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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; sentence</title>
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		<title>The Obama Doctrine: Undermine the Military, Coddle Enemies and Distance Friends</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ari-lieberman/the-obama-doctrine-undermine-the-military-coddle-enemies-and-distance-friends/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-obama-doctrine-undermine-the-military-coddle-enemies-and-distance-friends</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 04:35:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ari Lieberman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Andrew Tahmooressi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Clint Lorance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[murder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prison]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sentence]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=242733</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Two cases of injustice toward soldiers highlight the administration's warped priorities. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_242737" style="width: 341px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/10200569180172727.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-242737" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/10200569180172727-394x350.jpg" alt="Clint Lorance" width="331" height="294" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Clint Lorance</p></div>
<p>On October 1, former Navy Lieutenant Commander and 22-year veteran Montel Williams <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2014/10/01/watch-montel-williamss-emotional-plea-for-president-obama-to-save-sgt-tahmooressi/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">addressed</span></a> a congressional committee on the subject of Afghan war veteran and US marine, Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi. Tahmooressi was imprisoned by Mexican authorities in March 2014 after mistakenly veering into Mexican territory while driving along a poorly lit section of the border and was found to be in possession of firearms, illegal under Mexican law, but permitted under US law. In an impassioned plea punctuated by heartfelt emotion, Williams drew the logical conclusion concerning the Obama administration’s handling of the matter – that the government is unconcerned about the fate of its soldiers.</p>
<p>For six months, the administration has allowed a marine, diagnosed with PTSD, to languish in a Mexican jail when one phone call from the Commander-in-Chief could liberate him. Instead, the administration has allowed Tahmooressi’s case to wind its way through the notoriously corrupt and bureaucratic Mexican justice system. While the administration’s handling – or rather mishandling – of the Tahmooressi case can at best be described as neglectful, its handling of the case involving another US soldier is downright Kafkaesque and malevolent.</p>
<p>In July 2012 First Lieutenant and platoon commander Clint Lorance was leading his platoon on a patrol in Kandahar in an area known to be a hotbed of insurgent activity. Lt. Lorance was informed by pilots who reconnoitered the area that motorcycle-mounted Taliban terrorists were active in the vicinity. The Taliban routinely employ motorcycles to track US patrols. Moments later, Lorance spotted Afghans riding motorcycles near his patrol. With the information that he already had at his disposal and with the safety of his platoon being paramount, Lorance immediately made a command decision during the fog of war and ordered one of his snipers to neutralize what he considered to be a threat to the well-being of his men. Two Afghans, later found to be unarmed, were killed.</p>
<p>What happened next could have been taken out of a chapter from Orwell’s 1984. Shortly following the incident, Lorance was stripped of his weapon and assigned a desk job. In January 2013, he was charged with murder in connection with the incident and in August 2013, a military court found him <a href="http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/10/15/allen-west-obamas-military-contempt-outrageous-treatment-clint-lorance"><span style="color: #0433ff;">guilty of murder</span></a> and violating the army’s Rules of Engagement and handed down a 20-year sentence.</p>
<p>Lorance is a hero who volunteered to put his life on the line for the cause of freedom and to serve his nation. His lengthy army service has shown him to be nothing but an <a href="http://www.freeclintlorance.com/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">exemplary soldier</span></a> whose service record is peppered with commendations and citations. But instead of being treated like a hero, he is treated like a criminal by the very government he swore to protect.</p>
<p>Nothing saps the morale of an army more than knowing that its government doesn’t have its back. This case, as well as the Tahmooressi case, demonstrates with utmost clarity that the Obama administration at best, doesn’t give a damn about its soldiers. A more cynical approach would suggest that the administration is actually working to undermine the morale of its troops.</p>
<p>Some might find these truths too hard to swallow. After all, why would the president keep the United States embroiled in the longest war of its history and then work to actively undermine the ability of the United States servicemen and women to perform their mission? A logical question, indeed. But when one takes a closer look at Obama’s foreign policy, where <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704416904575121710380216280"><span style="color: #0433ff;">enemies are coddled</span></a> and <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ari-lieberman/obama-vs-netanyahu/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">friends are distanced</span></a>, nothing this administration does seems logical.</p>
<p>Consider also the case of Bowe Bergdahl, a <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/04/bergdahl-roommate-chairman-of-joint-chiefs-told-us-bowe-was-a-deserter/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">confirmed deserter</span></a> and possible collaborator, who placed members of his own unit in jeopardy after they launched a frantic search for him. The Obama administration, without informing Congress, released five hardened Taliban terrorists, who will likely return to terror and place additional US personnel in danger, to gain Bergdahl’s release. Heroes are prosecuted and allowed to languish in foreign prisons while Obama places his priorities on releasing deserters for hardened criminals.</p>
<p>During his impassioned address to the committee, Montel informed the members that his 21-year-old son had asked him if he should join the military, to which he responded, “No, because our government doesn’t respect you enough.” Sadly, Montel’s assessment hits the proverbial nail squarely on its head.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Christian in Pakistan Sentenced to Life, but Luckily Released</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ben-barrack/christian-in-pakistan-sentenced-to-life-but-luckily-released/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=christian-in-pakistan-sentenced-to-life-but-luckily-released</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ben-barrack/christian-in-pakistan-sentenced-to-life-but-luckily-released/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Sep 2013 04:07:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ben Barrack]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blasphemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[judge]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pakistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sajjad Masih]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sentence]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=204599</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The frightening case of Sajjad Masih -- accused of blasphemy. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/s1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-204607" alt="s1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/s1.jpg" width="280" height="373" /></a>On July 13, 2013, Sajjad Masih, a young Christian man, was sentenced to life in prison by Mian Shahzad Raza, the additional session Judge of Gojra, a city of Toba Tek Singh District in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The prosecution failed to provide any evidence against Sajjad, but the judge still sentenced him to life in prison.</p>
<p>Sajjad was accused – under the strict blasphemy law – of violating section 295-C and 25-D of the Telegraph ACT and the FIR (criminal complaint) was registered by Tariq Saleem, who was a resident of Kot Ghulam Mohammad city Gojra.</p>
<p>On Dec. 29, 2011, Sajjad Masih, through his lawyer Javed Masih, <a href="http://www.news.va/en/news/asiapakistan-christian-sentenced-to-life-imprisonm" target="_blank">surrendered to police,</a> as they were regularly harassing his family. The police tortured him to extract a confession for a crime he did not commit.</p>
<p>Gojra City is a very sensitive area for blasphemy cases. Earlier in 2009, due to a similar case, Muslims set ablaze the Christian colony and eight people were burned alive. The fire was started from the Korian Village, Dist. Toba Tek Singh and hundreds of houses were turned to ashes. Many families fled their homes and shifted to other areas of the country.</p>
<p>The area is also known as the home of the banned militant organization Lashkar e Jhangvi. It was reported earlier that the local government is backing up this organization and even after July 13, when Sajjad Masih was sentenced, hundreds of Muslims protested on the road of Gojra city to change his sentence of life in prison to a death sentence. They put banners all over the Gojra city.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/s2.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-204610 aligncenter" alt="s2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/s2.jpg" width="400" height="340" /></a></p>
<div>
<dl>
<dt><em>“The Only punishment for the blasphemer: Cut his head from the body. Life in prison is not acceptable… not acceptable… not acceptable.”</em></dt>
</dl>
</div>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/s3.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-204611 aligncenter" alt="s3" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/s3.jpg" width="400" height="218" /></a></p>
<p><em>“Immediately Hang the Blasphemer and revoke the lifetime imprisonment. Oh ruler, act sanely.”</em></p>
<p>After we found out other NGOs had botched this sensitive case, by request from the family of Sajjad Masih, we decided to provide resources and try to help and secure Sajjid’s release. We helped the persecuted young man and his family with a legal team. Our lawyers, Mr. Javed Masih, Mr. Tariq Iqbal and Mr. Nadeem Hassan, filed an appeal against the judgement dated 13/7/2013 in the high court of Lahore. We also filed an acquittal application in the high court of Lahore.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/s4_edited-1.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-204612 aligncenter" alt="s4_edited-1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/s4_edited-1.jpg" width="400" height="354" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Sajjad Family and Legal Team</strong></p>
<p>It is quite unusual and surprising that two FIRs (criminal complaints) were registered against Sajjad Masih for the same offense (FIR number 820/2011 and 80/2012 under section 295-C).</p>
<p>We believed that G-d would help us rescue Sajjad Masih and restore his freedom, reuniting him with his family. And we were right. He was recently released, and thanks very much to <em><a href="http://rescuechristians.org/">RescueChristians.org</a></em>.</p>
<p><a href="http://rescuechristians.org/purchasedonate/" target="_blank">CLICK HERE TO DONATE AND SAVE CHRISTIAN LIVES.</a></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>The Mass Jailing of Turkish Secularists</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/michael-van-der-galien/the-mass-jailing-of-turkish-secularists/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-mass-jailing-of-turkish-secularists</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/michael-van-der-galien/the-mass-jailing-of-turkish-secularists/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Aug 2013 04:30:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael van der Galien]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[liberal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prison]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[recep tayyip erdogan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[secular]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sentence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[turkey]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=199544</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why protesters fear they are losing the battle against Islamism. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/turkey-protests-3june2013.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-199562" alt="turkey-protests-3june2013" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/turkey-protests-3june2013-450x319.jpg" width="315" height="223" /></a>Monday, August the 4th, was one of the most important days in modern Turkish history. Two hundred seventy-five (275) individuals known to be secularists stood trial for supposedly planning a military coup. In the end, <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">some 200</a> of them were convicted, with many receiving <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">lifelong sentences</a>.</p>
<p>The government had vilified the suspects from day one. Without further ado, they were thrown in jail, where they received worse treatment than the convicted terrorist and PKK-leader Abdullah Öcalan.</p>
<p>Their crime? According to the prosecutors and AKP officials the suspects planned to wreak so much havoc in Turkey &#8211; by carrying out (fake) terrorist attacks and generally polarizing society &#8211; that the Turkish people would eventually support a military coup just so order could be restored again.</p>
<p>Among the suspects were many officers. One of them was General Ilker Basbug, who served as the army’s chief-of-staff until he retired in 2010. Once enjoying the quiet life of a retiree, Basbug was arrested. According to the charges, he was the &#8220;terrorist&#8221; group’s leader. Yesterday, Basbug was sentenced to life in jail.</p>
<p>Other suspects included journalists and even writers. Apparently, such &#8220;subversive&#8221; individuals pose a significant threat to democracy by writing down their opinions and analyses. Like General Basbug, several of them were convicted on Monday. One of them, Tuncay Özkan, received an aggravated life sentence as well. Journalist Adnan Bulut was sentenced to six years, while former journalist-turned-politician for the main opposition party (the CHP), Mustafa Balbay, was sentenced to 34 years and eight months in prison.</p>
<p>Before the verdict was announced, the latter made clear what he thought of the allegations against him. “A warm autumn is coming,” he said. “They want to take over this case. We will not let it happen. This case is political. They want to hide away the case from the public.”</p>
<p>Yet another journalist who was convicted for being part of this conspiracy is Gülen Kömürcü, who worked for the <em>Aksam</em> (&#8220;Evening&#8221;) newspaper when she was arrested. This &#8220;dangerous terrorist&#8221; was sentenced to seven years and six months. After her conviction Kömürcü received dozens <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">of friendly well-wishes</a> from Turks who, like the suspects, believe the case to be political in nature.</p>
<p>And there certainly is something to say for that.  AKP-leaders have for years publicly commented on the case. Even Erdogan himself has made several statements about it, going so far as to accuse his political opposition of defending &#8212; in the words of the Erdogan-friendly <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">Today’s Zaman</a> &#8211; the “Ergenekon terrorist organization.” Note that this was before anyone had been convicted of any wrongdoing. In no other country would political leaders have spoken about an ongoing investigation in such a polarizing manner.</p>
<p>Such details do not seem to bother Erdogan. He even made clear that this was a highly personal case to him, since he had received &#8220;<a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">personal threats</a>&#8221; from the plotters. He made no secret of his view that the suspects &#8212; all of them &#8212; were clearly guilty and deserving of the most severe possible punishment. Again, he did so before any conviction had been handed out. Worse still, he even had the gall to lambast the Istanbul Bar Association when it criticized the case’s chief prosecutor for using Ergenekon as a means to retaliate against the government’s rivals; a statement that was not exactly controversial, since just about the entire opposition felt the same.</p>
<p>After the announcement of the verdicts, secular Turks responded with disbelief and outrage. On <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">Twitter</a> and <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">Facebook</a> many have replaced their usual avatars with a solid black image. The reason? They mourn what they consider to be the death of Turkey’s secular system.</p>
<p>Perhaps that requires an explanation: Until a few years ago many people still had faith in the judiciary and in the military, both of which were considered bulwarks of secularism. Whenever a government wanted to mix politics with religion, one of the bulwarks intervened and set matters straight.</p>
<p>Sadly, secularists now conclude, those days are no more. They see the verdicts in the Ergenekon case as the ultimate proof that these &#8220;bulwarks&#8221; of secularism no longer exist. To them, the trial’s outcome is <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">the final nail in the coffin</a> of laïcité in Turkey. Not only, they say, has the military become powerless, but the AK Parti now also controls the country’s judges, which is why they are actively cooperating with <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">political (show) trials</a>.</p>
<p>One of the most worrying aspects of the case is the fact that not only military officers and (former) politicians have been convicted, but journalists as well. Members of the Turkish opposition understand that this is a very dangerous development since it touches on the very foundation of democracy: No democracy can survive without a free and independent press. Besides, what do the government and the judges in this case believe &#8220;writers and journalists&#8221; will do during a coup? Throw pencils at AKP-officials?</p>
<p>The answer is, critics say, that the government fears journalists’ ability to shape public opinion. Every single one of the arrested and convicted journalists is an ideological secularist, with a long history of criticism aimed at the ruling AK Parti. These professionals now have to pay for their outspokenness by spending many years, if not the rest of their lives, in jail. One of them, the aforementioned Tuncay Özkan, was even sentenced to life in solitary confinement. How were the prosecutors able to do that? Simple: they accused all the suspects of being members (or at least supportive) of a terrorist organization. That way, the judges could carry out higher sentences than would normally be the case. As a result, journalists will be imprisoned for many years, even decades, rather than months (or not at all).</p>
<p>Not only secular Turks, but foreigners too have responded with outrage to such severe punishments. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">made clear</a> that locking up journalists is always unacceptable. “I am deeply alarmed by today’s convictions and harsh sentences that are of unprecedented length and severity in the entire OSCE region,” OSCE media freedom representative Dunja Mijatovic said. “Criminal prosecution of those with dissenting views violates the fundamental right to free expression and the country’s OSCE commitments to develop and protect free media.”</p>
<p>She continued: “The damage of today’s verdicts on free expression and media freedom in Turkey is immeasurable. I reiterate my call to the authorities for urgent and fundamental legislative reforms to improve media freedom, as well as the transparent and swift trial of all imprisoned journalists.”</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">European Union agrees</a> with that sentiment, saying that it has serious concerns &#8220;over the rights of the defense, the lengthy pre-trial detention and the excessively long and &#8216;catch-all&#8217; indictments&#8221; that are too general.</p>
<p>Be that as it may, for now, the convictions stand. It will take some time for the convicts to appeal to higher courts, especially on a European level. In the meantime, we can only conclude  that the polarization of Turkish society continues unabated <i>and </i>that the freedom of speech finds itself in an increasingly more perilous state. After all, these convictions will cause editors, newspaper owners and journalists to censure themselves even more than they have been doing for the last few years.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/17-sentenced-to-life-in-turkeys-ergenekon-coup-plot-trial-including-ex-military-chief.aspx?pageID=238&amp;nID=52034&amp;NewsCatID=339">I wrote</a> last week: “That’s why the freedom of speech may not only be on trial in Turkey, but may very well have already been sentenced to death. The prosecution and the judge want to end its life, and dissenting jurors, who understand what is at stake, are too afraid to intervene on the defendant’s behalf.”</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Heroizing a Traitor</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/heroizing-a-traitor/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=heroizing-a-traitor</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/heroizing-a-traitor/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Aug 2013 04:55:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bradley Manning]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hero]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leak]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sentence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[traitor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[verdict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wikileaks]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=198967</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[While progressives defend Bradley Manning, the evidence reveals a dark story of a treacherous heart.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/30-bradley-manning-verdict-protest.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-199012" alt="US-WIKILEAKS-MANNING-DEMO" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/30-bradley-manning-verdict-protest-450x324.jpg" width="270" height="194" /></a>After 16 hours of deliberation, military judge Army Col. Denise Lind <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/leaker_manning_is_guilty_WCxgRYJYKJcTbtaF10r9TK">convicted</a> pfd. Bradley Manning on 19 of 21 charges for his participation in the largest leak of classified information in U.S. history. Manning was acquitted of the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, but his conviction on six counts of violating the Espionage Act, five counts of theft, one count of computer fraud, and other lesser infractions, has him facing a maximum sentence of 136 years in prison. With the sentencing phase of the trial now underway, Manning is expected to be sent to prison for the rest of his life. That prospect should disappoint no one, save those who have spent the last few years casting Manning as a &#8220;hero.&#8221;</p>
<p>Despite how his apologists characterize him, Manning, a mentally disturbed individual, was on the verge of being <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/manning_enablers_s3uiOB919w0ohSMEgcmlsL">discharged</a> from the military after only six weeks of basic training when he perpetrated his crime. He did so in order to attack his country before it showed him the door. While stationed in his first post at Fort Drum, NY, Manning was referred for mental health counseling following a <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/fallout-manning-wikileaks-case-19811905">number</a> of outbursts, and an email he sent one of his superiors containing a photo of himself dressed as a woman. After being sent to Iraq, Manning&#8217;s behavior remained erratic, and he was eventually <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/09/AR2010060906170.html">demoted</a> a rank after throwing a temper tantrum and striking a fellow soldier. After that he was sent to work in a supply room, but the damage resulting from the inexplicable maintenance of his security clearance throughout this tumultuous period had already been done. He had already sent more than 700,000 classified documents that included State Department cables, combat videos, and terror detainee assessments to the secret-sharing site, WikiLeaks.</p>
<p>In a series of email exchanges with California computer hacker Adrian Lamo, who eventually <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/29/lamo.profile.wikileaks/index.html">turned</a> Manning over to authorities &#8220;because it seemed incomprehensible that someone could leak that massive amount of data and not have it endanger human life,&#8221; Manning reveled in his crime. He was less concerned with exposing alleged wrong doing than with the level of chaos he was at liberty to unleash. He attempted to impress Lamo regarding his access to a &#8220;database of half a million events during the iraq war&#8221; and promised him that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton &#8220;and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and finds an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format to the public[.]&#8221;</p>
<p>Manning also <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/28/how-us-embassy-cables-leaked">boasted</a> about how easy it was to steal the classified information. &#8220;I would come in with music on a CD-RW labelled with something like &#8216;Lady Gaga&#8217; … erase the music … then write a compressed split file. No one suspected a thing &#8230; [I] listened and lip-synched to Lady Gaga&#8217;s Telephone while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history.&#8221;</p>
<p>In the courtroom, however, it was a different story. Manning&#8217;s defense team, led by attorney David Coombs, made every effort to <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/30/bradley-manning-acquitted-aiding-enemy/">present</a> his client as a victim. Manning was portrayed as a small-town Oklahoma boy who joined the Army with the best intentions, only to become disillusioned by alleged government misconduct that he felt compelled to share with the world. Coombs also insisted Manning was consumed by the emotional turmoil of being a gay soldier who couldn&#8217;t serve openly due to the military&#8217;s former  &#8220;don&#8217;t ask, don&#8217;t tell&#8221; policy. Even when Manning pleaded guilty to 10 of the 21 charges leveled against him earlier this year, he <a href="http://www.alexaobrien.com/secondsight/wikileaks/bradley_manning/pfc_bradley_e_manning_providence_hearing_statement.html">spoke</a> about the need to release the classified information because the war in Iraq &#8220;depressed&#8221; him.</p>
<p>Manning’s courtroom portrayal was preformed in tandem with a long campaign <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/262108/ten-liberal-perspectives-manning-matthew-shaffer">perpetrated</a> primarily by the anti-military, anti-American left, for whom Manning’s status as a victim of American “evil” made him a hero. Glenn Greenwald, who has championed a similar effort on behalf of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, referred to Manning as &#8220;a whistle-blower acting with the noblest of motives,&#8221; and a &#8220;national hero.&#8221; The city of Berkeley, CA considered passing a resolution declaring him a hero until it was tabled. The Nation&#8217;s Chase Madar <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/158460/why-bradley-manning-patriot-not-criminal#">referred</a> to Manning as &#8220;patriot&#8221; who has &#8220;done his duty&#8221; and &#8220;complied with it to the letter.&#8221; The New Statesman&#8217;s Peter Tatchell called him a &#8220;humanist and a man with a conscience.&#8221;</p>
<p>Manning was also the <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/31/from-obscurity-bradley-manning-became-polarizing-symbol-hero-to-some-traitor-to/">beneficiary</a> of celebrity solidarity campaigns and an attempt to name him as the grand marshal of San Francisco&#8217;s gay pride parade. A week before his conviction, the <i>New York Times</i> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/from-obscurity-bradley-manning-became-polarizing-symbol-hero-to-some-traitor-to-others/2013/07/31/9b61e35e-f9b0-11e2-a954-358d90d5d72d_story.html">ran</a> a full-page ad headlined, “WE ARE BRADLEY MANNING” that included the signatures of several well-known leftists, including Alice Walker, Noam Chomsky, Joan Baez, and Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg. And in a testament to leftist delusion, the man who endangered countless numbers of his fellow Americans, out of sheer self-absorbed vindictiveness, was <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57572488/bradley-manning-malala-among-nobel-peace-prize-nominees/">nominated</a> for the Nobel Peace Prize.</p>
<p>These supporters, like Manning himself, couldn&#8217;t care less about the enormous damage Manning has done. His release <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/354766/manning-verdict-mistake-john-yoo">disclosed</a> the names of U.S. intelligence assets, military tactics and operations, secret and sensitive diplomatic exchanges, combat videos, and terror detainee assessments, every one of which has gravely damaged America&#8217;s national security. Writing for the National Review, jurist John Yoo warns that in the &#8220;covert war against al Qaeda, a stateless enemy which conceals itself as civilians to attack innocents by surprise, intelligence is the most important weapon.&#8221; It is a weapon Manning was more than willing to provide them.</p>
<p>The desire to instigate this kind of grand-scale destruction is undoubtedly what led Manning to a website whose founder, Julian Assange, has <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomwatson/2013/06/30/is-wikileaks-now-an-international-political-party/">stated</a> goal his to “bring down many administrations that rely on concealing reality &#8212; including the US administration.” Manning admitted to &#8220;regularly monitoring&#8221; Wikileaks beginning in November or December of 2009 and was aware that it had published hundreds of thousands of messages. It stands to reason Manning knew exactly with whom he was dealing, and what would occur with the material he sent to them.</p>
<p>What resulted was that America&#8217;s enemies were fed precisely the kind of ammunition they need to do us harm. We will never know how many people have been put in danger because of Manning&#8217;s actions. If we are lucky, we will find out after the fact, such as when Navy SEALs <a href="http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/30/19771789-bradley-manning-verdict-could-test-notion-of-aiding-enemy?lite">recovered</a> some of the classified documents leaked by Manning when they raided Osama bin Laden&#8217;s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan in 2011. This is to say nothing of the informants who might have otherwise stepped forward to help America prevent the next terrorist atrocity, but now will not do so because of the prospect that our nation&#8217;s security apparatus can be so easily compromised.</p>
<p>And make no mistake, Manning is extremely lucky. Section 2 of Article 104, &#8220;Aiding the Enemy&#8221; states that anyone who knowingly gives the nation&#8217;s enemies information &#8220;directly&#8221; or &#8220;indirectly; shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial or military commission may direct.&#8221; Lind should take that reality into consideration when Manning is sentenced. He deserves nothing less than the maximum allowed by law for his perfidy.</p>
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		<title>U.S. Government and Churches Must Intervene for Pastor Saeed Abedini</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/u-s-government-and-churches-must-intervene-for-pastor-saeed-abedini/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=u-s-government-and-churches-must-intervene-for-pastor-saeed-abedini</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 31 Jan 2013 04:36:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[8 years]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pastor Saeed Abedini]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prison]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sentence]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[American citizen sentenced to eight years in notorious Iranian prison.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/u-s-government-and-churches-must-intervene-for-pastor-saeed-abedini/pastor-saeed-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-175650"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-175650" title="pastor saeed 2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/pastor-saeed-2.jpg" alt="" width="271" height="220" /></a>The good news is that Pastor Saeed Abedini, an American citizen arrested on a visit back to Iran, did not get the death sentence. That was a real possibility. The Iranian Revolutionary Court Judge presiding over the 32 year-old husband and father of two’s case, Judge Abbas Pir-Abassi, is known internationally as one of Iran’s “hanging judges” because he has sent so many to the gallows, <a href="http://aclj.org/iran/american-father-husband-abandoned-iran-handed-hanging-judge">according to the American Center for Law and Justice’s (ACLJ) Jordan Sekulow</a>. And the Islamic Republic of Iran has a long history of arresting, torturing, and killing Christians, as well as Baha’is, human rights activists, and others.</p>
<p>No, instead Judge Pir-Abassi verbally convicted and <a href="http://aclj.org/iran/lies-and-conviction-iran-mocks-justice-convicts-sentences-american-pastor-saeed">sentenced Abedini to eight years in prison</a> for “threatening national security.” But actually, since the pastor is to serve his sentence at the <a href="http://aclj.org/iran/american-pastor-saeed-facing-hell-on-earth-in-iran-evin-prison">notoriously brutal Evin Prison</a> in Tehran where he has already been beaten and tortured on a regular basis since his arrest on September 26, 2012, there is <em>no</em> good news. Lisa Daftari for <em>Fox News </em><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/12/19/american-pastor-imprisoned-without-notice-charges-while-visiting-family-in-iran/">says</a> that Abedini has been beaten by both prison guards and by other prisoners “who self-identify as members of Al Qaeda.” Family and other advocates fear that Abedini may not survive eight years of such treatment. Sekulow notes that although Iranian law requires a written verdict, there has only been Pir-Abassi’s verbal sentence. But Iran is not really known for legal integrity and consistency.</p>
<p>Abedini left Iran in 2005, but he left Islam years before that. He became a Christian at age 20, after his search to be a more devout Muslim – including being recruited out of high school by radical Islamists for suicide bomber training – left him in despair. Not long after his conversion, Abedini became a leader to particular group of Iranian Christians who, like he, were converts from Islam. Daftari says that Abedini was a “Christian leader and community organizer developing Iran&#8217;s underground home church communities for Christian converts.” He built a network of 100 such underground churches in 30 cities in Iran, and married Naghmeh in 2004. Naghmeh Abedini had left Iran with her family when she was nine years old, and met Abedini on a return visit.</p>
<p>Pastor Abedini loves the United States. He loves the freedom of religion and he and Naghmeh have chosen to raise their son and daughter here. He loves his church community in Idaho, which has committed to prayer and action on his behalf. And it would be a good guess from most of the photos we see of the Abedinis and their children that he likes Disneyworld quite a bit, too! But he also loves Iran, and he and his wife had previously returned for a visit in 2009. On that trip, Abedini was arrested when he arrived at the airport to fly back to the United States. Mrs. Abedini <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2265626/American-Christian-pastor-Saeed-Abedinis-wife-father-await-possible-death-sentence-Iran.html?ito=feeds-newsxml">told</a> the <em>Daily Mail</em> that Iranian authorities first threatened Abedini with death for apostasy from Islam. And Daftari reports that they released him “after he signed a written agreement in which the government would not charge him for his Christian activities, and he would be allowed to enter and exit the country so long as he ceased all official house church activities.</p>
<p>It was for such secular humanitarian efforts that Abedini was in Iran. In addition to visiting family, he was overseeing the construction of a non-sectarian orphanage on property belonging to his family in Rasht. Mrs. Abedini indicated that it was the ninth time he had been to Iran since the 2009 visit. But sadly, although Abedini kept to his agreement, the Iranian government did not keep to theirs. Sekulow reports that the evidence used by Judge Pir-Abassi for his sentence of threatening national security “was of Pastor Saeed’s Christian activities primarily during the early 2000s, when under President Khatami house churches were not perceived as a threat to Iran.”</p>
<p>Since Abedini’s arrest, his wife and friends have been working to bring international attention and pressure to his case. On September 8, 2012, less than three weeks before they arrested Abedini, the Iranian authorities acquitted and freed Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani after almost three years’ imprisonment. Nadarkhani’s advocates, including the ACLJ and Christian church and human rights groups, are convinced that Iran responded to the huge outcry on the pastor’s behalf.</p>
<p>Yet even while Iran is sensitive to pressure, the Islamists continue to play cat-and-mouse games, <a href="http://juicyecumenism.com/2013/01/04/another-iranian-pastor-and-another-and-another/">arresting one while releasing another</a>, calling Nadarkhani <a href="http://juicyecumenism.com/2012/12/28/youcef-nadarkhani-imprisoned-again-iranians-take-pastor-on-christmas-day/">back to prison</a> on Christmas Day – then releasing him again, and, of course, doing little to nothing for those Christian prisoners who are not as well-known to the media and the West. For instance, on Christmas 2012, Iranian authorities <a href="http://mohabatnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=6045:fifty-christians-temporarily-arrested-concern-over-the-wellbeing-of-rev-vruir-avanessian&amp;catid=36:iranian-christians&amp;Itemid=279">arrested some 50 Christians</a>, including Reverend Vruir Avanessian, 60, an officially ordained pastor of Armenian descent. Another pastor, Benham Irani from Karaj, has been in prison since May 2011. According to <a href="http://presenttruthmn.com/blog/iran/action-pastor-behnam-irani/">Present Truth Ministries</a> and others who have contact on the ground in Iran, Irani is very ill. He has been suffering from intestinal bleeding for over a year. Most of his <a href="http://dynamic.csw.org.uk/article.asp?t=news&amp;id=1357&amp;search=">health problems</a> have been caused by the brutal beatings he has received from other prisoners and from prison guards and from being denied medical care.</p>
<p>A concerted effort for all of Iran’s unjustly imprisoned and persecuted believers is needed by the international community and particularly by the United States government and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/PrayForPastorSaeedAbedini">U.S. churches</a>. The ACLJ has closely monitored and reported on the Obama Administration’s somewhat lackluster advocacy on behalf of Abedini. They were pleased to receive a report of “a clear and unequivocal call for Pastor Saeed’s release” issued by Secretary of State Nominee Senator John Kerry after he was challenged to such by Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL). Rubio and 11 other senators sent a bi-partisan <a href="http://c0391070.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/pdf/clinton-saeed-abedini-senate-letter-iran.pdf">letter</a> on January 15 to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging her “swift engagement with international community to advocate for [Abedini’s] release.” Thirty –seven House members sent a similar <a href="http://c0391070.cdn2.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/pdf/signed-letter-sec-clinton-pastor-saeed-abedini-iran.pdf">letter</a> the same day.</p>
<p>In his <a href="http://aclj.org/iran/senator-kerry-nominee-secretary-of-state-issues-clear-unequivocal-call-pastor-saeed-release">response</a> to Rubio, Kerry said:</p>
<blockquote><p>The U.S. government remains concerned about U.S. citizen Saeed Abedini, who is detained in Iran on a charge related to his religious beliefs. Mr. Abedini&#8217;s attorney had only one day on January 21, 2013, to present his defense. We remain deeply concerned about the fairness and transparency of Mr. Abedini&#8217;s trial. I, along with the U.S. government, condemn Iran&#8217;s continued violation of the universal right of freedom of religion and call on the Iranian authorities to respect Mr. Abedini&#8217;s human rights and release him. The Department of State is in close contact with the Abedini family and is actively engaged on this case.</p></blockquote>
<p>Other U.S. government officials have <a href="http://aclj.org/iran/free-saeed-roundup-american-government-responses">responded</a>, as well. Some members of Congress have issued individual statements, as has the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the White House, and the State Department. The National Security Council has also weighed in.</p>
<p>David French at ACLJ <a href="http://aclj.org/iran/free-saeed-time-unified-national-international-response">comments</a>, “While these words are welcome, neither the White House nor State Department have engaged at the high level this case requires. As a former state department official noted today on Fox News (which has been invaluable in its relentless coverage of Saeed’s case), high-level engagement is critical.” He explains that only the highest-level engagement will convey “the right message” to the United Nations and the European Union.</p>
<p>French continued, “Let’s be clear, however, the international community will take its cues from America.  If our own government isn’t out front in supporting one of its own citizens, we cannot expect the UN and EU to lead.” But we must not forget that the international community and even the U.S. government will take <em>its </em>cues from the churches. If Christians in America and beyond don’t bother to support one of their own “citizens,” they cannot expect the secular world to take the lead. Thankfully, the ACLJ reports that almost 80,000 people have signed their <a href="https://aclj.org/iran/save-american-pastor-from-iranian-prison-sentence">international petition</a> on behalf of Saeed Abedini. <a href="http://aclj.org/iran/save-american-pastor-iranian-abuse-imprisonment">An additional petition</a>, asking the Obama Administration and U.S. government to engagement has garnered almost 254,000 signatures. Christians are undoubtedly well represented among the signatories.</p>
<p>Some church leaders in the mainline church denominations are most probably underrepresented. They are not familiar with, or are horrified by the politically conservative ACLJ; they don’t believe that Muslims should leave their faith for Christianity; or they are loath to criticize the foreign policy of the Obama Administration.  For whatever reason, just as they failed to get involved in advocacy efforts for Youcef Nadarkhani, some mainline church leaders take less interest in the fate of Iranian Christians than they did in <a href="http://www.theird.org/page.aspx?pid=2082">two American hikers</a> who were arrested as spies in Iran in 2009 and imprisoned in Evin Prison. Episcopal Church bishop John Chane and Catholic bishop Theodore McCarrick, along with representatives of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) helped negotiate the release of hikers Bauer and Fattal on a trip to Iran in September 2011.</p>
<p>In contrast to some church leaders’ lack of interest, the leadership of the Anglican Church in North America is preparing a statement to go to all of the bishops, clergy, and Christians of the denomination, urging prayer and action on behalf of Abedini and all of Iran’s persecuted Christians. Individual church members in other denominations should urge their leaders to similar actions. Although citizens of all faiths and of no faith will also show their concern and work on behalf of the human rights of these persecuted Christians, and that effort is accepted with great gratitude and humility, Abedini’s fellow Christians have a special accountability to speak out on behalf of him and all of Iran’s persecuted believers.</p>
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		<title>35 Years in Prison for 166 Dead</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/lloyd-billingsley/35-years-in-prison-for-166-dead/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=35-years-in-prison-for-166-dead</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jan 2013 04:40:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Lloyd Billingsley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[American scout for Mumbai terrorist attack gets off light.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/lloyd-billingsley/35-years-in-prison-for-166-dead/david-coleman-headley-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-175317"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-175317" title="david-coleman-headley" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/david-coleman-headley1.jpg" alt="" width="278" height="197" /></a>The 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, claimed 166 victims from many nations, including six Americans: Ben Zion Chroman, Gavriel Holtzberg, Sandeep Jeswani, Alan Scherr, his daughter Naomi Scherr and Aryeh Leibish Teitelbaum. David Coleman Headley, the American who helped plan the attacks, avoided the death penalty or even life imprisonment and has been <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_22445525/american-plotter-mumbai-attack-sentenced-35-years">sentenced to 35 years</a>. As one report noted, that works out to one year in prison for nearly every five people killed. The case raises questions about Pakistan’s involvement in terrorism and the collaboration of Americans in the attacks.</p>
<p>Headley, 52, was born Daood Gilani to a Pakistani father and American mother. He made five trips to Pakistan to train at camps operated by the terrorist organization <em>Lashkar e Tayyiba, </em>(LeT)<em> </em>which he later testified <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13506041">coordinated their operations with Pakistan’s intelligence service</a>, the ISI. In 2006 Gilani changed his name to Daniel Coleman Headley to facilitate travel to India. Between 2006 and 2008 he made five trips to Mumbai. There he shot surveillance videos of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, the Chabad House Jewish community center, a train station and a children’s hospital. After each trip he traveled to Pakistan and gave the videos to LeT.</p>
<p>That intelligence work enabled 10 LeT terrorists to kill innocent civilians at random while being guided from Pakistan. The Chabad House Jewish community center was a primary target. Much of the three-day rampage was captured on video and <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/11/mumbai-attacks.html">PBS Frontline aired a documentary</a> on the attacks.</p>
<p>Headley was arrested in 2009 and testified against Tahawwur Rana, a Chicago businessman who aided  LeT and plotted to attack Danish newspaper <em>Jyllands-Posten</em> for cartoons of Muhammad. Rana has been sentenced to 14 years in prison. In Rana’s trial Headley testified that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/24/mumbai-terror-trial-isi-let">coordinated with LeT</a>. Pakistan denies the charge.</p>
<p>In the style of 9/11 the Mumbai attacks took India off guard but their Black Cats special forces eventually took down the terrorists and captured one alive, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab. India hanged him last year and Indian officials were disturbed by Headley’s light sentence in American courts.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/india-wants-american-david-coleman-headley-be-extradicted-so-he-can-face-harsher-sentence-he-1038522">Indian prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told reporters</a> that the sentence was “very meager, inadequate, insufficient” and that India would have imposed the death penalty. U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber agreed that Headley is a terrorist and deserved the death penalty. American Mumbai survivor Linda Ragsdale, shot in the back by one of the terrorists, testified that Headley has “lost his right to live as a free man” and that a sentence of 35 years would be an “appalling dishonor.”</p>
<p>As far as Pakistan’s involvement, innocent civilians everywhere have good reason never to believe anything until it has been officially denied. Pakistan was protecting Osama bin Laden and is doubtless smoldering over the U.S. operation to kill him, now being celebrated on film in <em>Zero Dark Thirty</em>.</p>
<p>Last September, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/325094/was-pakistan-behind-camp-bastion-attack-jonathan-foreman">an attack on Camp Bastion</a> in Helmand province of Afghanistan destroyed six Harrier jets and damaged two others. The attackers were well equipped, wore U.S. Army uniforms, and the operation was clearly well planned rehearsed beyond what one would expect from the Taliban. That has led some observers to suspect official Pakistani involvement.</p>
<p>The attackers doubtless had inside information from someone who played a spotter role in the manner of David Coleman Headley. Though he escaped just punishment for collaboration in the Mumbai attacks, Headley was at least put on trial and sentenced to a long term in prison, from which he may never emerge.  Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.kcentv.com/story/20373056/accused-fort-hood-shooter-nidal-hasan-to-keep-beard-for-trial">no trial date</a> has yet been set for Major Nidal Hasan, the U.S Army psychiatrist and jihadist who killed 13 and wounded 32 others at Fort Hood in 2009.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Symposium: The World&#8217;s Most Wanted: A “Moderate Islam”</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jamie-glazov/symposium-the-worlds-most-wanted-a-%e2%80%9cmoderate-islam-%e2%80%9d/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=symposium-the-worlds-most-wanted-a-%25e2%2580%259cmoderate-islam-%25e2%2580%259d</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 27 May 2010 04:40:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Glazov]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Four top experts on Islamic theology battle it out on whether a democratic and liberal Islam exists -- or can exist.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/muslim1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-61239" title="muslim" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/muslim1.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="221" /></a></p>
<p>In this special edition of Frontpage Symposium, we have invited four distinguished guests to discuss the question: Is there a moderate Islam? Our guests today are:</p>
<p><strong>Timothy Furnish</strong>, a former U.S. Army Arabic interrogator, he is a consultant and author with a Ph.D. in Islamic History. He is currently working on a book on modern Muslim plans to resurrect the caliphate. His website, dedicated to Islamic eschatology, is <a href="http://www.mahdiwatch.org/" target="_blank">www.mahdiwatch.org</a></p>
<p><strong>Tawfik Hamid</strong>, an Islamic thinker and reformer who is the author of <em>Inside Jihad: Understanding and Confronting Radical Islam. </em>A one-time Islamic extremist from Egypt, he was a member of <em>Jemaah Islamiya,</em> a terrorist Islamic organization, with Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who later became the second in command of al-Qaeda. He is currently a senior fellow and chairman of the study of Islamic radicalism at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.<em> </em></p>
<p><strong>M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D.</strong> is the President and Founder of the <a href="http://www.aifdemocracy.org/" target="_blank">American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD).</a> A devout Muslim, he served 11 years as a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy. He is a nationally recognized expert in the contest of ideas against political Islam, American Islamist organizations, and the Muslim Brotherhood. He regularly briefs members of the House and Senate congressional anti-terror caucuses and has served as a guest lecturer on Islam to deploying officers at the Joint Forces Staff College.  Dr. Jasser was presented with the 2007 Director’s Community Leadership Award by the Phoenix office of the FBI and was recognized as a “Defender of the Home Front” by the Center for Security Policy. He recently narrated the documentary <em><a href="http://www.thethirdjihad.com/" target="_blank">The Third Jihad</a></em>, produced by PublicScope Films. His chapter, <em>Americanism vs. Islamism</em> is featured in the recently released book, <a href="http://www.aifdemocracy.org/news.php?id=5587" target="_blank">The Other Muslims</a> (Palgrave-Macmillan) edited by Zeyno Baran.</p>
<p>and</p>
<p><strong>Robert Spencer</strong>, a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of ten books, eleven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers <em>The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)</em> and <em>The Truth About Muhammad</em>. His latest book, <em>The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran</em>, is available now from Regnery Publishing, and he is coauthor (with Pamela Geller) of the forthcoming book <em>The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America</em> (Simon and Schuster).</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Timothy Furnish, Tawfik Hamid, Dr.  M. Zuhdi Jasser and Robert Spencer, welcome to Frontpage Symposium.</p>
<p>Dr. Furnish, let me begin with you. Robert Spencer recently entered <a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/03/16/does-moderate-islam-exist-a-reply-to-john-guardiano/">a debate at NewsReal Blog</a> where he argued that there is no moderate Islam. What is your perspective on his argument?</p>
<p><strong>Furnish:</strong> I find myself in the curious (and somewhat uncomfortable) position of disagreeing with my friend Robert Spencer, for whom I have the utmost respect and with whom I almost always totally agree. However, on this issue of whether moderate Islam exists, I think Robert may be missing something.</p>
<p>He is exactly right that Sunni Islam&#8211;whence comes directly Salafism, Wahhabism and jihadism&#8211;promotes violence against non-Muslims in order to make Islam paramount over the entire planet.  I have no quarrel with that stance. But I would argue that this is largely because within this majority branch of Islam the only acceptable exegetical paradigm regarding the Qur&#8217;an is a literalist one: and of course when passages such as &#8220;behead the unbeliever&#8221; [Suras 47:3 and 8:12] are read literally the good Muslim had better reach for his sword&#8211;or be rightly accused of infidelity to Allah&#8217;s Word.</p>
<p>However, perhaps because Robert is so well-versed in the theology of Islam, as opposed to the historical record of how that religious theory has been acted out on the stage of history, he seems to overlook the key fact on the ground that certain minorities within Islam have developed a non-literalist, even allegorical, approach to reading the Qur&#8217;an. Foremost among these moderates are the Isma`ilis, the Sevener Shi`is, whose global head is the philanthropical Aga Khan.  Isma&#8217;ilis may number only in the tens of millions (out of the total Muslim community of some 1.3 billion, second only to Christianity&#8217;s 2+ billion), but they do exist and they define, for example, jihad not as killing or conquering unbelievers, but as economic development and charity work.</p>
<p>In general, all branches of Shi`ism (which makes up perhaps 15% of the world&#8217;s Muslims), including the Twelvers of Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, allow the practice of ijtihad, &#8220;independent theological-legal judgment&#8221;&#8211;which is decidedly not the case for Sunnism. And while this has allowed for the ayatollahs to come up with negative novelties such as vilayet-i faqih (Khomeini&#8217;s &#8220;rule of the jurisconsult&#8221;), it also leaves the door open to non-literal exegesis of the anachronistic passages of the Qur&#8217;an.</p>
<p>Even within Sunnism, many of the Sufi (Islamic mystic) orders are more akin to the Shi`i than the woodenly literalist Sunnis in their exegesis. (Yet I would not go as far as Stephen Schwartz, who in his book <em>The Other Islam: Sufism and the Road to Global Harmony</em> thinks Sufis are basically &#8220;Quakers with beards&#8221; and sees them as the antidote to jihadists.  This rosy view overlooks the historical facts of the many jihads led by Sufi shaykhs and fought by Sufi adherents over the centuries.)</p>
<p>Today, many Sufis are non-literalists and focus on the batini, &#8220;inner&#8221; or &#8220;esoteric&#8221; meaning of the Qur&#8217;anic verses rather than on the zahiri, &#8220;outward&#8221; or &#8220;exoteric&#8221;&#8211;i.e., literal&#8211;meaning as Bin Ladin and his ilk do.  Another sect of Islam that is rather moderate in its approach to the Qur&#8217;an is the Barelwi (or Barelvi) one in India and the U.K.</p>
<p>In fact, <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/03/muslim-leaders-edict-decries-terrorism/">the recent 600-page &#8220;anti-terrorism&#8221; fatwa</a> that received much media adoration was written by Muhammad Tahir al-Qadri, a Barelwi.  As I observe in the &#8220;Washington Times&#8221; article, al-Qadri&#8217;s adherence to what is essentially a sect of Islam makes it very problematic that his fatwa will have any major effect on the jihadists in the short term&#8211;but, over time, if enough sectarian Muslims keep condemning the purely literalist approach to Islam&#8217;s holy book, perhaps Islam might enter into its own much needed Enlightenment, or at least Reformation.  But it&#8217;s clear from these examples that moderate Islam, not just moderate Muslims, truly does exist&#8211;even if often in a minority, often persecuted, status.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Spencer:</strong> In all this my friend Timothy Furnish, whose work I admire, is entirely correct. That is why I am always careful to say that there is no &#8220;mainstream&#8221; sect of Islam, or one that is generally recognized as orthodox by Muslim sects in general, that does not teach the necessity to make war against and subjugate unbelievers. But I am not sure that the existence of Muslims who are generally considered heretics and persecuted for their heresy, which often consists precisely of their rejection or reconstitution of the jihad doctrine, constitutes the existence of a &#8220;moderate Islam&#8221; upon which Westerners should place any hope. The likelihood that these groups are going to stop being persecuted minorities and eventually attain mainstream status without abjuring exactly the elements of their beliefs that make them appealing to Westerners is slim at best.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Dr. Jasser?<strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Jasser: </strong>Jamie. Thank you for including me. Let me start by addressing the premise of your initial question to Dr. Furnish regarding his opinion on Robert Spencer’s assertion that, “there is no moderate Islam.”</p>
<p>In my experience, there is a significant distinction globally between “Islam” as a personal spiritual faith (a personal <em>submission</em> to God, if you will), and the “House of Islam” which more broadly includes the entire human corpus of Islamic scholarship, knowledge (ilm) and jurisprudence (shar’iah) as espoused by leading global Islamic jurists and thought leaders (a <em>‘submission’</em> to the House of Islam if you will). As a devout Muslim I believe in the former in my personal relationship with God, but as an anti-Islamist I reject any “submission” to the latter which is human. Certainly, academe is central to understanding and effectively reforming Islamic thought against salafism. But my identification with the Islamic faith as a Muslim in no way obligates me or any Muslim to drink the Kool-aid of the Islamists even if they do control most Muslim institutions globally.</p>
<p>For those trying to pigeon-hole my Islamic philosophy, I am a devout Muslim raised in my youth in a conservative, orthodox, Sunni Muslim family in a small town in Wisconsin. I am neither an ideological mutation nor was I born in a vacuum. My parents escaped the despotic fascist regime of Syria in the mid-1960’s seeking the liberty and freedom of America. My grandparents were also conservative Muslims who raised their children to have a strong moral character and ethical upbringing free of corruption and grounded in Islam but not political Islam. Those values as a force for good, under God, were transmitted down our familial generations. While the specifics of our faith arose out of the Sunni tradition, the overarching ideas included some diverse Islamic  influences ranging from Sufi to orthodox to Quranist to name a few. Significant diversity existed within our family as it did among many other intellectuals from Syria. But there was also agreement on core moral principles and liberty. These modernists, moderates, and liberals have been lost in the intellectual wasteland of the battle between the likes of the secular thugs of the Assads of the world and the radical Islamists of the Ikhwan.</p>
<p>To pigeon-hole many Muslims into one theological construct is misleading given the lack of any Islamic mandate for a “Church” which communicates or excommunicates Sunni members. Many of the sects Tim describes have this type of regimented circumscribed Islam with fealty to their leaders that gives the sect’s thought leaders better control on the central message. However, most Sunnis I know (non-Islamists) do not have such a fealty to any specific imam or school and are profoundly decentralized.</p>
<p>Now certainly the Wahhabis and Salafists of the world practice takfir (defining who is and who is not Muslim) in an effort to control “membership” and ideology in the faith community. However, we, as anti-Islamists reject takfir and will not give up the domain of Islam to Islamists.</p>
<p>The reasons for the pre-Enlightenment fossilization of thought in Muslim majority countries are many. They include a need for deep generational reform of theology (Islamist foundations of Islam), education (illiteracy and lack of western influence),  economics (the lack of free markets), politics (the absence of democratic principles of real liberty with control by monarchs, theocrats, and autocrats), and culture (an endemic suffocating tribalism).</p>
<p>Many devout Muslims, like most youth, establish our moral compass of life under God within our superego long before we had the knowledge or the skill to investigate scriptural Qur’anic or Hadith exegesis. Thus, the moral lens through which we interpret our scripture is long established before we could ever fall prey to the fascist radical Islamic interpretations. But many are not immune to the supremacism of Islamism. There is a dire need for moderates to reinterpret the Qur’an and Hadith and dismiss ideas or sira not commensurate with modernity. (See <a href="http://www.fsmarchives.org/article.php?id=1269096" target="_blank">Part I</a>, <a href="http://www.fsmarchives.org/article.php?id=1324805" target="_blank">Part II</a>, <a href="http://www.fsmarchives.org/article.php?id=1330087" target="_blank">Part III</a> and <a href="http://www.fsmarchives.org/article.php?id=1336543" target="_blank">Part IV</a>)</p>
<p>I use the same non-political, anti-Islamist construct of Islam I learned from my parents to teach my own children about our faith while preserving conservative values not in conflict with American law or loyalty. That ultimately was why we formed our <a href="http://www.aifdemocracy.org/" target="_blank">American Islamic Forum for Democracy</a> in 2003 dedicated to defeating the root cause of terrorism- political Islam.</p>
<p>Tim and Robert and others may view this as heresy or marginal thought in Islam. I would disagree, but also admit that it is not predominant among the thought leaders of Sunni Islam. So the crux of the question is who and what defines Islam – all Muslims or only the subset of Muslims who are clerics? I do believe that it is a majority if not a significant plurality of Muslims that reject political Islam. We do obviously have a lot of work to prove this assertion. Our ideas are harder to find than those of the Islamists—so yes, ‘Houston, we do have a problem.&#8217;</p>
<p>But, our anti-Islamist reform can only happen against political Islam from a bottom up (lay to cleric) approach rather than the top down (cleric to lay) approach which Tim and Robert appear to be seeking. History shows that other reformation movements in Europe occurred that way when combined with a political liberty movement. Again, attempting to pigeon-hole the Muhammad Al-Qadri’s of the world as a &#8216;sect&#8217; does not help their movements and rather makes their fate sealed as marginal within the ‘House of Islam’.</p>
<p>The majority of the ulemaa (scholars) of the “House of Islam” are controlled by Islamists who use an authoritative shar’iah which is incompatible with the ideas of liberty and the separation of mosque and state. This is especially true for the hubs of central influence in Sunni thought in Saudi   Arabia and at Al-Azhar in Egypt. Anti-Islamist Muslims do know and understand our faith. But we are in dire need of developing new platforms to get <a href="http://www.aifdemocracy.org/news.php?id=5587" target="_blank">our voices</a> heard.</p>
<p>An <a href="http://blog.al.com/birmingham-news-commentary/2009/04/pious_muslims_are_needed_to_de_1.html" target="_blank">intellectual civil war</a> within the House of Islam will be the only way to figure out which Islam and whose Islam will ultimately prevail. To dismiss all of “Islam” as immoderate leaves without a platform your greatest allies for freedom&#8211; devotional anti-Islamist Muslims who worship God. We are the only ones I believe, with a tangible viable solution that will achieve the defeat of supremacist, radical Islamism. We are the only ones with a viable treatment to the ideological disease.</p>
<p><strong>Hamid: </strong>Thanks Jamie for organizing this symposium.</p>
<p>If we defined Islam in terms of what is being taught and promoted in mainstream Islamic books such the Tafseers and Fiqh, then Robert Spencer is absolutely correct is saying that moderate Islam does not exist. The problem is that this form of Islamic teaching is not counterbalanced by a theologically based peaceful interpretation of the religion. Until today, all main schools of jurisprudence in Islam accept violence in some way or another.</p>
<p>Dr. Jasser is correct is stating that many of these interpretations and jurisprudence books or Sharia are manmade. However, the reality is that this manmade version of the understanding of Islam is currently the most dominant one in the Muslim world. I agree with Dr. Jasser that there is a need for a reformation but I disagree with him that the reformation needs to occur from the bottom-up. Based on my experience within Islam, waiting for this “bottom-up” approach is likely to fail, as any small group of Muslims that starts the think differently will be considered by the majority and by leading authorities in the Muslim world as non-Muslims.</p>
<p>This is simply because denying some traditional ways of teachings is considered denying “Maaloom Mina AldeenBildarora’ (a fundamental belief in the faith) which make a Muslim an apostate (non-Muslim) for denying it. The change in my view needs to occur “Up-Bottom,” not the other way around. This can occur by exerting more pressure and criticism for the violent teachings that exist in mainstream theological Islam. Dr. Jasser’s view to have Islam without these authorities is very revolutionary and difficult or impractical to achieve.</p>
<p>I agree with Dr. Furnish that there are some elements of reform that already exist in the Muslim world; however, these elements of reform do not have a complete theological interpretation or jurisprudence that can stand against the current and dominant Salafi teaching within Islam.</p>
<p>My main point is that, what people generally mean as Islam (Tafseer, Hadith, Sira, Jurisprudence, Sharia) is certainly not peaceful. However, peaceful understanding of the religion is possible. Moderate Muslims such as Jasser and others do exist because they do not practice the traditional dominant theology and alternatively they have developed their own personal interpretations for the religion. <em>Until these personal interpretations become the mainstream type of teaching within Islam, I have to agree with Robert Spencer that moderate Islam does not exist.</em><strong> </strong>I will only change his phrase to be “moderate Islam does not <em>currently</em> exist.”</p>
<p><strong>Furnish: </strong>Robert Spencer makes a good point that many Muslim sectarians are considered “heretics” but he paints with an overbroad brush.  Not all Islamic sects are persecuted minorities: the Ibadis run Oman and constitute 70% of its population; the Alawis, while a minority, still run Syria; the Isma’ili minorities are certainly not persecuted in India, Tanzania or Britiain (although they are in Saudi Arabia—but who isn’t, besides Wahhabis?); and Sufis, while often at loggerheads with Wahhabis and Salafis, are popular and powerful in places like Senegal, Sudan and Indonesia.   And while the Islamic sects <em>in toto</em> are certainly a minority, somewhere around  7-8%  of the world’s Muslim population, that still amounts to perhaps 100 million people—twice that many if the Twelver Shi`is are included.  Luther certainly started with far fewer Christians, and yet he sparked a Reformation.</p>
<p>While I admire Dr. Jasser’s personal revival of Mu`tazilism (a rationalist Islamic ideology that was snuffed out in the 10<sup>th</sup> century AD), I fear his views are idiosyncratic within Sunni Islam—and my own research indicates that the closet analogs to what he preaches are found in those very sects whose degree of regimentation and cult-like devotion he somewhat overstates.  But even in those cases where a sect is at least partially predicated on charismatic leadership (the Isma’ilis; the Turkish Gülen movement; etc.), I would say that as long as the leader is telling his followers that jihad does NOT mean holy war—then that’s infinitely preferable to the “current and dominant Salafi teaching,” as Dr. Hamid so aptly puts it.</p>
<p>I agree with Dr. Hamid, regretfully, that Dr. Jasser’s hope for a grass-roots Islamic reformation from within Sunnism is very unlikely—another reason I favor putting our hope for such in sects. Dr. Jasser seems to forget that the Enlightenment could only take place after the Protestant Reformation had broken the monopoly of the Catholic hierarchy in Europe—and that the reformation of Christendom was in fact led by clerics (Luther, Calvin, Tyndale), NOT by layman. What Islam really needs right now are such reform-minded clerics, and these are found for the most part today among Islam’s sects, not its Sunni majority.</p>
<p><strong>Spencer: </strong>There is a certain dancing-on-the-precipice feel to this entire symposium. Dr. Jasser rejects the contention that his views amount to “heresy or marginal thought in Islam,” but acknowledges that they are “not predominant among the thought leaders of Sunni Islam.” You can say that again – I would doubt that he would be able to name even one among the “thought leaders of Sunni Islam” who would accept that there is, as Dr. Jasser puts it, any “significant distinction globally between ‘Islam’ as a personal spiritual faith (a personal <em>submission</em> to God, if you will), and the ‘House of Islam’ which more broadly includes the entire human corpus of Islamic scholarship, knowledge (ilm) and jurisprudence (shar’iah) as espoused by leading global Islamic jurists and thought leaders (a <em>‘submission’</em> to the House of Islam if you will).” Indeed, he would be hard-pressed to find even one among those “thought leaders of Sunni Islam” who would not classify this as a heresy.</p>
<p>Dr. Hamid, in contrast to Dr. Jasser himself, notes correctly that interpretations of Islam such as Dr. Jasser’s are personal, idiosyncratic, and non-traditional – a fact that is all too often glossed over by his enthusiastic and well-heeled non-Muslim backers, who would prefer to pretend that he represents the dominant mainstream. Dr. Hamid is also quite correct that “<em>Until these personal interpretations become the mainstream type of teaching within Islam, I have to agree with Robert Spencer that moderate Islam does not exist.</em>” He remains optimistic, however, maintaining that “peaceful understanding of the religion is possible” and changing my phrase “moderate Islam does not exist” to “moderate Islam does not <em>currently</em> exist.”</p>
<p>I don’t claim to know the future, and history is full of events that would have been dismissed as impossible by people of previous centuries. I have never ruled out the possibility that some form of Islam could one day arise that teaches that Muslims must live together with non-Muslims as equals on an indefinite basis in a state that does not establish a religion. I have simply tried to be realistic about the prospects of such an entity.</p>
<p>As Dr. Hamid notes, denying certain Islamic teachings makes one an apostate in the eyes of nearly every mainstream Islamic authority around the world today, and apostasy can bring a sentence of death. It was only after the prospect of such a death sentence was removed in Reformation Europe that Luther, Calvin, Tyndale and the rest were able to gain large followings and influence. But the theological foundations for such a death sentence are much stronger in Islam than they ever were in Christianity. Will, then, it one day become possible for genuine and sincere Islamic reformers to try to win over Muslims to their point of view without fear of violent reprisal? Perhaps it is already happening in the West – witness Dr. Jasser’s health and prosperity, although I daresay his influence is far larger among non-Muslims seeking reassurance than it is among his coreligionists. In any case, the murder of Rashad Khalifa in Tucson, Arizona in the early 1990s stands as a cautionary notice that the execution of those deemed heretics and apostates can and does happen even here.</p>
<p>Dr. Furnish, meanwhile, makes the leap from the numerical dominance of various Islamic sects in various areas to the idea that they will become the vanguard of a Luther-like Reformation. His demographic data is undeniable; however, the idea that these groups will become the leaders of a movement to create a truly peaceful theological and legal construction of Islam is belied by his willingness to include the Twelver Shias among them. Twelver Shi’ism is, of course, the official religion of the Islamic Republic of Iran – and yet the mullahs of Tehran are hardly paragons of Islamic moderation. His inclusion of the Turkish Gulen movement is also troubling: Fethullah Gulen may not wish to lead a violent jihad, but does he want to impose Sharia upon Turkey? That is undeniable. And Sharia, with its draconian punishments and institutionalized denial of rights to women and non-Muslims, is hardly “moderate.”</p>
<p>In any case, while I hope that truly reform-minded clerics do gain wide influence, I am afraid that the more influence they gain, and the more genuine reform they advocate, the more likely it will become that they will be labeled heretics and persecuted. I would be glad to be proven wrong in this. But I don’t think I will be.</p>
<p><strong>Jasser: </strong>While I reserve disagreement on a number of the historical analogies and pigeon-holing made here about Muslims and Islam, let me address in the space I have how I believe Muslims can move forward. Let me emphasize- <em>forward.</em> One of the differences often between historians (agents of the past) and innovators (agents of change) is that innovators use the tools and lessons of history to think out of the box and create and promote a new and often unpopular paradigm. Often new paradigms that spend years floundering can all of a sudden propel into dominance. Some of the lessons of history are essential, but innovators <em>refuse</em> to pattern themselves after any previous human mindset. Today’s Islam needs innovators.</p>
<p>Groundbreaking innovation starts with a meme which leads to a <em>tipping point</em> that creates a new platform for those that share revolutionary ideas. My own lifetime has been filled with  experiences with thousands of pietistic Muslims from almost every sect of Islam who reject political Islam. But obviously key elements necessary for a palpable Muslim liberty movement to counter Islamism are missing.</p>
<p>To look toward any one sect and pigeon-hole any single moderate Muslim’s modernism as a product of only that particular sect belies the diversity needed for a successful global movement against political Islam. Each sect will always have its own internecine biases about the other sect. That is not the obstacle. Looking <em>forward</em> we must find some overriding memes necessary to defeat pervasive Islamist collectivism. Sectarianism is always trumped by Islamism. So, looking forward, a meme of liberty can rise above political Islam and sectarianism for Muslims.</p>
<p>My bulwark against political Islam has always been m belief in our inalienable rights, freedom of speech, the Establishment clause, classical liberalism, and especially the separation of mosque and state. Once devotional Muslim youth believe in this, many will take these foundational ideas and mature into theologians who transform Islam away from political Islam.</p>
<p>Hamid misunderstands me. I agree, Islam will always certainly need to be grounded in its own sound theological scholarship, but that is a late stage not the first phase in modernization and reform.</p>
<p>Religious teachings of today are molded by the environment. It took Christendom 1789 years until a government led by Christians had a document which was protected by an Establishment Clause and the separation of Church and State. And even that brilliantly codified Constitution and Bill of Rights took centuries, a Civil War, and a civil rights movement to effectuate its core principles in a way that truly respected the human rights of all its citizens as the founding fathers intended.</p>
<p>At this time, modernization of Islamic theology can become viral. But sadly so can the scourge of pan-Islamism. A top-down change would surely fail, as it has, because there is little popular respect for innovation, individualism, or liberty among most of the products of oppressive Muslim run institutions around the world.</p>
<p>In fact, Tim’s reference to the ruling Alawite minority in Syria as somehow exemplifying the hope for the rights of Muslim minorities is very concerning. It disregards the toxic environment which has put political Islam into overdrive. The Assad regimes have been some of the most despotic barbaric regimes of the last century. The only example Hafez and his son Bashar Assad provide is how to systematically and generationally destroy a nation and its people. No modern anything can come from that environment let alone an enlightened Islam. Thugs like Assad, Saddam, Qaddafi, Mubarak and others use religion as a tool for oppression. They fuel political Islam when it suits them while murdering Islamists when they threaten them. The moderates are lost in the middle between the secular fascists and theocratic fascists. This battle has created an untenable foundation of corruption, tribalism, ignorance, and fear.</p>
<p>Look at the Green revolution of Iran or the Cedars Revolution of Lebanon- all millions strong.  It is easier to find a desire for reformist anti-Islamist movements in many Muslim majority nations like Egypt, Lebanon, and Iran where the population knows what happens when the Islamists get control. Yet their environment is missing the empowering sustenance of western liberty.</p>
<p>The solution forward must come from America’s safer laboratory. Many American Muslims understand how a nation can be free and pious without theological coercion from government. The seeds of change forward can be found in some scholars who are looking to the west for innovation within Islam. Just look at some of the recent work on secularism by Abdullahi Al-Na’im, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Against-Islamic-Extremism-Writings-al-%60Ashmawy/dp/0813025435" target="_blank">Muhammad al-Ashmawy</a>, Alija Izetbegovic, or also many of the Sufi imams mentioned already like Al-Qadri’s recent work. This is not a blanket endorsement of any one of them. But much of their writings do point <em>forward</em> not backward.</p>
<p>In this wired viral planet, no longer is an ideology like political Islam hermetically sealed in its own history and aquarium. While Robert, Tim, and Hamid look into the aquarium of “an Islam” for the Muslims they study, they ignore a broad swath of westernized Muslims who read their Qur’an, pray, fast, give charity, and supplicate devotionally to God in a purpose-driven patriotic life dedicated to liberty and Americanism who hold another Islam.</p>
<p>The obstacles to the predominance of modern Islam over political Islam are many&#8211; frequent death threats, blind corruptive tribalism, societal and financial power of Islamists, and Muslim illiteracy. This is not to mention the facilitation by western media and government of Islamists due to political correctness.</p>
<p>Change cannot be imposed upon a rotten foundation. Lasting modernization will be generational and must be built on the ground first with Muslim institutions based in a liberal education, free markets, and universal human rights.</p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Hamid: </strong>I agree with Dr. Furnish that Luther started with far fewer Christians, and yet he sparked a Reformation. The dynamics, however, of reformation are different between Islam and Christianity. The concept of killing apostates is not an integral part of the Gospel of Jesus. On the contrary, Redda Law that allow killing apostates is a fundamental part of the Hadith of prophet Mohamed. For reformation to happen in Islam, Muslims need first to abandon some of the Sahih (accurate) hadith. The dilemma is that while Muslims can stop Redda Law as it is not part of the Quran, denying a Sahih hadith makes a person an apostate according to the traditional teachings in Islam. The Muslims need to stop this catch 22 situation to allow for reformation to occur.</p>
<p>Separating the Mosque from the state in Islam as Dr. Jasser suggests is certainly considered a form of heresy according to the standard Islamic theology as refusing to implement some Islamic laws and replacing them with secular laws is considered “Kufr” (act that makes a person an Infidel) according to traditional understanding of this Quranic verse (Al-Ma&#8217;idah [5:44]). Reinterpretation of this verse is needed first to allow for Jasser’s view to work. This is certainly possible since the verse was talking about the Jews who refused to apply the Torah.</p>
<p>I agree with Robert Spencer that the current situation in the Muslim world and the historical and theological depth of the problem in Islamic teaching should not make any person very “optimistic”. However, the use of the Internet and the speed of communications that we witness today gives me some hope that a change in the Muslim world can happen.</p>
<p>I can see the view of Dr. Jasser that the theological stage should not be the first phase in modernization and reform, but I have a completely different view about this issue. Any trial for modernity in Islam will always face resistance because of the current theology. For example, you cannot teach equality of women while the teaching in Islam teaches that women are half of a man as a witness or that men can beat their women. Removing the obstacle first is fundamental for making the change or in other words changing the theology is pivotal to facilitate the process of modernity itself.</p>
<p>I also disagree with Jasser’s view that “A top-down change would surely fail”. Generally speaking, Muslims feel much more comfortable to accept a change in religious theology when it is approved by the leading Islamic authorities such as Al-Azhar University. Accordingly, “A top-down change” is, in my view, imperative for a reformation in Islam to occur. Some elements of reformation can still happen at the grass root level but their impact and effect will be minimal compared to the top-down change.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Ok, last round and final thoughts gentlemen.<strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>Furnish: </strong>Again, I agree with Mr. Spencer regarding the inherent violent strain of mainstream, historical Sunni Islam (which, I must stress, stems from a literal reading of the violent passages of the Qur’an) regarding not just apostates but non-Muslims in general;  however, to equate “mainstream” with existence <em>per se</em> is ahistorical.   And of course sometimes, even today, Islam’s apostates and heretics are executed—the plight of Ahmadis in Pakistan and Indonesia is a case in point. But such persecution has not even come close to wiping out that group, and they stand as a living rebuke to those who would employ Qur’anic teachings to do so.</p>
<p>Mr. Spencer finds ironic (if not contradictory) my adducing of the Twelver Shi`is as reform-minded, based on the neo-fundamentalism fervor regnant in Tehran since 1979.  However, <em>vilayet-i faqih</em>, the “rule of the [Shi`i] jurisprudent” devised by Khomeini, is by no means universally accepted even within Twelver Shi`ism; in fact, the modern world’s two most prominent Shi`i ayatollahs—Iran’s recently-deceased Montazeri, and Iraq’s al-Sistani—both are on record as opposing the Khomeinist system and regime.  The salient point is that Shi`ism, unlike Sunnism, allows for <em>ijtihad</em>—and thus contains at least the seeds of new approaches to the Qur’an and Hadith.  And Robert and I simply disagree about Gülen and his movement—I think his neo-Sufism is truly moderate, not a <em>shari`ah</em> Trojan Horse.</p>
<p>I will reiterate my respect and support for Dr. Jasser in his efforts to drag the Islamic world kicking and screaming into the 21<sup>st</sup>—or at least the 16<sup>th</sup>—century.  But I simply disagree that “sectarianism is always trumped by Islamism.”  That may largely be true for parts of the Arab world, but it’s certainly not the case in Africa, where sects and Sufi orders are often more respected and more legitimate than the Wahhabis, Salafis and jihadists. As to my adducing of the Alawis of Syria: I was not referring to the undeniably brutal, repressive al-Assad family regime that runs the country, but to the theological beliefs of the neo-Shi`i sect that truly is Alawism, the syncretistic (and borderline Christian) teachings of which are far afield from strict, <em>shari`ah-</em>based Sunnism. Just as the Khomeinist regime does not represent the totality of Twelver Shi`i thought, neither does the Alawi clique in Damascus speak for all Alawis.</p>
<p>I totally agree with my friend Zuhdi that “change cannot be imposed upon a rotten foundation.” Yet many Muslims, Sunni and sectarian, blanch at rebuilding Islam upon a Western, especially American, foundation—which is why I propose that working with, and drawing ideas from, the Shi`is (Zaydis and Isma’ilis, as well as Twelvers), the Sufis, the Barelwis, et al., might very well provide a sounder, Islamic foundation, after which the rest of the revamped Islamic domicile could be built with more Western materials.</p>
<p>Dr. Hamid is entirely correct (as was Robert) that the New Testament does not promote killing apostates, and that this made a Christian Reformation markedly easier than would be the case in Islam, wherein Hadiths considered Muhammadan sanction such killing.  And in fact, I don’t think Dr. Hamid goes far enough—not just the traditions of Islam, but the Qur’an itself, justifies and indeed mandates killing of “unbelievers, as most famously in Sura al-Tawbah [IX]:5: “when the sacred months have passed, kill the unbelievers/idolaters wherever you find them…capture, besiege, ambush them….”  But, at the risk of redundancy, the problem here is reading the text literally, as mandated in Sunnism—and as NOT adhered to by, for a prominent example, the Isma’ilis.</p>
<p>Finally, I agree with Dr. Hamid, <em>contra</em> Dr. Jassser, that a top-down reforming of Islamic teachings could possibly work better than a grass-roots one.  Yet I disagree, based on a close reading of Islamic history, that this imposed (new) paradigm should be a Westernized, desacralized, frankly idiosyncratic “Sunnism Lite”—which would not only taste bad to most Muslims outside America, it would certainly be less filling than reformist ideas with legitimate Islamic ingredients, as is certainly the case with the Isma’ilis, Barelwis, Ibadis and Haqqani Sufis.</p>
<p><strong>Spencer: </strong>I find the disagreements among the panel interesting. Dr. Jasser thinks “a top-down change would surely fail,” while Dr. Hamid believes that a “top-down change” is “imperative for a reformation in Islam.”</p>
<p>Dr. Jasser finds “concerning” Dr. Furnish’s “reference to the ruling Alawite minority in Syria as somehow exemplifying the hope for the rights of Muslim minorities.” Dr. Furnish defends his including the Twelver Shia as among the “reform-minded” in Islam, pointing to their acceptance of the concept of ijtihad, as opposed to the Sunnis who generally reject it. But the Twelver Shia, like the other sects mentioned in the course of this discussion, have been around for over a thousand years and yet with all that time to practice ijtihad they have not managed to come up with a version of Islam that is not supremacist and does not teach that unbelievers must be subjugated as inferiors under the rule of Islamic law.</p>
<p>This is not to say that nothing can happen except what has happened before. Islamic reform certainly could happen, and Dr. Hamid’s point about modern communications media making it more likely than ever before is well taken. But the disagreements among the most optimistic of the present panelists shows that Islamic reform circa 2010 remains largely an abstraction, a postulate, an intellectual construct. No one has ever actually seen it, and so everyone imagines it in a different way. Islam has been around for 1,400 years, and yet there is still no mainstream sect or school of jurisprudence that teaches the separation of mosque and state, the equality of rights of women with men, the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, or the equality of rights of unbelievers with believers.</p>
<p>Will such an Islam ultimately appear? I would never say that something could not happen; history is full of too many surprises for that. But so much of American foreign and domestic policy is based on the assumption that such an Islam not only will appear, but already exists, and is the Islam of the broad majority of Muslims. The consequences of investing so much in this erroneous assumption grow more apparent with every Nidal Hasan and Faisal Shahzad.</p>
<p>Dr. Jasser points optimistically to “a broad swath of westernized Muslims who read their Qur’an, pray, fast, give charity, and supplicate devotionally to God in a purpose-driven patriotic life dedicated to liberty and Americanism.” Great – but insofar as such Muslims actually reject the material in the Qur’an and Sunnah that forms the basis for political, supremacist, and violent Islam, they will find themselves under threat. It was again Dr. Jasser himself who summed this up: “The obstacles to the predominance of modern Islam over political Islam are many&#8211; frequent death threats, blind corruptive tribalism, societal and financial power of Islamists, and Muslim illiteracy.”</p>
<p>I wish that weren’t the case. I hope that some genuine Islamic reform ultimately succeeds. But let’s not kid ourselves as to its prospects, or about how much non-Muslims can or should actually depend upon it.</p>
<p><strong>Jasser: </strong>In the end, Robert Spencer here seems to agree with me regarding the major obstacles I listed to genuine reform. Yet, he concludes a bit dismissively, “let’s not kid ourselves as to its prospects, or about how much non-Muslims can or should actually depend on it.” I can somewhat understand the sense of frustration- since that is my daily battle against the forces of political Islam. However, without a coordinated strategy to overcoming those obstacles to genuine Islamic reform, then what are we left to do as a nation? How do we, <em>moving</em> <em>forward,</em> sustain security against the growing militant Islamist threat? Is that not the purpose of this discourse? These discussions matter little in the absence of a strategy.</p>
<p>I do certainly part with Robert on many of his ideas (not covered in this symposium) with regards to accounts of the morality of the Prophet Muhammad and many conclusions about the faith, the Qur’an, and spiritual path of Islam I and my family have chosen to embrace.  However, ultimately, my deeper more relevant quarrel, is with my own coreligionists—and some of their ubiquitous Muslim sources that provide supremacist Islamist narratives.</p>
<p>I do believe as most Americans do, that all of us agree on the <em>goal</em> which is the intellectual neutralization of the supremacist agenda of Islamists and their political Islam. Simple kinetic neutralization alone against militants will never be enough. My strategy, our strategy, at the <a href="http://www.aifdemocracy.org/" target="_blank">American Islamic Forum for Democracy</a> (AIFD) is transparent and built upon a need forward for a liberty movement by devotional Muslims within Islam against Islamism. We must have a positive outlook for the victory of liberty rather than a pessimistic one basically based in a narrative of an impending global clash between Muslims and non-Muslims.</p>
<p>Even pessimists need to have a strategy. Disagreements on history matter a lot less than a discussion on strategy and where we think our nation and counter-radicalization work should head. In fact there are strong indications that the pessimistic narrative is fodder for radical Islamists and helps Islamists attract impressionable youth who want to believe that America is at war with Islam and Muslims. Rather, I believe the ideologies we promote at AIFD to be the type that ultimately can drive Muslim youth away from Islamism toward a modern Islam rooted in American nationalism and Constitutionalism toward a victory for freedom.</p>
<p>We will also need to breakdown walls of deep denial in the west rooted in political correctness if Muslims are going to get the long overdue major nudges toward modernity and reform. But, then what? Does Tim Furnish want us to believe that some of the more modernized minority sects or those more amenable to modernization will win out in the war of ideas? How would that happen and from which sect or sects? Does Dr. Hamid want us to be confident that there will be a post-modern imam or scholar who will arise to marginalize political Islam? How will that transpire in the current environment?</p>
<p>I do hope readers leave here, however, understanding that not only does the solution need to come from devout Muslims within the “House of Islam”, but we all desperately need to develop a coherent, cooridinated, and constructive domestic and international strategy to defeat political Islam- no different than we did in the Cold War against the global spread of communism. Therefore, it stands to reason that all intellectuals in the west should do whatever they can to facilitate the authentic and moderate Muslim allies of the United States who are working tirelessly to break down those obstacles.</p>
<p>That makes a lot more sense than sitting back and watching, like a car accident, the marginalization or demise of genuine, credible, and devotional Muslim reformists. Dr. Hamid and I agree on some but do disagree as to whether the reform will begin from the top or the grass roots. I have no faith at all in those “leading” inherently corrupt institutions like Al-Azhar University in Cairo or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ever completely purging themselves of their deep rooted intellectual and economic foundations in political Islam and salafism. The only solution I see lies in building new honest Muslim institutions founded in genuine classically liberal academics, free markets, and morally sound Islamic teachings. This reform will only be authentic if it remains separated from government and integration into national legal systems (<em>shar’iah).</em> Thus, the primary protection for Muslims against Islamist supremacism is a belief and enforcement of the same ideas that created the Establishment Clause of our Constitution. This new paradigm or meme &#8211;the separation of mosque and state&#8211; will need generational change just as the Muslim Brotherhood has spread its ideas in the last century. It is time for the ideas of liberty to take the offense! And we can do this neither alone, nor with those who firmly believe that there can be no modern Islam.</p>
<p>I and my family and many other Muslims have lived and believe in an Islam and modernization of the message of the Prophet Muhammad that is not in conflict with our oath to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that the only winning strategy is to develop those ideas of liberty within an Islamic consciousness through the separation of mosque and state – our <em>Muslim Liberty Project</em>. This project is the Muslim counter-narrative, the offensive for the ideas of liberty and against the ideas of the Brotherhood Project. While I may be proven wrong, and I have absorbed significant critique of my own lifetime of understanding of Islamic history, I do not believe I have heard here any other convincing alternative winning strategies in the long term against political Islam. After the critique of my vision or anyone’s vision, how do we move forward? That’s what we are doing every day. How are you providing alternative visions that can neutralize the ideas that threaten our security?</p>
<p><strong>Hamid: </strong>It is good that Furnish mentioned the Ahmadeia example as the situation of Ahmadeia in the Muslim world illustrates the fact that one of the major problems that the Muslim world faces is that it cannot tolerate any new or different interpretations of its religious texts. This represents a major obstacle for reformation. Teaching the Muslim world the concept of tolerance to other views is vital to assist the reformation of Islam.</p>
<p>The verse that Furnish used to indicate that the Quran supports killing Apostates is not traditionally used to justify killing apostates. In most approved Tafseers and Interpretations the rule of killing apostates is based on the Hadith rather than the Quran. Recently, some Salafists tried to use this verse to justify killing apostates mainly to prove that the Quranic groups &#8211; who disagree with killing the apostates &#8211; are wrong. Traditionally, Redda Law is based only on the Sunna.</p>
<p>I may only partially agree with Furnish that in some areas in Africa, Sufi orders are often more respected and more legitimate than the Wahhabis, Salafis and jihadists. However, we have to admit that Salafies are gaining ground, e.g. in Somalia and Sharia-controlled parts of Nigeria. This is partially due to the lack of strong theological foundations for many of the Sufi practices and the tremendous support of Salafism by the wealthy Wahhabists.</p>
<p>I support the view of Mr. Spencer rather than Furnish that the Twelver Shi`is are not truly reform-minded &#8211; as their belief system still accepts the violent edicts of Sharia. However, I can say that this particular group has more potential to reform than Sunnis as they still allow Ijtihad.</p>
<p>I also agree with Mr. Spencer that the current situation of Islam is not very promising. Removing the obstacles to reformation such as lack of the separation of mosque and state, inequality of rights of women with men, religiously based suppression on the freedom of speech, lack of the equality of rights of unbelievers with believers may mean for some the end of Islam.  Despite this I still see hope that Non Literal teaching of Islam can make a real reformation within Islam.</p>
<p>The efforts of Dr. Jasser in American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) to promote a liberty movement by devotional Muslims within Islam against Islamism must be saluted. The concept is great and I will add only that giving a strong theological base to the views of this organization will be very helpful. Asking Muslims to separate between Mosque and Church and adopt secularism while traditional Islamic text teaches the opposite is a major obstacle to the progress of these secular views. Giving a theological base for secularism within Islam is needed.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Timothy Furnish, Tawfik Hamid, Dr.  M. Zuhdi Jasser and Robert Spencer, thank you for joining Frontpage Symposium.</p>
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		<title>Judicial Power Grabs</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/thomas-sowell/judicial-power-grabs/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=judicial-power-grabs</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 24 May 2010 04:00:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Thomas Sowell]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[When Supreme Court justices aren't satisfied with their role.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/stevensjpg-ae647e7e8979c03c_large.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-60953" title="stevensjpg-ae647e7e8979c03c_large" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/stevensjpg-ae647e7e8979c03c_large-272x300.gif" alt="" width="272" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>You might think that being a Supreme Court justice would be the top of the line job for someone in the legal profession. But, many Supreme Court decisions suggest that too many justices are not satisfied with their role, and seek more sweeping powers as supreme policy-makers, grand second-guessers or philosopher-kings.</p>
<p>The latest example of this is the recent Supreme Court decision in the case of Graham versus Florida. The issue was whether the Constitution permitted a state to impose a sentence of life without the possibility of parole when the criminal was a youthful offender. The Supreme Court voted 6 to 3 that this was a violation of the Constitution.</p>
<p>If your copy of the Constitution doesn&#8217;t say anything about youthful offenders, do not worry that you have a defective copy. There is no such statement in the Constitution. What the justices cited as the alleged basis for their decision was the Eighth Amendment&#8217;s prohibition against &#8220;cruel and unusual punishments.&#8221;</p>
<p>Since 37 out of the 50 states permit sentences of life without the possibility of parole, such a sentence is not unusual. How about cruel? If it is cruel, then why is it OK to impose that sentence on people who are not youthful?</p>
<p>The case of Graham versus Florida involved a 16-year-old repeat offender, who was convicted of a home invasion robbery while on probation from a previous felony. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The Supreme Court then over-ruled that decision.</p>
<p>The role of an appellate court is not to simply second-guess the decision of the trial judge and jury, much less usurp the responsibility of legislatures to make social policy. But the pretense of applying the Constitution gives appellate judges the power to do both.</p>
<p>The bolder justices go further, citing practices in other countries as supporting their decisions that are supposedly based on the Constitution of the United States. If justices can pick and choose which legal principles and practices they will follow, from the many widely varying principles and practices in countries around the world, then they can find a basis for doing just about anything they feel like doing.</p>
<p>This too goes counter to the very basis of American government, as a system in which &#8220;We the people&#8221; ultimately govern ourselves through representatives of our own choosing and the officials appointed by them.</p>
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<p>Once appellate judges are free to base their rulings on what people do in India, Egypt or Germany, Americans are no longer a self-governing people.</p>
<p>As if to add a touch of farce to lighten the tragedy of the dismantling of the Constitution, Supreme Court justices on opposing sides of the case of Graham versus Florida cited statistics seeking to show that there was national consensus for or against life sentences without the possibility of parole.</p>
<p>Appellate courts, including the Supreme Court, are not institutions equipped to make policy judgments like that. Legislatures exist to make policy judgments— and to be voted out of office if these policy judgments turn out to produce results that the electorate do not want. But there are no such corrective mechanisms in place if Supreme Court justices misjudge.</p>
<p>Finally, there is the old, moth-eaten argument cited by Justice John Paul Stevens, that the society is evolving and therefore the interpretation of the Constitution must evolve with it.</p>
<p>Nobody— from the moment that the Constitution was adopted in the 18th century to the present— has ever denied that societies evolve, and that their laws must evolve to meet changing circumstances. But, unless Justice Stevens is either stupid or dishonest, he cannot leap from a need for laws to change to the conclusion that it is judges who must be the ones to make those changes.</p>
<p>Just saying the magic word &#8220;change&#8221; does not justify judges grabbing the power to make whatever changes they please in the law. There are, after all, two other branches of the federal government, specifically charged with legislative and executive responsibilities and powers, not to mention the Constitutional Amendment process.</p>
<p><em>Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.</em></p>
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		<title>Black Opportunity Destruction</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/walter-williams/black-opportunity-destruction/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=black-opportunity-destruction</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:00:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Walter Williams]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=49687</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How political correctness is holding black students back. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/black-students-on-steps.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-49690" title="Studying" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/black-students-on-steps-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a></p>
<p>&#8220;Do you mean he is taller than me am?&#8221; sarcastically barked Dr. Martin Rosenberg, my high <a href="http://www.creators.com/conservative/walter-williams/black-opportunity-destruction.html#" target="_blank">school</a> English teacher, to one of the students in our class. The student actually said, &#8220;He is taller than me,&#8221; but Rosenberg was ridiculing the student&#8217;s grammar. The subject of the elliptical (or understood) verb &#8220;am&#8221; must be in the subjective case. Thus, the correct form of the sentence is: He is taller than I.</p>
<p>This correction/dressing down of a student, that occasionally included me, occurred during my attendance at North Philadelphia&#8217;s Benjamin Franklin High School in the early &#8217;50s. Franklin was predominantly black; its students were poor or low middle class. On top of that, Franklin had just about the lowest academic standing in the city. All of our teachers, except two or three, were white. Despite the fact that we were poor, most of Franklin&#8217;s teachers held fairly high standards and expectations.</p>
<p>Today, high standards and expectations, at some <a href="http://www.creators.com/conservative/walter-williams/black-opportunity-destruction.html#" target="_blank">schools</a>, would mean trouble for a teacher. Teachers, as pointed out in one teaching program, are encouraged to &#8220;Recognize and understand the cultural differences among students from diverse backgrounds, and treat such differences with respect. Intervene immediately, should a fellow student disparage a Black student&#8217;s culture or language.&#8221; That means if a black student says, &#8220;I be wiff him&#8221; or &#8220;He axed me a question,&#8221; teachers shouldn&#8217;t bother to correct the student&#8217;s language. What&#8217;s more, should anyone disparage or laugh at the way the student speaks, the teacher should intervene in his defense. Correcting the student&#8217;s speech might be deemed as insensitive to diversity at best and racism at worst, leading possibly to a teacher&#8217;s reprimand, termination and possibly assault.</p>
<p>A teacher&#8217;s job is to teach and failure to correct a student&#8217;s speech, just as failure to correct a math error, is a dereliction of duty. You might say, &#8220;Williams, Ebonics or black English is part of the cultural roots of black people and to disparage it is racism.&#8221; That&#8217;s utter nonsense.</p>
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<p>During the 1940s and 1950s, I lived in North Philadelphia&#8217;s Richard Allen housing project, along with its most famous resident, Bill Cosby. We all were poor or low middle class but no one spoke black English. My wife was the youngest of 10 children. Listening to her brothers and sisters speak, compared to many of her nieces and nephews, you wouldn&#8217;t believe they were in the same family. The difference has nothing to do with cultural roots of black people. The difference is that <a href="http://www.creators.com/conservative/walter-williams/black-opportunity-destruction.html#" target="_blank">parents</a>, teachers and others in authority over youngsters have become less judgmental, politically correct and lazy; therefore, speaking poorly is accepted.</p>
<p>Language is our tool of communication. If a person has poor oral language skills, he&#8217;s likely to have poor writing, reading and comprehension skills. To my knowledge, there are no books in any field of study written in Ebonics or black English. It is very likely that a person with poor language skills will suffer significant deficits in other areas of academic competence such as mathematics and the sciences. It doesn&#8217;t mean that the person is unintelligent; it means that he doesn&#8217;t have all the tools of intelligence. That is what&#8217;s so insidious about the state of black <a href="http://www.creators.com/conservative/walter-williams/black-opportunity-destruction.html#" target="_blank">education</a> today; so many blacks do not have a chance to develop the tools of intelligence. Many might have high native intelligence but come off sounding like a moron.</p>
<p>Black Americans should thank God that non-judgmental, politically correct people weren&#8217;t around during the early civil rights movement when blacks began breaking discriminatory barriers. Discriminatory employers would have had ready-made excuses not to hire a black as a trolley car motorman, cashier or department store sales clerk.</p>
<p>There are some significant challenges to being judgmental and politically incorrect and insisting on proper language. A professor or teacher can get cursed out by students or parents. A black student who speaks well, carries books and studies can be accused of &#8220;acting white&#8221; and find himself shunned and assaulted by other students.</p>
<p>I would be interested in hearing the teaching establishment&#8217;s defense of permitting poor language.</p>
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		<title>Andy McCarthy: Binyam Mohammed: Is That All There Is? &#8211; National Review Online</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/andy-mccarthy-binyam-mohammed-is-that-all-there-is-national-review-online/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=andy-mccarthy-binyam-mohammed-is-that-all-there-is-national-review-online</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:51:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=49692</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Binyam Mohammed is an al Qaeda terrorist who planned, with his would-be partner Jose Padilla the &#8220;Dirty Bomber&#8221; to carry out mass-murder attacks in U.S. cities as part of a 9/11 &#8220;second wave.&#8221; More here. Unlike Padilla, who was prosecuted on tangentially related terrorism charges and is now serving a lengthy albeit not lengthy enough [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Binyam Mohammed is an al Qaeda terrorist who planned, with his would-be partner Jose Padilla the &#8220;Dirty Bomber&#8221; to carry out mass-murder attacks in U.S. cities as part of a 9/11 &#8220;second wave.&#8221;  More here. Unlike Padilla, who was prosecuted on tangentially related terrorism charges and is now serving a lengthy albeit not lengthy enough sentence, Mohammed was released by the Obama administration, under great pressure from British authorities.Mohammed is a cause celebre in the U.K. — where he is living free and clear — because he made &#8220;torture&#8221; allegations against the CIA.  Our military prosecutors wanted to try him for war crimes, but the Brits did not want a public trial — and neither, I imagine, did parts of our intelligence community — for fear that they&amp;apos;d be branded &#8220;torturers&#8221; in the press which, naturally, happened anyway. So we released him, and of course he has had the vigorous support of the ususal suspects in pursuing civil suits demanding that details of his &#8220;torture&#8221; be revealed.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWRlYzg4YzlkYzk5NDIyYzdlZjdhNjhlOTEzZGEyOTk=">Binyam Mohammed: Is That All There Is? &#8211; Andy McCarthy &#8211; The Corner on National Review Online</a>.</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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		<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>Iraq&#8217;s &#8216;Chemical Ali&#8217; gets 4th death sentence &#8211; AP</title>
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		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/iraqs-chemical-ali-gets-4th-death-sentence-ap/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 17 Jan 2010 19:17:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Saddam Hussein&#8217;s notorious cousin &#8220;Chemical Ali&#8221; was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging on Sunday for ordering the gassing of Kurds in 1988, killing more than 5,000 in an air raid thought to be the worst single attack of its kind on civilians. It was Ali Hassan al-Majid&#8217;s fourth death sentence for crimes against [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_IRAQ?SITE=TXKER&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/5601cabe-2c02-47fc-993b-b2823f06ffdb-small.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p>Saddam Hussein&#8217;s notorious cousin &#8220;Chemical Ali&#8221; was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging on Sunday for ordering the gassing of Kurds in 1988, killing more than 5,000 in an air raid thought to be the worst single attack of its kind on civilians.</p>
<p>It was Ali Hassan al-Majid&#8217;s fourth death sentence for crimes against humanity in Iraq. The previous three have not been carried out, in part because survivors of the poison gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja wanted to have their case against al-Majid heard.</p>
<p>Relatives of Halabja victims cheered in the courtroom when chief judge Aboud Mustafa handed down the guilty verdict against al-Majid, one of the chief architects of Saddam&#8217;s repression.</p>
<p>Nazik Tawfiq, a 45-year-old Kurdish woman who said she lost six relatives in the attack, fell to her knees upon hearing the verdict to offer a prayer of thanks.</p>
<p>&#8220;I am so happy today,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Now the souls of our victims will rest in peace.&#8221;</p>
<p>via <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_IRAQ?SITE=TXKER&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT"></a>.</p>
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		<title>Google Goes Jihad</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/robert-spencer/google-goes-jihad-by-robert-spencer/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=google-goes-jihad-by-robert-spencer</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:03:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=46212</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The search engine giant kowtows to Islamic supremacists.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-46233" title="islam" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/islam.jpg" alt="islam" width="450" height="266" /></p>
<p>Google, the Internet’s ubiquitous search engine, is under fire this week for censoring negative search results about Islam. If you type “Christianity is” into the Google search box, there immediately pop up a series of suggested completions to the sentence, most of them derogatory: “Christianity is bulls—t,” “Christianity is not a religion,” “Christianity is a lie,” “Christianity is false,” “Christianity is wrong,” “Christianity is fake.” No positive suggests come up. Likewise with “Buddhism is,” and the sentence is once again completed with numerous negative suggestions: “Buddhism is wrong,” “Buddhism is not what you think,” and so on. But type in “Islam is,” and nothing comes up at all. The negative suggestions inundating the searcher for other religions are nowhere to be seen.</p>
<p>Google, however, says it was all a mistake, and denies have done anything to favor Islam. “This is a bug,” insisted a Google spokesman, “and we’re working to fix it as quickly as we can.” Oddly enough, however, even with all of Google’s technical savvy, this “bug” persisted for days and continues as of this writing, long after Google’s announcement that it would quickly be fixed.</p>
<p>Or perhaps it isn’t so odd, in light of Google’s long-established penchant for favoring the hard Left and its allies in the global jihad. Critics have complained for years about Google’s tendency to decorate its logo colorfully for cherished days of the Left such as Earth Day and International Women’s Day, while ignoring Christmas (aside from bland Holiday greetings) and Easter. What’s more, Google-owned YouTube has more than once removed material critical of Islamic jihad supremacism, while allowing blood-curdling pro-jihad and vile anti-Semitic material to remain on the site. Google’s policies on removing videos all too often has appeared to follow a consistent Leftist line: anti-American, anti-Israel, pro-jihad.</p>
<p>It is also a remarkable coincidence that Google’s “bug” would appear in Google not about Judaism or Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism, but in connection with the world’s most thin-skinned religion. The one religion shielded from adverse judgment at Google is also the only religion that has is currently engaged in an organized campaign to stifle honest discussion about its texts and teachings that inspire violence. In 2008 the Secretary General of the 57-government Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the largest voting bloc at the United Nations today, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, warned the West about “red lines that should not be crossed” regarding free speech about Islam and terrorism. For years now the OIC has spearheaded an effort at the UN to compel member states to criminalize what it calls “defamation of religions,” but by which it clearly means any honest discussion of the texts and teachings of Islam that jihadists invoke to justify violence and supremacism. Interestingly enough, the OIC stepped up this campaign in the wake of the publication of cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper that touched off worldwide Muslim riots. Google, at the time those riots were raging, was dutifully removing from YouTube videos that depicted the cartoons.</p>
<p>Thus when the OIC has Google, it doesn’t need international edicts muzzling free speech. Like many on the Left, Google seems all too willing to carry water for the Islamic bloc’s war against free speech and to oblige the OIC’s totalitarian and thuggish influences, by voluntarily refraining from doing anything that might offend Muslims. While its restriction of the automated search suggestions may seem insignificant, its overall willingness to conform to notoriously fragile Islamic sensibilities and deep-six criticism of Islam is anything but trivial.</p>
<p>What’s more, what with Google’s influence as by far the premier search engine, the idea that Western non-Muslims must make special allowances for easily-offended Muslims sets a precedent that can only bear bitter fruit in the future. Ultimately Google, and every individual, group, business, and governing authority in the West, is going to have to decide whether it is going to stand for the hard-won principles of free speech and free inquiry, or kowtow to Islamic supremacism and intimidation. When the censorship is voluntary and self-imposed, as in Google’s case, it is all the more shameful.</p>
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		<title>The Obama administration has ways of making terrorists not talk. &#8211; WSJ.com</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/the-obama-administration-has-ways-of-making-terrorists-not-talk-wsj-com/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-obama-administration-has-ways-of-making-terrorists-not-talk-wsj-com</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:17:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=45001</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The failed terrorist attack aboard Northwest Flight 253 is proving to be highly educational, not least about the Obama Administration and its pre-September 11 antiterror worldview. Yesterday, the White House reversed itself on repatriating Guantanamo detainees to chaotic Yemen, a step in the right direction. Now if it would only revisit its Ramzi Yousef standard [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The failed terrorist attack aboard Northwest Flight 253 is proving to be highly educational, not least about the Obama Administration and its pre-September 11 antiterror worldview. Yesterday, the White House reversed itself on repatriating Guantanamo detainees to chaotic Yemen, a step in the right direction. Now if it would only revisit its Ramzi Yousef standard for interrogating captured terrorists like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.Ramzi Yousef, you may recall, was the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 who is now serving a life sentence in a supermax prison in Colorado. The Obama Administration likes to cite his arrest, conviction and imprisonment as a model for its faith that the criminal justice system is the best way to handle terrorist detainees.&#8221;Our courts and our juries, our citizens, are tough enough to convict terrorists. The record makes that clear,&#8221; said President Obama last May 21 at the National Archives. &#8220;Ramzi Yousef tried to blow up the World Trade Center. He was convicted in our courts and is serving a life sentence in U.S. prisons.&#8221;On June 9, 2009, the Justice Department repeated the claim in a fact sheet arguing for handling terrorists in criminal courts:&#8221;1993 World Trade Center Bombing: After two trials, in 1993 and 1997, six defendants were convicted and sentenced principally to life in prison for detonating a truck bomb in the garage of the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring hundreds more. One of the defendants convicted at the second trial was Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the attack.&#8221;</p>
<p>via <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703436504574640560502410466.html">The Ramzi Yousef Standard &#8211; WSJ.com</a>.</p>
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		<title>Andy McCarthy: Moussaoui Conviction Upheld &#8211; The Corner</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/andy-mccarthy-moussaoui-conviction-upheld-the-corner/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=andy-mccarthy-moussaoui-conviction-upheld-the-corner</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/andy-mccarthy-moussaoui-conviction-upheld-the-corner/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:47:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has affirmed the conviction and sentence of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. Enthusiasts of the law-enforcement approach to terrorism will undoubtedly claim this development as more evidence that their strategy works. To the contrary, I have argued several times see, e.g., here and here that we dodged a bullet [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has affirmed the conviction and sentence of 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. Enthusiasts of the law-enforcement approach to terrorism will undoubtedly claim this development as more evidence that their strategy works. To the contrary, I have argued several times see, e.g., here and here that we dodged a bullet with Moussaoui — i.e., if he had not surprised everyone by pleading guilty, if he had instead insisted on proceeding with his trial not just the penalty phase but the guilt phase, the case might well have ended disastrously.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2UxNzE4YjJjODJhYmIyZDFjZmU2NTdmMzk5YTQyZTc=">Moussaoui Conviction Upheld &#8211; Andy McCarthy &#8211; The Corner on National Review Online</a>.</p>
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		<title>“Honor” Horror In England &#8211; by Stephen Brown</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/stephenbrown/%e2%80%9chonor%e2%80%9d-horror-in-england-by-stephen-brown/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=%25e2%2580%259chonor%25e2%2580%259d-horror-in-england-by-stephen-brown</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/stephenbrown/%e2%80%9chonor%e2%80%9d-horror-in-england-by-stephen-brown/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:04:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Stephen Brown]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Father convicted in 15-year old daughter’s disappearance ten years ago.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-42623" title="honormurder" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/honormurder.gif" alt="honormurder" width="450" height="505" /></p>
<p>“Mum, don’t untie me. I want to die.”</p>
<p>These heart-rending words from beyond the grave helped last week to convict Britain’s latest “honor” murderer, Mehmet Goren, 49. The father of four brutally killed his 15-year-old daughter, Tulay, ten years ago for having fallen in love.</p>
<p>“You did all this simply because you regarded it as unacceptable that she, rather than you, should choose the man she wanted to marry,” the judge told the murderer, whom he described as having an “enigmatic smile.”</p>
<p>Instead of experiencing a schoolgirl’s joy for life, shortly before her death a bound and helpless Tulay was lying face down on her bedroom floor, her hands and feet having turned a black and blue color from the clothesline restraints her father had tied her with. It was in this terrible state of pain and suffering that Tulay addressed these pitiful words to her mother, Hanim Goren, who wanted to free her but was prevented by her husband.</p>
<p>Police believed Tulay was drugged, tortured and killed the following day. But first he had Tulay’s eight–year-old brother kiss his sister goodbye for the last time. The 15-year-old’s body has never been found. First buried in the family garden, it was later dug up and removed to an unknown site.</p>
<p>It was Tulay’s grieving mother, finally finding the courage to tell the truth ten years after her daughter’s 1999 disappearance, who delivered this devastating testimony during her husband’s ten-week trial in London. Nuray Gulen, Tulay’s older sister, also gave valuable testimony that ended in her father receiving a 22-year prison sentence, at one point shaking her fists and screaming at her him from the witness box in Turkish.</p>
<p>Tulay’s death followed a familiar pattern regarding honor murders. When her father discovered she was no longer a virgin (she had told a friend she may even be pregnant), he and her family’s male members regarded her as a “worthless commodity.” Tulay’s two uncles were also charged in her death but were acquitted, although they were part of the family council where the decision to kill her may have been made.</p>
<p>In Islamic cultures, a wife is often acquired like a piece of property by means of a contract after negotiations between two families, in which a “bride price” is paid to the bride’s family in the form of money, real estate or other gifts. In such cases, marriage is simply a commercial transaction. The bride, and sometimes the groom, often has no say in choice of partner, as they have never been allowed to establish an individual identity outside their families, clan or religion.</p>
<p>One of the conditions for such “arranged” marriages, however, is that the bride must be a virgin. The highest appellate court in Turkey emphasized this last month when it allowed a man to divorce his wife because she was, supposedly, not a virgin on their wedding night. A woman’s purity, the court ruled, is a prerequisite for marriage.</p>
<p>If a woman is not a virgin when she marries, or is discovered to have engaged in some other form of behavior regarded as improper, no matter how slight, with a male before, or after, marriage, she may then become the target of an “honor” murder. Only the blood from her death, the family believes, will cleanse its shame and restore its “honor” in the eyes of the community.</p>
<p>Other reasons exist for this depraved form of misogyny that has resulted in too many young women’s deaths. They range from the female victim living too Western a lifestyle (re: independent), to wanting a divorce, changing religion, leaving the home to escape family violence, to simply having a boyfriend. Staying a night away from home or moving out, Western European social workers say, is often a death sentence for these women.</p>
<p>Tulay’s family also did like the fact her boyfriend, Halil Unal, was from another branch of Islam. But what apparently disturbed Tulay’s father the most was that he would not be receiving any bride price money after his daughter had run away to live with Hilal, also a Kurd from Turkey.</p>
<p>The wife testified at the trial her husband had sent her to demand a $10,000 bride price from Unal to cover the “shame” he had caused their family honor, but she returned home empty handed. Hanim indicated her husband probably wanted the money for gambling, testifying he was an avid gambler who would gamble away the family’s social benefits in Turkish cafes. It was Hanim Goren who later persuaded her daughter to return home, not knowing she would be killed.</p>
<p>A week after Tulay’s disappearance, Unal himself became the target of an honor murder. Mehmet Gornon tried to kill him in an axe attack that put Unal in hospital with a serious neck injury. Gornon and his two brothers were also charged for that assault.</p>
<p>There are about a dozen reported honor murders every year now in England. How many remain unreported is unknown. After each new act of such savagery, though, the English are left asking what is happening to their once civilized country that gave the world the Magna Carta and parliamentary democracy.</p>
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		<title>Ross Douthat: Prisons of Our Own Making &#8211; NYTimes.com</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/ross-douthat-prisons-of-our-own-making-nytimes-com/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ross-douthat-prisons-of-our-own-making-nytimes-com</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:24:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Arkansas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arkansas native]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arkansas parole board]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Board]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[case]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[circumstances]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Clemmons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[columnist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[com]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[convict]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ed Columnist - Prisons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[everyone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Governor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lakewood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lesson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Maurice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mike Huckabee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nine years]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[NYTimes]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[pardon]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[presidential aspirations]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[sentence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Thanksgiving]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Wash.]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Weekend]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=41752</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you’re a governor with presidential aspirations, you should never, under any circumstances, pardon a convict or reduce a sentence. That’s the lesson everyone seems to have drawn from the dreadful case of Maurice Clemmons, an Arkansas native who murdered four Lakewood, Wash., police officers over Thanksgiving weekend — nine years after Mike Huckabee, then [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>If you’re a governor with presidential aspirations, you should never, under any circumstances, pardon a convict or reduce a sentence. That’s the lesson everyone seems to have drawn from the dreadful case of Maurice Clemmons, an Arkansas native who murdered four Lakewood, Wash., police officers over Thanksgiving weekend — nine years after Mike Huckabee, then governor, commuted his sentence and the Arkansas parole board set him free.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/opinion/14douthat.html?_r=2">Op-Ed Columnist &#8211; Prisons of Our Own Making &#8211; NYTimes.com</a>.</p>
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		<title>Neal Ungerleider: Saudi Arabia to execute TV psychic, Falafel Mafia</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/neal-ungerleider-saudi-arabia-to-execute-tv-psychic-falafel-mafia/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=neal-ungerleider-saudi-arabia-to-execute-tv-psychic-falafel-mafia</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jlaksin/neal-ungerleider-saudi-arabia-to-execute-tv-psychic-falafel-mafia/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:15:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Ali]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ali Sibat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arabian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arrest]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[death]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[death sentence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[falafel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hajj]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[host]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hotel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hotel room]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MAFIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mutaween]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Neal Ungerleider - Falafel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[November]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Police]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[religious police]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[room]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[satellite]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[satellite television]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saudi Arabia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[saudi arabian government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sentence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[show]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sibat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Slant]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[television]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[television psychics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[television show]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[united-states]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[witchcraft]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=40426</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In the United States, television psychics are merely mocked. In Saudi Arabia, they are executed. The Saudi Arabian government is planning to execute Lebanese television psychic Ali Sibat. Sibat was found guilty of witchcraft by a Saudi court in November, a crime which carries the death sentence. It appears that Sibat was targeted for arrest [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In the United States, television psychics are merely mocked. In Saudi Arabia, they are executed.</p>
<p>The Saudi Arabian government is planning to execute Lebanese television psychic Ali Sibat. Sibat was found guilty of witchcraft by a Saudi court in November, a crime which carries the death sentence.</p>
<p>It appears that Sibat was targeted for arrest and trial while visiting Saudi Arabia for the Hajj. Saudi Arabia’s special religious police, the Mutaween, grabbed him out of his hotel room and placed the host in custody. Sibat was then tried on charges related to his satellite television show:</p>
<p>via <a href="http://trueslant.com/nealungerleider/2009/12/04/saudi-arabia-to-execute-tv-psychic/">Saudi Arabia to execute TV psychic &#8211; Neal Ungerleider &#8211; Falafel Mafia &#8211; True/Slant</a>.</p>
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