WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange attends a seminar in Stockholm earlier this month Photograph: Reuters
Swedish prosecutors say they hope to announce today whether they will pursue two cases of alleged sexual assault involving Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.
Prosecutors say they are considering a complaint of sexual molestation from one woman, Ms A, who has previously been an active supporter of Assange. They say they are also still considering whether any offence may have been committed against a woman known as Ms W, who met Assange at a seminar in Stockholm this month, and who originally alleged rape, a charge which was soon dropped. Assange has emphatically denied committing any offence against either woman.
In a case mired in conflicting claims, only a few essential events are clear:
• On Friday last week, Ms A and Ms W together approached police in Stockholm and reported that they had been sexually assaulted by Assange.
• Both women reported that they had been involved in consensual sexual relationships with Assange, but each reported a separate non-consensual incident of a similar character in which Assange allegedly had sex with them without using a condom.
• Both alleged incidents were very recent. The alleged molestation of Ms A was said to have occurred on the morning of Saturday 14 August. The alleged rape of Ms W was said to have occurred on the morning of Tuesday 17 August.
• The Swedish police passed a report to prosecutors, who issued a formal warrant for Assange's arrest on suspicion of rape. On the following day, the charge of rape was dropped and the warrant was rescinded.
It is understood that before going to the police, both women asked Assange to have a health check to reassure them, and that Assange declined to do so. Ms W is said to have visited a hospital on Thursday before going to the police.
One source who is closely involved said neither of them had originally wanted the case prosecuted; that Ms W had wanted to report the alleged rape to police without their pursuing it, and that Ms A had gone with her to give her moral support and then become embroiled with the police, who had insisted on passing a report to prosecutors. Neither the police nor the prosecutor has spoken to Assange to record his version of events. The fact that a warrant had been issued for his arrest was rapidly leaked to a Swedish newspaper.
It remains unclear why the prosecutor first issued and then withdrew the arrest warrant. The prosecutor's office has said that the original issuing of the warrant was not a mistake, and that it was cancelled when it received new information.
The chief prosecutor, Eva Finne, yesterdayyesterday told the Guardian: "I will analyse this matter thoroughly and make all necessary legal judgements, to be able to decide on the progress of the investigation. My estimation is that I can give information later this week, probably tomorrow." Ms A spoke at the weekend to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet and said she was not frightened of Assange and that he was not violent. She said she had only ever alleged sexual molestation, not rape, and added: "In both cases, what started out as voluntary sex subsequently developed into an assault. The other woman wanted to report rape. I gave my story as testimony to her story and to support her. We stand by the information."
In a weekend interview with the same paper, for which he is due to become a regular columnist, Assange said: "I never, neither in Sweden nor in any other country, had sex with someone in a way that is not built on total consent from both sides." He said nobody had asked him for his side of the story but that he needed to know more about the accusations before he could discuss them in any detail.
In subsequent tweets and interviews, Assange suggested that the timing of the allegations against him was "deeply disturbing". He told al-Jazeera on Sunday: "It is clearly a smear campaign … The only question is who was involved. We can have some suspicions about who would benefit, but without direct evidence, I would not be willing to make a direct allegation." He said he had been warned that the US Pentagon was planning to use dirty tricks to spoil things for WikiLeaks.
In her interview with Aftonbladet, Ms A said: "The charges against Assange are, of course, not orchestrated by the Pentagon. The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl lies with a man who has a twisted attitude to women and a problem with taking 'no' for an answer."
Assange attracted global attention last month when he posted a database of US military records from Afghanistan on the WikiLeaks website. The Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel published stories which were based on the records. US military authorities were highly critical of Assange's actions.
A double suicide bombing against members of Somalia's parliament has raised concern that Somalia's Al Shabab militants - an Al Qaeda-linked Islamist group - are launching a new offensive against the country's weak, Western-funded government.
Al Shabab said it was responsible for Tuesday’s attack, which government officials said killed 32 people including six legislators.
"Our Mujahideen forces carried out an operation at Hotel Muna … which accommodates members of parliament and intelligence officers,” spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage told reporters. “Our martyrs succeeded in killing 60 to 70 government officers, MPs, intelligence officers and civil servants.”
The raid came the day after Mr. Rage said Shabab was launching a “massive war” against “invaders” who would “face larger attacks from now on.”
“Before today’s hotel bombing, you could easily say that Al Shabab was just flexing its muscles as a warning to new troop-contributing nations not to get involved,” said a European diplomat in Nairobi, Kenya who tracks security developments in Somalia. “But with the suicide bombing – which would have taken time to plan – we’re not so sure. It could be that they really are ready to ramp this up.”
New AU troops
The statement came within days of the arrival of hundreds of fresh soldiers to boost the 6,300-strong African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia, AMISOM.
These Ugandan reinforcements are likely to be the first of up to 4,000 new troops promised for the mission after the AU last month won pledges from Guinea, Djibouti, and others to send extra soldiers.
Eleven mostly foreign fighters, from Afghanistan, Algeria, India and Pakistan, were found dead at the weekend after blowing themselves up while preparing home-made explosives in a house in northern Mogadishu.
On Monday, Kenyan newspapers reported that Kenyan anti-terror police arrested 12 men on Lamu island, close to the border with Somalia, who had bomb-making equipment and maps of Nairobi. Three were said to have traveled from Somalia.
But is this really a new offensive?
But whether this points to a serious threat to Somalia and the region from Shabab is not yet clear.
Despite the rhetoric about all-out war, Al Shabab may be resorting to terrorist attacks such as this one because it is incapable of launching an offensive that would completely dislodge Somalia's transitional government, says E.J. Hogendoorn, head of the Horn of Africa program at the International Crisis Group’s office in Nairobi.
"Al Shabab is not in a position to pursue their war in a conventional way, because they simply don't have the capability to do so,” he says. "So do you go asymmetrical, with terrorist attacks? Clearly that is what they are doing. They are trying to undermine the support for government by launching terrorist attacks on different government agencies."
Security responsiblity for areas under the control of Somalia's weak transitional government is shared by government forces and AMISOM peacekeepers, with AMISOM guarding high profile locations such as the presidential palace, the airport, and seaport, security experts say.
But the hotel where the parliamentarians were staying may have relied on the poorly trained government soldiers, many of whom receive their salaries sporadically.
In addition, Al Shabab has "gotten better at trying to drive a wedge between the Somali people and AMISOM" by starting mortar exchanges with AMISOM forces in populated areas, luring AMISOM into firing at areas where civilian casualties are likely, says Hogendoorn.
That creates a dillema for AMISOM. If they don't respond with mortars of their own, the other alternative is to go after Shabab forces with ground troops, which leaves them open to ambush and terror-style attacks.
Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch has partnered with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal to launch a new 24-hour news network for the Arab world, a move that has drawn mockery from Murdoch's critics and questions from media experts.
First and foremost among those questions is whether a news service linked to the famously pro-Israeli Fox News will resonate among Arab viewers.
"Fox News, famous for its uncomplicated, gung-ho and pro-Israel stance whilst maintaining a mocking notion of neutrality, does not seem like a likely partner" for the Middle Eastern news network, writes David Roberts at the Gulf Blog. "Their coverage of Middle Eastern issues is far from renowned or competent."
The new channel, based in Saudi Arabia, "will focus on development in Saudi Arabia and the Arab world on the political, economic and social fronts," Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the world's 19th-wealthiest person according to Forbes, said in a statement.
The network will be competing with the two principal international Arabic news services, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, and "is going to become an addition and an alternative for viewers," bin Talal said.
His statement gave no name for the new channel, and it only said the launch would be in the "near future."
The deal comes four months after Murdoch bought a nine-percent stake in bin Talal's Rotana Group. Bin Talal owns seven percent of Murdoch's News Corp, making him the largest shareholder after Murdoch himself.
As RAW STORY reported last year, the Saudi prince is known for his financial ties to the Bush family and the defense industry-oriented Carlyle Group and for owning a fair-sized stake in Disney and in Citigroup.
At times, the growing partnership between Murdoch and bin Talal has proven embarrassing for Murdoch's network, whose commentators and guests often take stridently anti-Arab positions.
Earlier this year, Fox host Glenn Beck appeared to blame the 9/11 attacks on bin Talal, when he paraphrased Giuliani as saying to bin Talal, "I don't think we want your help. You already sent us help, and you flew that help into the plane-- into the trade centers."
Following the 9/11 attacks, then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani refused a $10 million aid offer from bin Talal, because the Saudi prince had suggested that US policies may have contributed to the attacks. At the time, Fox News praised Giuliani's decision.
It's these sorts of tensions that make media observers wonder whether an alliance between the owner of Fox News and an Arabic news network can work.
"Just because it’ll have News Corp. backing doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be friendly to the Western interests, if only because the network won’t be incredibly profitable if it’s all pro-West, all the time," writes Michael Merritt at the Atlantic Right blog. "But I’ll take a bet that it will be less biased against the West than, say, Al-Jazeera."
Merritt speculates that the network may also incur the wrath of Saudi censors if it takes its pro-Western attitude too far for the country's conservative ruling class. Max Fisher at the Atlantic Wire suggests it may be a good idea for the new news network not to rely too heavily on Fox News as a source of information. He points to a map that Fox recently ran, showing Iraq labeled as "Egypt."
Tensions being heightened as more elite backers are revealed
Steve Watson Prisonplanet.com
Monday, Aug 23rd, 2010
The wife of ‘Imam’ Feisal Abdul Rauf, the founder of the proposed mosque three blocks away from ground zero in lower Manhattan has further fanned the flames of the controversy by comparing opposition to the project to a hatred of Jews.
“We are deeply concerned, because this is like a metastasized antisemitism,” Daisy Khan said in an interview with ABC News on Sunday.
Ms. Khan is an executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), putting her at the forefront of the proposed 15-story Cordoba House building, along with her husband Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.
“It’s beyond Islamophobia. It’s hate of Muslims.” Khan added in comments picked up and pushed by other mainstream media sources.
Khan, appearing on “This Week” said that she and her husband were determined to push ahead with the mosque, adding that there is “too much at stake.”
As we reported in our article last Friday, Imam Rauf is a sitting member of the ultra elitist Council On Foreign Relations (CFR) and in his role at ASMA has also received financial backing for the mosque from powerful globalist sources including the Rockefellers and the Carnegie Corporation.
Employees of the Cordoba Initiative have refused to comment on the connection, with one stating that “It is not necessary to disclose” who is funding the mosque. It has since emerged that evangelist Jim Wallis and his Sojourners publication, the CFR’s “Christian” backers of the Cordoba project, are heavily backed by the left arm of the globalist franchise, billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Institute.
Another report revealed that Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the co-owner of News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, has also directly funded Rauf’s projects to the tune of more than $300,000.
It seems that every elite tentacle is extending itself into the mosque project.
This information provides a compelling backdrop to the theory that the move to establish the mosque is a deliberate attempt to further stoke religious tensions and divert attention away from the real enemy of free humanity, the corporate globalist elite who continue to profit from global war and division.
Indeed, intelligence officials suggested over the weekend that the spectacle could boost extremist movements by fueling feelings of discrimination and vilification via ongoing extensive news media coverage in Muslim countries.
Scenes at the proposed site, some two minutes walk away from the World Trade Center complex, have become heated, with clashes between protesters both for and against the mosque.
The media is today playing up a video showing protesters confronting an African American man who they presumed was a muslim, but in fact was not.
As you may have heard, former Bush senior adviser Karen Hughes came out against Cordoba House over the weekend. Hughes called on Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to move the project in order to "provide a path toward the peaceful relationships that he and his fellow Muslims strive to achieve."
What was mystifying about her opposition, as TPM noted, was that she did not mention that Rauf had a long-term relationship with the Bush administration. Nor did she mention that as the Bush State Department's chief of outreach to Muslims she participated with him in multiple bridge-building efforts to the Muslim world.
Here's her explanation: Hughes claimed in a statement to me that she doesn't remember any of the work she did with him.
As it happens, when people first started pointing out the connections betweeen Hughes and Rauf, I asked Ms. Hughes' office to comment. She sent me a statement, which I didn't get around to posting. Here it is:
"As Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, President Bush asked me to focus on interfaith dialogue to try to encourage greater understanding and respect between leaders of different faiths, and to encourage leaders of all faiths to speak out against all acts of terror and violence. As a result, I met with many Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders and attended numerous events and conferences across the world and it's entirely possible he was at some of those, but I don't have specific recollections of that. I believe acts of violence pervert all faith and I continue to encourage religious leaders to speak out against suicide bombings, terrorist attacks and all acts of violence."
As TPM points out, Rauf repeatedly participated in events with Hughes, who saw improving relations with the Muslim world as an imperative. Rauf even claims he met with her. So I'll leave it to you to judge how likely it is that Hughes wouldn't remember any of their work together.
The Saudi prince whose post-9/11 relief check was rejected by former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani has found a more willing recipient in the city for his millions: the head of the Ground Zero mosque project.
The same Saudi potentate, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, owns the biggest chunk of the parent company of the Fox News Channel outside of the Murdoch family.
WND has learned that one of the original board members of the nonprofit group promoting the 13-story mosque and "cultural center" took the job as a favor to James A. Baker III, the former President George H.W. Bush official and lawyer who defended Saudi government officials against a lawsuit filed by families of 9/11 victims. Baker has counted bin Talal as a client.
Bin Talal has pumped more than $300,000 into the project headed by New York imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as part of the prince's campaign to "improve the image of Islam in the American public." The prince's charitable foundation in 2008 gave $125,000 to Rauf, which came on the heels of an earlier $180,000 gift, according to the Arab press.
The foundation is run by Muna AbuSulayman, a Saudi woman who appears on Rauf's website as one of its "Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow."
Additionally, the prince funded "through a generous grant" the reprinting of Rauf's 2004 book, originally titled "A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11."
The amount of the grant is undisclosed. Attempts to reach bin Talal's Saudi-based foundation were unsuccessful.
Guiliani refused to accept bin Talal's $10 million donation after bin Talal blamed U.S. policy in the Middle East for the 9/11 attacks and suggested the U.S. take a position more favorable to the "Palestinian cause."
Critics called his offer "blood money" and praised Guiliani for rebuffing it.
After Giuliani's snub, bin Talal took a more indirect strategy to influence American policy.
In a 2002 interview in the Arab press, bin Talal intimated that "Arabs should focus more on penetrating U.S. public opinion as a means to influencing decision-making" on the war on terror and U.S. foreign policy.
Bin Talal proceeded to give more than $500,000 to the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington. The prince currently is helping CAIR finance a $50 million campaign to fight "Islamophobia" in America. According to a sensitive State Department cable, top CAIR officials in 2006 traveled to Saudi Arabia to solicit bin Talal and other wealthy Saudis for campaign funds.
"We are planning to meet Prince Alwaleed bin Talal for his financial support to our project," CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad told the Arab press at the time. "He has been generous in the past."
In addition, the Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Conference has kicked in more than $300,000 for CAIR's propaganda effort, according to the book "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America," which exposes CAIR and other fronts for the radical Muslim Brotherhood in America.
CAIR last week held a press conference at the National Press Club to support the construction of the mosque near Ground Zero. It also denounced critics as "Islamophobes." CAIR occupies a suite next door to Rauf's Manhattan offices, and Rauf has honored CAIR's New York chapter spokesman as one of his "Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow."
The Justice Department says CAIR is a terrorist front group for Hamas and its parent the Muslim Brotherhood. CAIR in 2007 was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal scheme to funnel millions of dollars to Hamas suicide bombers and their families, prompting the FBI to cut off all outreach to the group.
The group in the past has insisted it receives no foreign support but now acknowledges taking it least overseas money from bin Talal, whose operations are based in Saudi Arabia. However, CAIR argues it shouldn't be held to a higher standard than Fox.
"News Corp. is headed by Rupert Murdoch and is the parent company of Fox News Channel," CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said. "If CAIR is taken to task for bin Talal's donation to us, so should these companies be taken to task for accepting his money."
"KHC [Kingdom Holding Co.] intends to continue to leverage its relationship with New Corp.'s mangement to identify new investment opportunities," the website says.
Indeed, bin Talal last month launched a new Arabic TV news channel in partnership with the Fox network. The 24-hour broadcast channel will compete with Al-Jazeera. Earlier this year, News Corp. agreed to buy a 9.1 percent stake in bin Talal's Rotana Media group for $70 million. Rotana hosts Fox channels in Saudi Arabia.
Critics call bin Talal an "agent of Saudi influence" who has even marshaled direct influence over editorial content at Fox. He once boasted of persuading producers to change a screen banner under video footage of Muslims rioting in France to remove its Islamic reference.
"I picked up the phone and called [New Corp. chief Rupert] Murdoch," bin Talal said. "Within 30 minutes, the title was changed from 'Muslim riots' to 'civil riots.'"
Fox does not deny his account.
Leading Fox News opinion hosts, however, have been editorializing against the Ground Zero mosque plan. Bill O'Reilly has called for it to be built elsewhere, and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck have spoken against it. Yesterday, the three hosts of "Fox and Friends" – Gretchen Carlson, Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade – agreed it should not be built near the World Trade Center site.
News Corp. also owns the Wall Street Journal. Insiders say two of the newspaper's top investigative reporters covering terrorism left after Murdoch scaled back their beats. Glenn Simpson and Susan Schmidt, both award-winning journalists, had broken major stories on Saudi funding of terrorism.
Bin Talal, News Corp.'s second-largest shareholder outside the Murdoch clan, has described his relationship with Murdoch's son and heir-apparent James Murdoch as "very close."
"If he (Rupert) doesn't appoint him, I'll be the first one to nominate him to be the successor of Mr. Rupert Murdoch, God forbid if something happens to him," bin Talal told Charlie Rose in a recent TV interview.
The Aspen connection
After 9/11, Rauf co-founded the Cordoba Initiative with former Aspen, Colo., Mayor John S. Bennett, which explains why Cordoba's tax filings list an Aspen address.
During his four terms as mayor, Bennett was introduced to bin Talal and other Saudi royals, who own chalets and other properties in Aspen (Bennett's own home is valued at more than $2 million). Bin Talal met his second wife in Aspen.
Before taking over Cordoba as executive director, Bennett headed the Aspen Institute, which included among its board members former Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan, as well as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Rice has appeared with Rauf at events in Washington and overseas.
Aspen Institute recently launched the Middle East Leadership Initiative with "generous support" from Saudi Arabia. AbuSulayman, bin Talal's aide, is an Aspen Institute Middle East fellow.
Cordoba's tax filings show that Julia A. Jitkoff of Kingsville, Texas, was a director before resigning in 2007. Sources say the Texas socialite was sponsored by "longtime friend" Jim Baker, who sits on the board of her family's King Ranch holding company.
FEC records show Jitkoff and her family gave over $30,000 to the Bush-Cheney campaigns. Cordoba's 2008 IRS statement shows its books are kept by Kay Zimm of Kingsville.
According to bin Talal's biography, he and Baker met regularly in Houston to discuss business in the 1990s, when bin Talal was a Carlyle Group client of Baker. Joining them for business lunches at the Bayou Club was former President George H.W. Bush, a senior Carlyle adviser at the time.
Baker's Houston law firm, Baker & Botts, which defended Saudi officials against the 9/11 lawsuit, is one of the top international firms specializing in Shariah-compliant finance – another hobbyhorse of bin Talal.
Bin Talal in 2007 donated $250,000 to the James Baker III Institute at Rice University.
Bennett is also close to the Bush family. He graduated from both Yale University and Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. In 2002, bin Talal donated $500,000 to help fund the George Herbert Walker Bush Scholarship at Phillips Academy.
The Cordoba documentary
The Cordoba Initiative is promoting the Ground Zero mosque. According to its tax filing, its mission statement, among other things, is to "address the root causes of international terrorism."
Cordoba was the center of the Islamic caliphate in Spain, and the Cordoba mosque was built over the cathedral there.
Rauf has also worked on a documentary film – "Out of Cordoba" – by New York director Jacob Bender, a peace activist and Islamic apologist. The 2008 film, for which Rauf is listed as an adviser, purports to document how Islam led Europe out of the Dark Ages.
"Cordoba was the most advanced city on the European continent," Bender says.
He also claims it was the most tolerant, allowing Christianity and Judaism to "coexist" with Islam.
Bender said he made the film to respond to "growing evidence of Islamophobia and attacks upon Muslims," adding that "negative stereotypes about the Muslim are the result of ignorance."
"American society has always been quite isolated, not wanting to know about the rest of the world. Secondly, American popular cultures always needed an enemy to confront," he said. "First it was the native Americans, [then] Germans in World War I, and later the communists."
Then came 9/11 and the war on terror. "In recent years people in the United States looked to justify the huge military budget by finding a new enemy in the Arab and Muslim world," Bender continued. "The 9/11 and al-Qaida presented them with an opportunity to say that Islam is an enemy of the West."
Muslim leaders around the world have given the film rave reviews.
"The film will contribute to solving the problem of misunderstanding between the Islamic world and the West," gushed OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, who has proposed with CAIR an international law criminalizing blasphemy of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
Listed first among "major funders" backing the film: Alwaleed bin Talal Foundation.
Another backer is the Islamic Society of North America, which bin Talal also finances. The uncle of Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, serves on ISNA's board. The U.S. government recently named ISNA an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror-finance case in U.S. history.
An ISNA affiliate – the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences – changed its name after federal agents raided its offices after 9/11 on suspicion of supporting terrorism. Northern Virginia-based GSISS is now known as Cordoba University.
Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns a 7 percent stake in News Corp — the parent company of Fox News — making him the largest shareholder outside the family of News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch. Alwaleed has grown close with the Murdoch enterprise, recently endorsing James Murdoch to succeed his father and creating a content-sharing agreement with Fox News for his own media conglomerate, Rotana.
Last weekend, at the right-wing Constitutional Coalition’s annual conference in St. Louis, Joseph Farah, publisher of the far right WorldNetDaily, blasted Fox News for its relationship with Alwaleed. Farah noted correctly that Alwaleed had boasted in the past about forcing Fox News to change its content relating to its coverage of riots in Paris, and warned that such foreign ownership of American media is “really dangerous.”
[Note: Rupert Murdoch is an Australian who owns a big chunk of American media. Half a dozen of one, six of another, it's all the same to me. There was a time that foreign ownership of American media was prohibited by law. The law was changed by Congress to accommodate Rupert Murdoch.]
ThinkProgress was at the speech and observed attendees of the conference murmuring and shaking their heads in disapproval:
FARAH: There’s a flaw, a real compromise in Fox that you need to understand. And if you care about national security, you especially need to be attentive to it. And that is that Fox News parent company is News Corp has a significant ownership by a Saudi prince that many of you will be familiar with because right after 9/11 this prince very famously offered Rudolph Giuliani a big multi-million dollar check to rebuild and Giuliani told him to stick the check where the sun don’t shine because this guy was basically blaming America for what happened on 9/11. Well this guy owns a very significant percentage of the News Corp and has let the world know that he can get things taken off Fox News when he finds them objectionable and has in the past. And I really believe this is really dangerous for America.
ThinkProgess spoke to right-wing author Brigitte Gabriel, another speaker at the conference, who said that Alwaleed was recently interviewed by Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. Gabriel angrily denounced the interview as a “darling high school reunion”: “All of the sudden, Neil Cavuto is interviewing him like a buddy-buddy because he is the boss.” Indeed, in the “rare” interview Alwaleed gave last month, he reaffirmed his “alliance” with the Murdoch family and told Cavuto why he has a personal stake in influencing American politics:
– On continuing America’s dependence on fossil fuels, Saudia Arabian oil: “Saudi Arabia’s strategic alliance with the United States will continue and as a derivative of that, the link with the oil between oil and dollars is there. The bulk of our GDP, the bulk of budget comes from oil and oil is still a dollar based commodity.” As Media Matters has documented, Fox News is a reliable source of misinformation on clean energy, and has aggressively attacked efforts to move America away from a fossil fuel dependent economy. – On opposing financial reforms, bank responsibility fee: “In a way I’m conflicted because I’m invested in Citigroup but at the more global picture, I’m a big supporter of the United States. I believe taxing the banks right now is not the right thing at all. It’s like you have a patient coming out of an ICU.” Alwaleed owns a $4.3 billion dollars stake in Citigroup, a massive bank that spent millions lobbying against financial reform last year.
With the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision essentially freeing corporations to spend unlimited amounts in campaigns, theoretically Alwaleed can pressure the American corporations he owns stock in to spend millions — or even billions — of dollars attacking candidates he opposes. In addition to his powerful Fox News outlet, Alwaleed and other foreign investors have potentially unprecedented power to impact American elections.
Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (from YouTube)Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal now owns a 7 percent stake in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, making him the company's largest shareholder outside of Murdoch's own family. Alwaleed is best known for going to Ground Zero after the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks and personally handing then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani a check for $10 million to help finance relief efforts. Afterwards, Alwaleed released a statement blaming the attacks not on the Saudi airline hijackers, but on U.S. policies in the middle east. As a result, Giuliani returned the prince's donation, gaining him praise from Fox News for doing so. Now that Alwaleed has a controlling ownership in News Corp., he is gaining influence over Fox News. In 2005, just months after Alwaleed acquired his first 5.4 percent stake in News Corp., Fox News covered riots in Paris under a banner saying "Muslim riots." Alwaleed allegedly called Murdoch and had him change the banner to say "Civil riots." Investigative journalist Joseph Trento also reported that a comment he recently made on a Fox Network morning news show, Fox and Friends, about Saudi Arabian money still financing Al Qaeda, was edited out of the show. Trento also reports that Alwaleed "has personally donated huge amounts of money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers." In a rare interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto in January, AlWaleed explained his personal reasons for seeking influence in American politics: the U.S. buys Saudi Arabia's oil, and the bulk of his country's gross domestic product (GDP) comes from oil. Fox News reliably broadcasts misinformation on clean energy, and aggressively fights efforts to move America away from being dependent on a fossil fuels.
The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and is owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate owned by the Unification Church which also owns newspapers in South Korea, Japan, and South America. The Times is sometimes considered to be a socially and politically conservative alternative to the larger and more well-known Washington Post. Times' editorial: That the mosque will be funded from abroad reinforces the view that the proposed mosque is not an effort to serve a Muslim community in Lower Manhattan and is instead a symbolic effort to claim the area near Ground Zero for Islam. It is pertinent that Mr. Rauf, the mosque mastermind, has refused to admit Muslims had anything to do with the Sept. 11 attacks, and he quipped, "Osama bin Laden was made in the USA." This calls into question his self-identification as a "moderate" Muslim.
The ground zero mosque, which is stirring such a sandstorm in New York City, isn't so popular in certain precincts of the Middle East, either. Some Muslims there think President Obama and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York are nuts. Impotent and irresolute, too.
Some of the believers in Arabia say the mosque is a conspiracy hatched by the Jews to set out a clear and permanent connection between Sept. 11 and Islam, a constant reminder of an attack on America led by devout Muslims. Dr. Abd al-Muti Bayumi, a prominent fellow of the Islamic Research Academy of Al Azhar, sometimes regarded as "the Vatican of Sunni Islam," says the construction of a mosque anywhere near ground zero is the child of a "devious mentality" to connect the dots of Sept. 11 and Islam, to stoke memories of barbarism in the name of Islam.
Another Arab notable, Dr. Amna Nazir, a professor of doctrine and philosophy at Al Azhar, calls "building a mosque on this rubble indicates bad intention — even if we wished to shut our eyes, close our minds and insist on good will." These are not the empty sentiments of good will and sensitivity so beloved of the girly men of the West. Rather, they are statements of concern that "Zionist conspiracy" aid in construction of the ground zero mosque will ultimately damage Islam. Dr. Bayumi, for one, preaches suicidal jihad to demonstrate that his heart is in the wrong place: "I say in all honesty that we recruit the people of Islam, and instill in them the spirit of the true jihad, which is death for the sake of Allah, for the sake of our faith."
The skepticism and hostility in Arabia to building the ground zero mosque — and until recently the proposed mosque was bigger news in the Middle East than in Minneapolis or Memphis — contrasts sharply with the enthusiasm of Muslims for the project in America. What do Muslims in Arabia know that Muslims in America don't? Sounds like a lot. Raymond Ibrahim, associate director of the Middle East Forum, author of "The Al Qaeda Reader" and guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College, thinks it's a result of culture and geography: "I believe it has to do with the differing mentalities of Western, or 'indigenous,' Muslims. The [indigenous Muslims], who have had little experience of the West, simply cannot believe that Muslims [in America] would be so foolhardy as to pursue such an obvious affront to their host nation." An indigenous Muslim can't believe that even an infidel nation would tolerate the insult. He knows what a similar insult, such as the construction of a Christian chapel in Saudi Arabia, would invite in an Islamic country. Not knowing very much about the world, he expects a similar result from the infidels.
Muslims in the West, on the other hand, have learned to game the system in the West, particularly in America, where the elites' thirst for moonshine seems unquenchable. Muslim troublemakers have learned to expect apologies and excuses for anything they do so long as they invoke the right liberal weasel words, such as "tolerance" or "pluralism" or "dialogue." They've learned that talk of "building bridges," particularly if the bridges lead to nowhere, are preferred fare in the salons of the elites. Insulting Americans invites only apologies, accompanied by abundant bowing and curtsying. George W. Bush went to the Islamic Center in Washington only six days after Sept. 11 to preach that "Islam is peace," that "when we think of Islam, we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world." Too bad for both George W. and Islam, but that's not what most people have come to think of. You couldn't expect Michael R. Bloomberg to understand any of this, but Barack Obama, the son and stepson of Muslims who received his early education in Islamic schools, must know better. He should be familiar with the Islamic worldview that warm and fuzzy feel-good talk — what we once called "appeasement" — correctly invites contempt from men with strongly held conviction, however evil that conviction might be.
The American elites no longer understand strongly held convictions, good or evil, religious or political. The church and synagogue is only a place for rites and ritual, a place to marry your daughters and bury your dead. But devout Muslims really believe. They never apologize for who they are or what they believe. They have only contempt for the platitudes they have learned to use so effectively in hoodwinking the West — and for presidents who peddle the moonshine.
(Rob Diamond is the chairman of Organizing for America's Vets and Military Families Outreach Council, a Security Fellow at Truman National Security Project, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and a Navy Veteran. - promoted by Richard Allen Smith)
This piece was originally posted on March 8th, 2010 at HuffingtonPost.com
I received an email Monday morning that stopped me in my tracks. It contained a link to the seemingly noble organization called the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF) (http://www.specialops.org) - a 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt, federally registered charity whose own mission statement says:
"The Special Operations Warrior Foundation provides full scholarship grants and educational and family counseling to the surviving children of special operations personnel who die in operational or training missions and immediate financial assistance to severely wounded special operations personnel and their families."
As a veteran who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom I thought, "what a meaningful charitable organization to give my support." But sadly, things are not as noble as they look.
Read a little further on the homepage of the SOWF website, under the "Latest News" column, and you will see a link to none other than Glenn Beck. Yes, that Glenn Beck.
SOWF, it turns out, is the designated charitable organization that will benefit from a rally Glenn Beck is hosting on August 28th on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC--it is being called the "Restoring Honor Rally." (http://www.glennbeck.com/828/).
Or at least that is what Glenn Beck and SOWF want you to believe.
What is actually happening--and what is so obviously wrong--is that the rally is not actually raising money for SOWF. SOWF is raising all the money to pay for the rally.
Don't believe me? Just read the plain-as-day, italicized font on the SOWF website:
"All contributions made to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF) will first be applied to the costs of the Restoring Honor Rally taking place on August 28, 2010. All contributions in excess of these costs will then be retained by the SOWF."
That's weird, I thought. I give $100 to SOWF and it goes to Glenn Beck first, college scholarships for children of deceased special operators (maybe) second? Why would Glenn Beck be using a charitable organization, whose mission it is to provide college scholarships to the children of deceased special operators, as the financing arm of his "non-political, non-partisan" rally? Glenn Beck got paid $18 million last year (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-empire-of-glenn-beck-slideshow-2009-4). Surely, these kids need the money more than he does.
Should it not be the other way around? I would think you would donate to the rally and then they would donate the money to SOWF? I am a Navy veteran and not a lawyer, but does that not smell like someone exploiting a charity at the least, or money-laundering at worst?
Let's cut to the chase and stop being naïve. The Special Operations Warrior Foundation is now serving as a financial front man for the right-wing, Fox News demagogue that is Glenn Beck. This so-called "rally" has nothing to do with SOWF's stated (and noble) mission of giving college scholarships to children of deceased servicemembers.
We all know this rally is going to be nothing more than an anti-Obama, anti-government, pro-Tea Party hate-fest with Glenn Beck spewing his vitriol under the banner of "supporting our troops."
Well, as one of those troops, I am calling this for what it is--a deceitful and deceptive attempt on behalf of far-right extremists to profit off of the memory of my fellow servicemen and women killed in action. Nothing is more wrong or disgusting.
Similarly, why is the leadership of the SOWF putting at risk their tax-exempt charitable status by engaging in this activity? Why would they risk the good name and good work they have done in the past in order to support someone like Glenn Beck?
Oh, I see, SOWF's Board of Directors is stacked with right-wing ideologues like Erik Prince, the founder and head of Blackwater (yes, that Blackwater).
Do what you want, but I will keep giving my money to real charities like Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (http://www.iava.org), Achilles International's Freedom Team of Wounded Veterans (http://www.achillesinternational.org/programs/freedom-team/overview) and The Wounded Warrior Project (http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/)-- organizations that actually provide support to Veterans and their families who have earned and need the assistance.
I have no need to give my money to a multi-millionaire, hate-spewing faux patriot who has never served a day in his life in uniform, but would rather take money from those that have.
Shame on you Glenn Beck and SOWF. What a disgrace.
On Saturday, August 28, Fox News conservative pundit Glenn Beck is hosting a rally at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. called Restoring Honor. Set to take place from 10 am to 1 pm, this apolitical event is billed as a gathering to “honor our heroes, our heritage, and our future” and is expected to “pay tribute to America’s service personnel and other upstanding citizens who embody our nation’s founding principles of integrity, truth, and honor,” according to Beck’s website. Contrary to popular belief, Beck stresses that the event is not a Tea Party rally, nor is it political in nature.
“There will be absolutely no politics involved. This rally will honor the troops, unite the American people under the principles of integrity and truth, and make a pledge to restore honor within ourselves and our country.”
To emphasize the apolitical nature of the event, Beck has asked attendees not to bring signs of any variety to the gathering, in that “they may deter from the peaceful message we are bringing to Washington.”
Despite the seemingly benign intents of the Restoring Honor rally, the event has faced fierce opposition from civil rights leaders angered over Beck’s choice to host the rally on August 28, the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
Confused by the anger that the date of the event ha s provoked, Beck responds, “Blacks don’t own the legacy of Martin Luther King just as whites don’t own the legacy of Abraham Lincoln.”
In response, social activists, including Reverend Al Sharpton, are planning marches and demonstrations on the same day in order to coincide with Beck’s event.
Similarly, New Black Panther Party Chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz promises that the New Black Panther Party will meet Beck at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
The Left’s attempts at creating controversy over what should be a completely uncontroversial event have done little to deter Americans from making plans to attend.
Buses from as far as Washington and California as well as Vermont and New Hampshire have been scheduled to take interested parties to the rally, and many have already been sold out. Likewise, hotels in the Washington, D.C. area are filling up fast.
According to the Conservative Daily News, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly projects that the event will host approximately 15 to 20 thousand people, while Beck is hoping for well over 100,000.
Aware that many Americans are unable to attend the event for financial, work-related, or personal reasons, Beck has asked Americans to participate in any way they can, whether it is through spiritual engagements like fasting and praying, or through social participation such as promoting the event to friends and families, or donating money to the event (as all proceeds will be to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation).
Above all, Beck has emphasized that the event should encourage Americans to restore honor in their own lives.
While Beck has worked hard to keep much of the event secretive to preserve the element of surprise, announced speakers at the event include Beck, Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent, Dr. Alveda King — niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Marcus Luttrell.
Country artist Jo Dee Messina is set to perform at the event as well.
Beck contends that Restoring Honor will be an event “for the textbooks.” Whether such an rally will make its way into the pages of notoriously unpatriotic school textbooks is debatable, but one thing is certain: Americans across the country (including yours truly) are excited at the potential and will be flocking to D.C. on Saturday to be part of something big.
Those interested in the event should visit http://www.glennbeck.com/828/ for further information.
Geert Wilders, head of the Dutch Freedom party, is in the role of kingmaker in attempts to form a new coalition government. Photograph: Ben The Dutch government has launched a damage-limitation campaign to try to counter what it fears is the disastrous international impact of the Islam-bashing populist Geert Wilders.
Wilders, whose success in June's general election catapulted him into the role of kingmaker in attempts to form a new coalition government, is to travel to New York to take part in protests on 11 September against the proposed Muslim community centre near Ground Zero.
Maxime Verhagen, the acting foreign minister and Christian Democrats' leader, has voiced fears that Wilders's speech in New York will tarnish Dutch reputations. He has also taken the unusual step of circulating confidential orders to Dutch diplomats around the world on how to answer questions about Wilders's influence in a new government and on the fallout for Muslims in the Netherlands.
With characteristic robustness, Wilders has told Verhagen to mind his own business. He clearly intends to grab attention with a tub-thumping exercise in Islamophobia in New York.
"Good feeling. Important speech. No one will stop me. No mosque at Ground Zero," he tweeted after booking a flight to New York. "Stop Islam, defend freedom" is his rallying cry.
The tensions over 9/11 and New York come as Wilders savours his growing clout at home. His Freedom party is running at 31% in the most recent opinion poll, ahead of all other contenders, and he has spent most of this week at a secret location with Verhagen and Mark Rutte, the liberals' leader, haggling over the terms for a new coalition government.
Wilders, whose party almost tripled its seats, from nine to 24, in the June election, is not joining the new cabinet. Instead, he will prop up a rightwing coalition of liberals and Christian Democrats in return for pledges of a tough new crackdown on immigration and other policy concessions. If the talks succeed, Wilders will be in the enviable position of wielding power while abjuring responsibility.
The negotiations have been going on for a fortnight and are supposed to be concluded next week. But they are said to be going badly.
A coalition backed by Wilders would command the slimmest of majorities – 76 seats in the 150-seat second chamber or lower house. The Trouw newspaper yesterday reported at least one dissident Christian Democrat MP would not support it, making it unviable.
Verhagen is in a difficult position. While negotiating with Wilders, he is also telling his diplomats how to undermine the rightwing maverick. Verhagen faces mounting resistance within his own party to collaborating, even if only tacitly, with Wilders.
Last week German Christian Democrats joined Dutch party dissidents in calling for a boycott of Wilders.
The latest opinion polls show Wilders soaring ahead of Rutte's liberal VVD party. Rutte, who is expected to be the new prime minister, supports an immigration crackdown and other anti-EU and hardline policies demanded by Wilders. But the two rightwingers are split over the main issue – austerity and budget cuts. Rutte is committed to slashing public spending by €18bn to halve the budget deficit from almost 7%. He is demanding health service, education, welfare and social security cuts.
Wilders, who is being prosecuted in Amsterdam on charges of inciting hatred and discrimination, is portraying himself as the protector of Dutch welfare, while calling for a tax on Islamic headscarves, a ban on the Qur'an, closure of Islamic schools, deportation of immigrants and proscribing mosque-building.
Verhagen has told his ambassadors how to cope with foreigners' questions such as "What will that mean for the treatment of Muslims?" if Wilders props up a new government.
Swedish and international media have today published the news that the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, first was charged in his absence on suspicion of rape and molestation in Stockholm, something the chief prosecutor later pulled back. Assange has the whole time denied the allegations. Now one of the two women behind the allegations speak out in Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.
When the 30-year-old woman came into contact with a woman who told that Assange had raped her, the two went to the police.
It was during his current visit to Sweden, among else to hold talks and meet with representatives from the Pirate Party, that Julian Assange met the two women, who has not previously seen either him or each other. He is now suspected of raping one of the women and for molestation of the other.
The 30-year-old woman said that she, for her part claims to be a victim of molestation, but not a rape.
The origins of the police report came last Friday. Another woman approached her and told a similar, but worse history. The second woman is between 20 and 30 years of age.
For the sake of the ongoing police investigation, the 30-year old woman does not want to tell more details yet, but she has left a very detailed statement to the police. Also the other woman has made a detailed statement to the police.
"I immediately believed in what she told me because I had an experience similar to her story," the woman said to Aftonbladet.
The two women then decided to jointly go to the police to leave their statements.
She says that it is not true, as some media have reported, that they would be afraid of Assange and therefore refused to notify the police.
"He is not violent and I do not feel threatened by him," said the woman.
In both cases, it is about a situation starting as voluntary sex, that in a later stage overstepped into molestation.
"The other woman wanted to report the rape. I gave my story as a testimony to hers and to support her. We fully stand behind our statements."
Wikileaks founder Assange has been at odds
with the US [Photo: Esther Dyson, via Flickr]
Swedish prosecutors have cancelled an arrest warrant issued for Julian Assange, the founder of controversial whistleblower website Wikileaks.
The warrant was issued following a sexual assault complaint against him. But on Saturday, as international media outlets were beginning to pick up the story, Eva Finne, Sweden's chief prosecutor, announced that Assange was no longer wanted. "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape," the chief prosecutor said, but declined to go into any more details.
Assange had denied the allegations,saying via Twitter that the charges were "without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing".
The prosecutor's office in Stockholm said an arrest warrant was issued for the 39-year-old Australian national late on Friday for suspicion of rape and molestation. 'Dirty tricks'
After Swedish tabloid Expressen,first published reports that the arrest warrant had been issued for Assange, Wikileaks responded on Twittersaying: "We were warned to expect 'dirty tricks.' Now we have the first one."
"No one here has been contacted by Swedish police. Needless to say this will prove hugely distracting."
Assange's organisation has caused much controversy recently with the release of 75,000 classified US military documentscontaining information surrounding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The US government rejected the release of the documents, saying the website had "blood on its hands" for naming people who had helped its military in opposition to groups such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and ordered Wikileaks to return the files.
I thought I could
Wikileaks, meanwhile, has said that it is plans to reveal more of the remaining 15,000 classified documents it holds, possibly this month or next month.
Al Jazeera's Paul Brennan, in London, said: "The two alleged victims in this are in their twenties.
"One is supposed to have happened last weekend in Stockholm and another last Tuesday in Sweden but in a separate town."
Assange was in Sweden last week partly to apply for a publishing certificate to maintain the advantages it receives from the country's whistle-blowing protection laws. Wikileaks also has many of its servers in Sweden.
Girls queue for food at a camp for people displaced by floods on the outskirts of Sukkur, southern PakistanPhoto: AP
Flood survivors carry relief goods along a flooded area in Muzaffargarh, Punjab Photo: AP
Islamist insurgents attacked police posts in Pakistan's northwest, killing two members of a local militia following an hour-long gun battle with police.
Dozens of militants from the Khyber tribal region then attacked police posts in Peshawar.
"As the police force is busy in rescue and relief work for flood affectees, militants tried to take advantage of the situation to attack Peshawar, but the police force was fully alert and vigilant," said Liaqat Ali Khan, Peshawar's police chief.
Frustration at the slow relief effort is resulting in increasing anger. About 100 people mobbed two trucks that were delivering food in Shirkapur, in the southern province of Sindh. People climbed the side of the truck to grab supplies, forcing relief workers to whip them with lengths of rope to keep them away.
Foreign aid has begun flowing to the 20 million flood victims, as the European Union nearly doubled its aid to 70 million euros, but the slow pace is translating into increased hostility for President Asif Ali Zardari.
Yesterday he risked further ire by leaving the devastated country for a visit to Russia.
However, he insisted Pakistan would recover.
"Pakistan will come out of this a stronger nation," Mr Zardari said at a meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in southern Russia.
"We have... the capabilities, we have the people, and all tragedies always unite nations. This tragedy will again unite us."
Fears that militants are seeking to exploit the current humanitarian crisis in Pakistan come as the country's ISI intelligence agency said Islamic terrorists groups have now replaced India as the main threat to Pakistan's security.
The recognition that New Delhi is no longer the country's top security priority is major departure for Pakistan's army which in the past has used the 'Indian threat' to justify excessive military spending and funding militant groups to attack Indian forces in Kashmir.
But that assessment has changed since Taliban militants launched a wave of suicide bombings throughout the country and attacked military and police training colleges, and even the army and ISI's own headquarters.
A senior Pakistan intelligence source last night told The Daily Telegraph "We estimate the threat from internal forces to be priority number one," but stressed India still "loomed" in its defence considerations.
"India continues the loom large behind everything. That threat also remains," he added.
The raid came the day after Mr. Rage said Shabab was launching a “massive war” against “invaders” who would “face larger attacks from now on.” 
Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch has partnered with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal to launch a new 24-hour news network for the Arab world, a move that has drawn mockery from Murdoch's critics and questions from media experts.
The wife of ‘Imam’ Feisal Abdul Rauf, the founder of the proposed mosque three blocks away from ground zero in lower Manhattan has further fanned the flames of the controversy by comparing opposition to the project to a hatred of Jews.
Another report revealed that Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the co-owner of News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, has also directly funded Rauf’s projects to the tune of more than $300,000.
The ground zero mosque, which is stirring such a sandstorm in New York City, isn't so popular in certain precincts of the Middle East, either. Some Muslims there think President Obama and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York are nuts. Impotent and irresolute, too.
Sounds like a lot. Raymond Ibrahim, associate director of the Middle East Forum, author of "The Al Qaeda Reader" and guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College, thinks it's a result of culture and geography: "I believe it has to do with the differing mentalities of Western, or 'indigenous,' Muslims. The [indigenous Muslims], who have had little experience of the West, simply cannot believe that Muslims [in America] would be so foolhardy as to pursue such an obvious affront to their host nation." An indigenous Muslim can't believe that even an infidel nation would tolerate the insult. He knows what a similar insult, such as the construction of a Christian chapel in Saudi Arabia, would invite in an Islamic country. Not knowing very much about the world, he expects a similar result from the infidels.
Too bad for both George W. and Islam, but that's not what most people have come to think of. You couldn't expect Michael R. Bloomberg to understand any of this, but Barack Obama, the son and stepson of Muslims who received his early education in Islamic schools, must know better. He should be familiar with the Islamic worldview that warm and fuzzy feel-good talk — what we once called "appeasement" — correctly invites contempt from men with strongly held conviction, however evil that conviction might be.
Sounds like a lot. Raymond Ibrahim, associate director of the Middle East Forum, author of "The Al Qaeda Reader" and guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College, thinks it's a result of culture and geography: "I believe it has to do with the differing mentalities of Western, or 'indigenous,' Muslims. The [indigenous Muslims], who have had little experience of the West, simply cannot believe that Muslims [in America] would be so foolhardy as to pursue such an obvious affront to their host nation." An indigenous Muslim can't believe that even an infidel nation would tolerate the insult. He knows what a similar insult, such as the construction of a Christian chapel in Saudi Arabia, would invite in an Islamic country. Not knowing very much about the world, he expects a similar result from the infidels.
Too bad for both George W. and Islam, but that's not what most people have come to think of. You couldn't expect Michael R. Bloomberg to understand any of this, but Barack Obama, the son and stepson of Muslims who received his early education in Islamic schools, must know better. He should be familiar with the Islamic worldview that warm and fuzzy feel-good talk — what we once called "appeasement" — correctly invites contempt from men with strongly held conviction, however evil that conviction might be.
Swedish and international media have today published the news that the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, first was charged in his absence on suspicion of rape and molestation in Stockholm, something the chief prosecutor later pulled back. Assange has the whole time denied the allegations. Now one of the two women behind the allegations speak out in Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.
The two women then decided to jointly go to the police to leave their statements.
But on Saturday, as international media outlets were beginning to pick up the story, Eva Finne, Sweden's chief prosecutor, announced that Assange was no longer wanted.
