| To: Chas. who wrote (3325) | 1/16/2004 5:00:07 AM | | From: lorne | | | | Michigan Man Accused of Hezbollah Membership
Thursday, January 15, 2004
foxnews.com
DETROIT — A Lebanese man living in Dearborn was charged in an indictment unsealed Thursday with fighting, recruiting and raising money for the Islamic militant group Hezbollah (search), listed by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.
The indictment accuses Mahmoud Youssef Kourani (search) of working in Lebanon (search) and later within the United States for Hezbollah, which led a guerrilla war against Israel's 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon.
Federal prosecutors said Kourani conspired with his brother, who they said is Hezbollah's chief of military security for southern Lebanon.
Kourani, 32, pleaded innocent Thursday, and a bail hearing was set for Tuesday. He could get 15 years in prison.
"The charges are outrageous, absurd and I believe they are malicious," said his attorney, Nabih Ayad.
According to the indictment, Kourani entered the United States illegally through Mexico in 2001, took up residence in the Detroit area and hid his Muslim identity by not shaving his beard and not attending a mosque.
U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Collins said Kourani raised "a substantial sum" and offered other support to Hezbollah.
He has been in custody since his conviction last year in a separate case for harboring an illegal alien, authorities said. He completed a six-month sentence last week and had been awaiting deportation. |
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| To: ChinuSFO who wrote (3334) | 1/16/2004 5:01:23 AM | | From: lorne | | | | Nuke 'yellowcake' from Iraq found?
IAEA probing discovery of uranium oxide in shipment of scrap steel
January 16, 2004
A shipment of scrap steel believed to be from Iraq contains radioactive material known as yellowcake, according to a recycling company in the Netherlands.
The shipment was passed on from a Jordanian metal dealer who claims he was unaware it included uranium oxide, the Associated Press reported.
The material, which can be used to make nuclear weapons, was at the center of a controversy last year over President Bush's reference in his State of the Union address to a report Iraq was seeking to purchase it in Africa.
Key documents supporting the claim were found later to be forgeries, but the U.S. said its original information about the alleged attempt to buy yellowcake from Niger came from British intelligence. The UK's Foreign Office still stands on its claim.
Paul de Bruin, spokesman for Rotterdam-based Jewometaal, told the AP he has dealt with the Jordanian dealer for 15 years, and the man is convinced the material came from Iraq. De Bruin has been told to not reveal the dealer's name, however, because the find is being investigated.
Uranium oxide is not radioactive, experts say, but with advanced technology can be processed into enriched uranium, suitable for a nuclear weapon.
The Dutch Environment Ministry confirmed yesterday Jewometaal reported the find Dec. 16, the AP said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency visited Rotterdam Wednesday but had no further comment, the newswire reported.
Environment Ministry spokesman Wim Van der Weegen said the material was discovered in a small steel industrial container used to connect pipes or electrical wires.
Dr. Alan Ketering, a researcher at the nuclear research plant at the University of Missouri-Columbia, told the AP yellowcake has no non-nuclear industrial use. It would be strange to find it in random scrap metal, he said.
worldnetdaily.com |
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| To: Chas. who wrote (3325) | 1/16/2004 6:19:09 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | Occupation case studies: Algeria and Turkey
By K Gajendra Singh
"We studied history at school that taught us to say freedom or death. I think you know well that we as a people have our experience with the colonialists." - US ambassador April Glaspie to Saddam Hussein in Baghdad on July 25, 1990.
While formulating foreign policy options, political leaders also look to history for guidance. Unfortunately, the United State's history is only two centuries old, and to meet the challenge of terrorism, Frankenstein monsters partly of its own creation, the mujahideen, jihadis, the Taliban and al-Qaeda , the US can only recall a long genocidal war against its native Americans.
Those who resisted were called "terrorists" for defending their native land and way of life against foreign invaders. There are Hollywood films galore that depict the "American Indians" as savages to be hunted down by the US cavalry.
The same cavalry units now force Iraqis daily to lie face down in the land of their ancestors and describe those fighting to free their country from the occupying forces as "terrorists". The Iraqis, other Arabs and Iranians are the new "American Indians", and those who collaborate with the Bush administration are like the good Indians who helped the Americans fight and defeat bad Indians.
So the display of a seemingly drugged and unwashed Saddam Hussein was to assert white Christian supremacy over the natives. US policy in Iraq and the region is pure and simple, blatant neo-colonization.
After Vietnam and Afghanistan, the Middle East is the new American West. The US administration, scared of Islamic fundamentalism and religious fanatics, has yet to evolve a coherent policy to counter it. But it is turning occupied Iraq into an oligarchy of crony capitalism, after an ill-advised and illegal war on Iraq, set off and egged on by Christian fundamentalists at the core of the administration.
The idea of nationalism - developed by the West - socialism, rule of law, fraternity and equality, have been abolished in the discourse since September 11. But the sturdy plant of nationalism in Iraq cannot be eliminated by going into denial mode. According to Iraqi opposition and other sources, there are perhaps more than 50 different resistance organizations, including Ba'athists, communists, nationalists, cashiered soldiers discarded by the occupation, and Sunni and Shi'ite religious groups, as well as foreign elements. In reality, almost everyone is opposed to foreign occupation.
In an era of nation states based on patriotism and shared history, people just hate occupying powers. While Vietnam's example and its people's fight for freedom and making it a quagmire for US forces has been talked about, Iraq's comparison with post World War 2 Germany and Japan shows little historic understanding. The ground situation and the evolution of the war for independence in Muslim, Arab, and till now secular Iraq, is closer to the wars of independence in Algeria and Turkey.
In a November 2003 report by MEDACT, the London-based affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Physicians for Social Responsibility, it was estimated that the number of Iraqis killed since the invasion in March was between 20,000 and 55,000, including at least 8,000 civilians, with upwards of 20,000 civilian casualties.
The Algerian war of independence lasted from 1954 to 1962, in which almost every family lost a member, a son, a cousin, a nephew, willingly or unwillingly sacrificed at the alter of freedom, self respect and dignity. After its defeat in World War 1, when the Ottoman empire lay supine under the heels of Allied power in its capital Istanbul with the Sultan Caliph a captive, the national leadership, led by Mustapha Kemal and his comrades, mostly former Ottoman soldiers, aroused the masses of Anatolia to make yet another supreme effort to expel the Greeks and other occupying powers.
Algerian case study
When I arrived in Algeria in 1964 from Egypt as a young diplomat, one saw very few young men between the ages of 14 and 40 years in the streets of Algiers, its capital . One million Algerians out of a population of 11 million had been killed in the war for independence against France. When president Ahmed Ben Bella was ousted by his defense minister Colonel Houari Boumedienne in June 1965, there was almost no violence. Algerians had had enough bloodletting. Ben Bella was quietly taken away from the president's palace, just across from my 4th floor apartment. The Battle of Algiers, now being screened for the benefit of US decision makers, was filmed in 1965.
Like Operation Iraqi Freedom and other US claims to usher democracy into Iraq and the Middle East now, during World War 2, Allied and Axis powers in their Arabic radio broadcasts promised freedom and a new world for the natives. Ferhat Abbas drafted an Algerian manifesto in December 1942 for presentation to Allied and French authorities for political autonomy for Algeria. Following General Charles de Gaulle's promise in 1943 for their loyalty, some categories of Muslims in North Africa were granted French citizenship, but this did not go far enough to satisfy Algerian aspirations. When Algerian nationalist flags were displayed at Sitif in May 1945, French authorities fired on demonstrators. In a spontaneous uprising, 84 European settlers were massacred. The violence and suppression that followed resulted in the death of about 8,000 Muslims (according to French sources) or as many as 45,000 (according to Algerian sources). That laid the foundations for the Algerian War of Independence, which began in earnest 10 years later.
A number of nationalist groups and parties were organized in Algeria even before World War 2, which became increasingly radicalized when peaceful means failed to obtain freedom. A radical paramilitary group, the Special Organization (Organization Speciale; OS) formed in the mid 1940s was discovered in 1950 and many of its leaders imprisoned. In 1954, a group of former OS members formed the Revolutionary Committee of Unity and Action (Comite Revolutionaire d'Unite et d'Action; CRUA). This organization, later to become the FLN, made preparations for military action. The leading members of the CRUA became the so-called chefs historiques (historical leaders) of the Algerian War of Independence: Hocine Aot-Ahmed, Larbi Ben M'Hidi, Moustapha Ben Boulaid, Mohamed Boudiaf, Mourad Didouche, Belkacem Krim, Mohamed Khider, Rabah Bitat, and Ahmed Ben Bella. They organized and led several hundred men in the first armed confrontations.
The Algerian war of Independence was ignited in 1954 in the Aures mountains. It was at first dismissed as just colonial trouble. The armed uprising soon intensified and spread, gradually affecting larger parts of the country, and some regions - notably the northeastern parts of Little Kabylia and parts of the Aurhs Mountains - became guerrilla strongholds that were beyond French control. France became more involved in the conflict, drafting some 2 million conscripts over the course of the war. To counter the spread of the uprising, the French National Assembly declared a state of emergency.
Jacques Soustelle arrived in Algiers as the new governor-general in February 1955, but his new plan was ineffective. Soon the situation developed into a full-scale war with French military rule, censorship and terrorism and torture. White French and European settlers known as pied noires (black feet) thrice challenged the central government in Paris.
The white European settler population was part of Algeria for generations, perhaps much longer than any other settler community in Africa, with the mother country just across the Mediterranean. The French were almost as numerous as the Muslim Algerians in the main cities and had rendered conspicuous services to Algeria.
A decisive turn in the war for independence took place in August 1955, when a widespread armed outbreak in Skikda, north of the Constantine region, led to the killings of nearly 100 Europeans and Muslim officials. Countermeasures by both the French army and settlers claimed the lives of somewhere between 1,200 (according to French sources) and 12,000 (according to Algerian sources) Algerians. A French army of 500,000 troops was sent to Algeria to counter the rebel strongholds in the more distant portions of the country, while the rebels collected money for their cause and took reprisals against fellow Muslims who would not cooperate with them. By the spring of 1956 a majority of previously non-committed political leaders, such as Ferhat Abbas and Tawfiq al-Madani, joined FLN leaders in Cairo, where the group established its headquarters.
The first FLN congress took place in August-September 1956 in the Soummam Valley between Great and Little Kabylia and brought together the FLN leadership in an appraisal of the war and its objectives. Algeria was divided into six autonomous zones (wilayat ), each led by guerrilla commanders who later played key political roles in the country. The congress also produced a written program on the aims and objectives of the war and set up the National Council for the Algerian Revolution (Conseil National de la Revolution Algerienne) and the Committee of Coordination and Enforcement (Comite de Coordination et d'Execution), the latter acting as the executive branch of the FLN.
Externally, the major event of 1956 was the French decision to grant full independence to Morocco and Tunisia and to concentrate on retaining "French Algeria". The Moroccan sultan and premier Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia, hoping to find an acceptable solution to the Algerian problem, called for a meeting in Tunis with important Algerian leaders (including Ben Bella, Boudiaf, Khider and Ait-Ahmed) who were the guests of the sultan in Rabat. French intelligence officers, however, hijacked the plane chartered by the Moroccan government to Oran instead of Tunis. The Algerian leaders were arrested and imprisoned in France for the rest of the war. This act hardened the resolve of the Algerian leadership and provoked an attack on Meknhs, Morocco, that cost the lives of 40 French settlers before the Moroccan government could restore order.
After the meeting with the Moroccan sultan at Rabat at the end of 1957, Bourguiba again offered to mediate, but the French, deceived into optimism by some recent successes in the field, declined. Bourguiba wanted a peaceful solution, because of growing links between the FLN and Egypt. A Maghrib federation to include an independent Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia was also discussed.
From the beginning of 1956 and lasting until the summer of the following year, the FLN tried to paralyze the administration of Algiers through what has come to be known as the Battle of Algiers. Attacks by the FLN against both military and civilian European targets were countered by paratroopers led by General Jacques Massu. To stem the tide of FLN attacks, the French military resorted to the torture and summary execution of hundreds of suspects. The entire leadership of the FLN was eventually eliminated or forced to flee. The French also cut Algeria off from independent Tunisia and Morocco by erecting barbed wire fences that were illuminated at night by searchlights. This separated the Algerian resistance bands within the country from some 30,000 armed Algerians on the frontiers of Tunisia and Morocco.
Constitutionally declared a part of metropolitan France, the Frenchmen maintained a stubborn belief that Algeria was French, while others wondered why the French were unable to see that their days as rulers in Algeria were numbered. Like other colonists, the sudden descent from the first rank world colonial power was too much. The British in the Middle East after the retreat from India also made the mistake by hanging on to Egypt and even invaded it along with France and Israel in 1956. It ended in disaster.
After their retreat from Indo-China, senior French officers in Algeria took their role with a sense of mission which distorted their sense of proportion and led them in the end to jettison their oaths of allegiance and violation of human rights.
The settler French community arrogated to itself an authority which belonged rightly to Paris. The weaknesses and divisions of the governments of the Fourth Republic in Paris allowed this authority to be enhanced and exercised in Algiers recklessly until the return of General de Gaulle in 1958. Some French governor-generals in Algeria did try to alleviate their repression of nationalism with some economic
developments and reforms, but the nationalists' aim was full independence.
In the first phase of the revolt after the defeat of the Faure government in November 1955, a fresh
general election installed a minority government led by Guy Mollet. Mollet went to Algiers where he was
pelted with garbage by pied noirs, while talks with the FLN leaders remained totally unproductive. A
widely respected and liberal General Catroux appointed governor general by Mollet resigned his office
without even leaving France.
By May 1956, Mollet felt that he had taken enough risks and in a trial of strength between Paris and the Europeans in Algeria, and Paris might not win. During the next 18 months political attitudes remained rigid, the French army and the FLN established positions in which neither could defeat the other. Terrorism mounted on both sides and even spread to Paris and other cities in France. Torture became a regular instrument of government, with retaliation by the FLN. The impasse seemed to be complete, politically and militarily. The European community's preoccupation with repression left little room for anything else.
On May 28, 1958, Pierre Pflimlin, the last prime minister of the Fourth French Republic, resigned, becoming the sixth victim of the Algerian war. On May 13, Algiers had rebelled against Paris planning to seize power in Paris by a coup on May 30. Most of Corsica had accepted the rebel regime and half the commanders of the military regions in France were believed to be disloyal. Then on June 1 emerged General de Gaulle, World War 2 hero of the French resistance who was invested with full powers. He flew to Algiers on June 4, but kept his cards close to his chest, but he probably saw the inevitable.
By a mixture of authority and ambiguity, he imposed his will and gradually acquired the power to impose a solution. It was a masterly performance, but it took him nearly four years. He did enough to retain the initiative, but would not reveal his plans, thus preventing potentially hostile groups from acting against him until it was too late. He normalized relations with Tunisia and Morocco, agreeing to withdraw French forces from both countries (except from the Tunisian naval base at Bizerta). He transferred from Algeria many senior officers who could not disobey the general. General Salan, a prime rallying point for rebels and leader of the May putsch, temporarily retained his command, but was relieved of his civilian duties.
After preliminary moves and with cautious deliberation, de Gaulle delivered his first major statement on the future status of Algeria in September 1959. He offered a choice (similar to France's colonies in western and central Africa in 1958)between independence, integration with France and association with France. The choice was to be made within four years from the end of hostilities, defined as any year in which fewer than 200 people were killed in fighting or by terrorism. It was followed by another pied-noir revolt on January 24, 1960 when the European community opposed even de Gaulle. The revolt was a failure because the French government acted quickly in Algeria and at home. But to Algerians, de Gaulle's offer was no more than a half-way house. The FLN wanted full independence. Support for de Gaulle in France was more widespread in 1960 than in 1958. People felt that the war had gone on for too long and they were opposed to the violent means used.
Henri Alleg's book La Question focused on the use of torture by units of the French army. The trial of Alleg in 1960, followed by the disappearance and murder of the French communist and university lecturer Maurice Audin, the trial in 1961 of the Algerian girl Djamila Boupacha, protests by Roman Catholic cardinals occupying French sees and a manifesto signed by 121 leading intellectuals all contributed to turn French opinion against the settler French community and the French army in Algeria.
Toward the end of 1960 the leaders of the January revolt were themselves put on trial. But still one more settler rebellion occurred, in April 1961, led by four generals, which lasted for four days. Two of the four generals, Salan and Jouhaud, were subsequently sentenced to death in absentia and the other two, Challe and Zeller, who surrendered, were given 15 years imprisonment - all sentences were eventually reduced.
Out of the failed rebellion rose the Organisation Armee Secrete (OAS) which resorted to terrorism and by creating among the European population fears of reprisals by an independent Algerian government, provoked (as independence became inevitable ) an exodus which deprived the country of much-needed skills in administration, education and other public services. The lesson was well learnt by leaders in South Africa when it became independent at the end of an apartheid regime.
De Gaulle's efforts in Algeria did not improve relations with the nationalist forces. In September 1959, the FLN proclaimed a provisional Algerian government with Ferhat Abbas as prime minister and the imprisoned Ben Bella as his deputy. It then turned for help to Moscow and Beijing. During 1960 it became apparent that the non-combatant Algerians favored the FLN and its unequivocal demand for independence, which made de Gaulle turn to negotiations with the FLN.
In July de Gaulle, in a televised speech, unequivocally accepted Algerian independence, but the FLN adopted a more assertive line when Yusuf Ben Khedda succeeded a moderate Ferhat Abbas as the head of the provisional Algerian government. In the same month the OAS made an unsuccessful attempt on de Gaulle's life as its activities increased throughout France and Algeria, with rumors of the proclamation of a dissident French republic under General Salan in northern Algeria.
The first secret negotiations held at Melun in June were a failure, but after discussions between de Gaulle and Bourguiba, between FLN leaders and Georges Pompidou (then a private banker) and between the FLN and Moroccans, Tunisians and Egyptians, a conference was called at Evian in Switzerland .The problems were the FLN's claim to be recognized as a government, the right of the imprisoned Ben Bella to attend the conference, guarantees for the French who might wish to remain in Algeria, continuing French rights in the naval base at Mers-el-Kebir, Saharan oil, and the conditions under which the proposed referendum on the status of Algeria would be held.
Negotiations were opened in France with representatives of the Algerian provisional government (GPRA) in May 1961. GPRA had long been recognized by the Arab and communist states, from which it received aid, though it (communism) was never been able to establish itself on Algerian soil. Negotiations were broken off in July, after which Abbas was replaced as premier by the much younger Ben Youssef Ben Khedda. Settler opposition around the OAS began to employ random acts of terror to disrupt peace negotiations.
The second Evian conference took place in March 1962. On March 18, a ceasefire agreement was signed. The conference also agreed on the terms for the referendum and presuming that the result would favor independence, further agreed (among other things), that French troops would be withdrawn progressively over three years, except from Mers-el-Kebir. France might continue its nuclear tests in the Sahara and retain its airfields there for five years and would continue its economic activities in the Saharan oilfields. France also agreed to continue technical and financial aid to Algeria for at least three years.
This announcement produced a violent outburst of OAS terrorism, but in May it subsided as it became obvious that such actions were futile. A referendum held in Algeria in July 1962 recorded some 6 million votes in favor of independence and only 16,000 against it. After three days of continuous Algerian rejoicing, the GPRA entered Algiers in triumph, as settler Europeans began to depart.
Algeria becomes Independent
On July 3, 1962 Algeria became an independent sovereign state. But its leaders could not remain together. Ben Bella returned to Algiers after six years' absence in prison and joined hands with army chief Colonel Houari Boumedienne to become the first president . But perhaps he alienated colleagues and followers by trying to reorganize the FLN on communist lines and playing a leading role in African and Afro-Asian affairs to the neglect of urgent domestic problems. In June 1965 Ben Bella tried to sideline conservative Boumedienne, now defense minister, but was himself overthrown, with the latter becoming the president. Ben Bella was imprisoned until 1978 and remained under house arrest until 1990. But Algeria remains a violent place and in the bloody confrontation between FLN/army and radical Islamic groups 100,000 Algerians were killed during the 1990s.
[snip]
atimes.com |
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| To: Hawkmoon who wrote (3329) | 1/16/2004 7:37:36 AM | | From: ChinuSFO | | | | Poll: Kerry Opens a Lead in Tight Iowa Race
Fri January 16, 2004 07:02 AM ET
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Democratic presidential contender John Kerry opened a five-point lead on three tightly bunched rivals in Iowa three days before the state's caucuses, according to a Reuters/MSNBC/Zogby poll released on Friday.
In the latest three-day tracking poll, Kerry gained two percentage points to 24 percent, with Howard Dean and Richard Gephardt each dropping two points to 19 percent and John Edwards holding steady at 17 percent.
All four contenders were within the poll's margin of error of 4.5 percent, setting up a tight dash to the finish in Monday's caucuses, the first Democratic nominating contest.
"Any one of the four can win this one," pollster John Zogby said. With Iowa voters taking a final look at candidates and trying to make a choice, 13 percent of likely caucus-goers are still undecided.
The rolling poll of 503 likely caucus-goers was taken Tuesday through Thursday and will continue each day until Monday's caucuses.
Dean and Gephardt have battled back and forth for months for the top spot in polls in Iowa, but the late charges by Edwards and Kerry have scrambled the Democratic picture.
Kerry, the Massachusetts senator, leads among Democrats, young and old voters, men and women, liberals and moderates, and those who say they are "definitely" voting in Monday's caucuses, Zogby said.
"The issue will be, as it always is, turnout," Zogby said. "Gephardt has arguably the best team on the ground."
The polling was conducted as the leading candidates for the right to challenge President Bush in November exchanged an escalating series of attacks over their positions on the war in Iraq, trade, Medicare and Social Security.
Dean, the former Vermont governor, still holds a shrinking lead over retired Gen. Wesley Clark in polls in New Hampshire, which has a Jan. 27 primary one week after Iowa. Gephardt, the congressman from neighboring Missouri who won Iowa during his first presidential bid in 1988, needs to win to remain viable in the race.
For Edwards, who struggled late last year to get his campaign off the ground but has surged this month by refraining from attacking his opponents, even a third-place finish would be a tremendous boost.
Clark and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich were at 3 percent, with Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman at 1 percent and former civil rights activist Al Sharpton at less than 1 percent.
Clark and Lieberman are not competing in Iowa.
Polling in Iowa is complicated by the unique nature of the caucus system, which requires participants to leave their homes on a typically bitter cold night and gather with neighbors before publicly declaring their support for a candidate.
reuters.com. |
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| To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (3341) | 1/16/2004 8:59:01 AM | | From: Chas. | | | | A few things are certain as recorded by history,
1. Do not fly jet aircraft into American buildings or we will come to your country and kill you as in al Qaeda/Afghanistan.
2. Do not pose a "Clear and present danger" (to US & its interests) re Nuclear weapons or we may invade your country and remove you from power as in Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
In the final analysis it comes down to "My tribe , your Tribe".........
If you look at all the free and peaceful countries of the World...USA, Canada, GB, Austraila, Japan, Italy, Spain, Belguim and on.............and what they stand for and what they provide to their societies at large and to the rest of the free world.......it is a beautiful thing.
and then there are the others, the North Koreas, the Iraqs, the Irans, the Syrias, the Libyas, the Sudans, the countries that are dictatorships and in some cases overtly heinous to their people as in the case of a Saddam Hussein or a Kim Jung il ....I mention only a few....I live in a free country, you live in a free country........
what is your problem with other peoples having the same freedoms as you and I enjoy.......
do you think the average Iraqi would rather live under Saddam Hussein............
you need to open your mind a little, to think a little more about what you have and others less fortunate do not have and how and why you are able to enjoy these freedoms amd what is even more important ....keep these freedoms.
they are the bad guys of the world......
we are the good guys of the world......
think collectively, be thankful you are allowed to express your thoughts on the internet and at the coffee shop, Freedom is special........sometimes it has to be paid for in blood.........
Don't isolate/fixate on a few bad times in our/your history, think on a world scale and what is best for the world at large.
Ghandi good/Pol Pot bad
Roosevelt,Churchill good/Hitler,Tojo bad
Bush good, Chirac confused/Hussein, Kim Jung il bad
and on and on and on............
regards |
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| To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (3338) | 1/16/2004 9:33:10 AM | | From: lorne | | | | Gus. You said...." As you put it, Islam is the fastest growing religion in both the US and Europe,"....
From some of your past posts I understand that you at times doctor up other articles or posts to suit your own agenda. BUT I have never said islam is the fastest growing cult in the USA. Now instead of just ignoring what I have just said as appears to be your practice...show me where I have said such a thing.
As for europe I have no idea if islam is growing...I doubt it. However from some of the things I have read islom is growing through unchecked immigration and illegal aliens and not new converts.
You said...." even the most radical-- don't need to terrorize people to promote Islam... Robust demographics and proselytism are well enough to keep the Muslim ball rolling.".....
And that is exactly what the problem is...democracy in trying to treat everyone equally permits radical musloms as well as so called moderate mosloms into the country. IMO it is not easy to separate the crazies from the sane muslims is it. And IMO france has BIG BIG problems coming with muslims.
Gus. As for the rest of your post.....You need help. |
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| To: Chas. who wrote (3343) | 1/16/2004 10:36:11 AM | | From: ChinuSFO | | | | It is either black or white, isn't it? No rainbows!!
It is like either you have a job or do not have a job. It is like either you are on our side or on their side. A binary thought process, digitized, robotic thinking!!!
It is either East or West. There is nothing in between. Now if someone were to think like that then we would soon know where that person is headed right. You guessed it, that person would be heade where he thought there wasn't one, headed south. |
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| To: lorne who wrote (3345) | 1/16/2004 10:42:27 AM | | From: ChinuSFO | | | | BUT I have never said islam is the fastest growing cult in the USA.
You are wrong in that Islam is spreading in the US at a rate which alarms the US Christians. As you say later on this increase is due to immigration, legal or otherwise. That is partly true. But consider who convert to Islam. Those who have been oppressed, socially and economically. In the US Islam has a large following amongst the African Africans. In South Asia, it has a wide following amongst those who were kept socially depressed via the caste system etc. In Africa it is spreading too becuase of their poverty, or rather because of the wide gap between the haves and the have nots.
So lorne, I am not denigrating Islam but discussing how religions spread and why they spread to societies they spread to. |
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| To: ChinuSFO who wrote (3347) | 1/16/2004 12:58:09 PM | | From: lorne | | | | chinu. you said...." You are wrong in that Islam is spreading in the US at a rate which alarms the US Christians. ".....
Wrong? what are you talking about? wrong about what?
I have never said that islam is spreading nor have I said that islam is not spreading in the USA.
If there is anything wrong I think it may have something to do with your reading and comprehension. Gees |
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