Incisive-View

Sunny Hundal - Silent Regarding Israeli Human Rights Violations

2007-05-30T05:26:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our final instalment of our Sunny Hundal expose. Remember, please contact Sunny Hundal to give him your views, or post on his blogs; websites or Guardian 'comment is free'. He can be contacted at Email: sunny@pickledpolitics.com. Remember to post your comment on this thread also.

Freedom of Speech - Zionist Style
Sunny is celebrated by the pro-Israeli blog stated below, which states: "Sunny Hundal of Asians in Media has published an interesting article on the aftermath of the Observer and Panorama investigations into the politics of the Muslim Council of Britain. His conclusion is that, as a consequence of the documentary, " the window of dissent on Muslim leadership has been closed even further", as religious-political organisations have put their differences aside in order to present a united front in a time of crisis: In the world of Asian religious organisations, only people of the same faith are allowed to criticise each other, albeit quietly. Go too far or become too open and suddenly you get accused of trying to disunite everyone or, in the case of the Muslim community, being part of the 'Zionist conspiracy' - S Hundall.
(Source: http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2005/09/01/leadership.php.).

Rich, considering it is a fact that Zionists try, and are usually, very successful at censoring the politicians and media against any anti-Israeli sentiment, no matter how justified. In addition, they actively propagate Islamophobic media bias to ensure Israel retains its 'victim' status. You will struggle to find any brave voices of dissent against Israel and its war crimes and human rights violations; instead the pro-Israeli lobby tends to go on the offensive and attacks Palestinian 'terrorists' and their supporters, the human rights defenders. Damn it, they dare to oppose oppression and fight for their freedom. Any brave Jew that dares to speak out against Israel is proclaimed a self-hating Jew. See the vicious attacks that have been launched against the new and brave group 'Independent Jewish Voices'.

Here is what the mother of all Zionists, yep, that infamous unhinged Islamophobe, Melanie Phillips had to say "The launch of ‘Independent Jewish Voices’ has sent a shudder through the mainstream Jewish community in Britain...They say Jews blindly support Israel regardless. But these signatories blindly condemn Israel regardless. They say Israel’s supporters never breathe a word of criticism of its behaviour. But they never breathe a word in its defence, nor ever condemn either its Palestinian attackers or the distortions, double standards, faked video coverage and all the rest with which it is so unjustly demonised...At a time when the west is being softened up for genocide by the demonisation of Israel, Jews who reinforce the Big Lie about the Jewish state are helping pave the way for a second potential holocaust." (Source: http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=486).
Get a grip love. A few academics speak the truth and you're predicting a second potential holocaust? See what we mean about censorship and the Zionists' need to maintain Israel's victim status to ensure it can break every UN resolution meekly proposed against it and terrify a nation that has perpetrated no acts of genocide against it? Israel on the other hand has a whole list of war crimes, for which it will never be held accountable.

Let's give you some facts about Israel the “victim”. One of Ariel Sharon's bloodiest crimes against Palestinian refugees was in Sabra and Shatilla in Lebanon. "Israel wished to destroy the PLO and force Lebanon to acquiesce to Israel and so they invaded Lebanon on 1981. This war cost 20,000 Palestinian lives and to this day parts of Lebanon are still occupied by Israel. From 6pm on the 16th of September 1982 to 8am on the 18th of September 1982, the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps were invaded by Phalange Militia, a group that had very close ties with Israel. Sharon and his troops had full control over the camps and the parameters and ensured that the camps were surrounded so that no one could escape. They had full view of the grotesque murders and carnage that occurred in the 62 hours during which the Militia occupied the camps. The victims had no arms with which to fight and no way to escape. No one was spared. Civilians were lined up against walls and shot. Women and girls were raped then murdered. Men were disembowelled then murdered. Some victims were mutilated before or after they were killed. In total, 2,750 Palestinians were murdered," (Source: http://www.aqsa.org.uk/leafletsdetails.aspx?id=37).

Funny how Sunny forgets to refer to these acts of genocide and terrorism. Here's another fact about Israel's inability to recognise Palestinians as human beings:
"During April 2002, under the government of Sharon, Israeli forces launched an assault on all the residents of the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank. For days, they fired shells from tanks and missiles from apache helicopters into the densely populated camp. Simultaneously, Israeli snipers assassinated targeted Palestinians one by one. When the army retreated, they left behind them approximately 600 dead Palestinians. The exact number may never be known, because the Israelis made every effort to cover up their tracks. Using giant armoured 60-ton bulldozers, they tore down every house in the huge central area of the camp where most of the murders took place, burying some people alive, along with most of the corpses of those who were already dead. Also under Sharons government, dozens of assassinations have taken place. The 'assassination' of Sheikh Salah Shehadeh of Hamas took not only his life but the lives of a dozen sleeping children as well. Sharon described that operation as one of Israel’s "biggest success." (Source: http://www.aqsa.org.uk/leafletsdetails.aspx?id=37).

Now you tell us Sunny, who needs to recognise whose right to exist? As a vegetarian, Sunny appears to value the life of God's creatures, but clearly not the Muslim variety.

Feel free to continue posting extracts of his warped views about Muslims on this thread, there is plenty of material to chose from! We urge you to use your freedom of expression, to challenge Islamophobes and Zionists, otherwise they will continue to publicly demonise and marginalise Muslims through their high profiles in politics and the media. Our Muslim organisations may not be perfect, but at least they try to defend us and challenge those that attack us. Our uniting is clearly the thing that scares them the most. Time to fight back my friends, the pen is mightier than the sword, get writing and defend our Ummah!!

Sunny Hundal - Pro-Israeli Stooge

2007-05-26T12:02:00.000-07:00

As promised the second instalment of our Sunny Hundal expose. Remember, please contact Sunny Hundal to give him your views, or post on his blogs; websites or Guardian 'comment is free'. He can be contacted at Email: sunny@pickledpolitics.com. Remember to share any emails you send to him with us by posting them on this thread.

Flying the Flag for Israel
Sunny is happy to fly the flag for Israel, he posts on Islamaphobic and racist websites, and dismisses Islamaphobic attacks by Zionists by saying that MCB and its 'extremist' supporters see everything as a big 'Zionist conspiracy'. Well, it is mate, including your drivel (only it’s actually no secret how active Israel’s supporters are in politics and media!). He criticises most Muslim organisations, who seek to defend the rights of Muslims; has friends like Zia Haider Rahman, a self-hating Muslim; Yusuf Smith, who has attacked Muslims and reportedly even revealed sensitive information to the Zionists and keeps quiet in the face of Israeli war-crimes and human rights violations, proving where his political allegiances lie.

"While I don’t agree with Israel’s unilateralist approach by ignoring pretty much everyone on UN conventions or the ‘roadmap for peace’, Erekat can’t really get away without mentioning Hamas’s continued calls for the destruction of Israel. Nobody would really want to negotiate with a terrorist organisation. Israel, on it’s part, cannot pretend it can put off negotiating the two-state settlement forever. The more it drags everything out the more things worsen on both sides,"
(SH - Source: http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/336).
Now Sunny, quite obviously is no expert on the Middle-East. Note how he adopts the Israeli stance with regards to his subjective criticism of Hamas, dismissing them as a terrorist organisation, but makes no comparable criticism of the State sponsored terrorism conducted by Israel, their policy of targeted assassinations, which results in hundreds of innocent victims also being murdered. Is bull-dozing people's homes not a form of terrorism? Shooting journalists dead and mowing down peace activists with bulldozers with full impugnity not terrorism? How about wiping out 7 members of a family enjoying a picnic on the beach?

"Israel is understandable cautious about giving up land when the circling enemies are still happy to destroy it completely. I don’t envisage Israel going back to the 1967 borders until Hamas, Iran and all the rest have recognised its right to exist on those borders."
(SH - Source: http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/336).
Who after all is the aggressor? Who has stolen whose land through vicious acts of terrorism and genocide and still wants more? Who propagates the eternal victim status whilst being the only nuclear power in the region? Who with the USA's full support acts with aggression and impunity undertakes 'pre-emptive' attacks on sovereign states on the pretence that they are developing WMDs? Who has a powerful ally who props up its economy and fights its wars? We all know the answers, but only some of us have not sold our souls to the devil and therefore can continue to champion the rights of the Palestinians to self-determination and to enjoy the same God given human rights as the rest of us. Sunny is naive in that no Palestinian can deny that Israel exists, their slow starvation and unbearable existence under occupation is a testimony to the fact that they are forced to live in concentration camp-like circumstances by the Israelis.

The Jewish people have been greatly wronged for centuries, but the European crime of the Nazi Holocaust, does not give them the right to oppress and forcibly expel another people from their land, when they had nothing to do with the shameful catastrophe. Where is the justice? How have we got to this stage where the likes of Sunny and far more important media representatives can try and propagate the Palestinians as the aggressors and Israel as the peace-loving victim?

Sunny Hundal - the Islamophobe, Proudly Flys the Flag for Israel

2007-05-23T07:08:00.000-07:00

Muslim bashing is a popular national sport, especially amongst the pro-Israeli poodles. An easy way to buy yourself media coverage and get on, is to fly the flag for Israel and dump your conscience and respect for the human rights of every human being regardless of their ethnicity or religion.

A menace who is becoming increasingly irritating is Sunny Hundal. He is a Punjabi Sikh of Indian origin and has written for leading British newspapers including The Guardian, The Financial Times, and The Independent and has been interviewed by ITV News, Sky News, and Channel 4 News. Sunny Hundal is the founder and editor of the 'Asians in Media' magazine. He also runs the "Pickled Politics" weblog, and the "Barfi Culture" community website, both of which he believes deal with issues concerning the British Asian community. He features as a 'Comment is Free' columnist on the Guardian website, writing and debating on the issues that mean most to him and his Zionist friends.

As a clever chappie, who likes the sound of his own voice, he is careful to appear 'balanced' in his writing, but the overriding torrent of abuse he hurls against Muslims and Muslim organisations, in particular, MCB and Hizb-ut-Tahrir and more recently MPACUK, gives away his agenda.

If you would like to share your views about his endorsement from the BNP; unquestioning support for Israel and relentless criticism of Muslims, please contact him at Email: sunny@pickledpolitics.com.

For those of you who want a flavour of the warped ideology he aims to propagate, here are some choice comments and links he has to some very unsavoury pro-Israeli activists, his blogs and websites feature plenty more, we have spilt our article across 3 postings to make for a more palatable read, ok so you don't fall asleep! We respect freedom of expression, but this must not be abused to propagate hatred, Islamophobia, which is divisive and politically motivated and only serves to fracture already sensitive community relations.

BNP Honour Sunny Hundal
"Well this has never happened before - a BNP march just in my honour. The story I posted last week about Pakistani guys targetting white girls in Keighley has been picked up by them, and now they’re planning a march." (SH - Source: http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/51)
Sunny is obviously keen to exploit racial tensions against Pakistani men, which he knows are predominantly Muslim. Says a lot about his agenda when the BNP who have only one policy - to spread Islamophobia give him their resounding endorsement.

What is his Problem with Muslim Organisations?
"But I have a suggestion. Dump the media circus and don't pay any attention to the MCB's continuous boycott (of the Nazi Holocaust Memorial Day). You see, the MCB actually enjoys this controversy and the stance it takes because it helps maintain credibility with extremist supporters who think everything is a big "Zionist conspiracy".

"It is part of an ongoing race to have the "most victimised minority" badge that the MCB wants. Why should the Jews get all the attention while Muslims are being victimised? They want recognition dammit, even though the number of people dead in Kashmir, Palestine and Chechnya combined does not come close to the number of holocaust victims."
(SH-Source:http://www.asiansinmedia.org/news/article.php/current_affairs/1208).

His sneering belittles the real breaches of civil liberties Muslims in particular are facing since 9/11; albeit a few weeks later he seems to grow up and admit that the implementation of the new terror laws will result in " Innocent Muslims constantly get ‘named and shamed’ in the press, to later be released quietly due to a lack of any evidence"
(SH -Source: http://www.asiansinmedia.org/news/article.php/current_affairs/1228).

There is no competition for the 'most victimised minority' badge, any oppression and victimisation is wrong and we must all oppose it. However, the world has learnt nothing as oppression and the abuse of basic human rights are being conducted against the people of Palestine, and the West not only stands by, but it participates by providing political and economic support. 'Never again' obviously must only apply to the Jewish people, the West seems content to allow other ethnicities to be massacred.

Next post in a few days time Inshallah, in the meantime, keep blogging and defending the Ummah.

Iraqi Collaborators Do the Americans' 'Dirty jobs'

2007-05-14T10:34:00.000-07:00

Former collaborator discloses details of US-ordered assassinations, sectarian bomb attacks targeting Iraqi civilians

An Iraqi who asked not to be identified had disclosed some of the US activities such as assassinations and bombings in markets that aim at sparking sectarian fighting among Iraqis so as to facilitate the partition of the country.

He pointed out that he that he worked with the US occupation troops for about two and a half years and then was able to flee from them to an area outside Baghdad where, he hopes, the Americans will not be able to get to him.

The former Iraqi collaborator recalled: "I was a soldier in the Iraqi army in the war of 1991 and during the withdrawal from Kuwait I decided to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia along with dozens of others like me. That was how began the process whereby I was recruited into the American forces, for there were US military committees that chose a number of Iraqis who were willing to volunteer to join them and be transported to America. I was one of those," he said.
The former collaborator went on: "In 1992 I was taken to America, specifically to an island where most of the establishments were military. I was with a number of other Iraqis, one of them the former governor of an-Najaf, 'Adnan adh-Dharfi. We received military training and intense courses in English and in how to carry out tasks like assassination," he recounted.

The former collaborator said that during the 2003 invasion and subsequent war, he was transported back to the interior of Iraq to carry out specific tasks assigned him by the US agencies.

"During the last war that led to the occupation of Iraq," he recalled, "I was with a group of my comrades who had received training in America in how to spread chaos in the ranks of the Iraqi army. We were brought into Iraq across the border from Saudi Arabia. We put on Iraqi army uniforms and our mission was basically to spread rumors among the Iraqis, such as that the American army had already got into such-and-such a city, or that it is on the outskirts of Baghdad and other such things, which were part of the reason for the rapid collapse of the Iraqi forces," he said.

The former collaborator went on: "the unit that I was with settled in the presidential palace in the al-A'zamiyah district. We were allowed to visit our relatives and relations in Baghdad once a month, and so I would go visit my family in 'Madinat as-Sadr’ in eastern Baghdad. But after things began to get worse and the armed men began to shoot at everyone leaving the palace, I asked my family to come to the palace every now and then so I could see them. My job was being a guard, but after a time that situation changed and the American occupation forces put me in charge of a group of a unit that carried out assassinations in the streets of Baghdad," he said.

"Our task was to carry out assassinations of individuals. The US occupation army would supply us with their names, pictures, and maps of their daily movements to and from their place of residence and we were supposed to kill the Shi'i, for example, in the al-A'zamiyah, and kill the Sunni in the of 'Madinat as-Sadr’, and so on."

"Anyone in the unit who made a mistake was killed. Three members of my team were killed by US occupation forces after they failed to assassinate Sunni political figures in Baghdad. A US force that had been so-ordered eliminated them. That took place two years ago," the former collaborator recalled.

The former collaborator said that the Americans have a unit for "dirty jobs." That unit is a mix of Iraqis, Americans, and foreigners and of the security detachments that are deployed in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. This unit doesn’t only carry out assassinations, but some of them specialize in planting bombs and car bombs in neighborhoods and markets. This unit carries out operations in which wanted people whom the American army does not want killed are arrested.

The former collaborator said that "operations of planting car bombs and blowing up explosives in markets are carried out in various ways, the best-known and most famous among the US troops is placing a bomb inside cars as they are being searched at checkpoints. Another way is to put bombs in the cars during interrogations. After the desired person is summoned to one of the US bases, a bomb is place in his car and he is asked to drive to a police station or a marked for some purpose and there his car blows up."

The testimony of the former collaborator is consistent with some western reports that have disclosed the involvement of US military personnel in bombings that target Iraqi civilians. The British reporter Robert Fisk, AMSI noted, had recently met with Iraqis in Syria concerning such "black operations" carried out by the Americans.

The Egyptian writer and former editor of al-Ahram, Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal, also noted in an interview with al-Jazeera satellite TV that there are mercenaries who practically make up an army second only to the regular US army in Iraq in terms of their numbers and equipment. This force is now called the "Knights of Malta" Haykal said, and they are the cause of many of the attacks that target Iraqi civilians. Haykal noted that there are Iraqis and Lebanese working in the ranks of that force.

Our View: Most of us would expect nothing less from the US army, a key colonial tactic is to divide and rule and get traitors to do your dirty work. Shame there are so many willing traitors available. One day Inshallah, Iraq will be free again and not governed by a puppet US-installed and controlled regime and then where will these shameful traitors hide.

We are all But Travellers - Choose your Path Carefully

2007-04-30T04:26:00.000-07:00

A traveler once came to the mosque to see the Prophet Mohammad (SAW). After greeting the Prophet he was asked where he was from. The traveler replied that he came from very far just to get a few questions answered. Following is the dialogue between the traveler and the Prophet.

Traveler: I do not want adhaab to be written in my account.
Prophet: Behave well with your parents

Traveler: I want to be known amongst people as an intelligent person.
Prophet: Fear Allah always.

Traveler: I want to be counted amongst Allah's favorites.
Prophet: Recite Quran every morning and evening.

Traveler: I want my heart to always be enlightened.
Prophet: Never forget death

Traveler: I never want to be away from Allah's blessing.
Prophet : Always treat fellow creatures well.

Traveler: I never want to be harmed by my enemies.
Prophet: Always have faith in only Allah.

Traveler: I never want to be humiliated.
Prophet: Be careful of your actions.

Traveler: I wish to live long.
Prophet: Always do Sile Rahm. (Goodness towards blood relations)

Traveler: I want my sustenance to increase.
Prophet: Always be in Wudhoo.

Traveler: I wish to stay free of adhaab in the grave.
Prophet: Always wear pure (Paak) clothes.

Traveler: I never want to burn in hell.
Prophet: Control your eyes and tongue.

Traveler: How do I get my sins forgiven.
Prophet : Always ask forgiveness from Allah with a lot of humility.

Traveler: I want people to respect me always.
Prophet: Never extend your hands of need at people.

Traveler: I want to always be honored.
Prophet: Never humiliate or put down anyone.

Traveler : I don't want to be squeezed by fishare qabr.( squeezing in the grave)
Prophet: Recite sura e mulk often.

Traveler: I want my wealth to increase.
Prophet: Recite Sura E Waqia every night.

Traveler: I want to be safe and at peace on day of judgement.
Prophet: Do Zikr of Allah from dusk to night.

Traveler: I want to be in full attention and concentration during namaaz.
Prophet: Always do Wudhoo with concentration and attention

"Allah does not change the circumstances of any people until they have changed what is within themselves"(Surah AR'RAD V11)

Who Do They Expect to Believe This Tripe?

2007-04-25T10:58:00.000-07:00

Al-Qaeda and Iranian allies 'plan Hiroshima attack' Source: The Daily Telegraph April 23, 2007

"AL-QAEDA leaders in Iraq are planning the first "large-scale" terrorist attacks on Britain and other western targets with the help of supporters in Iran, according to a leaked intelligence report.

Spy chiefs warn that one operative had said he was planning an attack on "a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki" in an attempt to "shake the Roman throne", a reference to the West, according to The Times newspaper in the UK.

Another plot could be timed to coincide with Tony Blair stepping down as prime minister, an event described by al-Qaeda planners as a "change in the head of the company".

The report, produced earlier this month and seen by The Sunday Times, appears to provide evidence that al-Qaeda is active in Iran and has ambitions far beyond the improvised attacks it has been waging against British and American soldiers in Iraq.

There is no evidence of a formal relationship between al-Qaeda, a Sunni group, and the Shiite regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but experts suggest that Iran’s leaders may be turning a blind eye to the terrorist organisation’s activities," reports The Times.

The intelligence report also makes it clear that senior al-Qaeda figures in the region have been in recent contact with operatives in Britain.

It follows revelations last year that up to 150 Britons had travelled to Iraq to fight as part of al-Qaeda’s "foreign legion". A number are thought to have returned to the UK, after receiving terrorist training, to form sleeper cells.

The report was compiled by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) - based at MI5’s London headquarters - and provides a quarterly review of the international terror threat to Britain. It draws a distinction between Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda’s core leadership, who are thought to be hiding on the Afghan-Pakistan border, and affiliated organisations elsewhere.

The document states: "While networks linked to AQ (al-Qaeda) Core pose the greatest threat to the UK, the intelligence during this quarter has highlighted the potential threat from other areas, particularly AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq)."

The report continues: "Recent reporting has described AQI’s Kurdish network in Iran planning what we believe may be a large-scale attack against a western target.

"A member of this network is reportedly involved in an operation which he believes requires AQ Core authorisation. He claims the operation will be on 'a par with Hiroshima and Naga-saki' and will 'shake the Roman throne'. We assess that this operation is most likely to be a large-scale, mass casualty attack against the West."

The report says there is "no indication" this attack would specifically target Britain, "although we are aware that AQI . . . networks are active in the UK".

Analysts believe the reference to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where more than 200,000 people died in nuclear attacks on Japan at the end of WWII, is unlikely to be a literal boast. (Just remember, no Muslim power has ever used WMD or been responsible for genocides such as the Nazi Holocaust).
"It could be just a reference to a huge explosion," said a counter-terrorist source. "They (al-Qaeda) have got to do something soon that is radical otherwise they start losing credibility." (No mate, you lose credibility in terms of being exposed for fabricating the scale of an Islamic terror network and threat).

Despite aspiring to a nuclear capability, al-Qaeda is not thought to have acquired weapons grade material. However, several plots involving "dirty bombs" - conventional explosive devices surrounded by radioactive material - have been foiled.

Last year al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq called on nuclear scientists to apply their knowledge of biological and radiological weapons to "the field of jihad".

Details of a separate plot to attack Britain, "ideally" before Blair steps down this summer, were contained in a letter written by Abdul al-Hadi al-Iraqi, an Iraqi Kurd and senior al-Qaeda commander. (I thought the Kurds would hate Al-Qaeda given they are supposed to be Sunnis and they were long persecuted by Saddam Hussein and his regime - inconsistency creeping in here?)

According to the JTAC document, Hadi "stressed the need to take care to ensure that the attack was successful and on a large scale". The plan was to be relayed to an Iran-based al-Qaeda facilitator.

The Home Office declined to comment." (Funny that?)
Source: The Daily Telegraph

Detecting the Israeli Influence in Iraq

2007-04-23T10:41:00.000-07:00

Iraqis protest building of wall around Sunni neighborhood

By Alissa J. Rubin and Jon Elsen Published: April 23, 2007

BAGHDAD: Large crowds demonstrated in the Adhamiya neighborhood in Baghdad on Monday, protesting plans to build a wall around the mostly Sunni neighborhood, a day after Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said he was ordering a halt to construction of that wall.

Maliki made his comments from Egypt, where he was on a state visit. But American officials did not say whether the wall's construction would be halted.

Crowds gathered near the mosque of Abu Hanifa, overlooking the Tigris River, then marched in the streets of the Sunni Arab enclave, bordered by Shiite areas.

Adhamiya often comes under mortar attack and suffers incursions from the surrounding neighborhoods. It has also been a stronghold of militant Sunni Arab groups, and the wall would help the Iraqi security forces to control their movements.

"We denounce the building of the wall, which will increase the sectarian rift," said Um Muhammad, a teacher in Adhamiya. "We demand that occupation forces should remove it, and not to build any similar wall in other areas."

A leaflet distributed at the demonstration said the wall would "turn the city into a big prison." Banners said "No Shiites, No Sunnies, Islamic Unity."
Maliki said Sunday that construction of the wall reminded people of "other walls." His announcement that construction would be halted appeared intended to allay the mounting criticism from both Sunni Arab and Shiite parties about the project.

"I oppose the building of the wall, and its construction will stop," Maliki told reporters during a joint news conference with the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa. "There are other methods to protect neighborhoods."

America's ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, defended the wall on Monday, saying it made "good security sense" to build barriers where there were clear fault-lines and "avenues of attack" between Sunni and Shiite areas, Reuters reported.

Neither he nor a U.S. military spokesman, Rear Admiral Mark Fox, would say whether construction of the Adhamiya wall would be stopped, according to Reuters. Fox said the erection of barriers around Baghdad's markets and neighborhoods was approved by Iraq's government.

Maliki did not specify in his remarks what other walls he referred to. However, the separation barrier in the West Bank being erected by Israel, which Israel says is for protection but greatly angers Palestinians, is a particularly delicate issue among Arabs.

"This wall makes us feel as if we were in Palestine," Akram al-Ani, of Adhamiya, said at the demonstration on Monday. "And this is the same wall that separates Palestinians from Israelis."
Eman Khudair 48, a widow who lives with her family near the wall, said she feared that government forces controlling access to the neighborhood might collaborate with militias that want to enter. And she feared that the government might close off the area and prevent supplies from entering.

Sameer al-Abeidi, the sheikh of the Abu Hanifa mosque, said he welcomed Maliki's call for putting a halt to construction of the wall. "We shake hands with the government in such stands and hope that the occupation forces would not abort these stands," he said.

On Sunday, the spokesman for the American military in Iraq sought to allay criticism of the project and explain its intent by saying that it was meant to be only a temporary barrier to improve security.

The military does not have a new strategy of building walls or creating "gated communities," the spokesman, Major General William Caldwell IV, said in a written statement. He described it as a tactic being used in only a handful of neighborhoods and not an effort to divide the city, much less the country.

However, American military officials said last week in a statement that the Adhamiya wall was "one of the centerpieces of a new strategy." They also said that the wall was aimed at separating Sunni Arabs in Adhamiya from Shiites to the east.

Source:International Herald Tribune

My view: Walls have caused much misery and hardship for the Palestinians and the US seems to want to inflict even more misery on the long-suffering people of Iraq. Time to wake up and smell the coffee, the myopic Americans just don't get the fact that they have illegally invaded a country and the only thing that will allow this country to get back on its feet is if they leave!! They have set this country back many decades, which as far as Israel is concerned is probably considered a job well done. Olmert's probably telling Bush to hurry up and sign all the oil reserves over to Dick and co and shut up shop and come home and keep pretending they went to Iraq to remove a dictator (who was previously their man, until he stopped doing what he was told!) Oh actually I forgot, the good ole US with all its technology actually invaded Iraq due to the WMDs, that they knew didn't exist. Probably dodgy Israeli intelligence fed to the UK that led to that fatal spin.

The Importance of Activism: A British Muslim’s Perspective

2007-02-16T02:18:00.000-08:00

M.Hussein
Friday 16th February, 2007
The M.I.A.H Project

With the constant vilification of Muslims by the media and the government, it’s difficult to comprehend how one community can be singled out over and over again, but yet the community as a whole fails to react in large numbers.

The situation is becoming one where, as time progresses, these fears are further heightened, and the attacks and spins become more frequent, consequently leading to a state of hate and suspicion against Muslims.

We in the UK must do everything possible to stop this hysteria reaching epic proportions. Already, with the ban of religious symbols in state schools in France (legislation which infringe on Muslims more than any other religious group) and the niqab ban in Holland; these “anti-Muslim” policies being implemented in the UK are more real now than any other time in recent history. If we are to counter this, we must counter this climate of fear, we must counter what is now the racism which is almost blatantly accepted by society, we must ensure people who make such false claims and accusations are not gone unchallenged and do not continue to preach their messages of hate.

In the past we have had a number of mosques firebombed; Muslims have been attacked for no reason other than that of being a Muslim; Muslim women have had their headscarves ripped off their heads. This ignorance is why the constant violations of civil and human rights by our government where individuals are held over unwarranted periods (sometimes indefinitely) without charge, people are kept under house arrest and tagged without any conclusive evidence of any terrorist links and so fourth, are left unhindered without outcry from the mass British public.

One instance in the past where this hate was spurred and the response resulted to a change is when Robert Kilroy-Silk in an article in the Sunday Express referred to Arabs (and implicitly to Muslims) as ‘suicide bombers’, ‘limb-amputators’, and ‘women repressors’ among many other things. The wide scale reaction from many Muslims around the country through writing to the media and openly showing their disgust at this man sent a clear message, not only to Robert Kilroy-Silk, but The Sunday Times, the BBC (who were employers of Kilroy-Silk at the time), and also to all the other islamaphobes of the country. The same reasons if these racist statements and accusations were targeted towards other minority communities would have not been tolerated, apply to Muslims, and we, and society as a whole need to recognise that.

Opposition must also continue against other islamaphobic hate-preachers such as Melanie Phillips, Nick Cohen, Mark Steyn and Julie Birchill whose constant tirade against the Muslim religion creates further segregation within society. Drivel from individuals such as these, unchallenged; seep in to public opinion creating a greater aura of abhorrence and as a result, any potentially impending niqab ban, hijab ban or any other possible Muslim specific legislation, with public opinion so greatly against our religion, will surely be enforced.

We have already seen quite starkly how the public jumped on the bandwagon of anti-niqab resentment in 2006. All it needs is a public figure to start pointing fingers at Muslims for some spurious reason and the wave of attacks begin.

As well as showing our opposition to hate preachers, we must show our support for the converse - the likes of Madeline Bunting and John Pilger who, at the receiving end of smear campaigns by the Zionist lobbies, choose still to speak out in favour of justice and Muslim causes such as Palestine and Iraq. The attempts by these groups to quieten anyone who opposes the Israeli state must not be taken lightly. Without people speaking against the propaganda and lies, it will surely become a one sided endeavour.

Britain’s foreign policy has major implications in Muslim countries such as Kashmir, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Palestine and Iraq. It is our government who has sent thousands of troops to Iraq and Afghanistan to partake in an illegal war resulting in the deaths of over 600,000 Muslims. It is our government who seems to continually condone the oppression and killing of the Palestinian people in their own land. As citizens of this country, we can utilise the democratic system and show our sheer opposition to such policies; with enough pressure we can make a difference to the lives of our Muslim brothers and sisters which these policies directly affect.

So next time you see lies and baseless accusations being handed by the media, or an alert to act is sent out by the countless Muslim organisations (such as MPACUK), realise how big an outcome being a politically active Muslim can achieve - and achieve it.

Source: The M.I.A.H Project

A SILENT CRY FROM THE HELL HOLE GUANTANAMO.

2007-01-23T14:52:00.000-08:00

Published: 14/01/2007 12:00 AM (UAE)

A cry from Guantanamo
By Jumah Al Dossari, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post

I am writing from the darkness of the US detention camp at Guantanamo in the hope that I can make our voices heard by the world. My hand quivers as I hold the pen.

In January 2002, I was picked up in Pakistan, blindfolded, shackled, drugged and loaded onto a plane flown to Cuba. When we got off the plane in Guantanamo, we did not know where we were.

They took us to Camp X-Ray and locked us in cages with two buckets - one empty and one filled with water. We were to urinate in one and wash in the other.

At Guantanamo, soldiers have assaulted me, placed me in solitary confinement, threatened to kill me, threatened to kill my daughter and told me I will stay in Cuba for the rest of my life.

They have deprived me of sleep, forced me to listen to extremely loud music and shined intense lights in my face. They have placed me in cold rooms for hours without food, drink or the ability to go to the bathroom or wash for prayers.

They have wrapped me in the Israeli flag and told me there is a holy war between the Cross and the Star of David on one hand and the Crescent on the other. They have beaten me unconscious.

What I write here is not what my imagination fancies or my insanity dictates. These are verifiable facts witnessed by other detainees, representatives of the Red Cross, interrogators and translators.

During the first few years at Guantanamo, I was interrogated many times. My interrogators told me that they wanted me to admit that I am from Al Qaida and that I was involved in the terrorist attacks on the United States.

I told them that I have no connection to what they described. I am not a member of Al Qaida. I did not encourage anyone to go fight for Al Qaida.

Al Qaida and Osama Bin Laden have done nothing but kill and denigrate a religion. I never fought, and I never carried a weapon. I like the US and I am not an enemy. I have lived in the US, and I wanted to become a citizen.

No conclusion

I know that the soldiers who did bad things to me represent themselves, not the US. And I have to say that not all American soldiers stationed in Cuba tortured us or mistreated us.

There were soldiers who treated us very humanely. Some even cried when they witnessed our dire conditions. Once, in Camp Delta, a soldier apologised to me and offered me hot chocolate and cookies.

When I thanked him, he said, "I do not need you to thank me". I include this because I do not want readers to think that I fault all Americans.

But, why, after five years, is there no conclusion to the situation at Guantanamo? For how long will fathers, mothers, wives, siblings and children cry for their imprisoned loved ones?

For how long will my daughter have to ask about my return? The answers can only be found with the fair-minded people of America.

I would rather die than stay here forever, and I have tried to commit suicide many times. The purpose of Guantanamo is to destroy people, and I have been destroyed. I am hopeless because our voices are not heard from the depths of the detention centre.

If I die, please remember that there was a human being named Jumah at Guantanamo whose beliefs, dignity and humanity were abused.

Please remember that there are hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo suffering the same misfortune. They have not been charged with any crimes. They have not been accused of taking any action against the US.

Show the world the letters I gave you. Let the world read them. Let the world know the agony of the detainees in Cuba.

Jumah Al Dossari is a 33-year-old citizen of Bahrain. This article was excerpted from letters he wrote to his attorneys. Its contents have been deemed unclassified by the Department of Defence.

"That's not Hijab"

2007-01-23T14:47:00.000-08:00

Check this video out:

Yet Another Database to Monitor You!

2007-01-15T02:47:00.000-08:00

Another great and pressing article from MPACUK:

Yet Another Database to Monitor You!
Tuesday, 09 January 2007

Union JackMany of you by now may be aware of government plans to store our medical records in to a national database, dubbed NHS SPINE, this is to comprise of the records of 50 million patients in the UK. These plans are currently being sold to us as a means for the NHS to provide a better service to its patients. As a computer scientist, I do not doubt the advantages of having all this information stored in this form – it is true that databases offer us almost limitless flexibility and efficiency over recording information in a paper format; the most obvious of benefits being that the data can be accessible from anywhere: an emergency visit to the hospital, or registering to a new GP – your data would be available to the medical staff instantly allowing them to provide the most appropriate form of treatment.

That said; the government is prepared to wholly abuse the medical information stored in these databases. In an era where we are to see compulsory ID cards to be introduced, a time where our movements by tube and car are logged, where our activities on the internet are subject to scrutiny, this database seems to be one of the long line of computer systems the government is utilising in order to take away our privacy.

Already there have been indications that information stored on these databases will be accessible to the government, police, security services and potentially other third parties (employers, insurance firms etc) without our knowledge or consent.

As a result, many Civil liberty organisations and critics are calling this "data rape" and are urging Britons to boycott it. Details of mental illnesses, pregnancy, HIV status or drug-taking may also be included, and there are no laws to prevent DNA profiles being added. Plans are also in place to use clever data mining techniques with these records to try and predict things such as which children are likely to commit crimes etc. One worry is that patients will be unwilling to confide in their doctors, and doctors may well be unwilling to record information given in confidence. The outcome of a recent poll by the Guardian newspaper found that four out of five doctors thought the confidentiality of their patients' records would be at risks - if the doctors are worried about this, we certainly should be!

The system is being introduced through an underhand "implied consent" model (used more and more by centralised bureaucracies), rather than the explicit, informed, individual consent which the principles of data protection require, something the British Medical Association has already expressed reservations about.

There has also been a lot of concern aired regarding the security of this information - people's medical secrets will be vulnerable to computer hackers and security breaches. Ministers are promising state-of-the-art technology to prevent unauthorised access, but anyone who has any knowledge of encryption and security technology is fully aware that no method of security is totally failsafe (if the U.S defence and NASA systems get hacked into, what hope is there for the NHS database?) .

What can be done?

Before this data is transferred across to the live system, individuals can opt out of it by writing a letter to their GP (http://www.nhsconfidentiality.org/optoutletter ) but once this information is uploaded, it will be very difficult to reverse the process - matter of fact; the only way to have it taken off is if you can show "substantial mental distress"… and that is surely going to be a difficult task.

Source: http://www.mpacuk.org/content/view/3245/34/

Preists Have Fun And Church Pays Thru The Nose

2007-01-08T05:55:00.000-08:00

US Church offers abuse settlement.

A Roman Catholic diocese in the US state of Washington has agreed to pay at least $48m (£24.7m) as compensation to people abused by priests.

A judge said the plan, designed to lift the Spokane diocese out of bankruptcy, includes non-economic provisions to give victims some "closure".

The Spokane diocese serves some 90,000 Catholics in Washington state.

It is the latest in a series of multi-million dollar settlements offered by US churches in abuse claims.

Federal Bankruptcy Judge Gregg W Zive told the Associated Press news agency the settlement also includes a mechanism for paying off future claims.

He said money for the settlement would come from insurance companies, the sale of church property, contributions from Catholic groups and from the diocese's parishes.

Victims and another bankruptcy judge must approve the move before it comes into effect.

In December last year, the largest Roman Catholic diocese in the US agreed to pay $60m (£30m) to settle dozens of lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by priests.

The settlement by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles related to 45 cases among more than 500 that are pending.

It was one of the largest settlements since the Roman Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal erupted in the US in 2002.
In February 2004, a report commissioned by the Church said more than 4,000 Roman Catholic priests in the US had faced sexual abuse allegations in the last 50 years.

Girl killed by pit bull terrier

2007-01-02T04:50:00.000-08:00

How many more deaths of innocent children do we need before we realise that there should be some regulation on dog ownership? These animals are dangerous and must not be let out freely in to society!

Girl killed by pit bull terrier

A five-year-old girl has been killed and her grandmother seriously injured by a pit bull terrier at their family home on Merseyside.

Ellie Lawrenson was found bleeding to death in the living room of the house in St Helens shortly before 0430 GMT.

Her grandmother, Jackie Simpson, 46, who is recovering in hospital, managed to lock the dog outside.

The owner, believed to be Ellie's uncle, had been warned in June about the dog's behaviour.

The pit bull terrier was destroyed by police immediately after the attack at the property in Knowles House Avenue, Eccleston.

Ms Simpson, who shared the home with Ellie's aunt and uncle, was bitten on her arms and legs.

Serious injuries

Her injuries are described as "serious but not life threatening". Police said she may have to undergo surgery at Whiston Hospital where she is being treated.

Superintendent Jon Ward, operational manager for the St Helens region, said: "This is such a tragic incident.

"We attended the scene, by which stage the dog had been shut away down the side entrance of the house.

"When officers arrived it became apparent from a very early stage that the girl had tragically died as a result of the attack.

"The ambulance service did what it could for her but unfortunately she died at the scene."

Police dog handlers who arrived minutes later, decided the dog, called Reuben, had to be shot as soon as possible.

Mr Ward added: "They made a decision as to whether it was safe to control the dog and seize and safely remove it.

"The assessment was that that couldn't be done safely so the dog was humanely destroyed at the scene around 5.40am this morning."

Detectives understand Ellie's parents were not in the house at the time of the attack.

Police believe Ellie's parents went out to celebrate New Year's Eve, leaving Ellie with her grandmother, and when they returned Ellie asked to stay there.

They are then thought to have left the property at about 0340 GMT, shortly before the attack.

Tragic incident'

According to police, Ellie's uncle was not at home when the attack happened.

However, Mr Ward said Ellie regularly stayed at her grandmother's house so police believe she knew the dog well.

A large part of Knowles House Avenue was cordoned off with police tape on Monday afternoon as forensic officers continued to examine the end-of-terrace house where Ellie was mauled.

A white and yellow forensic tent was attached to the front door of the property which is believed to be owned by Ellie's great-grandmother.

A police spokeswoman said Ellie's body was removed from the house at about1400 GMT.

She confirmed that several members of Ellie's family had arrived at the property in the morning wanting to see her body.

"They were obviously distressed and distraught at not being able to see Ellie, but we couldn't let them in while the body was still in situ and while forensic science officers were still at the scene.

"There was some shouting, there are a lot of high emotions flying around," she said.

Dorothy Watkinson who lives near the family home told BBC News that Ellie was used to dealing with the dog.

"I've seen her at the gateway with it, stroking it. It never turned on her like that."

Supt Ward said: "This is such a tragic incident. When a child loses her life in such circumstances, it has an effect on the whole community."

He added that the safety of the public and police officers was paramount and in such circumstances "we were left with no other option but to have the animal destroyed quickly and humanely."

He added said police would be looking into whether any offence had been committed under the Dangerous Dogs Act.Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/merseyside/6222319.stm

Defend Your Freedom

2006-12-31T15:37:00.000-08:00

Defend Your Freedom
by M.Hussein

Almost every day we hear new stories in the papers about so-called ‘security measures’ being taken by our government in an attempt to combat terrorism and crime. What we should realise is that these measures, far from effectively tackling terrorism, do nothing but infringe on our civil liberties and our rights to privacy. A small compromise is understandable and maybe even expected; but not when it gets to a point where everyone is under strict surveillance and treated like a suspect. The British nation is walking slowly towards a totalitarian state where all aspects of our public and private life i.e. what we buy, what we eat, what we say and where we go; all are known and regulated by the authorities.

We only need to look at our counterparts in America to get a glimpse of what could further happen here on UK shores: Already millions of people in the U.S have had their telephone conversations monitored by the government without any knowledge of the courts (something our current government has the powers to do under the RIPA act of 2000); a blacklist of names flagged by computer systems ensures that it is almost impossible for certain people to travel freely using air transport around the country – there have even been cases where pensioners have found their way on to this list simply for being outspoken against the war; bank transactions are being monitored by the state; foreign nationals are having to give up their biometrics in order to enter the country… the list is almost endless.

Far from being a situation where “if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear”, the reality is one of an insecure government - remember the frequent and atrocious false positives and flawed “intelligence"? - Jean Charles De Menezes, Forrest Gate, Birmingham Six etc. Yet, the government is seeking ever more expansive and intrusive powers, playing up the general public's artificially heightened fears (the Heathrow airport scare, the "liquid bomb" scare etc); the government, as of 2000's Anti-Terrorism Act, already had the requisite legislation (indeed according to many experts far more than necessary for combating the problem).

To judge the provisions of these powers we need to be aware of how the word “terrorism” is being realigned - Sir Ian Blair, live on UK television stated “I don’t think people should distinguish crime and terrorism too easily”; the U.S patriot act and the UK terrorism act also similarly define terrorism to include general domestic crime; in effect this means that anti-terrorism legislation can be used against anyone suspected of any crime i.e. denial of access to lawyers, detention without trial etc.

A study produced by a group of academics called the Surveillance Studies Network recently was presented to the 28th International Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners' Conference in London. It predicts that by 2016, shoppers could be scanned as they enter stores, curfew restrictions could be imposed as part of daily life, schools could bring in cards allowing parents to monitor what their children eat, and jobs may be refused to applicants who are seen as a health risk. Is this a society which you would wish to live in?

Consider some of the measures which are in operation or are in consideration:

1. Oystercards, these systematically collect information and track movements of commuters which is then stored in a large data warehouse. The police have already made numerous requests for information from these databases, of which these requests are increasing at a dramatic rate every month. Although the scheme seems to be entirely voluntary, people that choose not to use it are being heavily penalised through excessively higher fares.

2. The information sharing index, to be put on trial next year stores information of all children in England and Wales. While it does store limited information, the prospect of it being expanded using the implemented infrastructure is something which is more than viable.

3. We already in the UK have the highest density of CCTV cameras in the world, police and councils are now considering monitoring conversations in the street using high-powered microphones attached to CCTV cameras. The reason given behind this is to record aggressive exchanges before they become violent. How much longer till such technologies are implemented within our very homes?

4. Biometric ID cards coming in to use in the next few years - further monitoring of every aspect of our lives.

5. The NHS spine database currently being developed and to be put in trial would be the biggest database in the word, holding medical information on about 50 million patients in the UK. Not only unsafe, but fears have also been voiced about the number of people being able to view the data. This includes third party companies, and government.

6. Implementing microchips on individuals to track ones movement – already being trialled in America, this has been discussed and presents a major breach of our civil liberties.

What can you do?

This is far from a short one-off campaign. We need to pressure the media to highlight and publicly debate these violations of our civil liberties, we need to write to our MP’s asking them to not fall silent to these measures, and we must also show more support for civil liberties groups such as Liberty who have a proven track record for fighting for your rights and defending your freedom.

You can use www.writetothem.com to lobby your MP. Below is a sample letter you can use a basis for your own letter. We, as always, suggest that you personalise and change this to the best of your ability to ensure it has the greatest effect.

Dear [Your MP’s Name],

I am writing to voice my concern at the ever increasing measures being taken by our government in the name of combating crime and terrorism. Rather than doing such, these measures inflict upon the civil rights and privacy of every individual - leading to the situation where instead of being treated as citizens we are all being treated as suspects.

As your constituent, I urge you to act and put pressure on our government and not compromise and sacrifice our civil liberties in tackling the terrorist threat. However, think of real and effective ways of tackling the issue, starting with a change in our foreign policy.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours Sincerely,

[Your Name]

There is also currently a petition on this subject on the official Downing Street website. Please sign it and forward it to your friends and family:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/No-more-fear/

Palestine Will Be Free

2006-12-31T08:01:00.000-08:00

Robert Fisk: A dictator created then destroyed by America

2006-12-30T12:02:00.000-08:00

Have a read of this article from the Independent - very incisive and above all balanced. A job well done by Robert Fisk.

Saddam to the gallows. It was an easy equation. Who could be more deserving of that last walk to the scaffold - that crack of the neck at the end of a rope - than the Beast of Baghdad, the Hitler of the Tigris, the man who murdered untold hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis while spraying chemical weapons over his enemies? Our masters will tell us in a few hours that it is a "great day" for Iraqis and will hope that the Muslim world will forget that his death sentence was signed - by the Iraqi "government", but on behalf of the Americans - on the very eve of the Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the moment of greatest forgiveness in the Arab world.

But history will record that the Arabs and other Muslims and, indeed, many millions in the West, will ask another question this weekend, a question that will not be posed in other Western newspapers because it is not the narrative laid down for us by our presidents and prime ministers - what about the other guilty men?

No, Tony Blair is not Saddam. We don't gas our enemies. George W Bush is not Saddam. He didn't invade Iran or Kuwait. He only invaded Iraq. But hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead - and thousands of Western troops are dead - because Messrs Bush and Blair and the Spanish Prime Minister and the Italian Prime Minister and the Australian Prime Minister went to war in 2003 on a potage of lies and mendacity and, given the weapons we used, with great brutality.

In the aftermath of the international crimes against humanity of 2001 we have tortured, we have murdered, we have brutalised and killed the innocent - we have even added our shame at Abu Ghraib to Saddam's shame at Abu Ghraib - and yet we are supposed to forget these terrible crimes as we applaud the swinging corpse of the dictator we created.

Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in 1980, which was the greatest war crime he has committed for it led to the deaths of a million and a half souls? And who sold him the components for the chemical weapons with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds? We did. No wonder the Americans, who controlled Saddam's weird trial, forbad any mention of this, his most obscene atrocity, in the charges against him. Could he not have been handed over to the Iranians for sentencing for this massive war crime? Of course not. Because that would also expose our culpability.

And the mass killings we perpetrated in 2003 with our depleted uranium shells and our "bunker buster" bombs and our phosphorous, the murderous post-invasion sieges of Fallujah and Najaf, the hell-disaster of anarchy we unleashed on the Iraqi population in the aftermath of our "victory" - our "mission accomplished" - who will be found guilty of this? Such expiation as we might expect will come, no doubt, in the self-serving memoirs of Blair and Bush, written in comfortable and wealthy retirement.

Hours before Saddam's death sentence, his family - his first wife, Sajida, and Saddam's daughter and their other relatives - had given up hope.

"Whatever could be done has been done - we can only wait for time to take its course," one of them said last night. But Saddam knew, and had already announced his own "martyrdom": he was still the president of Iraq and he would die for Iraq. All condemned men face a decision: to die with a last, grovelling plea for mercy or to die with whatever dignity they can wrap around themselves in their last hours on earth. His last trial appearance - that wan smile that spread over the mass-murderer's face - showed us which path Saddam intended to walk to the noose.

I have catalogued his monstrous crimes over the years. I have talked to the Kurdish survivors of Halabja and the Shia who rose up against the dictator at our request in 1991 and who were betrayed by us - and whose comrades, in their tens of thousands, along with their wives, were hanged like thrushes by Saddam's executioners.

I have walked round the execution chamber of Abu Ghraib - only months, it later transpired, after we had been using the same prison for a few tortures and killings of our own - and I have watched Iraqis pull thousands of their dead relatives from the mass graves of Hilla. One of them has a newly-inserted artificial hip and a medical identification number on his arm. He had been taken directly from hospital to his place of execution. Like Donald Rumsfeld, I have even shaken the dictator's soft, damp hand. Yet the old war criminal finished his days in power writing romantic novels.

It was my colleague, Tom Friedman - now a messianic columnist for The New York Times - who perfectly caught Saddam's character just before the 2003 invasion: Saddam was, he wrote, "part Don Corleone, part Donald Duck". And, in this unique definition, Friedman caught the horror of all dictators; their sadistic attraction and the grotesque, unbelievable nature of their barbarity.

But that is not how the Arab world will see him. At first, those who suffered from Saddam's cruelty will welcome his execution. Hundreds wanted to pull the hangman's lever. So will many other Kurds and Shia outside Iraq welcome his end. But they - and millions of other Muslims - will remember how he was informed of his death sentence at the dawn of the Eid al-Adha feast, which recalls the would-be sacrifice by Abraham, of his son, a commemoration which even the ghastly Saddam cynically used to celebrate by releasing prisoners from his jails. "Handed over to the Iraqi authorities," he may have been before his death. But his execution will go down - correctly - as an American affair and time will add its false but lasting gloss to all this - that the West destroyed an Arab leader who no longer obeyed his orders from Washington, that, for all his wrongdoing (and this will be the terrible get-out for Arab historians, this shaving away of his crimes) Saddam died a "martyr" to the will of the new "Crusaders".

When he was captured in November of 2003, the insurgency against American troops increased in ferocity. After his death, it will redouble in intensity again. Freed from the remotest possibility of Saddam's return by his execution, the West's enemies in Iraq have no reason to fear the return of his Baathist regime. Osama bin Laden will certainly rejoice, along with Bush and Blair. And there's a thought. So many crimes avenged.

But we will have got away with it.

Channel 4's alternative Christmas message

2006-12-29T07:15:00.000-08:00

If you missed it, here it is for you to see:

Outlandish - Look in to My Eyes

2006-12-25T15:06:00.000-08:00

Was forwarded this moving song by a friend, thought I'd post it up on here.

The lyrics:

Look into my eyes
Tell me what you see
You don’t see a damn thing
‘cause you can’t relate to me
You’re blinded by our differences
My life makes no sense to you
I’m the persecuted one
You’re the red, white and blue
Each day you wake in tranquility
No fears to cross your eyes
Each day I wake in gratitude
Thanking God He let me rise
You worry about your education
And the bills you have to pay
I worry about my vulnerable life
And if I’ll survive another day
Your biggest fear is getting a ticket
As you cruise your Cadillac
My fear is that the tank that has just left
Will turn around and come back

Yet, do you know the truth of where your money goes?
Do you let your media deceive your mind?
Is this a truth nobody, nobody, nobody knows
Has our world gone all blind?
Ooohh, let’s not cry tonight, I promise you one day it’s through
Ohh my brothers, Ohh my sisters,
Ooohh, shine a light for every soul that ain’t with us no more
Ohh my brothers, Ohh my sisters,
…
See I’ve known terror for quite some time
57 years so cruel
Terror breathes the air I breathe
It’s the checkpoint on my way to school
Terror is the robbery of my land
And the torture of my mother
The imprisonment of my innocent father
The bullet in my baby brother
The bulldozers and the tanks
The gases and the guns
The bombs that fall outside my door
All due to your funds
You blame me for defending myself
Against the ways of my enemies
I’m terrorized in my own land
And I’m the terrorist?
…
America, do you realize that the taxes that you pay
Feed the forces that traumatize my every living day
So if I won’t be here tomorrow
It’s written in my fate
May the future bring a brighter day
The end of our wait

Muhammad - A prophet of our time

2006-12-22T09:22:00.000-08:00

By Karen Armstrong

249 pages. HarperCollins/Atlas Books. $21.95.
Reader's opinions

Since then Muhammad has been defined by his detractors: who have called him a terrorist, a lunatic and most colorfully — by the Rev. Jerry Vines, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention— a “demon-possessed pedophile.” Even Pope Benedict XVI, whatever his intention, created an uproar by unearthing a remark from a 14th-century emperor who cited Muhammad’s contributions to religion as “only evil and inhuman.” Is this the prophet of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims?

It may be time then to put down the biographies of John Adams and Ronald Reagan and devote a little attention to Muhammad. But beware. Several new biographies picture Muhammad through the lens of a suicide bomber, and ultimately these books reveal more about suicide bombers than Muhammad.

To glimpse how the vast majority of the world’s Muslims understand their prophet and their faith, Karen Armstrong’s short biography is a good place to start. The volume is part of a series called “Eminent Lives”: small profiles of big-name subjects by big-name authors.

Ms. Armstrong, best known for “A History of God,” is a scholar and a former nun with a genius for presenting religions as products of temporal forces — like geography, culture and economics — without minimizing the workings of transcendent spiritual forces.

She profiles Muhammad as both a mystic touched by God on a mountaintop and a canny political and social reformer. He preached loyalty to God rather than tribe; reconciliation rather than retaliation; care for orphans and the poor; and in many ways, empowerment of women, which will be a surprise to some. The Koran gave women property rights and freed orphans from the obligation to marry their guardians: radical changes at a time when women were traded like camels.

Ms. Armstrong writes: “His life was a tireless campaign against greed, injustice and arrogance. He realized that Arabia was at a turning point and that the old way of thinking would no longer suffice, so he wore himself out in the creative effort to evolve an entirely new solution.” In a nod to her subtitle, “A Prophet for Our Time,” she argues that as of Sept. 11, 2001, we have entered a new historical era that requires an equally thorough re-evaluation.

This notion that we have entered a new era was one of the reasons that Ms. Armstrong decided to revisit a subject she had already covered in 1992 with “Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet.”

Muhammad (570-632) was born in a nouveau riche Mecca. Unlike most Arabs, the Meccans were not nomads but traders and financiers who profited from the caravans that stopped in Mecca for water from its underground spring. The site was holy to the Bedouin because it housed the Kabah, a cube-shaped granite building that was tended by Muhammad’s tribe, the Quraysh.

Muhammad was orphaned as a child and taken in by relatives, but his fortunes changed at the age of 25 when he married Khadija, an older widow who hired him to manage her caravans. At 40 Muhammad declared he had been seized by a terrifying force and commanded by God to recite scripture.

Khadija was his first convert. At first he shared his revelations with a small group of friends and family members, who became his disciples, “convinced that he was the long-awaited Arab prophet.” As Muhammad, who was illiterate, recited new passages, believers wrote them down: a compilation that became the Koran.

The Meccans were offended by Muhammad’s preaching that the ideal was submission. (Islam means submission.) He taught that the proper way to pray was to bow, forehead to the earth, “a posture that would be repugnant to the haughty Quraysh,” Ms. Armstrong notes. Muhammad also insisted that the Meccans abandon the worship of their three stone goddesses, because there was only one God, Allah.

Muhammad and his followers were exiled to Medina, 250 miles north of Mecca. He did not conquer Medina so much as form alliances and win converts. But there were epic battles with the Quraysh and other tribes, and Muhammad was a fighter and tactician.

“Muhammad was not a pacifist,” Ms. Armstrong writes. “He believed that warfare was sometimes inevitable and even necessary.”

This is why some passages in the Koran are rules for warfare. Terrorist groups cite these selectively — or contort or violate them. The Koran says not to take aim at civilians; some terrorist groups declare all Israelis to be combatants because Israelis are required to perform military service.

Ms. Armstrong declines to stand in judgment of events that have scandalized other biographers; as when Muhammad falls for the wife of his adopted adult son and takes her as his fifth wife. Ms. Armstrong writes: “This story has shocked some of Muhammad’s Western critics who are used to more ascetic, Christian heroes, but the Muslim sources seem to find nothing untoward in this demonstration of their prophet’s virility. Nor are they disturbed that Muhammad had more than four wives: why should God not give his prophet a few privileges?”

Muhammad ultimately took back Mecca and reclaimed the Kabah, still the destination for the Muslim pilgrimage. Ms. Armstrong argues that he prevailed by compassion, wisdom and steadfast submission to God. This is the power of his story and the reason that more parents around the world name their children Muhammad than any other name.

New York Times

Borats Subliminal Message Against Muslims

2006-12-13T11:21:00.000-08:00

Borat portrays himself in the movie as an anti-semitic, misogynistic and a racist who openly hates gypsies and jokes about rape & incest.

Cohen himself is an observant Jew and in 1989 first acted (in Neil Simon's play Biloxi Blues) with the Jewish Zionist youth movement group "Habonim Dror." If he is a zionist than his underlying ambition is to see the destruction of Palestine and many other Muslim countries for the vision of the “greater Israel”. So bearing that in mind, although we completely condemn his anti-Semitic remarks as all Muslims should, we question his objectives.

It shouldn’t take one by surprise that Cohen, a man who spends his holidays in Israel, would portray anti-Semitism as a primitive medieval adventure. Borat is set to present anti-Semitism as a backward reactionary tendency. By doing so Baron Cohen and his team are there to deflect criticism of global Zionism in general and of Israel in particular. This is indeed a clever non-violent legitimate political agenda.

If you look carefully at the Borat movie poster you will see Sacha Cohen smiling, with his thumb up and wearing a ring. Now look carefully at the ring and you will see ALLAH embossed on the side of the ring and on the other side engraving of the Kaaba (the house of god for Muslims in Mecca). What possible connection does this have to the movie and to the message of Borat? Therefore we would suggest that subconsciously he is implying that his immoral behaviour is connected to Islam. This is the ring that Malcolm X wore after returning from Hajj. This is a clear mockery of the name of ALLAH.

Muhammad's Sword

2006-12-12T05:41:00.000-08:00

Since the days when Roman Emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes.

Constantine the Great, who became Emperor in the year 306 - exactly 1700 years ago - encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine. Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the Emperor accept his superiority.

The struggle between the Emperors and the Popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some Emperors dismissed or expelled a Pope, some Popes dismissed or excommunicated an Emperor. One of the Emperors, Henry IV, "walked to Canossa", standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope's castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication.

But there were times when Emperors and Popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present Emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week's speech by the Pope, which aroused a world-wide storm, went well with Bush's crusade against "Islamofascism", in the context of the "Clash of Civilizations".

IN HIS lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God's actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah.

As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this "war of civilizations".

In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?

To support his case, the Pope quoted - of all people - a Byzantine Emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th century, the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had - or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt) - with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the Emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them?

WHEN MANUEL II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat.

At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube. They had conquered Bulgaria and the north of Greece, and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire. On May 29, 1453, only a few years after Manuel's death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul) fell to the Turks, putting an end to the Empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.

During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.

In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim "Axis of Evil". Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe, this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.

IS THERE any truth in Manuel's argument?

The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur'an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant verse 257) which says: "There must be no coercion in matters of faith".

How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur'an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes - Christian, Jewish and others - in Arabia, when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith.

Jesus said: "You will recognize them by their fruits." The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to "spread the faith by the sword"?

Well, they just did not.

For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece. Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.

True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favorites of the government and enjoy the fruits.

In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith - and they were the forefathers of most of today's Palestinians.

THERE IS no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the "spreading of the faith by the sword"?

What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi ("Spanish") Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.

WHY? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the "peoples of the book". In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll-tax, but were exempted from military service - a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion - because it entailed the loss of taxes.

Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times "by the sword" to get them to abandon their faith.

THE STORY about "spreading the faith by the sword" is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims - the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?

There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of "Islamofascism" and the "Global War on Terrorism" - when "terrorism" has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush's handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world's oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers' expedition becomes a Crusade.

The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences?

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1159094813

Report blames UK government for Muslim resentment

2006-12-03T14:12:00.000-08:00

The actions of Prime Minister Tony Blair's government are responsible for breeding resentment among British Muslims, causing some to sympathise with violent extremists, a report by a leading thinktank said on Sunday 3rd December 2006. Surprise surprise! This is what ive been saying for ages!
The government's failure to address "reasonable grievances" over issues such as the Iraq war was driving a wedge between Muslims and the rest of society rather than isolating the few extremists, the report by left-leaning group Demos said. Speak to any young angry muslim and they wil tell you that foreign poilcy is the isue.
The question of Muslim integration was rammed home last year when four British Islamists carried out suicide bombings on London's transport network killing 52 commuters.
Demos said government efforts at engagement with Muslims since the attacks had been inadequate and its report criticised the government's reluctance to discuss the impact of foreign policy, a concern regularly raised by both moderate and radical Muslim voices.
Britain, Washington's closest ally in the Iraq war, has thousands of troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Iraq ministry forms unit to monitor news

2006-12-01T04:27:00.000-08:00

This is a interesting story i came upon today. Iraq's Interior Ministry said it had formed a special unit to monitor news coverage and vowed to take legal action against journalists who failed to correct stories the ministry deemed to be incorrect. The sineq in me thinks that they are working closely with the US army to make sure they can censure or have some control over the reports of fatalities in Iraq.

Iraq: Baker panel recommends US pulls out troops

2006-11-30T02:50:00.000-08:00

The bipartisan USA Iraq Study Group reached a consensus Wednesday on a final report that would call for a gradual pullback of 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stopped short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal. This is a slap in the face of George bush, even his supporters are telling him that the troops should leave Iraq. However, this may be a double bluff! If you read the fine detail of this report it actually recommends keeping 70,000 troops in Iraq after 2007 for logistics! 70,000 troops for logistics, that's a lot of troops to remain in a country that you are planning to leave in a few years time. The most encouraging part of the report is the recommendation that the USA should open lines of dialogue with Syria and Iran, this is something that bush has always rejected.

I hope the neoconservatives in the USA are exposed for what they are, evil, war mongering politicians with a long term objective to render the middle east into their playing ground.

We are in a war to the death (With Islam)

2006-11-27T05:24:00.000-08:00

We are in a war to the death – craven concessions won't win it

By Janet Daley (Telegraph - 27/11/06)

Who would have thought it? Half of Europe – the half that was so smug about having buried God several generations ago – is waiting in real trepidation for the outcome of a theological argument. When Pope Benedict XVI flies to Turkey tomorrow, he will embody the most potentially incendiary confrontation between Islam and the West since the defeat of the Turks at Vienna in 1683 brought an end to Islamic conquest in Europe.

The Pope will take with him an understanding that at the root of our problems in dealing with the Islamist death cult, there is a fundamental debate to be had about the role of human reason in political affairs.

The remarks he made in a lecture in Regensburg, Germany, which implied that Islam rejected rationality while Christianity saw it as essential to faith were contentious (and almost certainly designed to be so), but they raised a question that almost no Western government has the courage to ask, let alone answer. How is a liberal democracy to deal with an illiberal religious minority in its midst?

To understand the life-or-death significance of what the Pope does and says when he arrives in Istanbul, it is necessary to see this confrontation for what it is. This will involve some traumatic re-adjustment for most of the opinion-forming class in Britain. The first assumption that will have to go is the premise that Islamist terrorism can be understood in pragmatic, politically rational terms: in other words, that it can be addressed with the usual mechanisms of negotiation, concession and amended policy.

The most readily accepted version of this is that a change to our policy in the Middle East will remove the grievances that "fuel" Muslim terrorism. The Cabinet has apparently been advised that all foreign policy decisions over the next decade should have the goal of thwarting terrorism in Britain and that this should involve "a significant reduction in the number and intensity of the regional conflicts that fuel terror activity". So Britain is contemplating constructing a foreign policy, specifically in the Middle East, that is designed to give in to terrorist blackmail.

Never mind that the hereditary grievance of almost all British-born Muslim terrorists is the Kashmir question, to which the almost entirely irrelevant Palestine issue has been tacked on by political manipulators with larger ambitions. (The easiest way to make a connection between the Palestine-Israel conflict and the problem of Kashmir is to construct a global theory of persecution in which British-born Muslims may see themselves as born into a victimhood perpetrated by all non-Muslim nations upon Islam.

That, as it happens, chimes perfectly with the true goal of Islamism, which is global supremacy.) So this ignominious posture – what you might call the "save our own skin; who cares what happens in the rest of the world?" view – is based on a false premise. It is not adjustments to our stance on Israel-Palestine that the international Islamist terror movement wants.

That demand was just a bin Laden afterthought that went down a treat with the old reliable anti-Semitic interest in Europe. What Islamic fundamentalism plans to achieve (and it has made no secret of it) is a righting of the great wrong of 1492, when the Muslims were expelled from Spain: a return of the Caliphate, the destruction of corrupt Western values, and the establishment of Sharia law in all countries where Muslims reside. That is what we are up against.

The Pope characterised it as a battle between reason and unreason. Scholars may debate the theological and historical soundness of his analysis. But what is indisputable is that this is not an argument that is within the bounds of diplomatic give and take, the traditional stuff of international policy argy-bargy. What we could plausibly offer to the enemy, even at our most craven, would never be sufficient.

What is being demanded is the surrender of everything that Western democracy regards as sacred: even, ironically, the freedom to practise one's own religion, which, at the moment, is so useful to Muslim activists. We are forced to accept the Islamist movement's own estimation of the conflict: this is a war to the death, or until Islamism decides to call a halt.

But we do not have to accept all that Islamism claims for itself: most importantly, the idea that it alone embodies the true principles of its faith. The argument that the Islamic religion is inherently violent, which the Pope was thought to have supported in his Regensburg lecture, is academic, in both the literal and metaphorical senses.

What matters for us now is that a great many Muslims – including some enthusiastic converts who cannot even lay claim to a life history of persecution or injustice for their beliefs – are prepared to use their religious affiliation as a justification to commit mass murder. How are we to deal with this? There is only one way: we must, with the co-operation of the Muslim majority, separate the faith from its violent exponents.

Liberal democracy reached an understanding with religion a long time ago: your right, as a citizen, to observe your faith without persecution will be explicitly protected by the state. In return, you will agree to make your peace with the civil law and respect the rights of others to pursue their beliefs. That's the deal. We cannot make exceptions either by removing Muslims who accept their side of the bargain from that protection, or by permitting those who refuse to accept it to flout our law (on, say, sexual equality or the overt slavery of forced marriages).

As Caroline Cox and John Marks argue in their book The West, Islam and Islamism, republished in a new edition by Civitas this week, it is imperative that we distinguish between the Islamic faith and Islamist ideology. If we accept – or even countenance – the view that the two are indistinguishable, we will either be paralysed by our own democratic commitment to religious freedom or forced to engage in all-out religious war.

If a majority of the Muslim community is prepared to separate itself, clearly and explicitly, from the terrorist faction, then we have a chance. If it is not, if it is swept up in the glamour of international victim status and the dark victory of glorious death, then we face generations of bloodshed.

To some extent, this is up to us. Britain must have more to offer than domestic confusion and international cowardice. But it is up to conscientious Muslims as well, of whom much – perhaps more than is fair – must be demanded by way of intercession and courage.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/...1/27/do2701.xml

Good Morning!

2006-11-19T00:32:00.000-08:00

Welcome!

Incisive-View is a platform which will enable anyone to "slice n dice" current affairs and it's corresponding media coverage to illustrate alternative points of view.