He may have been named after the local priest in his Irish hometown but Liam Neeson could be leaving his Roman Catholic beliefs behind.

The 59-year-old actor is said to be considering converting to Islam following a working trip to Istanbul.

According to The Sun, Neeson admitted that Islamic prayer ‘got into his spirit’ while he was filming in Turkey.

A different faith: Liam Neeson, pictured here on the Late Night With Jimmy Fallon Show this month, is reportedly considering converting to Islam

Tough guy: Neeson plays a man stuck in Alaska after a plane crash in his latest movie

Mr. LaHood is the son of Ray LaHood, the secretary of transportation and a former Republican congressman from Illinois. He is one of six Americans working for the Republican Institute or its sister organization, the National Democratic Institute, whom Egypt has blocked from leaving as part of a politically charged criminal investigation into their activities.       

Just a day before Mr. LaHood was detained temporarily, President Obama had warned Egypt’s leader, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, that this year’s American military aid hinged on satisfying new Congressional legislation requiring that Egypt’s military government take tangible steps toward democracy, said three people briefed on the conversation.       

Mr. Obama referred specifically to the criminal inquiry into several democracy-building groups with foreign financing, including the Republican Institute, the people who were briefed said, and he made clear that Egypt had not fulfilled the Congressional requirements, but Field Marshal Tantawi did not seem to believe him.       

Then, after the travel ban on the Americans became public on Thursday, the administration made the warning public as well. “It is the prerogative of Congress to say that our future military aid is going to be conditioned on a democratic transition,” Michael H. Posner, an assistant secretary of state responsible for human rights issues, said at a previously scheduled press conference in Cairo on Thursday.       

Raids last month on nongovernmental organizations, along with respect for basic rights, he said, are “very much a part of that package.” He said repeatedly that the military aid was now at stake and that the treatment of the American-backed groups had set off a Congressional outcry. “Obviously any action that creates tension with our government makes the whole package more difficult.”       

State Department officials said that it was the first time in three decades that American military aid to Egypt was at risk. That aid, $1.3 billion a year, has always been sacrosanct as the price the United States pays to preserve Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel. Though members of Congress have talked this year of imposing conditions on American aid to Egypt, the Obama administration had previously opposed the idea.       

The White House negotiated intensely to allow the president the option of waiving the conditions, if necessary, in the name of national security. Now Hillary Rodham Clinton, the secretary of state, is required to certify that Egypt is making democratic progress — carrying out “policies to protect freedom of expression, association and religion, and due process of law” — before releasing the aid this fiscal year.       

Representative Frank R. Wolf, a Republican from Virginia who serves on the House Appropriations Committee, said the Egyptian government continued to flout American efforts and to undermine democratic rights. “This is out of control,” Mr. Wolf said on Thursday. “If the administration follows the law, there’s no way they can continue the aid.”       

The issue has already become subject of “an active debate” within the administration, one senior State Department official said. “I hesitate to say that we have clear assurances of what’s going to happen,” the official said. “I think they understand the importance we attach to this issue and the value actually for Egypt on moving ahead on these questions.”       

A tug of war between Washington and Cairo over American aid for Egyptian human rights and democracy-building groups goes back to the era of former President Hosni Mubarak. To maintain control over organizations that might pose potential challenges to his government, Mr. Mubarak required nonprofit groups to obtain licenses, which were almost never issued.

Instead, the generals have echoed the Mubarak government’s refrain that any unrest was the work of “foreign hands.” Often, the military-led government has pointed specifically at Washington, suggesting that the United States was financing Egyptian groups behind the frequent turmoil in the streets.

There’s always a Looming   Danger, an Ominous Threat lurking somewhere – that’s the War Party’s bread-and-butter.   Back in the day, it was the   Germans, who were going to cross the Atlantic and meet their Japanese allies   somewhere near the Mississippi.   Then it was the   Commies, who were not only in the process of swallowing Asia but supposedly   had their Fifth   Column right here in the US, ready willing and able to take the Capitol   at a signal from the Kremlin. After that there was some hesitation in deciding   just who or what would take the place of the Red Threat, but that was decided   on September 11, 2001, when Osama bin Laden’s Global   Caliphate emerged as the Bogeyman of the moment. It turned into quite a   long moment, as we have seen, one that still lingers to this day, even after   bin Laden’s death and the crushing   of al-Qaeda: Americans, being sentimentalists, hang on to their villains long   after their shelf life has expired.

That’s because these dark eminences are alluring, in their way: the narratives   we construct tell us a story we can be proud of, a tale of derring-do in which   the American people are made of Heroic   Stuff, holding aloft the Torch of Freedom lest it be extinguished by rampaging   hordes of Orcs,   sacrificing their pelf, their liberty – and, often, their lives – in the name   of Saving the World.

The Threat has great value to our rulers: they cling to this narrative because it justifies their power, and their insatiable desire for more. President Barack Obama started out his recent state of the union address by invoking the Threat and holding up the military’s response to it as a shining example:

“These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America’s armed forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They’re not consumed with personal ambition. They don’t obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together. Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example.”

Yes, just imagine if civil society was organized along military lines, with   all of us taking orders from our commander-in-chief – what a glorious  time it would be!

Our rulers invoke these militaristic metaphors as exhortations to get us in line:  we hear much about “unity,” “unselfishness,” glorification of “the mission” (whose mission?). These are the bromides uttered by tyrants and would-be tyrants, who would love to   turn society into a civilian army.   Their vision of the future is of a collective marching in lockstep down the road to whatever hellish fate they have in store for us.

These days, however, they are having a harder time convincing us of the reality   of the Threat. This is true for a number of reasons, but the main source of   our skepticism is the overwhelming certainty that the Threat is coming not from   without but from within. No, not in the presence of those   Mooslims, in spite of the Israel Lobby‘s   best   efforts: no, not from the long-gone Commie Conspiracy or the “militias”   that were the favored   bogeyman of the Clinton era. Instead, the Threat springs from something   deeper, a force connected to the way our society works and has been working   since the inauguration of the modern era: it is the looming   threat of national bankruptcy.

We look at Greece   in default, at failing   France, at Italy   in arrears, and see our future: on the left and the right, the voices of   panic are rising. Listen to what George Soros has   to say:

“’At times like these, survival is the most important thing,’ he says, peering through his owlish glasses and brushing wisps of gray hair off his forehead. He doesn’t just mean it’s time to protect your assets. He means it’s time to stave off disaster. As he sees it, the world faces one of the most dangerous periods of modern history—a period of ‘evil.’ Europe is confronting a descent into chaos and conflict. In America he predicts riots on the streets that will lead to a brutal clampdown that will dramatically curtail civil liberties. The global economic system could even collapse altogether.”

“A period of ‘evil’” – that’s what’s in store for us, says the man who broke   the Bank of England and is one of the richest men on earth, an apocalyptic   vision that will sweep away all we have known, and loved:

“As anger rises, riots on the streets of American cities are inevitable. ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he says, almost gleefully. The response to the unrest could be more damaging than the violence itself. ‘It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States.’”

On the other side of the political spectrum, we hear similar prophecies of doom, although there is nothing gleeful about  Rep. Ron Paul’s reaction to his own dark vision of the future:

“There’s going to be anger, and there’s going to be riots in the streets as well. But this is all a consequence of the fact that — why and how do governments spend like this? It’s because they don’t have sound money. When we run up deficits, we tax, but never enough. We can’t tax, it would ruin the economy. Then we borrow, and we get away with that for a long time. But we rely on the printing presses from the Federal Reserve to create the money, and that’s where the problem is.“

The Pentagon agrees with the Soros-Paul scenario: the threat of an economic   collapse has been in their sights since the crash of ’08. The most recent threat   assessment points to “economic   instability” as our rulers’ chief worry. The Army recently conducted a year-long   war game dubbed “Unified   Quest 2011,” centered around how to deal with a “large   scale economic breakdown” in   this country.

The “threats” of the past sixty years have receded: America’s military might   is unchallenged. Yet a new Threat is rising, not from without but from within   – an economic cancer eating away   at the very heart of our society. We had a taste of it in ’08, and in spite   of the Obama-bots’ Pollyannaish predictions of “recovery,” ordinary people see   nothing but trouble on the horizon. This is a real threat, unlike the others,   one that cannot be fought by our matchless military, or even negotiated with   – and it is coming.

American’s national security is in danger, but to listen to our politicians (Paul excepted), you’d think we had nothing to worry about: it’s business as usual. Yet as dark clouds gather on the horizon, and lightning splits the sky, we shiver in our homes and wonder when and how the storm will break.

Iran is preempting the European Union’s embargo on their oil, deciding to cut off exports to Europe six months before the embargo is set to take place.

The EU embargo on Iranian oil, pushed stringently by the United States, was delayed for six months to let economically troubled countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain find alternative supplies. Some 500,000 barrels arrive in Europe every day from Iran. But the U.S. had been successful in pressuring EU countries to inflict more economic pain on themselves by cutting off one of their main oil suppliers.

These measures aren’t only harming the EU economies, they are impoverishing the Iranian people. Jobs are being lost because the oil sector is weakened and rampant inflation caused by sanctions targeted on the central bank have pushed the price of meat and milk up 50 percent.

“People are buying less because the prices have gone up,” Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari said. “That affects the shopkeepers. It’s a vicious cycle.” An Iranian interviewed on the subject said, “People are hungry and this is why crime has gone up.”

The move to cut off exports to the EU before the embargo sets in is an illustration of how poorly the sanctions program on Iran has worked. Instead of pressuring the Iranian government to conform to the wishes of the U.S. and its western allies, it has emboldened the regime.

A CIA operative’s unusual assignment inside the New York Police Department is being cut short after an internal investigation that criticized how the agency established its unprecedented collaboration with city police, The Associated Press has learned.

In its investigation, the CIA’s inspector general faulted the agency for sending an officer to New York with little oversight after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and then leaving him there too long, according to officials who have read or been briefed on the inquiry. They spoke only on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the investigation. The CIA said last month that the inspector general cleared the agency of any wrongdoing.

The inspector general opened its investigation after a series of AP articles that revealed how the NYPD, working in close collaboration with the CIA, set up spying operations that put Muslim communities under scrutiny. Plainclothes officers known as “rakers” eavesdropped in businesses, and Muslims not suspected of any wrongdoing were put in intelligence databases.     

      The CIA officer cited by the inspector general for operating without sufficient supervision, Lawrence Sanchez, was the architect of spying programs that helped make the NYPD one of the nation’s most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies. The programs have drawn criticism from Muslims as well as New York and Washington lawmakers.

On Thursday, Muslim activists urged Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to resign and invoked the legacy of the 1960s FBI program COINTELPRO, which spied on political and activist groups.

“We the people find ourselves facing the specter of a 21st century COINTELPRO, once again in the name of safety and security,” said Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid of the Islamic Leadership Council of New York.

Sanchez, a CIA veteran who according to his biography spent 15 years overseas in the former Soviet Union, South Asia and the Middle East, was sent to New York to help with information sharing following the 9/11 attacks. While on the CIA payroll from 2002 to 2004, he also helped create and direct police intelligence programs. He then formally joined the NYPD while on a leave of absence from the CIA.

The loosely defined assignment strained relations with the FBI and two consecutive CIA station chiefs in New York who complained that Sanchez’s presence undermined their authority. U.S. officials have acknowledged that the rules were murky but they attributed that to the desperate push for better intelligence after the attacks.

Sanchez left the NYPD in 2010. Then, last July, the CIA sent one of its most senior clandestine operatives to work out of the NYPD. That’s the officer who now is leaving. While the internal investigation found problems with the oversight of Sanchez’s assignment, officials said the rules of the current arrangement were more clearly defined.

Even now, however, confusion remains.

Police Commissioner Kelly said the new officer was working at the NYPD to help share foreign intelligence. Federal officials, however, said he was there on a management sabbatical and was not sharing intelligence.

Kelly and the federal government also are at odds explaining the legal basis for a relationship between a local police department and the CIA, which is not allowed to spy domestically.

This fall, Kelly told the city council that the collaboration was authorized under a presidential order. But under those rules, the assignment would have had to have been approved by the CIA’s top lawyer. The AP reported last week there was no such approval.

A CIA spokeswoman, Jennifer Youngblood, said Sanchez was sent to New York at the direction of then-CIA Director George Tenet, who had the authority to move his officers around the world to make sure intelligence was being shared. That arrangement did not require the lawyer’s approval, she said.

“Context matters here,” Youngblood said. “The CIA stepped up cooperation with law enforcement on counterterrorism after 9/11. It’s hard to imagine that anyone is suggesting this was inappropriate or unexpected.”

The current officer, whose name remains classified, operates under a more formal arrangement, specified in writing that he works directly for the NYPD. Nevertheless, some U.S. lawmakers have expressed concerns about the assignment, and the federal government’s most senior intelligence official, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, has said the arrangement looks bad and will be addressed.

The CIA officer is working as a special assistant to David Cohen, the NYPD’s top intelligence officer. Cohen did not respond to an email Thursday requesting comment.

It’s unclear exactly when the CIA officer will leave the police department and what his next job will be. A former station chief in Pakistan and Jordan, he is one of the CIA’s most experienced spies. His assignment in New York was expected to last a year.

Kelly, the police commissioner, has defended his department and its Demographics Unit, which monitored conversations in cafes and wrote reports on Muslim businesses. Kelly has said his officers only follow leads. But internal police documents obtained by the AP show that even the most generic lead was used to justify surveillance of entire neighborhoods. Officials involved in the effort also told the AP that the Demographics Unit actually avoided locations where criminal investigations were under way for fear of disrupting them.

Relations between the NYPD and the Muslim community were further strained this week when police acknowledged that it showed nearly 1,500 officers a training video featuring Kelly. The video portrayed Muslims wanting to “infiltrate and dominate” the United States. Kelly apologized but only after police spokesman Paul Browne falsely claimed that the segment showing Kelly had been lifted from a previous interview. Browne later acknowledged that Kelly sat for an exclusive interview with the filmmakers and that Browne himself suggested it.