Posted on 12/17/2006 4:03:30 PM PST by DAVEY CROCKETT
VEVAK learned its methodology from the Soviet KGB and many of the Islamist revolutionaries who supported Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini actually studied at Moscow's Patrice Lumumba Friendship University, the Oxford of terrorism. Documented Iranian alumni include the current Supreme Leader (the faqih) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, under whose Velayat-e Faqih (Rule of the Islamic Jurisprudent) apparatus it has traditionally operated. Its current head is Cabinet Minister Hojatoleslam Gholam-Hussein Mohseni-Ezhei, a graduate of Qom's Haqqani School, noted for its extremist position advocating violence against enemies and strict clerical control of society and government. The Ministry is very well funded and its charge, like that of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (the Pasdaran) is to guard the revolutionary Islamic Iranian regime at all costs and under all contingencies.
From the KGB playbook, VEVAK learned the art of disinformation. It's not so difficult to learn: tell the truth 80% of the time and lie 20%. Depending on how well a VEVAK agent wants to cover his/her tracks, the ratio may go up to 90/10, but it never drops below the 80/20 mark as such would risk suspicion and possible detection. The regime in Teheran has gone to great lengths to place its agents in locations around the world. Many of these operatives have been educated in the West, including the U.K. and the United States. Iranian government agencies such as embassies, consulates, Islamic cultural centers, and airline offices regularly provide cover for the work of VEVAK agents who dress well and are clean shaven, and move comfortably within our society. In this country, because of the severance of diplomatic relations, the principal site of VEVAK activities begins at the offices of Iran's Permanent Mission to the UN in New York.
Teheran has worked diligently to place its operatives in important think tanks and government agencies in the West. Some of its personnel have been recruited while in prison through torture or more often through bribery, or a combination of both. Others are Islamist revolutionaries that have been set up to look like dissidents - often having been arrested and imprisoned, but released for medical reasons. The clue to detecting the fake dissident is to read carefully what he/she writes, and to ask why this vocal dissident was released from prison when other real dissidents have not been released, indeed have been grievously tortured and executed. Other agents have been placed in this country for over twenty-five years to slowly go through the system and rise to positions of academic prominence due to their knowledge of Farsi and Shia Islam or Islamist fundamentalism.
One of the usual tactics of VEVAK is to co-opt academia to its purposes. Using various forms of bribery, academics are bought to defend the Islamic Republic or slander its enemies. Another method is to assign bright students to train for academic posts as specialists in Iranian or Middle East affairs. Once established, such individuals are often consulted by our government as it tries to get a better idea of how it should deal with Iran. These academics then are in a position to skew the information, suggesting the utility of extended dialogue and negotiation, or the danger and futility of confronting a strong Iran or its proxies such as Hizballah (Hezbollah). These academics serve to shield the regime from an aggressive American or Western policy, and thereby buy more time for the regime to attain its goals, especially in regards to its nuclear weaponry and missile programs.
MOIS likes to use the media, especially electronic media, to its advantage. One of VEVAK's favorite tricks is setting up web sites that look like they are opposition sites but which are actually controlled by the regime. These sites often will be multilingual, including Farsi, German, Arabic French, and English. Some are crafted carefully and are very subtle in how they skew their information (e.g., Iran-Interlink, set up and run by Massoud Khodabandeh and his wife Ann Singleton from Leeds, England); others are less subtle, simply providing the regime's point of view on facts and events in the news (e.g., www.mujahedeen.com or www.mojahedin.ws). This latter group is aimed at the more gullible in our open society and unfortunately such a market exists. However, if one begins to do one's homework, asking careful questions, the material on these fake sites generally does not add up.
Let's examine a few examples of VEVAK's work in the United States. In late October, 2005, VEVAK sent three of its agents to Washington to stage a press event in which the principal Iranian resistance movement, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK), was to be slandered. Veteran VEVAK agent Karim Haqi flew from Amsterdam to Canada where he was joined by VEVAK's Ottawa agents Amir-Hossein Kord Rostami and Mahin (Parvin-Mahrokh) Haji, and the three flew from Toronto to Washington. Fortunately the resistance had been tracking these three, informed the FBI of their presence in Washington, and when the three tried to hold a press conference, the resistance had people assigned to ask pointed questions of them so that they ended the interview prematurely and fled back to Canada.
Abolghasem Bayyenet is a member of the Iranian government. He serves as a trade expert for the Ministry of Commerce. But his background of study and service in the Foreign Ministry indicates that Bayyenet is more than just an economist or a suave and savvy businessman. In an article published in Global Politician on April 23, 2006, entitled Is Regime Change Possible in Iran?, Bayyenet leads his audience to think that he is a neutral observer, concerned lest the United States make an error in its assessment of Iran similar to the errors of intelligence and judgment that led to our 2003 invasion of Iraq, with its less than successful outcome. However, his carefully crafted bottom line is that the people of Iran are not going to support regime change and that hardliner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually has achieved greater popularity than his predecessors because of his concern for the problems of the poor and his fight for economic and social justice. To the naive, Bayyenet makes Ahmadinejad sound positively saintly. Conveniently overlooked is the occurrence of over four thousand acts of protest, strikes, anti-regime rallies, riots, and even political assassinations by the people of Iran against the government in the year since Ahmadinejad assumed office. So too, the following facts are ignored: the sizeable flight of capital, the increase in unemployment, and the rising two-figure rate of inflation, all within this last year. Bayyenet is a regime apologist, and when one is familiar with the facts, his arguments ring very hollow. However, his English skills are excellent, and so the naОve might be beguiled by his commentary.
Mohsen Sazegara is VEVAK's reformed revolutionary. A student supporter of Khomeini before the 1979 revolution, Sazegara joined the imam on his return from exile and served in the government for a decade before supposedly growing disillusioned.
He formed several reformist newspapers but ran afoul of the hardliners in 2003 and was arrested and imprisoned by VEVAK. Following hunger strikes, Sazegara was released for health reasons and permitted to seek treatment abroad. Although critical of the government and particularly of Ahmadinejad and KhameneМ, Sazegara is yet more critical of opposition groups, leaving the impression that he favors internal regime change but sees no one to lead such a movement for the foreseeable future. His bottom line: no one is capable of doing what needs to be done, so we must bide our time. Very slick, but his shadow shows his likely remaining ties to the MOIS.
http://www.ocnus.net/artman/publish/article_27144.shtml
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/177905
Khadr faces fresh U.S. charges TheStar.com - News - Khadr faces fresh U.S. charges
Guantanamo prosecutor hopes to open murder case this summer against young Canadian held for five years
February 03, 2007
michelle shephard
staff reporter
Guantanamo Bay's chief military prosecutor has prepared murder charges against former Toronto resident Omar Khadr, once again starting the process of putting the Canadian on trial for war crimes.
Col. Morris Davis, the chief prosecutor, said in an interview last night that he hopes Khadr's case will be tried before military commissions held on the U.S. navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as early as this summer.
Proceedings under previous tribunals were halted last year when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the process illegal. Congress passed a new law authorizing the military commissions and President George W. Bush signed it into law in October.
Under this new commission, Khadr, now 20, again faces charges of murder, attempted murder, conspiring and providing support to Al Qaeda and an additional charge of spying.
Two other detainees also had charges sworn against them yesterday Australia's David Hicks and Osama bin Laden's alleged driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdam, who is from Yemen.
Khadr's lawyers called the new charges an abuse of justice, saying the tribunals permit hearsay, coerced and secret evidence making them not much different from what the Supreme Court previously rejected.
"For a boy who was 15 when he was captured and who has been held by the U.S. for almost five years, it's ridiculous to charge him. You've got to just get him home to Canada now," Khadr's military-appointed lawyer, Lt.-Col. Colby Vokey, said yesterday.
Khadr was captured in July 2002 by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and brought to the Guantanamo prison camp three months later, after his 16th birthday.
He is accused of throwing a grenade that killed an American soldier and injured others following a lengthy attack by U.S. forces on a suspected Al Qaeda stronghold where Khadr was the only survivor.
Khadr now resides in a new maximum-security facility known as Camp 6, which the Toronto Star toured this week. He is kept in isolation except for a couple of hours a day of recreation in a caged-in area outside. Questions are now being raised about Khadr's mental ability to stand trial.
Although the modern facility is not unlike North American federal prisons and a far cry from the outdoor metal cages where the first detainees were brought five years ago many lawyers have complained that the isolation is leading to serious psychological problems.
Six former Canadian foreign affairs ministers, including Liberal Bill Graham who held the position when Khadr was detained, wrote an open letter this week urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to "speak up."
"He must press the U.S. government to deal with Guantanamo detainees, and all other detainees held in the `war on terror,' in a manner consistent with international human rights standards. He should appeal to the U.S. to respect the rule of law and close Guantanamo," they wrote.
Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay told reporters in Ottawa yesterday that Canada had received U.S. "assurances" that "humanitarian standards have been met" at Guantanamo.
"If there was any evidence to the contrary, we would ask that it be brought forward."
Khadr's case has not generated the type of public outrage in Canada that has occurred in other countries such as Australia, where demonstrations and intense public pressure about Hicks have forced politicians to answer questions about their negotiations with the U.S.
Australian newspapers have also reported there is a possibility that Hicks may be allowed to serve his sentence at home if convicted.
Canadian Foreign Affairs Department spokesperson Alain Cacchione declined to answer whether Khadr, if convicted, might be allowed to serve his sentence in Canada, saying yesterday that the question was speculative and citing Khadr's privacy rights.
Now that Davis has signed the charges under the new military commissions, his recommendations will go to a convening authority appointed by the U.S. secretary of defence, who can approve, reject or alter the charges.
If approved, Khadr will be officially charged and could appear before the commission for pre-trial hearings within 30 days.
Thanks to Milford421 for this report:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,250124,00.html
Officials Suspect Theft in Missing Hard Drive Containing Military
Veterans' Personal Data
Saturday, February 03, 2007
E-MAIL STORY PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION
WASHINGTON A portable hard drive that may contain the personal
information of up to 48,000 veterans may have been stolen, the
Department of Veterans Affairs and a lawmaker said Friday.
An employee at the VA medical center in Birmingham, Ala. reported
the external hard drive missing on Jan. 22. The drive was used to
back up information on the employee's office computer. It may have
contained data from research projects, the department said.
The employee also said the hard drive may have had personal
information on some veterans, although portions of the data were
protected. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson said that the
VA and the FBI are investigating.
Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., said that the personal information of
up to 48,000 veterans was on the hard drive and the records of up to
20,000 of them were not encrypted.
Pending results of the investigation, VA is planning to send
individual notifications and to provide a year of free credit
monitoring to anyone whose information is compromised.
http://islam-exposed.blogspot.com/2007/02/islam-exposed.html
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Islam Exposed
GERMANY AND ANTI-SEMITISM TODAY - a must read article
A Writer's view of today's Germany - William E. Grim is a writer who lives in Germany and is a native of Columbus, Ohio.
I'm not Jewish. No one in my family died in the Holocaust. For me, anti-Semitism has always been one of those phenomena that doesn't really register on my radar, like tribal genocide in Rwanda, a horrible thing that happens to someone else.
continued.....................
This is worth reading, it bears up to what I have picked up, a piece here and there.
At least he is writing about what he saw, while living there and you that are younger, should know what is coming.
granny
http://cbs2.com/local/local_story_033213306.html
Feb 2, 2007 11:55 pm US/Pacific
All-Access Airport Attire At Large
Complete List Of Stolen Or Lost TSA Uniforms, Credentials
"It's like trick or treating. You're giving them the costume to do what they want."
"If anyone gets these uniforms and badges they can pretty much walk in and do what they want."
continued........
[snipped]
Since November of 2002, 789 uniforms and id badges are missing from LAX -- the most in the nation. That's nearly double Baltimore Washington Airport. They're at number two.
By comparison Chicago's O'Hare Airport had 307 and JFK just 97.
Locally -- Burbank is missing 30, John Wayne 22, Ontario nine and long beach three.
http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_034191034.html
Feb 3, 2007 4:59 pm US/Pacific
Planes Collide Off Cabrillo Beach, 2 Pilots Unhurt
(CBS) RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. Two pilots walk away after their biplanes collide.
The FAA says the 1940s vintage planes hit each other around 3 p.m. Saturday afternoon about a mile off the coast of Cabrillo Beach.
One plane managed to return to Torrance Airport but the other landed on the beach and flipped over. That pilot, who's 82 years old, got out and walked away.
The FAA says the weather was clear at the time and the cause of the crash is under investigation.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc.
[I can't see a pinkie ring, as mentioned in the article, there is a photo]
http://www.makingsenseofjihad.com/2007/02/allibbi_on_aids.html
Al-Libbi on AIDS
Senior Al Qaeda ideologue and Bagram escapee Abu Yahya al-Libbi has come out with what first appears to be the oddest Al Qaeda video have yet produced. But on closer inspection the video is actually a clever strategic jab at Libya's regime.
The video begins with a Quranic passage and moves on to a news summary of the absurd, sad case of 6 foreign medical personnel who were tried and given the death penalty for their alleged role in transmitting HIV to children. Check here for more on the case.
The video has a specific strategic purpose. Its designed to win hearts and minds among Libyans and undermine the credibility of the Qaddafi regime. Qaddafi is in a tight situation. Average Libyans are calling for the executions, but he knows that in order to garner international investment and support, hes going to have release the prisoners. Far from being odd the video is a clever way to exploit a politically sensitive situation in order win support and recruits from Libyans.
The video is pure Al-Libbi. He sits in front of a plain brown screen with a clean and shiny AK-47 propped up in the background. The lighting is diffuse. He appears to be outside, but his breath isnt condensing in the cold air (Im assuming its cold along the Afghan/Pak border right now). It makes you wonder whether he's actually in the region.
The thing that caught my eye was his snazzy pinkie ring.
Allibbispinkyring
February 01, 2007
Interview with A.Ilarionov
Russia: Economist Says Political Elite 'Have Their Own Law'
NEW YORK, February 2, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Andrei Illarionov spent five
years as Russian President Vladimir Putin's economic adviser. Since
leaving his post at the end of 2005, however, he has become a vocal
critic of the Kremlin's political tendencies and human rights record.
Illarionov spoke to RFE/RL correspondent Nikola Krastev on January 30.
RFE/RL: You say that the West doesn't understand what's going on in
Russia. What's your view? What is going on?
Andrei Illarionov: The emergence of a new political, economic, and
ideological regime. In fact, it has already been more or less
established. My term for it -- which may not be the most precise term
--
is a "corporativist" state. It's where power is concentrated in the
hands of corporations whose members hold all the key positions in the
political, economic, ideological, informational, financial, and other
spheres of life.
These people support each other; they're members of the same
organization; they're beyond the reach of law and regulations; and they
counterpoise themselves against the rest of society. Their ideology is
the so-called "nash-ism" -- separating "us" and "ours" from "them" and
"the others." For "us," common laws are not applicable.
Another element of the "corporativist" state and "nash-ism" is the
widespread use of force and violence in various forms toward opponents
and "the others." This runs from threats of violence to actual acts of
violence -- in individual form or as violence on a mass scale. This
rule
applies to all aspects of life -- political, economic, financial,
informational. This is a cult of force. This is a cult of violence
preached via official propaganda on every official channel from dusk to
dawn.
RFE/RL: You say these people are above common law. Do they have laws
for
themselves?
Illarionov: They have their own law -- the essence of which is, "if
someone touches one of ours -- he will not outlive the day." [Disputes
among] themselves they solve in a manner consistent with the practices
of other social organizations, including the better-known one located
in
the southern part of Italy.
RFE/RL: Are there similarities between this new Russian elite and the
Soviet-era nomenklatura?
Illarionov: Certainly. Some people already refer to them as "the new
nomenklatura." To a certain extent, that's correct, because the members
of this nomenklatura are being appointed to the power structures with
no
regard for traditional, open, and competitive criteria.
The Soviet nomenklatura was more ideological; its key element was
loyalty to certain sets of dogmas. Now there is more flexibility on
ideology. Now the most important thing is not to be a loyal follower of
a certain ideology, but to be loyal to particular personal
relationships. You can't become a member of the new nomenklatura just
by
wanting it, by showing your readiness. The nomenklatura chooses its
members itself.
RFE/RL: Do you have any prognosis for the outcome of Russia's
parliamentary elections at the end of this year?
Illarionov: To be honest, I have absolutely no interest in following
the
so-called political campaign and actions of political parties, or the
so-called contenders for president [in the March 2008 election].
They're
meaningless, because it's all just an imitation campaign, imitation
actions which have no relation whatsoever to real life.
If you want to make a prognosis about the distribution of seats in the
State Duma after the elections in December 2007, you don't need to
analyze the political preferences of Russian citizens. You need to
study
the latest directives of the presidential administration aimed at the
governance of domestic politics.
RFE/RL: Do you see a government hand in the assassination in October of
Anna Politkovskaya and the poisoning death the next month of the former
FSB officer Aleksandr Litvinenko?
Illarionov: The truth is that political killings can happen in any
country, including in democratic, free countries. And not only
journalists are being killed; presidents are being assassinated as
well.
But after such a tragedy takes place, there is a big difference in what
authorities do in the aftermath.
It's enough to compare two cases: the murder of the Polish priest Jerzy
Popieluszko [in 1984] by agents of the Polish secret services on the
one
hand; and the poisoning of Mr. Litvinenko in London and the killing of
Mrs. Politkovskaya in Moscow on the other.
After Popieluszko's murder it was the [Communist] military junta, the
military government of Poland, which made sure the perpetrators were
found, brought to court, sentenced, and spent time in jail in
accordance
with Polish law.
In Russia it's the same thing, but the government is using all the
means
and resources of the state apparatus, including the Foreign Ministry,
the Prosecutor-General's Office, the State Duma, the Defense Ministry,
state media, and so on -- all of this has been engaged in order to
distract the public and the investigators, and to send them in any
direction but the one that leads to the apprehension of the killers.
Even when the names of the killers become known to the public, the
power
structures will do all they can to ensure they'll never be sentenced.
This is the difference between a country that is free and one that is
not free.
RFE/RL: You've said the crime rate in Russia doubled between 1998 and
2006. Usually if a state is becoming more oppressive, crime rates fall.
Why is it the other way around in Russia?
Illarionov: The elimination of freedoms leads, among other things, to
the elimination of institutions -- the weakening, collapse, and
ultimately the destruction of public and state institutions. That's why
the first victims of the death of freedom in Russia include the state
itself, state institutions -- even those that were themselves created
to
eliminate freedom.
Look at the tax authorities, the judicial system, the
Prosecutor-General's Office, and even the secret services themselves.
Everything that is happening in the Russian secret services lately is
clear evidence of their dismal state compared to functioning secret
services in normal countries.
http://rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/02/f41dc9f6-fd73-42c7-856e-53e9cfc74f96.html
http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?fr=yalerts-keyword&c=&p=bomb+OR+explosive+device&ei=utf-8
1. Man dies planting bomb Open this result in new window
Dawn - 2 hours, 11 minutes ago
LAKKI MARWAT, Feb 3: A man was killed when an explosive device went off outside a video shop in Lakki Marwat, 70 km off Dera Ismail Khan in the NWFP, early on Saturday.
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2. Suspicious Device Found At 7-11 Open this result in new window
KOIN News 6 Portland - Feb 03 12:51 PM
PORTLAND - Police responded to reports of a suspicious device at a 7-11 Store on Northeast Highway 99. Upon arrival deputies found what appeared to be an explosive device located at the gas pumps.
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3. Missouri: Pipe Bombs at Businesses Open this result in new window
New York Times - Feb 02 7:23 PM
A pipe bomb was delivered to a business in Chicago a day after a similar device arrived at a business in Kansas City. Federal agents investigated possible connections. The devices were defused without incident. The F.B.I. said a threatening note accompanied the device that arrived on Wednesday at the Kansas City mail center of American Century Investments. A similar explosive was found on ...
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4. Explosive Device Discovered Near Shechem Open this result in new window
Israel National News - Feb 01 11:20 AM
(IsraelNN.com) An explosive device weighing ten kilograms was discovered near Shechem Thursday evening. The device was ready for use and was packed with shrapnel. It was safely detonated by Israeli security forces.
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5. Crude bomb dismantled near a home in northeast Tulare Open this result in new window
Visalia Times-Delta - Feb 01 4:04 AM
TULARE The Tulare County Sheriff's Department bomb squad dismantled what was described as a "crudely made" explosive device found outside a Tulare home Tuesday afternoon.
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6. Viable device found on city road Open this result in new window
BBC News - Feb 01 5:12 AM
A viable explosive device has been found on the Grosvenor Road in west Belfast, the police say.
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7. What's Up? Hoax Device on eBay Open this result in new window
Wired News - Feb 02 12:40 PM
A Northwestern student art activist attempts to sell a genuine Aqua Teen Hunger Force 'hoax' device on eBay -- the one that shut down Boston over a bomb scare. We question the seller. In Table of Malcontents.
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8. Explosive devices mailed to Kansas City, Chicago Open this result in new window
Columbia Daily Tribune - Feb 03 6:07 AM
Officials search for link between packages sent to office buildings. CHICAGO (AP) - Authorities yesterday were investigating whether there was a link between two similar explosive devices mailed this week with notes to office buildings in Chicago and Kansas City.
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9. Bomb-Threat Was a Hoax Open this result in new window
ERT.gr - Feb 02 1:21 AM
A phone-call at Mega television spread panic in the early hours of Friday. An unidentified person called at the television networks operation centre, warning an explosive device was about to go off in half an hour.
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10. Homemade bomb found in truck Open this result in new window
The Arizona Republic - Feb 02 11:51 AM
Phoenix police find a homemade bomb in a pickup truck during a traffic stop Wednesday
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1,000 turkeys killed by bird flu
About 1,000 turkeys at a farm in Suffolk have died from bird flu, government vets have confirmed.
Vets from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the birds had tested positive for H5 avian flu.
It is not yet known if it is the H5N1 strain, which can be passed to humans.
Further tests are being carried out on the birds which died at a farm believed to be owned by Bernard Matthews, in Holton near Halesworth.
'Significant mortality'
Defra said reports from the farm were received late on Thursday night and the premises were immediately placed under restrictions.
"A full investigation began at 0900 GMT this (Friday) morning, with samples being sent to Veterinary Laboratories Agency, Weybridge, for testing," she said.
Sources at Defra have told the BBC that the alarm was raised by the farmer after he noticed "significant mortality" among his flock.
About 80% to 90% of the turkeys in the shed were showing signs of illness - going off their food and general malaise, which are among the symptoms of avian flu.
Chickens culled
There are 15 types of bird, or avian, flu. The most contagious strains, which are usually fatal in birds, are H5 and H7.
There are nine different types of H5. The nine all take different forms - some are highly pathogenic, while some are pretty harmless.
The type currently causing concern is the deadly strain H5N1, which can prove fatal to humans.
In May last year, more than 50,000 chickens were culled after an outbreak of the H7 bird flu in farms in the neighbouring county of Norfolk.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/england/suffolk/6326587.stm
Published: 2007/02/02 23:09:00 GMT
© BBC MMVII
30.01.2007
Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review
AIA
Russian human rights activist: secret services have become instrument
of
authority
The known Russian legal expert and human rights activist, Lev
Ponomarev,
commented to the weekly Obshchaya gazeta online edition on the
trainings
on shooting on the poisoned ex-FSB officer Alexander Litvinenkos
printed image on the firing range of the Vityaz brigade Russian special
troops training centre in Balashikha, Moscow area. "It is just a
separate example of the fact that secret services of Russia have been
training on elimination of opponents of the authority, Ponomarev is
quoted as saying. It is possible that in other, more secret
organizations, they had practised in using portraits of [murdered
investigative journalist Anna] Politkovskaya for target practice.
Similar methods bring up murderers, and it is very dangerous.
Ponomarev expressed his regret that in Russia security services had
been
used for elimination of political opponents of the regime, such as
Litvinenko. Therefore no one should be surprised when it is found out
that secret services had had relation to loud murders or explosions of
apartment blocks. Actually the secret services have become an
instrument
and hostages of the authority".
http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=1212
http://www.google.com/search?q=Lev+%0D%0APonomarev&client=netscape-pp&rls=com.netscape:en-US
Sunday, February 04, 2007
The British "Reconquista" has to start and start soon.
EXCLUSIVE: COPS SEIZE SECRET FILM OF MOSQUE RANT
POLICE holding the Birmingham terror suspects have seized secret TV footage of an Islamic preacher praising the death of a British Muslim soldier in Afghanistan.
The mystery cleric - now being urgently hunted by detectives - ranted about the dead serviceman at a meeting in a Birmingham mosque. He said: "There was an individual killed in Afghanistan recently. Do you know what was written in a newspaper? Hero of Islam! The hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulders!"
The hate-filled speech at the meeting in Jamia Mosque in the mainly Asian neighbourhood of Sparkbrook was secretly filmed by an undercover reporter for an edition of the Channel 4 series Dispatches screened last month.
..............................................................................................................................................
So it would appear that Channel 4 decided not to show the whole truth to the British public but let us be charitable, this could have been because there was an on going police investigation into that particular Mosque, well if that was the case why show any of the video? would it not have been prudent to wait until the investigation was completed?.
We now know that this footage exists and is evidence that the Muslim community in that area at least, relish the death of British soldiers, where ever they are.
It is therefore much more than coincidence that the plan to butcher a serving British soldier centres on this Mosque.
Omar Bakri, this Preacher calls for death to all Muslim soldiers
The time to act positively and directly I feel is getting closer, the evidence of Islamic treachery and duplicity towards this country of ours is now surely too big for any Government to ignore.
The Muslim propaganda machine is in full flow and the more it flows the more stupid it looks, we all know that they are distorting the truth, we all know that they are now more and more isolated and that we the public no longer believe anything they say or counterclaim, they have blown it.
In the Times there is an article entitled "We're far too nice to muslim extremists" this is a good article and will echo the feelings of many in the UK.
The column ends with a "too little too late " comment , I now think that the time is right to start being "pro-active in the prosecution of this war for possession of our own country.
The British "Reconquista" has to start and start soon.
Here is some of the Times article:
"My counter terrorist wish list goes as follows. Silence all imams who break the law in their preaching with incitements to violence (the governments record has been abysmal). Monitor all mosques; refuse visas to foreign imams who speak poor or no English (the government lost its nerve over this, as over so much). Control and monitor imams visiting prisons (the Prison Service is so shambolic that it is impossible to know whether all its 130 or so visiting imams have been security vetted). Segregate Islamist prisoners in jail (this is done in the best prisons but is out of control in the rest). Isolate radical Islamist prisoners (this is against the Human Rights Act). Stop them having internet access (not all prisons do).
More widely, recognise that the problem now lies with self-radicalisation in suburban front rooms. Stop the creation of religious schools (Blair sold the pass on this). Monitor madrasah schools. Restrain the practice of importing brides and bridegrooms in arranged marriages from the Third World (this is well known to inhibit integration, but the government abolished the primary purpose rules preventing such marriages, presumably for electoral advantage); this could be done by following the Danish example of strict entry requirements and a minimum age of 24, which enables young people to choose more freely. Spend much more money monitoring young dual-passport Britons trips to Pakistan and deport them for attending training camps (these routes are watched but it is expensive and the Pakistani government is unable to help).
Teach schoolchildren the facts about conditions in Muslim countries (as opposed to right-on grievances about the black hole of Calcutta). Teach them what happens in jails in Muslim states, compared with what has happened in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay. Teach schoolchildren and young adults what sharia involves; stop listening to the so-called representative bodies of British Muslims, not least the Muslim Council of Britain. Require the government to reveal the names and CVs of its advisers on Islamic affairs. Censor the violent Islamist recruitment sites on the internet, including the insidious hip-hop and rap sites. America and even China manage it for different reasons.
But all this is too little, too late. How can one not feel a furious, frustrated rage at the betrayal of our civilisation and our safety?"
http://uppompeii.blogspot.com/2007/02/british-reconquista-has-to-start-and.html
World Domination as detailed in "witness statement" Melbourne Oct. 2003
http://www.meforum.org/pf.php?id=920
This item is available on the Middle East Forum website, at
http://www.meforum.org/article/920
The Islamist Challenge to the U.S. Constitution
by David Kennedy Houck
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2006
First in Europe and now in the United States, Muslim groups have
petitioned
to establish enclaves in which they can uphold and enforce greater
compliance to Islamic law. While the U.S. Constitution enshrines the
right
to religious freedom and the prohibition against a state religion, when
it
comes to the rights of religious enclaves to impose communal rules, the
dividing line is more nebulous. Can U.S. enclaves, homeowner
associations,
and other groups enforce Islamic law?
Such questions are no longer theoretical. While Muslim organizations
first
established enclaves in Europe,[1] the trend is now crossing the
Atlantic.
Some Islamist community leaders in the United States are challenging
the
principles of assimilation and equality once central to the civil
rights
movement, seeking instead to live according to a separate but equal
philosophy. The Gwynnoaks Muslim Residential Development group, for
example,
has established an informal enclave in Baltimore because, according to
John
Yahya Cason, director of the Islamic Education and Community
Development
Initiative, a Baltimore-based Muslim advocacy group, "there was no
community
in the U.S. that showed the totality of the essential components of
Muslim
social, economic, and political structure."[2]
Baltimore is not alone. In August 2004, a local planning commission in
Little Rock, Arkansas, granted The Islamic Center for Human Excellence
authorization to build an internal Islamic enclave to include a mosque,
a
school, and twenty-two homes.[3] While the imam, Aquil Hamidullah, says
his
goal is to create "a clean community, free of alcohol, drugs, and free
of
gangs,"[4] the implications for U.S. jurisprudence of this and other
internal enclaves are greater: while the Little Rock enclave might
prevent
the sale of alcohol, can it punish possession and in what manner? Can
it
force all women, be they residents or visitors, to don Islamic hijab
(headscarf)? Such enclaves raise the fundamental questions of when,
how, and
to what extent religious practice may supersede the U.S. Constitution.
The Internal Muslim Enclave
The internal Muslim enclave proposed by the Islamic Center for Human
Excellence in Arkansas represents a new direction for Islam in the
United
States. The group seeks to transform a loosely organized Muslim
population
into a tangible community presence. The group has foreign financial
support:
it falls under the umbrella of a much larger Islamic group, "Islam 4
the
World," an organization sponsored by Sharjah, one of the constituent
emirates of the United Arab Emirates.[5] While the Islamic Center for
Human
Excellence has yet to articulate detailed plans for its Little Rock
enclave,
the group's reliance on foreign funding is troublesome. Past
investments by
the United Arab Emirates' rulers and institutions have promoted radical
interpretations of Islam. [6]
The Islamic Center for Human Excellence may seek to segregate schools
and
offices by gender. The enclave might also exercise broad control upon
commerce within its boundaries-provided the economic restrictions did
not
discriminate against out-of-state interests or create an undue burden
upon
interstate commerce. But most critically, the enclave could promulgate
every
internal law-from enforcing strict religious dress codes to banning
alcohol
possession and music; it could even enforce limits upon religious and
political tolerance. Although such concepts are antithetical to a free
society, U.S. democracy allows the internal enclave to function beyond
the
established boundaries of our constitutional framework. At the very
least,
the permissible parameters of an Islamist enclave are ill defined.
The greater American Muslim community's unapologetic and public
manifestation of belief in a separate but equal ideology does not bode
well.
In September 2004, the New Jersey branch of the Islamic Circle of North
America rented Six Flags Adventure Park in New Jersey for "The Great
Muslim
Adventure Day." The advertisement announcing the event stated: "The
entire
park for Muslims only." While legal-and perhaps analogous to corporate
or
other non-religious groups renting facilities, the advertisement
expressly
implied a mindset that a proof of faith was required for admission to
the
park. In his weblog, commentator Daniel Pipes raises a relevant and
troubling question about the event: because it is designated for
Muslims
only, "Need one recite the shahada to enter the fairgrounds?"[7]
While U.S. law might give such Muslims-only events the benefit of the
doubt,
flexibility may not go both ways. There is precedent of Islamists
taking
advantage of liberal flexibility to more extreme ends. Canada provides
a
useful example into how Islamist groups can exploit liberal legal
tolerance.
In 1991, Ontario, Canada, passed a seemingly innocuous law called the
"Arbitration Act."[8] This act permitted commercial, religious, or such
other designated arbitrators to settle civil disputes outside the
Canadian
justice system so long as the result did not contradict Canadian law.
Like
U.S. authorities are beginning to do now, Canadian legislators decided
to
give religious groups the benefit of the doubt, assuming that they
would
still hold national law to be paramount.
In October 2003, under the auspices of the Ontario legislation, the
Islamic
Institute of Civil Justice created Muslim arbitration boards and stated
its
intent to arbitrate on the basis of Islamic law.[9] A national furor
erupted, particularly among Canadian Muslim women's groups that opposed
the
application of traditional Islamic (Shari'a) laws that would supersede
their
far more liberal and egalitarian democratic rights. After nearly two
years
of legal wrangling, the premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, held that
religious-based arbitrations "threaten our common ground," and
announced,
"There will be no Shari'a law in Ontario. There will be no religious
arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians."[10]
On
November 15, 2005, McGuinty's provincial government submitted
legislation to
amend the arbitration act to abrogate, in effect, all religious
arbitration.[11] Requests for Muslim enclaves within larger U.S.
communities
may signal that U.S. jurisprudence will soon be faced with a similar
conundrum. Islamist exceptionalism can abuse the tolerance liberal
societies
have traditionally extended to interface between religious and secular
law.
Prior to the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice demands to impose
Shari'a,
the Arbitration Act worked well. Unfortunately for Canadian Jews, the
repeal
ended state-enforcement of agreements reached by the use of a
millennia-old
rabbinical court system called beit din (house of law) that had for
decades
quietly settled marriage, custody, and business disputes. Joel Richler,
Ontario region chairman of the Canadian Jewish Congress, expressed his
lament: "If there have been any problems flowing from any rabbinical
court
decisions, I'm not aware of them."[12] Canadian Catholics likewise were
stopped from being able to annul marriages according to Canon Law and
avoid
undue entanglement in civil courts. Abuse of the spirit of the law,
though,
ended up curtailing local liberty. Rather than soften the edge between
religion and state, the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice threatened
to
eliminate it with the imposition of Shari'a. The Canadian experience
demonstrates how flexibility can backfire when all parties do not seek
to
uphold basic precepts of tolerance. The Little Rock application raises
the
specter of a parallel situation. While The Islamic Center for Human
Excellence may state it wants to create a clean-living community, might
the
community's extreme interpretation of Shari'a force a reconsideration
of
just how much leeway the U.S. government gives religious communities?
As the Muslim community in the United States grows, an increasingly
active
Islamist lobby has submitted numerous white papers and amicus briefs to
legislators and courts arguing for the religious right of Muslims to
apply
Shari'a law, particularly in relation to family law disputes.[13] This
looming jurisprudential conflict is significant for it raises issues
about
the rights of community members to marry outside the community, forced
marriages, and the minimum age of brides, and whether wives and
daughters
may enjoy equal inheritance. In cases of non-family law, it raises the
question about whether the testimony of women will be considered on par
with
that of men.
No previous enclave in U.S. history has ever been so vigorously
protected by
agents of group identity politics or so adamantly defended by legal
watchdogs; nor has any previous religious enclave possessed the potency
of
more than one billion believers around the world. Islamic-only
communities
may also benefit from the largess provided by billions of petrol
dollars to
finance growth. The track record of Saudi and other wealthy Persian
Gulf
donations and charitable efforts are worrisome. There is a direct
correlation between Saudi money received and the spread of intolerant
practices. In 2004, for example, the U.S. Treasury Department froze the
assets of Al-Haramein Foundation, one of Saudi Arabia's largest
nongovernmental organizations, because of its financial links to
Al-Qaeda.[14] Additionally, American graduates of Saudi academies
advance
Wahhabist interpretations of Islam inside the U.S. prison system,[15]
and
Saudi-subsidized publications promote intolerance inside U.S.
mosques.[16]
A Muslim enclave is uniquely perilous because there are few if any
internal
enclaves that adhere to a polity dedicated to the active abrogation of
secular law and the imposition of a supreme religious law. The concept
of
Shari'a is so fundamental to Islam, that even today, prominent Muslim
jurists argue over whether a Muslim can fully discharge Shari'a
obligations
while residing in a non-Muslim territory.[17] Yet, in spite of this
apparent
conundrum, Muslims have resided peacefully in non-Muslim lands since
the
seventh century. In the greater context, there may be a breach in the
dike
for Islamist groups residing in the United States because the Baltimore
and
Little Rock enclaves must acknowledge the U.S. Constitution as the
paramount
basis of civil law.
A dissident Islamic sub-community is filled with dichotomous
propositions:
from the presumed supremacy of Shari'a-based law over secular law; the
melding of religion and polity versus the constitutionally mandated
separation of same; to the politics of group and factionalism, versus
assimilation and pluralism. To deny the settlement of a Muslim-only
community based solely upon prejudices formed after September 11 would
be
illiberal. But the alternative, opening the door to Islamic enclaves
without
scrutiny, is as dubious.
The Enclave under U.S. Law
Existing U.S. legal precedent, though, may provide some grounds for
handling
expansive demands for Islamic enclaves. U.S. legal views of internal
enclaves derive from the famous 1954 Brown v. Board of Education
decision,
in which the Supreme Court ruled the concept of separate but equal to
be
unconstitutional.[18] While the case revolved around the right of black
children to attend white schools, it promulgated a concept that is
anathema
in today's world of multiculturalism: neither the state nor any
constituent
group could claim equality through separation.
Enclaves can exist, though. As courts have ruled on issues relating to
equality under the law and upon the autonomy of religious practice, two
distinctive features of internal U.S. enclaves have taken shape: first,
the
boundaries of the enclave should be recognized by local inhabitants.
Second,
the enclave cannot supersede the constitutionally protected rights of
the
citizens of a state.
Because most rights secured by the constitution are protected only
against
infringement by government action, the Supreme Court has avoided
establishing a bright-line test as to the limits of religious liberty.
Any
religious group or individual seeking to establish an internal enclave
has
the right to limit residency, promulgate local rules, and perhaps even
collect fees or taxes to support nominal community services.
Such enclaves do not hold final sway over the rights of non-residents,
however. In Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Company[19] and Flagg
Brothers v.
Brooks,[20] the court outlined constitutional protections for private
citizens in which any entity, religious or otherwise, exercising
governmental authority over private citizens remains subject to the
provisions of the First and Fourteenth amendments. In both cases, the
court
affirmed that citizens of a state retain their right to "due process of
law"
under the Fourteenth Amendment, even when inside an enclave. These
holdings,
however, do not prevent enclaves from restricting the individual
freedoms of
their inhabitants.
The Supreme Court has ruled upon the limits of religious liberty. In
Cantwell v. Connecticut, the court outlined the circumstances in which
the
government could act to restrict religious independence. The court held
that
the free exercise clause "embraces two concepts-freedom to believe and
freedom to act. The first is absolute, but in the nature of things, the
second cannot be. Conduct remains subject to regulation for the
protection
of society."[21]
Christopher L. Eisgruber, professor of law at New York University,
explained. He argued that, "the Constitution permits government to
nurture
ideological sub-communities founded upon premises inconsistent with the
constitution's own commitments."[22] He maintained that such dissident
sub-communities can provide important "sources of dissent"[23] and
asserted
that even if an enclave embraced ideals contrary to constitutional
ideals,
it should still be granted the right to pursue its own vision of good.
For
example, he wrote:
[Though] it is regrettable that young women in Kiryas Joel [a
Satmar
Hasidic enclave] will grow up in a starkly sexist culture, and it is
regrettable that the Amish children of Yoder will find it very hard to
become astronomers or lawyers . it would also be regrettable if the
United
States were not home to any sub-communities which, like the Satmars or
the
Amish, rejected principles of justice fundamental to the American
regime.[24]
According to Eisgruber, tolerance of the intolerant is fundamental to
the
freedoms espoused by Western liberal democracy. While Islamists might
use
such logic to argue for the permissibility of Shari'a communities, such
tolerance has limits. Enclaves do not have carte blanche to act. Both
the
state and national legislatures must retain control over the extent of
accommodation, and there should be no subsidization of the enclave by
the
government.[25] Such limits ensure that the government can constrain
those
sub-communities that might espouse more radical, violent, or racist
views.[26]
It is usually when the U.S. government moves to uphold the rule of law
that
most Americans first learn of an internal enclave. Few Americans knew
of the
philosophy espoused by anti-government activist Randy Weaver until 1992
when
the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol and Firearms raided his compound at
Ruby
Ridge, Idaho, killing Vicki Weaver, their infant son, Sam, and the
family
dog.[27] Nor did many Americans know about David Koresh and his
religious
views until a raid the following year on the Branch Davidian compound
in
Waco, Texas, in which a resulting fire killed fifty adults and
twenty-five
children under the age of fifteen.[28] While tragic, such events
involved
cults or political splinter groups. The growth of Muslim enclaves
raises the
specter of such conflicts occurring on a much larger scale.
While the court has interpreted the establishment clause to empower the
government to constrain dissident sub-communities when necessary to
protect
public safety, it has been wary of addressing legal issues requiring
intrusion upon the religious polity. Because the First Amendment
provides
for religious freedom, the court has confined itself to ruling upon
three
basic issues: property disputes between national religious hierarchical
organizations with affiliated breakaway entities; accommodations under
the
free exercise clause; and the prohibition against the establishment of
a
state religion. New challenges, though, may lead to new
interpretations.
The Antithesis to Democracy
Is concern over internal Muslim enclaves justified? On their face, the
fundamental principles of the internal Muslim enclave are no more
invidious
than any other religious enclave. But ideology matters. Many proponents
of
an Islamic polity promote an ideology at odds with U.S. constitutional
jurisprudence and the prohibition against the establishment of a
state-sponsored religion. The refusal to recognize federal law makes
Islamist enclaves more akin to Ruby Ridge than to the Hasidic and Amish
cases cited by Eisgruber.
Muslim theologians describe Islam not only as a religion but also as a
system of state. The Qur'an-viewed by Muslims as the word of God-is
replete
with instructions about governance. An enclave promoting Islamic mores
does
not necessarily restrict itself to a social atmosphere but also one of
governance. Traditional Islamic law controls the most basic aspects of
everyday life and may make any Islamic enclave irreconcilable with the
basic
presumptions of Western liberal democracy and secular law.
While many American Muslims practice Islam and embrace the fundamental
principles of the U.S. Constitution, others do not. There are
consistent
attempts by Islamist elements overseas to strengthen their own radical
interpretation of Islam at the expense of moderation and tolerance.
Saudi
donors, for example, have propagated the ideology of Islamism, which
seeks
to interweave a narrow and often intolerant interpretation of religion
into
an all-encompassing political ideology. The number of imams and
jihadists
who have been outspoken in identifying the supremacy of Shari'a to
democracy
underlines the incompatibility of Islamism and democracy. The late
Saudi
theologian, Sheikh Muhammad bin Ibrahim al-Jubair, for example, stated,
Only one ambition is worthy of Islam, to save the world from the
curse
of democracy: to teach men that they cannot rule themselves on the
basis of
man-made laws. Mankind has strayed from the path of God, we must return
to
that path or face certain annihilation.[29]
Prior to Iraq's January 30, 2005 elections, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
leader of
Al-Qaeda in Iraq, released an audiotape in which he declared war upon
democracy and denounced its tenets as "the very essence of heresy,
polytheism, and error."[30] Nor is Islamist antipathy for democracy
limited
to popular elections. According to a Saudi publication distributed at a
San
Diego mosque, "[Democracy is] responsible for all the horrible wars .
more
than 130 wars with more than 120 million people dead [in the twentieth
century alone]; not counting victims of poverty, hunger and
disease."[31]
Such sentiments reflect a common theme among Islamists: democracy is
the
antithesis to everything pious and pure in Islam; and, in truth,
democracy
is the direct and substantial causal effect of Muslim suffering and
injustice in the world today.
This does not mean that Islamists are unwilling to use democracy for
their
ends. But while they accept the trappings of democracy, they continue
to
reject its principles because the Shari'a, to them the perfect rule of
law,
cannot be abrogated or altered by the shifting moods of a secular
electorate. Mohamed Elhachmi Hamdi, editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab
weekly
Al-Mustakillah, explained,
The heart of the matter is that no Islamic state can be legitimate
in
the eyes of its subjects without obeying the main teachings of the
Shari'a.
A secular government might coerce obedience, but Muslims will not
abandon
their belief that state affairs should be supervised by the just
teachings
of the holy law.[32]
He could draw from plenty of examples. In 1992, for example, Ali
Balhadj, a
leader of the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria, declared, "When we
are in
power, there will be no more elections because God will be ruling."[33]
While mayor of Istanbul, Islamist Turkish politician Recep Tayyip
Erdoðan
quipped, "For us, democracy is a streetcar. We would go as far as we
could,
and then get off."[34] As he eviscerates the judiciary, many Turks
wonder
about his sincerity.[35]
Experience abroad is relevant, as it goes to the heart of the sincerity
of
proponents of the Little Rock and Baltimore enclaves, an issue
compounded by
the willingness to accept donations from Persian Gulf financiers.
Conclusion
How Muslims reconcile Islamic polity within the confines of Western
liberal
democracy is an unresolved issue. This process will take years to
evolve and
is likely to convulse in further violent episodes. Presently, many
Muslims
reject wholesale the notion of a dominant secular law and instead seek
the
imposition of a pan-Islamist state under the guidance of Shari'a. These
Islamists view secular modernity and the democratic practices of
radical
egalitarianism, individual rights, and free exercise of religion as a
direct
and substantial threat to their belief system, and they are intent on
employing violence against the West for the foreseeable future. The
remainder and majority of the Muslim world must reject nihilism and
engage
in widespread debate regarding Islam's role within the world community.
The local planning commission in Little Rock, Arkansas, might proceed
with
the proposed Muslim enclave, but the Arkansas courts and its
legislature
should not abdicate its responsibilities to ensure that Western liberal
rights and protections remain supreme. The government should monitor
both
the rhetoric and behavior of these communities. As the Supreme Court
stated
in Cantwell: the freedom to believe is absolute, but the freedom to
act, in
the nature of things, cannot be, especially as to the safety and
preservation of the American democracy.[36]
David Kennedy Houck is an attorney at Houck O'Brien LLC, in
Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania.
[1] See, for example, discussion of the Sonali Gardens project in
London,
The Evening Standard (London), Apr. 27, 2004.
[2] Marya Morris, "Muslim Community Development Initiatives," American
Planning Association, Apr. 25, 2004.
[3] "Muslim Community Development Plans," Fox 16 News, Aug. 26, 2004.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Information on the Arkansas Islamic Center for Human Excellence
website,
accessed on Nov. 2, 2005, linked visitors to the "Islam 4 the World"
website.
[6] U.S. Department of State, news release, Feb. 19, 2004.
[7] Daniel Pipes, "Muslims Only!" at Six Flags Adventure Park,"
www.DanielPipes.org, Sept. 10, 2004.
[8] "Arbitration Act," S.O. 1991, "Ontario Statutes and Regulations,"
e-Laws
News, c. 17.
[9] Daniel Pipes, "Enforce Islamic Law in Canada?" The New York Sun,
Sept.
27, 2005.
[10] Canadian Press News Agency, Sept. 11, 2005.
[11] Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, news release, Nov. 15,
2005.
[12] Canadian Press News Agency, Sept. 11, 2005.
[13] See, Asifa Quaraishi and Najeeba Syeed-Miller, "No Altars: A
Survey of
Islamic Family Law in the United States," Islamic Family Law project,
Law
and Religion Program, Emory University, Atlanta, Ga.; American Muslims
Intent on Learning and Activism (AMILA) in partnership with the
American
Civil Liberties Union submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court on
the
juvenile aspect of the death penalty that included citations to Shari'a
law.
[14] U.S. Department of State, news release, Feb. 19, 2004.
[15] The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 5, 2003.
[16] Khaleel Mohammed, "Assessing English Translations of the Qu'ran,"
Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2005, pp. 59-71.
[17] Khaled Abou El Fadl, "Islamic Law and Muslim Minorities: The
Juristic
Discourse on Muslim Minorities from the Second/Eighth to the
Eleventh/Seventeenth Centuries," Islamic Law and Society, 1:2(1994):
141-4.
[18] Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
[19] Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Company, 419 U.S. 345 (1974).
[20] Flagg Brothers v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149 (1978).
[21] Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S 296 (1940), pp. 303-4.
[22] Christopher L. Eisgruber, "The Constitutional Value of
Assimilation,"
The Columbia Law Review, Jan. 1996, pp. 87-8.
[23] Ibid., p. 91.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid., pp. 89, 91.
[26] Ibid., pp. 87, 92.
[27] CNN News, Aug. 21, 1997.
[28] "The Aftermath of the April 19 Fire," Report to the Deputy
Attorney
General on the Events at Waco, Texas (redacted version: Oct. 8, 1993),
U.S.
Department of Justice, chap. XIII.
[29] Amir Taheri, "Islam and Democracy: The Impossible Union," The
Sunday
Times (London), May 23, 2004.
[30] Nimrod Raphaeli, "The Sheikh of the Slaughterers": Abu Mus'ab
Al-Zarqawi and the Al-Qa'ida Connection," Middle East Research Media
Institute (MEMRI), Inquiry and Analysis Series, no. 231, July 1, 2005.
[31] "Anti-American," Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Invade
American
Mosques, Center for Religious Freedom, Freedom House, chap. 4, p. 4.
[32] Mohamed Elhachmi Hamdi, "Islam and Liberal Democracy: The Limits
of the
Western Model," Journal of Democracy, Apr. 1996, pp. 81-5.
[33] Michael Rubin, "Islamists Are Intrinsically Anti-democratic,"
www.bitterlemons-international.org, June 2, 2005.
[34] Hürriyet (Istanbul), Apr. 23, 1998.
[35] Milliyet (Istanbul), June 6, 2005.
[36] Cantwell, pp. 303-4.
This article, makes me think about all the street shootings and the fact that we are now having beheadings in the U.S.
It does not surprise me, that our President looks a 100 years older and is under so much stress that he cannot speak straight.
I judge my level of worry, on how garbled the Presidents speeches are, as I have heard him give lovely speeches, but if you watch, you will find that the level of the threats/incidents and his mis-speaks will tie togather.
I see no reason to not think the U.S. is not in the same fix that England is.
See the article above this one, it backs yours up, in a left hand way.
http://www.google.com/search?q=United+States+people+beheaded&client=netscape-pp&rls=com.netscape:en-US
Better search, Toddler found beheaded:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=com.netscape%3Aen-US&q=+people+beheaded+in+U.S.&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?q=in+U.S.+throat+cut&btnG=Search&hl=en&rls=com.netscape%3Aen-US
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070204/quebec_crash_070204/20070204?hub=Canada
Police examine bus involved in Quebec crash
Updated Sun. Feb. 4 2007 5:39 PM ET
Canadian Press
STE-AGATHE, Que -- Police and transport investigators took a close look Sunday at a bus that crashed over the weekend with dozens of children on board.
The 46-year-old driver was killed when the bus lost control Saturday morning near St-Faustin-Lac-Carre, en route to the Mont-Tremblant ski resort in the Laurentian mountains north of Montreal.
Of the 40 children and two adult passengers, 15 were treated for minor injuries and released. Police said most suffered cuts and bruises.
Police and transport officials are investigating the cause of the accident and an autopsy will be performed on the driver.
The children, aged 11 to 13, were on their way to the ski resort to attend ski school.
One boy said he saw the bus driver thrown from the bus, even though he had his seat belt on.
"People were crying everywhere in the bus,'' Denver Bradshaw, 12, told the Journal de Montreal. "Some of their faces were bashed up pretty good.''
Police said it was incredibly lucky that no one else was injured in the accident, which saw the bus veer across the meridian and the oncoming lane before flipping into the ditch.
Two adults accompanying the children evacuated them from the bus as staff from the nearby ski resort were sent out to help, along with emergency officials.
"There were kids in the snow in their sock feet,'' Lise Reynolds, one of the rescuers, told Montreal La Presse.
Passengers who weren't taken to hospital were taken to a nearby ski centre and treated for shock while waiting to be picked up.
Police said visibility was good Saturday morning but speed may have been a factor in the crash.
The name of the bus driver was not released.
[We were promised white, blue eyed jihadi, by ?OBL, this incident from 2001, is only one of several bus accidents in the U.S., there was one in Texas, that went to a lot of trouble to get on the other side of the guard rail, then travel about 300 foot, to hit a bridge abutment, headon, muslim driver, as I recall it, and it was about the same time.
There were good photos, at the Texas news site, there was no effort to stop or slow down, they go straight as an arrow on the grass, direct to the headon. Many dead.
The snippets below, are at the link.
granny]
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.islam/browse_thread/thread/42318322df895de6/a1b48ad3bfd9b653?lnk=st&q=in+U.S.+throat+cut&rnum=3&hl=en#a1b48ad3bfd9b653
Croat who slashed Greyhound driver's throat known at home as quiet, decent
man
By IVO JAGATIC
The Associated Press
10/6/01 4:39 PM
SLAVONSKI BROD, Croatia (AP) -- There was little in Damir Igric's quiet
youth in Croatia to predict violence, say residents of his hometown, stunned
at news that he attacked a bus driver in the United States last week and
caused a deadly crash.
Igric slashed the throat of a bus driver Wednesday, causing an accident that
killed Igric and five other passengers. Thirty-five others were injured in
the wreck near Manchester, Tenn.
"It was like -- it just cannot be Dado," said a friend, Zeljka Valjetic,
recounting the disbelief that accompanied news of the attack.
But authorities say there is no doubt Igric, known to his friends in
Slavonski Brod as Dado, was the assailant. Fingerprint tests have confirmed
it.
Local media reported that he suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome,
common among Croatian war veterans.
And a report in the daily newspaper Vecernji list described Igric as a
mental wreck in the weeks before the attack, citing a Franciscan priest who
said he answered the knock of a "frightened young man" at the Croatian
monastery of St. Anthony in Chicago.
"He was nervously waving with his hands, mumbling that he's being hunted,"
Priest Pavao Maslac was quoted as saying in Sunday's early edition. "He
looked pitiful ... and miserable."
Others at the monastery drove Igric to a Chicago shelter for the homeless,
and that was the last they saw of him, Maslac said.
Still, those who knew him say the image of Igric-turned-violent killer is
hard to imagine. They described a quiet young man whose passions included
handball and playing the guitar.
continues...............
Friends also believe that something might have happened with him in America.
He left for the United States in 1999 on a one-month visa, never to return.
Valjetic, 28, who spoke by phone to him a month ago, said he "was lonely and
sad there."
continues...............
[norovirus????]
He worked part-time as a barman in a local inn. Pay was poor, so he worked
two shifts. A neighbor with connections to agencies hiring crews for cruise
ships promised to look around on his behalf.
After getting a U.S. visa, he worked as a ship waiter for the Miami-based
Apollo Ship Chandlers, according to U.S. news reports. After losing that
job, he dropped out of sight, and friends said they knew only that he lived
in New York City.
continues to next article.............
found this on www.dejanews.com, search for "croatian tennessee bus".
According to the article he was a Christian.
A
*****
War stress plagued assailant
By JOHN SHIFFMAN
Staff Writer
And DONALD W. PINE
SLAVONSKI BROD, Croatia ó The 29-year-old man accused of triggering
Wednesday's fatal bus crash in Manchester, Tenn., suffered from mental
problems rooted in his military service in the war-torn country in the
1990s, friends and government officials said yesterday.
All agreed that Damir ''Dado'' Igric suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome
ó a problem suffered by many war veterans, but which Igric refused to treat
because he thought it would hurt his chances to get a visa to the United
States, one friend said.
continues.............
A U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman, Susan Dreyden, said Igric's passport,
found at the accident scene, has been authenticated. Federal and state
officials restated their belief yesterday that Igric, who died instantly in
the crash, was not a terrorist.
''We have absolutely no evidence to indicate this was anything but the act
of a lone individual,'' FBI Special Agent Scott Nowinski said.
It was not clear where Igric was heading or why. He boarded the Orlando,
Fla.-bound bus in Chicago.
Nor was it clear what may have sparked his attack on the driver. He had
asked another passenger and a relief driver to change seats with him so he
could sit behind the driver. When they declined, witnesses said, Igric
approached the driver and slashed his neck with a box cutter.
Nowinski said the FBI is pursuing leads in the case in several cities,
trying to trace Igric's steps in the United States and his life in Croatia.
The agent would not elaborate.
continues............
Zinka, the Interior Ministry spokeswoman, told The Tennessean that Igric had
faced a drug and a gun charge at one time but that the matter had never been
resolved. Igric had been accused of possessing an unlicensed firearm, a
crime that she said is not unusual in that region of the country.
She said national police considered Igric ''a drug dealer,'' but added that
his mental troubles probably caused the accident.
''You never know what happens inside someone's head,'' she said.
Tennessee Medical Examiner Dr. Bruce Levy said last night that initial
testing showed Igric was not under the influence of the marijuana or
cocaine, and added that more sophisticated testing is expected.
continues..............
http://www.google.com/search?q=croatian+tennessee+bus&client=netscape-pp&rls=com.netscape:en-US
http://www.google.com/search?q=+bus+crash&btnG=Search&hl=en&rls=com.netscape%3Aen-US
Need to play with this one.........maybe later.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070204/egypt_arrest_070204/20070204?hub=Canada
Canada investigates espionage arrest in Egypt
Updated Sun. Feb. 4 2007 6:57 PM ET
Canadian Press
OTTAWA -- Diplomats are trying to find out more, while security officials are staying mum about a man with a Canadian connection arrested in Egypt and charged with spying for Israel.
Mohamed Essam Ghoneim el-Attar was detained in Cairo last month, but the charges against him -- and three alleged Israeli cohorts -- were not made public until the weekend.
El-Attar has been variously described as 26 or 31 years old, as an Egyptian native who also holds Canadian citizenship, and as someone who obtained a residence permit in Canada by using a false name.
"We are aware of reports of the arrest," Bernard Nguyen, a spokesman at Foreign Affairs headquarters in Ottawa, said Sunday. "We have been in contact with our embassy in Cairo and we are investigating."
So far, however, the department has not confirmed the man's citizenship or other details of his background.
Egyptian authorities say el-Attar, a one-time student at Al-Azhar University, left his homeland in 2001 for Turkey, where he was allegedly recruited by Israeli agents.
He is said to have come to Canada in 2003, with Israeli help, and was still living here when he travelled to Cairo in January and was arrested at the airport upon arrival.
It's also alleged that, while in Canada, he was paid by the Israelis to spy on people of Egyptian or other Arab descent, and that he used his job at an unnamed bank to obtain information about certain accounts.
His three supposed Israeli accomplices, who were charged in absentia in Cairo, were identified by the state news agency as Daniel Levi, Kemal Kosba and Tuncay Bubay. The latter two are said to hold dual Israeli-Turkish citizenship.
Barbara Campion, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, wouldn't say whether the agency is taking an interest in the affair.
"We never comment on operational matters (and) we never confirm whether we're interested in particular people,'' said Campion.
It's a matter of public record, however, that CSIS closely monitors what it calls "foreign interference,'' the spy agency's term for foreign intelligence services that target ethnic communities in Canada.
Ottawa and Tel Aviv have had run-ins in the past about Israeli operations in Canada, as well as incidents abroad in which the Israelis have posed as Canadians to cover their spy operations.
In 1997 Canada temporarily called its ambassador home from Israel in protest over the fact that two Israeli agents had used fake Canadian passports as part of a botched assassination plot against a Palestinian militant.
There was another flap in 2002 when a Palestinian informant disclosed he had been recruited by Israelis pretending to be Canadians, and yet another dispute in 2004 over allegations that an Israeli spy had travelled to China and North Korea using a stolen Canadian passport.
The most serious confrontation over Israeli operations in Canada came in 1990, when Victor Ostovsky, a former Mossad agent who had moved to Ottawa, wrote a book about his career in Israeli intelligence.
Ostovsky said he was harassed by Israeli operatives who tracked him down and threatened him with physical harm.
Foreign Affairs called the Israeli ambassador on the carpet over the affair and CSIS delivered a stern rebuke to senior Mossad officials -- though both protests were hushed up at the time and didn't become public until two years later.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070204/ontario_mexico_shooting_070204/20070204?hub=Canada
Two Ontario residents shot in Mexico: CTV
Updated Sun. Feb. 4 2007 6:27 PM ET
toronto.ctv.ca
Two residents from Woodbridge, Ont., have been shot while vacationing in Acapulco, Mexico, CTV News has confirmed.
The pair, a man and a woman, were wounded at the Casa Inn hotel. The extent of their injuries is not yet known, but they are believed to be non-life-threatening. Additional information is not yet available.
Another teen from Woodbridge, just northwest of Toronto, died last month while vacating in Acapulco.
Adam DePrisco, 19, was killed after attending a popular nightclub. Preliminary autopsy reports support the claim by Mexican police that he was struck in a hit-and-run crash.
DePrisco's family, however, believes he was beaten to death by locals for dancing with a man's girlfriend.
Less than two weeks after DePrisco's death, an elderly man from southwestern Ontario was killed in a hit-and-run accident that left his wife in a coma.
Clifford Glasier and his wife Janette Lerch, of Chatham, had been renting a house in the country for four months when they were struck crossing a street near Lake Chapala.
Glasier's death came about 11 months after Woodbridge couple Dominic and Nancy Ianiero were found slain at a resort near Cancun.
Mexican authorities have been accused of bungling their murder investigation.
[the other reports on this report are linked at site, throats cut, October 2006 date on this one]
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20061017/ianiero_reaction_061017?s_name=&no_ads=
Mexican investigator lying, Ianiero lawyer says
Updated Tue. Oct. 17 2006 3:40 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
The lawyer representing the family of a couple slain in Cancun challenged on Tuesday the credibility of authorities who claim Canadians were behind the murders.
Calling Quintano Roo Attorney General Bello Melchor Rodriguez y Carrillo a "bald-faced liar," Toronto lawyer Edward Greenspan said the only legitimate suspect was a hotel security guard who has since gone missing.
"There is clear and convincing evidence in the Mexican police homicide file that points to Blas Delgado Fajardo and only him," Greenspan told reporters on Tuesday, in response to suggestions from Mexico that Canadians are to blame for the murders.
Despite the evidence, Greenspan said the attorney general has maintained in his statements to the press that the former spouse of one of the Ianieros' daughters is a suspect and that Fajardo has been cleared.
"The attorney general, for obvious political- and tourism-related reasons refuses to concede that this crime was committed by a local person," Greenspan said.
"He would rather blame a fictitious, totally made-up son-in-law from Guatemala than the local Mexican security guard towards whom all of the evidence points."
Greenspan said that Mexican authorities were not only wrong in declaring that Lily Ianiero's ex-husband was a suspect, but in describing him as a Guatemalan paramilitary officer.
Lily Ianiero's ex-husband is neither Guatemalan, nor has he ever set foot in Guatemala, Greenspan said.
Greenspan attacked the credibility of the Mexican investigation, saying that local authorities had claimed that Fajardo had been found by the FBI in the U.S.
But Greenspan said his team discovered that not only had the FBI not been contacted by Mexican authorities, that Mexico had never sought the assistance of any American agency to try to locate Fajardo.
"He has never been found in the United States by anyone because no one is looking for him there, and no one has even asked that he be found. And the Mexican government will never ask that he be found. The Mexicans do not want him found." Greenspan said.
Greenspan argued that Rodriguez y Carrillo was purposely deflecting attention from local suspects over fears it would cripple the lucrative tourism industry.
"His constant theme is 'Cancun is safe for Canadians. The only people killing Canadians,' (the attorney general) says, 'in the Cancun region are other Canadians,'" Greenspan said.
"It is disgusting that Nancy and Domenic Ianiero -- two Canadian nationals -- can be used as pawns by the powerful Mexican tourist lobby."
Suggestions that Canadians were to blame for the murders were also met with derision from the lawyer representing two women identified early on as suspects, the Globe and Mail reported.
Lee Baig has represented Cheryl Everall and Kimberly Kim of Thunder Bay, Ont. since they were named in the murder investigation.
Everall and Kim were visiting the Barcelo Maya Beach Resort and occupied a room across the hallway from where the Ianieros were found with their throats slashed in a grisly murder scene.
Both women, who have not been charged, have repeatedly proclaimed their innocence since the February slaying.
"He's a joke. He's dreaming," Baig told the Globe. "There is not a shred of evidence that points to my ladies. Not a shred," he told the newspaper during a Monday interview.
Rodriguez y Carrillo pointed the finger at Everall and Kim once again on Sunday in an interview with the Mexican news service Noticaribe.
On the day of the murders, Fajardo, a former bodyguard to the governor of Quintana Roo, was seen at the hotel in a restricted area dressed in all black and wearing military boots.
He disappeared immediately after the Woodbridge, Ont. couple was murdered.
A hair found in Nancy Ianiero's hand was sent to Canada for DNA testing. It was compared against a hair sample provided by Fajardo's mother.
But according to Rodriguez y Carrillo, the samples did not match, effectively clearing the prime suspect. He said Fajardo may still have been involved, but not in a direct way.
Greenspan challenged Rodriguez y Carrillo's statement, saying that Mexican investigators confirmed many months ago that the hair found in Nancy Ianiero's hand was her own.
"Of course the hair does not match the former guard's mother's hair sample. The hair is Mrs. Ianiero's. That is a fact," Greenspan said.
"We have reconfirmed this fact as recently as yesterday afternoon in a telephone discussion with the office of the lead investigator in Cancun, Mexico. The Mexican police themselves have ruled out any suggestion that the hair found in Mrs. Ianiero's hand might be associated with the murderer. The attorney general is a bald-faced liar."
With files from The Canadian Press
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070203/brazil_gold_070203/20070203?hub=World
Website drives gold rush in Brazil's Amazon
Updated Sat. Feb. 3 2007 11:34 PM ET
Associated Press
ELDORADO DO JUMA, Brazil -- It's a gold rush in the Amazon jungle, driven by the Internet.
Speeding past unbroken walls of foliage, a motorboat packed with gritty prospectors veers toward the shore of the Juma river and spills its passengers into a city of black plastic lean-tos veiled by greasy smoke.
All around them are newly dug pits, felled trees, misery and tales of striking it rich.
This is Eldorado do Juma, scene of Brazil's biggest gold rush in more than 20 years.
Drawn by a Brazilian math teacher's Web site descriptions of miners scooping up thousands of dollars in gold, between 3,000 and 10,000 people have poured in since December, cutting down huge trees, diverting streams and digging ever-deeper wildcat mines, in an area that only months ago was pristine rain forest.
Hundreds of mud-covered men with picks and shovels hack at the earth, marking their tiny plots with tree branches and string. Others feed dirt into wooden troughs and the residue into pans. A lucky few will end up with tiny nuggets and flakes of gold to sell for $530 an ounce in the town of Apui, about 50 miles north.
Even the cooks, cleaners and porters serving the new industry are making about six times the minimum wage.
It's reminiscent of Serra Pelada, a mountain that became a gargantuan hole in the jungle floor after a gold rush in the early 1980s, immortalized in Sebastiao Salgado's photos of what looked like a hellish human anthill.
"This is even better than Serra Pelada. I've been mining all around the Amazon since 1978 and this is the best I've ever seen," said Joao Leandro de Azedo, 70, overlooking his stake from a hammock.
Azedo said he has panned some 70 ounces of gold worth a total of $19,000 since arriving 17 days ago, including 17 ounces in a single day.
Half the proceeds went to the man who staked out his plot, and 8 percent more to Jose Ferreira da Silva Filho, who claims to own the entire "garimpo," or wildcat mine.
Already, too many people are chasing too little gold and there isn't enough space for all the miners at the eight main digging sites.
Price-gouging (chain saws costing around $400 in gold) is rampant and malaria is spreading in the makeshift city, nicknamed Eldorado do Juma after the Amazon's mythical Eldorado, or city of gold. It already has bars, restaurants, barbershops, bakeries, equipment shops and jewelry stores, most of them constructed out of tree branches and tarps. A 16-room brothel is under construction.
Federal police armed with automatic weapons arrived last month, imposing a nightly curfew and cracking down on shootings but making it harder to get rich quick.
"Luckily, we caught it right at the beginning. It is a concern for everyone ... that this doesn't become another Serra Pelada," said Walter Arcoverde of the National Department of Mineral Production.
Local people had been mining this area of the jungle state of Amazonas in relative peace until Ivani Valentin da Silva, a math teacher in Apui, posted their pictures and stories on the Internet, said Antonio Roque Longo, the mayor of Apui.
"Perhaps he didn't have any idea of the impact it would have," said Longo. "People see this on the Internet and they think they're going to do the same thing. But the truth is, for every one person who strikes it rich there are 30 who go home penniless."
Da Silva said he clearly wrote that the gold would soon run out.
"Unfortunately, no one read the article," he said, denying any responsibility for the environmental damage being done by the thousands of fortune-seekers. His Internet posting forced federal police to pay attention, he said, and without that, "the area would be totally devastated."
Government geologists are trying to measure the deposits, while environmental regulators struggle to prevent miners from using heavy equipment or mercury, which joins gold particles together but can ruin the rivers. The fear is that like Serra Pelada, Eldorado do Juma will end up a scarred wasteland.
Already, small rivers of mud gush from streambeds at night, suggesting that heavy-duty water jets are being used illegally, despite promises to wait for permits.
"Most of the gold that can be mined manually has already been found, but if they start using heavy machinery this place is going to explode all over again," said Luiz Gonzaga da Conceicao, 51, a miner from Brazil's far west.
The land reform agency says the land actually belongs to the federal government, but now that the miners are here, there's talk of compromise -- authorities say they will permit pressure hoses, rock crushers and other machinery if miners police themselves and stick to an environmental protection plan.
But da Silva, the man who claims to own the whole area, says he's working on exactly that.
"This place has a great future. There are other minerals here besides gold. We have to get organized to exploit it," he said.
Off the record, many miners talk of threats and intimidation that ensure they pay da Silva's 8 percent cut. Da Silva denies it and says he has his own share of headaches and unseen costs.
So far, the federal government and most miners seem content to leave him in charge, if only to provide some order.
Meanwhile, prospectors travel up and down the river and deeper into the jungle looking for "fofocas," new finds.
"There's gold here for sure, the problem is finding an area to work. Every spot has three or four owners now. I'm just waiting for a new fofoca and I'll be right in the middle of it," said Jose Francisco Mendes dos Santos, 32, who came from the neighboring state of Rondonia. "A prospector's motto is hope, and his friend is luck."
Gilmar Predebon reckons his gold store in Apui buys about 70 ounces of gold a day and molds them into gold ingots. He figures the mines generate between 200 and 230 ounces a day overall -- "a good amount of gold but nowhere near as much as you'd expect, considering all the talk."
Gold is fetching around $650 an ounce on world markets.
Mayor Longo thinks his city of 20,000 would be better off without the mine: "Sure, it's been good for the merchants but we have major health problems. Before the garimpo, we had malaria mostly under control here; now it's a huge problem again."
Others say the garimpo has improved things.
"This was a door God opened for Apui. Today the city has grown fivefold and people are flooding in from every corner of the country," said Antonio Carlos Santos, 48, who quit his policeman job to work the mines.
http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/20070204/NEWS/102040081
A fallen feather, a fallen warrior
Photo by Xiaomei Chen/xchen@greeleytribune.com
Click to Enlarge
Drew Regner of Greeley puts down his drink before another performance during the 13th Annual Fellowship Powwow at Island Grove Regional Park. Regner did men's fancy dance Saturday. The powwow is traditionally held on the first Saturday in February for a time of friendship and fellowship between all people.
Xiaomei Chen / xchen@greeleytribune.com
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Jennifer Chance
February 4, 2007
A feather fell and the drums stopped on Saturday afternoon.
At Island Grove Regional Park, everything was quiet in the exhibition hall, and everyone stood still. A veteran elder was called forward to bless the feather.
"The Lakota Indians believe that when a feather falls, it means a warrior has fallen," explained John Cochran III.
Cochran, along with fellow members of Scouting Venture Crew 248, sponsored and coordinated the 13th Annual Fellowship Powwow. As many as 40 to 50 tribes have attended in past years, with Lakota and Sioux presenting the majority. Unlike some, the powwow was a non-competition event. Instead, the focus was on fellowship and family. In fact, the name of the Crew is Tiwahe', the Lakota word for family. Like most families, there are traditions, and they were followed carefully. The dance arena was blessed and became sacred ground. The dancers' regalia and music were authentic. The Grand Entry and other ceremonies adhered as much as possible to tradition. For those who were not familiar with custom, the program listed several reminders.
Spiritual Leader Joseph Winterhawk, a Southern Ute, appreciated the effort.
"They do a good job keeping the traditions alive so the ways of our people are not forgotten," he said.
Many of the ceremonies focused on veterans, both living and lost. Everyone participated in these honorary events. From the Grand Entry, to the color guard, to the dances especially for them, the level of respect afforded to veterans was felt throughout the hall.
During the honor ceremony for veterans, a prayer was said for those serving, those lost, and for those who have lost. Many stepped forward to shake the hands of the honorees. Joseph Winterhawk sang a prayer.
"There is no greater love than a man to lay down his life for his nation," he said.
The feather ceremony was an example of this. After the feather was blessed, it was put away. Just as they would never leave a fellow warrior on the field of battle, the veterans will ensure that the feather is returned to the person who lost it.
As the ceremony ended, the drums started again, and the dancing resumed. But the feather was not, and will not be forgotten.
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