October 1-15, 2001 / Afghanistan Crescent International

Afghanistan and the world await the US’s response to aircraft attacks

By Zafar Bangash

Afghanistan once again finds itself threatened with war and destruction, this time by the Americans. For nearly 25 years its people have known nothing but suffering. How ironic that they are now opposed by the military might of the very country which achieved the status of "sole superpower" because of the sacrifices of 1.5 million Afghans and the maiming of countless millions who fought the Soviet occupation forces. Once the Soviet forces had been driven out, the US turned against the very people whom it had supported so that they could achieve its aims. The Afghans were left to fend for themselves and their shattered country. Gratitude is obviously not one of Uncle Sam’s strong points.

The US’s war on Afghanistan will not be easy, despite America’s enormous destructive ability. It is not inconceivable that the US will use chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons against innocent people. America’s record against Iraq in 1991 betrays its true character. The US used depleted-uranium shells against Iraqi tank-armour. This has not only caused hundreds of thousands of deaths among the Iraqis, but also the emergence of hitherto unknown diseases among American and British troops. When Madeleine Albright, then US secretary of state, was asked by Leslie Stahl of CBS television on May 12, 1996, whether the killing of 567,000 Iraqis, most of them children, was justified in pursuit of one man (Saddam Husain), she replied, "the price is worth it." For whom, one might well ask. To date more than 1.5 million Iraqis have died because of the sanctions and, according to the UN’s own figures, at least 8,000 Iraqi children continue to die every month from malnutrition and preventable diseases.

In Afghanistan the situation would be no better. The chief difference is that, given its terrain, America will not find its war easy going. The Afghans’ fighting spirit and their mountainous terrain give them certain advantages that Iraq did not have. In addition, there is little or no infrastructure for the Americans to destroy; much of Afghanistan already lies in ruins. It is the human suffering that will be horrendous. Because of a three-year drought, Afghanistan is already suffering from acute food shortages. At least three million are affected by the drought, with one million facing starvation. War would increase human suffering to unprecedented levels. Millions of Afghans are on the move towards the Pakistan border. In the Afghan tradition, they will leave their families in refugee-camps and head back to defend their country and their honour.

History testifies that no foreign power has ever occupied Afghanistan. During his campaigns in this part of the world, Alexander was forced to retreat because of the Afghans’ tenacity in the face of his troops. Today the nature of warfare has changed, yet still if the Americans send troops into Afghanistan — and there is no other way of overthrowing the Taliban, which Condoleesa Rice, US national security adviser, says is their objective — they will pay a high price. The opposition Northern Alliance is not in a position to fulfil America’s ambitions, despite its offer of help: it lost its military commander, Ahmed Shah Masood, when he was blown up by a booby-trapped television-camera on September 11 and died a few days later.

With the alliance controlling less than 10 percent of Afghanistan’s territory in the northeast, it cannot be of much help to the Americans. Besides, the Taliban, Pushtuns who constitute 65 percent of Afghanistan’s population, also have considerable support within Pakistan’s tribal belt. There are at least 20 million Pushtuns in Pakistan with tremendous sympathy for the Afghans. There are also about 2,500 madrassas in Pakistan, which can mobilize some two million students for jihad. So the Taliban have no shortage of manpower; nor do they lack experience of fighting, which is their way of life as well as their way of death. It is the Americans who fear death. If the two sides are arraigned against each other in a seemingly unequal contest, the Taliban will more than make up in determination and courage what they lack in material.

The Americans’ demand that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Ladin has been rejected because Washington has provided no credible proof of his involvement in the attacks on September 11. On September 24 US secretary of state Colin Powell announced that the US would provide "compelling" evidence of Osama’s complicity, but ruled out giving such evidence to the Taliban. If the evidence is so "compelling", why are the Americans afraid to confront them with it? The Taliban have said repeatedly that, if the US can come up with credible evidence, they would be prepared to hand Osama over for trial in some Muslim country. The truth is that the US has no evidence against Osama (as it had none against the pharmaceutical factory in Sudan which the US alleged was producing chemical weapons); the US’s real purpose is to occupy the region, or at the very least control it more strongly against Islam and the wishes of its peoples (almost all of whom are Muslim): Osama and the Taliban are merely a convenient cover for this plan.

If the Americans plan to "go after Osama", they will have to use ground troops and make their way into the labyrinths of caves and tunnels in Afghanistan. Miles of them were dug inside the mountains during the Soviet occupation. These are virtually cities underground; there would be no way of getting Osama even if the Americans or their surrogates managed to get there. The far greater danger is that some agents, possibly from Pakistani intelligence, might lead them to a place where Osama could be apprehended. But even this would not solve America’s real problem: Osama is merely a mouthpiece for what Muslims worldwide feel about America’s policies and objectives. The list of US crimes is mindboggling; the CIA’s overthrow of a legitimate government in Iran (1953), and the attacks against Iraq (1991 to the present) and Sudan (August 1998) are but typical examples. In Sudan, American policies have resulted in the deaths of more than two million because of the civil war in the South since 1983. The destruction of al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory has also caused the deaths of another 150,000 people since 1998.

It is, however, the US’s unwavering support for zionist crimes in Palestine that has inflamed most anger in the Muslim world. The UN anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa, in September once more demonstrated the close relationship between the US and Israel. It also showed how isolated the two are internationally from almost everyone else. Yet such considerations are not likely to persuade the US to change its policies, whose victims are primarily (though not exclusively) Muslims. America pursues no less brutal policies against the people of South and Central America, for instance.

In building a case against the Taliban, Powell said that they cannot escape responsibility for what Osama has allegedly done. The same logic applies to American support of Israel. If the Taliban can be considered to be "guilty" of protecting Osama, then the US is guilty many times over of a far greater sin: underwriting every Israeli crime against Palestine and the Palestinians. Yet the US claims to be an "honest broker" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has given no sign that it is thinking of changing its policies, or willing to do so.

Regardless of what happens to Osama and the Taliban, America’s war (really the West’s war) against the Muslims will unleash forces that it will find difficult or impossible to control. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that American symbols will be targeted and attacked in different parts of the world. Similarly, there may be disruption of oil supplies if pipelines in the Middle East are blown up. The US and much of Europe are already in the grip of economic recession; the current crisis is making it worse. It would be far better for the US to look inward and reflect on why so many people in the world hate its policies. It is not enough to say that others are jealous of American prosperity and the "good life" it offers. America is a police state: people cannot venture outside after dark; it has the largest prison population in the world (two million) and more prisons are being built; it also has the world’s highest crime rates. But what kind of life it offers to its people is America’s own business; what it does to other people in other lands is those other people’s concern as well. So the US should not be surprised to find itself occasionally getting back some of what it hands out.

Regardless of who carried out the attacks on September 11 — and the truth about this may never be known — it is important for American policy-makers to consider why people are moved to such desperation. Even if George Bush is not capable of such introspection and analysis, there are surely a few intelligent people in the US government to contemplate these facts rationally, should they wish to. It is as much in America’s interests as in other peoples’ interests not to exacerbate an already dangerous situation. An American attack on Afghanistan will not lessen but increase hatred and resentment of the US, its policies, its arrogance and its stupid, selfish and insensitive complacency.

If America chooses to launch its crusade, it takes on a people who can give a fitting response. Muslims can be killed, even in large numbers, as they have been for several decades, but Islam cannot be defeated. America has neither the staying power nor a faith and trust that can inspire its people to the same level as Islam and the Qur’an can the Muslims. It would be much better for the US and its allies to renounce their unjust and oppressive policies and save their own people, as well as others, the suffering that otherwise surely awaits them.

Afghanistan may yet prove not merely another Vietnam, but even the US’s burial-place.

Muslimedia.com is the internet edition of Crescent International, newsmagazine of the Islamic Movement.

Memo to Zafar Bangash: F*** you.

How about we make a deal:

You want martyrdom without fighting?

We can oblige.

Islamic martyrs: We deliver.

The spider has posted.

Bump!

"I thought "Crescent International" was the muslim equivalent of the International Red Cross."

I think it's called 'Red Crescent.' (But, I'm not sure either.)

If America chooses to launch its crusade, it takes on a people who can give a fitting response. Muslims can be killed, even in large numbers, as they have been for several decades, but Islam cannot be defeated.

If we nuked Mecca and Medina I guaran-dang-tee you a bunch of Islamic jihad pansies would be screaming why oh why Allah hast thou forsaken me.

Guess what .... Islam wants a war, Islam is going to get one.

Faith in the moon/war god allah has little power matched against 10,000 degree expanding plasma wavefronts.

Evening Spider, interesting that they only focus on bad things and neglect little things like the millions of tons of food and medicine that the US has shipped to their part of the world. They also neglect to mention that the sanctions imposed against Iraq allow for the sale of oil for food and medicine for the Iraqui people. Of course, the food and medicine never get to the people because Saddam has other plans for it.

Details, details, details. These people are liars, they spew this nonsense while tons of food from the USA are being offloaded in order to feed the Afgans. I suppose they think we just want to fatten them up before we kill them. What morons!

God is still over all just as he was in ancient days, and he is a very present help in time of trouble. I was surprised to see an article like this from Cresent International, but we are a nation that has been caught up in the cares of the world, and we have tended to forget the God that has lead us in the past. We need to turn from our wicked ways, and he has promised to heal our land. Satan has determined to have us, so that he can sift us as wheat. I think of Elijah and the pagan priests, and God prevailed over all of them and showed his power. Lead us in this battle, Oh, Lord......God bless America!

If the Ka'abba is melted....then what? A tenet of the muslim faith is removed...there is no obligation. Hmmmm...

Wait. And sweat. Because you're not going to talk your way out of this with "Afghanistan is unbeatable" garbage. We're coming. God help you.

I love it...because terrorists aren't getting the "bombing" etc. that they wanted so they could truly make this their holy war they think we aren't responding. We are responding in so many ways, they just aren't in your time...they are in our timing now.

I have a feeling, that inside a year, we will be at war with all of Islam. It may take nucs to stop all of them.

'the itsy bitsy spider went in his hardened bunker. down came the nuke and burnt the spider up. then came some *sunshine* and roasted all the nuts. the itsy bitsy spider never killed again.' i hope all the children and innocent (3rd class afghani) women and men were allowed to get out of harms way and finally get some food and relief, and i mean that sincerely. but, as for the talibunnies, their avant garde and the murderous islamic whackos - bend over, grab your ankles and kiss your collective a**es goodbye! LET'S ROLL!!!

You forgot to add BARF ALERT

"If the Americans plan to "go after Osama", they will have to use ground troops and make their way into the labyrinths of caves and tunnels in Afghanistan. Miles of them were dug inside the mountains during the Soviet occupation. These are virtually cities underground; there would be no way of getting Osama even if the Americans or their surrogates managed to get there" Lets see....a little gasoline and a pump to force it into the caves and a match will go a long way along with a blower to force the flames back in the caves. Think they'll fry? Remember what GW said? "We'll smoke em out"

Well cool. I hope this dude is standing right next to Osama when justice is brought to him.

"I have a feeling that inside a year we will be at war with all of Islam. It may take nucs to stop them all.

Very possibly WWIII. However you can be sure that a contingency plan to execute in such a case has already been assumed by all the President's men.

WE ARE READY FOR ANYTHING.

WE ARE READY FOR ANYTHING.

I hope you are right. I still have a gut feeling, this will turn into WWIII. Watch and see, how many scum bag countries declare war on the U.S. in the coming months. I hope I am wrong, but we shall see. BTW, I saw two F-16s driving by today. I won't say what direction I saw them going, but being as I used to be an air traffic controller, I already know.

I have this gut feeling, this will turn into WWIII...watch how these scumbag countries declare war on us in the coming months...

Everyone in the region seems to have an itchy finger: India, the Ruskies, China not to mention the usual instigators Iran, Iraq, well let's face it -- nearly the entire Arab world.

The stage is set for Armeggedon, isn't it? But these countries challenge us at their utmost peril.

Used to be an Air Traffic Controller, eh? How's the ulcer? ;-)

Well, you know, the first thing we should've done is CLOSE OUR BORDERS AND EXPELL ALL ILLEGALS. I like Judicial Watch's approach as well (go after business interests of OBL in this country.) We should get Hussein and OBL--dead, not alive.

Makes you wonder what the jerks in the govt. are doing. And they shouldn't rely on alliances with Muslims, Nato, Russia, China, etc. They will come at too great a price.

I love it ... because terrorists aren't getting the "bombing" etc. that they wanted so they could truly make this their holy war they think we aren't responding. We are responding in so many ways, they just aren't in your time ... they are in our timing now.

You completely miss the boat, dear. We're on God's Time now. And God is with the people of the United States of America. Maybe you should take a look around you, your thinking is missing reality just slightly.

was-salaam,
ankaboot
--
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.

To search for other threads on the Taliban_List
(Indexed by using Taliban_List)
click here:

Taliban_List

"And they shouldn't rely on alliances with Muslims, Nato, Russia, China, etc. They will come at too great a price."

You left out the UN.

How about we make a deal:

You want martyrdom without fighting?

We can oblige.

Islamic martyrs: We deliver.

LOL! You'd have to beat everyone else, we've been waiting since September 11 for some ragtag homegrown American terrorist squad to arrive, hoping the professionals will beat them to us (the pros are more likely to get everybody before they scare themselves away). Being American and muslim, it sort of goes with the territory when you live in a place so tolerant of kooks and wierdos: death is just a bozo away.

But you'd have to figure out which of the local non-muslim Americans (mostly everybody else in town) voted me into office in the last election and eliminate them first, to get here. They don't believe in that "Be like the better son of Adam" stuff much and they're itching to blow somebody away.

was-salaam,
ankaboot
--
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.

"I thought "Crescent International" was the muslim equivalent of the International Red Cross."

I think it's called 'Red Crescent.' (But, I'm not sure either.)

You're right, that's what it's called. Haven't seen much of them lately, certainly not in our "free press."

Wonder whether they'll come lay a mine field in my front lawn as "preventive medicine." LOL! Have you ever seen such venom at Free Republic as is showing up in my recent Threads? Looks like a bunch of people have "elected" me as their own personal bin Laden. What a joke. I guess "death threats" don't count here to get someone banned when they're "offers" directed at muslims, eh?

was-salaam,
ankaboot
--
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.

The government IS going after bank accounts and businesses. Where do you think Larry got the idea from ? He's always a dollar short and a day late.

Evening Spider, interesting that they only focus on bad things and neglect little things like the millions of tons of food and medicine that the US has shipped to their part of the world.

They portray that as economic imperialism or some such thing, the usual dialectical materialist (i.e., marxist-leninist) anti-colonialist rhetoric, it's all boilerplate stuff I learned in college. I've already forgotten the original article above, let me see ...

... Yeah, I remember reading a day or two ago that wheat previously bought by Afghanistan was now being shipped, the spin was that it was a big deal for the wheat-sellers to ship the grain and keep their bargain, sort of a humanitarian gesture, nothing like profits in our wheat belt or business-as-usual shipping schedules or anything. And of course there are all those neat tents for terrorized refugees and all that other good stuff.

But no evidence yet. No one's interested in calling the Taliban's bluff by providing publicly recognizable hard evidence and putting them to their word.

I saw one muslim "theorist" claiming that the war against the people of Afghanistan had already begun with terrorizing people out of the populated areas to the Pakistani and other borders that promptly closed -- but about the same time, I saw something from Maulana Muhammad 'Umar telling the people to stay home, also wrapped up in some rhetoric but the message was clear: stop worrying. I think there are some things going on behind the scenes that we don't know about.

They also neglect to mention that the sanctions imposed against Iraq allow for the sale of oil for food and medicine for the Iraqi people. Of course, the food and medicine never get to the people because Saddam has other plans for it.

Partisan spin is partisan spin, no matter who's spinning the tale. What's interesting is that I read all the time about sales of Iraqi oil and I read (and hear from muslims in Iraq) that the food and medicine gets where they're intended, as well. Partisan spin is partisan spin, read Guide to Events again. There's no shortage of calculated disinformation.

What's interesting is that facts can be checked -- usually, sometimes it's hard to find certain categories of facts in the United States. Ahmed Shah Masood is in fact dead, there are some facts on the ground that are interesting once they're extracted from the partisan spin.

Personally, I don't think we're going in to Afghanistan. Maybe a hit on bin Laden if he's actually still there. It's always a bad mistake to think that a Texan is dumb, you'll lose your ante every time. George knows more than he'll ever let on. He knows he can't sneeze without people studying it to see what he meant by it.

Details, details, details. These people are liars, they spew this nonsense while tons of food from the USA are being offloaded in order to feed the Afgans. I suppose they think we just want to fatten them up before we kill them. What morons!

It's not usually a smart idea to assume that anyone is stupid, actually, not just Texans.

was-salaam,
ankaboot
--
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.

"...a little gasoline and a pump to force it into the caves and a match will go a long way along with a blower to force the flames back in the caves."

Do a google search on Viet+Nam+Tunnel+Rats

While I have no doubt we're going to kick the living snot out of them, we tried the gasoline bit on the VC tunnels. It ain't all that easy if they build them right, and these will be.

Small tac nukes attached to rocket driven ground penetrator bombs will do it though - the cave-ins will bury them alive.

Wait. And sweat. Because you're not going to talk your way out of this with "Afghanistan is unbeatable" garbage. We're coming. God help you.

LOL! Really looks to me like you don't know whether you're coming or going. I don't need to "talk" myself "out of" anything -- looks like you're working pretty hard to talk yourself into something, though. If what you say wasn't so hilariously funny, some people might think it was a threat.

"We're coming" -- that's a laugh. You're sitting at your keyboard waiting to see when the show is coming on CNN.

was-salaam,
ankaboot
--
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.

I thought "Crescent International" was the muslim equivalent of the International Red Cross

No, it's similar to the Grand Slam breakfast, but includes formagio cheese.

You forgot to add BARF ALERT

At Steve Gibson's computer privacy and network security newsgroups, we use "C&C" for "Cats and Coffee" meaning remove cat from lap and put coffee down before reading, so you don't have to clean up your screen and keyboard and apply iodine from the cat taking off when you break out laughing.

But I didn't expect the article to get a lot of laughs, exactly.

Since September 13, by the way, I've captured seven hundred attempts to break into my machine from the Web, and firewalled a couple thousand others, from the Nimda worm and also from the Red Worm. Are Freepers generally aware that there is an army of high-speed computers constantly trying to find a vulnerability whenever they're connected to the Web, and a huge army of hosts -- about a hundred thousand Win2K/IIS server machines is my calculation -- is under the control of a single hidden and unknown party? The Nimda worm is after Windows 9X, ME, 2K, and NT machines, it attempts every known vulnerability -- and when a new vulnerability is discovered, the current version of the Nimda worm will be replaced in about ninety minutes (if that long) and the same constant search will continue until it finds every machine it can grab. And this is all transparent to the user ...

So what Free Republic category does that fit? It's definitely part of the weaponry set up for this attack on America, it's just not being used right now where we can see it.

was-salaam,
ankaboot
--
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.

It goes under the "Tinfoil Hat" section, but we take it seriously

Most Freepers are very aware of the need for fire-walls. There was a thread during the China/Reconnaissance plane ordeal discussing how big our Zone Alarm log files were getting to be, and how almost all the IPs were from China.

It goes under the "Tinfoil Hat" section, but we take it seriously

Thanks. I'll wait to see whether there's interest in the Red Worm -- which was incredibly sophisticated -- and the nimda worm, which looks to me like a cleanup/quality control for the Red Worm's army of hosts.

Most Freepers are very aware of the need for fire-walls. There was a thread during the China/Reconnaissance plane ordeal discussing how big our Zone Alarm log files were getting to be, and how almost all the IPs were from China.

The second version of the Red Worm, launched August 1^st, paid special attention to China and basically shut down the entire Web in China after it had saturated all the subnets and gathered its zombies there. No other place on the planet was hit as hard as China was.

was-salaam,
ankaboot
--
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.

Used to be an Air Traffic Controller, eh? How's the ulcer? ;-)

LOL, never had one.

I haven't missed the boat on anything. The Taliban believes we don't have the "courage" to respond or our response will be as weak as in the previous administration's bombing of an aspirin factory.

The fact is we are responding in many ways. We as a people are responding, our government is responding and soon our military will give further response. I don't miss reality and I don't miss self-righteous comments like yours.

sometimes I am too

Well, I guess you're right, and if you are, that means they are deliberately ignoring the fact that we're willing to help the good folks in the Muslim world. Doesn't it occur to them that we might want to feed hungry people because they are hungry? That we might be able to differentiate between the people of a country and it's government?

The sad part of all of this is that there are so few people in either place that really understands the other.

Well, I guess you're right, and if you are, that means they are deliberately ignoring the fact that we're willing to help the good folks in the Muslim world.

Islam, among other things, includes the science of nation-building. It's in the Torah, too. But both the Hebrews and the Arabs also sought out the science of nation-destroying: such as creating an ignorance of discontent, pitting the people against the administrators of their common wealth, while shifting support from one party to the opposite party until the social structure destabilizes and falls to secret manipulations and the squandering of the common wealth on partisan interests. These are both -- the creating and the destroying -- implemented only through the formation of parties of common cause, which we Americans have been educated away from with an emphasis on individualism, ego and competition and rivalry, through public education and entertainment media.

We form "parties" that last until someone doesn't like the look he got from Joe, and that's the end of common cause -- except in the business world of production and profit, and team sports: bread and circuses. False religion is, indeed, the opiate of solace in patience, waiting for a better world while the thieves and liars enjoy this one by keeping from us the knowledge of how to live in peace together productively with differing views and opinions. True religion brings people together in local communities to help each other in doing good things for each other and for others, serving God to their own understanding and being a benefit to their neighbors like the Children of Israel were in the Holy Land when they first went in and all the way through the time of Solomon. What the terrorists didn't realize is that Americans live in such communities all over the place -- greatly weakened by the linking of supportive funding to "tax exempt status" that silences the voices of the faithful in public affairs.

But neither the Hebrews, when Jesus called them to it, nor the Arabs, when they saw it rising in America, wanted to see what they had been given passed also to others. That's why we're under attack in America -- the building blocks of tomorrow were laid by the Founding Fathers from what they studied and practiced secretly in the lodges, and those tools are there for us today but now, especially since World War I and the change in revenue sources from import duties to income tax, in the possession of the corrupt -- and among them, some good folks, it's not easy to sort it out.

But those who've been bought by a foreign nation are plain and clear. They've been exporting terrorism for fifty years with YOUR money and in YOUR name. Maybe it's time the American people took a look or two. Or even three.

Doesn't it occur to them that we might want to feed hungry people because they are hungry? That we might be able to differentiate between the people of a country and it's government?

Not only the world's muslims but the people of the world cannot figure out how the American government does so much that the American people don't know about, or how the American people tolerate such a manifestly falsified view of it. It doesn't occur to them that we're not looking, that trust is our inclination before suspicion.

The sad part of all of this is that there are so few people in either place that really understands the other.

Religious pluralism was unknown prior to the revelation of the Qur'an. Islam spread by protecting religious and political freedom. We cleaned off the Temple Mount when it had been Jerusalem's garbage dump for hundreds of years. We rebuilt churches and synagogues and opened the routes for pilgrimage that had been closed to all but Roman Catholics -- the uniquely European Pauline trinitarian claim of Christianity -- for centuries. Sikhs, Zoroastrians, and Hindus didn't "disappear" when Islam came, they flourished. And when 'Abdur-Rahman escaped to Spain -- the sole survivor of the Abbasid genocide of the Umayyad dynasty -- it was Jews and Christians and muslims who built the Islamic Spain that produced the Golden Age of Judaism.

In other words this notion that muslims want to "convert" America is hogwash. It's made up of whole cloth, liars trying to frighten Americans from even looking at what muslims actually do -- like patiently becoming involved in the democratic process and electing George Bush along with America's other -- numerically more abundant -- sensible people.

Lies, lies, and more lies, from breakfast to noon and all the way to moonshine. And crazy, frantic, insane, demented used-to-be-muslims in the millennial muslim world giving the liars plenty of bogeymen to "prove" what has no other substance than what their corruption has created. With YOUR tax dollars and in YOUR name.

More Americans are looking at Islam and what it actually is for all of us -- which is the exact opposite of what the terrorists intended -- than ever before in history. Thirty years ago Islam was invisible in America -- last year muslims turned the election, deposing many of the Israeli Lobby's candidates. That's a miraculous development in such a short time. The last three weeks have been a hundred times as amazing. And nobody's out knocking on your door asking you to read this or that, or wanting to "convert" you from what already works for you to a strange set of ideas that might not suit you.

We want to pray five times a day standing shoulder to shoulder. Maybe we just need more reminding. It works for us.

It's just the Anti-Islam Brigades -- who've exposed themselves quite readily lately here at Free Republic by their intensity and lack of reason -- who haven't seen the handwriting on the wall.

LOL! Watch them jump on this, for example.

was-salaam,
ankaboot
--
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.

It's just the Anti-Islam Brigades -- who've exposed themselves quite readily lately here at Free Republic by their intensity and lack of reason -- who haven't seen the handwriting on the wall.

LOL, you do know that many who are posting here are NOT Freepers. This board is used all the time to further people's agendas and the rest of us patiently tear their little arguements apart so those who lurk get to see both sides of the issues.

As an American, I pride myself on judging the acts of INDIVIDUALS. I don't believe in group guilt, it's totally against the American character and against what this country stands for. I've seen the "Ugly American" abroad, and I agree it's disgusting, but I've also seen the kindness, the genuine hope for the prosperity and well being of others, the willingness to share what we have with those who have not.

Yes, there's greed in this country, but there is also amazing generousity. We are waking up and we are beginning to see what has been done in our name with our tax dollars. That's what this site is all about. We are trying to find that fine line where we can stand with our eyes wide open without tipping into cynicism and losing that trust that is such an important part of the character of this country.

What has happened in the wake of 9-11 is not a "revolution", it's a revelation. The true American character is being shown to the world in the instant rush to help our neighbors, in the vast outpouring of money and sweat, and willingness to face personal danger to help others. The world has seen it before, in WWII, at every disaster that befalls the earth, with every famine, to any country that asks for help.

The Muslim community should no more be blamed for the acts of Ben Laden than the American people should be blamed for the acts of a few corrupt politicians.

LOL, you do know that many who are posting here are NOT Freepers

LOL! I'm not even sure whether I can consider myself an honorary Freeper, I was well-received a couple of years ago and then went off to study computer privacy and internet security. I'm pretty much a religious hermit, I stay holed up with my family, the Qur'an, and the prophets, I'm not exactly what one would call generally relevant to the discussions here.

Republican Precinct Committeeman, of course, but that means I'm still waiting -- since being elected -- for a Central Committee meeting, when I'll get to meet some Christian rightists who aren't showing a great deal of savvy when it comes to functional politics in a religiously-neutral environment (which I wish it were!). Still not very relevant to the usual fare here at Free Republic.

What has happened in the wake of 9-11 is not a "revolution", it's a revelation. The true American character is being shown to the world in the instant rush to help our neighbors, in the vast outpouring of money and sweat, and willingness to face personal danger to help others. The world has seen it before, in WWII, at every disaster that befalls the earth, with every famine, to any country that asks for help.

Hitch-hiking across the country several times immunized me for all time against hearing complaints against the character of my countrymen. It's fun being an American, like it's fun being muslim -- lots of opportunities to do things that are unquestionably good things to do.

The Muslim community should no more be blamed for the acts of Ben Laden than the American people should be blamed for the acts of a few corrupt politicians.

I felt before discovering Islam, and continue to believe, that we have to be vigilant against corruption of our common civil institutions. It enrages me that I -- who want nothing more than to be left alone to my own little corner of creation and happily oblivious to the worlds of others' ill creation -- must instead engage the world at hand because the public trust gets placed into the wrong hands, which then seek to tinker with everything that does not concern them, including my tiny and insignificant life. Alexis deTocqueville said we'd be okay until some people discovered that they could vote themselves largesse from the public wealth, and that's surely what's happened.

But I see better ways than that, and I'm confident that others will be able to see much more than I do when they finally look at what they already have, and see how congruent it is -- how rooted it is -- how expressive it is -- with/in/of fundamentalist old-time religion, which we all know when we see it. And the corrupt will stand out and be rooted out.

That's my expectation of the American people, on the basis of my experience.

was-salaam,
ankaboot
--
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.

I heard today the food aid was going to be delivered to the refugee camps mostly by the UN, the Red Cross, and another group, the Red Crescent. (Evidently Crescent Interntational isn't related to Red Crescent?)

RED CROSS RED CRESCENT

(Evidently Crescent International isn't related to Red Crescent?)

I think not. Red Crescent, as far as I know, is made up of responsible people.

was-salaam,
ankaboot
--
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.