ARIZONA'S SHAM IMMIGRATION INITIATIVE!!!!

The opponents of immigration enforcement have stooped to a new low in Arizona with their latest attempt to undermine the state's workplace verification laws. After exhausting their usual tactics, they are resorting to outright and intentional deception of the voters. This November, Arizonans will vote on Proposition 202; which will be described to them as such:

"Stop Illegal Hiring" Act is an initiative designed to crack down on unethical businesses who hire illegal immigrants. This initiative targets employers who hire workers and pay under-the-table in cash, which fuels illegal immigration in Arizona. It revokes the business license of employers who knowingly or intentionally hire illegal immigrants. This initiative increases penalties for identity theft, as illegal immigrants often use stolen identities to conceal their undocumented status…

If this were all I knew about Prop 202, I'd wholeheartedly support it; and the initiative backers are hoping that voters won't learn anything about the initiative beyond the title.

Arizona does not need a new law against illegal hiring. It already has the toughest workplace enforcement law in the country. The Legal Arizona Workers Act ("LAWA"), which was enforced in the beginning 2008, is the first state law to require all employers to use the E-Verify worker identification system. E-Verify is a nearly fool proof electronic data-base system that makes sure a job applicant is here legally. Arizonians on both sides of the immigration issue agree that the law has had a huge impact in keeping employers from hiring illegal aliens and, in turn, causing the illegals to leave the state.

The Stop Illegal Hiring Act effectively overturns Arizona' current employer sanction laws. It completely removes the E-Verify requirement that was central to the success of LAWA. It forbids Arizona from acting against employers until the federal government does so first, but it's the federal government's failure to act that makes the law necessary in the first place. On top of all this, it gives amnesty to employers of illegal aliens, and bans whistleblowers from alerting the authorities to illegal hiring.

The importance of preserving laws such as LAWA cannot be underestimated. During my ten years in Congress I have fought in vain to get the federal government to take action against illegal immigration. States and localities, however, have had a great deal of success in cracking down on illegal immigration. From small towns like Hazelton, PA and Farmers Branch, TX to states like Georgia, Oklahoma, and my home state of Colorado; patriotic citizens and legislators have taken action when the government refuses to do its duty. As the illegal immigrants leave states that get tough, they bring pressure on neighboring states and the federal government to take action as well.

Arizona has been in the vanguard of this movement. It passed Prop 200 in 2004, which took away many taxpayer benefits to illegal aliens; and then passed four other initiatives that got tough on illegal immigration in 2006 with well over 70% of the vote.

Usually the pro-immigration groups try to overturn the will of the people in the courts. With both the Arizona and Greater Phoenix Chambers of Commerce as well as heavily funded left wing legal outfits like the ACLU and Mexican American Legal Defense Fund as plaintiffs, and government executives who are often just as eager to have the laws overturned charged with defending them; any state law against illegal immigration immediately faces an uphill legal battle.

The business lobby tried this tactic with both Proposition 200 and then with LAWA, but after the most left wing Federal Appeals Court in the country upheld the law, their last resort is outright deception of the voter. With little fanfare, a business group called Wake Up Arizona—who were one of the primary plaintiffs against the current employer sanction laws—have managed to sneak the misleading initiative on the ballot.

Recent polls show that when given the title of the act and the misleading description, voters would support Prop 202 by a margin of 2 to 1. However, when explained that it guts the enforcement mechanisms in LAWA, voters oppose Prop 202 by 5 to 1.

If there was ever a case of a wolf in sheep's clothing, this is it. Even citizens who oppose LAWA should be outraged by how dishonest and undemocratic the tactics used by Wake Up Arizona.

Unfortunately, Arizonans who want their laws against illegal hiring preserved do not have multimillion dollar legal groups to try to keep the proposition off the ballot. The only hope is to educate the voters before they go to the polling booths that if they want to stop illegal hiring, they need to vote no on Prop 202, the Stop Illegal Hiring Act.

ISLAM AND PEDOPHILIA!!!!

Besides their well-known penchant for anti-Semitism, misogyny and nihilistic violence, Muslim extremists are also gaining a disturbing reputation among British security agencies as collectors of child pornography.

According to a report on The Times website last week, police in Great Britain are discovering that their investigations into Muslim terrorism are leading them into the depraved world of child sexual exploitation. The reverse is also occurring with child protection officers encountering people who are “preparing to carry out terrorist acts.”

At one time, the link between the two deviant behaviours was considered so strong that security officials considered establishing an anti-terrorism project involving child welfare experts, but never followed through because Scotland Yard’s hands were too full with other terrorist investigations.

But demand is growing in Great Britain for the setting up of such a task force that could help security agencies understand the terrorist mindset and prevent future attacks.

“This is an important development,” said Labor MP Andrew Dinsmore. “We have to do more than just police work. It needs child protection, criminological and psychological work. It could become a very important weapon in the fight against terrorism.”

Police say they are already noticing a similarity in methods Muslim terrorists and paedophiles use in manipulating and grooming young people for their corrupt purposes. This usually involves introducing them to their deviant behaviour and then convincing them over time that it is normal.

British security personnel first became aware of a connection between Muslim extremism and child pornography in 2006. When investigating the terrorist connections of an east end London mosque preacher, Abdul Makim Khalisadar, a former primary school assistant, the 26-year-old’s DNA was found to match that of an unsolved rape case of a woman. Upon his arrest, police discovered Khalisadar also had a large amount of hardcore child pornography material on his computer.

In the same year, police made a similar discovery after raiding a suspected Muslim terrorist’s home, looking for a chemical bomb. While no explosive device was found, police did discover 44 “indecent” pictures of children on the 23-year-old man’s home computer and cell phone. Child porn, The Times reports, has been found “during investigations into some of the most advanced suspected plots.”

European security officials first discovered child porn images in a Muslim extremist’s possession when they raided a mosque in Milan, Italy, in 2001. Embedded in the disturbing images, though, they found hidden messages sent by fellow Islamists, causing Italian security agents to believe the terrorists were copying a clandestine method paedophiles use in communicating with one another. At that time, police believed this form of communications camouflage (called steganography) accounted for the child porn’s presence in the mosque.

But other, less doubtful, cases have cropped up since then. When arrested, Abdelkader Ayachine, a suspected Muslim terrorist currently awaiting trial in Spain, possessed almost 40,000 child pornographic movies and images, a number far exceeding any need for encoded communications. Ayachine was connected to the Casablanca bombing terrorist group that killed 45 people in 2003 and stands accused in the Spanish court of inciting jihad and recruiting fighters for the Iraq war. Prosecutors say his child pornography collection consisted mainly of “minors having sex, among themselves and with adults.”

Muslim extremists’ attraction to child pornography has been attributed to cultural factors. An Italian magistrate involved in the Milan mosque case said possession of child porn by Islamists did not necessarily indicate paedophilic tendencies, but rather was the result of cultural differences. Girls, he stated, often become wives in the Muslim world at age 11 and 12.

The Islamists’ interest in boys as sex objects is generally owed to their beliefs and social milieu. Their strict religious convictions do not allow them to be with a woman outside their own families, let alone touch one, before marriage. Moreover, in some Muslim countries, males can’t even catch a glimpse of the demonized female form because of the body-encompassing clothing she is forced to wear. In such a gender segregated environment, homosexual behavior develops, especially towards boys.

Even the Taliban, which executed homosexuals when it ruled Afghanistan, could not eradicate the sexploitation of boys, even in its own ranks. Among the 30 commands it issued to its fighters, Rule No. 19 forbid them from taking young boys without facial hair into their barracks. After the Taliban regime fell, a Fox news report indicated pederasty in Afghanistan returned to its previous place as an accepted social norm.

Sexual exploitation of boys in Muslim countries also has a long history. The Asia Times columnist, Spengler (an anonymous pseudonym), wrote in his column, Sufism, Sodomy and Satan, that, in the High Middle Ages, Sufism, Islam’s mystic branch, “is the only case in which a mainstream current of a major world religion preached pederasty as a path to spiritual enlightenment.” He then cites a German historian who claims this Sufi practice “persisted in many Islamic countries until very recent times.” The 2007 movie, The Kite Runner, located in Afghanistan, showed a “last vestige” of Sufism’s pederast side when dancing boys appeared in female dress.

Perhpas not altogether insignificant in this grotesque phenomenon is that the Koran itself promises to put pre-pubescent boys at the service of jihadi martyrs not interested in the female virgins awaiting them in paradise. The boys will be like “scattered pearls” of “perpetual freshness” (Suras 52:24, 56:17, 76:19).

The consequences of Islamist misogyny, gender segregation and sexual abuse of Muslim boys are far-reaching. Besides growing up to be sexual deviants who collect child pornography and may victimize other children, such sexually traumatized Muslim boys are predisposed to become involved in terrorism as a way of expressing their sexual rage. It therefore comes as no surprise that one anti-terror source told the Times: “A way of finding who the extremists and terrorists are is to go through the child porn sites.”

NO CAMPUS SECURITY FOR CONSERVATIVES!!!!

When leftist professors call for “a million Mogadishus” or defame 9/11 victims as “Little Eichmanns,” campus administrators usually cloak themselves in the iron chains of the First Amendment. “I may not agree with him,” goes the old saw, “but I would defend to the death his right to say it.” However, when campus conservatives merely wish to make their case in a one night speech, the landscape shifts dramatically.

David Horowitz spoke at Central Michigan University on Tuesday night as part of the third annual Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, organized at CMU by a student group called Campus Conservatives, the local affiliate of Young America’s Foundation. His topic was “Helping the Enemy to Win: Support for the Jihad on American Campuses,” and his speeches have been magnets for unbalanced left-wingers. A contingent of the Revolutionary Communist Party has followed him cross country, and jihadists attempt to shout him down throughout his speeches. He is regularly threatened with physical violence, and in April 2005 at Butler University, a leftist hit Horowitz in the face with a pie. Yet CMU officials dithered as to whether they would provide security for this campus event, and CMU President Michael Rao has still not decided who will foot the bill for the security.

Horowitz has made a sweep of campuses in the last two years discussing The Professors and promoting the Academic Bill of Rights.

Central Michigan has provided security for campus events in the past – including those run by Campus Conservatives. But when administrators learned the invited speaker was to be David Horowitz – who, in addition to IFAW, is known for his Academic Freedom campaign – they would not spell out the security procedures. At first, it was unclear whether any security would be provided for the incendiary speech at all. Rao consented to send two security officers to the event – but as of Monday night, 24 hours before Horowitz’s scheduled speech, he had not told IFAW organizers who would pay for the guards: CMU or Campus Conservatives. Despite this uncertainty, a subtle pressure for Campus Conservatives to cancel the speech, the students pushed forward with the speech.

CMU not only demanded the student group pay for Horowitz’s security but for the safety of the public, as well. Officials then sent the students a bill for $220.

As the drama unfolded, students turned to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a legal advocacy group protecting campus dissenters. FIRE informed Rao via letter that any decision not to provide security, or to charge a burdensome fee to college students, would be “unconstitutional and illegal.” A lawyer cited the 1992 Supreme Court case Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, which forbade institutions from charging large fees for securing controversial speech events, such as Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. The opinion holds, “speech cannot be financially burdened, any more than it can be punished or banned, simply because it might offend a hostile mob.”

Offending a hostile mob is something David Horowitz does best – but his call for academic freedom has also offended teachers and administrators around the nation. In the end, he gave a well-received speech to about 200 people. He urged CMU students to demand their professors present both sides of divisive issues. “I hope you stand up for your rights as an American and open up your minds. You’re too young to close them,” Horowitz said.

FIRE’s legal intervention did not have an immediate effect on the situation. “Instead of admitting a mistake, CMU is figuring out ways to bully conservative students for hosting events and creating a discussion amongst the university community,” said Campus Conservatives spokesman Dennis Lennox.

Rather than follow his own precedent, President Rao hunkered down in his office, deciding to review “past practices.” As of this writing, Rao has yet to say how much, or if, Campus Conservatives will have to pay for exercising the First Amendment on campus. According to the campus newspaper, “Director of Media Relations Steve Smith said he did not know how long it would take to determine whether Campus Conservatives will be charged.” Lennox responded, “We never authorized any invoice for security. If [the university] attempts to bill us after the event, [Campus Conservatives] will take their butts to federal court and sue them.”

This is hardly the first time CMU has suppressed the rights of students who held conservative or views or traditional values. Just after the 9/11 attacks of 2001, FIRE objected when CMU banned students from displaying the American flag. Last year, after legal intervention, officials withdrew their policy forcing ideological student groups to admit those who opposed their values: for instance, evangelical Christians would have to allow gay and lesbian students into position of leadership; Campus Conservatives would have to admit leftists.

All these policies have the effect of stifling free speech – for conservative students.

At this time, President Rao and the administration continue their “study,” with no word as to whether they will honor their commitments to secure free speech on campus, as the Supreme Court and their own precedent require. But their heavy-handed tactics are illustrative of the intimidation center-right students face from academia, even in the American heartland. Their opposition is a poetic affirmation of the need for the Academic Bill of Rights.

MSA ATTACKS ROBERT SPENCER!!!!

The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee is one of the campuses which is hosting Stop the Jihad On Campus week. A full-page ad was taken out in the UWMPost by the David Horowitz Freedom Center to advertise the event. On the opposite page of the ad, there was a full page ad taken out by the Muslim Students Association. Interestingly enough, the UWM Post provided this ad-space to the MSA free of charge. Above the DHFC ad, it stated "PAID ADVERTISEMENT". Above MSA's ad, it read "ADVERTISEMENT". More interesing still is the fact that the MSA ad mirrors the DHFC ad, both physically in the paper and in its design. This means, as our student sources at UWM have confirmed, that the editors/editor at the UWMPost showed the ad to the MSA prior to it being placed in print -- a blatant ethical violation.

Below is the DHFC ad and the MSA mirror-imitation, followed by Robert Spencer's response to the MSA ad's defamatory remarks:

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DHFC Ad:


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MSA Ad:


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Robert Spencer responds:

The UWM Post required, as a precondition to running our ad for our Stop the Jihad On Campus effort, that the David Horowitz Freedom Center provide documentation for every assertion made in it. Clearly the Post didn’t hold the MSA to the same standard, as it allowed the MSA to publish vile and empty invective -- calling me a “right wing hate monger” and making numerous false claims, such as that our Stop the Jihad On Campus week is an attempt by “right wing extremists to influence U.S. elections.”

Amid the abuse the MSA makes a number of revealing statements:

• It attacks me for suggesting that the world should resist Ahmadinejad. Apparently the MSA believes that free people should do nothing to resist the genocidal ambitions of a man who said that “accomplishment of a world without America and Israel is both possible and feasible.”
• The MSA equates me with the mass-murderer Osama bin Laden, who is responsible for the deaths of 3,000 people on September 11, 2001 – simply because I oppose bin Laden and am trying to make sure he doesn’t succeed again in bringing his monstrous plans to fruition. Apparently here again the MSA would prefer, since it does nothing to oppose the ideology that bin Laden propagates, that free people should remain mute and passive before this threat as well.

The MSA also lies:

• The MSA tries to smear me as a racist, but in reality, opposition to the genocidal and totalitarian ideology represented by the likes of bin Laden and Ahmadinejad is not a racial issue, as people of all races adhere to that ideology, and people of all races should oppose it.
• No neo-Nazi parties were present at the Counterjihad conference I attended in Europe last year.
• The MSA asks if I have information about them that Homeland Security and the FBI don’t have. No, I don’t. Both agencies have the 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum in which the MSA is named as part of the Brotherhood’s “grand jihad” aimed at “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house” so that “Allah’s religion reigns supreme over other religions.”
• The MSA claims that Sheikh Khalid Yasin did not call for the execution of gays, and claims the absence of a criminal complaint as evidence. But Yasin’s words were reported by witnesses and are in accord with Islamic law. Is the MSA willing, then, to go on record denying that Islamic law mandates execution for homosexuals, and to ask Yasin to retract his words?
• The MSA claims falsely that I believe that “human rights organizations are right wing groups that cannot be trusted.” (Evidently the MSA can’t decide whether I am left-wing or right-wing.) It tries to hide the genocidal anti-Semitic rhetoric of Abdel Malik-Ali and the UCLA MSA behind a barrage of accusations about Israel and the Palestinians – but none of these accusations will make the calls of “Death to the Jews,” which were widely witnessed, go away.
• The MSA claims that I say that Muslims do not condemn terrorism. This is flatly false. I have written that Muslim groups in America “have condemned terrorism. Again and again.”

The MSA is adept at calling names, but its commitment to accuracy and truth leaves a great deal to be desired. It is a blot on the Post’s record that they allowed this defamatory ad to be printed, apparently free of charge.

JUDICIAL ARROGANCE!!!!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008 should be remembered as a day when federal judicial arrogance descended to a new low.

Apparently, before being appointed to the federal bench by President Clinton, United States District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina (District of Columbia) learned somewhere along his career path—student at Georgetown University and its Law School, practitioner at the DC Public Defender’s Office, teacher at Howard University School of Law, judge at the DC Superior Court—that Articles I (legislative) and II (executive) of the United States Constitution must succumb to the arrogance of unelected, life-tenured Article III federal judges.

That’s because on October 7^th, Judge Urbina decided that the government’s power to hold seventeen Guantanamo detainees had “ceased,” that they were to be transferred to the District of Columbia within four days, that once there they were to be freed, that they were to be relocated in the greater DC area, and that the government better not use immigration laws to harass the illegally-here aliens.

Residents of the District of Columbia were not happy. The Wall Street Journal opined about The Terrorists Next Door. The White House was “deeply concerned by, and strongly disagree[d] with” Urbina’s ruling. Conservatives were outraged, especially at Urbina’s threat to the government that “I do not expect these Uighurs will be molested [!] by any member of the United States government,” arrogantly adding that “I’m a federal judge, and I’ve issued an order.”

Urbina believed he had the power to issue that order because of the Supreme Court’s recent 5-4 decision in the Boumediene v. Bush case, which held that alien unlawful enemy combatants have a constitutional right to use habeas corpus in American federal courts to challenge their detention.

In dissenting from, and lamenting, the majority opinion in Boumediene Chief Justice Roberts asked rhetorically, “So who has won?” His answer anticipated, in part, what Urbina did last week. Roberts wrote:

Not the detainees. The Court’s analysis leaves them with only the prospect of further litigation to determine the content of their new habeas right, followed by further litigation to resolve their particular cases, followed by further litigation before the [United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit] . . . . Not Congress, whose attempt to “determine— through democratic means—how best” to balance the security of the American people with the detainees’ liberty interests . . . has been unceremoniously brushed aside. Not the Great Writ [of habeas corpus], whose majesty is hardly enhanced by its extension to a jurisdictionally quirky outpost, with no tangible benefit to anyone. Not the rule of law, unless by that is meant the rule of lawyers, who will now arguably have a greater role than military and intelligence officials in shaping policy for alien enemy combatants. And certainly not the American people, who today lose a bit more control over the conduct of this Nation’s foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges. (My emphasis.)

Roberts’s prophesy about the likes of District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina raised yet another question: If the detainees didn’t win, if Congress didn’t win, if the principle of habeas corpus didn’t win, if the rule of law didn’t win, if the American people didn’t win—and, one can add, if the Commander-in-Chief didn’t win—who did?

Earlier in his dissent Chief Justice Roberts suggested the answer, writing that the Boumediene decision is “not really about the detainees at all, but about control of federal policy regarding enemy combatants,” and that “[a]ll that today’s opinion has done is shift responsibility for those sensitive foreign policy and national security decisions from the elected branches to the Federal Judiciary.”

Or, as Chief Justice Roberts put it: “unelected, politically unaccountable judges.” The Judge Urbinas of the federal bench!

Those of us who for years have had a bellyful of such judges and the damage they have done to our social, cultural, economic, political and military institutions today rightly fear that legions of Urbinas are waiting in the wings for appointment to federal courts following an election victory by Senate Democrats and Barack Obama.

Obama adheres to the doctrine of a “Living Constitution.” Those who subscribe to Living Constitution ideology believe that the founding principles of this Nation are passé, that the Declaration of Independence’s ringing endorsement of individual rights and limited government is outdated, that the Constitution’s creation of a representative republic is from a long past moment in history, and that the Bill of Rights is not a restraint on government but rather a source of newly invented “rights.”

If the federal judiciary, let alone the Supreme Court, falls into Obama’s hands (especially with a compliant Senate, let alone a filibuster-proof one), our Nation will surely be crippled, perhaps fatally, in its domestic battle against socialism and our foreign war against Islamofascism.

This is not a charge that I make lightly, but rather one rooted in the words of candidate Obama himself.

On July 17, 2007, Obama made a speech in Washington, D.C. to the country’s leading abortion-meister, “Planned Parenthood.” In the words of NBC reporter Carrie Dean Obama not only “leveled harsh words at conservative Supreme Court justices,” but “he offered his own intention to appoint justices with ‘empathy’.”

“Empathy,” according to Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, is “the projection of one’s own personality into the personality of another in order to understand him better; ability to share in another’s emotions or feelings.”

Thus, we have been unmistakably warned that president-hopeful Barack Obama will appoint Supreme Court justices who will not honestly interpret the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Fourteenth Amendment—let alone on the basis of what they say and meant to those who wrote them—but who, instead, will project their own personalities into others to understand them better; justices who can share in those others’ emotions or feelings.

And who might Obama’s empathy-receivers be?

Obama himself told us in that same 2007 Planned Parenthood speech: “We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.” (My emphasis.)

It couldn’t be clearer what this candidate for the presidency of the United States admittedly has in store for the federal judiciary and thus for our Nation.

So much for the classical liberal philosophy that was at the founding’s core and in its fundamental documents. From now on, constitutional interpretation Obama-style is to be through the eyes of whom he sees as society’s alleged victims.

Obama’s confession drops the notion of a Living Constitutionalism into yet a lower rung of hell. His confession reveals that while in the past the Living Constitution’s acolytes sought to achieve the amorphous goals of “social justice, brotherhood, and human dignity,” a President Obama will feed the beast with what’s left of individual rights and limited government, all in the name of “empathy”—a code word for something much darker: sacrifice of true constitutionalism to the needs of society’s perceived victims.

This perversion of America’s essence—individual rights and limited government—is collectivism/statism squared. While our Nation has so far been able to survive Living Constitutionalism—though with the recent Guantanamo decisions, especially Boumediene v. Bush, who knows?—we may not be able to survive Obama-appointed federal judges in the mode of Richardo M. Urbina.

BLACK RACISTS RECRUITED TO GUIDE JIHAD!!!!

Black Muslim lawyer Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour recently made news when it was revealed that he was a patron of Barack Obama and recommended him for admission to Harvard Law School in 1988. Back in the 1960s, al-Mansour, whose “slave name” was then Don Warden, was deeply involved in Bay Area racial politics as founder of a group called the African American Association. A close personal adviser to Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, al-Mansour helped the pair establish the Black Panther Party but later broke with them when they entered coalitions with white radical groups. After becoming a Muslim, al-Mansour found not only an ideological justification for his racism but also a political purpose. That was, in the words of a memorandum produced by the Muslim Brotherhood and seized by the FBI as part of its probe of the Holy Land Foundation, to “eliminate and destroy the Western civilization from within.” Many black racists like al-Mansour are key figures in this “stealth” jihad, whose prime recruiting grounds are the U.S. prisons and mosques where inmates and worshippers alike are taught to embrace a radical Islam engaged in an apocalyptic battle against America.

Al-Mansour met Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in the mid-1970s and formed a relationship that led to al-Mansour’s hiring as attorney to King Saud. He has since been an adviser to Saudi billionaires who fund the stealth jihad and spread Wahhabi extremism in America.

Other black racist Islamists play less glamorous but equally significant roles as Imams at major mosques in the U.S.; as chaplains in prisons and jails; and as radical figures who haunt American higher education by advising and speaking for organizations such as the Muslim Students Association (MSA) on campuses across the nation. Whatever audience they target, they speak a lingua franca of anti-white, anti-Semitic, anti-American hatred—all in the name of Allah.

And why is it that black racists such as al-Mansour constitute a significant proportion of these hate mongers? In large part, it is because blacks have been specifically and aggressively targeted for recruitment by leaders of the worldwide jihad, just as they were targeted for recruitment by the Communist Party USA in the 1920s. Black grievance, combined with the evangelism of the Nation of Islam over the last seventy years, has established an audience for the ideology of hate.

The prison, as the last bastion of racism and racial separatism, has become a prime recruitment center for radical Islam. Al Qaeda training manuals found by U.S. troops in Afghanistan reveal that America’s black prisoners, who constitute nearly half of the nation’s two million inmates, are viewed by terrorists as a potentially bountiful source of new jihadi recruits. The immensely wealthy Saudi government, which has made the propagation of radical Islam in America a top priority, has shipped tens of thousands of copies of the Koran to U.S. jails in recent years. Through the National Islamic Prison Foundation, Saudi money finances an extensive “prison outreach” program that seeks to convert inmates to Islam and to anti-Americanism. Prison chaplains are typically Wahhabis (practitioners of Saudi Arabia’s most extreme, fundamentalist form of Islam) who have been certified and trained as religious officials by either the Islamic Society of North America or the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, both of which are currently under federal investigation for ties to terrorism. Islam expert Stephen Schwartz states that “radical Muslim chaplains … acting in coordination to impose an extremist agenda … have gained a monopoly over Islamic religious activities in American state, federal, and city prisons and jails.” Some 135,000 inmates convert to Islam annually, and almost all of these converts are African Americans.

Focusing their efforts and fortunes not only on prisons, the Saudis also have spent many millions of dollars funding a majority of America’s mosques, and have dispatched Imams from a number of Middle Eastern nations to settle in the U.S. as missionaries. Faheem Shuaibe, an Imam at a predominately black mosque in California, says that Saudi Arabia has set up “a very deliberate recruitment process … trying to find black Muslims who had a real potential for Islamic learning and also for submission to their agenda” of Wahhabi extremism. According to Islam scholar Daniel Pipes, there are approximately “a million American-born converts to Islam (and their descendants) in the United States and most of them have shifted allegiances away from their native country.” Pakistani religious leaders Sami ul-Haq and Fazrul Rehman predict that “in the next 10 years, Americans will wake up to the existence of an Islamic army in their midst—an army of jihadis who will force America to abandon imperialism and listen to the voice of Allah.”

The racial composition of this jihadi army is, of course, influenced by the Saudi targeting of African Americans. According to Reza Safa, an authority on Wahhabism’s spread throughout the world, “as many as 90 percent of American converts to Islam are black.”

The somewhat shadowy Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour embodies the marriage of racism and Islamism that characterizes the stealth jihad. Using his legal training to leverage his standing in the Islamic world, al-Mansour is a black nationalist and an outspoken hater of the United States, Israel, and white people generally. In recent years he has accused the U.S. of plotting a “genocide” designed “to remove 15 million black people, considered disposable, of no relevance, value or benefit to the American society.” He has told fellow blacks that “whatever you do to [white people], they deserve it, God wants you to do it and that’s when you cut out the nose, cut out the ears, take flesh out of their body, don’t worry because God wants you to do it.” Alleging further that Palestinians in Israel “are being brutalized like savages,” he accuses the Jews of “stealing the land the same way the Christians stole the land from the Indians in America.”

Other black racists who echo al-Mansour’s ideas include Imam Abdul Alim Musa, founder and director of the As-Sabiqun movement, which aims to “enable Islam to take complete control of … the lives of all human beings on Earth.” In 2004 the San Francisco Bay View described Musa as “one of the highest-ranking Islamic leaders in the Black community, nationwide and specifically in the Islamic movement.” Born in Arkansas as Clarence Reams, Musa was raised in Oakland, California. During the 1960s, he embraced the violent ideology of the Black Panthers. He went on to become a leading cocaine-exporter in Colombia, a crime for which he eventually was incarcerated. While in prison, he converted to Islam and took his present name. An avid supporter of Iran’s lateAyatollah Khomeini, Musa calls for Islam to “take over America.”

He praises Muslim suicide bombers as “heroes” who courageously “strike at the heart of Zionism.” He predictsthat “this way of life known as Islam will dominate all other ways of life.” He lauds those who seek to honor Allah by means of violence. He says that America holds values and attitudes consistent with those of the Ku Klux Klan. He has praised Osama bin Laden, Hezbollah, and Hamas. And he holds that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were orchestrated jointly by the U.S. and Israeli governments in order to provide a pretext for waging war against Islam.

Warith Deen Umar (formerly Wallace Gene Marks), who was repeatedly incarcerated as a teenager, is a retired Muslim cleric who spent two decades helping to run New York’s Islamic prison program. A confidante of Nation of Islam kingpin Louis Farrakhan, Umarpersonally recruited and trained dozens of chaplains. With help from the Saudi government, he brought that country’s fanatical brand of Islam to New York’s Muslim inmates. Hebelieves that the 9/11 hijackers should be honored as martyrs, and that the U.S. risks further terrorist attacks because it oppresses Muslims around the world. Viewing black prisoners as potential soldiers in such attacks, Umar says, “Prisons are a powder keg. The question is the ignition.” He wrote in an unplublished memoir, “Even Muslims who say they are against terrorism secretly admire and applaud” the hijackers. The Koran, he added, does not condemn terrorism against oppressors of Muslims, even if innocent people are killed in the process. “This is the sort of teaching they don’t want in prison,” he said. “But this is what I’m doing.”

Sheikh Khalid Yasin is a U.S.-born, Atlanta-based Muslim convert (and a Malcolm X disciple) who has been a popular guest speaker at Muslim Students Association (MSA) events across the United States. He candidly states that America one day will be governed by Sharia (Islamic Law); that Muslims should steadfastly refuse to become friends with non-Muslims; that 9/11 was orchestrated by the U.S. and/or Israel; that homosexuals should be killed in accordance with Koranic mandates; and that AIDS was invented at a U.S. government lab for the purpose of killing nonwhites around the world.

Former Nation of Islam member Amir-Abdel Malik-Ali is a black Imam in Oakland who also has become a familiar figure on U.S. campuses where he speaks for the MSA. A passionate supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, he endorses suicide bombings as a legitimate “resistance” tactic of Muslim “martyrs.” He calls for “an Islamic revolution” that will lead to the creation of “an Islamic state” where “Allah controls every place—the home, the classroom, the science lab, the halls of Congress.” He maintains that “the Zionist Jews” were responsible for the Danish cartoon controversy that sparked Muslim riots around the world in 2006. He accuses the “apartheid State of Israel” of carrying out a “holocaust” and a “genocide” against the Palestinian people. Referring to Jews as “new Nazis” and “a bunch of straight-up punks,” he warns Jews: “[Y]our days are numbered…. We will fight you until we are either martyred or until we are victorious.”

Such are the commitments of the figures who have become the spearpoint of the Islamic jihad in America. Moving out from the hidden corners of American society into universities and other public places, these preachers of hate have made racism and Islamism into a potent toxin that they release under the cover of diversity and religious pluralism.

BIDEN'S SECRET DIPLOMACY!!!!

Here before us is a Soviet archival document,* a top secret report by a communist apparatchik who had received a delegation of US Senators led by Joseph Biden in 1979. After describing routine arms control discussions, it quotes Biden as telling the Soviets off-record that he did not really care about the persecution of Russian dissidents. He and other Senators might raise human rights issues with their Soviet counterparts, but only to be seen by the public as defenders of human rights, not to have those problems really solved. They would happily take no for an answer.

Vadim V. Zagladin, the then deputy head of the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee (the organization formerly known as the Comintern), wrote in the report:

The delegation did not officially raise the issue of human rights during the negotiations. Biden said they did not want 'to spoil the atmosphere with problems which are bound to cause distrust in our relations.' However, during the breaks between the sessions the senators passed to us several letters concerning these or those 'refuseniks'.

Refuseniks were one of the best known groups of oppressed citizens in the USSR at that time: thousands of Jews who were refused exit permissions to emigrate to Israel on various trumped-up pretexts.

Unofficially, Biden and [Senator Richard] Lugar said that, in the end of the day, they were not so much concerned with having a problem of this or that citizen solved as with showing to the American public that they do care for 'human rights'. They must prove to their voters that they are 'effective in fulfilling their wishes'. In other words, the collocutors directly admitted that what is happening is a kind of a show, that they absolutely do not care for the fate of most so-called dissidents.

In the same conversation, Biden asked us to ensure that senators' appeals on those issues are not left unanswered - even if we just reply that the letter is received but we cannot do anything.

Like most secret documents of the Cold War years, this report still remains classified in Russia's official archives. However, a copy is available in the Gorbachev Foundation Archive in Moscow, where it was deposited by Mr. Zagladin - who himself works for the Gorbachev Foundation since the collapse of the USSR. Under pressure from the Kremlin, the archive had to limit the access to some of its documentary collections. However, Zagladin's documents (Inventory 3/1) - including the one quoted above - were still available to researchers a few years ago, and that is how we obtained copies.

Of course, when people's reputations are at stake, a natural question is: how far can we believe a document written by a communist? Other things being equal, if it is Zagladin's word against a word of a U.S. Senator, one would surely believe the latter. Hopefully, Sen. Biden and Sen. Lugar will fairly soon provide the public with their own accounts of that episode, and then we will be able to compare.

Yet, we should not forget that these top secret documents were never intended to see the light of the day. They were written not for us, but for a very narrow circle of Zagladin's communist bosses. Indeed, it was his job to deceive simple mortals; but deceiving the Politburo would be both pointless and dangerous. After reading and analyzing hundreds of suchlike reports by Zagladin, one cannot but conclude that he always portrayed his foreign collocutors as tougher, not softer, than they really were. That was natural, because that was safer for Zagladin himself. It was his job to cultivate foreign contacts, which made him to a degree responsible for their behavior. If he reported that someone was pro-Soviet and then the man turned out to be anti-Soviet, Zagladin would be held responsible. That is why he always preferred to err on the other side.

In any case, diplomacy is not so much about what you mean as how you are understood. If you go to Moscow sincerely determined to fight like a lion for human rights, and then leave the enemy with an impression that you don't care – this is a monumental failure. It hardly matters what Senators Biden and Lugar actually thought about Soviet human rights abuses in the first place. If they really cared for human rights and meant to pressure the Soviets – so much the worse. Be that as it may, they were understood as the document reads. The message which the enemy received from them was this: we don't care for those whom you keep torturing and rotting in prisons, but we would appreciate if you help us improve our public image.

There was more to it than simply the betrayal of dissidents; for this involved the question of the Senators' own independence. Indeed, they should have known that every Soviet official who dealt with high-ranking foreigners would see them not as partners, but as potential targets for recruitment, potential collaborators or fellow-travelers. On such occasions, the Soviets always searched for a way to corrupt you. The worst thing you could do was to show the enemy that you depend on him in any way. For any Western politician, telling the Soviets that his public image depends on their good will was the first step to becoming an agent of influence, de facto if not de jure.

Today, it is a fact rather than a possibility that the next U.S. administration will have to lead the free world in the Second Cold War. Respectively, the staunchest critics of Russia's authoritarianism from recent years - Senators McCain and Biden - are now at the center stage of the electoral campaign. Yet, fighting and winning this new Cold War will require more than just rhetoric. In order to work out correct strategies and tactics, it is more important than ever to analyze the lessons and mistakes of the first Cold War.

* [Top secret document is printed below]

9-20 April 1979 [?]

The memo by Vadim V. Zagladin, deputy head of the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee

ON THE BASIC CONTENTS OF TALKS WITH THE US SENATORS

During the official negotiations with the delegation of US senators led by J. Biden and the unofficial talks with the delegation's head and some members, our collocutors expressed a number of considerations of certain interest.

1. J. Biden, the head of the delegation, said that the mutual understanding that the SALT-2 treaty should be ratified is, basically, achieved in the Senate Commission for Foreign Affairs. However, four reservations should be formulated. The contents of those reservations have already been reported to us by our embassy in Washington.

While commenting on the contents of those reservations, Biden said they should not worry the Soviet Union because they do not concern the substance of the treaty. The only reservation which, in his opinion, may cause our 'displeasure' says that the SALT-2 should not prevent the US from providing the defence capabilities of their allies. In practice, the collocutor said, this is a way to confirm the US' preparedness to keep supplying European NATO members with modern US weapons, with the exception, naturally, of those types which are covered by the treaty itself.

The Senate Commission for Foreign Affairs is going to conclude the consideration of the treaty by the end of September. However, the Senate itself is starting to work on this problem later, possibly on the eve of the Christmas.

2. As for the problem of supplying Western Europe with new types of weapons, including the Pershing missiles etc.;, Biden said that no final decisions had been taken on this issue yet. Those decisions will be taken in December. And a lot there, he emphasised, will depend on the position of the Soviet Union.

During unofficial talks, Biden noted rather cynically that he personally and other members of the US Senate do not very much care about the Europeans' concerns. The main area of the US citizens' interest is the security of the US itself. Nevertheless, the feelings of our allies also 'concern us', he said. 'We cannot stop supporting our allies, because if we did that, we would have weakened America's own security'. Therefore, Biden continued, the Americans will probably have to solve the question of the supplies of the new types of armaments to Western Europe positively in principle. In any case, the majority in the Senate supports that, he said.

Then Biden meaningfully emphasised (and he was actively supported by Senator Prior here) that if the SALT-2 treaty is ratified before December, and if the Soviet Union makes some demonstrative steps in favour of further disarmament progress before the NATO meeting, the European countries probably may refrain from deploying new types of American weapons in Europe, or at least, postpone the decisions taken on this issue.

To our question on what exactly steps are meant here, Prior answered that, for example, the Soviet government might state it is not going to increase the number of SS-20 missiles any further.

3. Something that caught our attention was that this time, in both official and unofficial talks, the senators would raise more questions about the prospects, about the SALT-3, than the SALT-2. Unofficially, Biden said that 'the question of the future is more significant to the more serious senators - although not to all - than the question of the present treaty. The thing is (he explained) that many in the Senate consider the present treaty as a kind of an intermediate step, a booster for the further reduction of the arms race. Many in the US are very serious about this, believing it is possible to negotiate the reduction of the level of military confrontation with the Soviet Union. However, at the same time, many people are uncertain whether the USSR will agree to further serious steps of that kind.'

Most questions concerned two subjects. Firstly, whether the USSR would agree to a significant reduction of the number of nuclear missiles at the next stage (the senators were particularly interested in heavy missiles in this connection). Secondly, whether the USSR would agree to the explansion of control and the introduction of 'more effective methods' (for example, the 'black boxes', which were discussed during the negotiations on the prohibition of underground nuclear tests).

It emerged during that talks that, in spite of all huge work we are doing about this, many statements of Comrade L. I. Brezhnev were unknown to the majority of the senators - for example, his statement that the Soviet Union was not going to make the first nuclear strike against anyone. The relevant texts were given to them, along with some other documents of the CPSU and the Soviet government.

4. It should also be noted that, this time, the delegation did not officially raise the issue of human rights during the negotiations. Biden said the did not want 'to spoil the atmosphere with problems which are bound to cause distrust in our relations.' However, during the breaks between the sessions the senators passed to us several letters concerning these or those 'refuseniks'.

Unofficially, Biden and Lugar said that, in the end of the day, they were not so much concerned with having a problem of this or that citizen solved as with showing to the American public that they do care for 'human rights'. They must prove to their voters that they are 'effective in fulfilling their wishes'. In other words, the collocutors directly admitted that what is happening is a kind of a show, that they absolutely do not care for the fate of most so-called dissidents.

In the same conversation, Biden asked us to ensure that senators' appeals on those issues are not left unanswered - even if we just reply that the letter is received but we cannot do anything. According to Biden, letters of this kind - if they are not addressed to the highest representatives of the Soviet state - sometimes remain unanswered.

JEWS AGAINST OBAMA!!!!

JEWS AGAINST OBAMA You don't have to be a Jew to join Jews Against Obama.

Why Jews Against Obama?

The Jewish Task Force (JTF.org) is an organization of right wing Jews and righteous gentiles who follow the teachings of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. Thus we are opposed to Israel surrendering land for “peace.” We are also opposed to Islamic terrorism, which we believe is an integral part of Islam.

Unfortunately America has refused to win every single war she has fought after World War II. Our leaders have been more concerned about world opinion, sparing “innocent civilians” and “winning hearts and minds.” Israel has done the equivalent in her recent battle with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

This refusal to win wars is all due to the pernicious influence of the Left, which has gained a major foothold in the Democrat party in the U.S., as well as the European Union and Israel. Therefore, JTF is also opposed to domestic fifth columnists who attempt to undermine America’s and Israel’s will to defend themselves and to properly fight their wars. Barack Hussein Obama is an example of a fifth columnist. We have started Jews Against Obama to expose him as being just that.

• Obama’s father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., was a Muslim from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and his step father was a Muslim from Indonesia.
• Obama’s childhood mentor was a communist.
• Obama attended Muslim Basuki School and a Catholic school in Indonesia and his religion was registered as Muslim in both schools. Despite this overwhelming evidence, Obama insists he was never a Muslim.
• Obama has promised that in his first year of office, he will invite Iranian terrorist dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the White House in order improve relations and relax trade restrictions with Iran. This would certainly lead to the sale of advanced American technology, which would enable Iran to develop nuclear bombs much more quickly.
• Obama is a supporter of Kenyan Muslim Raila Odinga, who recently lost in that country’s election, and who wants to institute Islamic Sharia law as the law of that land. Raila claims to be Obama’s first cousin.
• Obama wants Muslim terrorists in Guantanamo to have access to the American legal system. Note that these Guantanamo attorneys [who represent these terrorists pro bono] are supporting Obama.
• Obama’s foreign policy advisors from the Carter Administration are notoriously anti-Israel and antisemitic.
• A non-profit organization with Obama on its board gave money to the terrorist-supporting Arab American Action Network, which favors Israel's destruction and is completely against America enforcing any of her immigration laws.
• Obama helped raise money for Muslim terrorist refugee camps in the Middle East.
• Obama has been endorsed by communist Daniel Ortega (former head of the Weather Underground organization), communist Tom Hayden, Jesse Jackson, and Muslim racist and antisemite Louis Farrakhan.
• Obama’s National Campaign Cochairman is congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., a notorious racist and antisemite.
• Obama’s Pastor, who Obama claims is his mentor, traveled with Muslim racist and antisemite Louis Farrakhan to Libya in 1984 to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

These are only a few of many, many issues. Please join us in our fight against Barack Hussein Obama and help save America and Israel.

OBAMAS' GOON SQUADS!!!!

A middle school teacher has been suspended for posting a video of his Barack Obama-slogan chanting, arm-waving drill team on YouTube.

The report from Fox News said the teacher, whose name was being withheld by the school district, was suspended today for the video revealing his students chanting lines from Obama talking points and wearing military-style uniforms.

According to Fox News, the school learned about the posting of the video, called "Obama Youth – Junior Fraternity Regiment," and immediately took action.

The video is embedded here:

VIDEO:

It shows 10 black male students in 8th or 9th grades from the Urban Community Leadership Academy in Kansas City, a public charter school organized by the University of Central Missouri. They march in the room chanting, "Alpha, omega, alpha, omega."

Although the immediate source of the phrase "alpha omega" likely traces to the black fraternity step team tradition, the deeper source derives from the book of Revelation, which refers to God as the "Alpha and Omega," the first and last letters of the classical alphabet.

That chant soon yields to, "Yes we can."

School superintendent Joyce McGautha was not pleased. She did not approve and does not condone the video. Not only was the teacher suspended, further drill activities were halted.

"Taxpayers have every reason to be upset," she said.

The superintendent said because of the "legal action that we'll probably have to take against the teacher," his identity would be withheld at this point.

The Fox News report said the students studied Obama's economic plan with the teacher, and the superintendent did not know whether the teacher or the students scripted the routine. The group should have also studied Republican John McCain's economic plan, the superintendent said.

The superintendent said many of the school's activities are recorded, and the teacher had been warned in a letter not to put it on the Internet.

Anonymous forum participants on the Fox News site were disdainful of the Democrats.

"The Democratic Party has become taken over by distorted closet socialists," said one.

"Why does this not surprise me in the least, coming from an Obama supporter?" said another. "He deserves to be fired and NEVER allowed to teach again!"

WND reported just last week when nearby Missouri law officials, including public prosecutors, who were reportedly planning to "respond immediately" to any misleading advertisements against Obama if they "might violate Missouri ethics laws," said they were backing off the intimidating implications of that report, promising they have no intention of prosecuting anyone.

As WND reported, prosecuting attorneys Bob McCulloch and Jennifer Joyce originally announced on KMOV-TV in St. Louis their participation in Obama's "Truth Squad," pledging to defend the candidate from untruthful ads with an undefined "immediate" response.

"Whether it is directly attributable to the (McCain) campaign or to one of the soft money operations," McCulloch told the station, "if they're not going to tell the truth, somebody's got to step up and say, 'That's not the truth. This is the truth.'"

The move prompted Missouri's governor to object that the prosecutors were using "police state tactics" to squelch information hurtful to the Obama campaign.

"What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words," wrote Gov. Matt Blunt in a statement. "The party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment."

TIGHTENING THE NOOSE!!!!

As the war in Iraq recedes and a defeated al-Qaeda removes its surviving assets to Pakistan, the Afghan front is increasingly becoming the top American military priority.

The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, stated this week more troops and economic aid were needed “as quickly as possible” for the seven-year-old counterinsurgency battle. The core of McKiernan’s military aid request is four more combat brigades and helicopters, indicating Afghanistan will have a “surge” of its own.

“We’re in a very tough fight,” said McKiernan to reporters at the Pentagon last Wednesday. “The idea that it might get worse before it gets better is certainly a possibility.”

But McKiernan’s request should not be read to mean that Taliban and al-Qaeda forces are “gaining” in Afghanistan, as one New York Times story indicated. Even though military deaths this year have already exceeded the 117 American dead in 2007 and currently stand at a record 134, this is still low in comparison to Iraq and American casualty figures in Vietnam and World War II – especially considering there are about 50,000 American troops in Afghanistan.

The much-reported 30 percent increase in violence in Afghanistan this year has also been accompanied with very little context. One publication, Strategy Page.com, pointed out that country-wide violence will cause 6,000 deaths in Afghanistan this year, which averages out to 24 dead per 100,000 people. In contrast, South Africa, a country at peace, will see 50 citizens out of every 100,000 die violently in 2008, mostly because of its high crime rate. Other countries, especially failed states like Somalia, probably have an even higher death rate from violence, but are unable to keep proper statistics. So the Afghan situation, while not laudable, is also not dismal.

Moreover, much of Afghanistan’s violence is also unrelated to the war. Constant tribal feuding has been a way of life for centuries in Afghanistan’s rural areas and accounts for many of the country’s killings. The tribesmen are armed, proud of their martial spirit and barely acknowledge the central government. Like most lawless regions, there are also few, if any, law enforcement officials to be found there.

Afghanistan’s drug gangs are also big contributors to the country’s lack of security and cause much of the violence. They have their own armed retainers who battle both government forces as well as each other. One American humanitarian aid worker witnessed such Afghan drug violence when he was inadvertently caught in a shootout between two rival groups but escaped unharmed.

But the biggest contribution drug gangs make to Afghanistan’s turmoil is the tax money they pay to the Taliban, which then hires fighters and buys weapons to use against Western forces and the Kabul government. Afghanistan now produces about 90 percent of the world’s heroin in its southern provinces. And although a poor poppy crop was reported this year, one estimate still puts the Taliban share at about $70 million.

The drug money has also led to Afghanistan’s biggest problem: corruption. Afghan government officials are suspected of being on drug gang payrolls. Even Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, was accused of being involved in the trade. The drug cancer, combined with officials stealing Western aid intended for the poor and dispossessed, has cost the Kabul government much of the people’s confidence and support. So like the American experience in Vietnam, the US army may win the military battles, but the country could be lost because of other, non-military factors.

Nevertheless, McKiernan is correct in asking for more troops at this time. The Taliban and al Qaeda are currently under severe pressure in their Pakistani base areas. The new Zardari government launched an all-out military offensive in August against the two terrorist organizations in their tribal agency strongholds and refuses to negotiate with them, giving them the stark options of either surrendering or leaving.

McKiernan has called the offensive’s initial results “encouraging.” About 1,000 Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters have been killed in the long overdue attack. A Pakistani newspaper reported that Taliban fighters have even left Afghanistan to confront the Pakistani army, leading to a noticeable lowering of insurgent activity in American-patrolled Kunar province. After years of American complaints about jihadists crossing unhindered into Afghanistan, a senior Paksitani military official ironically commented: “The Pakistan-Afghan border is porous and is now causing trouble for us in Bajaur (tribal agency).” To keep the pressure on the enemy, the American military also announced it will also stage a winter campaign.

An expansion of the Afghan army will accompany the arrival of more American troops. Currently about 70,000 strong, Afghan forces will number 90,000 by the end of the year and 130,000 soldiers in about three years. General David Petraeus calls this Afghan military expansion a “thickening” of the local forces. An increase in numbers on both sides will, like in Iraq, allow troops to hold areas the Taliban simply reoccupies after allied forces leave.

But besides the top down strategy of meeting the enemy head on militarily, both McKiernan and Petraeus intend to increase their bottom up strategy of increasing humanitarian aid and engaging local Afghan tribal and government leaders. The Taliban also recognizes the value of this strategy, as a UN report released this week stated it had killed 30 aid workers so far this year, attacked 22 food convoys and 59 schools.

But the only hitch to McKiernan’s request for the extra brigades is that they may not arrive immediately. As American troops leave Iraq, they will probably need a few months rest at home before being sent to the Afghan-Pakistan theater. Which is probably why Defense Secretary Robert Gates said recently he is prepared to send thousands of troops to Afghanistan in the spring. So, after years of empty Taliban promises to capture Kabul in a spring offensive, it will instead be facing one of its own.

PALIN POUNCES ON OBAMAS' AYERS/REZKO CONNECTION!!!

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Saturday accused Democrat Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists" because of his association with a former 1960s radical, stepping up the campaign's effort to portray Obama as unacceptable to American voters.

Palin's reference was to Bill Ayers, one of the founders of the group the Weather Underground. Its members took credit for bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol, during the tumultuous Vietnam War era four decades ago. Obama, who was a child when the group was active, served on a charity board with Ayers several years ago and has denounced his radical views and activities.

The Republican campaign, falling behind Obama in polls, plans to make attacks on Obama's character a centerpiece of presidential candidate John McCain's message with a month remaining before Election Day.

Palin told a group of donors at a private airport, "Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." She also said, "This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America."

Palin, Alaska's governor, said that donors on a greeting line had encouraged her and McCain to get tougher on Obama. She said an aide then advised her, "Sarah, the gloves are off, the heels are on, go get to them."

The escalated effort to attack Obama's character dovetails with TV ads by outside groups questioning Obama's ties to Ayers, convicted former Obama fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko and Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Ayers is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He and Obama live in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood and served together on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based charity that develops community groups to help the poor. Obama left the board in December 2002.

Obama was the first chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school-reform group of which Ayers was a founder. Ayers also held a meet-the-candidate event at his home for Obama when Obama first ran for office in the mid-1990s.

Palin cited a New York Times story published Saturday that detailed Obama's relationship with Ayers. In an interview with CBS News earlier in the week, Palin didn't name any newspapers or magazines that had shaped her view of the world.

Summing up its findings, the Times wrote: "A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called 'somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.'"

Earlier Saturday, Palin spent 35 minutes at a diner in Greenwood Village where she met with Blue Star Moms, a support group of families whose sons or daughters are serving in the armed forces. Reporters were allowed in the diner for less than five minutes before being ushered out by the campaign.

Palin, whose 19-year-old son, Track, deployed last month as a private with an Army combat team, was overheard at one point commiserating with one of the mothers: "Any time I ask my son how he's doing, he says, 'Mom, I'm in the Army now.'"

Taking one question from reporters about competing in battleground states, Palin repeated her wish that the campaign had not pulled out of Michigan, a prominent state in presidential elections where Obama leads by double-digit percentage points in recent polls.

"As I said the other day, I would sure love to get to run to Michigan and make sure that Michigan knows that we haven't given up there," she said. "We care much about Michigan and every other state. I wish there were more hours in the day so that we could travel all over this great country and start speaking to more Americans. So, not worried about it but just desiring more time and, you know, to put more effort into each one of these states."