Video - Cleric and professor at Tehran University: " The Jew is very practiced in sorcery. Indeed most sorcerers are Jews"

Video - Cleric and professor at Tehran University: " The Jew is very practiced in sorcery. Indeed most sorcerers are Jews" Hmmmm.....Makes me wonder can you barbecue Djinns? HT and more Iran Wire.

Belgium court charges six people in deadly exorcism of Muslim woman

Belgium court charges six people in deadly exorcism of Muslim woman.(AA).A court in Brussels opened on Monday the trial of six people charged in connection with the 2004 murder of a young Muslim woman in a deadly act of exorcism, a practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person believed to be possessed. The woman was reportedly deceived into believing that she could not have children because she was possessed by a 'Djinn' and that she had to undergo a practice of exorcism. But the woman apparently could not stand the severe punishment the exorcism allegedly entails to scourge the demon out of the body, and she lost her life. 
The detainees in the case include two self-appointed exorcists, the victim’s husband and three female members of a radical Muslim group, will be standing trial for three weeks and facing charges of “torture leading to death.” If they are convicted, they face up to 30 years in prison. Hours after Latifa Hachmi, 23, died in the evening of Aug. 5, 2004, her husband, Mourad Mazouj, made an emergency call reporting that his wife was feeling ill and stuck in the bathroom. But the hypothesis of a natural death was quickly dismissed, as her body was found covered with bruises and her lungs filled with water. Her husband later admitted to investigators that his wife was subjected month-long sessions of exorcism to evict from her body the demons that “prevented her from becoming pregnant.” The practice was conducted in the couple’s apartment in Brussels by Abdelkrim Aznagui, a Moroccan self-proclaimed “Sheik” and his “disciple,” Xavier Meert, a Belgian native who converted to Islam. They were reportedly assisted by the woman’s husband and three Muslim “sisters” of the victim. During this period, the young woman had swallowed dozens of liters of “holy” water, according to Belgian media reports. She was fed two spoons of yogurt every day and always had earphones playing verses from the Quran. In order to evict the demons, the exorcists reportedly put their fingers down the woman’s throat, forced her into bathing in hot water and beat her with a stick. “The husband and Latifa herself asked Xavier Meert for the exorcism sessions,” the husband’s lawyer, Peter Chomé said. “He may have misjudged her health condition, but it has nothing to do with torture,” he added. Latifa’s family asked the court to consider the practice that led to the death of their daughter as an act of torture. “They made Latifa believe that she could not have children because the devil was inside her. That’s why they started the exorcism rituals, but exorcism is not recognized in the Islamic faith,” the victim’s brother said.Read the full story here.

Saudi footballers may be under 'magic spell'.

Saudi footballers may be under 'magic spell'.(Emirates24/7).Saudi footballers could be vulnerable to magic spells and should seek spiritual treatment before they enter the play field for a match, a prominent Saudi Islamic scholar was reported on Thursday as saying. Sheikh Khalid Al Guraisi, a well known scholar and Raqi (healer by Koran), said a recent series of defeats by Al Nasr Club in domestic football matches proved the players could have fallen prey to “magic or envious eyes” But a prominent sports writer in the Gulf Kingdom dismissed reports that Al Nasr has been under magic spell, saying its fans could be under that spell. “Some Saudi football clubs could fall under a collective magic spell or envious eyes…such things are accepted in religion,” Guraisi said. “I know there are people in some clubs who use magic to affect players at another club…some of them do this through an experienced magician and the magic work could be concealed near the goal in the play field…in other cases, the magician could be present during the match to affect players.” Guraisi said he believes some clubs pay large sums of money for magic work, adding that such work largely affects the match results. He cited one case in which a Saudi player succeeded in reaching goal area of the other team by sidestepping five players but failed to score. “He was alone in the goal area after managing to elude five players…when he was there, he just fell down without scoring…this player, I think, was under a magic spell or an envious eye and had to be treated,” he said. “There should be a sort of spiritual immunization of the players who fall under a magic spell before they go to the match…I wonder why Saudi clubs do not seek the help of Raqis to heal their players,” he said. Juraisi’s comments to the Saudi Arabic language daily Sharq followed last month’s furor in the world’s dominant oil power that Al Nasr, one of the largest sport clubs in the Gulf Kingdom, has been under magic spell following a recent series of defeats and bad performance by some of its players. Newspapers quoted some Al Nasr officials as admitting their players could be under a spell. “If Al Nasr club is under a state of magic, then I believe it is the club’s fans who are under the spell not the club,” Mohammed al Duwaish, a well known Saudi sport writer and lawyer, said in remarks attacking that club. “Blaming magic for the recent bad performance shows that the club is not frank with itself nor does it see itself well in the mirror.” Another scholar also criticized Al Nasr, saying the club was only trying to blame magic for its bad performance. “I have consulted with many Sheikhs and scholars and all of them agreed with me that the club is not under a magic spell…what has been said about that spell is just an excuse to justify its failure,” Sheikh Basil al Sabei said.Hmmm.....Do you get a new coach or a Priest?Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                    Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Philipines 5.0 ; Indonesia 4.9 !More info here.

• Calling Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney: Will you meet Avigdor Lieberman? (IsraelMatzav).Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is scheduled to visit the United States next week. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has decided to leave town in honor of the occasion, and no one else in the Obama administration is willing to meet Lieberman. The word on the street is that the Obama administration, which was willing to meet with Ahmadinejad and Assad without preconditions, is unwilling to meet with the foreign minister of its erstwhile ally, and has effectively declared him persona non grata, saying that no one wants to be photographed with him or with what he represents.Here's a report from Israel's Channel 2 news, which was aired on Monday night. The report is in Hebrew, so I apologize in advance to the Hebrew-impaired. In the report that I summarized above, Channel 2 also says that American spokespeople are treating Lieberman as if he's a representative of a terror organization, and suggests that Prime Minister Netanyahu ought to intervene because this is a breach of protocol.I wonder how many of the Republican candidates for President would be willing to meet with Lieberman and attack the Obama administration for the manner in which it is treating him. Hmmm..........These are supposed to be the people who will defend Israel against Iran......Good luck with that one!Read the full story here.

• Islamic Sudan has started ‘confiscating’ Southern oil.(Al-Jazeera).Sudan has started to confiscate some oil exports from South Sudan to meet “unpaid transit fees” but said it will not shut down a pipeline carrying the southern state's oil."Since early December we've started taking part of our share after the southern government refused to agree on a deal for a transit fee," Saber Mohammed Hassan, a member of the Sudanese delegation in Addis Abba for talks on the oil issue, said on Sunday.The talks on Tuesday, sponsored by the African Union, are being held after previous rounds ended in failure.South Sudan said on Saturday that diversion of its oil was "blatant theft." It accused Khartoum of ordering its security services to load 650,000 barrels of southern oil worth $65m on a Sudanese tanker at Port Sudan."The government of Sudan has chosen to steal this oil in broad daylight just days before its own proposed commercial oil negotiations with the Republic of South Sudan," Stephen Dhieu Dau , South Sudan's oil minister, said in a statement on Saturday.He said the oil pipeline would be closed within days since storage capacity was filling up in Port Sudan but Azhari Abdalla, director general of Sudan's oil exploration and production administration, dismissed this."What I can confirm from our side is we will not close any line. It will stay open. You can take this for granted," he told the Reuters news agency.Saber Mohamed Hassan, Khartoum's chief negotiator on economic issues, did not say directly how much oil Sudan has confiscated.But he said Khartoum is applying the rate of $36, up from an initial demand of $32, to the volume exported by South Sudan, which is then divided by the global oil price "to get the number of barrels we take." He did not say what Khartoum is doing with the seized oil.South Sudan has accused Khartoum of blocking oil exports of 3.4 million barrels in Port Sudan and asking foreign oil firms to divert some oil to refineries in Khartoum and El-Obeid.Pagan Amum, South Sudan's top negotiator, said on Sunday oil companies had sent a letter to Khartoum verifying that South Sudan has paid for the use of oil infrastructure in Sudan since July."This letter makes it clear that the government of Sudan has no basis to demand any payment from the government of South Sudan because it has been paying and we cannot pay twice," Amum told reporters in the southern capital Juba.In a second demand, Khartoum wants South Sudan to pay a total of $1 billion for transit fees since July, said Badr el-Din Mahmoud, the deputy governor of Sudan’s central bank who is also part of the delegation.He said South Sudan also owed Khartoum another $6bn in debt. "The South has sent us a letter demanding $5bn but this amount is not correct. We actually demand from the South $6bn," he said.Hmmmm......As i predicted it did not take long.Read the full story here.

• How Obama Betrays Martin Luther's King's Dream.(AT).By George Picard.President Obama has mocked Martin Luther King by policies and actions that judge people by the color of their skin and not by the content of their character.Martin Luther King, Junior's "I Have A Dream Speech" was one of his more eloquent and moving speeches. His words have resonated with all Americans for the past five decades and will do so for many decades to come. Among his dreams was an America where his four children would be judged not "by the color of their skin but by the content of their character"Of course, he was not just referring to his own children or to children at all. He meant to heighten the disgrace of racism by picturing innocent children as the victims. What he truly meant -- as was made clear during the rest of his oration -- was that his dream was that all people would "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."The man who campaigned on the theme that there was no "white America" or "black America" has used his powers as President to practice identity politics on a scale never before seen in America. Barack Obama has overtly chosen top officials on the basis of their skin color and not on the content of their character. Moreover, he has enacted policies that overtly favor "people of color" over "people of pallor" regardless of the merits of the individuals impacted by his programs.What were we expecting from a man whose moral compass was the race-baiting Pastor Jeremiah Wright, whose views of white people and America would have repulsed Martin Luther King, Jr.?Has Barack Obama chosen the best people to run America -- has he picked people in a color-blind way who would do best in helping all Americans or has he used a color filter to discriminate among candidates for office?
He chose Eric Holder to be our Attorney General, despite a controversial background involving the granting of a pardon by Bill Clinton to the ex-husband of a wealthy donor. Holder became America's first black Attorney General. The past three years have seen the Department of Justice tarnished by the Fast and Furious Scandal, incompetency involving whether to try terror suspect in civilian trials in New York City, the Department's refusal to pursue a "lay-up" case involving violent voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party, and the transformation of the Civil Rights Division into a battering ram against businesses and banks on behalf of minorities.Perhaps the latter dereliction of duty should not surprise us considering that Holder has amply displayed his own true feelings regarding America and how white people treat black people. He has called us a "nation of cowards" when it comes to discussions of race, has characterized criticism of Obama and himself as being a manifestation of racism since "we're both African-Americans" and carries in his wallet a card containing language that Holder says represents his views that "there's a common cause that bonds the black United States attorney with the black criminal." Was that a Never go To Jail Card for the New Black Panther Party members?Holder's record as Attorney General has been so disgraceful that a growing list of 60 Congressmen, two Senators, GOP presidential candidates and at least two sitting governors have called for his resignation. Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer has called him one of the most incompetent attorney generals in American history.Yet Obama chose him and continues to support him despite a record of failure. Is Holder serving all the American people? Is there truly no one in the vast ranks of attorneys who could serve in that role? Does Obama care about the content of Holder's character or the color of his skin?Barack Obama campaigned on theme that there is not a "white America" or a "black America".President Obama is not practicing what Senator Obama preached. Instead of channeling the heroic Martin Luther King's dream that people be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin President Obama instead seems to be channeling the views of his moral compass, Jeremiah Wright, Jr.Read the full story here.

• Mr. President, please don’t play the race card in 2012....(FB).By Congressman Allen West.In the 2010 election cycle, 42 black Republicans were vying for seats in the House of Representatives, and 14 of them made it to the general election. Two of those candidates, myself as well as Tim Scott from South Carolina, carried that success all the way to the House of Representatives. I represent a Congressional District where more than 90 percent of my constituents are not black. A powerful movement of respect for black conservatism is brewing in this country, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be proud of it.With all of this progress, why is it that we continue to hear charges of racism emanating from the left, and most disturbingly, from the White House itself? It seems anytime there is criticism of the President or any of his black members of his administration, such as Attorney General Eric Holder, that criticism is decried as racist.Mr. Holder recently said of his critics, “This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him, both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.” In other words, he insinuated Republicans -- along with Conservatives and Tea Party members -- are incapable of judging anyone solely by their character, something I take very personally.Mr. Holder and others need to know, the criticism of the President is not of his person, but of his policies, which have clearly failed our nation--and most tragically of all in this supposedly post-racial period --have failed the black community.As of December 2011, black unemployment remained in double digits, nearly double the national average for men at 16.4 percent, and 14.1 percent for women.According to a Washington Post poll in September 2011, the proportion of black Americans with a “strongly positive” view of President Obama has slipped from 83 percent to 58 percent. It would obviously be absurd to say the black community’s changing view of President Obama is racially biased, so how can one make the same claim about white members opposing his policies?My message to President Obama is this: “Mr. President, your very presence in office demonstrates Dr. King’s dream has indeed come true. But how devastated would Dr. King be to know the Americans who are still fomenting racism at the highest levels are the very people for whom he fought for and died?”Read the full letter here.

• DSA Marxists Take Over the Occupy Movement: Plan “Spring Offensive”, With Widespread Occupations of State Capitols, Schools and Workplaces.(NZ).By Trevor Loudon.The US’s largest Marxist organization Democratic Socialists of America is moving to infiltrate and direct the Occupy Wall Street Movement into a more organized and socialist focused protest movement. DSA is working hard to sustain ‘Occupy’ over the winter in readiness for a major “spring offensive” largely directed at Republican controlled state capitols as they struggle to address massive budget problems.Writing in the latest issue of Democratic Left, DSA leader and Temple University political science professor Joseph Schwartz, explicitly calls for DSA to launch connect occupy more to the mainstream left, in order to use their combined muscle against responsible state governments come spring.The mass protests of the 1930s and 1960s did not rise and fall in a year. They were grown, sustained and nurtured, over several years, by the communist and socialists movements of the day. They were directed at achieving certain social reforms, and were relentlessly expanded by a core of committed Marxist cadre, until the bulk of their demands were met.OWS will follow the same pattern. This is just the beginning. The big difference, is that today’s activists will not satisfied with liberal social reform. These people believe they can achieve full blown socialist revolution – the end of capitalism is within their grasp. Unless they are treated as the serious national security threat that they are, they will have a very good chance of achieving their goal.Read the full story here.

• A bold move to fast track amnesty for illegal aliens.(NIN).By Douglas Hagmann.When Barack Hussein Obama stated that his work is far from over, he meant it. He is not the meandering dolt as portrayed by some right-wing media pundits, but a dangerous Marxist dictator with powerful handlers at the helm who create the agenda for him to implement. A big part of that agenda includes providing permanent amnesty for individuals living in the U.S. illegally, resulting in the “Balkanization of America.”There are many on both sides of the political divide who assert that reinforcing our borders and actually implementing our immigration laws is impossible and impractical. Some deliberately confuse legal immigration with lawless illegal immigration, while the government purposely skews facts and figures about illegal immigration to push for blanket amnesty.Well buckle up, legal Americans, because you are about to witness the acceleration of the amnesty program via executive fiat. An end-around congress and the U.S. Constitution is about to take place through a little known arm of the executive branch of government known as the U.S. Domestic Policy Council.Cecilia Munoz, 49, served as the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs at the White House since early 2009 before being tapped by Obama to take over the U.S. Domestic Policy Council. She also worked for the National Council of La Raza, a group that aggressively lobbies for amnesty for illegal aliens and mass immigration.Few would be surprised to learn that Munoz is also tied at the hip with George Soros, in her boardroom position with the Center for Community Change, a Soros-funded community organizing group with direct ties to MoveOn.org and ACORN among other similar organizations. She has also served on the board of George Soros’ Open Society Institute.Her new position will involve “coordinating the policy-making process and supervising the execution of domestic policy” in the White House, and her prior positions and contacts will most certainly continue to flow into the West Wing.It is important to remember that it is the Center for Community Change, the organization where Munoz working through 2008, openly uses as its training programs made infamous by socialist radical Saul Alinsky. One can ultimately follow the ties between the Center for Community Change to the Woods Fund, a Chicago based nonprofit group on which Obama directed along with Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.The biggest threat to America, my friends, is that coming from within.Hmmmm..........I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes. ~ Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776.Read the full story here.

• Rick Perry says Turkey should be expelled from NATO, calls leaders 'Islamic terrorists'.(Mediate).During Fox News’ South Carolina debate, Texas Governor Rick Perry suggested it might be time for Turkey to be kicked out of NATO, saying the country was being ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists. Perry’s response might surprise many, as Turkey is a longstanding US ally in NATO, and a critical diplomatic partner engaged in “a working relationship that is one of the most important but least discussed developments shaping (2011)’s change in the Arab world.”Moderator Bret Baier asked the Republican hopeful about the country’s Islamist governing party, and outlined many of the problems going on in the nation, including a high murder rate among women, lessening press freedom, and military issues in the region. “Do you believe Turkey still belongs in NATO?”“ Obviously when you have a country that is being ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists, when you start seeing that type of activity against their own citizens, then ... not only is it time for us to have a conversation about whether or not they belong to be in NATO but it’s time for the United States, when we look at their foreign aid, to go to zero with it,” Perry said, adding that Turkey "moved far away from the country it once was in the 1970s," when Perry was stationed in Turkey as a pilot, Perry boldly proclaimed. Read and see (Video) the full story here.

• Obama's Grand Scheme and Great Obsession.Syria, Iran, Israel and Palestine and the Coming War to Make the Middle East Safe for 'Islamic Democracy'.(BR).Forget mere appeasement and engagement--that's so last year.As 2012 gets going, an outline of Obama's Grand Scheme seems to be coming into focus, and the image, while still fuzzy, is frightening, to say the least. The plot that the Arab Spring-supporting President--think of him as the Candidate of Still More Change--and his pro-Islamist advisors appear to be hatching can be summarized as follows:  First, there will be another "humanitarian" intervention--in Syria, this time. Under R2P (Responsibility to Protect) cover, NATO will establish no-fly zones, buffers, etc. The objective, of course, will be to install a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Sunni government in Damascus.Intervention in Syria will trigger an all-out war with its ally, Iran. The nuclear-arming, Shiite Islamist regime will make good on its threat to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world's oil is shipped, and the United States and the UK will have to respond militarily. Iran will retaliate by attacking U.S. forces in the Middle East.Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria will attack Israel, too, firing thousands of missiles into Tel Aviv and Haifa, and maybe Jerusalem, also, aiming, as well, for Israel's Negev nuclear reactor.Israel will retaliate with great force; CNN rules won't apply; but, as civilian casualties climb--cities and towns will constitute the front in this war--Israel will threaten to unleash its presumed atomic arsenal against Iran to prevent a new Holocaust.An Israeli threat to obliterate much of Iran (as Hillary Clinton put it during her failed 2008 Presidential campaign) will force the U.S. to escalate conventional aerial attacks on Iranian military targets in order to forestall the unprecedented destruction of an Islamic nation, the fallout from which, figuratively and literally, could engulf the entire region and potentially involve Russia and Pakistan.The war will be short but vicious, ending the threat posed by Iran's nuclear and missile installations and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Establishment of NATO buffer zones in Iran--this is the tricky part--will allow Iran's U.S.-backed "Green" opposition to rise up and take power with the support of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and other so-called centrist and moderate mullahs--meaning the more pragmatic wing of the country's clerical fascist elite--and members of the regular armed forces (as opposed to the IRGC). The proverbial "freedom fighters" will somehow avoid being branded as traitors for clearly benefitting from the regime's defeat at the hands its foreign enemies.A reformed Islamic Republic system will replace the present system; but Iranian secular democracy will remain a distant dream, as the U.S. under Obama has no real interest in promoting genuine democracy in Iran or in any other predominantly Muslim country, seeing rightwing political Islam as the unstoppable wave to ride across "the Muslim world."As for Israel, victorious but badly wounded, it will be pressured by the U.S. into finally surrendering the disputed West Bank territories, including East Jerusalem, and withdrawing to indefensible, pre-June 1967 borders in order to make way at last for Obama's Great Obsession--a "contiguous Palestinian state" comprised of the aforementioned areas and Hamas-ruled Gaza, with a land corridor connecting the far-flung Palestinian parts.Read the full story here.

• 'Witness to Extermination' - Auschwitz Museum Publishes Prisoner Sketchbook.(Spiegel).By Alex Macbeth.Found hidden away in a bottle, the Auschwitz Memorial Museum has published sketches drawn by a prisoner at the Birkenau extermination camp. They provide a rare first-hand glimpse of life and death inside."The Sketchbook from Auschwitz" includes the 22 pages of drawings from an unknown prisoner whose initials were apparently MM. They represent a rare first-hand historical account of the Holocaust. "These sketches are the only work of art made in Birkenau that depict exterminations,"  The book is part of the museum's plans to launch a catalogue of 6,000 artworks in its archives.Read the full story here.

• Russian Communist Party boss believes “good chance” of victory in run-off vote against Putin, gloats over “ex”-red PM’s sagging popularity and refusal to join public debates.(OUTITW).On January 11, Russia’s Communist Party boss, Gennady Zyuganov, who believes in restoring the Soviet Union and official socialism, predicted that he has a “good chance” of defeating Vladimir Putin, Russia’s “ex”-red prime minister in the March 4 presidential election. He also warned Kremlin authorities that rigging the election would amount to “raping” the country. The 67-year-old Zyuganov opined that Putin’s approval ratings would not allow him to receive the 50 percent plus one vote needed to secure an outright victory in the first round of voting.“It would be impossible to push him through in the first round, even if votes were added in his favor. At best they have 30 percent,” Chairman Zyuganov told a news conference.“Sticking on another 20 percent would mean raping the whole country,” said Zyuganov, who will be standing in his fourth presidential election since 1996, when he was narrowly defeated by Boris Yeltsin. “An illegitimate president means complete destabilization and … distrust of the authorities,” said Zyuganov.If the Soviet strategists believe that 2012 is a propitious year in which to return an open communist in the Kremlin, then they may resort to several tactics to bring this about.First, Putin has again declined to participate in televised debates with his chief “opponent,” Zyuganov, a calculated move that will no doubt portray him as “out of touched” and “alienated” from “the people.” Taking time off for debates would “undoubtedly impede his ability to duly carry out his duties,” Kremlin spokesentity Dmitry Peskov haughtily told Russian media.“Not only must [Vladimir Putin] go on leave, but also officially agree to take part in open political debates,” insisted Zyuganov in remarks broadcast on Russian news channel Rossiya 24. Communist Duma deputy Sergei Obukhov, moreover, accused Putin of “hogging” TV coverage in controlled political advertisements. “In the last 20 days, Putin dominated the television screens 70 to 100%,” he said, adding: “We believe this makes the election process illegal, as does Putin’s continuing status of presidential candidate and prime minister.”Read the full story here.

• US Set to Free Key 9/11 Taliban Terrorist.(CC).By Clare M. Lopez.The U.S. intelligence community is warning that the Taliban have abandoned none of their goals to conquer all of Afghanistan and enforce strict Islamic law (shariah). A new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which represents the collective judgment of the most senior U.S. intelligence analysts, warned the White House in December 2011 that the Taliban would settle for nothing less than total control over "an Islamic emirate."Nevertheless, the Obama administration acknowledges that its envoys have been pursuing talks with the Taliban for the past year, are working on the opening of a political office for the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, and are considering the release of several Taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay—as a "trust-building measure." What could possibly go wrong?Aside from the fact that Afghan President Hamid Karzai seems somehow to have been left out of this flurry of diplomatic activity with the Islamic jihadists who have been fighting for the better part of two decades to take over his country, the continuing failure of U.S. leadership to know the enemy cripples our ability to defend America's most critical national security needs and exposes the homeland to the very real possibility of another 9/11. The December 2011 NIE on the Afghan Taliban plainly stated that Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Pashtun warlord whose government sheltered Usama bin Laden and al-Qa'eda in the 1990s, remains totally committed to taking over all of Afghanistan and subjugating it to the harsh dictates of shariah.When the Taliban ruled The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from 1996 until they were ousted by U.S. forces in late 2001, the world saw the most barbaric cruelties of Islamic law inflicted on the Afghan people: amputation, flogging, and stoning, as well as the savage repression of women and girls.As became obvious on one clear day in September 2001, it wasn't the Afghan people alone who would suffer at the hands of the Taliban. Mullah Omar's Afghanistan harbored Usama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the rest of al-Qa'eda as they plotted the attacks of September 11 together with the Iranian regime. As we now know from the December 2011 ruling in the Havlish case by Judge George Daniels of the Southern District of New York, the top levels of the Iranian regime, and specifically the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and intelligence service (MOIS—Ministry of Intelligence and Security), were closely involved in providing "direct and material support" to al-Qa'eda in the 9/11 attacks—and it was Mullah Omar whose steadfast loyalty to Usama bin Laden and secret dealings with Iran allowed those attack plans to proceed.This is the same Mullah Omar with whom Department of State envoy Marc Grossman has been meeting for months, unbeknownst to the American people and unbeknownst to the thousands of American troops who are still fighting against the Taliban, dying, and coming home maimed for life, in a valiant effort to defeat the forces of shariah Islam.Unfortunately, most Americans and most of our service members probably don't know that the Department of State long ago helped write the Afghan constitution, which placed the country firmly under Islamic law, complete with dictates that apostasy is punishable by death, blasphemy/slander against Islam is a capital crime, minority faiths such as Buddhism and Christianity face institutional discrimination, women are officially second-class citizens, and freedom of speech and expression is non-existent. This means that, for the last decade or so, thousands of Americans and other NATO coalition forces have been fighting to defend a government in Kabul that was already subjugated to shariah (one of the key objectives of al-Qa'eda and the Taliban in the first place).As Iran continues to drive towards a deliverable nuclear weapons capability and with Pakistan already in possession of a nuclear arsenal, the forces of shariah Islam clearly are ascendant across multiple fronts. Prospects for stability in West Asia look increasingly dim. Prospects for American leadership in defense of genuine democracy and freedom look even worse.Read the full story here.

• Israel - 'Cyber attacks didn't harm vital systems'.(Ynet).Cyber-safe? None of Israel's vital online systems were compromised in the recent series of cyber attacks on Israeli websites, Shin Bet sources told Ynet Monday. The National Information Security Authority (NISA), which operates by proxy of the Israel Security Agency, has been following the various hacking incidents of the past few weeks very closely. NISA maintains that the hackers have not been able to penetrate any of Israel's strategic infrastructure systems, such as the Water Authority, Israel Electric Co. and communication bodies. Unlike private websites or even those used by credit card companies, vital infrastructure systems enjoy a higher level of encryption and protection. Strategic bodies are defined by the government and though each body is in charge of its own security, they are constantly monitored and guided by the Shin Bet, in an effort to thwart terror attacks – cyber and otherwise – and espionage attempts. "There's a difference between someone hacking into an Israeli site and replacing its homepage with anti-Israel slogans in Arabic or stealing credit card information, and someone hacking into strategic systems that control water and power, or billions in state funds," a security source explained. "Nowadays, you don't need missiles to terrorize a population of millions – all you need is to hack into a country's classified database and abuse it in a way that could lead to a catastrophe." Monday morning saw the pro-Palestinian hackers group "Nightmare" breach the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and El Al websites. Saudi hacker "0xOmar," who leaked the credit card information of tens of thousands of Israelis two weeks ago, warned that the group – which he was a part of – is capable of hacking any Israeli website and that the cyber attacks on Israel would only grow stronger. Major banks and financial institutions in Israel are currently considering blocking online access for overseas users – a move First International Bank of Israel and Discount Bank have already applied. A banking system official told Ynet that given the recent cyber attacks, such drastic measures are necessary, even at the expense of inconveniencing clients. Minister of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Yuli Edelstein warned that "An escalation in cyber attacks can become a real threat to Israel's stability. The virtual war on Israel is a concrete threat to Israel's security. "Today it's hacking credit card companies and tomorrow it will be stealing security information and harming infrastructures. Some say that lending this too much importance is paranoia, but as we saw this morning – these are anti-Israel acts of violence and outright anti-Semitism that aim to destabilize Israel," he said.Still, Minister of Improvement of Government Service Michael Eitan (Likud) attempted to downplay the severity of the situation: "There is no need to panic. Israel's strategic infrastructure was not harmed."Read the full story here.

• Adolf for Everyone: 'Mein Kampf' Extracts To Be Sold in Germany.(Spiegel).By Martin U. Müller and Florian Zerfaß.A British publisher plans to sell excerpts from Hitler's "Mein Kampf" in Germany, claiming he wants to demystify the infamous book. But the controversial move could provoke a legal dispute with the Bavarian government, which owns the copyright and refuses reprint permission.Is it permissible to sit in a cafe and read Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf?" British publisher Peter McGee, 51, has no doubt. "Of course it is. It's long overdue that a broad public should get the opportunity to deal with the original text."And because McGee is so sure he's right, he plans to serialize extracts of the book in three small 15-page brochures with an initial print run of 100,000 copies each. The front cover features a photo of Hitler with a black bar obscuring his eyes and a headline that translates to "The unreadable book."The plans could trigger opposition from Bavarian civil servants, though. Contrary to common belief, "Mein Kampf" is not banned in Germany. But the state of Bavaria, which seized Hitler's assets after his death, owns the copyright to his infamous treatise and has so far consistently prohibited efforts to reprint it.McGee likes a fight and is no stranger to scandal. In 2009, he published reprints of vintage Nazi newspapers like Der Angriff and Völkischer Beobachter with print runs of up to 300,000, delivered alongside comments from historians.The move caused a minor uproar in Germany, with the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung warning of an "embellishment of horror" and the Central Council of Jews in Germany labelling the reprints potential "blueprints for budding Nazis." The row escalated and the Bavarian government, which also owns the copyright to the two newspapers, dispatched police throughout the nation to seize the republished copies. The Bavarian Finance Ministry takes a similarly strict view of the planned publication of "Mein Kampf." It declared: "Permission to publish volumes isn't granted in Germany or abroad." It added that Bavaria would use "all means at its disposal" to fight copyright infringements. Their aim was to prevent the spread of National Socialist propaganda and to send a "clear signal" of opposition to its content, it continued. McGee regards that as nonsense. "Mein Kampf is an extremely bad book, it is badly written, has awkward language and no internal logic," he says. "The thoughts are strewn across the whole book." But he adds that one can only recognize its insanity if one confronts the text.Read the full story here.

• Hamas brutally assaults Shi'ite worshippers in Gaza.(Haaretz).Armed Hamas men broke into a gathering of some 30 Shi'ite worshippers in the Gaza Strip last Friday and brutally attacked them, Haaretz has learned. The assault was part of a broader crackdown on Shi'ite organizations, including charities, that has been sparked in part by Hamas' fear of growing Iranian influence in Gaza.The worshippers had gathered in a house in the Sheikh Zayyad neighborhood, between Beit Lahia and Jabalya, to mark Arbaeen, the end of the 40-day mourning period for Imam Hussein, founder of Shia Islam, who was killed in 680 C.E. Hamas militants arrested 14 of the men and beat up the rest. They continued beating the worshippers even after taking some to a hospital and others to a Hamas detention facility. One Gazan, Rafik Hamad, told the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper that a senior security official called him at about 10 P.M. on Friday to tell him that his brother was under arrest at the Sheikh Zayyad police station. At the station, he found his brother suffering from fractures in his arms and legs and other serious injuries. Hamad accused the Hamas government of persecuting Shi'ite believers. "The police said my brother was a heretic and asked me to keep him at home and not let him out," he said.The Hamas-run government is convinced that Iran is expanding its influence in Gaza by means of Islamic Jihad. Gazan sources told Haaretz that Islamic Jihad now contains a group of converts to Shia Islam. The group is led by Iyad al-Hosni, also a convert, who was ousted from Islamic Jihad but recently reinstated, probably under Iranian pressure: Islamic Jihad's leadership visited Iran two months ago, and afterward, al-Hosni was appointed a senior officer in its military wing.Becoming Shi'ite is a growing trend in the Gaza Strip: Hundreds of Sunnis, both Islamic Jihad activists and ordinary people, are known to have converted. Hmmmm......Read the full story here.

• Defecting Syrian General Sets Up Military Council in Exile in NATO Member State Turkey to Coordinate Operations of 40,000-Man Free Syrian Army, Oust Assad.(OUTITW).Behind the frontlines in Syria’s insurgency, General Mustafa Ahmad al-Sheikh, the most senior commander to defect from the Syrian army, has announced the formation of a military council in exile to coordinate the combat operations of the rebel Syrian Free Army. This move will create a serious wedge between Damascus and Ankara. Sheikh was in charge of security in northern Syria before defecting. In a media statement, he explained had deserted two weeks ago because he was sickened by the regime’s ruthlessness and the killings.“This council, headed by Sheikh, will oversee military operations in conjunction with the Free Syrian Army (FSA),” Sheikh’s media advisor, Fahad Almasri, told AFP news agency. “It will also help organise defections within the army and will be in contact with officers in the regular army to encourage large-scale rather than individual defections.” Formed from deserters from the regular army, the FSA says it has some 40,000 fighters, possibly including hundreds of veterans of last year’s Libyan civil war.Last Friday, thousands of Syrians rallied in Damascus to express solidarity with the rebel troops of the FSA . Burhan Ghalioun, head of the Syrian National Council, an umbrella group that initially opposed the use of force in the uprising but has now allied itself with the defecting soldiers, met last Thursday with rebel army chief Colonel Riad al-Asaad. According to the SNC, they agreed to “formulate a detailed plan, to include the reorganization of FSA units and brigades, and the creation of a format to accommodate within FSA ranks additional officers and soldiers, especially senior military officials, who side with the revolution.”Read the full story here.

• The World from Berlin - 'There Is No American Ratings Conspiracy'.(Spiegel).Several German politicians have reacted angrily to the decision by Standard and Poor's to downgrade the ratings of nine euro-zone member states on Friday, complaining that the euro is "under attack." German commentators scoff at the idea on Monday, but say that the agencies have too much power.Powerful German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said that he didn't think the rating agency had fully appreciated the significance of steps already taken by Europe in its attempt to combat the ongoing euro-zone debt crisis. "I don't believe that Standard and Poor's has really understood what we in Europe have already set in motion," Schäuble told public radio station Deutschlandfunk. "In addition, Standard and Poor's has perhaps not sufficiently examined measures undertaken to reduce deficits by all those countries in Europe that have been hit by difficulties."Economy Minister Philipp Rösler, who is head of Merkel's junior coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party, complained that "the euro is under attack." Senior CDU parliamentarian Michael Fuchs said that the ratings agencies use different criteria in Europe than they do in the US and Britain. Elmar Brok, a leading CDU politician in European Parliament, said the downgrades "are almost the equivalent of a currency war."Read the full story here.

• QE3 has already begun in Europe.(NYP).Most Americans associate a covert action with the CIA, not the Fed. But that’s exactly what Ben Bernanke did at the end of November.The Fed chief authorized a coordinated action that lowered pricing on US “dollar swaps” by 50 basis points (0.5 percent) to its key allies in central banking. The Bank of England, the ECB, the Swiss National Bank, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of Canada are each a party to the agreement.This was done, purportedly, “to ease strains in financial markets and thereby mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesses and to help foster economic activity,” the Fed’s release said.In reality, though, the Federal Reserve has just extended essentially unlimited lines of credit, camouflaged as a swap to the world in US dollars.And now the strapped European Central Bank can and has tapped the Fed for very cheap money — cheaper than US consumers can borrow for, if they can get access to credit at all.Essentially, we just bailed out Europe’s banking system with the full faith and credit of the United States.On Dec. 21, the ECB put some of our money to work and lent out 489 billion euros to 523 different banks for a full three years.So now, through the Fed, we are invested in a circular, circumventing fashion in 523 of Europe’s weakest banks — at all-time low interest rates, no less. And the ECB has chosen to withhold the names of these banks.To sum it up:

1. The Fed essentially borrows or is backed up by US taxpayers, already in debt through mortgages, credit cards, student loans.
2. The ECB in turn borrows from the Fed and then leverages that money up under its ECB umbrella.
3. The ECB then lends it out to 523 of Europe’s most overleveraged banks.
4. The desperate banks keep some to fortify their balance sheets, and use the rest to buy sovereign debt in some of the most overleveraged countries in the world, like Italy and Spain,which were just downgraded Friday by S and P.So after the long laundering of US dollars, the Fed now is investing in and lending to Europe’s most desperate banks, which have in turn invested some of that money in the debt of some of Europe’s weakest countries.Hmmmm.........Suddenly Solyndra looks like a great investment.Read the full story here.

• Qatar’s Muslim Brotherhood Connection.(BigPeace).The Switzerland of the Middle East or the Nation State of the Muslim Brotherhood?The small Middle Eastern country of Qatar ruled by Amir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani is larger than life. Boasting the world’s largest per-capita GDP due to its substantial oil and natural gas revenues, Qatar flourishes. Home to Al Jazeera, indoor skating rinks, indoor skiing, and a series of man-made tiny islands, Qatar’s riches come at a price, playing a game among nation states and terrorists groups.Very few understand Qatari power. From assisting rebel forces in the overthrow of the Qaddafi regime to mediating negotiations between the U.S. and Taliban, Qatar has a history of positioning itself as a powerful neutral nation state. Unfortunately, Qatar’s neutrality is not very neutral.Resting in the middle of today’s main center of global conflicts, Qatar is listed as the fifth safest place in the world. I remember a few years back being told by a government employee that many terrorists freely roam the streets of Qatar’s capital Doha. When seeking further insight towards this fascinating revelation, I was later told that the Qataris have a deal with many terrorists organizations and it goes like this– “Don’t play any games on our soil and we will leave you alone.”Not only will the Qatari government leave terrorists alone, they will actually embrace them. It is known that the Qataris have openly invited terrorist organizations into their country for safe haven. In April 2012, Hamas was offered space in Qatar to establish a headquarters. Interestingly enough, Qatar has been known to work hand in glove with the world’s largest Sunni extremist entity known as the Muslim Brotherhood for well over thirty years.Hamas was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2006, a five day skirmish between Israel and Hezbollah entailed. Qatar stepped up as a negotiator between the two rivals eventually assisting in ending the ordeal. Israel and Qatar strengthened their relations but that tie didn’t last long. Needless to say, Israel eventually caught onto Qatar’s motives which entailed supporting Palestinians who are heavily backed by the Muslim Brotherhood puppet Hamas.The United States is soon going to fall into a similar trap the Israeli’s fell into. Qatar approved the creation of a Taliban office. A negotiation is soon to occur between the U.S. and the Taliban with Qatar (Muslim Brotherhood)serving as the mediator. Sound familiar?Many anti-Obama Americans believe the U.S. President is either part of the Muslim Brotherhood or is associated with them. In fact, Robert Spencer had recently written for Human Events an article linking President Obama to the Brotherhood. Believe what you will.Taliban were supported by Al Qaeda during the Russian-Afghan War. Al Qaeda has ties to the Brotherhood. Whether formally of informally, so does the Taliban. In the end, while President Obama may or may not be linked the to “al-Banna monster,” it is obvious that the tiny Middle Eastern state of Qatar has some type of relationship to the Muslim Brotherhood. We need to take caution and learn an invaluable lesson from the Israeli’s when dealing with Qatar. Qatar is not the Switzerland of the Middle East.Hmmmm...................Based in Qatar, Sheikh Qaradawi has reportedly amassed substantial wealth through his role as Shari’ah adviser to many important Islamic banks and funds. He is also considered to be the “spiritual guide” for Hamas.It is interesting to note that the headquarters of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), completed in 1983, was funded by $21 million raised from Brotherhood figures Youssef Qaradawi and Youssef Nada as well as the emir of Qatar.Read the full story here.

• Vatican Spokesman: “Among Our Most Serious Concerns Is The Increase In Islamic Extremism – Persons Dedicated To Extremist Islamic Ideology Perpetrate Terrible Acts of Violence”.(Catholic Culture) — The director of the Holy See Press Office has used his weekly message to draw attention to the plight of persecuted Christians.“The recent annual report of the international evangelical non-governmental organization Open Doors on the persecution of Christians in the world contains a world index of persecution according to which the first ten places are occupied by the following countries in descending order: North Korea, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Iran, Maldives, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Iraq and Pakistan,” notes Father Federico Lombardi.“Among the most serious concerns, the increase in Islamic extremism merits special attention,” he continued. “Persons and organizations dedicated to extremist Islamic ideology perpetrate terrible acts of violence in many places throughout the world: the Boko Haram sect in Nigeria is but one example. Then there is the climate of insecurity that unfortunately in some countries accompanies the so-called “Arab spring”–a climate that drives many Christians to flee and even to emigrate.”“Such sufferings are a part of the Christian journey,” Father Lombardi concluded. “Nor ought we be amazed. Jesus said so in the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,’ is the last of the Beatitudes; its promise is reward in heaven.” Hmmmm.......“Violence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be,” ~ Pope Benedict XVI .Read the full story here.

• Saudi Arabia: Islamic Morality Police Arrest Maid For Murder After “Djinn” Interrogation.(Emirates 24/7) — A Saudi father insisted that his Asian housemaid killed his little daughter and tried to eliminate the entire family through magic, saying questioning of jinn gripping another daughter confirmed his accusations.The father told police that his eight-year-old daughter died suddenly while her mother and elder sister had been admitted to hospital in serious condition.The unnamed man said that he had sought the help of a Raqi (Koran reader and healer) to cure his daughter who is still lying at hospital.“The Raqi interrogated the jinn gripping my daughter and confirmed that the family has been subject to evil magic work,” the father said, quoted by the Saudi Arabic language daily Kabar.In an earlier report, Okaz daily said Saudi Arabia’s feared religious police arrested the maid after her employer accused her of causing the death of their child and seeking to destroy the family through witchcraft.The father told the members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice that they found paper and nails in the hair of some family members and were told by mosque preachers they were magic spells.Hmmmm.....What language do Djinns speak?Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                       Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan today 5.4 ! More info here.

• Japan - Nuclear disaster - Situation Update No. 141 - .Source .

• Japan : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to : Paul Langley's Nuclear History Blog.Here.

• Acting like a dictatorship: White House tried repeatedly to exclude honest news channels from reporting on administration.(DougRoss).Mark Levin has repeatedly stated that Barack Obama is the first president in history who "thinks like a dictator". But does this statement go too far?Consider the Wiktionary definition of the word fascism, which reads as follows:

"A political regime, usually totalitarian, ideologically based on centralized government, government control of business, repression of criticism or opposition, a leader cult, and exalting the state and/or religion above individual rights."

Judicial Watch has unearthed documents that confirm the President's desire to suppress dissent.[These documents show] the Obama administration, contrary to its repeated denials, attempted to exclude the Fox News Channel (FNC) from a round of interviews with Treasury’s “Executive Pay Czar” Kenneth Feinberg. The documents, which include email exchanges within the Department of the Treasury and between Treasury and White House staff, also provide colorful evidence of an anti-Fox News bias within the Obama White House....According to press reports, the Fox News Channel was specifically excluded from joining the pool of reporters which precipitated a backlash among the networks and a reversal by the Obama Treasury Department.According to The New York Times: “Fox’s television news competitors refused to go along with a Treasury Department effort on Thursday [October 22, 2009] to exclude Fox from a round of interviews with the executive-pay czar Kenneth R. Feinberg that was to be conducted with a ‘pool’ camera crew…”. Fox News Channel’s James Rosen reported this backlash forced the Obama administration to reconsider its position on the matter: “The Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV news network consulted and decided that none of them would interview Feinberg unless Fox was included, and the administration relented…,” reported Rosen. Ultimately, after other media representatives objected, Fox News Channel was allowed to participate in the interviews.

The Treasury Department’s official response, as detailed in back-and-forth emails uncovered by Judicial Watch, included a clear denial of any such plot to exclude Fox News from the interviews: “There was no plot to exclude Fox News, and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing.” Moreover, in an October 23, 2009 email to New York Times reporter Jim Rutenberg, Jake Siewart, Counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, repeated the denial that there was an effort to exclude Fox News Channel: “Call me today on your Fox-Treasury report,” Siewart wrote. “Not true that there was an ‘effort to exclude’ Fox.”However ..., internal Obama administration emails [show] that FNC was specifically singled out for exclusion. According to one October 22, 2009, email exchange between Dag Vega, Director of Broadcast Media on the White House staff, to Jenni LeCompte, then-Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs in the Treasury Department, Vega informs LeCompte that “…we’d prefer if you skip Fox please.”...In an email on the night of October 22, 2009, commenting on a report by Fox News Channel anchor Bret Baier noting the exclusion of the network from the pool, Psaki writes to Compte and fellow White House colleagues, “…brett baier just did a stupid piece on it -- but he is a lunatic”.Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest bluntly described the White House’s position on Fox News Channel in an October 23, 2009, email to LeCompte: “We’ve demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews…”The Treasury Department blacked out a key email regarding its refusal to make available Treasury Secretary Geithner for an interview on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.Just as they do with the rest of the Bill of Rights, the minor-league Chicago thugs occupying the White House could care less about the First Amendment. They despise free speech; they act like petulant children when criticized; and when confronted on controversial topics, they lie -- early and often.Hmmmm.......dictatorship or democracy?Read the full story here.

• What Happened to the $2.6 Trillion Social Security Trust Fund?(Forbes).Here’s how President Barack Obama answered CBS’s Scott Pelley’s question about whether he could guarantee that Social Security checks would go out on August 3, the day after the government is supposed to reach its debt limit: “I cannot guarantee that those checks [he included veterans and the disabled, in addition to Social Security] go out on August 3rd if we haven’t resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.”And Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner echoed the president on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday implying that if a budget deal isn’t reached by August 2, seniors might not get their Social Security checks.Well, either Obama and Geithner are lying to us now, or they and all defenders of the Social Security status quo have been lying to us for decades. It must be one or the other.Here’s why: Social Security has a trust fund, and that trust fund is supposed to have $2.6 trillion in it, according to the Social Security trustees. If there are real assets in the trust fund, then Social Security can mail the checks, regardless of what Congress does about the debt limit.President Obama’s budget director, Jack Lew, explained all this last February in USA Today.Hmmmmm..............Read the full story here.

• The Obama Downgrade,the real reason the U.S. could lose its AAA rating.(WSJ).So the credit-rating agencies that helped to create the financial crisis that led to a deep recession are now warning that the U.S. could lose the AAA rating it has had since 1917. As painfully ironic as this is, there's no benefit in shooting the messengers. The real culprit is the U.S. political class, especially the President who has presided over this historic collapse of fiscal credibility.Moody's and the boys are citing the risk of a default on August 2 as the proximate reason for their warning. But Americans should understand that the debt ceiling is merely the trigger. The gun is the spending boom of the last three years and the prospect that Washington lacks the political will to reduce it in the years to come.Congress is responsible for the way so much of this spending was wasted, resulting in little job creation and the slowest economic recovery since the 1930s. But in the U.S. political system, Presidents are supposed to be the fiscal adults. When they abdicate, the teenagers invite over their special interest friends and blow the inheritance. The President is now claiming to have found fiscal virtue, but notice how hard he has fought House Republicans as they've sought to abate the spending boom. First he used the threat of a government shutdown to whittle the fiscal 2011 spending cuts down to very little. Then he invited Paul Ryan to sit in the front row for a speech while he called his House budget un-American.Now Mr. Obama is using the debt-ceiling debate as a battering ram not to control spending but to command a tax increase. We're told the White House list of immediate budget savings, the ones that matter most because they are enforceable by the current Congress, are negligible. His offer for immediate domestic nondefense discretionary cuts: $2 billion.As for Mr. Obama's proposed entitlement cuts, they are all nibbling around the edges of programs that are growing far faster than inflation. He's offering few reforms that would make a difference in the long run. Oh, and ObamaCare is untouchable, despite its $1 trillion in new spending over the next several years, growing even faster after that.So now we have the inevitable showdown over the debt limit, which must be raised to pay for all of this spending. And Mr. Obama is blaming Republicans for being irresponsible because they won't raise taxes in return for promises of modest future spending restraint. And some people even fall for it.We've said we think it would be foolish of Republicans to walk into Mr. Obama's debt-limit trap and let him blame them for the financial fallout, including a possible credit downgrade. But this is not because we think they will deserve the blame. Even if this debt-ceiling crisis passes, the threat of a credit downgrade will continue and grow until Mr. Obama changes his policies, or Americans change Presidents.Hmmmm......Hear,hear!Read the full story here.

• Video - Jordan protests leave several injured,among them Journalists.(Al-Jazeera).  Journalists not spared as police violently end clash between protesters and government supporters in Amman.At least 10 people have been injured amid efforts by police to stop clashes between demonstrators and government supporters in the centre of the Jordanian capital, Amman.Police used batons on Friday to disperse people outside city hall, beating and injuring nine journalists.An Al Jazeera correspondent and several other journalists, including a Reuters cameraman, said they were attacked by police.The wounded included an AFP photographer and a female activist."We were beaten by police, although we were wearing special press vests," one of the injured photographers said."We thought we would be safe when we stood next to the police and away from the clashes."Fahim Karim, a New York Times reporter, was beaten by 10 policemen while a photographer who works for another international news agency said he was ordered by police not to shoot the scene.The clashes took place after about 2,000 people, including Islamists and youth groups, marched from Amman's Al-Husseini mosque to the city hall."Rulers, we want to reform the regime. We want the palace to hear the voices of Jordanians," the demonstrators chanted before they were set upon by government supporters.It was still unclear if the demonstrators would defy government warnings and hold an open-ended sit-in.Jordan has faced a protest movement demanding political and economic reforms and an end to corruption, since January.Security forces have previously prevented demonstrators demanding the removal of the government, but not King Abdullah, who appoints the cabinet and has wide powers, from assembling at main squares.Read the full story here.

• United Nations Security council gets 'devastating briefing' about Syrian nuke plant.(JPost).UNITED NATIONS - The UN nuclear watchdog brought allegations of covert atomic work by Syria before the Security Council on Thursday, but the 15-nation body took no immediate action amid divisions among key powers.The International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors voted in June to report Syria to the council, rebuking it for stonewalling an agency probe into the Dair Alzour complex, bombed by Israel in 2007.Western countries said Thursday's closed-door briefing by Neville Whiting, head of the IAEA safeguards department dealing with Syria and Iran, had made clear that Syria had a secret nuclear plant. They said the council should pursue the issue, but suggested it might not discuss it again before September.Russia and China, allies of Damascus who can veto any council action, queried whether the council should be involved, as the Syrian complex no longer exists.US intelligence reports have said the complex was a nascent, North Korean-designed reactor intended to produce plutonium for atomic weaponry, before Israeli warplanes reduced it to rubble. Syria has said it was a non-nuclear military facility.British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant told reporters Whiting had given a "devastating briefing ... from which you could only draw one conclusion -- that Syria did have at Dair Alzour a clandestine nuclear plant."Damascus had "tried to conceal the purpose of that plant ... misled the IAEA about what the purpose was and ... failed to cooperate effectively with the IAEA in following up the questions that the IAEA put to them," he said.Both Lyall Grant and German Ambassador Peter Wittig noted that the IAEA was due to produce a new report on Syria for its board of governors in September. "And then we take it from there," Wittig said.But Chinese envoy Wang Min said Beijing was "not very happy" about the council's involvement. "We should not talk about something that does not exist. There are a lot of things that happened in the past -- should we discuss all of them?" he asked.Russian envoy Alexander Pankin, asked what he had learned from Thursday's briefing, said "not much."Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari said the meeting "didn't come to any conclusion because the Security Council considers only matters related to threats to peace and security, not to prefabricated, unfounded accusations against a member state of the United Nations.""The point is that there is no case for the Security Council to consider in its deliberations," he said.Hmmmmm..........Assad the 'reformer'.Read the full story here.

• Video - Congressman John Sullivan: Obama “Despicable, Sick And Twisted”.(Dollard).Read and see the full story here.

• Socialist Senator: Obama's Wrong - Social Security Checks Will Go Out If Debt Ceiling Isn't Raised.(NewsBusters).America's only admittedly socialist member of Congress said Wednesday that he disagreed with President Obama's comments concerning Social Security checks possibly not going out on August 3rd if the debt ceiling isn't raised.When Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he felt checks to seniors and disabled vets would be issued no matter what, the host of MSNBC's "The Ed Show" responded, "So you would take issue with the President on that statement, that he may have been fear-mongering in essence?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

ED SCHULTZ, HOST: And Senator, what was your response to the President when he told a, an anchor in an interview he couldn’t guarantee that the checks would be there on April 3rd [sic], that he couldn’t guarantee that the Social Security checks would, would hit people’s bank accounts if we don’t take action? What’s your response to that? True or false?

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS (I-VERMONT): Well, there are differences of opinion about that. There are some who would argue, and I tend to agree, that given the fact that Social Security has a $2.6 trillion surplus, then you can figure out a way you must make sure that seniors and disabled vets get their checks.

SCHULTZ: So you would take issue with the President on that statement, that he may have been fear-mongering in essence?SANDERS: What he is saying is, look, there’s not enough money here to pay our debts. That’s true. I think, in fact, we can pay Social Security.Interesting when possibly the most liberal member of Congress goes on national television contradicting a Democrat president. That'll teach Schultz never to ask a question he doesn't know the answer to.Read the full story here.

• Obama Owns the Debt-Ceiling Fiasco.(WSJ). It doesn't help that he's declared high-speed rail and even unspent stimulus funds as untouchable.President Barack Obama and Congress face a mess if the federal government hits the debt ceiling Aug. 2. The Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank, projects that the government will receive $172 billion in revenues between Aug. 3 and Aug. 31, but it is on the hook to spend $306 billion, leaving a shortfall of $134 billion.On Tuesday, Mr. Obama told Scott Pelley of CBS News that "there may simply not be the money in the coffers" to issue Social Security, veterans and disability checks after Aug. 3. Not so. The $172 billion in revenues collected over the rest of the month can pay the $29 billion interest charges on the national debt, Social Security benefits ($49 billion), Medicaid and Medicare ($50 billion), active duty military pay ($2.9 billion), Department of Defense vendors ($31.7 billion), IRS refunds ($3.9 billion), and about a quarter of the $12.8 billion in unemployment checks due that month. There will, however, be no cash for highway construction, no checks for federal workers or retirees, no agriculture payments, no open national parks. Interest rates are also likely to rise if U.S. debt is downgraded, adding massively to the deficit and further damaging the economy. This would be a disaster with no political winners. The president's two most recent press conferences, in which he accused the GOP of foot-dragging, convinced Republicans that he was interested in scoring political points and attracting independents, not facilitating a deal. Convening high-profile White House meetings without offering substantive concrete proposals and then having his aides leak madly (and inaccurately) to the press afterward further squandered trust. There's still time for a deal, but it could come after the Aug. 2 deadline, and after much damage has been done to America's financial standing. Then the key political question will become who gets the blame. By then, it should be obvious that the man who promised to transcend petty politics and legislative gridlock made things worse. Washington is dysfunctional. And to paraphrase the president's senior adviser, David Plouffe, Mr. Obama owns the dysfunction. The president has not only governed as a liberal—he's governed as an incompetent liberal, thereby reminding voters that electing a Republican Congress and president next year is the only way to change direction.Read the full story here.

• U.S. credit rating not worth saving, Ron Paul says.(Politico).The United States’s top credit rating is “probably not” worth saving, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said Thursday, less than a day after a major rating agency indicated it was considering a downgrade as the country hurtles toward the August 2 deadline without a deal to raise the debt ceiling.Paul, who earlier this week announced that he won’t run for reelection to Congress so that he can focus on his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, suggested in an interview on Bloomberg TV that he doesn’t see much value in the ratings of Moody’s and the two other major bond raters.“I think if you had a market evaluation on this issue, it should have marked down a long time ago,” he said.A downgraded credit rating would only amplify what is already clear to him - that the U.S. government is “insolvent,” Paul said.“We play along with this game with Social Security. We know it is insolvent. We know that if it were an insurance company, it would be in big trouble,” he said. “It is true that this rating will have an effect, but it is a short-term effect. Ultimately, the fundamentals show this country is bankrupt.”Though raising the debt ceiling would solve short-term problems, it leaves the longer term ones intact, Paul said.“Sometimes I wonder whether this is more of a political theater to build up the fear. First, we won’t be able to write the checks for Social Security and the next thing there’ll be a down rating of bonds,” he said.President Barack Obama said in an interview earlier this week that he could not “guarantee” that Social Security checks would be sent on August 3 and onward if there isn’t a deal on the debt “because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.”Though Paul, a longtime critic of U.S. monetary policy who would like to see the Federal Reserve abolished and wrote a book called “End the Fed” two years ago, is doubtful about the actual value of Moody’s rating of the U.S. government, he acknowledged it could motivate congressional Republicans and the president to reach a deal on the debt ceiling.“If they do this, this will be very significant, but I think it is part of the game to make sure everyone is fearful so we continue this process,” he said, referring to the negotiations over raising the debt ceiling.“Long term, I think raising the debt limit is a negative because it delays the inevitable. It will give us much bigger problems down the road. Today and tomorrow, if Moody’s does not lower the bond rating, it will be helpful in the short run. In the long run, it will be more devastating because Congress will go back to their old habits again.”Hmmmmm......."Old habits die hard"?Read the full story here.

• Republicans' eyes on Clinton's visit for radar talks with Turkey.(TodaysZaman).US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will arrive in İstanbul today to participate in the fourth meeting of the Libya Contact Group and on Saturday will pay a long-expected bilateral working visit that had been postponed due to political turmoil in the Middle East.While in Turkey, in addition to her counterpart, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, Clinton will also meet with President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to discuss the situation in Libya and Syria and a full range of shared bilateral and multilateral issues.US senators and their staff will be watching closely to see if she pushes the agenda on an agreement to station a US missile defense radar in Turkey, an agreement many Republicans oppose, foreign policy blog The Cable reported on Wednesday.“We write with concern over recent reports that the administration may be nearing completion of a bilateral agreement with the Turkish Government to base a US AN/TPY-2 (X-Band) radar in Turkey,” wrote Republican Senators Jon Kyl of Arizona and Mark Kirk of Illinois in a July 12 letter to Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta obtained by The Cable.At the NATO summit of heads of state and government in Lisbon last year, Turkey formally backed NATO plans to build a missile defense system, saying it will also contribute to national defense against the growing threat of ballistic missile proliferation.The same Turkish diplomat elaborated on Ankara's approach to the issue, recalling that within the new Strategic Concept of the Alliance, which was decided upon at the Lisbon summit, the missile defense had been accepted as a fundamental element of NATO's joint defense system.“The to-be established system will serve in a defense-oriented capacity which does not aim at any offensive against another country. Ankara attaches high importance to the fact that this defensive system will not only make a contribution to the NATO countries' security but will also contribute to regional and global security and efforts for disarmament in general,” the diplomat said.“The work done within the alliance for improving the NATO missile defense system is continuing within this context. By their very nature, consultations concerning this issue are also being held among the allies. Turkish-US talks on this issue are being held as part of consultations among the allies within the framework of the NATO missile defense system, which will also include the United States' Phased Adaptive Approach,” the diplomat added.The Cable, meanwhile, reported that the senators want the radar to be based in either Georgia or Azerbaijan, arguing that these two countries are better locations for defense against a missile attack from Iran.“But more broadly, they are concerned that Ankara will place a number of onerous restrictions on the radar, such as demanding that no data be shared with Israel. The senators have also accused Turkey of violating US sanctions against Iran, which they said calls into question their reliability as a partner in organizing a missile defense system aimed at Tehran,” The Cable said.Hmmmmm......A scary thought came to my mind," efforts for disarmament in general" is this aimed at Israel?Does turkey want the shield against Israel?Read the full story here.

• "The laws don't apply to me"?Obama Election Campaign Admits to Violating FEC Election Laws.(Ghostfighters).Obama’s election campaign manager Jim Messina admitted in a video released on July 13th that they have been collecting foreign funds for Obama’s 2012 election campaign and the DNC, to the tune of $86 Million. This is clear violation of the FEC laws for campaign funding.The Logan Act, which states…

§ 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments.

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply himself, or his agent, to any foreign government, or the agents thereof, for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.1 Stat. 613, January 30, 1799, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 953 (2004).

Here’s the video in which Messina says : Obama has raised in this quarter $86 million.GLOBALLY! GLOBALLY! GLOBALLY! This must go to the FEC and we should send this to Rep Issa immediately.They are either that stupid or they just don’t give a damn!At about 3:25 he says globally we raised.Read and see the full story here.

• Israelis “bug” President Obama to release Pollard. Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA – July 13, 2011[IMRA: The following anecdote which was shared with IMRA by a first-hand  source, raises some question about the degree of seriousness that is being attached to the numerous requests that have been made to President Obama for the release of Jonathan Pollard. Pollard is languishing in an American prison in his 26th year of a life sentence.]At a recent kosher fundraising dinner party for President Obama’s reelection campaign where donations started at $20,000.00 and up, a well-connected American Jewish activist (who brought in serious money that night) merited a few minutes of private time with the President. Here is how their conversation went:

The activist asked the President, “Are you going to free Jonathan Pollard?

The President responded, “Are they bugging you too?”

The activist replied, “Yes, the Jewish community is bugging me.”

The President declared, “The Israelis are bugging me too.”

The activist explained, “Pollard is an important issue in the Jewish Community today. We all feel its time for him to be released.”

The President was silent.

The activist pressed on, “I raised a lot of money for tonight’s event and many of those who gave me money only gave it to me on the condition that I ask you the question about Pollard.”

There was no response from the President.The conversation was closed.Hmmmm.......Sounds like the debt talks?Read the full story here.

• Japanese firm cuts ties with Iran over crane executions.(Ynet).Crane manufacturer says it has ended business relations with Islamic Republic after Los Angeles Times report reveals Tehran used cranes for public hangings. A Japanese heavy machinery manufacturer said it has cut business ties with the Iranian government following a report that its cranes have been used for public executions. The company's announcement came several days after United Against Nuclear Iran President Mark D. Wallace published an op-ed in Los Angeles Times where he names the Japanese Tadano company as one of several companies exporting cranes to Iran."In response to Iran's brazen attempts to intimidate and terrorize its own people, United Against Nuclear Iran has launched a Cranes Campaign. The goal is to educate crane manufacturers worldwide about the Iranian regime's clear misuse of their products and how such use can tarnish their brand image," Wallace wrote.As part of the campaign, United Against Nuclear Iran published on its website a list of seven international manufacturers exporting cranes and other heavy equipment to Iran, along with pictures of the cranes being used for public executions.Crane-hanging has become a common in the Islamic Republic. According to the op-ed, "Amnesty International estimates that as many as 13 people had been hanged in public by the end of April, compared to a total 14 in all of 2010. In a number of instances, those executed have been left hanging high in the air on construction cranes for all to see." Wallace called on the international community to bring to an end "this kind of barbarism and highlight more broadly the deteriorating human rights situation in Iran."Hmmmmm......Perhaps give Iran another seat at the UN?Read the the full story here.

• Shoah forum raises awareness on mass graves.(Ynet).Mass graves in Eastern Europe 'lay forgotten, unmarked and unstudied for decades' because of Communist rule and Holocaust denial, says one of scholars attending symposium in Bucharest.Dozens of scholars and historians from across Europe and the US attended a symposium earlier this month on Holocaust mass graves in Eastern Europe to raise awareness in countries where little information on the subject was available under communism. Paul Shapiro from the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum said well over one million Jews were murdered in Eastern Europe before the Nazi concentration camps were operational. He said the mass graves "lay forgotten, unmarked and unstudied for decades" because of Communist rule and Holocaust denial. The event in Romania's capital – the first of its kind in a former communist country – coincided with the commemoration of 70 years since about 12,000 Jews were killed in northeastern Romania under the pro-fascist regime of dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu. Participants at the symposium came from France, Germany, Ukraine, the US and Romania. Last year, researchers in Romania discovered a mass grave in a forest near the town of Popricani, close to the northeastern city of Iasi where the 1941 pogrom took place. The grave contained the bodies of 36 people, including women and 12 children. Shapiro said "at Iasi, thousands of Jews were murdered on the streets of the city by Romanian authorities and civilian collaborators, with some German participation, within sight of the non-Jewish population of the city." He added that "the killings elicited no negative reaction by the population." Shapiro believes that the Iasi pogrom could be seen as "the signal that mass murder of Jews on the streets, in plain sight, in public, was possible, and that all Jews, not just men who might bear arms to resist, should be killed and simply thrown into mass graves, to be forgotten forever." "Is it by chance that just three to four weeks later official Nazi policy changed to call for the murder of all Jews - men, women, children and the old?" he said. The discovery near Iasi last year offered evidence of pogroms against Jews in the region, where official history taught that Germans were the sole perpetrators of the Holocaust. About 280,000 Jews and 11,000 Roma, or Gypsies, were killed during the pro-fascist regime of dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu, who was Romania's prime minister from 1940 to 1944 and was executed by the communists in 1946. About 6,000 Jews live in Romania today. During communist times, the country largely ignored the involvement of Romania's leaders in wartime crimes. The country's role in the Holocaust and the deportation of Jews were minimized by subsequent governments after communism collapsed in 1989. In 2004, after a dispute with Israel over comments about the Holocaust, then-President Ion Iliescu assembled an international panel led by Nobel-prize winner Elie Wiesel to investigate the Holocaust in Romania. Read the full story here.

• Vowing Revenge for Osama bin Laden's Killing, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Commanders Vie for Control; Hakimullah Mehsud's Control Waning As TTP Splits.(Memri).Following the May 2, 2011, killing of Osama bin Laden in a U.S. operation in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, there are indications that leading commanders of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, or the Movement of Pakistani Taliban) are vying for control of the organization, while TTP Emir Hakimullah Mehsud's grip on the organization may be waning. In recent weeks, Maulana Waliur Rehman, who is the TTP's Emir for the Mehsud tribal region of Waziristan, and Umar Khalid Khorasani, the TTP's Emir for Mohmand Agency, have released several media statements, indicating attempts by them to assert control on the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Also, a leading Taliban commander, Fazal Saeed Haqqani, recently announced that he is breaking away from the TTP, the umbrella alliance of Taliban commanders, and cited differences with the TTP leadership for his decision to quit.

On July 5, 2011, a Pakistani media report which quoted anonymous Taliban commanders and Pakistani intelligence officials noted that Hakimullah Mehsud has been in isolation for more than a year,and is rapidly losing control over the TTP. "Hakimullah might soon be faced with more rebels from within the TTP after last week's defection by one of his top commanders [Fazal Saeed Haqqani]," the report said.

A militant commander, who was not identified in the report, said: "It looks as though he [Hakimullah Mehsud] is just a figurehead now. He can hardly communicate with his commanders in other parts of the tribal areas … he is in total isolation. Only a few people within the TTP know where he is.Although Pakistani military officials claim credit for Hakimullah Mehsud's isolation, the locals in the Pakistani tribal region say that this his isolation is "more likely due to" anger among tribesmen over the U.S. drone attacks, who think that these attacks would not take place if the militants leave the area, according to the report.Perhaps the most convincing sign of dissension within the TTP came in late June when Fazal Saeed Haqqani, the Taliban commander for Kurram Agency, announced that he had broken away from the Hakimullah Mehsud-led TTP. Fazal Saeed Haqqani, who claimed that he has received offers of support from militants from various regions of Pakistan, announced the launch of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Islami (TTP-Islami), a new militant organization.

According to the report, Fazal Saeed Haqqani, who is reportedly 39 years-old, also claimed that about 800 armed fighters are under his command. Haqqani has studied at the Darul Uloom Haqqania madrassa at Akora Khattak, a town in the Nowshera district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. This Islamic seminary at Akora Khattak is run by Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam leader Maulana Samiul Haq, and is known for training a generation of Pakistani militant commanders. After Fazal Saeed Haqqani's departure, the Hakimullah Mehsud-led TTP appointed Maulana Zahir as the TTP's commander for Kurram Agency. "The defection [of Fazal Saeed Haqqani] took place within days after unknown attackers killed a spokesperson [Shakirullah Shakir] for the TTP's Fidayeen-e-Islam group – the suicide bombing squad," a Pakistani media report noted, adding: "The killing of Shakirullah Shakir, a key figure of the TTP, in Mir Ali town of North Waziristan has raised questions over how influential Hakimullah still is in the region."A tribesman, who was not identified in the report, described the impact of Fazal Saeed Haqqani's departure in the following words: "It was like a slap in the face for him [Hakimullah Mehsud]. Nobody could have imagined such things [e.g. the killing of Shakirullah Shakir] here sometime back." The report added: "A day after Haqqani's announcement to split, a group of the Taliban from Khyber Agency attacked their counterparts from Orakzai [district] in what appeared to be another sign of growing friction within the TTP and lack of a centralized and coordinated leadership."

It is possible that Fazal Saeed Haqqani may be enjoying some support from the Pakistani military. While announcing his break from the TTP, Fazal Saeed Haqqani declared that his new organization TTP-Islami will not launch suicide attacks in Pakistan, noting that he has been against suicide bombings from the beginning, and on various occasions has called on the TTP leadership to halt such strikes in Pakistan.Importantly, Fazal Saeed Haqqani's operational area was Kurram Agency, a district where the Pakistani military last year allowed the Haqqani Network to create a new safe haven, as Pakistan has been under U.S. pressure to carry out an operation in North Waziristan, the traditional base of Haqqani Network. The Haqqani Network, the second largest militant group among the Taliban in Afghanistan, is believed to be supported by the Pakistani military intelligence.

Umar Khalid Khorasani, the TTP's commander for Mohmand Agency, is not known to have released videos or statements in recent years. However in June 2011 he took the extraordinary step of granting an exclusive video interview to the British news agency Reuters. Answering questions regarding his mission and Osama bin Laden's killing, Umar Khalid Khorasani outlined his targets: "God willing our fight against America is continuing, inside Pakistan as well as outside Pakistan. When we launch our attacks, we will prove that we can hit American targets outside Pakistan also, because it is our enemy. Our attacks against it will continue.""Even if some rapprochement is reached in Afghanistan, our ideology, our aim, our struggle is for the removal of the British system that still exists in Pakistan. It does not matter whether there is peace or war throughout the world, our struggle for the implementation of the Islamic system in Pakistan will continue," he added.Umar Khalid Khorasani has dispelled Western policymakers' thinking that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistani Taliban), the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Afghan Taliban), and Al-Qaeda are separate organizations. In an exclusive article titled "The Group of 40 Thieves" in the magazine, he accused the "Western media and the international media working under its influence" of engaging in covering up the biggest news story of the day – that "the U.S. has been defeated in Afghanistan."

Describing the Pakistani ruling class as "The Group of 40 Thieves," Umar Khalid Khorasani observed: "This group of 40 thieves cares not for the country or its people; it cares only for money… And there is another group… the Pakistan Army and its intelligence agency [Inter-Services Intelligence – ISI]; first of all they are worried about the [security of] nuclear weapons and the secular image of Pakistan. They think that if the religious sentiments remain dominant, then they will be isolated internationally, and their nuclear program will become a target of the superpowers."

"Jews and Christians will never be pleased with you until you become one among them," Umar Khalid Khorasani said, quoting the Koran. Describing the Pakistan Army and intelligence agencies as apostates for supporting the U.S., the TTP commander said that the supporters and enemies of the Pakistani military once thought that the Pakistani soldiers are fighting for the U.S. "But," he added, "in my opinion, this view is being proved weak, because in reality the rulers of Pakistan, political parties, and the military itself are Islam's worst enemy."Umar Khalid Khorasani also stated that the Taliban's objective is the establishment of a worldwide Islamic caliphate of which Pakistan will be a branch, noting: "It is too much to expect fraternity to Islam from such a [Pakistani] army of an Islamic country. It will keep fighting Muslims, demolishing mosques and madrassas, delivering Muslim sons and daughters to the U.S… But if they are thinking that they will finish the Taliban, it is foolish thinking, because the U.S. has surrendered with all its army and arsenal; Russia surrendered; and Britain accepted defeat… The day is not distant when there will be pure Islamic sharia in Pakistan, and Pakistan will be a branch of the same Islamic khilafat [caliphate]."Hmmmmmm........Houston we have a problem?Read the full story here.

• Iran - Isa Saharkhiz Writes Letter from Prison to UN Special Rapporteur.(Persian2English).Isa Sahahrkhiz, a prominent journalist and one of the founders of the Society for the Defense of Press Freedom in Iran has written a letter from Rajai Shahr prison to the UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur Dr. Ahmad Shaheed, urging him to take immediate action and travel to Iran.Isa Saharkhiz was violently arrested in July 2009 and consequently suffered broken ribs. He was later tried and, sentenced to three years in prison for “Insulting the Supreme Leader and the regime”, banned from all political and journalistic activities for five years, and prohibited from leaving the country for one year.Translation of the letter from Isa Saharkhiz to the UN Special Rapporteur

Dear Mr. Shaheed,With greetings,

I, Isa Saharkhiz, one of the political prisoners arrested after the 2009 coupe election, have not been allowed to exercise my legals right of prison furlough for needed medical treatment, after having served half of my prison sentence.

Mr. Ahmed Shaheed,

The news of your appointment as the UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur to Iran was heartwarming for me and many other political prisoners. We hope that you will be our voice in informing the public of the deplorable conditions of the prisons in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Mr. Ahmed Shaheed,

What is happening now in the Islamic Republic prisons is a crime against humanity and not any less than Stalin’s inhumane treatment of prisoners in the forced labor camps of Siberia.This treatment is not solely limited to the political prisoners, but the situation for the general prisoners is no less disastrous.

You have probably heard of the horrible death of Hoda Saber who died while on hunger strike after being beaten by prison officials. Prior to that, you must have heard of Mohsen Dokmechi’s death.You probably also are somewhat aware of my medical situation and are aware that they will not even allow me to be hospitalized for my needed medical treatment. I will not go into the details of my medical case.My purpose for writing this letter is to remind you that such a dire situation exists and that another tragic event may occur at any moment. It is apparent to me and my fellow inmates that the strategy and objective of the authorities is “to kill the protesting prisoners silently and gradually”.

They have made a deliberate decision to destroy us and have planned a silent death for us, because they fear our survival even behind these walls and bars.

You, in the name of humanity and because of the responsibility that has been bestowed upon you, are obligated to use everything in your power and act immediately to inform the public of the heinous [crimes] that occur behind these walls.I hope you realize the value of time in this matter and know that any delay in taking action will result in the deaths of more political prisoners.Therefore, I urge you to take action immediately and travel to Iran without any further delay. If the authorities prevent you from visiting with the political prisoners, that will only show another disgraceful act by a regime that is built on the foundation of lies.Isa Saharkhiz- July 2011. Rejai Shahr prison.Read the full story here.

• Pakistani Security Analyst Examines Hizbut Tahrir's Role in Recruiting Pakistan Army Officials to the Cause of Establishing Islamic Caliphate.(Memri).Following the recent arrest of serving Pakistan Army officer Brigadier Ali Khan and four majors over their connections to the Islamist organization Hizbut Tahrir (HT) Pakistan, there is growing concern in Pakistan that the Islamic militants in the country may have penetrated deep inside the Pakistani military.Hizbut Tahrir is an international movement of Islamists who seek to establish an Islamic caliphate worldwide by recruiting educated and professional Muslim youth to their cause. Concern about Hizbut Tahrir's influence among the Pakistani military officers grew in the wake of the May 22 militant attack on PNS Mehran, the Pakistan Navy headquarters in Karachi. It is believed that the PNS Mehran naval airbase attack was aided by officers within the Pakistan Air Force.In a recent article titled "The Hizbut Tahrir Threat," Muhammad Amir Rana, a noted Pakistani commentator on security issues, argued that Hizbut Tahrir has "an anti-constitutional and anti-democratic outlook and agenda." Rana, who is editor of the research journal "Conflict and Peace Studies," warned: "Most analysts tend to watch madrassas and popular mass movements for signs of radicalization. The danger with HT is ever more serious and often overlooked because it is not always visible and does not conform to stereotypes."Read the full story here.

• Arab League Sec.-Gen. Objects to U.S. Statements Against Assad.(Memri).In response to statements by U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has lost his legitimacy, Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Al-Arabi said that he opposes verbal attacks on Syrian leaders.Al-Arabi added that no one has a right to determine that the president of any country has lost his legitimacy, except for the people who elected him.After meeting with Al-Assad, Al-Arabi said that there is no pressure on the Arab League to make a decision on Syria similar to the one made on Libya.Read the full story here.

• Mecca great deals for real estate agents as abandoned buildings and estates are possessed by jinns.(Arabnews).MAKKAH: There are widespread rumors among Makkawis claiming some abandoned buildings and estates are possessed by jinns.According to the widely circulated gossip, residents of these buildings located in various districts of the holy city, especially on the outskirts, say they vacated their dwellings after supernatural forces had harmed them.There are divergent views among local residents with regard to the rumors. However, most of their views seem to confirm the existence of something mysterious at these buildings.These have forced the owners of a number of such buildings and plots of lands to sell them at much lower rates.There are also reports that some realtors are allegedly behind these rumors.Local resident Muhammad Bazaid said it was easy to identify abandoned buildings that are allegedly possessed.“Some buildings and estates in the city are known to be possessed by jinns. People used to say that,” he said, while noting that this situation is being exploited by some realtors.“They are behind spreading of these rumors and are thus instrumental in lowering prices of these properties. They then try to buy them at prices much lower than the market value,” he said.Hmmmm........"Who you gonna call?Ghostbusters?Read the full story here.

• Belgium: Moroccans against use of children in Palestine campaign.(IslaminEurope).Via Le Vif/L’Express (with help from the Philosemitism blog):A Belgian-Moroccan group (Union of Belgian-Moroccan Associations, CABM) published a letter condemning the "Welcome to Palestine" campaign, whose Belgian delegation included 5 minors, including at least three Belgian-Moroccan girls (aged 14, 15, and 17).One of the authors of the letter and president of CABM, Hassan El Bouharrouti, told Le Vif/L’Express that his daughter (17) was dragged into this adventure by her mother, though he had warned the police, the border police and the Israeli embassy. He accused the organizers of cultivating hate and antisemitism, when there are still battles to fight in Belgium against racism and social exclusion.Excerpts from the letter: We condemn in the strongest terms the use of minors in the International Mission of Solidarity with the Palestinian people on July 8 2011, in which a Belgian delegation participated. The appeal by the organizers to anybody over the age of 9 seems to have elicited no response on this point from the signatories, which included several politicians, academics and associations.In Belgium minors should never have been exposed to any risk whatsoever while participating in a mission that clearly part of a provocation and confrontation with the State of Israel. This showdown doesn't serve the Palestinian cause which is at the heart of this mission. However, it contributes to fueling antisemitism in the Belgian-Moroccan community. Wanting to make minors into righter of wrongs is absolutely irresponsible on the part of the parents whose role it is to ensure the protection and development of their children, and not to send them on a suicidal antisemitic operation (...)The participants, mostly Belgian-Moroccans, were able to participate in this mission after they collected the necessary funds. Each participant paid 500 EUR for the ticket and 300 EUR for pocket money. Questioned, the Belgian authorities did not see fit to prevent the departure of minors to Israel. They awaited the reaction of the Israeli authorities who finally ensured their security by sending them back to Belgium. We appeal to the responsibility of the Belgian authorities to ensure that minors will not be asked to participate in any operation aimed at exploiting them for political means in a conflict likely to endanger their life or security. We appeal to the subsidizing authorities to guarantee that no funds will be granted for financing such operations for minors.Read the full story here.