Jay’s Blog

Summary

The Afghan Taliban is a group of insurgents who ultimately seek to secure power over Afghanistan, but first they must merely survive as a cohesive entity during the current International Security Assistance Force offensive. Nevertheless, the Taliban is a diffuse entity being pulled in many directions by multiple actors, and the precise definition of “securing power” and the appropriate strategy to regain that power are still being debated.

Analysis

And though it took the Taliban a while to regroup, a considerable vacuum began to grow in which the Taliban began to re-emerge, particularly amid poor, corrupt and ineffectual central governance. As early as 2006, it was clear that the Afghan jihadist movement had assumed the form of a growing and powerful insurgency that was progressively gaining steam; the situation was beginning to approach the point at which it could no longer be ignored. As the surge in Iraq began to show signs of success, the United States began to shift its attention back to Afghanistan.

It was thus clear to the Taliban long before U.S. President Barack Obama’s long-anticipated announcement that some 30,000 additional troops would be sent to Afghanistan in 2010 that there would be more of a fight before the United States and its allies would be willing to abandon the country — a surge that is an attempt, in part, to reshape Taliban perceptions of the timeline of the conflict by redoubling the American commitment before the drawdown might begin.

Overall, the Taliban ideally aspire to return to the height of their power in the late 1990s but realize that this is not realistic. That ascent to power, which followed the toppling of the Marxist regime left in place after the Soviet withdrawal and the 1992-1996 intra-Islamist civil war, was somewhat anomalous in that the circumstances were fairly unique to post-Soviet invasion Afghanistan. Today, the Taliban’s opponents are much stronger and far better equipped to challenge the Taliban than in the mid-1990s; this opposing force is as much a reality as the Taliban and has a vested interest in preserving the current regime. The old mujahideen of the 1980s, whom the younger Taliban displaced in the 1990s, have grown steadily wealthier since the collapse of the Taliban regime and are now well-settled and prosperous in Kabul and their respective regions, benefiting greatly from the Western presence and Western money. This is true of many urban areas of Afghanistan that have been altered significantly in the eight years since the U.S. invasion and have little desire to return the Taliban’s severe austerity. In many ways, this fight for dominance is between not only the Taliban and the United States and its allies; it is also between the Taliban and the old Islamist elite, the former mujahideen leaders who did their time on the battlefield in the 1980s.

 

 

 

So, in addition to fighting the current military battle, there is a great deal of factional fighting and political maneuvering with other Afghan centers of power. At a bare minimum, the Taliban intend to ensure that they remain the single strongest power in the country, with not only the largest share of the pie in Kabul (the ability to dominate) but also a significant degree of power and autonomy within their core areas in the south and east of the country. But within the movement (which is a very diffuse and complex set of entities), there is a great deal of debate about what objectives are reasonably achievable. Like the Shia in Iraq, who originally aspired to total dominance in the early days following the fall of the Baathist regime and have since moderated their goals, the Taliban have recognized that some degree of power sharing is necessary. The ultimate objective of the Taliban — resumption of power at the national level — is somewhat dependent on how events play out in the coming years. The objective of attaining the apex of power is not in dispute, but the best avenue — be it reconciliation or fighting it out until the United States begins to draw down — and how exactly that apex might be defined is still being debated.

 

 

 

But there is an important caveat to the Taliban’s ambitions. Having held power in Kabul, they are wary of returning there in a way that would ultimately render them an international pariah state, as they were in the 1990s. When the Taliban first came to power, only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates recognized the regime, and the group’s leadership became intimately familiar with the challenges of attempting to govern a country without wider international recognition. It was under this isolation that the Taliban allied with al Qaeda, which provided them with men, money and equipment. Now it is using al Qaeda again, this time not just as a force multiplier but, even more important, as a potential bargaining chip at the negotiating table. Mullah Omar, the Taliban’s central leader, wants to get off the international terrorist watch list, and there have been signals from various elements of the Taliban that the group is willing to abandon al Qaeda for the right price. This countervailing consideration also contributes to the Taliban’s objective — and particularly the means to achieving that objective — remaining in flux.

To understand the Taliban and their current strategy, it helps to begin with the basics. The Taliban are insurgents, and their first order of business is simply survival. A domestic guerrilla group almost always has more staying power than an occupier, which is projecting force over a greater distance and has the added burden of a domestic population less directly committed to a war in a foreign — and often far-off — land. If the Taliban can only survive as a cohesive and coherent entity until the United States and its allies leave Afghanistan, they will have a far less militarily capable opponent (Kabul) with whom to compete for dominance.

Currently facing an opponent (the United States) that has already stipulated a timetable for withdrawal, the Taliban are in an enviable position. The United States has given itself an extremely aggressive and ambitious set of goals to be achieved in a very short period of time. If the Taliban can both survive and disrupt American efforts to lay the foundations for a U.S./NATO withdrawal, their prospects for ultimately achieving their aims increase dramatically.

And here the strategy to achieve their imperfectly defined objective begins to take shape. The Taliban have no intention of completely evaporating into the countryside, and they have every intention of continuing to harass International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops, inflicting casualties and raising the cost of continued occupation. In so doing, the Taliban not only retain their relevance but may also be able to hasten the withdrawal of foreign forces.

Judging from the initial phase of Operation Moshtarak in Marjah and what can likely be expected in similar offensives in other areas, the Taliban strategy toward the surge is: 1) largely decline combat but leave behind a force significant enough to render the securing phase as difficult as is possible for U.S.-led coalition forces by using hit-and-run tactics and planting improvised explosive devices; 2) once the coalition force becomes overwhelming, fall back and allow the coalition to set up shop and wage guerrilla and suicide attacks (though Mullah Omar has issued guidance that these attacks should be initiated only after approval at the highest levels in order to minimize civilian casualties). In all likelihood, this phase of the Taliban campaign would include attempts at intimidation and subversion against Afghan security forces.

Being a diffuse guerrilla movement, the Taliban will likely attempt to replicate this strategy as broadly as possible, forcing ISAF forces to expend more energy than they would prefer on holding ground while impeding the building and reconstruction phase, which will become increasingly difficult as coalition forces target more and more areas. The idea is that the locals who are already wary about relying on Kabul and its Western allies will then become even more disenchanted with the ability of the coalition to weaken the Taliban. However, the ISAF attempting to take control of key bases of support on which the Taliban have long relied, and the impact of these efforts on the Taliban will warrant considerable scrutiny.

For now, the Taliban appear to have lost interest in larger-scale attacks involving several hundred fighters being committed to a single objective. Though such attacks certainly garnered headlines, they were extremely costly in terms of manpower and materiel with little practical gain. And with old strongholds like Helmand province feeling the squeeze, there are certainly some indications that ISAF offensives are taking an appreciable bite out of the operational capabilities of at least the local Taliban commanders.

Conserving forces and minimizing risk to their core operational capability are parallel and interrelated considerations for the Taliban in terms of survival. If the recent assault on Marjah is any indication, the Taliban are adhering to these principles. While some fighters did dig in and fight and while resistance has stiffened — especially within the last week — the Taliban declined to make it a bloody compound-to-compound fight despite the favorable defensive terrain.

Similarly, the U.S. surge intends to make it hard for the Taliban to sustain — much less replace — manpower and materiel. Taliban tactics must be tailored to maximize damage to the enemy while minimizing costs, which drives the Taliban directly to hit-and-run tactics and the widespread use of improvised explosive devices.

There is little doubt that the Taliban will continue to inflict casualties in the coming year. But there is also considerable resolve behind the surge, which will not even be up to full strength until the summer and will be maintained until at least July 2011. Indeed, it is not clear if the Taliban can inflict enough casualties to alter the American timetable in its favor any further.

There is also the underlying issue of sustaining the resistance. Manpower and logistics are inescapable parts of warfare. Though the United States and its allies bear the heavier burden, the Taliban cannot ignore that it is losing key population centers and opium-growing areas central to recruitment, financing and sanctuary. The parallel crackdowns by the ISAF on the Afghan side of the border and the Pakistani crackdowns on the opposite side, where the Taliban has long enjoyed sanctuary, represent a significant challenge to the Taliban if the efforts can be sustained. Signs of a potential increase in cooperation and coordination between Washington and Islamabad could also be significant.

In other words, despite all its flaws, there is a coherency to what the United States is attempting to achieve. Success is anything but certain, but the United States does seek to make very real inroads against the core strength of the Taliban. One of those methods is to reduce the Taliban’s operational capability to the point where it will no longer have the capability to overwhelm Afghan security forces after the United States begins to draw down. There is no shortage of issues surrounding the U.S. objectives to train up the Afghan National Army and National Police, and it is not at all clear that even if those objectives are met that indigenous forces will be able to manage the Taliban.

But the Taliban must also deal with the logistical strain being imposed on it and strive to maintain its numbers and indigenous support. Central to this effort is the Taliban’s information operations (IO), conveying their message to the Afghan people. Thus far, the ISAF has been far behind the Taliban in such IO efforts, but as the coalition ratchets up the pressure, it remains to be seen whether the more abstract IO will be sufficient for sustaining hard logistical support, especially with pressure being applied on both sides of the border.

Similarly, there is the issue of internal coherency. Any insurgent movement must deal with not only the occupier but also other competing guerrillas and insurgents, whether their central focus is military power or ideological. The Taliban’s main competition is entrenched in the regime of President Hamid Karzai and among those in opposition to Karzai but part of the state; at issue are the Taliban’s sometimes loose affiliations with other Taliban elements and al Qaeda. The United States, the Karzai regime, Pakistan and al Qaeda are all seeking and applying leverage anywhere they can to hive off reconcilable elements of the Taliban.

The United States seeks to divide the pragmatic elements of the Taliban from the more ideological ones. The Karzai regime may be willing to deal with them in a more coherent fashion, but at the heart of all its considerations is the partially incompatible retention of its own power. Al Qaeda, with its own survival on the line, is seeking to draw the Taliban toward its transnational agenda. Meanwhile, Pakistan wants to bring the Taliban to heel, primarily so it can own the negotiating process and consolidate its position as the dominant power in Afghanistan, much as Iran seeks to do in Iraq. Each player has different motivations, objectives and timetables.

Amidst all these tensions, the Taliban must expend intelligence efforts and resources to maintain cohesion, despite being an inherently local and decentralized phenomenon. As Mullah Omar’s code of conduct released in July 2009demonstrates, “command” of the Taliban as an insurgent group is not as firm as it is in more rigid organizational hierarchies. The reconciliation efforts will certainly test the Taliban’s coherency.

If history is any judge, in the long run the Taliban will retain the upper hand. In Afghanistan, the United States is attempting to do something that has never been tried before — much less achieved — i.e., constitute a viable central government from scratch in the midst of a guerrilla war. But the Taliban must be concerned about the possibility that some aspects of the U.S. strategy may succeed. Central to the American effort will be Pakistan — and Islamabad is showing significant signs of wanting to work closer with Washington.

Summary
India’s insurgent-ridden northeastern region has long given foreign powers a gamut of exploitable secessionist movements to use to prevent India from emerging as a major global player. Though India has grown accustomed to the ongoing volatility in its northeastern corridor, growing Islamization in the region — spurred by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency and instability in neighboring Bangladesh — will give New Delhi a good reason to pay closer attention to its porous northeastern border.

Analysis
Northeastern India is a region wracked by secessionist violence, where wide networks of drug smuggling, extortion and arms trafficking run rampant. India has traditionally dealt with the myriad secessionist movements through force, fearing that any concessions made to one group would only exacerbate the others’ secessionist tendencies and further undermine the country’s territorial integrity.

The balkanization of the region and the constant drain on Indian resources required to deal with these rebel movements was all part of the United Kingdom’s blueprint for the Indian subcontinent to prevent its former colony from developing a strong national identity and emerging as a major Asiatic power. Up until the partition in 1947, the British played a major role in encouraging tribal, ethnic, religious and linguistic identities, and in isolating various tribal groups from the mainland and the plains areas in Assam for the British East India Co. to secure its commercial enterprise.
Pakistan did not hesitate to jump in where the British left off in the post-partition period, and has since used its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to fund, train and arm these rebel groups in order to keep India’s hands tied. The largest and most powerful of the northeast secessionist movements is the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). Once a student movement with populist aims to redistribute the state’s oil wealth, ULFA has gradually changed into what appears to be a moneymaking machine with a strong willingness to do the ISI’s bidding. ULFA runs an impressive extortion racket in the northeast, where Assam’s tea plantation owners and corporate leaders are regularly targeted.

The group maintains that its armed campaign will not let up until the Indian government engages it in unconditional peace talks. Yet, when New Delhi makes such an offer, ULFA usually responds with a bombing, as was the case in the April 9 bomb attack near Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s motorcade in the Assamese capital of Guwahati. ULFA’s leadership understands that New Delhi is not about to reward the armed movement with political concessions, and does not wish to disturb the financial networks it has running throughout the region. Moreover, to preserve their militant proxy, the group’s handlers in both Pakistan’s and Bangladesh’s intelligence services have told ULFA not to hold peace talks with the Indian government.

Pakistan’s ISI, in cooperation with Bangladesh’s Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), appears to be investing a considerable amount of resources in solidifying India’s militant corridor. There are growing indications that these two agencies are working clandestinely in Bangladesh to bring all the northeast-based insurgent outfits and jihadist elements under one umbrella. The ISI has facilitated cooperation between ULFA and other northeastern militant outfits with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, Islamist militant groups in Kashmir, Islamist groups in Bangladesh and a growing number of al Qaeda-linked jihadist groups operating in the region.

Religion, ethnicity and ideology lose relevance within this militant network, as each group has a common interest in furthering their militant and financial capabilities by working together. For example, Tigers cadres organize training camps in the northeast and use their maritime contacts to assist ULFA in transporting arms and narcotics up to Cambodia in ULFA-owned shrimp trawlers that operate out of Bangladesh’s Chittagong port. The Tigers have also been known to train Maoist rebels in Nepal and India at camps in the jungles of India’s eastern state of Bihar.

ULFA’s growing links with Bangladeshi Islamists and jihadist elements in the area are increasingly coming to light. The April 9 attack timed with Singh’s visit to Assam marked the group’s, a tactic that was pioneered by the Tigers (a non-Islamist, majority Hindu group) and has been frequently employed by Islamist militants. Prior to the attack, ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa warned that New Delhi’s offer for unconditional peace talks was not acceptable, and that that ULFA cadres “have reached such a stage they would strap bombs on their chest and attack.” ULFA’s adoption of suicide bombing looks to be the result of the group’s increased Islamization caused by collusion with Islamist outfits in the region. The bomber in the April 9 suicide attack was Ainul Ali, a Muslim. Indian security sources revealed that ULFA did not have many Muslim cadres in its fold in the past, but the increasing flow of Bangladeshi refugees across the border has given the group more — and more capable — members willing to sacrifice their lives for the group’s cause with nudging from the ISI.

Collaboration between ULFA and the Islamist militants will expand further, as political conditions in Bangladesh appear to be indirectly contributing to the empowerment of Islamists there. Using the Pakistani military regime as an example, Bangladeshi army chief Lt. Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed is reasserting the army in Bangladeshi politics — which have long suffered from a bitter political feud between the family dynasties represented by the Awami League, led by Sheikh Hasina, and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by Begum Khaleda Zia. With both party leaders driven into exile, a political vacuum has started to take root in the country, and Bangladesh’s Islamist parties are anxiously waiting to fill it.

India will be taking note of these political developments in Dhaka, though there is not much New Delhi can or wants to do to intervene. As a result, New Delhi is facing a bleak situation in which the ISI’s maneuvers and Bangladesh’s political troubles are sure to further constrain India’s ability to dig itself out of the militant trap Pakistan has set.

Posted via email from Jay’s Blogs

Summary

The United States is in the process of sending some 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, and once they have all arrived the American contingent will total nearly 100,000. This will be in addition to some 40,000 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) personnel. The counterinsurgency to which these troops are committed involves three principal players: the United States, the Taliban and Pakistan. In the first of a three-part series, STRATFOR examines the objectives and the military/political strategy that will guide the U.S./ISAF effort in the coming years.

  Analysis
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the United States entered Afghanistan to conduct a limited war with a limited objective: defeat al Qaeda and prevent Afghanistan from ever again serving as a sanctuary for any transnational terrorist group bent on attacking the United States. STRATFOR has long held that the former goal has been achieved, in effect, and what remains of al Qaeda prime — the group’s core leadership — is not in Afghanistan but across the border in Pakistan. While pressure must be kept on that leadership to prevent the group from regaining its former operational capability, this is an objective very different from the one the United States and ISAF are currently pursuing.
The current U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is to use military force, as the United States did in Iraq, to reshape the political landscape. Everyone from President Barack Obama to Gen. Stanley McChrystal has made it clear that the United States has no interest in making the investment of American treasure necessary to carry out a decade-long (or longer) counterinsurgency and nation-building campaign. Instead, the United States has found itself in a place in which it has found itself many times before: involved in a conflict for which its original intention for entering no longer holds and without a clear strategy for extricating itself from that conflict.   This is not about “winning” or “losing.” The primary strategic goal of the United States in Afghanistan has little to do with the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. That may be an important means but it is not a strategic end. With a resurgent Russia, a perpetually defiant Iran and an ongoing global financial crisis — not to mention profound domestic pressures at home — the grand strategic objective of the United States in Afghanistan must ultimately be withdrawal. This does not mean total withdrawal. Advisers and counterterrorism forces are indeed likely to remain in Afghanistan for some time. But the European commitment to the war is waning fast, and the United States has felt the strain of having its ground combat forces almost completely absorbed far too long.
To facilitate that withdrawal, the United States is trying to establish sustainable conditions — to the extent possible — that are conducive to longer-term U.S. interests in the region. Still paramount among these interests is sanctuary denial, and the United States has no intention of leaving Afghanistan only to watch it again become a haven for transnational terrorists. Hence, it is working now to shape conditions on the ground before leaving.   Immediate and total withdrawal would surrender the country to the Taliban at a time when the Taliban’s power is already on the rise. Not only would this give the movement that was driven from power in Kabul in 2001 an opportunity to wage a civil war and attempt to regain power (the Taliban realizes that returning to its status in the 1990s is unlikely), it would also leave a government in Kabul with little real control over much of the country, relieving the pressure on al Qaeda in the Afghan-Pakistani border region and emboldening parallel insurgencies in Pakistan.   The United States is patently unwilling to commit the forces necessary to impose a military reality on Afghanistan (likely half a million troops or more, though no one really knows how many it would take, since it has never been done). Instead, military force is being applied in order to break cycles of violence, rebalance the security dynamic in key areas, shift perceptions and carve out space in which a political accommodation can take place.  

  In terms of military strategy, this means clearing, holding and building (though there is precious little time for building) in key population centers and Taliban strongholds like Helmand province. The idea is to secure the population from Taliban intimidation while denying the Taliban key bases of popular support (from which it draws not only safe haven but also recruits and financial resources). The ultimate goal is to create reasonably secure conditions under which popular support of provincial and district governments can be encouraged without the threat of reprisal and from which effective local security forces can deploy to establish long-term control.   The key aspect of this strategy is — working in conjunction with and expanding Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) forces to establish security and increasingly take the lead in day-to-day security operations. (The term was coined in the early 1970s, when U.S. President Richard Nixon drew down the American involvement in Vietnam by transitioning the ground combat role to Vietnamese forces.) In any counterinsurgency, effective indigenous forces are more valuable, in many ways, than foreign troops, which are less sensitive to cultural norms and local nuances and are seen by the population as outsiders.   But the real objective of the military strategy in Afghanistan is political. Gen. McChrystal has even said explicitly that he believes “that a political solution to all conflicts is the inevitable outcome.” Though the objective of the use of military force almost always comes down to political goals, the kind of campaign being conducted in Afghanistan is particularly challenging. The goal is not the complete destruction of the enemy’s will and ability to resist (as it was, for example, in World War II). In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, the objective is far more subtle than that: It is to use military force to reshape the political landscape. The key challenge in Afghanistan is that the insurgents — the Taliban — are not a small group of discrete individuals like the remnants of al Qaeda prime. The movement is diffuse and varied, itself part of the political landscape that must be reshaped, and the entire movement cannot be removed from the equation.   At this point in the campaign, there is wide recognition that some manner of accommodation with at least portions of the Taliban is necessary to stabilize the situation. The overall intent would be to degrade popular support for the Taliban and hive off reconcilable elements in order to further break apart the movement and make the ongoing security challenges more manageable. Ultimately, it is hoped, enough Taliban militants will be forced to the negotiating table to reduce the threat to the point where indigenous Afghan forces can keep a lid on the problem with minimal support.
Meanwhile, attempts at reaching out to the Taliban are now taking place on multiple tracks. In addition to efforts by the Karzai government, Washington has begun to support Saudi, Turkish and Pakistani efforts. At the moment, however, few Taliban groups seem to be in the mood to talk. At the very least they are playing hard to get, hinting at talks but maintaining the firm stance that full withdrawal of U.S. and ISAF forces is a precondition for negotiations.   The current U.S./NATO strategy faces several key challenges:
For one thing, the Taliban are working on a completely different timeline than the United States, which — even separating itself from many of its anxious-to-withdraw NATO allies — is poised to begin drawing down forces in less than 18 months. While this is less of a fixed timetable than it appears (beginning to draw down from nearly 100,000 U.S. and nearly 40,000 ISAF troops in mid-2011 could still leave more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan well into 2012), the Taliban are all too aware of Washington’s limited commitment.   Then there are the intelligence issues:

• One of the inherent problems with the Vietnamization of a conflict is operational security and the reality that it is easy for insurgent groups to penetrate and compromise foreign efforts to build effective indigenous forces. In short, U.S./ ISAF efforts with Afghan forces are relatively easy for the Taliban to compromise, while U.S./ISAF efforts to penetrate the Taliban are exceedingly difficult.
• U.S. Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, the top intelligence officer in Afghanistan who is responsible for both ISAF and separate U.S. efforts, published a damning indictment of intelligence activity in the country last month and has moved to reorganize and refocus those efforts more on understanding the cultural terrain in which the United States and ISAF are operating. But while this shift will improve intelligence operations in the long run, the shake-up is taking place amid a surge of combat troops and ongoing offensive operations. Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, and Gen. McChrystal have both made it clear that the United States lacks the sophisticated understanding of the various elements of the Taliban necessary to identify the potentially reconcilable elements. This is a key weakness in a strategy that ultimately requires such reconciliation (though it is unlikely to disrupt counterterrorism and the hunting of high-value targets).

The United States and ISAF are also struggling with information operations (IO), failing to effectively convey messages to and shape the perceptions of the Afghan people. Currently, the Taliban have the upper hand in terms of IO and have relatively little problem disseminating messages about U.S./ISAF activities and its own goals. The implication of this is that, in the contest over the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, the Taliban are winning the battle of perception.

  The training of the ANA and ANP is also at issue. Due to attrition, tens of thousands of new recruits are necessary each year simply to maintain minimum numbers, much less add to the force. Goals for the size of the ANA and ANP are aggressive, but how quickly these goals can be achieved and the degree to which problems of infiltration can be managed — as well as the level of infiltration that can be tolerated while retaining reasonable effectiveness — all remain to be seen. In addition, loyalty to a central government has no cultural precedent in Afghanistan. The lack of a coherent national identity means that, while there are good reasons for young Afghan men to join up (a livelihood, tribal loyalty), there is no commitment to a national Afghan campaign. There are concerns that the Afghan security forces, left to their own devices, would simply devolve into militias along ethnic, tribal, political and ideological lines. Thus the sustainability of gains in the size and effectiveness of the ANA and ANP remains questionable.   This strategy also depends a great deal on the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, over which U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry has expressed deep concern. The Karzai government is widely accused of rampant corruption and of having every intention of maintaining a heavy dependency on the United States. Doubts are often expressed about Karzai’s intent and ability to be an effective partner in the military-political efforts now under way in his country.   While the United States has already made significant inroads against the Taliban in Helmand province, insurgents there are declining to fight and disappearing into the population. It is natural for an insurgency to fall back in the face of concentrated force and rise again when that force is removed, and the durability of these American gains could prove illusory. As Maj. Gen. Flynn’s criticism demonstrates, the Pentagon is acutely aware of challenges it faces in Afghanistan. It is fair to say that the United States is pursuing the surge with its eyes open to inherent weaknesses and challenges. The question is: Can those challenges be overcome in a war-torn country with a long and proven history of insurgency?

Posted via email from Jay’s Blogs

At War With Islam by Martel Sobieskey
Originally posted at Right Truth July 4, 2008  America is at war with the religion of Islam. The key word here is religion. We American’s have a “mental block” that causes us to deny that we are fighting a religion. Take an atomic bomb write the letters R-E-L-I-G-I-O-N on it and we, gullible Americans, will welcome it as a religion. This statement is not entirely an exaggeration. Freedom of religion has become America’s “Achilles heel” stabbed through with the sword of Islam. From where does this “suicidal” freedom of religion “mental block” originate? It comes from our “knee jerk” compulsion to blindly believe that all prophets are extreme pacifists like Jesus. This blindness plagues the highest levels of our leadership, intelligence and academic communities. It is a national security disaster making it nearly impossible to protect ourselves. The killers are shouting Allah Akbar worldwide and carrying the Koran, yet we Americans refuse to identify Islam as the enemy.
  Let’s call it America’s “freedom of religion ostrich syndrome”. Our enemies “love it” because they can destroy us by hiding under the cover of a religion. They blow us up, vilify us, file lawsuits, teach anti-American Jihad in their mosques and schools, while we Americans assume the fetal position because it’s committed by a religion. Even the FBI has been promoting Islamic sensitivity training, this tells it all. Does not such servile behavior prove that we have lost the ideological war, mental war, psychological war, war of ideas, war of words, and the propaganda war? Please heed my prediction: Every time someone calls Islam the religion of Peace, America is one step closer to defeat and Islam one step closer to victory in this clash of religions.
 
Fellow Americans this is a clash of religions, and you must stop denying that we are fighting the religion of Islam. Basically the war is Islam versus all other religions worldwide as required by the Koran. Since there are 1 billion Muslims and 5.5 billion infidels, this war will be easy to win if we “get with it” and clearly identify the enemy and “shout it from the roof tops”. Why don’t Americans do so? The shameful disgrace is that Islamic oil money has silenced if not “bought” America over the past 30 years. Steven Emerson’s book, “Jihad Incorporated” shockingly reveals the extent of Jihadist infiltration into America. He states, “Open societies are inherently and necessarily at a disadvantage in providing a secure environment.” Likewise middle east expert Dr. Walid Phares of FDD (Foundation for Defense of Democracies) and author of “Future Jihad” states:

“I have seen firsthand how Jihadist ideologies have systematically penetrated the United States . . . This web of ideological penetration is the most dangerous long-term threat to U.S. national security . . . The reasoning is rational: Once you control the mind, the body will follow.”
 

I agree with both Steven Emerson and Dr. Phares. The Jihadists and traitors within are controlling the mind of America; there is no greater proof of this than our collective compulsion which forces us to call Islam the Religion of Peace which in turn prevents us from designating Islam as the enemy.
  In a similar perspective, Dr. William Gawthrop, (former manager of the defense department’s Counter Intelligence Field Activity-CIFA), explains it is a taboo to mention that Islamic violence has anything to do with the religion of Islam. Specifically he states: “Officials must first overcome the political taboo of linking Islamic violence to the religion of Islam, its sacred scripture, and the personal example of its revered prophet.”   In other words, this taboo requires one and all to blindly proclaim that Islam is a religion of peace, which is equivalent to saying that Mohammed was an extreme pacifist, just like Jesus. What a crying shame that our leaders and experts have become so intellectually dishonest and weak minded. Today’s Muslims, like Muslims of all time, emulate Mohammed not Jesus.
 
The problem is MOHAMMED WAS NOT A PACIFIST. Mohammed was a military tyrant who fought “hands on” in several blood thirsty raids, and mercilessly killed nearly all those who disagreed with him. It is a concrete historical fact that over a 10 year period, called the Hijra (622-632), Mohammed conducted 84 murderous raids proving he is the exact opposite of a peaceful prophet. Author Dr. Gregory Davis in “The Religion of Peace?” provides excellent insight into Islamic aggression.
  Despite obvious facts, we Americans respond pathetically and irrationally; like naïve children we think, “How can this be? Jesus is a prophet and he was never violent, and since Mohammed is also a prophet he likewise must never have been violent”. Wake up America, Mohammed and Jesus were polar opposites. Don’t take my word on it. Please read, the 800 page biography of Mohammed (Sirat Rasul Allah) written by Ibn Ishag and translated by A. Guillaumne, it incontrovertibly proves that Mohammed was a military tyrant bent upon bloodthirsty worldwide imperialistic Jihad.
 
To know and understand ones enemy and to clearly identify the enemy is the primary dictum of warfare. Our leaders and experts have failed in their duty to identify the enemy. They keep calling the enemy “terrorism”. Terrorism is not the enemy. The enemy is Islam. Islam uses terrorism (guerilla warfare) as a method (tactic) to attack us. The enemy is the “entity” implementing the method of terrorism. For example, if someone is throwing rotten eggs at you, it is not the “rotten eggs” but rather the “person” throwing them who is the enemy.   It is an outrage, that the majority of our leaders and experts think like overly genteel and sissified school boys who are too spineless if not politically cowardly (P.C.) to call anyone an enemy — no matter how blatantly obvious it is. For example, take Dr. Angel Rabasa and his colleagues of the highly acclaimed Rand Corporation, he states: “In the Global War on Terrorism, the United States is confronting a very different type of enemy: shadowy non-state actors that are not subject to traditional means of deterrence. . . It is unclear what targets, if any, the United States could hold at risk to deter attack.”
 
Wrong! Once again, the enemy is not terrorism. Rabasa proves his ineptness by stating the “Global War on Terrorism” meaning he cannot distinguish between a rotten egg and the person who has thrown it.
  By refusing to identify the enemy as Islam, Angel Rabasa and Rand Corporation, have thereby swallowed the bait of Islamic deception by promoting a strategy called, “Building Moderate Muslim Networks”. This means they have unwittingly become Jihadist propagandists promoting Islam’s primary method for defeating us which is: the infiltrations and deceptions utilized by moderate Muslims. Sure, moderate Muslims are not suicide bombers, but they have accomplished even greater damage by manipulating our overly liberal laws and naiveté. This is why it is so terribly wrong to call terrorism the enemy, because doing so completely ignores the damage being committed by Islam’s peaceful invaders the so called moderate Muslims.
 
I do not mean to pick on Rabasa alone. Permit me to give the following two criteria for determining an expert’s competence: First: Anyone who calls the enemy terrorism rather than the religion of Islam is incompetent and should be fired from his job. Second: Anyone who calls Islam a Religion of peace is incompetent or an outright enemy propagandist or badly informed regarding Islamic religious conditioning.
 
Why have our leaders and experts become so blind? They are afflicted with the Oslo Syndrome meaning they are pathologically unable to evaluate the crimes committed by Islam to the extent they are going to get us all killed. Dr. Kenneth Levin in his book the “The Oslo Syndrome” explains that those afflicted with the syndrome live in absolute denial of the blatant fraud and egregious dishonesty that Muslims employ by making counterfeit peace agreements. For many, such relentless mockery proves that diplomacy has failed long ago and war is the necessary solution. Everyone should read chapters 12 thru 16 of Dr. Levin’s book. The pervasively masochistic behavior documented within proves that our leaders and experts have been leading us into defeat. The Oslo syndrome has now morphed into the Annapolis syndrome. Here we go round and round again!
 
Truly, we need face the fact that moderate Muslims are more difficult to find than “a needle in the haystack”. We are at war and the brutal realties must not be soft peddled. Please consider the following distinction: The militant Muslim is the person cutting the head off the infidel while the moderate Muslim holds the victims feet. During 9/11 the trade towers were the “head” cut off by the militants, while the moderate Mosque community “held the victim’s feet”. Please reflect deeply on this analogy. History proves that both militant and moderate Muslims are invaders working as a team to conqueror America. This is clearly articulated by Abdullah-Al-Araby in his book “The Islamization of America.”

Please mark my words, calling Islam a religion of peace is patently dishonest and the worst ideological mistake in American history. It truly is our “Achilles heel” as before mention. No wonder Dr. Paul Williams states in his book “The Dunces of Doomsday”: “The Day after 9/11, President Bush promulgated the granddaddy of all whoppers by saying, “Islam is a religion of Peace.”
 
I have great respect for President Bush and support him wholeheartedly because he is the first President having the guts to fight the Islamists since President Thomas Jefferson sent our Navy to Tripoli in 1803. The problem is President Bush has invalidated his own war efforts by this ideological error, that is, his administration’s obsession for calling Islam a Religion of Peace. The truth must be told: Islam is a Religion of War and the evidence proving this fact is piled a mile high right up to 9/11. A website site sarcastically named The Religion of Peace ( www.thereligionofpeace.com ) lists the thousands of Islamic murders and atrocities committed worldwide.
  In conclusion, permit me to make this prediction: The war cannot be won unless we clearly identify the enemy as Islam, and the American government makes a formal declaration of war against the Religion of Islam. That’s right; this will be a new thing for Americans who wrongly believe that all religions are benign!
 
In numerous places worldwide the murderers are shouting Allah Akbar and carrying the Koran, yet we Americans fool heartedly provide unrestricted freedom of religion to Islam - oblivious to the carnage. This oblivion was the root cause of 9/11 and has sent us spinning headlong toward a nuclear Islamic terrorist attack on American soil which the Islamo-fascists have been bragging about for nearly 10 years.

Martel Sobieskey has 35 years research experience in the field of religious conditioning and its relationship to warfare. He is greatly alarmed that American politicians, educators, journalists, intelligence analysts, security personnel and police have failed to comprehend the deeply entrenched Jihadist conditioning inherent in all of Islam, moderates included.

Posted via email from Jay’s Blogs

Dawood Ibrahim, one of Asia’s most notorious mafia dons and India’s version of Osama bin Laden, is emerging as a key suspect in the funding and logistical support for the November 26 terrorist strike on Mumbai.
 
Ibrahim, who tops the Mumbai police list of its 44 most wanted criminals, is among 20 fugitives India has asked Pakistan to extradite following the multiple attacks in Mumbai that killed nearly 200.

  Pakistan, as it did with a similar list received after terrorists assaulted India’s parliament in 2001, has refused to deport the fugitives, or even acknowledge their presence in the country.   The “most wanted” list reflects a deadly South Asian stew of terrorist organization chieftains, crime gang bosses, murderers, hijackers and violent leaders of separatist groups.   If Pakistan extradited Ibrahim, an Interpol-listed criminal, it may ease tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. If not to India, Pakistan could hand him over to Interpol, or the US, where enforcement authorities want him as one of the world’s most dangerous drug lords. Such a move would mollify India’s public anger against Pakistan’s inactivity.
The catch is that India’s most infamous mafia boss has stories that powerbrokers on both sides of the border might not want the world to hear. Therein lies a reason why Ibrahim apparently continues to live lavishly – alternating between Karachi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, according to various reports including from the Pakistan media.   Even as Pakistani authorities claim ignorance of Ibrahim’s whereabouts, his family is well settled in Pakistan society. Dawood’s eldest daughter Mahrukh married Junaid Miandad, eldest son of well-known former Pakistan cricket captain Javed Miandad in July 2005. Javed Miandad is now the newly appointed director-general of the Pakistan Cricket Board.
The boss of “D” Company, as India calls Dawood Ibrahim’s global criminal organization, is the main suspect in the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai that killed over 300. He has been accused of executing the attack in collusion with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).   Ibrahim is also suspected of orchestrating the November 26 terrorist strikes in Mumbai through a businessman in Saudi Arabia said to be his frontman.
The Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists set sail from Karachi to Mumbai in the ship MV Alpha, allegedly an Ibrahim-owned vessel. After being warned of Indian navy patrols along the Indian coast, the LET terrorists hijacked an Indian fishing trawler, Kuber, and murdered its crew except for the navigator, Amarsinh Solanki.   The terrorists slit Solanki’s throat five nautical miles off the Indian coast – the Indian Navy found his body aboard the abandoned trawler with his hands tied behind his back. Later, they linked up with an Ibrahim gang member in Mumbai who provided them motorized inflatable rubber dinghies in which they landed ashore after 9pm on November 26. Within 30 minutes, they struck pre-determined targets in South Mumbai starting with the Leopold Cafe in Colaba.   The Mumbai police’s Crime Branch has yet to make any official statement on “D” Company’s alleged involvement in the terrorist attacks. Still, there is unofficial tacit admission from present and retired police officials that the attacks could not have been carried out without Ibrahim’s involvement.   “The Dawood Ibrahim involvement comes under criminal intelligence and none speaks whoever has it,” Kiran Bedi, a former inspector General of Police and special commissioner of Police Intelligence, told Asia Times Online. Bedi, one of Asia’s most distinguished female police officers and 1994 Magsaysay Award winner, was a prominent voice within the Indian police until she retired in 2007. “The only other option is the media’s investigators who may have covered him in the past and are still on the person concerned,” she said.
Some senior Indian Coast Guard officials have privately admitted to Mumbai journalists of Ibrahim’s hand in the terrorist attacks, saying nobody knows the sea around Mumbai better than the man who controls smuggling off Mumbai’s coast. The LET terrorists used resources provided by one of Ibrahim’s pointmen in Mumbai, who is said to be a major smuggler of diesel, drugs and petroleum products along India’s western coast.   Ibrahim’s involvement featured in a media briefing at the White House on December 1, even as US President George W Bush was in the Situations Room receiving an update on the Mumbai attacks. Press Secretary Dana Perino neither denied nor confirmed Ibrahim’s role in the attacks, though she pointedly picked at the reference to him in a long-winded question from one of the reporters present.   Fifty-two-year old Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar has 26 aliases – from Abdhul Hamid Aziz to Sheik Ibrahim – and is known to have used at least 11 passports. He started as small-time smuggler of gold and silver nearly 30 years ago in Mumbai. Standing 5-feet, 4-inches, the diminutive son of a police constable gradually built a worldwide criminal network said to number around 1,500. His path to power has been littered with accusations of extortion, murder contracts, counterfeit currency printing, smuggling, gambling, narcotics and international cricket match-fixing.   Mumbai police officials in the Crime Branch have long been aware of Ibrahim’s heavy investment in real estate and the production of Bollywood movies. Police said “D” Company men in Mumbai recently sent Ibrahim US$24 million from real estate transactions.
The US government set its sights on Ibrahim on October 16, 2003, with the US Treasury Department marking him as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist”. “For the Ibrahim syndicate, the business of terrorism forms part of their larger criminal enterprise, which must be dismantled,” said Juan Zarate, the US deputy assistant secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, while releasing Executive Order 13224.   On June 1, 2006, the US Statement on “Presidential Designation of Foreign Narcotics Kingpins”, named Ibrahim among “significant foreign narcotics traffickers, their organizations and operatives worldwide” who were to be “denied access to the US financial system and all trade and transactions involving US companies and individuals”.
Ibrahim’s involvement in the Mumbai terrorist attacks may have already been known to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as early as September. According to information now circulating among the global intelligence community, US signals intelligence (SIGINT) spotted a sharp increase in “chatter” from Pakistan that indicated an operation was cooking. Field agents confirmed suspicions.   In mid-September, the CIA station chief in New Delhi met his Indian counterpart of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s overseas spy agency. The CIA station chief is said to have specifically revealed that the Lashkar-e-Taiba was planning a major attack that would come from the sea.   As late as November 18, RAW intercepted a satellite phone call made to a number in Lahore, Pakistan, often used by Yusuf Muzammil, the military commander of LET. The caller informed his Pakistan-based handlers that he was heading for Mumbai with unspecified “cargo”, in the ship belonging to Ibrahim.   When Interpol on July 21, 2006, arrested a leading Lashkar-e-Taiba operative, Syed Abdul Karim, in Mombassa, on the East African coast, Indian and US intelligence agents pointed to Ibrahim’s growing connections with Pakistan-based terror groups such as the LET and Harkat ul-Jihad Islami, as well as al-Qaeda. Ibrahim is suspected of renting out his vast smuggling network, and resources such as ships, material and corrupt officials, to terrorist groups worldwide.   Following his trail, Mumbai police on December 2 interrogated “D” Company gangsters in Arthur Road Jail. Those questioned included Ibrahim henchman Abu Salem, Mustafa Dossa and Salim Fruit. The outcome of the interrogations is not yet publicly known, but one account claims that incarcerated “D” Company gangsters are now “terrified”.
Where is Dawood Ibrahim? According to Mumbai police, his last known city address is “33/36, Pakmodiya street, Haji Ismail, Musafirkhana, Dongri, Mumbai”.   An Interpol-United Nations Security Council Special Notice QI K 135 03, maintained by the UN Security Council al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee (1267 Committee), gives Dawood Ibrahim’s address as “White House, near Saudi Mosque, Clifton, Karachi.”
Karachi-based newspaper Newsline reported in a September 2001 cover story titled “Karachi’s Gang Wars” that two rival underworld gangs in the city were both working for Ibrahim.   “After the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts, Dawood Ibrahim and his team have made Karachi their new home and base of operations,” the Karachi Newsline report said. “Living under fake names and IDs, and provided protection by government agencies, they have built up their underworld empire in Karachi employing local talent like Shoaib and Bholoo.”
But Pakistan leaders, including current President Asif Zardari, have for years dismissed Ibrahim’s presence in Pakistan. Zardari even termed Dawood “a phantom created by India”.
Even so, a US Office of Foreign Assets Control statement from June 1, 2006 listed at least four addresses for Dawood Ibrahim in Karachi, Pakistan:
- 617 CP Berar Society, Block 7-8, Karachi
- House No. 37, Street 30, Phase V, Defense Housing Authority, Karachi
- House No. 10, Hill Top Arcade, Defense Housing Authority, Karachi
- Moin Palace, 2nd Floor, Opp Abdullah Shah Gazi Dargah, Clifton, Karachi   The Foreign Assets Control list also included Ibrahim’s Dubai address: White House, Al-Wassal Road, Jumeira, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.   “Dawood’s underworld connects and business ventures are extensive,” according to Lahore-based Pakistan journalist Amir Mir. “And he sublets his name in Pakistan, Thailand, South Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries, to franchises in the fields of drug trafficking and gambling dens.”   Another Pakistan journalist Ghulam Hasnain described Ibrahim’s life as a “king” in Karachi: “His home is a palatial house spread over 6,000 square yards, boasting a pool, tennis courts, snooker room and a private, hi-tech gym. He wears designer clothes, drives top-of-the-line Mercedes and luxurious four-wheel drives, sports a half-a-million rupee Patek Phillipe wristwatch, and showers money on starlets and prostitutes.”   The Karachi-based Hasnain explains why Ibrahim is valuable to the ISI and the army: “Dawood is Pakistan’s number one espionage operative. His men in Mumbai help him get whatever information he needs for Pakistan. Rumor has it that sometimes his men in Karachi accompany Pakistani intelligence agents to the airports to scan arriving passengers and identify RAW agents.”   Hasnain even claims Dawood once rescued Pakistan’s Central Bank during a crisis by providing a huge loan. For now, as international patience wears thin, Pakistan could rescue itself from a worsening crisis by handing over Dawood Ibrahim to Interpol or US law enforcement agencies, if not directly to India.

Posted via email from Jay’s Blogs

The Fort Hood shooter showed signs of being a radical scum sucking Jihad for years, and yet it was ignored by the military because they didn’t want to offend Muslims, so instead we ended up with this massacre. What kind of sense does that make? Are we out to get ourselves killed as a country? Are we trying to commit national suicide?This politically correct BS has got to stop before it ends up getting us all killed. I mean give me a break, the guy was in our military and yet he basically campaigned against the actions of our military; he was a traitor. If that was not enough reason to banish him from the military,and maybe to even put him in the brig, then I don’t know what would be.What will it take for us as a country to wake up? Will it take another series of attacks like the ones that happened on 9/11? Or will the next attack be so big that we will not be able to wake up after it even if we wanted to?

Posted via email from Jay’s Blogs

“Indisputable evidence now shows CAIR and other “mainstream” Islamic groups are acting as fronts for a well-funded conspiracy of the Muslim Brotherhood – the parent of al-Qaida and Hamas – to infiltrate and destroy the American system.” CAIR is a qualified receiver of charitable dollars or “zakat” through Islamic Charities.
WorldNetDaily
October 14, 2009
By Art Moore
Washington, D.C.
In the wake of the sensational ACORN video sting operation by two young investigators, an even more daring and devastating undercover investigation – this one infiltrating the nation’s most aggressive Muslim “civil rights” organization for six months – has produced stunning revelations about the supposedly “moderate” group, backed up by 12,000 pages of documents obtained during the secret op.
As revealed in a new book detailing the operation and its findings, the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, is not the beneficent Muslim civil-rights group it claims to be. Indisputable evidence now shows CAIR and other “mainstream” Islamic groups are acting as fronts for a well-funded conspiracy of the Muslim Brotherhood – the parent of al-Qaida and Hamas – to infiltrate and destroy the American system.
Until now, CAIR has remained a powerful force in the nation’s capital and across the country, from demanding the Obama administration stop FBI counter-terrorism tactics to compelling a school district to apologize to Muslims.
That influence, many believe, may be coming to an end, as a result of the undercover investigation – which included the son of a veteran counter-terrorism investigator, who grew a beard and converted to Islam, as well as two veiled female interns.
“Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America,” a WND Books publication by counter-terrorism investigator P. David Gaubatz and “Infiltration” author Paul Sperry, documents CAIR’s ultimate purpose to transform the United States into an Islamic nation under the authority of the Quran.
The book already has prompted action on Capitol Hill.
With evidence from “Muslim Mafia” in hand, U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., co-founder of the Congressional Anti-Terror Caucus, and other members of Congress – including Reps. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., and Paul Broun, R-Ga. – plan to hold a press conference today in Washington calling for an investigation and an end to political lobbying by front groups such as CAIR.

“Now we have proof – from the secret documents that this investigative team has uncovered, coupled with the ones recently declassified by the FBI – that [radical Islamist] agents living among us have a plan in place, and they are successfully carrying out that subversive plan,” Myrick writes in the foreword to “Muslim Mafia.”
Noting that CAIR has tried to hide its strategy, finances, membership, internal disputes and much more from public view since its founding in 1994, Islam expert Daniel Pipes lauded “Muslim Mafia” for definitively exposing the “tawdry and possibly illegal inner workings of radical Islam’s most aggressive organization in North America.”
“The revelations in this book should both put CAIR out of business and permanently discredit the Islamist cause,” Pipes said.   Undercover
The book begins as a real-life, heart-pounding thriller, with Chris Gaubatz, the son of co-author David Gaubatz, preparing to go underground as an intern for CAIR at its Herndon, Va., office.   Astoundingly, the younger Gaubatz, posing as a bearded Muslim convert, ends up with a position at CAIR’s national office in Washington, just three blocks from the U.S. Capitol building, working alongside top leaders Ibrahim Hooper, Nihad Awad and Corey Saylor.
Along with declassified government documents, the book unveils thousands of e-mails, faxes and internal memos that were never meant for public viewing.   The new evidence shows that CAIR – already designated an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror-financing case in U.S. history – is part of an organized crime network in America made up of more than 100 other Muslim front groups that collectively comprise the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.   “Muslim Mafia” also exposes the inner workings of the mob-like Brotherhood and explains its broader conspiracy of infiltrating the American government and “destroying Western civilization from within.”   “The evidence found in the investigation is incontrovertible,” said co-author Sperry, noting that the book has more than 40 pages of footnotes and an appendix with more than 50 pages of exclusive confidential documents.   The Brotherhood is known within Islamist circles as the “Ikhwan mafia” because of its highly organized structure, centralized control and covert operations. CAIR, reveals “Muslim Mafia,” is one part of the network of front groups, cut-outs and shell companies that shield the Brotherhood’s criminal activities from authorities.   “These guys talk about jihad and murdering Jews like the mob talked about killing – totally casual, like they were ordering pizza,” said one FBI official in Washington quoted in the book.   Some key smoking-gun revelations detailed in “Muslim Mafia” include:

• New evidence that CAIR was launched to support the Hamas terrorist group, and has transferred tens of thousands of dollars to a group recently convicted as Hamas’ top fundraising arm in the U.S. – money that ended up aiding terrorist attacks on Israelis and Americans;
• Internal documents showing CAIR, despite claims of cooperating with law enforcement, actively works behind the scenes to mislead and deceive the FBI on behalf of terrorism suspects – and has even cultivated Muslim moles inside law enforcement who have tipped off FBI terror targets;
• CAIR is more closely tied to al-Qaida than previously reported;
• CAIR claims to represent all Muslim Americans; however, it has victimized some 100 indigent Muslims in a massive fraud and threatened them when they tried to go to the media; and internally, personnel complaints reveal CAIR discriminates against Shiite Muslims and Muslim women within its own headquarters;
• CAIR and its sister fronts are funded by foreign Muslim Brotherhood sources;
• CAIR leaders share the Muslim Brotherhood’s ultimate goal to replace the U.S. Constitution with Shariah law:
• The Muslim Brotherhood investment in corporate America will be used to pressure U.S. companies into compliance with Islamic principles.

The book also shows radical Muslims in the U.S. are working to support Palestinian terrorists, destroy Israel, gut U.S. anti-terrorism laws, loosen U.S. Muslim immigration policies and convert Americans to Islam.

The authors explain they targeted CAIR because it helps control the “religious crime syndicate from its power base in Washington, the capitol of the same government it wishes to overthrow.”   While the FBI has cut formal ties to CAIR in the wake of its designation as an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to fund the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, the group has virtually unfettered access to Capitol Hill and continues to wield influence in the White House.   CAIR, the book reveals, regularly reserves meeting rooms and prays Fridays alongside Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and a growing number of Muslim staffers.
The first Muslim elected to Congress and a de facto CAIR board member, Ellison predicted in one CAIR power breakfast he soon would be flanked by 15 other Muslim congressmen, “Muslim Mafia” notes.   Chris Gaubatz, in fact, once found himself praying elbow-to-elbow with Ellison during a Friday prayer gathering attended by CAIR inside the U.S. Capitol.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the book says, is totally in the dark about the threat, and so is the White House.   In fact, reveals “Muslim Mafia,” in the White House President Obama is hiring Muslims – including an adviser who advocates compliance with Shariah law – based on resumes solicited from Muslim Brotherhood fronts.   Meanwhile, the FBI is in conflict internally about how to deal with the Brotherhood, with some top officials in favor of maintaining outreach, while counter-terror case agents in the field strongly object, pointing to evidence the network is a factory for homegrown terror and is secretly carrying out activities hostile to the U.S.   “They’ve achieved outrageous penetration at senior levels of our government,” veteran FBI special agent John Guandolo warns in the book.   Until recently, the FBI engaged in outreach activities with CAIR, including forcing rookie agents to take cultural field trips to area mosques.   The “Muslim Mafia” authors obtained notes revealing the FBI even has offered to sponsor Muslim youth camps with the Boys Clubs of America.   A shortage of Arab linguists and dozens of discrimination suits by Arab and Muslim employees have prompted the FBI to recruit from Brotherhood-related groups, such as the Islamic Society of North America.   A Muslim agent who drew national attention when he refused to tape-record a fellow Muslim during a terrorism investigation was promoted and now recruits other Muslims to become agents and linguists.   ‘Hit sheets’

The book also presents evidence CAIR has prepared “hit sheets” on its critics in the news media in an effort to intimidate them into silence.   Internal memos show, for example, top officials privately met with CNN executives in Atlanta to press them to cancel Glenn Beck’s program on its Headline News network. Beck now has a highly rated afternoon show on the Fox News Channel.   CAIR’s campaign to boycott leading nationally syndicated radio talk-show host Michael Savage’s advertisers cost more than $160,000, the book reveals. The authors recount how CAIR ran out of money before it could crack Savage’s most loyal sponsors.   The book also includes new revelations about CAIR’s role in the “flying imams” case in 2006 in which six Muslim leaders were removed from an airline flight in Minneapolis after passengers and crew members reported what they believed to be suspicious behavior.
“Muslim Mafia” also exposes CAIR’s secret agenda to criminalize anti-terror profiling by police and private entities.   Gaubatz is a veteran federal investigator and counter-terrorism specialist who served for more than a decade as a special agent in the U.S. Air Force’s elite Office of Special Investigations. He held the U.S. government’s highest security clearances, including Top Secret–SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information), and was briefed in many so-called black projects.   Gaubatz also is a State Department–trained Arabic linguist with more than two decades of experience in the Middle East, including tours in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and Iraq. In 2003, he led a 15-man team to rescue the family members of the Iraqi lawyer credited with saving Army Private First Class Jessica Lynch.   Sperry, a media fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, is former Washington bureau chief for Investor’s Business Daily and former Washington bureau chief of WorldNetDaily.com.   His bestseller “Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington” is being used by the U.S. military and top law enforcement departments nationwide. Many of the numerous stories he has broken on national security and counter-terrorism have been cited by the Washington Post, USA Today, UPI and the Associated Press, among others. His columns have appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Houston Chronicle, American Spectator and Reason.
One FBI official quoted in “Muslim Mafia” says CAIR and the other Muslim Brotherhood front groups differ from al-Qaida in that, while all share the same goals, they use different methods to achieve them.   “The only difference between the guys in the suits and the guys with the AK-47s is timing and tactics,” the official explained.

Posted via email from Jay’s Blogs

U.S. Army Sergeant Akbar Hasan discharged three hand grenades in the tents of his fellow soldiers, killing 2 and wounding 14.   
Motive: Defending fellow members of Islam.

  Interjection:  This author does recognize Islam to have many sects, each with varying degrees of how they interpret or even choose to recognize or not recognize many verses of the Quran. The intent of this article is to investigate motive.  The motive will tell us what kind of sect Nidal Hasan would follow.   5 November 2009, Fort Hood, Texas:  U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan sprays random burst of ammunitions into a combat readiness clinic, killing 13 and wounding 30.
Motive:  Study the case.   (Links identify the article from which information at that bullet point was drawn.)
 

• The mosque Hasan prayed daily at offers a program to assist devout Muslim men in finding a wife.  The program requires filing a form.  On that form, Hasan claimed to be Palestinian and to have been born in Arlington, Virginia.  (Demonstrative of loyalty to Palestinians)
• Nidal Malik Hasan’s parents came to the United States from a Palestinian town near Jerusalem.
• Nidal Malik Hasan is described as a devout and discreet Muslim.
• Noel Hasan, Nidal Malik Hasan’s aunt stated Nidal spent holidays and free time at her home.  He did not have many friends.
• Retired Colonel, Terry Lee describes Nidal Malik Hasan as a loner who did not company with other officers.
• A former neighbor told Fox News that Nidal Malik Hasan had lived in the community for two years, had the name ‘Allah’ on his front door and he received visits from a female whom accompanied a three year old child. (Maybe nothing.  However, note; Nidal was registered for a program at the mosque to find a wife)
• Hasan’s aunt, Noel Hasan of Falls Church, Virginia stated in an interview with the Washington Post that Nidal Malik Hasan had been harassed by members of the military due to his ethnicity and Nidal wanted to be discharged from the military.
• Nidal Malik Hasan required counseling as an intern at Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital, due to having arguments with his patients.  Thomas Grieger states that Hasan’s problems as an intern resulted in counseling and increased supervision due to Hasan’s interaction with his patients.  Many of his patients were being treated for post traumatic stress disorder upon return from duties in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Nidal Malik Hasan was in preparation for deployment to Iraq and did not wish to deploy.  However, he did make requests to be deployed to Afghanistan.
• Nidal Malik Hasan retained an attorney to assist him in being discharged from the U.S. Army, stating he would pay the cost of his education back to the U.S. Army. (revealing conflicting loyalties? Knowing if he was deployed he would have to honor teachings of his faith?)
• At least six months ago,Nidal Hasan came to the attention of Federal law officials for alleged postings (can not be substantiated as to the identity of the poster) which glorified suicide bombers.  A formal investigation had not been opened prior to the shootings at Fort Hood regarding the postings which are alleged to have been posted by Nidal. 
• Nidal Malik Hasan would often make comments that support Islamic teaching for Jihad.  One statement, attested to by retired Colonel, Terry Lee was a statement suggesting all Muslims should stand up and fight against the aggressor. (This is a call to Jihad.  Jihad calls all Muslims to arms.)
• Two psychiatrist who had worked with Hasan at Walter Reed told NPR, on the condition of anonymity that Hasan was often belligerent.
• Hasan made a statement saying ‘The Quran teaches that infidels should have their heads cut off and set on fire’.  Jihad watch defining points of jihad quote from the Quran, ‘The perfect Muslim is gentle with his fellow believer and harsh towards his enemy, the infidel’
• Nidal Malik Hasan’s family speculate to his possible deployment as having been a great fear for Nidal over the past five years.

Is there enough evidence to suggest Nidal Malik Hasan had not acted out of mental illness, but in the same manner Akbar Hasan did in March 2003? 

  President Obama has asked that we not jump to conclussions.  Well, o.k., we

Posted via email from Jay’s Blogs

Shocking headline? Well, it’s true. As first reported at the Jawa, Hasan attended the radical Saudi funded mosque in Virginia who’s now oft quoted and shocked-and-horrified imam is also a big supporter of the ISNA.

  What we didn’t know was that Hasan attended that mosque at the same time as two of the 9/11 hijackers — Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour.   Did Nidal Hasan know them? Maybe, maybe not.
But the most disturbing part is that the imam of the mosque at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki (pictured right). Awlaki is an American who now lives in exile in Yemen where his website incites Muslims to jihad and who has nothing but praise for al Qaeda.
Awlaki is hands down the most cited English language preacher in the underworld of online jihad.
And what was Hasan’s view of al-Awlaki?

Hasan’s eyes “lit up” when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki’s teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday’s horrific shooting spree.
 

Any one who knows anything about al-Awlaki knows he is as radical as they come.
A deeper terrorist plot? No indication of that. But those who continue to claim that the attack had nothing to do with a broader goal of jihad really have nothing left to stand on.
Again, let me remind the simple minded that like most human behavior murder is often motivated by many things. Sure, Hasan very well could have been distressed over an impending deployment and perhaps that deployment was a proximate cause. He may also have been bat shit crazy.

  However it is also clear that he held the same world view as the vast majority of Islamist terrorists and that this was at least one of his motivations.
Thanks to Jeffrey Imm
UPDATE: Just checked AllahP who quotes a U.S. Intel official:

There is good reason to believe Anwar Aulaqi has been involved in very serious terrorist activities since leaving the United States, including plotting attacks against America and our allies.”

Seriously people, WTF was this guy doing getting promoted to Major this year?

And given that friends at Malik’s mosque are calling him a “typical fundamentalist Muslim”, perhaps Dar al-Hijrah is where we should be looking to find Khadeejah Nuur?
 
Update by Barbarossa: Yes, that would be the same Anwar al-Awlaki praised by the New York Times just weeks after the 9/11 attacks as “a new generation of Muslim leader capable of merging East and West”:

Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki, spiritual leader at the Dar al-Hijra mosque in Virginia, one of the nation’s largest, which draws about 3,000 worshipers for communal prayers each Friday, said: ”In the past we were oblivious. We didn’t really care much because we never expected things to happen. Now I think things are different. What we might have tolerated in the past, we won’t tolerate any more.” ”There were some statements that were inflammatory, and were considered just talk, but now we realize that talk can be taken seriously and acted upon in a violent radical way,” said Mr. Al-Awlaki, who at 30 is held up as a new generation of Muslim leader capable of merging East and West: born in New Mexico to parents from Yemen, who studied Islam in Yemen and civil engineering at Colorado State University.

 

To show you how fu**ed up the judgment of the Times is on these matters, take a look at this quote from today’s Telegraph article:

Charles Allen, a former under-secretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, has described al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, as an “al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to three of the September 11 hijackers… who targets US Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen”.  

What a great bridge between East and West, don’t you think?
Awlaki’s name has come up recently in connection with the Toronto 18 terror case.

  http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/199504.php

Posted via email from Jay’s Blogs

In light of so much deception from CAIR, ISNA, the media, and other groups, you have to respect the honesty of these men. Anyone care to guess their view of yesterday’s terrorist attack?

Muslims Claim Victim Status . . . Again

The day after a Muslim killed thirteen and wounded thirty in a vicious terror attack, Muslims once again portray themselves as victims. But is it Muslims who are really in danger in this country? Since yesterday, Nidal Malik Hasan’s family has been claiming that people made fun of him for his Muslim faith (as if this justifies the violence he committed). Indeed, such reports have been splashed across the major media outlets, in a rather obvious effort to build some sympathy for this poor, poor terrorist. Unfortunately for Hasan’s family and supporters, there’s no evidence of such an anti-Muslim bias in the military.

Fox News–A Muslim veteran affairs organization says it has not received reports of harassment from Islamic soldiers, contrary to claims by a relative of the man authorities say is responsible for the worst mass killing on a U.S. military base. Abdul-Rashid Abdullah, deputy director of the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council, told FoxNews.com that the nonprofit group has not received a single report recently of a U.S. soldier being harassed “simply because he was Muslim.” “That kind of report is inconsistent with what we’ve heard,” Abdullah said prior to a press conference in Washington to denounce Thursday’s shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, that left 13 dead and 30 wounded. Source.

But the mythical Muslim persecution doesn’t end there. Muslims are calling for extra protection of their mosques in the aftermath of the Muslim attack against the American military.

Following the shootings at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas on Thursday, those at the Islamic Center for PEACE in Fort Myers have requested additional police patrols, though there have so far been no threats to the center. Alibaba Lumumba, president of the center, said anytime there is a crime allegedly committed by a Muslim, the whole Muslim community suffers. “But when there is a Christian who commits a crime, we don’t get into his religion or whether he wears a cross or not,” Lumumba said. “It’s a lack of knowledge about what Islam is and what it is not. Such acts of violence, especially if there were women, children or elderly who were hurt, are not condoned by Islam.” Source.

When a Christian commits a crime, he’s acting contrary to the teachings of Jesus. When a Muslim kills non-Muslims (especially those who will be fighting against Muslims), he’s perfectly in line with the teachings of Islam. But the media will never say such a thing.

So why are Muslims claiming to be victims when non-Muslims are being killed? As Robert Spencer notes,

CAIR knows well that victimhood is big business: insofar as they can claim protected victim status for Muslims in the U.S., they can deflect unwanted scrutiny and any critical examination of how jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence and supremacism. Source.

Indeed, CAIR has often resorted to fabricating hate crimes and statistics in order to mislead people into believing that hate crimes against Muslims are on the rise. P. David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry give the actual statistics in their new book, Muslim Mafia:

After 9/11, CAIR cited an explosion in anti-Islamic hate crimes in demanding more outreach with the FBI and special rights and protections for Muslims. “Unlike any other past crisis,” CAIR claimed, “the post-September 11 anti-Muslim backlash has been the most violent.” But the latest Justice Department data on hate crimes reveal CAIR has been crying wolf. Not only are anti-Islamic hate crimes way down, but they’re a fraction of overall religious hate crimes. The overwhelming majority of such crimes target Jews, something CAIR and other Muslim groups don’t seem all that concerned about. In 2007, a whopping 69 percent of religiously motivated attacks were on Jews, while just 8 percent targeted Muslims–even though the Jewish and Muslim populations are comparable in size. Catholics and Protestants, who together account for almost 9 percent of victims, are subject to as much abuse as Muslims in this country. In the most recent year, anti-Islamic hate crimes totaled 115. While just one hate crime is one too many, that’s a 26 percent drop from 2006 and a 76 percent plunge from 2001. And the number is minuscule compared with the 969 offenses against Jews. For every attack on a Muslim in this country, there are nine against a Jew. (pp. 141-2)

When are people going to catch on to the fact that Muslims are lying about what’s in their sources, lying about the motivation behind terrorist attacks, lying about persecution against them, lying about their true allegiance, and lying about their ultimate goals in the U.S.? When are reporters going to turn to Muslim sources and realize that such lying is allowed in Islam?

Posted via email from Jay’s Blogs