The Western Word

This Week's Editorial

WOODSTOCK’S SEEDS
By Avi Davis

If I had been 17- years- old and living in the United States in August 1969 there would have been nothing that could have prevented me from going to Woodstock. Along with 670,000 other smitten youths, I would braved my parents wrath, the ten miles of clogged traffic, the waist high mud, poor sanitary conditions and the pelting rain to experience what promised to be an American youth’s one in a life time

Alas, I was only eleven years old at the time of the famous festival and living in far off Australia. I only actually became aware of the American event, when, as a teenager in the mid- 1970s, a friend played me the three LP album which caught the essence of the concert. At the time I remember sitting transfixed as the stage announcer warned that there was “ bad acid” going around and Country Joe MacDonald’s incendiary chant. I was astonished that not only could you say things like that in public in America, but that they could be recorded and distributed for public consumption.

I have had a bit of time since then to look back at Woodstock and assess its real role and significance in American history. Now I realize that it was the apex of a youth revolution that began with the Beats, in the early 1950s, flowed through the Beatles in the 1960s, swept up disco and rap and continues to dominate our culture today. Blessed with a purchasing power unknown to their teenage forbears ( indeed the word “ teenager” did not come into vogue the early 1950s) the youth of America had found a destiny and a cause – rejection of middle class values and the assumption of rebellion as a way of life.

But what is forgotten about the famous festival are some of its terrible consequences. Within a year, two of its biggest headliners – Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin- would be dead from drug overdoses. One of its inspirational figures – Sly Stone, leader of Sly and the Family Stone, would soon slip into schizophrenia and spend the next 30 years as a virtual derelict. Other artists such as Richie Havens and Melanie would very soon drift into obscurity. And the youth culture magazines such as Rolling Stone and Creem moved from dramatizing the power of youth to the glorification of decadence ……

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Avi Davis is the president of the American Freedom Alliance in Los Angeles. He can be contacted at isdev@ix.netcom.com

Cartoon Jihad Continues
by Robert Spencer (more by this author)

A much-needed new book is coming from Yale University Press: The Cartoons That Shook the World by Jytte Klausen, a professor of politics at Brandeis University. It discusses the cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad that were published in the largest newspaper in Denmark, Jyllands-Posten, late in 2005, touching off murderous rage from Muslims around the world. Such a book could be a useful exploration of the free speech issues that the cartoon controversy raised. And it has already shed new light on the Islamic challenge to free speech represented by the response to the cartoons, even before it has been published.
But it has done so in a way that neither Jytte Klausen nor Yale University Press intends. For Yale University Press, according to the New York Times, checked with twenty-four “diplomats and experts on Islam and counterterrorism,” as well as other authorities, and they all made the same recommendation: this book about the Muhammad cartoons should not actually include the Muhammad cartoons. (Humanevents)

Desecration of a hero: Hands of Churchill statue in Paris painted blood red by protesters blaming him for death of millions-Peter Allen
French anti-war campaigners have desecrated a statue of Winston Churchill in Paris on the anniversary of the death of Rudolf Hess. They daubed the statue's hands in red paint to signify blood and scrawled the initials RH on the plinth. It has been 22 years since the death of Adolf Hitler's deputy, who flew to Britain at the height of the Second World War, allegedly to try to make peace. Prime Minister Churchill had him thrown in prison in 1941 and the war continued for four years. After the war Hess was tried at Nuremberg and jailed for life. The statue was attacked on Monday night, August 17, the day on which in 1987 Hess died at Spandau Prison in Berlin, aged 93. Some conspiracy theorists believe his suicide by strangulation was in fact an assassination. Among them is the Rense freedom group which has claimed responsibility for the Paris attack. The group wrote on a website: 'Protesters inscribed the initials of Rudolf Hess and daubed the hands of the Winston Churchill in crimson red on the statue of the notorious war criminal in Paris.
'Sir Winston set the stage for the slaughter of millions in World War II, when he refused to hear Hess's proposals for ending that unnecessary conflict. (Dailymail.co.uk)

NORTHERN ITALIAN MAYOR BANS BURKINI-ANSA
Women wearing Islamic swimsuit will be fined
(ANSA) - Turin, August 19 - A mayor of a northern Italian town decided on Wednesday to slap a hefty fine on women seen wearing the Islamic head-to-toe swimsuit or 'burkini' in local pools.
Gianluca Buonanno, the mayor of Varallo Sesia in the northwestern region of Piedmont, said the sight of ''a masked woman could cause dismay, especially among children'' enjoying a day at the pool. Buonanno, who is also an MP with the devolutionist Northern League party, said he was similarly concerned that the costume might pose ''hygienic problems''. ''We're always very respectful of the customs and habits of those who are not of our culture but we mustn't always be tolerant,'' said the mayor, whose party has been accused of being anti-immigrant. ''Let's try to imagine what would happen if a western went swimming in a Muslim country wearing a bikini: she might be decapitated, sent to jail or expelled from the country.'' ''We are simply banning it and if this decision upsets anyone they can simply take a dip in a burkini in their own bathtub,'' said the mayor, who said women seen wearing it would be fined 500 euros. In France, a woman wearing a burkini was recently evicted from a pool outside Paris because officials said the outfit was unhygienic. (ANSA.it)

Antwerp: School to open headscarf changing room
The Royal Atheneum of Antwerp is building a changing room with mirror for Muslim girls, where they could take off their headscarf when they come to school and put it back on when they go back home. Starting September 1st, the school is introducing a headscarf ban. "It wouldn't be nice for the girls if they had to change on the street outside the school-gate," says principal Karin Heremans. "Therefore we thought of a changing room with mirror in the school. The idea originated by the teacher and the administration during the discussions about the headscarf ban. If the Muslim girls will go outside the school to exercise, we'll also offer them a sports-headscarf. Last June the Royal Atheneums of Antwerp and Hoboken introduced a headscarf ban. The ban caused much protest among the Muslims. Principal Heremans expects that a number of students will leave to other schools due to the headscarf ban. [Ed: Though there are no more public schools in the city that allow headscarves] (Islamineurope)

Amsterdam "Apartheid at Islamic Schools"
AMSTERDAM, 18/08/09 - Orthodox Islamic schools treat Dutch teachers who are not Muslims as inferior beings. They have to have their meals separately and cannot be greeted in the same way as Muslims, says a former teacher at the As Siddieq school in Amsterdam. Hennie Metsemakers was suspended by the school a year and a half ago because she spoke of religions other than Islam in the lessons. "I had drawn a timeline and shown the most important events of a number of beliefs on it." Not only was that forbidden, but she was also ordered to teach the children that Christianity would be abolished, she told Het Parool newspaper. A few years ago, a number of teachers had already left the As Siddieq school due to the extremely orthodox attitude of its management. According to Metsemakers, the board has meanwhile succeeded in imposing the orthodox signature on all staff members, even though half the team consists of non-Muslim teachers. (Nisnews)

Honor Killings Come to America-Ryan Mauro
A 17-year old Muslim girl flees her family to avoid being killed for converting to Christianity.
Muslim women overseas have long had to deal with the threat of honor killings, but several incidents in recent years show that the threat has come to American soil. A 17-year old girl named Fathima Rifqa Bary is currently engaged in a custody battle after fleeing her father in Ohio, who she claimed threatened to kill her for converting to Christianity. She is currently living with Pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz of Global Revolution Church in Orlando, who she became friends with through Facebook. Bary says she took an approximately 30-hour bus ride from Ohio to Orlando in September to save her life. A video of her testimony has been posted on YouTube, where she cries as she explains that her family is required by Islam to execute her and that she’d die within a week of going back to Ohio. Her father, Mohamed, however, is saying she did not flee out of fear, but because of a verbal fight with her mother over her leaving the house without permission and says that the church has brainwashed Fathima. (Frontpagemagazine)

Shariah Finance Imposed in U.S., Courtesy of a Colorado Real Estate Company-Christopher Holton
Apparently, the Kuwait Islamic Bank entered into a joint venture with Colorado-based real estate company UDR, which brings to mind some crucial questions. What, if any, restrictions would be imposed on the real estate properties in which Kuwait Islamic Bank invested here in the United States? I made an inquiry via UDR’s “contact us” form on the company’s web site.
The company was quick to reply as, within minutes, we received a phone call from Dave Messenger, CFO of UDR.
I asked Mr. Messenger two questions:
1. What, if any, special restrictions or qualifications relating to Shariah were required in the deal with Kuwait Islamic Bank?
2. Are zakat payments to be made as part of this venture?
Mr. Messenger did not attempt to address question number two, but referred me to Kuwait Finance House to get an answer to that question. (Familysecuritymatters)

Brutal Murder Case Reveals Immigrant Culture Clash- Gisela Friedrichsen
A Kurdish man killed his German-born wife, who was also his cousin, because she was too independent. He stabbed her in the eyes, beat her with a billiard cue and then ran over her in his car. His mother-in-law had told him to be "strict" with her strong-willed daughter.
"Damn it, we're not on some television court show here! You keep your mouth shut!" The presiding judge is shouting like a trucker. A foreign spectator had called out something in the direction of the bench, something harmless and not insulting. One of the Kurdish witnesses was in the courtroom at the beginning of the trial, which is not permitted under German law. He is related to the defendant and the victim. "This is a case that involves my family. I have to be here," he said, explaining his presence. "You don't have to do anything!" the presiding judge said, interrupting the man. "You need to stay home until you're summoned." This isn't a TV courtroom, but the courtroom of the judge presiding over the 10th Higher Criminal Chamber of the Bielefeld District Court, Jutta Albert, a woman with peroxide blonde hair and a voice capable of grinding stone. The way she treats people from different cultures is a little strange, to say the least. (Spiegelonline)

Islamic Scholar Hits Out Over Sacking [incl. Tariq Ramadan]-John Lichfield Dutch authorities fire Swiss intellectual and TV anchor over links to Iran
The controversial Islamic theologian Tariq Ramadan has been fired from two jobs in the Netherlands for allegedly endorsing the Iranian regime by hosting a chat show on a Tehran-backed TV channel. Mr Ramadan, already persona non grata in the United States, has dismissed the decisions as "simplistic" and driven by the "Islamophobia" generated in Dutch politics by the populist campaigner Geert Wilders. The Swiss writer, lecturer and theologian, 46, has been frequently accused of preaching a moderate "European" Islam to Western audiences and taking a more extreme line when talking to fellow Muslims. He has been hailed by his admirers as an "Islamic Martin Luther", capable of reconciling the Koran with democracy and Western modernity, and attacked by critics as an anti-Semite and terrorist fellow traveller. Mr Ramadan has, nonetheless, become one of the most influential Islamic voices in the world. He has been given a series of high-profile jobs by European institutions and governments, including a place on a task force set up by Tony Blair in 2005 to combat Islamic extremism in Britain. The city of Rotterdam and the Erasmus University based in the city have jointly decided to dismiss him from his posts as community adviser and visiting lecturer on religion. This follows several days of heated debate in the Netherlands about Mr Ramadan's position as a presenter of a political chat show on Press TV, a London-based, Iranian-backed satellite TV channel. (Independent.co.uk)

Publisher Ousts Drawings From Book On Mohammed Cartoon Affair [incl. Jytte Klausen]-The Copenhagen Post
A noted US publishing company has decided not to include the Mohammed cartoons in a Danish author's new book about their effects Danish author and university professor Jytte Klausen is fuming over Yale University Press's decision not to reprint the infamous Mohammed cartoon drawings as part of her new book, 'The Cartoons That Shook the World'. Klausen's book, due out in November from the publisher, examines the influence of the drawings on Danish politics, how politicians used those images to serve their own goals, and how clerics used them to stir up anti-Western sentiment and even destabilise governments in Pakistan, Lebanon, Libya and Nigeria. When the drawings were first published in Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2006, rioting in several Muslim countries followed, including attacks on Danish embassies and threats against Danes in general from extremists.But a statement from Yale University Press indicated that while it was 'deeply committed' to free speech, it had consulted with numerous experts prior to reaching its decision. (Cphpost.dk)

MEDIA BIAS

New York Times Refuses to Review Conservative Books- Christian Toto
The New York Times is generally loathe to dignify conservative-leaning books with an official review.
That stance is getting dicier these days, especially since the newspaper’s own nonfiction bestseller chart is chockablock with conservatives luminaries like Michelle Malkin, Dick Morris and Mark Levin.
President Barack Obama has only been in office for roughly eight months, but he’s already inspired multiple conservative bestsellers. Malkin’s Culture of Corruption sits atop the list, followed by Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny in the two slot and Catastrophe by Morris and Eileen McGann at number four. Marji Ross, president and publisher of Regnery Publishing, isn’t surprised by the newspaper’s stance against these like-minded books. “Very rarely do they review conservative books,” Ross says. “What they sometimes do is mention a book that is conservative on their “Inside the List” feature. It’s a way to defend themselves against the accusation they ignore these books.” (Humanevents)

Media Corruption and the Two-Party System-Cliff Kincaid
What drives President Barack Obama to want to seize control of the health care and energy sectors of the U.S. economy? Obama was trained as a Marxist from his days as a young boy in Hawaii when his grandfather picked Communist Party USA member Frank Marshall Davis as his mentor. In college, as Obama tells the story, he picked his “friends” carefully, in order to avoid being perceived as a sell-out, and those friends included the “Marxist professors.” Later, in Chicago, he would become a political associate of another Marxist Professor, Bill Ayers of the University of Illinois. Does anybody see a pattern here? Based on what we have seen at some of the town hall meetings, there are some Americans who don’t want to see the U.S. go down the Marxist road. This is the time for the media to tell the truth about Obama and his agenda.
Unfortunately, we have now been treated to a new dishonest Obama book, Renegade, by Richard Wolffe, supposedly about “The Making of a President.” Far from being a “renegade,” the evidence shows that this President is probably the most far-left ideologically of any major political party nominee in history. Even as new questions emerge, however, it is still a challenge to get the media to report on the truthful but damaging information that is already a matter of public record. (Familysecuritymatters)

Islam film backlash feared: reports-Stewart Bell, National Post
Canadian security officials closely monitored last year's release of a Dutch film about Islam, fearing it could spark violent protests, documents released under the Access to Information Act show. The National Post has obtained copies of seven intelligence reports, circulated by Ottawa last year, that warn of a possible backlash against the documentary Fitna and Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. "There are concerns that reprinting of the cartoons and the release of the movie could provoke the kind of violent reaction which occurred within some Muslim communities overseas when the cartoons were originally published," one of the reports says. The Integrated Threat Assessment Centre, the federal agency that wrote the reports, typically tracks terrorist threats but the documents show that during four months in 2008 its focus turned to cartoons and movies and whether they would incite Muslims to violence.

Wilders Not Prosecuted for Showing Danish Cartoons
| AMSTERDAM, 19/08/09 - The Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) will not prosecute MP Geert Wilders for showing the 'Danish cartoons' of the Prophet Mohammed. The drawings are not illegal in the Netherlands, said a spokeswoman for the OM in Amsterdam yesterday. After a Danish newspaper published 12 cartoons of the Islamic Prophet in 2006, riots broke out in several countries. The OM has now concluded that under Dutch law, the cartoons are not offensive to Muslims as a group; they are about the Prophet Mohammed, but say nothing about all Muslims. Nor do they incite discrimination or violence against Muslims, according to the OM. Wilders put the cartoons on his website. TV programme Nova showed them on television. The OM received complaints against Wilders and Nova. Neither will be prosecuted. Nor will the OM initiate prosecution of the Arabic European League (AEL). In reaction to the Danish cartoons, the AEL put two cartoons about Jews on its website. While the publication of one of them constitutes an offence, the OM is not prosecuting on condition that the AEL does not show the cartoon again. (Nisnews.nl)

Fearing Violence, Yale Nixes Muhammad Cartoons in New Book-Fox News
Yale University is refusing to publish cartoons and images of the Prophet Muhammad in a new book about those very pictures, which inflamed anger in parts of the Muslim world in 2006 — even as a growing tide of writers and artists say they are ready to take such risks for free speech. The university's press is set to publish a book in November, "The Cartoons That Shook the World," about the dozen devious illustrations of Muhammad printed in Danish newspapers, leading to global riots in which at least 200 people were killed. The New York Times more or less rationalized the decision Thursday in reporting Yale's choice to reject the images, saying it was "not at all surprising" the school would opt out of printing the notorious pictures of Muhammad. Many Muslims consider any depiction of Muhammad to be blasphemous. But other writers and artists have been willing to risk even violent reprisals for the sake of free speech. Author Sherry Jones has weathered threats for writing "The Jewel of Medina," a novel that depicts sex scenes involving Muhammad and his bride Aisha. Her original publisher, Random House, put the book on an indefinite hold following concerns that its content would be offensive to Muslims. "I decided to take a stand for free speech and publish my books in spite of threats and violence because I wanted to make a positive difference in the world," said Jones, who will publish a sequel, "The Sword of Medina," in the fall. "Yale University Press's decision, like that of the executives at Random House, does the opposite," she said. "Self-censorship changes our world for the worse." (Foxnews)

Swedish government funds anti-Semitic NGOs-Gerald Steinberg
The article in Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet accusing Israeli soldiers of stealing and selling the organs of Palestinians is not a surprise or isolated aberration, but rather the result of a long campaign of anti-Israeli demonization, based on manufactured "evidence" repeated by Palestinian "eyewitnesses". Applying the strategy adopted at the NGO forum of the 2001 UN Durban conference, the well-financed network of radical non-governmental organizations (NGOs) plays a major role in this demonization, and the Swedish government is a major source of funding. Expressions of modern anti-Semitism and blood libels are the logical results of this activity. An NGO Monitor research report on Swedish government funding, published on June 29 2009, documented this pattern in detail, and warned of the incitement and anti-Semitic language being used routinely by these organizations. This systematic study examined over 20 major NGOs funded through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), Diakonia, the multi-national NGO Development Center (NDC), and the Swedish Mission Council (SMR). (Jpost)

Man sentenced for role in plot to kill Jews, attack military bases-RACHANEE SRISAVASDI
He is 4th to be sentenced from prison-founded group that also wanted to attack airline at LAX.
SANTA ANA – A man was sentenced to 70 months in prison today for his role in a domestic terrorism plot to wage war on the United States by attacking Jewish synagogues and military bases. Hammad Riaz Samana is the fourth member of Jami'yyat Ul-Islam Is-Shaheeh, or JIS, a prison-founded group that wanted to make a political statement that also had plans to attack the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles and El Al Israel Airlines at the Los Angeles International Airport. Samana was 21 when he was charged in the case in July 2005, along with the cell's mastermind, Kevin James, and members Levar Haley Washington and Gregory Patterson. The group committed armed robberies of 11 gas stations, including two in Fullerton, to buy weapons and gear for the attacks. Authorities said gas stations were chosen as targets because of the symbolism of the oil. (Ocregister)

PA University Lecturer: No Jewish Connection to Western Wall-INN
IsraelNN.com) A Palestinian Authority university lecturer was the latest PA academic to rewrite history and deny Jewish history in Jerusalem, which was the Jewish capital for a full 1,600 years before Muhammad authored the Muslim Koran. The lecturer denied the Jewish people's connection to the Western Wall of the Jewish Temple. Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported that Shamekh Alawneh, who teaches modern history in the televised lectures of Al-Quds Open University, said Jews invented the connection to the Wall for political purposes, to convince European Jews and Zionists to come to “Palestine.” The Jewish claim to the Western Wall “has no historical roots," he said on a television program called “Jerusalem – History and Culture.” The Jews’ claim, he said, is “political terminology to win the hearts and the support of the Zionists in Europe, so they would emigrate and come to Palestine. Nothing more!” (INN)

Column One: Fatah's message-Caroline Glick
A central pillar of the Obama administration's Middle East policy paradigm was shattered at the Fatah conference in Bethlehem - but don't expect the White House to notice. At the conference, Fatah's supposedly feuding old guard and young guard were united in their refusal to reach an accommodation with Israel. Both old and young endorsed the use of terrorism against Israel. Both embraced the Aksa Martyrs Brigades terror group as a full-fledged Fatah organization. Both demanded that all Jews be expelled from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem ahead of the establishment of a Jew-free Palestinian state. Both claimed that any settlement with Israel be preceded by an Israeli withdrawal to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines and by Israel's destruction as a Jewish state through its acceptance of millions of foreign-born, hostile Arabs as immigrants within its truncated borders. Both demanded that all terrorists be released from Israeli prisons as a precondition for "peace" talks with Israel.
Both accused Israel of murdering Yasser Arafat.
Both approved building a strategic alliance with Iran.
In staking out these extremist positions, both Fatah's old guard and its younger generation of leaders demonstrated that Fatah's goal today is the same as it has been since the its founding in 1959: Liberating Palestine (from the river to the sea) by wiping Israel off the map. (Jpost)

Food writer calls for Israel boycott-Keren David
A call for food retailers to boycott all Israeli goods has been condemned by the Israeli ambassador and anti-boycott campaigners. In an article for trade magazine The Grocer this week, prominent food writer Joanna Blythman calls on retailers and importers “actively to look for alternatives to so-called Israeli produce”. She contends that many items labelled as coming from Israel are in fact “grown on Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory… the fruit and vegetables grown there amount to stolen goods”. She adds: “The only clear and honest wording appropriate is ‘from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank’.” Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, said: “Progress in the Middle East will not be determined by how food industry publications choose to label Israeli produce. “This is just the tip of the iceberg of a wider campaign to boycott Israel, Israeli produce and Israeli people. That campaign to demonise Israel does nothing to address the day-to-day priorities of Palestinians and Israelis, and will not serve to nurture the peace process in the region.” TheJewishchronicle)

The 'One-state Solution' Only Stokes Palestinians Self-Delusion-Rabbi Abraham Cooper
In a New York Times op-ed, Robert Malley, who served as President Clinton's special assistant for Arab-Israel Affairs and Palestinian Hussein Agha, in his New York Times oped "The Two State Solution Doesn't Solve Anything" suggests that the "two states may not be a true resolution if the roots of this clash are ignored." He continues:
"To be sustainable, it will need to grapple with matters left over since 1948... the fundamental question is not about the details of an apparently practical solution. It is an existential struggle between two worldviews...As Israelis make plain by talking about the imperative of a Jewish state, and as Palestinians highlight when they evoke the refugees' rights, the heart of the matter is not necessarily how to define a state of Palestine. It is, as in a sense it always has been, how to define the state of Israel".

Withdrawal to pre- 1967 borders won't suffice for the Palestinians, the authors suggest we must revisit the Arab state of mind in 1948, "to bring the conflict back to its historical roots, distill its political essence and touch its raw emotional core." (Huffingtonpost)

TERRORISM, security and policy

Obama says release of Lockerbie bomber Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi is 'a mistake'-Jenny Booth
President Obama today described the release from prison of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, as 'a mistake'. Speaking on a radio talk show broadcast from The White House, President Obama said:“We have been in contact with the Scottish Government indicating that we object to this [the release al al-Megrahi]. We thought it was a mistake. “We are now in contact with the Libyan Government to make sure that he is not welcomed back in some way but instead should be under house arrest.” Mr Obama added that the White House was also in contact with the families of the victims to tell them “we do not think this is appropriate”. Al-Megrahi was released from prison in Scotland on compassionate grounds. Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, who announced the decision at 1pm BST, said that he was upholding the deepest held beliefs of the Scottish people in compassion and mercy by allowing al-Megrahi to go home to Libya to die. Some onlookers shouted abuse as a convoy of police and prison vans left Greenock Prison, where al-Megrahi has spent eight years in jail on 270 counts of murder, to convey him on the 20-minute journey to Glasgow Airport. (Timesonline.co.uk)

Jund Ansar Allah's Abu al-Nour al-Maqdisi: Americans Should Be "Beheaded"-NEFA
The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated video footage of a sermon by the late Shaykh Abu al-Nour al-Maqdisi (a.k.a. Abdellatif Moussa), spiritual leader of the Palestinian militant faction "Jund Ansar Allah." During his speech, al-Maqdisi condemned the United States for "flaunting [its] power and making accusations of terrorism" and ordered his followers, "those who are infidels, they shall receive beheadings. When you attack them, do it ferociously-so it is the reward of the hereafter, or continued sacrifice, until the conflict ends." He also praised "this new righteous movement; this new righteous movement led by the likes of Mullah Mohammed Omar, Shaykh Usama Bin Laden, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Shaykh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi... This group of patient and faithful mujahideen will teach them that the believer would rather take a willing strike by the sword on his neck-a willing strike by the sword on his neck-than a whip wielded in humiliation." (NEFA)

Indonesia: Up to 450 'recruited by Islamist terrorist'-AKI
Jakarta, 18 August (AKI/Jakarta Post) - Indonesia's most wanted terrorist, Noordin M. Top, and his Islamist group, Jemaah Islamiyah, have recruited and trained nearly 450 members for bombing operations since 2000, according to senior police. National police spokesman Insp. Gen. Nanan Soekarna said that Noordin and JI, believed to be the regional arm of global terrorist network Al-Qaeda, had provided training in bomb manufacture, weapons handling, combat skills, recruitment techniques and suicide bombing to new recruits from across the archipelago. “We can base these figures from [information provided by] members we have arrested and from those who have served time in jail. We have arrested and brought many of them to trial, while we continue trying to track down others,” he said. Nanan said programs to rehabilitate and monitor convicted terrorists were weak. He said since around 200 had been released from prison since 2002, authorities were afraid that many would rejoin their former terror networks and radical sympathisers. Nanan said links between suspects thought responsible for the 2004 Australian Embassy attack and the recent J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotel bombings was testament to how the legal system had failed to deter future terrorist activity. (AKI)

Killing Germans is a duty, Sauerland cell terror suspect tells court-DW-WORLD
One of the men accused of planning attacks on US military bases in Germany in 2007 told a Dusseldorf court Wednesday that the armed fight against German soldiers in Afghanistan was a "duty."
Adem Yilmaz, part of a group of suspected militant Islamists arrested in Germany's Sauerland region in September 2007, told the court in one of Germany's largest terrorism trials since the 1970s that it didn't matter to him whether the soldiers were American, German or Turkish. "For me they are all the same," said Yilmaz, who is himself Turkish. "Allah gave us the right to fight against those people who are fighting us," he said, adding that many Muslims had been attacked in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yilmaz also said he stood by an earlier statement that he wanted to kill as many non-believers as possible. Asked whether he would return to fighting armed jihad - holy war - after serving his sentence, the 30-year-old said, "I don't know yet." Yilmaz belongs to the so-called Sauerland Group, together with fellow defendants Fritz Gelowicz, Daniel Schneider and Attila Selek. (dw-world)

Counterterrorism in Obama's Washington-Daniel Pipes
Barack Obama's assistant for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, John O. Brennan, conveniently outlined the administration's present and future policy mistakes in a speech on August 6, "A New Approach for Safeguarding Americans." To start with, his address to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, has an unusual tenor. "Sycophantic" is the word that springs to mind, as Brennan ninety times in five thousand words invokes either "President Obama," "he," "his," or "the president." Disturbingly, Brennan ascribes virtually every thought or policy in his speech to the wisdom of the One. This cringe-inducing lecture reminds one of a North Korean functionary paying homage to the Dear Leader.
Specifics are no better. Most fundamentally, Brennan calls for appeasing terrorists: "Even as we condemn and oppose the illegitimate tactics used by terrorists, we need to acknowledge and address the legitimate needs and grievances of ordinary people those terrorists claim to represent." Which legitimate needs and grievances, one wonders, does he think Al-Qaeda represents? Brennan carefully delineates a two-fold threat, one being "Al-Qaida and its allies" and the other "violent extremism." But the former, self-evidently, is a subset of the latter. This elementary mistake undermines his entire analysis. (Familysecuritymatters)

EMP threatens power shutdown for months-WND
Congressman says $100 million need to avert $2 trillion disaster
WASHINGTON – There's been a lot of talk about the potentially devastating impact of an electrical grid shutdown from the effects of an electro-magnetic pulse from the sun or from terrorism, but little action, says a prominent members of Congress. But it's worse than a threat on the horizon, says Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Maryland. It's an inevitability. Bartlett told NPR that EMP is "an event we will not avoid" – and remediation after the fact will cost between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. Protection of the grid in advance of the disaster will cost $100 million, he said. The threat of an EMP attack by a terrorist group or foreign enemy has been a major concern for years. But Bartlett said nature, too, represents a potential time bomb. "The more sophisticated we become, the more vulnerable we are," said Bartlett. "There's a huge concern about cyber-attacks on the grid. [Well] a really robust [nuclear] EMP lay-down means microelectronics across the country would be shut down [and] you have no power…there's one event that we will not avoid, and that is a solar electromagnetic interference, solar storm. If we have a big one like the one that occurred back in 1859, that would shut down the whole grid for quite a long while. … It would cost about $100 million to protect much of the grid, but if the grid went down, it would cost us between $1 trillion and $2 trillion in damages, and the loss of life could be horrendous if in fact you were without electricity for months at a time. There's a bill in the House, and … it's got to go through the Energy and Commerce Committee." (WND)

UN Disabilities Treaty Would Limit U.S. Sovereignty-Global Governance Watch
On July 30th, in a move that could limit the ability of the U.S. to decide domestic social policy in a free and democratic manner, Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the UN, signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (the “Convention”) at the request of President Obama. Though the Senate must still ratify the treaty for it to come into force, many human rights activists are applauding the President’s action as reasserting the United States’ leadership role in the area of human rights. However, proponents of the treaty fail to acknowledge the Convention’s potential to usurp national sovereignty by requiring the U.S. to conform domestic laws to UN-mandated human rights standards. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities entered into force in April 2008 (for more information, please see the April 10, 2008 Global Governance Watch post). The treaty outlines specific rights that all States party to the Convention must guarantee to persons living with “long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments,” including a right to inclusion in the community; a right to personal mobility; a right to inclusion in education systems; a right to health insurance and disability-specific health care; a right to “social protection;” and a right to participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure and sport. In addition to the main text, States can also sign on to the Optional Protocol to the Convention, which allows individuals living within the State in question to bring complaints of rights violations directly before the Committee after they have exhausted all available domestic remedies. (Globalgovernancewatch)

Run Silent, Run Deep-Peter Hannaford
America's "mainstream" media missed it, but April 17 was a red-letter day for its Deep Ecologists. Red letter because it was the day the Obama Administration declared that carbon dioxide and five other gases emitted by industry threaten "the health and welfare of current and future generations." This opens the door to regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency to "cap" emissions. The Deep Ecologists see this as the path to their cherished dream of a less populous nation with greatly reduced industrial production. It will also lead to a poorer (they would call it "simpler") standard of living. The Deep Ecologists' philosophy came together in 1973 with a treatise by a Norwegian philosopher, Arne Naess. He and his followers disdained the "utilitarian" environmentalists who, up to that time, had been working on clean air or water and saving this or that species. The facts of science and logic were not enough, he believed. They lacked an ethical framework that required deep questioning and commitment. Naess said that humans didn't rank above other creatures. That is, "the right of all forms [of life] to live is a universal right which cannot be quantified. No single species of living being has more of this particular right to live and unfold than any other species." (Scienceandpublicpolicy)

DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show-ANDREW POLLACK
Scientists in Israel have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases. The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person. “You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.” Dr. Frumkin is a founder of Nucleix, a company based in Tel Aviv that has developed a test to distinguish real DNA samples from fake ones that it hopes to sell to forensics laboratories. The planting of fabricated DNA evidence at a crime scene is only one implication of the findings. A potential invasion of personal privacy is another. (NYT)

Dark Cynicism, British Style-KRISTIN M. JONES
Rain-slicked streets, hard-boiled protagonists, femmes fatales—it's easy to assume one knows the hallmarks of film noir without coming close to plumbing its depths. A mood rather than a genre, noir is a rich but elusive category. Even those who coined the term were shortsighted, seeing only Hollywood as the source of a gloomy new tone in moviemaking that emerged around World War II and spread, shadowy and glittering, into the cinema of the 1950s and early '60s. In his 1971 essay "Notes on Film Noir," Paul Schrader wrote, "In 1946 French critics, seeing the American films they had missed during the war, noticed the new mood of cynicism, pessimism and darkness which had crept into the American cinema." In fact, it was welling up, black as oil, in more than one war-traumatized nation. In Britain, noir was vibrant and eclectic—and surfaced earlier than the Hollywood version, in movies such as William Cameron Menzies's "The Green Cockatoo" (1937) and Arthur B. Woods's "They Drive by Night" (1938)—but remains little known stateside. At Manhattan's Film Forum theater, the 44-movie series "Brit Noir," with its tales of coppers, spivs, dance-hall girls and psychopaths, is packed with titles ripe for rediscovery. (WSJ)

We Are Fast Forgetting How To Be Guilty About The Past-Kate Williams
One of this summer’s big screen openings is Quentin Tarantino’s hyperbolic battle movie, Inglourious Basterds. Featuring Brad Pitt demanding his men search for ‘100 Nazi scalps’, this ironic shootfest is bloody, explosive, rowdily entertaining — and a fantasy. ‘You haven’t seen war,’ screams the trailer, ‘until you have seen it through the eyes of Quentin Tarantino.’ As the pound falls and Germany under Merkel is resurgent, 2009 is the year in which our representations of the Third Reich and the second world war have turned towards areas that we would have seen as excessive only a few years back. At a time when we are seemingly more obsessed with Hitler than ever, Tarantino has released an historical film in which history is irrelevant. Now, when most of those who fought in the 1940s are dead, the war is becoming not so much a memory, but a series of images, as fit for creative revision and ridicule as the Boleyn sisters and Henry VIII. ‘We are going to laugh at Hitler,’ declared Max Falk, the manager of the Admiral Theatre in Berlin, on the first staging of Mel Brooks’s musical The Producers in May. German audiences had never been exposed to a goose-stepping Hitler singing ‘Heil Myself’ and dancing stormtroopers. For Falk, the production was a ‘great step forward for Germany’. (Spectator.co.uk)