Posted on 10/16/2002 9:10:17 PM PDT by Dallas
I'm certain that's what's going on. I'm convinced of it, in fact. We just can't move until all our ducks are lined up. That's what's going on. We have to have faith, and also patience. Remember what GW said: "I'm a patient man." We have to be patient too. (Though it's hard, and I'm not given to patience myself.)
We will need it, moslems are just beginning to make inroads there, but that's some time off, and we still have the ME to take care of first. But it will come someday.
There was, but amazingly it turned out to be non-moslem related. At least the name of the bomber is not in any way islamic, and he seems to have been some other sort of fool.
I agree. It's been more than a year and we keep importing more terrorists as well as exporting money to feed and arm the enemy. This "war", which isn't a war at all, seems to be nothing more than a convenient cover for "compromising" with the enemy and puting in place everything we wouldn't otherwise accept.
Seems that way doesn't it? I'd feel A LOT more comfortable with "This War" if we were NOT importing the "enemy" and our borders had a modicum of integrity. The recent statements out of this administration do not give me much comfort on either.
I'm not as optimistic as you might think, more like George Will. Not near as smart as he is, but never have seen him laugh or smile. At least I can laugh and smile now and then. I have hopes the Bush admin is trying, but they can't undo the last ten years all at once. For instance there was an article posted a few days ago and I haven't been able to find it. I think it was about flight schools suffering due to lack of students. It seemed students from the middle east were being blocked from enrollment. Hmmmm, maybe Dubya is trying, he just doesn't call a press conference like Slimy Bill did every time he did something "important".
[snip]
What did we (in America) learn from September 11, 2001 and the deaths of 3,000 people. I am tempted to admit: Absolutely nothing.
Among the many unlearned lessons of Day-Which-Will-Live-In-Infamy-II-- the necessity to control our borders, the need for a patriotic renewal and the importance of combating multiculturalism -- the most significant is the nature of Islam. You will note that I do not say militant Islam, or radical Islam, or Islamic extremism or other such weasel words – but Islam, period.
Every one of the hijackers who flew airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon were professing and practicing Moslems, as is Osama bin Laden. The Al Qaeda terrorist network, is based in Moslem countries and supported financially by the so called pious Moslem leadership of Saudi Arabia.
The overwhelming majority of Moslem religious authorities who have spoken out on the subject, including those at the main mosque in Mecca and Egypt’s prestigious Al Azar University, either endorse or rationalize acts of terrorism. On a day when Americans were incinerated or buried under tons of rubble, Muslims from Nigeria to Indonesia, celebrated in the streets.
Sept. 11 was one chapter in a 1400-year jihad. Every day, the World Trade Center massacre is reenacted on a smaller scale somewhere in the world. Jewish women and children are burned alive in a bus in Israel. A missionary is beheaded in the Philippines, gunmen shoot up a church in Pakistan (deliberately firing into the prostrate bodies of women trying to shield their children). Ancient monasteries and convents are destroyed in Kosovo. Women are sentenced to death for adultery in Nigeria, Hindus are murdered in the Kashmir. In Denmark, the Muslim community there has put a $30,000 bounty on the heads of Jews and those who support Israel. Nuns are beheaded in Baghdad, Christians in Sudan are forced into slavery, and in Britain, Islam openly states it is going to take over not only the UK, but the whole world -- and the beat goes on.
Genocide in the Sudan, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, religious persecution in Saudi Arabia, calls for another holocaust in mosques from Mecca to Gaza, the imposition of Islamic law in Nigeria, forced conversions in Indonesia, synagogues burned in France, Jews attacked across Europe – these are everyday events, as Third World and much of the First slowly turns Islamic green.
Sadly our leaders, from President Bush on down, insist on peddling the absurdity that Islam is a religion of peace – a creed of kindness and benevolence tragically and inexplicably corrupted by fanatics.
Why is the leadership of the West reluctant to confront manifest reality? The reason lies partly with our absurd foreign policy. We have declared certain Moslem nations to be our loyal allies – including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. We would not want to offend these dear friends by saying something unflattering about their bloody, butcherly, dark ages faith.
Americans are naturally benevolent. Most of us are taught from childhood that is religion is good (and it does not matter which religion). As long as little Johnny believes in God and goodness, it’s inconsequential whether he lights candles, wears a skull cap to services or prays in the direction of Mecca.
This works with every religion except Islam.
Consider the following: Of the three major western religions: one was started by a lawgiver who helped to free slaves; one by a man of peace; the last one by a man who loved war and having sex with children. Mohammed not only led men into battle, he enjoyed marrying girls as young as six years old (it is in the Koran). The essence of his message is sick and disgusting. A holy war where you slaughter your enemies, while at the same time encouraging followers to have sex with the children they capture (as he did) for the glory of Allah. He even advised his followers to negotiate false peace treaties in order to lull their enemies.
For almost 1,400 years, that has been the reality of Islam. Within a century after the death of Mohammed, Islam spread throughout the Middle East and across North Africa. It overran the Iberian peninsula and was finally stopped in southern France. It spread eastward as far as the southern Philippines. It was not propagated by fresh-faced young men knocking on doors and announcing: “Hello. I’m from your local mosque. Have you considered the Koran?” It was and is spread by force – conversion by the sword or death. This is still in practice today.
Some will respond that all religions go through periods of violence, usually in their infancy. Christianity had its crusades and Inquisition, its forced conversions and expulsions. The evil committed in the name of Christ happened centuries ago. The evil committed in the name of the Prophet is going on now, as you read these words. Of 22 conflicts in the Third World, 20 involve Moslems versus someone else. Coincidence? In his brilliant book, “Clash of Cultures and the Remaking of World Order,” Samuel Huntington speaks of Islam’s “bloody borders.”
There is no Methodist Jihad, no Jewish Hasidic holy warriors, no Buddhist monk wanting to have 72 virgins waiting for him after a suicide bombing, no Hindu Holy men plotting to blow up people, no Southern Baptist suicide bombers, no Mormon elders preaching the annihilation of members of other faiths.
Islam is a warrior religion – the perfect vessel for fanatics, the violence-prone, the envious and haters of all stripes. This is one reason why Islam is making so many converts among the peaceable denizens of our prison system.
Still, much of the West is addicted to a fairy-tale version of Islam. Christian and Jewish clergy fall all over themselves to have interfaith services with imams. Representatives of Moslem groups are invited to the White House. The president signs a Ramadan declaration. In California, public schools ask children to role-play at being Moslems. Our universities take carefully selected verses from the Koran and present them as the essence of the faith. All that’s needed is a Moslem character on “Sesame Street.” Look – it’s the Jihad Monster!
This perspective engenders a fatally false sense of security. Imagine, in 1940, Winston Churchill taking to the airwaves to announce “Nazism is an ideology of peace which, regrettably, has been perverted by a few fanatics like Hitler and Goebbels. But most storm troopers and SS men are fine follows – your friends and neighbors.”
For the first thousand years of its history – from the death of Mohammad to the 17th. century decline of the Ottoman empire, Islam was an expansionist force. For the next 300 years, as the West rose to preeminence, Islam receded. For the past four decades – fueled by Arab oil wealth, a surplus population in the Middle East, the waning of the West and the rise of more virulent strains of the faith (Shiism, Wahhabism, Sunni fundamentalism) – Islam is expanding once more.
Due to Moslem immigration and aggressive proselytizing, Islam is being exported to the West. Moslem populations are burgeoning throughout Western Europe. (In southern France, there are more mosques than churches.) In Judeo-Christian America, Islam is the fastest growing religion. It is also spreading down the coast of West Africa, through the Balkans (after Serbia, Macedonia is the next target) and up from Mindanao in the Philippines.
Wherever it comes, Islam brings its delightful customs – child marriages, female circumcisions, rabid hatred toward Christians, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists and every other non-muslim, terrorism and support for terrorism and a virulent intolerance of other faiths.
Am I suggesting we declare war on over 1 billion million Moslems? The question is moot – Islam has declared war on the rest of the human race. When one side knows it’s at war and the other thinks peace and brotherhood prevail, guess who wins?
Ultimately, it is not about Jews in Israel, or Orthodox Serbs in Kosovo, or Hindus in Kashmir, Buddhists in Thailand, or Maronite Catholics in Lebanon, Taoists in China, or Christians in Sudan and Nigeria, but all of us. As Ben Franklin would have it – Either we will hang together, or surely we shall all hang separately.
Thu Oct 17, 6:55 AM ET
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (Reuters) - Bombs ripped through the main shopping district of a mostly Christian city in an area of the southern Philippines at the heart of Muslim insurgency on Thursday, killing five people and wounding 144.
It was the second major bomb attack in southeast Asia in less than a week and suspicion immediately focused on a radical Muslim group also being investigated for Saturday's explosions on the Indonesian island of Bali, in which more than 180 people died.
Shouts of "There's a bomb," "Another explosion," "Run...Run" rent the air in the city of Zamboanga as terrified shoppers and shopkeepers ran on to narrow streets littered with wreckage, glass and mutilated bodies from the twin midday blasts.
Troops found and defused at least two other bombs.
The military blamed radicals fighting for an Islamic state in the south of the Roman Catholic nation and said investigators were looking into the possible involvement of the militant Jemaah Islamiah group.
"All threat groups are suspect in this incident, including the Jemaah Islamiah...and others," armed forces deputy spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Danilo Servando told reporters in Manila, referring to the Indonesia-based group linked by some to Osama bin Laden 's al Qaeda network.
The twin explosions in Zamboanga came amid a heightened security alert across the country after the Bali bombings, in which carnage Jemaah Islamiah is also suspected.
Police said they were questioning 16 people, including two Turkish nationals and a Malaysian, over the Zamboanga explosions.
Asked if Muslim extremist groups might be involved, Zamboanga Mayor Maria Clara Lobregat said: "Most probably. They are the only ones who would do this. One can only weep at what these terrorists have done."
HEAD BLOWN OFF
She said six people were killed and that at least 20 of the 143 injured were in critical condition. The dead included at least three women and a child. One man's head was blown off.
Zamboanga has been the scene in recent years of bombings blamed on the Muslim Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, whom the United States has linked to al Qaeda, prime suspect in last year's September 11 attacks on the United States.
Some 260 U.S. troops are in Zamboanga, the remnants of a 1,000-strong force which spent six months in the area this year to train Filipino soldiers in eliminating the Abu Sayyaf.
Police said no foreigners were hurt in the blasts.
The first bomb, which exploded around noon (0400 GMT) in the Shop-o-Rama mall, wrecked cars, flung motorcycles down the street and tore open shuttered shops.
One man was thrown through a plate glass window. Police were seen later dragging away bodies, some horribly disfigured.
Police cordoned off the streets around the shopping complex where bunting hung incongruously under the baking sun. One corner shop advertised European bread for sale.
Heavily armed troops then ringed the area as investigators brought in sniffer dogs to check for further explosives.
Investigators said the first blast occurred in or near the vegetable section of the crowded Shop-o-Rama, one of the most popular malls in Zamboanga. Thirty minutes later, an explosion rocked a store nearby.
Allen Yusuf, with heavily bandaged face, told television reporters from hospital, "I was buying cigarettes just outside Shop-o-Rama. I heard a loud explosion and it knocked me out."
Police found two other bombs in the area and detonated them.
"The bombings are apparently coordinated," newly installed southern military command chief Lt. Gen. Narciso Abaya told reporters. "They are targeting crowded places where there are plenty of civilians."
Blood smeared the floors of the hospital where doctors and paramedics worked furiously to save lives. A policeman stood by with the words "Stop Death" inscribed on the back of his uniform.
At least one man had his limbs blown off by a blast.
The blasts occurred about two weeks after a homemade bomb exploded near a karaoke bar in the city, killing a U.S. soldier and two Filipino civilians. Police blamed that explosion, on October 2, on the Abu Sayyaf.
Zamboanga, a city of 700,000 people 860 km (535 miles) south of Manila, lies on the southern coast of the politically volatile Mindanao island, where Muslims have been fighting for a separate homeland for over three decades.
The region is home to most of the four million Muslim minority in an overwhelmingly Christian country of 76 million.
Wrong. I want to be first to call for it! Rome had the right idea when it came to Carthage. Quieted things down quite a bit for centuries...
After last weekends elections, you can now add Brazil to the mix...
October 17 2002 at 11:49AM
Zamboanga - The Philippine military tagged a leader of the Abu Sayyaf Muslim kidnap group as behind the bomb attacks which claimed five lives and injured at least 144 today in the southern Philippines.
Military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Danilo Servando said the two bombs used in the attack in Zamboanga city were the same type used in an October 2 bombing that killed a US serviceman and three Filipinos here.
Three people were instantly killed when the first explosion hit the Shop-O-Rama department store. Minutes later, two others were killed when a second bomb went off at a nearby store, police said.
The blasts are the latest in a spate of bomb attacks in the troubled southern Philippines this month.
| 'There is no need to declare a state of emergency and the public has nothing to worry about' |
| 'We will get to the bottom of this. We condemn this terrorist act' |
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