Robert Opyd (baghdad-bob)

Another great story on Liberalism and how they are destroying America! Soros must be stopped!

baghdad-bob — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:42:51 +0000

can’t vouch for this, but I do recognize some truths. The author says you

> can go to this source, among others he names, for documentation:

> Perhaps the most important of these “whistle blowers” are David Horowitz and

> Richard Poe. Their book “The Shadow Party” outlines in detail how Soros

> hijacked the Democratic Party, and now owns it lock, stock, and barrel.

> Subject: Fwd: Who Is: George Soros?? from The Shadow Party by David Horowitz

> Subject: Who Is: George Soros?? from The Shadow Party by David Horowitz

> Who Is: George Soros?? From The Shadow Party by David Horowitz

> Very interesting about who has been pulling the strings of Obama…guess who

> is on the other end of the blackberry?

> Who Is George Soros??

> This is a necessary read. He brought the market down in 2 days.

> Here is what (CBS’) Mr. (Steve) Kroft’s research has turned up. Bit of a

> read, but it took 4 months to put it together.

> “The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States .”

> George Soros.

> ” George Soros is an evil man. He’s anti-God, anti-family, anti-American,

> and anti-good.” He killed and robbed his own Jewish people.

> If George Soros isn’t the world’s preeminent “malignant messianic

> narcissist,” he’ll do until Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot are

> reincarnated.

> What we have in Soros, is a multi-billionaire atheist, with skewed moral

> values, and a sociopath’s lack of conscience. He considers himself to be an

> elitist world class philosopher, despises the American Way and just loves to

> do social engineering (change cultures).

> Gyvrgy Schwartz, better known to the world as George Soros, was born August

> 12, 1930 in Hungary . Soros’ father, Tivadar, was a fervent practitioner of

> the Esperanto a language invented in 1887, and designed to be the first

> global language, free of any national identity.

> The Schwartz’s, who were non-practicing Jews, changed the family name to

> Soros, in order to facilitate assimilation into the gentile population, as

> the Nazis spread into Hungary during the 1930s.

> When Hitler’s henchman Adolf Eichmann arrived in Hungary , to oversee the

> murder of that country’s Jews, George Soros ended up with a man whose job

> was confiscating property from the Jewish population. Soros went with him

> on his rounds.

> Soros has repeatedly called 1944 “the best year of his life.”

> “70% of Mr. Soros’s fellow Jews in Hungary , nearly a half-million human

> beings, were annihilated in that year, yet he gives no sign that this put

> any damper on his elation, either at the time or indeed in retrospect.”

> During an interview with “Sixty Minute’s” Steve Kroft, Soros was asked about

> his “best year:”

> KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours

> who swore that you were his adopted godson.

> SOROS: Yes. Yes.

> KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from

> your fellow Jews, friends and neighbors.

> SOROS: Yes. That’s right. Yes.

> KROFT: I mean, that sounds like an experience that would send lots of

> people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?

> SOROS: Not, not at all. Not at all, I rather enjoyed it.

> KROFT: No feeling of guilt?

> SOROS: No, only feelings of absolute power.

> In his article, Muravchik describes how Soros has admitted to having

> “carried some rather potent messianic fantasies with me from childhood,

> which I felt I had to control, otherwise they might get me in trouble.”

> Be that as it may. After WWII, Soros attended the London School of

> Economics, where he fell under the thrall of fellow atheist and Hungarian,

> Karl Popper, one of his professors. Popper was a mentor to Soros until

> Popper’s death in 1994. Two of Popper’s most influential teachings

> concerned “the open society,” and Fallibilism.

> Fallibilism is the philosophical doctrine that all claims of knowledge

> could, in principle, be mistaken. (Then again, I could be wrong about

> that.)

> The “open society” basically refers to a “test and evaluate” approach to

> social engineering. Regarding “open society” Roy Childs writes, “Since the

> Second World War, most of the Wes tern democracies have followed Popper’s

> advice about piecemeal social engineering and democratic social reform, and

> it has gotten them into a grand mess.”

> In 1956 Soros moved to New York City , where he worked on Wall Street, and

> started amassing his fortune. He specialized in hedge funds and currency

> speculation.

> Soros is absolutely ruthless, amoral, and clever in his business dealings,

> and quickly made his fortune. By the 1980s he was well on his way to

> becoming the global powerhouse that he is today.

> In an article Kyle-Anne Shiver wrote for “The American Thinker” she says,

> “Soros made his first billion in 1992 by shorting the British pound with

> leveraged billions in financial bets, and became known as the man who broke

> the Bank of England . He broke it on the backs of hard-working British

> citizens who immediately saw their homes severely devalued and their life

> savings cut drastically, almost overnight.”

> In 1994 Soros crowed in “The New Republic ” that “the former Soviet Empire

> is now called the Soros Empire.” The Russia-gate scandal in 1999, which

> almost collapsed the Russian economy, was labeled by Rep. Jim Leach, then

> head of the House Banking Committee, to be “one of the greatest social

> robberies in human history.” The “Soros Empire” indeed.

> In 1997 Soros almost destroyed the economies of Thailand and Malaysia . At

> the time, Malaysia ‘s Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, called Soros “a

> villain, and a moron.” Thai activist Weng Tojirakarn said, “We regard

> George Soros as a kind of Dracula. He sucks the blood from the people.”

> The website Greek National Pride reports, “[Soros] was part of the full

> court press that dismantled Yugoslavia and caused trouble in Georgia ,

> Ukraine and Myanmar [ Burma ]. Calling himself a philanthropist, Soros’

> role is to tighten the ideological stranglehold of globalization and the New

> World Order while promoting his own financial gain. He is without

> conscience; a capitalist who functions with absolute amorality.”

> France has upheld an earlier conviction against Soros, for felony insider

> trading. Soros was fined 2.9 million dollars.

> Recently, his native Hungary fined Soros 2.2 million dollars for “illegal

> market manipulation. ” Elizabeth Crum writes that “The Hungarian economy

> has been in a state of transition as the country seeks to become more

> financially stable and westernized. [Soros'] deliberately driving down the

> share price of its largest bank put Hungary ‘s economy into a wicked

> tailspin, one from which it is still trying to recover.

> My point here is that Soros is a planetary parasite. His grasp, greed, and

> gluttony have a global reach.

> But what about America ? Soros told Australia ‘s national newspaper “The

> Australian” ” America , as the centre of the globalised financial markets,

> was sucking up the savings of the world. This is now over. The game is

> out,” he said, adding that the time has come for “a very serious adjustment”

> in American’s consumption habits. He implied that he was the one with the

> power to bring this about.”

> Soros: ”World financial crisis was “stimulating” and “in a way, the

> culmination of my life’s work.” Obama has recently promised 10 billion of

> our tax dollars to Brazil , in order to give them a leg-up in expanding their

> offshore oil fields. Obama’s largesse towards Brazil , came shortly after

> his political financial backer, George Soros, invested heavily in Brazilian

> oil (Petrobras).

> Tait Trussel writes, “The Petrobras loan may be a windfall for Soros and

> Brazil , but it is a bad deal for the U.S. The American Petroleum

> Institute estimates that oil exploration in the U.S. could create 160,000

> new, well-paying jobs, as well as $1.7 trillion in revenues to federal,

> state, and local governments, all while fostering greater energy security

> and independence. ”

> A blog you might want to keep an eye on is SorosWatch.com

> . Their mission: ”This blog is dedicated to all

> who have suffered due to the ruthless financial pursuits of George Soros.

> Your stories are many and varied, but the theme is the same: the

> destructive power of greed without conscience. We pledge to tirelessly

> watch Soros wherever he goes and to print the truth in the hope that he will

> one day be made to stop preying upon the world’s poor, that justice will be

> served.”

> Back to America . Soros has been actively working to destroy America from

> the inside out for some years now. People have been warning us. Two years

> ago news sources reported that “Soros [is] an extremist who wants open

> borders, a one-world foreign policy, legalized drugs, euthanasia, and on and

> on. This is off-the-chart dangerous.”

> In 1997 Rachel Ehrenfeld wrote, “Soros uses his philanthropy to change or

> more accurately deconstruct the moral values and attitudes of the Wes tern

> world, and particularly of the American people. His “open society” is not

> about freedom; it is about license. His vision rejects the notion of

> ordered liberty, in favor of a PROGRESSIVE ideology of rights and

> entitlements. ”

> Perhaps the most important of these “whistle blowers” are David Horowitz and

> Richard Poe. Their book “The Shadow Party” outlines in detail how Soros

> hijacked the Democratic Party, and now owns it lock, stock, and barrel.

> Soros has been packing the Democratic Party with radicals, and ousting

> moderate Democrats for years.

> The Shadow Party became the Shadow Government, which became the Obama

> Administration.

> DiscoverTheNetworks .org (another good

> source) writes, “By his [Soros'] own admission, he helped engineer coups in

> Slovakia , Croatia , Georgia , and Yugoslavia . When Soros targets a

> country for “regime change,” he begins by creating a shadow government, a

> fully formed government-in- exile, ready to assume power when the

> opportunity arises. The Shadow Party he has built in America greatly

> resembles those he has created in other countries prior to instigating a

> coup.”

> November 2008 edition of the German magazine “Der Spiegel,” in which Soros

> gives his opinion on what the next POTUS (President of the U.S. ) should do

> after taking office. ”I think we need a large stimulus package.” Soros

> thought that around 600 billion would be about right.

> Soros also said that “I think Obama presents us a great opportunity to

> finally deal with global warming and energy dependence. The U.S. needs a

> cap and trade system with auctioning of licenses for emissions rights.”

> Although Soros doesn’t (yet) own the Republican Party, like he does the

> Democrats, make no mistake, his tentacles are spread throughout the

> Republican Party as well.

> Soros is a partner in the Carlyle Group where he has invested more than 100

> million dollars. According to an article by “The Baltimore Chronicle’s” Al

> ice Cherbonnier, the Carlye Group is run by “a veritable who’s who of former

> Republican leaders,” from CIA man Frank Carlucci, to CIA head [and

> ex-President] George Bush, Sr.

> In late 2006, Soros bought about 2 million shares of Halliburton, Dick

> Cheney’s old stomping grounds.

> When the Democrats and Republicans held their conventions in 2000, Soros

> held Shadow Party conventions in the same cities, at the same time.

> In 2008, Soros donated $5,000,000,000 to the Democratic National Committee,

> DNC, to insure Obama’s win and wins for many other Al insky trained Radical

> Rules Anti-American Socialist. George has been contributing a $ billion plus

> to the DNC since Clinton came on the scene.

> Soros has dirtied both sides of the aisle, trust me. And if that weren’t

> bad enough, he has long held connections with the CIA.

> And I mustn’t forget to mention Soros’ involvement with the MSM (Main Stream

> Media), the entertainment industry (e.g. he owns 2.6 million shares of Time

> Warner), and the various political advertising organizations he funnels

> millions to. In short, George Soros controls or influence most of the MSM.

> Little wonder they ignore the TEA PARTY, Soro’s NEMESIS.

> As Matthew Vadum writes, “The liberal billionaire- turned-philanthr opist

> has been buying up media properties for years in order to drive home his

> message to the American public that they are too materialistic, too

> wasteful, too selfish, and too stupid to decide for themselves how to run

> their own lives.”

> Richard Poe writes, “Soros’ private philanthropy, totaling nearly $5

> billion, continues undermining America ‘s traditional Wes tern values. His

> giving has provided funding of abortion rights, atheism, drug legalization,

> sex education, euthanasia, feminism, gun control, globalization, mass

> immigration, gay marriage and other radical experiments in social

> engineering. ”

> Some of the many NGOs (None Government Organizations) that Soros funds with

> his billions are: MoveOn.org , the Apollo Al liance ,

> Media Matters for America , the Tides Foundation, the ACLU, ACORN, PDIA

> (Project on Death In America ), La Raza, and many more. For a more complete

> list, with brief descriptions of the NGOs, go toDiscoverTheNetwor ks.org

> .

> Poe continues, “Through his global web of Open Society Institutes and Open

> Society Foundations, Soros has spent 25 years recruiting, training,

> indoctrinating and installing a network of loyal operatives in 50 countries,

> placing them in positions of influence and power in media, government,

> finance and academia.”

> Without Soro’s money, would the Saul Al insky’s Chicago machine still be

> rolling? Would SEIU, ACORN, and La Raza still be pursuing their nefarious

> activities? Would Big Money and lobbyists still be corrupting government?

> Would our college campuses still be retirement homes for 1960s radicals?

> America stands at the brink of an abyss, and that fact is directly

> attributable to Soros. Soros has vigorously, cleverly, and insidiously

> planned the ruination of America and his puppet, Barak Obama is leading the

> way.

> The words of Pat rick Henry are apropos: ”Is life so dear, or peace so

> sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Al

> mighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me

> liberty, or give me death!”

> These days, Pat rick Henry’s sentiment is more than just some quaint

> hyperbole from long ago. It’s a slow burning, but intense, glow that fires

> our courage and heart.

> THIS IS YOUR WAKE UP CALL , AMERICA .

A must read from an associate… Scary but this is the “dependent America” that the Liberals have created!

baghdad-bob — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:39:34 +0000

Intersting story you mgiht say, but it’s NOT a story!! It’s all true!!!

THIS MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL…………….

A Must Read I almost didn’t read this. Glad I did.

Way to go Congress…….I now have even a bigger respect for Arizona !

Born and Raised…this is so wrong!!!

My name is d’Lynn. I’m a disabled Vietnam vet. I don’t look too bad for a beat-up old fart, do I? And that’s my ride. She’s looking pretty good also, especially when you consider that she’ll turn twenty this summer. That’s right, it’s a 1990 with a 1990 sidecar. I can’t ride a solo bike, ergo the sidecar rig. It’s my sole means of transportation – rain or shine, snow or wind, and this summer also marks a milestone in both of our lives, as I will finally be able to pay her off. Twenty years old? What? Why did it take so long? You weren’t paying attention, were you? It’s right at the beginning of this paragraph.

I am a disabled vet, which means I receive a veterans administration disability pension, which also means “I’m broke!” Just one step ahead of being homeless every month, and that’s not an idle statement or an “Oh, woe is me” dire complaint. There’s a point to this, so hang in there a minute or two and read on.

There’s a 25-year-old illegal immigrant woman living in Florida , with eight kids. Yes, eight “anchor babies” and she receives just shy of $1,500 per month per kid, plus medical, plus food stamps.

Oh, wait. I’ve been informed that I shouldn’t call them Food Stamps anymore. That’s not PC. It’s all called “Social Assistance” now. You do the math on that yourself. I’d say that she was schooled early in how to make it in the system. Twenty-five years old, eight kids . . . . . Yep, she started early.

You can whip out the calculator if you want, but this woman, who never has paid a dime in taxes of any kind, (and still doesn’t – she’s ’illegal,’ remember?) is here in this country illegally. She hasn’t paid out one cent in medical for all the “anchor babies,” makes more in one month, legally, than I receive in over a year and a half in disability payments and I can’t even get food stamps! Oops, I mean “Social Assistance.”

Technically I am eligible for “Social Assistance.” I was told it would be a walk through – a gimme – being disabled. No problem, and in the very next breath I was also informed that under the law the amount I received in “Social Assistance” would be deducted from my disability pension.

Let’s say I take a great photograph. It was just luck, a one of a kind accident, in the right place at the right time shot. My local newspaper offers me fifty bucks to use the photo in a featured story. (I live in a small town and fifty bucks is all they could afford.) I have to report that fifty dollars to the VA as earned income, which will immediately be deducted from my next month’s disability check. If I don’t report it I’m in violation of federal law and technically they can stop my disability pension and prosecute me under a federal felony. Pretty cool, eh? For fifty bucks.

I see no point in dealing with two federal bureaucracies, so I don’t bother. What’s the point?

She’s here illegally and with just one kid would make over twice what I receive per month. She has eight and she’s not a stand-out case. She’s not alone. That’s the way the system works. Millions of illegal immigrants know this, know how the system works and know how to use it. (Haven’t you seen the pamphlet? It’s handed out all along our borders, “The Illegal Immigrants’ Guide to Keeping America Just The Way It Is.”) and that’s just the way it works.

Did you know that the federal government provides a “refugee” in this country with a monthly “stipend” of $1,890, plus $580 a month in “Social Assistance?” That’s $2,470 a month, tax-free. That’s two and a half times what I’m allowed to receive as a disabled vet. And just what did they do to earn this? All you have to do is show up on our collective doorstep, raise your right hand and swear that you’re a refugee and, bingo, receive $30,000 a year, tax-free. That’s more than someone making $15 an hour, and they have to pay taxes to boot!

Now, in defense of the Veterans Administration, they are doing what they can with what they’ve got. This is precious little compared to what they should have to get the job done. At least this country has a VA.

It’s the Senate that keeps passing laws, rules and guidelines, cutting their budget, denying requests for more staff and computer systems to handle the massive work flow. Their hands are tied by the very government that’s supposed to give them what they need to get the job done, by the government you voted into office. Don’t scream at the VA. I have. It’s misguided anger.

The point to this “story?” Just why are you paying such high taxes to support this incredibly screwed-up government? Why? And I’m not proposing you stop paying your taxes. That’s wrong. There are good programs and reasons to pay your taxes and support our government.

What am I proposing? It’s quite simple. Vote.

The government, our government, is broken and we as the voters serve as the maintenance crew. We fix it . . . . . by voting. If your state Senator has been in office more than two terms, vote ‘em out at the next election. If your state representative has been in office more than two terms, vote ‘em out of office. We put term limits on just about every publicly-elected official in the country except the House and Senate.

Why? Believe me, they know this and love it! Ahhh – the power!

I don’t care how much you believe your Senator or Representative is doing a good job. They’re not! Look at the government you have….that we have. How can you state they are doing what you want as the voter that put them there? How?

Vote them out of office. Do it.

Change the course of this country’s history by what you are granted and guaranteed under the law. Vote! And if you have the guts, the anger, the outrage, start a petition in your state for a state-wide initiative to be placed on your next state ballot. Limiting the terms of office for your state senators and state representatives to your federal government to two terms.

The federal government will never pass such a law, but you can. You can get it done. You can force it. You can make it a law.

This is the first step in “getting it right.” Just vote. It’s simple. It’s easy, dammit!

This first step will send a very clear message. It’ll work. It’ill put “us” back in control of “them.” As it should be. As it was intended in the first place.

Are you an American? Born and raised? Then vote!

Side note: I sent this e-mail to a little over one hundred on my e-mail list. If you believe I’m wrong or misguided or you simply don’t agree, that’s fine. Go right ahead and delete this e-mail. No problem. Sorry to have bothered you. But if you think I just might have a worthwhile idea, something we can easily accomplish, something that could be a small part at getting this country back under “our” control, then please pass this along.

Islam must be stopped! I got this from a friend and co-worker when I was with the TSA. Read and pass this on!

baghdad-bob — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 06:19:20 +0000

She gave this at Duke University also. In today’s world, this has to be considered .

EVERY AMERICAN NEEDS TO READ THIS!

Editor’s Note: Below are selected excerpts from Brigitte Gabriel’s speech delivered at the Intelligence Summit in Washington DC

We gather here today to share information and knowledge. Intelligence is not merely cold hard data about numerical strength or armament or disposition of military forces. The most important element of intelligence has to be understanding the mindset and intention of the enemy. The West has been wallowing in a state of ignorance and denial for thirty years as Muslim extremist perpetrated evil against innocent victims in the name of Allah.

I was ten years old when my home exploded around me, burying me under the rubble and leaving me to drink my blood to survive, as the perpetrators shouted, ‘Allah Akbar!’ My only crime was that I was a Christian living in a Christian town. At 10 years old, I learned the meaning of the word ‘infidel.’

I had a crash course in survival. Not in the Girl Scouts, but in a bomb shelter where I lived for seven years in pitch darkness, freezing cold, drinking stale water and eating grass to live. At the age of 13, dressed in my burial clothes going to bed at night, waiting to be slaughtered. By the age of 20, I had buried most of my friends–killed by Muslims. We were not Americans living in New York , or Britons in London . We were Arab Christians living in Lebanon .

As a victim of Islamic terror, I was amazed when I saw Americans waking up on September 12, 2001, and asking themselves ‘Why do they hate us?’ The psychoanalyst experts were coming up with all sort of excuses as to what did we do to offend the Muslim World. But if America and the West were paying attention to the Middle East they would not have had to ask the question. Simply put, they hate us because we are defined in their eyes by one simple word: ‘infidels.’

Under the banner of Islam ‘la, ilaha illa Allah, muhammad

rasoulu Allah,’ (None is god except Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah) they murdered Jewish children in Israel, massacred Christians in Lebanon, killed Copts in Egypt, Assyrians in Syria, Hindus in India, and expelled almost 900,000 Jews from Muslim lands. We Middle Eastern infidels paid the price then. Now infidels worldwide are paying the price for indifference and shortsightedness.

Tolerating evil is a crime. Appeasing murderers doesn’t buy protection. It earns one disrespect and loathing in the enemy’s eyes. Yet apathy is the weapon by which the West is committing suicide. Political correctness forms the shackles around our ankles, by which Islamist’s are leading us to our demise.

America and the West are doomed to failure in this war unless they stand up and identify the real enemy: Islam. You hear about Cahaba and Salafi Islam as the only extreme form of Islam. All the other Muslims, supposedly, are wonderful moderates. Closer to the truth are the pictures of the irrational eruption of violence in reaction to the cartoons of Mohammed printed by a Danish newspaper. From burning embassies, to calls to butcher those who mock Islam, to warnings that the West be prepared for another holocaust, those pictures have given us a glimpse into the real face of the enemy. News pictures and video of these events represent a canvas of hate decorated by different nationalities who share one common ideology of hate, bigotry and intolerance derived from one source: authentic Islam. An Islam that is awakening from centuries of slumber to re-ignite its wrath against the infidel and dominate the world. An Islam which has declared ‘Intifada’ on the West..

America and the West can no longer afford to lay in their lazy state of overweight ignorance. The consequences of this mental disease are starting to attack the body, and if they don’t take the necessary steps now to control it, death will be knocking soon. If you want to understand the nature of the enemy we face, visualize a tapestry of snakes. They slither and they hiss, and they would eat each other alive, but they will unite in a hideous mass to achieve their common goal of imposing Islam on the world.

This is the ugly face of the enemy we are fighting. We are fighting a powerful ideology that is capable of altering basic human instincts. An ideology that can turn a mother into a launching pad of death. A perfect example is a recently elected Hamas official in the Palestinian Territories who raves in heavenly joy about sending her three sons to death and offering the ones who are still alive for the cause. It is an ideology that is capable of offering highly educated individuals such as doctors and lawyers far more joy in attaining death than any respect and stature life in society is ever capable of giving them.

The United States has been a prime target for radical Islamic hatred and terror. Every Friday, mosques in the Middle East ring with shrill prayers and monotonous chants calling death, destruction and damnation down on America and its people. The radical Islamist deeds have been as vile as their words. Since the Iran hostage crisis, more than three thousand Americans have died in a terror campaign almost unprecedented in its calculated cruelty along with thousands of other citizens worldwide. Even the Nazis did not turn their own children into human bombs, and then rejoice at their deaths as well the deaths of their victims. This intentional, indiscriminate and wholesale murder of innocent American citizens is justified and glorified in the name of Islam.

America cannot effectively defend itself in this war unless and until the American people understand the nature of the enemy that we face. Even after 9/11 there are those who say that we must engage our terrorist enemies, that we must address their grievances. Their grievance is our freedom of religion. Their grievance is our freedom of speech. Their grievance is our democratic process where the rule of law comes from the voices of many not that of just one prophet. It is the respect we instill in our children towards all religions. It is the equality we grant each other as human beings sharing a planet and striving to make the world a better place for all humanity. Their grievance is the kindness and respect a man shows a woman, the justice we practice as equals under the law, and the mercy we grant our enemy. Their grievance cannot be answered by an apology for who or what we are.

Our mediocre attitude of not confronting Islamic forces of bigotry and hatred wherever they raised their ugly head in the last 30 years, has empowered and strengthened our enemy to launch a full scale attack on the very freedoms we cherish in their effort to impose their values and way of life on our civilization.

If we don’t wake up and challenge our Muslim community to take action against the terrorists within it, if we don’t believe in ourselves as Americans and in the standards we should hold every patriotic American to, we are going to pay a price for our delusion. For the sake of our children and our country, we must wake up and take action. In the face of a torrent of hateful invective and terrorist murder, America ‘s learning curve since the Iran hostage crisis is so shallow that it is almost flat. The longer we lay supine, the more difficult it will be to stand erect.

This is all coming true. A non-patriot is President of this great country. He has openly admitted his Muslim roots and his sympathy for all Muslims. How can this happen?? APATHY, that’s how!!! Send this around.

Brigitte Gabriel is an expert on the Middle East conflict and lectures nationally and internationally on the subject. She’s the former news anchor of World News for Middle East television and the founder of AmericanCongressforTruth.com

I got this from a co-worker/friend… Required reading in these troubling Liberal Times.

baghdad-bob — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 05:25:52 +0000

Highlighting and bold type is mine – Join the Ballot Box Rebellion this fall – VOTE for the USA you want to live in and pass on to your children!

George Will is a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist, a Newsweek

columnist, a regular panelist on ABC’s This Week, and the author of

numerous books on politics and baseball. He delivered these remarks at

the Cato Institute’s biennial Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing

Liberty Dinner on May 13.

I want to thank all of the people in this room for making Cato and its

work possible. I also want to thank a few million more people who, in

recent weeks, have toiled to demonstrate in a timely manner why Cato is

necessary. I refer, of course, to the people of Greece.

Milton Friedman, whose name we honor tonight, was honored often for his

recondite and subtle scholarship. But it was complemented by a sturdy

common sense much in fashion nowhere now. About 40 years ago he found

himself in an Asian country where the government was extremely eager to

show off a public works project of which it was inordinately and

excessively fond. It was digging a canal. They took Milton out to see

this, and he was astonished because there were hordes of workers but no

heavy equipment. He remarked on this to his government guide, who

replied, “You don’t understand, Mr. Friedman. This is a jobs program.

That’s why we only have men with shovels.” To which Friedman said,

“Well, if it’s a jobs program, why don’t they have spoons instead of

shovels?”

The attempt to educate the world to the principles of rationality and

liberty never ends. For a lot of us, it began in earnest in 1962 with

the publication of Capitalism and Freedom. In 1964, two years later, we

got a demonstration of how urgent it was to have that book, when Lyndon

Johnson, campaigning for president, said, “We’re in favor of a lot of

things, and we’re against mighty few.”

In 1964, the man running against Johnson was Barry Goldwater who, to the

superficial observer, appeared to lose because he carried only six

states. When the final votes were tabulated, 16 years later, it was

clear he had won. It was, however, a contingent victory.

In 2007, per capita welfare state spending, adjusted for inflation, was

77 percent higher than it had been when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated 27

years earlier. The trend continues and the trend is ominous. Fifty-one

days ago the president signed into law health care reform, that great

lunge to complete the New Deal project and the Great Society, that great

lunge to make us more European. At exactly the moment that this is done

the European Ponzi scheme of the social welfare state is being revealed

for what it is.

There is a difference. We are not Europeans. We are not, in Orwell’s

phrase, a “state-broken people.” We do not have a feudal background of

subservience to the state. No, that is the project of the current

administration – it can be boiled down to learned feudalism. It is a

dependency agenda that I have been talking about ad nauseam.

Two recent examples. First, when the government took over student loans,

making it the case that the two most important financial transactions of

the average family – a housing mortgage and a loan for college – will

now be transactions with the government, they included a provision that

said there will be special forgiveness of student loans for those who go

to work for the government or for nonprofits. Second, one third of the

recent stimulus was devoted to preserving unionized public employees’

jobs in states and local municipalities. And so it goes. The agenda is

constant.

In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (the final

dissolution, in some ways, of the federal government’s sense of

restraint) was advertised as aid for the poorest of the poor. Eighteen

years later, in 1983, 90 percent of all school districts were

participating in this. It is a principle of liberal social legislation

that a program for the poor is a poor program. The assumption is that

middle class Americans will not support a program aimed only at the

poor. That is a theory refuted by the fact that the Earned Income Tax

Credit – a policy supported and extended by Ronald Reagan – is extremely

popular in this country. But it does reveal the fact that dependency is

the agenda of the other side. Their agenda is to make more and more

people dependent on the government for more and more things.

We can see today, in the headlines from Europe, where that leads. It

leads to the streets of Athens, where we had what the media described as

“anti-government mobs.” Anti-government mobs composed almost entirely of

government employees going berserk about threats to their entitlements!

The Greeks and the Europeans have said all along, as they increase the

weight of the state, “So far, so good.” It reminds me, as everything

eventually does, of a baseball story. In 1951 Warren Spahn, on the way

to becoming the winningest left-handed pitcher in the history of

baseball, was pitching for the then-Boston Braves against the then-New

York Giants in the then-Polo Grounds. The Giants sent up to the plate a

rookie who was zero for twelve. It was clear this kid, name of Willie

Mays, could never handle big league pitching. Spahn stood out on the

mound 60 feet and six inches away, threw the ball to Willie Mays, who

crushed it – first hit, first home run. After the game the sports

writers came up to Spahn in the Club House and asked, “Spahnie, what

happened?” Spahn said, “Gentlemen, for the first 60 feet that was a hell

of a pitch!”

It’s not good enough in baseball and it’s not good enough in governance,

either. Let me give you a framework to understand this extraordinarily

interesting moment in which we live. I believe that today, as has been

the case for 100 years, and as will be the case for the foreseeable

future, the American political argument is an argument between two

Princetonians: James Madison of the class of 1771, and Thomas Woodrow

Wilson of the class of 1879. I firmly believe that the most important

decision taken anywhere in the 20th century was the decision where to

locate the Princeton graduate college. Woodrow Wilson, then Princeton’s

president, wanted it located on the campus, others wanted it located,

where it in fact is, up on the golf course away from campus. When Wilson

lost that, he had one of his characteristic tantrums, went into

politics, and ruined the 20th century.

I’m simplifying a bit. Madison asserted that politics should take its

bearings from human nature and from the natural rights with which we are

endowed, and which preexist government. Woodrow Wilson, like all people

steeped in the 19th century discovery that history is a proper noun -

History – with a mind and a life of its own, argued that human nature is

as malleable and changeable as history itself, and that it’s the job of

the state to regulate and guide the evolution of human nature and the

changeable nature of the rights we are owed by the government that – in

his view – dispenses rights.

Heraclitus famously said that you “cannot step into the same river

twice,” meaning the river would change. The modern Progressive believes

you can’t step into the same river twice because you change constantly.

Those of us of the Madisonian persuasion believe that we take our

bearings from a certain constancy. Not from – to coin a phrase – “the

evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing

society.” That phrase, from Justice Warren, has become the standard by

which the Constitution is turned into a living document – a Constitution

that no longer can constitute. A constitution has, as Justice Scalia has

said, an anti-evolutionary purpose. The very virtue of a constitution is

that it’s not changeable. It exists to prevent change, to embed certain

rights so that they cannot easily be taken away.

Madison said rights pre-exist government. Wilson said government exists

to dispense whatever agenda of rights suits its fancy, and to

annihilate, regulate, attenuate, or dilute others. Madison said the

rights we are owed are those necessary for the individual pursuit of

happiness. Wilson and the Progressives said the rights you deserve are

those that will deliver material happiness to you, and spare you the

strain and terror of striving.

The result of this is now clear. We see, in the rampant indebtedness of

our country and the European countries, what Yuval Levin has called a

“gluttonous feast upon the flesh of the future.” We see the

infantilization of publics that become inert and passive, waiting for

the state to take care of them. One statistic: 50 percent of all

Americans 55 years old or older have less than $50,000 in savings and

investment. The feast on the flesh of the future is what debt is.

Let’s get a sense of the size of our debt. In 1916, in Woodrow Wilson’s

first term, the richest man in America, John D. Rockefeller, could have

written a personal check and retired the national debt. Today, the

richest man in America, Bill Gates, could write a personal check for all

his worth and not pay two months interest on the national debt. By 2015,

debt service will consume about one-quarter of individual income taxes.

Ten years from now the three main entitlements – Medicare, Medicaid, and

Social Security – plus interest will consume 93 percent of all federal

revenues. Twenty years from now debt service will be the largest item in

the federal budget.

Calvin Coolidge, the last president with whom I fully agreed, once said

that when you see a problem coming down the road at you, relax – nine

times out of ten it will go into the ditch before it gets to you. He was

wrong about the one we now face. We are facing the most predictable

financial crisis – the most predictable social and political crisis – of

our time. And all the political class can do is practice what I call

“the politics of assuming a ladder.”

There’s an old story where two people are walking down the road, one an

economist, the other a normal American, and they fall into a pit with

very steep sides. The normal American says, “Good Lord, we can’t get

out.” The economist says, “Not to worry; we’ll just assume a ladder.”

This seems to me to be the only approach politicians have to the Ponzi

nature of our own welfare state.

It is time for us to understand that the model we share – so far in

attenuated form – with Europe simply cannot work. It states that we

should tax the rich (a.k.a. the investing and job-creating class), while

counting on spending the revenues of investment and job creation. No one

has explained to the political class that it is very dangerous to try to

leap a chasm in two bounds.

We are now being told that a Value Added Tax is going to be required. A

VAT would help the political class to shower benefits on those who can

vote for them while taxing people who can’t vote for them. The beauty of

the VAT is that it taxes everybody, but nobody quite notices it.

We are going to come to a time when America is going to have to revisit

Madison’s Federalist Paper no. 45, and his statement, “The powers

delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few

and defined.” The cost of not facing this fact, of not enforcing the

doctrine, in some sense, of enumerated powers, is that big government

inevitably breeds bigger government. James Q. Wilson, one of the great

social scientists in American history, put it this way. “Once, politics

was about only a few things. Today, it is about nearly everything.”

Once the legitimacy barrier has fallen, political conflict takes a very

different form. New programs need not await the advent of a crisis of

extraordinary majority, because no program is any longer new. It is

seen, rather, as an extension, modification or enlargement of something

the government is already doing. Since there is virtually nothing the

government has not already tried to do, there is little it cannot be

asked to do. And so we have today’s death spiral of the welfare state;

an ever-larger government resting on an ever-smaller tax base -

government impeding the creation of wealth in order to enforce the

redistribution of it. They are not, however, fooling the American

people.

This morning, the Wall Street Journal announced, with a sort of

breathless surprise, that 80 percent of the American people disapprove

of Congress – raising a fascinating question: who are the 20 percent!?

It is a sign of national health that Americans still think about

Washington the way they used to talk about the old Washington Senators

baseball team, when the saying was, “First in war, first in peace, and

last in the American League.” Back then they were run by a man named

Clark Griffith who said, “The fans like home runs, and we have assembled

a pitching staff to please our fans.”

That is why the American people do not mind what they are instructed by

their supposed betters to mind, the supposed problem of legislative

gridlock. Gridlock is not an American problem, it is an American

achievement! When James Madison and 54 other geniuses went to

Philadelphia in the sweltering summer of 1787, they did not go there to

design an efficient government. That idea would have horrified them.

They wanted a safe government, to which end they filled it with blocking

mechanisms: three branches of government, two branches of the

legislative branch, veto, veto override, supermajorities, and judicial

review. And yet, I can think of nothing the American people have wanted

intensely and protractedly that they did not eventually get. The world

understands, a world most of whose people live under governments they

wish were capable of gridlock, that we always have more to fear from

government speed than government tardiness.

We are told that one must not be a “Party of No.” To “No,” I say an

emphatic “Yes!” For two reasons. The reason that almost all improvements

make matters worse is that most new ideas are false. Second, the most

beautiful five words in the English language are the first five words of

the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law.” That is: no law

abridging Freedom of Speech, no law establishing religion, no law

abridging the right to assemble and petition in redress of grievance.

The Bill of Rights is a litany of “No’s” – no unreasonable search and

seizure, no cruel and unusual punishments, no taking of property without

just compensation, and so it goes.

The American people are, I think, healthier than they are given credit

for. They have only one defect. They have nothing to fear, right now,

but an insufficiency of their fear itself. It is time for a wholesome

fear of what people with a dependency agenda are trying to do. We have

few allies. We don’t have Hollywood, we don’t have academia, and we

don’t have the mainstream media. But we have two things. First, we have

arithmetic. The numbers do not add up, and cannot be made to do so.

Second, we have the Cato Institute. The people in this room are what the

Keynesians call “a multiplier.” And, for once, they are right!

In Athens, the so-called “cradle of democracy,” the demos (a Greek word

for “the people”) have been demonstrating, in recent days, the

degradation that attends people who become state-broken to a fault – who

become crippled by dependency and the infantilization that comes with

it. We shall see. I think America is organized around the very principle

of individualism, which I can illustrate with what is, I promise you,

the last baseball story.

Rogers Hornsby, the greatest right-handed hitter in the history of

baseball, was at the plate, and a rookie was on the mound. He was, quite

reasonably, petrified. The rookie threw three pitches that he thought

were on the edge of the plate, but the umpire called, “Ball one! Ball

two! Ball three!” The rookie got flustered, and shouted at the umpire,

“Those were strikes!” The umpire took off his mask, looked out at the

rookie, and said, “Young man, when you throw a strike, Mr. Hornsby will

let you know.”

Hornsby had become the standard of excellence. If he didn’t swing, it

wasn’t a strike. We want a country in which everyone is encouraged to

strive to be his own standard of excellence and have the freedom to

pursue it. There are reasons to be downcast at the moment. Certain

recent elections have not gone so well. Let me remind you, however, of

something, again going back to 1964. In 1964 the liberal candidate got

90 percent of the electoral votes. Eight years later the liberal

candidate got 3 percent of the electoral votes. This is a very

changeable country.

Recall the words of the first Republican president who, two years before

he became president, spoke at the Wisconsin State Fair, with terrible

clouds of civil strife lowering over the country. Lincoln told his

audience the story of the Oriental despot who summoned his wise men, and

assigned them to devise a statement to be carved in stone, to be forever

in view and forever true. They came back ere long, and the statement

they had carved in stone was, “This, too, shall pass away.”

“How consoling in times of grief,” said Lincoln, “How chastening in

times of pride.” And yet, said Lincoln, if we cultivate the moral world

within us as prodigiously as we Americans cultivate the physical world

around us it need not be true. Lincoln understood that freedom is the

basis of values, not the alternative to a values approach to politics.

Freedom is the prerequisite for the moral dimension to flower. Given

freedom, the American people will flower. Given the Cato Institute, the

American people will, in time, secure freedom.

georgewill@washpost.com

Page Printed from:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/26/not_a_state-broken_

people_106463.html at July 26, 2010 – 10:04:09 AM PDT

Yemen the next front on the war on terror… Or as I prefer the war against Islam!

baghdad-bob — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:14:38 +0000

I received this from a good friend…

New York Times

By ROBERT F. WORTH

Published: July 6, 2010

Just before dawn on Dec. 24, an American cruise missile soared high over the southern coast of the Arabian peninsula, arced down toward the dark mountains above the Rafadh Valley in Yemen’s Shabwa province and found its mark, crashing into a small stone house on a hillside where five young men were sleeping. Half a mile away, a 27-year-old Yemeni tribesman named Ali Muhammad Ahmed was awakened by the sound. Stumbling out of bed, he quickly dressed, slung his AK-47 over his shoulder and climbed down a footpath to the valley that shelters his village, two hours from the nearest paved road. He already sensed what had happened. A week earlier, an American airstrike killed dozens of people in a neighboring province as part of an expanded campaign against Al Qaeda militants. (Although the U.S. military has acknowledged playing a role in the airstrikes, it has never publicly confirmed that it fired the missiles.)

Ahmed soon came upon the shattered house. Mangled bodies were strewn among the stones; he recognized a fellow tribesman. Scattered near the wreckage were bits of yellow debris with the words “US Navy” and long serial numbers written on them. A group of six or seven young men were standing in the dawn half-light, looking dazed. All were members of Al Qaeda. Among them was Fahd al-Quso, a longtime militant who is wanted by the F.B.I. for his suspected role in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. The missile had struck in one of the most remote and inaccessible valleys on earth, in a place where Al Qaeda has been trying to establish a foothold. Quso was the local cell leader and had been recruiting young men for years. Ahmed knew him well.

I met Ahmed several weeks later in Sana, the Yemeni capital, where he works part time as a bodyguard. By that time, Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch had claimed credit for a failed effort to detonate a bomb in a Detroit-bound jetliner on Christmas Day, igniting a global debate about whether Yemen was the next front in the war on terror. Yemen’s once-obscure vital statistics were flashing across TV screens everywhere: it is the Arab world’s poorest country, with a fast-growing and deeply conservative Muslim population of 23 million. It is running out of oil and may soon be the first country in the world to run out of water. The central government is weak and corrupt, hemmed in by rebellions and powerful tribes. Many fear that Al Qaeda is gaining a sanctuary in the remote provinces east of Sana, similar to the one it already has in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

On the day I met him, Ahmed – a small, rail-thin man with a bony face – seemed still awed and a bit frightened by what happened in his valley. He was dressed in a tattered blazer and a futa, the patterned cloth skirt Yemeni men often wear. He sat on a sofa leaning forward with his hands on his thighs, glancing occasionally at me. We were in a small, sparely furnished office belonging to Ahmed’s employer and friend Abdulaziz al-Jifri, who had given him permission to speak. It was evening, and in the room next door men could be heard laughing and chatting as they drank tea and chewed khat, the narcotic leaf Yemenis use to relax.

“We took the bodies under the trees,” Ahmed continued in a quiet voice. “One was from my tribe. He had just joined Al Qaeda, and that was his first night sleeping with them.” He paused, and I caught a hint of defensiveness, perhaps also of anger, in his eyes. He seemed reluctant to stray from his narrative, but it was clear that he felt the bombing was an injustice. “We knew they were Qaeda, but they were young, and they hadn’t done anything, and they were locals,” he said. “They came and went at checkpoints, and the government didn’t seem to care. So we dealt with them normally.. . .

“Later I took the bodies to the graveyard,” he went on to say. “Then I talked with Fahd’s cousin about what we should do about him.”

Within an hour, Ahmed said, the discussions expanded, and Ali al-Asowad, the aging sheik of the Abdullah tribe, was summoned from his house. The sun was rising over the arid brown hills around Rafadh and soon almost 100 people were sitting under the spreading boughs of an acacia tree for an emergency tribal meeting.

Dozens of people spoke. Some were angry. Most people in the valley were related to the dead men or knew them. The victims had scarcely stood out in Rafadh, where everyone carried weapons and hatred of the Yemeni government was nothing unusual. What did it matter that they hated America and called themselves Qaeda? Some of the tribesmen also spoke in defense of Fahd al-Quso, who moved to the area in 2007. His grandfather had a house there, so he had a right to the tribe’s protection. But others stood up and shouted angrily that Quso had put the whole tribe in needless danger by basing himself in their village; more American bombs might be coming soon.

The people of Rafadh had decisions to make, ones that might soon ramify across all of Yemen’s remote mountains and deserts and even half a world away in the Pentagon. What did Al Qaeda mean to them? Was it worth protecting? A bargaining chip to be used against a neglectful government? Or just an invitation to needless violence?

SANA RESEMBLES A FORTRESS, not just in its architecture but in its geography. It is set on a high plateau, surrounded by arid, craggy mountains. At its heart is the Old City, a thicket of unearthly medieval towers and banded spires that stands out sharply in the dry desert air. This was the entire city until a few decades ago, its high walls locked every evening at dusk. Today Sana is a far more sprawling place, with Internet cafes and swarms of beat-up taxis and a sprinkling of adventure tourists. The Old City gates are mostly gone now, and although men still carry the traditional daggers known as jambiyas in their belts, they also wear blazers, often with cheap designer logos on their sleeves. Like other Arab capitals, it is full of policemen, and there are occasional checkpoints manned by bored-looking soldiers in camouflage uniforms.

But Yemen is different. Beneath the familiar Arab iconography, like pictures of the president that hang in every shop, there is a wildness about the place, a feeling that things might come apart at any moment. A narcotic haze descends on Yemen every afternoon, as men stuff their mouths with glossy khat leaves until their cheeks bulge and their eyes glaze over. Police officers sit down and ignore their posts, a green dribble running down their chins. Taxi drivers get lost and drive in circles, babbling into their cellphones. But if not for the opiate of khat, some say, all of Yemen – not just those areas of the south and north already smoldering with discontent – would explode into rebellion.

One morning in Sana, I discovered a crowd of people protesting in the stone courtyard outside the cabinet building. Many had shackle scars on their wrists and ankles. They came from an area called Jaashin, about 100 miles south of the capital. But some of them, I found, did not even know that Jaashin was in the Republic of Yemen. Their only real ruler was the local sheik, Muhammad Ahmed Mansour, who is, it turns out, a kind of latter-day Marquis de Sade. Mansour is also a poet, who earns extra license for his cruelties by writing florid odes to Yemen’s president. Some pilgrims from Jaashin said they were imprisoned, shackled and beaten by the sheik – who maintains his own army and several prisons – after refusing to relinquish their property to him. I asked Ahmed Abdu Abdullah al-Haithami, a bent old farmer in a tattered green jacket, what country he was living in. He looked up at me with imploring eyes. “All I know is that God rules above, and the sheik rules here below,” he said. All of this, I later learned, was documented by Yemeni lawyers, who have been working on behalf of the people of Jaashin for years to little effect. As one lawyer, Khaled al-Alansi, put it to me, “If you can’t fight sheik Mansour, how can you possibly fight Al Qaeda?”

Two thousand years ago, the area east of Sana held one of the earth’s most prosperous kingdoms, a lush agricultural region of spices and fruits, fed by irrigation canals from a vast man-made dam. The Romans called Yemen “Arabia Felix,” or Happy Arabia. Today, the eastern region is an arid wasteland. Most people scrape by on less than $2 a day, even though they live atop Yemen’s oil and gas fields. There are few ways to make a living other than smuggling, goat-herding and kidnapping. The region is also, chronically, a war zone. Tribal feuds have always been part of life here, but in recent years they have grown so common and so deadly that as much as a quarter of the population cannot go to school or work for fear of being killed. The feuds often devolve into battles with bands of raiders mowing down their rivals with machine-gun fire or launching mortars into a neighboring village. No one knows how many people die in these wars, but Khaled Fattah, a sociologist who has studied Yemen’s tribes for years, told me that hundreds of victims a year is a conservative estimate.

Every time I drive out of Sana I get an ominous sense of going backward in time to a more lawless era. As the city’s towers fade in the distance, the houses drop away into level desert and occasional piles of construction rubble. The traffic thins out and consists mostly of pickup trucks carrying tribesmen with patterned cloth kaffiyehs tied around their heads. You pass the first of several checkpoints, where skinny soldiers in ill-fitting uniforms warily circle the car, looking for weapons or kidnapping victims. You pass towering, desolate mountains of black and brown igneous rock. Once you’re out of Sana province, there are virtually no signs of the Yemeni state. Every able-bodied man seems to carry an AK-47 rifle over his shoulder; it’s not uncommon to see rocket-propelled-grenade launchers. Only the oil and gas fields, hidden behind wire fences and vigilantly watched over by the Yemeni military, seem to merit the government’s attention.

Last year I expected to see at least a few government soldiers when I visited the ancient city of Shibam in Hadramawt, the vast eastern province where Osama bin Laden’s father was born. A few months earlier, four South Korean tourists were blown up by a suicide bomber as they admired the view of Shibam from across the valley. I was a little nervous. “Don’t worry,” my guide said, patting my shoulder as we walked up to the ridge where the Koreans died. “Ever since the bombing they have put this place on high security.” But when we got to the top of the ridge there was not a single soldier or policeman to be seen. We gazed out over the valley in silence. A sign stood nearby, showing a pair of binoculars and the words in English “Discover Islam.” As we began to leave, my guide smiled broadly and gestured at the sign. “The Koreans – they discovered Islam,” he said, giggling at his joke.

Even in the capital, law and order often mean less than they do in other Arab countries. One afternoon I was having tea with Abdulaziz al-Jifri when a shot rang out nearby. I thought nothing of it; it might have been a firecracker or someone testing a gun. We were in the safest area of the city, a neighborhood called Hadda, where rich Yemenis and foreign diplomats have built an enclave in recent decades. But Jifri got up from the cushion where he was sitting to go see what happened. He came back 15 minutes later with a look of surprise on his face. A friend of the family, a wealthy tribal figure, had been shot dead a block away. The victim, Jifri explained, was walking up to the gate of his home when someone apparently shot him once in the head. There were no witnesses and no one even bothered to call the police, who are so corrupt and incompetent that most people view them as useless.

“There is no law in Yemen,” Jifri said, shaking his head. We went on drinking tea and talking politics.

By then, I had spent at least a dozen afternoons at Jifri’s house. He was a unique figure: educated in Britain and Saudi Arabia, he was designated by his father – a wealthy businessman with political connections – as a liaison to the tribes in Shabwa and Marib, two of the main areas where Al Qaeda is said to find sanctuary. He is tall and handsome, with large, mischievous brown eyes and a knack for setting a room on fire with laughter. His family are sayyids, or descendants of the prophet Muhammad, and that gave them a special status in the caste like social hierarchy that prevailed until Yemen’s republican revolution in 1962. Even now, the Jifris are trusted and respected like few other clans in rural Yemen.

Jifri became my link to rural Yemen. There was no way for me to travel to Shabwa or Marib undetected, I was told. So day after day I would sit on a cushion beside him in the family’s rectangular living room as various sheiks and relatives from those provinces arrived to sip tea, chew khat and talk until dark about what was happening among the tribes. It was there that I met Ali Muhammad Ahmed, along with others from the area around Rafadh, in Shabwa province, the valley where the cruise missile struck on Dec. 24. The Jifris themselves have a house in the Rafadh Valley.

Rafadh, several hundred miles southeast of the capital, is in some ways typical of the areas where Al Qaeda found refuge in Yemen. It is set among dry mountains populated by baboons, there are no paved roads and cars must travel laboriously along dirt tracks that wind among the hills. There is no public water supply or electricity and no functioning school. The valley was largely peaceful during the 1970s and ’80s, when the socialist government that ruled South Yemen – a separate country until it united with the north in 1990 – tried to eradicate tribalism. But since then Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has encouraged tribal practices, and the feuds have returned. Rafadh itself has been devastated by a tribal conflict that has raged for years, killing at least a dozen people and wounding many more in an area with only a few hundred inhabitants.

Ahmed played a central role in the feud. In 2006, Ahmed’s father and older brother were gunned down by men posing as customers at the father’s market stall. Afterward, he told me, he drove the bullet-riddled bodies to the nearest police station to ask for justice. The police captain in charge waved him off dismissively, he said, telling him, “You tribes are always causing trouble – deal with it yourself.”

He did. Ahmed gathered five cousins and together they hunted down and shot two men they believe were among the killers and three other men who were sheltering them. The feud briefly threatened to escalate into a broader war. The government promised to mediate but failed to do so, and the feud grew with further kidnappings and clumsy army suppression. Many local people felt the government was largely to blame.

It was then that Fahd al-Quso, the Al Qaeda figure, arrived in the valley. He had roots in the area but, perhaps more important, he was an outlaw to the Yemeni authorities, and that alone earned him a welcome in Rafadh. The United States wanted him in connection with the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, which killed 17 American sailors. The Yemeni police arrested his younger brother, a tactic aimed at pressuring Quso to turn himself in.

“Fahd was a victim in the eyes of the tribes,” Ahmed told me. “They accepted what he said. People distrust the government here, so those who have problems with it will get sympathy.”

Last summer, as Al Qaeda’s Arabian branch began setting off alarms in Washington, Quso became more active, Ahmed told me. “We saw lots of Al Qaeda guys coming and going from his house,” Ahmed said. They tended to keep to themselves, refusing to give rides to others from the village.

But the tribesmen of Rafadh continued to shelter Quso and his men and not just because of their shared hatred of the government. Quso had offered to supply teachers for the village school. Local families knew he was with Al Qaeda but welcomed the news for a simple reason: there were no teachers in the school at all. “The people were saying, ‘We would rather have our kids get an Al Qaeda education than be illiterate,’ ” Jifri told me. After hearing about Quso’s offer, Jifri went to officials in Sana and delivered a blunt message: “Right now you have one Al Qaeda guy in Rafadh, tomorrow you will have 700.”

Initially, Jifri said, the government refused to provide teachers, saying any town that was willing to accept help from Al Qaeda was beneath contempt. Finally, they relented.

“The government agreed to send 6 teachers,” Jifri told me. “Fahd brought 16.”

WHEN PEOPLE TALK about the government in Yemen, they really mean one man: Ali Abdullah Saleh. Despite the country’s many political parties – Islamist, Socialist, Arab nationalist – the country is run almost entirely by Saleh, and he runs it exactly like a sheik: using his own tribe as a power base and constantly making deals to head off his rivals. Saleh came to power in 1978; pictures of him at the time show a skinny young man in a military cap that looks too big for him, his eyes covered by aviator sunglasses.

At the time, most of Yemen was still just emerging from isolation. In 1962 a group of military officers, inspired and aided by Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, overthrew the xenophobic religious dynasty that, from its northern base, ruled much of Yemen for centuries. Some of the young officers hoped to modernize Yemen and make it more like other Arab countries. In the mid-1970s one Yemeni president, Ibrahim al-Hamdi, tried to tame the powerful tribal sheiks, extend the state’s power throughout the country and unify with South Yemen, which emerged from British occupation in 1967. Yemeni intellectuals still talk about Hamdi with nostalgia. But the sheiks and their Saudi backers were not pleased. In October 1977, Hamdi was found riddled with bullets in his Sana home. The killers had thrown the bodies of murdered French prostitutes beside him to blacken his legacy.

Saleh was not a man to make such mistakes. He fought in a tribal army as a teenager and then made his way up through the ranks of the military, impressing superiors with his ruthlessness and charm. He became a tank commander – a crucial skill at a time when tanks were a new and essential weapon. When Hamdi’s successor, Ahmad al-Ghashmi, was blown up by a bomb hidden in a briefcase, Saleh was a compromise replacement. No one expected him to last long.

Three decades later, Saleh retains a stiff, military bearing, with a strong jaw and glinting eyes. In person he conveys an impression of fierce pride and gruffness and the natural defensiveness of a man from a small tribe who fought his way up with no more than an elementary-school education. When I interviewed him in 2008, he seemed impatient and almost angry. His eyes darted around the room as he fired off commands to his aides in a guttural voice. He bridled at questions about the American role in Yemen. “Arrogant,” he said, staring at me, then adding disdainfully in English, “Cowboys.”

SOME SAY SALEH has lasted so long because, unlike his predecessors, he knew not to take on the tribes directly. “Saleh survived by mastering the tribal game as no one else had,” Khaled Fattah, the tribal expert, said. He did so in two ways. First, he coddled the big tribal sheiks, bringing them into the capital and building them large homes. He created a patronage network that grew substantially after Yemen began pumping oil in the 1980s, paying large sums to sheiks, military leaders, political figures and anyone who might pose a threat to his power. Much of Yemen’s budget now goes into corruption and kickbacks – worth billions of dollars – that fuel this network, according to diplomats, analysts and oil-industry figures in Sana.

Second, Saleh adopted what some Yemenis call “the policy of management through conflicts.” If a tribe was causing trouble, he would begin building up its rivals as a counterweight. If a political party became threatening, he would do the same thing, sometimes even creating a cloned version of the same party with people on the government payroll. “The government plays divide and rule with us,” Arfaj bin Hadban, a tribal sheik from Jawf province, north of Sana, said. “If one tribe will not do what he wants, he gets the neighbors to pressure it. Sometimes it’s money, sometimes it’s weapons, sometimes it’s employment for the tribesmen.”

But in a sense, the key to Saleh’s long rule – and to much of Yemen’s modern history – lies just to the north in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom squats atop Yemen on the map like a domineering older brother with a rebellious sibling. Starting in 1962, the Saudi royal family viewed Yemenis’ democratic aspirations with alarm and began paying hefty stipends to tribal sheiks throughout the country to reinforce its influence. Later, the Saudis began spreading their hard-line strand of Islam throughout the country, with help from some like-minded Yemenis. Hundreds of religious schools sprang up teaching Salafism, the puritanical sect that denounces all other sects as heresy. (The Saudi variant is usually called Wahhabism.) This was bound to be divisive in Yemen, where a third or more of the population were Zaydis, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

As the influence of the Salafists grew, Saleh formed close ties to jihadists and radical clerics like Abdul Majid al-Zindani, who is listed by the U.S. Treasury Department as a “specially designated global terrorist.” Saleh had a political motive: Salafists are mostly quiescent and preach obedience to the ruler (even if they call for violent jihad in other lands). That was an appealing trait in Yemen’s complex social mosaic, where rivalries based on class, region, religious sect and lineage are endemic. But Saleh also knew that he needed the Saudis, who are widely believed to have arranged his accession in the first place.

When I met him, Saleh seemed enraged that anyone should dare to criticize his methods. “We have unified the country and brought stability,” he told me. That is true. Saleh orchestrated the unification of north and south Yemen in 1990, and he has remained in power for 32 years. But even as he spoke, in June 2008, those achievements seemed to be unraveling. Zaydi rebels from the north – angered by Saleh’s support for the Salafists – were gaining ground. In the south, a groundswell of economic discontent was rising and later became an open secessionist movement. The fact that Saleh is now trying to arrange for his son Ahmed Saleh to succeed him as president has alienated many tribal leaders and other allies, narrowing Saleh’s power base. In the past year, as Al Qaeda began to mount more frequent attacks, he turned to some old friends for help, only to see them abandon him.

One night in January 2009, Tareq al-Fadhli, a 42-year-old aristocrat from south Yemen, received a phone call from Saleh. Fadhli wasn’t surprised: the Yemeni president is famously impulsive and has a habit of calling people late at night with urgent ideas or demands that are sometimes forgotten by daylight. But this one was unusual. Saleh wanted to convene all the old jihadis who fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan, Fadhli told me.

“He wanted us to make a dialogue with the new generation of Al Qaeda,” Fadhli said. “He said he wanted to arrange to send them abroad to Saudi Arabia and Somalia, and in return he would release the ones who were in prison.” The released prisoners would stay in Yemen.

It was a bold idea, to put it mildly. Saudi Arabia is Yemen’s most important ally and had waged bloody battles to rid itself of homegrown jihadi fighters. But Al Qaeda, once a manageable problem, seemed to be running out of control in Yemen, and America was putting on the pressure. Saleh was desperate to find a way to rid himself of the militants, preferably without calling in American airstrikes or doing anything else that would alienate the radical clerics on whose political support he counted.

Fadhli, who has mournful eyes and a distinguished face, was a natural intermediary and an old ally. As a young man, he fought for three years in Afghanistan, leaving only after he was wounded at Jalalabad. He had formed a close friendship with Osama bin Laden, whom he still remembers fondly. Later, when the socialists of southern Yemen rebelled in 1994, Fadhli formed a brigade of jihadists at the central government’s request and helped put down the rebels. His friend bin Laden helped out, providing millions of dollars’ worth of arms and hundreds of fighters who were hungry for another chance to kill godless socialists.

After that, the former jihadis split. Fadhli, like many others, went back to civilian life, becoming a landowner in the south and an adviser to Saleh. He said goodbye to bin Laden in Sudan in 1994 and has not seen him since. But some veterans continued to preach jihad and to train in Afghanistan with Al Qaeda, which began to call for the overthrow of secular Arab regimes.

The first real sign that the jihadis were a source of trouble at home came in 2000 with the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in the Yemeni port town of Aden on the southern coast. Seventeen American sailors were killed. A year later, after the Sept. 11 attacks, Saleh recognized that a major shift had taken place. Fearing that the United States might invade Yemen, he flew to Washington and pledged his support. At home, his security forces rounded up hundreds of former jihadists and jailed them en masse without charge. In November 2002, the C.I.A. used a Predator drone to kill Abu Ali al-Harithi, then the leader of Al Qaeda in Yemen, as he was driving in the desert east of Sana.

Saleh knew his collaboration with the United States could make the jihadis turn on him. He was furious after American officials leaked word of their role in the Harithi assassination. Later, Saleh repeatedly denied the Americans permission to kill Al Qaeda leaders during Yemen’s 2006 presidential election because he feared the strikes might harm his electoral prospects, according to one high-ranking Yemeni official. Saleh had struggled for years to find a compromise between the radicals and the Americans. He created an Islamic “dialogue” program to bring jihadists under the umbrella of the state, then abandoned it after several of its graduates returned to terrorism. Popular sympathy for the jihadist cause was still high, and in February 2006 Saleh suffered a deep embarrassment when 23 prisoners, many of them in Al Qaeda, escaped from a maximum-security prison in Sana. The authorities offered a preposterous explanation: the men tunneled out of their cell with spoons and table legs and emerged in the bathroom of a neighboring mosque. The truth, the high-ranking official told me, was that officers in the Political Security Organization arranged the escape. “You have to remember, these officers used to escort people from Sana to Pakistan during the Afghan jihad,” he said. “People made relationships, and that doesn’t change so easily.”

By 2007, it was clear that a new and more dangerous generation of Al Qaeda militants was emerging. Unlike their predecessors, these men aimed openly to overthrow the Yemeni state and refused all dialogue with it. Many later claimed that they suffered torture in Yemeni prisons during long terms – usually without formal charges. Some of them had gone to Iraq and returned with valuable battlefield skills. The attacks grew bloodier and more frequent: a suicide bombing in July 2007 killed eight Spanish tourists; there were attacks on oil pipelines. In September 2008, suicide bombers in two cars struck the U.S. Embassy in Sana in a meticulously planned operation that left 10 Yemenis and all 6 attackers dead.

Saleh tried to win the militants over through intermediaries. Nasser al-Bahri, a 35-year-old former driver for bin Laden, told me that he tried reaching out to the new militants. They refused, and he soon discovered he was on a “death list” of accused traitors. Several other former jihadists told me the same thing. “I try to talk to these people,” said Ali Muhammad al-Kurdi, another militant Islamist who fought in Afghanistan. “They tell me, ‘You are an agent.’ ” Some of the older jihadists advised Saleh to immunize the state from attacks by Islamizing it. He briefly deployed a morality-police brigade, modeled on the notorious cane-wielding mutawa in Saudi Arabia. The attacks continued.

Finally, in January of last year, Tareq al-Fadhli received his late-night phone call from the president. Saleh said he would release 130 Al Qaeda sympathizers right away as a good-will gesture and asked Fadhli to arrange the rest.

Fadhli told me that he formed a committee of former jihadis and began traveling through the areas where Al Qaeda has found sanctuary – Marib, Shabwa, Jawf and Abyan provinces. “The tribal sheiks cooperated with us everywhere,” Fadhli told me. “Whenever we found Qaeda members, we told them: ‘The government wants you to turn yourself in, but it’s O.K. We will guarantee your safety.’ ”

In the end, 20 people on the government’s 60-most-wanted list agreed to stop fighting, Fadhli said. But the mediators never made any progress with Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemen-based branch, or his top deputies.

A few months after the failed negotiation, in April 2009, Fadhli defected from the government, joining the southern secessionist movement. He told me that he was tired of hearing Saleh offer tempting deals to Al Qaeda while refusing to even talk to the leaders in the south, whose movement – rooted in claims of economic discrimination – is populist, secular and nonviolent.

Meanwhile, the United States grew increasingly concerned about Al Qaeda’s growth in Yemen and about Saleh’s tendency to see it as a family problem, solvable through dialogue. Veteran jihadists were said to be coming to Yemen from Afghanistan and Somalia. Last summer, Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the overall commander of American military forces in the Middle East, visited Sana, and the number of American military trainers working with Yemen’s counterterrorism forces quietly grew. In the fall, a select group of American officials met with Saleh and showed him irrefutable evidence that Al Qaeda was aiming at him and his relatives, who dominate Yemen’s military and intelligence services. That seems to have abruptly changed Saleh’s attitude, American diplomats told me. The Yemenis began to mount more aggressive ground raids on Al Qaeda targets, in coordination with the airstrikes that began in December.

But the strikes and raids were a short-term tactic. The real problem was that Yemen, with its mind-boggling corruption, its multiple insurgencies, its disappearing oil and water and its deepening poverty, is sure to descend further into chaos if something does not change. Everyone has acknowledged this, including President Obama and a growing chorus of terrorism analysts. So far, the calls for action have yielded nothing. I spoke to a number of American officials in Washington and to a variety of diplomats at the embassy in Sana. They all told me the same thing: no one has a real strategy for Yemen, in part because there are so few people who have any real expertise about the country. No American diplomats travel to the provinces where Al Qaeda has found sanctuary. Even the Yemeni government has great difficulty reaching these places; often they have no idea whether airstrikes or bombing runs have hit their targets, because they dare not show up to check until days afterward.

Officially, American policy in Yemen is twofold: using airstrikes and raids to help the Yemeni military knock out Al Qaeda cells, while increasing development and humanitarian aid to address the root causes of radicalism. In late June, the White House announced it was more than tripling its humanitarian assistance, to $42.5 million. But the numbers are still small given Yemen’s need. And diplomats concede that they have not figured out how to address the central issues of poor governance, corruption and the economy. “There is a huge amount of diplomacy that needs to be done and is not being done,” Edmund J. Hull, the U.S. ambassador to Yemen from 2001 to 2004, said when I met him in Washington. “It makes me uneasy to hear that we’re not getting out to those remote areas. One way or another, we have ceded the initiative to Al Qaeda, and Al Qaeda is calling the shots.”

AL QAEDA HAS a clear Yemen strategy. On Jan. 23, 2009, the group released a high-quality video clip on the Internet showing four men sitting on a floor, with a clean white curtain and a flag behind them. One of them was Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the group’s leader, wearing a white turban, and one was Qassim al-Raymi, its military commander, clad in fatigues and a red-and-white kaffiyeh. Sitting alongside them were two new Qaeda commanders, both former detainees from the American prison camp at Guantánamo Bay.

The video was a setback for President Obama, who had been inaugurated days earlier and had made a high-profile pledge to close Guantánamo – where nearly half the remaining inmates were Yemenis – within a year. But the real news was Al Qaeda’s announcement that same month that it was merging its Saudi and Yemeni branches into a single unit: Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The new group incorporated a number of fighters from Saudi Arabia, where the government had cracked down fiercely on terrorist networks. It proclaimed a broad ambition: to serve as a base for attacks throughout the region and to replace the infidel governments of Yemen and Saudi Arabia with a single theocratic state.

At the heart of this new effort was an unlikely leader. Wuhayshi is a tiny man, less than five feet tall. In videotapes he sits motionless, his pinched face blank, his small eyes expressionless. Raymi, the group’s burly military commander, speaks passionately, his hands knifing through the air, his eyes full of righteous anger. By contrast, Wuhayshi seems almost catatonic.

Yet Al Qaeda men treat him with deep veneration. “When they see him, they kiss him on the forehead, like a great sheik,” said Abdulelah Hider Shaea, a Yemeni journalist who interviewed Wuhayshi and other Al Qaeda leaders before the video’s release. “They all love and respect him.” Shaea, who was blindfolded and driven out to a remote area for his interview, said Wuhayshi was laconic but quick-witted, with flashes of sarcastic humor and a remarkable ability to adduce Koranic verses to back up anything he said. Wuhayshi’s authority seems to derive mostly from his long proximity to bin Laden, whom he served for six years as a private secretary in Afghanistan. “During bombing raids, everyone else would scatter, but he would stay by bin Laden’s side,” Shaea said, echoing a story other Al Qaeda members told him about their leader. The founders seem to have been impressed: bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, issued a statement in November 2008 formally recognizing Wuhayshi as the emir, or prince, of Al Qaeda in the region.

Shaea and others who have studied him say Wuhayshi appears to be modeling himself on bin Laden, who has always been more cerebral guide than day-to-day commander. Wuhayshi left Afghanistan in late 2001 and was arrested by Iranian authorities; they handed him over two years later to Yemen, which jailed him without charge. Little is known about his early life in Abyan province in southern Yemen. Personality aside, he seems to have much in common with Raymi, his fiery military commander. Both men come from ordinary families, studied at religious schools and fought in Afghanistan, according to Shaea and other Yemeni journalists. Both served time afterward in Yemeni prisons. And both were among the 23 militants who escaped from the central Sana prison in February 2006.

The two men have also followed bin Laden’s example in building an ever-more-sophisticated propaganda arm for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, including frequent video and audio tapes and an Internet magazine, Sada al-Malahim (The Echo of Battles), that appears every two months or so. The magazine makes for bizarre reading, by turns chilling and poignant. The first page of one recent issue showed a colorful 1950s-style stock image of a hand that was mixing fluid in a chemical beaker, alongside a hand grenade and the headline “Year of the Assassination.” The authors are clearly familiar with the style of Western magazine journalism, and many articles are framed as regular features like View From the Inside and The Leader’s Editorial. There are didactic items, with headlines like “Shariah Is the Solution” and “Practical Steps Toward the Liberation of Palestine.” But some of the articles are almost whimsical (“A Mujahid’s Thoughts”), and there are sharp satires (“The Saudi Media on Mars”). Much of the content has an earnest, proselytizing tone, a bit like the ads that Western corporations publish to trumpet their civic responsibility. One recent article, for example, was titled “Inside View: Why We’re Fighting in the Arabian Peninsula.”

Since it first appeared in early 2008, the magazine has grown steadily more polished, and the quality of its Koranic scholarship has improved, said Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen expert at Princeton University who has spent years tracking Al Qaeda in the region. Its content has mirrored the influx of Saudi militants into the group, including Said Ali al-Shihri, a former Guantánamo detainee who is now the deputy emir of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Perhaps the magazine’s most frequent target for abuse is Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, who directs Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism efforts and has become heavily involved with Yemen’s struggle with Al Qaeda. In August, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula came close to assassinating bin Nayef when a Saudi suicide bomber posing as a repentant member of the group was allowed into the prince’s Jedda home and detonated a bomb. Bin Nayef was only lightly injured. Afterward, Sada al-Malahim published a lengthy defense of the tactic under the headline “War Is Deception,” citing Koranic verses that approve of deceit as a tool in times of war.

The target audience for all this rhetoric is a bit of a mystery: Internet access is rare in Yemen, especially in the areas where Al Qaeda operates. There is evidence that the group may be aiming to win over members of the military or even the political elite (not an implausible goal, given the depth of sympathy for jihadism in Yemen). As for the broader public, one hint came in a video the group released last summer. The 18-minute video, “The Battle of Marib,” about a successful battle with the Yemeni military, pointedly emphasized the accuracy of Al Qaeda’s casualty count. The narrator, Qassim al-Raymi, mocks the government for failing to acknowledge that seven soldiers were captured. The video then cuts to a government press conference, in which a spokesman stumbles badly in response to questions from journalists and refuses – just as Raymi said- to acknowledge the soldiers’ capture. The video then returns to Raymi, who, facing the camera almost gloatingly, delivers his message: “I call upon all Muslims to take their information from clear and correct sources, like the jihadi Web sites on the Internet.”

It is far from clear how Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in remote and desperately under¬developed areas, turns out such a slick product. Shaea, the Yemeni journalist who interviewed Al Qaeda’s top leaders, told me he also met four members of the group’s media arm in a room that was set up like a studio, with computers and other equipment. “You could tell they were rich and well educated,” he said. “Some did not look like Arabs. They did not speak, so I wondered if they even spoke Arabic.”

If Wuhayshi and Raymi want to recreate the original Al Qaeda in Yemen, they also seem to have learned from its mistakes. Starting in 2009, the group used its Internet magazine and intermittent videos to make increasingly passionate appeals to the people of Yemen – and especially to its tribes. The magazine echoed populist discontent about government corruption, unemployment and unfair distribution of revenue from Yemen’s oil, much of which comes from the very areas where Al Qaeda is active. The articles often show a deep understanding of local concerns; one issue in 2008 included an anguished complaint about the government’s mishandled response to a flood in the eastern province of Hadramawt.

Al Qaeda’s Afghanistan-based leadership reinforced the tribal message in early 2009, when Zawahiri issued an audiotape addressed to “the noble and defiant tribes of Yemen,” urging them to rise up against Saleh’s government. “Don’t be less than your brothers in the defiant Pashtun and Baluch tribes,” he said. “Don’t be helpers of Ali Abdullah Saleh. . . . Support your brothers the mujahedeen.” At the same time, the group strove to marry members to tribal women and mediate tribal disputes.

The reason for all this was simple: a global reaction was developing against militants acting in the name of Al Qaeda, largely because of their extreme and often indiscriminate violence. In Iraq, the local Al Qaeda branch alienated tribes that provided crucial support for them in Anbar province, paving the way for the American-backed “awakening movement” that threw them out. Wuhayshi and his men clearly wanted to prevent that from happening in Yemen.

So far the most masterful piece of propaganda by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is still the “Battle of Marib” video. In it, Raymi tells the story of the Yemeni military’s effort to destroy an Al Qaeda cell and capture Aidh al-Shabwani, a young militant with a lame leg whom one government official described to me as “a sort of local Robin Hood figure.” The raid was a humiliating failure. The army lost several tanks and armored vehicles to the guerrillas, who knew the local orange groves and deserts well. The Al Qaeda men took possession of a weapons convoy and captured seven soldiers, who were later released.

The video’s most striking feature is its anxious plea to tribesmen to resist payments and pressure from the Yemeni government and its Saudi and American backers. It starts off with an acknowledgment that the raid took place because of a “betrayal” by local tribal leaders. Then Raymi intones: “How shameful it is that some sheiks allow themselves to become soldiers and slaves of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is himself but a slave to Saudi riyals and American dollars. I say to these sheiks: be careful that you don’t become a piece of chewing gum that a person enjoys for a short time and then throws away.” After Raymi and another narrator describe the Al Qaeda victory, the second narrator offers a more refined formulation, noting that the seven soldiers’ lives were spared: “If you don’t support the mujahedeen, then at least don’t stand against them.” Since then, the group has released a stream of statements and videos outlining its basic objectives: to recruit more followers, overthrow Saleh and use Yemen as a base to attack the Saudi monarchy and build an Islamic caliphate.

AFTER THE DAWN cruise-missile strike on Rafadh, the open-air tribal meeting reached a conclusion. The elders decided that Quso and his Al Qaeda gang had become a threat to the tribes. Two deadly missiles had struck in less than a week; more might be coming. Tribal hospitality was one thing, and it was a shame that the five young men were killed. But the presence of Quso and his recruits was endangering everyone. They had to go. The elders deputized Ahmed and a fellow tribesman to evict them.

Ahmed told me he sat in his pickup truck with Quso and spoke to him firmly: “Are you satisfied? All of the people here have been living in the mountains, in the trees, for a week. Now we want you out, and don’t come back unless you’re alone.” The Al Qaeda man said nothing. He seemed subdued and appeared to understand that he could not challenge the tribe’s decision.

Ahmed drove Quso out of the valley on a bumpy dirt track. As they drove, Quso contacted other Al Qaeda members in the area, and they picked them up one by one. Before long there were 11 men piled into the truck. Ahmed said he left them on the nearest main road and returned to his valley. A few days later, Quso came back. This time he was alone. As of mid-February, he still was living alone in his grandfather’s house, according to Jifri, who visited him there.

Not everyone has reacted to the airstrikes this way. In the neighboring province of Abyan, an airstrike killed dozens of people, most of them women and children, according to local witnesses. The civilian death toll created a groundswell of anger at the Yemeni government and the United States that was a boon to Al Qaeda recruiters, several local people told me. Ali al-Shal, an opposition member of the Yemeni Parliament who is from a village close to where the Abyan airstrikes took place, told me it was too dangerous for him to visit afterward. Ultimately he was able to visit, but only once and only by drawing on his family connections with local tribal figures. “There was not much sympathy for Al Qaeda before, but the strike has created a lot of sympathy,” he said.

IN RECENT WEEKS, Al Qaeda has sounded more confident than ever, issuing threats and calls to arms, along with publishing its Internet magazine and introducing an English-language online magazine called Inspire. In May, a botched air raid led to the death of a tribal leader in Marib who was negotiating on the government’s behalf with a local Al Qaeda leader, infuriating the local tribes and further eroding President Saleh’s credibility. On June 19, four heavily armed men stormed the fortified headquarters of the Political Security Organization in the southern port city of Aden, freeing prisoners suspected of being Al Qaeda members and escaping unharmed.

Before leaving Yemen, I traveled to Aden. Near the dilapidated oil refinery built by the British, I found the Quso family home, in a row of simple stone and concrete bungalows. Fahd’s father, Muhammad al-Quso, was just walking up to the door as I arrived. He was an old man with a deeply lined face, dressed in a red-and-white futa and headdress. He walked with a cane. Inside the house he sat down heavily in an armchair and told the story of his son’s life. It was a biography that matched many others in Yemen.

Fahd was born in 1975, his father said, and grew up alongside four brothers and six sisters. He was a happy child and a good student at the local elementary school, called al-Saafir. But his parents wanted him to have some religion, so when he was 14 they sent him – along with some of his friends from the neighborhood – to a school up north called Dar al-Hadith. The school is famous as one of the first Wahhabi institutions in Yemen; John Walker Lindh was reportedly among the future jihadists who studied there. After he came home, he studied welding at the local technical school. But he decided not to work at the refinery, as his father had. When I asked about the accusations that his son took part in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, he winced and said he didn’t believe it. He complained that the authorities had jailed him, and then later, after freeing him, jailed his brother-in-law for no reason. Finally, I asked Muhammad whether his son was a member of Al Qaeda, as the authorities claimed.

“No,” he said, “I don’t believe this.” He was silent for a long time, staring at the closed door of the house, which was illuminated at its edges by a bright rectangle of afternoon sunlight. Then he spoke again.

“He is a mujahid,” he said, or holy warrior. “He is fighting those who occupy Arab lands. He is fighting unbelievers.”

A good piece on the McChrystal incident… MChrystal is a warrior!

baghdad-bob — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:27:38 +0000

The General and the Community Organizer

by Paul R. Hollrah
June 24, 2010

Channel-surfing from ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN through MSNBC and Fox News, the inside-the-beltway pundits had a field day trying to get inside the heads of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, General Stanley McChrystal, and McChrystal’s top aides. The one thing common to all of the analyses, by the most famous and highly-paid talking heads in the Western World, was that they are all wrong… dead wrong. What is certain is that they all owe General McChrystal and his senior aides an apology for assuming that they are lame-brained numbskulls.

The facts of the McChrystal case are not in dispute. General McChrystal and his senior officers allowed a reporter for Rolling Stone Magazine, Michael Hastings, to have almost unprecedented access during an extended stay in Paris. The extended stay was due, in part, to an excess of atmospheric ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, keeping the McChrystal party grounded for days.

In an interview with CNN, Hastings reported that he had a tape recorder in his hand most of the time and that McChrystal was “very aware” that his comments would find their way into print. He said, “McChrystal and his people set no ground rules for their conversations, although they did ask that some parts of their conversations were off the record.” Hastings subsequently published a lengthy profile of General McChrystal on June 22, titled, The Runaway General.

As Hastings wrote in his profile, McChrystal thought that Obama looked “uncomfortable and intimidated” by the roomful of military brass during their first meeting. Of their second meeting, an advisor to McChrystal quoted the general as saying that it was “a 10-minute photo op.” He went on to say, “Obama clearly didn’t know anything about (McChrystal), who he was. Here’s the guy who’s going to run his f_ _ _ing war, but he didn’t seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed.”

As General McChrystal flew from Afghanistan to Washington to face Obama in the Oval Office, the almost unanimous opinion of the talking heads was that the comments made by McChrystal and his staff were off the cuff and inadvertent. But to believe that is to totally ignore who these men are.

General McChrystal and his top officers are not simple-minded, knuckle-dragging brutes. To the contrary, they are intelligent, thoughtful, highly educated, patriots… graduates of West Point and other fine universities… who are dedicated to duty, honor, and country. To think that such men would be so careless as to speak unflatteringly of Obama, Biden, and other top administration figures, in the presence of a reporter for a notoriously left wing publication, defies logic… at the very least. To think that men who are trained to be careful and deliberate in everything they do, could do something so careless and so unguarded is simply beyond comprehension.

I would argue that McChrystal and his aides knew exactly what they were doing.

From the day that he became the handpicked “spear carrier” for Obama’s unique brand of warfare… playing at being Commander in Chief while playing to his far left constituency… McChrystal’s life had been one of constant frustration. After telling Obama exactly how many troops he needed to carry out his mission, Obama dithered for months before deciding to give him just half the troops he requested. McChrystal could not have been happy about that.

The Obama team insisted on new Rules of Engagement designed to reduce collateral damage (civilian casualties). Obama’s ROE required that U.S. troops must be able to see the enemy with weapon in hand before they were allowed to return fire. One videotape circulated on the Internet showed a platoon of Marines pinned down by enemy sniper fire. But since the enemy was firing from some distance behind the open window of a building, the Marines could not actually see the weapon being fired. Although they were taking deadly fire, they were prohibited by the ROE from putting small arms fire or an RPG through the window opening.

Under Obama’s politically correct ROE, our soldiers and Marines were required to fight with one hand tied behind their backs. McChrystal could not have been happy about that.

A strict new interrogation policy, dictated by Attorney General Eric Holder, required that prisoners must be delivered to an Interrogation Center within twenty-four hours of being captured or be released. A great deal of actionable intelligence was lost as a result and battle-hardened enemy fighters were returned to the field to kill Americans. McChrystal must have found that to be incomprehensible.

But the greatest insult to our troops in the field, and to the officers who lead them, may be a new battlefield medal designed by the Obama team. It is called the Courageous Restraint Medal and is awarded to soldiers and Marines who demonstrate uncommon restrain in combat by not firing their weapons even when they feel threatened by the enemy. Would we be surprised to learn that the preponderance of these medals were awarded posthumously? McChrystal must have found that to be an insanity.

I suggest that, having his best military judgments subjected to the White House political sieve for nearly a year and a half, McChrystal decided that he’d had enough. And when he announced to his senior staff that he was prepared to retire they decided to push back… to make the most of a bad situation. It was clear that, if McChrystal were to simply take off his uniform and walk away, his retirement would be page-twenty news for a day or two before the mainstream media and the American people forgot all about him.

They had to make the most of his retirement because it provided a one-time opportunity to show the American people, as well as our enemies and our allies, that the man who claims the title of Commander in Chief of the U.S. military does not command the respect of our men and women in uniform. To make the most of that opportunity they had to choose their messenger very carefully.

They knew that, by openly showing their disrespect for Obama in front of just any newsman, they may not attract the attention they desired. Like any astute observer of the MSM, they knew that most reporters would turn on their own mothers if it meant a good story. But they could not take a chance that a mainstream media reporter might suffer a rare pang of conscience when confronted with the prospect of ruining the careers of some of the most senior officers in the War on Terror. They had to fix the odds as much as possible in their favor so they chose to use Michael Hastings and Rolling Stone Magazine.

During the long hours that General McChrystal was in the air between Kabul and Washington, Obama knew that he had just two choices… both bad. He could declare McChrystal to be an irreplaceable asset in the war effort, give him a public reprimand, and send him back to Kabul. Or he could fire McChrystal, sending a clear message that, at least in his own mind, he was the Commander in Chief.

In the former case, he was certain to appear weak and ineffectual… a man not totally in charge. In the latter case, he might at least win a few rave reviews from the Kool-Ade drinkers in the mainstream media. He chose the latter of the two options.

But what is now lost in all of the hand-wringing and speculation is the fact that McChrystal and his people have succeeded in doing exactly what they set out to do. They wanted to plant the seed in the minds of the American people that Obama is not up to the task of being Commander in Chief and that he does not command the respect of the men and women of the uniformed services… from the newest Private E-1 up to the top four-star generals and admirals.

That seed is now firmly planted and it cannot be unplanted.

From this day forward, no one will have to tell the American people that Stanley McChrystal is a true warrior, a man’s man, and that Barack Obama is nothing more than a… community organizer. Well done, General!

On this upcoming Independence Day… A must read for ALL!

baghdad-bob — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:15:45 +0000

Left v Right

As we prepare to observe Independence Day, it is fitting that we pause

to consider the origins of the American Revolution and the liberty it

enshrined for generations since.

As James Madison aptly notes, it all began with an act of civil

disobedience in rejection of a tax on tea — a Tea Party.

On December 16th, 1773, “radicals” from Boston, members of a secret

organization of American Patriots called the Sons of Liberty, boarded

three East India Company ships and threw 342 chests of tea into Boston

Harbor.

This iconic event, in protest of oppressive British taxation and

tyrannical rule, became known as the Boston Tea Party.

Resistance to the Crown had been mounting over enforcement of the 1764

Sugar Act, 1765 Stamp Act and 1767 Townshend Act, which led to the

Boston Massacre and gave rise to the slogan, “No taxation without

representation.”

The 1773 Tea Act and resulting Tea Party protest galvanized the Colonial

movement opposing British parliamentary acts, which violated the

natural, charter and constitutional rights of the colonists.

In response to the rebellion, the British enacted additional punitive

measures, labeled the “Intolerable Acts,” in hopes of suppressing the

burgeoning insurrection. Far from accomplishing their desired outcome,

however, the Crown’s countermeasures led colonists to convene the First

Continental Congress on September 5th, 1774, in Philadelphia — the

first step toward formalizing a declaration of liberty.

Today, once again, we find ourselves subject to unjust taxation. And

while we enjoy a token and technical representation in Congress, we are

continually being taxed for purposes not expressly authorized by our

Constitution. That tax burden is levied to satiate contemporaneous

political constituencies, but at an ever-increasing cost under which

free enterprise will, ultimately, collapse.

As a result of this abject violation of constitutional Rule of Law,

greatly amplified by the current Leftist administration of Barack

Hussein Obama, American Patriots have, once again, mustered a Tea Party

movement, which is growing in strength. This movement is not about

revolution but restoration

, at its core — advancing any and all measures to restore Rule of Law.

Despite the best efforts of Beltway Republican establishment types,

Libertarians and conservative special interest groups endeavoring to

co-opt the Tea Party for their own purposes, these Patriots have shown

remarkable devotion to their guiding principles, rejecting any and all

suitors attempting to commandeer the movement.

So, just what is the Tea Party?

Let me first answer that question by describing who it is.

We are American Patriots, defenders of First Principles

t-with-first-principles/> and Essential Liberty

We are Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and public

servants standing in harm’s way at home and around the world, who are

loyal, first and foremost, to our revered oath to “support and defend

and-defend/> ” our Constitution.

We are grassroots leaders and local, state and national officeholders

who, likewise, honor our sacred oath.

We are mothers, fathers and other family members nurturing the next

generation of young Patriots. We are farmers, craftsmen, tradesmen and

industrial producers. We are small business owners, service providers

and professionals in medicine and law. We are employees and employers.

We are in ministry at home and missionaries abroad. We are students and

professors at colleges and universities, often standing alone for what

is good and right.

We are consumers and taxpayers. We are voters.

We are Patriot sons and daughters from all walks of life, heirs to the

blessings of Liberty bequeathed to us at great personal cost by our

Patriot forebears, confirmed in the opinion that it is our duty to God

and Country to extend that blessing to our posterity, and avowed upon

our sacred honor to that end. We are vigilant, strong, prepared and

faithful.

We are not defined by race, creed, ethnicity, religion, wealth,

education or political affiliation, but by our devotion to our Creator,

and the liberty He has entrusted to us, one and all.

Second, the Tea Party is not a political party, per se, organized around

a national platform. However, grassroots Tea Party groups across the

nation do have a well-defined and uniform slate of principles on which

they center their advocacy and support for political candidates.

Those principles include, first and foremost, advocating for Essential

Liberty, the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the

judiciary, and the promotion of free enterprise, national defense and

traditional American values.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because this is, and has been, the mission

statement of The Patriot Post since

our inception.

These core principles have been expanded in a more formal statement, the

“Contract from America”

, which closely

parallels the original Tea Party manifesto, The Patriot Declaration

, which I encourage you to

both read and sign .

Patriot Declaration

The Patriot Declaration is based on the rights enumerated in our First

Statement of Conservative Principles

rvative-principles/> , our Declaration of Independence and its

subordinate guidance, our Constitution.

Today, those who support the Tea Party principles understand, as did our

Founders, that the power to tax

> is the most invasive threat to liberty and its economic expression,

free enterprise.

As Chief Justice John Marshall concluded in 1819 (McCullough v.

Maryland), “An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to

destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no

property can bear taxation.”

Alexander Hamilton detailed the economic consequences of excessive

taxation, noting in Federalist No. 21, “If duties are too high, they

lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the

treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and

moderate bounds.”

Thomas Jefferson wrote, “To take from one, because it is thought his own

industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to

spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal

industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of

association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry

and the fruits acquired by it.”

Because of the menacing threat of excessive taxation, Jefferson

suggested that taxes “should be continued by annual or biennial

reenactments, because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of

the public purse is a salutary restraint from which an honest government

ought not wish, nor a corrupt one to be permitted, to be free,” and

ultimately, that “excessive taxation … will carry reason and

reflection to every man’s door, and particularly in the hour of

election.”

Indeed, if American Patriots, who inherently subscribe to Tea Party

principles, can adequately rally enough of our fellow citizens to our

enlightened cause to restore Rule of Law, then it will be possible to

reset our nation’s course and re-establish our Constitution’s integrity.

However, it will take more than one election cycle to undo decades of

Democrat socialism and more recently, Republican malfeasance.

But if Liberty, as affirmed at our nation’s birth, is to survive another

generation, we must reinstate Rule of Law. It will take tireless

devotion and forbearance to do so peacefully, but it is my fervent

prayer that restoration can succeed without firing a shot. Still, the

history of throwing off tyrannical governments, as with the founding of

our great nation, is not on the side of peaceful rebellion.

One of the great strengths of the grassroots Tea Party movement is its

lack of any central organization, which would be subject to corruption.

But that lack of central organization can also be its weakness. If the

movement fails to unite behind the tactics required for restoration of

constitutional integrity and the Rule of Law, it risks devolving into a

plethora of special interest constituencies which will be easily

defeated, or at best, will have no more power than the para-political

organizations that vie for their allegiance.

As Benjamin Franklin said famously when signing the Declaration of

Independence, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we

will all hang separately.”

We derive great strength in forming a unified Patriot Tea Party front to

support and defend our Constitution as our primary objective. We must

refuse to waste our political capital on policy arguments, and must,

instead, frame every debate around First Principles

t-with-first-principles/> and Essential Liberty

There is an excellent tool, a Tea Party “bible” of sorts, available as

the foundational resource for our movement. It is the pocket-sized

“Essential Liberty Guide”

, a

resource which no Patriot should be without.

Thomas Jefferson once declared, “Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us

tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant

ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from

us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding

generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we

basely entail hereditary bondage on them.”

Indeed, but too many Americans have become complacent in comfort, unable

or unwilling to comprehend that the consequences of foregoing Liberty

for refuge are dire. As Franklin wrote, “They that can give up essential

liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty

nor safety.”

Barack Obama has disparaged Tea Party Patriots, portraying us as a gang

of malcontents “waving their little teabags.” Such undignified

characterizations notwithstanding, Obama and his Leftist cadres are

clearly concerned that an enlightened grassroots movement to restore

Rule of Law will undermine their Socialist agenda in the upcoming

midterm election.

My fellow Patriots, stand fast for Essential Liberty, stay the course,

hold your ground and keep your powder dry. Real “change” is on the

horizon.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander

Publisher, The Patriot Post

(To submit reader comments click here

-comment> .)

________________________________

Opinion

* Thomas Sowell: A Sad Day

* Ann Coulter: What a Sack of Sacrosanct

rosanct/>

* R. Emmett Tyrrell: Concern at Home and

Abroad

me-and-abroad/>

* Victor Davis Hanson: Saving Obama From

Himself

ma-from-himself/>

* Lawrence Kudlow: From New Jersey to Beijing

and Back Again

y-to-beijing-and-back-again/>

* Ben Shapiro: Why McChrystal and the Military

Should be Able to Speak up

-the-military-should-be-able-to-speak-up/>

* Paul Greenberg: We Just Can’t Have This

ve-this/>

* Larry Elder: US, Mexico Agree To Act on

Illegal Immigration — By Suing Arizona

-act-on-illegal-immigration-by-suing-arizona/>

* Cal Thomas: Loose Lips Sink Generals — and

Wars

erals-and-wars/>

* George Will: The McChrystal Debacle

acle/>

* Jeff Jacoby: There Is No ‘Good’ Communist

ommunist/>

* Michael Gerson: Franken and His Bile Return

-bile-return/>

* Walter E. Williams: Government Aggravated

Tragedy

ggravated-tragedy/>

* Debra Saunders: Rolling Stone Gathers a

General

athers-a-general/>

* Austin Bay: Will Corruption Kill the Euro?

l-the-euro/>

More Opinion

________________________________

Patriot Headlines

* Nearly 1,300 Prison Inmates Wrongly Received

More Than $9 Million in Homebuyer Tax Credits

* Senate Democrats Struggle to Revive Jobless

Aid

* Reid and McConnell Lead Letter to Obama

Defending Israel in Flotilla Incident

end-israel-in-flotilla-incident>

* Former Acting Solicitor General Walter

Dellinger Predicting an End to Roe v. Wade

* Kagan Calls Israeli Activist Judge ‘My Hero’

gan-calls-israeli-activist-judge-my-hero.html>

* Bank of America Boosts Staff Handling

Troubled Loans

aff-to-handling-troubled-real-estate-loans.html>

* Liberal Dems’ Battle to Cut Defense Spending

Reaches a Turning Point

get-hits-turning-point>

* China’s Plans to Provide Pakistan With More

Nuclear Reactors Raises Proliferation Concerns

* North Korea Threatens More Punishment for

American

ined>

* Israel: Flotillas Aim to Get Weapons to Gaza

62301369_pf.html>

* Pelosi Asks for Donations to Fend Off

Potential GOP Investigations

-donations-to-fend-off-gop-investigations>

* Confidence Waning in Obama, U.S. Outlook

30.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories>

More Headlines

________________________________

Policy

* The Heritage Foundation

* The Cato Institute

* Hoover Institution

* National Rifle Association

* Ludwig von Mises Institute

* National Center for Policy Analysis

________________________________

(Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the

world, and for their families — especially families of those fallen

Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted

their lives in defense of American liberty.)

________________________________

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Destroying the USA is all in the President’s plan! A MUST READ!

baghdad-bob — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 00:46:05 +0000

Read this and be very concerned about our country.

Barack Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos — thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within.

Barack Obama is my college classmate (Columbia University , class of ’83). As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University . They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands. Add up the clues below. Taken individually they’re alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival … and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government. Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.

– Universal health care. The health care bill had very little to do with health care. It had everything to do with unionizing millions of hospital and health care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000 new IRS agents (who will join government employee unions). Obama doesn’t care that giving free health care to 30 million Americans will add trillions to the national debt. What he does care about is that it cements the dependence of those 30 million voters to Democrats and big government. Who but a socialist revolutionary would pass this reckless spending bill in the middle of a depression?

– Cap and trade. Like health care legislation having nothing to do with health care, cap and trade has nothing to do with global warming. It has everything to do with redistribution of income, government control of the economy and a criminal payoff to Obama’s biggest contributors. Those powerful and wealthy unions and contributors (like GE, which owns NBC, MSNBC and CNBC) can then be counted on to support everything Obama wants. They will kick-back hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to Obama and the Democratic Party to keep them in power. The bonus is that all the new taxes on Americans with bigger cars, bigger homes and businesses helps Obama “spread the wealth around.”

– Make Puerto Rico a state. Why? Who’s asking for a 51st state? Who’s asking for millions of new welfare recipients and government entitlement addicts in the middle of a depression? Certainly not American taxpayers. But this has been Obama’s plan all along. His goal is to add two new Democrat senators, five Democrat congressman and a million loyal Democratic voters who are dependent on big government.

– Legalize 12 million illegal immigrants. Just giving these 12 million potential new citizens free health care alone could overwhelm the system and bankrupt America . But it adds 12 million reliable new Democrat voters who can be counted on to support big government. Add another few trillion dollars in welfare, aid to dependent children, food stamps, free medical, education, tax credits for the poor, and eventually Social Security.

– Stimulus and bailouts. Where did all that money go? It went to Democrat contributors, organizations (ACORN), and unions — including billions of dollars to save or create jobs of government employees across the country. It went to save GM and Chrysler so that their employees could keep paying union dues. It went to AIG so that Goldman Sachs could be bailed out (after giving Obama almost $1 million in contributions). A staggering $125 billion went to teachers (thereby protecting their union dues). All those public employees will vote loyally Democrat to protect their bloated salaries and pensions that are bankrupting America . The country goes broke, future generations face a bleak future, but Obama, the Democrat Party, government, and the unions grow more powerful. The ends justify the means.

– Raise taxes on small business owners, high-income earners, and job creators. Put the entire burden on only the top 20 percent of taxpayers, redistribute the income, punish success, and reward those who did nothing to deserve it (except vote for Obama). Reagan wanted to dramatically cut taxes in order to starve the government. Obama wants to dramatically raise taxes to starve his political opposition.

With the acts outlined above, Obama and his regime have created a vast and rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big government; a vast privileged class of public employees who work for big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism and installing themselves as socialist rulers by overwhelming the system.

Add it up and you’ve got the perfect Marxist scheme — all devised by my Columbia University college classmate Barack Obama using the Cloward and Piven Plan.

Overwhelm the System…by Wayne Allyn Root

This is happening now! Very thought provoking, a must read for all Americans.

baghdad-bob — Mon, 24 May 2010 13:52:18 +0000

Wherever you stand, please take the time to read this; it ought to scare
the pants off you!

We know Dick Lamm as the former Governor of Colorado. In that context
his thoughts are particularly poignant. Last week there was an
immigration overpopulation conference in Washington, DC, filled to
capacity by many of America’s finest minds and leaders. A brilliant
college professor by the name of Victor Hansen Davis talked about his
latest book, “Mexifornia,” explaining how immigration – both legal and
illegal was destroying the entire state of California. He said it would
march across the country until it destroyed all vestiges of The American
Dream.

Moments later, former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm stood up and
gave a stunning speech on how to destroy America. The audience sat
spellbound as he described eight methods for the destruction of the
United States. He said, “If you believe that America is too smug, too
self-satisfied, too rich, then let’s destroy America. It is not that
hard to do. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time.
Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and fall and
that ‘An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit
suicide.’”

“Here is how they do it,” Lamm said: “First, to destroy America, turn
America into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country.”
History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and
antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a
blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a
society to be bilingual. The historical scholar, Seymour Lipset, put it
this way: “The histories of bilingual and bi-cultural societies that do
not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension, and tragedy.” Canada,
Belgium, Malaysia, and Lebanon all face crises of national existence in
which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and
Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France
faces difficulties with Basques, Bretons, and Corsicans.”.

Lamm went on: Second, to destroy America, “Invent ‘multiculturalism’ and
encourage immigrants to maintain their culture. Make it an article of
belief that all cultures are equal. That there are no cultural
differences. Make it an article of faith that the Black and Hispanic
dropout rates are due solely to prejudice and discrimination by the
majority. Every other explanation is out of bounds.

Third, “We could make the United States an ‘Hispanic Quebec’ without
much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As
Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently: “The apparent
success of our own multiethnic and multicultural experiment might have
been achieved not by tolerance but by hegemony. Without the dominance
that once dictated ethnocentricity and what it meant to be an American,
we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together.”
Lamm said, “I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language
and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with the salad
bowl metaphor. It is important to ensure that we have various cultural
subgroups living in America enforcing their differences rather than as
Americans, emphasizing their similarities.”

“Fourth, I would make our fastest growing demographic group the least
educated. I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated,
and antagonistic to our population. I would have this second underclass
have a 50% dropout rate from high school.”

“My fifth point for destroying America would be to get big foundations
and business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in
ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of ‘Victimology.’ I
would get all minorities to think that their lack of success was the
fault of the majority. I would start a grievance industry blaming all
minority failure on the majority population.”

“My sixth plan for America’s downfall would include dual citizenship,
and promote divided loyalties. I would celebrate diversity over unity. I
would stress differences rather than similarities. Diverse people
worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other – that is, when they
are not killing each other. A diverse, peaceful, or stable society is
against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity it takes
to keep a nation together. Look at the ancient Greeks. The Greeks
believed that they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common
Language and literature; and they worshipped the same gods. All Greece
took part in the Olympic games. A common enemy, Persia, threatened their
liberty. Yet all these bonds were not strong enough to overcome two
factors: local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured
political divisions. Greece fell. “E. Pluribus Unum” –From many, one.
In that historical reality, if we put the emphasis on the ‘pluribus’
instead of the ‘Unum,’ we will balkanize America as surely as
Kosovo.”

“Next to last, I would place all subjects off limits; make it taboo to
talk about anything against the cult of ‘diversity.’ I would find a word
similar to ‘heretic’ in the 16th century – that stopped discussion and
paralyzed thinking. Words like ‘racist’ or ‘xenophobe’ halt discussion
and debate. Having made America a bilingual/bicultural country, having
established multi-culturism, having the large foundations fund the
doctrine of ‘Victimology,’ I would next make it impossible to enforce
our immigration laws. I would develop a mantra: That because immigration
has been good for America, it must always be good. I would make every
individual immigrant symmetric and ignore the cumulative impact of
millions of them.”

In the last minute of his speech, Governor Lamm wiped his brow. Profound
silence followed. Finally he said,. “Lastly, I would censor Victor
Hanson Davis’s book “Mexifornia.” His book is dangerous. It exposes the
plan to destroy America. If you feel America deserves to be destroyed,
don’t read that book.”

There was no applause. A chilling fear quietly rose like an ominous
cloud above every attendee at the conference. Every American in that
room knew that everything Lamm enumerated was proceeding methodically,
quietly, darkly, yet pervasively across the United States today.
Discussion is being suppressed. Over 100 languages are ripping the
foundation of our educational system and national cohesiveness. Even
barbaric cultures that practice female genital mutilation are growing as
we celebrate ‘diversity.’ American jobs are vanishing into the Third
World as corporations create a Third World in America – take note of
California and other states – to date, ten million illegal aliens and
growing fast. It is reminiscent of George Orwell’s book “1984.” In that
story, three slogans are engraved in the Ministry of Truth building:
“War is peace,” “Freedom is slavery,” and “Ignorance is strength.”

Governor Lamm walked back to his seat. It dawned on everyone at the
conference that our nation and the future of this great democracy is
deeply in trouble and worsening fast. If we don’t get this immigration
monster stopped within three years, it will rage like a California
wildfire and destroy everything in its path especially The American
Dream.

If you care for and love our country as I do, take the time to pass this
on just as I did for you. NOTHING is going to happen if you don’t.

A couple of book’s I just read and would recommend.

baghdad-bob — Mon, 17 May 2010 04:19:23 +0000

The first book is “Jihad-The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia” by Ahmed Rashid. The other book is “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Three Cups of Tea is also a foundation based out of the US and I have a link to the site here. The foundation is called the Central Asia Institute and Greg Mortenson is the founder. Read both of these books and look at the CAI web site.