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		<title>The Nice Muslim Family Next Door</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/nonie-darwish/the-nice-muslim-family-next-door/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-nice-muslim-family-next-door</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2013 04:41:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Nonie Darwish]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=186747</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Do the "nice" Muslims you know indicate something about the real Islam? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/niqab.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-186750" alt="niqab" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/niqab.jpg" width="266" height="177" /></a><strong>This article first appeared in <a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/">GateStoneInstitute.org</a>.</strong></p>
<p>Where are the articles by moderate Muslims condemning the prominent Muslims who beg Allah to strike infidels with cancer and disease? No practicing Muslim has openly condemned such prayers, or named the sheikhs who urge these brutalities.</p>
<p>The neighbors of the Chechnyan Muslim family whose sons were responsible for the Boston Marathon terror attack said they were stunned by the news and that this nice Muslim family was known for its generosity and kindness. Many Americans often ask, &#8220;What about the Muslim family next door? They are really nice people.&#8221;</p>
<p>Some of the nicest people I know are Muslims, but that must never blind us from understanding the risk we are taking when we allow the building of hundreds of mosques financed by Saudi Arabia, as well as millions of Muslims to migrate into America at a time of a fierce, if sophisticated, desire by Islamist groups to spread Islam throughout the world, and to radicalize impressionable youths by stoking anger against the Western nations, people and values.</p>
<p>The existence of nice, educated Muslims should also never blind us from seeing the deep problems within the ideology of Islam and its jihadist goals. Muslims themselves admit that Islam is more than a religion – that it is, in fact, a state, legal system and a military institution—with the goal, as one&#8217;s holy duty, of bringing Islam to the rest of the world, a desire often enshrined deep in the hearts of Muslims.</p>
<p>Even though our visible problem is with the Muslim jihadists, the so-called &#8220;moderate&#8221; Muslims have often been silent enablers and defenders, perhaps from inertia, misinformation or fear of reprisals against them, including death threats to them and members of their family should they speak out.</p>
<p>Terrorists could never be as powerful as they are without the prayers, and especially the material support, of Islamic nations, governments and people. A Muslim Egyptian friend &#8212; one of the nicest people you will ever meet &#8212; visiting in 1994, was crying in front of the television while praying for the people of Chechnya to declare independence from Russia and declare their country an Islamic State ruled by Sharia law.</p>
<p>The critiques of Islam by this author are never written for the purpose of condemning people; naturally, there are good and bad people in every culture. My deep concern springs from the ideology of Islam: it has had such dark implications on Islamic society, forcing many, otherwise perfectly fine people, to enact unthinkable terror, as others stand silently by. Islam is the only religion that requires its followers to kill those who do not believe in Allah, and to take revenge in the name of Allah. In the Quran, holy vengeance and retaliation are commanded for Muslims<i>:</i> &#8220;O ye who believe! Retaliation is prescribed for you. He who transgresseth after this will have a painful doom.&#8221;  [Koran 2:178]. Or: &#8220;We shall take vengeance (Muntaquimun) upon the sinners.&#8221; [32:22] The translation of the Arabic word &#8220;Muntaquimun&#8221; meaning vengeance is often watered down in translation by using the word punishment or retribution instead.</p>
<p>It was frustrating and unsettling to hear the aunt of the two terrorists stating, from Toronto, Canada, that her two nephews were &#8220;set up,&#8221; and the terrorists&#8217; father, Anzor Tsarnaev, stating in various interviews with ABC and other stations, first that his son should give up peacefully; then that the son who was killed was framed; then that the son who was not killed should tell the truth; then warning that if the US kills his son: &#8220;all hell will break loose.&#8221;</p>
<p>Having grown up Muslim, I would urge Americans to demand more from the so called &#8220;moderate&#8221; Muslims, instead of giving them a pass for their silence, which appears a complicit defense of jihad. For too long, with some courageous exceptions, moderate Muslims hear no evil, see no evil and do nothing about it. They stand defiant, behaving as if they were victims, while the cries of Christians suffering under Islam in the Middle East are ignored. (Most Jews were forced out years ago. As the saying in Arabic goes: First the Saturday People, then the Sunday People).</p>
<p>Many moderate Muslims have been insisting that the Boston bombings have &#8220;nothing to do with Islam.&#8221; They deny there is a problem for apostates fleeing Islam, and do nothing about their arrest, the threats against them or their murder. At least 5,000 reported honor killings happen annually in the name of Allah, but moderate Muslims insist that, too, has nothing to do with Islam, and is a hold-over tribal custom, despite the Sura and verses that are used to justify it [Qur'an (18:65-81], and not only speak out against the practice, but go as far as to threaten those who expose it. Moderate Muslims also have nothing to say to the hundreds of Islamic clerics who curse non-Muslims and encourage jihad from the pulpits of mosques.</p>
<p>Where are the articles by moderate Muslims condemning the prominent Muslims who beg Allah to strike infidels with cancer and disease? The holiest mosques of Mecca blast curses at Jews and Christians over microphones &#8212; &#8220;Till they pray for death and do not receive it&#8221; &#8212; and supplicate Allah to make the lives of Christians and Jews &#8220;hostage to misery; drape them with endless despair, unrelenting pain and unremitting ailment; fill their lives with sorrow and pain and end their lives in humiliation and oppression.&#8221;</p>
<p>No true practicing Muslim, moderate or not, has openly condemned such prayers to pilgrims in Mecca or has named the sheikhs who urge these brutalities. But the majority of moderate Muslims are quick to blame American foreign policy and Israel. If America cooperates with Islamic dictators, Muslims accuse America of empowering dictators; if America removes a Saddam Hussein to give Muslims a chance for freedom, they accuse the US of interfering in their internal affairs.</p>
<p>The day Usama Bin Laden was killed, a friend called from Egypt to say that everyone was in mourning, sad over Bin Laden&#8217;s death. Does such a response to the death of a terrorist stem from moderate Islam, radical Islam, or Islam?</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><i>Nonie Darwish is the author of &#8220;The Devil We Don&#8217;t Know&#8221; and President of &#8220;Former Muslims United.&#8221;</i></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>The Times Finds A Lone Crazed Assassin</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/peter-collier/the-times-finds-a-lone-crazed-assassin-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-times-finds-a-lone-crazed-assassin-2</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/peter-collier/the-times-finds-a-lone-crazed-assassin-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:05:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Peter Collier]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=51395</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What the Grey Lady won't tell you about professor Amy Bishop.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/bishop1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-51443" title="bishop" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/bishop1.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="347" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Visit <a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/">Newsreal</a></strong><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/us/21bishop.html" target="_blank"><em></em></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/us/21bishop.html" target="_blank"><em>The New York Times</em>’ front page profile</a> on Saturday of professor Amy Bishop, who allegedly executed three University of Alabama Biology Department colleagues after being denied tenure, appears to be an exhaustively reported piece based on “numerous interviews with colleagues and others who knew her.” It portrays Bishop as violent and unpredictable, rejected by Harvard because of mediocre work and shunned by a series of neighbors and co-workers scared off by the suppressed rage that kept bubbling up to the surfaces of her social life, and also someone who may already have gotten away with the murder of her brother years earlier possibly because of her mother’s political connections in her home town of Braintree, Mass.</p>
<div>
<p>“Between brilliance and rage” is the caption of the photo of Bishop used by the<em> Times</em> for the story, although the piece makes no case for the former.  But is this all the news that is fit to print about the perpetrator of this murder spree in academe?  What about the “family source” who told the Boston Herald that Bishop was,</p>
<blockquote><p>“<a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catid=144&amp;type=issue" target="_blank">a far left</a> political activist who was ‘obsessed’ with <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1511" target="_blank">President Obama</a> to the point of being off putting”?</p></blockquote>
<p>What about the student who called her a <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catid=115&amp;type=issue" target="_blank">“socialist”</a>? What about one report that Bishop complained about a rule issued by University  of Alabama administrators regarding underclassmen living on campus because she believed it was destructive of “diversity.”  And what about the crowning irony of this case, whether or not she made this complaint: that two of the colleagues she allegedly killed were black and one was South Asian, and that Bishop thus wiped out the 14 person Biology department’s entire diversity in one burst of gunfire?</p>
<p>Considering the politics of Bishop’s <em>ressentiment</em> might have helped fill out the Times’ portrait of a psychopathic time bomb who had already gone off several times in her disordered life on her way to the Big Explosion on February 12 in Huntsville. There is no doubt, as the blogosphere has already noted, that the paper would have pursued even the vaguest hint that Bishop had been a fan of Glenn Beck or was a Tea Party fellow traveler as a major story line. For the Grey Lady, only the politics of the Right is personal.</p>
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		<title>Six Months Later, Pan Am Bomber is Still Alive &#8211; NBC New York</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/six-months-later-pan-am-bomber-is-still-alive-nbc-new-york/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=six-months-later-pan-am-bomber-is-still-alive-nbc-new-york</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:27:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=50546</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The terrorist who helped bomb Pan Am flight 103 is still alive &#8211; and free &#8211; in Libya nearly six months after Scotland released the mass murderer from prison on &#8220;compassionate&#8221; grounds. Scottish officials had said Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi would die within three months from prostate cancer when they announced they would set him free. [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Still-Alive-Pan-Am-Bomber-6-Months-of-Freedom--84394717.html"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/lockerbie+bomber-640.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p>The terrorist who helped bomb Pan Am flight 103 is still alive &#8211; and free &#8211; in Libya nearly six months after Scotland released the mass murderer from prison on &#8220;compassionate&#8221; grounds.</p>
<p>Scottish officials had said Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi would die within three months from prostate cancer when they announced they would set him free.   But nearly six months later, al-Megrahi is still calling in about twice a month from Libya to authorities in Scotland as part of the terms of his release.</p>
<p>&#8220;It has almost become comical,&#8221; said Bert Ammerman who lost his brother in the bombing.  &#8220;I have to laugh that he has to phone in that he is following his probation terms.  This is a complete insult.  Shame on Scotland.  Shame on the White House.&#8221;</p>
<p>Convicted terrorist Megrahi was set free back on August 21.  He had been sentence to life in prison after being convicted in 2001.  When he landed home in Libya, he was greeted by cheering crowds at the Tripoli airport, some waving Libyan and Scottish flags.</p>
<p>Some members of the Scottish Parliament have called on Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to better explain why a second medical opinion was not sought before deciding to release the terrorist.  MacAskill has responded saying the medical report stating Megrahi was dying of terminal cancer is accurate.</p>
<p>He has claimed the three month window was just an approximation. MacAskill charged critics are &#8220;circling like vultures&#8221; wondering when Megrahi might die.  &#8220;He is going to die.  That is why he was released,&#8221; MacAskill said to Scottish Parliament back in January.</p>
<p>Pan Am Flight 103 was en route from London to New york when a bomb exploded in the cargo hold of the mighty jetliner.  270 people were killed including 259 passengers and crew, and 11 people on the ground in the village of Lockerbie.  Megrahi was convicted of helping hide the bomb in a cassette recorder in a suitcase.</p>
<p>Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had said U.S. officials voiced their objections in advance about Scottish authorities plans to release the terrorist.  &#8220;It is obviously wrong to release someone who has been in prison based on the evidence about his involvement in such a horrendous crime,&#8221; Clinton said.</p>
<p>After he was set free, the FBI Director Robert Mueller blasted MacAskill&amp;apos;s decision.  &#8220;Your action in releasing Megrahi is as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law,&#8221; Mueller wrote.</p>
<p>Some victim&amp;apos;s families have charged Megrahi&amp;apos;s release was tied to future oil deals between British oil companies and the Libyan government.  Those allegations have been vehemently denied by British officials and spokesmen for oil firms like British Petroleum.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Still-Alive-Pan-Am-Bomber-6-Months-of-Freedom--84394717.html">Six Months Later, Pan Am Bomber is Still Alive | NBC New York</a>.</p>
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		<title>Paying Tribute to Terror</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rich-trzupek/paying-tribute-to-terror/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=paying-tribute-to-terror</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:00:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rich Trzupek]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Why the United States cannot buy off the Islamic fanatics of the Taliban.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/child_suicide_bomber.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-49545" title="child_suicide_bomber" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/child_suicide_bomber-300x209.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="209" /></a></p>
<p>It has been widely reported, <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/78351-report-plan-being-considered-to-buy-off-taliban-for-1b-or-so">most recently by Al-Jazeera</a>, that the Obama administration and the British government have been contemplating paying off “moderate” elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan – to the tune of perhaps one billion dollars – as a means of pacifying resistance in that troubled nation. That proudly defiant American slogan, “millions for defense, but not one penny for tribute,” which traces its roots to the eighteenth century, would fall to the wayside if this attempt at appeasement turns into public policy.</p>
<p>The idea that “moderate” Islamic terrorists exist and that their loyalties can be bought are central concepts to the philosophical construct that Obama has brings to the war on terror. The President naively believes that the majority of Muslim terrorists are misunderstood, disenfranchised freedom fighters who want nothing more than to take control of their lives and prosper. A billion dollars or so will go a long way, in Obama’s view, toward helping them organize their communities in a peaceful, loving way.</p>
<p>The reality behind the fanatic, ultra-fundamentalist mindset that guides the Taliban has been revealed time and time again. <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8499578.stm">This disturbing BBC interview</a> of a thirteen year old Pakistani girl named Meena is another reminder of the true nature of the Taliban, and the way that fundamentalist Muslims treat women in general.</p>
<p>At one point, Meena described how her family turned her nine-year-old sister Nahida into a suicide bomber:</p>
<blockquote><p>“They attached a bomb to my sister Nahida. They tied rectangular pieces to both her arms, and a black strip was wrapped around both her legs. Then they connected the whole thing. She told my brother the bomb was heavy and she could not walk. He said she would be comfortable once she was sitting down in the car. They gave her medicine. But she was crying very loud for my mother. She kept going to her and hugging her. When my sister looked down at the bomb, she shivered. Then my brother and my father started beating my mother, and they were shouting: ‘Why you are distracting the girl from her mission?’ I heard my sister saying: ‘Where is Meena? I want to see her.’ But I didn&#8217;t have the strength. My heart couldn&#8217;t take it.</p>
<p>My mother fainted when they put her in the car. My brother said my sister&#8217;s attack was in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>I always think about my sister. She was healthy and a very nice girl. She was younger than me, but she was wiser. My mother used to tell me that I was an idiot, but she was very wise.”</p></blockquote>
<p>No doubt that someone, probably claiming to be an American who has lived in the Arab world for at least a decade, will deny that this sort of thing could ever happen. We see that all of the time, at <em>Front Page</em> and other sites that dare to point out the horrors that accompany strict adherence to Islamic teachings.</p>
<p>These sorts of denials should come as no surprise. The Quran expressly allows <a href="http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/011-taqiyya.htm">Muslims to lie to non-Muslims</a> whenever they can advance the teachings of the prophet Muhammad through the use of such deceptions. Muslim apologists can lie through their teeth about this sort of evil, but there are far too many examples of it for people who cherish liberty to ignore.</p>
<p>Which brings us back to the Taliban. You can’t pay someone off to abandon an ideology this evil and deluded. Does anyone believe that we can purchase the loyalties of people who think that they are fulfilling the “will of God” by strapping high-explosives to a nine-year-old girl, drugging her and sending her on a mission to blow herself up? Why on earth would anyone want to? The west is at war with an ideology, not impoverished, deluded freedom fighters who would abandon their evil ideas if only they could afford a big screen TV.</p>
<p>From painful experience, we know what happens when you try to appease evil fanatics. The fanatics make promises that they don’t intend to keep, wait a while, and then go back to work on their agenda. Dropping a billion dollars on the “moderate Taliban” in Afghanistan would amount to nothing more than providing terrorists with a grant that will cheerfully put to the worst use possible.</p>
<p>Ideas like this are an insult to our men and women in uniform on the front lines in Afghanistan and will ultimately place them in greater danger. Worse, trying to pay off terrorists makes it more likely, not less, that more fanatic Muslim fathers are going to be able to get their hands on enough C-4 to turn nine year old girls into bombs.</p>
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		<title>How a “Nice American Girl” Became a Jihadist</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/phyllis-chesler/how-a-%e2%80%9cnice-american-girl%e2%80%9d-became-a-jihadist/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-a-%25e2%2580%259cnice-american-girl%25e2%2580%259d-became-a-jihadist</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:04:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Phyllis Chesler]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Dr. Aafia Siddiqui learned to hate America, hate Jews, and hate Israel right here in liberal America.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/aafia-siddiqui1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-48882" title="aafia-siddiqui1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/aafia-siddiqui1-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Visit <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/">Pajamas</a></strong></p>
<p>She studied at MIT and at Brandeis where she received a Ph.D in Neuroscience. Thus, she was both an educated and in some sense, a westernized woman. Both her Pakistani-born father and Pakistani husband are physicians who trained in the West, in England and America, respectively; her brother and sister are also highly trained professionals. Nevertheless, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui learned to hate America, hate Jews, and hate Israel right here in liberal America.</p>
<p>Like a small but increasing number of “westernized” Muslim women, Aafia Siddiqui joined her local mosque (in her case, the <a href="http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/whos_afraid_of_aafia_siddiqui/">Roxbury, MA mosque</a>) and started to veil, and as she did, her ambitions became aggressively jihadic. This is not a contradiction. Obediently veiled Muslim women can be very aggressive, murderously so. They certainly police other women in savage and self-righteous ways in Iran and Indonesia. In Iraq, veiled Muslim women have <a href="http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/female-suicide-bombers-kill-47-in-iraq-fourth-lead_10077011.html">blown up other Muslim female religious pilgrims</a>. And, Muslim women who were normatively spurned by their mothers were manipulated by Samira Jassim, an attentive, “loving” Iraqi mother-figure, who carefully <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/02/female_suicide_bombe_1.php">turned them into suicide killers</a>.</p>
<p>Women are very aggressive—but usually towards other women. I have written about this in <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1556529465/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&amp;pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&amp;pf_rd_t=201&amp;pf_rd_i=1560253517&amp;pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_r=0YH8ZZFRJ6ES9NP6JBDX">Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman</a></em>. Traditionally, women do not go up against men whom they view as their potential protectors and as more powerful than they are. Ironically, Islamic jihad wishes to reverse, upend, both Nature and human evolutionary history. Just as normatively degraded mothers are “turned” into hero-mothers who publicly praise their suicide killer sons—just so, are normatively self-hating women “turned” into Al-Qaeda heroines who not only directly attack men, but who directly attack infidel male <em>soldiers</em>.</p>
<p><strong>To continue reading this article, <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2010/02/04/how-a-%E2%80%9Cnice-american-girl%E2%80%9D-became-a-jihadist-dr-siddiqui-found-guilty/">click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Same Old Cuba – by Humberto Fontova</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/humberto-fontova/same-old-cuba-%e2%80%93-by-humberto-fontova/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=same-old-cuba-%25e2%2580%2593-by-humberto-fontova</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Jan 2010 05:08:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Humberto Fontova]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Raul Castro’s rule may be even more repressive than Fidel’s.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-45223" title="raul-speech2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/raul-speech2.jpg" alt="raul-speech2" width="450" height="320" /></p>
<p>When Fidel Castro’s brother Raul assumed the reigns of power from Cuba’s ailing dictator nearly two years ago, hopes ran high that the transition would usher in a new era of political reform inside the communist country. But <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/v-print/story/1405416.html">recent reports</a> suggest that so far from improving the lot of the Cuban people, Raul’s government has introduced new forms of repression and corruption. As the new year begins, Cuba is facing its <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/v-print/story/1405416.html">worst economic crisis in 20 years</a>, even as political repression persists and the promised “structural” reforms have never materialized. For most Cubans, another difficult year looms.</p>
<p>Perhaps the best guide to understanding what has happened in Cuba since Raul’s takeover, and what lies ahead, comes from a November report from Human Rights Watch. Titled “<a href="http://www.hrw.org/en/node/86554">New Castro, Same Cuba</a>,” the 123-page report examines the conditions inside Cuba since Raúl Castro took power.</p>
<p>The report was difficult to produce. The Cuban regime, though it sat for years on the U.N.&#8217;s “Human Rights Commission,” prohibits any human rights agency, including HRW and even the International Red Cross, from visiting any of Cuba&#8217;s 200 plus prisons (under the Batista government deposed by Fidel Castro, Cuba had 12 prisons). So the HRW&#8217;s Nik Steinberg visited Cuba and conducted his study secretly, interviewing Cubans in 7 of the island&#8217;s 14 provinces. &#8220;We wanted to put on the table where Cuba stands on human rights,&#8221; he said in a recent <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1341025.html">interview</a> with the <em>Miami Herald</em>.</p>
<p>“In July 2006, Fidel Castro handed control of the Cuban government over to his brother Raúl Castro” summarizes the HRW report:</p>
<blockquote><p>“As the new head of state, Raúl Castro inherited a system of abusive laws and institutions, as well as responsibility for hundreds of political prisoners arrested during his brother’s rule. Raúl Castro’s government has used draconian laws and sham trials to incarcerate scores more who have dared to exercise their fundamental freedoms. Scores of political prisoners arrested under Fidel Castro continue to languish in Cuba’s prisons. Rather than dismantle this repressive machinery, Raúl Castro has kept it firmly in place and fully active. ”</p></blockquote>
<p>Particularly alarming to Human Rights Watch is the “judicial process” employed by Raul&#8217;s regime for the continued repression. HRW reports:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Raúl Castro’s government has relied in particular on a provision of the Cuban Criminal Code that allows the state to imprison individuals before they have committed a crime. This &#8216;dangerousness&#8217; provision is overtly political, defining as “dangerous” any behavior that contradicts socialist norms.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Cuban dissidents have corroborated accounts of this new repression. &#8220;The wave of repression we witnessed on Dec. 10th is the worst we&#8217;ve seen in this country in decades.&#8221; reported Elizardo Sanchez, President of the (dissident) Cuban Commission on Human Rights, this December. In a smuggled report, Cuban dissident González Leiva adds that during an attempted march commemorating “Universal Human Rights Day,” on December 19, hundreds of Cubans were arrested and beaten by regime goons.</p>
<p>The HRW report fully backs the findings of two polls conducted secretly in Cuba recently by dissident groups. One poll was by El Centro de Información sobre Democracia and the other by Alianza Nueva Nación. The groups interviewed 1000 Cubans in 9 of the nation&#8217;s 14 provinces and found that 70 percent not only report that their (precious few) freedoms have diminished under Raul, but that life in general has become harsher: there is less food available; more regime corruption; and more economic hardships in general.</p>
<p>It’s not just political freedom that has worsened under Raul rule. The economy has also suffered. In 2009&#8242;s Index of Economic Freedom, the Heritage Foundation had already found Cuba as more economically repressive under Raul than under Fidel. Under Raul&#8217;s rule, Cuba slipped down 1.1 notches to number 155, where it runs almost neck-and-neck with North Korea. For many Cuba watchers, the HRW report and the dissident appeals are no surprise.</p>
<p>If the HRW report has a weakness, it is that it fails to recognize that many of the repressive features now seen under Raul have existed in some form since it fell under communist control For instance, the Stalinist detention provision HRW sees employed in today&#8217;s Cuba in fact dates back almost half a century to <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2054">Che Guevara</a>&#8216;s stint as the “brains of the Cuban Revolution” (as Time magazine crowned him in a 1960 cover story). As Cuba&#8217;s chief prosecutor and executioner, Guevara had instructed his judicial subalterns that “judicial evidence is an archaic bourgeois detail. We execute from revolutionary conviction.” And indeed they did. &#8220;We send to Guanahacabibes people who have committed crimes against revolutionary norms,” explained Guevara. Guanahacabibes was a forced-labor camp in extreme western Cuba. “It is hard labor” said Guevara, “the working conditions are harsh.&#8221;</p>
<p>Likewise, the HRW report notes that “fear is a central part of the Cuban government&#8217;s strategy.” True enough, but again, this dates back not just to recent pre-Raul rule, but to the initial days of Castroism, half a century ago. “Terror is an essential political instrument,” instructed Che Guevara to his “revolutionary tribunals.” “Only hypocrites refuse to acknowledge this. We must establish the pedagogy of the<em> paredon</em> (firing squad)” Televised firing-squad executions were one element of this “pedagogy.” Even earlier, during the guerrilla skirmishing in Cuba&#8217;s Sierra Maestra, Che had written in his diaries, &#8220;Now comes a period when terror will be exercised against the peasants.”</p>
<p>A more serious error in the HRW report is its condemnation of the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba. This embargo has long been a talking point of the regime, distracting attention from its role in brutalizing the Cuban people and destroying the country’s economy. But when it comes to the “U.S. bloqueo,” the vast majority of Cubans part ways with Human Rights Watch. They know full well who runs Cuba, and how, and that that is the real reason for their persistent penury.</p>
<p>Cuba is a military dictatorship in the most genuine sense of the term. Raul Castro and his military cronies have been running Cuba for over a decade and doing quite well in the process. Of the nineteen members of Cuba&#8217;s politburo, nine are military men. This is more than the typical Soviet-bloc state had, or the Soviet Union itself. One Raul Castro crony, General Julio Casas Regueiro, does much of this running, controlling 300 different &#8220;companies&#8221; (state agencies often in partnership with foreign investors) in Cuba under a holding company named GAESA.</p>
<p>Another typical company is the Corporacion Gaviota, headed by Raul Military crony General Luis Perez Rospide. Gaviota started operating in 1990. The Cuban military&#8217;s Gaviota tourism group, is a corporate umbrella encompassing, Aerogaviota SA, (airlines) Almest SA Hoteles Gaviota,(hotels) Gaviota Tour, (bus touring company), Marinas Gaviota, (marinas), Tiendas Gaviota, (tourist souvenir stores, restaurants) Parques Naturales Gaviota, (national parks, museums). Thanks to this monopoly, the government and its allies prosper, while the Cuban people are no better off.</p>
<p>In a presentation on November 18 at a hearing by the House Foreign Affairs Committee debating travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens, Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Simmons, a recently retired Defense Intelligence Agency Cuba specialist, explained the issue in detail. He showed how Raul Castro&#8217;s military owns virtually every corporation involved in Cuba&#8217;s tourism industry, the regime&#8217;s top money-maker.</p>
<p>The presentation also revealed something that goes a long way towards explaining the Raul Castro regime&#8217;s confident entrenchment. Last year Cuba enjoyed record tourism revenues: 2.35 million tourists leaving $2.7 billion in military-regime coffers, and precious little else due to the regime&#8217;s tourist apartheid, where Cubans (especially darker-skinned ones) are strictly segregated at billy-club and gun-point from tourist areas, except as waiters, maids, bellhops, shoe-shine boys, foot masseuses, etc.</p>
<p>With this tourist revenue windfall, ongoing for over a decade, Cuba&#8217;s ruling military robber barons are making a killing. Why would they voluntarily upset their own apple carts by democratizing the system and opening it to competitors? Given that they&#8217;re the only ones in Cuba with guns, who&#8217;s going to challenge them? On this question, neither the HRW, which misguidedly recommends an end to the U.S. travel ban, nor the legion of foreign experts on Cuba, can provide a clue. The more things change in Raul Castro’s Cuba, the more they remain the same.</p>
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		<title>Inside the Green Revolution – by Jacob Laksin</title>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Jan 2010 05:17:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Political dissident Amir Fakhravar discusses his brother’s arrest by the Iranian regime and the democratic uprising that threatens its rule. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-44525" title="091228211523IranProtestAPPhoto" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/091228211523IranProtestAPPhoto.jpg" alt="091228211523IranProtestAPPhoto" width="430" height="341" /></p>
<p>As a student dissident in Iran, <a href="http://fakhravar.com/">Amir Fakhravar</a> was jailed and tortured for his pro-democracy political activism. Since moving to the United States in 2006, he has continued to take part in Iran’s opposition movement. He serves as the secretary general of the <a href="http://www.cistudents.com/about/">Confederation of Iranian Students</a> and the president of the Iranian Enterprise Institute. Last week, Fakhravar’s 18-year-old-brother, Arash, was arrested by the Iranian regime. After three days of absence, the Fakhravar family learned that Arash had been arrested, beaten up and taken to the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran, then placed in solitary confinement in an undisclosed location. Amir Fakhravar spoke to <em>Front Page</em> about his brother’s arrest, Iran’s growing “green revolution,” and the best strategy for ending the mullahs’ three-decade rule.</p>
<p><em><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-44528" title="art_amir_fakhravar_cnn" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/art_amir_fakhravar_cnn.jpg" alt="art_amir_fakhravar_cnn" width="292" height="219" /></em></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Can you tell us what happened with your brother Arash? What do you know of his current whereabouts?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>Arash is in the very middle of this fight. He became politically active in high school and now he goes to all the anti-government demonstrations. My mother always says, “Please talk to him.” But my response is: This is what he has chosen. We need to pay the price for freedom. The day after the Ashura festival, the intelligence services called my mother in Tehran. They said, “We know all about your son. He’s been involved in protests, making videos. Be careful or they will arrest him.” The day after the phone call, they arrested him. My mother didn’t know anything for three days. She called the police, but they didn’t know anything. So she went to the Revolutionary Court with my sister and they saw him there. He was beaten up and blindfolded, wearing a bloody shirt and handcuffs. They tried to take a picture but could not. Right now, he is still in the hands of the Revolutionary Court.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img class="size-full wp-image-44531 aligncenter" title="DSC01294" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/DSC01294.JPG" alt="DSC01294" width="336" height="448" /><em>In the line of fire: Amir Fakhravar’s 18-year-old brother Arash is among the thousands of opposition demonstrators beaten up and arrested by the Iranian government.</em></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> What are you doing to free Arash and what can those outside of Iran do to help?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>His best chance of survival is organizing a media campaign for his release. In Iran, my family cannot do anything. But from the outside we can do quite a lot. We created a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/people/Amir-Fakhravar/100000126867757">Facebook page</a> for him that now has 2,000 members. We can also write letters to the news media and human-rights groups to cover his case. This is probably the best thing we can do. We need to put more pressure on the government. They are afraid of free information.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Your brother, like you, is active in the “green revolution” in Iran. How do you see what is happening inside the country right now?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>What has happened is that something many thought was a small movement has become a revolution. After the summer election, the government tried to strike fear into the people, but millions came out into the streets in Iran’s major cities. After seven months, they are showing that they are not going to give up. The recent death of Ayatollah Montazeri was a good excuse for this new generation to oppose the government because he had fought [Ayatollah] Khomeini for twenty years. The latest demonstrations have taken place during the Ashura festival, which is a symbol of the Islamic Republic and Shiism. This is a sign that they want to get rid of the mullahs and they are not afraid anymore. [Politician and presidential challenger] Mir Hossein Mousavi has said it best: We are not leading these people. They are leading themselves.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> So where does the leadership come from?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>This movement doesn’t have a leader, but things like Facebook help. We use social media to help organize events inside Iran. For instance, we are planning a demonstration in February to coincide with the 31<sup>st</sup> anniversary of the Iranian revolution. Earlier this year, I was giving a speech before Congress and I said, “Iranians don’t want a war. All we need are cell phones, cameras and computers.” Some of the Senators laughed at that. But it has happened. We are close to a cyber revolution in Iran.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> What are the aims of this revolution? What do the participants hope to achieve?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>Most of the demonstrators are young – 70 percent are under the age of 35 – and they are not motivated by partisan politics. They are not communists or Marxists or monarchists; they are not involved with political parties and they don’t want to be. Via the internet, they know a lot about American culture – perhaps more than many people here – and they want the things it represents: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. They are secular and they want a country where Islam is kept separate from the government. A free, secular, democratic Iran – that is their dream</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> What do you make of the “<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/30/iran-protests">pro-government” rallies</a> that have been held in recent days? The government has tried to portray them as representing the true voice of the Iranian people.</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar: </strong>Actually,<strong> </strong>this what my brother was protesting when he was arrested. He was at a counter protest. For thirty years, the Iranian government has used petrodollars to create the illusion of popular support. These protests are designed to show that the government is strong and that it has real legitimacy. But the protests are staged. What happens is that the government will bus in people, usually poorer people from the countryside. They will give them food, and arrange for them to see the sites. For some of those people, it was their chance to see Tehran for the first time. They are being used to create these protests. But it’s not working. They had one of the pro-government protests in a big city near Tehran. Just 150 people showed up.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> How would you rate the Obama administration’s response to the protests in Iran? President Obama, for instance, has condemned the brutality of the regime, but the U.S. <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/31/a-new-way-on-iran-%e2%80%93-by-jacob-laksin/">has not meaningfully supported the opposition</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar</strong>: I think Obama just did not have any idea of what to do about Iran. So he decided that the U.S. would not become involved and would watch the situation unfold. This is not a football game, Mr. President. The Iranian government is killing the people, but during the past seven months the United States has done nothing positive to support them. It has done something negative, though. The Obama administration recognized the Ahmadinejad government as legitimately elected, which it is not. It also said it wanted to hold talks with Ahmadinejad. That was the wrong decision. It gave the regime legitimacy and hurt the democratic movement a lot.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>What should the administration do?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar:</strong> First, it needs new advisors on Iran. Second, it needs to pass sanctions. By that I mean smart sanctions. The kind of targeted sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard that have been proposed will not be effective and will probably be watered down by China and Russia. Smart sanctions – on oil and gasoline – can help us. Petrodollars are the lifeline of the Iranian regime. If they can’t pay the salaries of the Revolutionary Guard, within two months they will be powerless because most of the Revolutionary Guard don’t believe in the mullahs. They believe in money. Right now, they are killing people for money. Take away the money away and you can collapse the regime.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Some observers have called for a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. Do you think that’s the right strategy?</p>
<p><strong>Fakhravar:</strong> Not right now. At this moment, I believe it would be unhelpful. When you have an army in the streets – like Iran’s new generation – it is a sign that the mullahs’ reign is over. A strike on Iran would allow the regime to play the victim and would give it legitimacy. That is the last thing we need. To those who support a strike, my message is: Give us time. This June, there were four million people on the street in Tehran. It was the biggest anti-government protest in Iran’s history. Even during the 1979 revolution, you did not see that many people in the street. This is the Iranians’ fight against the mullahs, and they believe they can bring them down. If they had a little help from free countries, especially the United States, they could succeed right now.</p>
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		<title>Kay S. Hymowitz: What Cornel West and Larry Summers actually agree about, City Journal</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/kay-s-hymowitz-what-cornel-west-and-larry-summers-actually-agree-about-city-journal/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=kay-s-hymowitz-what-cornel-west-and-larry-summers-actually-agree-about-city-journal</link>
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		<pubDate>Sat, 05 Dec 2009 01:49:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Is there anyone in public life more reviled than economic eminence and White House chief economic advisor Larry Summers? Liberals, moderates, women, academics, and now, with his hand in the financial crisis, Middle America: he’s managed to offend them all. But if there is any good still lingering anywhere in the vicinity of Summers, the [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Is there anyone in public life more reviled than economic eminence and White House chief economic advisor Larry Summers? Liberals, moderates, women, academics, and now, with his hand in the financial crisis, Middle America: he’s managed to offend them all. But if there is any good still lingering anywhere in the vicinity of Summers, the publication of Cornel West’s memoir Brother West is sure to kill it off.West, you may remember, was an African-American studies professor at Harvard, when then–university president Summers called him on the carpet for seeming more interested in carelessly doling out As to students and pursuing a rap career than in actual scholarship. Not surprisingly, West was miffed. The professor, soon flanked by Jesse Jackson, Charles Ogletree, Henry Louis Gates, and the New York Times, warned that Summers was “picking on the wrong Negro.” It was enough to intimidate even the notoriously leather-skinned Larry Summers. He apologized to the offended professor, but it was too late. In a huff, West took his show and fellow African-American studies professor Kwame Anthony Appiah to Princeton, where he teaches today.Now, in his memoir, Brother West adds an interesting detail to the meeting with Summers that started the whole bro-haha. It seems that when they met, Summers invited West to join him in undermining Harvey Mansfield, professor of government and one of the few conservatives anywhere in Cambridge. “Help me f . . . him up,” Summers reportedly said to West, apparently apropos of nothing and with no elaboration. You read that right. “Help me f . . . him up.” “For my part,” West writes, “I was astounded that the President of Harvard would stoop to such tactics.” Indeed.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.city-journal.org/2009/eon1204kh.html">Wise Guys in Cambridge by Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal 4 December 2009</a>.</p>
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