Thursday, September 30, 2010

FBI's Muslim Outreach Outrage

Earlier this summer, as reported by Ben Bradley of WLS Chicago, the FBI invited Kifah Mustapha to participate in a VIP tour of the top-secret National Counterterrorism Center as part of its Muslim outreach program. Mustapha was invited in spite of the fact that (1) he is on national terrorist watch lists; (2) he was an un-indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial; (3) he has ties to and has been public in his support of the terrorist organization Hamas; (4) his mosque was identified in a 2004 Chicago Tribune report as being a hot spot for Hamas fundraising and terrorist support; and (5) he was dismissed from the Illinois State Police chaplaincy program because he failed the State Police background check.

Yesterday, September 29th, ACT! for America Executive Director Guy Rodgers sent a national e-mail about this outrage to ACT! for America's 145,000 members and urged them to call the FBI to ask why this happened. Numerous ACT! members reported that FBI officials treated them rudely, berated them, and insisted the story was a "lie" and a "fabrication." Today, ACT! for America is calling for a congressional investigation.

National Security Updates

By Ryan Mauro

Infecting Iran's Nuke Program

Shortly before Russia inserted the fuel rods into Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor on August 21, some experts warned it would be the last opportunity for Israel to destroy the facility and prevent Iran from going nuclear. Israel did not, and now we may know why: A "cyber superweapon" had infiltrated the site's computer networks and it is likely the reason why the reactor’s operation has been delayed. This is just the latest attack in a covert war that has thus far prevented Iran from possessing nuclear weapons. [more...]


Chavez Meets Defeat

Hugo Chavez’s "roller-coaster is going down," declared Carlos Ocariz, a mayor that is part of the anti-Chavez Coalition for Democratic Unity, this week. Ocariz and other Venezuelan opposition activists had reason to be hopeful. Hugo Chavez's transformation of Venezuela into an anti-American harbor for drug traffickers and terrorists ran into resistance on Monday. The Venezuelan opposition took away the two-thirds majority in the National Assembly held by Chavez’s party, winning 52 percent of the vote and at least 61 of the 165 seats. All of Chavez’s dirty tricks to undermine his opponents failed to prevent a majority of voters from acting to arrest their country’s decline into dictatorship. [more...]


Widespread Fraud Alleged in Afghan Election

At least 600 attacks by the Taliban disrupted the vote while evidence is emerging that President Hamid Karzai manipulated the ballots.

President Obama was right when he privately said he risks losing "the entire Democratic Party" over the war in Afghanistan. With public opinion already souring on the war, the president can’t afford much else to undermine confidence in the effort. Now it is known that President Karzai is on and off medication for manic depression and Afghanistan has held parliamentary elections with even more fraud and violence than the tainted "re-election" of Karzai. [more...]


Did Secretary of State Clinton Indirectly Call for Regime Change in Iran?

Secretary of State Clinton and the Obama Administration as a whole has not made it U.S. policy to support the Iranian opposition, but some things Clinton has said indicates to me they want to very gently embolden them. I know I’m speculating, but I can’t help but get the feeling that Clinton privately wishes more was being done. [more...]

Thursday, September 23, 2010

The Electronic Pearl Harbor

By Ryan Mauro

Presages about the defeat or even the destruction of the U.S. by terrorists and rogue leaders are usually dismissed as bombastic rhetoric or self-induced illusions. The West’s enemies, however, are working towards the means to make their prophecies come true. Electro-Magnetic Pulse attacks with nuclear weapons detonated at high altitude and cyber warfare can enable ostensibly weak adversaries to deliver a crippling blow far greater than 9/11. [more...]

Monday, September 20, 2010

National Security Updates

By Ryan Mauro

How Iran Kills Americans

Five Iranian companies in Afghanistan are paying Taliban militants over $200 per month with bonuses of $1,000 for killing an American soldier and $6,000 for destroying a U.S. military vehicle. The ideological differences and past tension between Iran and the Taliban have not stopped them from allying against a common enemy, allowing the Iranian regime to help kill American soldiers with little consequence. [more...]


Imam Rauf on Israel’s Destruction

Newly discovered statements by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the man behind the Ground Zero mosque project, show he supports the destruction of Israel. His supporters may hold him up as a moderate, but he has spoken out in favor of a “one-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and he sees peace agreements with Israel as a means to that end. [more...]


Has Israel Just Figured Out How to Make the Electric Car Worthwhile?

Energy independence has been talked about so much for decades that many doubt it’ll happen in our lifetime. But the world may soon see a dramatic change over the next few years - and that change is coming from Israel. During my recent 10-day trip there, thanks to the Once in a Lifetime project by 24 Hebrew University students, I went to a facility run by Better Place - a company that seems to have worked all the kinks out of making electric cars free of gasoline a reality. The cars look like any other car, and drive smoothly and silently. Once charged, either at your home or at a station, the car can drive 100 miles without needing another charge. [more...]


The War Left Behind

The declaration that combat operations in Iraq are over doesn’t change much. American soldiers are still fighting as they secure the country from a legion of extremist forces. On September 7, only one week after the official "end" of the U.S. combat role, two American soldiers were killed and nine were injured in an attack. The casualties are a reminder that the conflict rages on and Americans remain in harm’s way. [more...]

Thursday, September 9, 2010

National Security Updates

By Ryan Mauro

Rehearsing Terror

The Dutch police have released two Yemeni men taken off a United Airlines flight that landed in Amsterdam from Chicago, saying there was no evidence connecting them to terrorism. However, the circumstances of their arrest clearly point to a "dry run" or deliberate provocation of security, with important questions remaining unanswered. [more...]

Hamas’s Preview for Peace

The Israelis and the Palestinian Authority have renewed peace negotiations, with Defense Minister Ehud Barak going so far as to state that the division of Jerusalem is on the table. Hamas has predictably reacted by shooting four Israeli civilians to death in the West Bank, followed by a second shooting that injured two. The attacks underscored that there can never be anything near peace until Hamas is dismantled and Palestinian public opinion comes to accept the reality of Israel’s existence. [more...]

Majority of Iraqis Oppose Obama’s Withdrawal

Democracy, Whiskey, Sexy, Redux: based on recent polling numbers, Iraqis want American soldiers to stay in their country more than the Americans do.

According to the latest CBS poll, nearly 70 percent of Americans approve of President Obama’s decision to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq. In a remarkable turnaround, the Iraqis are the bigger opponents of the president’s plan. Iraqis want American soldiers to stay in their country more than Americans do. [more...]

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

ACT! for America Denounces Koran Burning

A message from Brigitte Gabriel, President and CEO of ACT! for America
 
We at ACT! for America denounce and condemn, in the strongest terms, the upcoming Koran burning event organized by Pastor Terry Jones and members of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida. Their proposed event is ill-conceived, counter-productive and unwelcome in a world where ideas and philosophies are best debated in the context of the issues and the facts. We find this an archaic act that serves no useful purpose, and as such is a regrettable instance of an inability or unwillingness to discuss the issues facing us in a reasonable and constructive manner.

ACT! for America is, and has always been, committed to exposing the threat of the political ideology of radical Islam and its sharia law through constructive debate, illumination of the facts, and a reasoned analysis of the implications of the threat.

Pastor Jones and his congregation are stooping to the tactics of and joining the inarticulate who express their anger and opposition through destructive and spiteful acts of denigration. What is the difference between his actions and the actions of Islamists destroying synagogues in Gaza or churches and Bibles in Lebanon, Bosnia and Egypt? We are better than that as Americans.

Saddam Hussein Admitted He Planned on Nuclear Weapons

By Ronald Kessler

As President Obama drew the curtain on the Iraq war, liberal commentators were declaring the war pointless. "Sure, you know, violence is down from its peak during the civil war, but does anybody really think that lives of Iraqis are all that much better?" Rajiv Chandrasekaran, national editor of The Washington Post, told Chris Matthews on MSNBC. “If there had been no invasion, Saddam [Hussein] would still be in power,” Richard Engel of NBC said on the Today show. “He was probably getting more moderate... He was heading in a direction of accommodation.” In his speech on ending the war, President Obama seemed to have the same muddled concept of what the war achieved. His administration decries Arizona’s effort to arrest illegal immigrants as human rights violations while ignoring the fact that Saddam killed 300,000 people, used chemical weapons, and tortured his own people. [more...]

Thursday, September 2, 2010

National Security Updates

By Ryan Mauro

Obama’s Human Rights Disgrace

The United States has refused to join the United Nations Human Rights Council since it was birthed in 2006 following the dissolving of its failed predecessor, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. The Obama Administration changed course in March 2009 and now, for the first time, has submitted a report on the status of human rights in the U.S. to the Council, setting up the country to be judged by governments like those of Cuba, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Qatar, Pakistan and Egypt. [more...]


The Four Good Things About Obama’s Iraq Speech

I’m not going to stomp on every sentence in President Obama’s speech about Iraq. There were actually four good things about the speech that we can appreciate. The first is how this "withdrawal” is occurring. I put “withdrawal” in quotation marks for a reason: namely, that it isn’t really a “withdrawal.” And the “combat forces” are now “advisors” that will be performing the same functions as they have as “combat forces” since 2008 after the surge improved the security situation, as Kenneth Pollack notes. [more...]


Obama is Trying to Convince You That Withdrawal From Iraq Isn’t Victory for Iran

On August 23, Vice President Biden made the monumentally stupid statement that “Iranian influence in Iraq is minimal. It’s been greatly exaggerated.” The remark shows a profound misunderstanding of how the region works and as I’ll explain in a forthcoming Pajamas Media article, is very damaging. Without even realizing it, Biden vindicated Iran’s proxy strategy. [more...]


Obama Iraq Speech Becomes State of the Union II

You’ve seen my take on the good things about Obama’s speech, now let’s review the not-so-nice parts. The biggest thing to me was how it became the State of the Union #2. He suddenly starts talking about his economic agenda and how America will endure its domestic struggles. He talks about how he’s fulfilling his pledge as a candidate while making no mention of how the surge enabled him to responsibly fulfill that pledge. [more...]