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.