Kenya - UCG Good Works

I wanted to send this article about our brethren in Kenya. This is an area that was torn by war earlier this year, as the article points out, and is now a victim of drought. The link www.ucg.org/goodworks is a site that explains how you can help if you want to. Anyway, I thought you might find this interesting.

Peace Returns to Kenya; Members Face DroughtThe violence that troubled Kenya at the beginning of this year (leaving 1,500 dead and 600,000 homeless and/or displaced) has long since faded away. However, the rift among tribes continues below the surface. Only by allowing both rival parties to win (through a power-sharing agreement) was the bloodbath halted. Meanwhile, many of our members there have been impacted by a seasonal drought. Their crops failed and they have been unable to grow food or purchase it without assistance. World prices of food, seed, fertilizer and petrol have all skyrocketed, and Kenya's 20 percent inflation rate further compounds the situation. A Good Works project to assist the members there with supplemental food is listed on the UCG Web site at www.ucg.org/goodworks. During July Tim Waddle and his wife, Valerie, will visit the region. Some of the items on his agenda include leadership training, Festival logistics assessment and congregational visits. A meeting with leaders of a group that left WCG years ago and attended with another affiliation is also scheduled. They have formally requested to be part of United. Their additional numbers could potentially swell Feast attendance this year and may dictate a change of venue. Thankfully, a suitable site has become available at a price that would be considerably less per person than in previous years. —John Elliott

Replacing Housing Risk with Dollar Risk

I previously sent an article about supply and demand in regards to oil prices which you can link to here http://brianleesblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/oil-prices-ship-turns.html. That article also had a link that you could click on called "Breaking the Back of High Oil" which had some articles that suggested how oil prices could be lowered. The article that I'm now sending talks about a misfortune in the Housing Market, and how mismanagement of this could have severe consequences for a very long time. The article is a little long and it does have some technicalities, but it is worth the read. Also, our own church does have a great article in this month's Good News about debt management here http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn77/slave-to-debt.htm

Replacing Housing Risk With Dollar Risk, Updated
Understanding the Dimensions of the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Problem

Thursday, July 17, 2008

As of Sunday night, the US government, speaking through Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, has committed to guarantee the value of securities issued by the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.That means that you, dear Taxpayer, are about to get into the housing business in a way you’ve probably never imagined and certainly didn’t choose.So it’s worth asking a few questions about the business we’re all about to get into.What does it mean to say that Freddie Mac is insolvent on a mark-to-market valuation basis? Exactly how much risk are the taxpayers going to be exposed to? Who owns the securities (or “agency debt”) issued by Fannie and Freddie, and how do they benefit from the bailout?And most of all, what does it mean for people who want to buy houses in the future?This update of a story that was originally written three days ago includes sections on market and Congressional reactions to the GSE bailout plan.
Keep reading…
Preventing Revolutions
Fannie and Freddie (the GSEs) are chartered by Congress to borrow money from the public, and then lend it to homebuyers in the form of mortgages, at a higher rate of interest. They’re supposed to make a nice profit from the interest-rate spread.But Congress long ago gave the GSEs a line of credit from the Treasury (currently $2.25 billion, although Paulson just proposed to raise it). So there has always been a tacit assumption that agency liabilities would be guaranteed by the US government.This makes for a very interesting business model. Because of the implicit Federal guarantee, agency debt is perceived as nearly free of credit risk. This makes it exceptionally attractive to investors, and interest rates on the paper are correspondingly low.So the agencies have an artificially low cost of capital, compared to other lending institutions. Fannie and Freddie don’t make money because they’re particularly good at what they do. They make money only because people believe that the government has assumed the credit risk on their liabilities.This significantly reduces the interest rates that people have to pay on their mortgages, which without the agencies would be quite a bit higher than they are today.And that’s why Congress chartered these entities in the first place. Politicians have long understood that asset ownership keeps people from demanding radical social change. People who own houses and make mortgage payments tend not to participate in revolutions.
On Balance Sheet And Off
In addition to the direct mortgage lending that they engage in, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also guarantee the payments on a much larger amount of mortgage debt. What kind of numbers are we talking about here?There are maybe $12 trillion worth of home mortgages in force in the US today. Fannie and Freddie together own about $1.6 trillion of those mortgages, either directly or in the form or mortgage-backed securities.To support those assets, they’ve issued liabilities in the form of coupon bonds and other debt sold directly to investors. And underneath those liabilities, the agencies have shareholder equity amounting to maybe $70 billion in all.The agencies have also been major issuers of mortgage-backed securities, which are not carried on their balance sheets. These securities amount to a total of nearly $4 trillion. They’re based on mortgages that were underwritten by Fannie and Freddie, and conform to their strict standards. So the agencies guarantee the payments made by these securities, even if the underlying mortgages default, and they earn a fee for making the guarantee.So all in, you’re looking at about $5 trillion in mortgages that are owned or guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie: nearly half of all US mortgages.Ok, now let’s get out the back of an envelope and do some arithmetic.
Potential Losses
What if the sky falls and 10% of the agency-guaranteed mortgages go into foreclosure? (Remember, we’re talking about conforming, prime mortgages: the good stuff, not the subprime toxic waste.) Figure the recovered value from a foreclosure averages half the value of the original loan. That adds up to a potential loss of half of 10% of $5 trillion. Maybe $250 billion.Does that number sound familiar? It should, because the contemplated maximum size of the mortgage bailout bill now working its way through Congress is $300 billion. So at least we’re all working off the back of the same envelope.But Fannie and Freddie only have about $70 billion in equity capital between them. When mortgages default and they lose money, the first losses are taken by the equity. When the equity is wiped out, the agencies’ debt takes the hit. So if you want to not worry about them defaulting on their liabilities, you have to make up the gap between $70 billion and whatever you think their loan losses will be.And that’s why Hank Paulson is talking about buying equity in Fannie and Freddie. It would be a matter of desperation for them to sell additional common stock in the open market now, with their stock prices at smelling distance from zero.But who’s being protected by all this? Well, who owns the debt that’s been issued or guaranteed by the agencies to fund your mortgage?
The International Dimension
To a perhaps surprising extent, part of the answer is the central banks of China, Russia and Japan. “Official” holdings of US agency debt are said to total just under $1 trillion, but they are likely somewhat higher.What the heck happened here?What happened is that investors, including central banks, chose to treat the cash flows generated by American homeowners as reserve assets, a role typically played by securities issued directly by governments (that is, US Treasury debt).These investors eagerly chose to invest in securities that paid a relatively high yield, because it was understood that the US government would assume their credit risk.Turn this over in your mind a few more times. It’s quite remarkable.Fannie and Freddie have been giving investors a free ride for years now. Investors benefit from the high yields paid by mortgages, without being exposed to the risk of default. You’d take this deal too, if you could.This totally explains the rapid growth of Fannie and Freddie, who especially in the Nineties, went out and actively marketed themselves as a substitute for US Treasuries, which were in short supply because of the Federal budget surpluses.And now these investors are demanding that the US make good on its implicit guarantee. In effect, they want to exit from their exposure to the US housing market, and replace it with exposure to the US dollar. They want their agency paper to behave like Treasury paper.Does that sound like a windfall profit for the governments of China and Russia? Yes, it most certainly is. Their agency securities will now appreciate sharply in value until they nearly converge with the value of US Treasuries.But they will still face the problem of holding securities that are denominated in dollars. They’ve replaced housing risk with dollar risk. And the dollar risk is real, because the taxpayer-funded bailout of any losses on agency-guaranteed mortgages will take the form of inflation.Foreign central banks, particularly China, will prove entirely willing to take this risk. The Chinese appear to have recently decided to slow down this year’s sharp appreciation of renminbi, partly to slow down a flood of hot-money inflows. So they’ll continue to pile up dollar reserves as fast as ever. They’ll need a place to put those dollars.And in addition, the fact that there is so much official ownership of agency debt makes it a matter of international diplomacy to propose anything which might impair their value. (For example, the otherwise perfectly reasonable idea of asking agency debtholders to take up to a 5% “haircut,” or reduction in principal value, to reflect roughly that much damage in the housing market.)I suspect that this reality is part of why Secretary Paulson insists that the pain be borne exclusively by shareholders, not bondholders.
Congressional and Market Reactions
Financial markets originally had a positive reaction to the Paulson announcements, but they turned sour almost immediately. The interest-rate spread between agency and Treasury debt, which had tightened sharply on Friday with the rumors of a GSE bailout, started widening again on Monday and subsequent days this week.Secretary Paulson himself came in for a tongue-lashing in Senate Finance Committee testimony on Tuesday. Fed Chairman Bernanke's testimony was received with more politeness. But I can't have been the only one who was struck by a sense that Bernanke is acting like a man with limited options.Bernanke is walking on a knife edge. He's trying to mitigate an ongoing credit crisis, with tools that are better suited for dealing with macroeconomic problems. He can't cut interest rates any further because inflation is already roaring now. (Although this is more complicated than it looks, as the Fed has actually kept total money-supply growth muted through sterilization operations.) And he dares not raise rates because that would slam the brakes on the financial sector (which is in dire distress) and the economy as a whole.Freddie Mac successfully executed a discount-bill raise on Monday and has another one scheduled for Friday. This wasn't surprising. Fannie and Freddie are not in immediate danger. A rather remarkable steepening of the Treasury yield curve this week, however, suggests that people are starting to realize that high inflation is here to stay. We've also seen fresh signs this week that foreign central banks and sovereign investors are accelerating their diversification away from dollar assets.
Where do we go from here?
The net effect of Congress’ 40-year experiment in fostering home ownership has been a significant misallocation of economic resources. Think about it: whenever you make something (like mortgage risk) cheaper than it should be, people will buy more of it than they should.And that crowds out investments that make more economic sense. I have a hunch that some smart economists will figure out that this is exactly why the US economy has been growing more slowly than it could have for so many years.So what happens to homeownership now? We’ve been subsidizing it with an implicit government guarantee. Should we continue to do so, but with an explicit taxpayer-funded guarantee?Or should we let the free market figure out the true value of US housing? (Undoubtedly a lot lower than it is now.) And should we end the deductibility of home mortgage interest?Free-market orthodoxy suggests that we should, because otherwise we’ll continue to overallocate resources to housing, even now that events have proven this to be a bad idea. Efficient resource allocation is what free markets do best. But it’s also what scares politicians the most, because they can’t predict (or control) what free markets will do.The mantra of many successive Administrations has been that America needs high rates of home ownership. For better or worse, we’re already hearing a very different point of view, expressed not only by some who say that “we need to put more money in people’s pockets, and ensure that housing is affordable and available.”That’s actually very different from saying that “home ownership is the American Dream.”The former implies a continued reliance on distorted incentives created by government. The latter activates the idea that if people work hard and smart, the economy will create affordable houses for them to buy.We will all need to decide together which one of these competing visions is the way forward.-Francis Cianfrocca
www.redstate.com

Oil Prices - The Ship Turns

I wanted to send this article which shows how the rising price of oil is causing people to adjust their behavior and possibly make the prices come down with a market adjustment. It's an article about economics which is a topic that some people find interesting and others not so much, but it is worth a read. I hope you find it interesting and if you know anyone with budget problems, do remember that our church publishes a great book which I referenced after the article.

The Ship Turns
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Energy: Call it the paranoid theory of petroleum. Somehow, dark forces behind the scenes keep us from doing anything about soaring oil prices. In fact, something is being done to bring down oil prices. And you're doing it.
IBD Series: Breaking The Back Of High Oil
For some, rising oil prices prove that oil companies and petrotyrants around the world must be in cahoots to create energy shortages. By that theory, we can do nothing about it. Eventually, government will have to step in.But in fact, even as our own dithering Congress refuses to help ease the energy crunch, things are already changing — thanks to you, the consumer, and you, the producer. That's right: It's the private sector that's doing it.One of the glories of a capitalist system is that price signals are allowed to work. When the price for a good rises, that means it's in scarce supply. When the price falls, it's relatively abundant. This signals to users and producers they must change their behavior.For users, higher prices mean finding ways to do with less. For producers, they mean finding ways to produce more. The confluence of these two forces usually results in lower prices. This is what's happening now with oil.It's true that the booming economies of China and India are sucking up ever more energy. But guess what? As the price of crude has soared from $30 a barrel to $50, then to $70 and past $100, we've all changed our behavior.For oil companies, it has meant drilling for more oil. According to data from a variety of sources, world oil output has jumped by 11%, or 8.5 million barrels a day, since 2002, to 83 million barrels a day.Contrary to the predictions of petro-paranoids, private oil companies are producing flat out — even though government entities such as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and the U.S. Congress work to keep prices high.Fueled by the high prices, new sources of oil are being discovered. They include the 33-billion-barrel bonanza recently found off Brazil's coast and other huge finds in the Caribbean and Asia. The U.S. itself has 656 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 112 billion barrels of oil on federal lands alone — there for the taking if only Congress would allow it.But even without it, we're going gangbusters. As the American Petroleum Institute recently noted, "an estimated 4,577 (U.S.) oil wells were completed in the first quarter of 2008, up 12%" from last year and the highest rate since 1986. U.S. oil companies are going back to tapped-out wells and pumping oil that wasn't economically recoverable at $25 a barrel but is at $100.That's the supply side. What about demand? U.S. fuel demand in the first three months of 2008 was down 1.4% from a year earlier — the third straight quarterly year-over-year decline in a row.Gasoline consumption has risen about 1.5% a year since 2000. But Energy Department data showed demand in the first quarter edging down for the first time in more than two decades.In short, the tide has turned.The New York Times notes that U.S. car buyers have suddenly gone ga-ga over small cars. One in five purchases is now a compact or subcompact, while SUV sales are off 28%. "It's easily the most dramatic segment shift I have witnessed in the market in my 31 years here," said George Pipas, Ford Motor's chief sales analyst.So, even as Congress twiddles its thumbs, the private sector is doing its thing — adjusting to the market to make things better. The bad news is, there's no guarantee that oil prices won't go up more. The good news, as recent trends show, is that it won't last.
http://www.gnmagazine.org/booklets/MF/

U.S. Hospital used for Mexico's infighting!

I just thought you might want to know how this city's hospital is being used.

Thomason CEO seeks help after 3rd lockdown
By Aileen B. Flores / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 07/13/2008 12:00:00 AM MDT

Jim Valenti, CEO of Thomason Hospital, held up a copy of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which is the federal law that states no trauma patient seeking medical treatment can be turned away, and a copy of the National Security Advisory Security System, which the hospital will use to determine its level of security when appropriate. (Vanessa Monsisvais / El Paso Times)Related: Find more on the violence in Juárez. With his hospital forced to take heightened security measures for the third time this year, Thomason Hospital CEO Jim Valenti on Saturday called on elected officials to stop the trend of people shot in Juárez seeking medical treatment at the county hospital.
Valenti acted after a Mexican police officer with multiple gunshot wounds, apparently another victim of the ongoing drug war in Juárez, was taken Friday night by ambulance from one of the ports of entry to Thomason Hospital's Level 1 Trauma Center.
Once again, sheriff's deputies stood guard outside the hospital with assault rifles, doors were locked, and all visitors to the hospital had to be screened by through a metal detector.
Thomason officials said the officer was the third wounded Mexican police official to be taken to Thomason. Since January, 11 victims of the drug-war violence have been treated at the hospital, seven of them U.S. citizens.
This should be a signal that elected officials and law enforcement agencies need to take some action, Valenti said.
"This trend is disturbing our doctors and nurses, medical students and patients," Valenti said. "We need the assistance of federal, local and state agencies. A month ago we had a similar situation, and our prediction is that this is going to continue."
Mayor John Cook said Saturday he understood that the situation was putting a burden on the ability of the hospital to operate and take care of its patients. Cook said federal, state and local officials would have to meet and find a solution to "a very disturbing trend."
In response to Valenti's request for assistance, U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said the Merida Initiative was "a major step in addressing the escalating violence in Juárez."
Reyes said the Merida Initiative, recently signed into law by President Bush, would provide Mexico with training, equipment and intelligence to reduce drug-related crime.
Reyes said it would also give Mexico's judicial system support and resources that could lead to more drug-related prosecutions.
County Commissioner Veronica Escobar said the Thomason Hospital board members and the Commissioners Court would meet July 24 to discuss the "pattern" of bringing drug-related shooting victims to El Paso.
"It appears there may be a significant effort to provide safety for certain individuals who are victims of the drug war," Escobar said.
She said El Paso is the only border city where wounded Mexican officials are taken to receive medical care, even though other Mexican cities along the U.S. border are having similar violence.
According to Thomason officials, the hospital did not accept those patients in transfer. The decisions to take the patients to the hospital were made when emergency medical technicians assessed the patients and determined they required Level 1 trauma care.
Thomason is the only Level 1 Trauma Center in the region. Under federal law, medical personnel are required to provide immediate treatment to such patients, Valenti said.
Thomason officials said the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act requires a U.S. hospitals to stabilize any patient brought to its emergency room needing trauma care, regardless of the patient's ability to pay or national origin.
"Mexican citizens aren't different than the United States citizens," said Valenti, who added that cost isn't the issue. "Thomason is receiving reimbursements from the majority of these cases."
Friday night, three El Paso police units escorted the ambulance to Thomason, where El Paso County sheriff's deputies implemented heightened security.
"We aren't providing protection to the individual. We provide extra security for the patients, staff and visitors," said Deputy Eduardo Placencia, Sheriff's Office public information officer. The added security will continue until further notice, he said.

UK or Pakistan?

I wanted to send this article which shows the persecution that someone who converts from Islam can go through. The story is about someone in Britain, not thought of as a Muslim country, but you can click a link in the story to see what can happen to someone who converts in the Middle East. If you would like another link that shows how some fellow Sabbatarians had to move to flee persecution, click the link here http://www.lifenets.org/ukraine/crisis.htm. I hope you find this interesting.

"He endured similar threats in his homeland Pakistan, but never expected the same thing to happen in the UK"

If this is what Muslim converts to Christianity experience living in the UK, imagine what converts living deep in the heart of Islam must go through.

"Persecution threat to British Muslims who change their faith," from Inspire Magazine, July 9:
A growing number of Christians in Britain from a Muslim background are facing harassment and persecution, warns Release International. They include ‘Yasmin’, whose ex-husband planned to kill her. She’s been attacked in the street, driven from her home and was taken under police protection. Yasmin became a Christian after receiving a vision of Jesus during the difficult birth of her son. She tried to keep her faith a secret from her family, but eventually told her mother. “When my mother found out I had become a Christian she went to the local mosque and told them that I had gone crazy,” Yasmin told Release International, which serves the persecuted Church in 30 nations. “She went to get some holy water to heal me of my madness. A campaign was set up against me; people would come and bang on the door every ten minutes during the night.”Apostates, after all, are mercifully granted sometimes up to three days to return to the fold of Islam before being killed. And they say Islam is merciless!
The police set up a panic alarm, but finally told Yasmin they could no longer protect her and moved her into a women’s refuge.Yasmin relocated to another part of the country, but her ex-husband tracked her down and demanded custody of their children as he objected to them being brought up by a Christian.She says: “He continually intimidated and harassed me and hired someone to beat me in the street. Wherever we went there would always be a car following us and watching us.”Her son yielded to pressure and went to live with his dad. “He only stayed one night,” says Yasmin, “as his dad told him that he had arranged for someone to kill me and was pressing my son for details of the layout of our home - where the alarm was and where I slept.”
Yasmin went into hiding with her son and took out an injunction against her husband. The harassment stopped, but that was not the end of the trouble.“Everyone in the local Muslim community knew I was a Christian and didn’t want to know me. People would cross the street rather than greet me and often spat in my face. They tried to pressure me to leave town. But I had already been chased out of one town so I was determined not to let them intimidate me.”Yasmin is now working to support other Muslim background believers who are experiencing the same pressures and persecution. She tells her story in the latest edition of Release International’s Witness magazine, available from
www.releaseinternational.org
She adds: “One of the most difficult things about becoming a Christian from a Muslim background is losing your family. There are such tight family networks in our communities. If someone becomes a Christian then they are considered to bring shame on the whole family and the only response is to cut them out of the family.”Some Muslim background believers in the UK lose their homes, possessions and even custody of their children – a picture replicated in many nations around the world, where former Muslims may even lose their lives for changing their faith.Release International’s patron, Bishop Michael Nazir Ali has also been under police protection after receiving death-threats for expressing his concerns about some aspects of Islam in Britain. He endured similar threats in his homeland Pakistan, but never expected the same thing to happen in the UK.Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali says: “The story of the Church is a story of persecution. The blood of the martyrs has been, and is, and will be the seed of the Church.”Note: "martyrs" in a Christian sense. You know, those men and women who, rather than recant their faith, gladly suffered torture and execution, as opposed to the Muslim sense: being killed while trying to kill others in the name of your faith.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/
For further reading
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/64595883&referer=brief_results

Hitler's Jihadist

I wanted to send this article which shows a link between Hitler and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in the 1940's. The concept of Jihad did exist before Nazi Germany, however, this article points out that it became re-energized by a common anti-Jewish worldview that both ideologies fed upon from each other and how this carried over to some of the Jihad movements today. The topic does come up of how Aryan Nazi Germany could ally itself with an influential Arab, but do remember that they also allied with Imperial Japan. I hope you find this interesting.

Hitler’s Favorite Jihadist
David R. StokesSunday, July 06, 2008
As members of the Allied Expeditionary Force entered the landing crafts that would transport them to their rendezvous with history in the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, they received individual copies of the Order of the Day drafted by their Supreme Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower. He had given the go ahead for the massive invasion, code named Overlord, in spite of weather that was less than inviting. He wanted the men to understand what they were fighting for – and against.
He told them:
“You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.”In those days leaders weren’t as concerned about the politically correct parsing of phrases and words as some seem to be today. It was clear to them that they were not fighting mere “flesh and blood” but abhorrent ideological wickedness (“Nazi tyranny”). And they passed that clarity onto those who were engaged in the perilous fight.
So, why is it so hard for some today to call things as they are?
We are not fighting a war on terror. We are fighting against a pernicious way of thinking. Terrorism is a methodology – a way to fight a battle. The technique itself is not the enemy. Our foes are people and regimes who, in the name of foul opinion, perpetrate destruction. Just like back in the 1940s.
Can you imagine what it would have sounded like if Ike, FDR, or Churchill had been bound by the sensitivities of our day? We would have been “battling the blitzkriegers,” or maybe “bringing to justice those who dared to attack too early on a Sunday morning,” - hardly clarion calls.
Wars make more sense, and they tend to be conducted with greater vigilance and effectiveness, when we understand things in terms of good vs. evil. But these days it’s hard to even bring up the idea that militant Islam is to blame, much less to frame the current conflict as a war against it. History, however, leaves clues that remind us that there is really not much new under the sun.
David G. Dalin and John F. Rothman have written a new book, one that should be read by all Americans seeking to understand current geopolitical reality, called: Icon of Evil: Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam. They make a compelling and well-documented case that we are actually fighting the quasi-spiritual offspring of Nazism and Fascism.
Haj Amin al-Husseini (1895-1974) is by no means a household name today, but his story is a key historical plot-point helping to create the mess we now find ourselves in. From his appearance on the stage of turbulent Middle Eastern politics in 1921, until his death fifty-three years later, he was a consistent and vociferous voice preaching a blend of anti-Semitic, anti-Western, and pan-Islamic rhetoric to anyone who would lend an ear. And there were plenty of listeners. There still are. He was the grand mufti (maximum leader) of all muslims in Palestine – the big kahuna.
Mr. al-Husseini’s political journey was driven by a radical interpretation and application of Islam. He was an effective and charismatic leader of a vast movement - forerunner of the various manifestations of Islamic fanaticism extant. This virulent form of his religion took hold during the period between the two world wars and grew to become the plague it now is on all houses of freedom.
And it turns out that al-Husseini was a big fan of a man by the name of Adolf Hitler. The number one Nazi liked him, too.
In November of 1941, a little more than a week before the attack on Pearl Harbor, there was a meeting in Berlin, one that is often relegated to a footnote in the history of that great global conflict. Haj Amin al-Husseini made his way from the mansion he’d been provided by the Nazis toward the Reich Chancellery, where he was to meet Hitler in the dictator’s private office. Dalin and Rothman describe this ominous meeting in great detail.
The mufti sought to ingratiate himself with Hitler and the strategy was reciprocal. They pledged allegiance to each other. And why not? They had common goals and enemies. The German leader bestowed honorary Aryan citizenship on his guest (Hitler interpreted al-Husseini’s blond hair and blue eyes as evidence that the Islamic leader must have possessed some “pure” blood) and it was clear that his visitor was keenly interested in being set up as the Nazi leader in Palestine and its surrounding region.
Al-Husseini eventually recruited 100,000 European Muslims to partner with the Waffen-SS, and the authors of Icon of Evil hint at the idea that the cleric-politician was influential in the decision to implement the notorious Final Solution. He was good buddies with Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Eichman.
Nazis and radical Islamists – together. Nothing good could come of that, and in fact, a lot of today’s bad stuff was incubated in that Berlin laboratory.
One of the most captivating portions of Icon of Evil is devoted to the question: What if Hitler had been victorious and the war had turned out differently? Drawing on similar previous musings by writers such as William L. Shirer, John Keegan, and David Fromkin, the duo shares a chilling narrative about how radically different life would be today had Hitler won. This is important not just because of the horrifying idea of a Hitler-dominant Europe – but also due to what the Middle East would look like in such a case. Al Husseini wanted to extend the Holocaust beyond the borders of European living space to the Middle East. His goal was something near and dear to the heart of the depraved men running the Third Reich – a Palestine that would be virtually Judenrein (a reprehensible Nazi term literally meaning: “clean of Jews”).
Then there’s the story of how this wicked preacher was able to avoid the Nuremberg trial dragnet, in spite of clearly being guilty of egregious war-crimes. He would not be brought to justice, but rather would live out his days back in the Middle East. His post-war work included becoming something of a mentor to men who would become famous in his cause. What do Gamel Abdel Nassar, Anwar Al Sadat, Yassir Arafat, and Saddam Hussein have in common? They were all connected with, and deeply influenced by, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Hamas and Hezbollah are very much part of his legacy, as well. He worked closely with the theoretician of radical Islam, Sayyid Qutb, as well as Saddam’s infamous uncle, General Khairallah Talfah. The guy was connected. And the usual suspects he ran with paved the way for everything from the attacks on September 11, 2001, to the maniacal rantings of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In fact, some of Haj Amin al-Husseini’s spirit is in the intellectual and emotional DNA of every current radical Islamist.
Now, here’s what really bugs me – why could we fight a war nearly seventy years ago, all the while referring to our enemies as Nazi thugs, and yet today be so concerned about sensibilities that we’re reduced to, at best, rhetorical beating-around-the-bush?
The war we are in is not against a weapon, no matter how dreadful that weapon is. We are fighting a virulent ideology. To be brutally honest about it - to call our enemies today terrorists, or even Islamo-Fascists, is not strong enough.
They are Islamo-Nazis and they’re really bad people - like the German-Nazis were.
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/180205003&referer=brief_results
Other books on this topic:
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/162502036&referer=brief_results
http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=nazi+connection+to+islamic+terrorism&qt=owc_search

Saudis and Muhammad, their Prophet

Sex OK at 9, says Saudi cleric'Muhammad is model we follow. He took 'Aisha to be his wife when she was 6'

Posted: June 27, 200812:15 am Eastern© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Age, or lack thereof, is no hindrance to marriage under Islam, according to Ahmad Al-Mu'bi, an officiant for marriages from Saudi Arabia who says sex at 9 is fine.According to a video of the Saudi official recorded and translated by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, Al-Mu'bi has confirmed that marriage contracts are appropriate for girls as young as age 1.And he said the model for marriage continues to be Muhammad, who married one of his wives when she was but 6.
The video comes from a broadcast on LBC Television on June 19, according to the MEMRI report.Al-Mu'bi said, "Marriage is actually two things: First we are talking about the marriage contract itself. This is one thing, while consummating the marriage – having sex with the wife for the first time – is another thing."There is no minimal age for entering marriage. You can have a marriage contract even with a 1-year-old girl, not to mention a girl of 9, 7, or 8. This is merely a contract [indicating] consent. The guardian in such a case must be the father, because the father's opinion is obligatory. Thus, the girl becomes a wife," he said. "But is the girl ready for sex or not? What is the appropriate age for having sex for the first time? This varies according to environment and traditions. In Yemen, girls are married off at 9, 10, 11, 8, or 13, while in other countries, they are married off at 16. Some countries have legislated laws forbidding having sex before the girl is 18," he said.
He confirmed, "The Prophet Muhammad is the model we follow. He took 'Aisha to be his wife when she was 6, but he had sex with her only when she was 9."An interviewer asked: "My question to you is whether the marriage of a 12-year-old boy to an 11-year-old girl is a logical marriage permitted by Islamic law.""If the guardian is the father... There are two different types of guardianship. If the guardian is the father, and he marries his daughter off to a man of appropriate standing, the marriage is obviously valid," said Al-Mu'bi."People find themselves in all kinds of circumstances. Take, for example, a man who has two, three, or four daughters. He does not have any wives, but he needs to go on a trip. Isn't it better to marry his daughter to a man who will protect and sustain her, and when she reaches the proper age, he will have sex with her? Who says all men are ferocious wolves?" Al-Mu'bi said.