Free Republic

Meaning of 'jihad' focus of Fla. trial By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer 24 minutes ago Defense attorneys in the Jose Padilla terrorism support trial are going to great lengths to suggest to jurors that jihad is not necessarily Muslim holy war and that mujahedeen could just as easily be freedom fighters as terrorists. The meaning of words, especially Arabic words, is center stage as federal prosecutors play hours of FBI telephone intercepts involving Padilla and two other defendants charged with participating in an Islamic extremist support network. Padilla, 36, is a U.S. citizen who was held for 3 1/2...

This photograph taken from a CD purportedly by al-Qaida militants in India shows a masked man sitting beside an automatic gun reading a statement by Abdul Rehman al-Ansari, purportedly the chief of al-Qaida Fil Hind or al-Qaida in India, received by Current News Service in Srinagar, the main city of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, on Friday, June 8, 2007. A group claiming to represent the al-Qaida terror network declared a holy war on India over its control over part of the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, Indian officials said Saturday, adding that they were taking the threat seriously. Word at the...

Hillary Clinton recently said: "If I had been president in 2002, I would not have started this war." "If we in Congress don't end this war before January 2009, as president, I will." Both of these certitudes ignore the context and the realities. This may be because the Democrats by and large are in denial or believe that America is to blame for terrorism. If only America would stop oppressing the Arabs or stop favouring Israel, terrorism would greatly diminish. Even if they are prepared to accept that we are in World War IV with Islamists, staying engaged in Iraq...

With great conviction, my half-sister cried: "It's a lie! Jews have a way of blinding people. They were not killed, gassed or massacred. But I pray to Allah that one day all the Jews in the world will be destroyed." She was not saying anything new. As a child growing up in Saudi Arabia, I remember my teachers, my mom and our neighbors telling us practically on a daily basis that Jews are evil, the sworn enemies of Muslims, and that their only goal was to destroy Islam. We were never informed about the Holocaust. Later, as a teenager in...

I don't want to sound alarmist here, but North Korea has just conducted its first nuclear weapons test. This is not good. Imagine Adolf Hitler with a nuclear weapon. That would be the moral equivalent of Kim Jong-il with one. There is no difference. Kim is a mass murderer, possibly on the scale of Hitler. The only difference, so far, is that Kim has killed millions of his own people through starvation, forced labor camps and executions – more in the style of Josef Stalin. But Kim's dream, like his Stalinist father's, remains reunification of his country through military force....

By stigmatising organisations such as Hizbullah, Hamas, there is no longer necessity to respect their constituencies, democratic mandates Lee Marsden Published: 09.21.06, 16:59 Today, the United States’ campaign to reshape the Middle East is an unmitigated disaster. The ambitious project to create a democratic region has resulted in the deaths of over seventy thousand people, mainly civilians, in the Middle East and beyond. Recent democratic elections in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories and Israel have resulted in more rather than less violence. For Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this may be the acceptable “birth pangs of democracy” but for...

Gazan Muslims Form Group to Attack Christian Targets 23:03 Sep 19, '06 / 26 Elul 5766 by Ezra HaLevi Muslims in Hamas-controlled Gaza have formed an ad hoc terrorist group promising to attack Christian targets to avenge the Pope’s choice of a quotation insinuating that Islam is prone to violence. The group, which calls itself the “Army of guidance,” sent an announcement to news agencies based in Gaza saying that “every place relevant to Christians will be a target until the cursed infidel – the Vatican – apologizes to Muslims.” Hardline Islamic groups were offended by the Pope’s citing of...

PAKISTANI President Pervez Musharraf today called for a ban on the "defamation of Islam" in a speech to the UN General Assembly in which he took a veiled swipe at Pope Benedict XVI for his remarks linking the Muslim faith to violence. "We also need to bridge, through dialogue and understanding, the growing divide between the Islamic and Western worlds," General Musharraf told the 192-member assembly. "It is imperative to end racial and religious discrimination against Muslims and to prohibit the defamation of Islam." In an indirect reference to Pope Benedict XVI, he said, "It is most disappointing to see...

ELEANOR HALL: A former CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) director and chief adviser to New York's Terrorism Preparedness Taskforce has described the conflict against al-Qaeda as the "fourth world war", and he predicts it will go on for decades. James Woolsey was director of the CIA under President Clinton and was an arms control negotiator under presidents Reagan and Bush Senior. He's critical of US administrations from Jimmy Carter to Bill Clinton for failing to tackle Islamic terrorism more robustly. James Woolsey has been speaking to Paolo Black. JAMES WOOLSEY: I think that war will go on for decades, like the...

To: National Desk Contact: Department of Justice, 202-514-2007 WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following fact sheet on anti-terrorism efforts was released today by the Department of Justice: The highest priority of the Department of Justice since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has been to protect Americans by preventing acts of terrorism. The ability of the Department to identify and prosecute would- be terrorists, thereby thwarting their deadly plots, has improved dramatically over the past five years thanks to: a core set of structural reforms, the development of new law enforcement tools, and the discipline of a...

LONDON (EJP)--- Prominent British film director Ken Loach has called for a boycott of state-sponsored Israeli cultural institutions in response to Israel’s actions in Lebanon, and has encouraged others to follow suit. The 69-year-old winner of this year’s Palme d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival has also refused an invite to attend this year’s Haifa Film Festival in protest against Israel’s actions during the recent hostilities in Lebanon. He said: “I support the call by Palestinian film-makers, artists and others to boycott state sponsored Israeli cultural institutions and urge others to join their campaign. “Palestinians are driven to call...

The uniqueness of the Holocaust was not the Nazi's determination to kill the Jews of Germany and even of neighboring Poland. Other genocides, such as those by the Cambodians and the Turks, sought to rid particular areas of so called undesirables by killing them. The utter uniqueness of the Holocaust was the Nazi plan to "ingather" all the Jews of the world to the death camp and end the Jewish "race" forever. It almost succeeded. The Nazis ingathered tens of thousands of Jews (including babies, women, the elderly) from far flung corners of the world--from the Island of Rhodes from...

Is it just me or does it seem like the nation was just days ago acting like it was September 10 all over again? Sure, the foiled airline terror plot in London yesterday seemed to recalibrate the terror-ticker in most Americans, but why did it need to? In all seriousness, how can any person with straight face make a political argument that Joe Lieberman was a terrible guy for the sole reason that he felt it was important to be vigilant about America's safety? Don't you think on Wednesday morning that more than half the state of Connecticut wanted to...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said recently that “we are in the early stages of what I would describe as the third world war.”  Citing fresh examples of North Korean belligerency, Islamic terrorism in India, ongoing fighting in Afghanistan, insurgency in Iraq, support for Hezbollah terrorism by Iran and Syria, the related fighting between Israel and Lebanon, and the arrests of terrorists aspiring to murder Americans, Gingrich analogized the current state of affairs to the Great War and World War II.  In politics, the term “war” is sometimes used metaphorically in ways that do not shed precise light on the...

I really try to avoid vanity posting but in this case I have to. I watched with fascination the documentary Obsession on Google video. The documentary about the Islamic war on the West quickly moved up the most viewed and rated films until it was removed by Google. I wonder if there is a connection that it was replaced with a Moonbat film titled 911 Cover Up which is now rated as #4 on the list. There is something very wrong here that people need to know. Below are the inks to Google's video home page and to the disgusting...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Iran has freed a son of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from house arrest, a German newspaper reported on Wednesday. Die Welt said the Iranian Revolutionary Guard released Saad bin Laden on July 28 with the aim of sending him to the Syria-Lebanon border. It linked the reported move to the outbreak of war between Israel and Lebanese-based Hizbollah.

Sometimes the DUmmies come up with a proposition so absolutely ABSURD that it falls into the category of the comical. In this case it is this PROPOSITION, "Should religion be outlawed as it seems to be at the epicenter of most of the worlds strife." Even FUnnier than the fact that a DUmmie made this proposal is that the other DUmmies have joined in the chorus of agreement. So let us now watch the DUmmies once again toss all reason to the wind in Bolshevik Red while the commentary of your humble correspondent, praying fervently that the DUmmies continue...

A Brief History of MADness Mutually Assured Destruction. MAD. It is a doctrine that came into being during the Cold War. The superpowers on the world stage consisted of two nations: the United States of America and the Soviet Union. The USA: a capitalist constitutional republic that believes that the government should serve the people, protecting the inalienable rights given to us by God. The USSR: a union of countries ruled by communism that believes that the government dictates what is best for the people, and that the government determines the rights of the people. Two polar opposites. Both were...

Iran's war to remove Israel from the Middle East has begun. In writing "Atomic Iran," I argued that a new World War began on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, 1979, when Ayatollah Khomeini prepared to leave Paris to return to Tehran. This week, that World War has entered a shooting phase. If we count the Cold War as World War III, we are forced to declare that this Iran-driven terrorist war to destroy Israel and the U.S. is World War IV. Apparently, Iran has given its surrogate terrorist organizations, Hezbollah and Hamas, operational orders to launch rocket attacks on Israel,...

Decision Brief No. 06-D 15 2006-03-20 What we are fighting for (Washington, D.C.): The third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has been marked by anti-war demonstrations, polls suggesting evaporating public support for the effort to consolidate that country's liberation and paroxysms of doubt by America's finger-in-the-wind politicians. It seems like a good time to reflect anew on the true nature of the conflict -- and why have no choice but to wage it with tenacity and to a successful conclusion. A Film for Our Times Fortunately, we are greatly aided in that task by the timely arrival of...