Al Qaeda's racist attack on Barack Obama signals the death of violent jihad
Jihad in
Many associate Islam with terror, Obama with Islam by Joesph Wojtkiewicz
Obama Homeland Security and Terrorism Policy
Compiled By New Age Islam News Bureau
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'There is no room for suicide in Islam'
November 25, 2008,
"There is absolutely no room for suicide in Islam," said Hameed who has been visiting top British universities along with a group of like-minded parliamentarians, addressing challenging religious issues.
Their visits follow reports of campus tensions between Muslim and Jewish students in
Lord Hameed is British Asian of the year 2007
"I'd say the same thing to Muslim youth audiences in
"You need to come out of the margins and participate in nation-building. Be non-violent, go in for education and put in hard work. At the end of the day, the solution is education, education and education.
"The problem is that Muslims lack credible, sincere and honest leadership. There are no leaders - the community is like a ship with no anchor and no captain, travelling in all directions in turbulent waters," he said.
New Pak CJ over-rules order on annulling emergency
Hameed, a successful medical entrepreneur who is chairman of the Alpha Hospital Group and CEO of the planned super-speciality
"I told them all these young people (who support terrorism) are totally un-Islamic. There is a blanket prohibition of suicide under Islam. And just as the Upanishads (Hindu scriptures) talk about the world as a single family, so Islam says that noble people look after strangers as they would look after themselves," he said.
One problem, according to him, was that the Quran has been heavily edited by "various sides to their own advantage".
"Once you start editing a holy book, you risk losing the gist of the message, which includes, 'You shall not kill, you shall not take innocent life and you shall not take your own life'."
Hameed, who has so far visited the universities of Middlesex,
"Everything about them is seen as 'different' - their clothes, rituals, food, skin colour... Therefore, you have people saying 'They are taking over our jobs, hospital beds, education'," he explained.
Hameed said one question he has been asked repeatedly by students is how democracy protects citizens from what are seen as deliberate provocations, such as cartoons about Prophet Mohammed.
"My reply is that here you have the freedom to practice your own faith. In return, because you love democracy, you have to exercise your democratic rights and protest. The bomb is not the answer."
The tour, which takes in some of
The conflict has led to Jewish and Muslim students in
Hostilities are reported to have intensified during the 2006 war between
Source: http://sify.com/news/international/fullstory.php?id=14805006
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Al Qaeda's racist attack on barrack Obama signals the death of violent jihad?
26th November 2008
A terrorism analyst and Middle East expert says Al Qaeda's racist attack on Barack Obama signals the death of violent jihad.
Desperation time? Gilles Kepel thinks al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri is becoming divorced from reality.
Last week, al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released a provocative video commenting on the election of Barack Obama. "You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims," Zawahiri tells the
To decode Zawahiri's words, Foreign Policy's Blake Hounshell spoke with French scholar Gilles Kepel, chair of Middle East studies at the
Kepel has followed Zawahiri's statements closely for several years.
In his most recent book, Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: The Future of the Middle East, Kepel identifies two sweeping but opposing narratives-the neoconservative war on terror and the jihadist myth of martyrdom. According to Kepel, both have failed miserably.
Do you think the tape Zawahiri released last week is significant?
Gilles Kepel: The tape is extremely important, because [al Qaeda believed] that 9/11 would be a means to mobilize the Muslim masses against the West and to topple the [Middle Eastern] regimes. But they were totally unable to do it.
I've monitored Zawahiri's statements between the fifth and the seventh anniversary of 9/11 to try to decipher his whole system of thought, to understand how it works. The more [strident] Zawahiri's discourse was, the less it was in tune with reality. Within the ranks of radical Islamism, Zawahiri has been very, very violently criticized.
There is a widespread feeling now that al Qaeda's strategy has failed, because [critics] say Zawahiri has spilled Muslim blood.
The Jews and Christians he may have killed were OK-halal-but the Muslim blood were not halal.
Do you think Zawahiri hoped that with this tape, he would tap into a kind of Arab antiblack racism?
In a way. But I think he tried not to look like a racist because he quoted Malcolm X, who was a good black man because he [converted to Islam and] became [al-Hajj] Malik al-Shabazz. But you could almost feel in his speech the aristocratic background of Zawahiri, who looks down on "niggers" with the utmost contempt.
Abid al-beit, [the name by which Zawahiri referred to Obama], is something much more [potent] than "house Negro." It is loaded with a very, very strong racist connotation, and I'm not sure that Zawahiri made himself very popular with this sort of discourse. In my view, this is a sign that al Qaeda is in dire straits.
Do you think Obama-with his ethnic identity and his rhetoric about regaining
I think even outside the Beltway, everybody still believes that
Over the last eight years, you've been a frequent critic of the Bush administration. What would you say was the biggest analytical error that George W. Bush made?
The administration mistook the
The "war on terror" was supposed to mobilize public opinion behind the Bush administration. Everybody was with them after 9/11, but then the agenda was changed and the war on terror was a means to implement another plan-downing the Saddam regime and creating a U.S.-friendly
Are you using "war on terror" in the past tense?
I think that now, with Obama, [the war on terror] is something that has been wiped away. He's [going] to pull out from
The big game in 2009 will be how they deal with
You know what Hussein Obama means in Farsi? "Hussein is with us." I don't think this is just a joke; Ahmadinejad doesn't stand a chance even in terms of Shiite credentials in front of someone called "Hussein is with us," right?
[What] I mean more seriously is that engaging
What would you tell Obama if you had a meeting with him?
[I would advise him on] the need to conceive of a
Isn't that a lot like French President Nicolas Sarkozy's initiative of building a Union for the
They are in the same direction, but I think that the Union for the
Gilles Kepel is chair of Middle East studies at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris and the author of Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: The Future of the Middle East (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008).
Source: http://www.asianimage.co.uk/world/3878141.The_death_of_Jihad_/
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Jihad in
December 27, 2006
Twenty seven years ago, in the last days of December, Soviet forces invaded
At the time, the
However, we should not be too sanguine about
A. The guerrillas are badly organized and poorly led;
B. They have no sanctuary, no organized army, and no central government -- all of which
C. They have limited foreign support, in contrast to the enormous amount of arms that flowed to the Vietnamese from both the Soviet Union and
To shore up the Afghan resistance, Brzezinski suggested that "It is essential that Afghanistani resistance continues. This means more money as well as arms shipments to the rebels, and some technical advice."
The
Notwithstanding the real threat of Soviet expansionism at the time, history's odd twists make it difficult to resist wondering where the
Source: http://terrorism.about.com/b/2006/12/27/december-26-1979-jihad-in-afghanistan-gets-its-start.htm?nl=1
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Many associate Islam with terror, Obama with Islam
Joesph Wojtkiewicz
Nov 26, 08
Thomas Jefferson once said, "I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others." I have been thinking a lot about this quote recently. This past election, and most of the last decade, has been a test of tolerance in our nation. I am sad to say, from what I have seen, we have failed this test.
It was an issue during the election. Many of the 24-hour news sources were running "breaking stories" about how President-elect Obama went to school at a Muslim madrassa as a child. This then fed into the fear he was a closet Muslim. I don't know what disappointed me more; the fact they made such a big deal about it, or the fact a lot of people believed it and refused to vote for Sen. Obama because of it.
I am truly pained by what this says about a large portion of our society. We have become so filled with fear that we don't think twice about labeling every Muslim we see as a terrorist. In a survey conducted by
I am a Christian. I wanted to say that first, because I am going to be speaking about a religion I know very little about. What I do know is based on my personal research and interaction with Muslims. What I have to say can be found at www.twf.org, The Wisdom Fund. This text has been reprinted in Foreign Affairs, The Brown Journal of World Affairs, and Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Teacher Magazine and The Washington Times. I found it to be an excellent representation of the faith and what it actually stands for.
Islam means "submission to the Will of God." Muslim is derived from the Arabic word for peace, and the common greeting in the Arab world means, "peace be unto you." If any of this sounds similar to the message that Christians proclaim, it’s because they are similar. Islam is basically a division of the Jewish faith, much like Christianity. They worship the same God that Christians and Jews do. They believe Jesus, Abraham and Moses are all prophets of God.
The main teachings of Islam focus on living a life devoted to God. They pray five times a day to recognize that devotion. They believe strongly in charity and helping those that are being persecuted. I was fortunate enough to have a lot of contact with Muslims when I was deployed in
Am I defending the actions of Muslim terrorists? No, and neither do the majority of Muslims. Anyone of any sort of intellect would condemn the acts committed by any terrorist. In fact intellect is one of the chief teachings of Islam, as a quote from the teachings of Islam, "One learned man is harder on the Devil than a thousand ignorant worshippers." This is one teaching I can get behind fully. And to anyone who wants to say all Muslims are terrorists. I know I can't change your mind if you don't want to change it. I only ask that you think about this quote from author Richard Bulliet, "Jim Jones, David Koresh and Meir Kahane do not typify Christianity and Judaism in the eyes of the civilized West, but those same eyes are prone to see Osama bin Laden and Mullah Muhammad Omar as typifying Islam." See the world for what it is, see people for who they are and don't judge an entire group based on the actions of a few individuals. Make up your own mind.
Source:
http://media.www.theallstate.com/media/storage/paper801/news/2008/11/26/Perspectives/Many-Associate.Islam.With.Terror.Obama.With.Islam-3561637.shtml
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Obama Homeland Security and Terrorism Policy
5 Probable Homeland Security and Terrorism Policy Moves
Nov 25 2008
The Obama administration can be expected to execute homeland security and counterterrorism policy in a substantially different framework than the Bush Administration. Multilateralism rather than unilateralism and efforts to work within
1. Setting the Tone: Less Martial, More Conciliatory
The role that terrorism plays as a symbolic and practical issue will be different. Terrorism, the 'war on terror' and the idea of a 'wartime president' provided the centripetal focus of the Bush presidency, from the September 11, 2001 attacks onward. Obama focused on the economy in the months leading up to the election, rather than on security. In this, he mirrored not only American, but global, concern about the plunging economic situation. Obama will not replicate Bush's sweeping, holistic approach to terrorism, nor use the rhetoric of a "global war on terror." In practice, his foreign policy approaches are unlikely to homogenize distinct regional conflicts as versions of the same "terrorism."
2. Homeland Security: Slow Changes in Emphasis over Time
Though it may roll off the American tongue with ease at this point, "homeland security" is a neologism coined by the Bush Administration. The symbolism of a "homeland," and its connotation of an ethnically exclusive territory, is likely here to stay. Whoever heads the Department of Homeland Security is less likely to institute dramatic changes than to seek to manage inherited issues, while refining the mandate of the youngest government department. These inherited issues will include developing systems to manage the department's huge acquisitions and contracting needs, which were critiqued in a November 2008 GAO report. Long term shifts in national priorities could include a reduction in the resources expended in the name of homeland security, or allocations could shift away from technological solutions to presumed problems toward more analysis, in the interest of understanding and assessing national security needs.
Obama's pick for the head of Department of Homeland Security is
3. Treatment of Terrorism Suspects: Less Irrational, More Constitutional and Attentive to Due Process
Objections to the current treatment of terrorism suspects stem largely from the 2006 Military Commissions Act. This act legalized interrogation practices that amount to torture, stripped defendants of their right to challenge their accusers (habeas corpus), and established special military tribunals to try suspects. Obama opposed the bill at the time, and is consistently on record as opposed to torture. However, it is unclear at this juncture what steps he will take to refine these, with the exception of closing down
News reports citing Obama advisors suggest that there is almost no chance that Obama will seek to bring war crimes or other charges against those who authorized torture in the Bush Administration.
4. Civil Liberties in the
By all accounts, Americans' civil liberties were reduced in the name of terrorism during the Bush Administration --there are only differences of opinion on whether this was a good or bad occurrence. The PATRIOT Act, passed by Congress in October 2001, expanded the ability of the government to watch Private Americans' activities and collect information about them, and strengthened barriers against aliens' entry to the country, including through indefinite detentions.
The PATRIOT Act as a whole will remain in place. Obama has promised to review the constitutionality of such legislation as soon as he gets into office. Many find his selection of Eric Holder reassuring, since Holder has spoken out against such excesses. An Obama administration might reinstate or insert oversight requirements into legislation that has the capacity to threaten individual privacy. Bush routinely disregarded or circumvented requirements for Congressional oversight.
A certain degree of increased government and private sector cooperation on sharing information about private individuals, and increased government surveillance of its citizens, is here to stay, however. No government will roll back trends in surveillance technology, and government surveillance habits, which began well before 2001. The September 11, 2001 attacks helped make intrusions palatable that were not when, for example, they were proposed in counterterrorism legislation during the
5. Bioterrorism and Nuclear Terrorism: Greater Focus
Nuclear, biological and cyber terrorism will receive priority attention under Obama. He made combating the potential of nuclear terrorism part of his campaign platform. A few months before the election, he charged the Bush administration with failing to adequately confront nuclear terrorism. A report issued immediately following by the election, by Harvard's
http://terrorism.about.com/od/issuestrends/a/ObamaCTPolicy.htm?nl=1