An Islamic school in London is teaching that non-Muslims are akin to pigs and dogs, and it is doing so with subventions from the British taxpayer. More alarmingly, when notified of this problem, the British authorities indicate they intend to do nothing about it.
The Times (London) reported on April 20 in Muslim students being taught to despise unbelievers as filth, that the Hawza Ilmiyya, a Shii institution, teaches from the writings of Muhaqqiq al-Hilli. This scholar lived from 1240 to 1326 and wrote the authoritative work on Shii law (Sharai al-Islam). About non-believers, called kafirs, he taught:
The water left over in the container after any type of animal has drunk from it is considered clean and pure apart from the left over of a dog, a pig, and a disbeliever.
There are ten types of filth and impurities: urine, faeces, semen, carrion, blood of carrion, dogs, pigs, disbelievers.
When a dog, a pig, or a disbeliever touches or comes in contact with the clothes or body [of a Muslim] while he [the disbeliever] is wet, it becomes obligatory-compulsory upon him [the Muslim] to wash and clean that part which came in contact with the disbeliever.
In addition, a chapter on jihad specifies conditions under which Muslims should fight Jews and Christians.
Although Hillis attitudes were standard for a pre-modern Shii, they are shocking for 2006 London. Indeed, several students in the Hawza Ilmiyya found them disturbing and very worrying. Their spokesman told the Times that students are being exposed to very literalist interpretations of the Koran. These are interpretations that would not be recognised by 80 or 90 per cent of Muslims, but they are being taught in this school. A lot of people in the Muslim community are very concerned about this. The spokesman concluded with an appeal urgently to re-examine the kind of material that is being taught here and in other [Islamic] colleges in Britain.
The Tehran regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sponsors the Hawza Ilmiyya; for example, three of the eight years in the curriculum are spent at institutions in the Iranian city of Qom. Indeed, the schools 1996 founding memorandum states that At all times at least one of the trustees shall be a representative of the Supreme Spiritual Leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The institution that funds this school, the Irshad Trust, is a registered charity at the Charity Commission (see the trusts page at the commission website), a privilege that qualifies it for various tax concessions; in other words, the British taxpayer is effectively subsidizing the school. In particular, the school benefits from a program called Gift Aid, under which the government refunds the income tax paid by the donor. Gifts made to registered charities can claim and receive a 28 percent tax refund. A gift of £100 to the Irshad Trust, for example, earns it £128. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
04/28/2006 07:16 ||
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#1
I liked the e-mail the fellow got back when he complained to the govt.:
Thank you for your e-mail, the contents of which are noted. However, as per booklet CC47, the Commission will not become involved in this particular matter. You may wish to peruse the booklet in further detail, as this outlines our role quite clearly in this respect. The Commission will not look into this particular complaint. I hope this clarifies the position.
#2
Surely the UK's own anti-discrimination and race hate laws should come into play here (though of course, a disbeliever is not a race any more than a muslim is, but 'racism' is used as the umbrella for litigation)
...I was waiting for someone to notice this - and notice how the critcism has noticeably fallen off...
Donald Rumsfeld has a notorious vindictive streak. He doesn't but the author is SURE he does...
How low will he stoop to pursue it? Let's put him to the test. If he wanted to get really brutal, Rumsfeld could convene a court-martial and prosecute the six retired generals who have been calling for his head. Military law, if read literally, permits him to do this. So, will he?
One of the assumptions surrounding the recent criticism of Rumsfeld is that the retired generals, unlike active-duty officers, are free to criticize the defense secretary without fear of reprisal. Surprisingly, this assumption is untrue. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, one of the many activities deemed punishable by court-martial is "contempt toward officials." This code of laws applies not just to active-duty officers but to retired ones, too. It's right there in Article 2, Section (a) (5): Persons subject to the UCMJ include "retired members of a regular component of the armed forces who are entitled to pay."
The key phrase is "entitled to pay." If you resign from the military, and thus give up all retirement pay and benefits, you're free from the clutches of military law. But if you retire and thus keep getting paid 50 percent to 75 percent of your peak active-duty salary (plus cost-of-living adjustments pegged to the consumer price index), you're still in the cage. (Many retirees learned this the hard way, when they were called back into service in Iraq.)
If Rumsfeld wanted to stick it to the retired generals who are daring to question his wisdomAnthony Zinni, Greg Newbold, Paul Eaton, Charles Swannack, John Batiste, and John Riggshe could invoke Article 88 of the military justice code, which reads:
Any commissioned officer [and, under Article 2, this includes any retired officer] who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation [!], or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present, shall be punished as a court-martial may direct. [Italics and exclamation mark added.]
The military's Manual for Courts-Martial, the implementing document for the UCMJ, could be read as strengthening Rumsfeld's case against his critics, in two ways. First, in its elaboration of Article 88, the manual states:
It is immaterial whether the [contemptuous] words are used against the official in an official or private capacity.
In short, it's no defense for a retired general to say, "I'm just speaking as a private citizen."
Second, the manual notes:
Giving broad circulation to a written publication containing contemptuous words of the kind made punishable by this article aggravates the offense. The truth or falsity of the statements is immaterial.
This is pretty shocking stuff. It means a lieutenant could get court-martialed for e-mailing all of his friends a newspaper or magazine story that's contemptuous of Rumsfeld. The six retired generals didn't merely give "broad circulation" to such stories. They wrote the stories, or gave on-the-record interviews to those who did, in publications with extremely broad circulation.
If Rumsfeld wanted to take this law literally and crack down, how could he go about it? Article 22, Section (a) states that a court-martial may be convened by, among others, the president, the secretary of defense, the "secretary concerned" (i.e., the official who's been the object of contempt), or any commanding officer designated by the secretary concerned or by the president. So, Secretary Rumsfeld or President Bush could set up a court-martial, or either of them could get a loyal henchman to do the dirty work. If the generals were found guilty, the maximum penalty under Article 88 is "dismissal, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for one year."
Now, before Secretary Rumsfeld and his small circle of friends start salivating, they should consider two things. First and most obvious, trying to court-martial these six generals would be stupid beyond all measure. Very few officersand, as far as I can tell, no retired officershave ever been prosecuted under Article 88. I'm hardly suggesting that Rumsfeld break precedent; nor am I predicting that he might. But if he wanted to interpret the law literallyas the Justice Department does when it prosecutes someone under the federal espionage statute for receiving classified informationthis would let him bring down the hammer.
But second, Rumsfeld should take a closer look at Article 88. In fact, all officers, active and retired, should take a look. In its commentary on that article, the Manual for Courts-Martial notes:
If not personally contemptuous, adverse criticism of one of the officials or legislatures named in the article in the course of a political discussion, even though emphatically expressed, may not be charged as a violation of the article.
In other words, if officers (active or retired) merely criticize Rumsfeld, even emphatically, they are not violating military law, as long as they avoid "contemptuous" words. (I guess this means you should preface your remarks by saying, "With all due respect, sir ") So, it turns out that military lawwhich actually protects most critical speechmay not be why active-duty officers won't harsh on Rumsfeld. They refrain from criticism of any sort not because they fear court-martial, but because they know their careers will hit a brick wall. They'll never be promoted; they'll probably be transferred to the Arctic Circle.
The open question is: What is the legal meaning of "contemptuous"? Article 88 offers no definition. Neither does the commentary in the Manual for Courts-Martial. The only guidance that the Defense Department's public-affairs office could come up with was this definition from The Military Judges' Benchbook, paragraph 3-12-1d:
"Contemptuous" means insulting, rude, disdainful or otherwise disrespectfully attributing to another qualities of meanness, disreputableness, or worthlessness.
This sounds more like an 18th-century guide on gentlemen's etiquette than a modern-day casebook on military law. But if it is a crime, punishable by court-martial, to disdain Donald Rumsfeld, he could lock up half the Army officer corps.
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According to Eugene Fidell, a lawyer with the National Institute of Military Justice, the last time Article 88 was invoked was 1967, during the Vietnam War, when Reservist Lt. Howeoff duty, out of uniform, and off base near a local universitycarried a placard in an anti-war demonstration that read "End Johnson's Facist [sic] Aggression in Viet Nam." He was convicted for using "contemptuous words" against the president (and, under Article 133, for "conduct unbecoming an officer"). The Court of Military Appeals affirmed the verdict, ruling that suppression of his speech was essential to prevent a military "man on a white horse" from challenging "civilian control of the military."
The only time a retired officer has been so much as charged with this offense was in 1942, when a retired Army lieutenant colonel who was opposed to America's intervention in World War II gave a speech impugning President Roosevelt's loyalty. The Army charged him under Article 88 but then withdrew the charges to avoid giving him and his views further publicity.
Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column for Slate. He can be reached at war_stories@hotmail.com.
EFL This economic benefit of price-coordinated markets is also its biggest political vulnerability. If people don't understand what is happening, politicians can tell them anything -- and get their support to take actions that look good, even when the consequences will be counterproductive.
Political responses to the current high price of gasoline are a classic example. World demand for oil has risen out of all proportion to the amount of oil supplied. That is the problem and prices are a symptom of that problem.
Politicians have long been known for seizing upon immediate symptoms and ignoring underlying causes and consequences. Back in the 18th century Adam Smith wrote of "that crafty animal" the politician, who is preoccupied with "the momentary fluctuation of affairs."
Politicians are still crafty in the 21st century and still have their eyes on fleeting opportunities to make political hay. The high price of gasoline is the opportunity du jour.
Nothing is easier than to blame high prices on whoever charges those high prices, regardless of what the underlying cause is. It doesn't matter whether you are talking about Big Oil or little stores in poor, high-crime neighborhoods that charge higher prices growing out of the economic consequences of poverty and crime.
The irony of the headline seems purely unintentional
What I We Don't Grasp About Militant Islam
It's a truism that all conflicts end eventually. But how do you resolve a confrontation with an adversary that appears unable or unwilling to negotiate a settlement? That's a common problem that runs through the West's battles with militant Islam.
The most pressing instance is Iran's drive to become a nuclear power. The United States and its allies still talk as if it will be possible to stop the Iranian nuclear program short of war, through a combination of sanctions and diplomatic negotiations. But the Iranians push ahead, seemingly oblivious, and the ruling mullahs act contemptuous of the West's threats and blandishments.
Iran's implacability may have been the most important lesson of the three years of "negotiations" over its nuclear program conducted by three European Union nations, France, Britain and Germany. In fact, says a senior French official, it wasn't really a negotiation at all. "The E.U. talked and the Iranians responded, but they never came back with counterproposals because they could not agree on anything."
French analysts believe the Iranians displayed a similar refusal to negotiate during their long and bloody war with Iraq in the 1980s. The exhausted Iraqis made efforts to seek a negotiated peace, but the Iranians rejected their feelers. After America and France covertly aided Saddam Hussein, the Iranians finally accepted a United Nations-mandated cease-fire in August 1988. But there was never a formal peace treaty, and the Iranians dragged their feet even on the exchange of prisoners.
The latest example of Iran's diplo-phobia was a statement this week by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissing the U.S.-Iran talks over Iraq that had tentatively been set with the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad. There was nothing to talk about, Ahmadinejad implied. Now that the Iraqis had formed a new government, he said, "the occupiers should leave and allow Iraqi people to run their country."
Analysts think this reluctance to negotiate partly reflects divisions within Iran's ruling elite. Certainly the diffuse centers of power in the Iranian government make it difficult to reach a common position. But I suspect there is a deeper disconnect: For a theocratic regime that claims a mandate from God, the very idea of compromise is anathema. Great issues of war and peace will be resolved by God's will, not by human negotiators. Better to lose than to bargain with the devil. Better to suffer physical hardship than humiliation.
This same blockage is evident in other conflicts with Muslim groups. Al-Qaeda doesn't seek negotiations or a political settlement, nor should the West imagine it could reach one with a group that demands that America and its allies withdraw altogether from the Muslim world. The closest Osama bin Laden has come to a political demarche was his Jan. 19 offer of "a long-term truce based on fair conditions," which weren't specified. His deeper message was that al-Qaeda would wait it out -- waging a long war of attrition, confident that its adversaries would eventually grow tired and capitulate. America's powerful weapons might win battles, he said, "but they will lose the war. Being patient and steady is much better, and the end counts."
The West has placed its hopes on the political maturation of radical Muslim groups, figuring that as they assume responsibility, they will grow accustomed to the compromises that are essential to political life. But so far, there is little evidence to support this hope. The Hamas government appears to have nothing it wants to negotiate with Israel. Indeed, it still refuses to formally recognize the existence of its adversary. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has agreed to little compromises since it joined the government, but not big ones.
A word that recurs in radical Muslim proclamations is "dignity." That is not a political demand, nor one that can be achieved through negotiation. Indeed, for groups that feel victimized, negotiation with a powerful adversary can itself be demeaning. That's why the unyielding Yasser Arafat remained popular among Palestinians, despite his failure to deliver concrete benefits. He was a symbol of pride and resistance. Hamas, too, gains support because of its rigid steadfastness, and a strategy that seeks to punish pro-Hamas Palestinians into compromise will probably fail for the same reason.
The Muslim demand for respect isn't something that can be negotiated, but that doesn't mean the West shouldn't take it seriously. For as the Muslim world gains a greater sense of dignity in its dealings with the West, the fundamental weapon of Iran, al-Qaeda and Hamas will lose much of its potency.
It's hard to dispute much of the first eight paragraphs, where he describes Iran (and Islamo-fascists in general) as being making unreasonable demands and not negotiating in good faith. But then he concludes with the idea that all these problems would magically melt away were the Iranians treated with "dignity". Of course, "dignity" is not defined and no evidence is given that showing such "respect" has ever worked in the past. What would be a concrete example of showing Iran the sort of "respect" they desire so much more than power? Giving them the Sudetenland?
#2
I read it a little differently. He's suggesting that when we deal with them, whatever we concede has to be magnified so that they can feel like they're powerful and important. It doesn't matter if the concession was just a sop, if they can feel like they got the better of us somehow, they'll be more likely to keep the bargain. We have to understand their position and culture well enough to make the spin plausible.
But that's part of the negotiator's job.
Posted by: James ||
04/28/2006 10:25 Comments ||
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But James,
I missed the part where they ever concede anything. It's always "if we give in just a little more...just make it sound like a bigger concession on our part..."
Correct me if I'm wrong...but isn't that a dictionary definition of appeasement?
#4
I would be willing to give more than take with trade deals with Iraqis and such. But, with Iran and nukes, they should see little to no talk and fire and their blood. The message being, we will work with you and give you an advantage if you work peacefully with us. Fuck with us, and you are doomed.
#5
This guy is a racist. Who are "The Mulims"? Why shouldthey have dignity but not the other people who live in the Middle East?
And how does a group that includes individuals of every shape, size and fault obtain diginity? Do the Anglo-Saxons have dignity? How about the French and Germans? How about the Germans living in America?
If they want dignity, they should work elp other people. There's way too little of that going on over there. Until there is, they will never get enough dignity from us, no matter how much we give them.
#6
you can't give them dignity - they have to earn it, and so far, *ptui*, they've lost more than they've earned
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/28/2006 11:34 Comments ||
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AlanC: True, I made the unwarranted assumption that State would be working on our behalf and not to some internal political end. I was thinking more along the lines of how a successor to a recently departed Ahmadinejad could claim that allowing surprise US nuclear inspectors was a victory for Islam.
Posted by: James ||
04/28/2006 15:43 Comments ||
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#8
But how do you resolve a confrontation with an adversary that appears unable or unwilling to negotiate a settlement?
You do what has been done throughout history. You kill them. If not all of them, a sufficient number whereby they are persuaded from further resistance or interference. Only with the advent of modern weapons have we been given an option like we had at Hiroshima.
There, we demonstrated our resolve to kill the enemy in sufficient quantity on a continuing basis to where a nation was made to see reason. This is much less likely with any of the Arab countries, but the process needs to begin. Waiting for some trigger event like a terrorist nuclear attack on one of our cities is worse than stupid.
We must start by breaking Iran. A continued succession of shattered rogue nations must follow in their wake. There are no more options. We are up against an enemy of such intransigence that there is no hope of anything but blunt trauma and brute force winning the day.
Hat tip Blackfive. Yes, this was published in the Seattle PI.
by ARIC CATRON
A soldier sees and feels a wider variety of sights and emotions in a year than most people will experience in a lifetime. ...
In my short time in the military I have experienced more suffering than I could have imagined before joining up. I have held the hand of a dying Marine who had only one last wish: that someone would be with him and hold his hand as he passed on. So I sat there with a strange man, holding his hand, not saying a word, until he died. ...
I have watched grown men cry, and cried with them, as we stood in front of the traditional memorial of a rifle thrust bayonet-first into the ground with the fallen soldier's helmet and dog tags draped on the weapon. His empty boots stand at attention in the fore of this tableau.
My heart broke when I gazed upon a little girl, no older than my own 5-year-old, crying and begging in broken English for food and water. I have awoken from sleep in shock as it finally dawned on me how close I came to death on a recent patrol. I have lived in fear that I would never see my family again, or that my daughter would grow up without her daddy. ...
On one of those days in Iraq where I wasn't sure if I'd see my daughter again, I was working at a checkpoint near a small camp in the desert. ... The locals would gather around our checkpoints to try to sell us things, beg for food or water, or just hang around the soldiers.
On this particular day one of the locals had his little girl with him. She was shyly watching me from behind his legs. When I smiled and waved at her, she brazenly ran up to me with a big smile and held out her arms, expecting to be picked up. At first I was shocked at her sudden bravery, and it took me a second to reach down and pick her up. When I did, she immediately kissed me on my cheek and then nestled in as if she meant to stay a while.
I looked toward her father and he immediately began talking rapidly in Arabic and gesturing at me. Our translator quickly explained that he, the father, had been locked in a prison for most of the child's life. He had been sentenced to death for being a Shiite dissident traitor. The man went on to say that soldiers wearing the same patch on the shoulder as I was (the 101st Airborne Division) had freed him shortly after we began the liberation of Iraq. His daughter from then on believed that the famous Screaming Eagle patch of the 101st meant that we were angels sent to protect her family.
I sat in a little folding chair with that girl in my arms for well over 30 minutes. She trusted me so completely that she had fallen asleep with her head on my shoulder. All of my fears and worries faded as I held that little miracle. It had been so long since I had held my own daughter that this episode was even more healing for me than it was for her.
I have often wondered if, on that day when I missed my family so much, it wasn't a coincidence that she found me, of all soldiers. Maybe it was that innocent girl, and not me, that was the angel sent by God.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/28/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Makes people realise that personal sacrifice to benefit others is really worth the effort. I have had similar experiences in Belfast but not anywhere near as profound as this little story.
I have always held the beleif that the young next generation in Iraq will rise above the idiotic psycho-religious nuts and realise what sacrifices America and other nations have made in the face of such blind evil.
May they be found at their posts and on the front line, doing their duty fighting evil here, until they are relieved by the Armies Angelic when Messiah Comes..
From Jewish World Review
By Caroline B. Glick
The nature of the war being waged against Israel changed, perhaps irreversibly this week. Processes that have been developing for more than four years came together this week and brought us to a very different military-political reality than that which we have known until now.
The face of the enemy has changed. If in the past it was possible to say that the war being waged against Israel was unique and distinct from the global jihad, after the events of the past week, it is no longer possible to credibly make such a claim. Four events that occurred this week the attacks in the Sinai; the release of Osama bin Laden's audiotape; the release of Abu Musab Zarqawi's videotape; and the arrest of Hamas terrorists by Jordan all proved clearly that today it is impossible to separate the wars. The new situation has critical consequences for the character of the campaign that the IDF must fight to defend Israel and for the nature of the policies that the incoming government of Israel must adopt and advance.
The two attacks in the Sinai were noteworthy for several reasons. First, they were very different from one another. The first, which targeted tourists in Dahab, was the familiar attack against a soft target that we have become used to seeing in the Sinai over the past year and a half. The attack against the Multinational Force Observers was more unique since it only has one past precedent.
In an article published last October in the journal MERIA, Reuven Paz explained that al Qaida strategist Abu Musab al Suri supported the first type of attack. His follower, Abu Muhammed Hilali wrote last September that in waging the jihad against the Egyptian regime there is no point in attacking foreign forces or Egyptian forces because such attacks will lead nowhere. He encouraged terrorists to attack soft targets like tourists and foreign non-governmental organizations on the one hand, and strategic targets like the Egyptian gas pipeline to Israel on the other. In both cases, such attacks would achieve political objectives. Opposing Hilali's view is Zarqawi's strategy. As one would expect from Al Qaida's commander in Iraq, Zaeqawi upholds attacks on foreign forces.
The foregoing analysis is not proof that two separate branches of al Qaida conducted the attacks. But the combination of approaches this week does lend credence to the assessment that al Qaida is now paying a great deal of attention to Israel's neighborhood. And this is a highly significant development.
Until recently, Israel, like Jordan and Egypt, did not particularly interest al Qaida. When bin Laden's deputy Ayman al Zawahiri and his military commander Saif al-Adel merged their terror organization, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, to al Qaida, they adopted bin Laden's approach which dictated suspending their previous war to overthrow the Egyptian regime and concentrating on attacking America and its allies. In the same manner, when the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi joined al Qaida, he was compelled to put his wish to overthrow the Hashemite regime to the side. Israel was not on the agenda.
But today everything has changed. Israel, like Egypt and Jordan, is under the gun. Bin Laden himself made this clear in his tape this week. By placing Hamas under his protection, bin Laden made three moves at once. First, he announced that the Palestinians are no longer independent actors. Second, he defined the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority as a part of the liberated Islamic lands where al Qaida can feel at home. Third, he hitched a ride on the Palestinian issue which is more popular in the Islamic world than the Iraq war, where al Qaida is apparently on the road to defeat. For his part, Zarqawi already announced his plan to go back to his old war and work to topple the Hashemites (and destroy Israel) last November, after he commanded the Amman hotel suicide bombings. Back then Zarqawi announced that Jordan was but a stop on the road to the conquest of Jerusalem.
In his video this week, Zarqawi emphasized that the destruction of Israel through the conquest of Jerusalem is one of his major goals. Both he and bin Laden made clear that from their perspectives, the war against the US and the war against Israel are the same war. It always has been. Israel is everything that the Islamists are not. Israel, sitting out in the middle of a bunch of hostile arabs sticks out like a sore thumb, in their eyes.
On the level of strategic theory, bin Laden and Zarqawi both expressed al Qaida's long-term strategy that Zawahiri laid out last year to the Jordanian journalist Fuad Hussein. Zawahiri explained then that there are seven stages to the jihad before the establishment of the global caliphate. According to Zawahiri, the global jihad began in 2000 and will end in 2020. Today we are in the third stage which includes the toppling of the regimes in Jordan, Syria and Egypt and the targeting of Israel for destruction. Looking for another Black September, are ye?
While al Qaida today is setting its sights on Israel and its neighbors, the arrests of Hamas terrorists this week in Jordan shows that for their part, the Palestinians are working to advance the global jihad. The Hamas attempt to carry out attacks in Jordan points to a change in Hamas's self-perception. They have gone from being local terrorists to being members of the Islamist axis, which is led by Iran and includes Syria, al Qaida and Hizbullah. The Paleos have just painted world-class bull's eyes on themselves.
A week after Zarqawi carried out the attacks in Amman last November, Iranian Foreign Minister Manochehr Mottaki met with the heads of Hizbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, DFLP and DFLP-GC in Beirut. At the end of the summit, Ahmed Jibril declared, "We all confirmed that what is going on in occupied Palestine is organically connected to what is going on in Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Lebanon." Boy, talk about a target-rich environment! I would imagine that there were some frustrated IDF folks.
A week later, Hizbullah launched its largest Katyusha rocket attack on northern Israel since the IDF withdrew from south Lebanon in May 2000. Two weeks later, Islamic Jihad carried out the suicide bombing outside the shopping mall in Netanya. Shortly thereafter, Zarqawi's al Qaida operatives launched another barrage of Katyushas on northern Israel from Lebanon. I do not see why Israel showed so much restraint.
Similarly, on January 19, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hosted a terror summit in Damascus attended by the same cast of characters. The same day, Islamic Jihad carried out a suicide bombing by the old bus station in Tel Aviv. And on April 18, the day before last week's suicide bombing by the old bus station in Tel Aviv, Ahmadinejad carried out yet another terror summit in Tehran with the same participants. And, again, shortly after the summit, al Qaida struck in the Sinai. Another target-rich summit opportunity missed.
Zawahiri's seven stages of jihad go hand in hand with a 60 page text written by Saif al Adel sometime after the US invasion of Iraq. Adel deposited his manuscript with the same Jordanian journalist. Adel, who has been operating from Iran since the battle of Tora Bora in November 2001, is reportedly Zarqawi's commander in Iraq and al Qaida's senior liaison with the Iranian regime.
In his manuscript, Adel laid out al Qaida's intentions for the third stage of the jihad. He explained that the organization needed new bases and was looking for a failed state or states to settle in. Darfour, Somalia, Lebanon and Gaza were all identified as possible options.
As the American author and al Qaida investigator Richard Miniter puts it, "US forces together with the Kenyans and the Ethiopians have pretty much prevented al Qaida from basing in Somalia or Darfour. That left only Lebanon with all its problems with its various political factions, overlords and the UN. But then suddenly, like manna from Heaven, Israel simply gave them the greatest gift al Qaida ever received when Ariel Sharon decided to give them Gaza."
Israel, he explains, provided al Qaida with the best base it has ever had. Not only is Gaza located in a strategically vital area between the sea, Egypt and Israel. It is also fairly immune from attack since the Kadima government will be unwilling to reconquer the area.
Moreover, as was the case with Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Gamaa Islamiyya terrorists who merged with al Qaida in the 1990s, the Palestinians today constitute an ideal population for al Qaida. They already support jihad. They have vast experience in fighting. And if it only took Hamas two weeks in office to get all the other terror groups from Fatah to the Popular Resistance Committees to the Popular Front to pledge allegiance to it last week, Hamas's cooptation by al Qaida shouldn't be very difficult.
Al Qaida today is building its presence in Gaza, Judea and Samaria gradually. It drafts Palestinian terrorists to its ranks and provides them with ideological indoctrination and military training. In November, for instance, a terror recruiter in Jordan who had drafted two terrorists from the Nablus area to al Qaida's ranks and instructed them to recruit others, informed them that he intended to send a military trainer from Gaza to train them. The two, who were arrested in December, had planned to carry out a double suicide bombing in Jerusalem.
Last May, the first terror cell in Gaza announced its association with al Qaida. When Raanan Gissin, then prime minister Ariel Sharon's spokesman was asked to comment on the development by a foreign reporter, he presented the government's position on the issue as follows: "There is some evidence of links between militants in Gaza and al-Qaida but for us, local terrorist groups are just as dangerous."
On the face of it, Gissin's arrogance seems appropriate. After all, what do we care who sends the bombers into our cafes and buses? But things don't work that way.
As the attacks in Egypt, the arrests in Jordan and the bin Laden and Zarqawi messages this week all indicated, we find ourselves today in a world war. The Palestinians are no longer the ones waging the war against us. The Islamist axis now wages the war against us through the Palestinians. The center of gravity, like the campaign rationale of the enemy, has moved away. Today, the decision-makers who determine the character and timing of the terror offensives are not sitting in Gaza and or Judea and Samaria. They are sitting in Tehran, Waziristan, Damascus, Beirut, Amman and Falujah. The considerations that guide those that order the trigger pulled are not local considerations, but regional considerations at best and considerations wholly cut off from local events at worst.
This new state of affairs demands a change in the way all of Israel's security arms understand and fight this war. The entire process of intelligence gathering for the purpose of uncovering and preventing planned terror attacks needs to be reconsidered.
A reconfiguration of political and diplomatic strategies is also required. Talk of a separation barrier and final borders, not to mention the abandonment of Judea and Samaria to Hamas sounds hallucinatory when standing against us are Zarqawi who specializes in chemical and biological warfare; bin Laden who specializes in blowing up airplanes; and Iran that threatens a nuclear Holocaust.
Who can cause Ehud Olmert, Amir Peretz, Tzipi Livni and Yuli Tamir to take the steps required to protect Israel from the reality exposed by the events of this past week?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/28/2006 14:42 ||
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#1
"A reconfiguration of political and diplomatic strategies is also required."
The global jihad has always included Israel's occupation. The reason AQ is no longer associating it merely tangently is to drum up support and garner some much needed PR. Alot of words to say the same ole Glick-Schtick.
#4
No surprise here: IRAN > IRAN GETS NUKES + EMPIRE, OR ITS DEATH TO EVERYBODY. As far as Madmoud and the Mullahs are concerned, everyone in the ME, includ Israel, + World is a future citizen of the revived Persian-Iranian-Muslim empires of antiquity. All ME + World Muslim states are future provinces of Tehran.
#1
Good overview that led me to think we'd be better outside of the WTO. We're big enough to make our own deals to our advantage. For those who aren't and can't--too bad.
Posted by: mac ||
04/28/2006 21:46 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
