Islamic Totalitarianism: A Manifesto [Archive] - Page 2

Ninjahedge

September 13th, 2007, 10:45 AM

Sounds like a typical religion made by man.

Very ego-centric. The sun, moon and everything around you is subservient to one regal power which noone has seen, spoken to, or interacted with directly.

While I agree about the basic formation of what that link says, that the worshiping of small man-made idols as gods, or representatives thereof, I do not believe that somehow saying that there is one that is the Uber-God is much better.

religion in general seems to be a social dictate that runs parallel (or even perpendicular at times) to the public opinion and social doctrine of the time. What people, in general, believe to be "right" is taken on as a theological mandate and infused with other social constructs substituting dietal authority over any logical basis that might not be easily related to the public.

Logic:

"Wash your hands, feet, face and neck 6 times a day"

"Why?"

"Because it is good for the health of the people. Less disease is spread, you are less likely to have disease yourself, and it is generally good for all."

"Oh, why bother! I am healthy, you should not tell me what to do!!!"

Religion:

"Wash your hands, feet, face and neck 6 times a day"

"Why?"

"Because 'God' said so. Don't and you will go to hell for eternity."

"Oh!!! Where's the nearest faucet!!!!!?"

The more I see and hear about different religious doctrines and tenets from all denominations, the more they seem to be, at heart, a social dictate aimed at enabling a group of people to live together peacefully and with the least disruption.

And man, being the critter he is, then takes this core, this heart, and slowly twists it into whatever shape he, society, or the ones in charge believe this heart should actually resemble.

ablarc

September 13th, 2007, 03:03 PM

Talking to al Qaeda? Don't rule it out, some say

By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent Thu Sep 13, 11:04 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Six years after the September 11 attacks, a few cautious voices are beginning to suggest the unthinkable -- maybe it is time to consider talking to al Qaeda.

The idea will revolt some people and raises obvious questions -- through what channels could such a dialogue take place and what would there be to negotiate?

But proponents say al Qaeda has established itself as a de facto power, whether the West likes it or not, and history shows militant movements are best neutralized by negotiation, not war.

"No insurgency or terrorism has been defeated by warfare or violence," former Anglican church envoy and hostage negotiator Terry Waite said in a debate on BBC World television.
"There are some rational players in al Qaeda but it also attracts the psychotic. We need to seek an entry point," said the Briton, himself a captive in Lebanon from 1987 to 1991.

Jan Egeland, a Norwegian who helped broker secret talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation in the 1990s and later, as a top U.N. official, dealt with warlords and guerrilla leaders from Colombia to Uganda, told Reuters: "I wouldn't rule out speaking to anybody, a priori."

He went on: "It depends on who you speak to, but also what you speak to them about. I'm willing to speak to the devil to help the victims in the depths of hell. If I could have a meeting with al Qaeda where one could impress upon them that they are the biggest anti-Islamic force around, why not?"

ENDLESS STRUGGLE

But Egeland and others point out there are huge obstacles to negotiating with al Qaeda, even if Western governments could overcome their revulsion towards it.

Unlike, say, Colombia's FARC rebels, the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland or the Afghan Taliban, to whom President Hamid Karzai renewed an offer of talks this week, al Qaeda is not so much an organization as an idea.

Its vision -- to create a global Muslim caliphate and convert even the United States to Islam, as its leader Osama bin Laden urged in a video last week -- is a dream that is not confined within national boundaries and leaves no room for compromise, or even realistic discussion.

"Al Qaeda is a universal movement and its demand is universal. It cannot be met by one single government. They're talking about the whole Islamic world from Chechnya to Yemen," said Mustafa Alani, security analyst at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.

Some experts use the terms 'tactical terrorism' and 'strategic terrorism' to differentiate between traditional militant groups, typically fighting for negotiable demands such as political representation or independence, and those like al Qaeda for which perpetual struggle appears an end in itself.

"It's an endless struggle. The principle of jihad will not accept half-solutions. Either you are in the black or in the white. There is no middle ground. You are either a kafir (infidel) or you are a jihadi," said Alani.

CALCULUS OF PAIN

Historically, analysts say, the issue of whether to talk to groups labeled terrorists is usually decisively influenced by the realization that there is no way to defeat them, as in the case of the United States with North Vietnam's Vietcong or South Africa with Nelson Mandela's African National Congress.

"When we can't win a war, we sit down and talk with terrorists and we stop calling them terrorists," said Mark Perry, Washington-based director of Conflicts Forum, which tries to build bridges between the West and political Islam.

So if the war on terrorism fails to beat al Qaeda, might we one day sit down with them?
"I suppose it's thinkable. You'd have to make a pain-pleasure calculus ... how many casualties are we going to be able to sustain?" said Perry, whose organization promotes dialogue with groups like Hamas which -- unlike al Qaeda -- take part in the democratic process.

For Egeland, who now heads the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, one peril of entering negotiations is to confer legitimacy on your opponent, sending a signal that anyone who commits mass murder will be treated as a serious actor.

But he believes there may come a time when cracks appear in al Qaeda and negotiations can help split it further.

"One likely scenario with al Qaeda is that they will indeed become increasingly unpopular in the Muslim world and they will split and there will be back channels (of negotiation) to various of their networks," he said.

"That will be done by religious groups, by Muslim groups working with smaller actors, smaller countries. Middle Eastern countries, perhaps radical countries will be involved, that's the new way of diplomacy. It's not going to be the European Union or the U.S. doing it."

Mohamed

September 15th, 2007, 06:15 AM

Well Ninjahedge,lets talk about logic: Islam Said you should be hard-working to be a successful person, not said you should be be importune to god to be a successful person .
other side,a story in christianity said:
Jesus was walking in desert and he was hungry suddenly he found a tree far from him, he hurried to it, but he found it died he screamed" go to hell" then it's burning.
Logic said:
Jesus was walking in desert and he was hungry suddenly he found a tree far from him, he hurried to it, but he found it died he screamed" be fruiting" then it's fruiting.

Ninjahedge

September 17th, 2007, 10:04 AM

That was not my point Mo.

The religious fable implies divine influence. That saying "do it" and it will be done, not by YOU in particular, but by the "hand of God" and your belief in him/her/it.

The tenet, that you should put your belief INTO life and your own progression through it IS a valid assertion. But placing all of that success on the shoulders of a diety is not the right thing.

People begin to believe that it is not them that control things, but only what they do in the name of their diety. And that is when religious leaders step in and start manipulating things so that we get a whole theological heirarchy (like royalty) where people have to follow the instructions of others only because they are somehow "closer to God" than they are.

Religion follows social guidelines. It goes with the people. But people construct it, set it on its dais, begin worshipping it and forget where it really came from.

The best example would be the Christian Cruisades. Since when did Jesus go around saying that he wanted a militaristic "spreading of his faith" through the land?

From what I can tell, he was a pretty nice guy! The war in his name was made by men.

But this opens up SO MANY different lines of discussion. I just always foound it interesting that so many religious doctrines have seemingly little to do with actual worship of a celestial being and more to do with day to day life.

"God" may work in mysterious ways, but man sure as Hell doesn't! ;)

Mohamed

September 17th, 2007, 11:12 AM

So,if some one wouldn't follow God instructions, he shouldn't follow a religion and be free !

Capn_Birdseye

September 17th, 2007, 01:02 PM

Since when did Jesus go around saying that he wanted a militaristic "spreading of his faith" through the land?
He didn't but Mohammed and many Muslims do. The Islamic terrorist will tell you that it is not what we do, or indeed our policies in the world that offends him, it is the fact that we are not muslims. The fact that we exist as people who have not submitted to Islam is considered an outrage in the eyes of many many muslims. Our very being is unacceptable, because we do not follow the so-called "prophet" Mohammed. They want us dead or to convert. They have been very clear on this, lets not kid ourselves about this fact as we enjoy the comforts of our Western civilised consumer-driven democracies.

Yes, some muslim will say they are angry due to our policy of supporting the only country in the Middle East that respects human right, Israel. At times muslims have blamed terrorist acts as a response to our dealings with Israel. However, even if Israel were to be emptied of Jews tomorrow the muslims would still hate us because we do not follow the koran. We don't bow down and pray to Allah, so for that some muslims hate us and want us dead. We are an abomination to them, a walking talking piece of heretical s**t that should be destroyed.

The only response is to be intolerant to those who are intolerant towards us. We need to fight the backward-looking, intolerant, mysogynistic, aggressive "religion" known as Islam in order to defend what we hold to be true, our Judaeo-Christian values.

Ninjahedge

September 17th, 2007, 03:46 PM

So,if some one wouldn't follow God instructions, he shouldn't follow a religion and be free !

Not necessarily.

He should be of his own mind and realize what is actually happening in the world. He should not depend and rely on the religion itself, or he bears the risk of following things that many prophets/messiahs/whoever, have rejected.

Idols, charms, symbols.

You have to realize that washing your hands and feet are not things that a diety would really care about in any way OTHER THAN TO KEEP YOURSELF AND YOUR BRETHEREN HEALTHY!!!!!

You think, if you were a diety, that you would want to see your subjects in pain from foot fungus? Seriously? Sounds silly, but really. How silly is it?

Most religious doctrine is usually written and created by man in what HE thinks would please his dietal figure. I find it amusing that so many things that we do that only seem to benefit or punish our organic selves is somehow seen to be important in the eyes of an omnipotent being.

I would like to know their "feelings" on this matter. To see whether all the things we do genuinely have importance to these beings.

Ninjahedge

September 17th, 2007, 03:59 PM

He didn't but Mohammed and many Muslims do.

I will stop you right there.

I did not ask what Mohamed did. I said that Jesus NEVER ASKED FOR IT, and yet we had several hundred years of THAT faith killing people.

Hell, we had a whole lot of Protestant/Catholic bloodshed from people who believed in the same forgiving savior over HOW he should be worshiped.

That was my point.

The Islamic terrorist will tell you that it is not what we do, or indeed our policies in the world that offends him, it is the fact that we are not muslims.

And what would the IRA bomber say? Why did David Koresh have guns? Why do so many religions do the same thing in the name of their Deity.

Man does not readily accept other groups, denominations or cultures, especially when those cultures seem to have more than they do. Although that in itself is not a qualifying trait. Hell, man will always fight, or to put it nicely "compete" with other men.

The fact that we exist as people who have not submitted to Islam is considered an outrage in the eyes of many many muslims. Our very being is unacceptable, because we do not follow the so-called "prophet" Mohammed. They want us dead or to convert. They have been very clear on this, lets not kid ourselves about this fact as we enjoy the comforts of our Western civilised consumer-driven democracies.

Lets not kid ourselves with the fact that if THEY had some of those self same comforts, they would be less inclined to sacrifice their lives for the promises of an egotistical zealot using his "savior"s name to give himself power in the eyes of his deprived "followers".

Telling a 16 year old that he will get 72 beautiful women to sleep with him holds a lot more weight than telling Hugh Hefner the very same thing. That is an extreme example, granted, but I hope you get what I am saying...

Yes, some muslim will say they are angry due to our policy of supporting the only country in the Middle East that respects human right, Israel. At times muslims have blamed terrorist acts as a response to our dealings with Israel. However, even if Israel were to be emptied of Jews tomorrow the muslims would still hate us because we do not follow the koran. We don't bow down and pray to Allah, so for that some muslims hate us and want us dead. We are an abomination to them, a walking talking piece of heretical s**t that should be destroyed.

You have to take a few steps back. You are arguing emotionally now and not logically.

Regardless of how YOU feel others viewing us, using terms such as "heretical s**t" shows your unwillingness to rationally deal with the subject.

Israel has blown it. It went militant and shoved too hard. I am not saying I approve of what the Palestinians are doing, but we have said almost NOTHING in support or admonition of any of their recent actions.

We step back and say we support the "good folk" and leave it at that.

Do I know the answer? Hell no. It's like getting the next Google. You think I would be typing here if I actually had a workable plan I could successfully pitch? Not on your life bubbie.

But what I do know is that the reactions, on BOTH sides, have only shaken the hornets nest.

The only response is to be intolerant to those who are intolerant towards us.

That will only get you killed.

We need to fight the backward-looking, intolerant, mysogynistic, aggressive "religion" known as Islam in order to defend what we hold to be true, our Judaeo-Christian values.

I hope you are being facetious, because if you aren't, you are being heretical and hypocritical.

Which cheek are you turning now Christ Follower?

Don't answer.

Capn_Birdseye

September 18th, 2007, 07:24 AM

I will stop you right there. I did not ask what Mohamed did.
You didn't but its highly relevant to the debate.

Hell, we had a whole lot of Protestant/Catholic bloodshed from people who believed in the same forgiving savior over HOW he should be worshiped.

That was my point.
If you are referring to the Northern Ireland situation then it was a political problem rather than a religious problem, (witness how the Catholics & Protestants live together now for example) - the British occupation of the six counties coupled with the historic injustice & cruelty that Britain meted out to the Irish over centuries was the real root of the Irish problem.

Lets not kid ourselves with the fact that if THEY had some of those self same comforts, they would be less inclined to sacrifice their lives for the promises of an egotistical zealot using his "savior"s name to give himself power in the eyes of his deprived "followers".

Telling a 16 year old that he will get 72 beautiful women to sleep with him holds a lot more weight than telling Hugh Hefner the very same thing. That is an extreme example, granted, but I hope you get what I am saying...
I question that rather simplistic assumption. Islam has within it a deep-rooted sense of dying for Allah, as though that in itself will bring them salvation and all the delights of heaven. Now, we as Western-based Christians may poo-poo this idea but I believe its naive to think that Muslims, given the same creature comforts we enjoy, would renounce jihad. As I remember it Osma Bin Laden comes from a multi-billionaire family and could, had he chosen to, enjoy the excesses of his wealth, but he didn't, he gave up all that to live in a cave in Aghanistan or the tribal lands of Pakistan.

You have to take a few steps back. You are arguing emotionally now and not logically.

Regardless of how YOU feel others viewing us, using terms such as "heretical s**t" shows your unwillingness to rationally deal with the subject.
I am not arguing emotionally, although I may be using words/phrases I wouldn't normally use, as an expressive kind of shorthand.

Israel has blown it. It went militant and shoved too hard.
Israel has not "blown it", it is simply defending itself when surrounded by aggressive stop-at-nothing neighbours who are on record as wanting to wipe Israel and the Jewish people off the map!

Which cheek are you turning now Christ Follower?
Don't answer.
I will answer and my answer is this. Every human being has the right to fight to defend himself in the face of unwarranted aggression. Every state has the right to defend itself against those forces that are striving to exterminate it. Should we have rolled over and accepted Hitler & Nazism? Should the USA have sued for peace after Pearl Harbour? There are "just wars" and "just causes" and its only the weak knee-ed wishy-washy soft liberals who try to make excuses of every kind for the excesses of those with evil intent. They'd rather sit on their podgy pink little hands looking down at the floor whilst those with brave hearts defend them and the rest of us with their sweat tears and blood!

Ninjahedge

September 18th, 2007, 09:13 AM

Remove user from ignore list (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/profile.php?userlist=ignore&do=removelist&u=8796)
Capn_Birdseye (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/member.php?u=8796) This message is hidden because Capn_Birdseye is on your ignore list (http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/profile.php?do=editlist).

I told you not to answer. I know better than to read your stuff after you get on a hate-rant Captain.

Now go have a coffee or something. :D

Capn_Birdseye

September 18th, 2007, 11:36 AM

Sorry Ninja if I upset you but some things just need saying. For the record, I don't hate anybody, "hate" is a destructive negative force.

Anyway, enough said, I'm off to get a nice cup of tea and a buttered cream scone with strawberry jam. And maybe, just maybe, a slice of Genoa fruit cake. Yummy!

212

September 18th, 2007, 09:20 PM

If you are referring to the Northern Ireland situation then it was a political problem rather than a religious problem

Are you sure the Mideast isn't a political problem?
Are you sure Northern Ireland wasn't a religious problem?

(witness how the Catholics & Protestants live together now for example) - the British occupation of the six counties coupled with the historic injustice & cruelty that Britain meted out to the Irish over centuries was the real root of the Irish problem.

Aren't the parallels obvious here, too?

Capn_Birdseye

September 19th, 2007, 06:43 AM

I know better than to read your stuff after you get on a hate-rant Captain.
Ninja, I am somewhat surprised and disappointed with you with your subtle but subversive use of the phrase "hate-rant" - in my humble opinion I neither "hate" nor "rant".
I may express views you disagree with, I may even express them in a way that disconcerts you, but never, never, do I express them with hatred in my heart nor with the intention to hector or to rant - even after a long night on the poop deck consuming too many large rum snifters!!

Bob

September 20th, 2007, 08:29 PM

The word "hate" shows up in many of the posts on WNY. Observation.

MidtownGuy

September 21st, 2007, 11:34 AM

yeah, but so does love;)

Capn_Birdseye

September 21st, 2007, 12:36 PM

Beatles - All You Need Is Love - Lyrics

Love, Love, Love.
Love, Love, Love.
Love, Love, Love.

There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game.
It's easy.

Nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time.
It's easy.

All you need is love.
All you need is love.
All you need is love, love.
Love is all you need.

All you need is love.
All you need is love.
All you need is love, love.
Love is all you need.

Nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.

All you need is love.
All you need is love.
All you need is love, love.
Love is all you need.

All you need is love (All together, now!)
All you need is love. (Everybody!)
All you need is love, love.
Love is all you need (love is all you need).

Yee-hai!
Oh yeah!
She loves you, yeah yeah yeah.
She loves you, yeah yeah yeah.

So true ....

Meerkat

September 25th, 2007, 10:17 AM

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2402973.ece

Hardline takeover of British mosques

Almost half of Britain’s mosques are under the control of a hardline Islamic sect whose leading preacher loathes Western values and has called on Muslims to “shed blood” for Allah, an investigation by The Times has found.
Riyadh ul Haq, who supports armed jihad and preaches contempt for Jews, Christians and Hindus, is in line to become the spiritual leader of the Deobandi sect in Britain. The ultra-conservative movement, which gave birth to the Taleban in Afghanistan, now runs more than 600 of Britain’s 1,350 mosques, according to a police report seen by The Times.
The Times investigation casts serious doubts on government statements that foreign preachers are to blame for spreading the creed of radical Islam in Britain’s mosques and its policy of enouraging the recruitment of more “home-grown” preachers.
Mr ul Haq, 36, was educated and trained at an Islamic seminary in Britain and is part of a new generation of British imams who share a similar radical agenda. He heaps scorn on any Muslims who say they are “proud to be British” and argues that friendship with a Jew or a Christian makes “a mockery of Allah’s religion”.
Seventeen of Britain’s 26 Islamic seminaries are run by Deobandis and they produce 80 per cent of home-trained Muslim clerics. Many had their studies funded by local education authority grants. The sect, which has significant representation on the Muslim Council of Britain, is at its strongest in the towns and cities of the Midlands and northern England.

Figures supplied to The Times by the Lancashire Council of Mosques reveal that 59 of the 75 mosques in five towns – Blackburn, Bolton, Preston, Oldham and Burnley – are Deobandi-run.
It is not suggested that all British Muslims who worship at Deobandi mosques subscribe to the isolationist message preached by Mr ul Haq, and he himself suggests Muslims should only “shed blood” overseas.
But while some Deobandi preachers have a more cohesive approach to interfaith relations, Islamic theologians say that such bridge-building efforts do not represent mainstream Deobandi thinking in Britain.
The Times has gained access to numerous talks and sermons delivered in recent years by Mr ul Haq and other graduates of Britain’s most influential Deobandi seminary near Bury, Greater Manchester.
Intended for a Muslim-only audience, they reveal a deep-rooted hatred of Western society, admiration for the Taleban and a passionate zeal for martyrdom “in the way of Allah”.
The seminary outlaws art, television, music and chess, demands “entire concealment” for women and views football as “a cancer that has infected our youth”.
Mahmood Chandia, a Bury graduate who is now a university lecturer, claims in one sermon that music is a way in which Jews spread “the Satanic web” to corrupt young Muslims.
“Nearly every university in England has a department which is called the music department, and in others, where the Satanic influence is more, they call it the Royal College of Music,” he says.
Another former Bury student, Bradford-based Sheikh Ahmed Ali, hails the 9/11 attacks on America because they acted as a wake-up call to young Muslims. This, he says, taught them that they will “never be accepted” in Britain and has led them to “return to Islam: sisters are wearing hijab . . . the lion is waking up”.
Mr ul Haq, the most high-profile of the new generation of Deobandis, runs an Islamic academy in Leicester and is the former imam at the Birmingham Central Mosque. Revered by many young Muslims, he draws on his extensive knowledge of the Koran and the life and sayings of the prophet Muhammed to justify his hostility to the kuffar, or non-Muslims.
One sermon warns believers to protect their faith by distancing themselves from the “evil influence” of their non-Muslim British neighbours.
“We are in a very dangerous position here. We live amongst the kuffar, we work with them, we associate with them, we mix with them and we begin to pick up their habits.”
In another talk, delivered a few weeks before 9/11, he praises Muslims who have gained martyrdom in battle and laments that today “no one dare utter the J word”. “The J word has become taboo . .. The J word is jihad in the way of Allah.”
The Times has made repeated attempts to get Mr ul Haq to comment on the content of his sermons. However, he declined to respond.
A commentator on religious radicalism in Pakistan, where Deobandis wield significant political influence, told The Times that “blind ignorance” on the part of the Government in Britain had allowed the Deobandis to become the dominant voice of Islam in Britain’s mosques.
Khaled Ahmed said: “The UK has been ruined by the puritanism of the Deobandis. You’ve allowed the takeover of the mosques. You can’t run multiculturalism like that, because that’s a way of destroying yourself. In Britain, the Deobandi message has become even more extreme than it is in Pakistan. It’s mind-boggling.”
In some mosques the sect has wrested control from followers of the more moderate majority, the Barelwi movement.
A spokesman for the Department for Communities said: “We have a detailed strategy to ensure imams properly represent and connect with mainstream moderate opinion and promote shared values like tolerance and respect for the rule of law. We have never said the challenge from extremism is simply restricted to those coming from overseas.”

ablarc

October 16th, 2007, 10:07 AM

http://truemuslim.9.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=1734

Eugenious

October 16th, 2007, 10:19 AM

http://truemuslim.9.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=1734

They need to kick all of these hardline islamists out of UK and keep the normal people.

I'm constantly amazing driving by Coney Island how quickly muslims assimilated and americanized in Us. Brooklyn is probably home to one of the largest muslim populations and I'm constantly amazed by how tolerant they are and how all members of different faiths do business with eachother etc.

Where in the world would orthodox jews and devout muslims live together on the same street? they do in brooklyn it's called Midwood.

Jasonik

October 16th, 2007, 03:38 PM

Where in the world would orthodox jews and devout muslims live together on the same street? they do in brooklyn it's called Midwood.

Tehran Iran comes to mind, but why introduce (http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0427/p01s03-wome.htm) inconvenient truths?

Meerkat

October 27th, 2007, 08:19 PM

Now even the dead can't rest in peace in London. This is shocking.

Anger over plan to dig up 350,000 bodies in historic London cemetery for Muslim burial site

By BETH HALE - Last updated at 01:20am on 12th October 2007

It is a peaceful resting place for 350,000 souls - an historic graveyard which now serves as a nature reserve.

But plans are afoot to dig up the ancient graves at Tower Hamlets Cemetery - and reopen it as a 21st century burial site.
Officially it would be known as a "multi-faith" cemetery but it is likely that it would principally answer calls for a Muslim graveyard in the largely-Asian East London borough.

The local newspaper has been bombarded with letters from historians and nature lovers declaring: "There is no way we'll allow them to dig up our ancestors."

But the Labour-controlled council's environment spokesman Abdal Ullah appeared to be in no doubt about the feasibility of the plan when he said: "To preserve the respect and dignity for everyone, I think most of the graves would have to be cleared out and we'd start afresh."

He said a corner of the cemetery would be reserved for Muslims who are buried in shrouds at a depth of 6ft and on their side facing Mecca.

By law, any graves more than 75 years old can be removed.

At the cemetery yesterday, liaison officer Ken Greenway - the only paid member of staff tending the 33-acre site - said he was astonished that anyone would even contemplate such a move.

"I'm against it and I have to stand up for that because of the huge value of this site today," he added.
"It's a beautiful haven for wildlife and people."

The City of London and Tower Hamlets Cemetery was opened in 1841 by an Act of Parliament.
During the Second World War it was bombed five times and some headstones still bear the marks of shrapnel hits.

Other markers have gone altogether, torn down when the graveyard was deconsecrated as a Church of England cemetery by another Act of Parliament in 1966 when it was deemed to be full.

The intention was to create an open space for the public, which led to two bomb-damaged chapels being demolished and a swathe of graves cleared.

In 1986 ownership passed from the Greater London Council to Tower Hamlets and in 1990 the Friends of the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park was set up.

Seven years ago the park became the borough's first nature reserve and it is now tended by 1,600 volunteers.

It is home to 27 species of butterfly, a rare bumble bee, woodpeckers, sparrowhawks and the elusive firecrest.

Some 8,000 schoolchildren visit every year for outdoor nature lessons.

Professor David Bellamy, who is patron of the Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, said: "Tower Hamlets Cemetery is still a place of peace and reflection as it has been since it was saved from becoming just another part of East London's urban sprawl.

"Now in its new guise as a local nature reserve and green lung, people of every colour, creed and kind share their humanity with that of other living things.

"I can only pray that the wisdom of all faiths can together discover the right way ahead for this very special part of East London's heritage."

Last night the council was insisting there were no plans to re-open the park as a cemetery.

"It is a popular and historic nature park and if there were any proposalsto alter the look or the functionality, there would be a full consultation with interested parties," said a spokesman.

However the council admitted it had been looking at "options" for burial sites.
And Lib Dem group leader Stephanie Eaton said she had received a letter from the council chief executive admitting the park was one of the options being considered.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=487017&in_page_id=1770

investordude

October 31st, 2007, 04:31 AM

Pretty much any US college or community everything is fine between Jews and Muslims. It's also true of Canada - I think people live in harmony there too. Irvine, CA is probably the ultimate example that it doesn't really matter very much, except for the occassionally heated college debate - but hey, that's what college is for.

Jasonik, do you see the difference between being tolerated as "people of the book" in Iran with second class rights versus America, where anyone can do anything they want? I bet you think there are no homosexuals in Iran either. I mean, if someone who dislikes America says it, it must be true, because they are liberals and therefore smarter than anyone else, right?

Britain should deport radical noncitizens, but they also need to actually create an inclusive society and encourage assimilation. Stop being politically correct and start focusing on encouraging a sense of belonging to Britain. That's the recipe that works in Canada and the US.

Meerkat

October 31st, 2007, 04:32 AM

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2767252.ece

From the Times 30/10/07.

Lessons in hate found at leading mosques

Books calling for the beheading of lapsed Muslims, ordering women to remain indoors and forbidding interfaith marriage are being sold inside some of Britain’s leading mosques, according to research seen by The Times.
Some of the fundamentalist works were found at the bookshop in the London Central mosque in Regent’s Park, which is funded by the Saudi regime and is regularly visited by government ministers. Its director, Ahmad al-Dubayan, is also a Saudi diplomat and was among those greeting King Abdullah when he arrived in Britain last night for his official state visit.
Extremist literature, including passages supporting the stoning of adulterers and waging violent jihad, was also found on sale at many other mosques regarded as mainstream institutions.
More than 80 books and pamphlets were collected during a year-long project in which researchers visited 100 mosques across Britain.
One book, Fatawa Islamiyah, which urges the execution of apostates, was found in bookshops at Regent’s Park mosque and at the huge East London mosque in Whitechapel. Muhammad Abdul Bari, the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), is the chairman of the East London mosque.
The researchers said that they found further controversial works during visits to mosques in Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Oxford and High Wycombe.
The Times has learnt that five of the books that were acquired by researchers had been also found in searches during Scotland Yard antiterrorist investigations since 2001. About half of the books collected were in English – raising questions about the emphasis placed by the Government in combating extremism by training more English-speaking imams. The other publications were in Arabic or Urdu. The report, The Hijacking of British Islam, is published by the conservative Policy Exchange (http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/) think-tank and was written by Denis MacEoin, a Fellow at Newcastle University and expert on Islamic issues.
The researchers found hardline material at a quarter of the 100 mosques visited during the project.
The report said: “On the one hand, the results were reassuring: in only a minority of institutions – approximately 25 per cent – was radical material found.
“What is more worrying is that these are among the best-funded and most dynamic institutions in Muslim Britain – some of which are held up as mainstream bodies. Many of the institutions featured here have been endowed with official recognition.”
A key theme of the books was a “strident sectarianism” which told Muslims that they should remain separate from other faiths and resist integration. The report stated: “Simply put, these notions demand that the individual Muslim must not merely feel deep affection for and identity with his fellow believers and with all that is authentically Islamic. The individual Muslim must also feel an abhorrence for nonbelievers, hypocrites, heretics, and all that is deemed ‘unIslamic’. The latter category encompasses those Muslims who are judged to practise an insufficiently rigorous form of Islam.” Most books stopped short of calling for violence. But they created a climate of intolerance and contempt for nonMuslims that could be exploited by violent jihadists, the researchers said.
The report called for a radical overhaul of Britain’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, which it argued has a “powerful and malign” influence over British Islam and sponsored the export of fundamentalist Islamic doctrine.
Regent’s Park mosque said that the bookshop on its premises was run by a private company. Yunes Teniaz, of the London Central Mosque Trust, told The Times: “The bookshop is franchised to a separate organisation. These books express their authors’ opinions and not those of the London Central Mosque Trust.”
Inayat Bunglawala, the MCB assistant secretary-general, said: “Bookshops sell a variety of publications and we live in an open, democratic society where it is not illegal to sell books which contain antiWestern views.”

Capn_Birdseye

October 31st, 2007, 05:24 AM

Britain should deport radical noncitizens
If only it was that simple! The European Human Rights Act is the great barrier to adopting the sensible policy you describe - in my view Britain should opt out, in fact it would be even better to opt of the EU altogether. Who wants to be a mere region in what is becoming a centralised European non-democratic super state. The people cannot even vote on it! And when they do as the French & Dutch did, giving a resounding "NO" result the politicians simply renamed the "constitution" a "treaty" and are proceeding with it, despite the fact it essentially remains 95% the same thing albeit under a different name! In Britain Bottler Brown won't even allow us to vote on it despite the fact a promise was given in the Labour manifesto! Democracy in Britain in 2007.

but they also need to actually create an inclusive society and encourage assimilation. Stop being politically correct and start focusing on encouraging a sense of belonging to Britain. That's the recipe that works in Canada and the US.There is no sense any longer of a British identity amongst many people, this has been achieved through massive waves of uncontrolled immigration that is breaking up communities and putting terrible strains of schools, hospitals, housing etc - all part of official Labour policy over the past 10 years and it is really building up problems for the future harmony of our society.

ablarc

October 31st, 2007, 07:34 AM

we live in an open, democratic society where it is not illegal to sell books which contain antiWestern views.”
Advantage Islam.

Meerkat

October 31st, 2007, 09:43 AM

Advantage Islam.

Just to make it clear this was a cut and paste quote from the Times - not my sentiments. My opinion is that all such literature should be banned and those found to be supporting this should be deported. Democratic or not - this is about the survival of our civilization and our culture. No time for sentimental rubbish - it is for the sake of the next generation on non-moslems

Jasonik

October 31st, 2007, 11:18 AM

Jasonik, do you see the difference between being tolerated as "people of the book" in Iran with second class rights versus America, where anyone can do anything they want?Iranian jews involved themselves politically after the revolution and were awarded a seat in parliament (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majlis_of_Iran#Islamic_Republic_-_Islamic_Consultative_Assembly). Obviously in comparing Iran to the US it will come up short, -- (less obvious to me) is the need for all foreign governments to be granted the approval of the US, and therefore allowed to continue. Some (America hating liberals) would say the apartheid conditions suffered by palestinians in Israel are more egregious than those of jews in Iran. I think we can both agree that theocracies and ethnocracies are abhorrent to western egalitarian values.

I bet you think there are no homosexuals in Iran either.Admittedly I don't know much about Iranian society -- which makes demonizing it so much easier for hawkish "freedom spreaders." Should we bomb Salt Lake City because of Mormon attitudes (http://www.lds-mormon.com/hardy.shtml) toward homosexuality? Lay banking sanctions on them?

I mean, if someone who dislikes America says it, it must be true, because they are liberals and therefore smarter than anyone else, right?This type of left/right baiting is fine for axe-grinding demagogues and talk-radio rhetoriticians, but as a form of dialogue -- tiresome. Policy criticism shouldn't be misconstrued as disliking America.

Is there a specific point I represented as "must be true" that in fact isn't?

For you ablarc:

I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too, as an offence against religion; that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. Is this then our freedom of religion? and are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, and what we must believe? It is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not, and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason. If M. de Becourt's book be false in its facts, disprove them; if false in its reasoning, refute it. But, for God's sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we choose.
Thomas Jefferson in a letter (http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/jeff1333.htm) to N. G. Dufief, Philadelphia bookseller (1814) who had been prosecuted for selling the book Sur la Création du Monde, un Systême d'Organisation Primitive by M. de Becourt, which Jefferson himself had purchased.

Meerkat, for you (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/Bebelplatz_Night_of_Shame_Monument.jpg).

investordude

October 31st, 2007, 11:41 AM

Yeah, jasonik, I agree on US intervention in domestic affairs (albeit, I think its their foreign action in Iraq, etc that are causing us irritation). It was the equivalance between Iran and the US on religious freedom that struck me as odd and caused me irritation. If that's not what you're saying, then I guess I have no beef.

capn - I think in Britain, the curious thing is why their immigration has gone so much worse than the US. The debate in the US on Mexican immigration is about whether that's fair to people who waited and whether its economically reasonable for us to pay social services. There's some crime among Mexicans, but really, its absolutely nothing like the radicalism in Britain. Personally, I think the illegal immigration issue will have a happy ending after 2009 in the US. Most people demagoguing on the subject will be gone then. Tom Tancredo won't be missed.

Meerkat

October 31st, 2007, 11:44 AM

Meerkat, for you (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/Bebelplatz_Night_of_Shame_Monument.jpg).

Another apologist for the likes of abu hamza it seems. Try reading the books i have suggested and some of the newspaper articles i have posted - then you may get an idea of the serious situation we in Europe are heading into.

Jasonik

October 31st, 2007, 01:00 PM

Try reading the books i have suggested
That is exactly what I am suggesting -- but I thought you said they threaten "the survival of our civilization and our culture" and "such literature should be banned?"

Should I be allowed to read it or not?

Maybe I should be given a test to determine if I might possibly be succeptible to extremist views such as these, and if I pass the test I'll be issued a temporary license permitting me to access the controlled printed matter. Of course, if I fail the test I will be deported right?

Meerkat

October 31st, 2007, 01:12 PM

^
If you enter the UK and claim asylum, and then spend the next 20 years advocating the destruction and mass murder af all non-moslems, and terrosrist bombing of targets within the UK, then sorry, but yes you should be deported.

Jasonik

October 31st, 2007, 01:41 PM

It was the equivalance between Iran and the US on religious freedom that struck me as odd and caused me irritation.
My original remark was merely to note that observant jews and muslims do co-exist peacefully in a place that would appear to defy the conventional wisdom, being part of the Axis of Evil and all... (a.k.a. Outpost of Tyranny).

Meerkat, I think you missed my point about censorship, book burning/banning.

Oh... I just realized that you already dismissed that as "sentimental rubbish."

Meerkat

November 1st, 2007, 03:18 AM

^

I didn't dismiss your comments as sentimental rubbish. My point is that the literature i suggested you read is not advocating murder, as the books i feel should be banned do - i didn't suggest burning books, simply banning them for our own national security. The fact is that London has been nicknamed Londonistan by anti-terrorist agencies on mainland Europe as extremists have been gived freedom of speech here for 2 decades. The result of this is that now American and British troops are fighting an enemy which has every chance of being born in the UK. Thousands of young men have been radicalised by those who should have been deported years ago, four of whom blew up 52 innocent people travelling to work in 2005 in London. God knows how many they will kill next time, and there is no doubt that there will be a next time. The rod this country has created for its back by allowing these fanatics to spread their perverse ideology will be big indeed.

Jasonik

November 1st, 2007, 01:49 PM

extremists have been gived freedom of speech here for 2 decades.

Silly me... I keep operating under the American mindset that freedoms are a human birthright -- when you are from the old world where the government possesses the sole authority allowing you to speak, read, publish, etc. -- which it inherited from your royal masters.

Is it really any wonder that those seeking a caliphate would see this top-down authoritarian system of subjugation as a keen tool for bringing about their totalitarian ends?

Ninjahedge

November 1st, 2007, 02:59 PM

A nicer way to put it would be this Meer.

You forbid the acquisition , sales, and even possession of certain texts because of "unquestionably offensive or deleterious material" and you are on a VERY slippery slope.

Yes, calling for the death of another is not exactly nice, but look at some of the passages in the Roman Catholic bible and you will see similar verses that would, under that law, force that book to be banned.

Calling for the death of any dictator in any other country would also be questionable, and certainly calls for the death of your own countries leader would not be tolerated in the slightest.

But then, certain other positions of opposition would also become targeted as ill for the public at large. Opposition to certain laws, or bills, or government actions would not be allowed to be printed because, in some obscure extrapolation, someone might die from its suggested course of action.

You start to give communities, and certain leaders both small and large, too much power to control what the public at large is allowed to do and, in a sense, allowed to think.

1984

Now, granted, you should not exactly let hateful material be allowed to be read too soon. In the same manner as pornography (although sex being more natural and less harmful than religion or violence in a lot of cases) these things need to have a solid base to be placed on before giving them to ones that might not fully understand them.

You do not give a 2 year old a motor bike and push him out onto the highway, you do not give the most controversial verses of religious scripture to an elementary school for the kids to do a book report on.

But you also do not forbid its production, sales, distribution, or even public reading (within reason).

ablarc

November 1st, 2007, 04:53 PM

Yes, calling for the death of another is not exactly nice, but look at some of the passages in the Roman Catholic bible and you will see similar verses that would, under that law, force that book to be banned.
Roman Catholic Bible says that?? Heavens to Betsy, it must be different from the King Jmaes, NIV, NAS and others. How did it get that way?

But you also do not forbid its production, sales, distribution, or even public reading (within reason).
Whose reason?

Meerkat

November 2nd, 2007, 03:19 AM

So it seems now that i am an extremist because i feel that the likes of Abu Hamza and his cronies should be outlawed.

From now on i'll keep my opinions to myself.

Capn_Birdseye

November 2nd, 2007, 06:23 AM

So it seems now that i am an extremist because i feel that the likes of Abu Hamza and his cronies should be outlawed.

From now on i'll keep my opinions to myself.
You're no extremist Meerkat, I agree with you on this, and don't be gagged, speak your mind on this important issue.

Ninjahedge

November 2nd, 2007, 11:07 AM

So it seems now that i am an extremist because i feel that the likes of Abu Hamza and his cronies should be outlawed.

From now on i'll keep my opinions to myself.

You are not an extreemist, but there are others that do not believe what you are saying is right.

And Alb, why don't you just read the Old Testament and get back to me. I seem to recall quite a few instances of killing those that did not believe in God as they saw it.

A quick Google produced this:

Deut 13:6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which [is] as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;

13:7 [Namely], of the gods of the people which [are] round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the [one] end of the earth even unto the [other] end of the earth;

13:8 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:

13:9 But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.

http://loprogression.blogspot.com/2006/08/old-testament-says-kill-non-believers.html

(I know, a blog, but still...)

So, that being said, it promotes the death of others that would also reside in the nation. Therefore it is a risk and should be banned.

That's the logic.

saad

November 2nd, 2007, 12:40 PM

Brother,

you talk about the Shiites, but I am a Sunni Muslim

But I will talk about Islam

The brief message concise definition of Islam and urged him to recognize signs on sites for Islam in English

http://www.freewebs.com/katab/1st.htm (http://www.freewebs.com/katab/1st.htm)

How to become a Muslim

http://www.freewebs.com/katab/2nd.htm (http://www.freewebs.com/katab/2nd.htm)

Islam and the objective of life

http://www.freewebs.com/katab/3rd.htm (http://www.freewebs.com/katab/3rd.htm)

The religion of Islam easily

http://www.freewebs.com/katab/4th.htm (http://www.freewebs.com/katab/4th.htm)

Jesus peace be upon him in the Koran

http://www.freewebs.com/katab/5th.htm (http://www.freewebs.com/katab/5th.htm)

Letter advocacy to call Christians to Islam

http://www.freewebs.com/katab/6th.htm (http://www.freewebs.com/katab/6th.htm)

Twelve proof that Muhammad peace be upon him that the Messenger

http://www.freewebs.com/katab/7th.htm (http://www.freewebs.com/katab/7th.htm)

What is the Islam

http://www.freewebs.com/katab/8th.htm (http://www.freewebs.com/katab/8th.htm)

Who is Jesus?

http://www.freewebs.com/katab/9th.htm (http://www.freewebs.com/katab/9th.htm)

We must know this man

http://www.freewebs.com/katab/10th.htm (http://www.freewebs.com/katab/10th.htm)

Capn_Birdseye

November 2nd, 2007, 01:10 PM

Do we really need all of this stuff? In my humble opinion, no.

WebErr

November 2nd, 2007, 01:16 PM

Mohamed, by saying that, you're just proving that Islam is backwards in thinking.

I afraid he is right at most of aspects. U.S. really misusing "right of stronger" in the Mid-East region.
Just understand him: his Motherland is in ruines, U.S. forces using resources of his country without any compensation to native civilians, whole country is at war even now, especially now.
Did you expect any respect from his side? ;)

Ninjahedge

November 2nd, 2007, 01:53 PM

Web, expecting and desiring are two different things.

I do not expect much of anything from anyone, but I do desire a common understanding and a sense of "humanity" to be displayed by all.

WebErr

November 6th, 2007, 02:28 AM

Sometimes "sence of humanity" could stand only rules. Descriptions of "how to make chaos by the rules". Now it is something like etiquette of people, who can do anything everywhere with cover of "we playing by rules".

Today whole world can see how many can crash one not smart man when he is "main player of humanity". "I'm sorry, Americans, but we must humany bomb few countries... We need to do that, it will be humanny for them (by the way, they are not Christians and can't protect theirself)... We will bomb by the humanny bomb and extract their unhumanny oil... God bless America, Democracy, False and Ignorance..."

Why?
Why Democracy, Humanity and Truth stand only few words without meaning?
They are people too. As you are. How can I explain better?!

Mohamed

November 15th, 2007, 01:08 PM

sorry,
The summer holiday has finished since 20 September,
I should back to school and learn more English to be able to reply your posts !!!!!!!!!!!!

See you later !!!!

BrooklynRider

January 20th, 2008, 03:05 AM

Violence fear over Islam film

Counter-terrorism alert as a Dutch right-winger launches a movie that will denounce the Koran

Jason Burke, Europe editor
Sunday January 20, 2008
The Observer (http://www.observer.co.uk/)

The Dutch government is bracing itself for violent protests following the scheduled broadcast this week of a provocative anti-Muslim film by a radical right-wing politician who has threatened to broadcast images of the Koran being torn up and otherwise desecrated. (Doesn't sound too provocative:rolleyes:)

Cabinet ministers and officials, fearing a repetition of the crisis sparked by the publication of cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper two years ago, have held a series of crisis meetings and ordered counter-terrorist services to draw up security plans. Dutch nationals overseas have been asked to register with their embassies and local mayors in the Netherlands have been put on standby.

Geert Wilders, one of nine members of the extremist VVD (Freedom) party in the 150-seat Dutch lower house, has promised that his film will be broadcast - on television or on the internet - whatever the pressure may be. It will, he claims, reveal the Koran as 'source of inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror'. (unlike the Bible :rolleyes:)

Dutch diplomats are already trying to pre-empt international reaction. 'It is difficult to anticipate the content of the film, but freedom of expression doesn't mean the right to offend,' said Maxime Verhagen, the Foreign Minister, who was in Madrid to attend the Alliance of Civilisations, an international forum aimed at reducing tensions between the Islamic world and the West. In Amsterdam, Rotterdam and other towns with large Muslim populations, imams say they have needed to 'calm down' growing anger in their communities.

Government officials hope that no mainstream media organisation will agree to show the film, although one publicly funded channel, Nova, initially agreed before pulling out. 'A broadcast on a public channel could imply that the government supported the project,' said an Interior Ministry spokesman.

Demonstrations are also expected from those opposed to Wilders beyond Holland's Muslim community - a number of left-wing activists have already been arrested - and from his supporters. Members of a group calling itself Stop Islamisation of Europe are planning to travel to Amsterdam. 'Geert Wilders is an elected politician who has made a film, and that he is under armed guard as a result is absolutely outrageous,' said Stephen Gash, a UK-based member, yesterday. 'It is all about free speech.'

In November 2004, anger and violence followed the stabbing and shooting by a Dutch teenager of Moroccan parentage of the controversial film-maker Theo
Van Gogh, a distant relative of the artist.

The attacker said the killing was in response to a film about Islam and domestic violence that Van Gogh had made with the Somalian-born activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, then an MP, which showed images of naked veiled women with lines from the Koran projected over them.

From her self-imposed exile in Washington, Hirsi Ali last week criticised the new film as 'provocation' and called on the major Dutch political parties to restart a debate on immigration that has split Dutch society in recent years, rather than leave the field to extremists.

Wilders announced his plans last November, saying he was making a film to show the violent and fascist elements of the Muslim faith. The maverick politician's remarks about Islam have become increasingly radical. In February last year he said that if Muslims wanted to stay in the Netherlands, they should tear out half of the Koran and throw it away. In parliament he then called for the Koran and Hitler's Mein Kampf to be banned, a proposal that was rejected.

Job Cohen, the left-wing mayor of Amsterdam, echoed Hirsi Ali's words and called for a debate 'so that the moderates can make themselves heard'.
During a visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg last week, Ahmad Badr al-Din Hassoun, the Grand Mufti of Syria, said that, were Wilders was seen to tear up or burn a Koran in his film, 'this will simply mean he is inciting wars and bloodshed ... It is the responsibility of the Dutch people to stop him.'

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2243805,00.html

Meerkat

January 20th, 2008, 06:21 PM

^ Oh no, here we go again. I suppose this means we'll be seeing the Dutch flag burned and trampled on, like the Danish flag a couple of years ago.

Capn_Birdseye

January 21st, 2008, 05:14 AM

Let us not forget the murder of Pim Fortuyn, who dared say that he thought Islam was a "backward" religion! The Islamic fascists are out to destroy Judaeo-Christian society in the Western Europe and impose their own extreme form of intolerant Islam which brokers no dissent. We must be vigilant and defend ourselves in every way possible.

Monday, 6 May, 2002, 21:43 GMT 22:43 UK Dutch far-right leader shot dead

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1970000/images/_1971444_bbc300pim.jpg
Mr Fortuyn had just finished an interview

The Dutch right-wing politician Pim Fortuyn has been shot dead. Fortuyn, 54, was attacked as he left a radio studio in the central Dutch city of Hilversum. He was shot six times and suffered multiple wounds in the head, chest and neck, and died shortly afterwards.

Police said they had arrested a white Dutch man in relation to the killing, but no motive has yet been established.

The maverick politician, who had been campaigning on an anti-immigration ticket, was expected to do well in general elections in nine days' time, picking up at least 15% of the vote.

Ninjahedge

January 21st, 2008, 02:44 PM

Police said they had arrested a white Dutch man in relation to the killing, but no motive has yet been established

CURSE THOSE RADICAL ISLAMISTS!!!!! :rolleyes:

Fahzee

January 21st, 2008, 03:02 PM

Yeah - as I recall Pim Fortuyn was assassinated by a radical animal rights/environmental activist (Not so much PETA as ALF/ELF)

The would make the murderer far left wing, not far right wing like Islamic Fascists - although when you get too far to the left OR right you begin to go full circle.....

Ninjahedge

January 21st, 2008, 03:04 PM

When you go far enough to the left or to the right, you end up in the same position, back to back, looking in opposite directions from the very same spot.

Capn_Birdseye

January 22nd, 2008, 03:38 PM

Yeah - as I recall Pim Fortuyn was assassinated by a radical animal rights/environmental activist (Not so much PETA as ALF/ELF)

Fortuyn killer 'acted for Muslims'

Thursday, March 27, 2003 Posted: 1853 GMT ( 2:53 AM HKT)
http://i.cnn.net/cnn/images/1.gif
AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands -- The man accused of assassinating Dutch anti-immigration politician Pim Fortuyn has told judges he acted on behalf of the country's Muslims.
Volkert Van der Graaf, 33, said during his first court appearance in Amsterdam on Thursday that Fortuyn was using "the weakest parts of society to score points" and gain political power.
Van der Graaf, who is charged with premeditated murder, pleaded guilty to illegally possessing firearms and sending Fortuyn threats before carrying out the attack, the Associated Press reports.

http://www.limitstogrowth.org/WEB-text/pim.html

Jasonik

January 22nd, 2008, 04:04 PM

Published on Monday, January 21, 2008 by The Boston Globe (http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/01/21/islamofascisms_ill_political_wind/)
Islamofascism’s Ill Political Wind
by James Carroll

The unfolding presidential elections are laying bare what the real dangers are in the new American condition. They come not from our political divisiveness, economic uncertainty or military insecurity - but from our religious character as a people, which, in this case, is not positive. Religious intolerance marks one candidate debate after another - a sweeping denigration of Islam. And it is going to backfire.

The code word “Islamofascism” has become a staple of rhetoric. It braces the talk not only of pundits, but of all the major Republican candidates - from the tough guy at one end, Rudy Giuliani, who lambastes Democrats for not using the word or its equivalent, to the “nice” candidate at the other end, Mike Huckabee, who defines Islamofascism as “the greatest threat this country [has] ever faced.”The pairing of “Islam” and “fascism” has no parallel in characterizations of extremisms tied to other religions, although the defining movements of fascism were linked to Catholicism - indirectly under Benito Mussolini in Italy, explicitly under Francisco Franco in Spain. Protestant and Catholic terrorists in Northern Ireland, both deserving the label “fascist,” never had their religions prefixed to that word. Nor have Hindu extremists in India, nor Buddhist extremists in Sri Lanka.

In contrast to the way militant zealotries of other religions have been perceived, there is a broad conviction, especially among many conservative American Christians, that the inner logic of Islam and fascism go together. Political candidates appeal to those Christians by defining the ambition of Islamofascists in language that makes prior threats from, say, Hitler or Stalin seem benign. The point is that there is a deep religious prejudice at work, and when politicians adopt its code, they make it worse.

The Democrats gain little by shaping their rhetoric to appeal to the Republicans’ conservative religious base, but a readiness to denigrate Islam shows up on their side, too. In last week’s debate, moderator Brian Williams put to Barack Obama a question about Internet rumors that claim he is a Muslim. The tone of the question suggested that Obama was being accused of something heinous. He replied with a simple affirmation that he is a Christian. He did not then ask, “And what would be wrong if I were a Muslim?” Had he done so, it seems clear, he would have cost himself votes in the present climate.

The present climate is my subject. In recent years, the public realm has been invaded by a certain kind of narrow Christian enthusiasm, made up partly of triumphalistic self-aggrandizement (exclusive salvation), and partly of the impulse to denigrate other religions, especially Islam. This phenomenon has been centered in, but not limited to, evangelical fundamentalism. The United States cannot have a constructive foreign policy in religiously enflamed regions like the Middle East, northern Africa or South Asia if the American presence in such conflicts is itself religiously enflaming.

Thus, how could the United States advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process if its government upholds, however implicitly, the Christian Zionist dream of a God-sponsored Jewish state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean? Where is the two-state solution then? How, for that matter, is the traditional American commitment to the Jewishness of Israel advanced if the Christian Zionist vision of ultimate Jewish conversion to Jesus is achieved?

The issue is larger. The intellectual and moral paralysis of all major candidates from both parties on the subject of the war in Iraq is mainly a result of their religion-sponsored imprisonment in the Islamofascism paradigm, whether they use the word or not. By emphasizing that the goal of Muslim terrorists is to wage what John McCain calls a “transcendent” war against “us,” candidates miss the most important fact about the conflicts in Iraq and throughout the Muslim world - that militant Muslim zealots are primarily at war with their own people, most of whom they regard as decadent apostates.

As Muslim scholar Reza Aslan observes, Osama bin Laden’s attack on the World Trade Center was more aimed at generating a war of purification within the house of Islam than a war of conquest against “the far enemy” in the West. That strategy worked, sparking exactly the belligerent reaction he wanted, because America’s uninformed, religious prejudice toward Islam was predictable. What Bin Laden could not have imagined was that he would find like-minded partners-in-conflict coming to power in Washington, advancing his religious war, every bit as sure of God’s sponsorship as he.

James Carroll’s column appears regularly in the Globe.

Jasonik

February 12th, 2008, 06:35 PM

The War Against Tolerance

Posted on Feb 11, 2008
By Chris Hedges (http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080211_the_war_against_tolerance/)

Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zachariah Anani are the three stooges of the Christian right. These self-described former Muslim terrorists are regularly trotted out at Christian colleges—a few days ago they were at the Air Force Academy (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/us/07muslim.html?ref=us)—to spew racist filth about Islam on behalf of groups such as Focus on the Family (http://www.family.org/). It is a clever tactic. Curly, Larry and Mo, who all say they are born-again Christians, engage in hate speech and assure us it comes from personal experience. They tell their audiences that the only way to deal with one-fifth of the world’s population is by converting or eradicating all Muslims. Their cant is broadcast regularly on Fox News, including the Bill O’Reilly and Neil Cavuto shows, as well as on numerous Christian radio and television programs. Shoebat, who has written a book called “Why We Want to Kill You,” promises in his lectures to explain the numerous similarities between radical Muslims and the Nazis, how “Muslim terrorists” invaded America 30 years ago and how “perseverance, recruitment and hate” have fueled attacks by Muslims.

These men are frauds, but this is not the point. They are part of a dark and frightening war by the Christian right against tolerance that, in the moment of another catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil, would make it acceptable to target and persecute all Muslims, including the some 6 million Muslims who live in the United States. These men stoke these irrational fears. They defend the perpetual war unleashed by the Bush administration and championed by Sen. John McCain. McCain frequently reminds listeners that “the greatest danger facing the world is Islamic terrorism,” as does Mike Huckabee (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1202064581092), who says that “Islamofascism” is “the greatest threat this country [has] ever faced.” George W. Bush has, in the same vein, assured Americans that terrorists hate us for our freedoms, not, of course, for anything we have done. Bush described the “war on terror” as a war against totalitarian Islamofascism while the Israeli air force was dropping tens of thousands of pounds of iron fragmentation bombs up and down Lebanon, an air campaign that killed 1,300 Lebanese civilians.

The three men tell lurid tales of being recruited as children into Palestinian terrorist organizations, murdering hundreds of civilians and blowing up a bank in Israel. Saleem says that as a child he infiltrated Israel to plant bombs via a network of tunnels underneath the Golan Heights, although no incident of this type was ever reported in Israel. He claims he is descended from the “grand wazir” of Islam, a title and a position that do not exist in the Arab world. They assure audiences that the Palestinians are interested not in a peaceful two-state solution but rather the destruction of Israel, the murder of all Jews and the death of America. Shoebat claims he first came to the United States as part of an extremist “sleeper cell.”

“These three jokers are as much former Islamic terrorists as ‘Star Trek’s’ Capt. James T. Kirk was a real Starship captain,” said Mikey Weinstein, the head of the watchdog group The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (http://militaryreligiousfreedom.org/). The group has challenged Christian proselytizing in the military and denounced the visit by the men to the Air Force Academy.

The speakers include in their talks the superior virtues of Christianity. Saleem, for example, says his world “turned upside down when he was seriously injured in an automobile accident.”

“A Christian man tended to Kamal at the accident scene, making sure he got the medical treatment he needed,” his Web site says. “Kamal’s orthopedic surgeon and physical therapist were also Christian men whom over a period of several months ministered the unconditional love of Jesus Christ to him as he recovered. The love and sacrificial giving of these men caused Kamal to cry out to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob acknowledging his need for the Savior. Kamal has since become a man on a new mission, as an ambassador for the one true and living God, the great I Am, Jehovah God of the Bible.”

This creeping Christian chauvinism has infected our political and social discourse. It was behind the rumor that Barack Obama was a Muslim. Obama reassured followers (http://www.thebostonchannel.com/commitment-2008-barack-obama/15101761/detail.html) that he was a Christian. It apparently did not occur to him, or his questioners, that the proper answer is that there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim, that persons of great moral probity and courage arise in all cultures and all religions, including Islam. Christians have no exclusive lock on virtue. But this kind of understanding often provokes indignant rage.

The public denigration of Islam, and by implication all religious belief systems outside Christianity, is part of the triumphalism that has distorted the country since the 9/11 attacks. It makes dialogue with those outside our “Christian” culture impossible. It implicitly condemns all who do not think as we think and believe as we believe as, at best, inferior and usually morally depraved. It blinds us to our own failings. It makes self-reflection and self-criticism a form of treason. It reduces the world to a cartoonish vision of us and them, good and evil. It turns us into children with bombs.

These three con artists are not the problem. There is enough scum out there to take their place. Rather, they offer a window into a worldview that is destroying the United States. It has corrupted the Republican Party. It has colored the news media. It has entered into the everyday clichés we use to explain ourselves to ourselves. It is ignorant and racist, but it is also deadly. It grossly perverts the Christian religion. It asks us to kill to purify the Earth. It leaves us threatened not only by the terrorists who may come from abroad but the ones who are rising from within our midst.

lofter1

February 12th, 2008, 07:02 PM

Ex-Terrorists Praise John Howard

Australian Islamist Monitor (http://islammonitor.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1&limit=22&limitstart=198)
Written by Wendy Larkson
Friday, 01 June 2007

The Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, has become a hero to a group of ex-terrorists, all former PLO members, who admire his common sense in evaluating Islamic terrorism.

Walid Shoebat (http://www.shoebat.com/) , Kamal Saleem (http://www.newsguests.com/site/guestinfo/44) and Zachariah Anani (http://www.3xterrorists.com/zachariahbio.php) - all former covert operators for the Palestinian Liberation Organisation who now speak out against Islamic radicals - yesterday encouraged other world leaders to follow Mr Howard in being vocal against fundamentalist groups embedded in western nations. (source (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21828402-2,00.html) )

http://www.islammonitor.org/uploads/pics/3xterrorists.jpg
Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zachariah Anani

Walid Shoebat, perhaps the most famous of the three ex-terrorists, who should become as famous as the three tenors in their worldwide missions to expose Islamic ideology, gives talks to universities, schools and various ethnic communities. He says that Australia’s Muslim populations ‘… must adhere to the laws and accept the culture of the nation where they now lived’. If the Australian Muslim community are reeling somewhat from the current visit of outspoken Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was invited to the current Australian Writers’ Festival, they will not be any more pleased with Shoebat’s comments, nor with a cursory examination of his biography.

Jasonik

April 26th, 2008, 05:42 PM

'Jihadist' booted from US government lexicon

Bush administration launches new front in war on terrorism, this time targeting language
Associated Press (http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3535863,00.html)

Don't call them jihadists any more. And don't call al-Qaeda a movement.

The Bush administration has launched a new front in the war on terrorism, this time targeting language.

Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center, are telling their people not to describe Islamic extremists as "jihadists" or "mujahedeen," according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. Lingo like "Islamo-fascism" is out, too.

The reason: Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offense to moderates.

For example, while Americans may understand "jihad" to mean "holy war," it is in fact a broader Islamic concept of the struggle to do good, says the guidance prepared for diplomats and other officials tasked with explaining the war on terror to the public. Similarly, "mujahedeen," which means those engaged in jihad, must be seen in its broader context.

US officials may be "unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims," says a Homeland Security report. It's entitled "Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims."

"Regarding 'jihad,' even if it is accurate to reference the term, it may not be strategic because it glamorizes terrorism, imbues terrorists with religious authority they do not have and damages relations with Muslims around the world," the report says.

Language is critical in the war on terror, says another document, an internal "official use only" memorandum circulating through Washington entitled "Words that Work and Words that Don't: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication."

The memo, originally prepared in March by the Extremist Messaging Branch at the National Counter Terrorism Center, was approved for diplomatic use this week by the State Department, which plans to distribute a version to all US embassies, officials said.

"It's not what you say but what they hear," the memo says in bold italic lettering, listing 14 points about how to better present the war on terrorism.

"Don't take the bait," it says, urging officials not to react when Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda affiliates speak. "We should offer only minimal, if any, response to their messages. When we respond loudly, we raise their prestige in the Muslim world."

"Don't compromise our credibility" by using words and phrases that may ascribe benign motives to terrorists.

Some other specifics

"Never use the terms 'jihadist' or 'mujahedeen' in conversation to describe the terrorists. ... Calling our enemies 'jihadis' and their movement a global 'jihad' unintentionally legitimizes their actions."
.
"Use the terms 'violent extremist' or 'terrorist.' Both are widely understood terms that define our enemies appropriately and simultaneously deny them any level of legitimacy."
.
On the other hand, avoid ill-defined and offensive terminology: "We are communicating with, not confronting, our audiences. Don't insult or confuse them with pejorative terms such as 'Islamo-fascism,' which are considered offensive by many Muslims."

The memo says the advice is not binding and does not apply to official policy papers but should be used as a guide for conversations with Muslims and media.

At least at the top level, it appears to have made an impact. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who once frequently referred to "jihad" in her public remarks, does not appear to have used the word, except when talking about the name of a specific terrorist group, since last September.

The memo mirrors advice distributed to British and European Union diplomats last year to better explain the war on terrorism to Muslim communities there.

It also draws heavily on the Homeland Security report that examined the way American Muslims reacted to different phrases used by U.S. officials to describe terrorists and recommended ways to improve the message.

Because of religious connotations, that report, released in January and obtained by AP this week, counseled "caution in using terms such as, 'jihadist,' 'Islamic terrorist,' 'Islamist,' and 'holy warrior' as grandiose descriptions."

"We should not concede the terrorists' claim that they are legitimate adherents of Islam," the report said, adding that bin Laden and his adherents fear "irrelevance" more than anything else.

"We must carefully avoid giving bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders the legitimacy they crave, but do not possess, by characterizing them as religious figures, or in terms that may make them seem to be noble in the eyes of some," it said.

Jasonik

September 15th, 2008, 08:43 AM

Swing-State newspapers distribute 'terror' videos

Diane Sweet
Published: Saturday September 13, 2008 (http://rawstory.com/news/2008/SwingState_newspapers_distribute_terror_videos_091 3.html)

A 60-minute DVD, titled "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsession:_Radical_Islam's_War_Against_the_West)," is being distributed in millions of newspapers across the country this week primarily in swing states through an advertising purchase by a shadowy group called the Clarion Fund (http://clarionfund.org/).

Editor & Publisher reports (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003849746):

"Despite some protests from Muslim and liberal activists, the newspapers -- all hard hit by drops in ad revenue in recent months -- have explained that the DVD does not violate their usual standards; see our exchange with The New York Times below. A spokesperson there said the Times last Sunday inserted 145,000 DVDs in its papers delivered in the following markets: Denver, Miami/Palm Beach, Tampa, Orlando, Detroit, Kansas City, St Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee/Madison. Note: These are all in swing states.

The documentary showcases scenes of Muslim children being encouraged to become suicide bombers, interspersed with shots of Nazi rallies. 'The threat of Radical Islam is the most important issue facing us today,'' reads the sleeve of the DVD. ''But it's a topic that neither the presidential candidates nor the media are discussing openly. It's our responsibility to ensure we can all make an informed vote in November.''

It was shown on Fox News just before the 2006 mid-term elections, and conservative activist David Horowitz screened the film on college campuses during 2007. An article at the group's site, www.radicalislam.org, endorsed John McCain as the strongest candidate this past week, then was pulled down. The DVD carries on-screen text near the outset that it is not indicting most Muslims."

Via Eric Ose (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erik-ose/pro-mccain-group-dumping_b_125969.html), here's a state-by-state list of most of the other 70 newspapers in swing states that have agreed to deliver this dvd to their subscribers:

Colorado - Boulder Daily Camera, Centennial Citizen, Denver Post, Fort Collins Coloradoan, Greeley Tribune

Iowa - Daily Nonpareil, Des Moines Register, Iowa City Press Citizen, Quad City Times, Sioux City Journal

Indiana - South Bend Tribune

Florida - Daily Commercial, Florida Times-Union, Ft. Lauderdale El Sentinel, Ft. Myers News Press, Miami Herald, Ocala Star Banner, Orlando Sun Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Tampa Tribune, Tallahassee Democrat, St. Petersburg Times, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Michigan - Detroit Free-Press, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Lansing State Journal

Missouri - Springfield News-Leader

Nevada - Las Vegas Review-Journal/Sun, Nevada Appeal, Reno Gazette-Journal

New Hampshire - Portsmouth Herald News, Union Leader

New Mexico - Clovis News Journal, Hobbs News-Sun, Rio Rancho Observer

Ohio - Columbus Dispatch, Dayton Daily News, Middletown Journal, Morning Journal, Toledo Blade, Youngstown Vindicator

North Carolina - Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News & Observer

Pennsylvania - Bucks Co. Courier Times, Erie Times-News, Morning Call, Philadelphia Inquirer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Reading Eagle, The Patriot-News

Virginia - Sun-Gazette, Virginian-Pilot

Wisconsin - Green Bay Press-Gazette, Janesville Gazette, Journal Times, La Crosse Tribune, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

The following is a video clip of the 60 minute film, 'Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDPzPgkr4vk

Jasonik

December 5th, 2008, 12:37 PM

Regarding the above film Obsession see this (http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=199), this (http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=201), and this (http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=202).

Jasonik

December 5th, 2008, 12:41 PM

Washington Arrogance Has Fomented a Muslim Revolution

December 5, 2008
by Paul Craig Roberts (http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts259.html)

"In a government of law, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."

~ Justice Louis Brandeis
Is Pakistan responsible for the Mumbai attack in India? No.

Is India’s repression of its Muslim minority responsible? No.

Is the United States government responsible? Yes.

The attack on Mumbai required radicalized Muslims. Radicalized Muslims resulted from the US overthrowing the elected government in Iran and imposing the Shah; from the US stationing troops in Saudi Arabia; from the US invading and attempting to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, bombing weddings, funerals, and children’s soccer games; from the US violating international and US law by torturing its Muslim victims; from the US enlisting Pakistan in its war against the Taliban; from the US violating Pakistan’s sovereignty by conducting military operations on Pakistani territory, killing Pakistani civilians; from the US government supporting a half century of Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their lands, towns and villages; from the assault of American culture on Muslim values; from the US purchasing the government of Egypt to act as its puppet; from US arrogance that America is the supreme arbiter of morality.

As Justice Brandeis said, crime is contagious. Government teaches by example, and America’s example is lawlessness. America’s brutal crimes against the Muslim world have invited every Muslim to become a law unto himself – a revolutionary. It is not terror that Washington confronts but revolution.

By illegal, uncivilized and undiplomatic behavior, the US has stirred Muslim peoples from their long slumber as serfs of Western colonial powers. Some Muslims have had all that they can take, and their fury drives them to rouse a billion of their fellows to throw off the yoke of foreign hegemony.

The arrogant incompetence of American governments brought this conflict to the American people and inflicted it upon the world. By destabilizing Pakistan, the US lost a puppet and created an opportunity for Muslim revolutionaries to exploit. By enraging India against Pakistan, the Mumbai attack has created new problems for Pakistan that will focus that government’s attention away from combating Taliban sanctuaries on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. If the US picks up the slack, it will have invaded yet another country and become trapped in a larger quagmire.

Having fomented terrorism, the American government now pretends to be the innocent victim, just as Israelis, having brought about terrorism by driving Palestinians from their homes and villages, pretend to be innocent victims.

Today European members of NATO, an outdated organization formed to defend Western Europe against Soviet invasion, are sacrificing the lives of their soldiers fighting the American Empire’s war in Afghanistan. If America continues to have its way, Europeans will soon be dying in Ukraine, Georgia, and Iran.

The American government, which preaches "freedom and democracy" has in the 21st century gone to great extremes to stamp out the US Constitution and the civil liberties that it guarantees. The US government has repudiated the Geneva Conventions and the prohibitions in US statutory law against torture. The US government has set aside habeas corpus, the ancient legal principle guaranteed by the US Constitution that prohibits governments from holding people in prisons without presenting charges. The US government has broken the laws of other nations by kidnapping foreign citizens and transporting them to other lands to be tortured.

These massive crimes have been justified in the name of the "war on terror." In truth, America’s crimes foment revolution.

It was the US government that created the "war on terror," which has been used to murder and dispossess millions of Iraqis and Afghans, to imprison US citizens as if they were medieval serfs, and to squander three trillion dollars for the sole purpose of enriching Halliburton and the military-security complex.

Investigative journalist John Pilger has shown that the so-called "moral superiority of the West" is a hoax designed to shield from view the self-seeking West’s crimes against humanity.

Obama promised change from this destructive behavior, but how does change arise when the most arrogant woman on earth is appointed Secretary of State and the rest of the new government is staffed with tried-and-true Likudniks and servants of the military-security complex?

The change over which Obama will preside will have no American victories. The change will come from America as a failed state, from the dollar dethroned as reserve currency, from America repudiated by its allies and paid puppets, from massive unemployment for which there is no solution, from hyperinflation that produces anarchy.

The day might arrive when Washington is faced with revolution at home as well as abroad.

Paul Craig Roberts [send him mail (paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com)] a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, has been reporting shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions (http://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Good-Intentions-Prosecutors-Constitution/dp/0307396061/lewrockwell/), co-authored with Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how Americans lost the protection of law, has just been released by Random House.

Copyright © 2008 Creators Syndicate

Ninjahedge

December 5th, 2008, 02:32 PM

Yep.

It's all our fault.

Not that I disagree on many points brought up, but I am tired of the fact that it seems like the only people we listen to are either shouting that it is all on us, or that we are the saviors.

We just don't listen to the practical middlemen anymore.

ablarc

December 5th, 2008, 03:17 PM

That article projects a frantic level of overstatement. Such hyperbole is rarely encountered in American journalism. Thus it reads like propaganda.

Too bad, because many of the author's points are valid and would have more traction if less hysterically presented.

Jasonik

December 5th, 2008, 03:52 PM

Ninjahedge

December 5th, 2008, 05:53 PM

More traction with who? People who believe the opposite demagoguery, that there's a dark eyed assassin under every rock ready to cut off our heads? Would some trusted 'moderate' talking head like David Brooks deign to entertain the notions Roberts lays out -- much less speak them?

People like me and abl.

Neither of us are as you describe, both of us agree with the points made, but we both do not like the way it was presented.

It is one thing to call a person overweight, but another to call them a fat grotesque abomination brought on by selfish overindulgence.

They both may have the same meaning, but they definitely will be received differently not only by the person being addressed, but all those within earshot.

Is it even possible to lay out the above points without being accused of hating America by some indignant self-righteous terror warrior?

No. But does that mean you can't? Since when is an arsehole on one side justified being an arse on the other?

I think the author has it right insofar as indicting our entire military/intelligence/political/diplomatic machinery for Islamic radicalisation has a better probability of finding bloody hands that carpet bombing a middle eastern neighborhood or invading and occupying a sovereign nation.

?

I am confused at your context. I think I know what you are saying with this, but something may be worded a bit differently than you intended...

Could you please clarify?

Jasonik

December 5th, 2008, 06:56 PM

I am not with America's 'War on Terror,' ergo; I am with the terrorists.

Simple really.

Yes I did misfinger a word. It should read:

I think the author has it right insofar as indicting our entire military/intelligence/political/diplomatic machinery for Islamic radicalisation has a better probability of finding bloody hands than carpet bombing a middle eastern neighborhood or invading and occupying a sovereign nation.

Jasonik

June 9th, 2009, 12:09 PM

What if Osama Calls Obama’s Bluff?

by Michael Scheuer, June 09, 2009 (http://original.antiwar.com/scheuer/2009/06/08/what-if-osama/)

As is the custom of American interventionists, President Obama spoke in Cairo as if our Islamist enemies have no vote in how their conflict with the United States will henceforth proceed. The adolescent geniuses who wrote Obama’s speech apparently spent no time at all perusing what Osama bin Laden and other Islamists have said or written over the past 13 years, and especially since 2001. At repeated points in that corpus of material, for example, bin Laden has offered a truce to the United States and its allies on terms eerily similar to those Obama described in Cairo as the intentions of his administration.

Complete U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.
No residual U.S. military bases in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
Self-determination for Muslim peoples now ruled by tyrants.
Termination of Israel’s gradual but unending thievery of Palestinian territory.
U.S. and Western recognition that all Muslims belong to one nation, or ummah, and that the post-World War I subdivision of the ummah into nation-states is a Western-imposed contrivance for subjugating Muslims.

Now let us be clear. Obama’s Cairo positions are not optimal for bin Laden; they leave untouched, for example, such core demands as the removal of the U.S. military and civilian presence from the Arabian Peninsula and annihilation of the state of Israel. Still, the president’s stated intentions give al-Qaeda’s leadership not just food for thought, but also perhaps an opportunity to allow ordinary Muslims to judge for themselves whether the president’s offer of a "partnership" with Islam will be matched with deeds, or whether it is just more noxious Wilsonian piety covering the standard U.S. interventionist agenda.

In the weeks ahead, then, it is possible that the White House will hear directly from Osama bin Laden and find that the al-Qaeda chief has posed a formidable problem for Obama and his band of Islam-ignorant advisers, as well as for our interventionist elite generally. If so, bin Laden’s statement might run something like the following:

In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.

Having studied President Obama’s speech in the Mubarak-controlled prison for Muslims that is called Egypt, we retain serious doubts about the seriousness and honesty of his words. But the Prophet Muhammad, God’s peace and blessings be upon him, has not only instructed Muslims to fight against those who oppress them and attack their faith, but has told Muslims to incline toward peace if their enemies appear to be so inclined. Therefore, because Muhammad, the best of mankind, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, requires us to give the foe the benefit of the doubt, we today offer President Obama a long truce and require from him only that which he so clearly promised in Cairo.

We first thank God that Obama sees that, with God’s help, the mujahedin – may God be pleased with them – have defeated U.S.-led Crusader forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and that their full withdrawal is essential. We also praise God for Obama’s pledge to leave behind no U.S. bases in either country, a promise verifying that America did not need to invade either in self-defense, and did so only because Bush and his Zionist advisers wanted to kill Muslims, destroy their religion, occupy their holy places, and rob their territory.

Obama likewise pledged to stop the Zionist-Crusader theft of more territory from the oppressed and persecuted Palestinian people, may God shield them. All Muslims know that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are merely a prelude to the Zionists’ goal of destroying all Palestinians and taking all their land. Muslims know too that only two things can stop this catastrophe: Obama must order Israel – a state that exists only because of U.S. power – to dismantle the settlements, or, with God’s aid, the mujahedin must wage jihad on the U.S. and Israeli murderers until all Palestine, from the river to the sea, is restored to Islam.

Also at Cairo, Obama plainly admitted what we and other believers have long argued, and what God has ordained; namely, that all the world’s Muslims belong to one Islamic nation and that the separate nation-states into which the West divided Muslims are illegitimate and governed by tyrants, against whom Muslims – like all other peoples – have the right to battle until self-determination is achieved.

Because of Obama’s words and, more important, because of our prophet’s instructions, may God’s blessings and peace be upon him, to incline toward peace if the enemy so inclines, we hereby offer a truce that will end attacks on America and its interests if Obama matches his peaceful words with peaceful deeds – as God has demanded. For this truce with the United States, we ask only that Obama fulfill the three pledges he made voluntarily in Cairo by the first day of 2010:

By completely withdrawing U.S. and Western forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, and dismantling and destroying all military bases and diplomatic facilities in those countries.
By ordering Israel to cease the construction of settlements in the West Bank; by forcing it to dismantle and destroy those already built; and by providing before-and-after videotapes and satellite photos proving the efforts were successful.
By ending all economic aid and military protection for the tyrant rulers who are oppressing and torturing Muslims. We do not ask Washington to remove the tyrants; the mujahedin – with God’s permission – will tend to them after the Americans are gone.

O, my fellow Muslims, in God’s name please watch closely for Obama’s response to this fair offer of ours. Abiding by our prophet’s guidance, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him, we have made it easy for the Americans to take a giant step toward peace and to end much of their war on Islam. We in the al-Qaeda organization and you around the ummah can now judge how far Obama’s promises can be trusted. He has only to do what he has pledged to do, and may God help him do so. But if Obama fails, we in al-Qaeda and all Muslims will know that he is no different than Bush, except that he uses honeyed rather than hateful worlds, and that jihad in God’s path is the only means of victory.

My closing prayer is that all praise is due to Allah, Lord of both worlds, and may His peace and prayers be upon our master Muhammad and upon his family and companions.
With such words, Osama bin Laden could provide a useful service for both Muslims and Americans by forcing Obama and his talk-softly interventionists to either fish or cut bait. Not since the ever lamentable Woodrow Wilson’s "Fourteen Points" speech has an American president provided the enemy a scorecard on which his veracity can be quantified. Once the Great War ended, of course, the hypocrite Wilson abandoned the Fourteen Points as fast as possible, and because German power had collapsed, he paid no price for lying. President Obama has no chance for such good fortune. If he fails to deliver on his Cairo promises, America will confront an undefeated and growing Islamist enemy that will have on its side tens of millions more Muslims who have decided for themselves that Obama cannot be trusted and that U.S. intervention can only be stopped by jihad.