As a follow-up to Hate in America, did anyone see the DKos diary on the group in Texas called Repent Amarillo?

http://www.texasobserver.org/dateline/he-who-casts-the-first-stone

What’s next for Repent? They’ve posted a “Warfare Map” on the group’s Web site. The map includes establishments like gay bars, strip clubs and porn shops, but also the Wildcat Bluff Nature Center. Repent believes the 600-acre prairie park’s Walmart-funded “Earth Circle,” used for lectures, is a Mecca for witches and pagans. Also on the list are The 806 coffeehouse (a hangout for artists and counterculture types), the Islamic Center of Amarillo (“Allah is a false god”), and “compromised churches” like Polk Street Methodist (gay-friendly).

In January, Repent caused a stir when the group rolled out BoycottHouston.com, a Web site that urges economic sanctions against Houston because the mayor is gay and a large Planned Parenthood building is being built.

In  http://amarilloindy.com/wordpress/?p=651, their leader, David Grisham says: “Tolerance is indeed the last virtue of a degenerate society. Any society that starts teaching its children about tolerance and intolerance rather than good and evil will raise an entire generation that simply tolerates evil.”

Grisham works as a security guard at Pantex, a nuclear weapons facility contractor for the federal government. The Pantex website says, in part, that the plant, located 17 miles northeast of Amarillo, is charged with maintaining the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile. The facility is managed and operated by B&W Pantex for the U.S. Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration… The Pantex Plant workforce must exhibit the highest standards of ethical behavior. The Company does not discriminate based on race, age, color, religion, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, veteran status or disability.

It’s disturbing when religious fanatics have access to nuclear materials.

The Southern Poverty Law Center counted 926 active hate groups in the U.S. in 2008—that’s a 54% rise since 2000.  And those are only groups, lone wolves—no one knows how many. Statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation report the incidence of hate crimes showed an eight percent increase between 2005 and 2006. Over 50 percent of these crimes were race-related, with the remaining incidents triggered by sexual orientation, religion and gender differences.

FBI counterterrorism expert John Perren said of “lone wolf” domestic terrorists, “It could be anyone. It could be the guy next door … on the Internet just building himself up with hate … to a boiling point and finally using what he’s learned.” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 14, 2009

Who are these people who hate? What do they want? What do they believe? It’s hard to lump them all together, as they have different ideologies and display different characteristics, and they all have different objectives. The white supremacists want whites on top of the food chain, want a white Nordic world; the militias are paranoid about the New World Order, or the ZOG, or the federal government coming to put them in FEMA camps or some such takeover; the KKK wants Jews and African American banished from our shores forever, or dead; The Christianists want dominion over--and forced conversions of-- the entire planet, and they want gays killed or at least imprisoned. Some of these groups have imagined grievances; some just hate everyone who is not them.  But they all have one characteristic in common: Intolerance.

Intolerance is generally defined as the state of being unwilling or unable to endure the beliefs, perspectives, or practices of others. It also involves a lack of recognition for the fundamental rights and choices of others.

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF HATE

Are they really mentally disturbed, mentally impaired, downright crazy? Some are, but most are not. As far as hate crimes go, one would think individuals who commit these acts to be mentally unstable, however a study carried out by the University of California showed differently. Out of 550 hate crime criminals profiled, researchers found aggression and antisocial behavior to be prevalent, but no personality disorders. Perpetrators were described as typically “normal” with a high tendency towards destructiveness and violence.

Mary H. Guindon, PhD, Alan G. Green, PhD, and Fred J. Hanna, PhD from Johns Hopkins University say that there should be a new designation in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for people who hate irrationally.

“It is our intention to explore the possibility of an intolerant personality disorder as a previously unrecognized and unacknowledged type of psychopathology that causes harm to people from many cultures and has been destructive in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and disability. Antisocial, borderline, paranoid, and narcissistic personality disorders are examples of personality styles that are or can be harmful to others. The question is as follows: If intolerance of others in certain forms is indeed destructive and a source of pain and anxiety to its victims, should it not also be categorized as a mental disorder?”

They are part of a growing movement in the mental health community. They do not want to medicalize intolerance or to make it a disease.  But they and others believe it is important to name extreme intolerance as pathology.  They want to document and research the problem in order to develop treatments that can be part of the solution to profound social injustice concerns. Labeling intolerance as a personality disorder has the potential benefit to rehabilitate these people and lead to increased tolerance, which helps us all.

Whether feelings of hatred are rational or irrational, the logic system behind these feelings is distorted. Sigmund Freud classified all forms of behavioral expression as defense mechanisms used to protect one’s self-image. As such, hatred expressed inwardly or outwardly becomes a self-protective measure that works to maintain one’s sense of identity. Intolerance can also be viewed as a defense against change, acting as a form of self-protection. It is a sick defense mechanism.  Suspicion and distrust are perceived as necessary protection against a threat of harm.

The Johns Hopkins team lists these

Symptoms Of Intolerant Personality Disorder:

(a) holds a rigid set of beliefs that assert the intrinsic superiority due to race, religion, culture,or gender of the person’s own group ;

(b) lacks empathy for one or more particular populations, such as Latinos, African Americans, gays, lesbians, or women;

(c) exhibits interpersonal behavior that ranges from covert or overt antagonism and hostility to exploitation toward one or more specific or targeted populations;

(d) seeks to overtly or covertly block, deny, impede, or cancel the social, organizational, psychological, or financial advancement of someone of a group believed to be inferior;

(e) uses power or other means to inhibit or prevent free expression of contrary or intolerable ideas;

(f) has a sense of entitlement based on membership in a privileged group and believes that others should recognize his or her superiority without commensurate achievements or valid credentials;

(g) manifests a pervasive pattern of disregard for the human rights of members of particular populations; and

(h) shows lack of remorse as indicated by being callous or indifferent to having hurt, restricted, mistreated, or maligned members of selective populations.

A study carried out by the University of California on persons who committed hate crimes also revealed that the majority of the participants had a family history of violence and abuse. With this type of background, individuals are more prone to internalize feelings of self-hatred as a part of their overall self identity. As far as defense mechanisms go, one type in particular—projection—is attributed to the experience of hatred directed towards another.

Projection is a defense mechanism in which a person unconsciously directs feelings felt about oneself onto another person. This is a coping mechanism put in place to protect a person from harmful thoughts and feelings felt toward the self. The antagonistic feelings by someone towards the target of his hatred are, in effect, the same feelings he has with himself.

Understanding hate groups is essential for successful intervention strategies, which depend on an understanding of the hate process. According to FBI profilers, their observations show that hate groups go through seven stages in the hate process. Unless stopped, haters pass through these seven successive stages without skipping a stage. In the first four stages, haters vocalize their beliefs. In the last three stages, haters act on their beliefs. A transition period exists between vocalization and acting out. In this transition period, violence separates hard-core haters from rhetorical haters.

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin/March 1, 2003

Stage 1: The Haters Gather

Irrational haters seldom hate alone. They feel compelled, almost driven, to entreat others to hate as they do. Peer validation bolsters a sense of self-worth and, at the same time, prevents introspection, which reveals personal insecurities. Further, individuals otherwise ineffective become empowered when they join groups, which also provide anonymity and diminished accountability.

Stage 2: The Hate Group Defines Itself

Hate groups form identities through symbols, rituals, and mythologies, which enhance the members’ status and, at the same time, degrade the object of their hate. For example, skinhead groups may adopt the swastika, the iron cross, the Confederate flag, and other supremacist symbols. Group-specific symbols or clothing often differentiate hate groups. Group rituals, such as hand signals and secret greetings, further fortify members. Hate groups, especially skinhead groups, usually incorporate some form of self-sacrifice, which allows haters to willingly jeopardize their well-being for the greater good of the cause. Giving one’s life to a cause provides the ultimate sense of value and worth to life. Skinheads often see themselves as soldiers in a race war.

Stage 3: The Hate Group Disparages the Target

Hate is the glue that binds haters to one another and to a common cause. By verbally debasing the object of their hate, haters enhance their self-image, as well as their group status. In skinhead groups, racist song lyrics and hate literature provide an environment wherein hate flourishes. In fact, researchers have found that the life span of aggressive impulses increases with ideation. In other words, the more often a person thinks about aggression, the greater the chance for aggressive behavior to occur. Thus, after constant verbal denigration, haters progress to the next more acrimonious stage.

Stage 4: The Hate Group Taunts the Target

Hate, by its nature, changes incrementally. Time cools the fire of hate, thus forcing the hater to look inward. To avoid introspection, haters use ever-increasing degrees of rhetoric and violence to maintain high levels of agitation. Taunts and offensive gestures serve this purpose. In this stage, skinheads typically shout racial slurs from moving cars or from afar. Nazi salutes and other hand signals often accompany racial epithets. Racist graffiti also begins to appear in areas where skinheads loiter. Most skinhead groups claim turf proximate to the neighborhoods in which they live. One study indicated that a majority of hate crimes occur when the hate target migrates through the hate group’s turf.

Stage 5: The Hate Group Attacks the Target Without Weapons

This stage is critical because it differentiates vocally abusive haters from physically abusive ones. In this stage, hate groups become more aggressive, prowling their turf seeking vulnerable targets. Violence coalesces hate groups and further isolates them from mainstream society. Skinheads, almost without exception, attack in groups and target single victims. Research has shown that bias crimes are twice as likely to cause injury and four times as likely to result in hospitalization as compared to nonbias crimes.

In addition to physical violence, the element of thrill seeking is introduced in Stage 5. Experts found that 60 percent of hate offenders were “thrill seekers.” They seek an adrenaline high. Each successive anger- provoking thought or action builds on residual adrenaline and triggers a more violent response than the one that originally initiated the sequence. Anger builds on anger. The adrenaline high combined with hate becomes a deadly combination. Hard-core skinheads keep themselves at a level where the slightest provocation triggers aggression.

Stage 6: The Hate Group Attacks the Target with Weapons

Several studies confirm that a large number of bias attacks involve weapons. Some attackers use firearms to commit hate crimes, but skinheads prefer weapons, such as broken bottles, baseball bats, blunt objects, screwdrivers, and belt buckles. These types of weapons require the attacker to be close to the victim, which further demonstrates the depth of personal anger. Attackers can discharge firearms at a distance, thus precluding personal contact. Close-in onslaughts require the assailants to see their victims eye-to-eye and to become bloodied during the assault. Hands- on violence allows skinheads to express their hate in a way a gun cannot. Personal contact empowers and fulfills a deep-seated need to have dominance over others.

Stage 7: The Hate Group Destroys the Target

The ultimate goal of haters is to destroy the object of their hate. Mastery over life and death imbues the hater with godlike power and omnipotence, which, in turn, facilitate further acts of violence. With this power comes a great sense of self-worth and value, the very qualities haters lack. However, in reality, hate physically and psychologically destroys both the hater and the hated.

Symbols, Rituals, and Mythology

Fully understanding hate groups involves identifying and defining their unique symbols rituals, and mythologies. Symbols give greater meaning to irrational hate. Haters use symbols for self- identification and to form common bonds with other group members. Additionally, they often swear allegiance to these symbols.

Symbols, however, are not enough to unify a group; therefore, more organized hate groups incorporate rituals, which serve two functions. First, they relieve individual group members from deep thought and self-examination. Second, rituals reinforce beliefs and fortify group unity.

The hate group’s experiences, beliefs, and use of symbols and rituals combine to create group mythologies. Mythologies unify disparate thoughts and act as filters through which group members interpret reality. Group mythologies can have profound effects on its members. A group with a powerful mythology results in one resistant to ideological challenges, and, therefore, it is more dangerous.

RECRUITMENT

Hate groups have always been interested in getting brighter people into its ranks.  They are looking for is its future leaders, its tacticians and strategists who can create a second revolution—as opposed to those who can just beat up a few people. The internet really helps them meet this goal. Their primary target is often teenagers. In their view, impressionable youth represents the only hope for the future of the “white race.”

Leaving aside the intergenerational, within-family recruitment, the young are being actively recruited in large numbers and through specific tactics. Many adolescents today find themselves alienated from their families. Occasionally this is because the family is brutal or alcoholic, but more often the alienation arises in a home where the parents possessed no other values than the pursuit of money; where the parents are psychologically absent. The fascist youth group in particular offers these alienated kids a substitute family, an environment of mutual concern, and a substitute set of values. For many young people, a fascist group may provide their first real exposure to commitment, to courage, to unity of thought and action, to the motivation of non-materialistic values. Like any good gang.

RECRUITMENT STRATEGIES

Hate groups concentrate their recruiting efforts primarily in high schools and, to some extent, in colleges and universities. They even offer scholarships.  And the Internet seems tailor-made for reaching disaffected young people: teenagers spend far more time on it than their parents do, and many teens consider the virtual world of the web their “home away from home.”

Hatemongers now target young people directly, through hate “music” and special web sites. Young people may be susceptible to online racist propaganda because they don’t have the experience or facts at hand to refute the lies and myths being fed to them.

Although the Internet is a relatively new way to reach young people, the techniques hatemongers use to attract them are still very traditional. Here are some of the strategies hate groups use to attract young people on the Internet:

Music

The rise of white power rock ‘n’ roll has been very important to the racist movement. It’s extremely violent in its rhetoric and lyrics. The songs call for murdering black people or creating a racial holy war or a whites-only revolution, and they’re increasingly being sold to teenagers and people in their early 20s. It’s a great strategy--music is a compelling way to influence young people. When kids surf the Net for music, they may chance on sites that sell hate music, or even offer it free for downloading. Such Web sites often also provide links to hate-promoting brochures, pamphlets, newsgroups, chat rooms or Web sites.

Every year in North America, more than 70,000 white power CDs are sold. Resistance Records (the largest North American distributor of hate music) gross more than $3 million in 2007. Resistance Records has a stable of a dozen high-quality Skinhead bands like a cute girl-band that takes up the mantle from the defunct groups Prussian Blue. Their products can be ordered directly over the Internet. Resistance Records, as well as such established organizations as Aryan Nations and the Christian Identity Posse Comitatus, hold Aryan concerts, Aryan Youth festivals, or annual Aryan Youth Congresses.

Another white power music broker, Byron Calvert, distributed 30,000 CDs in 2007. The campaign is dubbed “Project Schoolyard Volume II” and targets teenagers with a 25-song sampler that features tracks such as “White Power” and “Some Niggers Never Die.” “Remember,” he wrote, “we don’t just entertain racist kids, we create them.” The CDs are on sale for 30 cents each, but Calvert is including several free with each order from Tightrope, his Arkansas-based website that offers hate music and other racist merchandise.  He said he also uses multiple MySpace accounts that are not overtly racist to reach white students at schools where racially charged incidents have occurred.

Skinhead Girl Warrior (Les Vilains)

Militia : May 17 Patrol & training music video

“Let’s see out the Fuhrer’s dream/To break the back of the eternal jew/Rid the world of the evil we’ve seen/Make it safe for me and you.”
— From “Under the Hammer” by Brutal Attack

“When the battle is over and the victory is won/And the White man’s lands are owned by true white people/the traitors will all be gone.”
— From “White Warriors” by Skrewdriver

And there are a few thousand more music videos! If you thought such unabashedly bigoted music was available only from underground sources, you’d be as surprised as I was. At Apple’s iTunes website you can buy albums and songs from white supremacist groups. But iTunes it’s not the only mainstream music distributor selling racist and offensive tracks. Amazon.com also sells music from many of the same white supremacist bands.

Games

Another strategy used to attract young people is white-power versions of popular computer games. Teens may go online looking for the latest cool game, and may find the “hate version” instead.

For example, Resistance Records has produced Ethnic Cleansing —a computer game whose object is to kill “subhumans” such as Blacks and Latinos, and their “masters,” the Jews, who are portrayed as the personification of evil. Players can choose between dressing as KKK members or skinheads. Even very popular mainstream games, such as Resident Evil5 have definite racist overtones.

Books

Many sites have chat rooms and I’ve noticed members often ask about books that promote their ideology. Stormfront and the Nationalist Coalition, to name just two, offer books for teens.

Activities for kids

Some hate sites offer special sections for kids containing games and activities. For example, on the “Creativity for Kids” section of the neo-Nazi World Church of the Creator Web site, children can try their hands at crossword puzzles with racist content. The purpose of the children’s section is ”to help the young members of the white race understand our fight.” Of course, most hate groups home-school their kids, and the bigger sites, like Stormfront.com provide learning materials.

Re: Join the SCOOTS Reading Club…..Promoting Childhood Literacy!

Hail All!

I just wanted everyone to know that the program is a free program for children 2-18. The sponsorship portion is for those that don’t have children, but still want to contribute to early literacy, the love of reading, and family togetherness.

I highly encourage participation from all our children ages 2-18 years of age. It is free and when you meet the goals you have the ability to choose your prizes carefully selected with our Folkish children in mind!

What better satisfaction than to help a child to form a love for reading, or for those avid readers, what better way to get rewarded for a job well done! If you teach a child to read, he or she can truly do anything!

I look forward to hearing from everyone for this program!

__________________
For Faith, Folk, and Family
Lucy

(Stormfront chat room)

Cartoon spokescharacters

Some hate sites use cartoon-like or animated characters, similar to (or identical to) those used in children’s media to attract young audiences.  They don’t even have to invent new ones, as Disney and many other old cartoons provide many racist characters.

OTHER COMMON STRATEGIES

Racialism

White power and white supremacy sites typically deny that they are racist organizations. Instead, they focus on the need to protect white people from assimilation and/or direct threats from non-white groups.  They call this perspective “racialist” as opposed to racist.

The 14/88 Society is a good example of this dynamic. The site’s name combines two hate slogans popular in the white supremacy movement:

• 14 refers to the 14-word slogan: “We must secure the existence of our race and a future for white children”

• 88 represents HH (H being the eighth number in the alphabet), which stands for Heil Hitler

Overtly racist sites, like 14/88, are the easiest to identify because they conform to the mainstream image of the neo-Nazi skinhead hate group. However many hate sites attempt to conceal a racist agenda behind a more moderate message.

Pseudo-Science and Intellectualism

Many hate-mongers use pseudo-scientific intellectualized language and incorporate the work of university-based academics to make their views seem more credible. Canadian professor Phillip Rushton’s work on the different intellectual and physical abilities of different “races” is a case in point. In addition, the late Dr. William Pierce operated a publishing company that released a steady stream of neo-Nazi literature. Pierce’s fictionalized account of racialist revolution in The Turner Diaries is said to have inspired the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.

Historical Revisionism

Holocaust denial is a frequently used strategy. Haters who “revise” history argue that the Holocaust either did not occur, or was less significant than the historical record indicates. And they are insidious. Let’s say your child is given a school assignment to write about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Most likely, he or she will go to the internet and search for Martin Luther King. What they could easily find is pretty scary—and despicable. On one site I found this Discovery Channel movie trailer claiming that whites are the indigenous Ice Age North Americans.

ANTI GOVERNMENT SENTIMENTS AND RECRUITMENT

At a deeper level, recruitment into the neo-fascist movements is based on the on-going crisis of capitalism, especially in North America.

Worsening economic conditions, political instability, a perceived sense of injustice, or a struggle of groups for self-identity or power are among the conditions that may precipitate planned or spontaneous outbursts of violence by groups against individuals, other groups, or the state.

Research on genocide, group violence, and hate crimes have shown that such factors as economic problems, political conflict, or rapid and substantial social change interact with group characteristics such as the need to scapegoat or devalue other groups, the inclination to hinge a better future on identifying enemies who stand in the way, and a pattern of aggression.

Corporate downsizing, declining real wages, changing technology, increasing gap between the wealthy and everyone else, and the steady decline in manufacturing jobs replaced by lower paying, less secure jobs in the service sector, have all combined to leave the average American worker feeling vulnerable and betrayed. For rural Americans, economic uncertainty is compounded by threats to traditional rural industries like logging, mining, ranching, and farming. These are the conditions in which hate groups thrive.

NEXT—HATE IN AMERICA, Part 4:  What Can Be Done

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani has been the talk of the politicos all day after his appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America. The man who Joe Biden famously said is known for “a noun, a verb and 9/11″ seems to have forgotten about 9/11.

Giuliani made the same mistake Dana Perino made, but this time the mistake wasn’t made on FOX News. This morning, while talking to Giuliani, George Stephanopoulos failed to correct him after making the following comment:

What [Obama] should be doing is following the right things Bush did. One of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama.

This little moment of selective forgetfulness about 9/11 has been reported by countless blogs throughout the day. It was even remarked upon by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs who said, “I think he mentioned that there weren’t any domestic terror attacks in the previous administration, and sort of interesting that the mayor of New York had forgotten that.”

Recently Giuliani even claimed that the infamous “shoe bomber” attempt occurred ”six days was before the September 11th attack.”

In light of this recent error of statement, one would think that a veteran like Stephanopoulos would have called Giuliani on his fib when he claimed that no attacks occurred on President Bush’s watch, but no such correction was made by Stephanopoulos was made.

Given the attention Rudy Giuliani’s words received, it should come as no surprise that a spokesperson tried to clarify those comments later in the day. Giuliani himself later clarified those words when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked him about his erroneous claim saying, “I usually say, ‘We had no major domestic attacks under President Bush since September 11.’”

So what does Stephanopoulos have to say about this whole fiasco? He made this response to criticism on his blog:

Through his spokesman, Rudy Giuliani has clarified the remarks he made this morning on GMA regarding terrorist attacks on the United States under Presidents Bush and Obama.

The Mayor’s spokesman says that the remark “didn’t come across as it was intended” and that Giuliani was “clearly talking post-9/11 with regards to Islamic terrorist attacks on our soil.”

Whatever the Mayor meant, it’s not what he said.  All of you who have pointed out that I should have pressed him on that misstatement in the moment are right.  My mistake, my responsibility.

However, as Brian Stelter put it “[Stephanopoulos] did not say whether he would address the misstatement in a future television program.” Moreover, he made no claim that he would work to avoid making people make such fallacious remarks in the future. Rudy Giuliani did indeed make a mistake, but isn’t George Stephanopoulos equally at fault for letting lies told on his program?

 It would appear that the “Powers To Be” have just been waiting for the chance to implement the mandatory use of  Full Body Scanners at every major Airport… Can’t you just picture Dick Cheney making this statement to all the “spooks in the bunker”, ” All we need is one lonely, impressionable and confused young man of the Islamic Faith  who is willing to set his genitals on fire on a flight destined to the USA over the Christmas Holidays”… 

 Now the scanners are being put in place in very large #’s in many Airports… Of course all the various Security and Law Enforcement Agencies support the use of “Full Body Scanners”  and I suspect it won’t be long before we are subjected to more Private Security evasiveness into our everyday lives and routines… Once we get used to the idea of them being at Airports then it will become harder to object to them being used just about anywhere a large group of people gather… I am sure Government Buildings and The Courts will be next, followed by “random selection use” on citizens at large Stadiums, Arena’s, Schools and any other area deemed at risk for a “Terror Attack”…

We have come far enough from the Christmas attack to start to draw some conclusions.   For this discussion, I will not assume that there was any deliberate effort to stitch up Obama.    I am coming to the conclusion that this was a classic and not amazing example of turf warfare among the 16 intelligence agencies and the various other departments.

Loch Johnson, Regents Professor of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia had some interesting points to make this morning.   In the wake of 9/11 an assortment of reforms were mooted, and many were adopted, many not.

A new Ober intel chief, the Director of National Intelligence, was established.   This office took many of the responsibilities of the Director of Central Intelligence.   The DCI had theoretically had the responsibility to coordinate all the intel agencies.   Now the DNI has that theoretical responsibility and power.

In both cases that power does not actually exist, because the DNI does not have the power to punish and ultimately, fire the various agency directors and assistant directors, nor the budgets of the various agencies.

Johnson’s thesis is that until that power is granted the DNI, we will continue to experience the turf wars that give us the undies bomber.

This authority was proposed for the DNI in 2004 when Congress was considering the reforms of the intel world.   Now, I ask you to guess who it is that persuaded the (Republican) Congress to not have any authorities outside the Pentagon with power over the military intel agencies?  Hint: a pompous ass.

Rummy just did not care to allow civilians to have power to fire the military intel chiefs.   So we can thank Rummy for the undies bomber.   Him and the (Republican) Congress.

I am looking to the president’s meeting with the various intel chiefs with the hope that he fires a few people.   But Congress needs to give the DNI the power he needs to do his job effectively.

YEMEN – The United States and the United Kingdom have both decided to close their embassies given current intelligence regarding al-Qaida’s activity in the area.

The Sunday morning programs seem to indicate that Yemen will become a stronger focus of the President Obama’s efforts to fight terrorism. In what ways this will manifest are as yet unknown.

Deputy Assistan and Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan appeared on FOX News Sunday and on Meet the Press. He explained that the embassies were closed to protect the staff from a “security threat,” and Brennan confirmed there was intelligence that indicated such a danger was a distinct possibility.

“There are indications that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is targeting our embassy and targeting our personnel and we are not going to take any chances with the lives of our diplomats and others who are at that embassy,” Brennan said.

Brennan also stressed that the United States is working closely with the Yemeni government to deal with any threats posed by al-Qaida.

In perusing the headlines at HP, I stumbled upon a very interesting article by Congressman Eric Massa of New York. Apparently, the most recent personal attack on President Obama by a certain former vice-president has finally provoked a strong response from a Democrat. In the article, he also cites Senator Jim DeMint for his obstruction in the confirmation process for the head of the TSA.

“Bring It On” Dick Cheney and Jim DeMint

It is time, as Rep. Massa states, for Dick Cheney to “put up or shut up”. His critique is no longer valid, nor is it sought by anyone who recognizes the horrible mess left to our new president by Cheney and his cronies. Mr. Cheney no longer has any credibility on national security or any other subject for that matter.

Rep. Massa writes:

Vice President Cheney, Senator DeMint, it’s time for both of you to be held accountable for your failures and your poor decisions.

I challenge both of you to stand in the light of day and debate your record with me. Your partisan attacks are nothing but empty rhetoric and it’s time to declare that we can no longer stand by while you attack our President for working to protect our Nation and for having an honest dialog about what went wrong.

Let’s make a New Year’s Resolution to call out hypocrisy in 2010. Stand against it and any time that former Vice President Dick Cheney opens his hypocritical mouth to continue uttering blather, he needs to be challenged in a straight forward factual manner that will demonstrate the emptiness of his rhetoric.

Let us hope that the good Congressman has stoked the fire, that he has inspired others to speak out loudly. It is time for some good old-fashioned pushback! It is time to control the message! It is time to call out the hypocrisy!

McClatchy is running a story this morning asserting that the recent terrorism attempt is going to raise some further obstacles to closing Guantanamo:

Likely casualty of air plot: Obama’s Guantanamo plans

At the center of the issue is the fact that two Guantanamo prisoners, released by the Bush administration in 2007, have been identified as responsible for planning the failed attempt to set off an explosive on Flight 253.

The Obama administration is already dealing with a number of legal entanglements that block the closing of the facility, as well as political opposition from the right. And as it turns out, nearly half of the 198 captives at Guantánamo are citizens of Yemen, 40 of whom have been scheduled for release.

With the likely outcome that, with more Yemenis returning home from Guantanamo, at least some of them will join forces with radical elements in their home country, Mr. Obama faces a difficult situation.

My opinion is that Guantanamo should be closed. It is an affront to the U.S. legal system, and creates problems — spectacularly demonstrated by the recent bombing attempt. Where we have a legal case, we put the person on trial. Where we don’t, we need to release the detainee. The Guantanamo situation is a similar to what happens when we put innocent or harmless people in jail, only to have them criminalized by their environment. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. And we do allow those people return to society.

What do we do with Guantanamo prisoners? Do we release them and suffer possible consequences of our bad decision in opening the facility in the first place? Do we add a potential 40 additional radicals to al Qaeda’s ranks in Yemen? Or do we continue to hold these people without legal grounds?

Most, if not all, of us here are familiar with the argument some terrorists give in defence of their attacks upon the West. It’s our foreign policy. And you can’t deny that our foreign policy, especially of the last 8 years, has been a disaster. (‘Disaster’ is a strong word, but when you think about GWB’s foreign policy, even a word like ‘disaster’ underdescribes it.) By ‘our’ I refer to the foreign policy of both America and the UK.

That said, I believe that some, even many, terrorists leap on that as an excuse to blow things and people to smithereens. I believe that even if our foreign policy had been different, some of them would still be planning and plotting (and mixing lethal chemicals), because of something they don’t have, that they want.  The question is: what is it?

Here is one possible answer. Over here in the UK and about 3 years ago, the Muslim Council of Britain convinced Tony Blair that if he would just change his foreign policy, he would not have to worry anymore about big bombings in London. They worked on him for a long time, and the early withdrawal from Basra is thought by many to be an example of Tony Blair heeding that advice and modifying his foreign policy. Not as much as the MCB would have liked, but it was a start.

But lo and behold, he had no sooner satisfied the Muslim Council of Britain on that, than they suddenly decided that our domestic policy needed a do-over. Yes indeed. And the upshot of that , is this: we now have 85 Shariah law courts in the UK and just over 2000 Madrassas. (You can find more on this by simply Googling things like ‘Shariah law in the UK’ and ‘Madrassas in the UK’, etc. You will find many articles, most of them alarming.)

You can imagine what it’s like trying to have two conflicting systems of justice, in one country.

Not to put too fine a point on it: it just doesn’t work.

The Madrassas do work, unfortunately: little children are taught that jihad is a good thing and killing Jews is an even better thing. Not in all of them, mind you, but in some. About a month ago the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was taken to task in the House of Commons for providing funding (out of British taxpayer money) to a certain Madrassa, without so much as investigating what was being taught there. At the same time, he was taken to task for not putting an extremist Islamic group, called Islam4UK, on the ban list. It is true that the person taking him to task was the leader of the opposition, David Cameron; but it is equally true that neither Gordon Brown nor any of his cabinet ministers ( a few appeared on the BBC and Sky that very night), denied it. They could not, because it was true.

My point, in giving a possible answer as to what they want, is that some of these terrorists and those radicals that support them, want to subsume our culture under theirs. (Holland is another example of this kind of thing.) They are not interested in living side by side with another, differing culture. They want power. The more they get, the more they want….and, sadly, with both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, it would seem that the more they want, the more they get.

It’s called appeasement. Anything, anything at all, to prevent another big terror attack…or another ’spectacular’ as some say these terrorists like to call them.

I am sorry about the foreign policy that may have exacerbated the situation, but I am just as sorry that political cowardice, on the part of the New Labour, has led to the UK becoming, in some areas, anyway, almost unrecognizable as it continuously gives in, and gives ground, to the demands of over-enthusiastic Muslims. (I think I put that last rather kindly. I’d have preferred a different adjective, but never mind.)

Negotiation is one thing, but ‘peace at any price’, appeasement, is not the answer. I am hoping that President Obama does not go down this road, no matter what may happen. It’s not a road you can easily turn around on.