Nancy Pelosi Wants an Investigation into the Ground Zero Mosque

No, it's not about the funding for the Mosque. Instead, Speaker Pelosi wants to investigate those that are funding the opposition to the Mosque.

The house speaker is calling for an investigation into groups protesting the building of the Ground Zero mosque.

"There is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some," she told San Francisco's KCBS radio on Tuesday.

Pelosi added that she joins "those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded."

Many Republicans have said they are against the building of the mosque, and have demanded Democratic candidates and incumbents to publicly choose a side.

Just think, some are concerned about who's behind the funding of the Mosque. That's not what Nancy Pelosi is concerned about. Instead, she's concerned about who's funding the opposition.

Here, I thought the opposition was spontaneous and organic. Pelosi must think that 64% of the population is being driven and funded by a secret group all behind the scenes. Talk about a conspiracy theory. Somehow, a secret group of wealthy bankers was able to fund an opposition that has turned into a grass roots opposition. I'd like to know their marketing guru.

Obama Clarifies?

President Obama seeked to clarify his comments from Friday vis a vis to controversy over the Ground Zero Mosque.

Speaking Friday night at a White House dinner to honor the holy month of Ramadan, the president said, "Muslims have the right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country," an apparent show of support for the mosque.

On Saturday, while spending the day in the Gulf, the president clarified, "I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding. That's what our country is about."

Later in the day, spokesman Bill Burton issued a statement saying "the president is not backing off in any way from the comments he made last night.

"It is not his role as president to pass judgment on every local project. But it is his responsibility to stand up for the constitutional principle of religious freedom and equal treatment for all Americans," Burton said.

This morning former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said it best

if you're explaining you're losing.

The president will be doing an awful lot of explaining over this issue because it's very confusing exactly what his position is.

KSM Decision After November

The decision on where to try KSM has been buried and that may be no accident.

Attorney General Eric Holder said the decision over where to hold the trial for alleged 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was “weeks away” — three months ago.

Now advocates on both sides of the issue say they expect the Obama administration to punt the decision until after the November midterm elections— when the controversial plan could do less damage to the political fortunes of endangered Democrats and might face less resistance on Capitol Hill.

Holder last week explicitly denied the midterms had anything to do with the timing but would only say discussions are continuing. The White House had no comment.

We, as a country, have a lot on our plates. So, it's not exactly clear how much people will notice this lack of action. There's no doubt, however, that it's entirely political. KSM was about not merely to be tried but to plead guilty and accept the death penalty at the beginning of the Obama administration. Instead, the president stopped that process and moved the trial to New York. Following outrage, that was stopped and KSM has been in legal limbo since. The administration has had more than enough time to make a decision. It simply has continued to punt.

Meanwhile, it's important to note that President Obama said once that KSM would face swift justice.

I think this notion that somehow we have to be fearful, that these terrorists possess some special powers that prevent us from presenting evidence against them, locking them up and exacting swift justice, I think that has been a fundamental mistake.

Meanwhile, KSM was on the verge of pleading guilty and accepting a death penalty when Obama stopped that about a year and a half ago. Now, it looks as though we'll be two years into the Obama administration before a decision is even made. Obama likely is concerned about the wrath from groups like Human Rights Watch, the ACLU, and Amnesty if he simply goes back to military tribunals. Meanwhile, he's finding that the logistics behind a civilian trial are nearly impossible.

Of course, it should be noted that as State Senator Obama didn't take a record number of votes. This was one of many overlooked criticisms while he ran for President. Obama is again voting present however he's no longer in a position to vote present.

Word Games in the GWOT

Presidential adviser John Brennan added to the confusion from the administration about exactly who the enemy is in the GWOT with this statement.

He repeated the administration argument that the enemy is not "terrorism," because terrorism is a "tactic," and not terror, because terror is a "state of mind" -- though Brennan's title, deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism and homeland security, includes the word "terrorism" in it. But then Brennan said that the word "jihad" should not be applied either.

"Nor do we describe our enemy as 'jihadists' or 'Islamists' because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children," Brennan said.

The technical, broadest definition of jihad is a "struggle" in the name of Islam and the term does not connote "holy war" for all Muslims. However, jihad frequently connotes images of military combat or warfare, and some of the world's most wanted terrorists including Usama bin Laden commonly use the word to call for war against the West.

If these folks aren't Islamists, why do most scream Allah Akbar right before executing their deed? Why do they speak of a Jihad and praise Allah at every turn? The administration can't seem to wrap their arms around a basic fact. They are certainly twisting Islam. They aren't the first to twist a religion. They aren't the first to start holy wars by twisting a religion. In fact, Islam isn't the first religion to be twisted and turned into a war.

If Brennan was around during the Crusades, I could imagine him struggling to tell the world that the enemy wasn't Christian. Of course, they were and in much the same way, Christianity was twisted. Are we supposed to ignore that it was Christianity as opposed to all other religions that was twisted during the Crusades.

Religion has been the centerpiece for many struggles and all sorts of deaths. Hitler targeted Jews because they were inferior. Are we supposed to ignore this as well? The center piece of Hamas/Hezbollah's long term war against Israel is that they view Judaism as a wholly inferior religion and all those that practice deserve death. Is that not a holy war?

It's time to call a spade a spade. When a terrorists proclaims they are killing civilians in the name of Allah, Islam, and Jihad, that makes them radical Islamists, radical Jihadists, and it also means this war has a significant religious component. In fact, that's no reflection on Islam itself. The fact that someone twists a religion for evil is a reflection on the person himself and not on the religion. That the administration can't bring itself to recognize all this is troubling to say the least.

Holder's New Found Cowardice

Real Clear Politics points out an interesting dichotomy between AG Holder's tough stance on our own race relations and his own reluctance to call our enemies "radical Islamists".

Yesterday, he was up on Capitol Hill and the major noise was his admission that he hadn't yet read the Arizona bill. That's interesting since he's been so vocal in his opposition and of course the whole entire bill is less than twenty pages.

Buried was this back and forth.


In fact, Holder struggled to acknowledge that radical Islam was a possible reason for the attack in New York city. Holder started by saying there may have been a variety of reasons. That was one thing but then Holder wouldn't even acknowledge that radical Islam may have been one of the reason. That is simple cowardice.

This has become a standard M.O. of all of the Obama administration. They simply refuse to use the word Islam in describing our enemies.

KSM Back to GITMO?

More than a year after promising to close GITMO and nearly six months after announcing that KSM would be tried in New York, we're coming full circle.

Top advisers to President Obama are close to a decision recommending that the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks be prosecuted in a military tribunal, The Washington Post reported Friday, citing unnamed administration officials.

According to the report, the president's advisers have grown increasingly wary of bipartisan opposition to the planned civilian federal trial in New York City, mere blocks from where nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in the spectacular attack on the World Trade Center.

Worse yet, from both a political and policy level, this is the best outcome for the White House. We are back where we started and that's the best that could have happened.

Iran, Russia, and Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov has a theory about Vladimir Putin that I have repeated on numerous occasions. I will repeat it again. Putin does everything with an eye toward artificially making oil prices as high as possible. At the same time, he also makes sure that he creates a situation he can control.

That would explain Russia's insistence on protecting Iran from sanctions as they build up their nuclear capabilities. The threat of a nuclear Iran increases the price of oil. At the same time, if Iran were nuclear, that would also be a situation that Russia could no longer control. That might explain Russia's more aggressive tone.

Iran should improve its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's spokeswoman says.

"On the subject of sanctions, Russia's position remains unchanged. Russia still believes that Iran should more actively and broadly cooperate with the IAEA and other countries," spokeswoman Natalia Timakova told reporters on Tuesday.

"If these obligations are not fulfilled, no one can exclude the application of sanctions," AFP quoted Timakova as saying.

Russia has made such threats before. They've never followed through when push came to shove. Still, no one understands Vladimir Putin better than Garry Kasparov. If Kasparov is right, a nuclear Iran is not in Russia's interest. As such, if you follow Kasparov's theory, they will stop Iran from getting a nuke before it is too late. Such a move would serve all their purposes and be very shrewd as it would also mean they'd have that much more geopolitical leverage as well.

Hussain Backpedals

Obama's Islam envoy, Rashed Hussain, has back tracked and admitted to making some controversial comments about Sami Al Arian.

President Barack Obama’s new Islamic envoy, Rashad Hussain, changed course Friday — admitting that he made sharply critical statements about a U.S. terror prosecution against a Muslim professor after initially saying he had no recollection of making such comments.


“I made statements on that panel that I now recognize were ill-conceived or not well-formulated,” Hussain said, referring to a 2004 conference at which he discussed the case.

The comments themselves were fairly innocuous. He never gave on opinion one way or another about the details of Al Arian's case. Instead, he made a general statement about Bush administration policies. These statements are fairly typical of a mindset of many on the left.

This appears to be a case of "it's not the crime but the cover up". The administration initially denied he made them at all. They only backed down after Politico got hold of tape of the event. As such, they inherently condemned the comments themselves. So, now, they are stuck having to defend these comments after taking a totally different stance entirely earlier.

Friday Night Document Drop: No misconduct in Bush interrogation memos

Whenever there's news that an administration wants downplayed, it's always released on Friday evening when most media is preparing for the weekend. So, the news that
David Margolis and John Yoo had no misconduct in their now infamous "torture" memos by the Justice Department came out on Friday.

The architect of the Bush administration's memos authorizing waterboarding and other “enhanced” interrogation techniques told investigators that the president of the United States has the power to order the "massacre" of civilians, according to an internal Justice Department investigation released late Friday.


The investigators found that Berkeley law professor John Yoo committed "intentional professional misconduct" when he advised the president that such techniques, which many consider torture, were legal.

The report did show that each showed "poor judgment" in issuing these memos. Both faced potential disbarrment and now are off with an admonishment.

Challenging Bush on Terror is Just Dumb

Politico has a story that says the Obama administration is in a fighting mood.

Any day spent talking terrorism isn’t automatically a good one for the Obama administration, given the Republicans’ traditional edge on the issue among voters.

But debating Dick Cheney on terrorism? The Obama White House says it’s happy to do that anytime, as it did with Sunday’s split-screen standoff between Cheney and Vice President Joe Biden.

The dueling appearances, along with what is a clear administration strategy to play up its newly aggressive approach in Afghanistan, show a White House determined to project a posture of strength on national security and trying to gain the upper
hand with Republicans who wish to portray Obama as weak.

This is the height of political incompetence, in my opinion. Taking on the Bush administration is a total loser for the Obama administration. That's because no one in the Bush administration has anything to lose.

When you attack your opponent two things happen. First, your opponents negatives go up. Second, your negatives go up. The Bush administration won't be running for office. Dick Cheney's approval ratings can go to zero and it won't matter. He's not running for office. His criticisms will be run in a loop against Biden's.

So, think about that. Biden's defense is that they did the same thing the Bush administration did in the Richard Reid case. So, the negatives will go up for the Bush administration's handling of the Richard Reid case. That's not going to help with the approvals of Obama's handling of Farouk.

Democrats think they are winning because a recent WAPO poll gave the Obama administration 56% approval on its handling of the GWOT. Of course, the GWOT is a much broader thing: Iraq, Afghanistan, drones, etc. The public is overwhelmingly against civilian trials for KSM and they are none too happy with the Obama administration's handling of Farouk.

Let's go back to the Dick Morris theory. It doesn't matter how the media presents an issue. All that matters is what issue they are talking about. For the Obama administration anything in relation to the handling of the Farouk case is a total loser for the Obama administration. So, why draw more attention to it by getting into a spat with Cheney.

Point Counter Point Weekly Addresses

The president spent this week's address touting pay go. Pay go is a good idea in theory. If it's strictly enforced and applied to all, or at least most of the budget, it makes sense. In pay go, any new spending is countered with a cut somewhere else. Of course, the current pay go only applies to about 60% of the budget.

Of course, the president's sudden push toward fiscal responsibility is not the least bit absurd. The president claims that D.C. spends too much as though he hasn't been leading that spending binge. He also took yet another shot at Bush by proclaiming that we had a budget surplus at the beginning of the decade and that he inherited a budget deficit of $1.4 trillion. We did have a budget surplus but we also didn't have a GWOT. His budget deficit numbers are dubious at best.

Lindsey Graham used the Reps' weekly address to go after the president's GWOT policies. He hit on familiar themes: KSM in New York, closing GITMO, and reading the Christmas Day bomber his rights.

It's hard to imagine that the public would loathe anything more than they loathe Obamacare, but if these talking points continue as effectively that may just happen. The president's Afghanistan policy is generally well liked, and his use of drones is effective. Of course, those get little coverage.

Instead, all the coverage is of the debacle on Farouk and the total nightmare that is the KSM trial. Graham effectively verbalized talking points that will become very familiar over the next few months. Of course, this was a target rich environment for him.

Biden Vs. Cheney

Just when you thought the Obama administration couldn't sink any lower, Joe Biden comes out with a full frontal assault against former VP Dick Cheney, and Cheney responded in kind. The fireworks started during the week when Biden showed up on Larry King.


Now, you know the administration is struggling when they try and take credit for Iraq. The president will likely not have all the troops out by the end of his first term. Both Biden and Obama were against the surge. Biden wanted to carve up Iraq into three parts. At best, they can be credited for not screwing things up.

Then, on today's show, Joe Biden trotted out the old Daniel Moynahan line about not getting your own facts. It was on.

There's a few things of note here. First, Democrats love to defend Mirandizing Farouk by pointing to Richard Reid. Well, first, Reid was arrested only a couple months after 9/11. The military tribunals hadn't been set up yet. Second, who cares? The same folks that condemn each and every Bush policy are now defending their own by pointing to a Bush policy. That's rich. We probably shouldn't have Mirandized Reid. We certainly better not have done it until we got all we could from him. Whether we did or not, that doesn't justify Mirandizing Farouk after 50 minutes.

Finally, who knew that the best voice against Obama anti terror policies would be Dick Cheney? He's been the single biggest and boldest voice of criticism against Obama's anti terror policies that the opposition has. As for Obama, they continue to think that picking political fights will somehow make people forget that they find many of their policies reprehensible.

Operation Marjah: The Clearing Process Begins

General McChrystal's Afghan policy has begun on the ground with Operation Marjah.

It could take weeks to reclaim the Taliban stronghold of Marjah, a top Marine commander said Sunday as thousands of U.S. troops and Afghan soldiers fought for a second day in NATO's most ambitious effort yet to break the militants' grip on Afghanistan's dangerous south.

"That doesn't necessarily mean an intense gun battle, but it probably will be 30 days of clearing," Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson said. "I am more than cautiously optimistic that we will get it done before that."

This is a McChrystal operation but it follows standard counterinsurgency procedures. That means that the first step in the process is to clear the bad guys from all their spheres of influence.

The clearing portion will also likely be the easiest part of the process. Holding said territory, the second part of the process, will be toughest part. In Iraq, that meant going house to house in an urban environment. In Afghanistan, the regions are much more rural. It means searching all sorts of land and mountains. When we begin the process of holding territory, that will test the limits of how well this strategy transfers.

The final part of the strategy is the build portion and that's entirely economic. That will also prove extremely challenging since Afghanistan has never seen economic growth.

On Farouk, Obama Digs a Hole and Keeps Digging

In the span of a few days in August of 2005, the Bush administration defined itself negatively for its leadership or lack thereof. Once defined as such, there was little the Bush administration could do to reverse the perception of that debacle.

The Obama administration had just such a moment in the aftermath of the Christmas Day attempted hijacking. It took President Obama several days to say something. Secretary Napolitano proclaimed that "the system worked".

That was just the beginning. Then, news leaked that Farouk was only interrogated for fifty minutes and then read his Miranda rights. Then, no one in the administration seemed to be involved in making the decision, and Robert Gibbs went so far as to claim that in those fifty minutes we got all that we could out of Farouk.

The Obama administration is now backpedaling on trying KSM et al in New York. It's even looking more and more likely that all will wind up still being tried at GITMO. That will be a source for embarrassment for the administration but it's a mistake that can be rectified. If, in fact, they come to their senses and try them in the right place, it won't define them.

With Farouk, there is no such second chance. There was a moment for leadership and in that moment, there was none. I believe the administration knows it. That's why a terrorism expert like John Brennan has turned into a political hack going anywhere with a megaphone to defend the indefensible. It's probably why the administration leaked that after five weeks Farouk was speaking again.

All of this has only made things worse. The administration screwed up badly by immediately treating Farouk as a criminal rather than an enemy in war. They screwed up just as badly by not having someone that looked as though they were in charge in the immediate aftermath of the attempted hijacking. Yet, they've made things worse by stubbornly defending all of this behavior. By doing so, they've continued to dig a hole created in December.

Iran is Now a Nuclear State?

The Iranian regime promised a big announcement today, to mark the anniversary of the 1979 Revolution, and they delivered, sort of.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed Thursday that Iran has produced its first batch of uranium enriched to a higher level, saying his country will not be bullied by the West into curtailing its nuclear program a day after the U.S. imposed new sanctions.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated to hundreds of thousands of cheering Iranians on the anniversary of the 1979 foundation of the Islamic republic that the country was now a "nuclear state," an announcement he's made before. He insisted that Iran had no intention of building nuclear weapons.

This is still not nearly enough to produce a nuclear bomb. It's also not verified. More than that, if their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, I'm not sure why this announcement needs to be made.

Don't Ask Don't Tell

Let's put to the side whether or not don't ask don't tell is or isn't a good policy. Why would the president decide now to make an issue of this? Most people remember that Clinton's first two years were a debacle because of health care. Some forget that before that debacle Clinton took on the contentious issue of gays in the military. Don't ask don't tell grew out of that. It was, however, a hugely divisive issue. Clinton immediately lost a lot of popularity by taking it on.

Obama has no such luxury. When Bill Clinton took on this issue, we were in general peace and prosperity and it was the beginning of his term. Obama is already hemorrhaging popularity. We're in two wars. Our economy is on the bring and Obama picks now to take a hugely divisive issue.

What's worse is that this policy couldn't be implemented any time soon. Are we going to have the Pentagon implement a new homosexual policy at the same time they're implementing a new strategy in Afghanistan? With several theaters of war and a GWOT there's really no good time to implement this?

Is the President really willing to take on the consequences of what would happen if this policy was implemented improperly? If this leads to poor morale and discipline and lives are lost it will be on the president's hands. It's one thing to implement a new such policy during peace time but quite another during two wars.

Finally, let me leave you with this thought but a retired military. One of the main arguments against openly gay in the military is that it will make those around them uncomfortable in the showers. So, if we allow openly gay in the military, will we lead to unisex showers?

Farouk Speaks

The Christmas Day bomber is speaking and giving fruitful information.

The Nigerian man accused of trying to use a bomb hidden in his underwear to bring down a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas has been cooperating with investigators since last week and has provided fresh intelligence in multiple terrorism investigations, officials said Tuesday.

The FBI's interrogation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has drawn fire from lawmakers who contend the Obama administration botched the case by giving Abdulmutallab the right to remain silent, rather than interrogating him as a military prisoner.

I'm very confused. I don't understand how Farouk could be giving us actionable intelligence. I don't understand how Farouk could give us anything of value. I don't understand this because the White House insisted for a month that the fifty minute interrogation yielded all that we could get from Farouk. How can he bring us anything new when he told us everything already?

KSM Out of New York?

If you've been following this story closely, this should come as no surprise.

Bowing to intense and deepening bipartisan opposition to conducting the criminal trials for the 9/11 hijackers in the heart of New York City, the Obama White House has begun discussing alternate locations with the Justice Department, senior administration officials told Fox News.

The White House denied a New York Daily News report that it ordered the Department of Justice to find a new location for the trials, which are sure to attract massive publicity and require intense security preparations wherever they are held.

The New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is just the latest area politician to come out against this plan. Meanwhile, the Congress is mulling not funding these trials.

Of course, the problem for the president is that there's likely to not be a community that will want KSM et al once New York is no longer an option. This will be a case of not in my backyard. Ultimately, this will work out better for the administration because they will be embarrassed now. That's much better than the multi year circus that would have embarrassed them each and every day.

The president may in fact even have to move these folks back to GITMO. I can't imagine any other community taking them. That will of course be a big embarrassment but that embarrassment will be temporary. It would be much worse for all of us if these trials were held in country.

Obama's Lack of Logic in the GWOT

On tonight's Factor, Bill O'Reilly made the simple but devastating argument against President Obama's GWOT policy.

There's no doubt that President Obama is very cognizant of making sure that terrorists are given their due process. That's why he's closing GITMO. It's why he's moving KSM to New York and giving him a civil trial. It's also why Farouk was mirandized and is being tried in civilian court.

At the same time, President Obama has become fond of using drones. Those drones drop laser guided bombs on terrorists. Now, what about the civil rights of the terrorists that are on the receiving end of that bomb? They get no trial, no miranda, no due process. No, they're just dead instantaneously.

In fact, it's all a big farce. Using those drones is a tool of war. A murder suspect would never be taken out by a drone. Of course not. They would be arrested, arraigned, and put on trial.

Terrorists can be taken out by a drone. If they aren't, but they're apprehended, then suddenly they're treated like a criminal? What's that? If we have intelligence and we can take someone out, a laser guided bomb kills them on site. If we apprehend them, they get miranda and due process.

Obviously, these two concepts have no relation to another. If he's really worried about due process, why is he using drones? Dropping a drone on top of someone's head is the antithesis of due process. Obama doesn't publicize the use of drones but it's become one of his favorite tools of war.

That's the point. This is a war. A drone is used in war. It isn't used as a tool of criminal apprehension. So, if President Obama wants to make sure everyone gets due process, he better start at the point of attack and send in police and apprehend and not a drone to kill.

Mischaracterizing Profiling

One of my favorite shows is Criminal Minds. It's about an elite unit of criminal profilers that track serial killers and build profiles, both personality and traits, of the killer in order to help track them.

Lately, there's been all sorts of controversy surrounding profiling at airports. That's because it has been totally mischaracterized. Folks on both sides make it seem as though every Arab, or every Arab man will be pulled out of line and given the third and fourth degree.

In fact, profiling is much more exact and sophisticated than that, both in tracking serial killers and in tracking terrorists. If we were to simply pull every Arab looking male out of line and give them the treatment it would not only be stupid but ultimately impossible. There's just too many.

By the time a criminal profiler is done giving a profile of a serial killer you not only know their approximate age, color, sex, but all sorts of character traits. They know if they work, what type of work environment they work in, and all sorts of family traits about the serial killer.

The same is true of profiling terrorists. Authorities would never merely be looking for an Arab male. In fact, we know some of the other red flags of Farouk: he had no luggage, he came from Yemen, spent time in Nigeria, one way flight. There's likely dozens of traits that authorities know to look for that we don't know about.

Here's how Bernie Goldberg described one such experience.

But why me? I was different. Almost everyone on the flight was an Israeli. I was an American. Almost everybody on the flight was going home. I was merely changing planes in Tel Aviv, en route to Amman, Jordan.

El Al security agents had every right to profile me. So what if I wasn’t a terrorist. How were they supposed to know, unless they treated me as a special case? Unless they profiled me.

Goldberg is a white male Jew over 60 but he exhibited multiple traits of a would be terrorist and he was profiled. In fact, he isn't an Arab but he still fit the profile. Being an Arab male would only be two of the traits necessary to raise a flag. It wouldn't be enough on its own.

The reason that profilers are given their own department in the FBI is because it works. The same is true of profiling terrorists. The reason that there's an uproar against it is because people totally mischaracterize the nature of profiling. To simplify it to merely Arab males is to totally mischaracterize the nature of what happens.