Caught in the WorldNet, Re-Grooving Terrorists

Jimmy Carter
Robert Samuelson
Hilda Solis


WARNING: Do Not Read This If You Have Moral, Ethical Or Religious Reasons Against Hurting (Or Even Killing) Someone Who Violently Attacks You, Your Wife Or Your Kids
I got this nifty headline from visiting the WorldNet Daily website and clicking on what looked like a news item but took me to an advertisement for the ultimate martial art system demonstrated by the world famous Captain Chris! WorldNet used to look like a regular news site, but now it looks like a cheesy knockoff of the Drudge Report, with headlines in really large print, interchangeable with commercial offers in the same headline style. Maybe they think their audience is too dumb to know the difference, and the large, underlined headlines is tailored for us old folk who just don't see too well... don't forget to buy that special report on how the liberal media is pushing the liberal agenda with liberal lawmakers, for only $4.95 plus shipping!

Most of the headlines aren't really about news items, they are more like gossip items or stuff made up by the WorldNet staff to tell you how great they are. The first news item is about another Obama birth certificate scam that has been debunked in another article on the site, but it is treated as today's breaking news. Lucas Smith is filing in an Orange County, California court over his Obama Kenyan birth certificate, using the foreign born, birther fanatic Orly Taitz as his lawyer: "... Smith declares that he traveled to Kenya in February and paid off a military officer in order to obtain a copy of the birth certificate from Coast General Hospital in Mombasa. The declaration also states that the hospital administrator signed and sealed the copy, which indicates Obama's birth in Africa on Aug. 4, 1961, at 7:24 p.m.


As WND reported, Smith released a video of the document he claims is a copy of Obama's hospital birth record, though an investigation by Jerome Corsi maintains the document is a forgery.


WND first reported earlier this year when Lucas Smith, a former resident of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and known by the eBay handle "colmado_naranja," claimed to have a document proving Obama's birth in Mombasa, Kenya. After promising to reveal the document to WND, Smith then dropped communications with a team of people offering to help him verify the document, only fueling the belief the sale – and therefore the alleged document – was a scam.


Smith, whose background includes a lengthy criminal record and a reported attempt to sell his kidney to a man in need of organ transplant, nonetheless insists that his motives are above board, even if his past looks dubious." Smith, who has tried to sell it on ebay, forgot a few details, like the province where the certificate was from was not part of Kenya t the time, but part of Zanzibar. Ahh, it just doesn't get any better than this, if only there were some articles on alien hybrid births, abduction and raised by wolves with pictures of actresses cellulite, this site would be as wonderful as a global examiner or national inquirer... Captain Chris says check it out.

This is cool...
All this week CNN's Anderson Cooper will be hosting his nightly show, Anderson Cooper 360, from Afghanistan. There will be some spotlight on the soldiers there and what its like on a day to day basis, with news for their families back home. It should be one of the most interesting shows on television this week, we'll find out tonight...

From the Washington Times: "My own safety? I'd be foolish not to take it into consideration. But there are tens of thousands of troops here who are facing the real danger. It really seems like such a small thing I'm doing," Mr. Cooper tells Inside the Beltway. "The press isn't covering this war like it should. The families of these men and women are not getting the news about their loved ones, about their lives in a combat zone, on a nightly basis. And they should."


Mr. Anderson is accompanied by CNN's national security analyst Peter Bergen, who reports some visible progress in the rugged nation - such as the Kabul airport and successful local minesweeping operations.


"Consider that more than 5 million refugees have returned home since the fall of the Taliban. This is one of the most substantial refugee repatriations in history, yet it is little remarked upon because it has largely gone so smoothly," Mr. Bergen says, before going on to detail other signs of progress.


"One in six Afghans now has a cell phone. Under the Taliban, there was no phone system. Millions of kids are now in school, including many girls. Under the Taliban, girls were not allowed to be educated. And in 2008, Afghanistan's real [gross domestic product] growth was 7.5 percent. Under the Taliban, the economy was in free fall."



Sending them in for re-grooving...

The Christian Science Monitor has an article wondering if the Saudi rehabilitation of terrorists program is actually working at all: "They were turned into informants and aides. But then a graduate of one of those programs turned back to terrorism and died in a spectacular shoot-out with police in August.


Saudi Arabia was also considered a good model of rehabilitating terrorists. But two weeks ago a graduate of a rehabilitation program detonated a suicide bomb in an attack on a Saudi prince, nine months after the kingdom disclosed that 11 graduates of the program had been rearrested for joining militant groups." Human rights groups criticize programs like these because they hold the prisoners indefinitely without charging them or taking them to trial, similar to what the US has done with its Guantanamo detainees. Several other graduates of these programs and incarcerations have gone back to joining terrorist groups. Oh, I'm so looking forward to Colorado releasing 15% of its inmates...

The question is if you can rehabilitate someone who holds extreme views. Is there an effective way to get them to change their heart and mind? The training of a terrorist is similar to the way the US trains and indoctrinates its soldiers. Teenage kids are used because of their high emotions and developing brains that allow them to learn quickly, and naive worldviews. Yeah, they'll believe just about any old crap you tell them if its wrapped up in some flag and form of patriotism, whether to Allah or the USA.

But that's just normal indoctrination. Extreme views like those held by jihadists are intertwined with conservative religious beliefs, fueled by hatred from the deaths of loved ones. American Taliban beliefs are intertwined by conservative Christian beliefs, fueled by white supremecy and, evidently, a fear of health care reform. The only way I have seen an extremist change their views has come through the mellowing of time or encounters with their children, an experience that causes them to review their lives, or some kind of epiphany. Jail does not work, nor do rehab programs, except for a few exceptional cases. Alcoholics, cigarette smokers, and meth addicts have the craving for their favorite drug the rest of their lives, they just manage to control it, which is why so many fall off of the bandwagon... Even Focus on the Family has dropped its rehabilitation program for homosexuals, even though they still believe that being gay is not part of God's design.