Easy-Money Mortgages Still Provided by Feds - Troubling

(Washington Times) So you thought easy-money mortgages with little or no down payment for people with bad credit was a thing of the past? Think again ... You can get just such a loan today - and it's guaranteed by the federal government. Loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) have become "the new subprime," and these loans are exposing taxpayers to the same kinds of soaring default rates and losses that brought down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as destroyed many banks and the private market for mortgage loans. While private lenders learned a lesson from the mortgage crisis and are shying away from easy-money loans, the FHA has stepped into the breach. The agency has provided backing for 37 percent of all mortgages used to buy homes this year. ....

One More Reason for a Male-Only Silent Service

(Analyst's note:  Troubling to say the least.)

from "In From the Cold"

As the Navy brass prepares for a "co-ed" submarine force, they might consider the impact of human biology on other elements of the service.

Navy Times reports that some shore commands in Norfolk, Virginia are heavily staffed by pregnant sailors, and some commanders are complaining about the lack of proper manning to carry out their missions.

The problem--and leadership complaints--resulted in an investigation by the Navy IG. According to the IG report, some of shore-based organizations in the Norfolk area have pregnant sailors in up to 34% of their billets. And due to restrictions associated with their medical condition, the sailors (in many cases) cannot perform all of their assigned duties, placing an added strain on shore commands.

The IG has asked Navy personnel officials to review the new rules for Navy mothers-to-be and consider the work conducted by each rating and how pregnancy affects a sailor’s ability to do that work.

The spike in pregnant sailors assigned to some units comes after the Navy changed its rules for handling mothers-to-be. And it’s compounded by a baby boomlet in the Navy community.

When sailors on sea duty become pregnant, they are transferred to shore-based commands that fit certain criteria, such as being close to a Navy medical center. The length of that assignment changed in June 2007, when the Navy extended the postpartum tour from four months after a child’s birth to 12 months. Combined with a nine-month pregnancy, that puts expectant mothers on limited duty for up to 21 months.

Now, shore industrial and aviation commands say they are receiving more pregnant sailors — from 15 percent to 34 percent of authorized billets, in some cases — who are unable to fulfill essential duties because of their pregnancy, according to the IG.

“If pregnancy trends remain constant, the new pregnancy distribution policy could have over 2,500 sailors counting against shore duty commands in ratings where they are not able to conduct mission-essential work within industrial or hazardous material-type conditions,” the IG report, based on a site visit to Hampton Roads, Va., in March and April, concludes.

But the impact is felt far beyond shore installations. As the Times article indicates, many sailors move to shore duty after becoming pregnant. That means that male sailors (or non-pregnant females) wind up filling the ship billets vacated by the mother-to-be. Unfortunately, the article doesn't indicate how many of the females in Norfolk-area shore commanders were transferred from sea duty after discovering they were pregnant.

Talk to Navy officers and senior NCOs and you'll get a real earful on the effects of this problem. While acknowledging that many female sailors are simply trying to balance a naval career against their desire to start a family, others are gaming the system, they say. In some cases, they say female sailors become pregnant to avoid a projected deployment, or get out of an assignment they don't like.

Years ago, sailors who became pregnant while on active duty were immediately dismissed from the service. By comparison, today's family-friendly Navy goes to great lengths to accommodate pregnant sailors, and there's not much a Captain or Master Chief can do except grit their teeth and suck it up.

You'd think the IG report would offer a cautionary tale for the submarine force and its plan for mixed-gender crews. Running an attack boat or a boomer takes an exceptionally well-trained, cohesive team of officers and enlisted members. Simply stated, the silent service can't afford the kind of turnover caused by pregnancies in other Navy organizations.

But such concerns are being ignored in the rush to break down one last bastion of male service. Sub skippers and Chiefs of the Boat know what's on the way, but speaking out would be a career killer. If the IG's findings are any indication, we'll soon be reading about training, turnover and reliability problems in the sub fleet, thanks to female crew members who decided to get pregnant.

After jihad terror arrest, Dallas Muslims pledge new cooperation with FBI, anti-terror programs in mosques -- no, wait...

(Analyst's note:  Absolutely must read.)

by Robert Spencer

Actually they're whining about a "backlash" -- something that has hardly ever materialized despite constant mainstream media focusing upon it after virtually every jihad arrest -- and claiming victim status.

Memo to Dallas Muslims: want to make sure there is no backlash? Here are some easy steps.

1. Stop committing violent acts. When you hear Muslims plotting violent acts in your local mosque, call the police and FBI.

2. Confront those Muslims who justify violence and Islamic supremacism by reference to the Qur'an and Sunnah, and argue against the applicability of those passages to our age or any other age in the future.

3. Confront and report those Muslims who say violent or hateful things in private when they think no non-Muslims are around.


4. Begin comprehensive and transparently inspeactable programs in your mosques ans schools to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism, and the virtues of the U.S. Constitutional principles of non-establishment of religion, equality of rights for all, and freedom of speech.

5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials on long-range programs to identify and apprehend jihadists and root out the jihad doctrine and Islamic supremacism from within Western Muslim communities.


"Dallas-area Muslims fear backlash from arrests tied to terror plot," by Selwyn Crawford for The Dallas Morning News, October 19 (thanks to Peter):

North Texans were both angry and relieved last month when federal agents arrested a Jordanian teenager in a failed plot to blow up a Dallas skyscraper.

But for area Muslims, the arrest of 19-year-old Hosam "Sam" Smadi evoked yet another emotion - fear.

"Being a Muslim in America today is not easy," said Hadi Jawad, a longtime Dallas business owner and a volunteer at the Dallas Peace Center. "We feel under siege. There is open season on our faith. Muslims are painted with a broad brush."

No, thy aren't. Mainstream media types are always quick to claim, even on the slimmest of evidence, that this or that terror attack has nothing to do with Islam, that Islam teaches peace, that all Muslims condemn, etc. But Jawad and other Muslims could do much more to stop this alleged broad-brush painting by opposing jihad activity more forthrightly and energetically, instead of simply whining about backlash when a jihadist is caught.

Jawad and other Muslims praise the work of law enforcement in arresting Smadi, as well as two other terrorism suspects in New York and Illinois. But because of all three suspects' Islamic faith, they say the arrests cast aspersions on Islam that hearken back to the atmosphere that existed immediately after 9/11.

Though most area Muslims are quick to say the mood of the country has not returned to that bitter level, most add that their lives here would be practically unbearable if any Muslim terrorist were to carry out another attack on American soil

"We have to work toward a common yardstick of justice, but we are just one catastrophic incident away from the post-9/11 atmosphere and even worse," said Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Washington, a Muslim civil rights organization. "We have to accept the double standards, as bad as they are. That's just the fact, unfortunately."

And MPAC has not helped. Just the opposite.

Muslims in North Texas say they don't know of any physical assaults on them of late, but that after any high-profile negative event involving Muslims - such as the arrest of Smadi - they face increased racial taunts and verbal harassment.

Poor dears! Poor fragile lambs! Christians in Egypt are being wantonly murdered, but Muslims in North Texas are being...called names!

Al-Marayati says suspicions about Muslims persist, in large part, because Americans - most of whom are Christian - either can't or won't make a distinction between the mainstream and fringe elements of Islam, while they discern that difference for others.

He says, for example, that when non-Muslims commit extreme acts, they are quickly dismissed as being crazy or weird or having some deep-seated emotional problem, and are not viewed as representative of an entire group of people.

But Muslim bad actors, he said, don't get the same treatment.

"When a Christian does something ... that's how it's reported, that they happen to be a Christian," Al-Marayati said. "But if it's a Muslim, it's as if it's the [Muslim] religion that's driving it."

Al-Marayati is setting up a familiar smokescreen, but for all its common usage it still doesn't make any sense. Why do people see the Muslim religion as driving terrorist acts? Because Muslims say so. Repeatedly. Just the other day we say Anwar al-Awlaki saying, "Whenever you see the word terrorism, replace it with the word jihad."

In March 2009, five Muslims accused of helping plot the September 11 attacks, including the notorious Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, wrote an "Islamic Response to the Government's Nine Accusations." In it they quote the Koran to justify their jihad war against the American Infidels. "In God's book," asserts the letter, "he ordered us to fight you everywhere we find you, even if you were inside the holiest of all holy cities, The Mosque in Mecca, and the holy city of Mecca, and even during sacred months. In God's book, verse 9 [actually verse 5], Al-Tawbah [the Koran's 9th chapter]: Then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them, and seize them, and besiege them and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush."

Osama bin Laden's communiqués have also quoted the Koran copiously. In his 1996 "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places," he quotes seven Koran verses: 3:145; 47:4-6; 2:154; 9:14; 47:19; 8:72; and the notorious "Verse of the Sword," 9:5.[i] Bin Laden began his October 6, 2002, letter to the American people with two Koran quotations, both of a martial bent: "Permission to fight (against disbelievers) is given to those (believers) who are fought against, because they have been wronged and surely, Allah is Able to give them (believers) victory" (22:39) and "Those who believe, fight in the Cause of Allah, and those who disbelieve, fight in the cause of Taghut (anything worshipped other than Allah e.g. Satan). So fight you against the friends of Satan; ever feeble is indeed the plot of Satan" (4:76)."

In a sermon broadcast in 2003, bin Laden rejoiced in a Koranic exhortation to violence as being a means to establish the truth: "Praise be to Allah who revealed the verse of the Sword to his servant and messenger [the Islamic Prophet Muhammad], in order to establish truth and abolish falsehood." The "Verse of the Sword" is Koran 9:5: "Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful."

The idea that the Koran commands them to do violence to unbelievers runs from the very top of the international jihadist movement - Osama bin Laden - down to the rank and file. Overall, it is extremely rare - if not impossible - to find a jihadist who does not cite the Koran to justify his actions. Britain-based jihadist preacher, Abu Yahya, asserts simply, "It says in the Koran that we must try as much as we can to terrorise the enemy." And Pakistani jihad leader Beitullah Mehsud claims that "Allah on 480 occasions in the Holy Koran extols Muslims to wage jihad. We only fulfill God's orders.

Only jihad can bring peace to the world." He specified that his jihad - struggle in Arabic - was an offensive military operation: "We will continue our struggle until foreign troops are thrown out. Then we will attack them in the US and Britain until they either accept Islam or agree to pay jazia." The "jazia," or jizya, is a tax that the Koran (9:29) specifies must be levied on Jews, Christians, and some other non-Muslim faiths as a sign of their subjugation under the Islamic social order.

One pro-Osama website put it this way: "The truth is that a Muslim who reads the Koran with devotion is determined to reach the battlefield in order to attain the reality of Jihad. It is solely for this reason that the Kufaar [unbelievers] conspire to keep the Muslims far away from understanding the Koran, knowing that Muslims who understand the Koran will not distance themselves from Jihad."

That is what al-Marayati would not have us notice. There are simply no Christians or Jews committing violence and justifying it with reference to Biblical texts. The situation in Islam is very different.

Mohamed Elibiary, president of the Freedom and Justice Foundation, a Muslim interfaith organization in Plano, agrees.

"The average American thinks it must be the religion" that pushes Muslim extremists, Elibiary said. "There must be something about them. That sentiment has been there since 9/11, and it hasn't gone anywhere."

Re the slick Elibiary, see here. Gee, Mohamed, where could people have gotten that "sentiment"?

Possible illegal Afghan immigrants leave car, try to enter U.S. on foot from Canada

U.S. sets its sights on Taliban's 'little T' Experts question plan to find, sway group's less extreme members

(Analyst's note:  And how are we going to make sure that they don't simply stick out two hands, one to us and one to the side who is already paying them ... I'm just saying.)

 

By Karen DeYoung

"Not every Taliban is an extremist ally," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said last week. One of the primary tasks of President Obama's Afghanistan strategy review, she said, is "trying to sort out who is the real enemy." 

Trying to persuade those insurgents deemed less extreme to lay down their arms or switch sides will be a major component of the Obama administration's new approach, regardless of whether the president approves the massive troop deployments requested by his military commander, according to administration officials.

But sorting the "reconcilables" -- what the U.S. military calls the "little T" -- from the "big T" of hard-core Taliban members is no small task. Even if the Americans and Europeans are able to tell them apart, neither they nor Afghan officials have a comprehensive plan to persuade them to stop fighting.

And many analysts, particularly in the CIA, do not believe that a substantial "little T" exists among what the agency estimates is a total of about 25,000 fighters in the Afghan Taliban and related insurgent groups. "Small pockets of Taliban members may be convinced under certain conditions to enter into such a process," a U.S. counterterrorism official said, but "it's an uphill battle for most."

"I'm not saying you can't buy off a few guys or get a faction to turn," he added, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. "But as a general matter, our view is that it would be a very difficult thing to accomplish." The prospects for reconciliation, he said, are "dim and grim."

 

A better paycheck

Others within the administration and the military are convinced that many fighters, even if culturally and religiously attuned to the Taliban, are doing a job that they might abandon for more money. "Our analysis," and that of the Afghan government, Clinton said in an interview with ABC's "Nightline," is that "there are people, quote 'Taliban,' who are hiding because they get paid to fight. They have no other way of making a living . . . [and] get paid more to be in the Taliban than they get paid to be, like, say, a local police officer." ....

Many Sources Feed Taliban’s War Chest

By ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON — The Taliban in Afghanistan are running a sophisticated financial network to pay for their insurgent operations, raising hundreds of millions of dollars from the illicit drug trade, kidnappings, extortion and foreign donations that American officials say they are struggling to cut off.

 In Afghanistan, the Taliban have imposed an elaborate system to tax the cultivation, processing and shipment of opium, as well as other crops like wheat grown in the territory they control, American and Afghan officials say. In the Middle East, Taliban leaders have sent fund-raisers to Arab countries to keep the insurgency’s coffers brimming with cash.

Estimates of the Taliban’s annual revenue vary widely. Proceeds from the illicit drug trade alone range from $70 million to $400 million a year, according to Pentagon and United Nations officials. By diversifying their revenue stream beyond opium, the Taliban are frustrating American and NATO efforts to weaken the insurgency by cutting off its economic lifelines, the officials say.

Despite efforts by the United States and its allies in the last year to cripple the Taliban’s financing, using the military and intelligence, American officials acknowledge they barely made a dent. ....

Flow of Western terrorist recruits increasing

(Analyst's note:  Absolutely must read.)

from Daily Times  --  Click here for Washington Post article

* German officials say Taliban, Qaeda trying to exploit domestic opposition to Afghan war

* Officials say large number of Western recruits travelling to Afghanistan

WASHINGTON: A rising number of Western recruits, including Americans, are travelling to Afghanistan and Pakistan to train at paramilitary camps, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.

Citing unnamed US and European counterterrorism officials, the newspaper said the flow of recruits has continued unabated in spite of an intensified campaign over the past year by the CIA to eliminate Al Qaeda and Taliban commanders in drone missile attacks.

Since January, at least 30 recruits from Germany have travelled to Pakistan for training, said the report, citing German security sources.

About 10 people returned to Germany this year, fuelling concerns that fresh plots are in the works against European targets, the paper said.

“We think this is sufficient to show how serious the threat is,” the newspaper quotes a senior German counterterrorism official as saying.

Exploit: German officials say Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders are trying to exploit domestic opposition in Germany to the war.

Training: US and European counterterrorism officials say a rising number of Western recruits – including Americans – are travelling to Afghanistan to attend paramilitary training camps.

German security services have been on high alert since last month, when groups affiliated with the Taliban and Al Qaeda issued several videos warning that an attack on German targets was imminent if the government did not bring home its forces from Afghanistan. There are about 3,800 German troops in the country.

The videos all featured German speakers who urged Muslims to travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan to join their cause.

Last week, German officials disclosed that a 10-member cell from Hamburg had left for Pakistan earlier this year. The cell is allegedly led by a German of Syrian origin but also includes ethnic Turks, German converts to Islam and one member with Afghan roots.

Other European countries are also struggling to keep their citizens from going to Pakistan for paramilitary training.

European security officials have warned for many years of the threat posed by homegrown radicals who have gone to Afghanistan and Pakistan to wage jihad. Officials in some countries, such as Britain, said they have successfully cracked down on the number of would-be fighters going to South Asia. But others, such as Germany, are seeing a significant increase and struggling to contain it.

In a recent report, the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service said there were a “growing number of indications” that more Europeans were attending camps in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“With the extremist agenda of those allies becoming more international, at least at the propaganda level, the threat to the West and its interests has intensified,” the report found. afp/daily times monitor ....

Video: Is Obama Poised to Cede US Sovereignty?

(Analyst's note:  Absolutely must read.  This can NOT be permitted to happen.)

by Shannon Bell

Warning of a Global Government meant to enforce the transfer of wealth from rich Nations like ours to third world Nations, Lord Christopher Monckton says that Barack Obama is poised to cede our sovereignty over to the United Nations in the name of saving the planet. This would be done he says by the signing of the Global Climate Treaty in Copenhagen in a few weeks.

Lord Christopher Monckton speaking at the Minnesota Free Market Institute 5 days ago said that within the climate treaty that Obama is so willing to sign, the ceding of our sovereignty awaits. A global government will be established that will be run of course by the U.N.; the scary part of all of this? Once Obama signs the climate treaty and if the Senate were to ratify that treaty, that treaty by virtue of Article 6 of the Constitution, would effectively trump the Constitution.

Essentially what would take place according to Lord Christopher Monckton is that rich countries like the United States would have its wealth transferred to poorer countries based on the fact that we screwed the planet’s climate up, while they (the poor countries) were just victims.

The big picture is this, once we enter into this treaty we will never be allowed to leave it. All member Nations of the treaty would have to “let you out”. We of course would never be let out because we would be forced to pay in the most since we “pollute” the most. Countries who are benefiting financially from our poor position of being in the Copenhagen Treaty would never allow us out.

What is the probability of this happening? We know that Barack Obama will sign just about any type of Climate Treaty placed in front of him. As much as the democrats harped about George Bush and the Kyoto Protocol, it’s a done deal. The key is the US Senate which would have to ratify by a 2/3 majority.

I should say the key to all of this is us. Continued pressure is what is needed. Tea parties, protests, whatever it takes within the confines of the law. Lord Christopher Monckton is pleading for our help, it is up to the American people once again to save the Nations sovereignty.

Civilian Courts Are No Place to Try Terrorists

(Analyst's note:  Absolutely must read -- bravo Mr. Mukasey.)

We tried the first World Trade Center bombers in civilian courts. In return we got 9/11 and the murder of nearly 3,000 innocents.

By MICHAEL B. MUKASEY

 The Obama administration has said it intends to try several of the prisoners now detained at Guantanamo Bay in civilian courts in this country. This would include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and other detainees allegedly involved. The Justice Department claims that our courts are well suited to the task.

Based on my experience trying such cases, and what I saw as attorney general, they aren't. That is not to say that civilian courts cannot ever handle terrorist prosecutions, but rather that their role in a war on terror—to use an unfashionably harsh phrase—should be, as the term "war" would suggest, a supporting and not a principal role.

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David Klein

The challenges of a terrorism trial are overwhelming. To maintain the security of the courthouse and the jail facilities where defendants are housed, deputy U.S. marshals must be recruited from other jurisdictions; jurors must be selected anonymously and escorted to and from the courthouse under armed guard; and judges who preside over such cases often need protection as well. All such measures burden an already overloaded justice system and interfere with the handling of other cases, both criminal and civil.

Moreover, there is every reason to believe that the places of both trial and confinement for such defendants would become attractive targets for others intent on creating mayhem, whether it be terrorists intent on inflicting casualties on the local population, or lawyers intent on filing waves of lawsuits over issues as diverse as whether those captured in combat must be charged with crimes or released, or the conditions of confinement for all prisoners, whether convicted or not.

Even after conviction, the issue is not whether a maximum-security prison can hold these defendants; of course it can. But their presence even inside the walls, as proselytizers if nothing else, is itself a danger. The recent arrest of U.S. citizen Michael Finton, a convert to Islam proselytized in prison and charged with planning to blow up a building in Springfield, Ill., is only the latest example of that problem.

Moreover, the rules for conducting criminal trials in federal courts have been fashioned to prosecute conventional crimes by conventional criminals. Defendants are granted access to information relating to their case that might be useful in meeting the charges and shaping a defense, without regard to the wider impact such information might have. That can provide a cornucopia of valuable information to terrorists, both those in custody and those at large.

Thus, in the multidefendant terrorism prosecution of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and others that I presided over in 1995 in federal district court in Manhattan, the government was required to disclose, as it is routinely in conspiracy cases, the identity of all known co-conspirators, regardless of whether they are charged as defendants. One of those co-conspirators, relatively obscure in 1995, was Osama bin Laden. It was later learned that soon after the government's disclosure the list of unindicted co-conspirators had made its way to bin Laden in Khartoum, Sudan, where he then resided. He was able to learn not only that the government was aware of him, but also who else the government was aware of.

It is not simply the disclosure of information under discovery rules that can be useful to terrorists. The testimony in a public trial, particularly under the probing of appropriately diligent defense counsel, can elicit evidence about means and methods of evidence collection that have nothing to do with the underlying issues in the case, but which can be used to press government witnesses to either disclose information they would prefer to keep confidential or make it appear that they are concealing facts. The alternative is to lengthen criminal trials beyond what is tolerable by vetting topics in closed sessions before they can be presented in open ones.

In June, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the transfer of Ahmed Ghailani to this country from Guantanamo. Mr. Ghailani was indicted in connection with the 1998 bombing of U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He was captured in 2004, after others had already been tried here for that bombing.

Mr. Ghailani was to be tried before a military commission for that and other war crimes committed afterward, but when the Obama administration elected to close Guantanamo, the existing indictment against Mr. Ghailani in New York apparently seemed to offer an attractive alternative. It may be as well that prosecuting Mr. Ghailani in an already pending case in New York was seen as an opportunity to illustrate how readily those at Guantanamo might be prosecuted in civilian courts. After all, as Mr. Holder said in his June announcement, four defendants were "successfully prosecuted" in that case.

It is certainly true that four defendants already were tried and sentenced in that case. But the proceedings were far from exemplary. The jury declined to impose the death penalty, which requires unanimity, when one juror disclosed at the end of the trial that he could not impose the death penalty—even though he had sworn previously that he could. Despite his disclosure, the juror was permitted to serve and render a verdict.

Mr. Holder failed to mention it, but there was also a fifth defendant in the case, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim. He never participated in the trial. Why? Because, before it began, in a foiled attempt to escape a maximum security prison, he sharpened a plastic comb into a weapon and drove it through the eye and into the brain of Louis Pepe, a 42-year-old Bureau of Prisons guard. Mr. Pepe was blinded in one eye and rendered nearly unable to speak.

Salim was prosecuted separately for that crime and found guilty of attempted murder. There are many words one might use to describe how these events unfolded; "successfully" is not among them.

The very length of Mr. Ghailani's detention prior to being brought here for prosecution presents difficult issues. The Speedy Trial Act requires that those charged be tried within a relatively short time after they are charged or captured, whichever comes last. Even if the pending charge against Mr. Ghailani is not dismissed for violation of that statute, he may well seek access to what the government knows of his activities after the embassy bombings, even if those activities are not charged in the pending indictment. Such disclosures could seriously compromise sources and methods of intelligence gathering.

Finally, the government (for undisclosed reasons) has chosen not to seek the death penalty against Mr. Ghailani, even though that penalty was sought, albeit unsuccessfully, against those who stood trial earlier. The embassy bombings killed more than 200 people.

Although the jury in the earlier case declined to sentence the defendants to death, that determination does not bind a future jury. However, when the government determines not to seek the death penalty against a defendant charged with complicity in the murder of hundreds, that potentially distorts every future capital case the government prosecutes. Put simply, once the government decides not to seek the death penalty against a defendant charged with mass murder, how can it justify seeking the death penalty against anyone charged with murder—however atrocious—on a smaller scale?

Even a successful prosecution of Mr. Ghailani, with none of the possible obstacles described earlier, would offer no example of how the cases against other Guantanamo detainees can be handled. The embassy bombing case was investigated for prosecution in a court, with all of the safeguards in handling evidence and securing witnesses that attend such a prosecution. By contrast, the charges against other detainees have not been so investigated.

It was anticipated that if those detainees were to be tried at all, it would be before a military commission where the touchstone for admissibility of evidence was simply relevance and apparent reliability. Thus, the circumstances of their capture on the battlefield could be described by affidavit if necessary, without bringing to court the particular soldier or unit that effected the capture, so long as the affidavit and surrounding circumstances appeared reliable. No such procedure would be permitted in an ordinary civilian court.

Moreover, it appears likely that certain charges could not be presented in a civilian court because the proof that would have to be offered could, if publicly disclosed, compromise sources and methods of intelligence gathering. The military commissions regimen established for use at Guantanamo was designed with such considerations in mind. It provided a way of handling classified information so as to make it available to a defendant's counsel while preserving confidentiality. The courtroom facility at Guantanamo was constructed, at a cost of millions of dollars, specifically to accommodate the handling of classified information and the heightened security needs of a trial of such defendants.

Nevertheless, critics of Guantanamo seem to believe that if we put our vaunted civilian justice system on display in these cases, then we will reap benefits in the coin of world opinion, and perhaps even in that part of the world that wishes us ill. Of course, we did just that after the first World Trade Center bombing, after the plot to blow up airliners over the Pacific, and after the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

In return, we got the 9/11 attacks and the murder of nearly 3,000 innocents. True, this won us a great deal of goodwill abroad—people around the globe lined up for blocks outside our embassies to sign the condolence books. That is the kind of goodwill we can do without.

Mr. Mukasey was attorney general of the United States from 2007 to 2009.

 

Video: Is Obama Poised to Cede US Sovereignty?

(Analyst's note: Absolutely must see!!)

Oath Keepers pledges to prevent dictatorship in United States Group asks police and military to lay down arms in response to orders deemed unlawful

(Analysts note:  You'll want to click here to see  to get the full story of this must read article.)

By ALAN MAIMON

Depending on your perspective, the Oath Keepers are either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia.

In the age of town halls, talk radio and tea parties, middle ground of opinion is hard to find.

Launched in March by Las Vegan Stewart Rhodes, Oath Keepers bills itself as a nonpartisan group of current and retired law enforcement and military personnel who vow to fulfill their oaths to the Constitution.

More specifically, the group's members, which number in the thousands, pledge to disobey orders they deem unlawful, including directives to disarm the American people and to blockade American cities. By refusing the latter order, the Oath Keepers hope to prevent cities from becoming "giant concentration camps," a scenario the 44-year-old Rhodes says he can envision happening in the coming years.

It's a Cold War-era nightmare vision with a major twist: The occupying forces in this imagined future are American, not Soviet.

"The whole point of Oath Keepers is to stop a dictatorship from ever happening here," Rhodes, a former Army paratrooper and Yale-trained lawyer, said in an interview with the Review-Journal. 

"My focus is on the guys with the guns, because they can't do it without them.
"We say if the American people decide it's time for a revolution, we'll fight with you."

That type of rhetoric has caught the attention of groups that track extremist activity in the United States.

In a July report titled "Return of the Militias," the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center singled out Oath Keepers as "a particularly worrisome example of the Patriot revival."

The Patriot movement, so named because its adherents believe the federal government has stepped on the constitutional ideals of the American Revolution, gained traction in the 1990s and has been closely linked to anti-government militia and white supremacist movements.

The movement is blamed for spawning Timothy McVeigh, who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people.

"I'm not accusing Stewart Rhodes or any member of his group of being Timothy McVeigh or a future Timothy McVeigh," law center spokesman Mark Potok said. "But these kinds of conspiracy theories are what drive a small number of people to criminal violence. ... What's troubling about Oath Keepers is the idea that men and women armed and ordered to protect the public in this country are clearly being drawn into a world of false conspiracy theory."

Oath Keepers got some unwanted attention in April when an Oklahoma man loosely connected to the group was arrested for threatening violence at an anti-tax protest in Oklahoma City. Rhodes called the man "a nut" who had no real affiliation with his group.

Nonetheless, Potok's group now monitors Oath Keepers on its Web site blog "Hatewatch."

Oath Keepers is not preaching violence or government overthrow, Rhodes said. On the contrary, it is asking police and the military to lay down their arms in response to unlawful orders.

The group's Web site, www.oathkeepers.org, features videos and testimonials in which supporters compare President Barack Obama's America to Adolf Hitler's Germany. They also liken Obama to England's King George III during the American Revolution.

One member, in a videotaped speech at an event in Washington, D.C., calls Obama "the domestic enemy the Constitution is talking about."

According to the law center, militia groups are re-emerging in this country partly as a result of racial animosity toward Obama.

It's the "cross-pollinating" of extremist groups -- some racist, some not -- that is of concern, Potok said. As evidence that the danger is real, he points to several recent murders committed by men with anti-government or racist views.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reached a similar conclusion in a report earlier this year about the rise of right-wing extremism. The report said the nation's economic downturn and Obama's race are "unique drivers for right-wing radicalization and recruitment."

The homeland security report added that "disgruntled military veterans" might be vulnerable to recruitment by right-wing extremist groups.

That warning was enough to make Rhodes feel paranoid.

"They're accusing anybody who opposes Obama of being a racist or a potential terrorist," he said. "What they're saying is, 'We're coming after you.'"

The motto of Oath Keepers: "Not on our watch!"

The message Rhodes hears from the government: We're watching you.

Las Vegas police Lt. Kevin McMahill said his department's homeland security bureau isn't overly concerned with Oath Keepers at this point, even though Rhodes says several active-duty Las Vegas officers are members of the group.

"I wouldn't classify Oath Keepers as no threat at all, but I wouldn't classify them as a threat either," McMahill said. "There's always a chance an individual can step outside the boundaries of what an organization stands for and do something wrong."

Rhodes, a former firearms instructor, said he easily could have started Oath Keepers during the Bush administration, but his focus during those years was first on getting his law degree and then volunteering on the 2008 presidential campaign of Texas Congressman Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican in whose office Rhodes worked during the 1990s.

What Rhodes terms "the rise of executive privilege" during the post-9/11 years of the Bush presidency will in his opinion only accelerate with Obama in office. What's worse, he said, is that "gun-hating extremists" now control the White House.

Two things have happened since the Homeland Security Department and Southern Poverty Law Center released their reports on extremism: Membership of Oath Keepers has spiked dramatically. And Rhodes has had to do a lot of explaining.

"We're not a militia," he said. "And we're not part and parcel of the white supremacist movement. I loathe white supremacists."

Oath Keepers doesn't offer paramilitary training; nor does it have a military command structure. It instead has board members, which include directors in seven states and outreach coordinators to currently serving local and federal law enforcement and military personnel. The group's state director in Montana, who goes by the name Elias Alias, has said Montana and other states should consider seceding from the United States in protest of the federal government's conduct.

Leaders of the group will come together in Las Vegas starting Oct. 24 for the inaugural national conference of Oath Keepers.

Among the group's other leaders is Dave Freeman, an Army veteran and former Las Vegas police sergeant who spent more than 30 years with the Metropolitan Police Department.

For Freeman, Oath Keepers has become something of a family affair. He recruited his niece, a former police chief, to serve as state director for Oath Keepers in Massachusetts.

"When you believe in something, you have to do more than just pay it lip service," said Freeman, the group's Southern Nevada director and national peace officer liaison. "This is a crusade I believe in."

Another prominent Oath Keeper is former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack, who has long been an outspoken government critic.

The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Mack a "longtime militia hero" who helped weaken gun control laws.

An incident earlier this year in rural Iowa, not inside the Washington Beltway, motivated Rhodes to start Oath Keepers.

He questioned why the Iowa National Guard planned to use residents of a small town to participate in training on door-to-door searches for weapons.

The Guard said the training was to help soldiers who might be asked to carry out similar searches in Iraq or Afghanistan.

But for Rhodes, it looked like preparation for a future declaration of martial law. It reminded him of the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when police officers reportedly confiscated legally owned firearms. What the government called emergency response after the levees broke, Rhodes saw as the imposition of martial law.

If it hadn't been for April 19 of this year, Oath Keepers might not have gained the notoriety it now has.

On the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington Green, the Massachusetts battle that started the American Revolution in 1775, a group of Oath Keepers went to the battle site and reaffirmed their pledge to the Constitution.

The gathering was mentioned in the Southern Poverty Law Center report because April 19 is also the anniversary of the deadly end to the federal siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993; and of the retaliatory bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.

Rhodes and Potok have never talked, but if they did, they might find themselves speaking a different language.

"Let them say what they want to say, but April 19 has very much become a day for the extreme radical right," Potok said.

Rhodes couldn't disagree more.

"There are thousands of Americans who go to Lexington to watch re-enactments of people shooting at troops," Rhodes said. "But if you're a group of military and police there, they somehow find this offensive."

Rhodes said he hopes Oath Keepers members think about the lawfulness of day-to-day orders they receive.

For example, if a police officer feels he is being asked to do an illegal search of a home or vehicle, he should stand down.

Rhodes eventually wants to create a legal defense fund for Oath Keepers who are disciplined by their employers for defying orders they deem unlawful or immoral.

"The message to law enforcement is not to become a tool of oppression," he said.

Rhodes, a husband and father of five home-schooled children, said he gets hundreds of e-mails a day, mostly from people interested in knowing more about his group.

He also gets a lot of questions from "birthers" wanting to know if he thinks Obama is really an American citizen and from "truthers" asking whether he believes the attacks of 9/11 were an inside job. The group doesn't have an official position on either issue, he said.

Some of his responses to questions have turned would-be allies against him.

"I've been accused of being a traitor or a CIA operative because I'm not coming out and declaring that the H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine is a biological weapon," he said.

When Defeat is the Answer

(Analyst's note:  Troubling but every war seems to generate such people.  Wonder why this kind of thing always seems to come from California?)

by Donald Douglas

President Obama is still dithering over the war in Afghanistan, but his hard-Left base has increasingly decided to break with the administration to cheer for American defeat overseas.

The latest sign of the Left’s defection over the war comes from the Los Angeles chapter of the anti-war group International A.N.S.W.E.R. On Sunday, ANSWER sponsored an antiwar “teach-in” on Afghanistan at Los Angeles City College. The event was the group’s latest “local action” in its self-described “struggle” against alleged U.S. imperialism in “Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, the Philippines, Latin America and beyond.” All this is standard fare for the radical group, with one notable exception: It now considers the Obama administration the enemy.

To that end, ANSWER is accelerating its calls for grassroots resistance to the administration. In particular, ANSWER organizers claim they are seeking to block U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s recent request for an additional 40,000 troops. But ANSWER’s ultimate goal is to support the insurgency seeking to topple the Hamid Karzai government in Kabul. According to Richard Becker, ANSWER’s West Coast Regional Director, and a keynote speaker at this weekend’s teach-in, a defeat for the current American mission in Afghanistan would strike a blow to the American “empire” in South Asia.

ANSWER’s anti-American agenda was well-represented by organizers and activists at this weekend’s teach-in in Los Angeles.

The first speaker was Muna Coobtee. An organizer with the National Council of Arab AmericansWestwood protest “Afghanistan and Iraq Will NEVER Accept U.S. Colonialism,” she implored activists to mobilize against the war. Pentagon warmongers can’t tell new recruits the truth about their mission, Coobtee insisted, since “then more soldiers and marines and their families would hesitate to continue to act as bait and cannon fodder.” (an ANSWER front group), she was emcee for the organization’s recent marking the 8th anniversary of the war. Coobtee claimed that the Afghan mission was in fact a doomed neo-colonial war. Denouncing the “occupation,” she claimed that American military goals are exclusively to “avoid defeat … or to avoid the perception of defeat.” Following the script in ANSWER’s communist pamphlet,

Coobtee was followed by ANSWER’s Peta Lindsay and Blase Bonpane (of the Office of the Americas and KPFK Los Angeles). Lindsay had just returned from a mission to Japan. She attacked the U.S. military presence there, conspiratorially denouncing nuclear-powered warships for widespread radioactive “contamination.” She also decried American sailors, who she claimed were “murdering Japanese women and taxi drivers.” In turn, Bonpane, who is something of an alternative media-celebrity, excoriated American neo-imperialism and argued that “the art of revolution is the art of organizing the majority of Americans to end the warfare state.”

An especially militant talk was delivered by (former) Corporal Michael David Prysner, an Iraq war veteran and radar specialist who was honorably discharged from service June 15, 2005. Prysner is a key organizer for ANSWER’S military resistance cell, March Forward! According to his personal statement at the website:

I left this Army with a new understanding of the system under which we all live, and the nature of U.S. foreign policy. But, I still had the same drive to fight for freedom, justice and equality as I did when I joined, and I understood that fighting for those things meant fighting against the U.S. government, not on behalf of it.

During his talk, Prysner parroted the March Forward! talking points. ....

In his remarks, Becker explained that defeating the current American forces under General Stanley McChrystal would strike a blow to America’s neo-colonial project. A U.S. withdrawal from the region would strike at the heart of “empire” in South Asia. “Every empire falls, and this empire will fall as well,” Becker declared. The audience erupted in applause at Becker’s appeal for American losses.

 

ANSWER man: Robert Becker calls for the defeat of the American “empire.”

[....]

Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s Gun Sites

(Analyst's note:  Absolutely must read.)

by Stephen Brown

After weeks of increasingly brazen attacks on Pakistani cities and military installations, al-Qaeda is under siege.

The Pakistani army this weekend launched a major offensive into South Waziristan, the tribal area in the north-western frontier that serves as a base of operations for the jihadist group as well as its confederates in the Pakistani Taliban.

Two army divisions — around 20,000-30,000 troops — began their long-awaited ground advance against the estimated 10,000 Islamist fighters in the rugged, mountainous terrain bordering Afghanistan after Pakistan’s top political and military officials made the formal decision for the offensive at a conference last Friday. Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Gillani chaired the meeting that was also attended by Army Chief of Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. “There was consensus that all efforts to eradicate extremism and terrorism will be taken forward,” said Senator Reza Rabbani who attended the meeting.

The Pakistani government had announced last March that it would eradicate militant Islamic extremism from the country. The attack was delayed until now, according to one military analyst, in order to coordinate operations with Afghan and American/NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan.

The operation’s aim is simple but ambitious: Al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban are to be decisively defeated. Unlike after previous offensives into South Waziristan, however, Pakistani troops will not withdraw when the fighting is over. Instead, they will remain and occupy the territory. Al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban will not be allowed to return, as was previously the case.

Several months of reconnaissance and air strike missions against the Islamists preceded the ground forces’ weekend advance. These operations, numbering in the hundreds and involving American-built F-16 warplanes, were meant to soften up the targets. The Pakistani army had also cut off all routes into South Waziristan and seized the roads. In the weeks leading up to the attack, thousands of people had fled the area.

The offensive is expected to last six to eight weeks, after which heavy snows will close the mountain passes the Islamists use. Islamist forces, chased out of the settled areas, are expected to spend a tough, debilitating winter in the mountains under arduous conditions.

While the offensive is unpopular with some Taliban and al Qaeda sympathizers within the Pakistani military and intelligence services, the Pakistani army’s morale is reported as good. Successful campaigns against Islamic radicals in the Bajaur tribal agency and the Swat Valley were confidence boosters for the troops who are tasked to clear South Waziristan.

The Pakistani ground forces are expected to advance behind a curtain of air strikes, artillery and tank fire – heavy weapons the Islamists do not possess. But the campaign may not be an easy one. Although initial resistance was reported as light, by Sunday, five soldiers were reported killed, along with 11 Islamists.

Nevertheless, the Pakistani army possesses distinct advantages. Under British rule, the tribal levies in Waziristan would ambush and raid invading British columns. That is unlikely to happen to any great extent this time, since the Pakistani military possesses hundreds of helicopters and warplanes, which can keep tabs on Islamist movements from above and attack any enemy concentrating for an attack. Moreover, many of the hostile tribes that the Pakistani troops are facing dislike casualties and cannot stand up to a modern army.

If the diehard al-Qaeda and Taliban combatants choose to stand and fight, however, they are expected to fight well. They have better training than many of the tribal fighters and a fanatical ideology to sustain them. They have also had years to dig in and know the South Waziristan terrain well.

The latest military assault is a culmination of events that began in 2007. During the Bush administration, Washington and London devised a plan to “tame the militancy.” According to Pakistani columnist Syed Saleem Shahzad, one aspect of the plan was to attack the Taliban/al Qaeda base areas in the tribal territories. The other was to replace then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a military dictator, with a civilian president, Benazir Bhutto, to accomplish this.

Musharraf, who had seized power in a coup in 1999, was perceived as possessing a hot and cold attitude toward the radical Islamic groups in his country, while Western countries expected Bhutto to go to war against them. Shahzad said the Pakistani Taliban saw through the plan and assassinated Bhutto in December, 2007, to derail it. But the assassination failed to achieve the desired result: It brought to power Bhutto’s widower, Asif Zardari, who has been steadfast in prosecuting the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Yet it was not only Zardari’s resolve that resulted in last weekend’s offensive. The fact the Taliban and al Qaeda have declared war against Pakistan also made the government’s job to go after them much easier. This also contributed to the belief in Pakistan that the Islamic radicals were trying to take over the country and therefore had to be opposed.

Many ordinary Pakistanis also support their government against al Qaeda and the Taliban because they oppose the religious dictatorship that the Islamists seek.teenage girl being held down and whipped by Taliban religious enforcers last April also shocked and angered Pakistanis Destroying girls schools, movie theatres and music shops – this is not a winning platform among the vast majority of Pakistanis. The video of a pleading .

Taliban and al Qaeda terrorist attacks have also turned many Pakistanis into enemies. Innocent civilian bystanders often were the casualties of their indiscriminate terrorism and statistics show the number of dead is increasing. Islamist violence, which caused 907 deaths in Pakistan in 2005, took 8,000 lives in 2008, more than in Afghanistan where 6,000 people died. The fact that iconic landmarks like the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in 2007 and the Sri Lankan cricket team this year were targeted added to the anti-Taliban/al Qaeda hostility.

Losing hearts and minds: Attacks like the 2007 Marriott hotel bombing have turned Pakistanis against the jihadists.

The current offensive could well defeat the al Qaeda-Taliban axis, but that does not mean the war against Islamic radicalism is over. Al Qaeda will probably relocate to another country, such as Yemen or Somalia, where it will try to rebuild its strategic command. Nevertheless, a victory over Islamist forces in South Waziristan would be a welcome development for Pakistan and the world at large.