Passing the hat. ;)
Mosque used as terror camp? Oh really…..
In killing the terrorists, you will only kill the worker bees. The queen bees are the preachers, who teach a deviant form of Islam in schools and Islamic centers, who capture and twist the minds of the young.”…
Terror flourishes in mosques, where it is bred and nurtured. The more who come to that conclusion, the better off we all will be. Mosques used as fronts for terror is not a novel concept. It has been going on for some time.
And continues…
Italy: Group used mosque as terror camp
ROME - Italian police arrested three Moroccans — an imam and two of his aids — they accuse of being part of a militant cell that allegedly used a mosque in a central Italian city as a terror training camp.
The group held courses on hand-to-hand combat and used propaganda films and documents downloaded from the Internet to teach how to prepare poisons and explosives, pilot a Boeing 747 and send encrypted messages, anti-terrorism police in Rome said in a statement.
Mosque + Islam = Terror
And whose fault is that I ask? Certainly not those who do the math.
Suicide bomb attack jolts China into realizing the risks of global ambition
Huh? Who are they blaming here?
A Pakistani security official examines wreckage of a vehicle after a bomb explosion in Hub near Karachi, Pakistan, Thursday, July 19, 2007. (Shakil Adil - AP)
At least 30 people were killed when a vehicle laden with explosives was detonated as the convoy carrying 60 Chinese rumbled through a market town near Karachi. Seven policemen and many bystanders died in the blast, which ripped through a bazaar and shops. However, the buses carrying the workers escaped serious damage.
Now why would anyone link islam to terror? It is beyond me…
They live in tight-knit communities that operate in a virtual vacuum inside whichever country they have been assigned. That breeds resentment among locals who fear for their livelihoods and are suspicious of outsiders.
How ironic…
On a related front…
270,000 oppose mega mosque in London @ Doctor Bulldog
LAHORE: More than 270,000 people signed up in opposition to plans for the Abbey Mills mosque, to be built on derelict land near the Olympic site in east London by the Islamic missionary sect Tablighi Jamaat, The Guardian reported on Thursday.
-The rest of you Brits need to stand up and help oppose this attempt to embarrass your nation.
UK PM’s office in furore over anti-mosque petition
Those behind the mosque, a Muslim group called Tablighi Jamaat, which has 75 million members and calls itself a missionary movement, say it will cost 50-75 million pounds.
Tablighi Jamaat: Jihad’s Stealthy Legions
Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Recruitment methods for young jihadists are almost identical. After joining Tablighi Jamaat groups at a local mosque or Islamic center and doing a few local dawa (proselytism) missions, Tablighi officials invite star recruits to the Tablighi center in Raiwind, Pakistan, for four months of additional missionary training. Representatives of terrorist organizations approach the students at the Raiwind center and invite them to undertake military training.Most agree to do so.
A Trojan Horse for Terror in America?
Within the United States, the cases of American Taliban John Lindh, the “Lackawanna Six,” and the Oregon cell that conspired to bomb a synagogue and sought to link up with Al-Qaeda, all involve Tablighi missionaries. Other indicted terrorists, such as “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla, and Lyman Harris, who sought to bomb the Brooklyn Bridge, were all members of Tablighi Jamaat at one time or another. According to Robert Blitzer, head of the FBI’s first Islamic counter terrorism unit, between 1,000 and 2,000 Americans left to join the jihad in the 1990s alone. Pakistani intelligence sources report that 400 American Tablighi recruits received training in Pakistani or Afghan terrorist camps since 1989.
The source of the Mega Mosque petition.
A message! @ English Rose
The ‘English Rose’ is no wallflower. The British people should thank her.
No amount of G8 aid to the “Palestinians,” nor a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, will pacify these current and potential killers. Even if Israel were obliterated (the goal of much of the Muslim world), the terror would continue until the entire non-Islamic world is under their control.
This is not the belief of an “Islamophobic” bigot. This is what they say in their sermons and media, teach in their schools, and believe in their hearts. It matters little that “the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists,” to quote a familiar Western mantra. It matters a great deal that most terrorists are Muslims. The sooner Western leaders and Western media begin stating what is obvious to most people; the quicker the real root cause can be dealt with.
13 responses so far ↓
1 Al Swearengen // Jul 23, 2007 at 12:04 am
While I concur with the basic premise of this piece, that being the engines of fundamentalism, these madrassas, are absolutely a large part of the problem. Many of the madrassas in Pakistan were established with Saudi donations from the 1990s up to today, and the effect it has had on the youth of that country can be seen in press reports every day.
I do take issue though, with your quoting of a piece that lumps Jose Padilla in with the others who are listed alongside, as Padilla’s trial is still ongoing, and there was no evidence presented that convinced me he is guilty of the charges he’s facing now, and especially not guilty of the charges our government indicted him on through the press in the 3 years leading up to his trial.
I think that we must separate many of these factors from one another in order to truly understand them. If a study of root causes is your aim, then you are on the right track. The train is derailed though, when unproven elements are incorporated within your argument. My 2 cents…Peace - Al
2 Al Swearengen // Jul 23, 2007 at 12:11 am
Oh - I forgot - when we’re talking about mosques in the US, we must be careful to not forget who we are. The FBI is well equiped to infiltrate mosques and build cases against American Muslims when laws are being broken. That they are Americans, and the constitution provides all of us the freedom to practice our religion, should not get lost in the shuffle.
Whether it is violent jihad, the bombing of abortion clinics, underage girls forced to marry grown men against their will or the molestation of children, our nation’s law enforcement must be allowed to investigate such crimes, regardless of what particular religion is perpetrating them.
I know it is unpopular in these times to say such things, but the constitution is still what makes us who we are. If we lose that basic truth amidst the fear invoked by terrorism, then in my view, we are handing those terrorists a victory.
3 InfidelParrot // Jul 23, 2007 at 7:26 am
“when we’re talking about mosques in the US, we must be careful to not forget who we are. The FBI is well equiped to infiltrate mosques and build cases against American Muslims when laws are being broken. That they are Americans, and the constitution provides all of us the freedom to practice our religion, should not get lost in the shuffle.”
I think you underestimate how political law enforcement, especially at the federal level can be. Especially if the dems gain control of the White House, enforcing any laws against religious groups will not be easy due to existing civil rights laws and policies. True Islamic countries allow for minimal freedom of religion (read up on dhimmitude) and no freedom of expression, but they seem to have no trouble asserting their freedoms in the US.
I’m not saying that I disagree with you that federal or even local law enforcement are able to deal with terrorism threats, but I think we have to update the penal codes through legislation to make sure that all levels of law enforcement will have the power and judicial support to investigate and prosecute Islamic terror suspects in the US, and hopefully BEFORE the attacks occur.
4 Al Swearengen // Jul 23, 2007 at 12:04 pm
“I think you underestimate how political law enforcement, especially at the federal level can be. Especially if the dems gain control of the White House, enforcing any laws against religious groups will not be easy due to existing civil rights laws and policies. ”
This really isn’t fair to say, that law enforcement will be lax under Democratic leadership. The evidence doesn’t jive with what you’re saying. Just take the Padilla trial as an example. The FBI was wiretapping his co-defendants in the late 90s, and those conversations have been used as evidence in the trial.
The WTC bombers were all caught, prosecuted and convicted on Clinton’s watch. His failures I cannot brush past, ie. having sex with Monica and thereby not having the political environment he needed to green light one of the few operations that may have netted us bin Laden. I don’t understand his reasoning for launching missiles into Sudan, after that government had offered to arrest and serve up bin Laden when he was in the country.
His deference to Saudi Arabia’s unwillingness to accept the burden of jailing bin Laden…this is a theme that continues up through today.
Not to get too far off track here, I just think it’s empty partisanship to elude that somehow our law enforcement will be lax under Democratic leadership. Foreign policy I’d buy, if the candidate was an idiot…I’m thinking Guiliani and Richardson here…but domestically there will not be an order to take a hand’s off approach with Islam in the US, regardless of what party the next President belongs to.
5 in2thefray // Jul 23, 2007 at 5:36 pm
The arrests may get made the investigations under gone. BUT the Dems are they likely to vigorously pusue prosecutions ?
6 Al Swearengen // Jul 23, 2007 at 7:10 pm
You’re talking out of your ass. I hate to be so blunt, though I have to point out that not only are you unable to see into the future, the last 14 years don’t support your statement.
Terrorism cases were built and tried during Clinton’s time in office, as it wasn’t even up to him whether one wou be prosecuted or not. That was up to Janet Reno…are you trying to say that Reno was letting a terrorist slide? I don’t think that woman would have let her own kin slide on a parking ticket!
7 InfidelParrot // Jul 24, 2007 at 9:00 am
Al,
Would Bill Clinton have passed the Patriot Act? I really doubt it, and you really can’t argue that while controversial, the Patriot Act has probably saved the US from many, many terrorist attacks over the last five or six years due to the surveillance and law enforcement cooperation for which it provides. I think that the liberals are more concerned with the preservation of civil rights than they are in investigating and prosecuting criminals. A notable democratic presidential candidate has been saying that the War on Terror is nothing more than a bumper sticker slogan. Another one has been saying that she thinks that public health care is more important than national defense. This is a recurring theme in the democratic party. Osama Bin Laden would vote for a democrat for US president. The libs think that if we could just withdraw from Iraq, terrorism that stems from Islamic Fundamentalism would just kind of die and we’d all be safe in the world.
8 Al Swearengen // Jul 24, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Isn’t it though? The phrase is misleading, and the virtue its meaning was squandered early on. Courts in Italy and another country (can’t remember which one) are currently trying criminal cases against our CIA for kidnapping (renditioning) suspects within those countries and flying them out.
I’d point out that the liklihood of this happening wouldh have been much much lower had we not invaded Iraq, and had we not detained and tortured so many people based on hearsay or incompetence. Our report card is mostly secret, but there are many cases where our authority was abused, and becasue of that, the legitimacy of the “War on Terror” exists within our own society and is repudiated by states who had initially approved.
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That track record is important. I can’t assume that Democrats or Republicans in the future will value the right to look at library records over port security or vice versa, but I can evaluate what HAS happened. If this is merely about branding, Coke vs. Pepsi, then it’s going to be an arbitrary reasoning for sticking with one’s favorite.
What you and people I hear on the radio are doing so often now, is to argue that Coke uses rat poison in its formula, and the product is supposed to be cola, but it looks and tastes like piss and apple juice. Pepsi, on the other hand, while it too has had its safety issues, and while it may not taste like cola either, it is at least LOOKS like it!
Assumptions don’t impress me. I’m really not buying most of what’s being sold on the right these days, especially when all of these things they championed, Patriot Act, extrodinary rendition, Guantanamo, torture, etc…have each led to a great deal of embarrassment both domestically and internationally.
And the only way we could have assumed this higher amount of authority in the world, was for our status to remain in tact. That hasn’t happened. Our legitimacy has been tainted. Even worse though, we’re throwing money at the problem…money that we don’t have, $12 billion per month down the hole in Iraq.
In 2004, 2005, 2006 and now 2007, I could turn on the radio and hear arguments from the right that we were “making progress”, “winning”…that instead of looking at this part of the country, what the listener should do is consider this other part of the country that is doing quite well. This is what I’m hearing now…Bush laid out the strategy during prime time, my wife and I watched it…he was talking about Baghdad.
Now everyone on the right is saying, “Don’t focus on Baghdad, focus on Anbar”…it’s the same game from last year and the year before. Meanwhile, my VA copays tripled from 2003-today.
I’m not buying it anymore.
9 InfidelParrot // Jul 24, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Al,
It’s absolutely true that the war in Iraq has been bungled and our nation has lost international diplomatic credibility. I wouldn’t dispute those points.
Assumptions may not impress you, but when you’re dealing with national security and/or war, of course you know that analysis of the relatively few public facts regarding such matters are almost all there is on which to base an opinion. Don’t fool yourself into believing that what you see on the news is an accurate reflection of what’s really happening in Iraq, in a strategic respect. The correspondents are not fed specific or accurate information regarding missions or objectives, and you must well know they have a flair for the dramatic when presenting the facts they ARE given.
It’s not false to claim that we’re winning in Iraq, because we have helped build a functioning democracy as well as powerful military and security force there. I also see the other side of things, where we are spending $12 a month on a war with no end in sight.
History will have to tell us how significant our invasion of Iraq was….the story isn’t finished yet.
As far as the broader “War on Terror,” no, the term was never well-defined. I think the spirit of it is alive and well in US foreign policy though. We are committed to showing profound strength and solidarity with our allies in the face of a rapidly escalating global terror threat. Just having an awareness of the global terror threat is more than most libs are willing to imagine. On the domestic fronts, France (in true French form) has already begun surrendering to militant and criminal Islam, Britain’s war is at hand, and ours is right around the corner. Before launching full-scale propaganda and violent jihad campaigns in the US, the terrorists are quite possibly waiting for an ACLU-approved, Patriot Act-repealing, shAmnesty-voting, CAIR-kissing, military-hating liberal president to be elected to help them out.
The people who I hear in the media referring to the term ‘War on Terror’ as a meaningless slogan have made no significant contributions to national security. Indeed, these people sport their $400 haircuts while playing $200 rounds of golf, flying around in chartered or private jets could not be more out of touch with reality. Bush, while not my favorite politician, is at least awake to the threats to American security and has done a lot to counter them.
10 Al Swearengen // Jul 24, 2007 at 7:59 pm
This is a generalization that doesn’t hold water at all.
The Islam-town(s) within several European cities, as I understand it, are indeed a cause for concern. I read that in the UK there was one section of London (I believe), where the social norm within the community was absolutely something that went against the moral code and values of the state. Assimilation should be the goal, and not to bring one’s entire culture with them into a country. I’d probably catch flack from the left for saying that, but when we’re talking about Islam in this form, implanted into a city like London…it’s not like around where I am…Brazilians have block parties in West Springfield at certain times in the summer (maybe the soccer team won or something), and the neighbors get pissed, we hear the voices saying they should leave their culture at home…but on normal days, those neighborhoods are no different than any other in the city.
There’s a big difference, and I’m not saying that you don’t see what I’m saying, I just want to get that out there, because the antipathy felt throughout the country in regards to immigrant groups who annoy, but pose no threat to anyone, builds up over time and right now I’m realizing that it’s been almost 6 years since 9/11…yet I can’t think of a single example in the continental US, where what is taking place in France or the UK can be picked out and judged to even be within the same ballpark.
I understand that there is fear of that not being the case in 5 years, 10 years, etc. [I’ll elaborate on this further down]
The term isn’t to be taken seriously at all. War cannot be waged, in real terms, against “terrorism”…it is a political slogan, nothing more. A declaration of war against an enemy is something that is written into our constitution and covered extensively in international law. This phrase was adapted by the administration at one point, with Rumsfeld rebranding it, “The Global Strugle Against Islamic Extremism”.
Throwing down the gauntlet on this point, use or belief in the phrase “war on terror”, doesn’t make sense to me. Are you saying that even though you realize it’s a weak concept, you’d point the finger at a liberal and say they’re weak for not pledging allegience to it? Terrorism, like drug trafficking and sexual molestation, is a crime. Wiretaps, infiltration, prosecution…phrase or no phrase, it’s a crime and will always be one. No specific use of the English language will manage to “super-charge” it or make it any more real than it already is.
I’m not on board with this campaign that’s been going on for a while now on the right, to just say across the board that journalism is an entirely corrupt, non-reliable discipline. Do I base my entire opinion on one source? No. I never watch the news on TV unless it’s CSPAN, but I read the NYTimes, WSJournal every day, and several other publications that come monthly. Online I refer to IraqSlogger once a day, and have google alerts (how I got here) up for various words as I go along.
I find the reporting to be rather good, and especially so w/ the NYTimes since they changed their public editor…that guy is on top of it. The radio for me, is performance art 100%. Left, right, sports, comedy…it’s all the same thing. I hear the right-wing talkers say what you’re saying all the time, that somehow there is a grand conspiracy where every single newspaper editor in the country has been co-opted, and this means (I suppose) that they simply make things up and run them. When complaints are made that an article was wrong on the facts, they simply ignore it and move on.
That’s not the case. When a journalist is found to have fabricated their stories, they aren’t given a verbal warning and 30 day probationary period…think about it. Just last week a reporter for the NYTimes and another for Reuters were killed covering stories in the field within Iraq. More journalists have given their lives to cover this war than any other war in human history.
Why isn’t that considered? I think it’s a matter of convenience…and if the media can’t be disregarded entirely, then one must deal with the facts that come from the reporting.
Hold on now. What is your definition of a ‘functioning democracy’?
We’re not covering new ground here. Historic perspective in this case has our role in the situation losing in modern history just about every time…and I only use the phrase “just about” in case there is something I’ve missed in my reading over the years.
Partisans (what insurgents were called prior to 1970 I guess) fight for their home, their piece of the earth. Whether or not they are co-opted by political movements (in Iraq there are at least 2 separate Shia blocs, 1 Sunni, 1 Kurdish, 1 al Qaeda), and whether that number of competing elements increases in number…it is beyond our control, beyond the control of any occupying force.
And it is the nature of these things for partisans to view the occupying force as the enemy. The natural course of events has civil war preceeded by the removal of outside military presence, technology, influence.
The ONLY thing I can see working would be for our soldiers to go on a rampage, executing each and every Iraqi government official, along with the bombing of all their homes. Then it would be a strategy to respond to aggression with total force…establish a new incarnation of an Iraqi government only when every politician is bought, their phone is tapped, and they understand the fact that to deviate from the program would mean their family dies.
We’d have to take over the role of Saddam and terrify everyone into submission.
11 Al Swearengen // Jul 24, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Or - leave these people alone and allow nature to take its course. That sounds gruesome, but it is what happens in nation-states who are in their infancy. Until a national politics can take shape, power will be fought for the old fashioned way.
Think about what kind of an influence Spain or France could have had in the midst of our own civil war…what business would it have been of theirs? What would have been accomplished if they’d moved in, claimed authority, and forced the north and south to go back to their respective corners?
The underlying conflicts would still exist. We’d wait for the authority to leave, and the war would continue, for the same exact reasons.
Preventing civil war within a state…the notion that it is even possible to begin with, let alone possible for an anglo-saxon force from the wast to prevent an arab one in the middle east that is fueled by religious beliefs…
12 Velvet Hammer // Jul 24, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Not that I mind how this discussion has grown. The fact that mosques harbor and breed terrorism, is the point of the topic. Not so much places of worship as havens of organized terror.
No discrimination. Truth.
As is the situation of the large number of islamic enclaves in France.
Zones Urbaines Sensibles
Sensitive Urban Zones
Or “No-Go Zones”
751 counted at the end of ‘06.
(How many now I wonder)
Population - millions.
Root causes: guest labor, high immigration levels, non-assimilation, liberal politics, and nanny state handouts.
Please someone tell me how the dems politics differ from what has been happening in Europe.
Political correctness + tolerance + bowing down = downfall of the west.
13 Al Swearengen // Jul 24, 2007 at 10:59 pm
I think it’s simplistic to compare France with the United States in the first place. In France there have been laws in place for quite some time that give preference to children of French descent. The infrastructure that these children are provided in terms of education, transportation, job placement, etc. is quite different from what the state provides in the ghettos.
Much like we have in the US, but not as pronounced and immediate as it is in France. One of those French ghettos might compare well with Baltimore, but the african americans in Baltimore were born here and can (mostly) speak the language. Still provided less in terms of education than children living in the suburbs, and rather than religion being the problem there, instead it’s the drug trade, murder and high rates of incarceration.
The state is burdened with footing the bill, but judging from our politics, nobody seems to care. Why should it be any different with Islam? The cops are an intregal part of what happens in the American ghetto, but for Islam and terrorism, it’s already kicked up about ten notches, with the feds taking each lead almost immediately.
When it comes to building cases and deciding on their own (not a higher up making a political decision to get headlines…what’s known in narcotics as “putting a lot of dope on the table” so the reporters can photograph it) when to bust the cell, the FBI is the most well equipped, well trained law enforcement aparatus we have.
Fretting over our country turning into something like what we see in France is irrational. It is to have no faith in the government, regardless of how much manpower gets allocated to that particular crime. The stats since 9/11 tell an interesting story, as (ballpark) over 500 terrorism arrests have been made, and around 25% actually end up getting charged under the terrorism laws.
When things are going well, approval numbers and whatnot, cases are allowed to be pursued at the right pace. Often when there is a political need for good news, these cases fold prematurely, are prosecuted on weak evidence that would have been better had the wire stayed up longer…not to mention the fact that after a year or two under surveilance, the connections between cells (if they exist) will then be known and understood.
As it stands now, 6 years after 9/11, the government is still talking about how “the gut” is perceiving things…which either means that there’s nothing going on, or there might be, but the decision to get headlines with some of those they have arrested meant that nothing significant came from the investigation.
I went on a bit there, but I’d like to call up someone like…Michael Savage sometime and have the opportunity to lay it out like that. He’s one man for whom “the myth” is the entire crux of his persona. He’s got his character down, and people eat it up. In 20 years he’ll be rich, and we’ll still be better off than France when it comes to Islam in this country.
And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a Democrat or Republican in the White House…not one iota. The feds still know what they’re doing. They don’t get stupid all of a sudden because someone new is in the White House. If a new administration shifts funding out of counter-terrorism, then there is a policy shift that can be viewed as why something got blown up.
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