FDD

Shameless Self-Promotion (CM)

Debra England, a San Francisco-based philanthropy expert, has written an op-ed on holiday “charitable giving” in which she names what she judges the best non-profits in America, those most deserving of donor support. Among them: Sun Valley Adaptive Sports, the leading organization serving the most severely wounded Service members nationwide, and Operation Blessing Relief & Development, an evangelical Christian organization that was “on the ground in Banda Aceh, Indonesia within 24 hours after the Tsunami hit.”

She also writes about the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, saying:

The high-stakes mission of this exceptionally performance-driven organization is in the name. Their team consists of the most competent and professionally skilled set of professionals I have found in any non-profit. FDD's broad range of activities includes shutting down transmission of Hezbollah's TV network across Europe, training women from Afghanistan and Iraq to participate in representative democracy, providing fellowships to study counterterrorism with world-class experts, and supporting the work of Claudia Rosett who exposed the multi-billion dollar U.N. Oil for Food scandal.

OK, it’s shameless of me to post this, but it’s not about me -- it’s about the people assembled at FDD. They deserve the credit. My role is that of any modern employer: to underpay them and mistreat them. Which I pledge to continue to do in the New Year!

Rupert Murdoch Reads Walid Phares

In the current issue of the New Yorker magazine, there is a profile of media mogul Rupert Murdoch by John Cassidy.  Cassidy notes that Murdoch’s opinions on the global conflict against Militant Islamist terrorism have been influenced by longtime FDD Senior Fellow Walid Phares. Cassidy writes:

The rise of militant Islam both fascinates and terrifies Murdoch. He told me that he had been reading “Future Jihad,” a book by Walid Phares, an American political scientist of Lebanese descent, who warns that foreign jihadis and their American sympathizers are almost certainly mobilizing inside the United States. “These people intend to change civilization, and they are prepared to take a hundred years to do it,” Murdoch said.

A link to the article is here.

A link to the passage mentioning Walid is here.

Earlier this year, Massachusetts Governor and potential presidential candidate Mitt Romney cited Future Jihad as an important influence on his thinking about the terrorist threat.  More here (scroll down to the last entry).

A new international edition of Walid’s book, with an additional chapter added, will come out in November.  The title:  “Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies against the West.”

FDD Media Roundup

Pham & Krauss argue that the ceasefire in the conflict in Lebanon "is really the intermission after the first act of an ongoing drama."

FDD Student Fellow Ilya Bourtman studies the Israel-Azerbaijan relationship.

Walid Phares and Claudia Rosett discuss the implications of a UN ceasefire here and here.

Media Roundup

Claudia Rosett discusses the U.N.'s reaction to the crisis in the Middle East.

Andy McCarthy argues that Israel's war is part of America's 'war on terror.'

Krauss & Pham argue that the current U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon,Tte U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNFIL), has turned into a very convenient and high-profile human shield for terrorists.

Cliff's weekly notes & comments are in this week's e-newsletter.

Monday Morning Media Roundup

Andy McCarthy wonders if "any secrets more important than the New York Times’s sources?" in today's NRO.

Richard Chesnoff discusses last week's two-day Nobel Laureates' Conference in the desert city of Petra in the New York Daily News.

J. Peter Pham & Michael I. Krauss discuss links between Hamas and Saudi Arabia in NRO.

FDD Media Roundup

Cliff discusses Brazil's home grown terrorism in this week's Scripps Howard column.

Andy McCarthy argues that data-mining is the President's duty in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

TUNE IN!

Andy McCarthy will appear on C-SPAN's Washington Journal tomorrow morning from 7:45-8:30am  to discuss the NSA's counter-terrorism activities. 

FDD Media Roundup

Cliff May discusses the 7/7/05 attacks in London and rise of a 'fifth column' in Britain in his recent Scripps Howard column.

Academic Fellows J. Peter Pham and Michael Krauss discuss their colleagues reaction to the Sami Al-Arian trial in Tech Central Station.

Academic Fellow Gordon Bowen argues for the spread of democracy in the Middle East in The News Leader.

"This is No Way to Fight a War" (BM)

Andy McCarthy questions why Moussaoui was tried in civilian courts in Saturday's Wall Street Journal:

It was a verdict in defiance of reason. Such a result is far from unknown in our judicial system; inevitably, courtroom justice and cosmic justice are sometime strangers. That's how we want it. The judicial process is intentionally skewed against the state. It wears proudly the credo: better for the guilty to go free than risk a single innocent's wrongful conviction. This philosophy, rightly, is cherished by freedom-loving people, but only in its place: the realm of domestic law enforcement. It has no place in warfare.

The rest of his op-ed is here.

FDD Media Roundup

Cliff May's recent Scripps Howard column argues for the necessity of breaking the oil industries' monopoly and reducing America's dependence on foreign energy.  Cliff states that this will, "allow us to stop funding both sides in the War Against Terrorism."

Andy McCarthy reviews "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)," by Robert Spencer on NRO.

FDD Academic Fellows J. Peter Pham & Michael I. Krauss discuss why legally and morally, neither the U.S. nor Europe owes the Palestinians any assistance on Tech Central Station.

Claudia Rosett and George Russell delve into yet another scandal at the U.N. on FOXNews.com.

President Bush Speaks to FDD

FDD was pleased to host President Bush today for a speech on the Global War on Terror.  He spoke for about 30 minutes and had much of interest to say...

about FDD:

The Foundation is making a difference across the world, and I appreciate the difference you're making. You have trained Iraqi women and Iranian students in the principles and practice of democracy, you've translated "democracy readers" into Arabic for distribution across the broader Middle East, you've helped activists across the region organize effective political movements -- so they can help bring about democratic change and ensure the survival of liberty in new democracies. By promoting democratic ideals, and training a new generation of democratic leaders in the Middle East, you are helping us to bring victory in the war on terror -- and I thank you for your hard work in freedom's cause.

on Iraq:

At the end of last year, I described in detail many of the changes we have made to improve the training of Iraqi security forces -- and we saw the fruits of those changes in recent days in Iraq. After the Samarra bombings, it was the Iraqi security forces -- not coalition forces -- that restored order.

and, pointedly, on Iran:

Some of the most powerful IEDs we're seeing in Iraq today includes components that came from Iran. Our Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, told the Congress, "Tehran has been responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anti-coalition attacks by providing Shia militia with the capability to build improvised explosive devises" in Iraq. Coalition forces have seized IEDs and components that were clearly produced in Iran. Such actions -- along with Iran's support for terrorism and its pursuit of nuclear weapons -- are increasingly isolating Iran, and America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats. (Applause.)

Read his remarks here.

The Politically Correct vs. the Politically Ridiculous

Andy McCarthy examines both sides of the port debate in today's National Review Online.

Claudia Rosett's Secret Valentine

FDD Journalist-in-Residence Claudia Rosett's work exposing the UN Oil-for-Food scandal has won her many admirers...but could it be...?

Thanks to Kathryn Lopez at The Corner for bringing to our attention.

You can find Chris Muir's Day by Day strip on the web here -- and forward on to a friend.

FDD's Andy McCarthy on Lou Dobbs

FDD Senior Fellow Andy McCarthy is scheduled to be on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight this evening.  Topics are the NSA's terrorist surveillance program and the Defense Department's Able Danger project.

FDD Media Roundup

Cliff May discusses the war of ideas in his recent Scripps Howard column here.

FDD Adjunct Fellow Richard Chesnoff argues for imposing sanctions against Iran in today's New York Daily News.

FDD Academic Fellows Peter Pham and Michael Krauss examine the aftermath of the Palestinian elections on NRO here.

FDD Media Roundup

Claudia Rosett discusses the assasination of Gebran Tueni, who was Lebanon's leading newspaperman in the struggle for a free and democratic society in today's Opinion Journal.

Also, Andy McCarthy continues to explore the national and international debate on 'coercive interrogation' in his latest NRO pieces here and here.

FDD Media Roundup

Claudia Rosett' on FoxNews.com, New U.N. Scheme: Alliance of Civilizations:

After the epic disaster of Oil for Food, one might imagine the United Nations would tread carefully before launching any new and controversial efforts. Hardly.

Andy McCarthy in National Review, Fitzgerald's Day:

The two-year criminal investigation into the “outing” of Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA employee ended with a whimper rather than the bang so obsessively sought by the Bush administration's critics.

Maneeza Hossain in The Daily Star, The Future of SAARC:

The 21st century may yet prove to be the century of Asia. In the case of South Asia, the global media, as well as unimaginative bureaucracies, however, seem to have failed to grasp this potential.

Walid Phares on FrontPageMagazine.com, Jordan's Anti-Terror Rallies:

In world history, it is rare to see a monarchy leading a revolution, but in Jordan, it may be happening now.

Senate Blog-o-Rama

FDD, along with about a dozen other bloggers, was invited to the first “Blog-o-Rama” organized by the Senate Republican Conference yesterday, where we were given comfortable chairs and internet connections (though a few of us relied on old fashioned pencil and pad), and were briefed for two hours by a parade of Senators, including Bill Frist, Rick Santorum, Saxby Chambliss, Wayne Allard, Craig Thomas, John Thune, George Allen, and Sam Brownback.

A lot was covered, but here are some highlights:

FDD MEDIA ROUNDUP

Andy McCarthy explores the legalities and the Senate's position on the status of enemy combatants in "Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory; The Senate Reverses Itself and Opens the Courts to al Qaeda," and Claudia Rosett discusses the United Nations' 'so-called' World Summit on the Information Society that opens today in Tunis, Tunisia, in "'Divide' and Conquer?"

FDD MEDIA ROUNDUP

Claudia Rosett delves deeper into the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal in her latest NRO article "Mercedes Mystery."

Andy McCarthy discusses Guantanamo Bay and the legalities surrounding alien enemy combatants in his NRO article "Restoring Law & Order," and tells you to "Say “No” to the McCain Amendment" here.

Cliff May's weekly Notes & Comments are available in the weekly e-newsletter here.

CLIFF MAY: Arianna Judges Judy

From today's NRO:

Here's a sentence I never thought I'd write: Arianna Huffington has a point.

She reports in the July 27 edition of "The Huffington Post" that in the halls of the New York Times, among the colleagues of imprisoned reporter Judy Miller, a theory is being debated. It boils down to this: Perhaps after Joseph Wilson's notorious op-ed appeared in the Times, Judy called a source (or two) in the intelligence community to find out how and why Wilson was sent by the CIA to Niger to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had sought to purchase uranium. Read More.

WALID PHARES: On MSNBC

Walid Phares discusses the outrage among the Muslim community in regards to suicide attacks on MSNBC.

Watch his segment here.

WALID PHARES: More Arabs and Muslims reject the Terrorists' horrors

I was on MSNBC today at 1:45.  I discussed that "indeed we can clearly see a new trend coming out of the region: More Arabs and Muslims are speaking up against the Terrorists methods and violence ... not only was this visible in the recent PEW report and articulated in today's Christian Science Monitor, but it is seen and heard on Arab media and web sites."

MEDIA: Cliff May on CNN

Discussing Valerie Plame.

TRANSCRIPT

Here's the latest from CNN.

CLAUDIA ROSETT: Saddam and al Qaeda

Claudia's new Opinion Journal article comments on the President's position towards the Saddam - al-Qaeda connection:

...There's another speech Mr. Bush still needs to give. That would be the one in which he says: I told you so--there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

The Key to Iraqis' Hearts

In response to Bush's national address, FDD's Walid Phares told MSNBC's Amy Robach that, " the key to winning support in Iraq for any leader is winning the support of the people that lead Iraqis."

Watch Walid's interview here.