The Cuban Adjustment Act ala Mexico

Posted on February 9, 2015February 9, 2015 by Denise Simon

The Cuban Adjustment Act of 1996 (CAA) provides for a special procedure under which Cuban natives or citizens and their accompanying spouses and children may get a green card (permanent residence). The CAA gives the Attorney General the discretion to grant permanent residence to Cuban natives or citizens applying for a green card if:

They have been present in the United States for at least 1 year
They have been admitted or paroled
They are admissible as immigrants

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HAVANA — President Obama’s opening to Cuba has accelerated a surge in Cuban migration to the United States, the latest U.S. statistics show, as many on the island grow worried that America’s long-standing immigration benefits for Cubans are now in jeopardy.

Last month the Coast Guard intercepted 481 Cubans in rickety boats and rafts, a 117 percent increase from December 2013. But the boaters account for only a fraction of those attempting to reach the United States. At the Miami airport and ports of entry along the Mexican border, the number of Cubans who arrived seeking refuge jumped to 8,624 during the last three months of 2014, a 65 percent increase from the previous year.

Many Cubans have heard warnings for years that their unique immigration privileges — which essentially treat anyone from the island who sets foot on U.S. terra firma as a political refugee — would not last forever.

Mexican border now a major entry point for Cuban migrants

Although a homemade raft overloaded with desperate people is the most enduring image of the decades-long migration to the U.S. from Cuba, that is not the way most Cubans without visas now arrive.

Most walk across the Mexican border.

“It is surprising. And it is surprising that we are now seeing those numbers officially reported,” said Jorge Duany, a Florida International University professor who studies migration patterns. During the last three months of 2014, nearly 6,500 Cubans arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That figure is up from 4,328 from the same period the previous year, an increase of 50 percent.

Sombrero Beach, in Marathon, Florida

The number of Cubans without visas processed through the agency’s Miami field office more than doubled over that same period, rising from 893 to 2,135. Many flew directly to Miami aboard flights from Spain, South America, the Bahamas or the Cayman Islands, using passports from Spain and other third countries.

The 1,900-mile long Southwest border, for years the main entry point for undocumented migrants from Mexico and Central America, was also ground zero for a recent spike in Cuban migrants.

The spike includes arrivals of Cubans by air and sea, and was fueled in part by fears that talks between the Obama Administration and Cuba could result in changes in the preferential treatment undocumented Cuban migrants have enjoyed since 1966.

Rumors that the Adjustment Act — and the 1995 amendment providing for the so-called “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy – was at risk began to sweep the island in the wake of President Obama’s Dec. 17 speech in which he said the U.S. wanted to normalize relations with the Castro government. Existing policies allow Cubans who reach U.S. soil– with or without visas – to stay and within a year apply for permanent residency.

“The primary concern is the possibility of the Cuban Adjustment Act being affected,” said Oscar Rivera, director of the resettlement agency Church World Service in Doral. “That seems to be an issue in Cuba right now. That’s what we’re hearing.”

The surge in Cuban migrants triggered by the announcement may be most evident in the number of Coast Guard interdictions at sea. In December 2014, 331 Cubans in boats and rafts were stopped before they could reach the U.S. All were taken back to Cuba. During the last three months of 2014, 132 Cubans made it to shore in Florida, up from 105 during the same period in 2013, according to Border Patrol figures. Unknown is the number who landed without being detected and did not report to U.S. officials, or who perished at sea. But balseros, or rafters, make up only a fraction of those attempting to reach the U.S. “It is no longer chiefly the heroic individual who floats himself across,” said Duany, director of FIU’s Cuban Research Institute. “Much of the traffic in people now is well-organized by smuggling groups. It is how the coyotes (smugglers) make a living.” Many of those Cubans who enter the U.S. through Mexico begin their journey in Ecuador. In the past six years, more than 100,000 Cubans have left the island for the Andean nation because Ecuador does not require a visa or special permission to visit.

Ramon Saul Sanchez, leader of the anti-Castro group Democracy Movement, said the Cuban government welcomes the flow of its citizens to South America, through Mexico and into Florida because it relieves social pressure on the island.

Once in the U.S., those arrivals then “refresh the source of income” to Cuba by sending money home to relatives on the island, Sanchez said.

Cubans also enter the U.S. with visas issued by the Interest Section in Havana. Current accords call for a minimum of 20,000 visas a year, but Duany said that recently the number of visas issued has averaged 32,000 annually.

Regardless of any changes to the Cuban Adjustment Act, or the lifting of the embargo, Duany predicts migration from Cuba will increase over the next decade. “The economic conditions, the living conditions in Cuba, don’t seem to improve, and the force of family ties remains strong,” he said. “I don’t see any indication that will change.” David Abraham, a University of Miami law professor and expert in Cuban migration, agrees. “Change in Cuba comes slowly,” he said. “What’s driving people to come here doesn’t change. That’s economic opportunity.”

Merkel, Obama and Putin

Posted on February 9, 2015February 9, 2015 by Denise Simon

Exactly why is Angela Merkel of German visiting the White House today? Putin is in Cairo today expanding his influence or is he? There is a real split on arming Ukraine, on a military solution or giving diplomacy more time with regard to getting Putin out of Ukraine. There have been numerous cease-fire agreements, each have collapsed, such that 5400 people in Ukraine are dead. What about Greece? There is also the question of what Putin is doing with Cyprus.

Cyprus has denied Russian media reports that it is ready to lease two military bases to Russia.

“There is no question of Russian air or naval military bases on the soil of Cyprus,” said Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides.

Earlier, Russian government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta said Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades would make the offer on an official visit to Moscow on 25 February.

Cyprus is in the EU but not in Nato.

The leasing deal would concern an air base near Paphos and a naval base at Limassol, according to Rossiiskaya Gazeta. Russia can already use the bases temporarily.

But Mr Kasoulides dismissed the leasing claim, saying “there has never been any request from Russia about this”, the Cyprus News Agency CNA reported.

He said President Anastasiades was referring to “the renewal of a military co-operation agreement with Russia consisting of maintenance of military equipment sold to Cyprus years ago, as well as the purchase of spare parts according to existing contracts”.

He added that “as regards the offering of facilities, these are of a purely non-military humanitarian nature, such as the evacuation of Russian civilians from the Middle East if the need arises”.

Russian warships can already use the Limassol base for refuelling and the Andreas Papandreou air base for humanitarian missions.

Commander of US Army in Europe Sees Russia Mobilizing for War ‘I believe the Russians are mobilizing right now for a war that they think is going to happen in five or six years —not that they’re going to start a war in five or six years, but I think they are anticipating that things are going to happen, and that they will be in a war of some sort, of some scale, with somebody within the next five or six years.”

So says Lt. Gen. Frederick “Ben” Hodges, commander of U.S. Army Europe….

“Strong Europe!” reads a sign on one of the walls. Next to it is the U.S. Army Europe insignia, a burning sword set against a blue shield. The two signs represent the strategic framework the three-star general has introduced—building on America’s decades-long role on the Continent—since taking command last year of the 30,000 or so U.S. soldiers stationed in Europe.

The U.S. military presence in Europe is more vital at this moment than it has been in many years. American engagement is essential if the West is to deter a revanchist Russia that has set out to “redraw the boundaries of Europe,” Gen. Hodges says with a native Floridian’s drawl….

The Russians have “got some forces in Transnistria,” he says of the state that broke away from Moldova in the 1990s. “They’ve got forces in Georgia. And I think they view China as their existential threat, so they’ve got a lot of capacity out there.” The Russian military is thus already somewhat stretched, and Moscow had to carve out from existing units the battalion task groups currently arrayed near eastern Ukraine. Yet “they are clearly on a path to develop, to increase, their capacity,” Gen. Hodges says. Add to this expansion that “they’ve got very good equipment, extremely good communications equipment, their [electronic-warfare] capability, T-80 tanks.” How long will it take for Russia to reach its desired military strength? “I think within another two or three years they will have that capacity,” he says….

Then there is the Kremlin’s sheer aggressiveness, not least on the nuclear front. The Pentagon last year announced that it is removing missiles from 50 of America’s underground silos, converting B-52 long-range bombers to conventional use and disabling 56 submarine-based nuclear-launch tubes—all well ahead of the 2018 New Start treaty deadline. Moscow, by contrast, has been simulating nuclear strikes on Western capitals as part of annual exercises.

Gen. Hodges won’t comment on the U.S. strategic-force posture in Europe other than to say he is “confident in that process.” But he adds that the fact that the Russians rehearse nuclear-strike scenarios “shows that they’re not worried about conveying a stark message like that. You know, frankly, you hear this often from many people in the West, ‘Oh, we don’t want to provoke the Russians.’ I think concern about provoking the Russians is probably misplaced. You can’t provoke them. They’re already on a path to do what they want to do….

“I’ve never been bashful about telling allies, ‘Hey, you have a responsibility here, too. You all agreed to spend 2% of your GDP on defense. Right now only four countries are doing it.'”

Yet the failure of many of European leaders to live up to their defense commitments “doesn’t change our interest,” Gen. Hodges says. “And the U.S. economic link to Europe, to the EU, dwarfs any other economic link in the world, anywhere in the Pacific, China, India, you name it. So if for no other reason it’s in our interest that Europe be stable, that people make money so they can buy U.S. products. . . .

We provide capability assurance here by being present here.”

Gen. Hodges says there is also a huge payoff in U.S. security from U.S.-European cooperation. The main lesson of the post-9/11 wars is that “we are not going to do anything by ourselves militarily,” he notes. The U.S. “needs the capacity that other countries can bring.” These benefits come “from a relatively small investment—I mean, U.S. Army Europe is 2% of the Army’s budget and about 5% of the Army’s manpower. . . . You can’t sit back in Virginia, Texas or Oregon and build relationships with people here.” He quotes his predecessor, Lt. Gen. Donald Campbell: “You can’t surge trust.”

Nor can the U.S. project national power world-wide, as it has since the end of World War II, with an overstretched Army. “There are 10 division headquarters in the Army,” he says. “Nine of them are committed right now. I’ve never seen that. I don’t think at the height of Iraq and Afghanistan you had nine out of 10 division headquarters committed against some requirement.” That leaves little in reserve if another conflict breaks out.

Liz Warren Fracturing the Democrat Party?

Posted on February 9, 2015February 9, 2015 by Denise Simon

The Working Families Party, a union-backed organization whose endorsements are sought after by mainstream Democrats. Let them not bite the hand that feeds them.

The party set up a supposedly profit-making business that supplies services like contact lists and manpower to turn out the vote. The candidates, it is said, pay market rates for the help.

There are two problems. First, the party and the company are one and the same – same address, same employees, same bosses. Second, the party does a lot more to help its candidates. Which the party is entitled to do as long as it acts independently of the candidate – or as long as the value of its assistance stays within strict donation guidelines.

Neither of those appears to be the case, signaling that the Working Families Party has likely funneled big unreported contributions to candidates, most prominently public advocate contender Councilman Bill de Blasio.

*** Enter Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Working Families Party Calls on Elizabeth Warren to Run for President

By ALEXANDER BURNS

February 8, 2015

Leaders of New York’s Working Families Party on Sunday urged Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to seek the Democratic nomination for president next year, formally calling on her to enter the 2016 race for the White House.

By voting to encourage a Warren candidacy, the Working Families Party became the latest liberal group to support her as a potential primary challenger to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has not formally announced that she will seek the Democratic nomination but is the presumed favorite.

Several organizations on the left, led by MoveOn.org and Democracy for America, have already organized a campaign designed to lure Ms. Warren, with her brand of economic populism, into making a bid for the presidency.

“We know a champion for working families when we see one,” Bill Lipton, New York State director of the Working Families Party, said. “The only thing better than watching Elizabeth Warren take Wall Street to task from the Senate would be helping her bring our issues to the center of the national debate.” Ms. Warren, who is beloved among liberals as a fierce critic of what she sees as the abuses of the financial industry, has repeatedly ruled out running for president in 2016. Lacey Rose, a spokeswoman for the senator, reiterated that stance in an email on Sunday. “As Senator Warren has said many times, she is not running for president and doesn’t support these draft campaigns,” Ms. Rose wrote.

The Working Families Party, led by a coalition of activists, liberal advocacy groups and labor unions, deliberated on an early-evening conference call before voting to encourage Ms. Warren to join the campaign. Party officials declined to share the tally of the vote.

The pro-Warren vote comes at a potentially awkward moment for New York Democrats, who have sought to draw their party’s 2016 presidential nominating convention to New York City. Mayor Bill de Blasio has aggressively promoted the bid on the national stage, where Democrats aligned with Mrs. Clinton hold powerful sway.

Although Mr. de Blasio has a longstanding relationship with the Working Families Party, party officials said that neither the mayor nor his staff had played a role in the group’s deliberations involving Ms. Warren.

Several Working Families leaders stressed that the vote was not meant as a rejection of Mrs. Clinton, who twice earned the party’s endorsement as a candidate for the United States Senate.

“It’s a vote in the context of two undeclared candidates for president,” said Ed Ott, former head of the New York City Central Labor Council. “What the Warren vote reflects is that people want a Democratic Party with a spine.”

Javier Valdes, executive director of Make the Road Action Fund, a Latino-oriented liberal group, characterized the vote as a statement of enthusiasm for a competitive primary. “Secretary Clinton has had a strong track record with our community and what we really want here is a strong debate about Democratic values and working family values,” Mr. Valdes, a Working Families Party leader, said.

What Keeps FBI Director up at Night

Posted on February 5, 2015February 5, 2015 by Denise Simon

Ex-Terror Task Force Member: Average Americans Are Targets in US

Average Americans should take heed of FBI Director James Comey’s warning to a Mississippi audience Tuesday that Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists are a real threat on U.S. soil, ex-Terrorism Task Force member Steve Rogers says.

“In the early 2000s when I was on the National Joint Terrorism Task Force, I remember reading al-Qaida’s training manual,” Rogers told Fox News Channel’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto” on Wednesday. “This was a 10-, 20-, 30-year strategic plan to do what? To go after the big prize, take down the United States of America … in America.”

“In that training manual, it was clear: Infiltrate their universities, infiltrate their schools, their neighborhoods, their market, infiltrate the news media, embed yourself in every neighborhood,” he said.

No one should be surprised there are ISIS sympathizers within our borders, Rogers said. After all, there were Nazi sympathizers in the United States during World War II and Soviet agents during the Cold War.

“Mississippi is a great state,” Comey said during a stop in that state, The Clarion-Ledger reported. “But like all 50 states it has troubled souls that might look to find meaning in this sick, misguided way.” The FBI has investigations on possible terror suspects in every state but Alaska, Comey said.

“The challenge that we face in law enforcement is that they may be getting exposed to that poison and that training in their basement,” Comey said. “They’re sitting there consuming and may emerge from the basement to kill people of any sort, which is the call of ISIL (or ISIS), just kill somebody.”

Rogers agreed.

“Look, I’m sure they’re here,” he said. “And I believe the FBI director was making it kind of through a back way of saying it, they’re here. So you know what, be on the look out.”

Ironically, the very administration for which Comey works has crippled intelligence capabilities, and isn’t protecting the borders from allowing more people with terrorist ties to enter, Rogers said.

He joined critics of President Barack Obama who say he should label the enemy “Islamic terrorists.” “Mr. President, say these are Islamic terrorists, for goodness sakes,” he said.

***

Then there is Canada, a close neighbor that needs attention.

Mysterious woman from Canada’s rapid rise in ISIS puzzles intel analyst

A mysterious jihadist who left her home in Canada in late November to join ISIS has toured the caliphate like a VIP, appearing in key locations throughout Syria and Iraq and prompting intel analysts to wonder what is behind her seemingly elevated status.

Little is known about the woman who calls herself “Lama Sharif al-Shammari” on Twitter and who terrorism experts simply call “L.A.” They believe she left Canada some time after Nov. 23 to join Islamic State, arrived on Dec. 8 and was in Syria as recently as Tuesday. Analysts believe she may be a Sunni Muslim of Saudi descent.

But what sets “L.A.” apart from thousands of radicalized foreigners who have flocked from North America and Europe to the terrorist army’s killing fields is that her Twitter account shows she has been to virtually every corner of Islamic State’s bloody realm within a three-week period, according to analysts. They believe her whirlwind itinerary indicates she is somehow significant and has risen inexplicably through the ranks.

“What is really surprising is that in a very short period of time, L.A. appears to have taken an extremely active role with ISIS,” said Veryan Khan, of the Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium (TRAC), a Florida-based global research firm specializing in political violence and terrorism.

Government and private intelligence agencies closely monitor social media accounts of known jihadists, not only for the substance of their chatter, but also for its origin. Khan said the woman known as L.A. has sent Tweets applauding Islamic State atrocities from “virtually every major city that ISIS controls.”

“We have never seen someone move about this rapidly,” Khan said. “What makes it even more unusual is that she is newly traveled to Islamic State. Having only been there since Dec. 8, it is odd that she would become so active so quickly once arriving,” said Khan.

Intel analysts want to know more about her, and what is responsible for her lofty status in the world’s biggest terror army. Hundreds of women are among the radical Islamists who have traveled to join Islamic State, but have so far served primarily in supportive roles or as brides, according to experts.

None are known to belong to self-professed “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s inner circle, and none have appeared in the videos in which ISIS fighters have executed captives or issued threats to the West. Khan believes this makes L.A.’s movements even more significant.

“Based on L.A.’s locations and congruent battles in these locations, it is been assumed that she is conducting, at least on some level, surveillance for the Islamic State,” Khan said.

L.A. – or “Toronto Jane” as she has also been dubbed by Khan’s group – has been to at least five cities within the vast territory controlled by Islamic State, leaving tracks in strongholds like Raqqa, Syria, as well as appearing in Kobani, where the terror group fought its most ferocious battles with Kurdish forces supported by U.S. airstrikes. She has also turned up in the Syrian cities of Dier ez Zur and Aleppo and in Mosul, Iraq.

“It is not merely the amount and location, but also the time frame — she has been very active in what essentially adds up to three weeks,” Khan said.
Tweets sent by L.A. reveal a committed radical enthusiastically promoting Islamic State’s signature atrocity – beheadings. While FoxNews.com will not link to L.A.’s Twitter feed, her banner is an image of a severed head, taken from an infamous ISIS propaganda video in which an Islamic State leader orchestrates an unprecedented simultaneous beheadings of 22 people.

“Though we have seen this trend of using the images of the foreign fighters of this video as avatars on Twitter, it is pretty bold to feature the severed head,” Khan said.
L.A. has posted 131 tweets, all in Arabic, to her 145 followers, according to her Twitter page. Her most recent tweet, from Syria, came on Jan. 23, the day Saudi monarch King Abdullah died.

“Fill the world with the noise of his news, like he filled the land of ‘Al-Haramain’ (Saudi Arabia) with the bases of the American Military invader,” read the tweet, according to a translation provided for FoxNews.com by Craig Smith, chief investigator with BrightStar Investigations. “Write him (King Abdullah) as many laments as are his treasons.”
Based on an analysis of her tweets, Smith believes L.A. is a Saudi Arabian whose family is from the Al-Shamry tribe, and that she harbors “extreme hatred” for the Saudi royal family for allowing the U.S. military on Saudi soil during the Iraq War.

Her posts were first noted by the Ontario-based intelligence research company iBRABO, which worked with TRAC while monitoring her cell phone location matching it up with corresponding tweets. The firm claims it has pinpointed her recent presence in Kobani and Mosul down to specific homes.

“She had interactions with key players known in the region,” Khan said. “Plus there is no way to fake the location services pinging from the actual phone. If you look at her locations outside of Kobani and Mosul — they were all strongholds we can pinpoint down to the actual house on the street.” Geo-mapping the locations of people has been around for a number of years, said Chris Roberts, founder of One World Labs, an organization that specializes in cyber security and threat intelligence.

“Most people on the planet don’t seem to realize they are being tracked by several applications on their phone,” Roberts said, adding that Twitter development has a “geo tag” that uses two pieces of data, the “reference” to the user’s location, which can be set, and the latitude/longitude code from the phone’s triangulation capabilities.

The terrorist group has been active on social media, using it to issue threats and post videos of its bloody handiwork, but top ISIS brass apparently realizes that they can be tracked through tweets.

Al-Baghdadi and Islamic State spokesman Mohammad al-Adnani issued a statement earlier this week about unauthorized messages from within their organization in which they said neither has a personal account.
“The Caliph Abu Baker Al Baghdadi and Shaykh Abu Mohammad al-Adnani al-Shami do not have accounts on social media,” read a translation obtained by Fox News.

But social media is a powerful recruitment tool for Islamic State, and sick messages and images sent by devoted adherents like L.A. help swell its ranks, according to Ryan Mauro, national security analyst for the Clarion Project. L.A.’s new prominence could even help Islamic State lure more women to Syria and Iraq, he said.

“These men are interested in having ‘wives’ come to the so-called caliphate to live with them,” Mauro said.
He said promotion of women like L.A. could be a deliberate effort by Islamic State to change its image.
“Islamic State wants to redefine feminism by characterizing Western society as oppressive towards women,” he said. “They choose to highlight women to show that their ideology treats women fairly as equals in jihad.”

The Real Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast

Posted on February 5, 2015February 5, 2015 by Denise Simon

One would have either had to attend the National Prayer Breakfast or would have had to watch it on C-Span to hear and see Barack Obama. He went either off script or someone in the White House edited the published version of his speech. The White House version is here for comparison.

White House correspondent Neil Munro was kind enough to report the accurate spirit of Barack Obama’s presentation at the National Prayer Breakfast.

President Obama used a speech at the annual prayer breakfast Thursday to portray Americans’ routine criticism of Islam as “insults” and “attacks,” and to repeatedly suggest that Americans should curb their criticism of Islamic ideas.

“In modern, complicated, diverse societies, the functioning of these rights, the concern for the protection of these rights calls for each of us to exercise civility and restraint and judgment,” Obama said, one month after three Muslims shouted Islamic justifications while murdering 14 French journalists, police, shoppers and Jews in Paris.

Obama also suggested that free speech should be curbed or regulated to shield Islamic ideas and Muslims’ self-esteem from the rough-and-tumble world of modern democracies.

“And if, in fact, we defend the legal right of a person to insult another’s religion, we’re equally obligated to use our free speech to condemn such insults and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with religious communities, particularly religious minorities who are the targets of such attacks,” Obama told his D.C. audience.

In his speech, Obama did not even try to describe his suggested distinction between legitimate criticism and illegitimate “insults” and “attacks.” In Islamic culture and laws, criticism of Islamic ideas is often treated as traitorous insults to Islam’s deity and its final prophet that deserve capital punishment.

In 2009 and 2012, Obama swore to uphold the constitution and laws of the United States.

Obama’s qualified endorsement of Islamic blasphemy laws echoed his 2012 statement to the United Nations General Assembly, when he said “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

The claim was made shortly after he blamed a California-based video-maker for the jihadi attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya.

In his prayer breakfast speech, Obama repeatedly tried to excuse Islamic ideas from criticism by saying that Islamic attacks aren’t actually Islamic, despite the repeated professions of faith by attackers who are giving their lives for their cause.

Terrorist attacks by people who describe themselves as Muslims “are betraying” Islam, insisted Obama.

ISIL, or the Islamic State, is a “brutal, vicious death cult that, in the name of religion, carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism… [incorrectly] claiming the mantle of religious authority for such actions,” Obama told an audience of Christians, Jews and Muslims.

Obama’s defense of Islam is a variant of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy, said Robert Spencer, the author of several books on Islam.

The fallacy is used when a group of people simply ignore members’ bad behavior by pretending the members are not part of the group.

But Obama’s claim is undermined by the jihadis’ repeated citation of Islamic justifications for their murders, bombings and attacks. For example, jihadis in northern Syria recently burned a Jordanian pilot with fuel, and then justified the burning by citing the Islamic notion of “qisa,” which says that murderers can be killed in the same manner that they killed their victims.

Obama’s defense of Islam was combined with repeated efforts to criticize Christianity, which provided the intellectual foundation for America’s culture of self-reliance and its small-government Constitution.

“How do we, as people of faith, reconcile… the profound good, the strength, the tenacity, the compassion and love that can flow from all of our faiths, operating alongside those who seek to hijack religion for their own murderous ends?” said Obama, whose religious experience was shaped by years of worship at Rev. Jeremiah Wrights’s African-American mega church in Chicago.

“Lest we get on our high horse and think this [combination of love and violence] is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ,” he said.

The Crusades began in 1095, roughly 906 years before the 9/11/2001 attack in New York, and roughly 450 years after Arabs occupied the Christian city of Jerusalem, which was then part of the Christian Byzantine Empire. The empire was eventually destroyed when Islamic armies used mercenary European gunners to capture and occupy Byzantium in 1453.

Obama also argued that Islam and Christianity share the same intellectual principles.

“Finally, let’s remember that if there is one law that we can all be most certain of that seems to bind people of all faiths… that one law, that Golden Rule [is] that we should treat one another as we wish to be treated,” he said.

“In Islam, there is a Hadith that states: ‘None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself,’” Obama said.

“The Holy Bible tells us to ‘put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony,’” Obama added, citing a letter to fellow Christians by Saint Paul, the leading Roman-era Christian missionary.

Obama did not mention that Islam only describes Muslim — not Christians or Jews — as “brothers,” while non-Muslims are described as polytheists, pagans or “kafirs.” Nor did Obama compare the Koran’s many recorded exhortations to violence to the Bible’s repeated descriptions of Jesus’s opposition to violence.

“When the sacred months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush,” says a passage in the fifth verse of Koran’s ninth book.

In contrast, the Biblical book of Matthew says that the Christian deity Jesus declared “blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

Obama “is once again articulating the fashionable moral equivalence claim that all religions are equally capable of inciting their adherents to violence,” responded Spencer.

“This claim is usually made to discourage examination of how Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and supremacism,” Spencer added.