Al-Qaida’s Emerging Defeat
Al-Qaida’s Emerging Defeat
By Austin Bay
Austin Bay
Author Archive
The postwar relationship between Iraq and the United States is now a broader public topic. This week, the White House and the Iraqi government announced that state-to-state discussions are taking place with the goal of reaching detailed agreements that will govern Iraq and America’s long-term political, economic and military ties. Iraqis have asked for “an enduring relationship with America.”
I use the term “broader public topic” because this matter has been a subject of constant discussion since April 2003, with little of that discussion hush-hush.
When I reported in May 2004 for duty in Iraq, the first document dropped on my desk was a draft of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546. After reading it with great interest, I discussed it with one of the very smart young majors in the Multi-National Corps-Iraq plans section. The very smart young major was already in the polymathic process of analyzing requirements and aligning “capabilities with tasks” (who will do what) in order to support the resolutions stipulation that Iraq hold “direct democratic elections … in no case later than 31 January 2005.”
Clinton News Network
Here is a great article from David Limbaugh:
Clinton News Network
By David Limbaugh
Friday, November 30, 2007
The CNN/YouTube Republican presidential debate serves as a perfect example of why conservatives refer to CNN as “Clinton News Network.” Republicans should have declined CNN’s invitation, just like Democrats declined Fox News, though it’s doubtful Fox would have orchestrated or permitted a similar ambush of Democratic candidates. The “debate” involved many questions designed not so much to highlight the candidates’ differences (other than Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney on immigration) but to place the entire conservative agenda in a negative light.
Airline ‘discount’ charges heterosexual customers more
10% penalty applied if buyers don’t get tickets from ‘gay’ site
Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air have announced a new program that will charge heterosexuals 10 percent extra for their air travel to specific locations during the Christmas season.
CAIR admits their former intern was a questioner at the CNN/YouTube debate
Former CAIR Intern Asks Question at GOP Debate
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She was well coached!
In the name of God: the Saudi rape victim’s tale
A young woman has been sentenced to 200 lashes after being gang-raped. The Western world has expressed outrage – which has, in turn, provoked anger among the Saudi establishment. Now, for the first time, the woman tells her story.
By Daniel Howden
Published: 29 November 2007
Inside Saudi Arabia she has come to be known simply as the “Qatif girl”, a teenager who was gang-raped then humiliated by first the police, then the judicial authorities. Her case has propelled her into the international headlines and made her an acute embarrassment for the House of Saud. To the Saudi Justice Ministry, she is an adulteress whose case is being used by critics of the Kingdom. To much of the rest of the world, she is a symbol of all that’s wrong with Saudi Arabia.
Today she lives under effective house arrest. She is forbidden to speak and may be taken into custody at any time. Her family’s movements are monitored by the religious police and their telephones are tapped.
Her lawyer, Saudi Arabia’s foremost human rights advocate, Abd al-Rahman al-Lahem, has been suspended. He has had his passport confiscated and faces a hearing next week in which he may be disbarred. The crime of “Qatif girl”, it seems, has been to refuse to be silent about what has happened to her. The 19-year-old first sought to bring to justice the seven men who raped her, then complained in public when the courts saw fit to sentence her to 90 lashes for “mingling”, the crime of being out in public with a male who was not her relative prior to the attack.
Coverage of the case this month in the usually tightly censored Saudi media infuriated the authorities. They increased her sentence to 200 lashes and six months in prison. Her sentence still hangs over her.
The girl’s fate has become an issue in the US presidential election where the candidates have lined up to denounce her treatment as “barbaric”, and Prince Saud al-Faisal was forced, much to his annoyance, to answer hostile questions about her case at the Middle East peace talks in Annapolis this week. “What is outraging about this case is that it is being used against the Saudi government and people,” he told reporters.
The Saudi Justice Ministry has launched a deliberate “campaign of defamation” against the girl, said Farida Deif, a Middle East expert with Human Rights Watch, who is among the few independent observers to have met the girl. “They are saying she is not really a victim,” Ms Deif said. “They are implying she was an adulteress. They are saying she was undressed before the attackers entered her car.”
The Independent has obtained testimony in which the girl describes her attack, the struggle to get the police to take action and the harrowing court appearances that followed.
Her ordeal began with a telephone call: “I had a relationship with someone on the phone,” she recounted to Human Rights Watch. “We were both 16. I had never seen him before. I just knew his voice. He started to threaten me, and I got afraid. He threatened to tell my family about the relationship. Because of the threats and fear, I agreed to give him a photo of myself.”
A few months later, she said, after she had been married to another man, she became concerned that the photograph might be misused and asked the boy to return it. He accepted on the condition that she would meet him and go for a drive with him. She agreed, reluctantly, to meet the boy at a nearby market. They were driving towards her home when a second car stopped in front of them, she said. “I told the individual with me not to open the door, but he did. He let them come in. I screamed.”
She and her companion were taken to a secluded spot where they were both raped, many times. “They forced me out of the car,” the girl said. “They pushed me really hard. I yelled out, ‘Where are you taking me? I’m like your sister.’ They took me to a dark place. Then two men came in. The first man with the knife raped me. I was destroyed. If I tried to escape, I don’t even know where I would go. I tried to force them off but I couldn’t. In my heart, I didn’t even feel anything after that. I spent two hours begging them to take me home.”
The second man then raped her, then a third. “There was a lot of violence,” she said. In the hours that followed her attackers told the girl they knew she was married. She was raped by a fourth man and then a fifth. “The fifth one took a photo of me like this. I tried to cover my face but they didn’t let me.”
Despite the prosecution’s requests for the maximum penalty for the rapists, the Qatif court sentenced four of them to between one and five years in prison and between 80 and 1,000 lashes. They were convicted of kidnapping, apparently because prosecutors could not prove rape. The images recorded on the mobile phone were presented in court, according to her lawyer, but the judges ignored them.
Her ordeal continued after the fifth rape. Two more men, one with his face covered entered the room and raped her. She repeatedly asked what time it was and was told 1am. Afterwards all seven men came back and the girl was raped again.
“Then they took me home. They drove me in their car. They took my mobile and said that if I wanted it back, I would have to call them. They saw my husband’s photo in my wallet when they were searching through my things. When I got out of the car, I couldn’t even walk. I rang the doorbell and my mother opened the door. She said, ‘You look tired’. She thought I was with my husband. I didn’t eat for one week after that. Just water. I didn’t tell anyone. I can’t sleep without pills. I used to see their faces in my sleep.”
Under Saudi Arabia’s strict interpretation of sharia law, women are not allowed in public in the company of men other than their male relatives. Also, women in Saudi Arabia are often sentenced to flogging and even death for adultery and other perceived crimes.
In addition to these intimidating barriers facing the victim in a country with possibly the worst women’s rights record in the world, the girl was also a member of the persecuted Shia minority and her attackers were Sunni. This sectarian divide would be crucial to what happened next.
“The criminals started talking about it [the rape] in my neighbourhood. They thought my husband would divorce me. They wanted to ruin my reputation. I was trying to fix something by getting the photo back and something worse happened.”
Irfan Al-Alawi, a Saudi academic and expert on religious persecution in the Kingdom, said that the sectarian background was crucial to understanding the crime.
“Qatif is a centre of the large Shia minority in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. The so-called religious police or mutawiyin, who are brutal in any case, were also acting here in support of Sunni domination over the Shia in Qatif.”
Against her attackers’ expectations, the girl’s husband did not divorce her when news of the attack reached him; instead he sought justice through the courts.
Her husband recalls the frustration of seeing his wife’s attackers walking free. “Two of the criminals were walking around in our neighbourhood right in front of me. They attended funerals and weddings. They [the police] should have arrested them out of respect for us. I called the police and told them, ‘Find me a solution. The criminals are out on the street. What if they try to kidnap her again?’ The police officer said, ‘You go find them and investigate’.”
He did just that and telephoned the police on four occasions before action was eventually taken. But when the case did come to court the girl’s ordeal continued.
She said: “They [the judges] said to me, ‘What kind of relationship did you have with this individual? Why did you leave the house? Do you know these men?’ They used to yell at me. They were insulting. The judge refused to allow my husband in the room with me. One judge told me I was a liar because I didn’t remember the dates well. They kept saying, ‘Why did you leave the house? Why didn’t you tell your husband?’
“At the second session, they called me in from the waiting room. I went in with my husband. They sentenced some of them to five years, others to three. I thought these people shouldn’t even live. I thought they would get a minimum of 20 years. I prayed that they wouldn’t even live. Then he said, ‘[name withheld], you get 90 lashes. You should thank God that you’re not in prison’. I asked why and he said, ‘You know why. Because it’s khilwa hair sharan [mingling begets evil]‘. Everyone looks at me as if I’m wrong. I couldn’t even continue my studies. I wanted to die.”
The ordeal is still not over. The Qatif girl and her husband face an intensely uncertain future. She has been attacked by her brother, who reportedly tried to kill her. Her lawyer, Al-Lahem, believes she may now be pursued by Sunni extremists through the sharia courts.
Her appalling treatment was summed up in one exchange between her husband and the judges at the first sentencing. “It was like she was the criminal,” he remembered. “When the judges passed down the sentence, I asked them, ‘Don’t you have any dignity?’”
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article3204058.ece
Everything is Caused by Global Warming (600+ links)
Everything is Caused by Global Warming (600+ links)
November 29, 2007
Dr. John Brignell, a British engineering professor, runs a website called numberwatch. He has compiled what has to be the most complete collection of links to media stories ascribing the cause of everything under the sun to global warming. He has already posted more than six-hundred links.
Agricultural land increase, Africa devastated, African aid threatened, Africa hit hardest, air pressure changes, Alaska reshaped, allergies increase, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end, amphibians breeding earlier (or not), ancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, Antarctic grass flourishes, anxiety, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic lakes disappear, asthma, Atlantic less salty, Atlantic more salty, atmospheric defiance, atmospheric circulation modified, attack of the killer jellyfish, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased, bananas destroyed, bananas grow, beetle infestation, bet for $10,000, better beer, big melt faster, billion dollar research projects, billions of deaths, bird distributions change, bird visitors drop, birds return early, blackbirds stop singing, blizzards, blue mussels return, bluetongue, boredom, bridge collapse (Minneapolis), Britain Siberian, British gardens change, brothels struggle, bubonic plague, budget increases, Buddhist temple threatened, building collapse, building season extension, bushfires, business opportunities, business risks, butterflies move north, cancer deaths in England, cardiac arrest, caterpillar biomass shift, challenges and opportunities, childhood insomnia, Cholera, circumcision in decline, cirrus disappearance, civil unrest, cloud increase, cloud stripping, cockroach migration, cod go south, cold climate creatures survive, cold spells (Australia), computer models, conferences, coral bleaching, coral reefs dying, coral reefs grow, coral reefs shrink , cold spells, cost of trillions, cougar attacks, cremation to end, crime increase, crocodile sex, crumbling roads, buildings and sewage systems, cyclones (Australia), damages equivalent to $200 billion, Darfur, Dartford Warbler plague, death rate increase (US), Dengue hemorrhagic fever, dermatitis, desert advance, desert life threatened, desert retreat, destruction of the environment, diarrhoea, disappearance of coastal cities, diseases move north, Dolomites collapse, drought, drowning people, ducks and geese decline, dust bowl in the corn belt, early marriages, early spring, earlier pollen season, Earth biodiversity crisis, Earth dying, Earth even hotter, Earth light dimming, Earth lopsided, Earth melting, Earth morbid fever, Earth on fast track, Earth past point of no return, Earth slowing down, Earth spinning out of control, Earth spins faster, Earth to explode, earth upside down, Earth wobbling, earthquakes, El Niño intensification, erosion, emerging infections, encephalitis, equality threatened, Europe simultaneously baking and freezing, evolution accelerating, expansion of university climate groups, extinctions (human, civilisation, logic, Inuit, smallest butterfly, cod, ladybirds, bats, pandas, pikas, polar bears, pigmy possums, gorillas, koalas, walrus, whales, frogs, toads, turtles, orang-utan, elephants, tigers, plants, salmon, trout, wild flowers, woodlice, penguins, a million species, half of all animal and plant species, not polar bears, barrier reef, leaches), experts muzzled, extreme changes to California, fading fall foliage, famine, farmers go under, fashion disaster, fever,figurehead sacked, fir cone bonanza, fish catches drop, fish catches rise, fish stocks at risk, fish stocks decline, five million illnesses, flesh eating disease, flood patterns change, floods, floods of beaches and cities, Florida economic decline, food poisoning, food prices rise, food security threat (SA), footpath erosion, forest decline, forest expansion, frostbite, frosts, fungi fruitful, fungi invasion, games change, Garden of Eden wilts, genetic diversity decline, gene pools slashed, gingerbread houses collapse, glacial earthquakes, glacial retreat, glacial growth, glacier wrapped, global cooling, global dimming, glowing clouds, god melts, golf Masters wrecked, Gore omnipresence, grandstanding, grasslands wetter, Great Barrier Reef 95% dead, Great Lakes drop, greening of the North, Grey whales lose weight, Gulf Stream failure, habitat loss, Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, harvest increase, harvest shrinkage, hay fever epidemic, hazardous waste sites breached, health of children harmed, heart disease, heart attacks and strokes (Australia), heat waves, hibernation ends too soon, hibernation ends too late, homeless 50 million, hornets, high court debates, human development faces unprecedented reversal, human fertility reduced, human health improvement, human health risk, hurricanes, hurricane reduction, hydropower problems, hyperthermia deaths, ice sheet growth, ice sheet shrinkage, illness and death, inclement weather, infrastructure failure (Canada), Inuit displacement, Inuit poisoned, Inuit suing, industry threatened, infectious diseases, inflation in China, insurance premium rises, invasion of cats, invasion of herons, invasion of midges, island disappears, islands sinking, itchier poison ivy, jellyfish explosion, Kew Gardens taxed, kitten boom, krill decline, lake and stream productivity decline, lake shrinking and growing, landslides, landslides of ice at 140 mph, lawsuits increase, lawsuit successful, lawyers’ income increased (surprise surprise!), lightning related insurance claims, little response in the atmosphere, lush growth in rain forests, Lyme disease, Malaria, malnutrition, mammoth dung melt, Maple syrup shortage, marine diseases, marine food chain decimated, marine dead zone, Meaching (end of the world), megacryometeors, Melanoma, methane emissions from plants, methane burps, melting permafrost, Middle Kingdom convulses, migration, migration difficult (birds), microbes to decompose soil carbon more rapidly, monkeys on the move, Mont Blanc grows, monuments imperiled, more bad air days, more research needed, mountain (Everest) shrinking, mountains break up, mountains taller, mortality lower, mudslides, National security implications, new islands, next ice age, Nile delta damaged, no effect in India, Northwest Passage opened, nuclear plants bloom, oaks move north, ocean acidification, ocean waves speed up, opera house to be destroyed, outdoor hockey threatened, oyster diseases, ozone loss, ozone repair slowed, ozone rise, Pacific dead zone, personal carbon rationing, pest outbreaks, pests increase, phenology shifts, plankton blooms, plankton destabilised, plankton loss, plant viruses, plants march north, polar bears aggressive, polar bears cannibalistic, polar bears drowning, polar bears starve, polar tours scrapped, porpoise astray, profits collapse, psychosocial disturbances, puffin decline, railroad tracks deformed, rainfall increase, rainfall reduction, rape wave, refugees, reindeer larger, release of ancient frozen viruses, resorts disappear, rice threatened, rice yields crash, riches, rift on Capitol Hill, rioting and nuclear war, rivers dry up, river flow impacted, rivers raised, roads wear out, rockfalls, rocky peaks crack apart, roof of the world a desert, Ross river disease, ruins ruined, salinity reduction, salinity increase, Salmonella, salmon stronger, satellites accelerate, school closures, sea level rise, sea level rise faster, seals mating more, sewer bills rise, sex change, sharks booming, sharks moving north, sheep shrink, shop closures, shrinking ponds, shrinking shrine, ski resorts threatened, slow death, smaller brains, smog, snowfall increase, snowfall heavy, snowfall reduction, societal collapse, songbirds change eating habits, sour grapes, space problem, spiders invade Scotland, squid population explosion, squirrels reproduce earlier, spectacular orchids, stormwater drains stressed, street crime to increase, suicide, taxes, tectonic plate movement, teenage drinking, terrorism, threat to peace, ticks move northward (Sweden), tides rise, tourism increase, trade barriers, trade winds weakened, tree beetle attacks, tree foliage increase (UK), tree growth slowed, trees could return to Antarctic, trees in trouble, trees less colourful, trees more colourful, trees lush, tropics expansion, tropopause raised, tsunamis, turtles crash, turtles lay earlier, UK Katrina, Vampire moths, Venice flooded, volcanic eruptions, walrus displaced, walrus pups orphaned, war, wars over water, wars threaten billions, water bills double, water supply unreliability, water scarcity (20% of increase), water stress, weather out of its mind, weather patterns awry, weeds, Western aid cancelled out, West Nile fever, whales move north, wheat yields crushed in Australia, white Christmas dream ends, wildfires, wind shift, wind reduced, wine – harm to Australian industry, wine industry damage (California), wine industry disaster (US), wine – more English, wine -German boon, wine – no more French , winters in Britain colder, wolves eat more moose, wolves eat less, workers laid off, World bankruptcy, World in crisis, World in flames, Yellow fever.
23-year-old pleads guilty to ‘jihad’ plot at Rockford mall
CHICAGO (AP) – A 23-year-old man who once dreamed of waging violent jihad in Illinois now faces 30 years to life when he’s sentenced next year.
Derrick Shareef pleaded guilty today to plotting a hand grenade attack on a Rockford mall crowded with Christmas shoppers.
The softspoken, bushy bearded man was apparently inspired by the violent acts of Mideast terrorists.
The case drew nationwide attention when Shareef was arrested in December 2006. But prosecutors have said he was under close surveillance as he planned his attack.
Although he pleaded guilty, Shareef said he hadn’t intended to hurt anyone and was “coerced into doing things.”
But federal officials reject any suggestion Shareef was simply a disturbed wannabe full of fantasies and not a serious threat.
Shareef will be sentenced on March 14th.
Notice the MSM did not call Shareef a Muslim? Political Correctness run amok!
Jackie Mason Vlog 72 The Attack on Christianity In America
Judeo-Christian values are being destroyed by intolerance of minority religion and atheism. Atheism is becoming our state religion. And they will stop at nothing to stop the practice of Christianity in this country.
Wycliffe Bible Translators releases new worldwide Bible translation statistics that reveal the real Christmas story by the numbers
ASSIST News Service (ANS) – PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net — E-mail: assistnews@aol.com
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Wycliffe Bible Translators releases new worldwide Bible translation statistics that reveal the real Christmas story by the numbers
By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service
ORLANDO, FLORIDA (ANS) – Newly released statistics from Wycliffe Bible Translators — the world’s largest Bible translation organization — confirm that significant progress has been made toward making Scripture available to all languages.
For the first time, 55 million people worldwide have portions of Scripture in their own language(1). However,193 million people are still without access to the Bible’s Christmas story(2).
The survey results, released in a media advisory obtained by ANS, show that while some 95 percent of all Americans will celebrate Christmas(3) this year, 193 million people(4) worldwide — representing 2,251 languages(5) — will again have no access to the original Christmas story in a language that is meaningful to them.
“Wycliffe is not only using, but developing cutting-edge technology that-when combined with tried-and-true language development techniques-is accelerating the pace of Bible translation,” said Bob Creson, president of Wycliffe Bible Translators USA. “These statistics reflect millions of people who, for the first time, have some access to Scripture in the language they understand best.”
Wycliffe Bible Translators is the world’s largest Bible translation organization.
Since it’s founding, Wycliffe has been involved in more than half of all Scripture translations: 721 New Testament and Bible translations impacting more than 80 million people.
Wycliffe USA is one of over 70 affiliated Wycliffe organizations around the world that are assisting the Church in making disciples of all nations through Bible translation.
Wycliffe’s worldwide Bible translation work — and the language development that is a foundational element of each translation — affects the efforts of countless other Christian ministries, relief organizations, governments and more. Its reach can be seen through improved literacy rates, health care, government relations and advocacy programs. Visit www.DeMossNewsPond.com/Wycliffe or www.Wycliffe.org .
Bible Translation by the Numbers:
74: The average number of new Bible translation projects started each year (2000-2007)-an increase from an average of 25 per year in the 1990s(6)
One new translation launched every five days: Today’s translation rate(7)
As of 2007: 2,251 Languages still without a translation of the Bible (no translation work has been started)(8)
As of 2000: 3,000 Languages were without a translation of the Bible (no translation work had been started)(9)
6.5 Billion: World Population(10)
6,912: Languages spoken in the World(11) (311 languages spoken in the U.S.)(12)
Sources:
(1) 2007 Wycliffe Bible Translators
(2) 2007 Wycliffe Bible Translators
(3) 2005 Fox News Poll conducted by Opinion Dynamics Corporation
(4) 2007 Wycliffe Bible Translators
(5) 2007 Wycliffe Bible Translators
(6) 2007 Wycliffe Bible Translators
(7) 2007 Wycliffe Bible Translators
(8) 2007 Wycliffe Bible Translators
(9) 2007 Wycliffe Bible Translators
(10) U.S. Census Bureau
(11) Ethnologue, 15th edition 2005
(12) U.S. Census Bureau
Additional stats are available at www.DeMossNewsPond.com/Wycliffe/presskit/2007Statistics.htm
** Michael Ireland is an international British freelance journalist. A former reporter with a London newspaper, Michael is the Chief Correspondent for ASSIST News Service of Lake Forest, California. Michael immigrated to the United States in 1982 and became a US citizen in September, 1995. He is married with two children. Michael has also been a frequent contributor to UCB Europe, a British Christian radio station. His weblog appears at: Michael’s Wor(l)d BLOG 
The Media of Terrorism in Islam
How a pervasive, propaganda-based Arab media teaches hatred to adults and children alike.
Democrats Pre-Iraq War View on WMD’s and Terrorism
Watch painfully as the hypocrites of our government share their thoughts on the war effort/response after 9/11. It makes me grit my teeth and cringe when I think about the liberal agenda.
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