The Grim Milestone of Blogs "I find the language and rhetoric coming from America too confrontational" - Prince Charles "Nuts" - Gen McAuliffe America: Saving idiots from themselves since WWI
there is no longer any part of the world that is not our business, too
Queensland Islamic Council spokesman Sultan Deen said it was unacceptable to kill someone because they chose to leave their religion.
He said families should use other methods to convince a relative not to abandon their religion, but said killing was never appropriate.
“There are other ways to deal with it, you talk to them and try to work it out but you don't kill them, if they're going to go they are going to go,” he said.
“In no circumstances in Islam are you allowed to take another person's life, no-one can say the Koran tells you to do that.”
Islam expert Kathryn Robinson, from the Australian National University, said most Muslims would be horrified by the death.
“Clearly there is something going on about the type of control that father wanted to have over his family, but you can't blame the religion.”
"We call on the government to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention center and, until that time, to refrain from any practice amounting to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," they said.
The statement was read out by Leila Zerrougui, the Algerian chairwoman of the U.N. working group on arbitrary detention.
The human rights situation in Algeria is terrible. Thousands of men, women and children have been killed, many massacred in their own homes, both by security forces and the government-backed militias or by extremist Islamic groups. Thousands more were arrested and imprisoned, many without charges or trials, and hundreds have been sentenced to prison after unfair trials. Torture by the security forces is widespread, both at secret detention centers and in prison. The security forces continue to "disappear" people, and the fate of thousands of the disappeared remains unknown.
Don't caricature this attitude with a desire for more invasions, more nation-building, more regime-change, random airstrikes, or wanton slaughter. It's hard to say just what policy exactly might satisfy the caveman demographic. But really, the Unfrozen Caveman Voter intuits a large portion of the art of warfare: opportunities must be created and then exploited -- or if they come by luck, they must be exploited all the same. And finally, the use of extreme and otherwise intolerable violence is necessary if used in the service of victory.
The Enlightenment, however, by consigning Christianity to the private sphere, also removed the basis and justification for these values in the public sphere.
The Persian shows the Zend-Avesta of Zoroaster, the lawgiver of Persia, and calls it the divine law; the Bramin shows the Shaster, revealed, he says, by God to Brama, and given to him out of a cloud; the Jew shows what he calls the law of Moses, given, he says, by God, on the Mount Sinai; the Christian shows a collection of books and epistles, written by nobody knows who, and called the New Testament; and the Mahometan shows the Koran, given, he says, by God to Mahomet: each of these calls itself revealed religion, and the only true Word of God, and this the followers of each profess to believe from the habit of education, and each believes the others are imposed upon.
But when the divine gift of reason begins to expand itself in the mind and calls man to reflection, he then reads and contemplates God and His works, and not in the books pretending to be revelation. The creation is the Bible of the true believer in God. Everything in this vast volume inspires him with sublime ideas of the Creator. The little and paltry, and often obscene, tales of the Bible sink into wretchedness when put in comparison with this mighty work.
The Deist needs none of those tricks and shows called miracles to confirm his faith, for what can be a greater miracle than the creation itself, and his own existence?
"Many of you have in your veins German and Italian blood. But remember that these ancestors of yours so loved freedom that they gave up home and country to cross the ocean in search of liberty. The ancestors of the people we shall kill lacked the courage to make such a sacrifice and remained slaves."
And then this,
"We Americans are a competitive race ... We love to win. In this next fight, you are entering the greatest sporting competition of all times. You are competing with Americans and with Allies for the greatest prize of all -- victory."
It's not healthy in our republic for such a large slice of the populace to be unrepresented by any politician. But that is the case today. Soon enough it will change. Just remember what happened to Phil Hartman's Caveman Lawyer:
"Thank you! Thank you very much, thank you! First of all, let me say how happy I am to be your nominee for the United States Senate! . . . I don't really understand your Congress. . . because, as I said during the campaign - I'm just a caveman! I fell on some ice, and later got thawed out by scientists. But there is one thing I do know - we must do everything in our power to lower the Capital Gains Tax. Thank you!"
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faced a backlash on Friday over a U.N. proposal to end the war in Lebanon, with army officers saying they were held back and right-wing rivals calling for new elections.
"Olmert must go," read a front page headline in Israel's left-leaning Haaretz newspaper.
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property‹either as a child, a wife, or a concubine‹must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science‹the science against which it had vainly struggled‹the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."
OK, I'll say it.
The Left is now mainstreaming the notion Israel is "a mistake." This comes months after normalizing the notion HAMAS and Hizballah want "to destroy Israel." They're fine with that. The Left thinks Israel's supporters are dupes of AIPAC and the "Jewish Lobby" of Walt and Mearsheimer. The Left buys into the old "dual loyalties" argument which plagues Jews only for some reason. Anyone can have mixed motivations, but if it's Jews somehow the term morphs into treasonous sounding "dual loyalties." The Left's major enemy these days is the "neocons" - codeword for Jews in power. Ever since the 1967 War and Israel's backtrack from socialism, the Left has been turning away from Israel. Leftist icons like Fisk, Raimondo, Kossholes, etc., believe Jews control America.
But worst of all, Lieberman is a practicing Jew. Few on the Left would admit that has anything to do with it. That's what all the arguments in the first paragraph are used for: dressing up anti-Semitism.
I support Israel because it angers all the bigoted scumbags on the Left. All this crap about "Jewish State" and "Apartheid State" ignores the fact every state ruled by Muslims is bigoted against non-Muslims. Israel allows non-Jews power in government. In other Arab-Muslim states there might be one or two legislated token Jews, and that's it.
If you're not angry yet, the modern Left is merely an extension of radical socialist organizations which have always demonized their opponents and usually tried to reeducate or exterminate them.
And before some leftist bigot asks, no, I'm not Jewish. I don't particularly like organized religion and I'm not of the "Jewish race" whatever that means.
But nothing makes me angrier than the disgusting bigots on the Left I've been debating for decades. What could possibly be worse than hypocritical, preachy, bigots?
To me, nothing.
Look, I don't know what the fuck Joe has done for you lately (precious bloody little, I bet) but his unwavering, Dubya-asslicking support for Iraq must make even people like you say 'what the fuck? vote for that brain-dead piece of crap again'? No way.
Lieberman's an idiot.
“I want to avoid as much as we can creating some kind of a political test for instructors or faculty, to say that only those whose thinking fits within some predetermined mold are well equipped to teach our students,” Mr. Farrell said. “I think that creates a dangerous precedent.”
In this age of Multiculturalism and cultural relativism, the only places we can identify evil and fight it are in fictional worlds, be that the Middle Earth of Tolkien or the Hogwarts of JK Rowling. Maybe that's why it's such a relief to visit them, if only for a few hours. In the real West, our Universities would advice us to negotiate with Sauron and identify his legitimate grievances. Our media would say that the real reason why the Orcs kill people is because they suffer from institutionalized racism and Orcophobia. We would all get sensitivity training, invite Orcs to settle in our major cities by the millions and teach our children about the richness of Orc culture.
Those who retain a faith in the ‘force of reason’ may wish it otherwise. Yet just as unreason plainly marks many aspects of the creed of Islam, so it also vitiates the cause of the non-Muslim world. Among the latter’s irrationalities is the myopic belief — held by the non-Muslim Israelophobe and the firebreathing Islamist together — that Israel, the ‘Jewish lobby’ in the US and the actions of Jews in general stand at the heart of this third world war. This belief, akin to that of the Nazis in the second world war, is of the greatest significance in one respect above all; indeed, it could be said to be the West’s Achilles heel. For it is a belief which permits, and even invites, Islamists to play (to their own advantage) upon a favourite prejudice of non-Muslims of all political persuasions. With the other moral debilities that afflict us, it makes it more likely that this war with Islam will ultimately be lost.
David Selbourne’s latest book, The Losing Battle With Islam, was published in the United States by Prometheus Books in November 2005.
The fresh volleys struck also Safed, Hatzor, Carmiel, Moshe Sde Eleizer, Acre, Kiryat Shmona, Tiberias, the Krayot region (Haifa suburbs of Kiryat Yam, Kiryat Haim, and Kiryat Ata), Hatzor Haglilit, Yesod Hama'ala, the central Golan Heights, and the Haifa Bay region.
Why is it important to you to make it plain to the world that you are speaking as a Muslim woman?
Because it has become so important to some Muslim leaders and extremists to discredit me as a Muslim, I have had to justify my existence as a “Muslim artist”. I have now inadvertently become a sort of spokeswoman for a younger generation western-born Muslim women. I never really set out to do this. My heritage is something I’ve always been proud of but never forced onto people. Despite this I have never really been allowed to just be an artist and to get on with just music. My background has always become an issue (and a negative one at that) within the community. After years of trying to be the obedient and quiet girl that I was told to be if I wanted to earn support from the community, my efforts were always proven to be wrong and of no use. Proven wrong usually by extremes (mostly men) who were afraid of losing their power in a changing community. The fact that I have chosen a profession that is largely considered unacceptable and not respectable for a Muslim woman has always attracted not just insults and condemnation from certain sections of the community, but also intimidation and physical attacks and threats. It is only after more than 10 years of being silent and quietly taking this abuse that I decided to speak out.
The administration may yet reconsider its approach in light of the escalating tensions. After all, Ms. Rice has already gone further toward traditional diplomacy than many neoconservatives within the administration would like, by prodding Mr. Bush to offer to join European talks with Iran on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
"One can ask oneself whether there isn't a sort of desire to destroy Lebanon," French President Jacques Chirac, who will be among the leaders meeting with Bush here, said in a television interview. "I find, honestly, like most Europeans, that the reactions are completely disproportionate." He added that he also considered Hezbollah guerrillas "completely irresponsible" for firing rockets at Israel.
Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Israel was "making a mistake" in striking Lebanon because "it won't bring anything other than an escalation of violence." The Vatican said it "deplores right now the attack on Lebanon, a free and sovereign nation." Jan Egeland, the U.N. humanitarian chief, called Israel's attacks a "violation of international law," adding, "You are supposed to do something to the armed group. You are not supposed to hurt the children of people who have nothing to do with this."
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is hosting the Group of Eight summit, already is moving to put the fighting on the agenda as draft statements were being written. "We will press all the parties to immediately stop the bloodshed," he said.
London-based Arabic language newspaper Al-Hayat says Israel gave Syria 72 hours to stop Hizbullah’s activity, bring about release of kidnapped IDF troops. ‘Israel will not end military activity until new situation created that will prevent Syria, Iran from using terror organizations to threaten its security,’ newspaper quotes Pentagon official as saying
Mr. Bush called the leaders of Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan to explore ways to end three days of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. Turning aside complaints that Israel is using excessive force, the president rejected a cease-fire plea from Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.
"The president is not going to make military decisions for Israel," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
In urging the U.N. Security Council to impose a cease-fire, Lebanese Foreign Ministry official Nouhad Mahmoud said Israel's stepped-up military campaign was aimed at "bringing Lebanon to its knees and subverting it by any means."
Ultimately, the Bush administration needs to do a better job of presenting this current war in a far larger context. Jihadists of the Arab world for decades have been at war not with George Bush alone, but with modernity itself. The radical Middle East street may be fascinated by the Internet, satellite television, ATMs and cell phones -- but not by the foreign anathema of democracies, religious tolerance, free markets and gender equality that ultimately accounts for such goodies.
Here at home, we witness the end of the multicultural dogma. Yes, there are really evil people who wish to kill us for who we are, not what we do -- and they embrace cultural assumptions that are not just different from our own, but, let us be honest enough to admit it, far worse.
So, there are many fronts in our struggle against Islamic terrorists from the seventh century. The American people must be reminded of our challenges constantly in lieu of platitudes about the inevitable triumph of freedom and democracy. In short, our government should provide much more explanation of this complex war and far less simple declarations about it.
“This was a very bad gamble,” Alex Fishman of Yedioth Ahronoth wrote of Hezbollah’s attack on Wednesday. “(Israel) is acting as if every valve that had been locked for six years has been released and all restraints are off. Everything is permissible.”
In Maariv, Ben Caspit demanded Churchillian resolve from Israelis facing Hezbollah rockets — about 80 missiles hit Israeli towns yesterday, killing a woman and her five-year-old grandson and wounding more than 40 people,. “Not for naught is a parallel being made here between terminology from the World War Two period, the tenacious British resistance against Hitler’s blitz. This threat must be abolished. Nasrallah must die.”
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 14 — The radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr said Friday that Iraqis would not “sit by with folded hands” while Israel struck at Lebanon, signaling a possible increase in attacks from his mercurial militia, the Mahdi Army.
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Forum: The Middle EastIn a written statement, Mr. Sadr also said that he considered the United States culpable in the conflict unfolding in Lebanon, since America was the largest foreign ally of Israel.
Mr. Sadr’s statement was issued at a time of rising tensions between the American military and the Mahdi Army, with American forces carrying out raids against Mahdi hideouts and arresting senior leaders.
American commanders have strongly denounced militias in recent days and have pledged to try to curtail the militias’ death squads, which they say are feeding the spiraling cycles of sectarian violence. Many Sunni Arabs blame the Sadr militia for abductions and killings, including an episode on July 9 in which militiamen seized up to dozens of Sunni Arabs in the Jihad neighborhood of Baghdad and shot them in the head.
“Eyes are shedding tears, and the heart feels pain and sadness for our people in Lebanon due to the bombing, terror and clear aggression that the Zionist enemy conducts and that is shielded by a number of countries, including the United States,” Mr. Sadr said in the statement.
“Let it be known to everybody that we in Iraq will not sit by with folded hands before the creep of Zionism,” the statement continued.
The fury was echoed in a Friday mosque sermon given by a cleric allied with Mr. Sadr, Sheik Asad al-Nasri, to worshipers from the southern holy cities of Kufa and Najaf.
“We address all the arrogant powers of the world, including the United States and Israel, and tell them to realize the true reality and take lessons from history that show that all world powers, no matter how strong they are, prove to be failures and will definitely vanish,” the sheik said...
"The Syrian people are ready to extend full support to the Lebanese people and their heroic resistance to remain steadfast and confront the barbaric Israeli aggression and its crimes," said a communique from the party's national command issued after a meeting. (Reuters)
Dogs of war incline toward caution, which after all is how they grew up to be dogs. More worrisome are puppies, who do not know what danger is. Gavrilo Princeps, the Serbian gunman who shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand dead in June 1914, was a puppy. So are the Hamas kidnappers, who at this writing still hold Israeli Army Corporal Gilad Shalit, and the Mehdi Army shooters who reportedly disposed of several dozen Sunni civilians in Baghdad on the weekend. The North Koreans, by contrast, are just nasty old dogs who long ago got loose from their leash.
Wars start because no one wants to disown his dog. If your dog bites a neighbor, your neighbor well might come after you with a shotgun. Nicholas II of Russia, I observed recently, did not want war in 1914 and until the end of July insisted that no war would break out. [1] But the Serbian puppies supported by his secret service dragged him into it willy-nilly. The past week's events in the Middle East have a disturbing feel of July 1914 about them.
And then you read something like Hal's latest rant and you ponder the arab mentality. We are the only people in the world who talk about dignity and honor when it comes to military conflict, and who will continue fighting losing wars, unprepared and undermilitarized, because of reasons such as "our pride and dignity" and then wonder why the fuck we lose. I mean, can you imagine if the americans acted the same way? They would never have left Vietnam. They would stay in Iraq forever. You don't see a single american saying "we should stay in Iraq because our national pride and dignity are wounded by the insurgents attacks". Only we would use some half assed justification to keep fighting wars we can't win, where we keep getting our asses kicked, and some how don't see the folly in it at all.
THE big powers split yesterday over the fighting in the Middle East as leaders gathered for the G8 summit in Russia, with President Bush refusing to demand that Israel halt its military action.
President Putin, host of the summit in St Petersburg, called for an immediate end to hostilities between Israel and Lebanon. “We assume that all sides in conflict should immediately end their military action. That should be the starting point for resolving all other problems,” Mr Putin told an international group of teenagers.
I am with you, Jeff Melvin; you are bang on. Anyway, the usual response will be to blame America ( I have even heard it suggested on the BBC - by one of their expert correspondents - that America is partly to blame for the bombs that went off in Bombay because apparently India is now thought to closer to the USA (those nasty capitalists).
If you can't blame the Americans then blame the Jews (that tiny nation which is threatened with extinction by Iran peacefully developing nuclear capabilties) and if you can't blame them then you can always blame the police I say - but whatever you do, do not blame the real culprits (those that invade Israel and capture its soldiers). If you want peace it is simple: hand back the captured soldiers and hand over those responsible (not forgetting those murdered in the capture).
My comments will now provoke responses of cries that it is all "tit for tat" thereby excusing the culprits. Blame the police I say.
Posted by Robert Wilson on July 14, 2006 12:54 PM
In response to the poster who seems to think that Hezbollah and Hamas have the right to oust "the occupier" under the Geneva Convention - first of all, neither Gaza or Lebanon were occupied by Israel at the time. Secondly, the soldiers were captured on Israeli soil - in other words, Israel was invaded by foreign forces and their people attacked. Add to that the daily bombardment that Israel suffers anyway and the only question is - why have they taken so long to do something?
Personally, I feel sorry for the Lebanese people. They don't want this, but it's being foisted on them by Syria and Iran. The embryonic Lebanese government - starting to get a life of it's own after finally kicking out the SYRIAN occupiers after 20 years are too weak to prevent Syrian and Iranian proxies from attacking their neighbour and now they have a new war on their land.
But put the blame for this where it truly lies. On the shoulders of the Syrian and Iranian governments.
Posted by Stan on July 14, 2006 1:27 PM
And what a week to review! Moderator Austin Bay talks with the usual suspects, Tammy Bruce, Eric Umansky, and Glenn Reynolds. The topics: 1) Mumbai terror attacks, (2) Geneva Convention rights for Al Qaeda, and (3) Israel versus Hezbollah—and Iran. As always, Ed Driscoll produces.
Is Israel's bombing "disproportionate"? "Disproportionate" to what? So far, after all those bombs in three days of sensational and excited and much exaggerated coverage, a grand total of 73 people have died in Lebanon. How many of them were "innocent civilians," that is people who did not ardenly support the continued Hezbollah attacks on Israel when there was not a single Israeli soldier left in Lebanon? Given Israel's size, its lack of strategic depth, the fact that in the pre-1967 armistice lines it is 8 miles wide, and one has some idea of its pitifully tiny size by the fact that Haifa, that was hit with rockets "deep inside Israel," is a mere 18 miles from the Lebanese border. Israel cannot tolerate any of this. It may be difficult for Americans, with the Atlantic Ocean standing guard on one side, and the Pacific Ocean standing guard on the other, and reasonably friendly if often un-admiring Canada to the north, and perhaps too-friendly and a little too-admiring Mexico to the south, to quite perform the feat of imagination required to imagine what it must be like to live in Israel, what the real size of the country, and size of the dangers, are. But at least we should all close our eyes and try.
"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory)."
"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up."
"Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement."
"The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised. To do this requires the diffusion of Islamic consciousness among the masses, both on the regional, Arab and Islamic levels. It is necessary to instill the spirit of Jihad in the heart of the nation so that they would confront the enemies and join the ranks of the fighters."
"The Islamic Resistance Movement adopts Islam as its way of life. Islam is its creed and religion. Whoever takes Islam as his way of life, be it an organization, a grouping, a country or any other body, the Islamic Resistance Movement considers itself as their soldiers and nothing more."
For a long time, the enemies have been planning, skillfully and with precision, for the achievement of what they have attained. They took into consideration the causes affecting the current of events. They strived to amass great and substantive material wealth which they devoted to the realisation of their dream. With their money, they took control of the world media, news agencies, the press, publishing houses, broadcasting stations, and others. With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein. They were behind the French Revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests. With their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption there.
Jihad is not confined to the carrying of arms and the confrontation of the enemy. The effective word, the good article, the useful book, support and solidarity - together with the presence of sincere purpose for the hoisting of Allah's banner higher and higher - all these are elements of the Jihad for Allah's sake.
"Whosoever mobilises a fighter for the sake of Allah is himself a fighter. Whosoever supports the relatives of a fighter, he himself is a fighter." (related by al-Bukhari, Moslem, Abu-Dawood and al-Tarmadhi).
By refusing to take the jihadist at their word, we Westerners are indulging our own superstitions and received wisdom. We have accepted the unscientific assertion that all reality is material, and so we dismiss the spiritual as a superstitious fantasy, a hold-over from less enlightened times necessary for those benighted folks still mired in exploded beliefs and incapable of accepting the hard reality of God’s death. Afraid of facing the truth of their own repressions and neuroses, believers cling to these fantasies as bulwarks against all the changes they fear, especially the liberating progress and utopian boons that are mankind’s destiny once these old illusions are discarded.
This view of religious faith is on display everywhere in our culture, from television and movies and “high” art to the ruminations of “progressive” intellectuals and media pundits. The great irony is that this interpretation of religious faith is itself not a scientific truth but mere prejudice at best, bigotry at worst. And it is a stale cliché, the remnant of old Western ideas long discredited. With every expression of this received wisdom, we hear the ghost of Marx telling us that religion is “the opiate of the people,” the “illusory sun” we must discard, the instrument of oppression invented by the oppressor to keep his victims in check. We hear Nietzsche’s cry of liberating joy at God’s death: “We philosophers and ‘’free spirits’ feel, when we hear the news that ‘the old god is dead,’ as if a new dawn shone for us . . . . At long last the horizon appears free to us again.” And we hear another antitheist (because like the other two, he doesn’t so much disbelieve in God as dislike and resent Him), Freud, telling us that “religious ideas” are “illusions, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest and most urgent wishes of mankind.”
Armed with these old materialist prejudices, we then treat the Muslim as one sick or confused, a victim of Western crimes, a neurotic who resorts to misunderstandings and distortions of his own faith in order to cope with events whose causes he doesn’t understand. Or, as the press has done with Ahmadinejad’s letter, we explain away his belief as a Machiavellian political tactic. Either way, in the guise of rationalizing jihadist violence we display a curious Western arrogance that sweeps away the most cherished beliefs, that asserts we Westerners better understand Islam than do millions of its adherents, and that reduces Muslims to the status of children and dupes, the passive prey to material and psychological forces they can’t comprehend. How superior we are, we Westerners who see the true reality disguised from others by superstition and tradition!
"(If) you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."
"If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat."
Our interview over, the women relax and begin to talk about their first few days in America. "It's completely different from what we learned. It is difficult to accept that there is a world like this," Hannah says. "They [the North Korean government] teach us that America is a country that shouldn't be allowed to exist." "When we were in China," Naomi says, "we always had to hide. Now we don't feel that way anymore."
"We still do feel lonely," says Hannah, "but my heart feels free."
Spy Agency Watching Americans From Space
While nuclear smuggling is possible, so are dozens of other attack scenarios. Overinvesting in countering one tactic when terrorists could easily employ another is dangerously myopic.
KARACHI: Sixteen-year-old Isma Mahmood was deported to Pakistan last month after serving six months in shackles and handcuffs in a prison in Saudi Arabia. Her crime: being raped by a Saudi man.
“It’s difficult for me to talk about what happened to me, from rape to prison and from prison to deportation,” Isma told AFP in the office of a rescue trust in Karachi where she sat with her sister Muna, 18, who was also deported.
Isma’s parents, originally from Multan, were trafficked to Saudi Arabia around 20 years ago. But in Isma’s case, being born in Saudi Arabia was no help when she was raped last year in Medina. “I was the victim, I was raped and molested but I was named as the accused, and the man who committed the crime was not touched,” she said.
“He first kidnapped me, dragged me into his car,” Isma said. “At first he asked me to sleep with him and offered good money. When I refused and tried to resist, he warned me of dire consequences and raped me in the car.” The unnamed man warned her she would be imprisoned if she went to the police, and said that the Saudi sponsor who brought her parents to the country through a Pakistani agent would have them all expelled. The sponsor too threatened Isma and Muna, she said, asking that the sponsor’s name not be revealed to spare her family any additional grief. “I and my sister went to the police expecting justice, but after a few hours of filing the report the police changed it,” Isma said. Under pressure from the Saudi sponsor, Isma’s parents asked her to withdraw her report. “My sister Muna tried to help me out but was also arrested and put in prison only because she spoke for me,” she said.
Once in jail, their nightmare began in earnest, Isma said. The women prisoners were mostly Pakistanis, Indonesians, Bangladeshis and Nigerians who came to Saudi Arabia through trafficking networks and were charged with prostitution, she said.
“When I used to protest against the ill treatment they beat me on my back,” Isma added. “We were chained all during this period. The only time jail officials removed the chain was during lunch or when anyone went to the bathroom or at prayer time,” she said. “Once a jail official offered me help and assured me I would be released if I agreed to sleep with him. There was a Pakistani woman who was over 40 years old and developed AIDS in prison, but she remained in chains before she was deported to Pakistan,” she added.
Isma and Muna are now in the care of the Ansar Burney Trust. “It’s pathetic that all this happened with Isma at the hands of a fellow Muslim,” the trust’s president Ansar Burney told AFP. Burney says many poor women and girls from South Asia are lured with promises of good money working as maids or nurses, but their Arab sponsors and Pakistan agents later force them into prostitution. AFP
Our educational system is, if anything, worse. As we are working hard to secure our borders from terrorism and fighting terrorist movements overseas, the same people who are financing much of the world’s terrorism are pouring money into American colleges and universities with the intent of undermining support for our government’s efforts in the War on Terror.
American universities – those idealists who claim racism, misogyny, religious persecution and violations of human rights are antithetical to their mission – are more than willing to accept funding from the Wahhabist Saudi regime that practices such behaviors. The funds go to set up Middle East Studies centers that serve to indoctrinate future generations of American college students to support the goals of overseas terrorists and dictators. These centers also promote outreach programs in which teachers and professors in our local communities are trained and provided with curricula that preach a radical anti-democratic, anti-American, and frequently anti-Semitic agenda in our primary and secondary school classrooms. Our children are their targets.
"Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."
William Shakespeare
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California school textbooks would highlight the role gays have played in the history of the nation's most populous state if a new proposal that has angered conservatives passes the state Legislature.
History books record contributions by gays but their sexual orientation is often ignored, a situation gay activists say is inexcusable in California, home to a large gay population in San Francisco, a city that briefly made history in 2004 by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
The proposed bill would require school textbooks to include lessons on how gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender persons have helped California develop.
During his recent appearance at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Binder said it would take "at least a decade" before historians "clear out that wretched underbrush of lies and concoctions" from "despicable" politicians "like Richard Holbrooke," an international negotiator during the administration of former President Bill Clinton and "certainly the journalists" criticized in Brock's book. The rise of blogs and media watchdog groups offers a "corrective" for the public now, Binder contended.
One and actually the most important is that we have an American ambassador who recognizes Iran's role in supporting both ends of violence in Iraq; that's the Shia militias, namely the notorious Mehdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr and the extreme terror groups like al-Qaeda's Ansar al-Sunna.
Knowing that ambassador Khalil Zad will be the one leading the talks with Iran makes me feel that the talks are in good hands that are aware of the scope of the conflict.
Many people find it difficult to agree with this theory that Iran has ties with al-Qaeda and its branches and affiliates in Iraq and that's because they think the ideology difference between Wahabism and Shiasm would make any cooperation between Iran and al-Qaeda a fairy tale or a ridiculous American excuse to justify a possible offensive on Iran.
But what really frustrates me is that we have people here who are supposed to be politicians aware of the behind the scenes game who refuse to accept this theory (which I consider a fact).
A few days ago a saw a prominent politician from the UIA talking on al-Hurra and when the point of Zad's accusations to Iran was raised his response was (not literal translation) "No sane person can think that Iran is supporting the terrorists who murder Shia Iraqis…".
It is this kind of blind conviction that make me lose faith in most of the political elites in Iraq; they have entrenched themselves behind their sects to the point that they cannot accept questioning the policies and intentions of their presumed friends forgetting that it's politics 101 to not put absolute trust in anyone.
The Marines unloaded a shiny new pediatric wheelchair from one of their vehicles and rolled it into the house.
The little girl had suffered a severe spinal injury in a car accident two years ago. The old wheelchair was the best the family could do for her.
Until the Marines came.
The family's faces lit up with the smiles. The incredulous father picked up his daughter and immediately placed her in the new wheelchair. He shook the Marines' hands, saying "Thank you," again and again.
"They seemed pretty happy about it," said Cpl. Matthew Rivera.
"We knew we had to help out in some way," said Staff Sgt. Charles Evers.
The Marines didn't stay long. There were smiles and a few tears and then they jumped back into their assault vehicles and headed back to Camp Smitty.
Within hours of its publication, American Theocracy rocketed to No 1 on Amazon. At US cinemas, V for Vendetta - in which an imaginary Britain, ruled by a totalitarian, faith-based regime that rounds up gays, is a metaphor for Bush's America - is the surprise hit. Bush has succeeded in getting American audiences to cheer for terrorism.
Norooz greetings to all Mankind and particularly to those who celebrate this great Day. Norooz is the celebration of life and fertility. Its origin fades into history. This is the oldest festivity alive and it will live as long as this planet lives. Ten thousand years from now, the world will be a different place. All races will merge and become indistinguishable. Nationality would make no sense. Long after religions are thrown in the dustbin of history along with their festivities, the Mother Earth will keep celebrating Norooz in the vernal equinox as she has been doing for billions of years. Trees will blossom, deserts will bloom and life will burst with its glory and beauty. Norooz and perhaps its twin festivity Mehregan, celebrated in the other equinox will endure as long as the Earth endures. The festivity of the 21st of December, when in most of the Earth light overcomes darkness, symbolizing the victory of good over evil, will also be celebrated. These festivities do not belong to any nation or religion. They are the festivities of the Mother Earth. We humans only rejoice watching in awe the miracle of her rebirth year after year in Norooz. Happy Norooz!
NEW YORK - "South Park" has declared war on Scientology. Matt Stone and Trey Parker, creators of the animated satire, are digging in against the celebrity-endorsed religion after a controversial episode mocking outspoken Scientologist Tom Cruise was yanked abruptly from the schedule Wednesday — with Internet rumors it was covert warfare by Cruise that led to its departure.
"So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun!" the "South Park" creators said in a statement Friday in Daily Variety. "Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies... You have obsructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail!"
.....In another dig at the famously secretive religion, the credits at show's end are filled with names like "John Smith" and "Jane Smith."
The battle began in earnest earlier this week when Isaac Hayes, another celebrity Scientologist and longtime show member — voicing the ladies' man Chef — quit the show, saying he could no longer tolerate its religious "intolerance and bigotry."
Stone and Parker didn't buy that either.
On Monday, Stone told The Associated Press, "This is 100 percent having to do with his faith in Scientology...He has no problem — and he's cashed plenty of checks — with our show making fun of Christians."
