They must be if they think they can influence the timing of the end of time. It's a bit obnoxious to think that if you do such and such then God will just follow along with you and take care of the rest: "Manufacturing the Last Day," as I like to call it. I haven't heard of Muslims thinking this way, but Evangelical Christians have been thinking in this warped way for quite some time. The obvious real world in our day and age repercussions is that lots of people would be killed if Evangelicals were allowed into positions to influence U.S. foreign policy. But we don't have to worry about that because those damn jihadists are out there to get us. It's a good thing our President is an Evangeli... crap.
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/02/29/politics/horserace/entry3892932.shtml
"Bloggers such as Salon's Glenn Greenwald have been pouring through [Pastor John] Hagee's record and uncovering controversial statements on a whole range of issues. The pastor made this comment in an interview with NPR:
"All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.
The newspaper carried the story in our local area, that was not carried nationally, that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it would was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other gay pride parades.
So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing."
Hagee also said, in the same interview, "Islam in general -- those who live by the Koran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews."
And the pastor suggested in a book called "Jerusalem Countdown" that, as Sarah Posner puts it, "military confrontation with Iran is foretold in the Bible as a necessary precondition for the Second Coming."
Liberal bloggers are uncovering other controvertial past postions as well, including a fundraiser that included an appeal to "Make plans to come and go home with a slave."
Friday, February 29, 2008
Sherman Jackson at Stanford
The Muslim students at Stanford organized a lecture series where this critic found only Sherman Jackson addressing the theme of the series without slamming America and right wing pundits. The writer, you can probably tell, is still skeptical about Muslims in America.
Here is an excerpt from the article (http://www.stanfordreview.org/Archive/Volume_XL/Issue_4/News/news1.shtml):
"Professor Sherman Jackson of the University of Michigan proved to be the only speaker in the series who actually took MSAN’s goals to heart and closely examined several controversial parts of Islam. Although he was not completely unbiased, he at least refrained from name-calling and knee-jerk “blame America first” generalities, which could not be said for el-Fadl or Esposito. He did not once blame American ignorance, intolerance, or imperialism for the current situation, and, perhaps most revealingly, he felt no need to attack Daniel Pipes at any point during his lecture. This focus on Islam and lack of blind vilification of the West helped lend a sense of legitimacy to the speaker series which had been previously lacking.
Here is an excerpt from the article (http://www.stanfordreview.org/Archive/Volume_XL/Issue_4/News/news1.shtml):
"Professor Sherman Jackson of the University of Michigan proved to be the only speaker in the series who actually took MSAN’s goals to heart and closely examined several controversial parts of Islam. Although he was not completely unbiased, he at least refrained from name-calling and knee-jerk “blame America first” generalities, which could not be said for el-Fadl or Esposito. He did not once blame American ignorance, intolerance, or imperialism for the current situation, and, perhaps most revealingly, he felt no need to attack Daniel Pipes at any point during his lecture. This focus on Islam and lack of blind vilification of the West helped lend a sense of legitimacy to the speaker series which had been previously lacking.
His talk, entitled “Laying Down the Shari’ah Law: Democracy or Theocracy?” focused on Islam in the United States and how Muslims who are “thoroughly committed to their religion, can, on a visceral and very natural level, come into a mindset where, as Muslims, they feel a sense of solidarity...belonging...[and] empathy with the people of the society in which they live.”
Jackson sought to explain “how Muslims and Islam can come to terms with the American project.” Though it is encouraging to hear that integration between the two communities is entirely feasible, this wording—that Muslims “can...come into a mindset” and “can come to terms with”—implies that, though such acceptance of Western ideals is possible, it requires substantial effort on the part of the individual which has, for the most part, not yet been undertaken by the American Muslim community. It is comforting, at least, to know that Islam and the values of the Enlightenment are not entirely antithetical and can coexist without abandoning the basic precepts of Islamic doctrine.
Jackson then laid out several examples of Islamic fundamentalist teachings which ought to be re-interpreted in the context of the modern world. The most pressing of these teachings, in Jackson’s opinion, is the concept of al-Hakimiyyah. This idea essentially states that “if Muslims recognize man-made law and man-made polities, they are guilty of violating Islamic monotheism by attributing to someone other than God the right to make laws, confer rights, and impose obligations.” Jackson responded by citing the historical precedent of Islamic rulers making laws and pointing out that such laws are necessary, since, for example, “you’re not going to find speed limits in the Qur’an.” Jackson went on to describe the problematic situation of fundamentalists opposing any government, Muslim or non-Muslim, which does not apply Islamic law. Jackson argued that this stance also simply does not hold up to historical precedent. Hearing this explicit rejection of extremist views was very refreshing after the vitriolic, counterproductive speeches of el-Fadl and Esposito.
Overall, the Islamic Awareness Series was, on its face, a bold attempt to begin to reconcile the perceived differences between the precepts of Islam and the accepted norms of the modern world. Unfortunately, the first two speakers in the series chose not to take part in this effort, preferring instead to spout overused anti-American platitudes and ignore the real issues. Fortunately, Professor Jackson was able to make up for man-y of their shortcomings and provide the truly honest discussion that, according to Adhami’s Op-Ed, MSAN was looking for. Yet even Jackson’s presentation was not enough to prevent the series from feeling somewhat one-sided and disingenuous. Whether this was MSAN’s intention or not is up for debate."
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
New Gallup Poll Shows Muslims Not Looney
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080227/ts_alt_afp/usislamreligionethics
by Karin Zeitvogel1 hour, 59 minutes ago
A huge survey of the world's Muslims released Tuesday challenges Western notions that equate Islam with radicalism and violence.
The survey, conducted by the Gallup polling agency over six years and three continents, seeks to dispel the belief held by some in the West that Islam itself is the driving force of radicalism.
It shows that the overwhelming majority of Muslims condemned the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001 and other subsequent terrorist attacks, the authors of the study said in Washington.
"Samuel Harris said in the Washington Times (in 2004): 'It is time we admitted that we are not at war with terrorism. We are at war with Islam'," Dalia Mogahed, co-author of the book "Who Speaks for Islam" which grew out of the study, told a news conference here.
"The argument Mr Harris makes is that religion in the primary driver" of radicalism and violence, she said.
"Religion is an important part of life for the overwhelming majority of Muslims, and if it were indeed the driver for radicalisation, this would be a serious issue."
But the study, which Gallup says surveyed a sample equivalent to 90 percent of the world's Muslims, showed that widespread religiosity "does not translate into widespread support for terrorism," said Mogahed, director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.
About 93 percent of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims are moderates and only seven percent are politically radical, according to the poll, based on more than 50,000 interviews.
In majority Muslim countries, overwhelming majorities said religion was a very important part of their lives -- 99 percent in Indonesia, 98 percent in Egypt, 95 percent in Pakistan.
But only seven percent of the billion Muslims surveyed -- the radicals -- condoned the attacks on the United States in 2001, the poll showed.
Moderate Muslims interviewed for the poll condemned the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington because innocent lives were lost and civilians killed.
"Some actually cited religious justifications for why they were against 9/11, going as far as to quote from the Koran -- for example, the verse that says taking one innocent life is like killing all humanity," she said.
Meanwhile, radical Muslims gave political, not religious, reasons for condoning the attacks, the poll showed.
The survey shows radicals to be neither more religious than their moderate counterparts, nor products of abject poverty or refugee camps.
"The radicals are better educated, have better jobs, and are more hopeful with regard to the future than mainstream Muslims," John Esposito, who co-authored "Who Speaks for Islam", said.
"Ironically, they believe in democracy even more than many of the mainstream moderates do, but they're more cynical about whether they'll ever get it," said Esposito, a professor of Islamic studies at Georgetown University in Washington.
Gallup launched the study following 9/11, after which US President George W. Bush asked in a speech, which is quoted in the book: "Why do they hate us?"
"They hate... a democratically elected government," Bush offered as a reason.
"They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other."
But the poll, which gives ordinary Muslims a voice in the global debate that they have been drawn into by 9/11, showed that most Muslims -- including radicals -- admire the West for its democracy, freedoms and technological prowess.
What they do not want is to have Western ways forced on them, it said.
"Muslims want self-determination, but not an American-imposed and -defined democracy. They don't want secularism or theocracy. What the majority wants is democracy with religious values," said Esposito.
The poll has given voice to Islam's silent majority, said Mogahed.
"A billion Muslims should be the ones that we look to, to understand what they believe, rather than a vocal minority," she told AFP.
Muslims in 40 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East were interviewed for the survey, which is part of Gallup's World Poll that aims to interview 95 percent of the world's population.
ABC News Special
Saw it last night, caught the tale end of it. It was interesting. I would imagine that most Americans wouldn't say much if the person being discriminated was Black, Hispanic, Jewish or something else. Most people are passive and don't look for confrontations if it does not involve them directly. That's just my own personal opinion not born out of any facts. In any case, I wondered what the right wing bigot opinion would be: how would anti-Muslim pundits view this segment by ABC?
Well, Atlas Shrugs and Robert Spencer decided that the staged event was blown out of proportion. The fact that it was staged by two actors makes the reactions of the actual people involved irrelevant in their estimation. Spencer wrote that the ABC segment let the American Muslim community off the hook for its seemingly inability to oppose openly the constant violence in the name of Islam overseas: ABC highlighted, Spencer says, "the negative reactions with nary a hint that the Muslim community in the U.S. might have the power to change such boorish and hostile reactions." Essentially, it's the American Muslim community's fault if they are mistreated because they don't speak up against violence in the name of their religion. Until us Muslims start following Spencer's advice then we should expect fellow Americans to discriminate against us.
Also, Spencer went on to say that "when people turn on the news and see rage and threats of murder over cartoons, and terrorist act after terrorist act committed in the name of Islam, they aren't blind. They shouldn't react by verbally abusing some random Muslim woman in a store, but the idea that all this is some example of gratuitous racism is ridiculous." Blind? Meaning that Americans seem to think that all Muslims are violent or are worthy of being discriminated against since Muslims in other countries kill? This is just incoherent banter from Spencer, similar to when he gets all pooped out about how Christian leaders use Islamic practices as a means of educating other Christians on Christian practices.
Yes, they shouldn't react with verbal abuse, but the constant theme portrayed by most of the mainstream media is that the Muslim community in America is suspect or at the very least, too quiet. Never mind CAIR's web page dedicated to condemning violence, or the Common Word initiative, or all of the Muslim leaders who go across the country nowadays speaking to both Muslims and non-Muslims about how Muslim extremists have violated Divine Law - no, that wasn't Imam Hamza on 60 Minutes right after 9-11 telling all of America, or at least those Americans watching that night, that what al-Qaeda did was vigilantism and not jihad. It was violence and a violation of Islamic Law in every school of Islamic jurisprudence. It was murder, plain and simple. No, that was just my wishful imagination.
Bottom line: right wing bigots will look to shield themselves from obvious signs that Muslims are mistreated in America. It's their own web sites and books and articles that contribute to Muslims like the actress shown in the ABC segment being discriminated against. All of these right wing nuts are contributors to the mind set that many Americans have that it's OK to discriminate or tolerate discrimination against Muslims because they don't condemn violence in the name of their religion all over the globe every second of every day. It's people like Spencer, for if you were a non-Muslim who knows little to nothing about Islam hearing Spencer for the first time, who brainwash Americans into thinking that if Muslims are not fighting jihad then they're bad Muslims essentially since the extremists are actually the "good" Muslims in the sense that they are practicing their religion based on Islamic sources. But no, of course all these right wing bigots have nothing to do with the spreading of anti-Islam and anti-Muslim thoughts in this country.
Well, Atlas Shrugs and Robert Spencer decided that the staged event was blown out of proportion. The fact that it was staged by two actors makes the reactions of the actual people involved irrelevant in their estimation. Spencer wrote that the ABC segment let the American Muslim community off the hook for its seemingly inability to oppose openly the constant violence in the name of Islam overseas: ABC highlighted, Spencer says, "the negative reactions with nary a hint that the Muslim community in the U.S. might have the power to change such boorish and hostile reactions." Essentially, it's the American Muslim community's fault if they are mistreated because they don't speak up against violence in the name of their religion. Until us Muslims start following Spencer's advice then we should expect fellow Americans to discriminate against us.
Also, Spencer went on to say that "when people turn on the news and see rage and threats of murder over cartoons, and terrorist act after terrorist act committed in the name of Islam, they aren't blind. They shouldn't react by verbally abusing some random Muslim woman in a store, but the idea that all this is some example of gratuitous racism is ridiculous." Blind? Meaning that Americans seem to think that all Muslims are violent or are worthy of being discriminated against since Muslims in other countries kill? This is just incoherent banter from Spencer, similar to when he gets all pooped out about how Christian leaders use Islamic practices as a means of educating other Christians on Christian practices.
Yes, they shouldn't react with verbal abuse, but the constant theme portrayed by most of the mainstream media is that the Muslim community in America is suspect or at the very least, too quiet. Never mind CAIR's web page dedicated to condemning violence, or the Common Word initiative, or all of the Muslim leaders who go across the country nowadays speaking to both Muslims and non-Muslims about how Muslim extremists have violated Divine Law - no, that wasn't Imam Hamza on 60 Minutes right after 9-11 telling all of America, or at least those Americans watching that night, that what al-Qaeda did was vigilantism and not jihad. It was violence and a violation of Islamic Law in every school of Islamic jurisprudence. It was murder, plain and simple. No, that was just my wishful imagination.
Bottom line: right wing bigots will look to shield themselves from obvious signs that Muslims are mistreated in America. It's their own web sites and books and articles that contribute to Muslims like the actress shown in the ABC segment being discriminated against. All of these right wing nuts are contributors to the mind set that many Americans have that it's OK to discriminate or tolerate discrimination against Muslims because they don't condemn violence in the name of their religion all over the globe every second of every day. It's people like Spencer, for if you were a non-Muslim who knows little to nothing about Islam hearing Spencer for the first time, who brainwash Americans into thinking that if Muslims are not fighting jihad then they're bad Muslims essentially since the extremists are actually the "good" Muslims in the sense that they are practicing their religion based on Islamic sources. But no, of course all these right wing bigots have nothing to do with the spreading of anti-Islam and anti-Muslim thoughts in this country.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Missing the Point on Kosovo
Zahed Amanullah over at altmuslim.com wrote a piece on Kosovo recently. He takes the typical stand most American Muslims have taken on the Kosovo-independence issue - namely that this is a good thing, more or less.
He wrote: "...90% of Kosovars are Muslims of Albanian descent. Albania, to the south, is virtually ignored by Europe. Kosovo, on the other hand, is a product of a Western intervention that, incidentally, was never driven by oil or resources."
Just because that Western intervention wasn't due to oil or resources does not mean it was done with noble intentions. Tariq Ali said as much on the issue in a recent interview posted on Counterpunch: "Well, I saw the intervention of the west in Yugoslavia, and of the United States and NATO, as being determined largely by western needs and not the needs of the populations in that region. That is what always determines these interventions. They give them a covering: "humanitarian intervention", "civilizational interventions", "interventions to save humanity." But deep down, and sometimes not so deep down, close to the surface, there is only one reason. It is to defend their own interests or what they see as their own interests in the region."
Amanullah wrote: "Globally, Kosovo has become a convenient proxy for post-Cold War sabre rattling. Though the Russians have long Slavic ties with Serbia, it doesn't hurt that there are scores to settle and nationalisms to stoke. From a legal point of view, there are strong arguments the Serbs and Russians make for denying independence. But without military or economic leverage to bear (not to mention Kosovo's military and economic backing from the US, Germany, Britain, and France), the Kosovars will be left to enjoy their freedom without the recognition of some."
Wow. Talk about fatalistic jargon. Similarly one could say from a legal point of view the Palestinians have a strong argument to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, but since they carry little economic or military power behind them then Israel will be left to enjoy the virtual annexation of these Palestinian territories. That's rubbish, but Amanullah's blind loyalty for the Kosovo cause has him ignoring international law and using a similar line of thought employed by pro-Israel supporters. There's not a word about this being right or wrong, just that it is what it is. Muslims are benefiting so it must be good is the rationale that I spoke about in my last post about Kosovo. It's this sort of thinking that is dangerous because it leads to a precedent that could be harmful for any country. Speaking of which, Amanullah continues:
"Indeed, it is the issue of recognition that shows the awkward position Kosovo finds itself in. Notable countries have not recognized the new state due to the precedent Kosovo sets for independence movements in their own lands - Russia (from Chechnya), Spain (from Basque separatists), China (from Taiwan), and so forth. Even though many Muslim countries have reached out to Kosovo, others, such as Indonesia, with its restless Aceh province, have yet to recognize it. Even nearby Bosnia has passed on it in order to spare itself a political headache. As of now, the young nation has a roughly equal number of supporters and opponents, with the UN split and the EU deferring comment."
Yes, a precedent that is completely illegal under international law. Just because the U.S. and its European groupies have acknowledged Kosovo's independence does not make it just. The underlying assumption is that countries that have not acknowledged Kosovo's independence or those that have rejected it are doing so because of their own vested interests. Uhm, duh. What do you think the United States would do to Hawaii if Hawaiians decided to protest for independence. Or how about the people living in Utah, who are mostly Mormons? We know the answer to that - any rebellion would be crushed with destructive force.
The point is obvious. Every nation potentially has an ethnic group that could desire its own state - just like the Kosovars. It does not mean every people deserves a state or could be granted a state. We have laws and treaties for a reason so that there is order.
How would the United States feel if in 20 years Russia supported Mormon independence from the United States in a country called The Republic of Utah? It's pretty obvious what the American reaction to such a Russian gesture would be.
It really goes without saying that our country continues to act in a rogue fashion without any care for international law. I live in the largest rogue state in the world and the most powerful one, too. What we say goes and the Serbs and Russians can cry all they want.
He wrote: "...90% of Kosovars are Muslims of Albanian descent. Albania, to the south, is virtually ignored by Europe. Kosovo, on the other hand, is a product of a Western intervention that, incidentally, was never driven by oil or resources."
Just because that Western intervention wasn't due to oil or resources does not mean it was done with noble intentions. Tariq Ali said as much on the issue in a recent interview posted on Counterpunch: "Well, I saw the intervention of the west in Yugoslavia, and of the United States and NATO, as being determined largely by western needs and not the needs of the populations in that region. That is what always determines these interventions. They give them a covering: "humanitarian intervention", "civilizational interventions", "interventions to save humanity." But deep down, and sometimes not so deep down, close to the surface, there is only one reason. It is to defend their own interests or what they see as their own interests in the region."
Amanullah wrote: "Globally, Kosovo has become a convenient proxy for post-Cold War sabre rattling. Though the Russians have long Slavic ties with Serbia, it doesn't hurt that there are scores to settle and nationalisms to stoke. From a legal point of view, there are strong arguments the Serbs and Russians make for denying independence. But without military or economic leverage to bear (not to mention Kosovo's military and economic backing from the US, Germany, Britain, and France), the Kosovars will be left to enjoy their freedom without the recognition of some."
Wow. Talk about fatalistic jargon. Similarly one could say from a legal point of view the Palestinians have a strong argument to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, but since they carry little economic or military power behind them then Israel will be left to enjoy the virtual annexation of these Palestinian territories. That's rubbish, but Amanullah's blind loyalty for the Kosovo cause has him ignoring international law and using a similar line of thought employed by pro-Israel supporters. There's not a word about this being right or wrong, just that it is what it is. Muslims are benefiting so it must be good is the rationale that I spoke about in my last post about Kosovo. It's this sort of thinking that is dangerous because it leads to a precedent that could be harmful for any country. Speaking of which, Amanullah continues:
"Indeed, it is the issue of recognition that shows the awkward position Kosovo finds itself in. Notable countries have not recognized the new state due to the precedent Kosovo sets for independence movements in their own lands - Russia (from Chechnya), Spain (from Basque separatists), China (from Taiwan), and so forth. Even though many Muslim countries have reached out to Kosovo, others, such as Indonesia, with its restless Aceh province, have yet to recognize it. Even nearby Bosnia has passed on it in order to spare itself a political headache. As of now, the young nation has a roughly equal number of supporters and opponents, with the UN split and the EU deferring comment."
Yes, a precedent that is completely illegal under international law. Just because the U.S. and its European groupies have acknowledged Kosovo's independence does not make it just. The underlying assumption is that countries that have not acknowledged Kosovo's independence or those that have rejected it are doing so because of their own vested interests. Uhm, duh. What do you think the United States would do to Hawaii if Hawaiians decided to protest for independence. Or how about the people living in Utah, who are mostly Mormons? We know the answer to that - any rebellion would be crushed with destructive force.
The point is obvious. Every nation potentially has an ethnic group that could desire its own state - just like the Kosovars. It does not mean every people deserves a state or could be granted a state. We have laws and treaties for a reason so that there is order.
How would the United States feel if in 20 years Russia supported Mormon independence from the United States in a country called The Republic of Utah? It's pretty obvious what the American reaction to such a Russian gesture would be.
It really goes without saying that our country continues to act in a rogue fashion without any care for international law. I live in the largest rogue state in the world and the most powerful one, too. What we say goes and the Serbs and Russians can cry all they want.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Obama Smear Campaign Shows Clearly How Islamophobia is Tolerated
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-obamamuslim_thinkfeb24,0,6345949.story
OK, we get the point. Barack Obama is not a Muslim. He has made that clear, time and again.
As well he should: The rumors are baseless, maliciously spun by political adversaries with the intention of taking votes away from Obama's promising presidential campaign run.
Obama is entitled to set the record straight. But that's not the end of the story.
The broader issue is: What does this attempt to smear Obama say about our society?
More personally, what does it say about my newborn nephew's standing in society? Is he entitled to the dreams of his Muslim father that the boy could grow up to be president if he works as hard as Obama and is as ambitious?
Obama has not gone far enough to challenge the notion that religious affiliation could disqualify Americans from serving their nation. Nor hasMitt Romney , a Mormon, Mike Huckabee, a Baptist, or any other candidate.
It's time for all of them to be quizzed on the meaning of citizenship as preached and practiced in this great democracy. As a voter, I would much rather know their stance on equal employment policies than which church they attend.
Whenever I address young Muslim audiences that may be struggling with identity issues, I remind them that this is their country, too. I tell them they should observe their civic duties, vote and, if it behooves them, run for public office and help bring about the positive reform they often passively expect of others.
It goes against all that I advocate that the mere rumor of a person being a Muslim -- let alone actually being one -- could be a tool to destroy political aspirations. This in a nation that prides itself on being the heart of the free world.
When it comes to Muslims, the divisive rhetoric coming out of this year's elections ranges from the exclusionary to the just plain bigoted.
John McCain has said he would prefer a Christian president and that the Constitution established America as a "Christian nation." Before dropping out of the presidential race, Romney conceded that he would not appoint an American Muslim to a Cabinet position because Muslims are a low percentage of the population.
One of Huckabee's campaign advisers, Jim Pinkerton, recently advocated putting a "cop in front of every mosque" in America "just for safekeeping."
John Deady, co-chairman of theNew Hampshire Veterans for Rudy Giuliani , told the British newspaper The Guardian in late December: "We need to chase [Muslims] back to their caves or, in other words, get rid of them." Deady resigned during the subsequent controversy over his remarks.
In addressing the Muslim question that seems to haunt him, Obama has yet to convert it into an opportunity to boldly address a deeper question: Do American Muslims enjoy the same constitutional rights as their fellow Americans?
If elected president, how would he deal with one of the most important civil rights questions of his generation? Would he turn a blind eye to the current climate of exclusionary fear-mongering, or would he take a stance against religious prejudice and bigotry?
Let's face it, those who hatched the Muslim Obama rumors would not have bothered had it not been for a political and cultural environment in which demonizing and marginalizing Muslims generally goes by uncontested.
I was recently asked on Fox News Radio which candidate impressed me most. "Obama," I answered.
Was this, I was asked, because of his "youthful Muslim experience"?
I explained it was my understanding that Obama is a Christian and that was just fine with me. I said most Muslims appreciate Christian values, given that they are not much different from our own, and that Obama's knowledge of Islam should count as added experience and not as a statement about his identity.
I am not drawn to Obama for any other reason but his political outlook, one that brings me hope that we can move beyond divisiveness and polarization and toward a new unity for the common good.
So it is not that I am offended as a Muslim that Obama would not want to be one; I couldn't care less. I am casting a vote for the next president of the United States, not the next imam of my mosque.
It's just that I was audaciously hopeful that Obama would be the candidate to finally break the silence on the political marginalization of American Muslims.
He could start by saying something like: "There is not a Christian America, or a Jewish America, or a Muslim America. There is theUnited States of America ."
----------
arehab@cair.com
Ahmed Rehab is the executive director of theChicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
SMEAR CAMPAIGN SPEAKS VOLUMES ABOUT SOCIETY
Missed point on faith
By Ahmed M. Rehab
February 24, 2008
As well he should: The rumors are baseless, maliciously spun by political adversaries with the intention of taking votes away from Obama's promising presidential campaign run.
Obama is entitled to set the record straight. But that's not the end of the story.
The broader issue is: What does this attempt to smear Obama say about our society?
More personally, what does it say about my newborn nephew's standing in society? Is he entitled to the dreams of his Muslim father that the boy could grow up to be president if he works as hard as Obama and is as ambitious?
Obama has not gone far enough to challenge the notion that religious affiliation could disqualify Americans from serving their nation. Nor has
It's time for all of them to be quizzed on the meaning of citizenship as preached and practiced in this great democracy. As a voter, I would much rather know their stance on equal employment policies than which church they attend.
Whenever I address young Muslim audiences that may be struggling with identity issues, I remind them that this is their country, too. I tell them they should observe their civic duties, vote and, if it behooves them, run for public office and help bring about the positive reform they often passively expect of others.
It goes against all that I advocate that the mere rumor of a person being a Muslim -- let alone actually being one -- could be a tool to destroy political aspirations. This in a nation that prides itself on being the heart of the free world.
When it comes to Muslims, the divisive rhetoric coming out of this year's elections ranges from the exclusionary to the just plain bigoted.
One of Huckabee's campaign advisers, Jim Pinkerton, recently advocated putting a "cop in front of every mosque" in America "just for safekeeping."
John Deady, co-chairman of the
In addressing the Muslim question that seems to haunt him, Obama has yet to convert it into an opportunity to boldly address a deeper question: Do American Muslims enjoy the same constitutional rights as their fellow Americans?
If elected president, how would he deal with one of the most important civil rights questions of his generation? Would he turn a blind eye to the current climate of exclusionary fear-mongering, or would he take a stance against religious prejudice and bigotry?
Let's face it, those who hatched the Muslim Obama rumors would not have bothered had it not been for a political and cultural environment in which demonizing and marginalizing Muslims generally goes by uncontested.
I was recently asked on Fox News Radio which candidate impressed me most. "Obama," I answered.
Was this, I was asked, because of his "youthful Muslim experience"?
I explained it was my understanding that Obama is a Christian and that was just fine with me. I said most Muslims appreciate Christian values, given that they are not much different from our own, and that Obama's knowledge of Islam should count as added experience and not as a statement about his identity.
I am not drawn to Obama for any other reason but his political outlook, one that brings me hope that we can move beyond divisiveness and polarization and toward a new unity for the common good.
So it is not that I am offended as a Muslim that Obama would not want to be one; I couldn't care less. I am casting a vote for the next president of the United States, not the next imam of my mosque.
It's just that I was audaciously hopeful that Obama would be the candidate to finally break the silence on the political marginalization of American Muslims.
He could start by saying something like: "There is not a Christian America, or a Jewish America, or a Muslim America. There is the
----------
arehab@cair.com
Ahmed Rehab is the executive director of the
Study on Palestinian Suicide Bombers
Not really about religion...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/957356.html
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/957356.html
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Freedom of Speech
You'll get jail time in many European countries if you deny the Holocaust. Why do right-wing nut balls get upset then when freedom of speech is restricted when cartoonists depict the Prophet of God, Muhammad, in a demeaning way? A cartoonist in Belarus was sentenced to jail for three years after producing degrading cartoons of Muhammad, the Prophet of God. His sentence was reduced to three months after the supreme court in Belarus reviewed his case.
Robert Spencer says that there's finally some "sanity" in Belarus for reducing this sentence. But what about people who deny the Holocaust in Germany or some other European country? Where's the cry for freedom of speech in regards to that? It's not about whether the Holocaust occurred or not, for it surely did, but the issue is about the freedom to question it in a supposedly "free" society.
Just like Spencer hates the fact that someone can be jailed for demeaning a religious figure in a free society, many others question the notion of restricting free speech when it comes to demanding that a certain historical event be accepted by all.
What if you were thrown in jail in America for denying that slavery occurred? Or that Native Indians were exterminated from their land? Most Americans would be up in arms over such an issue, but this type of restriction of free speech occurs in many European countries in regards to Holocaust denial without a chirp from these same right-wing hacks who get all upset when cartoonists are demeaned for portraying the Prophet Muhammad in an unflattering way.
There are always going to be people who will be evil and mean spirited, but if your going to claim to be a free country then you'll have to tolerate such nonsense even if it goes against clear historical evidence or against your own personal religious beliefs. Double edged swords usually work that way and that is what free speech is.
If you noticed me constantly describing the Prophet Muhammad with various titles then know that is in regards to Spencer's complaints that Western media outlets continuously describe Muhammad as "The Prophet Muhammad."
Ha! I mean, that has to be one of the greatest things ever - Muslims have made no effort whatsoever to ensure that their Prophet is referred to with such a title. It's just habit for Muslims to say "the Prophet Muhammad"did such and such or said such and such. Westerners just picked it up and kept it that way in their reporting.
If Christians showed the same respect and love for their "lord and savior" then maybe media outlets would refer to Jesus the way Spencer would want them to. The sad fact is that most Christians have never viewed Jesus with the same muhabba that Muslims have shown for their dear Prophet. Robert will just have to complain to his fellow bigot friends. So sad.
Robert Spencer says that there's finally some "sanity" in Belarus for reducing this sentence. But what about people who deny the Holocaust in Germany or some other European country? Where's the cry for freedom of speech in regards to that? It's not about whether the Holocaust occurred or not, for it surely did, but the issue is about the freedom to question it in a supposedly "free" society.
Just like Spencer hates the fact that someone can be jailed for demeaning a religious figure in a free society, many others question the notion of restricting free speech when it comes to demanding that a certain historical event be accepted by all.
What if you were thrown in jail in America for denying that slavery occurred? Or that Native Indians were exterminated from their land? Most Americans would be up in arms over such an issue, but this type of restriction of free speech occurs in many European countries in regards to Holocaust denial without a chirp from these same right-wing hacks who get all upset when cartoonists are demeaned for portraying the Prophet Muhammad in an unflattering way.
There are always going to be people who will be evil and mean spirited, but if your going to claim to be a free country then you'll have to tolerate such nonsense even if it goes against clear historical evidence or against your own personal religious beliefs. Double edged swords usually work that way and that is what free speech is.
If you noticed me constantly describing the Prophet Muhammad with various titles then know that is in regards to Spencer's complaints that Western media outlets continuously describe Muhammad as "The Prophet Muhammad."
Ha! I mean, that has to be one of the greatest things ever - Muslims have made no effort whatsoever to ensure that their Prophet is referred to with such a title. It's just habit for Muslims to say "the Prophet Muhammad"did such and such or said such and such. Westerners just picked it up and kept it that way in their reporting.
If Christians showed the same respect and love for their "lord and savior" then maybe media outlets would refer to Jesus the way Spencer would want them to. The sad fact is that most Christians have never viewed Jesus with the same muhabba that Muslims have shown for their dear Prophet. Robert will just have to complain to his fellow bigot friends. So sad.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
St. Louis Mosque Threatened by Morons at LGF
The Little Green Football hate site will likely be getting a visit from the FBI soon. People writing comments under a section about a mosque in St. Louis with a giant minaret openly made threats of violence against the mosque and its minaret.
Robert Spencer on Jihad Watch goes on complaining, in his typical woe is Christianity in America rant, about how the "the Islamic call to prayer resounding all over the city will certainly change the ambiance of the place, and announce in a way that no one can ignore the Muslim presence there."
Just another example of crap scholarship by one of America's leading "experts" on Islam. A local St. Louis news station informs us of what function the minaret will actually provide:
"The minaret itself is designed to reflect Bosnian architecture to make a former branch bank turned Islamic community center look more like the mosque it now is.
The imam at the mosque says it will not be used as a public address system, despite reports on some radio talk shows."
http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=139123
And another article from MyFox St. Louis:
"The mosque's spiritual leader says the minaret is symbolic only and will not be used to call Muslims to prayer."
http://www.myfoxstl.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=5831619&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1
Durrrrrr! Good job Robert. What are you Robert, some kind of jackass?
Robert Spencer on Jihad Watch goes on complaining, in his typical woe is Christianity in America rant, about how the "the Islamic call to prayer resounding all over the city will certainly change the ambiance of the place, and announce in a way that no one can ignore the Muslim presence there."
Just another example of crap scholarship by one of America's leading "experts" on Islam. A local St. Louis news station informs us of what function the minaret will actually provide:
"The minaret itself is designed to reflect Bosnian architecture to make a former branch bank turned Islamic community center look more like the mosque it now is.
The imam at the mosque says it will not be used as a public address system, despite reports on some radio talk shows."
http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=139123
And another article from MyFox St. Louis:
"The mosque's spiritual leader says the minaret is symbolic only and will not be used to call Muslims to prayer."
http://www.myfoxstl.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=5831619&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1
Durrrrrr! Good job Robert. What are you Robert, some kind of jackass?
FOX News on Muqtada al-Sadr: "I'm Ready to Rumble"
He's ready to rumble, folks. FOX News reports that much. In the link to a story about how al-Sadr is planning on ending a six month ceasefire, FOX News cites the story as : "Al-Sadr: I'm Ready to Rumble."
Isn't this web site supposed to be serious? I mean, CNN and MSNBC don't put up ridiculous titles like this, so why does FOX News get all gung ho?
Nowhere in the article is al-Sadr actually quoted as saying something like this, but the implication is that he and his militia are about to go buck on Sunnis and Americans. Also, al-Sadr is noted as a "radical" by Fox News. What makes him radical? It's never mentioned, but the implication is that because he's against the U.S. occupation of his country that makes him a radical or even extreme.
In any case, I have about a semester's worth of material demonstrating the word usage of the three main cable TV web sites: CNN, MSNBC and Fox News that I hope I'll be able to post one day. The way events are described and how people are mentioned goes a long way in the efforts of the propaganda machine we have in the U.S.
Being "ready to rumble" though never came up. I'll have to note this one down in a section all its own. Fun stuff.
Isn't this web site supposed to be serious? I mean, CNN and MSNBC don't put up ridiculous titles like this, so why does FOX News get all gung ho?
Nowhere in the article is al-Sadr actually quoted as saying something like this, but the implication is that he and his militia are about to go buck on Sunnis and Americans. Also, al-Sadr is noted as a "radical" by Fox News. What makes him radical? It's never mentioned, but the implication is that because he's against the U.S. occupation of his country that makes him a radical or even extreme.
In any case, I have about a semester's worth of material demonstrating the word usage of the three main cable TV web sites: CNN, MSNBC and Fox News that I hope I'll be able to post one day. The way events are described and how people are mentioned goes a long way in the efforts of the propaganda machine we have in the U.S.
Being "ready to rumble" though never came up. I'll have to note this one down in a section all its own. Fun stuff.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The Dilly with Kosovo
Most Muslims seem to think it's a great idea to have an independent Kosovo probably because the population of Kosovo is mostly Muslim, albeit secular Muslim.
I find all too often that American Muslims make decisions on issues in haste naively believing that anything where Muslims benefit is a good thing in general. This is the case with Kosovo. The recent history of Kosovo has become somewhat convoluted. I remember as a high school teenager when the NATO led war was occurring in Kosovo, hearing stories about genocide and ethnic cleansing. Muslims here in the United States saw it as another Bosnian War - Muslims being butchered to death by insane Christian radicals.
Well, that's not what happened in Kosovo. As Noam Chomsky has documented many times, the atrocities began to occur in Kosovo, and were predicted to occur, after NATO began its air campaign. There was no genocide occurring in Kosovo and there was no ethnic cleansing. People were being killed, but not anywhere near the level that U.S. officials were claiming.
The issue here is that my country, the United States, is recognizing the formation of a new nation, in fact encouraging it. Russia and Serbia have said this sets a very bad precedent if allowed to occur. There reasoning is sound in my estimation. Other European nations are backing Russia and Serbia on this issue, namely Spain and Greece. Over 95% of Kosovo is ethnic Albanian - there is already an Albanian nation-state called Albania.
The Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, is the group behind most of the on the ground efforts to "free" Kosovo from Serbian rule. The KLA was named a terrorist organization by the U.S. once, but then was quickly taken off the list once the KLA was viewed by heads in Washington as a potential ally in the possible formation of a new NATO satellite state that could border very close to Russia and the Middle East - two potential bombing targets of the U.S.
It's obvious what is going on here. The U.S., as Chomsky says, believes it owns the world. It believes it can tell whoever it wants to do whatever it wants. The U.S. believes that an independent Kosovo is in the best interest of the United States of America. Forget the fact that Kosovo is still technically a province of Serbia, that doesn't matter. International law - where such a move by Kosovo is deemed illegal - is irrelevant. What the U.S. says, goes. Plain and simple, for those of you scoring this at home.
What Gary Leupp recently wrote on Counterpunch (http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp02192008.html) is eye opening and a great refresher for those of us who have studied the situation in Kosovo. It is also a great introduction into the situation. Either way, one of his key insights was pointing out how Saudi Arabia has been heavily involved with building mosques in Kosovo as well as sending out its Salafi propaganda to the Muslims of Kosovo.
Obviously this could lead to a major problem. Saudi "Islam" is not the type of Islam that needs to be spread. It's literalism and angry tone is out of step with traditional Islamic discourse. It brews hatred of anyone, Muslims included, outside of their little cult.
But those are just some of the issues with Kosovo. More importantly for us Americans is the fact that the U.S. is going to be assured a major military base in Kosovo. Another large military base on another foreign country's soil. What for? To keep the Russians, our potential adversary, in check.
Oh, just more and more empire building in the age of the greatest empire on Earth. We own the world and we will tell other nations what land is theirs and what land of theirs we will allocate for our own purposes. We bomb a nation on the premise to stop genocide, but our bombing leads to even worse violence and chaos.
I think a very important fact for us Americans to learn is that whenever our country claims to be doing something for noble ends then it's probably too good to be true. Kosovo is the latest example of power flexing and hubris masquerading as noble intentions. How pathetic.
I find all too often that American Muslims make decisions on issues in haste naively believing that anything where Muslims benefit is a good thing in general. This is the case with Kosovo. The recent history of Kosovo has become somewhat convoluted. I remember as a high school teenager when the NATO led war was occurring in Kosovo, hearing stories about genocide and ethnic cleansing. Muslims here in the United States saw it as another Bosnian War - Muslims being butchered to death by insane Christian radicals.
Well, that's not what happened in Kosovo. As Noam Chomsky has documented many times, the atrocities began to occur in Kosovo, and were predicted to occur, after NATO began its air campaign. There was no genocide occurring in Kosovo and there was no ethnic cleansing. People were being killed, but not anywhere near the level that U.S. officials were claiming.
The issue here is that my country, the United States, is recognizing the formation of a new nation, in fact encouraging it. Russia and Serbia have said this sets a very bad precedent if allowed to occur. There reasoning is sound in my estimation. Other European nations are backing Russia and Serbia on this issue, namely Spain and Greece. Over 95% of Kosovo is ethnic Albanian - there is already an Albanian nation-state called Albania.
The Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, is the group behind most of the on the ground efforts to "free" Kosovo from Serbian rule. The KLA was named a terrorist organization by the U.S. once, but then was quickly taken off the list once the KLA was viewed by heads in Washington as a potential ally in the possible formation of a new NATO satellite state that could border very close to Russia and the Middle East - two potential bombing targets of the U.S.
It's obvious what is going on here. The U.S., as Chomsky says, believes it owns the world. It believes it can tell whoever it wants to do whatever it wants. The U.S. believes that an independent Kosovo is in the best interest of the United States of America. Forget the fact that Kosovo is still technically a province of Serbia, that doesn't matter. International law - where such a move by Kosovo is deemed illegal - is irrelevant. What the U.S. says, goes. Plain and simple, for those of you scoring this at home.
What Gary Leupp recently wrote on Counterpunch (http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp02192008.html) is eye opening and a great refresher for those of us who have studied the situation in Kosovo. It is also a great introduction into the situation. Either way, one of his key insights was pointing out how Saudi Arabia has been heavily involved with building mosques in Kosovo as well as sending out its Salafi propaganda to the Muslims of Kosovo.
Obviously this could lead to a major problem. Saudi "Islam" is not the type of Islam that needs to be spread. It's literalism and angry tone is out of step with traditional Islamic discourse. It brews hatred of anyone, Muslims included, outside of their little cult.
But those are just some of the issues with Kosovo. More importantly for us Americans is the fact that the U.S. is going to be assured a major military base in Kosovo. Another large military base on another foreign country's soil. What for? To keep the Russians, our potential adversary, in check.
Oh, just more and more empire building in the age of the greatest empire on Earth. We own the world and we will tell other nations what land is theirs and what land of theirs we will allocate for our own purposes. We bomb a nation on the premise to stop genocide, but our bombing leads to even worse violence and chaos.
I think a very important fact for us Americans to learn is that whenever our country claims to be doing something for noble ends then it's probably too good to be true. Kosovo is the latest example of power flexing and hubris masquerading as noble intentions. How pathetic.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Who's Rigging the Elections in Pakistan?
Looks like it's not Musharraf who is rigging the elections, but the PPP, surprisingly. Wajahat Ali had an extensive interview with Imran Khan earlier today (http://www.counterpunch.org/ali02182008.html) and Khan said that the elections are a farce because Musharraf rigged the ballots... so far that seems utterly false. FOX News (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330992,00.html) and other media outlets are reporting that results so far indicate a big win for the PPP.
Meanwhile, Fatima Bhutto, the estranged niece of the late former Prime Minister, says that its the PPP who are rigging the elections... not Musharraf and his PML-Q Party (http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Politics/?id=1.0.1888860808).
Who to believe? Well, based upon the results you could either say that Musharraf didn't rig the elections and the PPP will win because of that or that the PPP rigged the elections better than the PML-Q. Hah!
Anyway, there was a very low turnout for the election because most Pakistanis believed the election would be rigged or stayed home due to potential violence around polling stations. In any case, Fatima Bhutto's words echo the deep problem Pakistan faces: whoever is in charge of Pakistan - civilian or military - is always corrupt.
"Fatima Bhutto said on Monday she had received more than 50 complaints from people who claimed to have witnessed voting irregularities in Sindh province, considered a stronghold for Bhutto's PPP, now led by her widower, Asif Ali Zardari.
'I witnessed rigging with my own eyes,' Bhutto told AKI. 'They were allowing people, who were not registered, to vote.'...
While polling has ended the results of the ballot for a new national assembly and four provincial assemblies was not clear late on Monday.
Bhutto said independent election observers had absolutely no impact on the election and she would be talking to lawyers about filing an official complaint with Pakistan's electoral commission.
'I have been part of four election campaigns since 1993, and I have never seen anything like this,' Bhutto said."
Meanwhile, Fatima Bhutto, the estranged niece of the late former Prime Minister, says that its the PPP who are rigging the elections... not Musharraf and his PML-Q Party (http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Politics/?id=1.0.1888860808).
Who to believe? Well, based upon the results you could either say that Musharraf didn't rig the elections and the PPP will win because of that or that the PPP rigged the elections better than the PML-Q. Hah!
Anyway, there was a very low turnout for the election because most Pakistanis believed the election would be rigged or stayed home due to potential violence around polling stations. In any case, Fatima Bhutto's words echo the deep problem Pakistan faces: whoever is in charge of Pakistan - civilian or military - is always corrupt.
"Fatima Bhutto said on Monday she had received more than 50 complaints from people who claimed to have witnessed voting irregularities in Sindh province, considered a stronghold for Bhutto's PPP, now led by her widower, Asif Ali Zardari.
'I witnessed rigging with my own eyes,' Bhutto told AKI. 'They were allowing people, who were not registered, to vote.'...
While polling has ended the results of the ballot for a new national assembly and four provincial assemblies was not clear late on Monday.
Bhutto said independent election observers had absolutely no impact on the election and she would be talking to lawyers about filing an official complaint with Pakistan's electoral commission.
'I have been part of four election campaigns since 1993, and I have never seen anything like this,' Bhutto said."
Fake -Ex-Terrorists Exposed
As if this wasn't already obvious enough: http://www.israelenews.com/view.asp?ID=1117
By Bruce Wilson - Talk to Action
By Bruce Wilson - Talk to Action
Walid Shoebat says there's a $10 million dollar contract out for his assassination, and he claims to have been a major terrorist working for the PLO. His associate Zachariah Anani says he has killed 223 people, many of them with daggers, and also survived a beheading attempt. The two are part of a trio making the rounds as the "Three ex-Terrorists" who purport to have great knowledge about Islamic terrorism (and what America should do about it).
Shoebat and his two "ex-terrorist" associates are already booked, along with US Senator Joe Lieberman, as speakers at the 2008 "Christians United For Israel" conference in Washington DC this summer but a rising chorus of voices has begun to challenge the veracity of Shoebat's claims to having been a major PLO terrorist. Shoebat has recently managed to offend a Princeton pro-AIPAC group(PIPAC) through his use of the epithet "judenrat" and he has also managed to make an enemy out of a former fan, right wing blogger Debbie Schlussel who wrotein a comment attached to a post on her blog,
"AS FOR SHOEBAT, HE IS A COMPLETE CREEP AND AN APPARENT FRAUD, WHO IS IN THIS FOR THE BUSINESS ASPECT OF IT FOR HIMSELF. IN MY OWN PERSONAL ENCOUNTERS WITH HIM, HE COMPLETELY REPULSED ME AND ENTIRELY CHANGED MY VIEW ON HIM (I HAD PRAISED HIM, PREVIOUSLY, ON THIS SITE). HE STOLE A COLUMN I WROTE--WORD FOR WORD--ON IMAD HAMAD AND USED IT IN A PRESS RELEASE. WHEN I CAUGHT HIM AND PINNED HIM DOWN, HE ADMITTED TO IT, BUT STATED HE DOES NOT WANT TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH CONSERVATIVES (WHO MAKE UP HIS WHOLE BASE) AND THAT'S WHY IT WAS OKAY TO STEAL FROM ME UNATTRIBUTED. HE PROMISED TO CORRECT, BUT WHEN HE DID NOT AND I CALLED HIM. HE SAID, "F-CK YOU, BITCH," AND HUNG UP."
Walid Shoebat has made a career for himself by painting Islam as a religion bent on world domination. Along with Brigitte Gabriel who I heard as a speaker, last summer at the Christians United For Israel conference where she proclaimed in speech that "Arabs and Muslims "have no SOUL !", Walid Shoebat and his "former terrorists", converts to fundamentalist Christianity, have been traveling around the US, around for several years now, beating the drumbeat for a full-blown religious war between the United States and the whole Islamic world by claiming that because of their alleged background as former terrorists in the PLO, Hamas, or Hezbollah they knew what Islam is really about: killing Christian and Jews. They've been on a nonstop PR tour of the United States trying to whip Americans up into a frenzied panic about the alleged menace of militant Islam...
But a rising chorus has started to call out the veracity of the claims Shoebat and his associates have made, on having been significant terrorist figures, and the issue seems to have come to a head recently as Shoebat and two of his "ex-terrorist" colleagues were just invited, for a paid appearance, as experts on terrorism, at a conference at the US Air Force Academy:
Shoebat and his associates are a staple of right wing conferences and Christian Zionist events, as speakers, and they're constantly on not just dedicated radio and TV broadcast outlets of the American Christian right but also on Fox and CNN and their pounding propagandistic and hateful message to Americans has been:
"Two or three hundred Muslims want to kill you, they want to destroy America and they'll do it if they have to swim over here, bombs strapped to their backs, to do it. So you'd better get them before they get you. And, by the way, they're over here too. Any American Muslim you see might be one of them, you never know."
It's the most viciously hateful, corrosive-to-Democracy agitprop you've ever heard and they would have kept at it, for years probably, if their stories hadn't been challenged. A few weeks ago however, Canada's top terrorism expert suggested that the details on the alleged terrorist past of one of Shoebat's three "ex-terrorists", Zachariah Anani, didn't add up:
As reported by Eileen Fleming, on her blog, a relative of Shoebat's told Fleming that:
Called on his claims to have been a PLO terrorist, by Eileen Fleming, Shoebat-- who has appeared multiple times on television, for CNN and Fox as a supposed expert on Islamic terrorism --has issued a long rebuttalon Op-Ed News:
Immediately following Shoebat's rebuttal is a post by Eileen Fleming, who writes that Shoebat's agent Keith Davies threatened her with a lawsuit unless she retracted her story challenging Shoebat's account of his supposed terrorist past, and Fleming, in her post, says she won't retract a single word:
Shoebat and his two "ex-terrorist" associates are already booked, along with US Senator Joe Lieberman, as speakers at the 2008 "Christians United For Israel" conference in Washington DC this summer but a rising chorus of voices has begun to challenge the veracity of Shoebat's claims to having been a major PLO terrorist. Shoebat has recently managed to offend a Princeton pro-AIPAC group(PIPAC) through his use of the epithet "judenrat" and he has also managed to make an enemy out of a former fan, right wing blogger Debbie Schlussel who wrotein a comment attached to a post on her blog,
"AS FOR SHOEBAT, HE IS A COMPLETE CREEP AND AN APPARENT FRAUD, WHO IS IN THIS FOR THE BUSINESS ASPECT OF IT FOR HIMSELF. IN MY OWN PERSONAL ENCOUNTERS WITH HIM, HE COMPLETELY REPULSED ME AND ENTIRELY CHANGED MY VIEW ON HIM (I HAD PRAISED HIM, PREVIOUSLY, ON THIS SITE). HE STOLE A COLUMN I WROTE--WORD FOR WORD--ON IMAD HAMAD AND USED IT IN A PRESS RELEASE. WHEN I CAUGHT HIM AND PINNED HIM DOWN, HE ADMITTED TO IT, BUT STATED HE DOES NOT WANT TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH CONSERVATIVES (WHO MAKE UP HIS WHOLE BASE) AND THAT'S WHY IT WAS OKAY TO STEAL FROM ME UNATTRIBUTED. HE PROMISED TO CORRECT, BUT WHEN HE DID NOT AND I CALLED HIM. HE SAID, "F-CK YOU, BITCH," AND HUNG UP."
Walid Shoebat has made a career for himself by painting Islam as a religion bent on world domination. Along with Brigitte Gabriel who I heard as a speaker, last summer at the Christians United For Israel conference where she proclaimed in speech that "Arabs and Muslims "have no SOUL !", Walid Shoebat and his "former terrorists", converts to fundamentalist Christianity, have been traveling around the US, around for several years now, beating the drumbeat for a full-blown religious war between the United States and the whole Islamic world by claiming that because of their alleged background as former terrorists in the PLO, Hamas, or Hezbollah they knew what Islam is really about: killing Christian and Jews. They've been on a nonstop PR tour of the United States trying to whip Americans up into a frenzied panic about the alleged menace of militant Islam...
But a rising chorus has started to call out the veracity of the claims Shoebat and his associates have made, on having been significant terrorist figures, and the issue seems to have come to a head recently as Shoebat and two of his "ex-terrorist" colleagues were just invited, for a paid appearance, as experts on terrorism, at a conference at the US Air Force Academy:
As the New York Times has reported yesterday, three men who spoke Wednesday at a US Air Force Academy conference on terrorism, who have been publicly billing themselves "ex-terrorists", made public speaking appearances vilifying Islam into a professional career and claim they know the real, secret and dark inner nature of Islam because they were once terrorists until they were redeemed by evangelical Christianity, may well have fabricated those "terrorist" backgrounds.The USAF Academy appearance was not an anomaly, and one of Shoebat's associates, who professes considerable knowledge of terrorism for having grown up in Southern Lebanon, Brigitte Gabriel, spoke at the Joint Command Center in Norfolk VA last summer, in 2007, and described a struggle against what she termed "Islamofascism".The Air Force Academy was criticized by Muslim and religious freedom organizations for playing host on Wednesday to three speakers who critics say are evangelical Christians falsely claiming to be former Muslim terrorists. The three men were invited as part of a weeklong conference on terrorism organized by cadets at the academy's Colorado Springs campus under the auspices of the political science department.The appearance of the three "ex-terrorists" at the United States Air Force Academy further raises the issue of what the nonprofit watchdog foundation MRFFcharges is a pervasive pattern both of religious coercion and improper endorsement of religion in the US military. The NYT story noted that one of Shoebat's 'ex-terrorist' group members, Zak Anani, told students at the USAF Academy that "converting to Christianity from Islam saved his life". The operating assumption that Shoebat and his group present to audiences is that Islam is an inherently evil religion. As the New York Times quotes CAIR spokeperson Ibrahim Hooper, "Their entire world view is based on the idea that Islam is evil."
The three will be paid a total of $13,000 for their appearance, some of it from private donors, said Maj. Brett Ashworth, a spokesman for the academy.
The three were invited because "they offered a unique perspective from inside terrorism," Major Ashworth said. The conference is to result in a report on methods to combat terrorism that will be sent to the Pentagon, members of Congress and other influential officials, he added.
Shoebat and his associates are a staple of right wing conferences and Christian Zionist events, as speakers, and they're constantly on not just dedicated radio and TV broadcast outlets of the American Christian right but also on Fox and CNN and their pounding propagandistic and hateful message to Americans has been:
"Two or three hundred Muslims want to kill you, they want to destroy America and they'll do it if they have to swim over here, bombs strapped to their backs, to do it. So you'd better get them before they get you. And, by the way, they're over here too. Any American Muslim you see might be one of them, you never know."
It's the most viciously hateful, corrosive-to-Democracy agitprop you've ever heard and they would have kept at it, for years probably, if their stories hadn't been challenged. A few weeks ago however, Canada's top terrorism expert suggested that the details on the alleged terrorist past of one of Shoebat's three "ex-terrorists", Zachariah Anani, didn't add up:
Last January 20th, 2007, the Windsor Star featured the reaction of Tom Quiggen to self--described "terrorism expert" Zachariah Anani, who had made some speaking appearances in Canada. Tom Quiggen is "Canada's only court-qualified expert on global jihadism and a former RCMP intelligence and national security expert" and Quiggen stated that in his studied, polite but unequivocal opinion self-proclaimed "former terrrorist" Zachariah Anani's story, about his alleged terrorist background, just isn't credible. In short, Quiggen pegged his professional reputation on the likelihood that Zachariah Anani has been lying about his background. As Quiggen said in the Windsor Star article,Now, a woman who says she has tracked down and talked to one of Walid Shoebat's Palestinian-American relatives- who supposedly has said Walid Shoebat's story is fraudulent -has now called Shoebat out to the extent of refusing to retract her story, which contradicts Shoebat's story of having been a major PLO terrorist, despite a lawsuit threat from Shoebat's agent."It appears to be that Mr. Anani is nothing more than an extremist who is trying to create an imaginative history from a contemporary set of fears and stories," said Quiggin. "Mr. Anani's myths that he has built up around himself lack validity on a number of key points... "His story of having made kills shortly after he joined and having made 223 kills overall is preposterous, given the lack of fighting during most of the time period he claims to have been a fighter," Quiggin said. "He also states he left Lebanon to go to Al-Azhar University at the age of 18, which would mean he went to Egypt in 1976. In other words, according to himself, he left Lebanon within a year of when the fighting actually started.". . .
Quiggin said Anani's description of himself as a Muslim terrorist also "defies logic" based on the time frame.
"Most the groups involved in the fighting in Lebanon were secular and tended to be extreme leftists or Marxists," he said.
Quiggin said religious-based terrorism as part of the warring in Lebanon didn't begin until after 1979, following the revolution in Iran, the Soviet attack on Afghanistan and the attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Sunni Muslim extremists.
Anani's claim to have survived a beheading attempt is also questionable, said Quiggin.
"This was not a common practice in Lebanon at any time and again it appears as though he is attempting to build up his past mythology by playing on current Iraqi-based fears," Quiggin said.
As reported by Eileen Fleming, on her blog, a relative of Shoebat's told Fleming that:
As Fleming's account, of this alternative and somewhat drab alternate chronicle of Shoebat's past, continues it descends to a sad, tawdry level:"The biggest act of 'terror' he ever committed was to glue Palestinian flags on street posts. But, when he was in jail he met someone who invited him to join a group against Israel. In 1977 Walid and his friends put packages behind a bank, but there were no explosives in it. That year he also met some Jehovah Witnesses and joined them for a while."
"Walid came to the U.S. in 1978 and met an Afghani friend and they went into business together, but it didn't work out, so he moved to Chicago in 1981 where many cousins live and asked for help. He went to Loop College [now Harold Washington College] and was appointed as a foreign student advisor; a position offered him so he could pay his tuition." "The repo man took Walid's truck and after that he went back to California. He met a Palestinian girl there and they got married and had a son. But, he beat his wife and that marriage broke up."Walid Shoebat has said his name is assumed because there's is a ten million dollar price tag on his head. He's also said (in his World Net Daily rebuttal to Fleming for example) that Walid Shoebat is his real name and that's a pattern becoming increasingly evident as scrutiny of Shoebat intensifies - he's contradicted himself a number of times.
Called on his claims to have been a PLO terrorist, by Eileen Fleming, Shoebat-- who has appeared multiple times on television, for CNN and Fox as a supposed expert on Islamic terrorism --has issued a long rebuttalon Op-Ed News:
Immediately following Shoebat's rebuttal is a post by Eileen Fleming, who writes that Shoebat's agent Keith Davies threatened her with a lawsuit unless she retracted her story challenging Shoebat's account of his supposed terrorist past, and Fleming, in her post, says she won't retract a single word:
At 1 AM on Fat Tuesday morn, Keith Davies, Walid's handler sent me an email threat of a lawsuit unless I issued "a full apology and retraction" Walid's OP followed his threat, which OPN has published in full and from which I only excerpt. Before I reply to Walid's epistle, I begin with my email reply to his handler:
Hi Keith,
No apology and no retraction will come from me.
Bruce Wilson is co-founder of Talk To Action, an online publication that monitors the Christian Right.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Israel Kills Islamic Jihad Operative... and his two kids
Purity of Arms Alert: Aljazeera reports today that "A senior member of Islamic Jihad and six other Palestinians have been killed in a blast in the Gaza Strip, according to doctors and witnesses."
No big deal, right? Israel conducts targeted assassinations of Palestinians all the time - the Palestinians being considered too barbaric to be allowed a fair trial to defend themselves. The catch today is that the Israelis blew to bits this Islamic Jihad operative's family as well. "Two of al-Fayed's two children, a girl and a boy, were also killed in the blast, Palestinian doctors said."
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B9E244E5-4819-4D19-8578-F1F7C14FF2B6.htm
No big deal, right? Israel conducts targeted assassinations of Palestinians all the time - the Palestinians being considered too barbaric to be allowed a fair trial to defend themselves. The catch today is that the Israelis blew to bits this Islamic Jihad operative's family as well. "Two of al-Fayed's two children, a girl and a boy, were also killed in the blast, Palestinian doctors said."
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B9E244E5-4819-4D19-8578-F1F7C14FF2B6.htm
Wajahat Ali Interview with Steve Coll
Pakistan's elections are coming up very soon. Word on the street is Musharraf may rig the elections, which could irk quite a few people in Pakistan leading to riots that make Kenya look like Disney World.
The potential alliance of Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari is possibly the worst political alliance in the name of improving a nation in human history. If I was a Pakistani right now I would be looking at that alliance and be wondering how in the world could two guys charged with corruption and exiled be able to run for office in my country and even worse, have the gall to say that they, of all people, could fix the problems of my country?
It's like if Michael Vick ran for president of the United States in 10 years.
Below is an interview by Wajahat Ali with Steve Coll.
http://www.counterpunch.org/ali02152008.html
The potential alliance of Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari is possibly the worst political alliance in the name of improving a nation in human history. If I was a Pakistani right now I would be looking at that alliance and be wondering how in the world could two guys charged with corruption and exiled be able to run for office in my country and even worse, have the gall to say that they, of all people, could fix the problems of my country?
It's like if Michael Vick ran for president of the United States in 10 years.
Below is an interview by Wajahat Ali with Steve Coll.
http://www.counterpunch.org/ali02152008.html
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Intellectual Culture in the U.S.
I experienced similar things in Boston last year while temporarily a PhD student at Boston University. After reading Chomsky's words on how "intellectuals" and professors usually react to this kind of stuff it is not at all surprising to find that other intellectuals feel the same apathy and disconnect from the plight of the Palestinians.
Talking to a Wall
Palestine in the Mind of America
By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON
You would think that showing maps clearly delineating the truncated, obviously non-viable area available for a possible Palestinian state and showing pictures that define Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories would have some kind of impact on an audience of astute but, on this issue, generally uninformed Americans. We recently spoke to a small foreign affairs discussion group and devoted much of our presentation to these images of oppression -- images that never appear in the U.S. media -- in the probably naïve hope of making some kind of dent in the impassive American attitude toward Israel's 40-year occupation of Palestinian territory.
But our expectations that these people would listen and perhaps learn something were sadly misplaced. Few among the elite seminar-style discussion group seemed concerned about, or even particularly interested in, what is happening on the ground in Palestine-Israel, and the event stands as starkly emblematic of American apathy about the oppressive Israeli regime in the occupied territories that the United States is enabling and in many instances actively encouraging.
The maps that we displayed of the West Bank, prepared by the UN and by Israeli human rights groups, clearly depicted the segmented, disconnected scatter of territorial pieces that would make up the Palestinian state even in the most optimistic of scenarios -- Palestinian areas broken up by the separation wall cutting deep into the West Bank; by large Israeli settlements scattered throughout and taking up something like 10 percent of the territory; by the network of roads connecting the settlements, all accessible only to Israeli drivers; and by the Jordan Valley, currently barred to any Palestinian not already living there, making up fully one-quarter of the West Bank, and ultimately destined for annexation by Israel.
The maps make it clear that even the most generous Israeli plan would leave a Palestinian state with only 50-60 percent of the West Bank (constituting 11-12 percent of original Palestine), broken into multiple separated segments and including no part of Jerusalem. The photographs, taken during our several trips to Palestine in recent years, depicted the separation wall, checkpoints and terminals in the wall resembling cages, Palestinian homes demolished and official buildings destroyed, vast Israeli settlements built on confiscated Palestinian land, destroyed Palestinian olive groves, commerce in Palestinian cities shut down because of marauding Israeli settlers or soldiers.
We have shown maps and pictures like these myriad times before, but have never been received with quite such disinterest. Here was a group of mostly retired U.S. government officials, academics, journalists, and business 
executives, as well as a few still-working professionals -- all ranging in political orientation from center right to center left, the cream of informed, educated America, the exemplar of elite mainstream opinion in the United States. Their lack of concern about what Israel and, because of its enabling role, the U.S. are doing to destroy an entire people and their national aspirations could not have been more evident.
The first person to comment when our presentation concluded, identifying herself as Jewish, said she had "never heard a more one-sided presentation" and labeled us "beyond anti-Semitic" -- which presumably is somewhat worse than plain-and-simple anti-Semitic. This is always a somewhat upsetting charge, although it is so common and so expected as to be of little note anymore. What was more noteworthy was the reaction, or lack of it, among the rest of the assembled, who never disputed her charge but spent most of the discussion period either disputing our presentation or trying to find ways to accommodate "Jewish pain."
Our brief conversation with this woman progressed in an interesting fashion. We tried to engage her in a discussion about what exactly was one-sided in our depiction of the situation on the ground and what she would have liked to see to make it "two-sided." She did not answer but indicated that she thought whatever Israel did must be justified by Palestinian actions. "Someone had to have started it," she said. We laid out a little history for her, noting that the first action, the "who-started-it" part, could be traced back to Britain's Balfour Declaration pledge in 1917 to promote the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, at a time when Jews made up no more than 10 percent of the population of Palestine. Then we came up to the 1947 UN partition resolution, which allotted 55 percent of Palestine for a Jewish state at a time when Jews owned only seven percent of the land and made up slightly less than one-third of the population.
Her answer was, "Well, but it wasn't Jews who did this." We disabused her of this and briefly detailed the deliberate Zionist program of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian population conducted during 1947-48 war, as described by several Israeli historians, including particularly Ilan Pappe, whose The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is based on Israeli military archives. Her eyes actually began to bulge, but she held her tongue. Apparently deciding that she had no way of refuting these facts, she finally decided that going back in history was of no utility -- a common Zionist dodge -- and that Israel had not been established in any case to be a democracy but was a haven for persecuted Jews and as such has every right to organize itself in any way it sees fit. The moderator finally called on others who wanted to speak, and the discussion moved on.
But not very far. The talk now circled, for over an hour, around what passed for profound discussion: around someone's curious remarks about Zeitgeist, someone else's equally curious insistence that there was "something out there that no one would talk about" that was influencing the situation, a few remarks about Palestinians as terrorists and how even if Israel made peace with the Palestinians Hamas would still try to destroy it, a lot of talk about how to accommodate Jewish pain and, taking off from this, a psychologist's attempt to draw an analogy between Jews who live in fear of persecution and the rape victims she counsels who live in constant fear that they will be raped again or worse.
A few people did ask interested questions about the situation on the ground and about various aspects of Israeli policy. After the discussion had centered for quite a while on Jewish pain, one person pointed out that Palestinians too feel pain and live in fear, but no one else picked up on this. No one challenged the first speaker's personal charge of anti-Semitism against us, and in the end there was almost no mention of the destructive Israeli practices that had been the subject of our presentation.
We had occasion to email several of the participants the next day. In one message, we lodged a mild complaint with the three group organizers about the fact that the charge of anti-Semitism was allowed not only to stand but to set the tone for much of the discussion, with no refutation of the substance of the charge by anyone except us. In another message, sent to a man who had expressed puzzlement over why the Jewish vote was thought to be important in U.S. elections, we forwarded without comment an article from Mother Jones about Barack Obama's difficulties with the Jewish community and his concerted effort to demonstrate his bona fides by pledging fealty to Israel and justifying Israel's siege of Gaza.
Finally, to the psychologist, we wrote a comment on her analogy between Jews and rape victims, observing that as a psychologist she undoubtedly did not encourage her rape victim clients to perpetuate their fear or adopt an aggressive attitude toward other people, but most likely gave them tools to help them regain trust and move beyond fears for their personal safety. This kind of restorative therapy for Jews has never been employed, we noted, but on the contrary Israeli leaders and American Jewish leaders have encouraged Jewish fears, along with an aggressive, militaristic Israeli policy toward its neighbors.
These were all gratuitous overtures by us, but they were not inappropriate or uncivil. Yet not one of these people saw fit to answer our missives or even acknowledge their receipt -- indicating, we can only assume, the general level of unconcern among Americans about the atrocities being committed against Palestinians, including the siege and starvation imposed on Gazans. Then, too, the lack of response probably reflects feelings on the part of most attendees that we are somehow responsible for having involved them in a discussion that turned out to be fairly unpleasant for them.
Why is this interesting to anyone but us? Because this in-depth discussion with a small but representative group of intelligent, thinking Americans is indicative of a broad range of U.S. public opinion on foreign policy issues, and their level of disinterest in the consequences of U.S. policies is quite disturbing. The self-absorption evident during this meeting, the general "don't-rock-the-boat" posture, the overwhelming lack of concern for the victims of Israeli and U.S. power amount to a license to kill for the U.S. and its allies. The same unconcern allowed the United States to get away with killing millions of Vietnamese decades ago; it gives license to mass U.S. killing in Iraq and Afghanistan; it is the reason Democrats still, after seven years of Bush administration torture and killing around the world, cannot fully separate themselves from Republican militarism. It gives Israel license to kill and ethnically cleanse the entire nation of Palestine.
Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst and has worked on Middle East issues for 30 years. She is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession. She can be reached at kathy.bill.christison@comcast.net.
Bill Christison was a senior official of the CIA. He served as a National Intelligence officer and as director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis.
They can be reached at kathy.bill.christison@comcast.net.Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Should Hirsi Ali's Security be Paid by Tax Payers?
French TV carried a debate between Irshad Manji, Robert Spencer, and two other guests about Ayaan Hirsi Ali and whether tax payers in France be obliged to pay for her security.
Manji and Spencer argued that if tax payers did not do so then Ali would be killed and also that this would be a demonstration of what kind of society we live in - one that supports peoples' right to free speech or one that cuts off debate if people become violent.
Now, the bumbling Arab man who was also being interviewed in this panel bumbled on and on about how he thinks tax payers would not want to pay for someone's security because the person in question, Hirsi Ali, knows that her speech incites people and could lead to her death.
That's a good point from the bumbling Arab man. Equally good points were made by Manji and Spencer who stated that if she was not protected then she would be killed and that would demonstrate that free speech was not completely protected because this person was killed for what she said. If people are intimidated into not saying certain things then there really is no free speech.
We have a bit of a conundrum now don't we?
But the issue is if you can't provide your own security - it may just cost too much - then should the government through its tax payers provide that person with security?
Well, I think it's important to look through history to see how people who have been targets of violence because of what they say have been treated by the state. I can only think of American examples because nothing outside of America currently comes to mind, but we could use Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X as examples here.
King and Malcolm X were both assassinated for things they said. They received death threats through mail and phone calls. No tax payer money provided to them. And there messages were of peace! King was speaking out on behalf of poor people, unions, Vietnamese, Blacks, almost anyone you can think of. Malcolm X's life came under fire when he broke with the Nation of Islam and began to advocate a more tolerant path than that of the Nation.
But ultimately it's up to the citizens of a state to decide such a thing. Based upon precedent I just don't see citizens looking to foot the bill so some lady who has a grudge with a religion can be protected from the people who hate her. Obviously she has recourse to the police and possibly the FBI if she were here, but how long can the government provide her protection? What if you have 500 more Hirsi Ali's? All of them receiving death threats and all of them seeking tax payer financed protection? That becomes a problem and a burden for the citizens of a nation.
Spencer shoots his mouth off all the time - I don't see him seeking tax payer financed security. In fact, Spencer has admitted to receiving death threats: "I have received death threats, but I am not going to stop telling the truth because of them. If everyone who tells truths that others don't want people to know gives in to violent intimidation, what kind of world would it be?" Indeed, what kind of world would it be where citizens of a state have to pay for the security of bigots and racists let alone peace activists?
If Malcolm and Martin Luther King did not get tax payer financed security - and these were nationally renowned activists of peace - then Hirsi Ali has no businesses receiving the kind of money she is asking for. She was receiving roughly 3.5 million Euros from the Dutch for security, which translates to over 5 million dollars.
5 million for Hirsi Ali a year? Tax payers would have to debate if her life and message is worth that much to them.
Manji and Spencer argued that if tax payers did not do so then Ali would be killed and also that this would be a demonstration of what kind of society we live in - one that supports peoples' right to free speech or one that cuts off debate if people become violent.
Now, the bumbling Arab man who was also being interviewed in this panel bumbled on and on about how he thinks tax payers would not want to pay for someone's security because the person in question, Hirsi Ali, knows that her speech incites people and could lead to her death.
That's a good point from the bumbling Arab man. Equally good points were made by Manji and Spencer who stated that if she was not protected then she would be killed and that would demonstrate that free speech was not completely protected because this person was killed for what she said. If people are intimidated into not saying certain things then there really is no free speech.
We have a bit of a conundrum now don't we?
But the issue is if you can't provide your own security - it may just cost too much - then should the government through its tax payers provide that person with security?
Well, I think it's important to look through history to see how people who have been targets of violence because of what they say have been treated by the state. I can only think of American examples because nothing outside of America currently comes to mind, but we could use Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X as examples here.
King and Malcolm X were both assassinated for things they said. They received death threats through mail and phone calls. No tax payer money provided to them. And there messages were of peace! King was speaking out on behalf of poor people, unions, Vietnamese, Blacks, almost anyone you can think of. Malcolm X's life came under fire when he broke with the Nation of Islam and began to advocate a more tolerant path than that of the Nation.
But ultimately it's up to the citizens of a state to decide such a thing. Based upon precedent I just don't see citizens looking to foot the bill so some lady who has a grudge with a religion can be protected from the people who hate her. Obviously she has recourse to the police and possibly the FBI if she were here, but how long can the government provide her protection? What if you have 500 more Hirsi Ali's? All of them receiving death threats and all of them seeking tax payer financed protection? That becomes a problem and a burden for the citizens of a nation.
Spencer shoots his mouth off all the time - I don't see him seeking tax payer financed security. In fact, Spencer has admitted to receiving death threats: "I have received death threats, but I am not going to stop telling the truth because of them. If everyone who tells truths that others don't want people to know gives in to violent intimidation, what kind of world would it be?" Indeed, what kind of world would it be where citizens of a state have to pay for the security of bigots and racists let alone peace activists?
If Malcolm and Martin Luther King did not get tax payer financed security - and these were nationally renowned activists of peace - then Hirsi Ali has no businesses receiving the kind of money she is asking for. She was receiving roughly 3.5 million Euros from the Dutch for security, which translates to over 5 million dollars.
5 million for Hirsi Ali a year? Tax payers would have to debate if her life and message is worth that much to them.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Dr. Sherman Jackson on Ijtihad
I wrote him an email last year asking him about the supposed closing of the doors of ijtihad. It's presupposed that this occurred in Islamic history roughly 500-1,000 years ago so I asked Dr. Jackson if this was the case. Irshad Manji, read carefully.
Dear Omer: Salaamu alaykum. Well, of course, the idea that any people
would simply "hang up their thinking caps" is ridiculous and, quite
frankly, arrogant (if not ethno-centric). However, there are certain
disciplines, such as law, where the basis of authority lies not in a view's
substance but in its provenance (i.e., where it comes from: does it come
from an authoritative SOURCE (the Prophet, a Companion, an Imam; the
Constitution, the Founding Fathers, a Supreme Court precedent) . This is
true even in American constitutional law. Here the challenge becomes how
to introduce new views without giving the impression of taking oneself
instead of the authoritative sources as an authority. In short, the name
of the game becomes one of DISGUISING change. Again, this is the situation
whether we are dealing with Islamic, American or Massachusetts State law
(with the exception that in the latter law can be occasionally changed by
new legislative initiatives).
The problem with Islamic law is that it was never studied AS LAW by the
early Orientalists, and this has had a lasting influence on the Western
(and now through Western hegemony, the Western-educated Muslim)
understanding of Islamic law. Instead, they approached Islamic law as if
it were science or philosophy -- the leading hegemonies in 19th century
Europe. In neither science nor philosophy is provenance important; rather,
what is important in the SUBSTANCE of a view. In both science and
philosophy, independence and innovation are valued; and precedent and
authority are meaningless. Thus, when the Orientalists witnessed what
Muslim jurists had presented as an unbroken tradition of legal doctrine
that had APPARENTLY not changed from the earliest centuries, this was
judged as stagnation and could not be seen as a magnificent feat of
promoting change in the name of stasis.
Now, for Muslims there is a problem too. For whenever they fail or are
unable to keep up with the demand to promote change in the name of stasis
or they take the rules of the past as permanent and unchanging or,
especially when they cease to recognize the difference between law and
fact, they will indeed fall into stagnation. This did indeed happen. But
this was a result of user error and not a function of the very nature of
the system.
There are two works that you might consult initially for some clarity on
this issue. The first is Wael Hallaq's "Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed,"
in the 1980 volume of the International Journal of Middle East Studies.
Hallaq's argument in interesting but essentially wrong. He argues that the
gate of ijtihad never closed (which I technically agree with). But he
essentially makes the same mistake as the Orientalists, i.e., taking law as
if it were science or philosophy. In other words, he wants to prove that
the gate did not close in order to prove that Muslims/Arabs were not
backward. But if stasis in the law were a sign of backwardness, the
American principle of stare decisis (precedent) would also mean that
Americans were backward. But nobody thinks this. In short, if we took
Islamic law as law just like we take American law as law, we would conclude
the same thing about stasis in Islamic law that we conclude about stasis in
American law.
In this light, you might want to consult my book, Islamic Law and the
State: The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Shihab al-Din al-Qarafi (mainly,
Intro and Chs. 3,4, and 5) for an alternative view, where I argue that
ijtihad is actually the more primitive stage in the evolution of a legal
system, where the system is still struggling for widely recognized
repositories of authority, taqlid being the more advanced stage when these
repositories are well established and recognized, at which time legal
science comes to reside in the above mentioned practice of disguising
change. For a shorter version of this argument with the added
consideration of the influence of the modern nation state, you might want
to consult my article, “Sharî'ah, Democracy and the Modern Nation-State:
Some Reflections on Islam, Popular Rule and Pluralism,” Fordham
International Law Journal, vol. 27 no. 1 (2004): 88-107.
At any rate, I hope this helps. Let me know what you come up with.
Salaam,
Prof. Jackson
Dear Omer: Salaamu alaykum. Well, of course, the idea that any people
would simply "hang up their thinking caps" is ridiculous and, quite
frankly, arrogant (if not ethno-centric). However, there are certain
disciplines, such as law, where the basis of authority lies not in a view's
substance but in its provenance (i.e., where it comes from: does it come
from an authoritative SOURCE (the Prophet, a Companion, an Imam; the
Constitution, the Founding Fathers, a Supreme Court precedent) . This is
true even in American constitutional law. Here the challenge becomes how
to introduce new views without giving the impression of taking oneself
instead of the authoritative sources as an authority. In short, the name
of the game becomes one of DISGUISING change. Again, this is the situation
whether we are dealing with Islamic, American or Massachusetts State law
(with the exception that in the latter law can be occasionally changed by
new legislative initiatives).
The problem with Islamic law is that it was never studied AS LAW by the
early Orientalists, and this has had a lasting influence on the Western
(and now through Western hegemony, the Western-educated Muslim)
understanding of Islamic law. Instead, they approached Islamic law as if
it were science or philosophy -- the leading hegemonies in 19th century
Europe. In neither science nor philosophy is provenance important; rather,
what is important in the SUBSTANCE of a view. In both science and
philosophy, independence and innovation are valued; and precedent and
authority are meaningless. Thus, when the Orientalists witnessed what
Muslim jurists had presented as an unbroken tradition of legal doctrine
that had APPARENTLY not changed from the earliest centuries, this was
judged as stagnation and could not be seen as a magnificent feat of
promoting change in the name of stasis.
Now, for Muslims there is a problem too. For whenever they fail or are
unable to keep up with the demand to promote change in the name of stasis
or they take the rules of the past as permanent and unchanging or,
especially when they cease to recognize the difference between law and
fact, they will indeed fall into stagnation. This did indeed happen. But
this was a result of user error and not a function of the very nature of
the system.
There are two works that you might consult initially for some clarity on
this issue. The first is Wael Hallaq's "Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed,"
in the 1980 volume of the International Journal of Middle East Studies.
Hallaq's argument in interesting but essentially wrong. He argues that the
gate of ijtihad never closed (which I technically agree with). But he
essentially makes the same mistake as the Orientalists, i.e., taking law as
if it were science or philosophy. In other words, he wants to prove that
the gate did not close in order to prove that Muslims/Arabs were not
backward. But if stasis in the law were a sign of backwardness, the
American principle of stare decisis (precedent) would also mean that
Americans were backward. But nobody thinks this. In short, if we took
Islamic law as law just like we take American law as law, we would conclude
the same thing about stasis in Islamic law that we conclude about stasis in
American law.
In this light, you might want to consult my book, Islamic Law and the
State: The Constitutional Jurisprudence of Shihab al-Din al-Qarafi (mainly,
Intro and Chs. 3,4, and 5) for an alternative view, where I argue that
ijtihad is actually the more primitive stage in the evolution of a legal
system, where the system is still struggling for widely recognized
repositories of authority, taqlid being the more advanced stage when these
repositories are well established and recognized, at which time legal
science comes to reside in the above mentioned practice of disguising
change. For a shorter version of this argument with the added
consideration of the influence of the modern nation state, you might want
to consult my article, “Sharî'ah, Democracy and the Modern Nation-State:
Some Reflections on Islam, Popular Rule and Pluralism,” Fordham
International Law Journal, vol. 27 no. 1 (2004): 88-107.
At any rate, I hope this helps. Let me know what you come up with.
Salaam,
Prof. Jackson
Friday, February 8, 2008
Taqiyya Alert!
Robert Spencer's at it again. This time he's saying that Hamas operatives used "taqiyya" to get out of jail. There seem to be two issues here: Spencer's interpretation of taqiyya and Hamas' interpretation of "lying." But then there is also the classical Islamic understanding of "lying."
What happened exactly? Some Hamas operatives were jailed by the Palestinian Authority and they told their captors that they disagreed with Hamas' takeover Gaza. They were then let out of jail. They lied basically to get out of prison. So, some people were questioning if Hamas was having a split in its ranks because these former prisoners said they didn't agree with Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip. So a senior Hamas official went on TV and said that they were simply lying to get out of jail.
“A Muslim is permitted to say things that oppose his beliefs in order to prevent damages or to be saved from death.”
That's what was said by Hamas. What did Spencer say? He said this: "When I point that out, I get called an 'Islamophobe.' I'm told this is a Shi'ite idea that Sunnis shun -- although those who claim this never seem to be aware of the Qur'anic sanction it is given (3:28 and 16:106)."
Qur'anic sanction? Let's look at the verses he mentions.
3: 28. Let not the believers Take for friends or helpers Unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah, except by way of precaution, that ye may Guard yourselves from them. But Allah cautions you (To remember) Himself; for the final goal is to Allah.
Well, what's the tafsir of this verse? Let's look at the Tafsir al-Jalalayn of Imams al-Mahalli and as-Suyuti:
"Let not the believers take the disbelievers as patrons, rather than, that is, instead of, the believers — for whoever does that, that is, [whoever] takes them as patrons, does not belong to, the religion of, God in anyway — unless you protect yourselves against them, as a safeguard (tuqātan, ‘as a safeguard’, is the verbal noun from taqiyyatan), that is to say, [unless] you fear something, in which case you may show patronage to them through words, but not in your hearts: this was before the hegemony of Islam and [the dispensation] applies to any individual residing in a land with no say in it. God warns you, He instills fear in you, of His Self, [warning] that He may be wrathful with you if you take them as patrons; and to God is the journey’s end, the return, and He will requite you."
Yea, Sunnis sure do practice taqiyya. This doesn't provide dispensation to deceive non-Muslims by portraying themselves as "moderates" so that they can secretly take over a non-Muslim country. Maybe Spencer sees that somewhere in this tafsir, but I don't think most people will. This tafsir specifically says that if a Muslim fears that he or she will be persecuted if they do not speak well of their non-Muslim ruler then they should lie. Why? To preserve their life, duh.
Spencer likes to tell ignorant non-Muslims that CAIR, ISNA, et al., are actually practicing taqiyya to advance their interests in the U.S. and then will one day take over the United States and implement Shariah Law!!! Ahhhhh!
Well, if that were the case then we wouldn't be practicing taqiyya as defined in classical Qur'anic commentary (see above). We would simply be lying manipulators who would be violating the law of the All Mighty Himself. I don't think we're looking to go to hell to make America Shariah compliant. Not a good trade off in my opinion.
Let's now look at the second verse he mentions.
16: 106. Any one who, after accepting faith in Allah, utters Unbelief,- except under compulsion, his heart remaining firm in Faith - but such as open their breast to Unbelief, on them is Wrath from Allah, and theirs will be a dreadful Penalty.
Let's look at al-Wahidi's Asbab an-Nuzul for commentary on this verse and then tafsir from the Jalalayn:
"(Whoso disbelieveth in Allah after his belief…) [16:106]. Said Ibn ‘Abbas: “This verse was revealed about ‘Ammar ibn Yasir. The idolaters had taken him away along with his father Yasir, his mother Sumayyah, Suhayb [al-Rumi], Bilal [ibn Rabah], Khabbab [ibn al-Aratt] and Salim [the client of Hudhayfah] and tortured them. As for Sumayyah, she was tied up between two camels and stabbed with a spear in her female organ. She was told: ‘You embraced Islam for the men’, and was then killed. Her husband Yasir was also killed. They were the first two persons who were killed in Islam. As for ‘Ammar, he was coerced to let them hear what they wanted to hear. The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, was told that ‘Ammar has renounced faith, but he said: ‘Never, ‘Ammar is filled with faith from his head to his toes; faith is admixed with his flesh and blood!’ ‘Ammar then went to see the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, crying. The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, wiped his tears with his own hand and said: ‘if they return to you, let hem hear again what you told them’. Then, Allah, exalted is He, revealed this verse”. Mujahid said: “This verse was revealed about some Meccan who accepted faith. The Muslims of Medina wrote to them urging them to migrate and told them that they did not consider them part of them unless they migrated. And so they left Mecca intending to migrate to Medina. The Quraysh caught up with them on the way and coerced them to renounce their faith. It is about them that this verse was revealed."
Life threating circumstances, not Islamist political tactic.
The Tafsir Jalalayn:
"Whoever disbelieves in God after [having affirmed] his faith — except for him who is compelled, to pronounce [a statement of] unbelief and so pronounces it, while his heart is at rest in faith (man, ‘whoever’, is [either] a subject or a conditional, and so the predicate [of this subject], or the response [to this conditional], is [an implied] lahum wa‘īdun shadīd, ‘there is for them a severe threat [of chastisement]’; this is indicated by [the statement that follows]) — but he who opens up his breast to unbelief, that is, [he who] opens it up and expands it [with unbelief], meaning that his soul is content with it, upon such shall be wrath from God, and there is a great chastisement for them."
Where's the idea that Muslims can parade as "moderates" to deceive non-Muslims in non-Muslim countries so the Muslims can secretly and deceptively take over? It doesn't exist for Sunnis. What the Hamas operatives did could be considered acceptable under Sunni fiqh - I'm not a faqhi, but it is possible that you could free yourself from torture (if it's occurring in Guantanamo, then it's probably occurring in a PA jail) through lying as was the case with these Hamas guys.
I don't like Hamas much, but c'mon Robert, please try harder than this. I'm using your own resources, your crutches and they don't back up your claims. It's pathetic. And Spencer also wants every person he can reach out to to know that "war is deceit." Meaning, Muslims can lie at times of war, but what is he doing here? Robert is simply backing up the claims of radical Muslims by saying that there is a state of war between Muslims and non-Muslims and so Muslims can now lie like crazy.
Uhm, no. In a previous post I posted Shaykh al-Akiki's fatwah where he said a state of war only exists when a Muslim state declares war against another state or is attacked by another state. It doesn't exist if bin Laden declares a bogus fatwah saying to kill all non-Muslims. The classical Islamic position is quite clear on this. There is no vigilantism in Islam.
But Robert insists on taqiyya being practiced by Sunnis: "the circumstances in which lying is permitted according to Islamic law -- including 'in times of war.' Which means now."
What war? What Muslim country is fighting someone? There are only three instances where this could apply and for Muslims living in the West it doesn't apply anyway because they're not involved. Iraq, Afghanistan and the Occupied Territories are the only places in the Muslim world where there is actual fighting and in fact no state authority has said that there is a war occurring - unless your al-Qaeda or the Taliban - and last I checked they don't run any state. Sunni leaders in Iraq have not declared war against America last time I checked. Hamid Karzai, U.S. puppet, has not declared war.
But you know, forget everything I just wrote because I could be lying anyway. In fact, I'm not sure if I believe myself now. But seriously, Spencer demonstrates his xenophobic demeanor quite clearly with this type of crap scholarship. What are you Robert, some kind of islamophobe?
What happened exactly? Some Hamas operatives were jailed by the Palestinian Authority and they told their captors that they disagreed with Hamas' takeover Gaza. They were then let out of jail. They lied basically to get out of prison. So, some people were questioning if Hamas was having a split in its ranks because these former prisoners said they didn't agree with Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip. So a senior Hamas official went on TV and said that they were simply lying to get out of jail.
“A Muslim is permitted to say things that oppose his beliefs in order to prevent damages or to be saved from death.”
That's what was said by Hamas. What did Spencer say? He said this: "When I point that out, I get called an 'Islamophobe.' I'm told this is a Shi'ite idea that Sunnis shun -- although those who claim this never seem to be aware of the Qur'anic sanction it is given (3:28 and 16:106)."
Qur'anic sanction? Let's look at the verses he mentions.
3: 28. Let not the believers Take for friends or helpers Unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah, except by way of precaution, that ye may Guard yourselves from them. But Allah cautions you (To remember) Himself; for the final goal is to Allah.
Well, what's the tafsir of this verse? Let's look at the Tafsir al-Jalalayn of Imams al-Mahalli and as-Suyuti:
"Let not the believers take the disbelievers as patrons, rather than, that is, instead of, the believers — for whoever does that, that is, [whoever] takes them as patrons, does not belong to, the religion of, God in anyway — unless you protect yourselves against them, as a safeguard (tuqātan, ‘as a safeguard’, is the verbal noun from taqiyyatan), that is to say, [unless] you fear something, in which case you may show patronage to them through words, but not in your hearts: this was before the hegemony of Islam and [the dispensation] applies to any individual residing in a land with no say in it. God warns you, He instills fear in you, of His Self, [warning] that He may be wrathful with you if you take them as patrons; and to God is the journey’s end, the return, and He will requite you."
Yea, Sunnis sure do practice taqiyya. This doesn't provide dispensation to deceive non-Muslims by portraying themselves as "moderates" so that they can secretly take over a non-Muslim country. Maybe Spencer sees that somewhere in this tafsir, but I don't think most people will. This tafsir specifically says that if a Muslim fears that he or she will be persecuted if they do not speak well of their non-Muslim ruler then they should lie. Why? To preserve their life, duh.
Spencer likes to tell ignorant non-Muslims that CAIR, ISNA, et al., are actually practicing taqiyya to advance their interests in the U.S. and then will one day take over the United States and implement Shariah Law!!! Ahhhhh!
Well, if that were the case then we wouldn't be practicing taqiyya as defined in classical Qur'anic commentary (see above). We would simply be lying manipulators who would be violating the law of the All Mighty Himself. I don't think we're looking to go to hell to make America Shariah compliant. Not a good trade off in my opinion.
Let's now look at the second verse he mentions.
16: 106. Any one who, after accepting faith in Allah, utters Unbelief,- except under compulsion, his heart remaining firm in Faith - but such as open their breast to Unbelief, on them is Wrath from Allah, and theirs will be a dreadful Penalty.
Let's look at al-Wahidi's Asbab an-Nuzul for commentary on this verse and then tafsir from the Jalalayn:
"(Whoso disbelieveth in Allah after his belief…) [16:106]. Said Ibn ‘Abbas: “This verse was revealed about ‘Ammar ibn Yasir. The idolaters had taken him away along with his father Yasir, his mother Sumayyah, Suhayb [al-Rumi], Bilal [ibn Rabah], Khabbab [ibn al-Aratt] and Salim [the client of Hudhayfah] and tortured them. As for Sumayyah, she was tied up between two camels and stabbed with a spear in her female organ. She was told: ‘You embraced Islam for the men’, and was then killed. Her husband Yasir was also killed. They were the first two persons who were killed in Islam. As for ‘Ammar, he was coerced to let them hear what they wanted to hear. The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, was told that ‘Ammar has renounced faith, but he said: ‘Never, ‘Ammar is filled with faith from his head to his toes; faith is admixed with his flesh and blood!’ ‘Ammar then went to see the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, crying. The Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and give him peace, wiped his tears with his own hand and said: ‘if they return to you, let hem hear again what you told them’. Then, Allah, exalted is He, revealed this verse”. Mujahid said: “This verse was revealed about some Meccan who accepted faith. The Muslims of Medina wrote to them urging them to migrate and told them that they did not consider them part of them unless they migrated. And so they left Mecca intending to migrate to Medina. The Quraysh caught up with them on the way and coerced them to renounce their faith. It is about them that this verse was revealed."
Life threating circumstances, not Islamist political tactic.
The Tafsir Jalalayn:
"Whoever disbelieves in God after [having affirmed] his faith — except for him who is compelled, to pronounce [a statement of] unbelief and so pronounces it, while his heart is at rest in faith (man, ‘whoever’, is [either] a subject or a conditional, and so the predicate [of this subject], or the response [to this conditional], is [an implied] lahum wa‘īdun shadīd, ‘there is for them a severe threat [of chastisement]’; this is indicated by [the statement that follows]) — but he who opens up his breast to unbelief, that is, [he who] opens it up and expands it [with unbelief], meaning that his soul is content with it, upon such shall be wrath from God, and there is a great chastisement for them."
Where's the idea that Muslims can parade as "moderates" to deceive non-Muslims in non-Muslim countries so the Muslims can secretly and deceptively take over? It doesn't exist for Sunnis. What the Hamas operatives did could be considered acceptable under Sunni fiqh - I'm not a faqhi, but it is possible that you could free yourself from torture (if it's occurring in Guantanamo, then it's probably occurring in a PA jail) through lying as was the case with these Hamas guys.
I don't like Hamas much, but c'mon Robert, please try harder than this. I'm using your own resources, your crutches and they don't back up your claims. It's pathetic. And Spencer also wants every person he can reach out to to know that "war is deceit." Meaning, Muslims can lie at times of war, but what is he doing here? Robert is simply backing up the claims of radical Muslims by saying that there is a state of war between Muslims and non-Muslims and so Muslims can now lie like crazy.
Uhm, no. In a previous post I posted Shaykh al-Akiki's fatwah where he said a state of war only exists when a Muslim state declares war against another state or is attacked by another state. It doesn't exist if bin Laden declares a bogus fatwah saying to kill all non-Muslims. The classical Islamic position is quite clear on this. There is no vigilantism in Islam.
But Robert insists on taqiyya being practiced by Sunnis: "the circumstances in which lying is permitted according to Islamic law -- including 'in times of war.' Which means now."
What war? What Muslim country is fighting someone? There are only three instances where this could apply and for Muslims living in the West it doesn't apply anyway because they're not involved. Iraq, Afghanistan and the Occupied Territories are the only places in the Muslim world where there is actual fighting and in fact no state authority has said that there is a war occurring - unless your al-Qaeda or the Taliban - and last I checked they don't run any state. Sunni leaders in Iraq have not declared war against America last time I checked. Hamid Karzai, U.S. puppet, has not declared war.
But you know, forget everything I just wrote because I could be lying anyway. In fact, I'm not sure if I believe myself now. But seriously, Spencer demonstrates his xenophobic demeanor quite clearly with this type of crap scholarship. What are you Robert, some kind of islamophobe?
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Wash Sins Away with Wudu!
You know, if doing wudu was a sure fired way of cleansing oneself from sin then I would be a wali of Allah. No doubt about it. According to Robert Spencer, who was on the Michael Savage radio show, Muslims like to kill people, especially their shameful daughters, for reasons of purity.
He replied to a question Savage asked him regarding what Islamic rules there are that are out there that call for honor killings. Spencer replied, roughly, with the following: "Well, I think that the fundamental attitude comes from the purity emphasis, and the shame honor emphasis in Muslim culture. For example, the fact that in Islam there is no idea of the confession or being forgiven of ones sins before the end of one's life rather there is just purification you make various ablutions and wash after sin has been committed, but you can never be sure that Allah will forgive you."
Wash after the sin has been committed? This is just too easy to pass up that I have to point out the obvious stupidity of such a statement.
So if a Muslim kills his mother and father, just because he got mad let's say, then all that Muslim has to do is wash up and he or she will be fine, forgiven by God, sin free??? Really?
That's even easier than making a confession at church, wouldn't you say Robert? I mean, think of the gas you would waste for every time you had to go run down to the church to be forgiven.
In all seriousness, I hope I misheard Mr. Spencer's brilliant analysis. The aspect of Savage's show that I found rather humorous was the idea they were promoting that "honor killings" are becoming more and more common in the U.S. The U.N. estimates roughly 5,000 or so the past year... in the whole world. There have been two incidents that have made national headlines in the U.S. related to the notion of honor killing. The Said sisters in Texas and Aqsa Parvez in Canada. May Allah have mercy upon all three of them. So... one was in the United States.
(Crickets)
As far as I know the only case of an honor killing occurring in the U.S. was the murder of the Said sisters. But there are Spencer and Savage - dumb and dumber - whipping up the crowd, telling anyone who will listen to their crap that honor killings are on the rise in the U.S. Well, I guess it is on the rise technically since the last count of honor killings in the U.S. totaled zero.
Anyway, the Prophet, peace and prayers be upon him, told his Companions not to kill their daughters when they were born because they were ashamed that they did not have a son so I would imagine that killing your daughter because she wasn't wearing a hijab would also be similarly looked down upon. But that's just me. Allah knows best.
He replied to a question Savage asked him regarding what Islamic rules there are that are out there that call for honor killings. Spencer replied, roughly, with the following: "Well, I think that the fundamental attitude comes from the purity emphasis, and the shame honor emphasis in Muslim culture. For example, the fact that in Islam there is no idea of the confession or being forgiven of ones sins before the end of one's life rather there is just purification you make various ablutions and wash after sin has been committed, but you can never be sure that Allah will forgive you."
Wash after the sin has been committed? This is just too easy to pass up that I have to point out the obvious stupidity of such a statement.
So if a Muslim kills his mother and father, just because he got mad let's say, then all that Muslim has to do is wash up and he or she will be fine, forgiven by God, sin free??? Really?
That's even easier than making a confession at church, wouldn't you say Robert? I mean, think of the gas you would waste for every time you had to go run down to the church to be forgiven.
In all seriousness, I hope I misheard Mr. Spencer's brilliant analysis. The aspect of Savage's show that I found rather humorous was the idea they were promoting that "honor killings" are becoming more and more common in the U.S. The U.N. estimates roughly 5,000 or so the past year... in the whole world. There have been two incidents that have made national headlines in the U.S. related to the notion of honor killing. The Said sisters in Texas and Aqsa Parvez in Canada. May Allah have mercy upon all three of them. So... one was in the United States.
(Crickets)
As far as I know the only case of an honor killing occurring in the U.S. was the murder of the Said sisters. But there are Spencer and Savage - dumb and dumber - whipping up the crowd, telling anyone who will listen to their crap that honor killings are on the rise in the U.S. Well, I guess it is on the rise technically since the last count of honor killings in the U.S. totaled zero.
Anyway, the Prophet, peace and prayers be upon him, told his Companions not to kill their daughters when they were born because they were ashamed that they did not have a son so I would imagine that killing your daughter because she wasn't wearing a hijab would also be similarly looked down upon. But that's just me. Allah knows best.
Consequences of Greed
So everyone in Florida could save a few hundred bucks our Counties face severe budget cuts.
County facing $100M shortfall
Broward County will likely face more than $100 million in cuts to next year's budget, and county officials say that could mean layoffs or painful cuts in county services.
County commissioners discussed the grim financial picture Tuesday at its first budget meeting of the year, one week after Florida voters slashed property taxes statewide.
The county's budget experts said the county will need to make up at least $94 million because of the economic downturn, rising costs and the recently approved property tax referendum.
And the real estate market's tailspin will probably bump that figure up to well over $100 million, with some county estimates pumping that number up to almost $150 million.
''We are in the middle of an economic downturn,'' said Kayla Olsen, Broward's budget director. ``There is concern it could get worse before it gets better, and things have been changing on a daily basis.''
Tuesday's discussion began a monthslong tug of war over various budget cuts as county leaders and residents fight to keep their favorite programs during lean times.
The county has until Sept. 30 to approve its budget, but it will begin holding more public workshops over the next few months as it wrangles with the budget and asks for input from residents.
Broward previously chopped $90 million from this year's budget by eliminating vacant positions, raising some park fees and making other minor changes.
But county commissioners say they've already ''picked the low-hanging fruit,'' and the second round of cuts could be tougher.
''I think the community has been sold a whole bunch of propaganda that budget cuts don't equal service cuts,'' Commissioner Kristin Jacobs said. ``That simply is not the case.''
Commissioners floated different ways to fill the budget gap, including laying off employees, offering early retirement packages and eliminating county departments. Others suggested that the county should take a closer look at other ways to bring in revenue, like allowing companies to pay to have a county park or library named after them.
Several commissioners also said they'd like large county agencies like the Broward Sheriff's Office to retrench as well. And BSO spokesman Jim Leljedal said Sheriff Al Lamberti has told department heads that they should start thinking about ways to cut costs.
However, the sheriff does have the option to appeal to the Florida Cabinet if he thinks any county-mandated cuts are too deep.
Other commissioners are already drawing lines in the sand, saying some cuts simply aren't an option. For example, Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion Jr. said he doesn't want to see the county lay off any employees, while Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin said she won't vote for a budget that takes money from human services.
But some commissioners said that might not be possible.
''Everything is on the table,'' Broward Mayor Lois Wexler said. ``Everything is on the table. . . . Certainly we would like to maintain services for everyone and employment for everyone. I don't know if that's possible.''
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Chomsky on How the U.S. Owns the World
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4920
You can translate the rhetoric almost word by word into the elite, including political elite, opposition to the Iraq war.
It’s based on two principles. The first principle is: “we totally reject American ideals.” The only people who accept American ideals are Iraqis. The United States totally rejects them. What American ideals? The principles of the Nuremburg decision. The Nuremburg tribunal, which is basically American, expressed high ideals, which we profess. Namely, of all the war crimes, aggression is the supreme international crime, which encompasses within it all of the evil that follows. It’s obvious that the Iraq invasion is a pure case of aggression and therefore, according to our ideals, it encompasses all the evil that follows, like sectarian warfare, al-Qaeda Iraq, Abu Ghraib, and everything else. The chief U.S. Prosecutor Robert Jackson, addressed the tribunal and said, “we should remember that we’re handing these Nazi war criminals a poisoned chalice. If we ever sip from it we must be subject to the same principles or else the whole thing is a farce.” Well, it seems that almost no one in the American elite accepts that or can even understand it. But Iraqis accept it.
The latest study of Iraqi opinion, carried out by the American military, provides an illustration. There is an interesting article about it by Karen DeYoung in the Washington Post. She said the American military is very excited and cheered to see the results of this latest study, which showed that Iraqis have “shared beliefs.” They’re coming together. They’re getting to political reconciliation. Well, what are the shared beliefs? The shared beliefs are that the Americans are responsible for all the horrors that took place in Iraq, as the Nuremberg principles hold, and they should get out. That’s the shared belief. So yes, they accept American principles. But the American government rejects them totally as does elite opinion. And the same is true in Europe, incidentally. That’s point number one.
The second point is that there is a shared assumption here and in the West that we own the world. Unless you accept that assumption, the entire discussion that is taking place is unintelligible. For example, you see a headline in the newspaper, as I saw recently in the Christian Science Monitor, something like “New Study of Foreign Fighters in Iraq.” Who are the foreign fighters in Iraq? Some guy who came in from Saudi Arabia. How about the 160,000 American troops? Well, they’re not foreign fighters in Iraq because we own the world; therefore we can’t be foreign fighters anywhere. Like, if the United States invades Canada, we won’t be foreign. And if anybody resists it, they’re enemy combatants, we send them to Guantanamo.
The same goes for the entire discussion about Iranian interference in Iraq. If you’re looking at this from some rational standpoint, you have to collapse in ridicule. Could there be Allied interference in Vichy France? There can’t be. The country was conquered and it’s under military occupation. And of course we understand that. When the Russians complained about American interference in Afghanistan, we’d laugh. But when we talk about Iranian interference in Iraq, going back to viable political candidates, every single one of them says that this is outrageous – meaning, the Iranians don’t understand that we own the world. So if anybody disrupts any action of ours, no matter what it is, the supreme international crime or anything else, they’re the criminals. And we send them to Guantanamo and they don’t get rights and so on. And the Supreme Court argues about it.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Time Magazing: Fishy Reporting
Patrick Cockburn over at CounterPunch recently wrote a piece on how the Surge that President Bush ordered has essentially failed despite all the rhetoric of Republicans like John McCain who have said otherwise.
I got a chance to read through Time Magazine's article on the Surge. On the front cover of the newest edition you will see an article that's entitled "The Surge at Year One." In that article the authors, Michael Duffy with Mark Kukis, do every somersault they can to avoid the obvious point that Cockburn pointed out in his article Return to Fallujah (http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick01282008.html). The point is that the Surge was a complete failure because the only reason violence has dropped off in Iraq is due to the breakup between al-Qaeda extremists and the Sunni insurgency. The Sunnis found the foreigners too violent and probably insane and so decided that they would work with the U.S. in eliminating them.
I read Cockburn's article a day before this Time article and was completely taken aback at how Time functioned as such a propaganda piece for our government. No criticism of the Surge at all really, just that it was a fragile plan that will hopefully work.
You literally have to read about NINE paragraphs before you even get to how the Iraqis in the Anbar province broke relations with al-Qaeda members. Once you read that the truth stares out glaringly at you. It's a no brainer. The extra American troops would have accomplished nothing if the Sunnis had not broke ranks with al-Qaeda at the same time. If that does not occur then those extra American troops simply become extra American targets.
This is supposed to be serious journalism last time I checked. The most idiotic sentence from this article reads: "The local uprising against al-Qaeda is known as the Anbar Awakening, and it gave the U.S. a model for turning local tribes, clans and whole neighborhoods against the insurgents." Uhm, what model? Hope that al-Qaeda keeps killing everyone so the Iraqis come on our side?? That's the model? That's the plan?
God help us.
I got a chance to read through Time Magazine's article on the Surge. On the front cover of the newest edition you will see an article that's entitled "The Surge at Year One." In that article the authors, Michael Duffy with Mark Kukis, do every somersault they can to avoid the obvious point that Cockburn pointed out in his article Return to Fallujah (http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick01282008.html). The point is that the Surge was a complete failure because the only reason violence has dropped off in Iraq is due to the breakup between al-Qaeda extremists and the Sunni insurgency. The Sunnis found the foreigners too violent and probably insane and so decided that they would work with the U.S. in eliminating them.
I read Cockburn's article a day before this Time article and was completely taken aback at how Time functioned as such a propaganda piece for our government. No criticism of the Surge at all really, just that it was a fragile plan that will hopefully work.
You literally have to read about NINE paragraphs before you even get to how the Iraqis in the Anbar province broke relations with al-Qaeda members. Once you read that the truth stares out glaringly at you. It's a no brainer. The extra American troops would have accomplished nothing if the Sunnis had not broke ranks with al-Qaeda at the same time. If that does not occur then those extra American troops simply become extra American targets.
This is supposed to be serious journalism last time I checked. The most idiotic sentence from this article reads: "The local uprising against al-Qaeda is known as the Anbar Awakening, and it gave the U.S. a model for turning local tribes, clans and whole neighborhoods against the insurgents." Uhm, what model? Hope that al-Qaeda keeps killing everyone so the Iraqis come on our side?? That's the model? That's the plan?
God help us.
Super Bowl XLII- The Best One Ever
That was the best Super Bowl. Period. Great game even without a lot of scoring. The fourth quarter was probably the most exciting I have ever watched.
The Manning to Tyree play will be hailed as one of the greatest plays in sports history, let alone NFL history. I don't even think that play could be duplicated in Madden.
I've never seen so many Uncles jumping up and down together as I saw last night.
1972 Dolphins - you guys can sleep easier now. After a 1-15 season for the Fins, getting Parcells and having the Pats choke in the Super Bowl already shows that things are getting better. Thank God for that.
The Manning to Tyree play will be hailed as one of the greatest plays in sports history, let alone NFL history. I don't even think that play could be duplicated in Madden.
I've never seen so many Uncles jumping up and down together as I saw last night.
1972 Dolphins - you guys can sleep easier now. After a 1-15 season for the Fins, getting Parcells and having the Pats choke in the Super Bowl already shows that things are getting better. Thank God for that.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Juan Cole's Latest: "Blowback from the GOP's holy war"
Here's the link: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/02/01/islamophobia/print.html
Most Muslims prior to 9-11 were probably Republican or leaned to the Right a bit because of their stances on abortion and homosexuality. But obviously after 9-11 and Bush's invasion of Iraq, most Muslims naturally went to the Left.
My late father, may God have mercy upon him, was a staunch Republican. His favorite president was Richard Nixon (please forgive him) and he always spoke proudly about being a Republican. But after Bush invaded Iraq my father became completely upset with the Republican establishment. This occurred right before he passed away in April of 2003. I really couldn't believe my father's falling out with the Republican Party and I'm sure my father's experience with the Republicans was not limited to him, but was likely occurring all over the country with American Muslims.
After 9-11 I think many Muslims were comforted by Bush's efforts to divide Islam and terrorism. I still appreciate that gesture from him despite him being responsible for the deaths of thousands and maybe millions of innocent Muslim civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan. But the Iraq invasion effectively terminated the relationship between American Muslims and the Republican Party. The Republican Party has essentially become the domain of bigots, racists and Christian extremists. Dr. Cole's article effectively demonstrates the bigoted nature of the Republican presidential candidates towards Muslims and Islam.
He is right in that American Muslims make up a key segment of certain important states like Michigan, Ohio, and Florida. Thanks to their rhetoric about Muslims and Islam, the Republican Party can effectively kiss goodbye any love from the American Muslim community.
I think the greatest realization for American Muslims since 9-11 is that all the people they are traditionally not supposed to be aligned with: homosexuals, atheists, etc., are actually closer to them in vision than any Republican could ever be. American Muslims for the most part probably lean very far to the Left on most issues, as does the general U.S. population. Issues like healthcare, the occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, education, social services are all atop the list of concerns for most Americans and American Muslims are no different. Collaboration is taking place amongst the various Muslim organizations in the U.S. and organizations that represent the "far" Left. The realization is that right wing nuts are extremely dangerous and their fear mongering and bigotry will get the United States into a lot of trouble. Muslims, gays, atheists, liberals, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, and everyone in between are forging together to confront the right wingers at the polls. Hopefully the Democrats, the only faction of our one party system that has some minute intelligence, will stand up to the Right and end the occupations and threats and move towards bringing greater peace to the world and not greater terror.
Most Muslims prior to 9-11 were probably Republican or leaned to the Right a bit because of their stances on abortion and homosexuality. But obviously after 9-11 and Bush's invasion of Iraq, most Muslims naturally went to the Left.
My late father, may God have mercy upon him, was a staunch Republican. His favorite president was Richard Nixon (please forgive him) and he always spoke proudly about being a Republican. But after Bush invaded Iraq my father became completely upset with the Republican establishment. This occurred right before he passed away in April of 2003. I really couldn't believe my father's falling out with the Republican Party and I'm sure my father's experience with the Republicans was not limited to him, but was likely occurring all over the country with American Muslims.
After 9-11 I think many Muslims were comforted by Bush's efforts to divide Islam and terrorism. I still appreciate that gesture from him despite him being responsible for the deaths of thousands and maybe millions of innocent Muslim civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan. But the Iraq invasion effectively terminated the relationship between American Muslims and the Republican Party. The Republican Party has essentially become the domain of bigots, racists and Christian extremists. Dr. Cole's article effectively demonstrates the bigoted nature of the Republican presidential candidates towards Muslims and Islam.
He is right in that American Muslims make up a key segment of certain important states like Michigan, Ohio, and Florida. Thanks to their rhetoric about Muslims and Islam, the Republican Party can effectively kiss goodbye any love from the American Muslim community.
I think the greatest realization for American Muslims since 9-11 is that all the people they are traditionally not supposed to be aligned with: homosexuals, atheists, etc., are actually closer to them in vision than any Republican could ever be. American Muslims for the most part probably lean very far to the Left on most issues, as does the general U.S. population. Issues like healthcare, the occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, education, social services are all atop the list of concerns for most Americans and American Muslims are no different. Collaboration is taking place amongst the various Muslim organizations in the U.S. and organizations that represent the "far" Left. The realization is that right wing nuts are extremely dangerous and their fear mongering and bigotry will get the United States into a lot of trouble. Muslims, gays, atheists, liberals, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, and everyone in between are forging together to confront the right wingers at the polls. Hopefully the Democrats, the only faction of our one party system that has some minute intelligence, will stand up to the Right and end the occupations and threats and move towards bringing greater peace to the world and not greater terror.
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