FDD

CLIFF MAY: At Least They Didn't Burn it Down

Hamas plans to convert a Gaza synagogue into a museum showcasing the terrorist organization’s weapons – from stones to rockets. A story is here.

Hat tip: Kathryn Lopez.

WALID PHARES: Newsweek's speedy conclusions lead to analytical crash

An interesting Newsweek story this week -that references CT Blog among its sources- claim scoring a point against what it paints as a “questionable Bush administration portrayal of Abu Azzam.” In short, the authors of the article, Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball claim the Administration’s leaders aggrandized the real importance of the killed al Qaida commander basing their conclusion on a number of “non identified” US counter Terrorism officials and a report posted by our colleague Evan Kohlman on the blog. The “charge” by Newsweek is about the hierarchy of the man. Was he or was he not the “number two” of abu Mus’aab? In fact, the article’s real problem is in semantics. Was Abu Azzam number two, deputy commander, a top lieutenant, the second most powerful man, or even a future heir for the organization? What seems to be journalistically a one status are in fact multiple functions with various consequences on the War in Iraq, and different statements made by different people. Isikoff and Hoseball are right to “investigate” the matter, as all experts should do, but their fast conclusion missed crucial nuances, crashing analytically.

ANDY McCARTHY: Garden-State-Variety Profiling Hysteria

From today's National Review Online:

Do you think Americans are threatened by Islamic terrorism? If we are, don’t you think that in trying to prevent Islamic terrorism it is proper for the police to consider whether someone is actually Islamic? If so, what exactly are you condemning when you condemn “profiling”? Read more.

CLIFF MAY: They Shoot Schoolteachers, Don't They?

From today's Scripps Howard News Service:

For decades, too many correspondents covering the Middle East failed to report Saddam's worst atrocities – sometimes because they knew little beyond what the dictator's flacks told them, sometimes to protect their local staffs, sometimes to avoid getting kicked out of the country or tossed into jail themselves.

But what can be the excuse for so many media heavyweights continuing the cover-up now -- overlooking documented history, soft-peddling the murder of innocents by Saddam loyalists and al-Qaeda invaders, and shifting blame from terrorists to those fighting them? Read more.

Read the Spanish translation.

This Week's Global Jihad Monitor is Now Available

Terrorist in Iraq slaughtered five schoolteachers and killed scores of civilians in a string of suicide bombings and attacks.  Read this story and more in this week's GJM.

To receive the GJM please email 'subscribe' to GJM@defenddemocracy.org.

RICHARD CARLSON: Dispatches from the Danger Zone

Washington DC government sent a convoy of ten buses to New Orleans to help in the evacuation, drop off some diapers and food and water, and bring back up to 200 evacuees for shelter.

The caravan left on September 2nd a Friday.  You’ll be amused by the official list of who was aboard:

10 drivers.
19 social workers.
2 "mental health professionals."
3 "emergency management workers."
2 physicians
1 physician’s assistant’s
And 28 police officers.

Now that’s 65 people.  There may have been more, but if so the City’s not admitting to it.   

Hard to believe they didn’t have a couple of  p.r. people aboard.

Five days and 2160 miles later –that’s 44 hours of driving time- the caravan returned.  The only evacuees they brought back were two college students who hitched a free ride to Washington.  200 evacuees from New Orleans came to Washington but they had the good sense to fly.

The best part of this story is this:  When this expensive motorized boondoggle arrived back a DC city councilman named David Catania declared the mission “a success.”

This is our Government in Place for when – not if - we have a serious calamity in Washington, DC.  Scary.

CLIFF MAY: NYT PR For A.N.S.W.E.R.

I noted in FDD’s weekly newsletter that the Washington Post had failed to tell its readers anything about A.N.S.W.E.R., the radical organization that was a principal organizer of the demonstrations demonstration in Washington last weekend.

But Christopher Hitchens notes that The New York Times told its readers that the group “embodies a wide range of progressive political objectives.”

Hitchens observes:

The name of the reporter on this story was Michael Janofsky. I suppose that it is possible that he has never before come across "International ANSWER," the group run by the "Worker's World" party and fronted by Ramsey Clark, which openly supports Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, and the "resistance" in Afghanistan and Iraq, with Clark himself finding extra time to volunteer as attorney for the génocidaires in Rwanda. Quite a "wide range of progressive political objectives" indeed, if that's the sort of thing you like. However, a dip into any database could have furnished Janofsky with well-researched and well-written articles by David Corn and Marc Cooper—to mention only two radical left journalists—who have exposed "International ANSWER" as a front for (depending on the day of the week) fascism, Stalinism, and jihadism.

Hitchens Slate article is here.  Hat tip: Little Green Footballs.

WALID PHARES: al Qaida TV, complements al Jazeera as "the" imperial source..

Writing in the Washington Post , Daniel Williams announced that al Qaida has launched its own news bulletins via Internet. He referred it to an Italian news agency called Adnkonois, reporting from Dubai. He mentioned that the entire 16 minutes was available on an Italian web site. At first, one would be impressed by the news value of the "story." And indeed, in our current world of Global War on Terror, sensational pieces such as this one make headlines, inflame talking heads, and put writers on TV screens. If we agree that Terrorism and counter terrorism have produced an industry and consumers a headline such as "al Qaida has its own newscast now" will open ears and eyes and drag mouses to click on links. But let's examine where is the real meat in this story, with a comparative analysis.

CLIFF MAY: Al-Qaeda TV

The anchorman wears “a black ski mask and an ammunition belt.” Think of how much that saves on makeup and wardrobe. And bad hair days? No problem!

A news story is here and Captain Ed has commentary here.

WALID PHARES: "The hand that severed a female's arm in Lebanon will answer to justice"

I knew May Chidiac like most residents of Lebanon since the mid 1980s. A close friend to my cousin, she was the rising female anchor on the leading TV network in Lebanon, The Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, known as LBC. Lebanese TV During the last five years of the Lebanese War, LBC was the 'Free Lebanon' station broadcasting from East Beirut. It was facing off with pro-Syrian, and Jihadi outlets from Syrian-occupied areas. May, a graduate in journalism, was always eager to tackle the hot issues with no fear. Throughout the 1990s, and particularly in the last months leading to the Cedars Revolution, May Chidiac conducted many "hot" interviews with high profile opposition leaders. Acting like a Lebanese Paula Zahn, she was in the center of Beirut's television mornings. But her media thrusts didn't please the Terrorists. Last Sunday, the anti-democracy cells placed a bomb inside her car blast.

ANDY McCARTHY: The Suicide Ethos

After the worst domestic attack in the history of the United States, the constant refrain was that "9/11 changed everything." All "walls" were taken down. Intelligence agents and criminal investigators — until then hindered from cooperating — were now to work hand-in-hand. National security was in. Obsession over imaginary civil-rights violations was out. The message was clear: Gather all the information, get it into the right hands, and connect all the dots. Well it looks like the memo never made its way over to the Pentagon.

Read the full National Review Online article here.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: The Buck Still Hasn't Stopped

Claudia Rosett discusses the failings of the Volcker Report in her Weekly Standard article.

RICHARD CARLSON: Dispatches from the Danger Zone

Saddam Hussein has admitted to investigators that he ordered the massacre of thousands of Kurds in Northern Iraq and has confessed to executing 150 men and boys from a village near Baghdad.

Iraq president Jalal Talibani made the announcement in a TV interview.

The most interesting take was in the NY Times.  The reporter, one Richard A Oppel, Jr wrote, “… it was not clear from the interview whether Mr. Talibani was saying that Mr. Hussein had acknowledged that his actions were criminal or that the former leader merely admitted he had ordered killings because he believed they were proper. In the past he has not denied that he ordered people killed.”

“Proper?” The killings were proper? Well, we bet Saddam thought they were proper.  He killed tens of thousands of folks, including women and babies, for different reasons, some of them political, some of them because he felt like it –but all of them “proper” by his reasoning, the reasoning of a megalomaniacal leader who has total control over other human beings.

Saddam faces proper hanging if he is found guilty after his proper trial begins in mid-October.

CLIFF MAY: "Iran Will Not Abandon Its Nuclear Program"

And even more troubling: “Neither the Europeans nor the Bush administration are prepared to do anything serious about it.” Michael Ledeen’s essay is here.

WALID PHARES: "Sipping coffee on the Euphrates"

PS: The following is a virtual chat, taking place between two Iraqi brothers after watching TV. The arguments are real, the language is Arabic but the names are suggested. The dialogue is adapted from a combination of chats that took place in reality.

Two brothers are sipping coffee late Saturday on the Euphrates river..

Hassan: So, Majid, what’s going on in the world today?

Terrorism Roundup

A quick roundup of terrorism stories that you might have missed with all of the news coverage focusing on Katrina and Rita:

• Hamas To Convert Synagogue to Weapons Museum
• Ten people killed in Iraq attacks
• Terror charge added against son in Lodi terror case
• Suicide bomber targets public bus in Baghdad
• London bomb suspect appears in court
• Bomb explosion wounds 46 in Belarus (likely a criminal, not terrorist attack, but information is still murky)
• Police make anti-terror arrest at U.K. airport
• Five Killed in Twin Pakistan Bombings
• Indonesian Sentenced for Embassy Attack
• Syria Said Aims to Thwart Iraq Democracy
• At least 19 killed in Hamas rally explosion in Gaza
• Palestinian militants fire Qassam rockets at Sderot
• Security forces kill 3 wanted gunmen in West Bank clashes

For more, see this week's Global Jihad Monitor.

RICHARD CARLSON: Dispatches from the Danger Zone

New moves against women by radical Muslims in Nigeria.

In Kano, a busy trade center of a half million people in the North, women are now banned from motorcycle taxis and can only sit on the back seat of mini-buses. 

This, the authorities say, is to preserve public morality. 

They are upset because women passengers have been sitting too close to the male drivers.

Kano is one of 12 states in Northern Nigeria now dominated by Islamic Law.   

Authorities have introduced flogging for drinking liquor, amputations for stealing, and death by stoning for adultery.

CLIFF MAY: Profiles and Courage

From today's Scripps Howard News Service:

I'm writing this on my laptop in the Atlanta airport, waiting for a flight delayed due to weather. But I can't complain. I didn't spend long at the security check. On the other hand, had I been a terrorist, would I have been caught before I killed?

I'm not confident. At most large airports, there are areas where scores of travelers congregate – at ticket counters, for example, and in mazes leading to the metal detectors and x-ray machines. What would prevent a suicide-terrorist with a backpack of explosives from mingling with those crowds -- and detonating at will? Read More.

Read the Spanish translation.

CATM Praises European Commission for Urging Ban of Hezbollah's Al-Manar Television

Washington, D.C. (September 21, 2005) – The Coalition Against Terrorist Media (CATM) today praised the European Commission for singling out Hezbollah’s al-Manar television in its recommendation to ban terrorist broadcasts from European territory.

“This is a clear recognition that terrorist media, especially Hezbollah’s al-Manar television, is just as deadly as those who make the bombs and plan the attacks,” said Roberta Bonazzi, the executive director of the European Foundation for Democracy, a Brussels-based think tank and advocacy group, and a member of CATM.  “Terrorist propaganda that encourages children to strap on suicide belts and slaughter innocents must never be tolerated.” Read More.

This Week's Global Jihad Monitor is Now Available

Afghan voters went to the polls this week to elect a parliament, despite threats of violence from Taliban remnants. Read this story and more in this week's GJM.

To subscribe to the GJM please email GJM@defenddemocracy.org.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: U.N.-Plugged; Imagining the End of the "World" as We Know It

From today's Opinion Journal:

On Monday afternoon the electrical power blew out at U.N. headquarters, forcing the secretary-general and the foreign ministers of four of the world's most powerful nations, along with France, to evacuate the executive offices on the 38th floor. Nonessential U.N. staff were sent home--leaving a friend to quip, "Does that mean all of them?" Read More.

RICHARD CALRSON: Dispatches from the Danger Zone

Here’s a name dredged up from the old days of the Cold War-The “USS Pueblo.”   

Remember our US Navy ship that was attacked and seized by the North Koreans in 1968.

Few Americans are aware of it, but North Korea is still holding the USS Pueblo -- 37 years later.

Now they have hinted they might give it back. 

A retired diplomat brought that word home from a recent trip to North Korea and has passed it to the State Department.   

Ambassador Don Gregg told authorities that hints were dropped in Pyongyang that if a “high level” US delegation was sent to North Korea for a visit they would consider giving the ship back.

The Pueblo was attacked and seized in international waters off the Korean coast in January of 1968. 

Its crew of 83 was held in captivity for almost a year. 

One of them was killed and many others wounded. Some of the sailors and officers were tortured.   

The US never did much about it except to grovel.

CLIFF MAY: Iranian Homophobia

The bigotry and persecution of minorities by Militant Islamists evokes little outrage from what I’ve called the Post-Humanitarian Left, and what Roger L. Simon calls the Modern Reactionary Left.

Roger has more here.

Danger Zone

The most recent episode of Danger Zone, FDD's anti-terror radio show, is now available for download.  In addition to the podcast archives, you can listen to the show Sunday nights at 9pm on WMAL in the DC area or via the WMAL website.

CLIFF MAY: Latest Notes & Comments

AMERICA'S DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL: What will it take to end it? Start with Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFVs). The technology is already available and the additional cost only about $150 per car. Second, begin filling American cars with fuel made from Caribbean sugar and domestic garbage. That technology is already available, too.

To encourage the transition, why not get rid of all taxes and tariffs on the petroleum substitutes that can be used in FFVs? What -- or who -- is holding up this common sense solution? Read More.

ANDY McCARTHY: Don’t Apologize, Governor Romney!

From today's National Review Online:

Radical mosques are the spark lighting the fuse that can kill Americans. That has killed Americans. That will kill more if we let it. Such killing sprees, moreover, are plotted by young, male, Muslim militants who often enter to the United States on student and other visas from places known to sponsor or export terrorism. Read More.

JON SNOW: Hitchens v. Galloway

The great writer, and former Trotskyite, Christopher Hitchens debated British MP George Galloway last night about the justifications for the war in Iraq.  Hitchens, as usual, spoke in beautiful prose with humor and elegance.  Even when one disagrees with Hitchens (which in my case is not too often these days), it is difficult to think of a contemporary political writer that can hold a candle to him.

The debate went according to form, and it is unlikely that either speaker convinced the clearly partisan audience to join their side.

That being said, there was a clear difference between the arguments of Hitchens, which he backed up with cold hard facts, and the polemics of Galloway, which were meant to merely get a reaction out of the crowd through the use of buzz words such as Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, war crimes, etc.

Galloway proved his true colors (if anyone had any doubts) when he claimed that George Bush and Ariel Sharon were responsible for the 9/11 attacks.  In Galloway's world view, terrorists cannot be held responsible for their own actions.  Only the west and the Jews can be blamed for any and all attacks.

The debate is worth listening to.  You can hear the archives here (start listening at the third clip if you wish to skip the pre-debate radio blather).  The debate will also be broadcast on C-Span 2 on Saturday evening.

CLIFF MAY: The Anti-Fascist

From today's Scripps Howard News Service:

Jalal Talabani doesn't look much like Che Guevara. With his ample girth, white moustache and bemused smile, he more resembles a favorite uncle who can be counted on to buy ice cream and dispense sound advice. But don't be misled: Talabani is a revolutionary. [Read More]

Read the Spanish translation.

ANDY McCARTHY: Is al Qaeda Using WMD in Iraq?

An al Qaeda connected Sunni terror group in Iraq, the Jaish al-Taefa al-Mansura (of "Army of the Victorious Community"), claims to have launched chemical weapons attacks in Baghdad. 

According to Agence France Presse (story is here), the group "said its fighters fired shells filled with chemical agents at the interior ministry, foreign ministry, the 'green zone' and Baghdad's security academy."

The story indicates that Iraq's interior ministry has confirmed some attacks, but not whether chemical weapons were involved.  Meanwhile, AFP adds that Jaish has warned it would "use chemical weapons against 'occupation' and Iraqi forces unless they halted their offensive against rebels in the northern town of Tal Afar."

This Week's Global Jihad Monitor is Now Available

Moussa Arafat, the former Palestinian security chief and cousin of the late president Yasser Arafat, was assassinated by armed militants. Read this full story and others in this week's GJM.

Danger Zone

The most recent episode of Danger Zone, FDD's anti-terror radio show, is now available for download.  In addition to the podcast archives, you can listen to the show Sunday nights at 9pm on WMAL in the DC area or via the WMAL website.

American Fatwa

Daniel Pearl's father, Judea Pearl, has an excellent piece in the New Republic examining the recent fatwa by American Muslims against terrorism.  He finds some serious gaps in the fatwa, and argues convincingly that it falls far short of the standard set by the Spanish Muslim Council last year.  Also see further comments on the fatwa from this blog, here, here, and here.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: They've Been Partying Long Enough

From today's National Review Online:

On Wednesday, President Bush is due to address the United Nations, where more than 170 heads of state are meeting this week to celebrate the organization's 60th birthday and attend upon its umpteenth "reform." Among top officials at Turtle Bay, the worry is that Bush might introduce enough reality — or integrity — to spoil their fun. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has just warned, in an interview with the Independent, a British newspaper, that if the reform summit fails, he will blame the U.S. because "They are the host. You cannot be a host and destroy the party." Read More.

RICHARD CARLSON: Danger Zone - The Column

The Bush administration is putting lots of pressure on Syria to get their hands off Lebanon and to keep them off.  Now they have moved the squeeze into the United Nations.  The US and France are behind the UN investigation into the murder by bomb of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri last spring in Beirut. Lebanon recently filed preliminary criminal charges against four pro-Syrian generals and the heat is being turned up on pro-Syrian politicians and Syrian agents in Lebanon.  A senior Syrian intelligence officer secretly defected to another Arab country recently, aided by French intelligence agents we have been told authoritatively by sources in Lebanon, and his inside information about who assisted in the planning of Hariri's killing is being acted upon.  It is about time the incessant meddling in Lebanon's life by President Bashar Assad and his Alewite cronies in Damascus has been brought to a stop.

ANDY McCARTHY: This Is "Tackling Extremism"?

From today's National Review Online:

After the 7/7 bombing attacks by Islamo-fascists that killed scores of Londoners, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced with great fanfare that he would create a Home Office task force of committees to "tackle extremism." The purpose, he asserted, was to confront "head on" the rise of radicalism among young Muslims.

How is it working out so far? Read More.

DANGER ZONE - Every Sunday, 9pm

This Sunday's groundbreaking WMAL radio show Danger Zone will feature John Miller, who was recently appointed an Assistant Director of the FBI. Read More.

Listen to past episodes of Danger Zone here.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Talking Their Way Out of the Scandal

From today's National Review Online:

On September 7, Paul Volcker's United Nations-authorized Independent Inquiry Committee delivered its main report on the corrupt Oil-for-Food program through which the U.N. from 1996-2003 supervised oil sales and relief purchases for Saddam Hussein's U.N.-sanctioned Iraq. The Volcker committee found that as the years passed, the “successes” of the program “fell under an increasingly dark shadow” and “reports spread of waste, inefficiency and corruption, even within the United Nations itself.” Of that, noted the Volcker committee, “Some was rumor and exaggeration, but much — too much — has turned out to be true.” ...

The day Volcker released his report, Annan's under-secretary general for communications, Shashi Tharoor prepared a set of talking points for U.N. officials having to contend with media questions. As it happens, his memo leaked. In the spirit of the newfound transparency the U.N. proposes to adopt, NRO is sharing it here. In the interest of even further transparency, I offer a few talking points of my own, interspersed in italics. Read More.

CLIFF MAY:"The intelligence system did not work well"

So says Colin Powell regarding the information he was provided on Saddam Hussein continuing to possess Weapons of Mass Destruction. So who’s to blame?

"George Tenet did not sit there for five days with me misleading me. He believed what he was giving to me was accurate. … The intelligence system did not work well," Powell said in an interview with ABC News.

Powell added: that he believed lower-level intelligence collectors and analysts failed him and the country. "There were some people in the intelligence community who knew at that time that some of these sources were not good, and shouldn't be relied upon, and they didn't speak up. That devastated me," he said.

And did Powell support the president's decision to invade Iraq? "I'm always a reluctant warrior… but when the president decided that it was not tolerable for this regime to remain in violation of all these U.N. resolutions, I'm right there with him with the use of force," he said.

The rest of this interesting interview is here.

DAVID SILVERSTEIN: Killing to Make a Killing

Academic Fellow Peter Pham, an assistant professor at James Madison University, reviews a trio of books on suicide bombing for the National Interest here.

CLIFF MAY: Preparation or Prevention?

From today's Scripps Howard News Service:

Americans are distressed that the government was ill-prepared to quickly assist disaster victims in New Orleans. But here's a fact that should trouble us more: The government could have averted this disaster in the first place.

The fourth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 seems an appropriate time to examine this distinction -- to consider the requirements of two very different missions: preparing to handle a catastrophe when it occurs, and doing what is necessary to prevent a catastrophe before it happens. Read more.

Read the Spanish translation.

This Week's Global Jihad Monitor is Now Available

Hamas made public the names and pictures of its terrorist leaders, in an attempt to turn Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza into electoral gains.  Read this full story and others in this week's GJM.

Saddam Admits He Ordered Gassing of Kurds

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani announced in an interview on al-Iraqiya TV that the Iraqi Special Tribunal has recorded confessions from Saddam Hussein in which he admits that he gave orders for the gassing of the Kurds during the Anfal campaign.  Full story here. 

Arafat Cousin Killed in Gaza Attack

In a sign of the growing infighting amongst Palestinian groups taking place in the aftermath of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, terrorists from the Popular Resistance Committees today killed Yasser Arafat's cousin, Moussa Arafat, and kidnapped his son.

Moussa Arafat was the Palestinian security chief and head of military intelligence until being fired by Mahmoud Abbas in April.  He still was a major strongman in Gaza, known for both his ruthlessness and his corruption.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Expose, At Last?

From yesterday's National Review Online:

When the main report of the United Nations probe into its own former Oil-for-Food program hits the street Wednesday, the toss-up is whether the results of the investigation, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, will be the exposé the program — and the U.N. — have badly needed, or the cover-up some have feared. Coming the week before Secretary-General Kofi Annan presides over a gathering of more than 170 heads of state in New York, assembled to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the U.N. and possibly approve a still-fluid version of its badly needed reform, Volcker's report could carry even more weight than its expected length of some 1,000 pages might suggest. Read More.

CLIFF MAY: Latest Notes and Comments

CATASTROPHE: In recent days, a flood of almost biblical proportions eclipsed news of the global war against Militant Islamism. But battles continued to be fought.

The most dramatic was in northwestern Iraq where 5,000 American and Iraqi troops swept into Tall Afar -- the largest urban assault since the siege of Fallujah last November.

Tall Afar had been taken a year ago but after sweeping out foreign insurgents, U.S. troops withdrew. By so doing, they violated "the ink spot" strategy -- the idea that to defeat insurgent forces it is necessary to take and hold key areas and then spread out from those bases over time. [Read More]

CLAUDIA ROSETT: The U.N.'s Spreading Bribery Scandal: Russian Ties and Global Reach

From today's FoxNews.com:

How widespread is the corruption at the United Nations? The multibillion-dollar Iraq Oil-for-Food scandal was just the beginning.

Now the issue is becoming the scale of corruption in the U.N.'s normal operations — and which individuals and corporations are reaping the benefits of a network of bribery and conspiracy that investigators have just begun to uncover. So far, those identities are still a mystery — but perhaps not for much longer. Read more of Claudia Rosett and George Russell's article.

ANDY McCARTHY: A Not So Sensible Iraqi Constitution

From today's National Review Online:

In his Washington Post column last Friday, the invaluable Charles Krauthammer takes to task those of us "knee-jerk critics" who have not been high on the proposed Iraqi constitution — despite admitting to his own doubts about the enterprise. With great respect, it is not his finest hour, particularly when he addresses the role of Islam. Read More.

WALID PHARES: Katrina's Geopolitics (1)

                                 
                            The Tower of Babel and America’s “image”   (1)

As the Katrina debates are flooding Americans minds, I decided to share some of  my reflexions and observations. I'll post them in small sections, as they come..

Walid Phares

The tragedy left by the mass killer hurricane in Louisiana and Mississippi, will produce more words flooding the debates in America than the water that flowed into the Big Easy through the levee. But while the US Army and the corps of engineers will repair the breach and pump the water out, the political cacophony over the dead, the injured and the destructions is unfortunately endless. In moments like these, when humans meet mother-nature unleashed, you test society’s ability to absorb the crisis. And as I observe the fiery accusations fuming from all quarters of politics, I cannot but offer these oversimplified remarks. Let me summarize what graduate students would call: what is the research question? In laymen’s words: what are we talking about here?

ANDY McCARTHY: Those Moderates from the Muslim Brotherhood

The Middle Eastern News Agency reported from Cairo yesterday that the Muslim Brotherhood "categorically rejected the establishment of political ties between Pakistan and Israel, renouncing any dealings at any level between Israel and any Muslim state."

The short report continues:  "In a statement issued by its mentor Mohamed Mahdi Akef, the outlawed [in Egypt] group urged Muslims to boycott Israel at both the official and popular levels. It also reminded Muslim peoples and governments of their 'sacred duty of liberating al-Aqsa mosque held in captivity at the time being'.

"It also called on Muslims to support Palestinians in order to empower them to set up their independent state on Palestinian soil with al-Quds al-Shareef as its capital."

WALID PHARES: Katrina, an al Qaida member?

When I posted my latest comments on FDD blog on September 1, titled "Allah punished New Orleans," I didn't expect Zarqawi and the Jihadist bloggers to enlist Hurricane Katrina as a "sister" in al Qaida. But they did, and they went ballistic about it. Using almost the same words I reported about from al ansar chat room (where he appears from time to time by the way), Abu Mass'ab said in a statement that this is the "start of the collapse." As reported by AFP today, he announced that "the anger of the Almighty has descended on the tyrants."

AFP (and others) also report today that the Jihadi webblogs declared that "Katrina, a soldier sent by God to fight on our side... the soldier Katrina joins us to fight against America." In al Siyassah, Mohammed Yussuf al Mulaifi wrote: "It is almost certain that this is a wind of torment and evil that Allah has sent to this American empire." He asked: "Have the storms joined the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization?"

Ironically "sister Katrina" wasn't only enlisted by the Terrorists. Yesterday, at a session featuring a prominent Columbia University Professor at the Annual Convention of the American Political Science Association in Washington, the storm was described as an ally against US policy. "Against the servile media and nauseating Government," Katrina was described by the Ivy League scholar as a force to uproot the "occupiers of Washington." (read the Jihadi statements in the extended text)

WALID PHARES: Jihadists: Allah Punished New Orleans

“allahu daraba al kafireen wal fasiqeen fi new orleen, wallahu daraba al mushrekeen el shiia fil iraq”

“Allah hit the infidels and the depraved in New Orleans, and Allah hit the Shiia apostate in Iraq.”

al ansar chat room – Thursday September 1, 2005. 11 AM (EST)

When I logged in to one of the ansar’s voice chat rooms, I kind of expected to hear some sort of “interpretation” of the flood in Louisiana and Mississippi. I still remember the Jihadi elaboration on the south Asian Tsunami last January. Before I even listened to the self-declared “Imam-on-line,” I almost predicted the words: It had to have “infidels,” “Allah,” and “punishments.” And indeed these words and many others were there. Flooding the web with speeches, the voices of the ansars, close to al Qaida and the other Salafi Jihadists insisted with certitude that “Allah has punished America with winds and water.” Strangely, I remembered online rhetoric from months ago, when couple Salafi clerics announced that “soon, inshallah, Allah and his angels are going to begin the tadmeer (destruction) of evil America.” They repeated endlessly that “all what the mujahidin have to do is to fight and kill infidels wherever they can, and that Allah, pleased with them, will do the rest. He will destroy their cities, one after the other.”

ANDY McCARTHY: Hamastan Is the First Step

Is the Gaza withdrawal a first step in a new peace process or a prelude to more terror?  It's definitely the latter, according to Hamas cofounder Mahmoud Zahar. 

In an interview last week during which he told Newsweek that Gaza "should be Hamastan," he was asked:  "Could you ever see Hamas involved in a peace plan that would allow two states side by side, Israel and Palestine?" 

Zahar's answer:  "Nobody on the Israeli side, from the extreme right to the extreme left, will withdraw from Jerusalem. At the same time, believe me, nobody on the Palestinian side, in the Arab and Muslim world, will accept keeping Jerusalem under occupation. [The Palestinians] lost everything [after Oslo]. We are not the PLO. We are not going to repeat a failed [process].'

Newsweek's published version of the interview can be found here.

Al-Jazeera: Al-Qaeda Claims London Attacks

Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the July 7 bombings in London and threatened more attacks in Europe, according to al-Jazeera.

CLIFF MAY: Allah has sent to this American empire

Our friends at MEMRI have translated an article by a senior Kuwaiti official on the tragedy in New Orleans.

He says, too: "The disaster will keep striking the unbelievers for what they have done."

You can read the rest here.

Flood Aid

Though outside of our usual topics here, the hurricane and subsequent flooding is too big a story to ignore.  Readers wishing to help should check out the Flood Aid post on Instapundit for a thorough list of recommended charities.

CLIFF MAY: Strategic Thinking

From today's Scripps Howard News Service:

If American forces were not in Iraq, they’d have to be sent there.   

At least that would be the case if Americans were serious about waging a war against militant Islamism. The fact is that al-Qaeda in Iraq is the most active and efficiently lethal branch of that transnational movement. Month after bloody month, its commander, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, deploys suicide bombers, takes hostages and cuts off heads. Read More.

Read the Spanish translation.