(27Sept 06) By popular request Peggy Lee, 'It's a good day'
(27Sept 06) “…Following the assassination of Swami Shraddhanand at the hands of a Muslim fanatic in December, 1926, Mahatma Gandhi had said: "Mussalmans have an ordeal to pass through. There can be no doubt that they are too free with the knife and the pistol. The sword is an emblem of Islam. But Islam was born in an environment where the sword was, and still remains, the supreme law. The message of Jesus has proved ineffective because the environment was unready to receive it. So with the message of the Prophet. The sword is yet too much in evidence among the Mussalmans. It must be sheathed if Islam is to be what it means - peace." This was 80 years ago….Going by the statements of the Pope and many others, it appears as if time has stood still. Nothing has happened between 1926 and 2006 which would warrant us to say that Gandhi's view on Islam is now irrelevant….” The Pope is not alone by A Surya Prakash “…So what is new in what the Pope said some days ago in Germany ? Shall we now put Gandhi, Ambedkar, Annie Besant and Vivekananda in the dustbin of history and mollify the hotheads in the Islamic world, or shall we stand up and tell these radical Islamists that the liberal, democratic world has now run out of patience? …Truly, democrats around the world are tired of explanations. If Islam means peace, we must ask the adherents of Islam to please show it! The angry outburst of Muslims across the world may silence the Pope or force him to backtrack, but nobody should be deceived by it. The problem will not disappear with the Pope's partial retraction. As the reactions of Archbishop Christodoulos and Lord Carey show, non-Muslims are not going to be cowed down by threats of violence either. The apprehensions about Islam in the non-Muslim world are real. Muslims must face this truth and take the initiative to give themselves a new, moderate image. Nobody else can do it…”.
(27Sept 06) I originally had no intention of posting this article, as so much had already been written and said (and for that matter demonstrated) concerning the Pope's quotes and comments on September 12 regarding the link between Islam and violence as observed by Emperor Paleologos in the 14 th century.
This posting is pretty much self explanatory. Dr Mark Durie wrote the lead article Creed of the Sword for the “Inquirer” section of The Weekend Australian (Sept 23/24). As you will see from his letter in today's Australian (27/ 9) Target of intimidation, he attracted what is now becoming the familiar intimidating response which again points to the central accuracy of the Popes original observations. The 2 Danny's experienced the same only on larger scale through VCAT in an action brought by the very same Islamic Council of Victoria of which Yasser Soliman is a former President.
(27Sept 06) “..Many commentators have pointed out the apparent hypocrisy: Muslims are outraged by cartoons satirizing Islamic extremism while in Muslim countries Christianity and Judaism are attacked viciously and routinely….Many commentators are missing the point: These protesters — and those who incite them — are not asking for mutual respect and equality. They are not saying: “It's wrong to speak ill of a religion.” They are saying: “It's wrong to speak ill of our religion.” They are not standing up for a principle. They are laying down the law…” Submit or Die by Clifford May, “…Imad Hamto, a Palestinian religious leader, said: “We want to use the words of the Prophet Muhammad and tell the pope: ‘Aslim Taslam' …Aslim Taslam is a phrase that was taken from the letters sent by the Prophet Muhammad to the chiefs of tribes in his times in which he reportedly urged them to convert to Islam to spare their lives…Is the Western ideal of freedom of speech and of the press threatened? Of course but that's only part of what is at work here. More significantly, Americans and Europeans are being relegated to the status of a dhimmi — the Arabic word applied to those conquered by Muslim armies between the 7th and 17th centuries. Based on sharia law, dhimmis are meant to “feel themselves subdued,” to acknowledge their inferiority compared to Muslims….”
(27Sept 06) “…what of the peoples and nations that fell under Islamic occupation? For them the story was one of forced conversions to Islam, slavery, death and the Islamic institution of dhimmitude ….This is the word that describes the parlous state of those who refused to convert to Islam and became the subjugated, non-Muslims who were forced to accept a restrictive and humiliating subordination to a superior Islamic power and live as second class citizens in order to avoid enslavement or death. These peoples and populations were known as dhimmis , and if such a status was not humiliating enough, a special tax or tribute, called the jizya , was imposed upon them and upon all dhimmis …. Jihad can be pursued through force or other means such as propaganda, writing, or subversion against the perceived enemy . The so-called enemies are those who oppose the establishment of Islamic law or its spread, mission, or sovereignty over them and their land. Propaganda and subversion are the very means now being employed against the West and Judeo-Christian civilization, and Islamists have shown themselves to be brilliantly adept at manipulating the gullible and uninformed western media in pursuit of their aims of world domination…” Dhimmitude for Dummies by Victor Sharpe, FrontPageMagazine.com “… Dhimmis were excluded from public office and armed service, and were forbidden to bear arms. They were not allowed to ride horses or camels, to build synagogues or churches taller than mosques, to construct houses higher than those of Muslims or to drink wine in public. They were not allowed to pray or mourn in loud voices as that might offend the Moslems….“The dhimmi had to show public deference toward Moslems, always yielding them the center of the road. The dhimmi was not allowed to give evidence in court against a Moslem, and his oath was unacceptable in an Islamic court. To defend himself the dhimmi would have to purchase Moslem witnesses at great expense. This left the dhimmi with little legal recourse when harmed by a Moslem. “ Dhimmis were also forced to wear distinctive clothing…The concept of jihad is not something now discarded by Islam as a quaint belief appropriate to the distant past. On the contrary, it is a cardinal belief in the 21st century for Moslems based upon Koranic injunctions….”
US - Flight 77 Simulation Demolishes Lunatic 9/11 Theory
(25Sept 06)For those that still don't believe that flight 77 never hit the Pentagon, take 5 minutes out of your day and watch this presentation.
Jihadism: Where is it at in 2006
(25Sept 06) Steven Emerson is regarded as the world authority on terrorist organisations and their myriad permutations. This is a speech he gave at the Sydney Institute in February this year. Note the links to deception and FAMSY below. Skip to the bottom of page 4 of the deception link and read where Dr Zachariah Matthews in a lecture at the University of Western Sydney to muslim youth in March 2001 was even then, advocating that “ Deception is Necessary ”
“…how did the Jihadists groups succeed in getting so advanced in the heart of the West? One word I would use would be “ deception” . Cultural jihad hid under the guise of pluralism and became part of the moral equation. Instead of defining themselves as standing for intolerance, the cultural Jihadists inverted the moral argument and said they were the victims of hate crimes. Cultural Jihadists actually created “civil rights” groups and demanded that they be included and enfranchised in a plural society where minorities are usually excluded. They targeted the very vulnerability of Western society – the charge of being a racist. In fact, these groups were the very incarnation of racism…” Jihadism: Where is it at in 2006 by Steven Emerson “… the institutional leadership of the Islamic world, emanating from the Al Alzhar University in Cairo – a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated institution – to the Wahabist Institutions in Saudi Arabia, all articulate and champion the cultural jihad. This is the notion that it is acceptable to carry out violence as long as one is not caught pulling the trigger….throughout the 1990s the Jihadists created a whole infrastructure in the United States, in Europe and even in Australia, of Muslim Brotherhood-oriented institutions that didn't define themselves as a Muslim brotherhood but called themselves different names, different acronyms, that misled and deceived. In Australia it is operating under a group called FAMSY …”
Pope and issues warning on violent Islam
(20Sept 06)“…The former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton has issued his own challenge to “violent” Islam in a lecture in which he defends the Pope's “extraordinarily effective and lucid” speech…. “We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times,” he said. “There will be no significant material and economic progress [in Muslim communities] until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and even their most cherished shibboleths.” Carey backs Pope and issues warning on violent Islam , Times Online “…Arguing that Samuel Huntington's thesis (The Clash of Civilisations) has some “validity”, Lord Carey quoted him as saying: “Islam's borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people is convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.” Lord Carey went on to argue that a “deep-seated Westophobia” has developed in recent years in the Muslim world…”
(20Sept 06)“…If hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, political correctness is the tribute intelligence must pay to ignorance. That's the moral in the controversy between Benedict XVI and radical Muslims, which cooler heads are working to prevent becoming a war between the Vatican and the "religion of peace." The chronology of this dispute is a ride through the fun house: The pope, in a theological lecture to scholars at a Roman Catholic university in a small town in Germany , cites a long-dead emperor's rebuke of the long-dead prophet of the Muslims for instructing his followers to kill infidels in the name of peace. And what happens? Muslims eager to demonstrate what a canard it is to accuse them of violence slay a Catholic nun and firebomb a half-dozen Protestant churches…” Paying Tribute to ignorance by Wesley Pruden “…The argument at hand is about what the pope said, but the underlying issue is whether the civilized West will accept the proposition that Islam must be "respected" as the radical Muslims and the terrified and cowed moderate Muslims insist, that everyone hold it above not only criticism but above nothing less than mindless obeisance… "Faith" by the sword is an oxymoron, anyway, since faith, like love, is embraced only willingly and held as private and precious in the secret places of the heart. This is the essential difference between the heartfelt Christianity of the Bible and the cold, severe Islam of the Koran…”
(19Sept 06) “…Five years after we finally noticed that Muslim enemies were at war with us we still haven't identified those enemies or developed a realistic strategy for victory. The depth of our confusion shows in the ridiculous debates that preoccupy our politicians and journalists… Almost nobody pauses to consider that Manuel (Paleologos) might have something to teach us. Instead our conversation centres on whether the Pope is to blame for riling Muslims up and what he (and we) can do to mollify them…. Our preoccupation with such trivial matters says something important about the chattering class – it is incapable of seeing our problem with Islam. Even the shock of September 11 failed to open many eyes, and the shock wore off long ago… Islam is fractured into any number of sects, tribes and ethnic groups, but the dream of destroying us cuts across all the fault lines. Islamic terrorists are merely the tip of a very large spear…. Somehow the “moderate” Muslims who are supposed to counterbalance the “radical extremists” never stand up to be counted in any great numbers. There is no reason to believe that any significant number of Muslims are appalled by terrorism and stand ready to help us purge their faith of the few dangerous extremists who are responsible for it…” Know Your Enemy , The American Thinker “…Nevertheless many of our best and brightest do believe exactly that. This is the sort of wishful thinking that makes a mockery of military planning and gets people killed…..To win; we have to suppress the demand for terrorism. Some have claimed that we can accomplish that goal by withdrawing our support for Israel or by tweaking our foreign policy in some other way. This is dangerous, ahistorical nonsense…. We have to teach a proud culture a bitter lesson. We have to convince it that Islam can only survive in the modern world by adapting to the reality that the infidel calls the shots. Muslims have to accept that our culture is dominant over theirs and, however much this offends their religious sensibilities, no amount of brutality and barbarism will change that. They need to understand that sending terrorists to wage war against us is self-destructive lunacy, not a low risk way to soothe a well-earned inferiority complex…”
Political Correctness Now Precludes U.S. Winning a War
(19Sept 06) “…Bill Cosby once did a comedy routine wherein he described the “rules” of the American Revolution. Intoning, as would a referee, Cosby announced that the British had to fight in the open, wearing bright red uniforms, that they must march in straight lines and could fire their muskets only when the order was given. Meanwhile, the colonists could wear clothing that blended into the landscape, could hide behind rocks and trees and could fire at will. Unfortunately, American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan find themselves in a decidedly unfunny situation that is eerily similar to the comedic description Cosby gave us all those years ago. They are expected to observe rules of engagement that do not apply to our enemy and are guaranteed to get Americans killed. The recent airing of the ABC miniseries, “The Path to 9/11,” gave us all a brief glimpse into the timidity of today's leaders in both political parties…” Political Correctness Now Precludes U.S. Winning a War , Human Events Online “…Now we hear of a recent scenario in which American forces had the opportunity to kill nearly 200 known Taliban terrorists attending a funeral in Afghanistan and could not get the order from their superiors to take them out. Hold fire at Taliban fighters: they are attending a funeral “... These are people who will go on to kill our troops in the field. Not since the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese have we fought an enemy who so clearly required death or an unconditional surrender. We have not demanded and achieved unconditional surrender from an enemy since the end of World War II, and we won't unless and until we learn the lessons of 9/11…”Photos from a London demonstration
(17Sept 06) And just in case you've forgotten about the invocations to violence, it's worth reviewing these photos from a London demonstration earlier this year over the Danish newspaper cartoons. It reinforces the point. And of course it's all their own work.
These same pictures were originally posted on this site in February earlier this year
(11Feb06) We are for ever being told that we must understand. But that's the point. We DO understand. A picture is worth a thousand words.
(17Sept 06) In light of the Muslim outrage over the Popes quote from the 14 th century its worth taking another look at this. Reposted from Feb 9 2006 Outraged Muslims
Is this what they mean by "Muslim tolerance'?
(17Sept 06) “…Listen to this: "Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate." Or then again, this: "Believers, take neither the Jews nor the Christians for your friends." Then there is the instruction to fight against those who are not of the true faith "until they pay tribute out of hand and are utterly subdued"….All are direct quotations from the Koran, which Muslims believe to be the absolute word of Allah, and which cannot be altered. If you seek even more ferocious attacks on Christianity and Judaism, you will find them in the Hadith, Islam's other great book of scripture. Week after week in those lands where Muslims rule and Christians are a minority, the message pours out from the mosques: "God did not have a son." Is this what they mean by "Muslim tolerance'? By Peter Hitchens, The Mail on Sunday “…For years Liberals in the West have spread the myth of "Muslim tolerance". It does not exist and never did. Where Islam rules, other faiths must cringe in humiliated subjection. These are facts. Is it not astonishing that this militant, angry religion, whose name means not "Peace", but "Submission", whose whole existence is based on the denial and rejection of its rivals, dares to get into a self-righteous rage over an obscure quotation in a dull academic lecture by the head of the Roman Catholic Church? In Islam it is still the year 1427. They have had no reformation…If we bow to this manufactured, hypocritical fury, then we will already have lost one of the most important battles to face us. Back the Pope…”
Iraqi militant group threatens Vatican in Internet message
(17Sept 06) Now let me see if I've got this right. The Pope comments on some comments made by a 14 th century emperor about the violent methods of Islam. The Muslim Umma, (community) gets irritated, annoyed and very angry about this and threatens the Vatican with of all things, violence. Talk about the self licking icecream cone …Read on… Iraqi militant group threatens Vatican in Internet message and here Assailants attack five churches in West Bank, Gaza (scroll further down on the same page)
Friday Sermons in Saudi Mosques: Review and Analysis
(16Sept 06) While everyone in the Muslim world is outraged by the Popes comments of last week, simply quoting a 14 th century emperor. Here are some more contemporary comments they may like to take issue with. Friday Sermons in Saudi Mosques: Review and Analysis
(16Sept 06) “…What should amaze us isn't the terrorists' strength, which has limits, but the comprehensive failure of Middle Eastern civilization. Given all the wealth that's poured into the region, its vast human resources and all of its opportunities for change, the mess the Middle East has made of itself is stunning…. Beyond Israel , the region hasn't produced a single first-rate government, army, economy, university or industry. It hasn't even produced convincing second-raters….. Many of the social, governmental and psychological structures at the core of Middle Eastern societies pre-date Islam. Authoritarian government; a slave-like status for women; pervasive corruption; labor viewed as an evil to be avoided; the relegation of learning to narrow castes; economies that rely on trade rather than productivity to generate wealth, even the grandiose rhetoric - all were in place long before Islam appeared. The repeated failures we've witnessed go far beyond a religion on its sickbed. Instead of Islam being the Middle East's problem, what if Islam's problem is the Middle East ?...” Cradle of Hate by Ralph Peters, New York Post “…Were Christianity and Judaism "saved" because they escaped the Middle East? Were these other two great monotheist religions able to master the power of knowledge and human potential because they were driven from their stultifying cultural and geographic origins? Did the Diaspora and the subsequent Muslim destruction of the cradle of Christianity ultimately save these two faiths? …The Middle East is a straitjacket that turns religions mad. We got away…. Since the Renaissance, the West fixed its gaze on the future. Islamic civilization sought to freeze time, to cling to a dream of a lost paradise, part Islamic Baghdad, part Babylon…"Oil-rich" Saudi Arabia has a per capita GDP half that of Israel's (whose sole resource is people). Dubai has shopping malls - selling designer goods with Western labels… The problem is that the Middle East hasn't been able to escape the Middle East…”
Popes comments on Islamic violence may lead to Islamic violence
(16Sept 06) “…Since his (the Popes) comments, the issue has escalated, in a manner similar to the escalation of the furor over the Danish cartoons . Even though the Pope's comments were extracted out of context, it could well be that the issue will, like the cartoons, provoke violence from Muslims, and thereby prove the validity of Manuel Paleologos II's analysis of Islam. Muslims themselves will not appreciate any irony in using violence to prove that Islam is nonviolent….Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood has condemned the speech and has said that Islam was a religion of "peace and reason", which does not explain why Qaradawi supports the killing of Israeli civilians by suicide bombers….” Popes comments on Islamic violence may lead to Islamic violence “…One comment the Pope had made in his speech, which came from himself and not from the 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel Paleologos II was this: "Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul." This comment is probably far more challenging to Islam than Paleologos' simple truthful statement. The fact that Mohammed went to war against unbelievers is something Muslims at one hand seem proud of, even though on the other hand they lie that that Islam means "peace", when it literally means "submission.” To say: "Violence is incompatible with the nature of God" indicates that Mohammed, the high priest of violent jihad, was not "of God", which any sane analyst outside of Islam would have to admit was true. Since when did men of God kill civilians , indulge in genocide (against the Banu Qurayzah tribe in Medina ) and have sex with nine year old girls ? This issue will run and run, I fear, and it will end in bloodshed of innocents. Such is always the way of Islam when it feels "offended". The cartoon protests in February, when at least 30 people died, are proof of that….”
9/11, Five Years Later: A View From Europe
(16Sept 06) “…On 9/11 (as now), I was a New Yorker living in Oslo . Yet that day I realized I'd never left home – for this was, I knew, an attack not only on my hometown but on the free world. Clearly, we were at war – not only with terrorists, but with their philosophical allies in the West….In the wake of 9/11, European leaders felt obliged to join America in invading Afghanistan. But the initial show of solidarity by politicians and intellectuals (“we are all Americans”) quickly gave way to declarations that the U.S. – by supporting Israel , buttressing Arab dictators, fostering globalism, etc. – had asked for 9/11. But not Europe . Europe was the Muslims' friend….Then came Madrid , London , Bali , Beslan, Mumbai. Van Gogh was butchered; Muslims rioted in France ; their coreligionists in Denmark rampaged over newspaper cartoons of Muhammed. The Western European elite played down, even denied, any connection among these events. Yet year by year the truth has become increasingly clear: though the U.S. was the target on 9/11, the front line of the war with Islamism is Europe….On 9/11, I would never have imagined that five years later, a man who refuses to condemn the stoning of female adulterers would be respected as the leading voice of “moderate” European Islam; that European governments would still be funding within their borders mosques and Muslim schools that teach contempt for democracy, Jews, gays, and sexual equality;…” 9/11, Five Years Later: A View From Europe by Bruce Bawer, FrontPage.com “…that Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen would argue for accepting the oppression of Muslim women in the West; and that Britain would still be sheltering radical clerics, Queen Elizabeth knighting the likes of Iqbal Sacranie (who calls homosexuality “unacceptable”), and London mayor Ken Livingstone praising as “progressive” the above-mentioned al-Qaradawi (who has defended suicide bombers and the execution of gays)…. would never have believed on 9/11 that in 2006, most Europeans would still be surprised to learn – to pluck two examples at random – that over seven in ten immigrant women in Sweden (according to an EU study) are affected by “honor-related violence” and that Jewish children (according to a French government report) “can no longer get an education” in France because of abuse by Muslim classmates….On 9/11, the free world was powerfully reminded of its freedom. In Europe, alas, that day's spirit has been steamrollered by an establishment that – apparently having already accepted the inevitability of Europe 's Islamization – routinely turn the truth on its head, representing aggressors as victims and self-defense as inflammatory….”
REPOSTED! For more on the Muslim Brotherhood in Australia
(10Sept 06) “…It is a decade since the US began an experiment in welfare reform. In 1996 Bill Clinton hesitantly signed into law the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families bill, to the dismay of fellow Democrats and the Left-liberal intelligentsia at large. Their Australian counterparts in the Labor Party and the welfare lobby could save themselves a great deal of needless embarrassment by taking on board the main lessons from that experiment…. In 1994, the number of people on the old program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, had peaked at 5.1 million. Once the new program began, the numbers went into free fall and by 2004 the total had plunged to two million. It was a 60 per cent drop, an outcome the reformers hadn't envisaged in their wildest dreams and which the opponents of reform found utterly inconceivable…” Welfare to work, Wedlock by Christopher Pearson, The Australian “…Kay Hymowitz is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal, which published her overview, How Welfare Reform Worked, in its spring edition. Hymowitz offers a lucid and detailed account of the gap between what the US welfare lobby expected and what happened…. American critics of welfare reform argued in the mid-'90s, as their opposite numbers in Australia do to this day, that even if single mothers found jobs they'd probably be underemployed or in entry-level jobs that would leave them not much better off in real terms and perhaps worse off than they were on the dole. In the event, they were proved mostly wrong…I wonder how long it will take for the debate on poverty in Australia to catch up with the lessons to be drawn from the American experience. The local welfare lobby is still busily accusing the Howard Government of meanness whenever it moves to encourage single mothers to take some part-time work and subverting its attempts to enforce breaching provisions on the non-compliant. For all of Noel Pearson's eloquent denunciations of welfare dependency as "poisoned flour", far too few of the social welfare salariat seem to realise that's really what they're doling out. As for a social engineering project to encourage single mothers to marry, that is likely to remain a bridge too far in Australia for the foreseeable future…”
(10Sept 06) “…George Bush recently declared that we are at war with "Islamic fascism." Muslim-American groups were quick to express furor at the expression. Middle Eastern autocracies complained that it was provocative and insensitive… Once again, they seek to fool Western liberals through voicing a litany of perpetual hurts. Like the Nazis who whined about the Versailles Treaty that ended World War I, and alleged maltreatment of Germans in the Sudetenland, for years Islamists harped about American troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, the U.N. embargo of Iraq and the occupation of Gaza and Lebanon…But when each complaint was settled, another louder one sprung up; these grievances, it turned out, were pretexts for a larger sense of victimhood, jealousy and lost pride…” It's Fascism-And It's Islamic by Victor Davis Hanson “…Like Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo, who sought to recapture lost mythical Aryan, Roman or samurai purity, so Islamic fascists talk in romantic terms of the ancient caliphate. … Even now, it is hard to distinguish the slurs against Jews ("pigs and apes") used in the Middle Eastern media from the venom of Joseph Goebbels' propaganda. Goose-stepping and stiff-armed salutes at Iranian and Hezbollah parades are conscious imitations of past fascist armies….Some object that the term "Islamic fascism" is too vague to encompass the differing agendas of diverse groups such as the Wahhabis, al-Qaida and Hezbollah. But just as racist German Nazis found common ground with Asian supremacists in Japan , so too the shared hatred of the West trumps the internecine rivalries of present-day Islamists…”
ISLAMISM - BEYOND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
(10Sept 06) This is an absolute disgrace…Take it up with your local, state and federal politicians!
“….Australia has granted asylum to five men who claim their membership of an organisation accused of ties to al-Qa'ida would expose them to persecution in their home countries. The men from Syria , Egypt and India sought protection on the basis of their membership of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been banned in Syria and is considered the father of terrorist groups including al-Qa'ida. Osama bin Laden's right-hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri adopted the organisation… US terror expert Steven Emerson said the practice of allowing Muslim Brotherhood members into Australia was "extremely dangerous"… The worrying statistic is not only the number of those who were accepted by the Refugee Review Tribunal as refugees because they could prove that they belonged to the Brotherhood BUT the far greater number who were rejected because they could not do so…” ISLAMISM - BEYOND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS by Paul Stenhouse “….The Department of Immigration accepts as a datum that ‘The Muslim Brotherhood is not an extremist group…. If the Egyptian government and the Syrians – not noted for squeamishness in dealing with militant opposition – fear the Muslim Brothers then Australia would be foolish to think it knows better…The militant wing of Hamas is attached to the Brothers, and both its founders belonged to the brotherhood… If proving that you belong to the Brotherhood entitles you to refugee status in Australia , then it entitles you to citizenship also; and nothing can prevent your setting up a branch of the Brotherhood in a nearby supermarket. How can the anonymous Australian bureaucrats who decide the criteria to be applied to seekers of asylum, know that ‘the Brotherhood,' is not still ‘work[ing] under the Islamic doctrine of "concealment" ( kitman ) in order to "Islamize" the country'? Only this time, ‘the country' is not Egypt , Syria , the Sudan , Algeria or Palestine , but Australia ….”
(10Sept 06) This shouldn't be necessary, but 5 years on there some barking mad types who seriously believe the conspiracy bunk even though Bin Laden has fesssed up…or did they conveniently miss that bit.
“…Wild conspiracy tales are peddled daily on the internet, talk radio and in other media. Blurry photos, quotes taken out of context and sketchy eyewitness accounts have inspired a slew of elaborate theories… Debunking 9/11 myths Popular Mechanics “…To investigate 16 of the most prevalent claims made by conspiracy theorists, Popular Mechanics assembled a team of nine researchers and reporters who, together with PM editors, consulted more than 70 professionals in fields that form the core content of this magazine, including aviation, engineering and the military. In the end, we were able to debunk each of these assertions with hard evidence and a healthy dose of common sense….”
Scroll half way down and listen to the 70 minute Popular Mechanics audio presentation
Because of the extraordinary response to this article, Popular Mechanics decided to continue this project and to publish a book-length version of our results. Click here to find out more.
(2Sept 06) “…. Let's take a Middle East quiz . Name a major medical breakthrough generated in a Middle Eastern nation other than Israel ?.... Got to think about that one?..... Let's narrow it down. Name a Middle Eastern nation that has produced extraordinary technological breakthroughs that power and operate millions of computers?.... Israelis working in Motorola's largest research and development centre came up with the basic elements of the modern cell phone. At Microsoft-Israel, Israelis developed most of the Windows NT and XP operating systems. And the Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at the Intel operation there. In fact, both the Pentium-4 microprocessor and Centrino processor were entirely designed, developed, and produced in Israel…Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only research and development facilities outside of the United States in Israel….” A Middle East Quiz by Alan Caruba “…By comparison with any other Middle Eastern nation, Israel has the highest average living standards with a per capita income in 2000 that exceeded the United Kingdom. Compared with the rest of the world, it has the third highest rate of entrepreneurs and the highest rate among women and people over 55….This is the nation that Iran 's president wants to “wipe off the map.”…. When the Israelis withdrew from the Gaza strip, they left behind greenhouses that had employed hundreds of Palestinians and produced an abundance of foods. The greenhouses were destroyed within days. Meanwhile Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization are at each other's throats…. Last question . If you had to move to any nation in the Middle East , which one would you choose?...”