Day: February 3, 2009

Six Guantanamo detainees are trying to become refugees in Canada

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update Feb. 4th:  More on Gitmo guys going to Canada here.

The National Post of Canada reports:

Six Guantanamo Bay detainees, backed by Canadian sponsors, are seeking refugee status in Canada with the pending closure of the U.S. detention centre in Cuba, including three Chinese Muslims who have been cleared of posing a threat to American security.

The Chinese Muslims are Uighurs, whom we have posted on several times before. They are graduates of al-Qaeda training camps, but have been characterized by human rights groups as Chinese dissidents who accidentally got caught up in our war. Strangely, although they have been cleared by a court of being a terrorist threat, and ordered released, no country has been willing to take them. Until, possibly, now.

Mehmet Tohti of the Uyghur Canadian Society said that Canada came close to accepting Guantanamo Uyghurs in 2006, but backed off for fear of reprisal from China at a time when Canadian officials were trying to negotiate with authorities over the fate of Huseyin Celil, a Canadian citizen and ethnic Uyghur being held in China on terrorism charges.

Canada’s efforts failed and Celil was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2007.

Mr. Tohti said that bid to bring the detainees to Canada has been revived, in part, because there is a feeling that Canada has nothing to lose now that it has been snubbed by Beijing in the Celil appeal.

Not only that, but Canada could score points with President Obama by taking detainees.

Moreover, permitting them to come to Canada would send a signal of Canada’s willingness to co-operate with the Obama administration, which is seeking countries to accept Guantanamo detainees in light of the planned closure, Mr. Tohti said.

U.S. President Barack Obama told NBC News Monday that closure of the Guantanamo prison was a matter of upholding U.S. values and law, and that a failure to do so would ultimately make Americans less secure.

I’ve wondered and wondered what Obama means by that statement. All I can think of is Alinsky’s guideline to confuse people. Freeing terrorists make us more secure. War is peace. Lies are truth.

And who are the three other terrorist who are not Uighurs? Just garden-variety Saudis or Yemenis? Can we start building a fence along our northern border too?

Somalis not transitioning well in Shelbyville, TN either

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I just now wrote a post about an NPR interview that suggests, among other things, that the Minnesota missing Somali youths lured to Somalia by jihadists hadn’t “transitioned well” to America.   Now comes news that Shelbyville, TN has some youths (men!) having problems too.

Khat was confiscated from a vehicle Thursday after police responded to complaints of offensive behavior in the parking lot of the state employment office on North Main Street.

Saad Kassim Omar, 27, of Nashville, was charged with possession of a schedule IV drug and disorderly conduct, Bedford County Jail records show.

Omar and Zein Hussein Bonaya, 27, whose address was not listed in reports, allegedly were drinking, begging money, and making lewd comments to passing women, police said.

Here is a plan for all those not transitioning well, let’s give them a one-way ticket  to join their brethren in Somalia.

We have written extensively on problems with Somalis in Shelbyville, TN.  I wish now we had made an entire category for the topic.   Since we didn’t, you can use our ‘search’ function for Shelbyville and follow the trials that Tennessee town is facing.

Past posts on Khat are here.

NPR paints picture of missing Somali ‘youths’ as victims

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is a lengthy article from NPR plus a link to a fascinating interview with the uncle of one of the Minneapolis Somali refugee young men—you know, the ones who have reportedly gone to become jihadists in Somalia.

I highly recommend listening to the interview with its discussion about who on earth could be “brainwashing the children?”   Who indeed?  It must have been some dastardly plot by the Jews, right?   Wrong!   It was the local mosque (although the Imam is now denying it), the place where the “children” congregated because there aren’t enough “resources for the youths” in this obviously closed Somali community.

At one point in the interview the reporter asks, ‘is there any common denominator,’ involving those who disappeared?   Did they not transition well?   In fact there are some common denominators.  They lived in a closed Somali community.  All were raised by single moms and all attended the mosque regularly (we know this from many other previous reports).

Hassan’s single-parent existence is mirrored by the other young men who have disappeared. All of them were reared by single mothers, and all of them were particularly devout Muslims. They all prayed and signed up for youth programs at two local mosques — one near The Towers and another across the river in St. Paul. The local mosque was Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center, the biggest mosque in Minneapolis and just a stone’s throw from The Towers. The Dawah Institute in St. Paul was the other.

Dawah is in a converted cinder block storefront in a deserted strip mall. There are rows of plywood shelves to store shoes at the front door. Masking tape marks off lanes on the carpet, so those who come here for prayers can line up in regimental rows. On a recent evening, Imam Hassan Mohamud is helping a small group of young men and women memorize the Koran. According to the missing boys’ parents, their sons spent a lot of time here. Many spent the night.

The imam said that the young men might have come for the occasional prayer, but he didn’t know them personally.

“We are not missing any single student who is connected to the mosque and the Dawah Islamic center,” he says. “And that has to be very clear.”

An identity crisis, of course that is it!

Nearly all of the young men who have disappeared lived in The Towers. Take an elevator up to any floor, and the doors open to reveal hallways that look 1970s public housing chic — all fluorescent lights and linoleum tile. The floors gleam, as if they have just been waxed. Women gossip at one end of the hallway. Their sons skip down the corridors.

This is where Burhan Hassan grew up. It was easy to imagine him running up and down the hallways of this complex, fully aware that he could knock on just about any door and expect to be greeted by a fellow Somali. Omar Jamal, who runs a local legal aid society for the community, says the children who came here have had to straddle two worlds.

“Most of those kids are going through an identity crisis,” says Jamal. “They don’t know who to belong to: ‘Who are they? Who am I? I am not American, I am not Somali.’ I see them as victims.”

Victims of fatherlessness, victims of ‘not enough resources,’ victims of not transitioning well, victims, always victims.  Omar Jamal (mentioned in all these posts), who should have been deported years ago after his conviction  for immigration fraud, has figured out very well how to play the victim card.   What about victims of this ‘diversity is beautiful’ garbage promoted by resettlement agencies?  What about victims of radical Islamic teachings by local MOSQUE leaders and other ADULTS?

Now, go back and read Judy’s post of earlier today, ‘Not everybody “is just like us.”‘

Palestinian refugee problem comes to Minnesota

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Power Line blog has posted a stunning video of a demonstration at Minnesota’s state capitol in which the two Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, brought their differences from the Middle East to our heartland. Power Line describes it:

On January 5, representatives of Hamas and Fatah rallied on the steps of the Minnesota state capitol in St. Paul. Their purpose was to condemn Israel, and an Israeli flag was burned. Mostly, though, the rally turned into a confrontation between the terrorist organization, Hamas, and the formerly terrorist organization–to give it the benefit of the doubt–Fatah. Congressman Keith Ellison attended, apparently at the invitation of the Fatah faction, but was shouted down by Hamas supporters who don’t consider him radical enough. This video, which was made by Minnesotans Against Terrorism, really has to be seen to be believed. 

How did Minnesota get to the point where its state capitol can become an outpost of a terrorist organization from the Middle East? Until a few years ago, I wouldn’t have believed it possible.

Hat tip: Mark Steyn at the Corner, who comments, “Time for Garrison Keillor to introduce a cutesie imam to Lake Wobegon.”

Not everybody is “just like us”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Ralph Peters has a column today that is sure to offend many people. That’s because it takes on the sacred scripture of multiculturalism: “Everybody is just like us.”  Its title alerts the easily-offended: “Taliban From Outer Space.” He begins:

A fundamental reason why our intelligence agencies, military leaders and (above all) Washington pols can’t understand Afghanistan is that they don’t recognize that we’re dealing with alien life-forms.

Oh, the strange-minded aliens in question resemble us physically. We share a few common needs: We and the aliens are oxygen breathers who require food and water at frequent intervals. Our body casings feel heat or cold. We’re divided into two sexes (more or less). And we’re mortal.

But that’s about where the similarities end, analytically speaking.

Okay, he’s being deliberately provocative. But he makes a point we need to hear.  Americans, including those in intelligence agencies, always proceed from the premise that our enemies are just like us. Peters has always disagreed.

I was an effective intelligence officer. Why? In junior high, I matured past the French Existentialists and started reading science fiction. The prose was often ragged, but the speculative frameworks offered a useful approach to analysis.

Begin with the view that all opponents are aliens from another cultural planet. Build your assessment from a blank slate. What do the alien collectives desire or fear? How do they perceive the galaxy? What are their unique weaknesses?

Right now our greatest military challenge is in Afghanistan. (This will be Obama’s quagmire, I predict.) So how should we think about our task there? Peters says:

Regarding Planet Afghanistan, we still hear the deadly cliché that “all human beings want the same basic things, such as better lives and greater opportunities for their children.” How does that apply to Afghan aliens who prefer their crude way of life and its merciless cults?

When girls and women are denied education or even health care and are executed by their own kin for minor infractions against the cult, how does that square with our insistence that all men want greater opportunities for the kids?

What about those Afghan parents who approve of or even encourage suicidal attacks by their sons? This not only confounds our value system, but defies biological reason.

His caveat will be ignored by his critics, I’m sure:

The point isn’t to argue that Afghans are inferior beings. It’s just that they’re irreconcilably different beings – more divergent from our behavioral norms than the weirdest crew member of the starship Enterprise.

And he concludes that the purpose of looking at Afghans as aliens from outer space is this:

This exercise is just meant to break our mental gridlock, to challenge our crippling assumption that we’re all merry brothers and sisters who just have to work through a few small understandings.

This is a “war of the worlds” in the cultural sense, a head-on collision between civilizations from different galaxies.

This way of looking at other cultures is, of course, extreme, and I doubt that Peters actually sees as little in common with Afghans as he indicates here. He is trying to shake us up, and a very useful goal that is. If I remember correctly, he thought the Iraqis were also so alien that it was useless to appeal to their longings for freedom, the principle that President Bush made a foundation of his foreign policy. The jury is still out on that one.

Peters’s “alien principle” is useful in looking at refugees. Our critics who post comments often take us to task for not realizing that refugees are people just like us who are in need; how can we not want to take them in? My answer is that they are just like us in being God’s children, “created equal” as the Declaration of Independence says. That doesn’t mean their values, beliefs and goals are just like ours.

Suppose someone in the State Department had looked at the Somali people in the way Peters recommends we look at the Afghans, starting from scratch, and asking:

Which actions of ours inflame the alien psyche? What will the alien willingly die for? What does the alien find inexplicable about us?

And then we could add some designed for refugees:  How long will it take for the alien to adapt to such a strange environment?  Does he want to adapt, or will he try to impose his culture on us? Are there mental or religious barriers to becoming American? If these questions were asked, and answered honestly, our refugee program would not look the way it does.

But if your religion is multiculturalism, you cannot ask these questions.