Thank Obama

BLUF

The Middle East has long been annoyed that the West exists. The status quo of “Buy our oil and we will be kind to your face” has changed. No longer does the East see the West in that light. They see the West as the next errant servant who needs to step into line behind the East. I say they always have, but until now, had not the gall or courage to say it. Why do they have the courage to say it now? Because they see Obama as powerless, impotent, and completely ineffective and, as our leader, this is also how they see America and all Americans. Make no mistake, the East and the West are diametrically opposed. We are each other's antithesis.

BACKGROUND

Michael Hudson, a writer for al-Jazeera had wrote and published his views of Obama saying that the administration continues to fail to bridge the gap between the United States and muslims.  We can all agree that Obama’s performance has been “lackluster” and that Washington is fatigued and weighed down with inertia. Hudson noted that after the uninspiring speech on the downgrading of America’s debt status that Obama went to Dover Air Force Base to pay respects to the 30 Special Ops troops killed. Hudson stated that “this single loss avenges the death of Osama.”

Getting out of the ME in general with dignity is going to be problematic. In their history and culture anything less than a full and total smack-down is not a victory. Unless one side is subjugated and enslaved to the other there is no win. What does the West stand to lose by back-stepping out now? The loss of time, money, face and painful humiliation is what the West faces. Oh yes, we are still paying them for oil. In their eyes, we are retreating before winning. This means, in a zero sum view, that they see it as a win over the West.

Iraq, Obama is unable to decide whether to leave or stay while, every day, Iran is increasing its reach into the country. This, in spite of the intention that the U.S. would remain the barrier against the spread of Tehran

Al Jezeera says “The public is fed up with these costly involvements in Afghanistan and Iraq - but isn't it lucky that Washington can easily afford them thanks to our robust economy?  “ Yes, we need to STOP sending them our aid money and our oil money and develop ourselves now.

Upheavals in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria pose more perplexing problems and Obama chooses to lead from behind.

The advice of AJ is to get behind the ME and support pressure on Israel in a land for peace deal. But, that is exactly what they want and where Obama is putting the United States, behind the states of the Middle East.

Meanwhile, AJ journalist and bureau chief in Afghanistan was apprehended by Israeli authorities for being a Palestinian terrorist. The journalist, Samer Allawi, apprehended by as he attempted to leave the West Bank recently.

Meantime, Republican Rep. Ron Paul, a presidential candidate who has appeared on Al-Jazeera and, what they term, other propaganda outlets (Western Media).

Veterans from WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the First Gulf War, and now the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan all have vastly different backgrounds and experiences. They have some similarities in opinion, though. Stay out of the Middle East.

Some are saying the U.S. should become more isolationist, not completely, but more reserved in its outward dealings. Developing our own oil and gas resources would go a long way towards getting National Policy out of the Middle East. This would also stem the flow what is clearly the largest and fastest transfer of national wealth to other countries. This would also provide a huge boost to employment opportunities during the worst recession since the depression.

While veterans shake off their nightmares and move forward with their own lives, they undoubtedly look at the state of the Middle East and how Obama has gotten the country they love and served deeper into the sand, they fear for where things seem to be going.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/08/201181681017137387.html

http://host.madison.com/article_ef00e9c8-c8f3-11e0-831b-001cc4c03286.html

Somali Test Bombers

Do you recall last week when three Somalis tried to get a fake bomb into the terminal? I do. I thought we were busy savign Somalis in Somalia? Why are they trying to bomb us here? Ongoing investigation or not, call your elected perpetrators, er representatives and DEMAND that the US STOP sending aid dollars into Somalia. I am telling you, folks, nothing good is going to come out of helping Somalia. We went there under Clintonian efforts to save the people during a famine (sound familiar?) then Black Hawk Down happened. In 2007 two aid planes were shot down. Just recently it has been "revealed" that aid is being stolen, rerouted, and extorted from those who need it most. This is Somalia! This is how they say thank you!

Phoenix TSA Bomb ‘Probe’ Confounds

By John Guzzon
Modern Times Magazine
Aug. 17, 2011 — When a Somali immigrant was stopped by TSA agents last week at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport for allegedly carrying a fake bomb onto a plane, no one really seemed to notice.
Sure, it was reported by all the usual sources, but because it is an ongoing investigation, law enforcement — specifically the FBI — is not providing many details. The only three people that had anything to do with the ‘fake bomb’  — as far as the public knows — are in jail. The only information available for public consumption is a press release from the FBI announcing a complaint had been filed and the complaint itself.
The scant evidence — Sheriff’s Office mugshots and the complaint — leaves a wide range of options within which to speculate on what happened. But make no mistake, this might be one of the most important homeland security events since 2001.
But then again, it could be just someone carrying something that authorities thought was  bomb although it was an innocent mistake.
See what I mean?
Luwiza Laku Daman, the Somali woman who was taken into custody by TSA and Phoenix Police for trying to get through security with what looked like a bomb, told law enforcement she came to Phoenix from Des Moines, Iowa, for a wedding and that she was indirectly given a package from a Somali living in Phoenix. She was asked by a friend to take the package to a Somali man living in DesMoines. Virtually all of the other details of Daman’s initial story have changed, although in the complaint it is acknowledged that language barriers between law enforcement and the suspects made interrogations difficult.
But the inconsistencies don’t really seem to amount to much. Daman, who has been in the U.S. for about four months, initially said she was staying with one woman, but that person said she stayed with another woman. The details of how she got the package have changed — but just how she got it. One version of the story says “Jaffa” who eventually was discovered to be Shullu Gorado of West Phoenix gave it to another woman at her house. Another story says he gave it to same woman at another person’s home.
He was sending some “halva” a middle-eastern confection, to friends in Iowa. The halva, according to police, was the simulated explosive.
Another man, Asa Shani, says he found a cellular phone in Phoenix and was hoping Daman would take it to his brother in Des Moines. It was taped to the top of the box of halva. He even took investigators out to his car where they inspected the tape he used.
That, according to investigators, was the simulated detonator.
Now, that is the story the suspects told. As every red-blooded American knows from the cop shows, the stories might just be a tale, or it may be the truth.
The federal complain charges the three suspects with violation of Title 18 — which makes it illegal to transmit a fake bomb through security at an airport. Even if the simualted exposive device turns out to be some sugar and flour in a box with a phone taped on it. The thing didn’t even have any wires.
Special Agent Benjamin Oesterle wrote in the complaint that it was believed that the actions of Daman, Gorado and Shani could have been to probe airport security to find out how to exploit it and TSA’s response. But the fact is, if that is happening, who is financing them and where will they strike next? If some terror group is responsible for probing two airports thousands of miles apart within the same few days, isn’t that a pretty big threat?
But then again, it might just be a few security guards and cops getting a little too paranoid about a box of dessert and a cell phone.
Wierd.John Guzzon is editor of Modern Times Magazine

Critics Question U.S. Aid to China Amid Debt Woes

Sounds almost like they read my post

http://msmignoresit.blogspot.com/2011/08/we-pay-our-enemies.html

With America still drowning in debt, critics in and outside of Congress say it’s time to reassess U.S. foreign aid -- especially to China.

"We started looking at the contracts and it was rather amazing that the No. 1 recipient of these taxpayer dollars were Chinese-state owned corporations," said Sen. Jim Webb, D-Virginia, referring to $320 million dollars worth of U.S. government contracts let to China. "I think we can take a good hard look where we're giving foreign aid."

The U.S. provided $47 million in "development aid" to China in 2010, even though the nation is already a military and economic giant and the world's only other true superpower.

The aid helped rural Chinese get on the Internet and improve public infrastructure - including metro train service in Guangzhou. Much of the aid is also channeled through the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

"Here we are sending money to a nation that we are diametrically opposed to in a time when America is broke," said Andrea Lafferty, of the Traditional Values Coalition. "People are losing their homes and jobs, so why are we giving money to China?"

Continue article:

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/09/critics-question-us-aid-...

UN aid convoy looted in Mogadishu, "casualties" reported

Hillary is pleading? Wait a moment, I thought we already beat the Barbary Coast Pirates? Why are we pleading with a bunch of thugs? Casualties here means that the AID workers, most likely UN, were killed. The gear that the UN workers had is going to be used by Shabaab to commit further atrocities.


Johannesburg/Nairobi (dpa) - Several United Nations trucks carrying food aid were looted by gunmen on Friday in Mogadishu, as workers tried to hand out relief supplies to victims of Somalia's drought.
According to some reports, several people were killed as the attackers made off with the food.
'This incident highlights the challenges humanitarian aid agencies face in trying to deliver assistance in this difficult environment,' said Susannah Nicol with the UN's World Food Programme (WFP).
She added that 'casualties have been reported' in the incident, which took place at a camp for displaced people. The WFP was still investigating the incident.
Over 100,000 displaced Somalis have flocked to the capital in recent months, largely owing to the natural disaster striking the country, which comes atop 20 years of conflict.
The latest violent incident in the war-torn capital comes as the UN warned that nearly half of the Somali children fleeing the war and drought in their country and arriving in refugee camps in neighbouring Kenya are suffering from malnutrition.
'Reports of children dying along the way from Somalia or just as they arrive at the camps are disturbingly common,' said the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
The overall number of Somalis seeking help in Kenya was on the rise, with 1,500 new refugees arriving daily, compared to some 1,300 a day last month.
Dadaab camp in Kenya, one of the largest refugee encampments in the world, now houses more than 400,000 people, according to the UN, though it was built for just 90,000.
The United States aid agency, USAID, believes 29,000 children under five have died in the last three months in southern Somalia, according to recent testimony before Congress.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday made a rare direct appeal to the Islamist al-Shabaab militia in Somalia to give full and free access to relief workers trying to aid civilians hit by the worst African food crisis in decades.
The al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab bans most aid agencies from operating in the southern and central areas of the country it controls. The people fleeing the regions say those left behind are desperately in need of relief supplies.
Also impeding aid efforts was a 'critical shortage of funds,' according to the UN Refugee Agency, which said it was lacking about half of the money it needed to help refugees.
The UN has appealed for 2.4 billion dollars for relief work, with over 12.5 million people affected by the drought in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. Five regions of Somalia, including areas around the capital Mogadishu, are officially seeing famine conditions.

Punjab: Christian woman forced to convert and marry her kidnapper

Mariam Gill was abducted on her way home from the market. Her father and brother filed a complaint with police, which failed to intervene however because her kidnapper is “a respectable Muslim businessman”. A Muslim religious leader says the action was in accordance with Islamic law. Islamabad ...

Saturday, August 06, 2011

By Asia News  

 

Islamabad – Another young Christian woman in Pakistan has been abducted and forced to convert to Islam and marry her kidnapper. Despite a formal complaint, police did not intervene because the author of the crime is a “respectable businessman”. Local Muslim religious authorities also claim that the woman’s conversion was legal. However, her case however is similar to that of Farah Hatim (see Jibran Khan, “The drama of Farah Hatim, common to many women in Pakistan,” in AsiaNews 25 July 2011) and is indicative of a climate of impunity for people who abuse Christian women. The bishop of Islamabad warns that the “the cases of forced conversion are rising at an alarming rate”.

Mariam is a young Christian woman from Kahota, a town some 20 kilometres from Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad. She was abducted on Wednesday by one Muhammad Junaid, a local Muslim, who forcibly converted her to Islam and married her.

The young woman’s father, Munir Gill, said that Junaid is an “important businessman”. He had “his eyes on my daughter and asked her for marriage.” He complained to the man’s fathers “without results”.

“Mariam went to the market on Wednesday, but never returned,” said her brother Sohail Gill. “We searched for her everywhere. Some people in the market told us that they saw Muhammad Junaid forcefully taking Mariam from the market. We went to the police to register a case, but they delayed the application and showed no interest in the matter.”

Yesterday, a local Muslim religious leader, Maulana Hafeez Aziz, “converted Mariam to Islam and celebrated her marriage with Muhammad Junaid”.

“Muhammad Junaid is a respectable Muslim businessman,” said Amir Mirza, a police officer in Kahota. “The young woman converted and married him of ‘her own free will’.

For Maulana Hafeez Aziz, “Muhammad Junaid is a true follower of Prophet Muhammad. He has fulfilled Sharia. Converting a non-Muslim is a pious act. Only a true Muslim can do that.”

Yesterday, Mariam Gill was interrogated by local officials. She told them that she was abducted and forced to convert and that she has no intention of abandoning Christianity.

At the end of the meeting, they decided to return the young woman to her family, urging the two sides to reach an agreement. However, Muhammad Junaid issued threats, saying that if he did not get the young woman back, there would be “terrible consequences” to pay.

Contacted by AsiaNews, the bishop of Islamabad Rufin Anthony described the case as “a dreadful incident”. In his view, “the cases of forced conversion are rising at an alarming rate. The matter needs to be checked, kidnapping of Christian girls is becoming a common practice in Punjab. Law enforcement agencies need to enforce the law.”

Young Christian women are not alone. Many young Hindu women have been forced to flee across the border into India in the face of government and police indifference.

“It is time to take concrete action to guarantee the safety of minorities in Pakistan,” the prelate said.

Somalia Famine Fight

US Foreign Aid