Category: Africa

Africa crisis (and others) waiting for Obama

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Africa is a mess.   The only bright spot for the whole year on the continent was the election of a son of Kenya, Barack Hussein Obama, to be President of the United States, so there is hope for Africa now, or so this article implies.

How bad was it for Africa in 2008? The highlight of the year for most of the continent just might’ve been the election of a half-Kenyan to lead a nation thousands of miles away.

President-elect Barack Obama’s triumph in the U.S. raised Africa’s hopes – no small feat in a year that saw rigged elections in Kenya and Zimbabwe, virtually no progress toward ending the mass suffering in Darfur, political and social upheaval in South Africa and – just when you thought some places had hit bottom – even more chaos and bloodshed in Congo and Somalia.

Throughout Africa, 2008 was a year to forget. For all the hope embodied in the arrival of a new year, and of Obama himself, however, 2009 brings no obvious solutions for any of Africa’s most intractable problems.

Asked what should be Obama’s and the world’s priorities for the continent in 2009, Francois Grignon, a veteran analyst and now Africa director for the International Crisis Group research agency, sighed.

“The whole of Africa, really, remains at the top of the list,” he said.

And, you can bet that the International Crisis Group, with a list of board members who helped Obama get elected will be at the White House gate knocking to get in on January 21st.

I mentioned the International Crisis Group in August here when I wrote about a study they had just released about the refugee “crisis” in Iraq.   This is what I said then:

I don’t know all the names on the International Crisis Group Board of Trustees, but here are a few I know: George Soros, Wesley Clark, Kofi Anan, Richard Armitage, Zibigniev Brzezinski and the best of all HRH Prince Turki-al-Faisal. LOL, such a bunch of independent members of the anti-war crowd. As security improves in Iraq, this refugee “crisis” is the last thing they have to wrap around the neck of the Bush Administration.

I am starting to see a pattern!   Everywhere is a crisis!   Those wanting to change the way we live, change our towns,  change our country, change our government, change the world must first tell us there is a crisis.    Our economy is in crisis, Africa is in crisis, the Middle East is in crisis, if they aren’t in crisis someone is going to generate a crisis.  It looks like that’s what this Crisis group is all about—create and chronicle crisis.  Then we need a mythical character, Obama (?), to swoop in and save the day!

We’ve all fallen for this strategy from time to time, I know I have with the economic so-called “crisis,” but I think we need to start resisting.   How about if conservatives instead of defensively fighting back the Lefts “change” agenda  took up positions that were optimistic initiatives.   Imagine a group called something like “America is O.K. (and will continue to be O.K.)”   I think that would send a powerful  message to voters the  next time around.  Afterall, isn’t that what we found so appealing about President Reagan—his profound love of all things American, that we were fundamentally a good people.

For more on the International Crisis Group, see Discover the Networks here.

For more on crisis=change check out my Alinsky calendar here.

Endnote:  When I looked at all the foundations funding the International Crisis Group, I note that many are the same foundations funding the environmental movement in the US—-you know those groups spreading fear (crisis!) about global warming.  They are such fear-mongers those leftwingers aren’t they?

Malta: Somali would-be rapists cause firestorm of comment

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update Dec. 31st:  More on Malta here today.

The story is tiny, only 149 words in the Times of Malta.   A couple of drunk Somali refugees attempted to rape a girl on Christmas Day.

Two Somalis allegedly caught trying to rape a 17-year-old girl on the Birzebbuga promenade on Christmas day were so drunk they did not know what happened.

But, check out the comments!  There are thousands and thousands of words of comment, mostly very angry comments, about the plight this little island nation is in with boatloads of refugees arriving daily in the good seasons of the year.

We have reported on Malta on several previous occasions mostly because the US must take some of the blame for Malta’s predicament.    We are taking some of Malta’s Somali illegal aliens as refugees, a practice that will only serve to encourage more Somalis and other Africans to try to reach Malta.

If shipping them off to America is not incentive enough consider the fact that the US Ambassador to Malta gave a tea-party send-off to one group of Somalis as they headed for Colorado, here!

Somali missing youths story makes the front page in Washington, DC

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday’s Washington Times placed the Somali missing youths story on the front page above the fold!    For new readers of RRW, we have been following this story for weeks here.

American-raised, possibly some American born, Somali refugees are packing up and are believed to be headed to terrorist training camps in Somalia to join the Jihad.   The Washington Times story doesn’t add much new information but I found this interesting.

Ahmed Elmi, chairman of the Washington-based Somali-American Community Association (SACA), said he knew of no one in the Washington area’s relatively tiny Somali community who had disappeared or of any recruitment here of would-be Islamist fighters.

“I want to have my antennae out,” Mr. Elmi said. “If there is a practice like that, I need to know.”

He said about 10,000 Somalis live in the Washington area, spread out over Maryland, Virginia and the District, among the estimated 200,000 nationwide.

I will bet you a buck that the number of Somalis in the US is much higher then 200,000.   We know we admitted 80.000 over 25 years in the Refugee Resettlement Program and an average Somali family size is six.   The Times missed a perfect opportunity here to report on the fact that the State Department has suspended all family reunification because of the widespread fraud discovered largely among Somali immigrants.

The article ends with a dhimmi college professor downplaying the seriousness of the missing youth case.   

Mr. Grossman, a professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., said that during the Balkan war many young Albanian- and Croatian-Americans returned to their homeland to fight.

“For the Somalian people, there is a great tie to their homeland and a deep interest in war and peace,” said Mr. Grossman, who has done extensive research on the Somali community in Minnesota.

He added that “war in Somalia isn’t necessarily based on radical Islam,” adding that there is a “real danger in identifying the Somali community with terrorism.”

First, his comparison stinks.  I will wager those who returned for Bill Clinton’s Bosnian war were likely also Muslims.   A fairer comparison would be to tell us how many first generation American Germans went back and joined Hitler. (Readers, I am open for correction here!)

The war in Somalia is most certainly about which branch of Islam will control Somalia (see Jihad Watch here for the proof).

And finally, as a taxpayer I’m offended that we paid the airfare for these Somali families to get here, we subsidized their apartments, we took care of their health and fed the children.  We educated them and found jobs through caseworkers for them.  We made it possible for these youths to survive healthy and educated to manhood and they go off to fight jihad.   It just proves again that the imperative of Islam trumps a good life in America!

The FBI is paying attention to Somalis in U.S.

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

A few days ago Ann expressed her hope that the FBI was looking into activity in Somali mosques, especially among youth.  It looks like they’re doing that. Sara Carter in the Washington Times reports today:

The FBI is expanding contacts with Somali immigrant communities in the U.S., especially in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, fearing that terrorists are recruiting young men for suicide missions in their homeland.

FBI Special Agent E.K. Wilson, spokesman for the Twin Cities FBI field office, described the effort as community outreach. Many members of the Somali community are concerned over disappearances, he said.

Somali mosques must be scrutinized says Muslim leader

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is the latest report I’ve seen on the missing Minneapolis Somali youths.  The Minnesota Independent begins its story with the personal account of a missing Somali American.

Burhaan Hassan was a fairly typical kid, the kind who asked his mother for $20 when he wanted to go see a movie on weekends. But on Election Day, while much of the world — including his single mother — was consumed by the historic election, he and a handful of Somali-American teenagers quietly boarded a plane to Kenya, en route to the front lines of a Jihad in Somalia.

Hassan, 17, wasn’t working and couldn’t afford the expensive airfare, said his uncle, Hussein Samatar, an immigrant from Somalia who now runs the African Development Group of Minnesota. “We believe someone — some group — has paid for his ticket,” he said.

I couldn’t find any formal website for the African Development Group of Minnesota but I noticed that Samatar is a fan of Obama’s (no surprise there).

The article continues about al-Shabaab and its US recruitment compaign apparently aiming for those with US Passports.

A United Nations investigation recently uncovered evidence that extremist groups in Somalia have ratcheted up their online recruiting and fundraising capabilities. Among other things, the U.N. Monitoring Group, which is tasked with monitoring weapons flowing to Somalia, found that members of Al-Shabaab (“The Youth”), a Somali group designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, have “intensified their cyber activities.”

The U.N. report notes that, unlike more moderate Islamist groups in Somalia, Al-Shabaab has relatively young leaders, some from Western countries, in its ranks. Obscure young jihadists with foreign passports have greater mobility — a key advantage over more well-known leaders, experts believe.

Ken Menkhaus, a Somalia expert at Davidson College in North Carolina, said recruiting Somalis with foreign passports would have “some advantages if [Al-Shabaab] intends to attack sites outside Somalia.”

The Somali leaders of the 70,000-strong Somali community in Minnesota are pointing the finger of blame at one local mosque in particular—the Abubkar As-Saddique Islamic Center (AAIC) and are calling for more scrutiny of mosques!

Before these teenagers went missing, youth programs at mosques went minimally scrutinized, complained some community leaders. To address this, Adam, the Daral-Hijra Center director, urges mosque leaders to introduce greater oversight on youth activities.

Sounds like a plan!  I hope our FBI is thinking along the same lines.

You can see all of the links to posts on this story here.   Also, be sure to see our original research on the number of Somalis who have entered the US under the Refugee Resettlement program here.