THERE IS NO SECOND PLACE

Washington, they find, "does not have a consistent view on who the moderates are, where the opportunities for building networks among them lie, and how best to build the networks."

Bolstering Moderate Muslims
By Daniel Pipes
CNSNews.com Commentary
April 18, 2007

"What moderate Muslims?" is the near-inevitable retort to my stating that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam the solution. Where are the anti-Islamists' demonstrations against terror, their combating of Islamists, their reassessments of Islamic law?

Moderate Muslims do exist, I reply. Admittedly, they do not constitute a movement but represent mere wisps in the face of the Islamist onslaught. This means, I argue, that the U.S. government and other powerful institutions should give priority to locating, meeting with, funding, forwarding, empowering, and celebrating those brave Muslims who, at personal risk, stand up and confront the totalitarians.

A just-published study from the RAND Corporation, Building Moderate Muslim Networks, methodically takes up and thinks through this concept. Angel Rabasa, Cheryl Benard, Lowell H. Schwartz, and Peter Sickle grapple intelligently with the innovative issue of helping moderate Muslims to grow and prosper.

They start with the argument that "structural reasons play a large part" in the rise of radical and dogmatic interpretations of Islam in recent years -one of those reasons being the Saudi government's generous funding over the last three decades for the export of the Wahhabi version of Islam.

Saudi efforts have promoted "the growth of religious extremism throughout the Muslim world," permitting the Islamists to develop powerful intellectual, political, and other networks. "This asymmetry in organization and resources explains why radicals, a small minority in almost all Muslim countries, have influence disproportionate to their numbers."

The study posits a key role for Western countries here: "moderates will not be able to successfully challenge radicals until the playing field is leveled, which the West can help accomplish by promoting the creation of moderate Muslim networks."

Does this sound familiar? It resembles the late 1940s, when Soviet-backed organizations threatened Europe. The four authors provide a helpful potted history of American network-building in the early Cold War years, in part to show that such an effort can succeed against a totalitarian enemy, in part to glean ideas for use at present. (One example: "a left hook to the Kremlin is the best blow," implying that Muslims can most effectively batter Islamism.)

Reviewing American efforts to fight Islamism, the authors find these lacking, at least with regard to strengthening moderates. Washington, they find, "does not have a consistent view on who the moderates are, where the opportunities for building networks among them lie, and how best to build the networks."

They are only too right. The U.S. government has a disastrously poor record in this regard, with an embarrassing history of twin delusions: either thinking Islamists are moderates or hoping to win them over. Such government figures as FBI director Robert S. Mueller III, State Department undersecretary Karen Hughes, and National Endowment for Democracy head Carl Gershman wrong-headedly insist on consorting with the enemy.

Instead, the RAND study promotes four partners: secularists, liberal Muslims, moderate traditionalists, and some Sufis. It particularly emphasizes the "emerging transnational network of laicist and secularist individuals, groups, and movements," and correctly urges cooperation with these neglected friends.

In contrast, the study proposes de-emphasizing the Middle East, and particularly the Arab world. Because this area "offers less fertile ground for moderate network and institution building than other regions of the Muslim world," it wants Western governments to focus on Muslims in Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and in the Western diaspora, and to help make available their ideas in Arabic. This novel stratagem defies a centuries' old pattern of influence emanating from the Middle East, but it is well worth a try.

Even the generally hard-headed RAND study sometimes lets down its guard. Dismayingly, the quartet refrains from condemning Washington for dialoguing with lawful Islamists even as it cautiously endorses European governments treating some Islamists as partners. It mistakenly characterizes the U.S.-based "Progressive Muslim Union" as promoting secular Islam, when it was really another Islamist organization, but with a hip tone. (No other Islamists dared host a feature called "Sex and the Umma.")

Building Moderate Muslim Networks is not the final word on its subject but it marks a major step toward the systematic reconfiguring of how to implement Washington's policy to combat Islamism. The study's meaty contents, clear analysis, and bold recommendations usefully move the debate forward, offering precisely the in-depth strategizing Westerners urgently need.

What's going on here? Either U.S. wants peace or not.

Hamas Calling for Peace
By Robert D. Novak
CNSNews.com Commentary
April 16, 2007

On Saturday, April 7, ending a seven-day visit to Israel, I finally got an interview I had sought for a year. I sat down in a Palestinian National Authority office in Ramallah with a leader of Hamas, the extremist organization that won last year's elections. He pushed a two-state Israeli-Palestinian solution and deplored suicide bombers. But officials in Washington seemingly do not want to hear Hamas calling for peace.

No fringe character, it was Hamas's Nasser al-Shaer: education minister and deputy prime minister in the new coalition government. He signaled that this regime recognizes Israel's right to exist and forgoes violence -- conditions essential for talks about a viable Palestinian state adjoining Israel -- even though Hamas does not. "We hope that it is going to be a matter of time," Shaer told me. "But there is a big chance now."

When I returned to Washington last week, I sought the reaction of Bush administration officials (who refuse any contact with Hamas). I asked to talk to Elliott Abrams, the deputy national security adviser who is most influential in making and executing policy on Israel.

Abrams once was my fellow Cold Warrior and friend whom I defended, but his aide let me know last Thursday that Abrams would not talk to me about Hamas. A senior State Department official showed no interest in what Shaer told me.

U.S. policy goes well beyond the economic boycott that has devastated the Palestinian Authority since Hamas won elections Jan. 25, 2006. U.S. government officials and contract workers in the Israeli-occupied territories must leave when anybody from Hamas enters a room. Since the State Department lists Hamas as a terrorist organization, Americans who do not work for the government fear that contacting a Hamas member of the Palestinian government would violate the Patriot Act.

Accordingly, a year ago, sources who put me in touch with other Palestinians refused to help with Hamas. The best contact I could make then was a brief telephone conversation with a Hamas underling.

I arrived in Jerusalem again April 3, two weeks after Hamas brought the more moderate opposition Fatah party into a new National Unity government. The Los Angeles Times had just run a remarkable op-ed column by political independent Salam Fayyad, finance minister in the new government who lived in Washington for 20 years, served as a World Bank official and is well respected in the West.

He wrote that the Palestine Liberation Organization's 1993 acceptance of Israel and disavowal of violence is "a crystal-clear and binding agreement" that "no Palestinian government has the authority to revoke." He added that the unity government's platform "explicitly" pledges to honor all PLO commitments.

Over dinner in a Ramallah restaurant April 4, Fayyad told me he offered his column simultaneously to several major American newspapers to get this story out quickly. But do his Hamas colleagues accept his reasoning? Fayyad made clear he was not flying solo.

Just before my trip ended, the Palestinian Authority at long last put me in touch with an official who was no low-level bureaucrat. Nasser al-Shaer was deputy prime minister in the all-Hamas regime last Aug. 19 when he was seized in an Israeli raid on his home in Ramallah and held for a month without charges or evidence.

In his ministry office April 7, he looked nothing like the shirt-sleeved, tie-less Shaer photographed when he was released last Sept. 27. Holder of a doctorate from England's University of Manchester, he was dressed in a stylish suit. More telling than his appearance was what he said.

When I asked whether Hamas agreed with Fayyad's formulation, Shaer said it did not matter: "We are talking about the government, not groups." He said Hamas was no more relevant to Palestinian policy than the views of extremist anti-Palestinian Israeli Cabinet member Avigdor Lieberman are to Israeli policy. Unexpectedly, Shaer expressed dismay that "previous attempts at peace were ruined by suicide bombers. Now, we look forward to a sustained peace."

While avoiding Israel-bashing, Shaer conjectured: "I don't think the Israeli government wants a two-state solution. Without pressure from the president of the United States, nothing is going to happen." That sounded like a plea for help from George W. Bush. But will he hear it if Elliott Abrams does not listen?

What happens when PC goes wrong.

Britain to Stop Using 'War on Terror' Phrase, Says Gov't Minister
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com Managing Editor
April 16, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - British officials will stop using the phrase "war on terror," a member of Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet is expected to tell a meeting in New York City on Monday.

According to his prepared remarks, international development secretary Hilary Benn will say that the "war on terror" concept has emboldened terrorists, by making them feel as though they are part of something bigger than they are, British media organizations report.

Benn will argue that small groups of terrorists have aims that differ widely from those of other groups - "loose, shifting and disparate groups who have relatively little in common."

"In the U.K., we do not use the phrase 'war on terror' because we can't win by military means alone, and because this isn't us against one organized enemy with a clear identity and a coherent set of objectives," Benn will say.

"What these groups want is to force their individual and narrow values on others without dialogue, without debate, through violence. And by letting them feel part of something bigger, we give them strength."

Many counter-terrorism experts and security analysts argue that despite their differing local or regional objectives, a large number of small Islamist groups across the world -- in places like Chechnya, Algeria, the Gaza Strip, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Indonesia and southern Thailand -- are driven by a shared jihadist interpretation of Islamic texts.

Benn is due to address a meeting hosted by the Center on International Cooperation, an 11-year-old New York University think tank that says it "works to enhance international responses to humanitarian crises and global security threats through applied research and direct engagement with multilateral institutions and the wider policy community."

Benn is running for the deputy leadership of the Labor Party, and is considered a front-runner in the race. Some media outlets in Britain suggested that with his speech Monday, Benn may be hoping to win additional support. The left wing of the party is strongly critical of President Bush, who began promoting the "global war on terror" concept in the days following the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

Earlier this month, Democrats on the U.S. House Armed Services Committee banned the phrase "global war on terror" from the draft Pentagon budget, arguing that the term was used to bolster the administration's position that the war in Iraq is necessary in the campaign against Islamist terrorism.

Republican minority leader Rep. John Boehner slammed the move, calling it "an absurd effort to deny the fact that America is battling terrorism on a global scale."

Speak English - this is America

Want to pursue happiness? Learn English

Immigrants deserve the government's strongest effort to give them opportunities to acquire English.

Los Angeles Times 

Newt Gingrich

I've been taking lessons to learn Spanish for a while now, and it's given me a new understanding of how difficult it is to learn a new language. And there's no question that if I lived in a Spanish-speaking country and had to study and work and shop in Spanish as I struggled to learn the language, the challenges would be greater. But there's also no doubt that the rewards would be greater too. Mastering the language of a country opens doors of opportunity, plain and simple.

In the United States, English is by no means our only language, but it is the language of economic success and upward mobility. More important, it is the language of our national unity and political discourse. And just as opportunity is the birthright of all native-born Americans, it becomes the inheritance of all new Americans. But this is nothing more than a nice sentiment if we don't do all we can to encourage and help new Americans learn English.

Among the ways we can do this as quickly as possible is to replace bilingual education programs in our public schools with intensive English instruction and abolish the federal mandates requiring multilingual ballots and government documents.

Passions sometimes run high when the topic is English. I learned that firsthand last weekend because of a poor choice of words when talking about this subject. That's understandable. After all, there are 31 million Spanish speakers in the United States. There are also millions of Americans whose first language is Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Hindi or Farsi, to name just a few. They are all justifiably proud of their language and their cultural heritage.

Still, it's important that we not allow passion to rule the debate. Too often, sincere expressions of support for English as our unifying language are interpreted as a lack of support for welcoming and respecting new Americans. For example, those who support "English-first" are often mistakenly portrayed as supporters of "English-only." English-first supporters believe that English should be the official language of the government but that other languages are fine in communities and commerce. In contrast, English-only advocates want to outlaw all languages other than English.

Clearly, these two positions are very different. Promoting English-first is not — and should not be — disrespectful of other languages. In fact, supporting English instruction for immigrants demonstrates our confidence in their ability to pursue happiness here and contribute to their families, communities and new country.

As a part of any comprehensive immigration reform, we should renew our commitment to making sure that all new immigrants have the opportunity to learn English. In public schools, children should have intensive English instruction rather than bilingual classes. For adults, we can adopt something similar to a program Israel has for its new immigrants. There, every new resident is entitled to 500 hours of intensive Hebrew language instruction paid for by the government. And along with intensive English language instruction, they could receive U.S. history and civics training.

Equally important, we must abolish federal rules requiring that government documents — including ballots — be printed in multiple languages. These multilingual documents discourage immigrants from learning English as rapidly as possible, limiting their ability to engage in a truly common political culture. Rather than expanding opportunities for new Americans, these mandates help limit them.

We must never lose sight of the self-evident truths affirmed at our founding: that we are all created equal — citizen and noncitizen alike — and that we are each endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If we are to live out these truths, new immigrants deserve our respect, not our condescension. They deserve the opportunity to pursue happiness in the U.S. that comes with speaking English.

Meanwhile, I'm going to keep working on my Spanish. It's hard, but I'm making progress — poco a poco.

We have to watch Russia - They got smaller and they got stronger!

Exiled Russian Dissident Wants to Topple Putin
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com Managing Editor
April 13, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Russian prosecutors plan legal action against an exiled business tycoon who told a British newspaper on Friday that he is funding a bid to oust President Vladimir Putin's regime.

Boris Berezovsky, who fled Russia in 2001 and was granted political asylum in Britain two years later, told The Guardian that he is helping to finance an attempt by Putin opponents inside the Kremlin to overthrow the authoritarian president.

"We need to use force to change this regime, because ... this regime is unconstitutional," the daily quoted him as saying.

Britain's Foreign Office said in a statement it deplores "any call for the violent overthrow of a sovereign state."

Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika's office plans to send a formal request to the British government asking that it strip Berezovsky of his status as a political refugee and extradite him, Russia's RIA Novosti news agency reported.

"Instructions have been given to react accordingly by launching new criminal proceedings [against Berezovsky], as [the interview] contains calls for a coup," it quoted Chaika as saying.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a press conference said Berezovsky was guilty of sedition.

Russian authorities accuse the tycoon of embezzling funds from the Russia air carrier Aeroflot, and of further embezzlement involving the alleged large-scale theft of automobiles.

The Putin government has been at war with a group of wealthy businessmen, known as oligarchs, many of whom made their fortunes during the privatization of state assets following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The most prominent of these, oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was sentenced in 2005 to eight years' imprisonment after being convicted of fraud and tax evasion. His supporters alleged throughout a lengthy trial that the charges were politically motivated because of his backing for politicians opposed to Putin.

Putin, reportedly the most popular politician in Russia, has since coming into office in 2000 raised serious concerns internationally with anti-democratic measures including steps to centralize power and restrictions on media and political opposition.

A series of mysterious poisoning of critics, notably the death of former spy and dissident Alexander Litvinenko in London last November, brought widespread condemnation and public accusations - by Berezovsky among others - that the Kremlin was responsible. Litvinenko's death led to a chill in diplomatic ties between Russia and Britain.

The Russian constitution bars Putin from running for a third term. Unless he amends it and runs again, the president will step down after his successor is elected in March 2008.

Political correctness for the world? "Jihad," "Islamist" and "fundamentalist" are words that are discouraged, ostensibly to avoid offending or alienating Muslims by linking them to terrorism.

Don't Link Terrorism and Islam, EU Tells Gov't Spokesmen
By Eva Cahen
CNSNews.com Correspondent
April 12, 2007

Paris, France (CNSNews.com) - The European Union has created a special lexicon for use by government spokesmen to avoid associating Islam with terrorism in their statements to the press.

"Jihad," "Islamist" and "fundamentalist" are words that are discouraged, ostensibly to avoid offending or alienating Muslims by linking them to terrorism.

E.U. and British officials have confirmed the existence of the directive with the special lexicon, although its contents remain classified.

Gerard Batten, a U.K. Independence Party member of the European Parliament, has asked the E.U.'s executive commission to explain the lexicon. According to an E.U. document quoted in his question, the lexicon seeks to "correct unfair or inaccurate perceptions of Islam and Muslims" and develop a "non-emotive lexicon for discussing the issues in order to avoid linking them to terrorism."

In Batten's view, this kind of lexicon actually makes things worse.

"What it's doing is actually compounding the problem because it's refusing to accept there is a problem with certain Islamic teachings," he told Cybercast News Service in an interview.

Batten said it was important to identify the religious teachings of extremist Islam so moderate Muslims can then confront and reject them, thus isolating the extremists.

"It's very difficult for moderates to take the lead against extremists when politicians and governments aren't taking the lead," he said.

"If we're going to pussyfoot around and use euphemisms when in fact we should be talking about the real problem, it doesn't help."

Batten cited British media coverage of the Iraq war -- particularly BBC coverage -- as an example of media not facing the real issue of who is doing most of the killing but seeking to place the blame on America and Britain instead.

"Whatever we think about the Iraq war, whether it was right or wrong is irrelevant. It's not the Americans or British killing these enormous numbers of people now, it's Muslims doing it to other Muslims," he said.

"And you won't see any blame from Muslims in this country, or anywhere else in Europe, blaming Muslims for doing it. It's the British's fault; it's the Americans' fault."

A spokesperson for Primo Europe, a French organization that is seeking more balanced media coverage of the Middle East, said the E.U.'s guidelines are likely a result of European Middle East policy that seeks to protect its close ties with Arab countries.

Liliane Messika, the group's spokeswoman, said an association between Islam and terrorism exists, whether the E.U. agrees or not, even if it closes its eyes to it by using a special vocabulary that avoids saying why terrorist acts are being committed.

"When terrorists blow up the World Trade Center towers and say it's in the name of Islam, when terrorists attack London and Madrid in the name of Islam, it's not the E.U. that associates Islam with terrorism but the terrorists themselves," she said.

The E.U.'s lexicon reportedly recommends that instead of using "Islamic terrorists," government spokesmen say "terrorists who abusively invoke Islam."

The guidelines have so far been kept secret, prompting Batten to question the E.U.'s efforts to restrict not only freedom of speech but also to restrict "information on the restrictions it imposes."

Batten has also asked the E.U. Commission to make the lexicon available to members of the European Parliament.

He expects a formal response from the Commission in the coming days.

Medicare part D look out the Dem's are coming

Dems Want More Government Control of Prescription Drug Prices
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
April 13, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Democrats want to change the popular Medicare Prescription Drug Program so the government will be able to negotiate drug prices.

Current legislation forbids the Secretary of Health and Human Services from bargaining with pharmaceutical companies on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries. Private insurers do the bargaining instead.

On Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee passed a bill removing a clause that bars the Health and Human Services secretary from "interfering" price-setting negotiations.

Wire reports said Republicans Olympia Snowe of Maine and Gordon Smith of Oregon joined 11 Senate Finance Committee Democrats in passing the bill, 13-8.

Democrats insist that government negotiations would lower the cost of prescription drugs for some Medicare beneficiaries.

But many Republicans, including the Bush administration, say competition among private insurance plans is the best way to keep prices low.

The Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit, also known as "Part D," allows millions of beneficiaries choose among competing private plans. Seniors choose a plan to meets their needs, rather than being limited to a one-size-fits-all government plan.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, nearly 24 million people who previously had no prescription drug coverage now have a range of options available.

Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), an advocate of universal health care coverage for all Americans, insists the government should be able to negotiate "fair drug prices" for senior citizens.

But many Republicans say why change a program that is costing less than expected -- and is getting good reviews from seniors.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, ranking member of the Finance Committee, pointed to a letter from the Congressional Budget Office, which said allowing the government to negotiate Medicare drug prices "would not obtain significant discounts from drug manufacturers across a broad range of drugs."

"This new letter from the Congressional Budget Office blows another hole in all the political pandering that's going on with this issue," Grassley said. "Having the government set Medicare drug prices would block access to drugs that a senior might need, make it harder to get medicine at the local pharmacy, and result in higher drug prices for younger people and workers who don't have Medicare coverage."

Grassley noted that lawmakers from both parties opposed the idea of letting the government negotiate drug prices when they passed the law setting up the Medicare prescription drug entitlement.

Republicans say Democrats are now messing with the law for partisan reasons -- to "smear" the popular drug benefit that was introduced and passed by Republicans.

"I'm open to ideas to make Medicare's prescription drug benefit work better for Medicare beneficiaries and taxpayers," Grassley said. "But a government takeover of Medicare plans' successful negotiations with drug companies is not the answer."

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said Democrats ultimately are aiming at "government-run health care."

But the American Association of Retired People supports the idea of giving the government "the power to bargain for lower drug prices."

"Older Americans are the largest consumers of prescription drugs, and many have been greatly helped under Part D. Allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices is common sense, and could lead to more affordable drugs for Medicare beneficiaries and lower costs for all taxpayers," said AARP CEO Bill Novelli.

"We look forward to working with senators from both sides of the aisle as this legislation moves forward," Novelli added.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposes any move to let the government negotiate prescription drug prices.

It says the bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday "could dismantle a vastly popular market-driven program."

Allowing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate with drug companies would give him "potential de facto control to set prices for prescription drugs," the Chamber warned. "Such an outcome could inevitably increase the burden on employers and the private sector already buckling under the current health care costs."

"Ensuring robust competition in the overwhelmingly popular Medicare Part D program is among the Chamber's highest priorities for meeting the health care needs of retirees, employees and businesses across the country," the Chamber said in a letter urging the committee to defeat the bill.

S. 3 is now headed for a vote by the full Senate. The House passed a similar bill earlier this year, 255-170.

Although they no longer identify themselves as Communists, preferring to be called liberals or progressives, they still subscribe to group think.

 

           

                      The nonsense liberals believe
By Burt Prelutsky
Friday, April 13, 2007

Many years ago, I read Eric Hoffers’s book, “The True Believer.” In the course of which, Mr. Hoffer suggested that although you might think that Communists and Fascists were polar opposites, their similarities were far greater than their differences. He was referring to the psychological makeup of their respective followers. At the time, being a very young man, I’m not sure I grasped how wise he was.

It was a truth that I discovered for myself between the years of 1987 and 1991, when I served two terms on the board of directors of the Writer’s Guild of America. All told, there were 19 of us -- three officers and 16 directors -- of whom at least five had been blacklisted back in the 1950s. These were writers who’d been Communists during the 30s and 40s. That meant that they had opposed America’s intervention in World War II during the two years of the Stalin-Hitler non-aggression pact -- years during which Germany had ridden roughshod over the rest of Europe. But once the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, these American Reds became downright bellicose.

   

       
                    
        In this file photo originally provided by Paramount Pictures Classics, Al Gore is shown in his film on climate change, ?An Inconvenient Truth." Gore will host the opening night gala of the Tribeca Film Festival, which will begin with a series of short films on global warming. The New York festival will run from April 25 through May 5. (AP Photo/Paramount Classics,Eric Lee)

           

The reason I bring up this bit of ancient history is because, psychologically, these ex-Communists hadn’t really changed in half a century. Only instead of taking their marching orders from Joseph Stalin, they were now taking them from the tyrannical executive director of the Guild. Unable to think for themselves, they required a strong man to follow. And, like little ducks, follow him they did. In four years, they never disagreed with any of his edicts; and inevitably they voted as a bloc.

In the years since then, I have found this to always be the case with leftists. Although they no longer identify themselves as Communists, preferring to be called liberals or progressives, they still subscribe to group think. They are always in lockstep.

I’m not certain who it is who determines the liberal agenda, but once the decision has been made, they ask no questions, content to simply parrot the party line. And those who are immune to Big Brother are attacked as racists, Fascists, xenophobes, homophobes and war mongers.

Liberals, for instance, will all sing the same tune when it comes to gun ownership, global warming, bi-lingual education, same sex marriages, open borders, amnesty for illegal aliens, abortion on demand and dual-citizenship.

Liberals believe that “separation of church and state” actually appears somewhere in the Constitution. They can also be counted on to misquote the 10 Commandments to bolster their case against capital punishment. And they believe that war is not a last resort, but is, in fact, never justified.

When it comes to politicians, they cut conservatives no slack whatsoever, demanding that the heads of Tom Delay, Mark Foley and Trent Lott, be lopped off and exhibited on pikes. But when it comes to creeps and chiselers like John Murtha, William Jefferson and Harry Reid, they reward them with positions of power and influence.

Have you ever heard of one liberal taking another to task for a misdeed? No, neither have I. In fact, the only time a Democrat tells the truth about a fellow liberal is when they’re both running for president.

Conservatives, on the other hand, have crossed swords with President Bush over any number of things, ranging from the way he’s waged war in Iraq to his attempts to disguise amnesty for illegal aliens as a work program, from the way he pronounces words to the way he keeps calling Islam a religion of peace.

I’m afraid that not only could I never be a liberal, but I could never really respect anyone who’s too lazy or stupid to think for himself. I can’t even imagine swallowing a tenth of the bilge that people like Nancy Pelosi and Robert Byrd spoon feed their constituents on a daily basis. Frankly, I’d find it far easier to believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, or a rumor that Ted Kennedy had sworn off booze.

           

where was the mandate for withdrawal? Almost no Democratic candidates campaigned on that. They campaigned for changing the course the administration was on last November.

           

                      Forcing U.S. to quit in Iraq
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, April 13, 2007

By the day, the debate at home about Iraq becomes increasingly disconnected from the realities of the actual war on the ground. The Democrats in Congress are so consumed with negotiating among their factions the most clever linguistic device to legislatively ensure the failure of the administration's current military strategy -- while not appearing to do so -- that they speak almost not at all about the first visible results of that strategy.

And preliminary results are visible. The landscape is shifting in the two fronts of the current troop surge: Anbar province and Baghdad.

   

       
                    
        Marine Corps Commandant James T. Conway greets Iraqi border enforcement troops at a fort in far western Anbar province on the Syrian border, last Friday, April 6, 2007. (AP Photo/Robert Burns)

           

The news from Anbar is the most promising. Only last fall, the Marines' leading intelligence officer there concluded that the U.S. had essentially lost the fight to al-Qaeda. Yet, just this week, the marine commandant, Gen. James Conway, returned from a four-day visit to the province and reported that we "have turned the corner."

Why? Because, as Lt. Col. David Kilcullen, the Australian counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, has written, 14 of the 18 tribal leaders in Anbar have turned against al-Qaeda. As a result, thousands of Sunni recruits are turning up at police stations where none could be seen before. For the first time, former insurgent strongholds such as Ramadi have a Sunni police force fighting essentially on our side.

Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a major critic of the Bush war policy, now reports that in Anbar, al-Qaeda is facing "a real and growing groundswell of Sunni tribal opposition." And that "this is a crucial struggle and it is going our way -- for now."

The situation in Baghdad is more mixed. Thursday's bridge and Green Zone attacks show the insurgents' ability to bomb sensitive sites. On the other hand, pacification is proceeding. "Nowhere is safe for Westerners to linger," reported ABC's Terry McCarthy on April 3, ``but over the past week we visited five different neighborhoods where the locals told us life is slowly coming back to normal.'' He reported from Jadriyah, Karrada, Zayouna, Zawra Park and the notorious Haifa Street, previously known as "sniper alley." He found that "children have come out to play again. Shoppers are back in markets," and concluded that "nobody knows if this small safe zone will expand or get swallowed up again by violence. For the time being though, people here are happy to enjoy a life that looks almost normal."

Fouad Ajami, just returned from his seventh trip to Iraq, is similarly guardedly optimistic and explains the change this way: Fundamentally, the Sunnis have lost the battle of Baghdad. They initiated it with their indiscriminate terror campaign that they assumed would cow the Shiites, whom they view with contempt as congenitally quiescent, lower-class former subjects. They learned otherwise after the Samarra bombing (February 2006) kindled Shiite fury -- a savage militia campaign of kidnapping, indiscriminate murder and ethnic cleansing that has made Baghdad a largely Shiite city.

Petraeus is trying now to complete the defeat of the Sunni insurgents in Baghdad -- without the barbarism of the Shiite militias, whom his forces are simultaneously pursuing and suppressing.

How at this point -- with only about half of the additional surge troops yet deployed -- can Democrats be trying to force the U.S. to give up? The Democrats say they are carrying out their electoral mandate from the November election. But winning a single-vote Senate majority as a result of razor-thin victories in Montana and Virginia is hardly a landslide.

Second, if the electorate was sending an unconflicted message about withdrawal, how did the most uncompromising supporter of the war, Sen. Joe Lieberman, win handily in one of the most liberal states in the country?

And third, where was the mandate for withdrawal? Almost no Democratic candidates campaigned on that. They campaigned for changing the course the administration was on last November.

Which the president has done. He changed the civilian leadership at the Department of Defense, replaced the head of Central Command and, most critically, replaced the Iraq commander with Petraeus -- unanimously approved by the Democratic Senate -- to implement a new counterinsurgency strategy.

John McCain has had no illusions about the difficulty of this war. Nor does he now. In his bold and courageous speech at the Virginia Military Institute defending the war effort, he described the improvements on the ground while acknowledging the enormous difficulties ahead. Insisting that success in Iraq is both possible and necessary, McCain made clear that he is willing to stake his presidential ambitions, indeed his entire political career, on a war policy that is unpopular but that he believes must be pursued for the sake of the country. How many other presidential candidates -- beginning with, say, Hillary Clinton -- do you think are acting in the same spirit?

The North American Islamic Trust owns more than half of the nation's mosques

US Islamic Groups Scrutinized in Critical New Report
By Fred Lucas
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
April 12, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Last month, a federal grand jury indicted the Islamic African Relief Agency and five of its officials for allegedly sending millions of dollars to Iraq while denying known connections to terrorists.

First raided by the FBI in 2004, it is one of a few Muslim organizations to be shut down since 9/11 for alleged terror ties. This included the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the International Association for Palestine (IAP), both accused of being front groups for the Middle Eastern terror group, Hamas.

But other Muslim organizations with alleged terror ties are still operating throughout the United States, according to Judicial Watch. The Washington-based conservative watchdog group has released a report http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2007/SR_muslimorg.pdf detailing documented controversial links.

The report examines the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) and the Muslim American Society (MAS).

The groups were mentioned in a 2001 Judicial Watch report, along with the other groups that have since been shut down.

"While the U.S. government finally has taken action against some of the groups identified by Judicial Watch, others are still functioning," the report said. "The federal government is aware of their presence and the damage they pose to our national security. The question is: Why are they still in operation?"

The North American Islamic Trust owns more than half of the nation's mosques, and the organization has been accused of being a funnel for Saudi and other gulf money to spread an extreme brand of Islam inside the United States "from southern California to South Carolina," the report said.

It also criticized CAIR, the largest Muslim group in North America, which reportedly got seed money from the Holy Land Foundation and is an "outgrowth" of the IAP. Both the Holy Land Foundation and the IAP have been shut down for documented terror links.

Despite CAIR's questionable past, the federal government works closely with the group in sensitivity training and various outreach programs, as Cybercast News Service reported in January.

CAIR, which calls itself a civil rights organization, says it condemns terror and violence and goes out of its way to help federal government agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice.

According to Judicial Watch, ISNA promotes extreme Wahhabi ideology in 1,200 mosques across the country. It has helped turn the federal prison system into a recruiting area for al Qaeda, the report alleges.

Nonetheless, in 2005, the White House invited ISNA representatives to participate in the Office of Faith Based and Community Representatives' White House Leadership Conference.

ISNA representative Mohammad Elsanousi on Wednesday denied the charges and said he would have an official spokesman contact Cybercast News Service. No call was received by the end of the day.

Judicial Watch calls the MAS a front organization for the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian-based Islamist network that has called for "achieving Islamic rule in America ... to convert Americans to Islam and elect like-minded Muslims to political office."

Mahdi Bray, executive director of MAS, denied any link.

"We don't have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood," he told Cybercast News Service on Wednesday. "We are an American Muslim organization. We've done work with Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. We don't take our marching orders from Egypt or anywhere else."

Bray also addressed the criticism of the Minnesota chapter of MAS for a short-lived policy by the Minneapolis Transportation Authority that allowed Muslim cab drivers to not transport someone carrying alcohol. Bray said the national organization stepped in to oppose the policy and noted that he suggested: "If that conflicts with your faith, look for another job."

Judicial Watch, Bray stated, is like other critics that tend to lump all Muslims together.

"You have the blogosphere and this group of people who use the same talking points, and they recycle these talking points," he said.

The Judicial Watch report referenced mainstream media sources such as Newsweek, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune and the Christian Science Monitor, and relied heavily on information from conservative media sources such as Front Page Magazine and books and articles by critics of the Muslim groups.

"This report carefully documents connections between so-called Muslim charities in the U.S. and the terrorists who murder innocents," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

He said the report sheds light on why the government should be more aggressive in probing the non-profit groups.

"The federal government should no longer coddle terrorist front groups in the name of political correctness," he said. "Any organization that funds terror should be shut down immediately."