It is quite entertaining to watch five would-be jewelry store robbers, two of them armed, falling over themselves to escape from a white-haired lady, the store’s owner. The key being, of course, that she was firing a handgun at them.

Video and text from PowerLine

Kofi Annan, the UN’s and Arab League’s “special envoy” to Syria, tasked with ordering the incoming tide to go back … Oh no, sorry – that was King Canute’s futile endeavor. Easy to confuse it with Kofi Annan’s: to stop the civil war raging in Syria. Anyway, he has given up. He arrived, he chatted a bit, he went away.

Rick Moran writes at Front Page:

[Kofi] Annan’s futile efforts to stop the violence in Syria are added to other failures in his career that include an inability to stop the massacres in Bosnia in the 1990s, the Rwandan genocide where 800,000 were murdered, the tragedy in Darfur where upwards of 450,000 were killed, and Iraq’s oil for food scandal that hit close to home when his own son was accused of profiting from Saddam Hussein’s multi-billion dollar bribery schemes. Each of those horrific events occurred either while he was serving as Secretary General of the UN, or head of the world body’s peacekeeping efforts in Rwanda when he failed to act to prevent the slaughter of Tutsi tribesmen.

The writer’s heart is in the right place, but there’s nothing remarkable in such UN “failures” as keeping clear of massacres and profiting from helping the sort of despots who carry them out. That’s what the UN does. It’s what the corrupt, dim-witted men who run it do. The only remarkable thing is that the UN was set up to do the opposite, but as it never has and never will, pointing out the hypocrisy is almost as pointless as giving orders to the tides.

[Annan’s] mission was doomed from the start because the Security Council and the world community was unable to come together to address the tragedy. The lion’s share of the blame for that can be placed directly on Russia and China, whose vetoes of Security Council resolution after resolution gave Bashar Assad cover to carry out his war against his own people. But there is plenty of blame left for the United States, the European countries, and the Arab League, who clung for months to Annan’s moribund “peace plan” despite a mountain of evidence that it had failed almost as soon as it was negotiated last April.

Is there any good reason for the US or any Western power to intervene in Syria?

Rick Moran offers a fairly persuasive one:

The worst case scenario is to have President Assad eventually triumph which would strengthen Russia, Iran, and China in the region. Anything we can do to prevent that — including expending the same amount of energy in supporting the rebels that the Russians are using to prop up Assad — would be a welcome change in policy.

Yes. But who knows whether Assad’s successor, even if helped into power by the West, will be any less an ally and cat’s paw of Russia, China, and Iran? 

Could there be something happening in the world today that is even more threatening to life and liberty than Islam and its jihad?

There could be, there is, and its name is Agenda 21.

It emanates from that powerhouse of evil, the United Nations. It was initiated and is driven by votaries of a dark mysticism.  They call themselves shamans. They freely confess – no, they boast – that they are working to establish totalitarian world government; that they aim to reduce the population of the world to half a billion and keep it at that number; that those suffered to live must return to a primitive existence deriving bare sustenance from such resources as their local habitat provides, own nothing, and worship the earth goddess Gaia with prescribed ritual.

That is their vision of a new world order, the ultimate objective. It is to be attained step by step, starting with the enforcing of environmental regulations (among them the phasing out of the motor vehicle); emptying the suburbs and bringing people into the cities to be closely and austerely housed; returning the countryside to wilderness, which involves the destruction of roads …

Is this just absurd alarmism? Surely no plotters, even in the UN, could really bring this off, could they? They haven’t really started doing these things have they? Who are these shadowy figures who can exert irresistible influence on the political powers of this world?

We quote from The Green Agenda, a (Christian) site established to expose the movement for world government and explain how it is being put into effect, chiefly through the implementation of Agenda 21. It has links to the documents themselves.  

Agenda 21 spreads it tentacles from Governments, to federal and local authorities, and right down to community groups. Chapter 28 of Agenda 21 specifically calls for each community to formulate its own Local Agenda 21: “Each local authority should enter into a dialogue with its citizens, local organizations, and private enterprises to formulate ‘a Local Agenda 21.’ Through consultation and consensus-building, local authorities would learn from citizens and from local, civic, community, business and industrial organizations and acquire the information needed for formulating the best strategies.” – Agenda 21, Chapter 28, sec 1.3

Interestingly, in April 1991, fourteen months before Earth Summit, Prince Charles held a private two day international conference aboard the royal yacht Britannia, moored off the coast of Brazil. His goal was to bring together key international figures in an attempt to achieve a degree of harmony between the various countries that would gather at the Summit. Al Gore was present, along with senior officials from the United Nations and the World Bank.

At the summit 179 nations officially signed Agenda 21 and many more have followed since. Nearly 12,000 local and federal authorities have legally committed themselves to the Agenda. In practice this means that all their plans and policies must begin with an assessment of how the plan or policy meets the requirements of Agenda 21, and no plans or policies are allowed to contradict any part of the Agenda. Local authorities are audited by UN inspectors and the results of the audits are placed on the UN website. You can see how many local authorities in your country were bound by Agenda 21 in 2001 here. The number has increased significantly since then.

The official opening ceremony was conducted by the Dalai Lama and centered around a Viking long-ship that was constructed to celebrate the summit and sailed to Rio from Norway. The ship was appropriately named Gaia. A huge mural of a beauiful woman holding the earth within her hands adorned the entrance to the summit. Al Gore led the US delegation where he was joined by 110 Heads of State, and representatives of more than 800 NGO’s.

Maurice Strong, Club of Rome member, devout Bahai, founder and first Secretary General of UNEP [UN Environment Program], has been the driving force behind the birth and imposition of Agenda 21.

He chaired the Earth Summit, and outside, while he did,  –

His wife Hanne and 300 followers called the Wisdom-Keepers, continuously beat drums, chanted prayers to Gaia, and tended sacred flames in order to “establish and hold the energy field” for the duration of the summit. …

In the course of his opening speech Maurice Strong made these remarks:

“The concept of national sovereignty has been an immutable, indeed sacred, principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation. It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation states … The global community must be assured of environmental security.”

“We must transform our attitudes, and adopt a renewed respect for the superior laws of Divine Nature.”

“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable. A shift is necessary which will require a vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations.”

“Global management” is required in order to keep the earth clean and pure. Or it is necessary to keep the earth clean and pure in order to impose “global management”. Take your pick, because it is never made clear which is the means and which the end. In any case, they’re after “global management” (which we believe is the end). They will manage your life because they know best. You will do as they say. For “sustainability“. And to serve the Higher Good. Which is the nursing of the planet. The serving of the planet. The worshiping of the planet.

And the preservation of everything that lives on it. Even human beings within strict limits. This is called “biodiversity“.

The Global Biodiversity Assessment of the State of the Earth, prepared by the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) –

armed UN leaders with the “ecological basis, and moral authority” they needed to validate their global management system. The GBA concludes … that “the root causes of the loss of biodiversity are embedded in the way societies use resources. This world view is characteristic of large scale societies, heavily dependent on resources brought from considerable distances. It is a world view that is characterized by the denial of sacred attributes in nature.”

For this the inscribers of this idiotic document blame Christianity, Judaism, and Islam – of which we are not defenders; but it’s not as if they themselves are against religious superstition – far from it:

“Eastern cultures with religious traditions such as Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism did not depart as drastically from the perspective of humans as members of a community of beings including other living and non-living elements.”

The UN was delighted with this tosh. Maurice Strong was honored and rewarded:

Following the Earth Summit Maurice Strong was named Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, and was appointed to the position of Chief Policy Advisor by Kofi Annan. He was also a member of the UN’s Commission on Global Governance, and the key architect of the Kyoto Protocol.

Did you know that the UN has a Commission on Global Governance? Do Western governments know it? If so, why is the UN allowed to continue in existence?

Just as the dirty mystic Rasputin was able to influence the rulers of Russia, so Maurice Strong is able to influence the would-be rulers of the world in the UN. A parliament of fools if ever there was one.

Strong and his wife have also established the Manitou Foundation, providing land in Colorado to an eclectic mix of religious groups, including the Crestone Mountain Zen Center, the Spiritual Life Institute (a Catholic Carmelite monastery), the Haidakhandi Universal Ashram, the Sri Aurobindo Learning Center, Mangala Shri Bhuti (Tibetan Buddhists), and Karma Thegsum Tashi Gomang (Indian mystics). The Strongs have located their spiritual centre in the Colorado mountains because:”The Strongs learned that since antiquity indigenous peoples had revered this pristine wilderness as a place for conducting their vision quests and receiving shamanic trainings. It is prophesied that the world’s religious traditions would gather here and help move the world toward globally conscious co-existence and co-creation.”

But while these multifarious dupes and charlatans wait for their “vision quests” and “shamanic trainings”, their drumming, their sacred flames, and their invocations to return the human race to primitive savagery, the collective political steps to the same end are being taken conscientiously by national and local government in accordance with Agenda 21.

So what exactly does Agenda 21 contain? It consists of 115 different and very specific programs designed to facilitate, or to force, the transition to Sustainable Development. The objective, clearly enunciated by the leaders of the Earth Summit, is to bring about a change in the present system of independent nations. The agenda is broken up into 8 “programme areas for action”:  Agriculture,  Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management, Education, Energy and Housing, Population, Public Health, Resources and recycling, Transportation, Sustainable Economic Development.

A link to the entire document is provided, but as the author says, it would take a few days to read all of this “blueprint for the 21st century”. The first six paragraphs are quoted for those with less time at their disposal. There the assertion is made that it “reflects a global consensus and political commitment at the highest level on development and environment cooperation”.

This is nonsense of course. There is no global consensus. As for a political commitment “at the highest level”, if this means that the likes of Prince Charles, Prince Philip, Angela Merkel, Mikhail Gorbachev, Tony Blair, have swallowed the ballyhoo without even chewing it, then yes.

It also asserts that “the developmental and environmental objectives of Agenda 21 will require a substantial flow of new and additional financial resources to developing countries, in order to cover the incremental costs for the actions they have to undertake to deal with global environmental problems and to accelerate sustainable development. Financial resources are also required for strengthening the capacity of international institutions for the implementation of Agenda 21.” That means taxing us, and global redistribution of our money.

The author (whose name we have not discovered) stresses that “Agenda 21 is … an attempt to impose a global centrally planned quasi-government administered by the United Nations. Under Agenda 21 all central government and local authority signatories are required to conform strictly to a common prescribed standard and hence this is just communism resurrected in a new guise.”

She also says that “Agenda 21 has [already] gained a stranglehold on global regulatory and planning processes”.

We think this is true, at least to some significant extent.

In our town the City Council is certainly putting Agenda 21 into effect. Small-unit housing is being built near railway stations. It is not family accomodation, but most suitable for single occupants. (Families are to be discouraged from living together. The family as such is bad for the environment and for collective organization.) There will be places to park bicycles but not cars. Private transport is being discouraged. “Smart meters” will inform the Authorities how warm or how cool the occupant keeps his/her austere little space. How much heat, light and water you use will not only be monitored, but controlled.

Hundreds of cities in many if not all the states have embarked, or plan to embark, on the same sort of program. (Unless they’re going bankrupt. It may be that economic crisis, bad as it is, could save us from something worse.)

President Obama is against the existence of the suburbs, where individual families live in privately-owned houses. He wants to concentrate population in the cities. (Some have written about this –   eg. see here – but have not put it into its proper context, which is the implementation of Agenda 21.) The government can, has, and will use the eminent domain clause of the fifth amendment to expropriate private property.

It is more than likely happening in your town. Your property is under threat. Your way of life is being decided for you.

Not only do we have Christians, we even have some Democrats on our side in confronting this horrifying movement. 

Watch this video made by Democrats Against UN Agenda 21. It is long but informative. The worst news about what state and local government are doing to us comes after the 50 minute mark, but don’t skip too much before that. The shocking information needs the explanation and context.

The UN must be destroyed.

Obama is not just pro-Islam, he is pro-terrorist, pro-terrorism – at least when it is carried out by Muslims. For all his boasting about the killing of Osama bin Laden – which in fact he only reluctantly permitted, no doubt for the gain of political kudos – he is not against what bin Laden stood for, or even what bin Laden did.

How can we know?

Here is the evidence, presented with commendable indignation by Andrew C. McCarthy at PJ Media:

The Obama administration will not explain how it came to issue a visa to Hani Nour Eldin, a known member of the Egyptian terrorist organization Ga’amat al-Islamia, the Islamic Group (IG). The explanation is not forthcoming because what it portends is even more sinister than this one infuriating incident.

To call the IG a “terrorist organization” is not just purple prose. The IG is a terrorist organization that has carried out actual mass-murder attacks. There is a formal legal process under which such groups are “designated” as terrorist organizations. The IG has long been formally designated under that process. Once that process has occurred, any American citizen who tries to provide material support to members of a designated terrorist organization — i.e., any American citizen who tried to do what the Obama administration has done for Eldin — would be in jeopardy of being convicted of a serious federal felony worth upwards of 15 years’ imprisonment.

And Hani Nour Eldin is, indisputably, a member of the IG — we are not speculating here. Eldin is quite proud of his membership. He has been unabashed about it. The Obama administration, moreover, does not even attempt either to deny that Eldin is an IG member or to suggest that the issuance of a visa to him — to say nothing of the subsequent meetings he was invited to have with top American national security officials — was the result of some misunderstanding or monumental screw-up. Eldin was very intentionally brought to Washington. Despite the fact that the leader of his organization — the “Blind Sheikh,” Omar Abdel Rahman — is responsible for massive terrorist attacks against American civilians, Eldin was hosted here as if he were a politician rather than a terrorist. 

So what does the administration tell us about how this could have happened — how it could be that hordes of American citizens, as to whom there is not the slightest suspicion of terrorist sympathies, are forced by the Department of Homeland Security to undergo an appallingly intrusive physical search just to board an airplane, yet a known member of a designated terrorist organization is intentionally invited to board a plane so he can enter our country, be admitted into highly secure government buildings – like the White House — where top national security officials work, and be consulted as if he were a foreign dignitary rather than a jihadist?

The Obama cabinet, in the person of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, tells us that the administration was well aware that Eldin was a terrorist organization member; yet, she maintains that he was carefully vetted by three different government agencies. The administration then made a determination that his admission did not pose a threat to the United States — i.e., that he would not personally endanger anyone he encountered and that the signal conveyed to every other terrorist in the world by Obama’s rolling out the red carpet for a member of the Blind Sheikh’s cabal would not encourage terrorism globally. 

Think for a second about how lunatic that is.

Before the Obama administration came to power, the whole point of such background investigations was to determine if a person was somehow affiliated with an organization notorious for violence or criminality. That was the objective of the exercise. Once you found that there was an affiliation with terrorists, that was the end of the matter — no visa, no invitation into our country, no security clearance, no government employment, no admission to highly secure government locations or access to top government security officials, no benefit from our government, period.

Look at what has happened under Obama. Now, the government takes as a given the very thing the background investigation used to be conducted to find out: namely, that the person at issue is affiliated with known terrorists, terrorist financiers, and/or terrorist organizations. In Obama’s America, that turns out not to be the end of the investigation — it’s only the beginning. Astonishingly, it is only after you confirm that your subject has undeniable terror ties that you start vetting him for dangerousness. Terror ties are no longer a bright-line disqualifier; now they’re just a trigger for conducting more investigation — which actually means, to figure out a way to rationalize accommodating the terrorist.

As with nearly everything Obama, this is such a mind-blowing perversion of longstanding policy that we are paralyzed by the Eldin incident itself. We don’t come around to asking the vital follow-up question: What is going on here? Why is Obama working to change our basic understanding of what a background investigation is? Of what terrorism is? 

Here is what you need to understand. Here is what Mitt Romney needs to be highlighting as a major campaign issue: President Obama is laboring to shift the United States away from the post-9/11 conception of counterterrorism. Our government is steadily adopting the Islamist conception that has gained so much traction on the European Left. The Islamist conception has two elements.

(a) What we refer to as “terrorism” — ideologically driven mass-casualty attacks designed to extort changes in government policy — is not actually terrorism; it is resistance. That is, violence is a legitimate, or at least quasi-legitimate reaction to government policies that progressives deem inappropriate, if not downright immoral. Why change our understanding of the concept of terrorism? Because terrorism is a universally condemnable atrocity. Resistance, by contrast, is just hardball politics — like community organizing. For the Left, engagement in “resistance” is merely an aggressive form of negotiation; it does not disqualify the aggressor from a seat at the policy table …

(b) It seems like only yesterday that terrorists were seen as the pirates of yore: hostis humani generis, the enemies of mankind. No more. For transnational progressives, operatives of organizations like the IG are merely members of a political movement. Welcome to the alchemy of “Islamic democracy,” which is better understood as a laundering operation for Islamic supremacists than as a social transformation for Islamic populations.

In terms of substance, there is nothing democratic about the wave of “democracy” said to be sweeping the Middle East in the “Arab Spring.” Democracy is a culture; holding an election is a mere procedural exercise. The most antidemocratic organizations in the world conduct votes from time to time. If sharia — the Islamic comprehensive legal code — is installed by popular election rather than violence, that does not make it “democratic” in the Western sense of the term. …

Nevertheless, because these procedural exercises now have the effect of placing terrorist operatives in governmental positions, Obama-think urges us to see terrorist organizations as political parties pursuing ordinary policy agendas, not ideologically driven hardliners pursuing a jihad. …

This counterterrorism shift is not merely a misjudgment. It is a profound moral wrong.

Eldin and the IG, like Hamas and Hezbollah, are savages, not politicians. No one would give a hoot what they thought about the direction of their countries but for the fact that they have murdered and maimed their way to a seat at the diplomatic table. And, in fact, they have not moderated their positions: they still deny the right of Israel to exist. They don’t simply disagree with a sovereign adversary’s policies; they maintain that this sovereign is illegitimate and must be destroyed, whether by violence, political processes, or — better — political processes leveraged by violence. To adopt the administration’s position is to guarantee more terrorism. If you illustrate to the terrorist that his methods work, why on earth would he stop using them?

The Middle East’s new Islamic supremacist rulers are not championing democracy; they are championing the imposition of repressive sharia by means of popular vote rather than extortionate killings. Ironically, it was Mubarak, the dictator, who imposed laws that promoted equality for women and prohibited … heinous sharia practices …  Do we actually believe the Islamists are the real “democrats” just because Islamist populations have elected them?

President Obama is not just inviting terrorists to consult with American national security officials. That’s not the half of it. Obama is determined to change our perception of what terrorism is, and to do it in a way that will encourage more savagery.

The terrorism practiced by Egyptian jihadists, you’re to understand, is really just “resistance” against oppression … Get used to it: It is just an aggressive form of politics … one that works because the Obamas of the world indulge it.

Socialism, whether named as such or not, is the philosophy, creed and gospel of the Democratic Party.

(Picture from Front Page)

Have you heard of the “Secretary of State Project“?  It was an evil conspiracy of the Left (we ask seriously – what plan of the Left is not an evil conspiracy?) to get lefties into the position of Secretary of State in as many states as possible, because where that official runs elections he or she could swing it leftwards – in other words, could cheat.

The good news is that it has to be abandoned.

This is from Front Page, by Matthew Vadum:

A George Soros-backed scheme that paved the way for Al Franken’s 2008 theft of a U.S. Senate seat has collapsed months ahead of the critical November elections.

Rumors of the death of the Secretary of State Project had been circulating for months. Michael Kieschnick, co-founder of the Secretary of State Project, confirmed that his group has shut down in an interview at the recent “Take Back the American Dream” conference in Washington, D.C. …

The idea behind the Secretary of State Project was that in most states the secretary of state runs elections and that a relative pittance can help swing these little-watched state contests, allowing even small donors to play a big role in installing a powerful state official who can tilt the playing field in favor of Democrats. …

The Secretary of State Project’s signature achievement was helping to elect the unethical Saul Alinsky-inspired community organizer Mark Ritchie. Ritchie is the radical, ACORN-loving Minnesota secretary of state who orchestrated Al Franken’s theft of incumbent Republican Norm Coleman’s U.S. Senate seat in the 2008 election cycle. …

The SoS Project endorsed secretary of state candidates who took the position that voter fraud is a myth; that voter suppression is widely and solely used by Republicans; that it’s a waste of time to remove obviously fraudulent names from voter rolls; and that legal requirements that voters show photo identification somehow discriminate against racial minorities.

So the Left accepts that there are fraudulent names on the voter rolls which, it argues, would be “a waste of time to remove”  – and yet it maintains that “voter fraud is a myth“.

Until two years ago the SoS Project was doing well. Before the 2010 cycle it took credit for electing 11 of the 18 left-wingers it endorsed since it began funding candidates in 2006.

But then the cheats found that their scam didn’t work well or often enough.

Then in 2010 disaster struck for Democrats at both the national and state levels. Five out of the SoS Project’s seven official candidates went down to defeat. Only Ritchie and another progressive incumbent, California’s Debra Bowen, stayed afloat in the Republican electoral tsunami. The Secretary of State Project lost its luster and its funding dried up.

Cash for the plot hadn’t been a problem. The great promoter and benefactor of hell on earth, George Soros, had organizations in place which were willing and eager to cough up the lolly.

SoS Project co-founder Kieschnick is a member of the Soros-led Democracy Alliance, a donors’ collaborative established to help Democrats and build left-wing political infrastructure such as pressure groups, media outlets, leadership academies, and think tanks. Democracy Alliance members frequently opened their wallets to help secretary of state candidates endorsed by the Secretary of State Project. …

Another SoS Project co-founder is James Rucker. The former MoveOn organizer also co-founded (with self-described communist Van Jones) Color of Change, a radical Afro-centrist group that organizes boycotts of conservative groups … and smears conservatives and anyone who opposes President Obama’s socialist juggernaut as racist.

Meanwhile, the SoS Project’s friends in leftist groups such as the ACORN-affiliated Project Vote are engaged in a massive assault on electoral integrity through the courts. Project Vote, which used to employ Barack Obama, and other radical organizations are pressuring state officials across America to drop voter fraud investigations.

The SoS Project can be abandoned without a tear dropping from a leftie’s eye, because the mighty and unscrupulous power of the Obama administration is now promoting electoral fraud in the interest of the Democratic Party. And we are all paying for it.

Attorney General Eric Holder is doing everything in his power to ignore wrongdoing on the Left. Holder’s failure to pursue truncheon-wielding New Black Panther Party members who tried to intimidate Philadelphia voters in 2008 is just one example. Holder’s underlings are also opening elections to massive voter fraud. Even after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter ID law the Department of Justice has blocked voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina. 

Perhaps the Left no longer needs the Secretary of State Project. After all, you and I as taxpayers are already subsidizing the Left’s crusade against honest elections.

Ikhwan is the Arabic for brothers.

Jamiat al-Ikhwan al-muslimun means the Muslim Brotherhood.

The motto of the Muslim Brotherhood is:

Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.

The following quotation is from a letter to the editor of Noozhawk, Santa Barbara, by Donald Thorn. It is a useful timetable of the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power with the help of the Obama administration. We came to it via Creeping Sharia which has coined the word “Ikhwanization” to sum up the process.

Today, Egypt has a Muslim Brotherhood hard-liner president (Mohammed Morsi), and there are more calls for the destruction of Israel. There are new fears that the regime will invite al-Qaeda back into Egypt and open up a front with Israel along the Sinai.

Who helped the Muslim Brotherhood gain control? [The State Department] and the White House helped train the Brotherhood during Egypt’s elections, selling out Israel and U.S. interests in the Mideast. Even more troubling is the untold story of how the Obama administration secretly helped bring Islamofascists to power.

Consider the timeline:

»1) 2009: Brotherhood spiritual leader Qaradawi writes President Barack Obama and argues terrorism is a direct response to U.S. foreign policy.

» 2) 2009: Obama travels to Cairo and apologizes to Muslims and invites the Muslim Brotherhood, but snubs Israel and Mubarak.

» 3) 2009: Obama appoints a Brotherhood-tied-Islamist, Rashad Hussain, as U.S. envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which supports Muslim Brotherhood.

» 4) 2010: State Department lifts visa ban on Tariq Ramadan … grandson of the Muslim Brotherhood founder.

» 5) 2010: Hussain and Ramadan meet at an American sponsored conference attended by U.S. and Brotherhood officials.

» 6) 2010: Hussain meets in Egypt with Brotherhood’s grand mufti.

» 7) 2010: Obama meets with Egypt’s foreign minister, Gheit, who claims Barack said he was a Muslim.

» 8) 2011: The Brotherhood’s supreme leader calls for jihad against the United States, and Qaradawi calls “days of rage” against Mubarak and pro-western Mideast regimes. Cairo erupts into violence.

» 9) 2011: Obama fails to back his ally, Mubarak, then sends intelligence czar Clapper to Capitol Hill to claim the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate and secular.

» 10) 2011: The Brotherhood wins control of Egyptian parliament, vows to tear up 30-year peace treaty with Israel and re-establishes ties with Hamas and Hezbollah.

» 11) 2011: Obama demands Israel relinquish land to Palestine …

» 12) 2011: State Department formalizes ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, letting diplomats deal directly with Brotherhood officials in Cairo.

» 13) 2012: Obama releases $1.5 billion in foreign aid to new Egyptian regime.

» 14) 2012, June: Morsi becomes Egypt’s president and vows to instate Shariah law, turning Egypt into an Islamic theocracy.

» 15) 2012, June:  A delegation of once-banned Brotherhood terrorists join a Muslim Brotherhood delegation at the White House, meeting with a national security official.

» 16) 2012, July: Obama invites Morsi to visit the White House in September.

What does all this mean? The Muslim Brotherhood’s didn’t just suddenly take over in the Mideast or Egypt. It was helped along by a U.S. president sympathetic to its interests, over those of Israel and the United States.

It certainly looks that way. It looks like there has been an Ikhwanization of the US administration.

How should the US deal with the Muslim Brotherhood?

Karl Schake of the (estimable) Hoover Institution writes:

There is little doubt that the Muslim Brotherhood is not going to be a comfortable partner for the United States. …

The Muslim Brotherhood operates with decentralized national branches in many countries (including the United States). The different branches, however, share core beliefs. They clearly seek to attain political power in order to foster wide-ranging social change. Make no mistake, the Brotherhood is not a status quo political party. It would institute Sharia law, deny women the political and social latitude of men, and, if history is a precedent, be hostile to non-Muslims. …

In Egypt, the influence of the Brotherhood’s Islamist agenda accounts for less of their appeal than their long-standing opposition to the Mubarak government. Egyptian politicians are keenly aware that while most Egyptians support an Islamic government, polling of public attitudes indicates Islam is not a priority for Egyptian voters — only 3 percent of respondents in recent polls considered Sharia law an important issue. Egyptians are overwhelmingly concerned about security, the economy, and justice.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is not Hamas or Hezbollah …

Note that Hamas, an actively terrorist organization, is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood …

…  at least not yet. It does not bring violence into the political sphere. It was not the motivating force in toppling Hosni Mubarak; in fact, its members were late to the revolution. But the Brotherhood capitalized on its decades of political organization and social activism to dominate the elections.

This should not have been surprising; the Brotherhood had a structural advantage over all of the other political parties just forming. But the sharp decline in support for Brotherhood candidates in Egypt’s June 2012 presidential elections suggested that voters were irritated at the Brotherhood’s ineffectualness in Parliament, concerned that it broke its promise not to run a candidate in the presidential elections, and worried about Islamist domination of Egypt’s politics.

Though Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi did win the election, the Egyptian voters expressed real concern about these issues during presidential polling. Exit polls suggest voters were even more distrustful of the military’s candidate, worried the secular candidate represented the Mubarak past. Voters also resented the military’s moves to usurp Parliament and the Constitution drafting process. For now, it looks like Egyptians are holding the Muslim Brotherhood accountable for their political actions, not just their ideological appeal. …

What they all agree on is that the US should continue providing Egypt with massive aid regardless of who is in power:

Even those political actors deeply suspicious of U.S. policies and resentful of our past actions want the United States to be a major participant in their countries’ transitions. … They want  American [economic] assistance — and they don’t have much sympathy for our current economic straits, given how much more dire are their own are. … They want us to actually care about their futures, not what they can do to advance our interests. …

But if what happens to them in no way serves US interests, why should the US care about them? There is something childish about such thinking.

The most worrisome thought dealing with Brotherhood and even Salafist politicians is not what will happen should they succeed, but what will happen should they fail. Moderate Muslims have been winning the argument over the past decade that al Qaeda’s nihilist vision isn’t the path. Restoration of the caliphate by any means is not the Islam most Muslims want. 

How can he possibly know that?

He is basing his conclusions on what diplomats said to each other when they met at Doha. How far are the communications of diplomats likely to reflect “what most Muslims want”?

He takes an optimistic view of what “the people” in the Arab world want, but issues a warning:

Elections in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya — even the glacially slow political change that the Gulf’s authoritarian governments are quietly experimenting with — demonstrate the people of the Arab world want accountable and transparent governments. They want institutions to constrain the power of rulers; they want grievances addressed; and they want the means by which to change their leaders if those leaders aren’t responsive to their concerns. The revolutions of the Arab spring have given citizens of those countries hope that political change can achieve those ends. If governments fail to produce that change, the al Qaeda narrative could again get traction in the disillusionment and despair that follows.

Is that something the US should fear? How much worse would al Qaeda be than the Muslim Brotherhood? How bad the Muslim Brotherhood will be, only time can show.

It is an interesting essay. Read it all here.

David Limbaugh asks these questions at Townhall:

Does Obama truly harbor a grudge against America? What did he mean when he said he wanted to fundamentally change America? What did his wife mean when she said she’d never been proud of America in her adult life before he rose to power? What possesses Obama to deride and apologize for America? What drives him to instinctively distrust business and the private sector and to believe that federal planners ought to have enormously more discretion in how our income and wealth are distributed? What drives him to reject the American concept of equal opportunity and promote the notion of equality of outcomes? Why is he determined to energize labor unions and encourage a permanently adversarial climate between labor and management? Why is he so adamant about the United States deferring to international bodies in the conduct of its foreign affairs? Why is he hellbent on downscaling our nuclear and conventional forces and dismantling our military space program and our missile defenses?

The questions ineluctably give rise to another. He asks:

Do I believe that he wants to “destroy” America, as such?

To which he answers?

No.

!

Then why is Obama doing this wrecking job?

Apparently, David Limbaugh thinks, out of a kind of insanity:

In his mind, as warped and foreign as I think it is, he doubtlessly believes he is helping to create a better America – a utopia of sorts. That is, he is intentionally trying to fundamentally transform America into something that he believes would be better but that most Americans – and infinitely more if they understood the full scope of what he is up to – would consider horrific, an America that we would barely recognize as the one bequeathed to us by our ancestors.

On the financial front alone, Obama is single-handedly preventing entitlement and discretionary spending reform, without which — as I’ve said dozens of times — America will face financial catastrophe. There is less than zero question that he is doing that on purpose, regardless of whether you think he is otherwise intentionally damaging America. There is no question that he is acting as though he has a vendetta against the oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear power industries. There is also little question that he is intentionally dividing Americans on the basis of race, economic class, gender, sexual orientation and, sometimes, religion.

You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to recognize the damage Obama is doing to the republic, and we haven’t even touched on his unconstitutional and lawless usurpations of authority.

And yet –

The question isn’t whether he is intentionally destroying America. The question is whether he is intentionally pursuing a set of policies that are definitely damaging America, irrespective of his motives.

The answer is — irrefutably, emphatically — “yes.”

So David Limbaugh thinks that Obama is destroying America;  that everything he is doing that is destroying America he is doing on purpose; but that he might not really mean to destroy America, only make it something quite different that he – Obama – thinks will be better, because his mind is “warped and foreign”.

While he is right about all that Obama is doing, and we applaud him for raising the questions he does, we find that his explanation doesn’t  make sense. Ignoring the implications of the possible “foreignness” of Obama’s mind, we consider the plea-in-mitigation that his mind is “warped” as he deliberately wrecks the Republic and turns it into a poorer, weaker, ever more collectivist, nightmare.

We declare it a monstrous crime, and reject the insanity defense.

This is from the PJ Tatler:

A stunning exchange took place today when Assistant AG Tom Perez of the DOJ Civil Rights Division refused to commit to the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution that it would never advance a law criminalizing the right to criticize any religion.

The non-commital answer by Perez was in response to a question asked by Rep. Trent Frank (R-AZ): “Will you tell us here today that this Administration’s Department of Justice will never entertain or advance a proposal that criminalizes speech against any religion?”

Here’s the exchange:

The Muslim Brotherhood has deeply infiltrated the Obama administration, and its influence could not be more glaringly obvious.

Obama is acting and speaking as if he were, or hoped to be, the Fuehrer of stealth jihad.

Stealth or “soft” jihad is the method used by Islam to conquer non-Muslim countries by means of immigration, infiltration, propaganda, and indoctrination. It is the main process – assisted by terrorism – through which Islam is gaining power all over the world, with the aim of creating an Islamic world order under the rule of a Caliph.

Does Obama aspire to be the reinstated Caliph himself? We wouldn’t be surprised if he does. If not there, where does he plan to go when he has to stop being president of the United States? The secretary-generalship of the United Nations – much as he likes and defers to that disgusting institution – would surely be nowhere near powerful or prestigious enough to satisfy Obama’s mega-ego.

This is from Front Page, by Mark Tapson:

As is customary, President Obama and wife Michelle released their annual Ramadan greetings last Friday. Also customary for Obama, it was full of platitudes about Islam’s supposedly invaluable contribution to American culture, and devoid of any acknowledgement of the dark reality of the Arab Spring that he helped facilitate.

The statement began:

“Michelle and I extend our warmest wishes to Muslim Americans and Muslims around the world at the start of Ramadan. For Muslims, Ramadan is a time of fasting, prayer, and reflection; a time of joy and celebration. It’s a time to cherish family, friends, and neighbors, and to help those in need.”

In ironic response, CNN posted this headline two days later: “Iraq Bombs Kill 25 People as Muslims Celebrate Ramadan.” Similar headlines followed: “Ramadan Fails to Curtail Syrian Violence.” “Muslims Begin Ramadan Fast; Bombs Hit Thai South.” “7 Shot Dead in Karachi on First Day of Ramadan.” So much for reflection, joy, and celebration.

Even if many Muslims around the world weren’t respectful of Ramadan, at least American officials in Guantanamo were. In deference to the Muslims who are vacationing – sorry, I mean incarcerated – there, they graciously postponed any court hearings to allow the murderous 9/11 plotters their time of contemplation and joy.

Ramadan is also a reminder, the Obamas’ statement went on, “to people of all faiths of our common humanity and the commitment to justice, equality, and compassion shared by all great faiths.”

Not according to a group by the name of “Qaedat al-Jihad,” a branch of al Qaeda that has been described as one of the “affiliates of the Global Jihad movement.” This is their take on Ramadan, delivered in their statement claiming responsibility for last Wednesday’s terror attack against Israeli tourists in Bulgaria that killed seven and wounded dozens more:

“The month of Ramadan is a month of holy war and death for Allah. It is a month for fighting the enemies of Allah and God’s messenger, the Jews and their American facilitators… The holy war is not confined to a particular arena and we shall fight the Jews and the Americans until they leave the land of Islam.”

So much for our common humanity, “shared by all great faiths.” Holy war? That’s odd – Western academics and Muslim Brotherhood front groups here in America keep insisting that jihad is about “inner striving” and has nothing to do with holy war. Studying for a college exam is jihad. Raising your children well is jihad. Quitting smoking is jihad. Qaedat al-Jihad clearly didn’t get that memo.

In any case, Obama continued his Ramadan statement:

“This year, Ramadan holds special meaning for those citizens in the Middle East and North Africa who are courageously achieving democracy and self-determination and for those who are still struggling to achieve their universal rights.”

He’s referring off course to the Arab Spring, that glorious flowering of democratic freedom which has led to Islamic fundamentalists toppling regimes in Libya, Egypt, and elsewhere, threatening to create new Irans. Apparently this unsettling news hasn’t reached George Clooney’s house or golf courses, where Obama spends most of his time, because his rosy perspective on the Arab Spring doesn’t seem to align with its ugly reality.

Obama again:

“The United States continues to stand with those who seek the chance to decide their own destiny, to live free from fear and violence, and to practice their faith freely.”

Really? This hollow claim will come as something of a bitter surprise to the Iranian Green Revolutionaries he ignored three summers ago, and to dwindling Christian communities all across the Middle East who are now being targeted in the genocidal wake of the Islamist Winter he praises so lavishly.

Also in his Ramadan greeting, Obama noted that

“Here in the United States, Ramadan reminds us that Islam is part of the fabric of our Nation, and that — from public service to business, from healthcare and science to the arts—Muslim Americans help strengthen our country and enrich our lives.” …

How exactly is Islam “part of the fabric of our nation”? … Islam had no influence on the origins and development of the United States. It contributed nothing to early American political culture, art, literature, music or any other aspect of the early nation.

Wot – no covered wagons packed full of wives in burqas swaying westward in the pioneering days?

Nor has it since then.

“Aside from being the impetus for some extraordinary innovations in airport security,” Mark Tapson concedes.

As for Ramadan being a time of peace and neighborliness, this is from The Religion of Peace today. (We will also post the final terrorist attack and death score at the end of the month of Ramadan.)

Ramadan Bombathon
2012 Scorecard