The Real Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast

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.

Saudi King Salman, a Reformer?

Barack Obama visited the Saudi kingdom to pay respects for the passing of King Abdullah.

Let us remember when Hillary Clinton called Bashir al Assad, the tyrant Islamist ruler of Syria a reformer and many are calling King Abdullah’s replacement, King Salman the same thing. Head-scratch. Seems King Salman’s past and perhaps current nefarious connections need some real scrutiny.

Yet Salman has an ongoing track record of patronizing hateful extremists that is now getting downplayed for political convenience. As former CIA official Bruce Riedel astutely pointed out, Salman was the regime’s lead fundraiser for mujahideen, or Islamic holy warriors, in Afghanistan in the 1980s, as well as for Bosnian Muslims during the Balkan struggles of the 1990s. In essence, he served as Saudi Arabia’s financial point man for bolstering fundamentalist proxies in war zones abroad.

As longtime governor of Riyadh, Salman was often charged with maintaining order and consensus among members of his family. Salman’s half brother King Khalid (who ruled from 1975 to 1982) therefore looked to him early on in the Afghan conflict to use these family contacts for international objectives, appointing Salman to run the fundraising committee that gathered support from the royal family and other Saudis to support the mujahideen against the Soviets.

Riedel writes that in this capacity, Salman “work[ed] very closely with the kingdom’s Wahhabi clerical establishment.” Another CIA officer who was stationed in Pakistan in the late 1980s estimates that private Saudi donations during that period reached between $20 million and $25 million every month. And as Rachel Bronson details in her book, Thicker Than Oil: America’s Uneasy Partnership With Saudi Arabia, Salman also helped recruit fighters for Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, an Afghan Salafist fighter who served as a mentor to both Osama bin Laden and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.”

***

Saudi Arabia crowns new king who financed jihad

In 1978, the Saudi monarchy decided to expand the exportation of fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam across the world through the establishment of the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO). About 10 years later, IIRO’s Philippine branch was established by Osama Bin Laden’s brother-in-law, which subsequently funded Philippine terrorists. By the 2000s, IIRO’s branch in Indonesia began funding Al Qaeda training camps.

The Bush administration designated IIRO-Philippines and IIRO-Indonesia as terrorist entities in 2006. IIRO’s U.S. offices were closed at the time, although IIRO appeared to reopen an office in Florida 2010. IIRO is the fourth best-funded Islamic foundation in the world according to a 2011 study.

The man who selected the leadership of IIRO and approved its spending from its inception is the new king of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz:

Saudi Crown Prince Salman

From the Washington Free Beacon:

…[T]hroughout his public career in government, Salman has embraced radical Muslim clerics and has been tied to the funding of radical groups in Afghanistan, as well as an organization found to be plotting attacks against America, according to various reports and information provided by David Weinberg, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

In 2001, an international raid of the Saudi High Commission for Aid to Bosnia, which Salman founded in 1993, unearthed evidence of terrorist plots against America, according to separate exposés written by Dore Gold, an Israeli diplomat, and Robert Baer, a former CIA officer.

Salman is further accused by Baer of having “personally approved all important appointments and spending” at the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), a controversial Saudi charity that was hit with sanctions following the attacks of September 11, 2001, for purportedly providing material support to al Qaeda.

Salman also has been reported to be responsible for sending millions of dollars to the radical mujahedeen that waged jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s, according to Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer who is now director of the Brookings Intelligence Project.

“In the early years of the war—before the U.S. and the Kingdom ramped up their secret financial support for the anti-Soviet insurgency—this private Saudi funding was critical to the war effort,” according to Riedel. “At its peak, Salman was providing $25 million a month to the mujahedeen. He was also active in raising money for the Bosnian Muslims in the war with Serbia”…

 

Past and a Present Secret of the Waldorf Astoria

More than once I personally was an overnight guest at the Waldorf Astoria and it is a tradition to visit the famous hotel when visiting New York. The hotel holds many secrets and some fascinating facts.

It’s Called the Presidential Suite for a Reason
It’s not the finest suite in the city or even at the Waldorf Astoria, but unique amenities like multiple adjacent rooms for staff, bulletproof glass windows, and an interior design similar to the White House make this grand accommodation high up on the 35th floor the number one choice of sitting presidents when they visit New York. Every president since Herbert Hoover has stayed here, including President Obama, who sleeps here every time he’s in town. Each president has also left the hotel a gift that is now featured in the suite (JFK left a rocking chair), so check back in a couple years to see what Obama leaves.

Famous Faces Moving In
There have been several notable Americans to call the hotel home over the years including Herbert Hoover (after his presidency), Cole Porter, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra and three five-star generals (MacArthur, Eisenhower & Bradley). These guests didn’t just book a room or suite for the weekend. They rented one-of-a-kind apartments. There are several residential units in the hotel, located on the 28th to 42nd floors known as the Waldorf Towers. These are some of New York’s most desired homes, the smallest coming it at 1,600 square feet and many with a private terrace. All include 24-hour maid service, a private entrance and sky high price tags—some of these rent for upwards of $100,000 per month.

***But there is more.

A secretive U.S. government agency has cleared the way for a giant Chinese insurance firm to buy New York’s fabled Waldorf Astoria after a national security review that likely imposed conditions on the purchase.

Anbang Insurance Group Co. in Beijing announced the blockbuster deal. Hilton Worldwide, which sold the iconic hotel for $1.95 billion, confirmed its approval but declined to comment. The sale is expected to close on March 31.

“At this point, Anbang Insurance Group’s acquisition of the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York has formally completed all the relevant procedures,” the Chinese conglomerate said in a statement.

The deal’s approval represents a precedent-setting action by the Committee for Foreign Investment in the United States as it moves to vet major real estate transactions for national security implications.

In the past, the focus of the panel known by its acronym CFIUS has been on protecting foreigners’ access to sensitive data, classified information and high-tech equipment through purchases of American firms, many of which were government contractors.

The panel took up the Waldorf Astoria sale because the hotel serves as the home-away-from-home for presidents visiting New York and provides a residence for the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, currently Samantha Power. Foreign dignitaries and celebrities also stay at the Art Deco landmark. Christopher Brewster, a Washington lawyer with Stroock & Stroock and Lavan who represents Chinese and other foreign businesses seeking to buy American companies, said CFIUS all but certainly would have required key mitigation measures in order to sanction the Waldorf Astoria deal.

“There would need to be certain protections put in place to ensure the integrity of the telecommunications systems used by the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and to ensure that there is adequate physical security,” Brewster told McClatchy on Tuesday.

“There could very well be restrictions on access to the hotel by the foreign owners, restrictions on the staffing of certain positions and other management controls,” Brewster said.

It is even possible, Brewster said, that CFIUS required day-to-day management of the hotel to be limited to American citizens, perhaps under the oversight of a top boss vetted by the secretive agency.

“The idea that CFIUS would clear this transaction and then just walk away from it seems to me far-fetched,” Brewster said. “I have to believe that they required some kind of protections to be put in place.”

The original sales agreement granted Hilton management rights at the Waldorf Astoria for 100 years.

After controversial purchases of American properties in the 1970s by Japanese and Arab firms, President Gerald Ford established CFIUS in 1976 via executive order, and Congress later codified it into law.

The committee, whose work is classified, does not comment on its cases. It is chaired by the Treasury secretary, who is joined by the secretaries of Homeland Security, Commerce, Defense, State and Energy, along with the Attorney General. The U.S. trade representative and the head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy also belong.

As China in recent years has surged to the front of countries with foreign firms buying American companies, CFIUS has focused increased attention to some of its acquisitions.

After a lengthy review, CFIUS in September 2013 approved the purchase of Smithfield Foods Inc., the world’s largest pork producer, to Hong Kong-based Shuanghui International Holdings.

“A lot of people were laughing at the idea of CFIUS reviewing pig farms,” Brewster said Tuesday. “But the food supply has been recognized as part of the critical infrastructure of the United States. Smithfield plays a major role in the U.S. food sector, feeding our troops and supplying commissaries.”

In a more contentious case, CFIUS in 2012 denied the bid by Chinese-owned Ralls Corp. to buy a group of wind farms in Oregon, saying they were too close to a major U.S. naval base. After President Barack Obama rejected Ralls’ appeal of the decision, the Chinese firm sued him and CFIUS. A federal court last year ruled that Ralls’ constitutional due process rights had been violated and ordered the U.S. government to provide the company hundreds of previously concealed documents supporting its denial of the deal.

The 47-story Waldorf was the world’s biggest hotel when built in 1931 at its current location on New York’s Park Avenue between East 49th and East 50th Streets, about 10 blocks from the Grand Central train station.

An underground train transports presidents and other dignitaries from Grand Central to the Waldorf, carrying Secret Service limousines and other security vehicles.

Every White House occupant since Herbert Hoover has stayed in the hotel’s Presidential Suite on the 35th floor, with each U.S. leader leaving a gift.

Frank Sinatra, Cole Porter, Grace Kelly and Gen. Douglas MacArthur are among the many celebrities who’ve lived in the Waldorf’s palatial rooms and apartments, which feature around-the-clock food delivery and maid service.

Aaron Radelet, Hilton’s vice president for corporate communications, told McClatchy in October, when the Anbang purchase was first announced, that the iconic property would “undergo a major renovation” as part of the deal.

As China has quietly increased its investment in the United States, Beijing and Washington have engaged in more public political spats around accusations of spying and computer hacking.

In its most recent annual report to Congress, CFIUS disclosed that in 2012, for the first time, it had done more national security reviews of transactions involving China than of those involving any other country.

 

WH/State Dept. Begging Iran for Deal

A top Iranian military leader claims that U.S. officials have been “begging us” to sign a nuclear deal during closed door negotiations with Tehran over its contested nuclear program, according to recent comments made to the Iranian state-controlled media.

Mohammad Reza Naghdi, the commander of the Basij, a paramilitary group operating under the wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC), recently claimed that the “Americans are begging us for a deal on the negotiation table,” according to comments published in Persian and independently translated for the Washington Free Beacon.

Naghdi added that American officials routinely “plea” with Iran in talks and that the United States is negotiating from a position of weakness, according to his comments, which follow earlier reports claiming that Iran’s leading negotiator “frequently shouts” at U.S. officials.

The military leader’s remarks appear to jibe with new reports that the United States is conceding ground to Iran in talks and will now allow it to “keep much of its uranium-enriching technology,” according to the Associated Press.

Iran, the AP reported, “refuses to meet U.S.-led demands for deep cuts in the number of centrifuges it uses to enrich uranium, a process that can create material for anything from chemotherapy to the core of an atomic bomb.”

Regional experts say that the Iranians feel that they are in a position of power in the talks and believe that the Obama administration is desperate to ink a deal.

“Iran feels the administration needs the deal, and this belief is supported by the way the administration is acting,” said Saeed Ghasseminejad, an Iranian dissident and associate fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

America’s “hostility toward its traditional allies in the region, Israel and Saudi Arabia, is at its historical peak and the Obama administration either supports Iran to expand its influence in the region or at least does not oppose it at all,” Ghasseminejad explained. “Iran feels as long as the negotiation is going on, it has a green light to do whatever it wants in the region, so why should they bother to sign a deal?”

Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) said a bad nuclear deal would endanger the security of America and its allies.

“The Iranian terror state continues to show its true nature as it sidesteps the international sanctions regime during negotiations, and expands its threat into IraqSyria, and Yemen. Worse, the administration’s reported nuclear concessions to Ayatollah Khamenei will only keep Iran at the threshold of getting nuclear bombs.  A bad nuclear deal will further empower Iran and endanger the security of America, Israel, and other allies in the Middle East.”

As the nuclear talks continue, Iranian leaders have stepped up their rhetoric against the United States, with top officials declaring that “Iran prepares itself for war with global powers.”

Hossein Salami, the deputy commander of the IRGC, celebrated a recent attack on Israel by the Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah and promised that Tehran is readying itself to go to war with America.

“Iran prepares itself for war with global powers, and the Israeli’s are much smaller than them,” Salami was quoted as saying by the state-controlled Fars New Agency (FNA).

“The response of Hezbollah to the Zionist regime shows a quick reaction, clear will, and their iron-like strength, resistance, and power,” he added. Salami also reiterated Iran’s commitment to fund and arm Palestinian terror groups. “Opening up a new front across the West Bank, which is a major section of our dear Palestine, will be certainly on the agenda, and this is part of a new reality that will gradually emerge,” Salami said in a recent television interview. Similar remarks were made by Mohammad Ali Jafari, the IRGC’s commander, who celebrated Hezbollah’s “martyrdom” and vowed that the “fight against Zionists would not be brought to a halt.” While U.S. officials have claimed multiple times in recent months that progress is being made in the talks, Iranian officials deny that this is the case. Abbas Araqchi, a top Iranian negotiator, said in recent days that it is too early to say that progress has been made. “We still are not in a position where we can say we have had progress,” Araqchi was quoted as saying by the FNA. “It is still too early to judge.” “If the counterpart shows realism, political resolve, and good will, we believe we are not so far from reaching an agreement,” he said.

*** But there is more to understand.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Tehran and P5+1 mediators will make all possible efforts to establish a general political framework for Iran’s nuclear deal in March, the head of Iran’s expert team at talks on Iran’s nuclear program said Wednesday.
Iran and the P5+1 group of international mediators, comprising Russia, China, the United States, Britain, France and Germany, are in talks to clinch a comprehensive agreement to end more than a decade of impasse over Tehran’s controversial nuclear program.

“All efforts will be made to develop the political framework of the agreement in March,” Iranian Foreign Ministry’s Director General for Political and International Security Affairs Hamid Baeidinejad told reporters in Moscow after meetings with Russian officials to coordinate Iran-Russia cooperation in talks.
Baedinejad added that the date for the next round of Iran nuclear talks had not been determined yet. *** Yet Iran has other attitudes towards to United States.

A senior Iranian commander has dismissed as “meddlesome” the recent US claims that Tehran’s defense might would be part of the nuclear talks with six world powers, saying Iran’s missile capability is non-negotiable.

“Iran’s missile programs and defense capability, irrespective of their purpose, are not negotiable in any foreign circle,” Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri said on Wednesday.

“We don’t allow the US and others to interfere in the country’s defense affairs,” he added.

The commander underlined that Iran will use its defense might against bullying powers whenever it deems necessary.

He said Iran’s military might serves to defend the nations, adding that if the US oversteps the red lines, then it will have to be worried about Iran’s missiles.

“Gone are the days when the US was a superpower, but some still haven’t realized it,” he said.

Jazayeri’s comments came in reaction to the Monday remarks by US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who claimed that Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities are part of the ongoing talks between Tehran and the P5+1 group of world powers over Tehran’s nuclear energy program.

In relevant remarks on Tuesday, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi rejected Psaki’s claims, saying that Tehran’s “missile program has a completely defensive nature and the Islamic Republic of Iran does not regard the country’s defense issues as negotiable and will not hold such negotiations with any foreign side.”

Araqchi, who is also Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Legal and International Affairs, said that in line with Tehran’s nuclear talks with the P5+1 countries, no permission has been or will be issued in the future to hold negotiations on Iran’s defense and missile capabilities.

Iran and the P5+1 group – Russia, China, France, Britain, the US and Germany – are in talks to secure a final comprehensive deal over Tehran’s nuclear work.

Since an interim deal was agreed in the Swiss city of Geneva in November 2013, the negotiating sides have missed two self-imposed deadlines to ink a final agreement.

Iran and the P5+1 countries now seek to reach a high-level political agreement by March 1 and to confirm the full technical details of the accord by July 1.

Inside ‘No-Go’ Zones

  Video: Russian reporter pays a visit to Paris’s Muslim no-go zones    Paris video is here. The police force in Sweden has identified no go zones with the video here.

Russian TV made a program about Paris’s ever expanding Muslim no-go zones to show Russia where it is heading by letting in Muslim migrants. No one is safe from these vile, savaged, violent and horrid Muslim immigrants who contribute nothing but human degradation on society. The Muslims attack non-Muslims, threaten children in schools forcing them to eat only halal food whether they are Muslim or not, burn cars, buildings and surroundings to generate the fire brigade and police so they can attack them. Like in Britain these savages have filled France with rapes, murder, harassment, violence, threats, genital mutilation, honor murders – all typical for the followers of prophet Mohammed.
And like everywhere else these immigrants settle, they immediately exploit the welfare system and are dragging the French economy into a black endless abyss. In addition, as if that is not enough, Muslims are so criminalized that 70% of the entire prison population in the whole country is – Muslim.
France is the founding father of Eurabia and responsible for the enforced Muslim immigration on the Western world in a Euro-Arab pact signed in the 1970’s created by Charles de Gaulle.  The French should perhaps think to celebrate de Gaulle’s anniversary by urinating on his miserable grave for the treason and damage he did to his country, which has completely destroyed the structure of the French culture and the safety of the people.

*** Going deeper into what is behind no go zones:

In Britain, for example, a Muslim group called Muslims Against the Crusades has launched a campaign to turn twelve British cities – including what it calls “Londonistan” – into independent Islamic states. The so-called Islamic Emirates would function as autonomous enclaves ruled by Islamic Sharia law and operate entirely outside British jurisprudence.

The Islamic Emirates Project names the British cities of Birmingham, Bradford, Derby, Dewsbury, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Luton, Manchester, Sheffield, as well as Waltham Forest in northeast London and Tower Hamlets in East London as territories to be targeted for blanket Sharia rule.

In the Tower Hamlets area of East London (also known as the Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets), for example, extremist Muslim preachers, called the Tower Hamlets Taliban, regularly issue death threats to women who refuse to wear Islamic veils. Neighborhood streets have been plastered with posters declaring “You are entering a Sharia controlled zone: Islamic rules enforced.” And street advertising deemed offensive to Muslims is regularly vandalized or blacked out with spray paint.

In the Bury Park area of Luton, Muslims have been accused of “ethnic cleansing” by harassing non-Muslims to the point that many of them move out of Muslim neighborhoods. In the West Midlands, two Christian preachers have been accused of “hate crimes” for handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham. In Leytonstone in east London, the Muslim extremist Abu Izzadeen heckled the former Home Secretary John Reid by saying: “How dare you come to a Muslim area.”

In France, large swaths of Muslim neighborhoods are now considered “no-go” zones by French police. At last count, there are 751 Sensitive Urban Zones (Zones Urbaines Sensibles, ZUS), as they are euphemistically called. A complete list of the ZUS can be found on a French government website, complete with satellite maps and precise street demarcations. An estimated 5 million Muslims live in the ZUS, parts of France over which the French state has lost control.