World Terrorism: News, History and Research Of A Changing World #10 Security Watch

To: All; FARS; Founding Father; milford421

http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=subjects&Area=reform&ID=SP172907

October 1, 2007 No.1729

Tunisian Reformist Lafif Lakhdar: European Muslims Should Adopt Universal Values; There is Only One Civilization; The Koranic Verse on Wife-Beating Should Be Abrogated; When Bourquiba Abolished Polygamy in Tunisia, the Majority of Women Were Opposed; Why Bring the Mosque into French Schools When the Church Has Been Taken Out of Them; To Respect Muslims’ Religious Freedom to Beat Their Wives and Circumcise Their Daughters, France Would Have to Violate Human Rights

On September 8, 2007, the liberal Arab e-journal Elaph posted an interview with prominent Arab liberal Lafif Lakhdar by MEMRI Chairman Professor M. Milson. In the interview, Lakhdar outlined his views on Muslims in Europe, Islam and humanism, and Islamism versus secularism, among other topics.

Lafif Lakhdar has been a firsthand witness to many important moments in Middle East history. He was active in the FLN in Paris in the early 1960s, and later became a close advisor to Algeria’s first president Ahmed Ben Bella. In 1970, he accompanied the PLO from Jordan to Beirut, and became a prominent figure in Lebanese left-wing circles. Later, disillusioned by the Lebanese civil war, he broke with the left and returned to Paris, where he lives to this day. [1]

The following are excerpts from the interview: [2]

European Muslims Should Adopt Universal Values In Order to Revive and Renew Their Own Tradition

“Menahem Milson: What is the meaning of the ideological struggle we see raging today among Muslims in Europe?

“Lafif Lakhdar: Two basic tendencies are struggling against one another within European Islam. The first is the tendency that holds fast to Muslims’ cultural independence with regard to European societies, and retains Islamic traditions in their entirety - among them those that conflict with the major universal humanistic values of European societies, such as equality of the sexes, secularism, and individual liberty.

“The second tendency, and the one to which I subscribe, demands the opposite: the cultural assimilation of European Muslims and of those [Muslims] living in Europe into the European societies, and the adoption of [European] universal civilizational values in order to revive and renew their [own] traditional values, most of which are no longer in conformity with the times.

“This assimilation, which is necessary, does not mean that they have to abandon their spiritual values or the best of their social values or their history. It only means that they abandon those traditions that are in contradiction with the values of the International Declaration of Human Rights and the other U.N. conventions that derive from it, such as the Convention on the Elimination of [All Forms of] Discrimination against Women, and the conventions on children’s rights and the protection of minorities.

“What gives cause for hope is that, according to the latest survey, the Muslims with the highest percentage of cultural assimilation in France are the Tunisians. This is due in large part to the quality of Tunisian religious education, which has nothing of the culture of hatred for ‘infidels,’ but rather a culture of moderation that Tunisians absorb through [both] the religious and the political discourses. [3] Unfortunately, this is rare in the lands of Islam.”

I Have Demanded the Abrogation of the Koranic Verse on Wife-Beating

“MM: Could you be specific about what you mean when you speak about traditions that conflict with human rights?

“LL: The Islamic values that conflict with human rights, and which Muslims everywhere, and in particular those in Europe, where women enjoy nearly full rights, accept, are, for example, disdain for women and the beating of women, as Koran 4:34 commands: ‘Beat them.’ I have demanded the abrogation of this verse, i.e., that it not be put into practice, because it is no longer in conformity with the universal values of the age. This year, the Islamic Tunisian historian Mohammed Talbi also demanded its abrogation.

“Likewise, we Muslims need to stop considering the proliferation of children as a religious obligation. We need to stop depriving non-Muslim women married to Muslim men of their rights to guardianship over their children and of inheriting from their Muslim spouses and children. We need to stop the sexual disfigurement of girls through circumcision. We need to stop insisting on women’s inequality to men in civil rights, and on polygamy, which is a catastrophe for Muslims in their countries and in the diaspora.

“In France, there are 30,000 polygamous families… with an average of 14.5 children in each family. The rate of [children] failing in school among them is very high, as are the rates of marginalization and delinquency. [On the other hand,] the average [school] success rate among families with no more than five children is close to the general French average.”

“In Truth, There is Only… One World Civilization”

“The Islamists often present the counter-argument ‘You want to destroy us from the root!’ I am conscious of the people’s need to be connected to their historical roots, but I propose to Muslims that they maintain a symbolic tie to their roots - for instance, celebrating their holidays and putting into practice their spiritual values. At the same time, I propose that they develop an organic tie with modern civilization, that is, democratic institutions and modern humanistic values and sciences. There is no future for Muslims if they remain outside of [this framework], and particularly if they are against it.

“In truth, there is only… one world civilization. But there are a number of cultures that cannot be accepted [into it] unless they make their traditions, which are at times barbaric, conform to the values of human rights.

“The first tendency [I spoke of], which is actively promoted by the French Islamists and the traditionalist imams - and they are the overwhelming majority - is the dominant one in European Islam. [In fact,] this tendency rejects the appellation ‘European Islam,’ preferring the appellation ‘Islam in Europe’ in order to emphasize its cultural independence from the societies in which it lives…”

The European Media Favor Tareq Ramadan Over Secularist Muslim Intellectuals

“MM: From where does the tendency opposed to assimilation draw its strength?

“LL: The tendency opposed to assimilation draws its strength from four basic factors:

“1) The religious discourse - Friday sermons, preaching, private Islamic schools, and the media - is under the monopoly of the supporters of this tendency. Even the European media - the audio-visual media in particular - which looks to be provocative at any price - presents the supporters of this tendency on any and every occasion. [They present] people like Tareq Ramadan, and it is rare for them to present Fathi Bin Salama, or Malek Chebel, or Taher Ben Jelloun, Ghaleb bin Sheikh, [former] Marseilles mufti Soheib Bin Sheikh, Yousef Siddiq, George Trabishi, Hashem Saleh, Mohammed Arkoun, or myself, and dozens of other secularist Muslim intellectuals.

“The Arab media, like Al-Jazeera, Iqra, and Al-Manar [TV], which have a large audience among European Muslims, act in the same manner. The supporters of the secularist tendency are blocked out of these media. ‘The Opposite Direction,’ the most popular program on Al-Jazeera, has been boycotting me ever since I refuted, on the last show I was on, the claims of the Holocaust deniers. [4] And [Saudi] Prince Khaled Bin Sultan banned me from writing in [the Saudi-owned international Arab newspaper] Al-Hayat in 2001, after I insisted, during an Al-Jazeera program, on the necessity of intervention by international civil society to stop the stoning of Muslim women in Iran. [5]

“2) The second factor is the petrodollars that flow to the supporters of the tendency opposed to assimilation, so that they can have their own press, translate Al-Qaradhawi’s books into European languages, and /send preachers to the suburbs and all the French cities to stuff the minds of Europe’s Muslims with their anti-assimilation propaganda and their incitement to violate the values of human rights.

“3) The third factor is that the organization of Muslims in Europe, and especially in France, favors the tendency opposed to European Islam’s assimilation into European societies over the tendency that demands its assimilation.”

The Jurisprudence of Al-Wala W’Al-Bara Divides Humanity Into ‘Believers’ and ‘Infidels,’ With the Only Relationship Between Them Being War

“4) The fourth factor is the jurisprudence of al-wala w’al-bara, [which states that] allegiance [must be] limited to believers, and [declares] total renunciation of the infidels (polytheists, Jews, and Christians). This jurisprudence is what played a role in forming the religious culture of Europe’s Muslims, especially first-generation ones, since they learned this in their countries, from primary school through higher [education].

“Today, this is the jurisprudence broadcast by audio-visual media such as Al-Jazeera, Iqra, and Al-Manar [TV[, which have a large audience among Europe’s Muslims. It is [also] spread through Islamist and jihadist websites. The mujahid Sheikh Ayman Al-Zawahiri wrote in his book Knights under the Banner of the Prophet that the spread of the slogan of al-wala w’al-bara among the masses of the Islamic nation is Al-Qaeda’s main goal - and not the liberation of Palestine, ‘despite its being dear to us.’

“[Al-Zawahiri writes:] ‘Making the masses of the Islamic nation understand al-wala w’al-bara will require a long time, and our enemies will not give us that time. Therefore, we must use jihad in Palestine as a means of making the Islamic nation understand al-wala w’al-bara’ - in other words, [making them understand] that the Jews and the Christians are our enemies and that we must treat them as enemies, through jihad against them, until we either make them accept Islam, or finish them off…

“Al-wala w’al-bara divides humanity into ‘believers’ and ‘infidels,’ with the only relationship between them being [one of] hatred and jihad - that is, war. It divides the world into ‘the abode of Islam’ and the ‘abode of war.’ The abode of war, ever since the Crusader wars, has been Europe, and the abode of Islam’s relationship to it has been hatred of it and jihad against it. [Al-wala w’al-bara also requires] the total renunciation of the ‘infidel’ inhabitants’ religions, their customs in clothing and food, and their institutions, sciences, and values. [It] considers Muslims who imitate the infidels to be apostates who must be fought and killed.

“The jurisprudence of al-wala w’al-bara forbids living in the abode of war for more than three days, unless this is necessary for trade, medical treatment, or studies ‘in useful branches of science that are found only in the lands of the infidels.’ But [even this] permission to live in the infidel lands is contingent upon the Muslim remaining devoted to his religion, taking pride in it, and hating the infidels.

“Saudi students learn: ‘If you live in the infidel lands - in order to receive medical treatment, for studies, or for trade - you must harbor hatred for them while living amongst them.’ Islamist refugees in Europe carry with them fatwas that allow them to live in the abode of war out of necessity, on the condition that they do it harm.

“The difficulty Muslims have in assimilating into non-Muslim societies is due to this culture of hatred, which they imbibe in the schools and from the media in their countries. Thus it is necessary to stop training the European Islamic religious cadres in this autistic and racist jurisprudence, which is an expression of the ethnocentrism so widespread among primitive tribes and peoples.”

On the Difference Between Cultural Pluralism and Cultural Insularism

“MM: Why do you reject the thought of cultural pluralism and communitarianism?

“LL: The [kind of] cultural pluralism that means peaceful coexistence among cultures joined by the common denominator of rationalism and humanism is a benefit to humanity. The rejection of communitarianism - i.e. the insularism of each religious group and the violation of the common human [denominator] - is the rejection of the jurisprudence of terrorism. It is the rejection of the jurisprudence of al-wala w’al-bara, which demands that Muslims ‘love themselves only’ and ‘hate the infidels.’ [The rejection of communitarianism] is the rejection of the hijab, and this [in itself] is the rejection of al-wala w’al-bara.

“The Al-Qaeda jurisprudent Al-Qahtani wrote in his book Al-Wala W’Al-Bara that [the principle of] al-wala w’al-bara demands that the Muslim ‘strive to establish God’s word on earth and the rule of the shari’a over every situation.’ The hijab, being an application of the shari’a laws of dress, is a symbol of the shari’a’s rule over every Muslim’s daily life. It is also a symbol of the inferiority of the Muslim woman who is ‘deficient in her mind and in her religion’; and it is a symbol of her body being something shameful that must be covered as one covers things shameful. Is there any humiliation to women greater than this humiliation?”

It is Crazy to Think that the Mosque Can Be Brought Into French Schools, When the French Took the Church Out of Them in 1905

“MM: Is the hijab really a religious obligation in Islam?

“LL: The pro-hijab propagandists from the French Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters among those living [in France], all of whom are thoroughly infused with the jurisprudence of al-wala w’al-bara, [become] autistic when they plug their ears against the proofs [that argue] against the hijab.

“[For instance,] Sheikh Al-Azhar Dr. Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi [issued] a fatwa to the Muslim women of France and Europe [allowing them] not to wear the hijab - this according to the principle of Islamic jurisprudence that ‘necessity makes licit that which is forbidden.’

“In addition, the great Egyptian jurisprudent Justice Muhammad Sa’id Al-’Ashmawi, in his book The Truth on the Hijab and the Authoritativeness of the Hadith, expressed his view that the hijab was obligatory only for [the Prophet] Muhammad’s wives. Similarly, the famous Sheikh Gamal Al-Banna, the brother of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan Al-Banna, said: ‘Islam did not impose the hijab on women; the jurisprudents imposed the hijab on Islam.’

“But in a secular society like France that has separated religion from state, it is meaningless to get into a discussion of jurisprudence. The discussion must be legal and political.

“As for the legal: French secular law rejects religious propaganda in the schools. And the hijab, in one of its meanings, is religious propaganda for a [certain] political-religious orientation - that of Islamism.

“As for the political: 67% of French citizens reject the hijab, according to the polls. It would be suicidal, in a democratic country like France, to not comply with the will of the French citizens who reject religious propaganda in the schools. The representatives of the Muslim minority must be crazy to think [they can] bring the mosque into the French schools… when the grandfathers and fathers of these French people took the church out of the schools in 1905 with the secular pact (pacte laique). Such an attempt would be an inadmissible revolt against French secularism.”

For France, Respecting Muslims’ Religious Freedom to Beat Their Wives and Circumcise Their Daughters Would Require It to Violate Human Rights

“MM: What would be your answer to those who say that forbidding the hijab in French schools is a ‘violation of religious freedoms?’

“LL: …Religious freedom and personal freedom are legally and morally tied to responsibility, and the responsibility here is respect for French positive law and human rights - the respect that was decreed in the preamble to the 1946 Constitution. For France, respecting [these] religious freedoms for Muslims would require it to violate its law and human rights. It would have to allow, for instance, a Muslim to beat his wife, circumcise his daughters, and apply shari’a corporal punishment. Respect for religious freedoms is not absolute. It is conditional upon respect for positive law and universal humanist values.

“The French Muslim Brotherhood protested that the hijab law was against women’s individual liberty. This is a claim that does not hold up.

“First of all, the number of girls who wore the hijab was 1,200, according to Interior Ministry statistics. After discussions between these girls and their school principals, all but 240 girls removed the hijab; it seems that these 240 clung to the hijab on the advice of their families, who hold sympathies for the French Muslim Brotherhood.

“Since the number of French Muslim girls is more than 350,000, it is clear that the hijab-wearers are a minority and that they - or, more probably, the Islamists who use them - want to impose the hijab on French law, on the French Constitution, and on the majority of French Muslim women.

When Bourguiba Abolished Polygamy in Tunisia, The Majority of Women Were Opposed

“A great number of Muslim women have internalized the Islamic jurisprudence, which was written by men and for men. This is what one French sociologist called ‘symbolic violence,’ meaning that the victim - in this case the Muslim woman - accepts the view of her executioner.

“When Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery, the slaves didn’t accept this - they refused their freedom. Should Lincoln have respected their individual freedom and taken back the abolition of slavery because the slaves had internalized it?

“When [Habib] Bourguiba abolished polygamy and unilateral divorce [in Tunisia] in 1956, the majority of women rejected these laws and voted against him in the local elections. Should Bourguiba have taken back this law and left women victims of obsolete Islamic jurisprudence?

“In 1964, Saudi Arabia abolished slavery, but most of the slaves refused their freedom. Should Saudi Arabia have taken back the abolition of slavery out of respect for the individual liberty of the slave?

“A decision is legally and morally legitimate when it aims to increase people’s dignity and to make them less subject to the traditions of their religious or ethnic group. The abolition of slavery, the abolition of polygamy and unilateral divorce, the banning of the hijab in schools, and the banning of female circumcision increase the dignity of slaves and women, and make them less subject to their obsolete traditions, which the collective conscious of slaves and Muslims - male and female - have internalized. The forbidding of the hijab increases women’s dignity…

“[Forbidding the hijab] restores esteem to a woman’s body. How so? A man’s body is partly shameful - from the navel to the knee. A woman’s body is shameful in its entirety, apart from the face and the hands. Muslim women aren’t equal to Muslim men even in the value of their bodies!

“One French psychoanalyst thinks that French Islamists demand [that women wear] the hijab because a woman’s hair makes them think of hair she has elsewhere, and this inflames their passions. This reduces women to sex. In this case, the hijab would then be an absurd solution to the Islamists’ sexual repression.

“The subconscious meaning of this is that every woman with her hair uncovered is a whore whom any Muslim is entitled to violate. This is why the Islamic jurisprudents forbade Muslim slave girls to wear the hijab, and likewise non-Muslim women - i.e., Muslims have the right to violate them whenever they want. This was the meaning of the hijab among the priests of Babylon in the 18th century B.C.E.! The woman who covered her hair was a free woman who belonged to a free Babylonian man, and no one else was allowed to violate her - whereas the woman whose hair was uncovered was a lowly woman whom it was licit to violate! Thus the historical, sociological, anthropological, and psychological meanings of the hijab all point to a denigration of women’s dignity.”

Ibn Taymiyya Forbade Imitating Jews and Christians, Even in Matters That Would Benefit Muslims

“The orientation that demands that the Muslims of Europe not culturally assimilate into their societies doesn’t just demand the hijab; some of them are also opposed to a ban on female circumcision - which is something that is forbidden by French law. They urge Muslim students to demand their own food - halal meat - in school dormitories, to refuse to attend classes on evolution because it opposes the Koran’s view of creation, and to refuse to attend philosophy class, because the Muslim jurisprudents outlawed philosophy in the 12th century C.E. [They urge other Muslims] not to dress like the French (i.e. to wear the hijab and white Afghani dress); and they demand that in hospitals, Muslim women be treated only by female doctors, not male doctors, because men - and especially non-Muslim men - are forbidden to see or to touch a Muslim woman’s body.

“These demands are inspired by the jurisprudence of al-wala w’al-bara, which forbids Muslims from integrating into non-Muslim societies and from imitating Jews and Christians, ‘even in something that is beneficial to them,’ as Ibn Taymiyya says in his book Following the Straight Path in Opposition to the Party of Hell, ‘for Allah will either give us something equivalent to it or better in this world, or else will give us compensation for it in the next world’.

“The Sunni Muslim Minority… Subconsciously Views the French Majority As Dhimmis Who Have No Right to Rule Over Their Muslim Masters”

“There are two reasons behind the problematic nature of European Islam: the fact that there has been no reform in Islam, and the fact that Sunni Islam has not internalized its minority status [in Europe].

“[As to the first reason:] Islam is still a primitive religion that has not been reformed, as has European Christianity. Nor has it been guided in the right direction, as European Judaism has been.

“[As to the second reason:] Sunni Islam, which has, for the past 15 centuries, been accustomed to always being the ruling majority, still has not taken in the fact that it is a minority in Europe - and in Iraq. One of the principle reasons for terrorism in Iraq is that the Sunni minority refuses to recognize the reality of its being a minority, as well as the resulting fact that it does not have a monopoly on rule over the Shi’ite majority and the Kurdish minority.

“The Sunni Muslim minority in Europe refuses to obey the universal laws and follow the universal values of European societies, because it subconsciously views the French majority as dhimmis who have no right to rule over their Muslim masters.

“It is this mentality that has, to this day, prevented the emergence of a [branch of] Sunni jurisprudence that would provide a theoretical treatment for the condition of the European Muslim minority and would present Muslims with jurisprudential rulings making it easier for them to conform to European laws and values.

“In the Talmud, there is a maxim that advises Jews that the laws of the state in which one lives are valid, obligatory, and apply to all. This Talmudic maxim could be a founding principle for a European Islamic minority jurisprudence that would make the European Muslim feel that he is a European citizen, and not just a temporary resident in the ‘abode of war.’

French Muslims Should Follow the Example of the French Jews Under Napoleon

“In truth, the Jewish minority’s cultural assimilation into the values of the French Republic presents a precedent that would be worthwhile for French and European Muslims to follow in order to effect their assimilation into the values of the Republic.

“In 1807, Napoleon convened the French Jews’ religious establishment, the Sanhedrin, in order to turn the French Jews into ‘proper citizens’ by bringing Jewish religious law into conformity with French secular values, so that the Jews would become part of the French nation after having formerly been an insular religious community.

“The Sanhedrin responded positively to Napoleon’s request, and in 1808 the institution called the Consistoire was established, and it declared that the political aspects of the Torah were no longer valid, since the Jews were no longer a nation.

“In this way, all forms of religious-legal independence were foregone. In practice, [this meant] that marriages and divorces could only be concluded through the civil registry, and mixed marriages were recognized, in accordance with French civil law.

“Thus French Jews were culturally assimilated into modern French society. The result was beneficial to both the Jews and to France, as demonstrated by the historical reality, and this has been recognized by discerning people among French Jews - and first and foremost by Joel Mergui, the head of the Israelite Consistoire for Paris and its suburbs, who recently said of the 1808 Sanhedrin pact with Napoleon: ‘This founding pact instituted the Jewish community as an assimilated part of the Republic, and it remained valid for 200 years.

“’(…)The Jews of France demonstrated, under all circumstances, their threefold loyalty as included in the Sanhedrin’s reply in March, 1807: 1) loyalty to the laws of the Republic - not only have the Jews of France not put this in doubt or disputed this, but they are even the defenders of these laws and values; 2) loyalty to the nation - the Jews of France have never failed to defend their country; 3) and loyalty to their faith and to their history.’

“The French Muslim minorities should do as the Sanhedrin did, and pronounce that they are abandoning [those Koranic] verses that are obsolete and no longer valid for their place and time, and that they are abandoning the shari’a, accepting mixed marriages, and adopting ‘the pact of threefold loyalty’.

“It appears that the French Muslim elite has begun to draw inspiration from the French Jewish minority. Ghaleb Bin Sheikh, an important member of the French [Muslim] religious elite, has stated that ‘it goes without saying that there are passages in the Koran of a belligerent and aggressive nature… and (we need) to publicly state that the sociological ramifications of this part of the Koran are obsolete.’ [As the saying goes,] heavy rain begins with a trickle.”

“Cultural Relativism… Is a Nihilist Philosophy”

“MM: Why do some European intellectuals and some English and American newspapers support the orientation that is opposed to Muslims’ cultural assimilation in European societies?

“LL: This is a strange phenomenon. In my opinion there are three reasons for it.

“The first reason is [a matter of] ritual: If the right makes a decision when it is in power, or adopts a position when in the opposition, then the left must automatically oppose it - not out of conviction that the decision or position is wrong, but just to differentiate itself…

“Second: a feeling of culpability. A wide swath of European intellectuals is afflicted with what psychology terms moral masochism, that is, an unjustified feeling of culpability. Colonialism arose centuries ago, and like any historical phenomenon, it had its positive and its negative aspects. There is no objective justification for these intellectuals to support the hijab, or the slaughtering of the Feast of Sacrifice lamb in the bathtub, or female circumcision, or exorcising jinns from epileptics, using the Koran and beatings - sometimes to the point of death, as has actually happened in France. This support [for these phenomena] is a sick reaction, the explanation for which lies in [the field of] psychology.

“Third: cultural relativism. This orientation is incomparably more dangerous than the aforementioned two, because it starts out from a philosophical conviction that is nearly predominant not just in Europe, but in all of the West, as well as in the Islamic world.

“The preachers of this [cultural relativism] are the Islamists, who [use it to] justify their clinging to barbaric medieval religious values and practices - such as the claims that ‘a woman is deficient in her mind and her religion,’ as the hadith says; and that she is unfit for rule, because ‘a people who place a woman over them will not prosper,’ as another hadith says; and that a woman is ‘a perpetual minor,’ as Islamic jurisprudence says; and that the dissimilarity between men and women and between Muslims and non-Muslims is an essential one, i.e., that it is a divine decision that was written in the celestial Koran before the creation of men and women and Muslims and non-Muslims.

“Thus, this dissimilarity, which is the product of culture and history, is presented by [the Islamists] as something natural, or rather a universal law that is above discussion, and is above the lives of women and non-Muslims.

“MM: What are the mainstays of the philosophy of relativism, and what are its implications?

“LL: The philosophy of cultural relativism, especially when it claims to be an absolute truth, is a nihilist philosophy that bases itself on: 1) the denial of the existence of any fixed value, in particular the moral and humanist values that serve as a basis of human society; and 2) the equivalence of all values and the equivalence of all cultures - [the equivalence of] primitive, cannibalistic peoples to the cultures of civilized, modern nations…

“Cultural relativists turn historical relativism into an absolute ideological relativism. This is a mistake and a danger. A sound mind recognizes that there are universal human values, such as human rights. If these are not recognized and respected - be it with a minimal recognition - then society becomes Darwinist, with survival for the strongest, and the entire world becomes a jungle, ruled by the law of the jungle, and the boundaries between the values of good and evil disappear…”

[1] Shaker Al-Nabulsi, Muhami al-shaytan: dirasa fi fikr al-’Afif al-Akhdar, Beirut, 2005, p. 25ff.

[2] www.elaph.com, September 8, 2007.

[3] For more on Tunisian religious education, see MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 339, “Liberal Values in Tunisian Islamic Schoolbooks,” March 30, 2007, http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA33907.

[4] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 225, “Zionism and Nazism: A Discussion on the TV Channel Al-Jazeera,” June 6, 2001, http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP22501.

[5] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 439, “Liberal Journalist Fired from Al-Hayat,” November 13, 2002, http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP43902.

2,601 posted on 10/10/2007 6:54:40 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; Founding Father; milford421

October 9, 2007 No.1734

Islamists Websites Monitor No. 141

ISI Video Shows Launching of “Al-Zarqawi-2” Missiles

A video by the ISI’s Media Production Company Al-Furqan, recently posted on the Islamist website http://www.shmo5alislam.com/vb/, which is hosted in Malaysia, shows mujahideen firing a new missile called the Al-Zarqawi-2 on a U.S. base in Iraq.

http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=subjects&Area=iwmp&ID=SP173407

[photo]

2,602 posted on 10/10/2007 6:56:44 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; Founding Father

http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=IA39507

October 10, 2007 No.395

Electricity Crisis in Syria
By: H.Varulkar

“What is the daily schedule of the Syrian citizen during power outages? At night, naturally, he spends his evening by candlelight or by the light of a flashlight, and if neither are available, there’s nothing wrong with moonlight either. In this way, our ridiculous authorities aspire to restore the productivity to our troubled souls. As we know, the light of the moon revives our souls and enriches our imagination, and it has the power to transform us into silver-tongued lovers or poets. The afternoon is the worst time for a serious power outage - especially in the middle of a burning hot summer. The hours between one and four or five transform one from a keen-sensed poet into a crazed murderer... You curse your mother and your father who brought you into Syria.” [1]

- Ahmad Mawloud Al-Tayyar, a resident of the city of Al-Raqqa,
describes life in Syria under electricity outages

Since early summer 2007, Syria has been suffering from a severe electricity crisis, the worst in many years. Recurring power outages last four to 10 hours a day, and this has obviously affected the lives of Syria’s citizens, as well as causing serious damage to the Syrian economy. [2]

At first, the Syrian government assured the public that the crisis was temporary - that it stemmed from increased demand due to the summer heat and was expected to resolve itself within a few weeks. [3] Syrian Prime Minister Muhammad Naji Al-’Utri even gave Electricity Minister Ahmad Khaled Al-’Ali a two-week ultimatum to solve the crisis. [4] But when the problem persisted, with the weeks turning into months, harsh criticism of the government, and particularly of the prime minister and electricity minister, began to appear in the Syrian media.

The Syrian government daily newspapers called on the country’s decision makers to act swiftly to correct the flaws in the country’s public services, including the electricity crisis. More critical articles appeared in the Syrian dailies and news websites, and also on the opposition sites, which attributed the crisis to public corruption and to poor planning, and called for the privatizing Syria’s electricity services.

Protests against the situation reached their height in early August, after Prime Minister Al-’Utri blamed the crisis on political reasons and on international pressures that had led, inter alia, to refusal by the world’s four largest companies dealing with electricity to work in Syria. In this context, Al-’Utri pointed at former French president Jacques Chirac as the one who had pressured a French company to withdraw from a Syrian tender for erecting a power station in Syria. [5]

The criticism over the electricity crisis also spread to popular protest, when, on August 2, 2007, a hacker penetrated the Electricity Ministry’s website and left the following notice on the homepage: “I thank all the Electricity Ministry employees, and particularly the [electricity] minister, who so far has offered no solution and has abandoned the country and the people who gave him his job. I also express my gratitude for the tremendous effort of all those in charge of maintenance in the Electricity Ministry - an effort that demonstrates their inability to bear the responsibility and to hold onto their lofty positions. How long will we remain backward? How long?” [6]

The following are excerpts from articles and reports published in the Syrian papers and news websites in response to the electricity crisis, and particularly in response to statements by Syrian Prime Minister Al-’Utri:

Government Papers: The Regime Must Hold In-Depth Discussions on Issues Concerning Residents’ Lives

Sana Ya’qoub, columnist for the Syrian government daily Teshreen, wrote: “In light of the pathetic picture before the eyes of the residents, from the water and electricity crises, to the narrow streets full of dust and potholes, to the animals and cattle in the neighborhoods and the bugs, rats, and sewers polluting everything around them - the people say to the makers and executors of the decisions: ‘When will you speak the truth and keep your promises? Are we to remain forever at your mercy?!” [7]

Isma’il Jaradat, columnist for the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra, also wrote about the crisis in public services: “[There are] many issues that members of the legislative authority must raise with the executive authority. It is to be hoped that [the matter] will not end this way, and that the discussions will not take place infrequently. We are interested in an in-depth discussion that will deal with all the issues concerning the lives and livelihoods of the residents - and not in discussions aimed at grabbing media prestige.” [8]

Al-Watan Daily: The Electricity Crisis is the Result of Corruption and Poor Planning

In a July 30, 2007 editorial, the Syrian daily Al-Watan called for privatization of Syria’s electricity: “What is the use of talking about achievements? What is the use of all members of the government stressing the ‘improvement’ in the citizen’s [standard of] living? What is the use of threats, promises, and ultimatums [for solving the crisis] when they are only slogans? The Syrian citizen raises these questions every day, every hour, in an attempt to obtain an explanation of what is going on. Water comes from Allah, but electricity is the government’s responsibility... What are the investor, the tourist, and the immigrant told? Are they told that the planning is poor, and that the cause of the crisis is the corruption and neglect? Or are we to reiterate the words of the government and of the electricity minister, that the crisis is temporary and it will be overcome within a short time?

“And who will bear the material losses? Will the citizen be allowed to sue the Electricity Ministry for damages? We have no answer to any of these questions, and it is best that the government move over and permit the private sector to supply electricity, instead of scattering promises, threats and ultimatums. At least with the private sector we know our rights and our obligations in settling accounts and suing those in charge. It is a great scandal - a scandal to the detriment of the government, which is obligated to improve its citizens’ standard of living.” [9]

Syrian columnist Haytham Yahya Muhammad wrote in a similar vein in the daily Al-Watan: “In light of the disorder and the chaotic way in which the power comes on and off, and in light of the negative and dangerous ramifications of this situation, some say - and I among them - that if the ‘moral system’ of those in charge of electricity in our country had not crashed, the power grid would not have crashed so suddenly either!”

Syrian Opposition Forces: The Problems are the Product of the Authorities’ Policy

In an editorial titled “The Syrians Without Water, Electricity and Security - That Is, Without a State!” the website of the Damascus Declaration, an umbrella organization of the Syrian opposition forces, [10] wrote: “The problems of the Syrians are the product of the authorities’ policy, and the essence [of this policy] is suppressing any opinion different [from the regime’s] and abolishing political freedoms - primarily freedom of expression and freedom of assembly... This policy consistently prevents opportunity for national dialogue, thereby making it impossible for public opinion to form that will expose the essence of the problems and their [various] aspects. Thus, there is no systematic planning or handling [of the problems]; the level of responsibility drops, and the demand to provide an accounting weakens - if not completely disappears - [as you descend down] the ranks of authority. [Ultimately], it is directed only at the lowest levels that lack all protection.

“The reality in Syria has long required that the government change its policy from the root, and that it be subjected to supervision and held accountable [for its policies], to the maximal degree. The continuation of the current situation, and the worsening of the problems with which the Syrians are dealing, are simply unacceptable.” [11]

“Syria News” Editor: Al-’Utri’s Statement - Evading Responsibility

Nidhal Ma’louf, editor-in-chief of the Syria News website, which is affiliated with Syrian regime circles, criticized Prime Minister Al-’Utri’s attribution of the power crisis to political reasons and international pressures: “...To the best of my knowledge, the establishment discourse has recently been marketing [the idea that] ‘America’s policy of isolation has failed to accomplish its goals regarding Syria’ - [yet suddenly] the prime minister comes and tells us that we have entered a new era - an era of ‘distress’ caused by the international sanctions against Syria.

“I do not know whether [the policy of] blaming ‘international pressures’ for the government’s failure to meet the basic needs of the Syrian citizen is wise during this sensitive time, when Syria has begun to reap the fruits of its resistance to the American-Israeli plots in the region. We are handing them the big prize on a silver platter, telling them, ‘Behold, you have succeeded, and we have begun to live in the era of darkness as a result of the policy of isolation that you have employed against us.’

“I do not think that it is possible that Siemens, or any of the companies scattered throughout the world, would reject offers to build power stations in Syria, since we have already in recent years signed contracts with U.S. and European companies in [various] areas, [including] communications and oil... I think - and this [too] is the message being marketed by the government, morning and night - that we have friends in the ‘Eastern’ [regions], which reach to China, who [could have] helped us acquire power stations, if [only] we had planned so as to deal with this crisis in a timely fashion and had taken into account all the social, political, and environmental circumstances.

“These government statements [by Al-’Utri] have had a twofold negative impact... on the Syrian public: Some interpreted them as ‘evading responsibility,’ [i.e.] as an attempt to blame the government’s obvious failure on ‘international pressures,’ while others saw it as the ‘harbinger’ of an era in which the international pressures and the U.S.’s isolation policy have begun to make significant breakthroughs - to the point where they have caused Syria to live in darkness. I think that both these interpretations are nothing but adding fuel to the fire of the crisis.” [12]

Former MP: The Regime is Insulting the Citizens’ Intelligence

Former Syrian MP Muhammad Mamoun, now a political dissident who is active outside Syria, responded to Al-’Utri’s statements by telling the Italian news agency AKI: “How long will the regime insult the intelligence and feelings of the citizens while ignoring the facts and the reality for which it is fully responsible[?]... How can the regime seek to blame others for the policy it employed - a policy that has brought Syria ruin and economic and political destruction[?]... Are the prime minister’s statements a kind of false accusation, a distortion of the facts, an [attempt to find] a new hook on which the regime’s mistakes and faults can be hung, or [an attempt to] spread hatred and animosity between the peoples?...

“Syria’s electricity [crisis] is one of the problems from which the Syrian people suffers, and it stems from poor management of the country, from defective planning, and from the corruption that afflicts all the country’s services... Where was this problem two months ago [during the presidential referendum], when [electric] decorations filled [the streets] and electricity was used with abandon throughout the country for two months, so that [the president would be reelected and] the regime’s robbery of the people could continue?” [13]

Syrian Oppositionist to Regime Heads: Stop Stealing Water, Electricity, Liberty, and Freedom of Expression

In an article on the Akhbar Al-Sharq website, Syrian oppositionist Dr. ‘Ali Hussein wondered how a regime capable of undermining the stability of the Middle East could not solve its electricity crisis: “Mr. Al-’Utri, why don’t you tell the Syrian people the truth? One month ago, you lied when you blamed the power outages on the electricity minister, and today you are blaming the collapse of Syria’s electricity network on Chirac. Why don’t you tell the Syrian people that it is your idiotic policy, and President [Bashar Al-Assad], that are the reasons for the problem? If the problem is power stations, and if there were tensions in your relations with Jacques Chirac because of the shameful crime of the assassination of [former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq] Al-Hariri, then where are your strategic relations with the rest of the countries of the world? Where is your ally Iran in this crisis, and where are your private trade relations[?]...

“Do you have the capability to infiltrate across the borders of the neighboring countries in order to kill innocents and to undermine [these countries’] security and stability? Do you have the capability of setting the region ablaze, from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean? Do you have the capability to steal both the best of Syria and the crust of bread of the poorest of her sons? [The answer is] yes, you have all these capabilities - but you do not have the capability of resolving the problem of the power supply - which all over the world is considered a basic commodity...

“Enough, Al-’Utri. Enough, you who carry out the orders of the regime. Stop playing with the livelihood of the poor citizen; stop robbing the country and the human beings, stop stealing the water, the electricity, and the even the air, and stop stealing the liberty and the freedom of expression.

“We remind you, Al-’Utri, and we remind your heroic president, and all the mercenaries who enjoy [the pleasures of] the regime: The Syrian people will not take pity on you when the time of salvation comes. The [Syrian] Republican Guards and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards will not protect you. Your palaces, armies, and diplomatic immunity will not protect you either. Whatever your control of the people may be [now], victory is always the ally of the peoples.” [14]

*H. Varulkar is a research fellow at MEMRI.

[1] http://www.thisissyria.net/2007/07/05/writers/04.html

[2] Nobles News (Syria), September 9, 2007.

[3] Al-Ba’th (Syria), June 27, 2007.

[4] Al-Thawra (Syria), June 29, 2007.

[5] Syria News (Syria), August 4, 2007.

[6] Syria News (Syria), August 3, 2007.

[7] Teshreen (Syria), July 7, 2007.

[8] Al-Thawra (Syria), July 4, 2007.

[9] Al-Watan (Syria), July 30, 2007.

[10] In October 2005, an alliance among Syrian parties, forces, and oppositionists signed the “Damascus Declaration for National Democratic Change.” The document stresses the need for democratic change in Syria and for the end of the military regime that has controlled the Syrian people for over 30 years. The declaration calls, inter alia, for the establishment of a democratic government in Syria, the elimination of the Emergency Law, the release of all political prisoners, and a solution to the Kurdish problem. The signatories included the Committees for Reviving Civil Society, the Kurdish Democratic Front in Syria, the National Democratic Union in Syria, the Syrian Committee for Human Rights, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria.

[11] The Damascus Declaration website (www.damdec.org ), July 2, 2007.

[12] Syria News (Syria), August 5, 2007.

[13] http://www.thisissyria.net/2007/08/09/syriatoday/11.html.

[14] http://www.thisissyria.net/2007/08/05/writers/01.html.

2,603 posted on 10/10/2007 7:02:21 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; Founding Father

October 11, 2007 No.1735

Fatwa by Influential Islamic American Jurist: Marriage of Muslim Woman to Non-Muslim Man – Forbidden and Invalid

A fatwa issued in August 2007 by the secretary-general of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists in America (AMJA), Dr. Sheikh Salah Al-Sawy, states that marriage between a Muslim woman and a non-Muslim man is forbidden and invalid, and that children born of such a union are illegitimate.

The following are excerpts from the fatwa, which was posted on the website www.islamonline.net: [1]

“Marriage between a Muslim woman and a non-Muslim [man] is forbidden and invalid - that is a consensus among Muslims. A [Muslim] woman who has taken the liberty [of marrying a non-Muslim man] has removed herself from the fold of the Muslim community - and one who has done so knowing that it is wrong, has done something strictly forbidden, and has committed an open [act of] abomination that may hurl her into the abyss of heresy and apostasy.

“Some clerics hold that [a Muslim woman who marries a non-Muslim man] is considered a heretic from the very beginning [i.e. from the moment she marries], since the bond of marriage allows her to have sexual relations and intercourse [with her husband], and to take pleasure [in this], and it is inconceivable that she should commit the crime [of having intercourse] without the sanction [of a valid marriage].

“The wisdom of the religious ban [against the marriage of a Muslim woman to a non-Muslim man lies in] its preventing [the woman] from being tempted away from her faith. The Koran justifies this ban by saying that these marriages ‘beckon [the believer] to the Fire [of Hell; Koran 2:221].’ In other words, they lead to sins that doom [the sinner] to Hell... since [the woman] may be tempted to renounce [Islam], to doubt [the truth of] Islam, and to disparage its religious rituals.

“Woman is weak by nature, and the guardianship of a [non-Muslim] man affects her powers of reasoning. [Marriage to a non-Muslim] may thus cause a woman to follow the ways [of her husband], or at least to abandon her [own] religion and neglect its rituals. [By so doing,] she is neither a Muslim nor one of the People of the Book [i.e. a Christian or Jew like her husband]...

“The same applies to the children who are the product of these marriages, for they are raised by a polytheist father who may urge them to renounce or disparage [Islam], thereby [causing them] to lose both this world and the world to come.

“A person must have some buffer between him and [deeds] that will bring him to perdition. A person about to commit suicide may expect society to intervene in order to safeguard his right to live. This is why shari’a prohibits marriage between a Muslim woman and a non-Muslim man - because it is the first step towards religious suicide, whether [it is the woman’s] suicide or that of the children she will bear. This [form of] suicide is much worse than actual suicide, which also [involves] the murder of [unborn children]. The woman can expect Muslim society to stand between her and this fate, thereby safeguarding her faith and her salvation in the world to come.

“[The Koran says]: ‘Do not marry unbelieving women, until they believe: A slave woman who believes is better than an unbelieving woman, even though she allures you. Nor marry (your girls) to unbelievers until they believe: A man slave who believes is better than an unbeliever, even though he allures you. Unbelievers do [but] beckon you to the Fire. But Allah beckons by His Grace to the Garden [of bliss] and forgiveness [Koran 2:221].’

“The excuse that one is unable to find a [Muslim] partner for marriage is completely invalid, both from a religious and from a practical point of view... for one who is unable to find a spouse must remain chaste until Allah delivers him [from his plight], for Allah has said: ‘Let those who cannot find a match keep themselves chaste, until Allah gives them means out of His grace [Koran 24:33].’

“Allah has commanded those who cannot find a match to be patient and chaste until He provides them with what they lack. [Even if they cannot find a match], they are not permitted to go to whores or to commit incest. In addition, Allah has forbidden a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim man. The Prophet [Muhammad] said: ‘...Those of you who can marry should do so, for marriage causes one to lower his eyes [i.e. to be chaste] and it is the best protection [against promiscuity]. Those who cannot [marry] should fast, for fasting is like castration.’ The Prophet recommended fasting for those who are unable to marry for economic reasons, and for those who cannot find a religiously suitable partner.

“[Marriage between a Muslim woman and a non-Muslim man] is invalid and despicable, for we know, and anyone who has contact with the Muslim communities in the West knows, that the number of [Muslim] men seeking marriage is growing. When Muslim women behave in a righteous manner and frequent the mosque, they will receive plenty of marriage proposals and have plenty of [suitable partners] from whom to choose...

“The numerous Muslim centers in the West are still providing [matchmaking] services, supplying information to those who wish to marry so that they know of suitable [candidates]. We must redouble our efforts in this area in order to help men and women who wish to remain chaste, and to remove the excuse which is used by those of weak faith and feeble hearts [namely, that they are unable to find a suitable match].

“The excuse that [the man and woman] share an emotional bond, which comes to justify that which is forbidden, is one of the most despicable excuses...”

[1] www.islamonline.net/servlet/satellite?cid=1184649663278&pagename=islamonline-Arabic-Ask_Scholar%2FFatwaAAskTheScholar, August 8, 2007.

from:

http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD173507

2,604 posted on 10/10/2007 7:05:24 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421

October 11, 2007 No.1736

2006 Lebanon War, Attack on Israeli Missile Boat Feature in Iranian Animated Children’s Film Aired on International Jerusalem Day

The following are excerpts from an Iranian animated film which aired on International Jerusalem Day, October 5, 2007, on Iranian TV’s Channel 2.

To view this clip visit:http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1572.htm.

“The Foundation for the Safeguarding and the Promotion of the Values of the Sacred Defense”

“Zahra’s Drawings”

“Beirut on the Mediterranean coast. July 21, 2006”

Girls playing and singing: “We are happy and laughing, and we know how to appreciate the world.

“Let’s clap our hands and stamp our feet.

“We are happy.

“Let’s sing together a song of kindness.

“Our lives are as short as a desert flower, so let’s be happy.

“Let’s clap our hands and stamp our feet.

“We are happy.

“We are happy and laughing, and we know how to appreciate the world.

“Let’s clap our hands and stamp our feet.

“We are happy.”

Zahra, a little girl, writes to her mother: “My dear Mommy, I’ve drawn a picture of you next to Daddy. I couldn’t draw your face because I have never seen you. I would like to see you. I miss you very much.”

Zahra falls asleep atop her drawing of her parents being attacked by a tank and a plane. Air raid sirens sound; people in Beirut’s streets flee. The city is attacked by air and by sea. Zahra is struck by flying debris from a bomb dropped by a jet fighter. Tanks begin attacking Beirut. Images are shown of victims of these attacks.

Zahra’s father reads her letter to him: “My dear Daddy, the last time you said goodbye to me, you told me you were going on a short journey. Two weeks have gone by, and you have not yet returned. I miss you very much. Don’t worry about me. I feel fine. Just don’t let the enemy kill our people and destroy our homes. Daddy, I love you very much. Your daughter, Zahra.”

A surveillance plane identifies and photographs a missile boat

“Saar - a missile boat of the Zionist regime”

Officer delivers a military briefing: “Recently, our surveillance planes have supplied us with photos showing the Saar missile boat getting ready to renew its attack on Lebanese residential areas. According to our intelligence, in two days, this missile boat will be 12 miles away from Beirut, which is as close as it must come so it can attack the city. In order to prevent this renewed attack, we must destroy this missile boat before it gets that close. Our attack will begin after we load the C-802 missiles. The target will be on coordinate 12E, 15 degrees west. The missile will be deployed and launched at 1300 hours at 19 degrees east.”

“Two days later”

A C-802 missile is launched from a truck and moves towards the Saar.

Voice of Zahra’s mother: “Zahra, Zahra, wake up, my daughter.”

Zahra opens her eyes and sees her mother in angelic form

Zahra: “Mother. Mother, I’ve missed you.”

Zahra’s mother: “My dear, give me your hand.”

Zahra and her mother join hands.

Zahra’s mother: “Now you are free.”

The missile hits its target and the boat sinks.

Zahra regains consciousness and cries out: “Help, I am here.”

Voices of rescue workers: “There is somebody here. We’ve found someone. Come quickly.”

Zahra: “Help, I am here.”

Voices of rescue workers: “There is somebody here. Quickly, quickly, get on.”

http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD173607

2,605 posted on 10/10/2007 7:12:21 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; Founding Father; DAVEY CROCKETT

http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2007/10/4_russians_coul.php

4 Russians could face death penalty in Lebanon

Wednesday, 10 October, 2007 @ 6:51 AM

Beirut - Eighteen-year-old Sergey Vysotsky is one of four Russian
citizens who could be put to death in Lebanon if found guilty of
terrorist offenses. The teenager is under arrest in the capital Beirut.

fatah al islam - armed militants.jpg The other three Russians remain
at large. All four are thought to be part of the radical Palestinian
movement Fatah Al-Islam.

Lebanese authorities met Russian diplomats in Beirut to confirm the
charges against the four Russian citizens. All are suspected of
terrorist activities. The men could face the death penalty if found
guilty.

However, Geidar Dzhemal, the Chairman of Russia’s Islamic Committee
says it’s likely the four Russians will be sent home.

“We have information that they will not be sent to Guantanamo or sent
to any other Lebanese prison. They are Russian citizens and will be
returned home, to Russia. Whether it will be followed by a court trial
or what sort of court - is still a question to be agreed. It shall be
decided between the legal agencies of the two countries,” he said.

Teenager wanted to study in Lebanon

The teenager Sergey Vysotsky, 18, claims he came to Lebanon at the
beginning of the year with the intention of going to university in
Tripoli, in the north of the country. He says the college had no place
for him when he arrived. He says he then became friendly with a group
of youths from a nearby Palestinian refugee camp. That’s the reason,
he says, he was in the area of the battlefield when he was arrested in
early September.

The Press-Attache of the Russian Embassy in Lebanon, Vladimir
Cherepanov, told Russia Today that the Head of the Consular Department
visited Vysotsky in prison. He saw the conditions he is being kept in
and said they were acceptable. He also confirmed that embassy staff
will be present when police question the youth.

“Vysotksy has said he has no complaints about being kept in custody.
He appears quite healthy. He was not tortured during the preliminary
investigation and it is apparent from the way he looks. He confirms
that he was detained in early September in the battle area. From
October 11 interrogations will begin with the preliminary
investigation, during which our consul will be present as agreed with
the Lebanese side,” Mr Cherepanov informed.

Sergey Vysotsky is said to be co-operating with officers, but has
consistently denied the accusations against him. He says he was no way
involved in the killing of Lebanese military and police personnel.

On Thursday he will appear before a Lebanese judge for the first time,
which will be his first official interrogation. The Russian Embassy
has requested that a representative be present. They will also provide
a translator.

Under Lebanese law Vysotsky must be provided with a lawyer, free of
charge, once his trial begins. But before that the Russian Embassy
will be providing him with one, including at the first session to take
place on Thursday.

The Embassy says it’s satisfied with the close co-operation between
the Russian and the Lebanese authorities.

Surprise at Russian involvement

There has been surprise in Lebanon that some of the militants of the
radical Palestinian movement Fatah Al-Islam could come from Russia.
The four Russian citizens are the first non-Arab nationals to have
been charged with such serious crimes in Lebanon.
russia - dr nasser.jpg”Russians among them ? What are you talking
about ?” wondered Oksana Naser ( right) , a Dagestani woman living in
Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. “I heard only about one - from Chechnya.
And from Dagestan? I am hearing it, first time, from you,” she told
RT’s correspondent. Oksana herself comes from Dagestan, a republic in
the South of Russia. But unlike the four charged Russian nationals,
one of whom allegedly comes from her hometown, she was an innocent
bystander to the violence that wrecked her home and destroyed her
private gynaecological practice in the Nahr al-Bared camp four months
ago.

Together with thousands of others, she’s found temporary shelter
nearby.

“I used to see these men from Fatah Al-Islam in our camp. Some of
their wives were my patients. Many of them were pregnant. I had a
chance to talk to them,” Oksana recalls.

Here at the Naser family, the despair is overwhelming.

“I want to go back to Russia, I want to work there if I can,” Dr Ali
Naser confesses.

The family has lost everything. They live now on borrowed money and
forgotten dreams.

Dr. Raed El-Haj, who was born in Nahr al-Bared, has also found
temporary shelter nearby. He is one of fifty doctors from the camp who
studied in Russia. He remembers seeing one of the men patrolling the
streets.

“He was just in military uniform, like soldiers were, and was carrying
a Kalashnikov machine gun. But not all of them were dressed like
soldiers. I knew he was Russian because I studied in Russia for twelve
years. I can tell from the face if a man is Russian in the same way
that he can tell I am Arab. Many of them were undercover. Their real
power became known only after the war started,” Dr. Raed El-Haj said.

“We’d have sent the Russians home”

The war was between the Lebanese army and Islamist militants belonging
to an Al-Qaeda offshoot - Fatah al Islam. The residents of the
northern Lebanese Palestinian camp became its victims.

Now, waiting to return, they keep themselves well-armed.
russia arkanbader.jpgAbdelary Arkanbader ( right) , the leader of the
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said they were
surprised in the beginning to find there were Russians fighting with
Fatah Al-Islam.

“But now we know that there are a handful of Russians involved and in
my opinion, they probably come from Chechnya. They arrived here from
Iraq. I wish we’d known before the fighting started that there were
Russians, we would’ve taken them to the Russian Embassy because we
have good relations with Russia and we would have let them go home,”
Abdelary Arkanbader noted.

Late last week, 98 suspected Fatah al-Islam militants were buried in a
mass grave. None were identified. Mr Abdelary says it is possible some
of the missing Russians could be among them.

Top picture: Fatah al -Islam armed militants as seen inside the Nahr
el Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon

Sources: Russia Today

2,606 posted on 10/10/2007 7:27:09 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; Founding Father

Who’s Behind the Censorship of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week?
By http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/authors.aspx?Name=BenJohnson

Ben
Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, October 10, 2007

CALL IT THE LEFT’S VERSION OF PREEMPTIVE WAR. The three co-equal
branches of
the Unholy Alliance - Islamic radicals, far-Left activists, and
academics -
have returned to their usual level of discourse - intimidation,
slander, ad
hominem attacks - in an attempt to ban
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/islamo-fascism-awareness-week

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week from college campuses before it ever
occurs.
National “Muslim and Arab rights” organizations are pressuring college
administrators to prevent students from holding the peaceful,
educational
seminars. Conservative students have been accused of “hate speech”
actually
manufactured in their name by radical campus leftists, and at least one
conservative is being harassed although she is not in any way
associated
with Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week.

THE NATIONAL “MUSLIM RIGHTS” HATE CAMPAIGN

continued, but with too many links for me to clean up and post, should be read by all..........granny

A Forgery and a Hate Crime
By http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/authors.aspx?Name=DavidHorowitz
David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, October 09, 2007
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=AE350496-96B7-4F95-8357-831F7BA4414C

In a stratagem typical of the deceitful smear campaigns the left seems
to
favor, an obviously fake hate flyer has been posted all over the George
Washington University campus with the intention of sabotaging

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/news/67/islamo-fascism-week/

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (October 22-26), and smearing its
sponsors the
David Horowitz Freedom Center and the Young America’s Foundation.

continues.

2,607 posted on 10/10/2007 7:37:32 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; Founding Father

Who’s Behind the Censorship of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week?
By http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/authors.aspx?Name=BenJohnson

Ben
Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, October 10, 2007

THE NATIONAL “MUSLIM RIGHTS” HATE CAMPAIGN

continued, but with too many links for me to clean up and post, should be read by all..........granny

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/news/67/islamo-fascism-week/

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (October 22-26), and smearing its
sponsors the
David Horowitz Freedom Center and the Young America’s Foundation.

continues.

2,608 posted on 10/10/2007 7:38:14 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; Founding Father

Palestinian Authority Cartoon Prays That Allah Will Kill Americans

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200710/INT20071010c.html

Palestinian Authority Cartoon Prays That Allah Will Kill Americans
By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief
October 10, 2007

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - A cartoon published Tuesday in an official
Palestinian Authority newspaper shows a Muslim man calling on Allah to
kill
Americans, said a group that monitors Palestinian media.

Palestinian Media Watch, an independent research group, said the
cartoon
shows the Muslim man kneeling before a U.S. fighter jet. His prayers
are
enclosed in four missiles aimed at the American plane.

He prays: “Allah, scatter them!” “And turn their wives into widows!”
“And
turn their children into orphans!” “And give us victory over them!”

Al Hayat al Jadida is the newspaper of P.A. Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’
Fatah
faction and is controlled by the P.A., Palestinian Media Watch said.

The U.S. is supporting Abbas as a moderate Palestinian leader and a
peace
partner for Israel. But according to PMW, anti-American sentiments are
nothing new in the P.A.

In a recent report on 12th grade Palestinian textbooks, PMW said the
United
States is presented as a “human rights abuser, violator of
international
humanitarian law” and “an ‘occupier’ of Iraq.”

The world history book presents those fighting American soldiers in
Iraq as
the “brave resistance to liberate Iraq.”

The U.S. also is depicted as leading the West in a “clash of
civilizations”
against the Islamic-Arab world.

2,609 posted on 10/10/2007 7:43:05 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421

Info sharing could bankrupt terror financing: expert

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=4c23ca0a-8d46-4d58-af97-2fe1fea39d0c &k=38604

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=4c23ca0a-8d46-4d58-af97-2fe1fea39d0c&k=38604

CanWest News Service

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

The international battle against terrorism could be aided by better
information sharing between countries through agencies monitoring
suspect
charities, the Air India inquiry heard Tuesday.

Kenneth Dibble, of the Charity Commission for England and Wales, said
there
are no formal arrangements between his agency and the charities branch
of
the Canada Revenue Agency or similar regulatory bodies in other
countries.

Dibble testified in Ottawa before Commissioner John Major about the
broader
powers held by his Charity Commission, which can conduct covert
investigations, remove trustees and seize assets of charities suspected
of
terrorist financing.

Dibble said that sometimes charities believed to have a link to
terrorist
financing have branches around the world.

He cited the example of the British-registered Tamil Rehabilitation
Organization, which was sending money to the banned Tamil Tigers
terrorist
group. The same organization was operating in North America and in
other
countries, Dibble said.

Richard Quance, a lawyer representing the Air India victims’ families,
suggested that more information-sharing between regulatory bodies would
be
helpful.

“Would it be your view that it would be of assistance in fighting the
global
war on terrorism to have a greater flow of information of that nature
between yourself and your partners?” Quance asked.

“I think it would,” replied Dibble.

Dibble added there is informal information sharing between agencies,
including his and his counterpart in Canada.

But if the British had identified a charity that was a front group for
a
terrorist organization, they would not automatically contact Canada or
other
countries, Dibble said.

Dibble stressed that the vast majority of British charities do not have
any
involvement in terrorist financing. And he said where cases have been
identified, his agency has sought to remove trustees and replace them
with
legitimate people who will keep the charity work continuing.

That contrasts with what the inquiry has heard about the Canadian
approach,
which is to de-list charities suspected of being involved in terrorist
financing.

Dibble said his commission wants to strike a balance between cracking
down
on abuse within the charity sector and ensuring that money reaches
people in
dire need, even when they live in parts of the world where terrorist
groups
are operating.

Even when the imam at the North London Central Mosque, Abu Hamza, was
preaching violent rhetoric, the Charity Commission did not shut down
the
mosque. Instead it replaced Hamza, who was later charged and convicted
of
terrorist offences.

“The issue in a sense didn’t go away immediately,” Dibble said. “His
supporters were still quite vociferous in relation to their engagement
in
the charity.”

The inquiry into the investigation of the June 23, 1985, Air India
bombing,
which killed 331, is now into its third week exploring the issue of
terrorist financing in Canada and what is being done to combat the
problem.

2,610 posted on 10/10/2007 7:51:26 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; Founding Father

A SLAPP Against Freedom
Attorneys have an effective new way to defeat Islamic groups’ libel suits.
Judith Miller
Autumn 2007

Nothing gets a journalist’s attention like a subpoena. While authoritarian regimes silence critics by murdering or jailing them, journalists (and other critics) in the United States face gentler, but still effective, intimidation: libel lawsuits. Over the last few years, Islamists have tried silencing reporters, scholars, and citizens by suing them for defamation, often successfully. But recent legal cases in California, Massachusetts, and Minnesota suggest that the tactic may finally be backfiring, at least in the United States, if not in Britain, where libel laws overwhelmingly favor plaintiffs. The American lawsuits’ outcomes—poorly covered by the media—represent victories for the free expression and public participation that the First Amendment guarantees.

The latest victory came in August, when an Islamic charity, KinderUSA, and its board chairman, Laila Al-Marayati, dropped the libel suit they had filed in April in California state court against former Treasury Department official Matthew Levitt, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (which now employs him), and Yale University Press. In 2006, Yale published Levitt’s book on Hamas, which Washington says supports terrorism. Levitt never mentioned Al-Marayati in his book, but he did assert that KinderUSA, founded to raise money for Palestinian children, had ties to terrorist groups.

Al-Marayati and KinderUSA charged that Levitt had made “false and damaging” charges that caused “irreparable harm to its reputation,” and they sought at least $500,000 in damages, a public retraction, and a halt to the book’s distribution. But Levitt and his codefendants stood by his claims. In June, they filed a motion against the charity and its chairman, seeking to quash the libel suit and demanding that the plaintiffs pay all legal fees. They cited a California law that bans “SLAPP”—or “strategic litigation against public participation”—suits, which aim not at winning in court, but at intimidating into silence a group or a publication raising issues of public concern. “California enacted anti-SLAPP legislation to get rid of inappropriate lawsuits like this one,” they wrote in a 15-page brief.

Less than six weeks later, Al-Marayati and KinderUSA dropped the suit. Todd Gallinger, who represented the plaintiffs, insisted that the charity had sued not to intimidate or silence Levitt, but rather to force him to correct charges that it still considers libelous. “They were trying to suppress the charity’s legitimate activities,” he said. But KinderUSA underestimated the costs involved, he acknowledged, and the defendants’ anti-SLAPP motion was a factor in its decision to drop the suit.

“Anti-SLAPP laws are a very powerful tool,” agreed Roger Myers, an attorney who specializes in using the law to defend journalists in libel claims. “There has been a fairly dramatic decline in the number of libel cases being filed here in California.”

Levitt’s case isn’t unique. Last May, the Islamic Society of Boston dropped its suit against the Boston Herald, a local Fox news channel, journalist Steven Emerson, and 14 others. The Society had accused the defendants of libel and of infringing its civil rights by claiming that it had funded terrorist organizations, received money from Saudi Arabia, and bought land for a mosque below market value from the City of Boston.

Though Massachusetts’s anti-SLAPP law does not cover media firms, ten of the non-media defendants filed a motion to quash the Society’s suit. When a state judge rejected the motion, a legal discovery process got under way while the defendants appealed. Bank records and other documents revealed that, contrary to its claims, the Society had raised over $7 million from Saudi and other Middle Eastern sources and had funded two groups that the Bush administration has designated terrorist entities: the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the Benevolence International Foundation. Records also showed that Society directors had deleted all e-mails about the Society’s land purchase. Finally, discovery revealed that the deputy director of the Boston city agency in charge of negotiating the land deal not only was a Society member whom it had paid to raise money in the Middle East, but also secretly advised the group about obtaining the land cheaply—a clear conflict of interest.

On May 29, soon after the state appellate court heard arguments on the anti-SLAPP appeal, the Society abandoned the suit. Though its lawyers did not respond to requests for comment and its website tried to put a good face on the surrender, Jeff Robbins, who represented several defendants in the complex lawsuit, expressed their belief that the Society had caved, fearing the prospect of paying what could have been millions of dollars in court and legal fees. “The anti-SLAPP motion clearly played a role,” said Robbins, who represented two clients for free because First Amendment issues were involved. Another factor, he said, was the Society’s fear that the court would order it to answer questions under oath and release information that it had tried to keep secret, such as the names of its donors. The case shows that while anti-SLAPP legislation makes it somewhat easier, cheaper, and faster for those accused of libel to fight back, “it doesn’t solve the problem entirely,” said Jeff Hermes, a lawyer for the Boston Herald. “Media companies are not covered by our state’s statute, and defendants in such cases still need to prepare a full defense.”

In Minnesota, a third lawsuit didn’t involve journalists or SLAPP statutes, but it did threaten citizens’ right to petition or warn the government on public safety issues. It also prompted Congress to protect people retroactively who report suspicious behavior. The defendants were anonymous citizens whose complaints about what they considered suspicious behavior by six Muslim imams on a flight in late 2006 led US Airways to remove the clerics from the plane. In a 2007 federal lawsuit claiming discrimination, the imams sued the airline, the Minneapolis airport, and several of the passengers who had complained.

But in August 2007, the “flying imams” dropped all claims against the passengers after Congress approved legislation to protect passengers from retaliatory lawsuits for reporting potentially terror-related activity. Under the measure, as in an anti-SLAPP law, if the plaintiffs cannot prove that a passenger lied in his complaint to the government, they can be held responsible for all court and legal fees. “The imams saw the handwriting on the wall,” said Representative Peter King, the New York Republican who promoted the bill. Gerry Nolting, a lawyer who represented a passenger, also without a fee, said that the imams might never have filed their suit if Minnesota had on its books an anti-SLAPP law like California’s.

However intimidating and expensive defamation lawsuits remain in the United States, the challenge is far greater in Britain, where journalists must prove that their allegations are true. Rachel Ehrenfeld, a New York–based terrorism researcher and the author of Funding Evil, is among more than 30 writers and publishers whom Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz sued for libel in England for accusing him of ties to terrorist groups, a charge he denies. But rather than give him the apology, retraction, and $225,000 in fees that a British court ordered, Ehrenfeld, whose book was never even published in England, fought back. In 2004, she countersued bin Mahfouz in New York, asking the federal court here to declare the judgment against her unenforceable in America and contrary to the First Amendment protections that Americans enjoy.

In June, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, overturning a lower court ruling, asked the state’s highest court to determine whether bin Mahfouz should be subject to New York jurisdiction. If it rules affirmatively, Ehrenfeld would be able to obtain considerable information about his finances in preparing for a trial. If he then failed to cooperate, he might have difficulty doing business in America.

Ehrenfeld’s effort comes none too soon, says Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, for bin Mahfouz no longer needs to sue to intimidate his critics. After he merely threatened Cambridge University Press with a libel suit this spring, the prestigious publisher agreed to apologize on its website, pay his legal costs and unspecified damages, and stop distributing Alms for Jihad, a book written by J. Millard Burr, a former State Department analyst and relief coordinator, and Robert O. Collins, a former University of California history professor, which outlines bin Mahfouz’s alleged financial support for terrorism. Cambridge also asked libraries to remove the book from their shelves. On its website, Cambridge states that it took such steps because “under English libel laws, we simply did not have a defensible case.” A court victory for Rachel Ehrenfeld, and more anti-SLAPP statutes—only some 20 states have enacted such laws—would help curb the pernicious “libel tourism” so inimical to the free flow of information on which an informed citizenry and effective counterterrorism depend.

Judith Miller, a contributing editor of City Journal, is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who writes about national security issues. She has written or coauthored four books, including Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_4_sndgs01.html

2,611 posted on 10/10/2007 7:59:54 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

Breaking the Chinese Code
Welcome to the People’s Republic, land of “harmony” and “community.”
E. S. Savas
10 October 2007

At the start of a recent international conference in Shanghai, I listened to two local public officials deliver welcoming addresses that repeated over and over the words “harmony” and “community.” Over the next ten days in China I saw these words frequently in the two English-language, government-issued newspapers. Having been exposed before to the language of authoritarian regimes, I wondered: Why these repetitions? What did these code words mean? My hypothesis, formed over the next few days, found confirmation in discussions with local academics and others.

First: “harmony.” For the Chinese government, it means “suppression of individualism.” Errant thoughts threaten central control of the masses. Dissent is bad and punishable. John Stuart Mill correctly wondered whether, under an autocratic regime, “there would be any asylum left for individuality of character; whether public opinion would not be a tyrannical yoke; whether the absolute dependence of each on all, and the surveillance of each by all, would not grind all down into a tame uniformity of thoughts, feelings, and actions.” In China, the reigning belief is that nonconforming ideas will fracture the enforced consensus and produce factionalism. There seems to be no James Madison in power who can raise his head and point out that having numerous factions enables governance of a large country.

Chinese leaders fear the huge and growing gaps between urban and rural, rich and poor, coastal and interior residents, and those with and without “guanxi” (connections). Inharmoniousness is rife. Preaching harmony is a desperate measure, and it is not enough. The hopeful view: this is stop-gap rhetoric while national policy shifts from economic development to the more intractable issue of societal development in an authoritarian state. But the hopeful view may not reflect reality.

What about “community”? The word has an explicit and formal meaning: it refers to an official subdistrict of a city. For example, Shanghai consists of 18 geographic districts, each with a district government. Further, every district in turn is divided into multiple subdistricts, each with its own government. In a city of 18 million people, the average district has a population of about 1 million; the subdistricts are commensurately large. I visited the government facilities of two subdistricts and was astonished: Mayor Bloomberg and New York’s city council members would envy their size, trappings, and obvious wealth. The subdistrict where you live is your “community”; you belong there and you are officially under that government unit. An even more localized “street-level” worker from the Communist Party acts as a neighborhood nag and watchdog. The expectation is that you will be loyal and uncomplaining, and will behave harmoniously.

Before Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, the work unit, not the “community,” was dominant, as in the old Soviet Union. The government or state-owned enterprise provided not only wages but also services—housing, health care, education, and even vacations in the countryside. Since the reforms, however, job mobility has eroded the role of the workplace, and the community has become a significant provider of social services—and inevitably the locus of social control.

But the “community” is not quite what it seems. All residents in the harmonious community are equal, but some are (much) more equal than others—in Orwell’s trenchant phrase. Three distinct populations exist in a community—residents, visitors, and migrants—and they have very different rights. China has some 200 million migrants, well more than 10 percent of the workforce, and they constitute up to 28 percent of a city’s population. Migrant workers are akin to illegal aliens in the United States. Their labor helps staff the factories, but their families, who would strain the capacities of community services, are unwelcome. Therefore migrants aren’t officially members of the “communities” where they live. This may help explain why officials assert that the community, not the family, is the “basic unit of society.” If the families of migrants are excluded, how could the family possibly be that basic unit?

During the conference, I was asked what “community” means in the United States. I explained that we don’t think of community as a single, all-encompassing societal glue. Americans belong to many different communities simultaneously: the residential communities where we live, of course, and where we vote (a not-so-subtle reminder to the audience); the communities where we work and where we play. We are members of religious groups, ethnic groups, advocacy groups, political parties, labor unions, charitable groups, sports “communities” (Yankee fans, golfers), hobby clubs, environmental associations, alumni organizations, veterans’ associations, fraternal organizations, and myriad others. Each of us chooses which to participate in, and how, when, and how much to participate. It works for us, I said; it is a fundamental feature of our individual freedom.

“The health of a society is . . . measured . . . by how freely people can move between institutions,” wrote David Brooks recently. “In a sick society people are bound by one totalistic identity. In a healthy society, a person can live in a black neighborhood, send her kids to a Catholic school, go to work in a lawyer’s office and meet every Wednesday with a feminist book club.” This remains a striking difference between our society and China’s, of course. That I was asked about community in America, however, suggests that Chinese intellectuals are aware of the difference and may be starting to question the current Chinese concept. It will be interesting to watch how it—and “harmony”—evolve in the People’s Republic.

E. S. Savas is Presidential Professor at the School of Public Affairs of Baruch College, at the City University of New York.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-10-10es.html

2,612 posted on 10/10/2007 8:14:38 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; Founding Father

http://www.powerlineblog.com/

Islamic Radicals and Western Elections: A Microcosm

I don’t think anyone seriously doubts that Islamic radicals often carry out attacks for the purpose of influencing votes in Western democracies. The railway bombings in Spain, just a few days in advance of an election that ousted a pro-American government and put the Socialists in power, are an obvious example. On a broader scale, it seems clear that the attacks carried out on American forces by al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Iraq have little or nothing to do with any tangible military objective, but rather are intended to influence American public opinion, with the goal of electing antiwar politicians here in the U.S.

Currently, a good illustration of this phenomenon is on display in Afghanistan, where the Taliban, knowing that Germany’s Parliament will vote on Friday on that country’s participation in the NATO effort there, has unleashed a series of attacks against Germans:

A large-scale terror campaign has been launched against German soldiers in Afghanistan to negatively influence Friday’s parliamentary vote in Berlin over the future of the German mission in the violence-ridden country.

A series of terror attacks has shocked the German troops stationed near Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan: Sunday evening, terrorists fired four rockets at the German camp. Two rockets missed and two hit their target. One tore through the roof of the camp’s kitchen but didn’t explode — it is sheer luck that nobody was injured. The attacks came just two days after three German soldiers were injured in a suicide bombing.

The German Parliament this Friday will decide the future of the country’s Afghanistan mission, and security experts see the latest upsurge in terror attacks against Germans as a large-scale campaign to attack the public support of the mission in Germany.

“Dead German soldiers are the best argument against prolonging the (Afghanistan) mandate,” one high-ranking military official told German news magazine Der Spiegel.

In further support of its propaganda initiative, the Taliban released a video of a 62-year-old German hostage named Rudolf Blechschmidt, pleading for his release. Today, the German government announced an exchange in which five Taliban prisoners were traded for Mr. Blechschmidt and four Afghan prisoners of the Taliban.

Islamic radicals think that Westerners are soft and decadent. They don’t believe that we can sustain a brutal struggle over a long period of time, and therefore they will inevitably prevail in the end. The jury is still out on this theory, but, candidly, there is considerable evidence to support it. The current controversy in Germany is a good test case because the conflict in Afghanistan is, in principle, uncontroversial. If Germany’s 3,000 troops can be driven home simply by fighting them, it will be more evidence that the Western democracies (outside of the United States, in any event) cannot sustain a medium-term military effort of any kind.

Beyond that, one wonders why the Taliban’s public relations campaign against Germany is so freely acknowledged as such, while al Qaeda’a equally transparent effort to influence American public opinion on Iraq is so often obfuscated.

To comment on this post, go here.

Posted by John at 8:16 PM

2,613 posted on 10/10/2007 8:23:22 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; Founding Father; DAVEY CROCKETT

http://www.powerlineblog.com/

Al Qaeda goes dark

obl29.jpg

Eli Lake has the story of the day in today’s New York Sun: “Qaeda goes dark after a U.S. slip.” Lake reports that the September 7 Osama bin Laden video (the one with the funny looking black beard) was picked up by Rita Katz’s SITE Institute and provided to the National Counterterrorism Center:

The head of the SITE Intelligence Group, an organization that monitors Jihadi Web sites and provides information to subscribers, Rita Katz, said she personally provided the video on September 7 to the deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter.

Ms. Katz yesterday said, “We shared a copy of the transcript and the video with the U.S. government, to Michael Leiter, with the request specifically that it was important to keep the subject secret. Then the video was leaked out. An investigation into who downloaded the video from our server indicated that several computers with IP addresses were registered to government agencies.”

As a result of the leak, al Qaeda discovered that its intranet communication setup was not secure, and has shut it down:

One intelligence officer who requested anonymity said in an interview last week that the intelligence community watched in real time the shutdown of the Obelisk system. America’s Obelisk watchers even saw the order to shut down the system delivered from Qaeda’s internal security to a team of technical workers in Malaysia. That was the last internal message America’s intelligence community saw. “We saw the whole thing shut down because of this leak,” the official said. “We lost an important keyhole into the enemy.”

***

The founder of a Web site known as clandestineradio.com, Nick Grace, tracked the shutdown of Qaeda’s Obelisk system in real time. “It was both unprecedented and chilling from the perspective of a Web techie. The discipline and coordination to take the entire system down involving multiple Web servers, hundreds of user names and passwords, is an astounding feat, especially that it was done within minutes,” Mr. Grace said yesterday.

***

Ms. Katz said, “The government leak damaged our investigation into Al Qaeda’s network. Techniques and sources that took years to develop became ineffective. As a result of the leak Al Qaeda changed their methods.”

Who leaked the video? Lake has a round of denials:

Yesterday a spokesman for the National Counterterrorism Center, Carl Kropf, denied the accusation that it was responsible for the leak. “That’s just absolutely wrong. The allegation and the accusation that we did that is unfounded,” he said. The spokesman for the director of national intelligence, Ross Feinstein, yesterday also denied the leak allegation. “The intelligence community and the ODNI senior leadership did not leak this video to the media,” he said.

Brian Ross’s September 7 ABC report refers only to “intelligence sources.” Who might they be?

JOHN wonders: Can we please, finally, have an investigation into a real leak?

UPDATE: Rusty Shackleford persuasively argues that SITE was not the source of the leaked video transcript and that al Qaeda was not prompted to go dark by the alleged leak described by the Sun (and the Washington Post).

Posted by Scott at 6:30 AM |

http://www.google.com/search?q=clandestineradio.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

2,614 posted on 10/10/2007 8:33:41 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; DAVEY CROCKETT; milford421

[Has charts and hidden urls]

http://www.dinocrat.com/

The countries with big current account surpluses have problems too
October 10th, 2007

We have discussed the problems of those countries running large current account deficits, particularly those of the United States, on many occasions, including the troubling implications for trade policy. But those countries that are running large surpluses have some important structural issues as well.

debt2.gif

Martin Wolf writes in the FT, “China’s forecast surplus — an amazing 12 per cent of GDP — is twice as big, relative to GDP, as Japan’s has ever been.” Furthermore, China’s supply-side continues to grow much faster than its demand-side: “China, in particular, is now exporting a big net contraction, not expansion, in demand to the rest of its world, because its supply is growing far faster than its domestic demand. The difference this year alone is 2.5 per cent of GDP.”

Thus, while countries like China with big current account surpluses have the wherewithal to better weather an economic downturn, their huge build-up in their exporting capacity (a) could be a contributing factor to a downturn, and (b) could make a downturn far worse when it eventually arises. Whether increases in domestic demand in these fast-growing economies is enough to take up the slack when demand from the West flags is one of the major economic questions of our time. Martin Wolf explains:

today’s financial strength in emerging economies is a mirror image of US weakness. Charles Dumas of London-based Lombard Street Research brings this point out in an analysis with which I have great sympathy. The global balance of payments sums to zero. If emerging economies have chosen to run huge current account surpluses, partly because they bear deep scars from the financial crises of the 1990s and partly because they wish to conserve revenue from the soaring prices of the commodities many of them export, then someone else must run deficits.

In the 2000s, that someone has largely been the US. This has entailed fast growth of domestic debt and debt service, chiefly among households. Falling house prices and the “subprime” debacle have now derailed this debt-accumulation machine.

The good news, then, is that what has made the US vulnerable is also precisely what has made it easier for emerging market economies to cope with a US-generated shock…The bad news, however, is that the emerging market economies will indeed have to adjust, probably aggressively. It seems unlikely that growth of demand will now accelerate in western Europe and Japan. The opposite is, alas, more likely. More important is the fact that China’s surging current account surplus, forecast by the World Bank to reach $380bn (£187bn) this year, up from $250bn in 2006, is extracting demand from the rest of the world to the tune of ¾ per cent of the latter’s aggregate GDP. China’s forecast surplus — an amazing 12 per cent of GDP — is twice as big, relative to GDP, as Japan’s has ever been.

The analytical point is that offsetting any slowdown in US demand requires faster growth of demand in the rest of the world. This is still more true if, as seems quite likely (and also desirable), US demand growth slows, relative to growth of GDP, and so the US current account deficit shrinks further. In that case, the rest of the world’s demand must rise relative to its output and, ideally, must grow faster than potential output, to ensure full employment of resources. But that is exactly the opposite of what China - vastly the most important of emerging market economies - is now doing.

The conclusion, then, is simple and disturbing. Yes, emerging economies are, with a few exceptions, in a better position to offset a US slowdown and tightening of global credit conditions than ever before. But they are almost certainly going to have to do just that. The difficulty they face, however, is that neither western Europe as a whole, nor Japan, nor, not least, the giant among them, is likely to help the rest very much. China, in particular, is now exporting a big net contraction, not expansion, in demand to the rest of its world, because its supply is growing far faster than its domestic demand. The difference this year alone is 2.5 per cent of GDP.

It is a fascinating time. Whether increases in domestic demand in these fast-growing economies like China’s is enough to take up the slack when demand from the West flags is one of the major economic questions of this period, and a test of China’s development policies.

We observe that when a similar scenario played out 80 years ago in the developing United States in real estate (1926-1927) and then the stock market (1929), things did not end so well. Meanwhile, today the beat goes on for the moment. You will recall that Shanghai 4000 occurred only in May of this year. Now the Shanghai index has touched 5860.86 before closing a little lower. Who knows if and when it will all end?

Posted in General, business, China | No Comments »

2,615 posted on 10/10/2007 8:52:39 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; DAVEY CROCKETT

[charts, hidden urls, and many other articles]

Faster than everyone expected
October 9th, 2007

profit.gif

We have compared the rise of industrial China with the development of the US a century ago. But in today’s China, with the speed of communications and the mobility of cutting edge technology and infrastructure, the changes from third world to first world are taking place much faster than they did in the America of the early 20th century. WSJ:

A 1998 survey by consulting firm A.T. Kearney found more than one-third of multinationals were losing money in China, and an additional 25% were barely breaking even. In 1999, when the American Chamber of Commerce in China polled its members on how long it took their local operations to post a profit, many of them responded by writing humorous notes on their forms…

This year, China for the first time will contribute more to global economic growth than any other country, including the U.S., according to estimates by the International Monetary Fund. With its economy expanding at a rate of more than 11% this year, China is on track to surpass Germany as the world’s third-largest national economy by dollar value, although its annual output is still less than one-quarter of the U.S.’s at market exchange rates.

“People were not sure how fast this could happen,” said Sam Su, China division president of Yum Brands Inc., which gets nearly 20% of its revenue from its Pizza Hut and KFC restaurants in China. Although Yum Brands, of Louisville, Ky., has been in China for 20 years, longer than most Western companies, it is no longer exceptional in reaping significant revenue in China.

And that growing revenue is increasingly translating into profit. In surveys by the U.S.-China Business Council and the European Union Chamber of Commerce, more than 80% of respondents said their China operations were profitable last year…

– AstraZeneca expects sales to increase 25% this year and for China to be its third-largest market within five years. China “is an emerging market, but it’s also a market of huge scale. It’s a mixture of two worlds. So it gets a very high level of management attention,” said David Smith, AstraZeneca’s London-based executive vice president of operations.

– Yum Brands also has changed how it runs its business to reflect China’s clout. With the KFC and Pizza Hut restaurant chains having taken off in the current decade, China is now, by far, Yum’s most important growth market…Yum would have reported an operating loss if not for the $65 million in operating profit from China…

– Intel Corp. has made similar changes, as China’s share of its total revenue rose to 14% last year from 6.4% in 2000, the first year it started reporting China sales separately. This year, it made China a separate business unit, one of five globally that reports directly to headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif. “China is the only country outside the U.S. with such an extensive and full operation” for Intel, said Wee Theng Tan, president of Intel China.

Those who say that we ought to stop importing from China, or that Chinese companies should not be able to buy American companies, often have no idea of the Pandora’s box they are trying to pry open. Having said that, there is no excuse for the US not to get its current account deficit under control.

Posted in General, Democrats, Republicans, business, China | No Comments »
Looking backwards

http://www.dinocrat.com/

2,616 posted on 10/10/2007 8:56:57 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; Founding Father; milford421; DAVEY CROCKETT

http://www.dinocrat.com/

Always attack
October 9th, 2007

The piece in the American Thinker by Kyle-Anne Shiver on the strangest political controversy of the year makes it seem not so strange after all. Shiver makes reference to Saul Alinsky’s famous Rules for Radicals. They include some brilliant observations. Here are some excerpts of those rules:

Always remember the first rule of power tactics: Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.

The second rule is: Never go outside the experience of your people. When an action is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear, and retreat.

The third rule is: Wherever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.

The fourth rule is: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.

The fourth rule carries within it the fifth rule: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.

The sixth rule is: A good tactic is one that your people enjoy. If your people are not having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.

The seventh rule is: A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time, after which it becomes a ritualistic commitment…

The eighth rule: Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.

The ninth rule: The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.

Shiver says: “Hillary Clinton has been the perfectly patient disciple of Alinsky’s since she wrote her thesis about him her senior year at Wellesley in 1969. If her admiration of Alinsky had died with her thesis, no one would care. But it didn’t. He remained a close confidant until his death (The Shadow Party, p. 56) and his tactical fingerprints are all over her projection of the false “Centrist” image she is manipulating to garner political power…she is following the Alinsky model, which admonishes revolutionaries to milk their white, middle-class backgrounds and appearances to achieve the political power necessary to carry out the socialist revolution.” It’s quite an accusation.

Posted in General, War, Democrats, Republicans, radical chic | No Comments »

Dangerous nonsense
October 9th, 2007

President Bush:

I believe in an almighty God, and I believe that all the world, whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other religion, prays to the same God…I believe that Islam is a great religion that preaches peace. And I believe people who murder the innocent to achieve political objectives aren’t religious people.

We just don’t know where to begin with this dangerous, ahistorical nonsense. So we’ll perhaps just focus on the least wrong part of Bush’s statement. From the Encyclopedia Britannica: “Polytheism - the belief in many gods. Polytheism characterizes virtually all religions other than Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which share a common tradition of monotheism, the belief in one God.”

Follw-up question for the President: Are people “religious” who believe it is okay to prohibit churches and synagogues in their country, or who persecute missionaries, threaten women for talking, or who think it is okay to “command good and forbid evil” to the extremes of putting people to death for apostasy or homosexuality?

Posted in General, War, Religion | 2 Comments »

2,617 posted on 10/10/2007 9:02:18 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421; Founding Father

[hidden urls to parts of stories]

http://www.dinocrat.com/

http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2007/10/08/different-kinds-of-higher-education/

Different kinds of higher education

Michael Barone describes one sort of higher eduction today:

Colleges and universities today almost universally have speech codes, which prohibit speech deemed hurtful by others, particularly those who are deemed to be minorities (including women, who are a majority on most campuses these days). They are enforced unequally, so that no one gets punished when students take copies of conservative alternative campus newspapers left for free distribution and dump them in the trash. But should a conservative student call some female students “water buffaloes,” he is sentenced to take sensitivity training — the campus version of communist re-education camps. The message comes through loud and clear. Some kinds of speech are protected, while others are punished.

Where did speech codes come from? There certainly weren’t many when I was in college or law school. So far as I can tell, they originated after college and university administrators began using racial quotas and preferences to admit students — starting with blacks, now including Hispanics and perhaps others — who did not meet ordinary standards. They were instituted, it seems, to prevent those students from feeling insulted and to free administrators from criticism for preferential treatment — treatment that arguably violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964…

Racial quotas and preferences continue to be employed…in spite of state laws forbidding them, and university administrators seem to derive much of their psychic income from their supposed generosity in employing them. This, even though evidence compiled by UCLA Professor Richard Sander suggests they produce worse educational outcomes for their intended beneficiaries and even though Justice Clarence Thomas makes a persuasive case in his book “My Grandfather’s Son” that they cast a stigma of inferiority on them…one indispensable requirement for being a college or university administrator is intellectual dishonesty. You have to be willing to lie about what you consider one of your most important duties. So much for open inquiry and intellectual rigor…

in the 1960s, they abandoned their role as advocates of American values — critical advocates who tried to advance freedom and equality further than Americans had yet succeeded in doing — and took on the role of adversaries of society. The students who were exempted from serving their country during the Vietnam War condemned not themselves but their country, and many sought tenured positions in academe to undermine what they considered a militaristic, imperialist, racist, exploitative, sexist, homophobic — the list of complaints grew as the years went on — country. English departments have been packed by deconstructionists who insist that Shakespeare is no better than rap music, and history departments with multiculturalists who insist that all societies are morally equal except our own, which is morally inferior.

Victor Davis Hanson describes another sort of educated person:

The brilliance of U.S. army and marines officers has not been fully appreciated. I met scores with PhDs and MAs, from Majors to Colonels, who are literally all at once trying to defeat al Qaeda gangs and Shiite militias, rebuild government facilities, arbitrate tribal feuds, repair utilities and train Iraqi army and police. As was true of the last trip to Iraq, I am left with three general impressions about the military.

(1) Our army and marines are far too few and overextended. The United States must either radically increase the size of these traditional ground units or scale back its commitments in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East Through constant rotations, we are literally burning out gifted officers and lifetime professionals— and will lose their priceless expertise if they begin, as I fear, retiring en masse due to the sheer exhaustion.

(2) There is more optimism about success among the battlefield soldiers than present with analysts in Baghdad. The sudden decrease in violence has left many units stunned that Iraqis who used to try to kill them are suddenly volunteering information about terrorists and landmines, and clamoring to join the joint security force. Usually those behind the desk are the optimists, the soldiers who die the pessimists. But instead there is genuine feeling on the front that after four frustrating years of ordeal, at last there are tangible signs of real, often radical improvement.

(3) As a supporter of some four years of the now unpopular effort to remove Saddam and leave a democracy in his place, I continue to have only one reservation, albeit a major one. The U.S. soldier in the field is so unusually competent and heroic that one comes to despair at the very thought of losing even one of them. As a military historian I know that an army that can’t take casualties can’t win, but I confess after spending 16-hour days with our soldiers in impossible conditions one wonders whether the entire country of Iraq is worth the loss of just of these unusual Americans. I understand both the lack of logic and perhaps amorality in such a sweeping statement, but feel it nonetheless out here.

Society would appear to be splintering in unhealthy ways.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 10:30 am

2,618 posted on 10/10/2007 9:11:31 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; FARS; milford421

[2006 with many hidden urls]

http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2006/11/24/ten-empirical-deficiencies-of-islamic-sharia-societies/

Ten empirical deficiencies of Islamic sharia societies

The Modern World in the West has a number of terrible problems that come from its wealth and ease, its licentiousness, and the profound ignorance of its people about how they came to be so rich and fortunate, as compared to almost all other people at all other times in the history of the world. We have discussed these problems in this space from time to time.

It is certainly arguable that what the West needs as a corrective to its failings, narcissism, and spiritual void is an infusion of religion. There are those even on the Left in America who argue that. However, it is hard to make the case that Islamic sharia law would be a useful corrective, based on the empirical evidence from Islamic sharia societies.

We have previously argued that Islamic sharia law is incompatible in important ways with the Judeo-Christian-Enlightenment tradition of law that America and the West are heir to. It is our contention that the more closely a society adheres literally to a seventh century book as the last word on law and the proper organization of society, the more dysfunctional that society will be in the Modern World. Today, we thought we’d take a moment to see what the empirical evidence seems to indicate.

In our view, Islamic sharia has a very poor track record as a legal system and means of organizing a society in the technologically oriented and globalized Modern World. Here are some categories for your consideration:

1) Poverty. Sharia societies are very poor as a consequence of their ideology. The total GDP of the Arab world, minus oil revenues, is less than that of tiny Finland. To make a side-by-side comparison, Israel’s GDP per capita is about 20x that of Egypt. China has gone from nothing to a $2 trillion economy over the last quarter century while Iran has stagnated for 25 years under revolutionary Shiism at a small fraction of China’s GDP. These are self-inflicted wounds of sharia.

2) Unemployment. Sharia socieites experience mass unemployment. Iran’s youth unemployment is 34% or more, Saudi Arabia’s unemployment is 25%, and the Palestinians have unemployment of 25-40% (Israel’s is 9%). Interestingly, these dysfunctional numbers in sharia countries carry over to Muslim populations in the West: in France and England, Muslim unemployment is 3x the national average. (We can’t help recalling the words of Khalid ibn Al-Walid on loving death over life when we read these depressing statistics.)

3) Technology and innovation. Sharia societies have a dreadful track record on innovation, the mother’s milk of keeping up in the Modern World. Saudi Arabia recently went six years without issuing a patent, Iran issued only one patent a couple of years ago, and Indonesia issued 30 patents over the last five years. By contrast, China went from issuing zero patents thirty years ago, to hundreds of thousands today. In the US, more patents were issued last year to the people of Utah than have ever been issued in the entire history of all sharia societies combined. (We recall Bernard Lewis’s oft-repeated comment that Islamic languages do not have a good equivalent for the word “curiosity.”)

4) Freedom of speech. There is little freedom of speech in sharia countries, as the Cartoon Riots all over the Islamic sharia world (and among those in the West who want sharia imposed) amply demonstrates. Freedom of speech only exists where freedom of controversial speech is tolerated and protected, and the Cartoon Riots demonstrated completely and for all time where Islamic sharia societies stand on this matter. A corollary of free speech is free expression in all the arts, and here too sharia societies have generally an awful track record.

5) Freedom of the press. Freedom of the press does not exist in sharia countries where journalists are jailed or killed for failing to toe the party line. We quote from a Somali Muslim journalist: “In the House of Islam, you cannot have a principle other than that of the community. Every thing you do is referred to Islam. The mantra is “that’s stupid BUT…But we cannot do this because we are Muslims.” One hears this expression ad nauseam. In the Islamic world you cease to be a human being. You become only a Muslim, whatever that entails. You are not allowed to be a person with vices and virtues, you cannot follow your own reasoning, and you cannot be unpopular or defend an unpopular idea. You cannot go out of the circle. To express yourself freely means to risk death. And death indeed if you change your faith. Invention itself is considered as an act of blasphemy…Censorship in the Islamic world is instilled at childhood.”

6) Freedom of religion. Sharia societies frown on or prohibit the free exercise of religion. Sharia societies like Saudi Arabia do not permit churches or synagogues on their soil. Moreover, Sharia societies put apostates to death or exact other punishments for ceasing to believe in Islam. Christian schools and churches have been attacked in Pakistan, Indonesia, Palestine and elsewhere in the Islamic world. Sharia societies celebtrate Jihad as the means to spread sharia law globally, and establish Islam as the dominant or only religion.

7) Women’s rights. Sharia societies are famous for their lack of women’s rights. In strict sharia societies women cannot drive cars, vote, or walk the streets unaccompanied. Other restrictions are even more ridiculous. The recent comment by a prominent imam that women without the hijab were “uncovered meat” who were instruments of Satan is indicative of the attitude sharia societies take towards women, and their view of the God-given natural perquisites of men. We refer you to these other discussions by Shrinkwrapped, Dr. Sanity, and neo-neocon for further reference.

8 Homosexual rights. They hang homosexuals in Iran, and there appears to be universal agreement in sharia societies that homosexuality must be punished.

9) Mental health treatment. Mental health treatment in sharia societies appears to be appalling. The West’s dominant belief is that humans are flawed, and often have issues that result from childhood experiences, internal conflicts, and unconscious impulses; these can be treated through psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, or medication. By contrast, in sharia societies, man was created with a fitrah, an inherent nature that is “pure and sinless.” The Freudian concept of the unconscious is rejected. Instead, “being crazy in the Islamic perspective mean that one is possessed by the jinn” (demons). The Islamic belief is that a “perversion cannot possibly be innate.” As a consequence, people with psychological troubles are “treated with the Koran”. In Pakistan the education minister said regarding pyschological treatment: “Solution to our problems lies in the teachings of Islam. We can achieve success and peace by following universal principles of our religion.” Good luck.

10) Educating the young. Probably the worst offense committed by sharia societies is that they condemn their children to the same blinkered and distorted worldviews that promise war and violence to this generation. Sharia societies have textbooks that say that Jews are apes and pigs, they say that “Jihad is the summit of Islam”, and that a Muslim “cannot maintain a loyal friendship” with a non-Muslim. Sharia societies have TV shows and videos of children pledging suicide-murder to kill the Jews.

There are also a number of relatively trivial items to list. Some sharia societies (and the sharia-minded) forbid football, women’s soccer, watching the world cup, cell phone ringtones, Burger King ice cream squiggles, and other things. But they all ultimately boil down to one thing — who gets to make the decisions about one’s life. The West has chosen — though poorly implemented — the concept that the Rule of Reason should govern the law-making of governments and the decision-making of men. In sharia societies, such a statement would be evidence of man’s cardinal sin in Islam, the sin of pride. To choose Reason (or any man-made construct) over submission to God is man’s central failing in Islam.

We may think that the above list is very clever and persuasive. To millions of people who live ordinary or devout lives in sharia societies, the list is evidence of our perfidy. Therein lies the problem of the world today.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 24th, 2006

2,619 posted on 10/10/2007 9:22:15 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

To: All; DAVEY CROCKETT; FARS

http://www.khodorkovsky.info/worldwide_support/opinion/133956.html

WORLDWIDE SUPPORT | OPINION
December 22, 2005
Andre Glucksmann: Khodorkovsky Is A Prisoner Of The “Power Vertical”

“Why is Khodorkovsky Behind Bars?”

Andre Glucksmann, French philosopher
December 22, 2005

Where There is a Will, There is a Way

Since 2000 we have been watching Russia slip further and further backwards. I remember back in 1978, when Valery d’Estaing was receiving Brezhnev in the Champs Elysées, public opinion was outraged by the situation of the Gulag prisoners. The Recamier Theatre saw the cream of intellectual Paris gather in order to receive dissidents banished from Eastern Europe by the Kremlin. Foucault, Sartre, Aron and yours truly attracted more reporters than the head of the Kremlin. That is why Putin tricksters must not be allowed to dazzle; it is quite possible to make the public sit up and take notice of Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s sentence.

Khodorkovsky’s Arrest is Not an Arrest of a Businessman...

continued, with info also on other prisoners............

2,620 posted on 10/10/2007 9:31:21 PM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)

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