charges of supporting terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder abroad, showed how the problem of homegrown Islamic terrorism is far more rampant than the media or the public is aware of. Just look at the major cases in the past year alone:

• The convert from Long Island who joined al Qaeda (disclosed this past week) and gave the group information about Long Island trains and New York City’s subways.
• The plot to blow up two synagogues and a National Guard plane in upstate New York by prison converts (scheduled to go to trial).
• The plot to kill hundreds of soldiers at Fort Dix by assimilated American Muslims living here 25 years (all convicted).
• The plot to operate a terrorist training camp in Oregon (pleaded guilty).
• The plot to blow up buildings by the Liberty City 7 (all convicted).
• The sweeping conviction of Hamas officials for conspiring to support terrorism overseas.
• The cases of young Somali teenagers raised in the U.S. going overseas to become suicide bombers.

The Boyd case in North Carolina proves that radical Islamic ideology transcends economic class problems as has been claimed by pointy-headed sociologists. The Boyd family was white, had a middle-class existence, and had the economic opportunities afforded all Americans — just like most of the terrorists cited above — and yet chose to engage in jihad to the point that Daniel Boyd was willing to send his two kids on suicide missions to Israel.

That the FBI stopped all these plots is amazing, but they will never continue to bat a thousand. One of these days, the jihadists will succeed. ....

Audio -- Analysis: Government access to bank accounts worrying 'Does it become more invasive later? Is it harmless?'

(Analyst's note: At best this is a troubling point regarding the proposed health care bill that has the American people so upset at the moment. The impact must be carefully explored and understood by the voter BEFORE any vote by "our representatives" in Washington. Remember, if they are up for reelection, they are voted out.)

Muslim radicals behead Christian orphan workers Militant linked to al-Qaida tells families of penalties for apostasy

By Bob Unruh

Four Christians working in Somalia to provide services to orphans have been executed by beheading by al-Qaida-linked interests who told their families that is the penalty for apostasy.

The report on the outrage comes from International Christian Concern, which said the executions took place sometime after the kidnapping of the Christians July 27, but it only discovered the tragedy recently.

The organization identified the Christian orphanage workers as Fatima Sultan, Ali Ma'ow, Sheik Mohammed Abdi and Maaddey Diil. They had been kidnapped in the coastal Somalian town of Merca, about 50 miles from Mogadishu.

According to ICC, al-Shabaab, an Islamic extremist organization, claimed responsibility and said the Christians were killed when they refused to renounce their faith in Jesus.

The ICC report said a junior al-Shabaab militant notified the families Aug. 4 the four were beheaded for apostasy. ICC said the militant described the Christians as promoters of "fitna," a Muslim term for religious discord.

Audio -- Retired general: Focus on the fight, Mr. President! 'He cannot even articulate that it is a global war against radical Islam'

(Analyst's note: Absolutely must read - hear. Perhaps even more important than even this rating implies.)

Obama's 'green jobs czar' worked with terror founder Van Jones served on board of activist group where ex-Weatherman serves as top director

By Aaron Klein

Jeff Jones was wanted by the FBI after he failed to appear for a March 1970 court date to face charges of "crossing state lines to foment a riot"

JERUSALEM – Van Jones, the man appointed as "green jobs czar" to the White House, previously served on the board of an environmental activist group at which a founder of the Weather Underground terrorist organization is a top director.

WND previously reported Jones was as an admitted radical communist and black nationalist leader.

He was appointed to serve as the special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. According to the White House blog, Jones' duties include helping to craft job-generating climate policy and to ensure equal opportunity in the administration's energy proposals.

Jones, formerly a self-described "rowdy black nationalist," boasted in a 2005 interview with the left-leaning East Bay Express that his environmental activism was a means to fight for racial and class "justice."

Jones was president and founder of Green For All, a nonprofit organization that advocates for building a so-called inclusive green economy.

Until recently, Jones was a longtime member of the board of Apollo Alliance, a coalition of labor, business, environmental and community leaders that claims on its website to be "working to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs." ....

Ship passes through Channel and then disappears

By JENNIFER QUINN

LONDON (AP) - First the ship reported it had been attacked in waters off Sweden. Then it sailed with no apparent problems through one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. And then it disappeared.

The Arctic Sea, a Maltese-flagged cargo ship, was supposed to make port in Algeria with its cargo of timber on Aug. 4. More than a week later, there's no sign of the ship or its Russian crew.

Piracy has exploded off the coast of lawless Somalia—but could this be an almost unheard of case of sea banditry in European waters?

"If this is a criminal act, it appears to be following a new business model," Marine intelligence expert Graeme Gibbon-Brooks told Sky News on Wednesday.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the country's defense minister on Wednesday to take "all necessary measures" to find the missing cargo ship and, if necessary, to free its crew, the Kremlin said. Wives and other relatives of the crew members issued an appeal to the Russian government to carry out a full-scale rescue mission, using all of Russia's special services.

The mystery began on July 24, when the 15 crew members of the Arctic Sea said they were tied up and beaten by a group of up to 10 men who boarded the ship off the Swedish island of Oland. The masked men identified themselves as police officers—but Swedish police said they hadn't been searching ships in that area.

Swedish police investigator Ingemar Isaksson said the crew then claimed that the men left the ship 12 hours later in a high-speed inflatable boat.

"We were very puzzled when we first heard about this," Isaksson said then. "I have never heard of anything like this in Swedish waters."

On July 28, the Arctic Sea made contact with British maritime authorities as it passed through the busy English Channel. The ship made a routine, mandatory report—saying who they were, where they were from, where they were going and what their cargo was. It appeared routine, said Mark Clark of Britain's Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

He said the agency is "extremely curious" about what happened to the ship.

"It's bizarre," he said. "There is no coastguard I know who can remember anything like this happening."

Where the ship was next spotted is uncertain. Russian media reports say the last contact was on July 30 when the ship was in the Bay of Biscay, and that it was later spotted by a Portuguese patrol plane, but there was no contact.

But Portuguese Navy spokesman Commander Joao Barbosa said "we can guarantee that the ship is not in Portuguese waters nor did it ever pass through Portuguese waters."

The cargo was shipped by Finnish wood supplier Rets Timber, and is worth 1.3 million euros ($1.84 million), the company said.

"We have no idea where the ship is," company managing director Kari Naumanen told the AP in Helsinki.

Experts are very concerned about the vessel and crew, but at the same time are wary of attributing the disappearance to armed bandits.

"There have been no attacks in European waters," said Pottengal Mukundan, director of the London-based International Maritime Bureau. "It's not the kind of area where pirates would find it easy to operate."

Nick Davis, the chief executive of the Merchant Maritime Warfare Centre, told the BBC that if anything had happened to the ship, cargo would have been found.

"I strongly suspect that this is probably a commercial dispute with its owner and a third party and they've decided to take matters into their own hands," he said Wednesday.

Pirate attacks off Somalia's lawless coast are a far more familiar occurrence. Pirates have launched more than 100 attacks this year in the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, and are currently holding about a dozen vessels.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Energy Leader (National Review, 08.10.09)

(DETNEWS) Detroit, Mich. - Michigan just experienced its coldest July on record; global temperatures haven't risen in more than a decade; Great Lakes water levels have resumed their 30-year cyclical rise (contrary to a decade of media scare stories that they were drying up due to global warming), and polls show that climate change doesn't even make a list of Michigan voters' top-ten concerns.

Yet in an interview with the Detroit News Monday, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) - recently appointed to the Senate Energy Committee - made clear that fighting the climate crisis is her top priority.

"Climate change is very real," she confessed as she embraced cap and trade's massive tax increase on Michigan industry - at the same time claiming, against all the evidence, that it would not lead to an increase in manufacturing costs or energy prices. "Global warming creates volatility. I feel it when I'm flying. The storms are more volatile. We are paying the price in more hurricanes and tornadoes."

And there are sea monsters in Lake Michigan. I can feel them when I'm boating.

Specter: Protests not 'representative of America'

(Associated Press) Sen. Arlen Specter, facing more jeers and taunts during another town hall meeting Wednesday, sought to defuse tensions about health care reform debate with a few jokes ...

Obama's out of touch with America

(Dorothy Rabinowitz, Wall Street Journal) The president shouldn't worry about the protesters disrupting town hall meetings. He should worry about the Americans who have been sitting at home listening to him ...

Dem congressman: Town hall protesters 'political terrorist[s]'

(RealClearPolitics.com)

Dem Congressman: Town Hall Protesters Are "Political Terrorist[s]"

WISH-TV: Indiana Congressman Baron Hill is on the hot seat in the health care reform debate after making controversial comments about town hall protesters.

"They have only one purpose in mind and that's to blow up the meetings that are being held and that serves no one, ladies and gentlemen," said Hill.

Hill recently called them political terrorists, a term he avoided in his speech but not in a 24-Hour News 8 interview.

"If you just want to blow up a meeting that's a political terrorist," said Hill.

U.S. Not Adequately Challenging Radical Islam in Information War, Experts Say

(Analyst's note: An absolutely must read item. If the gov't will not do it maybe others should take up the "flag and move it forward." It might well be more effective if perceived as a non-gov't site anyway.)

By Fred Lucas

(CNSNews.com) – Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last November that “Public relations was invented in the United States, yet we are miserable at communicating to the rest of the world what we are about as a society and a culture, about the freedom and democracy, about our policies and goals.”

Even as radical Islamists are reportedly operating more sophisticated media and communications operations, there is a growing concern that the United States is not communicating with citizens of countries in the Middle East the way it did with people behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War -- when Radio Free Europe and Voice of America were used as weapons in the battle against communism.

Radical Islam is a very different enemy, but many of those same tools can be applied, said Ilan Berman, vice president for policy at the American Foreign Policy Council.

“During the Cold War we spent a lot of time communicating American values behind the Iron curtain and that’s what animated a generation of dissidents,” Berman, the author of Winning the Long War: Retaking the Offensive Against Radical Islam, told CNSNews.com.

Berman and others say that the Middle East is ripe for more public diplomacy, defined as direct communications with the citizens of a country, as opposed to official diplomacy, which is engagement with foreign leaders.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) proposed legislation to increase public diplomacy. Meanwhile, numerous studies reflect that the United States lacks defined goals and should involve the private sector more effectively in communicating abroad.

“You need to identify what are essentially the undecided voters. They haven’t made up their minds,” Berman said. “They’re free agents and we’re trying to book them. You want to divide and conquer, discredit the ideology, and you want to essentially engage these populations and show them that they don’t have to be our friends but the model that these guys [radical Islamists] are laying out is fundamentally wrong. It’s bad for your health.”

Recognizing concerns about public diplomacy, the State Department will launch a program this year that requires embassies to develop “public diplomacy implementation plans” that address outreach posts, department officials told the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The State Department also plans a pilot program in 12 countries to incorporate a “campaign-style approach to strategic communications,” according to a GAO report released in May.

Berman cites the Suni awakening, which along with the surge helped turn things around in Iraq, and which occurred after Muslims realized al Qaeda was hazardous to their health.

“If you don’t subscribe to their viewpoint, you end up getting killed. It’s not just in Iraq. I think it’s in places like Pakistan, like Jordan, like Saudi Arabia,” Berman said. “The more proximity the local population has to this movement, the more they realize it’s bankrupt -- that al Qaeda works well as a protest movement but not as a governing ideology.”

His book cites a Pew Research poll that showed support for Osama bin Laden falling from 56 percent to 20 percent in Jordan from 2003 to 2007; from 20 percent to 1 percent in Lebanon over that time; and from 59 percent to 41 percent in Indonesia over that time.

Meanwhile, in Iran, a World Public Opinion poll taken in early 2008 showed that 60 percent of respondents were against developing nuclear weapons, believing it to be “against the teachings of Islam.”

Still, to reach the “undecided voters” in the Muslim world, the West has to compete with a strong propaganda machine established by Islamists, said Berman.

“As long ago as 2002, Osama bin Laden had already identified the ‘media war’ as one of the ‘strongest methods’ for promoting al Qaeda’s objectives,” Winning the Long War says. “He directed his organization to establish an information committee ‘charged with spreading the al Qaeda vision of jihad to all Muslims.’”

Meanwhile, Iran state-run broadcasting has an $800 million annual budget, with nine national radio stations, 26 local and eight national TV stations. Among the national TV networks is Press TV, launched to “break the global stranglehold” by U.S. media.

Further, Saudi Arabia has spent about $4 billion a year for the last two decades to spread Wahabi Islam, according to Winning the Long War. In addition, the network al-Jazeera went from four satellites in 1998 to 280 today.

The U.S. spends one-third less on public diplomacy than it did during the Cold War. Part of the Peace Dividend meant dumping the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), as its functions were scaled down and folded into the State Department.

The USIA function was taken over by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which told the GAO that its mission to provide objective news “sets it apart from other strategic communications.” That’s in contrast to USIA Director Edward R. Murrow, who said in 1963 that the agency’s purpose was to “further the achievement of U.S. foreign policy objectives.”

“Folding the U.S. Information Agency into the State Department in 1999 has proven to be an exercise in placing a square peg into round holes,” said a Heritage Foundation study from last November on public diplomacy.

“Former USIA employees were incorporated into geographic bureaus, and public diplomacy became simply another element of public affairs,” said the Heritage report. “The long-term efforts of public diplomacy were subordinated to the short-term rapid reaction goals emphasized by public affairs.”

The U.S. established Radio Sawa and the Alhurra TV stations in 2002 to promote American culture in the Middle East, but the stations focused mostly on music and entertainment.

“America has shifted from having conversations about how society should function to playing Britney Spears and Eminem,” Berman said. “That’s all great, but Britney Spears and Eminem are not the same as the Constitution.”

In March 2007, 11 former Voice of America directors sent a letter to President George W. Bush objecting to cuts being made in the program. “At this critical moment in the post-9/11 era, the United States simply cannot, for its own long-term strategic safety and security, unilaterally disarm in the global contest of ideas,” the letter said.

Brownback supported dismantling USIA after the fall of communism. But now he believes the United States must step up its efforts in the war for winning hearts and minds.

He proposed legislation last fall to establish the National Center for Strategic Communications, which would fulfill the role formerly taken by the USIA. It would also take public diplomacy out of the State Department. That would separate public diplomacy and official diplomacy.

“We should not let public diplomacy be held hostage to the official priority of the moment, nor should public diplomacy budgets compete with official diplomatic priorities,” Brownback said in a statement last September.

The center created by the legislation would manage U.S.-funded international broadcasts more directly and would enlist the support of private non-profit and non-governmental agencies, which would be eligible for grants to effectively communicate a U.S. message abroad.

“It is still a priority,” Brownback spokesman Brian Hart told CNSNews.com. “We do not have a game plan as to when we will introduce it.”

The May GAO report said, “The United States’ current national communications strategy lacks a number of desirable characteristics identified by GAO, such as clear definition of the problem, desired result and a delineation of agency roles and responsibilities.”

It further says that the government must evolve with new communication tools, specifically mentioning Facebook and Twitter.

“Dynamic shifts in how target audiences obtain and use information have led many public diplomacy practitioners to conclude that the United States must more effectively engage emerging social networks and technologies (such as Facebook and Twitter) in order to remain relevant,” states the report. “Referred to as 'Public Diplomacy 2.0,' this new approach to strategic communications is exploring ways to operate in this evolving information environment.”

Evolving to a changing information environment could be helped by recruiting non-government independent organizations to assist in the effort “to retain agility and avoid unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles,” according to a Rand Corporation study this year entitled, “Whither Strategic Communication: A Survey of Current Proposals and Recommendations.”

The non-governmental organization, supported in the Brownback legislation, would also conduct research and work as a venture capital firm to promote new ideas for reaching populations, according to the Rand study written by Christopher Paul.

The Heritage study called for establishing a separate agency and taking the authority away from the State Department, similar to what is called for in the Brownback bill. The study also calls for establishing a strategy with defined goals and for the Defense Department to implement strategic communications not just at the country-to-country level, but also at the regional level.

The Bush administration did a poor job at exploiting the generational divide and the democracy movement in Iran, Berman said. But the author thinks the Obama administration has already made a critical mistake by lumping all Muslims together rather than taking a divide-and-conquer approach.

It is not just a poor strategic media, Berman said. Rather, it’s a matter of pushing the message out as if operating a political campaign.

For example, he said Al-Jazeera needs more “crossfire moments.” That means U.S. diplomats appearing on the network to debunk misinformation because the network is perceived as more authentic in the Middle East.

“We have to compete like it’s a campaign. Our enemies, al Qaeda and Iran, are trying to convince these undecided voters that we are a certain way, that we believe certain things, that we should be opposed because of any number of factors,” Berman said.

“In a campaign we’d never allow something like that to stand,” he said. “If there was an inaccuracy, we’d clarify it. But we really haven’t done anything like that. We haven’t challenged the way the Iranian government has depicted the United States or what we’re trying to do. We haven’t really debunked the way radical Muslims talk about us to the broader Muslim world.”