It's about Islam, stupid!

[Trace_Element]

heh.

so the brits just woke up one day, and said, "this colony bit is getting a little old; here, take the keys to this continent and give her a spin"?

From BeyondBooks.com:
"With a population nearly four times that of the United States, India modeled its government on the British parliamentary system, with a healthy dose of influences from the United States and the rest of Europe...."

 

[cjh]

My quetion to you was

THEN WHO?

You answered the above

1- Does that ANSWER the question?

2- Then WHO?

that's a dumb question.

WHO gave america democracy?

WHO gave the confederate states secession?

WHO gave the confederate states defeat?

 

[Trace_Element]

i'm not downplaying the significance of mosaic law to our legal tradition. obviously it's a very real influence. that part of the world, though, was a hotbed of written law during a three or four hundred year period, some of which preceded mosaic law.

I'm going to read up a bit...I like to learn...this will be good for me. Glad you entered the discussion. Well, started one. Better than throwing names at people you disagree with. I'd much rather sit down and have a heartfelt discussion with someone I disagree with, than throw names and trash-talk back and forth any day. Not saying I disagree with you. Didn't mean it that way

 

[cjh]

From BeyondBooks.com:
"With a population nearly four times that of the United States, India modeled its government on the British parliamentary system, with a healthy dose of influences from the United States and the rest of Europe...."

great. you might as well take it the next step. what were the political and philosophical underpinnings of england's parliment?

and so what if india borrowed heavily from an english form of government? every now nation should create one from scratch?

 

[busybody..]

that's a dumb question.


Because you cant answer!

WHO gave america democracy?

Its people!

WHO gave the confederate states secession?[

I]Its people[/I]

WHO gave the confederate states defeat?

Its people!

The Brits IMPOSED at the point of a GUN he system on India

as we will on Iraq and Afghanistan, if they are smart enough to accept!

 

[cjh]

Its people!

The Brits IMPOSED at the point of a GUN he system on India

as we will on Iraq and Afghanistan, if they are smart enough to accept!

lol.

no indian nationalists involved in that decision, huh? purely altruistic ...

 

[great lover]

Its people!

The Brits IMPOSED at the point of a GUN he system on India

as we will on Iraq and Afghanistan, if they are smart enough to accept!

I still think it was Ghandi.

 

[Trace_Element]

great. you might as well take it the next step. what were the political and philosophical underpinnings of england's parliment?

and so what if india borrowed heavily from an english form of government? every now nation should create one from scratch?

Oh come on man...I have to study MidEastern law and it's beginnings already! As well as it's effects on modern political/religious and ethical practiceds...And no, every nation in the last few hundred years at least, has borrowed from others...kind of like Rock n Roll...it's all one song, just played a little different...

 

[cjh]

I still think it was Ghandi.

i think he was pretty damned pivotal.

 

[cjh]

Oh come on man...I have to study MidEastern law and it's beginnings already! As well as it's effects on modern political/religious and ethical practiceds...And no, every nation in the last few hundred years at least, has borrowed from others...kind of like Rock n Roll...it's all one song, just played a little different...

precisely.

 

[Trace_Element]

BA - NO IT WASN'T. READ A BOOK or something.
BB - You're not helping.
CJH - Thanks man.
The rest of you - I have to leave for work. I SHALL RETURN!

 

[Redneck_Cowboy]

I think the world is going to hell in a hand basket and we are all fucked. Prepare for Armageddon.

 

[busybody..]

i think he was pretty damned pivotal.

he was a fool

he actually told the JEWS to accept being KILLED to show good will to the Nazi's

Had his "vision" been implemented in India they would be a useless cuntry

 

[busybody..]

BA - NO IT WASN'T. READ A BOOK or something.
BB - You're not helping.
CJH - Thanks man.
The rest of you - I have to leave for work. I SHALL RETURN!

Sorry Terrorist!

 

[great lover]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1689207,00.html

On Oct. 3, 1993, a mob dragged the bodies of two U.S. soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. The soldiers had been killed in an intense street battle that was later immortalized in the book Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden. But soon after the firefight, U.S. troops were withdrawn from Somalia, and other places--Afghanistan, Iraq--became known as locations where young American soldiers risked their lives.

They're dragging bodies through the streets of Mogadishu once again. This time the dead men--paraded before a camera phone in November--were not American soldiers but Ethiopian ones. Yet the episode was a reminder of how dangerous Somalia has become. Last December the forces of Ethiopia, a prime U.S. ally in Africa and a major recipient of U.S. military aid, invaded Somalia to depose a radical Islamist regime, and Ethiopia received significant U.S. logistical support as the operation unfolded. But today the East African nation--indeed, the whole Horn of Africa--is again in chaos. Ethiopia and Eritrea, which split from Ethiopia in 1993, are on the verge of war (they fought a bitter conflict from 1998 to 2000), and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer has said that she is considering naming Eritrea a state sponsor of terrorism. Somalia itself is in the grip of a humanitarian crisis; according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 1.8 million Somalis are in dire need of assistance. And once again--if with less media attention than in 1993--the U.S. is involved in one of the world's deadliest regions. In many ways, the Horn of Africa has become, after Iraq and Afghanistan, a third front in the war on terrorism. How did that come about?

Deserts, Swamps and Jungles

On Jan. 9, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman confirmed that U.S. forces had carried out an air strike in Africa. An AC-130 gunship, he said, had targeted "what we believe to be senior al-Qaeda leadership." Whitman neither specified a location nor confirmed reports of other U.S. attacks. Asked about another air strike on Jan. 23--confirmed to TIME by a Pentagon officer--Whitman said, "We're going to go after al-Qaeda and the global war on terror, wherever it takes us." He continued: "I don't have anything for you on Somalia."

Most people don't have anything on Somalia. It is a hot, poor swath of desert and swamp, sparsely populated by camel herders, mango farmers and fishermen. But in the mental map of Islamic militants, it looms large. The oldest al-Qaeda training camp in Africa, Ras Kamboni, is perched on Somalia's southeastern tip, surrounded by swampy jungle that makes it as inaccessible as the hill caves of Tora Bora in Afghanistan. Radical groups like al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, funded and trained by foreign militants supplied by Osama bin Laden, have been in Somalia for years. The same bin Laden T shirts that fill Pakistan's bazaars are sold in the markets along Kenya's Indian Ocean coast.

Since the outbreak of civil war in 1991, Somalia has suffered from the kind of chaos that provides cover for militants. On Aug. 7, 1998, deadly car bombs detonated simultaneously next to the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 224 people--just 12 of whom were Americans--and injuring more than 4,000. The FBI named three Somalia-based suspects: Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, originally from the Comoros Islands, off Mozambique; Kenyan Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan; and bombmaker Tariq Abdullah, a.k.a. Abu Taha al-Sudani. The FBI said the men were members of the "Osama bin Laden network" and offered $5 million for Fazul's arrest or death.

Fazul's group allegedly struck again on Nov. 28, 2002, killing 13 people when gunmen attacked the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel near Mombasa, Kenya, and launched two missiles (both missed) at an Israeli airliner in Kenyan airspace. In 2003, staff at the U.S. embassy in Nairobi evacuated for a week following reports that Fazul wanted to level the new building, and in 2006 al-Sudani was implicated in a plot to attack a U.S. base in Djibouti. All of this means that in the fight against Islamic terrorism, Africa is an increasing worry. "If we're successful in denying al-Qaeda sanctuary in Waziristan and the North-West Frontier Province [in Pakistan], where are they going to go?" asks a retired senior U.S. special-operations commander. He answers his own question: "Africa."

To counter this perceived threat, in 2002 the U.S. opened a military base in Djibouti--the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa--and a Pentagon source says other moves are under discussion to enhance the U.S. support role across the continent. In 2003, Washington allocated $100 million to the East Africa Counter-Terrorism Initiative, an interagency task force focused on the continent. The U.S. Navy's Sixth Fleet, based in Gaeta, Italy, now spends much of its time patrolling the coasts of Africa. This year, using another $100 million allocated to Africa under the Global Peace Operations Initiative, U.S. soldiers will train and equip units from 13 to 15 African countries. The pattern of a growing U.S. military interest in the continent was confirmed on Oct. 1 with the opening in Stuttgart, Germany, of Africom, a 200-officer command dedicated to operations in Africa. The immediate focus of the new command is likely to be the Horn.

Friends in Addis Ababa

In fact, the U.S. has long been active politically and militarily in East Africa, and its presence dramatically increased after Sept. 11, 2001. In the summer of 2006, the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), an alliance of clerics and clan leaders that included several al-Itihaad al-Islamiya leaders, took over Mogadishu and imposed a form of law and order on Somalia, which had just gone through 15 years of civil war. But a few months later, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of the UIC, which had absorbed al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, declared a jihad on Ethiopian troops, who were regularly crossing into Somalia. "That was unacceptable," Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told TIME this year. The Ethiopians invaded Somalia on Dec. 24, and the advance was a quick and bloody triumph. Meles' forces killed thousands of UIC fighters within days, captured Mogadishu and installed the internationally recognized government in exile, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). In a Jan. 5 message, bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, urged Somalis to "consume" the "crusader" Ethiopians "as the lions eat their prey." But he was too late. Thousands of UIC fighters and refugees were streaming south from Mogadishu toward Ras Kamboni and Kenya.

 

[great lover]

Vigilantes Target Women in Iraq

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1693032,00.html

(BAGHDAD)Religious vigilantes have killed at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city of Basra because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against "violating Islamic teachings," the police chief said Sunday.

Maj. Gen. Jalil Khalaf blamed sectarian groups that he said were trying to impose a strict interpretation of Islam. They dispatch patrols of motorbikes or unlicensed cars with tinted windows to accost women not wearing traditional dress and head scarves, he added.

The women of Basra are being horrifically murdered and then dumped in the garbage with notes saying they were killed for un-Islamic behavior," Khalaf told The Associated Press. He said men with Western clothes or haircuts are also attacked in Basra, an oil-rich city some 30 miles from the Iranian border and 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.

 

[great lover]

Basra After the British

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1654885,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-bottom


Even as Capitol Hill braces to debate the impact of the U.S. troop surge in Baghdad, the 5,500 British troops stationed in Basra appear to be on their way out. They're already implementing a plan to withdraw their bases from Iraq's second city, consolidating their forces at a single base near the airport pending the hand-over to Iraqi forces scheduled in the fall. But the impending departure of the British on terms less than favorable to their goal of stabilizing Iraq is being seized on by radical Shi'ite militias as a propaganda opportunity. They're escalating their attacks on British forces in order to create the impression that the Brits are retreating under fire, and radical Shi'ite leader Moqtada Sadr has publicly sought to take credit for hounding the occupiers out of Basra.

But Basra was not lost to the militias in battle; it was lost politically. With the British military already overstretched by its commitments in Afghanistan, the role of its small force in Basra has been increasingly limited to protecting itself from attack. Although the British authorities continue to insist that they'll leave only when Iraqi forces are able to guarantee security, the grim reality is that they have no reliable partners in the local government or security forces, which are beset by corruption and heavily infiltrated by Shi'ite militias. Their departure will likely escalate a violent power struggle between rival Shi'ite factions that is already under way.

Last Monday, the governor of neighboring Muthana, one of three southern provinces already turned over to Iraqi control by the British, was assassinated in a bombing that many suspect was carried by out by Sadr's Mahdi Army militia — the slain governor had been affiliated with the rival Supreme Iraq Islamic Council and its Badr Corps militia. A similar killing occurred last week.

The intra-Shi'ite political violence in Basra highlights the complexity of the situation in Iraq. It's not even clear that the Basra-based affiliates of the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades are actually taking orders from their nominal national leadership. Chaos in Iraq's key port city and the gateway to its major oil fields is not the only consequence of the British departure feared by Western officials, however. Some fear it may serve as an invitation for Iran to further expand its influence. "Will the Iranians fill the vacuum?" asked the Western diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I think they may try."

 

[great lover]

The Muslim Brotherhood's Conquest of Europe

http://www.meforum.org/article/687

Since its founding in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood (Hizb al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun) has profoundly influenced the political life of the Middle East. Its motto is telling: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."[1]

While the Brotherhood's radical ideas have shaped the beliefs of generations of Islamists, over the past two decades, it has lost some of its power and appeal in the Middle East, crushed by harsh repression from local regimes and snubbed by the younger generations of Islamists who often prefer more radical organizations.

But the Middle East is only one part of the Muslim world. Europe has become an incubator for Islamist thought and political development. Since the early 1960s, Muslim Brotherhood members and sympathizers have moved to Europe and slowly but steadily established a wide and well-organized network of mosques, charities, and Islamic organizations. Unlike the larger Islamic community, the Muslim Brotherhood's ultimate goal may not be simply "to help Muslims be the best citizens they can be," but rather to extend Islamic law throughout Europe and the United States.[2]

Four decades of teaching and cultivation have paid off. The student refugees who migrated from the Middle East forty years ago and their descendants now lead organizations that represent the local Muslim communities in their engagement with Europe's political elite. Funded by generous contributors from the Persian Gulf, they preside over a centralized network that spans nearly every European country.

These organizations represent themselves as mainstream, even as they continue to embrace the Brotherhood's radical views and maintain links to terrorists. With moderate rhetoric and well-spoken German, Dutch, and French, they have gained acceptance among European governments and media alike. Politicians across the political spectrum rush to engage them whenever an issue involving Muslims arises or, more parochially, when they seek the vote of the burgeoning Muslim community.

But, speaking Arabic or Turkish before their fellows Muslims, they drop their facade and embrace radicalism. While their representatives speak about interfaith dialogue and integration on television, their mosques preach hate and warn worshippers about the evils of Western society. While they publicly condemn the murder of commuters in Madrid and school children in Russia, they continue to raise money for Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Europeans, eager to create a dialogue with their increasingly disaffected Muslim minority, overlook this duplicity. The case is particularly visible in Germany, which retains a place of key importance in Europe, not only because of its location at the heart of Europe, but also because it played host to the first major wave of Muslim Brotherhood immigrants and is host to the best-organized Brotherhood presence. The German government's reaction is also instructive if only to show the dangers of accepting Muslim Brotherhood rhetoric at face value, without looking at the broader scope of its activities.
The Muslim Brotherhood

The situation in Germany is particularly telling. More than anywhere else in Europe, the Muslim Brotherhood in Germany has gained significant power and political acceptance. Islamist organizations in other European countries now consciously follow the model pioneered by their German peers.

During the 1950s and 1960s, thousands of Muslim students left the Middle East to study at German universities, drawn not only by the German institutions' technical reputations but also by a desire to escape repressive regimes. Egyptian ruler Gamal Abdel Nasser's regime was especially vigorous in its attempts to root out the Islamist opposition. Beginning in 1954, several members of the Muslim Brotherhood fled Egypt to escape arrest or assassination. West Germany provided a welcome refuge. Bonn's motivations were not simply altruistic. As terrorism expert Khalid Durán explained in his studies on jihadism in Europe,[3] the West German government had decided to cut diplomatic relations with countries that recognized East Germany. When Egypt and Syria established diplomatic relations with the communist government, Bonn decided to welcome Syrian and Egyptian political refugees. Often, these dissidents were Islamists. Many members of the Muslim Brotherhood were already familiar with Germany. Several had cooperated with the Nazis before and during World War II.[4] Some had even, reportedly, fought in the infamous Bosnian Handschar division of the Schutzstaffel (SS).[5]

One of the Muslim Brotherhood's first pioneers in Germany was Sa‘id Ramadan, the personal secretary of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna.[6] Ramadan, an Egyptian who had led the Muslim Brotherhood's irregulars in Palestine in 1948,[7] moved to Geneva in 1958 and attended law school in Cologne.[8] In Germany, he founded what has become one of Germany's three main Muslim organizations, the Islamische Gemeinschaft Deutschland (Islamic Society of Germany, IGD), over which he presided from 1958 to 1968.[9] Ramadan also cofounded the Muslim World League,[10] a well-funded organization that the Saudi establishment uses to spread its radical interpretation of Islam throughout the world. The U.S. government closely monitors the activities of the Muslim World League, which it accuses of financing terrorism. In March 2002, a U.S. Treasury Department-led task force raided the group's Northern Virginia offices looking for documents tying the group to Al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In January 2004, the Senate Finance Committee asked the Internal Revenue Service for its records on the Muslim World League "as part of an investigation into possible links between nongovernmental organizations and terrorist financing networks."[11] This privileged relationship with the oil-rich kingdom granted Ramadan an influx of money, which he used to fund the powerful Islamic Center of Geneva and to bankroll several financial and religious activities. Hani Ramadan, Sa‘id's son, currently runs the Islamic Center. Among its other board members is Sa‘id's other son, Tariq Ramadan, who recently made headlines in the United States when the Department of Homeland Security revoked his visa to teach at Notre Dame University.[12] Sa‘id Ramadan's case is not isolated.[13]

Following Ramadan's ten-year presidency of the IGD, Pakistani national Fazal Yazdani briefly led the IGD before Ghaleb Himmat, a Syrian with Italian citizenship, took the helm. During his long stewardship (1973-2002), Himmat shuttled between Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and the United States.[14] Intelligence agencies around the world have long scrutinized Himmat's terrorist connections. He is one of the founders of the Bank al-Taqwa, a powerful conglomerate dubbed by Italian intelligence, "Bank of the Muslim Brotherhood," which has financed terrorist groups since the mid-1990s if not earlier.[15] Himmat helped Youssef Nada, one of the Muslim Brotherhood's financial masterminds, run Al-Taqwa and a web of companies headquartered in locations such as Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Bahamas, which maintain few regulations on monetary origin or destination. Both Himmat and Nada reportedly funneled large sums to groups such as Hamas and the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front[16] and set up a secret credit line for a top associate of Osama bin Laden.[17]

In November 2001, the U.S. Treasury Department designated both Himmat and Nada as terrorism financiers.[18] According to Italian intelligence, the Al-Taqwa network also financed several Islamic centers throughout Europe[19] and many Islamist publications, including Risalatul Ikhwan,[20] the official magazine of the Muslim Brotherhood. After the U.S. Treasury Department designation, Himmat resigned from the IGD's presidency. His successor was Ibrahim el-Zayat, a 36-year-old of Egyptian descent and the charismatic leader of numerous student organizations.

The fact that IGD leaders Ramadan and Himmat are among the most prominent Muslim Brotherhood members of the last half-century suggests the links between the IGD and the Ikhwan. Moreover, reports issued by internal intelligence agencies from various German states openly call the IGD an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.[21] In particular, according to one intelligence report, the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood has dominated the IGD since its early days.[22]

The Muslim Brotherhood—led by Ramadan and Himmat[23]—sponsored the construction of the imposing Islamic Center of Munich in 1960,[24] aided by large donations from Middle Eastern rulers such as King Fahd of Saudi Arabia who, according to a 1967 Sueddeutsche Zeitung article, donated 80,000 marks.[25] The Ministry of Interior of Nordrhein-Westfalen states that the Islamic Center of Munich has been one of the European headquarters for the Brotherhood since its foundation.[26] The center publishes a magazine, Al-Islam, whose efforts (according to an Italian intelligence dossier),[27] are financed by the Bank al-Taqwa. According to the interior minister of Baden-Württemberg, Al-Islam shows explicitly how the German Brothers reject the concept of a secular state.[28] Its February 2002 issue, for example, states,

In the long run, Muslims cannot be satisfied with the acceptance of German family, estate, and trial law. … Muslims should aim at an agreement between the Muslims and the German state with the goal of a separate jurisdiction for Muslims.

The IGD, of which the Islamic Center of Munich is one of the most important members, represents the main offshoot of the Egyptian Brotherhood in Germany. But the IGD is also the quintessential example of how the Muslim Brotherhood has gained power in Europe. The IGD has grown significantly over the years, and it now incorporates dozens of Islamic organizations throughout the country. Islamic centers from more than thirty German cities have joined its umbrella.[29] Today, the IGD's real strength lies in its cooperation with and sponsorship of many Islamic youth and student organizations across Germany.

This focus on youth organizations came after Zayat's succession. He understood the importance of focusing on the next generation of German Muslims and launched recruitment drives to get young Muslims involved in Islamic organizations. But a Meckenheim police report on the sharply dressed Zayat also reveals alarming connections. German authorities openly say he is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. They also link him to the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a Saudi nongovernmental organization that seeks to spread Wahhabism, the radical and intolerant Saudi interpretation of Islam, throughout the world with its literature and schools.[30] WAMY, which falls under the umbrella of the Muslim World League, has the stated goal of "arming the Muslim youth with full confidence in the supremacy of the Islamic system over other systems." It is the largest Muslim youth organization in the world and can boast unparalleled resources.[31] In 1991 WAMY published a book called Tawjihat Islamiya (Islamic Views) that stated, "Teach our children to love taking revenge on the Jews and the oppressors, and teach them that our youngsters will liberate Palestine and Al-Quds [Jerusalem] when they go back to Islam and make jihad for the sake of Allah."[32] The sentiments in Tawjihat Islamiya are the rule rather than the exception. Many other WAMY publications are filled with strong anti-Semitic and anti-Christian rhetoric.

Meckenheim police also link Zayat to Institut Européen des Sciences Humaines, a French school that prepares European imams. Several radical clerics lecture at the school and several European intelligence agencies accuse the school of spreading religious hatred.[33] German authorities also highlight the fact that he is involved in several money laundering investigations.[34] Zayat has never been indicted for terrorist activity, but he has dubious financial dealings and maintains associations with many organizations that spread religious hatred. The IGD may have changed leadership after the U.S. Treasury's designation of Himmat, but it did not change direction.

While the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood has chosen Munich as its base of operations in Germany, its Syrian branch is headquartered in Aachen, a German town near the Dutch border. The former Carolingian capital, with its famous university, is now home to a large Muslim population including the prominent Syrian Al-Attar family. The first Attar to move to Aachen was Issam, who fled persecution in his native country in the 1950s when he was leader of the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Other members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood soon followed. With time, Islamists from other countries adopted Attar's Bilal mosque in Aachen as their base of operations.[35] From hosting exiled Algerian terrorists[36] to operating a charity designated by the U.S. Department of Treasury as a financial front for Hamas,[37] Aachen is well known to intelligence agencies throughout the world.

The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood base in Aachen kept close relations with their Egyptian counterparts. For example, confirming the tendency of important Muslim Brotherhood families to close alliance through intermarriage, Issam al-Attar's son married the daughter of Al-Taqwa banker Youssef Nada.[38] Links between the two Muslim Brotherhood branches are more extensive than a single marriage, however. The Aachen Islamic Center reportedly received funding from Al-Taqwa.[39] Staff members have rotated between the Islamic Centers in Aachen and Munich. For example, Ahmed von Denffer, editor of the Islamic Center of Munich's Al-Islam magazine, came to Munich from Aachen.[40] Nevertheless, some distance remains. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood has never joined the IGD, instead preferring to keep some form of independence.

 

[great lover]

Albanian brothers seem unlikely terror suspects

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18577915/

DEBAR, Macedonia - Three Muslim brothers who allegedly helped plot to kill soldiers at a U.S. Army base have roots in one of Europe's most pro-American corners — a region that remains grateful to the United States for ending the Kosovo war.

Dritan Duka, 28, Shain Duka, 26, and Eljvir Duka, 23, who were arrested in New Jersey this week in what U.S. authorities said was a bungled scheme to blow up and gun down soldiers at Fort Dix, were born in Debar, a remote town on Macedonia's rugged border with Serbia's Kosovo province.

Relatives in the ethnic Albanian-populated town of 15,000 said they had not seen the brothers in more than two decades, but expressed disbelief Wednesday that the three would attack the United States.

 

[great lover]

Algeria Bombings Show al-Qaida's Reach

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5glOVbiJPRPRfL03JHRa6R92fdtSgD8TG5C3G0

MADRID, Spain (AP) — Algeria has seen more than its fair share of Islamist attacks, but Tuesday's carnage was different. Never before has such a prominent international site — U.N. offices — been struck with such deadly ferocity in the North African nation.

Experts say the powerful twin bombings of U.N. offices and an Algerian government building in Algiers reflect the growing allegiance of local Islamic militants to Osama bin Laden, and their adoption of al-Qaida's war as their own.

They could also be a harbinger of far more bloodshed if the Algerian terror network behind the attacks — the group changed its name this year to al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa — makes good on its threat to spread its tentacles into Morocco, Tunisia and beyond.

Terrorism analysts say that would create a true pan-North African terror group on Europe's southern doorstep, and be one of the greatest threats to the continent in coming years.

"Without a doubt this is going to be one of Europe's biggest worries in the years ahead, because this is a veteran group with well-trained people," said Javier Jordan, the director of Athena Intelligence, a Spain-based think tank specializing in terrorism issues. "The kind of attacks they attempt are very complicated, and they have the know-how to carry them out."

The group has been trying new tactics since a top leader returned in 2004 from fighting in Afghanistan, choosing soft targets rather than confronting the military head on, said Rolf Tophoven, director of the Institute for Terrorism Research and Security Policy based in Germany.

 

[busybody..]

You PC PUTZES will love this


MORE ON HONOR KILLING IN CANADA:


Several Canadian Islamic groups have had the decency to deplore the slaying, which seems to have been carried out with the collusion of Aqsa’s brothers. Yet in an exquisite demonstration of moral equivalence, Shahina Siddiqui, the Canadian-based executive director of the Islamic Social Services Association of the United States and Canada, said:

“The strangulation death of Ms. Parvez was the result of domestic violence, a problem that cuts across Canadian society and is blind to color or creed.”

Oh, no, it doesn’t, Ms. Siddiqui, not this type of domestic violence, nor this particular crime: This was Shariah-based justice meted out to a Muslim girl for defying her fundamentalist father.

It was, and it shouldn't get a multi-culti pass

 

[Trace_Element]

I didn't get home from work and din-din in time to do my proper studies as I said I would...
CJH, we'll talk!

 

[richard_daily]

So a "christian" nation is a peaceful one? How about proving it by not invading other countries and dropping bombs on them.

 

[busybody..]

^^^^jack Ass^^^^^

 

[great lover]

We will stop bombing once Democracy has been restored.