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Excerpt - WASHINGTON — Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to the United Nations, is facing angry questions from other senior Bush administration officials over what they describe as unauthorized contacts with Asif Ali Zardari, a contender to succeed Pervez Musharraf as president of Pakistan. Mr. Khalilzad had spoken by telephone with Mr. Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, several times a week for the past month until he was confronted about the unauthorized contacts, a senior United States official said. Other officials said Mr. Khalilzad had planned to meet with Mr. Zardari privately next Tuesday while on vacation...

I will never forget seeing Karen Hughes on the news a few years ago. She was the newly appointed Undersecretary of the State Department. Hughes a long time buddy of President Bush was given a job she had no business taking. She was being interviewed about a new State Department outreach program which was aimed at Muslim countries. The idea of the program was to spread democracy and American values.

A longtime adviser and close confidant of President Bush funneled millions of dollars in U.S. government grants to radical Islamist organizations, many of whose leaders have been convicted or indicted in terrorism cases in the United States, respected terrorism expert Steven Emerson told Congress last week. “When Ms. [Karen] Hughes was appointed as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, she set the tone to continue a disastrous policy of outreach with Islamist partners,” Emerson told the House International Relations Committee. Among the recipients of the State Department grants actively championed by Hughes was Ahmed Younes, formerly an...

An American organization has requested Israel's assistance in a new initiative similar to the Israeli "computer for every child" project. The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP), an organization committed to the welfare of the Palestinian people, asked that the State help transfer around 1,000 laptop computers to the West Bank city of Ramallah. The project is led by Nick Negroponte, brother of US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, former director of national intelligence. Its goal is to provide Palestinian students with tools that will help improve thought and independent study, in order to better their learning achievements and...

Score one for the Muslim BrotherhoodScore one for the Muslim BrotherhoodWednesday, April 30th, 2008 Home   I    Donate to ACT   I  Subscribe to ACT   I  Read Our Blog   I   Petitions   I   Contact Congress Score one for the Muslim BrotherhoodBy CLARE M. LOPEZ (Middle East Times) Published: April 28, 2008http://www.metimes.com/Politics/2008/04/28/score_one_for_the_muslim_brotherhood/9562/SPECIAL REPORT: The Bush administration has decided that calling the enemy by his name is too risky, too politically incorrect, or oddly, somehow too laudatory.And so, henceforth federal agencies of the United States government are to refrain from identifying the Islamic jihad with words that in any way convey genuine understanding about the links between terrorism and religion in...

Palestinian Appeal for Emergency Funding Question: Reports indicate that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has reached out to the World Bank to secure emergency funding for public works. Is the Department of State aware of any appeal to the World Bank by the Palestinians? What has been the U.S. contribution to the Palestinians? Will the United States press the donors to assist the Palestinians? Answer: We would refer you to the World Bank and Palestinian Authority for details on their communications with each other. It has been clear for some time that the Palestinian Authority faced a serious and imminent...

Senior officials in the U.S. State Department, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have repeatedly complained to Israel recently over relatively minor Palestinian issues that it would have ignored until a few months ago, Israeli officials say. Complaints about settlement construction or army operations that kill Palestinian civilians have always been the norm. But Israeli officials are worried by the State Department's new tendency to intervene in a much broader range of issues. Advertisement One such case occurred two weeks ago, when the daughter of Palestinian parliamentarian Hanan Ashrawi sought to visit Israel. At one time, she had lived in...

This now available from the U.S. State Department: "2009 Mosques of America Wall Calendar: Limited Edition for Ramadan." "Yep, you read that correctly. It's 'perfect for Muslim outreach efforts," according to a commentary at the Gates of Vienna blog. "Where's the ACLU on this one?" The product was being advertised by "Global Publishing Solutions," a division of the U.S. State Department, until bloggers started talking about the product. Officials then apparently hid the page behind the security of a password-protected wall. However, a number of sources said the "offering" still was available in a Google cache of the website. According...

Engagement in the battle of ideas and strategic communication has long been the missing ingredient in the government-wide effort to combat terrorism. Now, with a restructured public diplomacy bureaucracy at the State Department and elsewhere in the interagency process, engaging foreign publics has formally and strategically become part of the toolkit to combat radical extremist ideologies. Today, in his first major public address in his new position in Washington, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James Glassman addressed The Washington Institute for Near East Policy's Special Policy Forum on "Winning the War of Ideas." The prepared...

Amber Tracy spent the past academic year studying Arabic. But with a full-time job and other classes, she wasn't progressing as quickly as she had wanted. On June 23, she began an intensive Arabic program at Cal State San Bernardino, learning Arabic all day and practicing it in residence halls well into the night. "I think I've learned more in the last week than I did all last semester," Tracy said after finishing a lunch of Arab-style chicken, rice and salad with her tutors and other students. "Being able to focus on Arabic and not think about anything else is...

U.S. considers Tehran office to issue visas Rice 'Determined' to Reach Out to People of Iran June 24, 2008 The Washington Times Nicholas Kralev With the U.S. and Iran barely on speaking terms for nearly three decades, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dropped an eyepopping hint Monday that the U.S. is considering a visa office in Iran to draw more Iranian visitors to the United States. The opening of a U.S. interests section, similar to the one the United States maintains in Cuba, would be the first U.S. diplomatic presence in the Iranian capital since Iran freed 52 American hostages...

Toehold in Tehran? By Fred Hiatt June 23, 2008 A smart idea to shake up U.S. policy and reach out to the Iranian people is being debated in Washington, but the debate isn't taking place within or between the presidential campaigns. It's going on inside the Bush administration. Senior officials at the State Department and beyond are mulling a proposal to open an interest section in Tehran, similar to the one the United States has operated in Havana since 1977. This would fall short of full diplomatic recognition, but it would open a channel to the Iranian people and, maybe,...

When the terrorists attack again - as Homeland Security has repeatedly warned us they will - how many survivors will be consoled because the Supreme Court and the State Department looked out for the "rights" of terrorists before the rights of their dead loved ones? Will the dead be wrapped in a copy of the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling granting foreign detainees, whose mission is to destroy our Constitution, our country and way of life, the right to appeal to U.S. civilian courts to challenge their detention, a right that should be reserved only for American citizens? Perhaps inside the...

Recently, the Bush administration opened up a sad new front in the war on terrorism: a battle against words. Yes, the federal government has begun a concerted effort to make certain terms effectively off-limits in official communications. It's all included in a new memo prepared by the Extremist Messaging Branch of the National Counter Terrorism Center, called "Words that Work and Words that Don't: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication." "It's not what you say but what they hear," says the memo, in bold, italic lettering. Among the verboten (or think-twice-before-you-say-them) words: "Jihadist" and "Mujahedeen" (which should be replaced by "violent...

Iran Violates Religious Freedoms Iran is designated by the U.S. State Department as among the world’s top violators of religious freedom. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is an independent body that does not speak for the U.S. government. But it is required by Congress to report to the U.S. Secretary of State every year on governments that abuse the religious liberty of their people. Consistent with the annual State Department report on Religious Freedom, the recent Commission report says that the regime in Tehran "engages in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, including prolonged detention, torture...

A few years ago, Harvard psychiatric instructor Kenneth Levin wrote "The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege." In this illuminating book, Levin examines the Israeli experience of concessionary negotiations with a "peace partner" openly dedicated to Israel's destruction. He also examines the historical Jewish Diaspora experience in which Jewish populations typically identified with their tormentors and even echoed their antisemitism. Such interactions are driven by a permanent condition of siege mentality, Levin explains, and clearly manifest two kinds of delusional thinking. First, there is the fantasy about the intentions of the aggressor (Arab Muslim or European Christian); then,...

It has surfaced that the US State Department can't account for up to about 1,000 laptops, perhaps as many as 400 of which belonged to the department's Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program. The State Department's Inspector General has been conducting an equipment audit for three months. Only the first stage, an inventory, has been completed. Internal auditors found that the department lost track of US$30 million worth of computer equipment, "the vast majority of which... perhaps as much as 99 percent," were laptops, according to one official. Another official calculated that the average State Department laptop costs US$3,000 and figured that meant...

Sons of Islam everywhere, the jihad is a duty - to establish the rule of Allah on earth and to liberate your countries and yourselves from America’s domination and its Zionist allies, it is your battle - either victory or martyrdom. Sheikh A. Yassin According to Robert Spencer, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is revamping the State Department Lexicon with the orders to eliminate the words jihad and jihadi. The argument, of course, is the old Streusand/Guirard claim that by using the word jihad, we’re validating the jihadist claim to be waging jihad. Of course, it’s ridiculous to think that...

A reliable source has informed me that Condoleeza Rice has approved a new lexicon for State Department usage, absolutely forbidding the use of the terms "jihad" and "jihadist" by any State Department official. The argument, of course, is the old Streusand/Guirard claim that by using the word jihad, we're validating the jihadist claim to be waging jihad. Of course, it's ridiculous to think that the U.S. State Department carries any validating authority within the Islamic world to determine what is Islam and what isn't. This would be the first time that unbelievers have set the meaning of Islamic theology for...

Similar State Department call-up last year sparked revolt among officers The State Department warned U.S. diplomats they may be forced to serve in Iraq next year and said it will soon start identifying prime candidates for jobs at the Baghdad embassy and outlying provinces, according to a cable obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. A similar call-up threat last year caused a revolt among foreign service officers who objected to compulsory work in a war zone, although in the end the State Department found enough volunteers to fill the jobs. Now, the State Department anticipates another staffing crisis. "We face...

U.S. Urges Kenyan Leaders to Fulfill Power Sharing Commitment Statement by Secretary Condoleezza Rice Washington, DC April 8, 2008 On April 7 I spoke separately by telephone with President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister-designate Raila Odinga to urge them to implement real power sharing by agreeing on the composition of their coalition cabinet. Both emphasized to me their strong commitment to do so. It is imperative that they form the cabinet without further delay and address the vitally important work of the nation. The United States and the entire international community stand ready to assist the coalition government and to...

BBC NEWS Friday, 12 November, 2004 'Miracle baby' a victim – judge Kenyan police allege the Gilbert Deya Ministries is an international baby-snatching ring and have asked the British government to extradite Mr Deya. They say their investigation revolves around the disappearance of babies from Nairobi's Pumwani Maternity Hospital and involves suspects in Britain, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya. In September they took 20 of Mr Deya's "miracle babies" into care in Nairobi after they were found to have no genetic link to the women claiming to be their mothers. The pastor denies involvement in child trafficking and his lawyer...

...Whether Mr. Odinga has ordered his men to commit murder and arson is unclear. But his own background does not exactly suggest enthusiasm for democracy and the rule of law. Mr. Odinga's father, Oginga Odinga, led the Communist opposition during the Cold War and Raila Odinga was educated in Communist East Germany. In 1982 he was implicated in a failed coup against the then president Daniel Arap Moi. His eldest son is named after Fidel Castro and his daughter after Winnie Mandela. Even more sinister has been Mr. Odinga's electoral pact with the National Muslim Leaders' Forum — a hardline...

Cannot Post due to copyright issues: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/03/17/080317taco_talk_hertzberg

21 January 2008 Posted to the web 21 January 2008 Betrand Nwankwo The security measures put in place by the Nigerian Postal Services (NIPOST) to check the activities of fraudsters have started yielding results, as it has intercepted 2,500 fake passports meant for shipment overseas. Similarly, NIPOST also intercepted 4,000 scam letters and parcels meant for shipment abroad between October and December last year. Postmaster-general of federation (PMG), Mallam Ibrahim Mori Baba, disclosed this at the weekend while speaking on the occasion to mark this year's Pan African Postal Union (PAPU). Explaining further, Mori Baba said the intercepted letters and...

Secretary Condoleezza Rice Washington, DC February 18, 2008 The United States has today formally recognized Kosovo as a sovereign and independent state. We congratulate the people of Kosovo on this historic occasion. President Bush has responded affirmatively to a request from Kosovo to establish diplomatic relations between our two countries. The establishment of these relations will reaffirm the special ties of friendship that have linked together the people of the United States and Kosovo. Nine years ago, the international community, led by NATO, acted to end brutal attacks on the Kosovar Albanian population. This timely international intervention ended the...

The U.S. Department of State has awarded a grant worth $494,368 to University of Delaware political scientist, Brookings Institution fellow, and Pentagon consultant Muqtedar Khan, who last fall objected to serving on a panel with a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces. According to a UD press release, the grant is to be used, “to initiate a dialogue on religion and politics between key members of religious and community organizations in the Middle East and the United States.” The press release continued: Under the grant, participants from Egypt and Saudi Arabia will be on campus this summer for a brief...

Just who is Hesham Islam? Is he a Jihadist mole in the State Department? Hesham Islam is a special assistant for international affairs to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. He is a retired US Navy officer, born in Egypt, who served in the Iranian navy. Does he still have ties to Egypt and/or Iran? Hesham Islam works closely with the Muslim-American community. WorldNetDaily reports that Mr. Islam is affiliated with the Islamic Society of North America, which U.S. prosecutors last year named as a member of the U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and an unindicted co-conspirator in a major...

On Saturday night the 9th of February, two brothers 19 and 8 year old, Rami and Osher Twito, borrowed their mother's credit card to go to the Sderot ATM machine to buy after shave lotion as a birthday present for their father. Within moments, they were lying next to each other in a pool of blood on a Sderot side walk. Pieces of their legs scattered on the street. One of Osher’s legs was immediately severed. Osher’s second leg was shattered. Rami and Osher were running for their lives after they heard the RED COLOR siren. They didn’t have enough...

A Republican Party activist and former top GOP congressional aide who worked at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is harshly criticizing the U.S. diplomatic effort in Iraq, accusing American diplomats of gross and potentially criminal negligence and incompetence.

In 2005, the president changed policy toward North Korea. After years of withholding tribute and applying pressure, he switched to accommodation. It has not worked. He should...return to a policy of containment....the six-party talks have failed and North Korea is merely awaiting the end of the Bush administration... The United States did not have an effective way to pressure North Korea. So in 2005, the concessions began with bilateral talks with the North, meeting one of Pyongyang's main demands. State Department diplomacy achieved little, but Treasury Department sanctions succeeded. The Treasury accused North Korea of sponsoring international criminal activity, froze...

    Shadow Warriors   By David ForsmarkFrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, February 04, 2008 Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of SurrenderBy Kenneth TimmermanCrown Forum, $25.95, 404 pp. At long last, the CIA and the State Department have targeted a government they have identified as an aggressive threat to world peace and largely countered its foreign policy through psy-ops, propaganda, selective leaks of intelligence and covert operations.And who was the target of this covert campaign? Are these operations aimed at the Islamofascists in Iran? How about Vladimir Putin and his increasingly fascist government in Russia?...

R. Nicholas Burns, long one of the most high-profile diplomats at the State Department, is resigning. This is a very good thing. On October 17th, Undersecretary of State Burns addressed The American Task Force on Palestine and stressed the US interest in a Palestinian State. Reading Burns's speech is frightening considering his position and influence in the Bush Administration. He speaks in/of a sort of parallel universe devoid of Islamic jihad, endless carnage, homicide bombings, while daily, rockets fired into Southern Israel as if it all a rumor and never happened. In Burns's world, the State Department's capitulating monkeys are...

During his tenure as President George W. Bush's defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld often likened the administration's foreign policy decisions to those of the Truman administration during the first years of the Cold War. As President George W. Bush makes his way to Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states with a stated agenda of advancing the goal of Palestinian statehood, it is worth examining president Truman's achievements and comparing them with those of President Bush. President Harry S Truman was in some ways an accidental president. Elected vice president in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's fourth term in...

Reading Nicholas Burns speech is like entering the twilight zone. A handmaiden for Islamazis, he is delivering America into the claws of Islamic jihad. Worse still, he has a svengalian influence over Condhimmi. If you have trouble reading or understanding this, merely pretend it is 1942 and substitute Nazi Germany for Palestinian state. That should do it. Burns is just another State Dept Arab loving hack with, we now discover, a Palestinian-Arab in his family. Any wonder why and where his misguided sympathies are? The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) held its second annual gala Oct. 17 at the...

Stupid Intelligence on Iran If Tehran did slow its weapons program, Bush policies probably had something to do with it. JAMES SCHLESINGER The release earlier this month of "key judgments" from the National Intelligence Estimate--including the bald assertion "that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program"--has caused both astonishment here at home and consternation overseas, where it has resulted in confusion about America's policy goals and steadiness. Let us stipulate that the intelligence community has acquired evidence sufficiently persuasive to lead it to reverse its prior judgment that Iran was hard at work developing nuclear weapons. For that...

Life in southern Israel is unbearable. Since last January, on average, 6.3 mortars and rockets have been fired from Gaza on southern Israel every day. As Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna'i warned the heads of the communities around Gaza last week, due to the improvements in the Palestinian arsenal since Israel vacated Gaza two years ago, the Palestinians now field missiles and rockets with extended ranges that place 130,000 Israelis under threat of missile attack. Wednesday, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi made clear that if Israel wishes to secure its citizens there is only one thing it...

You can learn the answers to those questions by reading the astonishingly arrogant, presumptuous, finger-pointing, condescending lectures by Bush administration officials to the people of Taiwan for their audacity to hold a referendum on membership in the United Nations. Several members of Bush's State Department this week launched blistering attacks on Taiwan's plan to hold a national referendum at the time of the presidential elections next March to gauge support for membership in the U.N. But, according to Raymond Burghardt, chairman of the U.S. government's American Institute, a kind of faux embassy in Taiwan, the idea of the Taiwanese people...

The U.S. government eagerly reached out to Venezuelan presidential candidate Hugo Chavez in 1998 and moved quickly to denounce a rumored coup plot against the man who's become one of the Bush administration's archenemies, newly declassified State Department documents obtained by McClatchy Newspapers reveal. State Department officials initially appeared dazzled by Chavez's oversized persona and his promise for sweeping reforms, and seemed sincere in their efforts to help him, the documents show. Some of those overtures drew positive responses from Chavez, who said he wanted U.S. help in fighting corruption and drug trafficking.... ...A Jan. 20, 1999, cable setting the...

The three authors of a National Intelligence Estimate seen as undermining the Bush administration's efforts to keep Iran from creating a nuclear weapon are all "hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials," the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday in an editorial, citing an unidentified intelligence source. "As recently as 2005, the consensus estimate of our spooks was that 'Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons' and do so 'despite its international obligations and international pressure.' This was a 'high confidence' judgment. The new NIE says Iran abandoned its nuclear program in 2003 'in response to increasing international scrutiny.' This too is a 'high...

Rarely has a document from the supposedly hidden world of intelligence had such an impact as the National Intelligence Estimate released this week. Rarely has an administration been so unprepared for such an event. And rarely have vehement critics of the "intelligence community" on issues such as Iraq's weapons of mass destruction reversed themselves so quickly. All this shows that we not only have a problem interpreting what the mullahs in Tehran are up to, but also a more fundamental problem: Too much of the intelligence community is engaging in policy formulation rather than "intelligence" analysis, and too many in...

TEHRAN - Iran's president declared victory over the United States on Wednesday and the head of a U.N. watchdog said Iran had been "somewhat vindicated" by a U.S. report that it halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. U.S. President George W. Bush called for Tehran to "come clean" on its nuclear activities and stop its enrichment of uranium which can potentially be used to make atomic bombs. But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran would press ahead with its nuclear program which the Islamic Republic says has only peaceful civilian aims. "Today, the Iranian nation is victorious but you...

The latest assessment from the American intelligence community on Iran has been declassified, at least in part, and the directorate of national intelligence would have one believe that in 2003 "Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program". It's advancing a line that could be described with the word astounding if it didn't come from the same intelligence bureaucrats that so famously failed to foresee the attacks of September 11, 2001. One doesn't have to be privy to our country's secret sources to know that this last statement strains credulity. Iran has been enriching uranium, or nuclear fuel, for nearly two years...

I wrote yesterday on this whole new NIE story:******************************************* FreeRepublic thread: The New, Suddenly Correct, NIE on Iran********************************* Surprise surprise.  VIPS at work once again?  It smells like more leaks by the VIPS types ala Plame and friends, trying to influence either the tactics used by this Administrations to stop Iran from getting a nuke, or to influence the upcoming elections. And now more information is coming out that bolsters the case that this was another shot over the bow of this Administration by our rogue intelligence agencies.  Kenneth Timmermann, the author of the excellent book "The Shadow Warriors" writes:...

Deja vu?  Remember a few weeks ago when that McClellan story came out in which he supposedly said he was lied to about the Plame affair?  I wrote then: Isn't it curious how the left constantly wailed about Scott McClellan allegedly lying during his press conferences, but now that he is saying something that smells like trash talk about Bush, he is suddenly a truth teller. And now when a new NIE is released to the public saying that Iran has stopped its nuclear weapons program, NOW the left believes our intelligence agencies.  For the last year the left has...

Wild Speculation Alert: I have listed a lot of coincidental and circumstantial evidence in this post folks. I feel compelled to warn everyone when I see links to this NIE and Valerie Plame! It seems the NIE was NOT a consensus view of the US Intelligence Community but a hack job by some folks with possible political aspirations (wonder what CNN debate these folks will turn up in): A highly controversial, 150 page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear programs was coordinated and written by former State Department political and intelligence analysts — not by more seasoned members of...

A Tale of Two Terrorists by: Malcolm A. Kline, November 22, 2007 The U. S. State Department is still trying to figure out who granted the foreign secretary of the Taliban a visa that enables him to take classes at Yale, where he is now a freshman. At the same time, the State Department stands by the decision of its former chief, Colin Powell, who refused to grant a work visa to a professor from abroad whom Notre Dame wanted to hire. That professor would be Tariq Ramadan, whose grandfather founded the parent group of Hamas. Given the precedent set...

COSTELLO: To most Americans it's an outrage -- a rape victim violated by seven men -- not only blamed for her own attack, but sentenced to prison and 200 lashes. The 19-year-old victim, interviewed by the Human Rights Watch organization, said: "Everyone looks at me as if I was wrong. I wanted to die." In Saudi Arabia, woman cannot travel without permission from a male relative. And that night, the Saudi victim -- without permission -- met a male friend to retrieve some photographs. Both were abducted and raped. She says: "The first man with the knife raped me. I...

The illegal immigrant with Hezbollah ties who faked a marriage to get U.S. citizenship, and then landed jobs as a top-level federal agent, has a former sister-in-law who pulled the same scam and is now a Marine officer, The Post has learned. Commissioned Officer Samar Khalil Nabbou Spinelli married the brother of the sham first husband of disgraced former FBI and covert-ops CIA agent Nada Prouty, according to a tangled trail of public records...

The State Department expects to announce, perhaps as early as today, that volunteers have filled all 48 open jobs at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad for next year and that it will not order any foreign service officers to work there against their will, officials said yesterday. Volunteers for the last three or four positions are currently being vetted. Once that process is completed, a senior department official said, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will ask personnel officers to assure her that everyone selected "does in fact have the right skill sets" and meets all requirements before an announcement is...