What Is This World Coming To?

Two human rights groups on Monday decried widespread torture of political opponents by bitter Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fatah, and Associated Press interviews with three victims and a doctor backed the reports of abuse.

The Palestinian human rights group Al Haq said Monday that arbitrary arrests of political opponents have been common since Hamas’ takeover of Gaza, with each side trying to defend its turf.

“Arrests for political reasons haven’t stopped for a second,” Al Haq director Shawan Jabarin told reporters. He estimated that before the latest sweeps, more than 1,000 people had been seized by each side.

One detainee told of being beaten with pipes and having a screwdriver rammed into his back. Another said interrogators tied his hands behind his back then lifted him into the air by his bound wrists. Read the rest of this entry »

Department of Homeland Security officials are quite logically concerned that the upcoming political conventions, the Olympics and the November elections might present targets too tempting for al-Qaeda or other Islamic terror groups to ignore, reports ABC News.

Anti-terror officials in the U.S. cite this summer and fall’s lineup of two major political parties’ conventions, November’s general election and months of transition into a new presidential administration as cause for heightened awareness and action.

This is what the Department of Homeland Security is quietly declaring a Period of Heightened Alert, or POHA, a time frame when terrorists may have more incentive to attack.

According to drafts of government memos described to ABC News, the period would run roughly from this August through July 2009.

The United States is more vulnerable to attack in the period between now and the inauguration of a new president in January, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said last week.

Adm. Mike Mullen told soldiers at Fort Lewis, Washington June 24 that he has set up a transition team to be ready for the next administration.

“I have, in my current job, stood up a transition team because this is a great time of transition,” Mullen said. “A time of transition is very, very challenging for any institution much less an entire country. And in that time of transition, it’s my belief that we as a country will be more vulnerable.”
Read the rest of this entry »

According to an ABC ‘exclusive’ report, Iran has activated Hezbollah ’sleeper cells’ inside Canada with orders to attack Jewish targets and kill as many Canadians as possible.

Intelligence officials tell ABC News the group has activated suspected “sleeper cells” in Canada and key operatives have been tracked moving outside the group’s Lebanon base to Canada, Europe and Africa. Suspected Hezbollah operatives Read the rest of this entry »

WorldNetDaily is reporting that a Canadian human rights tribunal ordered a Christian pastor to renounce his faith and never again express moral opposition to homosexuality:

In a decision dated May 30 in the penalty phase of the quasi-judicial proceedings run by the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal, evangelical pastor Stephen Boisson was banned from expressing his biblical perspective of homosexuality and ordered to pay $5,000 for “damages for pain and suffering” as well as apologize to the activist who complained of being hurt.

Boisson wrote a letter to the editor of his local Red Deer, Alberta, newspaper in 2002 denouncing the advance of homosexual activism as “wicked” and stating: “Children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights.”

The activist, local teacher Darren Lund, filed a complaint, and the guilty verdict from Lori G. Andreachuk, a lawyer, was handed down Nov. 30, 2007. The latest decision involved the penalty phase of the trial.

“While agreeing that Boisson’s letter was not a criminal act, the government tribunal nevertheless ordered the Christian pastor to [stop expressing his opinion],” Vere reported.

Andreachuk noted that Lund, who brought the complaint, wasn’t, in fact, injured.

“In this case there is no specific individual who can be compensated as there is no direct victim who has come forward,” she wrote.

However, that did not stop her from ordering the payment anyway.

And as for the future, she wrote:

“Mr. Boissoin and The Concerned Christian Coalition Inc. shall cease publishing in newspapers, by e-mail, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the Internet, in future, disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals. Further, they shall not and are prohibited from making disparaging remarks in the future about … Lund or … Lund’s witnesses relating to their involvement in this complaint. Further, all disparaging remarks versus homosexuals are directed to be removed from current Web sites and publications of Mr. Boissoin and The Concerned Christian Coalition Inc.,” the lawyer opined.

Andreachuk also ordered Boissoin to apologize for the original letter in the Red Deer Advocate and told the two “offenders” to pay $5,000.

The apology letter, Vere said, “threatens civil liberties in Canada, according to Ezra Levant, an author and lawyer who himself was targeted by an HRC attack.”

“[The] government now believes that if it can’t convince a Christian pastor that he’s wrong, it will just order him to condemn himself?” Levant wrote on his blog. “Other than tribunals in Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao’s China, where is this Orwellian ‘order’ considered to be justice?”

“This is like a Third World jail-house confession – where accused criminals are forced to sign false statements of guilt,” Levant wrote. “We don’t even ‘order’ murderers to apologize to their victims’ families. Because we know that a forced apology is meaningless. But not if your point is to degrade Christian pastors.”

“In essence, the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal is ordering to the minister to renounce his Christian faith, since his opposition to homosexuality is based upon the Judeo-Christian Bible,” Vere wrote.

Obama’s address to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) got a resounding round of applause from his audience for his statement that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain ‘undivided.’

Obama received a half-dozen standing ovations for his comments, more than any other dignitary on the platform, including Hillary Clinton and John McCain. So it would appear that, after a whole bunch of gaffes, Obama’s speechwriters hit a home run this time. Or not.

Instead, Obama simply highlighted (again) is abysmal grasp of foreign policy. It seems he forgot that the Palestinians can read.

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, went ballistic at Obama’s remarks. He told reporters at a hastily-convented press conference in Ramallah:

“This statement is totally rejected. The whole world knows that East Jerusalem, holy Jerusalem, was occupied in 1967 and we will not accept a Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.”

Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said Palestinian negotiators engaged in U.S.-sponsoredpeace talks would continue to insist on securing East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967, as their capital. He said of Obama: “He has closed all doors to peace.”

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zhuri took back its previous endorsement of Obama’s candidacy, saying,

“Obama’s comments have confirmed that there will be no change in the U.S. administration’s foreign policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“The Democratic and Republican parties support totally the Israeli occupation at the expense of the interests and rights of Arabs and Palestinians,” he said. “Hamas does not differentiate between the two presidential candidates, Obama and McCain, because their policies regarding the Arab-Israel conflict are the same and are hostile to us, therefore we do have no preference and are not wishing for either of them to win.”

(Actually, Zhuri is wrong. The current administration’s foreign policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict demands that Jerusalem be divided as a shared capital for both states. Obama’s statement puts him to the right of George W. Bush.)

Ooops! Time for another ‘do-over’. Yesterday, he had already begun to back-pedal, as he did when he first pledged to meet any dictator, from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Kim Jong il, ‘without preconditions.’ Later, when he realized how stupid that sounded, he said that he wouldn’t demand ‘preconditions’ but instead would require a lot of advance preparation that sounds suspiciously like preconditions.

Now, Obama is similarly ‘clarifiying‘ his comments over Jerusalem. Obama now believes:

“Jerusalem is a final status issue, which means it has to be negotiated between the two parties” as part of “an agreement that they both can live with.”

“Two principles should apply to any outcome,” which the adviser gave as: “Jerusalem remains Israel’s capital and it’s not going to be divided by barbed wire and checkpoints as it was in 1948-1967.”

THAT’S what I like about Barack Obama. If you disagree with his positions, you don’t have to get mad. You don’t even have to get even. You just have to wait until he changes to one you can be more comfortable with.

If you wanna get elected president in 2008, the conventional wisdom says you gotta close down Gitmo. The Guantanamo Bay detention facility has become the focus of global protests against alleged “U.S. human rights violations” during the war on terrorism.

Calls to close the facility and release or try its 460 foreign detainees are steadily mounting — they come now from close allies such as Britain and Germany, from the United Nations Committee Against Torture, and from every major human rights group.

The problem is that everybody wants to close Gitmo but nobody wants to accept the prisoners housed there. Even if it were possible to locate them inside the continental United States, (which would then place them behind Constitutional protection) there is the NIMBY factor. (NIMBY=Not In My Back Yard) Read the rest of this entry »

Former US president Jimmy Carter claimed a major breakthrough in his unauthorized and self-appointed peace mission to the Middle East.

Returning from four days of meetings with leaders of Hamas, a triumphant Carter announced today in Jerusalem his mediation efforts were successful – Hamas agreed to a 10-year truce in exchange for Israel withdrawing to what is known as the pre-1967 borders.

“There’s no doubt that both the Arab world and the Palestinians, including Hamas, will accept Israel’s right to live in peace within the 1967 borders.” - Jimmy Carter

The former president gave no explanation for Hamas’ inexplicable change of heart. Hamas, however, was less reticent with the details of the alleged ‘offer.’ Hamas expressly ruled out Israel’s right to live in peace, but instead, offered Israel a ‘hudna’.

The term is derived from the Koran and refers to a ten year ‘peace’ deal Mohammed made with the Quryash tribe that controlled Mecca. Mohammed abrogated the hudna as soon as he had gained military superiority — eight years early.

Hamas is offering Israel the identical deal, going so far as to reference Mohammed’s hudna so there could be no mistake.

“We will be ready for a long interim agreement based on a period of cease-fire that can go to 10 years like it was done by the prophet Muhammad with the enemies of the Muslims. During this period we will build our state on the strong basis of honor and with an honest administration.” Carter interlocutor Khaled Meshaal

Why would Meshaal make an offer he knows Israel must refuse? Propaganda. Hamas can claim it offered Israel a truce, using codewords that anyone familiar with the Koran (like Israel) would see through immediately. But to anyone else, Israel sounds like the aggressor, courtesy of former US president James Earl Carter.

“In a future war it will be much safer to live in Nahariya or Shlomi than in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv because I foresee that during the opening blow hundreds of missiles will rain on Israel.” -  Infrastructure Minister Benyamin Ben-Eliezer

Officials in Syria, Lebanon and Iran have expressed concern that the Israeli civil defense mega-drill “Turning Point 2” is either a pretext for hostile offensive action or a preparation for it.

“The states of the region must closely watch the Israeli drill. These provocative actions should be brought to the attention of the relevant officials in the international community,” an Iranian official said Monday. A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry suspected the worst: “These actions are aimed at boosting the morale of the Israeli commanders and their soldiers.”

Hezbollah has accused Syria of masterminding the killing of top Hezbollah terrorist mastermind Imad Mugniyeh.

“It is our duty to expose the crimes of the Syrian regime, particularly the killing of Imad Mughniyeh and the deception that accompanied this crime,” Maamun Al Homsi, a former Lebanese parliamentarian and Hizbullah operative, said. “Syrian intelligence removed the car in which Mughniyeh was assassinated and completely cleaned up the murder scene to remove all evidence.”

Iran is also questioning the killing.  The Kuwaiti daily Al Rai Al Aam reported on March 24 that Teheran has demanded an explanation of how an assassin broke into Mughniyeh’s car and placed a bomb in the most secure area of Damascus.

The killing was originally blamed on Israel, and was responsible for escalating the already stretched to the limit tensions between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

Syria may have been responsible for killing Mugniyeh,  but there is no way that the US is going to escape the blame — and by extension, Israel.

Al Rai, quoting European intelligence sources, said Syria might have cooperated in the assassination of Mughniyeh as well as a Hamas operative as part of a deal with the United States.

The sources said the purported U.S. deal would abandon Western efforts to prosecute senior members of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad alleged to have been involved in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.