Security officials from Europe's largest countries backed a plan Saturday to profile mosques on the continent and identify radical Islamic clerics who raise the threat of homegrown terrorism.Shucks, an it hasn't even been six whole years since 9-11-01.
The project, to be finished by the fall,
When it will have been six whole years...
will focus on the roles of imams, their training, their ability to speak in the local language and their sources of funding, EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini told a news conference after a meeting on terrorism.
Seems like it should also focus on their love of automatic weapons, but I guess the Euros didn't want to push it.
Italian Interior Minister Guiliano Amato said Europe had extensive experience with the "misuse of mosques, which instead of being places of worship are used for other ends. "This is bringing about a situation that involves all of our countries and involves the possibility of attacks and developing of networks that use one country to prepare an attack in another," Amato said.
That's because we in the West have been subjected to 2000 years of conditioning by Christianity and Judaism, with the emphasis on the former. Bloodthirsty holy men are a rarity and Christian churches are places of peace and sanctuary. You don't expect to find weaponry there, with the exception of the occasional Knight of Columbus lugging a ceremonial sword to a function. If the preacher's spraying spittle at anybody it's delivering the promise of fire and brimstone for the congregants if they don't toe the line, not for the generic enemies of the congregants, who're allowed to go to Hell at their own speed. The purpose of the mosque in Islam is to whip up the serried ranks of the Abdullahs, kneeling as they are in submission to the Voice of Allah, to go out and kill people. So it's not really misuse of the mosques that the Euros are worried about.
The transit attacks in Madrid and London -- along with several thwarted terror plots -- have raised concerns across Europe about the susceptibility of disaffected young Muslims to the messages of extremist clerics.
Whoa! Picked right up on that one, didn't they? Bali was in 2002, Beslan was in 2003, Madrid in in 2004 and London in 2005.
British police have said the bombers in the July 2005 London suicide attacks listened to the sermons of Abu Hamza al-Masri, a radical cleric who was sentenced last year to seven years in prison for inciting followers to kill non-Muslims. Britain also recently ordered the deportation of a Jordanian-born cleric, Abu Qatada, accusing him of links to terrorism and being a threat to national security. Abu Qatada is appealing.
"Considered" means they talked about it, not that they had the nerve to do it.
Adel Smith, a well-known Muslim activist in Italy, said mosques in Italy are already extensively monitored and called the EU plan discriminatory.
What'd you think he was gonna say? "Hell, yeah! Monitor us suckers closely 'cuz we're dangerous!"? He's on the other side!
"I think this is nonsense, I think mosques have been well monitored for some years," he said in a telephone interview. "It is a form of religious discrimination."
Tusk tusk. I feel so guilt ridden.
Frattini emphasized the need of deeper dialogue with the Islamic communities "to avoid sending messages that incite hate and violence."
People kept emphasizing the need for deeper dialogue with the Nazis, too. And the Sovs had people-to-people delegations traveling on a daily basis.