We notice that CAIR is featuring a list of "Top 10 CAIR Highlights of 2006" on their front page this New Year's Eve, so we thought we would remind our readers of what CAIR would prefer people not to remember about the year that was (you may want to read CAIR's list first): 

TROP's TOP 15 CAIR LOWLIGHTS of 2006

CAIR supports Sami al-Arian, who then pleads guilty to assisting Islamic terrorists.

CAIR goes to the mat for Iranian President Khatami, a noted anti-Semite and Hezbollah's chief sponsor.

CAIR shamelessly exploits Rosa Parks' image for a measly $1000 scholarship, while adamantly refusing to condemn the Sudanese genocide against Black Africans in Darfur.

CAIR is forced into a hasty site-makeover to remove prominent anti-Semitic articles after a Muslim goes on a deadly shooting rampage at a Seattle Jewish center.

CAIR denounces the pope's comments a dozen times, but not once the Muslim murder of an elderly nun (or the hundreds of other Christians butchered in the name of Islam in 2006).

CAIR is snubbed by liberal Senator Barbara Boxer, who rescinds an award to a CAIR official after finding out about the group's ties to terror.

CAIR condemns cartoons, but refuses to condemn Osama Bin Laden for a fifth straight year.

CAIR ruins Keith Ellison's Congressional career before he takes office.

CAIR refuses to denounce the killing of Americans by Islamic terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.

CAIR promotes a list of "Fatwas against Terror" that actually includes advocates of Islamic terror.

CAIR is forced to drop their lawsuit against Anti-CAIR for calling it a terrorist front organization after realizing that it is one.

CAIR condemns the brief arrest of Hamas leaders in Gaza, but not the forced conversion of two U.S. journalists (nor 2,276 acts of Islamic terror in 2006 that resulted in the loss of innocent life).

CAIR fails to acknowledge the victims of 9/11 on the fifth anniversary of the attacks, choosing to mark it instead with a spasm of self-pity.

CAIR condemns the Israeli "massacre" of Palestinian civilians, then has to retract its statement after finding out that they were actually killed by Palestinian explosives.

CAIR protests when a woman is asked to lower her veil at Heathrow airport the day before it is revealed that a Muslim cop-killer escaped through the airport using the veil as a disguise (CAIR then stays quiet as Heathrow implements a full ban on veils.)

Check out how Pelosi is leading an attack on free speech. Follow the link here
this, if passed and not vetoed by the President will be another attack on the First Amendment.  Those who like McCain remember that McCain-Feingold was a direct attack on our First Amendment rights, and Bush should have vetoed it and not left it up to the "men in black."  If they want to limit our free speech let them amend the Constitution the right way.

This report republished with attribution to Strategic Forecasting, Inc. at www.stratfor.com.

Al Qaeda in 2007: The Continuing Devolution

By Fred Burton

The theme of Stratfor's 2006 forecast for al Qaeda and the jihadist movement centered on the evolution -- or the devolution, really -- from al Qaeda "the group" to a broader global jihadist movement. This essentially was a shift from an al Qaeda operational model based on an "all-star team" of operatives that was selected, trained and dispatched by the central leadership to the target, to an operational model that encourages independent "grassroots" jihadists to conduct attacks, or to a model in which al Qaeda provides operational commanders who organize grassroots cells. We refer to this shift as devolution because what we are seeing now is essentially a return to the pre-9/11 model.

This shift has provided al Qaeda "the movement" broader geographic and operational reach than al Qaeda "the group." This larger, dispersed group of actors, however, lacks the operational depth and expertise of the core group and its well-trained terrorist cadre.

The metamorphosis continued in 2006, with al Qaeda announcing the merger of existing jihadist groups such as Gamaah al-Islamiyah (GAI) in Egypt and Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) and others in the Maghreb into their global jihadist umbrella organization. These groups have had long-standing links to al Qaeda, and the announcement of the mergers is really a formalization of the relationship, though these new nodes joined al Qaeda's formal network of affiliate groups in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the Sinai Peninsula and Afghanistan.

Since the announcements, these new groups have not yet demonstrated that they possess the ability to boost al Qaeda's operational effectiveness. We have seen no attacks that can be attributed to GAI, and perhaps the only attacks that can be attributed to the GSPC are the Dec. 11 attack against a bus carrying foreign oil workers and the simultaneous Oct. 30 attacks against two police stations in Algeria. Given this lack of results, the announcements ring somewhat hollow, as the mergers have not given al Qaeda the surge of momentum it might have wanted.

The major attacks in 2006 in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia; Dahab, Egypt; Dubba and Marib, Yemen; and Damascus, Syria, were all conducted by existing regional nodes and not the main al Qaeda organization. These attacks did show a broad geographic reach stretching across the Middle East but, except for the Dahab attack, they were essentially all failures.

Overall, 2006 was not a good year for the al Qaeda nodes in Saudi Arabia and the Sinai. It also was a dismal year for the Iraq affiliate, whose charismatic leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in June. Twelve months have made a vast difference in the fortunes of the Iraq node. Last year at this time, al-Zarqawi made the headlines almost daily and his organization was conducting frequent and spectacular attacks. Now, following the death of al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda in Iraq has been largely marginalized and eclipsed by Iraqi Sunni and Shiite insurgent groups.

Going into 2007, we anticipate a continuation of this shift toward a movement -- though it will be important to watch for any signs of operational activity by al Qaeda the group, as opposed to its prodigious public relations efforts.

The Shift to Soft Targets

As we noted in January, the shift to the broader movement model allowed for an increase in the number of attacks, although the movement's lack of expertise was forcing it to focus its attacks against soft targets such as hotels, trains and subways. This shift resulted in a larger numbers of casualties than the more spectacular attacks against hardened targets. Indeed, the casualty count from jihadist attacks in the 52 months following 9/11 was more than double that of the 52 months prior -- and those numbers would be vastly increased if the deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan were included.



However, not as many attacks occurred in 2006 as we anticipated. In fact, the number of attacks and the casualties they generated were down for 2006. In many cases, such as Damascus, Abqaiq and Yemen, the attacks resulted in the deaths of more attackers than victims, and the only attack to produce a sizable death toll was in Dahab, where 24 people died. This trend in which attacks against tourist targets in Egypt produce the deadliest jihadist attack of the year continued from 2005, when the attack in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, killed 88 people. (Incidentally, that not only represents far more victims than in the Dahab attack, but also more than all of the 2006 attacks combined.) When Sharm el-Sheikh is combined with the 2005 attacks in Bali, Amman and London, jihadist militants produced far more deaths in 2005 than in 2006. (These statistics do not include attacks conducted in war zones or areas of insurgency such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine, Chechnya/Russia, Sri Lanka or Kashmir/India.)

The only jihadist strike against a hardened target in 2006 was the failed attack against the U.S. Embassy in Damascus in September. A car bombing was directed against an employee of the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, but that attack happened a block away from the hardened facility. It was, however, the only one of the two to produce an American death.

Target Sets

As we said in January, al Qaeda the group has long been interested in striking financial targets, aircraft and chemical/petroleum plants. Because of that, and al Qaeda's demonstrated history of revisiting targets after failed or foiled attacks, it was logical to project that it would continue to attempt strikes against such targets in 2006.

The petroleum sector indeed was targeted in 2006, as the strikes against petroleum facilities in Abqaiq and Yemen, and against oil contractors in Algiers, demonstrate. Although no attack occurred against financial targets as we anticipated, we still believe that target set remains at risk for the future, along with the others.

Although authorities thwarted the plot to simultaneously destroy several airliners en route from London to the United States, it once again demonstrated that al Qaeda and the jihadist movement maintain a significant interest in airline targets. Details released in February on the Library Tower bombing plot provide another example of this fixation.

Disruption Strategy Continues

Once again in 2006 there has been no successful attack on U.S. soil -- though the thwarted airliner plot was definitely aimed at the United States. Likewise, the anticipated attacks in European locations such as the United Kingdom, Denmark, France and Italy failed to materialize -- again, not for lack of trying on the part of the jihadists.

The U.S. government and its allies have been successful over the past year in disrupting terrorist plots and plans in many locations. The strategy of disruption these countries are following is really quite simple: It is better to pick up an al Qaeda suspect on immigration fraud or another lesser offense than to investigate a smoking hole in the ground. Although there has been significant skepticism over the terrorist credentials of those responsible for some of these plots, such as the one involving the Miami Seven, the plots serve as a reminder that there are people who remain committed to striking the United States. Over the years, Islamist militants have proven to be resilient and adaptable in the face of adversity, and they will certainly continue to adapt.

It is important to remember that more than eight years elapsed between the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 9/11 attacks -- during which time al Qaeda and its jihadist network faced nothing approaching the level of pressure they have endured since then. There were several thwarted terrorist spectaculars between 1993 and 2001, and yet the jihadists persisted and eventually succeeded in carrying out a massive strike on U.S. soil.

Therefore, the string of law enforcement and intelligence successes since 9/11 does not rule out the possibility of another strike on U.S. soil in time. We believe the likelihood of such an attack will increase as memories of 9/11 dim and the public grows weary of the inconvenience and financial burden of increased security measures.

The Jihadist 'War College'

The forecast, which noted that the active armed struggles in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Caucasus still serve as a kind of "jihadist war college," predicted that its graduates would continue to share their training and experience upon returning to their countries of origin.

We already have seen a transfer of terrorism tactics and technology to Afghanistan, and we anticipate that this will continue in the future. In addition, the interpersonal connections that the militants make in places such as Iraq and Chechnya also will link them to the global movement in the same way the jihad in Afghanistan did for the preceding generation.

Death penalty: Saudi court spares Keralite

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Wednesday, December 20, 2006 (Alappuzha (Kerala)):

A Keralite, who was reportedly facing death sentence in Saudi Arabia, has been set free due to timely intervention of Indian authorities.

Jojo Joseph of Edathua in the district was on Monday ordered to be beheaded for entering the holy place of Medina despite a bar on non-Muslims.

According to Jojo's family members in Edathua, the Saudi authorities later took a lenient view of the case after they were convinced that he did not deliberately commit the mistake.

Jojo, employed in an electronic shop in Jeddah, ran into trouble while rushing in a cab to a hospital where his wife had given birth to a child. The taxi driver took a wrong route and strayed into the prohibited area, his family members said.

The Indian was then spotted by religious volunteers, who handed him to police.

Jojo's brother-in-law sought former Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy's help in the matter. Chandy contacted the Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi and Minister of state for External Affairs E Ahmed.

The two ministers acted swiftly and secured the release of Jojo through the intervention of Indian embassy in Saudi Arabia. (PTI)


http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory.asp?category=National&slug=Death+penalty%3A+Saudi+
court+spares+Keralite&id=98204

	dhim·mi (dm or zm) - A Qur'anic term that refers to a subjugated non-Muslim person living in a society dominated by Muslims.  Second-class status is confirmed by the legal system and dhimmis do not share the rights of their Muslim rulers.  (ex. of use: "Hey Jimmy, if you want to be a dhimmi, then you'd better learn how to shimmy.") dhim·wit (dmwt ) - A non-Muslim member of a free society that abets the stated cause of Islamic domination with remarkable gullibility or guile.  A dhimwit is always quick to extend sympathy to the very enemy that would take away his or her own freedom (or life) if given the opportunity.    December 2006 Dhimwit: Neturei Karta Ahmadinejad can't believe his good fortune.  Neither can we. They don't necessarily deny the mass slaughter of millions.  They just embrace people who do.  And they don't necessarily support a second holocaust... or do they? Sometimes too much of any religion can be a bad thing.  Neturei Karta is a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel group of rabbis who have allied themselves with Israel's worst enemies because they believe that any human attempt to establish a Jewish State is against the teachings of the Torah.  (It's complicated, we're sure). Presumably this is why they chose to lend credibility to a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran earlier this month.  There the leader of Iran managed to deny one Holocaust while threatening another, as he promised again to "wipe out" the nation of Israel. As can be seen from the sublime expression on Ahmadinejad's face in the photo, these are just the sort of dhimwits that Islam needs on the inside to weaken the West.  Lets hope these rabbis, who are based largely in Jerusalem, survive the fallout from the nuclear bomb that Iran intends to detonate in Tel Aviv.

On 9/11, nineteen committed Muslims believed they had a religious mandate to fly planes into buildings and slaughter thousands of innocent people.

The Muslim world erupted with outrage over this horrible act of mass murder.  Massive demonstrations were held in nearly every Muslim country and Western city.  At these demonstrations, Muslim leaders harshly denounced Islamic terror and shared the many hundreds of verses from the Qur'an that encourage universal brotherhood, peace and tolerance.  A slew of fatwas and clerical condemnations against terror soon followed.

Tens of millions of ordinary Muslims reacted by rallying against violence and demanding that their leaders root out and eliminate the Islamic terrorists and their supporters.  These same Muslims and their clerics called for introspection, accepting the role that the radical elements of their religion played in the attacks, and committing themselves to combating and eradicating the misinterpretation of their religion - the Religion of Peace... 

Well, not quite.

Obviously this didn't happen.  If it had, then Islamic terror would have ended, 9/11 would have been a singular event, and this website would not exist.

Unfortunately, the optimistic and fictitious picture that we just painted of Muslim reaction to terror and the predominance of peaceful Qur'anic verses could not be any further from the truth.  In fact, some Muslims actually celebrated the attacks, and not just overseas, but even in the offices of the U.S. State Department.

There were a few passionless denunciations, to be sure, but Muslims save their real outrage for times when a Western leader makes a public statement against veils and headscarves, or someone draws a Muhammad cartoon.  By and large, most could hardly care less about the thousands of people who lose their lives in the name of this religion each year.  It was not for three years, in fact, that there was even a fatwa issued against these attacks.  To this day, major Muslim-American groups still refuse to denounce Osama Bin Laden by name.

That's what makes it extremely odd that Islam should be called a Religion of Peace.  Not only does it inspire an enormous amount of violence, but an astonishing level of indifference and self-centeredness as well.

We watched in the months following 9/11, as Muslim-American groups began to act as hindrances in the war on terror and the efforts of Americans to defend themselves.  We saw them ignore nearly every act of Islamic terror that is committed each day, and instead publicize obscure issues and personal slights against Muslims that are absolutely trivial by comparison.

Far from accepting responsibility for Islamic terror, Muslims look for reasons not to act or engage in introspection.  Some even grasp onto wild conspiracy theories that blame Americans for 9/11 - just as the millions of Jihad victims over the centuries are in some way held responsible for their own slaughter as well.

And finally, we came to realize that this extraordinary arrogance and self-absorption on the part of the Muslim community, its inability neither to empathize with others nor engage in the sort of self-critique that leads to moral progress is in no way incidental to the religion.

There is something deeply, deeply wrong with Islam.

Originally, we started this website in the naive hope that perhaps Muslims just didn't realize the extent of the violence that is committed in the name of their religion.  Perhaps if they understood, then they might be motivated to turn the critical eye inward and resolve those far more important issues that leave so many lives in agony and consume billions and billions of global dollars in security resources.

But, in our first several years of posting attacks, we never once heard from a Muslim who wrote to condemn the violence and resolve themselves to combating it.  Neither did we see any change on the part of Muslim-American groups, or the other Islamic organizations across the globe, even as the body count mounted to levels that far exceed the damage done on 9/11.

And so, our mission is to present the truth about Islam and how it is so tragically different from other religion.  We also hope to memorialize the victims of Islamic terror, and ensure that they do not die in obscurity as so many victims of Islam have in the last 1400 years.

For Westerners and others who ask, "Who are Muslims and why do they want to kill me?" we hope to provide answers.  For those who swallow the falsehood that Islam is a Religion of Peace, we hope they will find enough reason to at least keep an open mind.

At the same time, we have no patience with name-calling, lies, or acts of violence.  No Muslim should be harassed or harmed anywhere in the world because of his or her religion.  Islam is a broad faith and every Muslim should be treated as an individual and judged only by his or her own words and deeds.

In fact, there are exceptional Muslims whose faith gives them character, and who sincerely denounce terror and work to end it.  They stand in sharp contrast to groups like the American CAIR and MPAC Islamic supremacist organizations, which use their influence to complain of petty grievances and inflame hatred against a country that tries hard to accommodate their faith in spite of the violence and whining.

But, as the evidence from this site and verses from the Qur'an prove, Islam is clearly not a religion of peace.  The ridiculous level of violence committed in the name of this religion is staggering, despite the many billions of dollars that are spent each year to prevent attacks.

Nor should Westerners continue to think that the solution to the violence is greater understanding and tolerance for Islam, as Muslim apologists often imply when offering rare commentary on high-profile terror attacks.  It is the killers and their supporters who need lessons in tolerance and understanding, not their victims.

Some Muslims may say that Muhammad preached love for people of other religions, but there is not a single verse in the Qur'an that commands this, yet there are 493 verses that either tell Muslims to kill unbelievers or speak to Allah's hatred for them and how they will be tortured in Hell.  Non-Muslims are referred to as the "vilest of animals."

If peace is defined as being free to live ones life as one pleases and allowing others to do the same, then Islam is as far from peace as it can possibly be.  Where it dominates, there is systematic discrimination and oppression of those of other faiths (dhimmitude, which Muslims ironically refer to as 'tolerance').  Where Muslims are in minority, there is rebellion, terror and disloyalty - a never-ending jihad to bring about Islamic rule as Muhammad commanded.

Islam will be a peaceful religion when Muslims stop preaching hate, stop killing in the name of Allah, and stop remaining indifferent to the violence.  Until this happens, we will faithfully document each of the reasons why this is anything but a "Religion of Peace."

	dhim·mi (dm or zm) - A Qur'anic term that refers to a subjugated non-Muslim person living in a society dominated by Muslims.  Second-class status is confirmed by the legal system and dhimmis do not share the rights of their Muslim rulers.  (ex. of use: "Hey Jimmy, if you want to be a dhimmi, then you'd better learn how to shimmy.") dhim·wit (dmwt ) - A non-Muslim member of a free society that abets the stated cause of Islamic domination with remarkable gullibility or guile.  A dhimwit is always quick to extend sympathy to the very enemy that would take away his or her own freedom (or life) if given the opportunity.    November 2006 Dhimwit: Minnesota's Fifth District Who's the Dhimwit for November? Not this guy.  He's just the beneficiary. When six imams recently staged a publicity stunt on a U.S. Airways plane by terrifying fellow passengers and crew into seeing that they were escorted off and into the custody of air marshals (to wild applause), one of the first phone calls made was to CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations).  In fact, there is speculation that the imams may even have been talking to CAIR (or a CAIR lawyer) throughout the incident on a cell phone. For their part, CAIR immediately contacted U.S. Representative-elect, Keith Ellison and issued marching orders.  And, even though he has yet to take the oath of office (on a Qur'an, no less), Ellison readily threw his weight around in the matter by doing his best to intimidate the airline and legitimize the antics of the disingenuous trouble-makers. So who is Keith Ellison? In his official biography, Ellison claims that he hasn't eaten pork or drank alcohol since converting to Islam at the age of 19, and has always found time to pray toward Mecca five times a day.  That's nice.  Since his religious epiphany he's also picked up at least 40 unpaid parking tickets, 17 moving violations, one failure of a breathalyzer test at a traffic stop, and two suspensions of his driver's license.  He's also somehow found the time to climb up off the prayer mat and into bed with at least one mistress, and there are credible allegations of more. He has openly supported a string of convicted cop killers, known racial separatists and at least one domestic terrorist.  This is in addition to the virulently anti-Semitic comments that he made while working for the Nation of Islam (an organization that believes white people were created in a laboratory by an evil scientist). Sounds like the perfect candidate for Congress.  The voters of Minnesota's Fifth District thought so and made him the country's first-ever Muslim elected to national office.  For this, we honor them with our Dhimwit of the Month award.  Well, not all of them - just the 136,061 who punched his name in at the polls. The problem with Ellison isn't his moral hypocrisy (although we do wish that he would step out from behind the lies and come clean about his past) and it isn't even that he's a Muslim.  Muslim citizens in America are just as entitled to serve in public office as anyone else, provided that they act to uphold the Constitution. No, the problem isn't that Keith Ellison is a Muslim.  It is that he is CAIR's Muslim. For those few who don't know, the notorious CAIR was founded with terrorist seed money and it receives strong financial support from Wahhabis, the most violent and extreme of major Muslim sects.  CAIR has even had its own leaders and members accused and convicted of supporting terrorism.  It has gone to bat for people like Sami al-Araian and other well-known sponsors of Islamic terror.  It also refuses to acknowledge and denounce more than 99% of all deadly Islamic attacks. Yet, this has not stopped Ellison from publicly associating himself with CAIR, even serving as keynote speaker at their annual banquet.  Nor has his dubious moral background and cursory support for gay rights and Israel's existence (issues that helped him win the Democratic primary at least) kept CAIR from embracing Ellison and facilitating his election with well-worn charges of bigotry against critics. The religion obviously comes first for both of them.  And this is just what may have voters in the Fifth District rethinking their choice over the next two years as they watch Ellison openly promote the agenda of an Islamic supremacist organization in the halls of Congress. But for now, we'll just have to call them what they are... Dhimwits.