Tag Archives: Osama Bin Laden

Applying Geneva

By Steve Daskal

(Washington, D.C.): The Geneva Conventions have only been adhered to by the nations that are now part of the NATO alliance or have traditionally been peripheral to the major wars of history. India and Pakistan may have adhered to them in their wars, but generally Asian and African nations have not. Israel adhered to them, but the Arabs usually didn’t. The Islamists do not feel obliged to treat kaffirs as protected under the Qur’an and Shari’a because they are waging what they believe to be a defensive jihad against the West. Thus, they will torture and then usually behead Westerners – civilian or military, armed or not at time of capture – unless they can gain political advantage and ransom (money or release of captured terrorists) through a negotiated release.

The proper policy towards those who deliberately exploit the limitations of the Geneva Conventions as a "great equalizer" against law-based nation-states and empires is to consider those who do not separate and distinguish themselves from civilians, and reject formal hierarchical authority, uniforms, and other distinctive markings, and hide in or even fight from religious, medical, educational, or civilian residential buildings, to be brigands, bandits, or pirates – people who have deliberately turned to barbarism and reject all law, treaty, and authority except themselves. These people do not deserve the protections of civilized military personnel, much less the protections of the civilians they try to pass themselves off as being. There is no moral high ground to be gained by treating insurgents and terrorists as properly authorized and uniformed soldiers. There is also no benefit to or protection for properly authorized and uniformed soldiers by treating irregulars as being covered by the Geneva Conventions (or the Hague conventions covering treatment of civilians in war zones, for that matter). Historically, insurgents have tortured, abused, politically manipulated, and killed captives – whether civilians or military – without regard to the niceties of "civilized warfare."

Since lawyers and diplocrats crave detailed, formal, legalistic regulation and civilized control over all situations, and since they dictate all aspects of US foreign policy, it is essential that the US Government formally/publicly amend its ratification of the Geneva Conventions to explicitly state that the US will only abide by the Geneva Conventions in dealing with adversaries who are compliant signatories, and will not be bound by them in dealing with irregulars, insurgents, terrorists, or bandits.

Perhaps we should accept the grim reality that "civilized warfare" can only exist within the confines of a single civilization – which should be able to confine if not eliminate warfare within itself. Most modern warfare has been between conflicting civilizations, or a civilization besieged by barbarians, or between barbarians, and thus the "laws of armed conflict" were not applicable. Thus, expecting the Red Chinese, Indochinese Marxist-Leninists, etc. to adhere to the Geneva Conventions was absurd, because they rejected all laws and treaties that did not advance their own programs for "national liberation" and "people’s revolution." Similarly, expecting Islamists to do so is self-deluding. This is total war, not a limited, chivalry-bound contest between "Christian" ruling houses in Europe or a battle over imperial claims between "Western" states.

 

Who’s Really Ignoring the Geneva Conventions?
By Alykhan Velshi & Howard Anglin
National Review Online, 11 September 2006

In a landmark speech Wednesday, President Bush announced that all captured terrorists will receive the protections of Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions. This concession was compelled by the recent Supreme Court decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, where a narrow majority of the Court substituted its preferred detainee treatment policy for that of the president. Though bowing to the Supreme Court’s ukase, Bush acidly observed that this decision has "impaired our ability to prosecute terrorists." This was too kind. The Court’s ruling in Hamdan established a deeply flawed framework for dealing with terrorists motivated by an implacable religious desire to destroy us.

Those who favor applying the Geneva Conventions to militant Islamists rely on several dubious assumptions. First, they believe this will redound to our own troops’ benefit if they are captured. Second, that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions represents a minimum standard of decency that must be applied to all detainees, without exception. Both arguments reveal a woeful and dangerous ignorance of the text, history, and purpose of the Geneva Conventions.

Neal Katyal, who represented Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard Salim Hamdan before the Supreme Court, recently told the Legal Times that for every one piece of hate mail he has received, "there are 10 supportive e-mails from [American] troops, saying, ‘Thank you for defending me and my cause, because if I’m caught in some other country, what’s going to save me from a beheading, except for the fact that the U.S. plays by rules?’"

This is nonsense. When militant Islamists slit the throat of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, there was not a single al Qaeda member in Guantanamo Bay and the only torture in the Abu Ghraib prison was by order of Saddam Hussein. What capacity for self-delusion is required to believe that granting captured terrorists Common Article Three protections will suddenly reduce their depravity? For Katyal to claim that militant Islamists are even aware of the Great Writ of habeas corpus, let alone Justice Stevens’s ipse dixit in Hamdan, is more than harmless self-aggrandizement; it is dangerous folly.

The most obvious drawback of mandating that Common Article Three applies to all captured terrorists is that certain Geneva Convention rights are so nebulous as to be practically meaningless. For example, Common Article Three forbids, "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." Unsurprisingly, there is no consensus regarding what these words mean. Indeed, there has been considerable debate over whether slapping a terrorist’s belly to elicit information is an outrage on his dignity or even tantamount to torture. The vagueness of Common Article Three combined with the Supreme Court’s newfound willingness to second-guess our government’s treatment of detainees during times of war leaves U.S. soldiers and interrogators with little practical guidance on which to rely.

When dealing with traditional prisoners of war, as the United States did in World War II, Korea, and even Vietnam, it was reasonable to err on the side of leniency and treat detainees with deference and respect. Terrorists, by contrast, present a much greater threat to themselves, their guards, and all Western nations should they escape or be released. Moreover, the diffuse and clandestine nature of their operations also mean that a much greater proportion of the intelligence on which we rely to thwart future attacks must come from captured operatives.

More importantly, the Geneva Conventions did not anticipate the threat posed by today’s militant Islamists. The Geneva Conventions were drafted by civilized countries for the treatment of civilized soldiers. The terrorists we fight today, by contrast, are not dutiful conscripts or professional soldiers; they are would-be martyrs motivated by a fanatical and uncompromising ideology. Granting them the panoply of rights under the Geneva Conventions is inconsistent with the history and underlying assumptions of those treaties.

The drafters of the Geneva Conventions understood that the laws of war are quickly abandoned by a desperate army. To minimize this danger, they allowed for the prosecution of combatants for violations of the laws of war – a sanction, incidentally, made more difficult by the Supreme Court’s rejection of President Bush’s proposed military commissions. They also enshrined a principle of reciprocity: the prospect of harsh punishment if captured acts as a deterrent against savage conduct on the battlefield, just as the possibility of favorable prisoner of war status is an incentive to behave honorably.

The Geneva Conventions are by no means anachronistic; they remain the proper legal framework for waging a conventional war against a regularly constituted army. But applying the strict letter of the Geneva Conventions to Islamist militants is like applying the Queensbury Rules to a donnybrook. When terrorists have shown no interest in abiding by the Geneva Conventions, it is na?ve to think that we can shame them into doing so by treating them as though they have. The best way for the United States to honor the Geneva Conventions is to enforce the principle of reciprocity and deny Geneva protections to those who scorn them.

– Alykhan Velshi is a lawyer and manager of research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Howard Anglin is an appellate lawyer in Washington, D.C. The views expressed in this article do not represent the views of their employers

CAIR doth protest too much (Part 2)

For the second time in roughly as many weeks, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has publicly denounced President Bush for his efforts to clarify the nature of the enemy we face in this War for the Free World. The latest blast came in the wake of Mr. Bush’s major address Tuesday to the Military Officers Association of America, in which the President once again denounced the ideology that animates our Islamofascist foes.

A Tour de Force

While the entire speech deserves a close read, the following are among the highlights of the President’s powerful remarks (emphasis added throughout):

 

-"The terrorists who attacked us on September the 11th, 2001, are men without conscience – but they’re not madmen. They kill in the name of a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs that are evil, but not insane.

-"These al Qaeda terrorists and those who share their ideology are violent Sunni extremists. They’re driven by a radical and perverted vision of Islam that rejects tolerance, crushes all dissent, and justifies the murder of innocent men, women and children in the pursuit of political power.

-"They hope to establish a violent political utopia across the Middle East, which they call a ‘caliphate,’ where all would be ruled according to their hateful ideology. Osama bin Laden has called the 9/11 attacks — in his words – ‘a great step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the righteous caliphate.’

-"This caliphate would be a totalitarian Islamic empire encompassing all current and former Muslim lands, stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. We know this because al Qaeda has told us. About two months ago, the terrorist Zawahiri — he’s al Qaeda’s second in command — declared that al Qaeda intends to impose its rule in ‘every land that was a home for Islam, from Spain to Iraq.’ He went on to say, ‘The whole world is an open field for us.’

-"We know what this radical empire would look like in practice, because we saw how the radicals imposed their ideology on the people of Afghanistan. Under the rule of the Taliban and al Qaeda, Afghanistan was a totalitarian nightmare….And Afghanistan was turned into a launching pad for horrific attacks against America and other parts of the civilized world — including many Muslim nations.

-"The goal of these Sunni extremists is to remake the entire Muslim world in their radical image. In pursuit of their imperial aims, these extremists say there can be no compromise or dialogue with those they call ‘infidels’ — a category that includes America, the world’s free nations, Jews, and all Muslims who reject their extreme vision of Islam. They reject the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the Free World.

-"These radicals have declared their uncompromising hostility to freedom. It is foolish to think that you can negotiate with them.

-"….Captured documents show al Qaeda’s strategy for infiltrating Muslim nations, establishing terrorist enclaves, overthrowing governments, and building their totalitarian empire….Through this strategy, al Qaeda and its allies intend to create numerous, decentralized operating bases across the world, from which they can plan new attacks, and advance their vision of a unified, totalitarian Islamic state that can confront and eventually destroy the free world.

-"These violent extremists know that to realize this vision, they must first drive out the main obstacle that stands in their way — the United States of America. According to al Qaeda, their strategy to defeat America has two parts: First, they’re waging a campaign of terror across the world. They’re targeting our forces abroad, hoping that the American people will grow tired of casualties and give up the fight. And they’re targeting America’s financial centers and economic infrastructure at home, hoping to terrorize us and cause our economy to collapse. Bin Laden calls this his ‘bleed-until-bankruptcy plan.’

-"Secondly, along with this campaign of terror, the enemy has a propaganda strategy. Bin Laden says that al Qaeda intends to ‘launch,’ in his words, ‘a media campaign to create a wedge between the American people and their government.’

-"These terrorists hope to drive America and our coalition out of Afghanistan, so they can restore the safe haven they lost when coalition forces drove them out five years ago. But they’ve made clear that the most important front in their struggle against America is Iraq — the nation bin Laden has declared the ‘capital of the caliphate’….For al Qaeda, Iraq is not a distraction from their war on America — it is the central battlefield where the outcome of this struggle will be decided.

-"As we continue to fight al Qaeda and these Sunni extremists inspired by their radical ideology, we also face the threat posed by Shia extremists, who are learning from al Qaeda, increasing their assertiveness, and stepping up their threats. Like the vast majority of Sunnis, the vast majority of Shia across the world reject the vision of extremists….The Shia extremists want to deny them this right.

-"This Shia strain of Islamic radicalism is just as dangerous, and just as hostile to America, and just as determined to establish its brand of hegemony across the broader Middle East. And the Shia extremists have achieved something that al Qaeda has so far failed to do: In 1979, they took control of a major power, the nation of Iran, subjugating its proud people to a regime of tyranny, and using that nation’s resources to fund the spread of terror and pursue their radical agenda.

-"Like al Qaeda and the Sunni extremists, the Iranian regime has clear aims: They want to drive America out of the region, to destroy Israel, and to dominate the broader Middle East. To achieve these aims, they are funding and arming terrorist groups like Hezbollah, which allow them to attack Israel and America by proxy. Hezbollah, the source of the current instability in Lebanon, has killed more Americans than any terrorist organization except al Qaeda.

-"Iran’s leaders, who back Hezbollah, have also declared their absolute hostility to America. Last October, Iran’s President declared in a speech that some people ask – in his words – ‘whether a world without the United States and Zionism can be achieved. I say that this goal is achievable.’

-"The Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies have demonstrated their willingness to kill Americans — and now the Iranian regime is pursuing nuclear weapons….The world’s free nations will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

-"The Shia and Sunni extremists represent different faces of the same threat. They draw inspiration from different sources, but both seek to impose a dark vision of violent Islamic radicalism across the Middle East. They oppose the advance of freedom, and they want to gain control of weapons of mass destruction. If they succeed in undermining fragile democracies, like Iraq, and drive the forces of freedom out of the region, they will have an open field to pursue their dangerous goals. Each strain of violent Islamic radicalism would be emboldened in their efforts to topple moderate governments and establish terrorist safe havens."

-"We know what the terrorists believe, we know what they have done, and we know what they intend to do. And now the world’s free nations must summon the will to meet this great challenge. The road ahead is going to be difficult, and it will require more sacrifice. Yet we can have confidence in the outcome, because we’ve seen freedom conquer tyranny and terror before. In the 20th century, free nations confronted and defeated Nazi Germany. During the Cold War, we confronted Soviet communism, and today Europe is whole, free and at peace. And now, freedom is once again contending with the forces of darkness and tyranny."

Can You Hear Me Now?

The essence of President Bush’s extraordinary statement today might be found in the following paragraphs:

 

 

    I know some [in] our country hear the terrorists’ words, and hope that they will not, or cannot, do what they say. History teaches that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake….Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is: Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?

    America and our coalition partners have made our choice. We’re taking the words of the enemy seriously. We’re on the offensive, and we will not rest, we will not retreat, and we will not withdraw from the fight, until this threat to civilization has been removed.

Breaking the Code on CAIR

It is instructive that CAIR transparently does not want the American people to listen to the truth about the enemy we face. In its statement issued after the President’s address, the Council opined: "By focusing almost exclusively on the views of groups like Al-Qaeda and failing to address the concerns of the vast majority of Muslims worldwide who reject terrorism, President Bush grants undeserved legitimacy to extremists and marginalizes true moderates."

This contention is as wrong as was CAIR’s earlier statement in response to Mr. Bush’s absolutely accurate statement that we are "at war with Islamic fascists," in which it claimed Mr. Bush was equating – and defaming – Islam by pairing the two words. In both cases, the Council seeks to obscure the facts, sow confusion in the minds of Americans and, perhaps most insidious, promote an unwarranted sense of victimhood on the part of Muslims, here and abroad.

No one should be surprised that the Council on American-Islamic Relations persists in playing such a role. Its founding by Hamas operatives and sympathizers was monitored by the FBI. Three of its officers have been convicted of involvement in terrorist plots. And its affinity for the Islamists and service to their cause have prompted even Democrats like Senators Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin to express concern about the organization’s ties to terror.

The Bottom Line

With due respect to President Bush, the question is not so much will the American people listen, as they should, to the words of the Islamofascists? Rather, it is whether they will stop having to listen to the words of the Islamists’ fellow travelers like CAIR, because the organization is no longer treated by the federal government as an interlocutor with or representative of tolerant, peaceable Muslims or allowed to use American airwaves to propagandize our countrymen?

Concentrating on missile defense

The British wit, Samuel Johnson, once declared that, "The prospect of hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully." The televised images of various missiles being launched from places as far removed as North Korea and Lebanon should have a similar effect on American minds, both those of citizens and those of elected officials who represent them.

Unfortunately, the problem is not confined to the worrying implications of North Korea ‘s spasm of seven ballistic missile test launches (six successful, one a dud) on the 4th of July. Neither should it be obscured by the relatively unsophisticated, but still lethal, missile volleys Hezbollah has rained down on population centers in Israel , and their repercussions, that have temporarily driven the North Korean danger from our front pages.

The Emerging Threat

Consider the following other, mind-concentrating data points:

-Cash-strapped North Korea has made no secret of its readiness to sell military hardware to willing buyers. This has given rise to active missile technology-sharing and/or joint development projects with nations like Pakistan , Iran and Yemen with longstanding ties to terrorism.

-News reports suggest that Pakistan – a nation one heartbeat away from having a full-fledged Islamofascist regime – is ramping up its capacity to build as many as 40-50 nuclear weapons a year. Should Pakistani ballistic missiles of ever-increasing-range be armed with such weapons and put in the service of the Islamists, democratic India will not be the only country at risk.

-Iran also aspires to place the nuclear weapons it is a-building and their missile delivery systems in the service of global jihad. Not only does the Iranian regime threaten to "wipe Israel off the map" and bring about a "world without America ." It has also tested ballistic missiles in a way that suggest it is acquiring the means to effect such outcomes.

-Among Iran ‘s missile developments, two are particularly worrying: First, the regime has test launched a short-range Scud missile off of a ship. The ability to use a mobile, sea-going platform means that the regime and its friends need not seek long-range missiles to attack distant targets. Such an attack has one other attraction: By bringing a Scud-type missile – of which there are thousands around the world, including the dozen or so North Korea delivered to Osama bin Laden’s ancestral homeland, Yemen , a few years back – near the enemy’s shoreline, strategic warning can be kept to an absolute minimum.

-Second, Iran has tested its medium-range Shahab-3 ballistic missile in a manner that appears designed to detonate a nuclear weapon in space. This could allow Tehran to execute the sort of missile-delivered strike that has been judged by a congressionally mandated, blue-ribbon commission to be capable of causing "catastrophic" damage to the United States – an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. By wiping out electrical systems and electronic devices, possibly coast-to-coast, America could be reduced to a pre-industrial society in the blink of an eye.

-Then, there is China ‘s ballistic missile arsenal. Despite determined U.S. efforts to portray the Communist regime in Beijing as a reliable partner in American diplomacy and trade, it is inexorably building up ever-larger numbers of missiles. Increasingly, these are capable not only of intimidating Taiwan but also of attacking the United States – something Chinese generals have on two occasions publicly threatened to do. PRC technology has also been an enabler of many other nations’ ballistic missile programs, both directly and through proxies like Pakistan and North Korea .

-Last but not least, there is Russia . Vladimir Putin has personally helped market new Russian spiraling and maneuvering missile reentry vehicle technology as breakthroughs that will allow attackers to defeat American missile defenses. He has also presided personally over simulated massive nuclear-armed ballistic and cruise missile strikes on the United States .

What Needs to Be Done?

George W. Bush deserves great credit for putting an end to the insane policy he inherited of leaving the United States absolutely vulnerable to ballistic missile attack. He withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that codified that vulnerability and he began deploying limited missile defenses, mostly ground-based ones in Alaska and California.

Clearly, while these steps were necessary, they are not sufficient in a world in which the missile threat is metastasizing. Leading Members of Congress like Senators Jon Kyl, Dick Shelby and Jeff Sessions and Representatives Duncan Hunter and Curt Weldon have long recognized this reality. Now, it is time for their colleagues and the public to join forces behind a concerted effort to deploy defenses capable of defeating the emerging threat.

The Bottom Line

Fortunately, a newly released report. by the Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship and the Twenty-First Century lays out a roadmap for such defenses. It calls for substantially expanding the Navy’s sea-based defenses to provide, among other things, protection of the U.S. East Coast and interior from attacks launched from and beyond the Atlantic.

The working group also makes clear the imperative of developing and deploying missile defenses in the place where they can do the most good at the least cost: in space. And it describes ways in which the necessary technical, public and political support can be obtained and sustained.

The starting point for such support should be at hand – the wonderful concentration of minds engendered by the prospect in our time of a mass, missile-delivered "hanging."

America’s new recruits

Decision Brief                                       No. 06-D 33                     2006-07-03


(Washington, D.C.): The Fourth of July is, of course, a time to celebrate this great country and all that it stands for – both at home and abroad. Arguably, such collective remembrances and celebrations are more needed than ever in time of war. And that is particularly true at a moment when reverses of one kind or another are shaking some Americans’ confidence in their government and/or its ability to prosecute the war successfully.


The Hamdan Miscarriage of Justice


In every reverse, however, lies an opportunity. For example, the Supreme Court’s appalling ruling last week in the case of Osama bin Laden’s trusted driver, Salim Hamdan, affords the President and the Congress a chance not only to provide a legislative mandate for the military tribunals needed to prosecute such terrorists.


The Court’s skewed interpretation of international law, and then its subordination of the U.S. Constitution to that misreading, also invites farther-reaching corrective action. Five justices held that enemy combatants like al Qaeda’s Hamdan were entitled to the treatment afforded prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. In fact, the only provision of those accords that explicitly extends such protections is Protocol I. But President Reagan formally rejected U.S. adherence to that protocol and its equation of terrorists with soldiers like ours, who (with very few and wholly illegal exceptions) abide by the laws of war.


We now have the opportunity both to affirm the wisdom of the Reagan decision and to discourage the courts – Supreme and others – from the practice of reflexively, and often arbitrarily, subordinating this country’s democratically and constitutionally adopted statutes and executive orders to subjective applications of so-called “customary” international law.


The Press’ Abuse of its Freedom


An even more important chance to offset the effects of a grievous blow to the war effort can be found in the aftermath of the treacherous, if not actually treasonous, disclosures last week by the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. These papers revealed that the United States government had been secretly (albeit legally) using an international clearinghouse for banking information to “follow the money” – by monitoring terrorists’ financial transactions.


In so doing, these irresponsible journalists and editors have compromised yet another of the country’s very perishable and possibly irreplaceable means of monitoring and defeating terrorists, and their potentially murderous plots. It is not as though the U.S. has an excess of such capacities. Given the deplorable state of our human intelligence – the preferred means of penetrating closed and secretive cells and organizations – the loss of any of these perishable technology-based information-collection tools can cause real harm to the cause of freedom.


Divest Terror!


Fortunately, on this Fourth of July, we can celebrate the enlistment in the War for the Free World of new recruits with the potential to cut off vastly more money flowing to our enemies than occurs through most bank transactions. On June 21st, the Board of the Missouri Investment Trust (MIT) – a public fund that taxes entertainers and athletes’ income and makes earnings from investments of such monies available to state cultural organizations – voted to make its portfolio “terror-free.”


As the chairman of the MIT board, Missouri State Treasurer Sarah Steelman, observed: “The people of Missouri do not want their money used to support terrorism. It’s that simple.”


After the fund announced its action, Ms. Steelman noted that, “Companies who sponsor terrorism or prop up governments of sanctioned nations who threaten our security should never be supported by public dollars. Today, the MIT board made sure that won’t happen with this trust fund.”


The Treasurer then underscored a point that should be on the mind of every other public pension fund this Fourth of July:



-“We shouldn’t be putting taxpayer dollars into funds or into companies that are supporting terrorism. There are still American soldiers who are risking their lives on a daily basis to protect us and to try to spread freedom and…we have an obligation to help them, as well. And so if we can cut the money off to terrorists, it’s going to help. I guess I’m idealistic enough to think that if we can do it, then every state can take actions like this and it would have a significant impact on terrorism.”


The model the Missouri Investment Trust has forged can be readily adopted by others. Under Treasurer Steelman’s leadership, the fund’s board voted last September to adopt an anti-terrorism “screen” for its portfolio and subsequently issued a Request for Proposals for a “large cap” international fund that would provide such a screen. From the four firms that responded (Morgan Stanley, UMB Bank, Julius Baer and State Street Global Advisors), the MIT Board selected State Street and its subcontractor, Conflict Securities Advisory Group – an entity established by former Reagan Administration official and longtime Center for Security Policy associate, Roger Robinson, to evaluate publicly traded companies’ “global security risk,” a term the SEC has adopted to describe financial exposure to terrorist sponsoring states.


The Bottom Line


The idea of enlisting in the war effort investors – and, ideally, not just public funds managers, but those responsible for other institutional and private portfolios, as well – is one whose time has come. Should the Missouri Investment Trust example of divesting terror now be widely replicated, the Nation could bring important new leverage to bear on behalf of freedom, and deny funds to its enemies that they will surely otherwise use to try to kill us. That’s really something to celebrate this Fourth of July.


 

‘Iraq War’ truth squad

Decision Brief                                       No. 06-D 30                     2006-06-19


(Washington , D.C.): With voters going to the polls in a little more than four months, legislators on both sides of Capitol Hill and both sides of the aisle are jockeying for position on a host of contentious issues. Topping the list at the moment is what to do about Iraq.


Reduced to their essence the choices are, according to most Republicans, between “cutting-and-running” or “staying the course”; according to most Democrats, “redeploying to fight the global war on terror” or Vietnam redux. Last week, the House of Representatives had its turn, providing a bipartisan endorsement of President Bush’s Iraq policy. The Senate is expected to take the issue up in earnest this week.


Critics of our involvement in Iraq have embraced arguments or “facts” that frequently do not stand up to scrutiny. Unfortunately, some of those who continue to support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime have unnecessarily conceded points to their opponents. As a result, all other things being equal, even if the Senate joins the House in rejecting the Democrat-led effort to set deadlines for reducing our presence in Iraq or withdrawing posthaste, this week’s deliberations may not adequately serve the public’s need to understand the true nature of this conflict and its stakes.


Just the Facts, Ma’am


As a contribution to the debate – and an effort to provide quality control on its content – herewith a few relevant truths:



-President Bush did not “lie” about Saddam Hussein’s regime posing a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) threat . In addition to the obvious point that the Iraqi dictator had used such weapons against his own people and Iranians in the past, it is irresponsible to ignore the fact that, therefore, he had the know-how and infrastructure to produce and maintain stocks of such weapons.


We now also have evidence – thanks to defector accounts and captured Iraqi documentation – that Saddam engaged in a massive effort to deny us a “smoking gun” by dispersing his WMD before U.S.-led Coalition forces launched their invasion. For example, Georges Sada, the former Iraqi general who was responsible for organizing air-shipments conveying chemical and biological weapons across the Syrian border and into Syrian-controlled Lebanon, has confirmed that such movements occurred.



-What is more, even the oft-cited Iraq Survey Group, which found no evidence of WMD in Iraq after the invasion, confirmed that Saddam had plans when sanctions were lifted (an imminent prospect until Operation Iraqi Freedom intervened) to convert some of his inherently dual-use facilities to the manufacture of chemical and/or biological agents. The plans called for such agents to be placed in aerosol cans and perfume sprayers for shipment to the United States and Europe . These are precisely the sort of intentions and terrorist applications for WMD that caused President Bush properly to believe it necessary to act preemptively against Saddam’s regime.


There is, similarly, no doubt that Saddam Hussein was involved with and supportive of international terrorism. In fact, his regime had been designated a state-sponsor of terror for years before George W. Bush became president, due to the safe-havens, training facilities, intelligence and logistical assistance and arms he provided to an assortment of Islamist and other terrorist organizations.


Some still cavil that al Qaeda was not among the beneficiaries of Saddam’s largesse. Typically, they make much of the 9/11 Commission’s conclusion that there was no evidence of “operational” connections between al Qaeda and the Iraqi despot’s regime. In fact, as the Weekly Standard‘s Steven Hayes (among others) has demonstrated, U.S. and allied intelligence have accumulated information about myriad contacts and meetings, both inside and outside of Iraq, between Osama bin Laden’s operatives and those of Iraqi intelligence or its intermediaries. To ignore such associations and their potentially devastating implications would have been irresponsible.



–We will not encourage the Iraqis to “get their act together” by convincing them they will shortly be abandoned to contend with the myriad enemies at home and abroad who wish to snuff out their fragile experiment with democracy and freedom . It is nonsense – not to say insufferably condescending – to ignore a central reality: People like those of Iraq, who have long been traumatized by despotic misrule and the existential threat it can pose at any time, simply will not line up with the cause of freedom unless they have reason to believe it is going to be the winning side.


If the Iraqi people abandon the opportunity we have helped afford them – a chance for a future that is far more peaceable, prosperous and free than anything they have known before – far more than just the loss of an ally and a model for the region will occur. Our mutual enemies around the world, be they al Qaeda operatives, Baathist irreconcilables or the sectarians and their foreign sponsors, will be vindicated in their belief of our susceptibility to defeat, and emboldened to pursue it far beyond Iraq , including here at home.


This is not idle speculation or fear-mongering for short-run political effect. To the contrary, it is the confident prediction and stated goal of bin Laden, the late Abu Musab Zarqawi, Wahhabi imams in Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah and Hamas terror leaders in the Levant and Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, among others.


The Bottom Line


In short, Iraq is just one front in the larger War for the Free World. Saddam Hussein’s despotism had to be eliminated if our necessary success in that war was to be achieved in the only way it can be: by systematically eliminating the regimes that sponsor Islamofascism and otherwise serve as well-springs of terror. If we are clear about that reality, we will indisputably have a chance to prevail, not just in Iraq but wherever freedom is under assault.


 

San Francisco Islamists

The front page of today’s Wall Street Journal features a gripping account of the struggle for the soul of a Muslim mosque in San Francisco. Leading the forces of moderation and tolerance, albeit with a strong hand, has been Souleiman Ghali, a Palestinian refugee who founded the Islamic Society of San Francisco in 1993. In the other corner is an Egyptian-born imam named Sheik Safwat Morsy, who was recruited by Mr. Ghali in 2001 to lead the mosque, and reportedly used his platform there and elsewhere to preach anti-American jihadism.

The Journal article, entitled “Identity Crisis: At a U.S. Mosque, Path of Tolerance Leads to Tumult” and authored by Peter Waldman, provides a fascinating – if frightening – window into the struggles between anti-Islamist Muslims and those who promote in the guise of religious practice what amounts to a political ideology. It can be accurately described as “Islamofascism.”

According to this account, Mr. Ghali came to the path of moderation, despite a personal history of indoctrination and alienation against the West, Christians and Jews, through his exposure to the tolerance of religious expression that is a central tenet of the American constitution and society. The Journal recounts how he repeatedly sought to counter efforts by those like Sheik Safwat to radicalize and alienate the Islamic Society congregation from its host country.

This test of wills moved from the mosque to civil court when the Sheik claimed he had been wrongfully dismissed by Mr. Ghali after uncovering financial improprieties on the latter’s part. A jury – which was denied access to evidence that strongly supported Mr. Ghali’s claim that the reason for terminating the imam’s employment was the Sheik’s radicalism – found in favor of Safwat, who has gone on to found another mosque near the first, from which he reportedly continues to proselytize as before.

This drama underscores a central reality in the War for the Free World: The threat of Islamofascism, the most immediate and dangerous of the enemies we face in this global conflict, is not confined to distant countries and combat zones. Islamist ideology is being promoted here in the United States as well, quite possibly in a mosque near you.

The danger associated with our failure to appreciate this reality and to help those Muslims who oppose the Islamofascists (Suleiman Ghali is now facing a $400,000 penalty to be paid to the Islamist imam, and his vision of a moderate mosque is “struggling to stay afloat”) can translate into a Fifth Column in America, a threat that will make the preservation of our society, its freedoms and those of the larger Free World vastly more problematic.

 

Identity Crisis: At a U.S. Mosque, Path of Tolerance Leads to Tumult

The Wall Street Journal, 19 June 2006

Souleiman Ghali grew up as a Palestinian refugee in war-torn Lebanon. He was a Sunni Muslim imbued from childhood, he says, with hatred for Shiites, Christians — and especially Jews.

Then he met one. In 1993, Mr. Ghali, who owned a deli at the time, was searching for a place to open San Francisco’s first Arab mosque. He found an ideal building. But the owner, who was Jewish, wanted $10,000 a month in rent, far more than the group could afford.

“I hesitated telling the landlord what we wanted it for, because I assumed he didn’t like Muslims,” recalls Mr. Ghali. “But he said, ‘A mosque? Fantastic. We have so many fanatics. We need to work together for peace.'” The owner slashed the rent 80% and gave the mosque a long-term lease. “That stuck with me,” Mr. Ghali says.

Pushed by Mr. Ghali, the Islamic Society of San Francisco is at the forefront of a controversial movement to shape an “American Muslim identity” of tolerance and respect for other faiths.

But the future of his effort is now threatened by a voice from within. His mosque was hauled into court this spring by a fiery imam whom it fired in 2002, claiming he preached extremism. The cleric’s wrongful-discharge lawsuit has splintered San Francisco’s Muslim community, as rival groups, and ideologies, vie for worshipers’ support.

After his firing, the Egyptian-born imam, Safwat Morsy, opened a new mosque in a basement just around the corner from the Islamic Society, in the heart of this city’s gritty Tenderloin district. To swelling crowds, the Sheik Safwat has railed against “the traitor criminal Souleiman Ghali” and called for jihad, or holy war, against Israel and U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Our killed ones are in paradise and their killed ones are in hell,” he told worshipers in 2003, in a sermon that was translated from Arabic for the court case.

The fight is part of a larger identity conflict roiling many Muslim communities in the U.S. The Sept. 11 terror attacks and the recriminations that followed opened a searing debate among Muslims in America over the role of Islam in their lives.

Many Westernized Muslims, such as 47-year-old Mr. Ghali, reacted to 9/11 by recoiling from Mideast politics and other points of discord with mainstream American culture. They set out to repair the image of Islam in America by denouncing hatred and emphasizing the faith’s common values with other Western creeds. “Our vision is the emergence of an American Muslim identity founded on compassion, respect, dignity, and love,” says the Islamic Society’s Web site.

Other Muslims, particularly less-assimilated immigrants such as 48-year-old Sheik Safwat — who doesn’t speak English — mock the idea of an “American” Islam. They see attempts to tailor the religion to Western norms as cultural capitulation verging on blasphemy. Beware of “the new American Islam,” Sheik Safwat warned followers in the 2003 sermon translated for the court case, “a faith that does not talk about the jihad; a faith that does not talk about the confrontation with tyrants; a faith that does not talk.”

In a five-week civil trial held this spring in San Francisco Superior Court, jurors were asked to consider two starkly different versions of the conflict that has divided the Islamic Society. Sheik Safwat accused the mosque of unlawfully firing him for exposing what he said were suspicious accounting practices by Mr. Ghali and others. The Islamic Society insisted it had just cause to terminate the sheik for preaching radicalism.

The Islamic Society, now one of three Sunni mosques in San Francisco’s urban core, occupies a corner building on a seedy stretch of Market Street. The prayer hall, upstairs from a check-cashing service and a liquor store, serves an immigrant community of mostly Arabs and South Asians, many of them cabdrivers and laborers.

Even Mr. Ghali’s admirers say he imposed his progressive agenda on the Islamic Society autocratically. Working mostly by himself, he opened the mosque to ecumenical events for Christians and Jews and actively stumped for peace with Israel. This winter, he removed the barrier that separated women from men, a tradition in many mosques. He did so without consulting the community, knowing the move would cause an uproar — which it did. “First we changed the structure. Now we’re educating the people,” says Mr. Ghali, who owns a small copy shop near San Francisco’s Union Square.

Frequent Clashes

He clashed frequently with imams hired by the mosque to preach. Several years ago, he recalls, he ousted one imam — literally shoving him out the door during Friday prayers — after the cleric fulminated about Americans facing hellfire for immorality. Tempers flared as the preacher’s supporters shouted “Pharoah!” at Mr. Ghali and accused him of censorship. Mr. Ghali says he shot back: “Ask God to heal America, not punish it!”

Mr. Ghali says he sacked a second imam in 2000 for preaching too much about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Angry congregants gathered 300 signatures on a petition to keep the popular Yemeni cleric and throw out Mr. Ghali, who fought off the challenge. “We would not let the Arab constituency shape the mosque in their own image,” says Mr. Ghali.

Sheik Safwat, who was hired in July, 2001, is equally stubborn, say people who know both men. He came to San Francisco from the Muath ibn Jabal Mosque in Detroit, where one of the congregants says his religious views split the community and the mosque’s board. Sheik Safwat, recruited by Mr. Ghali for his eloquence and fund-raising skills, was named the Islamic Society’s executive director, as well as its imam, with responsibility to help “set the vision” for the mosque. His four-year employment contract included a house, health insurance and a salary of $3,500 a month.

The two men soon clashed. Fawaz Abu-Khadijeh, a cabdriver who is a regular at the mosque, recalls Sheik Safwat asking him for curtains to further seal off the women’s prayer area, then separated from the main hall by an eight-foot wall. The sheik’s wife, who covers her hair and face in traditional Islamic garb, was uncomfortable with the incomplete barrier, Mr. Abu-Khadijeh says. But Mr. Ghali says he vetoed the idea, snapping at Mr. Abu-Khadijeh: “We run the mosque, not Sheik Safwat’s wife!”

Mr. Ghali says he resented Sheik Safwat using the mosque to raise money for Mideast causes, drawing funds away from the Islamic Society’s own needs. “They both wanted to be leader,” Mr. Abu-Khadijeh says.

Three days after the 9/11 attacks, at a Friday prayer service attended by dignitaries including then-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, Sheik Safwat denounced the terrorists. “Islam does not accept this kind of behavior,” he said, according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle. “Islam is a religion of peace.”

But in April 2002, the sheik delivered a different kind of message, according to Farhan Memon, a New York attorney who attended the San Francisco mosque for many years. The Israeli army, in response to a rash of suicide bombings in Israel, was laying siege at the time to Palestinian fighters in the West Bank town of Jenin. From the pulpit, Sheik Safwat lionized the Palestinians for laying down their lives, including the bomber of Jerusalem’s Sbarro pizzeria, who had killed 15 people, Mr. Memon later testified in the court case. The sheik’s message, Mr. Memon said: “American Muslims should find inspiration in that on how to become better Muslims.” (The sheik’s lawyer attempted in court to cast doubt on Mr. Memon’s testimony by noting that he was listening to a translation from Arabic.)

In a recent interview, Sheik Safwat, speaking through an aide who translated, denied he is an extremist and said he has denounced suicide bombing and the killing of innocents many times. He said that as the mosque’s executive director, he became aware of accounting irregularities which he contends are evidence of embezzlement and tax evasion. He said it was his duty to confront Mr. Ghali and other Islamic Society leaders. In response, he said, they fired him.

His dismissal, which came shortly after his controversial April 2002 sermon, tore apart the local Muslim community. The sheik and his followers attempted to overthrow Mr. Ghali and his allies at the mosque, court papers show. Before being slapped with a temporary restraining order, Sheik Safwat’s group changed the locks on the mosque, commandeered the podium during prayers and removed several computers and translation headsets to their new headquarters around the corner, according to sworn affidavits filed in court.

The sheik’s aide, Mohammed Allababidi, says those affidavits are lies. He says Mr. Ghali, to thwart rising opposition sparked by revelations of “corruption,” changed the locks and shut down the mosque for several weeks.

“There was a divergence of agendas, on top of a monumental struggle for power,” says Hatem Bazian, an Islamic law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, who tried to mediate the dispute.

‘New Crusade’

Sheik Safwat filed suit against the Islamic Society in April 2003, accusing the mosque of illegally firing him in retaliation for exposing corruption. At the time, U.S. forces were invading Iraq and emotions among Muslims everywhere were raw. “They have declared religious war against Islam,” Sheik Safwat told followers at his new mosque, Noor Al-Islam, according to a San Francisco Chronicle account. “It is a new Crusade.” He said he blamed the U.S. government, not the American people.

Mr. Ghali, although he is not a professional imam, gave a sermon that same day at the Islamic Society. He urged restraint, the newspaper reported. “We are misunderstood,” he said. “Allah demands that we be patient and wise. Let not the hatred of others allow you to swerve to wrong and depart from justice.”

A few weeks later, as Baghdad itself was falling, Sheik Safwat delivered a tirade against infidel invaders and called for holy war to redeem Muslim lands. This sermon, captured in a cassette recording, was professionally translated and submitted as evidence in the court case. Sheik Safwat, invoking familiar extremist rhetoric for his Sunni listeners, blamed the fall of Iraq on connivance by the “traitor” Shiites and Arab heads of states, whom he branded “agents of treason.” The sheik also said he saw the hand of the “sons of Zion,” the Jews. With the fall of Baghdad, he said, Israel had “realized” its dominion “from the Nile to the Euphrates.” He praised martyrdom. While the Muslim dead of Jerusalem, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Sudan were in paradise, he said, the infidel dead were burning in hell. “The beacon of the jihad will not be extinguished by the tank and will not be extinguished by the airplanes,” he said. “The clash of civilizations and the combat of cultures and the recapture of the land and honor, this is what believers are waiting for.”

In another sermon, the sheik adopted the slogan used by the Palestinian political party Hamas to reject Israel’s right to exist: “Palestine, from the sea to the river.” Mr. Allababidi, who serves as the Noor Al-Islam mosque’s general secretary, says the sheik won’t elaborate on the 2003 sermons because they’re a “distraction” from “the corruption” at the Islamic Society mosque.

At the trial, the jury had to decide how much credence to give Mr. Ghali’s claim that the mosque had properly fired the sheik for his extremist rhetoric. Jurors never heard the sheik’s later sermons because the judge ruled that evidence from after the sheik’s 2002 firing was irrelevant to the case. Mr. Ghali testified that the sheik told him twice that the best way to deal with Jews was to “slaughter” them. Mr. Memon, the lawyer and former mosque worshiper, testified that the sheik told followers to “emulate” suicide bombers. Another attorney testified she’d heard Sheik Safwat preach hate at the Islamic Society’s regular Friday services.

The sheik and his lawyer maintained that Mr. Ghali and his allies had capitalized for years on their positions at the mosque for financial gain. They showed the jury blowups of canceled checks written to “cash” and donation receipts allegedly inflated for tax purposes. They cast doubt on the two attorneys’ testimony about hateful preaching, noting that neither spoke Arabic and both relied on simultaneous translations of the sheik’s sermons. Some Muslim scholars testified that they knew the sheik to be a peace-loving man.

An Excellent Witness

The sheik made an excellent witness, says David Newman, the jury’s foreman. With his wife and seven daughters looking on, the sheik presented himself as a committed pacifist, on good terms even with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He testified that during his nine-month tenure at the Islamic Society, he denounced Osama bin Laden, praised Jews and shunned Mideast politics. “I condemn any killing,” he told the jury.

In the end, jurors believed the sheik. The jury found that the Islamic Society had breached the sheik’s contract and awarded him $200,000 in damages. It also found that the mosque had misrepresented the job when it recruited him from Detroit. That finding, under California law, automatically doubled the damage award to $400,000.

The hateful rhetoric seemed “inconsistent” with the peaceful family man who appeared in court, says Mr. Newman, who works as a senior lawyer for the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Without transcripts of sermons or Arabic speakers to corroborate the extremism, the jury didn’t buy it, Mr. Newman says.

The evidence of accounting problems and Sheik Safwat’s efforts to clean them up was more persuasive, he says. “Was there theft?” he asks. “None of us believed anyone made money out of this. But we all believed there were accounting irregularities. Much of their problem was just sloppiness.”

Adds Mr. Newman, an experienced trial lawyer: “There’s reality and there’s courtroom reality. I have no doubt we made the correct decision, based on the evidence we saw in the courtroom and the law as it was explained to us. I have no opinion on whether we got reality right.”

Issa Michael, the Islamic Society’s attorney, complains that the judge “handcuffed” his client by barring evidence from Sheik Safwat’s later sermons. Mr. Memon’s testimony, Mr. Michael says, was “irrefutable.” The fact he didn’t speak Arabic shouldn’t have mattered, the lawyer says, because the jury knew that the interpreters of the sermons were the sheik’s closest confidants.

To avoid possible punitive damages, the Islamic Society decided to settle the case, agreeing to pay Sheik Safwat $400,000. Its legal fees exceeded $100,000. Mr. Ghali resigned from the board after the jury verdict. The mosque is struggling now to stay afloat. It may have to sell a building in South San Francisco that congregants have been renovating for years to turn into an Islamic school. Mosque attendance is down. Some worshipers now attend Sheik Safwat’s mosque and a third one nearby. Peace and interfaith activities have ceased, and there is a move afoot, led by women, to rebuild the women’s barrier.

Tanja Brauer, who leads a women’s group at the mosque, contends that Mr. Ghali “let his concerns about non-Muslim public opinion overshadow some of our own concerns as Muslims.” Mr. Ghali says he “wanted our mosque to be different.” He acknowledges he could have been a better manager, but denies that anyone from the mosque stole any money. Sheik Safwat intends to use the settlement payment to repay debts, says Mr. Allababidi, his aide. His mosque is looking to buy a building to accommodate the capacity crowds coming these days for Friday prayers.

Olmert’s folly

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is in town this week on a sales campaign. He hopes to secure the United States ‘ approval and financing (perhaps as much as $10 billion) for his controversial plan to withdraw unilaterally Israeli civilians and troops from nearly all of the West Bank and even parts of Jerusalem. He would settle, however, for American acquiescence – which he could then use to suppress debate at home about what amounts to state-icide.

What’s Wrong with this Picture?

The danger arises from the fact that the beneficiary of Israel ‘s proposed surrender of territory will be her Islamofascist enemies . They include Hamas, the terrorist group that came to power in Gaza after Israel withdrew unilaterally last year from that relatively tiny piece of real estate. If the experience with Gaza is any guide, however, Hamas will turn the West Bank into a Taliban-style safe-haven for other terrorists including: al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

From the Gaza Strip, such enemies of Israel have launched daily mortar, rocket and/or artillery attacks, by some counts as many as 500 since the Israelis "disengaged." Fortunately, the areas of the Jewish State thus far within range are largely agricultural and thinly populated – with the notable exception of the important port city of Ashkelon . As a result, there have been no casualties to date, even from attacks on Ashkelon ‘s vital electrical, oil pipeline and water desalination infrastructure.

That will almost certainly change over time, however, as the experience and accuracy of Islamofascist terrorists in Gaza and the range and lethality of their weapons improve. Such improvements are being facilitated by the now-essentially-open border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt . The fact that the Mubarak regime in Cairo tolerates, if not enables, the transit of anti-Israel terrorists and their ordinance is just one manifestation of the latter’s increasingly overt hostility to the Jewish State, with whom it is nominally at peace.

Even relatively inaccurate gunners and primitive weapons would be capable of inflicting great harm on Israel from the West Bank , however. Every population center, major highway and the country’s main civilian airport would be within range. Such attacks would be sure to take a toll, in lives and in economic activity.

Our Problem, Too

Some will argue that it should be up to Israel whether such risks are acceptable or not. The repercussions of Israel ‘s withdrawal will not be hers to bear alone, however. American equities are on the line as well.

For one, the effect of withdrawal is likely to be to weaken Israel considerably, reducing it from a powerful and self-reliant strategic ally to a potential liability , one unduly dependent on the United States for its security. For example, Israel ‘s economy, which is heavily dependent upon trade and tourism, could be severely disrupted by terrorist attacks on aircraft flying to and from Ben Gurion airport and upon other critical infrastructure. For another, some forty percent of the Jewish State’s water supply comes from West Bank aquifers; a disruption of access to such precious resources in a desert could constitute an existential danger.

A terrorist state on the West Bank will translate, moreover, into a threat to others in the region. It would surely result in the destabilization and quite possibly the end of Hashemite Jordan. The effect would be a combining of Jordan ‘s territory, well-armed military and the 80% of its population that is Palestinian with the radical, Hamas-ruled state next door. The effort to consolidate the liberation of Iraq would also be jeopardized as one of two U.S. re-supply routes into the country – from Israeli ports across Jordan – becomes vulnerable to al Qaeda and others’ attacks.

More to the point, the evident strategic retreat in the face of terror that the Israeli withdrawal will represent – not just for the Jewish State, but for the Free World in general and the United States in particular – can only be an encouragement to our enemies and a warning to our friends: The "strong horse," as bin Laden puts it, is the irresistible and growing power of Islamofascism. Those who submit to it will survive; those who resist are doomed to be defeated and destroyed. And al Qaeda and others will be working to effect the latter from their new safe-haven on the West Bank.

The Bottom Line

For all these reasons, Israel is not the only party to have a stake in the question of its continued control over the West Bank . We do, too. As a result, if the surrender of such territory does not make sense to or for us, we should not hesitate to say so.

Yet some would have us believe that, whatever the merits of these and similar concerns about the Israeli withdrawal (which are brilliantly elucidated by my colleague, Caroline Glick), the decision has already been taken by the recently elected government of Israel. Some assert that it will go forward no matter what we think. Others contend that we have no choice but to go along with whatever Israel decides to do.

In fact, we have an obligation to object. Friends don’t let friends commit suicide. That is especially true when, in so doing, they are likely to inflict grave harm on others, including this country and its vital interests. President Bush and the Congress should tell Mr. Olmert during his visit this week: "No more territory for terrorists."

From Londonistan to Palestan

In courtrooms and movie theaters this spring, Americans are being exposed in an unvarnished way to the true character and evil purposes of our enemies in this War for the Free World. Yet, governments around the world – including, on most days, ours – seem still to be unwilling, or unable, to come to grips with these realities.

Zacharias Mousaui used his trial on charges of assisting in the 9/11 conspiracy to put a vivid, and frightening, human face on today’s totalitarian ideology bent our destruction: Islamofascism. Some may discount as bravado or delusion his oft-repeated desire to kill Americans. His lack of remorse is no act though. It is the hallmark of a true believer, and a staple of his creed.

Such sentiments are also much in evidence in the new movie "United 93." Its reconstruction of the horror-filled September 11, 2001 flight of the fourth hijacked plane leaves audiences shaken as much by the cold-blooded lust for death exhibited by our foes as by their intended purposes, prevented in that instance only by the extraordinary courage of ordinary Americans.

What’s Wrong with These Pictures

So why do ostensibly friendly governments not recognize the threat posed by Islamofascism for what it is: a viral ideology that threatens non-Islamist Muslims as much as the rest of us, one that cannot be appeased and must be rooted out and destroyed?

The easiest case to address is that of the Saudi government. The Washington Post reported on Sunday that "Saudi Arabia has mobilized some of its most militant clerics, including one Osama bin Laden sought to recruit as his spiritual guide, in a campaign to combat the continuing appeal of al Qaeda’s ideology in the Kingdom about the latest Saudi effort to counter al Qaeda."

The article recounts how the Saudis are using teams of three clerics and a psychiatrist or psychologist to "reeducate" young men by exposing them to hours of clerical discourse. "Some detainees attend five-week courses in the fine points of Wahhabism, the fundamentalist sect of Islam that dominates Saudi society and lends crucial support to the ruling family."

In other words, the Saudis – who are the world’s most aggressive and generous champions of Islamofascism – are trying to ensure that their young men adhere to the Wahhabi strain of this ideology, rather than bin Laden’s. The only perceptible difference between the two is that the former holds that it is Allah’s will to kill non-Islamist Muslims and non-Muslims outside the Kingdom; the latter includes among his target list Saudi royals who have adopted Western ways and mores. Thanks for the help, King Abdullah.

 

A riveting new book by Melanie Phillips, Londonistan, makes clear that for years Great Britain has been scarcely less complicit than the Saudis in affording safe haven to Islamofascist recruiters and operatives. She recounts how the UK’s principal domestic security service, MI5, "was guilty of a combination of flawed analysis and cynicism….[As a result,] it never understood the power of the Islamic nation – or ummah – over its scattered members and for a variety of reasons believed it was not in Britain’s interest to act against Islamist radicals. The security service was content instead to watch as Londonistan [a term the author has coined to describe Islamofascism’s rising power in Britain’s capital] took shape, apparently either oblivious or indifferent to the carnage that its proponents might be inflicting overseas."

Ms. Phillips (who will be presenting her book at the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday) adds, "Shocking as this may be, the intelligence debacle is only the tip of the iceberg. Among Britain’s governing class – its intelligentsia, its media, its politicians, its judiciary, its church and even its police – a broader and deeper cultural pathology has allowed and even encouraged Londonistan to develop, one which persists to this day."

 

A similarly self-destructive pathology is clearly at work in another allied nation, Israel. Later this month, the newly elected prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, will be coming to the United States seeking President Bush’s endorsement of his "convergence" plan – the euphemism adopted to describe his intention to withdraw over the next few years between 50,000 and 100,000 Israeli civilians and Israel’s security forces from up to 95 percent of the West Bank. Mr. Olmert will also reportedly be seeking $10 billion in U.S. aid to underwrite this retreat.

In a superb analysis and withering critique of the convergence plan, the Center for Security Policy’s Senior Mideast Fellow, Caroline Glick, makes clear that Israel’s earlier abandonment of the Gaza Strip has turned it into an area not only governed by the terrorist organization, Hamas, but used as a training and operational base for allied Islamofascist entities like al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence. The threat posed by such activities is already real, not only for Israel but the United States and the rest of the Free World, as well. It will become infinitely greater, however, should the West Bank also be allowed to become a safe haven for such forces. Call it Palestan.

The Bottom Line

The Bush Administration has, of late, become a bit clearer about the ideological character of Islamofascism. It has yet to adopt, however, the war footing required to counter it, let alone hold our allies – real and imagined – accountable for their appeasement of its practitioners. The United States can no longer indulge in such a dereliction of duty, or tolerate, to say nothing of encourage, it in others.

Americans see liability in oil, so do terrorists

(Washington, D.C.): For the past 30 years – since the oil crisis of 1973 – the notion of energy self-sufficiency and issues of oil dependence have principally been viewed in either economic or environmental terms. During that time, any concern with America’s petroleum based transportation system was either because it was thought to hamstring the U.S. economy, linking it to the whims of the OPEC countries, or that it had injurious effects on the environment.

A noteworthy national study recently released by the Council on Foreign Relations and aimed at ranking Americans’ biggest foreign policy fears suggests now, however, that anxieties about energy polices are not limited to only these two.

Entitled “Confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy Index” and published in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, the poll found that an overwhelming 90% of American’s see U.S. dependence on oil as an issue of national security. Far from narrow economic concerns, the study also found that next to improving the effectiveness of our intelligence operations, U.S. citizens believe reducing dependency is the most important step the government can take to bolster the defense and safety of the nation.


This is not to say that America’s views on oil dependence are not fundamentally motivated by economics. In fact, the poll data indicates that they very much are. Six months ago the same poll was conducted and found that oil dependence ranked fourth in the list of national security issues that most worried Americans. In the recent Index, oil dependence ranks number one, with 55% of Americans saying they “worry a lot” about oil supply for the American economy.

The reason for this increase, as asserted in Foreign Affairs – and reasonably so – is due to the significant rise in gas prices over the past six months since the first poll was taken. Not surprisingly, the interest of the American people in U.S. oil dependence is largely contingent on the price of gas, something that affects their lives directly.

Vulnerability Abroad

What is most significant here though is that American’s recognize the connection between the functioning of their economy, which depends on petroleum, and the security and defense of the nation. And this is of real import because our enemies recognize it too.

For example, last month Osama bin Laden’s terrorist group, al Qaeda, attempted an attack on the world’s largest oil processing plant in Abqaiq, Saudia Arabia. According to the Saudi government, security officials destroyed two vehicles packed with 1000 kilos of explosives after it attempted to breach a checkpoint within the Saudi Aramco Oil Company compound. The two suspects operating the vehicles, and dressed as oil officials, were killed when guards opened fire, setting off the explosives prematurely.

On an al-Qaeda website a few hours later, bin Laden’s organization claimed responsibility for the attack, declaring that the “operation is part of the campaign of operations that al-Qaeda is carrying out in the context of the larger war against the crusaders and the Jews.” A subsequent al-Qaeda communiqu? identified the attackers as Mohammed al-Ghaith and Abdullah al-Tweijri, both wanted terrorists in Saudi Arabia, and declared intentions to perpetrate future attacks on oil infrastructure throughout the country.

Where roughly 6 to 7 million barrels of oil are processed a day – an amount far more than that was lost in 1973 per day – should the terrorists have succeeded in destroying the compound, the loss of life and economic repercussions could have been far greater than those effected on September 11th.

The Bottom Line

Both the American people and our terrorist enemies recognize the profound vulnerability that is America’s dependence on foreign sources of oil. Today American’s are more concerned than ever before about the possible exploitation of their economy’s oil addiction. And as part of their war strategy, al Qaeda has willfully sought to debilitate global oil production and cripple the U.S. economy. Bin Laden has even explicitly stated that his plan is to “make America bleed profusely to the point of bankruptcy.”

Ironically, it seems that the only people who don’t quite understand the gravity of this problem are those who can do the most to solve it: the U.S. government. Nearly half of the participants in the Council on Foreign Relations poll gave the U.S. a grade of “D” or “F” in their efforts to eliminate our dependence. Yet with the use of tax cuts and other federal incentives, both Congress and the President do have the capability to begin immediately the reduction of U.S. oil consumption by implementing alternative, home-grown fuels along with vehicles that can utilize them into the U.S. economy. A piece of legislation that would do just that – The Vehicle and Fuel Choices for American Security Act – is already drafted and enjoys substantial bi-partisan support.

Although the uproar over gas prices this past week has seemed to catch the attention of our public officials, it’s time that they listen to their citizens, as well as their enemies, and take action to reduce U.S. petroleum consumption and, in effect, strengthen our national security.

Ehud Olmert’s “Convergence” Plan for the West Bank and U.S. Middle East Policy

Executive Summary

Israel’s incoming Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has announced his intention to implement what he refers to as “the convergence plan,” which involves an Israeli pullout from some 90-95 percent of the West Bank and from several neighborhoods in Jerusalem by the end of 2007. Mr. Olmert is scheduled to visit Washington in May 2006 to present his plan to the Bush Administration and Congressional leaders in the hope of securing U.S. monetary and policy support for his plan.

Olmert’s convergence plan entails the expulsion of between 50,000-100,000 Israeli civilians from their homes in the West Bank and the destruction of between 50-100 Israeli towns and villages in the area. It further requires the withdrawal of Israeli military forces to garrisoned locations in proximity to Israel’s security barrier which will encompass the remaining 5-10 percent of the West Bank territory located along the 1949 armistice lines that constituted Israel’s national boundaries until 1967.

Olmert maintains that implementation of his plan will enhance Israeli security and regional stability by lessening the daily contact between Israelis and Palestinians and by safeguarding Israel’s demographic durability as a democratic Jewish state. He further maintains that an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank will enhance U.S. and Israeli interests by improving Israel’s political posture internationally.

Upon scrutiny, however, it is clear that Olmert’s plan will do none of the above. An Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank will effectively cause the area to be transferred to the control of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. As experience from Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in September 2005 has shown, the area will likely become a base for global terrorists allied with Iran and other terror-supporting states.

In fact, terrorists operating in the relinquished areas will be capable of conducting missile attacks against Israel’s major cities, its international airport and other strategic locations in Israel. They will constitute a destabilizing force that could lead to the fall of the Hashemite regime in Jordan. Mass expulsions of Israeli civilians will destabilize Israeli society and will manifest a serious blow to the morale and retention levels of the Israeli military’s combat officer corps. Also, an Israeli pullout from the West Bank will likely make it easier for terrorist forces to execute infiltrations of Israel for the purpose of conducting large-scale bombing attacks in Israeli population centers like Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa and mobilizing the Israeli Arab minority in the cause of jihad against the Jewish state.

 

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Caroline B. Glick is the Center for Security Policy’s Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs.

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