Neo-Cons planning for a long stay in Iraq

Imperialism is still an acceptable policy option among neo-cons. Jim Lobe notes as much in his recent blog post.

Now, of all of these guys, Krauthammer is, of course, the most direct, and even he, like the others, suggests that the U.S. military presence would be for deterrence only. (The American Enterprise Institute put out a press release Friday in which it announced Fred Kagan’s assessment that “America can best avoid a conflict with Iran by maintaining a strong force in Iraq.”) But, of course, neo-cons have long distrusted deterrence as a strategic doctrine, particularly as it relates to the “mad mullahs.” (It was, after all, the Journal’s same editorial board that, among many other hysterical pieces over the last few years, published Bernard Lewis’ apocalyptic op-ed nearly two years ago that predicted a nuclear strike on Israel for August 22, 2006, because President Ahmadinejad believed that was the date of the 12th Imam’s return.) Thus, one might assume that, at least for the neo-cons, the purpose of such a long-term presence may be for more than just deterrence, despite the fact that all of the major actors inside Iraq (with the possible exception, I suppose, of the former Sunni insurgents who enlisted in the Awakenings movement) are clearly dead-set against the U.S. using Iraqi territory as a launching pad for military adventures against their neighbors, particularly Iran.

But Krauthammer’s language is particularly revealing, especially for a self-described “democratic realist”, for the contempt it shows for Iraqi public opinion. His talk of “seizing the fruits of victory” by “mak[ing] the new Iraq a strong ally in the war on terror” and his notion that the U.S. “might want to retain an air base…” suggests, let us say, a rather imperial state of mind, something that belongs more to the 19th century than the 21st. Indeed, in reading Boot, the Journal’s editorial and op-ed pages, and other neo-con writings, one can’t help but get the impression that, for them, decolonization never happened. (Boot deserves credit for conceding the U.S. would have to go if the Iraqi government tells it to do so, but remember that his book, “Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power,” was a paean to the early days of American imperialism.) Neo-con efforts to discredit Maliki by arguing that he’s only bluffing, that he doesn’t have any idea of what is best for Iraq, that he has consistently overestimated Iraqi military capabilities, and/or that he is trying to manipulate U.S. public opinion in order to ensure the election of a candidate that will be more “pliable” in future negotiations should all be seen in this light. And while they sometimes concede that Maliki could be be playing to growing nationalism and popular resentment of the U.S. occupation that may actually reflect the views of a strong majority of the Iraqi population, it really doesn’t make a great deal of difference . Hence, the patronizing language of the Journal, in particular, whose editorial board clearly believes that it knows better than the Iraqis what is good for them.

Read the rest.

Exposing Robert Spencer Part XII: On the Battle of the Trench and Zainab bint Jahsh

My latest installment...

I was going through one of Robert Spencer's latest Qur'an blogs: Surah 33. He discusses the abolishment of adopted children taking the names of their foster parents, the Battle of the Trench, and the marriage of the Prophet, God's peace and prayers be upon him, to Zainab bint Jahsh, may God be pleased with her. I'm going to discuss the Battle of the Trench and the Prophet's marriage to Zainab, may God be pleased with her.

Let's start with what Spencer had to say on the Battle of the Trench:

As the Quraysh, along with another tribe, the Ghatafan (known collectively in Islamic tradition as “the Confederates,” as in v. 20), laid siege to Medina, the trench prevented the invaders from entering the city. Yet the Muslims were unable to force them to end the siege. Then to make matters even worse, a tribe of Jews in Medina, the Banu Qurayzah, broke their covenant with Muhammad (perhaps after seeing how Muhammad had exiled two other Jewish tribes, the Banu Qaynuqa and Banu Nadir) and began collaborating with the Quraysh...

The Qurayzah agreed to attack the Muslims from one side while the Quraysh besieged them from the other. But then a new convert to Islam, Nu’aym bin Mas’ud, came to Muhammad offering to trick the Confederate tribes, since his own people, the Ghatafan, did not know that he had become a Muslim. Muhammad responded, according to Ibn Ishaq: “You are only one man among us, so go and awake distrust among the enemy to draw them off us if you can, for war is deceit.” Nu’aym’s deception turned the Confederates against each other and against their Jewish allies; soon afterward, they ended the siege. Nu’aym’s deception had saved Islam.

There are two core issues here:

1. The breaking of the treaty between the Jews and Muslims by the Bani Qurayzah.

2. Nu'aym's slick double agent move.

Notice how Spencer is quick to find an excuse for the Bani Qurayzah in their selling out of the Muslims. Imagine if the opposite had occurred - if the Muslims had sold out the Jews - what Spencer's reaction would be. The answer to that is obvious and needs no mentioning.

The Bani Qurayzah were the third of three Jewish tribes the Prophet, God's peace and prayers be upon him, had betray him. The first were the Bani Qaynuqah who were exiled shortly after the Battle of Badr for mistreating a Muslim woman in the marketplace and then openly declaring threats of war against the Prophet and the Muslims. The second tribe, the Bani Nadir, were exiled for plotting to assassinate the Prophet not so long after the Battle of Uhud. Their plan to assassinate the Prophet was discovered and the Muslims laid siege to their fortress. They eventually gave up and were exiled from Madinah.

What the Bani Qurayzah did though was out right treachery. They were signatories of the constitution of Madinah (as were the Bani Qaynuqah and Bani Nadir) and swore to defend the city against attackers. By siding with the Quraysh they believed they would be able to rid themselves of the Muslims once and for all - despising the fact that the Arabs of Madinah had become followers of the Prophet and no longer sought the alliance and friendship of their tribe like they used to. So their men were executed for this blatant treachery and the women and children and property distributed as war booty. If the Bani Qurayzah had not committed open treason then they would not have been killed - but they did and suffered the consequences of their actions. Could you imagine the fate of the British if they had double crossed the United States in WWII? They would have been executed along with the Nazis following the conclusion of the war.

As for Nu'aym's story, this is where the taqiyya/deception debate originates from. Notice that Nu'aym did what he did during a time of war. Similarly, the assassination of K'ab ibn Ashraf, a leader of the Bani Nadir who openly sided with the Quraysh by lamenting the loss of their leaders following the Battle of Badr in contravention of the treaty his tribe had signed with the Muslims (and who was warned by the Prophet to cease and desist), was done during a time of declared war. Now, setting aside allegations made by Spencer and others that Muslims can deceive non Muslims in order to overthrow non Muslim governments, Nu'aym's actions were nothing but typical espionage. Tricking your opponent during a time of war is not only common sense, but is a principle shared by many cultures and war strategists from time immemorial (including Sun Tzu who said "All warfare is based on deception" and Carl von Clausewitz who mentions a story about Fredrick the Great using deception to escape his enemy). This is what the Prophet's statement, "war is deceit," has always meant. To connote that this statement means what Spencer and others think it means is based upon nothing within Sunni sources. I asked Spencer this before - to provide Sunni sources that say Muslims can deceive non Muslims in order to over throw that non Muslim community's government. The only lying Muslims can do to non Muslims while in non Muslim lands or under the power of non Muslims is to lie in order to avoid physical punishment (the example of Ammar ibn Yasir is sufficient as an example).

As for taqiyya, Spencer didn't seem to care too much for my argument about that subject, where I demonstrated clearly based upon different tafsirs (the very one's Spencer uses) that "taqiyya" for Sunnis meant to avoid physical harm from non Muslims by the use of lying. The most glaring example of that from the Seerah is the story of Ammar ibn Yasir, who was tortured to the point of madness. He said whatever the Quraysh told him to say in order to save his life. The two verses Spencer cites as evidence that Sunnis practice taqiyya in the sense that he mentions - Muslims living in non Muslim lands lying about their true intentions for take over by posing as moderates - has no basis whatsoever in the Qur'an or the Sunnah of the Prophet, God's peace and prayers be upon him.

Let's move on to what he had to say about adoption and the Prophet's marriage to Zainab bint Jahsh, may God be pleased with her. I put in bold the points I will discuss below.

An adopted son should be known by the name of his natural father: he can never truly enter into his adoptive household (v. 5).

Why was Allah so intent on ending the practice of adoption? Because Muhammad wanted to marry Zayd’s ex-wife, Zaynab bint Jahsh — and as a result of his dalliance with his former daughter-in-law, says Maududi, “the hypocrites and the Jews and the mushriks [unbelievers] who were already bent on mischief would get a fresh excuse to start a propaganda campaign against Islam.” So Allah here emphasizes that an adopted son cannot be a true son, and so by extension Zaynab was never really Muhammad’s daughter-in-law at all, and there is no cause for scandal...

Spencer continues the story in his next blog posting regarding Surah 33.

Allah sometimes seem anxious to grant his prophet his heart’s desires. In verses 28-35 Allah addresses Muhammad’s wives, enjoining upon them modesty and piety; then verses 36-37 refer obliquely to one of the most notorious incidents of Muhammad’s prophetic career. Zaynab bint Jahsh had been married to Muhammad’s adopted son Zayd bin Haritha. According to the Tafsir al-Jalalayn, Muhammad asked for Zaynab’s hand on behalf of Zayd; Zaynab and her brother “were loathe” to agree, “for they had thought that the Prophet (s) wanted to marry her himself.” But they ultimately agreed because of the admonition that “it is not fitting for a Believer, man or woman, when a matter has been decided by Allah and His Messenger to have any option about their decision: if any one disobeys Allah and His Messenger, he is indeed on a clearly wrong Path” (v. 36).

The Tafsir al-Jalalayn says that Muhammad “caught sight” of Zaynab “and felt love for her,” while Zayd “lost his affection for her” and told Muhammad, “I want to part with her.” But Muhammad told him: “Keep thy wife to thyself, and fear Allah” (v. 37). Aisha later remarked, “If Allah’s Apostle were to conceal anything (of the Quran) he would have concealed this Verse” – because it shows him unwilling to accept Allah’s will, which was that he marry Zaynab. Then one day, according to Tabari, an esteemed, if not the most esteemed, historian and expositor of the Qur’an, Muhammad went to Zayd’s house and found her wearing only a chemise. Muhammad hastened away, murmuring, “Glory be to God the Almighty! Glory be to God, who causes hearts to turn!”

Soon afterward, according to Tabari, Muhammad was talking with Aisha when “a fainting overcame him.” Then he smiled and asked, “Who will go to Zaynab to tell her the good news, saying that God has married her to me?” He then recited the revelation Allah had just given him, scolding him for being concerned about what people might think and thus refusing to marry Zaynab (v. 37). The Tafsir al-Jalalayn explains what Allah is telling Muhammad here: “But you had hidden in your heart what God was to disclose, [what] He was to manifest of your love for her and of [the fact] that should Zayd part with her you would marry her, and you feared people, would say, ‘He has married his son’s wife!’, though God is worthier that you should fear Him, in all things, so take her in marriage and do not be concerned with what people say.”

Spencer says that the Prophet "wanted to marry" Zainab. He offers no evidence for such an allegation. In fact, Spencer provides evidence against his assertion where he quotes Aisha stating "because it shows him unwilling to accept Allah’s will, which was that he marry Zaynab." If he "wanted to marry" Zainab, then why was he "unwilling to accept Allah’s will, which was that he marry Zaynab"? It was well known that Zainab had hoped to be married to the Prophet prior to her being married to Zaid by the Prophet. Spencer could have said that, but his allegation that the Prophet, God's peace and prayers be upon him, wanted to marry her is not based on any evidence or proof. It's an assumption that Spencer is making. But even Spencer knows he can't say to know for sure what was in the Prophet's heart.

The historical account that Spencer mentions from Tabari has been discussed within the Sunni Muslim scholarly community for centuries and most have found the reports of the Prophet falling in love with Zainab to be not only inappropriate but flat out impossible. The idea that he all of a sudden fell in love with her upon catching sight of her at Zaid's house makes little sense considering the fact that she was his cousin and he had been seeing and visiting her for almost his whole life. Spencer should show all relevant opinions on this subject, especially the weightier ones. The most authoritative opinion on this subject in the Sunni sources comes from Qadi Iyad's ash-Shifa (pages 352-354). The wonderful folks at Sunni Path have recorded the relevant section here. In that section Qadi Iyad says that the only thing the Prophet hid in himself was the decree of Allah, not his love for Zainab, as the Tafsir al-Jalalayn stated:

Amr ibn Fa'id said that Az-Zuhri said that Jibril came to the Prophet to tell him that Allah would make him marry Zaynib bint Jahsh. That was what he concealed in himself. The commentators verify this by Allah's saying, "The command of Allah must be performed", i.e. you must marry her. This makes it clear that the only thing Allah revealed about the matter was that he was going to marry her. He indicated that what the Prophet concealed was part of what Allah had intimated to him.

Then Spencer mentions that the Prophet had flirted with Zaynab. I don't know how that can be construed as dalliance. He had seen her in a chemise and then "hastened away" murmuring a prayer, i.e. he did not stick around once he saw her. He saw her in inappropriate attire and left. Nowhere does it say that he stuck around and chit chatted with her. I'll quote Qadi Iyad to conclude this discussion: "If we allow this, it must be that he saw her and suddenly thought her beautiful. Things like this are unobjectionable since it is the nature of the Banu Adam to find beauty beautiful. The sudden glance is forgiven. Then he restrained himself from her and told Zayd to keep her."

And God knows best.

Chomsky on American Society

VN: But this is surprising because, from outside the United States, one has the impression the country has a very secure, stable political system. One would think that, with such powerful political and media establishments, they could afford to allow more critical voices in the media.

NC: Yes!

VN: It’s as if they are afraid of critical voices, such as your voice.

NC: Yes, I think they are afraid. There’s a terrible fear that a slight deviation might lead to disaster. It’s a typical totalitarian mentality. You have to control everything. If anything is out of control, it’s a disaster. And, in fact, the stability of U.S. society is not so obvious. It requires a lot of suppression – the Pentagon Papers are quite interesting in this respect. The Pentagon Papers are not declassified documents. Getting access to them is like stealing the archives; it’s like conquering a country and stealing the archives. The information wasn’t intended for the public. There are a few interesting things in the Pentagon papers that are suppressed – not formally, but in effect. The most interesting is the account at the very end – the period they cover ends in mid-1968, right after the Tet offensive in January 1968, which convinced the business classes that the war was too costly, not worth pursuing. But, in those next few months there was an attempt by the government to send an extra 200,000 troops to Vietnam, to raise the troop level to almost three-quarters of a million. There was a debate on this, as discussed in the Pentagon papers, and they decided not to do it. The reason was that they feared that if they did so, they would need the troops for civil disorder control in the United States. There would be an uprising of unprecedented proportions among young people, women, minorities, the poor, and so on. They barely had things under control at home, and any move might have led to an uprising. And this continues. You cannot let the population get out of control. It has to be tightly disciplined.

One of the reasons for the extraordinary pressure of consumerism, which goes back to the 1920s, is the recognition by the business world that unless it atomizes people, unless it drives them to what it calls the “superficial things of life, such as fashionable consumption,” the population may turn on them. Right now, for example, about 80% of the U.S. population believes that the country is, in their words, run by “a few big interests looking out for themselves,” not for the benefit of the population. About 95% of the population thinks that the government ought to pay regular attention to public opinion. The degree of alienation from institutions is enormous. As long as people are atomized, worried about maxing out their credit cards, separated from one another, and don’t hear serious critical discussion, the ideas can be controlled.

Read the rest.

Female troops sexually assaulted

And what will our heroes Robert Spencer and David Horowitz have to say about this? Will they do anything to help women in their own country? Or will they continue to ignore them and their plight to focus on criticizing Muslim men's treatment of their women in other countries? The answer is obvious and needs no further elaboration. More importantly though, it shows clearly their agenda. They care about women's abuse when it's Muslim men doing it. If not Muslim men, then it concerns them not.

In the article below it shows both American soldiers and Iraqi soldiers (as well as one horned out Iraqi teen) as the perpetrators of sexual harassment. These poor women go through a lot of crap to serve our country. They don't deserve just our admiration, but also our attention.


Sexually assaulted female troops struggle to recover

From CNN

...In the fiscal year that ended October 1, 131 rapes and assaults were reported in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Kaye Whitley, director of the Defense Department's sexual assault prevention and response office. Comparing that to previous years isn't possible because of changes in the way data was collected, she said.

The actual number is probably higher than what's reported. Among members of the military surveyed in 2006 who indicated they had experienced unwanted sexual contact, about 20 percent said they had reported it to an authority or organization.

Read the rest.

Maryland, Spyland

It's a given that our government spies on certain people. I can even understand that to a certain extent, but these folks? You have to be kidding me.


Spied on by the Maryland Police

by Mike Stark

WHEN I received a voice mail last Wednesday from the Maryland ACLU, I assumed it was about the fight against Maryland's death penalty. Executions in Maryland have been shut down since 2006, and the state's General Assembly has authorized a commission to make recommendations on the future of capital punishment. The commission's plans are the topic of constant conversation among abolitionists.

It turns out the ACLU call was about the death penalty, but not exactly in the form I was expecting.

When I called back, ACLU staff attorney David Rocah explained that my name had appeared repeatedly in a 46-page report documenting a clandestine surveillance and undercover investigation conducted by the Maryland State Police for more than a year, from March 2005 to May 2006.

The report was released to the ACLU after it sued the Maryland state police for refusing to disclose information-gathering activities aimed at peace activists. "Detailed intelligence reports logged by at least two agents in the police department's Homeland Security and Intelligence Division reveal close monitoring of the movements as the Iraq war and capital punishment were heatedly debated in 2005 and 2006," the Washington Post reported.

"Organizational meetings, public forums, prison vigils, rallies outside the State House in Annapolis and e-mail group lists were infiltrated by police posing as peace activists and death penalty opponents, the records show. The surveillance continued even though the logs contained no reports of illegal activity and consistently indicated that the activists were not planning violent protests."

The infiltration of the CEDP was carried out during the one-term reign of former Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich, who ended the moratorium on executions that had been imposed by his predecessor when the flaws in the death penalty system became impossible to overlook.

The surveillance began after the first execution overseen by Ehrlich--of Steven Oken in 2004--and continued during the CEDP's campaigns to save Wesley Baker, who was put to death in December 2005, and Vernon Evans, who won a last-minute stay of execution in February 2006.

Read the rest.

Democrats are NOT the Option

The frequent reply to me when I tell Obama supporters that he will do nothing beneficial for the causes most Americans have is: "should I vote for McCain then???" No. Vote for Nader, is my reply to them. Not being able or unwilling to think outside of the box is a frequent problem I see in educated Americans. Who says that Nader can't win? Or some other third party candidate? Think for yourself, use your common sense.


The Democrats are the Real Problem

by Mike Whitney

Obama's candidacy is over; kaput. He's already stated that he has no intention of stopping the war, so he has disqualified himself. That's his prerogative; no one put a gun to his head. His op-ed in Monday's New York Times just removes any lingering doubt about the matter. What Obama proposes is moving the central theater of operation from Iraq to Afghanistan. Big deal. Why is it more acceptable to kill a man who is fighting for his country in Afghanistan than in Iraq?

It's not; which is why Obama must be defeated and the equivocating Democratic Party must be jettisoned altogether. The Democrats are a party of blood just like the Republicans, they're just more discreet about it. That's why people who are serious about ending the war have to support candidates outside the two-party charade. The Democrat/Republican duopoly will not deliver the goods; it's as simple as that. The point is to stop the killing, not to provide blind support for smooth-talking politicos who try to mask their real intentions. Obama made his choice, now he can suffer the consequences.

Nancy Pelosi is a perfect example of what the Democrats are all about. Just look at the way she brushed aside the people who got her elected. They mean nothing to her. In a matter of months, the "San Francisco liberal" has achieved what former-Speaker of the House Hastert could only dream of; she's driven the Congress' public approval ratings into single digits for the first time in history making her the worst speaker of all time. She rubber-stamped the FISA bill, concealed what she knew about the CIA's global torture programs, and vowed to stop any public effort to hold the administration accountable for its war crimes. (No impeachment) She has betrayed her most ardent supporters and singlehandedly transformed an already-emasculated congress into a purely ceremonial body incapable of doing the people's work.

At least Bush never betrayed any of his supporters. Never. Pelosi is worse than Bush, much worse.

And yet, liberals still insist that we should vote the Democratic ticket. In your dreams!

What leftist or progressive is not totally fed-up with the Democrats cagey "bait-and-switch" hypocrisy? Voting the Democratic ticket is not a sign of "hope"; it's a sign of being a schmuck. The Democrats have done nothing to stop the war and will do nothing to stop the war. The Obama candidacy is merely a way to replace one group of genocidal maniacs with another. Who needs a charismatic, flannel-mouth glamor boy to lead us into battle when a senile fogy with "anger management" issues will do just fine.

Voters of conscience should reject that choice altogether. Just as they should reject the "lesser of two evils" theory which does not apply when ordinance is being dumped daily on innocent civilians. It has to stop.

Obama is not an antiwar candidate, that is merely a fiction maintained by his public relations team. In fact, he wants to beef up the military with 65,000 additional ground forces and 27,000 more marines. He's also stated that he will add “two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan” and encourage NATO to make “greater contributions—with fewer restrictions”. In his op-ed he boasted, "As president, I will make the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority that it should be. This is a war that we have to win.”

He also added this ominous warning:

“The greatest threat to that security lies in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where terrorists train and insurgents strike into Afghanistan. We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as president, I won’t. We need a stronger and sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO to secure the border, to take out terrorist camps and to crack down on cross-border insurgents. We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region. And we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights.”

Obama supporters should take their candidate at his word. What he is proposing is a dramatic escalation and expansion of the war into another sovereign country. How is this consistent with the demands of his base or the millions of Americans who believe that Obama represents real change.

It's time for a reality check; the Democrats are the real problem not the Republicans. If the path to peace requires crushing the Democratic Party and its blood-thirsty candidates; so be it. The main thing is to stop the killing. If Obama won't do it; we'll find someone who will.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state and can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com

Kumar: Not Harold's best friend

Vijay Kumar is running for Congress on an anti-Shari'a platform. He says things like this:

But CAIR is just one of an untold number of Islamic organizations in our government and university centers. People forget that Mohammed’s last words were to keep giving the money to kafir ambassadors and that is what Islam is doing in Washington, DC. Capitol Hill is awash in Saudi money and our dhimmi political types cannot get enough of it.

And I laugh, hard. I think the Prophet's, peace and prayers be upon him, last words had something to do with keeping prayer in congregation and keeping together as a community. Notice all the key words: kafir, Saudi, dhimmi. He's graduated right out of Horowitz University. Probably on the dean's list, too.

Have fun losing and being the pawn of these neo-Nazis, Kumar.

Terror Threat Overblown

Smart, wise analysis from an ex-CIA man.


Overstating Our Fears

by Glenn L. Carle

Sen. John McCain has repeatedly characterized the threat of "radical Islamic extremism" as "the absolute gravest threat . . . that we're in against." Before we simply accept this, we need to examine the nature of the terrorist threat facing our country. If we do so, we will see how we have allowed the specter of that threat to distort our lives and take our treasure.

The "Global War on Terror" has conjured the image of terrorists behind every bush, the bushes themselves burning and an angry god inciting its faithful to religious war. We have been called to arms, built fences, and compromised our laws and the practices that define us as a nation. The administration has focused on pursuing terrorists and countering an imminent and terrifying threat. Thousands of Americans have died as a result, as have tens of thousands of foreigners.

The inclination to trust our leaders when they warn of danger is compelling, particularly when the specters of mushroom clouds and jihadists haunt every debate. McCain, accepting this view of the threats, pledges to continue the Bush administration's policy of few distinctions but ruthless actions.

I spent 23 years in the CIA. I drafted or was involved in many of the government's most senior assessments of the threats facing our country. I have devoted years to understanding and combating the jihadist threat.

We rightly honor as heroes those who serve our nation and offer their lives to protect ours. We all "support the troops." Yet the first step for any commander is to understand the enemy. The next commander in chief should base his counterterrorism policies on the following realities:

We do not face a global jihadist "movement" but a series of disparate ethnic and religious conflicts involving Muslim populations, each of which remains fundamentally regional in nature and almost all of which long predate the existence of al-Qaeda.

Osama bin Laden and his disciples are small men and secondary threats whose shadows are made large by our fears. Al-Qaeda is the only global jihadist organization and is the only Islamic terrorist organization that targets the U.S. homeland. Al-Qaeda remains capable of striking here and is plotting from its redoubt in Waziristan, Pakistan. The organization, however, has only a handful of individuals capable of planning, organizing and leading a terrorist operation. Al-Qaeda threatens to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons, but its capabilities are far inferior to its desires. Even the "loose nuke" threat, whose consequences would be horrific, has a very low probability. For the medium term, any attack is overwhelmingly likely to consist of creative uses of conventional explosives.

Read the rest.

Abdo on Muslims - East and West

A frequent criticism of anti-Muslim pundits is that we Muslim Americans are not targeting the correct crowd for our educational efforts. Instead of educating Americans on Islam we should be looking to convince our fellow co-religionists overseas to follow a more moderate Islam or to reform altogether. I have spoken about this before - Muslims IN those countries need to speak to and educate their fellow Muslims - not us Muslim Americans. They aren't going to listen to us - and usually most of us here have little to no connection to the realities of fellow Muslims in foreign nations - heightening the disconnect between us. Most Muslims in this country look back at their mother nations - those who are children of immigrants - as backwards and religiously unsophisticated. It's fun to visit relatives there once in a while, but to go back and permanently live there? Hell no, that's not happening.

Abdo points this very subtle, but important point out below:


When American Muslims Hurt Their Own Cause

by Geneive Abdo

All too often, commentators on television and in newspapers say that Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" thesis is truer today than when he wrote his famous essay in 1993. Conservative pundits point to scenes across the Middle East of suicide bombings and other violence being carried out in the name of Islam to support their argument that an insurmountable divide exists between the East and the West.

Recently, those on the other side of this debate began fighting back. Muslim American organizations, scholars who support their views and even international institutions have launched a campaign to emphasize the commonalities between Muslim and non-Muslim societies and the shared values of the three Abrahamic faiths. Adopting the tactics of their adversaries on the far right, they, too, oversimplify the picture: Violence has nothing to do with Islam, they say, because Islam is a religion of peace.

The result is that now this debate is dominated by these two sets of spin doctors, and neither side is presenting a cogent analysis for the public or the policy community. The long-term effects of this polarized debate will not be in the interest of either Muslims living in the United States or those abroad, nor will they advance a more intelligent foreign policy agenda for the next administration.

The time for a more nuanced and substantive discussion is overdue. Americans could become lulled into thinking that Muslims here speak for their co-religionists abroad. Most second-generation American Muslims, in fact, have spent scant time in their families' countries of origins. After 9/11, many realized they knew little about the faith and now study the Islamic texts in their mosques, summer camps and universities.

Yet, this has not restrained some from casting themselves as knowledgeable about everything from Islamic theology to the views of Muslims abroad toward the United States, and foreign policy approaches the U.S. government should take in the Islamic world. Some activists even argue that interfaith dialogue can solve intractable global conflicts, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (I doubt the Israeli government and Hamas would agree.) Consider this example, which is typical of the kind of rhetoric coming from interfaith dialogue enthusiasts.

"My voice is hoarse from condemning terrorists who have perverted my beloved religion, and so are all the voices of all Muslim Americans," wrote one Muslim activist who has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars through grants and donations for an interfaith youth group he heads in Chicago. "But it will take all of our voices, insisting on the American ideal of pluralism, to defeat our real enemy." The comments were published in On Faith, a Washington Post blog.

There are several false and implicit messages behind such prose, which does nothing to explain the causes of extremism abroad. Chief among them: There is a universal interpretation of Islam, which is practiced by most Muslims; and, if Muslim Americans unite under the banner of American pluralism, they can defeat the so-called enemy, presumably the one that exits abroad among a minority of Muslims.

A few weeks ago during a trip to Cairo, I visited a religious scholar I have known for a decade to get his views on whether Muslim Americans should counsel the American public and the U.S. government about the Islamic world. "These people do not speak for us," said the elderly scholar, who was a prominent sheikh at al Azhar, the theological center for the Sunni Muslim world. "Muslims here and across the world are becoming more anti-American. This is very clear."

Geneive Abdo, a foreign policy analyst at The Century Foundation, is the author of several books on contemporary Islam, most recently "Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in America After 9/11." She may be reached through www.tcf.org.

Former Mossad chief: Hamas "not solely a terrorist group"

Joe Kaufman will be adding Efraim Halevy's name and credentials to his CAIR Watch list soon.


Shalom, Hamas

by Laura Rozen

At first glance, Efraim Halevy seems an unlikely champion of the virtues of engaging terrorists. The former chief of the Mossad, perhaps the world's most paranoia-inducing intelligence service, Halevy helped negotiate Israel's historic 1994 peace treaty with Jordan, but also had a role in developing his country's policy of targeted assassinations of terrorist leaders. Reserved, with some of the British formality of his youth—his family immigrated to Israel when he was a boy—Halevy, 73, brings to mind John LeCarré's George Smiley. And a tweedy, unapologetically hawkish ex-spymaster may just be the only advocate capable of legitimizing a notion effectively ostracized in US politics: talking to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

"From my point of view, Hamas is a deadly enemy," Halevy told me in April. "So, with a deadly enemy, you can deal three ways: either destroy them, or cull them into submission, or simply wait for a better day. I think the way things are at the moment, there is a situation arising where Hamas is beginning to consider what its options are—and this is an opportunity."

It's a message Halevy has recently been taking to Washington, where the Bush administration maintains a fiercely ideological prohibition against talking to "bad guys"—unhelpfully lumping, Halevy and other critics note, militant groups, terrorists, and hostile regimes into the same amorphous category. In fact, Halevy has pointed out, Hamas is "not solely a terrorist group," but a political one as well; it has aspirations "to be part of the system and not, as Al Qaeda aspires, to destroy it."

"Hamas is not Al Qaeda, and indeed Al Qaeda has condemned them time and time again," Halevy said. "Hamas may from time to time have tactical, temporary contact with Al Qaeda, but in essence they are deadly adversaries. A serious effort to dialogue indirectly with [Hamas] could ultimately drive a wedge between them."

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Killing Afghanis and Iraqis

It's OK to do so as long as American soldiers stay alive in the process.


Keeping Count

by David Lindorff

Celeste Zappala, the Gold Star mother of an early casualty in America's invasion of Iraq who lost her son when he was doing guard duty during a fraudulent "search" for alleged WMDs in Iraq, was speaking from the heart when she told a group of antiwar demonstrators at Philadelphia's Independence Mall Saturday that she was grateful no American troops had been killed during the past week in Iraq.

Her concern for the troops' well-being is understandable.

But left unsaid is that the lower US casualty figures in Iraq are coming at the expense of much higher civilian casualties. This is even more true in Afghanistan, where the war is heating up.

The reason for this ugly calculus is that in order to keep politically damaging US casualties as low as possible, the US military and the Bush/Cheney administration that gives the generals their marching orders, are resorting increasingly to the use of air power--bombs and rockets and remote controlled, missile-equipped Predator drone aircraft--to attack suspected militant targets.

Case in point--the 22 people the BBC reports were killed in eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province yesterday in a US missile strike on what turns out to have been a wedding procession. According to reports from local Afghan police and other officials quoted in the BBC story, 19 of the victims of this horrific attack were women and children.

This slaughter--which US military authorities, following their standard MO, are denying, claiming that those killed were "militants"-- follows an earlier one Friday in Afghanistan, in which a missile fired from a US helicopter killed 15 people, all civilians.

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Father Kills Daughter Over Arranged Marriage

Maybe another honor killing. Seems like the father was just the typical Desi father who was into cricket and was a good neighbor. The daughter wanted out of a seemingly broken marriage and that looked to infuriate the father. He then strangled her to death in their Atlanta area home.

What aspect of Islam will the Jihad Watch cronies invoke to tie Islam and Muslims to this disgusting crime? Will the father himself say he did it out of family honor or that his daughter was acting un-Islamically? Would such an excuse free him of responsibility - in a Muslim nation maybe? Divorce is perfectly permissible in Islam, but killing your daughter because she wants a divorce is perfectly not. In whatever nation he were to have committed this crime - Muslim or non - he should be executed.

And for the pro-bin Laden crowd out there - she's a real martyr - not like those psychotic, given up all hope of God's mercy morons that blow themselves up in crowded markets where innocent men, women and children are murdered.

Cohen at it again

This time he fools an ex-Mossad agent.


Sacha Baron Cohen Catches Ex-Mossad Official Off Guard

JERUSALEM — A former Mossad official said Sunday he was the target of the latest undercover operation by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

Israeli analyst Yossi Alpher said he was invited to be interviewed for what was supposed to be a documentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Alpher says he was led down a winding staircase and through long corridors to the interview site in Jerusalem. He realized something was amiss when he saw the interviewer — a man claiming to be a German rock star dressed in leather and studs.

Alpher said he learned only later that the interviewer was Cohen's latest character: Bruno.

Cohen's other characters include aspiring rapper Ali G and the anti-Semitic Kazakh journalist Borat. Baron Cohen has fooled many prominent people with his gag interviews.

At one point the questioner compared the Mideast conflict to the spat between actor Brad Pitt's former and current wives.

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