Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Wiki-Buffoon-Foolery
It warms the cockles of my heart to see LFG and others tracking down corrupt Wiki editors in this fashion; catching Al-Jazeera and other likewise culprits repetitiously editing Wiki. My oh My. Now who would’ve thunk it.
Hat Tip: AGX-EIE
Here’s a very interesting tool built by Caltech graduate student Virgil Griffith, which searches the list of edits at Wikipedia and correlates them with known IP addresses of groups and organizations—revealing edits made by The New York Times and Al Jazeera, among others: List anonymous wikipedia edits from interesting organizations.
The site is currently struggling under high traffic, so it may not be available; but you probably won’t be surprised to learn that someone at Al Jazeera has been adding blatantly anti-Israel statements to many Wikipedia pages, or that the New York Times has been sanitizing their own page.
Another interesting IP to look up is the Reuters Canary Wharf office, the origin of a death threat sent to LGF last year. Someone using that IP has been going around Wikipedia and editing entries related to Islam; before the site went down, I discovered several places in which that IP had inserted the word “Prophet” in front of “Muhammad,” for example. Here’s the Reuters IP search.Here’s an article at Wired: See Who’s Editing Wikipedia - Diebold, the CIA, a Campaign.
Hat Tip: AGX-EIE
When Muslims Kill: An Incomplete List
March 1994 -- Rashid Baz, a Muslim from Lebanon, opened fire on a van containing members of the Lubavitch Hassids in Brooklyn. One was killed.
February 1997 -- Palestinian-born Ali Abu Kamal opened fire on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, killing a tourist and injuring six other people before committing suicide. His daughter, Linda Kamal, said in 2007 that the family is tired of lying and admitted that a letter had been found on her father's body explaining his Muslim hatred for Israel and America.
July 2002 -- Egyptian-born Hesham Mohammed Hadayet walked into the Israeli Airlines El Al terminal at the Los Angeles airport and began shooting Jews. He killed two and injured another four. He was known to sympathize with al Qaeda.
September 2002 -- Patrick Gott killed one and wounded another in the New Orleans airport. He had entered the terminal with a shotgun and his Koran.
October 2002 -- John Mohammed and Lee Malvo killed 13 people in the Washington, DC area. Both were converts to Islam and had attended a jihad training camp in southwestern Virginia.
August 2003 -- Mohammed Ali Alayed almost totally decapitated his erstwhile Jewish friend, Ariel Sellouk, following Alayed's getting serious about his Islamic faith. He went to a mosque after killing Sellouk.
October 2005 -- Joel Henry Hinrichs III, a convert to Islam, was an engineering student at Oklahoma University. His student career ended when a bomb he had strapped on himself went off prematurely outside a crowed stadium, killing only himself. Police subsequently cleared explosives from the apartment that Hinrichs had shared with Muslim students from Pakistan.
April 2006 -- Muslim Ayhan Surucu was so angry when his sister started to wear make-up and date men in Berlin, Germany, that he put a gun to her head at a bus stop and killed her. Boys at a nearby school, attended mainly by the children of immigrant Muslim families, cheered and applauded when news of the murder reached them.
May 2006 -- Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student, rented an SUV and drove it through a crowded part of the campus -- intentionally trying to hit people and wounding nine. In a series of letters to the student newspaper, he explained that he acted in obedience to Koranic dictates.
June 2006 -- Michael Ford, a Muslim convert, walked into work at a Safeway warehouse in Denver and opened fire on his coworkers, killing one and injuring five. Relatives explained that he was being teased at work because he's a Muslim and he could not take it anymore.
July 2006 -- Naveed Alzal Haq, a Pakistani, walked into the Jewish Federation Center in downtown Seattle and shot six women -- killing one and wounding five (one of whom was pregnant). He stated matter-of-factly: "I am a Muslim American angry at Israel."
August 2006 -- Omeed Aziz Popal, a Muslim Afghan refugee, used his SUV as a weapon and ran down at least 14 people and a bicyclist in the San Francisco Bay area. He was targeting Jewish neighborhoods to terrorize.
January 2007 -- A 22-year-old Muslim, Ismail Yassin Mohamed, stole a car in Minneapolis and rammed it into other cars before stealing a van and doing the same, injuring several drivers and pedestrians before police finally caught up with him. Mohamed called himself a "terrorist."
February 2007 -- Ibrihim Ahmed, a Nashville cab driver and Muslim, was enraged that two passengers did not agree with him about Islam. When they got out of the cab, he tried to run them down, striking one in a parking lot.
February 2007 --Sulejman Talovic, a Bosnian Muslim immigrant, went to a Salt Lake City mosque on a Friday night. Then he went to one of only two malls in the state which prohibits civilian carrying of concealed weapons. He killed five before an off-duty cop (not subject to the ban) used a concealed firearm to stop his murder spree.
Larry Pratt / Reason For Carrying Firearms For Self Defense / More>>
Hat Tip: AGX-EIE
February 1997 -- Palestinian-born Ali Abu Kamal opened fire on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, killing a tourist and injuring six other people before committing suicide. His daughter, Linda Kamal, said in 2007 that the family is tired of lying and admitted that a letter had been found on her father's body explaining his Muslim hatred for Israel and America.
July 2002 -- Egyptian-born Hesham Mohammed Hadayet walked into the Israeli Airlines El Al terminal at the Los Angeles airport and began shooting Jews. He killed two and injured another four. He was known to sympathize with al Qaeda.
September 2002 -- Patrick Gott killed one and wounded another in the New Orleans airport. He had entered the terminal with a shotgun and his Koran.
October 2002 -- John Mohammed and Lee Malvo killed 13 people in the Washington, DC area. Both were converts to Islam and had attended a jihad training camp in southwestern Virginia.
August 2003 -- Mohammed Ali Alayed almost totally decapitated his erstwhile Jewish friend, Ariel Sellouk, following Alayed's getting serious about his Islamic faith. He went to a mosque after killing Sellouk.
October 2005 -- Joel Henry Hinrichs III, a convert to Islam, was an engineering student at Oklahoma University. His student career ended when a bomb he had strapped on himself went off prematurely outside a crowed stadium, killing only himself. Police subsequently cleared explosives from the apartment that Hinrichs had shared with Muslim students from Pakistan.
April 2006 -- Muslim Ayhan Surucu was so angry when his sister started to wear make-up and date men in Berlin, Germany, that he put a gun to her head at a bus stop and killed her. Boys at a nearby school, attended mainly by the children of immigrant Muslim families, cheered and applauded when news of the murder reached them.
May 2006 -- Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student, rented an SUV and drove it through a crowded part of the campus -- intentionally trying to hit people and wounding nine. In a series of letters to the student newspaper, he explained that he acted in obedience to Koranic dictates.
June 2006 -- Michael Ford, a Muslim convert, walked into work at a Safeway warehouse in Denver and opened fire on his coworkers, killing one and injuring five. Relatives explained that he was being teased at work because he's a Muslim and he could not take it anymore.
July 2006 -- Naveed Alzal Haq, a Pakistani, walked into the Jewish Federation Center in downtown Seattle and shot six women -- killing one and wounding five (one of whom was pregnant). He stated matter-of-factly: "I am a Muslim American angry at Israel."
August 2006 -- Omeed Aziz Popal, a Muslim Afghan refugee, used his SUV as a weapon and ran down at least 14 people and a bicyclist in the San Francisco Bay area. He was targeting Jewish neighborhoods to terrorize.
January 2007 -- A 22-year-old Muslim, Ismail Yassin Mohamed, stole a car in Minneapolis and rammed it into other cars before stealing a van and doing the same, injuring several drivers and pedestrians before police finally caught up with him. Mohamed called himself a "terrorist."
February 2007 -- Ibrihim Ahmed, a Nashville cab driver and Muslim, was enraged that two passengers did not agree with him about Islam. When they got out of the cab, he tried to run them down, striking one in a parking lot.
February 2007 --Sulejman Talovic, a Bosnian Muslim immigrant, went to a Salt Lake City mosque on a Friday night. Then he went to one of only two malls in the state which prohibits civilian carrying of concealed weapons. He killed five before an off-duty cop (not subject to the ban) used a concealed firearm to stop his murder spree.
Larry Pratt / Reason For Carrying Firearms For Self Defense / More>>
Hat Tip: AGX-EIE
Monday, August 13, 2007
Debate or denial: the Muslim dilemma
Hasan Suroor
More Muslims need to realise that Islamist terrorists are not simply “misguided” individuals acting on a whim but that they are people who know what they are doing and they are doing it deliberately in the name of Islam.
Judging from much of the Muslim reaction to the latest Islamist outrage — last month’s attempted bombings in London and Glasgow — the community seems to have talked itself into a default position in relation to violent Muslim extremism. The same old arguments are being flogged again betraying an unwillingness to acknowledge either the scale of the problem or its nature. The fear of making the community or Islam look bad has created a strange silence around issues that lie at the heart of the Islamism debate.Broadly, the Muslim argument is that it is all down to a host of external factors. Top of the list is the western foreign policy, especially with regard to the Palestinian issue, compounded by the invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq. Then there are social and economic reasons such as lack of education and high rate of unemployment in the Muslim community — again attributed to external causes such as racial or religious discrimination.
In other words: don’t blame us; it is all other people’s doing. We are only the victims. As someone who feels the same pressures as other Muslims, I wish this was true. But it isn’t. It not all other people’s doing. We are not just the victims.
I used the term ‘default position’ as an euphemism. There is a more robustly appropriate term, which is being increasingly used to describe the Muslim position: denial. The view that Muslims are in denial of the extent of the problem and their own responsibility in dealing with it is no longer confined to right-wing Muslim-bashers. Even liberal opinion has started to shift.
Appearing on an NDTV panel discussion last week, I was struck by how closely my two distinguished co-panellists — one in New Delhi and the other in Bangalore — stuck to the ‘default’ position. They kept refer ring to “looming images” from Iraq and Palestine; and to the frustration and “anger” bred by American and British foreign policy. There were obligatory references to social deprivation etc., etc. And as for the three Indian doctors suspected to have been behind the London-Glasgow plot, they were simply “misguided” individuals acting alone.
There was much hand-wringing when the anchor underlined the fact that Muslims had been behind all recent acts of terrorism. Yes, it was worrying. Of course, the community condemned any violence committed in the name of Islam, a peaceful religion. And, indeed, there was need for introspection and discussion. But all this was hedged in with so many “ifs” and “buts” that the whole debate seemed like a huge exercise in denial. At least up to the point where I was cut off because the satellite time ran out.
It is the response of a community that sees itself under siege and is irritated that every time a Muslim does something silly it is expected to stand up and apologise. Add to this the prevailing Islamophobia (it is pretty widespread, make no mistake about it), and it is not difficult to understand why Muslims are in this defensive mood. But how long will they continue to shy away from facing the truth? And the truth is that many of their assumptions about the underlying causes of extremism are flawed. Every fresh terrorist attack chips away at the idea that foreign policy and socio-economic factors are the sole drivers of Islamist extremism, making the Muslim default position more untenable.
Hassan Butt, a reformed British extremist, recalls how “we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.” Writing in The Observer, he said if he was still stuck in his old ways, he would be “laughing once again” at suggestions that the June 29-30 failed attacks were motivated by anger over British foreign policy.
Mr. Butt criticised Muslims and liberal non-Muslim intellectuals and politicians for failing to recognise the “role of Islamist ideology in terrorism” — an ideology that, according to another lapsed extremist Shiraz Maher, preaches a “separatist message of Islamic supremacy” and seeks to establish a “puritanical caliphate.” Mr. Maher knew Kafeel Ahmed, the Indian who tried to blow up Glasgow airport and is now fighting for his life in a hospital in Scotland.Both Mr. Butt and Mr. Maher were activists of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, one of Britain’s most controversial radical groups with a long and notorious history of recruiting potential jihadis in mosques and on university campuses. Mohammed Siddique Khan, who masterminded the 7/7 bombings, was a member of Hizb at the same time as Mr. Butt. The July 7 attacks were widely attributed to the invasion of Iraq and other west-inspired “atrocities” against Muslims. According to Mr. Butt, though many extremists were enraged by the deaths of fellow Muslims across the world “what drove me and many of my peers to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain, our homeland and abroad, was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary state that would eventually bring Islamic justice to the world.”
Arguably, defectors are not the most reliable of people and there is, inevitably, an element of exaggeration in what they say about the organisation they have left and of their own role in it. Yet, so long as we are careful to remember where they are coming from and don’t allow ourselves to be mesmerised by their insiders’ account, they remain our best guide to understanding the world they have left behind. It is only an ex-extremist who can help us get a glimpse of what goes on inside an extremist organisation and sometime that can change our perceptions of an issue in a fundamental way. So, when people like Mr. Butt and Mr. Maher debunk some of the most widely held assumptions about the nature of Muslim extremism it is important to pay heed. And they are not the only ones. Ed Husain, another ex-Islamist, has written a whole book (The Islamist) warning against complacency.
First and foremost, Muslims must acknowledge what Ziauddin Sardar, one of Europe’s most prominent Muslim scholars, calls the “Islamic nature of the problem.” Islamist extremism has not descended from another planet or been imposed on the community from outside. It breeds within the community and is the product of a certain kind of interpretation of Islam. And, in the words, of Mr. Sardar, terrorists are a “product of a specific mindset that has deep roots in Islamic history.” In a seminal essay, “The Struggle for Islam’s Soul” (New Statesman, July 18, 2005), Mr. Sardar argued that Islamists were “nourished by an Islamic tradition that is intrinsically inhuman and violent in its rhetoric, thought and practice” and this placed a unique burden on Muslims as they tried to make sense of what their co-religionists were doing in the name of Islam. “To deny that they are a product of Islamic history and tradition is more than complacency. It is a denial of responsibility, a denial of what is happening in our communities. It is a refusal to live in the real world,” he wrote.
Mr. Sardar’s views are significant. He is a practising Muslim with deep grounding in Islamic theology. He was deeply upset by Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses and is often involved in verbal duels with Islamophobic commentators. But as he points out because he is a Muslim and it is in the name of his religion that terrorists are acting, he believes it is his “responsibility critically to examine the tradition that sustains them.”
More Muslims need to realise that Islamist terrorists are not simply “misguided” individuals acting on a whim but that they are people who know what they are doing and they are doing it deliberately in the name of Islam. However perverted their interpretation it remains an interpretation of Islam and it is not enough to condemn their actions or accuse them of hijacking Islam without doing anything about it.
Let’s face it; there are verses in the Koran that justify violence. The “hard truth that Islam does permit the use of violence,” as Mr. Butt points out, must be recognised by Muslims. When Islam was in its infancy and battling against non-believers violence was deemed legitimate to put them down. Today, when it is the world’s second largest religion with more than one billion followers around the world and still growing that context has lost its relevance. Yet, jihadi groups, pursuing their madcap scheme of establishing Dar-ul-Islam (the Land of Islam), are using these passages to incite impressionable Muslim youths. Yet there is no sign of a debate in the community beyond easy platitudes, and it remains in denial.
Indonesian group rallies for world Islamic rule
More than 70,000 members of a Muslim group have held a rally in Indonesia calling for a caliphate - or Islamic rule - to govern the world.
The supporters of the Hizbut Tahrir group filled up most of an 80,000-seat sports stadium in the capital Jakarta, waving flags as they heard speeches saying it was "time for the caliphate to reign".
The meeting was held as part of "civic education" for Indonesian Muslims, Hizbut Tahrir spokesman Muhammad Ismail Yusanto said.
The organisation advocates Islamic rule and is banned in several Middle Eastern countries.
Supporters travelled to the stadium in convoys of buses from other parts of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority country.
Local and foreign speakers were invited to give speeches.
But Mr Yusanto said that two inivtees, Imran Waheed from England and Syeik Ismail Al Wahwah from Australia, had been denied entry and deported from Indonesia on Friday.
"The organising committee deplores the deportation because they came to Indonesia at the invitation of the Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia to give their good advice for the progress of Islam, for the progress of this country," he said.
The hardline Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir declined to appear at the event, without giving a reason.
But Yusanto said that police had advised Bashir and another hardline cleric, Habieb Rizieq, not to attend the conference.
The senior Muslim figure Dien Syamsuddin was among the key speakers to address the crowd. He is the chairman of Indonesia's second largest Islamic movement, the Muhammadiyah.
"Islam's progress or regress depends entirely on Muslims themselves," he told the crowd.
He said that "the essence" of a caliphate was that Muslims be united and that therefore Indonesian Muslims should safeguard the unity of their country.
But popular Muslim preacher Abdullah Gymanstiar said Muslims in Indonesia were still divided over Sharia law.
"Why do some Muslims not agree with the Islamic Sharia, even though it is for the own good of Muslims?" he said.
Security did not appear tight for the conference, with police limiting their role to directing traffic.
The rally ended with a prayer and the participants left the venue peacefully, but caused massive traffic jams as they departed.
The supporters of the Hizbut Tahrir group filled up most of an 80,000-seat sports stadium in the capital Jakarta, waving flags as they heard speeches saying it was "time for the caliphate to reign".
The meeting was held as part of "civic education" for Indonesian Muslims, Hizbut Tahrir spokesman Muhammad Ismail Yusanto said.
The organisation advocates Islamic rule and is banned in several Middle Eastern countries.
Supporters travelled to the stadium in convoys of buses from other parts of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority country.
Local and foreign speakers were invited to give speeches.
But Mr Yusanto said that two inivtees, Imran Waheed from England and Syeik Ismail Al Wahwah from Australia, had been denied entry and deported from Indonesia on Friday.
"The organising committee deplores the deportation because they came to Indonesia at the invitation of the Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia to give their good advice for the progress of Islam, for the progress of this country," he said.
The hardline Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir declined to appear at the event, without giving a reason.
But Yusanto said that police had advised Bashir and another hardline cleric, Habieb Rizieq, not to attend the conference.
The senior Muslim figure Dien Syamsuddin was among the key speakers to address the crowd. He is the chairman of Indonesia's second largest Islamic movement, the Muhammadiyah.
"Islam's progress or regress depends entirely on Muslims themselves," he told the crowd.
He said that "the essence" of a caliphate was that Muslims be united and that therefore Indonesian Muslims should safeguard the unity of their country.
But popular Muslim preacher Abdullah Gymanstiar said Muslims in Indonesia were still divided over Sharia law.
"Why do some Muslims not agree with the Islamic Sharia, even though it is for the own good of Muslims?" he said.
Security did not appear tight for the conference, with police limiting their role to directing traffic.
The rally ended with a prayer and the participants left the venue peacefully, but caused massive traffic jams as they departed.
Hamas militiamen beat protesters in Gaza
One thing's for sure, I'm never getting married in Gaza
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Security men for Gaza's Hamas rulers clubbed and slammed rifle butts into opponents staging a rare protest Monday, seizing the cameras of journalists covering the event and raiding media offices to prevent news footage from getting out.
The Islamic militant group claims it is willing to tolerate dissent, but the crackdown was the latest in a series of moves to squash opposing voices, including breaking up private parties Friday and Monday where people were singing songs of the rival Fatah movement.
After Hamas gunmen in the Gaza Strip routed forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah in five days of fighting in June, the group declared an amnesty for former Fatah fighters.
Yet when Fatah and allied groups announced plans for Monday's rally, Hamas banned "all demonstrations and public gatherings" that do not have official permission.
Buses carrying protesters were halted by Hamas guards who beat passengers, driving them away and confiscating Fatah flags. However, about 300 people got past the militia cordon and demonstrated for 20 minutes, shouting "We want freedom. We want to raise our voice!"
Security officers arrested several demonstrators and then confiscated equipment from news photographers and cameramen trying to cover the arrests, including an Associated Press still camera.
Hamas squads also raided the Gaza offices of media organizations, looking for material from the rally. Staffers at satellite broadcaster Al-Arabiyya said the militiamen seized a camera and videotape at their office.
The Palestinian journalists union urged its members to observe a three-day boycott of any events organized by the Hamas militia, known as the Executive Force, to protest its treatment of the media.
Saleh Nasser, a member of the small, leftist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine who was at the rally, condemned Hamas' actions.
"Treating people in this way when they came to raise their voice in a peaceful demonstration is something that is condemned, rejected and cannot be accepted," he said. "We are astonished by the decision to ban demonstrations."
The Gaza fighting in June, during which about 100 people were killed and 500 wounded, deepened the already bitter political rivalry between Hamas and Fatah.
Following the Hamas takeover of Gaza, Abbas expelled Hamas from the Palestinian coalition government and formed a West Bank-based administration of moderates in its place.
Undeterred, deposed Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh pledged to impose law and order in the formerly anarchic Gaza Strip. But his Executive Force is gaining a reputation for heavy-handedness, particularly when dealing with Fatah supporters.
On Friday, rifle-toting militiamen roared up to a bachelor party where revelers were dancing to Fatah songs. Video showed the Hamas men firing in the air to break up the celebration, clubbing guests, hurling chairs around and leaving one man lying unconscious.
The images were repeatedly broadcast on Fatah-affiliated Palestine TV. The cameraman who took the footage, from the local Gaza Ramattan news agency, was detained and questioned by Hamas for several hours.
On Monday, the Executive Force was in action again, breaking up the wedding of a Fatah activist and holing five guests for several hours.
One of those detained, Zaid Salem, said wedding participants were singing Fatah songs but did not break a Hamas ban on celebratory gunfire and were not charged with any wrongdoing.
"We were celebrating the wedding and we were astonished by this act," he said. "We were released, but we have no explanation for what happened."
Hamas did not comment directly on Monday's incidents.
But in a statement, it said the Executive Force is a nonpartisan enforcer of public order regulations, which require that demonstrations be authorized 48 hours in advance and that social events be low key — without shooting, fireworks, excessive noise or disruption of public streets.
"Anyone violating these orders will be subject to punishment," the statement said. "Nobody is above the law."
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Security men for Gaza's Hamas rulers clubbed and slammed rifle butts into opponents staging a rare protest Monday, seizing the cameras of journalists covering the event and raiding media offices to prevent news footage from getting out.
The Islamic militant group claims it is willing to tolerate dissent, but the crackdown was the latest in a series of moves to squash opposing voices, including breaking up private parties Friday and Monday where people were singing songs of the rival Fatah movement.
After Hamas gunmen in the Gaza Strip routed forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah in five days of fighting in June, the group declared an amnesty for former Fatah fighters.
Yet when Fatah and allied groups announced plans for Monday's rally, Hamas banned "all demonstrations and public gatherings" that do not have official permission.
Buses carrying protesters were halted by Hamas guards who beat passengers, driving them away and confiscating Fatah flags. However, about 300 people got past the militia cordon and demonstrated for 20 minutes, shouting "We want freedom. We want to raise our voice!"
Security officers arrested several demonstrators and then confiscated equipment from news photographers and cameramen trying to cover the arrests, including an Associated Press still camera.
Hamas squads also raided the Gaza offices of media organizations, looking for material from the rally. Staffers at satellite broadcaster Al-Arabiyya said the militiamen seized a camera and videotape at their office.
The Palestinian journalists union urged its members to observe a three-day boycott of any events organized by the Hamas militia, known as the Executive Force, to protest its treatment of the media.
Saleh Nasser, a member of the small, leftist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine who was at the rally, condemned Hamas' actions.
"Treating people in this way when they came to raise their voice in a peaceful demonstration is something that is condemned, rejected and cannot be accepted," he said. "We are astonished by the decision to ban demonstrations."
The Gaza fighting in June, during which about 100 people were killed and 500 wounded, deepened the already bitter political rivalry between Hamas and Fatah.
Following the Hamas takeover of Gaza, Abbas expelled Hamas from the Palestinian coalition government and formed a West Bank-based administration of moderates in its place.
Undeterred, deposed Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh pledged to impose law and order in the formerly anarchic Gaza Strip. But his Executive Force is gaining a reputation for heavy-handedness, particularly when dealing with Fatah supporters.
On Friday, rifle-toting militiamen roared up to a bachelor party where revelers were dancing to Fatah songs. Video showed the Hamas men firing in the air to break up the celebration, clubbing guests, hurling chairs around and leaving one man lying unconscious.
The images were repeatedly broadcast on Fatah-affiliated Palestine TV. The cameraman who took the footage, from the local Gaza Ramattan news agency, was detained and questioned by Hamas for several hours.
On Monday, the Executive Force was in action again, breaking up the wedding of a Fatah activist and holing five guests for several hours.
One of those detained, Zaid Salem, said wedding participants were singing Fatah songs but did not break a Hamas ban on celebratory gunfire and were not charged with any wrongdoing.
"We were celebrating the wedding and we were astonished by this act," he said. "We were released, but we have no explanation for what happened."
Hamas did not comment directly on Monday's incidents.
But in a statement, it said the Executive Force is a nonpartisan enforcer of public order regulations, which require that demonstrations be authorized 48 hours in advance and that social events be low key — without shooting, fireworks, excessive noise or disruption of public streets.
"Anyone violating these orders will be subject to punishment," the statement said. "Nobody is above the law."
Newt: Nat'l Press Club Speech Excerpt / CNN Video Link
MR. ZREMSKI: You mentioned that when it comes to the war on terror, it's really far more difficult than we seem to have believed at this point in time. Could you just elaborate on that a little bit and tell us what we can really expect in the next few years in the war on terror and what we would really have to do to win it eventually.
MR. GINGRICH: I am really deeply worried. We have two grandchildren who are 6 and 8, and I believe they are in greater danger of dying from enemy activities than we were in the Cold War. There are thousands of people across this planet who get up every morning actively seeking to destroy the United States. They are spreading their poison by sermons, by the Internet, by a variety of recruiting devices.
Tony Blair said it very well. The people who did the London subway bombings spoke English, were British citizens, lived in British housing and had jobs, and had decided, because of their relationships, that they were engaged in a war against the very country which had given them prosperity and freedom and safety.
When you see the Taliban kidnap 22 Christian South Korean missionaries who are there to help the people of Afghanistan, and nobody gets up and says this is despicable. Where in the Muslim world has there been any battle cry saying they should be released? Where has anybody gotten up to condemn? When you see a 12-year-old boy in Pakistan saw off a man's head on videotape, where is the condemnation? When you know that the schools recruit suicide bombers. When you know that the Iranian government ran a cartoon last year, for children, aimed at recruiting 10-year-olds to be suicide bombers, on public television. At what point do you have to say enough? When you're lectured by the Saudis about being respectful, when they do not allow any Jew or any Christian to practice their religion in Saudi Arabia, and we tolerate it? When do you draw a line?
Nobody in this society has yet given a speech to outline the scale of this problem, in terms of senior leadership. And yet it's obvious. We haven't won in Afghanistan and we are not currently winning. If you're not winning a guerrilla war, you're gradually losing it. We have not won in Iraq. The Israelis, despite 30 years of work, have not won in either Gaza or the West Bank. And we're sleepwalking. And we've now focused on Baghdad as though somehow we can retreat from history and find an elegant way to get out of this and it won't have terrifying consequences.
I believe we are on the edge of a precipice. The Iranians are desperately trying to build nuclear weapons, and they will use them. This is a state -- look -- read what Ahmadinejad says. He writes poems about the joy of being a martyr nation. He gets to wipe out Tel Aviv; maybe the Israelis use nuclear weapons and wipe out Tehran. He would accept that in a minute because he believes everybody in Tehran goes to heaven and everybody in Tel Aviv doesn't.
MR. GINGRICH: I am really deeply worried. We have two grandchildren who are 6 and 8, and I believe they are in greater danger of dying from enemy activities than we were in the Cold War. There are thousands of people across this planet who get up every morning actively seeking to destroy the United States. They are spreading their poison by sermons, by the Internet, by a variety of recruiting devices.
Tony Blair said it very well. The people who did the London subway bombings spoke English, were British citizens, lived in British housing and had jobs, and had decided, because of their relationships, that they were engaged in a war against the very country which had given them prosperity and freedom and safety.
When you see the Taliban kidnap 22 Christian South Korean missionaries who are there to help the people of Afghanistan, and nobody gets up and says this is despicable. Where in the Muslim world has there been any battle cry saying they should be released? Where has anybody gotten up to condemn? When you see a 12-year-old boy in Pakistan saw off a man's head on videotape, where is the condemnation? When you know that the schools recruit suicide bombers. When you know that the Iranian government ran a cartoon last year, for children, aimed at recruiting 10-year-olds to be suicide bombers, on public television. At what point do you have to say enough? When you're lectured by the Saudis about being respectful, when they do not allow any Jew or any Christian to practice their religion in Saudi Arabia, and we tolerate it? When do you draw a line?
Nobody in this society has yet given a speech to outline the scale of this problem, in terms of senior leadership. And yet it's obvious. We haven't won in Afghanistan and we are not currently winning. If you're not winning a guerrilla war, you're gradually losing it. We have not won in Iraq. The Israelis, despite 30 years of work, have not won in either Gaza or the West Bank. And we're sleepwalking. And we've now focused on Baghdad as though somehow we can retreat from history and find an elegant way to get out of this and it won't have terrifying consequences.
I believe we are on the edge of a precipice. The Iranians are desperately trying to build nuclear weapons, and they will use them. This is a state -- look -- read what Ahmadinejad says. He writes poems about the joy of being a martyr nation. He gets to wipe out Tel Aviv; maybe the Israelis use nuclear weapons and wipe out Tehran. He would accept that in a minute because he believes everybody in Tehran goes to heaven and everybody in Tel Aviv doesn't.
We -- it's very hard for secular elites to understand this. Religiously driven people do things that don't calculate in nice academic faculty surroundings, and they don't calculate at the State Department and they don't calculate in a rational way in most of our bureaucracies.
We are in trouble, and somebody had better start talking about it in a blunt way.
I'm going to give a speech at the American Enterprise Institute on September 10th describing the first six years, and it's driven by a simple model. I finished a novel recently called, "Pearl Harbor." You look at the Second World War, from December 7th, 1941 to August 14th 1945 is less than four years. In less than four years, we defeated Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. Today it takes 23 years to add a fifth runway to the Atlanta airport. We are simply not prepared today to be a serious country.
And my fear is just -- and I gave this speech earlier. I wrote about terrorism and nuclear weapons in a book called, "Window of Opportunity," in 1984. I gave speeches in the `90s on this. I helped create with President Clinton the Hart-Rudman Commission. We warned in March of 2001 about terrorist attacks in American cities. I've been at this a long time. I am genuinely afraid that this political system will not react until we lose a city, and nobody in this country's thought about the threat to our civil liberties the morning after we decide it's that dangerous and how rapidly we will impose ruthlessness on ourselves in that kind of a world.
I think those of you who care about civil liberties had better be thinking through how we win this war before the casualties get so great that the American people voluntarily give up a lot of those liberties. (Applause.)
CNN Video
Entire "Nine Nineties in Nine Speech"
Newt.org
HAT TIP: AGX-EIE
We are in trouble, and somebody had better start talking about it in a blunt way.
I'm going to give a speech at the American Enterprise Institute on September 10th describing the first six years, and it's driven by a simple model. I finished a novel recently called, "Pearl Harbor." You look at the Second World War, from December 7th, 1941 to August 14th 1945 is less than four years. In less than four years, we defeated Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. Today it takes 23 years to add a fifth runway to the Atlanta airport. We are simply not prepared today to be a serious country.
And my fear is just -- and I gave this speech earlier. I wrote about terrorism and nuclear weapons in a book called, "Window of Opportunity," in 1984. I gave speeches in the `90s on this. I helped create with President Clinton the Hart-Rudman Commission. We warned in March of 2001 about terrorist attacks in American cities. I've been at this a long time. I am genuinely afraid that this political system will not react until we lose a city, and nobody in this country's thought about the threat to our civil liberties the morning after we decide it's that dangerous and how rapidly we will impose ruthlessness on ourselves in that kind of a world.
I think those of you who care about civil liberties had better be thinking through how we win this war before the casualties get so great that the American people voluntarily give up a lot of those liberties. (Applause.)
CNN Video
Entire "Nine Nineties in Nine Speech"
Newt.org
HAT TIP: AGX-EIE
Friday, August 10, 2007
The Story We Never Heard
One of the biggest stories in recent times is due to shortly hit the British media. This follows the unprecedented decision of Dr. Mohammad Sarwar, Labour MP for Glasgow Govan since 1997, to stand down before the next elections, following threats upon both his and his children’s lives.
The press are in a frenzy because there are so many aspects to this story deemed irresistible to the media driven modern Britain in which we are so fortunate to live today. Mr Sarwar has the dubious honour of being both Britain’s first Muslim MP, and Britain’s first MP to be driven from office upon pain of death.
When he was elected, to a fanfare of media coverage, Mr Sarwar managed yet another first; he refused to swear allegiance to the Queen, preferring instead the ancient British tradition of swearing his oath upon the Koran, the copy of which, incidentally, was placed inside an envelope lest it “be touched by one not of the faith.” This, unsurprisingly, drew the ire of the racist Right and Mr Sarwar was subsequently threatened by an assortment of organisations, including Combat 18 and the National Front.
This of course is manna to heaven for the British media. The BBC have led the way, camping outside Mr Sarwar’s constituency home, interviewing local Pakistanis who feel “threatened and uncomfortable” and conducting an undercover infiltration of the BNP in order to track down the perpetrators behind the violent threats that have forced a standing British MP to go into hiding for the first time in our modern history.
If you possess a powerful telescope, and train it carefully upon Glasgow, you may well be able to view the events unfolding. Be sure though, to point it at Glasgow, Planet Fantasy, Milky Way 1. If you do not, you will see very little, because this story exists only in the Britain of a parallel universe. Back here on planet reality it is a non-story, indeed almost a non-event. A by-line here, a by-line there, but virtually unreported on television news stations.
The reason for this media blackout is very simple. It is not the National Front, Combat 18 or the BNP who have issued the recent death threats, it is local Muslims themselves, incensed by what they see as his treacherous behaviour in relation to the murder of Kriss Donald, a white Glaswegian, in 2004.
Those of you familiar with the case, or those of a sensitive disposition, need not read the next paragraph. I note the details only because they have a relevance which I will come to later.
Kriss Donald
Kriss Donald, a slightly built, 15-year-old schoolboy was abducted from the streets of Pollockshields, Glasgow, on March 14, 2004. His kidnappers were five British Muslims of Pakistani descent, intent on exacting retribution on a white male - any white male would do - following a fight in a night club the previous weekend. Kriss was driven around for several hours whilst he was held down and tortured in the back of the car. He was eventually taken to an area of waste ground where he was finished off. Before he died, it is alleged that he was castrated, burned with cigarettes; his eyes were gouged out and he was stabbed repeatedly. Once on the waste ground he was doused with gasoline and set alight whilst still alive. He crawled a few metres and then, mercifully, died. A walker who discovered his body the following morning was unaware that it was even human, remarking, that at first, he thought it was the carcass of an animal.
Two men were subsequently arrested, but the other three; aware the police knew their identities, fled to Pakistan. The Foreign Office at that time was involved in delicate negotiations with Pakistan over the extradition rights concerning full-blown terrorists, so an unimportant little murder such as Kriss Donald’s was simply a fly in the ointment they did not need. As a result, they did their best to frustrate attempts by the British police to retrieve their suspects.
Enter Mr Mohammad Sarwar, a man with a clearer sense of right and wrong, and a political position with which to do something about it. Mr Sarwar was instrumental in forcing the British government to press ahead with the extradition of the three men, and thus, in the eyes of some British Muslims, committed a crime of such magnitude that only his death could adequately compensate for his treachery.
I apologise for detailing the gory details of Kriss Donald’s torture and murder, but its relevance is shown in the following quotes from Mr Sarwar, printed in the Daily Telegraph:
“Life is not the same since I brought them back…I received threats to my life, to murder my sons, to murder my grandchildren…I was told they wanted to punish my family and make a horrible example of my son… they would do to him what they did to Kriss Donald.”
There were other firsts in the story that should have interested the media. Daamish Zahid, one of the five killers, was the first person in Scotland to be convicted of racially motivated murder, whilst the sheer brutality of the murder itself was unprecedented in Britain. (An issue all too predictably rectified a year later by six black British men who gang raped, tortured and murdered Mary Ann Leneghan.)
But I digress. To recap, Britain’s first Muslim MP is also Britain’s first ever politician to stand down in the face of death threats; threats uttered by followers of the Religion Of Peace who sympathise with the Islamic savages involved in the most horrific racial murder in Britain’s recent history, one of whom, to boot, was also the first “Scotsman” to be convicted of racially aggravated murder.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but surely there’s a story in there somewhere? I know it is now a tired old clich, but imagine if Mr Paul Boateng, Britain’s first black MP, had been driven from office by a bunch of white, right wing Christian fundamentalists, enraged that he had succeeded in bringing the white killers of the black Stephen Lawrence to justice?
A foolish hypothesis I admit, one could discard the telescope, whilst an investment in blinkers and earmuffs would be necessary to avoid the media hysteria. We are used to the double standards utilised by the media with regard to racial murder, but this time it is different. This is not any old murder, not any old death threats, and Mr Sarwar is not any old person.
When Britain, a first world country, loses a democratically elected politician because he fears for his life, we are entering a wholly new era. Britain is now an Iraq, a Zimbabwe, we are becoming, in political terms, a genuine third world country, and our BBC led media, showing a total disregard for impartiality, has veered from mere bias to dangerous censorship, with all the disturbing implications this portends for our democratic future.
Many political commentators believe that Britain is dead, Lawrence Auster in particular, but he also thinks it can be resurrected. If this is to happen it must happen soon. Our national heart has ceased to beat, our national soul is hovering indecisively above the operating table, the crash team have been called but the politically inclined hospital switchboard have told them there is no problem, that everything is under control. The life support boys have heard otherwise, they are hurrying to get there but other hospital staff members have switched the signage to the operating theatre and killed the lights. It is a big hospital, they only have minutes to get there, they are lost, confused, misinformed, and the clock is relentlessly ticking, and ticking, and ticking…..
The press are in a frenzy because there are so many aspects to this story deemed irresistible to the media driven modern Britain in which we are so fortunate to live today. Mr Sarwar has the dubious honour of being both Britain’s first Muslim MP, and Britain’s first MP to be driven from office upon pain of death.
When he was elected, to a fanfare of media coverage, Mr Sarwar managed yet another first; he refused to swear allegiance to the Queen, preferring instead the ancient British tradition of swearing his oath upon the Koran, the copy of which, incidentally, was placed inside an envelope lest it “be touched by one not of the faith.” This, unsurprisingly, drew the ire of the racist Right and Mr Sarwar was subsequently threatened by an assortment of organisations, including Combat 18 and the National Front.
This of course is manna to heaven for the British media. The BBC have led the way, camping outside Mr Sarwar’s constituency home, interviewing local Pakistanis who feel “threatened and uncomfortable” and conducting an undercover infiltration of the BNP in order to track down the perpetrators behind the violent threats that have forced a standing British MP to go into hiding for the first time in our modern history.
If you possess a powerful telescope, and train it carefully upon Glasgow, you may well be able to view the events unfolding. Be sure though, to point it at Glasgow, Planet Fantasy, Milky Way 1. If you do not, you will see very little, because this story exists only in the Britain of a parallel universe. Back here on planet reality it is a non-story, indeed almost a non-event. A by-line here, a by-line there, but virtually unreported on television news stations.
The reason for this media blackout is very simple. It is not the National Front, Combat 18 or the BNP who have issued the recent death threats, it is local Muslims themselves, incensed by what they see as his treacherous behaviour in relation to the murder of Kriss Donald, a white Glaswegian, in 2004.
Those of you familiar with the case, or those of a sensitive disposition, need not read the next paragraph. I note the details only because they have a relevance which I will come to later.
Kriss DonaldKriss Donald, a slightly built, 15-year-old schoolboy was abducted from the streets of Pollockshields, Glasgow, on March 14, 2004. His kidnappers were five British Muslims of Pakistani descent, intent on exacting retribution on a white male - any white male would do - following a fight in a night club the previous weekend. Kriss was driven around for several hours whilst he was held down and tortured in the back of the car. He was eventually taken to an area of waste ground where he was finished off. Before he died, it is alleged that he was castrated, burned with cigarettes; his eyes were gouged out and he was stabbed repeatedly. Once on the waste ground he was doused with gasoline and set alight whilst still alive. He crawled a few metres and then, mercifully, died. A walker who discovered his body the following morning was unaware that it was even human, remarking, that at first, he thought it was the carcass of an animal.
Two men were subsequently arrested, but the other three; aware the police knew their identities, fled to Pakistan. The Foreign Office at that time was involved in delicate negotiations with Pakistan over the extradition rights concerning full-blown terrorists, so an unimportant little murder such as Kriss Donald’s was simply a fly in the ointment they did not need. As a result, they did their best to frustrate attempts by the British police to retrieve their suspects.
Enter Mr Mohammad Sarwar, a man with a clearer sense of right and wrong, and a political position with which to do something about it. Mr Sarwar was instrumental in forcing the British government to press ahead with the extradition of the three men, and thus, in the eyes of some British Muslims, committed a crime of such magnitude that only his death could adequately compensate for his treachery.
I apologise for detailing the gory details of Kriss Donald’s torture and murder, but its relevance is shown in the following quotes from Mr Sarwar, printed in the Daily Telegraph:
“Life is not the same since I brought them back…I received threats to my life, to murder my sons, to murder my grandchildren…I was told they wanted to punish my family and make a horrible example of my son… they would do to him what they did to Kriss Donald.”
There were other firsts in the story that should have interested the media. Daamish Zahid, one of the five killers, was the first person in Scotland to be convicted of racially motivated murder, whilst the sheer brutality of the murder itself was unprecedented in Britain. (An issue all too predictably rectified a year later by six black British men who gang raped, tortured and murdered Mary Ann Leneghan.)
But I digress. To recap, Britain’s first Muslim MP is also Britain’s first ever politician to stand down in the face of death threats; threats uttered by followers of the Religion Of Peace who sympathise with the Islamic savages involved in the most horrific racial murder in Britain’s recent history, one of whom, to boot, was also the first “Scotsman” to be convicted of racially aggravated murder.
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but surely there’s a story in there somewhere? I know it is now a tired old clich, but imagine if Mr Paul Boateng, Britain’s first black MP, had been driven from office by a bunch of white, right wing Christian fundamentalists, enraged that he had succeeded in bringing the white killers of the black Stephen Lawrence to justice?
A foolish hypothesis I admit, one could discard the telescope, whilst an investment in blinkers and earmuffs would be necessary to avoid the media hysteria. We are used to the double standards utilised by the media with regard to racial murder, but this time it is different. This is not any old murder, not any old death threats, and Mr Sarwar is not any old person.
When Britain, a first world country, loses a democratically elected politician because he fears for his life, we are entering a wholly new era. Britain is now an Iraq, a Zimbabwe, we are becoming, in political terms, a genuine third world country, and our BBC led media, showing a total disregard for impartiality, has veered from mere bias to dangerous censorship, with all the disturbing implications this portends for our democratic future.
Many political commentators believe that Britain is dead, Lawrence Auster in particular, but he also thinks it can be resurrected. If this is to happen it must happen soon. Our national heart has ceased to beat, our national soul is hovering indecisively above the operating table, the crash team have been called but the politically inclined hospital switchboard have told them there is no problem, that everything is under control. The life support boys have heard otherwise, they are hurrying to get there but other hospital staff members have switched the signage to the operating theatre and killed the lights. It is a big hospital, they only have minutes to get there, they are lost, confused, misinformed, and the clock is relentlessly ticking, and ticking, and ticking…..
Woman Assaulted for Alleging Islam Oppresses Women
Muslim lawmakers attack Taslima Nasreen
HYDERABAD, India (Reuters) - Muslim protesters assaulted the exiled Bangladeshi author and feminist Taslima Nasreen at a book launch in Hyderabad on Thursday, incensed by her repeated criticism of Islam and religion in general.
Some radical Muslims hate Nasreen for saying Islam and other religions oppress women.
On Thursday, lawmakers and members of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen party attacked her at the press club in Hyderabad at the launch of a Telugu translation of one of her novels.
An uneasy-looking Nasreen backed into a corner as several middle-aged men threw a leather case, bunches of flowers and other objects at her head and threatened her with a chair, according to a Reuters witness and television pictures.
Some of the mob shouted for her death.
Other men tried to shield her and catch the projectiles. She ended up with a bruised forehead, and described the attack as barbaric before being taken to safety by police.
Nasreen fled Bangladesh for the first time in 1994 when a court said she had "deliberately and maliciously" hurt Muslims' religious feelings with her Bengali-language novel "Lajja", or "Shame", which is about riots between Muslims and Hindus.
At the time, thousands of radical Muslims protested against her, demanding that she be killed for blasphemy, and some have continued to threaten her life ever since.
Police said they have arrested three state lawmakers from the political party along with 15 party workers.
Nasreen - sometimes spelled "Nasrin" - was born into a Muslim family in Bangladesh, a conservative, predominantly Islamic country.
The author, who lives in Kolkata, now describes herself as a secular humanist, and criticises religion as an oppressive force.
In 2004, a Muslim cleric offered a $440 reward to anyone who was able to successfully humiliate Nasreen by blackening her face with shoe polish or ink or by garlanding her with shoes.
She worked as a doctor before turning to writing, and several of her books have been banned in India and Bangladesh because they upset hardline Muslims.
The European Parliament awarded her the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought in 1994.
Protest against "Islamisation" banned
BRUSSELS (AFP) - Brussels mayor Freddy Thielemans has banned a protest against the "Islamisation" of Europe planned for 11 September, the anniversary of the suicide attacks on the US, his spokesman said Thursday.
The "Stop the Islamisation of Europe" (SIOE) group last month announced its intention to organise a protest in front of the European parliament building, six years after the suicide plane attacks in New York and Washington.
The group, which started in Denmark, considers Islam "a tool for introducing Islamic imperialistic politics."
On its website it argues: "Islam and democracy are incompatible due to teachings within the Koran itself."
The group hopes to bring thousands out onto the streets of the Belgian capital on 11 September. It is organising other protests to take place simultaneously around the world, notably in the United States, Canada and Australia.
But the mayor's spokesman Nicolas Dassonville said: "The danger to public order is too high," to allow the Brussels protest to go ahead.
"The sizeable foreign community living in the area could react to the action," he added.
The city of Brussels authorities receive between 500 and 600 requests to hold protests each year. In the last five years only six have been banned, said Dassonville.
The "Stop the Islamisation of Europe" (SIOE) group last month announced its intention to organise a protest in front of the European parliament building, six years after the suicide plane attacks in New York and Washington.
The group, which started in Denmark, considers Islam "a tool for introducing Islamic imperialistic politics."
On its website it argues: "Islam and democracy are incompatible due to teachings within the Koran itself."
The group hopes to bring thousands out onto the streets of the Belgian capital on 11 September. It is organising other protests to take place simultaneously around the world, notably in the United States, Canada and Australia.
But the mayor's spokesman Nicolas Dassonville said: "The danger to public order is too high," to allow the Brussels protest to go ahead.
"The sizeable foreign community living in the area could react to the action," he added.
The city of Brussels authorities receive between 500 and 600 requests to hold protests each year. In the last five years only six have been banned, said Dassonville.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Musharraf pulls out of peace council
Thanks to Barak Obama's political posturing and off the charts statement about invading a sovereign ally, we have suffered yet another setback in the war against Islamic Terrorism.
KABUL, Afghanistan - Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf pulled out Wednesday from a council of hundreds of Pakistani and Afghan tribal leaders aimed at reining in militant violence.
Pakistan's Foreign Office said Musharraf was canceling his trip to Kabul because of "engagements" in Islamabad. Pakistani political analyst Talat Masood said, however, that Musharraf probably was responding to recent U.S. criticism of Pakistan's counterterrorism efforts, which has included suggestions that the U.S. could carry out unilateral military strikes against al-Qaida in Pakistan.
"He is trying to convey a strong message to the United States. There have been a lot of statements coming out of Washington about violating Pakistan's sovereignty and so on," Masood said.
A U.S. State Department official said the Bush administration was surprised and dismayed by Musharraf's snub, particularly after Karzai repeatedly expressed satisfaction about the meeting during a joint appearance with President Bush on Monday.
State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said it was unclear if Musharraf could be persuaded to reconsider.
"We'll see if President Musharraf is able to attend any portion of the meeting," McCormack said.
The four-day "peace jirga," due to start Thursday, already is being boycotted by delegates from Pakistan's restive South and North Waziristan regions amid fear of Taliban reprisals.
The absence of Musharraf, Pakistan's army chief and most powerful figure, could further undermine its effectiveness.
Pakistan's Foreign Office said that Musharraf had phoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai to say he couldn't attend because of "engagements" in Islamabad, and that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz would take his place.
The idea of the jirga emerged from a September 2006 meeting in Washington of President Bush, Karzai and Musharraf that focused on ways to combat rising border violence.
The Taliban, ousted by U.S.-led forces in late 2001, have stepped up attacks in the past two years. The violence has killed thousands, raising fears for Afghanistan's fledgling democracy. U.S. military and Afghan officials say Taliban militants enjoy a safe haven in Pakistani border regions, particularly Waziristan, where Washington also fears al-Qaida is regrouping.
The 650 delegates — 350 from Afghanistan, and about 300 from Pakistan — will meet in an oversized tent in Kabul that was used for the 2004 loya jirga that created Afghanistan's post-Taliban constitution. The delegates' main focus will be security and terrorism, but they will also talk about economic development and fighting drugs.
Taliban representatives are not involved.
Mohammed Mohaqeq, the No. 2 official for Afghanistan at the jirga, was still optimistic about its prospects because it showed the two governments were cooperating.
"From the Afghanistan side, all the people who hold power are participating," he said.
Masood said, however, that Musharraf's cancellation revealed tensions between the neighbors.
"It shows that the chemistry between Karzai and him (Musharraf) is so poor that he wants to back out at the last minute," he said. "Why call him just hours before the jirga? I don't see why he could not go to Kabul for a few hours."
Critics also say those who have real control over the violence are Taliban and their supporters in the tribal belt and that talks that do not include them could prove to be futile.
"This is only a display, which cannot produce the true views of the Afghan people," Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, secretary-general of Pakistan's pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, which runs the government in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, and is also boycotting.
Afghanistan's delegates, including tribal leaders, lawmakers, businessmen and clerics, were decided on by a 20-member commission approved by Karzai. Pakistan's government selected its delegations, including senior officials, tribal leaders and journalists.
One Pakistani delegate, who will not be attending but requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about it to media, said that in all about 100 of Pakistan's 350 delegates are boycotting, including all of the more than 60 Waziristan representatives.
One elder from South Waziristan, who didn't want to be identified, said he and others would not attend because of threats from Taliban and because of the turmoil on their own doorstep.
"Pakistan government wants us to go to Kabul, but local Taliban don't want us to do it," he said. "We cannot offend these Taliban because they will kill us if we don't obey them." ___
Associated Press writers Sadaqat Jan, Riaz Khan and Ishtiaq Mehsud in Pakistan and Amir Shah in Afghanistan contributed to this story.
KABUL, Afghanistan - Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf pulled out Wednesday from a council of hundreds of Pakistani and Afghan tribal leaders aimed at reining in militant violence.
Pakistan's Foreign Office said Musharraf was canceling his trip to Kabul because of "engagements" in Islamabad. Pakistani political analyst Talat Masood said, however, that Musharraf probably was responding to recent U.S. criticism of Pakistan's counterterrorism efforts, which has included suggestions that the U.S. could carry out unilateral military strikes against al-Qaida in Pakistan.
"He is trying to convey a strong message to the United States. There have been a lot of statements coming out of Washington about violating Pakistan's sovereignty and so on," Masood said.
A U.S. State Department official said the Bush administration was surprised and dismayed by Musharraf's snub, particularly after Karzai repeatedly expressed satisfaction about the meeting during a joint appearance with President Bush on Monday.
State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said it was unclear if Musharraf could be persuaded to reconsider.
"We'll see if President Musharraf is able to attend any portion of the meeting," McCormack said.
The four-day "peace jirga," due to start Thursday, already is being boycotted by delegates from Pakistan's restive South and North Waziristan regions amid fear of Taliban reprisals.
The absence of Musharraf, Pakistan's army chief and most powerful figure, could further undermine its effectiveness.
Pakistan's Foreign Office said that Musharraf had phoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai to say he couldn't attend because of "engagements" in Islamabad, and that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz would take his place.
The idea of the jirga emerged from a September 2006 meeting in Washington of President Bush, Karzai and Musharraf that focused on ways to combat rising border violence.
The Taliban, ousted by U.S.-led forces in late 2001, have stepped up attacks in the past two years. The violence has killed thousands, raising fears for Afghanistan's fledgling democracy. U.S. military and Afghan officials say Taliban militants enjoy a safe haven in Pakistani border regions, particularly Waziristan, where Washington also fears al-Qaida is regrouping.
The 650 delegates — 350 from Afghanistan, and about 300 from Pakistan — will meet in an oversized tent in Kabul that was used for the 2004 loya jirga that created Afghanistan's post-Taliban constitution. The delegates' main focus will be security and terrorism, but they will also talk about economic development and fighting drugs.
Taliban representatives are not involved.
Mohammed Mohaqeq, the No. 2 official for Afghanistan at the jirga, was still optimistic about its prospects because it showed the two governments were cooperating.
"From the Afghanistan side, all the people who hold power are participating," he said.
Masood said, however, that Musharraf's cancellation revealed tensions between the neighbors.
"It shows that the chemistry between Karzai and him (Musharraf) is so poor that he wants to back out at the last minute," he said. "Why call him just hours before the jirga? I don't see why he could not go to Kabul for a few hours."
Critics also say those who have real control over the violence are Taliban and their supporters in the tribal belt and that talks that do not include them could prove to be futile.
"This is only a display, which cannot produce the true views of the Afghan people," Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, secretary-general of Pakistan's pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, which runs the government in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, and is also boycotting.
Afghanistan's delegates, including tribal leaders, lawmakers, businessmen and clerics, were decided on by a 20-member commission approved by Karzai. Pakistan's government selected its delegations, including senior officials, tribal leaders and journalists.
One Pakistani delegate, who will not be attending but requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about it to media, said that in all about 100 of Pakistan's 350 delegates are boycotting, including all of the more than 60 Waziristan representatives.
One elder from South Waziristan, who didn't want to be identified, said he and others would not attend because of threats from Taliban and because of the turmoil on their own doorstep.
"Pakistan government wants us to go to Kabul, but local Taliban don't want us to do it," he said. "We cannot offend these Taliban because they will kill us if we don't obey them." ___
Associated Press writers Sadaqat Jan, Riaz Khan and Ishtiaq Mehsud in Pakistan and Amir Shah in Afghanistan contributed to this story.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Friday, August 03, 2007
Silently Martyred
Missionary blood spills, the world yawns
By Michelle Malkin
The blood of innocent Christian missionaries spills on Afghan sands. The world watches and yawns. The United Nations offers nothing more than a formal expression of “concern.” Where is the global uproar over the human-rights abuses unfolding before our eyes?
For two weeks, a group of South Korean Christians has been held hostage by Taliban thugs in Afghanistan. This is the largest group of foreign hostages taken in Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom began in 2001. What was their offense? Were they smuggling arms into the country? No. Inciting violence? No. They were peaceful believers in Christ on short-term medical and humanitarian missions. Seventeen of the 23 hostages are females. Most of them are nurses who provide social services and relief.
Over the past few days, the bloodthirsty jihadists have demanded that South Korea immediately withdraw troops from the Middle East, pay ransom and trade the civilian missionaries for imprisoned Taliban fighters. The Taliban leaders have made good on threats to kill the kidnapped Christians while Afghan officials plead fecklessly that their monstrous behavior is “un-Islamic.”
Two men, 29-year-old Shim Sung-min and 42-year-old Pastor Bae Hyeong-gyu, have already been shot to death and dumped in the name of Allah. Bae was a married father with a nine-year-old daughter. According to Korean media, he was from a devout Christian family from the island province of Jeju. He helped found the Saemmul Church south of Seoul, which sent the volunteers to Afghanistan.
Across Asia, media coverage is 24/7. Strangers have held nightly prayer vigils. But the human-rights crowd in America has been largely AWOL. And so has most of our mainstream media. Among some of the secular elite, no doubt, is a blame-the-victim apathy: The missionaries deserved what they got. What were they thinking bringing their message of faith to a war zone? Didn’t they know they were sitting ducks for Muslim head-choppers whose idea of evangelism is “convert or die”?
I noted the media shoulder-shrugging about jihadist targeting of Christian missionaries five years ago during the kidnapping and murder of American Christian missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham in the Philippines. The silence is rooted in viewing committed Christians as alien others. At best, there is a collective callousness. At worst, there is outright contempt — from Ted Turner’s reference to Catholics as “Jesus freaks” to CBS producer Roxanne Russell’s casual insult of former GOP presidential candidate Gary Bauer as “the little nut from the Christian group” to the mockery of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith.
Curiously, those who argue that we need to “understand” Islamic terrorists demonstrate little effort to “understand” the Christian evangelical missionaries who risk their lives to spread the gospel — not by sword, but through acts of compassion, healing and education. An estimated 16,000 Korean mission workers risk their lives across the globe — from Africa to the Middle East, China, and North Korea.
These are true practitioners of a religion of peace, not the hate-mongers with bombs and AK-47s strapped to their chests who slay instead of pray their way to martyrdom.
By Michelle Malkin
The blood of innocent Christian missionaries spills on Afghan sands. The world watches and yawns. The United Nations offers nothing more than a formal expression of “concern.” Where is the global uproar over the human-rights abuses unfolding before our eyes?
For two weeks, a group of South Korean Christians has been held hostage by Taliban thugs in Afghanistan. This is the largest group of foreign hostages taken in Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom began in 2001. What was their offense? Were they smuggling arms into the country? No. Inciting violence? No. They were peaceful believers in Christ on short-term medical and humanitarian missions. Seventeen of the 23 hostages are females. Most of them are nurses who provide social services and relief.
Over the past few days, the bloodthirsty jihadists have demanded that South Korea immediately withdraw troops from the Middle East, pay ransom and trade the civilian missionaries for imprisoned Taliban fighters. The Taliban leaders have made good on threats to kill the kidnapped Christians while Afghan officials plead fecklessly that their monstrous behavior is “un-Islamic.”
Two men, 29-year-old Shim Sung-min and 42-year-old Pastor Bae Hyeong-gyu, have already been shot to death and dumped in the name of Allah. Bae was a married father with a nine-year-old daughter. According to Korean media, he was from a devout Christian family from the island province of Jeju. He helped found the Saemmul Church south of Seoul, which sent the volunteers to Afghanistan.
Across Asia, media coverage is 24/7. Strangers have held nightly prayer vigils. But the human-rights crowd in America has been largely AWOL. And so has most of our mainstream media. Among some of the secular elite, no doubt, is a blame-the-victim apathy: The missionaries deserved what they got. What were they thinking bringing their message of faith to a war zone? Didn’t they know they were sitting ducks for Muslim head-choppers whose idea of evangelism is “convert or die”?
I noted the media shoulder-shrugging about jihadist targeting of Christian missionaries five years ago during the kidnapping and murder of American Christian missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham in the Philippines. The silence is rooted in viewing committed Christians as alien others. At best, there is a collective callousness. At worst, there is outright contempt — from Ted Turner’s reference to Catholics as “Jesus freaks” to CBS producer Roxanne Russell’s casual insult of former GOP presidential candidate Gary Bauer as “the little nut from the Christian group” to the mockery of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith.
Curiously, those who argue that we need to “understand” Islamic terrorists demonstrate little effort to “understand” the Christian evangelical missionaries who risk their lives to spread the gospel — not by sword, but through acts of compassion, healing and education. An estimated 16,000 Korean mission workers risk their lives across the globe — from Africa to the Middle East, China, and North Korea.
These are true practitioners of a religion of peace, not the hate-mongers with bombs and AK-47s strapped to their chests who slay instead of pray their way to martyrdom.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
The Muslim Brotherhood Project
The Muslim Brotherhood "Project"
By Patrick Poole FrontPageMagazine.com 5/11/2006
One might be led to think that if international law enforcement authorities and Western intelligence agencies had discovered a twenty-year old document revealing a top-secret plan developed by the oldest Islamist organization with one of the most extensive terror networks in the world to launch a program of “cultural invasion” and eventual conquest of the West that virtually mirrors the tactics used by Islamists for more than two decades, that such news would scream from headlines published on the front pages and above the fold of the New York Times, Washington Post, London Times, Le Monde, Bild, and La Repubblica.
If that’s what you might think, you would be wrong.
In fact, such a document was recovered in a raid by Swiss authorities in November 2001, two months after the horror of 9/11. Since that time information about this document, known in counterterrorism circles as “The Project”, and discussion regarding its content has been limited to the top-secret world of Western intelligence communities. Only through the work of an intrepid Swiss journalist, Sylvain Besson of Le Temps, and his book published in October 2005 in France, La conquête de l'Occident: Le projet secret des Islamistes (The Conquest of the West: The Islamists' Secret Project), has information regarding The Project finally been made public. One Western official cited by Besson has described The Project as “a totalitarian ideology of infiltration which represents, in the end, the greatest danger for European societies . . . MORE>>
"What Western intelligence authorities know about The Project begins with the raid of a luxurious villa in Campione, Switzerland on November 7, 2001. The target of the raid was Youssef Nada, director of the Al-Taqwa Bank of Lugano, who has had active association with the Muslim Brotherhood for more than 50 years and who admitted to being one of the organization’s international leaders.
The Muslim Brotherhood, regarded as the oldest and one of the most important Islamist movements in the world, was founded by Hasan al-Banna in 1928 and dedicated to the credo, “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”
The raid was conducted by Swiss law enforcement at the request of the White House in the initial crackdown on terrorist finances in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. US and Swiss investigators had been looking at Al-Taqwa’s involvement in money laundering and funding a wide range of Islamic terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda, HAMAS (the Palestinian affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood), the Algerian GIA, and the Tunisian Ennahdah.
Included in the documents seized during the raid of Nada’s Swiss villa was a 14-page plan written in Arabic and dated December 1, 1982, which outlines a 12-point strategy to “establish an Islamic government on earth” – identified as The Project. According to testimony given to Swiss authorities by Nada, the unsigned document was prepared by “Islamic researchers” associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
What makes The Project so different from the standard “Death of America! Death to Israel!” and “Establish the global caliphate!” Islamist rhetoric is that it represents a flexible, multi-phased, long-term approach to the “cultural invasion” of the West. Calling for the utilization of various tactics, ranging from immigration, infiltration, surveillance, propaganda, protest, deception, political legitimacy and terrorism, The Project has served for more than two decades as the Muslim Brotherhood “master plan”. As can be seen in a number of examples throughout Europe – including the political recognition of parallel Islamist government organizations in Sweden, the recent “cartoon” jihad in Denmark, the Parisian car-burning intifada last November, and the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London – the plan outlined in The Project has been overwhelmingly successful.
Rather than focusing on terrorism as the sole method of group action, as is the case with Al-Qaeda, in perfect postmodern fashion the use of terror falls into a multiplicity of options available to progressively infiltrate, confront, and eventually establish Islamic domination over the West. The following tactics and techniques are among the many recommendations made in The Project:Networking and coordinating actions between like minded Islamist
organizations;Avoiding open alliances with known terrorist organizations and individuals to maintain the appearance of “moderation”; Infiltrating and taking over existing Muslim organizations to realign them towards the Muslim Brotherhood’s collective goals; Using deception to mask the intended goals of Islamist actions, as long as it doesn’t conflict with shari’a law; Avoiding social conflicts with Westerners locally, nationally or globally, that might damage the long-term ability to expand the Islamist powerbase in the West or provoke a lash back against Muslims; Establishing financial networks to fund the work of conversion of the West, including the support of full-time administrators and workers; Conducting surveillance, obtaining data, and establishing collection and data storage capabilities; Putting into place a watchdog system for monitoring Western media to warn Muslims of “international plots fomented against them”; Cultivating an Islamist intellectual community, including the establishment of think-tanks and advocacy groups, and publishing “academic” studies, to legitimize Islamist positions and to chronicle the history of Islamist movements; Developing a comprehensive 100-year plan to advance Islamist ideology throughout the world; Balancing international objectives with local flexibility; Building extensive social networks of schools, hospitals and charitable organizations dedicated to Islamist ideals so that contact with the movement for Muslims in the West is constant; Involving ideologically committed Muslims in democratically-elected institutions on all levels in the West, including government, NGOs, private organizations and labor unions; Instrumentally using existing Western institutions until they can be converted and put into service of Islam; Drafting Islamic constitutions, laws and policies for eventual implementation; Avoiding conflict within the Islamist movements on all levels, including the development of processes for conflict resolution; Instituting alliances with Western “progressive” organizations that share similar goals; Creating autonomous “security forces” to protect Muslims in the West; Inflaming violence and keeping Muslims living in the West “in a jihad frame of mind”; Supporting jihad movements across the Muslim world through preaching, propaganda, personnel, funding, and technical and operational support; Making the Palestinian cause a global wedge issue for Muslims; Adopting the total liberation of Palestine from Israel and the creation of an Islamic state as a keystone in the plan for global Islamic domination; Instigating a constant campaign to incite hatred by Muslims against Jews and rejecting any discussions of conciliation or coexistence with them; Actively creating jihad terror cells within Palestine; Linking the terrorist activities in Palestine with the global terror
movement;Collecting sufficient funds to indefinitely perpetuate and support jihad around the world; In reading The Project, it should be kept in mind that it was drafted in 1982 when current tensions and terrorist activities in the Middle East were still very nascent. In many respects, The Project is extremely prescient for outlining the bulk of Islamist action, whether by “moderate” Islamist organizations or outright terror groups, over the past two decades . . ."
To read the English translation of The Project, click
here.
Full Article at Front Page Magazine
HAT TIP: AGX-EIE
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Why are we so scared of offending Muslims?
An editorial from Slate Magazine
By Christopher Hitchens
During the greater part of last week, Slate's sister site On Faith (it is jointly produced by Newsweek and washingtonpost.com, both owned by the Washington Post Co., which also owns Slate) gave itself over to a discussion about the religion of Islam. As usual in such cases, the search for "moderate" versions of this faith was under way before the true argument had even begun. If I were a Muslim myself, I think that this search would be the most "offensive" part of the business. Why must I prove that my deepest belief is compatible with moderation?
Unless I am wrong, a sincere Muslim need only affirm that there is one god, and only one, and that the Prophet Mohammed was his messenger, bringing thereby the final words of God to humanity. Certain practices are supposed to follow this affirmation, including a commitment to pray five times a day, a promise to pay a visit to Mecca if such a trip should be possible, fasting during Ramadan, and a pious vow to give alms to the needy. The existence of djinns, or devils, is hard to disavow because it was affirmed by the prophet. An obligation of jihad is sometimes mentioned, and some quite intelligent people argue about whether "holy war" is meant to mean a personal struggle or a political one. No real Islamic authority exists to decide this question, and those for whom the personal is highly political have recently become rather notorious.
Thus, Islamic belief, however simply or modestly it may be stated, is an extreme position to begin with. No human being can possibly claim to know that there is a God at all, or that there are, or were, any other gods to be repudiated. And when these ontological claims have collided, as they must, with their logical limits, it is even further beyond the cognitive capacity of any person to claim without embarrassment that the lord of creation spoke his ultimate words to an unlettered merchant in seventh-century Arabia. Those who utter such fantastic braggings, however many times a day they do so, can by definition have no idea what they are talking about. (I hasten to add that those who boast of knowing about Moses parting the Red Sea, or about a virgin with a huge tummy, are in exactly the same position.) Finally, it turns out to be impossible to determine whether jihad means more alms-giving or yet more zealous massacre of, say, Shiite Muslims.
Why, then, should we be commanded to "respect" those who insist that they alone know something that is both unknowable and unfalsifiable? Something, furthermore, that can turn in an instant into a license for murder and rape? As one who has occasionally challenged Islamic propaganda in public and been told that I have thereby "insulted 1.5 billion Muslims," I can say what I suspect—which is that there is an unmistakable note of menace behind that claim. No, I do not think for a moment that Mohammed took a "night journey" to Jerusalem on a winged horse. And I do not care if 10 billion people intone the contrary. Nor should I have to. But the plain fact is that the believable threat of violence undergirds the Muslim demand for "respect."
Before me is a recent report that a student at Pace University in New York City has been arrested for a hate crime in consequence of an alleged dumping of the Quran. Nothing repels me more than the burning or desecration of books, and if, for example, this was a volume from a public or university library, I would hope that its mistreatment would constitute a misdemeanor at the very least. But if I choose to spit on a copy of the writings of Ayn Rand or Karl Marx or James Joyce, that is entirely my business. When I check into a hotel room and send my free and unsolicited copy of the Gideon Bible or the Book of Mormon spinning out of the window, I infringe no law, except perhaps the one concerning litter. Why do we not make this distinction in the case of the Quran? We do so simply out of fear, and because the fanatical believers in that particular holy book have proved time and again that they mean business when it comes to intimidation. Surely that should be to their discredit rather than their credit. Should not the "moderate" imams of On Faith have been asked in direct terms whether they are, or are not, negotiating with a gun on the table?
The Pace University incident becomes even more ludicrous and sinister when it is recalled that Islamists are the current leaders in the global book-burning competition. After the rumor of a Quran down the toilet in Guantanamo was irresponsibly spread, a mob in Afghanistan burned down an ancient library that (as President Hamid Karzai pointed out dryly) contained several ancient copies of the same book. Not content with igniting copies of The Satanic Verses, Islamist lynch parties demanded the burning of its author as well. Many distinguished authors, Muslim and non-Muslim, are dead or in hiding because of the words they have put on pages concerning the unbelievable claims of Islam. And it is to appease such a spirit of persecution and intolerance that a student in New York City has been arrested for an expression, however vulgar, of an opinion.
This has to stop, and it has to stop right now. There can be no concession to sharia in the United States. When will we see someone detained, or even cautioned, for advocating the burning of books in the name of God? If the police are honestly interested in this sort of "hate crime," I can help them identify those who spent much of last year uttering physical threats against the republication in this country of some Danish cartoons. In default of impartial prosecution, we have to insist that Muslims take their chance of being upset, just as we who do not subscribe to their arrogant certainties are revolted every day by the hideous behavior of the parties of God.
It is often said that resistance to jihadism only increases the recruitment to it. For all I know, this commonplace observation could be true. But, if so, it must cut both ways. How about reminding the Islamists that, by their mad policy in Kashmir and elsewhere, they have made deadly enemies of a billion Indian Hindus? Is there no danger that the massacre of Iraqi and Lebanese Christians, or the threatened murder of all Jews, will cause an equal and opposite response? Most important of all, what will be said and done by those of us who take no side in filthy religious wars? The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant, or neutral, without inviting their own suicide. And the advocates and apologists of bigotry and censorship and suicide-assassination cannot be permitted to take shelter any longer under the umbrella of a pluralism that they openly seek to destroy.
I agree with Mr. Hitchens whole heartedly.
By Christopher Hitchens
During the greater part of last week, Slate's sister site On Faith (it is jointly produced by Newsweek and washingtonpost.com, both owned by the Washington Post Co., which also owns Slate) gave itself over to a discussion about the religion of Islam. As usual in such cases, the search for "moderate" versions of this faith was under way before the true argument had even begun. If I were a Muslim myself, I think that this search would be the most "offensive" part of the business. Why must I prove that my deepest belief is compatible with moderation?
Unless I am wrong, a sincere Muslim need only affirm that there is one god, and only one, and that the Prophet Mohammed was his messenger, bringing thereby the final words of God to humanity. Certain practices are supposed to follow this affirmation, including a commitment to pray five times a day, a promise to pay a visit to Mecca if such a trip should be possible, fasting during Ramadan, and a pious vow to give alms to the needy. The existence of djinns, or devils, is hard to disavow because it was affirmed by the prophet. An obligation of jihad is sometimes mentioned, and some quite intelligent people argue about whether "holy war" is meant to mean a personal struggle or a political one. No real Islamic authority exists to decide this question, and those for whom the personal is highly political have recently become rather notorious.
Thus, Islamic belief, however simply or modestly it may be stated, is an extreme position to begin with. No human being can possibly claim to know that there is a God at all, or that there are, or were, any other gods to be repudiated. And when these ontological claims have collided, as they must, with their logical limits, it is even further beyond the cognitive capacity of any person to claim without embarrassment that the lord of creation spoke his ultimate words to an unlettered merchant in seventh-century Arabia. Those who utter such fantastic braggings, however many times a day they do so, can by definition have no idea what they are talking about. (I hasten to add that those who boast of knowing about Moses parting the Red Sea, or about a virgin with a huge tummy, are in exactly the same position.) Finally, it turns out to be impossible to determine whether jihad means more alms-giving or yet more zealous massacre of, say, Shiite Muslims.
Why, then, should we be commanded to "respect" those who insist that they alone know something that is both unknowable and unfalsifiable? Something, furthermore, that can turn in an instant into a license for murder and rape? As one who has occasionally challenged Islamic propaganda in public and been told that I have thereby "insulted 1.5 billion Muslims," I can say what I suspect—which is that there is an unmistakable note of menace behind that claim. No, I do not think for a moment that Mohammed took a "night journey" to Jerusalem on a winged horse. And I do not care if 10 billion people intone the contrary. Nor should I have to. But the plain fact is that the believable threat of violence undergirds the Muslim demand for "respect."
Before me is a recent report that a student at Pace University in New York City has been arrested for a hate crime in consequence of an alleged dumping of the Quran. Nothing repels me more than the burning or desecration of books, and if, for example, this was a volume from a public or university library, I would hope that its mistreatment would constitute a misdemeanor at the very least. But if I choose to spit on a copy of the writings of Ayn Rand or Karl Marx or James Joyce, that is entirely my business. When I check into a hotel room and send my free and unsolicited copy of the Gideon Bible or the Book of Mormon spinning out of the window, I infringe no law, except perhaps the one concerning litter. Why do we not make this distinction in the case of the Quran? We do so simply out of fear, and because the fanatical believers in that particular holy book have proved time and again that they mean business when it comes to intimidation. Surely that should be to their discredit rather than their credit. Should not the "moderate" imams of On Faith have been asked in direct terms whether they are, or are not, negotiating with a gun on the table?
The Pace University incident becomes even more ludicrous and sinister when it is recalled that Islamists are the current leaders in the global book-burning competition. After the rumor of a Quran down the toilet in Guantanamo was irresponsibly spread, a mob in Afghanistan burned down an ancient library that (as President Hamid Karzai pointed out dryly) contained several ancient copies of the same book. Not content with igniting copies of The Satanic Verses, Islamist lynch parties demanded the burning of its author as well. Many distinguished authors, Muslim and non-Muslim, are dead or in hiding because of the words they have put on pages concerning the unbelievable claims of Islam. And it is to appease such a spirit of persecution and intolerance that a student in New York City has been arrested for an expression, however vulgar, of an opinion.
This has to stop, and it has to stop right now. There can be no concession to sharia in the United States. When will we see someone detained, or even cautioned, for advocating the burning of books in the name of God? If the police are honestly interested in this sort of "hate crime," I can help them identify those who spent much of last year uttering physical threats against the republication in this country of some Danish cartoons. In default of impartial prosecution, we have to insist that Muslims take their chance of being upset, just as we who do not subscribe to their arrogant certainties are revolted every day by the hideous behavior of the parties of God.
It is often said that resistance to jihadism only increases the recruitment to it. For all I know, this commonplace observation could be true. But, if so, it must cut both ways. How about reminding the Islamists that, by their mad policy in Kashmir and elsewhere, they have made deadly enemies of a billion Indian Hindus? Is there no danger that the massacre of Iraqi and Lebanese Christians, or the threatened murder of all Jews, will cause an equal and opposite response? Most important of all, what will be said and done by those of us who take no side in filthy religious wars? The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant, or neutral, without inviting their own suicide. And the advocates and apologists of bigotry and censorship and suicide-assassination cannot be permitted to take shelter any longer under the umbrella of a pluralism that they openly seek to destroy.
I agree with Mr. Hitchens whole heartedly.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
al-Qaeda reportedly sourcing agents for new attacks
Washington, 17 July(AKI)
Al-Qaeda was attempting to use its resurgence in Iraq to sneak agents into the US in a bid to mount fresh terrorist attacks, according to a high-level intelligence report released on Tuesday.
"We assess that its association with [al-Qaeda in Iraq] helps al-Qaeda to energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for homeland attacks," the National Intelligence Estimate said.
The report was prepared by the NIE - which includes 16 US intelligence agencies - for President Bush and the US Congress.
It said the US faced a "heightened threat environment" and that al-Qaeda's operating capabilities were at their strongest level since the 11 September 2001 attacks.
Government officials have expressed concern in the past that the Iraq war was providing a theatre for al-Qaeda to train insurgents and extend the terror network's capabilities.
The report also warned that al-Qaeda was becoming "innovative in creating new capabilities and overcoming security obstacles" while strengthening efforts to sneak operatives into the United States.
"Although we have discovered only a handful of individuals in the United States with ties to al-Qaeda senior leadership since 9/11, we judge that al-Qaeda will intensify its efforts to put operatives here," the NIE said.
"As a result, we judge that the United States currently is in a heightened threat environment."
The report said al-Qaeda was seeking to perpetrate a sensational attack that produced "visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks and/or fear among the U.S. population".
The report also said al-Qaeda was looking to source chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Declassified portions of the completed NIE report were released Tuesday after the classified version was presented to congress.
Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, gave President Bush a special briefing on the report.
In addition to concerns about al-Qaeda in Iraq and the threat of an attack on the United States, the report also said that al- Qaeda had set up a safe haven along the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan from where the terror network's leaders operated.
While the US considers President Pervez Musharraf a key ally in the struggle against al-Qaeda, he is under increased pressure to curb terrorism.
Al-Qaeda was attempting to use its resurgence in Iraq to sneak agents into the US in a bid to mount fresh terrorist attacks, according to a high-level intelligence report released on Tuesday.
"We assess that its association with [al-Qaeda in Iraq] helps al-Qaeda to energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources and to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for homeland attacks," the National Intelligence Estimate said.
The report was prepared by the NIE - which includes 16 US intelligence agencies - for President Bush and the US Congress.
It said the US faced a "heightened threat environment" and that al-Qaeda's operating capabilities were at their strongest level since the 11 September 2001 attacks.
Government officials have expressed concern in the past that the Iraq war was providing a theatre for al-Qaeda to train insurgents and extend the terror network's capabilities.
The report also warned that al-Qaeda was becoming "innovative in creating new capabilities and overcoming security obstacles" while strengthening efforts to sneak operatives into the United States.
"Although we have discovered only a handful of individuals in the United States with ties to al-Qaeda senior leadership since 9/11, we judge that al-Qaeda will intensify its efforts to put operatives here," the NIE said.
"As a result, we judge that the United States currently is in a heightened threat environment."
The report said al-Qaeda was seeking to perpetrate a sensational attack that produced "visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks and/or fear among the U.S. population".
The report also said al-Qaeda was looking to source chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Declassified portions of the completed NIE report were released Tuesday after the classified version was presented to congress.
Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, gave President Bush a special briefing on the report.
In addition to concerns about al-Qaeda in Iraq and the threat of an attack on the United States, the report also said that al- Qaeda had set up a safe haven along the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan from where the terror network's leaders operated.
While the US considers President Pervez Musharraf a key ally in the struggle against al-Qaeda, he is under increased pressure to curb terrorism.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Pity The Poor Palestinians
PITY THE POOR PALESTINIANS
by David Kupelian
They could have lived side by side with the Israelis. But a cruel, conniving, terroristic people have conspired to deny them their birthright, to live in peace and harmony with their neighbors.
The villain, however, is not Israel, whose only crime has been to defend its very right to exist. Rather, it is the heartless and hopelessly corrupt regimes throughout the Middle East, including that of Yasser Arafat.
The Palestinians have been the pawns of totalitarian Arab potentates and powers who have wanted since the day Israel became a nation in 1948 to annihilate it. The Palestinians have served as a bloody battering ram, a bludgeon, a dagger in the hands of unseen Arab leaders who couldn't destroy Israel through successive wars of aggression, and therefore resorted to Plan B -- to destroy Israel a piece at a time through a "Palestine liberation" movement.
Most Arab leaders don't truly care a bit about the Palestinians. As former President Jimmy Carter confessed at a 1979 press conference: "I have never met an Arab leader that in private professed a desire for an independent Palestinian state. Publicly, they all espouse an independent Palestinian state ..."
The truth is, this conflict has never been about land-for-peace. Remember what happened when former Prime Minister Barak, after much arm-twisting by then-President Clinton, agreed in 1999 to give on a silver platter 95 percent of Arafat's negotiating demands?
"The much-vaunted political solution to end the conflict was in fact attempted two years ago at Camp David, and it utterly failed," former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu observed recently. "Arafat rejected a scandalously far-reaching Israeli offer of a sovereign Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, which included half of Jerusalem, and instead chose to unleash this war of terror against Israel."
Before 1948, there was no clamoring among Muslims to possess Jerusalem. Even after the establishment of Israel, after Jordan annexed the West Bank and up until the time it lost it to Israel in an Arab war of aggression against the Jewish state in 1967, there was no international outcry from the Palestinians, or from any other Arabs, for their own state, or for a sacred Jerusalem.
But what about the religious fervor for the Al-Aksa Mosque, the third holiest place for Muslims? Isn't that what drives Palestinians to want Jerusalem as the capital of their hoped-for nation? Mecca, the holiest place to Muslims, and Medina, the second holiest, are mentioned many times in the Koran. But Jerusalem?
There's not even one reference in the entire Koran, nor is there any historical evidence that Muhammad ever went there. The latter-day Palestinian hunger for the Temple Mount -- the holiest site for Judaism -- is like the sudden desire a child has for a toy with which his brother is playing. The first child never particularly paid much attention to that toy before, but now that his brother, whom he has always envied, is happily playing with it, the first boy feels compelled to take it away. The only "happiness" he would obtain by getting the toy, however, is the satisfaction of having deprived his brother of it.
Is it possible that what makes the Al-Aksa Mosque so attractive to the Palestinians is the fact that it is built on the ruins of the holiest site of the Jews, whom they detest?
Here is a bitter truth that none dare speak, but that many know deep down in their hearts. This current generation of Palestinians, so deeply corrupted, so absolutely and profoundly brainwashed from birth, will never -- can never -- live in peace, side by side with Israelis.
It's a strange thing about corruption: It's easy to brainwash and traumatize people -- but it's extremely difficult to undo the damage.
Since the beginning of this current intifada in late 2000 -- which today has escalated well-nigh into all-out war -- I have been writing about the Palestinian love of breeding suicide bombers.
When these stories first appeared, many were incredulous over the notion that high religious and political leaders were encouraging toddlers to become suicidal terrorists. We reported how a popular Sesame Street-like television program called the "Children's Club," complete with puppet shows, songs and a Mickey Mouse character, celebrated violence and terror, teaching Palestinian children songs like, "When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber."
Then came Sept. 11, and the rest of the world learned more than it ever wanted to know about suicide bombers and the insane religious interpretation that justifies such wanton terror and mass murder in the name of Allah.
A generation of Palestinian children has been carefully and heartlessly groomed to look forward to the day they can blow up their precious, God-given bodies in order to destroy innocent Israeli men, women and children.
The Palestinian leadership, comprising Arafat and his political apparatus working in concert with certain Islamic leaders, has brainwashed a generation of beautiful children to become instruments of death, and to believe they are going to heaven as their reward for murdering their innocent brothers and sisters.
Do you have any idea at all just how profoundly and deeply you have to screw up someone's brain to get them to do that?
Sadly, in all likelihood, this damage cannot be undone.
Not only would the current generation of Palestinians be unable to live side-by-side with Israelis in peace. They would not even be able to live side-by-side with themselves.
What do you suppose would happen if Yasser Arafat got his wish and Israel disappeared from the face of the Earth today? That's right, just imagine that all the Jews in Israel simply disappeared overnight -- vanished into thin air.
The Palestinians -- yes, they would march triumphantly into Jerusalem and raise their flag above the city, and so on, acting out their fantasy of liberation. They would celebrate in the streets for days, firing guns into the air. A few overly enthusiastic would-be martyrs probably would blow themselves up with their new explosive belts to mark the occasion.
But before long, the fury, the traumatic hatred that's been injected into them since birth, would again have to express itself. They would turn on each other, or go to war with their Arab neighbors.
"No," you might say, "these people are oppressed. Once the oppressor was gone, so would the reason for their anger."
Wrong. When you continually inculcate such intense hatred, such unquenchable fury, virtually from birth, it literally becomes what you are. It forms your very identity. You can't live without hatred and violence. Do you understand this?
Sure, the anger would likely transmute into some other form, and the sales of suicide explosive belts would certainly fall off sharply. But the insane, warlike culture -- with no enemy to hate and attack any more -- would turn first inward on itself and later on its neighbors.
Nations and tribes are always going to war to redirect the anger of their oppressed and rage-laden people away from each other and onto an outside enemy. The Palestinians would be unable to live without their hatred -- they would have to have something to hate. After all, it's their righteousness, the only kind many of them have ever known since birth.
The Israelis, who took a tiny bit of barren desert wasteland the size of New Jersey and turned it into a blooming oasis of civilization and freedom in the Mideast, have a right to defend themselves against this unrelenting campaign to destroy them -- whatever it takes. And I do mean, whatever it takes.
Courtesy of WorldNetDaily
HAT TIP: AGX-EIE
by David Kupelian
They could have lived side by side with the Israelis. But a cruel, conniving, terroristic people have conspired to deny them their birthright, to live in peace and harmony with their neighbors.
The villain, however, is not Israel, whose only crime has been to defend its very right to exist. Rather, it is the heartless and hopelessly corrupt regimes throughout the Middle East, including that of Yasser Arafat.
The Palestinians have been the pawns of totalitarian Arab potentates and powers who have wanted since the day Israel became a nation in 1948 to annihilate it. The Palestinians have served as a bloody battering ram, a bludgeon, a dagger in the hands of unseen Arab leaders who couldn't destroy Israel through successive wars of aggression, and therefore resorted to Plan B -- to destroy Israel a piece at a time through a "Palestine liberation" movement.
Most Arab leaders don't truly care a bit about the Palestinians. As former President Jimmy Carter confessed at a 1979 press conference: "I have never met an Arab leader that in private professed a desire for an independent Palestinian state. Publicly, they all espouse an independent Palestinian state ..."
The truth is, this conflict has never been about land-for-peace. Remember what happened when former Prime Minister Barak, after much arm-twisting by then-President Clinton, agreed in 1999 to give on a silver platter 95 percent of Arafat's negotiating demands?
"The much-vaunted political solution to end the conflict was in fact attempted two years ago at Camp David, and it utterly failed," former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu observed recently. "Arafat rejected a scandalously far-reaching Israeli offer of a sovereign Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, which included half of Jerusalem, and instead chose to unleash this war of terror against Israel."
Before 1948, there was no clamoring among Muslims to possess Jerusalem. Even after the establishment of Israel, after Jordan annexed the West Bank and up until the time it lost it to Israel in an Arab war of aggression against the Jewish state in 1967, there was no international outcry from the Palestinians, or from any other Arabs, for their own state, or for a sacred Jerusalem.
But what about the religious fervor for the Al-Aksa Mosque, the third holiest place for Muslims? Isn't that what drives Palestinians to want Jerusalem as the capital of their hoped-for nation? Mecca, the holiest place to Muslims, and Medina, the second holiest, are mentioned many times in the Koran. But Jerusalem?
There's not even one reference in the entire Koran, nor is there any historical evidence that Muhammad ever went there. The latter-day Palestinian hunger for the Temple Mount -- the holiest site for Judaism -- is like the sudden desire a child has for a toy with which his brother is playing. The first child never particularly paid much attention to that toy before, but now that his brother, whom he has always envied, is happily playing with it, the first boy feels compelled to take it away. The only "happiness" he would obtain by getting the toy, however, is the satisfaction of having deprived his brother of it.
Is it possible that what makes the Al-Aksa Mosque so attractive to the Palestinians is the fact that it is built on the ruins of the holiest site of the Jews, whom they detest?
Here is a bitter truth that none dare speak, but that many know deep down in their hearts. This current generation of Palestinians, so deeply corrupted, so absolutely and profoundly brainwashed from birth, will never -- can never -- live in peace, side by side with Israelis.
It's a strange thing about corruption: It's easy to brainwash and traumatize people -- but it's extremely difficult to undo the damage.
Since the beginning of this current intifada in late 2000 -- which today has escalated well-nigh into all-out war -- I have been writing about the Palestinian love of breeding suicide bombers.
When these stories first appeared, many were incredulous over the notion that high religious and political leaders were encouraging toddlers to become suicidal terrorists. We reported how a popular Sesame Street-like television program called the "Children's Club," complete with puppet shows, songs and a Mickey Mouse character, celebrated violence and terror, teaching Palestinian children songs like, "When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber."
Then came Sept. 11, and the rest of the world learned more than it ever wanted to know about suicide bombers and the insane religious interpretation that justifies such wanton terror and mass murder in the name of Allah.
A generation of Palestinian children has been carefully and heartlessly groomed to look forward to the day they can blow up their precious, God-given bodies in order to destroy innocent Israeli men, women and children.
The Palestinian leadership, comprising Arafat and his political apparatus working in concert with certain Islamic leaders, has brainwashed a generation of beautiful children to become instruments of death, and to believe they are going to heaven as their reward for murdering their innocent brothers and sisters.
Do you have any idea at all just how profoundly and deeply you have to screw up someone's brain to get them to do that?
Sadly, in all likelihood, this damage cannot be undone.
Not only would the current generation of Palestinians be unable to live side-by-side with Israelis in peace. They would not even be able to live side-by-side with themselves.
What do you suppose would happen if Yasser Arafat got his wish and Israel disappeared from the face of the Earth today? That's right, just imagine that all the Jews in Israel simply disappeared overnight -- vanished into thin air.
The Palestinians -- yes, they would march triumphantly into Jerusalem and raise their flag above the city, and so on, acting out their fantasy of liberation. They would celebrate in the streets for days, firing guns into the air. A few overly enthusiastic would-be martyrs probably would blow themselves up with their new explosive belts to mark the occasion.
But before long, the fury, the traumatic hatred that's been injected into them since birth, would again have to express itself. They would turn on each other, or go to war with their Arab neighbors.
"No," you might say, "these people are oppressed. Once the oppressor was gone, so would the reason for their anger."
Wrong. When you continually inculcate such intense hatred, such unquenchable fury, virtually from birth, it literally becomes what you are. It forms your very identity. You can't live without hatred and violence. Do you understand this?
Sure, the anger would likely transmute into some other form, and the sales of suicide explosive belts would certainly fall off sharply. But the insane, warlike culture -- with no enemy to hate and attack any more -- would turn first inward on itself and later on its neighbors.
Nations and tribes are always going to war to redirect the anger of their oppressed and rage-laden people away from each other and onto an outside enemy. The Palestinians would be unable to live without their hatred -- they would have to have something to hate. After all, it's their righteousness, the only kind many of them have ever known since birth.
The Israelis, who took a tiny bit of barren desert wasteland the size of New Jersey and turned it into a blooming oasis of civilization and freedom in the Mideast, have a right to defend themselves against this unrelenting campaign to destroy them -- whatever it takes. And I do mean, whatever it takes.
Courtesy of WorldNetDaily
HAT TIP: AGX-EIE
Teenaged Girl Sheduled for Decapitation
Father of the convicted Muslim teenage girl to appeal to parents of the dead baby to save her from being beheaded
By Walter Jayawardhana
Colombo, 16 July (Asiantribune.com): Mohamed Sultan Nafeek the father of the 19 year old Sri Lankan girl, who is sentenced to be beheaded in Saudi Arabia said in Colombo that he was scheduled to fly on June 16 to the desert kingdom to appeal to the parents of the baby boy who died while the convicted teenager was bottle feeding him.
"I will ask them to pardon my daughter for the sake of Allah, it was not her intention to kill," Sultan Nafeek said.
Under Saudi Arabian law the victim’s family is entitled to pardon an accused of a crime and spare the Life from being beheaded.
But when the case was taken up in Dawadimi, about 250 miles West of Riyadh the Saudi employers of Rizana Nafeek refused to pardon the poor Sri Lankan Muslim girl and she was sentenced to be beheaded under Saudi Arabian law.
When the alleged crime occurred, Rizana was only a minor of 17 years old and a crooked Sri Lankan job agent had sent her to Saudi Arabia by distorting her age as minors cannot be sent to foreign countries for employment under Sri Lanka law.
She did not get any opportunity to tell the courts what her real age is and under international law a minor cannot be put to death under any kind of circumstances.
Sources close to Nafeek’s family said a Sri lankan Muslim Minister also will be flying with Rizana’s father carrying a special letter from Sri Lanka’s president Mahinda Rajapaksa addressed to the King of Saudi Arabia to intervene in the matter in granting clemency for the girl.
Until the last moment the girl’s father had not received a visa to enter Saudi Arabia but he was with high hopes he would be granted one.
Mohamed Sultan Nafeek, a poor wood cutter from the impoverished Eastern town of Muttur in Sri Lanka, allowed her to go and work in Saudi Arabia as he was unable to build a decent house for his family and they still live in a mud hut without any basic amenities. "We live in abject poverty, we only live in a mud hut which has no proper toilet or a well to draw water. This is what made Rizana to go to Saudi," he said while waiting for his visa in Colombo.
Rizana was employed as a house maid. But in addition to her household chores, babysitting, for which she has had no instructions or training , was also added to her list of duties.
The unfortunate incident occurred while she was bottle feeding the baby.
The Hong Kong based Asian Human Rights Commission said the death was an accident of choking milk because the 17 year old girl’s inexperience. She had also faced a trial without any legal representation being provided.
She had been asked to sign a confession by the Saudi Police, written in Arabic, a language she could not read, admitting to the death of the infant.
Now she has recanted her confession, and the Sri Lanka Embassy said it had been obtained under duress.
Her siblings 15, 12, and 10 naturally terrified by the news their loving sister will be beheaded are praying to Allah that she be saved and having high hopes she would accompany home with their father, Muslim sources said.
Millions of people in Sri Lanka are crossing their fingers thinking the poor family’s prayers will be answered.
If everything fails, like any other common criminal she will be taken to a market square and beheaded as it had happened before umpteenth number of times at least during many hundreds of years in the desert kingdom
By Walter Jayawardhana
Colombo, 16 July (Asiantribune.com): Mohamed Sultan Nafeek the father of the 19 year old Sri Lankan girl, who is sentenced to be beheaded in Saudi Arabia said in Colombo that he was scheduled to fly on June 16 to the desert kingdom to appeal to the parents of the baby boy who died while the convicted teenager was bottle feeding him.
"I will ask them to pardon my daughter for the sake of Allah, it was not her intention to kill," Sultan Nafeek said.
Under Saudi Arabian law the victim’s family is entitled to pardon an accused of a crime and spare the Life from being beheaded.
But when the case was taken up in Dawadimi, about 250 miles West of Riyadh the Saudi employers of Rizana Nafeek refused to pardon the poor Sri Lankan Muslim girl and she was sentenced to be beheaded under Saudi Arabian law.
When the alleged crime occurred, Rizana was only a minor of 17 years old and a crooked Sri Lankan job agent had sent her to Saudi Arabia by distorting her age as minors cannot be sent to foreign countries for employment under Sri Lanka law.
She did not get any opportunity to tell the courts what her real age is and under international law a minor cannot be put to death under any kind of circumstances.
Sources close to Nafeek’s family said a Sri lankan Muslim Minister also will be flying with Rizana’s father carrying a special letter from Sri Lanka’s president Mahinda Rajapaksa addressed to the King of Saudi Arabia to intervene in the matter in granting clemency for the girl.
Until the last moment the girl’s father had not received a visa to enter Saudi Arabia but he was with high hopes he would be granted one.
Mohamed Sultan Nafeek, a poor wood cutter from the impoverished Eastern town of Muttur in Sri Lanka, allowed her to go and work in Saudi Arabia as he was unable to build a decent house for his family and they still live in a mud hut without any basic amenities. "We live in abject poverty, we only live in a mud hut which has no proper toilet or a well to draw water. This is what made Rizana to go to Saudi," he said while waiting for his visa in Colombo.
Rizana was employed as a house maid. But in addition to her household chores, babysitting, for which she has had no instructions or training , was also added to her list of duties.
The unfortunate incident occurred while she was bottle feeding the baby.
The Hong Kong based Asian Human Rights Commission said the death was an accident of choking milk because the 17 year old girl’s inexperience. She had also faced a trial without any legal representation being provided.
She had been asked to sign a confession by the Saudi Police, written in Arabic, a language she could not read, admitting to the death of the infant.
Now she has recanted her confession, and the Sri Lanka Embassy said it had been obtained under duress.
Her siblings 15, 12, and 10 naturally terrified by the news their loving sister will be beheaded are praying to Allah that she be saved and having high hopes she would accompany home with their father, Muslim sources said.
Millions of people in Sri Lanka are crossing their fingers thinking the poor family’s prayers will be answered.
If everything fails, like any other common criminal she will be taken to a market square and beheaded as it had happened before umpteenth number of times at least during many hundreds of years in the desert kingdom
Sunday, July 15, 2007
ISLAMBERG (Upstate N.Y.)
Springtime in Islamberg
Radical Muslim paramilitary compound flourishes in upper New York state
by Paul L. Williams Friday, May 11, 2007
"Situated within a dense forest at the foothills of the Catskill Mountains on the outskirts of Hancock, New York, Islamberg is not an ideal place for a summer vacation unless, of course, you are an exponent of the Jihad or a fan of Osama bin Laden.
The 70 acre complex is surrounded with "No trespassing" signs; the rocky terrain is infested with rattlesnakes; and the woods are home to black bears, coyotes, wolves, and a few bobcats.
The entrance to the community is at the bottom of a very steep hill that is difficult to navigate even on a bright sunny day in May. The road, dubbed Muslim Lane, is unpaved and marred by deep crevices that have been created by torrential downpours. On a wintry day, few, save those with all terrain vehicles, could venture forth from the remote encampment.
A sentry post has been established at the base of the hill.
The sentry, at the time of this visit, is an African American dressed in Islamic garb - - a skull cap, a prayer shawl, and a loose fitting shalwat kameez. He instructs us to turn around and leave. "Our community is not open to visitors," he says.
Behind the sentry and across a small stream stand dozens of inhabitants of the compound - - the men wearing skull caps and loose fitting tunics, the women in full burqa. They appear ready to deal with any unauthorized intruders.
The hillside is blighted by rusty trailers that appear to be without power or running water and a number of outhouses. The scent of raw sewage is in the air.
The place is even off limits to the local undertaker who says that he has delivered bodies to the complex but has never been granted entrance. "They come and take the bodies from my hearse. They won't allow me to get past the sentry post. They say that they want to prepare the bodies for burial. But I never get the bodies back. I don't know what's going on there but I don't think it's legal."
On the other side of the hill where few dare to go is a tiny village replete with a make-shift learning center (dubbed the "International Quranic Open University"); a trailer converted into a Laundromat; a small, green community center; a small and rather squalid grocery store; a newly constructed majid; over forty clapboard homes; and scores of additional trailers.
It is home to hundreds - - all in Islamic attire, and all African-Americans. Most drive late model SUVs with license plates from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The locals say that some work as tollbooth operators for the New York State Thruway, while others are employed at a credit card processing center that maintains confidential financial records.
While buzzing with activity during the week, the place becomes a virtual hive on weekends. The guest includes arrivals from the inner cities of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania and, occasionally, white-robed dignitaries in Ray-Bans from the Middle East.
Venturing into the complex last summer, Douglas Hagmann, an intrepid investigator and director of the Northeast Intelligence Service, came upon a military training area at the eastern perimeter of the property. The area was equipped with ropes hanging from tall trees, wooden fences for scaling, a make-shift obstacle course, and a firing range. Hagmann said that the range appeared to have been in regular use.
Islamberg is not as benign as a Buddhist monastery or a Carmelite convent. Nearly every weekend, neighbors hear sounds of gunfire. Some, including a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, have heard the bang of small explosives. None of the neighbors wished to be identified for fear of "retaliation." "We don't even dare to slow down when we drive by," one resident said. "They own the mountain and they know it and there is nothing we can do about it but move, and we can't even do that. Who wants to buy a property near that?"
The complex serves to scare the bejeesus out of the local residents. "If you go there, you better wear body armor," a customer at the Circle E Diner in Hancock said. "They have armed guards and if they shoot you, nobody will find your body."
At Cousins, a watering hole in nearby Deposit, a barfly, who didn't wish to be identified, said: "The place is dangerous. You can hear gunfire up there. I can't understand why the FBI won't shut it down."
Islamberg is a branch of Muslims of the Americas Inc., a tax-exempt organization formed in 1980 by Pakistani cleric Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, who refers to himself as "the sixth Sultan Ul Faqr," Gilani, has been directly linked by court documents to Jamaat ul-Fuqra or "community of the impoverished," an organization that seeks to "purify" Islam through violence.
Though primarily based in Lahore, Pakistan, Jamaat ul-Fuqra has operational headquarters in New York and openly recruits through various social service organizations in the U.S., including the prison system.
Members live in hamaats or compounds, such as Islamberg, where they agree to abide by the laws of Jamaat ul-Fuqra, which are considered to be above local, state and federal authority.
Additional hamaats have been established in Hyattsville, Maryland; Red House, Virginia; Falls Church, Virginia; Macon, Georgia; York, South Carolina; Dover, Tennessee; Buena Vista, Colorado; Talihina, Oklahoma; Tulare Country, California; Commerce, California; and Onalaska, Washington.
Others are being built, including an expansive facility in Sherman, Pennsylvania.
Before becoming a citizen of Islamberg or any of the other Fuqra compounds, the recruits - - primarily inner city black men who became converts in prison - - are compelled to sign an oath that reads: "I shall always hear and obey, and whenever given the command, I shall readily fight for Allah's sake."
In the past, thousands of members of the U.S. branches of Jamaat ul-Fuqra traveled to Pakistan for paramilitary training, but encampments, such as Islamberg, are now capable of providing boot-camp training so raw recruits are no longer required to travel abroad amidst the increased scrutiny of post 9/11.
Over the years, numerous members of Jamaat ul-Fuqra have been convicted in US courts of such crimes as conspiracy to commit murder, firebombing, gun smuggling, and workers' compensation fraud. Others remain leading suspects in criminal cases throughout the country, including ten unsolved assassinations and seventeen fire-bombings between 1979 and 1990.
The criminal charges against the group and the criminal convictions are not things of the past. In 2001, a resident of a California compound was charged with first-degree murder in the shooting of a sheriff's deputy; another was charged with gun-smuggling' and twenty-four members of the Red House community were convicted of firearms violations.
By 2004
federal investigators
uncovered
evidence that
linked both the
DC "sniper killer"
John Allen
Muhammed
and "Shoe Bomber"
Richard Reid
to the group
and reports surfaced that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was captured and beheaded in the process of attempting to obtain an interview with Sheikh Gilani in Pakistan.
Even though Jamaat ul-Fuqra has been involved in terror attacks and sundry criminal activities, recruited thousands of members from federal and state penal systems, and appears to be operating paramilitary facilities for militant Muslims, it remains to be placed on the official US Terror Watch List. On the contrary, it continues to operate, flourish, and expand as a legitimate nonprofit, tax-deductible charity."
Update on story: June 4, 2007
Suspected terrorists in JFK Airport plot tried to forge connection with Jamaat al-Muslimeen
Update on story: May 22, 2007
"Islamberg" founder Sheikh Gilani blames Doug Hagmann for CFP story
Update on story: May 21, 2007
Islamberg not the only radical Muslim compound flourishing in North America
Update on story:
Blogger who posted CFP Islamberg story had life threatened
More Here: CFP
And Here: Fox Video - Islamberg
And Here: NIN - Video
And Here: worldnetdaily
And Here: Atlas Shrugs
And Here: MosqueWatch
And Here: Jihad Watch
And Here: Citizen Times
And Here: Sayanythingblog
And Here: Daily Comedy
Radical Muslim paramilitary compound flourishes in upper New York state
by Paul L. Williams Friday, May 11, 2007
"Situated within a dense forest at the foothills of the Catskill Mountains on the outskirts of Hancock, New York, Islamberg is not an ideal place for a summer vacation unless, of course, you are an exponent of the Jihad or a fan of Osama bin Laden.
The 70 acre complex is surrounded with "No trespassing" signs; the rocky terrain is infested with rattlesnakes; and the woods are home to black bears, coyotes, wolves, and a few bobcats.
The entrance to the community is at the bottom of a very steep hill that is difficult to navigate even on a bright sunny day in May. The road, dubbed Muslim Lane, is unpaved and marred by deep crevices that have been created by torrential downpours. On a wintry day, few, save those with all terrain vehicles, could venture forth from the remote encampment.
A sentry post has been established at the base of the hill.
The sentry, at the time of this visit, is an African American dressed in Islamic garb - - a skull cap, a prayer shawl, and a loose fitting shalwat kameez. He instructs us to turn around and leave. "Our community is not open to visitors," he says.
Behind the sentry and across a small stream stand dozens of inhabitants of the compound - - the men wearing skull caps and loose fitting tunics, the women in full burqa. They appear ready to deal with any unauthorized intruders.
The hillside is blighted by rusty trailers that appear to be without power or running water and a number of outhouses. The scent of raw sewage is in the air.
The place is even off limits to the local undertaker who says that he has delivered bodies to the complex but has never been granted entrance. "They come and take the bodies from my hearse. They won't allow me to get past the sentry post. They say that they want to prepare the bodies for burial. But I never get the bodies back. I don't know what's going on there but I don't think it's legal."
On the other side of the hill where few dare to go is a tiny village replete with a make-shift learning center (dubbed the "International Quranic Open University"); a trailer converted into a Laundromat; a small, green community center; a small and rather squalid grocery store; a newly constructed majid; over forty clapboard homes; and scores of additional trailers.
It is home to hundreds - - all in Islamic attire, and all African-Americans. Most drive late model SUVs with license plates from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The locals say that some work as tollbooth operators for the New York State Thruway, while others are employed at a credit card processing center that maintains confidential financial records.
While buzzing with activity during the week, the place becomes a virtual hive on weekends. The guest includes arrivals from the inner cities of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania and, occasionally, white-robed dignitaries in Ray-Bans from the Middle East.
Venturing into the complex last summer, Douglas Hagmann, an intrepid investigator and director of the Northeast Intelligence Service, came upon a military training area at the eastern perimeter of the property. The area was equipped with ropes hanging from tall trees, wooden fences for scaling, a make-shift obstacle course, and a firing range. Hagmann said that the range appeared to have been in regular use.
Islamberg is not as benign as a Buddhist monastery or a Carmelite convent. Nearly every weekend, neighbors hear sounds of gunfire. Some, including a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, have heard the bang of small explosives. None of the neighbors wished to be identified for fear of "retaliation." "We don't even dare to slow down when we drive by," one resident said. "They own the mountain and they know it and there is nothing we can do about it but move, and we can't even do that. Who wants to buy a property near that?"
The complex serves to scare the bejeesus out of the local residents. "If you go there, you better wear body armor," a customer at the Circle E Diner in Hancock said. "They have armed guards and if they shoot you, nobody will find your body."
At Cousins, a watering hole in nearby Deposit, a barfly, who didn't wish to be identified, said: "The place is dangerous. You can hear gunfire up there. I can't understand why the FBI won't shut it down."
Islamberg is a branch of Muslims of the Americas Inc., a tax-exempt organization formed in 1980 by Pakistani cleric Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, who refers to himself as "the sixth Sultan Ul Faqr," Gilani, has been directly linked by court documents to Jamaat ul-Fuqra or "community of the impoverished," an organization that seeks to "purify" Islam through violence.
Though primarily based in Lahore, Pakistan, Jamaat ul-Fuqra has operational headquarters in New York and openly recruits through various social service organizations in the U.S., including the prison system.
Members live in hamaats or compounds, such as Islamberg, where they agree to abide by the laws of Jamaat ul-Fuqra, which are considered to be above local, state and federal authority.
Additional hamaats have been established in Hyattsville, Maryland; Red House, Virginia; Falls Church, Virginia; Macon, Georgia; York, South Carolina; Dover, Tennessee; Buena Vista, Colorado; Talihina, Oklahoma; Tulare Country, California; Commerce, California; and Onalaska, Washington.
Others are being built, including an expansive facility in Sherman, Pennsylvania.
Before becoming a citizen of Islamberg or any of the other Fuqra compounds, the recruits - - primarily inner city black men who became converts in prison - - are compelled to sign an oath that reads: "I shall always hear and obey, and whenever given the command, I shall readily fight for Allah's sake."
In the past, thousands of members of the U.S. branches of Jamaat ul-Fuqra traveled to Pakistan for paramilitary training, but encampments, such as Islamberg, are now capable of providing boot-camp training so raw recruits are no longer required to travel abroad amidst the increased scrutiny of post 9/11.
Over the years, numerous members of Jamaat ul-Fuqra have been convicted in US courts of such crimes as conspiracy to commit murder, firebombing, gun smuggling, and workers' compensation fraud. Others remain leading suspects in criminal cases throughout the country, including ten unsolved assassinations and seventeen fire-bombings between 1979 and 1990.
The criminal charges against the group and the criminal convictions are not things of the past. In 2001, a resident of a California compound was charged with first-degree murder in the shooting of a sheriff's deputy; another was charged with gun-smuggling' and twenty-four members of the Red House community were convicted of firearms violations.
By 2004
federal investigators
uncovered
evidence that
linked both the
DC "sniper killer"
John Allen
Muhammed
and "Shoe Bomber"
Richard Reid
to the group
and reports surfaced that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was captured and beheaded in the process of attempting to obtain an interview with Sheikh Gilani in Pakistan.
Even though Jamaat ul-Fuqra has been involved in terror attacks and sundry criminal activities, recruited thousands of members from federal and state penal systems, and appears to be operating paramilitary facilities for militant Muslims, it remains to be placed on the official US Terror Watch List. On the contrary, it continues to operate, flourish, and expand as a legitimate nonprofit, tax-deductible charity."
Update on story: June 4, 2007
Suspected terrorists in JFK Airport plot tried to forge connection with Jamaat al-Muslimeen
Update on story: May 22, 2007
"Islamberg" founder Sheikh Gilani blames Doug Hagmann for CFP story
Update on story: May 21, 2007
Islamberg not the only radical Muslim compound flourishing in North America
Update on story:
Blogger who posted CFP Islamberg story had life threatened
More Here: CFP
And Here: Fox Video - Islamberg
And Here: NIN - Video
And Here: worldnetdaily
And Here: Atlas Shrugs
And Here: MosqueWatch
And Here: Jihad Watch
And Here: Citizen Times
And Here: Sayanythingblog
And Here: Daily Comedy
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