Hat tip: Freedom’s Lighthouse:

Here is video of Newt Gingrich telling a rally of supporters that we now have before us the “Obama Hostage Crisis” unfolding in Egypt, where 19 Americans are being held against their will and are being threatened with trial. Gingrich said this is beginning to remind him of “Jimmy Carter” and the “Iranian Hostage Crisis.”

Sounds spot on to me.

Abdullah Faaruuq, a Muslim “spiritual advisor” and chaplain from Boston-based Northeastern University, was a key speaker at a fundraiser for al Qaeda’s Ma Barker, the criminal female terrorist named Aafia Siddiqui, also known as “Lady al Qaeda.” This man, Faaruuq, is living off American taxpayers yet advocates for his followers to use “the gun and the sword” to advance Islam in America.

The fundraiser for Siddiqui was held at the Islamic Center of Worcester, Mass. on Dec. 8 with the stated goal of raising $30,000 to assist this female terrorist convicted in 2008 of attempting to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan.

As Steve Emerson of Family Security Matters reports, Abdullah gave Siddiqui high praise.

“What a brave woman she continues to be, and how much her bravery and her faith and her belief warrants our support at this time,” said Faaruuq, an imam at Roxbury’s Mosque for the Praising of Allah. “It is said that we’re trying to raise $30,000 tonight. I would say it’s better that we’ve raised your awareness and raised your ire, as your anger against a government who would level the charges that they have against this woman and they say she is guilty. I would say she’s only guilty of defending herself.”

In addition to lauding Siddiqui’s “bravery,” Faaruuq also condemned American soldiers, the very people who defend America, as “kafirs,” meaning infidels.

“And if my mother was in the same place,” he said, “she would have took (sic) her West Indian machete and cut her way through those kafirs.”

According to the Northeastern University website, “Imam Abdullah serves as Northeastern University’s Muslim chaplain, as well as spiritual advisor to the Islamic Society student group.” Sadly he is advising students at a public university in the ways of violent jihad. And our taxes go to fund his actions.

Imam Abdullah has for some time been a controversial figure. As part of a violence-advocating, jihad-pushing, terror-funding mosque that was helped to come to fruition by public officials and politicians in Massachusetts, Abdullah has been advocating violence against Americans for years.

No wonder radical Islamists think America is the “weak horse” in the world. We are with our own taxes funding our own home-grown terror supporters like Abdullah.

President Obama and his various quislings and underlings still cannot bring themselves to say that the USA is under attack by radical Islamists. This is the self-destructive garbage that comes from the Obama administration every day. This is the kind of stuff that makes of us the “weak horse” that Islamists use to justify their attacks on the US.

We have two examples of this today, one from a representative of the Department of Homeland Security and one from Gaffemaster Joe Biden.

First up, our erstwhile VP. Ol’ Slow Joe Biden told Newsweek’s Leslie Gelb that the Taliban isn’t our enemy, either. You know, despite that we invaded Afghanistan to oust them from power, and all.

Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests.

Next we have assistant defense secretary for homeland defense Paul Stockton refusing to agree with Rep. Dan Lungren’s (R.-Calif.) characterization of al Qaeda as “radical Islamists.”

YouTube Caption:

Wednesday Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) opened a hearing to examine the emerging threat to the military from homegrown terrorists within the U.S. and named the armed services as the “most sought-after” target for radical Islamist extremist groups.

Rep. Dan Lungren (R.-Calif.) asked Paul Stockton, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, whether “we are at war with violent Islamist extremism.

The idiocy from the Obama administration is startling. They won’t even deign to identify the enemy and the enemy IS radical, terrorists driven by a fanatical devotion to Islam. But we can’t even get Obama and his comrades to identify our enemy, an enemy that has no problem announcing their own animus toward the USA.

(UK Telegraph) At least one person was killed and up to 25 others wounded Tuesday when up to four grenades exploded outside the main courthouse in the eastern Belgian city of Liege.

The attack took place around noon on Saint-Lambert square, home to the town’s courthouse and located near a busy Christmas market, Belga news agency said.

A two-year-old child is reportedly fighting for life in hospital.

One of two or more assailants threw stun grenades into the courthouse while another was hurled at a bus shelter, RTL-TV1 said.

Shots were fired across the square by gunmen posted on the rooftop of a bakery shop, with further shots heard later from across town.

Police cordoned off the square and gave chase to the assailants, one of whom was reportedly killed. The gunmen are thought to be hiding in Liege cathedral.

And the possible reason behind this?

The Karachi Post in Pakistan claimed that the attack was linked to a sentence in an honour killing case. It said the parents of Sadia Sheikh were sentenced on Monday when there had been a bomb alert in the court.

Which religion teaches about “honor killings”? Sadia Sheikh was a Muslim. Her parents were hardcores. And she was killed because she was living in Belgium and refused an arranged marriage.

Since he ascended from nothing to the office of President of the United States, Obama has shown a disdain for most of our western allies that borders on hatred. But he’s reserved his most backhanded treatment to Israel. It isn’t just what he’s done to show Israel that he has no use for them, but it goes all the way down to his every last appointment and this week we see another reminder of that in the comments belched forth by Obama’s U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, Howard Gutman, who basically said that anti-Semitism perpetrated by Muslims is really all Israel’s fault.

As Jake Tapper (one of the few real reporters in Washington) reported on Sunday, Gutman made his remarks at a conference on anti-Semitism organized by the European Jewish Union on Dec. 2.

At the conference Gutman said, “a distinction should be made between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.” Gutman imagined that tensions between Muslims and Israel is one, “largely born of and reflecting the tension between Israel, the Palestinian Territories and neighboring Arab states in the Middle East over the continuing Israeli-Palestinian problem.”

Gutman said that “throughout the Muslim communities that I visit, and indeed throughout Europe, there is significant anger and resentment and, yes, perhaps sometimes hatred and indeed sometimes and all too growing intimidation and violence directed at Jews generally as a result of the continuing tensions between Israel and the Palestinian territories and other Arab neighbors in the Middle East…every new settlement announced in Israel, every rocket shot over a border or suicide bomber on a bus, and every retaliatory military strike exacerbates the problem and provides a setback here in Europe for those fighting hatred and bigotry here in Europe.”

What is all this if not a way to blame the Jews for Muslim anti-Semitism?

Naturally, many in Israel are not happy. In fact, one of the speakers that followed Gutman’s disastrous comments denounced him right there on stage, as well he should, according to Tapper’s report.

But Gutman’s blaming of the Jews for everything that befalls them — akin to blaming the woman for being raped, in my opinion — fits in nicely with Obama’s attitude against Israel. It also fits in with most of his appointees to the Middle East. Some of his past appointees were Susan Power — a woman that said we should be giving military aid to the Palestinians — and Robert Malley — a man that has close working ties to Hamas.

So, it just shouldn’t surprise that yet another Obama team member is blaming the Jews for radical Muslim terror and hatred.

(CNN) Authorities have arrested a man they claim was plotting to detonate pipe bombs in and around New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Sunday night.

The intended targets of Jose Pimentel, 27, were U.S. military personnel who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as U.S. postal facilities and police in New York and Bayonne, New Jersey, according to Bloomberg and New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

The suspect was described by Bloomberg as an “al Qaeda sympathizer,” though he is not believed to have ever worked with or received training from anyone in that terrorist organization.

That’s weird, since the Paper Of Record doesn’t bother mentioning the Islamist connection. I wonder why?

The police commissioner identified the suspect as a follower of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric who rose to become a top figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Pimental allegedly tried to contact al-Awlaki directly, but never got a response. (snip)

“He was a reader of al Qaeda’s slick online magazine Inspire — and inspire him it did,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said. “His stated desire to attack our servicemen and women … could have come from an al Qaeda playbook.”

He’s described as a “lone wolf”, and he probably was. But, he was certainly inspired by the more hardcore elements of the Religion of Peace. One of these days, the so-called moderate Muslims are going to have to choose whether they take their religion back, or continue on the road they are currently traveling.

In late October 2007, according to the International Herald Tribune, the head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, stated that he had seen “no evidence” of Iran developing nuclear weapons. The IHT quoted ElBaradei as saying “We have information that there has been maybe some studies about possible weaponization. That’s why we have said that we cannot give Iran a pass right now, because there is still a lot of question marks … . But have we seen Iran having the nuclear material that can readily be used into a weapon? No. Have we seen an active weaponization program? No.” The IHT report went on to say that “ElBaradei said he was worried about the growing rhetoric from the U.S., which he noted focused on Iran’s alleged intentions to build a nuclear weapon rather than evidence the country was actively doing so. If there is actual evidence, ElBaradei said he would welcome seeing it.”

In July 2009, Yukiya Amano, the in-coming head of the IAEA said: “I don’t see any evidence in IAEA official documents” that Iran is trying to gain the ability to develop nuclear arms

The Left jumped on that report, and others, that Iran wasn’t even close to developing nuclear weapons, that they were either decades away or building nuclear plants for “peaceful energy purposes.” We were told that Iran gave up their nuclear weapons ambitions in 2003. All sorts of media outlets bashed Bush for trying to get tough on Iran, saying they were no real threat. And today we get

(Washington Post) Intelligence provided to U.N. nuclear officials shows that Iran’s government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles, according to Western diplomats and nuclear experts briefed on the findings.

Documents and other records provide new details on the role played by a former Soviet weapons scientist who allegedly tutored Iranians over several years on building high-precision detonators of the kind used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction, the officials and experts said. Crucial technology linked to experts in Pakistan and North Korea also helped propel Iran to the threshold of nuclear capability, they added.

The officials, citing secret intelligence provided over several years to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the records reinforce concerns that Iran continued to conduct weapons-related research after 2003 — when, U.S. intelligence agencies believe, Iranian leaders halted such experiments in response to international and domestic pressures.

Now, I know it would be easy to bash Obama, especially over his early talk about discussions with Iran with no preconditions, discussions which never really took place. And for pushing more sanctions. For holding Israel back. But, let’s be fair, other than threats, which Iran would ignore, and actually bomb bomb bombing Iran, there was little Obama could do.

But, with this report, one has to wonder what the U.S. and Israel will now do. Consider this from a NY Times article back on August 19, 2010, in which the Obama administration convinced Israel to hold off a bit, that the threat was not “imminent”

American officials said the United States believed international inspectors would detect an Iranian move toward breakout within weeks, leaving a considerable amount of time for the United States and Israel to consider military strikes.

Remember, there was a report that Israel was getting ready to strike Iran, which Defense Minister Ehud Barak said was not accurate.

Now, there will be all sorts of editorials and talking heads discussing this, and there will be two positions: strike now and strike hard, or simply yammer and put more sanctions in place. Striking could give Iran more prestige among the hard core Islamists and the Israel and U.S. haters. Talks and sanctions will do absolutely nothing, as history has shown. The big question is, do we wait till Iran actually has nuclear weapons built, and uses them, either directly or through one of their terrorist groups?

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach. Please sign the drill now petition.

In his recent assessment of his year since he was unceremoniously — and illicitly in many folks’ estimation — fired by NPR, Juan Williams indulged one of those fallacious left-wing assumptions that just screams left-wing spin. It is the sort of straw man argument that casts aspersions on others, this time against Christians, while pretending to be the logical, adult in the room, not to mention while pretending not to be casting aspersions. It really is a logical sleight of hand that all liberals use.

First let me say that I am 100% on Williams’ side in that his firing by NPR was a real breach of journalistic ethics: theirs. The comments he made a year ago that got him fired did not in any way harm his veracity as a journalist, nor were they racist or even incorrect. Heck, they weren’t even injudicious except when taking the brain dead PCism that infests the left into consideration.

But that was the discussion of a year ago and really is not something worth rehashing here because Williams did say something outrageous in his review of that year-old issue that deserves to be highlighted. In essence, Williams made an illogical argument about how we should think of radical Islam and he did so by assuming that domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh of the Oklahoma City Bombing could be considered as representative of Christianity as the Saudi 19 were of radical Islam.

Here is what Williams said (my bold for emphasis):

… we have to keep in mind that America is a country founded on the ideal of religious liberty. We can’t stereotype any group on the basis of the behavior of extremists among them. We don’t indict all Christians because of Timothy McVeigh.