In 1864 a group of Cheyenne were hunting on their traditional grounds in Kansas when they encountered a group of soldiers. Lean Bear (Awoninahku) and a group of the Cheyenne peacefully approached the soldiers to tal...k with them. On his chest, Lean Bear wore with pride his peace medal that he had received on his trip to Washington D.C. in 1862, and in his hand he held an official document, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, stating that he was peaceful and friendly with whites. They were unarmed, and Lean Bear approached the soldiers alone to show his peaceful intentions. The soldiers, under the command of Lieutenant George Eayre, had been ordered by Colonel John M. Chivington, to kill Indians on sight, and Eayre ordered his men to shoot Lean Bear. Lean Bear was shot off his horse, and was then shot repeatedly by the soldiers as he lay on the ground. Lean Bear was killed, along with several others. The troops were composed of Colorado volunteers, but the fight took place in Kansas, meaning that the troops opened fire outside of their jurisdiction

Payne, John Ward, and Pompey Factor received the Congressional Medal of Honor, America’s highest military decoration, for their actions during the Indian Wars. All three men were black Seminoles known as Seminole Negro ...Indian Scouts. Payne served as a trumpeter, Factor was a private, and Ward was a sergeant attached to the 24th Infantry Regiment. On April 25, 1875 they along with one other man “participated in a charge against 25 hostiles while on a scouting patrol” by the Pecos River in Texas. Not much else is known of their lives other then Payne was born in 1854 and died January 14, 1904, Ward was born in 1848 and died May 24, 1911, and Factor was born in 1849 and died March 28, 1928.

American wickedness “Entomological Warfare”

The United States seriously researched the potential of entomological warfare during the Cold War. The United States military developed plans for an entomological warfare facility, designed to produce 100 million yellow fever-infected mosquitoes per month. A U.S. Army report titled "Entomological Warfare Target Analysis" listed vulnerable sites within the Soviet Union that the U.S. could attack using entomological vectors. The military also tested the mosquito biting capacity by dropping uninfected mosquitoes over U.S. cities.

North Korean and Chinese officials leveled accusations that during the Korean War the United States engaged in biological warfare, including EW, in North Korea. The claim is dated to the period of the war, and has been thoroughly denied by the U.S. In 1998, Stephen Endicott and Edward Hagermann claimed that the accusations were true in their book, The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea The book received mixed reviews, some called it "bad history" and "appalling", while other praised the case the authors made. Other historians have revived the claim in recent decades as well. The same year Endicotts' book was published Kathryn Weathersby and Milton Leitenberg of the Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington released a cache of Soviet and Chinese documents which revealed the North Korean claim was an elaborate disinformation campaign

Operation May Day

Operation Big Itch

Operation Big Buzz

Operation Drop Kick

 

Operation Big Itch was a September 1954 series of tests at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. The tests were designed to determine coverage patterns and survivability of the tropical rat flea (Xenopsylla cheopis) for use in biological warfare as disease vector The fleas used in these trials were not infected by any biological agent. The fleas were loaded into two types of munitions and dropped from the air.

 The E14 bomb and E23 bomb, which could be clustered into the E86 cluster bomb and E77 bomb, respectively.[3] When the cluster bombs reached 2,000 or 1,000 feet (600 or 300 m) the bomblets would drop via parachute, disseminating their vector

1955: The Tampa Bay area of Florida experienced a sharp rise in Whooping Cough cases, including 12 deaths, after a CIA test where a bacteria withdrawn from the Army's Chemical and Biological Warfare arsenal was released into the environment. Details of the test are still classified.

 

1955: The Army Chemical Corps continues LSD research, studying its potential use as a chemical incapacitating agent. More than 1,000 Americans participate in the tests, which continue until 1958.

 

1956 - 1958: In Savannah Georgia and Avon Park Florida, the Army carried out field tests in which mosquitoes were released into residential neighborhoods from both ground level and from aircraft. Many people were swarmed by Mosquitoes, and fell ill, some even died. After each test, U.S. Army personnel posing as public health officials photographed and tested the victims. It is theorized that the mosquitoes were infected with a strain of Yellow Fever. However, details of the testing remain classified.

 

  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sisterthundershow/2014/05/22/american-wickedness-entomological-warfare

May 29th – The latest IG report on the VA is not pretty. In Phoenix alone 1,700 vets requesting an appointment weren’t even on the waiting list, and others waited an avg. of 115 days to see a doctor. 42 facilities are now under review, and the WH response? Shinseki is on probation. Pathetic, what comes next O? Double secret probation? Even many Dems are now fed up. Shinseki: “The findings of the interim report of VA’s Office of Inspector General on the Phoenix VA Health Care ...System are reprehensible to me and to this department, and we are not waiting to set things straight.” Sorry General, not good enough. Not until you say this: 1) I have contacted the proper authorities to initiate criminal proceedings against those responsible. 2) I have eliminated the policy of bonuses for VA employees and demand the guilty parties return all bonus money received within the past ten years. That money will be distributed to the families of vets who have lost loved ones due to criminal behavior. & 3) I am resigning as of today. That sir … will begin to “set things straight

Shocking DETAILS; CIA : " British secret agents were barely saved from arrest Pavelic "

Author : Jutarnji.hr | 24/04/2014  

Records of U.S. agents confirmed previous speculation about the run " Poglavnik " NDH . Ante Pavelic , the former Poglavnik quisling Independent State of Croatia , after a flight from Zagreb to its territory in Rome hid the Vatican .

Pavelic

Ante Pavelic : photo : archive Morning Journal

This information , of which the previously speculated , confirmed by documents recently declassified U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ) .

 

In addition , note that was written on November 8 , in 1947. Headquarters in the Mediterranean operations of the U.S. military proves that the Americans and British in the summer of that year planned to arrest Pavelic , but this plan was not implemented .

Pavelic

Open documents about CIA monitoring Pavelic

Ante Pavelic in Zagreb fled with his family on May 6 , in 1945. , In Austria , where he was in the American zone of occupation . From there, the Peruvian false documents under the name of Don Pedro Goner and disguised as a priest , transferred to Italy . Coming to Rome , where he both confirms discovered a note under her wing takes the Vatican and Pope Pius XII , a former Vatican nuncio in Nazi Germany .

 

In Rome, shortly after the fall of NDH Krunoslav Draganović priest and a group of priests and monks connected with Institute of St. Geronimo established network that is supposed to allow members of the Quisling regime that is then transferred to the safest location in the countries of South America : are favorite destinations were Argentina , Paraguay and Brazil . At that time , namely , in this part of the world in power were mostly military junta . About the network in the second note of the 12th of February in 1947. , The detail says Special Agent Robert Clayton Mad in America's counterintelligence service .

Pavelic

CIA document signed by GF Blunda

 

He managed to find insiders at the Institute of St. Geronimo who is thoroughly reported on the status of the institution which is located in the center of Rome , but was under the administration of the Vatican. According Madovim knowledge, there have stayed high ranking government officials NDH - air force commander Vladimir Kren , dr . Vjekoslav Vrancic , Deputy Minister spoljih Affairs , and George Peric , propaganda minister in the Serbian government of Milan Nedic . But not Pavelic .

Agent Mad in the note warns that prepares operation to shift to South America Pavelic and go and after that American intelligence driven operation to locate Pavelic. The task was taken over by Colonel GF Blunda author novodeklasifikovane notes , coming to Rome on August 11 in 1947. , And in contact with U.S. and British agents . After that concludes that all of the data " show that Pavelic refuge provides the Vatican ."

Blunda wants to move in a joint operation arrest , but according to British diplomats and intelligence Bendal " trying to manipulate " to perform the action only American forces , a British remained clean hands . Blunda to reject as " not in the American interest." The " U.S. intelligence agencies use many Croats as informants . It is known that a significant number of these Croat Pavelic loyal anti-communist activities and Catholic fanaticism . " Therefore Blunda , Bendal and another Briton , Veršojl , arrange the following plan . Both parties will appoint an officer who will be on standby in case of Pavelic leave the Vatican .

Veršojl still has to organize the Italian police team who would assist the British and the Americans in the finals took on the arrest , to avoid a diplomatic incident . In that time the British and the Americans reported that the Italian authorities arrested a wanted war criminal Ante Pavelic and the matter would be resolved . Only in extraordinary circumstances arrest jointly conducted the British and the Americans , and then solve the problems with the Italians .

Veršojl said that Pavelic was the last time sometime in July, was seen walking around the Roman Via Corso Umberto , ie outside the Vatican , and with him was one of his bodyguards , Kadnerik . Pavelic was cut short and dressed in monk's robes , a Veršojl said he knows the exact location of the Vatican where Pavelic resident ( according to another document, the U.S. counter-intelligence it is the Via Giacomo Veneciana No. 17 - C , second floor) . Therefore, he says Blunda , should ensure that Pavelic fraud outside the Vatican and then the agreed plan arrest . But after the meeting held on August 11, nothing happened for three months. The British are Blund only suggest that they are not able to get the Pavelic in the Vatican.

The author notes in serious doubt , and in recognition according to the British Pavelic earlier in the year allowed to escape from Genoa when there is a police raid and arrest quislings who planned it from the port city of traveling to South America. Since , therefore, that the British were reluctant to arrest operations Pavelic , Colonel Blunda considered that it did not happen .

American intelligence says that it is probable that the Pavelic family in Florence , according to information from the U.S. agent of the Vatican , is considered completely reliable and that the " Headman " and that there had recently been subjected to surgery. Colonel in the end notes points out that sends Colonel Fričeu personally because of " the possible implications of the Vatican 's involvement in harboring war criminals ."

 

The Truth Behind the Genocide in Srebrenica: What the West Doesn’t Want You to Know

Most of us in the West are familiar with the ‘UN Sanitized Version’ of the story that was conveyed to us concerning the events in Bosnia – Herzegovina, Yugoslavia in the early 1990′s.  What most of us are unfamiliar with though is the truth.  I know this will be shocking to some, but it appears that the UN and many Western governments, such as the United States have told us a lie.  This is not just any lie though, but a lie of epic proportion.  It was a lie that was told to conceal a genocide.

 

What I am about to reveal to you is a true accounting of history according to those who lived it.  A history that includes Islamic expansionism throughout Yugoslavia and how the Muslims carried out one of the greatest crimes against humanity since the holocaust of the Jewish people in World War II.  This story begins with President William Jefferson Clinton being paid millions of dollars into a private account to assist in the establishment of a Muslim nation within the European Union.  This was the plan from the beginning.  From this came the horrors of the war in Yugoslavia, where the world joined together to attack a nation that was 98% Christian/Serb.  The initial attack was launched by the Bosnian (Muslims) that were being financially supported by the West and politically defended by the UN and NATO.

 

Most of the terrorists and mercenaries on Bosnian side were Muslims coming across the border from Albania. These Muslims executed this plan with the intention of “purifying” Yugoslavia via the extermination of all Christians from the land.  And the Muslims did not act alone in this objective.  This plan to exterminate the Christians was funded by the UN and Western nations and the US was providing the weapons to achieve this goal.  And as you will see, they almost succeeded.  The end result was a Muslim nation, Bosnia, operating within the European Union as planned.  And, in an attempt to conceal this plan..the United Nations fabricated a story. Of which, half was a lie and the other half was untrue. 

There is a lot of information that our sources were very kind to provide to us.  Too much information to simply cover in a single article and do it the justice it deserves.  It is very apparent that our sources have spent many years researching and documenting the atrocities that occurred herein.  Therefore, below you will find the excerpted “beginning” of these accounts and then I will provide you with the link to continue reading.  There are many pictures, videos and stories at our source links.  I encourage you to continue reading there. 

For historical context, it is important to remember that the “Serbs” were the Christians. And I could not help but notice the similarities between the “Serbia” of yesterday and the Syria of today.  Oh how we continue to repeat the past.  And that is precisely why I am covering this story:  To reveal the truth of the past, in the hopes that we will not relive it in the future. 

Thank you to: Alexander Dorin, Jovan, pravoslavnajaporodica, Serbian FBR and all of the others who contributed to this information.  Additionally, thank you for translating this for us into English.  We are honored to share the truth!

 

What you are about to read (and watch) is the third part of FBR editor Biljana Dikovic’s interview (series) with Mr. Alexander Dorin, publicist from Switzerland, about the real genocide that took place in and around Srebrenica for almost three years, prior to the Srebrenica “incident” in 1995- which was labeled by the “Western influenced” Hague tribunal (ICTY) as a “genocide”, allegedly perpetrated by Serbs. We are not going to discuss, nor confront here this statement in any way…

 

We are going to present you with the indisputable evidence about the horrific crimes that were committed against the “Srebrenica Serbs” by the Western backed Islamic fighters. Almost all of these facts are still suppressed or censored by the Western governments today and by most of the main-stream media. 

The Islamic fighters (the so called Bosnian army) reinforced by the Mujaheddin fighters from the Islamic countries, literally wiped out hundreds of Serbian villages in the Srebrenica region. In their path of death and destruction they did not spare even the smallest of Serbian children, the women  nor the elderly…not even the Serbian pets! They tortured and murdered over 3,500 Christian Serbs and mutilated, wounded and imprisoned many more… 

Most of these horrific atrocities were committed in 1993 and what makes things even worse, they were committed by the heavily armed and numbered Muslim paramilitaries coming from the (“supposedly” demilitarized) UN “safe heaven” of Srebrenica- which was under the control of the UN and NATO authorities. 

Needless to say, Srebrenica was never a “safe heaven” nor was it ever demilitarized. The UN and Western “authorities” just stood by and did nothing to prevent the genocide of the Serbian people.

 

Such intolerable suffering of the Serbian Christian population at the hands of the Islamic paramilitaries warranted some military (re)action- due to inability or unwillingness of the West and the UN forces to react. 

And such military action came in July of 1995, when the regular army of the “Republika Srpska” liberated Srebrenica. 

The rest of the (official version) story was just politics and short term manufactured “history” in the form of “convenient truth,” mostly for Western public consumption. However, the final judge of Srebrenica will be the true history, in the decades or even the centuries ahead. (As the old Latins used to say- in the end “the truth shall set us free”) 

That’s why it is important for us to put this story of truth “on the record.” The story about the real genocide, the West doesn’t want you to know about….

 

 

The U.S. Helps Reconstruct the Ottoman Empire

Each of these United States military interventions occurred in an area that had been part of the Ottoman Empire, and where a secular regime was replaced by an Islamist one. So far, the German policy of keeping hidden its leadership role in its attempt to reconstitute the Ottoman Empire has succeeded.

Since the mid-1990s the United States has intervened militarily in several internal armed conflicts in Europe and the Middle East: bombing Serbs and Serbia in support of Izetbegovic's Moslem Regime in Bosnia in 1995, bombing Serbs and Serbia in support of KLA Moslems of Kosovo in 1999, bombing Libya's Gaddafi regime in support of rebels in 2010. Each intervention was justified to Americans as motivated by humanitarian concerns: to protect Bosnian Moslems from genocidal Serbs, to protect Kosovo Moslems from genocidal Serbs, and to protect Libyans from their murderous dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Other reasons for these interventions were also offered: to gain for the United States a strategic foothold in the Balkans, to defeat communism in Yugoslavia, to demonstrate to the world's Moslems that the United States is not anti-Moslem, to redefine the role of NATO in the post-Cold War era, among others.

Each of these United States military interventions occurred in an area that had been part of the Ottoman Empire. In each, a secular regime was ultimately replaced by an Islamist one favoring sharia law and the creation of a world-wide Caliphate. The countries that experienced the "Arab Spring" of the 2010s without the help of American military intervention, Tunisia and Egypt, had also been part of the Ottoman Empire, and also ended up with Islamist regimes.

In the United States most discussions of the military conflicts of the 1990s in the Balkans and the "Arab Spring" of the 2010s do not mention that the areas involved had been part of the Ottoman Empire; these included Turkey, the Moslem-populated areas around the Mediterranean, Iraq, the coastal regions of the Arabian Peninsula and parts of the Balkans. In the areas that experienced the Arab Spring Turkey's role in every instance has been to support the rebels and quickly recognize them as the legitimate government of the country in upheaval.

Turkish leaders do make the connection between the conflicts in the Bosnia, the "Arab Spring" and the Ottoman Empire. Harold Rhode, an American expert on Turkey, has reported:

[President of Turkey] Erdogan's recent [2011] electoral victory speech puts his true intentions regarding Turkey's foreign policy goals in perspective. He said that this victory is as important in Ankara as it is in the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sarajevo, under Ottoman times, an important Ottoman city; that his party's victory was as important in a large Turkish city Izmir, on the Western Anatolian coast, as it is in Damascus, and as important in Istanbul as it is in Jerusalem….
In saying that this victory is as important in all of these former Ottoman cities, Erdogan apparently sees himself as trying to reclaim Turkey's full Ottoman past.

The occurrence that since 1990 each European and Middle Eastern country that experienced American military intervention in an internal military conflict or an "Arab Spring" has ended up with a government dominated by Islamists of the Moslem Brotherhood or al-Qaeda variety fits nicely with the idea that these events represent a return to Ottoman rule. Besides being a political empire ruling a territory and its population, the Ottoman Empire claimed to be a Caliphate with spiritual suzerainty over all Moslems – those within its borders and those beyond. Though it might seem strange at first, the idea of advancing the renewal of the Ottoman Empire on two tracks – breaking down the post-Ottoman political structure and promoting a Caliphate which Islamists say they long for – is really quite reasonable.

Just as the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s and the "Arab Spring" of the 2010s considered in historical perspective suggests that Turkey might be attempting to recreate its former empire, consideration of the Turkish Empire in historical perspective suggests the possible partnership of Germany with Turkey in the project given that, from its creation in 1870, Germany viewed Turkey with its empire as a most valuable client and ally. In the view of the leaders of Germany, Turkey was controllable through a combination of economic intercourse, gifts of educational opportunities, provision of technical expertise and administrative aid, as well as bribes to Turkish officials. Germany saw influence over Turkey as a means of influencing Moslems worldwide for its own interests. Thus as the German scholar Wolfgang Schwanitz has shown, during World War I Germany employed the Turkish Caliphate to promote jihad – riot and rebellion – in areas where Moslem populations were ruled by its enemies Russia, France, Britain and Serbia.

Yet in the 50-odd articles collected in an exploration of the awareness on the part of Americans of a possible Turkish connection with the "Arab Spring," I found not a single mention of "Germany." Only from a link in one of those articles – to an article on the International Criminal Court (ICC) which, with its indictment of Muammar Gaddafi and issue of a warrant for his arrest, provided the "legal" basis legitimizing NATO's bombing of Libya -- which gave the rebels their victory and ended the Gaddafi regime – did I find mention of Germany. From that article, "A Lawless Global Court" by John Rosenthal (Policy Review Feb. 1. 2004 No.123), one learns that the ICC is a project initiated, promoted and, to a considerable extent, funded by Germany. Given this, the idea that the ICC serves Germany's purposes is common sense. Through the ICC connection, Germany's promotion of the "Arab Spring" is clear. Yet it is never or almost never mentioned. This silence calls for explanation.
Later, I did come across an explicit reference to Germany's role in it -- specifically in the war against the Assad regime in Syria -- in John Rosenthal's article "German Intelligence: al-Qaeda all over Syria" in the online Asia Times ­­­­­­­­­­­­ -- which reports that the German government supports the rebels and their political arm, the Syrian National Council (SNC), against Assad; that the German government classified [made secret] "by reason of national interest" the contents of several BND (German foreign intelligence) reports that the May 25, 2012 massacre of civilians in the Syrian town of Houla, for which Assad has been blamed, was in fact perpetrated by rebel forces; and that "the German foreign office is working with representatives of the Syrian opposition to develop 'concrete plans' for a 'political transition' in Syria after the fall of Assad." So far the German policy of keeping hidden its leadership role in the attempt to reconstitute the Ottoman Empire seems to have succeeded.

Each U. S. military action in Europe and the Middle East since 1990, however, with the exception of Iraq, has followed an overt pattern: First there is an armed conflict within the country where the intervention will take place. American news media heavily report this conflict. The "good guys" in the story are the rebels. The "bad guys," to be attacked by American military force, are brutally anti-democratic, and committers of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Prestigious public figures, NGOs, judicial and quasi-judicial bodies and international organizations call for supporting the rebels and attacking the regime. Next, the American president orders American logistical support and arms supplies for the rebels. Finally the American president orders military attack under the auspices of NATO in support of the rebels. The attack usually consists of aerial bombing, today's equivalent of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries' gunboat which could attack coastal cities of militarily weak countries without fear of retaliation. The ultimate outcome of each American intervention is the replacement of a secular government with an Islamist regime in an area that had been part of the Ottoman Empire.

Why the government of the United States would actively promote German aims -- the destruction of Yugoslavia (both World Wars I and II saw Germany invade Serbia) and the re-creation of the Ottoman Empire -- is a question that needs to be answered.

by Robert E. Kaplan

Sgt. Henry Lincoln Johnson: Perhaps, the most tragic hero of them all

 

While most Americans have never heard of this man, his is quite possibly the most compelling soldier's story you will ever hear, and one which deserves to be told over and over again.
In the wee hours of May 14, 1918, a German raiding party of at least two dozen soldiers operating in the Argonne Forest, set out to capture American soldiers.
The Germans came upon a post occupied by Pvt. Henry Johnson and Pvt. Needham Roberts, and surprised the newly-armed Americans. Johnson was immediately wounded and Roberts was captured.
Johnson then went after the German raiders, firing his French Lebel rifle until it jammed, then using it as a club, bludgeoning enemy soldiers until it broke in half.

Johnson managed to grab a grenade from one of the Germans, which he threw into a group of raiders, killing several of them. He then pulled his bolo knife and dragged the disabled Roberts back to their post, still fighting off Germans along the way.
When French troops arrived a few hours later, they found Johnson and Roberts inside their post laughing and singing songs. They also found several dead and dying German soldiers strewn about the ground.

Johnson sustained no less than 21 separate wounds during the fight.
Since Sgt. Johnson's unit was comprised solely of black troops, at the time they were not allowed to fight with U.S. forces. Thus the 369th Infantry Regiment, known as the Harlem Hellfighters was attached to the 16th Division of the French 4th Army. Johnson, from New York, was forced to fight under the French flag though he volunteered for the U.S. Army.
Because of Sgt. Johnson's super-human deeds and self-less determination to save his comrade Needham Roberts, France awarded him that nation's highest military honor...The French Croix de Guere with Gold Palm.
The citation for the award reads as follows:

Johnson, Henry (13348), private in company C, being on double sentry duty during the night and having been assaulted by a group composed of at least one dozen Germans, shot and disabled one of them and grievously wounded two others with his bolo. In spite of three wounds with pistol bullets and grenades at the beginning of the fight, this man ran to the assistance of his wounded comrade who was about to be carried away prisoner by the enemy, and continued to fight up to the retreat of the Germans. He has given a beautiful example of courage and activity.

Upon Johnson's return to the United States, he received a ticker tape parade along New York City's Fifth Avenue. After hearing his story, former President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Johnson to be "one of the five bravest men who fought in World War I."
While France saw fit to bestow their highest honor upon Johnson, his own country has yet to do the same.
Some eighty years later, as directed by New York's Gov. Pataki, the New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs submitted an official Congressional Medal of Honor (CMH) nomination on Johnson's behalf.
In 2001, Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera approved Johnson's nomination for the CMH. However, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Henry Shelton recommended that he not receive the award due to "failure to follow procedure."
However, in February 2003, Johnson was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second highest honor. The award was presented to his son, Herman A. Johnson, who served in World War II as one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen.
Herman died the following year.

Read the official order granting Johnson the Distinguished Service Cross...
Though the U.S. government has never recognized Johnson's bravery with the CMH, they did see fit to use him to help recruit young black men into the Army. They not only paraded him about in 1918, but used his image decades later, in a 1976 recruiting poster which declared: "Johnson left a trail of destruction a half mile long."

Sadly, unable to continue his job as a porter on the railroad because of his wounds, he became destitute and an alcoholic.
On July 5, 1929, he died in alone in a Veteran's hospital in Illinois, separated from his wife and family. Johnson was only 32-years-old.

It was not until 2001, that Johnson's son would discover that his father had been buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
It was a shame that in 1917, when Henry Lincoln Johnson walked into the Marcy Avenue Armory in Brooklyn and signed up to fight for his country, that he was never allowed to fight under his own flag.
It was also a shame that like many soldiers, Johnson had great difficulty returning to his life at home because of physical and undoubtedly emotional wounds.
It is an even further shame that after more than 90 years, this man who gave himself to his country has not received the honor he truly deserves.
The story of Sgt. Henry Lincoln Johnson is one worthy of a Hollywood war movie starring an Oscar cast. It is also truly an American tragedy. Unfortunately, one that continues to this day.

Remember Sgt. Henry Lincoln Johnson and weep...

Honor and RESPECT to the VETS!!
Yes I hate War.
that doesn't stop those who WILL...
at home or elsewhere
catch my drift...
...

HONOR&RESPECT to them.
The users n' abusers
I'm one of millions hot on yer trail
some of us are very very 'Old Scout' trained...
you smell something burning?

May 26th – Memorial Day 2014. A look at the rows and rows of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery leaves one with an enormous sense of humility and gratitude. On each headstone is the following information: Name, Rank, Military Branch, War, Date of Birth & Date of Death. What you don’t see is race or ethnicity. And you have no idea, nor do you care, if the vet was a Republican, Democrat or Independent. All you know is that there lies an American. An American who proudly ...served his/her nation so that the rest of us could remain free. This country today faces enormous challenges as we find ourselves divided like never before. Far too many hyphenated sub groups, all feeling somehow “aggrieved,” and each demanding its bigger “slice of the pie.” We can honor the servicemen & women no longer with us by taking a lesson from those buried at Arlington. Our nation can meet its challenges, but only if ALL OF US view ourselves first and foremost as Americans. P

Petco and PetSmart Stop Sale of Pet Treats Made in China

On Tuesday, Petco became the first major pet food and supply retailer to announce it would discontinue the sale of dog and cat treats made in China, in order to ensure the “well-being of pets.”
“We know some pet parents are wary of dog and cat treats made in China, especially Chicken Jerky products, and we’ve heard their concerns,” Petco CEO Jim Myers said. “Very simply, we feel this decision is in the best interest of the pets we all love and, ultimately, for our business.”
Petco’s announcement was quickly followed by a similar decision from PetSmart, a major nationwide pet-supply retailer and competitor. “This is something we've been working toward for some time, and feel it's the right thing to do for pets and our customers,” PetSmart spokeswoman Erin Gray told Fox News


Lisa Stark, a spokeswoman for Petco told USA TODAY Network, in a phone interview, that currently “about 50% of the jerky treats sold by Petco is from China, and by the end of the year no China-made jerky treats will be sold by the retailer,” USA TODAY reported.
Petco and PetSmart’s decisions come just after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released a report on May 16, 2014, stating that as “of May 1, 2014, we have received in total more than 4,800 complaints of illness in pets that ate chicken, duck, or sweet potato jerky treats, nearly all of which are imported from China.”

Those complaints involve “more than 5,600 dogs, 24 cats, three people, and include more than 1,000 canine deaths.” FDA investigators began receiving reports of pet-food related illness in 2007, nearly all of which consisted of Chinese-made treats.

Several symptoms that pet owners should look out for are vomiting and diarrhea, which could indicate the consumption of a contaminated treat. Other signs to watch for are a decrease in apetite and physical activity. If your pet shows one or more of these symptoms, it would be wise to see or schedule an appointment with a veterinarian.

Pet owners should familiarize themselves with the manufacturing and processed origin of their pet treats if they are planning to purchase them. “The agency continues to caution pet owners that jerky pet treats are not required for a balanced diet, and encourage them to consult with their veterinarians, both prior to feeding treats and if they notice symptoms in their pets,” the FDA stated.

Since 2000, the amount of pet food imported from China has increased nearly 850-fold. As reported in the November 4, 2013 issue of The New American magazine, “[According] to the Department of Agriculture, an estimated 85.8 million pounds of dog and cat food was imported from China to the United States in 2011.” Compare that to 2000 when only 100,000 pounds of dog and cat food was imported from China to the United States.

Though the health of our domesticated canine and feline friends is a concern, the news of Petco and PetSmart’s decision to terminate the sale of chicken and beef jerky products made in China is another reminder of the ever increasing threat of food imports for humans from Communist China.
The three people reported with illness in the FDA’s report, as well as the 1,000 canine fatalities, might be a preview of what could happen to humans if China is allowed to increase its processing and sales of food products for human consumption in the United States.

On August 31, 2013, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service quietly lifted its restriction on processed poultry (such as chicken and turkey) imported from China into the United States.
Even more disturbing, the imported processed poultry from China will not require a country-of-origin label, thus leaving U.S. consumers in the dark about the choices they make when purchasing food for themselves at the supermarket. Unlike in the United States, U.S. inspectors will not be present at the processing plants in China before the poultry products are shipped to the United States for human consumption.

Both Petco and PetSmart’s preemptive initiative to completely phase out the sale of poultry and beef jerky pet food made in China is one that food retailers of all types would be prudent to consider in light of China’s poor food safety record.
Related Articles:

Democrats have been quick to blame the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But wounded warriors coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan cost $4,800 each on average, while aging vets cost $8,800 each on average. Iraq and Afghan vets account for 7% of those treated, yet use only 4% of the money spent on health care.
Democrats have also been quick to blame “not enough money” (when are they not?) … but Investor’s Business Daily crunched the numbers and found that from 2000 to 2013, the VA’s budget nearly tripled, while the population of veterans declined by 4.3 million.

Ready for battle?

 The vast majority of people out there with any kind of healthy skepticism (and sense) have been harping about the ridiculousness of Common Core math problems, Common Core testing, yada yada yada for, what, a year now?
Most people saw Common Core for what it is: an attempt to brain wash America’s children into thinking like and doing the bidding of the class of people who consider themselves our overlords. That conclusion was supported mightily this week via... an interview The Blaze did with a 5th grade Arizona teacher who was “involved” in the development process:
My Common Core handlers weren’t interested in my questions about where the standards came from, who wrote them, who wrote the test questions, etc. If they did attempt an answer they usually parroted the phrase “Teachers were involved.” Something didn’t feel right.
My turning point came when in answer to questions I had about a student writing sample, my Common Core handler blurted out, “We don’t ever care what the kids’ opinions are. If they write what they think or put forth their opinion then they will fail the test.”
Talk about a Freudian moment. Kids aren’t allowed to have opinions. Hmmm. But that wasn’t all:..........

My Common Core handlers weren’t interested in my questions about where the standards came from, who wrote them, who wrote the test questions, etc. If they did attempt an answer they usually parroted the phrase “Teachers were involved.” Something didn’t feel right.
My turning point came when in answer to questions I had about a student writing sample, my Common Core handler blurted out, “We don’t ever care what the kids’ opinions are. If they write what they think or put forth their opinion then they will fail the test.”

Talk about a Freudian moment.  Kids aren’t allowed to have opinions.  Hmmm.  But that wasn’t all:

I discovered later that this was not just some irritated, rogue Common Core handler, rather this was a philosophy I heard repeated again and again. I pointed out that this was not the way that teachers teach in the classroom. She retorted that, “We expect that when the test comes out the teachers in the classroom will imitate the skills emphasized on the test (teach to the test) and employ this new way of writing and thinking.” This was a complete kick in the stomach moment for me….
I went back to Chicago again in November 2013 to review reading/writing questions for the Common Core/PARCC test. Again, I wanted to see the test questions and I also wanted to experience the Common Core with all the new knowledge I’d gained. After a week of work I was convinced of the correctness of my feelings and my research about the Common Core. During this visit I worked with Pearson and ETS on the questions they created for the test. Again we were just window dressing so that they could check the box that “teachers were involved.”

The teacher quoted, Brad McQueen, actually wrote a book about his experience as a Common Core teacher “involved in development.”  It’s titled, The Cult of Common Core and thanks to the availability of self-publishing, unfiltered by the overlords.  With this quote, Mr. McQueen sold me on adding it to my summer “to be read” list:

The Common Core is much bigger than just a set of standards, a test, or a data gathering machine. Like a virus, the Common Core tricks its victims into lowering their guard by pretending to be something it is not. But the Common Core isn’t just a mindless infection of our society; rather it is an intentional takeover of our education delivery system and therefore a takeover of our children’s minds. It is a one-size-fits-all, homogenized, centrally controlled education delivery system steeped in Progressive ideology. It is antithetical to everything that makes our country exceptional. This cult is relentlessly pulling our children under its control, with a seemingly endless supply of money, and uses intimidation to silence its opponents.

Yes, we all knew this, but it is still shocking to see it in black and white from someone who was on the inside while the system was being formed.
Of course, McQueen’s book includes a lot of information on just who is financing and driving Common Core (always follow the money).  It is no more innocent and innocuous than any other progressive brainchild meant to destroy society.
For those who are suspicious of the testing system, and the possibility of privacy abuse, McQueen vindicates that fear.  He’s not the only one.  A study from Pioneer Institute, it seems, pinpoints potential (and probably real) violations of privacy incurred by Common Core testing:

A new study released by the Boston-based Pioneer Institute finds that new technology development that has been encouraged through the use of federal grants has served to threaten children’s privacy by allowing the collection of data on every child.

Authors of the study Emmett McGroarty, Joy Pullmann, and Jane Robbins make the case that by means of the nationalized Common Core standards, which states were lured into adopting through competitive grants in the Obama administration’s Race to the Top (RttT) stimulus program in 2009, the federal government has used grant funds to induce states to build identical, increasingly sophisticated student data systems.

McGroarty, executive director of the Education Project at the American Principles Project (APP), said the study, entitled “Cogs in the Machine: Big Data, Common Core, and National Testing,” exposes “an idea that dates back to the Progressive era.”

“It is based in a belief that government ‘experts’ should make determinations about what is successful in education, what isn’t,” he said, “and what sorts of education and training are most likely to produce workers who contribute to making the United States competitive in the global economy.” SOURCE – Breitbart

Yes, it is true.  This has happened before.  The final plank of the Communist Manifesto is free education for children in government schools, thus making it compulsory.  The self-appointed overlords used the American government in the early 20th century to try to install several of the planks of Marxism in our country – and they succeeded for a time.  Some of it is still hanging around.  And with Common Core, there is an all out attempt to make Hillary’s child raising village a reality:

The U.S. Department of Education (USED), however, in its report published last year and titled “Promoting Grit, Tenacity and Perseverance,” expressed a strong interest in monitoring students’ “beliefs, attitudes, dispositions, values and ways of perceiving oneself” and to measure non-cognitive attributes such as their “psychological resources.”…

“This sort of character development and monitoring has traditionally been the domain of parents,” says “Cogs in the Machine” co-author Pullmann, research fellow of the Heartland Institute. “But the Grit report clearly implies that families can’t be trusted to inculcate values and attitudes.”

Again, we all knew this, but it is shocking to see it in black and white all the same. At least we who have been convinced of this for some time now have the data and studies to back the assertions.  The overlords want control of the kids.  It’s up to all of us – not just parents – to object and shine a gigantic spotlight on it.
….Or a magnifying glass in the sun.  Think the worker ants will know to run for cover?
So much to read just to keep up with the monitoring efforts. I’ll be in the back yard with my magnifying glass.

Christians Have a Responsibility to Bear Arms to Protect the Church from Her Enemies 
He said that these modern occurrences remind him of the obligation of the Church to carry arms. He was not speaking in terms of stirring up strife or revolution, but rather he spoke of the use of arms defensively against all those who would seek to do her harm.
"Even Jesus spoke of this when He said, 'Sell your purse and buy a sword,'" Shoebat said. "Of course, there are many interpretations of it, but the physical and temporal application of using a sword to defend one's self can be applied with this verse."

Shoebat claims that the two swords in the passage represent the physical sword for self-defense, while the other sword represents the spiritual sword, or the Word of God. I'm not necessarily buying into the interpretation, but the reality is that as Christians we are to use both. We use the Word of God in defining law, in pointing out sin, in instructing in righteousness and pointing the way of salvation through the One, true and living God. We also use modern swords (arms of all different types) to defend ourselves, our loved ones, the Church and our neighbors, as well as secure a free state, as Shoebat points out.

Many object to the use of arms by Christians, even going so far as to say that if someone were in your home and had killed your children and was raping your wife that you should merely pray for them. Yes! So-called pastors have even spewed this non-sense. My question to them is "Is that showing love for them?" The answer is no. It is actually showing cowardice, which I might add, the apostle John says that cowards will find themselves in the lake of fire (Revelation 21:8).
Theodore also goes on to point out that the state can use the sword to protect the Church. We also know from Romans 13, that the state wields the sword for the punishment of evil doers (For more on that topic, I highly recommend my good friend pastor Gordan Runyan's excellent work Resistance to Tyrants).
While Shoebat pointed out that in an ideal world, there is such thing as a Christian State (a government that rules under the authority of God righteously), he recognizes that in large part, many governments, including our own, seem to have "sold their souls to the devil."

There are numerous examples of those who defended the people of God (the Church) throughout the Old Testament. Before I continue, let me just say that no, the Old Testament is not done away with even though the Messiah has come. It has been fulfilled, but not destroyed. It is still, as the apostle Paul said, "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Tim. 3:16)
One of the examples Theodore chose to use as an example comes from 1 Samuel 22. King Saul, who was to be the protector of the Church, has now become its persecutor, slaying the priests of the LORD. One of the priests, Abiathar, escapes to David and tells him what has taken place. David says that he knew this would happen, but then goes on to tell Abiathar, "Abide thou with me, fear not: for he that seeketh my life seeketh thy life: but with me thou shalt be in safeguard." In other words, David is not going to let anyone harm or kill Abiathar without a fight. What did they fight with in those days? That's right, swords.

This isn't the first time that David had shown his might in defending the people of God against their enemies. If you recall, he also took a sling and some stones, went out against the greatest enemy of Israel, Goliath the Philistine, charged him and slew him and cut off his head with the giant's own sword! What's interesting is how David spoke of killing a lion and a bear to defend the sheep of his pasture. Jesus also spoke of going after lost sheep and bringing them safely home. To fail to defend the people of God, is to demonstrate a lack of love for them. In fact, it is to demonstrate hate and cowardice.

Jesus would later speak of laying down His life for the sheep. Christ was, and still is, a defender of His sheep and He often employees the means of His people in the defense of His people.
Christians should be those that use the sword of the Word of God to defend the Church against false doctrines and false teachers, but we should also be unafraid and unashamed to use the physical arms we possess to defend the people of God as well. May God grant us courage and strength to demonstrate love for His Church in such a way that we defend Her from the various attacks of Her enemies for His glory.

Read more at http://freedomoutpost.com/2014/05/christians-responsibility-bear-arms-protect-church-enemies/#qFrWFswMttRlABBY.99

2 Nigerian Teen Girls Found Beaten, Raped and Tied to a Tree by Boko Haram Muslim Terrorists

Two teenage girls found tied to trees in a clearing in the Nigerian bush

Had been beaten, raped and left to die in sweltering heat by Boko Haram

Found a week after 276 girls were taken from a school in Ba’ale, Chibok

Found by Baba Goni, 15, who was held hostage by the group for two years before escaping 

Here brave young man tells of Boko Haram’s reign of terror in his village

by, Barbara Jones | The Daily Mail | h/t Trop

Their faces scratched and bleeding, the pitiful remains of their once-smart school uniforms ripped and filthy, the two teenage girls were tethered to trees, wrists bound with rope and left in a clearing in the Nigerian bush to die by Islamist terror group Boko Haram.

Despite having been raped and dragged through the bush, they were alive – but only just – in the sweltering tropical heat and humidity.

This grim scene was discovered by 15-year-old Baba Goni. ‘They were seated on the ground at the base of the trees, their legs stretched out in front of them – they were hardly conscious,’ says Baba, who acted as a guide for one of the many vigilante teams searching for the Nigerian schoolgirls abducted from their school last month by Boko Haram – and now at the centre of a concerted international campaign for their freedom.

The horrific scene he and his comrades encountered, a week after the kidnap early on April 15, was in thorny scrubland near the village of Ba’ale, an hour’s drive from Chibok, where 276 girls aged 16 to 18 were taken from their boarding school dormitories – with 223 still missing. It was still two weeks before social media campaigns and protests would prick the Western world’s conscience over the abduction.

In the days following their disappearance, rag-tag groups such as Baba’s, scouring the forests in a convoy of Toyota pick-up trucks, were the girls’ only hope.

But hope had already run out for some of the hostages, according to Baba, when his group spoke to the terrified inhabitants of the village where Boko Haram had pitched camp with their captives for three days following the kidnap.

The chilling account he received from the villagers, though unconfirmed by official sources, represents the very worst fears of the families of those 223 girls still missing.

Four were dead, they told him, shot by their captors for being ‘stubborn and unco-operative’. They had been hastily buried before the brutish kidnappers moved on.

‘Everyone we spoke to was full of fear,’ said Baba. ‘They didn’t want to come out of their homes. They didn’t want to show us the graves. They just pointed up a track.’

The tiny rural village, halfway between Chibok and Damboa in the besieged state of Borno in Nigeria’s north-east, had been helpless to stop the Boko Haram gang as it swept through on trucks loaded with schoolgirls they had taken at gunpoint before torching their school.

Venturing further up the track, Baba and his fellow vigilantes found the two girls. Baba, the youngest of the group, stayed back as his friends took charge.‘They used my knife to cut through the ropes,’ he said. ‘I heard the girls crying and telling the others that they had been raped, then just left there. They had been with the other girls from Chibok, all taken from the school in the middle of the night by armed men in soldiers’ uniforms.

‘We couldn’t do much for them. They didn’t want to talk to any men. All we could do was to get them into a vehicle and drive them to the security police at Damboa. They didn’t talk, they just held on to each other and cried.’

For Baba, a peasant farmer’s son who has never been out of rural Borno, it was shocking to see young girls defiled and brutalised by the notorious terrorists he knew so well.

But his own life has been full of tragedy and he told how he had ‘seen much worse’ than the horror of that day in the forest clearing.

A bright-eyed Muslim boy from the Kanuri ethnic group, proud of a tribal facial scar and  nicknamed ‘Small’ by all who know him because of his short, slim frame, he described a happy childhood with three brothers and two sisters in Kachalla Burari, a collection of mudhouses not far from Chibok.

Without electricity or running water, the children spent their days helping on their father’s subsistence farm, planting maize and beans and millet.

Baba and his friends used home-made catapults to shoot birds and in the rainy season fished in the river with bent hooks. But by his tenth birthday, the scourge of the radical Islamist Boko Haram was creeping up on everyone in Borno State.

Baba and his siblings attended a local madrassa, or religious school, where they learnt the Koran, but he had no formal teaching and cannot read or write to this day.

By 2009, Boko Haram were becoming active in his area, peddling their message of hatred to Christians, but also turning on Muslims they branded as informers. Nigeria’s chaotic military was incapable of defending itself or its citizens.

Baba’s village life came under siege. There were attacks on the Christian population in the region, with bank robberies funding the gang. Disaffected, unemployed youths from local families were recruited and neighbours who once lived in peace now spied on one another.

One night as he slept in his family’s mudhouse in the village, the gunmen came door to door, looking for informers. ‘I heard some noise, I woke up and saw men coming through the door, shooting at my uncle who was in the bed beside mine,’ he said. ‘That was the end of my childhood, the end of everything. I saw his body covered in blood, I backed away, and the men turned their guns on me. They grabbed me roughly and took me outside to a pick-up truck.

Baba, telling his story confidently and lucidly, wants to skate over the details of his two hellish years in the Boko Haram camp in Sambisa Forest. Today there are special forces soldiers swarming over the vast nature reserve and circling overhead in surveillance aircraft.

For this slight boy, there was no such worldwide interest as he scurried back and forth at the command of a ruthless gang dug into woodland far from any help or rescue.

He remembers many of them lived with women who had come voluntarily into the camp. He never saw any girls abducted. This latest phenomenon is unknown to him. ‘There were many abducted boys, but no girls,’ he said. ‘We were all scared to death and had to do whatever we were told – fetch water, fetch firewood, clean the weapons.

‘We couldn’t make friends – you didn’t know who to trust. I was made to sleep next to the Boko Haram elders, the senior preachers. I had no special boss in the camp, I was ordered around by everybody’.

The men prayed five times a day yet would leap on their motorbikes and trucks to carry out killing sprees.

‘I knew they had started out as holy men but now I saw them as criminals, loaded with weapons and ammunition,’ he said.

As he got older, he was taught how to use an AK-47, how to strip it down and clean it, and reassemble it.

He could never understand what drove the men. They did not use alcohol or hard drugs, though he sometimes saw them smoking marijuana. They were monsters and he felt convinced they were mad.

‘They were wild, even when they prayed so loudly in groups together, making us join in. They were insane, unpredictable, and always planning their next attack. I never wanted to be one of them.

 ‘They slept rough every night, just taking shelter under trees in the rainy season,’ he said. ‘We all wore the same afaraja [the Nigerian long shift and trousers] day and night. We washed them when we could. We slept on mats made of palm leaves, out in the open with the trucks all parked nearby, ready for a hasty move if necessary.’

He said the fear, and the endless boredom, were his worst enemies. ‘They made us work hard so it was easy to sleep. I don’t remember crying through homesickness. I think the night when my uncle was killed in front of me did something to my feelings forever. It seems mindless, but I adapted to my life out there.’

Then came the day when he was given a ‘special’ but sickening task. One of the commanders told him he was going on a journey and would be tested for his loyalty to the group.

‘He brought two of his senior men to stand beside me. He said I would be going with them to my family’s home and I would have to shoot and kill my father.’ Baba had no time to plan. He was sandwiched between the two fanatics as they set off on a motorbike for his village home.

‘I pretended I was willing to do the job. I took the ammunition belt I was handed and clung on as we drove through the rough bush. When we were less than a mile from a nearby village, I threw the ammunition belt to the ground and pretended it had slid out of my hands.

‘They stopped to let me pick it up. Instead, I ran as fast as I could through the undergrowth. I didn’t care about thorns or snakes or anything. They shot at me and I could hear the bullets flying past and hitting the trees, but I was not going to stop for anything. I made it to the village and some kind people let me hide there.

‘The shooting would have been heard by local vigilante groups. I think that is why I wasn’t followed by the men on the bike.’

The next day Baba went home. He saw his grieving parents and siblings for the first time in two years.

‘But I couldn’t stay,’ he said. ‘I was bringing danger to their door and we all knew it.’

Confirmation of that came when Baba soon heard that vengeful Boko Haram chiefs had put a bounty on his head for his defiance of the equivalent of £12,000 – a fortune in the local economy.

‘I took a bus to Damboa, to report to the youth vigilante group,’ he said. ‘I wanted to work with them and I knew I was doing the right thing.’

His family, terrified, abandoned their home soon afterwards and today live in a remote part of Borno, rarely seeing their eldest son. He lives with a cousin who is also under a Boko Haram death threat.

He became a valuable volunteer with the vigilantes. He helps man checkpoints where Baba points out members of Boko Haram to the rest of the team.

But he was soon exposed to brutality of a different kind – this time from the government side. He helped to get one of his captors, a man he only knew as Alaji, arrested and handed to the soldiers.

‘It felt good at first, but then they shot him dead right in front of me,’ he said.

Now joining the patrols armed with a shotgun and machete, Baba has been able to give valuable intelligence to the Nigerian authorities about Boko Haram’s way of life in their camps.

‘By now I have seen this violence many times. It never gets better. It will always be an even worse sight than finding those poor schoolgirls in the forest,’ he says.

Gang Raping, "I Love Al-Qaeda" and Who Is Advancing Islam?A Month of Islam in Europe: April 2014

The American Embassy in Prague is financing a new project aimed at promoting Islam in public elementary and secondary schools across the Czech Republic.
The new law removes the requirement that there must be a special reason to sue for defamation or insult. Swedish thought police will be able to prosecute anyone who expresses an opinion about Muslim immigration and much else if that opinion is deemed to be defamation or slander. The Swedish government is also spending 60 million krona ($9 million) to boost voter turnout in Muslim neighborhoods.
"The influx of immigrants is reaching biblical proportions. Italy is fighting a losing battle." — Admiral Giuseppe De Giorgi, Head of the Italian Navy

In Austria, police say they believe that two teenage girls who vanished from their homes in the capital of Vienna on April 10 may be in Turkey, and that whoever helped them get there is using them as pin-up girls to boost recruitment efforts for the "holy war" in Syria.
Friends of Samra Kesinovic, 16, and Sabina Selimovic, 15, said the girls had become radicalized after attending a local mosque run by a Salafist preacher, Ebu Tejma, and learning about the duty of every Muslim to participate in jihad. The girls were expelled from school after inscribing "I Love Al-Qaeda" on tables and walls.
But the girls' parents—originally Bosnian refugees who settled in Austria after the ethnic conflicts of the 1990s—say that messages and photographs posted on social media networks which claim that the girls are on the front line and fighting with their new husbands are fake.
In a possible break in the case, Austrian police say they traced a phone call Samra made to her sister in late April to a landline based in Turkey. The search for the girls continues.
At least 100 Austrian citizens or residents have participated in the fighting in Syria, according to Austrian media. Approximately 40 of them are currently on the front lines, 44 have already returned to Austria and 19 have been killed in action.

Also in April, the most senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood living in exile in Britain, Ibrahim Munir, denied claims that the group was moving its international headquarters from London to the Austrian city of Graz. The Daily Mail, a British newspaper, reported on April 12 that the Muslim Brotherhood was preparing to move its headquarters to Austria in an "apparent attempt to avoid an inquiry into its activities set up by the Prime Minister."

The group was expelled from Egypt after a counter-revolution there in July 2013, and recently opened a new headquarters above a kebab shop in London. On April 1, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced an investigation of the Muslim Brotherhood's activities in Britain.
A full summary of Islam in Britain during the month of April can be found here.
In the Czech Republic, police on April 25 raided the headquarters of Prague's Islamic Foundation in the center of the capital and a mosque on the outskirts of the city. Police arrested 20 people, including the Czech translator and publisher of a book about Islamic theology that security officials said promotes hate speech and incites hatred toward Jews.
The book—"The Fundamentals of Tawheed" [Islamic monotheism] by Bilal Philips, a Jamaican-born, Qatar-based Muslim extremist who has been banned from entering Britain and Germany—was being used, police said, to spread Salafist ideology in the Czech Republic.
Also in April, it emerged that the American embassy in Prague is financing a new project aimed at promoting Islam in public elementary and secondary schools across the Czech Republic.
In Denmark, police in Copenhagen on April 25 said the man they believe tried to assassinate the Danish journalist Lars Hedegaard in February 2013 was arrested in Istanbul's Atatürk airport as he tried to enter Turkey on a false passport. The man, identified only by the initials B.H., is awaiting extradition—a process that could take three months—in a high-security prison in the city's Maltepe district.

Danish police say the suspect is a 26-year-old Danish citizen of Lebanese—possibly Palestinian—origin. At the time of his arrest, he was in possession of a fake passport. He left Denmark on the same day of the assassination attempt, police said, and has been traveling between Syria, Lebanon and Turkey ever since.

In Finland, the Parliament's Constitutional Law Committee on April 4 ruled that the long-standing tradition of singing a summer hymn known as the "Suvivirsi" at end-of-school ceremonies can continue. In March, Deputy Chancellor of Justice Mikko Puumalainen had called on the Board of Education to look into the matter because the song has Christian overtones and could be offensive to the country's growing Muslim community.

"It's curious that the minority can so strongly influence the activities of the majority," said Education Chancellor Pekka Iivonen. "Laws concerning religious freedom work both ways: in addition to having the right not practice religion, we also have the right to practice religion in Finland, where the majority of people belong to the Lutheran church."

In France, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve on April 23 presented a new anti-radicalization plan aimed at preventing French citizens or residents from waging jihad in Syria and other Muslim conflict zones. The strategy includes more than 20 measures aimed not only at preventing French citizens from joining the war in Syria, but also at combatting the radicalization of young French Muslims during the earliest stages of indoctrination.
On April 22, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told RTL Radio that nearly 500 French citizens or residents are believed to have joined the fighting in Syria. "This is a very big subject," Fabius said. "Now more and more young people are going [to Syria] ... Our plan is to tackle this upstream [at the source] and all the way downstream. We will identify young people caught on this tragic path. We will monitor this online, and then we must stop them from crossing the Syrian border, and monitor their return and reintegration."
Some believe the plan is a political ploy by French President François Hollande aimed at blunting the rising popularity of the anti-immigration National Front party, which captured a record number of city council seats and mayorships in local elections in March.

National Front party leader Marine Le Pen told RTL Radio that the government's plan to fight French jihadists is cosmetic. "It does not attack the root of the problem—the speech in some mosques that are genuine calls to jihad," she said. "Nor does the plan attack recruiters and funding from foreign countries known to support terrorist fundamentalism, such as Qatar."
Le Pen also said it might be necessary to create a new law on mercenaries that would 1) prohibit those who have French nationality from engaging in fighting abroad; and 2) revoke French nationality from individuals convicted of participating in this type of fighting.
A confidential intelligence document leaked to the French newspaper Le Figaro says a form of Muslim ghettoization is gaining ground within the French school system. The report says that Muslim students are effectively establishing an Islamic parallel society completely cut off from non-Muslim students.

The 15-page document, dated November 28, 2013, includes 70 examples—headscarves in school playgrounds, halal meals in cafeterias, chronic absenteeism during Muslim religious festivals, clandestine prayers in gyms or hallways—of the Islamizing trend in schools throughout France.
The document says that Muslims are engaged in a "war of attrition" aimed at "destabilizing the teaching staff." It adds that Muslim fundamentalists are circumventing the law that bans religious symbols in schools, and that self-proclaimed "young guardians of orthodoxy" in many schools are exerting pressure on Muslim girls.

"During the Muslim holidays, especially during the Eid-el-Kebir [Eid el-Adha], classes are abandoned by students," with absenteeism bordering 90% in certain parts of Nîmes and Toulouse. A high school principal in a northern district of Marseille said that some of his pupils pray with such zeal that their foreheads bear bruises.

In Évry, a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, police arrested four Muslim boys (three Turkish brothers between the ages of 13 and 15, and one 17-year-old from Morocco) for gang raping an 18-year-old woman as she left the main train station. During police questioning, the minors said they attacked the woman simply because she was French and "the French are all sons of whores."
The boys were jailed for rape and—unusually in France—reverse racism. Three of the minors have previously been jailed for rape and robbery, but only six months ago they were released early as part of a government plan to go easy on minors.

One French commentator asks: "Where did their hatred come from? The hatred that drove them to engage in unspeakable acts on a young girl, barely older than themselves, who symbolized their host country? What will I report? Unemployment? Poverty? Inequality?"
In Paris, the 31st congress of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France (UOIF) was turned into a platform for Muslim anti-Semitism when keynote speaker Hani Ramadan—a prominent Muslim leader from Geneva—blamed Jews and Zionism for a litany of maladies in France, Iraq, Rwanda, Syria and Central Africa. "All the evil in the world originates from the Jews who have only one thing in mind, realizing the dream of Greater Israel," the French daily Le Figaro quoted him as saying.
Ramadan said the media and politics are controlled by Zionists. "In the United States, no one can be elected president without having to kowtow to AIPAC," he said. "It is the same in France, where no one can be elected without the approval of the CRIF [an umbrella group of French Jewish organizations], which in fact leads in the shadows. Against these international schemes of the Zionist power there is only one rampart: Islam."
Hani Ramadan is the director of the Islamic Center of Geneva and is a brother of Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss professor banned from entering the United States. The UOIF congress, held from April 18-21 this year, is one of France's largest and most prominent Islamic events.
In Germany, the interior ministry on April 8 said it had outlawed the charity "Waisenkinderprojekt Libanon" [Orphan Project Lebanon] for allegedly raising millions of euros for Hezbollah. The group, based in the city of Essen, collected €3.3 million ($4.6 million) in donations between 2007 and 2013 for the Lebanese Shahid [Martyrs] Foundation, an "integral" part of Hezbollah. The interior ministry said the funds were used to recruit fighters "to combat Israel, also with terrorist measures" and to compensate the families of suicide bombers.
Also in April, it was reported that the 39-year-old German rapper Deso Dogg (born Denis Cuspert), operating under the alias "Abu Talha Al-Almani" [Abu Talha the German], was killed on April 20 as a result of infighting among jihadi groups battling in Syria.

Deso Dogg—the son of a Ghanaian father and German mother, and raised by an American stepfather—abandoned his rapping career and converted to hardline Salafism in 2010 after nearly being killed in a car crash. Soon after his conversion, he began recording nasheeds [traditional Islamic devotional music] in German, praising Osama Bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Deso Dogg's nasheeds inspired Arid Uka, an Albanian-German Islamist, who killed two U.S. airmen and seriously wounded two others at the Frankfurt airport in March 2011.

Before and After: Left, German rapper Denis Cuspert in 2005, then known as "Deso Dogg". Right, Cuspert as jihadist in Syria, in 2013, operating under the alias "Abu Talha Al-Almani" [Abu Talha the German]. (Image sources: Wikimedia Commons, ISIS)

After Deso Dogg became a cult figure for Salafists in Europe, German counter-terrorism authorities, concerned about his potential to serve as a recruitment tool for radical Islamic groups, began monitoring his activities.

Despite being monitored, Deso Dogg crossed into Syria undetected in 2013, and gave his oath of allegiance to the jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIS] in early 2014. According to many media sources, he was reportedly killed by a rival al-Nusra suicide bomber in eastern Syria. Reports of his death, however, have not been independently confirmed, and ISIS fighters interviewed by the German newspaper Die Welt have denied he is dead.

A new survey published on April 29 shows that only half of the German population believes that Islam is a part of German culture and society. The Integration Barometer 2014, produced by the Expert Council of German Foundations on Integration and Migration, found that 44% of those with an immigrant background and 53% without a migration background rejected the statement: "Islam is part of Germany." About half of the respondents, both with and without a migration background, nevertheless advocated religious instruction in schools. About two-thirds believe Islamic theology should be offered at universities.

The situation is different when it comes to making exceptions for individual Muslims, such as exemptions from sports or swimming lessons because of religious sensitivities. A clear majority, 76% of those without a migration background, viewed such special privileges in a negative light. In addition, 63% of those without a migration background rejected the right of Muslim teachers to wear headscarves in class. "The majority of respondents obviously believe that equality and religious neutrality are more important than the granting of special treatment on religious grounds," the study concludes.

On April 22, the Bavarian Administrative Court in Munich ruled that an 18-year-old Muslim student does not have the constitutional right to wear a face-covering niqab in class at her state-run vocational college. The court said that her school had done nothing illegal in asking her to remove the veil, and that this prohibition did not infringe on her freedom of religious worship.
The court also said that the veil acted as a barrier for non-verbal communication. "Open communication during teaching is based not only on the spoken word, but also on non-verbal elements such as facial expressions, gestures and other body language," the court said.
Meanwhile, a German-Turkish candidate for city council elections in the town of Neuss near Düsseldorf provoked the ire of many Germans when he added the Islamic crescent-moon to the logo of his party, the center-right Christian Democratic Union. The Islamized logo appeared on promotional campaign products such as pens, stickers and 4,000 bags.

Irritated CDU officials ordered Yasar Calik, 37, to cease and desist. He responded by accusing them of intolerance. Calik said many Turks are skeptical of the CDU and that he wants Muslims to know they can vote for the party, which some have dubbed the "Islamic Democratic Union."
In Greece, controversial plans to build a taxpayer-funded mega-mosque in Athens have been delayed once again after a group of concerned citizens filed an appeal to block the €950,000 ($1.3 million) project. The government had agreed in November 2013 to build a mosque at the site of a former naval base in Votanikos, near central Athens.
Aris Spiliotopoulos, a candidate for the mayor of Athens for the center-right New Democracy party, called for a referendum on the construction of the mosque. In an April 16 interview with Skai TV, Spiliotopoulos, a former education and tourism minister, criticized plans to build a Muslim place of worship in the heart of Athens, saying that the capital does not need "another pole for illegal immigration" or "third-world tents under the sacred rock of the Acropolis." Votanikos is located 3km from the Acropolis. Spiliotopoulos said: "I don't want the mosque next to the Parthenon."
The Friendship, Equality and Peace Party, purportedly representing Greek Muslims in region of Thrace, described Spiliotopoulos' referendum proposals as an "insult to the hundreds of thousands of Muslims living in Athens, the only capital in the European Union without a mosque." The group added:

"The construction of a mosque has been delayed for strange reasons for many years, which has opened a deep wound in terms of freedom of religion. Now, proposing a referendum for a place of worship has created great disappointment. We expect politicians to leave such a mentality, to avoid putting our country Greece in a difficult position within the international arena."

Meanwhile, Muslim vandals are being blamed for a spate of attacks against Greek Orthodox churches on the island of Crete. Anti-Christian slogans written in Arabic were discovered on the walls of at least three churches.

In Italy, Home Secretary Angelino Alfano on April 4 warned that his country is facing a catastrophic wave of immigration from the Muslim world. "According to our information between 300,000 and 600,000 people are on the other side of the Mediterranean on the North African coastline, waiting to cross sooner or later," he said at a conference on immigration in Palermo, Sicily.

In the first three months of 2014, more than 11,000 immigrants have landed in Italy, a seven-fold increase on 2013, with the high season for crossings about to begin as the weather improves. "The landings are non-stop and the emergency is increasingly glaring," Alfano said.
On April 4, an official statement from the Italian Ministry of Health declared "the activation of appropriate measures of surveillance at all international access points to Italy" due to fears that at least 40 immigrants from Africa were infected with the Ebola virus.
The head of the Italian Navy, Admiral Giuseppe De Giorgi, said the influx of migrants is reaching "biblical proportions" and that "Italy is fighting a losing battle."

Justice Minister Andrea Orlando on April 1 signed an agreement with his Moroccan counterpart to have Moroccan convicts sent back home. The move is aimed at tackling chronic overcrowding in Italian prisons. The agreement will affect Moroccans who have been convicted in Italy and sentenced to one or more years in prison, according to a statement released by the Justice Ministry. The new plan will allow convicts to serve out the rest of their sentences in Morocco while receiving "social reintegration" there, where "they have social and family ties." There are some 4,000 Moroccan prisoners in Italian prisons.

In the Netherlands, Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk and Rob Bertholee, the head of the Dutch intelligence agency AIVD, on April 23 presented the AIVD annual report for 2013. The report says that more than 100 Dutch citizens or residents travelled to Syria in 2013 with the intention of taking part in jihadist activities there.The vast majority of Dutch jihadists joined one of two groups: the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) or Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN). A relatively small proportion of jihadists (just over 20) returned home during the course of the year. The AIVD believes that at least ten men from the Netherlands were killed in Syria in 2013, including two Dutch jihadists who took their own lives in suicide attacks.
The report warns:

"The participation of foreign jihadists in the conflict in Syria has contributed to its escalation. Their experiences there, and the contacts they establish with international networks, mean that they may well pose a threat to national security if and when they return home. For the jihadist groups active in Syria, the presence of European fighters represents an excellent opportunity to recruit individuals familiar with our region to commit acts of terrorism here. In addition, returnees could exploit their status as veterans to radicalize others in the Netherlands. 

"As well as potentially posing a direct threat, returnees from Syria might also have a radicalizing and mobilizing effect upon fellow Muslims. In the Netherlands, they could act as the catalyst pushing some young people already attracted by a radical strand of Islam into militant activism. That could strengthen local radical groups and spread their message to a wider audience."

Meanwhile, police said they had arrested a 35-year-old Dutch-Turkish national named Aydin Coban in the case of a Canadian teenager who was blackmailed after exposing herself in front of a webcam. The 15-year-old girl, Amanda Todd, later committed suicide after detailing her harassment on a YouTube video watched by millions around the world. Dutch prosecutors said the man is suspected of blackmailing girls in Britain, the Netherlands and the United States. Canadian police said they would seek extradition.

The number of people requesting asylum in the Netherlands rose by more than 4,000 in 2013 to 17,190, the immigration service said on April 14. Somalia topped the list with just over 3,000 requests, followed by Syria (2,670) and Iraq (1,090).

In Norway, the education ministry approved a controversial plan to launch the country's first Muslim-only primary school in Oslo. The school will be run by the Association of Muslim Mothers, which wants to teach its pupils Arabic and Islamic values as well as the standard subjects on the curriculum. A standard course on Religion, Philosophy and Ethics would be replaced by Islam, Religion and Philosophy.

The school aims to have 200 students, and is expected to look for premises in the east side of Oslo, home to many immigrants. Both Norway's opposition Labour Party and the anti-immigrant Progress Party, which is part of the government coalition, have voiced opposition to the plan.

On April 28, envoys from Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries accused the Norwegian government of doing too little to protect its Muslim minority, and called for all criticism of Islam to be made illegal. The accusations against Norway were made in Geneva during a session of the United Nations Universal Periodic Review, which occurs every four years. Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende told Norway's NTB newswire: "It is a paradox that countries which do not support fundamental human rights have influence on the council, but that is the United Nations."
In Spain, a large Muslim umbrella group called the Union of Islamic Communities in Spain [UCIDE] sent letters to education officials in all of the country's 17 regions asking for precise data on the number of students in primary and secondary public schools who have applied for Islamic religious training.

UCIDE is lobbying the Spanish government to expand the teaching of Islam in the public school system, and is said to be compiling the data to back up its claim that there are not enough Islam teachers to keep up with the growing demand.

On April 30, police in Almería, a port city in southern Spain, arrested a French-Algerian jihadist who was returning to Europe from combat in Syria. Abdelmalek Tanem, 25, was a member of the al-Qaeda-linked group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [ISIS], from October 2013 to January 2014, according to a statement issued by the Spanish Interior Ministry.

"During this period, Tanem is believed to have carried out the work of 'combatant' and as a 'facilitator' on the Turkish-Syrian border in order to make it possible for other European citizens to be integrated into this jihadist group," the statement says. Tanem is the second returning jihadist who has been arrested by Spanish police; the first was Mohamed Sadik Abdeluahid in Ceuta, in January.
On April 29, the Spanish government announced that it would allocate €2.1 million ($2.9 million) to try to stem illegal border crossings in Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish exclaves in North Africa. More than 1,000 African migrants attempted to reach Spain in April during nearly daily attempts to storm and scale the six-meter (20-foot) triple-layer fence separating Melilla from Morocco.

In Sweden, the parliament on April 10 approved a new law that will make it easier for public prosecutors to take criminal action against Swedes who criticize immigrants or government officials online. The new law removes the requirement that there must be a special reason to prosecute for defamation or insult. Critics say the new law, which takes effect on January 1, 2015, is an assault on the exercise of free speech: Swedish thought police will be able to prosecute anyone who expresses an opinion about Muslim immigration and much else if that opinion is deemed to be defamation or slander.

The measure has been pushed by Swedish parliamentarian Andreas Norlén, who in an unchallenged debate on the issue in parliament, said: "I do not think it takes very many prosecutions before a signal is transmitted in the community that the Internet is not a lawless country: the sheriff is back in town."
The Swedish government is also spending 60 million krona ($9 million) to boost voter turnout in Muslim neighborhoods—such as the Rinkeby district in Stockholm, the Rosengård district in Malmö, and the Rymdtorget and Bergsjön districts in Gothenburg—ahead of European elections in May.
Separately, the government was forced to drop a controversial plan to lower the tax rates in Muslim neighborhoods after the European Commission said that allowing immigrants to pay lower taxes than Swedes would violate EU rules on state aid.
According to the latest data from Eurostat, Sweden is the EU country that receives the most asylum seekers from developing countries relative to their population. Most of the asylum seekers in 2013 were from Afghanistan, Kosovo, Pakistan and Syria.

At the same time, more than 50,000 native Swedes fled the country in 2013, according to new data from Statistics Sweden (SCB). This is the highest figure since the peak years of emigration to North America in the 1880s. By contrast, immigration from the developing world to Sweden reached its highest level ever in 2013, with nearly 115,800 immigrants, according to the SCB.
On April 5, it emerged that a Swedish national of Somali origin was arrested in Kenya on suspicion of trying to recruit young men for the Islamic terrorist group, Al-Shabaab. Some 30 Swedish nationals have traveled to Somalia to join Islamic militant groups, according to the Swedish intelligence agency Säpo.

In Switzerland, the University of Fribourg will host the country's first training center for imams. The center will provide courses for imams on Swiss culture and society, courses for social workers and health professionals on accommodating the Muslim community and, ultimately, a training program for new imams. The objective is to produce locally-trained imams to join the ranks of the country's 150 imams, all of whom were schooled abroad.
The original idea for the project came from a national research program called "Religious Groups, State and Society," which found that most of the imams and teachers of Islam did not speak Swiss national languages and did not know Swiss society, culture and laws.