On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Pejman Yousefzadeh and Kevin Holtsberry are joined by Michael Totten, to discuss his book The Road to Fatima Gate: The Beirut Spring, the Rise of Hezbollah, and the Iranian War Against Israel, Iranian, Syrian, and Hezbollah efforts to control Lebanon, and Totten’s own personal encounters with Hezbollah.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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Michael Totten

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Each and every day we hear the misnomer that the United States of America is a Democracy. We hear it from the average man on the street, the mainstream media and even from those we have elected to office. But the fact of the matter is this: we are not a Democracy. We are a Constitutional Republic. A thorough and convincing exhibit of the facts surrounding this reality is presented in Notes on Democracy: And the Republic for Which It Stands. The fact that this issue is even in need of address is a scathing commentary on the constitutional illiteracy of the American electorate and serves as a sobering reminder that, often times, what sounds good – what “feels good” – isn’t always as it presents.

The distinction – between the benefits of a Democracy and a Constitutional Republic – is incredibly important, and while some describe our nation as a Democracy in an error of ignorance, others – some with schemes of political opportunism – do so with a nefarious purpose and bad intentions.

James Madison, recognized as the Father of the US Constitution, said this about factions and Democracy in Federalist No. 10:

“Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people…From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.”

Why is this important in the context of what is happening in the Middle East at this very moment?

Simple; it is important because “factious tempers,” and “local prejudices of sinister design” are prevalent throughout not only the ruling classes of the Arab-Muslim world, but exist – and on a tremendously popular level – throughout the Middle East, Arab culture and around the world in Islamic populations.

In Lebanon, Democracy and the democratic election process brought legitimacy to the terrorist group Hezbollah, a group, created by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard after the Islamist Revolution of 1979, responsible for the greatest number of American and Western deaths until al Qaeda exploded onto the scene, no pun intended. Through a scheme of “providing” for enough people in Southern Lebanon to win elections, Hezbollah was transformed from a ruthless Shiite-Islamist terror organization (a moniker still bestowed upon it by the US State Department and freedom-loving governments around the world) into an officially elected entity in the Lebanese Parliament, its influence expanding year after year.

In the Palestinian-held Israeli territories, the Palestinian Authority, born of the Palestinian Liberation Organization – recognized at its genesis as a terrorist organization before the United Nations bestowed legitimacy on it, has seen an accord between the Fatah faction of the West Bank and the Hamas faction of Gaza; Hamas, a Sunni-Islamist group, recognized as a terrorist organization by the US and other non-Arab nations around the world. Hamas, like Hezbollah, but after an armed coup against Fatah in Gaza, held “democratic elections” establishing itself – although questionably so – as the democratically elected government of Gaza. Like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas achieved legitimacy – albeit ever so suspect – through the process of Democracy.

Another example of Democracy not serving freedom – or liberty – are the elections held in the former Soviet state of Russia. During the Soviet Era, Soviet Premiers had to at least subject themselves to the scrutiny of the elitist class Communist Party members who made up the Soviet politburo. Today we see a former KGB colonel, in Vladimir Putin, not only usurping the intent of the Russian constitution by installing a puppet president to “insert” a term into the mix before he runs, yet again, for the Russian presidency, but we see a system so corrupt that it has re-installed the same mindset of global power acquisition as seen before the fall of the Soviet Union. In fact, it is argued in many circles that not only is the Cold War not over, but the West is now playing defense.

But perhaps the most alarming sign that democracy does not serve the purpose of freedom and/or liberty comes in the report that a faction of the Egyptian “awakening” has announced the formation of a “Nazi party with a contemporary frame of reference.”

Let me state that again…Egyptians benefiting from the “Arab Spring” want to form a Nazi Party in that country.

Al-Masry Al-Youm, an Egyptian publication, reports:

“A group of Egyptians have announced their intent to establish a Nazi party with ‘a contemporary frame of reference,’ an independent Egyptian news website said on Wednesday.

“Al-Badeel, a leftist news portal, quoted founding member Emad Abdel Sattar as saying the party would bring together prominent figures from the Egyptian society. The party’s founding deputy is a former military official.

“Abdel Sattar told Al-Badeel that members are increasing at an unexpected rate, and several people came to ask about the nature of the party and its plans.

“The party has a one-year plan to develop Egypt, unlike the ‘marginalized liberal parties, which are like dead bodies,’ he said.

“The founders want to avoid media attention until they are fully ready, the source said.”

With God as my witness, I never thought I would see the day when we would need to address the possibility of having to combat Nazism on the world stage once again.

If, in fact, this newly formed Egyptian Nazi Party organizes in the style of Hamas or Hezbollah – or the American Progressive Movement, for that matter (it is a fact that American organized labor had boots on the ground in Egypt in the beginning days of this so-called “Arab Spring”) – what is to keep them from using the democratic process to bring to power a 21st Century Nazi Party, complete with a 21st Century “Final Solution” for Israel and the Jews?

We are a Constitutional Republic because our Founders and Framers understood the absolute danger of a pure Democracy. We use a democratic election process to determine the awarding of Electoral College votes by each state, but we do so to empower a constitutionally Republican form of government; a government of laws and not men; a government where the minority’s rights are protected just as viciously as the majority’s, or so it is supposed to be.

A stunningly frank examination can be viewed here. Succinctly, we in the West – and especially in the United States – should be promoting a move toward liberty in the Middle East, not a move toward Democracy.

Democracy leads to Democratic Socialism, which leads to Socialism, which history proves always fails, leading to totalitarian and despotic rule. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of world history understands this. Alas, we do not, today, place any importance on history in our schools. Perhaps that’s because Progressives are too busy rewriting history. Perhaps that’s why we are looking at a resurrection of the Nazi Party in Egypt.

On May 24, 2011, the military government of Egypt announced it was permanently opening its border with the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

If the world screams, “Never again,” again will the leaders of the free world hear us? Or are they to busy burying their heads in the sand to care?

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Chuck DeVore to talk about the uprisings in the Middle East and how it could lead to a war against Israel.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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Throughout Obama’s presidency and all of the Islamic revolutions sweeping the Middle East and Africa, he has sided with the Islamic supremacists at every turn. Taking his marching orders from the vile America-hater and Jew-hater, the devout Muslim Sheik Qaradawi, Obama is now paving the way for an Islamic state in Libya. Not that Libya has been good under Gaddafi — hardly. But there are degrees of evil. The situation can always be worse, and little matches the anti-human brutality of Islamic regimes in the twenty-first century.

It’s ironic that Obama has turned against Gaddafi, since Gaddafi has regarded him warmly, saying in April 2010: “Barakeh Obama is friend…He is of Muslim descent, his policy should be supported.” As meticulously documented in my book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America, the ties between Gaddafi and Obama are close and extensive. Back in July 2008, Gaddafi endorsed Obama, going so far as to say: “All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man. They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency.”

And Obama’s spirtual svengali and former Nation of Islam adherent Jeremiah Wright went to Libya with Jew-hater Louis Farrakhan to see Gaddafi, as he recalled during the 2008 campaign: “When [Obama’s] enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli to visit [Gaddafi] with Farrakhan, a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell.”

It didn’t, but it should have.

And Obama continues to side with America-haters and Jew-haters. Obama backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. He specifically invited Brotherhood representatives to attend his speech to the Islamic world in Cairo in June 2009, and during the uprising against Mubarak signaled that he would have no problem with their having a place in Egypt’s new government.

He has backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, Judea and Samaria.

He backed the brutal mullahcracy in Iran during the Iranian people’s bloody march for freedom.

He has backed Hezb’Allah in Lebanon.

He has backed Islamic law at the UN, having the U.S. co-sponsor with Egypt in summer 2009 a resolution on the restriction of free speech regarding Islam.

And now he is essentially backing Al-Qaeda in Libya. Al-Qaeda has already established an Islamic emirate in eastern Libya, and is playing a leading role in the revolt against Gaddafi. The Libyan Islamist Fighting Group is also involved. They’re a group that is, according to the Telegraph, “focused only on promoting sharia law in Libya, rejecting a worldwide ‘jihad.’”

“Focused only on promoting sharia law.” So they are focused on spreading honor killing, the killing of apostates, clitorectomies, the notion of women as property, amputations for stealing, stoning for “adultery,” hangings for gays, Jewish genocide, ethnic cleansing, and more.

Why Libya? Why not Iran? Iran has been systematically killing and torturing its people since their bloody march for freedom began in June 2009.

Why did Iran, one of the most dangerous threats to world security, escape criticism, sanction and retaliation for its unmatched putdown of the millions who took to the streets for freedom against brutal Islamic theocracy?

Meanwhile, shortly before America fired missiles into Libya, Hamas fired mortars into Israel, injuring two civilians. Here is more of the poisonous fruit of Obama’s stunning foreign policy failure, unprecedented abandonment of American allies, and absolute sanction of Islamic Jew-hatred.

How one yearns for the Bush days when the world was stable. The Obama presidency is a trainwreck, and we are living in a constant state of chaos and agitation. Going from bad to worse, we are living on the edge of impending catastrophe.

But this week there was one bright spot in the news, and an indication of things to come. Barack H. Obama Elementary School in Asbury Park, N.J. is closing. A school named for an unremarkable community organizer who had accomplished nothing, achieved nothing, and was elected in a marketing coup, had to fail. The Obama election was the triumph of style over substance, collectivism over statism, the moron over the informed.

And now Obama’s fierce Islamophilia threatens free men the world over.

As Stephen Landman of the indispensable Investigative Project on Terrorism’s IPT News reported in a post Monday:

“The court roundly rejected the claims that there’s a distinction between aid to a terrorist group’s “social” wing, as opposed to its military wing….:

Material support meant to “promote peaceable, lawful conduct” can further terrorism by foreign groups in multiple ways. Material support is a valuable resource by definition. Such support frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends. It also importantly helps lend legitimacy to foreign terrorist groups – legitimacy that makes it easier for those groups to persist, to recruit members, and to raise funds – all of which facilitate more terrorist attacks.

As a result of this ruling upholding the material support statute, it remains illegal to provide to designated terrorist groups “any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instrument or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safehouses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (one or more individuals who may be or include oneself), and transportation, except medicine or religious materials.”

The Court found:  “Whether foreign terrorist organizations meaningfully segregate support of their legitimate activities from support of terrorism is an empirical question. When it enacted section 2339B in 1996, Congress made specific findings regarding the serious threat posed by international terrorism. One of those findings explicitly rejects plaintiffs’ contention that their support would not further the terrorist activities of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and the Tamil Tigers (LTTE): ‘Foreign organizations that engage in terrorist activity are so tainted by their criminal conduct that any contribution to such an organization facilitates that conduct.’”

The ruling in Holder v. The Humanitarian Law Project also determined that: “Material support meant to ‘promote peaceable, lawful conduct’ can further terrorism by foreign groups in multiple ways. Material support is a valuable resource by definition. Such support frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends. It also importantly helps lend legitimacy to foreign terrorist groups – legitimacy that makes it easier for those groups to persist, to recruit members, and to raise funds – all of which facilitate more terrorist attacks.”

The logic of the Supreme Court’s decision on material support suggests that it would be illegal to provide $400 million via the so-called “moderates” of the Palestinian Authority to the designated terrorist organization (DTO) Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip – something President Obama has announced he intends to do.  It should also preclude the sort of “outreach” to the so-called “moderates” of another DTO, Hezbollah, as presidential advisor Brennan has twice indicated he thinks is in order.  Ditto negotiations with “moderate” members of the Taliban, at least to the extent such a process entails what amounts to material support to that terrorist organization in the form of financial or other substantial inducements to their cooperation.

What is more, the Supremes’ ruling in this case essentially upholds a landmark en banc opinion issued last year by the 7th Circuit in Boim v. Holy Land Foundation.  The latter decision written for the majority by highly esteemed Judge Richard Posner found that a contribution made to an organization embracing a doctrine like Shariah that calls on its adherents to engage in jihad amounts to material support.  This outcome was particularly gratifying for the Center for Security Policy as it filed an amicus brief in the case making precisely that argument.

Particularly noteworthy is the fact that the Supreme Court actually endorsed a broad interpretation of the material support statute.  Solicitor General Elena Kagan espoused the view that the law regulates conduct only, not speech per se. The Court found that the statute does indeed regulate speech and that Congress can criminalize speech on behalf of a known terrorist organization – even if such speech is for legal ends, as long as that speech also provides material support to said organization.

Accordingly, it appears that, for example, if an imam were to issue a Shariah fatwa “to, under the direction of, or in coordination with foreign groups that the speaker knows to be terrorist organizations,” he would be guilty of violation of the material support statute.  This could constitute a powerful new tool for countering the stealth jihad inside the United States.

By the same token, the Supreme Court ruling would apply to overseas activities as well, such as the so-called “humanitarian flotilla” that sought to break Israel’s naval blockade of Hamastan in Gaza.  Any U.S. organization that coordinated their support for this affair with Hamas in any way would be guilty of providing material support in violation of the statute.

In short, the top court in a federal judiciary that has in recent years handed a succession of victories to America’s terrorist foes – dare we call it “material support? – has rendered a decision in Holder v. the Humanitarian Law Project of signal importance.  It now behooves the Obama administration to conform its own policies and behavior to the letter and spirit of this sensible ruling, even as it enforces the law vigorously.

That is what we should do with regard to the violent incident that took place when the Israelis boarded the six ships constituting the so-called Gaza Flotilla. Most of what we have learned in the aftermath is true and appalling but, in the long run, inconsequential.

The Israeli soldiers who landed on the Mavi Marmara (in Turkish, the Blue Sea of Marmara) in preparation for conducting the ship to an Israeli port – from which the goods being carried could be sent on to Gaza – were, in fact, ambushed, as Allison Kaplan Sommer indicates in her lucid analysis of the evidence that has become available, and all of the usual suspects quickly lined up to condemn Israel for crimes she did not commit.

This is a tiresome, all-too-predictable business reminiscent of the campaign launched in the wake of the clearing action undertaken some years ago at the Jennin refugee camp and of the campaign launched after the Israelis intervened in in 2008 to put an end to Hamas’ firing of missiles into Israel from their stronghold in Gaza. It is part and parcel of a long struggle on the part of the PLO in days gone by and of Hamas now to stage incidents and rally world public opinion against the Israelis for doing what they have to do to defend themselves.

I do not mean to say that the Israelis have never erred. They have. Nor would I want to be taken to suggest that they did not overstep in establishing some of the settlements set up on the West Bank. There, also, I believe they did wrong. But what they did in Jennin, in Gaza, and on the Mavi Marmara was a matter of self-defense. All of this should be obvious.

There is another aspect to this matter, however, that deserves much more attention. This time, the incident staged has a new wrinkle, and Ralph Peters has been virtually alone in recognizing its significance. There were six ships in the Gaza Flotilla. Only one of them was the source of any trouble, and it was a Turkish craft to a considerable degree manned by Turks. That Hamas and its allies should have staged such an incident is only what we should expect. That the Turkish government should have a hand in such a matter, as it evidently did –. that is disturbing in the extreme.

I lived in Turkey from 1984 to 1986, learned the language, and married a Muslim from Istanbul. In those years, as a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs, I traveled throughout the country, visited Greece (which I knew tolerably well from previous trips), and spent some weeks in Cyprus on both sides of the green line. While in Istanbul, I came to have a deep appreciation for the Turks and for the accomplishments of Mustafa Kemal – the man who called himself Atatürk (“Father of the Turks”).

When the Greeks tried to take over Anatolia in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, it was this man Atatürk who defeated and drove them from the land. In the aftermath, he overthrew the Sultan, abolished the Caliphate, and established in Anatolia a secular republic modeled on the nation states of Europe. He taught the Turks that they were not simply Turkish-speaking Muslims; they were a people – and in the eight-and-a-half decades that have passed since he carried out his revolution, Turkey has conducted its affairs in a more or less admirable way.

Of course, when I lived in Turkey, I was aware that there was an Islamist underground fostered by the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia and supported as well, after the Iranian revolution at the very end of the 1970s, by the Ayatollah Khomeini and his minions. But in those days Turkey’s answer to the Muslim Brotherhood was of no great importance, and the nation stood behind the army, which was resolute in its defense of Turkish secularism.

I was last in Turkey in March, 2002. At that time, nothing seemed amiss. But a year later, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party came to power, and things began to change. Erdoğan was savvier than his Islamist predecessors, and he posed as a moderate – intent on cleaning up the corruption that had long bedeviled Turkish politics – and this to his credit he to a considerable extent accomplished. His administration also managed to stabilize the currency  (an unheard-of feat), and they brought a measure of prosperity to the country that it had never experienced before and improved social services. They also initiated the process necessary for Turkey’s entrance into the European Union. This earned Erdoğan and his party re-election with an improved margin in 2007 and accolades abroad.

Then, after being re-elected, Erdoğan and his supporters began slowly but steadily to take over the state apparatus and to install Islamists in positions of responsibility that had always been reserved for the Kemalist admirers of Atatürk. They are now on the verge of completing that effort. A referendum is scheduled for 12 September, and if the Turkish people approve the proposal put forth by Erdoğan’s party, the Islamists will be able to pack the courts and rein in the military. Ordinarily, the latter would be a welcome move. But, in modern Turkey, the military has always been the mainstay of the secular regime. What we are witnessing is the gradual overthrow of the Kemalist republic, and what happened on the Mavi Marmara this past Monday, as well as the response of the Turkish government in the aftermath, is a sign of trouble to come.

I have argued elsewhere that Arab nationalism has run its course, that no one in the younger generation is committed to it, and that Islamic revivalism on something like the Iranian model is likely to become hegemonic in the Arab-speaking world. Turkish nationalism may also have run its course. If Recep Tayyip Erdoğan succeeds in his quest, there will be a major change in the balance of power in the Middle East. These days, apart from the Islamic Republic of Iran and its ally Syria, there is no state of any real significance in the Middle East that sponsors terrorism. But Turkey now appears to be coming down on the side of Hamas and Hezbollah, and that really matters. Turkey is a regional power of no mean importance. It has a first-rate army and a fine military tradition; and, when Turks throw themselves into a fight, they mean business. Turkey has weight.

Meanwhile, in Egypt, an epoch is about to come to an end. Soon, Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt for nearly thirty years, will pass from the scene. I would not be surprised if his successor, responding to the impulses felt by the younger generation, were to ally himself with the Muslim Brotherhood. There is a storm gathering in the Middle East, and at the White House, alas, it is amateur hour, for the United States now has a President who appears to be blithely unaware of the consequences – or worse: unconcerned or even vaguely sympathetic to the transformation about to take place.

]]> http://biggovernment.com/prahe/2010/06/03/the-gathering-storm-in-the-middle-east/feed/ 57 http://biggovernment.com/jhoft/2010/06/02/arrested-gaza-flotilla-peace-activists-are-al-qaeda-have-record-of-radicalism/ http://biggovernment.com/jhoft/2010/06/02/arrested-gaza-flotilla-peace-activists-are-al-qaeda-have-record-of-radicalism/#comments Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:49:28 +0000 Jim Hoft http://biggovernment.com/?p=127686 What a shock. A majority of the arrested “peace activists” who brutally attacked the Israeli soldiers with pipes, metal rods. chairs and knives are linked to terror groups including Al-Qaeda. Several are members of the Muslim Brotherhood. The activists include Turks, Yemenites and Indonesians. And, many of the arrested “peace” fanatics have no identification papers.

The terror-linked “peace activists” even brought their own “Hezbollah slingshots” with them on their “peace” mission. (IDF)

YNET News reported:

The ongoing interrogation of passengers who were aboard the Marmara – the Gaza aid flotilla’s flagship – revealed that the majority of those who attacked the Israeli Naval Commandos boarding the ship have direct and indirect Global Jihad ties.

Israel’s investigation has revealed some 100 people infiltrated the peace and humanitarian aid activists making their way to Gaza, with the explicit design to attack Israeli soldiers using cold arms.

Some among that group are believed to have ties with World Jihad groups, mainly al-Qaeda.

The majority of suspects are Turks, but some are Yemenites and Indonesian. One Yemenite Islamist was photographed with a dagger in his belt prior to the raid.

The suspects are not cooperating with investigators. Most of them have no identification papers, and Israeli authorities are still trying to ascertain their identity.

So, will the Western media omit this from their reports, too?

More… There were 3 Pakistanis with the Gaza Flotilla, too.

UPDATE: Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S, said the terrorists had ties to Al-Qaeda.
WCBS reported:

Israel also said terrorists were involved that have ties to al Qaeda.

“I believe that the organization involved in organizing the Turkish part of the flotilla was deeply linked to Islamic extremist organizations in the world,” Ambassador Oren said. “This is not just Israel’s conclusions. There is evidence from the CIA.”

Still more… MEMRI had this on the jihadists:

Arab Media Reports on Flotilla Participants: Writing Wills, Preparing for Martyrdom, Determined to Reach Gaza or Die

The Egyptian flotilla delegation included two members of the Muslim Brotherhood bloc in the Egyptian parliament: Muhammad Al-Baltaji and Hazem Farouq.

Al-Baltaji, who is deputy secretary-general of the Muslim Brotherhood parliamentary bloc in Egypt, said at a March 2010 conference, “A nation that excels at dying will be blessed by Allah with a life of dignity and with eternal paradise.” He also said that his movement “will never recognize Israel and will never abandon the resistance,” and that “resistance is the only road map that can save Jerusalem, restore the Arab honor, and prevent Palestine from becoming a second Andalusia.[1]

More…

Prominent activists in the Yemeni flotilla delegation were three MPs from the Al-Islah party, an Islamist party that is close to the Muslim Brotherhood. One, Sheikh Muhammad Al-Hazmi, was photographed on the deck of the Mavi Marmara brandishing his large curved dagger.