Let's Be Clear --- Saudi Arabia IS The Enemy !

Saudi Arabia: Friend Or Foe?

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Wednesday, September 26, 2007 4:20 PM PT

War On Terror: A new movie called "The Kingdom" shows Saudis fighting terrorism alongside FBI agents. That's certainly what we'd like to see. But like the flick, it's pure fiction.

There's new evidence the Saudis aren't cooperating in our battle to eradicate terrorists or those who bankroll them. Their negligence is shocking even to cynics.

According to the Treasury Department's top anti-terror official, the kingdom has not prosecuted a single person named by the U.S. or the United Nations as a terror financier. Asked by ABC News how many Saudis have been charged with funding terror since 9/11, Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey said, "There have not been any." Not one? "No," he asserted.

In a rare public rebuke of our alleged war ally, Levey pointed out that the Saudi government has failed to go after even men like Yasin al-Qadi, a wealthy Saudi businessman whom both the U.S. and U.N. blacklisted as an al-Qaida financier one month after the 9/11 attacks.

Al-Qadi remains free, still a prominent figure in the kingdom. "And he remains designated to the United Nations for his material support to al-Qaida," Levey fumed. "When the evidence is clear that these individuals have funded terrorist organizations and knowingly done so, then that should be prosecuted and treated as real terrorism."

In another example, a top Saudi charity official whom U.S. prosecutors accused of funneling funds to al-Qaida fighters in Chechnya is still at large.

After the Al-Haramain Foundation was shut down as an al-Qaida front, the official left its U.S. branch in Portland, Ore., and returned to Saudi Arabia. He now works for the city of Riyadh.

The Saudis were supposed to create a commission to police such charities. We're still waiting. Meanwhile, Saudi charities continue to pump millions into the global jihad.

U.S. officials say al-Qaida's resurgence is due in part to a renewed flow of money from the kingdom to operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Riyadh continues to look the other way as cash is sent from mosques and charities to support jihadists and Sunni insurgents next door in Iraq.

It's official Saudi policy, moreover, to ignore the flow of Saudi fighters joining the jihad in Iraq. Lost in all the saber-rattling over Iran is the inconvenient fact that the majority of suicide bombers in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia.

Administration officials concede Saudi's role in Iraq has grown "counterproductive," one of many euphemisms used to avoid alienating the Saudi royal family.

Under other circumstances, such behavior might be called acts of war. After all, this is the old home of Enemy No. 1, Osama bin Laden, and 15 of the hijackers he ordered to attack us.

It's highly likely that some of the Saudi nationals killing our troops in Iraq may be recycled al-Qaida terrorists.

Last December, we agreed to release into the custody of Saudi authorities 29 Saudi killers from Gitmo. What did they do with them? Jail them? Work them over for information about new terror plots or leads on other terrorists?

No, Saudi police freed all 29 of them.

That now makes 53 Gitmo terrorists we've returned to Saudi Arabia only to watch them go free. Some have rejoined the battlefield after being released. The Saudi government wants the remaining Saudis held at Gitmo returned. No doubt all of them will be set loose too.

Saudi Arabia's promise to crack down on terrorists is as empty as its vow to clean up its hateful textbooks calling for jihad against infidels.

With friends like the Saudis, who needs enemies?

Columbia University Was Duped By Iran

Columbia's Arrogant, Ignorant Decision

By Ben Shapiro
Wednesday, September 26, 2007

"The ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas," Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in Abrams v. U.S. (1919). "The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market."

Holmes' words mirror the purported philosophy of Columbia University's administration, which allowed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on its campus this week. "If Hitler were in the United States and wanted a platform from which to speak, he would have plenty of platforms to speak in the United States," stated John Coatsworth, dean of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. "If he were willing to engage in debate and a discussion to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him."

Why would Columbia University open its arms to a man who is by all accounts responsible for the murder of Americans, a man who proclaims lust for another Holocaust, a man who sees himself as the advance guard for the Islamic messianic age? Because, NPR's Juan Williams explained on Hugh Hewitt's radio show, Ahmadinejad had to face the scrutiny of Columbia students -- and that scrutiny, Williams opined, undercut Ahmadinejad's credibility. "I think that the more exposure that this guy gets, the less people will put any credibility, any stock in what he has to say. Let the light shine, and let people see him for what he is," said Williams.

The Holmes/Columbia/Williams argument is an attractive one. It is also shockingly naive. There are some messages that ought not be given exposure in America -- messages issued by terror-sponsoring foreign governmental officials, directed toward undermining American interests.

Ideas have consequences, as Richard M. Weaver memorably put it. Columbia's legitimization of Ahmadinejad -- and by extension, his ideas -- allowed Ahmadinejad to posture as a moderate for the consumption of the international community while simultaneously demonstrating America's fecklessness to the Islamic world.

Americans largely brushed off Ahmadinejad's message -- here Holmes' principle worked. But the larger audience for Ahmadinejad's speech had no knowledge of the Holmesian quest for truth. The real audience for Ahmadinejad's speech was the Islamofascist and the Islamofascist-appeasing international community, which will see Ahmadinejad's speech the same way it saw Yasser Arafat's 1974 United Nations General Assembly address -- as the legitimization of a terrorist on the world stage.

Ahmadinejad knew his audience -- the millions who shun liberty and embrace darkness. Those millions are not involved in Holmes' marketplace of ideas. There is a difference between pandering to the lowest common denominator and engaging in fruitful debate. Columbia refused to recognize that difference. Ahmadinejad may have seemed the fool to American eyes, but he looked like a hero to his true audience.

"I must not measure the speech of a statesman to his people by the impression which it leaves in a university professor, but by the effect it exerts on the people," Hitler wrote in volume two of "Mein Kampf" in 1927.

Hitler's grasp of public relations was certainly more sophisticated than that of the Columbia administration. So is Ahmadinejad's. The day before Ahmadinejad's Columbia speech, he spoke with the leaders of the terrorist group Hamas, reaffirming his support for their agenda. Speaking to Columbia students masked Ahmadinejad's true agenda -- appealing to his Islamofascist base. Ahmadinejad was tacitly scoffing at the foolish, blustering Americans who threaten war while allowing him free rein at one of their most prestigious centers of learning. Responsibility for Ahmadinejad's PR coup lies with the Columbia administration -- a group of people so self-centered that they believe their repudiation of Ahmadinejad's political program is the final word.

Ben Shapiro is a regular guest on dozens of radio shows around the United States and Canada and author of Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth.

Copyright © 2006 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

If You Think the U.N. Has Merit --- You Just Haven't Been Paying Attention!

Close The U.N.

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Monday, September 24, 2007 4:20 PM PT

The World Stage: Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, sponsors terrorism and colludes in the murder of American troops. So why is he given the honor of addressing the United Nations on U.S. soil?

To us, the answer is clear. The U.N. is as corrupt, brutal and morally compromised as Ahmadinejad himself. In its many affronts to civilization and decency, the U.N. has long since outlived its usefulness and reason for being. Time to shut it down.

Sounds harsh, we know. Isn't it better, you ask, to have a place where people can peaceably gather and talk out their problems?

Sad as it is to say, the answer is no. For the U.N. has been hijacked by a rather diverse group of kleptocrats, dictators and fanatics who have successfully used it to their own rather nefarious ends.

An old proposal, put forward by Sen. John McCain a while back, would scrap the U.N. and replace it with a "league of democracies." Great idea. Let that be the starting point for reform talks. Given the U.N.'s abysmal record and its epic depravity, there is no choice. Consider, for example:

• The U.N.'s much-lauded blue-helmeted "peacekeepers" have been repeatedly cited for such crimes as murder, rape, child prostitution and bribery. In the Congo alone, U.N. troops were accused of at least 150 "major human rights violations," the U.N. itself says.

• The U.N. stood by as hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were killed in Rwanda's genocidal civil war in 1994, did nothing as thousands of Muslims were slaughtered at Srebrenica in 1995, and to this day twiddles its thumbs as Janjaweed terrorists commit genocide in the Sudan. It's not a record to be proud of.

• The U.N. has officially reprimanded tiny Israel more than any other nation — including China and the Soviet Union, the two greatest violators of human rights during the 20th century. It has officially equated Zionism with racism, an obvious anti-Semitic policy.

• The U.N. watched as Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein systematically murdered his foes and terrorized Iraqis. When sanctions on Iraq were finally put in place after the first Gulf War, U.N. officials, including then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan's chief aide, lined their pockets in the multibillion-dollar oil-for-food scandal.

• Laughably, the U.N. has given Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe (see opinion, below) and North Korea's Kim Jong Il coveted spots on the boards of human rights and development organizations. All are major human rights violators.

We could go on for literally pages with this stuff. It would be a cosmic joke, if not for the fact that the U.N.'s inactions have resulted in the deaths of millions of people. And we support it with our tax dollars, thinking somehow the billions we spend will spare us the dictators' wrath and criticisms. It doesn't. It only brings contempt.

The U.N. has a long history of letting dictators make their case before the world — in this, Ahmadinejad joins Yasser Arafat, Uganda's Idi Amin, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Cuba's Fidel Castro and a host of other mass murders and tyrants who have addressed the U.N. General Assembly. Nor will Ahmadinejad be the last.

The U.S. supports the U.N. to the tune of $5 billion a year, but gets little — if anything — from its investment. Last year, Freedom House noted that just 89 of the U.N.'s 154 members are "free."

Some at the U.N. talk of moving its headquarters from New York. Fine. Let it go. Once it does, the U.N. will likely be defunded and close. The world — and U.S. taxpayers — will be better off for it. Get U.S. out now!

Islamic Terrorists Have Invaded the U.S.

The Islamist Fifth Column In America

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Friday, September 21, 2007 4:20 PM PT

Homeland Security: We've warned for years that an Islamist underground exists in this country, secretly working to take over the U.S. Now the mainstream media is waking up to the threat.

Yes, theirs is an ambitious plan. But the enemy lurking within is assiduous, patient and well-organized. We are only now starting to see its tentacles, thanks to a landmark federal terror-financing case under way in Dallas.

News about the secret Islamist plot against the U.S. is starting to trickle out from the few media covering the trial against the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Muslim charity in America.

It hasn't made the politically correct evening news yet. But the Associated Press has dared to quote from the chilling courtroom exhibits, and now the Dallas Morning News has weighed in with a lengthy feature story.

"Amid the mountain of evidence released in the trial, the most provocative has turned out to be a handful of previously classified evidence detailing Islamist extremists' ambitious plans for a U.S. takeover," the newspaper said.

"Terrorism researchers say the memos and audiotapes are proof that extremists have long sought to replace the Constitution with Sharia, or Islamic law."

One secret document outlines an anti-American cabal by the major Muslim groups in America — all of which are considered "mainstream" and "moderate" by the media and many pols, but in fact are U.S. franchises of the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihadist movement that gave rise to Hamas and al-Qaida.

The 1991 strategy paper for the Brotherhood, often referred to as the Ikhwan in Arabic, found in the Virginia home of an unindicted co-conspirator in the case, describes the group's long-term goal of destroying the U.S. system "from within" by using its freedoms and political processes against it.

"The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions," it states.

This process, it adds, requires a "mastery of the art of 'coalitions,' the art of 'absorption' and the principles of 'cooperation.' " In other words, deception.

Unindicted co-conspirators in the case include groups that make up the very core of the Muslim establishment in America, groups that have been invited into the halls of power in Washington.

The terror-supporting, anti-American Islamist network in the U.S. that conspires against its host still exists. With the possible exception of the Holy Land Foundation, it has not been dismantled.

These previously classified documents produced in the case are smoking-gun proof that there are traitors in our midst.

We are at war with Islamic terrorists and extremists. Those who sympathize with them must be exposed just as we exposed those American agents who sympathized with the Nazis during WWII.

Other than the religious aspect, there is little difference now vs. then. The First Amendment may protect freedom of religion, but it does not protect sedition. The U.S. government must draw the line there in dealing with Islamism in America.

The World's Most Dispicable Man

The U.S. Senate voted to condemn MoveOn.org ad ... who voted for and who voted against? The following U.S. Senators voted against condemning the salacious MoveOn.org ad published on September 10 in the New York Times and titled “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?”

Nay Votes – 25:

Akaka (D-HI), Bingaman (D-NM), Boxer (D-CA), Brown (D-OH), Byrd (D-WV), Clinton (D-NY), Dodd (D-CT), Durbin (D-IL), Feingold (D-WI), Harkin (D-IA), Inouye (D-HI), Kennedy (D-MA), Kerry (D-MA), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Levin (D-MI), Menendez (D-NJ), Murray (D-WA), Reed (D-RI), Reid (D-NV), Rockefeller (D-WV), Sanders (I-VT), Schumer (D-NY), Stabenow (D-MI), Whitehouse (D-RI), Wyden (D-OR). Obama (D-IL did not vote but was in Washington D.C. at the time of the vote)

The failure of the aforementioned Senators to condemn the MoveOn.org ad is so unspeakably despicable and renders each of them as unpatriotic and hypocritical as they are treasonous. Worse, the vote indicates that each of the aforementioned Senators is nothing more than a hollow puppet of the world’s most despicable man. See below:

George Soros: The Man, The Mind And The Money Behind MoveOn

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Thursday, September 20, 2007 4:20 PM PT

The Left: The smear ad published against Gen. Petraeus has drawn attention to its sponsor, MoveOn.org. But the fingerprints of the group's chief financial backer, George Soros, were all over it. Who is this man and what is he up to?

To read Soros' own spun story, he's a Jewish survivor of Nazi-occupied Hungary who pulled himself up by his bootstraps, studied economics in England, became a U.S. citizen in 1961 and made a multibillion-dollar fortune as a financier who pioneered hedge funds.

Over the years, Soros has written books giving his philosophical take on global affairs and acquired a reputation as something of a "stateless statesman." He calls himself a philanthropist and has given away $5 billion of his now $8.5 billion fortune through his principal vehicle, the Open Society Institute. The institute, in turn, has passed cash on to far more radical groups, such as MoveOn.org.

Financier George Soros, 77, with a fortune estimated at $8.5 billion, uses some of it to fund radical groups like MoveOn.org.

But Soros is no hands-off donor. According to the Open Society Institute's Web site: "Despite the breadth of his endeavors, Soros is personally involved in planning and implementing many of the foundation network's projects."

Soros says he gives away about $400 million annually.

It's an admirable picture, but "philanthropy" may be the wrong word. Unlike, say, Bill Gates, who really does put the bulk of his charity into helping the world's poor through medical services, Soros tends to fund pressure groups and foundations he misleadingly characterizes as promoting "civil society" and "democracy."

The image gives him moral cover to manipulate democracies whose voter verdicts he opposes.

Tearing Down America

The first groups Soros supported back in the 1980s did play a role in undercutting the rickety communist regimes of Eastern Europe. But his motives seemed less than idealistic. All Soros groups tend to tear down tyrannies rather than build up democracies.

And since 2003, tearing down what he views as the "fascist" tyranny of the United States, as he has put it, is "the central focus of my life."

Through networks of nongovernmental organizations, Soros intends to ruin the presidency of George W. Bush "by any legal means necessary" and knock America off its global pedestal. "His view of America is so negative," says Sen. Joe Lieberman, who, like Gen. David Petraeus, has been a target of Soros' electoral "philanthropy." "The places he's put his money are . . . so destructive that it unsettles me." Soros' aim seems to be to make the U.S. just another client state easily controlled by the United Nations and other one-world groups where he has lots of friends.

Best known among these groups is MoveOn.org, a previously small fringe-left group to which Soros has given $5 million since 2004. Bulked up by cash, the group now uses professional public relations tactics to undercut the Iraq War effort, with its latest a full-page New York Times ad that branded Gen. Petraeus "General Betray Us."

It ran Sept. 10 in the New York Times, the same day Petraeus delivered his progress report on the surge in Iraq.

MoveOn.org previously put out ads depicting Bush as a Nazi, something that certainly echoes Soros' sentiment.

"We have to go through a certain de-Nazification process," he told this year's Davos conference in Switzerland.

Moving On To The Far Left

MoveOn.org was also pivotal in getting Howard Dean elected chairman of the Democratic Party in a bid to push the party to the far left.

Soros acolyte Arianna Huffington is on record as advocating that outcome. Berating Democrats for their electoral losses in 2004, she wrote: "Have these people learned nothing from 2000, 2002 and 2004? How many more concession speeches do they have to give — from 'the center' — before they realize it's not a very fruitful place?"

Soros also has financed spin outfits such as Media Matters that specialize in providing distorted conservative political statements as grist for leftist politicians and media.

Media Matters (and MoveOn.org) succeeded last year in denying incumbent Lieberman the Democratic nomination for Senate in Connecticut and effectively drove the moderate out of his own party. Net result: Fewer Democrats, including today's crop running for office, are willing to challenge any Soros-financed pressure group.

Money & Elections

Soros' efforts go beyond spin. He has also bankrolled groups involved in the manipulation of elections, an activity that has increased since his money came into the picture. Two groups — Americans Coming Together and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — were sanctioned recently by the Federal Election Commission for fraud.

Soros pledged $10 million to ACT, which has since been fined $775,000 for illegally funneling $70 million set aside for voter registrations to Democratic candidates.

He also gave at least $150,000 to ACORN, the left-wing group best known for pushing minimum-wage hikes, marching for illegal-immigrant amnesty and harassing Wal-Mart. ACORN has been accused of voter fraud in 13 states since 2004 and was convicted of falsifying signatures in a voter registration drive last July, drawing a fine of $25,000 in Washington state.

Soros says he has ended funding to voter-drive organizations, but he still heads a secretive rich-man's club called "Democracy Alliance" that has doled out $20 million to activist groups like ACORN.

It's also noteworthy that the Soros-funded MoveOn.org advocates "paper-trail" electronic voting in the U.S., the same kind used in Venezuela, where allegations of electronic fraud and ballot secrecy violations have ended confidence in the system and sealed Chavez's dictatorship.

Terrorist-Friendly Groups

Soros additionally finances groups best described as helpful to terrorists. Since 1998, he has given the American Civil Liberties Union $5 million to empower criminals, including lawsuits on behalf of terrorists' "civil rights."

Soros' Open Society Institute gave $20,000 for the legal defense of radical attorney Lynne Stewart. She was convicted in 2002 of abetting jailed terrorists after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Soros is also involved in the financing of a 9/11 memorial at ground zero, the World Trade Center Memorial Cultural Complex — which critics say blames the U.S. for 9/11.

"Bush says (the terrorists) hate us for what we are, not what we do, and I think that's false," Soros told an audience at UC Berkeley last year.

He has handed $3.1 million to the left-wing Tides Foundation, which funds organizations, such as the Sea Shepherds, Earth First! and the Ruckus Society, that have condoned or engaged in eco-terrorism.

On the international front, Soros-backed groups have undercut important U.S. allies, including Israel and Colombia, which have aligned with the U.S. rather than the U.N.

Both see their sovereignty as non-negotiable, view victory over their enemies as an absolute good and refuse to become failed states — all anathema to the thinking of Soros. His Human Rights Watch repeatedly attempts to portray both nations as pariah states.

One World Government

Soros additionally finances groups supporting the interests of one-world government. While he has criticized the United Nations occasionally, he favors U.N. dominance in world affairs, sees the European Union as a model for "open society" and has called for a global central bank.

Anyone who doesn't agree with this vision, or who doesn't fit cozily into his multilateral model, gets a visit from Soros-backed groups.

MoveOn.org, for example, led the charge to keep John Bolton out of a permanent seat in the U.N., and Bankwatch piled on to topple Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank.

In fact, pick any cause that seeks to weaken the U.S. and it's hard not to find Soros' name on its list of financial backers. Most of these causes are financed by relatively small amounts, but that's all that's needed to make trouble.

And without the cash, countless bad ideas would have no presence in American political debate at all.

What keeps these groups on cue, and Democrats in line, is the prospect that any funding from Soros can be stepped up to massive levels. It's probably no coincidence that Soros was a big backer of campaign finance reforms that have allowed nominally nonpartisan groups like MoveOn.org to strike with the kinds of tactics they are using.

Soros usually doesn't offer up or endorse specific candidates for office. His chief aim seems to be tearing down Bush, driving the Democrats to the far left and enforcing party discipline through fear. In fact, he seems to like keeping Democrats guessing whether or not he's offended.

The strategy seems to be working. No Democrat had the courage to cross MoveOn.org after its libelous Petraeus ad. On Thursday, a symbolic vote in Congress censuring MoveOn.org for the Petraeus ad passed, but with the notable absence of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Election looming, neither wants to cross Soros' MoveOn.org.

Soros himself does not believe in victory in Iraq and wants to keep America from achieving it.

"The war on terror cannot be won," he has said.

This guy is really bad news.

We're at War with Iran --- We're Just Not Fighting !

About The Other Surge — Iran In Iraq

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Tuesday, September 11, 2007 4:20 PM PT

Mideast: Gen. Petraeus has spoken this week not only of the progress America has made in Iraq but also the progress Iran has made there. Those who worry that we might go to war with Iran forget we're already in one.

It hasn't gotten as much media play as the confrontation between Petraeus and the surrender caucus of the Democratic Party. But in his testimony, America's commander in Iraq included evidence that one impediment to progress has been the actions of an Iran publicly willing to fill the power vacuum that would be left by the precipitate American withdrawal Democrats seek.

Petraeus warned that Tehran is trying to use its Iranian Revolutionary Guard as "Hezbollah-like" militia in Iraq. He also noted that a "senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative" is among those who've been captured by U.S. forces in Iraq.

In March, coalition forces captured Ali Mussa Daqduq, a Hezbollah explosives expert, near Basra. A 24-year veteran of Hezbollah — the Iranian creation that sparked a short war with Israel and is now trying to topple Lebanon's democracy — Daqduq had commanded a special operations unit and headed Hezbollah boss Hassan Nasrallah's security detail. In May 2006, he traveled to Tehran to meet with senior Quds Force officials and observe members of the special groups in training.

Petraeus testified that the Iranian Quds Force had been connected to kidnappings of Iraqi officials, rocket attacks on civilian areas and the deaths of American soldiers, killed by high-tech Iranian improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

"It is increasingly apparent to both coalition and Iraqi leaders that Iran, through the use of the Quds Force, seeks to turn the Iraqi special groups into a Hezbollah-like force to serve its interests and fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq," Petraeus said.

Attacks on American-led forces using Iranian-supplied explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) reached a new high in July, according to the No. 2 commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno. EFPs fire a semi-molten copper slug that can penetrate the armor on a Humvee.

The devices were used to carry out 99 attacks on American-led forces in July. Of the 69 coalition troops killed that month, 23 died as a result of encountering EFPs. "I think it is because the Iranians are surging support to the special groups," Odierno said, referring to the American name for Iran-backed cells in Iraq.

Odierno reports that Iranians have provided Shiite militia groups with 107-millimeter rockets and the launchers for firing them, as well as 122-millimeter mortars. "Over the last three to four months, it has picked up in terms of equipment, training and dollars," he says.

U.S. forces recently thwarted an attack at a military base used by forces from the Third Infantry Division. Fifty launchers equipped with rockets were discovered within range of the facility. Serial numbers taken from the launchers indicated they were made in Iran.

In July, Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner said Iran was directly involved in a Jan. 20 attack on the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala. Five U.S. soldiers were killed — four of them murdered in cold blood after being kidnapped by Iranian-backed radicals wearing American-style uniforms and carrying forged identity cards.

According to the June 4 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology, an American reconnaissance satellite over Iran found a mock-up of the Karbala facility that apparently had been used to train for the attack.

Bergner revealed that Iran's puppet, Hezbollah, is involved in organizing and training Iraqi jihadists in these special groups. He added that the Quds Force was spending up to $3 million a month to bring groups of up to 60 Iraqi insurgents at a time to three training facilities near Tehran.

You'd think that an aspiring nuclear power led by a megalomaniac like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who wants to nuke Israel and is actively killing Americans would be of concern even to the Democrats who quizzed Petraeus at this week's hearings. But they're more interested in creating a power vacuum that Iran is quite willing to fill.

Islam Will Again Attack the USA

Hubris Prevails In The Eye Of 9/11 Hurricane

By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
September 07, 2007 4:30 PM PT

Another anniversary of 9/11 is near. It's been nearly six long years since a catastrophic attack on our shores, and we've understandably turned to infighting and second-guessing — about everything from Guantanamo to wiretaps.

But this six-year calm, unfortunately, has allowed some Americans to believe that "our war on terror" remedy is worse than the original Islamic terrorist disease.

We see this self-recrimination reflected in our current Hollywood fare, which dwells on the evil of American interventions overseas, largely ignoring the courage of our soldiers or the atrocities committed by jihadists. Our tell-all best-sellers, endless lawsuits and congressional investigations have deflected our 9/11-era furor away from the terrorists to ourselves.

All this tail-chasing comes only with the illusory thinking that the present lull is the same as perpetual peace. Have we forgotten that experts still insist that another strike will come, carried out by those already here or shortly to enter the United States?

Look back at jihadist near-misses in this country since 9/11 — along with a disturbing recent Pew poll that found one in four younger Muslim-Americans approve, at least in certain circumstances, of suicide bombing to "defend Islam" — and the dire predictions seem plausible.

Recall the jihadists arrested in Albany and near Buffalo, N.Y., or the plot to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey. Past foiled targets included the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Brooklyn Bridge, JFK Airport in New York and the New York Stock Exchange.

Some angry loners — mouthing jihadist propaganda or anti-American slogans — simply act on their own to try to kill Americans. Iranian-American college student Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar hit several University of North Carolina classmates with his car in March 2006.

Last summer, Omeed Aziz Popal was arrested for a hit-and-run rampage in San Francisco. And Naveed Afzal Haq is charged with shooting several women last summer at a Jewish center in Seattle.

Recall also the American residents and citizens with direct connections to al-Qaida's terrorism network.

American Jose Padilla (aka Abdullah al-Muhajir) was just convicted by a jury of terrorist conspiracy. Khalid Abu-al-Dahab, a key al-Qaida recruiter, operated out of California's Silicon Valley. "Sheik" Omar Abdel Rahman advised Egyptian jihadists from his American jail cell — after his conviction for helping plan the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. U.S. visitor and asylum-seeker Ramzi Yousef was convicted of the same crime. His partner, the indicted U.S. citizen Abdul Rahman Yasin, fled to prewar Iraq.

Another American, Adam Gadahn, regularly narrates al-Qaida communiques. Khalid Sheik Mohammed — mastermind of the 9/11 mass murder and the Daniel Pearl decapitation — studied in North Carolina for a number of years. Egyptian-American and U.S. Army veteran Ali Mohamed helped plan the destruction of American embassies in East Africa. The convicted "20th hijacker," Zacarias Moussaoui, attended flight school in Oklahoma.

Two things seem clear here: (1) There have been, and are now, plenty of Islamic terrorists and their helpers in the U.S., and (2) we are dangerously shortsighted about the ongoing threat they pose.

Meanwhile, Islamic-American organizations and sympathetic civil-liberties associations file lawsuits about supposed American security excesses and illiberal vigilance.

Last fall, several imams were taken off a flight from Minneapolis when their erratic behavior scared fellow passengers. After the incident, one of the "flying imams," Arizonan Omar Shahin, called for boycotts of the involved airline and legislation to stop supposed anti-Muslim profiling.

But the brazen Shahin, it turns out, is more than just a bullied Islamic scholar; he has also helped raise funds for an organization that the U.S. government has tied to Hamas.

Our experts are too often in denial or disarray. Former White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clark, former CIA operative Michael Scheuer and former CIA director George Tenet now make widely publicized strident attacks on ongoing efforts to stop terrorists and level charges against others — and each other. They rarely talk with any humility, much less apprise us of what we can learn from their own failures to stop the 9/11 jihadists during their long tenures.

In short, six years of quiet at home since 9/11 have fooled some into thinking that terrorists pose little danger here — or that we may be doing far too much rather than too little to stop such killers. No matter that this past week a jihadist plot to destroy U.S. facilities in Germany was thwarted.

Others make the mistake of endlessly re-fighting the past six years — Who let al-Qaida grow? Who "lost" Osama bin Laden? Who fouled up postwar Iraq? — instead of concentrating on the storm ahead.

Before 2001, the excuse for American complacence and infighting was naivete. But what will be the reason for the next successful strike against us by the jihadists? More naivete — or is it simple hubris?

Copyright 2007 Creators Syndicate, Inc

Winning the Full War and Not Just the Iraq Skirmish

The Missing Option in Our National Security Debate

by Newt Gingrich (more by this author)

Posted 09/04/2007 ET

Next Monday, I will give a speech at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) marking six years since 9/11 and outlining the larger war we should have been waging in order to defeat our terrorist enemies on a worldwide basis.

My speech at AEI is designed to make the case for a larger and more productive dialogue about what we need to accomplish in the Real War we're engaged in -- not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but also in dealing with our enemies on a larger strategic scale, including Iran, Syria, al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and the worldwide forces of terrorism that want to destroy our civilization and eliminate our freedoms.

We will webcast the speech beginning next Monday evening, September 10, and also post the text of it online at Newt.org and AmericanSolutions.com.

The reason I am speaking out is simple: We need a war-winning option, and today we do not have such an option.

Let me explain.

What's Missing in Our National Debate About 'The War'

Next week will be the sixth anniversary of the enemy attack on the United States on 9/11. Six years ago, more than 3,000 innocent civilians were murdered by an evil barbaric force, an irreconcilable wing of Islam that seeks to repress women, eliminate religious freedom and punish personal liberty.

For six years, we have been at war on a worldwide basis with a movement funded largely by Saudi Arabian and Iranian sources.

For six years, we have failed to confront the scale of our enemy, the direct threat of nuclear and biological weapons if possessed by that enemy, and the scale and nature of the strategy needed to win the larger war with that enemy.

Next week, Gen. David Petraeus, who did a brilliant job in his two previous tours of Iraq and is the best counterinsurgency Army general America has, will issue his report on how the "surge" is working in Iraq.

And yet next week, our elites will continue to hide in the smaller argument about Iraq and avoid the larger argument about the global war.

When the analysis and debate on that report begins, there will be an important option missing.

The 'Stay the Course' Camp Versus the 'Lose Quickly' Camp

The debate over the Petraeus Report will rapidly be divided into two predictable camps.

There will be a "stay the course" camp advocating doing more of what we are already doing, hanging on and hoping for the best. This will be led by President Bush and echoed by his most loyal supporters in the Republican Party.

There will be a "let's lose quickly to end the American casualties" camp that will reject the Petraeus Report. This camp will note that we have failed to achieve a promised land of peace and stability in Iraq, and therefore, we should legislate defeat in the United States Congress rather than allow Gen. Petraeus to continue his efforts to engage Iraq to help defeat the enemy.

The Missing Option: A War-Winning Strategy

What will be missing in this debate is a third choice: "a war-winning strategy."

The great tragedy of the six years since 9/11 is that we have not had a national debate about the scale of our opponents, the depth of their hatred for our way of life and the very real threat that they will acquire nuclear and biological weapons. With the former, they may kill hundreds of thousands of Americans in our cities. With the latter, millions of Americans could die in a deliberate attack.

There is no debate about the potential for a second holocaust in which millions die if Israel is overwhelmed with nuclear weapons or if the missiles Hezbollah fires from Southern Lebanon are launched with chemical warheads or if a coalition of terrorist forces backed by Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia simply wear down the Israeli will to resist.

Iraq and Afghanistan Are Campaigns Within the Larger War

Imagine that Lincoln had tried to assess Antietam and Gettysburg without thinking about the larger war for the preservation of the Union.

Imagine that FDR had tried to assess Pearl Harbor or Guadalcanal or Kasserine Pass without looking at the larger war with Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy.

Clearly, any battle report which focused only on Iwo Jima or Guadalcanal or the Battle of the Bulge would have been so negative that many Americans would have wanted to quit the war.

Yet, in World War II, Americans understood that they were involved in a larger life-and-death struggle for the very survival of their civilization. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill knew they had to rally the American and British people to a hard, violent war with tyranny, and they brilliantly described the necessity of defending what they called "our Christian civilization" against Paganism and totalitarianism.

Because the American and British people understood what was at stake and because they believed there was a larger strategy for victory, they were prepared to endure defeats, frustrations and casualties to get to victory.

Once we accept that we are in a larger war, the assessment of Iraq and Afghanistan changes and the options available to win in both campaigns changes.

The Tragedy of Next Week's Debate

The tragedy is that next week there will be a debate between "staying the course" and "legislating defeat."

Both will be wrong.

Legislating defeat is more wrong than simply staying the course. Yet, staying the course is wholly inadequate to the long-term challenge of winning the larger war.

By focusing the country on a stay-the-course-versus-legislated-defeat choice, we have left no space for a dialogue about how to win the war.

Legislating Defeat Will Be Tragically Wrong, a Major Victory for Our Enemies and a Major Defeat for the United States

Let me be absolutely clear: I am unalterably opposed to legislating defeat.

And from talking to thousands of you across the country, including those in our armed forces, I know that the American people are opposed to defeat as well.

We know that defeat in Iraq will be a disaster for America, for the Iraqi people and for the cause of freedom and the rule of law.

If the American Congress legislates defeat, it will have taken on its shoulders the burden of politically defeating the United States at a time when it is impossible for our enemies to militarily defeat us.

If the "Reid-Pelosi Defeat America" legislation passes, every terrorist group on the planet will rejoice.

If the leftwing, pro-defeat activists celebrate a victory over Gen. Petraeus and President Bush, they will be joined in their celebration by every anti-American group around the world.

Legislating defeat should not be an acceptable option for any American who cares about our national security and who wants to defeat the enemy who attacked us on 9/11.

Staying the Course Is Inadequate

Yet as wrong as legislating defeat is, the present strategy of staying the course is simply not good enough.

As long as Northwest Pakistan (Waziristan) is a sanctuary, the Taliban can never be defeated.

As long as we have failed to create a better economy in which growing and processing drugs is no longer the best way to earn a living, Afghanistan will never be safe.

As long as Iran is allowed to ship weapons into Iraq, we will never fully bring stability to Iraq.

As long as Syria is allowed to serve as a transit point for foreign terrorists coming into Iraq, we will never fully defeat the insurgent forces.

As long as Saudi sources finance the spread of Wahhabism across the planet and the Wahhabists continue to advocate Jihad and martyrdom, the flow of new terrorist recruits willing to die will continue.

As long as the current dictatorship runs Iran and works every day to create nuclear weapons and to sustain terrorists groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the professional state-sponsored terrorists of the Iranian Guard units, our civilization will not be safe.

We Are Faced With a Large Worldwide Threat, and We Need a Large Worldwide Strategy for Victory

The greatest need in American policy today is for a strategy to win the larger war.

A strategy for a larger war requires a much more thorough statement of the scale of our enemies and their preparations.

A strategy for a larger war will involve some very difficult and, at times, frightening conversations about who is helping our enemies and what it may take to cut off that aid.

Confronting the Real War on its worldwide terms will require fundamental changes in national security, homeland security, budgets and preparations.

Setting out to win the larger war will require a new tempo and new rhythm for our bureaucracies and new determination to insist on real changes both in America and abroad.

My speech at AEI September 10 at 10:00 a.m. ET will outline the scale of changes required to win the real war.

Anticipating the Patraeus Report

We already know from a variety of sources, including interviews with Gen. Petraeus, what his report will contain.

Gen. Petraeus will report that things have improved, that we are a long way from winning but we are gaining ground, and that we need more time and more patience. The report will indicate that the military situation in Iraq is improving faster than the political situation but that both are promising.

However, we should be prepared for the probability that the enemy has spent the last several months planning and preparing to launch devastating attacks to coincide with the release of the report.

Our enemies understand how Washington works, and they understand how the media work. They increasingly plan the timing of their attacks in an effort to undermine the resolve of our politicians and our public by perfecting their influence of the war coverage in our news media.

If the enemy fails to attack during the debate over the report, it will be a modest help to Gen. Petraeus and President Bush.

If the enemy does succeed in a series of deadly attacks during the debate over the report, those attacks will be seized upon by the American news media and the pro-defeat left as proof that legislating defeat is the right solution.

Who Do You Trust? Gen. Petraeus or Gen. Pelosi?

No matter what happens that week, given a choice between the self-appointed political generals of Capitol Hill and the professional soldiers and Marines who have dedicated their lives to studying the art of war, it is a lot safer bet to believe in Gen. Petraeus' analysis than Gen. Pelosi's.

This upcoming debate is going to be the most serious effort to legislate the defeat of America in a generation.

No one should underestimate what is at stake. Please tune in to my speech September 10, and let your representatives know that we've had enough debating defeat. It's time for a serious discussion of what it takes for victory.

Newt Gingrich

P.S. -- Last week, in a lawsuit brought by the AFL-CIO and the ACLU, a federal district court judge in San Francisco blocked the implementation of a new rule adopted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that would have a dramatic impact in stemming the flow of illegal immigration into the United States by cracking down on illegal employment.

The new DHS rule would involve sending letters to thousands of employers across the country that have employees with invalid Social Security numbers. These "no-match" letters would give notice to employers that the Social Security numbers of at least 10 of their employees do not match existing Social Security numbers and that they have 90 days to correct the problem. If not corrected, an employer would then face civil and criminal penalties. In issuing an order for a temporary injunction, Judge Maxine Chesney stated that the court needed "breathing room" to determine if the new DHS rule went beyond what was authorized by the 1986 immigration law.

This judge's decision should serve as a moment of clarity for this Congress. Either the United States government is finally going to take action to reduce the magnet of illegal employment or it is not. The Congress should take decisive action and immediately pass legislation that makes it absolutely clear that existing immigration law permits the type of action that DHS is carrying out to enforce the law.