Governor Palin's Top 10 Policy and Political Statements of 2010

December 29, 2010

Posted by Whitney Pitcher at 5:08 PM 

 As it is the last week of 2010, in lieu of a "Governor Palin on the Issues" post this week, I'd like to compile a list of Governor Palin's Top 10 Policy and Political Statements of 2010. You can find the first two "Governor Palin on the Issues" posts on monetary policy here and on entitlement programs here. Perhaps this can serve as an easily digestible version of some of Governor Palin's policy stances for Charles Krauthammer, Dana Perino, Peggy Noonan and other Republicans ostriches who have willfully had their heads in the sands for the past two plus years. Through Facebook, op-eds that have appeared in the Wall Street Journal and National Review among others publications, and speeches, Governor Palin has weighed in on many of the important policy issues facing America today. She has also been the most bold conservative voice in America--challenging Republicans to stand firmly on the planks of the Republican party. There are, of course, more than ten policy and politically focused areas Governor Palin has taken a stand on this year, but it is my hope that this will serve as a summary. The selection of these particular ten statements are merely the opinion of one ordinary barbarian. They are listed by title and are in no particular order.

1) The Midterms: Lessons Learned and the Way Forward
Following the 2010 Midterm elections, Governor Palin penned a piece at the National Review entitled "The Midterms: Lessons Learned and the Way Forward". In this piece, Governor Palin provided 4 lessons that Republicans can learn:1) set the narrative 2) fight back the lies immediately and consistently 3) get out the mother of all GOTV efforts in 2012 and 4) a winning conservative message must always be carefully crafted. Here is an excerpt from this excellent piece:

The last, and possibly most important, lesson is that a winning conservative message must always be carefully crafted. If candidates are going to talk boldly on the campaign trail about entitlement reform and reducing the size of government, they must be prepared to word it in such a way as to minimize the inevitable fear-mongering accusations of “extremism.” We are quickly approaching a fiscal turning point where these crucial reform discussions will be mandatory. We need to speak about them in a way that the public will embrace. During his first run for the presidency in 1976, Ronald Reagan found out that election campaigns aren’t necessarily the best settings for quasi-academic discussions about issues like Social Security reform. So for his next campaign, he resolved to build his platform out of tried and tested policies like tax cuts. Successful candidates in the next election cycle will have to test and develop similar policy platforms that address the crucial issues of entitlement reform and shrinking government in a way that the voters will find pragmatic and even attractive.

2) Why I support the Ryan Roadmap
A few weeks ago, Governor Palin wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal expressing her support for Congressman Ryan's Roadmap to lead to a more financially stable nation through entitlement reforms, tax cuts, and spending cuts. Here is an excerpt:

Put simply: Our country is on the path toward bankruptcy. We must turn around before it's too late, and the Roadmap offers a clear plan for doing so. But it does more than just fend off disaster. CBO calculations show that the Roadmap would also help create a "much more favorable macroeconomic outlook" for the next half-century. The CBO estimates that under the Roadmap, by 2058 per-person GDP would be around 70% higher than the current trend.

Is Rep. Ryan's Roadmap perfect? Of course not—no government plan ever is. But it's the best plan on the table at a time when doing nothing is no longer an option.

Let's not settle for the big-government status quo, which is what the president's commission offers. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to make these tough decisions so that they might inherit a prosperous and strong America like the one we were given.

3)Peace Through Strength and American Pride vs. "Enemy Centric Policy"
In June, Governor Palin gave a speech at Freedom Fest in Virginia where she spent a large portion of her time speaking critically of President Obama's foreign policy and his disdain for American exceptionalism. She later provided excerpts of this speech on her Facebook page. Here is a small part of that speech:

It’s not the only area where the Obama administration has failed our allies. They escalated a minor zoning issue in Jerusalem into a major dispute with our most important ally in the Middle East, Israel. They treated the Israeli Prime Minister shabbily in Washington. When a Turkish sponsored flotilla threatened to violate a legal Israeli blockade of Hamas-run Gaza, the Obama Administration was silent. When Israeli commandos were assaulted as they sought to prevent unmonitored cargoes from being delivered to Hamas terrorists, the Obama Administration sent signals it might allow a UN investigation into the matter – an investigation that would be sure to condemn our ally Israel and bemoan the plight of Hamas. Loyal NATO allies in central Europe were undermined by the cancellation of a missile defense program with virtually no warning. At the same time, Russia and China are given preferential treatment, while remaining silent on their human rights violations.

4)Bailouts Reward Bad Behavior
During her time as Governor, Governor Palin managed Alaska with such fiscal prudence that nearly bankrupt states like California, New York, Illinois, and Michigan would do well to study and learn from her how to budget and spend appropriately. She wrote a Facebook post highlighting what she did as Governor to help put Alaska on strong financial ground, and she suggests that struggling states who may seek a federal bailout to do the same. Here is a small part of the post:

It’s one thing to veto spending and reduce the size of government when your state is broke. I did it when my state was flush with revenue from a surplus – though I had to fight politicians who wanted to spend like there was no tomorrow. It’s not easy to tell people no and make them act fiscally responsible and cut spending when the money is rolling in and your state is only 50 years shy of being a territory and everyone is yelling at you to spend while the money is there to build. My point is, if I could fight this fight in Alaska at a time of surplus, then other governors can and should be able to do the same at a time when their states are facing bankruptcy and postponing this fight is no longer an option.

So, let’s not continue to reward irresponsible political behavior. Instead of handing out more federal dollars, let’s give the governors of these debt-ridden states some free advice. Shake off the pressure from public sector unions to cave on this issue. Put up with the full page newspaper attack ads, the hate-filled rhetoric, and the other union strong arm tactics that I, too, had to put up with while fighting those who don’t believe a state needs to live within its means. Stand up to the special interests that are bankrupting your states. You may not be elected Miss Congeniality for fighting to get your fiscal houses in order; but in the long run, the people who hired you to do the right thing will appreciate your prudence and fiscal conservatism.

5) Passing the Buck Doesn't "Plug the D#*! Hole"
Governor Palin was pointedly critical of the Obama administration's mismanagement of the oil spill in the Gulf this past Spring. As a governor of an energy producing state and as a former oil and gas commissioner, Governor Palin's opinion is particularly relevant. In May, Governor Palin posted a note on Facebook regarding this topic. Here is an excerpt:

The 1990 Oil Pollution Act was drafted in response to the Exxon-Valdez spill in my home state. It created new procedures for offshore cleanups, specifically putting the federal government in charge of such operations. The President should have used the authority granted by the OPA – immediately – to take control of the situation. That is a big part of what the OPA is for – to designate who is in charge so finger-pointing won’t disrupt efforts to just “plug the d#*! hole.” But instead of immediately engaging with this crisis, our President chose to spend precious time on political pet causes like haranguing the state of Arizona for doing what he himself was supposed to do – secure the nation’s border. He also spent much time fundraising and politicking for liberal candidates and causes while we waited for him to grasp the enormity of the Gulf spill.

6) Lies, Damned Lies-Obamacare 6 Months Later; It's Time to Take Back the 20!
In September, six months following the passage of Obamacare, Governor Palin coupled endorsements of 20 candidates up against Democrats who voted for Obamacare with a scathing rundown of all the ills of Obamacare. In November, 18 of these districts represented by Obamacare supporting Democrats elected conservatives to fill those seats. Here is a brief excerpt from that Facebook post:

So, yes, those rationing “death panels” are there, and so are the tax increases that the president also promised were “absolutely not” in his bill. (Aren’t you tiring of the untruths coming from this White House and the liberals in Congress?) When the state of Florida filed a challenge to Obamacare on the basis that the mandates in the bill are unconstitutional, the Obama Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss the suit by citing the Anti-Injunction Act, which blocks courts from interfering with the federal government’s ability to collect taxes. Yes, taxes! Once the bill was passed it was no longer politically inconvenient for the Obama administration to admit that it makes no difference whether the payment is a tax or a penalty because it’s “assessed and collected in the same manner.” The National Taxpayer Advocate has already warned that “Congress must provide sufficient funding” to allow the IRS to collect this new tax. Pretty soon we’ll be paying taxes just to make it possible for the IRS to collect all the additional taxes under Obamacare! Seems as if this is another surprise that the public found out about after the bill was rammed through.

7) Senate Republicans: Vote No on New START
Governor Palin wrote a piece for the National Review earlier this month outlining why the Senate should not ratify the START treaty with Russia. Many supporters of the treaty tried to claim that President Reagan would have supported the treaty, as one of his goals was reduction of nuclear arms. However, as Governor Palin points out, President Reagan increased not decreased missile defense as President Obama has done:

New START recognizes a link between offensive and defensive weapons – a position the Russians have sought for years. Russia claims the treaty constrains U.S. missile defenses and that they will withdraw from the treaty if we pursue missile defenses. This linkage virtually guarantees that either we limit our missile defenses or the Russians will withdraw from the treaty. The Obama administration claims that this is not the case; but if that is true, why agree to linking offensive and defensive weapons in the treaty? At the height of the Cold War, President Reagan pursued missile defense while also pursuing verifiable arms control with the then-Soviet Union. That position was right in the 1980’s, and it is still right today. We cannot and must not give up the right to missile defense to protect our population – whether the missiles that threaten us come from Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, or anywhere else. I fought the Obama administration’s plans to cut funds for missile defense in Alaska while I was Governor, and I will continue to speak out for missile defenses that will protect our people and our allies.

8 ) An Open Letter to Republican Freshman Members of Congress
In mid November, Governor Palin wrote an open letter to new Congressmen and women challenging them remain true to the principles they ran on and to remember that they are accountable to the voters. In this, Governor Palin also gave a great summary of her stances on the issues of Obamacare, spending, taxes, entitlement reforms, Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, the START treaty, and border security among other issues. Here is a small excerpt:

You’ve also got to be deadly serious about cutting the deficit. Despite what some would like us to believe, tax cuts didn’t get us into the mess we’re in. Government spending did. Tough decisions need to be made about reducing government spending. The longer we put them off, the worse it will get. We need to start by cutting non-essential spending. That includes stopping earmarks (because abuse of the earmark process created the "gateway-drug" that allowed backroom deals and bloated budgets), canceling all further spending on the failed Stimulus program, and rolling back non-discretionary spending to 2008 levels. You can do more, but this would be a good start.

9)Domestic Drilling: Why We Can Still Believe
Governor Palin's forte has always been energy. As a wife of a former oil field worker, an Oil and Gas Commissioner, and Governor of Alaska, she has the perfect expertise to speak to how energy independence provides jobs and helps secure our nation. She also provides the perfect antithesis to President Obama's overregulation. Governor Palin is a firm supporter of industry oversight rather than industry regulation. This approach holds energy companies accountable to the people while giving them the freedom to produce and provide jobs. Following the Gulf oil spill, Governor Palin offered her continued support for drilling for oil to fuel America:

All responsible energy development must be accompanied by strict oversight, but even with the strictest oversight in the world, accidents still happen. No human endeavor is ever without risk – whether it’s sending a man to the moon or extracting the necessary resources to fuel our civilization. I repeat the slogan “drill here, drill now” not out of naiveté or disregard for the tragic consequences of oil spills – my family and my state and I know firsthand those consequences. How could I still believe in drilling America’s domestic supply of energy after having seen the devastation of the Exxon-Valdez spill? I continue to believe in it because increased domestic oil production will make us a more secure, prosperous, and peaceful nation.

10) Palin to Bernanke:' Cease and Desist'
Governor Palin warned of the hazardous effects of the second round of quantitative easing by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. Printing money will inevitably lead to inflation and other effects that will not help an already severely hurting economy. The National Review Online published some of her remarks on this from a November speech in Arizona. Here is part of that excerpt:

We shouldn’t be playing around with inflation. It’s not for nothing Reagan called it “as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hit man.” The Fed’s pump priming addiction has got our small businesses running scared, and our allies worried. The German finance minister called the Fed’s proposals “clueless.” When Germany, a country that knows a thing or two about the dangers of inflation, warns us to think again, maybe it’s time for Chairman Bernanke to cease and desist. We don’t want temporary, artificial economic growth bought at the expense of permanently higher inflation which will erode the value of our incomes and our savings. We want a stable dollar combined with real economic reform. It’s the only way we can get our economy back on the right track.

Governor Palin wrote numerous Facebook posts and op-eds on a variety of subjects in 2010. This list only provides a small taste. In addition to what was listed Governor Palin wrote about the Bush tax cuts, border security, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Bush tax cuts, the mosque at Ground Zero, among others. Many of these posts were endorsements of candidates who received a great boost from her support. Her 140 character tweets even spoke volumes. In 2010, Governor Palin spoke at various industry conferences, campaign rallies, pro-life events, conservative conferences, and the like. Not too shabby for someone whom, according the Elites, isn't serious about policy; wouldn't you say?

Have a blessed new year, everyone! While many of Americans will be eating black eyed peas to ring in the new year, I hope that the elites acquire a taste for a steady diet of crow in 2011.They'll certainly being eating quite a bit of it in the coming year.

Crossposted here, here, and here.

Ten ‘Mama Grizzlies’ and a ‘Fat Guy’ GOP Future

December 28th, 2010 

By Paul R. Hollrah

It has not been a good year for President Barack Obama and the Democrats. And while most of the bad news was generated by Obama himself and the “ship of fools” he has surrounded himself with in the White House, it was congressional Democrats who paid the price Nov. 2.

Unfortunately, given the quality of Republican leadership in the years since the departure of Newt Gingrich, we have no guarantee that Republicans will take full advantage of the coming shift in the political balance of power. The uncertainty evidenced by their handling of issues in the recent lame-duck session leaves us to wonder whether the male-dominated House and Senate leadership won’t once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Sen. Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-Okla.)

On the Republican side of the aisle in Congress we find few truly courageous and outspoken members. Sens. Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, and Jim DeMint of South Carolina are notable exceptions. When asked why they are not more aggressive in their response to Democrats and their policies, Senate Republicans would likely murmur something about the Senate being the world’s foremost “gentlemen’s club.”  A “gentlemen’s club,” indeed… run by the likes of Harry Reid and Dick Durbin? Not!

As matters now stand, the shortage of testosterone among conservative and Republican men has become so critical that, as Republicans move to capture the ground that Democrats have relinquished, the strongest leadership potential in the Republican ranks is to be found among women and minorities.

Sarah Palin

Among the most effective and outspoken conservative elected officials, dubbed “Mama Grizzlies” by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin are Senator-elect Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.); Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-Minn.); Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.); Attorney General-elect Pam Bondi (R-Fla.); Gov. Jan Brewer (R-Ariz.); Governor-elect Mary Fallin (R-Okla.); Governor-elect Nikki Haley (R-S.C.); Governor-elect Susana Martinez (R-N.M.); and Congresswoman-elect Kristi Noem (R-S.D.).

Outside the realm of elective office, we have an equally impressive cadre of strong conservative female writers and thought-leaders, including Tammy Bruce, Amanda Carpenter, Mona Charen, Linda Chavez, Liz Cheney, Ann Coulter, Monica Crowley, Mary Katharine Ham, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin, K.T. McFarland, Kate Obenshain, Dana Perino, Phyllis Schlafly, and Teri Thompson… to name just a few.

Congressman-elect Allen West (R-Fla.)

They are joined by a growing number of strong and eloquent black conservatives, including former corporate CEO Herman Cain; Republican political strategist Angela McGlowan; Lincoln Institute President Jay Parker; conservative columnist Star Parker; conservative author, Rev. Wayne Perryman; National Black Republicans President Frances Rice; Congressman-elect Tim Scott (R-S.C.); Congressman-elect Allen West (R-FL); and economics professor Walter Williams.

Deborah Blum, author of Sex on the Brain, tells us that, “Feminists become understandably annoyed by the oversimplified, back-to-the-kitchen notion that women don’t have the hormonal underpinnings for competition. And plenty of men… are equally annoyed at being dismissed as a bunch of naturally bad-tempered apes.”

Clearly, Ms. Blum has not spent a great deal of time around conservatives and Republicans in recent times. At a time in our history when events call for conservative leaders to be “naturally bad-tempered apes,” almost to a man, the best-known conservatives and Republicans tend to be milquetoast wimps. It’s hard to imagine the likes of Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Mitch McConnell, or the weepy John Boehner in the role of “naturally bad-tempered apes,” a personality type that will be absolutely essential in dealing with badly-wounded House and Senate Democrats and a “shellacked” Obama armed with a veto pen.

Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.)

Because liberals and Democrats are what they are, the last thing the country needs is wimpish “nice guy” Republicans in the Oval Office and in the congressional leadership. Other than Newt Gingrich, the only man in the ranks of Republican leaders who appears to have what it takes to go toe-to-toe with liberals, Democrats, and their bought-and-paid-for special interests, is Gov. Chris Christie, the “fat guy” from New Jersey.

In a recent Trenton press conference, Christie chastised a columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger.  When the columnist questioned whether the governor had adopted a “confrontational tone” with legislative Democrats and the politically powerful teachers’ unions, Christie replied, “You should see me when I’m really pissed. I love when people say they don’t want to have argument. That’s what we were sent here for.” Holding up a Democratic press release, Christie said, “Here it is:  Bigger government, higher taxes, more spending. I believe in less government, lower taxes and in empowering local officials who are elected by their citizens to be able to fix their problems…”

He continued, “This is who I am. Like it or not, you guys are stuck with me for four years and I’m going to say things directly. When you ask me questions, I’m going to answer them directly, straightly, bluntly, and nobody in New Jersey is going to have to wonder where I am on an issue… and I think they’ve had enough of politicians who make them wonder. I came here to govern, not to worry about re-election. I came here to do what people sent me here to do, and so, ‘blunt?’ ‘direct?’ Maybe you might say ‘honest and refreshing.’ Maybe we could see that in your paper tomorrow.”

It is the kind of straightforward and unambiguous leadership that Republicans at all levels will have to display in the years ahead if the elections of Nov. 2 are to have any meaning at all.

Newt Gingrich

In 1994, Gingrich and other Republicans signed a hard-nosed “Contract with America,” promising much-needed reform in Congress. The voters responded positively and Republicans experienced four productive years between January 1995 and January 1999, conducting themselves as we would expect them to. But then, when Gingrich chose not to seek reelection in 1998, House leadership fell to Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Tom Delay (R-Texas)… both of whom set about organizing a Republican majority that was indistinguishable from Democrats.

Hastert and Delay were still there when George W. Bush arrived in 2001, claiming to be a “compassionate” conservative… which proved only that he hadn’t the foggiest notion of what a conservative was. By failing to exercise any party discipline over a free-spending Republican Congress, all Bush did was to make it impossible for lifelong rank-and-file Republicans to defend the party they had always thought of as the last best hope for America.

Who can deny that the ultimate fate of our country was set in concrete during the Roosevelt Administration when New Deal Democrats decided that political power could be solidified by purchasing the allegiance of special interests… interest groups and individuals who wanted something from government… and using other people’s money to do it?

The complete socialization of America and the destruction of the capitalist system has been the sole raison d’être of the Democratic Party for more than seventy-five years, and were it possible to paint a picture of what party leaders have seen as their ultimate dream during all those years, the Obama Administration and the Pelosi-Reid Congress would be their ideal. The current crop of Democrats in the White House and in Congress are simply the most evil and corrupt group of politicians ever to set foot in Washington. It is Chicago-San Francisco-Las Vegas social and political morality transported to Washington and tailored to engulf the entire nation.

Liberals and Democrats have not failed to notice the power (and danger) of feminist gains on the right. In an August 28, 2010 New York Times editorial by Anna Holmes and Rebecca Traister titled, “A Palin of Our Own,” they wrote, “An older generation of female Democrats, including Mrs. Clinton and Ms. Pelosi, are about as eager to mount a Palin-style girl-powered campaign as they are to wear a miniskirt on the House floor…

“But as women of a different generation – of, gulp, Sarah Palin’s generation – we wonder if Democrats shouldn’t look to her for twisted inspiration, and recognize that the future of women in politics will be about coming to terms with (and inventing) new models… If Sarah Palin and her acolytes successfully redefine what it means to be a groundbreaking political woman, it will be because progressives let it happen – and in doing so, ensured that when it comes to making history, there will be no one but Mama Grizzlies to do the job.”

On Feb. 28, 1854, some 30 devout abolitionists, opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, met in a small one-room schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisc., to create a new political party… the Republican Party. And if a lack of strong leadership and a departure from Republican principles demands that we do it all over again we have a good beginning. We have ten Mama Grizzles and a fat guy from New Jersey to build on.

Hollrah is a senior fellow at the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a contributing editor for Family Security Matters and a number of online publications.  He resides in northeast Oklahoma.


Bob McCarthy Writes

How's That Religion of Peace Doing These Days?

December 29, 2010
By Eileen F. Toplansky

Only a few days remain until 2011, and still there is no end to Islamic hatred in the world.

• Christmas was celebrated in an unusual way in Indonesia this year.  Since sharia forbids the construction of any new churches, hundreds of members of Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church in Parung, West Java, Indonesia decided to celebrate Mass "in a tent set up in the parking lot of the Marsudirini Elementary School."  Although on paper, Indonesia's constitution states that "no one has the right to prohibit any religious community from practicing its faith" the rising influence of Islamic radicals is obliterating all this.

• In Pakistan in July of 2010, "a dozen masked men shot five Christians to death as they came out of their church."  In May, "church leaders had received a threatening letter from the Islamic extremist group Sip-e-Sahaba warning the Christians to leave the area as 'they [were] polluting [the] land.'"

• In the Washington Times, Jeffrey Kuhner writes about ongoing anti-Christian pogroms in the Middle East.  A word usually ascribed to the mass destruction of Jews, it is now being applied here, as "Christians have endured bombings, murders, assassinations, torture, imprisonment and expulsions. These anti-Christian pogroms culminated recently with the brutal attack on Our Lady of Salvation, an Assyrian Catholic church in Baghdad. Al Qaeda gunmen stormed the church during Mass, slaughtering 51 worshippers and two priests. Father Wassim Sabih begged the jihadists to spare the lives of his parishioners. They executed him and then launched their campaign of mass murder."

• Thus, the "Christian population is declining in every majority Muslim country in the [Middle East] region and is under increasingly severe pressure even in Lebanon, where it still constitutes 35 percent of the population."  Besides the decimation of life, the churches which once preserved the "traditions of the Apostolic era in ways no other Christian rites or denominations do" are being destroyed.  Every majority Muslim country is seeing the obliteration of Christian historic and cultural sites.  Yet the world remains mute.

• Of course, Muslims who disagree with their Islamist rulers suffer as well.  Life for the Arabs of Gaza has certainly not improved under Hamas.  Since Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, Gazan women have been targeted by Islamic religious crackdowns in the area.  Intimidation and terror shape their every move, and Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar pledges "to continue the shaheed project of violent" jihad against Israel."  Furthermore, Zahar has "defended the draconian approach in Gaza by asking, [is] it a crime to Islamize the people?"

• Stoning continues to be prevalent in Islamic lands.  In August of 2010, the Afghan Taliban publicly stoned to death two people because they wanted to marry each other but the woman had already been promised to a relative.  The 19-year-old woman was forced to wear her burqa to her execution.  This is only one of the many honor killings emblematic of Muslim-on-Muslim crimes.  Thus, "in the last thirty years, the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, the Turks, the Saudis, the Iranians, and the Egyptians have all engaged in ... stonings, beheadings, hangings, burying young girls alive, amputations, nose and ear chopping, floggings, [and] acid thrown in the faces of young girls for improper veiling."  Stoning, in fact, is a "legal punishment [which] is embedded explicitly in traditional Islamic law, applied to crimes of 'sina' or adultery and fornication."  According to "Mina Ahadi, Founder of International Committees Against Execution and Stoning, 150 people may have been stoned in Iran over the past 30 years."  In Somalia, a 17-year-old who converted to Christianity from Islam was shot to death in an apparent honor killing.  Her name was Nurta Mohamed Farah.  Her relatives were involved in the heinous murder.

• In the Islamic Regime of Iran, Kurdish Iranian activists await execution because of their political beliefs.

• Caning is also alive and well in Indonesia, where "two people were caned in Indonesia's staunchly Muslim Aceh province after being caught having an extramarital kiss," according to the Indonesian prosecutor.

• New threats are emerging that Muslim extremists are promising a new kind of terrorism which involves implanting a bomb inside an operative's body.  Thus, stitching a bomb made of plastic or liquid explosives into the abdominal cavity of a suicide bomber is being considered by al-Qaeda to achieve its destructive goals.  I.Q. al-Rassooli explains that "almost 25 years ago, a Muslim terror group planted a bomb on the baby of one of their operatives."  Fortunately, El Al security officers stopped the family, but "using babies, wives, or animals is not beneath [the terrorists] modes of operation. They will go to any depraved level to execute their terror tactics."

• A Muslim member of the Israeli Knesset calls for an "Islamic caliphate in Israel."  Masud Ganaim argues that "an Islamic caliphate should be established and it should include Israel."

• In 1996, as part of his fulfillment for a Masters degree, Baheg T. Bistawros wrote "The Coptic Christians of Egypt Today: Under the Threat of Annihilation."  In his thesis, he documents how "Egypt has been able to elude world condemnation despite the grave situation of twelve million Coptic Christians in that country."  Thus, "Coptic Christians in Egypt ... are suffering in their own land," and Coptic Christians "are continuously reminded that any protest and complaint will endanger the safety of the Christians all over Egypt. The scheme and objectives of the Moslim [sic] regimes are to destroy the Christians and the non-Moslims [sic] economically, socially, and educationally, or convert them by force to Islam."

Things have only worsened, as al-Qaeda is now specifically targeting Canadian Coptic Christians.  Thus, "[t]he Shumukh-al-Islam website, often considered to be al-Qaeda's mouthpiece, listed pictures, addresses and cell phone numbers of Coptic Christians, predominantly Egyptian-Canadians, who have been vocal about their opposition to Islam."  Voice of America explains how "Christians in the Middle East are on alert after Islamist extremists called them 'legitimate targets' days after a bloody siege of a Baghdad church.  In Egypt, security has been stepped up around Christian sites as Islamists demand the release of two Coptic women who reportedly converted to Islam."
Furthermore, "[a]l-Qaida in Iraq posted an internet statement saying 'the killing sword will not be lifted' from the necks of Christians, in Iraq and across the region. The speaker said his group will go after ... 'children' in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, adding there are hundreds of thousands of Christians and hundreds of churches on what he referred to as Islamic soil.  He said they will be targeted if Christians do not submit to his group's demands."

• And in Great Britain, "British pupils are being taught how to carry out Sharia punishments at Islamic schools."  Muslims continue to import elements of sharia to Western countries.  Such fare includes this advice in a junior high school text: "For thieves their hands will be cut off for a first offence, and their foot for a subsequent offence."

• Sweden saw terrorist explosions in the busy shopping street of Drottninggatan as Islamic terrorists "singled out Lars Vilks, a cartoonist threatened repeatedly with murder since publishing a derogatory cartoon of the prophet Mohammed in 2007."  Vilks has not been the only cartoonist threatened with death because of his drawings.

• Mahmoud Abbas, whose office controls the Palestinian Authority Television, routinely "presents the killing of Jews as a religious obligation and a fulfillment of the Islamic ideal."  A video on official Hamas Television "calls for Allah to kill Jews, Christians, Communists and their supporters."

It is vitally important that freedom-loving people come to understand that "Islam is not a religion; it is foreign law" whose adherents will stop at nothing to impose it upon the West. Look closely at these Muslims who marched through the streets of London during their 2006 Religion of Peace Demonstration.  Does "Behead Those Who Insult Islam" sound peaceful to you?

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com.

American Thinker

Is the Republican Party Finished?

December 29, 2010

By Michael Filozof

 

The lame-duck session of the 111^th Congress proved one thing beyond a doubt: the Republican Party does not represent the interests of conservatives. Despite the midterm election tidal wave, in which the Republican Party gained 63 House seats (eclipsing its historic1994 success against Clinton), congressional Republicans failed to leverage their victory into political clout and collapsed like a house of cards in the lame-duck session.

The last two weeks ought to have sickened conservatives. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spectacularly failed to hold his caucus together to even delay ratification of the START treaty until the 112^th Congress is seated in January. Republican leftists Olympia Snowe and Lisa Murkowski sided with Democrats to end the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, forcing the gay agenda from the streets of San Francisco right into the U.S. Marine Corps. Congressional Republicans agreed to cut FICA taxes for Social Security (which is underfunded already) and expand the Democratic Party's welfare state constituency by extending unemployment benefits -- in exchange for maintaining current tax rates for a paltry two years. The deal will add billions to the deficit. Tea Party darling Scott Brown, mocked by Obama for driving a truck in his insurgent 2009 campaign in which he stole "Ted Kennedy's seat" from the Democrats, voted for Obama's agenda on all of these issues.

Give the Democratic devils their due. They are astute students of Machiavelli. They know how to exercise power. The ink was barely dry on the DADT repeal when Obama cynically announced he'd now "rethink" his (supposed) opposition to gay marriage, and Vice-President Biden announced that gay marriage was "inevitable." Despite historically low congressional approval ratings, Speaker Pelosi rammed socialized medicine and cap-and-trade legislation through the House by one-vote margins and pursued the exercise of power right up to the eleventh hour of the lame-duck session. When's the last time Republicans pursued their agenda so ruthlessly? Maybe 1919, when Republican Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge held his caucus together to defeat the Treaty of Versailles by one vote -- unmoved by the plight of Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who lay crippled in the White House after having a stroke trying to rally public opinion in favor of the treaty.

The Republicans do not pursue their agenda ruthlessly because they do not have one -- at least not a conservative one that differs substantially from the Democratic agenda. The capitulation to the lame-duck Democrats is merely the latest in a decades-long series of episodes in which Republicans have actively colluded with Democrats to push the left-wing agenda of the 1960s forward.

The majority opinion in Roe v. Wade was written by Republican Harry Blackmun. Republican appointee Sandra Day O'Connor voted to uphold Roe in Casey v. Planned Parenthood. Republican justice Anthony Kennedy cited the European Court of Human Rights in Lawrence v. Texas, which declared that the Constitution guarantees a right to anal sodomy. Republican President George W. Bush expanded the already-bloated Federal bureaucracy with the hideous Department of Homeland Security, the TSA,  "No Child Left Behind," and the Medicare prescription drug entitlement. Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger supports gay marriage, and signed restrictive ammunition bans into law in California; former Republican Gov. George Pataki signed restrictive gun-control legislation in New York. Former Republican Gov. Mitt Romney can hardly campaign against ObamaCare after initiating mandatory health care insurance in Massachusetts. Republican Senators McCain and Graham support amnesty for illegal aliens; Graham and Snowe voted to put Sonia "A Wise Latina Can Make Better Decisions Than a White Man" Sotomayor on the Supreme Court. Republicans, who supposedly oppose affirmative action, named Colin Powell Secretary of State; Powell rewarded them by endorsing Barack Obama in 2008. The party that was founded as an anti-slavery party and appointed Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court cannot get more than ten percent of the black vote in a good year. After losing 96% of the black vote to a black Democrat in 2008, Republicans eagerly panted "Me, too!" and by named Michael Steele party chairman.

What a mess.

Conservatives today are in essentially the same position that the radical Left was in back in the Sixties. Then, every institution in American society  -- the "Establishment" in Sixties jargon -- was socially and temperamentally conservative. The radicals found themselves with nowhere to go but the streets. Today's "Establishment" is uniformly leftist, and conservatives are as unwelcome in the halls of power today as the radical Left was 45 years ago. In order to move forward, conservatives are going to need to do what the Left did in 1968: begin in the streets, capture a political party and convert it to its agenda, and follow up in the courts when they lose elections.

Even more important, conservatives are going to have to learn to exploit national crises to advance their agenda. And surely these crises are coming -- the national debt, currency valuation, inflation, Iranian nuclear weapons, illegal immigration, a day of reckoning in Afghanistan, and so on.

Voters will demand alternatives to Leftist policies when these crises appear. If the Republicans do not present conservative alternatives, Conservatives will have to form a party of their own.

Voters in November voted against the Democrats, not for the Republicans. Nothing in the last two weeks indicates that the Republicans are ready to give the nation any real alternative when the 112^th Congress is seated. If the Republican Party fails to do more than ape the Democratic Party, it will be finished -- if it isn't already.

 

American Thinker

How Not to Help Blacks Find Employment

December 29, 2010

By Robert Weissberg

 

As of November 2010, the overall unemployment rate for whites was 9.2%, but for African Americans, it was 16.0%.  Among those aged 16 to 19, the difference (including both males and females) was significantly larger -- 20.9% for young whites versus 46.5% for young blacks.  In job-rich Manhattan, only one in four young (16-24) black males was employed in 2010.  What is especially remarkable about these statistics is their intractability.  Since the 1960s and the War on Poverty, Washington has spent billions -- everything from job training programs to tax incentives to anti-discrimination laws -- to eradicate this gap, all to no avail.

Given a half-century of failure, efforts to narrow differences have grown increasingly desperate.  The latest is the federal government's attempt to equalize how black and white job candidates appear to prospective employers even if they differ substantially -- just ban employers from checking credit and criminal histories so as not to "unreasonably" disadvantage black job applicants.

The facts are straightforward.  First, African-Americans are far more likely to have criminal records than whites, and according to a Federal Reserve report, they disproportionally also have credit problems -- repossessions, bankruptcies, wage garnishments, outstanding unsatisfied court judgments, and high overdue credit card balances.  Second, the internet (and other technologies) facilitates quick, inexpensive background checks of prospective employees (for example, here).  Third, the courts have held that an employer screening of job applicants is inherently racially discriminatory if blacks are disproportionally excluded according to criteria that lack direct connections to the jobs (the principle of disparate impact).

Advocates of prohibiting this inquiry typically insist that (a) criminal and financial records are error-prone and sometimes outdated, and they often do not distinguish between serious and trivial infractions; (b) may reflect legal encounters decades back, often just youthful foolishness, and (c) past bad behavior often has nothing to do with the sought-after job.  This view is gaining traction beyond the federal government's longstanding campaign against disparate impact.  Several states have explicitly banned employers from using credit histories in employment screening, and a law was recently introduced (H.R. 3149) that would severely limit this practice nationally.

This anti-background check effort recently drew national attention when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued the Kaplan Higher Education Corporation for using credit histories to screen applicants, a widespread and growing practice among both private firms and the government itself.  According to the suit, since January 2008, Kaplan has examined applicant credit histories, and blacks have been disproportionately rejected.  The EEOC demands that Kaplan not only cease this harmful practice, but that the corporation also award back wages and benefits to those African-Americans not hired due to credit troubles.  Kaplan's defense is that it already has a diverse workforce and is an equal-opportunity employer, and creditworthiness is relevant since Kaplan employees often handle financial matters.

Given the enduring gap between whites and blacks in obtaining jobs, the obvious question is whether this new approach will help African-Americans get more jobs.  Probably not -- and, as with so many other well-intentioned interventions, it will widen gaps.

An almost prima facie case exists that criminal records and a poor credit rating tell a lot about a prospective employee, even for menial work.  Past troubles provide clues about avoiding unwise risk, a capacity to plan, and a willingness to follow rules and otherwise behave prudently.  These traits may have little to do with specific duties, but no employer wants a workforce of deadbeats and former felons.  Yes, there may be a weak link between failure to pay one's credit card on time and sticky fingers when sweeping the store floor at midnight without supervision, but there may be a connection, and given multiple applicants for the floor-sweeper position, why risk hiring a thief?  And even if the initial job is unrelated to past problems, what happens when this employee asks for a promotion where the shaky background is relevant?  Denying this request only invites litigation.

That these hiring criteria are racially discriminatory does not mean that they are economically irrational.  Especially since good-paying jobs typically attract numerous applicants (especially in hard economic times), poor credit or a criminal conviction are perfect tie-breakers to sort out applicants.  There are also supervision costs associated with monitoring employees with troubled backgrounds.  I owned a retail business for thirteen years, and this included hiring (and firing) dozens of employees.  Predicting who will be an unsatisfactory employee, and especially a thief, is difficult enough without knowing applicants' personal histories, a situation compounded by many past employers refusing to say anything bad for fear of litigation.  Given the paucity of information, I relied on the easily available applicant's history of paying utility bills, since I discovered that chronic no-payers often skipped work, to resolve these crises.  Nor did I trust those whose daily finances were desperate.  To prohibit background checks is just one more attack on business.

Ironically, banning background checks may exacerbate black unemployment.  If an employer has inadequate information about a prospective hire, he or she is forced to use crude proxies, and race is a convenient, clear-cut proxy.  So rather than risk hiring an ex-felon or chronic deadbeat, stick to whites or Asians.  In fact, one study of this relationship found that employers were more likely to hire black males where they could perform background checks on past criminality.  In other words, since most blacks have clean records, these "helpful" prohibitions were a liability for those who might otherwise be hired.

This ill-advised "help" is just one of many similar unhelpful government interventions.  Prohibiting background checks only adds to an already heavy employer burden whose unintended impact is to price many blacks out of the job market.  After all, what employer wants employees who can so easily sue for discrimination, real or imagined, on so many grounds (see here)?  Similarly, why hire somebody whose educational credentials are less than bona fide thanks to government pressure on schools to "make the number" or admit unqualified applicants so as to redress historical inequalities -- and then prohibit the employer from independently testing job applicants if whites are likely to outscore blacks despite comparable credentials?  Or why hire somebody who has been endlessly instructed that America is hopelessly racist and that this racism must be exposed?  No wonder that as private employment grows more competitive and employers have better choices, government itself has increasingly become the chief employer of blacks, since it lacks rivals with a superior workforce (see here, for example).

What might explain this counterproductive assistance?  A cynic might claim that the hidden goal is greater dependency on government, but I'll leave that devious possibility to others.  Personally, I suspect that many "friends" of unemployed blacks lack any understanding of how businesses can escape these economically harmful edicts.  In their mistaken view, help is just a matter of upping the pressure on white employers.  Yet, faced with edicts to hire blacks they are loath to hire, a firm might relocate to largely whites areas, increase automation, hire subcontractors immune to government mandates, eliminate or sell portions of the business, hire off the books and pay in cash, or outsource tasks overseas.  These actions are, of course, increasingly commonplace and perfectly legal, and each may well contribute to the intractability of black unemployment.

Unfortunately, champions of boosting black employment refuse to acknowledge these avoidance strategies.  They remain stuck in the white prejudice explanation and ignore the sound reasons behind these dreadful unemployment figures (see here).  So rather than counsel blacks on how to use credit prudently, these "friends" attempt to create a fantasy world where employers cannot check troubled credit histories.  But as the statistics show, the sham doesn't work.  To invoke the mother of all clichés, with friends like this, who needs enemies? 

 

American Thinker

Congress Leading Border Patrol Down Wrong Path

Posted by Bob McCarty Dec 29th 2010 at 7:16 am in Border Security, Homeland Security, Military Technology, Soldiers

Less than a week after another Border Patrol agent was killed by Mexican bandits, Congress forwarded to the White House a bill that, within two years of its enactment, will result in Customs and Border Patrol heading down the same misguided path the Department of Defense took in 2007 when it comes to interrogation technology.

Forwarded five days after Bryan A. Terry’s death near Nogales, Ariz., Dec. 16, the Anti-Border Corruption Act of 2010 (H. 6472/S. 3243) not only requires CBP to conduct polygraph exams on all new applicants, but it calls for the Homeland Security agency’s employees to be retested every five years.

To the uninformed, such an effort may seem well and good. To others — including members of our nation’s elite Special Operations units who refuse to use polygraph — the measure falls short.


One of those is a former member of the Navy SEALs. He told me earlier this year that DoD’s 2007 decision to make polygraph the “only approved credibility assessment technologies” in DoD was a contributing factor in his decision to separate from the military prior to retirement age. Furthermore, he pulled no punches while sharing his opinion about the controversial topic, published here for the first time:

“In my opinion, the people responsible for blocking CVSA use should face charges and do time. This is another issue that boils down directly to money. The polygraph faction knows that CVSA would make polygraph obsolete. Too bad they can’t just accept it and shift over to become certified CVSA examiners (like me). CVSA is so much easier, effective and accurate than polygraph.”

In a Big Peace article published Dec. 9, I shared the opinions of others with whom I communicated about their field experience in the use of both the polygraph and the more effective alternative, the Computer Voice Stress Analyzer®.  Some of those opinions appear below:

“We will not risk our lives on a piece of junk that was put together by eggheads who don’t have a clue about the real world.” — An “Anonymous Fort Bragg CVSA Examiner”

“My opinion based upon my observation is that CVSA is superior to the polygraph when used as a tool in the interrogation process. Consequently, I conclude that those who wish to remove CVSA from the “interrogator’s tool box” are more interested in protecting their turf than they are in gathering intelligence that protects the American people.” — A high-ranking interrogation official at Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility in the closing statement of an After Action Report describing results of a 30-day test of CVSA at the outpost where enemy combatants are held.

“If you can trick yourself into thinking you’re a bomber, then why can’t you trick yourself into thinking you’re not and trick that machine?” — A retired member of the Army Special Forces who used CVSA to conduct nearly 500 interrogations of enemy combatants and third-country nationals — more than anyone in the U.S. military — while serving in Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq. [Note: To see an actual example of a Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment (formerly the DoD Polygraph Institute) training scenario in which such tricks were used, click here.]

Because the legislation calling for agency to use polygraph instead of CVSA — which, by the way, is used by nearly 2,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States — was sponsored by Sen. Mark Pryor

(D-Ark.) and Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), I offer the following suggestions to these men:

“Please don’t call the Pentagon. Use the next two years (hopefully less) to learn more about this subject matter. Contact the folks in law enforcement and in the Special Forces community who are end-users like the ones I’ve interviewed. Fix this problem before it takes effect. If you need help locating them, drop me a note. Always glad to help!”

 
EDITOR’S NOTE: All of the individuals quoted above spoke with me on condition of anonymity in order to shield themselves from possible repercussions. Some continue to work as DoD contractors in hot spots around the world.
 
SEE ALSO: My previous posts about the polygraph-CVSA controversy.

Big Peace

Iraq Wants the U.S. Out

 Prime Minister, in Interview, Says Troops Must Leave Next Year as Planned

DECEMBER 28, 2010

By SAM DAGHER

BAGHDAD—Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ruled out the presence of any U.S. troops in Iraq after the end of 2011, saying his new government and the country's security forces were capable of confronting any remaining threats to Iraq's security, sovereignty and unity.

Mr. Maliki spoke with The Wall Street Journal in a two-hour interview, his first since Iraq ended nine months of stalemate and seated a new government after an inconclusive election, allowing Mr. Maliki to begin a second term as premier.

A majority of Iraqis—and some Iraqi and U.S. officials—have assumed the U.S. troop presence would eventually be extended, especially after the long government limbo. But Mr. Maliki was eager to draw a line in his most definitive remarks on the subject. "The last American soldier will leave Iraq" as agreed, he said, speaking at his office in a leafy section of Baghdad's protected Green Zone. "This agreement is not subject to extension, not subject to alteration. It is sealed."

He also said that even as Iraq bids farewell to U.S. troops, he wouldn't allow his nation to be pulled into alignment with Iran, despite voices supporting such an alliance within his government.
"For Iraq to be dragged into an axis or an orbit, that's impossible, and we reject it whether this comes from Iran, Turkey or the Arabs," he said.

He added that a kind of "paranoia" about a Tehran-Baghdad alliance in the U.S. is matched by a fear in Iran about U.S. influence: "An Iranian official visited me in the past and told me, 'I thought the Americans were standing at the door of your office,' " he said.

In an interview in Washington, Vice President Joe Biden also said Iran had failed to buy influence during the election or to co-opt Mr. Maliki, who was among the members of the current Iraqi government who briefly took refuge in Iran during the reign of Saddam Hussein.

Nouri al-Maliki seated in his office. In an interview, he said Iraq would assume responsibility for all its own security by the end of 2011, and would not fall into alignment with Iran.

Mr. Maliki's new majority depends partly on followers of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. But Mr. Biden credited Mr. Maliki for denying Mr. Sadr's bloc any control of Iraqi security, while forming a government with full buy-in from Iraq's main factions of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

U.S. military commanders still accuse Iran of funding, training and providing sanctuary to Shiite militias, like Mr. Sadr's Promised Day Brigades, which they say are responsible for attacks against U.S. forces and gangster-style assassinations that continue to plague Baghdad and other areas.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki talking with The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Maliki suggested his government had co-opted militias like the one associated with Mr. Sadr. "The militias are now part of the government and have entered the political process," said Mr. Maliki. The Sadr contingent, he added, "is moving in a satisfactory direction of taking part in the government, renouncing violence and abandoning military activity, and that's why we welcome it."
Security is the new government's top priority, Mr. Maliki said, as in his previous term. Sectarian violence and suicide bombings continue to plague the country as the full withdrawal of U.S. soldiers nears. Almost a dozen people were killed in double suicide bombings on Monday outside provincial government offices in the city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, according to security officials.

A resumption of more extreme violence, of course, could alter the thinking in Baghdad and Washington about the U.S. timetable.

But Mr. Maliki said the only way for any of the remaining 50,000 or so American soldiers to stay beyond 2011 would be for the two nations to negotiate—with the approval of Iraq's Parliament—a new Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, similar to the one concluded in 2008.
That deal took a year of protracted negotiations in the face of vehement opposition from many among Mr. Maliki's own Shiite constituency, and no repeat is expected.

Mr. Maliki and U.S. officials have refrained for the most part from raising the issue publicly during the months of political wrangling in Baghdad, as Mr. Maliki negotiated with potential coalition partners, many of whom have adamantly opposed an extended U.S. stay.

A senior official in President Barack Obama's administration said Washington was "on track" to withdraw all its remaining soldiers in Iraq by the end of next year. That's the final milestone in the security agreement, following the reduction in American troop levels to below 50,000 in August and the pullout of U.S. soldiers from most Iraqi inner cities in June 2009. "The prime minister is exactly right," said the senior official.

During the interview, Mr. Maliki said he was heartened by America's "commitment" to honoring the agreements it reached with Iraq, and he laughed approvingly when told that U.S. Ambassador James F. Jeffrey keeps a frayed copy of the so-called Strategic Framework Agreement in his leather briefcase. That document calls, in broad terms, for long-term cooperation in security, defense, economy, energy and culture, among other areas.

 In a briefing for Western reporters last week, Mr. Jeffrey said that despite the requirement to pull out all American troops at the end of 2011, the framework document and other agreements between Baghdad and Washington contain "a very robust security agenda."

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad will house a "significantly sized" office aimed at security cooperation, Mr. Jeffrey said, made up of about 80 to 90 military personnel that would take over most of the current functions of the U.S. military in advising, assisting, training and equipping Iraqi forces. That's similar to arrangements with other countries in the region, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The embassy would also oversee a major Iraqi police-training program.

Mr. Maliki played down Iraq's need for any major help from the U.S. military, even while acknowledging serious deficiencies in areas including control of airspace and borders. He said the days when ethnic or sectarian-based militias roamed the streets of Iraq and operated above the law were over.
"Not a single militia or gang can confront Iraqi forces and take over a street or a house," said Mr. Maliki. "This is finished; we are comfortable about that."

He said full withdrawal of U.S. troops also will remove a prime motivator of insurgents—both the Shiite fighters tied to militia groups and Iran, and Sunnis linked to Mr. Hussein's ousted Baath party.

Mr. Maliki defended his political horse trading with rival factions, many of which are seen as far apart on several substantial policy issues. He called the post-election process—in which he managed to prevail despite his own party bloc failing to gain the most votes—"very arduous."

He acknowledged that he expanded the number of cabinet seats just to placate the squabbling parties that he eventually cobbled together into his governing coalition, arguably the broadest since the fall of Mr. Hussein.
"I mean seven to eight ministries are, allow me to say, ministries for appeasement purposes," he said.

Mr. Maliki said he agreed to several Kurdish demands, including a referendum in contested northern regions, though he didn't think it was feasible without a constitutional amendment to accompany it.

Washington is so concerned about the standoff in the north—where Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen and smaller ethnic groups have faced off—that a large contingent of U.S. soldiers continues to staff joint security checkpoints there, as diplomats work on political solutions.

The referendum was one of 19 demands made by Kurdish President Masoud Barzani in exchange for a power-sharing deal that ended the gridlock that followed the March elections. The resulting unity government headed by Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, includes Kurds and a Sunni-dominated bloc headed by the secular Shiite and former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

Mr. Allawi, whose bloc won the most seats in the election but couldn't form a majority, will chair a new National Council for Higher Policies, but won't be able to implement policies without broad government support.

Write to Sam Dagher at sam.dagher@wsj.com

WSJ