ACT for America

comment by Jerry Gordon

Brian Mosely, whom I interviewed for the New English Review in February in an article entitled, “Somalis, Shelbyville and Severe Culture Shock” had submitted a five part series on the Somali refugee problem confronting his Middle Tennessee community for a prestigious statewide AP award. Darn if he didn’t win it this week bringing honor to himself and his courageous news paper, the Shelbyville Times-Gazette, whose editor is a stand up guy, as is Brian. In place of the pusillanimous press ducking serious issues like this on both coasts and even large cities in-between, Mosely didn’t. We hope that he goes on to cop a national AP award, if not a Pulitzer prize, if only the New York Times that controls who gets the Pulitzers would relent. When I queried Mosely about his honor, he wrote back and said: “Thanks! Success is the best revenge against my detractors…”

by Rebecca Bynum, The Iconoclast, July 21, 2008

NER readers are familiar with the work of Brian Mosely who was interviewed by Jerry Gordon here.

Shelbyville Times Gazette (hat tip: Refugee Resettlement Watch):

NASHVILLE — Times-Gazette staff writer Brian Mosely received the state’s top award for investigative reporting by The Associated Press Saturday night, highlighting a total of 18 awards won by the paper in the state’s two major press competitions held this weekend.

Mosely was honored with the Malcolm Law Memorial Award for Investigative Reporting for his five-part series published in December of last year chronicling the influx of Somali refugees to Bedford County.

The Law award for investigative reporting was established by the Tennessee Associated Press Managing Editors in 1973 to honor Malcolm Law, associate editor of The Jackson Sun, who died in December 1972. The award is recognized as one of the most prestigious awards given for journalistic accomplishment in Tennessee.

The judge wrote “… a solid and thorough example of community journalism … (Mosely) looked at the issue of Somali immigration from several angles.”

comment by Jerry Gordon

A tip of the chapeau to Rebecca Bynum of the New English Review for sending us this story from out of California about a dodgy Muslim counter to YouTube: MuslimChannels.tv.

We suspected this would occur after the apparent success that Senator Lieberman has achieved by pushing Goggle to take down offensive and incitement to violence videos from Al Qaeda and other Islamic terror groups. Muslim Channels.tv endeavors to put up only Shariah correct and tasteful cultural videos, including those punching up Israel. We believe that is a part of a concerted ‘da’wa’ or proseltyzing effort by CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood front groups. Notice this MuslimChannels.tv report on Latinos converting to Islam. Witness these comments from the MuslimChannels.tv spokesperson Tarek Ayoub, a volunteer for the site and for the site’s nonprofit founder, Islam The Answer Corp. and the Southern California CAIR flackmeister:

Ayoub said the site was founded in part because he and other Muslims grew weary of seeing viciously anti-Muslim comments that YouTube users posted as reactions to Islamic-oriented videos. Some YouTube users e-mailed Muslim video-posters and threatened them with violence — in some cases with warnings such as “We know your address” — or made sexually demeaning comments toward Muslim women, Ayoub said.

Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Southern California office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said MuslimChannels.tv’s nonreligious videos show how Muslims are culturally and ethnically diverse and cannot be defined solely by their religion.

Ayoub said he and others have met with FBI agents about the threats. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said the agency does not typically confirm or deny investigations. Ayoub said YouTube did not respond to repeated phone calls and e-mails about the anti-Muslim comments or to allegations that the company suspended the accounts of some people who had posted videos critical of Israel.

MuslimChannels.tv is a spigot for pure Islamic taqiyya videos.

By David Olson The Press-Enterprise, July 20, 2008

A Temecula group has launched a Muslim version of YouTube.

MuslimChannels.tv aims to educate non-Muslims about Islam and provide an Internet site for Muslims to view videos without worrying about anti-Islamic tirades or sexually explicit content, said Tarek Ayoub, a volunteer for the site and for the site’s nonprofit founder, Islam The Answer Corp.

“It’s a way for Muslim users to feel safe,” Ayoub said.

The site also includes non-religious programming, such as comedy, travel, sports and cultural videos, along with documentaries containing trenchant political commentary on subjects such as the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. The volunteer-run site will not accept advertising or donations, to avoid compromising its mission, Ayoub said.

Larry Slusser, secretary of the Southwest Riverside County Interfaith Council and a Mormon, praised the idea behind the site.

“I think it’s great anytime someone can dispel misconceptions and promote understanding of and appreciation for a faith,” said Slusser, who has not visited the site. “As a Latter-day Saint, I know many people have misperceptions about my faith. There’s enough hatred in the world. We need more understanding of our differences.”

Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Southern California office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said MuslimChannels.tv’s nonreligious videos show how Muslims are culturally and ethnically diverse and cannot be defined solely by their religion.

Ayoub said the site was founded in part because he and other Muslims grew weary of seeing viciously anti-Muslim comments that YouTube users posted as reactions to Islamic-oriented videos. Some YouTube users e-mailed Muslim video-posters and threatened them with violence — in some cases with warnings such as “We know your address” — or made sexually demeaning comments toward Muslim women, Ayoub said.

Ayoub said he and others have met with FBI agents about the threats. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said the agency does not typically confirm or deny investigations. Ayoub said YouTube did not respond to repeated phone calls and e-mails about the anti-Muslim comments or to allegations that the company suspended the accounts of some people who had posted videos critical of Israel.

In an e-mailed statement, YouTube said it does not comment on individual videos. The company said it relies on users to flag content that violates YouTube’s prohibition on hate speech, defined as speech that demeans people based upon their religion, race, ethnic origin, disability, gender, age, veteran status, sexual orientation or gender identity. YouTube staff reviews flagged material and usually removes it within minutes if it is deemed hate speech, the statement said.

Although Islam the Answer founded MuslimChannels.tv in part as an alternative to sites such as YouTube, volunteers with the group are also forming a team to better respond to the anti-Muslim comments on YouTube and other sites, said Cait Ramshaw, a Florida volunteer for MuslimChannels.tv and a sister site, MuslimBridges.org.

Muslims need to ensure that misrepresentations of Islam do not go unanswered, and that the responses are reasoned and factual rather than angry, said Ramshaw, who developed “Golden Rules for Muslim Bloggers.”

MuslimChannels.tv is not only a way of allowing non-Muslims to quickly access factual information about Islam to counter misperceptions, said Muhamad Ali, an assistant professor of religious studies at UC Riverside who specializes in contemporary Islam. The site’s features that allow video-sharing, online forum discussions and other interaction help unite U.S. Muslims, he said.

“It provides a better sense of community, of being an American Muslim, rather than a Pakistani Muslim, an Egyptian Muslim, a Palestinian Muslim or a South Asian Muslim,” he said.

comment by Jerry Gordon

Outgoing Israeli UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman in this Jerusalem Post column has given us a wake up call that WMD-whether nuclear, chemical or biological, can be readily transferred to proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas and Al Qaeda, for possible delivery to targets in the Middle east, America, the EU and elsewhere in the ummah. Our colleague, Dr. Jill Dekker, noted biological warfare expert comments on how this can occur so rapidly and dangerously.

Exclusive comments on Gillerman article by Dr. Jill Dekker, bio-warfare expert

I absolutely have to agree with Ambassador Gillerman’s statements with specific regard not only to Iran’s nuclear weapons arsenal but with their advance bio-chem programs as well. We should not forget that Syria too has made efforts toward acquiring a nuclear capacity and possess an advanced bio-chem weapons program. Unfortunately, very few US diplomats or politicians understand the close relationship between top Hezbollah leaders and Syrian and Iranian Ministries of Defense who run Weapons of Mass Destruction programs. They don’t even know the players, which scientists comprise which teams, how they are collaborating on projects in various research centers both in Iran and Syria. With the exception of highly limited sections of the US Intelligence Community, most diplomats or foreign service officers would have exceptionally limited access to intelligence on specific scientific teams and their familial relationships with Hezbollah, Hamas, PLO-Fatah members. They don’t understand that many Hezbollah members have family members and tribal associates working within the WMD programs of both states and it’s not some ‘formal’ arrangement. It’s not the type of hierarchal structure we in the West are used to where you must have clearances and sign off on transfers of technology or materials to other sections within the US military complex or to an allied nation. This is not at all how WMD programs and military assets are transferred within the Middle East. The relationships are not based on formal military alliances but instead on long-standing tribal relationships that can stretch across geo-political regions so Hezbollah acquiring WMD either nuclear, chemical, biological or radiological materials or technology “know-how” is not pre-determined by signing off on some protocol. This is a scientist meeting with a family member with associations helping a family member with the blessing of the government. It’s far more intimate than the US and allies can imagine. Proxies are not outside the systems they are not existing external to Iran or Syria. They are familial and that makes the designation to provide WMD to Hezbollah far more realistic and immediate than the US or UK could probably imagine with their somewhat limited reference points.

In the Middle East, transfers from a state weapons lab which would be part of the Ministry of Defense structure to what the West considers a ‘terrorist’ organization like Hezbollah can occur very rapidly. That is because the Syrians and Iranians consider Hezbollah and other ‘terrorist’ groups to be extensions of their formal military. The West tends to create a false barrier -even a semantic one, between Hezbollah and Iran or Syria. This is a fictional barrier as it doesn’t really exist. The US/UK and EU base military weapons deployments on their own standards, which would be highly formal. That simply is not how it works with Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and other proxies. Instead, they may have a cousin who has a cousin who works on Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers or works on Saxotoxins and they will provide it outside a formal structure or what we would think of as a formal military structure. The lines for them are not so cut and dry.

By JPOST.COM STAFF, July 20, 2008

The danger posed by a nuclear-armed Iran is not in that the Islamic Republic may launch an atomic bomb at Israel, but in that it could provide such a weapon to terrorist groups in the region, outgoing Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dan Gillerman was quoted as saying Sunday.
Israeli Ambassador to the…

“The real fear is not that the Iranians will be crazy enough or stupid enough to launch a missile at Israel, but that they will have no compunction about providing rogue regimes and terror organizations like Hamas and Hizbullah with weapons of mass destruction,” Gillerman told The New York Times.

Gillerman suggested that the world take the threats of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to wipe Israel of the map seriously. “Listen to him, and take him at face value,” he told the newspaper. “For too long, much of the world, including Neville Chamberlain, believed that Hitler was just a crazy short man. I don’t think we can afford to do it again.”

The Israeli envoy was also asked about the peace process with the Palestinians, and said that the “key” was in the Arab world. “The Palestinians’ real tragedy is that they have not been able to produce a Nelson Mandela…at least [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] is willing to talk, and the Arab world should stand with him and legitimize him and stand against the extremists. They are not doing that.” (Continue Reading this Article)

comment by Jerry Gordon

You have seen our posts on the Iranian missile rattling. Our colleagues Maj. General Paul Vallely, member of the ACT advisory board, former Assistant USAF Chief of State, General Thomas W. McInerny and Dr. Jill Dekker, NATO expert on bio-warfare have cogent comments in this Middle East Times story assessing Iran’s missile delivery capabilities for nuclear, chemical and bio-warfare.

“The Iranian’s are not just igniting something that goes off,” Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely (U.S. Army, ret.), former deputy commanding general of U.S. Army Forces Pacific and current co-chairman of the Iran Policy Committee (IPC), tells me. “They are currently fine-tuning their systems to include perfecting command-and-control, launching, tracking, trajectory, those kinds of things. They’ve yet to perfect putting a warhead on the Shahab, but they’re working toward full-capability, including nuclear, biological, and chemical.”

Dr. Jill Dekker, a bio-warfare expert and consultant to NATO, agrees.

“Both Iran and Syria possess highly advanced chemical and biological weapons programs,” says Dekker. “Syria’s chem[ical] program is more advanced than Iran’s, but both countries’ bio-programs have benefited from former Soviet labs and more recently from North Korea. And Iran has a very advanced bio program, which is highly imbedded in their pharmaceutical industry.”

She adds, “However, both chem and bio have been almost ignored or eclipsed by the focus on nuclear weapons.” And Iran might well-employ chemical, biological, or conventionally armed missiles just as fast as – perhaps faster than – any acquired nukes.

Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney (U.S. Air Force, ret.), former assistant vice chief of staff of the Air Force and current IPC advisory council chairman, proposes a reciprocal message: “We should immediately deploy F-22s [America’s brand-new air-supremacy fighter] to the region to send a very strong signal that we too mean business!”

by W. Thomas Smith, Jr., Middle East Times, July 15, 2008

In the wake of Iran’s lighting off several medium-range ballistic missiles, or MRBMs – including one that never got off the ground, but was doctored in a widely publicized photograph to make it look as if it did – there has been much speculation about Iran’s missile capability: The greatest fear being that Iranian MRBMs could strike targets almost anywhere in the Middle East, including Israel and many U.S. bases, perhaps even reaching targets in southern and eastern Europe (perhaps most of Europe if Iran decided to move some of its missiles to Hezbollah-controlled zones in Lebanon).

Even worse is the prospect that a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran could tip its missiles with nuclear warheads.

According to Iran, the missiles tested included a new and improved version of the Shahab-3 (in some circles known as the Shahab-4), an MRBM capable of hitting targets 1,250 miles away from their launching sites.

U.S. Defense Department officials, however, say Iran did not test anything new, and it is doubtful that any Shahab missile launched last week would be able to reach out beyond 800 miles. Iran was “firing off old equipment in an attempt to intimidate their neighbors and escalate tension in the region,” said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell. (Continue Reading this Article)