TBR News August 16, 2018

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Isaiah 40:3-8 

Washington, D.C. August 16, 2018:”There has been considerable angst evident in the Oval Office over the strong possibility that at least one or more officials or staff members have taped some of the outrageous racist or obscene remarks of President Trump. There is a question as to how many of these tapes were made and what is going to happen to them. One thesis is that they do not exist but in fact, they do and a number of people outside the White House have heard them. The media is nervous about addressing this because Trump is threatening to take legal action against anyone or any institution that would dare to publish. It boils down to a question of whether Trump’s bluster will win out on this issue. It is highly doubtful if it will and we must not forget that the mid-term elections are coming up in November. Timing, after all, is vital.”

 

The Table of Contents

• Gothenburg car fires: Swedish man arrested in Turkey
• Internet Users Crowdfund Release of 4,358 CIA MKUltra Documents 
• Donald Trump has said 2291 false things as U.S. president: Number 2
• The Guardian view on the press and Trump: speaking truth to power
• Did Omarosa break the law by secretly recording Trump and Kelly? 
• RBS bankers joked about destroying the US housing market
• The Coming American Economic Collapse
• The Strange Cult of Mohammed: The Coming Grand Expulsons
• Afghanistan’s dirty little secret

 

Gothenburg car fires: Swedish man arrested in Turkey

Swedish police believe the series of car fires started by a number of youths were coordinated using smartphones. Police are yet to determine a motive for the attacks, which saw more than 100 cars burned or vandalized.

August 15, 2018

by Louisa Wright (with AP)

DW

Swedish police on Wednesday said a third man suspected of arson in connection to a wave of car fires in the city of Gothenburg and surrounding towns had been arrested in Turkey.

Ulla Brehm, a police spokesperson for Sweden’s west police region, told DW more than 100 cars had been reported burned or vandalized in Gothenburg so far, as well as in the industrial town of Trollhattan.

A handful of fires were also reported in Sweden’s third-largest city Malmo.

Two suspects aged 16 and 21 from the Gothenburg suburb of Frolunda were arrested on Tuesday and a third suspect born in 1999 had been on the run but was stopped as he attempted to enter Turkey.

“After some intense investigating we actually found out he was on his way to Turkey, so we contacted the police in Turkey and told them that we would like to have this man back for investigation,” Brehm said. The man is expected to return to Sweden on Wednesday.

“We know all three of them lived in this area and they are citizens of Gothenburg,” Brehm continued, adding that police did not know why one of the men had left for Turkey.

Attacks coordinated online

Brehm told DW that Swedish police believe the arson attacks were coordinated using smartphones but so far have not been able to determine a motive.

“Because the fires started very close in time, we think they have in some way used their phones, but as for now we don’t have an online site or forum that we have found,” Brehm said.

Across the suburbs of the city of Gothenburg there were up to 30 youths on the streets and in the city of Trollhattan there were around 30-40 in the group, but only around 20 were involved in the burning and vandalization of cars.

Brehm said that burning cars was “not a new phenomenon in Sweden” during the week before school starts.

“There’s always someone putting a car on fire among the young people in these suburbs, but this time there has been so much more,” Brehm added.

Concern over gang-related and other violence has heightened in recent months as Sweden heads into national elections on September 9.

The public angst could help Sweden’s anti-immigration ‘Sweden Democrats’ become the second-largest party in the parliament.

The death of a 69-year-old man by police in Stockholm prompted accusations of police brutality in 2013, and saw rioting by hundreds of youths in the capital.

 

Internet Users Crowdfund Release of 4,358 CIA MKUltra Documents 

Black Vault, a website that publishes government documents, appealed to the internet for help after the CIA refused to waive the a fee it was demanding to release the documents

August 15th, 2018

The Anti-Media

A crowdfunding campaign has succeeded in raising the funds necessary to pay a Freedom of Information Act request fee for documents related to the CIA’s controversial MKUltra program.

John Greenewald of Black Vault, a website that publishes government documents, appealed to the internet for help after the agency refused to waive the $425 fee it was demanding to release the documents. Greenewald, who has been filing FOIA requests for two decades, had previously published files on MKUltra, a program best known for dosing individuals with drugs like LSD to research mind control. The program was shut down, and the documents were reportedly destroyed in 1973 at the order of then-director Richard Helms, but some were eventually released.

Greenewald filed his first request for the documents in the late ‘90s and says he didn’t hear back for years. In 2004, the CIA released some relevant documents to him via CD-Rom, which he published, but years later, he discovered thousands of pages were missing.

“So, even though I paid for the CDs already, and they gave me an index originally stating that 100% of those records were on the CD-ROMs, they in fact, were not,” he said in his GoFundMe appeal. He filed a new request but the CIA is charging him $425 to print 4,358 pages of previously withheld material. He easily met his goal of $500 (to cover any additional costs and GoFundMe fees) with the help of just 16 donors.

MKUltra has been extensively verified — in one case, the CIA kept seven prisoners at a Kentucky penitentiary high on acid for 77 days — but many of the documents are not available to the public. Though the CIA claims the documents he is requesting are not related to MKUltra, and rather, pertain to “behavioral modification,” Greenewald isn’t convinced. “Whether or not that ties into MKUltra and mind control, which I believe it does, the CIA claims it does not,” he told Vice News.

“To me, even though the government lies, documents do not,” Greenewald said. “And documents tell a very interesting story. That’s why I love them.”

He added, “We shouldn’t be afraid to ask questions.”

 

 

Donald Trump has said 2291 false things as U.S. president: Number 2

August 8, 2018

by Daniel Dale, Washington Bureau Chief

The Toronto Star, Canada

The Star is keeping track of every false claim U.S. President Donald Trump has made since his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017. Why? Historians say there has never been such a constant liar in the Oval Office. We think dishonesty should be challenged. We think inaccurate information should be corrected

If Trump is a serial liar, why call this a list of “false claims,” not lies? You can read our detailed explanation here. The short answer is that we can’t be sure that each and every one was intentional. In some cases, he may have been confused or ignorant. What we know, objectively, is that he was not teling the truth.

Last updated: Aug 8, 2018

• Jan 23, 2017

Trump told Congressional leaders that “he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in last November’s election because between three million and five million ‘illegals’ cast ballots, multiple sources told Fox News.”

Source: Private meeting with Congressional leaders

in fact: This claim, also reported by numerous other major media outlets, simply has no basis in reality. Trump’s own lawyers said in a legal filing that “all available evidence suggests that the 2016 general election was not tainted by fraud.” The National Association of Secretaries of State — the state officials who run elections — said they “are not aware of any evidence that supports the voter fraud claims made by President Trump.”

Trump has repeated this claim 6 times

• Jan 25, 2017

“So, look, when President Obama was (in Chicago) two weeks ago making a speech, very nice speech. Two people were shot and killed during his speech. You can’t have that.”

Source: Interview with ABC’s David Muir

in fact: There were not only no homicides during Obama’s speech but no shootings at all, the Chicago Tribune reported based on police data.

“Look, Barack Obama — if you look back, eight years ago when he first ran — he was running for office in Chicago … and he was laughing at the system because he knew all of those votes were going to him … he was smiling and laughing about the vote in Chicago.”

Source: Interview with ABC’s David Muir

in fact: This is a gross mischaracterization of Obama’s remarks and behaviour during the 2008 campaign. He did not laugh or smile about the voting system in Chicago, and he did not suggest in any way that he was going to be receiving fraudulent votes. He acknowledged that his party had sometimes “monkeyed” with Chicago elections “in the past.”

Regarding voting fraud: “You look at Philadelphia, you look at what’s going on in Philadelphia.”

Source: Interview with ABC’s David Muir

In fact: There is no evidence of a significant voter fraud problem in Philadelphia.

Regarding voting fraud: “Chicago, look what’s going on in Chicago. It’s only gotten worse.”

Source: Interview with ABC’s David Muir

in fact: There is no evidence of a significant voter fraud problem in Chicago, and there is no evidence that its voting system has become increasingly plagued by fraud.

Regarding his false claim of “millions” of possible illegal voters: “Those were Hillary votes. And if you look at it they all voted for Hillary. They all voted for Hillary. They didn’t vote for me. I don’t believe I got one. OK, these are people that voted for Hillary Clinton.”

Source: Interview with ABC’s David Muir

in fact: These large numbers of illegal voters did not “all” vote for Clinton because they do not exist. Even if they did, it would be impossible for Trump to know that not a single one voted for him, since the ballot is secret. This claim is simply absurd.

Trump has repeated this claim 6 times

“Now you’re telling me Pew report has all of a sudden changed.”

Source: Interview with ABC’s David Muir

in fact: Trump was trying to use a 2012 Pew report as supposed evidence of widespread voter fraud. Muir told him he was wrong — not because the report changed but because it never showed what Trump falsely claims it showed. “The Pew study I directed doesn’t address voter fraud at all,” report leader David Becker told the Washington Post this weekend. Rather, the study addresses non-fraud voter registration issues, such as people remaining on one state’s rolls after they move to another.

Muir: “I called the author of the Pew report last night. And he told me that they found no evidence of voter fraud.” Trump: “Really? Then why did he write the report?” Muir: “He said no evidence of voter fraud.” Trump: “Excuse me, then why did he write the report? According to Pew report, then he’s — then he’s grovelling again.”

Source: Interview with ABC’s David Muir

in fact: Grovelling means “to draw back or crouch down in fearful submission.” Becker is doing the opposite: publicly explaining his work, and explaining why the president is wrong.

Regarding Healthcare.gov: “Remember the $5 billion website?”

Source: Interview with ABC’s David Muir

in fact: Healthcare.gov did not cost $5 billion. The Obama administration offered a figure of less than $1 billion, while an analysis by Bloomberg found that it cost just over $2 billion.

With regard to his speech to the Central Intelligence Agency earlier in the week: “They showed the people applauding and screaming and they were all CIA. There was — somebody was asking (press secretary) Sean (Spicer) — ‘Well, were they Trump people that were put’ — we don’t have Trump people. They were CIA people.”

Source: Interview with ABC’s David Muir

in fact: Most of the audience was indeed made up of CIA personnel, but Trump is wrong that there were no “Trump people.” Spicer told the press that “maybe 10” people in attendance were part of Trump’s entourage; CBS News reported that an official familiar with the event said Spicer was inaccurate, as Trump and his allies brought about 40 people.

“I think you’re demeaning by talking the way you’re talking. I think you’re demeaning. And that’s why I think a lot of people turned on you and turned on a lot of other people. And that’s why you have a 17 per cent approval rating, which is pretty bad.”

Source: Interview with ABC’s David Muir

in fact: Saying “you” here, Trump wrongly conveys the impression that Muir himself has 17 per cent approval. In fact, there is no polling on Muir. Trump appears to have actually been referring to a 2016 poll about Americans’ views on the media. In that poll, the media’s approval rating was 19 per cent.

Trump has repeated this claim 2 times

“No, no, you have to understand, I had a tremendous victory, one of the great victories ever. In terms of counties I think the most ever, or just about the most ever.”

Source: Interview with ABC’s David Muir

in fact: Trump’s victory was not close to one of the biggest of all time. He lost the popular vote, and his Electoral College margin ranks 46th out of 58 elections. Trump did far better in terms of counties, winning more than any candidate since Ronald Reagan, but he was well short of setting the record or even “just about” tying it: Richard Nixon won more than 2,950 counties in 1972, far exceeding Trump’s 2,623.

Trump has repeated this claim 2 times

“In terms of a total audience including television and everything else that you have we had supposedly the biggest crowd in history. The audience watching the show. And I think you would even agree to that. They say I had the biggest crowd in the history of inaugural speeches.”

Source: Interview with ABC’s David Muir

in fact: “They” can mean anyone, but no expert is declaring that Trump had the biggest inauguration crowd in history. Obama’s 2009 inauguration drew far more people in person and far more television viewers. Trump’s claim relies on the people who watched the inauguration on online streams. It is possible that these people gave him a record, but it is impossible to know for sure.

 

The Guardian view on the press and Trump: speaking truth to power

Editorial

On Thursday, hundreds of US news organisations are publishing editorials opposing the president’s attacks on the press. The Guardian stands with them

August 15, 2018

The Guardian

Press freedom was not invented in the United States, but there are few nations in which the importance of an independent press has been so closely woven into its long history. This great American tradition of civic respect for truth and truth-telling is now under threat. Donald Trump is not the first US president to attack the press or to feel unfairly treated by it. But he is the first who appears to have a calculated and consistent policy of undermining, delegitimising and even endangering the press’s work.

On Thursday, following an initiative by the Boston Globe, it is expected that some 350 editorial boards in news organisations across the United States will publish their own editorial comments on this issue. There is, of course, a risk in this initiative, and there will be differing press views about it. For some, including Mr Trump, it will feed the narrative that there is a partisan war between the press and the president. But the breadth of the response to the Boston Globe’s suggestion – and the fact that each editorial will be separately and independently written – suggests something different: that those who report and comment, day in and day out, in as professional and objective a manner as we can, are concerned that public respect for journalistic truth, reason and civility are under a new and present threat against which we must stand as best we can. As one editor has put it: we’re not at war with the Trump administration, we’re at work.

Mr Trump’s sweeping abuse of the press is grimly familiar now. He calls the US press “enemies of the people”. He accuses it – the instances now run into hundreds – of producing “fake news” and being “frankly disgusting”. He recently called the press “dangerous and sick”, and charged that they can “cause war”. He has called journalists “the lowest form of humanity”. The former FBI chief James Comey, later fired by Mr Trump, said the president asked him to consider jailing journalists for publishing leaks. His administration has removed reminders to respect press freedom from its internal manuals. He singles out four news organisations in particular – CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post – insulting them in public (as he did at his Chequers press conference) and recently barring a CNN reporter from White House media events.

Inescapably, this campaign has consequences. Public opinion, especially among Mr Trump’s most committed supporters, has become harsher in its views. Almost half of Republican voters (44%) believe the president should be able to close news organisations for “bad behaviour”, according to a recent poll. In another poll this week a majority of Republican voters (51%) say that the news media are “the enemy of the people”. The anti-media mood at some Trump rallies has been intimidating. Social media trolling, violent abuse and threats to journalists (especially sexual threats to women journalists) have reached unprecedented levels. The United Nations human rights commissioner warned this week that Mr Trump’s attacks on the press are “very close to incitement to violence”. In June, five staff members at the Capital Gazette in Maryland were shot dead by a local man with a local grievance. They may not be the last.

It is not the press’s job to save the United States from Mr Trump. It is the press’s job to report, delve, analyse and scrutinise as best it can and without fear. The press has many faults. It can be self-regarding. Far worse, in Mr Trump’s America, some parts of the media are partisan outlets which show a cavalier disregard for truth: the president has embraced these. But a free press must call out intimidation and incitement when it exists. And it must do what it can to preserve respect for the facts and for balanced judgment. In short, it must do its job. Mr Trump’s insults and incitements are a calculated danger to that, and to the respect, civility and dialogue that should exist between the press and its readers. The Guardian stands with the US press in its efforts to maintain the objectivity and the moral boundaries that this president – like so many others in much more dangerous parts of the world – is doing so much to destroy.

 

Did Omarosa break the law by secretly recording Trump and Kelly? 

Secret recordings of Trump and his chief of staff are seen as security breach and have also left lingering questions

August 14, 2018

by Ben Jacobs in Washington

The Guardian

Omarosa Manigault Newman has released secret recordings of her conversations with Donald Trump and his chief of staff, John Kelly, which have made international headlines but have also left lingering questions.

What happened?

Manigault Newman says she secretly recorded Kelly firing her in the White House Situation Room in December 2017, and she played the recording on NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday. On Monday, she released another recording, aired on NBC’s Today program, in which Trump appears to express surprise that she had been ousted.

The former White House aide, who had previously been a contestant on Trump’s reality television show The Apprentice, shared the recording as part of her promotional tour for her new book about her stint in the White House, Unhinged. The Guardian first reported excerpts from the book, which also included claims that Trump has used racial epithets.

Is this normal?

Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary for intergovernmental affairs in the Department of Homeland Security, pointed to Manigault Newman’s recording device as signifying the lack of “security culture” in the Trump administration. The former Obama administration aide noted that Trump has “essentially mocked this ideal of a security culture”. She pointed out instances such as White House staffers working without security clearances, Trump using an unsecured phone and his 2017 dinner with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe about North Korea among diners at Mar-a-Lago.

Bradley Moss, a national security lawyer in Washington, noted that it was unusual for a personnel meeting to happen in the Situation Room. In his opinion, the most obvious reason would be that the White House “had its own suspicions that she was the type of person who might try to secretly record [the meeting], and put it in the Situation Room.”

Is this a security risk?

Moss also told the Guardian that Manigault Newman’s use of a recording device presented counterintelligence risks. “All it takes is one foreign agency hacking [the recording device], and setting it to passive record mode,” said Moss. The result would mean all conversations, not just those Manigault Newman chose to record, would be “accessible to foreign entities”.

This concern was shared by Kayyem. “There might be the perception, particularly by our enemies, that the entire White House might be compromised, and that’s kind of scary,” she said, adding: “The audience isn’t just us and Omarosa and Trump. It’s the Chinese and the Russians.”

Is recording in the Situation Room a crime?

Moss said, however, that just because the conversation occurred in the Situation Room, which is actually a secured series of connected rooms, there is “no real obvious criminal liability”. All staffers entering the area must lock away their cell phones and other insecure electronic devices. But he noted the violation would likely be enough to deny Manigault Newman a security clearance if she ever wishes to work for the federal government in the future.

What has the White House said?

“The very idea a staff member would sneak a recording device into the White House Situation Room shows a blatant disregard for our national security,” said White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. She added: “Then to brag about it on national television further proves the lack of character and integrity of this disgruntled former White House employee.”

 

 

RBS bankers joked about destroying the US housing market

Transcripts of pre-financial crisis conversations show senior bankers’ disregard for customers

August 15, 2018

by Rob Davies

The Guardian

RBS bankers joked about destroying the US housing market after making millions by trading loans that staff described as “total fucking garbage”, according to transcripts released as part of a $4.9bn (£3.8bn) settlement with US prosecutors.

Details of internal conversations at the bank emerged just weeks before the 10-year anniversary of the financial crisis, which saw RBS rescued with a £45bn bailout from the UK government.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) criticised RBS over its trade in residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) – financial instruments underwritten by risky home loans that are cited as pivotal in the global banking crash.

It said the bank made “false and misleading representations” to investors in order to sell more of the RMBS, which are forecast to result in losses of $55bn to investors.

Transcripts published alongside the settlement reveal the attitude among senior bankers at RBS towards some of the products they sold.

The bank’s chief credit officer in the US referred to selling investors products backed by “total fucking garbage” loans with “fraud [that] was so rampant … [and] all random”.

He added that “the loans are all disguised to, you know, look okay kind of … in a data file.”

The DoJ said senior RBS executives “showed little regard for their misconduct and, internally, made light of it”.

In one exchange, as the extent of the contagion in the banking industry was becoming clear, RBS’ head trader received a call from a friend who said: “[I’m] sure your parents never imagine[d] they’d raise a son who [would] destroy the housing market in the richest nation on the planet.”

He responded: “I take exception to the word ‘destroy.’ I am more comfortable with ‘severely damage.’”

Another senior banker explained to a colleague that risky loans were the result of a broken mortgage industry that meant lenders were “raking in the money” and were incentivised to make as many loans as possible.

Employees who might raise the alarm about the riskiness of such lending “don’t give a shit because they’re not getting paid”, he said.

The bank made “hundreds of millions of dollars” from selling RMBS, the DoJ said, while disguising the risk they posed to investors, which included a group of nuns who lost 96% of their investment.

By October 2007, as signs of stress began to show in the banking system, RBS’ chief credit officer wrote to colleagues expressing his true feelings about the burgeoning volume of subprime loans in the housing market.

He said loans were being pushed by “every possible … style of scumbag”, adding that it was “like quasi-organised crime”.

“Nobody seems to care,” he added.

 

 

The Coming American Economic Collapse

August 16, 2018

by Christian Jürs

“Although only bankers are aware of it, there is a second wave of economic disaster starting to build up that will make the earlier one pale into insignificance. Let us start out with MERS, shall we?

MERS = Mortgage Electronic Registration Inc.holds approximately 60 million Amerrican mortgages and is a Delaware corporation whose sole shareholder is Mers Corp. MersCorp and its specified members have agreed to include the MERS corporate name on any mortgage that was executed in conjunction with any mortgage loan made by any member of MersCorp. Thus in place of the original lender being named as the mortgagee on the mortgage that is supposed to secure their loan, MERS is named as the “nominee” for the lender who actually loaned the money to the borrower. In other words MERS is really nothing more than a name that is used on the mortgage instrument in place of the actual lender. MERS’ primary function, therefore, is to act as a document custodian. MERS was created solely to simplify the process of transferring mortgages by avoiding the need to re-record liens – and pay county recorder filing fees – each time a loan is assigned. Instead, servicers record loans only once and MERS’ electronic system monitors transfers and facilitates the trading of notes. It has very conserbatively estimated that as of February, 2010, over half of all new residential mortgage loans in the United States are registered with MERS and recorded in county recording offices in MERS’ name

MersCorp was the created in the early 1990’s by the former C.E.O.’s of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Indy Mac, Countrywide, Stewart Title Insurance and the American Land Title Association. The executives of these companies lined their pockets with billions of dollars of unearned bonuses and free stock by creating so-called mortgage backed securities using bogus mortgage loans to unqualified borrowers thereby creating a huge false demand for residential homes and thereby falsely inflating the value of those homes. MERS marketing claims that its “paperless systems fit within the legal framework of the laws of all fifty states” are now being vetted by courts and legal commentators throughout the country.

The MERS paperless system is the type of crooked rip-off scheme that is has been seen for generations past in the crooked financial world. In this present case, MERS was created in the boardrooms of the most powerful and controlling members of the American financial institutions. This gigantic scheme completely ignored long standing law of commerce relating to mortgage lending and did so for its own prsonal gain. That the inevitable collapse of the crooked mortgage swindles would lead to terrible national reprecussions was a matter of little or no interest to the upper levels of America’s banking and financial world because the only interest of these entities was to grab the money of suckers, keep it in the form of ficticious bonuses, real estate and very large accounts in foreign banks.. The effect of this system has led to catastrophic metldown on both the American and global economy.

MERS, it has clearly been proven in many civil cases, does not hold any promissory notes of any kind. A party must have possession of a promissory note in order to have standing to enforce and/or otherwise collect a debt that is owed to another party. Given this clear-cut legal definition, MERS does not have legal standing to enforce or collect on the over 60 million mortgages it controls and no member of MERS has any standing in an American civil court.

MERS has been taken to civil courts across the country and charged with a lack of standing in reprossion issues. When the mortgage debacle initially, and invevitably, began, MERS always rotinely broght actions against defauilting mortgage holders purporting to represent the owners of the defaulted mortgages but once the courts discovered that MERS was only a front organization that did not hold any deed nor was aware of who or what agencies might hold a deed, they have been routinely been denied in their attempts to force foreclosure.  In the past, persons alleging they were officials of MERS in foreclosure motions, purported to be the holders of the mortgage, when, in fact, they nor only were not the holder of the mortgage but, under a court order, could not produce the identity of the actual holder. These so-called MERS officers have usually been just employees of entities who are servicing the loan for the actual lender. MERS, it is now widely acknowledged by the courty, has no legal right to foreclose or otherwise collect debt which are evidenced by promissory notes held by someone else.

The American media routinely identifies MERS as a mortgage lender, creditor, and mortgage company, when in point of fact MERS has never loaned so much as a dollar to anyone, is not a creditor and is not a mortgage company. MERS is merely a name that is printed on mortgages, purporting to give MERS some sort of legal status, in the matter of a loan made by a completely different and almost always,a totally unknown enitity.

The infamous collapse of the American housing bubble originated, in the main, with one Angelo Mozilo, CEO of the later failed Countrywide Mortgage.

Mozilo started working in his father’s butcher shop, in the Bronx, when he was ten years old. He graduated from Fordham in 1960, and that year he met David Loeb.. In 1968, Mozilo and Loeb created a new mortgage company, Countrywide, together. Mozilo believed the company should make special efforts to lower the barrier for minorities and others who had been excluded from homeownership. Loeb died in 2003

In 1996, Countrywide created a new subsidiary for subprime loans.

Countrywide Financial’s former management

• Angelo R. Mozilo, cofounder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer
• David S. Loeb, cofounder, President and Chairman from 1969 to 2000
• David Sambol, president, chief operating officer, director
• Eric P. Sieracki, chief financial officer, executive managing director
• Jack Schakett, executive managing director, chief operating officer
• Kevin Bartlett, executive managing director, chief investment officer
• Andrew Gissinger, executive managing director, chief production officer, Countrywide Home Loans
• Sandor E. Samuels, executive managing director, chief legal officer and assistant secretary
• Ranjit Kripalani, executive managing director and president, Capital Markets
• Laura K. Milleman, senior managing director, chief accounting officer
• Marshall Gates, senior managing director, chief administrative officer
• Timothy H. Wennes, senior managing director, president and chief operating officer, Countrywide Bank FSB
• Anne D. McCallion, senior managing director, chief of financial operations and planning
• Steve Bailey, senior managing director of loan administration, Countrywide Home Loans

The standard Countrywide procedure was to openly solicit persons who either had no credit or could not obtain it, and, by the use of false credit reports drawn up in their offices, arrange mortgages. The new home owners were barely able to meet the minimum interest only payments and when, as always happens, the mortgage payments are increased to far, far more than could be paid, defaults and repossessions were inevitable. Countrywide sold these mortgages to lower-tier banks which in turn, put them together in packages and sold them to the large American banks. These so-called “bundled mortgages” were quickly sold these major banking houses to many foreign investors with the comments that when the payments increased, so also would the income from the original mortgage. In 1996, Countrywide created a new subsidiary for subprime loans..

At one point in time, Countrywide Financial Corporation was regarded with awe in the business world. In 2003, Fortune observed that Countrywide was expected to write $400 billion in home loans and earn $1.9 billion. Countrywide’s chairman and C.E.O., Angelo Mozilo, did rather well himself. In 2003, he received nearly $33 million in compensation. By that same year, Wall Street had become addicted to home loans, which bankers used to create immensely lucrative mortgage-backed securities and, later, collateralized debt obligations, or C.D.O.s—and Countrywide was their biggest supplier. Under Mozilo’s leadership, Countrywide’s growth had been astonishing.

He was aiming to achieve a market share—thirty to forty per cent—that was far greater than anyone in the financial-services industry had ever attained. For several years, Countrywide continued to thrive. Then, inevitably, in 2007, subprime defaults began to rocket upwards, forcing the top American bankers to abandoned the mortgage-backed securities they had previously prized. It was obvious to them that the fraudulent mortgages engendered by Countrywide had been highly suceessful as a marketinig program but it was obvious to eveyone concerned, at all levels, that the mortgages based entirely on false and misleading credit information were bound to eventually default. In August of 2007, the top American bankers cut off

Countrywide’s short-term funding, which seriously hindered its ability to operate, and in just a few months following this abandonment, Mozilo was forced to choose between bankruptcy orselling out to the best bidder.. In January, 2008, Bank of America announced that it would buy the company for a fraction of what Countrywide was worth at its peak. Mozilo was subsequently named a defendant in more than a hundred civil lawsuits and a target of a criminal investigation. On June 4th, 2007 the S.E.C., in a civil suit, charged Mozilo, David Sambol, and Eric Sieracki with securities fraud; Mozilo was also charged with insider trading. The complaint formalized a public indictment of Mozilo as an icon of corporate malfeasance and greed.

In essence, not only bad credit risks were used to create and sell mortgages on American homes that were essentially worthless. By grouping all of these together and selling them abroad, the banks all made huge profits. When the kissing had to stop, there were two major groups holding the financial bag. The first were the investors and the second were, not those with weak credit, but those who had excellent credit and who were able, and willing to pay off their mortgages.

Unfortunately, as no one knows who owns the title to any home, when the legitimate mortgage holder finally pays off his mortgage, or tries to sell his house, a clear title to said house or property cannot ever be found so, in essence, the innocent mortgage payer can never own or sell his house. This is a terrible economic time bomb quietly ticking away under the feet of the Bank of America and if, and when, it explodes, another bank is but a fond memory.

 

 

The Strange Cult of Mohammed: The Coming Grand Expulsons

August 16, 2018

by Robert Johnson

When the sacred Black Stone had to be placed in the reconstructed Ka’aba at Mecca, Mohammed was chosen, and his hands were the only ones to touch the stone, which was placed on a sheet and lifted several others to allow Mohammed to put the stone into place.

He participated in the first battle of Islam in the valley of Nakhla,(A.D. 622?) where Mohammed and his followers killed at least one and took “booty

In 625 A.D., the battle for Madina (Medina) was engaged. “The prophet himself in battle dress with a sword hanging on his side led the command under three standards, two carried by two different tribes.” (p.35)

“He was in fact the Commander of the army, riding a horse and giving orders while the fighting was in progress. In fact he himself flung a dagger, killing an enemy on the spot.”

In 630 A.D. Mecca was re-taken followed by the battle of Hunain wherein the army under command of the Prophet, the non-muslim tribes were defeated, and a large number of the enm was killed but, under the Prophet’s order, no child was harmed.

“Accordingly, after an instermittent disease of which the main symptom was headache, he died in the arms of his favourite wife Aysha on Radiulawwal 11 A.H.—633 A.D.”

One day after battle, Muhammad came back home and said to his daughter Fatima, “Wash the blood from this sword and I swear in the name of Allah this sword was obeying me all the time.”  Muhammad then took the swords of his friend Ali ibn Abu Talib and washed them for him.

The number of campaigns (military) he (Muhammad) led in person during the last ten years of his life is twenty-seven, in nine of which there was hard fighting.  The number of expeditions which he planned and sent out under other leaders is thirty-eight”

Muhammad’s last speech to his followers on Mt Arafat:

…..”I descended by Allah with the sword in my hand, and my wealth will come from the shadow of my sword.  And the one who will disagree with me will be humiliated and persecuted.”

Muhammad told Abu Sufyan: “Woe to you! Accept Islam and testify that Muhammad is the apostle of God before your neck is cut off by the sword.” Thus he professed the faith of Islam and became a Muslim.” (Ibn Hisham, “The Biography of Muhammad” (Part 4, Page 11).  This man, Abu Sufyan, was not a believer at first, but he quickly “believed” after he was threatened by death.’

So, even before Muhammad pagans were worshipping this black stone in the Kaba.  Are we surprised that although Muhammad  proclaimed only one God, he continued to participate in idol worship at this pagan shrine (Kaba); and Muslims still do idol worship there today?  The black stone of Ka’aba is nothing but a holdover within Islam, from pre-Islamic paganism.

There is evidence that black stones were commonly worshipped in the Arab world.  In 190 A.D. Clement of Alexandria mentioned that “the Arabs worship stone”.  He was alluding to the black stone of Dusares at Petra.  In the 2nd century, Maximus Tyrius wrote; “The Arabians pay homage to I know not what god, which they represent by a quadrangular stone”.  Maximus was speaking of the Kaaba (Ka’ba) that contains the Black Stone.

Muhammad led 27 military campaigns against innocent villages and caravans & planned 38 others

“I am the prophet that laughs when killing my enemies.”

Muhammad posed as an apostle of God.  Yet his life is filled with lustfulness (12 marriages and sex with many children, both male and female, slaves and concubines), rapes, warfare, conquests, and unmerciful butcheries.  The infinitely good, just and all holy God simply cannot tolerate anything in the least unjust or sinful.  What Muhammad produced in the Qur’an is simply a book of gibberish consisting of later evil verses abrogating (superseding) earlier peaceful verses. These verses in Arabic poetically “tickle” the ears of Arab listeners.

Islam is a caustic blend of paganism and twisted Bible stories. Muhammad, its lone “prophet”, who made no prophecies, conceived his religion to satiate his lust for power, sex, and money. He was a terrorist. And if you think these conclusions are shocking, wait until you see the evidence mostly from Islamic historians below.  70% of what is here is from Muslim and ex-Muslim historians – back to the 8th century, the only rational conclusion is that Islam’s lone prophet was a ruthless terrorist, a mass-murderer, a thief, slave trader, rapist and pedophile.

The Cult of the Moon God

It should not come as a surprise that the word “Allah” was not something invented by Muhammad or revealed for the first time in the Quran.

The well-known Middle East scholar H.A.R. Gibb has pointed out that the reason that Muhammad never had to explain who Allah was in the Quran is that his listeners had already heard about Allah long before Muhammad was ever born (

“The name Allah, as the Quran itself is witness, was well known in pre-Islamic Arabia. Indeed, both it and its feminine form, Allat, are found not infrequently among the theophorous names in inscriptions from North Africa”

The word “Allah” comes from the compound Arabic word, al-ilah. Al is the definite article “the” and ilah is an Arabic word for “god.” It is not a foreign word. It is not even the Syriac word for God. It is pure Arabic. (There is an interesting discussion of the origins of Allah, in

Neither is Allah a Hebrew or Greek word for God as found in the Bible. Allah is a purely Arabic term used in reference to an Arabian deity. Hastings’ Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics I:326, T & T Clark, states:

‘”Allah” is a proper name, applicable only to their [Arabs’] peculiar God. ‘

According to the Encyclopedia of Religion:

‘”Allah” is a pre-Islamic name . . . corresponding to the Babylonian Bel’ (Encyclopedia of Religion, I:117 Washington DC, Corpus Pub., 1979).

For those who find it hard to believe that Allah was a pagan name for a peculiar pagan Arabian deity in pre-Islamic times, the following quotations may be helpful:

“Allah is found . . . in Arabic inscriptions prior to Islam” (Encyclopedia Britannica, I:643).

“The Arabs, before the time of Mohammed, accepted and worshipped, after a fashion, a supreme god called Allah”

“Allah was known to the pre-Islamic . . . Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities” (Encyclopedia off Islam, I:406, ed. Gibb).

“Ilah . . . appears in pre-Islamic poetry . . . By frequency of usage, al-ilah was contracted to Allah, frequently attested to in pre-Islamic poetry” (Encyclopedia off Islam, III:1093, 1971).

“The name Allah goes back before Muhammad”

“The origin of this (Allah) goes back to pre-Muslim times. Allah is not a common name meaning “God” (or a “god”), and the Muslim must use another word or form if he wishes to indicate any other than his own peculiar deity” (Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, I:326, Hastings).

To the testimony of the above standard reference works, we add those of such scholars as Henry Preserved Smith of Harvard University who has stated:

“Allah was already known by name to the Arabs” (The Bible and Islam: or, The Influence of the Old and New Testament on the Religion of Mohammed, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1897, p. 102).

, former editor of the prestigious scholarly journal Muslim World and an outstanding modern Western Islamic scholar, whose works are generally published by Oxford University, comments:

“The name Allah is also evident in archeological and literary remains of pre-Islamic Arabia” (The Call of the Minaret, New York: Oxford University Press, 1956, p. 31).

Dr. W. Montgomery Watt, who was Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Edinburgh University and Visiting Professor of Islamic studies at College de France, Georgetown University, and the University of Toronto, has done extensive work on the pre-Islamic concept of Allah. He concludes:

“In recent years I have become increasingly convinced that for an adequate understanding of the career of Muhammad and the origins of Islam great importance must be attached to the existence in Mecca of belief in Allah as a “high god.” In a sense this is a form of paganism, but it is so different from paganism as commonly understood that it deserves separate treatment” (Caesar Farah in his book on Islam concludes his discussion of the pre-Islamic meaning of Allah by saying:

“There is no reason, therefore, to accept the idea that Allah passed to the Muslims from the Christians and Jews”

According to Middle East scholar E.M. Wherry, whose translation of the Quran is still used today, in pre-Islamic times Allah-worship, as well as the worship of Ba-al, were both astral religions in that they involved the worship of the sun, the moon, and the stars (A Comprehensive Commentary on the Quran, Osnabruck: Otto Zeller Verlag, 1973, p. 36).

Astral Religions

In Arabia, the sun god was viewed as a female goddess and the moon as the male god. As has been pointed out by many scholars such as Alfred Guilluame, the moon god was called by various names, one of which was Allah! (Islam, p. 7).

The name Allah was used as the personal name of the moon god, in addition to other titles that could be given to him.

Allah, the moon god, was married to the sun goddess. Together they produced three goddesses who were called “the daughters of Allah.” These three goddesses were called Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat.

The daughters of Allah, along with Allah and the sun goddess were viewed as “high” gods. That is, they were viewed as being at the top of the pantheon of Arabian deities.

“Along with Allah, however, they worshipped a host of lesser gods and “daughters of Al-lah” (Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:61)”.

The Crescent Moon Symbol

The symbol of the worship of the moon god in Arabian culture and elsewhere throughout the Middle East was the crescent moon.

Archaeologists have dug up numerous statues and hieroglyphic inscriptions in which a crescent moon was seated on top of the head of the deity to symbolize the worship of the moon god. In the same fashion as the sun is pictured above the Egyptian deity.

While the moon was generally worshiped as a female deity in the Ancient Near East, the Arabs viewed it as a male deity.

The Gods of the Quraysh

The Quraysh tribe into which Muhammad was born was particularly devoted to Allah, the moon god, and especially to Allah’s three daughters who were viewed as intercessors between the people and Allah.

The worship of the three goddesses, Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat, played a significant role in the worship at the Kabah in Mecca. The first two daughters of Allah had names which were feminine forms of Allah.

The literal Arabic name of Muhammad’s father was Abd-Allah. His uncle’s name was Obied-Allah. These names reveal the personal devotion that Muhammad’s pagan family had to the worship of Allah, the moon god.

Praying Toward Mecca

An Allah idol was set up at the Kebah along with all the other idols. The pagans prayed toward Mecca and the Kabah because that is where their gods were stationed.

It only made sense to them to face in the direction of their god and then pray. Since the idol of their moon god, Allah, was at Mecca, they prayed toward Mecca.

The worship of the moon god extended far beyond the Allah-worship in Arabia. The entire fertile crescent was involved in the worship of the moon.

This, in part, explains the early success of Islam among Arab groups that traditionally had worshiped the moon god.

The use of the crescent moon as the symbol for Islam which is placed on the flags of Islamic nations and on the top of mosques and minarets is a throwback to the days when Allah was worshiped as the moon god in Mecca.

While this may come as a surprise to many Christians who have wrongly assumed that Allah was simply another name for the God of the Bible, educated Muslims generally understand this point.

Conclusion

In the field of comparative religions, it is understood that each of the major religions of mankind has its own peculiar concept of deity. In other words, all religions do not worship the same God, only under different names.

The sloppy thinking that would ignore the essential differences which divide world religions is an insult the uniqueness of world religions.

Which of the world religions holds to the Christian concept of one eternal God in three persons? When the Hindu denies the personality of God, which religions do not agree with this? Obviously, all men do not worship the same God, or goddesses.

Note: Christians do not understand “the peculiar concept of one eternal God in three persons” but one eternal God with three major offices or dispensation claims.

The Quran’s concept of deity evolved out of the pre-Islamic pagan religion of Allah-worship. It is so uniquely Arab that it cannot be simply reduced to Jewish or Christian beliefs.

Marriage, Divorce, Adultery and Polygamy

In his personal life, Muhammad had two great weaknesses. The first was greed. By looting caravans and Jewish settlements he had amassed fabulous wealth for himself, his family, and his tribe (Ali Dashti, 23 Years, p. 86-87; Encyclopedia Britannica, 15:648).

When we turn and look at the life of Muhammad we find that he clearly killed and robbed people in the name of Allah according to the Quran. He taught his disciples by example, command, and precept that they could and should kill and rob in Allah’s name and force people to submit to Islam.

His next greatest weakness was women. Although in the Quran he would limit his followers to having four wives, he himself took more than four wives and concubines.

The question of the number of women with whom Muhammad was sexually involved either as wives, concubines or devotees was made a point of contention by the Jews in Muhammad’s day. Ali Dashti comments:

“All the commentaries agree that verse 57 of Sura 4 (on-Nesa) was sent down after the Jews criticized Mohammad’s appetite for women, alleging that he had nothing to do except to take wives” (Ali Dashti, 23 Years, pp. 120-138).

Since polygamy was practiced in the Old Testament by such patriarchs as Abraham, the mere fact that Muhammad had more than one wife is not sufficient in and of itself to discount his claim to prophethood. But this does negate the fact that the issue has historical in terms of trying to understand Muhammad as a man.

It also poses a logical problem for Muslims. Because the Quran in Sura 4:3 forbids the taking of more than four wives, to have taken any more would have been sinful for Muhammad.

One Muslin apologist argued as follows:

“Muhammad was sinless. The Quran makes taking more than four wives a sin. Therefore Muhammad could not have taken more than four wives. Why? Because Muhammad was sinless.”

The question of how many wives Muhammad or anyone else had should be answered on the basis of the historical and literary evidence and not blind faith.

Muslim scholar and statesman Ali Dashti gives the following list of the women in Muhammad’s life:

1. Khadija 12. Hend
2. Sawda 13. Asma (of Saba)
3. Aesha 14. Zaynab (of Khozayma)
4. Omm Salama 15. Habla
5. Halsa 16. Asma (of Noman)
6. Zaynab (of Jahsh) 17. Mary (the Christian)
7. Jowayriyi 18. Rayhana
8. Omm Habiba 19. Omm Sharik
9. Safiya 20. Maymuna
10. Maymuna 21. Zaynab (a third one)
11. Fatema 22. Khawla

 

Several observations need to be given about the above list:

The first 16 women were wives. Numbers 17 and 18 were slaves or concubines.

The last four women were neither wives or slaves but devout Muslim women who “gave” themselves to satisfy Muhammad’s sexual desires.

Zaynab of Jahsh was originally Muhammad’s adopted son Zaid’s wife. The fact that Muhammad took her for himself has been problematic to many people, Muslims included. (God does not break His Own Word and He never changes His mind. Now read Sura 33:36-38).

(The vindicated prophet Moses taught under the Old Testament, that a minister could only marry a virgin or the widow of a minister (Leviticus 21:13-15). The vindicated prophet Jesus taught under the New Testament that an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher can marry only a virgin in the faith — because he is a type of Christ Who is uniting only with virgins to the Word.

Every prophet from Adam taught that any woman who has more than one living husband is an adulteress, and her subsequent husband is in adultery with her first husband as polygamy was legal only for the man — Genesis 3:16; Romans 7:1-3).

Aesha was only eight or nine years old when Muhammad took her to his bed. According to Hadith, she was still playing with her dolls. This facet of Muhammad’s sexual appetite is particularly distressing to Westerners.

While in Islamic countries an eight-or-nine-year-old girl can be given in marriage to an adult male, in the West, most people would shudder to think of an eight-or-nine-year-old girl being given in marriage to anyone. (Although it is condoned by the Jew’s Talmud).

This aspect of Muhammad’s personal life is something that many scholars pass over once again because they do not want to hurt the feelings of Muslims. Yet, history cannot be rewritten to avoid confronting the facts that Muhammad had unnatural desires for little girls.

Finally, Mary, the Coptic Christian, refused to marry Muhammad because she would not renounce Christianity and embrace Islam. She bravely chose to remain a slave rather than convert.

The documentation for all the women in Muhammad’s harem is so vast and has been presented so many times by able scholars that only those who use circular reasoning can object to it.

Sinlessness

According to the New Testament, Jesus Christ lived a perfect and sinless life (2 Corinthians 5:21).

When His enemies came to accuse Jesus before Pilate and Herod, they had to invent charges because no one could find anything against Him.

But when we turn to the life of Muhammad, we find that he was a normal human being engaged in the same sins which afflict all of us. He lied; he cheated; he lusted; he failed to keep his word, etc. He was neither perfect nor sinless.

A Sinful Muhammad?

The Quranic Muhammad

In Sura 18:110, and elsewhere, Muhammad is commanded by Allah:

“Say, I am but a man like yourselves.”

Nowhere in the Quran is Muhammad said to be sinless. Instead, Allah tells Muhammad that he is no different than any other man.

Those Muslims who claim that Muhammad was sinless have failed to note Sura 40:55, where Allah told Muhammad to repent of his sins!

Muhammad Pickthal translates Sura 40:55 as saying:

“Ask forgiveness of thy sin”.

The only way out of this passage is to state that Allah was wrong to ask Muhammad to ask for forgiveness because he had nothing to forgive!

Pickthal’s translation of Sura 48:1, 2 states:

“Lo! We have given thee, (O Muhammad), signal victory, that Allah may forgive thee of past and that which is to come, and may perfect His favor unto thee, and guide thee on a right path”

Not only was Muhammad commanded to repent of his sins and to seek forgiveness, but he was also reminded off his past sins that Allah had already forgiven and of future sins which would need future forgiveness!

Muhammad was not sinless according to the Quran. He was just one more poor sinner in need of forgiveness and redemption.

Many Variant Readings of the Quran

Muslims attack the Bible on the grounds that it sometimes has conflicting wording from different manuscripts. Yet this is exactly the case with the text of the Quran. There are many conflicting readings on the text of the Quran as Arthur Jeffery has demonstrated in his book, Material for the History of the Text of the Quran (New York, Russell F. Moore, 1952).

At one point Jeffery gives 90 pages of variant readings on the text. For example, in Sura 2 there are over 140 conflicting and variant readings on the text of the Quran.

All Western and Muslim scholars admit the presence of variant readings in the text of the Quran (Dashti, 23 Years, p. 28; Mandudi, Meaning of the Quran, pp. 17-18; McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia, V152).

Guillaume points out that the Quran at first “had a large number of variants, not always trifling in significance” (Islam, p. 189).

“It is interesting to note that in scholarly Muslim journals, there is beginning to be a grudging acknowledgment of the fact that there are variant and conflicting readings on the text of the Quran” (One example would be Saleh al-Wahaihu, “A Study of Seven Quranic Variants,” International Journal of Islamic and Arabic Studies, Vol. V (1989), #2, pp. 1-57).

Some Verses Missing

According to Professor Guillaume in his book, Islam, (pp. 191ff.), some of the original verses of the Quran were lost.

For example, one Sura originally had 200 verses in the days of Ayesha. But by the time Uthman standardized the text of the Quran, it had only 73 verses! A total of 127 verses had been lost, and they have never been recovered.

The Shiite Muslims claim that Uthman left out 25 percent of the original verses in the Quran for political reasons (McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia, V:152).

That there are verses which got left out of Uthman’s version of the Quran is universally recognized (Shorter Encyclopedia off Islam, pp. 278-282; Guillaume, Islam, p. 191; Wherry, A Comprehensive Commentary on the Quran, pp. 110-111).

John Burton’s book, The Collection of the Quran, which was published by Cambridge University, documents how such verses were lost (London University Press, 1977, pp. 117ff. See also Arthur Jeffery, Islam: Muhammad and His Religion, New York; Liberal Arts Press, 1958, pp. 66-68).

Burton states concerning the Muslim claim that the Quran is perfect:

“The Muslin accounts of the history of the Quran texts are a mass of confusion, contradiction and inconsistencies” (Burton, Collection, p. 231).

Changes in the Quran

One interesting way that some off the original verses of the Quran were lost is that a follower of Muhammad named Abdollah Sarh would make suggestions to Muhammad about rephrasing, adding to, or subtracting from the Suras. Muhammad often did as Sarh suggested.

Ali Dashti explains what happened:

“Abdollah renounced Islam on the ground that the revelations, if from God, could not be changed at the prompting of a scribe such as he. After his apostasy he went to Mecca and joined the Qorayshites” (Dashti, 23 Years, p. 98).

It is no wonder that when Muhammad conquered Mecca one of the first people he killed was Abdollah, for he knew too much and opened his mouth too often.

Some Verses Abrogated

In the abrogation process spoken of earlier, verses which are contradictory to Muslim faith and practice have been removed from the text, such as the “satanic verses” in which Muhammad approved of the worship of the three goddesses, the daughters of Allah.

The Arabic scholar E. Wherry comments:

“There being some passages in the Quran which are contradictory, the Muhammadan doctors obviate any objection from thence by the doctrine of abrogation; for they say that God in the Quran commanded several things which were for good reasons afterwards revoked and abrogated” (A Comprehensive Commentary on the Qurun, p. 110).

Wherry goes on to document numerous examples of verses taken out of the Quran.

Canon Sell in his work, Historical Development of the Quran, also comments on the practice of abrogating verses out of the Quran if they are troublesome:

“It is to us astounding how so compromising a procedure can have been permitted to be introduced into the system by friends and foes (Madras: Diocesan Press, 1923, pp. 36-37).

Some Verses Added

Not only have parts of the Quran been lost, but entire verses and chapters have been added to it.

For example, Ubai had several Suras in his manuscript of the Quran which Uthman omitted from his standardized text.

Thus there were Qurans in circulation before Uthman’s text which had additional revelations from Muhammad that Uthman did not find or approve of, and thus he failed to place them in his text.

No Originals

As to the claim that the original manuscript of the Quran is still in existence, we have already pointed out there was no single “manuscript” of the Quran.

Caesar Farah in his book on Islam, states:

“When Muhammad died there existed no singular codex of the sacred text” (Caesar Farah, Islam: Beliefs and Observations, New York; Barrons, 1987, p. 28).

The Shorter Encyclopedia off Islam comments:

“One thing only is certain and is openly recognized by tradition, namely, that there was not in existence any collection of revelations in the final form, because, as long as he was alive, new revelations were being added to the earlier ones” (p. 271).

Some of the pre-Islamic Sources for material in the Qura

Arabian Sources

The Quran repeats fanciful Arabian fables as if they were true.

“Arabic legends about the fabulous jinns fill its pages” (G.G. Pfander, Balance of Truth, pp. 283).

“The story of the she-camel who leapt out of a rock and became a prophet was known long before Muhammad” (Suras 7:73-77,85; 91:14; 54:29).

The story of an entire village of people who were turned into apes because they broke the sabbath by fishing was a popular legend in Muhammad’s day (Suras 2:65; 7:163-166).

The gushing 12 springs story found in Sura 2:60 comes from pre-Islamic legends.

In what is called the “Rip Van Winkle” story, seven men and their animals slept for 309 years in a cave and then woke up perfectly fine (Sura 18:9-26)!

This legend is found in Greek and Christian fables as well as Arabian lore.

The fable of the pieces of four dead, cut-up birds getting up and flying was well known in Muhammad’s time (Sura 2:260).

It is also clear that Muhammad used such pre-Islamic literature as the Saba Moallaqat of Imra’ul Cays in his composition of Suras 21:96; 29:31,46; 37:59; 54:1, and 93:1.

Jewish Sources

Many of the stories in the Quran come from the Jewish Talmud, the Midrash, and many apocryphal works.

This was pointed out by Abraham Geiger in 1833, and further documented by another Jewish scholar, Dr. Abraham Katsh, of New York University, in 1954 (The Concise Dictionary of Islam, p. 229; Jomier, The Bible and the Quran — Henry Regency Co., Chicago, 1959, 59ff; Sell, Studies, pp. 163ff.; Guillaume, Islam, p. 13).

1. The source of Sura 3:35-37 is the fanciful book called The Protevangelion’s James the Lesser.
2. The source of Sura 87:19 is the Testament of Abraham.
3. The source of Sura 27:17-44 is the Second Targum of Esther.
4. The fantastic tale that God made a man “die for a hundred years” with no ill effects on his food, drink, or donkey was a Jewish fable (Sura 2:259ff.).
5. The idea that Moses was resurrected and other material came from the Jewish Talmud (Sura 2:55, 56, 67).
6. The story in Sura 5:30,31 can also be found in pre-Islamic works from Pirke Rabbi Eleazer, the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziah and the Targum of Jerusalem.
7. The tale of Abraham being delivered from Nimrod’s fire came from the Midrash Rabbah (see Suras 21:51-71; 29:16, 17; 37:97,98).

It must be also pointed out that Nimrod and Abraham did not live at the same time. Muhammad was always mixing people together in the Quran who did not live at the same time.

8. The non-biblical details of the visit of the Queen of Sheba (Saba) in Sura 27:20-44 came from the Second Targum of the Book of Esther.
9. The source of Sura 2:102 is no doubt the Midrash Yalkut (chapter 44).
10. The story found in Sura 7:171 of God lifting up Mount Sinai and holding it over the heads of the Jews as a threat to squash them if they rejected the law came from the Jewish book Abodah Sarah.
11. The story of the making of the golden calf in the wilderness, in which the image jumped out of the fire fully formed and actually mooed (Suras 7:148; 20:88), came from Pirke Rabbi Eleazer.

12, The seven heavens and hells described in the Quran came from the Zohar and the Hagigah.

13. Muhammad utilized the Testament of Abraham to teach that a scale or balance will be used on the day of judgment to weigh good and bad deeds in order to determine whether one goes to heaven or hell (Suras 42:17; 101:6-9).

Heretical Christian Sources

One of the most documented and damaging facts about the Quran is that Muhammad used heretical “Christian” Gnostic gospels and their fables for material in the Quran.

Encyclopedia Britannica comments:

“The gospel was known to him chiefly through apocryphal and heretical sources” (15:648).

This has been demonstrated many times by various scholars (Richard Bell, Introduction to the Quran, pp. 163ff. See also: Bell, The Origin of Islam in Its Christian Environment, pp. 110ff, 139ff; Sell, Studies, pp. 216ff. See also Tisdall and Pfander).

For example, in Suras 3:49 and 100:11O, the baby Jesus speaks from the cradle! Later on, the Quran has Jesus making clay birds come alive.

The Bible tells us that the first miracle Jesus did was at the wedding at Cana (John 2:11).

Sabean Sources

Muhammad incorporated parts of the religion of the Sabeans into Islam (Encyclopedia off Islam (ed. Eliade), pp. 303ff.; International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, pp. 1:219ff.).

 

He adopted such pagan rituals as:

 

• Worshiping at Kabah
• Praying five times a day towards Mecca (Muhammad chose five of the same times the Sabeans prayed).
• Fasting for part of a day for an entire month.
• Eastern Religious Sources
• Muhammad derived some of his ideas from Eastern religions such as Zoroastrianism and Hinduism. All of these things were in existence long before Muhammad was born.
• The Quran records the following things which are ascribed to Muhammad but in reality were previously known stories now attributed to him for the first time (Sell, Studies, pp. 219ff.).
• The story of a flying trip through seven heavens.
• The Houries of paradise.
• Azazil and other spirits coming up from Hades.
• The “light” of Muhammad.
• The bridge of Sirat.
• Paradise with its wine, women, and song (from the Persians).
• The king of death.
• The peacock story.

Arab Racism

According to the literal Arabic translation of Sura 3:106, 107, on Judgment Day, only people with white faces will be saved. People with black faces will be damned. A Carnal Heaven.

The Quran promises a heaven full of wine and free sex (Suras 2:25; 4:57; 11:23; 47:15).

If drunkenness and gross immorality is sinful on earth, how is it right in Paradise?

The Quran’s picture of paradise is exactly what a seventh-century pagan Arab would have thought wonderful.

The carnal concept of a harem of beautiful women and all the wine you can drink is in direct conflict with the spirituality and holiness of the Biblical concept of heaven (Revelation 22:12-17).

Conclusion

While the devout Muslim believes with all of his heart that the rituals and doctrines of Islam are entirely heavenly in origin and thus cannot have any earthly sources, Middle East scholars have demonstrated beyond all doubt that every ritual and belief in Islam can be traced back to pre-Islamic Arabian culture.

In other words Muhammad did not preach anything new. Everything he taught had been believed and practiced in Arabia long before he was ever born. Even the idea of “only one God” was borrowed from the Jews and the Christians. islam.htm

 

Afghanistan’s dirty little secret

August 29, 2010

by Joel Brinkley

SF Gate

Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy’s father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to “touch and fondle them,” military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. “The soldiers didn’t understand.”

All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, “Pashtun Sexuality,” startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked – and repulsed.

For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means “boy player.” The men like to boast about it.

“Having a boy has become a custom for us,” Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. “Whoever wants to show off should have a boy.”

Baghlan province is in the northeast, but Afghans say pedophilia is most prevalent among Pashtun men in the south. The Pashtun are Afghanistan’s most important tribe. For centuries, the nation’s leaders have been Pashtun.

President Hamid Karzai is Pashtun, from a village near Kandahar, and he has six brothers. So the natural question arises: Has anyone in the Karzai family been bacha baz? Two Afghans with close connections to the Karzai family told me they know that at least one family member and perhaps two were bacha baz. Afraid of retribution, both declined to be identified and would not be more specific for publication.

As for Karzai, an American who worked in and around his palace in an official capacity for many months told me that homosexual behavior “was rampant” among “soldiers and guys on the security detail. They talked about boys all the time.”

He added, “I didn’t see Karzai with anyone. He was in his palace most of the time.” He, too, declined to be identified.

In Kandahar, population about 500,000, and other towns, dance parties are a popular, often weekly, pastime. Young boys dress up as girls, wearing makeup and bells on their feet, and dance for a dozen or more leering middle-aged men who throw money at them and then take them home. A recent State Department report called “dancing boys” a “widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape.”

So, why are American and NATO forces fighting and dying to defend tens of thousands of proud pedophiles, certainly more per capita than any other place on Earth? And how did Afghanistan become the pedophilia capital of Asia?

Sociologists and anthropologists say the problem results from perverse interpretation of Islamic law. Women are simply unapproachable. Afghan men cannot talk to an unrelated woman until after proposing marriage. Before then, they can’t even look at a woman, except perhaps her feet. Otherwise she is covered, head to ankle.

“How can you fall in love if you can’t see her face,” 29-year-old Mohammed Daud told reporters. “We can see the boys, so we can tell which are beautiful.”

Even after marriage, many men keep their boys, suggesting a loveless life at home. A favored Afghan expression goes: “Women are for children, boys are for pleasure.” Fundamentalist imams, exaggerating a biblical passage on menstruation, teach that women are “unclean” and therefore distasteful. One married man even asked Cardinalli’s team “how his wife could become pregnant,” her report said. When that was explained, he “reacted with disgust” and asked, “How could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean?”

That helps explain why women are hidden away – and stoned to death if they are perceived to have misbehaved. Islamic law also forbids homosexuality. But the pedophiles explain that away. It’s not homosexuality, they aver, because they aren’t in love with their boys.

Addressing the loathsome mistreatment of Afghan women remains a primary goal for coalition governments, as it should be.

But what about the boys, thousands upon thousands of little boys who are victims of serial rape over many years, destroying their lives – and Afghan society.

“There’s no issue more horrifying and more deserving of our attention than this,” Cardinalli said. “I’m continually haunted by what I saw.”

As one boy, in tow of a man he called “my lord,” told the Reuters reporter: “Once I grow up, I will be an owner, and I will have my own boys.”