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1,000 May Be Held at Russian School
AP ^

Posted on 09/03/2004 12:07:10 AM PDT by Happy2BMe

1,000 May Be Held at Russian School
01:34 AM EST - September 03, 2004

CLICK TO ENLARGE - A soldier carries a baby and a woman holds a child after being released by militants in Beslan, North Ossetia, Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004. Heavily-armed militants released at least 31 women and children on Thursday from the provincial Russian school where they are holding more than 350 hostages for the second straight day, officials said. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)

The Associated Press


BESLAN, Russia

Camouflage-clad commandos carried crying babies away from a school where gunmen holding hundreds of hostages freed at least 26 women and children Thursday during a second day of high drama that kept crowds of distraught relatives on edge.

Two new accounts emerged, meanwhile, that the militants were holding at least 1,000 children, teachers and parents inside the school, far more than previously thought.

Russian officials had said that about 350 people were being held by raiders who seized the school in the North Ossetian city of Beslan on Wednesday. But a teacher who was among at least 26 women and children released on Thursday disputed that, according to a report published Friday.

"On television they say that there are 350 of us. That's not right. There's not less than 1,500 in the school," the respected newspaper Izvestia quoted the woman as saying on condition of anonymity.

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In addition, local legislator Azamat Kadykov told a meeting packed with worried relatives and friends Friday that the number of hostages was "more or less 1,000."

The reports could not immediately be confirmed, but the woman who spoke with Izvestia said that some 1,000 children were enrolled at the school, and the militants had captured teachers and many parents as well when they invaded the building Tuesday during a ceremony to celebrate the start of the new school year.

As the names of the freed hostages were read over a loudspeaker Thursday, men and women wept with disappointment or hugged each other with relief. Some of the toddlers released were naked, apparently because of the stifling heat in the school, where the hostage-takers refused to allow authorities to deliver water, food and medicine for the captives.

Tensions had risen earlier when the militants fired grenades at two cars near the compound ringed by security forces, and later two grenade blasts interrupted a nervous calm during the night.

Another explosion roared on Friday morning, as Kadykov and Leonid Rosahal, a pediatrician who has been involved in the negotiations, spoke to the crowd of worried residents.

Roshal told parents that all the children inside were alive. As he spoke, parents frantically scribbled names of their children on paper and tried to pass them to the doctor. Others began calling out names, begging for information about their loved ones.

"They want hysteria from us," Roshal said, trying to calm the increasingly desperate crowd. "Our strength is in (our) composure and good sense."

President Vladimir Putin said everything possible would be done to end the "horrible" crisis and save the lives of the children and adults being held at School No. 1 in Beslan, a town in the southern region of North Ossetia.

But it was uncertain how much either side was willing to give to avoid further bloodshed in the siege - the latest incident in a series of violent attacks believed linked to Russia's war in Chechnya. A dozen people were reported killed by the attackers when the school was captured Wednesday, but one official said Thursday that 16 died.

Reports after the standoff began Wednesday said the attackers demanded the release of people jailed after attacks on police posts in June that killed more than 90 people in Ingushetia, a region between North Ossetia and Chechnya. But officials said Thursday that the hostage-takers had not clearly formulated their demands.

Late Thursday, Lev Dzugayev, a North Ossetian official, said his previous statement that 354 hostages were seized Wednesday might have been too low, and many in the anxious crowds said they believed the number was much higher. "Putin: at least 800 people are being held hostage," read a sign held up for television cameras.

Valery Andreyev, chief of the regional office of the Federal Security Service, meanwhile said that contacts with the hostage-takers had resumed Friday morning, following an overnight suspension, but stopped again.

Relatives, friends and neighbors who crowded outside barricades blocking access to the school gasped when the hostage release was announced by Dzugayev, an aide to the president of North Ossetia.

Dzugayev and other officials said 26 women and children of various ages were released, but Russian media reported that one woman went back to be with her still-captive children. An official at the crisis headquarters said another group of five hostages was let go separately.

An Associated Press Television News reporter saw two women and at least three infants being led away by soldiers. Some toddlers among those released were completely naked, apparently because of the heat.

Dzugayev called the releases "the first success" of negotiations and said they came after mediation - including inside the school - by Ruslan Aushev, a former president of the Ingushetia republic who is a respected figure in the northern Caucasus.

The hostage release came after anxieties were sent soaring by two powerful explosions, followed by a plume of black smoke rising from the vicinity of the school. The crisis headquarters said the militants fired grenades at two cars that apparently drove too close to the building. Officials said neither car was hit, but a gutted car was visible not far from the school.

Thursday evening, a series of heavy thuds that sounded like artillery could be heard for several minutes, apparently coming from an area northwest of town. There was no information on what caused the sounds.

Two grenade blasts were heard early Friday, and the Interfax news agency reported a policeman was injured. One projectile exploded on a street several hundred yards from the school and another hit in a yard, witnesses said. Dzugayev said that the hostage-takers told Russian authorities they fired because they saw suspicious movement and that officials told them there was no such movement.

Any hint of violence put people on edge. After seizing the school, the militants reportedly threatened to blow it up if troops tried to rescue the hostages and warned they would kill prisoners if any of their gang was hurt. Authorities estimated 15 to 24 militants held the school.

In his first public comments on the crisis, Putin pledged to do everything possible to rescue the hostages.

"Our main task is, of course, to save the lives and health of those who became hostages," Putin said in televised comments during a meeting at the Kremlin with visiting Jordanian King Abdullah II. "All actions of our forces working on the hostages' release will be devoted and be subject to this task exclusively."

Two major hostage-taking raids by Chechen rebels outside the war-torn region in the past decade prompted forceful Russian rescue operations that led to many deaths. The most recent, the seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002, ended after a knockout gas was pumped into the building, debilitating the captors but causing almost all of the 129 hostage deaths.

Andreyev, the Federal Security Service's chief in North Ossetia, seemed to rule out the use of force against the hostage-takers.

"There is no alternative to dialogue," he told the ITAR-Tass news agency. "One should expect long and tense negotiations."

The militants' identity was also murky.

Dzugayev said the attackers might be from Chechnya or Ingushetia. Law enforcement sources in North Ossetia and Ingushetia, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attackers were believed to include Chechens, Ingush, Russians and a North Ossetian suspected of participating in the Ingushetia violence.

Russia was on edge following the nearly simultaneous bombings on two jetliners last week, a suicide bombing in Moscow on Tuesday and the school siege.

The upsurge in violence has been a blow to Putin, who pledged five years ago to crush Chechnya's rebels but instead has seen the insurgents increasingly strike civilian targets beyond the republic's borders.



By MIKE ECKEL Associated Press Writer



TOPICS: Front Page News; Russia
KEYWORDS: caucasus; invasion; islam; ossetia; terrorism; war
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To: Robert_Paulson2; Travis McGee; Salem; Geist Krieger; dennisw; JohnHuang2
"WE need to keep our guard up here too. Our schools are totally vulnerable."

___________________________

Tell THAT to the Democratic demonstrators outside the RNC in NYC who march up and down the streets calling Bush Hitler and our troops in Iraq occupiers and baby killers.

___________________________

U.S. Islamic Schools Teaching Homegrown Hate

Wednesday, February 27, 2002

By Kenneth Adelman

NEW YORK — Can it be true? That Islamic schools in the United States teach hatred towards American Christians and Jews?

The Washington Post on Monday revealed that one such school outside Washington, D.C., uses textbooks teaching 11th graders that "the Day of Judgment can't come until Jesus Christ returns to Earth, breaks the cross and converts everyone to Islam, and until Muslims start attacking Jews."

Other accredited Islamic schools in America have world maps on classroom walls that exclude Israel. Some such schools promote class discussions that portray Usama bin Laden as "simply the victim of … prejudice" against all Muslims in America.

These astonishing facts were broken by Post reporters Valerie Strauss and Emily Wax in their front-page piece, too tepidly entitled, "Where Two Worlds Collide: Muslim Schools Face Tension of Islamic, U.S. Views."

But their reporting was anything but tepid.

Americans generally assume Islamic hate teaching resided "out there" — in Cairo or Riyadh. And yet it's right here — in the elite Islamic Saudi Academy just outside Washington, D.C. "At stake," the two ace reporters say, "is how the next generation of Muslims coming of age in the United States will participate in the country they live in."

As with all educational institutions, the stakes are high. But the prospects here are low.

I don't know precisely what new immigrant schools taught when waves of Catholics or Jews first flocked to America. But I suspect they adopted and spread the basic American values — tolerance, freedom and patriotism.

Surely not the hatred propagated in many Islamic studies classes. At the Al-Qalam All-Girls School in Springfield, Va., seventh graders learn that Usama bin Laden may be not a villain but a victim of Americans' biased views toward great Islamic leaders. Hence "some students question the government's claim that bin Laden is responsible for the terrorist attacks — disputing that videotapes actually show him taking credit."

The Post reporters questioned "Fawzy, a 19-year-old who will graduate from George Mason University in 2003, [who] … wonders whether the United States just needed someone to blame and picked a Muslim. 'A lot of the students can't make up their minds if [Usama] is a good guy or a bad guy,' Fawzy said. 'The thing is, we don't have any real proof either way. I think a lot of people feel this way.'"

Classrooms of the Washington Islamic Academy, which teaches kindergarten through fourth grade, feature world maps without Israel. "Upstairs in Al-Qalam girls school, the word is blackened out with marker, with 'Palestine' written in its place."

When the reporters asked about this, academy officials "defended the maps, pointing out that some of the students are refugees from Palestine and want their heritage represented."

These school officials attempt to delegitimize Israel. I would delegitimize them — removing them from any role in shaping the beliefs and instilling knowledge in young Americans.

With the massive immigration of Muslims over recent decades — primarily because of the wretchedness of most native Islamic states — these parochial schools are increasing. Throughout America now are 200 to 600 Islamic day schools, teaching at least 30,000 full-time students and thousands more on weekends. The Washington Islamic Academy, outside the nation's capital, teaches some 1,300 kids, including children of Arabic-speaking diplomats.

It may rank among the worst of these academies, as it is funded by Saudi money. Its high school textbook, in the reporters' words, "says one sign of the Day of Judgment will be that Muslims will fight and kill Jews, who will hide behind trees that say: 'Oh Muslim, Oh servant of God, here is a Jew hiding behind me. Come here and kill him.'"

According to Strauss and Wax, "Several students of different ages, all of whom asked not to be identified, said that in Islamic studies, they are taught that it is better to shun and even to dislike Christians, Jews and Shiite Muslims.

"Some teachers 'focus more on hatred,' said one teenager … 'They teach students that whatever is kuffar [non-Muslim], it is okay for you' to hurt or steal from that person."

What can be done about this outrage?

First, reveal it, for which Valerie Strauss and Emily Wax and the Post deserve a Pulitzer Prize. Other reporters and top media outlets should follow in their steps.

Second, stop the accreditation of these hate schools. This, too, the reporters investigated when contacting an official at an accrediting agency of the Islamic Academy. His response was typical bureaucratese: the Secondary and Middle School Commission of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools "does not delve into curriculum extensively but … would be 'concerned' about such material being taught."

Well, he can stop being "concerned" and start de-accrediting the place.

Third, stop the Saudi funding. After Sept. 11, we were shocked to realize that "our friends, the Saudis" gave us Usama bin Laden, 15 of the 19 terrorists of Sept. 11 and more than 100 of the 150-plus terrorist leaders now confined in Guantanamo Bay cells. They also fund the Islamic schools spreading hate around the world towards Christians, Jews, America, freedom, and our sacred values.

Now we learn that Islamic hatred is being spread here at home, molding young American minds in what is shaping up as a real fourth column.

U.S. Islamic Schools Teaching Homegrown Hate

21 posted on 09/03/2004 12:33:32 AM PDT by Happy2BMe (I have knocked on the door of this man's soul and found someone home - Georgia Democrat Zell Miller)
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.


22 posted on 09/03/2004 12:33:45 AM PDT by Mo1 (FR NEWS ALERT .... John Kerry over dosed on Botox and thinks he's Bob KerrEy)
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To: clee1
So right you are, my friend.

Let's get the Islamic terminology straight, once and for all:

Mosque = Terrorist Barracks

Red Crescent Ambulance = Munitions Supply Truck

Radical Muslim = REAL Muslim who follows the Koran

Moderate Muslim = A Trojan horse who quietly smiles and nods his head at the terrorists

Koran = a call to terror, murder, oppression, slavery, misogyny and backward culture

Infidel = all non Muslims and Muslims who are not on jihad (all doomed to die)

Holy Lands = all lands unfortunate enough to be or ever have been under the heavy yoke of Muslim terror, murder, oppression, slavery, misogyny

Islamic Pride = an insanely jealous hatred for every other culture that has left Islam groveling in its own seventh-century dust.

CAIR = Crying Arabic Islamic Retrogrades

Minaret = Satan's Jukebox - or - Howling Hell Tower

Burkha = Misogynistic Mobile Women's Prison

Muslim Chaplin (U.S. Armed Forces) = Turncoat Brigade Recruiter

Rape = something the guys get to do, especially to those hottie infidel chicks! (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)

Modern Technology = "Huh? Oh yes, that stuff the evil infidels make and maintain for us to use for to kill them."

Allah = the Moon God, whose most important representative here on earth is that meteorite worshiped in Mecca

Little Boys = a man's pleasure machines

Paradise = a giant rape orgy for you - if you die while ruthlessly murdering innocent unsuspecting infidel women and children

U.S. Armed Forces = things to run away from or kill with booby-traps, unless you can take a cheap shot at them and then hide behind women and children or hide in a Mosque.

Christian Church = firewood

Synagogue = firewood

Buddhist Temple = firewood

Hindu Temple = firewood

Confucian Church = firewood

Jewish Restaurant = Bomb Demolition Depot

Holy site = anything Muslim, unlike those giant Buddhist statues in Afghanistan that were precious to Buddhists. “We blew those up real good! Heh, heh!”

Truce = a chance to regroup and kill more infidels later

Liberalism = the societal AIDS virus that stops the infidels from fighting Islam off

President John Kerry = The Islamonazi’s great white hope!
23 posted on 09/03/2004 12:34:00 AM PDT by broadsword (Let's respect "holy" Muslim sites like they respected those giant Buddhist statues in Afghanistan!)
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To: Happy2BMe

God Almighty, I call upon You. Even as You call upon us to act, I call upon You to save these children. Comfort their pain. What would You have us do?

You are God. There is a quiet place, and peace for the heart. There is a heaven. But if Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done on earth as it is in heaven, then give us strength and faith to do as You have called us to do. Let us see there is a way...

Save these, the little children. You are God. In Jesus name...


24 posted on 09/03/2004 12:34:54 AM PDT by dandelion (http://johnkerryquestionfairy.blogspot.com/)
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To: Robert_Paulson2

Little problem here of the First Amendment, right?

But if They were to injure my child, I would join you. So would anybody.


25 posted on 09/03/2004 12:36:03 AM PDT by Unknowing (Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.)
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To: Happy2BMe

Up to 1,500 Hostages in Russia Siege

Sept. 3, 2004 — By Oliver Bullough

BESLAN, Russia (Reuters) - An armed gang that stormed a school in southern Russia may be holding as many as 1,500 hostages, far above the official figure of 350, newspapers quoted freed hostages on Friday as saying.


The witnesses, among 26 women and infants released on Thursday, said the group of up to 40 heavily armed captors was refusing to give hostages food and water.

"You know, there aren't 350 people in there, but 1,500 in all. People are lying one on top of another," Zalina Dzandarova, a 27-year-old woman, told the Kommersant daily.

The hostages were seized on Wednesday morning -- the first day of the school year in Russia -- by an armed gang in a raid that bore all the hallmarks of a Chechen rebel operation. The Gazeta daily quoted a woman saying there were 1,020 hostages.

With the clock ticking for President Vladimir Putin to end the crisis, security experts warned of a possible bloody end. The attack is the latest in a fortnight following the bombing of two airliners and a Moscow metro station.

"The situation is serious. We have come up against very cruel people," Leonid Roshal, a pediatrician who has been mediating with the hostage-takers, told relatives.

Officials say around 16 people were killed in the initial stages of the assault on Wednesday. Little is known about the loyalties or demands of the gang but their attack bears the hallmarks of Chechen separatists.

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

Izvestiya said 860 pupils attended School No.1 in Beslan, North Ossetia. But the number of people on the campus would have been swelled by parents and relatives attending the first day ceremony traditional in Russian schools.

Dzandarova said the masked gang struck at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. They began shooting into the air.

"Everybody, parents and children, ran in panic into the school building," she said, adding that the attackers killed people left in the school yard and those who resisted.

Two women assailants blew themselves up in a corridor, killing a number of male hostages. Hostages were later herded into the school gym, where the captors booby-trapped the basketball hoops, an unidentified mother told Izvestiya.

Dzandarova said some injured hostages were taken out of the sports hall into a corridor and "finished off." Others feeling unwell were sent to the changing rooms.

The captors were well organized and resting in shifts.

"None of the terrorists removed their masks. Nobody can see their faces. They aren't tired. They are resting in turns," she said. "They call themselves Chechens, and demand that Russia withdraws its forces from Chechnya."

SNIP

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20040903_17.html


26 posted on 09/03/2004 12:37:10 AM PDT by Walkin Man
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To: dandelion

I agree with you in prayer in asking God (not allah) to intercede on behalf of these children - send in the Angels, Lord!


27 posted on 09/03/2004 12:37:10 AM PDT by Happy2BMe (I have knocked on the door of this man's soul and found someone home - Georgia Democrat Zell Miller)
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To: MEG33
re: "CAIR says it's just not fair to be demonized by the Word of God"

Perhaps they should work a bit practicing what they preach. Their bible certainly demonizes anyone who's not of their religion.

I have long since had it with these people and their religion. I don't mind what religion others want to embrace or how they choose to honor their gods. Until they reach a point where they feel their religion should have some control over me.

How long will we tolerate these animals before we take whatever steps are needed to either eradicate them or convince them that terrorism is not the answer.

I wonder how they would react if a large contingency of Jews, Christians, etc. (I can't spell the others!) were to take over Mecca and issue a list of demands, not the least of which would be LEAVE US ALONE.
28 posted on 09/03/2004 12:37:19 AM PDT by jwpjr
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To: dandelion

...and, God, while you are at it, please send us another Pope Urban to deal with these bloodthirsty Mohammedan pagan monsters who plague your world.


29 posted on 09/03/2004 12:38:16 AM PDT by broadsword (Let's respect "holy" Muslim sites like they respected those giant Buddhist statues in Afghanistan!)
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To: Happy2BMe; Calpernia; Honestly; lacylu; SevenofNine; StillProud2BeFree; Revel; jerseygirl; ...

Your prayers are needed.


30 posted on 09/03/2004 12:38:43 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (On this day your Prayers are needed!!!!!!!)
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To: Walkin Man
Isn't it amazing how the world media refuses to call them what they are: "Islamic COLD-BLOODED MURDERERS KILLING INNOCENTS IN THE NAME OF ALLAH?"
31 posted on 09/03/2004 12:39:12 AM PDT by Happy2BMe (I have knocked on the door of this man's soul and found someone home - Georgia Democrat Zell Miller)
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To: Happy2BMe

This is why we must call EVIL for what it is....Islam is EVIL always was always will be....I hope Putin has the stomach for this one because it is going to get real ugly before it gets any better...Notice how the Germans want to help Russia in its battle with the terrorists? Go figure they want a treaty to that effect....could anything go wrong with a treaty between Germany and Russia? naaah


32 posted on 09/03/2004 12:40:02 AM PDT by jnarcus
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To: Unknowing

Little problem here of the First Amendment, right?



not with me.
It's not really a religion.
It's a political party that commits murder.
a criminal enterprise.

doze them, fry them, convert them to glass.
it's gotta start sometime.
the refuse to reform.
It is no different from the nazi political cult.
sometimes you just gotta burn them out.


33 posted on 09/03/2004 12:40:15 AM PDT by Robert_Paulson2 (Robert the "RINO")
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To: clee1
re: "None of us - No Christian, Jew, atheist, agnostic, Hollywood nutcase, limo liberal DemoCrap, or good conservative Republican will EVER be truely safe again until EVERY LAST ONE OF THESE ISLAMIC "JIHADISTS" IS DEAD!"

Amen! Thank you for putting it so succinctly!
34 posted on 09/03/2004 12:41:24 AM PDT by jwpjr
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To: Selkie

Because then they would have to admit that the Islamofascists are out to destroy ANYONE who is not Isalmist in thought word and deed. No major media outlet wants to do that because then GW would be proved correct ( heaven forfend)


35 posted on 09/03/2004 12:41:46 AM PDT by jnarcus
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To: jwpjr; MEG33; dandelion; Salem; Geist Krieger
”In most countries where Islamic law dominates there is practically no freedom of religion (not to mention freedom of speech or the press). In most Islamic countries, including so-called moderate Islamic states such as Saudi Arabia, it is a crime to build a Christian church, Jewish synagogue, Hindu temple or any other non-Muslim house of worship. In contrast, there are about 3,000 mosques in the U.S., with new ones being built every week.”

”Muslims are free to worship Allah in the U.S., but Christians are not free to worship Jesus in most Muslim countries. There has not been a single church in Afghanistan since the exiled king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, destroyed the first and only one in the history of the country in 1973.” - Franklin Graham

36 posted on 09/03/2004 12:43:31 AM PDT by Happy2BMe (I have knocked on the door of this man's soul and found someone home - Georgia Democrat Zell Miller)
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To: StillProud2BeFree; Velveeta; lacylu; Calpernia

You will want to read this article on muslim schools.

I think.


37 posted on 09/03/2004 12:43:33 AM PDT by nw_arizona_granny (On this day your Prayers are needed!!!!!!!)
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To: dandelion

Amen and amen!


38 posted on 09/03/2004 12:43:48 AM PDT by jwpjr
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To: Happy2BMe

Tell me folks how the hell are they going to get those kids out? The last time this happened in Russia it went on for at least a week.

On top of it all... What the hell are we going to do if they take a large school of little kids hostage here in the USA?


39 posted on 09/03/2004 12:45:06 AM PDT by stlnative
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To: Happy2BMe

That is what galls me the most. (besides the wanton killing of children, of course.)

The American media has, in their desire to topple Gee Dubya, decided to not label these raghead wackos what they really are. They are fully aware that being honest in their reporting will only hurt the socialist/elitist cause.


40 posted on 09/03/2004 12:46:12 AM PDT by clee1 (Islam is a deadly plague; liberalism is the AIDS virus that prevents us from defending ourselves.)
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