More recently, the arrest of Faisal Shahzad in the attempted bombing of Times Square forced American officials to look closely at links between the suspect, an American citizen of Pakistani descent, and militants in the thriving southern port city, which is closer to the border with India than Afghanistan.

One of Shahzad's Pakistani contacts -- a member of the Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group called Mohammad Rehan -- was subsequently picked up by Pakistani intelligence officials in Karachi. Jaish-e-Mohammad is among the Islamic groups with a history of sending volunteers to fight for the Taliban in Afghanistan, as well as with Islamic separatists in India's predominantly Muslim border state of Kashmir.

Rehan is being questioned on his role in facilitating a visit by Shahzad in the summer of 2009 to the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, previously known as the north west frontier province (NWFP), along the Afghan border. Investigators believe he met there with hardcore Taliban militants who taught him how to build crude bombs. A senior Karachi police official says the arrest of as many as eight suspects, including Rehan, is at the center of Pakistan's ongoing investigation into Shahzad's Pakistan links.

"We all want to know exactly how these people facilitated Faisal Shahzad," the official told CBS News on condition of anonymity. "Once we have a solid knowledge of the way these people operated in Faisal Shahzad's case, and in other cases of militancy too, our ability to penetrate militant groups will undoubtedly improve."...

Combined with these practical, if circumstantial, red flags, is strong anti-U.S. sentiment in parts of Karachi, particularly in the poverty stricken neighborhoods. Though statistics on the number of poor people in Karachi have not been compiled formally in recent years, local officials say anywhere between a quarter to a third of the city's residents live in poverty.

Typically, these are people who face daily electricity cuts that can last eight hours, many are unemployed, and there's no air conditioning in their homes as summer daytime temperatures in Pakistan's tropical south soar above 104 degrees.

That's why there are so many suicide bombers in Haiti.

On Thursday, protesters gathered in Karachi's streets to demonstrate against Facebook, the social networking site which has infuriated many Muslims by hosting a web page featuring caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Images of Muhammad are strictly forbidden by the tenets of Islam, and illegal under Pakistan's Islamic government.

The rage expressed by the Karachi residents underscored the anti-Western sentiment, and the deep tension festering in the city.

"America is against Muslims and we are now protesting because Facebook, which is based in America, has insulted Muslims," Sabir Umar, a Karachi shopkeeper, told CBS News. "I am a poor man, but I shut down my shop to join this protest because it is time for us to demonstrate against the Americans." he said.

That's not poverty-breeds-terrorism, which is what CBS News is trying to establish here. That's terrorism-breeds-poverty.

Sami Khattak, a bicycle store owner who also joined the protests, went a step further. "If I had to help my brother Muslims from Afghanistan or Iraq, where the U.S. has attacked Muslims, I will of course do everything to help them. That is my right and also my duty."

That's standard and universal Islamic doctrine: if a Muslim land is attacked, defensive jihad becomes an obligation of every individual Muslim.

Such feelings show a potential sympathy for Islamic hardliners prevalent in many Karachi neighborhoods....

No kidding, really?

President Bush famously said after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that every country had to decide whether they were with us or against us. Unfortunately, several so-called allies have decided to tackle some terrorist groups and not others, believing that the U.S. has no other option but to accept their half-hearted collaboration. Recent news from Yemen and Pakistan show that these two countries are double-dealing and need to be held accountable.

The Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi announced that high-level Al-Qaeda leader, Anwar al-Awlaki, will not be extradited to the United States if they capture him, even though he is an American citizen. Al-Awlaki is thought to be connected to the Fort Hood shooting and the Christmas Day underwear bomb plot. The Al-Qaeda branch in Yemen is becoming increasingly active, with up to 36 former prison inmates in the U.S. having joined the group.

This follows an earlier incident where al-Qirbi said that his government was not actively trying to arrest al-Awlaki, saying he was seen as a preacher. He then clarified that statement, saying he was only referring to the period when al-Awlaki initially moved to Yemen from the U.S. and was not accused of being involved in terrorism. He explained that the Yemeni government wants to arrest al-Awlaki, but blamed the U.S. for not providing adequate intelligence to allow them to locate him. We have heard the Pakistanis use a similar defense over the years when confronted with their resistance to arresting Taliban leaders.

Yemen has long harbored Al-Qaeda and radical Salafi elements, making various deals with them and openly negotiating truces when conflict arose. President Saleh’s government and security forces are known to have close ties to the Salafi tribes, whose members are reliable allies when fighting the radical Shiite Houthi rebels.

Imprisoned Al-Qaeda members frequently “escape” from prison. In February 2006, 23 Al-Qaeda members, including some involved in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and the 2003 bombings in Riyadh, found their way out of a high-security prison. When they were rearrested, the Yemeni government pardoned them after they disavowed terrorism. In February 2009, Yemen released 170 Al-Qaeda members after they promised not to return to terrorism. The Arab press reported last year that two Al-Qaeda camps were in Yemen, with one in Abyan Province housing about 400 terrorists.

The problem is similar in Pakistan. Although the Pakistani military has launched offensives to take back territory held by Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and like-minded terrorists, the government is still allowing some terrorist groups and Taliban figures to have freedom on their soil. The arrest in February of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the second-in-command of the Taliban, was seen as a turning point, but at least two other senior Taliban officials were released.

The Haqqani network, which is allied to the Taliban, remains immune from Pakistani counter-terrorism efforts. Last May, U.S. intelligence found that the Taliban’s capabilities had expanded due to the assistance of members of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service which was providing money, weapons and even “strategic planning guidance.” The ISI’s S-Wing was accused of supporting the branch of the Taliban in Quetta in Baluchistan Province, where Mullah Omar is believed to be, as well as the Haqqani network and the forces led by Guldbuddin Hekmatyar, another Taliban ally.

The failed plot by Faisal Shahzad and the Pakistani Taliban to set off a car bomb in Times Square proves that all jihadist groups in Pakistan must be eliminated in order to stop attacks on the homeland and on American interests. At least four members of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) have been arrested by the Pakistani authorities as part of their investigation into Shahzad, and he has told his captors that he met with a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) while in Pakistan. In December, five Americans who traveled to Pakistan to join the Taliban and Al-Qaeda stayed at a safehouse provided by a member of Jaish-e-Mohammed.

The leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed openly preaches anti-Western extremism and jihad in Pakistan and although Lashkar-e-Taiba is banned, it continues to operate under the name of Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, is on house arrest but still preaches to thousands in Lahore.

The two groups are even allowed to operate schools. Reporters have found two madrasses openly run by Jaish-e-Mohammed. After the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the LET said it ran over 202 schools as well as hospitals and charities in the country. Only a handful of the schools have been closed. Reporters have also observed the JEM’s headquarters in Bahawalpur in Punjab Province operating freely. After their presence was learned of, a checkpoint was established but the facility remained open.

Arnaud de Borchgrave wrote in The Washington Times recently that Pakistan “is still producing an estimated 10,000 potential jihadis a year out of 500,000 graduates from Pakistan’s 11,000 madrasses.” Any school run by extremist needs to be seen as an enemy base, no different than a training camp.

The U.S. cannot afford to allow Yemen and Pakistan to continue their current behavior. The governments of these two countries may argue that aggressive action could cause a backlash. The U.S. must emphasize that if action is not taken by them, then the CIA’s drones will take the action for them. The public pressure they fear will become a reality due to their own inaction.

This conflict is more than a war against Al-Qaeda. It is a war against an entire radical Islamic infrastructure with each component being as important as the next. There must be no distinction made between Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, like the one in Yemen, and similar but separate groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed in Pakistan.

WASHINGTON -- The Pakistani-American man accused of trying to detonate a car bomb in Times Square has told investigators that he drew inspiration from Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American cleric whose militant online lectures have been a catalyst for several recent attacks and plots, an American official said Thursday.

Curious NYT decorum:

The would-be bomber, Faisal Shahzad, said he was "inspired by" the violent rhetoric of Mr. Awlaki, said the official, who would speak of the investigation only on condition of anonymity.

"He listened to him, and he did it," the official said, referring to Saturday's attempted bombing on a busy street in Times Square.

Friends of Mr. Shahzad have said he became more religious and somber in the last year or so, and asked his father's permission in 2009 to join the fight in Afghanistan against American and NATO forces. Investigators believe he was trained by the Pakistani Taliban, a militant group that previously focused mainly on Pakistani government targets.

A senior military official said Thursday that Mr. Shahzad has told interrogators that he met with Pakistani Taliban operatives in North Waziristan in December and January. Later he received explosives training from the same operatives, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Counterterrorism officials want to know how Mr. Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen who had earned an M.B.A., married and had children and worked in several corporate jobs, came to embrace violence.

It is no surprise to counterterrorism officials to find that an accused terrorist had been influenced by Mr. Awlaki, 39, now hiding in Yemen, who has emerged as perhaps the most prominent English-speaking advocate of violent jihad against the United States.

Earlier this year, the Obama administration took the extraordinary step of authorizing the killing of Mr. Awlaki, making him the first American citizen on the Central Intelligence Agency's hit list.

Mr. Awlaki's English-language online lectures and writings have turned up in more than a dozen terrorism investigations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, counterterrorism experts have said. And in two recent United States cases, Mr. Awlaki communicated directly with the accused perpetrator.

Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., in November, exchanged about 18 e-mail messages with Mr. Awlaki in the year before the shootings, asking among other things whether it would be permissible under Islam to kill American soldiers preparing to fight in Afghanistan. After the shootings, Mr. Awlaki praised Major Hasan as "a hero" on his Web site, which was taken offline by the Internet host company shortly after the posting.

In addition, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic airliner on Christmas Day, is believed to have met Mr. Awlaki during his training by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

It is unclear whether Mr. Shahzad ever directly communicated with Mr. Awlaki.

A video broadcast on April 26 on Al Jazeera showed Mr. Awlaki speaking in Arabic and accusing the United States of participating with Yemeni forces in two air strikes in December, one of which was directed at a house where Mr. Awlaki was believed to be meeting with leaders of the Al Qaeda branch. The video carried the logo of the media arm of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Mr. Awlakiwas questioned by the F.B.I. late in 2001 about contacts with three of the Sept. 11 hijackers who had attended his mosques in San Diego and Virginia. He denied any radical ties and denounced the 9/11 attacks in public statements.

He was imprisoned in Yemen in 2006 and 2007, and after his release he was more overtly approving of violence. Last year, he published a tract entitled "44 Ways of Supporting Jihad" that was widely circulated on the Internet.

There are 50 ways to leave your lover, but only 44 ways to support jihad. Now you know.

Mr. Awlaki's Web site became a favorite for English-speaking Muslims who were curious about jihad, and hundreds of people sent e-mail messages to his site. It is not known whether Mr. Shahzad was among them, and there is no evidence that Mr. Shahzad visited the cleric in Yemen where he was believed to be hiding in a harsh region of desert and mountains.

Federal authorities are closing in on the man they say is a person of interest in the Times Square car bomb attempt this weekend, who is described as a naturalized American citizen who hails from Pakistan and just returned after spending five months there.

There is growing evidence the bomber did not act alone and had ties to radical elements overseas, with one senior official telling ABC News there are several individuals believed to be connected with the bombing and that at least one of them is a Pakistani-American.

Attorney General Eric Holder said today the investigators had made "substantial progress" in tracking the man who drove a Nissan Pathfinder into New York's Times Square with a crude bomb that failed to detonate.

Officials declined to provide the specifics that led them to believe there were overseas links to a larger plot.

Authorities said another clue in the investigation is a video posted online early Sunday morning by persons in Connecticut, who may have been involved in the bomb attempt and are being sought by law enforcement. The video, posted on a site registered one day before the attack, has the Taliban in Pakistan claiming responsibility for the attempted bombing....

The United Nations has been busy this past week celebrating International Women’s Day and convening a conference at UN headquarters in New York of the Commission on the Status of Women. A key focus of the Commission, according to the website of the UN’s Division for the Advancement of Women, is “sharing of experiences and good practices with a view to overcoming remaining obstacles and new challenges.” Unfortunately, the one place where women will see ingrained bad practices in dealing with sexual harassment against women in its ranks is the United Nations itself.

A case in point involves a lawsuit brought by an American citizen and United Nations employee, Cynthia Brzak, who worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, in Geneva. She claimed that Lubbers improperly touched her after a December 2003 business meeting in his office. Lubbers resigned in 2005 because of the scandal. However, he does not have to worry about ever facing justice in a U.S. court because he has permanent immunity as an ex-United Nations employee. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on March 2, 2010 that the United Nations is absolutely immune from such a lawsuit, and that its former employees also have immunity.

If the United Nations’ leadership were serious about walking the walk itself, instead of preaching about gender rights to everyone else, the UN could have waived its own immunity and the immunity of its staff with respect to claims of sexual harassment acts by its employees – or, in this case, its former employee. That did not happen. Instead, reprisals against Brzak allegedly followed in the wake of her complaint and continue to this day.

Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General, ran interference for Lubbers even to the point of allegedly disregarding the findings of an internal UN investigation and exonerating him. The current Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, is ducking the issue and has allowed the UN’s legal staff to vigorously assert the immunity defense rather than waive it.

Ban Ki-moon addressed the Commission on the Status of Women High-Level Event marking International Women’s Day, one day after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ immunity decision shielding the UN and Lubbers from liability came out. Ban Ki-moon said that as a son and husband, a father and grandfather to girls, and as UN Secretary General, it is his duty to fight for gender equality and women’s empowerment, which are fundamental to the very identity of the United Nations. He can start in his own backyard.

In light of all the attention the United Nations is bestowing on women’s rights during the conference of the Commission on the Status of Women and Ban Ki-moon’s self-described personal involvement with the issue, I asked his spokesperson, Martin Nesirky, whether the Secretary General had any comment on the latest development in the sexual harassment case against the United Nations and Lubbers. Not surprisingly, he did not. When I persisted on when we can expect a comment on this women’s rights issue, he replied with a riddle: “Do we know how long is a string?”

I addressed the same question to Rachel Mayanja, Special Adviser to the Secretary General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women. Oblivious to the irony of her specializing in gender issues and the advancement of women at the United Nations, she professed ignorance of the facts of the sexual harassment case against the United Nations and Lubbers. And she defended the UN’s use of immunity “to protect the interests of the organization.”

The fact is that the United Nations has a serious problem on its hands with sexual abuse and harassment cases, most notably in its peace-keeping forces, but at high managerial levels as well. Instead of serving as a role model on an issue that it purports to champion, the UN is fighting judicial accountability for the actions of its own employees.

Despite the leftist ideology revealed in Joseph Stack’s manifesto, shortly after he crashed his plane into the IRS building in Austin, TX, progressive media lept to align him with the Tea Party movement, describing him as right-wing, racist, anti-tax, patriot, or militia. Sensing the danger the average American citizen in the Tea Party movement represents to Democrats in 2010 and 2012, they seized the opportunity to insinuate Stack’s alliance hoping to halt the movement’s rising populist wave across the nation.

As expected, leftists at the NY Times, Washington Post, NY Mag, Time, Newsweek, ABC and Daily Kos swiftly established the talking points. ABC News went so far as to resurrect Janet Napolitano’s quickly retracted Depatment of Homeland Security April 2009 report citing,

“Rightwing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal through propoganda, but they have not yet turned to attack planning.”

Quoting Mark Potok, of the Southern Poverty Law Center, ABC maligned,

“the result is what [is] referred to as a ‘broad-based, right-wing populist rebellion.’”

But Joseph Stack cannot be branded as a member of the right. Stack was neither a teapartier nor right-winger. And he was more than just a loon who attempted to avoid paying income taxes. Although incoherent and underdeveloped, his rants are decidedly left-wing and his manifesto, or at least parts of it, are very similar to diaries at the Daily Kos. Stack expressed hatred for George W. Bush,  the Catholic Church, and capitalism.  He attacked “fat cat” owners, railed against the health care industry and bemoaned the lack of consideration for the masses. Joseph Stack was devastated that his dreams of a benevolent government have been shattered.

In his manifesto he proclaims,

““The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. “

“There are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us.”

“Now when the wealthy f*ck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn’t that a clever, tidy solution. “

“The joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple”

“The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government.”

Even the leftists at the Democratic Underground recognize one of their own,

“I think he presented his case well, lucidly, and has expressed what many of us here on DU have expressed: Anger at the injustices done to the American people, frustration at the unwillingness of our government to help us, and helplessness at the realization that we ultimately have no power.”

“There are many points made that I read on DU everyday.”

Overtly embracing Karl Marx, Stack chose to end his manifesto with an attack on free-market capitalism,

“The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.”

It is the Left who are slaves to Marxism, the foundation of today’s Democratic Party. A foundation which celebrates resentment and advocates control of the individual while rejecting the notions of liberty and freedom. This foundation forms a trap for the idealogue who will eventually become saddened by the failure of his expectations. Joseph Stack fell into the trap  formed by the fraud of statism. In the end his leftists ideals left him disillusioned, a consequence both destructive and deadly.

I have a few questions for the White House, the Pentagon and for Congress.  Firstly, are we or are we not at war?  Secondly, why are we fighting blindfolded?  We have a New Intelligence Plan under review by President Obama.  Swell.  From now on, prior to Mirandizing foreign Soldiers of Allah like the Christmas Day Bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the FBI and the Department of Justice (read that:  Attorney General Eric Holder) will actually consult with the intelligence community.

Americans are angry that Holder induced Abdulmutallab to clam up and lawyer up after only fifty minutes of interrogation – by Mirandizing him like an American citizen accused of a statutory crime.  Far from that, he’s a Muslim jihadist from Nigeria and what he did was a deliberate Act of War against The United States of America. Obama’s new intel plan came to light this morning in Walter Pincus’ report in The Washington Post.  Read the entire story here:

“The Justice Department and the FBI will consult with the intelligence community on information about terrorism suspects arrested in the United States before deciding whether to read them their Miranda rights under a plan now under review in the White House, according to senior administration officials.

The proposal follows a controversy over the handling of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is accused in the attempted Christmas Day bombing and who was read his constitutional rights 10 hours after his arrest…”

Controversy? Please. That is all rather disingenuous of The Post.  Abdulmutallab actually talked for fifty minutes, went under an hours-long sedation for medical treatment of his burns, and spoke no more following his post-treatment Mirandization.

“…We are analyzing lessons learned [in the Detroit Christmas Day case] with the goal of ensuring full information from across the government is available to law enforcement personnel on the ground as they conduct interrogations and make decisions on how to handle terrorist suspects,” a senior official said Friday. He requested anonymity because the new procedures, which arise from a review ordered by President Obama, have not yet been approved.

“The final decision about Miranda and other law enforcement decisions will continue to lie with the FBI and Department of Justice,” the official added…”

Ah, so!  Well, I have a few more questions that have never been answered since the 9/11 attacks.  If we are not at war, why do widely recognized leaders of the World of Islam keep talking about waging Holy War (jihad) against the Great Satan America and conquering the West?  If we are at War, against what enemy are we engaged?  This has never been clearly defined by anyone – not by the Commander In Chief or Congress or anyone in the Pentagon.  What makes, to use Obama’s term, so-called “isolated extremists” extreme?  Do all the post-9/11 fourteen thousand-plus world-wide acts of violence against non-Muslims really have nothing in common?

Nearly nine years after 9/11, much of the American public remains confused as to whatever you call this undefined situation is really about.  It’s high time for some definition of terms from someone in the Halls of Power.  Otherwise we’ll continue fighting blindfolded.  And blindfolded by ignorance of Muslim doctrine, I would say the odds are long against us.

Al-Awlaki was thought to have been killed in an air strike by Yemeni forces last week, but that is now unconfirmed. The senior U.S. official told Fox News that the cleric, an American citizen now living in Yemen, had previously been devoted to “propaganda and spiritual guidance,” but went operational in the past year.

via FOXNews.com – Radical Imam Tied to Terror Plots Has Gone ‘Operational’ in Yemen.

The Chicago man charged with helping plot the terror attacks one year ago in Mumbai also photographed and conducted surveillance of a nuclear weapons fuel plant in Tromboy, India, according to Indian and U.S. law enforcement authorities.

The authorities say David Headley was sent to Tromboy, a northwest suburb of Mumbai, by his handlers in the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, an affiliate of al Qaeda.

The Bhabha Atomic Research Center in Tromboy is capable of producing 66 pounds of plutonium a year for four the country's nuclear weapons, according to David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security.

"You would have had one helluva international crisis if they had taken control of the facility and caused some kind of accident with a serious release of radioactive material," said Albright.

"There have always been questions about India's nuclear security and because it's located on the water and not far from Mumbai, it would be a logical target," added Albright.

Headley is accused by federal authorities of conducting the pre-operational surveillance of the Mumbai hotels that were stormed by Lashkar-e-Taiba gunmen last November 26. [...]

The Pakistani-born American citizen travelled to Mumbai five times between 2006 and 2008, posing as an American Jew with a new video camera, according to U.S. officials.

Spot the inaccuracy:

Headley's role in the planning of a possible attack on the nuclear facility came to light after the FBI arrested him in connection with the hotel attacks and another planned attack on a Danish newspaper which had published cartoons mocking Allah. [...]

The impact of such an attack would depend on the quality of the attacking force and their objective, said Lt. Steve Margolis of the Los Angeles Police Department, the former head of the department's anti-terror unit.

"It depends on what they were trying to achieve. Were they intending immediate panic, were they intending creating a loss of confidence in India's nuclear program? Were they looking for potential release / exposure?," said Margolis....

But is anyone listening? Pamela Geller reviews Wafa Sultan's superb and essential new book for FrontPage:

Wafa Sultan's seminal moment was when she took on an Islamic cleric on Al-Jazeera. The clip went viral on Youtube, and it really was a defining moment in the clash of civilizations. Here was a woman, basically considered "property" in the Muslim world and expected to do what she was told, turning around after she had been interrupted numerous times, and saying in effect, "Quiet, it's my turn."

Now comes her new book, A God Who Hates, which will undoubtedly prove to be a key resource in the resistance to jihad and Islamization. In it, the brilliant psychiatrist from Syria, now an American citizen, tells her own story.

It is the story of a Muslim woman who grew up in a country where she was indoctrinated in Islamic ideology. So her perspective is very important in terms of establishing the credibility of scholars like Robert Spencer and Dr. Andrew Bostom. But what makes this book great, apart from its breathtaking honesty and truth and the clarity and urgency of its warning, is that it is also a beautiful love letter to America.

Wafa speaks powerfully about what America means to her. It manifests itself in little things. She leaves her house at 5 am and makes her way to Starbucks to have her coffee without fearing that someone might see her and accuse her of immoral behavior. To her, America means saying "good morning" to her neighbor and chatting with him for a few moments without being accused of having spent the night with him. America, for this courageous woman, means that her daughter can come home and tell her that she had lunch with her boyfriend without being beaten or accused of having impugned the family honor.

It is clear throughout A God Who Hates that Wafa Sultan was always a very independent thinker, even though there were times in her life when she did not immediately allow herself to go to the next step to which her thinking was leading her. She writes lovingly about her husband, who was very supportive of her. He was an open-minded thinker -- initially more so than was Wafa herself. But she recounts in the book certain momentous events that jarred her thinking, such as in 1979 when Muslims screaming "Allahu akbar" murdered one of her professors, the ophthalmology lecturer Dr. Yusef Al-Yusef, whom she respected and admired. Wafa witnessed the murder - and at that exact moment started to question the nature of the Islamic faith.

"But I was afraid," she explained when I interviewed her recently, "to express my feelings. I was afraid to express my thoughts, because under Islamic sharia, a Muslim who dares to leave Islam or dares to convert to any other religion is to be killed. And every Muslim has the right to kill someone who has left Islam without being asked a question. This is the Islamic law. Once you were born as a Muslim, you're not allowed to leave it. This is simply the Islamic law, and it seems to me it's very hard to convince Americans that this is the way it is."

The recent Rifqa Bary apostasy case shows how right Wafa is about that, and how urgent her message is. Rifqa Bary is the teenage girl, a Muslim in Ohio, who left Islam four years ago and converted to Christianity. When her father found out about her conversion, she fled from her home in fear for her life. She said she ran away to Florida because she wanted to get as far away as she could -- because not only her family but the mosque and the community in Ohio is very devout, and as an apostate she is in danger. But now she has been returned to Ohio, in large part because American authorities don't know anything about Islamic apostasy law....

Read it all.

A God Who Hates: The Courageous Woman Who Inflamed the Muslim World Speaks Out Against the Evils of Islam.
By Wafa Sultan
St. Martin’s Press, 2009
256 pages

Wafa Sultan’s seminal moment was when she took on an Islamic cleric on Al-Jazeera. The clip went viral on Youtube, and it really was a defining moment in the clash of civilizations. Here was a woman, basically considered “property” in the Muslim world and expected to do what she was told, turning around after she had been interrupted numerous times, and saying in effect, “Quiet, it’s my turn.”

Now comes her new book, A God Who Hates, which will undoubtedly prove to be a key resource in the resistance to jihad and Islamization. In it, the brilliant psychiatrist from Syria, now an American citizen, tells her own story.

It is the story of a Muslim woman who grew up in a country where she was indoctrinated in Islamic ideology. So her perspective is very important in terms of establishing the credibility of scholars like Robert Spencer and Dr. Andrew Bostom. But what makes this book great, apart from its breathtaking honesty and truth and the clarity and urgency of its warning, is that it is also a beautiful love letter to America.

Wafa speaks powerfully about what America means to her. It manifests itself in little things. She leaves her house at 5 am and makes her way to Starbucks to have her coffee without fearing that someone might see her and accuse her of immoral behavior. To her, America means saying “good morning” to her neighbor and chatting with him for a few moments without being accused of having spent the night with him. America, for this courageous woman, means that her daughter can come home and tell her that she had lunch with her boyfriend without being beaten or accused of having impugned the family honor.

It is clear throughout A God Who Hates that Wafa Sultan was always a very independent thinker, even though there were times in her life when she did not immediately allow herself to go to the next step to which her thinking was leading her. She writes lovingly about her husband, who was very supportive of her. He was an open-minded thinker — initially more so than was Wafa herself. But she recounts in the book certain momentous events that jarred her thinking, such as in 1979 when Muslims screaming “Allahu akbar” murdered one of her professors, the ophthalmology lecturer Dr. Yusef Al-Yusef, whom she respected and admired. Wafa witnessed the murder – and at that exact moment started to question the nature of the Islamic faith.

“But I was afraid,” she explained when I interviewed her recently, “to express my feelings. I was afraid to express my thoughts, because under Islamic sharia, a Muslim who dares to leave Islam or dares to convert to any other religion is to be killed. And every Muslim has the right to kill someone who has left Islam without being asked a question. This is the Islamic law. Once you were born as a Muslim, you’re not allowed to leave it. This is simply the Islamic law, and it seems to me it’s very hard to convince Americans that this is the way it is.”

The recent Rifqa Bary apostasy case shows how right Wafa is about that, and how urgent her message is. Rifqa Bary is the teenage girl, a Muslim in Ohio, who left Islam four years ago and converted to Christianity. When her father found out about her conversion, she fled from her home in fear for her life. She said she ran away to Florida because she wanted to get as far away as she could — because not only her family but the mosque and the community in Ohio is very devout, and as an apostate she is in danger. But now she has been returned to Ohio, in large part because American authorities don’t know anything about Islamic apostasy law.

If they had read A God Who Hates, Rifqa might be in a safer place today. “This case,” said Wafa, “showed America in a very ugly light, that we will sacrifice a young girl on the altar of political correctness rather than do the right thing.”

A God Who Hates is a devastating book, coming from a most reliable witness. “My book,” Wafa told me, “is about my personal life. In my book I lead my readers step by step throughout my life, from A to Z, so they can figure out what has changed me, what has helped me to break free from Islam. It didn’t happen overnight. It took many years and a great deal of pain to reach where I am today. Through my book I am trying to send a message to the West, that Islam is a hateful ideology and it’s very dangerous for Islam to be established in this free country. This is my message to the West.”

Wafa Sultan is trying to get her message to the Muslim world, not just to the West. Hers is a very powerful voice, and one that Islamic supremacists would very much like to silence. As she told me in our interview: “It’s very dangerous to go against Islam. Prior to my book release I was forced to go into hiding, fearing for my safety and for my family’s safety. I received death threats on a daily basis, and I know what they mean by telling me that, I know how bitter they are, I was one of them. I can very much understand the mindset of Muslims.”

Nevertheless, despite the immense risks, A God Who Hates will be translated into Arabic and made available in the Arab-Muslim world. And it is a must read for all free people. This is a book that you not only have to read, but to give to the people in your office. Give it to your daughters, give it to your children. Show them why they should love America, and fight to defend her from the Islamic oppression that Wafa Sultan escaped.

[To order a copy of A God Who Hates, click here.]

Pamela Geller is the founder, editor and publisher of the popular and award-winning weblog AtlasShrugs.com. She has won acclaim for her interviews with internationally renowned figures, including John Bolton, Geert Wilders, Bat Ye’or, Natan Sharansky, and many others, and has broken numerous important stories — notably the questionable sources of some of the financing of the Obama campaign. Her op-eds have been published in The Washington Times, The American Thinker, Israel National News, Frontpage Magazine, Big Government, World Net Daily, and New Media Journal, among other publications. She is the co-author (with Robert Spencer) of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America (forward by Ambassador John Bolton), coming soon from Simon and Schuster.

Regularly reading the Financial Times (Britain’s leading financial daily) can put an American in a fighting spirit. At least, it puts this American (transplanted former Englishman and naturalized American citizen that I am) in such a disposition.

I have in mind, this time, an article in Monday’s edition by Jeffrey Garten, titled “We must get ready for a weak-dollar world.” The article makes two broad assessments:

1) “The two most significant structural consequences of the recent financial debacle are the massive deficits and debts of the US and the shift of economic power from west to east. There is only one effective way for governments to address the combined impact of both: press for a sea change in currency relationships, especially a permanently and greatly weakened dollar.”

2) “The issue is no longer whether the dollar is in long-term decline but which of two options will be taken. Should Washington and other capitals calmly and deliberately manage the transition to a new era, or, by default, should they let the market do it, with the risk of massive financial disturbances. Today, governments have a choice. Soon they may not.”

What I don’t like about the article is that it is — from an American point of view — defeatist and that objectively, it may turn out to be true.

But before contesting the latter point — that such decline is inevitable — it is vital to understand that a weak dollar driven by permanently excessive public debt directly threatens not only our prosperity but also our sovereign ability to protect our liberty in this heartless world. There is no better evidence of such a possible American future than the event 53 years ago this month that put paid to British pretensions to greatness and independence — the Suez crisis of 1956.

Briefly in 1956, when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the British- and French-owned Suez Canal, Britain took understandable offense and organized its retaking. Allied with Israel and France, Britain arranged for Israel to invade Sinai, after which Britain and France militarily intervened with the intent to have the world agree to let them continue to manage the canal.

Unfortunately for Britain, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower disapproved of the effort. (He was up for re-election, and the Soviets had just invaded Hungary. Ike didn’t like being surprised by America’s closest ally, Britain, and he didn’t want the Third World to see America as complicit with colonialism.) Also, unfortunately for Britain, though it still had the army, navy and obligations of a great power, it relied on America for financial help.

Britain could not maintain its currency, the pound sterling, at the pound’s needed reserve currency value of $2.80 without American help. Also, Britain needed petroleum, which was being cut off by the Suez crisis.

The “genial” Eisenhower (who had worked side by side with British Prime Minister Anthony Eden when Eden was top foreign policy aide to Winston Churchill during World War II) had had enough. He instructed his treasury secretary, George Humphrey, to sell off the pound, break the British currency and economy and refuse to sell Britain any American oil (which we then had in abundance) until Britain gave up its military action.

And so effectively ended the British empire, not at the hands of an enemy, but by the ungentle touch of its closest ally, the United States, to whom its weak currency and debt-ridden economy was perennially dependent.

Eden had a nervous breakdown and retired from government. That December, his replacement, Harold Macmillan, commented to U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles:

“The British action (at Suez) was the last gasp of a declining power. … Perhaps in 200 years, the United States (will) know how we felt.”

Well, here we are, 147 years shy of that predicted American comeuppance date of A.D. 2156. And now the stately British Financial Times is suggesting that the United States may be imminently vulnerable to a not-so-friendly China playing Ike’s role of spoiler of American sovereignty to our role as the dear old broke Britain of 1956.

That is why the United States should not accept the shrewd but not yet inevitable prognosis of the Financial Times. In the next few years — and starting immediately, while our gross domestic product is still bigger than the combined economies of China, Japan, Germany and Russia — we must start radically cutting our spending until our fiscal condition supports a strong dollar and low taxes.

It is an open political question whether the majority of Americans love our country, our children and our grandchildren enough to take the painful sacrifice (vast reductions in entitlement benefits) it will take to guarantee our sovereign and prosperous future.

But we are being given that rare chance to glimpse into our near future and see what will befall our children after the past 40 years of spending excess compounded by this latest year of spending madness. What a fine theme for the 2010 election cycle.

But are we Americans still brave enough to remain free? My guess is that neither the two major political parties nor the majority of the public loves America enough to campaign and vote on the hard, bitter truth about our condition.

The continuing efforts of a fringe group of conservatives to deny Obama his victory and to lay the basis for the claim that he is not a legitimate president are embarrassing and destructive. The fact that these efforts are being led by Alan Keyes, a demagogue who lost a Senate election to the then-unknown Obama by 42 points, should be a warning in itself.

This tempest over whether Obama, the child of an American citizen, was born on American soil is tantamount to the Democrats’ seditious claim that Bush “stole” the election in Florida and hence was not the legitimate president. This delusion helped to create the Democrats’ Bush derangement syndrome and encouraged Democratic leaders to lie about the origins of the Iraq war, and regard it as illegitimate as Bush himself. It became “Bush’s War” rather than an American War — with destructive consequences for our troops and our cause.

The birth-certificate zealots are essentially arguing that 64 million voters should be disenfranchised because of a contested technicality as to whether Obama was born on U.S. soil. (McCain narrowly escaped the problem by being born in the Panama Canal zone, which is no longer American.)

What difference does it make to the future of this country whether Obama was born on U.S. soil? Advocates of this destructive campaign will argue that the constitutional principle regarding the qualifications for president trumps all others. But how viable will our Constitution be if five Supreme Court justices should decide to void 64 million ballots?

Conservatives are supposed to respect the organic nature of human societies. Ours has been riven by profound disagreements that have been deepening over many years. We are divided not only about political facts and social values, but also about what the Constitution itself means. The crusaders on this issue choose to ignore these problems and are proposing to deny the will of 64 million voters by appealing to five Supreme Court Justices (since no one is delusional enough to think that the four liberal justices are going to take the presidency away from Obama). What kind of conservatism is this?

It is not conservatism; it is sore loserism and quite radical in its intent. Respect for election results is one of the most durable bulwarks of our unity as a nation. Conservatives need to accept the fact that we lost the election, and get over it; and get on with the important business of reviving our country’s economy and defending its citizens, and — by the way — its Constitution.

– Obama Derangement Syndrome: Shut Up About the Birth Certificate, National Review

Yesterday and Thursday leftists tried to paint Sarah Palin as a Birther.

–

If you have a favorite Horowitz quote you want to highlight for others then please email it to DavidSwindle {@} Gmail.com. Please include:

1. “Horowitz Quote of the Day” in subject line.
2. A link to where the quote is from. (No need to include this if it’s from a book.)
3. Any remarks you’d like published explaining what value you take from it.
4. Your preferred name and a link to your blog or homepage (if you have one.)

Related posts:

1. From the Pen of David Horowitz: December 4, 2009
2. From the Pen of David Horowitz: December 6, 2009
3. From the Pen of David Horowitz: September 22, 2009

The First Assassin
By John J. Miller
Woodbridge Press, $14.99,  376 pp.

Looking for something different for the avid reader on your list? Tired of the buying the latest bestseller with the same old familiar names on the cover every Christmas?

A great option is surprising that friend or relative with The First Assassin — the terrific debut novel by John Miller of The National Review. It’s something they’ll truly appreciate because the odds are good they might not have discovered it without you.

Miller, a top-notch columnist and observer of the cultural scene, proves equally adept at fiction with this crackerjack historical thriller. Imagine Jeff Shaara setting Frederick Forsythe’s The Day of the Jackal in the first days of the Lincoln presidency, and you have The First Assassin.

In 1861, what the party-crashing socialites did at the recent White House state dinner would have been practically considered an American citizen’s birthright.  The building, after all, was the “People’s House,” and presidents were expected to be accessible to all the folks.

Even with war clouds looming and sedition in the air, some are muttering that Lincoln’s use of a diversion to enter Washington unseen — and the amount of uniformed security at his inaugural — are signs of cowardice and a dictatorial impulse on the part of the new president.  Americans believe only foreign potentates, with good reason to fear their public, should need bodyguards.

General Winfield Scott, the hero of the Mexican-American War, assigns Colonel Charles Rook to protect Lincoln; and Rook has good reasons to worry.  Washington is a town filled with Southerners, and Lincoln already is the most hated new president in American history.  The mere fact of his election has led some Southern states to secede from the Union, with more to follow.

Still, there is great reluctance to seal the president off from the people. After all, nobody has ever made an attempt made on the life of a president — yet.

Rook, who has no experience in security and little support from his superiors, does his best; but his efforts are met with condescension or outright scorn. When he proposes surveillance of known secessionists, he is treated as if he has recommended suspending the Bill of Rights.

Meanwhile, Langston Bennett, a South Carolina plantation owner who sees war on the horizon and does not think the South has the resources to win, has come up with a way to avoid all out war: assassinate Lincoln.

Having been involved with Southern efforts to expand the slave-owning states through adventures in the Caribbean and Central America, Bennett reaches out to “Mazorca,” a dangerous, anonymous killer from Cuba to do the job.

Bennett, however, does not account for the fact that his slaves are not just pieces of furniture. They have heard of Lincoln’s election, and the furor it is creating among the slaveowners has given them hope. When Bennett’s house slave of several decades overhears Bennett plotting, he sends his resourceful granddaughter, Portia, north via the Underground Railroad to warn Lincoln.

By keeping a watch on Violet Greneir, a seductive socialite with Southern sympathies, Rook manages to pick up some of his own leads, including a scheme to blow up the Capitol.  However, Violet has spread her charms through the Union side as well, and Rook runs into a political buzzsaw.

All the while, Mazorca patiently stalks his target, amazed that the kill itself presents so little problem; planning his escape is the only real challenge.

Miller does a terrific job of immersing the reader in a time and place that is familiar, but not necessarily that well understood.  Historical summaries and novels tend to gloss over the fact that the firing on Fort Sumter did not immediately—or even necessarily– lead to all out war, and secession was more a process of falling dominoes as politicians and generals scrambled to see who would end up on which side.

The author likewise does not allow characters to become mere stereotypes – brutal Simon Legree-type Southerners, nobly suffering slaves and sturdy Union loyalists dedicated to the freedom of all.  Miller crafts human beings on all sides with complex motives and various degrees of weaknesses, selfishness, idealism, evil and goodness.

Miller’s detailed research into the physical details of Washington, D.C., in 1860 — the half-completed Washington Monument, the locations of various government buildings, the under-construction Capitol– at first may seem like look-at-me showy research details. But once the ingeniously conceived finish between Rook and Mazorca gets under way, the reader has a vivid picture of the city that brings the confrontations alive.

That’s important to a thriller like this. As in The Day of the Jackal, we know that The First Assassin will not end with the assassin successfully taking out his target.  That means the devil is in the details, not just the final resolution of the plot, for this to work.

And work it does. The First Assassin is a fascinating read, and, as a bonus, it’s appropriate for younger readers’ Christmas stockings as well.

But you won’t find it in a brick-and-mortar bookstore. For a variety of reasons, Miller has self-published this fine novel; you can order it directly from him here or at Amazon.com here.  This is the first time in 20-plus years of book reviewing that I’ve reviewed a self-published work. It may be another 20 before I do it again; but this is, indeed, a special occasion.