http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=justified Fri, 24 May 2013 03:35:27 -0400 Liveleak http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/logo.gif http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=justified Thu, 23 May 2013 00:11:40 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fcd_1369281964 Fine_Just_Fine Manasquan, NJ - -(Ammoland.com)- Remember all those who denied that firearms confiscation as a result of New York's new gun laws was too " insane " to even consider? That it was strictly in the realm of paranoid conspiracy theorists and the "it cant happen here crowd" ? Those were and remain some of the standard replies to anyone who even thought about the possibility, let alone gave voice to it, despite the fact that Gov Cuomo and numerous other officials made public comments about such a plan, as I discussed in my article "Feinstein & Cuomo Admit Planning Australian Style Government Gun Buy Back" . Elected Officials, the media, various Gun Control Groups and their zealous forced disarmament supporters, even some firearms owners themselves all insisted it was to crazy to even consider. There's just one huge problem it is happening now in New York State! It seems those that tried desperately to warn of such an insidious plot had hit the bullseye with their warnings after all. News came from multiple NY State based firearms enthusiast websites late Friday that confiscations of Pistol Owner ID Cards, as well as firearms and accessories has commenced in NY under the provisions of the horribly flawed, draconian and blatantly unconstitutional NY SAFE Act. Those folks having their weapons and FID cards confiscated have been discovered to have been prescribed multiple different types of psychotropic drugs, such as those for Depression or Anxiety. These are known as SSRI ( Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) class drugs and have the potential to cause serious and adverse side effects, something I wrote about extensively last week in an article that went viral in days and caused multiple Anti Gun and Progressive News Groups to initiate a concentrated denial of service hacker attack against Ammoland Shooting Sports News (see Daily KOS " Keeping Track Of The RKBA Crowd"http://tiny.cc/ug67uw), in an effort to keep the information from the public. From NY http://tiny.cc/nyfirearms "John Doe, an upstanding professional with no outstanding criminal convictions and no history of violent action received a letter from the Pistol Permit Department informing him that his license was immediately revoked upon information that he was seeing a therapist for anxiety and had been prescribed an anxiety drug. He was never suicidal, never violent, and has no criminal history. The New York State Department of Health is apparently conducting a search of medical records to determine who is being treated for anxiety drugs and using this as a basis for handgun license revocation. Those are the facts. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, before anyone trots out the old saw about how this is nothing more then a paranoid, unsubstantiated rumor on a "gun nuts" internet forum. I spoke to the Attorney of Record in this matter on the phone this morning and he confirmed that the above snippet is accurate and these cases are happening ! Get your FREE 2A Flashmob Patch - See if your eligible here! James Tresmond Esq confirmed in our conversation that the above mentioned case is occurring in Erie County NY, it is his client that has been effected, and as yet unknown sources have seen fit to take it upon themselves to share confidential medical records with NY State Officials without authorization, a massive HIPPA violation. It seems these supposedly confidential records are then compared against a list of known NY pistol license holders and letters are sent out demanding their Pistol Owner ID Cards be surrendered, as well as any firearms and accessories. Here is a link to the Attorney of Record on this case, Jim Tresmond, giving a radio interview on the Tom Bauerle Show on WBEN 930AM/107.7 FM: http://www.wben.com/topic/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=6319907 This is an unprecedented violation of a Citizens 2nd, 4th, and 5th Amendment RIGHTS , brought to fruition by power and control hungry tyrants holding elected office who swore an Oath to uphold and defend the very rights they are now actively stripping from their constituents. Moreover, the confiscation efforts underway in NY State have had another, albeit unintended effect. By undertaking this course of action, those in power have inadvertently pulled back the curtain on something they have suppressed from the Citizens for far to long, leaving them with precious little wiggle room to explain away their actions. Either they are acknowledging that there is in fact some sort of little reported link between the prescribing of psychotropic drugs and violent behavior , thus they are somehow, at least in their own minds " justified " in their actions to preempt someone from violence. Or, this is nothing more then a backdoor confiscation effort and massive abuse of governmental power unleashed on innocent Citizens. Those are the only two possible explanations. If anyone still feels some level of doubt regarding the veracity of this story, Attorney Tresmond welcomes anyone to visit his website tresmondlaw.com , Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/james.tresmond.7 ), or send an email to TresmondLaw@gmail.com. Read more at Ammoland.com: http://www.ammoland.com/2013/04/new-york-gun-confiscation-underway/#ixzz2U5M5WdEU http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fcd_1369281964 Fine_Just_Fine New York Gun Confiscation Underway - Citizens Told To turn in Pistol Owner ID and Firearms new york, police state, gun grabbers, democrats, tyranny, civil war Mon, 20 May 2013 02:25:53 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b12_1369030637 jason16 Remarks by Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto on Japan's wartime military sex slave system have once again raised serious questions about his nationalistic views and his understanding of human rights. Hashimoto claimed that the sex slave system was necessary to maintain discipline in the Imperial Japanese armed forces and stressed that there was no proof that the Japanese state kidnapped women and forced them to become sex slaves. This statement flies in the face of the indisputable fact that the most fundamental human rights of tens of thousands of Asian women were violated by the Japanese military. His "logic" is that frontline soldiers and young servicemen stationed abroad need women's sexual services for rest and relaxation so discipline can be maintained. He clearly believes that the war effort justified the subjugation of women as sex slaves. This view of women being first and foremost sex objects for men not only rubs salt in the wounds of former sex slaves but is an insult to the dignity of all women. Japan should realize that their nationalistic agenda and moves to weaken constitutional democracy will only serve to undermine international trust in Japan and inflame regional tensions. (http://japandailypress.com/osaka-mayor-toru-hashimoto-defends-statements-blames-media-for-misreporting-2029119) http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b12_1369030637 jason16 Hashimoto's unacceptable words world news Sun, 19 May 2013 05:56:45 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=536_1368957227 AntiPropagaanda JERUSALEM - A Jewish rabbi has issued a book giving Jews permission to murder non-Jews, including babies and children, who may pose an actual or potential threat to Jews or Israel. "It is permissible to kill the Righteous among non-Jews even if they are not responsible for the threatening situation," Rabbi Yitzhak Shapiro, who heads the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in the Yitzhar settlement in the occupied West Bank, wrote in his book "The King's Torah." He argues that goyem (a derogatory epithet for non-Jews) may be killed if they threaten Israel. "If we kill a Gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the seven commandments - because we care about thecommandments - there is nothing wrong with the murder." Rabbi Yitzhak Shapiro - co-author of the book Shapiro, who heads a small Talmudic school at the settlement of Yitzhar near Nablus, claims his edict "is fully justified by the Torah and the Talmud." The anti-goyem edict seems to come in response to the arrest by Israeli police of a Jewish terrorist who has confessed to having murdered two Palestinian shepherds in the West Bank. The terrorist, an American-born immigrant named Yaakov Teitel, also confessed to have tried to assassinate leftist Jewish figures. Police considered the arrest an important achievement in combating Jewish terrorism, which experts contend thrives on religious edicts issued by rabbis affiliated with the religious-Zionist camp. Nearly 16 years ago, a Jewish terrorist named Yigal Amir assassinated then Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin. Moreover, numerous innocent Palestinians have also been murdered in cold blood by Jewish terrorists. In 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a notorious Jewish terrorist, murdered 29 Muslim worshipers inside Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank town of al-Khalil. Non-Humans The controversial edict is backed by numerous rabbis affiliated with the so-called national-religious camp as well as the Talmudic seminary in West Jerusalem, known as Merkaz Ha'rav. Among the rabbis who have publicly supported the edict are Yitzhak Ginsburg and Ya'akov Yosef. Ginsburg had written a leaflet glorifying murderer Goldstein and called him a "saintly figure." Shapiro's views on how Palestinians and non-Jews in general ought to be treated according to Jewish religious law (halacha) are widely looked at as representing the mainstream not the exception in Israel. During the Israeli onslaught against Gaza earlier this year, Mordecahi Elyahu, one of the leading rabbinic figures in Israel, urged the army not to refrain from killing enemy children in order to save the lives of Israeli soldiers. He had even petitioned the Israeli government to carry out a series of carpet bombing of Palestinian population centers in Gaza. "If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand. And if they do not stop after we kill a thousand, then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop, we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to stop them." According to Israel Shahak, author of "Jewish History, Jewish Religion: the Weight of Three Thousand years," the term "human beings" in Jewish law refers solely to Jews. Many Jewish orthodox rabbis, especially within the national-religious sector, view international conventions incriminating the deliberate killing of civilians and destruction of civilian homes and property as representing "Christian morals" not binding on Jews. In 2006, the Rabbinic Council of Jewish Settlements in the West Bank urged the army "to ignore Christian morals and exterminate the enemy in the north (Lebanon) and the south (Gaza Strip). Such manifestly racist and hateful edicts don't raise many eyebrows in Israel, neither among the intelligentsia nor in the society at large. Source The article is also available on Israeli website Haaretz . http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=536_1368957227 AntiPropagaanda Book about killing gentile children becomes bestseller in Israel Jews, killing, Gentile, Non-Jews, children, bestseller, Israel, USA, America, Thu, 16 May 2013 00:38:02 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b90_1368678942 absu69 The news that the Justice Department reviewed a broad range of Associated Press phone records in an effort to track down a national security leak is yet another indication of the Obama administration's overzealous prosecution of leakers and whistleblowers. In a Washington Post article on the controversy, Joe Davidson quotes the Project On Government Oversight's Angela Canterbury on the question of whether these phone records are justified or a dangerous overreach. Was there a public interest in the disclosure? Disclosure of so-called sensitive information is often critical to protecting the public and holding wrongdoers accountable. The government ought to be limiting prosecutions to those intending to harm our national defense. The overzealous prosecutions and subsequent silencing of those who might disclose government information undermines the legitimacy of national security claims and every open government declaration the President has made. As the Washington Post article notes, this revelation about the government spying on the AP comes just before another round of arguments in the case of Berry v. Conyers. In that case, the government is arguing that it should be able to deem almost any government employee as "sensitive," even if they are stocking shampoo in a commissary, and therefore allow the government to "take action against workers without the full range of civil service protections generally available to the federal workforce." Read more in the Washington Post . http://www.pogo.org/blog/2013/05/ap-case-throws-more-doubt-on-obamas-whistleblower-policies.html http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b90_1368678942 absu69 AP Case Throws More Doubt on Obama's Whistleblower Policies whistle,blowers,obama Fri, 10 May 2013 20:46:07 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=978_1368232905 echo4250 This is what competition looks like : One health insurer wants to charge $169 a month next year to cover a 40-year-old Portland-area non-smoker. Another wants $422 a month for the same standard plan. The new health insurance marketplace envisioned by federal health reforms doesn't formally kick in until fall. But it already is taking shape - and consumers for the first time can compare, premium by premium, identical plans by different insurers. Soon they'll be able to compare benefit-by-benefit as well. On Thursday, a comparison of proposed 2014 health premiums became public online, causing two insurers to request do-overs to lower their rates even before the state determines whether they're justified. The unusual development was sparked by a comparison that used to be impossible because plan benefits varied so widely. But under the federal reforms that take effect Jan. 1, health insurance is mandated and every insurer must offer certain standard plans. More >> Find the proposed rates for 2014 health plans in your area. Continuing coverage of efforts to reform health care in Oregon. Starting in October, the change will drive competition in a health insurance marketplace called Cover Oregon where individual consumers and small business owners can comparison shop. Though the state's comparison charts are far less detailed, they foreshadow what Cover Oregon is trying to do."Posting rate comparisons company-by-company is a taste of what is to come," says Cheryl Martinis of the Oregon Insurance Division. Judging by the reaction, there's already an impact. Providence Health Plan on Wednesday asked to lower its requested rates by 15 percent. Gary Walker, a Providence spokesman, says the "primary driver" was a realization that the plan's cost projections were incorrect. But he conceded a desire to be competitive was part of it. A Family Care Health Plans official on Thursday said the insurer will ask the state for even greater decrease in requested rates. CEO Jeff Heatherington says the company realized its analysts were too pessimistic after seeing online that its proposed premiums were the highest. "That was my question when I saw the rates was, 'Can we go in and refile these?'" he said. "We're going to try to get these to a competitive range." The oregonhealthrates.org website provides the filings by the individual carriers and a comparison of certain requested rates in the individual and small business market, broken down by region . The rate comparison shows identical standard-benefit plans rated bronze, silver or gold for their level of benefits for small businesses , as well as individual non-smokers aged 21, 40 and 60. The easy rate comparison is only one of the changes consumers who buy their own insurance can expect in 2014. Another is higher premiums in the 2014 individual market, though for many people they'll be offset by tax credits. The higher rates are because people with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied coverage. Also, plans have to offer stronger benefits than they used to, leading to higher premiums. The changes have spawned much speculation, with some predicting "rate shock" for people who buy their own policies. Now consumers can see for themselves what premiums could be available, at least for certain plans. Meanwhile, at least half the potential customers who buy their own insurance will qualify for a sliding scale of income-based tax credits that could more than-eliminate any price hikes. Nearly 400,000 Oregonians are expected to purchase their own insurance as tax credits lure previously uninsured consumers. In addition to comparing insurance plans, Cover Oregon can enroll people and qualify them for tax credits. Individual consumers and small businesses will be able to talk by phone or use computers to get questions answered. Insurance agents and outreach workers in the community will also be available to help. It's too soon to start shopping. The rates posted Thursday by the Oregon Insurance Division still must be approved by the state in July. The full Cover Oregon website launches in early October .. This is from the newspaper The Oregonian....This article is written so that even conservatives might be able to understand it. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=978_1368232905 echo4250 Two Oregon Insurers Rethink 2014 Premiums as State Posts First Ever Rate Comparison Oregon,Obamacare,working, Thu, 09 May 2013 20:59:54 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=797_1368147404 SAPD_HRT NOTE: There is no real explanation for this to happen . In a case that has caught the attention of the federal monitor overseeing department reforms, Seattle police acknowledged Wednesday that they have no video record of a February encounter in which officers fatally shot a mentally disturbed man in North Seattle. Some of the eight officers who responded in their patrol cars did not have training in how to work their dashboard cameras, even though the department has been using them in its entire fleet since 2007, the department said. Other officers responded directly from the North Precinct at the start of their shifts and didn't have time to electronically synchronize their dash-camera systems before driving to the urgent call, police said. Still others never activated their dash-cameras by turning on their patrol car emergency lights, the department said. Consequently, there is no video -- and possibly no audio -- of the Feb. 26 shooting of 21-year-old Jack Sun Keewatinawin, interim Police Chief Jim Pugel said Wednesday. Pugel said he was looking into what happened. He acknowledged that the shooting and the department's response to it have been raised with the department by Merrick Bobb, the federal-court monitor overseeing Seattle Police Department reforms to address Department of Justice findings of excessive force and evidence of biased policing. The department's Firearms Review Board (FRB) found that the shooting of Keewatinawin was justified, while his father has questioned the department's account of the nighttime incident. A court inquest to examine the shooting has been ordered. Council concerns Pugel said the FRB's investigation into the shooting was one of the two cases that were criticized in the monitor's report on the first six months of reforms, released two weeks ago. Bobb said his team found evidence that, "at minimum, raises the potential or appearance of skewing testimony by those seeking to protect an officer." The lack of video was publicly disclosed Tuesday during a City Council briefing in which Bobb discussed the police department's progress in complying with reforms compelled under a settlement agreement with the Justice Department. "We've had some discussions with the SPD about the in-car video situation," Bobb told the council's Public Safety Committee, referring to his monitoring team. "It troubled us that there were eight officers present at a particular incident and not one of the cameras was on, even though there was sufficient time to, for some of the officers to turn on their cameras," Bobb said. On Wednesday, the committee chair, Bruce Harrell, sent a letter to Pugel, saying that the shooting "has raised significant concerns regarding the procedural policies for activation of the dash-cameras." Harrell requested a department review of "when and how dash-cams are triggered" and what changes should be made "to prevent these incidents from happening in the future." He said he understood that a shift change during an emergency played a role, but that "transparency and continually improving performance should be our goal." SPD policy requires that officers activate their dash-cams and record, if feasible, enforcement-related activity. The officers wear small microphones that allow conversations to be recorded even if video is not available. Pugel said the city is in the process of installing a new system that isn't as complicated to use. He also said he is looking at reconfiguring the Firearms Review Board to address some of the monitor's issues. Pugel said that none of the vehicles responding to the scene were pointed in the direction of the shooting and likely would not have captured the incident. It's unclear how many vehicles the eight officers drove to the scene. Story questioned Keewatinawin was shot after police responded to calls from his two brothers who said Keewatinawin was holding their father hostage with a knife at a home in the 10100 block of Fourth Avenue Northwest. In a confrontation with responding officers, Keewatinawin brandished an 18-inch piece of rebar and, in an attacklike manner, approached an officer who had slipped on wet ground in a neighbor's yard, police said. The officer and two other officers fired, killing Keewatinawin. Before summoning police, Keewatinawin's brothers, Montano Rojo Northwind Sr. and Hawk Firstrider, each called 911 after they received disturbing phone calls from their mentally ill brother. They said he raged about an imagined attack and stolen money. Keewatinawin was with their father at his duplex, phoning threats to his brothers, who were at their respective homes. Northwind and Firstrider later learned that their brother was not holding their father hostage or threatening him. In fact, their father, Henry Northwind, said he did not feel he was in danger though Keewatinawin was pacing "fast and hard, jumping up and down and stomping on the ground." Police said that two attempts before the shooting to use a Taser on Keewatinawin, who was wearing bulky clothing, failed to connect the barbs to his skin. Shortly after the incident, Henry Northwind questioned the police version of events. He said his son fell to his knees and pulled the rebar from his pants. Officers surrounded him in a half-circle and opened fire, Northwind said. Northwind said he did not see an officer fall to the ground. Keewatinawin was convicted of attacking a woman at Carkeek Park in October 2011. A warrant had been issued for his arrest on Jan. 28 after he failed to report to his Department of Corrections community corrections officer and his treatment provider. Suggestions made During Tuesday's council briefing, Bobb, the federal monitor, said he favored a technological fix that would take discretion away from officers in activating their in-car camera systems. Bobb said he preferred a system that operated from when the "ignition key is turned on" until the car is returned at the end of a shift. Under council questioning, he acknowledged there would be storage problems that would have to be addressed. In addition, Bobb said, sergeants could remind officers as they leave roll call that they must activate their cameras. He also suggested spot checks and "stings" to see if officers were complying. "You enforce it that way," he said. "You let them know they have to turn the cameras on and that they're at the risk of being found out if they don't." In December 2011, the police department released an audit that concluded patrol-car cameras were not used as often as they should be. The report, issued by the department's Office of Professional Accountability, found usage of the cameras "uneven" and recommended further study of the issue, as well as reminders to use the cameras and additional training about their importance. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=797_1368147404 SAPD_HRT Seattle Cruiser Cameras Off During Shooting Seattle, Police, Dash, Cam, Broken, Shooting Wed, 08 May 2013 10:00:05 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=192_1368021144 omniradar It is quite a long piece, but very informative indeed. Was the Syria Chemical Weapons Probe "Torpedoed" by the West? By Adam Larson Global Research, May 02, 2013 Region: Middle East & North Africa Theme: US NATO War Agenda In-depth Report: SYRIA: NATO'S NEXT WAR? Since the perplexing conflict in Syria first broke out two years ago, the Western powers' assistance to the anti-government side has been consistent, but relatively indirect. The Americans and Europeans lay the mental, legal, diplomatic, and financial groundwork for regime change in Syria. Meanwhile, Arab/Muslim allies in Turkey and the Persian Gulf are left with the heavy lifting of directly supporting Syrian rebels, and getting weapons and supplementary fighters in place. The involvement of the United States in particular has been extremely lackluster, at least in comparison to its aggressive stance on a similar crisis in Libya not long ago. Hopes of securing major American and allied force, preferrably a Libya-style "no-fly zone," always leaned most on U.S. president Obama's announcement of December 3, 2012, that any use of chemical weapons (CW) by the Assad regime - or perhaps their simple transfer - will cross a "red line." And that, he implied, would trigger direct U.S. intervention. This was followed by vague allegations by the Syrian opposition - on December 6, 8, and 23 - of government CW attacks. Nothing changed, and the allegations stopped for a while. However, as the war entered its third year in mid-March, 2013, a slew of new allegations came flying in. This started with a March 19 attack on Khan Al-Assal, a contested western district of Aleppo, killing a reported 25-31 people. Dramatic imagery run by state news agency SANA and from a Reuters photographer showed people - including children - suffering breathing problems, some already deceased. The Syrian government and related sources were the first to report it, blaming "terrorists" as usual. In an equally predictable answer, rebels accused the Syrian military of launching the attack. Syria demanded an investigation into the event by the United Nations, and everyone else agreed. A team was assembled, but then in early April Syria blocked them, for reasons that come across as mysterious. Soon, the world was hearing unprecedent recognition that perhaps Obama's "red line" had been crossed - not by "terrorists" but by the Assad regime - somewhere, at some times since December. The deadly nerve agent sarin is increasingly specified for reasons that aren't entirely clear. All this has kicked off a renewed drive for intervention based on intelligence assessments of WMD dangers, evoking widely-noted memories of the bogus U.S. case for war on Syria's ally Iraq one decade ago. Although the latest developments cast doubt on the imminence of outright military involvement - yet again - the danger persists, and the purported reasons deserve scrutiny. It's only been six weeks since this saga began, but they were weeks of the whirlwind sort. Considering where all the twirling has left us - horribly confused, if not on the brink of war - I offer this article towards unspinning the record to discover just what happened in that time. Three Highlighted Chemical Weapons Allegations At the start of the six weeks was the March 19 incident in Khan al-Assal, Aleppo and Syria's dramatic charges over it. But before considering that or the investigation saga, it might be useful to briefly outline the three reported attacks forced now into question, as they are confused. The investigation model now prevailing, first prposed by the Bristish and French governments on March 21, involved three incidents singled out; Khan al-Assal and a same-day incident in the Damascus area, as well as another one in the city of Homs, on December 23, 2012. The opposition Local Coordination Committees (LCC), drawing on front-line fighters, reported the incident at Otaybah (Ateiba) near Damascus, in their daily summary of March 19. (interestingly, this mentions two CW incidents, while failing to mention the Aleppo incident. In its place they mentioned a possible gas attack in Baba Amr, Homs, which no one else has repeated since). The LCC said "fierce shelling with chemical rockets targeted Ateibeh town today," causing "a large number" of people to suffer breathing problems, nausea, and "hysteria," as well as causing the death of some "martyrs." The number of fatalities is not stated, here or anywhere easily found. Otaybah is reported to have been a rebel-held area, but very near Syrian military positions, adding plausibility to the report. Also of interest is that SANA and the Syrian government had nothing immediately to say on the incident there. There would be further CW allegations in the east Damascus suburbs: Aadra March 24, Jobar April 6, and Otaybah again April 9, at least. All came with some evidence but slim details, and are sure to increase interest in investigating there. One or more of these sites would allegedly yield soil samples with possible traces of sarin gas (see below). The December Homs Attack listed in the Anglo-French letter was talked about at the time, in many dramatic news reports. A handful of videos from a clinic in the Al-Bayada district show patients gasping horribly for breath. All victims seem to be rebel fighters in civilian dress. The death toll was said to be six, with as many as 100 people exposed. People took this charge seriously, but it was dismissed by mid-January as not a CW attack. CNN reported then on a State Department investigation that found it was probably a riot-control gas used in the wrong concentration. Further, CNN hear that Turkey also looked into this case "but found the claims to be unsubstantiated." The methodology was not explained, and the dismissal is not certain. Now the incident is back in the limelight, thought by the British and French to require urgent scrutiny. Khan Al-Assal But however important those other cases are, all this investigation drama began immediately after the well-documented incident in Aleppo. Little about the event is agreed on by both sides, but where the strike happened is one commonality. Khan al-Assal has been in rebel hands, but almost everyone agrees to consider it government-held by the 19th (aside from a rebel-occupied police academy). Channel 4's Alex Thomson heard that authorities only re-established full control two days before the attack (he also heard it was a predominately Shi'ite district.) Rebels say the regime hit its own area either on accident, or to make it look like rebels did it. That Syrians were killed in moderate numbers is not contested. The early reports specified 25-26 fatalities, with some rebel estimates lower, and the government tally later adjusted to 31. In the images publicized, some victims are civilians, including women and children, and some are fighting age males in Syrian army uniforms. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), an opposition group but with a variety of sources, reported a "rocket" (no mention of gas) causing 26 fatalities - ten civilians, 16 soldiers. SANA said the rocket hit "in a region populated by civilians," but only 300 meters from a Syrian Arab Army post. No one disputes the date. This itself is a clue, coming as it does after several events that invited a crossing of Obama's "red line." From March 15-18, the rebellion's second anniversary passed, the U.S. treasury freed citizens to finance Syria's opposition, NATO reminded everyone they were prepared for war, and a U.S. citizen from Texas was elected prime minister of the Syrian National Coalition. When Ghassan Hitto was chosen on March 18, the Syrian-American Council "said the decision should assuage the Obama administration's concerns about who would lead Syria should President Bashar al-Assad be deposed." Why Damascus would decided to test Obama's chemical ultimatum on the morning of the 19th, of all times, is difficult to understand. Further, the approximate time of that test is one more undisputed point: around 7:30-8:00 am by all accounts. But just about everything else is disagreed. Various chemical agents have been suggested by rebels and their supporters, but sarin is not one of them; the later talk of that seems to surround soil from one of the Damascus area attacks. However, an industrial accident has been suggested, along with "super strength tear gas" and something with "traces of cyanide." Israeli DEBKA file heard from "Western military sources" an educated guess that chlorine, phosphorous, and a nerve agent (BZ or Agent 15) were used in "the Scud B rocket which exploded in the Aleppo neighborhood of Khan al-Assal." Perhaps most intriguingly, the U.S.-based Syrian Support Group intriguingly cited "echothiophate" for both March 19 attacks, Damascus and Aleppo. Widely used as a treatment for the eye ailment glaucoma, this could be a clue that president Bashar Al-Assad, a former eye doctor, personally made the poison choice. Besides these, there seem to be no other concrete guesses as to what hit Khan al-Assal. The way the gas was delivered comes across in opposition reports, vaguely, as something rebels don't have. At least two alleged witnesses cite fighter jets, one specifying that they missed their target by about 5 km. The more widely accepted explanation is a surface-to-surface missile, probably a Scud. But this too has problems; CNN spoke to "a senior State Department official" who said there was no radar or satellite data to "indicate there was a launch of a missile at the time Syrians say the alleged attack occurred." That's the same time rebels say an alleged Scud was launched, so whether he meant to or not, the official contradicted the rebel claim here. In contrast, the government claims a smaller homemade rocket, armed with a chlorine and saline warhead, was fired on their forces. Supporting the chemical claim, the first reports had noted that residents said they could smell chlorine in the area following the attack. And consider that the launch of a smaller projectile like this should probably not show up in the data CNN referred to, meaning that clue (if it's even true) does not coflict with the government version, the way it does the rebel one. One issue working against the Damascus version is the two firing locations specified. First SANA reported the rocket came from Kafr Dael (Kafr Taal on Wikimapia, 13 km west of Khan al-Assal). Later Alex Thomson heard that al-Bab, 47 km northeast, was the suspected origin. While no more than one of those can be correct, either is entirely plausible. Rockets that could reach from al-Bab are rare, but one improvised model launched on video, near Damascus in February, was said by its handlers to have a range of 60 kilometers. This, or some equivalent weapon, could work from either specified locale the following month. As for the chlorine, it's known to be held by rebels in large amounts. CNN's Aryn Baker related how the reported smell of the attack stood out to "the owner of Syria's only chlorine-gas manufacturing plant," Mohammad Sabbagh. He had fled to Lebanon, and spoke to Baker in Beirut. He says the plant, just east of Aleppo, was taken over by Jabhat al-Nusra (Al Qaeda in Syria) in August 2012. "There is no other factory in Syria that can make this gas, and now it is under opposition control," he says." He hears that the plant is not operating now, but Sabbagh "has no idea what has happened, if anything," to the one-ton tanks of chlorine gas, roughly 400 of which once stored there. Sabbagh is supported in his account by a head of the Aleppo Chamber of Industry. Passing through Beirut, he told Baker "we warned back then that chemical components were in the hands of terrorists, but no one listened." At play then are: plenty of chlorine, rockets with range, expertise obtainable to serious terrorist networks, and many basing areas within range of loyalist-held Khan al-Assal. Given all that, it's little comfort to hear as a denial, from opposition spokesman Louay Meqdad,"we have neither long-range missiles nor chemical weapons. And if we did, we wouldn't use them against a rebel target." Syria, in contrast, swears if they had CW, they would never use them against their own people at all. As we examine the battle over an investigation, it should be noted from the start that the case for a rebel attack in Aleppo is stronger and clearer than most realize. In fact it seems clearer by a healthy margin than the version rebels have so far offered. Yet that narrative and that attack in general have been effectively sidelined, in favor of whole other alleged attacks. Conflicting Urgencies at the U.N.: The Battle Over Scope Both initial versions of the gas attack on Khan Al-Assal, reported by the warring Syrian parties, came with moral denunciation of the perpetators on the other side, and these were echoed by outside supporters along unsurprising lines. Russia's foreign ministry, for example, said "the use of chemical weapons by the armed opposition ... (is) a new and extremely alarming and dangerous turn." They added "we are extremely, seriously concerned by the fact that weapons of mass destruction have gotten into militants' hands." The demand for an investigation began with Syria's government, the day after the attack. Their representative at the U.N., Dr. Bashar Al-Ja'afari, on the 20th requested the Secretary-General to form a "mission to investigate the use by the terrorist groups operating in Syria of chemical weapons yesterday against civilians." He specified that the effort should be "technical" "independent," and "neutral." Russia supported that, with deputy foreign minister Gennady Gatilov saying "we expect that the UN secretary general will promptly react to Syria's request." Iran backed the call, and continued pressing various nations and leaders, with little success, to condemn the attack as an opposition one. Western powers always publicly doubted rebels were behind the incident, but agreed it was worthy of investigation; every party was clear that they wanted the truth. Both sides agreed on using terms like "impartial" and "urgent" to describe their solutions, yet the best approach was consistently disagreed on. Both Russia and Syria complained on the 20th, the same day Syria first asked for a probe, that the UK and France had blocked it, in a "stalling" measure. The Western powers used the stall to explain, in a letter from France and the UK on the 21st, why the U.N. should instead "launch an urgent investigation into all allegations." In particular, they added the Otaybah attack, Reuters heard, "and one in Homs in December." On hearing a demand to investigate the Otaybah incident, representative al-Ja'afari said he'd never heard of it, proposing that it "was set up on purpose to torpedo the investigation on the real use of chemical weapons which took place in Aleppo." Russia's U.N. envoy Vitaly Churkin voiced suspicion that "this was really a way to delay the need for immediate, urgent investigation of allegations pertaining to March 19 by raising all sorts of issues." This "unjustified step" of widening the probe, Russia's foreign ministry warned (perhaps with some hyperbole) "wrecks the investigation of concrete information." U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon first seemed favorable to Syria's position; he announced on March 21 that "I am of course aware that there are other allegations of similar cases involving the reported use of chemical weapons," but the probe would focus on "the specific incident brought to my attention by the Syrian government." However, he announced on the 25th that it might be broadened, and asked for more information from everyone. Reuters was given letters between U.N. Disarmament director Angela Kane and Syria's Ja'afari, discussing the investigation's terms. In one, Kane said Aleppo would be the main focus, but "we must remain mindful of the other allegations that chemical weapons were used elsewhere in the country." It was apparently the U.N. end that leaked the conversation; an April 6 letter had Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem complaining to Secretary-General Ban that the leaks "left the impression of a lack of seriousness on the part of the (U.N.) secretariat on cooperation in good faith." That too was shared with Reuters. Syria's stern and narrow insistence on its initial request is clearly part of the impasse that resulted. Given the risks of war, it would seem unwise to refuse cooperation, and the exact reasons they didn't are not widely or clearly understood. There is the pride issue, and other considerations, like signs of bad faith (leaking letters), and of deeper duplicity. For example, it was promised that the Khan al-Assal portion of the probe would be handled "initially" and/or "primarily." But a Western diplomat told Reuters on March 27 that the U.N. team would be based in Beirut, Lebanon. That's clear across Syria from Aleppo, but quite near the sites around Damascus and Homs, which were the "primary" interests, it seems. Rather than blocking the investigation they requested, Damascus held open the door to Khan Al-Assal this whole time. Foreign minister Moualem even modified the offer on April 6, as a Reuters reported suumed it up, "the inspectors should go first to Aleppo and if they are seen to be impartial, the possibility of visiting Homs could be discussed." The Jerusalem Post reported that "Western delegations" didn't like this; they "said the Syrian response of April 6 was unacceptable and that the chemical weapons team must have assurances now that it can visit both Aleppo and Homs." (And also the Damascus area, presumably.) Whatever suspicion about what would happen afterwards, one site could be agreed to by all and investigated without delay. As the U.S. representative to the U.N., Susan Rice, said on the 21st, as Aleppo seemed to be the priority: "the United States supports an investigation that pursues any and all credible allegations ... as swiftly as possible." But Secretary-General Ban re-affirmed in a public statement of April 9 that it could wait. He said: "It is a matter of principle that when there is an allegation, whether it is one or two or multiple allegations, all these allegations should be investigated. Only then will we be sure that there was or there were uses of chemical weapons. Without that nobody can be sure." He does not explain why investigators needed to knowing what happened at x number of other sites in order to know what happened in Aleppo. But without bending to that inexplicably holistic philosophy, and its growing list of interlocking allegations, Syria would get no U.N. investigation at all. Perhaps for dramatic effect, as Ban noted, "an advance team was in Cyprus, ready to go to Syria within 24 hours. ... All we are waiting for is the go-ahead from the Syrian government ... to determine whether any chemicals weapons were used, in any location." It was quite an impasse. Syria's request, it could be argued, had been torpedoed. Rejecting Regime Change Maneuvers Besides the issue of which incidents to study, the Russian foreign ministry felt there was a shift from Syria's request for help to increasingly invasive demands on the government. They stated that the shift came "under pressure from Western members of the (security) council," and might represent "attempts to drag this issue out and turn an investigation under the aegis of the United Nations ... into an additional element of pressure for regime change." Russia said that for geopolitical balance, all permanent five (P5) members of the Security Council (US, UK, France, Russia, China) should send experts for the probe. Secretary-General Ban answered by banning scientists from all P5 members, as well as from other involved parties, like Gulf Arab states and Turkey. Syra thought they should have a say in staffing the investigation, but the U.N.'s Ban reserved the right. However, Ban decided the probe would instead be staffed by varied scientists from elsewhere, selected by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). As nice as that sounds, the OPCW's director-general is Ahmet "Uz"umc"u, a Turkish career diplomat with possibly compromising links to his belligerent nation. According to his Wikipedia entry, "Uz"umc"u was previously Turkey's consul in Aleppo, as well as ambassador in Israel and the permanent representative of Turkey to NATO. This could hardly help Syria to feel anything other than threatened; the selected scientists would be, in effect, deciding if they could turn up justification for the US/NATO to openly join in the war against Syria, waged most fiercely so far from Mr. "Uz"umc"u's home nation. From the outset, there were signs that the West and the U.N.'s leadership intended the requested investigation(s) to lead into Iraq-style inspections of Syria's closely-watched CW stockpiles. Ban Ki Moon insisted that the investigation would require "unfettered access" to locales not clearly defined, and cryptically noted "It is my hope that the mission would contribute to ensuring the safety and security of chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria." He didn't specify how a narrow, blame-free, technical mission to investigate what happened in one or even three locations would help make Syria's alleged CW more secure. That it would become a sneak inspections regime in the Iraq vein, however, might explain that strange hope. Syria's decision-makers can hardly have missed these further clues that this was the plan: 1) The investigation, staff, mandate, etc. was to be negotiated between Syria and, specifically, the U.N.'s office for Disarmament Affairs. 2) Swedish scientist Ake Sellstr"om was put in charge. He had previously been a chief inspector for UNSCOM, the U.N. inspection team of the 1990s, and worked with UNMOVIC in 2002, which found no basis for the claims on which the war on Iraq was launched anyway. 3) The "investigators" as originally tasked were increasingly referred to as "inspectors." More important yet were signs of invasive intent. Ban specified, publicly even, that the U.N. would have to investigate "in any location." Russia's foreign ministry announced on April 6, as a Reuters report summed up, that the U.N. "was seeking overly broad access for investigators to facilities and individuals (note: not crime scenes) in Syria and wanted to use aircraft for transportation. "This approach brings to mind the line taken over an investigation into the presence of chemical weapons in Iraq, which was based on deliberately false data and led to well-known consequences," it said, ... "We consider such actions unacceptable and inadmissible by any party and moreover by the leadership of the U.N. Secretariat."" While the full details remain unclear, Russia's accusations in this area remained dramatic and troubling. Foreign ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich told RT on April 27 that: "The management of the UN Secretariat demanded that Damascus agree to the establishment of a permanent mechanism for inspection throughout Syrian territory with unlimited access to everywhere. ... The proposed scheme of inspections is similar to those used at the end of the last century in Iraq, which, unlike Syria, was under UN sanctions." Syria's information minister, Omran al-Zouabi, told RT that one of the goals of the investigation as configured "is to repeat Iraq's scenario, to pave the way for other investigation inspections. To provide, based on their results, maps, photos of rockets and other fabricated materials to the UN, which as we know, opened the way to the occupation of Iraq." It was just after all of this was established that access was explicitly denied. Just as Ban and the West made it most clear by April 8/9 that the inspection must be all-or-nothing, Damascus announced, essentially, that it would have to be nothing. Syria's foreign ministry on April 8th said Ban has "suggested a supplementary mission to deploy throughout Syrian territory" and placed "additional tasks" that would constitute a "violation of Syrian sovereignty." He did so, they said, under "pressure exercised by states known for their support for the shedding of Syrian blood," and which intended to kill the investigation. And so, they announced, "Syria cannot accept these maneuvers from the UN's Secretariat-General, taking into account the truth of the negative role it played in Iraq." Most Western media reports blame the impasse on Syria. They did in fact block the U.N. team's entry into Syria. However, as this article shows, there were several questionable actions (and alleged actions) by the other side determining what the "no" came in response to. And most reports cite the scope of attacks to investigate as the only dispute. But these inexplicably invasive aspects seems to be the straws that broke the camel's back, and were laid more quietly, right before the audible snap. Therefore, they deserve more scrutiny and explanation. Consider this: if the government had been demanded to surrender and disband before any inspection, no one could blame them for refusing. That extreme example set one end of the scale on which Damascus' decision was made. On one end is a design to force Syria to reject its own investigation in a way that can be easily blamed on them alone. On the other end is a regime so desperate to conceal its patterns of abuse that it blocked the most reasonable of demands. U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell took this view, saying "if the regime has nothing to hide they should let the UN investigators in immediately so we can get to the bottom of this." After strongly suggesting they did have something to hide, Ventrell threatened that all options - including military ones - remained open. Sarin After the Failure: Confusion Yields to "Confidence" To be clear, the investigation was not quite fatally sabotaged. In lieu of in-country investigation, the U.N. says Sellstr"om's team was working on Cyprus, investigating what they could from there. Spokesman Martin Nesirky told a press briefing "you need to be able to go into Syria to be able to do that investigation properly on site, but in the meantime ... information is available without actually visiting Syria." Hypothetically, this could still expand into something more substantial, but past events leave little room to suspect it will. For more on-the-ground work, independent alleged investigations took over. British intelligence MI6 secured soil samples from Aleppo, the Sunday Times reported, and gave it to analysts at Porton Down military research institute. They dismissed the incident there as from "super strength tear gas," after looking at videos but before studying the dirt. This cursory guess effectively played the incident down, while Syria was pursuing an investigation. After the 8th, the mood of the science changed. The Times of Israel reported on the 13th that other soil MI6 collected, from "a neighborhood on the outskirts of Damascus," shows signs of "some kind of chemical weapon." The scientists wouldn't say which, but specified "it can't definitively be said to be Sarin nerve agent," suggesting perhaps that it was. Perhaps based on this, Britain and France wrote separately to the UN on or before April 18, more sure than ever that the Syrians were using chemical weapons, repeatedly, since December. Rebels have offered help quite publicly, with Free Syrian Army spokesman Louay Mekdad, offering to collect "testimony" and physical samples. The Americans might be trying get their own samples in the more clandestine manner of MI6, according to rebel commander "Majid," from the eastern Damascus suburbs where four recent CW attacks have been reported. He told the New York Times that the CIA wanted him to collect soil samples there, but he was actually in Jordan, and said it would take a while before he could get back on his home turf to help. In Israel, numerous actors in the military and intelligence arenas made a coordinated surprise push on April 23, recorded in a detailed report by the New York Times. This included information sent to Washington, "briefings earlier on Tuesday," where "the Israelis said they believed that the attacks March 19 involved the use of sarin gas," and dramatics dropped on Defense Secretary Hagel during his visit. Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, Israel's senior military intelligence analyst, said that Syria "has increasingly used chemical weapons. ... without any appropriate reaction," which "might signal that this is legitimate." General Brun cited "different signs" of this, including photographs of people "foaming at the mouth." An anonymous Israeli military official also told the Times' David E. Sanger that the Israeli opinion was based "mainly on what he described as publicly available photographs of victims, but said there was also corroborating "direct evidence" that he would not detail." Israel's intent here was clearly to influence the US into action (or at least into greater threat of it); the unnamed official said "if somebody would take any reaction" against Syria, maybe it would deter them from using it again." And the ominous inverse is that a failure to act would all-but guarantee a repetition. American officials refused to be instantly convinced, and made a few good points in explaining why. With British-French-Israeli collusion to attack a resistant Arab nation, and the U.S. holding back, President Obama almost seemed to be channeling Eisenhower in the Suez crisis. But it was apparently short-lived. On the 25th, CNN reported, the White House and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that U.S. analysts now felt, "with varying degrees of confidence," that Syria has used chemical weapons including at least sarin, "on a small scale." The report noted there was still caution, especially over "chain of custody" issues, but this is the closest the Obama administration has come to saying its red line is crossed. Questioning the "Confidence" As we hover at this dangerous juncture, questions emerge. An informative April 25 report from McClatchy news service heard from unnamed but authoritative sources that the U.S. intelligence findings for sarin "were of "low or moderate" confidence," and that investigators "found trace amounts of a byproduct in soil, but there are also fertilizers that give out the same byproduct," the person said. "It's far from conclusive." This is especially so, as the chain of custody is far from certain and that the opposition forces likely involved in collection are notoriously dishonest. The Telegraph reported on senior members of UK parliament saying better evidence will be needed to escalate, and noted that the Ministry of Defence "said it would not publish details of the tests, an indication that it did not have full confidence in what it had found, analysts said." On the basic logic front, Max Fisher helpfully pointed out for a Washington Post blog "three important caveats" as we speak of red lines. One was on the danger of intervention Syria would face, noting "it's hard to imagine that using a "small amount" of chemical weapons would do the regime forces enough good to merit the risk." He also cited chemical weapons expert Ralf Trapp asking "why would the regime just put it on a grenade here or a rocket launcher there? It's just not the way you'd expect a military force to act." The picture of does fit, however, with a false flag provocateur. Let's consider again those who suffer little to no such risk - unknown opposition brigades who may have been behind the last Aleppo gas attack - alongside a mid-April repeat in Aleppo's sprawling Sheikh Maqsoud district. This time it looks better in that rebels had just conquered Sheikh Maqsoud for the first time, and were absorbing some attacks. Rebel sources blame a regime helicopter, not one of their own mortars, for dropping the unidentified gas early on the morning of April 13. The attack reportedly poisoned 16 people non-fatally, and killed two women and two young children. The CW victims "foaming at the mouth," as cited by Israel's General Brun , might refer to a horrible photo from this incident, released by the SOHR, of an apparently dead woman with mucous bubbling out of her mouth and nose. Brun said that image was consistent with sarin exposure, and the Centers for Disease Control (U.S.) cites runny nose, drooling, and more as signs of low-level exposure. But Mohammad Sabbagh's stolen chlorine should have effects at least as consistent, as it did in World War I: "a profuse exudation of a thin, light yellow, albuminous fluid by the bronchial mucous membrane." It would seem some enabled party was again gassing people in Aleppo, perhaps with regime "tear gas" again, just as the threat of discovering the truth there evaporated like the morning fog. The U.S. embrace of sarin use was apparently based on the "intelligence" Israel had sent - opinions, public images, and something secret - plus tests of unreliable samples yielding traces that could be fertilizer byproducts. This possibly fake "best guess" thrives in the climate of ignorance following the all-but fatal sabotage of the U.N. investigation. (That this unsound approach is applied to issues of war and national soverignty - at the United Nations, even - is a related problem with its own complex causes we shall not try to address here.) Growing "confidence" is troubling; that word is the origin of the "con" part of a "con job," where the confidence of the lie tricks the victim into giving away something unwarranted (belief, first and foremost). Perhaps this war drive is not so dissimilar from the deceit-greased build-up to war in Iraq ten years ago. Added here is the twist, perhaps a charade, of the U.S. being dragged into it reluctantly by allies. But that a mighty nation allows itself to be dragged into echoing the sarin rumors suggests, as does so much else, that they are not truly averse to this endeavor. The moral load of any possible war against Syria will also have to include the potential disgrace of punishing the victims of real-life, deployed and used weapons of mass destruction. Much credible evidence suggests the documented chemical warfare so far has been by the rebels, against soldiers and supporters of the same government slated to be blamed. Then it's slated to be attacked by what might well be the real criminals, enabled with air support, with the intent of total victory. To borrow Israeli general Brun's statement, it's not hard to see how this rewarding of terrorism "might signal that this is legitimate" and encourage more of the same - at least, so long as it suits Western interests. Postscript Syria's Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi seems at least reasonably justified in saying, as SANA reported on April 26, "the Western sides ... want now to hide behind this "fabricated and false" talk to justify their silence on failing the investigation mission requested by Syria and to exonerate the terrorists." Al-Zoubi was speaking to RT, who quoted him as saying the West's aims include, first, "to cover those who are really behind use of chemical weapons in Khan al-Assal," where many or most of the dead were government soldiers. And on that same day, there was an unconfirmed report from the Bazreh neighborhood of Damascus, that entrenched rebels gassed attacking army soldiers. Breaking News (Syria) reports medical sources for an unstated number of "martyrs, who have died due to inhalation of chemical gases," which causes an exudation of "white substance from their noses and mouths." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=192_1368021144 omniradar US & Israel Duplicit In Attemted Downfall Of Syria ! US & Israel Duplicit In Attemted Downfall Of Syria ! Mon, 06 May 2013 18:37:25 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c8e_1367879739 Baron_Kaz A recent UN survey suggested an astounding 99.3% of Egyptian women had experienced harassment of one form or another. Sixty percent of those asked said they had been touched inappropriately. Of course, the problems started within Egyptian society long before the 2011 revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak, but they do appear to be worsening. And just when the issue of sexual harassment needs decisive action, Egypt's Information Minister Salah Abdul Maksoud has caused outrage by making remarks to a female reporter that appear highly derogatory, though the minister himself is unrepentant. "In the news conference, I asked him: 'Where is media freedom?'" says the journalist involved, Nada Mohamed. "He said to me: 'Come here and I'll show you.' Then he laughed," she says. "This was clear harassment. I was shocked." As it happens, Ms Mohamed's parents both accompanied her to the news conference. "We went with Nada because things are so bad these days with security for girls, I don't want to leave her alone," says her father, Mohamed. "I call her 10 times a day if I am not with her, I am so worried." "Then the minister said what he did and I was so angry, but it was not the place to start shouting. But I am happy other people have responded." 'Anti-Islamist prejudice' There have been protests against Mr Abdul Maksoud and he has been questioned about his comments. But he has justified his actions by saying it was a turn of phrase that is common in Egypt. Salah Abdul Maksoud at news conference Salah Abdul Maksoud said there was nothing unusual about his remarks The minister remains in his post and there his been no condemnation or apology for what he said from the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement to which he and President Mohammed Morsi belong. Brotherhood supporters bristle at the suggestion that women's rights have been adversely affected by its rule. "The evidence is that this is simply not true," says Dina Zakariya, a television presenter and also one of the leading female voices within the movement. "I agree, there are problems, but who says it is because of the Muslim Brotherhood?" It is Ms Zakariya's view that those who blame her movement for a negative impact on women's rights are prejudiced against Islamist groups. "President Morsi is supporting an initiative, proposed by different women's organisations, calling for greater women's rights. That means he wants to meet their demands." Government 'silent' But many critics feel the information minister's remarks are more indicative of the Muslim Brotherhood's attitude towards women and their rights. Furthermore, they feel the movement has failed to take the lead in tackling a problem that already appears to have got out of hand. "It may not be their direct message that harassing women is OK, but when the government keeps silent about these issues, it makes things worse," says Someyya Hussein. Ms Hussein has twice been seriously sexually assaulted in public places. Nesma Hamoda Nesma Hamoda has been criticised by her friends for wanting to remove her headscarf She says she has witnessed harassment from boys as young as 11 or 12 years old, and feels it all starts with signals from people of power. "Clerics appear on TV inciting people, telling men they have the right to touch a girl if she is not 'properly' covered up. They should be stopped and brought to account but they are not," she says. Egyptians will tell you that women now are dressing far more conservatively than they did just a few years back. That is certainly no guarantee that they will be left alone. Many of those reporting harassment wear headscarves or even the niqab, which covers the face. But there are some young women who are reacting against the cultural flow, by removing their veils. "I originally wore the veil to fit in. All my classmates wore it," 18-year-old Nesma Hamoda says. "But now with the Muslim Brotherhood, I see women are treated like objects instead of actual human beings and I don't want to be a part of it, or a part of the 'covering it up' culture." However, Ms Hamoda says that in the current social climate, it will not be easy, and that even friends of hers have criticised her for suggesting that she remove her headscarf. "I will wait until after my exams because I know it will be a big stress, but I have to give my statement that I am against the way my country is headed," she adds. "It is clear that women in Egypt are facing extraordinary levels of sexual harassment." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c8e_1367879739 Baron_Kaz Over 99% of Egyptian women sexually abused! Cairo Mon, 06 May 2013 02:28:12 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c36_1367821597 cathy winslow Those who think Israel carried out strikes against Syria without consulting the US should 'go back to kindergarten'. Obama's strategy of different tactics only has one aim -- which is not peace in Syria, Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar says. In a space of less than three days Israel has bombed Syria twice. Escobar believes this to be a deliberate provocation involving multiple players, and says the biggest mistake Syria (or Iran) could make right now is to carry out any type of retaliatory action. He explains why in an interview with RT. RT: The U.S. said Israel is justified in its concerns over the Hezbollah threat. So wasn't making a move to defend itself the right thing to do? Pepe Escobar: Let's recapitulate. First of all, this is an act of war and a provocation at the same time. Why happening now? It starts with Chuck Hagel, Head of the Pentagon's tour in the Middle East and Israel a few days ago. Remember that Chuck Hagel was against arming Syrian rebels, and then he changed his mind and said that rebels actually used chemical weapons in Syria with no evidence. At the same time rebels start losing ground inside Syria. The Syrian army has been making advances in the Homs corridor these past few weeks. And at the same time we also know that all these divergent strands of the Free Syrian Army - they are basically the one that are really fighting on around jihadis. Obama cannot arm jihadis in Syria, period. So what is his fallback plan: a kind of mini shock-and-awe. But would the US start a shock and awe in Syria? No. It's by proxy. It's via Israel. This is what Hagel and the Israelis were discussing only a few days ago. RT: So, you are saying Israel has gone ahead with this with US blessing? It did not act alone? PE: If anybody believes that anything Israel does in the Middle East it does not consult the Americans, you should go back to kindergarten. It does not work like this in the real world. They did it because they were consorted with the Obama administration which is in a bind at the moment. They cannot intervene directly in Syria. They know that the support for the so-called rebels and all their different strands is going nowhere, because they are likely retreating instead of advancing. So, Israel with this provocation they are waiting for a response either from Syria, or from Hezbollah, or better yet -- from the point of view of the Obama administration and Israel -- from Iran. So if Iran and Syria don't do anything for the moment, they just wait. This will be seen as it is, just a provocation. But if there is the slightest bit of response, from either Syria or Iran, this will be the perfect pretext for what? A mini shock-and-awe against Syria. RT: What sort of a response are you expecting from Syria? It surely can't just choose another conflict bearing in mind circumstances at the moment. Iran would really respond militarily to what happened in Syria? PE: Exactly! That's the point. The hardliners in Washington and Israel are expecting exactly that -- a non-measured response from Iran. It's not going to happen. The Iranians might calibrate their response for months from now in fact... different targets. Maybe not even in the Middle East. Israelis interest outside of the Middle East. The Syrians, they are moving some of their missiles to the northern part of Syria. You don't know what they are going to do about it. RT: How dangerous is this situation now? Is this really a sign of what everybody was really worried about -- a sparking of a regional conflict? Yes, absolutely. And in fact this proves how desperate this so-called coalition of the willing ...US, Brits, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are with what is going on inside Syria. They were expecting Bashar al-Assad government to collapse in a few months. But it has been two years and it is still in place. There are no major defections. They still control the business classes in Damascus and Aleppo. It is still there and could fight for a long time. And they want a quick resolution, so they use Israel as a proxy. It's the perfect foil. And they can blame Israel in fact, the Arabs. The Arab league which nowadays is an annex of NATO, they are blaming Israel. But Saudi Arabia is into it as well. Because the US, the Saudis and the Israelis they are actually arming rebels as well, they see that it is going nowhere. Ok. Let's activate plan B. Let's start bombing Syria and see if they respond. http://on.rt.com/tw58pe http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c36_1367821597 cathy winslow Is Israel Obama's fall-back plan for Syria? israel,war,syria,US,Fallback plan Sat, 04 May 2013 08:22:19 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ff6_1367669937 AntiPropagaanda Non-Muslims Carried Out More than 90% of All Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Soil Posted on May 1, 2013 by WashingtonsBlogTerrorism Is a Real Threat ... But the Threat to the U.S. from Muslim Terrorists Has Been ExaggeratedAn FBI report shows that only a small percentage of terrorist attacks carried out on U.S. soil between 1980 and 2005 were perpetrated by Muslims. Princeton University's Loon Watch compiled the following chart from the FBI's data (as explained below, this chart is over-simplified ... and somewhat inaccurate): Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Soil by Group, From 1980 to 2005, According to FBI Database According to this data, there were more Jewish acts of terrorism within the United States than Islamic (7% vs 6%). These radical Jews committed acts of terrorism in the name of their religion. These were not terrorists who happened to be Jews; rather, they were extremist Jews who committed acts of terrorism based on their religious passions, just like Al-Qaeda and company. (The chart is misleading in several ways. For example, it labels "Extreme Left Wing Groups" and "Communists", but not "Extreme Right Wing Groups" or "Fascists". It should have either discarded allpartisan labels, or included labels for both ends of the spectrum. In addition, "Latinos" is misleading, as Loonwatch is actually referring to Puerto Rican separatist groups, Cuban exile groups and the like. However, as shown below, many of the basic concepts are correct.) U.S. News and World Report noted in February of this year: Of the more than 300 American deaths from political violence and mass shootings since 9/11, only 33 have come at the hands of Muslim-Americans, according to the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security . The Muslim-American suspects or perpetrators in these or other attempted attacks fit no demographic profile-only 51 of more than 200 are of Arabic ethnicity. In 2012, all but one of the nine Muslim-American terrorism plots uncovered were halted in early stages. That one, an attempted bombing of a Social Security office in Arizona, caused no casualties. Wired reported the same month: Since 9/11, and his team tallies, 33 Americans have died as a result of terrorism launched by their Muslim neighbors. During that period, 180,000 Americans were murdered for reasons unrelated to terrorism. In just the past year, the mass shootings that have captivated America's attention killed 66 Americans, "twice as many fatalities as from Muslim-American terrorism in all 11 years since 9/11," notes Kurzman's team. Law enforcement, including "informants and undercover agents," were involved in "almost all of the Muslim-American terrorism plots uncovered in 2012," the Triangle team finds. That's in keeping with the FBI's recent practice of using undercover or double agents to encourage would-be terrorists to act on their violent desires and arresting them when they do - a practice critics say comes perilously close to entrapment. A difference in 2012 observed by Triangle: with the exception of the Arizona attack, all the alleged plots involving U.S. Muslims were "discovered and disrupted at an early stage," while in the past three years, law enforcement often observed the incubating terror initiatives "after weapons or explosives had already been gathered." The sample of Muslim Americans turning to terror is "vanishingly small," Kurzman tells Danger Room. Measuring the U.S. Muslim population is a famously inexact science, since census data don't track religion, but rather "country of origin," which researchers attempt to use as a proxy. There are somewhere between 1.7 million and seven million American Muslims, by most estimates, and Kurzman says he operates off a model that presumes the lower end, a bit over 2 million. That's less a rate of involvement in terrorism of less than 10 per million, down from a 2003 high of 40 per million, as detailed in the chart above. Yet the scrutiny by law enforcement and homeland security on American Muslims has not similarly abated. The FBI tracks "geomaps" of areas where Muslims live and work, regardless of their involvement in any crime. The Patriot Act and other post-9/11 restrictions on government surveillance remain in place. The Department of Homeland Security just celebrated its 10th anniversary. In 2011, President Obama ordered the entire federal national-security apparatus to get rid of counterterrorism training material that instructed agents to focus on Islam itself , rather than specific terrorist groups. Kurzman doesn't deny that law enforcement plays a role in disrupting and deterring homegrown U.S. Muslim terrorism. His research holds it out as a possible explanation for the decline. But he remains surprised by the disconnect between the scale of the terrorism problem and the scale - and expense - of the government's response. "Until public opinion starts to recognize the scale of the problem has been lower than we feared, my sense is that public officials are not going to change their policies," Kurzman says. "Counterterrorism policies have involved surveillance - not just of Muslim-Americans, but of all Americans, and the fear of terrorism has justified intrusions on American privacy and civil liberties all over the internet and other aspects of our lives. I think the implications here are not just for how we treat a religious minority in the U.S., but also how we treat the rights & liberties of everyone." We agree . And so do most Americans . Indeed - as we've previously documented - you're more likely to die from brain-eating parasites, alcoholism, obesity, medical errors, risky sexual behavior or just about anything other than terrorism. Kurzman told the Young Turks in February that Islamic terrorism "doesn't even count for 1 percent" of the 180,000 murders in the US since 9/11 . While the Boston marathon bombings were horrific, a top terrorism expert says that the Boston attack was more like Columbine than 9/11, and that the bombers are "murderers not terrorists" . The overwhelming majority of mass shootings were by non-Muslims . (This is true in Europe , as well as in the U.S.) However you classify them - murder or terrorism - the Boston bombings occurred after all of the statistical analysis set forth above. Moreover, different groups have different agendas about how to classify the perpetrators (For example, liberal Mother Jones and conservative Breitbart disagree on how many of the perpetrators of terror attacks can properly be classified as right wing extremists.) So we decided to look at the most current statistics for ourselves, to do an objective numerical count not driven by any agenda. Specifically, we reviewed all of the terrorist attacks on U.S. soil as documented by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). (2012). Global Terrorism Database, as retrieved from http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd. The START Global Terrorism Database spans from 1970 through 2012 (and will be updated from year-to-year) , and - as of this writing - includes 104,000 terrorist incidents. As such, it is the most comprehensive open-source database open to the public. We counted up the number of terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims. We excluded attacks by groups which are obviously not Muslims, such as the Ku Klux Klan, Medellin Drug Cartel, Irish Republican Army, Anti-Castro Group, Mormon extremists, Vietnamese Organization to Exterminate Communists and Restore the Nation, Jewish Defense League, May 19 Communist Order, Chicano Liberation Front, Jewish Armed Resistance, American Indian Movement, Gay Liberation Front, Aryan Nation, Jewish Action Movement, National Front for the Liberation of Cuba, or Fourth Reich Skinheads. We counted attacks by Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Black American Moslems, or anyone who even remotelysounded Muslim ... for example anyone from Palestine, Lebanon or any other Arab or Muslim country, or any name including anything sounding remotely Arabic or Indonesian (like "Al" anything or "Jamaat" anything). If we weren't sure what the person's affiliation was, we looked up the name of the group to determine whether it could in any way be connected to Muslims. Based on our review of the approximately 2,400 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil contained within the START database, we determined that approximately 60 were carried out by Muslims. In other words, approximately 2.5% of all terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1970 and 2012 were carried out by Muslims.* This is a tiny proportion of all attacks. (We determined that approximately 118 of the terror attacks - or 4.9% - were carried out by Jewish groups such as Jewish Armed Resistance, the Jewish Defense League, Jewish Action Movement, United Jewish Underground and Thunder of Zion. This is almost twice the percentage of Islamic attacks within the United States. In addition, there were approximately 168 attacks - or 7% - by anti-abortion activists, who tend to be Christian. Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional - a Puerto Rican paramilitary organization - carried out more than 120 bomb attacks on U.S. targets between 1974 and 1983, and there were some 41 attacks by Cuban exiles, and a number of attacks by other Latin American groups. If we look at worldwide attacks - instead of just attacks on U.S. soil - Sunni Muslims are the main perpetrators of terrorism. However: 1. Muslims are also the main victims of terror attacks worldwide; and 2. the U.S. backs the most radical types of Sunnis over more moderate Muslims and Arab secularists .) Moreover, another study undertaken by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism - called "Profiles of Perpetrators of Terrorism in the United States" - found : Between 1970 and 2011, 32 percent of the perpetrator groups were motivated by ethnonationalist/separatist agendas, 28 percent were motivated by single issues, such as animal rights or opposition to war, and seven percentwere motivated by religious beliefs. In addition, 11 percent of the perpetrator groups were classified as extreme right-wing, and 22 percent were categorized as extreme left-wing. Preliminary findings from PPT-US data between 1970 and 2011 also illustrate a distinct shift in the dominant ideologies of these terrorist groups over time, with the proportion of emerging ethnonationalist/separatist terrorist groups declining and the proportion of religious terrorist groups increasing. However, while terrorist groups with religious ideologies represent 40 percent of all emergent groups from 2000-2011 (two out of five), they only account for seven percent of groups over time. Similarly, a third study by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism Religion found that religion alone is not a key factor in determining which terrorists want to use weapons of mass destruction: The available empirical data show that there is not a significant relationship between terrorist organizations' pursuit of CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear) weapons and the mere possession of a religious ideology, according to a new quantitative study by START researchers Victor Asal, Gary Ackerman and Karl Rethemeyer. Therefore, Muslims are not more likely than other groups to want to use WMDs. * The Boston marathon bombing was not included in this analysis, as START has not yet updated its database to include 2013 terrorist attacks. 3 people died in the Boston attack. While tragic, we are confident that non-Musliims killed more than 3 during this same period. We are not experts in terrorism analysis. We would therefore defer to people like Kurzman on the exact number. However, every quantitative analysis of terrorism in the U.S. we have read shows that the percent of terror attacks carried out by Muslims is far less than 10%. Postscript: State-sponsored terrorism is beyond the scope of this discussion, and was not included in our statistical analysis. Specifically, the following arguments are beyond the scope of this discussion, as we are focusing solely on non-state terrorism: Arguments by University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole that deaths from 20th century wars could be labeled Christian terrorism Arguments that our recent use of torture and double tap drone strikes are terrorism http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ff6_1367669937 AntiPropagaanda Non-Muslims Carried Out More than 90% of All Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Soil Terrorism, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Thu, 02 May 2013 16:08:41 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=428_1367525190 NYork54 By Kevin Barret In my recent article "Chavez: Another CIA assassination victim?" I argued that when the top six anti-US-empire leaders in Latin America all get cancer at the same time, it isn't just coincidence. The US government, and its bankster owners, have been overthrowing and/or murdering the best leaders in Latin America, and the world, for decades. Iran's Mossadegh, Guatemala's Arbenz, the Dominican Republic's Trujillo and Bosch, Ecuador's Velasco and Roldos, Zaire's Lumumba, Indonesia's Sukarno, Cambodia's Sahounek, Chile's Allende, and Panama's Torrijos are just a few examples. The same killers, and the institutional forces they represent, murder the best American leaders too. John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Paul Wellstone are notable victims. Two excellent books have appeared in recent years proving, to any reasonable reader, that a shadow government working through the CIA, FBI, and organized crime killed JFK and Dr. King. Those books are JFK and the Unspeakable by James Douglass, and An Act of State by William Pepper. When the most powerful empire on earth insists on resolving disputes through murder, rather than reasoned dialogue, that empire has become a cancer on the world. The US government's "kill first, ask questions later" policy is exemplified by its drone attacks on political opponents. Senator Lindsey Graham recently admitted that the US has murdered more than 4,700 political opponents around the world in drone strikes. One of them, Anwar al-Awlaki - a US citizen whose criticisms of the US government were factually correct and morally justified - was silenced not by counter-arguments (apparently there are none) but by a drone strike on his house. His teenage son was also murdered. Mr. al-Awlaki had not even been accused of any crime, much less charged or convicted. He was killed for one reason and one reason only: To silence his eloquent voice. The Empire's preference for killing over dialogue is obvious to anyone who compares the current US military budget to those of other countries. The US spends $711 billion per year on organized mass killing (i.e., the military). The combined total for China, Russia, the UK, France, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Brazil, Italy, South Korea, Australia, and Canada is only $695 billion annually. And the official US military budget of $711 billion is just the tip of the iceberg. A gigantic "black budget" funded by bankers like the Rothschilds, whose net worth is said to be over $100 trillion, using leveraged criminal activity including the $1.5-trillion-per-year money laundering industry, pushes the real annual cost of empire into the trillions. It is these black budget funds, not official military budgets, that are used to build the most advanced and secret killing technologies - the kind of technologies that were recently employed to afflict the Empire's six leading Latin American enemies with cancer. This gargantuan outlay on the Empire's killing machine is a huge drain on the planet's resources. And it isn't just the US murder budgets, official and unofficial, that suck the life-blood of the planet. The US war budget forces other countries to hemorrhage their own money on death and destruction. Other nations would spend vastly less on defense if the US were not constantly threatening, bullying, and invading sovereign nations all over the world...while selling weapons to its puppet "friends" and slaughtering its more principled "enemies." Obviously, the American exceptionalists are correct. The United States of America is an exceptional country: It is exceptionally evil. But when they say America is the one indispensable country, they are wrong. That would be like saying that a cancerous tumor is the most indispensable part of the body. The US bankster empire needs to be surgically removed from the face of the planet. How did the USA, once a self-proclaimed light unto the world, become a festering tumor? Before 9/11, American policy had a certain balance: Alongside its psychopathic imperial behavior were occasional flashes of genuine concern for human rights, democracy, and other humanitarian ideals. But then on 9/11 - as the neocon propagandists never cease to remind us - everything changed. Human rights, and the US Constitution itself, were thrown into the proverbial dustbin of history. The USA became like Mordor in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings: An empire of pure, unadulterated evil. One of the world's leading moral philosophers, John McMurtry of the University of Guelph, has brilliantly analyzed this process. In his essay "The Moral Decoding of 9-11" Professor McMurtry argues that the seeds of evil were planted long before 9/11 brought them to fruition. He describes the murderous "morality" of empire as follows: "The moral thought system (of the US-bankster empire) is not unlike that of Mein Kampf without the racist rant, camouflaged everywhere in practice by the method of big lies - 'noble lies' as Strauss exalts them. The innermost value driver is a perpetual war of dispossession of the weaker for the private transnational money-capital multiplication of the rich." John McMurtry sees 9/11 as the epitome of the Straussian neoconservative philosophy, which exalts bullying, murder, and the big lie, and scorns reasoned dialogue and cooperation. What McMurtry doesn't say is that the Straussian neoconservative takeover of the USA on 9/11 was a coup d''etat by Israel against America. The Israelis rely on lies and murder, and scorn reasoned dialogue, for a very good reason: The existence of the apartheid Zionists in Palestine cannot be successfully defended by reasoned argument. Its only defense is mendacity, torture, and mass slaughter. By contrast, America's core values - individual liberty, religious and ethnic pluralism, democratic republicanism, equality of opportunity, and the rule of law - can only be defended by reasoned dialogue. "Defended" by big lies and mass murder, these values die an abject death. Will planet earth ever be cured of its two biggest cancerous tumors, the US and Israeli empires? Will the USA return to its core values and abandon its attempt to dominate the planet? I believe that this planetary cancer can be cured - but only through a very painful treatment: The official, public establishment of the truth about 9/11. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=428_1367525190 NYork54 The United States of Murder: A cancer on the world The United States of Murder: A cancer on the world Thu, 02 May 2013 11:39:47 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=26d_1367508993 OnlyLiarsBlock Terrorism Is a Real Threat ... But the Threat to the U.S. from Muslim Terrorists Has Been ExaggeratedAn FBI report shows that only a small percentage of terrorist attacks carried out on U.S. soil between 1980 and 2005 were perpetrated by Muslims. Princeton University's Loon Watch compiled the following chart from the FBI's data: (chart located below at end of story) According to this data, there were more Jewish acts of terrorism within the United States than Islamic (7% vs 6%). These radical Jews committed acts of terrorism in the name of their religion. These were not terrorists who happened to be Jews; rather, they were extremist Jews who committed acts of terrorism based on their religious passions, just like Al-Qaeda and company. (Loon Watch also notes that less than 1% of terror attacks in Europe were carried out by Muslims.) U.S. News and World Report noted in February of this year: Of the more than 300 American deaths from political violence and mass shootings since 9/11, only 33 have come at the hands of Muslim-Americans, according to the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security . The Muslim-American suspects or perpetrators in these or other attempted attacks fit no demographic profile-only 51 of more than 200 are of Arabic ethnicity. In 2012, all but one of the nine Muslim-American terrorism plots uncovered were halted in early stages. That one, an attempted bombing of a Social Security office in Arizona, caused no casualties. Wired reported the same month: Since 9/11, and his team tallies, 33 Americans have died as a result of terrorism launched by their Muslim neighbors. During that period, 180,000 Americans were murdered for reasons unrelated to terrorism. In just the past year, the mass shootings that have captivated America's attention killed 66 Americans, "twice as many fatalities as from Muslim-American terrorism in all 11 years since 9/11," notes Kurzman's team. Law enforcement, including "informants and undercover agents," were involved in "almost all of the Muslim-American terrorism plots uncovered in 2012," the Triangle team finds. That's in keeping with the FBI's recent practice of using undercover or double agents to encourage would-be terrorists to act on their violent desires and arresting them when they do - a practice critics say comes perilously close to entrapment. A difference in 2012 observed by Triangle: with the exception of the Arizona attack, all the alleged plots involving U.S. Muslims were "discovered and disrupted at an early stage," while in the past three years, law enforcement often observed the incubating terror initiatives "after weapons or explosives had already been gathered." The sample of Muslim Americans turning to terror is "vanishingly small," Kurzman tells Danger Room. Measuring the U.S. Muslim population is a famously inexact science, since census data don't track religion, but rather "country of origin," which researchers attempt to use as a proxy. There are somewhere between 1.7 million and seven million American Muslims, by most estimates, and Kurzman says he operates off a model that presumes the lower end, a bit over 2 million. That's less a rate of involvement in terrorism of less than 10 per million, down from a 2003 high of 40 per million, as detailed in the chart above. Yet the scrutiny by law enforcement and homeland security on American Muslims has not similarly abated. The FBI tracks "geomaps" of areas where Muslims live and work, regardless of their involvement in any crime. The Patriot Act and other post-9/11 restrictions on government surveillance remain in place. The Department of Homeland Security just celebrated its 10th anniversary. In 2011, President Obama ordered the entire federal national-security apparatus to get rid of counterterrorism training material that instructed agents to focus on Islam itself , rather than specific terrorist groups. Kurzman doesn't deny that law enforcement plays a role in disrupting and deterring homegrown U.S. Muslim terrorism. His research holds it out as a possible explanation for the decline. But he remains surprised by the disconnect between the scale of the terrorism problem and the scale - and expense - of the government's response. "Until public opinion starts to recognize the scale of the problem has been lower than we feared, my sense is that public officials are not going to change their policies," Kurzman says. "Counterterrorism policies have involved surveillance - not just of Muslim-Americans, but of all Americans, and the fear of terrorism has justified intrusions on American privacy and civil liberties all over the internet and other aspects of our lives. I think the implications here are not just for how we treat a religious minority in the U.S., but also how we treat the rights & liberties of everyone." We agree . And so do most Americans . Indeed - as we've previously documented - you're more likely to die from brain-eating parasites, alcoholism, obesity, medical errors, risky sexual behavior or just about anything other than terrorism. Kurzman told the Young Turks in February that Islamic terrorism "doesn't even count for 1 percent" of the 180,000 murders in the US since 9/11 . While the Boston marathon bombings were horrific, a top terrorism expert says that the Boston attack was more like Columbine than 9/11, and that the bombers are "murderers not terrorists" . The overwhelming majority of mass shootings were by non-Muslims . (This is true in Europe , as well as in the U.S.) However you classify them - murder or terrorism - the Boston bombings occurred after all of the statistical analysis set forth above. Moreover, different groups have different agendas about how to classify the perpetrators (For example, liberal Mother Jones and conservative Breitbart disagree on how many of the perpetrators of terror attacks can properly be classified as right wing extremists.) So we decided to look at the most current statistics for ourselves, to do an objective numerical count not driven by any agenda. Specifically, we reviewed all of the terrorist attacks on U.S. soil as documented by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). (2012). Global Terrorism Database, as retrieved from http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd. The START Global Terrorism Database spans from 1970 through 2012 (and will be updated from year-to-year) , and - as of this writing - includes 104,000 terrorist incidents. As such, it is the most comprehensive open-source database open to the public. We counted up the number of terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims. We excluded attacks by groups which are obviously not Muslims, such as the Ku Klux Klan, Medellin Drug Cartel, Irish Republican Army, Anti-Castro Group, Mormon extremists, Vietnamese Organization to Exterminate Communists and Restore the Nation, Jewish Defense League, May 19 Communist Order, Chicano Liberation Front, Jewish Armed Resistance, American Indian Movement, Gay Liberation Front, Aryan Nation, Jewish Action Movement, National Front for the Liberation of Cuba, or Fourth Reich Skinheads. We counted attacks by Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Black American Moslems, or anyone who even remotelysounded Muslim ... for example anyone from Palestine, Lebanon or any other Arab or Muslim country, or any name including anything sounding remotely Arabic or Indonesian (like "Al" anything or "Jamaat" anything). If we weren't sure what the person's affiliation was, we looked up the name of the group to determine whether it could in any way be connected to Muslims. Based on our review of the approximately 2,400 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil contained within the START database, we determined that approximately 60 were carried out by Muslims. In other words, approximately 2.5% of all terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1970 and 2012 were carried out by Muslims.* This is a tiny proportion of all attacks. (We determined that approximately 118 of the terror attacks - or 4.9% - were carried out by Jewish groups such as Jewish Armed Resistance, the Jewish Defense League, Jewish Action Movement, United Jewish Underground and Thunder of Zion. This is almost twice the percentage of Islamic attacks within the United States. If we look at worldwide attacks - instead of just attacks on U.S. soil - Sunni Muslims are the main perpetrators of terrorism. However: 1. Muslims are also the main victims of terror attacks worldwide; and 2. the U.S. backs the most radical types of Sunnis over more moderate Muslims and Arab secularists .) Moreover, another study undertaken by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism - called "Profiles of Perpetrators of Terrorism in the United States" - found : Between 1970 and 2011, 32 percent of the perpetrator groups were motivated by ethnonationalist/separatist agendas, 28 percent were motivated by single issues, such as animal rights or opposition to war, and seven percentwere motivated by religious beliefs. In addition, 11 percent of the perpetrator groups were classified as extreme right-wing, and 22 percent were categorized as extreme left-wing. Preliminary findings from PPT-US data between 1970 and 2011 also illustrate a distinct shift in the dominant ideologies of these terrorist groups over time, with the proportion of emerging ethnonationalist/separatist terrorist groups declining and the proportion of religious terrorist groups increasing. However, while terrorist groups with religious ideologies represent 40 percent of all emergent groups from 2000-2011 (two out of five), they only account for seven percent of groups over time. Similarly, a third study by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism Religion found that religion alone is not a key factor in determining which terrorists want to use weapons of mass destruction: The available empirical data show that there is not a significant relationship between terrorist organizations' pursuit of CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear) weapons and the mere possession of a religious ideology, according to a new quantitative study by START researchers Victor Asal, Gary Ackerman and Karl Rethemeyer. Therefore, Muslims are not more likely than other groups to want to use WMDs. * The Boston marathon bombing was not included in this analysis, as START has not yet updated its database to include 2013 terrorist attacks. 3 people died in the Boston attack. While tragic, we are confident that non-Musliims killed more than 3 during this same period. We are not experts in terrorism analysis. We would therefore defer to people like Kurzman on the exact number. However, every quantitative analysis of terrorism in the U.S. we have read shows that the percent of terror attacks carried out by Muslims is far less than 10%. Postscript: State-sponsored terrorism is beyond the scope of this discussion, and was not included in our statistical analysis. Specifically, the following arguments are beyond the scope of this discussion, as we are focusing solely on non-state terrorism: Arguments by University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole that deaths from 20th century wars could be labeled Christian terrorism Arguments that our recent use of torture and double tap drone strikes are terrorism http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/05/muslims-only-carried-out-2-5-percent-of-terrorist-attacks-on-u-s-soil-between-1970-and-2012.html http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=26d_1367508993 OnlyLiarsBlock Non-Muslims Carried Out More than 90% of All Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Soil muslims, islam, terrorism, terrorist, christian, jew, judaism,