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Sharia law SHOULD be used in Britain, says UK’s top judge

Geert Wilders: Prisoner of Islam

The brilliantly insightful and fearless Diana West speaks with the equally fearless hero of free speech and of the defense of the West against Islamic supremacism, Geert Wilders:

THE HAGUE, The Netherlands -- Having run the polite-but-grim gauntlet of Dutch government security to gain access to Geert Wilders, I finally understood what the 24-hour security requirements of the man's continued existence really mean: To make the survival of Western-style liberty in the Netherlands his political cause, this Dutch parliamentarian has to live under high-tech lock and key.

This stunning paradox, with no end in sight, illustrates how far political freedom in the West has already eroded. Think of it: For writing about the repressive ideology of Islam, for arguing against the inequities of Sharia (Islamic law), for making a video ("Fitna") to warn about Islamic jihad, Wilders lives in his own non-Islamic country under a specifically Islamic death threat.

If it is politically incorrect to notice this, it is also indisputably true. True, too, is that, sans state security, this death threat could conceivably be carried out anytime, anywhere -- from the picturesque streets outside the Dutch parliament, to the house Wilders hasn't slept in since 2004. That, of course, was when, on an Amsterdam street, a Muslim assassin plunged a knife into Theo van Gogh's corpse, thus attaching the Islamic manifesto threatening both Wilders and his then-parliamentary colleague, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, with death.

Not long ago, political debate in the Netherlands met with, well, more political debate. Now, however, with a growing Muslim minority -- and it's politically incorrect to notice this, too -- political debate sometimes meets with Islam-inspired political assassination. At least it has, traumatically, twice in recent years: once, with the 2002 murder of the anti-Islamic-immigration politician Pim Fortuyn by an animal rights activist who claimed Fortuyn was scapegoating Muslims; and the following year with the ritualistic Islamic murder of Van Gogh, director of "Submission," a short video made with Hirsi Ali about Islamic mistreatment of women. In all, such Islam-inspired violence has been enough to chill Islam-inspired debate.

And that's just the situation at home. This week, even as Amsterdam's chief public prosecutor, Leo de Wit, announced that no charges would be brought against Wilders for "discrimination" or "incitement to hatred" related to Wilders' writings or video ("We find Mr. Wilders' remarks were limited to Islam as a religious movement," De Wit said), Jordan announced it is bringing a "Fitna"-related criminal case against the Dutch parliamentarian.

In other words, Jordan will indict a Dutch politician according to Jordanian (read: Islam-inspired) law. "Jordanian authorities are not aiming to arrest" the Dutch leader of the Freedom Party, Radio Netherlands Online reports. "They say the decision to prosecute was taken in order to send a signal to the Netherlands."

A "signal"? How about a gag? Of course, like other Western peoples, the Dutch seem content to censor themselves, happily mouthing multicultural platitudes that effectively rationalize their own culture's Islamization. Not Wilders.

I recently asked the 44-year-old Dutchman what was stronger in his country: Islam or multiculturalism.

"Unfortunately, they are both strong," he replied, seated in his lightly furnished but heavily guarded office. "But cultural relativism is the biggest problem." He went on to explain: "Multicultural society would not be that bad -- I don't really believe in it -- but it would not be that bad if, at least, we would be strong enough to say that our culture is better and dominant. But when you combine multicultural society with a dominant sense of cultural relativism, you are heading in the wrong direction. You are committing suicide when it comes to your own culture."

He continued: "I am not advocating a monocultural society. I just want what the Germans call leitkultur (leading culture). I want our own culture to be dominant -- not the only one, but to be dominant. I have a big problem with the cultural relativists who say every culture is equal. I don't believe every culture is equal."

Hoping to preserve the primacy of Western culture in this Dutch corner of the West, Wilders advocates a halt to Islamic immigration. "I'm not saying that every Muslim in the Netherlands is a criminal or a terrorist," he explains. "We know the majority is not. Still," he continues, "there is good reason to stop the immigration, because the more we have an influx of Muslims in the Netherlands, the strength of the (Islamic) culture will grow, and the change of our societies will increase." He sees his efforts as "a fight against an ideology that I believe at the end of the day will kill our freedom, kill our societies and change everything we stand for."

He's right -- and, yes, it's politically incorrect to say that, too. Everything the West stands for, starting with freedom of speech, is already changing as our institutions, up to and including, for example, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, increasingly proscribe critical references, or indeed, any references to Islam. While it's clear that the European manifestation of Islamic ideology has already killed Wilders' personal freedom in the Netherlands, the general impact on freedom throughout the West has yet to be fully appreciated.

"I have a mission," Wilders said. "I believe very strongly in what I say, and my party fortunately shares this view. And nobody in the Netherlands is doing (what I do). And somebody should. And I pay a high price for it."

What is the expression -- freedom isn't free? This is literally and acutely the case when it comes to this heroic and dedicated Dutchman.

UK’s top judge: Muslims should be able to live under Sharia

The judge speaks coolly of not allowing stonings and amputations, but how will he keep them out once the principle that Sharia can be applied in Britain is accepted? The next step will be challenges to the principle that whenever British law and Sharia come into conflict, Sharia must give way. And soon enough that principle will give way also.

"Muslims in Britain should be able to live under Sharia law, says top judge," by Christopher Hope and James Kirkup for the Telegraph, July 3 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Muslims in Britain should be able to live according to Sharia law, the country's most senior judge has said.

Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the Lord Chief Justice, strongly backed Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, over his suggestion earlier this year that aspects of Sharia law should be adopted in Britain.

The archbishop's remarks sparked a national debate and led to calls for his resignation.

Risking inflaming that controversy again, Lord Phillips has said that Muslims in Britain should be able to use Sharia to decide financial and marital disputes.

The judge did add that only the criminal courts should have the power to decide when a crime has been committed and when to impose punishment....

Lord Phillips said: "It is possible in this country for those who are entering into a contractual agreement to agree that the agreement shall be governed by law other than English law."

Therefore, he said, he could see no reason why Sharia law should not be used to settle disputes in this country.

He said: "There is no reason why principles of Sharia law, or any other religious code, should not be the basis for mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution."

He added: "It must be recognized however that any sanctions for a failure to comply with the agreed terms of the mediation would be drawn from the laws of England and Wales."

Sharia law suffered from "widespread misunderstanding" in Britain, Lord Phillips said.

"Part of the misconception about Sharia law is the belief that Sharia is only about mandating sanctions such as flogging, stoning, the cutting off of hands or death for those fail to comply with the law," he said.

"In some countries the courts interpret Sharia law as calling for severe physical punishment. There can be no question of such courts sitting in this country, or such sanctions being applied here."...

U.S. Troops Dying on Afghan Border With … IRAN?

Allied combat deaths in Afghanistan surpassed those in Iraq for a second straight month in June. Meanwhile, New Yorker reporter Sy Hersh writes that U.S. covert operators are infiltrating Iran.

What do these two developments have in common? Maybe nothing. But as we report in Thursday’s New York Daily News, one new factor in the record high casualties of the ever-escalating Afghan war is that American troops are suddenly dying along the country’s border with Iran.

At least 10 Americans have been killed in action since May 25 in Afghanistan’s Farah province, which lies on the Iranian border.

It’s worth noting that Hersh’s story claims U.S. operatives are cultivating Sunni allies opposed to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who live in Iran’s Baluchestan province - which just happens to abut Afghanistan’s Farah province.

According to Pentagon statements, a few of the casualties were killed during operations ostensibly in two eastern Farah districts: Gulistan and Bala Baluk, which are near Helmand province. Helmand has been the site of some of the war’s worst fighting, and U.S. and NATO commanders say they have squeezed some Taliban out of Helmand and into Farah.

But when I asked the Camp Pendleton, Calif., Marines to identify the Farah districts where their men died, I instead heard back from a New York National Guard colonel, whose task force trains Afghan National Security Forces. Lt. Col. Paul Fanning, the spokesman, wouldn’t name the undisclosed Farah districts where Americans were killed, citing "operational reasons."

"Our personnel," Fanning explained, "absolutely were not in Iran."

So what about the other American and coalition troops killed who were not involved in the ANSF training mission?

One of the fallen was in the secretive Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command - an elite new unit which basically is Marine Force Recon on steroids - though he died closer to Helmand than the Iranian border. A mysterious casualty who fell somewhere in Farah province was reported by the military on May 29, but has yet to be identified publicly because next of kin cannot be located, according to Army Capt. Christian Patterson, a spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force-101 at Bagram Airfield.

On the other side of Afghanistan, things also are heating up.

In the wake of a mid-June firefight between U.S. forces and opponents who may have been with the Pakistani Army’s notorious Frontier Corps, CJTF-101 has issued no less than six unusual statements about border clashes. A Black Hawk chopper was also shot down Tuesday near Pakistan, though without casualties. Most of the incidents were in Paktika and Khowst provinces on the border and involved rockets and mortars fired by enemy forces inside Pakistan, which were responded to by the U.S.-led coalition.

Iranian Convert “Temporarily” Released from Prison

Questions About the Rescue in Colombia

The dramatic rescue of the FARC hostages raises a host of important questions, here are a few, with short answers following and lengthy answers below:

Was the rescue the cover for an arrangement with the FARC?
Probably not.

What effect will this have on future hostage releases?
It will probably lead to more units dissolving and possibly releasing their hostages.

Colombian security used a ruse claiming to be an NGO, could such ploys undermine the legitimate role of NGOs?
Possibly, it’s complicated.

Read the in-depth answers here.

Gap in Tracking Terrorist Financing Through Money Service Businesses?

The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) appears to have responded to a published report of a potential gap in the pursuit of critical information needed for terrorist financing investigations. On June 13, Moneylaundering.Com reported that FinCEN has never forwarded special information requests, authorized under Section 314(a) of the Patriot Act, to money services businesses (MSBs) to assist in money laundering or terrorist financing investigations. Under the Act, institutions which receive "314(a) requests" are required to search records for information, determine if they had recent activity with the subject, and respond to FinCEN.

The 314(a) program was one of the investigatory innovations included in the Patriot Act while I was a counsel on the House Financial Services Committee. Financial institutions wanted to assist law enforcement on new cases and saw Section 314 as a means of providing specific information in response to a specific request. But implementation was not complete until February 2003, when an email process enabled law enforcement to send requests in batch to thousands of institutions. On March 1, 2005, FinCEN ceased using e-mail and instead posted 314(a) requests on a secure website. That system was secure enough to survive a cyber hack into FinCEN's entire e-mail list, reported first on this site in 2005.

Experts disagree on the impact of FinCEN's decision to not send 314(a) requests to MSBs. Several experts told Moneylaundering.com that the lack of requests leaves a "huge hole" in the AML-CFT regime. But a former deputy director at FinCEN said that FinCEN "purposely" left out MSBs because they "really don't have customers. We felt it would be too overwhelming for MSBs to comply or for FinCEN to even track it. For FinCEN to add MSBs, they would have to reconfigure everything and I don't think anyone is ready to take that on." I wrote on January 22 about several MSB cases as proof of the difficulty in stopping terrorists' funds flows, and we reported on the initial issuance of Patriot Act regulations on MSBs back in 2005. The first "U.S. Money Laundering Threat Assessment," issued in 2006, reported, "FBI field offices consistently identified MSBs (money service businesses) as the third-most utilized money laundering method that they encounter..." Patrice Motz, who was Chief of the Money Services Business Section at FinCEN in 2001-2002 and is now a consultant, told me, "My experience both in government and industry suggests that the government investigators could benefit greatly from directing Section 314a Requests to the larger MSBs, especially in those areas involved in money movement, including money transmitters and stored value issuers and sellers."

The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has apparently responded to the new story by issuing a new data sheet on the 314(a) requests and clarifying the criteria for sending them. Included in the fact sheet rae updated statistics on the results:

Terrorism/Terrorist Financing - 275 cases
Money Laundering - 562 cases
Convictions - 47

By comparison, as of September 2005, 314(a) requests had resulted in "157 cases involving terrorism or terrorist financing and 272 cases involving money laundering," and 10 convictions.

This issue represents another of a series which deserve review under a broad assessment of the successes and failures of the changes enacted under Title III of the Patriot Act, as I discussed in detail on May 7.

Gap in Tracking Terrorist Financing Through Money Service Businesses?

The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) appears to have responded to a published report of a potential gap in the pursuit of critical information needed for terrorist financing investigations. On June 13, Moneylaundering.Com reported that FinCEN has never forwarded special information requests, authorized under Section 314(a) of the Patriot Act, to money services businesses (MSBs) to assist in money laundering or terrorist financing investigations. Under the Act, institutions which receive "314(a) requests" are required to search records for information, determine if they had recent activity with the subject, and respond to FinCEN.

The 314(a) program was one of the investigatory innovations included in the Patriot Act while I was a counsel on the House Financial Services Committee. Financial institutions wanted to assist law enforcement on new cases and saw Section 314 as a means of providing specific information in response to a specific request. But implementation was not complete until February 2003, when an email process enabled law enforcement to send requests in batch to thousands of institutions. On March 1, 2005, FinCEN ceased using e-mail and instead posted 314(a) requests on a secure website. That system was secure enough to survive a cyber hack into FinCEN's entire e-mail list, reported first on this site in 2005.

Experts disagree on the impact of FinCEN's decision to not send 314(a) requests to MSBs. Several experts told Moneylaundering.com that the lack of requests leaves a "huge hole" in the AML-CFT regime. But a former deputy director at FinCEN said that FinCEN "purposely" left out MSBs because they "really don't have customers. We felt it would be too overwhelming for MSBs to comply or for FinCEN to even track it. For FinCEN to add MSBs, they would have to reconfigure everything and I don't think anyone is ready to take that on." I wrote on January 22 about several MSB cases as proof of the difficulty in stopping terrorists' funds flows, and we reported on the initial issuance of Patriot Act regulations on MSBs back in 2005. The first "U.S. Money Laundering Threat Assessment," issued in 2006, reported, "FBI field offices consistently identified MSBs (money service businesses) as the third-most utilized money laundering method that they encounter..." Patrice Motz, who was Chief of the Money Services Business Section at FinCEN in 2001-2002 and is now a consultant, told me, "My experience both in government and industry suggests that the government investigators could benefit greatly from directing Section 314a Requests to the larger MSBs, especially in those areas involved in money movement, including money transmitters and stored value issuers and sellers."

The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has apparently responded to the new story by issuing a new data sheet on the 314(a) requests and clarifying the criteria for sending them. Included in the fact sheet rae updated statistics on the results:

Terrorism/Terrorist Financing - 275 cases
Money Laundering - 562 cases
Convictions - 47

By comparison, as of September 2005, 314(a) requests had resulted in "157 cases involving terrorism or terrorist financing and 272 cases involving money laundering," and 10 convictions.

This issue represents another of a series which deserve review under a broad assessment of the successes and failures of the changes enacted under Title III of the Patriot Act, as I discussed in detail on May 7.

Infanticide in the UK: Romanian Girl to abort 22 week old baby

I don't know if you have been following the story or not. I've read about it a few days ago and - just two hours ago, the BBC confirmed that

An 11-year-old Romanian girl is to have an abortion in the UK ...The girl is 22 weeks pregnant after being raped by an uncle, who has since gone missing (bbc news).

They are going to take a 22 week old baby and kill him. They will tear this baby to pieces with knives. How sickening is this?

Below are two pictures of a 22 week old baby. Sure the baby is small but size does not determine your humanity. Shame on Marie Stopes International who arranged the abortion. They should be put out of business for killing people. All so called leaders of the world and culture icons should also be ashamed for sitting idle.

Please speak up about Abortion. Pro-choicers are killing babies.

Meet Amillia Taylor

To read Amillia's story, click here

Infanticide in the UK: Romanian Girl to abort 22 week old baby

I don't know if you have been following the story or not. I've read about it a few days ago and - just two hours ago, the BBC confirmed that

An 11-year-old Romanian girl is to have an abortion in the UK ...The girl is 22 weeks pregnant after being raped by an uncle, who has since gone missing (bbc news).

They are going to take a 22 week old baby and kill him. They will tear this baby to pieces with knives. How sickening is this?

Below are two pictures of a 22 week old baby. Sure the baby is small but size does not determine your humanity. Shame on Marie Stopes International who arranged the abortion. They should be put out of business for killing people. All so called leaders of the world and culture icons should also be ashamed for sitting idle.

Please speak up about Abortion. Pro-choicers are killing babies.

Meet Amillia Taylor

To read Amillia's story, click here

Those confounded maps

By Nader Shukry, Watani News

Last Wednesday a 50-member special committee formed by Minya governor Ahmed Diaa Eddin left Minya, some 250km south of Cairo, and headed 30km south to the fourth century desert monastery of Abu-Fana. The alleged task of the committee, which was accompanied by security forces in more than 15 trucks, was to draw the borders of the monastery grounds in order to determine the path of a protecting fencing wall. For Abu-Fana inmates and Mallawi bishopric-to which the monastery is affiliated-that task was in itself preposterous since it implied that the monastery grounds were not well defined. But it was a fact that the monastery was in possession of the ownership documents of all its grounds and has been regularly paying the annual land tax incurred.
(more…)

Those confounded maps

By Nader Shukry, Watani News

Last Wednesday a 50-member special committee formed by Minya governor Ahmed Diaa Eddin left Minya, some 250km south of Cairo, and headed 30km south to the fourth century desert monastery of Abu-Fana. The alleged task of the committee, which was accompanied by security forces in more than 15 trucks, was to draw the borders of the monastery grounds in order to determine the path of a protecting fencing wall. For Abu-Fana inmates and Mallawi bishopric-to which the monastery is affiliated-that task was in itself preposterous since it implied that the monastery grounds were not well defined. But it was a fact that the monastery was in possession of the ownership documents of all its grounds and has been regularly paying the annual land tax incurred.
(more…)

The Importance of the Colombian Rescue Mission

As my colleagues Jonathan Winer and Aaron Mannes have written on the Counterterrorism Blog, the spectacular operation by the Colombian military to rescue 15 high-profile hostages was a tremendous blow to the FARC in Colombia.

In the interest of full disclosure, Ingrid Bentancourt is a friend of mine, and I have written about her in the past because of her tremendous courage in acting as a beacon of light in a narco-corrupted congress, and in defiance of her own political party. On a personal level, this was tremendously good news.

As I wrote in this paper published by the NEFA Foundation just before the hostages were freed, the FARC is in a period of decline that will likely end with its implosion and fragmentation into small criminal groups.

Since March the FARC has been pummeled, lost three of its seven members of the directorate, and now, its prize hostages. The FARC's historic leader, Manuel Marulanda, the unifying force of the organization, is dead. His hand-picked successor, Raul Reyes, was killed in an army attack on his camp in Ecuador. Another member of the high command, Ivan Reyes, was killed by his own bodyguards, who collected the reward money.

Dozens of senior and mid-level commanders have deserted, including Karina, the highest-ranking woman in the FARC's ranks.

Now, a brilliantly executed rescue operation by a military that has often (and rightly) been accused of gross incompetence and corruption, takes the one thing of value (besides the cocaine laboratories) the FARC still had.

This is not random, but the product of years of work in human and signal intelligence, almost always hand-in-hand with U.S. counterparts. It is worth studying because it was done right.

Here are some of the highlights from my sources who are familiar with the operation:

The operation took more than three years to develop. The penetration of the rebel rank over time provided much of the human intelligence that was vitally needed. The infiltrators worked their way up the ranks, until they had access to both the force that protected the hostages and the FARC's general secretariat. The reports of the undercover operatives was wedded, with U.S. help, to signal intelligence, and the combination of the two fed off each other. My full blog is here.

Glenn Beck: Women causing rapes?

Ministry of Interior Calls Scholars to Train State Security Investigation Officers on Combating the Shiite Ideology

By  Ahmed el-Khatib, Munir Adeeb   

Dr. Abdel Moneim al-Barri, professor of Islamic Culture of Facutly of Da’wa and chief of deposed Al-Azhar scholars front revealed that Ministry of Interior has called him and a number of scholars specialized in Shiite ideology to deliver some lectures to state security investigation officers inside some prison buildings and dept. offices on the Shiite ideology and plans to break through the Sunni countries.  A security source refused to comment on this issue.
(more…)

Ministry of Interior Calls Scholars to Train State Security Investigation Officers on Combating the Shiite Ideology

By  Ahmed el-Khatib, Munir Adeeb   

Dr. Abdel Moneim al-Barri, professor of Islamic Culture of Facutly of Da’wa and chief of deposed Al-Azhar scholars front revealed that Ministry of Interior has called him and a number of scholars specialized in Shiite ideology to deliver some lectures to state security investigation officers inside some prison buildings and dept. offices on the Shiite ideology and plans to break through the Sunni countries.  A security source refused to comment on this issue.
(more…)

Egypt Gets into State of “Sectarian Congestion” not Sedition: Experts

By  Adel el-Dargali   

Politicians and partisan leaderships described the recent incidents in Egypt as “sectarian congestion”, refusing to call them “sectarian sedition”.

They attributed the state of congestion to the Church’s growing political role and the prevailing climate in the society. They called for bringing into effect citizenship values and solving problems apart from official institutions.
(more…)

21 Copts Appeal against Amendments to 1938 Statute

By  Amr Bayoumi   

More than 21 Copts lodged appeals to the Administrative Judiciary Court against the amendments introduced to the 1938 statute relating to the Christians’ personal status.

 They called for canceling the administrative decree issued by the Orthodox Church’s General Congregation Council amending the statute.
(more…)

21 Copts Appeal against Amendments to 1938 Statute

By  Amr Bayoumi   

More than 21 Copts lodged appeals to the Administrative Judiciary Court against the amendments introduced to the 1938 statute relating to the Christians’ personal status.

 They called for canceling the administrative decree issued by the Orthodox Church’s General Congregation Council amending the statute.
(more…)

Cairo’s gated compounds show rich-poor gulf

Huge difference between Egyptian minority living in luxury and majority of population under poverty line.
PALM HILLS, Egypt - The four-wheel-drives outside the terracotta villas include a Lexus and a Porsche, and under the shade of the palms and the bright red poinciana trees men in liveried overalls are buffing them to a shine.
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