Tag Archives: United States

Ahmed’s Clock In A Box – Exploitation of A Stereotype for Political Gain, Says Arab American Professor

25 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

Posted to YouTube 9/24/2015

“This is a racial issue, this is a religious discrimination issue, and now you have a poster child, literally, a poster child for your agenda, and I think that agenda is an agenda of intimidation.  It think these Islamists want to intimidate people in our country from questioning the behavior and motives of people from their group, and I don’t think this is the first time they have tried this.  Apparently, this group they work with, the Council on American Islamic Relationships or CAIR has done other things claiming “Islamophobia” and has sometimes been successful and sometimes unsuccessful, but this is a technique they have used before.”  So what’s really unfortunate about that is western civilization, our nation, and many others are in a state of war with radical jihadism, and unfortunately, people who are Arab Americans like me and other people sometimes have parts of us that because of our appearance fit a stereotype, but sometimes stereotypes exist for a reason, and this was an exploitation of a stereotype, in my opinion, to advance a political agenda, and I think it’s wrong because we are still not completely safe in this country, and we have to watch out for our safety and the safety of our children.  So my message to you is keep your eyes open.  If you see something, say something.  Suspicious behavior should be reported.  You should not ever be afraid of to report a suspicion of something that looks amiss regardless of someone’s race or apparent religion.”

Additional Reference

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/09/16/irving-texas-fourteen-year-old-builds-clock/ – 9/16/2015.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260279/ahmed-mohameds-qatari-vacation-muslim-brotherhood-arnold-ahlert – 9/30/2015.

* * *

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2015/clock-and-bull-story – 10/26/2015:

The case that the teen was deliberately trying to provoke a confrontation was strengthened as more was learned about his family. His older sister, Eyman, was once suspended from her school for threatening to blow it up. His uncle runs a trucking company called Twin Towers Transportation. And his father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, is a publicity hungry activist who calls himself a sheik, wears flowing white robes, and is a 9/11 Truther. The elder Mohamed routinely returns to Sudan to run as a presidential candidate, and he once debated Pastor Terry Jones of Koran-burning fame.

Update – December 11, 2015

There’s more to include, including a suit against Irving, Texas officialdom, but BackChannels saw this from PJ Media and has elected to run it as a bookend on this piece (posted to YouTube 12/3/2015).

 

Update – August 2, 2016

The Internet is his refuge — and his attacker. He reads every story and long, rambling conspiracy theory about him. Countless blogs and videos have been dedicated to proving Ahmed’s clock was just a Radio Shack clock he put in a new box. (It was partially made of Radio Shack parts, but the design was all his own, he says.) Others insist that this was all a stunt masterminded by Mohamed to get attention. (“He can’t plan the reaction. And why would he want me to get arrested?” Ahmed says.) Still more have proclaimed that the Mohameds are terrorist sympathizers because they once owned a company called Twin Towers Transportation. (They did own a company by that name, because their offices were housed in a Dallas office building called the Twin Towers.)

Contrera, Jessica.  “A year ago, Ahmed Mohamed became ‘Clock Boy.’  Now, he can’t escape that moment.”  The Washington Post, August 2, 2016.

UAE Designates CAIR and MAS Terrorist Organizations

18 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by in Islamic Small Wars

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

U.A.E.’s list seems to be driven by something closer to home, however: The very first name included is the U.A.E. Muslim Brotherhood, and a significant number of the more surprising inclusions on the list appear to have ties to the transnational Sunni Islamist group: The Muslim American Society, for instance, was founded by Muslim Brotherhood members in the 1990s. Rumors about links to the Muslim Brotherhood have also dogged CAIR.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/11/17/why-the-u-a-e-is-calling-2-american-groups-terrorists/ – 11/17/2014.

(Posted 11/17/2014)

(Posted 11/17/2014)

I generally exit out with “Shimmer” and plead also for pride in legacy if not the retention of aspects of legacy that have plainly outrun their permit: what “BadDaddy’s Islamic Hate” is doing in Iraq and Syria has no place on earth but that which it is temporarily occupying beneath its evil banner — it may be the “real deal”, the old, the authentic, how-it-was Islam, but whether or not so, it’s over: it only feels like it’s living Out There.

This with established organizations in the U.S. involves some complex thinking about advocacy organizations that play in the gray areas short of evident crimes: if it doesn’t commit crimes, why shut it down?

Take it further: what constitutes “incitement”?  “Sedition”?  “Conspiracy”?

The separation of talk from walk may keep some unsavory rhetoricians in business (until a crime traces directly back to them).

As much has been stated in this blog several times, and yet, the world from which Islam has come, and the Muslim leadership of it in various parts, understands how the program may be made to work — and work against themselves as much as anyone else.  Quite rightly, the UAE’s criteria for threat appears to differ but focus on intellectual legacy, an aspect of “credentialism”, and in their opinion, and in their geopolitical space, the presence of CAIR and MAS must be barred.

# # #

Link

31 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Canada, North America, United States of America

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Temple is a major university in the USA, home of the brave, land of the free-where Lady Liberty holds her light high inviting all who are in need to her shores. And yet, and yet, a Jewish student, Daniel Vessal, was physically and verbally attacked-for being Jewish, at this place of higher learning.

It isn’t that he was sucker-punched and verbally abused. It was that it was treated… lightly.

Bederman, Diane Weber.  “The Normalization of Jew-hatred at Temple University and Around the World.”  Times of Israel, August 31, 2014.

# # #

America – Ecuador – Petty Diplomacy – Isaias Brothers Scandal

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in Politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

If it weren’t for Facebook, I’d have never heard of William and Roberto Isaias.

My experience of real space has, for the greater part, shrunk to my desktop, more precisely, it’s 20-inch graphic arts monitor; my experience of cyberspace, however small, has expanded to cover the camel path from Riyadh to Islamabad.  As readers know, it’s easy to hang up, as it were, in one active war zone or another and reflect on so much needless and pointless horror and suffering.

Crime in South America?

Easily overlooked.

However, some crime would seem cousin to conflict.

* * *

The Isaias brothers have been fugitives from their native Ecuador for more than a decade — sentenced in absentia for embezzling millions as the bank they ran there was collapsing.

The Isaias brothers now live in Coral Gables, Fla., running several successful businesses, and they have never been charged in the U.S. But back home in Ecuador, they’re wanted men.

Exclusive: Federal Probe Into New Jersey Sen. Menendez Is Widening | NBC New York – 1/24/2014.

* * *

The judge indicated that the defendants “may have committed the acts alleged by Ecuador”. The problem is that “the way in which Ecuador has tried to correct the supposed errors of the defendants is inconsistent with the regulations and laws of the United States of America.”

Ecuador lost trial against Isaias brothers in Miami | EcuadorTimes.net | Breaking News, Ecuador News, World, Sports, Entertainment

Furthermore, Thornton determined that the pleadings and evidence on file show that “there is no genuine issue as to any material fact … (and) as a matter of law” to the claims of the government of Ecuador against the Isaias brothers.

The government of Ecuador’s power isn’t as far-reaching as it’d hoped | Voxxi – 6/18/2013.

Oh boy.

Anyone care to dive off the deep end into international finance and law?

From the sound of it, at a glance, a gloss, a quick look, the capitalists threatened by the socialists picked up their own marbles and fled to Miami, launched new businesses, and today represent, wonder of wonders, an American Success Story.

Rocio Gonzalez’s article in Voxxi goes on to note: “The defendants show reports from the Superintendency of Banks that show the cause of Filanbanco’s bankruptcy being ill administration from the government.”

Pissing war, we call that.

Finally, from Gonzalez, a full quote from the American court:

“As previously discussed, Ecuador does not seek to enforce a judgment. Without a judgement of liability recognizable under U.S. law, Ecuador’s attempt to seize the defendants’ property in the U.S. is inconsistent with U.S. law and policy,” the Miami-Dade County judge wrote.

* * *

In the piece that tops the works cited on this page, a video quotes former ambassador to Ecuador Linda Jewell as saying, “The fact that the Isaias brothers continue to live a life of luxury in the U.S. while their account holders are suffering in Ecuador has been a constant concern between the U.S. and Ecuador since their flight.”

That’s what she said – but you have the court’s finding: the brothers are wanted for trial, not judgment,  and, logically, the Correa government has not produced a “judgment of liability recognizable under U.S. law,” so what this really looks like is state seizure of private property by a socialist government.

Not surprisingly, the Isaias defense offers a refrain so familiar as to be trite to conservative ears and legal eagle minds:

“And that is the problem of the Isaias brothers — they have committed the crime of being rich in a poor country.”

Exclusive: Federal Probe Into New Jersey Sen. Menendez Is Widening | NBC New York – 1/24/2014.

“Judge Thornton is not concerned with the human rights of the bank’s clients that were affected by this bankruptcy, many of which who no longer exist because they are no longer living,” Bravo insisted.

The judge from Florida that ruled in favor of the Isaías brothers did not defend the human rights of bank’s clients | ANDES – 6/13/2013.

* * *

Back when Edward Snowden, intelligence industry leader extraordinaire, was looking for a new home, Ecuador’s government, this suggested by an NPR note on the matter, used opportunity to press its extradition request for the bankers Isaias Dessum.

Today, New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez (D) has become the object of an investigation or two, one of them involving the ties into the brothers Dessum whom much of the press has characterized as “fugitive bankers”.  Related to that note:

Menendez spokeswoman Tricia Enright tonight said the senator’s office has not heard from investigators and that Menendez believed the family had been “politically persecuted” in Ecuador “including through the confiscation of media outlets they owned which were critical of the government.”

Feds reportedly looking into Robert Menendez for allegedly helping fugitive bankers | NJ.com – 1/23/2014.

Why shouldn’t they be helped?

Given the Correa government’s investment in its spin on the events of the 1990s culminating in the collapse of its banking industry, and add to that its pursuit of assets disconnected from due process, it would seem unlikely that the brothers would get other than a show trial.

“The ruling finally recognizes that there are no laws or due process in Ecuador,” said Roberto Isaias, 68. “I hope that the Ecuadorian government to set and do not proceed with this gamble to follow behind things […] It’s over. What we want is peace “.

The Ecuadorian authorities are considering an appeal.

Miami-Dade judge rules in favor of Ecuadorian former businessmen | Human Rights Ecuador | Analysis of the human rights situation in Ecuador – 6/10/2013.

In that article too, the theme of the resentments of the poor, and of the Correa government, recur:

“[The brothers] have lived in their mansions in Miami, enjoying their luxury yachts and exotic vehicles, outside the scope of the warrants,” according to the lawsuit filed in 2009, and which mentions at least $ 20 million brothers that accumulate in properties in Miami-Dade.

Who and what diminished the value of the assets — the economy of Ecuador — in the 1990s — thieving bankers or the appetite of a socialist state for private capital?

I don’t know and don’t have a swift way of finding out the answer to that question.

One would have to exhume the ecology of Ecuador’s economy in the 1990s and lay it out in plain sight.

Probably, Ecuador has recovered what it may and will not obtain Isaias Dassum brother assets in the United States by want of socialist pique alone.

As for the most recent in “Get Bob!” the senator, I defer to The Wire:

The scandal surrounding New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez has evolved from a sex scandal to a donor scandal to a weird mystery about who set him up, with the FBI talking to sugar baron brothers and an ex-CIA operative. Last fall, the Daily Caller showed videos of women who said Menendez had paid them for sex in the Dominican Republic while partying with a wealthy Florida eye doctor, Salomon Melgen. The women later said they were paid to make the claims. Then Menendez came under scrutiny for intervening with the Dominican government to help Melgen’s port-security firm and intervening with the U.S. government to help Melgen’s Florida clinic when it was charged with overbilling. Now the FBI is trying to figure out who plotted to bring down Menendez with the fake sex story in the first place.

The Bob Menendez Scandal Has Gotten So Weird – The Wire – 5/17/2013.

And on the other hand: Report: Feds probe Bob Menendez on Equador banker links – POLITICO.com – 1/23/2014.

So it goes . . . .

Additional Reference

Bank Crisis Leaves 4,360 Unemployed – BNamericas

1998–99 Ecuador banking crisis – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ecuador Seizes Banking Firms | London Progressive Journal – 7/11/2008.

# # #

Iran in Syria – Testimony Addresses Human Rights Violations

31 Friday May 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Iran has also helped the Assad regime crack down on social media. In February 2011, Syria allowed access to social media websites such as Facebook and YouTube for the first time since 2007. At the time, some viewed this as a positive attempt at reform in order to allow freedom of expression. By May there was a 105 percent increase in the number of Facebook users in Syria, but it also became clear that the regime was using social media to track dissidents.16 US officials reported that in
addition to providing weapons, riot gear, and training, Iran was also supplying sophisticated surveillance equipment to the Syrian government. The Syrian regime used it to track down leaders of the protest movements and arrest them.

Levitt, Matthew.  “Iranian Support for Terrorism and Violations of Human Rights.”  Testimony before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, International Human Rights Subcommittee, House of Commons, Parliament of Canada.  PDF.  The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, May 30, 2013.

What one may see on the web of Syria’s civil war may belie what either the Assad regime or the collection of rebel forces, group by group, have kept hidden even though the standards for propriety as regards online publishing could not be lower.

While Matthew Levitt’s report reaches back to the 2003 arrest in Iran and subsequent torture of journalist Zahra Kazem to provide its most graphic description of the kind of pain meted out by way of the regime’s paranoid fantasia, it may leave to YouTube and the future to describe what horrors behind the curtains became the lot of captured Syrian dissidents in recent times.

Of perhaps equal interest in the report may be a part of the primary source material cited in the footnotes, for example, “Executive Order 13572 of April 29, 2011: Blocking Property of Certain Persons with Respect to Human Rights Abuses in Syria“:

“I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, hereby expand the scope of the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13338 of May 11, 2004, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13399 of April 25, 2006, and in Executive Order 13460 of February 13, 2008, finding that the Government of Syria’s human rights abuses, including those related to the repression of the people of Syria, manifested most recently by the use of violence and torture against, and arbitrary arrests and detentions of, peaceful protesters by police, security forces, and other entities that have engaged in human rights abuses, constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States, and I hereby order . . . .”

The “Government of Syria” described in executive orders between 2004 and 2011 is the same as that supported by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

It would appear the ghosts of the Cold War continue to haunt the politics in the Middle East.

Additional Reference

International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.  “As Elections Approach, Iran Remains Silent on Arrests of Journalists.”  May 30, 2013.

Levitt, Matthew.  “Congressional Testimony: Iranian Support for Terrorism and Violations of Human Rights.”  PDF download page.  The Washington Institute, May 30, 2013.

Rights & Democracy for Iran.  “Iranian Journalist’s Own Experiences and His Interviews with 19 Political Prisoners.”  June 3, 2011.

Wikipedia.  “Chain Murders of Iran”.

Wikipedia.  “Evin Prison”.

Wikipedia.  “White torture”.

Wikipedia.  “Zahra Kazemi”.