When Candidate Barack Obama declared himself a “citizen of the world” before thousands of cheering German socialists, and later pledged to “rejoin the World Community,” those weren’t just his usual platitudes about “change.” Those words sounded the trumpet for his specific and far-reaching globalist agenda.
Obama plans to use his presidential power to get the Democratic-majority Senate to ratify a series of treaties that would take us a long way toward global rule over our money, our laws, our military, our courts, our customs, our trade, and even our use of energy. Here are the treaties he says he wants.
The UN Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), which Reagan rejected in 1982, is high on Obama’s list. LOST has already created the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Jamaica and given it total regulatory jurisdiction over all the world’s oceans and all the riches on the ocean floor.
Corrupt foreign dictators dominate LOST’s global bureaucracy, and the U.S. would have the same vote as Cuba. Likewise for LOST’s International Tribunal in Hamburg, Germany, which has the power to decide all disputes.
Even worse, LOST gives the ISA the power to levy international taxes. The real purpose of the taxing power is to compel the United States to spend billions of private-enterprise dollars to mine the ocean floor and then let ISA bureaucrats transfer our wealth to socialist, anti-American nations.
Next on Obama’s list is the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which was signed by Bill Clinton but rejected by the Senate in 1999. It would prohibit all nuclear explosive testing and thereby allow our nuclear arsenal to deteriorate until the American people are defenseless against rogue regimes such as Iran and North Korea.
A new Global Warming Treaty is starting to be written at the UN Climate Change Conference in Poland in order to replace the Kyoto Agreement which George W. Bush and our Senate refused to ratify. The new treaty would force dramatic reductions in our use of energy, i.e., our standard of living, and impose the “strong international norms” that Obama seeks.
Obama is toadying to his feminist friends by pushing ratification of the UN Treaty on Women, known as CEDAW. It was signed by Jimmy Carter in 1980 and persistently promoted by Hillary Clinton, but the Senate has so far had the good judgment to refuse to ratify it.
This treaty would require us “to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women,” to follow UN dictates about “family education,” to revise our textbooks to conform to feminist ideology in order to ensure “the elimination of any stereotyped concept of the roles of men and women,” and to set up a federal “network of child-care facilities.”
Article 16 would require us to allow women “to decide number and spacing of their children.” Everyone recognizes this as feminist jargon for a UN obligation to allow abortion on demand.
Like all UN treaties, the UN Treaty on Women creates a monitoring commission of so-called “experts” to ensure compliance. The monitors of the Treaty on Women have already singled out Mother’s Day as a stereotype that must be eliminated.
Another UN Treaty on the list is the UN Treaty on the Rights of the Child, which was signed in 1995 by Bill Clinton but wisely never ratified by our Senate. This is a pet project of the people who believe that the “village” (i.e., the government or UN “experts") should raise children rather than their parents.
This treaty would give children rights against their parents and society to express their own views “freely in all matters,” to receive information of all kinds through “media of the child’s choice,” to use their “own language,” and to have the right to “rest and leisure.” This treaty even orders our schools to teach respect for “the Charter of the United Nations.”
These Obama-endorsed treaties, every one of which would be a dramatic encroachment on U.S. sovereignty, would be supplemented by trade agreements negotiated by Obama’s Trade Representative, Ron Kirk. He is an enthusiastic supporter of the ”global economic community“ (which means open borders for “free” trade), of NAFTA, and even of the NAFTA SuperHighway, which he calls the “true river of trade between our communities.”
Kirk’s work to lock us into the global economy will be bolstered by Obama’s Secretary of Commerce, Bill Richardson, another aggressive promoter of “free” trade.
Every UN treaty would interfere with self-government over some aspect of our lives and would transfer significant power to foreign bureaucrats, many of whom hate and envy America. Obama’s UN treaties are the enemy of U.S. political and social independence, and Kirk’s global economic community is the enemy of good middle-class American jobs.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (Communist News Network) — The U.S. Army is investigating allegations that Special Forces troops killed an al Qaeda suspect in cold blood and cut off his finger during an overnight operation near Baghdad earlier this month.
The December 10 raid, on a house in the Salman Pak district, 15 miles south of Baghdad, targeted suspected bomb-maker Hardan al-Jaburi.
In a statement, the U.S. military said al-Jaburi, armed with an AK-47, confronted troops conducting the raid.
"Perceiving hostile intent, the forces engaged the armed man, killing him," the statement said.
But his relatives, assisted by a tribal leader, complained in a meeting with U.S. officials in Baghdad’s Green Zone that al-Jaburi was singled out by troops after he was rounded up along with his brothers.
Soldiers ordered him into the family’s house and then shot him dead, the relatives said. In addition to the family’s claims, sources told CNN that concern within the U.S. military itself about the way the raid was conducted also triggered the investigation.
Much of what happened during the raid at the farmhouse that night is not in dispute.
According to the U.S. military, the raid began with an airborne assault. Those inside the house were warned by loudspeakers that it was surrounded. Al-Jaburi and his brothers then surrendered to the Americans. According to both the U.S. military and the family’s account, al-Jaburi went back to the house.
And there is where the stories diverge.
In the U.S. version, al-Jaburi burst out of the house wielding an AK-47 and was shot in the farmyard.
But the Iraqi family’s version is that all the brothers were stripped to their underwear and forced to lie on the ground, unable to move without the Americans’ permission.
The family says the Americans then took al-Jaburi back into the house.
"The American soldiers ordered [al-Jaburi] to go back inside the house," said the dead man’s brother, Nurri. "He was told to turn the lights on. And the moment he turned on the lights, the soldiers opened fire, and then dragged him deeper inside the house."
The relatives showed CNN grainy mobile phone video that showed what appeared to be thick pools of blood on the floor and bloody handprints on the wall in one room of the house.
And the video showed something else — al-Jaburi’s corpse with one finger, apparently the index finger of his right hand, missing — with a bloody gaping wound in its place as though the finger was recently severed.
The dead man’s family said soldiers on the raid cut off his finger and said the mutilation was an act of intimidation.
The military declined comment on that aspect of the case. In its statement about the shooting, the U.S. military said, "We take all allegations of impropriety seriously and are reviewing the operation and procedures used during the operation. As such, while such a review is under way, it would be improper to comment any further at this time."
When a CNN crew visited after the raid, the farmhouse was in disarray from the search. Dresser drawers were tossed in a pile, pieces of furniture were stacked on a disheveled bed — and the bloody handprints remained on the wall.
The family told CNN that military investigators came to the house last week, spoke to family members and took photographs. But there’s no word on when the military’s review of the incident will be completed.
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Michael Be-Ware is known for his anti-U.S. military propaganda. He abhors the U.S. military. That’s a fact.
I watched the video of son of a whore Michael Be-Ware reporting this anti-U.S. military propaganda a few days ago and anything Be-Ware has to say is absolute bullshit. The story was typical propaganda. Be-Ware is a Juan Cole boot licker and he’s a lyin’ leftist POS. Nuff said.
A Lashkar-e-Taiba leader in Pakistani custody admitted to his role in last month’s terror assault in the Indian city of Mumbai, Pakistani sources told The Wall Street Journal. The confession comes as the US and UK provided recording of another senior Lashkar leader speaking to one of the Mumbai terrorists during the operation.
The November terror assault in Mumbai was carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba. The attack was plotted in Pakistan and lasted for more than 60 hours and resulted in more than 170 people killed.
Zarar Shah, "is singing," a Pakistani official involved with the interrogation told the newspaper. Shah is the Lashkar-e-Taiba communications expert who set up the network that allowed the Mumbai terrorists to speak with Lashkar-e-Taiba commanders in Pakistan during the attack. He also serves as a key liaison between the terror group and Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency. Pakistani police detained Shah earlier this month during raids on Lashkar’s offices and train camps.
Shah admitted to being a key planner in the Mumbai assault and "spoke with the attackers during the rampage to give them advice and keep them focused." He also confirmed that the 10 Mumbai terrorists "spent at least a few weeks in Karachi, a crowded Arabian Sea port, training in urban combat to hone skills they would use in their assault."
Shah’s admission matches Indian evidence on Lashkar’s role in the Mumbai assault that was provided to Pakistan. India turned over intercepted communications between Shah and the Mumbai terrorists as well as information from the interrogations of several Lashkar terrorists in custody.
Sabauddin Ahmed.
Ajmal Amir Kasab, the only Mumbai terrorist captured by Indian police, admitted his 10-man team trained in Lashkar camps in Pakistan with the support of the Inter-Service Intelligence agency and launched their attack from the Pakistani port city of Karachi.
Sabauddin Ahmed and Fahim Ansari, two other Lashkar operatives detained earlier this month, also confirmed elements of Shah and Kasab’s account.
Meanwhile, the United States is pressuring Pakistan to turn over Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, the military commander of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Dawn reported. The US has provided Pakistan with communications intercepts between Lakhvi and the Mumbai terrorists. Lakhvi was also detained by Pakistani police during the sweeps against Lashkar offices and camps.
Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi.
Immediately after the Mumbai attack, Indian police recovered a satellite phone with a number that was directly traced to Lakhvi in Muzaffarabad. Indian intelligence also intercepted conversations between Yusuf Muzammil, a senior Lashkar operative and the Mumbai attacks.
Pakistan rejects Indian, US, and UK evidence
Pakistan has rejected the evidence of Lashkar’s complicity in Mumbai that was turned over by India, the US, and the UK. Pakistani officials said the information is "inadmissible in court," Dawn reported. "They said that since the confessions had been obtained under severe pressure by the Indians, this could not be admissible in judicial process. They have insisted that the information provided would not stand scrutiny in any court."
But Pakistan has been duplicitous in the investigation of Kasab’s nationality, refusing to admit he is even a Pakistani despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Pakistan’s position on Kasab, which US intelligence views as "incontrovertible," has frustrated US officials.
Ajmal Amir Kasab, outside the train station in Mumbai during the November terror attack.
Since the Mumbai attack, Pakistan’s president, prime minister, and national security advisor have said evidence on Kasab’s nationality was insufficient. "Have you seen any evidence to that effect," President Asif Ali Zardari said when asked if Kasab was a Pakistan during a BBC interview in mid-December. "I have definitely not seen any real evidence to that effect."
Yesterday, National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani refused to admit Kasab was a Pakistani citizen. "Could be," Durrani said when asked if Kasab was a Pakistani citizen. "I am not saying more than that because we don’t have, I hate to say this we don’t have proof."
But Pakistan has been given proof of Kasab’s nationality. Kasab himself admitted he is from Pakistan and submitted a request for consular access. The request is "under review" by Pakistan’s foreign office.
Kasab’s father and neighbors were interviewed by Pakistani television and news outlets and confirmed he was indeed from Pakistan. His own father identified him and provided a nearly identical account of his son’s background as Kasab gave to Indian intelligence. "This is the truth," Kasab’s father told a Pakistani news outlet. "I have seen the picture in the newspaper. This is my son Ajmal."
Pakistan’s response was to attempt to bury the information. Security forces cordoned the village, removed Kasab’s family from their home and moved someone else in, and forced the townspeople to retract their statements.
"This is absurd, Pakistan can’t even admit one of their citizens was behind the attack," a senior intelligence official told The Long War Journal. "Pakistan can defuse tensions with India by admitting to some basic facts, but instead they are playing legal games. They know damned well Kasab is a Pakistan, and they also know Mumbai was a LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) operation. Pakistan is rubbing the Mumbai attack in the face of India."
U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush said just three weeks ago that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has "no moral basis" to appoint someone to fill Barack Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat — a stark contrast to his endorsement of Blagojevich’s appointment on Tuesday.
Rush joined Blagojevich at his press conference in Chicago to support the pick of Roland Burris, a former state attorney general. Rush said Burris, who is black, would fill the racial void left by Obama as the only black member of the U.S. Senate.
"This is a good decision. Roland Burris is worthy. He has not, in 40 years of public service, had one iota of taint on his record as a public servant," Rush said.
But the Democratic congressman from Illinois expressed a different view on Dec. 9, the day Blagojevich was arrested and accused of trying to sell Obama’s seat.
"His goose is cooked," Rush said of the governor. "He has no moral basis for appointing the next senator from the state of Illinois. … That person would be as tainted as they could be."
Rush said Blagojevich should not make an appointment, and he added that anybody he appoints would be at a "severe disadvantage" when it comes time to run for election in 2010.
On Tuesday, Rush urged the public not to "hang and lynch" Burris simply because he was appointed by Blagojevich.
State Controller John Chiang, who oversees California’s cash flow, warned state agencies Tuesday that unless Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature agree on a budget, the state will have to begin issuing IOUs to some state employees and contractors as early as Feb. 1.
"Without immediate cash solutions or the ability to borrow billions from the strained financial markets, the state controller’s office has no choice but to pursue the deferral of potentially billions of dollars in payments and/or the issuance of … IOUs," Chiang wrote in a letter to state agencies.
Tuesday, Chiang was still in the hospital where he has been since he experienced chest pains Friday while visiting family in Texas. He was in good spirits while awaiting test results, said his spokeswoman, Hallye Jordan. Chiang is 46.
His letter is the latest chapter in the state’s prolonged fiscal crisis, which is estimated to result in a $40 billion deficit by June 2010. State financial officials including Chiang warned earlier this month that the state could run out of cash by the end of February.
Chiang’s letter alerted state agencies to make necessary changes in their computer systems to be able to process IOU payments.
Those likely to be first to receive IOUs are constitutional officers (the governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, secretary of state and controller), lawmakers, judges, politically appointed staffers and vendors that do business with the state, Jordan said.
But the state’s cash crunch could also hold up income tax refunds. Chiang’s notice also asked the Franchise Tax Board to make necessary changes in that agency’s computers to be able to send IOUs to taxpayers.
Despite the impending meltdown of the state’s finances, Schwarzenegger and the Legislature on Tuesday seemed far from a compromise to fix the budget.
"Negotiations have not really progressed with the Legislature, and until they are willing to compromise, the negotiations will not progress," said Aaron McLear, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger.
For the past two weeks, the governor and Democratic legislative leaders have tried to find middle ground by making changes on an $18 billion package of cuts and taxes that the Legislature approved on Dec. 18 in a controversial simple-majority vote that didn’t require Republican support.
Schwarzenegger has said he would veto the package because it did not cut spending enough or go far enough to ease regulations, including environmental rules on building projects.
But Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Baldwin Vista (Los Angeles County), said she thinks there has been progress in budget talks, adding that she is "hopeful that (the governor) will soon sign the $18 billion package that we passed nearly two weeks ago."
Alicia Trost, a spokeswoman for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said insolvency "isn’t an option that any of us should want. The cash crisis we will be faced with in the coming days is our No. 1 motivation for reaching a deal with the governor as soon as possible."
EL PASO - The California man accused of throwing his 2-year-old son out of a moving car on an El Paso road had a record of "habitual" traffic offenses, according to a report in the Marin (Calif.) Independent Journal.
Alfonso Israel De Leon, 34, of San Rafael, Calif., allegedly threw his son out of his car Dec. 20 in the 6600 block of Gateway West just before it crashed into a guardrail.
A police complaint affidavit filed after De Leon’s arrest quotes De Leon as saying the devil "told him to throw out everything he did not need."
The boy suffered minor injuries, police said. A 4-year-old girl was also in the car at the time. Both children are in state custody, police said.
According to the Marin Independent Journal, De Leon has several aliases, including Alfonso Israel De Leon Rodas and Alfonso Israel Rodas.
De Leon was on probation for drunken driving with five prior DUI convictions, and his license is suspended until December 2009, under the name Alfonso Israel Rodas.
When contacted by the newspaper, Marin County Chief Deputy District Attorney Kathryn Mitchell said her office was trying to confirm through a fingerprint comparison that Rodas and De Leon are the same person.
Court documents show Rodas and De Leon have matching Social Security numbers and similar birth dates, according to the newspaper report. Rodas’ birth date in Marin County court records is listed as Aug. 6, 1976. According to El Paso jail records, De Leon’s birth date is Aug. 6, 1974.
According to court documents obtained by the Independent Journal, De Leon was on probation for a 2006 incident in which a San Rafael police officer saw him tailgating a tow truck and honking his horn excessively.
On Dec. 15, 2006, De Leon was sentenced to 14 months in jail after pleading guilty to four DUI counts and three counts involving driving without a valid license or proof of insurance. A three-year prison sentence was stayed pending completion of five years of probation, the newspaper report states.
According to the newspaper, De Leon was also declared a "habitual traffic offender" by the court and his license was suspended for three years. As a condition of his probation, he could not leave Marin County without permission from authorities.
De Leon had asked the probation department in Marin County for a travel permit to take his children on a 35-day trip to Mexico. The department referred the request to a judge, who granted the request during a Dec. 4 hearing.
De Leon was ordered to appear in court on Jan. 12 for a status hearing.
LOS ANGELES — More than 100,000 California health care professionals – including doctors, dentists and therapists – have not been given criminal background checks by the state boards that license them, according to a report published Tuesday.
The Department of Consumer Affairs identified about 104,000 professionals from various levels of medical care that have not been through fingerprint screening, the Los Angeles Times said.
An investigation in the fall by the newspaper and ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization, determined that about 195,000 of the state’s registered and vocational nurses had not been vetted for criminal backgrounds.
Since that investigation, Department of Consumer Affairs director Carrie Lopez has ordered the 20 health care boards and bureaus she oversees for the state to collect fingerprints from any licensee who has not been screened, and to ask them if they have been convicted of a crime since their last renewal as other states do.
"I have and fully intend to make use of all resources to ensure that we remove threats to the public safety and well-being of Californians," Lopez said in a written statement.
The state’s medical boards have had inconsistent rules for screening.
The Dental Bureau of California began asking for fingerprints in 1986 but have virtually none on file for any dentists first licensed before then, according to the board’s executive officer Cathleen Poncabare.
Julianne D’Angelo Fellmeth, administrative director of the Center for Public Interest Law at the University of San Diego said citizens depend on the state "to screen out those who are incompetent or impaired or dishonest or otherwise unqualified. If the state doesn’t do that for whatever reason, we’re all in trouble."
Megachurch Pastor Rick Warren, Obama’s pick to deliver his inauguration’s invocation, has become controversial because, like most clergy, he opposes same-sex marriage. Getting almost no attention so far is Obama’s choice to deliver the benediction, the far left, conspiracy-minded and verbally intemperate Rev. Joseph Lowery, who is an older version of Jeremiah Wright.
A venerated veteran of the Civil Rights Movement, Lowery followed the leftward trajectory of many civil rights colleagues, whose political alliances with white liberals yanked them away from the theological conservatism of traditional black churches. Although his United Methodist denomination prohibits it, Lowery supports same-sex unions. And he affirms abortion rights. Lowery has joined Cindy Sheehan’s anti-war demonstrators outside President Bush’s Crawford ranch, opining that Iraqi mothers believe U.S. troops are "terrorists." He once linked arms with PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat and sang "We Shall Overcome." He believes that the U.S. Government was complicit in Martin Luther King’s assassination, and that the CIA has imported drugs from Central America. When Daniel Ortega headed the Sandinista Marxist dictatorship in Nicaragua, Lowery hosted a reception for him in Atlanta. He apparently was a formal advisor to the now defunct Christic Institute, a 1980’s era litigator that alleged that the Iran-Contra episode was merely the cog of a 30 year long "secret team" conspiracy governing U.S. foreign policy.
In 2006, Lowery created media waves by exploiting Coretta Scott King’s funeral to declare with his usual political banality: "We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. But Coretta knew and we know that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor!" Such verbiage has been common for Lowery, now age 87, at United Methodist and other church functions over the years. His oratorical blasts are always vapidly left-wing and assume America has only degenerated since 1968.
"You could get away with anything as long as you said you were fighting communism," Lowery exclaimed at a 2000 banquet of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society in Cleveland. "We demonized the saints and canonized the Devil!," is how he described America’s role in the Cold War. "We’ve sown the seed and now we’re reaping the whirlwind."
Dismissive of the then recent forcible return of little Elian Gonzalez to Castro’s Cuba by the Clinton Administration, Lowery scoffingly asked: "What if Reagan had ordered the raid in Miami!" And he sarcastically complained, "We’re still fearful of the great empire of Cuba." Lowery claimed conservatives would make God "male, white [and] racist," that affirmative action was "born in the New Testament, not the Nixon Administration," that America sends "smart bombs on dumb missions," that America’s criminal justice system in 1999 was "almost a replica of the system of 1909," and that capital punishment by lethal injection was something the "Nazis started." Of America’s military and its "don’t ask, don’t tell policy," he asserted: "If you deceive you can be a general, but if you’re honest you can’t serve."
Four years later, Lowery again spoke to the same United Methodist audience, this time in Pittsburgh, speaking just as incorrigibly as ever, urging the church to take a sinful America "down by the riverside." Repeating the usual bromides about the poorer getting poorer at the hands of the rich, he called low minimum wages and the absence of socialized medicine "weapons of mass destruction." And he urged beating missiles into "morsels of bread" and tanks into tractors. "Don’t we have something better to offer the world than swords and missiles and smart bombs on stupid missions?" he asked. "The God I serve loves the motherless child in Baghdad as much as he loves the motherless child in Boston," he declared, implying that his targets do not care about Iraqi children.
Lowery blamed America’s supposed "re-segregation" on "these judges appointed by [Presidents] Reagan and Bush." The 2000 election in Florida proved that some Americans are still denied voting rights, resulting in Bush’s being "selected" rather than elected, he claimed. Denouncing the U.S. War on Terror, Lowery asserted: "We’ve have done more to help Bin Laden in his demagoguery than anything I know of" by killing and outraging Muslims. After sarcastically asking if President Bush were a fellow United Methodist, Lowery smilingly responded to the left-wing crowd’s audible disapproval: "Don’t blame me; I didn’t let him in!" And he incomprehensibly compared Bush to segregationist George Wallace.
Such high-toned comments earned Lowery the Robert O. Cooper Peace and Justice Award from the Human Rights Center at Southern Methodist University (SMU) earlier this year, which he received at Munger Place United Methodist Church in Dallas by delivering his usual rambling and politicized sermon. According to the Dallas Morning News, United Methodist and SMU reports, he was dismissive of Christians who affirm traditional teachings about marriage and the sanctity of life, preferring ostensibly more important causes, like opposing the Iraq War. "We have lost too many Americans (in the Iraq war)," he proclaimed. "There are too many Americans who have been injured … millions of Iraqis have been killed, (and) you are worried about someone’s sexuality?
"We have to find out what really matters," Lowery insisted. "Too many of our people believe that propaganda of looking for weapons of mass destruction. Creating weapons of mass destruction keeps us from focusing on major issues like feeding the hungry and poverty." He condemned the Bush administration for making "God the god of war, and the god of the rich and powerful." Lowery evidently shares the typical Religious Left emphasis on political correctness over personal morality. "We need to be discerning about the major issues. Abortion — that’s a minor issue. I’m all for life, but I’m also for freedom of choice. We can’t be the judge of what a woman does with her body. We have too many distractions."
Naturally, Lowery defended his kindred spirit, Jeremiah Wright. "What’s wrong with Jeremiah Wright’s preaching?" he wondered. "Prophetic preaching has been around in the black church for years. That’s all I do. The only reason why no one says anything about me is because I don’t have a member who is a presidential candidate."
Of course, Lowery did not then know he would serve prominently in Obama’s inauguration. But rather than become the object of deserved controversy for his leftist theology and paranoid politics, he has been overshadowed by Rick Warren’s conventional views on same-sex marriage. Perhaps the public will awake to the reality that it is Lowery and not Warren who is the clerical oddity.
CNSNews.com – The Chicago Public Schools, whose superintendent, Arne Duncan, has been tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to be the next education secretary, failed to meet the Illinois state standards set under the No Child Left Behind Act every single year the standards have been in force.
For the last five school years (2004-2008), the Chicago district (District 299) failed to make “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) in key areas, according to the district’s progress report on the Illinois State Board of Education Web site.
Under the No Child Left Behind Act that Congress passed in 2003, each state must “develop and implement a statewide accountability system” to ensure annual progress in all educational agencies and public schools in the state.
Illinois administers a test every spring to determine proficiency in reading and math. The results are combined with each school’s participation rate and attendance rate (for elementary schools) or participation rate and graduation rate (for high schools), to determine if the school or district has made its AYP goal.
In 2006, 58 percent of students in the Chicago Public Schools met the state standards in reading and 59.7 percent met the state standards in mathematics. Both percentages were above the set 47.5 percent AYP success rate for that year.
However, to be counted as making Adequate Yearly Progress, schools must also achieve proficiency for all subgroups of students–White, Black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, Native American, Multiracial/Ethnic, Limited English Proficiency (LEP), Students with Disabilities and the Economically Disadvantaged (ED).
In 2006, for example, only 20.2 percent of Chicago’s “Students with Disabilities” subgroup met the state reading standards, and only 22.9 percent met the math requirement–both well below the expected percentage. As a result, the Chicago school district did not meet AYP goals in 2006.
In 2008, meanwhile, 60.1 percent of all students for the district achieved the standard in reading, which was below the 62.5 percent level required for that year.
The Black subgroup failed to meet the minimum level of proficiency in both reading and math, and the Hispanic subgroup fell short in reading along with the LEP and ED subgroups. The Students with Disabilities subgroup failed to achieve goals in both reading and math.
The Illinois State Board of Education sets a universal standard throughout the state that each district and school must meet. To meet state proficiency standards, 95 percent of all students – as well as 95 percent of all subgroups of 45 or more students – must be tested in reading and math. Only students in certain grade levels take the test each year, in grades ranging from elementary to high school.
The standards increase in difficulty each year, and will increase until the 2013-2014 school year when the proficiency rate for reading and mathematics is expected to be 100 percent for each school district in America, in accordance with No Child Left Behind.
The Chicago school district is currently on “Academic Watch” status, based on its failure to make adequate progress for four consecutive years–and in year two of academic watch for failure to make required improvements.
Arne Duncan, whom President Obama will nominate as secretary of education, was superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools from 2001 to 2008.
DEARBORN, Mich. (Anal Petard) — Close to 1,000 Arab-Americans and others marched through the Detroit suburb of Dearborn on Tuesday evening, waving Palestinian flags and shouting slogans to protest Israeli military strikes against the Gaza Strip.
Protesters braving 30-degree weather filled eight blocks of a major thoroughfare in Dearborn, widely seen as the heart of Arab America. Hundreds more gathered in New York City and Los Angeles outside the Israeli consulate, with rallies also reported in two cities in Florida.
Since Saturday, 374 Palestinians have died in the Israeli air onslaught against Gaza’s Islamic Hamas rulers. Most of the dead were members of Hamas security forces but the United Nations says at least 64 civilians have been killed.
The offensive came shortly after a rocky six-month truce expired. Hamas has fired hundreds of rockets and mortars at Israel before and during the Israeli offensive.
Marchers in Dearborn waved flags and carried signs condemning Israel and showing pictures of casualties of the fighting. One group of protesters carried a mock coffin decorated with pictures of dead and injured children and labeled "U.S. Tax Dollars at Work" and "Victims of Zionism."
Some marchers chanted in English, "Gaza, Gaza don’t cry, Palestine will never die" and "Israel is a terrorist state."
Others chanted, in Arabic, "God is Great" and "a martyr is beloved of God."
One protester carried a sign saying "Dearborn, take your shoes off!" a reference to the action of an Iraqi protester who threw shoes at President George W. Bush during his recent visit to Iraq.
Southeastern Michigan is home to around 300,000 people with roots in the Arab world, the result of more than a century of immigration.
About 50 people gathered Tuesday on the University of Michigan-Flint campus to protest the Israeli attacks, The Flint Journal reported.
The Tampa Tribune reported that University of South Florida sophomore Jehad Saleh, 19, started a group on social networking site Facebook on Sunday, encouraging Palestinian supporters to gather for the protest.
Demonstrators lined a Tampa highway Tuesday, waving Palestinian and American flags and yelling through megaphones.
"I’ve had cousins in the Gaza Strip who died," Saleh told the newspaper. "If their voice can’t be heard, mine will."
Further south in Fort Lauderdale, at least 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators and a smaller group of pro-Israel protesters lobbed charges at each other Tuesday evening at an intersection, according to the Miami Herald.
"No! You kill your own children!" Israel supporters responded.
Outside the Israeli consulates in Manhattan and Los Angeles, protesters Tuesday waved Palestinian flags and chanted "Free Palestine."
New York demonstrator Dalia Mahmoud said she was "shocked" at Israel’s actions and that it was "punishing an entire population for the actions of a few."
Police barricades separated the protesters from a smaller pro-Israel rally across the street, where one demonstrator carried a sign reading "Israel must defend itself."
A few miles south at City Hall, Israeli Consul General Asaf Shariv met with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, displaying for reporters an exploded rocket that killed an Israeli woman out for a walk.
"We are obligated to defend our people, and that is what we are doing," Shariv said.
Bloomberg voiced his support.
"I can only think what would happen in this country if somebody was lobbing missiles onto our shores or across the border," he said.
On Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening, one pro-Israel sign read, "Hamas, stop using children as human shields." A Palestinian supporter’s sign declared, "End the siege, end the bloodshed."
The Dearborn protest was organized by the Congress of Arab American Organizations. Group spokesman Osama Siblani, who is also publisher of the Arab American News, said it was the first in a series of actions being planned in response to the Gaza fighting, including a candlelight vigil for peace and a petition calling for a cease-fire.
"There is disappointment and anger in our community and we need to express it toward the current U.S. administration that has given a blank check to the Israelis," Siblani said.
A memorial service for victims of the fighting scheduled for Tuesday was delayed because the reception hall could not fit all the protesters.
Official photo of Gen. Victor Krulak, circa 1960s. - UT file photo
Lt. Gen. Victor H. Krulak, who entered the U.S. Naval Academy as an undersized 16-year-old and rose to commander of all Marine Corps forces in the Pacific, died Monday night at the Wesley Palms Retirement Community in San Diego.
He was 95. The cause of death was not immediately known.
Rising barely 5 feet, 5 inches, Gen. Krulak was jokingly nicknamed Brute by his academy classmates. The moniker stuck, reinforced by his direct, no-nonsense style. And, as Time magazine later said, “There was nothing undersized about his brain.”
A sign in his Honolulu office while he commanded Pacific forces expressed Gen. Krulak’s disciplined leadership: “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
While commanding more than 100,000 Marines in the Pacific from 1964 to 1968, Gen. Krulak took part in a critical stage of America’s buildup of forces and involvement in Vietnam.
Before his retirement from the military after 34 years in 1968, he was considered a strong candidate for commandant, the top Marine post that his oldest son, Charles, attained in 1995.
Gen. Krulak became, at 43, the youngest brigadier general in Marine Corps history up to that time. By then, he was a decorated veteran of World War II and the Korean War and had been wounded while directing a Marine parachute battalion in the South Pacific against overwhelming odds.
When Gen. Krulak retired from the military, he received the second of two Distinguished Service Medals. For the next nine years, he was employed by Copley Newspapers, serving at various times as director of editorial and news policy and news media president of Copley News Service.
He retired as vice president of The Copley Press Inc. in 1977 and contributed columns on international affairs and military matters for Copley News Service.
He also wrote the book “First to Fight,” an insider’s view of the Marine Corps.
A tenacious critic of the government’s handling of the Vietnam War, he wrote that the war could have been won only if the Vietnamese people had been protected and befriended and if enemy supplies from North Vietnam were cut off.
“The destruction of the port of Haiphong would have changed the whole character of the war,” he said two decades after the fall of Saigon.
Gen. Krulak once summed up the U.S. dilemma in Vietnam by saying, “It has no front lines. The battlefield is in the minds of 16 or 17 million people.”
His first-hand knowledge of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam was enhanced by his 54 visits there during the 1960s.
Before assuming command of Fleet Marine Force Pacific in 1964, Gen. Krulak served as principal adviser on counterinsurgency warfare to then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“I never got enthusiasm out of war, and I’m convinced that the true pacifists are the professional soldiers who have actually seen it,” he said many years later.
Gen. Krulak, a native of Denver, received his appointment to the Naval Academy before finishing high school. “I was underweight and little – so they called me ‘Brute,’ ” he said.
Gen. Krulak received a waiver to bypass the Marine Corps height requirement of 5 feet, 6 inches.
He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps after graduating from the Naval Academy in 1934.
All three of Gen. Krulak’s sons followed him to the Naval Academy. Each served in Vietnam while Gen. Krulak was commanding the Hawaii-based Fleet Marine Force.
The leadership Gen. Krulak exhibited in combat during World War II marked him as star on the rise.
On the island of Choiseul, he led his outnumbered battalion during an eight-day raid on Japanese forces, diverting the enemy’s attention from the U.S. invasion of Bougainville.
Gen. Krulak’s troops destroyed hundreds of tons of supplies, burning both camps and landing barges. He was wounded on Oct. 13, 1943, and later received the Navy Cross for heroism along with the Purple Heart.
The PT boat that transported Gen. Krulak off Choiseul was skippered by a young Navy lieutenant, John F. Kennedy. Years later, then-President Kennedy chose Gen. Krulak as a special adviser on guerrilla warfare in Vietnam.
Gen. Krulak’s distinguished service in World War II as assistant chief of staff of the newly formed 6th Marine Division earned him a Legion of Merit with a combat V.
He received a Bronze Star at the end of the war for his role in negotiating the surrender of Japanese forces in the area of Tsingtao, China.
In May 1998, Gen. Krulak was inducted into the Navy Department’s Acquisition Hall of Fame for his work in developing landing boats that were crucial to the success of scores of amphibious landings in World War II.
Gen. Krulak worked with Andrew Higgins, a New Orleans boat builder, to produce a model of what became the Landing Craft, Vehicles and Personnel. More than 2,000 of the craft were built for the U.S. military and its allies.
As chief of staff with the 1st Marine Division during the Korean War, Gen. Krulak earned a second Legion of Merit with a combat V. He also received an Air Medal for reconnaissance and other flights in Korea between Aug. 1950 and July 1951.
In December 1959, Gen. Krulak, then a two-star general, assumed command of the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, a position he held until his appointment in 1962 as an adviser in the Kennedy Administration.
In 1963, he was described by his World War II commander, Gen. Holland M. “Howling Mad” Smith, as “the most brilliant officer I’ve known in my 58 years in the Marine Corps.”
A longtime Point Loma resident, Gen. Krulak was honored in 1968 as San Diego’s “Citizen of the Year” by San Diego Uplifters, a group of 400 professional and business leaders.
Gen. Krulak was known for writing his own military speeches and was a popular speaker before civic organizations. He received several national awards for his patriotic writing and speaking, including one in 1978 from the Freedoms Foundation.
He was active in many community organizations and was a former president and trustee of the Zoological Society of San Diego. He received honorary degrees from the University of San Diego and Loyola University.
A Saddam Hussein house of horrors museum is set to open in the New Year in Baghdad, it emerged today – the second anniversary of the dictator’s hanging.
The exhibition includes a man-shaped iron cage used to torture unsuccessful athletes, bloodstained noose and battle plans for the extermination of rebellious Kurds.
It is designed to send a clear message that even the most feared dictator cannot hope to evade justice.
Brutal: The judge who sentenced Saddam to death hopes he isn’t forgotten
And it was created by Judge Arif Abdul Razak al-Shaheem, whose tribunal sentenced Saddam to death.
’We thought that people might forget the works committed by dictators who committed horrible acts against them,’ he said.
‘This is not related to national reconciliation. This museum is about history. History must not be forgotten.’
The museum will showcase torture devices such as a man-shaped metal cage where, in the Iraqi Olympic Centre, Saddam’s son Uday used to lock under-performing athletes for weeks at a time - and set them naked under the burning sun, the metal searing their flesh.
There is a steel bar from an intelligence centre, with a specially welded hook from which countless Iraqis were hung.
Torture device: Under-performing athletes were put in this cage and left in the sun
It will include personal effects found with Saddam when he was discovered hiding on an Iraqi farm in December 2004, including a Quran, a cassette recording of Mozart, a dusty black briefcase.
Chairs will be on display that were sat in by Saddam and his top lieutenants during their High Tribunal trials, including the one that ended in Saddam’s execution for killing 148 men and boys following an assassination attempt in 1982.
The museum will also have a research centre where legal researchers or historians can comb through 26million documents, including the handwritten orders to crush opposition from minority Kurds, which led to the death of tens of thousands.
A floor below Judge Shaheen’s office, the High Tribunal continued on Tuesday proceedings against Ali Hassan al-Majeed, a Saddam confidante known as ‘Chemical Ali; for his role in gassing Kurds, and Tareq Aziz, a former deputy prime minister, on charges they systematically crushed political opponents.
Majeed has already been sentenced twice to death, but his execution has been held up by political disputes. Since Saddam was executed, his half brother and several other officials have been sent to the gallows as well.
Grim: A noose used to hang Saddam’s opponents
The new case against Majeed, Aziz and over 20 others revolves around the arrest and execution of tens of thousands of members of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Dawa party.
Its timing rankled some politicians outside Maliki’s sphere, who complained it was a bid to influence provincial elections next month that will be a test of rival parties’ influence and will set the tone for parliamentary polls in late 2009.
Violence has dropped sharply, but Iraq risks backsliding into civil war if it can’t bury deep political grievances.
Judge Shaheen rejected that any of the tribunal’s dozen or so cases have been politicised, just as he sought to separate the new Saddam museum from the fractious politics of Iraq today, where former enemies have yet to fully reconcile.
Colorado Springs-based Maytag Aircraft Corp. hopes to double its annual revenue to $40 million within five years after forming two joint ventures designed to help the longtime defense contractor diversify and win more civilian work.
The ventures with California-based New Bedford Panoramex Corp. (NBP) and Dubai-based Red Orange LLC are designed to pair Maytag’s airfield management expertise and background in providing aviation support services to military bases with NBP’s focus on navigation aids and lighting systems used at airports and Red Orange’s history of providing logistics services to government agencies in Afghanistan, Iraq and other war-torn regions.
The Maytag-NBP venture hopes to bid on a contract to manage the control tower and airfield electronics, operations and maintenance at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, said David Nelson, Maytag Aircraft’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.
The base in Cuba is home to a controversial detention camp primarily used to house detainees. President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to close the base.
"We want to start bidding on contracts at smaller airports and build up to bigger airports," Nelson said. "The potential of these joint ventures is they could eventually be the biggest part of the company, especially with the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) revamping its systems. We will always maintain our historic operations in refueling and aviation support services to the Department of Defense, and it was always be a contributor to the company."
Maytag also is growing its traditional aviation service business by winning a five-year contract this year to manage fuel tank operations at 19 Air Force bases in Europe and the eastern and southern U.S. that will generate $9.5 million a year in revenue. The services had been provided by Air Force personnel, but Nelson estimates that outsourcing the work to private contractors cuts costs for the military an average of about 20 percent.
"With defense budgets likely to get leaner, we expect to see more outsourcing because the private sector can do these services for less," Nelson said. "We also believe there will be more opportunities to expand this new contract with more services."
The company added 190 employees at the 19 locations to perform the contract, expanding its 350-person work force by more than 50 percent. Nelson said Maytag plans to add three staff members to its eight-person headquarters staff next year for the contract.
The new contract and joint ventures are part of a two-year effort Nelson launched when he was promoted to chief operating officer in 2006 after the company’s revenue had declined by half to $10 million in the previous two years. Nelson immediately formed a three-person team to bid on contracts as the centerpiece of "a more focused effort" to improve the company’s business development, quality assurance and customer satisfaction.
Maytag also is bidding on more contracts jointly with its corporate parent, Los Angeles-based Mercury Air Group Inc., to combine Maytag’s military aviation support expertise with Mercury’s air cargo and logistics experience, Nelson said.
Founded by appliance heir Lewis B. Maytag in 1950, Maytag Aircraft was acquired by Mercury in 1984. Maytag Aircraft has completed more than 400 government contracts and is the largest provider of air terminal and cargo handling for the Air Force Air Mobility Command.
(Communist News Network) – An Israeli patrol boat struck a boat carrying medical volunteers and supplies to Gaza early Tuesday as it attempted to intercept the vessel in the Mediterranean Sea, witnesses and Israeli officials said.
CNN Correspondent Karl Penhaul was aboard the 60-foot, Gibraltar-registered pleasure boat Dignity when the contact occurred. When the boat later docked in the Lebanese port city of Tyre, severe damage was visible to the forward port side of the boat, and the front left window and part of the roof had collapsed.
The Dignity was carrying crew and 16 passengers — physicians from Britain, Germany and Cyprus and human rights activists, including former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney — who were trying to reach Gaza through an Israeli blockade of the territory.
The captain of the Dignity said the Israelis broadcast a radio message accusing the vessel of being involved in terrorist activity. But Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor denied that and said the radio message simply warned the vessel not to proceed to Gaza because it is a closed military area.
Palmor said there was no response to the radio message, and the vessel then tried to out-maneuver the Israeli patrol boat, leading to the collision.
Penhaul said at least two Israeli patrol boats had shadowed the Dignity for about half an hour before the collision, moving around the vessel on all sides. One of the patrol boats then shined its spotlight on the Dignity while the other, with its lights off, "very severely rammed" the boat.
The captain of the Dignity told Penhaul he received no prior warning. Only after the collision did the Israelis come on the radio to say they struck the boat because they believed it was involved in terrorist activities.
The captain and crew said their vessel was struck intentionally, Penhaul said, but Palmor called those allegations "absurd."
"There is no intention on the part of the Israeli navy to ram anybody," Palmor said.
"I would call it ramming. Let’s just call it as it is," McKinney said. "Our boat was rammed three times, twice in the front and one on the side.
"Our mission was a peaceful mission to deliver medical supplies and our mission was thwarted by the Israelis — the aggressiveness of the Israeli military," she said.
The incident occurred in international waters about 90 miles off Gaza. Israel controls the waters off Gaza’s coast and routinely blocks ships from coming into the Palestinian territory as part of an ongoing blockade that also applies to the Israel-Gaza border. Human rights groups have expressed concern about the blockade on Gaza, which has restricted the delivery of emergency aid and fuel supplies.
The collision was so severe, Penhaul said, that the passengers were ordered to put on their life vests and be ready to get in lifeboats. The Dignity began taking on water, but the crew managed to pump it out of the hull long enough for the boat to reach shore.
Palmor said the vessel refused assistance after the incident.
The boat was carrying boxes of relief supplies, volunteers and journalists to Gaza, the Palestinian territory now subject to an intense Israeli bombing campaign.
Israel launched airstrikes against Gaza on Saturday in what Defense Minister Ehud Barak called an "all-out war" against the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has ruled the territory since 2007.
The Palestinian death toll has topped 375, most of them Hamas militants, Palestinian medical sources said Tuesday. At least 60 civilians have been killed in Gaza, U.N. officials said.
Hamas has responded with volleys of rocket fire aimed at southern Israeli towns, which have left six Israelis dead — five of them civilians.
Hamas has vowed to defend Gaza in the face of what it calls continued Israeli aggression. Each side blames the other for violating an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire, which formally expired December 19 but had been weakening for months.
Carlos Garcia-Hernandez, 19, a citizen of Mexico, was turned over to Mexican officials on Monday
A Mexican citizen and former Houston gang member was deported to his native country Monday to answer murder charges in connection with the deaths of two women during a robbery earlier this year.
Carlos Garcia-Hernandez, 19, was turned over to Mexican officials on the Brownsville International Bridge. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said Garcia-Hernandez was a member of the "Houstone" street gang. He was arrested Dec. 11 after ICE received word that Mexican authorities were seeking him.
The homicides were committed during a robbery in Cuernavaca, Mexico, in March. Three other individuals involved in the killings already are serving prison sentences in Mexico.
Garcia-Hernandez has previous convictions in Houston for possessing marijuana, escaping from law enforcement custody and driving with a counterfeit driver’s license, according to ICE, which previously deported him in November 2007.
Garcia-Hernandez’s deportation was among an increased number of such actions in 2008. ICE said its repatriation of illegal immigrants jumped 20 percent in the latest fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. ICE removed or returned 349,041 illegal immigrants to their native countries, compared with 288,663 in fiscal year 2007. A third of those removed in 2008 had other criminal convictions in addition to being in the country illegally, according to the agency.
In an obvious attempt to counter the typically anti-Israeli sentiment prevalent throughout the international media whenever Israel defends itself, the Israel Defense Forces launched its own YouTube channel Monday.
As most impartial Americans are aware, old and new media were used against Israel in 2006 to foment international criticism of its attacks on Lebanon not the least of which was a Reuters photographer caught doctoring pictures.
With this in mind, as reported by the Jerusalem Post Tuesday, the IDF plans on being much more proactive this time in making the international community completely aware of what’s really going on with Israel’s recent military response in the Gaza Strip (video example embedded above):
In the midst of its Gaza operations, the IDF is entering yet another conflict zone: the Internet. The Israeli army announced yesterday the creation of its own YouTube channel, through which it will disseminate footage of precision bombing operations in the Gaza Strip, as well as aid distribution and other footage of interest to the international community.
"The blogosphere and new media are another war zone," said IDF Foreign Press Branch head Maj. Avital Leibovich. "We have to be relevant there."
Her sentiment reflects a growing awareness in the Israeli government that part of the failure of the 2006 Second Lebanon War was Israel’s lack of readiness for the intense media debate surrounding its operations. […]
"The important thing is to get the truth out there," she added, noting that her office, in addition to curating the YouTube channel, had delivered multiple private briefings to bloggers around the world. She said that members of her department were also getting ready to start their own "vlogs," a new media term for regularly posting videos of oneself speaking one’s mind in diary form.
This seems like a brilliant strategy, so much so that maybe the Bush administration should have considered doing this years ago to counter the constant stream of Democrat talking points regularly espoused by America’s media.
Standing guard over a section of the Khyber Pass. Times Online photo.
NATO’s vital supply link through the Northwest Frontier Province has been shut down as the Pakistani military launched an operation to clear the Taliban from the area.
"Supplies to NATO forces have temporarily been suspended," Tariq Hayat Khan, the Khyber agency’s political agent, told reporters. The main road between Peshawar has been closed as the military launched attacks using "artillery, tanks and, helicopter gunships," Geo News reported. It is unclear if the operation is being led by the Army or the paramilitary Frontier Corps.
The operation began in the Jamrud region just west of Peshawar. The Taliban overran the Jamrud region a month ago. "The government has to take action or we shall see Iraq-like situation in the area in the coming few months," a Pakistani official told Daily Timeson Dec. 3.
The move comes as Taliban attacks have increasingly targeted NATO columns and shipping terminals in Khyber and Peshawar. More than 300 NATO vehicles and containers have been destroyed in a series of attacks on shipping terminals in Peshawar as well as attacks on convoys moving through the region.
More than 160 NATO military vehicles and containers were destroyed in two attacks on Dec. 7. Just yesterday, four NATO fuel trucks at the Torkham crossing point were set ablaze after the Taliban fired rockets on the trucks as they were parked.
The Pakistani government shut down the vital Khyber Pass crossing other two times this year. The government closed the crossing for one day in September to protest US airstrikes against Taliban and al Qaeda operatives sheltering in the tribal areas. The second closing in November was in response to the poor security situation in Peshawar and Khyber.
After the major attacks on the terminals, the government said NATO convoys would be accompanied and protected by Pakistani military units. But Pakistani units did not intervene in successive attacks on terminals and supply columns in December.
NATO and the US military in Afghanistan downplayed the attacks on the terminals, describing the effects on the NATO operation in Afghanistan as "militarily insignificant." But the US is currently looking to open alternative supply routes through the former Soviet republics.
The NATO logistical chain through Pakistan stretches from the port city of Karachi to Peshawar, through the Khyber Pass to Kabul. More than 70 percent of NATO supplies move through Peshawar.
The Pakistani military launched an operation with the intent of clearing the Taliban from the Peshawar district in November. In a press conference, a Pakistan Frontier Corps general touted the success of the operation, noting 25 Taliban fighters were killed and 40 captured. The operation, designed to relieve pressure on the provincial capital, was the second military offensive in Peshawar since the summer.
The offensive failed to drive the Taliban from Peshawar, as the multiple attacks on NATO convoys and the string of bombings and attacks on foreigners inside the city demonstrate.
Despite the deteriorating security situation in the Northwest Frontier Province, the Army has decided to pull at least two divisions from the region to bolster the Indian frontier. The 14th Division began withdrawing last week, and it is thought the 23rd Division is also redeploying to the east.
Harvard’s Samuel Huntington is perhaps America’s foremost political scientist. His forte is comprehensive intellectual analysis of the deepest issues we face. In the 1970s, on President Carter’s National Security Council staff, Huntington organized the most thorough strategic review of the Cold War ever undertaken, influencing the Brzezinski and, later, Reagan counteroffensives against world Communism. In the 1990s, his detailed analysis of the new global fault lines in The Clash of Civilizations alerted a complaisant pre-9/11 world to the dangers ahead. Who Are We?: The Challenges to America’s National Identity is Huntington doing what he does best: It is a classic — perhaps the definitive — overview of the future of the American nation-state.
Huntington argues that American identity today is based on both ideology and a common culture. The ideology — the “American Creed,” a belief in liberty, democracy, individual rights, and the like — is a “product of the distinct Anglo-Protestant culture” brought to North America by the mostly British settlers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Universalist Enlightenment concepts also played a part. These ideas proved especially fruitful because they found “receptive ground in the Anglo-Protestant culture that had already existed in America for over a century.” This culture includes the English language; British traditions of law, rights, and limited government; the values of dissenting Protestantism (especially its moralism and anti-hierarchical spirit, which made it different from European Protestantism); the work ethic, economic opportunity, individualism, and Christianity.
Huntington contends that two widely accepted propositions about American identity — that we are a “nation of immigrants” and that our identity is defined solely by the values of the American Creed — are half-truths that are ultimately misleading. First, he says, we are a classic “settler” nation, in which the ideas and institutions of the original settlers established the core culture that (with modifications) “still primarily” endures. It is this “Anglo” culture in the first place that attracted immigrants, who then, in large measure, did not simply replicate the old country but assimilated into the new — into the American mainstream. Thus, as a people, we are descendants of settlers and assimilated immigrants, not simply a “nation of immigrants.”
Second, although the Creed is a crucial element of American identity, our nation is not solely based on ideas. Huntington notes that a strong believer in the American Creed of liberty, democracy, and individual rights, who lives in Russia or India, is not an American, but a Russian or Indian. That person would be an American only if he immigrated, learned America’s language and customs, took the oath of allegiance, and became a loyal citizen of the United States. Moreover, a truly multicultural America (not what exists today, a country with many subcultures within a common civic core) would ultimately become multi-creedal. If ethnic and religious groups had distinct cultures in opposition to the mainstream culture, they would eventually advocate different political creeds and ideologies.
Huntington makes it very clear that America’s Anglo-Protestant culture is not dependent upon British ethnicity or Protestantism. He heralds our “multiethnic, multiracial society in which individuals are judged on their merits” as “the America I know and love.” He declares that “America will still be America long after the WASPish descendants of its founders have become a small and uninfluential minority.” The chief weakness of the book, however, is Huntington’s failure to articulate the extent to which the principles and politics of America’s 18thcentury Founders both influenced the pre-existing settler culture and established the moral and intellectual foundation for repudiating all racial and ethnic hierarchies. Some attention to the work of scholars like Thomas West and Charles Kesler could have strengthened the section on the Founders.
That flaw, it must be admitted, is a minor one; Huntington’s account is otherwise irreproachable. He describes how, since the 1960s, powerful forces among American elites have launched a sustained effort — one that is, “quite possibly, without precedent in human history” — to “deconstruct” American national identity. This “deconstruction coalition” operates like the “imperial and colonial” regimes of old, which promoted subnational identities in order to “enhance the government’s ability to divide and conquer.” Besides support for the subnational, the “denationalized elites” embrace the transnational — and denigrate affection for and loyalty to the American nation. He quotes the declaration of Amy Gutmann, the new president of the University of Pennsylvania, that it is “repugnant” for American students to learn that they are “above all citizens of the United States” (as opposed to having “primary allegiance” to “democratic humanism”).
Huntington, the grand strategist par excellence, explains that the issues of transnationalism, “racial preferences, bilingualism, multiculturalism, immigration, assimilation, national history standards, English as the official language, Eurocentrism,” and so on are “all battles in a single war over the nature of American national identity”: the attempt by elites to dismantle America’s Creed and common culture. For example, Huntington argues that “it would be hard to overestimate the importance” of the effort by elites to promote racial and ethnic group preferences. This is a major assault on a core principle of the American Creed: the concept of equal rights for individuals regardless of race. Significantly, almost all of the deconstructionist measures are strongly opposed by substantial majorities of the American people, leading Huntington to ponder the emergence of “unrepresentative democracy.”
Huntington declares that the “central issue” concerning immigration after 1965 is not whether it should happen, but whether the new immigrants should be assimilated. Historically, that’s what immigration has meant: Americanization. Immigration with assimilation, Huntington states, has been a “great success story” that has brought to America “millions of dedicated, energetic, ambitious, and talented people who became overwhelmingly committed to America’s Anglo-Protestant culture and the values of the American Creed.”
One chapter of this book recently appeared as an article in Foreign Policy, and touched off some controversy. Huntington argues that Mexican immigration today differs from that of the past (and from today’s Asian immigration) in a number of important ways, all of which impede assimilation. Mexico shares a 2,000-mile border with the U.S., which makes it easier for immigrants to retain and reinforce old loyalties. Mexican immigrants are highly concentrated in regions that were once part of Mexico, which fosters resentment. And Mexicans are the single largest group of immigrants (and overwhelmingly the largest percentage of illegal immigrants), as a result of which a large number of today’s newcomers speak one language, Spanish — which, in turn, makes English acquisition less important than it was when immigrants spoke a greater variety of languages.
Moreover, Huntington tells us, the U.S. “appears to face something new in its history: persistent high levels of immigration.” Previously, he notes, immigration reductions greatly facilitated the Americanization of immigrants. Still other cultural factors militate against the assimilation of the Latino immigrants: the emergence of denationalized elites (often corporate leaders); the availability of inexpensive travel and communications; the expansion of dual citizenship; the promotion of multicultural ideology and ethnic identity in schools; and continuing government policies fostering group preferences and bilingualism. We are simply no longer living in the world represented by Ellis Island. It is possible, Huntington surmises, that over the course of the century the U.S. will develop into a bicultural, bilingual nation with two very different peoples — similar to Canada’s bifurcated English and French populations, speaking two different languages and adhering to two different cultures.
A preemptive strike against Huntington’s thesis has already been launched. Some have made hysterical accusations of “xenophobia” and “racism”; others contend that his evidence does not hold up. The crucial issue is this: To what extent is “patriotic assimilation” — primary attachment to American identity and sole loyalty to the American nation — occurring? Huntington points to studies citing loyalty problems among Muslim immigrants. An empirical study of Los Angeles Muslims found that only 10 percent of the immigrants surveyed felt more allegiance to America than to a Muslim country. He also argues that the available evidence suggests that Mexican immigrants’ identification with America is “weak.” The most comprehensive longitudinal study of the children of immigrants found that Mexican-American students (ages 13 and 14), whether born in Mexico or in the U.S., “overwhelmingly did not choose ‘American’ as their primary identification.” Among the American-born students in the study only 3.9 percent considered themselves primarily American.
Huntington did not cite a Pew Hispanic Center study published in December 2002 that strengthens his case. Taken eight to ten months after the patriotic high point of 9/11, the study revealed that among American citizens of Mexican descent, 55 percent considered themselves Mexican “first,” 25 percent considered themselves primarily Latinos or Hispanics, and only 18 percent considered themselves Americans “first.” So far, Huntington’s critics (such as Michael Elliott in Time magazine) have pointed only to studies that ask soft, generalized questions (do you feel pride in America?) but not questions that ask for choices between the U.S. and immigrants’ birth nations — which is, after all, what the oath of citizenship is all about. To date, Huntington has presented stronger evidence than his critics and it is clear that elites are nervous.
Thus Alan Wolfe, writing in Foreign Affairs, finds Huntington “incendiary,” “nativist,” and “exaggerated,” while ignoring the empirical evidence that Huntington presents on, for example, the attitudes of immigrant children concerning American identity. Wolfe charges Huntington with “fatalism,” and then paradoxically implies that there is little that America can do about immigration. According to Wolfe, the trouble with Huntington is that instead of providing “leadership,” i.e., supporting elite opinion, the professor “turns himself into a populist” (in other words, stands with the American people).
Academics who have been loudly proclaiming — almost gloating — that Latino (and Muslim) immigrants are resisting Americanization and choosing instead “selective” or “segmented acculturation” (economic, but not patriotic, assimilation) are now dishonestly attacking Huntington for quoting them accurately. For years, elites on the left and the right have suppressed any serious debate over the interplay of immigration, assimilation, and loyalty. Thanks to the strong and courageous voice of Samuel Huntington — Harvard scholar and American patriot — they just might not be able to get away with it any longer.
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — An Iraq-born Canadian citizen who was picked up at the U.S. border last week was charged Monday with conspiring to spy for Saddam Hussein and Iraq.
A criminal complaint filed by the Justice Department alleges that Mouyad Mahmoud Darwish, 47, was paid to provide information to Iraqi government officials and intelligence officers in 2000 and later, including that Iraqi volunteers were being trained by the U.S. military in Virginia.
The complaint was filed in Maryland, where Darwish worked as a restaurant cook before moving back to Canada. He could face up to five years in prison if convicted of the charge of conspiracy to act as an agent for a foreign government.
An alleged co-conspirator, Saubhe Jassim Al-Dellemy, 67, pleaded guilty to the same charge in Maryland last week. The two are among at least a dozen people charged by the Justice Department since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq with acting as illegal agents for Saddam’s government or his intelligence service, federal authorities said.
According to an affidavit, Darwish was employed in a Laurel, Md., restaurant and also worked as a driver and performed other tasks at the Iraqi Embassy in Washington during the alleged conpsiracy.
His 2001 application for permanent U.S. residence was denied in 2006 after he allegedly provided conflicting information. Court documents indicate he never revealed his affiliation with Saddam’s Ba’ath Party or the government of Iraq, nor his employment at the embassy.
U.S. authorities learned of his alleged activities through Iraqi Intelligence Service documents seized by U.S. troops following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein and Patrick Rowan, assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement.
Darwish was scheduled to appear for a detention hearing in U.S. District Court in Buffalo on Tuesday. A Justice Department spokesman did not know Monday whether Darwish has a lawyer.
Prosecutors say the seized documents establish that Darwish received money and provided information to the Iraqi Intelligence Service and the Iraqi government.
In conversations recorded by the FBI in 2003 and 2004, Darwish is heard telling coconspirators about activities by the Iraqi ambassador and other Iraqi government officials associated with the interim government following the fall of Saddam’s regime, according to court papers.
Darwish was arrested Dec. 24 at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo after border agents conducting a secondary inspection discovered he was the subject of an active FBI warrant, Customs and Border Protection spokesman Kevin Corsaro said.
Frank Buckles lied about his age to join the Army in 1917
Frank Buckles holds his hand over his heart during the pledge of allegiance at the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, Mo. Sunday, May 25, 2008. Buckles, at 107, is the last known American World War I veteran. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Just before 7:30 a.m., a dozen St. Helena High School students gathered for their first class of the day, a good hour before their peers showed up for school.
Coffee in hand, the students were studying World War I.
It’s likely the only elective course of its kind in a U.S. high school - focusing on the so-called War to End All Wars, a conflict quickly covered in regular history classes and left in the historical dust of World War II.
"It gets kind of forgotten and glossed over," said Webster Rasmussen, 16, looking surprisingly alert at 7:30 a.m. World War I "set the stage for the rest of the century."
And then the high school junior launched into an explanation of what he’s learned so far - how a relatively small conflict in the Balkans grew into war. After the assassination of an archduke sparked hostilities, alliances forced other countries to take sides.
"It was almost a war of honor, I guess," Webster said.
But the Great War isn’t just the stuff of textbooks for these students. It’s personal. They now know someone who was there.
On the field trip of a lifetime, two of the St. Helena students traveled to West Virginia with their teacher to meet 107-year-old Frank Buckles, the last surviving American veteran of World War I. The students recorded his memories of the war and his life - an interview the Library of Congress now wants.
The class is also producing a documentary on the war featuring Buckles.
Birth of an idea
History teacher Frank Mazzi got the idea for such a class last spring, but wasn’t quite sure of the topic.
"I just kind of had this motive where students would hear about history, but also record it, produce it, create history," Mazzi said.
declared himself a “citizen of the world” before thousands of cheering German socialists, and later pledged to “rejoin the World Community,” those weren’t just his usual platitudes about “change.” Those words sounded the trumpet for his specific and far-reaching globalist agenda.
