Month: January 2009

No one wants the Iraqi Palestinians, especially other Muslims

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Stuck in camps along the border of Iraq and Syria, no MUSLIM country will take in 700 fellow Muslim Palestinians who fear returning to Iraq because they were given special treatment by Saddam and thus may suffer retaliation by other Muslims.

I have asked this on many previous occasions, where is the much ballyhooed Muslim charity?   And, I am going to just keep on asking that question for however long it takes!

The start of 2009 offers little hope to the residents of Al Tanf, a refugee camp on the Syrian-Iraqi border housing over 700 Palestinians who had fled persecution in Iraq. No country has given any concrete pledge to take any of the refugees for resettlement in 2009, leaving them to battle the cold desert weather this winter with more despair than ever.

[…..] 

Resettlement is the pressing need for the people of Al Tanf. Stuck in tents in No Man’s Land between the border crossings, the refugees are legally unable to go forward into Syria and fear going back to Iraq where they face persecution from Kurd and Shia groups who accuse them of being too close to the Sunni-dominated insurgency or resent the privileges they received under Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Every country has it’s immgration quota says UNRWA representative.

“It’s hard to say why resettlement is so slow,” said Kristian Boysen, project officer at UNRWA, the main UN agency dealing with Palestinian refugees. “Each country has an immigration quota and they choose who they think will fit into the country.”

So Mr. Boysen, tell me, what is the quota for Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jordan, Turkey, or Kuwait?  Have they filled their quota of Arab Muslim Palestinians?  Or is it just western countries that must open their doors?  Or, why can’t they go live in UNRWA administered Palestinian areas and get well-cared-for by the UN (that is, the US taxpayer)?

It is not just Al Tanf refugees who need resettlement. There are about 1,000 Palestinian-Iraqis in Al Waleed camp on the Iraqi side of the border. A further 300 live in Al Hol camp, further to the north on the Syrian side.

There were 306 successful resettlements from Al Tanf in 2008: 116 to Chile, 174 to Sweden and 16 to Switzerland. In addition, Iceland, Norway and Sweden took some refugees from Al Waleed and Al Hol. But for every family that leaves, another arrives – either fleeing from Iraq or having been unable to earn enough money to support themselves in Syria. [so some actually were in Syria, they are then economic migrants?]

I’m wondering if this is just one more public relations campaign to highlight the suffering Palestinians so that the US and Israel can be beaten over the head with the situation.   

 The refugees say they are rejected everywhere, but want to go to Europe.

Europe is the hope for most refugees who point out that each country need only take 10 families each in order to empty out the camps.

How come they aren’t asking to go join their co-religionists in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, Iran, or Kuwait?  How come those countries aren’t taking them in?  How come the western media never asks that question?  It’s all about the bad Christians and Jews isn’t it? It’s all about flooding western countries with Muslim immigrants, isn’t it?

US investigating Malaysian government officials about human trafficking

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I don’t know how, but suspect that somehow, this story ties into what is going on in Thailand with the Rohingya boat men from Burma (Myanmar).    The Democratically controlled  US Senate Foreign Relations Committee is investigating the Muslim country of Malaysia about the possibility that government officials are trafficking in refugees. 

Here is the gist of the story from AFP:

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US Senate is investigating allegations that officials in Malaysia were extorting money from foreign migrants and were linked to human trafficking, American officials said.

The migrants, mostly from military-ruled Myanmar but also from other countries, were allegedly taken by the government officials to the border between Malaysia and Thailand, where they were extorted or sold to human trafficking syndicates.

The probe is being conducted by the US Senate foreign relations committee and the findings will be relayed to key US enforcement agencies and Interpol for possible action, Senate officials said.

“US Senate foreign relations committee staff are reviewing reports of extortion and human trafficking from Burmese and other migrants in Malaysia, allegedly at the hands of Malaysia government officials,” a committee staff member told AFP. Myanmar’s previous name was Burma.

“The allegations include assertions that Burmese and other migrants — whether or not they have UNHCR documentation — are taken from Malaysian government detention facilities and transported to the Thailand-Malaysia border,” the official said.

At the border, they alleged, “money is demanded from them, or they are turned over to human traffickers in southern Thailand.”

There is a Muslim insurgency on-going in southern Thailand, are the refugees being sold as conscripts into the Islamic forces?  Or is it women and girls being sold as Atlas points out today in Africa?

If true, it sounds like a win-win for the government-official traffickers.   Either get paid off or do your fellow Muslims in Thailand a good service by supplying the mostly Burmese refugees (Rohingya?) to the Islamic insurgency.

“If all reports are accurate, then as many as a few thousand Myanmar migrants in Malaysia may have been taken to the Malaysia-Thai border in recent years,” the committee staff member said.

“If they pay, they return to Malaysia. If not, they are sold to traffickers, according to the reports,” the official said.

I’m wondering what we can do if the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee finds this to be true—-cut off funds to Malaysia?  What?

BTW, this AFP story says we have resettled 40,000 Burmese into the US since 1995.

Alinskyism (Day 19)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Remember the story about Maureen Dowd making fun of Obama’s ears early in the primary campaign where he supposedly took her to task over it?    He quickly shut down that whole line of discussion.

He had to shut it down because he knew how potent a weapon ridicule is.   In Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” in a chapter simply called “Tactics,”  RIDICULE is Rule #5.

Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.  It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule.  Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to  your advantage.

Readers, you probably all knew this already, but this is so interesting to me because my brain functions in the realm of the rightness or wrongness of policies not in how to defeat the other side simply through tactics.

Of course, this is what they did to Sarah Palin.  They tried to do it to John McCain first.  Remember they started in about how McCain couldn’t use a computer, but it turned out that his physical disability from his prisoner of war days was responsible, so they dropped it.    When Palin came along she became a perfect subject for ridicule because as elitist big city people (most of Obama’s people) they could ridicule her country ways.

Hint to our side:  ridicule the elitist city types who predominate in the Obama administration.

Jon Stewert and his ilk have gained their popularity because of Rule #5.    Conversely, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are hated by the left because they obviously love Rule#5 and know how to use it.    Stick-in-the-mud so-called conservatives who criticize Limbaugh and Coulter are making a grave error.  We need more ridicule, not less!

Days 1-18 of my Alinsky calendar can be found in our “community destabilization” category.   By the way, my inspiration to put this in “calendar” form is because my kids once gave me one of those Bush calendars that made fun of things Bush had said.  There was one ‘ridicule’ for each day of the year.

LA Times gives us more information on the Somali missing men story

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Only a few months behind on the story of the Minneapolis missing Somali men (former refugees) who are believed to have returned to Somalia for terrorist training, the Los Angeles Times does have some further details. 

For instance we learned this really important nugget—one of the would-be Islamic fighters wanted to go to Harvard.  Ho hum, guess that’s out now.

“He wanted to go to Harvard,” said his uncle Osman Ahmed. “That was his dream.”

The LA Times has a quote that firms up the number missing from Minneapolis but still no word on how many are missing from other US cities where we resettled them at taxpayer expense and gave them an opportunity for a good life.

The youths, who have U.S. passports, followed a well-trod trail from Minneapolis to Mogadishu. Another group took off in August. The FBI believes that over the last two years, 12 to 20 Minnesotans have gone to Somalia.

As a result, a joint terrorism task force led by the FBI is scrambling to determine if extremist Islamic groups are seeking recruits here in the nation’s largest Somali community — as well as in San Diego, Seattle, Boston and other cities. [Hint to FBI:  be sure you add Lewiston, ME to your list of possible recruitment cities]

More details on Shirwa Ahmed, the 27-year-old Somali suicide bomber we gave a decent burial to back in December were revealed.  We now know that he was definitely a suicide bomber and he killed UN aid workers among the 30 or so people he blew up. 

Officials believe the naturalized American was on a terrorist team that detonated five car bombs in two northern Somali cities on Oct. 29, killing at least 30 people, including U.N. aid workers.

Ahmed phoned his sister in Minneapolis a day before the bombings to say he would not see her again, according to a family friend. “She thought he was sick,” the friend said. The next day, someone else called from Somalia to say he had “gone to paradise” as a martyr for Islam.

I still would like to know how much the return of Ahmed’s remains cost the US taxpayer.

The FBI brought back bone fragments and other remains found in Bosaso, one of the blast sites, Wilson said. DNA tests established Ahmed’s identity.

He was buried in a Muslim funeral in Burnsville, south of Minneapolis, on Dec. 3.

Ahmed had not been on the FBI’s radar before the bombings. And his death raised fears that someone trained in Somalia might import terrorist tactics to America.

“There is always a concern about spillover, bleed-out, call it what you will,” said a U.S. official tracking the case who requested anonymity when discussing U.S. intelligence matters. “Especially if they were to return on a U.S. passport.”

How about that, the FBI didn’t have Ahmed or these other guys on their radar screen.  Guess they didn’t see any need to keep an eye on radical MOSQUES!

We had heard about one mosque being watched since the men went missing, but this LA Times article adds a second mosque now under scrutiny in the Minneapolis area.

The leader of another mosque under scrutiny, the Darul Da’wah center in St. Paul, Minn., denied rumors in the Somali community that the alleged suicide bomber and several other missing men were among his followers.

Looks to me like someone at these mosques has friends in al Shabab.

In declaring Shabab a terrorist organization last February, the State Department called it “a violent and brutal extremist group with a number of individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda” — including the terrorists who bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

It’s not clear that the still-missing Minnesotans have joined Shabab or were radicalized at local mosques to join the jihad. But many family members and community activists believe they have.

Oh come on, Mommy, Daddy and Grandpa too know what they were learning at the mosque.

The baby-faced senior at Harding High School in St. Paul had attended both the Abubakar As-Saddique and the Darul Da’wah mosques, Yusuf said. Last summer, the youth embraced the extremist Saudi style of Islam known as Wahhabism, and praised Shabab as the “liberators” of Somalia.

“I told him, ‘This is wrong — your father and your grandfather don’t believe this,’ ” Yusuf recalled in an interview. “He told me they were ignorant. He called me an unbeliever.”

[…..]

Who could imagine such a thing?”

Who indeed!

The comic relief:

It’s getting really funny, but Omar Jamal, formerly convicted of immigration fraud, is in every story about Somalis from sea to shining sea.  Maybe that’s a slight exageration, but only slight.  He even got involved in the Somali cyanide death in Denver last summer.   Here are all the posts in which we mention him.  Does every reporter have to talk to this guy?

In this LA Times article he tells us it’s all about the warlords.  Huh?

“They each support a particular warlord back in Somalia,” Omar Jamal, head of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, explained as he puffed on a huge hookah at the crowded Pyramids Cafe and Shisha Lounge.

Economist: Large immigrant population responsible for infrastructure repair and expansion

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Well known economist, Edwin Rubenstein, in a report just released blames the crumbling infrastructure that Obama will spend billions to repair on a “massive” immigrant population.  

 From World Net Daily:

The United States will need $1.6 trillion to repair damage to its infrastructure from a massive influx of immigrants, a new report reveals.

In his report titled, “The Twin Crisis:  Immigration and Infrastructure,” prominent researcher Edwin S. Rubenstein examines 15 categories of  infrastructure:   airports, border security, bridges, dams and levees, electricity (the power grids), hazardous waste removal, hospitals, mass transit, parks and recreation facilities, ports and navigable waterways, public schools, railroads, roads and highways, solid waste and trash, and water and sewer systems.

Rubenstein, a financial analyst and former contributing editor of Forbes and economics editor of National Review, claims the nation is facing a crisis – with immigration responsible for at least 80 percent of spending needed to expand the U.S. infrastructure before the middle of this century.

“If the infrastructure crisis could be fixed by spending money, there would be no crisis,” Mr. Rubenstein explained in a statement. “Since 1987, capital spending on transportation infrastructure has increased by 2.1 percent per year above the inflation rate. At $233 billion (2004 dollars), infrastructure is already one of the largest categories of government spending. Our infrastructure is ‘crumbling’ because population growth has overwhelmed the ability of even these vast sums to expand capacity.”

While immigration policy has been hotly debated for a number of years, Rubenstein writes that its impact on infrastructure is rarely discussed.

Here is one of the statistics from the report that I found interesting:

In his research, Rubenstein finds that the average immigrant household generates a fiscal debt of $3,408 after federal benefits and taxes are considered. At the state and local level, the fiscal debt amounts to $4.398 per immigrant household.

In light of compelling statistics saying otherwise, I really don’t know how Newsweek can report that Lewiston, ME is now a boom town because of  its large refugee population.   It might ‘boom” from government (taxpayer) funds flowing to the area through grants and welfare, but that is still a cost to the economy as Rubenstein suggests.