Frank Gaffney presents a key primer on the Muslim Brotherhood today at Big Peace:

Suddenly, Washington is consumed with a question too long ignored:  Can we safely do business with the Muslim Brotherhood?

The reason this question has taken on such urgency is, of course, because the Muslim Brotherhood (or MB, also known by its Arabic name, the Ikhwan) is poised to emerge as the big winner from the chaos now sweeping North Africa and increasingly likely to bring down the government of the aging Egyptian dictator, Hosni Mubarak.

In the wake of growing turmoil in Egypt, a retinue of pundits, professors and former government officials has publicly insisted that we have nothing to fear from the Ikhwan since it has eschewed violence and embraced democracy....

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Mark Durie has a must-read article today -- "Aslim Taslam, Three Cups of Tea and Pakistan's Blasphemy Laws" -- which flags the phenomenon of Pakistani Christians converting to Islam to protect themselves and their children from the nation's blasphemy laws. "Blasphemy" -- crossing or critiquing Islam in any way -- is a capital offense in fabulous "ally" Pakistan, as many Americans are now finally learning. So, in paying out billion$ a year to Pakistan, mostly Christian Americans are also in effect subsidizing such blasphemy laws.

Durie writes:

Many incidents have been reported from Pakistan where Muslims have threatened their Christian neighbours with a blasphemy charge out of vindictiveness, or to extort something from them. ... It is not only Christians who are targeted with the blasphemy law.  The  Star article also describe a recent case of a...

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Had to take another crack at the GOP lemmings hurtling by toward Afghanistan ...

This week's column:

Huffington Post reports: "Senate Republicans stand behind President Barack Obama's strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., which will prevent the war from becoming a 'domestic political football' like the war in Iraq."

That's a good thing? What's the point of free speech for a free people if the most urgent order of government business -- a worse-than-pointless bankrupting war that is junking our military capabilities while killing and maiming Americans in uniform -- is seen by a leading elected official as a "domestic political football" to be sidelined and sat on? The story continues: "'The good news about this war -- if there's any good news about any war -- is that it hasn't become a domestic political football like the Iraq war,' McConnell said during a breakfast discussion with Politico's Mike Allen on Tuesday. ... McConnell added that 'virtually' every GOP senator supports Obama's war policy, although he implied that there were a few dissenters."

...

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Outgoing IG Arnold Fields testified today as to why one particular $11.4 billion chunk of nation-building is going up in flames.

One)

“We have no plan for where we are going. We don’t know where we are going,” said Fields, a retired Marine Corps major general. “And so, we will not know when we will get there.”

Two)

His office’s audits and investigations have found numerous examples of facilities being built without consideration for whether the Afghanistan government is able to pay the maintenance bills or train a workforce to keep facilities operational, Fields told the U.S. Commission on Wartime Contracting.

Three)

For example, Afghan security forces are being expanded so fast there are not enough Afghan security barracks built to house them.  A large power plant the U.S. is building outside Kabul is too expensive for the Afghan government to maintain without foreign aid and expertise.

...

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HuffPo reports:

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans stand behind President Barack Obama's strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), which will prevent the war from becoming a "domestic political football" like the war in Iraq.

And that's a good thing? I thought praetorian guards went out a long time ago. What's the point of free speech for a free people if the most urgent order of government business -- a bankrupting war and nation-building effort without point that is junking our military capabilities while killing and maiming Americans in uniform -- is seen by a leading elected official as a "domestic political football" to be sidelined and sat on? 

"The good news about this war -- if there's any good news about any war -- is that hasn't become a domestic political football like the Iraq war,"...

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In Denmark today, the state became the deadly and determined enemy of freedom.

At the end of his day in court, Lars Hedegaard responded to the fallen state thus:



My counsel has instructed me that in cases brought under Article 266b, the only thing that determines whether one is convicted or not is a matter of the perceived insult whereas one is barred from proving the truth of the statement.



The article deals with public statements whereby a group of people are "threatened, insulted or degraded". But as my lawyer has already noted, I have made no public statement.



When it comes to Article 266b, there is no equality before the law. I am daily insulted and degraded by something I read or hear and I am sure that most people have the same experience.



For example, I am not only insulted and degraded and threatened,...

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This week's syndicated column:

Politico featured a story this week headlined "Muslim groups nervous about King hearings." It went on to discuss Muslim apprehension regarding upcoming congressional hearings led by Rep. Peter King, R-NY, "on the threat posed by radical Islam in America."

That phrase -- "radical Islam" -- is truly a marvel: a 14-karat, bulletproof, titanium shield for Islam itself, which, sorry guys and gals, is the source of all things we deem "radical" in Islam. "Islam is Islam and that's it," as Turkey's Erdogan so memorably put it. But since we don't want Islam to be "it," we pretend and operate and make policy and even war based on some mythic radicalism of "twisted" or "hijacked" or "perverted" Islam.

If these King hearings turn out to be about the threat posed by "radical Islam" -- and not about the threat posed by what is radical about Islam -- "nervous" Muslim groups have nothing to worry about, and anti-jihad, anti-Shariah citizens have nothing to gain.

...

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Remember that massive and massively expensive expansion of Afghan security forces reported last week?

Looks like it's on hold due to some interesting discord between "coalition officials" in A-stan and just about the rest of the world.

From the WSJ:

The White House has put a hold on a military proposal to raise the ceiling for building up Afghan security forces, with a spokesman saying there have been "no decisions" on army and police manpower growth beyond approved 2011 targets.

European allies and the Afghan government have also expressed concerns about the plan, focusing on its costs and the quality of police and army personnel. The doubts forced the abrupt postponement of a meeting Tuesday intended to formally approve the new ceiling.

...

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Danish justice?

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Lars Hedegaard, the President of the Danish Free Press Society and the International Free Press Society will be tried in Danish court on January 24 for "racism" -- a charge "worthy" of a communist show trial effort to quell dissent. The dissent in this case is speaking out in any form against the dictatorship of the multiculturalists whose goal above all is the subversion of truth and liberty in exchange for stability, for accommodation, for appeasement of  the "peaceful" advance of a new order -- in our time, Islam in the West. Hedegaard, symbolically, stands in its way, and must be punished, literally, to discourage others. What they don't...

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Politico features a story today headlined "Muslim groups nervous about King hearings." It goes on to discuss Muslim apprehension regarding upcoming Congressional hearings led by Rep. Peter King (R-NY) "on the threat posed by radical Islam in America."

That phrase -- "radical Islam" -- is truly a marvel, a 14-ct., bullet-proof, titanium shield for Islam itself, which, sorry guys and gals, is the source of all things we deem "radical" in Islam. "Islam is Islam and that's it," as Turkey's Erdogan so memorably put it.  But since we don't want Islam to be "it," we pretend and operate and make policy and even war based on some mythic radicalism of "twisted" or "hijacked" or "perverted" Islam. 

If these King hearings turn out be about the threat posed by "radical Islam" -- and not about the threat posed by what is radical about Islam -- "nervous" Muslims have nothing to worry about.

Hope I'm wrong, but it looks like any analysis of jihad of sharia is already off the table.

...

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Last week, I had the privilege of sitting down with Frank Gaffney for a nice, long hour of conversation on Secure Freedom Radio. Here is a link to the show.

Here are two stories that should be blended into one:

Story 1, from the New York Times:

The Afghan government and its international partners are set to approve a plan that would expand the nation’s army and police forces to up to 378,000 personnel by October 2012, a 42 percent increase over the current level, Western and Afghan officials say.

The plan, which is pending, reflects growing confidence in a training mission that for years has been hobbled by illiteracy, drug use, corruption and high desertion and resignation rates among the Afghan security forces. At one point in 2009, more Afghan soldiers were abandoning the army than joining it.

Many of those problems remain ....

But who cares? Not Uncle...

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Marine Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins has spent the last eight months free after serving four years at Ft. Leavenworth on an 11-year-sentence for an unpremeditated murder conviction related to the kidnapping and fatal shooting of an Iraqi man in 2006. The military appealed the April 2010 ruling that released Hutchins, and, on Wednesday, won another chance to prove the fairness of Hutchins' initial trial in its efforts to lock him back up.

More about Hutchins' case here and here.

The other six defendants in the case are all free, with none of them having served longer than 18 months in prison.

Hutchins, who had been returned to duty at Camp Pendleton, has been sent back to Ft. Leavenworth pending the next step in case, remains assigned there pending resolution of his case, a tortuous move which surely triggers thoughts of "cruel and unusual punishment."

...

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Just as the Great Society didn't work in our own country on our own people, the Great Society Abroad doesn't work on alien peoples in foreign cultures, either. It didn't work in Vietnam, as discussed here by the late Peter Braestrup, and it doesn't work in Iraq or Afghanistan. This means that it's not a military defeat that faces us on what I wish were imminent withdrawal from the umma (oh, happy day, and good riddance), but rather another costly validation of the fact that social engineering doesn't work, even with guns.

The civilian leadership and the military brass must be held accountable for this travesty.

From the Associated Press:

BAGHDAD — Two U.S. troops were killed Saturday...

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Background here.

Last week, I posted Col. Douglas Macgregor's excellent piece entitled "No Existential Threat to US in Afghanistan; So Why Are We Propping Up a Narco-State?" But now I take issue with the premise, ironically speaking. There is indeed an existential threat to US in Afghanistan, a dire threat to our own nation's heart and soul. Not only are we propping up a backward narco-state of kleptocrats, pederasts and child rapists, we are propping up an Islamic justice system that punishes if not kills converts to Christianity.

This has been going on for a long time, too. And so has this. We're at the wrong rodeo, folks. It's past time to let Afghanistan go.

WorldNetDaily.com reports:

Five countries are appealing to Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai to prevent two Afghan men who converted to Christianity from being sentenced to death for "apostasy" -- their decisions to abandon Islam.

Representatives from the United States, Britain, France, the Netherlands and Italy...

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"Never mind, they'll swallow it," said Stalin, the 20th Century's first successful progenitor of the Big Lie.

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This week's syndicated column:

The suppression of the facts is by no means the most dangerous aspect of any Big Lie. After all, facts don't go away even amid efforts to suppress them. All sorts of inconsistencies, impossibilities and clues remain behind, and sometimes in plain sight, for anyone who cares to look. The real threat the Big Lie poses to society comes when it is not stopped in its tracks, exposed and trashed for what it is -- a lie -- but rather accepted, accommodated and, indeed, treated as if it were the truth. At that point, a Big Lie is a big success, having created an alternate reality that turns its very targets into hapless accomplices.

Unfortunately, that last bit describes most Republicans'...

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I am posting (below) a letter from the Danish Free Press Society, the parent organization of the International Free Press Society, of which I am vice president. It is of urgent importance. It tells of the terrible turn of events in Denmark, which for years now has bravely spearheaded the West's fights to save free speech, now and seemingly in perpetuity under assault from both the Marxian Left and the press of sharia (Islamic law) -- and with zero support from diplomatic, governmental, or professional institutions in the United States, home and caretaker of the First Amendment. This appalling lack of support, which translates into a lack of courage and vision, is the main reason the assault of free speech continues to be successful.  

But et tu, Denmark?

There have been signs: for example, former Prime MInister Anders Fogh  Rasmussen's gratuitous slap at Pastor Terry Jones' stated intention to burn Korans to mark the jihad attacks of 9/11 in September of this year;...

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This week's syndicated column:

That was fast. Sunday, the Virginian-Pilot posted a montage of lewd, "morale-boosting" videos that Capt. Owen P. Honors starred in, directed and broadcast to the crew of the USS Enterprise dating back to 2006-2007 when he was the ship's executive (number two) officer. Tuesday, the Navy fired Honors, now captain of the ship, citing a "profound lack of good judgment and professionalism."

Not, take note, conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

So, now what? With the Navy, the Washington Post reports, set on a "broader investigation into whether senior Navy officials knew about the 4-year-old videos, and why they failed to take disciplinary action against Honors," we once again seem to be embarking, rudderless, into the dangerous waters of the hydra-headed purge, gathering, sharpening, steeling, lusting for suspects. But of what crime? Not the one I would charge the unfortunately named Capt. Honors with.

The post-Tailhook Navy fetish, of course, remains sexually oriented -- or, more accurate, sexual-orientationally oriented. (In the guise of an aviator persona, Honors lets fly some homosexual putdowns in the video, and later encounters same-sex couples in the shower.) As one retired vice admiral put it to the Post, "What bothers me is that Capt. Honors' behavior set a standard that allowed for sexual innuendo."

...

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From decorated combat veteran  Col. Douglas Macgregor (ret.), an excellent column in The Washington Times:

American forces invaded Afghanistan more than nine years ago, and we still don't know whom we're fighting. It's hard to know who did the better job of playing us for fools a few weeks ago - the Afghan who passed himself off as the "moderate" Taliban leader, who was rewarded with American cash for his performance, or Hamid Karzai. All we can know at this point is that 150,000 U.S. and allied troops along with an equal number of civilian contractors are propping up a narco state in Kabul flush with cash from the opium trade and U.S taxpayers.

Naturally, the four-stars in the Pentagon are in no hurry to deliver the bad news; the expensive and open-ended program of nation-building through counterinsurgency is irrelevant to the goal of disrupting, dismantling and defeating what little remains of al Qaeda living in the splendid isolation of northwestern Pakistan. Instead, it's easier to tell...

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If the GOP is serious about waste, fraud and abuse -- and reckless childishness -- Congress needs to ask Gen. Petraeus some questions  about the CERF -- the Commander's Emergency Relief Fund. Two billion dollars, they say, have gone down this particular chute to nowhere in Afghanistan alone. as American soldies have handed out money for 16,000 goody bags -- sorry,  "humanitarian projects" -- over the past six years. That comes to more than seven such projects per day, bribes large and small to make them, please, please, like us & not their Muslim brethren the Taliban and other Koranically-correect jihad groups.

This may seem like small change in a war that costs $350 million a day, but the fallacy of CERF is the same fallacy of COIN: that turning the Afghan peoples into allies is a matter of demonstrating what we "infidels" think of as good intentions, that enough greasing of enough wheels is a strategy, that we can create a functional society from public make-works, that Western ways can be grafted onto Islamic culture, that what egg-heads think of as "nation-building" is Afghanistan is possible in the first place.

...

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David Littman, someone whose essential work on "creeping sharia" I extensively cited in The Death of the Grown-Up, may be fighting a grave illness, but, as Dave Reaboi at Big Peace writes in the introduction below to Littman's recent communique to the UN Human Rights Commission (so-called), this hasn't diminished his zest for the battle royale against the hypocritical claques at the United Nations. Dave writes:

NOTE: David Littman is a hero. As a young man, Littman was at the center of a 1961 clandestine operation (codenamed “Mural”) to evacuate over 500 Jewish children from Morocco to Israel to escape Antisemitism in the Muslim world. From 1986 onward, he has appeared at the United Nations and its various bodies, including the notoriously misnamed Human Rights Commission,...

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