LCCC
ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِDecember
13/2010
Bible Of The
Day
Ecclesiastes 04/1-13: "4:1 Then I returned
and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears
of those who were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their
oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. 4:2 Therefore I praised
the dead who have been long dead more than the living who are yet alive. 4:3
Yes, better than them both is him who has not yet been, who has not seen the
evil work that is done under the sun. 4:4 Then I saw all the labor and
achievement that is the envy of a man’s neighbor. This also is vanity and a
striving after wind. 4:5 The fool folds his hands together and ruins himself.
4:6 Better is a handful, with quietness, than two handfuls with labor and
chasing after wind. 4:7 Then I returned and saw vanity under the sun. 4:8 There
is one who is alone, and he has neither son nor brother. There is no end to all
of his labor, neither are his eyes satisfied with wealth. “For whom then, do I
labor, and deprive my soul of enjoyment?” This also is vanity. Yes, it is a
miserable business. 4:9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward
for their labor. 4:10 For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe
to him who is alone when he falls, and doesn’t have another to lift him up. 4:11
Again, if two lie together, then they have warmth; but how can one keep warm
alone? 4:12 If a man prevails against one who is alone, two shall withstand him;
and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. 4:13 Better is a poor and wise
youth than an old and foolish king who doesn’t know how to receive admonition
any more. 4:14 For out of prison he came forth to be king; yes, even in his
kingdom he was born poor. 4:15 I saw all the living who walk under the sun, that
they were with the youth, the other, who succeeded him. 4:16 There was no end of
all the people, even of all them over whom he was—yet those who come after shall
not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and a chasing after wind.
Free Opinions, Releases,
letters, Interviews & Special Reports
The Jihad Against America is
Increasing/By Alan Caruba/December 12/10
Jurassic internet speed quiets
Lebanon’s bloggers/Aline Sara/December
12/10
Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for December
12/10
Biden
Reaffirms to Hariri U.S. Commitment to Lebanese Sovereignty/Naharnet
Clinton
Meets Larsen, Reiterates US Commitment to Lebanon's Sovereignty, Territorial
Integrity/Naharnet
Saudi-Syrian Initiative Places
Priority on Lebanese Consensus/Naharnet
One
Dead as Storm Wreaks Havoc in Lebanon/Naharnet
Heavy rain and strong winds batter
the Middle East/AP
Clinton met with UN special envoy
on Lebanon/AFP
Russian Deputy FM in Lebanon to meet key officials/Ya Libnan
US renews its support for Lebanon/Ya Libnan
David Frum: The crime that could fell Hezbollah/National Post
Hezbollah escalaltes its attack against Hariri Tribunal/Ya Libnan
Hezbollah threatens 'new era for
resistance' unless Lebanon shuns Hariri tribunal/Haaretz
Lebanese MP, Ali Khreis: The STL is
an “international conspiracy”/iloubnan.info
Lebanese
Cabinet Convenes Wednesday amid
Concern over Possible Vote on False Witnesses File/Naharnet
Zahra:
We Refuse the Mentality of Setting Deadlines, No One Can Change Lebanon on His
Own/Naharnet
Saqr: Hizbullah's Deadline
is Aimed at Intimidation, It's a Message to Those Sponsoring Settlement/Naharnet
Raad Denies he Had Placed
a 3-4-Day Deadline to End Crisis/Naharnet
Hizbullah Raises Tone
against STL: Resistance is Much Too Noble to Be Harmed by Anyone/Naharnet
Sultanov Meets Top
Lebanese Officials: Nobody Asked Us for Solution Initiatives/Naharnet
Presidency, Premiership
Arranging Controversial Cabinet Session/Naharnet
Nasrallah: We Read the
WikiLeaks Cables and we Will See Greater Conspiracies/Naharnet
Grenade Blast Targets Jund
al-Sham Member's Home in Ain el-Hilweh/Naharnet
Diplomats of Regional
Powers Mull Ways to Encourage Lebanese to Engage in Dialogue/Naharnet
Karam Reportedly Admitted
to Informing Mossad About FPM, Hizbullah/Naharnet
Syrian Sources: Force
Won't Solve the Lebanese Crisis/Naharnet
Clinton Meets Larsen,
Reiterates US Commitment to Lebanon's Sovereignty, Territorial Integrity
Naharnet/U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has met with U.N. special envoy
for Lebanon Terje Roed-Larsen to discuss the current situation in Lebanon, the
U.S. State Department said Saturday. In her meeting Friday with Norwegian Roed-Larsen,
Clinton "emphasized the United States' commitment to Lebanon's sovereignty,
territorial integrity, unity, and political independence," the statement read.
Roed-Larsen is U.N. special envoy for Resolution 1559, a 2004 measure calling
for free and fair presidential elections in Lebanon, the withdrawal of all
remaining foreign forces in the country, and the "disbanding and disarmament of
all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias." On Friday, U.S. Vice President Joe
Biden spoke by phone with Prime Minister Saad Hariri and assured him of U.S.
support as a U.N. tribunal probes the 2005 assassination of his father, ex-PM
Rafik Hariri, which continues to stoke tensions in Lebanon. The U.N.-backed
Special Tribunal for Lebanon has said it will issue indictments "very soon."(AFP)
Beirut, 11 Dec 10, 18:20
Biden Reaffirms to Hariri U.S. Commitment to Lebanese Sovereignty
Naharnet/U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has assured Prime Minister Saad Hariri of
U.S. support as a U.N. tribunal probes the 2005 assassination of his father
stoking tensions in Lebanon.
Biden "spoke by phone today (Friday) with... Hariri to discuss recent
developments in Lebanon and the region," the White House said in a statement,
adding the vice president "reaffirmed the administration's commitment to
Lebanon's sovereignty, independence, and stability." The vice president also
underscored "the commitment of the United States to supporting the development
of strong and effective Lebanese state institutions," it added. Hariri is faced
with a difficult choice over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, whose pursuit of
his father's assassins could wreak havoc on his country. The U.N. tribunal has
said it will issue indictments "very soon."(AFP) Beirut, 11 Dec 10, 07:37
Storm Rages in Lebanon for a Second Day Causing Severe Damage throughout the
Country
Naharnet/or the second day, Lebanon is still at the mercy of the strong storm
that has resulted in major damage throughout the country, destroying property
and crops and turning roads into swamps. The security forces and civil defense
teams have remained on high alert to attend to any emergency. The storm is set
to continue for the next two days, with thunderstorms and rain, while some sunny
spells are expected on Monday afternoon. In Sidon, the storm led to severe
property and crop damage, which led to the closure of the city's port and the
destruction of a large section of a supporting wall in the western part of the
port. Several cars parked at the adjacent sidewalk were dragged into the sea,
while many fishing boats were also destroyed by the powerful waves, which also
resulted in the closure of the highway west of the city. Along the coast, high
waves damaged agricultural plastic houses in the towns of Wadi al-Jamous, Bibnin
and the neighboring areas. In Tyre, the strong winds toppled billboards and
uprooted trees alongside the roads, starting from al-Qassimieh and reaching all
the way to Naqoura in the South. The northern region of Akkar witnessed the
first snowfall of the season with snow falling in areas at 2400 meters above sea
level, cutting the roads at Qmouah, Qbeyyet, and Hermel.
The ISF and Civil Defense urged drivers on the Hermel-Qbeyyet road to place
chains on the tires of their vehicles over fears of snow and formation of ice on
the roads.
The high winds also damaged electrical cables, causing power cuts in several
towns throughout the country as Electricite du Liban sought to fix the damage.
Beirut, 12 Dec 10, 14:53
Cabinet Convenes Wednesday amid Concern over Possible Vote on False Witnesses
File
Naharnet/Cabinet is set to convene at the Baabda palace on Wednesday for the
first time since November 10, with 300 articles set to be discussed, the main
one being the false witnesses file.Sources close to Prime Minister Saad Hariri
told the pan-Arab daily Ashraq al-Awsat Sunday that the March 14 forces
ministers will refuse to subject the case to a vote if there are no legal
justifications for referring it to justice council, as the opposition is
demanding.They stressed that such an issue can only be tackled through calm
dialogue at Cabinet, adding that whether the case is addressed through the
justice council or the regular judiciary, the result will be the same. "The
insistence that it be tackled through the justice council means that they have
goals that extend beyond the false witnesses," the sources noted. Meanwhile, a
ministerial source told the daily An Nahar Sunday that the dilemma of voting
over the false witnesses file will continue on threatening Cabinet's
functioning. Beirut, 12 Dec 10, 08:55
Saudi-Syrian Initiative Places Priority on Lebanese Consensus
Naharnet/The Saudi-Syrian initiative to end the Lebanese political crisis has
placed priority on Lebanese consensus on foreign efforts to end the internal
disputes because any external solution is bound to be met with challenges. These
efforts coincided met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's statements in
Paris that called for the Lebanese to reach an agreement among themselves before
receiving the Saudi-Syrian assistance. In addition, sources monitoring Riyadh
and Damascus' efforts noted that Saudi King Abdullah's absence from the scene
has not obstructed the initiative. Meanwhile, the daily An Nahar reported on
Sunday that the recent meeting of the Saudi, Syrian, Iranian, and Egyptian
ambassadors to Lebanon at the Saudi Ambassador's residence had a consultative
and social purpose. The Egyptian Ambassador, Ahmed Bedewi, was invited by his
Saudi counterpart, Ali Awadh Assiri, in order to widen the circle of Arab
interest in Lebanon. The Egyptian official denied to al-Mustaqbal that the
meeting tackled the situation in Lebanon.
He explained that he had received a "generous" invitation by Assiri to attend a
dinner, which he accepted. "We discussed Lebanon in general terms, but we did
not discuss the crisis," Bedewi said. Beirut, 12 Dec 10, 10:18
Zahra: We Refuse the Mentality of Setting Deadlines, No One Can Change Lebanon
on His Own
Naharnet/Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra stated on Sunday that the party
supports a settlement that maintains Lebanon's stability and which does not take
place at the expense of the martyrs.He also rejected the mentality of setting
deadlines and statements alleging that Lebanon will be altered after the
indictment in the Special Tribunal for Lebanon is released by saying: "No one is
capable of changing anything on their own.""We are keen on recognizing the
other, who should also recognize us," he stressed.The MP added: "Lebanon was not
created with the Resistance already existing in it and it will not end with the
end of Hizbullah's military branch." Beirut, 12 Dec 10, 13:39
Saqr: Hizbullah's Deadline is Aimed at Intimidation, It's a Message to Those
Sponsoring Settlement
Naharnet/Lebanon First MP Oqab Saqr called on the Hizbullah leadership to
immediately retract MP Mohammad Raad's recent statements in which he set a
deadline for the Saudi-Syrian initiative to yield its results. Saqr told the
pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat Sunday that such statements "harm the ongoing
Lebanese settlement aimed at protecting Lebanon's security."
"The party's threat to resort to arms gives Hizbullah a militia trait that is
rejected in principle," the MP continued. "Setting a three to four-day deadline
is direct intimidation aimed at the Cabinet session in order to force some
sides, such as President Michel Suleiman and PSP leader MP Walid Jumblat, to
take a position that coincides with those of Hizbullah on the false witnesses
file," Saqr said. "The deadline is also a message to the Arab, regional, and
international sponsors of a Lebanese settlement that Hizbullah is ready to"
alter the situation in Lebanon, he added. This step goes beyond being a
political maneuver, but it is also gambling with the fate of the entire country,
he stressed. Beirut, 12 Dec 10, 12:21
Raad Denies he Had Placed a 3-4-Day Deadline to End Crisis
Naharnet/The head of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Mohammad Raad denied
on Sunday media reports that had quoted him as saying that he had given a three
or four-day deadline for the Saudi-Syrian initiative to yield results. He said
in a statement that the reports were "inaccurate"."I meant that I had hoped that
the results would be revealed soon," he added. On Friday, Raad had stated: "At
this moment, we have given the final chance for the Saudi-Syrian effort to reach
a settlement that would pull Lebanon out of the dilemma of the tribunal and its
repercussions, and I hope this effort would yield positive results." He said
that "those colluded with the tyrants against the Resistance must revise their
calculations.""There is currently an opportunity that may last two, three or
four days. They must seize this opportunity because if time comes for taking a
decisive stance (by Hizbullah and its allies), Lebanon will go into a new stage
and we hope they revise their calculations before it's too late," Raad warned.
Beirut, 12 Dec 10, 11:11
Hizbullah Raises Tone against STL: Resistance is Much Too Noble to Be Harmed by
Anyone
Naharnet/The head of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Mohammad Raad warned
on Saturday that "Lebanon's image would automatically change if the indictment
is released without a settlement being reached in the country."He added:
"Everyone must assume the responsibility of their actions.""The Resistance is
much too noble, pure, and honest for anyone to harm it, its dignity, people, and
martyrs," he said. "After they failed to destroy the Resistance in a war, they
are now adopting a new tactic, which is the indictment and the Special Tribunal
for Lebanon," the MP noted. Meanwhile, Hizbullah Deputy Secretary General Naim
Qassem stated on Saturday: "The STL had several opportunities to demonstrate its
credibility, but it wasted them." "For us, the STL doesn't exist and it has no
authority over Lebanon even if the entire U.N. Security Council were to
convene," he stressed. Furthermore, he called on "those hanging on to the
tribunal to openly state that they will reject it if it indicted Hizbullah
members." Qassem added that dialogue is a necessity in Lebanon "and we will
continue with it, but we will not be deceived." On Saturday, Hizbullah politburo
member Mahmoud Qmati said: "When we warn of unrest, we are not threatening or
intimidating, when we say that the issuance of the indictment might cause unrest
or civil strife, that does not mean, as they are interpreting, that Hizbullah
and the opposition are plotting a coup.""This means that the international
scheme that wants such an indictment to be issued will launch in its wake
…actions and other plots that will lead the country to chaos. Where is Lebanon's
interest if we reach that stage? That's why we should negotiate and make an
agreement before we reach such a moment," he explained. He reiterated
Hizbullah's support for the ongoing Saudi-Syrian, regional and international
efforts to defuse tensions in Lebanon."There is no force on earth that can
weaken or besiege the Resistance", he added. Beirut, 12 Dec 10, 09:40
Sultanov Meets Top Lebanese Officials: Nobody Asked Us for Solution Initiatives
Naharnet/Visiting Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Sultanov on Saturday
held separate talks with President Michel Suleiman, Speaker Nabih Berri, Premier
Saad Hariri, Foreign Minister Ali al-Shami and MP Mohammed Raad, head of
Hizbullah's Loyalty to Resistance bloc MP Mohammed Raad. At Berri's residence in
the southern town of al-Msaileh, the Russian official and the house speaker
discussed the bilateral ties between the two countries and the role of their
parliaments in boosting Russian-Lebanese cooperation in the military and
technical fields. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Sultanov stressed
Russia's "support for stability in Lebanon and for the essential role of
constitutional institutions," adding that Moscow was "confident the stalemated
issues can only be resolved through national dialogue and consensus among all
political parties." "This is certainly necessary for a prosperous future for the
Lebanese people and Lebanon, which plays a key role in the region," Sultanov
added. Asked about the existence of any Russian initiative on a solution to the
Lebanese crisis, the Russian official said: "We don't interfere in the domestic
affairs of any country, and no one has asked us for initiatives towards finding
solutions to the stalled issues. This is your business and we can only support
the political will, without interfering."As to Russia's concerns over a possible
deterioration of the situations in Lebanon, Sultanov said that Moscow was
concerned with the developments in Lebanon, given its "role in the region."
"What happens here definitely has an impact on the whole region."
Earlier Saturday, Sultanov held talks with PM Hariri at the Center House, in the
presence of Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Zasypkin and the premier's
advisor George Chaaban. After the meeting, Sultanov said: "Our visit to Lebanon
comes within the framework of a new tour in the region.""Our meetings aim at
continuing the contacts between the leaderships in both countries, after the
visits of President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Saad Hariri to Moscow and
the talks they held with Russian President (Dmitry) Medvedev and Prime Minister
(Vladimir) Putin," Sultanov added. "The meetings gave a new impetus to bilateral
relations."Meanwhile, after his meeting with President Suleiman at the Baabda
Palace, Sultanov said that work was underway to put the Russian aid earmarked
for Lebanon, especially the military part, into practice. He also stressed that
the Russian Federation will continue supporting Lebanese state institutions.
Beirut, 11 Dec 10, 19:54
Syrian Sources: Force Won't Solve the Lebanese Crisis
Naharnet/Well informed sources in Damascus said force would not bring a solution
to the Lebanese crisis advising the Lebanese to resort to dialogue. The sources
told An Nahar newspaper that Syria was working with active regional and
international sides to consolidate security and stability in Lebanon to avoid
crises that could damage Lebanese institutions. "The institutions should be kept
away from political bickering because they belong to the Lebanese," they said.
"The logic of force to solve crises will only bring destruction to all parties
involved," the sources added. The sources also said that Syrian President Bashar
Assad discussed the Lebanese situation with French officials during his visit to
Paris and Foreign Minister Walid Muallem also touched on the deadlock in Beirut
with Turkish officials. Beirut, 11 Dec 10, 08:41
Jurassic internet speed quiets Lebanon’s bloggers
Now Lebanon
Aline Sara, December 11, 2010
According to blogger Liliane Assaf, there are approximately 350-400 blogs
related to Lebanon. “We’re the lucky bloggers of the Middle East,” said UK
Ambassador Frances Guy during the recent and first Blogging Lebanon event of its
kind at the American University of Beirut. “We’re even able to meet here and
talk about the limits of blogging,” added the diplomat, who blogs for UK’s
official Foreign Office Blogs.
Guy was speaking from experience. Her now famous post in which she lauded Shia
cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah as an admirable man after his passing
in July led to some angry reactions, especially from Israelis. The post was
eventually removed, but Guy stressed to audience members the potentially dire
consequences of blogging in the region. “I think we should spare a few seconds
to think about those bloggers in the region who are in detention or threatened
with detention, in Egypt, in Syria, in Iran […] for daring to express themselves
on a blog,” she said.
Despite certain risks, blogging in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East has
increased dramatically over the past few years. According to Liliane Assaf, the
brain behind the Lebanon Aggregator blog, although most blogs from 2005-2006
dealt with politics, many of the 350-400 Lebanon-related blogs today are for
fun, social commentary, marketing or activism. While freedom of expression is an
issue, Lebanon’s snail-like internet seems to be the more pressing concern.
AUB senior Mohammad Hijazi is president of AUB’s online collaborative, which
according to its website, seeks to group social media enthusiasts and
experienced individuals in the digital media world to help promote proper
digital citizenship. “I noticed the significant number of bloggers in Lebanon,
but no organization uniting them under one roof,” said Hijazi following the
conference, which he created after noticing that whereas tweeters meet during
tweet ups, bloggers did not necessarily have a space to meet.
The event featured twelve speakers, who covered a number of blog-related topics,
from crafting a copyright system for regional websites to blogging in the
Lebanese dialect, to using blogs as a tool for dialogue and activism. Hijazi
told NOW Lebanon that freedom of expression tops the list of his worries.
“In the region it’s much worse, but there are limitations in Lebanon,” said
Hijazi, a Biology and Business Administration major.
Last spring, Hijazi was fired from his position as staff writer for Align, the
official newsletter of AUB’s Olayan School of Business (OSB). He had blogged
about AUB students’ medical school acceptances on both his personal blog and
Facebook page. He wrote that qualified candidates had been refused, while others
admitted because of their “wasta,” the term Lebanese use to describe personal
connections.
“They flat out told me it was because of the blog,” Hijazi said. He noted other,
sterner instances of jeopardized freedom of expression such as last summer’s
famous Facebook incident, which landed three people in prison for libel against
President Michel Sleiman.
Others have had it worse. Imad Bazzi spent not one, but two stays in prison for
political writings in the late ‘90s. At the conference, he spoke about using
blogs to lobby politicians and authorities, and screened a disturbing video
depicting police officers picking on a 16-year-old delivery boy. Bazzi is one of
the few bloggers who write in Arabic, as opposed to English, which he said poses
higher risks, given that a different subset of people has access to the content.
“I use street language,” he said, “I like to make it more people-friendly.” But
he also dwelled on the country’ slow internet speed. In an email to NOW Lebanon,
BeirutSpring’s author Mustapha Hamoui said that slow, expensive internet keeps
blogging unavailable to many. “This is a pity because we could benefit from the
perspective of the underprivileged if they blogged,” he added. Beirut Spring
gets an estimated 40,000 unique visits per month. Hamoui blogs primarily about
social-political affairs in the region, even though he is based in West Africa.
“Nowadays the only form of self-censorship I exercise is trying to not respond
to comments by Israelis on my blog, because I fear the law about having ‘contact
with the enemy’ could be used against me,” he said. “People are
increasingly sick of politics and today favor using blogs to showcase their art
or poke humor at the society,” said Lebanon Aggregator’s Assaf.
For example, Maya Zankoul’s Amalgam blog is one of the country’s most popular.
Her witty and mocking cartoons of Lebanese society have even been published into
a book.
“But bloggers are limited,” Assaf said. “People are reluctant to watch videos,
for example, because they simply do not have the time to wait for them to
buffer. This is a big loss, a big challenge for Lebanese bloggers.”With
Lebanon’s average download speed ranked 181 after Burkina Faso, Haiti, Swaziland
and Tajikistan, it is no surprise that freedom of expression is not the number
one concern for bloggers in the Middle East. Perhaps once (and if) resolved,
bloggers could begin to see tighter control of what appears online. “I feel it’s
getting worse,” Hijazi told NOW Lebanon. “They are trying to limit the power of
the internet.”
The Jihad Against America is Increasing
By Alan Caruba Sunday, December 12, 2010
Muhammad, the self-proclaimed prophet of Allah, died in 632 AD. As historian
James Carroll notes in his forthcoming book about Jerusalem, “The next year,
only two years after the Byzantine Christians had reconquered Jerusalem…a
mounted force of Bedouin fighters who revered the Prophet’s memory invaded the
Byzantine-controlled territory of Palestine, near Gaza.” They called themselves
Muslims.
Only five years after Muhammad’s death, Umar ibn al-Khattab, his successor “led
tribal bands as one army, quickly taking control of lands from Iraq to Egypt.”
In 637 AD, “Muslim forces laid siege to Jerusalem.” With the exception of a
brief period in the twelfth century, Muslim rule of Jerusalem, a city sacred to
Jews and Christians, “would last one and a third millennia until 1917.”
A recent survey taken in Islamic countries by the Pew Research foundation
revealed that a majority in the Muslim world still favor cutting off hands for
theft, stoning people to death for adultery, and insist that Islam play a major
role in politics. What many in the West still fail to understand is that the
grip of Islam and its seventh century mindset remains fully intact for many of
the more than a billion Muslims worldwide.
The resurgence of a militant Islam threatens to drag the entire world back to an
era of barbarity and ignorance banished by Western civilization, the
enlightenment, and the spread of Democracy. The brief period of tolerance for
other faiths exhibited during the Islamic conquest of Spain was the exception,
not the rule.
In our era it was George W. Bush who thwarted Muslim dreams of world domination.
Following 9/11 it was his resistance that protected Americans against further
attacks during his two terms in office.
In a November commentary, Dr. Walid Phares, a senior fellow with the Foundation
for the Defense of Democracies and author of “Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies
Against America”, noted that “Throughout the summer and fall, U.S. authorities
witnessed a significant rise in jihadist activity, using increasingly
sophisticated operational strategies.”
“According to open-source reports, between 2001 and 2008, U.S. agencies stopped
one or two terror attempts a year. However, from 2009 until today, the
government has been uncovering one or two cases a month, a troubling growth in
jihadist activities.”
It should be lost on no one that the increase coincides with the advent of the
Obama administration and his absurd claims that America is not a Christian
nation or that Muslims played any role in its history other than as Barbary
pirates.
Largely unreported, on a weekly basis throughout the Middle East and elsewhere,
Islam’s holy warriors continue to kill Muslims and Christians. In the West, they
have perpetrated terrorist attacks in London, Madrid, and on 9/11 in New York.
On December 9, federal officials arrested a Maryland man and charged him with
plotting to blow up an Army recruiting center near Baltimore. Antonio Martinez,
a 21-year-old Muslim convert who calls himself Muhammed Hussain, wanted to kill
as many U.S. soldiers as possible.
Earlier, in Portland, Oregon, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali youth, was
thwarted from killing Americans during a Christmas tree lighting celebration.
Farooque Ahmed, a Virginia man, was arrested in connection with a plot to attack
the Washington, D.C. subway system; Ahmed, a native of Pakistan, had been
granted U.S. citizenship.
Only the failure of his car bomb prevented Faisal Shahzad, also formerly of
Pakistan and a U.S. citizen, from killing and injuring Americans in New York’s
Times Square. A trial is set for Najibullah Zazi, the father of Mohammad Wali
Zazi who pled guilty to a terrorist plot involving the New York subway system.
It is folly to think that America will not continue to be subject to terror
attacks, but the Obama administration has largely refused to publicly confront
this reality except in the form of the intrusive and objectionable airport
pat-downs and scans. If a commercial airliner is bombed, it will surely have
begun its flight in a foreign airport.
Incredibly, Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland
Security recently announced that Ari Alikhan, who DHS identified as “a devout
Muslim”, as the Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and swore in Kareem
Shora, another “devout Muslim” born in Damascus, Syria, as a member of the
Homeland Security Advisory Council.
How crazed is this? Or are we meant to wait until President Obama is voted out
of office until we can begin to feel safe anywhere in America?
© Alan Caruba, 2010
Stockholm jihad bombers: "Stop your stupid war on Islam"
Posted by Robert on December 12, 2010
http://www.jihadwatch.org
More on the failed jihad bombing in Stockholm, which could have been "truly
catastrophic."
And just this morning, the deceptive and gutter-minded Islamic supremacist Reza
Aslan is whining about "Islamophobia." The jihad attack in Stockholm, as well as
the attempted jihad mass murders in Baltimore and Portland, show up sharply just
how grotesque is his inversion of reality and water-carrying for evil. And he,
of course, is just one of many in the West who tell lies about Islam and defame
freedom fighters -- all for the sake of advancing the cause that this bomber was
trying to advance in a different way in central Stockholm on Saturday.
"Stockholm Bombers: 'Stop Your Stupid War on Islam,'" from AFP, December 12:
STOCKHOLM (AFP) -- Two explosions in central Stockholm Saturday were a
"terrorist" attack, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said, with one
television report saying the only person to die was the bomber.
Bildt's comments, sent from his Twitter account, effectively confirmed earlier
reports in the Swedish media that the two almost simultaneous explosions had
been an attack.
"Most worrying attempt at terrorist attack in crowded part of central
Stockholm," wrote Bildt.
"Failed -- but could have been truly catastrophic..." he added....
SVT also reported that a bag filled with nails had been found near the body.
The two explosions went off in a shopping centre in the capital at around 5:00
pm (1600 GMT), SVT reported.
Earlier, police and the emergency services reported two almost simultaneous
explosions in downtown Stockholm, with one person killed and two others injured.
The Swedish news agency TT reported that it had received messages about 10
minutes before the blasts in Arab and Swedish, warning of unspecified "action."
"Our acts will speak for themselves," TT quoted the message as saying. "Now your
children, your daughters and your sisters will die as our brothers, our sisters
and our children are dying."
It urged "mujahideen," or Islamic fighters, to rise up in Sweden and in Europe,
the news agency said.
The message referred to the Swedish military presence in Afghanistan as part of
the US-led international security force, TT added.
TT said a similar message had been sent to the Swedish Security Service SAPO....
The first blast in the car left two people in need of hospital treatment for
minor injuries, said emergency services spokesman Bengt Norberg.
A second alert was received two minutes later and one person was found dead at
the scene of this second blast which took place in the street, he added....