Snooper’s Neighborhood

History repeats itself: Obama doesn’t get that National Anthem & Pledge of Allegiance thing

Obama doesn’t get that National Anthem and Pledge of Allegiance thing

Obama-no-salute

Remember back during the campaign when Obama didn’t quite get the concept of the National Anthem (bottom photo)? Based on recent Veterans Day ceremonies (top photo), he still doesn’t get it.

Maybe things would have been different if they’d been reciting the Kenyan Pledge of Allegiance.

http://www.ihatethemedia.com/obama-doesnt-get-that-pledge-of-allegiance-thing

How low will the new American president go for the world's royalty?

LIAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.danielpipes.org/7737/sudden-jihad-inordinate-stress-ft-hood

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Ft. Hood jihadi, in a picture from 2000.

When a Muslim in the West for no apparent reason violently attacks non-Muslims, a predictable argument ensues about motives.

The establishment – law enforcement, politicians, the media, and the academy – stands on one side of this debate, insisting that some kind of oppression caused Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, to kill 13 and wound 38 at Ft. Hood on Nov. 5. It disagrees on the specifics, however, presenting Hasan as the victim alternatively of "racism," "harassment he had received as a Muslim," a sense of not belonging," "pre-traumatic stress disorder," "mental problems," "emotional problems," "an inordinate amount of stress," or being deployed to Afghanistan as his "worst nightmare." Accordingly, a typical newspaper headline reads "Mindset of Rogue Major a Mystery.".

Instances of Muslim-on-unbeliever violence inspire the victim school to dig up new and imaginative excuses. Colorful examples (drawing on my article http://www.danielpipes.org/2396/denying-islamist-terrorism and weblog entry http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2005/02/more-incidents-of-denying-islamist-terrorism about denying Islamist terrorism) include:

• 1990: "A prescription drug for … depression" (to explain the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane http://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/09/nyregion/police-say-kahane-suspect-took-anti-depression-drugs.html )
• 1991: "A robbery gone wrong" (the murder of Makin Morcos in Sydney)
• 1994: "Road rage" (the killing of a random Jew on the Brooklyn Bridge http://www.meforum.org/77/murder-on-the-brooklyn-bridge )
• 1997: "Many, many enemies in his mind" (the shooting murder atop the Empire State Building http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2007/02/explaining-the-murder-rampage-atop-the )
• 2000: A traffic incident (the attack on a bus of Jewish schoolchildren near Paris)
• 2002: "A work dispute" (the double murder at LAX http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/critiques/Terror_in_LA$.asp )
• 2002: A "stormy [family] relationship" (the Beltway snipers http://www.danielpipes.org/493/the-snipers-crazy-or-jihadis )
• 2003: An "attitude problem" (Hasan Karim Akbar's http://www.danielpipes.org/1042/hasan-akbar-and-murder-in-the-101st-airborne attack on fellow soldiers, killing two)
• 2003: Mental illness (the mutilation murder of Sebastian Sellam http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=15223 )
• 2004: "Loneliness and depression" (an explosion in Brescia, Italy http://www.jihadwatch.org/2004/03/italy-mcdonalds-jihad-foiled.html outside a McDonald's restaurant)
• 2005: "A disagreement between the suspect and another staff member" (a rampage at a retirement center http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64176-2005Jan10?language=printer in Virginia)
• 2006: "An animus toward women" (a murderous rampage at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:voqer71Lt1cJ:articles.latimes.com/2006/jul/30/nation/na-shootings30+%22Some+speculated+he+might+have+sought+to+cloak+an+animus+toward+women+%22&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk )
• 2006: "His recent, arranged marriage may have made him stressed" (killing with an SUV in northern California http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/08/30/MNGVQKRSQC1.DTL )

Sgt. Hasan Karim Akbar, convicted of the 2003 murder of two fellow soldiers.

As a charter member of the jihad school of interpretation, I reject these explanations as weak, obfuscatory, and apologetic. The jihadi school, still in the minority, perceives Hasan's attack as one of many Muslim efforts to vanquish infidels and impose Islamic law. We recall a prior episode of sudden jihad syndrome http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2008/01/sudden-jihad-syndrome-its-now-official in the U.S. military, as well as the numerous cases of non-lethal Pentagon jihadi http://www.danielpipes.org/1259/pentagon-jihadis plots and the history of Muslim violence on American soil http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/AmericanAttacks.htm .

Far from being mystified by Hasan, we see overwhelming evidence of his jihadi intentions. He handed out Korans to neighbors just before going on his rampage and yelled "Allahu Akbar," the jihadi's cry, as he fired off over 100 rounds from two pistols. His superiors reportedly put him on probation http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120138496 for inappropriately proselytizing about Islam.

We note what former associates say about him: one, Val Finnell http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fort-hood-hasan7-2009nov07,0,3477020,print.story, quotes Hasan saying, "I'm a Muslim first and an American second" and recalls Hasan justifying suicide terrorism http://www2.wjbf.com/jbf/ap_exchange/national_news/article/SomeSawWarningSignsAheadOfUsArmyShootingUs/37485/ ; another, Col Terry Lee http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6511591/Fort-Hood-shooting-Nidal-Malik-Hasan-said-Muslims-should-rise-up.html , recalls that Hasan "claimed Muslims had the right to rise up and attack Americans"; the third, a psychiatrist http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120162816 who worked very closely with Hasan, described him as "almost belligerent about being Muslim."

Finally, the jihad school of thought attributes importance to the Islamic authorities' urging American Muslim soldiers to refuse to fight their co-religionists, thereby providing a basis for sudden jihad. In 2001, for example, responding to the U.S. attack on the Taliban, the mufti of Egypt, Ali Gum'a http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Area=sd&ID=SP58003 , issued a fatwa stating that "The Muslim soldier in the American army must refrain [from participating] in this war." Hasan himself, echoing that message, advised a young Muslim disciple, Duane Reasoner Jr. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-fort-hood-hasan7-2009nov07,0,4710653.story , not to join the U.S. army because "Muslims shouldn't kill Muslims."

If the jihad explanation is overwhelmingly more persuasive than the victim one, it's also far more awkward to articulate. Everyone finds blaming road rage, Accutane, or an arranged marriage easier than discussing Islamic doctrines. And so, a prediction: what Ralph Peters http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/fort_hood_xjP9yGrJN7gl7zdsJ31vnJ calls the army's "unforgivable political correctness" will officially ascribe Hasan's assault to his victimization and will leave jihad unmentioned.

And thus will the army blind itself and not prepare for its next jihadi attack.

Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

Islam is a powerful force in America.  This is evident by the reluctance of our leaders to speak out on Islamic organizations and their funding from terrorist groups.

A powerful new book is wreaking havoc with the reputation myriad Islamic organizations in America have been carefully cultivating for years. 

Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Trying to Islamize America reveals that, far from the moderate Muslim “mainstream” they profess to represent, these entities are associated with the insidious Muslim Brotherhood - an international criminal enterprise that has the self-professed mission of “destroying Western civilization from within.”

Will America be able to turn the corner and stabilize or will Communist China rule the world?  Will America start using its creative energy to produce products that the world wants to buy?  Will America stop outsourcing production capacity and jobs to China? Will America's government and corporate leaders stop being greedy and invest time and energy into making America an economic powerhouse once again?  Good questions all.  

The rapid growth is in the East today. Albert Keidel, author of China's Economic Rise: Fact and Fiction, predicts that China's economy will surpass that in the U.S. by 2035 and be twice its size by 2050. Keidel calls attention to China's "money-making machine" because it has ready at hand the funds to build the infrastructure to sustain rapid growth.

The U.S.--loaded as it is with too much debt, a damaged banking system and high unemployment--does not have China's resources. Warns Keidel: "China's likely success will eventually bring an end to America's global economic pre-eminence."

Political correctness has run amok again.  It seems that anyone can be fired and treated like a criminal without due process.  Sexual harassment has become a joke.  Because, the offense is in the eye of the beholder.  And, a standard of guilt for sexual harassment is quite subjective. Without the rules of presenting legal evidence and providing due process to accused, the entire issue of sexual harassment is questionable.  

Under pressure from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), East Georgia College (EGC) has withdrawn an unfounded charge of "sexual harassment" against a professor who criticized the school's sexual harassment policy.

EGC President John B. Black dismissed Professor Thomas Thibeault from campus and had him escorted from campus by police in August. Thibeault was treated as a dangerous criminal without a hearing or even knowing his accuser or the charges or evidence against him.