| Author | Message | ||
     Project 37 Citizen Username: Project37 Post Number: 274 Registered: 3-2006  |
Um, that was my point. THEY WEREN'T FACTS. Your selective listening isn't driving this conversation anywhere except into the ground. If you're willing to do more than blindly cut and paste (not to mention display some thought in acknowledging or responding when your points are fairly challenged), then it might go somewhere. As that doesn't seem to be the case, I leave you to enjoy space to indulge in more mindless venting. You might actually hear more if you pull your head out of the sand. Best wishes, -p37- | ||
| Foj Citizen Username: Foger Post Number: 1703 Registered: 9-2004 |
Pipes is a nut job. He hangs with nut jobs, his father is a nut job.. HEs a PNACer who called for a Military take over of the Middle east .. back in the late 1990's " "The Vietnam legacy and the sour memories of dead American Marines in Beirut notwithstanding ... the United States has entered a new era of undisputed military supremacy with an appreciable drop in human losses on the battlefield. ... " http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1316 from wiki... On the other hand, a 1983 Washington Post book review by Thomas W. Lippman stated that Pipes displays "a disturbing hostility to contemporary Muslims ... he professes respect for Muslims but is frequently contemptuous of them". It said his book "is marred by exaggerations, inconsistencies, and evidence of hostility to the subject" This pretty much buries the hachet. Pipes dad was a big red scare guy, while Nixon was saving the world from nuclear annilation, Pipes, Pearle, Wolfowitz, Rummsfeld... would have none of that "peace" crap "the Team B experiment was concocted by conservative cold warriors determined to bury détente and the SALT process." http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1316 This is the same .. cant shoot straight gang.. That wanted to stay and win in Viet Nam.. Thought Nixon should have never resigned, because Nixon did no wrong.. Cant run a war,,, well 2 wars.. Iraq & Afganistan. They thought we should nuke the USSR, because we will win. Seems like Pipes has a brilliant resume. | ||
| joel dranove Citizen Username: Jdranove Post Number: 917 Registered: 1-2006 |
ahhh.... Wiki, where peer review is anathema. Let us cheer Thomas W. Lippman, whoever he is. jd | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1461 Registered: 4-2006 |
Foj- And is not Cindy Sheehan your fellow traveler? There is a hostility to any intellectual evaluation of the millitary or use of millitary assets if it is not in accordance with one's particular political dogma. | ||
| joel dranove Citizen Username: Jdranove Post Number: 921 Registered: 1-2006 |
from today's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, live (unless caught), from hesbollastan: Larger text Larger Text Smaller Text Smaller Text Hezbollah's faith-based terrorism Tools Print this article E-mail this article Subscribe to this paper Larger text Larger / Smaller Text Subscribe By Ralph R. Reiland Monday, August 21, 2006 "I left because I didn't feel safe anymore as a Christian," a woman from Lebanon told me recently at dinner, explaining why she and her husband and three children moved to the United States in 2002. "The religious hostility was getting worse," her husband explained. "You become discriminated against for what you believe about God. You're separated into camps. Muslim West Beirut, Christian East Beirut." Memories aren't short in this part of the world. It's like the 11th century was yesterday and Pope Urban II just declared a Holy Crusade to seize Jerusalem from the Arabs. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a 19th-century fabrication purporting to describe a secret plan by the Jews to achieve global domination, runs as a mini-series on Iranian and Egyptian television, and the book continues to top the "nonfiction" best-seller lists in Syria and Lebanon. Iranian writer Ali Baqeri explains that the alleged Jewish conspiracy for world domination outlined in the protocols is only part of a much larger out-of-this-world Zionist plot: "The ultimate goal of the Jews, after conquering the globe, is to extract from the hands of the Lord many stars and galaxies." The year after the aforementioned family fled Lebanon, The New Yorker published "In the Party of God" by reporter Jeffrey Goldberg. Penetrating the underground world of extremist Middle Eastern politics, Goldberg's article provides insight into the fear this family felt as well some background to the current crisis in Lebanon. Rather than advertising cars or concerts, posters and billboards in the village of Ras al-Ein, situated in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, celebrated bloodshed and martyrdom, Goldberg reported. Posters of Ayatollah Khomeini, the political leader of the 1979 Iranian revolution, were especially popular. The political and military control of Ras al-Ein at the time of Goldberg's visit fell under the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Syrian Army and Hezbollah or the Party of God, a name that comes from a passage in the Quran: "Verily the party of God shall be victorious." On his way to a meeting with the leader of a local Hezbollah faction, Goldberg saw no flags of Lebanon flying anywhere in Ras al-Ein. Instead, the flag of Hezbollah, with its spiritual quotes and AK-47s, was everywhere. So too was the artwork from the Party of God. "Like the rest of the town, the park was crowded with ferocious Hezbollah art. One poster showed an American flag whose field of stars had been replaced by a single Star of David," i.e., the Great Satan and Little Satan, united. Another poster showed a pile of dead soldiers whose uniforms were marked with Stars of David. Another portrayed Jerusalem being gripped by a figure with a grotesquely hooked nose. Goldberg's taxi driver, a Christian, was hesitant about the destination for the meeting in Ras al-Ein. "Lebanon's Christian minority is fearful of Shiite gunmen," explained Goldberg. A meeting with Hezbollah spokesman Hassan Ezzeddin provided Goldberg with an introduction to faith-based terrorism. "To us, there is real life after death," explained Ezzeddin. "Reaching the afterlife is the goal of life. Once you have in mind the goal of dying, you stop fearing the Jews." Ezzeddin, not satisfied with the withdrawal of Israeli forces in 2000 from southern Lebanon, told Goldberg that the goal was to liberate the 1948 borders of Palestine. The Jews, he said, "can go back to Germany, or wherever they came from." At Beaufort, a 12th-century castle in Lebanon that served as a platform for rocket attacks on Israeli towns before Israel's 1982 invasion, Goldberg's guide was a Hezbollah guerrilla in his early 20s named Na'im. "The Jews are sons of pigs and apes," Na'im said to Goldberg. It's the kind of talk that comes easily to people who belong to groups with names such as the Movement of the Deprived and the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth. At a Hezbollah position on the Lebanese-Israeli border, buses brought tourists to a spot that overlooks a concrete Israeli fortress called Tziporen. Israeli soldiers were only a few feet away. One Kuwaiti tourist, excited, yelled "Jews!" Others took out video cameras to film the enemy. "Rock throwing from a comfortable distance was encouraged, and the Palestinians aimed for the roof of the fort," reported Goldberg. "On weekends, when the crowds are thicker, villagers drive in tractors, full of rocks to supply the tourists." Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University and a local restaurateur. E-mail him at rrreiland@aol.com. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider  Post Number: 15392 Registered: 1-2003  |
There is a hostility to any intellectual evaluation of the millitary or use of millitary assets if it is not in accordance with one's particular political dogma. You make that sound like it's a bad thing! Yeah, I'm against using the military to do what I think we should not do, with or without the military. Aren't you? Do I have to think of a list of things the military shouldn't do for you to agree? | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1467 Registered: 4-2006 |
Tom Reingold- The ultimate goal is national security and the continuation of the the society and life that we love and expect in this country, and to ensure our children's future and that they will survive us. We live in a Hobbsean world and have enemies who wish to live in the 12th or 7th century (take your pick), place a lower value on the loss of human life, view death as a glorious wonderful thing (72 virgins), and share none of our enlightened or humanistic values. We can't live in a dream world about this because we live in a rich and consumerist society that enables us to have better morality and ethical values than other places on the globe. As a result we need to use our millitary power to preserve our society and nation and make hard choices and decisions that can end up sacraficing the precious lives of our soldiers. It can't be done on emotion or crass politics. Given some of the emo stuff I read on MOL we would not fight WWII today, but rather would have sought accomodation and relied on moral authority in dealing with the Nazis. In short, politics is a dangerous thing to issues of survival and the needed use of millitary power. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 15400 Registered: 1-2003 |
I can't agree that our wealth buys us better morality. I haven't seen it on the supermarket shelves. I'm actually aghast that you think this. Maybe you're a troll after all, like GOP Man. The difference is that he's very funny. And you appear to be saying that our survival depends on killing those who would shoulder us out at the feeding trough. Yet you decry those who pine for the 7th century. Your thinking is, in my view, more like a caveman's. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1469 Registered: 4-2006 |
Tom Reingold- Tom, sorry you are "aghast" but you need to read your history and see how our society has developed, perhaps from the industrial revolution on, particularly how our notions of the value of human life and the worth of each person within that society have evolved. In blunt terms our survival depends upon killing those who believe they must kill or convert us to their 7th century religious beliefs, removing our lives, liberty, and freedom. I personally am shocked that you don't apply your sophistication to see this clear truth and reality. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 15406 Registered: 1-2003 |
OK, you are a troll after all. You had me going for quite a long time. | ||
| Hoops Citizen Username: Hoops Post Number: 1947 Registered: 10-2004  |
I think fvf is looking for a future food source. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1471 Registered: 4-2006 |
Sad to see you are both captives of political mindsets that create abstract and biased concepts of what must be regarded as moral and ethical, contra to reality and the need for self-preservation. Read the Greek philosophers and some of the later on this point. This affliction seems to be a function of our wealthy, successful consumerist society, and is divorced from the honest observation and issue that the enemies of our society do not operate from a similiar ethos and values, but abhor them. It is of course always important for some to feel that we need to be vastly better than, and totally morally superior to, our enemies, but responses based in reality and self-preservation are far more compelling than satisfying such self-gratifying concerns. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 15418 Registered: 1-2003 |
You could have said all that in three simple words: might makes right. You reject morals, ethics, wealth, consumerism, ethos and values, in favor of violence as a measure of the right and the ability to survive. It's clear enough, my neighbor, but I don't have to agree. I don't mean we should love and trust everyone. We can't. But I can't agree that our relationships are based foremost on our willingness to blow each other away. | ||
| Dave Supporter Username: Dave Post Number: 10568 Registered: 4-1997  |
If FvF is interested in reality, I suggest perhaps she abandon the moralistic foreign policy agenda of the neocons and revert to a realistic one like Bush Sr's and Clinton's. Indeed, there would be no better ally today against Iran than Saddam Hussein. | ||
| tjohn Supporter Username: Tjohn Post Number: 4720 Registered: 12-2001  |
Fiction wants us to believe that somehow the national interests of Israel and the national interests of the United States are somehow equivalent. Fiction wants us to believe that Israel is our ally against terrorism. Fiction wants to demonize Arabs or Islam to reinforce this view. And Fiction wants to do all of this to forestall the day when Americans start to question our unconditional support of Israel. Fiction wants to forestall the day when Arab-Americans have a political lobby sufficiently strong to counter the Israel political lobby. How's that for a conspiracy. Sounds pretty credible to me. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1475 Registered: 4-2006 |
Tom Reingold- Do you believe that our values of morality, ethics, justice, and truth are what is best for the people of the world, or not? That is the real issue and what we are and will be fighting for Tom. I await your answer. Dave- I have not had a sex change operation, although I do believe women are generally smarter than us men. Clinton put us in the position we are in vis-a-vis terrorism due to his tepid responses : Sudan, U.S. consulate attacks in Africa, attack on U.S. naval vessel. He is no exemplar. Bush Sr. was also a f#@%&up. We are paying for years on nonsense in how we dealt with terrorism and radical islam Dave. tjohn- First,as we all know, you are a totally anti-Israel guy that views Israel as simply a western colony with no right to exist. Your opinion is your right, but your argument, as always, is totally un-substantiated and wholly intellectually weak. When arab states are democratic, share our values, and are not hotbeds of repression, extremism, religious radicalism, and anti-American hatred, you may have some sort of point. Why don't you argue for that first? | ||
| Dave Supporter Username: Dave Post Number: 10571 Registered: 4-1997 |
If radical Islam is the enemy, why invade a secular nation like Iraq and turn it into an Islamic fundamentalist state? | ||
| tjohn Supporter Username: Tjohn Post Number: 4724 Registered: 12-2001 |
Fiction, I know you don't do nuance too well, but regardless of what Americans think of Israel's right to exist, demographics in the region do not favor Israel's long-term survival. The modern wrinkle in the concept of the right to exist is that because of nuclear weapons, when one group denies another groups right to exist, it can amount to everybody's right to die. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1477 Registered: 4-2006 |
Dave- Assumptions without factual basis do not tend to make a valid, supportable argument. How is it going to become a radical islamist state? Details, Dave. tjohn- If you are working as a demographer I would suggest you are not going to have your day job too long. Would you like some academic and other web sites that can develop your nuance and knowledge? Or are you an@%lly retentive on your particular and peculiar,to my mind, world views? Please let me know. | ||
| tjohn Supporter Username: Tjohn Post Number: 4725 Registered: 12-2001 |
Let's see. <10m Israelis. >100M Arabs who might actually have economic growth someday. Arab birthrate > Israeli birthrate. Some historical evidence that early phases of democratization lead to heightened nationalism. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1479 Registered: 4-2006 |
Is it polite to say you really don't know what you are writing about? | ||
| tjohn Supporter Username: Tjohn Post Number: 4727 Registered: 12-2001 |
Dunno. Are the numbers wrong? Is the outpouring of nationalism in European countries that attended democratization wrong? | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1481 Registered: 4-2006 |
So you agree, it is polite to say you don't.  | ||
| tjohn Supporter Username: Tjohn Post Number: 4729 Registered: 12-2001 |
No, I am suggesting that it would be nice for you to share you overwhelming expertise on all subjects by explaining which of my numbers were wrong. | ||
| 3ringale Citizen Username: Threeringale Post Number: 364 Registered: 1-2006 |
I am the last person to offer a defense of Islam, but I can't resist a few observations. 1-We don't have the ability or willpower to destroy Islam. 2-We don't have the ability to democratize Islam. 3-We don't have the ability to assimilate Islam. 4-We don't have the desire to convert to Islam. Therefore, it seems like the best solution is to separate ouselves from Islam. Isolation and containment could be a viable alternative to a naive multi-culturalism and a bellicose, neo-con imperialism. Let's stop inviting the world and let's stop invading the world. Peaceful, reciprocal trade and non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries is in the spirit of the founding fathers. Cheers | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 5821 Registered: 8-2003 |
3ring -- you're treating Islam as one unchanging faith with no variations. That's not the case. I've read there are over 150 sects, and they're not all involved in jihad. | ||
| J. Crohn Supporter Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 2688 Registered: 3-2003 |
'Indeed, there would be no better ally today against Iran than Saddam Hussein.' A stupid remark (ban me, why don't you Little Buster), but it brings up something I've wondered whether the amoral moralists who call themselves realists have considered. Namely, withdrawing from Iraq and throwing it to the Iranians. They want control through the Shia there? Fine. Let them try. It would keep them busy, wouldn't it. Meanwhile we a) maintain our alliance with the Kurds and protect them militarily, contingent on Turkish Kurds restraining their independence goals (a Kurdistan freed of Iraq would wind up with Kirkuk); b) redirect forces for a potential invasion of Iran. We're going to have to pose a credible threat in any case. Better that we position ourselves accordingly, in the likely eventuality that Iran will not back down from acquisition of nuclear weapons. | ||
| J. Crohn Supporter Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 2689 Registered: 3-2003 |
"3-We don't have the ability to assimilate Islam." Yeah we do. Throughout the west, Islamic voices describe a liberal version of the faith. It isn't official anywhere, but part of the reason for this is that Islam, like Judaism, has no central religious hierarchy (to adhere to or rebel against), as in Xtianity. Judaism's history of liberalization is the pattern that Islam's will most closely approximate. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 15419 Registered: 1-2003 |
factvsfiction asks me: Do you believe that our values of morality, ethics, justice, and truth are what is best for the people of the world, or not? That is the real issue and what we are and will be fighting for Tom. I await your answer. Well, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that there is no one set of our values so I can't answer that. My own values are of saving and improving the human race. You know, tikkum olam and all that nonsense. To that end, I don't think dividing the world into us vs them and blowing them away will get us any closer to saving the human race. We do need to be prepared for war and other threats, but overpreparation is just as bad as underpreparation. And pre-emptive war is even worse. jcrohn raises an excellent point about Islam and assimilation. Because of the lack of a central authority, there is room for individual views. You know the old saying about putting 12 Jews in a room and coming out with 13 opinions. It's built into the culture. Islam can have that, too, and it already does in some areas. | ||
| J. Crohn Supporter Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 2693 Registered: 3-2003 |
Tom, at this point the only place where a liberal vision of Islam flourishes is in the west. People in the mideast who write or speak like liberal Muslims get imprisoned or murdered. (That's why virtually all Muslim liberal expression comes out of Paris or London, not Cairo or Amman.) "My own values are of saving and improving the human race. You know, tikkum olam and all that nonsense." Except perhaps in the mind of Michael Lerner, tikkun olam does not refer narrowly to saving or improving the human race. It refers to repairing the world (universe) by closing the breach between the mundane and the divine. Obviously, many interpretations about what exaclty this entails are possible. (Environmental conservation should be pretty non-controversial; playing martyr for the sake of "improvement" of the human race... well, I'd call that a minority view at this point in history.) "Well, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that there is no one set of our values..." I have no doubt your values, and mine, and Factvsfiction's, and even Dave Ross's, intesect well outside the jurisdiction of shari'a. Do you really doubt this? | ||
| kathleen Citizen Username: Symbolic Post Number: 703 Registered: 3-2005 |
Does anyone seriously think JCrohn, Joel Dranove or FactsvsFiction understand Islam? I'm just curious. I've worked in publishing for close to two decades, and I learned long ago that a big vocubulary and a facile writing style can hide a lot of inane (and even insane) thinking. I take a look at this thread every so often and see this constant sharpening of the same bigoted axe and all this warmed over hash made out fragments of Bernard Lewis and some rabid internet junk being passed off as absolute truth. Don't any of you know any Muslims living in Maplewood? Even if you don't, haven't you ever noticed the multiplicity of Muslim sects and peoples throughout the world? Can yuou think of a single other religion you would believe any of this nonsense about, at any other time? Any religion can be and has been and will be used to justify anti-liberal views and violence. Why are you presently in the thrall of a handful of pathetic fools who have their own agenda for wanting to spew a lot of anti-Muslim bigotry onto a community message board? How about showing some sense of responsibility and refusing to play along with an effort to whip up prejudice against a religion and its members? | ||
| Bob K Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 12461 Registered: 5-2001 |
JC, check out Dubai where a tolerant, non-milant form of Islam is officially practiced. Admitedly it is a small country, actually more of a city state, but it is a start. I got interested in Dubai during the port crisis a few months ago. It is a fascinating place. Another country is, belief it or not, Lebanon. Most Sunnis and a fair number of Shi'a are more interested in business than religion. or were until their country got bombed back to, a FvF puts it the 12th century. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1486 Registered: 4-2006 |
tjohn- Your premise that numbers are determinative is flawed, as well as your apparent conception that the muslim world is a monolithic single-minded entity that will be permanently controlled by radical islam seeking the perennial destruction of Israel. Israel would not have come into existence in 1948 given your "numbers" premise, and would have disappeared by now under the same, the muslim world having banded together under your theory to wipe it out. You fail to understand the differing sects and ethnicities of islam and the conflicts between them, the differing self-interests of the arab countries, the overwhelming technological and related intellectual superiority of the Israelis, and the fact that radicalization of islam is historically cyclical in nature. I would however have some demographic concerns over the future of europe as western-oriented democratic countries due to moslem immigration and high birth rates. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 15420 Registered: 1-2003 |
jcrohn wrote: Tom, at this point the only place where a liberal vision of Islam flourishes is in the west. People in the mideast who write or speak like liberal Muslims get imprisoned or murdered. (That's why virtually all Muslim liberal expression comes out of Paris or London, not Cairo or Amman.) I can think of a small exception in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, but it's small enough that I'll concede your point. I guess it's the proverbial exception that proves the rule. I wrote: My own values are of saving and improving the human race. You know, tikkum olam and all that nonsense. Except perhaps in the mind of Michael Lerner, tikkun olam does not refer narrowly to saving or improving the human race. It refers to repairing the world (universe) by closing the breach between the mundane and the divine. Obviously, many interpretations about what exaclty this entails are possible. (Environmental conservation should be pretty non-controversial; playing martyr for the sake of "improvement" of the human race... well, I'd call that a minority view at this point in history.) OK, I am probably misunderstanding the major interpretations of tikkun olam. Maybe I made a mistake in using that term. My point is that I like to hold out hope for the entire world, especially the human race. Toward that end, I hope for unity, to the degree that that is realistic. I am not sure about a lot of things, but I am sure that blowing each other away will not help to unify us, nor will it ensure our survival. Given human nature to divide and create enemies out of one's own population, blowing away the "bad people" will not yield a population of only good people. We will find more enemies among ourselves, by our nature. So the cause of rooting out the bad people is futile, as well as cruel to others and ourselves. Well, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that there is no one set of our values... I have no doubt your values, and mine, and Factvsfiction's, and even Dave Ross's, intesect well outside the jurisdiction of shari'a. Do you really doubt this? Not at all. I was just responding to factvsfiction's notion of "our values" as if western values are a finite perfectly defined set that we all share. Given that survival to her means survival of the west whereas to me it means survival of the human race, it's clear enough that she and I don't share a fundamental value. I do share the value that a person should draw concentric circles around oneself and protect oneself, one's family, one's community, one's country, etc, in that order. I think, however, many are taking the converse inverse of that, by killing those farthest (differentest) from us first, then those closer, then closer, and they think this protects themselves. Know what I mean? | ||
| tjohn Supporter Username: Tjohn Post Number: 4733 Registered: 12-2001 |
If Syria and Egypt alone had enjoyed, say, 3% annual GNP growth since 1948, they would today dwarf Israel and would have the option of squashing Israel. So, the persistent backwardness of the Arab states has been the key to Israel's survival. It doesn't look like this state of affairs is going to change anytime soon. I find it interesting that on the one hand you talk about the "differing sects and ethnicities of islam and the conflicts between them", on the one hand yet talk about radical Islam on the other as if radical Islam is a monolithic entity. I, of course, am well-aware of the "differing sects and ethnicities of islam and the conflicts between them" just as I am aware of conflicts at an even lower level such as the large number of Iranians who would like to see some liberalization. On ths subject of Europe - well, it will be interesting to see what happens. History isn't over yet. Whatever happens, I wouldn't expect to ever see a Muslim-majority Europe in lockstep with the Arab World. | ||
| Nohero Supporter Username: Nohero Post Number: 5756 Registered: 10-1999  |
If you've noticed, a number of us aren't "playing along" any more, having said our piece. No new arguments, or convincing anecdotes, have been provided by the "pro-demonizing" folks, so there's no need for further comment. Try it yourself. Maybe this thread, and similar ones, will just fade away. | ||
| joel dranove Citizen Username: Jdranove Post Number: 924 Registered: 1-2006 |
from mypetjawa, which I think is an Indian blogger: August 23, 2006 (video) Terrorists Threaten to Murder Fox News Hostages It is exactly as I feared. The Palestinian terror group that has taken Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig belongs to the cult of Abu Musab al Zarqawi. They have given the 72 hours notice. If their demands are not met, they will be murdered. Reuters: Two Fox journalists who were kidnapped in Gaza last week were shown sitting together and speaking on a tape obtained by Reuters on Wednesday. A previously unknown militant group, the "Holy Jihad Brigades," earlier claimed responsibility for the kidnapping nine days ago of two journalists and demanded the United States release "Muslim prisoners" within 72 hours. We will have a copy of the video shortly. Developing.... UPDATE: Washington Post: "We are going to exchange the Muslim female and male prisoners in American jails in return for the prisoners that we have. We are going to give you 72 hours beginning midnight tonight to take your decision," Ramattan quoted the statement as saying. "If you implement and meet our condition, we will fulfill our promise. If not, wait, and we are going to wait," the statement said. UPDATE: The two speak on the video. Via Mary Katherine Ham, here is what Fox News has: Centanni: "We've been captured in Gaza and been held prisoner here and we are in good condition and live as well and in good health. We have water and food and everyday access to the bathroom, shower. We have clean clothes. Our captors are treating us well and so just letting you know that I'm here and I'm alive and I give my love to my family and friends and ask you to do anything you can to help us get out of here." Wiig: I guess I will add for myself that I know my family. If you can find local pressure or local government here in Gaza and the West Bank to help us, I would appreciate it. To my family, please don't worry. I am okay. Centanni: We love you all and hope to see you soon. As soon as we have obtained a copy of the video, we will send it to Allah at Hot Air. Digg This | ||
| joel dranove Citizen Username: Jdranove Post Number: 926 Registered: 1-2006 |
CAIRO (AFP) - Egypt’s Muslim authorities have stepped in to keep a wave of anti-Semitic sentiment from getting out of control, disowning an edict by a firebrand cleric calling for Israeli Jews to be killed. On the eve of last week’s truce in the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah, cleric Safwat al-Higazi issued an edict calling on worshippers to kill “any Zionist anywhere in wartime”. Speaking on the religious satellite network Al-Nas, the Cairo imam specified that the use of “fire arms, knives and poison” should be preferred to suicide bombings “in order to spare innocents”. Higazi later limited the edict to Israeli Jews, whom he said were all reservists in the army and therefore legitimate targets. “I myself am ready to slash the throat of any Israeli I meet,” he told the Sawt al-Umma newspaper. ... Al-Azhar mosque, the leading theological authority for many Sunni Muslims, had to step in with a counter-fatwa and banned Higazi from preaching at Friday prayers. “Killing Jews on the Egyptian territory would be a terrorist act,” said the edict, issued three days after Higazi’s. However, the Al-Azhar fatwa said nothing about killing Jews in other countries. [Indeed. —ed.] | ||
| joel dranove Citizen Username: Jdranove Post Number: 927 Registered: 1-2006 |
continued, from littlegreenfootballs (really): They justify this counter-fatwa under Islamic law, by saying that Israelis who’ve been granted visas by Egypt are protected as dhimmis. In Tuesday’s edition of the independent Al-Masri Al-Yom daily, Egypt’s government-appointed grand mufti, Ali Gomaa, explained that any Israeli who has been granted a visa should be spared. “A visa is a ‘safe-conduct pass’ granted by the authorities to civilians and travellers wishing to enter a country, which bans his killing even if there is a war between us and his country,” the sheikh told the newspaper. Gomaa had initially reacted to Israel’s offensive in Lebanon by praising the resistance of Hassan Nasrallah’s Hezbollah guerrilla against the “blood-thirsty murderers” and condemning the “lies” of the Israeli government. [Oops. —ed.] “These lies have exposed the true and hideous face of the blood-suckers,” he had told the state-owned Al-Ahram daily, referring to a 19th century anti-Semitic book alleging that Jews used human blood to make Passover bread. And now he gets to be called a “moderate.” Another professor of shari’a backs up this perverse edict: you can still kill them, but just don’t kill them around here. Mohammed Raafat Othman, a professor of Islamic law at Al-Azhar — whose grand imam is also government-appointed — echoed Gomaa’s views by stressing that killing a Jew or anyone else holding a valid visa “would be considered a major criminal act in Islam.” | ||
| joel dranove Citizen Username: Jdranove Post Number: 928 Registered: 1-2006 |
Live, from your future with the fascist demons: http://www.youtube.com/p.swf?video_id=-HlaVpqUXF0&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//sjl-static 4.sjl.youtube.com/vi/-HlaVpqUXF0/2.jpg&t=OEgsToPDskIM6iekaH3Ty8Cjxt83R02P |
