World Terrorism: News, History and Research Of A Changing World #7 Security Watch

US warns on corporate terror payments after Chiquita fine

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_warns_on_corporate_terror_paymen_03192007.ht
ml

US warns on corporate terror payments after Chiquita fine
Published: Monday March 19, 2007

US authorities warned companies Monday they can never deal with
terrorists after fruit giant Chiquita agreed to a hefty fine for paying
protection money to Colombian paramilitaries.

Chiquita Brands International admitted to the US government in 2003
that
it had been paying the money for years to the United Self-Defense
Forces
of Colombia (AUC), a right-wing paramilitary group on the US list of
terrorists.

Under a settlement confirmed by the US Department of Justice Monday,
the
Cincinnati-based company agreed to pay a fine of 25 million dollars and
to bolster its internal compliance and ethics program.

Chiquita pleaded guilty before Judge Royce Lamberth of the US District
Court in Washington to one count of engaging in transactions with a
designated global terrorist group.

Judicial officials paid credit to Chiquita's cooperation in their
investigation but stressed the gravity of the offense.

"Funding a terrorist organization can never be treated as a cost of
doing business," US Attorney Jeffrey Taylor said in a statement.

"American businesses must take note that payments to terrorists are of
a
whole different category. They are crimes," he said.

Chiquita, through its wholly owned Colombian subsidiary C.I. Bananos de
Exportaction S.A. (Banadex), paid the AUC in exchange for protection in
the banana-producing areas of Uraba and Santa Marta, Colombia.

In the past, the company had also made payments to leftist rebels of
the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation
Army (ELN), both also listed as terror groups, US prosecutors said.

Chiquita, which sold Banadex in 2004, said it had voluntarily disclosed
that its subsidiary "had been forced to make payments to right- and
left-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia to protect the lives of its
employees."

"The payments made by the company were always motivated by our
good-faith concern for the safety of our employees," Chiquita chief
executive Fernando Aguirre said in a statement last week.

"Nevertheless, we recognized -- and acted upon -- our legal obligation
to inform the DoJ of this admittedly difficult situation."

According to the US investigation, Chiquita made over 100 payments to
the AUC amounting to more than 1.7 million dollars, masked in its
corporate records as contributions for "security."

2,501 posted on 03/20/2007 8:34:15 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

HAMAS 'Spokesman' Cited on War Preparation

Israel: HAMAS 'Spokesman' Cited on War Preparation, Says Shalit Case 'Unrelated'

Article by Amit Kohen: "The Green Army"

Originally published on 3/16/2007 by Ma'ariv (Shabat Supplement) in Hebrew

As soon as the sun sets over Gaza, that is when the shooting begins in long, rhythmical volleys. Then silence prevails, and again the shooting resumes. This happens every night and continues well into its wee hours. Even now, with a calm vis-à-vis Fatah and a cease-fire with Israel, the incessant firing persists. This is training, intended to prepare HAMAS's next fighters course. When the big clash comes, the Izz-al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, still considered "a military arm", wish to present before the opponent an army as orderly and in shipshape form as possible.

"We have the privilege of improving our capabilities; this is a religious precept and a national duty," Abu-Ubaydah, the media spokesman for HAMAS's military arm, tells Ma'ariv. "We can dispatch trainers for training and instruction courses overseas or try to improve our weapons. We have no intention of providing details on the matter because we are a military organization that maintains secrecy. We cannot discuss such matters. This is a red line."

Last year, HAMAS discovered that on the two occasions it confronted the IDF - during Operations Summer Rains and Autumn Clouds - neither it nor the rest of the organizations were able to make Israel pay the heavy bloody toll they had hoped for. The IDF's superiority, both on the technological plane as well as in war doctrine, was found to be categorically better. Consequently, HAMAS investigated the fighting against the IDF and began to draw conclusions. HAMAS's military leadership decided to organize and institutionalize the military commands according to a geographical division.

Over the past year, HAMAS has likewise established the "operational force," the police force subordinate to the Interior and National Security Ministry, which in effect serves as another militia affiliated with the organization. Involved are some 6,000 armed activists, organized in regional military frameworks.

Naturally, HAMAS also had the war in Lebanon and Hizballah's achievements in mind. "We drew lessons from previous battles we were engaged in opposite the Israeli Army as well as from what had taken place in Lebanon," admits Abu-Ubaydah, "but there is a great difference between southern Lebanon and Gaza. The nature of the military campaign here is very different: in terms of the topography, the use of camouflage from against the enemy, and the size of the territory on which the fighters move. In the final analysis, the Gaza Strip is a small territory, it is not mountainous, and it is exposed because the enemy has been operating advanced technology. Besides all that, Lebanon is an independent country, whereas we live in a besieged area. We hope one day to be able to attain their level."

In the event of a conflict, HAMAS's aspiration - possibly in contrast with Hizballah - is to drag the IDF into combat inside the refugee camps and the densely populated cities at the end of a preliminary halt and delay stage. HAMAS reached this conclusion in light of the fact that in previous operations, its men had tried to engage in direct contact with the IDF soldiers. Acknowledging that they had failed to harm the soldiers at a short range, they reverted to sniper and antitank fire and to deploying mortars and explosive charges against the soldiers.

"If a war breaks out, this will not be topographical combat like it was in Lebanon," assesses an Israeli source, "but rather a demographic struggle inside one of the world's most densely populated areas." HAMAS's men intend to operate from inside the crowded refugee camps, in the narrow alleys, and from tunnels and bunkers. They know very well that Israel will exercise caution before it uses its power so as avoid causing heavy damage among the civilian population. Yes, the video and stills cameras will serve as a weapon in the hands of HAMAS.

In anticipation of a possible confrontation, HAMAS has set up a "defense alignment" around the cities, based on a network of bunkers and tunnels located in very close proximity to the populated territory. Among others, HAMAS has dug tunnels to enable activist movement inside the Gaza Strip. These tunnels connect houses and other structures and enable the activists to shoot at the forces, quickly withdraw into a house, and slip away to another area via the tunnel. This step is intended to help contend with the Air Force's helicopters and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and to curtail activist movement above the ground as much as possible.

In parallel, underground weapon depots and bunkers have similarly been dug. These tunnels were constructed inside populated areas to prevent the IDF from attacking them from the air. The defense establishment knows that HAMAS has also built a number of tunnels that lead to Israel. These can serve as booby traps or as "pipelines" for terrorist penetration into Israel.

In Honor of HAMAS's Chief of Staff

The turning point in HAMAS's approach was reached after Israel decided to carry out the disengagement plan. Once HAMAS realized that Israel was planning to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, the organization's leadership decided it was time to institutionalize the Izz-al-Din al-Qassam Battalions - which had thus far constituted an underground terrorist arm - and turn them into a military body. For that purpose, it established the Martyr Salah Shihadah Military Academy in commemoration of HAMAS's "chief of staff", who was liquidated by the Israel in 2002. Abu-Ibrahim, a senior member of the military arm, was appointed as head of the academy.

The training bases of HAMAS's academy were dispersed all over the Gaza Strip, mainly on the remains of the Israeli settlements. Every training camp got its own code name. Thus, for instance, Bisan 1 and Bisan 2, located in the Qatif Bloc area, not far from Khan Yunus. Other bases were established on the ruins of Nezzarim and Rafiah-Yam, and this is where HAMAS's new recruits undergo infantry and antitank training, as well as on explosives, firing rockets, and even intelligence gathering and analysis. Every graduate receives an enlisted person's card with his rank, service number, and date of mobilization.

The HAMAS trainer infrastructure is based on organization activists who had undergone military training abroad and come back to Gaza to implant the know-how among their comrades. The defense establishment believes that between dozens and hundreds of activists have already passed training overseas. In some cases, these are intensive courses that last several months or longer. The Palestinian intelligence has comparable data. "We have information about 500 HAMAS activists who have passed military training in Syria and Iran and have come back to the Gaza Strip," reports a senior Palestinian officer.

"Their training is actually directed against us," assesses the Palestinian officer. "They drill raids on command headquarters and the takeover of buildings. Do you think they are going to conquer IDF bases in the western Negev? Their goal is the command headquarters of the national security apparatus and other bodies. HAMAS plants explosives and digs booby-trapped tunnels, but not everything is intended against the IDF. Some of these tunnels lead toward our command headquarters or other Fatah targets."

Simultaneously with improvements in the war doctrines, HAMAS has been investing great efforts toward upgrading the weapons at its disposal. Here, too, the trainers returning from abroad play a key role. "We have classified the introduction of this know-how as the greatest risk, more than any type of weapon that may be smuggled into Gaza," claims an Israeli security source. "Upgrading capabilities is a critical matter." This fear has increased particularly in light of the fact that the Iranians have been assisting HAMAS in building its power.

That improvement can be seen in the field. If, until three or four years ago, HAMAS converted old, used solar-boiler tanks to produce large anti-vehicle bombs, now they have been demonstrating a totally different level. "The Shawwaz, for example, is a roadside bomb with an especially high penetration capability, based on Iranian technology. These bombs, four of which had been activated against IDF units in the course of its latest operation in the Gaza Strip, are manufactured in lathe shops according to precise measurements and clear specifications.

HAMAS has also long been engaged in developing its Qassam rockets and improving them. It claimed that the rockets would become a strategic weapon in lieu of the suicide attacks, and the war in Lebanon helped elucidate the importance of the issue for HAMAS. "The last rocket we launched reached a distance of 12 km," says Abu-Ubaydah, "but the Izz-al-Din al-Qassam's 'production unit' has promised us that the rockets' range can reach even beyond. Our rockets have demonstrated a marked improvement."

The upgrade can be felt not only in the range but also in the extent of the damage they cause. A Qassam rocket carries between 5 and 7 kg of explosives. Over the past few months, HAMAS "engineers" have worked on enlarging the rocket's warhead, with the aim of manufacturing rockets that could carry more than 20 kg of explosives. At the same time, the rockets' "shelf life" has also been extended, mainly by upgrading the explosives that thrust the rocket forward. The implication is that HAMAS is capable of stockpiling rockets for a longer period of time to increase the number of volleys.

Thirty Metric Tons of Explosives

As became evident in 2006, HAMAS' rocket launching capability exceeds that of all the other terrorist organizations put together. In the course of that year, an average of 50 rockets were fired every month, but on those occasions when HAMAS joined in and also launched rockets, as during the IDF operations, the number of launchings rose substantially. Thus, for example, during Operation Summer Rains, 191 rockets were launched, while 157 were fired during Operation Autumn Clouds.

Over the past year, HAMAS has stepped up the arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip, simultaneously increasing both their quantity and quality. "We know they want to procure improved rocket-propelled grenades like the ones possessed by Hizballah, as well as LAW missiles," says the Palestinian officer. "The Bedouins smuggle them into the Sinai through the Red Sea, and from there it is introduced through the tunnels in Rafah."

According to Israeli intelligence data, last year, some 30 metric tons of standard explosives have been introduced into the Gaza Strip - six times more than in 2005. As part of another lesson HAMAS has learned from the war in Lebanon, it has also been trying to upgrade its antitank and rocket launching capabilities: It purchased advanced Concours antitank missiles as well as 122-mm Grad rockets, with a maximum range of 20 km. All the same, these quantities are still nowhere near the caches accumulated by Hizballah.

This frightening statistics notwithstanding, Abu-Ubaydah attempts to keep things in proportion. "It would be a mistake to claim that the two parties are preparing for war," he says in a kind of candidness. "Such a statement would intimate that we are talking about two armies, but this would be a misinterpretation. We are still not an army. Our readiness is higher than before, but the means at our disposal are limited. We have proved in the past that we can stop the enemy and block its path, but we are not saying we can halt it altogether. At any rate, we will not stand there with our hands tied behind our backs. The path of resistance is the path chosen by the Palestinian people."

Finally, Abu-Ubaydah explains that even if Israel invades the Gaza Strip, this will not affect the fate of Gil'ad Shalit. "I believe the Gil'ad Shalit case is unrelated to all other matters," he expresses his opinion. "We are not linking the issue of the captive soldier with other questions, such as an Israeli invasion or the unity government. These are totally separate subjects."

: Tel Aviv Ma'ariv in Hebrew -- Independent, second largest circulation Hebrew-language paper

2,502 posted on 03/20/2007 8:35:56 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

Taliban Statement on Release of Italian Journo for Two Mujahidin

Taliban Announces Release of Italian Journalist in Exchange for Two Mujahidin

Originally published on 3/19/2007 by Jihadist Websites -- OSC Summary in Arabic

Terrorism: Taliban Announces Release of Italian Journalist in Exchange for Two Mujahidin

On 19 March, a jihadist website posted a statement issued by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan-Taliban in which the group announced that with the help of a third party in Helmand, it released an Italian journalist named Daniel along with his interpreter in exchange for two mujahidin who had been detained for two years on 18 March 2007. The statement was attributed to the "official spokesmen" of the Islamic Emirate-Taliban.

A translation of the statement follows:

"In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

"Release of Italian Journalist in Exchange for Two Mujahidin

"18 March 2007

"Al-Hafidh Muhammad Yusuf: Around noon today, the mujahidin of the Islamic Emirate released the Italian journalist (Daniel) along with his personal interpreter whom the mujahidin had imprisoned since approximately two weeks ago. This was done in exchange for the mujahid Ustadh Muhammad Yasir and the mujahid Mufti Latifallah (Hakimi). They had been prisoners in the Pul-e-Charkhi Prison for two years. It is worthy mentioning that the exchange took place through a third party in the province of Helmand.

"'And when they are told, 'Do not spread corruption on earth,' they answer, 'We are but improving things!'' [Koranic verse; Al-Baqarah 2:11]

"'Oh, verily, it is they, they who are spreading corruption but they perceive it not?' [Koranic verse; 2:12]

"Official Spokesmen of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan-Taliban

"Qari Muhammad Yusuf (Ahmadi), for the southwestern and northwestern areas of the country "Dhabihallah (mujahid), for the southeastern and northeastern areas of the country "God is great and glory be to God, to His prophet, and to the faithful.

"The Media Front for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan-Taliban

"Source: Sawt al-Jihad webpage, 18 March 2007

"Official Site of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan-Taliban"

2,503 posted on 03/20/2007 8:37:57 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

To: All; milford421

Schools allowed to ban face veils
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6466221.stm
girl wearing niqab
Teachers need to be able to see pupils' faces, the DfES says
Schools will be able to ban pupils from wearing full-face veils on security, safety or learning grounds under new uniforms guidance set to be issued.

In February, a 12-year-old girl failed in her High Court attempt to overturn her Buckinghamshire school's niqab ban.

Ministers promised revised guidance for England taking that into consideration.

It says efforts should be made to accommodate religious clothing but stresses the importance of teachers and pupils being able to make eye contact.

We feel very strongly that this was a matter of principle that there shouldn't be barriers to communication between students and teachers
Head teacher
Veil court case school

Why Muslims wear the veil

The issue of religious dress has become an increasingly complicated one for schools in recent years, with a handful of high profile cases going to court.

But it is the victory by the Buckinghamshire school, which cannot be named for legal reasons, that has prompted the updated guidance.

The school argued the veil made communication between teachers and pupils difficult and thus hampered learning.

Teachers needed to be able to tell if a pupil was enthusiastic, paying attention or even distressed but full-face veils prevented this, it said.

This position was upheld by the High Court - which refused to grant a judicial review - and is expected to form a key part of the guidance.

Guidance welcomed

Schools need to be able to identify individual pupils in order to maintain good order and to identify intruders, it is expected to say.

Find out about different styles of Muslim headscarf

In graphics

"If a pupil's face is obscured for any reason the teacher may not be able to judge their engagement with learning or secure their participation in discussions and practical activities," it adds.

The head teacher of the Buckinghamshire school, who also cannot be named, said it would be very useful to have some clear guidance from the DfES.

"It's not right that schools should have to be arguing this out case by case," she told the BBC News website.

"Obviously there's a trade-off between schools retaining autonomy over school uniform decisions, on the other hand we will have some very clear guidance from the DfES within which to work."

'Equality'

She said she did not regret the school's decision to fight the case.

"We feel very strongly that this was a matter of principle, that there shouldn't be barriers to communication between students and teachers.

"We also feel the young people in our school should be educated on an equal basis and be prepared for their role as adults in a modern society in which we expect there to be equality between men and women."

The Muslim Council of Britain has not yet responded to the guidance, but in a 72-page document released in February the organisation stopped short of endorsing niqabs for girls.

It did, however, urge schools to take into account Muslim pupils' needs to dress modestly and avoid tight-fitting or transparent garments.

Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said successive ministers had failed to give proper guidance about schools' obligations regarding religious dress.

"To now proceed to issue guidance against Muslim communities is simply shocking," he said.

Financial hardship

Ayshah Ishmail, a teacher at a Muslim girls' school in Preston who wears the niqab away from the classroom, told the BBC that wearing the veil promotes equality.

She said: "You're judged for who you are and not what you are, so I think there are two arguments to the whole equality issue."

There were misconceptions that women who wore the veil were being oppressed, she added.

The DfES guidance also instructs schools to be sensitive to the cost implications of their choice of uniform which should be available at high street shops.

A recent letter to all schools from the Office of Fair Trading says they can be prosecuted for engaging in exclusive agreements with specific retailers.

The guidance also reiterates schools' right to discipline pupils for not wearing the proper uniform.

But they should carefully investigate the reasons behind this and be sensitive in cases of financial hardship.

2,504 posted on 03/20/2007 8:40:55 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

Turkish Police Raids Net 39 Al-Qaeda Members; Police Find Al-Qaeda
Pledge in
Turkish School

http://www.thememriblog.org/image/474.jpg

The Turkish daily Hurriyet reports that a police raid in several
locations
against Turkish Al-Qaeda netted 39 Al-Qaeda members.

The operation also turned up report cards from a school in Konya
attended by
the children of Al-Qaeda members that include a pledge "to Koran, to
jihad,
and to martyrdom."

One side of the report cards contained the student's name and grade
along
with some Koranic verses, but the other side contained a pledge to the
Koran, to jihad, and martyrdom. Some writing on the report cards is in
Arabic instead of Turkish.

Also found was an amended, radical Islamist version of Turkey's
national
pledge, the original of which is recited daily in all Turkish schools.
This
amended version, which was found to be recited every day by the
Al-Qaeda
children aged four to nine, reads:

I pledge that I am a Muslim, hardworking, patient and determined.

My rules are to learn and understand the Koran, to live the Koran, to
teach
and spread the Koran, to obey its commandments, and to love the
creation [of
Allah].

As a Muslim, I dedicate my existence to my cause, to humanity, and to
the
way of Allah.

Oh Allah, we pray to live like shahids [martyrs] and to become shahids.

Also found in Konya was a site used as a madrassa where children over
nine
studied Koran and adults were taught about jihad and martyrdom.

Source: Hurriyet, March 16, 2007

2,505 posted on 03/20/2007 8:43:49 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

The invisible man

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1511700.ece

Five years ago the Americans had the world's most wanted man in their
sights
but failed to pull the trigger. Since then the trail has gone
stone-cold,
despite history's biggest manhunt and a $25m reward. So where is Osama
Bin
Laden? And just how hard is the US trying to find him?

"You're a great guy but you ain't that clean," says the American,
spraying
his hands with sanitiser after slipping some dollars into the palm of
one of
his local informants.

The American is dressed in long baggy shalwar kameez and sports a
beard. But
he will never be taken for a local, here in the frontier town of
Peshawar.
We have met before, two years ago in the bar of the Mustafa hotel in
Kabul,
where such characters hung out amid its marbled walls and mirrored
ceilings,
pulling out knives and guns to see whose weapon was the largest.

His name is "Dave" and he works in "private security", and maybe it is
and
maybe he does. But what he is really is a bounty hunter in search of
the
$25m payday: Osama Bin Laden.

On one thigh is strapped a Glock pistol and out of his pocket he pulls
a
packet of Cipro, a powerful antibiotic used by the military, which he
swallows between visits to the bathroom. "Occupational hazard," he
grimaces.

Over time most of his fellow bounty hunters have given up, despite the
high
prize. But "Dave" has ended up here in Green's hotel, where last night
in
bed a cockroach crawled across his face and the windows look out onto
the
jagged mountains of the Khyber Pass. "This is the place," he says. "Not
Afghan-land."

continued............

2,506 posted on 03/20/2007 8:49:23 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

To: All; milford421

Radical cleric to speak here

http://www.news.com.au/sundayheraldsun/story/0,,21399450-663,00.html?from=pu
blic_rss#

http://www.news.com.au/sundayheraldsun/story/0,,21399450-663,00.html?from=p
ublic_rss

A RADICAL Muslim cleric linked to the World Trade Centre bombing is
coming
to Melbourne as a key speaker at a major Islamic conference.

Sheik Bilal Philips is listed by the US Government alongside Osama bin
Laden
as an accused conspirator in the 1993 Twin Towers car bombing which
killed
six and injured more than 1000.

Australian authorities are now considering the sheik's application to
enter
Australia next month.

But investigations have revealed the sheik:

ADVOCATES marriage to pre-pubescent girls.

IS a former "foot soldier" of the militant group the Black Panthers.

STUDIED urban military tactics while a Communist and considered going
to
China to learn guerilla warfare.

Controversial British convert Yvonne Ridley is also billed to speak at
the
event which will be held at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre over the
Easter
long weekend.

Ms Ridley has called suicide bombings "martyrdom operations" and
described
hook-handed firebrand Abu Hamza al-Masri, who was jailed for inciting
terror, as "quite sweet really".

The conference has been promoted by Muslim group Mercy Mission as a
positive
invitation to Australia's Muslims and non-Muslims.

But the inclusion of Sheik Philips has members of the local Islamic
community concerned.

Muslim leader Yasser Soliman said the sheik's views on young girls were
distasteful, unfortunate and not a true reflection of Islam.

Mr Soliman, who was also invited to speak at the conference, said he
did not
want to be associated with extremism, but might still attend the event
to
provide a contrary view.

Sheik Philips recently said on a British documentary that because the
prophet Mohammed married a nine-year-old girl, it was permissible.

"The prophet Mohammed practically outlined the rules regarding marriage
prior to puberty," he said.

To marry under Australian law a person must be at least 18, or 16 if
they
have a magistrate's permission.

Sheik Philips later said he was not advocating breaking state laws on
marriage.

The 1st Annual Australian Islamic Conference is expected to attract
hundreds
of Muslims from Australia and overseas.

2,507 posted on 03/20/2007 8:52:08 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

Former Taliban Ambassador Interviewed on Peace Talks, Experience in Guantanamo

Interview with Afghan Mullah Haji Abdul Salam Zaif, "the last Taliban ambassador to Pakistan," by Fausto Biloslavo in Kabul on 16 March: "'We Taliban Agree With D'Alema's Proposal'"

Originally published on 3/17/2007 by Il Giornale in Italian

Kabul -- He was sporting a black turban, his beard was the same color, and his tunic was white. Mullah Haji Abdul Salam Zaif was the Taliban's last ambassador to Pakistan in 2001. [historical passage omitted] In this interview with Il Giornale, he discussed [Rome daily] La Repubblica correspondent Daniele Mastrogiacomo's abduction, and he voiced the hope that the Taliban, too, will be invited to the international conference on Afghanistan that our government is promoting. [passage omitted in which Zaif discusses journalist's abduction]

[Biloslavo] In your view, can an exchange of prisoners resolve the dramatic situation?

[Zaif] Everything is possible, but apart from the Afghan Government, also the United States must agree. Perhaps the solution is an exchange between the journalist and the Taliban spokesmen captured in Pakistan and sold to the United States (they are in jail in Kabul today -- Il Giornale editor's note).

[Biloslavo] Should the international community's troops, with the Italians heading the list, stay on in Afghanistan or should they leave?

[Zaif] Those foreigners who do not respect our country or our people, and who do not allow us to freely make decisions, must leave. Otherwise they can stay, but first the Afghans must elect a good government and set a deadline on the foreign soldiers' presence.

[Biloslavo] Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema wants to call an international conference on Afghanistan open to all. Do you think that such a thing is useful?

[Zaif] It is a good idea, because the foreigners in Afghanistan today are taking the part of only one side, which is bent on defeating the other side. Peace forces should be neutral, not only in Afghanistan but everywhere. If the Italian Government wants to organize a conference, inviting all the parties involved in order to find a solution, it will be successful, but the Taliban, who are part of this country, must be included too. It would be a mistake to ignore them.

[Biloslavo] By that, do you mean also representatives of the Taliban who are fighting in south Afghanistan, armed to the teeth?

[Zaif] I am not with them, but if the international community were to guarantee that they will not be arrested, transferred to Guantanamo, or killed, I think that they would accept.

[Biloslavo] Do you still like Mullah Omar?

[Zaif] I have not changed my mind and I have never killed anyone. That was my rule under the emirate (the Taliban state in Afghanistan -- Il Giornale editor's note).

[Biloslavo] Is a compromise possible between the Karzai government and the Taliban, in such a way as to put an end to the clash?

[Zaif] The problem is not sharing out government posts. At this juncture the Taliban are fighting throughout the country, because they have lost power and they want to win it back. Right now the Taliban reject negotiations with the government, and the United States does not want to negotiate with them.

[Biloslavo] You have written a book on your time in jail in Guantanamo. Is it true that many youngsters in the south joined the Taliban after reading it?

[Zaif] I did not write it to swell their tanks, but to denounce the lack of respect for human rights on the United States' part, and to press for better treatement of the prisoners. I was forced to eat, to pray, and to sleep in the toilets. When they wanted to punish me, they showed disrespect for the holy book (the Qu'ran -- Il Giornale editor's note) by kicking it, by writing foul language on it, or by throwing it down the toilet.

[Biloslavo] There is heavy fighting in Helmand province. Could the clashes spread also to neighboring provinces such as Farah, which is under Italian control?

[Zaif] When a fire starts in one place, if there is enough wood, then it can spread elsewhere as well.

: Milan Il Giornale in Italian -- right-of-center daily owned by the Berlusconi family

2,508 posted on 03/20/2007 8:55:18 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

National Socialism and Anti-Semitism in the Arab World

http://www.matthiaskuentzel.de/contents/national-socialism-and-anti-semitism-in-the-arab-world?print=y

Jewish Political Studies Review, Spring 2005

National Socialism and Anti-Semitism in the Arab World

By Matthias Küntzel

Anti-Semitism based on the notion of a Jewish world conspiracy is not
rooted
in Islamic tradition but, rather, in European ideological models. The
decisive transfer of this ideology to the Muslim world took place
between
1937 and 1945 under the impact of Nazi propaganda. Important to this
process
were the Arabic-language service broadcast by the German shortwave
transmitter in Zeesen between 1939 and 1945, and the role of Haj Amin
el-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, who was the first to translate
European
anti-Semitism into an Islamic context. Although Islamism is an
independent,
anti-Semitic, antimodern mass movement, its main early promoters – the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Mufti and the Qassamites in
Palestine –
were supported financially and ideologically by agencies of the German
National Socialist government.

continued...........

This is a good history, lots of new details.......

2,509 posted on 03/20/2007 9:01:37 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

Iranian Guard's mission evolves

March 19, 2007

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20070319-124826-4695r

Iran's Revolutionary Guard has been restructuring its military
capabilities and taking an increasingly prominent role in the nation's
political life as the United States builds political and military
pressure
on the Islamic republic.
A number of former commanders have assumed political positions or
become
involved in shaping foreign policy, even as the military force -- known
formally as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) -- prepares
itself
for "asymmetrical warfare" and the possibility of internal unrest.
The involvement in national politics has been evidenced by a series
of
recent statements more appropriate to diplomats than to soldiers.
On Feb. 21, the overall commander of the IRGC declared that the
United
States was not able to make any security changes in the Middle East
without
the cooperation of Iran, according to IRNA, the state news agency.
Gen. Yahya Safavi was echoed by Ali Said, supreme leader Ali
Khamenei's
personal representative to the IRGC.
He said on Jan. 31 that "if America abandons its self-centeredness,
and
village headman position, Iran ... could fulfill its role in the region
and
help resolve regional issues."

continued...............

2,510 posted on 03/20/2007 9:04:15 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

Muslims Forcing Christian Assyrians in Baghdad Neighborhood to Pay 'Protection Tax'

http://www.aina.org/news/20070318132901.htm

Muslims Forcing Christian Assyrians in Baghdad Neighborhood to Pay

'Protection Tax'

Posted GMT 3-18-2007 18:29:1

Baghdad (AINA) -- Muslims in the Dora neighborhood of Iraq are forcing

Assyrians (also known as Chaldeans and Syriacs) to pay the jizya, the

poll tax demanded by the Koran which all Christians and Jews must pay
in

exchange for being allowed to live and practice their faith as well as

being entitled to 'Muslim protection' from outside aggression.

At least two cases have been reported to a government employee -- who

wishes to remain anonymous -- in which the Christian Assyrian wives
were

instructed to go to a certain mosque and pay, which they did out of

fear. The stated reason for the payment was "we do the fighting and you

pay to support."

The jizya has been collected since the arrival of Islam in 630 A.D. The

last systematic collection was by the Ottomans (Turks), which came to
an

end only in 1918, when the Ottoman empire was defeated and partitioned

in World War One.

2,511 posted on 03/20/2007 9:06:25 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

To: All; Founding Father; FARS; milford421

Pak Article: Iran 'Just An Excuse', Islamabad US' 'Real Target'

Pakistani Article: Iran 'Just An Excuse', Islamabad US' 'Real Target'

Article by Arif Bahar: "Pakistan Real Target; Iran Just Excuse"

Originally published on 3/15/2007 by Jasarat in Urdu

Despite sacrificing all of its strategic interests for the US injunctions one after the other, and making passages into its own fortresses and making holes in its own wall, Pakistan still stands at the pedestal of the US disfavor. The situation cannot be compared even with the countries targeted by the US in the recent past. No comparison with Afghanistan six years ago, or Iraq four years ago, or today's Iran can be made with Pakistan. However, the Americans do have an answer. The high-ranking US officials, members of law-making institutions, and media are hanging Pakistan in such a frame in which they hung the UK two centuries ago.

The New York Times has published sa tatement of a high-ranking US official, "The United States has not faced such an awful situation after 1814, when Britain burnt Washington to ashes." The US official repeated another sentence, "Pakistan is the most dangerous country for the United States. Iran is at number two." The same reporter quotes the words of the US official, "US Vice President Dick Cheney had gone [to Pakistan] with a tough message for General Pervez Musharraf that nothing concrete had been taking place despite assurance by Gen Musharraf. Now the United States wants action and result in place of assurances."

The same report of The New York Times quotes the US intelligence as saying, "Terrorist infrastructure has again been established in Pakistan. During this period, Pakistan attacked some camps and that is Pakistan's only performance." The same report of The New York Times breaks news about cutting aid for Pakistan as punishment for showing laxity in launching operations against Al-Qa'ida. Seymour Hersh is an informed American journalist. His news reports are not only exclusive but it can be said that whatever the US establishment wants to say appears before the world in the form of Seymour Hersh's news reports.

Seymour Hersh writes in the recent issue of The New Yorker, "Pakistan is emerging as the most dangerous ally for the US." Seymour Hersh terms Pakistan as the most dangerous ally. According to Seymour Hersh, the US is not only preparing for the Spring Offensive but has already launched it. The target in this operation will be Taliban as well as Pakistan's Tribal Areas. Highly trained commandoes of the special task force 121 have been shifted to South Asia. A final operation can be launched in the Pakistani territory to arrest Usama bin Laden. However, Pakistan is still refusing to give permission to the US to enter its territory to launch operations.

At the same time another important newspaper of the US, The Washington Times, has warned President Bush, "Don't trust Pakistan regarding Usama bin Laden's issue. The editorial of The Washington Times writes, "It will be foolishness if the US accepts Pakistan's offer of arresting Usama bin Laden in exchange for overlooking nuclear program." The paper says, "There is no truth in Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan's claim that Pakistani authorities were not aware of his activities of selling nuclear technology."

A US newspaper has published these remarks of a high-ranking US official, "India is playing an important role in Afghanistan via Iran. However, Pakistan is irritated by the Indian role instead of Taliban."

It is being said that the US gives an annual grant of $850 million to Pakistan and the grant can be slashed by $350 million for Islamabad's failure to act against the Taliban and Al-Qa'ida. This was a brief ing of the analysis, comments and reviews in the US media published in recent days continuously. It denotes the enraged attitude, designs, intentions, and plans of the US establishment. The US media is acting as a mouthpiece for the worldwide plans of their administration. It is showing as much freedom as it considers necessary for the American people. Before undertaking an adventure, the US establishment paves way by creating an environment and raising the temperature through startling reports by its media.

The direction of the US guns is toward Tehran but the attitude of the US media shows that Iran is just an excuse, the real target is Pakistan. If Iran reaches some understanding with the US on its nuclear issue, there will be harmony in the interests of Iran and the US in moves to reshape the Middle East. It is because Iran is still far away from producing atom bomb and according to US reports, it can take Iran four years to achieve this goal. However, Pakistan has failed to fulfil US expectations from the Kashmir issue to Afghanistan, and from Al-Qa'ida to nuclear program, despite obeying it [the US] fully.

Pakistan failed to get emancipation despite handing over all of its cards in Afghanistan to the US. Rather it was given the target of eliminating the Taliban and Al-Qa'ida. The target was not achieved yet when pressure was mounted on Pakistan to seek conciliation on Kashmir at Indian conditions and accept India as its patron. When Pakistan became willing under Islamabad and Havana declarations, the eyes of the Americans were focused on Kahuta. Pakistan's nuclear program became the topic of discussion. If Pakistan agrees on any sort of deal on Kahuta, the downsizing of army will be the next target.

Then demand will be made of Pakistan to end its influence in the region, give up its philosophy of strategic depth and to became as obedient as Nepal and Bhutan. However, it does not appear that the story will end there. Pakistan's geographical integrity and unity can be the next target because South Asia cannot ward off the effects of the reshaping the map of the Middle East.

The Americans have reached the conclusion that Pakistan is more interested in the life of Usama bin Laden than his death or arrest in a bid to divert attention from Kahuta. The Americans have found easy solution to cross over the Torkham gate, enter into Pakistan in the name of hunting or pursuing Usama Bin Laden. They would reach Kahuta as stray travelers. It is perhaps the definite target of the United States. The Americans believes that if they make delay in reaching Kahuta, Usama Bin Laden will take the lead in reaching there. That is why, the Americans are exploring avenues, and finding excuses to reach Kahuta before Usama Bin Laden on a first-come-first-served basis.

: Karachi Jasarat in Urdu -- Urdu daily owned by Islamic party Jamaat-e Islami; circulation 15,000.

2,512 posted on 03/20/2007 9:08:31 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency
Mahmood Mamdani, London Review of Books
March 8, 2007

http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m31240&hd=&size=1&l=e

http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m31240&hd=&size=1&l=e

The similarities between Iraq and Darfur are remarkable. The estimate
of the number of civilians killed over the past three years is
roughly similar. The killers are mostly paramilitaries, closely
linked to the official military, which is said to be their main
source of arms. The victims too are by and large identified as
members of groups, rather than targeted as individuals. But the
violence in the two places is named differently. In Iraq, it is said
to be a cycle of insurgency and counter-insurgency; in Darfur, it is
called genocide. Why the difference? Who does the naming? Who is
being named? What difference does it make?

The most powerful mobilisation in New York City is in relation to
Darfur, not Iraq. One would expect the reverse, for no other reason
than that most New Yorkers are American citizens and so should feel
directly responsible for the violence in occupied Iraq. But Iraq is a
messy place in the American imagination, a place with messy politics.
Americans worry about what their government should do in Iraq. Should
it withdraw? What would happen if it did? In contrast, there is
nothing messy about Darfur. It is a place without history and without
politics; simply a site where perpetrators clearly identifiable
as 'Arabs' confront victims clearly identifiable as 'Africans'.

A full-page advertisement has appeared several times a week in the
New York Times calling for intervention in Darfur now. It wants the
intervening forces to be placed under 'a chain of command allowing
necessary and timely military action without approval from distant
political or civilian personnel'. That intervention in Darfur should
not be subject to 'political or civilian' considerations and that the
intervening forces should have the right to shoot - to kill - without
permission from distant places: these are said to be 'humanitarian'
demands. In the same vein, a New Republic editorial on Darfur has
called for 'force as a first-resort response'. What makes the
situation even more puzzling is that some of those who are calling
for an end to intervention in Iraq are demanding an intervention in
Darfur; as the slogan goes, 'Out of Iraq and into Darfur.'

What would happen if we thought of Darfur as we do of Iraq, as a
place with a history and politics - a messy politics of insurgency
and counter-insurgency? Why should an intervention in Darfur not turn
out to be a trigger that escalates rather than reduces the level of
violence as intervention in Iraq has done? Why might it not create
the actual possibility of genocide, not just rhetorically but in
reality? Morally, there is no doubt about the horrific nature of the
violence against civilians in Darfur. The ambiguity lies in the
politics of the violence, whose sources include both a state-
connected counter-insurgency and an organised insurgency, very much
like the violence in Iraq.

The insurgency and counter-insurgency in Darfur began in 2003. Both
were driven by an intermeshing of domestic tensions in the context of
a peace-averse international environment defined by the War on
Terror. On the one hand, there was a struggle for power within the
political class in Sudan, with more marginal interests in the west
(following those in the south and in the east) calling for reform at
the centre. On the other, there was a community-level split inside
Darfur, between nomads and settled farmers, who had earlier forged a
way of sharing the use of semi-arid land in the dry season. With the
drought that set in towards the late 1970s, co-operation turned into
an intense struggle over diminishing resources.

As the insurgency took root among the prospering peasant tribes of
Darfur, the government trained and armed the poorer nomads and formed
a militia - the Janjawiid - that became the vanguard of the unfolding
counter-insurgency. The worst violence came from the Janjawiid, but
the insurgent movements were also accused of gross violations. Anyone
wanting to end the spiralling violence would have to bring about
power-sharing at the state level and resource-sharing at the
community level, land being the key resource.

Since its onset, two official verdicts have been delivered on the
violence, the first from the US, the second from the UN. The American
verdict was unambiguous: Darfur was the site of an ongoing genocide.
The chain of events leading to Washington's proclamation began
with 'a genocide alert' from the Management Committee of the
Washington Holocaust Memorial Museum; according to the Jerusalem
Post, the alert was 'the first ever of its kind, issued by the US
Holocaust Museum'. The House of Representatives followed unanimously
on 24 June 2004. The last to join the chorus was Colin Powell.

The UN Commission on Darfur was created in the aftermath of the
American verdict and in response to American pressure. It was more
ambiguous. In September 2004, the Nigerian president Olusegun
Obasanjo, then the chair of the African Union, visited UN
headquarters in New York. Darfur had been the focal point of
discussion in the African Union. All concerned were alert to the
extreme political sensitivity of the issue. At a press conference at
the UN on 23 September Obasanjo was asked to pronounce on the
violence in Darfur: was it genocide or not? His response was very
clear:

Before you can say that this is genocide or ethnic cleansing, we will
have to have a definite decision and plan and programme of a
government to wipe out a particular group of people, then we will be
talking about genocide, ethnic cleansing. What we know is not that.
What we know is that there was an uprising, rebellion, and the
government armed another group of people to stop that rebellion.
That's what we know. That does not amount to genocide from our own
reckoning. It amounts to of course conflict. It amounts to violence.

By October, the Security Council had established a five-person
commission of inquiry on Darfur and asked it to report within three
months on 'violations of international humanitarian law and human
rights law in Darfur by all parties', and specifically to
determine 'whether or not acts of genocide have occurred'. Among the
members of the commission was the chief prosecutor of South Africa's
TRC, Dumisa Ntsebeza. In its report, submitted on 25 January 2005,
the commission concluded that 'the Government of the Sudan has not
pursued a policy of genocide . . . directly or through the militias
under its control.' But the commission did find that the government's
violence was 'deliberately and indiscriminately directed against
civilians'. Indeed, 'even where rebels may have been present in
villages, the impact of attacks on civilians shows that the use of
military force was manifestly disproportionate to any threat posed by
the rebels.' These acts, the commission concluded, 'were conducted on
a widespread and systematic basis, and therefore may amount to crimes
against humanity' (my emphasis). Yet, the commission insisted, they
did not amount to acts of genocide: 'The crucial element of genocidal
intent appears to be missing . . . it would seem that those who
planned and organised attacks on villages pursued the intent to drive
the victims from their homes, primarily for purposes of counter-
insurgency warfare.'

At the same time, the commission assigned secondary responsibility to
rebel forces - namely, members of the Sudan Liberation Army and the
Justice and Equality Movement - which it held 'responsible for
serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law
which may amount to war crimes' (my emphasis). If the government
stood accused of 'crimes against humanity', rebel movements were
accused of 'war crimes'. Finally, the commission identified
individual perpetrators and presented the UN secretary-general with a
sealed list that included 'officials of the government of Sudan,
members of militia forces, members of rebel groups and certain
foreign army officers acting in their personal capacity'. The list
named 51 individuals.

The commission's findings highlighted three violations of
international law: disproportionate response, conducted on a
widespread and systematic basis, targeting entire groups (as opposed
to identifiable individuals) but without the intention to eliminate
them as groups. It is for this last reason that the commission ruled
out the finding of genocide. Its less grave findings of 'crimes
against humanity' and 'war crimes' are not unique to Darfur, but fit
several other situations of extreme violence: in particular, the US
occupation of Iraq, the Hema-Lendu violence in eastern Congo and the
Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Among those in the counter-insurgency
accused of war crimes were the 'foreign army officers acting in their
personal capacity', i.e. mercenaries, presumably recruited from armed
forces outside Sudan. The involvement of mercenaries in perpetrating
gross violence also fits the occupation in Iraq, where some of them
go by the name of 'contractors'.

The journalist in the US most closely identified with consciousness-
raising on Darfur is the New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas
Kristof, often identified as a lone crusader on the issue. To peruse
Kristof's Darfur columns over the past three years is to see the
reduction of a complex political context to a morality tale unfolding
in a world populated by villains and victims who never trade places
and so can always and easily be told apart. It is a world where
atrocities mount geometrically, the perpetrators so evil and the
victims so helpless that the only possibility of relief is a rescue
mission from the outside, preferably in the form of a military
intervention.

Kristof made six highly publicised trips to Darfur, the first in
March 2004 and the sixth two years later. He began by writing of it
as a case of 'ethnic cleansing': 'Sudan's Arab rulers' had 'forced
700,000 black African Sudanese to flee their villages' (24 March
2004). Only three days later, he upped the ante: this was no longer
ethnic cleansing, but genocide. 'Right now,' he wrote on 27
March, 'the government of Sudan is engaged in genocide against three
large African tribes in its Darfur region.' He continued: 'The
killings are being orchestrated by the Arab-dominated Sudanese
government' and 'the victims are non-Arabs: blacks in the Zaghawa,
Massalliet and Fur tribes.' He estimated the death toll at a thousand
a week. Two months later, on 29 May, he revised the estimates
dramatically upwards, citing predictions from the US Agency for
International Development to the effect that 'at best, "only" 100,000
people will die in Darfur this year of malnutrition and disease'
but 'if things go badly, half a million will die.'

The UN commission's report was released on 25 February 2005. It
confirmed 'massive displacement' of persons ('more than a million'
internally displaced and 'more than 200,000' refugees in Chad) and
the destruction of 'several hundred' villages and hamlets
as 'irrefutable facts'; but it gave no confirmed numbers for those
killed. Instead, it noted rebel claims that government-allied forces
had 'allegedly killed over 70,000 persons'. Following the publication
of the report, Kristof began to scale down his estimates. For the
first time, on 23 February 2005, he admitted that 'the numbers are
fuzzy.' Rather than the usual single total, he went on to give a
range of figures, from a low of 70,000, which he dismissed as 'a UN
estimate', to 'independent estimates [that] exceed 220,000'. A
warning followed: 'and the number is rising by about ten thousand a
month.'

The publication of the commission's report had considerable effect.
Internationally, it raised doubts about whether what was going on in
Darfur could be termed genocide. Even US officials were unwilling to
go along with the high estimates propagated by the broad alliance of
organisations that subscribe to the Save Darfur campaign. The effect
on American diplomacy was discernible. Three months later, on 3 May,
Kristof noted with dismay that not only had 'Deputy Secretary of
State Robert Zoellick pointedly refused to repeat the
administration's past judgment that the killings amount to genocide':
he had 'also cited an absurdly low estimate of Darfur's total death
toll: 60,000 to 160,000'. As an alternative, Kristof cited the latest
estimate of deaths from the Coalition for International Justice
as 'nearly 400,000, and rising by 500 a day'. In three months,
Kristof's estimates had gone up from 10,000 to 15,000 a month. Six
months later, on 27 November, Kristof warned that 'if aid groups pull
out . . . the death toll could then rise to 100,000 a month.' Anyone
keeping a tally of the death toll in Darfur as reported in the
Kristof columns would find the rise, fall and rise again very
bewildering. First he projected the number of dead at 320,000 for
2004 (16 June 2004) but then gave a scaled down estimate of between
70,000 and 220,000 (23 February 2005). The number began once more to
climb to 'nearly 400,000' (3 May 2005), only to come down yet again
to 300,000 (23 April 2006). Each time figures were given with equal
confidence but with no attempt to explain their basis. Did the
numbers reflect an actual decline in the scale of killing in Darfur
or was Kristof simply making an adjustment to the changing mood
internationally?

In the 23 April column, Kristof expanded the list of perpetrators to
include an external power: 'China is now underwriting its second
genocide in three decades. The first was in Pol Pot's Cambodia, and
the second is in Darfur, Sudan. Chinese oil purchases have financed
Sudan's pillage of Darfur, Chinese-made AK-47s have been the main
weapons used to slaughter several hundred thousand people in Darfur
so far and China has protected Sudan in the UN Security Council.' In
the Kristof columns, there is one area of deafening silence, to do
with the fact that what is happening in Darfur is a civil war. Hardly
a word is said about the insurgency, about the civilian deaths
insurgents mete out, about acts that the commission characterised
as 'war crimes'. Would the logic of his 23 April column not lead one
to think that those with connections to the insurgency, some of them
active in the international campaign to declare Darfur the site of
genocide, were also guilty of 'underwriting' war crimes in Darfur?

Newspaper writing on Darfur has sketched a pornography of violence.
It seems fascinated by and fixated on the gory details, describing
the worst of the atrocities in gruesome detail and chronicling the
rise in the number of them. The implication is that the motivation of
the perpetrators lies in biology ('race') and, if not that, certainly
in 'culture'. This voyeuristic approach accompanies a moralistic
discourse whose effect is both to obscure the politics of the
violence and position the reader as a virtuous, not just a concerned
observer.

Journalism gives us a simple moral world, where a group of
perpetrators face a group of victims, but where neither history nor
motivation is thinkable because both are outside history and context.
Even when newspapers highlight violence as a social phenomenon, they
fail to understand the forces that shape the agency of the
perpetrator. Instead, they look for a clear and uncomplicated moral
that describes the victim as untainted and the perpetrator as simply
evil. Where yesterday's victims are today's perpetrators, where
victims have turned perpetrators, this attempt to find an African
replay of the Holocaust not only does not work but also has perverse
consequences. Whatever its analytical weaknesses, the
depoliticisation of violence has given its proponents distinct
political advantages.

The conflict in Darfur is highly politicised, and so is the
international campaign. One of the campaign's constant refrains has
been that the ongoing genocide is racial: 'Arabs' are trying to
eliminate 'Africans'. But both 'Arab' and 'African' have several
meanings in Sudan. There have been at least three meanings of 'Arab'.
Locally, 'Arab' was a pejorative reference to the lifestyle of the
nomad as uncouth; regionally, it referred to someone whose primary
language was Arabic. In this sense, a group could become 'Arab' over
time. This process, known as Arabisation, was not an anomaly in the
region: there was Amharisation in Ethiopia and Swahilisation on the
East African coast. The third meaning of 'Arab' was 'privileged and
exclusive'; it was the claim of the riverine political aristocracy
who had ruled Sudan since independence, and who equated Arabisation
with the spread of civilisation and being Arab with descent.

'African', in this context, was a subaltern identity that also had
the potential of being either exclusive or inclusive. The two
meanings were not only contradictory but came from the experience of
two different insurgencies. The inclusive meaning was more political
than racial or even cultural (linguistic), in the sense that
an 'African' was anyone determined to make a future within Africa. It
was pioneered by John Garang, the leader of the Sudan People's
Liberation Army (SPLA) in the south, as a way of holding together the
New Sudan he hoped to see. In contrast, its exclusive meaning came in
two versions, one hard (racial) and the other soft (linguistic) -
'African' as Bantu and 'African' as the identity of anyone who spoke
a language indigenous to Africa. The racial meaning came to take a
strong hold in both the counter-insurgency and the insurgency in
Darfur. The Save Darfur campaign's characterisation of the violence
as 'Arab' against 'African' obscured both the fact that the violence
was not one-sided and the contest over the meaning of 'Arab'
and 'African': a contest that was critical precisely because it was
ultimately about who belonged and who did not in the political
community called Sudan. The depoliticisation, naturalisation and,
ultimately, demonisation of the notion 'Arab', as against 'African',
has been the deadliest effect, whether intended or not, of the Save
Darfur campaign.

The depoliticisation of the conflict gave campaigners three
advantages. First, they were able to occupy the moral high ground.
The campaign presented itself as apolitical but moral, its concern
limited only to saving lives. Second, only a single-issue campaign
could bring together in a unified chorus forces that are otherwise
ranged as adversaries on most important issues of the day: at one
end, the Christian right and the Zionist lobby; at the other, a
mainly school and university-based peace movement. Nat Hentoff of the
Village Voice wrote of the Save Darfur Coalition as 'an alliance of
more than 515 faith-based, humanitarian and human rights
organisations'; among the organisers of their Rally to Stop the
Genocide in Washington last year were groups as diverse as the
American Jewish World Service, the American Society for Muslim
Advancement, the National Association of Evangelicals, the US
Conference of Catholic Bishops, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the
American Anti-Slavery Group, Amnesty International, Christian
Solidarity International, Physicians for Human Rights and the
National Black Church Initiative. Surely, such a wide coalition would
cease to hold together if the issue shifted to, say, Iraq.

To understand the third advantage, we have to return to the question
I asked earlier: how could it be that many of those calling for an
end to the American and British intervention in Iraq are demanding an
intervention in Darfur? It's tempting to think that the advantage of
Darfur lies in its being a small, faraway place where those who drive
the War on Terror do not have a vested interest. That this is hardly
the case is evident if one compares the American response to Darfur
to its non-response to Congo, even though the dimensions of the
conflict in Congo seem to give it a mega-Darfur quality: the numbers
killed are estimated in the millions rather than the hundreds of
thousands; the bulk of the killing, particularly in Kivu, is done by
paramilitaries trained, organised and armed by neighbouring
governments; and the victims on both sides - Hema and Lendu - are
framed in collective rather than individual terms, to the point that
one influential version defines both as racial identities and the
conflict between the two as a replay of the Rwandan genocide. Given
all this, how does one explain the fact that the focus of the most
widespread and ambitious humanitarian movement in the US is on Darfur
and not on Kivu?

Nicholas Kristof was asked this very question by a university
audience: 'When I spoke at Cornell University recently, a woman asked
why I always harp on Darfur. It's a fair question. The number of
people killed in Darfur so far is modest in global terms: estimates
range from 200,000 to more than 500,000. In contrast, four million
people have died since 1998 as a result of the fighting in Congo, the
most lethal conflict since World War Two.' But instead of answering
the question, Kristof - now writing his column rather than facing the
questioner at Cornell - moved on: 'And malaria annually kills one
million to three million people - meaning that three years' deaths in
Darfur are within the margin of error of the annual global toll from
malaria.' And from there he went on to compare the deaths in Darfur
to the deaths from malaria, rather than from the conflict in
Congo: 'We have a moral compass within us and its needle is moved not
only by human suffering but also by human evil. That's what makes
genocide special - not just the number of deaths but the government
policy behind them. And that in turn is why stopping genocide should
be an even higher priority than saving lives from Aids or malaria.'
That did not explain the relative silence on Congo. Could the reason
be that in the case of Congo, Hema and Lendu militias - many of them
no more than child soldiers - were trained by America's allies in the
region, Rwanda and Uganda? Is that why the violence in Darfur - but
not the violence in Kivu - is named as a genocide?

It seems that genocide has become a label to be stuck on your worst
enemy, a perverse version of the Nobel Prize, part of a rhetorical
arsenal that helps you vilify your adversaries while ensuring
impunity for your allies. In Kristof's words, the point is not so
much 'human suffering' as 'human evil'. Unlike Kivu, Darfur can be
neatly integrated into the War on Terror, for Darfur gives the
Warriors on Terror a valuable asset with which to demonise an enemy:
a genocide perpetrated by Arabs. This was the third and most valuable
advantage that Save Darfur gained from depoliticising the conflict.
The more thoroughly Darfur was integrated into the War on Terror, the
more the depoliticised violence in Darfur acquired a racial
description, as a genocide of 'Arabs' killing 'Africans'. Racial
difference purportedly constituted the motive force behind the mass
killings. The irony of Kristof's columns is that they mirror the
ideology of Arab supremacism in Sudan by demonising entire
communities.[*]

Kristof chides Arab peoples and the Arab press for not having the
moral fibre to respond to this Muslim-on-Muslim violence, presumably
because it is a violence inflicted by Arab Muslims on African
Muslims. In one of his early columns in 2004, he was outraged by the
silence of Muslim leaders: 'Do they care about dead Muslims only when
the killers are Israelis or Americans?' Two years later he
asked: 'And where is the Arab press? Isn't the murder of 300,000 or
more Muslims almost as offensive as a Danish cartoon?' Six months
later, Kristof pursued this line on NBC's Today Show. Elaborating on
the 'real blind spot' in the Muslim world, he said: 'You are
beginning to get some voices in the Muslim world . . . saying it's
appalling that you have evangelical Christians and American Jews
leading an effort to protect Muslims in Sudan and in Chad.'

If many of the leading lights in the Darfur campaign are fired by
moral indignation, this derives from two events: the Nazi Holocaust
and the Rwandan genocide. After all, the seeds of the Save Darfur
campaign lie in the tenth-anniversary commemoration of what happened
in Rwanda. Darfur is today a metaphor for senseless violence in
politics, as indeed Rwanda was a decade before. Most writing on the
Rwandan genocide in the US was also done by journalists. In We wish
to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families, the
most widely read book on the genocide, Philip Gourevitch envisaged
Rwanda as a replay of the Holocaust, with Hutu cast as perpetrators
and Tutsi as victims. Again, the encounter between the two seemed to
take place outside any context, as part of an eternal encounter
between evil and innocence. Many of the journalists who write about
Darfur have Rwanda very much in the back of their minds. In December
2004, Kristof recalled the lessons of Rwanda: 'Early in his
presidency, Mr Bush read a report about Bill Clinton's paralysis
during the Rwandan genocide and scrawled in the margin: "Not on my
watch." But in fact the same thing is happening on his watch, and I
find that heartbreaking and baffling.'

With very few exceptions, the Save Darfur campaign has drawn a single
lesson from Rwanda: the problem was the US failure to intervene to
stop the genocide. Rwanda is the guilt that America must expiate, and
to do so it must be ready to intervene, for good and against evil,
even globally. That lesson is inscribed at the heart of Samantha
Power's book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.
But it is the wrong lesson. The Rwandan genocide was born of a civil
war which intensified when the settlement to contain it broke down.
The settlement, reached at the Arusha Conference, broke down because
neither the Hutu Power tendency nor the Tutsi-dominated Rwanda
Patriotic Front (RPF) had any interest in observing the power-sharing
arrangement at the core of the settlement: the former because it was
excluded from the settlement and the latter because it was unwilling
to share power in any meaningful way.

What the humanitarian intervention lobby fails to see is that the US
did intervene in Rwanda, through a proxy. That proxy was the RPF,
backed up by entire units from the Uganda Army. The green light was
given to the RPF, whose commanding officer, Paul Kagame, had recently
returned from training in the US, just as it was lately given to the
Ethiopian army in Somalia. Instead of using its resources and
influence to bring about a political solution to the civil war, and
then strengthen it, the US signalled to one of the parties that it
could pursue victory with impunity. This unilateralism was part of
what led to the disaster, and that is the real lesson of Rwanda.
Applied to Darfur and Sudan, it is sobering. It means recognising
that Darfur is not yet another Rwanda. Nurturing hopes of an external
military intervention among those in the insurgency who aspire to
victory and reinforcing the fears of those in the counter-insurgency
who see it as a prelude to defeat are precisely the ways to ensure
that it becomes a Rwanda. Strengthening those on both sides who stand
for a political settlement to the civil war is the only realistic
approach. Solidarity, not intervention, is what will bring peace to
Darfur.

The dynamic of civil war in Sudan has fed on multiple sources: first,
the post-independence monopoly of power enjoyed by a tiny 'Arabised'
elite from the riverine north of Khartoum, a monopoly that has bred
growing resistance among the majority, marginalised populations in
the south, east and west of the country; second, the rebel movements
which have in their turn bred ambitious leaders unwilling to enter
into power-sharing arrangements as a prelude to peace; and, finally,
external forces that continue to encourage those who are interested
in retaining or obtaining a monopoly of power.

The dynamic of peace, by contrast, has fed on a series of power-
sharing arrangements, first in the south and then in the east. This
process has been intermittent in Darfur. African Union-organised
negotiations have been successful in forging a power-sharing
arrangement, but only for that arrangement to fall apart time and
again. A large part of the explanation, as I suggested earlier, lies
in the international context of the War on Terror, which favours
parties who are averse to taking risks for peace. To reinforce the
peace process must be the first commitment of all those interested in
Darfur.

The camp of peace needs to come to a second realisation: that peace
cannot be built on humanitarian intervention, which is the language
of big powers. The history of colonialism should teach us that every
major intervention has been justified as humanitarian, a 'civilising
mission'. Nor was it mere idiosyncrasy that inspired the devotion
with which many colonial officers and archivists recorded the details
of barbarity among the colonised - sati, the ban on widow marriage or
the practice of child marriage in India, or slavery and female
genital mutilation in Africa. I am not suggesting that this was all
invention. I mean only to point out that the chronicling of
atrocities had a practical purpose: it provided the moral pretext for
intervention. Now, as then, imperial interventions claim to have a
dual purpose: on the one hand, to rescue minority victims of ongoing
barbarities and, on the other, to quarantine majority perpetrators
with the stated aim of civilising them. Iraq should act as a warning
on this score. The worst thing in Darfur would be an Iraq-style
intervention. That would almost certainly spread the civil war to
other parts of Sudan, unravelling the peace process in the east and
south and dragging the whole country into the global War on Terror.

Footnotes

* Contrast this with the UN commission's painstaking effort to make
sense of the identities 'Arab' and 'African'. The commission's report
concentrated on three related points. First, the claim that the
Darfur conflict pitted 'Arab' against 'African' was facile. 'In fact,
the commission found that many Arabs in Darfur are opposed to the
Janjawiid, and some Arabs are fighting with the rebels, such as
certain Arab commanders and their men from the Misseriya and Rizeigat
tribes. At the same time, many non-Arabs are supporting the
government and serving in its army.' Second, it has never been easy
to sort different tribes into the categories 'Arab'
and 'African': 'The various tribes that have been the object of
attacks and killings (chiefly the Fur, Massalit and Zeghawa tribes)
do not appear to make up ethnic groups distinct from the ethnic
groups to which persons or militias that attack them belong. They
speak the same language (Arabic) and embrace the same religion
(Muslim). In addition, also due to the high measure of intermarriage,
they can hardly be distinguished in their outward physical appearance
from the members of tribes that allegedly attacked them. Apparently,
the sedentary and nomadic character of the groups constitutes one of
the main distinctions between them' (emphasis mine). Finally, the
commission put forward the view that political developments are
driving the rapidly growing distinction between 'Arab' and 'African'.
On the one hand, 'Arab' and 'African' seem to have become political
identities: 'Those tribes in Darfur who support rebels have
increasingly come to be identified as "African" and those supporting
the government as the "Arabs". A good example to illustrate this is
that of the Gimmer, a pro-government African tribe that is seen by
the African tribes opposed to the government as having
been "Arabised".' On the other hand, this development was being
promoted from the outside: 'The Arab-African divide has also been
fanned by the growing insistence on such divide in some circles and
in the media.'

Mahmood Mamdani is Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and a
professor of anthropology at Columbia University. His most recent
book is Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots
of Terror.

2,513 posted on 03/20/2007 9:13:19 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

The Brotherhood and America Part Two

13/03/2007
By Manal Lutfi

http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=3&id=8297

http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=3&id=8297

Related Links: The Brotherhood and America Part One

http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=3&id=8286

http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=3&id=8286

Washington D.C, Asharq Al-Awsat- Despite what may be considered a
‘stalling’
in the interactive activities between the Americans and the Muslim
Brotherhood (MB) members in the region by virtue of the Iraqi war
(2003),
there still remain talks between America and the Brotherhood in various
capitals whenever the need arises or interests dictate. The US claims
to
have ‘fixed standards’ for dealing with Islamic organizations in the
region
– but the picture is more elaborate and involved. Essentially, there
are
five criteria that define the relationship with such organizations:

1- Their state of legitimacy in their native counties
2- Their position on the US State Department list of Foreign Terrorist
Organizations
3- Their agenda and ideological discourse
4- Their actions on the ground
5- Interests resulting from engaging in dialogue with the organizations
in
question

However, in political practice, these standards ravel to the point
where
they enter ‘grey’ domain. According to what American officials, both
current
and former, have revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat, the American
administration
does not hold talks with groups that are legally banned, which is not
entirely true as it is known that the past two years have seen
unofficial
and unannounced meetings between US officials and the MB group in
Syria,
despite Damascus’ refusal to recognize the Brotherhood in Syria as a
legitimate organization. While it is assumed that the legal recognition
is
amongst the requisite standards for establishing a relationship with
Washington, there remain two important exceptions: Hamas in Palestine
and
Hezbollah in Lebanon, which despite being present on the US terrorist
list,
America still refuses to engage in dialogue with them even though they
are
both legitimate groups in their native countries.

And while talks between the Americans and Jordan’s Islamic Action Front
(IAF) [Jabhat al Amal al Islami, the political wing of the MB in
Jordan] are
supposedly strong by reason of their legitimacy and their absence from
the
terrorist list, it is not the case, as indicated by an American
official.
Agreeing to speak on condition of anonymity, the official told Asharq
Al-Awsat that this was because the IAF, despite not advocating violence
directly, like its Egyptian counterpart; it too supported
suicide-bombing
operations that the Palestinians execute in Israel. As a consequence,
the
official said that the US relationship with Jordan’s MB is one of the
“weakest” among the legitimate organizations in the region with which
Washington has direct relations.

In contrast is Morocco’s Justice and Development party [PJD - Parti de
la
Justice et du Développement], with which Washington has a good
relationship
and which conforms to the five aforementioned standards. Perhaps the
best
way to describe the degree of accord in the relationship between the
Americans and the PJD, is what was stated by Marina Ottaway, director
of the
Middle East Program and senior associate in the Democracy and Rule of
Law
Project at the Carnegie Endowment when she said that many non-Islamic
political activists in Morocco had told her on her latest visit that
Washington wants the PJD to govern Morocco. Ottaway indicated that it
may
not be entirely accurate.

Despite the majority of American officials and researchers that Asharq
Al-Awsat interviewed stressing the importance of the legitimacy factor
in
determining the ability to hold talks with these Islamic organizations,
illegitimacy does not mean the ‘severance of relations’. Regarding this
matter, a US official told Asharq Al-Awsat that their clear policies
state
that banned groups are not to be dealt with, he cited the MB in Egypt
as an
example and said that in order to avoid awkward situations or stir up
sensitivities the organization is not dealt with in an official manner
or
capacity. He added that meetings may be held between Egyptian MPs who
are
affiliated to the MB or figures who are close to the group on an
individual
basis but not as members of the MB. He also clarified that the US
administration does not associate between the Brotherhood groups in
Kuwait,
Egypt, Jordan or Morocco and that the US had previously engaged in
talks
with the Brotherhood in Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco and that the
members of these groups had indeed met with US officials, but that
opening
dialogue depended on certain issues and particular interests.

The official explained that aside from the legitimacy element, the
presence
or absence of a given group on the US State Department list of Foreign
Terrorist Organizations similarly plays a defining role in dialogue
with the
Islamists, such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad with whom no
dialogue exists. The same applies to the armed groups that engage in
violence or who support it elsewhere.

The outcome of the interviews conducted by Asharq Al-Awsat revealed
that the

content and understanding of these proposed standards when dealing with
the
agendas and ideologies of Islamic organizations have two ceilings:
there are
some who view issues such as renouncing violence, tolerating diversity
and
respecting public freedoms to be the measure by which to judge Islamic
organizations in order to determine the likelihood of establishing
dialogue
with them, while others view that the ceiling must be raised to include
issues such as the group in question’s stance on the rights of women,
religious- and racial- minorities, and the application of Shariah
penalties.

Dennis Ross, formerly the special Middle East coordinator and envoy
during
Bill Clinton time in office, adopts the first basic approach; he sees
that
the renunciation of violence should be the point of entry which would
enable
dialogue with the external world. He told Asharq Al-Awsat that in all
matters related to dialogue, the definitive factor is the denouncing
violence as a means to achieve political goals. He added that if the MB
were
to make that announcement that his position towards them would change
but
that as long as violence comprised a part of their ideology that there
would
be little hope for dialogue, or any other relationship to be
established for
that matter. He said that he believed dealing with such groups is wrong
because it sends out a message that the US somehow feels, in some way
or
another, that they are the future.

Ross stressed that he preferred to establish dialogue with those who
possess
a vision about the future of the Middle East, one that is founded on
economic prosperity, tolerance and the acceptance of diversity. He
continued
to say that the majority of Muslims in the Middle East did not want a
world
steeped in violence and animosity and that they wanted a better life
for
themselves. He stated that although perhaps these organizations often
criticize the US on a number of aspects that this fact does not make
partnership impossible. It is not necessary that they should agree with
the
US on everything as it is not infallible but that there must be
political
regulations accepted by all, he said. According to Ross, the use of
violence
for political ends is not a legitimate method to achieve political
goals
because it means that you possess the ability to decide that you are
right
while all else is wrong and thus justify imposing your way on others.
There
are some who criticize American policy worldwide because they think
that we
want to impose our way on all, he said, adding that he believed that it
was
an erroneous assumption because one cannot enforce their ways on
others.

However, current officials in the US administration admit that the
picture
is greyer than that and say that the obscure areas between the black
and the
white provoke much misunderstandings and ambiguity. According to one
senior
official the positions and viewpoints towards the Islamic organizations
vary. He told Asharq Al-Awsat that there are no clear factors to
differentiate between moderate and extremist Islamic groups and that
there
were figures in the administration who adopted a more rigid approach
towards
the Islamists while others were less rigid, and that it was also
pending the
situation of the country in question. He stated that in the case where
the
choice was between the MB party in a particular country or a
bloodthirsty
takfiri [Muslims holding fellow Muslims to be infidels] group that they
would choose the former although they may not agree with the MB’s
political
ideas. So far, he said, there is still no broad unanimity within the US
administration regarding the Islamists in the Arab world. He questioned
the
possibility for there to be major participation by the citizens of a
given
country and whether other Islamic parties would allow for this
participation. He emphasized that their objective was for the region to
have
complete freedom for all, including the leftists and the secularists
whom
the Islamists consider disbelievers.

The senior official who agreed to be interviewed on condition of
anonymity
said the interaction between the US administration and the MB takes
place on
an individual basis, adding that he speaks from experience since he
occupied
a diplomatic post in Jordan some years ago and that they had normal
relations and contact with the IAF and dealt with it as they did with
other
political parties despite the fact that it had a definite position
against
the US, but that there was normal communication between the two sides.
He
said that he had personally visited the IAF’s newspaper office [the
weekly
Islamist Al Sabil newspaper] and that he used to have discussions with
the
people working there. He added that the situation is different in Egypt
as
there is delicacy surrounding the US’s relationship with the MB by
reason of
the party’s illegitimacy in the country.

There is a conviction that we deal with Brotherhood organizations in
the
region as a single broad position, he explained, refuting it by saying
that
these organizations are dealt with in accordance to several criteria.
The
first of which is the state and the political situation in each given
state.
He added that the proof of this was that the relations with Jordan’s MB
were
normal, while issues existed with their Egyptian counterparts – which
applies to all countries where the MB is banned as an organization of a
political party, such as Tunis or Syria. He said that while he was in
Syria
he knew various Islamists but did not know whether or not they were
affiliated to the Brotherhood, who were then, as they still are, an
illegitimate organization. Another exception to the rule is the
Brotherhood
in Iraq where there is significant communication and deliberations
between
Americans and the MB members who participate in Iraq’s present
government
and who also considerably engage in civil life – Iraq’s MB group art
the
only ones who have their own television channel, Baghdad satellite
channel.

The US senior official stated that in their view and dealings with the
Islamists, the second factor is these groups’ agendas regarding
democracy.
We are not against the Islamists as such, neither are we against the
Muslim
Brotherhood, he said. He added that the question was one about the
rules of
participation and that Washington does not regard the presence of the
MB in
politics or political life to be the problem, whether in Egypt, Jordan,
or
elsewhere, in fact it views it as a positive thing because we want
everyone
to participate. The main question is: do the rules of the game allow
for the
equal participation of concerned parties, Islamists and secularists,
liberals and leftists? Or does the Islamic trend manipulate the rules
of the
game to practice a form of blackmail and extortion against those not
affiliated to it? To Washington, this formulates the important
question, a
more important one than the existence of Islamists or the lack thereof,
he
said.

The official revealed that they were aware that the Islamists have a
strong
public appeal on the Arab street for a number of different reasons,
among
them the fact that they have an advantage by not being the governments
in
these countries. Regarding the grey areas in dealing with the MB
organizations in the region, the senior official cited Hamas as a good
example and said that they had no problem with the party’s
participation as
a civil political organization. Likewise, he said they had no problem
with
Hezbollah’s participation as a civil party that has a presence in civil
life
and that the problem was that they considered Hamas a terrorist
organization
that has practiced – and will continue to practice – terrorism.

He added: This was the former American stance regarding the Palestinian
elections; if Hamas had decided its participation would be as a
political
party rather than an oppositional organization then there would be no
problem. He explained that this did not mean that they supported the
ideologies of Islamists in Palestine and that the problem was the use
of
violence, furthermore adding that they were not against Hamas in
principle.
He added that they were not sympathetic to communist ideals because
fundamentally they were against communism but Washington had no issues
with
the participation of communist parties in the Arab world or anywhere
else.
The same applies to the Islamists, he said, differentiating between the
use
of violence on the one hand, and the belief in religious or
conservative
ideas in politics on the other. He stated that the latter was the
citizens’
choice and that the US does not interfere in this matter.

Marina Ottaway, director of the Middle East Program and renowned
researcher
at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace shares a similar
view, she
told Asharq Al-Awsat that the official position that the US
administration
adopts in dealing with Islamists in the region is that they are subject
to
the laws of the countries in which they have a presence. If the Islamic
organizations are not banned in their countries of origin, the US
administration sees no problem in contacting them and establishing
relations, she said. Citing Morocco’s PJD as an example, which is
recognized
by the US, she added that leaders from the party had been invited to
the
American embassy in Morocco to mark the occasion of America’s
independence
anniversary on the 4th of July.

She negated claims by political activists in Morocco who were not
affiliated
to Islamic organizations that the PJD was touted as the next party to
come
to power and added that the PJD is viewed as moderate and legitimate,
which
is why America converses with it, she said. Although the IAF is a
legitimate
party that is officially registered in Jordan, Ottaway said that the US
did
not favor it and yet it still held talks with it as it does with
Islamic
organizations in Iraq, such as the Supreme Council for Islamic
Revolution in
Iraq (SCIRI), led by Abdulaziz al Hakim or any other Sunni or Shia
organization that is legally authorized to operate. She explained that
the
official position is that if an organization is legally registered, it
is
contacted and dialogue is established. Like US officials, Ottaway
states
that Palestine’s Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah are the exceptions to
the
rule as their respective situations are complicated. The result is that
you
have two legitimate parties that the US does not recognize; in the case
if
Hamas the reason being its refusal to recognize the state of Israel
while in
the case of Hezbollah, the main reason is the fact that it is backed by
Syria and Iran, which connotes a lot more than just being a religious
party.
She affirmed that the US only deals with Egypt’s MB on an individual
basis,
the ‘independent MPs’ affiliated to the party since it is officially
banned.
Ottaway added that to the best of her knowledge, American diplomats
have not
held talks with Egyptian MPs affiliated to the MB.

Although American officials stress that Washington deals with the MB
presence in the region on an individual basis so that the policies that
apply to one country may not apply to another, they emphasize that the
US
has its eyes on the regional intra-relationships between the various MB
organization groups worldwide.

2,514 posted on 03/20/2007 9:21:51 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

Habib: Egyptian Regime Increases Political Tensions

Al Saeed Abbadi, Ikhwanweb - Cairo, Egypt
Tuesday, March 13, 2007

The Muslim Brotherhood group lashed out at the Egyptian regime's
measures that stoke tensions in the country following Monday's
unjustified detentions.

In the first reaction from the Muslim Brotherhood towards the latest
crackdown in which the security services arrested Dr. Mahmoud
Ghazlan, a members of the MB Executive Bureau, and other 9 MB
leaders, Dr. Mohamed Habib, the deputy chairman of the group, said in
a statement to Ikhwanweb that:" The latest sweep of arrests is
unjustified and is only increasing tensions, specially under the
current conditions the require a national consensus towards many
various issues .

"The Egyptian government is only increasing the state of public anger
towards its policies through directing more blows to the Muslim
Brotherhood, the biggest and most important political group in Egypt"
added Habib.

Habib pointed out that this campaign is the government's only
response to the Muslim Brotherhood MP's rejection to the
constitutional amendments and announcing that they will boycott the
sessions of the People's Assembly on 19 to 20 March, in which the
constitutional amendments will be voted in it.

The MB first deputy leader added that this campaign aims also at
directing strong blows to the MB leaders in order to cause confusion
inside it and to cut off contacts among its leaders nationwide,
specially during this stage.

And Habib denied that there is any deal between the Muslim
Brotherhood group and the Egyptian government and that the continuous
detentions against the group practically prove this .

Regarding the the MB's reported silence towards the military courts
and the continuous detentions, Habib said the Muslim Brotherhood did
not and will never stop short of fighting the injustice carried out
by the regime against; but the group is studying the situation well
and gives the appropriate reactions that achieve its targets.

It is worth mentioning that the security forces arrested on Monday
evening:

Dr. Mahmoud Ghazlan, a member of the MB Executive Bureau,
Mohamed Al Qassas, an MB young leader
Dr. Mohamed Saad Eleiwa, MB leaders in the governorate of Giza,
Dr. Mohie Hamed, from governorate of Sharqiya,
Dr. Mostafa Al Ghoneimi, from governorate of Gharbiya,

And they broke into the house of Dr. Gamal Nassar, but they didn't
find him and he went to them and surrendered on Tuesday morning.

The security forces arrested on Tuesday predawn, March, 13 , 2007,
three Muslim Brotherhood young men from the governorate of Damietta:
Sherif Al Sayed Ahmed, an engineer in Damietta port,
Ahmed Al Nagar, an employee in Damietta port,
Amr Zaki, graduate from the faculty of commerce.

Muslim Brotherhood Leaders, Members Detained Tuesday March, 13, 2007

Name - Job - Governorate
Dr. Mahmoud Ghozlan MB Executive Bureau member, agronomy professor at
Zagazig University Giza
Dr. Mohamed Saad Eleiwa Urologist at Boulaq Hospital Giza
Dr. Gamal Nassar PhD in philosophy Giza
Dr. Muhi Hamed Otorhinolaryngologist Sharqiya
Dr. Mostafa Al Ghoneimi gynecologist Gharbiya
Mohamed Al Sorougi Al-Geel Al-Muslim school principal Gharbiya
Mohamed Al Qassas Works in artistic production Cairo
Eng. Sherif Al Sayed Ahmed Engineer in Damietta port Damietta
Eng. Ahmed Al Nagar Engineer in Damietta port Damietta
Amr al-Zaki Graduate from the faculty of commerce Damietta
Ibrahim Ramadan Azhar teacher Shubra
Mohamed Raafat Teacher Shubra
Ahmed Al Hit Social worker Shubra
Ramadan Abdelcader Teacher Shubra

................................................................

Egyptian MP: Torture Is Systematic Under Current Regime

Ikhwanweb - Cairo, Egypt
Tuesday, March 13, 2007

http://www.ikhwanweb.com/Home.asp?
zPage=Systems&System=PressR&Press=Show&Lang=E&ID=6607

http://www.ikhwanweb.com/Home.asp?

A Muslim Brotherhood MP confirmed that the torture exercised inside
police stations is similar to what the Israelis did against the
Egyptian POWs.

Hussein Mohamed Ibrahim., the undersecretary-general of the Muslim
Brotherhood's parliamentary bloc, said that the torture in police
stations resembles what the Israelis were doing against Egyptian
prisoners of war during the 1967 war !

The MB parliamentarian added, while the Human Rights Committee was
discussing in its Sunday meeting the report of the National Council
For Human Rights 2006/2007, that this report proves that torture is a
systematic method; Ibrahim read paragraphs from the report showing
that a group of citizens were killed pot of torture inside police
stations, including citizen Mohamed Khairi Ata- Abu Zabal police
station, and citizen Mohamed Siddik – in Sahil Salim police station.

Ibrahim pointed out that the human rights report convicts and
implicates the Interior Ministry and he demanded the Interior
Ministry officials to come to respond to these accusations mentioned
in the report, and that the response should be accompanied by
documents not with empty speeches.

Ibrahim demanded doing surprise visits to police stations to see the
situation on the ground; responding to this suggestion, Edward Ghali,
the committee chairman, said:" this is the job of the public
prosecution" adding that "yes there are violations which are
committed by the Interior Ministry; the perpetrators of these
violations must be hunted and held accountable for their actions.

The independent MP Mohamed Amer demanded officials of the National
Council For Human Rights to appear before the committee to clarify
the cases of torture which are mentioned in the report " so that we
can confront the Interior Ministry officials."

For his part, Hussein Ibrahim told Ikhwanweb that cases of torture in
prisons and police stations have become a systematic phenomenon under
the current regime that has violated human rights in an unprecedented
method in Egypt.

Ibrahim added that the recently revealed cases of torture are only a
tip of the iceberg of a very tragic status quo that the Egyptians are
obliged to live under this autocratic regime.

....................................................................

Ghozlan Detained Because MB Rejects Constitutional Amendments

Abdul Moneim Mahmoud, Ikhwanweb - Cairo, Egypt
Tuesday, March 13, 2007

http://www.ikhwanweb.com/Home.asp?
zPage=Systems&System=PressR&Press=Show&Lang=E&ID=6614

http://www.ikhwanweb.com/Home.asp?

The State Security forces arrested Dr. Mahmoud Gohzlan, a member of
the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) Executive Office; he is also married to
sister of Mohamed Khairat Al Shater, the second deputy chairman of
the MB.

A huge number of plainclothed policemen broke into Ghozlan's house at
8.30 AM on Monday, March, 12, 2007, headed by Osama Al Gabali who
introduced himself as a state security officer in Zayed's branch in
Giza; he told Dr. Ghozlan that he is under arrest and refused to show
him any arrest warrant or prosecution permit.

They ransacked the house in a provocative way, seeking any papers or
documents inside wardrobes to the extent that they searched pockets
of shirts and suits; they took the house's PC and a laptop of
Mohamed, the elder son of Dr. Ghozlan.

The forces that broke into the flat held two women, who were in a
visit to Dr. Ghozlan's wife, inside a room for three hours so that
they don't make any phone calls making them fear that they may be
detained.

The residents of the building in which Dr. Ghozlan is living were
provoked by the scene that that they witnessed for the second time in
less than two months, as Dr. Essam Hashish, a professor at the
Faculty of Engineering Cairo University was detained and transferred
to later to a military tribunal.

The residents asked mockingly the campaign officers whether Dr.
Ghozlan is the one who made Al-Salam 98 ferry boat sink (a tragedy
that claimed thousands of lives and was blamed on the government
negligence), is Dr. Ghozlan the one who polluted the blood bags; one
of the residents shouted in front of the soldiers and said:" I wished
I were in Mauritania" and the crowds around the house shouted "state
security: why are afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood", and " state
security are security of the state of Egypt or the state of Israel.

The people stopped in front of the car in which Dr Ghozlan was taken
and prevented it from moving until a special forces unit took Dr.
Ghozlan out of the car and move him to in front of people to another
car outside the cordon made by the crowds.

Mohamed, the oldest son of Dr. Ghozlan, said:" The regime confirms
its repressive policy against opposition; my father was released only
a year ago after serving five years due to a groundless charge and an
oppressive military ruling that violates the competent judiciary and
principles of human rights; he confirmed that "the regime insists on
intimidating us through arresting our father again; what is
paradoxical is that arresting my father, a university professor,
coincides with releasing Dr. Hani Sorour who is accused of spreading
polluted and infected blood bags among Egyptians; Dr. Ghozlan's son
asked mockingly also" is my father Al-Maadi serial killer whom the
security services failed to identify or arrest.

In a provocative act from officer Osama Al Gabali, he stormed into
the house of Dr. Essam Hashish, who is currently jailed, and he
ransacked the flat and mocked at his wife who he threatened at the
beginning with breaking the flat door unless she opens it quickly.

Dr. Mahmoud Ghozlan, 58 years, is a professor at the Faculty of
Agriculture, Zagazig University, and he is specialized in a rare
branch in biochemistry; he was previously jailed for five years by a
ruling of a military court on the 2001 case dubbed as "the case of
university professors".

Ghozlan is suffering from hypertension and heart disorder which he
developed during the previous five-year prison sentence.

The detention of Dr. Ghozan is considered by analysts as the first
reaction from the regime on the declared outright rejection of the
Muslim Brotherhood and other political powers to the constitutional
amendments proposed by president Mubarak and their declaration that
they will boycott the sessions of the legislative committee in the
people's Assembly.

...................................................................

Muslim Brotherhood Condemns Arresting Ghozlan, 17 Others

Ikhanweb - Cairo, Egypt
Wednesday, March 14, 2007

http://www.ikhwanweb.com/Home.asp?
zPage=Systems&System=PressR&Press=Show&Lang=E&ID=6618

http://www.ikhwanweb.com/Home.asp?

The Muslim Brotherhood group has issued a statement in which it
criticized the Egyptian regime's latest crackdown that included
arresting 18 MB leaders and members, topped by Dr. Mahmoud Ghozlan,
the MB Executive Bureau member.

The following is the text of the statement:

Muslim Brotherhood Condemns Arresting Ghozlan, 17 Others

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) expresses its full condemnation to the
security services crackdown launched on Tuesday March, 13, 2007, and
included arresting Dr. Mahmoud Ghozlan, MB executive bureau member,
and seventeen others from governorates of Giza, Cairo, Al-Qalyubia,
Sharqiya, Gharbiya and Damietta, and it considers this an aggression
on rights, justice and freedoms.

The Muslim Brotherhood group denounces this repressive method which
the regime is using against the group, aiming at marginalizing its
political and social roles, and even paralyzing the Egyptian
political life to worsen the state of academic, cultural and
technological backwardness that Egypt is witnessing; using this
dictatorial measure, this regime proves itself to be a failure in
successfully handling the down to earth problems facing Egyptian
citizens in the political, economic and social aspects, after
marginalizing Egypt's pivotal and strategic role regionally and
internationally.

This crackdown is seemingly the regime's direct reaction immediately
after the Muslim Brotherhood MPs declared their outright rejection to
the constitutional amendments and that they will boycott the People's
Assembly sessions on March 18-19, 2007, during which the these
amendments will go to vote before it.

It's worth mentioning that these amendments will be very harmful to
the political atmosphere, due to the restrictions that they will
impose on private and public freedoms, violations to the principle of
citizenship, making president remain in office for ever, establishing
corruption and tyranny and setting the scene for rigging people's
will through excluding judges from a complete and real supervision
over the general parliamentary elections.

The Muslim Brotherhood urges all political and national powers to
declare their rejection to and protest at this repressive method that
will only complicate matters, specially during the current tensions
which Egypt is witnessing.

The Muslim Brotherhood confirms that it will remain steadfast to its
peaceful and reformist method through constitutional and legal
channels (And Allah hath full power and control over His affairs, but
most of men know not)
(Those who do wrong will come to know by what a (great) reverse they
will be overturned)

Mohamed Mahdi Akef
Chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood

2,515 posted on 03/20/2007 9:30:45 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

Analysis: Iran: Paper tiger or real threat?

By CLAUDE SALHANI
UPI International Editor

http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20070319-06181
1-5012r

WASHINGTON, March 19 (UPI) -- Responding to a UPI article published
last
week on Saudi Arabia's worries over mounting Iranian influence in the
Arab
world, a well-informed Saudi source told United Press International
that the
reality on the ground offered a very different picture.

"The situation has radically changed in the Gulf, and especially
between the
Kingdom (of Saudi Arabia) and Iran. Iran is at best a second-grade
power and
slowly slipping into a third-grade power," said the source, who
requested
anonymity. He added, "Saudi Arabia is more than ready at present to
directly
deal with the Iranians in many different ways, and this is what has got
them
so nervous.

"It is Iran that is on the defensive and has realized it has way
overplayed
its hand," said the official. This fits with recent reports from Iran
that
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was accused by some mullahs of "making
enemies" for Iran.

"Iran has already tried many times to stir trouble in our eastern
province
and failed for many reasons," said the source. "So we are not very
concerned
about this currently."

Now it is Iran who is worried, said the Saudi source. "They are very
worried
about the 8 million-plus Sunni community in Iran and the recent unrests
in
the Sunni areas."

Refuting earlier UPI analysis that stated Saudi Arabia would be
dependent on
the U.S. military to guarantee its independence, the Saudi source said:
"Saudi Arabia does not need to be supported by anyone to deal directly
with
Iran."

Saudi Arabia's lack of fear of Iran has been proven "over and over
again
over the past several weeks," added the source, referencing a "dressing
down" of Ahmadinejad during his recent visit to the kingdom by King
Abdullah
as "the most recent and visible example of this."

In stressing Saudi Arabia's position of strength vis-à-vis Iran, the
Saudi
source pointed to the following statistics:

While it's true that Iran dwarfs Saudi Arabia in population -- 68
million
vs. 25 million -- and its military is far more powerful, developed and
experienced in combat than the Saudi military, the Saudis carry greater
economic, diplomatic and strategic clout.

The Saudis dwarf Iran in gross domestic product. According to the CIA's
2006
estimates, the Saudi per capita GDP is $13,800; Iran's is $8,900.

Economically, Saudi Arabia's free-market economy is no match for Iran.
Iran's economy is plagued by a bloated and inefficient state
bureaucracy
that is over-reliant on the oil sector. Its statist policies further
hamper
development. Private-sector activity is typically limited to
small-scale
workshops, farming and services.

Saudi Arabia leads in oil production and exports. In a report carried
by
Arab News, Abdullah Jumah, the president and chief executive of Saudi
Aramco, said the kingdom's oil output reached 10.7 million barrels per
day
by the end of 2006. Aramco also added an additional 3.6 billion barrels
of
oil to its reserves in 2006 and boosted its natural-gas holding by 10.4
trillion standard cubic feet, more than double its initial target.

Iran, according to Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh, increased its
crude-oil production by 55,000 barrels per day in the last year,
bringing
total output to 4.08 million bpd.

Additionally, unlike Saudi Arabia, Iran lacks the capability of
refining its
own crude oil, relying instead on foreign refineries, principally
India.

To the world's 1.4 billion Muslims, Saudi Arabia carries greater
religious
importance as the center of Islam's two holiest shrines -- Mecca and
Medina
-- where Sunnis and Shiites carry out their pilgrimage, one of Islam's
five
requirements. The holy shrines in Najaf and Karbala in Iraq, as well as
in
Qom and Mashhad in Iran, are generally exclusively sacred to the
Shiites.
While Iran has a Shiite majority, Shiites account for only about 15
percent
of the Muslim world. And repeated attempts by Iran to drum up support
among
the Saudi Shiite population of approximately 1 million yielded little
success.

A Saudi security expert instead sees Iran's Sunni community of close to
8
million as a "huge fifth column." The expert remarks on the differences
between Saudi Shiites, who are Arabs and thus ethnically similar to
Saudis,
and Iranian Sunnis who, unlike the country's Shiites, are not Persian
but
Arab.

Counter to what many Arabs fear, according to this usually very
reliable
source, "The hypothesis that they (Iran) are or will become the
regional
power is laughable and highly delusional."

Leading U.S. military strategist Anthony Cordesman thinks Iran's
current
military capabilities are "outdated" and "present little current threat
to
its neighbors."

"Iran has exaggerated its military capabilities," Cordesman, of the
Washington-based Center for Strategic & International Studies, said
during a
recent speech to a group of military experts in Abu Dhabi.

"Iran is more focused on national defense than using military power to
boost
its influence in the region," he said. Iran represents "a force that
has to
be taken seriously in the defense of its country, but it has very
little
capacity to project outside the country," Cordesman said.

He maintained that Iran's nuclear program could someday pose a danger
but
that "any serious threat lies a decade or so away."

"Iran cannot seriously engage the U.S. for any length of time. Its army
possesses about 1,600 mainly obsolete tanks and armored vehicles that
would
be no match for the U.S. Abrams M1-A1 battle-tested tank. Similarly,
the
Islamic republic's aged air force of some 260 warplanes, many of which
have
parts cannibalized from other planes just to keep them flying."

Iran's ballistic missiles use 1960s technology, making them only
accurate
enough to "probably" strike a large city, Cordesman said. Their small
warheads might only damage a few buildings.

The most sophisticated weapons system in Iran's arsenal is defensive:
the
Russian-made TOR-M1 air defense systems just purchased from Russia.

Cordesman also contended that tensions in the Gulf were being worsened
by
U.S. and Israeli leaders overstating the Iranian threat. "The real
danger
Iran poses would be in an asymmetric capacity perhaps, but not in
conventional warfare," he said.

But it is precisely this asymmetric capacity that has many U.S. and
European
Union officials worried. Iran has the ability to disrupt -- albeit
temporarily -- the oil flow in the Gulf. And it has the ability to
create
trouble in Lebanon through Hezbollah. One area of particular concern to
the
Europeans, primarily the French and Italians, is the vulnerability of
the
United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, where Iran could demonstrate
its
power precisely through asymmetric warfare.

--

(Comments to Claude@upi.com)

2,516 posted on 03/20/2007 9:33:29 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

Hamas-Iran links full of contradictions, but also mutual interest

http://www.losangeleschronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=22408

Hamas-Iran links full of contradictions, but also mutual interest
By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI Associated Press Writer
BEIRUT, Lebanon
When Iraq hung Saddam Hussein, furious Sunni Muslims in the militant
group
Hamas held mourning ceremonies. That did not sit well with Shiite
Muslim
Iran, one of Hamas' key backers but also a strong Saddam foe.

Yet the dispute over Saddam's execution did not break the Hamas-Iran
alliance, either.

Instead the two _ bound by common strategic interests _ have solidified
their relationship in the last year, creating a growing worry for both
some
Arab countries and for Israel.

Israel has in recent weeks accused Iran of training Hamas militants
from
Gaza and smuggling weapons to Hamas. The weekend formation of a
Palestinian
coalition government between Hamas, which won a democratic election a
year
ago, and the more moderate Fatah is sure to bring new attention to the
issue.

At their core, Iran and Hamas are far apart ideologically: Iran
espouses a
fundamentalist Shiite version of Islam, while Hamas adheres to an
equally
strict rival Sunni version.

But when it comes to Hamas, Iran's interests are based primarily on its
rivalry with Washington and with its Arab allies for influence in the
region.

"Political Islam is very pragmatic," said Beirut-based Palestinian
analyst
Souheil Natour. "They are playing realpolitick."

Iranian analyst Saeid Leylaz said Iran's strategic goals are based on
its
perception that the United States is a threat to its survival.

"The Iranians are trying to use all the means at their disposal to
cripple
American efforts ... If Iran and America sit down at the negotiating
table
and discuss their strategies, I promise you that all Iran's actions in
the
Middle East, including Palestine, will change," he said.

Iran rushed to the aid of Hamas last year after most Arab states went
along
with an international boycott against the Hamas government, imposed by
the
U.S. and Europe because of Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel or
renounce
violence.

At first, Iran pledged $50 million to the near-bankrupt Palestinian
Authority. Since then, it is believed to have promised another $250
million
to be paid in monthly installments.

After the Palestinian coalition government's formation, however, some
Western governments, including key donor Norway, are likely to resume
payments to the Palestinians, which could lessen the need or desire for
Iranian aid.

Meanwhile, Arab states _ worried about Iran's growing regional
influence _
have in recent months tried to blunt Iran's role by reaching out to
Hamas.

Last month, Saudi King Abdullah mediated a truce in the bloody fighting
between Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement at a summit
in
Mecca, and persuaded them to agree on forming the Palestinian unity
government.

Hamas viewed the Mecca meeting as a sign of its reintegration into Arab
politics.

"It was a recognition of the election results and (Arab) cooperation
with
Hamas," said Mousa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas spokesman in Damascus, Syria.

But the Mecca meeting did not mean Hamas would abandon Iran as an ally,
either, he said.

"Ties remain strong with Iran," Abu Marzouk said. "Iran's position is
the
closest to Hamas."

Indeed, relations between the two were tight even before Hamas'
election
win.

Iran and Hamas forged a united front against Israel during Hamas leader
Khaled Mashaal's visit to Tehran in December 2005, when Mashaal pledged
to
step up attacks against Israel if it took military action against Iran.

"We are part of a united front against the enemies of Islam," Mashaal
said
then.

The position contrasts that of the moderate Fatah faction, which regard
Arab
states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia as the Palestinians' natural
allies.

The ties between Iran and Hamas first began in the early 1990s when
Israel
expelled 400 Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists to southern Lebanon.

The exiled Palestinians camped out in Marj al-Zohour, a no-man's land
controlled by Iranian-backed Hezbollah, a Shiite Lebanese guerrilla
group.
Before that, Hamas had been wary of Shiite Iran but ties gradually
warmed.

"The psychological taboo against Shiism was broken in Marj al-Zohour,
where
the Palestinians came into close contact with Hezbollah and actually
got
along," said Sakr Abu Fakher, editor of the Palestinian Studies
magazine in
Beirut.

Ties strengthened and financial support grew after the 2000 Palestinian
uprising against Israel. A historic visit to Tehran in 1998 by Hamas'
late
spiritual leader, Ahmed Yassin, also helped.

After Syria, Tehran's closest Arab ally, became the main base for
senior
Hamas exiles in 1999, the contacts between Iran and Hamas increased
even
more.

Yet Hamas "has never considered itself as part of the Syria-Iran axis,
as
Hezbollah has," said Beirut-based Palestinian expert Majed Azzam.

He and others note that Hamas has taken independent positions from
Tehran,
such as when it participated in the 2006 Palestinian elections against
Iran's objections.

In addition, he said, Hamas is not prepared to take a "hostile position
against other Arab countries, even against those that have peace
treaties
with Israel."

2,517 posted on 03/20/2007 9:36:36 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

To: All; Founding Father

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/

Christian-Arab Predicts World Islam Takeover - Unless...

By Hillel Fendel

"When will you Westerners realize that half-measures don't work with
people
who are willing to die by the thousands for Allah to achieve their
goal?"
This was the upshot of a recent conversation between a Holocaust
survivor
living in Herzliya and a Christian-Arab living in the Galilee.

Following are excerpts from the Christian-Arab's remarks, based on
article
by Solly Ganor for FrontPage Magazine

continues............

2,518 posted on 03/20/2007 9:39:56 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

I was going to pass it off, as a travel blog, until I saw the balloons on the lake, ready for shooting.

Lebanon, had mysterious balloons a month or so ago.

If he was in Iraq and Turkey, is he headed to a training camp?

2,519 posted on 03/20/2007 9:43:25 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

To: All; FARS; Founding Father; milford421

Americans: We Were All on US Airways Flight 300

In Defense of the Constitution
News & Analysis
010/07 March 19, 2007

Americans: We Were All on US Airways Flight 300

On 13 March, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced
that
six imams who had disrupted a US Airways flight by engaging in
suspicious
behavior, have filed a lawsuit against US Airways and the Minnesota
Metropolitan Airport Commission (MAC) claiming a laundry-list of civil
rights violations:

http://www.cair.com/default.asp?Page=articleView&id=2615&theType=NR

In addition to suing the airline and the MAC, the "Magnificent Six" are
going after unknown gate agents, other unknown employees of US Airways,
and
"John Does"; currently unidentified passengers who, according to the
complaint, had the effrontery to dare to report the suspicious
activities of
the Magnificent Six to authorities:

http://www.cair.com/pdf/usairwayscomplaint.pdf

The following was written by Katherine Kersten on 14 March and appeared
in
the StarTribune.com:

"The imams' attempt to bully ordinary passengers marks an alarming new
front
in the war on airline security. Average folks, "John Does" like you and
me,
initially observed and reported the imams' suspicious behavior on Nov.
20.
Such people are our "first responders" against terrorism. But the
imams'
suit may frighten such individuals into silence, as they seek to avoid
the
nightmare of being labeled bigots and named as defendants."

"Ironically, on the day the imams filed their suit, a troubling
internal
memo came to light at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
The
memo revealed that our airport is at particular risk of terrorist
attack
because of its proximity to the Mall of America, its employment of
relatively few security officers and other factors. The memo advised
heightened vigilance to counter "this very real and deliberate threat."

http://www.startribune.com/191/story/1055656.html

All non-Muslim Americans have been officially put on notice by CAIR
that
they report the suspicious activities of Muslims at risk of legal
action.

However, what about the role of the federal and state governments,
which
routinely ask citizens to report "suspicious activity" even if they are
not
quite sure it is dangerous on the presumption that "it's better to be
safe
than sorry? Who do we listen to, an Islamist terrorist supporting
"civil
rights" group, or our governments?

Let us ask ourselves, what is the ultimate goal of this lawsuit? Could
it
possibly be to make citizens second-guess themselves when they witness
a
possible terrorist act or precursor probe and to err on the side of not
reporting under threat of lawsuit? Why does CAIR apparently support the
ending of this "first line of defense"?

One thing we are certain of: it has absolutely nothing to do with civil
rights, Muslim or otherwise.

As this case moves to trial, we hope all Americans will stand in
solidarity
with the passengers, US Airways, and its employees who were terrorized
that
day.

When the trial opens, we should all remember that we were passengers on
US
Airways Flight 300 that day.because if the Magnificent Six win their
case,
what person in their right mind will want to travel by air within the
United
States, knowing that security personnel are under orders to ignore
Middle
Eastern passengers, no matter how suspicious their activities?

Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR (ACAIR)
ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org

ADVISORY:
Subscribers are warned that the Council on American Islamic Relations
(CAIR)
may contact your employer if CAIR believes you are using a work address
to
receive any material that CAIR believes may be offensive. CAIR has been
known to shame employers into firing employees CAIR finds disagreeable.
For
that reason, we strongly suggest that corporate e-mail users NOT use a
corporate e-mail account/address when communicating with ACAIR or CAIR.
We
make every reasonable effort to protect our mailing list, but we cannot
guarantee confidentiality. ACAIR does not share, loan, sell, rent or
otherwise publicize our mailing list. We respect your privacy!

TIPS:
All persons are invited to submit tips and leads. ACAIR will
acknowledge
receipt of all tips/leads, but we will NOT acknowledge the source of
ANY tip
or lead in our Press Releases or on our web site. Exceptions are made
for
leading media personalities at the discretion of ACAIR and only on
request
of the person(s) submitting the tip or lead.

2,520 posted on 03/20/2007 10:51:59 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (How are your survival supplies? Today is a good one, for stocking up, food, medicine, & protection.)

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