"One of big deficiencies in our strategy on our war on terrorism remains a serious effort to counter Islamist ideology"

from Jihad Watch & Atlas Shrugs

Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from July 2001 until August 2005, was interviewed by several bloggers today, and Pamela Geller asked him a very serious, important, and pointed question:

Geller: To what extent did the Islamic doctrines of jihad and the requirement to subjugate infidels under the rule of Islamic law enter into your calculations for Iraq, and do you think the persecution of Christians had anything to do with those doctrines?

Feith: Well ... uh, the jihadist ideology was obviously a major... issue, uh, in our analysis of the strategy for the war on terrorism. And one of the things the Pentagon took the lead on ... was calling attention to the ideological component of the war on terror, and one of the things I deal with with in the book (which is a very sad story), was how it was Rumsfeld and General Myers and others at the Pentagon, who over and over again, right from the beginning, right after 9/11, were emphasizing the importance of an ideological effort, a strategic communications effort and a general strategy for countering ideological support for terrorism. And when the rest of the government wasn't doing very much in that area, we created within my office, within the policy office at the Pentagon, the Office of Strategic Influence to do work in this area. And the Public Affairs people in the Pentagon and other people around the US government were very unhappy with the creation of this office, some of it was for turf reasons and some of it was for other reasons, but one of the consequences was somebody leaked - well, leaked, no - no, somebody lied - to The New York Times and gave a report saying that this Office of Strategic Influence was intending to lie to foreign journalists. And The New York Times ran a front page story saying that. It caused a big imbroglio that resulted in the shutting down of this office.

I don't think the US government has recovered to this day from that fiasco, because every time anyone suggested creating an office to really deal with jihadist ideology in a systematic or strategic way at the Pentagon, people would say, oh, no, we are not going to have another Office of Strategic Influence problem. And that meant the Pentagon couldn't do it, and the Pentagon was the place that kept recognizing the importance of the ideological struggle. The State Department, which was the logical place to do it, for its own institutional and cultural reasons wasn't inclined to fight the battle that way, and they tended to think that all we needed was a public diplomacy campaign. Uh, and that's why you got all these brochures that were famous about rebranding America and showing how America treats its Muslims very nicely and ...which is a fine thing to do but it is far short of an ideological campaign against jihadist extremism. And so anyway, I would say that one of big deficiencies in our strategy on our war on terrorism remains a serious effort to counter Islamist ideology. ...

You can say that again. But it doesn't appear in the first place as if the Office of Strategic Influence was ever going to do what needed to be done: pose Western society and values as a positive alternative to Sharia.

Now your question was, how does that relate to Iraq, Iraq ... I mean, we did not view Saddam Hussein as, you know, as... pushing that ideology - the Baathist ideology was quite different, but what we were concerned about was that Saddam was the kind of guy who, for the other reasons, would likely be fighting us in the future as he had fought us in the past, and that he might, in a future fight with us, use his connections with various terrorist groups, some of whom were jihadist extremists, use them to hurt us. So we were concerned about that, but, uh, obviously the Saddam Hussein regime didn't have the same ideology as, for example, the Taliban regime had, which was much more in line with the jihadist ideology of Al Qaeda.

It's worse than I thought. State department brochures to fight the jihad.. It took so little to derail any real understanding of the enemy that means us dead or subjugated.

I guess that was when we lost the war.

Rumsfeld got it. Right after 911 Rumsfeld got it. But we had already been infiltrated.

He goes on. Read it all over at Atlas Shrugs, where there is also audio of the whole interview.

Obama Picks Another "Tax Dodger"

(Compiler's note: Has anyone noticed that these people are paying back taxes ONLY after their pick for public office?)

.... Following a weekend of revelations about taxes and potential ethical conflicts, Daschle expressed remorse to the Senate Finance Committee, the panel that will decide his fate, saying he was "deeply embarrassed and disappointed" about failing to pay more than $120,000 in back taxes. ....

American Hostage Taken In Pakistan

from Founding Bloggers

Yesterday in Pakistan, Jihadis kidnapped an American.

QUETTA, Pakistan — Gunmen kidnapped an American UN official and killed his driver in southwest Pakistan on Monday, police said, underscoring the security threat in a country wracked by Al Qaeda violence and rising criminality.

The abduction occurred as the man was heading to his job as the head of the U.N. refugee office in the main southwest city of Quetta, senior police official Khalid Masood said.

Masood identified the kidnapped official as John Solecki, and said he was from the United States.

Judging by the near total lack of media coverage, either nobody cares, or nobody in the media wants to make this an issue. If the news of Muslims taking Americans hostage became a big issue, perhaps President Barack Hussein Obama might have to risk his reputation defending an American against the Islamists. For the media who lionized President Obama, he’s too big to fail, so they have to be sure not to put him in a position of challenge when avoidable.

Too bad for John Solecki. If he had been taken hostage during the term of President Evil McChimpy, his name and cause would be plastered all over each and every MSM outlet, with the implicit moral that it is all Bush’s fault.

Gazans detail being used as human shields

Testimonies decry 'monstrous' use of women, children, ambulances

U.S. partner, not Hamas, firing rockets into Israel

By Aaron Klein

While terrorists promise cease-fire, American 'allies' provoke violence

HERZLIYA, Israel – With Hamas signaling it is willing to enter a cease-fire with Israel, it was the U.S.-backed Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas whose so-called military wing took responsibility for a barrage of rockets and mortars fired from the Gaza Strip today.

Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades called WND and also released an official pamphlet to take credit for firing at least five rockets and four mortars today, lightly wounding two Israeli soldiers and one civilian. Also taking responsibility was a cell claiming it was working on behalf of the Iranian-backed, Hamas-allied Islamic Jihad terrorist organization. ....

Obama demands 10% defense cuts

By Jerome R. Corsi

Budgets $55 billion less on military, $314 billion more on social projects

The Obama administration asked the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff to cut the Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2010 by $55 billion, more than 10 percent of last year's $512 defense budget.

The announcement came late Friday, following a meeting at the White House between President Obama and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Gen. Jim Jones, chairman of the National Security Council, according to a Fox News report.

The White House website appears to have no published notice of the Obama directive, nor was there any explanation from the White House how the proposed cuts might affect our military in the field in Iraq and Afghanistan. ....

Obama's secret nuke talks with Iran exposed

Even before election, president began 'open fist' negotiations

The Obama administration has quietly initiated previously undisclosed back-channel negotiations with both Iran and Syria, according to an Agence France-Presse report.

Even before winning the November 4 election, Obama initiated "two track" discussions with Iran and Syria, using top-level experts to begin talks, according to Jeffrey Boutwell, the executive director for the U.S. branch of the Pugwash Group, an international organization of scientists who champion international nuclear disarmament. ....

Bill creates detention camps in U.S. for 'emergencies'

By Jerome R. Corsi

Rep. Alcee L. Hastings, D-Fla., has introduced to the House of Representatives a new bill, H.R. 645, calling for the secretary of homeland security to establish no fewer than six national emergency centers for corralling civilians on military installations.

The proposed bill, which has received little mainstream media attention, appears designed to create the type of detention center that those concerned about use of the military in domestic affairs fear could be used as concentration camps for political dissidents, such as occurred in Nazi Germany.

Heed the warning of a former Hitler Youth who sees America on the same path as pre-Nazi Germany in "Defeating the Totalitarian Lie" from WND Books!

The bill also appears to expand the president's emergency power, much as the executive order signed by President Bush on May 9, 2007, that – as WND reported – gave the president the authority to declare an emergency and take over the direction of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments without even consulting Congress.

As WND also reported, DHS has awarded a $385 million contract to Houston-based KBR, Halliburton's former engineering and construction subsidiary, to build temporary detention centers on an "as-needed" basis in national emergency situations.

According to the text of the proposed bill, the purpose of the National Emergency Centers is "to provide temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster."

Three additional purposes are specified in the text of the proposed legislation:

• To provide centralized locations for the purposes of training and ensuring the coordination of federal, state and local first responders;


• To provide centralized locations to improve the coordination of preparedness, response and recovery efforts of government, private, not-for-profit entities and faith-based organizations;


• To meet other appropriate needs, as defined by the secretary of homeland security.

The broad specifications of the bill's language, however, contribute to concern that the "national emergency" purpose could be utilized by the secretary of homeland security to include any kind of situation the government wants to contain or otherwise control.

Rep. Hastings created controversy during the 2008 presidential campaign with his provocative comments concerning Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

"If Sarah Palin isn't enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention," Hastings said, as reported by ABC News. "Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don't care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks. So, you just think this through."

H.R. 645, which seeks to allocate $360 million for developing the emergency centers, has been referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

and to the Committee on Armed Services.

Five Truths about the Banking Crisis

(Compiler's note: Remembering that economic security is basic to our national security, this is a must read and consider article.)

from by Tristan Yates

Because people just don’t want you to understand it.

The first truth to understand about the banking crisis is that people don’t want you to understand it. You are supposed to trust in the judgments of the experts and give them whatever they are asking for, no matter what the cost or consequences. Just ignore the fact that many of these people are the same experts that failed to foresee or to prevent the problem in the first place.

Henry Paulson, the former treasury secretary, is one such expert. Throughout 2007 and most of 2008, he assured the public that the economy was strong, any subprime mortgage fallout was contained, the banking system was safe, and that there were no plans to recapitalize or rescue Fannie and Freddie.

Then, last September when multiple financial institutions were on the brink of collapse, he naturally took responsibility for his errors in judgment and inaction and resigned, right? Well, no. Actually he requested $700B more with virtually unlimited authority.

Of course it wasn’t exactly a request. Give me $700B right now or you get a massive financial collapse and the Second Great Depression. It almost sounds like a scheme cooked up by Dr. Evil. Did Paulson have some kind of doomsday device that he was ready to activate? Was the country really facing a financial meltdown?

We will answer that shortly and the answer may surprise you. Lets move on to Truth #2. This entire crisis was caused by widespread mismanagement throughout the financial industry.

Banks that loan money to borrowers who can’t repay don’t stay in business for very long — or at least they’re not supposed to. The same is true for investment managers that exchange good money for bad paper.

This may seem obvious, but there are still far too many weakly written articles that blame the financial failures on the bad economy or the weak housing market — as if banks couldn’t possible imagine that the economy might slow at some point.

Similarly, pointing the finger at credit rating firms or government regulators or auditors also misses the mark. Yes, all of these parties should have acted earlier to help prevent the crisis. But the situation wouldn’t even exist if not for the widespread irresponsibility of the people we trust to manage the world’s money.

Once the blame is assigned correctly, the ethics of the situation become very clear. Management needs to go, and the institutions they ran into the ground deserve to fail. But we can’t have hundreds of banks and financial institutions fail, right? Wouldn’t the economy drown in a sea of bankruptcies?

Truth #3: Banks can fail without endangering the economy. In fact, over 700 lending institutions failed during the Savings & Loan crisis in the early 1990s, and the damage was minimal.

Credit the Bush administration — not W. but his father. In 1989, he signed legislation creating a framework in which S&Ls could fail quickly, be removed from the marketplace, and then be replaced with healthy institutions.

The process was simple. If a financial institution couldn’t meet its capital requirements, the regulator declared it insolvent and shut it down immediately. At that point a government custodian (the Resolution Trust Company) took over the firm’s assets, inventoried and packaged them for sale, and auctioned them off to the highest bidder, usually another healthier financial institution.

If the RTC had difficulty unloading some assets (what we would now call toxic assets), it created innovative public-private sector partnerships to manage the risks and share the future profits.

When institutions were seized quickly, many still had significant assets that could be used to cover the losses and debts. But in the end it was a bailout, and the taxpayer was responsible for the final cost.

Which brings us to Truth #4: This current crisis almost certainly isn’t a trillion dollar problem, but we can certainly make it into one.

Let’s take a step back for a moment. If one year ago, someone had told us that the U.S. taxpayer would have to ultimately spend $500B to clean up the banking system and prevent a total collapse, we would have been outraged.

At this point we would consider ourselves lucky to get by so cheaply. Only $500 billion? And no depression? What a relief! The high price tags of TARP, the economic stimulus, and the dire economic projections have conditioned us to expect a final cost in the trillions.

The S&L crisis cost taxpayers $124B, and that was primarily the difference between what it took to pay insured depositors back and what was recovered from the failed institutions by the RTC. The cost may sound reasonable by today’s standards but was actually far higher than it should have been.

What happened was that in the early stages of the crisis, the scope of the problem was not well understood by the regulators and many insolvent institutions were allowed to continue operating. Often these institutions offered high-yield accounts to attract insured deposits and then proceeded to make more bad loans and investments.

The lesson is that the more quickly regulators act, the lower the losses are. Declare a bank insolvent the day that it first fails to meet capital requirements and the cost of the failure will be minimal. Keep it operating and give it more government guaranteed money to make more bad loans, and the final cost of the cleanup will skyrocket.

Now armed with our four truths, let’s go back to Paulson and his ultimatum. Was the financial system really facing a meltdown? Yes, and it still is, but only because of his willingness to continue to provide taxpayer money and guarantees to banks and investment firms that created the current mess we’re now in.

The banking crisis could be solved today for the lowest possible cost if the Treasury would simply shut down insolvent financial institutions, auction off their assets, and repay depositors in full. There would be no damage to the economy aside from losses to investors in the financial institutions. In fact, the economy would be healthier and recover far more quickly if the banking and credit system were sound.

And there is no need for a full bailout. When AIG was taken over, its creditors received a nice Christmas present — its once precarious debt was now backed by the U.S. Treasury.

This prevented the chaos of the Lehman bankruptcy, a severe system shock followed by a legal mess that will take years to sort out, but there’s no reason that creditors in failed financial firms must receive 100 cents on the dollar for their claims. Only federally insured depositors should have that right.

Did Paulson know these four truths? Does Geithner? Perhaps they’re surrounded by too many Wall Street executives who are pleading for just a little more time and money to fix the mess that they created. Or perhaps they know that a financial crisis is the ideal environment for a dramatic expansion of the role of government in the economy.

One person who does know these truths is William Seidman. He was the chairman of the FDIC and RTC during the Savings & Loan crisis. At the age of 87 he is appearing in television interviews and writing editorials telling everyone that will listen that insolvent banks need to fail so that the system will survive.

My guess is that Seidman also understands Truth #5: Not all financial crises are created equal. When borrowers can’t pay their debts, you get a banking crisis, and as we’ve seen those are painful. But when governments can’t pay their debts you get a currency crisis, which is far worse. During Argentina’s recent currency crisis, the GDP fell by 10% in a single year, the unemployment rate jumped to 25%, and inflation hit 10% a month at one point.

We are nowhere near a currency crisis now. But the quickest way to get there is to borrow trillions of dollars and spend it on dubious financial rescue programs and stimulus packages that are unlikely to either rescue the financial sector or stimulate the overall economy.

Note: Jim Boswell contributed his expertise to this article. Jim is a former director of Price Waterhouse Coopers and a veteran of the S&L crisis. He and his team of analysts managed risk for the $400B Ginnie Mae portfolio amid the financial wreckage and received a Vice Presidential Hammer award for their accomplishments. I was lucky enough to be one of those analysts. His Wharton MBA and mid-western values and sensibilities are an invaluable resource for those looking to separate fact from fiction in these times.