Western Resistance: August 2005 Archives

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August 31, 2005

Banned Scholar in Blair's Consultation Exercise

In Britain, there is now an attempt to try yet again to consult with leaders of the Muslim communities, to find a way to stop extremist Muslim groups becoming more alienated and more extreme. Instead of banning the Koran, and outlawing Islam, which would be one way to get rid of extremism, the tactic of consultation, or appeasement, is once again advocated.

This group, sponsored by and under the tutelage of the Home Office, is called: the "Working Group on Tackling Extremism". The exact names of the 13 individuals to be included in this taskforce have not yet been publicly revealed. They are expected to report their findings by late September. One of the 13 is known to be Labour MP, Shahid Malik, and it is fairly certain that another is the hypocritical and untrustworthy spokesperson for the Muslim Council for Britain, Inayat Bunglawala.

A report in today's Guardian newspaper suggests that one of those on the taskforce does not even live in Britain, and has been banned from entering both the United States and Britain. This individual, who is based in Geneva, is Tariq Ramadan. According to Mike Whine of the Jewish Community Security Trust:

"It's a strange choice given his past statements which some have viewed as being anti-Jewish. Some of our community view him as extreme.

"He speaks with two voices, one for his European audience which appears moderate, and one for his Arab hinterland where he voices many of the demands of Islamists.

"He is at the soft end of the Islamist extreme spectrum."

When will Britain's representatives ever learn? With Ramadan on the panel, nothing concrete will be achieved. He does not even live here, so is hardly a good guide on to how to neutralise the extremism of UK Muslim youth.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 7:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

"And Then They Are All Mine" A Leftist Professor Lets the Truth Slip

This website is mainly interested in the War Against Islam. But it is my firm belief that before we can defeat the enemy without, we must defeat the enemy within. I will shortly comment on a story, but I should first thank two important bloggers who have already done so:

Kate McMillan of Small Dead Animals:

Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom:

Ready? My comments on the extended entry.

Here's the story, and the "money quote": Lessons Learned

If we assume that red-state secondary education systems don't utterly collapse due to underfunding caused by Republican anti-tax mania, then colleges and universities will come into play. The children of red states will seek a higher education, and that education will very often happen in blue states or blue islands in red states. For the foreseeable future, loyal dittoheads will continue to drop off their children at the dorms. After a teary-eyed hug, Mom and Dad will drive their SUV off toward the nearest gas station, leaving their beloved progeny behind.
And then they are all mine.

I don't need to have kids to create mini-me voters: I get classrooms full of other people's kids, most already of voting age. And I'm not alone. As right-wing hysterics have recently noticed, universities in America are dominated by lefties like me. I suspect the main reason for this is that most academics I know are willing to forego making a big pile of money in order to, you know, think for a living. (Right-wingers prefer the professions where you make big piles of money by thinking about offshoring red-state manufacturing jobs to Red China.)

Oh, sure. The professor professes his innonce in the next few paragraphs; how he isn't really indoctrinating the demonic offspring of the ghastly right-wingers. But don't be fooled. Those are empty howls attempting to cover up the overflowing gloating. But the "lecturer and second-rate dork", as Kate calls him, should not be underestimated; there are millions like him, and they are all over the educational system.

We are sending our children to a leftist indoctrination camp for the best part of the young lives. Beginning in kindergarten, they are being exposed to a continuous stream of leftist indoctrination.

This situation should not stand. We are, in fact, fighting the war of ideas with an enormous disadvantage; a twenty-year disadvantage as a matter of fact. The privatization--the real privatization--of education should be the first priority of the right-wing movements in the Western World. Without it, the leftist domination will continue, our societies weakening year by year....

And the enemy without slowly enters the gate, and their strenght builds up inside.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 10:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Warming up to Netanyahu

I've said before I wasn't sure Binyamin Netanyahu was the man to lead the Israeli Likud Party. But considering leftist newspapers hate the move, I'm suddenly warming up to his candidacy: Press thumbs down for Netanyahu

The announcement by Binyamin Netanyahu that he will challenge Ariel Sharon for the leadership of Israel's governing Likud party leaves newspapers distinctly unimpressed.
Several commentators believe it is bad news for Likud and raise doubts about Mr Netanyahu's political credentials and the calibre of his supporters.

Some also question why Mr Netanyahu waited until after Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip - which he criticised - before making his move.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 8:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 30, 2005

Benedict XVI Meets Oriana Fallaci

It seems the Pope might yet see the light. His instincts are good: whenever he is not being "handled", his instinct is to defend Christianity--and Western Civilization--with passion.

This is, it should be noted, a great victory for Lady Fallaci. If only she had her health!

Here is the relevant link: POPE: MET ORIANA FALLACI IN STRICT SECRECY ON SATURDAY

(AGI) - Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Aug 30 - There has been a private meeting at Castel Gandolfo between Pope Benedict XVI and Oriana Fallaci. The secret meeting took place last Saturday, where the writer, who has been ill for some time and has for some time made it known to some priest friends, from the USA where she lives for most of the year, the wish to meet the Pope. There is utmost secrecy over the length and content of the meeting. Even though, according to Corriere della Sera's web site - the central point was the position of the West in relation to Islam, or the possible dialogue between the Christian world and the Muslim one in the light of widespread acts of fundamentalism on the part of the latter. For some time, as is known, Fallaci has conducted a sort of "crusade" in defence of the West and its civilisation, threatened in her words by Islamic fundamentalism.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 10:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Terror Threats in South Africa

Yesterday, Reuters announced that Al Qaeda operatives may be seeking refuge in South Africa. At the end of the 1990's, there were several bombings by the organisation Qibla (named after the direction in which one prays to Mecca), and its associate vigilante group PAGAD. There were several bomb incidents then in the Western Cape area, with Planet Hollywood and other commercial venues attacked.

These incidents died down, South Africa's "Scorpions" seized much of PAGAD's computer equipment, and after the trial of members accused of killing a judge, the activities of these groups diminished. However, their legal front continued, in the form of a group called MAGO (Muslims Against Global Oppression). As late as August 2004, they openly sold items praising Osama bin Laden in their offices.

However, the recent report by Reuters is more disturbing. PAGAD/Qibla/MAGO were homegrown concerns, with a very low profile internationally. Now Al-Qaeda operatives are believed to be hiding in this region, and plotting to set up more networks in the region, according to Ronnie Kasrils, SA's intelligence minister.

Kasrils stated:

"There are groups in Africa that claim to be part of al Qaeda and other structures," Ronnie Kasrils told delegates at an African naval conference in Cape Town.

"They have been seeking refuge in this part of the continent, but it is not just a question of seeking refuge, it is also quite possibly attempting to set up networks," he said.

The suspected organiser of the 7/7 london bombings, Haroun Rashid Aswat, had fled to Zambia, on the day before the London bombs were detonated. For more info, see our archives.

According to yesterday's report from Reuters:

South Africa has been under international scrutiny after officials raised concern that forged South African identity papers were falling into the hands of extremists, who might find them easier to use than those from their home countries.

With developed financial and banking links with the West and a large, multi-racial population, South Africa is also seen by security analysts as possible base of operations for such groups.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 5:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bangladesh Updates

Several stories coming from Bangladesh, none of them encouraging:

Prominent cleric arrested: (There is always a prominent cleric or two involved, isn't it?)

Iran and Bangladesh strenghten trade ties: (Why is the allegedly moderate Islamic regime in Bangladesh getting cozy with the mad mullahs?)

More shooting at the India-Bangladesh border: (This can't be good for bilateral relations, whatever really happenned.)

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 3:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Dealing With Acts of Man

It will be nice to know exactly why the West has come to its precarious political situation; the loss of confidence, the demographic collapse, the open treason that goes unpunished. But first, we must stop the collapse, and get up on our feet. Mark Steyn reflects on our paralysis: Acts of God we can handle: it's man's actions that leave us stumped

The real problems are the non-events - the things that aren't sudden but gradual, the frog-in-the-slow-boiling-water stuff. It's not just that we don't notice the slow-boil threats, but that, insofar as we do take the long view, we obsess on utterly fictional dangers.
Jared Diamond currently has a bestselling book called Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. A timely subject, so I bought a copy. More fool me. It's all about Easter Island going belly up because they chopped down all their trees. That's why they're not a G8 member. Same with the Greenlanders and the Mayans and Diamond's other curious choices of "societies". Indeed, as the author sees it, pretty much every society collapses because it chops down its trees.

Poor old Diamond can't see the forest because of his obsession with the trees. Russia is collapsing and it's nothing to do with deforestation. Conversely, Diamond's book is a huge bestseller with those who see it as a warning on the perils of excessive consumerism - even though, in fact, America returns land to the wilderness every year, and my own town is far more forested than it was in either 1905 or 1805. Diamond's book couldn't be any loopier than if he'd argued that deforestation of Arabia was responsible for September 11.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 10:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 29, 2005

Inverted Morality Roundup #1

From time to time, I will doing a roundup of outrageous news items, that show how sick our societies are. May they be healed soon:

Babalu points to an story right from Through the Looking Glass: Judge Doesn't Know Whether Bay of Pigs Invasion was "Terrorist Act"

CIA documents also show the spy agency trained Posada in 1961 to participate in the failed Bay of Pigs (search) invasion of Cuba. Immigration Judge William Abbott last month asked lawyers in the case to prepare briefs on whether the invasion was a terrorist act.

Angry in the Great White North (via Michelle Malkin ), points to several unhinged comments by New York Representative Charles Rangel; here's the introduction:

New York State Representative Charles Rangel, who said the war in Iraq was "as bad as the Holocaust" and tried to re-introduce the draft, has added medical doctor to his résumé, along with professor of comparative history and military recruitment expert, diagnosing the vice-president, Dick Cheney, on the basis of the vice-president's voice.

"Reverend" Jesse Jackson sides with the enemy, again: Treason as a Sport

The U.S. civil rights leader met Hugo Chavez in private at the presidential palace on Monday, saying beforehand that he hoped to help ease tensions aggravated last week by Pat Robertson's suggestion that Chavez ought to be killed.
"We must make it clear that talk of isolating Venezuela, talk of assassinating its leader, this is unacceptable, and it must be denounced roundly by our president and by our secretary of state," Jackson told The Associated Press in an interview shortly before meeting Chavez.

"The U.S. and Venezuelan leadership must have a detente on rhetoric. That exacerbates tensions," Jackson told the AP. "We need to have a cooling down of divisive rhetoric."

Chavez, a close ally of Cuban leader
Fidel Castro who frequently criticizes what he calls U.S. domination of Latin America, said Sunday night that his government could ask the Washington to extradite Robertson to Venezuela for suggesting U.S. agents kill him.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 5:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saudi Clerics: Football "un-Islamic"

I'm sure every other weblog out there will be over this story, but I just can't help myself. Don't miss what the so-called scholars urge the Saudi youth to do instead of football: Saudi clerics declare football un-Islamic

LAHORE: Ulema in Saudia Arabia have issued a fatwa (religious decree) declaring football an un-Islamic sport, and have urged the youth to quit it immediately, BBC radio reported on Saturday.
According to the report, the clerics urged the youth to indulge in jihad and other constructive activities that could help the Muslim ummah, the radio reported. The ulema argued that football wastes a lot of time and the participants wear shorts, which they said was an un-Islamic dress, the radio reported.

Following the decree, some players of the famous Taif Football Club have quit the game, the report added.

Although, heck, maybe the Ulemas have a point. This cannot be Islamic:

Neither can this:

Speaking of which, I wonder what the Ulemas think of this other sport:

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 5:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Islam, the West and the Allegiance Option

"I am driven to the conclusion that no scientific definition of a nation can be devised if the phenomenon has existed and exists." Hugh Seton-Watson, University of London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies.

No possible scientific definition? But would a person be lost without this scientific definition? How did a Briton, a Tibetan, an Irishman, an Innuit, a Gypsy, or an American respectively identify himself before professor Seton-Watson finalized his opinion? A nation is indeed a phenomenon. It is a collection of people, ideas and history all intricately related to each other. This is not to be confused with a state, which is a political entity within a defined geographical region. A nation can be stateless, such as the pre-1947 Israel of Jews throughout the world, or even further back into history toward the ancient Roman Empire, where for the Romans, a nation was an ethnically distinct enclave living within that Empire and subject to Roman laws. This should not be confused with government, which is a minority group of people within the state, empowered in some manner to rule over the people. A nation can be stateless yet have a government, such as the various relatively autonomous Native American tribes that have tribal leaderships who, on behalf of their members, conduct statelike businesses with the US government.

If it's about people, ideas and history, a nation then is an identity complex, an intellectual anchor for a person to differentiate himself from those whom he would considers others. If nature abhors a vacuum, then it's nothing unusual that a person's heart, mind and soul would quickly compel the person to fill the void within. The need to identify with a group and to have a sense of belonging fosters feelings of nationalism and patriotism. The next logical step for the group is to identify elements unique to itself to distinguish the group from the "others". These can range from cultural sources such as cuisine or the artistic to political doctrines.

Aristotle (384-322 BCE) stated: "Man is by nature a political animal." Politics is often described as a relationship between a citizen, his state and his government due to his natural curiosity. But more accurately, politics, or rather meaningful politics, exists the moment a person is in some form of engagement with another human being. Politics then naturally exists between husbands and wives, between parents and children, between neighbors, between co-workers...Effectively, politics exists the moment any organization of any size is created either on purpose or by chance. This means a nation isn't and shouldn't merely be a sense of personal cultural identity and unity, but also of political solidarity.

Political solidarity in this sense doesn't mean lockstep agreement with everything the government or the state sets forth as national policy. It means that despite the various disagreements among the members of organization, from a family to the nation, all those who disagree share the same fundamental political beliefs that are intimate to the social fabric of the nation. Parents may disagree which college to send their child, but they are unanimous about the need for higher education. It's about shared fundamentalism in the execution of political power, from among the littlest communities to the relationships between a citizen and the government. For the democratic Western nation-states, it is because of this sense of political solidarity that a citizen whose candidate lost an election does not take up arms in retributive anger. Instead, the citizen chose to have faith that his ideological opponent will still act in the best interests of the people and will wait until the next period to exercise electoral vengeance. A democrat cannot co-exist with a monarchist. Their fundamental beliefs in the execution of political power are too radically different from each other, and those differences demand either physical separation from each other or, conflict until separation or the elimination of one: War. Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), Prussian general and strategist, declared that war "is merely the continuation of policy by other means."

War is more a state of mind than a state of physical being or action. It's an attitude of hostility toward an enemy. When nation-states send their military forces into battle, the correct technical term for that state of physical actuality is "armed conflict". For over half of the 20th century, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were at war against each other, without firing a shot at each other. History records that era as The Cold War. The two great powers were hostile to each other. They employed proxies to do battles on their behalf, as evident in the most famous of the Cold War's proxy battles: The Viet Nam War. Their fundamental beliefs, with so little in common from politics to the economy, automatically defined each other as each other's enemy. In essence, the greater the ideological contrast between the Western alliance and the Soviet bloc, the greater the ease in what each other simply "IS", to inevitably define the other as the enemy, without requiring much elaboration.

Dictionaries define a dichotomy as a division into two usually contradictory halves.

In Islam, there exists two worlds: Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb. Islam made it unequivocally clear to its followers that there exist two worlds: The Abode of Submission and the Abode of War. The latter is also called Dar al-Kufr, The Abode of Unbelief. This dichotomy is without qualifications for the believers. It simply "IS". Islam demands absolute obedience to this dichotomy. Cat Stevens, a popular British singer-songwriter of the "free love" generation of the 1960s and 1970s, after his conversion and adoption of the name Yusuf Islam in 1977, repudiated everything the West believed in and, in perfect obedience to the dichotomy dictated by Islam, supported the religious fiat calling for the death of writer Salman Rushdie, who wrote a mocking novel about Islam's prophet, Muhammad. The death fatwa was issued by Iran's religious overlord Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900-1989). That novel was The Satanic Verses (1988) and in 1999 Rushdie commented that Islam was 'the least huggable of all faiths'. Rushdie was of the same group of people as Stevens was, whom the West relied upon to keep itself honest, that the West protected with various constitutional rights, and that the public have a love-hate relationship with: Intellectuals and artists.

Cat Stevens, aka Yusuf Islam, isn't the only one for whom this dichotomy is absolute. The murder of Dutchman Theo van Gogh (1957-2004) for his critical and negative portrayal of Islam in his films is another example. He was murdered in broad daylight and in full view of witnesses. The purposely chosen time and place emphasized the brazen contempt that his Muslim killer had for the West. Sergeant Hasan Akbar, born Mark Fidel Kools, of the US Army's elite 101st Airborne, in Mar. 2003 attacked his fellow soldiers and killed two officers. And recently, some British Muslims killed some of their fellow citizens in commanded disregard of national allegiance. Less dramatic but equally problematic was the attempt by Muslim activists to have Salman Rushdie's book, The Satanic Verses, with its derogatory portrayal of Muhammad, banned under Britain's arcane and archaic 17th century blasphemy laws. Each incident taken alone can be explained away as personal aberrations and incidental. However, taken together, these incidents (and the many less publicized ones) indicate a consistent behavioral pattern; the willingness of individual Muslims to cast aside national allegiances in favor of loyalty to a transnational religious body called the Ummah. In the case of the British subway bombings, those British Muslims conducted a coordinated attack on other British citizens, in the belief that the national body called Britain was inflicting grievous harm upon the Islamic Ummah.

Expressions of loyalty to the Ummah aren't confined to supplanting national allegiances with Islamic devotion. When Malaysia's Mahathir bin Mohamad, Prime Minister 1981-2003, opined that Jews rule the world by proxy, and insinuated the agents are the Western nation-states, he quite tacitly confirmed that he was merely a mouthpiece for whatever the Ummah chooses as belief for its followers, and Malaysian Muslims obeyed. What harm has any Jew done to any Malay Muslim? Or had any Malay Muslim even met a Jew? How could it be possible, when Malaysian laws banned Israelis and Jews from entering Malaysia, as evidenced in 1989, when Miron Bleiberg, an Australian Jew and Melbourne's soccer team's coach, was denied a visa? Steven Spielberg's film Schindler's List (1993), a film that portrayed Jews in a sympathetic position, is deemed Zionist propaganda and banned from Malaysia. Malay Chinese are the real life influences upon Malaysia as they are the minority, yet are still the majority wealth holders and generators. But it is the Jews who were singled out in a speech for an Arab Muslim audience.

So how are nation-states that have defined borders, functioning governments, distinct cultural interests, and generally amicable relations with each other, to make sense of an ideology that divides the world into a simplistic division of "The House of Islam" and "The House of War"? Is there "The House of Britain" and "The House of War"? When there were fishing rights disputes between the United States and Canada, did "The House of America" send a naval battle group to intimidate the "Dar al-Kufr" of Canada? How are they to make sense of the political solidarity of "The House of Islam", the global Islamic ummah, in relation to "The House of War", which is clearly who else but them, those nation-states? Remember that war is simply hostile intent, not military expeditions. How are these largely secular nation-states to make sense of a community of believers for whom religious consciousness acquired socio-legal connotations and often inhumanely doctrinaire in its interpretations and applications? Remember the Taliban of Afghanistan who forbade male physicians to treat women, yet also denied women the educational opportunities to be literate, let alone become physicians. Or is it now worthwhile for the Western nation-states to remember the lessons of The Cold War and critically examine Islam for its contrast with the West, and the demands upon its followers?

These are the values that the West fought The Cold War against the Soviets for most of the 20th century: Freedom of expression, basic human rights, and capitalism. These are just a few of many other evolving values that greatly contributed to the overall progress and prosperity of the West: gender discrimination issues, the separation of religion and state, or scientific education. All together, these values created a culture that is progressive and opportunistic for every member. If an ethos benefitted the members in some manners, and which hasn't(?), then by virtue of those benefits, that culture deserves respect, allegiance and protection. Perhaps professor-historian Seton-Watson is correct when he states that it is not possible to scientifically explain the phenomenon of "the nation", and by extension, nationalism and patriotism. There exist "hard" elements such as political institutions or an economic system. But how is a German able to explain the cultural affinity he has for an all-brass oompah band as well as some of Germany's world class orchestras? Jazz music is an American art form, and widely celebrated throughout the world. How is it possible that the Latin American culture that produced the fantastic tango also produced the comical macarena? Combine the "hard" variables such as political institutions and economics with the "soft" variables such as the artistic and the emotive attachments and a "nation" exists.

Cultures are generally dynamic, but do not adopt elements that would lead to their destruction. Rearranging one's furniture under the direction of a feng shui practitioner is merely superstitious and faddish. But the thousand years old Buddhist statues of Afghanistan were destroyed because their existence was "insulting to Islam". Would The Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, USA, suffer the same fate? Yes. Would Cat Stevens, aka Yusuf Islam, who supported the death fatwa for Salman Rushdie, support a death fatwa for the Marsalis brothers of jazz music fame? Probably. Would the opera Carmen be banned? Definitely. During the trial of the forementioned Sgt. Hasan Akbar, it was revealed that long before the attack of 9/11, in a 1997 diary entry, Akbar wrote that "My life would not be complete unless America is destroyed." When his unit was planned for deployment to Iraq, Akbar accused "you guys", meaning the US infidels, of going over to Iraq to "rape our women and kill our children." Who is implied by this word "our"? To be an NCO means to have been in uniform for at least a few years, and this is an elite division of the US Army, whose additional training, physical and mental hardships are designed to reject less capable men. Had Akbar seen any training program in the US military that sanctioned rape?

Cat Stevens and Hasan Akbar made clear their allegiances and political solidarity after their conversions, i.e to the global Islamic Ummah. In Ethnoecology: The Relevance of Cognitive Anthropology for Human Ecology, author Eugene Hunn stated: "...culture concept must address not only what is formally appropriate, but also what is ecologically effective." Hunn doesn't mean nature ecology but the human sort, and that: "...culture is what one must know to act effectively in one's environment." The corollary to this is that one must also learn and know what is NOT appropriate and NOT acceptable as well. Values can be categorized into two main camps: Intrinsic and instrumental. Intrinsic is defined as basic and essential to the nature of something. Patriotism is a value intrinsic to a nation, history is another. An instrumental value can also be considered an expedient value, and is temporary, such as an economic system or a social policy. Communism as an economic model failed miserably and was discarded. Affirmative action, a social policy, is under review. Sometimes an instrumental value evolved to intrinsic status. Gender and race discrimination issues were such social evolutions. If insufficient patriotism exists, that is, the people no longer feel any passion for continual association with a group identity complex, the nation dies. The United States can still exist as a functional state, but it would be a different society if women are reduced to secondary citizen status and blacks are reenslaved. The net effect of an intrinsic value strikes at the soul of the society and the individual.

Stevens and Akbar rejected that which is appropriate and acceptable of Western values and embraced what is appropriate and acceptable to the Islamic Ummah. Both men grew up within the Western traditions so it is impossible for them not to know that one set of value system is the antithesis of the other. The Western culture and its continuing evolving ethos have provided them with rights, freedoms and opportunities unprecedented in history. The Western nation-states made an alliance that protected them and their rights, freedoms and opportunities from the monster of communism. The West have also expended a great deal of intellectual effort to understand and counter the monster of communism. Now it is no less valid and urgent that the West must expend the same level of intellectual effort to critically examine Islam and to reject any cultural elements that would lead to the destruction of the West as a cultural system.

Posted by Xingzhe at 9:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Reflections on Civilizational Despair

Reading this column by Mark Steyn, the following line jumped at me:

I don't mean that we're all going to be gay the day after tomorrow--quite the opposite, actually: we're more likely to all be Muslim.

He's right of course. If the West continues on its demographic death spiral, if we continue "enjoying" life (I'm not sure we enjoy much of anything), instead of living it, if retirement communities--no children allowed--become the symbol of our civilization, the symbol will soon be empty. It is quite simple really; if majority group A has vastly fewer children than minority group B, group B will sooner or later replace group A as the majority group. I've brought this in conversation, in both 'real life' and cyberspace and I've never seen so many bright people run faster from a topic, let alone acknowledge the problem.

Why should a simple mathematical truth turn even mathematical savants, into political know-nothings?

Oh, we know the answer: it is not polite to bring this topic. You see, talking about it may lead us to take action, and any action we could possibly take is bound to violate one of our sacred values, which we ought not even dare bend a little, even though they got us into this mess. And so the cycle goes on; I, or some other socially impaired individual, brings up the topic, everybody else puts their hands on their ears, and goes "lah, lah, lah, laaah!"

No matter. My social skills won't be getting any better.

Now, let's go back to Mark Steyn.

Mr. Steyn mentions 'we are more likely to all be Muslim', as a throw-away line, almost as an unchanging truth. He is, of course, a columnist, and that's their job. What worries me is that such attitude, understandable in a columnist, seems to be the norm in our societies at large. "Oh, Europe is likely to become majority Muslim by 2100? Luckily, I'll be dead." Or take this one, which I've actually heard; "I don't have children because I want to save the planet, besides, having children is hard."

Listen, having children is hard. But so is partying night-to-morning every weekend in your early thirties because, you know, you have to enjoy life. And when you get older, let me tell you; bingo is not all that is cracked up to be.

Finally, allow me some outright preachiness: our civilization must survive. There is too much greatness, too much goodness in it, that we should let it die. We should find a way to save it, and if there is not a way, we should make it. We should reflect on what has gone wrong, and fix the problem. Our children, should we choose to have them, will thank us for it.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 7:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 28, 2005

Another Web Forum Sabotaged

At around 5pm GMT, the forum of another web organisation encouraging apostasy has been sabotaged. Like FFI, Apostates of Islam had been happily minding its own business, with a forum that has been in existence for two years without disruption. The site-saboteurs claimed to be from "Gay Nigger Association of America", who have this website. One of the saboteurs bragged that he had been paid twenty dollars to do his attack, but I somehow doubt this organisation was responsible.

The saboteurs at FFI who firstly tried to insinuate themselves onto the forum claimed in thread titles that certain Islamic sites had been attacked. All of these organisations were UK-based Islamic groups, and I personally suspect that affiliates of ex-Al-Muhajiroun organisations, who specialise in the recruitment of drug-addict, ex-prisoner low-lifes to their cause, as being indirectly or directly responsible. Some claimed to be part of an organisation called Somalilit, but I think they are UK-based. At least they see a need to remove discussion forums from websites. The Apostates of Islam forum had little traffic upon its line, though its web traffic increased as numerous FFI members moved while Faith Freedom's forum had been temporarily disabled. Maybe because they did not have too many postings to deal with before, they did not have a moderator in charge.

The same images of diarrhoea, facial, penile and vaginal mutilation and injury, faces ripped off from heads, bodies dismembered by train wrecks and assorted medical horrors were used in the attack.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 3:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

"Islam in Action" in Dagestan

The warriors of Allah want it all; all the territory they can get, that is: Russian Train Derailed by Blast

A bomb planted near railroad tracks has derailed a passenger train in Russia's southern republic of Dagestan.
Two rail cars and the locomotive derailed about 11 p.m. Moscow time Saturday night near the border with Chechnya. The train was traveling from Makhachkala to Astrakhan.

BBC News dares use the "M" word; Muslim: Dagestan train derailed by blast

An explosion derailed a passenger train in Russia's southern Dagestan region but caused no injuries, say reports.
The train was travelling to the capital Makhachkala from the Caspian port of Astrakhan when the blast happened at 2300 local time (1900 GMT).

The locomotive and two carriages came off the track in the Khasavyurt region.

Dagestan, which borders Chechnya, is an ethnically diverse mainly Muslim region with a history of violence by both rebel groups and criminal gangs.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 1:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 27, 2005

The Value of Life - Conflicting Standards in Islamic Society

Today I came across two stories of tragedy, in different parts of the world, which only make me wonder: what really is the value of life in Islamic societies?

The first story is sad, but not horrific. It comes from today's UK newspaper, the Guardian. It concerns an 86 year old man living in Scotland, who is critically ill. A month ago, he had a heart attack whilst on a visit to Pakistan. His condition has since deteriorated. Doctors on his case have decided that though he should receive food and fluids, should he go into cardiac arrest, or coma, he should not be resuscitated. The family have argued on religious grounds that he should be kept alive, but in a court appeal, their requests have been rejected.

One of the man's sons had told the judge earlier in the hearing that according to the Islamic faith it was imperative for doctors to protect life.
"If the available medicine can protect life then it must. Death is in the hands of God. Any withdrawal of life support would be tantamount to murder," he said.

.
The other story, which I gleaned from Jewish World Review is truly horrific. A Palestinian mother has murdered her daughter in a suburb of Ramallah. Even though raped by her brothers and made pregnant, the girl was seen as an object of shame, and therefore, she had to die. Her mother demanded she commit suicide, but the girl resisted. Ma took care of the situation, and in a brutal degrading manner.

Amira Abu Hanhan Qaoud had given her teenage daughter a razor, so she could slash her wrists voluntarily. But that did not persuade the girl, Rofayda, to commit suicide.

Armed with a plastic bag, razor and wooden stick, Qaoud entered her sleeping daughter's room last Jan. 27. "Tonight you die, Rofayda," she told the girl, before wrapping the bag tightly around her head. Next, Qaoud sliced Rofayda's wrists, ignoring her muffled pleas of "No, mother, no!" After her daughter went limp, Qaoud struck her in the head with the stick.

Killing her sixth-born child took 20 minutes, Qaoud tells a visitor through a stream of tears and cigarettes that she smokes in rapid succession. "She killed me before I killed her," says the 43-year-old mother of nine. "I had to protect my children. This is the only way I could protect my family's honor."
The guilty brothers are in jail.

The report states that the mother spent four months in jail, and while her case undergoes review, she is now at home. The sons aged 20 and 22, are serving a minimum 10 years' jail for the crime. Rofayda gave birth to a boy at a hospital in Bethlehem, and the child has since been adopted.

So how can it be right for one man who is approaching death to be expected to be kept alive on religious grounds, yet it is more "honorable" to expect a raped teenager to commit suicide, and to be murdered when she refuses? Both are Muslim, both are supposed to follow the teachings laid down in the Holy Book, the Koran, and its interpreted meanings, as laid down in the Hadith.

Suicide is a sin in Islamic ideology. When two suicide bombers were arrested in London recently, they were on a high balcony of an apartment block. To avoid being interrogated, they could have jumped, and killed themselves. After all, they had planned to do away with their own lives (and those of others). They did not wish to die through suicide, because then the gates of Paradise would not have been opened for them.

In the case of the Pakistani man from Scotland, his family insisted it was a religious right for his life to be kept going. I do not begrudge them that desire at all. I understand the desire to prolong the life of a loved one. I hope they find peace within their sad situation.

But the poor girl's feelings were never even considered. Her soul was expendable. By committing suicide, she would have denied her soul the right to Heavenly reward. By being murdered, she was denied the most basic of human rights, the right to life.

The JWR report states that in Israel there have been 18 such killings over the past three years, and in 2002 alone there were 31 recorded cases of honour killings in areas under Palestinian jurisdiction. In the case of the Qaoud family, one of her three children who remain at home stated:

"My mother did this because she does not want us to be punished by people," Fatima explains with a shy smile. Leaning into Qaoud's arms, the little girl adds: "I love my mother much more now than before."

.
It is a contradictory state of affairs, where the lives of girls are seen to be lower than the lives of boys. I doubt if the Qaoud family's supporters will wish to see the two adult sons, who committed the crime that initiated this tragedy, murdered in the same way as Rofayda. The victim of abuse is made to suffer the ultimate penalty, but those whose actions led to her death are male. In Iran, a girl can be legally executed (and be married) at age 9, but boys do not get the legal punishment of execution until they are 15.

Until such situations are challenged or reversed, I will never truly believe that people in Islamic societies who follow their traditions really have much respect for life at all.

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Ayatollah - "Britain is a Police State"

This bit of light relief comes from today's Telegraph. Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, while holding Friday prayers at Tehran university, used the occasion to inform worshippers of the terrible conditions that people had to endure if they lived in Britain, which he described as a "police state", where living conditions were worse than the jungle.

"Day by day, corruption, tyranny, felony, insecurity and different dangers are attacking human society," he said. "Just look at the fight against terrorism in Britain.
"All gatherings are under the microscope. People should know they are being watched.

"In cinemas, parks, streets and even in the railway stations, cameras are watching."

He described such conditions as leading to an insecurity that even a jungle animal does not have to endure.

Some saying along the lines of "pot" and "kettle" and "black" springs to mind.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 10:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Basayev the Bloodthirsty Rejoins Chechen "Government"

The only liberty Chechen Muslim "rebels" want is the liberty to murder school children. That's the best explanation I can find for this story: Shamil Basayev Rejoins Rebel Government

MOSCOW - Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who claimed responsibility for last year's deadly school seizure in southern Russia and other devastating terrorist attacks, has rejoined the rebel government as deputy prime minister, a statement said Friday on a pro-Chechen Web site.
Analysts said the move reflected the rebels' desire to regroup following the killing this spring of their leader, Aslan Maskhadov, and that the new separatists' new government included the most radical warlords.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 8:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

FFI Forum Now Temporarily Closed

The test forum at Faith Freedom International started well enough, but became invaded by guests who managed to bypass the registration procedures, and then descended into chaos as Islamic "activists" showed great immaturity by bombarding the forum with graphic images of mutilations, coprophilia, and genital injuries. A tactic that hardly put them onto any moral high ground, and was childish and vicious at best. One image-poster decided to log himself in as Ali Sina, founder of FFI. Anyone who saw his posted images would know this could never be the work of Dr Sina.

Even registered users asserted that they would rather see the forum closed down than be continued in this manner, and at 9.30 am GMT, the plug was pulled on the test forum. Hopefully the lessons learned in this test will have been acted upon when the forum returns. A sad and salutary lesson in how a forum can be hijacked by saboteurs, unless some form of self-regulation and vigilant policing is enforced.

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August 26, 2005

36 Bodies Dumped in Iraq

In the central eastern region of Iraq, 36 bodies of men, partially clothed, have been discovered. Found at Areda, 30 miles west of Kut, the men had been shot in the head, in execution style, and had been handcuffed. Police said that the bodies had been there for four or five days. The quoted report is from the BBC

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Scotland - Man Guilty of Showing Iraqi Beheading Video

Subhaan Younis, aged 23, has been found guilty in Glasgow District Court of showing a woman a video of an Iraqi man having his head sawn off. The video footage, which Younis had downloaded off the internet, was played to the woman via a mobile phone. He was found guilty of "Breaching the Peace". His sentence will follow after background reviews on him have been made.

The article, by BBC Scotland, can be found here. Younis had shown hotel worker Charlotte McClay the images at the Moathouse Hotel.

She said: "Not for a minute did I expect to see anything like that. It shocked me."

Stipendiary magistrate Euan Edment told Younis: "This woman would not expect you to show her such graphic and abhorrent images.

"This is not the sort of thing you expect to come across in your day-to-day life."

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Faith Freedom Forum "Returns"

Faith Freedom International, which has been shifted to a new server due to its unprecedented popularity, (see here), has restarted its forum. This new forum is so far only a "test" forum, and has not yet regained its backlog of postings, links, etc. There has been a certain amount of chaos as it reopened, and so far the censoring of text has not been in place, nor does there seem to be any moderator controlling it.

There have been messages of personal abuse, and even one or two instances of foul language, but hopefully these problems will become ironed out soon. We will endeavour to keep you informed of developments.

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BBC Panorama Transcript

There is no need for me to write a review on the BBC programme "A Question of Leadership", which was broadcast on Sunday 21 August. The BBC have provided their own transcript. Before you start reading it, maybe you should look at the three articles written before and after it was broadcast, reproduced here on August 16th, on August 21st, and August 22nd.

These document the reactions by senior members of the Muslim Council for Britain, widely publicised at that time. Then compare them with the transcript, which proves that their accusations were entirely false, and unfounded distractions from the real message of the programme.

Please read the BBC's TRANSCRIPT.

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The Height of Depravity

Please read this article: Anti-War Protests Target Wounded at Army Hospital

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the current home of hundreds of wounded veterans from the war in Iraq, has been the target of weekly anti-war demonstrations since March. The protesters hold signs that read "Maimed for Lies" and "Enlist here and die for Halliburton."
The anti-war demonstrators, who obtain their protest permits from the Washington, D.C., police department, position themselves directly in front of the main entrance to the Army Medical Center, which is located in northwest D.C., about five miles from the White House.

Among the props used by the protesters are mock caskets, lined up on the sidewalk to represent the death toll in Iraq.

Code Pink Women for Peace, one of the groups backing anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford Texas, organizes the protests at Walter Reed as well.

Now, why would someone do something as depraved as taunting wounded soldiers? It is not as if the protests are effective; on the contrary, they're likely to originate backlash against the protesters, not the Army or the Iraq policy. Why would "Code Pink for Women" do something that absurd?

This is what I call "Sacred Thinking"; doing something not because you think it will serve a purpose, but because you think it is morally right. This is the same reason why I bow before the tomb of my Grandfather, or why I put my right hand on my heart when I hear the national anthem, whether someone is looking or not.

The height of depravity, then, lies not so much on their actions, but in their ethics, an ethics that considers not only morally right, but morally uplifting, to taunt your own wounded soldiers.

These people are the enemy.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 7:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Orthodox Jewish Student Killed near Wailing Wall.

A visiting student from Britain is dead, and his friend injured, after a Palestinian attacked them with a foot-long kitchen knife.

The report is in today's Daily Telegraph. Shmuel Mett was from Golders Green. He and Sammy Weisbart were attending a yeshiva, an Orthodox seminary, had been to pray at the Wailing Wall on Wednesday evening and taken a stroll through the streets of the Old City.

They were set upon by their assailant. Shmuel was stabbed in the stomach, while his companion was injured but was able to get to a police station 100 yards away. Shmuel Mett died while undergoing triage.

Schmuel Mett was only 22, and had been due to marry this October. Described by relatives and friends as clever, a brilliant student, charming and "smiley":

Mr Mett was a former pupil of Hasmonean High School, a Jewish grammar school in Hendon, north London, and Mr Weisbart was born in New York.

Friends said that at the age of 16 they both went to a specialist Jewish seminary in London called Chayei Olam, before furthering their studies at a yeshiva in Gateshead.

A spokesman for the Jewish Board of Deputies said: "This is a tragic and despicable crime.

"The board has sent its deepest commiserations to the family."

A tragic waste of a young life.

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August 25, 2005

UK Harbours Muslim Child-Killer

I normally ignore the Daily Mail as a source of original news, but this morning on my trip to the supermarket I saw this headline screaming out at me: Sneering Muslim bomber boasts You will never throw me out. I had to buy it.

There was a picture of a bearded man in white pyjamas and a grey jacket. What I read was disturbing. This individual, Yasser Al-Siri, was claiming that his lawyers had assured him that even under the terms of Charles Clarke's deportation criteria,( see below) he could never be kicked out of Britain, because he faces the death penalty in Egypt. Full article here.

What is more disturbing is that the man, originally from Egypt, had fled to British sanctuary because he had set off a bomb there, in which a six-year old girl was killed. Yasser Al-Siri is also wanted in the US. Because he will be executed if sent to Egypt, he has been allowed to walk around the streets of Maida Vale for a whole decade, living as a free man. How can representatives of my country have ever considered giving refuge to a child-murderer?

This is one of those few cases where I hope the average British male, so easily provoked to violence by paedophiles, finds out where this child-killer lives, and gives him the justice he truly deserves.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 1:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Fruits of Islam in American Prisons

I have one criticism of the article I'm about to quote; the "Islamic extremists" are absolutely right in their interpretation of the Koran: Radical Indoctrination in the U.S. Prisons

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 11:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Hugo Chavez Oil Game

There are still aftershocks from Pat Robertson's remarks that the United States should take out Hugo Chavez. Pat Robertson has since apologized. Perhaps we should use this moment to ask a fruitful question: what are Hugo Chavez's ambitions?

Let's look at his actions:

In Venezuela, he is consolidating power by arming his goons:

Mr Cabrices' 140-member-strong Popular Defence Unit trains weekends and weekday evenings in an empty parking lot in a middle-class Caracas neighbourhood called "The Paradise".
Rafael Cabrices believes the US is plotting to oust President Chavez
Cabrices heads a 140-member-strong Popular Defence Unit
The quiet street leading to the site is lined by homes, pre-schools and a hospital. On a warm evening, a group of about a dozen men and women in their 20s and 30s march stiffly to their corporal's commands of "Left, right, left".

Nearby, teenage boys and girls seated on the ground listen to their commander explain how 'imperialism' undermined Bolivar's revolution.

"The president is talking about" the threat of an invasion, "and the president doesn't talk foolishness," says Olimpia Hung, a cheery 44-year-old clothing merchant and impassioned Chavez supporter. "Fatherland or death."

A note to the innocent; the slogan "Fatherland or death" (Patria o muerte), is the same slogan with which Fidel Castro ends all his speeches to the Cuban people.

Chavez is also moving against private property:

The Venezuelan government has warned it will confiscate hundreds of private companies that are lying idle if they fail to re-open.
President Hugo Chavez said the firms' workers would be given help to set up co-operatives and re-start production for the benefit of the community.

He said the move was needed to fight poverty and end Venezuela's dependence on "the perverse model of capitalism".

He's using his undeserved oil wealth to buy influence: Venezuela signs Jamaica oil deal

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has signed a deal with Jamaica to supply it with oil at preferential rates.
Mr Chavez said his country, the world's fifth largest oil producer, was meeting the "call of conscience" by supplying cheap oil at a time of rising prices.

The agreement is part of a regional Petrocaribe initiative - proposed by Mr Chavez - to which most of the Caribbean countries have signed up.

Jamaica is the first to formalise its participation in the project.

Venezuela has been discussing similar deals with many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean in recent months.

(This is an incredibly short-sighted move by the Jamaican government. After the oil comes, the Communist agitators will follow.)

And finally, el loco Hugo is trying his hand at worldwide propaganda. (Notice the implicit delusion that CNN is somehow pro-America.) Venezuela sets up 'CNN rival'

In a popular shopping area of Caracas, with street musicians playing a bolero in the background, Jorge Botero is filming a promo for Latin America's most ambitious new satellite channel.
"Grabando," he shouts ("recording").

A young journalism student walks into shot and says: "The news on Telesur, the true face of Latin America."

Telesur is a new pan-Latin American TV channel based in Venezuela. It aims to rival CNN and the other Spanish-language news channels coming out of Miami and Atlanta.

Some have already dubbed it Al-Bolivar - a combination of the Arabic news channel, Al-Jazeera, and President Hugo Chavez's favourite independence hero.

The truth is there, for those who wish to see it. Hugo Chavez is a Communist dictator. He is working to foment Communist revolution in the rest of America. He is a vicious, unstable killer who will not be stopped by nice words. The United States needs to wake up from its paralisis, soon.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 10:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Faith Freedom International Moves to New Home

Ali Sina's FFI has had to find a new host as the previous one did not have the capacity to handle the volume of activity. http://www.faithfreedom.org/

Ali Sina is an Iranian ex-muslim living in the west, who has been very effective in his online debates with muslim intellectuals. His challenge to the world is "Prove my charges against Islam and its Prophet Muhammad wrong, and I will remove this site and pay $50,000." Challenge that Muhammad was a fake and a criminal mass murderer

His forum owes its success to leaving it mostly uncensored, (within reason) allowing muslims and non-muslims to argue and debate a wide range of topics from religion to terrorism in relation to Islam.

While the front page is functioning normally he is having temporary difficulties setting up the forum.

In the meantime, members of FFI have started posting on a forum with similar aims at Apostates of Islam.
apostates of islam

Posted by at 2:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 24, 2005

Was Suspected Mastermind of 7/7 Bombings Employed by MI6?

In yesterday's New Criminologist.co.uk, an extraordinary claim is made that Haroon Rashid Aswat, the suspected mastermind behind the London bombings, was a double agent, claiming to inform on Islamist terrorism to MI6, while still pursuing his extra-curricular activities as a terrorist.

The claims are made by John Loftus, a US terrorism expert and former prosecutor for the US Justice Department. This is not the first time Loftus has aired these opinions - on 29 July, he appeared on Fox News Channel's Day Side show, and gave a similar account.

Haroon Rashid Aswat was recently apprehended in Zambia for immigration irregularities. He had arrived only a day before the London Transport bomb atrocities were carried out. He was questioned by US and UK officials, and then deported back to Britain, arriving at Northolt airport on 7 August, from where he was taken to high-security Paddington Green police station. He grew up in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, home also of Mohammad Sidique Khan, the key figure in the bombing cell that committed the 7/7 attacks upon London Transport passengers.

An account of Aswat's arrest is given in the 8 Aug edition of The Times. He was already under threat of deportation to the United States for his role in setting up a terrorist training camp in Bly, Oregon. Aswat, born in 1975, has not seen his parents for 10 years, but he was involved with Abu Hamza al-Masri, the now-detained hook-handed preacher from the infamous Finsbury Park Mosque. Aswat is believed to have been intimately involved with the setting up of the Al-Muhajiroun radical organisation, which split a year ago to become the Saviour Sect and its co-partner Al-Ghuraaba.

John Loftus is quoted in the New Criminologist article as stating:

"...back in the late 1990s, the leaders all worked for British intelligence in Kosovo. Believe it or not, British intelligence actually hired some Al-Qaeda guys to help defend the Muslim rights in Albania and in Kosovo. That's when Al-Muhajiroun got started."

In a blistering attack on MI6 John Loftus went on to spell out that British Intelligence and the US Dept of Justice had protected Haroon Rashid Aswat:

"Back in 1999 he came to America. The Justice Department wanted to indict him in Seattle because him and his buddy were trying to set up a terrorist training school in Oregon... we've just learned that the headquarters of the US Justice Department ordered the Seattle prosecutors not to touch Aswat... apparently Aswat was working for British intelligence."

Loftus added: "what's really embarrassing is that the entire British police are out chasing him, and one wing of the British government, MI6 or the British Secret Service, has been hiding him. And this has been a real source of contention between the CIA, the Justice Department, and Britain ......he is a double agent."

The New York Times published an article on 29 July 2005, which detailed how Aswat managed to elude detention while US and UK government officials were colluding on information-sharing, but the full article now costs $3.95 to retrieve, should you wish to purchase it.

CNN.com are more generous, and clicking the link will produce an article entitled: "UK blocked bomb plotter arrest". The report, published on 28 July, appears to corroborate the gist of Loftus' argument, though not his direct claims about MI6.

About a month before the July 7 bombings in London, British authorities balked at giving U.S. officials permission to apprehend a man now believed to have ties to the bombers, according to sources familiar with the investigation....U.S. authorities had asked South Africa if they could take Aswat into custody. South Africa relayed the request to Britain, but authorities there balked because he was a British citizen, the sources said. While the debate was ongoing, Aswat slipped away.

The article was a fuller account of one CNN had given a day earlier. On 20 July, CNN published a further article about Aswat's links to the Oregon plot.

A full transcript of John Loftus' conversation on Fox News Channel can be found at Alex Jones' infowars.net, and a blogsite discussion about Aswat can be found here on spy.org.uk.

I am perplexed and intrigued by this case, but at least I know one thing of which Haroon Rashid Aswat is unmistakeably guilty - he is ugly as sin.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 8:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Mufti of Australia is an "Extremist"

Australia is facing many of the same problems as other Western liberal nations in its battle with Islamic extremists deliberately trying to alter the host nation's policies to accord with their own narrow perspectives.

I never knew there was a "Mufti of Australia", but apparently there is, and his name is Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilaly. The Aussie Mufti lays spiritual claim upon the nation's 300,000+ muslim population. While Australian Treasurer Peter Costello has been sounding off against the un-Australian attitudes of muslim extremists (see below) the Mufti has been undergoing some scrutiny of his own.

This from Townhall.com:

Christopher Pyne, a member of parliament for Prime Minister John Howard's Liberal Party, said during a speech to a pro-Israel lobby group Monday that Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilaly "has demonstrably shown himself to be totally inappropriate as a spokesperson for the Muslim community."

Pyne quoted Hilaly, the Mufti of Australia, as some years ago calling Jews "the underlying cause of all wars" and of trying to control the world "through sex, then sexual perversion, then the promotion of espionage, traitory and economic hoarding."

Pyne also charged that, several weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S., Hilaly had been caught on camera extolling Islamic suicide bombers in the Middle East as "heroes."

In the same speech, Christopher Pyne describes the Islamic Youth Federation (IYF) as representing extremists. The IYF has a website called "Nida'ul Islam" in which it praises "martyrdom operations', and has interviews with the likes of Osama bin Laden and Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind cleric who bombed the World Trade Centre in 1993.

Mufti Hilaly's spokesperson, Keysar Trad, called Pyne's allegations "childish". Trad stated that Hilaly's role as "Mufti" was an honorary position, bestowed upon him in the mid-1980's: "honorary because it's not a paid position." That explains everything.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 5:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Switching on to Iraqi Pop Hopefuls

A little light relief, courtesy of Oliver Poole in today's Telegraph.

While grisly goings on take place in Haditha, and sectarian politicians fight over the draft constitution, a new phenomenon has hit Iraq - it's own version of Pop Idol. For the past six weeks, at exactly 9pm every night, half the nation has become addicted to the show, called "Iraq Star". Already, 2,000 wannabe pop stars have been spotlighted as they face the scrutiny of a panel of judges.

As in the UK and US versions, there are three judges, but "nasty" Simon Cowell is here replaced by another plain-speaking judge, Muhammad Hadi, who has already turned hopeful contestants into blubbering wrecks. But with all that emotion flying about, even Mr Hadi has been known to dissolve into tears.

The hot tip to win is Bilal, a 12 year-old Mosul boy who recently, while singing his own uplifting composition about suffering children and Iraq's destruction, started to cry as he poured it all out. By the time he had finished, the panel of judges was also blubbing, including Muhammad Hadi.

When they are not weeping like babies, the judges can be stern. Mr Hadi is, after all, a music teacher, and likes to dress entirely in black clothing. A teenage girl was singing a Lebanese song, and was criticised for her dancing abilities. But her worst mistake was to get her grammar wrong in her rendition of a song about a humming bird: " 'Slaughtered bird' is masculine," the judge complained. "But you kept saying it is feminine."

Oh what I would give, to be able to watch Iraqi television.......

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 3:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunnis Threaten Chaos in Iraq

The Sunnis of Iraq have been thronging to register to vote, despite boycotting January's elections. Their reason? They now want to use the democratic process to sabotage the draft consitution at October's constitutional referendum.

The Sunnis under Saddam had a measure of power in Iraq, and resent the draft constitution which will allow semi-autonomy for the Kurds in the north and the Shias in the south, and fear they will miss out on oil revenues. Today's Guardian quoted George W. Bush as saying: "This talk about Sunnis rising up, I mean the Sunnis have got to make a choice. Do they want to live in a society that's free, or do they want to live in violence?"

"I registered yesterday," said Faiz Mohammad, 38, who runs a tea shop in the capital's Mansour district. "Clerics said it was our duty to vote this time."

He had not yet been directed which way to vote but Mr Mohammad, citing concerns over Kurdish and Shia control of oil revenue, was leaning towards rejection.

Dominant under successive regimes, Sunnis have been alienated since the US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. Their suspicion of the US, Kurds and the majority Shias drives the insurgency.

The Daily Telegraph, in reporting the developments, stated:

One potent threat now facing the growing Sunni campaign to defeat the document at the ballot box comes from Abu Musab Zarqawi, the fundamentalist Sunni terrorist responsible for many of the worst outrages committed in Iraq in the past two years.

He and other leading groups have repeatedly threatened to kill any Sunnis participating in the political process and promised to bomb polling booths.

Last week three Sunnis putting up posters in Mosul calling on people to register were kidnapped, their bullet-riddled bodies later found dumped outside a mosque.

The Shias have threatened to push through the draft constitution, ignoring the Sunni's protestations, and have announced that the Iraqi people should decide for or against its final ratification in the October referendum, the Times reported today.

Human Hamoudi, the Shia head of the constitutional drafting committee, said that there would be no reopening of the most contentious clauses on federalism and that he did not believe that any agreement would be reached within the stipulated three days.

Instead, he said, the draft would be sent barely changed to Parliament, where the comfortable majority enjoyed by the Shias and the Kurds could be expected to vote it through. If the Sunnis did not like that, he added, they could simply vote it down in the referendum, scheduled for October. "The Iraqi people will rule," he said.

Other Shia negotiators echoed his hardline position, saying that the only compromise they could countenance was a retreat by the Sunnis. "The only possible change now is that the Sunnis become convinced on federalism," Jalal al-Din al-Sagheer, a Shia cleric on the drafting team, said.

Yesterday a US soldier, a US contractor and 5 Iraqis were killed by a suicide bomber in Baquba, near Baghdad.

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UK Home Secretary Publishes Deportation Criteria

The UK Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, has published a list of unacceptable behaviours that would be used against any foreign national in the UK (i.e. Islamist preachers) as a reason for immediate deportation to their country of origin. As usual, there was Muslim whining, joined in as ever by Liberty, the civil liberties group. The Islamic Human Rights Foundation, whose name seems to be an oxymoron, is quoted in the Daily Telegraph. It said it was a fallacy that foreign preachers were to blame for radicalising British youth. IHRC chairmen Massoud Sharjareh stated:

"The fact that Mr Clarke's final list is almost identical to his initial proposals, despite numerous objections from interested parties, makes a total mockery of the consultation process."

James Welch, Liberty legal director, said: "Today's announcement fails to answer the fundamental question; will the Government's deportation plans result in suspects being sent to countries with a known record of torture?

"What has always separated us from the terrorists is that we do not torture people or send them to be tortured - that is the standard we need to maintain.

The Telegraph has produced a list of four controversial foreign insurrectionists within the UK, with short bios, and anthologies of their best known "bons mots", quips and aphorisms. Read their poetry of hate here

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More on the "Oil Crisis"

Why should I make the argument, when Thomas Sowell makes it so much better: An oil 'crisis'?: part II

When the costs are no longer being fully covered by prices, production is likely to be cut back, whether it is the production of oil or anything else. This is not speculation. This is what has been happening for literally thousands of years, going back to price controls in ancient Rome and Babylon.
Yet price controls have always been popular politically, despite being counterproductive economically. After all, how many votes do economists have and how many voters know economics?

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 11:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Juan Cole's Motivation

This is a story that seems to have passed by, but I haven't read a good explanation of Mr. Cole's behavior. To recap; Steven Vincent was an American Journalist who was murdered in Iraq. The initial reports speculated he was killed because he was having an affair with his muslim interpreter. Enter unprofessional professor Juan Cole, who wrote a vile attack on Vincent's judgement and character (link later.) The definitive response to Cole came from Mr. Vincent's widow, Lisa Ramaci-Vincent. But I want to concentrate instead on Mr. Cole's words:

Was American Journalist Steve Vincent killed in Basra as part of an honor killing? He was romantically involved with his Iraqi interpreter, who was shot 4 times. If her clan thought she was shaming them by appearing to be having an affair outside wedlock with an American male, they might well have decided to end it. In Mediterranean culture, a man's honor tends to be wrought up with his ability to protect his womenfolk from seduction by strange men. Where a woman of the family sleeps around, it brings enormous shame on her father, brothers and cousins, and it is not unknown for them to kill her. These sentiments and this sort of behavior tend to be rural and to hold among the uneducated, but are not unknown in urban areas. Vincent did not know anything serious about Middle Eastern culture and was aggressive about criticizing what he could see of it on the surface, and if he was behaving in the way the Telegraph article describes, he was acting in an extremely dangerous manner.

Manny commenters have notice the sly phrase "in mediterranean cultures...", as if Mr. Vincent would have been murdered in Spain or Greece, and not in Muslim Iraq. But that's only secondary. What is truly breathtaking is that Mr. Cole would "explain", as way of justification, that "a man's honor tend to be wrought up with his ability to protect his womenfolk from seduction...." Now, Mr. Cole is an American leftist. This suppossedly makes him a defender of "women's right". So, what could make him turn "women's rights" aside, when it comes to Iraqi women?

Well, simple; Multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is the belief that all cultures are equally wonderful, expect for Western Cultures, which are equally vicious. This doctrine must be maintained at all costs, and if murder and mysoginy must be accepted, well, so be it. Multiculturalism is the doctrine of fanatics, who want nothing more than destroying Western Civilization, so that their dreamland utopias would flourish. This explains the alleged paradox of the Unholly alliance between Western Leftists and Muslims: their proximate objective is the same, the destruction of our Civilization. We must not let them succeed.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 10:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 23, 2005

Child Slaves Returning to Bangladesh

The child slaves who were being used as jockeys in the United Arab Emirates are returning home: 22 more jockeys return

Twenty-two more Bangladeshi children who were used as camel jockeys in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) arrived at the Zia International Airport (ZIA) in two flights of Bangladesh Biman yesterday.
Twenty-eight others, including the children's "guardians" and their other children, accompanied them in two flights of Bangladesh Biman from Abu Dhabi.

Cox and Forkum illustrate the issue very well:

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 8:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Pat Robertson Urges Killing Hugo Chavez: Commentary

There has been a lot of wing-flapping today over Pat Robertson's remarks that the United States should assassinate Hugo Chavez:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conservative U.S. evangelist Pat Robertson called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, saying the leftist leader wanted to turn his country into "the launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."
The founder of the Christian Coalition said during the Monday night television broadcast of his religious program, "The 700 Club," that Chavez, one the most vocal critics of
President George W. Bush, was a "terrific danger" to the United States.

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said.

I won't bother with the reaction of the American left: I expect nothing but support for one of their favorite dictators. Let's listen instead to a good portion of the American right practicing their favorite sport, running for the hills:

Glen Reynolds:

I WOULD MANAGE TO CONTAIN MY DEJECTION if someone bumped off Hugo Chavez, but Mark Daniels notes that Pat Robertson's call for just that is bad politics and bad religion.
Well, those are Robertson's stock-in-trade, which is why he was one of the original models for the term "idiotarian."

Charles Johnson:

Yesterday the Soros-funded far left group Media Matters made a big issue of Pat Robertson’s idiotic statement that the US should assassinate Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Today Robertson’s comment is all over mai

Western Resistance

"The battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave." Patrick Henry