Notes to "Progress Report"

[1] Excerpt from Foreign Area Officer Association: "Green Flag Over the Balkans"

"BOSNIA'S RADICAL GROUPS

"The Active Islamic Youth (Aktivna Islamska omladina - AIO) is an indigenous fundamentalist organization with the goal of promoting an Islamic state in Bosnia.and is the one organization in Bosnia within the IZ that causes the most concern with ties to terrorism and fundamentalist Islam. 14 Established in Zenica in 1995 and associated with the mujahadeen the group's main activities has been to organize protests in opposition to Bosnian state action against the foreign fighters, publishing promotional material and books showcasing AIO's religious and political extremist ideology. Its Islamic weekly magazine SAFF and organization's website, have been fonts of radical Islamic preaching, gaining notoriety for publishing interviews with terrorists who have fought against US forces in Iraq and expressing solidarity with the jihadists and suicide bombers in Israel.

Since 2002 the AIO has expanded to include computer and internet facilities, multi-media Islamic libraries, offices and conference rooms in centers located in Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zenica, Travnik, Mostar, Zavidovi i, Gornji Vakuf, and Sanski Most - all located in the Federacija. 15 In addition, the AIO has members throughout the Bosniak Diaspora in Europe and the US. Through outreach activities such as summer camps, internet cafes and youth centers the AIO has been effective in recruiting young, disenfranchised Bosniaks and raised suspicion in countries that host these Bosniak-AIO sponsored camps. The appearance of bearded men and women dressed in chadors in Sarajevo is noticeably increasing and of great concern to residents who adhere to the traditionally moderate form of Islam practiced in Bosnia. According to Western sources the recruiting focus of radical Islamists in Bosnia are: (1) unemployed youth, (2) orphans of the 1992-95 Bosnian civil war, (3) rural communities in Bosnia, and (4) Bosnia's Muslim poor and disaffected.

The Muslim Brotherhood Group or Muslimansko bratstvo, is smaller and less well funded than the AIO. However, it represents a significant threat due to its prominence as a Bosnian Islamic portal. 16 Islam Bosna (www.islambosna.ba), the organization's website offers promotional material, video clips and flyers typically denouncing US or Israeli aggression against the Muslim world. Its advocating of establishing an Islamic state in Bosnia, sympathy with Hamas and destruction of Israel highlight concerns about this website. Islam Bosna has supposedly distributed at least 80,000 copies of some of its posters and operates a well maintained and largely unregulated message boards and information postings. This poses an exceptional threat given the grave concerns recently of terrorist organizations utilizing radical Islamic websites to pass information and conduct terrorist attacks. Another concern is the Muslim Brotherhood Group's success in attracting Bosniak youth membership through its website. According to the Nezavisne Novine daily in 2002 the oldest members were just 25 years old. 17"

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Excerpt from Jamestown Foundation (Global Terrorism Analysis)" "Wahhabism and al-Qaeda in Bosnia-Herzegovina", by Stephen Schwartz (21st Oct. 2004)

"The most prominent Wahhabi organization in Bosnia is the Active Islamic Youth (Aktivna Islamska Omladina or AIO). Early in 2003, the Sarajevo weekly magazine Slobodna Bosna (Free Bosnia), which has an aggressively secularist and sensationalist tone, described the AIO as a front for the Saudi High Commission for Relief and the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation. [2: Ahmetasevic, Nidzara, Buturovic, Adnan, and Fazlic, Mirsad, “Fishers Of Children’s Souls: Third Offensive Of Young Muslims,” Slobodna Bosna, Sarajevo, January 30, 2003.] The Bosnian branch of al-Haramain was shut down after it was designated an al-Qaeda affiliate by the U.S. Treasury and the Saudi government. (...)

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Excerpts from Worldpress.com: "The Young and the Old: Radical Islam Takes Root in the Balkans", by Risto Karajkov

"One of the founders of the A.I.O., Muris Cupic, a former fighter himself, has repeatedly argued that there is no danger of militant Islam in Bosnia. But his colleagues in the A.I.O., which has a few hundred members, are often identified as promoters of fundamentalism. They have issued strong statements of criticism addressed to their fellow Muslims for not behaving like true believers and having acquired too much from their Christian neighbors.
The A.I.O. were put under surveillance in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and were found to have been funded by the Saudi Al-Haramain Foundation, later declared by the United States to be a sponsor of terrorism.

The Islamic Community in Bosnia, under the leadership of Rreis-ul-Ulema (Chief Imam) Mustafa Ceric, often described as a pro-American promoter of tolerance, has been trying to assimilate these groups even though they hold sharply conflicting views on Islam.

Ceric, who holds a Ph.D. in Islamic studies from the University of Chicago and is a recent recipient of a UNESCO award for intercultural understanding, seems to be able to keep a fine balance between reassuring the West that Bosnia is safe and cultivating relations with the radical Muslim offspring in his backyard.
A case that put A.I.O. in the spotlight was the 2003 murder by a young Muslim fanatic of three ethnic Croat returnees on Christmas Eve. The killer claimed he was a member of the A.I.O., which the organization denied, conceding that he might have attended some lectures. Ceric swiftly condemned the act and called on young Muslims to "stay away from superstition, false books, and teachers who do not want to understand the authentic life in our homeland," a clear reference to outside hardliners.

But in an interview he gave last year to the Islamic youth magazine Saff, Ceric rejected anonymous statements by fellow Muslim officials that organizations such as A.I.O. should not be considered part of the Islamic Community. "The Islamic Community is more important than me, us, and them," he said. "Thus, we are all the Islamic Community."

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[2] Excerpt from Jamestown Foundation (Global Terrorism Analysis): "Wahhabism and al-Qaeda in Bosnia-Herzegovina", by Stephen Schwartz (21st Oct. 2004)

"Alongside Slobodna Bosna and other periodicals in Sarajevo, one also finds the unmistakable Wahhabi journal SAFF, which describes itself as an "Islamic Youth Review." The August 15 issue of SAFF includes, on its slick cover, a box with the arresting heading "Exclusive from Iraq: Suicide Actions as a Defensive Strategy." SAFF also includes, along with criticism of Mustafa Ceric, an article describing the Algerians in Guantanamo as Bosnians, which they no longer are, and a report that the Shia rebel Moqtada al-Sadr, in Iraq, has called for the execution of Wahhabi infiltrators in that country. [3: SAFF, Sarajevo, August 15, 2004, issue number 128.]

Treachery at State: History in the Making!

NewsMax: "Bolton: State Department Leftists Have Defeated Bush", by Ken Timmerman

Resistance by partisan ”shadow warriors” at the Department of State has limited the president’s options and is bringing us dangerously close to a military showdown with Iran, former Bush administration official John Bolton (...) This is a classic case study why diplomacy is not cost-free. (...) European-led negotiations has allowed Iran to buy time and to perfect the technology it needs to make nuclear weapons (...)

The arms controllers are also trying to rewrite history on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program (...) all of the intelligence community agreed that North Korea had embarked on procurement for a uranium enrichment program (...) today, the arms controllers are trying to walk back that conclusion and “rewrite history” in order to cover-up North Korea’s lies and dissembling (...)

The consequences of allowing the shadow warriors run the government instead of Bush loyalists have been dramatic, since they have succeeded in “turning the President’s policy in effect in a 180-degree U-turn” in North Korea and other areas, Bolton said. (...)

... Read the Bolton interview >>>

Updated: 25th Dec. 2007
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Washington Post: "Misreading the Iran Report - Why Spying and Policymaking Don't Mix", by Henry A. Kissinger

(...) I am extremely concerned about the tendency of the intelligence community to turn itself into a kind of check on, instead of a part of, the executive branch. When intelligence personnel expect their work to become the subject of public debate, they are tempted into the roles of surrogate policymakers and advocates. Thus the deputy director for intelligence estimates explained the release of the NIE as follows: Publication was chosen because the estimate conflicted with public statements by top U.S. officials about Iran, and "we felt it was important to release this information to ensure that an accurate presentation is available." That may explain releasing the facts but not the sources and methods that have been flooding the media. The paradoxical result of the trend toward public advocacy is to draw intelligence personnel more deeply than ever into the public maelstrom.

The executive branch and the intelligence community have gone through a rough period. The White House has been accused of politicizing intelligence; the intelligence community has been charged with promoting institutional policy biases. The Key Judgments document accelerates that controversy, dismaying friends and confusing adversaries.

Intelligence personnel need to return to their traditional anonymity. Policymakers and Congress should once again assume responsibility for their judgments without involving intelligence in their public justifications. To define the proper balance between the user and producer of intelligence is a task that cannot be accomplished at the end of an administration. It is, however, one of the most urgent challenges a newly elected president will face. >>>

Updated: 13th Dec. 2007
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Front Page Magazine: "Shadow Warriors", by Jamie Glazov

... Q&A discussing Kenneth Timmerman's new book "Shadow Warriors" ...

In the beginning were the leaks. I was curious how highly-classified intelligence information was winding up on the front pages of the NY Times and in other leftist media. Two stories, in particular, caught my attention initially: the leak of the CIA “secret prisons,” and the smearing of Ahmad Chalabi (...) What I discovered was a vast, underground network of government officials, former intelligence officers, members of Congress and their staffs, who were in bed with a complacent, anti-Bush media. They were eager to publish anything that did damage to this president, even if it put the lives of our intelligence officers or of our front-line troops in jeopardy. (...) It certainly comes as no surprise that a segment of the Democrat party never accepted the legitimacy of the 2000 presidential election, and sought in every possible way to delegitimize George W. Bush.

What I discovered, however, was that this political “pay-back” went far beyond the realm of domestic politics, and that legions of “shadow warriors” purposefully burrowed into the bureaucracy with the sole purpose of undermining the president and his policies.The sabotage was so intense, for example, that CIA officers actually stood by and watched as a key moderate Iraqi cleric was hacked to death in front of their eyes on the steps of a Shiite shrine in Najaf by the pro-Iranian radical, Muqtada al-Sadr, in April 2003.

... it's too much ... read the whole thing - highly recommended history in the making >>>

Updated: 12th Dec. 2007
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American Thinker: "Vann Van Diepen, NIE author, and his Treachery at State", by Ed Lasky
Updated: 12th Dec. 2007

American Thinker: "Black Ops PR in Global Warming Hoax?"
Updated: 8th Nov. 2007

Series: Blurring the Border between Reality and Perception

The Lighthouse: Part 3

(... ) Inconvenient facts are preferably spun into favourable public perceptions, or they are reduced to 'somebody's personal opinion'; alternatively they are suppressed altogether (voluntary or otherwise), or - case need - dealt with through the courts.These days we have Leftist inspired hatred laws at the expense of free speech and freedom of conscience. These laws are little else but legal back up for political correctness, in other words, the Left's soft social pressure to conform with their morality and political agenda, which they share with their partner in the Unholy Alliance, institutionalized Islam. (...)

Hoven's figures break down as follows: of the total count of 62 cases in the United States alone, 7 are in relation to Iraq, and 4 to the Middle East. Case number 28 makes clear that the Leftist press has been at it since The New York Times' Walter Duranty hailed the accomplishments of Stalin era Soviet Union. >>>

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The Lighthouse: Part 2

This is the second instalment in a series of posts on the effects of Postmodernism (Pomo, or cultural Marxism, or subjectivism, or relativism) on journalism and the MSM. To remind ourselves of the essence of the trouble: the deliberate fallacy of their pet philosophy that objective reality does not exist. This causes a blurring of the border between what's real, and what is perception: the recipe for a global nut-house

(...) Another catastrophic consequence of this deliberate fallacy is, that fact - which is rooted in objective reality - does not exist either. That, is a tough conclusion if your occupation is, observation and description of facts on a daily basis, as is the case in journalism. (...) >>>

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The Lighthouse: Part 1

The task of journalism is to inform the public of current events. Events are facts, they are objective reality, things happening in the real world. Considering that journalists as a professional class were one of the first and most enthusiastic admirers of Postmodernism, it is apparent that what they write isn't seen as reality at all, but only as a particular version of it: the so-called 'narrative'. >>>

Leviathan's Birth Certificate: the Analysis

An analysis by Prof. Anthony Coughlan - Hat Tip: The Brussels Journal

(On Thursday 13th December 2007) the European Union leaders signed the Lisbon Treaty. This treaty gives the EU the constitutional form of a state. These are the ten most important things the Lisbon Treaty does:

1. It establishes a legally new European Union in the constitutional form of a supranational European State.

2. It empowers this new European Union to act as a State vis-a-vis other States and its own citizens.

3. It makes us all citizens of this new European Union.

4. To hide the enormity of the change, the same name – European Union – will be kept while the Lisbon Treaty changes fundamentally the legal and constitutional nature of the Union.

5. It creates a Union Parliament for the Union's new citizens.

6. It creates a Cabinet Government of the new Union.

7. It creates a new Union political President.

8. It creates a civil rights code for the new Union's citizens.

9. It makes national Parliaments subordinate to the new Union.

10. It gives the new Union self-empowerment powers.


1. The Lisbon Treaty establishes a legally quite new European Union. This is a Union in the constitutional form of a supranational European State:

The Treaty gives this new Union a State Constitution which is identical in its legal effects to the EU Constitution that French and Dutch voters rejected in their 2005 referendums.

It does this by amending the two existing basic European Treaties, the "Treaty on European Union" (TEU) and the "Treaty Establishing the European Community" (TEC). The former retains its name, while the latter is renamed the "Treaty on the Functioning of the Union" (TFU). These two amended Treaties become the de facto Constitution of the new Union which they constitute or establish, although they are not called a Constitution. The EU has thus been given a Constitution indirectly rather than in direct form, as had been proposed in the Treaty which the peoples of France and Holland rejected in 2005.

The provision of the Lisbon Treaty that "The Union shall replace and succeed the European Community" (Art.1.3, amended TEU) makes absolutely clear that the post-Lisbon Union will be quite a new entity, as the European Community of which our countries are all currently members ceases to exist.


2. The Treaty empowers this new European Union to act as a State vis-a-vis other States and its own citizens:

To understand the change introduced by the Lisbon Treaty one needs to understand that what we call the European Union today is not a State. It is not even a legal or corporate entity in its own right, for it does not have legal personality. The name "European Union" at present is a descriptive term for all the relations between its 27 Member States.

At present these relations cover both the "European Community" area where supranational European law is operative, and the "intergovernmental" areas of foreign policy and justice and home affairs where Member States cooperate with one another on the basis of keeping their sovereignty and where European laws do not apply.

The Lisbon Treaty changes this situation by creating a constitutionally and legally quite new EU, while retaining the same name, the "Union". Unlike the present European Union, this legally new EU will be separate from and superior to its Member States, just as the USA is separate from and superior to California or New York, or Federal Germany to Bavaria or Brandenburg.

This new European Union can sign treaties with other States in all areas of its competence and conduct itself as a State in the international community of States. It can speak at the United Nations on agreed foreign policy positions of its Member States, just as in the days of the Soviet Union the USSR had a UN seat while Russia, Ukraine and Byelorussia had UN seats also.

The Lisbon Treaty also gives the EU a political President, a Foreign Minister – to be called a High Representative – a diplomatic corps and a Public Prosecutor. The new EU will accede to the European Convention on Human Rights, as all other European States have already done, including those outside the EU.

The Treaty also sets out the principle of the primacy of the laws of the new Union over the laws of its Member States (Declaration 27). The new EU makes the majority of laws for its Member States each year and under the Lisbon Treaty the new Union, which will replace the European Community, gets further power to make laws or take decisions by qualified majority vote in relation to some 68 new policy areas or matters where Member States currently have a veto.


3. The Treaty makes us all real citizens of this new European Union for the first time, instead of our being notional or honorary European "citizens" as at present:

A State must have citizens and one can only be a citizen of a State.

Citizenship of the European Union at present is stated to "complement" national citizenship, the latter being clearly primary, not least because the present EU is not a State. It is not even a corporate entity that can have individuals as members, not to mind citizens.

By transforming the legal character of the Union, the Lisbon Treaty transforms the meaning of Union citizenship. Article.17b.1 TEC/TFU replace the word "complement" in the sentence "Citizenship of the Union shall complement national citizenship", so that the new sentence reads: "Citizenship of the Union shall be in addition to national citizenship." This gives the 500 million inhabitants of the present EU Member States a real separate citizenship from citizenship of their national States for the first time. It gives a treble citizenship to citizens of Bavaria and Brandenburg within a Federal State like Germany. The rights and duties attaching to this citizenship of the new Union are be superior to those attaching to citizenship of one's own national State in any case of conflict between the two, because of the superiority of EU law over national law and constitutions.

As most States only recognise that one can have a single citizenship, henceforth it is one's Union citizenship which will be regarded by other countries as primary and superior to one's national citizenship.

Although we will be given rights as EU citizens, we should not forget that as real citizens of the new European Union we also owe it the normal citizens' duty of obedience to its laws and loyalty to its authority, which will be a higher authority than that of our national States and constitutions.

Member States retain their national constitutions, but they are subordinate to the new Union Constitution. As such they will no longer be constitutions of sovereign States, just as the various local states of the USA retain their constitutions although they are subordinate to the Federal US Constitution.


4. To hide the enormity of the change, the same name – European Union – will be kept while the Lisbon Treaty changes fundamentally the legal and constitutional nature of the Union. By this means the importance of the proposed change is kept hidden from the people:


The change in the constitutional nature of both the Union and its Member States will be made in three legal steps that are set out in the Treaty:

- (a) It establishes a European Union with an entire legal personality and independent corporate existence in all Union areas for the first time, so that it can function as a State vis-a-vis other States and in relation to its own citizens (Art.32, amended TEU);

- (b) This new European Union replaces the existing European Community and takes over all of its powers and institutions. It takes over as well the "intergovernmental" powers over foreign policy and crime, justice and home affairs which at present are outside the scope of European law, leaving only the Common Foreign and Security Policy outside the scope of its supranational power (Art.11.1, amended TEU).

It thereby gives a unified constitutional structure to the new Union which it will constitute or establish. The European Community disappears and all spheres of public policy will come within the scope of supranational EU law-making either actually or potentially, as in any constitutionally unified State. (One says "potentially" because further inter-State treaties would be required to transfer the minority of law-making powers still remaining with the Member States to the new Union in the future, or to shift powers back from the supranational level to the Member States – something that has never happened up to now. Supranational legislative acts would not yet be adopted in the sphere of Common Foreign and Security Policy and new treaties would be needed to change that. However the Commission, a key supranational body, will through the High Representative/Foreign Minister gain the right of initiative in the foreign policy field, so that even in the light of Art.11.1 TEU a de facto "supranationality" will be attained here);

- (c) It makes us all real citizens of the new Federal Union which the Treaty establishes, with all the implications of that for downgrading our present personal status as citizens of sovereign nation States and superseding it by citizenship of a supranational European Federation.


5. It creates a Union Parliament for the Union's new citizens:

The Lisbon Treaty/EU Constitution makes Members of the European Parliament, who at present are "representatives of the peoples of the Member States", into "representatives of the Union's citizens" (Art.9a, amended TEU). This illustrates the constitutional shift the Treaty makes from the present European Union of national States and peoples to the new Federal Union of European citizens and their national states – the latter henceforth reduced constitutionally and politically to provincial or regional status.


6. It creates a Cabinet Government of the new Union:

The Treaty turns the European Council, the quarterly "summit" meetings of Member State Heads of State or Government, into an institution of the new Union, so that its acts and failures to act will, like all other Union institutions, be subject to legal review by the EU Court of Justice.

Legally speaking these summit meetings of the European Council will no longer be "intergovernmental" gatherings of Prime Ministers and Presidents outside supranational European structures. As part of the new EU´s institutional framework, they will instead be constitutionally required to "promote the Union's values, advance its objectives, serve its interests" and "ensure the consistency, effectiveness and continuity of its policies and actions." (Art. 9 amended TEU). They will also "define the general political direction and priorities thereof" (Art.9b).

The European Council thus becomes in effect the Cabinet Government of the new Federal EU, and its individual members will be primarily obliged to represent the Union to their Member States rather than their Member States to the Union.


7. It creates a new Union political President:

The federalist character of the European Council "summit" meetings in the proposed new Union structure is further underlined by the provision which gives the European Council a permanent political President for up to five years (two and a half years renewable once) (Art.9b).

There is no gathering of Heads of State or Government in any other international context which maintains the same chairman or president for several years while individual national prime ministers and prime ministers come and go.

The federal character of the new President is emphasised also by the Treaty provision which forbids that person from holding any national office and which lays down that he/she shall "ensure the external representation of the Union".


8. It creates a civil rights code for the new Union's citizens:

All States have codes setting out the rights of their citizens. The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights will be that. It will be made legally binding by the new Treaty and will be an essential part of the new Union's constitutional structure (Art.6, amended TEU).

The Charter is stated to be binding on the Union's own institutions and on Member States in implementing Union law. This limitation to EU law and to the EU institutions is unrealistic however, because

- (a) the principles of primacy and uniformity of Union law mean that Member States will not only be bound by the Fundamental Rights Charter when implementing EU law, but also through the "interpretation and application of their national laws in conformity with Union laws" (v. ECJ judgements in the Factortame, Simmenthal and other law cases); and because

- (b) the Charter sets out fundamental rights in areas in which the Union has currently no competence, e.g. outlawing the death penalty, asserting citizens' rights in criminal proceedings and various other areas.

This gives a new and extensive human and civil rights jurisdiction to the EU Court of Justice and makes that Court the final body to decide what people's rights are in the vast area covered by European law, as against national Supreme Courts and the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg – the latter Court serving all other European States, not just the EU members – which are our final fundamental rights Courts today.

The EU Commission can be expected in time to propose European laws to ensure the uniform implementation and guarantee of the rights provisions of the Charter throughout the Member States, even in areas which are basically outside the scope of Union competence. American constitutional history provides ample evidence of the radical federalising potential of the fundamental rights jurisdiction of the US Supreme Court.


9. It makes national Parliaments subordinate to the new Union:

The Treaty underlines the subordinate role of National Parliaments in the constitutional structure of the new Union by stating that "National Parliaments shall contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union" by various means set out in Article 8c, amended TEU. The imperative "shall" implies an obligation on National Parliaments to further the interests of the new Union.

National Parliaments have in any case already lost most of their law-making powers to the EC/EU. The citizens who elect them have lost their powers to decide these laws too.

The provision of the Treaty that if one-third of the National Parliaments object to a Commission proposal, the Commission must reconsider it but not necessarily abandon it, is small compensation for the loss of democracy involved by the loss of 68 vetoes by National Parliaments as a result of other changes proposed by the Lisbon Treaty.


10. It gives the new Union self-empowerment powers:

These are shown by:

- (a) the enlarged scope of the Flexibility Clause (Art.308 TEC/TFU), whereby if the Treaty does not provide the necessary powers to enable the new Union attain its very wide objectives, the Council may take appropriate measures by unanimity. The Lisbon Treaty extends this provision from the area of operation of the common market to all of the new Union's policies directed at attaining its much wider objectives. The Flexibility Clause has been widely used to extend EU law-making over the years;

- (b) the proposed "Simplified Treaty Revision Procedure" which permits the Prime Ministers and Presidents on the European Council to shift Union decision-taking from unanimity to qualified majority voting in the "Treaty on the Functioning of the Union" (Art.33.6, amended TEU), where the population size of certain Member States is likely to be decisive; and

- (c) the several "ratchet-clauses" or "passerelles" which would allow the European Council to switch from unanimity to majority voting in certain specified areas such as judicial cooperation in civil matters (Art.69d.3.2), in criminal matters (Art.69f.2), in relation to the EU Public Prosecutor (69i.4), and in a number of other areas.


Conclusion:

It is hard to think of any major function of a State which the new European Union will not have once the Lisbon Treaty is ratified. The main one seems to be the power to make its Member States go to war against their will. The Treaty does provide that the EU may go to war while individual Member States may "constructively abstain".

The obligation on the Union to "provide itself with the means necessary to attain its objectives and carry through its policies" (Art. TEC/TFU 269 a), which means raising its "own resources" to finance them, may be regarded as conferring on it wide taxation and revenue-raising powers, although these will require unanimity to exercise. Currently public expenditure and the tax measures needed to finance it remain overwhelmingly at national state level. This is because such social services as health, education, social security and public housing, as well as defence, policing and public transport – the government functions which cost most money – are still mainly at this level.

However the new European Union will have its own government, with a legislative, executive and judicial arm, its own political President, its own citizens and citizenship, its own human and civil rights code, its own currency, economic policy and revenue, its own international treaty-making powers, foreign policy, foreign minister, diplomatic corps and United Nations voice, its own crime and justice code and Public Prosecutor. It already possesses such normal State symbols as its own flag, anthem, motto and annual official holiday.

As regards the State authority of the new Union, it is embodied in the Union' s own executive, legislative and judicial institutions: the European Council, Council of Ministers, Commission, Parliament and Court of Justice. It is also embodied in the Member States and their authorities as they implement and apply EU law and interpret and apply national law in conformity with Union law. Member States will be constitutionally required to do this under the Lisbon Treaty. Thus EU "State authorities" as represented for example by soldiers and policemen in EU uniforms on our streets are not needed as such.

Allowing for the special features of each case, all the classical Federal States which have been formed on the basis of power being surrendered by lower constituent states to a higher Federal authority have developed in a gradual way, just as has happened in the case of the European Union. Nineteenth century Germany, the USA, Canada and Australia are classical examples. Indeed the EU has accumulated its powers much more rapidly than some of these Federal States – in the short historical time-span of some sixty years.

The key difference between these classical Federations and the new European Union is that the former, once their people had settled, share a common language, history, culture and national solidarity that gave them a democratic basis and made their State authority popularly legitimate and acceptable. All stable States are founded on such communities where people speak a common language and mutually identify with one another as one people – a "We". In the EU however there is no European people or "demos", except statistically. The Lisbon Treaty is an attempt to construct a highly centralised European Federation artificially, from the top down, out of Europe's many nations, peoples and States, without their free consent and knowledge.

If there were to be a European Federation that is democratic and acceptable, the minimum constitutional requirement for it would be that its laws would be initiated and approved by the directly elected representatives of the people either in the European Parliament or the National Parliaments. Unfortunately, neither the Lisbon Treaty nor the EU Constitution it establishes contain any such proposal.

By giving a Constitution indirectly rather than directly to the new European Union which it will establish, the Lisbon Treaty sets in place what Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt has called the "capstone of a European Federal State". For the Euro-federalist political elites who have been driving this process over decades this is the culmination of what started nearly 60 years ago when the 1950 Schuman Declaration, which is commemorated annually on 9 May, Europe Day, proclaimed the European Coal and Steel Community to be the "first step in the federation of Europe".

The peoples of Europe do not want this kind of highly centralized Federal European Union whose most striking feature is that it is run virtually entirely by committees of politicians, bureaucrats and judges, none of whom are directly elected by the people. The Constitutional Treaty setting it up has already been rejected by the French and the Dutch in 2005. As French President Nicolas Sarkozy has admitted, the Prime Ministers and Presidents have agreed among themselves on no account to have referendums on the Renamed Constitutional Treaty, for that would be rejected everywhere again.

Only the Irish are enabled to have their say on it because of the constitutional case taken before the Supreme Court by the late Raymond Crotty. That action by that great Irishman stopped the State's politicians of that time from ratifying a previous European Treaty, the Single European Act, in an unconstitutional manner.

This document has been drafted in consultation with authorities on European and constitutional law by Anthony Coughlan, Secretary of the National Platform EU Research and Information Centre, 24 Crawford Avenue, Dublin 9, Ireland; Tel.: 00-353-1-8305792; E-mail: nationalplatformeuric@eircom.net

It may be disseminated or adapted in whole or in part by whoever wishes to do that, without any need of reference to or acknowledgement of its source.

All emphasis added.

Related:

- "Leviathan's Birth Certificate: the "Treaty of Lisbon"
- "Leviathan's Birth Certificate: the Day After ..."
- "The 'Treaty of Lisbon": the Constitution of the State of the EU" (contains excerpts and links to articles, and is continually updated)


printable version (by Google Docs - may require registering)

The Transatlantic Counter Hirabah Fraternity

Politeia: "Plugging the Holes Against Reality"

(...) Blog after blog is filled every day with frustrated updates on the inroads and trespasses of the Third Jihad on life in the West. I have meant to tell the global counter-jihad community for some time now that their energies and efforts are largely wasted if we don't at the same time convince the politically correct facilitators, appeasers, advocates and moral cowards at home that they are backing, aiding and abetting evil. It is by their grace that Islamization is making the advances that it does. Their short term policies are driven by the expansion of the cohorts of 'victims', thus broadening the Leftist constituencies. The source of this blunt, cynical opportunism - coupled with the tear jerking sentimentalism - is once again the relativism on which the Leftist ideologies are based.Our quarrel is not with Ali and Aisha next door! (...) >>>

(Updated: 7th Jan. 2008)

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Atlas Shrugs: "A Plea From Italy"

(...) There is something unholy in these attempts to destroy the counter jihad movement. There are Europeans putting their lives at stake to fight the jihad in Europe. There is something diabolical at work here. We need to build the transatlantic counter jihad movement, not destroy it. I stand with those brave souls. The latest attack on the Islamic scholar, Bat Yeor, is beneath contempt. Eurabia--the actual vision of Islamization---was in fact promoted by Fascists on the Right and totalitarian Leftists, some of whom were Nazis, including Johannes "Omar Amin" von Leers, who actually converted to Islam. Bat Ye'or has simply reported this phenomenon. (...)

It's not about Nazis. It's about Islam. The real Nazis are converting to Islam. I received an email from the attendee to the summit representing Italy. Do me a favor, go here and check out Adriana Bolchini's country report that she gave at the summit on Islamisation: Italy (there was 18 countries reporting on the dire state of the Islamisation of their respective countries.)

"THE SHADOW OF THEOCRATIC TOTALITARIANISM HOVERS OVER ITALY AND OVER EUROPE AND IS IN DANGER OF WINNING THE WAR DECLARED ON US." (HERE) Here's the email from Adriana. A warrior. >>>

(Updated: 8th Dec. 2007)

U

Jihad Watch: "Vlaams Belang, Charles Johnson, and all that"

(...) It allows the European elites and the political and media mainstream to continue to marginalize the counterjihad resistance as simply racist reactionism, rather than a legitimate concern. So their own abdication and complicity are reinforced by the character of the reaction to it -- a logjam that only a new Churchill could break, and there is no such person on the horizon at this point.

The neofascist character of the anti-jihad parties in Europe also keeps many decent people from joining the counterjihad movement, when they otherwise would. This is the great weakness of the argument that, well, there is no one else fighting this fight, so we have to join forces with people we would otherwise regard with distaste: some people simply will not and will never do that, and it limits the power of the movement and its ability to grow. >>>

(Updated: 15th Nov. 2007)

U

Gates of Vienna: "Counterjihad Brussels 2007"

The summit was sponsored by the Center for Vigilant Freedom, and took place at a location in Brussels >>>

U

The Brussels Journal: "European Conference Resists Islamization"

Keynote speakers included Bat Ye’or, author of Eurabia and Dhimmitude and Robert Spencer, author >>>

U

Atlas Shrugs: "Counter Jihad Resistance"

The most fascinating portion of the morning program was a series of country reports on the status of the Islamization >>>

Book Review: "A Shattered Peace: "Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today"

Enter Stage Right: "Never learning from the past", by Alan Caruba

The libraries of the world are filled with books devoted to history and new ones are published on any almost daily basis, but if their lessons are ignored, it condemns nations and the peoples of the world to horrors that increase with the evolving technology of death.

A book that should be mandatory reading for all the current and aspiring leaders of the world is David A. Andelman's A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today.

"If there was a single moment in the twentieth century when it might have been different, this was the moment." The gathering in Paris that followed the end of World War I and the defeat of Germany, the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires did not merely fail to insure peace; it set in motion the events leading to World War II, the conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, and the tinderbox that is today's Middle East. >>>

Burma Update

The Lighthouse: "Support Burma"

We cannot let the violence go on. We need to act now to protect monks, activists and innocent civilians from further abuses and to support them in their struggle for freedom. The recent violence has shown the world the extent of Myanmar’s brutal crimes. Urge the United Nations to take urgent steps to get Myanmar’s junta to stop the crackdown.

Sign this petition and stand with the people of Burma.

(Updated: 3rd Nov. 2007) The Truth Shall Set You Free: "Weird News: Women's Panties Combat Totalitarianism"

Panties for Peace? Hardly! This is an aggressive attack from the "Panty Power Campaign": “You can post, deliver, or fling your panties at the closest Burmese Embassy from today. Send early, Send Often! This is your chance to use your Panty Power to take away the power from the SPDC and support the people of Burma.”Apparently Myanmar’s superstitious generals, especially Gen. Than Shwe, believe that contact with women’s underwear saps them of power. So "Panties for Peace Women" in several countries have begun sending their panties to Myanmar embassies ... >>>

(Updated: 1st Nov. 2007)
Yahoo News: "Defiant monks march again in Myanmar"

More than 100 Buddhist monks marched peacefully Wednesday in a northern Myanmar town noted for its defiance of the country's military rulers, the first large protest since the junta violently crushed a wave anti-government demonstrations.

The monks marched for nearly an hour in the town of Pakokku, chanting a Buddhist prayer that has come to be associated with the pro-democracy cause. They did not carry signs or shout slogans, but their action was clearly in defiance of the military government, as one monk spelled out in a radio interview.

"We are continuing our protest from last month as we have not yet achieved any of the demands we asked for," the monk told the Democratic Voice of Burma, a Norway-based short-wave radio station and Web site run by dissident journalists. >>>

(Updated: 31st Oct. 2007)
EUX: "Playlist with Myanmar videos now on EUX.TV"

A dedicated YouTube playlist with a collection of video material from the recent government attacks on monks in Myanmar now is available here on EUX.TV.

Several hundred videos about the turmoil in Myanmar have appeared on YouTube and other video platforms in recent days.

The list includes material shot by unknown people on the streets in Yangon and also a recording of a state propaganda broadcast in which Voice of America and the BBC are described as "liars".

It also shows horrible images of the point-blank shooting of Japanese photographer Kenji Nagai by a Myanmar soldier.

Most scenes from the Yangon streets have been made public worldwide via videos on the Internet. The dictatorship on Friday managed to cut off all Internet connections.

The playlist also includes a Google Earth animation with the residences of Myanmar's generals; videos from the oppulent wedding of dictator Than Shwe's daughter; and an two older interviews with opposition leader and Nobel Peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who is said to have been moved back to prison last weekend. >>>

(Updated: 28th Oct.2007)

"Effectively Communicating Jihad: a spade is a spade", by Dr Sam Holliday

The apparent renunciation of terrorism by the person who provided the rationale for the global Muslim revivalist movement presents an opportunity for the United States to improve its performance in strategic communication.

In Foundations of Preparation for Jihad, Sayid Imam al-Sharif prescribed a Third Jihad for the Islamization of the world. Al-Sharif founded the Egyptian Islamic Jihad; his supporters assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and he was with Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan fighting against the Soviet Union. He is a medical doctor and was an associate of Ayman al-Zawahiri, another Egyptian doctor, who is now Osama Bin Laden's deputy. Al-Sharif was captured after 9/11 and has been in an Egyptian jail since 2004.

There have been several reports that Al-Sharif will soon publish a book in which he states that the use of terror, and the killing of innocent nonbelievers, in the name of Jihad, violate the Qur’an. On July 27, 2007, the Guardian (London) reported him as citing the injunction: “Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress the limits; for God loveth not transgressors. Qur'an 2:190” In other words, he now condemns the violence that has been an integral part of all three Jihads. This would mean a modification in how to achieve the Great Caliphate.

A caliphate, which combines religious and political authority, is the only form of governance approved by traditional Islamic theology. There have been caliphates in the Middle East since the seventh century. The Great Caliphate is a goal; it would replace all secular governments from Morocco to Indonesia with a single caliphate that would then be able to convert the rest of the world to Islam. This was Al-Sharif's original vision that has had a major influence on the global Muslim revivalist movement—an effort to achieve Islamic conquest through violence known to its partisans as the Third Jihad.

It has been reported that Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden's deputy in Al Qaeda, is very unhappy with Al-Sharif's recantation since it might cause many others to question their basic ideas about the Third Jihad. Also it has been reported that hundreds of other former Islamic militants now imprisoned are prepared to join Al-Sharif in renouncing the use of violence to spread their beliefs and are ready to accept the free flow of religious ideas.


- THE OPPORTUNITY -

It is too early to know what impact Al-Sharif's book will have. Yet it is not too early to consider how this renunciation of terror might be used to improve our strategic communication. Our enemies have called their cause Jihad (holy war), and their assassins "mujahiddin" (holy warriors), or Servants of Allah, or “martyrs.” All of these have positive emotional and religious connotations. And all too often, these are the words that the politically correct—and faint of heart—in Europe and America have also used. U.S. officials have refrained from using words with Islamic religious implications that might somehow offend Muslims in general as well as the politically correct in Europe and America. This usage is both inaccurate and dangerous. The leaders of the Third Jihad have exploited this weakness to their advantage.

Our leaders need to make changes in order to capitalize on al-Sharif's new views, since they can potentially take away the protection of the Qur'an from those who use terror. By accurately stating that we are fighting against evildoers—not holy warriors, we can remove some of the communication advantage that the leaders of the Third Jihad have enjoyed. We must reach out and hold our people, our enemies, and people around the world.


- THE THIRD JIHAD -

Today the leaders of Islamic militants throughout the world, regardless of their organizational or sectarian affiliation, consider their violent efforts part of the Third Jihad. It is an aggressive revivalist movement that is accepted, respected and supported by peaceful and naïve Muslims. Of course, most of the terrorists that are the foot soldiers of the movement have no such historical perspective, although they share common beliefs. They are in numerous organizations of many sizes and with various tactical agenda. They are motivated by feelings of envy, frustration, greed, prejudice and hatred that are the result of manipulation by the leaders.

After Muhammad's death in the seventh century, the First Jihad spread under the caliphs (vice regents) west from Medina across North Africa and then into Spain, France and Italy, and east across the Middle East deep into Southwest Asia. Then Islam consolidated its control of the lands conquered. The First Jihad ended in 1492 when Islam was driven out of Spain.

The Second Jihad started with the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The Ottoman Turks then implanted Islam in the Balkans and established hegemony over lands from North Africa to India. The Second Jihad was stopped in 1682 with the second unsuccessful attempt to capture Vienna; it was held in check during the Modern Era (eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) by European power, and ended in 1924.

In 1979 the Third Jihad started with the Shah of Iran being overthrown by Shiite followers of Ayatollah Khomeini. It was given focus in February 1998 with a Sunni fatwa, which declared war on America and its allies. For its leaders, the Third Jihad is just another effort to spread Islam until everyone is governed by “the ways of the Prophet”—and to take down the Great Satan. For the foot soldiers, it is a way to express their feelings. In all three Jihads violence has been an accepted way to eliminate, or convert, non-believers (infidels).

The goal of the Third Jihad is to weaken all of those who oppose the establishment of a single caliphate from Morocco to Indonesia, and to remove the influence of Western Civilization from the Islamic world. This goal of cultural takeover was al-Sharif's original message. However, many Muslims oppose the Third Jihad and its goal; indeed Muslims are its most numerous victims. Yet they will condemn only “terrorism” but not the goal of a Great Caliphate.

Many Americans and Europeans either do not understand or deny the threat of the Third Jihad, claiming that Islamic terror is caused by our actions in Islamic countries. They stress the differences between Shiites and Sunnis. They often speak of Islamophobia - a term invented to shut down legitimate and vital debate about the threat of the Third Jihad - and narrow their focus to the personal, inner, nonviolent Jihad al Akbar. They are weary, and want to enjoy the good life without effort or worry.

It is clear why our enemies would call their movement a holy war—Jihad. But this puts a positive spin on something that under international law is considered aggression, and for the past 300 years has often been called imperialism.

Therefore, we need to distinguish those who advocate Islamic conquest through violence, i.e. the Third Jihad, from those who merely use Islam for spiritual guidance to improve their personal behavior. Some Islamic scholars consider it impossible to make such a distinction since both a “defensive” Jihad (to regain territory that was once part of a caliphate) and an “offensive” Jihad (to conquer new territory) sanction warfare without limits. They can cite Muhammad himself on this. They point to the refusal of “moderate” Muslims to condemn, and work against, the global Muslim revivalist movement. However, the words Hirabah (unholy warfare) and hirabahists (evildoers who use terror and will incur Allah's condemnation on Judgment Day) allow this distinction to be made.

It is necessary for most Muslims to be convinced that this distinction can be made in accordance with authentic Qur'anic Islam. The conversion of al-Sharif allows this distinction to be better communicated to all Muslims. The struggle over whether such a distinction can be made illustrates why communications is the center of gravity in irregular warfare—the oldest form of conflict among humans: insurgents using any means available to them to weaken those in authority. The current Muslim revivalist movement has simply changed the battlefield—the result of changes in transportation and communication. Formerly waged within a specific group or in the territory of a single state, we must now face worldwide irregular warfare. This conflict will be won or lost in this new battlefield.


- THE USE OF WORDS -

It is long overdue for U.S. officials to use Hirabah (unholy warfare) rather than Jihad (holy war) and use hirabahists rather than jihadists, terrorists, or Islamists. This usage will be understood by, and have meaning for, those who speaks Arabic. There is no way we can prevent our enemy from calling their movement the Third Jihad. But we can attempt to discredit aggressive, unholy warfare using terror being justified by the Qur'an. Also we should refer to Warfare against Hirabahists rather than War on Terror or GWOT (Global War on Terror). To date, our leaders and the foreign policy establishment have not been receptive to this usage. Let us hope that this will now change.

However, the changes needed are not primarily in semantics. They are primarily contextual: how the leaders and people of America and Europe view irregular warfare and what changes they are prepared to make to become more effective in this form of conflict.

We need to condemn in religious terms, rather than in Western secular terms, those whom many in the West called terrorists and those who give them aid and support. No longer should we adopt the language of those falsely claiming they are fighting a Jihad for Islam. Hirabahists is the correct term for those who bombed the transportation system in London on 7/7, those who did the same in Madrid on 11/11, those using car bombs in Iraq, those who killed over 3,000 Americans on 9/11, and like-minded killers around the world who are active participants in the Third Jihad or give aid and support to the hirabahists. If used effectively the apparent renunciation of terrorism by al-Sharif can facilitate such a change.


- HOW TO USE AL-SHARIF'S NEW VIEWS -

We must recognize that al-Sharif's newly stated views do not reflect a total conversion, a renunciation of Islam. Yet they are significant and no doubt genuine. He surely remains a dedicated Muslim, opposes the introduction of Western Civilization into Islamic countries, and would like to have all Jews and Christians convert to Islam. His “conversion” is probably more a pragmatic change rather than a revelation. After all, his main concern is that hirabahists are killing fellow Muslims declared non-believers. He no doubt has noted that such killings are opposed by most Muslims, and thinks it a wise tactical move to focus on the removal of all non-believers from Muslim countries, rather than on the use of terror. Yet, in strategic communication we can make good use of this apparent renunciation of terrorism. He is undermining the theological basis of an integral part of all three Jihads: violence against non-believers by true believers.

We need to encourage all Islamic clerics to issue fatwas (religious edicts) that condemn anyone that uses terror against nonbelievers as an “apostate,” or “kafir” (infidel), to authentic Qur'anic Islam. In their condemnation, the Islamic clerics must state that:

1. Faithful and peaceful Muslims must never support the criminality of those who use terror against nonbelievers since it violates the teaching of authentic Islam.

2. The ongoing attacks on Europe and the United States are not an authentic Jihad (holy war), but a Hirabah (unholy warfare)—which in secular terms is called a “crime against humanity."Islamic clerics who will not issue such a fatwa, and “Islamic moderates” who will not state the same, would themselves be considered hirabahists.

Rather than using politically correct words, U.S. officials should be willing to use accurate words—that have meaning for our enemies—when talking about our enemies. There is an emotional, spiritual, religious component to this conflict. They should readily charge that the use of terror in the name of Islam is playing God “in the name of Allah.” Anyone who believes in Western Civilization should consider those who use terror as Servants of Satan, and refer to them as hirabahists engaged in crimes against humanity in violation of authentic Qur'anic Islam. We need to remember that Western Civilization was born in Christianity. Europe was called Christendom for centuries, and during these centuries there was conflict between the Crescent and the Cross. If Christianity is abandoned can the Third Jihad be defeated in today's world?

The leaders of the Third Jihad will surely condemn al-Sharif. Such condemnation presents an opportunity for U.S. officials to capture the initiative and achieve success by making the distinction between hirabahists and devout Muslims who oppose violence. Apologists will claim that al-Sharif has been tortured into making these statements. But this must be refuted by proof that his change of heart is the result of reflection and debate among those who believe deeply in the authentic Qur'an.

Also we should benefit from knowledge of the process that produced al-Sharif's apparent renunciation of terrorism—the Egyptian government's “counter radicalization program.” Al-Sharif and other prisoners have been allowed to meet and discuss religious matters with Muslim clerics who oppose the use of terror in the name of Islam. This program has not converted them into pacifists, Christians, or Jews but into reasonable human beings who want to live without violence in a stable society with more than one set of beliefs.


- CONCLUSION -

Communication superiority is a prerequisite for success in irregular warfare, just as air superiority is a prerequisite for victory in conventional war. Although we do not know the depth of Al-Sharif's “conversion,” his view that the Qur'an prohibits terror has given us the opportunity to improve our performance in strategic communication for the hearts and minds of our own people, of our enemies, and of people around the world. Let us hope that our leaders have the wisdom to seize this opportunity.

Copyright © 2007 Armiger Cromwell Center

An introduction of the author, Sam C. Holliday, is provided in "Effectively Communicating Jihad: a spade is a spade"