Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Christians endangered species in ancestral land?
As Christmas approaches, it is worth remembering the historical roots of Christians in the Middle East, and recognizing just how much the plight of Middle East Christians has deteriorated.
Despite Muslim domination of the region, Christians comprised an estimated 20% of the Middle East population until the early 20th century. Today, however, Christians make up a mere 5% of the Middle East and their numbers are fast dwindling. Writing in the Winter 2001 issue of Middle East Quarterly, scholar Daniel Pipes estimated that Middle East Christians would "likely drop to" half of their numbers "by the year 2020" because of declining birth rates, and a pattern of "exclusion and persecution" leading to emigration.
The "Arab Spring" has only worsened conditions for the indigenous Christians of the Middle East. Like the Kurds, Middle East Christians are a stateless minority, struggling to survive in the world's toughest neighborhood. But the Kurds at least have enjoyed partial autonomy in Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991 and most of them are Sunni Muslim, making it easier for them to survive in the Muslim-dominated Middle East. Christians, on the other hand, are a religious minority that controls no territory and is entirely subject to the whims of their hosts. These host countries – with the exception of Israel – each offer a grim future to Middle East Christians.
In Egypt, the fate of Christians lies with Mohammed Morsi, who used to be a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and who has lost no time in trying to introduce Sharia law to Egypt. Home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, Egypt also has the largest Christian population in the Middle East, totaling 8-12 million people. But because Christian Copts make up only about 10-15% of Egypt's estimated 80 million people, they have for decades lived in fear as second-class citizens, subjected to attacks on churches, villages, homes, and shops; mob killings; and the abduction and forced Islamic conversion of Christian women compelled to marry Muslim men. If such abuse took place under the staunchly secular regime of Hosni Mubarak (which had banned the Muslim Brotherhood), what can the Christians expect under the rule of an Islamist like Mohammed Morsi?
In Lebanon, Christians represent a bigger portion of the population, so their fate is for now less precarious than that of their Egyptian coreligionists, but their long-term prospects are worrisome. The Christian population is estimated to have dropped from over 50% (according to a 1932 census) to about 40%. Over the last few years, the de facto governing power in Lebanon has become Hezbollah, the radical and heavily-armed Shiite movement sponsored by Iran. With all of the spillover violence and instability produced by the Syrian civil war and/or the next war that Hezbollah decides to start with Israel, the emigration of Christians out of Lebanon will probably only increase in the coming years, leaving those who stay increasingly vulnerable.
In Syria, 2.5 million Christians comprise about 10% of the population and enjoyed some protection under the secular and often brutal regimes of the Assad dynasty. But when the Syrian civil war eventually brings down the Assad regime and Alawite rule, the past protection of Christians may be the cause of their future persecution by the next regime and/or by the Syrian Sunnis who suffered under the Alawites. Christians have already been targeted and killed by rebels, and the sectarian chaos and violence that will likely prevail in Assad's wake will only increase the number of Christians fleeing Syria.
In Iraq, the bloody aftermath of the 2003 invasion demonstrated how dangerous life can become for a Christian minority when a multi-cultural society in the Middle East explodes into sectarian violence. By 2008, half of the 800,000 Iraqi Christians were estimated to have left, rendering those remaining even more insecure. In 2010, Salafist extremists attacked a Baghdad church during Sunday Mass, killing or wounding nearly the whole congregation. Such incidents turn any communal gathering into a potential massacre, forcing Christians across the Middle East to ask the ultimate question of faith: "Am I prepared to die for Christian worship?"The Arab Spring threatens to exacerbate matters in much of the Middle East as Islamists now either control the government or influence it enough to persecute Christians with impunity. As new Islamist regimes in the Middle East condone religious intolerance and introduce Sharia and blasphemy laws, the long-term trend for Christians in their ancestral lands will only grow bleaker.
The one bright spot is the state of Israel – "the only place in the Middle East [where] Christians are really safe," according to the Vicar of St George's Church in Baghdad, Canon Andrew White. Home to Christianity's holiest sites and to a colorful array of Christian denominations, Israel has the only growing Christian community in the Middle East.
Because Israel is the only non-Muslim state in all of the Middle East and North Africa, it represents a small victory for religious minorities in the region, and serves as the last protector of freedom and security for Jews, Christians, Bahai, Druze, and others. Without Israel, how much more vulnerable would Christians in the Middle East become?
Good move...PUNISH THE KIDS YOU SCHMUCK!
Russia may ban U.S. adoptions in retaliatory move
Russia is threatening to ban Americans from adopting Russian children in retaliation for a new US law that forbids Russian officials accused of human rights abuses from travelling to the US. The proposed ban has sparked an outcry among Russia's human rights community and opposition, who have accused the country's rubber-stamp parliament of holding children hostage to politics.
Members of the ruling United Russia party are expected to introduce amendments with the adoption ban on Wednesday, when the parliament considers on a crucial second reading a new bill that would ban Americans who have been "implicated in violations of rights of Russian citizens". The bill was given initial approval on Friday.
"I think it will be approved," Sergei Neverov, the deputy speaker of the Duma, said this
Read more: http://times247.com/articles/russian-retaliation-may-ban-u-s-adoptions#ixzz2FT8Mc0c3
Members of the ruling United Russia party are expected to introduce amendments with the adoption ban on Wednesday, when the parliament considers on a crucial second reading a new bill that would ban Americans who have been "implicated in violations of rights of Russian citizens". The bill was given initial approval on Friday.
"I think it will be approved," Sergei Neverov, the deputy speaker of the Duma, said this
Read more: http://times247.com/articles/russian-retaliation-may-ban-u-s-adoptions#ixzz2FT8Mc0c3
Irish abortion law clarified for pregnancies that threaten mothers' lives following death of pregnant Indian woman
Outrage at death of pregnant woman in Galway hospital forces a government
rethink
Ireland is to legalize abortions when the mother's life is at risk, including when she is suicidal, weeks after the death of Savita Halappanavar who died after being refused an abortion. ...
Ireland’s cabinet took the decision on Tuesday following a huge public outcry over the death of Mrs Halappanavar, a pregnant woman in October who died after her repeated requests for an abortion were refused while she was suffering a miscarriage.
The Irish government has decided to repeal legislation that makes abortion a criminal act and to introduce regulations setting out when doctors can perform an abortion when a woman’s life is regarded as being at risk, including by suicide.
Read more: http://times247.com/articles/ireland-to-legalize-abortion-for-life-of-mother#ixzz2FT7tV0GR
Ireland is to legalize abortions when the mother's life is at risk, including when she is suicidal, weeks after the death of Savita Halappanavar who died after being refused an abortion. ...
Ireland’s cabinet took the decision on Tuesday following a huge public outcry over the death of Mrs Halappanavar, a pregnant woman in October who died after her repeated requests for an abortion were refused while she was suffering a miscarriage.
The Irish government has decided to repeal legislation that makes abortion a criminal act and to introduce regulations setting out when doctors can perform an abortion when a woman’s life is regarded as being at risk, including by suicide.
Read more: http://times247.com/articles/ireland-to-legalize-abortion-for-life-of-mother#ixzz2FT7tV0GR
MUSLIMS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO CARRY GUNS! THATS WHY!
No Fort Hood? Obama left out massacre in speech
On his Monday radio show, conservative talker Mark Levin was critical of President Barack Obama’s Sunday address regarding the heartbreaking Newtown, Conn., shooting deaths of 20 children and six adult victims.
Obama’s address, Levin said, omited any mention of the November 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas — which killed 13 and wounded 29 others. ...
Levin quoted a July 19 CBS News story that acknowledged the political correctness that drove coverage of the Fort Hood shooting. Obama didn’t mention it, he contended, because of his own political correctness about Islam.
Read more: http://times247.com/articles/levin-wonders-why-obama-ignored-fort-hood#ixzz2FT5ZF2mQ
Obama’s address, Levin said, omited any mention of the November 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas — which killed 13 and wounded 29 others. ...
Levin quoted a July 19 CBS News story that acknowledged the political correctness that drove coverage of the Fort Hood shooting. Obama didn’t mention it, he contended, because of his own political correctness about Islam.
Read more: http://times247.com/articles/levin-wonders-why-obama-ignored-fort-hood#ixzz2FT5ZF2mQ
Belgium seeks euthanasia for minors
Belgium is considering a significant change to its decade-old euthanasia law that would allow minors and Alzheimer's sufferers to seek permission to die.
The proposed changes to the law were submitted to parliament Tuesday by the Socialist party and are likely to be approved by other parties, although no date has yet been put forward for a parliamentary debate. ...
The draft legislation calls for "the law to be extended to minors if they are capable of discernment or affected by an incurable illness or suffering that we cannot alleviate."
Read more: http://times247.com/articles/belgium-looks-at-euthanasia-for-minors#ixzz2FT4r3ke1
The proposed changes to the law were submitted to parliament Tuesday by the Socialist party and are likely to be approved by other parties, although no date has yet been put forward for a parliamentary debate. ...
The draft legislation calls for "the law to be extended to minors if they are capable of discernment or affected by an incurable illness or suffering that we cannot alleviate."
Read more: http://times247.com/articles/belgium-looks-at-euthanasia-for-minors#ixzz2FT4r3ke1
China detains Christians preaching doomsday
Chinese police have detained more than 500 people from a fringe Christian group for spreading rumors about the world's impending end, state media reported Tuesday.
In western China's Qinghai province alone, police arrested more than 400 members from the religious cult group, state-run China Central Television said Tuesday. ...
The detentions come ahead of Friday, Dec. 21 — a date some say the Mayans prophesized would be the end of the world and which was the subject of the apocalyptic movie "2012."
Read more: http://times247.com/articles/china-detains-christians-over-doomsday-rumors#ixzz2FT4PZP8S
In western China's Qinghai province alone, police arrested more than 400 members from the religious cult group, state-run China Central Television said Tuesday. ...
The detentions come ahead of Friday, Dec. 21 — a date some say the Mayans prophesized would be the end of the world and which was the subject of the apocalyptic movie "2012."
Read more: http://times247.com/articles/china-detains-christians-over-doomsday-rumors#ixzz2FT4PZP8S
State Dept. official hesitant to discuss admission of Israel to counterterrorism org
The Obama administration decided earlier this year to exclude Israel from the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF), a coalition of countries that work together to combat terror.
The Jewish state’s omission from the forum prompted a sharp response from the Jewish community and from pro-Israel lawmakers on Capitol Hill who accused the administration of kowtowing to Middle Eastern nations.
Dan Benjamin, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, said during a public discussion Tuesday afternoon at the Brookings Institution that there are no immediate plans to invite Israel to the forum.
The issue of admitting more members was discussed last week in Abu Dhabi when the GCTF’s 29 members gathered for their most recent powwow.
“This issue was on the agenda in Abu Dhabi and the group has agreed that the co-chairs will put through a proposition, not specifically on Israel, but on how nonmembers are engaged by the GCTF in the future,” Benjamin said in response to a question from the audience.
“Different parts of the organization are embracing different practices,” Benjamin said, suggesting that Israel still faces great opposition from certain members.
“We [the U.S.] strongly believe Israel has an important contribution to be made … and we have certainly spoken at length to the Israelis about it and simply will continue working this issue and are determined we’ll get a positive outcome on that,” he said, declining to speculate on whether Israel will ultimately be invited.
The GCTF has made large strides without Israel, Benjamin said.
“We strongly believe the activities of the group are beneficial to everyone’s security,” he said. “The GCTF is making a real difference.”
Benjamin also indicated that al Qaeda is losing its popularity and support system across the Middle East.
There is a “clear indication the al Qaeda message continues to wane in popularity,” he said, echoing a talking point often articulated by President Barack Obama.
“Al Qaeda’s core has been seriously degraded,” Benjamin said, citing the death of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. “The al Qaeda core is on the path to defeat.”
The assassination of 20 to 30 of al Qaeda’s top figures throughout the region has brought the terror organization to the brink of financial collapse, preventing it from training new recruits and launching attacks, he said.
Benjamin went on to express concern about extremist elements in Syria where a bloody civil war aimed at toppling President Bashar al-Assad has opened the country to radical jihadists.
In Syria, “al Qaeda in Iraq seeks to establish a long term presence” and is “working to hijack a long repressed nation’s struggle to meet their own extremist needs,” Benjamin said.
While maintaining that terrorist elements in the Middle East are on the retreat, Benjamin mostly avoided discussing the deadly Sept. 11, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya, that claimed the lives of four Americans.
http://freebeacon.com/israel-on-the-outside/
UN puts peacekeepers on new DR Congo alert
UN puts peacekeepers on new DR Congo alert
THE United Nations has put peacekeeper reinforcements on alert after hundreds of rebels moved around the key Democratic Republic of Congo city of Goma.
The United Nations raised new worries about the M23 and other rebel groups as it announced that at least 126 women were raped in a nearby town, mainly by Congolese government troops as they retreated from Goma last month.
The DR Congo government has been battling the M23, which UN experts say is backed by Rwanda, since March when the rebel group launched a mutiny.
The M23 briefly took Goma last month before withdrawing and agreeing to start talks with the government in Kampala.
UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladous briefed the UN Security Council about renewed tensions around Goma and preparations in case new hostilities erupt.
Afterwards, he told reporters hundreds of M23 fighters have been reported to be inside a ceasefire zone 20km around Goma.
"We are ready to send reinforcements to Goma very, very quickly if circumstances demand," Ladsous said on Tuesday.
He said rebels are carrying out "erratic but worrying movements" around the city and the UN mission "is very much on the alert and patrolling constantly, including with aircraft."
The UN has its biggest peacekeeping mission in DR Congo, with more than 17,000 troops who are spread thin in the huge country.
The M23 agitation could be linked to the talks between their leaders and the government in Kampala, Ladsous speculated.
Ladsous als warned that hundreds of fighters of another rebel group, the self-styled Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), had also been spotted around Goma.
The presence of the FDLR, created by perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide who fled to DR Congo, so near to the border is one reason for Rwanda's sensitivity to events in its neighbour, diplomats said.
The advance by M23 is just the latest episode of near continuous turmoil to hit the resource-rich region since the 1990s.
Hundreds of thousands of people are said to have died in that time while DR Congo has also become what the UN has called the "rape capital of the world".
It said UN investigators had found that at least 126 women were raped around the town of Minova, near Goma, as government forces retreated between November 20 and November 30.
Ladsous said there had been "terrible violations" mostly carried out by government troops.
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said earlier that nine government soldiers have been arrested so far -- two for rapes and seven for looting -- around Minova.
US lashes Israel over building in East Jerusalem and settlements, Europe set to follow suit
State Department accuses Israel of engaging in a ‘pattern of provocative action’
PARIS (AP) — Germany and the three other West European members of the U.N. Security Council are preparing a statement condemning Israel’s latest settlement plans in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, two European diplomatic officials said Tuesday.
Meanwhile the United States slammed Israel for continuing to announce new settlement construction on land claimed by the Palestinians in an unusually rare and blunt criticism of its top Mideast ally.
The State Department accused Israel on Tuesday of engaging in a “pattern of provocative action” that runs counter to statements from Israeli leaders that they are committed to peace. Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said settlement activity only puts the goal of peace “further at risk.” She urged both Israel and the Palestinians to halt all provocations and take steps to revive long-stalled peace talks.
Permanent council members Britain and France plus Germany and Portugal — who are wrapping up two-year terms — are concerned that such settlements could threaten a possible two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, the officials said. Details of the statement are being finalized in New York, the diplomats said on condition of anonymity because the work was not yet completed.
The two European officials said the statement of condemnation will be presented to council members, but the European countries are not seeking to have it approved as an official statement by the council or as a resolution — most likely because of near-certain opposition by the United States, Israel’s closest ally.
The move stems from a string of recent Israeli settlement announcements, the diplomats said, including one on Monday in which Israel said it will push forward with plans to build 1,500 apartments in east Jerusalem, the Palestinians’ hoped-for capital.
The statement by key European countries on the U.N.’s most powerful body would be a symbolic, but nonetheless high-profile show of displeasure with the Israelis.
The European Union, Israel’s biggest trading partner, has been increasingly vocal in its criticism of new settlements just as Israel is gearing up for general elections next month. In an unprecedented move, a string of European governments summoned their local Israeli ambassadors to lodge protests following the Israeli settlement announcements.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been unshaken by the criticism, and on Tuesday he vowed to continue building in east Jerusalem. “Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the state of Israel, and we will continue to build there. A united Jerusalem expresses a wide national agreement,” he said in the northern Israeli town of Acre.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment on the reported European initiative in the Security Council, since nothing formal has been proposed. But Palmor said the idea of taking action at the United Nations only lowers the chances of renewing peace talks, and he insisted the only way to advance negotiations is “to weigh on the Palestinians and convince them to return to the negotiating table.”
“Fiddling with U.N. resolutions will take us the opposite way,” he added. “So it’s their choice to make, a step forward or two steps backward.”
One of the European diplomats said the proposed statement of condemnation would be a “political message” distributed to all the other council members but that the Europeans are not asking the council to adopt a formal “presidential statement” or less important “press statement.” Each of those would require approval by all council members.
In such cases, the United States has often stepped in on the side of Israel on the recurrent issue of settlements.
Almost exactly a year ago, the same four European nations issued a statement critical of Israeli settlements at the UN Security Council. They and the other 10 members pointed a finger at the United States for blocking any condemnation of Israel’s accelerated settlement construction.
The United States vetoed a UN resolution in February that would have condemned “illegal” Israeli settlements and urged an immediate halt to all settlement building. The 14 other Security Council members voted in favor of the resolution.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has repeatedly spoken out against the settlements, but her government is wary of being too tough on Israel — whose safety she has declared to be a key German interest. Germany is considered one of Israel’s staunchest political allies in the European Union, as skepticism about Israel’s policies is growing across the 27-nation bloc.
When Netanyahu visited Berlin earlier this month, Merkel said their differing views of Israel’s settlement policies were well known, but she went to great length to stress the solid friendship bond between the two countries which trumps those differences.
Netanyahu announced plans to build thousands of homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in response to the UN General Assembly’s decision last month to upgrade the Palestinians’ status to nonmember observer state. Israeli’s closest European allies — Britain, Germany, Italy and France — all abstained or voted with the Palestinians.
Peace talks have been frozen for four years, in large part because of the settlement issue. The Palestinians refuse to negotiate while Israel expands its settlements, which are now home to more than 500,000 Israelis.
Netanyahu has rejected calls to halt settlement construction, saying that a partial freeze he imposed in 2009 and 2010 failed to restart substantive negotiations. He says talks should resume without any preconditions.
Israeli officials have brushed off the international criticism as either unfair or by portraying it as a disagreement among friends. But officials say the increasingly frosty relations with Europe are a cause for concern.
Hamas bars EU observers from border crossing with Egypt
‘The European monitors have left the Rafah crossing, never to return,’ Hamas parliamentarian says. ‘There is no place for foreigners in it’
Hamas is preventing the return of European monitors to the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, despite an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority requiring their presence at the border.
“There is no need for their return, since they have forsaken the sick who died at the Rafah crossing and were in need of their intervention,” Maher Abu Sabha, Hamas’s director of the crossing, told the Al-Resalah news website on Sunday. He added that the Europeans have asked to return to Rafah following the ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and Hamas on November 21, which ended Operation Pillar of Defense.
The European Union Border Assistance Mission in Rafah (EUBAM Rafah) began operating at the Rafah crossing in November 2005, following Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip, as part of the Agreement on Movement and Access signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Under the agreement, EU monitors on the ground were complemented by a system of surveillance cameras, which broadcast the activity at the border to an Israeli control center at the Kerem Shalom border crossing. EUBAM was active at the Rafah crossing until June 2007, when Hamas violently took control of the Gaza Strip, ousting the PA presence there.
Today, EUBAM operates out of an office near Tel Aviv but, according to its website, it is “ready to re-engage at very short notice.”
However, Ismail al-Ashqar, a Hamas parliament member based in Gaza, said that will not happen any time soon.
“The Rafah crossing is a Palestinian-Egyptian crossing only, and there is no place for foreigners in it from now on,” Ashqar told Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV station on Monday. “Palestinians do not want to return to the past on the issue of Rafah’s land crossing. The European observers have left the crossing, never to return.”
Ashqar added that Hamas would only reconsider the European presence at the border if the EU pressured Israel to reopen Gaza’s seaport and airport, which has been inactive since October 2000.
Russian warships sail for Syria, large anti-submarine ship for waters near Iran
Russian warships set out Tuesday, Dec. 18, for two Middle East flashpoint destinations: Naval sources in Moscow reported that two assault ships, a tanker and an escort vessel were detached from the Baltic Fleet and are sailing for the Syrian port of Tartus – possibly to evacuate Russian citizens. A second naval group led by Russia’s largest anti-submarine vessel, the Severomorsk, is on its way to the Gulfs of Aden and Oman close to the Persian Gulf and Iran.
The ships destined for Syria are the Russian fleet’s two largest amphibious assault vessels, the Kaliningrad and the Alexander Shabalin, which is a cruiser converted to a guided missile frigate renamed Yaroslav the Wise, the SB-921 rescue and tug ship, and the Lena military tanker.
Russian military sources say this flotilla will relieve the Black Sea Fleet’s task force vessels deployed off the Syrian coast since November.
The Severomorsk heading for waters near the Persian Gulf is escorted by ships which Russian sources have not named as well as a military tanker and a supply and rescue ship.
debkafile’s military and Moscow sources report that, while the Russians are undoubtedly concerned with the fate of the 20,000 Russian nationals remaining in war-torn Syria, the type of warships dispatched to Tartus do not fit the description of evacuation craft. They look more like a major Russian naval buildup opposite the Syrian coast.
For one thing, they are larger and more formidable than the Black Sea fleet ships they are relieving: the medium, amphibious assault ships, the Novocherkassk and Saratov, each of which carries 250 marines. The new arrivals each carry 520 marines and 25 amphibious tanks.
For another, if it becomes necessary to evacuate large numbers of Russian refugees in a hurry, they are likely to be lifted out by air rather than by sea. Large transports are already on hand, touching down almost daily at Damascus and Aleppo airports with a continuous supply of weapons, ammunition and spare parts for replenishing the army loyal to Bashar Assad.
The Russian aircraft are practically the only foreign flights visiting the two beleaguered Syrian airports. While keeping Assad’s army in essential supplies, Moscow is also maintaining a constant presence there against the contingency of having to fly large numbers of Russian civilians out of the country.
debkafile’s sources add that, while some Western quarters depict Russia’s military steps as actuated by the expectation of Assad’s imminent fall, Middle East military and Western intelligence sources see them rather as preparation for the international commotion and fallout arising from the introduction of chemical warfare to the Syrian conflict by the Syrian army or the insurgents.
Both Washington and Moscow calculate that Assad may be in a race against certain rebel units, which are making a dash to lay hands on some of Syria’s biggest chemical and biological weapons stores.
One high-placed Western military source told debkafile Tuesday: “We can no longer be certain which side will use chemical weapons first - the Syrian army or the rebels – or even against whom: targets inside Syria or across its borders.”
According to this source, the countries abutting on Syria are deep in discreet though comprehensive military preparations in anticipation of three potential perils:
1. A chemical weapons attack on Turkey, Jordan or Israel and US military facilities present in those countries;
2. The outbreak of chemical warfare between the Syrian army and rebels - both armed with poisonsous substances;
3. Either of those contingencies if close would trigger rapid military action - both by combined Western-Arab forces and Israel - to get hold of Syria’s chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction and put them out of reach of Assad’s army and rebel units alike.
Jewish groups and lawmakers seeking gun control get major boost from Obama
US president supports Dianne Feinstein’s assault weapons ban after Newtown massacre
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In the wake of the shooting rampage in Newtown, Conn., Jewish groups and lawmakers are looking to build alliances and bring about legislation to strengthen gun control laws.
Their early efforts got a major boost on Tuesday from President Obama, who announced he would back the reinstatement of a ban on assault weapons that will be introduced next month by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
A number of Jewish groups have indicated that they will back the gun control bill proposed Monday by Feinstein, the first since the Newtown shooting. It would ban more than 100 assault weapons and ammunition clips that contain more than 10 rounds.
The Newtown killer, Adam Lanza, used a Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle registered in the name of his mother, whom he killed before heading to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, where he murdered 20 children and six adults before killing himself. Police have said he used multiple clips, although their capacity has not been publicly reported.
Jared Loughner, the gunman in the January 2011 attack in Tucson, Ariz., that grievously wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and killed six others, had a 33-round magazine.
The legislation, Feinstein said in a statement Monday, “will be carefully focused on the most dangerous guns that have killed so many people over the years while protecting the rights of gun owners by exempting hundreds of weapons that fall outside the bill’s scope.”
Feinstein helped draft the last iteration of an assault weapons ban, in 1994. It lapsed in 2004, after the National Rifle Association fought against its renewal.
Rabbi David Saperstein, the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said that his group is assembling a coalition that would be ready to act once the right legislation comes along.
“The point now is to create the atmosphere in which there is a demand for action, using our voices, organizing the parents in our pews,” said Saperstein. “When the parents across America start crying out for effective action, if there’s religious leadership, it will galvanize the community to create the moral demand that moves toward sensible legislation.”
Staff at the RAC, the locus in the Jewish community for gun control initiatives in past decades, spent Monday reaching out to other Jewish leaders, as well as to leaders of other faith communities.
“The best way is to rally the faith community and come together around shared policy,” said RAC spokeswoman Rachel Laser.
B’nai B’rith International on Monday demanded the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban.
“Assault weapons enable a shooter to fire multiple rounds without stopping to reload as they automatically expel and load ammunition with each trigger-pull,” B’nai B’rith said in a statement. “There is no sane, acceptable, reasonable need in a civilian setting to fire off large rounds of ammunition.”
The Jewish Council for Public Affairs circulated a petition through its constituent Jewish community relations councils that calls for “meaningful legislation to limit access to assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines, aggressive enforcement of firearm regulations, robust efforts to ensure that every person in need has access to quality mental health care, and a serious national conversation about violence in media and games.”
Officials of Jewish groups planning on action said the likeliest vehicle would be Feinstein’s legislation, which she plans to introduce as soon as Congress reconvenes, in January.
“We have been in touch with Sen. Feinstein,” said Susan Turnbull, who chairs Jewish Women International, a group that has as a principal focus combating domestic violence. “We support her bill.”
The National Council of Jewish Women, which has also taken a leading role in the Jewish community on gun control initiatives in the past, announced its support Tuesday for the Feinstein legislation and for legislation proposed by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that would tighten background checks. The NCJW has in the past mobilized a grassroots network of activists to push for gun control legislation. Hadassah also called on Congress to introduce reforms.
The United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism and the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly on Monday called not only for a ban on assault weapons, but for longer purchase times, deeper background checks, coding ammunition for identification and banning online sales of ammunition.
President Obama, attending a prayer vigil in Newtown on Sunday, said that he was ready to back action that would address such violence.
“Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard?” he said. “Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”
Although he was short on specifics, a number of observers said that Obama’s strong language suggested he was ready to do what he had avoided in his first term: Advance assault weapons restrictions.
In addition to Feinstein and Schumer, a number of other Jewish lawmakers have also weighed in. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), who in the next Congress will be the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement that “expressions of sympathy must be matched by concrete actions.”
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), who is retiring, expressed support for an assault weapons ban and proposed a national commission on mass shootings.
In addition to banning assault weapons, Jewish groups are also seeking broader initiatives to address violence.
Rabbi Levi Shemtov, who directs American Friends of Lubavitch, said he would bring to the attention of lawmakers a study that links mandatory moments of silence to drops in juvenile violence.
Turnbull of Jewish Women International said that any legislation should deal also with identifying and treating individuals whose mental health should preclude access to weapons.
“We will back any legislation that bans assault weapons and the ammunition as well as giving families what they need to treat individuals with a proclivity toward violence,” said Turnbull, a former vice-chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. “I think this will be the ‘big idea,’ that the president is not going to limit the conversation to just guns.”
I posted this article on 12/14/12 and it proves that if you ban guns LIKE CHINA HAS, the school attacks will be more violent and gruesome because a CRIMINAL will FIND A WAY!
End of Days News : China school knife attack in Henan injures 22 chil...: A man with a knife has wounded 22 children - at least two of them seriously - and an adult at a primary school in central China. ...
'Martial law' policing plan announced in Arkansas town
A plan by the mayor and police chief of a crime-ridden Arkansas city to deploy heavily-armed and armored police units that will conduct spot interrogations and ID checks is being compared to martial law and a suspension of constitutional rights.
Paragould Mayor Mike Gaskill and Police Chief Todd Stovall announced the severe measures at a Thursday town hall meeting at the West View Baptist Church.
Dozens of residents listened while Stovall outlined the plan to deal with the city's high crime rate. Starting next year, the police department will roll out a new street crimes unit consisting of officers in SWAT gear armed with AR-15 assault rifles.
"If you're out walking, we're going to stop you, ask why you're out walking, check for your ID," Stovall warned. The police chief acknowledged that some citizens might be alarmed or offended by this paramilitary policing strategy but said they shouldn't be worried.
"Anyone who's out walking, because of the crime and the fear factor" could be stopped and interrogated, he said.
"We're going to do it to everybody," Stovall promised. "Criminals don't like being talked to."
Mayor Gaskill wholeheartedly endorsed the plan, which seems to shred Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination and the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of due process.
"[Residents] may not be doing anything but walking their dog, but they're going to have to prove it," Gaskill said.
Tellingly, Chief Stovall admitted that city officials did not consult any attorneys while drafting their draconian plan. Stovall even admitted that there isn't much, if any, difference between his plan and martial law.
"I don't know that there's a difference," he confessed.
"This fear is what's given us the reason to do this," Stovall explained. "Once I have stats and people saying they're scared, we can do this."
On Friday, Stovall again cited "fear" and "statistics" to justify the city's controversial plan.
"To ask for your ID, I have to have a reason," he told the Paragould Daily Press. "Well, I've got statistical reasons that say I've got a lot of crime right now, which gives me probable cause to ask what you're doing out. Then when I add that people are scared... then that gives us even more [reason] to ask why you are here and what you are doing in this area."
Paragould, a city of 26,500 residents located in the northeastern part of Arkansas about 88 miles northwest of Memphis, Tennessee, does suffer from higher-than-average crime rates. Although there was only one murder in the years 2000-2010 and the overall violent crime rate is nearly 10 percent below the national average, certain types of crimes have soared. The assault rate has increased fivefold since 2000. Burglaries and thefts are up fourfold, reflected in a property crime rate 2.5 times the national average. There are also twice as many rapes per capita as the national average.
What would happen to those Paragould residents who refuse to cooperate with the new paramilitary policing plan?
"I'm hoping we don't run across any of that," Chief Stovall told the Daily Press. "Will there be people who buck us? There may be. But we have a right to be doing what we're doing," he insisted. "We have zero tolerance. We are prepared to throw your high-end in jail, OK? We're not going to take a lot of flack."
As this story has gained national attention, Stovall and Gaskill have attempted to paint a rosier picture of their controversial plan.
"The only people who are really going to be impacted by this are mostly the unknowns," Mayor Gaskill told the Daily Press on Friday. "We just want to make a presence out there for the criminal element. And we want to make a presence for the people who are concerned and give them a sense of security."
Paragould residents reacted to the news of the city's plan with a mixture of approval and shock.
"Sorry, but I agree with the police," Mary Davis wrote to the Daily Press. "You cannot even walk to your car without scumbags making threats. We have to do something. The thugs are winning because they use the law against us."
Stanley L. Garner agreed. "I would love for the PPD to patrol my area," he wrote. "Maybe they can hinder the thumping and bumping around B Street and stop some of the thieves around this area. If I'm outside, stop me by all means to find out if I live where I say. Thank the PPD and Mayor's office."
Others were not so enthusiastic about what they perceive as a police state plan.
"Not only will this give Paragould a bad name and ruin our reputation for new businesses to come, but it will scare the hell out of our children," a local father of two named Joe wrote to the Daily Press. "The problem with the crime rate will not be fixed by creating a foot clan of crooked cops dressed in SWAT gear carrying AR-15s."
"This is going to look like the Brown Shirts patrolling Munich in 1939," an unidentified resident wrote to the paper. "Scale it back. Armed police on a bike might be a better solution. This will likely get the Friendly City on CNN's 'Ridiculist.'"
"This isn't East Berlin, it's Arkansas," Tommy Carter told Opposing Views. "I don't care how much crime there is, you have no right to infringe on my rights without a warrant. Period!"
Curiously, the Paragould Police Department's own website proudly claims that the city was recently named the safest in Arkansas with a population over 20,000.
PPD issued a statement on its website attempting to allay concerns about violations of citizens' rights. It reads, in part:
Many citizens, through various media outlets, have expressed a concern about police "violating rights" or "violating the Constitution." We have to abide by the same rules, regulations and laws that our citizens do. We are not out to violate anyone's rights. Once we have an area that shows a high crime rate or a high call volume, it is our duty and obligation to find out why this is occurring and what we can do to prevent the trend from continuing. Therefore, identifying subjects in those problem areas help us solve crimes, and hopefully to prevent future crimes.
Is this a free country? The stupidity of some people is so overwhelming I pray for the return of CHRIST soon cause I don't know how much more I can take!
Player barred from UNA team over tweet about Obama
FLORENCE, Ala. (AP) — The University of North Alabama says a walk-on football player won't be allowed back on the team after sending a tweet about President Barack Obama.
Sports publicist Jeff Hodges said Monday coaches have informed lineman Bradley Patterson of Red Bay that he's no longer welcome because of his social media comment.
Hodges says coaches acted after being informed of a message that refers to Obama by a racial epithet. The tweet complained that Obama's speech about the Connecticut school massacre pre-empted an NFL game Sunday night.
Hodges says the school found that there's no question the tweet was issued by Patterson. Patterson couldn't be reached by The Associated Press for comment Monday.
Hodges says Patterson joined the team as a walk-on after the fourth game of this season.
New World Order tax: Ready for UN Taxes?
While President Obama and Speaker John Boehner are wrestling with whether or not they will agree to raise taxes, United Nations delegates partying in Doha, Qatar are planning to impose a new kind of tax on Americans. U.N. conferees have been discussing how they can start a global tax that would hit Americans hard.
The U.N. bureaucrats are not deterred by the fact that Americans should be protected by our U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 7, which specifies that "all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives." The greedy globalist U.N. bureaucrats have been conniving for about 20 years to bypass Congress and tax individual Americans, and now they think they have devised a formula to do this.
Their vehicle for this travesty is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The U.N. convention delegates dream they can transform the economic structure of the world by a new global treaty using global warming fears (even though the globe has not warmed for the past 16 years).
UNFCCC's executive secretary Christiana Figueres will call a "significant number of meetings and workshops" next year to prepare the new document. The plan is for U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in 2014 to "convene leaders to mobilize the political will to ensure that the 2015 deadline is met" to start this global tax.
This new U.N. document will cap greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, and replace our use of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. Government will be expected to subsidize green energy because plenty of evidence proves that alternate energy sources are far more expensive and cannot compete in the marketplace.
Obama gave a half-billion U.S. tax dollars to the solar-panel company Solyndra, which promptly went bankrupt and now is arguing about who will pay the $600-per-hour lawyers who worked on the deal. After Obama gave $133 million of a $249 million grant to a firm named A123 to make batteries for electric cars, that company went bankrupt, too, and now is auctioned to a Chinese company, Wanxiang Group.
The Doha delegates are salivating at the thought of creating a new $100-billion-a-year fund by imposing a first-ever global tax on the right to cause carbon dioxide emissions. This fund is to be headquartered in South Korea and sweetened by a gigantic flow of taxes on international monetary transactions, international shipping and airline travel.
Agenda 21 is a document called the Declaration on Environment and Development and the Statement of Principles for the Sustainable Management of Forests, which was signed by 178 governments including President George H.W. Bush in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. In 1995, President Bill Clinton followed up by an executive order that established a Presidential Council on Sustainable Development, giving globalist busybodies the excuse to work on it ever since.
Agenda 21's goal is to "save the planet" and "sustain" life on earth regardless of its adverse effect on human life and our standard of living. It is based on the very un-American notion that private property is "a social injustice since not everyone can build wealth from it."
We certainly hope our Congress will reject any U.N. proposal to tax Americans or control our property rights. Farsighted Republicans adopted a Party Platform in Tampa Bay this year stating, "We strongly reject the U.N. Agenda 21 as erosive of American sovereignty, and we oppose any form of U.N. global tax."
To understand the relationship of Agenda 21 to taxes and property rights, you have to learn a new vocabulary of words and expressions. A basic dictionary of about a hundred words and phrases has been assembled by a group called Democrats Against Agenda 21, and here are just a few of their favorite words: climate change, Common Core curriculum, environmental impact, New World Order, outcome-based education, public/private partnership, quality of life, smart growth, social justice, growth management, high speed rail, land use policies, multi-use dwellings, sustainable development and wildlands.
Agenda 21 lays down the rule that "Land ... cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market." The U.N. hopes to require every decision about property use to be based on environmental impact, global land use and global population control and reduction, which means by the government, not by property owners.
The purpose of this U.N. attack on property rights is to reduce the U.S. standard of living to that of the rest of the world because the U.N. bureaucrats resent our prosperity using abundant energy. Agenda 21 was never approved by Congress or ratified as a treaty by the U.S. Senate, so Congress should have no trouble saying No to all U.N. tax or property restriction proposals.
---
Phyllis Schlafly is a lawyer, conservative political analyst and author of 20 books. She is the co-author, with George Neumayr, of the New York Times Best-Seller titled "No Higher Power: Obama's War on Religious Freedom."
The U.N. bureaucrats are not deterred by the fact that Americans should be protected by our U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 7, which specifies that "all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives." The greedy globalist U.N. bureaucrats have been conniving for about 20 years to bypass Congress and tax individual Americans, and now they think they have devised a formula to do this.
Their vehicle for this travesty is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The U.N. convention delegates dream they can transform the economic structure of the world by a new global treaty using global warming fears (even though the globe has not warmed for the past 16 years).
UNFCCC's executive secretary Christiana Figueres will call a "significant number of meetings and workshops" next year to prepare the new document. The plan is for U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in 2014 to "convene leaders to mobilize the political will to ensure that the 2015 deadline is met" to start this global tax.
This new U.N. document will cap greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide, and replace our use of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. Government will be expected to subsidize green energy because plenty of evidence proves that alternate energy sources are far more expensive and cannot compete in the marketplace.
Obama gave a half-billion U.S. tax dollars to the solar-panel company Solyndra, which promptly went bankrupt and now is arguing about who will pay the $600-per-hour lawyers who worked on the deal. After Obama gave $133 million of a $249 million grant to a firm named A123 to make batteries for electric cars, that company went bankrupt, too, and now is auctioned to a Chinese company, Wanxiang Group.
The Doha delegates are salivating at the thought of creating a new $100-billion-a-year fund by imposing a first-ever global tax on the right to cause carbon dioxide emissions. This fund is to be headquartered in South Korea and sweetened by a gigantic flow of taxes on international monetary transactions, international shipping and airline travel.
Agenda 21 is a document called the Declaration on Environment and Development and the Statement of Principles for the Sustainable Management of Forests, which was signed by 178 governments including President George H.W. Bush in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. In 1995, President Bill Clinton followed up by an executive order that established a Presidential Council on Sustainable Development, giving globalist busybodies the excuse to work on it ever since.
Agenda 21's goal is to "save the planet" and "sustain" life on earth regardless of its adverse effect on human life and our standard of living. It is based on the very un-American notion that private property is "a social injustice since not everyone can build wealth from it."
We certainly hope our Congress will reject any U.N. proposal to tax Americans or control our property rights. Farsighted Republicans adopted a Party Platform in Tampa Bay this year stating, "We strongly reject the U.N. Agenda 21 as erosive of American sovereignty, and we oppose any form of U.N. global tax."
To understand the relationship of Agenda 21 to taxes and property rights, you have to learn a new vocabulary of words and expressions. A basic dictionary of about a hundred words and phrases has been assembled by a group called Democrats Against Agenda 21, and here are just a few of their favorite words: climate change, Common Core curriculum, environmental impact, New World Order, outcome-based education, public/private partnership, quality of life, smart growth, social justice, growth management, high speed rail, land use policies, multi-use dwellings, sustainable development and wildlands.
Agenda 21 lays down the rule that "Land ... cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market." The U.N. hopes to require every decision about property use to be based on environmental impact, global land use and global population control and reduction, which means by the government, not by property owners.
The purpose of this U.N. attack on property rights is to reduce the U.S. standard of living to that of the rest of the world because the U.N. bureaucrats resent our prosperity using abundant energy. Agenda 21 was never approved by Congress or ratified as a treaty by the U.S. Senate, so Congress should have no trouble saying No to all U.N. tax or property restriction proposals.
---
Phyllis Schlafly is a lawyer, conservative political analyst and author of 20 books. She is the co-author, with George Neumayr, of the New York Times Best-Seller titled "No Higher Power: Obama's War on Religious Freedom."
He never checks with congress anyway!
WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - Unburdened by re-election worries and empowered by law to act without Congress, U.S. President Barack Obama could take action to improve background checks on gun buyers, ban certain gun imports and bolster oversight of dealers.
Prospects for gun control legislation intensified in the wake of the school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, as more pro-gun rights lawmakers said on Monday they were open to the possibility while Obama and three cabinet members met at the White House to discuss the subject.
Having just won a second four-year term, Obama does not need to fear alienating voters who favor gun rights and he could press ahead without lawmakers on fronts where federal law enables executive action.
Speaking in Newtown, where a gunman on Friday killed 20 children and six adults in an elementary school, Obama vowed late on Sunday to "use whatever power this office holds" to try to prevent such massacres.
"Because what choice do we have? We can't accept events like this as routine," Obama said at Newtown High School.
His administration has the power to issue executive orders or new rules, options that Obama is likely to consider in combination with possible new laws.
The National Rifle Association, the largest U.S. gun rights group with 4 million supporters, relies largely on its ability to influence lawmakers in order to block legislation.
Obama's appointees at the U.S. Justice Department have been studying ideas since the January 8, 2011, shooting of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and 18 others at a public meeting. Giffords survived but six people died.
Christopher Schroeder, who ran the Justice Department's review, said it looked at possible legislation to send to Congress as well as action the administration could take itself.
"You always look at both, because if you can do it administratively it's certainly a less involved process," said Schroeder, who has since returned to a professorship at Duke Law School.
Many of the ideas have to do with the background checks that licensed gun dealers run on potential buyers.
CRITICS CITE HOLES
Critics say the system has holes because it does not include all the data it should on those ineligible to buy guns. The FBI, which runs the system, could incorporate more data from within the federal government - using evidence of mental incompetence, for example.
There are privacy concerns, however, and the Justice Department is still studying which types of data it can legally use, Schroeder said.
"That kind of system works effectively only if all of the potentially disqualifying information that has been gathered by any federal, state or local authority is accessible to the database, and that's not the case today," he said.
It is not clear what changes to the background checks would have prevented the mass shooting in Newtown, because the killer appeared to have used weapons his mother bought legally.
Other proposals for executive action by Obama include sharing information with state and local law enforcement about possibly illegal purchases; maintaining data on gun sales for longer periods to help with investigations; and restricting the importation of certain military-style weapons, as President George H.W. Bush did in 1989.
A pro-gun control mayors' group co-chaired by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has pushed the Obama administration since 2009 to adopt 40 recommendations it said were allowed under existing law.
One of the 40 has been put into effect, said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and even that recommendation - requiring gun dealers to report sales of multiple semiautomatic weapons - drew heated resistance.
In 2011, when the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) adopted a version of the recommendation aimed at dealers in states near the U.S.-Mexico border, gun makers sued and congressional Republicans tried to eliminate funding for the rule.
A judge upheld it, allowing it to go into effect. The case is now on appeal.
LOBBYING BLITZ
Bloomberg's group is still pushing the other recommendations as it makes plans for a lobbying blitz over new laws, such as a ban on high-capacity magazines. "While they are important, they're not the big-ticket items. And we're in a big-ticket world," Glaze said.
The administration also has leeway to act in how it defines certain categories of people prohibited from buying a gun.
Federal law bars anyone "who has been adjudicated as a mental defective," but it does not specify whether that means only a court can disqualify someone, said Michael Volkov, a former Republican Justice Department official now at the law firm LeClairRyan.
Another option could be changing how long a firearms dealer must keep records of a sale - a period that is now three days but could be extended, Volkov said.
Since the Justice Department began reviewing ideas to prevent mass shootings in early 2011, it has implemented a handful of changes.
In May, the department unveiled an automated system to feed records of federal indictments into the background checks database, replacing a system in which prosecutors uploaded information manually.
Schroeder said the department's review of firearms-related ideas is ongoing. He described the process as informal, and not one that has produced a formal report.
Update: Navy Base Cuts Live Nativity From ‘Holiday Tree’ Ceremony, Moves to Chapel Following Atheist Complaints
Earlier this month, TheBlaze reported that, following a complaint from the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF), an atheist activist group, the U.S. Navy cancelled an annual live nativity tradition on a Bahrain base. But now, just days after furor surrounded the decision, Military.com is reporting that the event is back on and rescheduled for Christmas eve.
Initially, the MAAF claimed that the presence of a nativity scene in a majority-Muslim country was dangerous to servicemen. Additionally, the group alleged that the military was violating the U.S. Constitution by allowing the event to unfold. As previously noted, the nativity, which was slated to unfold at Naval Support Activity (NSA) Bahrain, is a tradition that has been going on for the past few years.
“It’s unconstitutional, it’s bad for the military and in a Muslim country it’s dangerous,” Jason Torpy, a spokesperson for MAAF, said in an interview with Fox News earlier this month.
When the controversy first emerged following the MAAF complaint, the Navy purportedly sent the atheist group the following statement:
“Upon further review, the CRP (Command Religious Program) will be removing the Living Nativity Program from the general base secular holiday festivities and co-locating it more appropriately with some of our other private religious and faith-based observances at the chapel at a separate time.”
The Navy, bowing to demands that the nativity be removed from general base holiday celebrations, has made good on its promise and rescheduled the display inside of the chapel.
“The Nativity scene being held on…Dec. 24 will be very similar to the originally scheduled program,” base spokeswoman Jennifer Stride said, declining to explain the initial reasoning for the event’s initial cancellation.
The MAAF is accusing conservative media outlets of distorting the original story and claiming that the group never wanted the event cancelled; instead, the atheist organization explained that it pushed for the procession to be cut out of the base’s general holiday celebration.
Regardless of how the issue is framed, the initial plans were cancelled and the event was moved to a more private locality due to the secularist complaint. Here’s how the MAAF has responded to the controversy on its web site:
This is the win-win outcome requested by MAAF and originally reported in this article. The prevailing right wing narrative, “Navy Cancels Nativity over Atheist Complaint” was misleading at best when posted and is now proven to be factually incorrect. [...]The way the right-wing media tells it, we secularists literally raise Hell every time we hear the word Christmas. Not so. Christmas is a federal holiday because of its broad appeal and secular celebration of American values like family and charity. Many non-Christians enjoy Christmas carols, presents, decorations, and the general holiday cheer. Some even enjoy religious Christmas celebrations so long as they are outside the context of official government endorsement and mandatory military events.
So, there you have it. The official base celebration involves lighting a “holiday tree.” The Christmas nativity tradition — the main cause for the celebratory season — has been cut out of this portion of the base’s observance and has been moved to the chapel and away from the communal space.
LIBERALS AND LIARS TRY TO SAY THIS DID NOT HAPPEN BUT LOOK FOLKS IT DID! HITLER BANNED GUNS!
By Stephen P. Halbrook, Ph.D., J.D
The Holland Poster
banning guns (click for closeup). Citizens had 24 hours to
surrender all firearms to the Nazis or face the death penalty. Printed in
German on the left and Flemish on the right. For translation, see below. From Die
Deutsche Wochenschau, May 15, 1940.
Translation
Regulations
on Arms Possession in the Occupied Zone
1. All firearms and ammunition, hand grenades,
explosive devices and other war matériel are to be surrendered.
The delivery must take place within 24 hours at the nearest German military administrative headquarters or garrison, provided that other special arrangements have not been made. The mayors (heads of the district councils) must accept full responsibility for complete implementation. Commanding officers are authorized to approve exceptions.
The delivery must take place within 24 hours at the nearest German military administrative headquarters or garrison, provided that other special arrangements have not been made. The mayors (heads of the district councils) must accept full responsibility for complete implementation. Commanding officers are authorized to approve exceptions.
German poster from occupied France imposing the death penalty for not
turning in all firearms and radio transmitters within 24 hours (click for closeup). For translation, see below.
From Musée de l'Ordre de la Libération, Paris.
Translation
Ordinance Concerning the Possession of Arms and Radio Transmitters in the Occupied Territories
1) All firearms and all sorts of
munitions, hand grenades, explosives and other war materials must be
surrendered immediately.
Delivery must take place within 24 hours to the closest "Kommandantur" [German commander's office] unless other arrangements have been made. Mayors will be held strictly responsible for the execution of this order. The [German] troop commanders may allow exceptions.
Delivery must take place within 24 hours to the closest "Kommandantur" [German commander's office] unless other arrangements have been made. Mayors will be held strictly responsible for the execution of this order. The [German] troop commanders may allow exceptions.
2) Anyone found in possession of
firearms, munitions, hand grenades, or other war materials will be sentenced to
death or forced labor or in lesser cases prison.
3) Anyone in possession of a radio
or a radio transmitter must surrender it to the closest German military
authority.
4) All those who would disobey this
order or would commit any act of violence in the occupied lands against the
German army or against any of its troops will be condemned to death.
The Commander in Chief
of the Army
of the Army
At the time of the
Nazi attack on Jews known as Night of the Broken Glass, Heinrich Himmler, head
of the Nazi SS and Police, ordered Jews disarmed (click for closeup). People's Observor
(Völkische Beobachter), Nov. 10, 1938.
Translation
Jews
Forbidden to Possess Weapons
By Order of SS Reichsführer Himmler
By Order of SS Reichsführer Himmler
Munich,
November 10 [1938]
The SS Reichsführer and German
Police Chief has issued the following Order:
Persons who, according to the Nürnberg law, are
regarded as Jews, are forbidden to possess any weapon. Violators will be
condemned to a concentration camp and imprisoned for a period of up to 20
years.
 |
| Invading Nazi troops in
Holland in 1940 immediately nailed up posters announcing a ban on all firearms.
From Die Deutsche Wochenshau, May 15, 1940.
I am writing a book on Nazi policies
and practices which sought to repress civilian gun ownership and to eradicate
gun owners in Germany and in occupied Europe. The following sampling of my
findings should give pause to the suggestion that draconian punishment of citizens
for keeping firearms necessarily is a social good.
The Night of the Broken Glass
(Kristallnacht)--the infamous Nazi rampage against Germany's Jews--took place
in November 1938. It was preceded by the confiscation of firearms from the
Jewish victims. On Nov. 8, the New York Times reported from Berlin,
"Berlin Police Head Announces 'Disarming' of Jews," explaining:
The Berlin Police President, Count
Wolf Heinrich von Helldorf, announced that as a result of a police activity in
the last few weeks the entire Jewish population of Berlin had been
"disarmed" with the confiscation of 2,569 hand weapons, 1,702
firearms and 20,000 rounds of ammunition. Any Jews still found in possession of
weapons without valid licenses are threatened with the severest punishment.1
On the evening of Nov. 9, Adolf
Hitler, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, and other Nazi chiefs planned the
attack. Orders went out to Nazi security forces: "All Jewish stores are to
be destroyed immediately . . . . Jewish synagogues are to be set on fire . . .
. The Führer wishes that the police does not intervene. . . . All Jews are to
be disarmed. In the event of resistance they are to be shot immediately."2
All hell broke loose on Nov. 10:
"Nazis Smash, Loot and Burn Jewish Shops and Temples." "One of
the first legal measures issued was an order by Heinrich Himmler, commander of
all German police, forbidding Jews to possess any weapons whatever and imposing
a penalty of twenty years confinement in a concentration camp upon every Jew
found in possession of a weapon hereafter."3 Thousands of Jews
were taken away.
Searches of Jewish homes were
calculated to seize firearms and assets and to arrest adult males. The American
Consulate in Stuttgart was flooded with Jews begging for visas: "Men in
whose homes old, rusty revolvers had been found during the last few days cried
aloud that they did not dare ever again return to their places of residence or
business. In fact, it was a mass of seething, panic-stricken humanity."4
Himmler, head of the Nazi terror
police, would become an architect of the Holocaust, which consumed six million
Jews. It was self evident that the Jews must be disarmed before the
extermination could begin.
Finding out which Jews had firearms
was not too difficult. The liberal Weimar Republic passed a Firearm Law in 1928
requiring extensive police records on gun owners. Hitler signed a further gun
control law in early 1938.
Other European countries also had
laws requiring police records to be kept on persons who possessed firearms.
When the Nazis took over Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1939, it was a simple
matter to identify gun owners. Many of them disappeared in the middle of the
night along with political opponents.
Imagine that you are sitting in a
movie house in Germany in May 1940. The German Weekly Newsreel comes on to show
you the attack on Holland, Belgium, and France.5 The minute
Wehrmacht troops and tanks cross the Dutch border, the film shows German
soldiers nailing up a poster about 2½ by 3 feet in size. It is entitled
"Regulations on Arms Possession in the Occupied Zone"
("Verordnung über Waffenbesitz im besetzen Gebiet"). The camera scans
the top of the double-columned poster, written in German on the left and
Flemish on the right, with an eagle and swatiska in the middle. It commands
that all firearms be surrendered to the German commander within 24 hours. The
full text is not in view, but similar posters threatened the death penalty for
violation.
The film shows artillery and
infantry rolling through the streets as happy citizens wave. It then switches
to scenes of onslaughts against Dutch and Belgian soldiers, and Hitler's
message that this great war would instate the 1000-year Reich. A patriotic song
mixed with the images and music of artillery barrages, Luftwaffe bombings, and
tank assaults compose the grand finale.
France soon fell, and the same
posters threatening the death penalty for possession of a firearm went up
everywhere. You can see one today in Paris at the Museum of the Order of the
Liberation (Musée de l'Ordre de la Libération). A photograph of the poster is
reproduced here, including a translation in the sidebar.
There was a fallacy to the threat.
No blank existed on the poster to write in the time and date of posting, so one
would know when the 24-hour "waiting period" began or ended. Perhaps
the Nazis would shoot someone who was an hour late. Indeed, gun owners even
without guns were dangerous because they knew how to use guns and tend to be
resourceful, independent-minded persons. A Swiss manual on armed resistance
stated with such experiences in mind:
Should you be so trusting and turn
over your weapons you will be put on a "black list" in spite of
everything. The enemy will always need hostages or forced laborers later on
(read: "work slaves") and will gladly make use of the "black
lists." You see once again that you cannot escape his net and had better
die fighting. After the deadline, raids coupled with house searches and street
checks will be conducted.6
Commented the New York Times about
the interrelated rights which the Nazis destroyed wherever they went:
Military orders now forbid the
French to do things which the German people have not been allowed to do since
Hitler came to power. To own radio senders or to listen to foreign broadcasts,
to organize public meetings and distribute pamphlets, to disseminate
anti-German news in any form, to retain possession of firearms--all these things
are prohibited for the subjugated people of France . . . .7
While the Nazis made good on the
threat to execute persons in possession of firearms, the gun control decree was
not entirely successful. Partisans launched armed attacks. But resistance was hampered
by the lack of civilian arms possession.
In 1941, U.S. Attorney General
Robert Jackson called on Congress to enact national registration of all
firearms.8 Given events in Europe, Congress recoiled, and
legislation was introduced to protect the Second Amendment. Rep. Edwin Arthur
Hall explained: "Before the advent of Hitler or Stalin, who took power
from the German and Russian people, measures were thrust upon the free
legislatures of those countries to deprive the people of the possession and use
of firearms, so that they could not resist the encroachments of such diabolical
and vitriolic state police organizations as the Gestapo, the Ogpu, and the
Cheka."9
Rep. John W. Patman added: "The
people have a right to keep arms; therefore, if we should have some Executive
who attempted to set himself up as dictator or king, the people can organize
themselves together and, with the arms and ammunition they have, they can
properly protect themselves. . . ."10
Only two months before the Japanese
sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Congress enacted legislation to authorize the
President to requisition broad categories of property with military uses from
the private sector on payment of fair compensation, but also provided:
Nothing contained in this Act shall
be construed--
(1) to authorize the requisitioning
or require the registration of any firearms possessed by any individual for his
personal protection or sport (and the possession of which is not prohibited or
the registration of which is not required by existing law), [or]
(2) to impair or infringe in any
manner the right of any individual to keep and bear arms . . . .11
Meanwhile Hilter unleashed killing
squads called the Einsatzgruppen in Eastern Europe and Russia. As Raul Hilberg
observes, "The killers were well armed . . . . The victims were
unarmed."12 The Einsatzgruppen executed two million people
between fall 1939 and summer 1942. Their tasks included arrest of the
politically unreliable, confiscation of weapons, and extermination.13
Typical executions were that of a
Jewish woman "for being found without a Jewish badge and for refusing to
move into the ghetto" and another woman "for sniping." Persons
found in possession of firearms were shot on the spot. Yet reports of sniping
and partisan activity increased.14
Armed citizens were hurting the
Nazis, who took the sternest measures. The Nazis imposed the death penalty on a
Pole or Jew: "If he is in unlawful possession of firearms, . . . or if he
has credible information that a Pole or a Jew is in unlawful possession of such
objects, and fails to notify the authorities forthwith."15
Given the above facts, it is not
difficult to understand why the National Rifle Association opposed gun
registration at the time and still does. The American Riflemen for February
1942 reported:
From Berlin on January 6th the
German official radio broadcast--"The German military commander for
Belgium and Northern France announced yesterday that the population would be
given a last opportunity to surrender firearms without penalty up to January
20th and after that date anyone found in possession of arms would be
executed."
So the Nazi invaders set a deadline
similar to that announced months ago in Czecho-Slovakia, in Poland, in Norway,
in Romania, in Yugo-Slavia, in Greece.
How often have we read the familiar
dispatches "Gestapo agents accompanied by Nazi troopers swooped down on
shops and homes and confiscated all privately-owned firearms!"
What an aid and comfort to the
invaders and to their Fifth Column cohorts have been the convenient
registration lists of privately owned firearms--lists readily available for the
copying or stealing at the Town Hall in most European cities.
What a constant worry and danger to
the Hun and his Quislings have been the privately owned firearms in the homes
of those few citizens who have "neglected" to register their guns!16
During the war years the Rifleman
regularly included pleas for American sportsmen to "send a gun to defend a
British home.17 British civilians, faced with the threat of invasion,
desperately need arms for the defense of their homes." Indeed, the New
York Times carried the same solicitations. After two decades of gun control,
British citizens now desperately needed rifles and pistols in their homes, and
they received the gifts with great appreciation. Organized into the Home Guard,
armed citizens were now ready to resist the expected Nazi onslaught.
With so many men and guns sent
abroad to fight the war, America still needed defending from expected invasions
on the East and West coasts, domestic sabotage, and Fifth Column activity.
Sportsmen and gun clubs responded by bringing their private arms and
volunteering for the state protective forces.18
Switzerland was the only country in
Europe, indeed in the world, where every man had a military rifle in his home.
Nazi invasion plans acknowledged the dissuasive nature of this armed populace,
as I have detailed in my book Target
Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II (Rockville
Center, N.Y.: Sarpedon Publishers, 1998).
Out of all the acts of armed citizen
resisters in the war, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 is difficult to surpass
in its heroism. Beginning with just a few handguns, armed Jews put a temporary
stop to the deportations to extermination camps, frightened the Nazis out of
the ghetto, stood off assaults for days on end, and escaped to the forests to
continue the struggle. What if there had been two, three, many Warsaw Ghetto
Uprisings?
The NRA trained hundreds of
thousands of Americans in rifle marksmanship during the war. President Harry
Truman wrote that NRA's firearms training programs "materially aided our
war effort" and that he hopped "the splendid program which the
National Rifle Association has followed during the past three-quarters of a
century will be continued."20 By helping defeat the Nazi and
Fascist terror regimes, the NRA helped end the Holocaust, slave labor, and the
severest oppression.
Those tiny pacifist organizations of
the era which called for gun registration and confiscation contributed nothing
to winning the war or to stopping the genocide. Their counterparts today have
nothing to offer that would enable citizens to resist genocide.
Individual criminals wreak their
carnage on individuals or small numbers of people. As this century has shown,
terrorist governments have the capacity to commit genocide against millions of
people, provided that the people are unarmed. Schemes to confiscate firearms
kept by peaceable citizens have historically been associated with some of the
world's most insidious tyrannies. Given this reality, it is not surprising that
law-abiding gun owners oppose being objects of registration.
1. New York Times,
Nov. 9, 1938, 24.
2. Gerald Schawb, The Day the Holocaust Began (New York:
Praeger, 1990), 22.
3. New York Times,
Nov. 11, 1938, 1, 4.
4. The Holocaust, Vol. 3, The Crystal Night Pogrom, John Mendelsohn, ed. (New York: Garland, 1982), 183-84.
5. Die Deutsche Wochenschau,
No. 506, 15 May 1940, UfA, Ton-Woche.
6. Major H. von Dach, Total Resistance (Boulder: Paladin
Press, 1965), 169. Earlier published as Dach, Der Totale Widerstand
(Biel: SUOV, 2nd ed., 1958).
7. New York Times,
July 2, 1940, 20.
8. New York Times,
Jan. 4, 1941, 7.
9. 87 CONG.REC., 77th Cong., 1st Sess., 6778 (Aug. 5, 1941).
10. Id. at 7102 (Aug. 13, 1941).
11. Property Requisition Act, P.L. 274, 77th Cong., 1st Sess.,
Ch. 445, 55 Stat., pt. 1, 742 (Oct. 16, 1941). See. Halbrook,
"Congress Interprets the Second Amendment," 62 Tennessee Law
Review 597, 618-31 (Spring 1995).
12. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews
(New York: Homes and Meir, 1985), 341, 318, 297.
13. Yitzhak Arad et al. eds., The Einsatzgruppen
Reports (New York: Holocaust Library, 1989), ii.
14. Id. at 233, 306, 257-58, 352-53, 368.
15. Reichsgesetzblatt,
I, 759 (4 Dec. 1941).
16. "The Nazi Deadline," American Rifleman,
February 1942, at 7.
17. American Rifleman,
Nov. 1940.
18. E.g., Report
of the Adjutant General for 1945, at 23-24 (Richmond, Va., 1946); U.S.
Home Defense Forces Study 58-59 (Office of Ass't Sec. of Defense 1981).
19. See Rotem
(Kazik), Simha, Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter, (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1994), 118-19; David I. Caplan, "Weapons Control Laws:
Gateways to Victim Oppression and Genocide," in To Be a Victim:
Encounters with Crime and Injustice, eds. Diane Sank and David I. Caplan
(New York: Plenum Press, 1991), 310.
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