Tag Archives: Hezbollah

The Obama Effect

June 17, 2009Ralph Peters

IT must have been the viewing angle: The despots who run Iran somehow missed the halo gracing President Obama during his recent sermon to the Muslim world.

The ruling mullahs’ contemptuous handling of Iran’s presidential election was their response to "the Cairo effect" announced a tad prematurely by the White House.

Our president’s public flagellation of America only emboldened the junta in Tehran — leaving Iran’s power brokers more defiant, determined and dismissive than they’ve been in years.

And the strongest response Obama can muster to the blood in Tehran’s streets is: "I am deeply troubled by the violence that I’ve been seeing on television." How bold, how manly, how inspiring . . .

Our president’s speechwriters made the same mistake no end of diplomats and pundits made before them: They didn’t pause to consider the enemy’s viewpoint. Like Obama himself, they didn’t bother trying to understand the mullahs’ logic for acting as they do.

Obama believed that his rhetoric would change the strategic environment — and his White House apostles wasted no time before declaring that his Cairo speech was responsible for Hezbollah’s electoral setback in Lebanon a few days later.

Then administration spokespersons panted to take credit for the "inevitable" election of Mir Hossein Mousavi in Iran. But the men who run Iran didn’t play along: Every Basij (regime-thug) baton cracking a demonstrator’s skull in Tehran is a — distinctly clenched — fist shoved in Obama’s face.

Mousavi may have won the most votes: Incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad probably didn’t receive the landslide majority announced two hours after the polls closed — in a country that’s barely progressed beyond the abacus. We’ll never know the real tally of ballots.

Now we have the cynical charade of a "review" of the election results by the Iranian authorities. (The Persian cat really enjoys toying with the mice.)

But the point really isn’t whom the voters chose. It’s that Iran’s entrenched interests read Obama’s meant-to-be-conciliatory remarks as a confession of weakness, a signal that the United States is at the end of its strategic rope.

The result was that the mullahs and state corporatists no longer saw a need to play pretend. Bush worried them. Obama doesn’t. They judged, correctly, that Washington wouldn’t so much as issue a tough-minded statement in response to this mockery of an election. And they were right.

For its part, the administration appears stunned, still unable to believe that its self-abasement toward the Middle East didn’t inaugurate the Age of Aquarius.

Well, consider the view from Tehran (or from Qom, Iran’s religious capital): Improved relations with the United States would rob the religious junta of the justification for much of what it does, from looting the country in the name of righteousness to pursuing nuclear weapons.

The rulers in Tehran need us as an enemy (along with Israel). A demonized foe is essential to their grip on power. And all that rhetoric about the impending end of time and the return of the Hidden Imam? A key faction — which includes President Ahmadinejad — believes it.

Of course, a president who feels that one religion’s as easy to disbelieve in as another can’t fathom the depths of faith in a Muslim fanatic any more than he can grasp the benign devotion of an American Roman Catholic, Baptist or Jew.

Ahmadinejad believes that his faith alone will rule after the any-day-now apocalypse. Obama believes in… Obama.

This is not an even match, folks. No man preoccupied with his personal destiny can beat the man ablaze with revelation: This contest features the carnival barker vs. the suicide bomber.

My money’s on Ahmadinejad, not Obama, to trigger change in the Middle East. And it’ll be change you can believe in.

Meanwhile, the Saudis, our paramount enemies, just sit back and smirk after making a court eunuch of yet another American president. The stillborn hopes of greater freedom lie buried in the sand.

Obama’s penitential Cairo sermon betrayed those Middle Easterners who embraced our ideals, who struggled for human rights and democracy, suffering prison, torture and death. Perceived as a confession of weakness and guilt, Obama’s rhetoric electrified our enemies.

There has been a "Cairo effect." We just saw it. In Iran.

Now we face our bloodiest year in Afghanistan. Iraq’s exciting progress has ground to a halt. All Palestinian factions just rejected an attempted opening by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And al Qaeda has awakened from its coma.

The desert’s a lousy place to walk on water.

Ralph Peters was recently a guest on the first episode of Securefreedom Radio. Listen to that memorable interview here.

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What if Israel strikes Iran?

June 11, 2009John Bolton

Whatever the outcome of Iran’s presidential election tomorrow, negotiations will not soon — if ever — put an end to its nuclear threat. And given Iran’s determination to achieve deliverable nuclear weapons, speculation about a possible Israeli attack on its nuclear program will not only persist but grow.

So what would such an attack look like? Obviously, Israel would need to consider many factors — such as its timing and scope, Iran’s increasing air defenses, the dispersion and hardening of its nuclear facilities, the potential international political costs, and Iran’s "unpredictability." While not as menacingly irrational as North Korea, Iran’s politico-military logic hardly compares to our NATO allies. Central to any Israeli decision is Iran’s possible response.

Israel’s alternative is that Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs reach fruition, leaving its very existence at the whim of its staunchest adversary. Israel has not previously accepted such risks. It destroyed Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 and a Syrian reactor being built by North Koreans in 2007. One major new element in Israel’s calculus is the Obama administration’s growing distance (especially in contrast to its predecessor).

Consider the most-often mentioned Iranian responses to a possible Israeli strike:

1) Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz. Often cited as Tehran’s knee-jerk answer — along with projections of astronomic oil-price spikes because of the disruption of supplies from Persian Gulf producers — this option is neither feasible nor advisable for Iran. The U.S. would quickly overwhelm any effort to close the Strait, and Iran would be risking U.S. attacks on its land-based military. Direct military conflict with Washington would turn a bad situation for Iran — disruption of its nuclear program — into a potential catastrophe for the regime. Prudent hedging by oil traders and consuming countries (though not their strong suit, historically) would minimize any price spike.

2) Iran cuts its o wn oil exports to raise world prices. An Iranian embargo of its own oil exports would complete the ruin of Iran’s domestic economy by depriving the country of hard currency. This is roughly equivalent to Thomas Jefferson’s 1807 embargo on American exports to protect U.S. shipping from British and French interference. That harmed the U.S. far more than the Europeans. Even Iran’s mullahs can see that. Another gambit with no legs.

3) Iran attacks U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some Tehran hard-liners might advocate this approach, or even attacks on U.S. bases or Arab targets in the Gulf — but doing so would risk direct U.S. retaliation against Iran, as many U.S. commanders in Iraq earlier recommended. Increased violence in Iraq or Afghanistan might actually prolong the U.S. military presence in Iraq, despite President Barack Obama’s current plans for withdrawal. Moreover, taking on the U.S. military, even in an initially limited way, carries enormous risks for Iran. Tehran may believe the Obama administration’s generally apologetic international posture will protect it from U.S. escalation, but it would be highly dangerous for Iran to gamble on more weakness in the face of increased U.S. casualties in Iraq or Afghanistan.

4) Iran increases support for global terrorism. This Iranian option, especially stepping up world-wide attacks against U.S. targets, is always open. Assuming, however, that Mr. Obama does not further degrade our intelligence capabilities and that our watchfulness remains high, the terrorism option outside of the Middle East is extremely risky for Iran. If Washington uncovered evidence of direct or indirect Iranian terrorist activities in America, for example, even the Obama administration would have to consider direct retaliation inside Iran. While Iran enjoys rhetorical conflict with the U.S., operationally it prefers picking on targets its own size or smaller.

5) Iran launches missile attacks on Israel. Because all the foregoing options risk more direct U.S. involvement, Tehran will most likely decide to retaliate against the actual attacker, Israel. Using its missile and perhaps air force capabilities, Iran could do substantial damage in Israel, especially to civilian targets. Of course, one can only imagine what Iran might do once it has nuclear weapons, and this is part of the cost-benefit analysis Israel must make before launching attacks in the first place. Direct Iranian military action against Israel, however, would provoke an even broader Israeli counterstrike, which at some point might well involve Israel’s own nuclear capability. Accordingly, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards would have to think long and hard before unleashing its own capabilities against Israel.

6) Iran unleashes Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel. By process of elimination, but also because of strategic logic, Iran’s most likely option is retaliating through Hamas and Hezbollah. Increased terrorist attacks inside Israel, military incursions by Hezbollah across the Blue Line, and, most significantly, salvoes of missiles from both Lebanon and the Gaza Strip are all possibilities. In plain violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, Iran has not only completely re-equipped Hezbollah since the 2006 war with Israel, but the longer reach of Hezbollah’s rockets now endangers Israel’s entire civilian population. Moreover, Hamas’s rocket capabilities could easily be substantially enhanced to provide greater range and payload to strike throughout Israel, creating a two-front challenge.

Risks to its civilian population will weigh heavily in any Israeli decision to use force, and might well argue for simultaneous, pre-emptive attacks on Hezbollah and Hamas in conjunction with a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Obviously, Israel will have to measure the current risks to its safety and survival against the longer-term threat to its very existence once Iran acquires nuclear weapons.

This brief survey demonstrates why Israel’s military option against Iran’s nuclear program is so unattractive, but also why failing to act is even worse. All these scenarios become infinitely more dangerous once Iran has deliverable nuclear weapons. So does daily life in Israel, elsewhere in the region and globally.

Many argue that Israeli military action will cause Iranians to rally in support of the mullahs’ regime and plunge the region into political chaos. To the contrary, a strike accompanied by effective public diplomacy could well turn Iran’s diverse population against an oppressive regime. Most of the Arab world’s leaders would welcome Israel solving the Iran nuclear problem, although they certainly won’t say so publicly and will rhetorically embrace Iran if Israel strikes. But rhetoric from its Arab neighbors is the only quantum of solace Iran will get.

On the other hand, the Obama administration’s increased pressure on Israel concerning the "two-state solution" and West Bank settlements demonstrates Israel’s growing distance from Washington. Although there is no profit now in complaining that Israel should have struck during the Bush years, the missed opportunity is palpable. For the remainder of Mr. Obama’s term, uncertainty about his administration’s support for Israel will continue to dog Israeli governments and complicate their calculations. Iran will see that as well, and play it for all it’s worth. This is yet another reason why Israel’s risks and dilemmas, difficult as they are, only increase with time.

John Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad" (Simon & Schuster, 2007).

Obama, zakat and Islamic charities

June 8, 2009Christopher Holton

For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat. –President Obama in Cairo

We’re still shaking our heads in disgust over Obama’s pledge to ease the scrutiny on zakat payments to Islamic charities in the speech he delivered in Cairo. For readers who don’t know, zakat is one of the fiver pillars of Islam and it is a required tithing from all faithful Muslims who are able to donate. Charities are declared zakat-eligible by Shariah scholars, many of whom, by the way, are flat-out jihadists.

And there’s the problem. zakat payments have very often gone to charities that support terrorist organizations. Very often.

Though we’re not absolutely certain what the exact motivation for this move by Obama is, we have a few ideas:

1. The most likely reason for this announcement and pending change in policy is that the Sauds complained loud and long. You see, even though many pointed out that the Bush family had too many close ties to these monsters, on Bush’s watch the Justice department did actually manage to finger two of Saudi Arabia’s largest charities for sending money to terrorist groups. One of these was the Union of Good, operated out of Saudi Arabia by none other than Sheikh Qaradawi, who is of course banned from entering the US and the UK due to his longstanding, close ties to terrorist organizations. This is the same character who referred to Shariah-Compliant Finance as "Jihad with money" in a 2006 interview with the BBC…(at least the guy was honest we suppose.).

The Union of Good is sort of like an Islamic United Way, an umbrella group for-count ‘em-53 charities. In fact, when you add up all these Union of Good charities with other charities identified as terrorist entities, by our most recent count, you come up with 80 Islamic charities tied to terrorism.

In other words, these aren’t isolated incidents or cases of mistaken identity or simple errors.

The Sauds have been caught red-handed and they don’t like losing face. So, they have taken advantage of Obama’s shameless obsequiousness and pressured him into easing up on them.

No doubt, that pressure was accompanied by the usual meaningless assurances not to support "terrorism," without, of course, actually defining what "terrorism" means.

2. It is also possible that Obama and his handlers don’t actually realize what zakat really is and how it works and they are just responding to requests from Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the US, such as CAIR and ISNA, which are getting pinched by the scrutiny of Islamic charities. (Ironically, Obama wants to take away the charitable deductions for Americans who give the most, but given the zakat requirements set out to faithful Muslims in Shariah, that scheme won’t have as great of an impact on Islamic charities as it does on other charities. Hmmm…)

3. The third possibility is that Obama and his handlers know what zakat is and still want to go ahead with reducing scrutiny of the Islamic charities. This possibility, of course, is not mutually exclusive of number 1 above. It is a little hard to believe that anyone could be completely ignorant of zakat and the role Islamic charities play in funding terrorism in making such an announcement in such an important policy speech. Heck, just two weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal published an article about how the Taliban continue to receive financial support from Muslims around the world through Islamic charities!

We won’t speculate about Obama’s motivation here, but relying on assurances from "the Muslim world" not to support terrorism is bad policy because Shariah mandates that Muslims donate zakat to charities and it also mandates that a portion of those zakat donations go to Jihad.

Under Shariah law there are several approved destinations for zakat.

The most authoritative source for such information is a book which is available on Amazon called The Reliance of the Traveler, A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law. That book has a section devoted to the rules of zakat, including "The Eight Categories of Recipients." On page 272, section h8.17, one category is labeled:

THOSE FIGHTING FOR ALLAH

The seventh category is those fighting for Allah, meaning people engaged in Islamic military operations for whom no salary has been allotted in the army roster (O: but who are volunteers for jihad without remuneration). They are given enough to suffice them for the operation, even if affluent; of weapons, mounts, clothing, and expenses (O: for the duration of the journey, round trip, and the time they spend there, even if prolonged. Though nothing has been mentioned here of the expense involved in supporting such people’s families during this period, it seems clear that they should also be given it).

This passage, from this widely-used Shariah text seems to have been written expressly about zakat payments to charities which have funded Al Qaeda, HAMAS, Hezbollah and the Taliban. Note from the passage that such payments are meant specifically for irregular forces who are not part of any army roster, which describes terrorist/guerilla/insurgent groups exactly. Note that they are meant for "Islamic" military operations and not secular groups (i.e. HAMAS and not the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command). Note that such payments are made even if the recipient is affluent…like Osama Bin Laden. And, finally, the families of fighters are to be taken care of, such as payments by Saddam Hussein and Saudi princes to families of Islamikaze bombers in Gaza and the West Bank.

All too often, the destinations of zakat payments are to Jihadists, simply because Shariah mandates it.

That is the reason the federal law enforcement and intelligence authorities in the US have scrutinized Islamic charities to such a degree. And it is irresponsible of the Obama administration to intervene. This is in fact how our enemies are being funded.

Originally posted at ShariaFinanceWatch.

The growing Afghanization of Latin America

May 17, 2009Luis Fleischman

Versión en Español

When President Barack Obama was criticized for his over friendly interaction with Hugo Chavez during the Summit of the Americas, he responded by saying that the U.S. has nothing to fear from a country that has an economy six hundred times smaller than ours.

This curious remark by our President brings another logical question to mind: how big is Al Qaeda’s economy in comparison to ours? It is likely that Al Qaeda’s assets are substantially smaller than oil-rich Venezuela’s. Likewise, Iran’s economy is not comparable to the American economy, even in a time of recession and economic crisis.

It is then logical to ask whether national or regional security is endangered in relation to economic capability or in an era of asymmetric wars. Does a country or an entity need to be economically or (even militarily) superior to those who oppose it in order to generate a situation of instability and threat?

The Obama Administration knows the right answer. Otherwise, the President and his national security team would not be so aggressively pursuing a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. What this Administration most fears in that area of south-central Asia is the collapse of the state in Pakistan and the inability to produce governability in Afghanistan. Both countries are located thousands of miles away from the United States but still the U.S. government recognizes that a situation of anarchy or Taliban rule in both countries would lead to regional instability. That, in turn, could lead to a situation of chaos with the danger that rogue elements could not only posses a nuclear weapon but also could take over in those places where state authority vanishes.

Obama’s public relations strategy in Latin America, mostly aimed at opening a new page in U.S.-Latin American relations, is consistent with Bush’s policies. In both the Bush and the Obama Administrations, the leading agency in charge of this policy seems to be the State Department whose philosophy is to try to improve the image of the United States in Latin America in order to mitigate the effect of anti-Americanism in the area. Not confronting Hugo Chavez and his allies appears to be a device aimed at portraying them as the instigators and the U.S. as the civilized and reasonable actor. Obama’s apologetic appearance in Trinidad & Tobago was consistent with this conception.

There are a number of elements missing in that view. In previous issues of the "America’s Report" we have described Chavez’s intentions at revolutionizing the area by supporting anti-establishment groups and candidates like himself across the region. We also reported that Chavez has designed a new regime based on absolutism and the elimination of civil and political rights while evangelizing these anti-democratic ideas throughout the region. He has built alliances with rogue states on the basis of anti-Americanism while attempting to remove America’s anti-drug and military presence. His wish to eliminate the American sphere of influence and bring other actors such as China, Iran and Russia into play is more than evident. However, there is one aspect not previously mentioned which deserves more attention, especially for U.S. foreign policy makers; that is the spread of anarchy at the expense of state authority.

A case in point is the Clinton Administration’s introduction of Plan Colombia in order to help Colombia fight the drug cartels and the FARC which by then had taken over forty (40) percent of Colombian territory. At that time, dangerous non-state actors took over this large portion of a democratic state in the Western Hemisphere. It is because of the hard work of President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia that this situation has been largely reversed. In Venezuela and other countries allied with Chavez, not only are we seeing the consolidation of socialist autocracies but also the proliferation of dangerous non-state actors.

Today, Venezuelan airports are being freely used by drug cartels to export drugs to Europe and the U.S.; Chavez and Correa have helped the FARC in the fight against Colombia; Hezbollah cells have increased their fund-raising and other activities in the area with the support of Hugo Chavez; Iran and drug cartels cooperate under the auspices of Chavez; the Maoist Shining Path is reviving its activities in Peru, probably with the help of elements associated with Chavez. In Venezuela Hezbollah and other Islamists are empowered by the regime while Chavez, himself, has made chaos into official policy.

It has been reported that 454 leaders of independent unions have been murdered by parallel official "union" mercenaries. It was also reported that the union leader representing the Toyota workers was murdered after reaching a deal with the Japanese company. The government did not like the deal because an official union leader was able to negotiate a peaceful resolution to a labor conflict. These mercenaries are allegedly criminals recruited in the prisons by the Chavez government. Criminality has already taken on a life of its own which would be difficult to control even if Chavez were no longer president. High-level criminality could serve drug cartels and radical Islamist groups like Hezbollah, or the FARC. More and more potential seditious, underground and criminal groups are encouraged as these Chavez-type regimes advance in the region.

In other words, the monsters fed by the Chavista alliance now have a life of their own and are likely to survive even after their sponsors are gone.

That being the case, what will be the situation in Latin America? Perhaps, it could mean that Colombia’s anarchical syndrome of the 1980’s and 1990’s will expand further. In other words, a situation similar to Afghanistan and Pakistan is likely to become omnipresent and irreversible. If in Afghanistan and Pakistan the danger is coming from the Taliban, Al Qaeda, the warlords and other non-state powerful actors, what makes us think that in Latin America we will be able to control a similar coalition of the drug cartels, the FARC, Hezbollah and the free criminals of the Chavez regime?

Curiously enough, President Woodrow Wilson was very concerned about developments in Mexico during the Mexican revolution early in the 20th century. Order and stability in Mexico were crucial to U.S. policy makers. Wilson and other U.S. administrations supported regional stability. Today, the challenge is even more serious as drug cartels and terrorist groups are far more sophisticated. Latin American countries seem to be apathetic to this possible development or may be they expect some other country to come to their rescue.

The Organization of American States (OAS) whose president is Miguel Insulza has looked the other way while these developments have taken place. The OAS not only has ignored Chavez’s aggression towards their neighbors but it has also ignored assaults on democracy. As the example of Chavez shows us, the collapse of democracy leads not only to authoritarianism but also to chaos and criminalization of society.

Latin American leaders, aren’t you concerned? The advance of drug cartels, terrorist groups and criminality at the expense of state authority is, in the minds of the OAS leaders, only an American problem. They appear to be more concerned about America attempting to somehow influence them than about the dangers coming from the elements mentioned above. This is why they were delighted by Obama’s "different approach", as if the U.S. is really their problem. To the contrary, it is in their collective interest to work with the United States against this phenomenon while there is still a chance to do so peacefully.

Dr. Luis Fleischman is a senior advisor to the Menges Hemispheric Security Project at the Center for Security Policy in Washington DC.

Transacciones bancarias entre Chavez y Ahmadinejad

May 7, 2009Nicholas Hanlon

Version in English

Los lideres de Irán y Venezuela han creado una impresionante red de comercio e influencia internacional con la que se oponen abiertamente a los Estados Unidos. Ya sea fundando el programa nuclear Iraní, comprando alianzas en países latinoamericanos o consolidando aún mas el poder de Chávez en Venezuela, esta movilización estratégica a alcanzado un estatus global en finanzas internacionales. El bloque anti- mercado conocido como el ALBA y los nuevos consorcios petroleros con Rusia e Irán son sintomáticos de un sistema económico alternativo donde no existe el control sobre la tiranía. Justo en el mismo mes que el Tesoro americano acusa a seis empresas Iraníes basadas en Nueva York de transferir dinero ilegalmente para desarrollar tecnología nuclear, Venezuela e Irán han inaugurado un banco para financiar "proyectos de desarrollo." Lo peligroso es que estos fondos pueden provenir del lavado de dinero, del crimen internacional, del tráfico de cocaína y de otras formas de comercio ilegal. Esto ocurre mientras estos dos lideres oprimen las libertades civiles en sus países. Y esto no queda aquí; Chávez piensa hacer lo mismo con Siria y Qatar.

El Reporte de las Américas ha venido siguiendo las actividades conjuntas entre Chávez y Ahmadinejad y sus esfuerzos para contrarrestar las políticas de los Estados Unidos utilizando los métodos menos imaginados. Las actividades de Irán en America Latina nos han demostrado que la habilidad de EEUU para impedir que Irán evada las sanciones internacionales es insuficiente. Por ello, la financiación para las operaciones conjuntas entre Irán y Venezuela se llevan a cabo cada vez con mayor independencia del sistema financiero internacional. Esto significa que a pesar que el precio del petróleo ha bajado, las intenciones de la Revolución Islámica y la Revolución Bolivariana están ahora interconectadas. Los analistas contra el terrorismo y los expertos en política internacional deben entender y utilizar la retórica de estas revoluciones para crear sus propias estrategias.

El 3 de Abril del 2009, Hugo Chávez y Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inauguraron "El Banco binacional Venezolano – Iraní. Cada país ha puesto como capital inicial 200 millones de dólares, y los activos del banco se estiman en 1.2 billones. Esta entidad bancaria es parte del Banco de Desarrollo de Exportaciones de Irán. Conocido en Venezuela como el Banco Internacional de Desarrollo, esta institución iraní, está bajo sanciones del Tesoro Americano y de la Comunidad Internacional por su supuesta implicancia en la financiación de desarrollo de tecnología nuclear en Teherán. Esta iniciativa financiera conjunta marca un paso histórico en el reposicionamiento estratégico de los enemigos de Estados Unidos. Con cada pedazo de influencia que Chávez compra de Centro y Sudamérica con los petrodólares Venezolanos, Irán gana también en términos de influencia o en capacidad operacional. Este banco además dará una percepción de legitimidad a las transacciones financieras de Chávez.

El 7 de Abril del 2009, el Departamento del Tesoro Norteamericano designó a "un individuo chino iraní y seis entidades en virtud de la Orden Ejecutiva 13382 por su conexión a la proliferación de misiles de Irán." Además, "la Tesorería ha identificado ocho alias utilizados por EO 13382 designado LIMMT Económico y Comercio Company, Ltd. ( "LIMMT") para eludir las sanciones. La O.E. 13382 busca congelar los bienes de las instituciones que promueven la proliferación de Armas de Destrucción Masiva y sus socios para aislarlos de los sistemas financieros y comerciales de los Estados Unidos." El subsecretario del Tesoro de EU para Terrorismo e Inteligencia Financiera, Stuart Levey, apeló a la autoridad del Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas para que impida a compañías falsas recaudar fondos para "tecnología nuclear para Irán." La procuraduría de la ciudad de Nueva York emitió una acusación contra estas entidades ese mismo día. Estados Unidos, la Unión Europea y Australia han nombrado al Banco Melli como proliferador por su papel en los programas nucleares y de misiles balísticos de Irán. Este banco, mantuvo cuentas y proporcionó cartas de créditos y servicios financieros para compañías pantallas iraníes que ayudaban a las empresas en cuestión.

Estos son sólo titulares tomados al azar que forman parte de una guerra asimétrica contra los Estados Unidos y sus aliados que comenzó en 1979. La novedad es que el esfuerzo Iraní ha ganado mucho gracias a su alianza con Hugo Chávez. Douglas Farah resumió la relación entre estos dos lideres así:

Irán patrocina a Hezbollah y se alía con Chávez. Chávez ayuda a las FARC y se alía con Irán. Las FARC tienen la droga, Hezbollah tiene la red de distribución, y la experiencia de haber participado en tráfico de heroína y actividad criminal por años…. Lo que es alarmante es que, a pesar que la intención de Hezbollah de atacar a Estados Unidos y su evidente interés en tener la habilidad de poder efectivamente hacerlo, esta alianza (entre Chávez e Irán) causa muy poca alarma entre lideres de alto nivel."

La falta de atención de la que Farah habla continúa con Obama. Nos podemos preguntar: ¿puede el Presidente de los Estados Unidos haberse tomado fotos tan alegremente si hubiera estado informado sobre el apoyo que Chávez da a las FARC y Hezbollah y sobre su comportamiento dictatorial en Venezuela? Estas fotos, sin duda, serán usadas para avanzar las agendas de líderes opresivos en Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador y Honduras. Un ejemplo de los beneficios de la alianza de la red Irán-Venezuela-Hezbollah salió a la luz el pasado Junio cuando Washington acusó a un diplomático venezolano, Ghazi Nasr al Din, de trabajar para Hezbola y acusó al Gobierno de Caracas de "dar refugio" a agentes de ese grupo radical chií. Al Din fue el encargado de negocios diplomáticos de Venezuela en Damasco y ahora trabaja como director de asuntos políticos en la embajada de ese país en Líbano. El gobierno estadounidense afirma que al Din utilizó su posición como diplomático y presidente del Centro Shi’ a Islamic con sede en Caracas para dar asistencia financiera a Hezbolá. Es sospechoso de asesorar a donantes de ese grupo extremista islámico y de aportar información específica bancaria en que los "depósitos de donantes irían directamente a Hezbolá", dijo el departamento. También fue acusado de organizar un viaje de miembros del grupo terrorista a Irán. Adam J. Szubin, Director de la Oficina de Control de Bienes Extranjeros (OFAC) dijo:

Es extremadamente perturbador ver que el gobierno de Venezuela emplea y provea un refugio seguro a facilitadores y financistas del (movimiento radical chiíta) Hezbolá. Continuaremos exponiendo la naturaleza global de la red de apoyo al terrorismo de Hezbolá.

Muchos analistas han sugerido que la amenaza de Chávez decrecerá con la caída del precio del petróleo, pero parece que el líder Venezolano le ha encontrado la vuelta a este problema. Hay que tener en cuenta que Chávez consolidó su poder prometiendo al electorado eliminar la pobreza con programas llamados "misiones," en tiempos que los ingresos por el petróleo eran abundantes. Entonces, cuando Chávez crea un nuevo Banco de Desarrollo con Irán, es bueno tomar distancia y tomar nota de los proyectos de desarrollo, contabilidad y gastos de estos dos países.

Es más, según expertos "el gobierno de Chávez no ha hecho más que los gobiernos venezolanos del pasado para combatir la pobreza y sus muy promocionados programas sociales han tenido un escaso efecto”, acotó Francisco Rodríguez, ex economista jefe de la Asamblea Nacional en Venezuela entre el 2000 y el 2004, en un estudio publicado en la revista Foreign Affairs el año pasado.

Ni las estadísticas oficiales ni los cálculos independientes muestran pruebas de que Chávez ha reorientado las prioridades del Estado para beneficiar a los pobres’", afirmó Francisco Rodríguez, economista de la Universidad Wesleyan en Connecticut. también llamó la atención sobre el hecho de que las políticas económicas del gobierno, incapaces de contener la inflación, terminan afectando a los más pobres, que ven su capacidad de compra reducida por la inflación. Que Chávez es bueno para los pobres, es una hipótesis que no se ajusta a la realidad.

Rodríguez también explica que Chávez ha logrado mantener la impresión de que sus programas son exitosos gracias a su manejo político. Pero la verdadera falta de éxito se debe a la corrupción y a la mala gestión, a lo que Rodríguez se refiere como una "Revolución Vacía." Pero ¿donde va todo el dinero del petróleo? La mayoría opina que Chávez ha logrado mantener al ejercito unido dándoles a sus generales todo lo que necesitan. Aunque esa no es la única razón, los gastos en armamento revelan mucho.

El Semanal de Defensa Jane publicó en Noviembre del 2008 que el presupuesto del Ministerio de Defensa incrementó en un 25% para el año 2009. Desde que subió al poder, Chávez ha logrado acumular material militar que desafía toda necesidad convencional. En términos económicos, Ben Miller, resumió este punto en una edición anterior del Reporte de las Américas:

De acuerdo a la Oficina de Presupuesto Nacional, el Presidente Venezolano Hugo Chávez ha triplicado el presupuesto militar desde el año 2000 alcanzando los $3.3 billones en el 2008. Las compras más grandes de Chávez fueron a Rusia en el 2006, país con el que firmó contratos que llegaron a los $3 billones de dólares. Entre el 2004 y el 2005, Venezuela duplicó el valor de la importación de armas convencionales de $13 millones de dólares a $27 millones de dólares.

Esta cantidad se disparó a $406 millones en los siguientes 12 meses, causando que Venezuela sobrepasara a otros países como Argentina, Francia, Siria, Irak y Afganistán. La gran mayoría del armamento que recibió Venezuela fue de Rusia.

Esta cantidad de dinero gastada en armamento pesado innecesario, sería una noticia escandalosa si hubiera libertad de prensa en Venezuela. Tanques Rusos T-72, totalmente inútiles en la selva si Venezuela es atacada. Pero este equipo aunado a 50 helicópteros que el gobierno de Chávez compró a Rusia, sí podrían ser utilizados para oprimir cualquier movimiento de resistencia, para armar grupos terroristas y para convertirse en la fuerza militar dominante de la región. Por el momento, el poder de Chávez sigue creciendo.

El Grupo de Acción Financiera Internacional (GAFI), organismo supranacional que une a los ministros de Finanzas de los siete países más industrializados (Alemania, Canadá, Estados Unidos, Francia, Italia, Japón y Reino Unido), dice que "la falta de políticas contra el lavado de dinero, para prevenir y combatir la financiación de grupos terroristas en la República Islámica de Irán representa una gran vulnerabilidad en el sistema financiero internacional. Muchos han apodado a Irán como el "centro banquero del terror." No se puede combatir estos crímenes en un país donde estas son políticas de estado utilizadas por el gobierno. El gobierno de Ahmadinejad apoya a organizaciones terroristas lo que es completamente consistente con la agenda de la República Islámica de Irán y las declaraciones de Ahmadinejad durante la ceremonia de inauguración del Banco Venezolano – Iraní "Lo que ha ocurrido hoy representa una fuerte voluntad para construir un mundo nuevo." Estas palabras pueden parecer típicas para un acto así, cuando no están siendo dichas por una cabeza de estado que tiene una visión del mundo sin Estados Unidos y si Israel.

Hugo Chávez ha hecho declaraciones delineando sus intenciones de crear una alternativa internacional financiera. De hecho, el nuevo bloque comercial comunista de las Américas tiene el titulo de "La Alternativa Bolivariana de las Américas (ALBA). De Alba, Chávez dice: "Un nuevo mapa político, económico y geopolítico se puede percibir en America Latina y el Caribe." Como el banco conjunto con Irán, una aversión a la democracia liberal y con tendencias dictatoriales, parecen ser el común denominador de los países miembros. Los miembros de ALBA son Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia, Honduras, Dominica, y Nicaragua. Por ello, mientras que la visión revolucionaria progresa en Latinoamérica y el Caribe, Hugo Chávez ha recurrido al Medio Oriente para globalizar su alternativa anti-capitalista. El dijo durante la inauguración: "Esto es parte de una estrategia para formar una nueva arquitectura financiera entre nosotros." Chávez raramente desperdicia una oportunidad para denunciar al capitalismo y ridiculizar al Fondo Monetario Internacional. El describió el reciente compromiso de $ 1 trillón al G20 como "darle carne a los buitres." Se asume que él y sus aliados son una alternativa confiable.

Nicholas Hanlon es escritor e investigador en el "Center for Security Policy en Washington DC. Es graduado de la Universidad de Georgia. El Sr. Hanlon estudió Ciencias Políticas y Relaciones Internacionales.

Traducido Por Nicole M. Ferrand

Transacciones bancarias entre Chavez y Ahmadinejad

May 7, 2009Nicole Ferrand

Version in English

Es extremadamente perturbador ver que el gobierno de Venezuela emplea y provea un refugio seguro a facilitadores y financistas del (movimiento radical chiíta) Hezbolá. Continuaremos exponiendo la naturaleza global de la red de apoyo al terrorismo de Hezbolá.

Ni las estadísticas oficiales ni los cálculos independientes muestran pruebas de que Chávez ha reorientado las prioridades del Estado para beneficiar a los pobres’", afirmó Francisco Rodríguez, economista de la Universidad Wesleyan en Connecticut. también llamó la atención sobre el hecho de que las políticas económicas del gobierno, incapaces de contener la inflación, terminan afectando a los más pobres, que ven su capacidad de compra reducida por la inflación. Que Chávez es bueno para los pobres, es una hipótesis que no se ajusta a la realidad.

De acuerdo a la Oficina de Presupuesto Nacional, el Presidente Venezolano Hugo Chávez ha triplicado el presupuesto militar desde el año 2000 alcanzando los $3.3 billones en el 2008. Las compras más grandes de Chávez fueron a Rusia en el 2006, país con el que firmó contratos que llegaron a los $3 billones de dólares. Entre el 2004 y el 2005, Venezuela duplicó el valor de la importación de armas convencionales de $13 millones de dólares a $27 millones de dólares.

Esta cantidad se disparó a $406 millones en los siguientes 12 meses, causando que Venezuela sobrepasara a otros países como Argentina, Francia, Siria, Irak y Afganistán. La gran mayoría del armamento que recibió Venezuela fue de Rusia.

Traducido Por Nicole M. Ferrand

Banking 101 with Chavez and Ahmadinejad

May 7, 2009Nicholas Hanlon

Versión en Español

The leaders of Iran and Venezuela have created an impressive network of trade and international influence with which they openly oppose the United States. Whether the funding goes to Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Hezbollah, the purchase of Latin American politicians, or the further consolidation of Chavez’s power at home, this mobilization of strategic advantage has reached a global status in international finance. The anti-free-trade bloc, known as ALBA, and the new oil consortiums with Russia and Iran are symptomatic of a rising alternative economic system where there are no checks on tyranny. Now, in the same month when the U.S. Treasury named six New York based Iranian front companies who move money for the proliferation of sanctioned weapons technology to Iran’s nuclear program, Venezuela and Iran have inaugurated a joint bank to fund development projects. These projects benefit Iran and Venezuela as they jockey petrol dollars and, if needed, subsidize them with profits from organized crime, cocaine traffic, and other forms of illicit trade all while oppressing civil liberties. Hugo Chavez hopes to create similar joint development banks with Syria and Qatar.

The Americas Report has chronicled how these unchecked advances will lead to the ability of foreign powers to leverage U.S. foreign policy in ways never imagined. This past month, and even this past year, has demonstrated that our ability to slow or handicap Iran’s circumvention of sanctions is instructive but insufficient. Hence, funding for the Iranian-Venezuelan agenda will become increasingly autonomous from the international finance system. This means that despite the drop in oil consumption and declining prices, the overt intentions of both the Islamic Revolution and the Bolivarian Revolution are now more inter-connected. Counter terrorism analysts and U.S. foreign policy makers must use the rhetoric of these revolutions as context for the formation of their own strategies.

On April 3rd, Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated ‘The Iran-Venezuela Joint Bank." Each country has put up their own half of an initial capital base of 200 million dollars, which they plan to raise to 1.2 billion. The new bank is the offspring of The Export Development Bank of Iran. Known in Venezuela as the Banco Internacional de Desarrollo, this Iranian institution is under sanctions from both the U.S. Treasury and the international community for its alleged involvement in Iran’s nuclear program. Chavez and Ahmadinejad must find new ways to finance Iran’s nuclear program among other suspect programs because sanctions are having some effect. Ultimately, they prefer a completely new and alternative way to fund their endeavors. The joint bank marks another historical step in the geo-strategic repositioning of the United States’ enemies in their alliance against the West. With each bit of influence that Chavez buys in Central and South America with Venezuelan petrodollars, Iran either takes a cut in terms of assets, influence, or increased operational capabilities. The joint bank will add to the perception of legitimacy in Chavez’s financial transactions.

On April 7, 2009 the U.S. Department of the Treasury named a "Chinese individual and six Iranian entities under Executive Order 13382 for their connection to Iran’s missile proliferation network. Additionally, Treasury identified eight aliases used by E.O. 13382 designee LIMMT Economic and Trade Company, Ltd. ("LIMMT") to circumvent sanctions. E.O. 13382 is an authority aimed at freezing the assets of weapons of mass destruction proliferators and those who support them." [1] The Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Stuart Levey, appealed to the authority of the Security Council and international obligations to stop the fake companies from procuring "centrifuge and missile technology for Iran." The New York County District Attorney’s Office filed a criminal indictment against the procurement network on the same day. In March, the Treasury designated companies associated with Iran’s Bank Melli for the banks part in Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The U.S., the E.U., and Australia had already named Bank Melli as a proliferator. The bank maintained accounts and provided letters of credit and financial services for Iranian front companies who were moving materials for and giving support to sanctioned activities.

All of this occurred in the last several months. Yet, these are almost arbitrary headlines of a thirty-year-old all out overt asymmetrical war against the U.S. and its allies that began in 1979 for Iran and dates back even further for the leftists in Central and South America. What is new here are the exponential strategic leaps forward that Iran has gained from its alliance with Hugo Chavez. Douglas Farah summed up the relationship on his blog last year like this:

So, Iran sponsors Hezbollah and allies with Chavez. Chavez sponsors the FARC and allies with Iran. The FARC has the dope; Hezbollah has the international distribution network, having been involved in heroin traffic and organized criminal activities for years.

What is alarming to me is that, despite Hezbollah’s stated intention to attack the United States and Iran’s evident interest in having the ability to strike at the United States, this alliance (and the Chavez-Iran alliance) attracts very little attention at senior policy levels." [2]

That lack of attention Farah mentions has continued in the present Administration. It begs the question; would the leader of the free world have been duped into such photo ops in Trinidad had he been properly briefed on Chavez’s willful facilitation of the FARC and Hezbollah, let alone his dictatorial behavior inside Venezuela? Such choice propaganda material will undoubtedly reinforce the propaganda machines that power oppressive leftist regimes in Cuba and their aspiring counterparts like Ortega in Nicaragua, the FMLN in El Salvador, and Zelaya in Honduras. This goes especially for Iran. One specific example of the benefits of the Iran-Venezuela-Hezbollah network surfaced last June when the Treasury department named a Venezuelan diplomat in Damascus as a Hezbollah fundraiser. Ghazi Nasr al Din, former Charge d’ Affaires at the Venezuelan Embassy in Damascus, gave Hezbollah donors information on bank accounts where the deposits would go directly to Hezbollah. Adam J. Szubin, Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), had this to say:

It is extremely troubling to see the Government of Venezuela employing and providing safe harbor to Hezbollah facilitators and fundraisers. We will continue to expose the global nature of Hezbollah’s terrorist support network, and we call on responsible governments worldwide to disrupt and dismantle this activity.

Several analysts have suggested that any threat posed by Chavez will decrease with the price of oil but it appears that he has found ways around this. Keep in mind that Chavez consolidated power in the electorate with the promise of poverty reduction programs, known as "misiones", at a time when oil revenue was abundant. So, when Chavez creates a new development bank with Iran it is good to take a step back and get a snap shot of each countries development projects, accounting, and expenditures.

In the 2008, March/ April edition of Foreign Affairs, the former chief economist of the Venezuelan National Assembly from 2000 to 2004 analyzed Chavez’s poverty program and presented evidence that there was a negative impact of the "Revolution" that actually hurt the poor of Venezuela the most. According to Francisco Rodriguez;

Neither official statistics nor independent estimates show any evidence that Chávez has reoriented state priorities to benefit the poor. Most health and human development indicators have shown no significant improvement beyond that which is normal in the midst of an oil boom. Indeed, some have deteriorated worryingly, and official estimates indicate that income inequality has increased. The "Chávez is good for the poor" hypothesis is inconsistent with the facts. [3]

Rodriguez further explains how Chavez has been able to maintain the perception of success through political maneuvering. The real lack of success is partly due to corruption and mismanagement, which Rodriguez attributes to the assertion that Chavez’s "Empty Revolution" is no different in practice from his Washington Consensus predecessors. Yet, where does all that oil money go? A popular view among regional analysts is that Chavez has staved off dissention in the military ranks by buying toys for his generals. That is certainly not the only factor that stands between Venezuelan military elites and Chavez’s grasp on power. However, the price tag on Chavez’s military expenditures explains a lot.

Jane’s Defense Weekly reported last November that Venezuela’s Defense Ministry increased its defense spending by 25% for the 2009 budget. In the years, prior Chavez had amassed a military that defies conventional necessity. In monetary terms, Ben Miller sums it up in a previous Americas Report as follows:

According to the National Budget Office, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has tripled his country’s defense budget since 2000 to a whopping $3.3 billion in 2008. Chavez’s biggest purchases from Russia came in 2006 when, in that year alone, he signed deals for over $3 billion in weapons. Between 2004 and 2005, Venezuela doubled the value of the major conventional weapons it imported from$13million to $27million…. This number then sky-rocketed to $406 million over the next 12 months, causing Venezuela to surpass other nations such as Argentina, France, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, and Afghanistan in the index. The large majority of the weapons it received came directly from Russia. [3]

In terms of hardware this amount of spending on unneeded military expenditures would be scandalous were there true freedom of the press in Venezuela. Among the hardware are Russian T-72 tanks which military analysts find hard to imagine a use for in the jungle with no outside threat. Combined with the 50 helicopters in Venezuela’s last order from Russia they do have the hardware to oppress a resistance movement, arm revolutionary terrorists, and to become the dominant military power in the region. In the end, Chavez’s bills are piling up, he is successfully consolidating his power, and new revenue sources are opening to reinforce an increasingly oppressive regime.

The official statement of the Financial Action Task Force, the primary international body for countering terrorist financing and money laundering, is "that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s lack of comprehensive anti-money laundering / combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime represents a significant vulnerability within the international financial system."

Many consider this an understatement and cite the common pet name for Iran in the international finance community as the "central banker of terror." There is no place for "anti-money laundering" and "combating the financing of terrorism" when those are the primary means of advancing Iran’s foreign policy. Iran’s overt government policy to support terrorist organizations is completely consistent with the agenda of the Islamic Revolution and Ahmadinejad’s statements about the new Iran-Venezuela Joint Bank. Ahmadinejad said of the inauguration, "What happened today represents a strong will to build a new world." These words may seem typical for the christening of a grand endeavor were they not spoken by a head of state known for envisioning a world without America and the annihilation of Israel.

Hugo Chavez has made many statements outlining his intentions to create an alternative international finance system. In fact, the new communist trade bloc in the Americas bares the title, "The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas" (ALBA). Of ALBA, Chavez said, "A new political, economic, and geopolitical map can be perceived in Latin America and the Caribbean." Like the joint bank with Iran, an aversion to liberal democracy and dictatorial tendencies seem to be the common requirement for membership. ALBA includes Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia, Honduras, Dominica, and Nicaragua. Therefore, as the revolutionary vision progresses in Latin America and the Caribbean, Hugo Chavez has turned to the Middle East to globalize this anti-capitalist alternative. He said at the bank inauguration "This is part of a strategy to form a new financial architecture between us". Chavez rarely misses an opportunity to denounce capitalism and ridicule the International Monetary Fund. He described the recent G20 pledge of $1 trillion to the IMF as, "entrusting beef to vultures." The assumption being that he and his anti-western counterparts are a trustworthy alternative.

Nicholas Hanlon is a foreign affairs writer and researcher at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of Georgia State University and has a BA in Political Science with a concentration in International Affairs and a Minor in French.

NOTES

[1] PRESS ROOM Treasury Designates Iranian Proliferation Network and Identifies New Aliases April 7, 2009 tg-84, U.S. Department of the Treasury, http://treas.gov/press/releases/tg84.htm

[2] PRESS ROOM Treasury Targets Hizballah in Venezuela June 18, 2008 hp-1036, U.S. Department of the Treasury, http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/hp1036.htm

[3] Miller, Ben, The Russian-Venezuelan Strategic Alliance The Americas Report October 6, 2008

How Islamist Lawfare tactics target free speech

April 29, 2009Aaron Eitan Meyer

Are American authors who write about terrorism and its sources of financing safe? Are counter-terrorist advisors to the New York City Police department safe? Are U.S. congressmen safe when they report terrorist front groups to the FBI and CIA? Are cartoonists who parody Mohammad safe from arrest?

Must a Dutch politician who produced a documentary film quoting the Koran stand trial for blasphemy of Islam in Jordan? Is anyone who speaks publicly on the threat of radical Islam safe from frivolous and malicious lawsuits designed to bankrupt, punish, and silence them? These days, the answer is no.

Lawfare is usually defined as the use of the law as a weapon of war [1], or the pursuit of strategic aims through aggressive legal maneuvers.[2] Traditionally, lawfare tactics have been used to obtain moral advantages over the enemy in the court of public opinion,3 and to intimidate heads of state from acting out of fear of prosecution for war crimes.[4] Al-Qaeda training manuals instruct its captured militants to file claims of torture or other forms of abuse so as to reposition themselves as victims against their captors.[5] The 2004 decision by the United Nation’s International Court of Justice declaring Israel’s security fence a crime against humanity, which pointedly ignored the fact that the fence contributed to a sharp decline in terror attacks, is another example of lawfare aimed at public opinion.[6]

Yet, lawfare has moved beyond gaining mere moral advantages over nation-states and winning lawsuits against government actors. Over the past ten years, we have seen a steady increase in Islamist lawfare tactics directly targeting the human rights of North American and European civilians in order to constrain the free flow of public information about radical Islam.

The Islamist Movement

The Islamist movement is that which seeks to impose tenets of Islam, and specifically Shari’a law, as a legal, political, religious, and judicial authority both in Muslim states and in the West. It is generally composed of two wings-that which operates violently, propagating suicide-homicide bombing and other terrorist activities; and that which operates lawfully, conducting a "soft jihad" within our media, government, and court systems; through Shari’a banking;[7] and within our school systems.[8]

Yet Islamism, the drive to promulgate Islamic values as they are defined by various Imams and Muslim leaders, is the ideology that powers not only Hamas and Al-Qaeda, but motivates organizations such as the Canadian Islamic Congress, the Islamic Circle of North America, and the Council on American Islamic Relations.[9]

Both the violent and the lawful arms of the Islamist movement can and do work apart, but often, their work reinforces each other’s. For example, one tenet of Shari’a law is to punish those who criticize Islam and to silence speech considered blasphemous of its prophet Mohammad. While the violent arm of the Islamist movement attempts to silence speech by burning cars when Danish cartoons of Mohammed are published, by murdering film directors such as Theo Van Gogh, and by forcing thinkers such as Wafa Sultan into hiding out of fear for her life, the lawful arm is skillfully maneuvering within Western court systems, hiring lawyers and suing to silence its critics.

Legal Jihad

Islamist states, organizations, and individuals with financial means have launched a "legal jihad," filing a series of malicious lawsuits in American courts and abroad, designed to punish and silence those who engage in public discourse about radical Islam. Such lawsuits are being used as a weapon of war against counter-terrorism experts, law enforcement personnel, politicians, and anyone working to disseminate information on Islamist terrorism and its sources of financing. The lawsuits are often predatory, filed without a serious expectation of winning, and undertaken as a means to intimidate, demoralize, and bankrupt defendants. Claims are often based on frivolous charges ranging from defamation to workplace harassment, from "hate speech" to "Islamophobia," and have resulted in books being banned and pulped, thousands of dollars worth of fines, and publishing houses and newspapers rejecting important works on counter-terrorism out of fear of being the next target.

By suing to impose penalties and gag orders on counter-terrorism experts, government officials, authors, and the media, noncombatants who engage in Islamist lawfare are assuming critical support roles, whether intentionally or not, for violent operations that seek to establish principles of Shari’a law in the West. The following cases represent a small percentage of Islamist lawfare in the U.S. but are illustrative.

In 2003, the Washington-based Council on American Islamic Relations (CA IR), sued former U.S. Congressman Cass Ballenger after an interview with the congressman revealed that he had reported the group to the CIA and FBI as a "fundraising arm for Hezbollah."[10] Fortunately, the judge in Ballenger’s case ruled the congressman’s statements were made in the scope of his public duties and were therefore constitutionally protected speech in the interest of public concern.

The following year, CA IR instituted a 1.3 million dollar lawsuit against Andrew Whitehead, an American activist and blogger, for maintaining the website Anti-CA IR-net.org, on which CA IR is described as an Islamist organization with ties to terrorist groups. After refusing Whitehead’s discovery requests, seemingly afraid of what internal documents the legal process it had initiated would reveal, CA IR withdrew its claims against Whitehead, a settlement was reached, and the case was dismissed by the court with prejudice.[11]

In 2005, the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) filed a lawsuit charging defamation against a dozen defendants including the Boston Herald, FOX 25 News, counterterrorism expert Steven Emerson, and several others. The defendants were targeted by ISB for publicly speaking about the Islamic Society’s connections to radical Islam and for raising questions about the construction of its Saudi-funded mosque in Boston. A full two years after it had initiated the lawsuit, and just a few months after the discovery process was initiated into ISB’s financial records, ISB dropped its case and abandoned all of its claims against all of the defendants, without receiving any form of payment.[12]

Bruce Tefft, a former CIA official and counter-terrorism consultant for the NYPD, was sued by a Muslim police officer for "workplace harassment" after Tefft sent out emails to a voluntary recipient list of police officers containing information about radical Islamic terrorism.[13] Tefft’s suit is ongoing. Sometimes American authors and publishers wrongfully targeted are able to take advantage of Anti-SLAPP statutes, the acronym being Anti-Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation. Anti-SLAPP statutes have been enacted in several, but not all, U.S. states and are aimed at preventing lawsuits designed to hinder legitimate public dialogue. The problem, however, with Anti-SLAPP statutes is threefold-not all states have enacted them, there is no federal equivalent, and one must wait to be sued in order to take advantage of them.

Such was the case when American author Matthew Levitt and his publisher, Yale Press, were sued by KinderUSA for Levitt’s book Hamas, in which Levitt describes KinderUSA as a charitable front for terror financing. In response to the lawsuit, Levitt and Yale Press instituted a counter-claim based on California’s Anti-SLAPP statute arguing that KinderUSA’s suit was a disguised attempt at wrongfully intimidating them into silence. Shortly after the counter-claim was filed, KinderUSA mysteriously dropped its lawsuit, claiming only that it found the suit too costly to pursue.[14]

Most disturbing, however, are the examples of parties sued for reporting on official U.S. government investigations into terrorist activities, or for formally appealing to government authorities to conduct investigations into suspected illegal activity. Parties targeted in this vein include the New York Times, which, in 2001, reported on the U.S. government’s investigation of the Global Relief Foundation and was subsequently sued[15]; The Wall Street Journal, which, in 2002, reported on the monitoring of Saudi bank accounts and was also sued[16]; and the Anti-Defamation League, which, in 2002, called for the investigation of a public school superintendent named Khadja Ghafur, based on indications that schools under his supervision were teaching religion in violation of the establishment clause. Ghafur predictably sued ADL for libel and lost, but only after much time and money was spent by ADL defending itself.[17]

The cumulative effect of these lawsuits, combined with the looming threat of future lawsuits, is creating a detrimental chilling effect on the exercise of free speech within this country, and raising the cost of public debate about the war on terrorism. Islamist lawfare has also sparked a wave of self-censorship, with publishing houses going as far as hiring security experts to assess the potential for violent reactions in the Muslim community to printed words.

The strategy of silencing Western material "blasphemous" of Islam began not with objections to truth, cartoons, politicians, or political articles. After the 1988 publication of Salman Rushdie’s famous work of fiction, The Satanic Verses, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued his infamous fatwa against Rushdie, a British citizen at the time.[18] The fatwa marked the beginning of the end of open discourse-fictional or otherwise-on Islam. Only six months ago, the deputy head of the Khomeini Archives proudly stated on Iranian television that "Imam Khomeini’s fatwa on Salman Rushdie has historic significance for Islam. It was not just a fatwa; it was a verdict that still holds today."[19] From this epochal attack, Islamists have moved on to silencing public discourse on issues of national security directly, even as they still seek to quash creative works of fiction to which they object. Though Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses in 1988, he remains in hiding a full 20 years later.

Most recently, Random House Publishing Group pulled a fictional novel entitled "The Jewel of Medina" by journalist Sherry Jones about the Prophet Mohammad’s child bride. The publishing house feared it would prove offensive to some in the Muslim community and "incite acts of violence."20 Prior to making its decision public, Thomas Perry, deputy publisher at Random House, consulted with security experts and scholars on Islam and received "from credible and unrelated sources"21 cautionary advice not to publish the work.

Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas, made what was described as a "frantic" appeal to drop a "very ugly, stupid piece of work," that she said "made fun of Muslims and their history."[22] Despite the commercial success of fictional pieces about the war on radical Islam, such as the New York Times’ bestseller The Last Patriot [23], written by Brad Thor and published by Atria Books, and Daniel Silva’s Secret Servant, published by Putnam, Random House seems to be leaving its business decisions up to articulate professors of Islamic studies. Although the publication of the book was officially postponed for "safety reasons," it is certainly open to question whether the hysterical response of an associate professor constitutes a credible danger. Chastising Random House further, the Islamic Community in Serbia released a statement claiming it was not satisfied with the mere withdrawal of the novel and the organization’s leader, Muamer Zukorlic, demanded all of the published copies be handed in.[24]

The cases listed above reflect a few of the same battles going on now: Free speech of Americans and other Westerners being placed under siege by Islamists. Those targeted run the range from government officials actively engaged in battling Islamist terrorism to novelists who dare to use Islamic themes or history in their writing. What must be appreciated is the fact that this problem is by no means limited to lawsuits within the United States, or even lawsuits involving U.S. citizens. As lawfare continues to be increasingly utilized the world over, the stakes for Western democracies, including the United States, continue to be raised significantly.

Lawfare in Europe and Canada

Islamist lawfare is achieving a high degree of success in Canada and Europe because their judicial systems and laws do not afford their citizens, or American citizens for that matter, the level of free speech protection granted under the U.S. Constitution.

With their "hate speech" legislation, liberal libel laws and virtual codification of "Islamophobia" as a cause of action, European and Canadian legislatures have laid down what could be called the ideal framework for litigious Islamists to achieve their goals.

In February of 2006, the European Union and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan issued a joint statement with the Organization of the Islamic Conference, in which they recognized the need "to show sensitivity" in treating issues of special significance for the adherents of any particular religion, "even by those who do not share the belief in question."[25] In June of 2006, the Council of Europe hosted a "Programme of the Hearing on European Muslim Communities confronted with Extremism," for which a ‘Point of View on the Situation of Europe’ was presented by none other than Tariq Ramadan.[26] Based on a draft resolution and the proceedings of June 2006, the Council of Europe recently released Resolution 1605, asserting widespread ‘Islamophobia’ and calling all member nations to "condemn and combat Islamophobia."[27]

Persons held accountable to the EU’s new legal standards include actress Brigitte Bardot, who was charged this past April, for the fifth time, with "inciting racial hatred" against Muslims and forced to pay a fine of twelve thousand pounds.[28] At the time of her death in 2006, noted Italian author Orianna Fallaci was being sued in France[29], Italy[30], Switzerland[31] and other jurisdictions by groups dedicated to preventing the dissemination of her work.

On May 13, 2008, Dutch police actually arrested a cartoonist using the pseudonym Gregorious Nekschot, "…for the criminal offense of "publishing cartoons which are discriminating for Muslims and people with dark skin."[32]

England

UK courts, because of their libel laws, are particularly friendly jurisdictions for Islamists who want to restrict the dissemination of material drawing attention to radical Islam and terror financing.[33]

A major player on this front is Khalid bin Mahfouz, a wealthy businessman who resides in Saudi Arabia and who has been accused by several parties of financially supporting Al Qaeda. A notable libel tourist, Mahfouz has sued or threatened to sue more than 30 publishers and authors in British courts, including several Americans, whose written works have linked him to terrorist entities. Faced with the prospect of protracted and expensive litigation, most of the parties targeted by Mahfouz have issued apologies and retractions, while some have also paid fines and "contributions" to his charities.

In 2007, when Mahfouz threatened to sue Cambridge University Press for publishing the book Alms for Jihad, by American authors Robert Collins and J Millard Burr, Cambridge Press immediately capitulated, offered a public apology to Mahfouz, took the book out of print, destroyed the unsold copies of the book, and made the outrageous demand that libraries all over the world remove the book from their shelves.

Shortly after the US publication of Rachel Ehrenfeld’s book entitled Funding Evil, Mahfouz sued Ehrenfeld for defamation because she too had written about financial ties between Mahfouz and terrorist entities. The allegations against Ehrenfeld were heard by the UK court despite the fact that neither Mahfouz nor Ehrenfeld resides in England, while and the court asserted jurisdiction over her merely because approximately 23 copies of Funding Evil were sold to UK buyers online via Amazon.com. Unwilling to travel to England or acknowledge the authority of English libel laws over herself and her work, Ehrenfeld lost on default and was ordered to pay heavy fines, apologize, and destroy her books — all of which she refused to do.[34]

Canada

Canada, with its "human rights" commissions, joins the list of countries whose laws are being used to attack the free speech rights of authors and activists. Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act bans the electronic transmission of material that is deemed "likely to expose persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination,"[35] which prohibited grounds include both ethnic origin and religion.[36] Such vagaries in what was probably a well-meaning, yet democratically incompatible and short-sighted law, has enabled a wave of "human rights" complaints in the Canadian Human Rights Commissions (CHRC) against outspoken critics of radical Islam and their publishers.

Those summoned to appear before the CHRC include Maclean’s magazine, award-winning author Mark Steyn, and noted Canadian lawyer and blogger, Ezra Levant. The complaints against Maclean’s and Steyn were initiated by the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) and based on Maclean’s’ re-publication of excerpts from Steyn’s book entitled America Alone, which details Europe’s capitulation to radical Islam, and projects America as potentially the last bastion of freedom, and which the CIC[37] argued in its complaint is "flagrantly Islamophobic."

Levant was likewise hauled before the Commissions on charges of "hate crimes" against Muslims after re-publishing the Danish Cartoon of Mohammad in the now defunct Western Standard Magazine. Though the charges against him were dropped the outcome could hardly be considered a "win" for free speech, as he details on his website.[38]

The Netherlands

The most frightening predicament of all is that of Dutch politician, filmmaker and outspoken critic of radical Islam, Geert Wilders. After releasing a ten-minute self-produced film entitled "Fitna," Wilders has found himself wound up in a litany of "hate speech" litigation, one such suit filed by a radical Imam asking for fifty five thousand Euros in compensation for his hurt feelings. Ironically, the film’s narrative is primarily comprised of quotes from the Koran and scenes of an Imam preaching death to Jews.[39] Most disturbing however, is the fact that the State of Jordan most likely acting as a stalking house for the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has issued a request for Wilders’ extradition to stand in Jordan for blasphemy, a crime for which Shari’a law declares the penalty to be death, though reports have emerged claiming that the maximum potential sentence would be three years.[40]

The Dutch parliament is taking the request very seriously, and has shut out Wilders from any multi-lateral negotiations. As a precaution, Wilders no longer travels abroad unless he can obtain a diplomatic letter from the destination state promising he won’t be extradited. At present, Wilders lives under looming death threats complemented by the threat that any day, Interpol may issue a warrant for his arrest at Jordan’s behest.

If Jordan succeeds in extraditing a democratically elected official to stand trial in a non-democratic country for speech made in the scope of his duties while educating his constituents vis-à-vis their national security, all under the guise of blasphemy of Islam, what kind of precedent would be set? As much as the Islamists wish to punish Wilders, there is no question that his case is a dry run for bigger game. How long until some convenient court in an OIC nation decides to find another government official guilty of ‘blasphemy’ and demands their extradition?

After Italian Minister Roberto Calderoli publicly wore a T-shirt depicting Mohammad, he was forced to resign.[41] Upon his re-nomination to Prime Minister Berlusconi’s reformed government, thinly veiled threats of "catastrophic consequences" emerging from Libya forced Calderoli to issue a full public apology for his wardrobe.[42]

The International Scene: Muslim Organizations and the UN

National lawfare efforts are being complemented with similar International efforts to outlaw blasphemy of Islam as a crime against humanity. Islamist organizations such as the Muslim World League are calling for the establishment of an independent commission to take action against parties who defame their Prophet Mohammed,[43] and at the Dakar summit, taking legal action against parties who slander Islam was a key issue debated at length, with the final communiqué adopted by the Organization of the Islamic Conference denouncing the "rise in intolerance and discrimination against Muslim minorities, which constitute(s) and affront to human dignity."[44] The Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers at its thirty-fourth session in Islamabad, in May 2007, condemned the "growing trend of Islamophobia"[45] and emphasized "the need to take effective measures to combat defamation." The Islamic Society of North America and the Muslim Public Affairs Council have both stated publicly that they are considering filing defamation lawsuits against their critics[46] and CAIR has announced an ambitious fundraising goal of one million, in part to; "defend against defamatory attacks on Muslims and Islam."[47]

Most recently, Muslim states and organizations have successfully lobbied the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission to enact Resolution 7/19 [48], a document that turns the concept of "human rights" into an instrument of Orwellian thought control. The Resolution makes reference to the Durban Declaration, and expresses the intent "to complement legal strategies" aimed at criminalizing the defamation of religion. The Resolution "urges States to provide, within their respective legal and constitutional systems, adequate protections against acts of…discrimination," [49] and prohibits "the dissemination of racist and xenophobic ideas." [50] Note that it is ideas that are prevented here, not published words but defamatory thoughts against Islam which the United Nations is banning.

The Resolution further expresses its "deep concern at the attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations." What are the chances that this provision will be applied to those who behead journalists in the name of Islam, or to Palestinian terrorist groups that call themselves ‘Islamic Jihad’?

To add insult to injury, signatories to the Resolution take the opportunity to "emphasize (emphasis not added) that everyone has the right to freedom of expression" but that this freedom may "be subject to certain restrictions" while stipulating that "the prohibition of the dissemination of ideas (emphasis added) based on racial superiority or hatred is compatible with the freedom of opinion and expression." Signatories to UN HRC Res. 7/19 include China, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka, amongst others.

This Resolution 7/19 looks like an initial attempt to establish a body of international law to be used in the future against heads of state who speak out against radical Islam as a threat to national security. Hence, instead of Muslim states unilaterally seeking the extradition of a Geert Wilders – or perhaps, a Donald Rumsfeld – Islamists can now employ UN mechanisms to force politicians to abide by a standard of ‘sensitivity’ to Islam defined solely by Islamists themselves.

The European Center for Law and Justice, a not for profit public interest law firm submitted an engaging report to the UN High Commissioner arguing, correctly, that freedom of religion does not entail carte blanche freedom to practice your religion absent criticism. In fact, Resolution 7/19 is itself a violation of international law undermining the inalienable human right to free speech, especially on matters of important public concern such as religion and national security.[51]

Yet what are the positions of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on this issue? Where is the international media? Why is this issue being met with virtual silence on their behalves while American citizens’ basic human rights to free speech are being trampled on? Perhaps the CCR is too busy with its suit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Spain for alleged "war crimes" in Iraq, since the German case against him was dismissed.[52]

Conclusion

The war against Islamism is as much a war of ideas as it is a physical battle, and therefore the dissemination of information in the free world is paramount. The manipulation of Western court systems, the use of western "hate speech laws" and other products of political correctness to destroy the very principles that democracies stand for, must be countered.

Unfortunately Islamist lawfare is beginning to limit and control public discussion of Islam, particularly as it pertains to comprehending the threat posed by Islamic terrorist entities. As such, the Islamist lawfare challenge presents a direct and real threat not only to our constitutional rights, but also to our national security.

Some have argued that the anti-Americanism of radical Islamists has little to do with anti-imperialism but reflects a profound contempt for the liberal social democratic society we have built and its emphasis on individual liberties and freedoms.[53] Freedom of expression is the cornerstone of democratic liberty – it is a freedom that Western civilizations have over time paid for with blood. We must not give it up so easily. The true imperialists are those who seek to impose their perception on others, through violent or legal means, and who seek to conquer and subjugate contradictory points of view.

The reality is that the Muslim community has nothing to gain from supporting the censorship of debate about Islam. If a cartoon with Mohammad is "hate speech" now, how much longer before the Koran gets the same treatment? As Jonathan Kay, National Post columnist, has aptly pointed out "human rights mandarins haven’t gone after mosques or mullahs – yet," but it doesn’t take much to recognize that two can play at the same game. The actions of CAIR and the CIC and others who engage in Islamist lawfare offer a great rebuttal to those who see Islamism as compatible with democracy.

Brooke Goldstein is a practicing attorney, an award-winning filmmaker and the director of the Legal Project at the Middle East Forum. The Legal Project is dedicated to providing pro-bono legal representation to authors, activists and publishers who work on the topics of radical Islam, terrorism and their sources of financing.

Aaron Eitan Meyer recently received his Juris Doctor degree from Touro Law Center, and is currently Assistant to the Director at the Legal Project of the Middle East Forum and Legal Correspondent to the Terror Finance Blog.

Originally published in two parts in thecounterterroristmag.com.
To see these in PDF form: Part 1 and 2.

NOTES

1 Dunlap, Law and Military Interventions: Preserving Humanitarian Values in 21st Century Conflicts (29 Nov 2001), and David Rivkin, The Wall Street Journal Op Ed at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117220137149816987.html (commentary at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_lawfare_scare)

2 http://www.opinionjournal.com/forms/printThis.html?id=110005366

3 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117220137149816987.html

4 Israeli Minister Avi Dichter canceled a trip to Britain after being threatened with arrest over a 2002 incident, (See http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3012503.ece) Also, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz cut short a trip to Britain after "the director of public prosecutions in England asked police in London to investigate war crimes allegations." (See http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/11/01/1036027036796.html)

5 "Lawfare" By David B. Rivkin & Lee A.Casey, The Wall Street Journal (Feb 26, 2007) at http://prasad.aem.cornell.edu/doc/media/PrasadRajan.WSJAFeb07.pdf

6 For the text of the decision see: http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=4&k=5a&case=131&code=mwp&p3=4

7 For more information on Shari’a compliant financing see David Yerushalmi, "Sharia’s Black Box: Civil Liability and Criminal Exposure Surrounding Sharia-Compliant Finance," Utah Law Review or www.securefreedom.org

8 Much has been said about the Saudi effort to produce school textbooks for American grade schools, and the establishment of Islamic-language public schools such as the Khalil Gibran Academy in New York, raising issues of Establishment Clause violations and contravening separation of church and state, or more accurately, Mosque and state. "Islam in America’s public schools: Education or indoctrination?" http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/06/11/cstillwell.DTL On New York’s "Khalil Gibran International Academy" http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2007/03/on-new-yorkskhalil-gibran-international.html

9 CAIR: "CAIR believes the active practice of Islam strengthens the social and religious fabric of our nation." http://www.cair.com/AboutUs/VisionMissionCorePrinciples.aspx. CAIR also offers a ‘guide’ which offers "…background information about Islam and Muslims, best practices on reporting on the Muslim community and a list of accurate terminology to use when covering issues relating to Islam." Also, they have a campaign to ‘Explore the Quran’ with the following description of their aim: "In today’s climate of heightened religious sensitivities and apparent cultural clashes, now is the time for people of all faiths to better acquaint themselves with Islam’s sacred text, the Holy Quran." http://www.explorethequran.org This is to be accomplished by distributing copies of the Quran. There is a similar campaign regarding Muhammad. http://www.exploremuhammad.org ISNA: Imam Sirraj Wahhaj, listed as Member, ISNA Majlis Ashura: "In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing. And the only thing that will remain will be Islam," Wahhaj was quoted as saying in one of his sermons. as cited in "Radical Imam Promotes Pro-Islamic Ad Campaign to Run on New York Subways" http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,387701,00.html CAIR: Omar M. Ahmad, then-director of CAIR: "If you choose to live here (in America) … you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam…" in "American Muslim leader urges faithful to spread Islam’s message" and "The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth…" Article by Lisa Gardiner Available online at http://www.danielpipes.org/394.pdf See also, The WorldNetDaily "Did CAIR founder say Islam to Rule America?" http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53303

10 Ballenger made the comment in a phone conversation to journalist Tim Funk of the Charlotte Observer on October 1, 2003. As cited by the Court in Council of American Islamic Relations, v. Cass Ballenger, 444 F.3d 659 (D.C. Cir. 2006) http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200604/05-5161a.pdf

11 Despite CAIR’s failed effort at intimidation, Whitehead’s Anti-CAIR website is still up and running along with the text that was at issue and is available at www.anti-cairnet.org

12 In line with the old adage that actions speak louder than words, the fact that both ISB and CAIR abandoned their claims right before they would have been required, by court order, to turn over internal documents speaks volumes about whether the two Plaintiffs had ever intended to pursue their legal claims on their merit or had instead, intended to use the court system to intimidate the Defendants as well as other journalists, into not reporting on their activities.

13 http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=AF613BFA-8E34-4A07-8DB4-20D89DE3D84B

14 KinderUSA claimed that its resources were better spent on charity. http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6470780.html

15 In affirming the decision, the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals reiterated that "Truth is an absolute bar to recovery for defamation." 390 F.3d 973 (7th Cir. 2004) http://cases.justia.com/us-court-of-appeals/F3/390/973/506579/

16 The bank dropped the suit in 2005, but the WSJ published a ‘clarification’ that it had not in fact reported any allegation that linked the bank to terrorism. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118530038250476405.html

17 "Court throws out Muslim educator’s suit against ADL" http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/20626/edition_id/422/format/html/displaystory.html

18 For an excellent synopsis and explanation of these events, see "The Ayatollah, the

Novelist, and the West" by Daniel Pipes, available online at http://www.danielpipes.org/article/186

19 http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2004/06/is-salman-rushdie-now-safe.html

20 "Random House Pulls Novel on Islam, Fears Violent," by Edith Honan, (Aug 7, 2008) at: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0736008820080807

21 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2524540/Random-Housescraps-publication-of-novel-on-Prophet-Mohammeds-child-bride.html

22 http://dick-meom.blogspot.com/2008/08/random-house-randomlydecides-not-to.html

23 The book is available at: amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Last-Patriot-Thriller-Brad-Thor/dp/141654383X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218036222&sr=8-1

24 http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF

25 http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/fd807e46661e3689852570d00069e918/48c61023cd19096f8525710e006df80b!OpenDocument

26 http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc08/EDOC11540.htm

27 Adopted by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, April 15, 2008 http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ta08/ERES1605.htm

28 http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSL1584799120080415?feedT; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1023969/Brigitte-Bardot-fined-12-000-racial-hatred-claiming-Muslims-destroying-France.html

29 http://www.secularism.org.uk/39371.html#oriana

30 http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2006/09/15/orianafallaci-obit.html

31 http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/01072002/0107200263.htm

32 http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3257

33 Where, in the United States, with our First Amendment rights to free speech, libel plaintiffs not only have the burden to prove that the speech in question is false and defamatory, but where matters of public concern are at issue, the libel Plaintiff must also show that the speech was published with a reckless disregard for the truth. In England, on the other hand, the burden is in exactly the opposite direction: the offending speech is presumed to be false, and it is up to the defendant to prove that it is in fact true. While on the surface the difference may seem trite, UK libel jurisprudence, in direct contrast to US law and due process considerations, effectively operates to declare Defendants guilty before proven innocent and UK courts have become a magnet for libel suits that would otherwise fail miserably in the US. And so heavy is the burden of proof put on the defendant that the mere threat of suit in a UK court is enough to intimidate publishers into silence, regardless of the merit of their author’s works.

34 Instead, Ehrenfeld went on the offensive and counter-sued Mahfouz in a New York State court seeking to have the foreign judgment declared unenforceable in the United States. Ironically, Ehrenfeld lost her case against Mahfouz, because the New York court decided it lacked jurisdiction over the Saudi resident who, the court said, did not have sufficient connections to the state. Shortly afterwards and in direct response to the court’s ruling, the NY state legislature, in an unprecedented show of cross party solidarity, unanimously voted to enact the Libel Terrorism Protection Act which prevents the enforcement of foreign libel judgments over American authors and provides the opportunity for the claim to be tried in the US, on its merits, and according to American principles of free speech. A similar piece of legislation has been introduced in Congress by Arlen Specter and Joseph Lieberman in the Senate and by Joseph King in the House of Representatives, along with several co-sponsors.

35 What is particularly disturbing about Section 13 "hate speech" laws is that the court costs of any one Plaintiff who files a section 13 complaint are entirely subsidized by the government, while the defendants are left to endure the financial burden of litigation alone. This is a rule that, on its face, obviously encourages frivolous litigation. Moreover the CHRC has had a one hundred percent conviction rate on section 13 charges.

36 As defined by Section 3 (1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act

37 The CIC, whose president Mohamed Elmasry once labeled every adult Jew in Israel a legitimate target for terrorists, has previously tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to sue publications it disagrees with in regular Canadian courts of law, including the National Post.

38 http://ezralevant.com/2008/08/punished-first-acquitted-later.html

39 Fitna is available for viewing here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2949546475561399959&hl=en

40 http://jihadwatch.org/archives/2008/07/021595print.html

41 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4727606.stm

42 http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/5/10/worldupdates/2008-05-10T052806Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-335051-2&sec=Worldupdates

43 http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=77639&d=28&m=12&y=2006

44 Final Communiqué adopted by the Organization of the Islamic Conference at its eleventh summit in Dakar (March 2008) OIC/SUMMIT-11/2008/FC/Final http://www.oic-oci.org/oicnew/is11/English/FC-11-%20SUMMIT-en.pdf

45 UN HRC Res. 7/19

46 http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/RobertKing50905.htm and http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID={1E2DE909-C6F5-4A5F-B852-0D90BE4FEA9C}

47 http://www.nysun.com/national/treasury-department-tars-alamoudi-founder-of/24211/

48 For the full text of Un HRC Res. 7/19 see http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/E/HRC/resolutions/A_HRC_RES_7_19.pdf

49 UN HRC Res. 7/19 Section 9

50 UN HRC Res. 7/19 Section 8

51 ECLJ report can be found at: http://www.meforum.org/legal-project.php

52 http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/04/german-prosecutor-rejects-war-crimes.php

53 Tarek Fatah, "Triggering a State of Islam," The National Post, May 13, 2008.

How Islamist Lawfare tactics target free speech

April 29, 2009Brooke Goldstein

The Islamist Movement

Legal Jihad

Lawfare in Europe and Canada

England

Canada

The Netherlands

The International Scene: Muslim Organizations and the UN

Conclusion

Originally published in two parts in thecounterterroristmag.com.
To see these in PDF form: Part 1 and 2.

NOTES

2 http://www.opinionjournal.com/forms/printThis.html?id=110005366

3 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117220137149816987.html

5 "Lawfare" By David B. Rivkin & Lee A.Casey, The Wall Street Journal (Feb 26, 2007) at http://prasad.aem.cornell.edu/doc/media/PrasadRajan.WSJAFeb07.pdf

6 For the text of the decision see: http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=4&k=5a&case=131&code=mwp&p3=4

11 Despite CAIR’s failed effort at intimidation, Whitehead’s Anti-CAIR website is still up and running along with the text that was at issue and is available at www.anti-cairnet.org

13 http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=AF613BFA-8E34-4A07-8DB4-20D89DE3D84B

14 KinderUSA claimed that its resources were better spent on charity. http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6470780.html

17 "Court throws out Muslim educator’s suit against ADL" http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/20626/edition_id/422/format/html/displaystory.html

18 For an excellent synopsis and explanation of these events, see "The Ayatollah, the

Novelist, and the West" by Daniel Pipes, available online at http://www.danielpipes.org/article/186

19 http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2004/06/is-salman-rushdie-now-safe.html

20 "Random House Pulls Novel on Islam, Fears Violent," by Edith Honan, (Aug 7, 2008) at: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0736008820080807

21 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2524540/Random-Housescraps-publication-of-novel-on-Prophet-Mohammeds-child-bride.html

22 http://dick-meom.blogspot.com/2008/08/random-house-randomlydecides-not-to.html

23 The book is available at: amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Last-Patriot-Thriller-Brad-Thor/dp/141654383X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218036222&sr=8-1

24 http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF

25 http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/fd807e46661e3689852570d00069e918/48c61023cd19096f8525710e006df80b!OpenDocument

26 http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc08/EDOC11540.htm

27 Adopted by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, April 15, 2008 http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ta08/ERES1605.htm

29 http://www.secularism.org.uk/39371.html#oriana

30 http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2006/09/15/orianafallaci-obit.html

31 http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/01072002/0107200263.htm

32 http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3257

36 As defined by Section 3 (1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act

38 http://ezralevant.com/2008/08/punished-first-acquitted-later.html

39 Fitna is available for viewing here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2949546475561399959&hl=en

40 http://jihadwatch.org/archives/2008/07/021595print.html

41 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4727606.stm

42 http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/5/10/worldupdates/2008-05-10T052806Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-335051-2&sec=Worldupdates

43 http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=77639&d=28&m=12&y=2006

45 UN HRC Res. 7/19

46 http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/RobertKing50905.htm and http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID={1E2DE909-C6F5-4A5F-B852-0D90BE4FEA9C}

47 http://www.nysun.com/national/treasury-department-tars-alamoudi-founder-of/24211/

48 For the full text of Un HRC Res. 7/19 see http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/E/HRC/resolutions/A_HRC_RES_7_19.pdf

49 UN HRC Res. 7/19 Section 9

50 UN HRC Res. 7/19 Section 8

51 ECLJ report can be found at: http://www.meforum.org/legal-project.php

52 http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/04/german-prosecutor-rejects-war-crimes.php

53 Tarek Fatah, "Triggering a State of Islam," The National Post, May 13, 2008.

Obama goes south: An analysis of the Summit of the Americas

April 24, 2009Grady Means

For more than a half century, dating from FDR and Cordell Hull’s "Good Neighbor" policies, U.S. diplomacy in Latin America has been focused on encouraging democracy, free markets, and economic development. Over those five decades there have been huge successes – and there have been dramatic failures.

An historical perspective, however, shows remarkable overall progress:

The 1980 map of Latin America was largely one of authoritarian, often military governments, generally controlled by small oligarchies, with hyper-cyclical, commodity-based economies, nearly all plagued by huge debt and hyper-inflation.

However, by 2000, Latin America was largely an array of broad-based popularly elected regimes, structured and diversified economies with low to moderate inflation and manageable debt. The problems of severe poverty, economic inequity, and drug cartels remained, but significant progress had been made.

The U.S., as the largest foreign direct investor and the largest supplier of development aid and offering the largest market for Latin American exports, as well as the most active supporter of centrist democratic movements, played a significant role in this massive transition.

For the most part, it is a record for which every American whatever his domestic political allegiance can be proud. Despite the overwhelming demands of the war on terrorism after 9/11 there were important continuing new initiatives by the Bush Administration in this tradition. Chief among these was a proposal for a hemisphere-wide free trade zone, which would boost investment in the Latin countries as well as expand trade along the lines of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

President Barack Obama seems to be largely unaware of this history. Rather, he seems persuaded by radical critiques of the U.S. role — such as presented in the book Chavez gave him at the summit. By the way, this book was repudiated by its author, and is an unbalanced screed on American and European transgressions over centuries. Curiously, there was little in Obama’s campaign oratory about opposing abuses of human rights in Latin America.

His tolerance – and what much of his audience interpreted as acceptance — for the most radical denunciations of the U.S. role at the recent Western Hemisphere summit was shocking. Obama’s seeming contrition before an avalanche of vicious attacks on the U.S. will simply discourage democratic allies and reconfirm the views of the autocrats that he may be weak and perhaps feckless. In fact, as one observer noted, Obama passed up a priceless opportunity to defend freedom in a region where it always seems in jeopardy. Instead, even a leftwing critic noted that Obama had let Latin American leaders off the hook by not holding Castroite Cuba to the standards they apply to Washington’s actions.

Instead, the Hemisphere has been treated to some incomplete early Obama Administration policy initiatives. These include a largely rhetorical outreach to Mexico which continues the policies of the previous administration; an amendment of regulations regarding migration and remittances to Castroite Cuba; and his personal, enthusiastic encounter with the leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. These signals by the new Administration could be seen as false steps that reward our enemies in the Hemisphere while ignoring or giving too little to our friends.

The response to his reduction of restrictions on Americans visiting Cuba and limits on remittances has been met by no concessions from the Castro Brothers. In fact, Fidel Castro has quickly rejected the spin the White House placed on Raul Castro’s one speech phrase suggesting negotiations might proceed without pre-conditions.

Neither his earlier pre-inauguration meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon nor his stop enroute to the Summit produced any new initiatives or impetus to what had been increasingly lagging Bush Administration aid efforts to boost relations with our southern neighbor. He still faces the problem of producing a winning policy on U.S. immigration, which is as important to the Mexican government as a successful attack on the drug cartels. He has added new tangles to the relatively minor problem of trucking across the international border which has led Mexico to slap on countervailing duties in defiance of the North American Free Trade Agreement in what they insist are U.S. violations.

Meanwhile, Chavez has been destroying Venezuela’s free society, while helping the Iranians establish a beachhead in the Hemisphere. At the very moment Obama’s summit tête-à-tête with Chavez was being aired on Venezuelan State Television – obviously as a prop for the Caudillo’s declining popularity – a leader of the opposition, the mayor of Maracaibo sought the traditional Latin American refuge in Peru to avoid assassination after being in hiding for months. The opposition mayor of Caracas, the largest city and capital of the country has been shorn of his prerogatives. Chavez, through a plebiscite in February, is aiming toward a "lifetime presidency", one of the basic relics of Latin America’s past that U.S. policy had hoped to have overcome.

At an international meeting where he was being welcomed – sometimes on terms bordering on racist – the U.S. President did not seize the initiative. He might at least have announced that he would renounce his campaign stand and move his fellow Democrats to finally lift their opposition to the long languishing free trade agreement with Colombia — the kind of economic initiative and reward intended for U.S.’ allies in the Hemisphere.

There was no follow up on his now almost standard mantra of condemning past American actions in what the President has called the necessity to "reverse the mistakes of the past to start a new dialogue."

What did the President do?

Obama tried to make friends among the Latin American leaders – notably the most repressive. Although there was an obvious agenda based on earlier programs, he did little to advance U.S. interests or to even suggest what Obama Administration policy will be other than to say that it will be "different than his predecessor’s." To a large degree, Obama seemed to have his eye on U.S. audiences and politics. He seemed proud that our former sworn enemies appeared to like him and applaud him – especially our traditional enemies in the region. He failed to see that whether they like him is largely irrelevant as they now just see him as more malleable than his "predecessors."

Did the U.S. gain or lose?

The U.S. Lost Serious Ground at the Summit:

Our enemies in Latin America got the strong impression that we will be tolerant not only of their suppression of democracy at home but accept their links to terrorist groups and nations.

Democratic forces in Latin America got the impression that the U.S. is no longer interested in actively supporting democracy, market economies, or free trade – very discouraging to those who have followed the U.S. lead and struggled to advance the region over the last 20 years. In the post-summit press conference, Obama seemed to accept the left’s critique of "the Washington consensus" which in fact only puts forth what have historically been U.S. aims for the region.

China, Russia, and Iran got the strong impression that this President will not defend American strategic interests in the region, long considered "America’s backyard". Russia will see a green light for its rather feeble attempts to make trouble for the U.S. in the region and China will see a green light for aggressive commercial efforts and perhaps new naval bases – all of which could create a strategic military nightmare for the U.S.

Absolutely no adversary will interpret the friendly smile and the "apologies" as an "opening" to negotiate strategic interests or to change their policies. As was evident from the insults from Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, conversations constructive to U.S. interests will be even more difficult after this summit.

That is why, in our news digest "WorldBuzz.com," we gave him a D- for last week’s Latin American Summit.

In Latin America, with its long history of intimate [and sometimes difficult] relations with the U.S., perhaps more than elsewhere, fostering good relations requires a deep understanding of culture and history, as well as politics and political objectives – and not least economic relationships. If further progress is to be made – especially in the midst of a worldwide credit crunch and recession which is more slowly but inevitably impacting Latin America — a very clear plan and strategy is necessary to meet the issues.

What are those issues, many of them urgent and in need of attention by administrators as well as policymakers in Washington?

Mexico

Drug wars: The Mexican cartels are growing in strength and carrying their battles into the U.S. A destabilization of the Mexican government could lead to serious border frictions and even resultant unrest among illegal and legal Mexican immigrants in the U.S. Pres. Felipe Calderon has taken aggressive and brave action to challenge the cartels. He needs U.S. help. Obama did not conclude any agreement or begin to deliver on the already promised military equipment needs of the Mexican government in fighting the cartels, nor was progress made on any related issues. Instead Obama apologized for the guns crossing the border from the U.S. to Mexico. This turns out to be inaccurate. [They are mostly coming from Central America, pistols are not the problem and assault rifles are freely available on the world’s grey markets — including the notorious AK47.].

U.S. drug market: The Mexicans complain that the huge U.S. demand for drugs drives the illegal drug trade through Mexico. Obama has responded by having the U.S. Attorney General indicate that restrictions on medical marijuana should be removed, opening a major new channel for illegal drugs.

Border control/trucking issue: the festering issue over Mexican truck drivers coming into the U.S. has prevented Mexico from agreeing on a pre-screening process for cargo crossing the border. This has created gigantic border delays and much less effective vehicle checks. The issue is partly caused by an Obama consideration to the Teamsters Union, and seems to ignore the broader national security issue.

Economic growth and stability: The declining price of oil has badly hurt the Mexican economy. Obama has indicated that he wants to re-negotiate certain aspects of the NAFTA, creating further uncertainty for Mexico [as well as Canada] and investors. In addition, his seeming advocacy of the "buy-America" aspects of the bailout initiatives creates further confusion in Mexico’s key export market.

Venezuela

Authoritarianism: the declining price of oil has under-cut Chavez’s primary political payoff tool and weakens his hold on power. In response Chavez is moving quickly and aggressively to full dictatorial power. Chavez cannot cooperate with Obama on moving back to democracy or lessen brutality and repression because he would quickly lose power. Obama’s friendly embrace with Chavez and accepting his "gift" discourages democratic forces fighting to reverse Chavez’s brutal seizure of power.

Regional aggression: Obama seems to be unaware of official U.S. government public documentation of Chavez’ aid and trafficking with the narco-terrorists in Colombia. There is circumstantial evidence that his regime either collaborates or ignores the encroachment of the Mexican drug cartels working through Venezuela with the Colombian narco-terrorists.

Iran: Chavez and Iran have a close working relationship to overthrow democratic regimes in the region, to train terrorists, and find ways to work against the U.S. Chavez gets training from the Republican Guard, has set up a bank with Iran, and supports Hamas and Hezbollah. Chavez reportedly provides Venezuelan passports to Iranian operatives so the can enter countries like Mexico secretly and link to Mexican cartels. Obama’s "soft" tone with Chavez will only tighten the relationship with Iran since they have less to fear from the U.S.

China: China is working with Venezuela on oil development and seeking Caribbean bases for the Chinese navy. Obama can do little or nothing to reverse this relationship, but overly friendly gestures to Chavez will only encourage more aggressive PLA movement into the Hemisphere.

Russia: Russia is seeking military air basing agreements with Venezuela for planes that can carry nuclear weapons. Russia will take the same view as China – that Obama is no threat to their ambitions in the Hemisphere to offset U.S./NATO power in Europe.

Cuba

Cuba is still a highly repressive, totalitarian regime, which shows little or no sign of change in the near future. Obama made a number of concessions and got nothing in return (even China releases a few political prisoners as a sign of "good will."). Fidel Castro made sure, after the summit, to reconfirm that Obama’s actions did nothing more than re-confirm the legitimacy of the "Revolution."

Colombia

Colombia’s Uribe is the other Latin American leader who has aggressively taken on the drug gangs and the terrorist, Venezuelan-supported FALN. While Obama was courting the tyrants, he gave little attention to an important ally. In addition, by refusing to throw his weight against the Congressional Democrats blocking a new free-trade agreement with Bogota, he under-cuts the political position of Uribe, and suggests what it means to be a partisan of the U.S. in Latin America.

Chile and Peru

Obama failed to recognize the tremendous success of these democracies and free-market economies as models, along with Brazil, for the rest of Latin America.

Nicaragua

Obama sat passively through a one hour, anti-American harangue without comment. Then gave one of his First-Fist bumps to Ortega in spite of his efforts to renew Sandinista repression in Nicaragua and develop alliances with anti-American dictators throughout the world. The kind of menace even a relatively small anti-democratic regime in Central America poses is the news that Daniel Ortega is working with Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister of Thailand, trying to bring down the present government in Bangkok from exile with his billions.

What did the President do?

Obama tried to make friends among the Latin American leaders – notably the most repressive. Although there was an obvious agenda based on earlier programs, he did little to advance U.S. interests or to even suggest what Obama Administration policy will be other than to suggest that it will be "different than his predecessor’s." To a large degree, Obama seemed to have his eye on U.S. audiences and politics. (He was proud that the former sworn enemies appeared to like him and applaud him – especially our traditional enemies in the region). He failed to see that they whether they like him is largely irrelevant but that they just see him as more malleable than his "predecessors".

Did the U.S. gain or lose? he U.S. lost serious ground at the summit:

Our enemies in Latin America got the strong impression that we will be tolerant not only of their suppression of democracy at home but accept their links to terrorist groups and nations.

Democratic forces in Latin America got the impression that the U.S. is no longer interested in actively supporting democracy, market economies, or free trade – very discouraging to those who have followed the U.S. lead and struggled to advance the region over the last 20 years. If they had any doubts, in the post-summit press conference Obama – whether he actually understands the concept or not – accept the left’s critique of "the Washington consensus" which in fact only sloganizes what have been U.S. aims historically for the region.

China, Russia, and Iran got the strong impression that this President will not defend American strategic interests in the region long considered "America’s backyard". Russia will see a green light for [its rather feeble attempts to make trouble for the U.S. in the region] and China will see a green light for aggressive commercial efforts and perhaps new naval bases – all of which could create a strategic military nightmare for the U.S.

Drug leaders saw a President who appears sympathetic toward further legalizing drug use and who will not "walk the walk" on supporting Mexico in fighting the cartels. Attorney General Holder has already announced a relaxation of prosecution of violations of the sale of "medical marijuana".

Absolutely no adversary will interpret the friendly smile and the "apologies" as an "opening" to negotiate strategic interests or to change their policies. As was evident from the insults from Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, conversations constructive to U.S. interests will be even more difficult after this summit.

Bottom Line:

Unprepared
Uninformed
Ineffective
Weak
Naïve
D-

Sol Sanders and Grady Means, the managing editor and the publisher of http://worldbuzz.com/. Mr. Sanders has been an international journalist for over 50 years and served as the International Outlook Editor for Business Week and is the author of the book "Mexico: Chaos on Our Doorstep." Mr. Means served in the White House with Vice President Rockefeller and as a management consultant led many privatization initiatives throughout Latin America.