Downhill with the GOP

Once upon a time, a Latin American political party promised to help motorists save money on gasoline. How? By building highways that ran only downhill.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Paul Krugman
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I’ve always liked that story, but the truth is that the party received hardly any votes. And that means that the joke is really on us. For these days one of America’s two great political parties routinely makes equally nonsensical promises. Never mind the war on terror, the party’s main concern seems to be the war on arithmetic. And this party has a better than even chance of retaking at least one house of Congress this November.

Banana republic, here we come.

On Thursday, House Republicans released their “Pledge to America,” supposedly outlining their policy agenda. In essence, what they say is, “Deficits are a terrible thing. Let’s make them much bigger.” The document repeatedly condemns federal debt — 16 times, by my count. But the main substantive policy proposal is to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, which independent estimates say would add about $3.7 trillion to the debt over the next decade — about $700 billion more than the Obama administration’s tax proposals.

True, the document talks about the need to cut spending. But as far as I can see, there’s only one specific cut proposed — canceling the rest of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which Republicans claim (implausibly) would save $16 billion. That’s less than half of 1 percent of the budget cost of those tax cuts. As for the rest, everything must be cut, in ways not specified — “except for common-sense exceptions for seniors, veterans, and our troops.” In other words, Social Security, Medicare and the defense budget are off-limits.

So what’s left? Howard Gleckman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has done the math. As he points out, the only way to balance the budget by 2020, while simultaneously (a) making the Bush tax cuts permanent and (b) protecting all the programs Republicans say they won’t cut, is to completely abolish the rest of the federal government: “No more national parks, no more Small Business Administration loans, no more export subsidies, no more N.I.H. No more Medicaid (one-third of its budget pays for long-term care for our parents and others with disabilities). No more child health or child nutrition programs. No more highway construction. No more homeland security. Oh, and no more Congress.”

The “pledge,” then, is nonsense. But isn’t that true of all political platforms? The answer is, not to anything like the same extent. Many independent analysts believe that the Obama administration’s long-run budget projections are somewhat too optimistic — but, if so, it’s a matter of technical details. Neither President Obama nor any other leading Democrat, as far as I can recall, has ever claimed that up is down, that you can sharply reduce revenue, protect all the programs voters like, and still balance the budget.

And the G.O.P. itself used to make more sense than it does now. Ronald Reagan’s claim that cutting taxes would actually increase revenue was wishful thinking, but at least he had some kind of theory behind his proposals. When former President George W. Bush campaigned for big tax cuts in 2000, he claimed that these cuts were affordable given (unrealistic) projections of future budget surpluses. Now, however, Republicans aren’t even pretending that their numbers add up.

So how did we get to the point where one of our two major political parties isn’t even trying to make sense?

The answer isn’t a secret. The late Irving Kristol, one of the intellectual godfathers of modern conservatism, once wrote frankly about why he threw his support behind tax cuts that would worsen the budget deficit: his task, as he saw it, was to create a Republican majority, “so political effectiveness was the priority, not the accounting deficiencies of government.” In short, say whatever it takes to gain power. That’s a philosophy that now, more than ever, holds sway in the movement Kristol helped shape.

And what happens once the movement achieves the power it seeks? The answer, presumably, is that it turns to its real, not-so-secret agenda, which mainly involves privatizing and dismantling Medicare and Social Security.

Realistically, though, Republicans aren’t going to have the power to enact their true agenda any time soon — if ever. Remember, the Bush administration’s attack on Social Security was a fiasco, despite its large majority in Congress — and it actually increased Medicare spending.

So the clear and present danger isn’t that the G.O.P. will be able to achieve its long-run goals. It is, rather, that Republicans will gain just enough power to make the country ungovernable, unable to address its fiscal problems or anything else in a serious way. As I said, banana republic, here we come.

Somewhere Sam Hill is Smiling

Here's an update to yesterday's post on a vote that should be taken in towns across America. The whitewashing of Islam in history books and in Middle Eastern studies programs across college campuses in this country is part of the toxic leftist/Islamic propaganda campaign that our children's minds are marinating in.

The Texas State Board of Education voted Friday to reject any textbooks which whitewash Islam in and to curtail a "pro-Islam/anti-Christian" bias in school books.

Critics of new textbooks have called on the BoE to investigate and vote on several passages in new textbooks that they believe have a "pro-Islamic bias." According to Republican member of the Texas Board of Education Don McLeroy, the only reason why Islam is getting a favorable writing is because "Academia wants to lean over backwards to be politically correct and not be labeled ethnocentric, so it's kind of a cultural relativism."

The mainstream media vomiting.

The resolution adopted Friday cites "politically-correct whitewashes of Islamic culture and stigmas on Christian civilization" in current textbooks and warns that "more such discriminatory treatment of religion may occur as Middle Easterners buy into the US public school textbook oligopoly."

It vowed to reject any future textbooks which devote more space to teaching about Islam than Christianity, include "sanitized definitions of 'jihad,'" or display bias by describing Christian crusaders as "invaders" when Muslim "conquest" is called "migration" by "empire builders."
Atlas Shrugs

Chanting "USA" at Football Games is Offensive to Muslims

At least in the view of a dhimmi "University Academic Professional" at the University of Illinois. "Block-I chant portrays 'neither patriotism nor remembrance,'" by David Green, "University Academic Professional," in the Daily Illini, September 15 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

The vast majority of 9/11 observances in this country cannot be seen as politically neutral events. Implicit in their nature are the notions that lives lost at the World Trade Center are more valuable than lives lost in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and elsewhere; that the motives of the 9/11 attackers had nothing to do with genuine grievances in the Islamic world regarding American imperialism; and that the U.S. has been justified in the subsequent killing of hundreds of thousands in so-called retaliation.

The observance at Saturday's football game was no different. A moment of silence was followed by a military airplane flyover; in between, Block-I students chanted "USA, USA." This was neither patriotism nor remembrance in any justifiable sense, but politicization, militarism, propaganda and bellicosity. The University is a public institution that encompasses the political views of all, not just the most (falsely) "patriotic." Athletic planners should cease such exploitation for political purposes. They might at least consider how most Muslim students, American or otherwise, would respond to this nativist display; or better, Muslims and others that live their lives under the threat of our planes, drones and soldiers....

Never mind the non-Muslims in Muslim countries like Indonesia, Pakistan, and Egypt who are threatened and terrorized by Muslims. That wouldn't fit this "University Academic Professional"'s paradigm.

Muslim Teen Sets off Chemical Bomb Near Mosque

Maine: Muslim Teen Sets off Chemical Bomb near Mosque

Once again we find that a violent incident at a mosque was committed by ........a Muslim. This is the pattern. But this latest incident is deeply troubling for more nefarious reasons. This wasn't merely a hoax hate crime committed by a Muslim to stoke the bogus Islamic supremacist narrative of "islamophobia," this was a young Muslim experimenting with a bomb -- practicing his craft at his local mosque. Got that?

Maine: Muslim teen sets off chemical bomb near mosque -- nothing to see here Jihadwatch

Islamic leaders told police that the explosion was just a 13-year-old "experimenting." What was the kid trying to do? "Teenager responsible for chemical bomb near Islamic Society of Portland," by Helen Dailey for WCSH6.com, September 22 (thanks to Joe):

PORTLAND, ME (NEWS CENTER) -- Police say there were no injuries or damage caused by a chemical bomb that went off in a parking lot near the Islamic Society of Portland.

The bomb went off in the lot between the Islamic Society and Back Bay Grill around 8:00 PM Tuesday night. Portland Police say Islamic elders came forward to tell them that a 13 year old from the Society was experimenting and was responsible for the bomb. Another bomb was also found undetinated [sic]....

Just a young Muslim at a mosque experimenting with a bomb. In Maine. What's to be concerned about? It isn't as if mosques have ever been centers of violence elsewhere, right?

Installing the Universal Caliphate

There is, from the 28th to the 30th of this month, a conference being held by the Organization of Islamic Conference and the American Islamic College on "Islam and Muslims in America" in Chicago. It is a summit of Islamic supremacists at the highest levels of national and international power. Notice how all agendas of all of these Islamic organizations and groups all share the same goal, worldwide. This conference appears to be the penultimate chapter, a decidedly evil moment, in American history.

The fox is in the hen-house. Here we see, up close, just how deeply the US government has been infiltrated by the stealth jihadists. The panel discussions give us a true picture of their agenda - The Role of the OIC & The scope for its relations with American Muslims, American Foreign Policy & The Muslim World, and Islam in the American Context.

Co-conspirators, Hamas linked, Muslim Brotherhood fronts like CAIR and ISNA pow wow Muslim Congressmen and with senior levels of the, White House, the State Department and the largest Islamic supremacist body in the world the OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference.) Unindicted co-conspirator in Holy Land Foundation Hamas funding case

CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Niwad Awad (who still serves as CAIR's executive director) were present at a Hamas planning meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 where they and other Hamas operatives conspired to raise funds for Hamas and to promote jihad in the Middle East. CAIR has steadfastly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Ghassan Elashi, founder of CAIR's Texas chapter, in 2009 received a 65-year prison sentence for funneling over $12 million from the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation to the jihad terrorist group Hamas, which is responsible for murdering hundreds of Israeli civilians Mousa Abu Marzook, a former CAIR official, was in 1995 designated by the U.S. government in 1995 as a "terrorist and Hamas leader." He now is a Hamas leader in Syria.

Mr. Nihad Awad, Executive Director, CAIR. Awad has said, "I am in support of the Hamas movement." CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case. Several of its former officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. Two of its other officials have made Islamic supremacist statements. CAIR also was involved in the Flying Imams' intimidation suit against the passengers who reported their suspicious behavior.

Attending from the White House is Rashad Hussain, Special Envoy of the White House to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). After naming him, Barack Hussein Obana boasted that Rashad Hussein, was a hafiz who had committed the Koran to memory. Further, Rashad Hussein, special White House official, has a history of participation in events connected with the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood as well as support for Brotherhood causes, once having called prosecution of the U.S. leader of a Palestinian terrorist organization one of many “politically motivated persecutions.” More background on Rashad here.

Also attending from the White House is Dalia Mogahed, Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, and Advisor,White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Obama's first veiled appointee, Egyptian born Dalia Mogahed , conducted her first interview with notorious Jew hater and America, Sheik Yusuf Al-Qaradawi's extremist Islamic website, Islam Online.

In April 2009, Dalia Mogahed, the first hijab-clad senior adviser to Obama on Muslim affairs said in an interview with terrorist- and jihad-supporting Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi's website, "Many have claimed that terrorists have 'hijacked Islam'. I disagree. I think Islam is safe and thriving in the lives of Muslims around the world. What the terrorists have been allowed to take over are Muslim grievances."I posted the whole thing here.

And Mogahed says Sharia Law is misunderstood. Dalia Mogahed

The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.

Hizbut Tahrur is a violent international pan-Islamic political organization whose goal is for all countries to unify as an Islamic state or caliphate ruled by Islamic law and with a caliph head of state elected by Muslims.

The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world.

"The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance.

[...]

It also includes the controversial "Hadd offences", crimes with specific penalties set by the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Mohammed. These include death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality and the removal of a hand for theft.

Miss Mogahed admitted that even many Muslims associated Sharia with "maximum criminal punishments" and "laws that... to many people seem unequal to women," but added: "Part of the reason that there is this perception of Sharia is because Sharia is not well understood and Islam as a faith is not well understood."

Attending from the State Department is Farah Pandith. Baarck Obama created the State Department office of Special Representative to Muslim Communities for the United States Department of State, naming Farah Pandith, back in June 2009. It was at the urging of Secretary General of OIC HE Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu that such an office be established to further the charter for our dhimmitude, The US Muslim Engagement. And so it was.

In 2008 the Secretary General of the OIC chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu issued a "free speech" warning: “We sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed” regarding free speech about Islam and terrorism. And he reported success: “The official West and its public opinion are all now well-aware of the sensitivities of these issues. They have also started to look seriously into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility, which should not be overlooked.” No American president had ever taken more seriously his “responsibility” to restrict the freedom of speech and bow to Muslim demands than Barack Hussein Obama. When he said during his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech that “peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely,” the irony was blistering. And he worked to erode American sovereignty in other ways as well.

Bat Ye'or, the Egyptian-born British historian who specializes in the history of Christian and Jewish dhimmis (author of Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis; Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide; and The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude), described the OIC this way:

The order to proceed with the criminal prosecution [of Geert Wilders] resulted from pressure put on European states and on the UN Human Rights Council by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The OIC’s aim is to punish and suppress any alleged Islamophobia, around the world but particularly in Europe, and it has been a leader in creating the conditions that made the U.K.’s Wilders ban possible. The OIC is one of the largest intergovernmental organizations in the world. It encompasses 56 Muslim states plus the Palestinian Authority. Spread over four continents, it claims to speak in the name of the ummah (the universal Muslim community), which numbers about 1.3 billion. The OIC’s mission is to unite all Muslims worldwide by rooting them in the Koran and the Sunnah — the core of traditional Islamic civilization and values. It aims at strengthening solidarity and cooperation among all its members, in order to protect the interests of Muslims everywhere and to galvanize the ummah into a unified body. The OIC is a unique organization — one that has no equivalent in the world. It unites the religious, economic, military, and political strength of 56 states. By contrast, the European Union represents half as many states and is a secular body only, and the Vatican — which speaks for the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics — is devoid of any political power. Many Muslims in the West resist the OIC’s tutelage and oppose its efforts to supplant Western law with sharia. But the OIC’s resources are formidable. The organization has numerous subsidiary institutions collaborating at the highest levels with international organizations in order to implement its political objectives worldwide. Its main working bodies are the Islamic Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), which seeks to impose on the West the Islamic perception of history and civilization; the Observatory of Islamophobia, which puts pressure on Western governments and international bodies to adopt laws punishing “Islamophobia” and blasphemy; and the newly created Islamic International Court of Justice. As stated in its 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, the OIC is strictly tied to the principles of the Koran, the Sunnah, and the sharia. In a word, the OIC seeks to become the reincarnation of the Caliphate.

The OIC regularly reiterates its commitments to protecting the political, historical, religious, and human rights of Muslims in non-OIC states, especially Muslims who form the majority in specific regions of non-Muslim countries — such as the southern Philippines, southern Thailand, and western Thrace in Greece — as well as Muslims in places like the Balkans, the Caucasus, Myanmar, India, and China. The OIC supports Hamas and the Palestinians in their struggle to destroy Israel, as well as the Muslim fight for “legitimate self-determination” in “Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir.” It has condemned the “continual Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan,” and it expresses its full solidarity with “the just cause of the Muslim Turkish people of Cyprus” and with Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, whom many hold responsible for encouraging the massacres in Darfur. The seat of the OIC is in Jeddah, but the organization regards that location as temporary: Its headquarters will be transferred to al-Kods (Islamized Jerusalem) when that city has been “liberated” from Israeli control.
In its efforts to defend the “true image” of Islam and combat its defamation, the organization has requested the UN and the Western countries to punish “Islamophobia” and blasphemy. Among the manifestations of Islamophobia, in the OIC’s view, are European opposition to illegal immigration, anti-terrorist measures, criticism of multiculturalism, and indeed any efforts to defend Western cultural and national identities. The OIC has massive funding from oil sources, which it lavishly spends on the Western media and academia and in countless “dialogues.” It influences Western policy, laws, and even textbooks through pressures brought by Muslim immigrants and by the Western nations’ own leftist parties. Hence, we have seen Kristallnacht-like incitements of hate and murder against European Jews and Israel conducted with impunity in the cities of Europe — where respect for human rights is supposed to be one of the highest values.

Geert Wilders is the latest victim of this enormous world machinery. His crime is maintaining that Europe’s civilization is rooted in the values of Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, and the Enlightenment — and not in Mecca, Baghdad, Andalusia, and al-Kods. He fights for Europe’s independence from the Caliphate and for its endangered freedoms. He had received serious death threats even before Fitna was released.

Others in attendence include:

Keith Ellison, Muslim Brotherhood congressman, whose trip to the haj and to Saudi Arabia was paid for by very questionable sources to the Muslim Brotherhood. Ellison faces a House Ethics Committee review. Spencer has been calling attention to Ellison's ties to the Muslim Brotherhood for years. As he noted in December 2008, when it was first revealed that Ellison's Hajj was paid for with $13,350 from the Muslim American Society:

The Muslim Brotherhood "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." -- "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991.

Also in attendance will be, Imam Siraj Wahhaj; Ameer, Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA). "If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate." -- Siraj Wahhaj, 2002

The Muslim American Society (MAS) is an organization with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The organization, founded in 1993, is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia and has local chapters in 23 states. MAS is headed by Esam Omeish and Souheil Ghannouchi, who serve as president and executive director respectively. Shaker El Sayed served as the Society's secretary general until June 1, 2005, when he left the organization to become an imam at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Northern Virginia. MAS' political and public relations wing, the Freedom Foundation, is headed by Mahdi Bray. Click here for the full profile.

And Hamza Yusuf is one of the foinders of the "first accredited Islamic Universities" at Berkeley a more here. Yusuf is an anti-Semitic and anti-American Islamic "scholar. He has a " reputation for hostility toward the United States and Israel, he commonly appears as a guest speaker at events organized by various chapters of the Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada.

On September 9, 2001 – just two days before the al Qaeda attacks against America – UCLA’s Al-Talib magazine co-sponsored a benefit dinner titled “Justice for Imam Jamil Al-Amin” (aka H. Rap Brown) at UC Irvine. Al-Amin had recently been convicted of murdering an Atlanta police officer who was attempting to arrest him. Among the speakers at this benefit was Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, who spoke about the fate he foresaw for America:

They [Americans] were ungrateful for the bounties of Allah, and so Allah caused them to taste fear and hunger. That is one reason and, I would say, that this country is facing a very terrible fate. The reason for that is that this country stands condemned. It stands condemned like Europe stood condemned for what it did. . . . This country [America] unfortunately has a great, a great tribulation coming to it. And much of it is already here, yet people are too to illiterate to read the writing on the wall.

I have much more on many of the subversives and stealth jihadist attending the axis of evil but I am traveling, More on this to come. If you are in the Chicago area - go to this conference and take notes.

Six Arrested in Gateshead Over Koran Burning

England has indeed entered a very dark age. Yes, it's a bad idea to burn a qu'ran but so what? And what's next? If you insult a Muslim, will that too, be a jailable offense? If we stop doing things they dislike, where will we draw the line? How far will Sharia advance in the U.S., with Americans afraid to stop its advance for fear of offending Muslims and stirring them up to violence?

If men are free and not under Sharia, then anyone can do this if they want, and their freedom and rights should be protected. Islamic supremacists should not be allowed a victory for their violent intimidation -- if these people want to burn a book, they're free to do so.

America, take heed as this protends most ill for our future as we are following the same primitive path of submission.

"The principle of free speech is not concerned with the content of a man's speech and does not protect only the expression of good ideas, but all ideas. If it were otherwise, who would determine which ideas are good and where forbidden? The government?"
"Once a country accepts censorship of the press and of speech, then nothing can be won without violence. Therefore, so long as you have free speech, protect it. This is the life-and-death issue in this country: do not give up the freedom of the press -- of newspapers, books, magazines, radio, movies, and other forms of presenting ideas. So long as that's free, a peaceful intellectual turn is possible." Ayn Rand

Unindicted co-conspirator, Hamas-linked, Muslim Brotherhood front CAIR is calling for prosecution "to the full extent of state and federal law" in the case of a burned qu'ran copy.

Sorry, supremacists, this is protected speech. There have been thousands of burned flags, desecrated bibles, torahs, blah blah blah. So what?

We would have to introduce an amendment to the Constitution abridging free speech in order to prosecute such "crimes."

Yes, burning the qu'ran is a bad idea. It does a grave disservice to the cause of spreading awareness about Islamic teachings and the threat that Sharia poses to our way of life.

The burning of books is wrong in principle: the antidote to bad speech is not censorship or book-burning, but more speech. Open discussion. Give-and-take. And the truth will out. There is no justification for burning books.

If they were burning a Bible, no one would be threatening violence against them. And nobody would be threatening to have them prosecuted to the full extent of the law, as the Islamic supremacists like Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas-linked CAIR is doing.

Six arrested in Gateshead over 'Koran burning' Telegraph hat tip Armaros
Six arrested over 'Koran burning'

The men hide their faces as they hold a copy of the Koran prior to setting fire to it Photo: NORTH NEWS

Officers detained two men on September 15 and four more yesterday and all six were bailed pending further inquiries, Northumbria Police said.

''The arrests followed the burning of what are believed to have been two Korans in Gateshead on September 11,'' the spokesman said.

Officers detained two men on September 15 and four more yesterday and all six were bailed pending further inquiries, Northumbria Police said.

''The arrests followed the burning of what are believed to have been two Korans in Gateshead on September 11,'' the spokesman said.

Atlas Shrugs

Muslima Woman Sentenced to 86 Years

Pakistani Woman Sentenced to 86 Years for Trying to Kill Americans

NEW YORK—A Pakistani woman trained as a scientist in the U.S. was sentenced to 86 years in prison Thursday after she was convicted of trying to kill U.S. Army soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan two years ago

Muslim terrorist Aafia Siddiqui is an MIT-trained neuroscientist who married a top Al Qaeda operative who intended to blow up gas stations or poison water reservoirs in the United States go t86 years. She is a possible associate of Majid Khan and is believed to have links to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. She allegedly arranged travel documents for another suspected terrorist.

After Siddiuqi was apprehended in Afghanistan, while in custody she managed to grab a rifle and start spouting jihad jizz while firing shots, attempting to kill US troops: read it all here. She is on trial in New York City as we speak. Look at what is happening in Obama's post America/pre-Islamic United States.

The devout Muslim demanded a Jew-free jury (more here)

There is much, much more to this story however, including a federal judge allowing the fully veiled Muslim in court, setting aside time during the trial for Islamic prayer, throwing out key evidence, AND not permitting prosecutors to mention her alleged ties and sympathies to al Qaeda. Khalid Sheikh Mohammid is salivating. From Alison Gendar, NY Daily News, ‘Lady Al Qaeda’ cries foul: Accused terrorist Aafia Siddiqui says toss Jews from jury pool

Read previous Atlas posts on this would be murdering jihadi here.

UPDATE: ITP on Lady Al Qaeda:

A Pakistani scientist educated in the U.S. was sentenced to 86 years in prison Thursday for attempting to kill U.S. soldiers and federal agents in Afghanistan in 2008. Aafia Siddiqui, 38, was found guilty of all seven charges against her, including two counts of attempted murder, following a 14-day trial in Manhattan federal court in February.

According to the indictment, Siddiqui grabbed a U.S. Army officer's M-4 rifle and fired it at another officer and other members of a U.S. interview team at an Afghan police compound in July 2008. A Warrant Officer heard Siddiqui, also known as "Lady Al Qaida," shout "Allah Akbar!" before firing.

The U.S. team had traveled to Afghanistan to interview Siddiqui following her detention by Afghan authorities. The Aghans said they seized handwritten notes from Siddiqui that referred to a "mass casualty attack" in the U.S. and listed several landmarks including the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, and the Brooklyn Bridge. The notes also detailed ways to construct "dirty bombs" and discussed ways to attack "enemies," that included "destroying reconnaissance drones, using underwater bombs, and destroying gliders."

The FBI accused Siddiqui of supporting Al Qaida although she was not charged with terrorism.

Evidence presented at trial showed Siddiqui received training in the handling and shooting of firearms while a student in Boston. Siddiqui, who earned graduate degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University in biology and neuroscience, has denied receiving any such training or having any familiarity with firearms.

Her lawyers claimed she was mentally ill and suffered from schizophrenia, but Siddiqui has denied the claim: "I'm not paranoid. I'm not mentally sick," she told U.S. District Judge Richard Berman. Defense lawyers also alleged Siddiqui was tortured while in custody but Siddiqui herself refuted the allegation saying: "I am not sad. I am not distressed … they are not torturing me."

Islamist groups in the U.S. including the Muslim American Society have come out in support of Siddiqui claiming her "conviction is seriously flawed and her kidnapping and detention is a grave violation of human rights and international law."