Feminists throughout the Western world are shocked at this report. Aren’t they? Funny that their outrage has been so quiet that we haven’t heard a peep from them.

From Jihad Watch:

She had them raped and then turned them into suicide bombers so they could escape the shame 

Mother of the Believers

Otherwise they would have been killed anyway – by stoning as adulterers – but this way, they were celebrated as heroes.

"Iraqi woman had 80 women raped then recruited as suicide bombers," from Agence France-Presse, February 4 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A WOMAN suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers has confessed to organising their rapes so she could later convince them that martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame.

Samira Jassam, 51, was arrested by Iraqi police and confessed to recruiting the women and orchestrating dozens of attacks.

In a video confession, she explained how she had mentally prepared the women for martyrdom operations, passed them on to terrorists who provided explosives, and then took the bombers to their targets.

"We arrested Samira Jassim, known as ‘Um al-Mumenin’, the mother of the believers, who was responsible for recruiting 80 women”, Major General Qassim Atta said….

 These questions are in our minds.. But we put them down here not to invite answers (though if any readers do answer them, we’ll be glad), but because they are worth asking and worth thinking about. We expect Time to provide answers in due course. 

Some Republicans murmur that they ‘want President Obama to succeed’. But to succeed at what, to what end?

***

1. Many who voted for Obama dismissed Republican fears that he intended to turn the US into a socialist country like the fading European states. But what if he does? Would they then regret voting him into power?

Why were they so sure that he could not have any such intention, when he himself said that he wanted to redistribute wealth? The forcible redistribution of wealth by a government IS socialism.

What if his Party, now dominant in Congress, selected him as its presidential candidate because they wanted a leader to take them to the goal of West-European-type Socialism? There are plenty of indications that the ‘progessives’, as they now like to call themselves, find nothing abhorrent about such governments; and in their pursuit of ‘social justice’ seem positively to approve of them.

2. What if his ultimate aim is even more of a change in that he intends to bring about a radical Marxist revolution? Not by violent means, let’s say, but by using the constitutional powers he and his party now have?  The ‘long march through the institutions’ is now completed by his reaching the pinnacle of power.  All the marchers have to do now, under his leadership, is change the economy and the form of government to the Marxist model.

His political education was entirely Marxist. His father was a Communist. His mother involved herself in the New Left movement of the late 1960s.The mentor chosen for him in his adolescence by his grandfather was Frank Marshall Davis, a ‘card-carrying Communist’. He became a ‘community organizer’, a profession invented by Saul Alinsky, the radical Communist teacher of practical subversion and Marxist revolution-by-stealth. He was launched into his political career by William Ayers, a violent Communist revolutionary. At university, by his own admission, he sought the company and instruction of Marxists.  Is it then not likely that he IS a Marxist, or that he might desire to establish a Communist regime?

3. Does Obama hold any of these opinions that are common in the international Left?

i) Israel has no right to exist and should be eliminated.  

ii) The demands of Islam should be met, whatever they are.

iii) All nation states should come as soon as possible under a world government to be developed out of the United Nations.   

iv) the world’s wealth should be evenly distributed amongst all populations.

v) Every person should be made to work , and his wage should be set by the state.

vi) Living accommodation should be rationed and shared.

vii) Public transport should replace private cars.

viii) Food should be limited in choice and rationed. 

ix) Medical services should be provided and rationed by the (national at first, later international) government, and only the government.

x) Education should be provided and regulated by the government and only the government. 

xi) Only one Party can put up candidates for election.

xii) The supreme head of government shall rule for his lifetime. 

xiii) Dissidents should be re-educated or, if they prove unreformable, eliminated. 

*

We are not convinced that Obama has any ideas at all, or if he has, that he thinks them through to the point where he can see the dangers in them.

We suspect he may be a thing of air and paper (hot air and newspaper), trying to fly like a kite above trouble, but destined to be torn apart by the first strong wind that hits him.

But if he is an empty man, trying to float above the tumult of decision-making and letting others take the blame for everything that goes wrong, he will be easily manipulated by those in his Party who do have strong beliefs and intentions.

He is still at present a cipher.  We wait to know more.

But what if he is an unreconstructed Alinsky-ite, and these are his aims?

And what if he succeeds in achieving them?

Is it what the majority of those who elected him actually want? Surely not! So would they regret electing him? And if they do, won’t it be too late? 

 From The Times, London:

PARTS of the United Kingdom have become so heavily dependent on government spending that the private sector is generating less than a third of the regional economy, a new analysis has found.

The study of “Soviet Britain” has found the government’s share of output and expenditure has now surged to more than 60% in some areas of England and over 70% elsewhere.

Experts believe the recession will tighten the state’s grip still further as benefit handouts soar and Labour directs public sector organisations to create jobs to soak up unemployment.

In the northeast of England the state is expected to be responsible for 66.4% of the economy this year, up from 58.7% when a similar study was carried out four years ago. When Labour came to power, the figure was 53.8%.

 Watch this video of a peaceful pro-Israel rally in Sweden, held with a permit, being broken up by the police because violent Muslims and pro-Muslims demonstrate against them, with no permit.

 Watch this video of the British police being chased by Muslim and pro-Muslim rioters in London. Abuse is hurled at them. They are called ‘f***ing cowards’ – and the sad thing is, they are. 

More news of that intercepted Iranian arms-smuggling ship:

The Iranian ship boarded by a US Navy Coast Guard team on the Red Sea last week before it could smuggle arms to Hamas is now disclosed by DEBKAfile’s military sources to have tried to trick the search team by enclosing its rocket cargo in secret compartments behind layers of steel. Furthermore, our sources reveal, the US has not yet found a harbor in the region for carrying out a thorough search.

The Cypriot-flagged Iranian freighter Nochegorsk was intercepted last week by the new US Combined Task Force 151 in the Bab al-Mandeb Straits. Its presence in the Red Sea was first revealed by DEBKAfile on Jan. 20. For this article click HERE.

The Americans decided not to give the Israeli Navy a chance to seize the vessel and tow it to Eilat for fear of a Tehran ultimatum to Jerusalem, followed by Iranian attacks on Israeli naval craft patrolling the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea.

Iran maintains two warships in those waters to guard its shipping against Somali pirates as well as a military presence in the Eritrean port of Assab. The arms smuggling ship was first reported escorted out of the Suez Canal Saturday night, Jan. 23, after which Washington imposed a blackout on the incident. It is now moored at an Egyptian Red Sea port at the entrance to the Gulf of Suez.

But the US and Egyptian governments are in a fix. To break the Iranian ship’s holds open and expose the rockets destined for Hamas, the facilities of a sizeable port are needed. It would have to be Egyptian because the other coastal nations – Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia – are hostile or controlled by pirates. Both the US and Egypt are hesitant about precipitating a full-blown armed confrontation with Iran. The timing is wrong for the new Barack Obama administration, which is set on smoothing relations with Tehran through diplomatic engagement. Cairo has just launched a campaign to limit Tehran’s aggressive drive in the Middle East but does not want a premature clash. [What can this mean? Is a clash intended? If so, when? – JB]

DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources disclose that the ship’s captain had orders not to resist an American boarding team but impede a close look at its freight. The Navy Coast Guard searchers first found a large amount of ordnance and explosives in the ship’s hold, which the Iranian captain claimed were necessary for securing Iranian freighters heading from the Red Sea to the Suez Canal. But then, the US searchers using metal detectors perceived welded steel compartments packed with more hardware concealed at the bottom of the hull.

The option of towing it to a Persian Gulf port for an intensive search was rejected because the Gulf emirates hosting US bases were almost certain to shy away from involvement in the affair. Moreover, Tehran would be close enough to mount a naval commando operation to scuttle the ship before it was searched.

Our military sources estimate that eventually the US government may decide to let the Iranian arms ship sail through the Suez Canal out to the Mediterranean for lack of other options.

Is Commander-in-Chief Obama aware that the US navy is intercepting arms shipments from Iran to Hamas? If he is, does it mean that he recognizes Hamas as Iran’s proxy,  wants to thwart the Iranians, and prevent the re-arming of Gaza? If not, will he stop the navy doing this useful task when it comes to his attention? 

US Coast Guard boarding team

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that a US Navy Coast Guard team this week boarded an Iranian arms ship flying a Cypriot flag in the Red Sea and found weapons in its hold.

This was the first time an America warship had ever intercepted an Iranian vessel in international water. The incident activated the Memo of Understanding the former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice signed with Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni a week ago on actions to halt the flow of Iranian arms to Hamas as part of the Gaza ceasefire.

The Iranian ship’s captain showed the US boarding team documents recording the Syrian port of Latakia as its cargo’s destination. DEBKAfile reports that both US and Israeli intelligence are certain the arms were bound for Hamas. But according to international law, the US Navy’s Combined Task Force (CTF) 151, set up last week to combat piracy, was not authorized to confiscate the cargo or stop the ship because no enforcement mechanism was yet in place.

After a few hours, therefore, the US force released the Iranian vessel and two warships escorted it out of Red Sea waters. The ship and its escort are due to enter the Suez Canal heading north Saturday night, Jan. 23, after being prevented from unloading its arms freight on the coast of Sinai or Gaza.

Tehran has so far not reacted to the incident.

DEBKAfile revealed last week that the new US task force policing the waters of the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and Red Sea, under the command of Rear Adm. Terry McKnight, had been additionally assigned with intercepting Iranian ships smuggling arms for Hamas, often in conjunction with Somali pirates and Sinai Bedouin militias.

Massed on the lead ship San Antonio is a helicopter detachment, a "surgical team" for dealing with small speedboats trying to hem the ship in and 14 Navy VBSS members, including two Navy boarding officers. The Coast Guard detachment is made up of eight members, all of them qualified as boarding officers.

 From the Onion:

Obama appeared most frustrated about halfway through the address when reverberations from the pneumatic drill set off several dozen nearby car alarms, drowning out the new president’s attempt to describe his vision for America’s future in a changing world.

"If the person currently operating the jackhammer can hear me, please stop," Obama said at approximately the eight-minute mark of his speech. "Seriously, please. Stop it now."

The unremitting pounding caused the first African-American president to sigh or roll his eyes a combined 17 times, most notably during an apparently eloquent passage conveying his "lifelong desire to [unify or commit] the United States to a [common goal, higher purpose, or challenge] by 2012."

During a particularly loud spell of thuds, Obama muttered, "Oh, come on."

Footage of the event shows that when the president tried to explain how perseverence and pride could help rebuild a better society for all, he was interrupted not only by the jackhammer, but by several audience members who shouted, "Speak up," "Louder," and "I can’t hear you over all this jackhammering."

At one point during the address, Obama stopped talking entirely and walked off the stage for nearly five minutes. When he returned, he asked the restless crowd for calm and understanding.

"Okay, so, it looks like they’re not going to stop jackhammering. We’re just going to have to keep going, I guess," Obama told the massive group, many of whom had already begun walking to their cars. "I’ll try to speed through it."

A transcript released by his campaign prior to the address revealed that Obama ultimately cut the speech short by six pages, omitting a section about the conflict in Afghanistan and a point-by-point explanation of his economic recovery plan.

According to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of the lasting images of the 2009 presidential inauguration will be Vice President Joe Biden, seated just 20 feet behind Obama, cupping his right ear in a desperate attempt to hear what the 44th president was saying.

"Inauguration addresses have always brought us inspirational and defining moments," Goodwin said. "FDR reminded Americans that all they had to fear was fear itself. John F. Kennedy encouraged citizens to ask what they could do for their country."

"And now President Barack Obama offers his own stirring message," Goodwin continued. "’Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang.’"

Those in attendance agreed that it was nearly impossible to make out a single sentence of the historic address.

"I wanted to leave the speech with a feeling that this man was a beacon of hope, that he was going to lead us out of the doldrums and into a bold new beginning," said Nathaniel Washburn, a 72-year-old African-American who brought his grandchildren to the inauguration. "But I couldn’t hear a goddamn thing."

"I thought it was really, really cool," said Washburn’s 7-year-old grandson, Gregory. "When I grow up, I want to be a jackhammer operator." 

 

 A report from Chad:

N’DJAMENA, 16 January 2009 (IRIN) – A government ban on charcoal in the Chadian capital N’djamena has created what one observer called “explosive” conditions as families desperately seek the means to cook. 

“As we speak women and children are on the outskirts of N’djamena scavenging for dead branches, cow dung or the occasional scrap of charcoal,” Merlin Totinon Nguébétan of the UN Human Settlements Programme (HABITAT) in Chad, told IRIN from the capital. “People cannot cook.” …

Unions and other civil society groups say the government failed to prepare the population or make alternative household fuels available when it halted all transport of charcoal and cooking wood into the capital in December in a move, officials said, to protect the environment. 

From Yahoo! news:

Secretary of State nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton intervened at least six times in government issues directly affecting companies and others that later contributed to her husband’s foundation, an Associated Press review of her official correspondence found.

The overlap of names on former President Bill Clinton’s foundation donor list and business interests whose issues she championed raise new questions about potential ethics conflicts between her official actions and her husband’s fundraising. The AP obtained three of the senator’s government letters under the Freedom of Information Act…

The letters and donations involve pharmaceutical companies and telecommunications and energy interests. An aide to the senator said she made no secret of her involvement in many of the issues. Bill Clinton’s foundation declined to say when it received the donations or precisely how much was contributed.

"Throughout her tenure, Senator Clinton has proven that she acts solely based on what she believes is best for the state and people she represents, without consideration to any other factor," said spokesman Philippe Reines. "In these instances, she was doing what the people of New York elected her to do: Work hard on the issues of importance to them."

Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Clinton Foundation both declined to answer questions about whether the senator tried to step away from issues directly affecting donors to her husband’s charity, and whether the foundation tried to screen out money from those on whose issues the senator had intervened.

"Generally, through a combination of rigorous adherence to Senate and FEC income and asset disclosure rules, coupled with the voluntary and unprecedented release of the names of every single Foundation supporter since its inception, the Clintons are by far the most financially transparent former first couple in American history," Reines said.