WORLD NEWS TREND

Richard Barrett
October 6, 2008

In early September, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) — the highest court in the European Union — ruled that the EU’s application of UN sanctions against Yasin Qadi and the al-Barakaat International Foundation infringed their basic rights, and declared the action illegal under EU law. Although the judgment applies only to these two parties, the ruling has far-reaching consequences, for not only the EU but also the entire UN system of targeted sanctions. ECJ Ruling
The EU imposed sanctions on Qadi, a Saudi businessman, and al-Barakaat, a money remitter in Sweden, when they appeared on the UN Security Council’s al-Qaeda/Taliban list in October 2001. Although countries must implement Security Council sanctions, they can choose how to do so. EU member states adopted a regulation that automatically applied sanctions to any individual or entity mentioned by the UN. The sanctions include an assets freeze and severe travel restrictions.

The ECJ overturned a lower court ruling that suggested EU member states had little choice but to handle UN designations in this pro forma manner. The ECJ decided that despite their obligations under the UN Charter, EU members could not adopt a regulation that infringed rights integral to EU law. What most concerned the court was that the listed parties were not informed of their wrongdoing and had no opportunity to put their case before an independent review body.

The court neither questioned the right of the Security Council to impose sanctions, nor asked if such action was appropriate. Furthermore, the court gave the EU three months to address the identified problems before the judgment took effect. But whatever the EU does, the court has issued a major challenge to the use of sanctions as an international counterterrorism tool.

Although Qadi and al-Barakaat remain on the UN list, the twenty-seven EU member states will need to find a new way to implement the sanctions against them — in a manner that satisfies the court. If they fail to do so, the UN sanctions regime may collapse.

The UN Regime
The Security Council developed targeted sanctions because blanket sanctions had a far greater impact on the population at large than on the decisionmakers whose behavior it hoped to change. Indeed, the al-Qaeda/Taliban sanctions began in 1999 as a way to stop the Taliban supporting al-Qaeda and to encourage them to hand Osama bin Laden over for trial. It was only after the overthrow of the Taliban that the sanctions became the first Security Council regime to target individuals with no connections to a state — and therefore no voice at the UN. The Security Council recognized that this situation created special problems. In 2006, it devised a system whereby listed individuals could seek a review through a focal point in the UN Secretariat. Since then, the Council has gone further by adopting a resolution this past June that will lead to narrative summaries of the reasons for all listings appearing on its website.

This may not be enough, however, to address all the concerns about the Council’s procedures. Although the regime is intended to be preventative, its impact is widely seen as punitive. As such, many argue that it should observe a satisfactory measure of due-process rules. For the ECJ, the key issues are the adequate notification of the listed parties and the provision of effective judicial review.

Security Council Options
The Security Council could do nothing and leave the problem to member states to resolve, but this is probably not the best option. If the Security Council wants to retain targeted sanctions as a tool against terrorism — or any other threat — it will need to demonstrate to the rest of the international community that its listing procedures involve as much due process as a domestic court might reasonably expect.

Unfortunately, this is not easy. For instance, although the Council could allow individuals and entities more scope to present their cases, it is impossible to imagine it permitting an independent body to overturn its decisions. Furthermore, the Security Council is an intergovernmental body — not part of a judicial system — and any organ that it creates to review its decisions would be regarded similarly. The ECJ clearly expressed its view that no intergovernmental body could carry out an effective review.

A second problem is that much of the information about terrorist groups and individuals is obtained from sensitive sources, and there are few jurisdictions around the world that admit evidence that is not also available to the defendant. If a listing is proposed on the basis of such information, the Council may at present take the assurances of the designating state at face value. In the future, the Security Council will have to consider carefully whether it is worth including a name on the list if it causes states to run the risk of a successful legal challenge. This may lead to the list containing the names of only well-known supporters of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, thereby losing some of its preventative function.

Preserving Targeted Sanctions
The best way forward would be for each Council member, particularly those most likely to face legal challenges, to ensure that every listing meets the standards expected by its domestic courts. The United States already does this by taking proposed listings through a long and detailed examination to ensure that any domestic legal challenge would be likely to fail. The record of success so far suggests that this system works. Other members of the Council may not have access to as much information, but if they are uncertain whether their courts would challenge the case, they can always ask for more information or refuse the listing. The al-Qaeda/Taliban list will never be exhaustive, and even if it becomes more limited, it can still reflect the main components of the terrorist threat and continue its symbolic value as an expression of international condemnation.

Concerns about notification will be largely solved when the reasons for listing appear routinely on the UN website. Coupled with this, states can inform newly listed individuals and entities of the sanctions and their ramifications. Listed parties can then approach national or regional courts, like the ECJ, to ask for a review of the case against them, and the courts can make a decision on the basis of the supplied information.

The debate about the fairness of Council procedures will likely continue, but if challenges regularly fail, overall confidence in the regime will grow. This will lead not only to more-effective implementation, but also to more-enthusiastic engagement; it will revive the sanctions regime and reinvigorate international action against terrorism. There may be an argument for the Council to improve its procedures, but improvement need not involve a fundamental revision of its critically important role in global counterterrorism.

Richard Barrett is coordinator of the UN’s al-Qaeda/Taliban Monitoring Team.

The Venezuelan foreign minister, who is currently in Iran, has held meeting with Iranian President Ahmadi-Nejad, Foreign Minister Mottaki, Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili, who also serves as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, and the Iranian minister of industry and mines. During his meeting with the Venezuelan official, Ahmadi-Nejad spoke about the “ever-increasing waves of anti-Imperialism around the world” and said that Iran and Venezuela could serve as a model for dealing with the new anti-Imperialist reality that is emerging for the good of the nations of the world. The Iranian president added that the collapse of the world economy’s management systems had given rise to the need for new mechanisms that many countries would join. In his meeting with the Venezuelan minister, Jalili said that Iran and Venezuela were two powers that influenced developments in their respective regions and could play a leading role in achieving peace and stability around the world. In a press conference with his visiting counterpart, Mottaki again stressed that Iran would continue to enrich uranium in light of the “false promises,” including those made by Germany, to supply Iran with nuclear fuel for the production of 1,000 megawatts of electricity. Mottaki added that Iran would even expand its enrichment program so that it could provide electricity to other countries too. The meeting between the Venezuelan minister and the Iranian minister of industry and mines led to an agreement to establish a special committee to deal with the obstacles in the way of forwarding joint economic projects between the two countries. The parties also announced that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez would again be visiting Iran during the course of the coming months.

2. Responding to statements made by the French foreign minister, Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, said Sunday that as long as there was no legal and binding mechanism in place to ensure the regular supply of nuclear fuel to Iran, Iran would continue to enrich uranium independently. Soltanieh appeared to hint that if such a mechanism were to be guaranteed, Iran may reconsider its current position on the matter. He clarified, nevertheless, that at present, the untrustworthy behavior of the Western states left Iran with no choice but to rely only on itself with respect to the enrichment of uranium. According to the Iranian official, there is no technical, legal or political reason to suspend the enrichment operations, “and even if a number of countries wish to establish a [nuclear] power station in Iraq to make up for the mistakes of the past, this will not lead to confidence building.” Commenting on the summary statement released by the IAEA’s Economics Committee, Soltanieh said that “Israel constitutes a serious and ongoing threat to the security of its neighbors and other countries,” and also criticized the “disgraceful silence” of the United States and the other countries that support Israel. Today, the Majlis’ National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee is expected to hold a session on the latest developments in the Iranian nuclear program. Senior Iranian personnel involved in the program will also participate in the panel’s discussions.

3. According to the chairman of the Majlis’ National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee, a French parliamentary delegation, including two committee deputy chairmen and a member of the French Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, will be visiting Iran in the near future.

4. According to Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who led last Friday’s prayers in Tehran, Iran’s position on Israel is the one presented by Ahmadi-Nejad in his recent address to the UN General Assembly, and all Iran’s ambassadors and representatives wherever they may be should feel free to express the same viewpoint (which rejects the existence of the State of Israel). Jannati also responded to Israeli President Shimon Peres’ statement that Iran’s economy should be targeted, commenting that such an attitude was global policy. “We are happy about the economic crisis in the United States,” the Ayatollah also said. “It is getting the punishment it deserves for all the bad things it has done. It is divine punishment.” Jannati added: One of the foreign ambassadors in Iran is trying to create an economic crisis. I will not name him, but I have chosen to comment on the matter so that he knows he and his intentions have been exposed.” Jannati also commented on the message Ismail Haniyah, the Hamas leader in Gaza, conveyed to the Iranian people; in his message, Haniyah blessed the Iranian leaders and people for their unique contribution to the Palestinian cause.

5. Sheikh Jasam Alsa’idi, deputy head of the Bahraini parliament’s Constitution and Law Committee, has harshly criticized what he defined as Iranian President Ahmadi-Nejad’s contradictory and erratic positions on the issue of recognizing Israel, charging that they also demonstrate Iran’s dangerous standpoints vis-à-vis the Arab-Muslim world. According to Alsa’idi, Ahmadi-Nejad speaks about his desire to wipe Israel off the map one day, and then gives and interview to a U.S. newspaper and says he is willing to accept a two-state solution. The Bahraini parliamentarian was commenting on an interview the Iranian president gave to the New York Daily News and during which he was asked what Iran’s position would be in the event the Palestinians agreed to a two-state solution. “Whatever the people decide, we will respect it,” Ahmadi-Nejad replied at the time. “If they [the Palestinians] want to keep the Zionists, they can stay.”

6. More tension appears to be brewing between Iran and Egypt after a ceremony at Tehran University saw the screening of the second half of the documentary film, “34 Bullets for Pharaoh,” which portrays the presidential era of former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, his visit to Israel, the signing of the Camp David agreement and his assassination. The film glorifies Sadat’s assassin, Khalid al-Istambuli, who is commemorated in Iran in various forms. The first half of the documentary sparked a fierce reaction in Egypt, which countered with a documentary of its own entitled “The Imam of Blood.”

7. An Iranian group of hackers known as “Y! Underground” claims to have attacked some 400 Arab websites in the United Arab Emirates. The group has posted the names of the UAE websites targeted on its website.

8. The Reformist Etemad daily reports that the Majlis has given Iranian President Ahmadi-Nejad another week to fire his interior minister, Ali Kordan, in light of the forged doctorate affair. Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, however, has come to the defense of Kordan, claiming that elements outside Iran are responsible for the uproar over the matter, which is intended to harm the government. But the Conservative-affiliated Kayhan daily, for its part, slammed the IRNA report, defining it as “contrived to order and unprofessional.” Meanwhile, rumors have it that the commander of Iran’s Internal Security Forces, Sardar Ahmadi Moghadam, may be appointed to replace Kordan. Moghadam, however, has denied the hearsay, commenting: “Due to the sensitive nature of my position, under the current circumstances, I will not be offered such a position; and even if it was offered to me, I would not accept it.”

9. Morteza Tamadon has been appointed governor of the Tehran Province. Tamadon served in the past as a Majlis member.

10. Mehdi Mir Abu-Talebi will replace Ali Ahani as Iranian ambassador to France. Abu-Talebi served in the past as deputy governor of the Khorasan Province for political affairs, charge d’affaires at the Iranian Embassy in Paris, Iranian ambassador to Turkmenistan, and director-general of the southern Pars oil field.

1. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has granted extensive executive powers to Safavi, his senior advisor on the armed forces and former commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. According to Safavi, who has been appointed senior aide to the Iranian chief of staff, Khamenei and the chief of staff have entrusted him with 11 missions and tasks that are not related to the routine duties and fields of responsibility of the IRGC, the army and the armed forces. Safavi said that for the purpose of fulfilling his duties, he had suggested a certain organizational structure to Khamenei and that he was working in keeping with this structure. Iranian Opposition websites, meanwhile, are discussing the possible nature of Safavi’s new duties, suggesting that they could be related to the nuclear field, or something else entirely, and that Safavi may be “the designated one,” who will step into Ahmadi-Nejad’s shoes (see Picture of the Day). Safavi’s appointment in itself, which essentially places the regular army under the authority of the commander of the IRGC, may be further evidence of a further erosion in the status of the army and the IRGC’s takeover of the Iranian armed forces. The IRGC was recently entrusted with the security of the sensitive Persian Gulf area.

2. According to an announcement by the commander of the Iranian Army’s Naval Corps, the corps will be conducting training maneuvers in the near future, and will also be receiving new weapons systems and equipment. The commander also commented on the sharing of responsibilities between the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is entrusted with the security of the Persian Gulf, and the army, which oversees security in the Gulf of Oman and the Caspian Sea, noting: “In Iran, the army and the IRGC operate in parallel, and we share the realms of responsibility. The same holds true in the naval arena.”

3. During a discussion on an Internet military forum dealing with the Iranian Army, and on the backdrop of reports about the sale of Russian Kamov helicopters to Iran, some forum members questioned whether such aircraft were suited to the Iranian climate. Others said that if the helicopters in question were the Ka-50s, then they were good aircraft that Iran had been looking to purchase for a number of years now. They would have to be equipped with modern weapons systems in order to boost the armed forces’ defensive capabilities, these forum members added. The possibility that Iran may also purchase 100 medium-sized passenger planes, TU-204s, from Russia was also discussed.

4. Under orders from the Internal Security Forces, the Majlis Guard is preventing reporters from visiting the Internal Security Forces exhibition at the Majlis’ Exhibition Center. Only Majlis members are being allowed into the exhibition. On display are the works and achievements of the Internal Security Forces.

5. Military service in Iran has been reduced by two months, with youths now required to serve 20 months in the army – provided the country is not at war or under a state of emergency.

6. The Sunni resistance organization, Jondallah, has announced that it has executed the four remaining Iranian soldiers it was holding, such that all 16 soldiers abducted by the group several months ago are no longer alive. Note, senior Iranian officials admitted for the first time only yesterday that in all likelihood, some of the hostages had been killed.

7.

1. The deputy CEO of marketing and trade of Austrian gas company OMV, who is participating in the 2nd International Conference on Iranian Gas Exports, has commented on the importance of Iranian natural gas, noting that Iran will play a significant role in the supply of gas to Europe. According to the OMV executive, Iran is considered one of the world’s largest gas producers, behind Russia and Canada, and in light of its extensive gas reserves in the Persian Gulf, Iran will be able to supply Europe with the gas it needs over the coming years. In the same context, the director of planning at the National Iranian Gas Company has announced that within four years, Iran gas-production capabilities will double to reach 274 billion cubic meters a year.

2. A delegation headed by the director-general of the National Iranian Oil Company has gone to China to sum up talks on technical cooperation between the countries in the development of Iranian gas fields. The sides also aim to finalize China’s participation in the southern Pars gas field project.

3. Former Iranian economics minister Danesh Jafari has commented on the dismissal of former Central Bank director-general Mazaheri, saying: “If the relationship between the government and the Central Bank is not properly defined, we will again witness the replacement of the director-general.” According to Jafari, one of the main reasons for the conflicts between the government and the Central Bank is the government’s desire to implement numerous projects and programs that require funding and the Central Bank’s inability to provide the government with such extensive financial resources.

4. Businesses in the large market in Esfahan have been on strike now for two days in the wake of the 3-percent hike in VAT. The businesses claim that consumers will refuse to pay the extra VAT and the vendors therefore will have to raise the prices of their goods, thereby affecting the consumers’ purchasing power.

5. The harsh winter that Iran suffered last year has severely affected the country’s pomegranate crop yield, with the price of the fruit in the markets expected to rise sharply.

6. According to Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari, an oil price of less than $100 per barrel “is not suitable for anybody, neither oil producers nor consumers.” Speaking in the same context, economist Said Lilaz said that under the current circumstances, the drop in oil prices would severely damage the Iranian economy, which replies primarily on oil revenues.

7. The head of the Iranian Central Bank’s Foreign Currency Affairs Department has announced the granting of special terms and conditions to foreign investors. The department head also said that the Export Development bank of Iran would also be offering special aid and terms.

8. The Military Financial Institution’s first branch opened yesterday, with the Iranian deputy chief of staff in attendance. The institution will serve to improve the standard of living and welfare of military employees, and from now on, the army’s budget and funds will be deposited in the institution instead of other banks.

9. During a meeting yesterday between oil experts and senior officials from Iran and Kyrgyzstan, Iran expressed willingness to invest in oil fields in Kyrgyzstan. The parties also discussed the renewal of the transportation of Kyrgyz oil through Iranian territory.

1. During Eid al-Fitr prayers at his home, senior Ayatollah Montazeri expressed harsh criticism of what he defined as the contradiction between the words and deeds of the regime’s leaders. Commenting on Ahmadi-Nejad’s statement during his address to the UN General Assembly that “there is more freedom in Iran than anywhere else in the world,” Montazeri asked: “Why do the slogans of the leaders fail to correspond to what is happening on the ground in Iran? On the one hand, he [Ahmadi-Nejad] sees the country as the freest country in the world; and on the other hand, he denies citizens basic and legal rights and freedom.” The Ayatollah accused senior elements of failing to speak up in the face of the actions of the government, defining their silence as a sin.

2. In a meeting with members of the council of Friday prayer session leaders, the chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council, Hashemi Rafsanjani, spoke of the need to boost the levels of knowledge and education of the Friday prayer session leaders so as to encourage more public participation. Rafsanjani said that the words of the prayer leaders received extensive media exposure both inside Iran and abroad, and stressed that the prayer leaders must therefore be well-versed in the political, cultural and diplomatic fields.

3. Another minor is executed in Iran: Thursday morning saw the execution in Iran of 20-year-old Mohammad Reza Hadadi, who was 15 at the time of his crime and had since been held in the Adel Abad prison in Shiraz.

4. Some 200 students demonstrated yesterday outside Tehran University in protest against the early retirement forced on 21 of the institution’s senior lecturers.

5. Fourteen Tehran University students who were suspended from their studies after taking part in political activities at the institution gathered yesterday outside the Majlis to urge parliamentary representatives to take up their case. Within minutes, security forces arrested the students, transported them away from the Majlis and then released them. According to the students, the security forces used tear gas to disperse them.

6. According to reports from human rights activists, five Alawists who are being held prisoner at the central jail in Aromiya are in serious physical condition after being on hunger strike for the past 10 days. The five have been in jail for a number of years on convictions of anti-regime activity.

7. According to an announcement from the Tehran Teachers Union, security forces yesterday, International Teachers Day, arrested four teachers whose current whereabouts and condition remain unknown.

8. Due to communications problems in Iran over the past few days, Internet users in the country have had trouble accessing the Yahoo servers, including the company’s mail and instant messaging services. According to the Alef website, the relevant officials at the communications company are not willing to provide satisfactory explanations for the problems.

9. After three weeks in detention, Azeri activists have made contact with their families for the first time, informing them that they are being held in the Evin prison’s Wing 209, which comes under the authority of the Intelligence Ministry.

10. Khaled Hrdani, the Arab minority security prisoner who was slapped in the past with a death sentence, has now been accused of political activity against the regime and has been sentenced to seven years in jail in exile. In a telephone call from prison, Hrdani said that due to his activity in prison and his call on international organizations to visit and inspect Iran’s jails, the authorities were trying to frame him.

11. For the first time since his arrest some three months ago, Kurdish journalist Kamal Sharifi spoke over the telephone yesterday with his family, informing them of his grave physical condition.

Aaron I. Reichel, Esq. CFP Sunday, October 5, 2008

I find it most frustrating that Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin, and most of their surrogates and ad writers, have failed to put forth many of their strongest and most persuasive arguments most of the time. Were they to only set forth their strongest arguments, they would easily turn the campaign around. I offer the following points which I hope readers will be able to bring to the attention of the Republican leadership, or at least to the attention of their own friends, relatives, colleagues, and other acquaintances. How to Rebut Obama on Taxes

First and foremost, I respectfully believe that the response to Obama’s claim to advocate lowering the taxes of 95% of the people should NOT continue to be met with the simple response that he stands for raising taxes or even that his past record shows that he does NOT stand for lowering the taxes of 95% of the electorate. Rather, what Republicans must point out, I respectfully believe, is that when Obama says he will lower taxes for 95% of the people, he will NOT really be reducing what they have to pay because:

At the same time, Obama will tax rich people and companies , but if pressed to the wall, the rich people will just move their primary homes and money out of the country (to the extent they haven’t done so already) where none of their money (or much less of it) will be taxed at all, so that the 5% of the people that Obama claims to want to tax will only be paying less than what they are paying now, if anything.

Obama will tax companies that will

(1) pass off their tax increases to consumers by charging more money for everything, so that they (the companies) can pay the higher taxes,
(2) many companies will have to close down because they won’t be able to afford the higher taxes, causing all their workers to lose their jobs,
(3) many companies will move out of the country, causing all their American workers to lose their jobs.

So the result will be much less money in taxes collected by the federal government, but the federal government will then have to pay welfare, health care, and other entitlements to all the workers who will have lost their jobs, so the government will have to raise taxes even more, whether from the 95% or the 5%, or from both.

Plus many people won’t be able to pay their mortgages, making the current economic crisis even worse than it is now.

Obama wants to pay huge health-care costs, for free, to millions of illegal immigrants and to millions of Americans now too lazy to work or unwilling to work at the low-paying jobs that are available. Where will Obama get the money to do this? Which leads us to the next critical topic:
How to Respond to Obama on Multi-Billion Dollar Bailout

To blame President Bush alone is absurd; to point out that many parties from both political parties are responsible for the economic fiasco is fair; to point out the involvement of the Democrats is necessary. The mainstream media are simply covering up or ignoring the facts that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac were instituted and bloated by Democrats, first under Jimmy Carter and then under Bill Clinton. Financial institutions were pressured by government agencies into lending money to people who couldn’t afford to pay back the loans if conditions would change, or be branded as racist or red-liners. The ties of many financiers who were at fault, to Barack Obama, were strong. McCain was among the politicians who blew the whistle long ago, warning of the need for regulation; Barney Frank is on tape asserting, fairly recently, that Fanny and Freddy were basically sound; the economy began to collapse only during the past two years, when the Democrats took control of Congress. Chris Dodd tried to funnel 20% of the profits from the bailout into the Housing Trust Fund that Democrats have used to fund political action groups like ACORN, which Obama had represented in the past as an attorney.

How to Respond to Obama on Health Care

On the surface, free health care for everyone sounds very appealing, especially to Americans who don’t work for a living and who are here illegally. But even those of us who happen to be citizens in good standing and who DO work for a living should be told that there are some fundamental problems with the concept of free health care for all the people who reside in America:

1) It would bankrupt our country even more than it is already bankrupted;
2) It cannot be implemented without ruining the greatest health care system in the world;
3) There are reasons why people come from all over the world to the United States for treatment in the best hospitals with the best doctors, benefiting from the best research.
4) Were everything to be “free,” the health care would be available in theory but not in practice; we would have to wait months or years for treatment, because we simply do not have enough doctors and facilities to treat every American resident (including illegal aliens and legal welfare slackers) for every hiccup and sore throat, not to mention the tests that are needed for proper diagnosis of every ailment and potential ailment that every American resident would demand. It is said that “justice delayed is justice denied.”

The same applies to health care. Delaying operations that are needed immediately will not just inconvenience the recipients, but will cause many of them to die or suffer irreparable setbacks before they will be able to be treated.
How to Respond to Obama on Iraq

Had the United States followed Obama’s prescription for surrender when he said we should have pulled out of Iraq long before the surge took place, we would have lost the war, and set a precedent of failure so that Al Quaeda and other terrorist entities would have been emboldened and enabled to take over Iraq and every other country the United States needs as an ally and an oil supplier. Were this to have happened, the United States would have been unable to import any oil, and would have become a third rate country in short order, completely unable to implement any other part of the agenda of Obama or any other candidate. Because our generals in Iraq did not heed Obama’s call for surrender, America and the Iraqi government are now winning the peace, so that our troops will be able to return to America with honor and victory.

As to sending troops into harm’s way, nobody can be more sensitive to the significance of such actions than a national hero who was tortured for years as a prisoner of war and then gave up an opportunity to leave because he felt duty-bound to honor his commitment to America and to the prisoners who preceded him.

How to Respond to Obama on Off Shore Drilling and Anwar

The off shore and Anwar drilling proposals are not instead of alternate energy but in addition to it, as a bridge not to nowhere but to the time when we will have enough alternative means of energy to sustain our economy. Speaking of bridges, the “Bridge to Nowhere” has gotten a lot of press. But the pipeline that already exists in Anwar leads directly a good part of the distance from the oil fields to the locations from which the oil can be shipped to the other states in our union, so the estimates of 10 to 20 years to reach their destinations are far in excess of the time that will be needed. Some experts have estimated close to 3 years for the additional oil to start flowing. And of course, let us not forget that Clinton’s veto of off shore drilling on the basis that it would take 10 years for the oil to reach its destinations took place more than 10 years ago. You can fill in the blanks—and the barrels of oil. Allowing off shore drilling only 50 miles out, as cynically proposed by the Democrats, is absurd, in light of the waste of time and resources it would require and in light of the modern technology enabling drilling to be much closer to shore without danger of significant leakage. It has even been pointed out that there is natural leakage of oil from the ocean floor, and were we to set up drills in these locations, we could actually REDUCE oil leakage into the ocean. Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of off shore drilling is that not only wouldn’t it necessarily take a decade or more to have a positive effect, but it could have a positive effect almost immediately since if the oil producers in the Middle East would realize that we are serious about drilling locally and thereby lowering the price of oil and possibly reducing or eliminating future orders for Mideast oil, the Middle East producers would increase their production to lower the prices so that we in America will no longer have the incentive to drill locally!

How to Respond on the Issue of Palin’s Experience

Governor Palin arguably had more traditional significant executive experience after her first day as governor than the other major candidates combined, and she has been the chair of INTERSTATE energy entities despite her youthfulness and lack of seniority, and has had some dealings with Canada as well. What does Biden have to show for his seniority besides the chairmanship of a Congressional committee on foreign affairs, based on how many years he served with old timers of the past, many of them now dead and forgotten. He was against the first Iraq war, which most of our Congress people and allies supported, and then FOR the second Iraq war, which Obama and many other Democrats opposed. Biden has made more gaffes per month on the campaign trail than all the other candidates combined; not just cumulatively; so his experience does not exactly stand him in good stead. Nor does his experience as a plagiarist which contributed to his pulling out of an earlier campaign. He has experience accumulating the confidence of less than 1% of the electorate in the first presidential caucuses this year, and an even more negligible percentage after that; he has conceded he was not the best person for the job. As for Obama, since most of his time in the Senate has been spent campaigning and shaking people’s hands rather than shaking up Washington, his experience represents under-achievement in the Senate, whereas Governor Palin by all accounts has been a high achiever as governor, with the highest approval rate of any governor, junior or senior, man or woman. This also indicates she wasn’t chosen merely because of her gender or as a gimmick, but rather because she is a conservative maverick with a great track record; the fact that she happens to be a woman is a plus rather than a primary or only reason for being selected for a place on the ticket.

Above all, those who believe that Palin’s alleged lack of experience is a drawback have to concede that Obama has a dearth of traditional experience as well, but the difference is that Palin can afford to learn on the job as vice president, but Obama, and all of America, can’t afford to have a president who has to learn on the job as of Day One. Biden himself, and Hillary, have noted that Obama will not have the necessary experience on Day One. Pollsters have been asking whether Palin is ready to serve as president NOW. What they SHOULD be asking is whether Governor Palin, a proven “quick study,” will be ready to serve as Vice President as of January of 2009. Other governors such as Clinton and Reagan vaulted directly into the presidency after only serving as governor. Palin will be more experienced than they were—in terms of experience that matters — if she will ever become president because she will first have served as a vice-president with on-the-job training in the White House itself.

How to Respond to Those Who Say Aye to Ayers

The mainstream press has been echoing Obama in ridiculing the claim that Obama has or had ties to anti-American terrorists such as William Ayers. They point out that Obama was just a boy when Ayers was a terrorist, and that Obama has condemned the terrorism against the United States. What the press fails to point out is that:

(1) as recently as in 2001, Ayers went on record that his only regret was that he didn’t cause more damage in his terrorism; (2) Obama was on not one but two Boards together with Ayers, and not as mere members of a huge Board but as co-leaders of these Boards;

(3) Purportedly, they remain friends despite Obama’s suddenly announced differences about Ayers’ terrorist acts, and, above all,

(4) as pointed out by Stanley Kurtz in the Wall Street Journal (Sept. 23, 2008, as posted on the Internet, based on documents in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois), Obama launched his first run for the Illinois State Senate at a gathering in Ayers’ house; from 1995 to 1999, Obama was the first Chairman of the Board of a radical education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), which was the brainchild of Ayers, who co-chaired the the foundation’s other key body, the “Collaborative,” which shaped education policy. Obama and Ayers weaved a web of “external partners” like the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or Acorn, referred to in the discussion of the bailout scandal, above, as a proposed recipient of funds indirectly), the South Shore African Village Collaborative, and the Dual Language Exchange, the latter two of which focused more on political consciousness, Afrocentricity and bilingualism than traditional education. “CAC’s in-house evaluators comprehensively studied the effects of its grants on the test scores of Chicago public-school students. They found no evidence of educational improvement.”

According to Kurtz, The Daley documents show that Ayers was a member of the board that Obama chaired through the CAC’s first year. He also served on the board’s governance committee wit h Obama, and worked with him to craft CAC bylaws. Mr. Ayers made presentations to board meetings chaired by Obama. Ayers spoke for the Collaborative before the board. I agree that Palin was wrong in merely saying that Obama “palled around” with Ayers and his cohorts; she was “guilty” of understatement. As Kurtz concluded his article: “This is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago.

How to Respond to Those Who Say Obama Was Wrong about Reverend Wright

Obama gave a few conflicting excuses about Reverend Wright and Obama’s relationship to him, but Obama’s final excuse, that he didn’t know what Wright stood for despite sitting in his pew for 20 years indicates that Obama, unlike Palin, is a pathologically slow learner, at best. Obama’s record of 100 votes of “present” rather than “aye” or “nay” likewise is unacceptable for a person who might have to press the button for a nuclear attack on a moment’s notice.

How to Respond to This Article

The best response to this article will be to bring it to the attention of Republicans in high places, immediately if not sooner, as well as people of all parties in all walks of life. The life of our great country as we know it is on the line—a life line. Every responsible American should do what he or she can to keep the reins of power away from a person who, if elected, even if he has the best of intentions (which is subject to doubt) will change the United States of America into a really bankrupt third rate country, and will take liberty away from every inhabitant of the land of the free and the home of the brave

Ted Belman

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=76936

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

An expert on terrorism is warning the United States should be fighting Islamization, which she believes already is under way. And author Brigitte Gabriel should know: She watched it happen in her native Lebanon. “Lebanon used to be the only majority Christian country in the Middle East,” Gabriel told radio talk show host Andrea Shea King in a recent hour-long interview. “Most people today do not know that. We were the majority, the Muslims were the minority, but as the years went by, the Muslims became the majority because of their birth rate, but also because of our open-border policy.

“We welcomed everyone into our country,” Gabriel said, and people didn’t realize that the “minority,” the Muslims in the society, “was not tolerant” and “did not believe all people were equal.”

“They tried to impose their way of thinking on us, and they succeeded,” she said.

The result, Gabriel said, was that a radical terrorist organization tied to Islam, Hezbollah, now rules in Lebanon.

As WND reported, Gabriel is fearful that terrorists believe now is the time to strike at America, while it is distracted by financial tension and election turmoil. She expressed the concerns during an interview with KSFO’s Barbara Simpson, when she also discussed her new book, “They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It.”

Gabriel’s new interview with King is available on BlogTalkRadio.

She noted it’s been seven years since the Sept. 11, 2001, act of war on U.S. soil by Islamists, but America is falling to Islam’s attack, and the battle already is far advanced.

“They do not need to fire a single bullet to destroy us,” she said. “They are taking over our country culturally, just like they have taken over Europe.”

She said Islam is being taught across the U.S. as part of world history courses for seventh graders.

“A three-week course is teaching students to memorize and recite Islamic prayers and verses from the Quran,” she said. “Students have to adopt Islamic names, fast for a day to experience Ramadan, the holiest of Islamic religious holidays, and write about their experience as a Muslim at the end of the program. The exercises during the class include encouraging students to incorporate Arabic phrases such as Allahu Akbar in their speeches, and for students to imagine they were meeting disciples on a pilgrimage to Mecca. This is a state-approved curriculum, using state-adopted textbooks that have been part of the instructional program in California for over a decade.”

WND reported this week that a new study shows U.S. textbooks provide “information” such as that Jesus was a Palestinian and the nation of Israel imposes terrorism on others but is not a victim a terrorism.

“Now it is being rolled out nationwide. One book I discuss in particular is ‘Across the Centuries,’ published by Houghton Mifflin. The Muslim Council on Education has been busy working with the State Department of Education and America’s top three publishers who …are literally rewriting history,” Gabriel said.

“‘Across the Centuries’ is a staple in the State of California. This textbook is at best, a well of misinformation. It is 558 pages long and covers the 1500 years from the fall of the Roman Empire and the French Revolution. The text includes 55 pages devoted to Islam, seven pages noting the Middle Ages in Europe, and six pages of Christian history. The chapter on the Byzantine Empire received only six pages. The chapter on Islam accounts for 10 percent of the text, while Christianity and Judaism are almost entirely absent,” she said.

“This is public education approved by the State Board of Education nationwide! Our students are being indoctrinated into Islam in our public schools and we don’t even have a clue! How can this be allowed to be taught in public schools in America? Most people do not know about it because it is flying under the radar!” she said.

At the university level it’s worse, she said.

“What’s been happening for the last 16 years, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states … because of the money coming from the oil, they have been pumping millions of dollars into our universities appointing Arab professors who are anti-American, anti-Israel, who have been basically brain-washing our students into believe we are the problem,” she said.

“The children, who have been educated in American universities for the last 16 years, have graduated and are now working … not influenced … by our patriotic education as Americans, but they have been influenced by Arab thinking … [and] hatred based on revenge,” she said.

“The writing is on the wall. Who would have thought that Shariah would come to Harvard University with regulated women-only gym hours? That an imam in Des Moines, Iowa, gave an opening prayer at the 2007 Iowa Legislature’s opening session in which he called on Allah to give victory over those who disbelieve? Muslim taxi drivers in Minnesota who refuse to pick up passengers carrying alcohol? The first Islamic public school, the Kahlil Gibran Academy, that opened in 2007, funded by tax dollars! American colleges designating Islamic prayer rooms on campus for use by Muslims only!” Gabriel said.

“Those of us who come from the Middle East and see what’s happening in the U.S. … shake our heads in amazement,” she said, calling her book a warning. “We are coming up to a very important election. This is the time we need to understand what is at stake, why our voice counts, why we need to go out and vote. This is the time to make a difference before it is too late,” she said.

She said that’s why besides her book, she’s launched the ActForAmerica.org website.

“We launched this out of American Congress for Truth as our activism and political lobbying arm because I realized talking by itself is only wasting hot air and is entertainment. Action is the only way that’s going to make a difference,” she said. “History reveals that the apathetic give way to the passionate, the complacent are subdued by the committed. ACT for America.org is mobilizing people all over the country and giving them the tools to resist the Islamic infiltration in our society on every level: schools, governments, universities and corporations.

“Our work is vital in educating the American public about what is happening behind the scenes,” she said.

“I encourage people to go to our website Act for America.org. I know we have citizen action training seminars coming up in Kansas City and in Indianapolis within the next two weeks. Sign up and attend them if you are in those areas. And check where we have chapters across the country and either join a chapter, or if there’s no chapter in your community, sign up to lead one. Organized power at the grass roots level trumps the voices of political correctness,” Gabriel said.

“The radical Islamists promised to destroy us, and as you know from the recent war in Lebanon, that country is now nearly Islamic,” she said.

The result, Gabriel said, was that a radical terrorist organization tied to Islam, Hezbollah, now rules in Lebanon.

As WND reported, Gabriel is fearful that terrorists believe now is the time to strike at America, while it is distracted by financial tension and election turmoil. She expressed the concerns during an interview with KSFO’s Barbara Simpson, when she also discussed her new book, “They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It

Gabriel’s new interview with King is available on BlogTalkRadio.

(Story continues below)

She noted it’s been seven years since the Sept. 11, 2001, act of war on U.S. soil by Islamists, but America is falling to Islam’s attack, and the battle already is far advanced.

“They do not need to fire a single bullet to destroy us,” she said. “They are taking over our country culturally, just like they have taken over Europe.”

She said Islam is being taught across the U.S. as part of world history courses for seventh graders.

“A three-week course is teaching students to memorize and recite Islamic prayers and verses from the Quran,” she said. “Students have to adopt Islamic names, fast for a day to experience Ramadan, the holiest of Islamic religious holidays, and write about their experience as a Muslim at the end of the program. The exercises during the class include encouraging students to incorporate Arabic phrases such as Allahu Akbar in their speeches, and for students to imagine they were meeting disciples on a pilgrimage to Mecca. This is a state-approved curriculum, using state-adopted textbooks that have been part of the instructional program in California for over a decade.”

WND reported this week that a new study shows U.S. textbooks provide “information” such as that Jesus was a Palestinian and the nation of Israel imposes terrorism on others but is not a victim a terrorism.

“Now it is being rolled out nationwide. One book I discuss in particular is ‘Across the Centuries,’ published by Houghton Mifflin. The Muslim Council on Education has been busy working with the State Department of Education and America’s top three publishers who …are literally rewriting history,” Gabriel said.

“‘Across the Centuries’ is a staple in the State of California. This textbook is at best, a well of misinformation. It is 558 pages long and covers the 1500 years from the fall of the Roman Empire and the French Revolution. The text includes 55 pages devoted to Islam, seven pages noting the Middle Ages in Europe, and six pages of Christian history. The chapter on the Byzantine Empire received only six pages. The chapter on Islam accounts for 10 percent of the text, while Christianity and Judaism are almost entirely absent,” she said.

“This is public education approved by the State Board of Education nationwide! Our students are being indoctrinated into Islam in our public schools and we don’t even have a clue! How can this be allowed to be taught in public schools in America? Most people do not know about it because it is flying under the radar!” she said.

At the university level it’s worse, she said.

“What’s been happening for the last 16 years, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states … because of the money coming from the oil, they have been pumping millions of dollars into our universities appointing Arab professors who are anti-American, anti-Israel, who have been basically brain-washing our students into believe we are the problem,” she said.

“The children, who have been educated in American universities for the last 16 years, have graduated and are now working … not influenced … by our patriotic education as Americans, but they have been influenced by Arab thinking … [and] hatred based on revenge,” she said.

“The writing is on the wall. Who would have thought that Shariah would come to Harvard University with regulated women-only gym hours? That an imam in Des Moines, Iowa, gave an opening prayer at the 2007 Iowa Legislature’s opening session in which he called on Allah to give victory over those who disbelieve? Muslim taxi drivers in Minnesota who refuse to pick up passengers carrying alcohol? The first Islamic public school, the Kahlil Gibran Academy, that opened in 2007, funded by tax dollars! American colleges designating Islamic prayer rooms on campus for use by Muslims only!” Gabriel said.

“Those of us who come from the Middle East and see what’s happening in the U.S. … shake our heads in amazement,” she said, calling her book a warning. “We are coming up to a very important election. This is the time we need to understand what is at stake, why our voice counts, why we need to go out and vote. This is the time to make a difference before it is too late,” she said.

She said that’s why besides her book, she’s launched the ActForAmerica.org website.

“We launched this out of American Congress for Truth as our activism and political lobbying arm because I realized talking by itself is only wasting hot air and is entertainment. Action is the only way that’s going to make a difference,” she said. “History reveals that the apathetic give way to the passionate, the complacent are subdued by the committed. ACT for America.org is mobilizing people all over the country and giving them the tools to resist the Islamic infiltration in our society on every level: schools, governments, universities and corporations.

“Our work is vital in educating the American public about what is happening behind the scenes,” she said.

“I encourage people to go to our website Act for America.org. I know we have citizen action training seminars coming up in Kansas City and in Indianapolis within the next two weeks. Sign up and attend them if you are in those areas. And check where we have chapters across the country and either join a chapter, or if there’s no chapter in your community, sign up to lead one. Organized power at the grass roots level trumps the voices of political correctness,” Gabriel said.

“The radical Islamists promised to destroy us, and as you know from the recent war in Lebanon, that country is now nearly Islamic,” she said.

“We are not waiting for this phenomenon to occur here in the war against Islamofascism. We are not simply hoping for spontaneous grassroots eruptions that may or may not come. We are making it occur by organizing grassroots chapters and supporters across America. We will force elected representatives to choose. To align themselves with the grassroots voices of America or the voice of political correctness.”

Gabriel was born and raised in Lebanon. When she was 10, her home was bombed by radical Islamists. She spent two and a half months in a hospital with injuries, and then she survived with her parents for seven years hidden in an underground bomb shelter, subsisting without electricity or heat on a meager diet of rice, lentils and tufts of grass that grew outside the shelter. She crawled beneath sniper fire for sips of water from a nearby ditch.

Those who have lived through such experiences are horrified at Americans’ attitudes, she said.

“I have two guests staying with me, also from Lebanon, who ran to Israel for their lives when Israel withdrew out of Lebanon. And this is their first trip to America. I took them to New York and to Washington, D.C., last week and we were walking around and they were stunned at the gullibility of Americans. I took them to an air show this past week and they saw Muslims in our military. They looked at me in utter shock and said, ‘Do Americans know these same Muslims would turn their guns against their fellow Americans, military men and women in the same tents, and kill them in the name of Islam? What is America thinking?’” Gabriel said.

“We are not only fighting a military jihad, we are fighting a cultural jihad and we need to wake up. We are as much at war with the cultural jihad as we are with the military jihad,” Gabriel said.

“Islam is coming to America while we are asleep at the wheel and only focusing on al-Qaida attacking us militarily. The Muslims are taking us over culturally and remember, they don’t even have to fire one bullet,” she said.

Gabriel’s book, according to “American Jihad” author Steve Emerson, is “riveting, compelling and spellbinding. This is a must read for the entire American public.”

“A compelling and captivating personal story with a powerful lesson about threats to freedom in our time,” said R. James Woolsey, director of Central Intelligence from 1993-1995.

“There is a threat. We must do something about it. We must stop them,” Gabriel said.

Earlier, in an interview with WND columnist Larry Elder published in two parts, “Because they hate,” and “Because they hate, part 2,” Gabriel said al-Qaida already is inside the U.S., as is Hezbollah.

“We estimate thousands have already been smuggled into America. … Hamas is here. … They have cells in over 40 states. … We also need to reform our immigration and visa programs. We need to monitor who is coming into our country and why. … We need to increase human intelligence. … I want everyone who fits the terrorist profile to be profiled. We have men between the ages of 16 and 40 who have committed terrorist acts around the world in the name of Islam. They are not little old ladies from Ohio with blue hair. They are not children going to Disney World on their Easter vacation,” she said.

Elder asked: “What happens if a Democrat wins the 2008 election?”

“We are doomed. Our enemies want the Democrats to win. This last election, jihadist websites were playing victory songs and declaring the Democrats are our allies in the war against America,” she said.

Victor Davis Hanson
The Washington Times | 10/6/2008
Ancient thinkers from Thucydides to Cicero insisted money was the real source of military power and national influence. We have been reminded of that classical wisdom these last three weeks. In a manner not seen since the Great Depression, Wall Street went into panic mode from too many bad debts. The symbolic pillars of American monetary strength for years - AIG, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Shearson-Lehman and Washington Mutual - in a matter of hours either went broke, were absorbed or were reconstituted. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed like the house of cards they were.

Even though the U.S. government rushed to restore trust, hundreds of billions of dollars in paper assets simply vanished. Friends and enemies abroad were unsure whether the irregular American heartbeat was a major coronary or a mere cardiac murmur. How strong really was the world’s greatest economy? Was this panic the tab for years of borrowing abroad for out-of-control consumer spending? Had America finally gone too far enriching dictators by buying energy that it either could not or would not produce itself? Had the chickens of lavishing rewards on Wall Street and Washington speculators rather than Main Street producers finally come home to roost?

Allies trust the United States is the ultimate guarantor of free communication and commerce - and they want immediate reassurance that their old America will still be there. In contrast, opportunistic predators - such as rogue oil-rich regimes - suddenly sniff new openings.

We’ve seen the connection between American economic crisis and world upheaval before. In the 1930s, the United States and its democratic allies, in the midst of financial collapse, disarmed and largely withdrew from foreign affairs. That isolation allowed totalitarian regimes in Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia to swallow their smaller neighbors and replace the rule of law with that of the jungle. World War II followed.

During the stagflation and economic malaise of the Jimmy Carter years, the Russians invaded Afghanistan, the Iranians stormed our embassy in Tehran, the communists sought to spread influence in Central America and a holocaust raged unchecked in Cambodia.

It was no surprise that an emboldened Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once again last week called for elimination of Israel. He’s done so several times before. But rarely has he felt brazen enough to blame world financial problems on the Jews in general rather than on just Israelis. And he spouted his Hitlerian hatred in front of the United Nations General Assembly - in New York, just a few blocks away from the Ground Zero of the Wall Street meltdown.

Flush with petrodollar cash, a cocky Iran thinks our government will be so sidetracked borrowing money for Wall Street that disheartened taxpayers won’t care to stop Tehran from going nuclear.

At about the same time, a Russian flotilla was off Venezuela to announce new cooperation with the loud anti-American Hugo Chavez and his fellow Latin American communists. The move was a poke in the eye at the Monroe Doctrine - and a warning that from now on the oil-rich Russians will boldly support dictatorships in our hemisphere as much as we encourage democratic Georgia and Ukraine in theirs. Mr. Chavez himself called for a revolution in the United States to replace our “capitalist” Constitution.

The lunatics running North Korea predictably smelled blood as well. So it announced it was reversing course and reprocessing fuel rods to restart its supposedly dismantled nuclear weapons program.

Meanwhile, some shell-shocked American bankers looked to our “friend” China, which holds billions in American government securities, for emergency loans. But the Chinese - basking in their successful hosting of the Olympics, their first foray into outer space, and a massive rearmament - showed no interest in sending cash to reeling Wall Street firms.

During this Wall Street arrhythmia, Islamic suicide bombers attacked the U.S. Embassy in Yemen and the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan. Suspected Islamic terrorists were caught boarding a Dutch airliner in Germany. And suicide bombers were busy again in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The natural order of the world is chaos, not calm. Like it or not, for over a half-century the United States alone restrained nuclear bullies, kept the sea lanes free from outlaws and corralled rogue nations. America alone could provide that deterrence because we produced a fourth of the world’s goods and services, and became the richest country in the history of civilization.

But the bill for years of massive borrowing for oil, for imported consumer goods and for speculation has now finally come due on Wall Street - and for the rest of us as well.

Should that heart of American financial power in New York falter - or even appear to falter - then eventually the sinews of the American military will likewise slacken. And then things could get ugly - real fast.
Victor Davis Hanson is a military historian at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and the author of “A War Like No Other” (Random House).

Nonie Darwish
FrontPageMagazine.com | 10/6/2008

Arab feminists, reformers and intellectuals are intimidated, threatened or killed in the Middle East. Even the late Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was stabbed in Cairo in 1994 by a radical Muslim who claimed that Mahfouz insulted Islam. Americans of Muslim Arab origin, like myself, who speak out against jihad, terrorism and anti-Semitism, also confront threats and shaming from those who want to silence us. This does not necessarily come from radical Islamist clerics, but often from highly educated Arabs working in prominent institutions of higher learning in the US.

On September 24th, and out of nowhere, I received an e-mail from Dr. Houria I. Hassouna, an Egyptian female professor at Michigan State University. The subject of her e-mail said: “A weight of carion flesh than to receive 3,000 ducats.” And she proceeded to describe me in the body of the email as: “You surpass the Shylock described by Shakespeare in the Merchant of Venice.”

To those who are unfamiliar with the William Shakespeare play Merchant of Venice, Shylock played the character of a mean Jew who refused to forgo a pound of Antonio’s flesh which he has earned by an archaic law rooted in religion. Shylock rejected the offer of 6,000 ducats instead of the 3,000 that Antonio owed him so that he could revenge himself upon the Christian merchant.

What Dr. Hassouna was trying to tell me in her e-mail was that I am worse than a Jew. Muslim law agrees with her because a Muslim should never soften, forgive or befriend Jews. Being a former Muslim who runs a website called “ArabsForIsrael.com,” I believe that the Jewish people are Middle Eastern people who contributed a lot to Middle East culture, society and religion, larger in proportion than the size of Israel. I also speak openly about the Jewish people’s rights to their own State, Israel, and its capital, Jerusalem.

Dr. Hassouna apparently never got over the hate and anti-Semitic propaganda that Muslim children are spoon-fed in the Middle East. She also does not believe that Arab Americans should be able to expose and criticize radical Islam and the culture that produce thousands upon thousands of men who are ready to kill others for the sake of the expansion of Islam around the world.

I remember the many films on Arab TV dehumanizing Jews and depicting them in the worst possible manner. Muslim kids were told that Jews were monsters who wanted to kill them. When you fill the heart of Muslim children with such propaganda, hatred comes easy and terrorism acceptable. Such films still exist on Egyptian TV and are watched by thousands right here in America through satellite dishes. The last film I saw was called “A Girl from Israel” where an Israeli family visiting the Sinai deceive, rape and kill Egyptian kids.

I do not receive a lot of hate mail, but when I do, the worst comes from University professors, especially from those of Middle East origin, like myself. Ms. Hassouna, like many so called “moderate Muslims,” reveals her deep-rooted anti-Semitism and, in spite of her migration to the US and getting a PHD from American Institutions of higher learning, she still could not shed this hate indoctrination or the taboo against self-criticism in Muslim scriptures. Some of the most anti-Semitic Muslims are non-practicing intellectual Muslims. Our college campuses are full of Middle East professors who came to study in the US, thanks to scholarships from Uncle Sam, but who are spreading the poison of hatred of the old culture and are trying to silence people like myself who are promoting respect, peace and understanding between Arabs and Jews.

There are many heavy-handed attempts to silence me and the few others who are committed to peace and exposing the root causes of jihad against Israel and the West. Such attempts are a symbol of the hateful past we lived under and they simply strengthen my commitment to promoting peace and forgiveness to a culture that has forgotten what living in peace truly means.
Nonie Darwish is an American of Arab/Moslem origin. A freelance writer and public speaker, she runs the website www.ArabsForIsrael.com.

Steven Shamrak

From the Covenant of HAMAS.

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” (The destruction of Israel is the aim!)

“The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up.” (It means, no freedom of religion in the Holy Land is envisaged - like in Saudi Arabia, Iran etc!) “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad.” (Peace is not an option for them!)

Article Two: The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Moslem Brotherhood in Palestine. (Global Caliphate is the goal!)

Article Thirteen: Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. (No negotiations for peace!)

…and in FATAH Charter!

Fatah claims to be a Secular Organization, but goals and methods are the same as Hamas and al-Qaeda do!

Article 4: The Palestinian struggle is part and parcel of the world-wide struggle against Zionism, colonialism and international imperialism. (Ideologically spiced hatred toward the world is an echo of the mad Communist era.)

Article 5: Liberating Palestine is a national obligation which necessities the materialistic and human support of the Arab Nation. (The Communist ideas were just a camouflage for the Soviet masters. The ultimate goal is the same - The World Caliphate!)

Article 9: Liberating Palestine and protecting its holy places is an Arab, religious and human obligation. (Protecting Islamic holy places only!)

Article 12: Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence. (The destruction of Israel!)

Article 13: Establishing an independent democratic (They have been experimenting with it for 15 years already - How are they doing on the democratic front?) state with complete sovereignty on all Palestinian lands (this mean Israel and including Jordan) and Jerusalem is its capital city, and protecting the citizens’ legal and equal rights without any racial or religious discrimination. (…as they did before 1967 and presently in PA controlled territory.)

Article 19: Armed struggle is a strategy and not a tactic (as seen in the deceitful Oslo accords and current fake negotiations), and the Palestinian Arab People’s armed revolution is a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated.

PLO Attempt to Justify Terrorism. A judge in a New York court has dismissed a claim by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) against the legality of a lawsuit by terror victims and their families. The judge ruled that that the shootings and bombings on American citizens in Jerusalem between 2001 and 2004 were acts of terrorism and not acts of war, as the PLO claimed.

Imagine the World’s Reaction if It was Perpetrated by Jews. Suicide attacks outside two Shiite mosques killed at least 20 people and also wounded 35 people in Baghdad on Thursday. The bombs went off as worshippers left the mosques to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of a month of fasting – Ramadan - the holyest fastival of the Muslim calendar! A suicide car bomber carried out the first attack in the Zafaraniya neighborhood in southeastern Baghdad, killing eight people and wounded 10. In the second attack, in eastern Baghdad’s New Baghdad district, 12 people were killed and 25 were wounded when a teenage boy detonated his explosives-laden vest at a security checkpoint outside the mosque.

Food for Thought: The increase in terror attacks perpetrated by Israeli Arabs is yet another confirmation that the non-Jewish population of Israel, particularly the ones who call themselves Palestinians, are the back-stabbing enemy within. They are just waiting for the destruction of Israel and are ready to strike at any moment! - Steven Shamrak

Apartheid or Jewish State Free of Terror. Olmert said that he had warned in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and in the cabinet, that in a city with 270,000 Arab residents who can move freely, “They don’t need tractors or bulldozers [to carry out attacks], all they need is a regular car.” Olmert said that no security agency in the world could guard against a man who went to bed at night, “was visited by Allah”, and the next day woke up with a mission to kill Jews. “Everyone who speaks in lofty and inflated slogans about Jerusalem needs to know there is no regular way to prevent this phenomena, unless at the end of the day you say to the Arabs in the Arab neighbourhoods, you will live in your neighbourhoods, and won’t come into ours”. (The scare-mongering criminal is ‘advocating’ Apartheid! Only the removal of the enemy population from all Jewish land will end terror in the Holy land. Segregation or a Two-state solution will simply aggravate the problem!)

Kids ‘R’ Bombs. Shin Bet arrested a 16 year old Arab girl from Jenin in Netanya last Tuesday. The girl had told her family that she intended to carry out a suicide attack and then disappeared from her home.

We Uprooted Communities, the ‘Arabs’ Kept Bombing. President Shimon Peres said in a speech at the United Nations that Israel withdrew completely from Gaza and “dismantled our settlements,” but Hamas responded with a bloody coup and turned Gaza into a base for firing missiles. “They kept abducting and bombing, while bringing destruction to innocent families… These people of war offer no positive alternative, only suffering like that of Job.” (This self-hating, self-serving, leftist politician admitted that he knows the reality, but promotes a policy of self-defeat!)

Quote of the Week: “We cannot just condemn anymore. The Iranian nuclear issue is becoming dangerous” - French FM Kouchne, after slamming the anti-Semitic rhetoric of the Iranian president. – And yet, Israel’s attempts to protect the country from the clearly and openly expressed goal by the Iranian president to destroy Israel are hindered by the United States and other international hypocrites!

Hamas is Right. Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, in Gaza has accused the Quartet (USA, European Union, Russia and the UN) of being ”fully responsible for the destabilizing of the Palestinian democratic process and the serious suffering of Palestinians…” (By electing Hamas, the so-called Palestinians voted for terror, which only brought to them more suffering. The Quartet has been disregarding their democratic wish by supporting the rule of another terrorist organization, Fatah!)

Goggle Masks Against Terror Attacks. Soldiers at the Hawara checkpoint have been equipped with protective goggles following two recent attacks against them by Arab terrorists armed with acid. Two days after a terrorist acid attack, a 16 year-old terrorist approached a soldier and pulled out a knife with a 10-centimetre blade. (What next, medieval body armour to be issued to each solder to defend against knifes? The government must protect its citizens! Removal of the enemy population from Jewish land is the only way! The world did not protest when 8,500 Jews were forcibly removed from Gaza!)

Hamas: Car Terror Attack is ‘Creativity’. A Hamas spokesman, according to Al-Hayat, said that the terror attack by an Arab driver in Jerusalem last week points to the Arabs’ ability “to show creativity and invent new means of continuing the resistance.” (Sadly, ‘creativity’ like this is not appreciated by the Nobel Price committee. But, I am sure the United Nations Human Rights Council is in position and would be quite willing to reward any ‘creativity’ against Israel!)

One-Way Friendship of Control.

The United States is in the process of deploying anti-missile radar in Israel. The X-Band radar’s arrival in Israel a week ago with a team of American support personnel that will become the first group of U.S. troops to be stationed permanently in the country. The high-powered radar, known as FBX-T, will be hooked up to the US military’s Joint Tactical Ground Station and, assisted by satellites, mainly to warn of incoming Iranian ballistic missiles. The FBX-T system is based on the latest x-band radar technology and is designed to provide early detection at a range of around 1,900 km and warning of incoming missiles such as the Shahab-3 rockets that Iran claims can reach and destroy targets in Israel.

An IDF request to permit Israeli soldiers to control the new radar installation in the Negev has been declined! According to reports, the US had refused to give Israel a green light to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. US President George W. Bush said to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in May that he would not support a strike on Iran and added that his position was unlikely to change as long as he was in office.

(Many analysts believe that the timing of the announcement about new radar system has been deliberately chosen to undermine Israel’s efforts toward effectively combating the Iranian nuclear threat. The United States officially stated that it is against Israel’s attack on the Iranian nuclear program and refused to co-operate. There is not guarantee that Iranian rockets with nuclear warheads will not hit Israel. In fact, this installation will mainly benefit Europe and the US as an early warning system against an Iranian attack, not now but in the future. To hell with Jews! The hypocrites are doing it again, like they did it before and during WW2!)

Matt Zalen , THE JERUSALEM POST

A video released by the Jewish Council for Education & Research which appeared to show several retired senior army and Mossad officials supporting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has proven to be misleading, with a number of officials who appeared in the video saying on Monday that their words were taken out of context. “It wasn’t about the campaign, it was about the political and security issues of the Middle East that the next president should be involved in,” former deputy chief of staff Maj.-Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan told the Jerusalem Post.. “Nothing was said about Obama or [Republican presidential candidate John] McCain.”

“I don’t want other people to interfere in my elections, and I must not interfere with the elections in the United States,” he said, adding that to do so would be neither “ethical nor smart.”

In the video, the senior Israeli officials appear to support Obama’s stated policy that dialogue with Iran would be the best way of confronting the current nuclear crisis. Dayan said that his position is just the opposite.

“I don’t think that we - either the United States or Israel - should be engaged with Iran, because the Iranians will take advantage of that,” the former deputy chief of staff said. “Our issue is to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear capability.”

“We need more powerful, effective sanctions to delegitimize [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad,” he continued. “A military option should be prepared, but used only as a last resort.”

Former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy, who appeared in the video praising the Democratic candidate, also said that he was misled.

“I was interviewed for a documentary dealing with what issues the new American president must deal with regarding the Middle East,” Halevy told the Post. “I was asked about the candidates, and was complimentary to both.”

But when asked about his opinion on who was more qualified to be president, Halevy said that he rejected the question.

“I said that I thought it was inappropriate for an Israeli to advise Americans on who they should vote for, as it would be for them to advise Israelis on who they should vote for Prime Minister,” he said.

Halevy added that it would be irresponsible to comment on the positions of any US presidential candidates before an election, as those positions may change once the new president takes office.

Both Halevy and Dayan said that representatives of the Jewish Council for Education & Research had been in contact with them, and promised to deal with the matter.

Other former officials who were filmed without knowing the true nature of the video stood by their comments. Maj.-Gen. (Ret.) Amram Mitzna and Brig.-Gen. (res.) Giora Inbar, a former IDF commander in south Lebanon, both said their opinions regarding the Democratic presidential candidate remained positive.

In the video, Mitzna had said that another four years of indecision, stagnancy and a lack of intense US involvement in the Middle East peace process would be bad for Israel. He claimed Obama would achieve a greater involvement and that he “brings many hopes.”

For his part, Inbar was filmed saying that he would personally vote for Obama to help Israel. Inbar said he was not convinced that the Bush method was the right way to deal with the axis of evil and that he would welcome anyone who chose to handle it differently.

Another figure in the video was Brig.-Gen (Ret.) Shlomo Brom, former IDF commander of strategic planning, who said that the Bush administration caused major damage to Israel’s interests. He said Obama would be a better president for Israel than his rival John McCain, whose policies, Brom said, would likely be too close to those of Bush that were “not so helpful for Israel.”

Similarly, Yossi Alpher, a former Mossad senior officer, said that McCain would maintain the same pose that the Bush administration adopted, which, Alpher said, had failed. He said Bush’s approach had strengthened radical Islamic elements, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Alpher said that he was excited when he saw Obama’s readiness to bring a fresh approach to the region.

Col. (res.) Shaul Arieli, a former brigade commander in the northern Gaza Strip, said it seemed Obama was the best person to open a new page in the relationship both with the Arab world and Israel, and to bring stability to the Middle East.

Former IDF chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak said that during the Bush Administration, US involvement in the Middle East was “not professionally handled.”
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1222017470356&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Hamas politburo chief tell French daily he doubts new Israeli government will lead to change Jewish state’s stance in regards to his organization’s demands. Talks aimed at securing kidnapped soldier’s release stalemated due to Israel’s unreliability, he says
Ynet

Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal estimated Monday that the governmental changes in Israel would not end the stalemate in the negotiations aimed at securing the release of kidnapped Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit. In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro, Mashaal blamed Israel for the standstill in the talks.

Shalit has been held captive in Gaza for more than two years, and the talks for his release have been mediated by Israel in the past few months, without any results. According to Mashaal, the reason for the negotiations’ failure is Israel’s conduct.

Not Forgotten
Israelis, Thais rally for Shalit in Bangkok / Anat Shalev
Some 30 auto rickshaws make their way to Red Cross offices in Thailand’s capital carrying pictures of kidnapped Israeli soldiers
Full story

“The talks with Israel were frozen because of the unreliability on the Israeli side,” he claimed.

The Hamas leader, who resides in Damascus, tries to stay up-to-date on Israeli politics, but has not expressed great optimism after Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was elected to replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as Kadima chairwoman.

“The Palestinians know from experienced that a governmental change in Israel rarely changes the government’s strategy,” he said.

He clarified that the only thing which could move the talks forward would be an Israeli agreement to Hamas’ conditions.

“Until the top ranks of the Israeli government agree to our demands, serious negotiations will be impossible,” he said, referring to Hamas’ demands that Israel return to the 1967 borders, accept the right of return and remove the settlements.

‘We have no problem with Jews’

Mashaal was asked to respond to the interviewer’s claim that “many Israelis say you want to throw them into the sea.”

“That’s not true. We have no problem with the Jews, only with those who occupy our land and rob us of our right. Their religion or race is irrelevant,” he explained.

About a month ago, Mashaal said Hamas was interested in a prisoner exchange deal which would secure Shalit’s release “as soon as possible.” He rejected the claims that his organization had set new conditions for the release, but clarified that he would not accept any “Israeli extortion”.

“Hamas did not reject the talks for a prisoner release and did not set new conditions. However, we object to any extortion on the part of Israel, which is interested in reducing the number of Palestinian prisoners who should be released,” Mashaal said in a Damascus speech in honor of the month of Ramadan.

James Lewis
American Thinker

“… the community organizer … must first rub raw the resentments of the people; fan the latent hostilities to the point of overt expression.’
— Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

“THERE IS ONLY THE FIGHT — An analysis of the Alinsky Model.”
— Hillary Clinton, BA Honors Thesis, Wellesley College, 1969.

“(Barack) Obama worked in the organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky, who made Chicago the birthplace of modern community organizing….”
— The Nation
A psychopath is a person without conscience; someone who constantly breaks the moral rules of the community. Saul Alinsky was a “community organizer” who found a career that fit that personality disorder. In the Orwellian upside-down world of the Left, community organizers disorganize communities. That is the meaning of revolution, to overturn whatever exists today in the raw pursuit of one’s own power.

Alinsky boasted about his close alliance with Frank Nitti, Al Capone’s second in command in the Chicago Mob during the 1930s. Al Capone’s Mob were domestic terrorists, and not for any noble cause either. They poisoned the Chicago politics of their era. Alinsky’s close alliance with Frank Nitti tells us something crucially important today. Alinsky was also a lifelong ally of the Stalin-controlled Communist Party, at a time when Stalin was known to have murdered tens of millions of people. He was proud of building a bridge between organized crime and the power hungry Left. That tacit alliance may continue today.

Alinsky’s personality fits the definition of a psychopath — someone who has no guilt or shame toward others. But Alinsky also discovered how to teach psychopathic behavior to college students. That is the key to his success: To persuade hundreds of thousands of ignorant young people that it is much more moral to be immoral. Or, as Bill Ayers famously said, “Bring the Revolution home; kill your parents.”

Bill Ayers is now a highly influential professor of education. That is not an accident; it reflects a deliberate program of radical agitation and propaganda through the school systems. If you want to know who brought down American education, Bill Ayers is part of the answer.

A lot of the Boomer Left is marked by psychopathic behavior, in politics and in the rest of life. That is why the actions of the Left are so shocking to many of us.

Alinsky’s disciples — including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — have a warlike political style. They learned politics as war from the Master. Obama is so well-trained in Alinsky tactics that he used to teach workshops on it. That is why Obama can knowingly violate Federal law against usurping the presidential power to negotiate with Iraq before ever getting elected. Actual election to head of state by the voters means nothing, just as it means nothing to Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, who have negotiated with Syria and the Muslim Brotherhood in clear violation of law while serving in Congress.

Teaching hatred for the normal majority is the key to power for radicals. But Alinsky taught that you can’t easily hate millions of people. To do that effectively you need a one-person scapegoat to focus all your hatred on. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” That is the politics of personal destruction, and it doesn’t matter if the target is black like Clarence Thomas, or a woman like Sarah Palin, or a severely wounded war veteran like John McCain.

That is why Obama is now instructing his followers to “get in their faces” of those Americans who are not down for his cause. Obama acts like a nice guy, but he is a political warmonger. He’s been very clear about that: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” That’s the language of gang war.

Today we can see the Left’s rage reaction to John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin. The New York Sun quoted one feminist saying “All of my women friends, a week ago Monday, were on the verge of throwing themselves out windows …People were flipping out. … Every woman I know was in high hysteria over this. Everyone was just beside themselves with terror that this woman could be our president — our potential next president.”

The “comedienne” Sandra Bernhard suggested that Sarah Palin would be “gang-raped by blacks in Manhattan” if she dared to go there.

A British Leftist writing for Pravda (!) called “Sarah Palin - The Devil in disguise…

Sarah Palin, Mrs. Nobody know-it-all shreiking cow from Alaska, the joke of American politics, plied with a couple of vodkas … cheap little guttersnipe … suppose you shut up … you pith-headed little bimbo from the back of beyond … So next time suppose you keep your mouth shut and while you’re at it, make sure the members of your family keep their legs shut too. … “

That warlike rage has been systematically whipped up over decades by the Left. That’s what college “Women’s Studies” does, just as “Black Studies” is deliberately designed to whip up black rage and victimhood. Michelle Obama’s Princeton thesis is a case in point.

Alinsky called ordinary Americans “the enemy.” Normal people don’t declare war on all of society. But Alinsky wrote in Rules for Radicals that radicals

“…have contemptuously rejected the values and way of life of the middle class. They have stigmatized it as materialistic, decadent, bourgeois, degenerate, imperialistic, war-mongering, brutalized and corrupt … They are right … ”

Normal, decent America is the enemy for these people.

Obama and Hillary are lifelong followers of Alinsky. They use his tactics and ideology. That is why American politics became the politics of personal destruction when the Boomer Left came to power.

These claims require proof; but we have been looking straight at the evidence since the first Clinton term. Bill Clinton fits the diagnostic description of psychopathic personality, now relabeled “antisocial personality’ in the DSM IV, the official diagnostic manual for psychiatry. Three out of the following seven criteria nails the diagnosis:

1. Failure to conform to social norms …

2. Deceitfulness … or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;

3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead;

4. Irritability and aggressiveness … ;

5. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others;

6. Consistent irresponsibility … ;

7. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.

I would give Mr. Clinton credit for Numbers 1, 2, 6, and 7, and possibly 3 (impulsivity) and 4 (irritability and aggressiveness). Dick Morris, who advised the Clintons for 20 years, describes dramatic scenes that certainly fit the description. Or Bill’s inability to stick with a meeting agenda, impulsively running endless bull sessions at the White House. As for 5, his picking up women opportunistically and in a way that put his career, not to mention his family life and American security, at risk. The Monica affair showed an impulsive, reckless president who got into power by endless lying and conning.

Liberal Democrats used to be normal Americans before the Boomer Left rose to power. Hubert Humphrey and Harry Truman had a strong sense of American morality. They despised the Stalinist Left and fought to keep them out of the Democrat Party. They were sensitive to ordinary shame and guilt, the emotions that make us civilized. When Bob Dole asked “Where is the shame?” in the 1996 presidential election, the answer came out: Not in the modern Democrat Party. People without guilt or shame make merciless power mongers.

Normal people slow down in School Zones where kids might run across the street — not because they’re afraid of getting a speeding ticket but because they can’t stand the thought of hurting kids. They don’t need to cheat compulsively on wives and husbands to prove how irresistible they are. Normal people have internalized some modesty and humility, and are capable of respect and love for others. A common feature of psychopaths is the inability to feel authentic love and respect for others.

True psychopaths are often charming, seductive, and treacherous. They make natural con artists. Many psychopaths are extremely manipulative — and what is more manipulative than stirring up hatred among victim groups to empower oneself? That is Jeremiah Wright, the diabolical Father Pfleger, James Meeks, and by his own definition of radicals, Saul Alinsky.

The worst are “malevolent psychopaths” — people who sadistically hurt others. Hitler and Stalin, Kim Jong Il, Pol Pot, and probably many famous Western intellectuals fit the description of malevolent psychopaths. That is tragic and shocking. Historian Paul Johnson presents compelling evidence for malevolent psychopathy in the life of Jean-Paul Sartre, for example, and many others in his important book Intellectuals. Western intellectuals have been the home team of Leftist radicalism for a century now.

But the single most important point about Alinsky’s “community organizing” strategy is that normal people can be trained to act like psychopaths: To become convinced that a “higher morality” allows them to act without conscience. As Alinsky wrote admiringly about V.I. Lenin, well known as a large-scale murder leader:

“Lenin was a pragmatist; … he said that the Bolsheviks stood for getting power through the ballot box but would reconsider after they got the guns!”

That is a laugh line, believe it or not.

Alinsky called this “pragmatic radicalism.” He differed from his Communist friends only in being more practical and less ideological. Alinsky was a radical because it suited his personality, because it was fun, brought him power and influence, and made him feel good. He was very clear in saying that, and he inspired the Boomer Left to follow his lead.

Alinsky dedicated Rules for Radicals:

“… to the very first radical . . . who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom - Lucifer.”

If that doesn’t send a shiver down your back, you haven’t been paying attention.

James Lewis occasionally blogs at dangeroustimes.wordpress.com

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