Free Republic

When I first wrote an article with the title “God, Family and Country”, and then made it clear those were my priorities, some people obviously became uncomfortable. The general consensus of the few was that I was a religious fanatic and just as dangerous as any Muslim. That refrain is rising again and likely from the same crowd of anti-religious zealots. Maj. Hasan killed 13 Americans at Fort Hood because he saw that as his duty as a Muslim. I have read any number of comments on both liberal and conservative web sites claiming the problem was that Hasan placed...

To try Mohammed in a criminal court is to treat his act as criminal, and coming from a young administration that has already ceased using the phrases ‘terrorism’, ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ and ‘war on terror’ this serves as confirmation for many who, like myself, view the struggle against terrorism and against the oppressions of fundamentalism as the most important international (and moral) task facing our nation. Trying Mohammed in a criminal court is not necessary, and one could argue that he does not deserve to be treated as even the least respected criminal by the United States. He is by every...

Senator John Kerry described international terrorism as “primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation,’’ and urged voters to think of deadly jihadist violence as merely “a nuisance’’ that we need “to reduce’’ - akin, he said, to gambling or prostitution. Kerry lost that election, and the Bush administration’s very different approach - treating terrorist attacks as acts of war, not criminal violations - continued for four more years. Pre-empting terror in advance, not prosecuting it after the fact, remained the overriding priority. Counterterrorism efforts under George W. Bush were aggressive and they drew much criticism. But whatever else might be...

Two-thirds of Americans expect an Islamic suicide bomb attack on American soil within six months, according to a new poll that also shows Republicans are significantly more concerned than Democrats. Fritz Wenzel of Wenzel Strategies said one of the most shocking findings of his recent polling on the subject was that 65 percent are expecting an attack within six months. "Some of the communication between Fort Hood shooter Hasan and al-Qaida figures included discussion of such attacks inside the United States, and it has been a common form of violence in the Middle East for years," he said. "Now, Americans...

The sea lanes of the South Atlantic have become a favored route for drug traffickers carrying narcotics from Latin America to West and North Africa, where al Qaeda-related groups are increasingly involved in transporting the drugs to Europe, intelligence officials and counternarcotics specialists say. A Middle Eastern intelligence official said his agency has picked up "very worrisome reports" of rapidly growing cooperation between Islamic militants operating in North and West Africa and drug lords in Latin America. With U.S. attention focused on the Caribbean and Africans lacking the means to police their shores, the vast sea lanes of the South...

Attorney General Eric Holder adopted a tough-guy pose when he announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others will be tried in federal court for the most heinous terror attack on Americans in history. “After eight years of delay,” he intoned, “those allegedly responsible for the attacks of September 11 will finally face justice. It is past time to finally act.” Where to begin? The claim that the Bush administration was somehow dilatory sets a new standard for gall, particularly coming from Eric Holder. As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy points out, “The principal reason there were so few military...

A menorah stands outside of the White House. The national Hanukkah Menorah on the Ellipse near the White House is seen during the lighting ceremony in December 2003. | Photo by APClose The White House's forthcoming state dinner with the Prime Minister of India is expected to be larger than those of President Barack Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush. But another upcoming White House event will be smaller than in years past: The White House's annual Hanukkah party. The guest list is expected to be shrunk by more than half, according to the Jerusalem Post. "Though several Jewish leaders expressed...

Where can you spend almost $US150,000 per square metre on a piece of land? Not the Champs-Elysees in Paris, or Broadway or New York. But Mecca! This film shows the transformation of the holiest place in the Islamic world into a real estate business for religious tourism … More than 3-million Muslims from around the world now attend the world’s largest pilgrimage, the Hajj. Following the pilgrims’ journey, this film features a rare interview with the Bin Laden Group behind much of the monumental development of Mecca, potentially Saudi Arabia’s new ‘gold’.

Statement from Ret Lt Col Allen West The following is a statement released by Retired Lt. Col. Allen West Thank you for your service Colonel West. This past Thursday 13 American Soldiers were killed and another 30 wounded at a horrific mass shooting at US Army installation, Ft Hood Texas. As I watched in horror and then anger I recalled my two years of final service in the Army as a Battalion Commander at Ft Hood, 2002-2004. My wife and two daughters were stunned at the incident having lived on the post in family housing. A military installation, whether it...

Representatives from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia are scheduled to meet today in Brussels to discuss future steps to dissuade Iran from developing the capacity to build nuclear weapons. Our message to the world leaders: If you want peace, prepare for war.

Almost every day since the Major Nidal Hasan waged a horrific terror attack against his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood two weeks ago, there has been another part of Nidal's history revealed that should have raised a red flag about the Palestinian Islamist. Many of the revelations surround radical Imam, Anwar al Awlaki. When it was first revealed that Hasan had contacted the Imam via E-mail, we were told that the correspondence was very benign, it fit in with the research he was doing on PTSD. According to a new report, the emails were not as mainstream as initially reported:

Lieberman Blasts Defense Department Probe of the Shooting as Backward-Looking Defense Secretary Robert Gates is putting a former chief of naval operations and former Army secretary in charge of a Pentagon inquiry into the Fort Hood shootings. "It is prudent to determine immediately whether there are internal weaknesses or procedural shortcomings in the department that could make us vulnerable in the future," said Gates, who spoke at a press conference at the Pentagon on Thursday afternoon. Hours earlier, the Senate Homeland Security Committee, led by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) opened its own probe into the shooting. Lieberman characterized the investigation...

Terrorism Typology for Consequence Managers: Identified, Explained, and Redesigned Rarely can terrorism’s definition and categories fit into one package suitable to all law enforcement agents, investigators, consequence managers (CM), and academics. This paper makes no pretense to be an exception. Rather, by narrowing this paper’s scope to functionality of CM, I propose this thesis. Consequence managers need to understand past terrorist global patterns to discover future trends for the purpose of aligning the right policies and strategies within prevention measures. My paper uncovers evidence supporting this thesis within a two-fold layout. First, this paper describes and interprets variations in terrorism...

A former horse riding school in the tiny Baltic state of Lithuania was used as a secret CIA prison to hold and interrogate top al-Qaeda terrorists, it has been claimed. The prison was reportedly built from scratch on the territory of a former horse riding school about 15 miles from Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, and included an underground annex. Pictures of the building said to be the former CIA jail show a bland-looking two-storey house surrounded by a fence and CCTV cameras. Locals say the building, which is now used as a training facility by Lithuania's state security service, originally...

In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder attempted to defend his indefensible decision to provide Khalid Sheik Mohammad and four other 9/11 terrorists with all of the rights afforded to American citizens by putting them on trial in our federal court system -- mere blocks away from Ground Zero in New York City. Holder was grilled repeatedly about his stated rationale, at times grappling to justify his own tortured logic.  We’ve put together some of the most telling moments from the hearing in transcripts, all of which are edited for length. Early on, Sen. Herb Kohl...

The FBI is worried a group linked to al-Qaeda is training up a new generation of terrorists. They're thought to be targeting young Somali immigrants, radicalising them to carry out attacks on their home country and possibly the US in the future. The grey high rise flats in Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis, are clustered together and are home to hundreds of Somali immigrants. It's not clear why teenagers like these are giving up their comfortable lives in America and returning to their war torn homeland. But over the past three years, authorities believe 20 young Somali men have gone back to fight...

The Grassroots Fight Against Terrorism Sarah Carlsruh, November 19, 2009 Are we winning the war on terror? The Cultural Strategies Institute hosted a panel addressing this question at the National Press Club on October 11th. Host Lowell Christy said that the military is over-professionalized, and thus the only real solution is concrete actions focusing on the “invisible dynamics” of terrorism. Panelist Dr. Dominick Donald, who works with the Aegis U.S. Liaison Teams in Iraq to “establish ground truth,” discussed the work being done by the Department of Defense to understand and maintain order at a grassroots level in conflict zones....

Violent Islamic Web sites pose a clear and present danger to the U.S. If it accomplished nothing else, the Obama administration's announcement last Friday to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in lower Manhattan blew the Nidal Hasan murders out of the news. The KSM fiasco deserves all the attention it gets. What Hasan represents, however, is a more immediate concern. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is an old-school jihadi. They sit in far-off redoubts, assembling terror teams of foreign nationals who now must figure out how to get themselves and their plot inside the U.S. Not impossible, but harder than before...

Our ultimate goal of homeland security will be served through a better understanding of the threat confronting it in order to “disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat al Qaeda and its allies.” Let me describe this global threat through a comprehensive survey that I conducted of all the al Qaeda plots in the West, all the al Qaeda affiliate plots in the West and all the plots done “in the name of al Qaeda” in the West since the formation of al Qaeda in August 1988. It is necessary to expand our inquiry because al Qaeda is now only one of...

War On Terror: Sen. Dick Durbin calls a plan to transfer 100 Guantanamo detainees to northwest Illinois "a dream come true." It would paint a bull's-eye on America's heartland in time for the 2012 Iowa caucuses. It seems the question of where to put the Guantanamo detainees is being settled as we speak, with liberal Democrats in the very blue state of Illinois welcoming them with open arms and outstretched hands for the federal dollars that will come with them. Federal officials last Friday inspected the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Ill., a town of 500 on the Iowa border,...

Perhaps this is why Obama is taking such a soft approach to terrorists: NEW YORK — “A disbarred lawyer convicted in a terrorism case should report to prison by Thursday after an appeals court upheld her conviction, a judge said Wednesday. U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl said 70-year-old Lynne Stewart should surrender by 5 p.m. Thursday to begin serving a two-year, four-month sentence for her 2005 conviction. Koeltl had allowed her to remain free on $500,000 bail while she appealed her conviction. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction on Tuesday and said she should begin...

The Council on American-Islamic relations (CAIR) is an organization created with the intent to fund Hamas. It was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Terror funding trial case. In one key piece of Wiretap evidence presented in the case CAIR's executive director, Nihad Awad, was found at a Philadelphia meeting of Hamas leaders secretly recorded by the FBI. Participants hatched a plot to deceive Americans and disguise payments to Hamas as it launched a campaign of terror attacks. In other words, THEY BROKE THE THE LAW. Beyond the support of terrorism, CAIR has been working to guilt non-Muslims...

I studied the Quran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammed. -Alexis de Tocqueville At last finding a war they would contemplate fighting, liberals developed one of their most menacingly crackpot fictions: their insistence that we are engaged in a war against Al Queada, as if it is some independent nation with a flag, uniformed soldiers and a national anthem. If only, they spout, we could “get” their President, Osama bin Laden, our charismatic president...

Here are two quotes (well, more like monologues) from El Rusho. No wonder the left fears and loathes this guy! On 9/11 terrorists being tried in civilian court: Do you realize Barack Obama is tougher on insurance companies than he is on the 9/11 mastermind? I want to know—Eric Holder—I’m still struck by things he said in his press conference. “We gotta find a jury of their peers.” These guys are not citizens! Who the hell are we going to find that is a jury of their peers? Do you realize we’re standing 200 years of America history on its...

Rudy Giuliani says trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court in lower Manhattan will make New York City vulnerable to terrorism again and sends the message that the United States is on defense in the war on terror. "One of the best things the Bush Administration did was put us on offense. Putting us back on defense puts us in a very vulnerable position, not just in New York, but nationally," Giuliani said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters. "New York City is a prime target of terrorists, unfortunately, we know that for reasons we can't control, otherwise...

‘You see, Pinocchio,” said the Blue Fairy, “a lie keeps growing and growing until it’s as plain as the nose on your face.” Sadly, this simple lesson, once taught only to small children, must be taught again to “grown-ups” who have conditioned our culture, our politicians and even our armed forces to deny and ignore the grave threats we face. But today the lies are called “political correctness,” and the consequences can be death. Far more dangerous than Maj. Nidal Hasan’s heinous act at Fort Hood is our collective refusal to see it for what it is: a terrorist act...

This morning I called Congressman's Manzullo's (R-Ill.) Washington office, in regards to his statement that "Islam is a religion of peace." Originally he has speaking about Islamic terrorists and had said this: "These are really, really mean people whose job it is to kill people, driven by some savage religion." Of course he received some complaints and has since apologized. Backing off of his original stance. I say non-conversation, because he only responded to what he wanted to. Here is how it went. CL: Hi, my name is Chris Logan and I am calling in regards to the Congressman's comment...

Iowa's two Republican Congressmen, Steve King and Tom Latham, are fighting against an Obama administration proposal to transfer the Guantanamo Bay terrorist prison to the Iowa-Illinois border. But Democrat Bruce Braley supports the plan and believes Club Gitmo Midwest could have a "substantial economic impact" on the area.

Whoever suggested that Barack Obama is not a Christian? Obama’s decision to try those Gitmo prisoners in New York is the perfect gift for Osama bin Laden and just in time for Christmas. We can only imagine those non-alcoholic champagne corks popping in some remote cave in Afghanistan. While al Qaeda and the far left celebrate the Obama-Holder decision, it has shocked and outraged most Americans. They are outraged because these men were captured in a war on terror; and should be treated as enemy combatants. And because prosecuting them in a civilian court rather than by military tribunal will...

New York City experienced Muslim Day in 2008. Then there was the pro-Hamas demonstration in Florida. Will there be similar parades and demonstrations in support of the terrorists? Will there be counter demonstrations? Will angry Americans say enough is enough and confront the Muslim demonstrations? I think the answer to all of these questions is yes. Now the problem. If violent confrontations between Muslim supporters of the terrorists and angry Americans occur, who will the police and New York National Guard protect? If protection is provided to the Muslims supporting terrorists, and Americans supporting American values are injured and/or jailed,...

So yesterday we learned that Major Hasan was hanging out with an 18-year-old self-radicalized "jihad hobbyist."  According to the expert Jarret Bachman, these kids start out with lighter fare and progressively seek out increasingly violent and angry rhetoric.  When one seeker was looking on YouTube for martyrdom videos, they were directed to "look around online in the jihadi blogs."   The internet and the videos available on YouTube and elsewhere are a part of the process for these would-be terrorists.  Thanks YouTube - aren't you proud?   In looking through videos the other day, I stumbled upon this one...So what's...

I get it! "Elections have their consequences." In countries without the democratic tradition of America, those consequences may include putting the former leaders in jail, or worse. But that has never been the tradition in the US. The history of America has been that those consequences have been political, a change in policy, appointment of advisers who were hated by the old regime, etc. But has not been the Obama way. Since his election, Obama and his team have attempted to appease their political left by publicly denouncing the Bush Administration's national security policies which kept us safe, even as...

The government is going to be in a position where it either has to defend the process that brought the Sheikh to court or seek ways to prevent these issues from arising. However, because Mr. Obama promised that Mr. Mohammed would enjoy the most exacting demands of justice, they probably will be given a full airing. We await a further explanation from the president to clarify how this makes the country safer, particularly if Mr. Mohammed leaves New York a free man.

As Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent, officially begins his inquiry this week into the disturbing failures that enabled Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan to stay in uniform, it must go beyond the normal excuses related to bureaucratic bungling. With the discussion this week devolving into interagency finger-pointing, lost has been the simple fact that the failures were systemic. Although the military has done valiant work fighting in Muslim lands, it doesn't seem to grasp how to assess when Muslim personnel could pose an internal threat. It's easy to rely on hindsight to second-guess after the fact, but based...

2nd Circuit to Civil Rights Lawyer Lynne Stewart: Go Directly to Jail A federal appeals court says bail for civil rights lawyer Lynne Stewart should be revoked and she should begin serving her sentence “forthwith” for passing messages from an imprisoned terrorist to his followers. The New York City-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Stewart’s conviction in an opinion (PDF) released today, rejecting her argument that the First Amendment protected her release of statements by an imprisoned sheik. Stewart was convicted in 2005 of providing material support to terrorists by passing messages from Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman to...

While it is widely assumed that any jury in New York would find the 9/11 terrorists guilty, especially given their previous confessions, it's within the realm of probability that a Muslim juror would vote to acquit based upon his/her loyalty to (or fear of) Islam.

Capt. John Gaffaney Capt. John Gaffaney, 56, was a psychiatric nurse who worked for San Diego County, Calif., for more than 20 years and had arrived at Fort Hood the day before the shooting to prepare for a deployment to Iraq. Born in Williston, N.D., Gaffney had served in the Navy and later the California National Guard as a younger man, his family said.

If (God Forbid) Obamacare does get passed there would be only one good thing coming out of it, Minister Louis Farrakhan is so old that he will be turned over to a Hospice instead of being given medical care. Yes, I understand that it is a very mean thing to say. But I cant help it, Louis Farrakhan is an cockroach , a blight upon the earth. I thought we were done with this man of hate. Two years ago he gave what he said was his last public speech.Lord please forgive me, but the date of his passing can't...

NO JAIL FOR JIHADIS thelastcrusade.org If you’re a terrorist, go to England and get arrested. The British government will provide you with living costs, “subsistence” funds, and, best of all, an annual subsidy. This news was released from the Home Office by Parliament this week. Since April 2007, 13 Islamic terror suspects have collected £611,470 - - approximately $1,040,000 while under house arrest for accomodations, taxes, utlity bills, prepaid telephone cards, phone bills, and food. In addition to having their expenses paid while they are free to walk around Piccadilly Circus, nine receive public welfare and all receive additional...

(IsraelNN.com) U.S. President Barack Obama continues to “reach out to Muslims” by appointing them to key security posts amid charges he wrongly ignored internal Muslim terror. One recent appointee was harshly criticized for appearing on a British-based television station whose host is a member of a radical Muslim group. President Obama has continued to “reach out Muslims,” as he said in his keynote speech in Cairo last June, and this past week he swore in a Muslim rights advocate to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, shortly after the Fort Hood massacre. HSAC members are involved in expertise on national security.

Decision to have a trial 6 months ahead goes to show they still have ideas that terrorism is a crime issue, not a military issue. Gov. David Patterson (D-N.Y.) is not at all on board with Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to have five Sept. 11 planners brought to New York City for a civilian criminal trial. Supposedly Holder made the decision, and he informed President Obama. Why is Patterson saying the White House warned him this was coming six months ago? The main headline this morning may be Patterson disagreeing with the White House on having the trials in...

In the string of amazing decisions made during the first year of the Obama administration, nothing seems more like sheer insanity than the decision to try foreign terrorists who have committed acts of war against the United States in federal court, as if they were American citizens accused of crimes. Terrorists are not even entitled to the protection of the Geneva Conventions, much less the Constitution of the United States. Terrorists have never observed, nor even claimed to have observed, the Geneva Conventions, nor are they among those covered by them. But over and above the utter inconsistency of what...

As I was catching up with my favorite podcasts from the past several days, my attention was caught by Steve Malzberg’s Friday show. Steve, fiery as ever, spends all three hours discussing the Obama administration’s disastrous decision to try five G’tmo terrorists connected to 9/11 in U.S. civilian court, particularly mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. Somehow I’ve managed to condense this blood-boiling show down to approximately 40 minutes of highlights. In the first part Steve sets up the situation and plays clips from AG Eric Holder talking to the press about the decision. The second segment Steve plays an infuriating clip...

So, as I sit here writing this, my mind is reeling and my heart is beating too fast. I'm ANGRY and outraged, and just....SO ANGRY. One short week ago, Major Nidal Hasan, a pyschiatrist in the United States Army, walked into the deployment center at Ft.Hood armed with a 9mm pistol, and a F-N semi-automatic handgun. He walked into a center full of military personnel who were NOT allowed to carry a gun on the base and were unarmed. As they were being examined by dentists and opthamologists, and guided through the onerous paperwork that is necessary to deploying, this...

Watch that video: the taxpayers funded this violent jihad cell. This terrorist has been on welfare for 19 years, never working a day in his life. Total taxpayer funds: about $1 million (Australian) to support this dirt bag and his seven (future terrorist) children. Also, he was there illegally and had been ordered back to Algeria three times, but an inept government lost track of him, so he remained in the country.

The rule of law can be a fragile conceptual edifice. It underpins civilization itself assuming a basic shared human interest in honesty, fairness, propriety and peaceable relations between parties. Warfare has always existed on the edges of this compact, its very nature endorsing deliberate destruction and killing. Lawful societies generally fear and even abhor war, though it may be occasionally necessary, stimulating and satisfyingly sanguinary.

Here's a quiz that may appear some day on history tests: Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in November 2009, was: a) Part of a terror network that had planned attacks on the United States since the 1990s; b) A deranged psychotic who snapped under the pressure of treating soldiers returning from Iraq and who happened to be a Muslim; c) A prime example of "The True Believer," the lonely, frustrated individual who attaches himself to an overarching cause as a way of compensating for personal disappointments. The answer, of course, is "c," the true...

Officials Back Possible Move of Gitmo Detainees to Mostly Unused Center, but the Community Is WaryThe U.S. is looking at a mostly unused prison in Illinois as a place to move some terrorism suspects now detained at Guantanamo Bay, administration officials said. Getty Images The idea of using the Thomson Correctional Center, 150 miles west of Chicago, has the support of some local elected officials, including Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. But people in Thomson, a town of roughly 500 people bordering the Mississippi River, said that while they welcome the economic lift, they worry...

If Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan saw himself as a jihadist warrior, we may never hear about it at his trial. The defense, judge and even prosecution may have an interest in keeping the shooter's radical worldview under wraps. Maj. Hasan will be on trial, but jihadism will not.