Thursday, April 21, 2011

Enemies

By John Wlker
Via Terry

Enemies


by John Walker





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Opponents or Enemies?

In any conflict, it is a deadly error to mistake or underestimate the adversary's capabilities, will to employ them, or ultimate goals.



Around the globe, what was once confidently deemed “Western civilisation” is in an end-stage battle with champions of a collectivist and statist ideology which, over the last century, has enacted programs of redistributive taxation, borrowing, and spending whose unsustainability has now become self-evident and which, unless the present course is altered, will collapse in at most ten years. Further, the second- and higher-order effects of these policies have led to demographic collapse in the societies which have adopted them, crippled capital formation and the creation of productive enterprises, and been used as a justification for mass immigration from regions hostile to the culture and values of the West which have been responsible for its prosperity.



Those who would destroy a society, destroy first its language. As Orwell observed, when the terms of discourse are corrupted, the corruption spreads into every domain the language is used to debate. So deep has this language rot penetrated, that it is difficult to write an essay like this without succumbing to it—that is the intent of those who spread the contagion. The present-day culprits identify themselves as “progressives” or “liberals”. Take a step back and ponder how manipulative this is: if you're a “progressive”, then you must obviously be on the side of progress, even though the outcome of the policies you advocate will ultimately roll back all of the advances in individual liberty and prosperity made since the Enlightenment; if you're a “liberal”, surely you must advocate liberty, notwithstanding that the consequences of your prescriptions will be descent of society into serfdom for the masses, deemed property of the state, ruled by an unelected, unaccountable élite.



These so-called “progressives” or “liberals” are not advocates of progress or liberty: they are enemies of them, and the sooner champions of liberty acknowledge what they are, the better our slim chances for defeating them will be. Libertarians and conservatives are inclined toward civil discourse and respect for the rule of law. They must come to terms with the fact that their enemies—not opponents—are implacable, bent on winning whatever the cost may be, willing to use any means whatsoever to prevail and, once triumphant, to deprive their opposition of the means to reverse or even impede the implementation of their agenda.



They are enemies.



What is to be done?

In the middle of World War II, would it have made sense for Roosevelt and Churchill to have arranged a secret meeting with Hirohito and Tojo to try to “work out their differences” and “find a middle ground” where, say, Imperial Japan would be allowed to keep half of its conquests in the Pacific? Of course not: Japan was the enemy, and only its definitive defeat could undo the damage its conquests had wrought.



Enemies of individual liberty control the high ground today in most of the institutions through which they have made their long march in the last half century, and they perceive themselves as winning: with every generation they educate, inform, entertain, and rule, they create more dependent subjects who acquiesce to their rule and groom a new self-perpetuating class of élite. They are not people who have a different vision of how to create a society in which the aspirations of the majority of the people for themselves and their families will be achieved, but rather aspiring rulers of infantilised subjects dependent upon the largesse of their betters.



How does one deal with enemies? To survive and prosper, one does not negotiate with them—one defeats them. There is no “reasonable, achievable compromise” between liberty and tyranny, freedom and slavery. One must vanquish the tyrants and slaveholders and ensure that their spawn cannot reinfect society.



We will never defeat them as long as we view them as “opponents” who play by the same rules and share the same goals as we. They are enemies, and must be completely defeated and removed from the political stage. That is how they view us—they have no desire to compromise but rather intend to destroy us. Until we take the battle to the enemy with an equal fierceness, we shall have no hope of success. Here are a few things we can do, starting immediately, once we come to terms with the fact we're confronted with an enemy, not a well-meaning opponent.



Reclaim the language from the enemy. We should have a “swear jar” for every time we utter the words “liberal” or “progressive” except in scornful irony. May I suggest “statist”, “collectivist”, “socialist”, or “communist” as alternatives?



Do not trade with the enemy. Do not patronise businesses which support enemy causes; by doing so you support them yourself. While an individual choosing not to be a customer of a mega-corporation has negligible impact, millions of like-minded people deciding to go elsewhere can. On the local scale, telling the owner of the pharmacy who's posted a petition supporting socialised medicine that he's just lost your business and why does have an impact—I did this two weeks ago myself.



Don't be taken in by enemy propaganda. The mainstream media are almost entirely in the hands of the enemy. Help to make them the legacy media by ignoring everything they say, not subscribing to their enemy propaganda. Rely instead on first-hand reporting on the Internet whose veracity you can judge based on a network of trusted sources who comment upon it.



Do not entrust your children to the enemy. So-called “public schools” (the correct term is “government schools”, since in recent decades the public—parents—have lost all control over them) have been entirely captured by the enemy and become institutions of indoctrination and moral corruption which fail at teaching even basic skills. It is parental malfeasance verging on child abuse to send one's offspring to these corrupt, corrupting, and nonperforming schools. If you cannot afford a well-run private or religious school (most have per-pupil costs well below that of government schools, but of course you have to pay that tuition on top of your taxes supporting the failed government schools), consider home-schooling your children, perhaps in conjunction with other like-minded parents. Even if you can afford it, don't assume a private or religious school supports your values; talk to parents of students enrolled there and teachers: if they show signs of being enemies, don't send your kids there.



Do not become indebted to the enemy. Higher education is overwhelmingly in the hands of the enemy. One of the greatest scams in recent decades has been the explosion in tuition and fees, which results in graduates of four-year and postgraduate programs burdened with six-figure debt they're forced to pay off in the key years they should be saving to accumulate capital for starting a family, buying a house, educating their children, and retirement. This is not accidental: by blocking capital formation in people's key earning years, they are rendered dependent upon the state for their retirement and health care in old age, which is precisely the intent.



What élite universities and professional schools provide for the exorbitant fee is a credential which offers entry into the ranks of the enemy, and the “education” they provide is indoctrination in the enemy's belief system. If you need a credential, shop around and get what you require at a price that doesn't sink you into debt throughout your peak earning years. Unless you've bought into the enemy's credential game, where you went to college will be irrelevant after you've had a few years of job experience.



Do not hire the enemy. Are you an employer? Why should you pay those who support the destruction of your livelihood? In our information-intense age, nothing could be easier than determining the political affiliations and contributions of applicants for employment, as well as their sentiments posted on public fora. If they are enemies, don't hire them. You wouldn't hire somebody without a police background check to make sure they weren't a crook, would you? So why should you employ an enemy who will use your paycheck to destroy the values you cherish and spread the enemy's perverted belief system among co-workers?



Roll back the enemy's gains. One of the enemy's key intellectual force multipliers is the concept of the “ratchet”: that any movement in their direction is irreversible and that consequently the debate is only about how rapidly one will arrive at their destination. Those who view the enemy as an “opposition” fall for this completely—in effect, their slogan becomes, “We'll deliver you unto serfdom, but later than the other guys”. This is not how one deals with an enemy: they must be definitively defeated, removed from all positions of influence, and their pathological beliefs cleansed from the society. Any politician who speaks about “reaching across the aisle” or intellectual who grants any legitimacy to the anti-human, liberty-destroying nostrums of the collectivists is a fool at best and a collaborator at worst. Failing to acknowledge that an enemy is an enemy is to preemptively surrender.



We do not compromise with enemy politicians; we defeat them, regardless of the political party from which they hail. If they're enemies of freedom and the other party's candidate is worse, challenge them in the primary.



We do not consent to enemy occupation of the media. These are businesses, and we will withdraw our support from them by letting subscriptions lapse and withdrawing advertising from them. This will provoke a “circulation collapse” death spiral for them. All public funding and subsidies for media must be defeated.



We choose not to fund enemy occupation of our educational institutions. All taxpayer-supported institutions must have their funding made contingent upon abolition of tenure (from kindergarten through university professorships) and retention based upon objective measures of merit by third parties outside the academic system.



In the U.S., many state judges are elected; Federal judges are not, and have lifetime tenure. But their courts are funded by the legislature, which can abolish them with the consent of the executive. Abolish abusive and misbehaving courts, and create new ones, and let that serve as a lesson to those who would legislate from the bench.



Dealing with the enemy

Over the last century, much of the enemy's success has been due to the partisans of individual liberty being unwilling to acknowledge that their opponents are implacable and ready to resort to any tactic that advances their cause. “I won't stoop to their level” is simultaneously staking out the high ground and then preemptively surrendering it to the enemy. Now, I am not suggesting that we do “stoop to their level”, but rather acknowledge that the enemy's tactics have been working, and that they must be countered head-on, not around the margins. We must do this in a manner consistent with our morality and respect for the truth, but keeping in mind that the enemy operates under no such constraints.



With elected politicians, there must be no compromise whatsoever with the enemy, and enemies in elected offices must be forced, through strategic votes, to disclose their true beliefs and agendas, then defeated by candidates who call them out on the pernicious consequences of the enemy policies they advocate. As enemies are removed from elected office, policies can be adopted to identify and replace enemies in the judiciary, state-funded educational institutions, and taxpayer-supported cultural institutions. Complete deregulation of all media will allow the market to sort out the messages people choose to hear.



I am certain this paper will be denounced a “strident” and “divisive”. Bring it on—it is both, and that is precisely my intent! If I had changed the introduction and globally replaced a few words in the body of the document, this screed could seamlessly slot into what passes for polite discourse in the fever swamps of the collectivist slavers. You may find it distasteful to look upon them as “enemies”, but that's how they see you, and they have no difficulty whatsoever talking about silencing you, removing you from positions of influence, and shutting down the means by which you organise.



We believe in a multitude of voices speaking in a free arena, with the best argument winning. The enemy believes in an echo chamber where only their message is heard. This conveys upon them an asymmetric advantage, where we're inclined to let them speak in favour of shutting us up. Fine: we should not sacrifice our principles, but at the same time we must come to terms with the fact that they are the enemy, and must be defeated and dispersed in disarray, not accommodated, lest we forfeit everything in which we believe.



Enemies and allies

In identifying the enemy, it is crucial to distinguish the enemy: the collectivist/statist ruling class and its partisans in the media, academia, and rent-seeking crony capitalist industries and financial institutions, from the electorate who support enemy politicians. We should view those voters not as enemies, but allies we haven't yet recruited. Most voters pay little attention to politics and have little appreciation for the consequences, social and economic, of policy choices. This is not so much due to laziness, but rather rational ignorance: since a single vote has a negligible chance of influencing the outcome of an election, a rational voter will spend a negligible amount of time investigating the candidates and researching the consequences of the policies they advocate.



Consequently, elections often turn on the amount of money candidates can raise, the extent they can attack their opponents with negative advertising, their hair styles, and what party the parents of the voter preferred, as opposed to substantive issues. You may find this dismaying, but there is abundant evidence that this is the fact. In addition, enemy occupation of education and media ensures that the bias of voters who do not choose to independently inform themselves will be toward enemy candidates. This was the premise of an underappreciated 2008 book which breathlessly and approvingly forecast the calamity the recent enemy resurgence has brought upon us.



These uninformed and unengaged voters are not the enemy, but is it their votes which bring the enemy to power. So we must approach them as potential allies, to whom we must explain the ultimate consequences of the policies of the enemy to themselves and their families, and why it is in their own self-interest to defeat the enemy. The present situation is sufficiently dire that one need no longer appeal to long-term arguments such as Hayek's in The Road to Serfdom: the apocalypse so ardently desired by the enemy, as it will present the ultimate crisis to be exploited to secure their power, is now just a few years away, and this is evident to anybody acquainted with the numbers.



Our goal must be to defeat the enemy. In a democratic society, this means apprising those who vote the enemy into power of their true nature, breaking the hold of the enemy media on the populace, and reversing enemy infiltration of education. The enemy strategy depends upon an uninformed, unengaged, and passive electorate. We must turn this around by communicating, by all means possible, the true nature of the enemy and the cataclysmic near-term consequences of their triumph.







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by John Walker

April 15th, 2011



Source: http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/enemies/

Palestininians Murder Their Supporters

From DanielPipes.org:

Palestinians Murder Their Supporters


by Daniel Pipes

April 15, 2011

Cross-posted from National Review Online: The Corner





http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2011/04/palestinians-murder-their-supporters



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Note the pattern of Palestinians who murder the groupies and apologists who join them to aid in their dream of eliminating Israel.



Angelo Frammartino, an Italian, was killed by stabbing in eastern Jerusalem in August 2006 by someone affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Juliano Mer-Khamis, who appears to have been an Israeli citizen, killed in early April 2011 in Jenin by persons unknown.

Vittorio Arrigoni, another Italian, killed in recent days in Gaza by a Salafi group holding him hostage.

(Readers are invited to send in further examples; and this list will be updated as needed.)



Comments: (1) These murders neatly sum up the frenzy and depravity within Palestinian society, surely the sickest on earth, what with its suicide factory, its celebration of terrorists, and its cult of death. (2) Consistent with this morbidity, it also devours its admirers. (April 15, 2011)





Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian would-be Palestinian.







Violence Sharply Up In Pakistan

From Homeland Security NewsWire:


Violence sharply up in Pakistan



Published 15 April 2011



A new report says more than 2,500 people were killed in militant attacks in Pakistan in 2010; nearly half of victims were civilians killed in suicide blasts. There were 67 such attacks last year; at least 900 people had been killed in U.S. drone strikes during the same period; the number of people killed by the army is not mentioned, but it estimated to be in the region of 600-700; 1,713 people had been killed by militants over the preceding eighteen months (2008-09), while 746 people had died in drone attacks during the same period; the report highlighted a growing spread of hate literature and said it had been monitored that in the mainstream Urdu newspapers 1,468 news articles and editorials promoted hate, intolerance, and discrimination against Ahmedis





Suicide bombing in a Lahore mosque // Source: chinapost.com.tw



More than 2,500 people were killed in militant attacks in Pakistan in 2010, according to the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). Nearly half of victims were civilians killed in suicide blasts. There were 67 such attacks last year, the group said.



The BBC quotes the report to say that at least 900 people had been killed in U.S. drone strikes during the same period.



The number of people killed by the army is not mentioned, but it estimated to be in the region of 600-700. The HRCP is the main human rights watchdog in the country. Its findings are often disputed by the authorities, the BBC’s Syed Shoaib Hasan in Karachi says.



BBC research published last July suggested 1,713 people had been killed by militants over the preceding eighteen months, while 746 people had died in drone attacks during the same period.



“Pakistan’s biggest problem continues to be violence carried out militants,” HRCP chairman Mehdi Hasan said after the report, which the period from January to December 2010, was released. “In 2010, 67 suicide attacks were carried out across the country in which 1,169 people were killed,” he said. “At least 1,000 of those were civilians.”



Dr. Hasan said that in all 2,542 people had been killed in militant attacks in the country last year.



He told the BBC that the most glaring example of government oversight had been in Balochistan province, where targeted killings shot up rapidly with 118 people being killed in 2010.



Dr. Hasan said the figure was set to increase in 2011, as the government seemed unconcerned about the unraveling of the law and order situation in Balochistan.



The HRCP report also spoke about increasing intolerance against religious minorities in the country. It said 99 members of the Ahmedi (Qadiani) sect had been killed in attacks in 2010, while 64 people had been charged under the country’s blasphemy law.



There was no immediate response to the report from the Pakistani authorities, nor was there any word from militant groups.



The Dawn offers these details from the report:

•The country witnessed a series of faith-based attacks in which not only were minorities targeted but 418 Muslims belonging to various sects were killed. Suicide attacks on Muslims injured 628 people, mainly Shia and Barelvi.

•The report said prejudices of law-enforcement personnel were believed to be a hurdle in effective protection of religious minorities in serious danger from Taliban or sectarian militant groups.

•The report highlighted a growing spread of hate literature and said it had been monitored that in the mainstream Urdu newspapers 1,468 news articles and editorials promoted hate, intolerance and discrimination against Ahmedis.

•The report highlighted a bleak picture of the official state of affairs regarding the blasphemy law and said 2010 saw the government’s flip–flopping on reform of the controversial law and also showed how it lost nerve in the face of intimidation by extremists after the idea of reform was floated.

•On the law and order front, about 12,580 people were murdered and 581 kidnapped for ransom. At least 16,977 cases of kidnapping were reported.

•U.S. drones strikes were responsible for 957 extra-legal killings and 338 people were killed in police encounters. Only 28 suspects were injured and captured.

•Target killings in Karachi claimed the lives of 237 political activists and 301 other civilians and 81 people were killed in the Lyari gang wars, the report said.

Pakistan: Blasphemy Vigilantes Kill Exonerated Man

From Jihad Watch:


Pakistan: Blasphemy vigilantes kill exonerated man







Taking Sharia into their own hands. "Pakistan's blasphemy vigilantes kill exonerated man," by Nick Paton Walsh for CNN, April 14 (thanks to Clark):



Talahore, Pakistan (CNN) -- Mohamed Imran had been accused, jailed, tried and cleared: if anything, society owed him a debt as a man wrongfully accused.

But his crime was blasphemy. He was meant to have said something derogatory about the prophet Mohammed, so in Pakistan justice worked a little differently.





Whose prophet?



Two weeks after he returned to his small patch of farmland on the rustic outskirts of Islamabad, his alleged crime caught up with him.

Two gunmen burst into the shoe shop where he was sat talking to a friend. Imran tried to duck, to seek cover behind the man next to him -- terrified so greatly for his own life that he perhaps forgot about those around him.



But the gunmen found their target and Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws claimed another victim....





Posted by Robert on April 14, 2011 4:15 AM

Gaza: Jihadi Accidentally Blows Himself Up Without Murdering Any Infidels

From Jihad Watch:'


Gaza: Jihadi accidentally blows himself up without murdering any Infidels







The second accidental jihad in two days. Keep up the good work, fellows!



Premature Detonation Alert: "Gaza fighter died in 'jihad mission,'" from the Ma'an News Agency, April 14:



GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- The armed wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine said one of the group's fighters was killed Thursday morning, when an explosive device detonated while the young man was on a "jihad mission," a statement said.

It is the second accidental death of a Gaza resistance fighter reported in as many days, following the death of an Al-Qassam brigadesman in Khan Younis on Wednesday.



A DFLP statement said National Resistance Brigades fighter Khader Abu Elbeh, 22, was seriously wounded during an operation west of the Jabaliya area in the northern Gaza Strip and later died of his injuries.



Medical sources in Gaza confirmed that a man was pronounced dead after being seriously wounded by a bomb which exploded, apparently prematurely.



In their statement, the NRB mourned the death of the fighter, saying he was killed while "on a jihad mission," and vowed to continue resistance activities as a "goal and a promise to our nation."





Posted by Robert on April 14, 2011 4:23 AM

Arkansas Jihad Murderer Confesses To Killing Nashville Man In A Jihad Operation

From Jihad Watch:


Arkansas jihad murderer confesses to killing Nashville man in a "jihad operation"







Yet another convert to Islam misunderstands his new, peaceful religion. More on this story. "Man Confesses To ‘Jihad Operation' Murder In Nashville," by Jeff Tang for NewsChannel5.com, April 13:



NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A former TSU student on trial for murder in Arkansas said he killed a man in East Nashville in 2006.

Abdulhakim Muhammad is accused of killing one Army soldier and wounding another outside a military recruiting station in 2009. He's now confessed to shooting a Nashville man as part of a "Jihad Operation."



The father of Carlos Bledsoe believes his son became an extremist Muslim during his time in Nashville.



Carlos, who changed his name to Abdulhakim Muhammad, is accused of murdering an army private and wounding another in Arkansas two years ago.



But, in a letter to an Arkansas Judge, Muhammad confesses to another murder, an East Nashville man in 2006.



"The letter was sent to us immediately after it was discovered and our cold case detectives will be going to interview him to see how much he knows about the case to see if he was involved," said Metro Police Spokesperson Kristin Mumford.



Muhammad claims he shot the two soldiers to protest the US War in Iraq. In the letter, Muhammad saID [sic] he killed the Nashville man as his first "jihad operation" because he said the victim terrorized elderly Muslims and Muslim women at gunpoint. However, Muhammad leaves out the victim's name and the time of the crime.



"We do have a case that matches some of the particulars but we don't want to go into detail, we don't know his motives. We want him to tell us about the case," Mumford said....





Posted by Robert on April 14, 2011 4:38 AM

Islamic Cleris Says It Is Permissable To Spill Blood Of Iraqi Christians, And A Duty To Wage Jihad Against Them

From Jihad Watch:


Islamic cleric says it is permissible to spill blood of Iraqi Christians, and a duty to wage jihad against them







How is it that a sheikh who is issuing fatawa misunderstands the Religion of Peace and Tolerance so thoroughly? "Salafi-Jihadist Sheikh: It Is Permissible to Spill the Blood of the Iraqi Christians – And A Duty to Wage Jihad Against Them," from MEMRI, April 14 (thanks to Nicholas):



On April 11, 2011, a fatwa by Sheikh Al-Khatib Al-Baghdadi regarding Iraq's Christians appeared on the Salafi-jihadi website Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad. The fatwa came in response to a question submitted by an inquirer calling himself "'Izz Al-Din," who asked whether the Christians in Iraq today were to be considered a legitimate target of jihad, even though they had not been in the past. He pointed out that these Christians were not associated with the Coptic Orthodox denomination or with its criminal imprisonment of Muslim women in Egypt, and that they were even at odds with the Copts.



But Sheikh Al-Khatib Al-Baghdadi replied that Iraqi Christians were indeed legitimate targets of jihad. Full text available to MEMRI subscribers.



Posted by Robert on April 14, 2011 11:23 AM

Georgia Muslim Woman Who Sent Threatening Packages To New York State Senator Says She Also Sent Pig's Foot And Threats To Representative King

From Jihad Watch:


Georgia Muslim woman who sent threatening package to NY State Senator says she also sent pig's foot and threats to Rep. King







When the pig's foot was sent to King, Honest Ibe Hooper of Hamas-linked CAIR said it must have been sent by an "anti-Muslim bigot." What do you say now, Ibe?



Longtime Jihad Watch readers will recognize this "Jacquelyn Barnette" as "Jameela," who sent me the threat I posted here, and who has more than once (the last time quite recently) spammed the comments fields here with reams of abusive Islamic triumphalism and hatred toward Jews and Christians -- see, for example, the many comments by "Jacci" on this thread. She wrote here the same sort of thing she wrote to New York State Senator Ball -- here's a sample: "To those blood-thirsty, racist Christian cannibals who will murder Jesus after his Resurrection for the sole purpose of bleeding him out to bath in his blood; I advise you to reconsider your blasphemous and diabolical worship of a murdered Jew and read the Qur’an and discover your 'real' purpose in life is NOT to worship and serve the Jew’s as you do."



More on this story and this story. "Georgia Woman Reportedly Admits to Sending Pig's Foot to Rep. Peter King," from FoxNews.com, April 14 (thanks to Jack):



A Georgia woman reportedly has claimed responsibility for the severed pig's foot that was sent to Rep. Peter King, apparently in protest over the hearing he held on radical Islam.

Jacquelyn Barnette, who described herself as Muslim, told the New York Post she sent King the package, which also contained an anti-Semitic note, this month.



The U.S. Postal Service intercepted the package before it ever reached King's office.



"I thought the letters explain themselves," Barnette told the Post.





Do they ever!



Asked about her comments, King told Fox News she "seems to be a disturbed person."...



You can say that again.



Though the note contained anti-Semitic messages, King is not Jewish. The note also reportedly told King to "kiss my black, Muslim-American a--."



Posted by Robert on April 14, 2011 3:54 PM

Misprision Of Treason: Top DOJ Officials Abandon CAIR Terror-Financing Prosecutions

From CSP:

Misprision of Treason: Top DOJ Officials Abandon CAIR Terror Financing Prosecutions


Frank Gaffney







It is a felony offense to know or have reason to know that seditious activity is underway and do nothing about it. The term used in the U.S. Code for such a crime is “misprision of treason.” Counterterrorism expert Patrick Poole reveals today that political appointees in the Obama-Holder Justice Department would appear, at a minimum, to be candidates for prosecution for obstruction of justice and perhaps guilty of violating this statute.



In a Pajamas Media article headlined “Did Obama and Holder Scuttle Terror Finance Prosecutions?” (and reprinted below), Poole reports that two Justice Department sources confirm that the decision not to prosecute unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial was taken “at the top” of the department, not by the federal prosecutors in Dallas who had secured convictions of five HLF officials and had planned next to put away their helpmates.



As a result, one of the most prominent and problematic of those listed by the prosecution – the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas front known as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) – has not only been allowed to continue to run its influence operations in Washington and elsewhere across the country. It has been free to enjoy what is, if anything, even greater access to and influence over the Obama administration than it enjoyed during previous presidencies.



A book published late last year by Patrick Poole and eighteen other national security professionals, Shariah: The Threat to America, documents how such access advances the Muslim Brotherhood’s mission in this country of waging a kind of “grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.” As it happens, just yesterday, Chairwoman Sue Myrick (R-NC) convened the first of what she says will be a series of House Intelligence subcommittee hearings aimed at investigating the Brotherhood and its operations, here and abroad.



One of the most chilling passages of Poole’s article is a quote from a DoJ official who, on condition of anonymity, came forward with confirmation of this scandal:



"This is a national security issue. We know that these Muslim leaders and groups are continuing to raise money for Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Ten years ago we shut down the Holy Land Foundation. It was the right thing to do. Then the money started going to KindHearts. We shut them down too. Now the money is going through groups like Islamic Relief and Viva Palestina. Until we act decisively to cut off the financial pipeline to these terrorist groups by putting more of these people in prison, they are going to continue to raise money that will go into the hands of killers. And until Congress starts grilling the people inside DOJ and the FBI who are giving these groups cover, that is not going to change. My biggest fear is that Americans are going to die and it will be the very Muslim leaders we are working with who will be directly or indirectly responsible."



It is high time Congress starts “grilling the people inside DOJ and the FBI who are giving these groups cover.” If the facts warrant impeachment and prosecution on misprision of treason or other grounds, so be it.

And this, related, also from CSP, and Pajamas Media:
 

Did Obama and Holder Scuttle Terror Finance Prosecutions?



High-level source concedes DOJ let off CAIR co-founders and others for political reasons.



April 14, 2011 - by Patrick Poole





















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During the House Homeland Security hearing last month on the topic of radicalization in the American Muslim community, one exchange between L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca and Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN) concerned the relationship between the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and Hamas terrorist front the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Sheriff Baca told the congressman:





We don’t play around with criminals in my world. If CAIR is an organization that is a quote “criminal organization,” prosecute them. Hold them accountable and bring them to trial.



But according to a high-ranking source within the Department of Justice, who spoke exclusively to Pajamas Media on the condition of anonymity, Sheriff Baca, a long-time supporter of CAIR, was probably already in on the joke.



The joke is that a number of leaders of Islamic organizations (all of whom publicly opposed the King hearings on Muslim radicalization) were about to be indicted on terror finance support charges by the U.S. attorney’s office in Dallas, which had been investigating the case for most of the past decade.



But those indictments were scuttled last year at the direction of top-level political appointees within the Department of Justice (DOJ) — and possibly even the White House.



Included in those indictments was at least one of the co-founders of CAIR, based on “Declination of Prosecution of Omar Ahmad,” a March 31 DOJ legal memo from Assistant Attorney General David Kris to Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler. A second DOJ official familiar with the investigation independently confirmed these details. Omar Ahmad is one of CAIR’s co-founders and its chairman emeritus. He was personally named, along with CAIR itself, as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror finance trial in 2007 and 2008. During the trial FBI Agent Lara Burns testified that both Omar Ahmad and current CAIR executive director Nihad Awad were caught on FBI wiretaps attending a 1993 meeting of Hamas leaders in Philadelphia.



Dean Boyd, public affairs representative for the DOJ National Security Division, declined to provide me a copy of the March 31, 2010, memo dropping the Omar Ahmad prosecution. Directing me to submit a FOIA request, Boyd did say that “as a general rule, internal DOJ deliberation memos spelling out arguments for or against potential prosecution of any particular suspect are not public.”



Pajamas Media will be filing a FOIA request for all the related documents in this case.



According to my source, the chief reason outlined in the DOJ memo declining to prosecute CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad was the issue of potential jury nullification. The first Holy Land Foundation trial in 2007 ended in a hung jury. When the case was retried in 2008, all five defendants, former executives of the Holy Land Foundation, were convicted on all 108 counts.



But, according to our DOJ source, possible jury nullification was hardly the primary issue in the DOJ’s scuttling of the terror finance prosecutions. “This was a political decision from the get-go,” the source said.





It was always the plan to initially go after the [Holy Land Foundation] leaders first and then go after the rest of the accomplices in a second round of prosecutions. From a purely legal point of view, the case was solid. Jim Jacks [the U.S. attorney in Dallas who prosecuted the Holy Land Foundation executives] and his team were ready to go. There’s a mountain of evidence against all of these groups that was never introduced during the Holy Land trial and it is damning. We’ve got them on wiretaps. That’s exactly why many of these leaders and groups were named unindicted co-conspirators in the first round of prosecutions.





But from a political perspective there was absolutely no way that they could move forward. That’s why this decision came from the top down. These individuals who were going to be prosecuted are still the administration’s interfaith allies. Not only would these Muslim groups and their friends in the media be screaming “Islamophobia” at the top of their lungs and that this is a war against Islam, but the administration would look like absolute fools. It’s kind of hard to prosecute someone on material support for terrorism when you have pictures of them getting handed awards from DOJ and FBI leaders for their supposed counter-terror efforts. How would Holder explain that when we’re carting off these prominent Islamic leaders in handcuffs for their role in a terror finance conspiracy we’ve been investigating for years? This is how bad the problem is. Why are we continuing to have anything to do with these groups knowing what we know?



“By closing down these prosecutions,” the source added, “the evidence we’ve collected over the past decade that implicates most of the major Islamic organizations will never see the light of day.”





The FBI still has boxes and boxes of stuff that has never even been translated — just like what happened in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. But it’s already been made public that they have copies of money transfers sent by NAIT [the North American Islamic Trust, which holds the property titles of many of the mosques in America -- Ed.] directly to known Hamas entities and Hamas leaders. Those came out during the [Holy Land Foundation] trial. But what if we won the case against NAIT and its leaders and the U.S. government finds itself the landlord to hundreds of mosques across the country? How well do you think that would that play in the Muslim community?



The actions by the DOJ to crush these prosecutions are just another schizophrenic episode in the U.S. government’s ongoing relationship with Islamic organizations, especially CAIR. After CAIR was named unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land trial, the FBI was forced to cut ties with the group. In an April 2009 letter to Sen. Jon Kyl, FBI Assistant Director Richard Powers said that “the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner.”



And a February 2010 letter from Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich to four congressmen who inquired about the termination of the relationship between the FBI and CAIR — just weeks before the DOJ officially ceased further prosecutions, including of CAIR co-founders — elaborated on the evidence about CAIR that had emerged from the Holy Land trial. Yet, according to my DOJ source, CAIR leaders continue to be regularly received by top DOJ and FBI officials despite the official ban and these statements made to members of Congress.



And just last November, a significant July 2009 memorandum order by Judge Jorge Solis, who supervised the initial Holy Land Foundation trial, was unsealed under direction of the Court of Appeals. It provides the court’s reasons for refusing to remove CAIR and two other prominent Islamic groups, the Islamic Society of North America and NAIT, from the list of unindicted co-conspirators in the case. Judge Solis concluded that “the four pieces of evidence the government relies on, as discussed below, do create at least a prima facie case as to CAIR’s involvement in a conspiracy to support Hamas” (p. 7), specifically naming Omar Ahmad’s part in the conspiracy (p. 6) and adding later that “the Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) and with Hamas” (p. 15).



As I reported here at Pajamas Media, FBI Director Robert Mueller reiterated these reasons for cutting ties with CAIR before a recent House Judiciary Committee meeting — just two days before The Daily Caller reported that White House officials had publicly praised CAIR.



Adding to the hypocrisy, after the Obama administration scuttled the next round of prosecutions in the Hamas terror financing investigation last March, Attorney General Eric Holder gave the prosecutors and FBI investigators in the Holy Land Foundation case the AG’s Award for Distinguished Service last October for their work in the case.



I asked my DOJ source why they decided to come forward now. The source said:





This is a national security issue. We know that these Muslim leaders and groups are continuing to raise money for Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Ten years ago we shut down the Holy Land Foundation. It was the right thing to do. Then the money started going to KindHearts. We shut them down too. Now the money is going through groups like Islamic Relief and Viva Palestina. Until we act decisively to cut off the financial pipeline to these terrorist groups by putting more of these people in prison, they are going to continue to raise money that will go into the hands of killers. And until Congress starts grilling the people inside DOJ and the FBI who are giving these groups cover, that is not going to change. My biggest fear is that Americans are going to die and it will be the very Muslim leaders we are working with who will be directly or indirectly responsible.



But if the U.S. government publicly acknowledges the terror ties of these groups why do they continue to deal with them?





We tried to do what we could during the Bush administration. After 9/11, we had to do something and [the Holy Land Foundation] was the biggest target. If the mistrial hadn’t have happened, we probably would have gone through the second round of prosecutions before the change in administrations.



To say things are different under Obama and Holder would be an understatement. Many of the people I work with at Justice now see CAIR not just as political allies, but ideological allies. They believe they are fighting the same revolution. It’s scary. And Congress and the American people need to know this is going on.



It remains to be seen how Congress, the American people, and the establishment media — who always seem eager to rise to the defense of CAIR and the other terror-tied Islamic groups — will proceed.



Patrick Poole is a regular contributor to Pajamas Media, and an anti-terrorism consultant to law enforcement and the military.


In Libya, U.S. Is Arming The Same Jihadists Who Four Years Earlier Were Trying To Kill Americans In Iraq

From Jihad Watch:


Raymond Ibrahim: In Libya, U.S. is "arming the same jihadists who four years earlier were trying to kill Americans in Iraq"







As I noted here. "Ideals Trump Interests in Obama's Libya Policy," by Raymond Ibrahim in Hudson New York (via RaymondIbrahim.com), April 6:



President Obama's recent explanation for militarily engaging Libya is yet another example of how U.S. leaders increasingly rationalize their policies via sentimental and idealistic platitudes, rather than reality or the long view—or just plain common sense.

In a speech replete with moralizing intonations, Obama did manage to evoke U.S. "interests"—six times—though he never explained what these are. Instead, we were admonished about "our responsibilities to our fellow human beings" and how not assisting them "would have been a betrayal of who we are." Further, by juxtaposing America's "interests" with its "values"—Obama did so twice in his Libya speech—indicates that he may see the two as near synonymous, though they certainly are not.



The closest thing to a fuzzy "interest" that Obama posited is the need to contain Libyan rebels from fleeing to and disrupting nearby nations, such as Egypt, a country of "democratic impulses" where "change will inspire us and raise hopes"—so an overly optimistic Obama observed. While there certainly are liberal, secular elements in Egypt's revolution, increasing evidence—from an Islamist-inclined military that opens fire on its Christian minority, to the recent referendum which serves the Muslim Brotherhood—indicates that, left to itself, Egypt is poised to look more like Iran than America.



Of course, the Obama administration is not against Islamists rising to power—so long as it is through the "will" of the people. As the Los Angeles Times put it, the administration "supports a role for groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamist organization, in a reformed Egyptian government." Even in his speech, Obama said the U.S. must support "the freedom for people to express themselves and choose their leaders"; must support "governments that are ultimately responsive to the aspirations of the people." The underlying assumption is that people always choose liberal forms of governments—a demonstrably false notion: Nazis, Hamas, the mullahs—all came to power through the "aspirations of the people."



As for Libya's nebulous opposition, even before Obama decided to support them, the Washington Post had reported that "the administration knows little about Libya's well-armed rebels, [and] cannot predict the political system that might replace Qaddafi's bizarre rule." More recent evidence indicates that the U.S. is arming the same jihadists who four years earlier were trying to kill Americans in Iraq....





Read it all.



Posted by Robert on April 13, 2011 5:35 AM

Arkansas Jihad Murderer Says He Previously Murdered "A Man Who Robbed And Terrorized Muslims"

From Jihad Watch:


Arkansas jihad murderer says he previously murdered "a man who robbed and terrorized Muslims"







Imitating his prophet, who ordered the assassination of his enemies, and appeasing his bloodthirsty god. "Suspect in Ark. soldier death says killed before," from the Associated Press, April 12:



LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- A man charged in the killing of a soldier outside an Army recruiting center in Arkansas says he also killed a man in Tennessee.

Abdulhakim Muhammad makes the claim in a letter to Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Herb Wright.



The letter doesn't say who was killed in the 2006 incident, only that it was a man who robbed and terrorized Muslims. Police in Nashville told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that they don't know which killing he is talking about....





Posted by Robert on April 13, 2011 7:52 AM

New York State Senator Who Held Terror Hearings Gets Package From "Defender Of Islam" Calling Him "Dead Man Walking"

From Jihad Watch:


NY State Senator who held terror hearings gets package from "defender of Islam" calling him "Dead Man Walking"







And remember: there were people at his hearings castigating Ball for focusing on Muslims. "Ball Receives Suspicious Package at Albany Office," by Ashley Tarr for the Chappaqua-Mount Kisco Patch, April 13:



A suspicious package containing a letter and a stuffed animal bearing the Star of David was opened at state Sen. Greg Ball's Albany office Tuesday afternoon.

The letter begins with "Asa Lamu Laikum Dead Man Walking," (the first part of which some sources translate as "peace be upon you" in Arabic) refers to Ball (R, C - Patterson) as a "crazy, Christian cracker" who lacks political correctness, citing Friday's hearing on homeland security, veterans and military affairs. The letter, whose signer identifies him or herself as a messenger of Allah and a defender of Islam, calls the hearing a "declaration of war against Muslims."...



A statement released by Ball's office Tuesday afternoon did not mention any other items in the package, but other news outlets reported the arrival of hazardous materials teams at the office....





Posted by Robert on April 13, 2011 8:04 AM

Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Sees Growing Threat Of Mumbai-Style Jihad Attack

From Jihad Watch:


Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief sees growing threat of Mumbai-style jihad attack







"For the Los Angeles Police Department, the top priority is countering violent, ideological extremism from several Muslim communities in the region made up of diaspora from Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and elsewhere." Good thing the U.S. is importing all these people, eh?



"L.A. police use intel networks against terror," by Bill Gertz in The Washington Times, April 11 (thanks to all who sent this in):



LOS ANGELES
Police are using a combination of aggressive spy operations and community outreach to counter what Deputy Police Chief Michael P. Downing called the growing threat of Mumbai-style terrorist attacks — car bombings and small-arms-equipped suicide teams.

“The biggest fear I have is just what I don’t know,” Chief Downing, commanding officer of the counterterrorism and special operations bureau, said in an interview, in which he warned that the terrorism threat in the area remains “very real.”



“You need good intelligence. Do we have an idea of all the cells here? Do we know all the players? Do we know their associates? Does al Qaeda have good access to [weapons of mass destruction]? And how sophisticated can they get? That worries me,” he said.



For the Los Angeles Police Department, the top priority is countering violent, ideological extremism from several Muslim communities in the region made up of diaspora from Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and elsewhere.



Most of the communities are linked to their home nations and are quick to respond to events there, something the police monitor closely.



Chief Downing identified the main terrorism threats as violent Islamists such as al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas, along with three other terrorist categories: black separatists, white supremacist/sovereign citizen extremists, and animal rights terrorists.



Al Qaeda, he said, has “morphed” into a more ideological threat that motivates spinoffs such as the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.



Domestically, “now we kind of have a type of AQ in the United States,” Chief Downing said. “It’s where we have people who follow al Qaeda’s goals and objectives and mission and ideology.”...





Where do they pick up that ideology?



Posted by Robert on April 13, 2011 12:56 PM

It's Time For Congress To Speak On Libya

From The CATO Institute:

It's Time for Congress to Speak on Libya




by Doug Bandow

















This article appeared in Forbes on April 11, 2011.





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These days it is hard to imagine a U.S. president not going to war. Americans are constantly reminded that the world is a dangerous place.



But that doesn't mean the U.S. has to be constantly at war. Why did President Barack Obama send America into its third war in a decade in the Middle East? Libya posed no threat to the U.S. and, contrary to the president's sensational claims, Moammar Qaddafi, though a thug, evidenced no genocidal tendencies. Now Washington is enmeshed in a potentially lengthy civil war.



Equally worrisome is how President Obama took America into war. Or "kinetic military action," as his officials prefer to call it. That's a bit like President Harry S. Truman's "police action" in Korea. Never mind the bombing and killing. "War" is such an ugly word!



But war it is. And the president involved America without the consent of Congress. The former constitutional law professor made nary a nod to the Constitution.





The decision on war and peace is far too important to leave to one man, however honest, smart, charming, or popular.



Indeed, his decision looked almost frivolous. The president went publicly to-and-fro on possible involvement. He only called congressional leaders the day before he started bombing to "consult" them. Then he took days to explain to the American people why U.S. military personnel were risking their lives to kill people in another country.



Under the Constitution it is not enough for the president to decide on war. He must win a vote of Congress.



Obviously, more than a few officials don't care what the Constitution says. Presidents want to wield power, while many legislators seek to avoid responsibility. Let the president decide: Then they can applaud if the conflict goes well or carp if it turns out badly.



But this president and his top officials know better. When asked whether he could unilaterally bomb Iran, presidential candidate Obama responded: "The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."



Candidate Hillary Clinton responded in the same unequivocal fashion: "the Constitution requires Congress to authorize war. I do not believe that the president can take military action — including any kind of strategic bombing — against Iran without congressional authorization."



Then-Senator Joseph Biden addressed the issue more than a decade ago: "The Framers' views were dominated by their experience with the British King, who had unfettered power to start wars. Such powers the Framers were determined to deny the president." He contended that the "Framers intended to grant to Congress the power to initiate all hostilities, even limited wars," and went on to urge impeachment for President George W. Bush if the latter bombed Iran without congressional authority.



The Constitution is clear. Article 1, Sec. 8 (11) states that "Congress shall have the power ... to declare war."



Advocates of executive war-making claim that declaring just means, well, declaring. You know, like having the minister officially declare that a couple is man and wife after they have exchanged marriage vows.



Bush legal adviser John Yoo, infamous for his memos justifying torture, argued that this enumerated power is simply rhetorical fluff, allowing "Congress to establish the nation's legal status under international law." Conservative attorneys David Rivkin and Lee Casey made a similar claim, contending that "the president has the authority to determine when and how U.S. forces are used" and that he has "wide latitude to use military force."



America's Founders could have written the Constitution with this intention. But they didn't.



Early Americans, both in drafting and ratifying the document, routinely criticized the British monarch because he could unilaterally drag his nation into war. This was a time when war was the sport of kings, costing Europe much blood and treasure. Wrote John Jay: a variety of dubious motives, "which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people." Americans rejected both the formality of monarchy and reality of monarchical powers.



Indeed, at the constitutional convention South Carolina's Pierce Butler explicitly advocated giving the president kingly power. His proposal flopped. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts opined that he "never expected to hear in a republic a motion to empower the executive to declare war."



Some Americans still opposed the proposed Constitution because they feared that it gave the chief executive authority similar to that of the British king. Don't worry, explained Butler to South Carolina legislators: "Some gentlemen [namely himself!] were inclined to give this power to the president, but it was objected to, as throwing into his hands the influence of a monarch, having an opportunity of involving his country in a war whenever he wished to promote her destruction."



Also offering assurance was the great friend of executive power Alexander Hamilton. Being commander-in-chief merely made the president the "first general and admiral" of American forces, Hamilton explained. The president's authority was "in substance much inferior to [that of the king]. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the land and naval forces ... while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war."



The commander-in-chief position is the fount of the presidential war power. Wrote John Yoo: "The Constitution centralized the management of war in the president precisely to avoid the delays and mistakes of decision-making by committee." True, and no one expects legislators to conduct operations in the field.



However, that authority remains strictly limited by Congress' authority to raise armies, write the rules of war, ratify treaties, issue letters of marque and reprisal, regulate international commerce, approve ambassadors, and, most importantly, declare war. It is up to Congress to answer the basic policy question: war or peace? Once legislators have decided that the nation has a war to fight, the president exercises his powers as commander-in-chief.



The Founders divided powers this way because otherwise they feared that presidents would act as they do now. Explained James Madison in 1793, it is necessary to adhere to the "fundamental doctrine of the Constitution that the power to declare war is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature."



Convention delegates did change Congress' power from "make" to "declare" war so the president could confront a sudden attack. In this sense Yoo is right that "The Constitution creates a presidency that is uniquely structured to act forcefully and independently to repel serious threats to the nation."



For instance, the president could "repel" war, explained Roger Sherman. Early American presidents often deployed the nation's fledgling military, but commonly distinguished between limited defensive and more expansive offensive actions. Even after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Franklin Delano Roosevelt called on Congress to declare war. He didn't plan a four-year global military campaign on his own authority.



The nation's Founders mandated congressional assent for starting wars because they wanted to make war less likely. The president "is not safely to be entrusted with" the power to decide on war, said George Mason of Virginia. Mason spoke of "clogging rather than facilitating war."



James Wilson was pleased that the proposed constitution "will not hurry us into war." Instead, he explained, "It is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is in the legislature at large." Thomas Jefferson wrote of creating an "effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power of letting him loose."



No less a conservative paladin than Antonin Scalia affirmed the limits on presidential war-making in his dissent in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld regarding the treatment of "enemy combatants." Scalia wrote: "Except for the actual command of military forces, all authorization for their maintenance and all explicit authorization for their use is placed in the control of Congress under Article I, rather than the president under Article II. As Hamilton explained, the president's military authority would be ‘much inferior' to that of the British King."



Similarly, observed Columbia law professor John Bassett Moore: "There can hardly be room for doubt that the framers of the Constitution when they vested in Congress the power to declare war, never imagined that they were leaving it to the executive to use the military and naval forces of the United States all over the world for the purpose of actually coercing other nations, occupying their territory, and killing their soldiers and citizens, all according to his own notions of the fitness of things, as long as he refrained from calling his action war or persisted in calling it peace."



Politics, not the Constitution, is the basis for an expansive presidential war power. Advocates simply have an ideological preference in favor of war. For instance, John Yoo complained that newly elected Republicans who believe in limited government "resist Washington's indispensable role abroad." But even if more war was better, that wouldn't change the Constitution.



In fact, the Founders were prescient. Presidents have shamelessly manipulated both dubious intelligence and credulous public opinion to take the U.S. into many unnecessary wars. These executive adventures have almost always turned out to be the sort of "dumb wars" which candidate Obama said he opposed, such as Iraq.



Truly odd are presidents determined to win a vote of the United Nations Security Council and/or NATO ambassadors but not the U.S. Congress. Only the latter satisfies the Constitution. Ironically, the British parliament voted to authorize Great Britain's attack on Libya. Two centuries later, American revolutionaries and British monarchists seemingly have switched positions.



Perhaps the worst argument for executive war-making is that previous presidents have gotten away with violating the Constitution. In fact, some of these operations were carried out with colorable congressional authority; most were limited deployments, very different from overthrowing an existing government, installing a client ruler, and maintaining him in power. Irrespective of past misbehavior, the Constitution still applies.



Past lawbreaking actually offers a strong argument for Congress to take its constitutional responsibilities more seriously. Lawmakers, regardless of party, should insist that presidents, regardless of party, fulfill their oath of office.







Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to Ronald Reagan, he is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire (Xulon).



More by Doug Bandow

There always will be gray areas, of course, but most cases today are easy. Such as intervening in Libya's civil war.



The last president who accepted the limits of the presidential war power may have been Dwight Eisenhower, one of the few chief executives with command military experience: "When it comes to the matter of war, there is only one place that I would go, and that is to the Congress of the United States." A few months later he explained that "I am not going to order any troops into anything that can be interpreted as war, until Congress directs it."



Eisenhower was channeling George Washington, who wrote South Carolina Gov. William Moultrie: "The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure."



Presidents Eisenhower and Washington are much better role models than Presidents Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.



Democrats as well as Republicans in Congress should insist that President Obama abide by the nation's fundamental law. American presidents cannot lawfully risk the lives of young Americans in foreign military adventures without congressional consent. The decision on war and peace is far too important to leave to one man, however honest, smart, charming, or popular.

U.S. To Reconsider Use Of Drones In Pakistan

From Homeland Security NewsWire:

U.S. to reconsider use of drones in Pakistan




Published 13 April 2011



In the last twenty-four months, U.S. drones have killed some 1,000 militants -- but also about 600 civilians; in an effort to shore up fraying relationship with Pakistan, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan said the United States would examine the continued use of drones in the war against the militants; Pakistani prime minister Asif Ali Zardari said the drone war has destabilized Pakistan and made political and economic reforms more difficult to accomplish





Pakistan want an end to UAV operationss // Source: washingtonchronicles.com



The United States is considering the effectiveness of the continued use of drones to fight militants in Pakistan. In the last twenty-four months, U.S. drones killed about 1,000 militants, but also about 600 civilians. The use of these drones has inflamed Pakistani public opinion.



Fox News reports that the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, said the use of dron “is something on our agenda.” Munter spoke at a gathering of top Pakistani military brass, analysts, and academics Monday at an event that was billed by the local U.S. Embassy as a major policy announcement.



Fox news notes that Munter’s comment did not come from his prepared speech, but during a question-and-answer session in response to a question from a member of the audience. Television cameras were ordered to leave the room for the question-and-answer session.



“We have habits and tendencies that don’t work for us and get in the way [of its relationship with Pakistan],” Munter said, a reference to drones and undercover C.I.A. operations on Pakistani soil that have enraged Pakistan’s powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence.



The ambassador gave no timeline on when a review of drone policy would be conducted, but it is likely that Washington will want to make it a priority as it attempts to shore up relations with Pakistan.



The Pakistani position on the use of drones has been ambivalent. On the one hand, Pakistani military and security services have repeatedly asked the United States to provide Pakistan with its own drones so it could conduct anti-militant operations on its own. Pakistan has also asked – and so far, has been rebuffed – to receive information on drone operations and targets before the United States launch such operations. Fearing information leaks, the United States has refused.



On the other hand, Pakistani prime minister Asif Ali Zardari has told the Guardian newspaper that the continuing drone war has contributed to the destabilization of the country and has made political and economic reforms more difficult to achieve.

Pakistan Asks U.S. To Reduce Covert Presence

from Homeland Security NewsWire:


Pakistan asks U.S. to reduce covert presence in country



Published 13 April 2011



In a move which is going to hamper the U.S. ability to operate effectively against militants in Pakistan, Pakistan has let it be known that it wants about 335 U.S. personnel, CIA officers and contractors, and special operations force personnel to leave Pakistan; this would account for 25-40 percent of CIA staff in the country; tension between the two countries has been rising for a while, and it came to a head earlier this year when a CIA operative panicked during a covert operation and killed to innocent bystanders; the operative was released after the two families, who received $2.3 million in blood money from the CIA, asked the court to let him go; the Pakistani government, however, wants the U.S. covert footprint reduced and covert activity, including the use of drones, curtailed





CIA must reduce presence, including covert UAVs // Source: robotsnob.com



Tensions between the United States and Pakistan, already tense, deteriorated even further when, earlier this year, CIA operative Raymond Davis was arrested after shooting two Pakistanis. The official U.S. line is that Davis thought two passers by were going to rob him, but the reality is the he was a CIA look-out who panicked while on a covert operation and, mistakenly, shot two innocent people who he thought were part of the group of bad guys he was tailing. Last month a Pakistani court freed Raymond Davis after acquitting him of two counts of murder, when relatives of the two men he shot dead pardoned him in court. The Washington Post reports that the families agreed to do so after receiving up to $2.3 million from the CIA as “blood money.”



The Pakistani authorities know what Davis was up to, and they have decided to take action. The New York Times reported that about 335 U.S. personnel, CIA officers and contractors, and special operations force personnel were being asked to leave Pakistan. The newspaper quoted an unnamed Pakistani official said to be closely involved in the discussions.



The BBC reports that this would account for 25-40 percent of CIA staff in the country. The reduction in CIA operations appears to have been personally requested by Pakistan’s army chief General Ashfaq Kayani.



Officially, the United States denies that a Pakistani request for a reduction in U.S. covert presence in Pakistan has even been made. Referring to a meeting between CIA director Leon Panetta and the head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate, Ahmed Shuja Pasha, at the CIA headquarters in Virginia, CIA spokesman Preston Golson told Reuters news agency: “Director Panetta and General Pasha held productive discussions today and the CIA-ISI relationship remains on solid footing.”

ISAF Policy In Afghnaistan: Catch And Release Of IED Bombers

From Europe News:

ISAF Policy: Catch-and-Release IED-Bombers














Diana West 13 April 2011

By Diana West



Recon Marine Cpl. Todd Love (above) got a hero's welcome in his hometown of Acworth, Georgia this week. Love lost both legs and his left arm in an IED explosion in Afghanistan a few months ago. The Washington Examiner story below by Sara Carter tells us that even if US forces had photographed the bomber in the act and captured him with bomb traces on his hands, they would then have had to feed him, clothe him ... and let him go.



This is another Afghanistan scandal that should get Congress pounding tables and demanding answers from the Pentagon and the White House. It should get readers doing the same. After all, we pay $350 million a day for this.



Carter writes:



Several Taliban detainees who had been captured in February after being observed placing bombs in the culverts of roads used by civilians and military convoys near Kandahar were fed, given medical treatment, then released by American troops frustrated by a policy they say is forcing them to kick loose enemies who are trying to kill them.



Despite what American soldiers say was a mountain of evidence, which included a video of the men planting the bomb and chemical traces found on their hands, there was nothing the soldiers who had captured them could do but feed and care for them for 96 hours and then set them free.



In another incident, members of a unit attached to 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment survived an attack by a suicide bomber on their convoy when his device failed to detonate. Soldiers managed to capture the would-be martyr, but he too was released after being held for four days.



"We put our lives on the line to capture the enemy," a soldier with the Stryker regiment told The Washington Examiner. "Since my deployment, every insurgent we've captured has been released."



Come again?



Since my deployment, every insurgent we've captured has been released."



International Security Assistance Forces officials contacted by The Examiner admitted that releases like these were common. The officials said ISAF forces can hold detainees for up to 96 hours, during which time detainees are "screened and a decision is made whether to release the individual, transfer them to appropriate Afghan authorities, or to the detention facility in Parwan [at Bagram Air Base]."



ISAF spokesman Lt. Col. John Dorrian said things are expected to change. He said Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior, supported by Combined Joint Interagency Task Force 435, is implementing a system for fingerprinting captured insurgents.



"This program is going to make a huge difference, dramatically reducing insurgents' ability to hide among the general population," he said. "It will also improve the ability of Afghan and coalition forces to gather evidence of insurgent activity that will hold up in court."



Since when do soldiers have to gather "evidence" on their enemies? Welcome to COIN.



However, the program is not yet operational. Like many plans associated with the Afghan war, there are many potential setbacks ahead.



Troops say top commander Gen. David Petraeus has not fulfilled promises he made to Congress last year to review and, where appropriate, change rules of engagement that have restricted troops' ability to stop the enemy.



Gen. Stanley McChrystal, former commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan. promised that ISAF would have control of at least 40 Afghan districts by the end of 2010. That promise also was not met.



Troops say it's impossible to hold the terrain when insurgents know that, if captured, they cannot be held.



The policy of releasing insurgents is expected to continue for now, officials said.



The Afghan legal system has no Western-style standards of prosecution that would allow suspected Taliban to be held in civil detention, ISAF officials said.



Um, the Afghan legal system (sharia-based) has no Western-style standards of anythiing.



"While there may be ample evidence to detain an individual, the same evidence may be insufficient to obtain an indictment or bring the detainee to an evidence-based trial," Dorrian said. "In other instances, individuals may be detained based on legitimate intelligence, but the intelligence may be classified and thus not able to be presented in open court. In some instances, this results in the individual being released."



ISAF general staff meeting.



James Carafano, senior defense analyst for the Heritage Foundation, said releasing suspected insurgents is not only a problem for U.S. troops but civilians who have been tormented under Taliban rule.



"The real issue is what is the right thing to do?" Carafano said. "Putting Taliban fighters back in the field who may kill or terrorize Afghan civilians as easily as U.S. soldiers is never the right thing to do. The U.S. troops will not be there forever --



Sez who?



-- and local officials need to start thinking about the long-term interests of their own people."



American troops say the policy is a morale killer.



How about just plain "killer"?



They say the inability to hold suspected insurgents is one of the reasons why the U.S. has been unable to suppress the Taliban.



Detainees can be held at various field detention facilities throughout Afghanistan. "Capacity is not an issue as to whether an individual remains detained," an ISAF official stated.



"How much more evidence do you need when they are captured on video and tested positive for ... chemicals on their hand?" a military official in Afghanistan said. "That's not enough evidence for our forces to transfer the detainees to a permanent facility before they try to kill U.S. troops again? It's unacceptable."



So don't accept it.









Posted April 13th, 2011 by pk

HMS Nursemaid: Shame As Royal Navy Seizes 17 Armed Somalis, Gives Them Halal Meat And Nicotine Patches...Then Sets Them Free!

From Europe News:

HMS Nursemaid: Shame as Navy seizes 17 armed Somalis, gives them halal meat and nicotine patches... then sets them free!














Daily Mail 13 April 2011

By Tom Kelly and Paul Revoir



When a Royal Navy warship captured a crew of Somali pirates, it seemed like a rare chance to strike back at the ruthless sea gangsters. The 17 outlaws were armed with an arsenal of AK 47s and rocket-propelled grenades, and had forced hostages on a hijacked fishing vessel to work as slaves for three months.



But instead of bringing them to justice, the British servicemen were ordered to provide the pirates halal meals, medical checks, cigarettes – and in one case even a nicotine patch – before releasing them in their own boats.

The extraordinary treatment – revealed in a Radio 4 documentary to be broadcast tonight – came at a time when Somali piracy is causing mayhem to shipping in the Indian Ocean.



More than L60million was paid in ransoms last year and pirates currently hold 30 ships and nearly 800 hostages.



HMS Cornwall is one of two Royal Navy frigates patrolling two and a half million square miles of ocean to try to capture pirate ships.



The apparent breakthrough came in February when the captain of a merchant ship crossing the ocean radioed to say he had seen something suspicious.

(...)









Posted April 13th, 2011 by pk

Lessons For The West From The muslim Jihad In Christian Ethiopia

from Jihad Watch:


Raymond Ibrahim: Lessons for the West from the Muslim jihad in Christian Ethiopia







In "Muslim Jihad in Christian Ethiopia: Lessons for the West" in FrontPage, March 28 (via RaymondIbrahim.com), our old friend and colleague Raymond Ibrahim brings to light some salient details about the recent jihad violence in Ethiopia that were ignored (of course) in the mainstream media:



Not only does last week's jihadist rampage against Ethiopia's indigenous Christians highlight the travails Christians encounter wherever Islam has a sizable population, but it offers several insights, including some which should concern faraway, secular nations with Muslim minorities. According to Fox News:

Thousands of Christians have been forced to flee their homes in Western Ethiopia after Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes. At least one Christian has been killed, many more have been injured and anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 have been displaced in the attacks that began March 2 after a Christian in the community of Asendabo was accused of desecrating the Koran.



For starters, this "medieval" attack is a reminder that countless churches have been destroyed or desecrated by jihadist terror since Islam rose to power in the Medieval era, evincing centuries of continuity. While the media may mention the more "spectacular" attacks on churches—in Iraq, in Egypt—most attacks go either unreported or underreported. (Some Muslim nations, such as U.S. "friend-and-ally" Saudi Arabia, nip it in the bud by outlawing churches in the first place.)...





Read it all.
From Raymond Ibrahim:


Muslim Jihad in Christian Ethiopia

Lessons for the West



by Raymond Ibrahim

FrontPageMagazine.com

March 28, 2011











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Not only does last week's jihadist rampage against Ethiopia's indigenous Christians highlight the travails Christians encounter wherever Islam has a sizable population, but it offers several insights, including some which should concern faraway, secular nations with Muslim minorities. According to Fox News:





Thousands of Christians have been forced to flee their homes in Western Ethiopia after Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes. At least one Christian has been killed, many more have been injured and anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 have been displaced in the attacks that began March 2 after a Christian in the community of Asendabo was accused of desecrating the Koran.











Remains of one of the churches destroyed during the Muslim rampage.







For starters, this "medieval" attack is a reminder that countless churches have been destroyed or desecrated by jihadist terror since Islam rose to power in the Medieval era, evincing centuries of continuity. While the media may mention the more "spectacular" attacks on churches—in Iraq, in Egypt—most attacks go either unreported or underreported. (Some Muslim nations, such as U.S. "friend-and-ally" Saudi Arabia, nip it in the bud by outlawing churches in the first place.)



Moreover, the dubious excuse used to justify this latest barbarous outburst—"desecration of the Koran"—is a reminder of the double-standards Bibles suffer in the Islamic world, where they are routinely confiscated and burned. Indeed, even as Muslim Ethiopians were rampaging, Muslim nations hailed as being "moderate"—Malaysia and Bangladesh—also made headlines last week with their deplorable treatment of Christians and Bibles. Worse, the West helps standardize such a biased approach: the U.S. government—Obama, Hillary, and any number of other grandstanding politicians—rose up in condemnation when a virtually anonymous, small-town pastor threatened to burn the Koran, while saying nary a word about the countless Bibles daily mutilated in the Muslim world (a 2003 fatwa that ruled the Bible suitable for use by Muslims when cleaning after defecation went largely unnoticed).



Such a gutless approach is not surprising considering the sort of people who advise the military, such as Lt. Cmdr. Youssef Aboul-Enein, who recommends that, if ever an American soldier desecrates a Koran, U.S. leadership must offer "unconditional apologies," and emulate the words of Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Hammond: "I come before you [Muslims] seeking your forgiveness, in the most humble manner I look in your eyes today, and say please forgive me and my soldiers," followed by abjectly kissing a new Koran (Militant Islamist Ideology, p. 26).











Dispossessed Ethiopians pray.







Finally, for those Western observers who live beyond the moment and have an interest in the big picture, the long run—the world bequeathed to future generations—the issue of numbers revealed by this Ethiopian anecdote should give cause to pause. The Fox News report continues:





The string of attacks comes on the heels of several reports of growing anti-Christian tension and violence around the country where Muslims make up roughly one-third of the total population but more than 90 percent of the population in certain areas, 2007 Census data shows. One of those areas is Besheno where, on November 9, all the Christians in the city woke up to find notes on their doors warning them to convert to Islam, leave the city or face death.



As Jonathan Racho, an official at International Christian Concern, said, "It's extremely disconcerting that in Ethiopia, where Christians are the majority, they are also the victims of persecution." This oddity is explained by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's assertion that Ethiopian Islamists "have changed their tactics and they have been able to camouflage their activities through legal channels"—a strategy regularly implemented by Islamists wherever they are outnumbered, like in the U.S., prompting countermeasures such as Islamist Watch and the Legal Project.



That Muslims are an otherwise peaceable minority group in Ethiopia, but in enclaves where they represent the majority, they attack their outnumbered Christian countrymen—giving them a tweaked version of Islam's three choices to infidels—suggests that Muslim aggression and passivity are very much rooted in numbers: the more Muslims, the more potential for "assertive" behavior.











Ethiopia has some of the world's oldest churches, including St. Mary of Zion, which was originally built in the 4th century but nearly destroyed during a 16th century jihad waged by the Somali Ahmad ibn Ibrahim.







This has lessons for the West, especially Europe, which in recent years has seen an unprecedented influx of Muslim immigrants, reaching some 53 million, a number expected to "nearly double by 2015, while the non-Muslim will shrink by 3.5%," due to higher Muslim birth rates. In short, it is a matter of time before Muslims account for significant numbers in Europe—perhaps not the majority, but, as the Ethiopian example establishes, a majority is not necessary for the winds of jihad to blow.



Indeed, the story of Islam's entry into Ethiopia, one of the oldest Christian civilizations, is illustrative. Around 615, when the pagan Quraysh were persecuting Muhammad's outnumbered Muslim followers in Arabia, some fled to Ethiopia seeking sanctuary. The Christian king, or "Negus" of Ethiopia, welcomed and protected these Muslim fugitives, ignoring Quraysh demands to return them—and thus winning Muhammad's gratefulness. Today, 14 centuries later, when Islam has carved itself a solid niche in Ethiopia, accounting for 1/3 of the population, Muslim gratefulness has turned to something else—not least a warning to Western states.




Posted by Robert on April 12, 2011 5:13 AM

Nigeria: 1,000 Muslims Attack Christian Village

From Jihad Watch:


Nigeria: 1,000 Muslims attack Christian village: "Almost every home in the village was destroyed, and some elderly people were reported to have been burnt to death in their homes"







Will the Islamophobia never end?



"1,000 attack non-Muslim village in Nigeria," from Catholic Culture, April 12 (thanks to Twostellas):



Armed with machetes and guns, 1,000 militants attacked the village of Bar Arewa in the northern Nigerian state of Bauchi on April 7. “Almost every home in the village was destroyed, and some elderly people were reported to have been burnt to death in their homes,” according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

The group is part of a larger band of 2,000 militants that has been attacking non-Muslim villages....





Posted by Robert on April 12, 2011 5:58 AM

Obama Regime Refusing To Hand Over Evidence, Delaying Trial Of Fort Hood Jihad Mass-Murderer

From Jihad Watch:


Obama Administration refusing to hand over evidence, delaying trial of Fort Hood jihad murderer







In "Obama's Fort Hood Jihadist" at the American Thinker, April 11, Pamela Geller reveals that the Obama Administration is refusing to hand over evidence in the trial of Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood jihadist, and thereby delaying his trial. Why are they protecting him?



We have been hearing for years that the White House is withholding evidence on the Fort Hood jihadi, Major Nidal Malik Hasan. Now comes direct confirmation of this from Hasan's own lawyer.

Major Hasan, also known as Soldier of Allah, according to his business card, mowed down thirteen U.S. soldiers while screaming Allahu akbar on the Fort Hood military base in Texas a year and a half ago, in November 2009. Yet his trial keeps on being postponed. On March 30, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the outgoing commanding general at Fort Hood, granted a request from John Galligan, Hasan's lawyer, to delay the trial until late April. Galligan, however, disclaims responsibility for all the delays, blaming them on none other than Barack Hussein Obama.



Rick, a reader of my website, AtlasShrugs.com, forwarded to me an email exchange he had with Galligan. Rick wrote to Galligan last Thursday: "The American people are getting pretty upset about all of these delays." On Friday, Galligan responded: "Delays are due to prosecution/White House refusal to disclose evidence. Blame them for the delays."...





Read it all.
From The American Thinker:

April 11, 2011


Obama's Fort Hood Jihadist

By Pamela Geller







We have been hearing for years that the White House is withholding evidence on the Fort Hood jihadi, Major Nidal Malik Hasan. Now comes direct confirmation of this from Hasan's own lawyer.





Major Hasan, also known as Soldier of Allah, according to his business card, mowed down thirteen U.S. soldiers while screaming Allahu akbar on the Fort Hood military base in Texas a year and a half ago, in November 2009. Yet his trial keeps on being postponed. On March 30, Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the outgoing commanding general at Fort Hood, granted a request from John Galligan, Hasan's lawyer, to delay the trial until late April. Galligan, however, disclaims responsibility for all the delays, blaming them on none other than Barack Hussein Obama.





Rick, a reader of my website, AtlasShrugs.com, forwarded to me an email exchange he had with Galligan. Rick wrote to Galligan last Thursday: "The American people are getting pretty upset about all of these delays." On Friday, Galligan responded: "Delays are due to prosecution/White House refusal to disclose evidence. Blame them for the delays."





So where is justice? This Islamic supremacist should have been executed by now. What's the hold up? Galligan's blaming Obama is consistent with how the White House has behaved throughout this case. Back in November of 2010, I wrote at Atlas Shrugs that the Obama administration was "still covering up the motivation behind the attack."





Even worse, in October 2010, a soldier at Fort Hood who caught Hasan's jihad murders in two videos on his cell phone camera was ordered by his commanding officer to delete both videos.





This is unacceptable. An army officer ordered the destruction of evidence in a jihadist attack on American soldiers? The officer should be on trial for obstruction of justice.





And back in April 2010, Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) had to subpoena the Obama White House to get information it was withholding for a congressional investigation into the Fort Hood jihad massacre.





Meanwhile, the official government report on this jihad mass-murder doesn't mention jihad or Islam at all. Congressman John Carter (R-TX) said that "the Obama Administration continues to deny the Fort Hood attack was terrorism, failed to grant the casualties the same status as that given casualties from the 2001 Pentagon attack, conspicuously omitted even mention of the words 'radical Islamic terrorism' in the official DOD report on the shootings, and will not acknowledge the role of political-correctness in stifling whistleblower warnings of the impending attack."





Yet on the morning of Major Hasan's mass slaughter of U.S. troops at Fort Hood in the bloodiest act of war on a military base in U.S. history, he distributed Qur'ans and his card, calling infidels to convert to Islam before his jihad (as I reported at Atlas Shrugs on November 6, 2009 -- Major Hasan's Dawah before Jihad). Hasan screamed "Allahu Akbar!" as he mowed down U.S. soldiers at Fort Hood.





Also, a fellow psychiatrist recalled a lecture Hasan gave (a "grand round" is the term for it) when he was a medical resident at Walter Reed: "It freaked them out." Normally, a lecturer focuses on a particular disease or disorder and recent research or treatment options. Instead, Hasan reportedly harangued the doctors and staff about what the Qur'an teaches about non-believers going to hell, being scalded, beheaded, etc. A Muslim psychiatrist in the audience reportedly challenged Hasan about his interpretation of the Qur'an, but he would not back down (because he was right). Other sources said that several in the audience suggested afterward that Hasan might be a shooter someday.





Yet Obama has continued to withhold evidence in the Fort Hood jihadist attack and, as Galligan has just revealed, continues to shield the Muslim terrorist.





So crippled has our military (and other branches of government) become by this self-imposed Sharia (do not insult Islam!), that despite the staggering loss of U.S. soldiers in Hasan's Fort Hood massacre, the chief concern of Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey, Jr. in the bloody aftermath of the Fort Hood jihad was that "speculation could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers and what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here."





That was the concern.





By Gd, what have they done? They have abandoned, by their own volition, the only weapon of survival -- they are practicing suspension of the mind, refusing to think.





Who is looking out for Americans? We know who is looking out for the jihad in America. John Galligan just reminded us.



Pamela Geller is the editor and publisher of the Atlas Shrugs website and former associate publisher of the New York Observer. She is the author of The Post-American Presidency.


Posted by Robert on April 12, 2011 6:16 AM