Military
The Bloody Cost of “Diversity”: The Fort Hood Massacre
The more I hear about this incident at Fort Hood, the angrier it makes me. They KNEW this man was a radical and they did nothing about it!! That’s when ‘diversity’ and ‘political correctness’ gets us killed. It really disgusts me that this kind of thinking has seeped into the upper levels of our military. It needs to be stopped. Read below for more details on how much the army really knew about this terrorist, Major Nidal Malik Hasan. Numerous lives could have been saved if they had done the RIGHT thing instead of the POLITICALLY CORRECT thing!!!
The Bloody Cost of “Diversity”
Posted by Calvin Freiburger
Feb 24th, 2010
frontpagemag.com
We’ve known from the start that there were warning signs of Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s Islamic fanaticism well before the Fort Hood shootings, signs we suspected were ignored due to political correctness. But the other night, Sean Hannity called attention to a recent Boston Globe report confirming our worst fears. The report claims that Army officials knew Hasan was a radical, but “did not act in part because they valued the rare diversity of having a Muslim psychiatrist.”
Examples of Hasan’s radical behavior have previously been disclosed in press accounts based on interviews with unnamed Army officials […] But the Pentagon’s careful documentation of individual episodes dating back to 2005 and the subsequent inaction of his superiors have not been made public before. The Globe was permitted to review the Army’s more complete findings on the condition that it not name supervisory officers who did not act, some of whom are facing possible disciplinary action.
In searching for explanations for why superiors did not move to revoke Hasan’s security clearances or expel him from the Army, the report portrays colleagues and superiors as possibly reluctant to lose one of the Army’s few Muslim mental health specialists. The report concludes that because the Army had attracted only one Muslim psychiatrist in addition to Hasan since 2001, “it is possible some were afraid” of losing such diversity “and thus were willing to overlook Hasan’s deficiencies as an officer.”
[…]
In one classroom incident not previously described by the Army – which parallels another episode around the same time that has received press attention – Hasan gave a presentation in August 2007 titled “Is the War on Terrorism a War on Islam: An Islamic Perspective.” But the presentation was “shut down” by the instructor because Hasan appeared to be defending terrorism. Witnesses told investigators that Hasan became visibly upset as a result. “The students reported his statements to superior officers, who took no action on the basis that Major Hasan’s statements were protected by the First Amendment,” the investigation found. “They did not counsel Hasan and consider administrative action, even though not all protected speech is compatible with continued military service.’’
Words are almost insufficient to convey the contemptible sickness of this situation. Thirteen American heroes are dead because of certain minds that held “diversity” to be of more worth than human lives. They wanted someone with the “potential to inform our understanding of Islamic culture and how it relates to the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
The question must then be asked: If you want to be informed, why not do the research yourself? Study the messages of extreme and moderate Muslims alike. Consult with experts on the subject from within and without the faith, like Irshad Manji, Brigitte Gabriel, Robert Spencer, and others. To suggest that these peoples’ only option in learning about Islamic culture was from one unstable soldier with known jihadist tendencies is beyond absurd. How useful did these people expect Hasan’s lessons to be anyway?
It’s hard to imagine a clearer, more damning indictment of leftist thought than the tragedy that we find at Fort Hood. The current commander-in-chief deserves serious blame for not doing something about this twisted dogma that has infected military officials. But the hard truth is that it didn’t start on his watch. For years, many people, like Lieutenant Colonel Robert “Buzz” Patterson (keeper of the “nuclear football” during the 1990s) have been sounding the alarm on the sorry state that President Bill Clinton left our armed forces in, and how, in many ways, military effectiveness has taken a backseat to political correctness. And for all the good President George W. Bush did in the War on Terror, this particular crisis evidently wasn’t on his radar screen.
In the wake of 9/11, President Bush and many of his conservative supporters rightfully said we could not succumb to a pre-9/11 mindset, that we had to wrap our heads around the reality that our nation was at war. But, nine years later, with a jihadist killing spree on one of our own military bases and the Army’s top man worried not about how it happened but about “a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers,” it seems we have to ask ourselves if we really meant it.
LINK: http://frontpagemag.com/2010/02/24/the-bloody-cost-of-%E2%80%9Cdiversity%E2%80%9D-2/
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )The Fort Hood Report: Why No Mention of Islam? Political Correctness Takes Over
This is unbelievable!!! It makes me sick that the upper echelons of the military are going the way of political correctness! Political correctness is what will allow this to happen again.
The Fort Hood Report: Why No Mention of Islam?
By Mark Thompson / Washington
The U.S. military’s just-released report into the Fort Hood shootings spends 86 pages detailing various slipups by Army officers but not once mentions Major Nidal Hasan by name or even discusses whether the killings may have had anything to do with the suspect’s view of his Muslim faith. And as Congress opens two days of hearings on Wednesday into the Pentagon probe of the Nov. 5 attack that left 13 dead, lawmakers want explanations for that omission. (See TIME’s photo-essay “The Troubled Journey of Major Hasan.”)
John Lehman, a member of the 9/11 commission and Navy Secretary during the Reagan Administration, says a reluctance to cause offense by citing Hasan’s view of his Muslim faith and the U.S. military’s activities in Muslim countries as a possible trigger for his alleged rampage reflects a problem that has gotten worse in the 40 years that Lehman has spent in and around the U.S. military. The Pentagon report’s silence on Islamic extremism “shows you how deeply entrenched the values of political correctness have become,” he told TIME on Tuesday. “It’s definitely getting worse, and is now so ingrained that people no longer smirk when it happens.” (See pictures of Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s apartment.)
The apparent lack of curiosity into what allegedly drove Hasan to kill isn’t in keeping with the military’s ethos; it’s a remarkable omission for the U.S. armed forces, whose young officers are often ordered to read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War with its command to know your enemy. In midcareer, they study the contrast between capabilities and intentions, which is why they aren’t afraid of a British nuclear weapon but do fear the prospect of Iran getting one.
Yet the leaders of the two-month Pentagon review, former Army Secretary Togo West and the Navy’s onetime top admiral, Vernon Clark, told reporters last week that they didn’t drill down into Hasan’s motives. “Our concern is with actions and effects, not necessarily with motivations,” West said. Added Clark: “We certainly do not cite a particular group.” Part of their reticence, they said, was to avoid running afoul of the criminal probe of Hasan that is now under way. Both are declining interview requests before their congressional testimony, a Pentagon spokesman said. (Read TIME’s cover story on the Fort Hood massacre.)
But without a motive, there would have been no murder. Hasan wore his radical Islamic faith and its jihadist tendencies in the same way he wore his Army uniform. He allegedly proselytized within the ranks, spoke out against the wars his Army was waging in Muslim countries and shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is great) as he gunned down his fellow soldiers. Those who served alongside Hasan find the Pentagon review wanting. “The report demonstrates that we are unwilling to identify and confront the real enemy of political Islam,” says a former military colleague of Hasan, speaking privately because he was ordered not to talk about the case. “Political correctness has brainwashed us to the point that we no longer understand our heritage and cannot admit who, or what, the enemy stands for.”
The Department of Defense Independent Review Related to Fort Hood, ordered by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, is limited in scope. Despite the title of its report — Protecting the Force: Lessons from Fort Hood — there is only a single page dedicated to the chapter called “Oversight of the Alleged Perpetrator.” Much more space is given to military personnel policies (11 pages), force protection (six pages) and the emergency response to the shootings (12 pages).
Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut said he was “disappointed” because the inquiry “does not adequately recognize the specific threat posed by violent Islamist extremism to our military,” and added that the homeland-security panel he chairs will investigate. The Congressman whose district includes Fort Hood agrees. “The report ignores the elephant in the room — radical Islamic terrorism is the enemy,” says Republican Representative John Carter. “We should be able to speak honestly about good and bad without feeling like you’ve done something offensive to society.”
The report lumps in radical Islam with other fundamentalist religious beliefs, saying that “religious fundamentalism alone is not a risk factor” and that “religious-based violence is not confined to members of fundamentalist groups.” But to some, that sounds as if the lessons of 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq, where jihadist extremism has driven deadly violence against Americans, are being not merely overlooked but studiously ignored.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Judge Tosses Out Most Evidence on Gitmo Detainee
This angers me so much!!! This is why gitmo detainees should NOT be tried in our courts, but in a military court!! They are NOT US citizens and they do NOT get our rights. They are US enemies and terrorists and should be treated as such. Due to idiot judges like this one, you can bet a lot of them will be set free. Sickening!
Judge tosses out most evidence on Gitmo detainee
By PETE YOST
A federal judge has tossed out most of the government’s evidence against a tarrorism detainee on grounds his confessions were coerced, allegedly by U.S. forces, before he became a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay.
In a ruling this week, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan also said the government failed to establish that 23 statements the detainee made to interrogators at Guantanamo Bay were untainted by the earlier coerced statements made while he was held under harsh conditions in Afghanistan.
However, the judge said statements he made during two military administrative hearings at the U.S. detention center in Cuba, where he was assisted by a personal representative, were reliable and sufficient to justify holding the detainee.
Musa’ab Omar Al Madhwani allegedly engaged in a 2 1/2-hour firefight with Pakistani authorities before his capture in a Karachi apartment in 2002.
The detainee says that after five days in a Pakistani prison, he was handed over to U.S. forces and flown to a pitch-black prison he believes was in Afghanistan. He says he was suspended in his cell by his left hand and that guards blasted his cell with music 24 hours a day.
He said that he confessed to whatever allegations his interrogators made and that harassment and threats continued after he was moved to a different prison in Afghanistan.
Al Madhwani said that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay on multiple occasions threatened him when he tried to retract what he now claims was a false confession.
The judge said he was particularly concerned that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay relied on or had access to the coerced confessions from Afghanistan made by Al Madhwani.
The logical inference from the record, said the judge, is that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay reviewed Al Madhwani’s coerced confessions with him and asked him to make identical confessions.
“Far from being insulated from his coerced confessions, his Guantanamo confessions were thus derived from them,” Hogan wrote.
The judge said the government presented medical records about the detainee’s debilitating physical and mental condition that confirm his claims of harsh treatment during the 40 days he spent in Pakistann and Afghanistan.
Despite Hogan’s concerns about the 23 statements, the judge relied on other evidence and three statements Al Madhwani made to a military tribunal and a review board to conclude that he trained, traveled and associated with members of al-Qaida, including high-level operatives. On those grounds, the judge ruled he is legally detained.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Sick of Political Correctness: Stop Worrying About Backlash against Muslims
I am so sick of people being blind to the fact that the Fort Hood killings were done by a Muslim and could have been prevented if we had not been politically correct!!!! Hasan was a Muslim and there were a lot of signs pointing to the fact that he was anti-American and needed to be booted out ot the military. These IDIOTS who don’t want to acknowledge that and who keep warning us about ‘backlash against Muslims’ make me want to puke!!! The bigwigs in the military, the MSM, Obama’s administration – they are all covering this up and trying to be politically correct and it’s disgusting!!
P.C. Can Kill
by Rich Tucker
Cynthia Hall tried to warn us, but we didn’t listen.
Hall, as you may recall, was a 51-year-old Fulton County sheriff’s deputy assigned to escort alleged rapist Brian Nichols to court in 2005. Alone. He was a strapping six foot, 200-plus pounds. She stood five feet, maybe around 100 pounds; it would be impolite to ask a woman how much she weighs. It was also impolite, apparently, to ask whether she could handle her prisoner without help. Oh, and Nichols was unshackled, so jurors wouldn’t jump to conclusions about him.
The story is tragic, if predictable. Nichols overpowered Hall, almost killing her in the process. He shot and killed four more people before he surrendered to police. They were all victims, it seems, of a political correctness that insists we ignore physical differences and pretend deputies such as Hall can handle desperate prisoners such as Nichols.
But we’re good at ignoring unpleasant truths in polite society. Truths such as the fact that Army Maj. Nidal Hasan was anti-American and shouldn’t have been in the military.
Hasan, of course, is the 39-year-old army psychiatrist who allegedly killed 13 people and wounding 42 more at Ft. Hood in Texas last week. How can we know he was anti-American? Because he said so.
“It’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims,” Hasan told fellow doctors during a PowerPoint presentation at Walter Reed Medical Center two years ago. He was supposed to be giving a lecture about a medical procedure of his choosing. Instead, he gave a jeremiad about “The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military.”
Hasan concluded that the “Department of Defense should allow Muslims [sic] Soldiers the option of being released as ‘Conscientious objectors’ to increase troop morale and decrease adverse events.” But, apparently blinded by political correctness, nobody at that presentation insisted that Hasan be drummed out of the service. So, he allegedly went ahead and created his own “adverse events.”
We hear a lot of talk about “connecting the dots,” but that’s impossible to do without offending political correctness. For example, imagine that, on Sept. 11, 2001, airport security had stopped and arrested all the men who ended up hijacking the four planes that day. There would have been no tragedy, but there certainly would have been a backlash — against the security forces.
The New York Times would have editorialized that the men were victims of “flying while Muslim.” The government would have been pressured to change its security procedures to make sure Muslims received no scrutiny when they tried to board planes. Instead of talking about “connecting the dots” the mainstream media would have tried to avoid reporting on the existence of dots. (Why were so many Muslim young men trying to board the same plane? Why did they have utility knives? Why so many one-way tickets?) Continued…
There will always be those who aim to ignore the obvious. “Could the alleged crime spree have been prevented if he had been escorted by a male deputy?” Annie Chiappetta at ABCNews.com wondered about the Nichols case in 2005. “Law enforcement experts and Nichols’ own lawyer think not.” Uh, right.
In a similar vein, many today are eager to ignore Hasan’s religious outbursts. “As great a tragedy as this was, it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey told CNN. “I’m concerned that this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers.”
There’s no backlash, of course. And there never has been. Not after the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa. Not after the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. Not after the September 11 attacks. Not after Ft. Hood. And there won’t be after the next attack by Islamist extremists, either.
Our military has, for years, been colorblind. People got ahead based on the “content of their character” rather than the color of their skin or their gender. Sadly, even the military has started embracing political correctness. Hasan is a big example of that.
As a smaller example, the Navy changed the composition of the color guard it sent to Yankee Stadium for a World Series game last month. “Midshipman 2nd Class Hannah Allaire was selected because her presence would make the service academy look more diverse before a national audience,” The Washington Post explained on Veteran’s Day. Maybe the Navy’s new campaign should be “celebrate diversity, fraudulently.”
As a nation, we need to worry about the threat of Islamic extremists and political correctness, not the threat of a backlash. Political correctness kills. If we don’t drop our insistence on it, we’ll find ourselves mourning more victims.
LINK: http://townhall.com/columnists/RichTucker/2009/11/13/pc_can_kill
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Muslim Radicals Call Hasan ‘Officer and a Gentleman’
When will we stop being fools and believe it when Muslims say they want us dead? Our political correctness is going to kill us!! This man had been acting weird and saying weird things but no one did anything about it. They were probably afraid that Muslims would be offended or that they’d be called racist. So instead, this killer murders 13 people and then the MSM try to cover up the fact that he’s a Muslim and that it’s terrorism. Then on top of that, radical muslim groups think he’s a hero!! Is anybody listening????
Look at these other articles that talk about Hasan’s problems:
Shooter advised Obama transition
Fort Hood triggerman aided team on Homeland Security task force
LINK: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=115230Fort Hood shooting: Texas army killer linked to September 11 terrorists
Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a “spiritual adviser” to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001.
Muslim radicals call Hasan ‘Officer and a Gentleman’
13 deaths were ‘pre-emptive attack;’ ‘We do NOT denounce his actions’
Posted: November 06, 2009
By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
A website run by radical Muslims today honored Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the man accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas, as an “Officer and a Gentleman,” saying his actions should not be denounced.
The massacre yesterday, which also left more than two dozen injured, was called a “pre-emptive attack” by supporters of the Revolution Muslim website.
Hasan, a Muslim psychiatrist who reportedly had been disciplined for pushing Islam on his patients at one point in his career, had given away his furniture and handed out Qurans before going to the military base and firing on soldiers at a processing center where soldiers prepared to deploy.
There were multiple reports he had objected to being placed in the position of possibly having to fight fellow Muslims by his scheduled deployment to the Middle East. “Get Well Soon Major Nidal We Love You,” said the website run by radicals who follow an imam once jailed in Britain. “Major Nidal Hasan M.D. An officer and a gentleman was injured while partaking in a pre-emptive attack.”
The website lists as its imam Sheik Abdullah el-Faisal, who in February 2003 was sentenced to nine years in jail, reduced to seven on appeal, after being convicted of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred in England.
According to reports in the London Guardian at the time, hundreds attended his lectures, possibly including James Ujaama, a U.S. citizen accused of trying to help the Taliban in Afghanistan; Richard Reid, who attempted to detonate a bomb in his shoe while crossing the Atlantic in a jetliner; and Zacharias Moussaoui, jailed for the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the U.S.
The reports said el-Faisal, who later was released and returned to his home in Jamaica, suggested Muslims attend training camps to gain the skills to wage jihad on the West.
He was recorded praising Osama bin Laden and saying, “You have to learn how to shoot and fly planes and drive tanks.”
El-Faisal also said chemical weapons should be utilized to “exterminate non-believers” and said Muslim mothers should buy toy guns for their children to providing training opportunities.
“We do NOT denounce this officer’s actions, we do however apologize for the following acts committed by our country,” the U.S.-based website’s supporters said. They listed: “Bay of Tonkin, The East Timor Massacre by USA Supported Suharto, 1902 Samar Massacre in the Philippines by the USMC, 1,000,000 Dead Iraqis, Afghani & Pakistanis Killed by the USA, Starvation of Africa & Rape of it’s (sic) Resources by the USA, Support of the Brutal ‘Israeli’ Occupation Entity, Etc. Etc.”
“Every day is Fort Hood for the world community due to USA policies and their tyrant totalitarian puppet regimes,” the activists proclaimed. “Rest assure (sic) the slain terrorists at Fort Hood are in the eternal hellfire and it is not to (sic) late for YOU to change your policies,” they said.
The website’s mission statement states, “Revolution Muslim is a message and movement grounded in the sayings, deeds, actions and understanding of Ahlus Sunnah wal jama’ah (The collective body of those Muslims that adhere to the ways of the Prophet (SAWS) and the first four generations of Muslims).”
It continues, “We pray that we may witness the dismantlement of western, secular dominance across the world as we hold it to be pagan and idolatrous in the majority of its presumptions. We seek a resurrection of the just example set forth by centuries of Islamic rule throughout the ages and we hold it to be self evident for the objective soul and mind that Allah is One and that Muhammad ibn Abdullah is His Prophet and that the religion offers the solution to all of the world’s ills and afflictions.”
The base commander said soldiers reported they heard Hasan shout “Allahu Akbar,” or “Allah is the greatest,” while he was shooting.
The site is disdainful of other Islamic organizations, citing a condemnation from the Islamic Society of North America regarding the shootings.
“ISNA – The house dog, barks once more to please its kafir Masters,” Revolution Muslim wrote.
Hasan was born and raised in Virginia, but has family outside of Jerusalem. He enlisted and obtained his education from the military. He spent most of his career at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington until he was sent to Fort Hood this year, from where he apparently was to be deployed.
LINK: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=115325
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Climate of Hate, World of Double Standards
This is soooo true!! When a white man kills an abortion doctor, Obama and the MSM speak out against it. But when a black Muslim convert kills military recruiters they are strangely quiet and don’t want us to rush to judgment! The double standard DISGUSTS and SICKENS me.
Climate of Hate, World of Double Standards
by Michelle Malkin
When a right-wing Christian vigilante kills, millions of fingers pull the trigger. When a left-wing Muslim vigilante kills, he kills alone. These are the instantly ossifying narratives in the Sunday shooting death of late-term abortion provider George Tiller of Kansas versus the Monday shootings of two Arkansas military recruiters.
Tiller’s suspected murderer, Scott Roeder, is white, Christian, anti-government and anti-abortion. The gunman in the military recruitment center attack, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, is black, a Muslim convert, anti-military and anti-American.
Both crimes are despicable, cowardly acts of domestic terrorism. But the disparate treatment of the two brutal cases by both the White House and the media is striking.
President Obama issued a statement condemning “heinous acts of violence” within hours of Tiller’s death. The Justice Department issued its own statement and sent federal marshals to protect abortion clinics. News anchors and headline writers abandoned all qualms about labeling the gunman a terrorist. An almost gleeful excess of mainstream commentary poured forth on the climate of hate and fear created by conservative talk radio, blogs and Fox News in reporting Tiller’s activities.
By contrast, Obama was silent about the military recruiter attacks that left 24-year-old Pvt. William Long dead and 18-year-old Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula gravely wounded. On Tuesday afternoon — more than 24 hours after the attack on the military recruitment center in Little Rock, Ark. — Obama held a press conference to announce his pick for Army secretary. It would have been exactly the right moment to express condolences for the families of the targeted Army recruiters and to condemn heinous acts of violence against our troops.
But Obama said nothing. The Justice Department was mum. And so were the legions of finger-pointing pundits happily convicting the pro-life movement and every right-leaning writer on the planet of contributing to the murder of Tiller. Obama’s omission, it should be noted, comes just a few weeks after he failed to mention the Bronx jihadi plot to bomb synagogues and a National Guard airbase during his speech on homeland security.
Why the silence? Politically and religiously motivated violence, it seems, is only worth lamenting when it demonizes opponents. Which also helps explain why the phrase “lone shooter” is ubiquitous in media coverage of jihadi shooters gone wild — think convicted “Jeep Jihadist” Mohammed Taheri-Azar at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill or Israel-bashing gunman Naveed Haq, who targeted a Seattle Jewish charity or Los Angeles International Airport shooter Hesham Hedayet, who opened fire at the El Al Israeli airline ticket counter — but not in cases involving rare acts of anti-abortion violence.
Even Jeffrey Goldberg of the left-leaning Atlantic magazine noticed the double standards. He called attention to a National Public Radio report on the military recruiter attack that failed to mention the religion and anti-military animus of the suspect. Wrote Goldberg: “Why not tell people what is actually happening in the world? We saw this a couple of weeks ago, when the press only gingerly acknowledged that the malevolent though incompetent suspects in the synagogue bombing-conspiracy case in New York were converts to Islam. How is the public served by this kind of silence? The extremist Christian beliefs of George Tiller’s alleged murderer are certainly relevant to that case, and no one in my profession is hesitant to discuss them. Why the hesitancy to talk about the motivations of the man who allegedly killed Pvt. William Long?”
The truth is that the “climate of hate” doesn’t have just one hemisphere. But you won’t hear the Council on American-Islamic Relations acknowledging the national security risks of jihadi infiltrators who despise our military and have plotted against our troops from within the ranks — including convicted fragging killer Hasan Akbar and terror plotters Ali Mohamed, Jeffrey Battle and Semi Osman.
You won’t hear about the escalating war on military recruitment centers on the op-ed pages of The New York Times — from vandalism to obstruction to Molotov cocktail attacks on campus stations across the country; to the shutdown of a Pittsburgh military recruitment office by zealots holding signs that read “Recruiters are Child Predators”; to the prolonged harassment campaign against the Marine recruiting center in Berkeley, where Code Pink protesters called America soldiers assassins; to the bomb blast at the Times Square recruiting center last March.
And you’ll certainly hear little about the most recent left-wing calls to violence by a Playboy magazine writer who published a vulgar list of conservative female writers and commentators he said he’d like to rape (the obscene slang word he used is not printable). The list was hyped by the magazine’s publicity team and light-heartedly promoted by mainstream publications such as Politico.com (founded by Washington Post reporters).
Is it too much to ask the media cartographers in charge of mapping the “climate of hate” to do their jobs with both eyes open?
LINK: http://townhall.com/Columnists/MichelleMalkin/2009/06/03/climate_of_hate,_world_of_double_standards
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Nine Questions the Left Needs to Answer About Torture
Great article by Dennis Prager!
Nine Questions the Left Needs to Answer About Torture
by Dennis Prager
Any human being with a functioning conscience or a decent heart loathes torture. Its exercise has been a blight on humanity. With this in mind, those who oppose what the Bush administration did to some terror suspects may be justified. But in order to ascertain whether they are, they need to respond to some questions:
1. Given how much you rightly hate torture, why did you oppose the removal of Saddam Hussein, whose prisons engaged in far more hideous tortures, on thousands of times more people, than America did — all of whom, moreover, were individuals and families who either did nothing or simply opposed tyranny? One assumes, furthermore, that all those Iraqi innocents Saddam had put into shredding machines or whose tongues were cut out and other hideous tortures would have begged to be waterboarded.
2. Are all forms of painful pressure equally morally objectionable? In other words, are you willing to acknowledge that there are gradations of torture as, for example, there are gradations of burns, with a third-degree burn considerably more injurious and painful than a first-degree burn? Or is all painful treatment to be considered torture? Just as you, correctly, ask proponents of waterboarding where they draw their line, you, too, must explain where you draw your line.
3. Is any maltreatment of anyone at any time — even a high-level terrorist with knowledge that would likely save innocents’ lives — wrong? If there is no question about the identity of a terror suspect , and he can provide information on al-Qaida — for the sake of clarity, let us imagine that Osama Bin Laden himself were captured — could America do any form of enhanced interrogation involving pain and/or deprivation to him that you would consider moral and therefore support?
4. If lawyers will be prosecuted for giving legal advice to an administration that you consider immoral and illegal, do you concede that this might inhibit lawyers in the future from giving unpopular but sincerely argued advice to the government in any sensitive area? They will, after all, know that if the next administration disapproves of their work, they will be vilified by the media and prosecuted by the government.
5. Presumably you would acknowledge that the release of the classified reports on the handling of high-level, post-Sept. 11 terror suspects would inflame passions in many parts of the Muslim world. If innocents were murdered because nonviolent cartoons of Muhammad were published in a Danish newspaper, presumably far more innocents will be tortured and murdered with the release of these reports and photos. Do you accept any moral responsibility for any ensuing violence against American and other civilians?
6. Many members of the intelligence community now feel betrayed and believe that the intelligence community will be weakened in their ability to fight the most vicious organized groups in the world. As reported in the Washington Post, former intelligence officer “(Mark) Lowenthal said that fear has paralyzed agents on the ground. Apparently, many of those in the know are certain that life-saving information was gleaned from high level terror suspects who were waterboarded. As Mike Scheuer, former head of the CIA unit in charge of tracking Osama bin Laden, said, ”We were very certain that the interrogation procedures procured information that was worth having.” If, then, the intelligence community has been adversely affected, do you believe it can still do the work necessary to protect tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people from death and maiming?
7. Will you seek to prosecute members of Congress such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who were made aware of the waterboarding of high-level suspects and voiced no objections?
8. Would you agree to releasing the photos of the treatment of Islamic terrorists only if accompanied by photos of what their terror has done to thousands of innocent people around the world? Would you agree to photos — or at least photo re-enactments — of, let us say, Iraqi children whose faces were torn off with piano wire by Islamists in Iraq? If not, why not? Isn’t context of some significance here?
9. You say that America’s treatment of terror suspects will cause terrorists to treat their captives, especially Americans, more cruelly. On what grounds do you assert this? Did America’s far more moral treatment of Japanese prisoners than Japan’s treatment of American prisoners in World War II have any impact on how the Japanese treated American and other prisoners of war? Do you think that evil people care how morally pure America is?
If you do not address these questions, it would appear that you care less about morality and torture than about vengeance against the Bush administration.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Another Obama Radical: Rosa Brooks, the Pentagon’s Far Left Adviser
This woman is repugnant and should NOT be in a leadership position in this country! Obama is batting a thousand when it comes to putting IDIOT RADICALS in power positions in his administration. My motto is IMPEACH OBAMA! That’s right, you heard me. He does NOT want America to succeed; he is more interested in the rest of the world. Therefore he is not fit to be president.
Rosa Brooks: the Pentagon’s far left adviser
Posted By: Nile Gardiner at Apr 16, 2009
In what has to be one of the most extreme appointments yet by the Obama Administration, ex-Los Angeles Times columnist and Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks has just been made an adviser to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Fluornoy – a move Brooks describes as “my personal government bailout.”
Bailout is certainly the right word for someone who appears to have no relevant national security qualifications for the position. She does though have experience working as Special Counsel for George Soros’s Open Society Institute in New York, and as a former adviser to Harold Koh, the hugely controversial nominee for Legal Adviser to the State Department.
Brooks’ new boss Fluornoy holds one of the most powerful posts in the Pentagon, and is already playing a key role in shaping the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan as well as the wider war against al-Qaeda. She will also be a central figure in shaping U.S.-UK defence cooperation and Washington’s policy towards NATO. As an adviser to Fluornoy, Brooks will wield an extraordinary degree of influence in helping shape U.S. policy. Her extreme views should therefore be closely scrutinized.
Brooks’ description of the previous occupant of the White House as “our torturer in chief” is hard to square with President Obama’s call for bipartisanship. Nor is her ludicrous comparison of the Bush Administration’s legal arguments on the war on terror with Adolf Hitler’s use of political propaganda.
She has also accused civilian White House and Pentagon officials from the last administration of being “eager to embrace the values normally exemplified by military juntas,” while urging “military personnel to speak out, regardless of the cost, when they think our civilian leaders have gone beyond the pale” – little more than an open-ended call for the politicization of the armed forces.
Writing in the LA Times, Brooks has compared being a citizen in George W. Bush’s America “to being a passenger in a car driven by a drunk driver,” and compared the Bush Administration (“our local authoritarians”) to the leaders of North Korea or Iran. Quite what Defense Secretary Robert Gates makes of all this hate-filled talk remains to be seen, especially as he is himself a former Bush official.
Brooks, a fierce opponent of the Iraq War, mocked the White House’s “desperate flailing” and arguably belittled U.S. sacrifices in Iraq in a sarcastic 2006 piece she wrote at the height of attacks on Allied forces by al-Qaeda backed insurgents. She condescendingly noted in her article that “it’s a good thing our troops have The Google over there – like Bush, they can use Google maps to recall how their hometowns look and wonder if they’re going to make it back before this administration sends them on any more misconceived missions.” She further argued that “with so many thousands dead, and so many thousands more embittered, ‘winning’ isn’t really on the table anymore. The only question now is whether we can mitigate the damage.”
Let’s hope this is isn’t the kind of advice the new administration takes on for the war in Afghanistan. In fact it is hard to think of a more inappropriate political appointment at a time when America needs a hard-headed approach to winning a global war instead of defeatist, far-left rhetoric.
LINK: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/nile_gardiner/blog/2009/04/16/rosa_brooks_the_pentagons_far_left_adviser
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