Meanwhile, back to Somali Pirates: Huge ransom demanded for release of three ships

Maybe it's inflation, but Somali pirates want $8 mln to free three ships:

Somali pirates are demanding a ransom of $8.2 million to free two Malaysian tankers and a Japanese-managed bulk carrier that they hijacked in the Gulf of Aden, a maritime official said on Tuesday. Gunmen from Somalia have seized at least 30 vessels so far this year, making the waters off the Horn of Africa nation the most dangerous in the world. On Tuesday, the Malaysian vessels' owner ordered the rest of its fleet not to enter the area. Andrew Mwangura, head of the East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, said the pirates wanted $4.7 million to release the Bunga Melati 5 and its sister ship, the Bunga Melati Dua, which are both owned by Malaysian national carrier MISC . He told Reuters the gangs were also demanding $3.5 million to free the MV Stella Maris, which was hijacked on July 20. "We believe all three ships are near Eyl village, where the pirates have the strong support of locals," Mwangura said.

Meanwhile, the EU is talking: ....

Putin’s Useful Idiots

The recent war in Georgia announced the return of Russia as a ruthless power to be reckoned with. More disturbing still, it reminded the world of the return of a system that brutally eliminates those who dare to criticize its policies. The murder of anti-government journalist, Magomed Yevloyev, in Ingushetia by police on Sunday is just the latest indication that the Putin regime doesn't flinch to eliminate dissent in all of its forms.

But while Russia is brutally annexing its neighbors and still killing its opponents at home, the international community is now witness to the reemergence of a Cold War relic: the Western apologist for Russian aggression once known as the “useful idiot.”

The term, attributed to Vladimir Lenin, was once applied to those naïve, (and not so naïve) “progressive” Westerners who sought to aid Soviet communism by downplaying – or flat-out denying – the evils it entailed. Prominent in their ranks were such luminaries as playwright George Bernard Shaw, New York Times journalist Walter Duranty and British Labor Party leader Arthur Henderson. Although the Soviet government held these sympathizers in contempt, they parroted its propaganda with the enthusiasm of true believers.

Now they’re back. ....

UN Anti-Terror Effort Bogged Down Over Terrorism Definition

(Compiler's note: It is hard for me to imagine a more useless organization than the U.N.)

(CNSNews.com) – Seven years after the U.N. Security Council responded to 9/11 with a tough resolution aimed at tackling the scourge of terror, its ability to do so remains hamstrung by a failure to agree of a definition of terrorism – and by policies evidently designed to avoid embarrassing or annoying member states.

A long-running effort to define terrorism repeatedly has run into hurdles erected by mostly Islamic states determined that the fight against occupation – especially the one waged by the Palestinians – should be explicitly exempted. ....

Georgia invasion 'planned since April'

by Alan Philps

The Russian invasion of Georgia was not a spontaneous response to what Moscow called “genocide” in South Ossetia but had been planned in detail since April, according to Russia’s leading independent defence analyst.

The plans all but ensured that fighting would break out before the end of August, though the exact timing depended on how readily the Georgian government could be provoked into starting it, Pavel Felgenhauer states in a new analysis of the conflict.

It is generally agreed that the spark for the war was the Nato summit meeting in Bucharest in April at which Georgia was promised eventual membership of the western alliance, in the teeth of opposition from the Russians.

According to Mr Felgenhauer, Vladimir Putin, who was president of Russia at the time but now serves as prime minister, set in motion a range of measures to support the two separatist territories in Georgia – South Ossetia and Abkhazia – and prepare for a military incursion.

By the start of August, Russian military engineers repaired the railway linking Russia to Abkhazia, allowing the sudden appearance of tanks and other heavy military equipment that was later used to attack and loot the Georgian army base at Senaki, Mr Felgenhauer wrote in Novaya Gazeta, one of the few Moscow newspapers outside the control of the Kremlin.

In South Ossetia, as the Russian-backed separatists stepped up attacks on Georgian police and military, the Russian army began to bring in some heavy weapons to supplement their existing, lightly armed troops who were there as internationally sanctioned peacekeepers.

Russia’s Black Sea fleet, as well as paratroopers and marines, were mobilised in the area for summer exercises titled “Kavkaz-2008”, which concluded on Aug 2.

The incursion had to start by the end of August, as the troops could not be kept on full alert endlessly and the pass through the Caucasus Mountains to South Ossetia would be snowed in by October, leaving only the Roki tunnel, which is so narrow it is reduced to one-way traffic when heavy military equipment is brought in.

Mr Felgenhauer said that, if the Georgian army was not provoked to attack South Ossetia, then the Russians would ensure that fighting broke out in Abkhazia, with the separatists trying to take the Kodori Gorge, the last remaining territory still under Georgian government control.

In the end, the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, responded to a series of shooting incidents and roadside bombs with a full-scale assault to recapture the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.

Against this background, it is not surprising that Mr Putin, in Beijing for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, responded speedily to the Georgian assault with the accusation of “genocide” – the charge Nato used to justify its assault on Serbia after the Serbian army forced a mass exodus from the province of Kosovo in 1999. ....

Illegal Workers Leaving California in Large Numbers

Recent employment figures show that California's day labor population is dropping due to a decrease in the number of construction jobs caused by America's recent economic downturn. UCLA Professor Abel Valenzuela says that it is likely that only 10% to 15% of California's day laborers are able to find work each day -- down from 40% only a few years ago. "Things are really drying up," Valenzuela said, "[one alternative is], clearly, to leave the United States and head back."

However, it is likely that California's economic downturn is not the sole reason for the decrease in the number of day laborers. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has become more vigilant in tracking down illegal workers (particularly those who resort to fraud to attain employment) and the Border Control's numbers are growing, as are the miles of security fencing at the U.S. - Mexico border.

It is clear that the ICE's policy of attrition might be paying dividends: arrests at the U.S. - Mexico border are down 17% compared to this time last year, despite increased Border Patrol activity. It is plausible to assume that illegal aliens are not entering as fast as they have been in recent years due to the economic downturn and the U.S. government's increased vigilance. In fact, a recent report by the Center for Immigration Studies comes to a similar conclusion. ....

Islamofascist Anisa And El Fattah declares Michelle Malkin “an enemy of the people”, incites violence against Jews, Christians

by Patrick Poole

When the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was founded, the HAMAS network leaders in the US turned to one of its own, Anisa And El Fattah/Caroline F. Keeble to serve as one of its founding board members. Her two mentors and former employers, HAMAS chief Mousa Abu Marzook and Abdurahman Alamoudi, have respectively been designated a terrorist and convicted of terrorist support. Thus, she is quite familiar with both the overt and more subtle methods of cultural terrorism.

Recently, Anisa And El Fattah, a Central Ohio resident, published an editorial inciting violence against her old enemy — “Judeo/Christian fascists”. This time around, however, she put a face with the name: conservative media pundit and blogger Michelle Malkin. Her article, “Michelle Malkin: Enemy of the People and the US Constitutiion [sic]”, was published in a number of places, including her National Association of Muslim American Women blog.

In the article (reprinted below), Fattah encourages her supporters to “fight back”, demanding that they fight “more forcefully”, against her enemy. She also recommends that federal racketeering statutes and criminal charges be used to silence the “Judeo/Christian fascists”. Those who have been following my reporting on Anisa And El Fattah’s local activities might recall that late last year she was publicly defending neo-Nazis in a published interchange with law professor Eugene Volokh. She later came out defending the neo-Nazi website, STORMFRONT. And in December, she spoke to a student group acknowledged by the FBI to be a front group for the Iranian mullahocracy.

Thus, it isn’t hard to catch the irony of her jihad against Malkin. ....

NYPD beefs up security for Ramadan

(Compiler's note: The above title is NOT a misprint. rca)

by Robert Spencer

Watch the Undercover Mosque videos here. Note that Khalid Yasin, featured in the second video advocating harsh Sharia punishments, also speaks in America, and has been sponsored by mosques in doing so. And that 80% of mosques in the United States are controlled by the Saudis, who are blamed in this documentary (somewhat inaccurately) for all the radicalization in British mosques.

Note also that hate propaganda of just this kind has been found in American mosques -- which should not be surprising not only because of the Saudi connection but because much of this is mainstream Islamic teaching.

And finally, note that jihadist activity tends to increase during Ramadan.

Now in light of all that, when you see a headline like "NYPD beefs up security for Ramadan," you would think that the New York cops are on alert against terror attacks coming during the month in which Muslims redouble their efforts to serve Allah -- right? Wrong -- they're beefing up their protection of the mosques themselves, which are apparently under threat from venomous Islamophobes.

Any vigilante attack against any mosque in the U.S. is wrong and stupid, and to be condemned. But this is just another indication of how CAIR's hate crimes propaganda, trumped-up as it is, rules the day: the mosques are well-protected, but what about the potential victims of the jihadists who may be inside them?

"NYPD beefs up security for Ramadan," by Jonathan Lemire for the New York Daily News, August 26 (thanks to Twostellas):

The NYPD Tuesday announced heightened security for the city's mosques during the upcoming Islamic holy observance of Ramadan.

Local precincts will dispatch more officers on foot patrol and in squad cars to patrol the areas surrounding the mosques during the month-long religious observance that begins on Monday.

"Collaboration with the public is a vital ingredient in our efforts to keep the city safe," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly during the NYPD's annual pre-Ramadan conference with 250 Muslim community leaders.

Cops will also be briefed on the religious guidelines specific to Ramadan in anticipation of the observances, Kelly said.

The community leaders were warned to be mindful of the mosque's donation boxes, some of which were robbed last year.

Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism

(Compiler's note: This is a "must read" article. It has significant impact on our national security. Everyone should read this article from Investors Business Daily. Do not brush it off as just some anti Obama rant -- it is very revealing on where we may very well be headed. No matter whether you consider your personal political brand as liberal, moderate or conservative you probably won't want to hear what this article has to say, but you need to. It's from Investors Business Daily, not some right wing publication or McCain's political camp, and it is a very revealing view of Democrat presidential candidate, Obama.. )

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Election '08: Before friendly audiences, Barack Obama speaks passionately about something called "economic justice." He uses the term obliquely, though, speaking in code — socialist code.

During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. "I've been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served," he said at the group's 99th annual convention in Cincinnati.

And as president, "we'll ensure that economic justice is served," he asserted. "That's what this election is about." Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval.

It's the rest of the public that remains in the dark, which is why we're launching this special educational series.

"Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism.

In the past, such rhetoric was just that — rhetoric. But Obama's positioning himself with alarming stealth to put that rhetoric into action on a scale not seen since the birth of the welfare state.

In his latest memoir he shares that he'd like to "recast" the welfare net that FDR and LBJ cast while rolling back what he derisively calls the "winner-take-all" market economy that Ronald Reagan reignited (with record gains in living standards for all).

Obama also talks about "restoring fairness to the economy," code for soaking the "rich" — a segment of society he fails to understand that includes mom-and-pop businesses filing individual tax returns.

It's clear from a close reading of his two books that he's a firm believer in class envy. He assumes the economy is a fixed pie, whereby the successful only get rich at the expense of the poor.

Following this discredited Marxist model, he believes government must step in and redistribute pieces of the pie. That requires massive transfers of wealth through government taxing and spending, a return to the entitlement days of old.

Of course, Obama is too smart to try to smuggle such hoary collectivist garbage through the front door. He's disguising the wealth transfers as "investments" — "to make America more competitive," he says, or "that give us a fighting chance," whatever that means.

Among his proposed "investments":

• "Universal," "guaranteed" health care.

• "Free" college tuition.

• "Universal national service" (a la Havana).

• "Universal 401(k)s" (in which the government would match contributions made by "low- and moderate-income families").

• "Free" job training (even for criminals).

• "Wage insurance" (to supplement dislocated union workers' old income levels).

• "Free" child care and "universal" preschool.

• More subsidized public housing.

• A fatter earned income tax credit for "working poor."

• And even a Global Poverty Act that amounts to a Marshall Plan for the Third World, first and foremost Africa.

His new New Deal also guarantees a "living wage," with a $10 minimum wage indexed to inflation; and "fair trade" and "fair labor practices," with breaks for "patriot employers" who cow-tow to unions, and sticks for "nonpatriot" companies that don't.

That's just for starters — first-term stuff.

Obama doesn't stop with socialized health care. He wants to socialize your entire human resources department — from payrolls to pensions. His social-microengineering even extends to mandating all employers provide seven paid sick days per year to salary and hourly workers alike.

You can see why Obama was ranked, hands-down, the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal. Some, including colleague and presidential challenger John McCain, think he's the most liberal member in Congress.

But could he really be "more left," as McCain recently remarked, than self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (for whom Obama has openly campaigned, even making a special trip to Vermont to rally voters)?

Obama's voting record, going back to his days in the Illinois statehouse, says yes. His career path — and those who guided it — leads to the same unsettling conclusion.

The seeds of his far-left ideology were planted in his formative years as a teenager in Hawaii — and they were far more radical than any biography or profile in the media has portrayed.

A careful reading of Obama's first memoir, "Dreams From My Father," reveals that his childhood mentor up to age 18 — a man he cryptically refers to as "Frank" — was none other than the late communist Frank Marshall Davis, who fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his "subversive," "un-American activities."

As Obama was preparing to head off to college, he sat at Davis' feet in his Waikiki bungalow for nightly bull sessions. Davis plied his impressionable guest with liberal doses of whiskey and advice, including: Never trust the white establishment.

"They'll train you so good," he said, "you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that sh**."

After college, where he palled around with Marxist professors and took in socialist conferences "for inspiration," Obama followed in Davis' footsteps, becoming a "community organizer" in Chicago.

His boss there was Gerald Kellman, whose identity Obama also tries to hide in his book. Turns out Kellman's a disciple of the late Saul "The Red" Alinsky, a hard-boiled Chicago socialist who wrote the "Rules for Radicals" and agitated for social revolution in America.

The Chicago-based Woods Fund provided Kellman with his original $25,000 to hire Obama. In turn, Obama would later serve on the Woods board with terrorist Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground. Ayers was one of Obama's early political supporters.

After three years agitating with marginal success for more welfare programs in South Side Chicago, Obama decided he would need to study law to "bring about real change" — on a large scale.

While at Harvard Law School, he still found time to hone his organizing skills. For example, he spent eight days in Los Angeles taking a national training course taught by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. With his newly minted law degree, he returned to Chicago to reapply — as well as teach — Alinsky's "agitation" tactics.

(A video-streamed bio on Obama's Web site includes a photo of him teaching in a University of Chicago classroom. If you freeze the frame and look closely at the blackboard Obama is writing on, you can make out the words "Power Analysis" and "Relationships Built on Self Interest" — terms right out of Alinsky's rule book.)

Amid all this, Obama reunited with his late father's communist tribe in Kenya, the Luo, during trips to Africa.

As a Nairobi bureaucrat, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Harvard-educated economist, grew to challenge the ruling pro-Western government for not being socialist enough. In an eight-page scholarly paper published in 1965, he argued for eliminating private farming and nationalizing businesses "owned by Asians and Europeans."

His ideas for communist-style expropriation didn't stop there. He also proposed massive taxes on the rich to "redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all."

"Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed," Obama Sr. wrote. "I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more and syphon some of these revenues into savings which can be utilized in investment for future development."

Taxes and "investment" . . . the fruit truly does not fall far from the vine.

(Voters might also be interested to know that Obama, the supposed straight shooter, does not once mention his father's communist leanings in an entire book dedicated to his memory.)

In Kenya's recent civil unrest, Obama privately phoned the leader of the opposition Luo tribe, Raila Odinga, to voice his support. Odinga is so committed to communism he named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.

With his African identity sewn up, Obama returned to Chicago and fell under the spell of an Afrocentric pastor. It was a natural attraction. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright preaches a Marxist version of Christianity called "black liberation theology" and has supported the communists in Cuba, Nicaragua and elsewhere.

Obama joined Wright's militant church, pledging allegiance to a system of "black values" that demonizes white "middle classness" and other mainstream pursuits.

(Obama in his first book, published in 1995, calls such values "sensible." There's no mention of them in his new book.)

With the large church behind him, Obama decided to run for political office, where he could organize for "change" more effectively. "As an elected official," he said, "I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer."

He could also exercise real, top-down power, the kind that grass-roots activists lack. Alinsky would be proud.

Throughout his career, Obama has worked closely with a network of stone-cold socialists and full-blown communists striving for "economic justice."

He's been traveling in an orbit of collectivism that runs from Nairobi to Honolulu, and on through Chicago to Washington.

Yet a recent AP poll found that only 6% of Americans would describe Obama as "liberal," let alone socialist.

Public opinion polls usually reflect media opinion, and the media by and large have portrayed Obama as a moderate "outsider" (the No. 1 term survey respondents associate him with) who will bring a "breath of fresh air" to Washington.

The few who have drilled down on his radical roots have tended to downplay or pooh-pooh them. Even skeptics have failed to connect the dots for fear of being called the dreaded "r" word.

But too much is at stake in this election to continue mincing words.

Both a historic banking crisis and 1970s-style stagflation loom over the economy. Democrats, who already control Congress, now threaten to filibuster-proof the Senate in what could be a watershed election for them — at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

A perfect storm of statism is forming, and our economic freedoms are at serious risk.

Those who care less about looking politically correct than preserving the free-market individualism that's made this country great have to start calling things by their proper name to avert long-term disaster.

Mexican President Admits Mexico Disintegrating

MEXICO CITY -- Moving quickly to address mounting anger over crime, President Felipe Calderon promised Sunday to adopt several proposals from civic groups who led more than 100,000 Mexicans in marches against daily kidnappings and killings.

Among the measures are the creation of a citizens' panel to monitor government progress in fighting crime, better police recruiting and oversight systems and equipping police with more powerful weapons, Mexico's conservative president said.

Calderon acknowledged that Mexicans are desperate to see results two years after he took office and began an aggressive battle against drug traffickers and other criminal gangs.

The government "shares the demands and the indignation of the people," Calderon said after meeting with 14 civic leaders who staged Saturday night's candlelight protests in the capital and cities across the country. "We know the biggest problem in Mexico is public insecurity."

Homicides and kidnappings have surged despite the deployment of more than 25,000 soldiers and federal police to hotspots across Mexico, and the arrest of several top drug lords. ....

DNI Open Source Innovation Challenge 2008

by Kent's Imperative

We are unabashed believers in the unique contributions offered by open source intelligence as a discipline, and have been greatly pleased to see the increased prominence of such efforts within the Intelligence Community over the past decade. Today’s OSINT is a far cry more advanced from the early days of the 1990’s, when the first glimpses of the potential offered by the information revolution were visible in the newly opened media markets of the Soviet Union.

One of the most dramatic shifts since that time has been the development of OSINT as more than a mere data gathering function, increasingly focused on providing insight through rigorous analysis and imaginative exploration. Analytic outreach naturally goes hand in hand with open sources. And while the intelligence community is still grappling with the best manner to encourage and develop such efforts, this evolution is a fascinating space to observe and participate in.

Thus we are immensely interested to see the results of the DNI’s Open Source Innovation Challenge for 2008. This is a frankly unprecedented effort - and long overdue. Announced via email and on their public blog, the invitation speaks for itself:

Special Announcement

The Open Source Innovation Challenge

We are pleased to announce an exciting opportunity in conjunction with the DNI Open Source Conference 2008: "The Open Source Innovation Challenge." This is a unique occasion for representatives from academia; think tanks; industry; the media; federal, state, local, and tribal government; and other diverse sectors to use open source information to address real intelligence challenges. Subject matter experts from any field can apply innovative research techniques, thus giving new insight to the Intelligence Community.

Can you provide the most innovative and relevant answer to the Challenge questions?

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has provided two Challenge questions (below) and instructions to all conference registrants. Those who choose to accept the Challenge can submit a answer for one of the two challenge questions posed. Entries will be reviewed by a panel of judges consisting of senior IC representatives. The three entries judged to be the best answers to Challenge questions will be announced during the opening plenary session of the DNI Open Source Conference on September 11th and the answers will be presented at the concluding conference plenary on September 12th. The Challenge is open to all conference registrants, including those who are not able to attend due to overwhelming registration demand.

Challenge Questions

1. Using the best open sources to inform your answer, is Al Qaeda a cohesive organization with strong and centralized control, intent and direction?

2. According to open sources, who will be the global leader in alternative fuels and why?

Challenge Guidelines

1. Challenge Participants and Entries: Entries can be submitted either by individuals or teams, with no limit to the number of individuals on a team. Teams can consist of individuals from any number of organizations, rather than representatives exclusively from a single university, company or organization; multidisciplinary teams are encouraged. Each person, however, can only enter the Challenge once—as an individual or part of a team, not both. At least one member of each team must be a registered conference attendee and entries from individuals must be submitted by a registered (not necessarily a confirmed) attendee. Entries should address one of the two Challenge questions proposed; entries attempting to address both questions will be disqualified.

The remainder of the full guidelines may be found here.

This seems to us an excellent opportunity for a number of academic and private sector shops to demonstrate their mettle in front of a very serious – and no doubt quite attentive – audience. The timing – and timelines – reminds us more than somewhat of the Burundi exercise of years past. This is certainly no coincidence, and we have long felt it was time to update the original work performed for the 1995 Aspin-Brown Commission on Intelligence in a modern context.

To all those participating, bonne chance.

Australia warns of high risk of terror attacks on US flights

SYDNEY (AFP) — Australia on Sunday warned of a "high risk" of terror attacks on domestic and international flights in and to the United States, urging citizens to be vigilant while in the country.

"We advise you to exercise caution and monitor developments that might affect your safety in the United States because of the risk of terrorism," the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a travel advisory.

The department urged travellers to monitor the media for information about possible new security threats.

"The United States Department of Homeland Security's Advisory System Threat Level is at Orange for all domestic and international flights, indicating a 'high' risk of terrorist attack," it said.

"It is at Yellow or 'elevated' for all other sectors, indicating a significant risk of terrorist attack." ....

Communism for Dummies

by: Malcolm A. Kline, August 28, 2008

America’s so-called intellectual elites remain either smugly ignorant or in outright denial of the West’s struggle with communism that consumed much of the 20th Century and is still too much with us, late and soon. “Some historians cannot bring themselves to call Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot what they truly are,” writer and scholar Lee Edwards noted when accepting an award from the Fund for American Studies. “I refer you to the current edition of Webster’s New College Dictionary in which Hitler and Mussolini are described as ‘dictators’ while Lenin and Mao are called ‘leaders.’”

“Fidel Castro is given special status as ‘Cuban revolutionary premier.’” A prolific author and teacher, Edwards was also the recipient of Accuracy in Media’s Reed Irvine award for investigative journalism, named after AIM’s founder.

As if on cue, the Washington Post tabloid Express newspaper managed to mangle about 20 years worth of history in less than a paragraph in its ‘night out’ guide on August 27, 2008. “Dalton Trumbo is famous for two things: Johnny Got His Gun, the stunning anti-war novel about a young soldier living inside his own head after a devastating injury, and for not cooperating with McCarthy’s anti-communist tribunals and being summarily blacklisted,” the Express informs us. “After that, he could no longer work and there went his career.”

Actually:

• Trumbo rushed Johnny into print during the Hitler-Stalin pact, when American communists followed the Soviet Union’s orders in protesting U. S. involvement in the fight against Nazi Germany;

• The “tribunal” that unfriendly Hollywood screenwriter Trumbo refused to cooperate with was the U. S. House Committee on UnAmerican Activities on which Senator Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisc., never served; and

• Trumbo continued to work under pseudonyms during the blacklist and under his own from the time that he wrote the screenplay for Spartacus in 1960 until his death in 1976.

Meanwhile, our putative best and brightest remain clueless about the barbarism of puppets of the former Soviet Union that still practice Marxism, such as the governments of Zimbabwe and, yes, the People’s Republic of China. “Maybe since 9/11, maybe as a result of the Cold War, we gradually put more importance on the coercive elements of power,” David M. Lampton of Johns Hopkins stated in the September issue of the university’s magazine. “Seeing the largest problem with China as its military is unwarranted.”

Lampton serves as director of China studies and dean of the faculty at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Hopkins. His latest book is entitled The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money and Minds. “I think honesty requires that nobody can predict what something as large and rapidly changing as China is going to be like 20 or 30 years from now,” Lampton says. “But if we treat China as a threat today, we will create the reality we seek to avoid tomorrow.”

As we have noted in a previous dispatch, Lampton also defends a revered figure at JHU, the late Owen Lattimore, a consultant to the U. S. State Department at the time that Mao Tse Tung came to power. Lattimore actually was investigated by Senator McCarthy and his FBI file that runs to thousands of pages can be found in the Bureau’s electronic reading room.

On a visit to the Koyma mines in the Soviet Union, Lattimore found “extensive greenhouses growing tomatoes, cucumbers and melons to make sure the hardy miners get enough vitamins.” “This rendering of a Siberian slave camp as a sort of art colony cum health spa run by cultured esthetes suggests Lattimore was no piker in these matters but ranked with the most abject of Soviet hacks as an apologist for Stalin,” author M. Stanton Evans notes in his book Blacklisted By History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies.

In a footnote, Evans quotes historian Robert Conquest’s calculation of the death toll among the miners at Kolyma—“30 percent per annum.” “In one of the Kolyma penal camps, which had started the year with 3,000 inmates, 1,700 were dead at the end,” Conquest wrote in The Great Terror.

“Of course, without all the cucumbers and tomatoes, the death toll might have been even higher,” Evans observes wryly.

Iraq takes control of Anbar province from U.S.

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military turned over control of Iraq's Anbar province, once the country's most dangerous, to the Iraqi government Monday in a landmark step toward the withdrawal of more American troops.

President Bush declared in a statement that al-Qaeda had been defeated in the western desert province, which was on the brink of collapse to the Islamic militant group two years ago. .....

Bolivia cements Iran ties amid US dismay

Bolivia's President Evo Morales says his official visit to Iran aims at raising Tehran-La Paz political relations to a much higher level.

In a meeting with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bolivia's visiting president pointed to the two countries' opposing stance against imperialism and said that his visit is 'a symbol of unity and solidarity among Iranian and Bolivian nations.'

"In addition to promoting political relations, this visit aims at enhancing bilateral ties in the fields of commerce, industry, agriculture, gas and oil," the Bolivian president added.

Iran-Bolivia overtures come as the United States has expressed grave concerns over the warming of relations between Iran and Latin American countries. ....

Barak confirms report Israel foiled 2 Hezbollah kidnap attempts abroad

(Compiler's note: You can almost bet that American businessmen will be next as representatives of the "Great Satan.")

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday confirmed that Israel security forces had recently foiled two attempts by the Lebanese militia Hezbollah to kidnap Israeli businessmen abroad.

Barak made the comments while touring the South, and called on the public to act in accordance with warnings issued by the government's counterterrorism unit. ....

Top Pakistani official concedes Al-Qaeda has free movement in Pakistan

Interior ministry chief Reham Malik is now in line for promotion to Captain Obvious.

More on this story. "Al Qaida has free movement in Pakistan, top official concede," by Saeed Shah for McClatchy Newspapers, September 1:

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's top security official Monday admitted that al Qaida's leadership moved freely in and out of the country and vowed that "no mercy" would be shown to extremists based in its tribal territory that borders Afghanistan.

In the past, Pakistan has been heavily criticized for rejecting evidence that al Qaida was largely based in the country and for denying that the tribal territory was used as a safe haven for Afghan insurgents.

Rehman Malik , the interior ministry chief, revealed that al Qaida deputy leader Ayman al Zawahiri and his wife had been in Mohmand, part of the tribal area. Most of time, Malik said Zawahiri was mainly in Afghanistan's Kunar and Paktia provinces. [...]

Extremist groups in Pakistan launched a vicious campaign of suicide bombings last year, aimed at both military and civilian targets. The attacks are thought to be directed by al Qaida.

Predictable deflection of responsibility (note the use of passive voice) and calls for "dialogue":

But Malik called for more action from other countries too. He said that the al Qaida "syndicate" was allowed to operate across the region, from Iraq to the Philippines and "free passage was given to them" to come to Pakistan . "We need a regional dialogue," he added.

In another break from Pakistan's recent approach, the interior ministry chief, said that Islamabad planned to use the tribes in its border area to fight the extremists, indicating that a 15,000-strong militia of volunteers would be assembled.

The move would ape the success of the U.S. approach in Anbar Province in Iraq , where Sunni tribes were armed and paid to fight al Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni extremists.

Malik said that in Bajaur, a part of the Pakistan's tribal territory, the Salarzai tribe had raised its own force, known as a "lashkar". Moderate tribesmen are wary of resisting the extremists because of a lack of back up from the Pakistan state. "They (tribes) were left high and dry before, it's true," Malik conceded. [...]

He also conceded that the fighters "operate on both sides" of the border. Malik's remarks came amid signs that Washington is more comfortable with Islamabad's role in the anti-terror fight, after years of accusing Pakistan of not doing enough and being too ready to enter into peace negotiations with the militants.

"We either hand over Pakistan to these Taliban or we fight back," Malik said. "I can assure you that they (the militants) are on the run, either they can surrender or die."

Tell that to the residents of Peshawar.

It is not just rhetoric this time, analysts said. In recent weeks, Pakistan has launched military offensives in two parts of the tribal territory, Khyber and Bajaur, and in the neighboring area of Swat. Over the weekend, Malik announced a ceasefire in Bajaur, to mark Ramadan, the month of fasting for Muslims. On Monday, responding to criticism that this would give the extremists breathing space, he stressed that the truce would only last a month and the security forces would crack down on any militant activity during that period.

Seeing is believing.

Deadly Afghan Spider Hitches Ride Home With U.K. Soldier, Kills Family Dog

A British soldier's family have been scared out of their own home by a dangerous spider who bit their pet dog to death.

The Griffiths are fighting the war at home against the giant arachnid, who was unwittingly transported back from Afghanistan in paratrooper Rodney's luggage.

They have already lost their beloved eight-year-old dog, Bella, to the camel spider. The family pet had to be put down after being bitten by the venomous attacker.

Lorraine Griffiths and her three children, aged 18, 16 and four, have been forced to leave their family home in Colchester, Essex.

They are now refusing to return to the property until the killer spider is captured by the RSPCA.

Found in desert regions, camel spiders can grow up to 6 inches and reach speeds of up to 10 mph, making them devils to catch.

Lorraine Griffiths believes the spider hitched a ride into the U.K. in the personal belongings of her husband.

Rodney, 32, came home from duty in Helmand in June.

He has since returned for a further tour of duty in Afghanistan.

"We are coming, Jews"

This "new" group in the Gaza Strip is modeled after the "ideology" of al-Qaeda (a politically correct way of saying it's modeled after Islam's sharia and its division of the world into dar al-harb and dar al-Islam)."Pro-al Qaeda fighters train in Gaza Strip," by Nidal al-Mughrabi for Reuters, September 1:

GAZA, Sept 1 (Reuters) - The masked gunmen threw themselves to the ground, rolled over and came up firing their assault rifles at an imaginary target.

Jaysh al-Ummah, or the Army of the Nation, a Palestinian Islamist group modelled on the ideology of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, was training for battle with Israel.

"We are coming, Jews," read graffiti daubed on a wall inside its private training base in the Gaza Strip, where Reuters journalists were allowed rare access.

"Run, run, take the ground, shoot," Abu Hafss, Jaysh al-Ummah's leader, cried as some 25 gunmen, all clad in black, performed drills.

Jaysh al-Ummah refuses to say how many members it has in the Gaza Strip, territory seized by Hamas Islamists from the largely secular Fatah faction in June 2007. ....

When It Comes to Islamism, the DNC Still Doesn’t Get It

By M. Zuhdi Jasser

Last week’s opening festivities at the Democrat National Convention in Denver began with an interfaith prayer. As the Democrat Party searches for its newfound interest in faith, it quickly called upon one of the lowest hanging fruit in the American Muslim community - the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Ingrid Mattson, the President of ISNA gave a speech along with Adbur-Rahim Ali of the Northeast Denver Islamic Center. Some may dismiss the selection of nine speakers of faith at the political shindig as irrelevant and simply part of the pomp and circumstance of the DNC Convention.

But propping up ISNA in today’s environment is akin to propping up the Legal Guild (a ‘60s Communist front group) to address the convention during the Cold War. Our civil servants will verify that they have prevented over 30 attacks by militant Islamists upon our nation and our citizens since 9/11. The only ideology that unites the groups set upon our destruction is not violence. It is political Islam - their Islamism. Unless we identify both violent and non-violent political Islam as a root cause of terrorism we will never win this conflict. Militant Islamists, much as non-militant Islamists, seek some form of a transnational Muslim, political movement. They both seek various forms of the ascendancy of Islam with respect to other religions culminating in the establishment of Islamic states.

It is not enough to condemn terrorism for politically active Muslims to be “friends of American security interests” or pillars of the representation of ‘spiritual’ Islam. If Muslim organizations are to be lifted up as ‘friends of government,’ they, at the minimum, need to share a common vision of ideal governance - that of a secular liberal democracy. It is against American interests and certainly an obstacle in the work of all anti-Islamist Muslims for the American establishment to lift up Islamists, manifestations of political Islam, as representatives of Muslims and especially as representatives of “non-political” Islam. ISNA is without question patently political. I would defy anyone to find evidence of its rejection of the ideology of Islamism and similarly its defense of the ideology of the secular liberal democracy in the writings and public work of any of its leaders. To do this ISNA would have to sponsor and distribute intellectual work against the foundations of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb, Sayyid Al-Mawdudi, and Yusuf Al-Qaradawi. Not only do they not do this, the vast majority of the other imams, books, and tapes they promote all derive their ideology from the same Salafist political mindset.

If anyone had done their homework at the DNC they would have realized that the primary origin of political Islam in the early twentieth century is the Muslim Brotherhood - arguably the central nervous system of political Islam globally.

.... The means employed by Islamists may vary from nation to nation but in the end their goals of establishing an Islamic state are almost universally the same.

ISNA has demonstrated repeatedly that its goals in the United States are no different from the Muslim Brotherhood’s goals in Jordan, Egypt, Syria, or England for that matter. Its leadership is generally either an outgrowth of the MB salafist ideology in the Middle East or an outgrowth of the similar Deobandi ideology of the Indo-Pakistani region.

....If you don’t believe this commentary here, just check into the ISNA convention this past weekend in Columbus, Ohio. Their bazaars, attended by thousands, will be full of political Islamist literature. Rest assured, anti-Islamist literature against the formation of the Islamic state or public implementation of sharia will be nonexistent.

....One can begin to see how ISNA gains its legitimacy not from any review of its core ideologies which remain wholly unchecked, but rather from the misguided associations of other parts of the American governmental, religious, and media establishment. One endorsement leads to another, leads to another and they all become mutually dependent on the endorsement of the other with no one doing any homework on ISNA’s real core ideologies.

It may be the easiest short cut to placate the loudest arm of Islamism in the United States, but it does our efforts against the dangerous ideology of political Islam and the stranglehold of Islamists over the Muslim community no good whatsoever. Our own leading politicians are unable to clearly articulate and understand the central ideologies at stake in this global battle of ideas between political Islam and the West. So, it should not be a surprise when Islamist organizations continue to gain influence and legitimacy.

CAIR Gets Failing Grades at Running Ohio Charter Schools

....It’s no surprise then that while state officials are cracking down on failing charter schools throughout the state, International Academy and Westside Academy remain untouched and unaffected. Afraid of being angrily branded as “Islamophobes” or “racists” by CAIR and their supporters, Ohio educrats, politicians, and the local media are content to look the other way concerning the failing performance of these two schools. In fact, International Academy, having only met at most two of 19 state standards in any school year since it opened, had their ODE contract renewed.

Fully aware of their political advantage, CAIR officials are more than content to use taxpayer dollars to further their Islamic extremist goals while simultaneously victimizing innocent schoolchildren who would be receiving a better education at practically any other nearby public school. One might think that those who react automatically anytime the “for the children” mantra is invoked would be appalled at CAIR officials’ deliberate exploitation of a particularly vulnerable Somali immigrant population. But when CAIR is involved, all bets are off.

Russia Warns West Against Georgia Support

MOSCOW — Russia warned the West on Monday against supporting Georgia's leadership and called for an arms embargo against the ex-Soviet republic nation until a different government is in place.

...."If instead of choosing their national interests and the interests of the Georgian people, the United States and its allies choose the Saakashvili regime, this will be a mistake of truly historic proportions," he said. ....

Dutch sabotage agent recalled from Iran over “impending” US attack - report

America's largest unmanned aerial vehicle

A Dutch AIVD Secret Service ultra-secret operation underway in Iran in recent years has been halted and an agent recalled in view of “impending US plans to attack Iran,” within weeks, writes Joost de Haas, known for his good intelligence contacts, in the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.

The AIVD operation aimed to infiltrate and sabotage the weapons [and nuclear] industry in the Islamic Republic.

According to intelligence sources in the Netherlands, the US [or Israel] was expected to make a decision within weeks to attack nuclear plants with unmanned aircraft, used to avoid risking the lives of air crews and warplanes.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report this would be the first time drones operated by remote control were used against major strategic targets, necessary in Israel’s case to hold its air fleet and flight crews ready to defend the country against reprisal from Iran’s allies. Syria and the Lebanese Hizballah have stockpiled thousands of rockets for this purpose.

The Iranian targets to be bombed would include also military installations brought to light partly by the Dutch espionage operation, described by De Telegraaf as extremely successful. “One of the agents was able to infiltrate the Iranian industry” and for years shared information with the American CIA. “Various supplies could also be sabotaged and stopped. These were parts for missiles and launching equipment.”

According to DEBKAfile’s sources, the expectation disclosed by the Dutch newspaper would explain the fresh spate of threats from Iran.

Thursday, Aug. 28, Iranian sources told the London-based Arabic al Quds that Tehran had recently transferred to Hizballah new long-range rockets capable of hitting every inch of Israeli soil with great accuracy.

They were to be fired if Israel or the United States attacked Iran.

Dep. Chief of General Staff Masus Jazairi said Saturday, Aug. 30, that any attack on Iran would mean the beginning of a new world war. He said the “greed of the US and Zionists” is gradually leading the world to collapse as demonstrated in Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Caucasus.

DEBKAfile’s Iran sources report a shakeup is in progress in the Islamic Republic’s top military command.

Amir (Maj. Gen.) Seyed Abdollrahim Mousavi was named acting chief of staff

of the armed forces – a new post created as backup in case the army chief comes to harm in combat.

Amir Mohamad Hosseyn Dadras becomes deputy chief of staff for coordination.

Amir Reza Pourdastan is the new commander of the army’s ground corps.

Six Philly residents arrested in Yemen

The Americans who have been arrested in Yemen attend the same Germantown Masjid which was at the center of the controversy surrounding the killing of Police Officer Stephen Liczbinski. Incidentally, Mustafa Ali -- the ATM killer who executed two retired police officers -- as well as the Wal-Mart robbers, also attended this Germantown mosque. They are all Salafis -- "pure" Muslims.

It is known that the Germantown mosque has sponsored "students" going to Yemen to study with the jihadist Sheikh Muqbil -- and after he passed away, another jihadist, Yahya Hajoori. There are a number of jihadist Americans in Yemen as we speak.

Omar Sharif Cash, wanted for murder and rape, is another Muslim convert from the Philadelphia area. With Islamic proselytizing going on so energetically in prisons, this is going to an inevitable result.

"After 1 month, Philly native remains detained in Yemen," by Kitty Caparella for the Philadelphia Daily News, August 28:

A Philadelphia native who wanted to study Islam was yanked off a Yemeni bus with five other Americans last month and has been detained there since, according to authorities. ....

Letter: Illegal immigrants should be deported, not coddled by officials

Here is some food for thought regarding the Guatemalan deputy foreign minister. Instead of being over here trying to help illegal persons in our county, why doesn’t he take them all back to Guatemala with him and make things better for them there, so they wouldn’t have to come here?

And instead of our sheriff being there, agreeing to communicate with illegal immigrants, he should be out there arresting them like any other criminal and deporting them. Let them go home and get their legal papers and come back as legal immigrants. Then they would not have the problem of getting a legal job and a driver’s license.

Are we really suppose to feel sorry for these criminals in our country?

Methods of avoidance of the fixed heirship rules in Islamic law: the Islamic trust

This article concerns the rules of Islamic (Shari’a) succession law applicable in Islamic countries and the various possible ways in which a Middle East HNW individual can organize his or her affairs in order to limit the application of those rules, particularly by the use of Islamically complaint trusts. Islamic Law has a complex and rigid system of legal rules which provide for a deceased person's estate to be apportioned among certain close relatives in definite fixed shares. This system of forced heirship applies generally to at least two-thirds of a person's estate. The opportunities to avoid the mandatory rules of forced heirship in Islamic law are perhaps fewer than in other similar systems of law and certainly fewer than the common law. The three main possibilities are lifetime gift, bequest/Will or waqf (an Islamic trust equivalent). ....

Hundreds of terrorists killed in Baghdad secret SAS missions aimed at taking out al-Qaeda

More than 3,500 terrorists have been 'taken off the streets of Baghdad' by an elite British force aimed predominantly at stopping suicide car bombers.

The brazen 'Black Ops' have been going on for the past 18 months and while a majority of the insurgents were captured, it is also thought several hundred - mainly members of an organisation known as 'al-Qa'eda in Iraq' - have been killed by the SAS.

The SAS is part of a top-secret unit called 'Task Force Black' which also includes Delta Force, the US equivalent of the SAS.

Suicide car bombers killed around 3,000 people a month in Baghdad at the height of the terrorist attacks in 2006.

The SAS began to tackle the threat almost exclusively at the same time the US military launched its so-called 'surge', in which an 30,000 extra American troops moved into Baghdad's most dangerous areas, in early 2007.

Using spies and informers to gain intelligence Task Force Black have dismantled the terrorist network to such an extent that bombings in Baghdad have been reduced from about 150 a month to just two.

However the covert mission saw six members of the SAS killed and more than 30 injured.

While Delta Force has suffered in the region of 20 per cent casualties.

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph a senior British officer said: 'We took over 3,500 terrorists off the streets of Baghdad in around 18 months.

'You could say it was a very successful period. But the butcher's bill was high.

'The attrition rate is equivalent to that experienced by the SAS during the Malayan insurgency 50 years ago.

'The relationship between the SAS and Delta Force is very close.

'If anything, the attrition rate in Delta Force is higher.

'Two years ago the SAS made a donation to Delta Force’s 'widows and orphans’ fund of £10,000.' ....

Immigration debate grips Minn. city

AUSTIN, Minn. — The men watching a friendly game of Clubs at Jerry's Card Room say they welcome Hispanic immigrants — as long as the newcomers are in the USA legally.

"If they're not, ship them out," says John Leachman, 82, a retired Hormel Foods meatpacking plant worker.

"I agree with deporting the illegals. I agree with that 100%," says owner Jerry Salisbury, 68, who grew up here and moved back after retiring from the Navy.

Their views are not unusual in this city of about 23,000, where an influx of Hispanics has made immigration a topic of heated debate. A plane flew over the Mower County Fair this month towing a banner reading "Keep America great — deport illegals." At a forum last week that drew 150 people, almost all of them Anglo, Ruthie Hendrycks of Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform said that if immigration laws aren't enforced, "anarchy is going to come. … How many of us can commit a crime and get away with it?" ....

Concerns Over Terrorism, School Shootings, and Natural Disasters Spur Interest in Two-Way Radio Technology

Businesses use two-way radio technology to not only increase safety, but also to raise productivity, improve employee and customer satisfaction, and increase profitability

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Aug. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Due to incidents such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, shootings at high schools and universities, and major natural disasters such as hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, businesses, universities, and government agencies have discovered that the cell phone network is not always available when they need it most. That's just one of the reasons there is renewed interest in two-way radios.

During any major tragedy or catastrophe, if the cell phone network is not destroyed, it is still overloaded with calls. The network simply isn't designed to handle the load so businesses and other organizations that depend on cell phones for communication are left without a means of communication.

That's one of the reasons there is a renewed interest in two-way radios (http://www.intercomsonline.com/MURS-Radio-s/76.htm). The cell phone network may go down, but radio airwaves never do.

But reliable communication isn't the only advantage of two-way radios. There are lots of productivity and profitability applications for them, too. Thanks to new products that work in conjunction with a two-way radio (http://www.intercomsonline.com/Two-Way-Radios-s/77.htm), they can now be used for customer-facing applications to provide better service, for employee or student safety applications, ....

The Dangerous Consequences of Recruiting Nazis to Serve in Iraq

(Compiler's note: Come on people, we DON'T need these types in our military force - now or ever! You can do better than this.)

By David Holthouse,

The U.S. military appears to be teaching a skinhead with genocide on his mind how to become a tactical bomb maker.

The racist skinhead logged on with exciting news: He'd just enlisted in the United States Army.

"Sieg Heil, I will do us proud," he wrote. It was a June 3 post to AryanWear Forum 14, a neo-Nazi online forum to which "Sobibor's SS," who identified himself as a skinhead living in Plantersville, Ala., had belonged since early 2004. (Sobibor was a Nazi death camp in Poland during World War II).

About a month after he announced his enlistment, Sobibor's SS bragged in another post to Forum 14 that he'd specifically requested and been assigned to MOS, or Military Occupational Specialty, 98D. MOS98D soldiers are in high demand right now. That's because they're specially trained in disarming Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) like the infamous roadside bombs that are killing and maiming so many U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Presumably, a part of learning how to disarm an IED is learning how to make one.

"I have my own reasons for wanting this training but in fear of the government tracing me and me loosing [sic] my clearance I can't share them here," Sobibor's SS informed his fellow neo-Nazis.

One of his earlier posts indicated his reasons serve a darker purpose than defending America: "Once all the Jews are gone the world will start fixing itself."

Sobibor's SS included enough biographical details in his various posts to Forum 14 over the years, including that he's a single father from the small town in southern Alabama, that a military investigator with access to enlistment records for recent months should have little trouble discerning whether the Army is actually teaching a skinhead with genocide on his mind how to be a tactical bomb maker.

But there's little reason to expect that will happen.

Two years ago, the Intelligence Report revealed that alarming numbers of neo-Nazi skinheads and other white supremacist extremists were taking advantage of lowered armed services recruiting standards and lax enforcement of anti-extremist military regulations by infiltrating the U.S. armed forces in order to receive combat training and gain access to weapons and explosives.

Forty members of Congress urged then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to launch a full-scale investigation and implement a zero-tolerance policy toward white supremacists in the military. "Military extremists present an elevated threat to both their fellow service members and the public," U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican, wrote in a separate open letter to Rumsfeld. "We witnessed with Timothy McVeigh that today's racist extremist may become tomorrow's domestic terrorist."

But neither Rumsfeld nor his successor, Robert Gates, enacted any sort of systemic investigation or crackdown. Military and Defense Department officials seem to have made no sustained effort to prevent active white supremacists from joining the armed forces, or to weed out those already in uniform.

Furthermore, new evidence is emerging that not only supports the Intelligence Report's findings, but also indicates the problem may have worsened since the summer of 2006, as enlistment rates continued to plummet, and the military accepted an ever-lower quality of soldier in a time of unpopular war.

First of all, a new FBI report (PDF) confirms that white supremacist leaders are making a concerted effort to recruit active-duty soldiers and recent combat veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the unclassified FBI Intelligence Assessment, "White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel Since 9/11," which was released to law enforcement agencies nationwide: "Sensitive and reliable source reporting indicates supremacist leaders are encouraging followers who lack documented histories of neo-Nazi activity and overt racist insignia such as tattoos to infiltrate the military as 'ghost skins,' in order to recruit and receive training for the benefit of the extremist movement."

The FBI report details more than a dozen investigative findings and criminal cases involving Iraq and Afghanistan veterans as well as active-duty personnel engaging in extremist activity in recent years. For example, in September 2006, the leader of the Celtic Knights, a central Texas splinter faction of the Hammerskins, a national racist skinhead organization, planned to obtain firearms and explosives from an active duty Army soldier in Fort Hood, Texas. That soldier, who served in Iraq in 2006 and 2007, was a member of the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group.

"Looking ahead, current and former military personnel belonging to white supremacist extremist organizations who experience frustration at the inability of these organizations to achieve their goals may choose to found new, more operationally minded and operationally capable groups," the report concludes. "The military training veterans bring to the movement and their potential to pass this training on to others can increase the ability of lone offenders to carry out violence from the movement's fringes."

Currently, 46 members of the white supremacist social networking website Newsaxon.com identity themselves as active-duty military personnel. Six of these individuals are members of "White Military Men," a New Saxon sub-group.

Earlier this year, the founder of White Military Men identified himself in his New Saxon account as "Lance Corporal Burton" of the 2nd Battalion Fox Company Pit 2097, from Florida, according to a master's thesis by graduate student Matthew Kennard. Under his "About Me" section, Burton writes: "Love to shoot my M16A2 service rifle effectively at the Hachies (Iraqis)," and, "Love to watch things blow up (Hachies House)."

As part of his thesis research, Kennard, at the time a student at Columbia University's Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, also monitored claims of active-duty military service earlier this year on the neo-Nazi online forum Blood and Honour, where "88Soldier88" posted this message on Feb. 18: "I am in the ARMY right now. I work in the Detainee Holding Area [in Iraq]. I am in this until 2013. I am in the infantry but want to go to SF [Special Forces]. Hopefully the training will prepare me for what I hope is to come."

One of the Blood and Honour members claiming to be an active-duty soldier taking part in combat operations in Iraq identified himself to Kennard as Jacob Berg. He did not disclose his rank or branch of service. "There are actually a lot more 'skinheads,' 'nazis,' white supremacists now [in the military] than there has been in a long time," Berg wrote in an E-mail exchange with Kennard. "Us racists are actually getting into the military a lot now because if we don't every one who already is [in the military] will take pity on killing sand niggers. Yes I have killed women, yes I have killed children and yes I have killed older people. But the biggest reason I'm so proud of my kills is because by killing a brown many white people will live to see a new dawn."

The Army is currently investigating war crimes allegations leveled against Iraq combat veteran and active-duty Army soldier Kenneth Eastridge, 24, who is facing trial for the December 2007 murder of a fellow serviceman. After Eastridge was arrested for that killing, National Public Radio publicized his MySpace page, which showed Eastridge displaying a tattoo of SS lightning bolts, a common neo-Nazi insignia.

Another member of Eastridge's company recently told Army investigators that Eastridge used a stolen AK-47 to fire indiscriminately at Iraqi civilians from his moving Humvee on the streets of Baghdad. "The military is to some extent desperate to get people to fight, soldiers who are not fit, mentally and physically sick, but they continue to send them," Eastridge's attorney told Kennard. "Having a tattoo was the least [Eastridge's] concerns."

As part of the research for his thesis, "The New Nazi Army: How the U.S. military is allowing the far right to join its ranks," Kennard used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain from the Army's Criminal Investigative Division investigative reports concerning white supremacist activity in 2006 and 2007. They show that Army commanders repeatedly terminated investigations of suspected extremist activity in the military despite strong evidence it was occurring. This evidence was often provided by regional Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which are made up of FBI and state and local law enforcement officials.

For example, one CID report details a 2006 investigation of a suspected member of the Hammerskins, a multi-state racist skinhead gang, who was stationed at Fort Hood, a large Army base in central Texas. According to the report, there was "probable cause" to believe that the soldier "had participated in a white extremist meeting and also provided a military technical manual 31-210, Improvised Munitions Handbook, to the leader of a white extremist group in order to assist in the planning and execution of future attacks on various targets."

The report shows that agents only interviewed the subject once, in November 2006, before Fort Hood higher-ups called off the investigation that December.

Another report, also from 2006, covers an investigation of another Fort Hood soldier who was posting messages on Stormfront.org, a major white supremacist website. One CID investigator expresses his frustration at the muddled process for dealing with extremists. "We need to discuss the review process," he writes. "I'm not doing my job here. Needs to get fixed."

A third CID report, regarding a 2007 investigation, notes the termination of an investigation of a soldier at Fort Richardson, Alaska, who was reportedly the leader and chief recruiter for the Alaska Front, a white supremacist group. According to the report, the investigation was halted because the solider was "mobilized to Camp Shelby, MS in preparation for deployment to Iraq."

Obama Offers a Beautifully Packaged Lie

(Compiler's note: This is a "must read" article. rca)

By Robert Tracinski

There was a fair bit of talk about Bill Clinton's speech Wednesday night to the Democratic convention, and Peggy Noonan even went so far as to declare that "The Master Has Arrived." But she is wrong. When it comes to political oratory, the master arrived last night at Invesco Field. Bill Clinton can give a glib speech, but there has always been something missing from his delivery. Try as he might--and he really did try--he was never able to convincingly fake sincerity. Barack Obama can fake sincerity, and that, more than the words of a speech or the pageantry that precedes it, is the key to his power as a speaker.

His speech last night was brilliant and perfect. It is too bad that the whole thing was a lie, which depended on the smoothness and apparent sincerity of Senator Obama's delivery to lull the listener into a state of credulity and prevent him from asking too many questions.

Here's an example that is small but revealing. Obama led with the best sales pitch he has to offer: that he is not George Bush. But of course, Obama is running against John McCain, not Bush. So he attempted to justify the substitution by claiming that "John McCain has voted with George Bush ninety percent of the time." This statistic has been used throughout the Democratic convention, but it makes no sense. Bush is not a member of Congress and casts no votes there--so how can you compare his voting record to that of McCain?

But don't examine this folly; ask only what it accomplishes. It allows Obama to run against an unpopular president who will not defend himself because he is not actually in the race.

When it came to making the positive case for himself, Obama's first goal was to address the public's concerns about his background, particularly his patriotism and how much he identifies with American values. So he drew, not from his own biography, but from that of his family.

[I]n the faces of those young veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, I see my grandfather, who signed up after Pearl Harbor, marched in Patton's Army, and was rewarded by a grateful nation with the chance to go to college on the GI Bill.

In the face of that young student who sleeps just three hours before working the night shift, I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree; who once turned to food stamps but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships....

And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle-management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman. She's the one who taught me about hard work....

I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine. These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me.

In addition to identifying himself with the lower-income, blue-collar types who have so far refused to vote for him, Obama is also painting himself as someone with uncontroversial, traditional American values, someone who believes in fighting for your country and improving your life through hard work and perseverance.

This is supposed to make us forget that Barack Obama launched his political career under the spiritual guidance of a pastor who delivered far-left tirades calling on God to damn America--and he launched his first campaign under the patronage of a former domestic terrorist. Theirs are the stories that also shaped Barack Obama--but he wants to write Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers out of his biography.

Worse, he wants us to stop asking questions about this sort of thing.

These are the policies I will pursue. And in the weeks ahead, I look forward to debating them with John McCain. But what I will not do is suggest that the Senator takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism. The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain.

It's awfully generous of Obama to refrain from questioning the patriotism of a war hero. The real purpose of this statement, of course, is not to protect McCain but to protect Obama. Its purpose is to declare off-limits any further questions or discussion about his past association with Wright, Ayers, and all of the other shady characters from Obama's past.

On another area where he is particularly weak, foreign policy, Obama decided that the best defense is a strident offense. He projected a righteous self-confidence intended to make his viewers forget his opposition to the surge and his weak and stumbling response to the Russian invasion of Georgia. In this section, note again the gap between rhetoric and reality--and the willing suspension of critical thought that he requires of his listener.

For example, here is what he has to say on Afghanistan.

When John McCain said we could just "muddle through" in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights. John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell--but he won't even go to the cave where he lives.

Obama criticizes McCain for allegedly going soft on al-Qaeda--it's a good thing he's not going to question anyone's patriotism--yet all Obama can offer is precisely the policies we are already pursuing: more money and troop for Afghanistan and one-at-a-time special forces strikes against al-Qaeda leaders "if we have them in our sights," which we have been doing for years. What Obama is presenting as a tough and visionary new policy is his support for the Bush administration's status quo. Does he really think that no one will notice?

His statement on Iraq is an even more brazen evasion. He boasts that "today, as my call for a time frame to remove our troops from Iraq has been echoed by the Iraqi government and even the Bush administration,...John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war." But all of the current discussion about drawing down troops from Iraq is possible only because of the success of the surge--which John McCain advocated and Barack Obama opposed. He is presenting the success of a military buildup as vindication for a policy of military retreat.

Perhaps his worst line, however, is this one: "You can't truly stand up for Georgia when you've strained our oldest alliances." This is a reference to NATO--which has been conspicuously useless in the Georgian conflict, refusing even a symbolic resolution to suspend military cooperation with Russia. This statement is evidence that Obama is not even paying attention to world events. But he expects the viewer to be carried forward by the certainty and stridency of his tone. He asserts with an air of conviction, "don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country"--but he depends on the air of conviction, not any actual evidence, to sway the listener.

Addressing criticisms that he offers soaring rhetoric with no specifics, Obama replies "So let me spell out exactly what...'change' would mean if I am president." But what he presents is mostly a list of aspirations, such as "Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it." Or: "for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as president: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East." How is that to be achieved? Is it even possible to achieve it? Obama offers no answer.

Obama's list of specifics continues in this vein, promising everything to everyone in a way that would make the Clintons blush--but with such an earnest sincerity of delivery that it somehow doesn't seem like pandering.

In foreign policy, he promises the miraculous: "I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts. But I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression. I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease." He's going to defeat terrorism with "partnerships"; face down Russian and Iranian aggression with diplomacy; and while he's at it, he will end poverty, disease, and changes in the weather. All of these promises are equally implausible.

As to domestic issues, here is what he promises on energy policy:

I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I'll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I'll invest 150 billion dollars over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy--wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can't ever be outsourced.

Five million new jobs that pay well and can't ever be outsourced! He'll just snap his fingers and the laws of economics will bend to his will.

Oh yes, and he will "cut taxes for 95% of all working families," but he'll "pay for every dime." How? "I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less--because we cannot meet twenty-first century challenges with a twentieth century bureaucracy." Does anyone remember the Grace Commission in the 1980s or Al Gore's task force in the 1990s? Eliminating "waste, fraud, and abuse" is a perennial promise made by politicians, but it will never produce significant results, because you can't pare down a $3 trillion federal budget by squeezing out dimes.

But the biggest contradiction papered over in Obama's speech is not about Obama's background, his record, or his policies. It is an ideological contradiction. The theme of his speech is "The American Promise." Here is how he defines it.

What is that promise? It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect.

It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves--protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology....

That's the promise of America--the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.

So we'll be free to run our own lives--except that we are also required to be our brothers' keepers. We will have a free market--except for the vast network of regulations needed to force businesses to live up to a long list of "responsibilities." We will take responsibility for solving our own problems--except those relating to roads, education, health care, water, toys, science, and so on and on.

In essence, Obama is declaring simultaneous loyalty to individualism and to collectivism, to independence and to dependence, to free markets and to state control.

If you wonder which half of this self-contradictory agenda will win out, Obama doesn't leave you in suspense. He criticizes McCain because "For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy--give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else." The references to "two decades" and to "trickle-down economics"--a derogatory term for Ronald Reagan's pro-free-market policies--make his meaning clear. It is the free market that he wants us to regard as "discredited."

What he wants us to forget is what was actually discredited two decades ago by the collapse of the Soviet Union. What was discredited was socialism, not capitalism.

That is what makes this the most dangerous election in many years. It has been almost half a century since the left's ideas have had such an intelligent, charismatic, and appealing advocate. He is now preparing to lead the left's effort to reconstitute itself in the first serious way since the Fall of Communism. He must be defeated.

Obama's acceptance speech is likely to be effective, and we should expect him to have a solid "bounce" in the polls now that the convention is over. But there is a way to defeat Obama. His whole campaign is a beautifully presented illusion, and the way to defeat it is to keep hammering on the difference between illusion and reality. Because the more grandiose the illusion, the more thoroughly it will be rejected when it is revealed as a lie.