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When even the Washington Post is reporting good news from Iraq, you know things are changing. Emboldened by the successful elections, the Iraqi public is starting to turn in the terrorists:
BAGHDAD, Feb. 6—With a hero who gave his life for the elections, a revived national anthem blaring from car stereos and a greater willingness to help police, the public mood appears to be moving more clearly against the insurgency in Iraq, political and security officials said.
In the week since national elections, police officers and Iraqi National Guardsmen said they have received more tips from the public, resulting in more arrests and greater effectiveness in their efforts to weaken the violent insurgency rocking the country.
...officials in Baghdad said a relative lull in violence in the capital has fueled the sense that something has fundamentally changed since the vote. A change of attitudes in Baghdad could make a crucial difference in the battle against the insurgency, and a buoyed sense of civic pride is already beginning to change the way the public treats the police, authorities say.
“They saw what we did for them in the election by providing safety, and now they understand this is their army and their sons,” said Sgt. Haider Abudl Heidi, a National Guardsman wearing a flak jacket at a checkpoint in Baghdad.
Reports from Iraqis reflected a similar shift in attitudes in large areas of the north and south, although authorities acknowledged that in some parts of the country, people remain hostile to the emerging Iraqi authority and supportive, to varying degrees, of the insurgents.
In all countries that support them, the terrorists only survive because those around them don’t turn them in. Without tacit public support large terrorist organizations in a country such as Iraq will be pulverized.
Don’t Let the Door Hit You in the Butt on your Way Out Department. Some people are actually thinking of moving to Canada due to the GWB win in the election.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia Christopher Key knows exactly what he would be giving up if he left Bellingham, Washington.
“It’s the sort of place Norman Rockwell would paint, where everyone watches out for everyone else and we have block parties every year,” said Key, a 56-year-old Vietnam War veteran and former magazine editor who lists Francis Scott Key, who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner,” among his ancestors.
But leave it he intends to do, and as soon as he can. His house is on the market, and he is busily seeking work across the border in Canada. For him, the re-election of George W. Bush was the last straw.
...“The number of U.S. citizens who are actually submitting Canadian immigration papers and making concrete plans is about three or four times higher than normal,” said Linda Mark, an immigration lawyer in Vancouver.
Other immigration lawyers in Toronto, Montreal and Halifax, Nova Scotia, said they had noticed a similar uptick, though most put the rise at closer to threefold.
“We’re still not talking about a huge movement of people,” said David Cohen, an immigration lawyer in Montreal. “In 2003, the last year where full statistics are available, there were something like 6,000 U.S. citizens who received permanent resident status in Canada. So even if we do go up threefold this year, we’re only talking about 18,000 people.”
They love America—it’s democracy they have a problem with. They love the will of the people being expressed, as long as it says whatever they want.
Really, I doubt they love America much at all. They’ve probably had a bad time here and they’re hoping for a change.
This is the big question that’s coming up next as the new Iraq government comes into power.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 – Vice President Dick Cheney turned aside today concerns that the emerging government in Iraq might be strongly Islamic and might set more restrictive standards for women’s rights than for those of men.
Leading Shiite clerics in Iraq, whose religious parties appear likely to take power in the new constitutional assembly, have been pushing for a clear Islamic aspect to the country’s new constitution, with such matters as marriage and divorce made subject to Koranic law, and daughters liable to receive only half the inheritances of sons.
But Mr. Cheney appeared cautious and sanguine when asked about this.
“We have to be very careful here,” he said on the television program “Fox News Sunday.” “We’re trying to forecast what an as-yet-unformed government is going to do.”
“This is going to be Iraqi, whatever it is,” he said. “It’s not going to be American. It’s not going to look like Wyoming or New York when they get their political process all put together.”
...Mr. Cheney said he doubted that Iraqi Shiites would be strongly influenced by what he said was the failed theocratic approach of their Shiite brethren in Iran. “The Iraqis have watched the Iranians operate for years and create a religious theocracy that has been a dismal failure,” he said.
...A move toward a Koran-based constitution would, nonetheless, be alarming for some in the United States.
Mr. Cheney said he was comforted by the public pronouncements of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s revered Shiite cleric, who had made clear that “he doesn’t believe clerics should play a direct role in the day-to-day operations of government.”
Stay tuned.
This cat likes to sit on top of the computer monitor and keep an eye on me.
From the SOTU:
You have passed, and we are applying, the Syrian Accountability Actand we expect the Syrian government to end all support for terror and open the door to freedom.
I thought I’d track down some info on just what that is.
Last week, President Bush signed into law H.R. 1828, the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003. The legislation calls on the president to impose sanctions on Syria to discourage support for international terrorist groups and the occupation of Lebanon.
The bill demands that Syria end support for terrorism; halt the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) along with medium- and long-range missiles; and withdraw the roughly 20,000 troops it has deployed in Lebanon.
Here’s the text of the act:
108th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 982
To halt Syrian support for terrorism, end its occupation of Lebanon, stop its development of weapons of mass destruction, cease its illegal importation of Iraqi oil, and hold Syria accountable for its role in the Middle East, and for other purposes.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
May 1, 2003
And here’s the kicker. Do you know who introduced this act in the Senate, out of a very reasonable concern over weapons of mass destruction in the mid-east, before political expediency made her take a different position?
Mrs. BOXER (for herself and Mr. SANTORUM) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations
How about that? Senator Barbara Boxer, of California, who recently accused Condi Rice of lying to the American people when expressing similar concerns, herself sponsored this bill.
I’m sure Mrs. Boxer is aware of the grave dangers of WMDs in Syria, and is at the same time convinced there could not possibly have been any such dangers in Hussein’s Iraq. And by the way, she also has a bridge she’d like to sell you.
Update 2-4-05: Instalanche. Thanks, Glenn, and welcome, Instapundit readers!
In the SOTU, GWB mentioned that his plan to let people invest a small amount of their Social Security contributions in investment funds, was similar to a Thrift Savings Plan:
The goal here is greater security in retirement, so we will set careful guidelines for personal accounts. We’ll make sure the money can only go into a conservative mix of bonds and stock funds. We’ll make sure that your earnings are not eaten up by hidden Wall Street fees. We’ll make sure there are good options to protect your investments from sudden market swings on the eve of your retirement. We’ll make sure a personal account cannot be emptied out all at once, but rather paid out over time, as an addition to traditional Social Security benefits. And we’ll make sure this plan is fiscally responsible, by starting personal retirement accounts gradually, and raising the yearly limits on contributions over time, eventually permitting all workers to set aside four percentage points of their payroll taxes in their accounts.
Personal retirement accounts should be familiar to federal employees, because you already have something similar, called the Thrift Savings Plan, which lets workers deposit a portion of their paychecks into any of five different broadly-based investment funds. It’s time to extend the same security, and choice, and ownership to young Americans. (Applause.)
I’d never heard of a Thrift Savings Plan before, so I thought I’d track down some info on it. I found descriptions of it on lots of government and military websites, for example:
The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) is a tax deferred retirement savings and investment plan for Federal employees. It offers Federal employees the same type of savings and tax benefits that many private employers offer through their 401 (k) plans.
Oh, allright, so it’s like a 401 (k). Lots of people have heard of those.
But here was the cool part. Everybody’s worried that people will lose money on their investments under GWB’s proposal. I found a report on the actual returns on investment in Thrift Savings Plans over the last 14 years:
| TSP Averages | % |
| 2004 | 4.3 |
| 2003 | 4.11 |
| 2002 | 5 |
| 2001 | 5.39 |
| 2000 | 6.42 |
| 1999 | 5.99 |
| 1998 | 5.74 |
| 1997 | 6.77 |
| 1996 | 6.76 |
| 1995 | 7.03 |
| 1994 | 7.22 |
| 1993 | 6.14 |
| 1992 | 7.23 |
| 1991 | 8.15 |
That’s pretty good income. This information is a useful response to concerns that people would lose money under GWB’s proposal.
I thought it was really great. Some highlights:
America’s economy is the fastest growing of any major industrialized nation. In the past four years, we provided tax relief to every person who pays income taxes, overcome a recession, opened up new markets abroad, prosecuted corporate criminals, raised homeownership to its highest level in history, and in the last year alone, the United States has added 2.3 million new jobs.
How many listeners tonight were surprised by these numbers? Nobody’s aware of these things because the MSM suppresses the info.
I welcome the bipartisan enthusiasm for spending discipline. I will send you a budget that holds the growth of discretionary spending below inflation, makes tax relief permanent, and stays on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009. (Applause.) My budget substantially reduces or eliminates more than 150 government programs that are not getting results, or duplicate current efforts, or do not fulfill essential priorities. The principle here is clear: Taxpayer dollars must be spent wisely, or not at all. (Applause.)
Finally, an initiative to at least start cutting some government deadwood.
Year after year, Americans are burdened by an archaic, incoherent federal tax code. I’ve appointed a bipartisan panel to examine the tax code from top to bottom. And when their recommendations are delivered, you and I will work together to give this nation a tax code that is pro-growth, easy to understand, and fair to all. (Applause.)
Almost every president has promised this for as long as I can remember. I’d love to see this move forward.
America’s immigration system is also outdated—unsuited to the needs of our economy and to the values of our country. We should not be content with laws that punish hardworking people who want only to provide for their families, and deny businesses willing workers, and invite chaos at our border. It is time for an immigration policy that permits temporary guest workers to fill jobs Americans will not take, that rejects amnesty, that tells us who is entering and leaving our country, and that closes the border to drug dealers and terrorists. (Applause.)
I’d have to see specifics. Can this be done?
Today, more than 45 million Americans receive Social Security benefits, and millions more are nearing retirement—and for them the system is sound and fiscally strong. I have a message for every American who is 55 or older: Do not let anyone mislead you; for you, the Social Security system will not change in any way. (Applause.)
It’s key for GWB to short-circuit bogus criticism that social security reforms would affect those currently receiving benefits.
So here is the result: Thirteen years from now, in 2018, Social Security will be paying out more than it takes in. And every year afterward will bring a new shortfall, bigger than the year before. For example, in the year 2027, the government will somehow have to come up with an extra $200 billion to keep the system afloat—and by 2033, the annual shortfall would be more than $300 billion. By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt. If steps are not taken to avert that outcome, the only solutions would be dramatically higher taxes, massive new borrowing, or sudden and severe cuts in Social Security benefits or other government programs.
I recognize that 2018 and 2042 may seem a long way off. But those dates are not so distant, as any parent will tell you.
Good job on explaining the crisis; let’s see the Left continue to claim there is no such crisis after this.
I know that none of these reforms would be easy. But we have to move ahead with courage and honesty, because our children’s retirement security is more important than partisan politics. (Applause.) I will work with members of Congress to find the most effective combination of reforms. I will listen to anyone who has a good idea to offer. (Applause.)
That’s a courageous call to make the hard but necessary decisions.
The goal here is greater security in retirement, so we will set careful guidelines for personal accounts. We’ll make sure the money can only go into a conservative mix of bonds and stock funds. We’ll make sure that your earnings are not eaten up by hidden Wall Street fees. We’ll make sure there are good options to protect your investments from sudden market swings on the eve of your retirement. We’ll make sure a personal account cannot be emptied out all at once, but rather paid out over time, as an addition to traditional Social Security benefits. And we’ll make sure this plan is fiscally responsible, by starting personal retirement accounts gradually, and raising the yearly limits on contributions over time, eventually permitting all workers to set aside four percentage points of their payroll taxes in their accounts.
One huge benefit of this is that it would power a huge amount of new money into the economy, which would build wealth for everybody. That’s the genius of this proposal.
Personal retirement accounts should be familiar to federal employees, because you already have something similar, called the Thrift Savings Plan, which lets workers deposit a portion of their paychecks into any of five different broadly-based investment funds. It’s time to extend the same security, and choice, and ownership to young Americans. (Applause.)
Thrift Savings Plan? So something like this is already in existence, and is successful? That’s a surprise.
Because courts must always deliver impartial justice, judges have a duty to faithfully interpret the law, not legislate from the bench. (Applause.)
Yes. There is no right to gay marriage in the Massachusetts State Constitution, written in 1780 and amended in 1917-1919.
Because one of the deepest values of our country is compassion, we must never turn away from any citizen who feels isolated from the opportunities of America. Our government will continue to support faith-based and community groups that bring hope to harsh places. Now we need to focus on giving young people, especially young men in our cities, better options than apathy, or gangs, or jail. Tonight I propose a three-year initiative to help organizations keep young people out of gangs, and show young men an ideal of manhood that respects women and rejects violence.
We may need our Judeo-Christian tradition to fight Islam-fascism. The Left appears to believe in nothing, and to have nothing with which to object to the very Islamo-fascists who wish to kill them.
Our nation, working with allies and friends, has also confronted the enemy abroad, with measures that are determined, successful, and continuing. The al Qaeda terror network that attacked our country still has leaders—but many of its top commanders have been removed. There are still governments that sponsor and harbor terrorists—but their number has declined. There are still regimes seeking weapons of mass destruction—but no longer without attention and without consequence. Our country is still the target of terrorists who want to kill many, and intimidate us all—and we will stay on the offensive against them, until the fight is won. (Applause.)
This really reassured me. After the last several days, in which I’ve blogged about terrorism and Islamo-fascism, I found it very reassuring that our President is devoted to keeping this country safe. Neither Gore nor Kerry could have said this.
That advance has great momentum in our time—shown by women voting in Afghanistan, and Palestinians choosing a new direction, and the people of Ukraine asserting their democratic rights and electing a president. We are witnessing landmark events in the history of liberty. And in the coming years, we will add to that story. (Applause.)
Inspiring.
You have passed, and we are applying, the Syrian Accountability Act—and we expect the Syrian government to end all support for terror and open the door to freedom.
Syrian Accountability Act? What’s that?
Today, Iran remains the world’s primary state sponsor of terror—pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve. We are working with European allies to make clear to the Iranian regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment program and any plutonium reprocessing, and end its support for terror. And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you. (Applause.)
I found this reassuring. A nuclear Iran would be a grave danger.
The terrorists and insurgents are violently opposed to democracy, and will continue to attack it. Yet, the terrorists’ most powerful myth is being destroyed. The whole world is seeing that the car bombers and assassins are not only fighting coalition forces, they are trying to destroy the hopes of Iraqis, expressed in free elections. And the whole world now knows that a small group of extremists will not overturn the will of the Iraqi people. (Applause.)
Debunking the “myth” of the terrorists is brilliant. Stripped of their religious trappings, they become less intimidating.
Recently an Iraqi interpreter said to a reporter, “Tell America not to abandon us.” He and all Iraqis can be certain: While our military strategy is adapting to circumstances, our commitment remains firm and unchanging. We are standing for the freedom of our Iraqi friends, and freedom in Iraq will make America safer for generations to come.
We will not set an artificial timetable for leaving Iraq, because that would embolden the terrorists and make them believe they can wait us out. We are in Iraq to achieve a result: A country that is democratic, representative of all its people, at peace with its neighbors, and able to defend itself. And when that result is achieved, our men and women serving in Iraq will return home with the honor they have earned.
Denying calls for an arbitrary timetable is brilliant.
And we live in the country where the biggest dreams are born. The abolition of slavery was only a dream—until it was fulfilled. The liberation of Europe from fascism was only a dream—until it was achieved. The fall of imperial communism was only a dream—until, one day, it was accomplished. Our generation has dreams of its own, and we also go forward with confidence. The road of Providence is uneven and unpredictable—yet we know where it leads: It leads to freedom.
He’s right. All those things seemed unachievable almost right up until the very moment that they took place. They are perfect examples that what we are trying to do, in ridding the world of Islamo-fascism, is achievable.
See more SOTU reactions from around the blogosphere on Wizbang’s SOTU Reaction Roundup.
GDP Rises 4.4 Percent in 2004 in U.S.:
The economy finished 2004 with its best performance in five years despite slowing in the final stretch.
...The broadest barometer of the country’s economic standing, the gross domestic product, clocked a 4.4 percent increase for all of last year spurred by brisk consumer and business spending, the Commerce Department (news – web sites) reported Friday.
The latest snapshot of GDP, which measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States, exceeded the 3 percent registered in 2003 and marked the strongest showing since the 4.5 percent gain of 1999.
“When you add it all up, you can’t help but be pleased with how the economy performed last year,” said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at LaSalle Bank. “The economy in 2004, in some cases, was like the Rodney Dangerfield economy. It didn’t get a lot of respect. We spent so much of last year worrying about high oil prices, deficits, employment … yet through it all we were able to turn out an outstanding year economically.”
Last night I was part of a small group which was honored to meet with Daniel Pipes at the Leslie Sacks Fine Art Gallery in Brentwood, California. Daniel gave us copies of his new book Militant Islam Reaches America, and spoke to the group.
Quoting from my handwritten notes (not expected to be verbatim):
The killings in Jersey City are a significant development. The murder of Theo van Gogh, as far as I can tell, was the first time a Westerner was murdered for his views on Islam. Just two months later the Armanious family is killed—apparently for their views on Islam—in Jersey City. This is a real escalation. The murder was of a whole family, and done in a ritualistic fashion. We are in general not paying enough attention to this. This fits a pattern. A pattern repeatedly of law enforcement or politicians not willing to deal with this. Because if you say it’s something else, then you don’t have to deal with it.
I was surprised to hear Daniel say this:
A small number of corrupt people are controlling our relationship with Saudi Arabia. Congress is irrelevant to our relations with the Saudis. U.S. interests regarding Saudi Arabia are not being served by those in charge of our relationship with that country.
Afterwards I asked him where I could read more about this. He referred me to this article on his website:
Where is the normally robust pursuit of U.S. interests? It is one thing when private companies bend over backwards to please the Saudis (Starbucks in Saudi Arabia does not show the female figure that normally graces its logo), but why does the U.S. government defer to the Kingdom in so many and unique ways?
“Oil” is likely to be the most common explanation proferred, but it does not hold. First, the U.S. government has never cringed before any other major oil supplier as it does to Saudi Arabia. Second, U.S.-Saudi ties have been premised since 1945, when a dying Franklin D. Roosevelt met an aging King Ibn Saud, on an enduring bargain in which Riyadh provides oil and gas to the United States and the world and Washington provides security to Saudi Arabia. Because this deal has even more importance for Saudis than Americans-survival versus energy supplies-oil cannot explain why the U.S. side has consistently acted as a supplicant.
Another possible factor is the proclivity of many Americans to strive to tolerate other people’s customs and religious beliefs, which in the Saudi case involves such matters as the total covering of women, public executions and the absence of any pretense of democratic rule. But the lack of reciprocity from the Saudi side, decade after decade, suggests that something else besides an open spirit is at work; no matter how liberal, no one can endure such a one-sided relationship for so long unless there is a payoff.
...The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, helpfully hinted at an answer in a statement boasting of his success cultivating powerful Americans. “If the reputation then builds that the Saudis take care of friends when they leave office”, Bandar once observed, “you’d be surprised how much better friends you have who are just coming into office.” This effective admission of bribery goes far to explain why the usual laws, regulations and rights do not apply when Saudi Arabia is involved. Hume Horan, himself a former U.S. ambassador to the Kingdom, is the great and noble exception to this pattern. He says this of his former colleagues:
There have been some people who really do go on the Saudi payroll, and they work as advisers and consultants. Prince Bandar is very good about massaging and promoting relationships like that. Money works wonders, and if you’ve got an awful lot of it, and a royal title-well, it’s amusing to see how some Americans liquefy in front of a foreign potentate, just because he’s called a prince.
Over-the-top support of Saudi interests by former ambassador James E. Akins (who has criticized Arab governments for not being tougher with Washington and despaired that Arabs did not withdraw their money from U.S. banks) has caused him to be described as occasionally appearing “more pro-Arab than the Arab officials.”
Several surveys of the post-government careers of ex-U.S. ambassadors to Riyadh all raise eyebrows. Steven Emerson characterizes their behavior as “visceral, overt self-interested sycophancy.” National Review finds that the number of them “who now push a pro-Saudi line is startling” and concludes that “no other posting pays such rich dividends once one has left it, provided one is willing to become a public and private advocate of Saudi interests.” A National Post analysis looked at five former ambassadors and found that “they have carved out a fine living insulting their own countrymen while shilling for one of the most corrupt regimes on Earth.” If you closed your eyes while listening to their apologies, “you would think the person talking held a Saudi passport.”
A Washington Post account gives some idea of the nature of the “rich dividends” reaped by former officials:
Americans who have worked with the Saudis in official capacities often remain connected to them when they leave public office, from former president George H.W. Bush, who has given speeches for cash in Saudi Arabia since leaving office, to many previous ambassadors and military officers stationed in the Kingdom. In some cases, these connections have been lucrative. Walter Cutler, who served two tours as the U.S. ambassador in Saudi Arabia, now runs Meridian International Center in Washington, an organization that promotes international understanding through education and exchanges. Saudi donors have been “very supportive” of the center, Cutler said. [Edward] Walker, the former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, is president of the Middle East Institute in Washington, which promotes understanding with the Arab world. Its board chairman is former senator Wyche Fowler, ambassador to Riyadh in the second Clinton administration. Saudi contributions covered $200,000 of the institute’s $1.5 million budget last year, Walker said.
Nor is this a new problem. Many ex-Washington hands have been paid off by the Kingdom, including not only a bevy of former ambassadors but also such figures as Spiro T. Agnew, Jimmy Carter, Clark Clifford, John B. Connally and William E. Simon.
The heart of the problem is an all-too-human one, then: Americans in positions of authority bend the rules and break with standard policy out of personal greed. In this light, Hunter’s report on the three main U.S. government goals in Saudi Arabia begins to make sense: strengthen the Saudi regime, cater to the Saud royal family, and facilitate U.S. exports. All of these fit the rubric of enhancing one’s own appeal to the Saudis. So, too, does Hunter’s comment that “the U.S. mission is so preoccupied with extraneous duties-entertainment packages for high-level visitors, liquor sales, and handling baggage for VIP visitors” that it has scant time to devote to the proper concerns of an embassy. Likewise, his long list of high-profile ex-officials who visited Saudi Arabia during his sojourn (Jimmy Carter, George McGovern, Colin Powell, Mack McLarty, Richard Murphy) and “who were feted and presented with medals and gifts at closed ceremonies with the Saudi monarch” also fits the pattern.
This culture of corruption in the Executive Branch renders it quite incapable of dealing with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the farsighted and disinterested manner that U.S. foreign policy requires. That leaves Congress with the responsibility to fix things. The massive pre-emptive bribing of American officials requires urgent attention. Steps need to be taken to ensure that the Saudi revolving-door syndrome documented here be made illegal. That might mean that for ten years or more after having extensive contacts with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, an official may not receive funds from that source. Only this way can U.S. citizens regain confidence in those of their officials who deal with one of the world’s more important states.
I asked Daniel about the Freedom House report on the publications, sold in mosques located on U.S. soil, calling for Muslims to “hate” and “kill” Americans. (See Daniel’s article on this subject, “Saudi Venom in U.S. Mosques,” here). He said:
This is difficult to deal with especially given our weak position vis-a-vis the Saudis.
Quoting from Daniel’s article on the Freedom House report:
The picture of Saudi activities in the United States is not a pretty one.
Freedom House’s Muslim volunteers went to 15 prominent mosques from New York to San Diego and collected more than 200 books and other publications disseminated by Saudi Arabia (some 90% in Arabic) in mosque libraries, publication racks, and bookstores.
What they found can only be described as horrifying. These writings – each and every one of them sponsored by the kingdom – espouse an anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, misogynist, jihadist, and supremacist outlook. For example, they:
- Reject Christianity as a valid faith: Any Muslim who believes “that churches are houses of God and that God is worshiped therein is an infidel.”
- Insist that Islamic law be applied: On a range of issues, from women (who must be veiled) to apostates from Islam (“should be killed”), the Saudi publications insist on full enforcement of Shariah in America.
- See non-Muslims as the enemy: “Be dissociated from the infidels, hate them for their religion, leave them, never rely on them for support, do not admire them, and always oppose them in every way according to Islamic law.”
- See America as hostile territory: “It is forbidden for a Muslim to become a citizen of a country governed by infidels because this is a means of acquiescing to their infidelity and accepting all their erroneous ways.”
- Prepare for war against America: “To be true Muslims, we must prepare and be ready for jihad in Allah’s way. It is the duty of the citizen and the government.”
The report’s authors correctly find that the publications under review “pose a grave threat to non-Muslims and to the Muslim community itself.” The materials instill a doctrine of religious hatred inimical to American culture and serve to produce new recruits to the enemy forces in the war on terrorism.
People, we have to get our act together on this stuff. There is no reason for us to be paralyzed because Islam is a religion. If part of their religion is to kill us, they have to change their religion, or get out of our country. This stuff is not that hard to figure out. We wouldn’t permit publication of hate speech directed towards Blacks or Jews, and we must not permit publication of hate speech directed towards Americans who are non-Muslims.
Private investors—public pension funds—college and university endowments—and institutional investors divested stocks in companies that did business in South Africa, helping to end apartheid:
Probably the most forceful pressures, both internal and external, eroding the barriers of apartheid were economic. International sanctions severely affected the South African economy, raising the cost of necessities, cutting investment, even forcing many American corporations to disinvest, for example, or, under the Sullivan Rules, to employ without discrimination.
Now it’s time to…
Last Saturday at a private home in Los Angeles, Frank Gaffney, Jr. spoke on this subject. Mr. Gaffney is President of the Center for Security Policy. From their web site:
Mr. Gaffney formerly acted as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy during the Reagan Administration, following four years of service as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy. Previously, he was a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee under the chairmanship of the late Senator John Tower, and a national security legislative aide to the late Senator Henry M. Jackson.
NATIONS THAT SUPPORT TERRORISTS
The U.S. State Department has designated specific nations as state sponsors of terrorism. Of these, the foremost offenders are:
From a 2001 U.S. State Dept report:
Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, and Sudan continue to be the seven governments that the US Secretary of State has designated as state sponsors of international terrorism. Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism in 2000. It provided increasing support to numerous terrorist groups, including the Lebanese Hizballah, HAMAS, and the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which seek to undermine the Middle East peace negotiations through the use of terrorism. Iraq continued to provide safehaven and support to a variety of Palestinian rejectionist groups, as well as bases, weapons, and protection to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian terrorist group that opposes the current Iranian regime. Syria continued to provide safehaven and support to several terrorist groups, some of which oppose the Middle East peace negotiations. Libya at the end of 2000 was attempting to mend its international image following its surrender in 1999 of two Libyan suspects for trial in the Pan Am 103 bombing. (In early 2001, one of the suspects was convicted of murder. The judges in the case found that he acted “in furtherance of the purposes of…Libyan Intelligence Services.”) Cuba continued to provide safehaven to several terrorists and US fugitives and maintained ties to state sponsors and Latin American insurgents. North Korea harbored several hijackers of a Japanese Airlines flight to North Korea in the 1970s and maintained links to other terrorist groups. Finally, Sudan continued to serve as a safehaven for members of al-Qaida, the Lebanese Hizballah, al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the PIJ, and HAMAS, but it has been engaged in a counterterrorism dialogue with the United States since mid-2000.
FREE MARKET COMPANIES UNWITTINGLY SUPPORT TERRORISTS
U.S. companies are not permitted to do business with these states; however, that restriction does not apply to foreign companies. Also, there is a loophole in U.S. law, via which some U.S. companies are still doing business with these states. Specifically, offshore subsidiaries of some U.S. companies are doing so.
Mr. Gaffney presented a report (available here) which noted:
...the economic life-blood of terrorist-sponsoring rogue regimes is being unwittingly provided by the pension systems and other investment portfolios of average Americans.
...Acccording to former Clinton Under Secretary of State Peter Tarnoff:
“A straight line links Iran’s oil income and its ability to sponsor terrorism, build weapons of mass destruction, and acquire sophisticated armaments. Any government or private company that helps Iran to expand its oil must accept that it is contributing to this menace.
The “dirty dozen” companies which are currently doing the most business with these states include:
From Mr. Gaffney’s report:
This report proves empirically that this nation’s largest and most prominent public pension systems tend to be heavily invested in global publicly traded companies that have business activities in terrorist-sponsoring states.
Together, these funds invest over $1 trillion in stock alone on behalf of this country’s fire fighters, police officers, teachers, state and local officials and other public employees, making this collection of funds one of the most powerful investment blocks in the world. Given this extraordinary financial influence and the important role played by public companies in the economies of terrorist-sponsoring states,the Center for Security Policy has reached a key finding: America’s 100 largest and most prominent pension systems have the power to help defeat terrorism.
YOU CAN HELP
Mr. Gaffney believes that we are at a tipping point in efforts to defund terrorists via the same methods that successfully combatted apartheid.
The movement is bipartisan, with the Left leading the effort to divest companies that trade with Sudan.
Here’s how you can help:
Download the first letter on this page of the Divest Terror web site and send it to your state legislature:
The most important target for your efforts is your state legislature, which holds the power to mandate legislatively the divestment of stock by your state’s public pension systems. As illustrated by our report entitled Terrorism Investments of the 50 States , most of America’s public pension systems invest in scores, or even hundreds, of companies that do business with terror-sponsoring states. Because these public funds invest billions of dollars in such companies, pension systems have enormous leverage. They also represent the quickest and most effective route to pressuring target companies to suspend their business operations in these countries until such time as state-sponsorship of terrorism there is ceased.
Download the second letter on this page of the Divest Terror web site and send it to your state legislature:
...we call on EVERY American to send THIS LETTER and demand from state legislators, governors and treasurers that YOUR state pass legislation to require state and local public pension funds to divest the stock of every company that does business in countries that sponsor terrorism.
To learn more, visit the Divest Terror web site.
All emphasis is in the original quoted material.
