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.

US, China: Rising Tension

Chinese President Hu Jintao (5th L) and U.S. President Barack Obama (4th R) lead their respective delegations at a bilateral talk in Beijing on Nov. 17, 2009

Summary

Relations between the United States and China have come under increasing stress during the past year. While many of the issues at the root of the tensions have existed for some time, China’s resistance to the U.S. push for sanctions on Iran has become the most urgent and potentially disruptive dispute between the two countries. China believes sanctions could jeopardize its energy security, and that its accession to such a move could harm its international image. However, China will not be able to stop sanctions and will have few options to retaliate against the United States in a way that does not harm Beijing even more.

Analysis

The United States has intensified its public courting of Beijing’s support for a potential sanctions regime against Iran in recent days. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Saudi Arabia on Feb. 15-16 where she encouraged a deal in which the Saudis would increase oil exports to China to guarantee China’s oil supply amid the tensions with Iran. On Feb. 14, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said he expected the Chinese to provide support for sanctions, while National Security Adviser Jim Jones said the same day that China has supported nuclear nonproliferation efforts against North Korea and that as a “responsible world power” it would also do so with Iran. This followed U.S. President Barack Obama’s statement the previous week saying that while the Russians have become “forward leaning” on the sanctions issue, China’s support remains a question.

  Washington’s focus on China over the Iranian issue comes in the midst of a rocky patch in overall Sino-American relations. China has consistently resisted the push for sanctions, as they could put Beijing’s energy security at risk and curtail its growing bilateral relationship with Tehran. Ultimately, the Chinese do not have to make a final decision on sanctions until the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) takes a vote. But China has few tools to use against the United States to resist sanctions — and to do so would run the risk of provoking American reactions that China would rather avoid.

The Root of Sino-U.S. Tensions

The Chinese and American partnership has undergone several strains since American financial troubles became global financial troubles in late 2008. Inherent characteristics of the two economies, and their mutual dependence, made it inevitable that economic and trade tensions would arise. China’s single-largest customer is the United States, to which it exported $220.8 billion worth of goods and services in 2009, 18 percent of China’s total exports. By contrast China is the United States’ third-largest export market, importing $77.4 billion in total in 2009. In the process of running large trade surpluses, China has racked up $2.39 trillion in foreign exchange reserves and invested about one third of that into U.S. Treasury debt, thereby helping the U.S. Federal Reserve to maintain low interest rates that perpetuate U.S. consumption of Chinese goods.
 
U.S.-Chinese economic and financial interdependency has called attention to vulnerabilities and disagreements. The Obama administration slapped tariffs on Chinese-made tires in September 2009, and a host of other disputes have arisen at the World Trade Organization (WTO). While these disputes are mainly political efforts meant to release domestic social pressure, both states are aware that there is potential for protectionist tactics to spiral out of control, making the relationship inherently uneasy and suspicious.
 
Economic tensions are coupled with military ones. There is already lack of trust between China and the United States on the question of defense. Beijing’s military power has increased as its economic success has enabled greater reforms and better weaponry, and Beijing’s rising military profile has caused concern among states that doubt its intentions. Meanwhile the United States is the world’s leading military power by far, and not only dominates the oceans with naval power (implicitly threatening China’s vital supply lines) but also maintains strong alliances with states on the Chinese periphery, including Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, a territory Beijing claims as its own. Military-to-military talks were canceled in 2008 when the Bush administration agreed to a new arms package to Taiwan, and briefly restarted when China canceled them again in 2010 following the Obama administration’s approval of the deal.
 
These broader national security issues have become entangled with the trade spats. China has threatened sanctions on American arms manufacturers for making the weapons that Washington is selling to Taiwan in the most recent U.S. arms package. China’s threat to introduce retaliatory sanctions marks a than in the past. On a separate front, a conflict has erupted over and American cybersecurity. China has also reacted sharply against American criticism of its policies in dealing with ethnic minorities and separatism in Xinjiang and Tibet, which has created another diplomatic row in light of President Obama’s plan to meet with the Dalai Lama on Feb. 18.

Resistance to Iranian Sanctions

While trade and defense tensions have long been present in the Sino-U.S. relationship, the controversy over the Iranian nuclear program — and the U.S. push for sanctions — have introduced a new, urgent and potentially destabilizing element into the dynamic. China has rejected the idea of new sanctions since the Obama administration launched negotiations in mid-2009, and the Chinese have shown increasing displeasure with the U.S. sanctions drive since late December 2009 by postponing and sending lower-level officials to negotiations with the P-5+1 group, which consists of the five permanent members of the UNSC (China, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Russia) plus Germany. China’s foreign ministry has continued its rejection of sanctions in 2010.
China’s position on Iran follows from its concerns for energy security. China imported about 51 percent of its oil in 2009, and Iran was the third-largest supplier, providing about 11.4 percent of its imports — after Saudi Arabia (20.5 percent) and Angola (15.8 percent). While the current batch of proposed sanctions do not target Iranian oil exports, they would escalate tensions in the Persian Gulf overall. China fears that a military conflict could erupt that would threaten supply lines from other Gulf providers, such as Saudi Arabia or Oman, since the Iranian retaliation might target the Strait of Hormuz through which roughly half of China’s total oil imports transit. Without a steady stream of Gulf oil, China’s ability to maintain economic growth would be threatened. And China is not willing to take such risks with its energy supply.
 
Moreover, China’s exports of gasoline and refined oil products to Iran have grown in recent months. Iran’s dysfunctional domestic energy situation forces it to import these goods, and China has excess refining capacity. This growing area of trade would specifically be targeted in international sanctions, as the Americans have long signaled that Iran’s dependency on external sources for gasoline is its Achilles’ heel. Sanctions against Iran would also interfere with China’s investments in Iran’s energy sector — including China National Petroleum Corp’s (CNPC) planned exploration of Iran’s massive South Pars natural gas field in March, as well as deals for oil production involving CNPC in Iran’s North Azadegan and Sinopec in the Yadavaran oil field. In other words, while China will not base its decisions solely on its exports to and investments in Iran, those considerations are substantial and will not be ignored.
 

China also has a reputation to uphold. Especially in recent years, China has positioned itself as a global leader, seeking to complement its economic power with rising military and political status. Beijing has made its voice heard at the United Nations, the G-20 and other global forums as a leader of the developing countries and a counterweight to the developed countries. Simultaneously, China has sought to play a more active role in international security operations, including peacekeeping and disaster relief, and has taken a leading role in the international anti-piracy efforts off the coast of Somalia, all with the intention of enhancing its prestige and developing powers outside the economic sphere. These efforts are also meant to present China as a potential alternative global leader to the United States, and to earn supporters and followers. A substantial amount of credibility thus rests on China’s defending of states like Iran that are antagonistic toward the United States — if China turns its back on Iran, then countries in Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia that might have thought they could count on Beijing in a pinch will have to rethink their policies. On the contrary, if Beijing can prolong negotiations and delay serious action on Iran, it can extend the time in which the United States is bogged down in the Middle East, winning more room to maneuver toward meeting domestic and international objectives.

Limited Options

Beijing’s problem is that it has very few tools with which to influence the United States’ behavior in general, not to mention toward Iran. China’s only tools to pressure the United States are economic — specifically through trade disputes and purchases of U.S. debt — and they would backfire. Beijing is also not able to directly affect negotiations between the United States and Russia on sanctions. And if sanctions are proposed in the UNSC, China can veto them only if it is prepared for the blowback from the United States.
 
China’s chief weakness lies in the fact that it cannot escape economic troubles until its export sector revives, but the United States has the ability to put pressure on this sector. The Obama administration has shown a willingness to exercise Section 421, an American law that China admitted into its WTO accession agreement in 2001 that gives the United States the right to enact barriers when it perceives that a dramatic increase in Chinese imports into the American market could disrupt domestic producers. The significance of the September tire tariffs was primarily to warn China that Washington is willing to use this prerogative and there is little China can do about it. If Beijing should seek to retaliate through its own tariffs, it risks provoking a trade war with the United States that it could not win, since its economy is too fragile to sustain the shocks that could be caused by a more aggressive use of Section 421, or more drastic measures.
 

Even China’s great advantage of being the United States’ primary creditor does not provide as much leverage as one might think. At the target=_blank>

A Russian Turn?

Recently, prominent Russian authorities have made statements implying that Moscow was becoming more willing to endorse sanctions. As long as Russia appears intransigent on the U.S. call for sanctions, it provides China with diplomatic cover. But if a Russian shift is in fact under way — and there is no hard evidence yet that the United States has offered the concessions necessary to win Russia over — then it will have an impact on China’s strategy.
 
Moscow is critical to the efficacy of any sanctions regime because it can circumvent sanctions by means of its communication and transportation routes through the Caucasus and Central Asia to Iran. Without Russia, international sanctions will not work. Unlike Russia, however, China is not capable of making or breaking sanctions covertly through its participation or lack thereof — its links to Iran go over sea routes, making them vulnerable to American naval power (while the land routes from China to Iran are logistically unfeasible and still hinge on Russian influence). Finally, the United States and European allies are not likely to bring sanctions to a vote at the UNSC unless they have already gained the assurances they need from Russia — and China has no ability to impact these negotiations.
If a resolution authorizing sanctions goes to the UNSC, China will have to determine whether to approve, abstain or to exercise its veto (and China has only vetoed sanctions once, sanctions against Zimbabwe in 2008). Voting for sanctions, China will be stuck with enforcing them (and all that enforcement entails) and managing the domestic and international blow to its reputation for caving to American demands despite its much-vaunted rising-power status. Still, this is a path that China has taken before, and is also likely to take in the event that sanctions are watered down. But even if China abstains from voting to register its displeasure, it will be bound by law to enforce the sanctions, or else it will be publicly exposed for undermining them and subject to a harsh reaction from the United States.
 
Alternately, if the Chinese were to veto a sanctions resolution, they would risk marginalizing the UNSC’s role in dealing with Iran. The United States has shown before that it is willing to act with an international coalition outside of the United Nations, and Iran presents just the type of scenario in which the United States can do so with broad international support, including all the leading European powers and possibly even Russia. Since the UNSC is a key arena for China in attempting to expand its global influence, Beijing would suffer the effects of both isolating itself from the American coalition and seeing the influence of its UNSC seat dwindle.

Looking Ahead

With little impact on the international negotiations, and limited ability to challenge the United States, Beijing can only attempt to play the diplomatic game and stall. The Russians have not yet signed onto sanctions, and as long as they remain in limbo, Beijing does not have to commit. Nevertheless, exposure to the United States is the reason that China’s Communist Party leadership has become consumed with furious internal debate over the country’s path forward. Beijing is fully aware that the United States plans to withdraw from the Middle East in a few years, which raises the frightful question of where the superpower will focus its attention next. China is afraid that it is the next target, and sees renewed U.S. attention to Southeast Asia as the beginning of a full-scale containment policy. The problem for China is that to decrease its vulnerability to foreign powers will require difficult reforms, and at a time when the Communist Party is approaching a leadership transition in 2012 and the course ahead is uncertain. With these considerations in mind, China must weigh whether it can afford to break with the United States now over Iran, or whether it could better spend its energies fortifying against what it sees as a likely onslaught of geopolitical competition from the United States in a few short years.

Posted via email from Jay’s Blogs

The Echelon building in Austin, Texas, where a small plane crashed on Feb. 18 A small single-engine plane crashed into the first and second stories of the Echelon No. 1 building at approximately 9:46 a.m. local time in northwest Austin, Texas, on Feb. 18, causing a fire and extensive structural damage. One death and two injuries have been reported at present, though there are several unconfirmed reports of “walking wounded” around the scene. Two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled out of Houston as a precautionary measure. The pilot of the aircraft has been identified as Joseph Andrew Stack, who reportedly is dead. The Echelon No. 1 building housed offices of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which were located on the first three floors. The Austin field office of the FBI was located in the same office complex, but the building housing the field offices was not struck by the aircraft. RODGER BAKER/STRATFOR A close-up view of the damage to the Echelon building National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials have reported that Stack set his home ablaze earlier in the morning in north Austin before traveling to the Georgetown Municipal Airport, some 30 miles to the north of Austin. Stack, a licensed pilot, reportedly took off in his personal aircraft at 9:20 a.m. local time without filing a flight plan. Pilots are not required to file flight plans when visual flight rule conditions prevail, and conditions were clear. Stack reportedly was seen flying at a very low altitude approaching the Echelon business complex from the northwest and proceeded to bank hard to the south into Echelon building No. 1.   Reports have surfaced of a possible suicide note posted by Stack on the Internet detailing his long history of problems with the IRS. Stack reportedly concluded the note with, “I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.”   The present evidence indicates that this was a premeditated attack on the IRS offices located in the Echelon building. Given Stack’s extensive past with the IRS, he most likely would have been familiar with the location of the offices, as the IRS offices in that building are often a last stop for complaints regarding tax issues. This attack does not appear to have been coordinated with any other individuals.

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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?

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“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.

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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

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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

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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?

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Jihadi Columbine: We are all Nidal Malik Hasan?

  What Part of “Allahu Akbar” Do You Not Understand?   It is an insult of criminal magnitude, to the intelligence of the American people, that the Media and Military collectively present the Radical Islamic Terrorist Attack at Fort Hood, resulting in the slaughter of American Soldiers and civilians, as anything but what we all know it to be.   Any journalist or Military authority who “needs to study the situation to ascertain motive for the shooting,” needs to be instantly fired, perhaps prosecuted for endangerment of America.
 
So, Army, you were literally preparing soldiers to send them to fight “Terror,” and you don’t know why the man yelling “Allahu Akbar,” tried to murder a roomful of American Soldiers? I am concerned that you won’t know who to shoot at, when you do get to Afghanistan.   Hint…it will be the Muslims shouting “Allahu Akbar.”   We know that Hasan is a radical Muslim Jihadist. A former fellow officer told Shepard Smith, of Fox NEWS, that Nidal had often spoken of the need for Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan to rise up against “American invaders.” The fact that this “little red flag” went unnoticed by anything with a brain-stem in Post-9-11 America defies credibility.   So, the Islamic Cleric who knew him did not notice any “signs of extremism.” The story here is not that Hasan wasn’t, therefore, an extremist, but rather, the American Cleric’s definition of “extremism.”   We are not all Nidal Malik Hasan. Yehuda Bauer said, “Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Thou shalt not be a victim. And thou shalt never, but never, be a bystander.”
Which one are we going to be, Media and Military, and President Barack Hussein Obama, and Anita Mao Dunn, and you, dear reader, and me? Perpetrator, by harming our Country? Or more likely a victim or bystander? Would we really rather die at the hands of Jihadis among us than speak the truth about the War waged on Americans by Radical Islamic Americans? Can we justify sending soldiers to die on foreign soil, fighting an enemy we are spineless to destroy here, in Texas?   I do not know how to avoid being a victim, because I cannot take up a weapon to defend myself against the next Radical Muslim who decides Allah wants me to die. But, even if it is only with a silly keyboard, I can, at least for now, refuse to be a bystander and be silent about the War.   I am not Nidal Malik Hasan, and Texas was not Columbine, it was the World Trade Centers, it was the Pentagon, it was a field in Pennsylvania. And Nidal Malik Hasan was not a member of the Trench-Coat Mafia – he was just another missionary of the Religion of Peace.

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A Muslim army psychiatrist burst into a bout of Jihadi fit, shooting at soldiers lined up for signing for deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan, killing 12 and wounding 31. It appears to another perfect case of the familiar “Sudden Jihadi Syndrome” among Muslims…

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We have heard too often from Muslim public relations czars in the West that Muslims are peaceful patriotic people. Muslim American citizens would tell you that they are patriotic; they love America; America is their home. President Obama would tell you that America is a Muslim nation, that Muslims have made great contributions to the making of America. So, when a Jihadi attack occurs or a Jihadi terror plot is busted, the so-called moderate Muslims would go around shrilling that the entire Muslim community should not be maligned for the actions of a few bad apples. While it is undeniable that most Muslims go about their business on most days like any other peaceful citizen, it also becomes clear that quite often an otherwise-most-peaceful Muslim give in to the teaching and the urge to carry out Jihad, his holy duty to Allah/Muhammad and his faith. This well-established pattern, the ‘Sudden Jihadi Syndrome’, it seems, has struck in America once again. Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, trained as army psychiatrist, had his day on Thursday, Nov. 5. Stricken by a bout of Sudden Jihadi Syndrome, he went on rampage of shooting and massacring his colleagues at the Fort Hood Army Base in Texas, killing 13 and wounding another 30.
While some papers, like Huffington Post, are trying to raise doubts as to whether Major Hasan is a Muslim at all, Hasan’s cousin, told ABC News that he was “a pious lifelong Muslim”. Born in Virginia to Jordanian parents and single with no children, Hasan had worked at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington for 6 years before he was reassigned to Fort Hood July. In 2009, according to ABC News, he completed a fellowship in Disaster and Preventative Psychiatry at the Center for Traumatic Stress there. One is left to wonder whether Hasan was a marginalized extremist, although some Muslim public relations and media mouthpiece may portray him as one to be so. It was a perfect moment for Hasan to carry out his pious duty of Jihad, which according to Ghazzali, Muslims should do at least once a year, while Muhammad and his companions did it continuously while in Medina. And the moment was: Army recruits had lined up to sign up for going to Iraq and Afghanistan; these are infidels readying themselves for defiling the Muslim lands and kill his Muslim brethren; there’s no better way to do Jihad for his faith than taking these infidel murderers down; he took two handguns to work; and as the recruits lined up in columns to sign up, Hasan took his loaded handguns out in his two hands and started shooting into the column to soldiers to take down as many as possible. The end-result of Jihad effort was astounding: 12 infidel soldiers dead; 30 others wounded. He has outperformed Muhammad’s stellar performance at the famous victory at Badr, where there were 15 Muslim casualties against 49 opponents. Go here to source at Islam Watch

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