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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Empty Gestures</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rick-moran/obamas-empty-gestures-3/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-empty-gestures-3</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 20 May 2010 04:01:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rick Moran]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=60727</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When will the administration honor Daniel Pearl's memory with real action on global free press?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/obamar.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60730" title="obamar" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/obamar.gif" alt="" width="375" height="359" /></a></p>
<p>There was an emotional ceremony at the White House on Monday when President Obama welcomed slain journalist Daniel Pearl&#8217;s surviving family members to witness the signing of the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act.</p>
<p>Pearl, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was brutally murdered in Pakistan as he was following up some leads on al-Qaeda financing in early 2002. Four Pakistanis <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/15/world/4-in-pearl-murder-are-found-guilty-in-pakistan-court.html">were convicted</a> in Pearl&#8217;s murder in July of that year. The mastermind of the kidnapping and murder, however, may have been Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who confessed to the murder under interrogation by the CIA.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/world/18press.html">New York Times</a>, the Freedom of the Press Act &#8220;requires the State Department to expand its scrutiny of news media restrictions and intimidation as part of its annual review of human rights in each country. Among other considerations, the department will be required to determine whether foreign governments participate in or condone violations of press freedom.&#8221;</p>
<p>This is certainly good news. According to Freedom House&#8217;s <a href="http://freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=70&amp;release=1177">annual survey</a>of press freedom in 196 countries, the indicators fell for the 8th straight year:</p>
<ul>
<li>Significant declines outnumbered gains by a 2-to-1 margin. Notable regional declines were registered in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, as well as the Middle East.</li>
<li>Declines in important emerging democracies demonstrate the fragility of press freedom in such environments. Namibia and South Africa, two of the new democracies, dropped from Free to Partly Free. Worrying declines were also registered in Mexico, the Philippines, and Senegal.</li>
<li>The only area to show overall improvement was the Asia-Pacific region, spurred by notable gains in South Asia that included status changes in Bangladesh and Bhutan from Not Free to Partly Free and a numerical score jump for the Maldives.</li>
<li>Governments in China, Russia, Venezuela, and other countries have been systematically encroaching on the comparatively free environment of the internet and new media. Sophisticated techniques are being used to censor and block access to particular types of information, to flood the internet with antidemocratic, nationalistic views, and to provide broad surveillance of citizen activity.</li>
<li>Journalists are increasingly the victims of assault and murder, a trend fueled by impunity for past crimes.</li>
</ul>
<p>We give Egypt billions of dollars in aid every year and yet, President Mubarak and his security services have gotten into the very bad habit of arresting journalists and even <a href="http://egymonitor.blogspot.com/2010/04/egyptian-blogger-arrested.html">bloggers</a> who write on subjects that the state deems &#8220;dangerous.&#8221; It&#8217;s certainly dangerous to the journalists but beyond that, there doesn&#8217;t seem to be much rhyme nor reason to the practice except to clamp down on dissent.</p>
<p>Of course, you take your life in your hands if you write anything against the regime in Iran. Entire newspapers have been shut down by the mullahs since the disputed election last year and there is no sign that they are letting up in their campaign to silence critics.</p>
<p>Perhaps President Obama will want to do something about his friend Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, who has shut down <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCTV">opposition TV stations</a>and engaged in media intimidation. Freedom House lists Venezuela as &#8220;Not Free,&#8221; <a href="http://freedomhouse.org/images/File/fop/2010/FOTP2010Global&amp;RegionalTables.pdf">ranking it a dismal 163</a> our of 196 nations. Just don&#8217;t let Sean Penn hear you call Hugo a &#8220;dictator,&#8221; though. He favors having <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCTV">journalists arrested </a>who call Chavez the &#8220;D&#8221; word.</p>
<p>Mexico, South Africa, India, and Italy are all listed as &#8220;Partly Free.&#8221; Freedom House uses a broad range of criteria to determine it&#8217;s rankings<a href="http://freedomhouse.org/images/File/fop/2010/Methodology2010--final5May10.pdf">based on a point system.</a> The legal, political, and economic environment for the press in each country is given a numerical score of 0-40 in each. The totals reveal whether a country is &#8220;Free,&#8221; &#8220;Partly Free,&#8221; or &#8220;Not Free.&#8221; Only 69 countries are judged as having a &#8220;Free&#8221; press in their 2010 survey.</p>
<p>While a welcome addition to our criteria for giving aid and adjudging a level of support our State Department can offer a nation, one has to wonder how seriously the president and his appointees will actually take this new law. As Jennifer Rubin points out in a piece in <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/295551">Commentary&#8217;s Contentions blog</a>, this administration has fallen down in its support for press freedom in countries where the weight of our words is desperately needed:</p>
<blockquote><p>Has Obama done anything about the suppression of media critics in Egypt (other than prepare a lucrative financial package for the Egyptian government)? Has Obama made this a priority with any thugocracy? No. And when signing a bill in the name of someone who elevated and personified the freedom of expression, Obama at least could have departed from his campaign to delete the name of our enemies from the public lexicon.</p></blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile, at the United Nations, it&#8217;s business as usual for the enemies of the free press. <a href="http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=9b8e3a6d-795d-440f-a5de-6ff6e78c78d5">Anti-blasphemy measures </a>are being pushed by the usual suspects in the Muslim world in a clear effort to stifling criticism of Islam.</p>
<p>In addition, the UN Human Rights Council <a href="http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2009/04/spencer-the-un%E2%80%99s-jihad-against-free-speech/">has drafted rules</a> designed to &#8220;protect&#8221; Islam from &#8220;political cartoonists and bigots.&#8221; This attitude seems widespread at the United Nations, who recently celebrated &#8220;World Press Freedom Day&#8221; on May 3rd. How devoted the UN is to press freedom is a matter open for debate. UNESCO, sponsor of World Press Freedom Day, defines &#8220;Fundamental Principles concerning the Contribution of the Mass Media&#8221; in what must be considered a <a href="http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13176&amp;URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&amp;URL_SECTION=201.html">novel manner:</a></p>
<blockquote><p>2. Access by the public to information should be guaranteed by the diversity of the sources and means of information available to it, thus enabling each individual to check the accuracy of facts and to appraise events objectively. To this end, journalists must have freedom to report and the fullest possible access to information. Similarly, it is important that the mass media be responsive to concerns of peoples and individuals, thus promoting the participation of the public in the aggregation of information.</p>
<p>3. With a view to the strengthening of peace and international understanding, to promoting human rights and to countering racialism, apartheid and incitement to war, the mass media throughout the world, by reason of their role, contribute to promoting human rights, in particular by giving expression to oppressed peoples who struggle against colonialism, neo-colonialism, foreign occupation and all forms of racial discrimination and oppression and who are unable to make their voices heard within their own territories.</p></blockquote>
<p>We Americans prefer the simple, &#8220;Congress shall make no law&#8230;&#8221; found in the First Amendment. It would appear that UNESCO has narrowed that definition considerably.</p>
<p>This is important because of the Obama administration&#8217;s clear preference for bending to the will of the United Nations on a variety of issues, most recently when Iran <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/29/elects-iran-commission-womens-rights/">was given a seat </a>on the UN Commission on Women&#8217;s Rights and President Obama remained silent. If we acquiesce on this, what other nonsense will the Obama administration put up with?</p>
<p>Despite its noble goals, it would seem to be a pipe dream to expect the State Department to do more than go through the motions when it comes to fulfilling the requirements of the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act. Given the large number of states who routinely violate that freedom, we should expect a business as usual attitude, especially from this president, whose outreach to thugs and tyrants around the world regardless their treatment of journalists – or their people &#8211; continues.</p>
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		<title>Treason of the Academics</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/isi-leibler/treason-of-the-academics/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=treason-of-the-academics</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 19 May 2010 04:01:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Isi Leibler]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=60597</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Degenerate Israeli professors on the rampage.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/academic.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60599" title="academic" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/academic.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="375" /></a><strong></strong></p>
<p><strong>This article is reprinted from <a href="http://wordfromjerusalem.com/">WordFromJerusalem.com</a>.</strong></p>
<p>In the politically correct world of infantile leftism, words like sedition and disloyalty have effectively been erased from the political lexicon. Indeed, those daring to employ such terms are automatically smeared as “McCarthyite” or fascist.</p>
<p>But despite Israel being surrounded by Moslem nations whose primary objective is to eliminate Jewish sovereignty from the region, a growing minority of Israeli academics, funded by Israeli taxpayers and Diaspora Zionist philanthropists, exploit their universities as launching pads to undermine and delegitimize their own country. Some even promote global boycott, divestment and sanctions of the very institutions which provide their salaries. They teach their students that the state in which they live was born in sin, that Israelis behave like Nazis and morally justify the campaigns by our enemies to demonize and delegitimize us.</p>
<p>What magnifies this obscenity is that university administrators feel obliged to maintain the continued tenure of such immoral and anti-social degenerates on the grounds of academic freedom. Can one conceivably visualize any other institution providing salaries to employees actively working towards its destruction?</p>
<p>The issue came to a head at the recent meeting of the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University when Marc Tanenbaum, a long-standing American donor and supporter, submitted a resolution calling on the University Senate to review conditions governing the status of academics indulging in “inappropriate behavior” such as promoting academic boycotts of Israeli universities, and recommending that academics be prohibited from listing their affiliation or academic titles whilst engaged in domestic or international forums of a political nature.</p>
<p>The president, Professor Joseph Klaffter, intervened. Grasping the microphone from Tannenbaum, he railed against the resolution and proclaimed that under his watch such a resolution would never be carried and demanded that it be withdrawn. When the initiators called for a vote, he refused to submit the resolution and adjourned the meeting &#8211; ironically, on the spurious grounds of academic freedom. Tannenbaum resigned and pledged to mount a campaign to highlight the undemocratic manner in which the university authorities were protecting those who were actively undermining the university and the State.</p>
<p>Regrettably, the TAU scenario represents a microcosm of how the loony left have imposed a regime of madness in this country. It is noteworthy that Anat Kam, who exulted in stealing classified IDF military information in the name of freedom of expression and attempted to present herself as a heroic figure, was educated at TAU, in a  philosophy department in which professors called for a global boycott against Israel.</p>
<p>Examples of unacceptable behavior abound: the Chair of the Philosophy Department, Professor Anat Biletzki, is a close supporter of Asmi Bishari ,the Arab MK calling for the dismantling of Israel; Biletzki also gathered signatures for a high school student petition justifying  the right to refuse to serve in the army; Anat Matar, another lecturer at the philosophy department, initiated an (unsuccessful) campaign to deny the right of Col. Pnina Sharvit-Baruch, who headed the international IDF law division during the Gaza war, to lecture at its law school on the grounds that she would “justify the killing of civilians, including hundreds of children”; the Law School convened a conference on the subject of the alleged mistreatment of “political prisoners” at which one of the principal speakers was a former terrorist who had been sentenced to 27 years for throwing a bomb at Jews on a bus; Professor Adi Ophir campaigned to lobby   embassies in Tel Aviv to impose sanctions against Israel to prevent atrocities in Gaza; TAU academics were prominent signatories in a petition backing the US Berkeley  boycott against Israel; two professors, Anat Matar (who earlier participated in a London conference promoting a general and academic boycott of Israel) and Rachel Giora recently signed a petition denouncing The Boston Museum of Art for sponsoring an exhibit of Israeli medical and high tech achievements; etc etc.</p>
<p>Freedom of expression is a treasured feature of democracy but the dividing line must be drawn between academic freedom and breaching the law or indulging in subversive activity. Some liberals like Alan Dershowitz believe that students have “the right not to be propagandized by the classroom by teachers who seek to impose their ideology” and oppose the exploitation of universities by academics as anti-Israeli launching pads, but still insist that lecturers should never be limited even if they promote false narratives which poison the minds of the students and encourage them to hate their own country. Dershowitz believes that the danger of limiting such activity exceeds the damage that can be inflicted and is confident that ultimately truth will prevail.</p>
<p>But that does not justify those who delegitimize and demonize their country being provided tenure of employment. Setting aside the fact that in most societies under siege such behavior would be defined as subversive, I question whether for example such an approach would apply to an academic telling his students that Arabs are racially inferior or that Hitler’s genocidal policies were justified. Or for that matter would academics insisting that the world is flat still be assured tenure in the name of academic freedom? I vouch that such people would soon be out of their jobs and justifiably so.</p>
<p>But in this crazy environment it is only the mad left which claims to be victimized when their unconscionable behavior is exposed. For example, in a petition signed by over 80 TAU faculty members, Alan Dershowitz was denounced for indulging in “incitement” for having described as “hypocritical Stalinists”, academics like Rachel Giora and Anat Matar who support boycotts of Israel. Professor Hannah Wirth-Nesher went so far as to accuse Dershowitz of seeking to impose Teheran standards on Tel Aviv. Hebrew University Professor Shlomo Avineri observed that “the attempt to ‘protect’ those who belong to the left whilst employing McCarthy like methods against those associated with the right is nothing but hypocrisy, which has no place in academia”.</p>
<p>Regrettably the State has failed to act in this area because it has become intimidated by the term academic freedom. Likewise out of fear of being labeled McCarthyites or fascists, the Knesset has also been loath to do anything.</p>
<p>I have no doubt that opinion polls would confirm that the overwhelming majority of Israelis would vehemently agree that there are red lines beyond which academic freedom should not be permitted to justify antisocial or subversive behavior such as calling for the boycott of the state.</p>
<p>Universities are the incubators in which future leaders of society are nurtured. It is surely elementary common sense to ensure that such institutions lead the way for constructive participation in civil life. Academics should not be above the law or permitted to engage in anti-social activities on the grounds of academic freedom.</p>
<p>It is a disgrace that we have reached such a deplorable state of affairs under successive governments. Such activities would never have been tolerated under the social democratic Mapai hegemony and I have no doubt that our founding Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, a genuine Labor Zionist, would have turned the country upside down to bring an end to such outrageous behavior.</p>
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		<title>No Compromise Over Jerusalem</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/steven-plaut/no-compromise-over-jerusalem/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=no-compromise-over-jerusalem</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Mar 2010 04:10:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Steven Plaut]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Arab rioting and violence betray the folly of negotiations over East Jerusalem.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/article-1222849-06F53A07000005DC-71_634x407.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-54579" title="article-1222849-06F53A07000005DC-71_634x407" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/article-1222849-06F53A07000005DC-71_634x407.jpg" alt="" width="444" height="285" /></a></p>
<p>No sooner did the Obama administration denounce Israel for its building activities in Jerusalem than hordes of violent Palestinian thugs took to the city&#8217;s streets. As usual, the Palestinians decided to show the world how sacred Jerusalem is to them by filling it with violence.</p>
<p>That the Arab riots followed so closely after the Obama administration’s very public recriminations against Israel was no coincidence. Vice President Biden, <a href="http://www.jewishjournal.com/opinion/article/a_self_proclaimed_zionist_joe_biden_is_a_friend_of_israel_20080910/">a self-proclaimed Zionist</a>, had trouble containing his anger at Israel. On an official state visit to Israel, his Kodak moments were interrupted when an Israeli official announced that Israel has plans to build a lot of new housing in East Jerusalem. Biden was aghast at the chutzpah. Secretary of State Clinton issued a series of shrill verbal attacks against Israel. Talk about a “disproportionate response!”</p>
<p>To put the Obama Administration’s temper tantrum over Jerusalem into perspective, one has to try to imagine the following reasoning. How dare the Jews construct housing in their own capital? Just because Washington builds housing in the District of Columbia without asking its allies for permission does not mean that the Israelis can build the same way in their capital! Don’t those Israelis realize that the United  States has plans to transfer East  Jerusalem to the terrorists of the Palestinian Authority or its Hamas overlords?</p>
<p>The official American anger has yet to die down. The State Department is in a huff over Israel allowing Jews to move into the Simon the Righteous neighborhood in East  Jerusalem, also known as Sheikh Jarrah. You may recall that Sheikh Jarrah was where a horrific massacre of a convoy of Jewish medical personnel headed for the Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus took place in 1948. Seventy nine Jews were murdered in cold blood and their bodies mutilated.</p>
<p>East Jerusalem was made <em>Judenrein</em>, with its Jews ethnically cleansed, in Israel’s 1948-49 war of independence. Before that Jews had lived in East  Jerusalem almost without interruption since King David conquered it. Those attacking Israel are insisting that it leave that crime of ethnic cleansing in tact, un-redressed.</p>
<p>So why does the State Department object to Jews moving into homes in East Jerusalem, homes they legally and legitimately own? One answer may be that the State Department plans to force Israel to turn East Jerusalem over to some future Palestinian terror state, and that will be harder to do if East Jerusalem is filled up with Jews. But that is precisely the reason why Israel should<strong><em> </em></strong>build housing in East Jerusalem.</p>
<p>Israel’s position should be simply that if the Arab world refuses to come to terms and make peace with an Israel controlling all of Jerusalem, then we do not believe that they will come to terms or make peace with any Israel that has relinquished Jerusalem either. The Arabs can threaten Israel all they want about the dire consequences if Israel refuses to turn Jerusalem over to them. Israel’s response should be, “You can’t have it, period.”</p>
<p>And if there were any doubts as to who has the moral and legal right to control East Jerusalem, they were removed in the violent rioting by Palestinians over the opening of the rebuilt Hurva synagogue this week. Tradition has it that it stands on the site of synagogues going back to the second century AD. One synagogue standing there in the 1700s was destroyed, leading to the nickname of the site, the “Hurva” or “the Destruction.”  A later synagogue was constructed on the site in 1864. It remained there until Jordanian soldiers, who were illegally holding the Old City after 1948, demolished it.</p>
<p>The Hurva synagogue is nowhere near the Mosque of al-Aqsa or any other Islamic shrines in Jerusalem. It is located close to the Ramban or Nachmanides synagogue, which was converted by the pro-Nazi Grand Mufti into a mosque in 1948 and used as a factory under the Jordanian occupation. The Arabs have absolutely no legitimate claims to the site. Indeed, the reign of intentional destruction carried out by Jordan after 1948 should nullify altogether once and for all any claims the Arab world has to East  Jerusalem.</p>
<p>Under Arab rule (by Jordan), the religious shrines of Jerusalem were systematically demolished, profaned and violated. Under Israeli rule, every religious group is free to practice its religion in Jerusalem and its shrines are protected. Thus, Arabs forfeited any moral claims they might have once had to govern the city when they trashed the Jewish shrines of the city. And if Arabs continue to take to violence when Jews open a synagogue, then there is only one conclusion that Israel can draw: there is nothing to negotiate.</p>
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		<title>Defending Gitmo&#8217;s Lawyers</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/defending-gitmos-lawyers/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=defending-gitmos-lawyers</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/defending-gitmos-lawyers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:35:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=54490</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Left tries to squelch debate about the “Al-Qaeda Seven.”]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/87988721-920f-4334-85a4-22236adf8b0f.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-54497" title="Guantanamo Protest" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/87988721-920f-4334-85a4-22236adf8b0f.jpg" alt="" width="512" height="327" /></a></p>
<p>Joe McCarthy lives, and his name is Liz Cheney. Such has been the overreaction of the Left, and much of the establishment media, to the now-famous “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIxg7LmlEQg">al-Qaeda seven</a>” internet ad aired by Keep America Safe, the political group which the former vice president’s daughter co-chairs.</p>
<p>Despite being denounced as a McCarthyite smear job, the ad’s content was relatively tame. It called on Attorney General <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2357">Eric Holder</a> to reveal the identities of seven of the nine Justice Department lawyers who represented or advocated for the Guantanamo Bay detainees while in private practice. (Holder already has named two of them.)</p>
<p>Just as notable – yet not nearly as noted – is what the ad did not say. At no point did it call for the DOJ attorneys to be fired for supplying legal counsel to terrorist detainees. In that respect, it was very different from the Left’s campaign to criminally prosecute attorneys in the Bush administration’s Justice Department who wrote memos justifying the use of harsh interrogation on Guantanamo detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6162">National Lawyer’s Guild</a>, the premier left-wing legal group, has even <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/09/nationals-lawyers-guild-calls-for-yoos-disbarment/">called</a> for one of those attorneys, John Yoo, to be disbarred, fired from his job as a professor at Berkeley law school, and tried as a war criminal. Nothing in the Keep America Safe ad even approaches that level of politically motivated sabotage.</p>
<p>That distinction has not deterred the ad’s left-wing critics from waxing indignant about the injustice supposedly done to the seven anonymous DOJ attorneys. For the Left, the DOJ lawyers who represented Guantanamo detainees follow in the proud American tradition of providing counsel to unpopular clients. Liberal columnist Eugene Robinson recently <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/13/1810564/liz-cheneys-group-puts-politics.html#ixzz0iChzYFXO">scolded</a> that the lawyers targeted in the ad</p>
<blockquote><p>“…did what lawyers are supposed to do in this country: Ensure that even the most unpopular defendants have adequate legal representation and that the government obeys the law.”</p></blockquote>
<p>But that analogy is specious. Guantanamo’s al-Qaeda detainees aren’t unpopular criminals. They are enemy combatants and, as such, have no constitutional right to legal counsel – a legal tradition recognized by the Supreme Court since World War II. As Andrew McCarthy <a href="http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010/03/opposing-view-no-right-to-counsel.html">points out</a>:</p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<blockquote><p>“The al-Qaeda detainees at issue are not accused defendants. They are plaintiffs filing offensive lawsuits (habeas corpus claims) against the American people during wartime. Unpopular American inmates must represent themselves in such suits because there is no right to counsel.”</p></blockquote>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>With the legal precedent decidedly not in their favor, the ad’s foes on the Left have resorted to shrill cries of “McCarthyism.” <em>Nation</em> contributor and long-time anti-Guantanamo activist David Cole recently raged that Liz Cheney “challenged the loyalty and patriotism” of the lawyers who had represented the Guantanamo detainees. Whether or not one agrees with that description, it’s peculiar that Cole should take issue with this approach. After all, left-wing activists have long claimed that Bush attorneys like John Yoo should be tried for “<a href="http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/38067#comment-222161">treason</a>” for supposedly singing off on “torture” – a passion for questioning patriotism that Cole, the author <em>The Torture Memos: Rationalizing the Unthinkable, </em>has done much to fuel.<em> </em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>Even granting Cole’s premise that the ad questioned the patriotism of the DOJ lawyers, the logical response is: So what? Why should it be off-limits to question the motives of lawyers who volunteered their services to America’s terrorist enemies? Especially when those services could have jeopardized the war on terror – and endangered American soldiers – by securing the release of terrorist combatants?</p>
<p>In fairness, even some on the Right have objected to the ad’s implication that the DOJ lawyers harbored pro-terrorist sympathies. (&#8220;Whose values do they share?&#8221; the narration portentously asks.) That may have overstated the case, but the fact remains that while the Guantanamo lawyers are not themselves jihadists they have aided the jihadists’ cause. Some went further than others: As Debra Burlingame and Thomas Joscelyn detail in the <em><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704131404575117611125872740.html">Wall Street Journal</a></em><strong> </strong>today, lawyers for the detainees occasionally defined zealous representation to mean inciting the detainees; distributing anti-American propaganda; encouraging the detainees to claim they were abused and tortured; and even endangering Guantanamo’s guards by handing out a map of the detention camp’s layout, including the guard towers.</p>
<p>No one has suggested that the seven unnamed DOJ lawyers were involved in those cases or used those tactics. But then that was Keep America Safe’s point in its ad: to establish which of the Guantanamo lawyers is serving in the Justice Department and to determine what influence, if any, they may have over national security policy generally and Guantanamo Bay in particular.</p>
<p>That disclosure may be in the administration’s interest, and not only because Obama was elected on a promise of unparalleled transparency. Although the administration has largely maintained the Bush administration’s detention policies – from rendition and indefinite detention to military tribunals – it blundered badly when it proposed a civilian trial in New York for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. A bipartisan backlash seems to have convinced the administration to abandon that plan. It’s impossible to know if that move came on the advice of any of the Guantanamo lawyers. But if so, the scrutiny brought on by the ad the Left loves to hate may be the perfect opportunity to reshuffle the DOJ ranks in the interest of better legal counsel.</p>
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		<title>Israel’s Latest Sin—Honoring Its Heritage</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/davidhornik/israel%e2%80%99s-latest-sin%e2%80%94honoring-its-heritage/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=israel%25e2%2580%2599s-latest-sin%25e2%2580%2594honoring-its-heritage</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:05:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Abraham]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=52416</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Palestinian bullying continues.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/hebron.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-52472" title="hebron" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/hebron.jpg" alt="" width="452" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>When the Israeli cabinet announced the other day that the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, would be included in a list of Israeli “heritage” sites, it touched off a wave of Palestinian violence and threats—along with diplomatic protests that were all too concordant with the Palestinian bullying.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has launched the “heritage” program as a way of strengthening Israelis’ connection with their Jewish and Zionist roots, initially left the two West Bank sites (though other West Bank sites were included) off the list, apparently fearing various kinds of fallout. Netanyahu was only persuaded to include them at the last minute by Shas, a religious party that is part of his coalition.</p>
<p>Sure enough, the West Bank <a href="http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/ipc_e074.htm">heated up</a> with an increase in rocks and Molotov cocktails thrown at Israeli vehicles, and, particularly, daily disturbances in Hebron, where crowds of Palestinians burned tires and threw rocks and bottles at Israeli soldiers. By Sunday the disturbances had <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=169829">spread to Jerusalem</a>.</p>
<p>On the verbal plane a spokesman for the Gaza-based Islamic Jihad terror organization <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3853720,00.html">declared</a> that “If the Israelis continue to damage our mosques and holy places, we will respond [i.e., mount terror attacks] within the Zionist territory”—alluding to the fact that the Cave of the Patriarchs is a compound with a mosque as well as a synagogue, while Rachel’s Tomb has recently been claimed to be a mosque as well.</p>
<p>Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas prime minister in Gaza, <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3853485,00.html">piped up</a> with “Jerusalem is ours, the land is ours, and God is with us. We will not accept these decisions….” And Mahmoud Abbas, president of the official, West Bank-based Palestinian Authority and considered secular and a moderate, was hardly more moderate in his reaction, calling the decision to add the two sites to the heritage list “a serious provocation which may lead to a religious war.”</p>
<p>The U.S., too, <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9E2SBTG1&amp;show_article=1">voiced its objection</a> as “State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the administration viewed the move as ‘provocative’ and unhelpful to the goal of getting the two sides back to the table,” and that “U.S. displeasure with the designations of the Cave of the Patriarchs in the flashpoint town of Hebron and the traditional tomb of the biblical matriarch Rachel in Bethlehem had been conveyed to senior Israeli officials by American diplomats.”</p>
<p>UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33884">complained</a>, and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton <a href="http://www.ejpress.org/article/42603">said</a> “the European Union calls on Israel to refrain from provocative acts.”</p>
<p>On the Israeli side, a particularly indignant rejoinder came from Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, who <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3853720,00.html">called</a> Abbas’s statement:</p>
<blockquote><p>“insolent and outrageous and another attempt to rewrite history. The Cave of the Patriarchs, like Rachel’s Tomb, are Jewish heritage sites pointing to the deep 3,700-year affiliation of the people of Israel to their land.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>“The people of Israel’s affiliation to the land did not begin—as the Palestinians are trying to claim—in the past 100 years, but when the Cave of the Patriarchs was bought by Abraham from Ephron the Hittite for 400 silver shekels and Rachel’s Tomb was purchased for a full price in the Binyamin region.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>“They are both still mentioned in the Torah in the Book of Genesis, and no one can take that away from the people of Israel. The wild Palestinian attack is aimed at…rewriting history. This is a continuation of their ideological objection to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Netanyahu, for his part, was more conciliatory, <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3854186,00.html">stressing</a> Israel’s commitment to religious freedom and that “this policy is implemented in the Cave of the Patriarchs as well, where the State is working constantly to guarantee appropriate prayer conditions for [both] Jews and Muslims.”</p>
<p>A few observations are in order. First, Israel did not announce that it was <em>annexing</em> the two sites, only that they had been added to a list designated for renovations and for encouraging <em>visits</em> by Israelis. Treating these two sites as major foci of the Jewish heritage is not a political statement; it is simply, as Shalom emphasized, a recognition of reality. But whoever envisions the purported “two-state solution” as one in which even minimal Jewish rights would be upheld within the Palestinian state should take note of the contempt toward Jewish history and values that was, once again, displayed by Palestinians this week.</p>
<p>Second, as alluded to by Netanyahu, Israel’s record in terms of honoring non-Jewish religious rights in the West Bank and Jerusalem is indeed exemplary—or even goes too far. On the Temple Mount in Jerusalem,  Israel grants administrative control to the Muslim Waqf, which allows non-Muslims to visit there only at restricted hours. In Hebron and elsewhere, Muslims have had full freedom of worship; while other Jewish sites in Nablus and Jericho have been damaged and desecrated. That the Palestinian behavior this week stems from an Islamic supremacism that Israel, with its democratic norms, is unable to appease—is a bit more reality than Israel’s diplomatic critics want to contemplate.</p>
<p>And so, while the U.S., UN, and EU rebukes come as no great surprise, they are of a piece with a long-held axiom that when such “Israeli-Palestinian tensions” emerge, the side that bullies and threatens war gets the nod while the side capable of upholding pluralism gets censured.</p>
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		<title>Identifying the Gitmo Nine &#8211; Washington Times</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/identifying-the-gitmo-nine-washington-times/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=identifying-the-gitmo-nine-washington-times</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:09:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[amicus briefs]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Washington Times Editorial Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. seems to have a bizarre urge to stick his finger in the eyes of congressmen. On subject after sub- ject, he has refused to give substantive answers to basic, straightforward congressional inquiries. In the latest instance, Mr. Holder&#38;apos;s obstinacy could put national security at risk. This [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/25/identifying-the-gitmo-nine/"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/20100118-210016-pic-464789873_r268x201.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p><strong><em>Washington Times</em> Editorial </strong></p>
<p>Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. seems to have a bizarre urge to stick his finger in the eyes of congressmen. On subject after sub-</p>
<p>ject, he has refused to give substantive answers to basic, straightforward congressional inquiries. In the latest instance, Mr. Holder&amp;apos;s obstinacy could put national security at risk.</p>
<p>This page reported in an exclusive last November that Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the Justice Department&amp;apos;s third-ranking official, recused himself on at least 39 cases of terrorist detainees &#8211; presumably because his former law firm did work for those detainees, even if Mr. Perrelli himself did not. Our report came in the context of a Senate hearing where Mr. Holder dismissively treated requests from Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, for the Justice Department to provide a list of all detainee cases from which Justice Department lawyers were recused, and the names of the lawyers.</p>
<p>On Feb. 19, after three months of stalling, Holder aide Ronald Welch finally deigned to respond to Mr. Grassley. &#8220;I asked for names, cases and recusals, and in return I received a five-page letter of bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo that failed to sufficiently answer my simple questions,&#8221; said Mr. Grassley. Mr. Welch told the senator that at least nine lawyers at the department either represented detainees or worked on amicus briefs on detainees&amp;apos; behalf. But he didn&amp;apos;t name the lawyers (other than two already identified by Mr. Grassley), or the cases or other relevant information.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/25/identifying-the-gitmo-nine/">EDITORIAL: Identifying the Gitmo Nine &#8211; Washington Times</a>.</p>
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		<title>Book review: Why Intelligence Fails &#8211; WSJ.com</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/book-review-why-intelligence-fails-wsj-com/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=book-review-why-intelligence-fails-wsj-com</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:57:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=52089</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When we hear the sound of hoofbeats, should we think horses or zebras? The question is a classic problem of intelligence analysis. Too often in recent years the CIA, FBI and Department of Homeland Security have got it wrong—most recently with the Christmas Day underwear bomber, who was able to board a U.S.-bound flight despite [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704804204575070230934681388.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/ED-AL047_book02_DV_20100224174341.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p>When we hear the sound of hoofbeats, should we think horses or zebras? The question is a classic problem of intelligence analysis. Too often in recent years the CIA, FBI and Department of Homeland Security have got it wrong—most recently with the Christmas Day underwear bomber, who was able to board a U.S.-bound flight despite plenty of early warning signs. Political scientist Robert Jervis wants to know the reason for such error.</p>
<p>In &#8220;Why Intelligence Fails,&#8221; Mr. Jervis examines two important U.S. intelligence lapses and tries to account for what went awry. After both, the CIA hired Mr. Jervis—a longtime student of international affairs—to help the agency sort out its mistakes. He thus brings an invaluable perspective as a smart outsider with sufficient inside access to appraise the agency&amp;apos;s blind spots.</p>
<p>The first of his two cases is the CIA&amp;apos;s failure to grasp the weakness of the Iranian monarchy on the cusp of the Iranian revolution in 1979. &#8220;An island of stability&#8221; is what President Jimmy Carter called Iran just before the Islamic volcano erupted. No doubt the CIA estimates that Mr. Carter saw were not quite so ludicrously sanguine, but they were still dangerously inaccurate.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704804204575070230934681388.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion">Book: Why Intelligence Fails &#8211; WSJ.com</a>.</p>
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		<title>Corruptocrat Eric Holder&#8217;s National Security Cover-Up</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/michellemalkin/corruptocrat-eric-holders-national-security-cover-up/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=corruptocrat-eric-holders-national-security-cover-up</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:05:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michelle Malkin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=51991</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How many of Holder's former colleagues and associates are now on the DOJ payroll?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/eric_holder_1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-51998" title="eric_holder_1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/eric_holder_1.jpg" alt="" width="522" height="346" /></a></p>
<p>The White House wants to play Transparency Olympics with the Tea Party movement. President Obama&#8217;s Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin dared Tea Party activists and conservatives last week to &#8220;push the administration to make its policies more open&#8221; and make it a &#8220;political competition … to see who can be more radical in their openness,&#8221; The Hill reported. So, let&#8217;s start by knocking down Attorney General Eric Holder&#8217;s national security stonewall at the Department of Justice, shall we? Let the sun shine in.</p>
<p>For more than a year, I&#8217;ve been writing about the looming national security and conflict-of-interest problems posed by Holder&#8217;s status as a former partner at the prestigious law firm Covington and Burling. The company currently represents or has provided pro bono representation and sob-story media-relations campaigns in the past to more than a dozen Gitmo detainees from Yemen who are seeking civilian trials on American soil.</p>
<p>The firm wasn&#8217;t just a bit player. It led the charge, contributing more than 3,000 hours to Gitmo litigation in 2007, according to The American Lawyer. At least one known Covington big shot and fellow former Clintonite, Lanny Breuer, now works for Holder as head of the DOJ&#8217;s criminal division. Though he himself did not participate in the detainee cases, Holder&#8217;s celebrity undoubtedly boosted company-wide prestige.</p>
<p>How many of Holder&#8217;s former colleagues and associates are now on the DOJ payroll? How many like them, who worked at other law firms or for left-wing lobbying groups, now inhabit DOJ offices? How many of them have been allowed to work on government terrorism cases related to their past crusades for al-Qaida-tied clients? How many have had to recuse themselves — and have those recusals been full and forthcoming? How can the public judge whether these lawyers are representing America&#8217;s best interests — or those of the jihadis?</p>
<p>GOP Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa has been trying to get answers. DOJ information suppressors have snubbed him repeatedly. As the Washington Examiner&#8217;s Byron York reported on Friday, Holder has now acknowledged that &#8220;at least&#8221; nine Obama appointees in the Justice Department &#8220;have represented or advocated for terrorist detainees before joining the Justice Department.&#8221; But the tight-lipped, taxpayer-funded litigators at the agency won&#8217;t name names or cough up any relevant details.</p>
<p>Grassley asked for &#8220;the names of political appointees in the Department who represented detainees (or) worked for organizations advocating on behalf of detainees … the cases or projects that these appointees worked on with respect to detainees prior to joining the Justice Department … and the cases or projects relating to detainees that they have worked on since joining the Justice Department.</p>
<p>…&#8221; Beyond two DOJ appointees whose work for jihadi defendants had already been made public, Holder gave up nothing. Zip. Zilch.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not even clear that the Gitmo Nine are the end of the line. The list is not a comprehensive tally of DOJ appointees, Holder told Grassley and other GOP senators who pressed for public disclosure. Why not? What are they trying to hide? Who are they trying to spare?</p>
<p>Americans have a right to know whether they are subsidizing jihadi sympathizers, and whether their Justice Department is now a sanctuary for human rights transnationalists and little terrorists&#8217; helpers in the mold of Lynne Stewart, who was convicted of abetting Muslim terrorist mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and spreading messages inciting violence on his behalf while representing him.</p>
<p>Americans have a right to know whether Holder — who put political interests ahead of security interests at the Clinton Justice Department in both the Marc Rich pardon scandal and the Puerto Rican FALN terrorist debacle — has made hiring decisions that provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare.</p>
<p>Tellingly, Holder has treated the GOP&#8217;s national security concerns dismissively. He&#8217;s hoping his nonresponsive blow-off of Grassley&#8217;s request will die on the vine. And just as he used his past lapses in judgment during the Clinton era to argue that they made him more qualified for the job he holds now, Holder argues that the phantom jihadi lawyers on the DOJ payroll are a good thing for the country, so we should just shut up:</p>
<p>&#8220;A prosecutor of white-collar fraud cases may have previously represented defendants in such cases. This familiarity with and experience in the relevant area of law redounds to the government&#8217;s benefit.&#8221;</p>
<p>As usual, Holder puts ordinary civilian crimes on the same footing as terrorism plots and acts of war against our country. But why not let the people decide for themselves whether his staff decisions redound to their benefit? &#8220;The American people have the right to information about their government&#8217;s activities,&#8221; Holder himself said in a press release trumpeting new freedom of information rules last year. Put up or shut up, Mr. Attorney General.</p>
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		<title>The New Cold War</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/william-r-hawkins/the-new-cold-war/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-new-cold-war</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:01:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[William R. Hawkins]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=51760</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why Chinese leaders believe they can stand up to America anywhere, anytime. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/us-china-yin-yang1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-51769" title="us-china-yin-yang" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/us-china-yin-yang1.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="476" /></a></p>
<p>The People’s Republic of China has denounced the meeting of Tibet’s Dalai Lama with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Feb.18. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Ma Zhaoxu <a href="http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/zxxx/t659091.htm">said</a> the meetings:</p>
<blockquote><p>“have severely violated the basic norms governing international relations….The Chinese Government and people stand steadfast in their resolve to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Any attempt from any person to interfere in China&#8217;s internal affairs under the Dalai issue is doomed to failure.”</p></blockquote>
<p>For Beijing the issue is not just about the oppression in Tibet, but the Dalai Lama’s larger message that it is the responsibility of the outside world to bring Communist China into the mainstream of global democracy,</p>
<p>Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai called in U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman for what were called “solemn representations.” This was the second time in recent weeks that the ambassador has been summoned. The previous time was after the Obama administration announced on January 29 that it would fulfill the commitment made by the Bush administration to sell $6.4 billion worth of defensive arms to Taiwan. Beijing has massed offensive weapons opposite the democratic island. The PRC considers Taiwan to be a renegade province despite its de facto independence for over sixty years.</p>
<p>The U.S. did not summon the Chinese ambassador in Washington for a formal protest after Beijing blocked an American initiative to strengthen sanctions against Iran for its nuclear weapons program. As <em>Global Times</em>, an official publication of the ruling Communist Party, stated<em> </em>in a Feb 10 <a href="http://opinion.globaltimes.cn/editorial/2010-02/504906.html">editoria</a>l, “China has economic stakes in Iran, and China is determined to protect its interest through diplomacy.”</p>
<p>U.S.-PRC relations have soured steadily since the confrontation between the two powers at the UN Climate conference in Copenhagen in December. At that meeting, President Obama came face to face with Chinese intransigence and saw his year long attempt to cooperate with China come to nothing.</p>
<p>While the White House and State Department were rethinking engagement with China, the Defense Department was finishing its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), the blueprint for how the U.S. military will meet threats to national security. The February 8 issue of the weekly <em>Defense News</em> had a disturbing sidebar by John T. Bennett to its lead <a href="http://defensenews.com/story.php?i=4489193&amp;c=FEA&amp;s=CVS">story</a> about the QDR. Bennett reported,</p>
<blockquote><p>As the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review moved from a December draft to the February final version, Pentagon officials deleted several passages and softened others about China’s military buildup.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>Gone is one passage, present in the Dec. 3 draft, declaring that “prudence requires” the United States prepare for “disruptive competition and conflict” with China.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>Altered are passages about Russian arms sales to Beijing and China’s 2007 destruction of a low-orbit satellite.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>Why the changes? One Pentagon official said department and Obama administration officials worried that harsh words might upset Chinese officials at a time when the United States and China are so economically intertwined.</p></blockquote>
<p>Trade policy is not, however, in the DoD’s province. It is more likely that the QDR reflects Secretary Robert Gate’s often articulated view that future wars will be like the current small, irregular combat in Afghanistan rather than large-scale conventional warfare against a rival nation-state.</p>
<p>In his joint <a href="http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1416">announcement</a> of the QDR and the 2011 budget on Feb. 2, Gates summarized his vision as, “Rebalanc[ing] our programs in order to institutionalize and enhance our ability to fight the wars we are in today, while at the same time providing a hedge against current and future risks and contingencies.” The “hedge” is not of sufficient concern to justify continuing programs like the F-22 air superiority fighter, or a capability to mount large-scale Marine amphibious assaults, or an expanded national missile defense system. Shipbuilding plans will also see the Navy continue to shrink, with an emphasis on smaller warships.</p>
<p>The QDR states, “successfully balancing requires that the Department make hard choices on the level of resources required as well as accepting and managing risk in a way that favors success in today’s wars.” Obviously, winning in Iraq and Afghanistan are the current top priorities, but Gates has also emphasized his desire to “institutionalize” DoD planning, meaning his vision of avoiding confrontations with a rising “peer competitor” like China or even a major regional power like Iran.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.defense.gov/qdr/QDR%20as%20of%2029JAN10%201600.pdf">QDR</a> did not completely ignore China, though the country was mentioned only a handful of times in 105 pages. Its most complete statement is on page 60.</p>
<blockquote><p>China’s military has begun to develop new roles, missions, and capabilities in support of its growing regional and global interests, which could enable it to play a more substantial and constructive role in international affairs. The United   States welcomes a strong, prosperous, and successful China that plays a greater global role. The United   States welcomes the positive benefits that can accrue from greater cooperation. However, lack of transparency and the nature of China’s military development and decision-making processes raise legitimate questions about its future conduct and intentions within Asia and beyond. Our relationship with China must therefore be multidimensional and undergirded by a process of enhancing confidence and reducing mistrust in a manner that reinforces mutual interests.</p></blockquote>
<p>A bit tougher review of China’s military buildup is on p. 31, before the ludicrous statement about welcoming the “constructive role” of a “strong, prosperous and successful China.”</p>
<blockquote><p>As part of its long-term, comprehensive military modernization, China is developing and fielding large numbers of advanced medium-range ballistic and cruise missiles, new attack submarines equipped with advanced weapons, increasingly capable long-range air defense systems, electronic warfare and computer network attack capabilities, advanced fighter aircraft, and counter-space systems. China has shared only limited information about the pace, scope, and ultimate aims of its military modernization programs, raising a number of legitimate questions regarding its long term intentions.</p></blockquote>
<p>The notion that American military leaders and defense analysts don’t know what Beijing is trying to do and need to find out more before determining if there is a danger is disingenuous. Every advanced weapon is being designed to attack and defeat U.S. forces. In Chinese documents, the new anti-ship ballistic missile being developed is shown in artwork as attacking U.S. aircraft carriers.</p>
<p>None of the issues currently roiling U.S.-PRC relations are new. What has changed over the last decade is the wealth and industrial power Chinese leaders now have at their command. Economic growth is being turned into diplomatic influence and military strength. President Hu Jintao built his career as a hard-liner and has centered his leadership position on a close alliance with the People’s Liberation Army. Looking at the turmoil in America, Chinese leaders believe that the balance of power is shifting and they can now stand up to America on issues across the board. Such a change, whether real or imagined, makes for a much more dangerous world whether the Pentagon wants to admit it or not.</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>Byron York: Who are the 300 terrorists held in U.S. prisons? &#8211; Washington Examiner</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/byron-york-who-are-the-300-terrorists-held-in-u-s-prisons-washington-examiner/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=byron-york-who-are-the-300-terrorists-held-in-u-s-prisons-washington-examiner</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:44:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=49246</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;The Bush administration used the criminal justice system to convict more than 300 individuals on terrorism-related charges,&#8221; writes Attorney General Eric Holder in a new letter to Republican critics in Congress. The letter is part of the Obama administration&#38;apos;s aggressive defense of its decision to grant full American constitutional rights to al Qaeda soldier Umar [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;The Bush administration used the criminal justice system to convict more than 300 individuals on terrorism-related charges,&#8221; writes Attorney General Eric Holder in a new letter to Republican critics in Congress. The letter is part of the Obama administration&amp;apos;s aggressive defense of its decision to grant full American constitutional rights to al Qaeda soldier Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused Christmas Day bomber. That defense boils down to one sentence: Bush did it, too.Republicans on Capitol Hill object. They argue that one of the reasons some terrorists were handled in the criminal justice system is that it took George W. Bush and Congress years to establish a military tribunal system that satisfied constitutional requirements &#8212; a process that was lengthened by legal challenges filed by some of the same lawyers who now work in Holder&amp;apos;s Justice Department.You can argue about that forever. But there&amp;apos;s one serious factual debate going on about Holder&amp;apos;s letter, and that concerns those &#8220;300 individuals.&#8221; Just who are they?It turns out some lawmakers have been trying for months to get an answer. They&amp;apos;re not saying the claim is false &#8212; they just want to see what it&amp;apos;s based on. But so far they haven&amp;apos;t been able to find out.It started back in May 2009, when President Obama gave his famous National Archives speech outlining the plan to close the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention center. &#8220;Bear in mind the following fact,&#8221; Obama said. &#8220;Nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal &amp;apos;supermax&amp;apos; prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists.&#8221; Although the president did not put a number on it, various figures, ranging up to 300, have been tossed around in the months since.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Who-are-the-300-terrorists-held-in-U_S_-prisons_-83588677.html">Who are the 300 terrorists held in U.S. prisons? | Washington Examiner</a>.</p>
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		<title>Clueless About CAIR and ISNA</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/joe-kaufman/clueless-about-cair-and-isna/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=clueless-about-cair-and-isna</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/joe-kaufman/clueless-about-cair-and-isna/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:09:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joe Kaufman]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=48922</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why do some government officials insist on involving themselves with groups connected to terror?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/cair5.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-48923" title="cair5" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/cair5-299x202.jpg" alt="" width="299" height="202" /></a></p>
<p>The issue of terrorism is broadcast every day over the airwaves. Yet, so many of our government officials are clueless about it. How else would a leader from the Islamic Society of North America and the Council on American-Islamic Relations – two groups singled out by the Justice Department for their involvement in the financing of Hamas – be invited to a sitting Governor’s State of the State Address? Regardless of the reason for the invitation, it was a dangerous oversight.</p>
<p>[For the purpose of this piece, I would like to state the definition of “unindicted co-conspirator,” per the Federal Courts Law Review (FCLR): “The term ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ refers to any person who allegedly ‘agreed with others to violate the law but who is not being charged with an offense and who, consequently, will not be tried or sentenced for his criminal conduct.’” An “unindicted co-conspirator” is exactly how it reads, <a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=33247">a co-conspirator who has not been indicted</a>.]</p>
<p>The Islamic Society of North America or ISNA held its most recent national convention – its 46th annual convention – in Washington, D.C., this past year in July. Participating at the event was the normal crop of Muslim radicals. They included Siraj Wahhaj, an “unindicted co-conspirator” of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Zulfiqar Ali Shah, the former South Asia Director of KindHearts, a Hamas fundraising group that was shut down by the FBI in February 2006; and Naeem Muhammad, a U.S. staff member of Islamic Relief, a “charity” that the Israeli government has claimed is a front for Hamas. The latter two participated as “Moderators.”</p>
<p>Another “Moderator” at the event was an individual by the name of Safaa Zarzour. At the time, he sat on the Board of Directors of ISNA as the Chairman of ISNA’s Council of Islamic Schools of North America (CISNA) and served as the Program Chair of the ISNA Education Forum. Today, he <a href="http://www.americansagainsthate.org/Safaa_Zarzour.html">holds the lofty position of ISNA National Secretary General</a>, as he was named as such last month. This is certainly no ‘badge of honor.’</p>
<p>ISNA is a function of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood overseas. Amongst ISNA’s founders is convicted terrorist Sami al-Arian, who established the group with alumni from the Muslim Students Association (MSA).</p>
<p>From May 2007 through November 2008, ISNA was named by the United States Justice Department as an “unindicted co-conspirator” for two federal trials dealing with the transfer of millions of dollars to Hamas. The defendants consisted of leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), the now defunct American financing wing of Hamas created by then-global head of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook. In the end, all of the defendants were found guilty of all charges.</p>
<p>ISNA is not the only co-conspirator from the HLF trial that Zarzour has associations with. He has also been <a href="http://www.americansagainsthate.org/Safaa_Zarzour.html">involved with the Council on American-Islamic Relations</a> (CAIR); he was the founding Chairman of CAIR’s Chicago, Illinois office. CAIR-Chicago was established in November 2002, and Zarzour served the group as Chairman (President) through January 2009.</p>
<p>During the trial, the Justice Department showed proof that CAIR was one of four organizations that made up the American Palestine Committee, a Hamas umbrella organization set up and led by Marzook. The goal of the committee was to raise money for Hamas from American shores.</p>
<p>Through CAIR, Zarzour had come in contact with another of the HLF “unindicted co-conspirators,” <a href="http://www.americansagainsthate.org/Safaa_Zarzour.html">the Imam and Director of the Mosque Foundation, Jamal Said</a>. Located in Bridgeview, Illinois, the Mosque Foundation is the former spiritual center of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), CAIR’s parent organization that was shut down in 2005 after it was found liable for the May 1996 murder of American teen, David Boim, by Hamas.</p>
<p>It is because of CAIR’s connection to Hamas that the FBI recently made the decision to cut ties with the group – ties with CAIR’s national headquarters and all of its local chapters. According to reports, prior to the HLF trial, the FBI had “formal contact” with the group via “liaisons.”</p>
<p>However, regarding CAIR, it seems other government entities aren’t as concerned as the FBI. Indeed, just this past November, Zarzour received a community service award for “Outstanding Contributions to Chicago’s Arab Community” from the Mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley.</p>
<p>And it was only last month that Zarzour was invited to attend Indiana Governor Mitch Daniel’s State of the State Address. A smiling picture of Zarzour with the Indiana State Assembly in the background is currently being propagated on ISNA’s national website.</p>
<p>Groups and individuals tied to terrorism have no place in the American governmental process – locally, statewide or nationally. Unfortunately, some government officials have given them a place. This, despite the myriad of evidence that is readily available to the public, let alone these officials themselves.</p>
<p>If CAIR is shunned by the FBI, isn’t it common sense that all government agencies and entities would follow suit? And if a leader of CAIR is now the head of ISNA, shouldn’t ISNA be shunned as well?</p>
<p><em>Joe Kaufman is the Chairman of </em><a href="http://www.americansagainsthate.org/"><em>Americans Against Hate</em></a><em>, the founder of </em><a href="http://www.cairwatch.org/"><em>CAIR Watch</em></a><em>, and the spokesman for </em><a href="http://www.youngzionists.org/"><em>Young Zionists</em></a><em>.</em></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><em>Beila Rabinowitz, the Director of </em><a href="http://www.militantislammonitor.org/"><em>Militant Islam Monitor</em></a><em>, assisted with this report.</em></p>
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		<title>Stephen Hayes: Obama vs. Holder &#8211; The Weekly Standard</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/stephen-hayes-obama-vs-holder-the-weekly-standard/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=stephen-hayes-obama-vs-holder-the-weekly-standard</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:53:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=48820</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In an interview with 60 Minutes last spring, President Obama discussed the handling of captured terrorists and challenged those who claimed the &#8220;American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists.&#8221; Obama said: &#8220;I fundamentally disagree with that. Now &#8212; do these folks deserve Miranda rights? Do they deserve [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In an interview with 60 Minutes last spring, President Obama discussed the handling of captured terrorists and challenged those who claimed the &#8220;American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists.&#8221;</p>
<p>Obama said: &#8220;I fundamentally disagree with that. Now &#8212; do these folks deserve Miranda rights? Do they deserve to be treated like a shoplifter &#8212; down the block? Of course not.&#8221; President Obama ought to call Attorney General Eric Holder.  In a five-page letter to Senator Mitch McConnell, Holder lays out in exhaustive detail exactly why these folks deserve Miranda rights and why his Justice Department will treat them like a shoplifter down the block.</p>
<p>Holder&amp;apos;s letter responds to criticism of the Obama administration&amp;apos;s handling of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day bomber, from McConnell and other Republicans. Holder writes:</p>
<blockquote><p>The decision to charge Mr. Abdulmutallab in federal court, and the methods used to interrogate him, are fully consistent with the long-established and publicly known policies and practices of the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the United States Government as a whole, as implemented for many years by Administrations of both parties. Those policies and practices, which were not criticized when employed by previous Administrations, have been and remain extremely effective in protecting national security. They are among the many powerful weapons this country can and should use to win the war against al-Qaeda.</p></blockquote>
<p>I am confident that, as a result of the hard work of the FBI and our career federal prosecutors, we will be able to successfully prosecute Mr. Abdulmutallab under the federal criminal law. I am equally confident that the decision to address Mr. Abdulmutallab&amp;apos;s actions through our criminal justice system has not, and will not, compromise our ability to obtain information needed to detect and prevent future attacks.</p>
<p>Nobody doubts that Abdulmutallab can be prosecuted. There were nearly three hundred people on the plane when he tried to blow it up. He lit himself on fire. Authories gathered his badly burned underpants and the components of the bomb. His prosecution was never seriously in question, which is precisely what makes the decision to Mirandize him quickly so outrageous.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/blogs/obama-vs-holder">Obama vs. Holder</a>.</p>
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		<title>Andrew C. McCarthy: The Attorney and the General &#8211; National Review Online</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/andrew-c-mccarthy-the-attorney-and-the-general-national-review-online/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=andrew-c-mccarthy-the-attorney-and-the-general-national-review-online</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:12:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=48532</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Michael Hayden, the former CIA director, penned a superb op-ed in the Washington Post on Sunday. Succinctly, he tallies the wages of having Attorney General Eric Holder make national-security decisions. Unlike the attorney general, Hayden is a real general, and very much worth heeding. He shows that these decisions have been premised on left-wing political [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Michael Hayden, the former CIA director, penned a superb op-ed in the Washington Post on Sunday. Succinctly, he tallies the wages of having Attorney General Eric Holder make national-security decisions. Unlike the attorney general, Hayden is a real general, and very much worth heeding. He shows that these decisions have been premised on left-wing political calculations that always shortchange intelligence collection and the pursuit of American interests. Holder’s judgments are not based on what America’s safety requires or on what the law maximally permits U.S. intelligence to do in wartime.</p>
<p>As Hayden points out, the policy decisions that President Obama has allowed Holder to make are significant — not only taken one by one, but in their cumulative effect on the ethos of our intelligence agencies. “Intelligence officers,” he writes, “need to know that someone has their back.” After Holder forced the release in April of classified memos prepared by Bush Justice Department lawyers, laying out interrogation tactics and the legal rationale for permitting them, “CIA officers began to ask whether the people doing things that were currently authorized would be dragged through this kind of public knothole in five years. No one could guarantee that they would not.”</p>
<p>The paralysis wrought by this decision transcends the narrow subject of interrogations. All intelligence collection is infected. If you can’t/don’t collect intelligence in a war against a secretive, transnational jihadist network, you stand to lose — and a lot of Americans stand to die. Thus, Hayden concludes, “Some may celebrate that the current Justice Department’s perspective on the war on terrorism has become markedly more dominant in the past year. We should probably understand the implications of that before we break out the champagne.”</p>
<p>via <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/423597/the-attorney-and-the-general/andrew-c-mccarthy">The Attorney and the General &#8211; Andrew C. McCarthy &#8211; National Review Online</a>.</p>
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		<title>David B. Rivkin Jr. and Marc A. Thiessen: A Tale of Two Terrorists &#8211; WSJ.com</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/david-b-rivkin-jr-and-marc-a-thiessen-a-tale-of-two-terrorists-wsj-com/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=david-b-rivkin-jr-and-marc-a-thiessen-a-tale-of-two-terrorists-wsj-com</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:43:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=48512</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Obama administration&#8217;s decision to read the Christmas Day bomber his Miranda rights has rightly come under withering criticism. Instead of a lengthy interrogation by officials with al Qaeda expertise, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was questioned for 50 minutes by local FBI agents and then later advised of his &#8220;right to remain silent.&#8221;It&#8217;s well understood that [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204575039201390613906.html"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/ED-AK907_rivkin_G_20100201173753.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p>The Obama administration&#8217;s decision to read the Christmas Day bomber his Miranda rights has rightly come under withering criticism. Instead of a lengthy interrogation by officials with al Qaeda expertise, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was questioned for 50 minutes by local FBI agents and then later advised of his &#8220;right to remain silent.&#8221;It&#8217;s well understood that the focus on gaining evidence for a criminal trial was an intelligence failure of massive proportions. Not well understood is that the most powerful recent argument for aggressively interrogating terrorists, keeping them in military detention, and prosecuting them in military commissions comes to us from the Obama Justice Department itself.On Dec. 18, 2009, days before the Christmas attack, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, made a secret filing in federal district court that was aimed at saving the prosecution of Ahmed Ghailani, another al Qaeda terrorist. Ghailani is facing charges for helping al Qaeda bomb U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Ghailani argues that those charges should be dropped because lengthy CIA interrogations have denied him his constitutional right to a speedy trial.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204575039201390613906.html">David B. Rivkin Jr. and Marc A. Thiessen: A Tale of Two Terrorists &#8211; WSJ.com</a>.</p>
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		<title>White House eyes moving site of 9/11 trial &#8211; CNN.com</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/white-house-eyes-moving-site-of-911-trial-cnn-com/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=white-house-eyes-moving-site-of-911-trial-cnn-com</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:46:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=48120</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Washington (CNN) &#8212; The White House is considering moving the site of the September 11 attack trial from Manhattan if the U.S. Justice Department sees fit, senior administration officials confirmed Friday. &#8220;Conversations have occurred within the administration to discuss contingency options should the possibility of a trial in Lower Manhattan be foreclosed upon by Congress [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Washington (CNN) &#8212; The White House is considering moving the site of the September 11 attack trial from Manhattan if the U.S. Justice Department sees fit, senior administration officials confirmed Friday.</p>
<p>&#8220;Conversations have occurred within the administration to discuss contingency options should the possibility of a trial in Lower Manhattan be foreclosed upon by Congress or locally,&#8221; a senior administration official said.</p>
<p>The turnabout comes after New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other politicians expressed great concern over the costs and disruption of holding the September 11 trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four accomplices at a courthouse near ground zero in Lower Manhattan.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/29/terror.trial.site/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn">White House eyes moving site of 9/11 trial &#8211; CNN.com</a>.</p>
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		<title>Bin Laden endorses bomb attempt on US plane &#8211; AP</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/bin-laden-endorses-bomb-attempt-on-us-plane-ap/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bin-laden-endorses-bomb-attempt-on-us-plane-ap</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Jan 2010 03:25:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=47493</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[CAIRO – Osama bin Laden endorsed the failed attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day and threatened new attacks against the United States in an audio message released Sunday that appeared aimed at asserting he maintains some direct command over al-Qaida-inspired offshoots. However, U.S. officials and several researchers who track terrorist groups [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100125/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_al_qaida_airline_attack;_ylt=AmnqGbEY3YZmj9olsnMy9e9v24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTNma2NrMGphBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMTI1L21sX2FsX3FhaWRhX2FpcmxpbmVfYXR0YWNrBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMwRwb3MDMwRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA2JpbmxhZGVuZW5kbw--"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/videolthumb.61541e8cf560e398e43b76371a0c7dcd.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p>CAIRO – Osama bin Laden endorsed the failed attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day and threatened new attacks against the United States in an audio message released Sunday that appeared aimed at asserting he maintains some direct command over al-Qaida-inspired offshoots.</p>
<p>However, U.S. officials and several researchers who track terrorist groups said there was no indication bin Laden or any of his top lieutenants had anything to do with or even knew in advance of the Christmas plot by a Yemen-based group that is one of several largely independent al-Qaida franchises.</p>
<p>A U.S. State Department spokesman said al-Qaida&#8217;s core leadership offers such groups strategic guidance but depends on them to carry it out.</p>
<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s trying to continue to appear relevant&#8221; by talking up the attempted attack by an affiliate, the spokesman, P.J. Crowley, said.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100125/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_al_qaida_airline_attack;_ylt=AmnqGbEY3YZmj9olsnMy9e9v24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTNma2NrMGphBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMTI1L21sX2FsX3FhaWRhX2FpcmxpbmVfYXR0YWNrBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMwRwb3MDMwRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA2JpbmxhZGVuZW5kbw--">Bin Laden endorses bomb attempt on US plane &#8211; Yahoo! News</a>.</p>
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		<title>Comrades&#8217; Way</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/vasko-kohlmayer/comrades-way/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=comrades-way</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Jan 2010 05:06:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Vasko Kohlmayer]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=46529</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[President Obama's policies are bearing the same fruit as those of his socialist counterparts.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-46531" title="comrades-logoclearorangewhi" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/comrades-logoclearorangewhi.gif" alt="comrades-logoclearorangewhi" width="510" height="354" /></p>
<p>“Unemployment holds at 10 percent,” read assorted <a href="http://cfc.news8.net/videoondemand.cfm?id=56348">headlines</a> in response to December&#8217;s <a href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm?utm_source=Newsletter&amp;utm_medium=Email&amp;utm_campaign=Morning+Bell">employment data</a> provided by the Department of Labor.</p>
<p>The headlines represent a brave effort by the administration&#8217;s supporters to put a good spin on the bad news. Although not great, things are at least not getting worse is the implication. But things are getting worse. Last month the economy actually shed 85,000 jobs. The reason why the loss did not push up the jobless rate was because over the same period 600,000 discouraged people gave up looking for work. Because of this, they are no longer classified as unemployed. Had those workers been taken into the account, the December unemployment rate would have been 10.4 percent, the highest in almost thirty years.</p>
<p>When <em>all</em> those who have given up looking for employment are included, we get an overall unemployment level of 17.3 percent. This is the number that really matters, because it is a true gauge of the job market. It is also the measure that is given when people talk about the unemployment numbers during the Great Depression. Significantly, today&#8217;s picture is beginning to increasingly resemble that of the 1930s. And as luck would have it, all this is happening under the auspices of the man who rode into the Oval Office on promises of swift fixes.</p>
<p>As an aside, when unemployment was barely 5 percent in 2007 the media kept talking about the worst economy in our lifetimes. Today the grossly understated unemployment rate of 10 percent  is a sign that things are “steady” and “stable.” Can you imagine what would have happened if the rate had shot up to 10 percent under George W. Bush? The refrain would have been “impeach and crucify.”</p>
<p>It would not, however, be fair to take President Obama&#8217;s promise of quick remedies too literally.  It was made in the heat of a campaign when politicians must say all kinds of things to stand a chance. The president was actually correct when he later observed that the problems from which we suffer were long in the making and cannot be fixed overnight. Our problems are for the most part rooted in the many years of liberal/leftists policies, which, sadly, have been practiced by both parties. They also happen to be the same policies that President Obama has relentlessly pursued since the first day of his presidency. They include include government expansion, reckless borrowing, unsustainably low interest rates, heavy regulation and federal intrusion into every part of our lives.</p>
<p>This being said, the American economy has always possessed an inner resilience that time and again made it possible to shake off blows inflicted by the political class. The one exception was the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt – a driven and charismatic centralizer – <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Politically-Incorrect-Guide-Depression-Guides/dp/1596980966">whose policies</a> kept the economy in the grip of a depression for over a decade. Given Obama&#8217;s FDR-like faith in the efficacy of government intervention, we may not only have a reprisal, but things may actually get worse than they did in the 1930s.</p>
<p>There are several reasons for that. When FDR assumed office the American economy was fundamentally stronger. The United States was an industrial giant producing and exporting goods. The private sector was largely free and the federal government was incomparably smaller than it is now. There was no federal debt to speak of and we had a sound gold-based currency. Today things are much different. We have a consumption-based economy. Around 70 percent of all economic activity in the United   States is made up of consumer spending. Most of what we consume is imported from abroad and much of it is bought on credit. Bloated and octopus-like, the federal government stands poised to squeeze every last life-drop from the battered private sector. It controls, regulates and taxes as never before. Not content with the trillions it has extracted from the productive sector, it has assumed gargantuan debts it cannot pay.</p>
<p>Government propaganda notwithstanding, this nation can only be saved through revival of the private sector, since the private sector is the only institution that can create real jobs and real wealth. Government is the last place we should look to for provision, because in the final analysis government can only smoother, pilfer and waste. This is a truth we seem to have forgotten as a nation. It is now costing us dearly as we have a president who is using the power of the state to strangle America&#8217;s private enterprise. So vigorous his efforts have been that they even impressed the die-hard socialist Hugo Chavez. When commenting on Obama&#8217;s nationalization of General Motors, Chavez referred to our president as “<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5520GX20090603">comrade</a>.”</p>
<p>But praise and approval from Chavez do not necessarily certify one&#8217;s competence given that Chavez is driving his own country into ruin. Although rich in oil, Venezuela is plagued with poverty and shortages of all kinds. It even has to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60B56Y20100112?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=worldNews&amp;rpc=22&amp;sp=true">ration</a> energy and recently the government devalued the currency because of fiscal mismanagement.</p>
<p>Disturbing as it may sound, what we are seeing in Venezuela today may well be a preview of what&#8217;s in store for America. We are, in fact, already getting a partial taste of it. To begin with, we have an overbearing government that wants to run and control (Chavez-like) every aspect of our society. Our real unemployment is higher than that of Venezuela. Certain parts of this country have experienced blackouts. And the utter fiscal irresponsibility of on the part of our leaders has resulted in a dramatic drop in the value of our currency.</p>
<p>Looking at all this, one gets the feeling that our system is on the edge of a precipice and that only a mild push would suffice to send it tumbling down. Unfortunately, we have people in Washington whose misguided policies may well deliver that push. Such an event would be bad news for Americans, but it would certainly please Chavez who has repeatedly prophesied America&#8217;s collapse because its capitalism. Should there indeed be a collapse the Venezuelan will have been only half right. Genuine capitalism has never brought down any country, because capitalism engenders wealth, stability and prosperity. What bring societies down is those who nationalize, regulate and overspend. And they like to call themselves “comrades.”</p>
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		<title>Dead-End Diplomacy</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/william-r-hawkins/dead-end-diplomacy/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=dead-end-diplomacy</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/william-r-hawkins/dead-end-diplomacy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:02:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[William R. Hawkins]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Obama administration allows China to block sanctions on Iran.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-46140" title="CHINA_Sco_1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/CHINA_Sco_1.jpg" alt="CHINA_Sco_1" width="400" height="315" /></p>
<p>As Iran assumes an increasingly despotic form at home while expanding its pursuit of nuclear weapons, which the regime feels will be its ultimate guarantee of enduring power, the United States’ response is hampered both by the support Tehran receives from China, and by the conflicted views on U.S. policy toward China within the Obama administration.</p>
<p>On January 6, China <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6045E720100105">blocked a U.S. initiative to impose additional economic sanctions</a> on Iran through the UN Security Council. In New York, Chinese UN ambassador Zhang Yesui <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/05/AR2010010503427.html">announced</a> that “This is not the right time or right moment for sanctions because the diplomatic efforts are still going on.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry repeated this argument in Beijing this week. In fact, several different negotiating tracks have been going on since 2003. During that time, Iran has made steady progress in its weapons research.</p>
<p>Most recently, Tehran had missed the end of the year deadline set by President Obama to respond to his offer of carrots in exchange for halting its nuclear enrichment program. The Obama administration thought it had won a pledge from China to adopt a firmer stance on Iran after Beijing endorsed an International Atomic Energy Agency governing board resolution denouncing Tehran&#8217;s recently disclosed Qom uranium enrichment facility. But the November IAEA resolution did not provide for any meaningful action, and indeed it is such action against Iran that China wants to avoid. Beijing knows that words are cheap and can be uttered without meaning. That is its definition of diplomacy.</p>
<p>Thus, the New Year brought to naught the notion of U.S.-China cooperation on strategic issues that the Obama administration had launched during the summer. This is not how things were supposed to be. In a joint July <a href="http://treasury.gov/press/releases/tg234.htm">op-ed</a> in <em>The Wall Street Journal</em>, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner described the “New Strategic and Economic Dialogue” with China that would take place later that month. The S&amp;ED was an expansion of the Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) started by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson during the Bush administration. It was designed to put control of China policy in his department’s hands. As CEO of Goldman Sachs, Paulson had been deeply involved in financial deals with China and did not want to rock the boat.</p>
<p>The new Obama arrangement brought the State Department (but not the Pentagon) into the diplomatic process. In theory, the S&amp;ED would balance the business interests that had dominated China policy with a true strategic element that could look at what Beijing was doing with the capital, technology and production capacity that the business model had given it. The core concept remained, however, to forge “a positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship with Beijing” as it expanded into a global power. As Clinton and Geithner wrote:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Simply put, few global problems can be solved by the U.S. or China alone. And few can be solved without the U.S. and China together…..the solution to nonproliferation challenges turn in large measure on cooperation between the U.S. and China.”</p></blockquote>
<p>There was no mention of North Korea or Iran by name in regard to nuclear proliferation, but it has been clear for many years that Washington is reluctant to press Beijing on issues like the trade deficit because it wants Chinese help controlling the rogue states that Beijing supports. At the same time, though, the U.S. is afraid to press China too hard on the rogue states out of fear of retaliation against American business interests.</p>
<p>In his testimony to the Senate and House foreign relations committees last October, David Loevinger, the Treasury’s Executive Secretary and Senior Coordinator for China Affairs &amp; the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, <a href="http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/tg292.htm">said</a>, “We will continue to encourage the Chinese to strengthen efforts to counter the threat of North Korea and Iran&#8217;s nuclear weapons program.” But that was his only mention of non-proliferation efforts in his long, prepared statement that concentrated on the Chinese business model of recycling the U.S. trade deficit into purchases of mounting Treasury debt.</p>
<p>While Beijing has been blocking actions by others against Iran, its aid to Tehran have been increasing. China-Iran trade reached $29 billion 2008, a nearly 40 percent increase over 2007. China imports oil from Iran and pays for it with exports of manufactured goods and equipment. Over 100 state-owned Chinese corporations operate in Iran, with investments concentrated on energy development (both oil and natural gas) and infrastructure construction, including dams, airfields, shipyards, and ports. China is mining titanium and planning new rail lines. Beijing is undermining UN and U.S. sanctions rather than being held accountable. China is being allowed to profit from its policy rather than being made to pay a price for supporting Tehran.</p>
<p>This seems unlikely to change. The Treasury, with its business model of foreign relations, still seems in charge of China policy. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control is responsible for enforcing the sanctions on Iran and on those who do business with the Tehran regime, yet current economic sanctions on Iran are not even being enforced when it comes to Chinese firms trading in the United States. According to a recent <em>Wall Street Journal </em><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126256626983914249.html?mod=googlenews_wsj">report</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Chinese companies banned from doing business in the U.S. for allegedly selling missile technology to Iran continue to do a brisk trade with American companies, according to an analysis of shipping records.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Of particular note was state-owned China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corp., which made nearly 300 illegal shipments to U.S. firms since a ban was imposed on CPMIEC and its affiliates in mid-2006. The <em>WSJ</em> reported:</p>
<blockquote><p>“The CPMIEC shipments, worth millions of dollars, include everything from anchors and drilling equipment to automobile parts and toys. In many cases, CPMIEC acted as a shipping intermediary &#8212; activity also banned under a 2006 presidential order.”</p></blockquote>
<p>President Obama continues to say that it would be unacceptable for Iran to develop a nuclear weapons capability. But the policy of relying on China to constrain Tehran is as much a failure today as it was during the Bush Administration. A large factor in that failure over the last seven years has been to trust the Treasury Department to get the job done. The Iran threat and its Chinese sponsor are national security issues and should be entrusted to departments that have national security as their prime function. In the end, it will likely be the Pentagon that will have to settle the score.</p>
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		<title>The UndyBomber Pass &#8211; by Michelle Malkin</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/michellemalkin/the-undybomber-pass-by-michelle-malkin/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-undybomber-pass-by-michelle-malkin</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/michellemalkin/the-undybomber-pass-by-michelle-malkin/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:06:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michelle Malkin]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Why is Hillary's State Department not held accountable for giving a visa to a globe-trotting, Nigerian-born nomad?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-45565" title="hillaryclinton" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/hillaryclinton1.jpg" alt="hillaryclinton" width="450" height="482" /></p>
<p>Forget about no-fly lists, full-body scanners and air marshals. All the loud recriminations about who should have done what to stop the UndyBomber from boarding a plane to Detroit on Christmas Day miss a more fundamental point: Young, single, rootless foreign Muslim Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should never, ever have received a temporary visa into our country in the first place. No visa, no plane ticket. No ticket, no passage to airline jihad.</p>
<p>Even absent the intelligence we had on this al-Qaida-trained operative before his fateful trip, Hillary Clinton&#8217;s State Department was required to know better than to issue a coveted entrance pass to a globe-trotting, Nigerian-born nomad. Under federal law (section 214(b) of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act to be precise), State Department consular officials must determine that foreigners applying for temporary visas (students, tourists and business people) will in fact return to their home countries as required and will not abuse their visa privileges.</p>
<p>This means making sure that the temporary visa applicant has strong ties to his native land. It&#8217;s supposed to be a tough burden to overcome. Yet, Abdulmutallab showed no such propensities at the time he applied for his temporary visa at the U.S. Embassy in London in June 2008. He was a 20-something student who had flitted from Nigeria to Yemen to Togo to England without a family or job. He was, in other words, a textbook itinerant waving more red flags than a bullfighter.</p>
<p>Question: How much due diligence did the State Department consular official on the front line who interviewed Abdulmutallab actually show? Reports say it took just four days for his visa to be approved. Barely two months later, Abdulmutallab turned up in Houston for a two-week seminar at Al Maghrib Institute, a Muslim Brotherhood-tied Islamic education center that has been dubbed “Jihad U” by veteran terrorism analysts.</p>
<p>Now, I&#8217;m presuming that a consular official did in fact interview Abdulmutallab before rubber-stamping his visa. Before the September 11 attacks, countless visa applicants — including 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers — skipped personal appearance requirements and bypassed the interview process as a convenience provided by Foggy Bottom panderers.</p>
<p>This was supposed to change.</p>
<p>I asked the State Department Thursday for more information about the presumed consular office interview and hasty approval of Abdulmutallab&#8217;s visa. Spokeswoman Megan Mattson invoked confidentiality rules protecting his visa form. But there is an overriding public interest in what his application might reveal about our atrociously lax consulate practices. The General Accounting Office obtained and released the 9/11 hijackers&#8217; temporary visa forms, which showed that basic information about where they were headed (two hijackers wrote “Wasantwn”) and what business they claimed to be doing (one wrote “teater” as his occupation) was suspiciously shoddy.</p>
<p>Like Abdulmutallab, not a single one of the unmarried, rootless Muslim male nomads who secured student and business visas to commit mass murder on American soil should have ever obtained a temporary visa in the first place.</p>
<p>But the reckless customer-service mentality prevails under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The department continues to operate the dangerous “Diversity Visa Lottery” program — handing out permanent residency visas (green cards) randomly to some 50,000 foreigners from “underrepresented” regions. The bipartisan visa lottery was championed by the late Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy and signed into law by Republican President George H. W. Bush in 1990. Although originally intended to give a leg up to Irish immigrants, most of the winners are now from non-Western countries — including several terrorist-sponsoring and terrorist-friendly nations such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Nigeria and Yemen.</p>
<p>State Department flacks are busy pointing fingers at other homeland security bureaucracies, namely the National Counterterrorism Center, for failing to revoke the UndyBomber&#8217;s visa. Foggy Bottom held a press conference earlier this week to boast that it had finally taken responsibility and stripped Abdulmutallab of his golden entrance ticket. But where does the buck stop for granting the visa in the first place?</p>
<p>Ominously, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley revealed that other suspected jihadi visas have been revoked. &#8220;It&#8217;s more than one,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s fruitful to get into a scoreboard.&#8221; Of course not. Keeping score would mean accountability for negligent consular officials and their bosses. This administration would rather let sleeping bureaucrats lie.</p>
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