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As time passes and the events of September 11th become more distant, the voices of America's political-correctness orthodoxy have increased their volume and intensity. They now feel safe in questioning Homeland Security tactics to combat terrorism and are attempting to turn public opinion against law-enforcement leaders.
A major weapon in their arsenal is the accusation of racial profiling by US police and security forces. Another weapon in the war against the war on terrorism is the distortions made regarding the Patriot Act. When one considers the risks to lives and property posed by terrorists, political correctness has now become a weapon of mass destruction.
Most clear thinking Americans were shocked when 9-11 Commission member and former US Secretary of the Navy John Lehman revealed a disturbing fact: the Federal Aviation Administration will be hitting American airlines with stiff penalties for even the appearance of any racial profiling of Middle-Easterners. One airline paid out a huge sum of money to Arab males who filed law suits alleging racial profiling, as well. Yet none of this appeared in the commission's final report.
This leaves many law-enforcement officers incredulously asking: what kind of terrorism war is this? It seems national security and public safety are taking a back-seat to political correctness which in turn thwarts our efforts to detect terrorists and their accomplices.
The National Association of Chiefs of Police's annual survey of our nation's police commanders and security directors provides evidence of our insane infatuation with the politically-correct orthodoxy. The survey reveals that almost 60 percent of police departments enforce a written policy prohibiting so-called racial profiling. At the same time, the survey shows that 88 percent of American police and security executives believe our homeland will suffer a terrorist attack within the next year.
Many Americans even hoped that the 9-11 Commission Report would reveal how political correctness — in many cases, a euphemism for left-wing ideology — contributed to the worst terrorist attack in US history. It did not. Some of the same people complaining about the CIA and FBI deficiencies are the people responsible for handcuffing law enforcement and intelligence officers in the first place.
In fact, some in Congress and on the 2008 presidential campaign trail were guilty of having it both ways: they supported the heavily partisan 9-11 Commission and at the same time opposed the Patriot Act, in spite of the law's opponents' inability to provide evidence of even one case where the Patriot Act infringed on American citizens' civil liberties. Their favorite tool for putting law-enforcement leaders — and the politicos who support them — on the defensive is to make allegations of profiling.
Criminal Profiling is a law-enforcement tool with a history that began in the early 1980s. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Behavioral Sciences Unit developed the first profile for a serial-killer (which by the way indicated a white male among its criteria). Then, according to former-FBI special agent Robert Ressler, the BSU created profiles for other categories of crime including terrorism. Through the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia, local law-enforcement officers were provided instruction in profiling, which they brought back to their respective police agencies.
Any cop worth his salt will tell you that criminal profiling remains a work-in-progress. As law enforcement learns more about the criminal mind and criminal characteristics, these profiles will continue to be revised. But will there be any need for such research and development if cops are prohibited from using this tool?
Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he's a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). In addition, he's the former blog editor for the House Conservatives Fund's weblog. Recently, the editors at Examiner.com appointed him as their Law Enforcement Examiner. Kouri also serves as political advisor for Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Michael Moriarty.
He's former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He's also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He's a news writer for NewswithViews.com and PHXnews.com. He's also a columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he's syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. He's appeared as on-air commentator for over 300 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc. If you wish to receive Kouri's emailed law enforcement and intelligence reports, write to him at COPmagazine@aol.com. Simply write "Free Subscription" on the subject line.
(Compiler's note: A must read & consider article.)
By Chelsea Schilling A revolution is brewing as American patriots and advocates of the free-market system unite in protest against out-of-control government spending – with a wildfire movement of more than 150 nationwide tea parties.
John M. O'Hara of The Heartland Institute is a member of New American Tea Party, a coalition of citizens and organizations concerned about reckless government spending, is helping coordinate a number of national tea party events.
"Our message is simple: 'Bailing out' reckless businesses and individuals is neither the burden of responsible, hard-working American taxpayers nor the role of government," he told WND.
O'Hara said there is no question the United States is facing tough economic times, but he believes many politicians are not proposing serious solutions.
"The Congressional Budget Office and countless economists say that the recent 'stimulus' packages will likely hinder, not help, our economy," he said. "Tax cuts, not tax hikes and handouts, are the quickest, most efficient means of getting our economy back on track."
O'Hara said legislators must listen to citizens who are tired of irresponsible policies so the nation can recover.
"It is time politicians heed the will of the American people and the clear signals coming from the financial sector: stop the excessive spending, cut taxes, and get out of the way. Only then will we unleash the resilient, entrepreneurial spirit of American's that has made our nation great and which will propel us through this rough patch to more prosperous times ahead.
The New American Tea Party website states, "This isn't a conservative or liberal thing. This is about government forking over billions of dollars, our money, to businesses that should have failed. This is about taking money from responsible people and handing it over to CEOs who squandered their own."
Another organization, the Political Exploration and Awareness Committee, or PEACPAC, formed a website known as ReTeaParty and accepts tea party registrations from across the nation. It also provides detailed information on how to organize tea parties and posts photos of the events.
Tax Day Tea Party, a national collaborative grassroots effort organized by Smart Girl Politics, Top Conservatives on Twitter, the DontGo Movement and many other online groups, is also promoting the events.
WND has also launched its own tea party forum so citizens may exchange ideas, information and announcements about the "revolution." After reviewing various protest listings, WND found more than 150 tea parties scheduled for upcoming months. They include the following:
Birmingham, Ala. – Wednesday, April 15, from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Veteran Park on Highway 17 Valledale Road
Huntsville, Ala. – Wednesday, April 15, 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., location to be announced
Decatur, Ala. – Saturday, March 28, at the Rhodes Ferry Park, (also known as River Park)
Mobile, Ala. – Wednesday, April 15, from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. at the USS Alabama battleship
Montgomery, Ala. – Wednesday, April 15, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. at the Alabama Statehouse located at 11 South Union Street
Phoenix, Ariz. – Wednesday, April 15, at 6 p.m. at capitol building
Tucson, Ariz. – Wednesday, April 15, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in front of Joel D. Valdez Main Library on 101 N. Stone Ave.
Mountain Home, Ark. – Wednesday, April 15, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., location to be announced
WASHINGTON: The protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are forcing the administration of President Barack Obama to rethink what for more than two decades has been a central premise of American strategy: that the nation need only prepare to fight two major wars at a time.
For more than six years now, the United States has in fact been fighting two wars, with more than 170,000 troops now deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. The military has openly acknowledged that the wars have left troops and equipment severely strained and has said that it would be difficult to carry out any kind of significant operation elsewhere.
To some extent, fears have faded that the United States may actually have to fight, say, Russia and North Korea, or China and Iran, at the same time. But if Iraq and Afghanistan were never formidable foes in conventional terms, they have already tied up the American military for a period longer than World War II.
A senior Defense Department official involved in a strategy review now under way said that the Pentagon was absorbing the lesson that the kinds of counterinsurgency campaigns likely to be part of some future wars would require more staying power than in past conflicts, like the first Gulf War in 1991, or the invasions of Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989.
In an interview with National Public Radio last week, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates made it clear that the Pentagon was beginning to reconsider whether the old two-wars assumption "makes any sense in the 21st century" as a guide to planning, budgeting and weapons buying.
The discussion is being prompted by a top-to-bottom strategy review that the Pentagon conducts every four years, as required by Congress and officially called the Quadrennial Defense Review. One question on the table for Pentagon planners is whether there is a way to reshape the armed forces to provide for more flexibility in tackling a wide range of conflicts.
Among other questions are the extent to which planning for conflicts should focus primarily on counterinsurgency wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what focus remains on well-equipped conventional adversaries like China and Iran, with which U.S. Navy vessels have clashed at sea.
Thomas Donnelly, a defense policy expert with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said he believed that the Obama administration would be seeking to come up with "a multiwar, multioperation, multifront, walk-and-chew-gum construct."
"We have to do many things simultaneously if our goal is to remain the ultimate guarantor of international security," Mr. Donnelly said. "The hedge against a rising China requires a very different kind of force than fighting an irregular war in Afghanistan or invading Iraq or building partnership capacity in Africa."
But Mr. Donnelly cautioned that the review now under way faced a familiar challenge. "If there has been one consistent thread through all previous defense reviews," he said, "it is that once the review is done, there is an almost immediate gap between reality and force planning. Reality always exceeds force planning."
It already is obvious, a senior Pentagon official said, that the Defense Department will "need to rebalance our strategy and our forces" in a way that reflects lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Michael E. O'Hanlon, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, a liberal-centrist policy organization, said that senior Pentagon officials knew that the new review needed to more fully analyze what the rest of the government could bring to national security.
"We have Gates and others saying that other parts of the government are under-resourced" and that the Department of Defense should not be called on to do everything, Mr. O'Hanlon said. "That's a good starting point for this — to ask and at least begin answering where it might be better to have other parts of the government get stronger and do a bigger share, rather than the Department of Defense."
Among the refinements to the two-wars strategy the Pentagon has incorporated in recent years is one known as "win-hold-win" — an assumption that if two wars broke out simultaneously, the more threatening conflict would get the bulk of American forces while the military would have to defend along a second front until reinforcements could arrive to finish the job.
Another formulation envisioned the United States defending its territory, deterring hostility in four critical areas of the world and then defeating two adversaries in major combat operations, but not at exactly the same time.
The most recent strategy of the administration of George W. Bush, completed four years ago, added requirements that the military be equipped to deal with a broad range of missions in addition to war-fighting, including defeating violent extremists, defending U.S. territory, helping countries at strategic crossroads and preventing terrorists and adversaries from obtaining biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.
But Pentagon officials are now asking whether the current reality of Iraq and Afghanistan really fits any of those models.
BEIJING (AP) - China's premier expressed concern Friday about its massive holdings of Treasuries and other U.S. debt, appealing to Washington to safeguard their value, and said Beijing is ready to expand its stimulus if the economy worsens.
Premier Wen Jiabao noted that Beijing is the biggest foreign creditor to the United States and called on Washington to see that its response to the global slowdown does not damage the value of Chinese holdings.
"We have made a huge amount of loans to the United States. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a little bit worried," Wen said at a news conference following the closing of China's annual legislative session. "I would like to call on the United States to honor its words, stay a credible nation and ensure the safety of Chinese assets."
Wen's comments foreshadowed possible appeals to President Barack Obama, who will meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao at a London summit of leaders of the G-20 group of major economies on April 2 to discuss the global financial crisis.
Analysts estimate that nearly half of China's $2 trillion in currency reserves are in U.S. Treasuries and notes issued by other government-affiliated agencies.
Washington is counting on China to continue buying Treasuries to fund its $787 billion stimulus package. Last month, visiting Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to reassure Beijing that government debt would remain a reliable investment.
"They are worried about forever-rising deficits, which may devalue Treasuries by pushing interest rates higher," said JP Morgan economist Frank Gong. "Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether they should continue to buy Treasuries."
The comments come as finance ministers and central bankers of the G-20 gather in London this weekend to discuss the crisis and possible remedies.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is pressing for a new coordinated stimulus but European governments are reluctant to take on more debt before they see how current plans are working. The Europeans want to emphasize the need for greater regulation of markets, including a crackdown on tax havens and increased control over hedge funds.
In Beijing, Wen expressed confidence China can emerge from its slump "at an early date," and said the government is ready to expand its 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus to boost growth in the world's third-largest economy.
Communist leaders worry about rising job losses and possible unrest amid a trade slump that saw Chinese exports fall 25.7 percent in February from a year earlier. They have promised to spend heavily to create jobs and boost exports.
"We already have our plans ready to tackle even more difficult times, and to do that we have reserved adequate ammunition," Wen said. "That means that at any time we can introduce new stimulus policies."
In nearby Japan, Prime Minister Taro Aso called Friday for a fresh stimulus to help lift the world's second-largest economy out of "an unprecedented economic crisis." The comments helped spark a rally in Japan's stock market, where the Nikkei 225 stock index surged 5.2 percent.
China's Wen and other officials point to rising bank lending, power demand and other signs the stimulus is taking effect. But growth in retail sales is weakening, suggesting it has yet to spur private sector spending and investment, which analysts say will be key to its success.
Wen said Beijing can meet its 2009 growth target of 8 percent, despite skepticism by private sector economists, who expect as little as 5 percent. That would be the strongest of any major country but could lead to more waves of job cuts.
"I really believe we will be able to walk out of the shadow of the financial crisis at an early date," he said. "After this trial, I believe the Chinese economy will show greater vitality."
The premier promised to focus on job creation and give more help to smaller companies, which he said generate 90 percent of Chinese new employment.
"We will pay all attention possible to this issue and we will never overlook this issue," he said.
Wen said Beijing wants the London summit to focus on the plight of poor countries.
"We must see to it that we show concern for developing countries, and help developing countries - the least-developed ones in particular - become an important topic on the agenda," he said.
(CNSNews.com) - On Wednesday, only two days after he lifted President Bush’s executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos, President Barack Obama signed a law that explicilty bans federal funding of any "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death."
The provision was buried in the 465-page omnibus appropriations bill that Obama signed Wednesday. Known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, it has been included in the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services every fiscal year since 1996. ....
(CNSNews.com) - On Wednesday, only two days after he lifted President Bush’s executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos, President Barack Obama signed a law that explicilty bans federal funding of any "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death."
The provision was buried in the 465-page omnibus appropriations bill that Obama signed Wednesday. Known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, it has been included in the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services every fiscal year since 1996. ....
An anti-Christian chapter in Western history is about to begin. But out of the ruins, a new vitality and integrity will rise.
Oneida, Ky. - We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.
Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.
This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.
Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.
Why is this going to happen?
1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.
The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap ofbelieving in a cause more than a faith.
2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.
3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.
4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.
5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.
6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.
7. The money will dry up.
What will be left?
•Expect evangelicalism to look more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. Emphasis will shift from doctrine to relevance, motivation, and personal success – resulting in churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.
•Two of the beneficiaries will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. Evangelicals have been entering these churches in recent decades and that trend will continue, with more efforts aimed at the "conversion" of Evangelicals to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.
•A small band will work hard to rescue the movement from its demise through theological renewal. This is an attractive, innovative, and tireless community with outstanding media, publishing, and leadership development. Nonetheless, I believe the coming evangelical collapse will not result in a second reformation, though it may result in benefits for many churches and the beginnings of new churches.
•The emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision.
•Aggressively evangelistic fundamentalist churches will begin to disappear.
•Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority report in evangelicalism. Can this community withstand heresy, relativism, and confusion? To do so, it must make a priority of biblical authority, responsible leadership, and a reemergence of orthodoxy.
•Evangelicalism needs a "rescue mission" from the world Christian community. It is time for missionaries to come to America from Asia and Africa. Will they come? Will they be able to bring to our culture a more vital form of Christianity?
•Expect a fragmented response to the culture war. Some Evangelicals will work to create their own countercultures, rather than try to change the culture at large. Some will continue to see conservatism and Christianity through one lens and will engage the culture war much as before – a status quo the media will be all too happy to perpetuate. A significant number, however, may give up political engagement for a discipleship of deeper impact.
Is all of this a bad thing?
Evangelicalism doesn't need a bailout. Much of it needs a funeral. But what about what remains?
Is it a good thing that denominations are going to become largely irrelevant? Only if the networks that replace them are able to marshal resources, training, and vision to the mission field and into the planting and equipping of churches.
Is it a good thing that many marginal believers will depart? Possibly, if churches begin and continue the work of renewing serious church membership. We must change the conversation from the maintenance of traditional churches to developing new and culturally appropriate ones.
The ascendency of Charismatic-Pentecostal-influenced worship around the world can be a major positive for the evangelical movement if reformation can reach those churches and if it is joined with the calling, training, and mentoring of leaders. If American churches come under more of the influence of the movement of the Holy Spirit in Africa and Asia, this will be a good thing.
Will the evangelicalizing of Catholic and Orthodox communions be a good development? One can hope for greater unity and appreciation, but the history of these developments seems to be much more about a renewed vigor to "evangelize" Protestantism in the name of unity.
Will the coming collapse get Evangelicals past the pragmatism and shallowness that has brought about the loss of substance and power? Probably not. The purveyors of the evangelical circus will be in fine form, selling their wares as the promised solution to every church's problems. I expect the landscape of megachurch vacuity to be around for a very long time.
Will it shake lose the prosperity Gospel from its parasitical place on the evangelical body of Christ? Evidence from similar periods is not encouraging. American Christians seldom seem to be able to separate their theology from an overall idea of personal affluence and success.
The loss of their political clout may impel many Evangelicals to reconsider the wisdom of trying to create a "godly society." That doesn't mean they'll focus solely on saving souls, but the increasing concern will be how to keep secularism out of church, not stop it altogether. The integrity of the church as a countercultural movement with a message of "empire subversion" will increasingly replace a message of cultural and political entitlement.
Despite all of these challenges, it is impossible not to be hopeful. As one commenter has already said, "Christianity loves a crumbling empire."
We can rejoice that in the ruins, new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born. I expect to see a vital and growing house church movement. This cannot help but be good for an evangelicalism that has made buildings, numbers, and paid staff its drugs for half a century.
We need new evangelicalism that learns from the past and listens more carefully to what God says about being His people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture.
I'm not a prophet. My view of evangelicalism is not authoritative or infallible. I am certainly wrong in some of these predictions. But is there anyone who is observing evangelicalism in these times who does not sense that the future of our movement holds many dangers and much potential?
Today, the House Armed Services Committee is holding a hearing entitled Security Challenges Arising from the Global Financial Crisis. I realize this sounds like a lot of jargon but I found the topic and Chairman Ike Skelton's opening statement fascinating. The hearing is basically trying to tackle how the world economic collapse could affect U.S. national security, but not in the way we have come to think of that threat in the past few years.
I have spent the last six years reporting on the national security threat from rogue elements, usually operating in unstable states. My pieces focus on insurgencies and asymmetric warfare. Indeed, when the U.S. military talks about preparing for the future, it talks about counterinsurgencies and the need to stop groups from rising and plotting attacks against the United States, not wars fought along proper battle lines. But the hearing raises the question: What threat could proper states now pose to the United States because of the economic crisis?
My editor, Roy, interestingly pointed out to me that tough economic times can lead to the rise of extreme nationalistic leaders. That kind of ideology can often lead to war on its own. After all, the argument goes, our country, economy and way of life is superior. Therefore the military will prevail. A weak economy can further fuel the march toward war. As Skelton is his opening statement: “Hyper inflation in Germany was a significant factor in the rise of Hitler. The economic decay of the Soviet Union led to regime change across Eastern Europe So we know that economic crises can have consequences for national security of the highest order.” Roy added that Slobodan Milosevic's rise to power in Yugoslavia, at a time Communism had run out of steam, and the economic prospects were sinking, was on a wave of extreme nationalism, which led almost directly to war.
Could Pakistan’s collapsing economy lead to a new government, one that whose interests strongly diverge from U.S. interests? Could the rapid drop in oil lead Hugo Chavez to start a war of some kind to jump start his economy, perhaps with a U.S. ally? Could Egypt’s economic strain lead to the rise of a government other than the U.S. friendly regime of Hosni Mubarak?
Could the United States or a key ally once again find itself fighting a traditional army because of this economic crisis?
I realize these issues seem years in the future. After all, new nationalist leaders usually don’t rise overnight. But this economic crisis could last long enough for that to happen. And that means, the U.S. military may have to start preparing for that kind of war now.
(Compiler's note: This reasoning defies any logic that I recognize.)
By Bill Roggio
A senior official in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province wants the Taliban to integrate into the security forces in the region where the governemnt ceded to the Taliban's demands to implement sharia, or Islamic Law, and end military operations. The official also described the Swat Taliban leader as "good human being."
Syed Muhammad Javed, the Malakand Division Commissioner, has proposed the Taliban provide recruits for the police and the paramilitary Levies force. The Malakand Division is made up of the districts of Malakand, Swat, Shangla, Buner, Dir, and Chitral.
"I have proposed the Taliban be adjusted in police or Levies force and have suggested this at several forums," Javed told Daily Times. He claimed the police force's "confidence is shaken" due to a Taliban campaign of assassination and intimidation.
The police have been hit so hard that the force has been rendered ineffective. The governemnt claimed 70 policemen, an estimated five percent of the force, have been killed since the fighting in Swat broke out in July 2007. More than 800 policemen, more than half of the force, have deserted their posts or taken extended leaves to avoid the Taliban attacks. Another 142 troops from the paramilitary Frontier Corps have been reported killed since August 2008.
During the fighting between the Swat Taliban and government forces, the Swat Taliban targeted police officers, tribal leaders, and politicians. Family members of government officials and tribal leaders were killed, and their homes were torched.
The military ceased operations in Swat in February 2009 after it failed to dislodge the Taliban. Sufi Mohammed, the father-in-law of Swat Taliban commander Mullah Fazlullah, brokered a peace agreement between the government and the Taliban. Under the agreement, the government has committed to implement sharia, end the military campaign, and release Taliban prisoners, while the Taliban agreed to end attacks. But the Taliban have violated the agreement several times when it kidnapped the district coordinating officer and his bodyguards, murdered two soldiers, and captured a Frontier Corps officer and several of his men.
Javed and the military have refused to respond to the Taliban infractions. Javeed even went out of his way to praise Mullah Fazlullah. He described Fazlullah as a "good human being," Daily Times reported.
Javed's proposal to integrate the Taliban into the security forces comes as the US Congress is debating a $20 billion aid package to Pakistan. Senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar have proposed giving Pakistan a one-time $5 billion grant plus a 10 year aid package worth $15 billion. Some of this money is slated to improve the security forces in Paksitan's Northwest Frontier Province and the Taliban-controlled tribal agencies.
But Pakistan's history of appropriately spending US aid money is appalling. More than $3.8 billion of an estimated $5 billion of military aid given to Pakistan up until December 2007 is unaccounted for, and it has been reported that millions of dollars in US aid has gone to pay reparations to the Taliban in Swat.
(Compiler's note: This is a must read for sure. Get ready -- this is not going away until proved one way or the other. Also please read the embedded URLs in this article.)
By Drew Zahn
U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts
A California attorney lobbying the U.S. Supreme Court for a review of Barack Obama's qualifications to be president confronted the chief justice yesterday with legal briefs and a WND petition bearing names of over 325,000 people asking the court to rule on whether or not the sitting president fulfills the Constitution's "natural-born citizen" clause.
According to Orly Taitz, the attorney who confronted Chief Justice John Roberts at a lecture at the University of Idaho, the judge promised before the gathered crowd that he would, indeed, read and review the briefs and petition.
"I addressed him in front of 800 people in the audience," Taitz told WND, "including university officials, the president of the Idaho State Bar and the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Idaho, and in front of all them, [Roberts] promised to read my papers."
Roberts was lecturing on Abraham Lincoln to approximately 1,200 attendees of the annual Bellwood Memorial
Lecture Series at the Moscow, Idaho, university. Roberts has been chief justice of the Supreme Court since his nomination by President George W. Bush and subsequent confirmation in 2005.
Earlier in the week, Taitz confronted Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who told her the issue of Obama's eligibility, which has been raised before the Supreme Court at least four times but has yet to be given a single hearing, still lacked the votes of the required four justices in conference before it would be officially heard.
Taitz said, "I told Scalia that I was an attorney that filed Lightfoot v. Bowen that Chief Justice Roberts distributed for conference on Jan. 23 and now I represent nine state reps and 120 military officers, many of them high ranked, and I want to know if they will hear Quo Warranto and if they would hear it on original jurisdiction, if I bring Hawaii as an additional defendant to unseal the records and ascertain Obama's legitimacy for presidency."
The legal phrase Quo Warranto essentially means an explanation is being demanded for what authority Obama is using to act as president. An online constitutional resource says Quo Warranto "affords the only judicial remedy for violations of the Constitution by public officials and agents."
"Tell me what to do, what can I do?" Taitz reports asking Scalia. "Those soldiers [her plaintiffs] can be court-martialed for asking a legitimate question, who is the president, is he legitimate?"
She says Scalia responded, "Bring the case, I'll hear it, I don't know about others."
In Idaho, Taitz obtained the promise of one of the others, the chief justice, that he would read through the eligibility challenge, including the petition brought by WND readers.
As WND reported, Taitz is submitting a motion to the Supreme Court for re-hearing of Lightfoot v. Bowen, a case she is working on through her foundation Defend Our Freedoms, alleging some of her documentation may have been withheld from the justices by a court clerk.
Orly Taitz
She asserts docketing information about her case "was erased from the docket of the Supreme Court on January 21st, one day after the inauguration and two days before [the case was to be heard]."
At the lecture in Idaho, Taitz grabbed the attention of Justice Roberts by boldly addressing her allegation that a clerk had buried the case.
Taitz told WND that the forum rules required that those questioning Roberts announce their relationship to the University of Idaho and refrain from talking about cases currently before or likely to appear before the court.
"I said, 'Justice Roberts, my name is Orly Taitz. I'm an attorney from California, and I got up at 3 o'clock in the middle of the night, flew and drove thousands of miles just to ask you a question. So please give me some leeway,'" Taitz told WND. "My question is, do you know there is illegal activity going on in the Supreme Court of the United States?"
According to Taitz, the room was stunned silent as she continued, "I have presented my case to you, and you personally agreed to hear this case in conference. But your clerk refused to forward a supplemental brief to you. He has hidden this brief from you. He refused to put it on the docket. Additionally, my case was erased from the docket one day after the Inauguration, two days before my case was to be heard.
"Outraged citizens and members of the media and state representatives are calling the Supreme Court, demanding to have the case reentered on the docket," Taitz told Roberts.
Then she held up the WND petition and continued, "Moreover, here are the names of U.S. citizens who signed this petition and who sent individual letters to individual justices, including you, Justice Roberts, all of them demanding the same thing – that you hear my case in regards to Barack Hussein Obama's eligibility for presidency."
According to Taitz, Roberts approached the microphone and said, "I see you have papers. I promise you I will read all your papers, I will review them. Please give them to my Secret Service and I will review all of them."
Shortly thereafter, Taitz told WND, a Secret Service agent identified by his badge as Gilbert Shaw accepted two suitcases of documents and pledged to deliver them to Roberts....
(Compiler's note: This is a must read subject that simply must be understood by the American citizens.)
Arguments of president's defenders never actually addressed eligibility
By Bob Unruh
In the last few months, dozens of U.S. courts have dismissed legal challenges to Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility to occupy the Oval Office, and even the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hold a hearing on the evidence – but what have the courts actually cited as reasons for dismissing the concerns of millions of Americans?
The other is from Chiyome Fukino, the director of the Hawaiian Department of Health, who issued a statement, "I as Director of Health for the State of Hawaii, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health
has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures."
As with the court opinions, what is not said is significant. While the certificate on file is "in accordance with state policies and procedures," there's no affirmation that the document reflects a Hawaiian birth.
Nor is there any explanation for the image of the Hawaii state "certification of live birth" that has been posted by Obama on the Internet, purporting to document his Hawaiian birth, even though Hawaiian procedures at the time allowed that document to be issued to parents of children not born in the state.
For example, why would an individual with a verified birth certificate also have a "certification of live birth?"
The questions raised over Obama's eligibility are all very simple: The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."
But getting the issue discussed has been a huge obstacle, and what courts have done several times, including once in a California
case, is to schedule hearings on the issue on a date far beyond any reasonable expectation of having applicability, lawyers
have said. For example, a challenge to the Electoral College vote for Obama, raised early in November, still hasn't had a court hearing.
The ramifications
The impact of an ineligible president isn't complicated either. If ineligible, critics argue that the constitutional provision acknowledging that possibility, and assigning the vice president to fill in until the president is eligible, applies.
"Here's the bottom line," writes WND columnist Janet Porter of Faith2Action. "Either the Constitution matters or it doesn't. And if we're willing to ignore the constitutional requirements for the highest office in the land, what else are we willing to forgo? That part about free speech? Freedom of the press? Freedom of religion? If we are willing to shred one part of the Constitution, brace yourself to lose the rest."
According to a lawsuit filed by Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation on behalf of presidential candidate Ambassador Alan Keyes, an ineligible Obama would mean "then no act that he takes is, arguably, valid, the laws that he signs would not be valid, the protective orders that he signs would be null and void, and every act that he takes would be subject to legal challenge, both in Courts of the United States of America, and in International Courts."
The result? No legally binding stimulus bill, presidential appointments in doubt, federal budgets in limbo and the closure of Gitmo? Probably have to reopen it.
The birth location arguments
Obama reported in his autobiography that he was born in Honolulu, and the online "Certification of Live Birth" states that.
According to much legal research, at the time of Obama's birth he could be a natural born citizen by being born in the United States, by being born to two U.S. citizen parents (not possible because of his father), or, if only one parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of the birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for at least 10 years, at least five of which had to be after the age of 16.
The problem is, Obama's mother was only 18 when she gave birth, so his only apparent route to "natural born" citizenship status would have been to be born in Hawaii.
But there are other questions, too. Even if Obama was born in the state, would he have inherited citizenship from his Kenyan father or his American mother, a juvenile?
At the time Obama moved to Indonesia as a child, only citizens of that country were allowed to attend school there. He was registered there as Barry Soetoro, his citizenship was listed as Indonesian and his religion as Islam. Porter reports there was no dual citizenship with Indonesia at the time.
The obvious question is what happened to Obama-Soetoro's citizenship during that time, did he retain an American citizenship, or not?
"If he was adopted by his Indonesian stepfather, he would have forfeited any U.S. citizenship he may have had, just as when a child is adopted in America, he or she becomes an American," Porter wrote.
Pakistan
Also, Porter reports it is likely that Obama traveled to Pakistan in 1981 on a passport other than a U.S. document, raising the question of the status of his citizenship at that point. Could one obtain another nation's passport while being an American citizen?
The 'Certification of Live Birth'
The Obama campaign posted the COLB image online, reportedly to dispel rumors that his middle name was Mohammad. But several bloggers who analyzed the image said it appeared to have been modified from the official state version, raising questions at to its authenticity.
Staff members at FactCheck claim to have examined the original "birth certificate," and found it to be genuine. But that doesn't include an explanation for the "Certification of Live Birth," a different document, nor an explanation for whether they really were looking at the "birth certificate," which the state of Hawaii maintains hasn't been released.
FactCheck.org also is part of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and linked to the Annenberg organization with whom Obama worked.
One of the lawsuits challenging Obama notes that when Republican Sen. John McCain's eligibility was questioned because of his birth to two U.S. citizens while his father was on active military duty in the Panama Canal Zone, he produced the documentation of his birth for examination.
Congress even held hearings and adopted a resolution referencing and resolving the questions. However, with Obama, there has been no documentation released and no hearings.
Kreep noted that in Obama's book, he wrote of finding his birth certificate in a book, so he wouldn't even have to authorize the state to release it; just provide the original for inspection.
Several of the lawyers involved in the cases said they believe the information eventually will come out, because interest is growing. Kreep said he googled his own name with Obama's, and came up with 944,000 references. Linking Obama's to Keyes' name came up with nine million..
Until then, the challenges will continue.
"When Obama starts signing executive orders and legislation," said Kreep, "I'll be filing lawsuits unless and until he proves he's an American citizen."
California lawyer Orly Taitz, whose work is on her Defend Our Freedoms Foundation website, said there are just too many unanswered questions.
:"The Certification of Live Birth does not name a hospital, name a doctor, have any signatures or a seal of the Hawaiian Health Department on the front of the document. This document is usually given to parties that don't have a proper hospital birth certificate and it is given based on a statement of one relative only. Even the state of Hawaii doesn't give full credit to these documents," she said.
Among the claims being raised in the various lawsuits: That Congress didn't properly determine whether Obama is qualified, that active and retired members of the military have a need to know his qualifications to be commander-in-chief, that state officials failed to properly qualify Obama as a candidate (California previously had removed ineligible candidates from the ballot), and his college records should be released to reveal whether he attended school as a U.S. citizen.
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