FBI vs. Muslim Americans?

An interesting article for a variety of reasons.


End the FBI's abuses, but work with them
By Parvez Ahmed

A recent headline on CNN read, "FBI planting spies in U.S. mosques," Muslim groups allege. This outrage was sparked by revelations that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had sent an agent provocateur into a mosque in southern California who was coercing worshippers in becoming informants and inciting them to make violent statements. The planting of spies in mosques is just the latest in the FBI's long list of actions that have angered both civil libertarians and members of the American Muslim community.

In March 2003, FBI launched a mosque counting project whereby agents were asked to document the number of mosques in their areas, "to help measure the number of terrorism investigations that the various field offices should be expected to open and pursue." By their actions, the FBI needlessly linked terrorism to mosques despite the paucity of any evidence tying the 9-11 hijackers to the mainstream American-Muslim community and the mainstream Muslim community's absolute and unequivocal rejection of terror.

Ahead of the 2004 Presidential election, the FBI had launched a so-called October Plan indiscriminately "interviewing" Muslims. In 2005 FBI agents secretly monitored radiation levels at mosques to determine whether nuclear bombs were being assembled there. Nothing was found. In 2008, an American Muslim was arrested and tortured in the UAE at the apparent direction of the FBI.

My concerns also relate to a January 2009 Fox News story that reported the FBI's severing of its ties with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a leading American Muslim organization. It was more disconcerting, when a month later a FBI agent stopped by my office purporting to ask questions about my resignation from the Chairmanship of CAIR, an action I had taken eight months ago.

My reasons for leaving CAIR were no secret. In an interview with my local newspaper, I had noted that in order to make the organization a more effective voice in the American socio-political discourse, CAIR must empower a new and younger generation of leaders. My departure was clearly related to disagreements over governing philosophy and yet the FBI perplexingly found something nefarious in a matter that is not entirely out of the ordinary.

The FBI wants to avoid "formally constructed partnerships" with CAIR stemming from concerns over "distinct narrow issues" specific to CAIR's "national leadership." Such vague pronouncements have provided a pretext for some members of Congress to turn the ambiguity into a "government-wide policy." In order to remain consistent with the constitutional hallmarks of due process, it is essential that our lawmakers and law enforcement agencies do not make hasty pronouncements that can needlessly hurt innocent people. If CAIR has "terrorist ties" as some members of Congress claim then the FBI should shut CAIR down. However, if there is no evidence linking CAIR to any terrorist activity, then the FBI should re-engage with CAIR.

From 2005 to 2008 as the Chairman of CAIR, I participated in numerous meetings and press conferences with the FBI. I conducted sensitivity and diversity training for the FBI and at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia. During this time, no one from the FBI ever alerted me about "distinct narrow issues." In all of my association with the organization, I was not aware of any unlawful activity.

The FBI Director Robert Muller recently said, "The communities from which we need the most help are those who trust us the least. But it is in these communities that we must re-double our efforts." It is unclear as to how the steps taken by the FBI will lead to a building of trust.

Perhaps tired of the growing list of provocative actions against the community or perhaps indignation over being side-stepped, CAIR led several American Muslim groups in asking members of the community to "consider suspending all outreach activities with FBI offices." Not all major Muslim groups joined this call perhaps realizing that such a call is counter-productive. Suspending dialogue can only make matters worse. Moreover, it is unclear as to what the groups meant by suspending "all outreach?" If the FBI comes knocking on the door of an American Muslim organization seeking diversity training should they be turned away? The groups seeking boycott went on to say, "The credibility of all Muslim organizations who maintain ties to the FBI that do not react decisively is undermined in the eyes of the community." Does this mean that the American Muslims who just won the 2008 Community Leadership Awards from the FBI are turncoats, if they accept the award?

Whatever legitimate concerns FBI has about CAIR, they need to give the organization's 11-member national governing board a chance to weigh the facts. During my tenure at CAIR, no such overture was made by the FBI.

Even if CAIR feels that it is unfairly taking one on the chin, it should not issue self-serving calls asking members of the American Muslim community to break off relationships with the FBI, especially when such relationships, in small measures, do help in promoting mutual understanding. While the results of such interactions are not always spectacular, these interactions are nonetheless helpful for building civic harmony.

Speaking from my personal experience, having conducted dozens of hours of training for members of law enforcement, such interactions allow outsiders like me to understand the myriad of challenges facing law enforcement. It helps to ensure that our demands are tempered by the recognition of the enormous challenges law enforcement officials face in an effort to ensure the public safety of all. On the other hand, even the few hours that law enforcement officers spend in diversity training classes allow them better perspective on the concerns of minority communities, helping them to more effectively engage.

The FBI's hasty pronouncements and ensuing misguided responses by some American Muslim organizations have placed undue burdens on the American Muslim community. It is incumbent that both the FBI and American Muslim groups meet to work out their differences before their respective intransigence undermines security and civic harmony. The new Attorney General Eric Holder, who has called for, "adherence to the rule of law," and a cessation of "needlessly abusive and unlawful practices" must step forward to assure the American Muslim community that the Obama administration will break away from the bad policies that plagued the Ashcroft-Gonzalez Justice department.

Parvez Ahmed is Associate Professor of Finance at University of North Florida. He is the co-author, with Seth Anderson, of the book "Mutual Funds: Fifty Years of Research Findings" (Springer 2005). In addition, he is a frequent commentator on the American Muslim experience. You can read his articles on his blog. This article also appeared in The Huffington Post.

Domestic Violence: Not just a problem for Muslims

To Robert Spencer and David Horowitz: if you really care about women being abused, then do something about it in your own country. While domestic abuse is justified in Muslim countries through Islamic sources and cultural beliefs, it is similarly played down here in the United States for a variety of reasons (like the idea that the abused woman had it coming to her). Why are you guys concerned only with domestic violence in Muslim nations or when perpetrated by Muslims? The answer is obvious, but maybe you guys can enlighten us with why you only focus on such a huge issue when it involves Muslims.

This is a global problem that is not limited to Muslim nations or to Muslim immigrants in Western nations. Just ask Rihanna about Chris Brown.


The Stark Facts About Violence Against Women
By Elizabeth Schulte

When the media reported that singer Rihanna was reconciling with R&B star Chris Brown after reports that he beat her in February, the horrible incident became the hot topic of every tabloid and entertainment show.

The 19-year-old Brown appeared in court on March 5 and was charged with two counts of felony assault for an incident in which 21-year-old Rihanna said he repeatedly hit, choked and threatened to kill her while they were having an argument.

For the most part, the media turned a serious topic into a sensation, exploiting every gory detail for no other purpose than to shock its viewers.

In the midst of the frenzy, talk show host Oprah Winfrey pulled together a show on dating violence in an effort to take the issue seriously, and reach out to women who might be living in violent situations.

Winfrey invited supermodel and talk-show host Tyra Banks to talk about her interviews with Rihanna, in which she described her parents fighting, and with Brown, who said he witnessed his mother's abuse and swore he'd never put a women through what his mom went through. Banks also talked about her own experience of emotional abuse.

The show relayed the simple recognition that violence against women is rife in our society, and women aren't to blame for it--observations that sadly not everyone shares. In a survey in the aftermath of the beating incident by the Boston Public Heath Commission, half of the teenagers surveyed--aged 12 to 19, boys and girls--said they thought that Rihanna was responsible for being beaten.

Statistics on dating violence and young women are shocking. According to the Family Violence and Prevention Fund, one in five female high school students reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a date, and 8 percent of high-school-age girls say that they have been forced by a boyfriend to have sex against their will. Forty percent of girls aged 14 to 17 say they know someone their age who has been hit by a boyfriend.

According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, every year women in the U.S. experience 4.8 million intimate partner-related physical assaults and rapes. According to the Bureau of Justice, 1,181 women were murdered by an intimate partner in 2005--an average of three women every day.

* * *

DURING THE show, Winfrey and Banks repeated the advice that women must find the strength to get out of an abusive relationship. They made it seem as if abused women simply needed to summon the confidence inside to get themselves out of a nightmare. "When you feel great, you draw greatness to you," said Oprah. You might as well tell a battered woman to pull herself up by her bootstraps.

Nowhere in this discussion was there any recognition of how difficult it is--financially and emotionally--for most women to get out of battering relationships, much less a real answer to why battering takes place.

Women escaping abuse often find themselves without the funds, credit or work history to find stable housing. A 2008 Equal Rights Center investigation of 93 rental properties in the District of Columbia found that, overall, 65 percent of test applicants seeking housing on behalf of a domestic violence survivor were either denied housing or offered less advantageous terms and conditions than an applicant not associated with domestic violence.

Shelters for women who seek to escape abuse and their children are scarce and pitifully underfunded.

A 24-hour census of domestic violence shelters and services by the National Network to End Domestic Violence found that more than 20,000 adult and child victims of abuse sought refuge in emergency shelters, and more than 10,000 adult and child abuse victims were living in transitional housing in a single day in 2008. According to the survey, on that same day, nearly 9,000 requests for assistance went unmet because of a lack of funding.

Of course, few people would look to Oprah Winfrey to provide all the answers to such serious questions as violence against women. But the discussion on her show with Banks says something about the way we are expected to view problems like domestic abuse and dating violence. The problem, like the solution, is always explained in terms of personal responsibility.

"Breaking the cycle of violence" is a favorite phrase of talk show advisors, but what does that mean exactly? That, by some force of nature, some men are batterers, and they pass this to their sons? The word cycle implies that violence is unstoppable and inevitable--until an individual man or woman makes it stop.

This isn't to say that such individual solutions can't and don't happen--men and women change their situations for the better, despite the tremendous forces working against them.

But the "individual responsibility" way of looking at violence against women masks a greater, more systemic problem--that a society which treats women as less than equal opens the door for women to be abused.

In all sort of ways, our society views women as if they are of less value than men. This isn't expressed only in music lyrics or sexism in popular culture, but in women's overall status, including the unfair burden in the home that most women are expected to bear.

Add to this the difficult and contradictory relationships that can exist among family members. Inside families and relationships, the unexpressed frustrations of the outside world make themselves felt--and in some cases, the people closest and least responsible for the outside miseries become targets of abuse. It is little wonder that reports of domestic abuse have increased among military families, as the horrors of military services come back to haunt soldiers who take it out on their family members.

The answer to domestic violence lies in fundamentally changing the status of women in society. One first step would be to demand services, such as a safe place to live, for women who are facing abuse. Another is fighting for living wages, so that no woman feels the need to stay with an abuser because she cannot afford to leave. Likewise, free and accessible child care and health care would go a long way toward freeing women, and men, from the stresses and burdens of everyday life.

These things will come at no small price--and they certainly won't be won by exhorting women to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps."

They have to be organized for and fought for--by women and men together, committed to ending women's oppression.

Elizabeth Schulte writes for the Socialist Worker.

Tim Winter is a Baller

Tim Winter aka Abdal Hakim Murad, a lecturer in theology at Cambridge, is one of my favorite Muslim scholars. His articulate and thoughtful writings and talks have been a great source of wisdom and guidance for me and many other Western Muslims. It seems God has hidden him, but the world desperately needs more exposure to his ideas and thoughts. Ali Eteraz notes so much below in a piece he wrote today for the Guardian.


An imam who can
By Ali Eteraz

Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad is perhaps the most significant British Muslim leader around. It is too bad that so few people know about him. Now that he has launched the Cambridge Muslim College, which is designed to train "local" specialists in Islamic knowledge who are able to "celebrate their identity" as British and Muslim, he should be given his due and treated like a national asset.

The Cambridge Muslim College is an important initiative for three reasons. First, as a Quilliam report recently showed, most of the imams in British mosques are foreign-born, and disconnected from the people they represent.

Second, the situation with the imams is dire, such that until last year the UK was considering importing imams from Pakistan. Not a good idea.

The third reason has to do with Islam's crisis of authority. Islam, like Judaism, is a juridical religion. It has a longstanding legal component to it. When average Muslims start taking the religious law into their own hands it usually results in the politicisation, or bastardisation, of the religion – everything from ideological movements to regressive puritanical cults spring up. That is when untutored demagogues like Bin Laden and Bakri Muhammad strike.

Murad has long argued that in order to represent Islam, one must be steeped in the long history of Islamic law, which always pays attention to social nuance. Bringing that ethos to his college will go a long way in creating a better, more British, culture among Muslims. It will produce leaders that Muslims won't be embarrassed about and who probably won't give much fodder to the tabloids. They will probably shout less.

I have never spoken or communicated with Murad. I read his writings in the mid-90s when he began posting his articles on the internet – compiled here by Masud Ahmed Khan, a Guardian contributor. In those early essays Murad critiqued wahhabism and the poison of extremism. Murad's basic argument, embedded inside a lot of hyperbolic prose, was that fanaticism had a deleterious effect on one's spirit and that it distanced a Muslim from God.

This message, stripped down, was an extremely effective way of talking to young Muslims because they were in a very confused place. On one hand they wanted to be seen as good, pious, God-fearing types; but on the other, the only people who were around to talk in the language of piety were those who sought to manipulate the kids for political or ideological benefit. By telling young Muslims that extremism was tantamount to impiety, all while showing them Islam's long history of spiritual learning, Murad gave youth, especially boys, an extremely effective mechanism for resisting those who tried to turn them into fanatics. I would be curious to hear what Muslims who became all-out Islamists, like Shiraz Maher, thought of Murad. My guess is that they either ignored him or were taught to demonise him. What is clear, however, is that without Murad there would have been more Mahers.

Murad remained true to his message after 9/11. "Terrorists are not Muslims," he wrote shortly after the attacks. His condemnation of the hijackers was immediate and loud – and he was perhaps alone among the Islamic intellegentsia in arguing that the hijackers be excommunicated. It was a tricky position for him to hold because moderate leaders usually avoided throwing Muslims out of Islam (arguing instead that every Muslim can be saved). Murad definitely took a hit among some Muslim circles for taking such a hard line. They disparagingly began calling him a neocon.

More recently, it is Murad's name that occurs at the very top of an open letter by British Muslims which strongly condemns anti-semitism.

Despite having taken such open and courageous positions, Murad's work has remained ignored by most media, an oversight which has prevented his work from gaining a foothold in mainland Europe and the US. Instead, quite absurdly, young Muslims are encouraged to emulate non-Muslims and rightwing hacks.

I am not arguing that Murad is infallible or that he should be venerated like a living saint. He has held some curious positions. His view of Islamic history is romantic. He puts too much emphasis on evangelism. His social conservatism would not fit very well with the left. His reading of modernist Muslim thinking is unfairly dismissive. Some of his followers have needless tension with some Salafis.

However, on the important religious questions – Muslim extremism and politicisation of Islam – Murad has been right more consistently than any other Muslim leader in the western hemisphere. He identified the increasing extremism among western Muslim youth and diagnosed its causes before most. He has condemned conspiracy mongering, arguing that "wild denunciations of Great Satans or global Crusader Conspiracies are ... not only dangerous, but are also discourteous". Most important, he has argued for "de-ideologising" Islam, a position that puts him directly at odds with those who want to make Islam a political project bankrolled by extra-national syndicates.

When, long ago, I graduated from college, I stopped keeping up with Murad regularly, but I think now I will check in from time to time to see how his college is doing. The school seems to be off to a good start. It takes no government money. It is non-denominational. In addition to Islam, it offers coursework in the history of science and western intellectual thought. To lay a foundation for the future it is offering 10 full scholarships. It is, in every way, a welcome part of the future of religion in Britain.

The author of this piece is not affiliated with or in contact with Murad or the Cambridge Muslim College and wrote this piece on his own initiative

A Silver Lining in the Legal Field?

(CNN) -- It was the best of times in 2004, when attorney Dave Dineen graduated from Boston University School of Law and landed a job at a top Massachusetts corporate firm, Foley Hoag LLP.

By 2007, the National Association for Law Placement was reporting the most promising year in two decades. Nearly 92 percent of graduating attorneys were employed, and the median starting salary at private practices had increased by $13,000 --to a total of $108,500 a year.

But times have changed.

In the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the legal industry is taking an unprecedented beating from the sputtering economy and housing meltdown. Dineen, 37, lost his job as layoffs and salary freezes have spiked at law firms across the country during the past three months. See the law firm layoffs for the past year »

Rather than just hand out a severance package with the pink slip, Foley Hoag gave Dineen an option. He could work for Greater Boston Legal Services, a legal aid group serving people living in poverty. The firm agreed to pay Dineen about a quarter of his former salary for a year. Dineen, who needed to support his wife and a newborn daughter, accepted.

"This gave me a chance to do something different with my legal career, and help out people who generally don't have access to public service," said Dineen, who now works on foreclosure cases helping victims of predatory lending.

Foley Hoag is among many megafirms across the country using the economic slump as an ideal time to lend a hand to cash-strapped public interest and legal aid firms. The massive corporate layoffs and program cuts could redirect thousands of young graduates and experienced attorneys from corporate firms into the public sector, legal experts say.

Once insulated, law firms are shedding young and mid-career associates at extraordinary rates. This is especially true at large corporate firms that overestimated their growth and extended too many offers to associates last fall.

White & Case LLP, a leading global firm with headquartes in New York, made a second round of cuts last week. In addition to about 70 associates laid off in November, the firm last week let go of another 400 people, including 200 attorneys. Other well-known firms such Heller Ehrman LLP and Thelen Reid & Priest LLP on the West Coast have gone bankrupt in recent months.

At least 2,149 attorneys have been laid off in 2009, bringing the total to 3,045 since January of last year, according Lawshucks.com, an industry Web site tracking the slump. Hundreds more associates set to start jobs this fall are bracing themselves for rescinded offers and deferred start dates. Some students are finding their summers wide open as law firms like Luce Forward, based in California, have canceled internship programs.

Amid all this dark news, there might be a silver lining. It could transform the legal profession.

"There is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity coming out of a difficult situation," said Esther Lardent, president of the Pro Bono Institute in Washington D.C., who began discussions this month with at least 15 corporate firms nationwide about placing unemployed attorneys in public interest firms. The project will get under way in a few months, she said.

Other firms have already encouraged attorneys to go into the public sector. Just last week, one of the largest firms in the country -- Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania -- announced it will pay deferred associates graduating in 2009 a $5,000 monthly stipend for one year if they secure a job in the public interest field.

International law giants Latham & Watkins LLP and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP offered incoming associates who defer employement until October 2010 a $75,000 compensation package. While working in public service isn't mandatory for Latham & Watkins associates, the firm said there was a "sincere hope" the deferred associates would "use the intervening period to pursue a community service or other public advocacy projects of their choosing."

Such deferral plans can save the companies about $100,000 per associate, and law experts expect the list of firms enacting deferral programs to grow geometrically as the economy worsens.

"Firms are doing this to be flexible and regulate their labor force because there just isn't as much work anymore," said James G. Leipold, executive director of the National Association for Law Placement.

Corporate giants are also scrambling to find work for mid-level attorneys in the public sector. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, a major New York-based law firm, introduced a yearlong public service fellowship program this year that would pay current attorneys $60,000 a year to work in areas such as social service, community development or academia. The company hopes the program will alleviate "significant budgetary constraints."

"You aren't just throwing somebody out there," said American Bar Association President Tommy Wells, who requested funding in President Obama's stimulus package to help pay attorneys to work in the public sector. (The proposal was rejected.)

"You're meeting a real need in these tough times where you have more of a legal need and fewer resources," Wells said.

Encouraging laid-off and deferred attorneys to go into public service is filling a desperate need at public interest firms.

Public interest and legal aid firms serving the underprivileged have long been under-funded and overwhelmed with cases even in a good economy. Tightened state budgets and a decline in donations have further stretched resources for the public interest firms, forcing them to make staff cuts at a time when demand for their services is greater than ever before.

At Greater Boston Legal Services, the public interest firm where Dineen arrived in January, the effects of a sick economy are apparent. Robert Sable, the public interest firm's executive director, has already reduced staff. The agency, which handles 15,000 matters a year, expects to make more staff reductions in the coming months because of a $2 million funding shortfall.

"We're burning through our reserves right now, so it's nice to have extra help," said Sable, who is talking to another local corporate firm this week about taking in subsidized attorneys.

Some attorneys and law students worry that paying corporate attorneys to work in public interest firms may displace those who actually wanted to work in the public sector in the first place. Jocelyn E. Getgen, who works with students at Cornell Law School, said strained legal aid organizations and nonprofits will want to take in the "free" labor.

Nevertheless, there is little doubt that the economic free-fall is changing the ways current attorneys-- and a new generation of young attorneys-- view the field.

Traditionally, law students have equated best jobs with highest-paying jobs, career counselors say. Students saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt find themselves pressured to work at large firms that will pay enough to cover the bills, said Tricia McGrath, a director at Lateral Link Group LLC, a job placement agency for lawyers. Many times, going into the public sector isn't even an option, she said.

"Everyone has to rethink all the old models that we believed in, the model where you go to school and then a big firm," said McGrath, who graduated from Fordham University School of Law School in 1998, a time when law jobs were abundant.

Even students at top law schools are finding that their offers have been rescinded. At Harvard Law School, Mark Weber, assistant dean for career services, said he has been working with a handful of students whose job offers have been deferred.

"It can be a tremendous opportunity for the student to take that year and try something entirely different," Weber said. "Hopefully within a year, the economic picture will do better."

After not receiving a corporate firm job offer in the downtrodden industry, Scott Greenwood, set to graduate this spring from the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law, will instead work for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

"I can see what it's like to work for a regulatory agency, and that's a different expertise that attorneys don't always get to have," said Greenwood, who will begin working in Washington, D.C., this August. "I've been thinking about it as a blessing in disguise."

For These Gitmo Detainees: Throw the Key Away

I suggest they stand at trial and once convicted, the key should be thrown away. Whatever their allegations against the U.S., there was no justification for their own actions. These are the elements of a "fringe Islam" that needs to be rooted out from the global Muslim community, once and for all. They bring us shame and dishonor.

The allegations they make against the U.S. about Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq are legitimate causes for peace activists. But these guys? They're nothing but hypocrites.

(CNN) -- Five Guantanamo prisoners accused in the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the U.S. staunchly defended their actions, calling the operation "blessed" and "great" and the accusations against them "badges of honor."

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is shown in a courtroom sketch at Guantanamo Bay in January.

"You are the last nation that has the right to speak about civilians and killing civilians," the five said in a response this month to the U.S. government's war crimes charges.

"You are professional criminals, with all the meaning the words carry," the response said. "Therefore, we will treat you the same. We will attack you, just like you have attacked us, and whomever initiated the attacks is the guilty party."

The six-page response from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who plotted the attacks, and four others castigates the actions of the United States and its allies in the Middle East and calls the United States "the terrorist country number one in the world."

The military commission set up to hear the men's cases at the Guantanamo Bay inmate facility received the signed document Thursday, and a military judge ordered its release on Monday.

The five are members of the al Qaeda terror network. Mohammed, who has taken credit for planning the attack, and the four other prisoners call themselves members of the 9/11 Shura Council.

"With regards to these nine accusations that you are putting us on trial for; to us, they are not accusations. To us they are badges of honor, which we carry with pride. Many thanks to God, for his kind gesture, and choosing us to perform the act of Jihad for his cause and to defend Islam and Muslims," the response stated.

Reacting to the charges of "attacking civilians," "attacking civilian objects" and "deliberately causing grave bodily harm," the five asked who really pursued such actions. "Is it us, or is it you?"

It ties the United States to attacks in "Palestine and Lebanon by providing political, military, and economic support to the terrorist state of Israel, which in turn, is attacking unarmed innocent civilians." It also noted American actions in Iraq and the dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

As for "crimes in violation of the law of war," it cites Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Lebanese land and the displacement of Palestinians, the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the mistreatment of prisoners at places such as the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Answering another accusation, hijacking and/or endangering a vessel or an aircraft, the five said, "if you do not respect the innocent in our countries, then we will do the same, by exposing you to danger and hijacking in the air, at sea and at land."

There is no Islamic basis for such a thought. The Prophet was recorded as clearly stating that civilians must remain unharmed during hostilities. These are the justifications of men neck deep in anger and apostasy.

Quranic verses were cited in the filing, and the men underscored their defense of "oppressed" Muslims.

"Our religion is a religion of fear and terror to the enemies of God: the Jews, Christians and pagans. With God's willing, we are terrorists to the bone."

No, God's terror will be reserved just for them. When the Prophet, may God's peace and prayers be upon him, said of the extremists that the Qur'an would not go deeper than their throats when they recited it, this is probably what he meant.

It also predicts that the United States "will fall, politically, militarily and economically."

"Your end is very near and your fall will be just as the fall of the towers on the blessed 9/11 day," the court filing said.

"We ask from God to accept our contributions to the great attack, the great attack on America, and to place our nineteen martyred brethren among the highest peak in paradise," the response said, in reference to the al Qaeda militants who hijacked the airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center's twin towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, and a field in Pennsylvania.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks.

Talking to the Taliban?

Based upon the news of Taliban causing trouble in Pakistan, it seems the U.S. will fail to get a good deal considering the strength the Taliban currently enjoys. They are very strong right now, as Peter Bergen notes below, and an increase in troop strength will probably do little to stop them in their tracks. Remember, the U.S. had a lot more firepower when it when in late 2001. It did nothing to thwart the Taliban for good. They disappeared into the caves and then came back when the U.S. backed off. That's what guerrilla movements do. A political solution is the only answer, but it likely will not be a political resolution the U.S. ruling elites will want.

Notice an interesting point Obama makes below: not all Muslim fundamentalists are the same. There are the al-Qaeda types, and then there are people who just want to be left alone, free of foreign occupation.

(CNN) -- President Obama says the United States is open to reaching out to some moderate voices in the Taliban, but critics say that's not the right approach.

U.S. forces have been engaged in fierce fighting to oust the Taliban in Afghanistan.

In an interview published in the New York Times this weekend, Obama said some military leaders believe that part of the success in Iraq has come from reaching out to Sunni militants there.

The president said while the situation in Afghanistan is much more complex, there may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"I don't want to prejudge the review that's currently taking place. If you talk to Gen. [David] Petraeus, I think he would argue that part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us because they had been completely alienated by the tactics of al Qaeda in Iraq," he told the Times.


The Obama administration is reviewing the U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, with hopes of finding a new strategy.

Asked if the United States is winning the war in Afghanistan, Obama said "no."

Given that remark, Gary Berntsen, a former CIA officer who led CIA forces in Afghanistan after 9/11, said Monday that it could be difficult to get members of the Taliban to work with the United States.

"If you keep saying the Taliban are winning, what incentive is there now for individuals who are fighting against us to come over to us," he said on CNN's "American Morning."

In Iraq, the United States embraced Sunni tribal leaders and brought them over to the American side to help fight al Qaeda and decrease the violence. But, Berntsen said, that strategy might not work in Afghanistan.

"Afghanistan is clearly not Iraq. The problem in Afghanistan is you might be able to split individuals, but you're not going to be able to split entire groups," he said, noting that Afghanistan has numerous networks.

Trying to engage the Taliban directly, Berntsen said, is not a good idea.

"You don't want to reach out directly to them [from] the United States. You want to work through the Afghans," he said.

"You want to be working with the Afghans as partners as you reach out to individuals. You're not getting them as a group. If you do bring some of them in as a group, they'll cooperate with you just like they did in the Swat Valley in Pakistan, but the second you're gone, they're going to start abusing the population, violating human rights," he said.

In 2007, the British managed to bring a Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef over and made him governor of the Musa Qala district. But now, there are complaints about him and allegations of corruption.

There have been success stories though, for example when former Taliban commanders became members of the parliament. Berntsen said that has worked because the leaders get a voice, but not executive power.

Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst, said neither the United States nor the Taliban appear to be ready for negotiations.

"The Taliban believe they may be winning in Afghanistan, and they also are confident that they are not losing, which for an insurgent movement amounts to the same thing. They see no need to negotiate today when they can get a better deal down the road," he wrote in a commentary for CNN.com

Plus, Bergen pointed out, the Obama administration is sending 17,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and "not the kind of units you send in to play nice." Read Bergen's nine reasons why dealing with the Taliban isn't likely

As the United States moves toward a strategy shift, Berntsen said the situation is best placed in the hands of Petraeus and U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke.

"The White House would be wise to allow Holbrooke and Petraeus to work on this thing and for them to not comment all that much on this because the reality is they don't have experience on the ground, doing this sort of thing, most of them," he said.

During the campaign season, Obama drew criticism for saying he would be willing to meet without precondition with leaders of nations that had been hostile to the United States.

Then-Sen. Hillary Clinton called the remarks "irresponsible" and "naive." Obama later clarified to say that "without precondition" does not mean without preparation, including preliminary diplomatic work.

Interesting Developments in the Al-Arian Case

These are interesting developments considering the absolutely self-righteous tone used by some posters at this blog in April last year about how Al-Arian's plea agreement didn't mention in text how he made an agreement not to testify further. While that is true, if they took a contracts class maybe they would know that the writing of a contract, or in this case, a plea agreement, does not mean everything. It will be interesting to see what this judge does.



Federal judge says Sami Al-Arian plea does matter

For the first time, federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Va., have acknowledged that when Sami Al-Arian took a plea deal in early 2006, federal prosecutors in Tampa believed — as did Al-Arian — that it exempted him from testifying in other cases.

But with this surprising admission, which begins a 24-page document filed in Virginia federal court Wednesday night, comes a provocative argument: It doesn't matter.

"The understandings of the prosecutors who negotiated that agreement … are irrelevant to (Al-Arian's) guilt or innocence" for criminal contempt, wrote the Alexandria federal prosecutors, who maintain they are not bound by an agreement made in another district.

Despite what prosecutors in Tampa agreed to, the Virginia prosecutors argue they had a right to move Al-Arian to Virginia to testify. They also say that when Al-Arian repeatedly refused, citing a good-faith belief his plea agreement protected him, he was guilty of criminal contempt. He "willfully disobeyed," they say.

But U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema has said it does matter what he and the Tampa federal prosecutors agreed to. A criminal conviction could mean more prison time and she would need to see "a completely full record" to determine the length of his sentence.

Furthermore, Brinkema has said, she doesn't think "the Department of Justice can compartmentalize itself."

"This is not one U.S. Attorney's Office vs. another. … You have the United States Department of Justice … involved at both ends," she said.

Al-Arian took a plea deal in February 2006, in Tampa after a jury acquitted him on eight counts of aiding terrorists and deadlocked on nine counts. He pleaded guilty to aiding associates of the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad with nonviolent immigration needs.

Tampa prosecutors agreed with his defense attorneys that he would be deported within a few months of signing the plea agreement. But, instead, a Tampa federal judge sentenced him to 11 more months in prison.

Virginia prosecutors called that extra time "the window of opportunity" they needed to move Al-Arian to Virginia and force him to testify before a grand jury investigating an Islamic think tank.

Al-Arian's criminal contempt trial was scheduled to begin Monday, but Brinkema postponed it. A new date will be set Monday.

Contact Meg Laughlin at mlaughlin@sptimes.com.