Step One:

Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother’s funeral was held there in May that year.

The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.

Hasan’s eyes “lit up” when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki’s teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas…

Step Two:

Danquah assumed the military’s chain of command knew about Hasan’s doubts, which had been known for more than a year to classmates in a graduate military medical program. His fellow students complained to the faculty about Hasan’s “anti-American propaganda,” but said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim student kept officers from filing a formal written complaint.

Step Three:

Thinking Anew—Security Priorities for the Next Administration

A coherent strategy to address 21st century threats to the United States, one that treats national and homeland security as a seamless whole, has yet to emerge… To help fuel this process, in April 2008 The George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) established the Presidential Transition Task Force, comprised of national and homeland security experts, policymakers and practitioners… The goal was to determine the top strategic priorities to advance the nation’s security in the coming decade…

Event Participants:

…Amanda Halpern
U.S. House of Representatives

Beth Hampton
Homeland Security Institute

Nidal Hasan
Uniformed Services University School of Medicine

Donald Hawkins
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Eric Heighberger
Homeland Security Council…

That’s quite the company for a deranged misfit loner whacko of no broader significance.

I believe it was Derb a few months after 9/11 who said that for this new struggle our watchword was “Better screwed than rude.” Major Hasan represents the institutionalization of that attitude. Thirteen people are dead, dozens more will live with their injuries for the rest of their days, and a lot of families have had a great big gaping hole blown out of their lives because of it.

Anwar al-Awlaki and his chums have bet that such a society is too sick to survive. Watch the nothing-to-see-here media driveling on about pre-post-traumatic stress disorder like gibbering lunatics in a padded cell , and then think whether you’d really want to take that bet.

…while the Associated Press deserves credit for its honest and responsible work, their account of the new totals still failed to place the figures in any meaningful perspective. For instance, the analysis failed to note that the overwhelming majority of the 110,600 dead met their demise at the hands of terrorist violence or sectarian strife; only a tiny minority (perhaps 10% or less) of all casualties occurred at the hands of the Americans or other coalition forces.

The AP account does take note of the fact that the Health Ministry figures show that 59,957 of their reported 87,215 deaths (or more than two thirds) occurred in 2006 and 2007 “when sectarian attacks soared and death squads roamed the streets. The period was marked by catastrophic bombings and execution style killings.” The story might have added that the Americans perpetrated none of these mass killings, and instead fought heroically to bring them to an end.

The Left would argue that without US intervention, none of the deaths would have occurred. True enough. but this ignores the 400,000 Iraqis Saddam murdered and buried in shallow graves.

In another area, the description of the new calculations lacked an essential element of context, never noting that other recent conflicts in the region produced far more horrendous death tolls. In the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88, for instance, more than 200,000 Iraqis died – a much higher percentage of a significantly smaller overall population. That conflict also claimed the lives of at least 1,000,000 Iranians.

Meanwhile, the little noted Algerian Civil War (in which Islamist extremists have challenged the government since 1991) has claimed at least 150,000 deaths, and probably more than 200,000—nearly all of them civilians butchered in the same random, brutal and often suicidal attacks responsible for most of the bloodshed in Iraq. With the Algerian and Iraqi populations essentially the same, the rate of death in this grisly but seldom-reported conflict has been even more horrendous than the blood-letting in Iraq.

Of course the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990 produced the most devastating results of any struggle in recent Middle Eastern history – with an estimated 250,000 dead, and at least 500,000 more suffering permanent disabilities. In a nation of less than 5,000,000, this loss of life exceeds the Iraqi casualty rate by more than twelve to one.

The relevance of these other conflicts ought to be obvious – since they all reflect (as does the Iraq War) the singularly brutal, blood-thirsty nature of local conflicts involving Arab-against-Arab, and Muslim-against-Muslim. In each of these wars, the most significant American role (which is very much the case in Iraq) involved efforts to stop or to minimize the bloodshed.

The new figures on Iraqi casualties, when placed in the proper context of who did most of the killing, and with reminders of even bloodier struggles of the recent past, show the hollowness and falsehood of hysterical denunciations of the US effort to bring down Saddam Hussein and establish a functioning democracy in the heart of the turbulent Middle East.

According to an Earth Day survey, one third of schoolchildren between the ages of six and eleven think the earth will have been destroyed by the time they grow up. That’s great news, isn’t it? Not for the earth, I mean, but for “environmental awareness.” Congratulations to Al Gore, the Sierra Club, and the eco-propagandists of the public-education system in doing such a terrific job of traumatizing America’s moppets. Traditionally, most of the folks you see wandering the streets proclaiming the end of the world is nigh tend to be getting up there in years. It’s quite something to have persuaded millions of first-graders that their best days are behind them.

Call me crazy, but I’ll bet that in 15-20 years the planet will still be here along with most of the “environment” — your flora and fauna, your polar bears and three-toed tree sloths and whatnot. But geopolitically we’re in for a hell of a ride, and the world we end up with is unlikely to be as congenial as most Americans have gotten used to.

For example, Hillary Clinton said the other day that Pakistan posed a “mortal threat” to . . . Afghanistan? India? No, to the entire world! To listen to her, you’d think Pakistan was as scary as l’il Jimmy in the second grade’s mom’s SUV. She has a point: Asif Ali Zardari, the guy who’s nominally running the country, isn’t running anything. He’s ceding more and more turf to the local branch office of the Taliban. When the topic turns up in the news, we usually get vague references to the pro-Osama crowd controlling much of the “northwest,” which makes it sound as if these guys are the wilds of rural Idaho to Zardari’s Beltway. In fact, they’re now within some 60 miles of the capital, Islamabad — or, in American terms, a couple of I-95 exits north of Baltimore: In other words, they’re within striking distance of the administrative center of a nation of over 165 million people — and its nuclear weapons. That’s the “mortal threat.”

What’s going to stop them? Well, not Zardari. Nor his “summit” in Washington with President Obama and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. The creation of Pakistan was the worst mistake of post-war British imperial policy, and all that’s happened in the six decades since is that its pathologies have burst free of its borders and gone regional, global, and soon perhaps nuclear. Does the Obama administration have even a limited contingency plan for the nukes if — when — the Pakistani state collapses?

It would be reassuring to think so. But I wonder.

What’s the greater likelihood? That, in ten years’ time, things in Pakistan will be better? Or much worse? That nuclearization by basket-case dictatorships from Pyongyang to Tehran will have advanced, or been contained? That the bleak demographic arithmetic at the heart of Europe and Japan’s economic woes will have accelerated, or been reversed? That a resurgent Islam’s assaults on free speech and other rights (symbolized by the recent U.N. support for a global Islamic blasphemy law) will have taken hold in the western world, or been forced to retreat?

A betting man would check the “worse” box. Because resisting the present careless drift would require global leadership. And 100 days into a new presidency, Barack Obama is giving strong signals to the world that we have entered what Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post calls “the post-American era.” At the time of Gordon Brown’s visit to Washington, London took umbrage at an Obama official’s off-the-record sneer to a Fleet Street reporter that “there’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment.” Andy McCarthy of National Review made the sharp observation that, never mind the British, this was how the administration felt about their own country, too: America is just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. In Europe, the president was asked if he believed in “American exceptionalism,” and replied: “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

It was one of those, “If you’re outraged by this, sign your name at the bottom and forward this to your friends” type of efforts common then, which were great for demonstrating one’s moral vanity.

Which isn’t to say that Mavis Leno was not working for a good cause. The Taliban were/are beastly primitives who perpetrated some of the worst violence against women in modern times. If you haven’t already seen it, rent “Osama” the first feature film produced in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. That will drive the point home.

Mavis Leno is still active in the cause:

For more than a decade Mavis Leno has made the plight of Afghan women her particular case and this month she and the organization in which she plays a pivotal role — the Feminist Majority Foundation — will hold what amounts to a coming out party for the next round in this cause.

The feminist organization with a hip Beverly Hills-adjacent headquarters — financed with the help of industry activist Peg Yorkin — now has a global reach and the plight of Afghan women is a particular focus. (The group also publishes Ms. Magazine). Shortly after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, Mavis and Jay Leno gave $100,000 to help jump-start the foundations’ global women’s rights program.

This time all the talk can do some good. Why? Because we waged war on the Taliban with B-52s and laser-guided missiles. Today Afghan women hold elective office, work in the professions and are no longer stoned to death during intermission at soccer matches.

War was the answer. Consciousness raising was useless.

The Taliban are still yearning to return Afghanistan to the stone age.

Mavis Leno should focus her concern on the Euro-weenies who refuse to do their part on behalf of freedom and righteousness, instead letting the US bear the burden. And she might even upbraid Yale for recruiting the Taliban’s PR agent as a student.

This week marks the seventh anniversary of the murder of our son, former Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. My wife Ruth and I wonder: Would Danny have believed that today’s world emerged after his tragedy?

The answer does not come easily. Danny was an optimist, a true believer in the goodness of mankind. Yet he was also a realist, and would not let idealism bend the harshness of facts.

Neither he, nor the millions who were shocked by his murder, could have possibly predicted that seven years later his abductor, Omar Saeed Sheikh, according to several South Asian reports, would be planning terror acts from the safety of a Pakistani jail. Or that his murderer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now in Guantanamo, would proudly boast of his murder in a military tribunal in March 2007 to the cheers of sympathetic jihadi supporters. Or that this ideology of barbarism would be celebrated in European and American universities, fueling rally after rally for Hamas, Hezbollah and other heroes of “the resistance.” Or that another kidnapped young man, Israeli Gilad Shalit, would spend his 950th day of captivity with no Red Cross visitation while world leaders seriously debate whether his kidnappers deserve international recognition.

No. Those around the world who mourned for Danny in 2002 genuinely hoped that Danny’s murder would be a turning point in the history of man’s inhumanity to man, and that the targeting of innocents to transmit political messages would quickly become, like slavery and human sacrifice, an embarrassing relic of a bygone era.

But somehow, barbarism, often cloaked in the language of “resistance,” has gained acceptance in the most elite circles of our society. The words “war on terror” cannot be uttered today without fear of offense. Civilized society, so it seems, is so numbed by violence that it has lost its gift to be disgusted by evil.

I believe it all started with well-meaning analysts, who in their zeal to find creative solutions to terror decided that terror is not a real enemy, but a tactic. Thus the basic engine that propels acts of terrorism — the ideological license to elevate one’s grievances above the norms of civilized society — was wished away in favor of seemingly more manageable “tactical” considerations.

This mentality of surrender then worked its way through politicians like the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. In July 2005 he told Sky News that suicide bombing is almost man’s second nature. “In an unfair balance, that’s what people use,” explained Mr. Livingstone.

But the clearest endorsement of terror as a legitimate instrument of political bargaining came from former President Jimmy Carter. In his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” Mr. Carter appeals to the sponsors of suicide bombing. “It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Road-map for Peace are accepted by Israel.” Acts of terror, according to Mr. Carter, are no longer taboo, but effective tools for terrorists to address perceived injustices.

Mr. Carter’s logic has become the dominant paradigm in rationalizing terror. When asked what Israel should do to stop Hamas’s rockets aimed at innocent civilians, the Syrian first lady, Asma Al-Assad, did not hesitate for a moment in her response: “They should end the occupation.” In other words, terror must earn a dividend before it is stopped.

The media have played a major role in handing terrorism this victory of acceptability. Qatari-based Al Jazeera television, for example, is still providing Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi hours of free air time each week to spew his hateful interpretation of the Koran, authorize suicide bombing, and call for jihad against Jews and Americans.

Then came the August 2008 birthday of Samir Kuntar, the unrepentant killer who, in 1979, smashed the head of a four-year-old Israeli girl with his rifle after killing her father before her eyes. Al Jazeera elevated Kuntar to heroic heights with orchestras, fireworks and sword dances, presenting him to 50 million viewers as Arab society’s role model. No mainstream Western media outlet dared to expose Al Jazeera efforts to warp its young viewers into the likes of Kuntar. Al Jazeera’s management continues to receive royal treatment in all major press clubs.

Some American pundits and TV anchors didn’t seem much different from Al Jazeera in their analysis of the recent war in Gaza. Bill Moyers was quick to lend Hamas legitimacy as a “resistance” movement, together with honorary membership in PBS’s imaginary “cycle of violence.” In his Jan. 9 TV show, Mr. Moyers explained to his viewers that “each [side] greases the cycle of violence, as one man’s terrorism becomes another’s resistance to oppression.” He then stated — without blushing — that for readers of the Hebrew Bible “God-soaked violence became genetically coded.” The “cycle of violence” platitude allows analysts to empower terror with the guise of reciprocity, and, amazingly, indict terror’s victims for violence as immutable as DNA.

VIDEO HERE.

Aslan’s book is a well-written introduction to Islam’s history and future — a very good and easy read. His point accords with a meaty article by Lawrence Wright in the New Yorker about Dr. Fadl, an Egyptian surgeon and contemporary of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s #2 guy.

Dr. Fadl also wrote the book, literally, that paved the way for today’s jihad.

Twenty years ago, he wrote two of the most important books in modern Islamist discourse; Al Qaeda used them to indoctrinate recruits and justify killing.

But now Dr. Fadl, sitting in an Egyptian prison, has reconsidered his theological arguments that justified so much mayhem and has a new book that says true Muslims are prohibited from committing aggression.

Fadl’s ideas carry weight and his reversal has set off an ideological war.

The roots of this ideological war within Al Qaeda go back forty years, to 1968, when two precocious teen-agers met at Cairo University’s medical school. Zawahiri, a student there, was then seventeen, but he was already involved in clandestine Islamist activity. Although he was not a natural leader, he had an eye for ambitious, frustrated youths like him who believed that destiny was whispering in their ear.

1968 again. What a rotten year that’s turned out to be. The New Yorker piece is really too long to excerpt. It’s all online; print it out and have a read.

Former press secretary Scott McClellan’s dirt dishing book is treated to a front page review in today’s LA Times. Douglas Feith, who wielded greater influence on policy as Undersecretary of Defense, wrote a heavily-sourced book that every historian of this period will own.

Feith’s book, as we’ve noted, has not been reviewed by any of Big Baloney’s big names — not the NYT, WaPo or LAT. That they’re ignoring a book by a man they demonized as a warmongering neocon speaks volumes.

But back to McClellan, one of his beefs was:

“In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president’s advantage,” McClellan writes.

Oh, do tell. Why would that be? And how well did that work out?

When the New York Times and Washington Post decide that you’re the enemy, you have a second flank to defend, 24/7. (And when you’re golden, like Obama, you can rest easy.)

One anecdote from Feith’s book should give everyone pause, liberals and conservatives alike, because it demonstrates the sick interface between government and media that disserves us all.

Shortly after 9/11, Rumsfeld and others inside the Pentagon decided that our war on Islamist fascism should be fought both militarily and ideologically. The latter should have been the province of the State Department, but, Feith writes, “neither [Colin] Powell or [Richard] Armitage saw the philosophical dimension of the war as particularly important.”

So with Rumsfeld’s blessing, Feith created the Office of Strategic Influence to fight jihadist ideology at the source. He assembled a staff and recruited Air Force General Simon Worden to run it. One of his original ideas was to create cheap, wireless-connected laptops and information kiosks that could be distributed in remote Pakistan where Madrassas were twisting young minds.

But OSI stepped on toes, both at State and inside the Pentagon, particularly with Victoria “Torie” Clark, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, who thought her department had authority over all “outreach” programs.

Just as OSI was getting going, on February 19, 2002, the New York Times ran a front page story citing unnamed “military officials” claiming that the…

“Pentagon is developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign news media organizations as part of a new effort to influence public sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and unfriendly countries.”

The story said others “inside the Pentagon” were worried that this could undermine credibility of their efforts. The NYT went on to suggest…

“General Worden envisions a broad mission ranging from ‘black’ campaigns that use disinformation and other covert activities to ‘white’ public affairs that rely on truthful releases.”

The disinformation charge was untrue, but it spread quickly among a news media that distrusted and despised President Bush. Chris Matthews called OSI a plan “worthy of Joseph Goebbels.”

Such stories were readily retold and embellished by a hostile world media, always keen to promote anti-Americanism. Bush was traveling overseas and was badgered by questions about OSI.

OSI died in its cradle, on February 26, 2002. The State Department never picked up the initiative and it went undone, to the detriment of everyone in the western world. Feith writes of…

…the irony of an office formed to plan information operations had been blown away by a disinformation operation. Concentrating on foreign enemies, OSI hadn’t protected its back from other Pentagon officials. 

And from the New York Times.

On the street, Malika El Aroud is anonymous in an Islamic black veil covering all but her eyes.

In her living room, Ms. El Aroud, a 48-year-old Belgian, wears the ordinary look of middle age: a plain black T-shirt and pants and curly brown hair. The only adornment is a pair of powder-blue slippers monogrammed in gold with the letters SEXY.

But it is on the Internet where Ms. El Aroud has distinguished herself. Writing in French under the name “Oum Obeyda,” she has transformed herself into one of the most prominent Internet jihadists in Europe.

She calls herself a female holy warrior for Al Qaeda. She insists that she does not disseminate instructions on bomb-making and has no intention of taking up arms herself. Rather, she bullies Muslim men to go and fight and rallies women to join the cause.

“It’s not my role to set off bombs — that’s ridiculous,” she said in a rare interview. “I have a weapon. It’s to write. It’s to speak out. That’s my jihad. You can do many things with words. Writing is also a bomb.”

Getting others to set off bombs? Not ridiculous, it seems.

Ms. El Aroud has not only made a name for herself among devotees of radical forums where she broadcasts her message of hatred toward the West. She also is well known to intelligence officials throughout Europe as simply “Malika” — an Islamist who is at the forefront of the movement by women to take a larger role in the male-dominated global jihad.

The authorities have noted an increase in suicide bombings carried out by women — the American military reports that 18 women have conducted suicide missions in Iraq so far this year, compared with 8 all of last year — but they say there is also a less violent yet potentially more insidious army of women organizers, proselytizers, teachers, translators and fund-raisers, who either join their husbands in the fight or step into the breach as men are jailed or killed.

“Women are coming of age in jihad and are entering a world once reserved for men,” said Claude Moniquet, president of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center. “Malika is a role model, an icon who is bold enough to identify herself. She plays a very important strategic role as a source of inspiration. She’s very clever — and extremely dangerous.”

Ms. El Aroud began her rise to prominence because of a man in her life. Two days before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, her husband carried out a bombing in Afghanistan that killed the anti-Taliban resistance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud at the behest of Osama bin Laden. Her husband was killed, and she took to the Internet as the widow of a martyr.

Oh, how proud she must be. Read on.