THE JIHAD DECADE COMETH

Seems as if the gloves are off as we barrel toward Campaign 2010. From the American Thinker:

AS WE LOOK BACK on the past ten years, it is clear that we are now entering a post-American decade. How did it all go so wrong so quickly?

The year 2000 kicked off with the Democrat ruse of a "stolen election"—this from the racketeering party of ACORN—but thankfully, it was not stolen after all. George W. Bush took the reins, but soon thereafter came the culmination of all the Islamic attacks on the U.S. during the Clinton years. Islam's fatwa on the West during the Clinton administration came home to New York and Washington on September 11th.

And while the Bush Doctrine (you are either with us or against us) was the right approach, the well dressed jihadists that Islamists like Grover Norquist ushered into the White House after 9/11 managed to sabotage the best strategy to fight Islamic jihad. The cowboy swagger set against the whole fantasy about the hijacking of Islam and the "religion of peace" nonsense was irreconcilable. It confused people. And it led to the marginalization and even dismissals of brave men and women who evaluated and exposed the jihadist ideology in our government agencies.

Who can forget the case of counter-jihad expert Steve Coughlin, the Pentagon's most knowledgeable specialist on Islamic Law and jihad terrorism? The Pentagon ended the career of its most effective analyst at the behest of a Muslim aide, Hesham Islam, within the office of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. Islam scholar Andrew Bostom observed that Couglin's firing was symptomatic "of the intellectual and moral rot plaguing our efforts to combat global jihadism."

In February 2009, former Bush administration official Douglas Feith told me that that kind of rot is systemic. He recalled that an Office of Strategic Influence was created within his Pentagon office to fight the ideological war—but then "somebody leaked—well, leaked, no. No, somebody lied to the New York Times and gave a report saying that this Office of Strategic Influence was intending to lie to foreign journalists. And the New York Times ran a front-page story saying that. It caused a big imbroglio that resulted in the shutting down of this office. I don't think the U.S. government has recovered to this day from that fiasco, because every time anyone suggested creating an office to really deal with jihadist ideology in a systematic or strategic way at the Pentagon, people would say, oh, no, we are not going to have another Office of Strategic Influence problem."

And so the drip, drip, drip of jihad continued through the last decade. We became more paralyzed, impotent, and deceived. Meanwhile, the Leftist/Islamic alliance, a deadly marriage between the Democratic Party and their propaganda handmaidens in the mainstream media, engaged in daily beatings of Bush and his administration.

Removing Saddam Hussein was good. There is no way around that powerful truth. But why stop there? Removing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as well would have been even better. But Bush lost his mojo in 2006. The relentless pounding by the Left, Israel's halfhearted performance in the war with Hezb'allah in the summer of 2006, and the loss of the House and the Senate in November 2006 all contributed to the rout.

But what really led to the downfall of Bush's leadership was the falsity of his premise. He wanted to believe, like Condi and Powell and the soft diplomacy crowd, that Islam would negotiate with the West. Islam cannot negotiate. Yet still the West continues its pursuit of the impossible, despite great risk. This is a function of the Western mind. These people think it inconceivable that talk can't solve anything and everything, that war is an indelible part of the human condition. But it is. War is as much in the makeup of man as sex, food, art, love, all of it.

And wars must be fought. They will not disappear, but we will.

Of course, we know this. But the Left, our in-house enemy, demonizes any war that America chooses to fight. The egregious, horrible crimes of Mao, Stalin, bin Laden, Che, Lenin, Pol Pot, Ahmadinejad, et al, which are so heinous and so enormous, are in their terrible minds a historical footnote. They become cultural icons for the "radical chic." Cold-blooded monsters have co-opted our country.

And so successful was the Left at infiltrating our government, schools, and institutions that eight years after the most heinous attack on American soil, we elected an icon of our mortal enemy. A Kenyan, Indonesian, third-worldish boulevardier with as much understanding of the American experience as any foreign national. Don't call me a racist for calling him what he is—I am not interested in the color of his skin, but in the content of his character. His lack of experience in all relevant areas to the office of the president is breathtaking. And his bowing to Islam and our enemies worldwide is disastrous.

Bush's premise was false, but Bush was a patriot. Bush loved America, and he protected America, even if he refused to see the enemy for who and what it was. It was no accident that America was safe for eight years post-9/11. Eight years of safety is cracking apart now under a weak and pro-Islamic president. The jihadi attacks on America in 2009 were staggering. And it has only just begun. Dismantling the Bush protections against jihad and launching attacks on Americans, bloggers, tea partiers, town hallers, patriots, and vets is incomprehensible—and if I hadn't lived through it, I wouldn't believe it possible.

I pray that America examines the Left decade and takes stock. It was the appeasement of the Left that destroyed the foundations of this country. We must rebuild them. The advancement of Islam would never have been possible—could never have happened—without our surrender to the Left. The real war is against the Leftist/Islamic alliance.

This is a fighting year.

Pamela Geller is the editor and publisher of the Atlas Shrugs website and is former associate publisher of the New York Observer. She is the author (with Robert Spencer) of the forthcoming book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America (Simon and Schuster).

MORE TRANSLATION FOLLIES?

Oh no, here we go again. More excuses to hire more Muslims in sensitive government agency jobs, while rejecting Jewish applicants who are well-versed in these languages. Why reject Jewish and other linguistic experts? Because the Muslim religious mafia objects, that's why, and what oil-greased Muslim thugs demand, oil-greased Muslim thugs get. Despite the fact that several of these folks have been arrested on charges of espionage, have lobbied for special privileges and set asides at various agencies, and have conducted various other acts of jihad right under the nose of our own homeland security forces, the stealth jihad rolls on. If the Pentagon and CIA obliged them under the Bush administration, how much more so under the current POTUS, who has made it perfectly clear how well he treats his friends and their enemies in the Middle East...

CIA DIRECTOR Leon E. Panetta will ask Congress in the coming weeks to fund an "aggressive" five-year plan to enhance the spy agency's language capabilities.

In a letter to agency employees Friday, Mr. Panetta said the goal of doubling the number of analysts and collectors proficient in foreign languages is imperative for dealing with developing threats around the world.

"Language skills are the keys to accessing foreign societies, understanding their governments and decoding their secrets," Mr. Panetta said. "This important initiative will require significant new funding. In the coming weeks and months, I will reach out across the intelligence community, to the Office of Management and Budget, and most importantly, to our partners in Congress to find the necessary resources."

The clandestine agency hopes to dramatically transform the way the CIA trains officers in foreign languages. Languages of particular interest are Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Pashto (spoken in Afghanistan), Urdu (used in Pakistan), and Persian.

INFILTRATOR GETS PENTAGON BOOT

In a stunning turn of events, a high-level Muslim military aide blamed for costing an intelligence contractor his job will step down from his own Pentagon post. Three cheers for rational thought!

Meanwhile, his rival, Maj. Stephen Coughlin, a leading authority on Islamic war doctrine, may stay in the Pentagon, moving from the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the office of the secretary of defense. However, sources say a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey is trying to block his new contract.

The top Pentagon aide, Egyptian-born Hesham H. Islam, came under a cloud of suspicion after reports raised doubt about his resume and contacts he had made with radical Muslims. He is expected to leave the government next month, officials say.

Read it all.

Reality is peeking through the clouds. A senior U.S. official says the life story Islam presented now appears sketchy.

"His resume didn't add up, and he knows it," the official said. "He's voluntarily leaving the government in March."

At the same time, a report by terror expert Steven Emerson revealed that Islam, as special assistant to the deputy secretary of defense, has scheduled at least two meetings in the Pentagon with Syrian-tied radicals – including a leading member of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood – in direct violation of U.S. policy.

As previously reported, FBI officials believe Islam is involved with the U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and is helping its front groups run "influence operations" against the U.S. government.

"He's a Muslim brother," an FBI official told the press. "He's a bad actor, and he's made other unreported nefarious contacts."

In addition to his close encounters with Gordon England, his immediate supervisor at the Pentagon, Islam has worked closely in the Pentagon with Muslim chaplain Abuhena M. Saifulislam, who received his training at a radical Islamic school in Northern Virginia that was raided by federal authorities after 9/11.

Islam, whose son is active in the military, obtained one of the highest security clearances for classified information. Sources confirm he has sat in on Pentagon meetings in which intelligence clearance was restricted at the Top Secret/SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) level.

The Pentagon had no comment. And Islam, who has not been accused of any crimes, has refused interviews.

Terrorism expert, Steve Emerson says Islam prescribed a steady diet of Muslim Brotherhood-connected outreach for his unwitting boss, deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. Pentagon insiders say Eric S. Edelman, undersecretary of defense for policy, has sought to stop the awarding of a new contract to Coughlin. Edelman served as ambassador to Turkey from 2003 to 2005.

Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., who co-chairs the House Anti-Terrorism Caucus, has been fighting to keep Coughlin in the Pentagon, where she says his blunt analysis of the Islamic enemy is sorely needed, "I know that some people will refuse to admit there is a subversive movement going on here, but let me remind you that we have underestimated the will and capability of our enemy for more than 30 years," she added. "They are patient and determined to achieve their radical agenda."