Dick Morris on the Fleecing of America by W. Thomas Smith, Jr.

In their new book, FLEECED, political pundit Dick Morris and attorney-coauthor Eileen McGann (yes, Morris and McGann are married), expose companies – both foreign and domestic – U.S. media powerhouses, an ineffective Congress, highly-vocal party hacks, and, yes, Sen. Barack Obama, all of whom are slickering Americans for their own ends, and seriously compromising our national security (among other things) in the process.

FLEECED was released on Tuesday and almost immediately soared to the #1 spot at Amazon.com. On Wednesday morning, Morris and I spent a few minutes on the phone chatting about the book and how it serves as an important primer in both an election year and in a strategically evolutionary period in the war on terror. [more...]

Family Security Matters Briefings - Week of 6/23/08

Fighting Near the Shores of Tripoli: Lebanon's, Not Libya's
By W. Thomas Smith, Jr.

Over the weekend, we received word that fighting was taking place in-and-around the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, not far from where last year's fighting took place between the Lebanese Army and the Al-Qaeda affiliate group Fatah Al Islam in the bloody battle of Nahr al-Bared. The current fighting, which is now being widely reported throughout the Western media, is between pro-democracy Sunnis and pro-Syrian Alawites (allied to Hezbollah). [more...]


Justice Scalia on Gitmo Terror Ruling: It Endangers American Lives
By Joel Himelfarb

Justice Antonin Scalia offered a chilling observation about last week's 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that terror suspects currently being held at Guantanamo Bay have a constitutional right to challenge their detention in federal court. The decision, which is based on a fundamental misreading of the Constitution and existing case law, "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed," Scalia wrote in a blistering dissent, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. [more...]


Iraq War - Don't Snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory
By KT McFarland

Isn't it extraordinary how quickly the Iraq War has faded from the headlines? Nowadays, the only thing the media covers on Iraq is what happened several years ago - claiming it was a mistake to invade in 2003, that the Bush administration misstated the case for going to war, that the Rumsfeld civilian and military team badly mismanaged the occupation.

Those charges may or may not be true, but we won't know for sure until the historians have taken over from the journalists and politicians in analyzing the early years of the war. The crucial question with Iraq is not what happened five years ago, but what should we do next? What are our options in Iraq going forward? [more...]


More Discouraging News from Around the Troubled African Horn
By J.Peter Pham, PhD

Even by the much-reduced expectations of the subregion, the news emanating from the geopolitically-sensitive, but ever-volatile Horn of Africa has not been at all good these last few weeks. Last week, the United Nations special envoy for Darfur, Swedish diplomat Jan Eliasson, and his African Union counterpart, Tanzanian diplomat Salim Ahmed Salim, admitted that their efforts to resolve what the UN itself has termed "the world's worst humanitarian crisis" were on the verge of collapse. [more...]

Fighting Near the Shores of Tripoli: Lebanon's, Not Libya's

By W. Thomas Smith, Jr.

Over the weekend, we received word that fighting was taking place in-and-around the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, not far from where last year's fighting took place between the Lebanese Army and the Al-Qaeda affiliate group Fatah Al Islam in the bloody battle of Nahr al-Bared. The current fighting, which is now being widely reported throughout the Western media, is between pro-democracy Sunnis and pro-Syrian Alawites (allied to Hezbollah). [more...]

Heritage Foundation on FamilySecurityMatters.org

There is now a Web site that looks at national security on a personal level. According to the "About Us" section of FamilySecurityMatters.org, "Family Security Matters was created to give Americans like us the tools to become involved citizens and powerful defenders of our homes, our families, and our communities… to show you how you can influence national policy and community security directly, without waiting for government action."

The tool they provide individuals is information and a wealth of it can be found in the site's numerous sections. Sections such as "Must Reads" and "FSM Authors" provide information written by the site's contributing editors, all experts in various aspects of national security. The "Enfactlopedia" provides readers a place to do a quick keyword search for further information, while the "Resources" section offers suggested sites for further research and searches. The "FSM Blog" section is also a noteworthy part of the site where readers can comment on news articles on the issues that matter most to them. FamilySecurityMatters.org offers a place to become knowledgeable and involved in national security. [more...]

VIDEO: Brigitte Gabriel at the Heritage Foundation

WATCH... Brigitte Gabriel Speaking at the Heritage Foundation - a most compelling and provocative eye-opening speech! Every American should watch, listen to and heed the warnings of this brilliant speaker who is living her life purpose to educate America about the enemy that lurks within. See Brigitte's videos... Watch her address to Heritage here...

Family Security Matters Briefings - Week of 6/16/08

Al Qaeda: Weakened, Not Defeated
By W. Thomas Smith, Jr.

Is Al Qaeda in its death throes? Hardly, say terrorism experts: The Al Qaeda network has been temporarily weakened on a few fronts, to be sure, but it is far from defeated. Nevertheless, the authors of a recent spate of end-of-terror essays would have us believe otherwise. Paul Cruickshank writing for the New York Daily News, even goes so far as to suggest that the likelihood of "terror returning to New York's streets" may be "significantly lower" within a few years. We all hope so. But the prediction, some say, is either wishful thinking or perhaps a bit of politics. The essays -- written by Cruickshank and his compatriots Peter Bergen, Lawrence Wright, and others -- come on the heels of CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden's recent statements that "Al Qaeda is on the verge of a strategic defeat in Iraq," and suggesting (though in broad, cautious terms) that the international terrorist network is suffering setbacks elsewhere in the world. [more...]


Exclusive: Obama and Iran - The Democrats Select a Modern-Day McGovern
By Joel Himelfarb

Judging from last week's address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Sen. Barack Obama doesn't want voters to see him as soft on Iran and its genocidal President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And he certainly doesn't want people to see him for what he is: part of the far-left fringe of the Democrat Party, an ideological ally of former Sen. George McGovern. McGovern, who lost 49 states to President Richard Nixon in 1972 (and his South Dakota Senate seat eight years later) has endorsed Obama this year. [more...]


Exclusive: George H.W. Bush: More than Meets the Eye
By KT McFarland

Last week my husband and I were fortunate enough to spend some time with former President George H. W. Bush and Mrs. Bush in Kennebunkport, ME. The first evening, a group of us gathered at Walker's Point, the Bush family compound that sits on a rocky outcrop on the Maine coast. As former President Bush showed us around, I was struck by how many times this man had contributed to the nation, in position after position, crisis after crisis. Yet many, even those in his own party, have tended to overlook his extraordinary accomplishments. [more...]


Exclusive: Indonesia - A Civil War Between Islamists and Moderates?: Part Two of Two
By Adrian Morgan

In Part One I described how the Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defenders' Front or FPI) had threatened to make war on the minority Islamic sect called the Ahmadiyah. On June 1st, FPI members violently attacked a procession of the National Alliance for Freedom of Religion and Faith (AKKBB), who support the rights of the Ahmadiyah. Several FPI members, including leader Habib Rizieq Shahib were arrested on Wednesday June 3rd in a police operation that involved 1,500 officers. Most FPI members were released shortly afterwards but Habib Rizieq Shahib and seven others remain in police custody. The Ahmadiyah (also called Ahmadi or Ahmadiyya) revere their founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad - with many regarding him as a prophet. This places them into the category of Muslim "heretics," as traditionally Mohammed is the last prophet of Islam. The Indonesian Ahmadiyah have recently officially claimed that they regard their founder not as a prophet but as a pious Muslim. Their protestations have been ignored by the Indonesian government. [more...]


Rising Sun and Dark Continent: Japan's Courtship of Africa
By J. Peter Pham, PhD

On May 28th, 40 African heads of state and government trooped into the Pacifico Conference Centre in the Japanese port city of Yokohama to join their host, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukada, in kicking off the Fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). First held in 1993 in collaboration with the United Nations, the quinquennial TICAD meetings are officially intended to "promote high-level policy dialogue between African leaders and development partners" and "provide fundamental and comprehensive policy and guideline on African development." More to the point perhaps, the recently-concluded TICAD IV was another indication of the global recognition of the increasing strategic significance of Africa - in this case to the economic and political ambitions of the land of the rising sun. [more...]

Islamic Schools in America Teaching Violence/Intolerance By Brigitte Gabriel

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released a report entitled 'Saudi Arabia: USCIRF Confirms Material Inciting Violence - Intolerance Remains in Textbooks Used at Saudi Government's Islamic Saudi Academy.' The report analyzes textbooks found in an Islamic school in Virginia.

"This is precisely what is happening not only in Virginia, but in mosques and Islamic schools all over America," says Brigitte Gabriel. "Most mosques and Madrassas in America are financed and supplied with their religious books by Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are inciting violence within our country under the cover of 'religious education.' Congress needs to hold a hearing about what is being taught on our soil and the American public must rise up and protest!

Note what the USCIRF translations found in the texts used at the ISA in McLean, Virginia:

The commission said it obtained 17 of the academy's textbooks through a variety of channels, including from members of Congress. The texts did appear to contain numerous revisions, including pages that were removed or passages that were whited out, but numerous troubling passages remained, according to the panel:

• The authors of a 12th-grade text on Quranic interpretation state that apostates (those who convert from Islam), adulterers and people who murder Muslims can be permissibly killed.


• The authors of a 12th-grade text on monotheism write that "(m)ajor polytheism makes blood and wealth permissible," meaning that a Muslim can take with impunity the life and property of someone believed guilty of polytheism. According to the panel, the strict Saudi interpretation of polytheism includes Shiite and Sufi Muslims as well as Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists.


• A social studies text offers the view that Jews were responsible for the split between Sunni and Shiite Muslims: "The cause of the discord: The Jews conspired against Islam and its people. A sly, wicked person who sinfully and deceitfully professed Islam infiltrated (the Muslims)."

More generally, the panel found that the academy textbooks hold the view that the Muslim world was strong when united under a single caliph, the Arabic language and the Sunni creed, and that Muslims have grown weak because of foreign influence and internal divisions.

The books say it's OK for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts.

This Wahhabi doctrine is being poured with unrelenting hate into the minds of youngsters attending the ISA. Let us not forget that a Valedictorian in the Class of 1999 of the ISA was convicted for plotting the assassination of President Bush.

ACT for America has launched a nationwide petition calling on Congress to conduct hearings investigating these materials. Almost 14,000 people have already signed the petition. Go here now to let your voice be heard.

Poll: Voters Demand Independence from Foreign Oil

A new Family Security Matters poll indicates voters demand independence from foreign oil and favor domestic drilling; energy security trumps environmental concerns. [Go here now for the results...]

Al Qaeda: Weakened, Not Defeated

By W. Thomas Smith, Jr. (more by this author)

Is Al Qaeda in its death throes? Hardly, say terrorism experts: The Al Qaeda network has been temporarily weakened on a few fronts, to be sure, but it is far from defeated.

Nevertheless, the authors of a recent spate of end-of-terror essays would have us believe otherwise. Paul Cruickshank writing for the New York Daily News, even goes so far as to suggest that the likelihood of "terror returning to New York’s streets" may be "significantly lower" within a few years.

We all hope so. But the prediction, some say, is either wishful thinking or perhaps a bit of politics.

The essays -- written by Cruickshank and his compatriots Peter Bergen, Lawrence Wright, and others -- come on the heels of CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden’s recent statements that "Al Qaeda is on the verge of a strategic defeat in Iraq," and suggesting (though in broad, cautious terms) that the international terrorist network is suffering setbacks elsewhere in the world.

Al Qaeda is suffering numerous setbacks on specific fronts -- like Iraq and Saudi Arabia -- and for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the network’s human brutality factor (terror-weary Muslims have suffered at the hands of Al Qaeda as much as non-Muslims) and the fact that U.S. and allied counterterrorism forces have beaten the enemy senseless on a number of sub-fronts. Rarely will we ever hear of those operations because those forces, of necessity, do their jobs in secret. [more...]

Chicago Tribune Misses the Mark on Radical Islamists - Coming Soon to a Town Near You By M. Zuhdi Jasser

What appears on the surface to be an innocent distribution of Qur'ans is far from it; the devil is always in the details. The facts surrounding this case should be alarming, and certainly would be alarming to Americans if the Chicago Tribune had not been derelict to its duty to inform its readers. To ignore the facts, without one iota of analysis, is to leave our nation exposed to a grave threat without a challenge. A non-profit organization based out of Chicago, the Al-Furqaan Foundation, received national attention a few weeks ago after the Chicago Tribune profiled their "noble" endeavors in a May 15, 2008 report, "Qurans given out for Free." The Arabic Qur'an certainly plays a central role in my life as a Muslim in its capacity as what Muslims believe to be the revealed words of God to Muslims in Arabic. However, the English translations are not believed to be Qur'an (the recitation in Arabic) but rather more appropriately referred to as "interpretations or explanations" of Quran. In fact our daily prayers which include memorized Qur'anic recitations cannot be done but in the original Arabic of the Qur'an in order to preserve clarity. [more...]

Family Security Matters Briefings - Week of 6/9/08

Music Soothes the Savage Beast
By Dr. Harvey Kushner

Earlier this year the Transportation Security Administration announced it would be testing out soft glowing mauve lights and Muzak to fight terrorism. The latter, along with extra-friendly TSA agents, would greet passengers as they file through a security checkpoint at Baltimore International Airport. TSA officials believe the bad guys will be easier to spot if everyone feels they are about to enter their favorite nightclub to hear the mellow tones of some Frank Sinatra impersonator. The new theory is that a friendly atmosphere will single out sweaty terrorists finding dim lighting and music offensive and reason to glare at a smiling TSA agent trained to pick up the slightest sign of aggression. Nice theory - will it work? [more...]

Exclusive: Indonesia - A Civil War Between Islamists And Moderates?
Part One of Two
By Adrian Morgan

Indonesia is widely described as a "moderate" Islamic nation. In many ways this has been true. Recently, however, a conflict has been brewing between those who support moderate interpretations of Islam and those who support hardline and intolerant forms. This conflict has even been seen by some commentators to be pushing Indonesia to the very brink of a civil war. Today and tomorrow, I will try to explain the background of this conflict, whose causes belong as much to politics as they do to religion. Indonesia is certainly the most populous Muslim nation in the world. Its total population is around 235 million, with 85% of this figure being Muslim. The official language (Bahasa Indonesia) is a version of Malay, but other regional tongues exist on various islands. [more...]


U.S. Engagement of Africa in the National Interest
By J.Peter Pham, PhD

Earlier this year, citing an array of new initiatives including the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), as well as the expansion of existing frameworks like the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), that "America's current engagement with Africa will likely go down as one of the most significant, if largely unheralded, legacies of the Bush presidency." And, if public statements by the three presidential candidates competing to succeed him are any indication, it will be a legacy that will likely be nurtured, in one form or another, in the next administration. Of the trio, Sen. John McCain has offered the most detailed exposition of how he would strategically engage Africa. [more...]

Al-Jazeera in Burlington

June 5, 2008--When Al-Jazeera tried to launch in the U.S. a spin-off version, Al-Jazeera International, they ran into opposition in the form of Accuracy in Media (AIM). AIM produced a DVD entitled Terror Television: The Rise of Al-Jazeera and the Hate America Media, which exposed Al-Jazeera's anti- American biases and support for terrorism.

In September of 2006, AIM commissioned a poll to gauge Americans' view of having Al-Jazeera air in the U.S. The poll results showed that by a margin of 2-1, Americans think the U.S. government should oppose giving the new channel access to the U.S. media market.

The AIM Press Release of September 13, 2006, points out that:

Al-Jazeera International, an English-language sister network to the Arabic Al-Jazeera, has been desperately seeking carriage on U.S. cable and satellite systems. It has hired well-known media figures such as David Frost, Dave Marash and Riz Khan, and its expensive new television studios are under construction on K Street N.W. in Washington, D.C.

But the new AIM poll finds that the channel's launch is opposed by more than one-half (53 percent) of the American people, a figure which dwarfs the number of those (29 percent) supporting it. What's more, 38 percent of the American people were adamantly against the channel.

In a FOX News televised debate with the then top U.S. journalist at Al-Jazeera English, Dave Marash, AIM's Cliff Kincaid reported on documented evidence that captured terrorists in Iraq had testified that they were motivated to go to Iraq to kill U.S. soldiers by the images they saw on Al-Jazeera's Arabic stations. In addition, he pointed to documentation of close connections between Al-Jazeera and the former regime of Saddam Hussein.

Kincaid also pointed out that Retired Army Intelligence officer and columnist Ralph Peters, who is nothing if he is not is blunt, called their correspondents "Killers with Cameras." He has written that "Al-Jazeera is so consumed by hatred of America and the West that the network would rather see Iraq collapse into a bloodbath than permit the emergence of a democracy sponsored by Washington." Rather than deny these allegations, Marash simply insisted that Al-Jazeera English would be free from influence of the parent company and not have the same biases.

Well, as they say, "That was then, this is now." Recently, Marash has stepped down from the station, citing a "reflexive adversarial editorial stance" against Americans at Al-Jazeera English.
Americans are not the only ones with a beef against Al-Jazeera. In a February 2007 blog entry, AIM reported that the Iraqi government issued the following statement: "The Al-Jazeera channel continues in its overtly hostile attitude towards the Iraqi people and continues to contribute to the spread of death and destruction by adopting a line that is frankly hostile to the Iraqi people and government. We condemn this attitude and call on parliament to take a firm position on this channel and resort to all legal means to prevent it continuing its hostile policy."

The result of AIM's heroic efforts was that no major cable station in America was willing to carry Al-Jazeera English. In spite of all the nationwide opposition to carrying Al-Jazeera English, however, Burlington Telecom - a local municipally owned station - decided to carry it. [more...]

Family Security Matters Briefings - Week of 6/2/08

Doing Business with the Devil
By W. Thomas Smith, Jr.

In a segment last week on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor," host Bill O'Reilly continued hammering away at General Electric over its ongoing business dealings with Iran.

According to O'Reilly: "GE has about $50 million on the table in business dealings with Iran. Doing the math, that means $250 million could have been derived since Iran began killing Americans in Iraq about five years ago."

Amazing that a home-grown American company like GE would even consider doing business with terrorists or state sponsors of terrorism - much less be permitted to do so - but it's apparently true. The relationship between GE and the Iranian mullahs has existed for years. GE agreed to pull out of Iran in early 2005. It is now 2008, and GE is still there. [more...]


Exclusive: How Dangerous Is Jihad Terror?
Newsweek Columnist's Bizarre Statistical Gymnastics
By Joel Himelfarb

"Are we safer" because of the Bush Administration's post-September 11 efforts against Islamist terror and its state sponsors? The political Left asks this question constantly and concludes that America couldn't possibly be - even though terrorists haven't attacked the American homeland in almost seven years. Elsewhere in the world, however, violent Jihadism and its backers appear to be ascendant. All one has to do is see the rise of Sunni and Shi'ite terrorist networks in Iraq since 2003; Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; Hezbollah's rise in Lebanon; Hamas' creation of a terror state in Gaza; the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Some, if not all, of these problems have worsened during the presidency of George W. Bush. So, the world seems to be getting more dangerous. How, then, can Bush (or John McCain, for that matter) possibly claim to be succeeding in the war on terror? [more...]


The Network Behind the Bush-bashing Book
By Cliff Kincaid

Publisher Peter Osnos, who admits to personally working with former Bush White House press secretary Scott McClellan on his new book, What Happened, began his career as an assistant to I.F. Stone, the pro-communist "journalist" named as a Soviet agent of influence who was the uncle of Weather Underground communist terrorist Kathy Boudin. But the connections don't end there. Boudin's son Chesa was raised by Barack Obama associates Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who were Boudin's comrades in the communist terrorist group, after Kathy Boudin went to prison for her involvement in an armed robbery and assault that took the lives of two policemen and a security guard. Dohrn later served jail time for refusing to cooperate in an official investigation of the crime. [more...]


Exclusive: The New GI Bill
By KT McFarland

For the next few weeks Washington will be drawn into a battle over a new GI bill and like most things in Washington these days, it will be heavily politicized. The original GI bill received almost unanimous bipartisan support when it was enacted in 1944, and provided combat veterans returning from Germany and Japan with a free college education. Called the "Servicemen's Readjustment Act", the World War II GI bill covered college tuition, books, room and board. Millions of Americans got a college education they would otherwise never have had; it let them live the "American Dream." The original idea was it would stretch out the reentry of 8 million military personnel into the job market, reward them for their service, and lift the education standards of the nation. Experts have argued that the GI Bill "reinvented America" after World War II. Subsequent studies showed that every dollar spent on the GI bill's education benefits added seven dollars to the US economy. It was never intended as a recruitment tool - the attack on Pearl Harbor and the draft took care of that. [more...]


Criminal Networks in West Africa: An Emerging Security Challenge
By J.Peter Pham, PhD

On April 30th, Sidi Ould Sidna, a.k.a. Abou Jendel, an al Qaeda-linked militant who escaped earlier in the month from the courthouse in Nouakchott, Mauritania, where he was being tried for the Christmas Eve 2007 killing of four French tourists, was recaptured in a predawn police raid on a residence in the capital city's Arafat district. Captured with Sidna was another militant, Khadim Ould Semane, who had been sought for a February 1st attack on the Israeli embassy in the Mauritanian capital, one of only three members of the Arab League to host a full-fledge diplomatic mission from the Jewish state. Both men have admitted their association with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its predecessor organizations (see my May 8th update on AQIM). [more...]