The Western Word

This Week's Editorial

A PEOPLE OF WHOM WE KNOW NOTHING
By Avi Davis

If there was any real doubt about where the Obama Administration’s foreign policy is heading, then Thursday’s events provided an important clue. The Administration’s decision to cancel a long planned and heavily negotiated missile defense shield for both Poland and the Czech Republic pounded home a message that American allies can no longer rely on prior U.S. commitments and that the hard necessities of confronting aggression from rogue states will from now on give way to diplomatic expediency.

“Shameful” is a word which has been flung at the Administration by many on the right and it may be true that the cancellation of the early warning stations was a moral disgrace. But the real damage done is not to our sense of pride, but the impact it has had on Russian and Iranian perceptions of American resolve.

The Russians knew perfectly well that they had nothing to seriously fear from an American presence in either Poland or the Czech Republic. The anti- missile defense shield could only interdict incoming missiles and would be incapable of creating a base for the launch of ballistic missiles of its own.

The problem now appears to be that a major concession has been made to the Russians without securing anything in return. On Saturday the Los Angeles Times quoted Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as describing the cancellation of the program as “ a step in the right direction, with the hope that more would follow” Translation: “We have secured a victory at no cost to ourselves and we will now press our advantage in other areas.” That expectation will be fulfilled when Russia invades or intimidates one of the former Soviet satellites (Latvia, Estonia Lithuania, the Ukraine or Georgia) and demands U.S. acquiescence. We shouldn’t forget that Russian diplomacy is largely a zero sum game which relies on projecting hard power in order to force diplomatic gains. This was most clearly seen in operation last year in the invasion of Georgia and the gas dispute with the Ukraine. No doubt it will be employed again.

The Administration’s explanation for the cancellation of the program is similarly weak. Claiming that Iran’s long range ballistic missile program is still years away from completion, the Administration has decided that a more muscular ( and less expensive) short and medium range missile defense system in Europe would help facilitate the defense of Europe. But as many commentators have asked over the past few days – that might take care of the defense of Europe but what about the defense of the United States?

It is no secret that the anti-missile battery planned for the Czech Republic and Poland would not only help defend those countries but would also impede the trajectory of a ballistic missile launched into space from Iran and aimed at the United States. Yet the protection of the continental United States has already been significantly weakened by the cancellation of Kinetic Energy Inceptors ( designed to eliminate an enemy missile at an earlier stage of its trajectory ) which were to be located in Germany and Turkey. They were canceled as part of the $1.4 billion cuts in the missile defense budget.

What does it all mean? It means that the United States is wide open to a ballistic missile attack with only the continental anti- ballistic missile system in Fort Greely, Alaska and another at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California for use in preventing a catastrophic nuclear attack upon the United States. Without the German, Turkish, or Eastern European inceptors, the entire U.S Eastern seaboard is exposed to an Iranian ballistic missile attack, something that should worry any Administration and any American.

The argument that the Iranians are nowhere near the construction of an ICBM that could reach North America also falls flat. Iran has already become the first Muslim country to launch a missile into space – which it achieved in 2005. The capacity to launch a rocket into space is not so dissimilar to the technology needed to launch an ICBM and it is therefore foolish for anyone to suggest that Iran could not achieve the latter capacity soon – particularly with Russian support.

The Iranians themselves will view U.S. deference to Russian demands with no small amount of satisfaction. The attempt to mollify an aggrieved Russia will be read in Tehran as weakness and a further indication that the Obama Administration does not have the will to confront Iranian aggression. The laughable pursuit by the Administration of the Iranians for ‘dialogue’ has turned into a tragic-comedy wherein, with each passing day, it becomes clear that the Iranians have no intention whatsoever of negotiating away their potential nuclear arsenal. The U.S retreat over a missile defense shield aimed at protecting Eastern Europe from that very same Iranian threat, will not be lost on the mullahs who recognize cowardice when they see it.

Other nations who have a bone to pick with the United States should also be smirking. North Korea, a country which has flouted all of its previous agreements on nuclear disarmament, will take heart from the Administration’s volte face and will recognize that such timidity gives them an opening to move aggressively ahead with their own program. Venezuela, the Latin American thorn in America’s side will use the episode to continue to stir Latin American antipathy to the United States, characterizing it as a toothless lion.

Seventy years ago, another toothless lion failed to confront a nation with regional ambitions – resulting in catastrophe for the West. The important lesson then, as now, is that nations often act like human beings and that they can be frightened or intimidated into taking actions which are clearly at odds with their own and their friends’ best interests. That era of appeasement, with the leader of the West firmly fixed in his belief that the German leader was adamantly opposed to the needless waste of innocent life, was the precursor to a conflagration. Chamberlain came back from Munich with nothing but a piece of paper, having traded away the sovereignty of a fellow democratic nation in exchange for empty promises. In this case, Obama did not even receive the promises.

Russia may not be a mirror of 1930s Germany but no one can doubt for a minute that it has been itching for nearly two decades to regain the superpower status it lost after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It should also be clear that the humiliation of the United States is an important step upon that particular road to recovery. How sad it is that the U.S. has now unwittingly opened up that road for a Russian advance.

The Obama Administration, in its naivety, may well believe that it is winning the hearts of the Russian leaders, but in fact it has achieved just the opposite. Its policy of appeasement will make the Russian bear hungry for another morsel of Western flesh. What a true disgrace it would be, that rather than having American troops stationed in Poland or the Czech Republic manning defensive weapons, they will end up, by necessity, on the Georgian, Latvian or Ukranian borders defending those countries from an aggression their government could have once deterred.

As we remember the capitulation at Munich the words of Neville Chamberlain should echo down to us with an eerie resonance: “How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing.”

The same people of whom we once knew nothing - the Czech and the Poles - could have once been the guarantors of own security. In betraying them, we may have also betrayed ourselves.

Want to comment on this article? See Avi Davis’ blog
Avi Davis is the president of the American Freedom Alliance in Los Angeles. He can be contacted at isdev@ix.netcom.com

The Qur'an: Israel Is Not for the Jews Claims to the Holy Land
by Robert Spencer (more by this author)

The status of Israel has become a pivotal issue in all talks about the Middle East. Israel's legitimacy rests, not just on United Nations resolutions or Zionist aspirations, but, for many, on Biblical narratives and the historical connections of Jews with the Holy Land. A minority of Muslims find justification for the Zionist enterprise equally in the Bible and the Qur'an and believe that the Qur'an offers divine sanction for the establishment of a Jewish state in southern Syria. However, the majority cite other Qur'anic verses and passages from the Hadith (purported records of the Prophet Muhammad's actions and sayings), stating the exact opposite. This second, negative attitude toward Jews is expressed in sacred texts and in the body of Shari'a (Islamic law) where Jews, like all non-Muslims, are assigned a status that does not permit their becoming rulers over Muslims or over Muslim territory. Traditionally, this has not been an issue. Under the different Muslim empires, Jews were kept firmly in their place and represented no sort of threat to the ruling order. It is only in the modern period that this has become a burning issue. Thus, the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the British Mandate to modern Israel has been as much a religious as a political clash. The Arab onslaught of 1948 was religiously motivated, as is modern opposition to Israel by Islamist groups. (Middleeastquarterly)

Bin Laden: "US Must eliminate the Israel Lobby to end war"-Walid Phares
In a 12 minutes address via an audio tape, al Qaeda's chief, Osama bin Laden, spoke to the American people on the eighth anniversary of 9/11. The tape was produced by as-Sahab propaganda arm posted on various Jihadists forums last night. His address directed "to the American People" asserted that the main reason for the al-Qaeda’s attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, was US support to Israel as well as “some other injustices.” Interestingly Osama claimed the war between the two "nations" i.e the American nation and the Islamic Umma, can stop if the White House eliminated what he coined as the "Israel Lobby." He accused the latter of pushing for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Note that in this speech he doesn't mention the battlefields of Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Chechnya, he only targets US-Israeli relations. He begins by insisting that Americans needs to know the real causes for this war "which costing you dearly in blood and wealth. The (past Bush) White House convinced you that this war (on Terror) is necessary for your security." The sentence used by Bin Laden can also mean the Obama Administration as the President has used the term "war of necessity," in the past few weeks. Bin Laden asked Americans to hear "both sides" (a concept taken from American political discourse and rarely referred to in Jihadist literature). (Counterterrorismblog)

Airline bomb plot leader to serve minimum of 40 years in jail-Sean O’Neil
The leader of the terrorist plot to bomb seven transatlantic airliners out of the sky will be aged 65 before he can apply for release from jail in 2046, a judge ruled yesterday. Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, stood with his head down reading from a prayer book as Mr Justice Henriques passed a life sentence with a minimum 40-year tariff at the end of an investigation and trial process lasting more than three years. The judge told Ali that he had been convicted of “the most grave and wicked conspiracy ever proven within this jurisdiction” and will never be released if he remains a serious danger to the public. The airline plot envisaged suicide bombers detonating liquid bombs disguised as soft drinks on board flights to American and Canadian cities. Woolwich Crown Court, which was packed for the sentencing, heard the judge tell Ali: “The intention was to perpetrate a terrorist outrage to stand alongside the events of September 11 2001 in world history... You sought the attention of the world and you have it now.” Two other members of Ali’s “inner circle”, who were convicted with him of the airline plot last week, were also jailed for life. Assad Sarwar, 29, must serve at least 36 years and Tanvir Hussain, 28, will be in prison for a minimum of 32 years. (Timesonline.co.uk)

State Department Website Panders To Radical Islamists-IPT News
The United States government's stepped-up courting of Islamist groups is on display at the State Department web portal www.america.gov. The site bills itself as a place to "meet the people" and "explore the values and ideas that define the character of the United States." But when it comes to American Muslim organizations, that often means providing a U.S. government stamp of approval to organizations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) or apologists like the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). A September 4 podcast about President Obama's Community Service Initiative illustrates how the federal government gives free and favorable publicity to Brotherhood-linked Islamists. America.gov noted the contribution of Dalia Mogahed (a protégé of terror-apologist John Esposito) to the president's initiative. Mogahed and Esposito work together at the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. The two collaborated in writing a book. Read a favorable review here. (Investigativeproject)

Extreme Islamist homepage in Sweden disturbs Russia-MATS ÖHLÉN
A prosecutor in Russia has asked Swedish authorities for information about an extreme islamist homepage in Sweden. The reason is that a threat towards a Russian civil servant has been published on the homepage. This is reported in the Swedish Public Radio broadcaster SR in the programme ´Medierna´.

The homepage is called Kavkaz Center (http://kavkazcenter.net/eng/) and has substance with encouragement to Jihad and extreme violence. It describes itself as an independent Chechen news source and it is formally based in Sweden. The homepage shows for example videos of successful bombings and assasination combined with suggestive religious music. According to Medierna, there is also an explicit threat towards a Russian civil servant written by an anonymous person on the homepage.
What is special with this homepage is that in the middle of all this, there is a text claiming that the site is protected by the Swedish constitution of press freedom. This is the reason for Russian authorities to ask Sweden for help. The Russian presecutor wanted to know who made the anonymous threat. The question was forwarded to Swedish Attorney-General, Göran Lambertz., who said no to the Russian demand. (Stockholmnews)

France's hardline immigration minister Eric Besson calls for 'debased' burkha to be banned-Ian Sparks
France's hardline immigration minister has launched a fresh demand to ban the burkha - decribed by president Nicolas Sarkozy a sign of 'subservience and debasement'. Eric Besson said the Islamic full head and body covers were 'unacceptable' and not welcome in France. His demand for a total ban comes after 58 French MPs called last June for a public inquiry on whether it should be illegal for women to hide their faces in public. Mr Sazkozy backed the move, saying at the time: 'This garment makes women prisoners and deprives them of their identity. 'I say solemnly that they are not welcome on the territory of the French Republic.' Women's rights groups and Left-wing MPs went even further, descibing the item as a 'walking coffin' and and a 'mobile prison'. A burkha refers to a full-body covering worn largely in Afghanistan with only a mesh screen over the eyes, while a niqab is a full-body veil, often in black, with slits for the eyes. (Dailymail.co.uk)

Muslims Press for School Holidays in New York City-SUZANNE SATALINE
As Mayor Courts Ethnic Vote, Groups Seek Same Accommodation of Religious Observances That Christians and Jews Receive
NEW YORK -- Muslims groups here are pressing city officials to close public schools on two of the faith's holiest days, just as schools do for major Jewish and Christian holidays. But the groups have yet to persuade the man in charge of New York City schools, Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Muslim groups have asked the city to cancel classes on Eid Ul-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, and Eid Ul-Adha, which marks the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. New York is one of many public-school systems now struggling with appropriate ways to recognize religious holidays for a diverse population. An estimated 100,000 Muslim children are enrolled in New York City schools, about 10% of the enrollment. The matter has taken on a political aspect as Mr. Bloomberg, seeking a third term as mayor, has steadily courted the endorsement of a slew of ethnic groups. One city councilman said Muslims might withhold their votes if the mayor doesn't heed their wishes. Candidates are running in a primary Tuesday for the right to face Mr. Bloomberg, an independent, in the November election. (WSJ)

France's army embraces its Muslim soldiers-Susan Sachs
Adamantly secular country now offers halal meals, prayer rooms and private trips to Mecca for the hajj. Muslims in France's army who go on the pilgrimage to Mecca this year will not have to travel on private commercial flights or bunk with ordinary civilians. In a break from tradition, the Defence Ministry will provide a plane to fly them to Saudi Arabia and organize their stay. For any western government to arrange a hajj trip would be unusual. It is especially so here, in a country so protective of its secularism that it regulates what Muslim girls can wear in school and is considering a blanket ban on the face-covering Islamic niqab. But for Mohamed-Ali Bouharb, a spit-and-polish gendarmerie captain who put together the final pieces for the pilgrimage last week, it is one step toward making Islam as “banal” in France as any other religion. “The army is always in advance of society,” said Capt. Bouharb, one of the 30 Muslim chaplains recently recruited by the armed forces. “And it is anaesthetized from all the social questions and debate outside.” While religion and state remain firmly separated in the rest of French society, the military has started accommodating its Muslim personnel in ways that would be unthinkable outside the barracks. It now provides halal meals and, where possible, prayer rooms. Last week, the Muslim chaplaincy published the first edition of a new magazine, splashed with photos of mosques, recipes for meals to break the Ramadan fast and an article that would not raise an eyebrow in any French magazine. Its subject: How do you say “I love you?” (Theglobeandmail)

America’s Worst Colleges for Free Speech on Campus-Robert Shibley
With the beginning of the new school year, students and parents are flocking to newsstands to pick up the “America’s Best Colleges” issue of U.S. News & World Report to see how their schools of interest stack up to the others. This year, they’ll be getting another piece of information as well: a list [1]of America’s worst colleges for liberty on campus. Students who are planning to attend Brandeis University, Bucknell University, Colorado College, Johns Hopkins University, Michigan State University, and Tufts University should think twice before attending those schools if they care about their fundamental rights. This is the second year in a row that FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (where I work), has placed a full-page ad right next to the U.S. News rankings to warn students about what can happen to their liberties on campus and the colleges where these travesties are most likely to occur. The ad features the shocking story of Keith John Sampson, a student and employee at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), who was found guilty of racial harassment for reading a book that celebrates how University of Notre Dame students defeated the Ku Klux Klan in a 1924 street fight. The apparent basis for Sampson’s offense? The book has a picture of a KKK rally on the cover, and he chose to read it while sitting at a table during work breaks, thereby offending other employees. (Pajamasmedia)

The Ugly Face of Student Resistance-David French
Between the leftists and the hedonists, is there any room on campus for ordered liberty? After a generation-long attempt at social engineering on college campuses, it appears that leftist thought reformers have met with a rather decisive student response. Mandatory “civility” and “tolerance” codes have been derided and rejected in practice. Efforts to re-engineer relationships between the sexes into the bloodless transactional model favored by so many feminist activists have foundered. There has been no wave of student protest against either of America’s two “imperialist” wars. And not even a force as powerful as Barack Obama in his political prime could lead this new generation of students to emulate their baby-boomer parents in political activism and passion. Should conservatives take heart at this nascent student rebellion? Should we cheer the demise of “tolerance” in student culture and mock professors’ increasingly desperate calls for a new generation of student activism? Not when the source of student apathy is the primacy of their personal party schedule, and the face of the resistance is a gaggle of drunken, slobbering students stumbling back to the dorm after their fourth night of binge drinking in a week. Millions of college students have answered political correctness with hedonism, defying feminist and multiculturalist scolds with hoisted beer glasses and libraries full of Girls Gone Wild DVDs. If this is the current state of student rebellion (and it is), then it’s terrible news for our culture and a disaster for conservatism. It is the rejection of one form of vice (leftist thought control) for other, equally destructive vices that will have enduring, negative effects on our civil society. (Nationalreview)

Paglia’s Scimitar-Peter Wood
Camille Paglia, professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, is the H. L. Mencken of our times. Mencken’s cynical essays x-rayed right through American cant and pretense. He spent most of his career in Baltimore, insulated in that second-tier city from fads that swept Washington and New York, but close enough to watch them unfold. Mencken belonged in spirit to the muckraking school of journalism in that his aim was almost always to shock, but he was also an intellectual poseur, writing as if he knew more, saw further, and grasped more quickly than anyone else. Human x-ray machines do see some things sooner and more clearly than those writers who operate mainly in the visible spectrum, but they also can be blind to a lot. Paglia writes astonishing essays on contemporary culture and politics, many of which appear on Salon.com. Unlike Mencken, she is also an academic.(NAS)

Coddling a Terrorist - Stephen Brown
Canada’s leftist media sympathizes with a convicted bomb-plotter.
Pity poor Saad Khalid. That is what the leftist Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper, wants people to feel for the convicted Canadian Muslim terrorist because he lost his mother at age 16. Coming home and finding her dead in the bathtub, Khalid sank to his knees and then went on to do did what all teenagers do in such cases: he turned into a murderous terrorist. And for that, Khalid, 23, was sentenced in a Canadian court last week to 14 years in prison for plotting to blow up major buildings in downtown Toronto. But unlike the Star, whose front page story expressed compassion for the cold-blooded conspirator, many Canadians experienced only disappointment, if not outright anger, at the sentence’s short length. (Khalid will be eligible for parole in 28 months, having received seven years credit for his three years in pre-trial custody). Born in Saudi Arabia of Pakistani parents, Khalid was one of the “Toronto 18” terrorist group whose members were arrested in June, 2006, for plotting to bomb the Toronto Stock Exchange, the Toronto office of Canada’s intelligence service and a military base between Toronto and Ottawa. At the time of the arrests, it was also alleged the group planned to bomb a federal government building in Toronto, detonate fishing tackle boxes full of explosives in packed food courts and storm Canada’s parliament in Ottawa and behead the prime minister. (Frontpagemagazine)

Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low-Pew Research Center
Public Evaluations of the News Media: 1985-2009
The public’s assessment of the accuracy of news stories is now at its lowest level in more than two decades of Pew Research surveys, and Americans’ views of media bias and independence now match previous lows. Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate. In the initial survey in this series about the news media’s performance in 1985, 55% said news stories were accurate while 34% said they were inaccurate. That percentage had fallen sharply by the late 1990s and has remained low over the last decade. Similarly, only about a quarter (26%) now say that news organizations are careful that their reporting is not politically biased, compared with 60% who say news organizations are politically biased. And the percentages saying that news organizations are independent of powerful people and organizations (20%) or are willing to admit their mistakes (21%) now also match all-time lows. Republicans continue to be highly critical of the news media in nearly all respects. However, much of the growth in negative attitudes toward the news media over the last two years is driven by increasingly unfavorable evaluations by Democrats. . (Pewresearchcenter)

Wilders' discrimination case in January
The trial of MP Geert Wilders, who is accused of discrimination and inciting hatred, will begin in January in Amsterdam, two months before the local elections. Wilders has denied the charges and said at the weekend he wanted to put Islam on trial. 'That is why I am considering calling on radical imams and other idiots as witnesses,' he told the Telegraaf. This January, the public prosecution department said Wilders should face charges, a decision which was upheld by the high court in May. Meanwhile, Wilders has accused US president Barack Obama of 'closing his eyes to the great dangers of Islamisation'. In an interview with website nu.nl, Wilders likened Obama to the British prime minister Neville Chamberlain who signed the Munich agreement with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in 1938. That agreement permitted the German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. 'It is a tough comparison, but he is pursuing a dangerous, naive and irresponsible policy,' Wilders said. (Dutchnews.nl)

Belgium: 'Taouil is an extremist Muslim'-Islam in Europe
Taouil appeared in the news in two contexts recently. One was a report on Islamic extremism in Antwerp that Filip Dewinter published on his site - Taouil announced he will sue Dewinter for accusing him of encouraging Belgian youth to go on Jihad. The second is the headscarf debate. After two Antwerp school announced they will ban the headscarf, the last schools in Antwerp to do so, Taouil called on Muslims to boycott Flemish schools. He later backed down, but more recently, when the Flemish public school authority decided to ban headscarves across all public schools, he again warned that Muslims .would set up their own schools. Imam Nordine Taouil is a extremist Muslims, Alain Winants, administrator-general of the Belgian State Security Service said on Belgian TV (Terzake) yesterday. Winants said that on the basis of the information they have about Mr. Nordine Taouil, they think he's an extremist Muslim of the Salafist-Wahhabist movement, who is militantly active in the Salafist circles. Taouil supposedly organized training for young Belgian Muslims in radical Koran schools in Pakistan. Salafism is an uncompromising version of Islam. "It is actually a movement that wants to go back to the original Islam and which rejects all Western influences on Islam," according to Winants. Taouil set himself up as the spokesperson for the Muslim community in Belgian and in recent months made very sharp statements on the headscarf debate. He's also chairman of the Muslim council, which represents all movements within the Muslim community. But not all Muslims agree with him. His supporters are a small ultra-conservative minority. (Islamineurope)

Al-Qaeda Blames 9/11 on US Support for Israel-Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
American support for Israel was the reason for the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001, according to an audio message purported to be from Osama bin Laden, the leader of the international Al-Qaeda terrorist organization. The whereabouts of Bin Laden are not known, and the video image accompanying the audio featured only a still picture of him. The title of the audio was, “Message to the American People.” and was released two days after the eighth anniversary of the multiple aerial attacks on the U.S. "If you think about your situation well, you will know that the White House is occupied by pressure groups," the speaker on the audiotape said. "Rather than fighting to liberate Iraq - as Bush claimed - it (the White House) should have been liberated." Bin Laden added that U.S. President Barack Obama does not have enough power to change American policies. "The bitter truth is that the neo-Conservatives continue to cast their heavy shadows upon you," he continued. "All we will do is to continue the war of attrition against you on all possible axes, like we exhausted the Soviet Union for ten years until it collapsed with grace from Allah the Almighty and became a memory of the past." (INN)

Ramadan Turning into Month of Jew-Hatred in the Muslim World-David Lev
Muslim governments are taking advantage of the Ramadan TV season to broadcast anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda, some of it reminiscent of the Nazi propaganda that preceded the Holocaust. With Muslims across the world fasting during the daylight hours and gathering at home for their daily "break of the fast" meal, Arab propaganda ministries take advantage of the large potential audiences for TV shows by broadcasting their top programs, with many shows produced specifically for Ramadan TV watchers. Programs about Israel and the Jewish people are considered top rating draws among Arab media, and each year government-controlled TV stations across the Middle East broadcast programs themed around the supposed treachery committed by Israel or the Jewish people against the Muslims and the world in general. (INN)

'Jews harvesting Algerian kids' organs'-Haviv Rettig Gur
The anti-Semitic blogosphere and many Arab and Muslim media outlets are aflutter in recent days over accusations of an international Jewish conspiracy to kidnap Algerian children and harvest their organs. Unlike the multiple conspiracy theories about Jews circulating among radical fringe organizations online, this one seems to be gaining momentum on mainstream Arab and Muslim Web sites. According to the story, first reported by Algeria's Al-Khabar daily, bands of Moroccans and Algerians have allegedly been roaming the streets of Algeria's cities kidnapping young children, who are then transported across the border into Morocco. From the Moroccan city of Oujda, the children are then purportedly sold to Israelis and American Jews, who then harvest their organs for sale in Israel and the United States. The organs are said to fetch anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000. The source for the Al-Khabar report seems to be a Dr. Mustafa Khayatti, head of the Algerian National Committee for the Development of Health Research. Khayatti reportedly claimed that several Jews were arrested in New York in connection with the trade. He claimed Interpol knew of the situation and was leading the investigation into the abductions. (Jpost)

Israel: Biased Goldstone report gives support to terror-Haviv Rettig Gur
Israel called the Goldstone Commission Report "nauseating" on Tuesday, saying it created an unjust "equivalence of a democratic state with a terror organization" and lacked the context of a decade of terrorist attacks by Hamas. The commission, established by the UN Human Rights Council and led by former South African constitutional court judge Richard Goldstone, concluded that "Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity," during Operation Cast Lead from late December to mid-January. The report "concludes there is also evidence that Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes, as well as possibly crimes against humanity," by firing rockets at cities in southern Israel, the UN said. The four-member investigative panel recommended that the UN Security Council require Israel to launch its own investigations, "that are independent and in conformity with international standards," into the Gaza operation and to appoint a committee of experts to oversee the "progress, effectiveness and genuineness" of these investigations. If it failed to do so within three months, the report said, the Security Council should refer Israel's alleged war crimes to the International Criminal Court. It was not clear in the immediate aftermath of the report what the legal and political ramifications would be. Governments worldwide were mum Tuesday as they studied the document. (Jpost)

Obama Is Pushing Israel Toward War-BRET STEPHENS
Events are fast pushing Israel toward a pre-emptive military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, probably by next spring. That strike could well fail. Or it could succeed at the price of oil at $300 a barrel, a Middle East war, and American servicemen caught in between. So why is the Obama administration doing everything it can to speed the war process along? At July's G-8 summit in Italy, Iran was given a September deadline to start negotiations over its nuclear programs. Last week, Iran gave its answer: No. Instead, what Tehran offered was a five-page document that was the diplomatic equivalent of a giant kiss-off. It begins by lamenting the "ungodly ways of thinking prevailing in global relations" and proceeds to offer comprehensive talks on a variety of subjects: democracy, human rights, disarmament, terrorism, "respect for the rights of nations," and other areas where Iran is a paragon. Conspicuously absent from the document is any mention of Iran's nuclear program, now at the so-called breakout point, which both Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his boss Ali Khamenei insist is not up for discussion. What's an American president to do in the face of this nonstarter of a document? What else, but pretend it isn't a nonstarter. Talks begin Oct. 1. (WSJ)

TERRORISM, security and policy

Rashid Rauf 'training dozens of British terrorist recruits in Pakistan'-Saeed Shah in Bahawalpur and Massoud Ansari in Mirpur
Pakistani officials have warned that Rashid Rauf, the terrorist linked to the trans-Atlantic airline bomb plot, bas been involved in grooming two dozen British recruits to carry out new attacks. Pakistan intelligence said that Rauf, who mysteriously escaped from police custody and was then reported killed by a missile fired by US drone last November, used the name Khalid to recruit fellow Britons for training at a camp in the tribal areas of Pakistan. One official said that Rauf was involved with a group of Arab and Uzbek terrorists in a camp in Matta Cheena village in south Waziristan. Rauf is said to be a key lieutenant of the group's leader, explosives expert, Abu Nasir. "He is an explosive expert who has effectively devised methods of explosives using easy-to-get ingredients that are virtually undetectable or can raise no alarms for authorities," said the intelligence source. "We know that they are planning a very serious attack and it is very important for us to arrest all of them. "If they are able to strike it is going to give a bad name to Pakistan once again for no reason." Intercepted emails and text messages between Pakistan and the UK had indicated Rauf's involvement under the name Khalid after the authorities decrypted the communications. (Telegraph.co.uk)

Eight years after 9/11, Saudi Arabia still a breeding ground for terror-Zvi Bar’el
Eight years after the September 11 attacks, Saudi Arabia, where most of the perpetrators were born and bred, has received a rude reminder that its war on terror is far from over. In late August, an Islamic militant attempted to assassinate a member of the kingdom's royal family - the first ever such attack. A few years ago, Abdullah Al-Asiri was a young Saudi citizen who loved listening to Western music in the night clubs of the coastal city of Jeddah. Three years ago he went to Yemen to join his brother, a member of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. He then returned on August 28, and after passing the security checks at the airports of Najran near the Yemeni border and at Jeddah, with half a kilogram of dynamite secreted inside a bodily orifice, he headed for the palatial residence of the deputy interior minister, Prince Mohammed Bin Naif.(Haaretz)

Closing Arguments: History shows targeting the CIA is perilous move-John Yoo
A young, fresh face campaigns for the presidency by attacking the CIA: "Our government should justify the character and moral principles of the American people, and our foreign policy should not short-circuit that for temporary advantage," he says. He promises to never "do anything as president that would be a contravention of the moral and ethical standards that I would exemplify in my own life as an individual." He wins the election and begins to decimate the intelligence agencies. Barack Obama? No. Jimmy Carter. The Carter administration's national-security record should not serve as a model for any president. But unless Obama changes course, he risks duplicating the intelligence disasters of the '70s, and endangering the nation. Last month, the president and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. launched a destructive investigation into the CIA's detention and interrogation of al-Qaeda leaders. Several of the detainees were directly involved with the planning and execution of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. They were captured at a time when our government feared a second wave of attacks.Our nation's leaders made the difficult decision to use coercive interrogation methods to learn as quickly as possible what these hardened al-Qaeda operatives knew. As one of many government lawyers who worked on these counterterrorism programs, I can attest to the terrible pressure of time and events in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks. (Philadelphiainquirer)

Islam is Fire-Amil Imani
The Islamic fire, fueled by immense oil income, is raging in certain regions of the world, smoldering in others, and is ready to ignite in yet other parts of the world. It is imperative for the free people of the world to abandon all illusions about Islam and put out its fire, once and for all. Multiculturalism, live and-let live, is a delusion of kind-hearted naïve people. Islam, as fractured as it is, is a non-compromising mono-culture; a cruel culture of a primitive people handed down by Muhammad some 1,400 years ago. It is true that most religions are intended to attenuate human fears. They are based on natural fears, many of which are irrational...but natural nonetheless. For example, many pagan religious practices were focused on the seasonal cycles related to the harvest. Why? Because if the harvest was poor, their entire civilization could perish, or be weakened to the point where a neighboring tribe would kill them off. While they misunderstood the scientific basis for weather, they created natural (yet irrational) religious beliefs about weather and harvest. In this sense, religions were psychologically useful and inevitable in addressing natural conditions. (Familysecuritymatters)

Queens terror raids part of FBI probe into Denver-based cell plotting attack on 9/11 scale- James Gordon Meek In Washington and Simone Weichselbaum, Rocco Parascandola and Larry Mcshane
A suspected Al Qaeda cell - the first uncovered in the U.S. since 9/11 - drew round-the-clock FBI surveillance Tuesday as authorities said they thwarted its plans for a major terror attack. Scores of FBI agents inundated Denver as they closed the noose on the five-man cabal with ties to World Trade Center mastermind Osama Bin Laden's terrorist group, sources told the Daily News. One of the suspects visited New York last week toting bomb-making plans after a trip to Pakistan - home to most of Al Qaeda's leadership, sources said. The massive federal response was "an indication of just how serious a threat they see this as," said Frances Townsend, former counterterrorism adviser to ex-President George W. Bush. Multiple sources told The News the FBI believes it has uncovered an Al Qaeda cell for the first time since 9/11, prompting the huge response. The FBI is seriously spooked about these guys," a former senior counterterrorism official told The News. "This is not some ... FBI informant-driven case. This is the real thing." Najibullah Zazi, seen last week praying and chatting with other worshipers at the Masjid Hazrat-I-Abu Bakr Islamic Center in Queens, was one of the quintet under intense scrutiny, sources said. (Nydailynews)

Battle of the Bags: Are Plastic Bags an Environmental Threat?-Jon Entine
When plastic bags were introduced decades ago, they were touted as light, cheap, and reusable–an environmental improvement over wasteful paper bags. Of course it didn’t turn out that way. Billions are dispensed of each year. And according to some environmentalists, rather than an improvement over paper bags, they represent everything that’s wrong with our consumerist culture: they’re made of petrochemicals, a non-renewable resource; disposed of in landfills, they’re not biodegradable; children can swallow them; and they can kill marine life. Prominent activist NGOs such as Greenpeace, Environmental Defense Fund, Earth Resource Foundation, and Natural Resource Defense Council have taken strong stances against them. With the sustainability mania in full swing, corporations have responded reflexively. IKEA and Whole Foods discontinued plastic bags in their stores in 2008. Wal-Mart, long the target of environmentalists, is teaming with the EDF in a so-called Global Plastic Shopping Bag Waste Reduction Program, which it says will reduce the number of shopping bags by 9 million by 2013. (Globalgoverancewatch)

Environmental Justice' -Steven F. Hayward
The Van Jones backstory.
So Van Jones now takes his place as the Lani Guinier of the Obama administration, undone by his radical views. Like Guinier, the ousted "green jobs" czar will doubtless employ his political martyrdom to transform himself from a minor celebrity of the left into a major celebrity of the left, with a lucrative book contract and Chomsky-level speaking fees on the college lecture circuit. But the Jones case illustrates the confluence of the environmental and civil rights movements in a way that exposes the senescence of both. I first started hearing about Jones a few years ago from far-left environmentalists--typically Greenpeacers--on college campuses. From their effusiveness I thought Jones must be something new and different. But minimal research revealed Jones to be merely a flamboyant purveyor of the usual green clichés, such as how we can produce "green jobs" in the ghetto if only we massively subsidize uncompetitive technologies. The only thing new and different about him was his skin color, which is precisely what made him so attractive to the overwhelmingly upper-middle class white environmental movement. Jones found it easy to graft civil rights grievances to environmental paranoia in a seamless way that would do Jesse Jackson proud. For this he quickly became, as the Washington Post described him, "a towering figure in the environmental movement." (Weeklystandard)

J'lem researchers find brain's 'center of alertness'-Judy Siegel-Itzkovich
A tiny cluster of nerve cells in the upper brain stem has been identified by Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers for the first time as being an essential part of the "circuit" that controls states of unconsciousness. The groundbreaking work, based on years of working on rats and likely to be applicable to humans, could lead to future treatments for loss of consciousness, sleep disorders and pain. It was recently published as a 12-page article in the Journal of Neuroscience. Prof. Marshall Devor, the Cecile and Seymour Alpert professor of pain research - who worked with graduate student Ruth Abulafia and research associate Dr. Vladimir Zalkind - told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that this small group of cells appeared to have "executive control" over many brain functions, but not over involuntary ones like blood pressure or respiration. He speculated that this specific part of the brain - called MPTA, or the mesopontine tegmental anesthesia area - could have been what was turned off by G-forces, lack of oxygen or blood glucose, or other factors when fighter pilot Capt. Assaf Ramon suddenly lost consciousness in his plane as it made a sharp turn, and crashed on Sunday. (Jpost)

If children are taught that patriotism is wrong, Britain's very identity is at stake-Melanie Phillips
One of the most startling aspects of our society at present is the way things that were once considered to be virtues have now become the object of intense disapproval, and vice versa. A recent survey of teachers by London University's Institute of Education found that some three-quarters of them believed it was their duty to warn their pupils about the dangers of patriotism. Once upon a time, loving your country enough that you were prepared to die for it was held to be the highest virtue. Indeed, without patriotism there would be no one serving in the Armed Forces. For the past 1,000 years, it has given the people of these islands the strength and courage to repel invaders and defeat the enemies of liberty. Is it not extraordinary that such affection for your country should now be considered so objectionable that children should be told it is positively dangerous? One teacher said that praising patriotism excluded non-British pupils. 'Patriotism about being British divides groups along racial lines, when we aim to bring pupils to an understanding of what makes us the same.' But on the contrary, patriotism is what binds us together through a shared sense of belonging and a desire to defend what we all have in common. What this teacher seemed to be saying was that children from immigrant backgrounds can't have that shared sense of belonging because they are not really British. Is that not itself a racist attitude? (Dailymail.co.uk)

On the Quest for Happiness-CHARLES E. PIERCE JR.
In Samuel Johnson's novel 'Rasselas,' he explores his view of life
We celebrate this month the 300th anniversary of the birth of Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the greatest British writer of the second half of the 18th century. He was, in fact, a man of letters: poet, playwright, novelist and essayist, as well as biographer, lexicographer, scholar and critic. But few readers today have read his poem, "The Vanity of Human Wishes"; any of his fine moral essays; or his short novel, "Rasselas" (1759). Even fewer readers have read his biographies: his early "Life of Savage" or his late survey of the major English poets from the era of Milton to his own time in "The Lives of the Poets." Although there may be a happy few who know that he produced the first Dictionary of the English Language (1755) long before Noah Webster published his famous work in 1828, even fewer know of his great critical edition of Shakespeare (1765) with its magisterial Preface (1755). In short, Johnson is less well known as a writer in his own right than he is as the hero of James Boswell's "Life of Johnson" (1791). Johnson's moral writing, in particular, should receive more attention than it has in recent years. For in the essays of the 1750s and in "Rasselas," Johnson explores his view of human nature and life with an intelligence and wisdom that rivals the best of Montaigne and Pascal and anticipates many of the insights of Freud. In "Rasselas," above all, he displays his deepest thinking about the complex forces at work in the human psyche and the endless quest for meaning—indeed for happiness—in human life. It is his masterpiece,

We wish our Jewish friends a sweet New Year -- and well over the fast!