Family Security Matters Briefings

Pakistan's Musharraf Resigns - What Is His Legacy?
By Adrian Morgan

Last week, on August 14th, Pakistan celebrated its Independence Day. Exactly 61 years previously, it had become autonomous, freed from British rule. At that time, under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan was officially secular. Jinnah died after only 13 months in power, and soon a succession of Islamist and military governments destroyed his ideal of a secular democracy. On August 14, 1947, Pakistan stretched beyond its current boundaries. What was then called West Pakistan is now modern Pakistan. East Pakistan fought a bloody battle for its own independence, in which an estimated 3 million people were killed. In 1971 it became the autonomous secular nation of Bangladesh. [more...]

The Amethyst Initiative: Your Tuition Dollars at Work
By Dr. Harvey Kushner

Presidents from some of the nation's best colleges are asking lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, arguing that current law encourages binge drinking at their institutions. The Amethyst Initiative began more than a year ago by John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont, who's efforts have garnered the support of approximately 100 college presidents from such well-known institutions as Duke, Ohio State, Tufts, Syracuse, Morehouse, to name a few. In the coming weeks, don't be surprised to see a well-orchestrated advertising blitz publicizing their initiative in newspapers across the country. I'm all for lobbying lawmakers for a specific end. I'm not for college presidents organizing to influence a national debate on drinking age. Their efforts would be better spent elsewhere. [more...]

Textbook Lies about Islam
By Gilbert T. Sewall

Islam is one of the most important issues of our time, but you wouldn't know it from reading a high school textbook. What students learn makes it almost impossible to understand Islam in history or the world today, much less what fuels Islam's challenge to peace and international security. A review of leading textbooks used in New York City and nationwide reveals they deliberately misrepresent Islamic history, jihad, Islamic law (sharia), global terrorism, and more. Thinking that jihad is "holy war" is wrong, students are told. Instead textbooks insist it is merely an effort to improve oneself and society. "Muslims should fulfill jihad with the heart, tongue, and hand. Muslims use the heart in their struggle to resist evil. The tongue may convince others to take up worthy causes, such as funding medical research. Hands may perform good works and correct wrongs," chimes one popular California textbook called "History Alive!" [more...]

Harvey Kushner "Worst Person in the World"

harveykushner.com is proud to announce that Countdown with Keith Olbermann (MSNBC) selected Harvey Kushner last night as the "Worst Person in the World." You can watch the clip at any number of liberal blogs such as http://liberaldoomsayer.blogspot.com/2008/08/tuesday-stuff_19.html or go directly to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#26279318 [more...]

Is Obama's Attitude about Nuclear Attack Dangerous to National Security?
By Joel Himelfarb

When it comes to a nuclear attack on the United States, Americans usually think of two possible scenarios: 1) an attack using ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads, or 2) a terrorist strike using nuclear materials smuggled into a big city and detonated there. But there is a third possibility that needs to be considered: an atomic-generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack that could destroy electric systems and power grids - shutting off most televisions and radios, traffic signals and computers, to name only a few of the things that would be damaged. Asked how many Americans could die in such an attack, Dr. William Graham, chairman of "The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetnic Pulse Attack," created by Congress in 2001, put it this way: "Within a week or two of an attack, people would begin dying. People in hospitals would be in the worst jeopardy because many of them depend on power to stay alive," he said. [more...]

Will Livni's Bubble Burst First?
By Clare M. Lopez

While the U.S. media focuses on dueling celebrity ads, there is another election at least as critical as the one between the senators. It is the contest for the next Prime Minister of Israel. With Prime Minister Olmert's late July announcement that he will step down shortly, attention has shifted to Kadima Party internal elections, now scheduled for 17 September 2008. The leading contenders to succeed Olmert as Kadima Party leader and likely next Prime Minister of Israel are current Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz, who is a former Defense Minister and Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The outcome of this internal party vote could hardly be more important, not just for the future of the State of Israel, but for American national security as well. [more...]

Russia and Iran - Energy Rules
By KT McFarland

All of a sudden it's a dangerous world out there. Russia is reclaiming its former empire and Iran is ramping up its nuclear weapons program and supporting terrorists. At first glance these two seem unrelated, but they're actually different chapters in the same book, entitled "Energy Rules." It's an epic saga that began decades ago, in the 1970s. After the 1973 Yom Kippur war, the oil-producing Arab world realized it could band together and use its exports as a weapon to punish the West for supporting Israel. It slowed the oil pumps, constricted supply, drove up the price of oil and thus gasoline, and Americans stood in line at the gas pumps. Suddenly, oil-exporting countries were rich and their ambitions grew. Iran used its petrodollars to build a formidable military arsenal under the Shah and later, under the Ayatollah, waged a 10-year war with Iraq. Other Gulf countries built their military arsenals, acquired portfolios and their princes lived like playboys. [more...]

The Russian Bear Returns to Africa
By J.Peter Pham, PhD

As the Russian forces rumbling over the borders of Georgia brusquely reminded the international community that, as Sen. John McCain noted, a lot of what was thought to have been left behind at the end of the 20th century is now "rearing its ugly head in the twenty-first," including an aggressively expansive foreign policy, not only in Moscow's self-declared "Near Abroad," but wherever the Kremlin can find a opening to exploit. While considerable attention has been paid to the strategic implications of the recent Africa engagements by the United States, China, India, and Japan, very little attention has been paid to important moves being made by a resurgent Russia on an African continent whose geopolitical significance is increasingly acknowledged. [more...]

Shia Hizballah's and Sunni Salafists' Deal or No Deal
By W. Thomas Smith, Jr.

Hizballah - the Lebanon-based Shia terrorist group, which U.S. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff says "makes Al Qaeda look like a minor league team" - has forged a seemingly unlikely alliance with a group of Sunni Salafist factions in Lebanon. The alliance, signed Monday, was temporarily frozen Tuesday. But sources say the deal still may be on. I say "unlikely alliance" because Salafism is the root-ideology of Sunni Al Qaeda and its affiliates, and Shia and Sunni extremists are commonly believed to be irreconcilable enemies. Nevertheless, on Monday, leaders from Hizballah and the Salafist Belief and Justice Movement met at Beirut's Al Safir Metropolitan Hotel and signed a "memorandum of understanding" aimed at preventing further bloodshed between the Shia and Sunni in Lebanon, and a more focused effort against the United States. [more...]