Understanding Radical Islam

[dogchow108]

Liu, the problem here is that trying to get a US Colonel to understand the merit of non-violence is like trying to gt you to undestand that the man is a US Colonel.

[doc]

KANO, Nigeria - In 2003, imams in northern Nigeria promoted a boycott of polio vaccinations, claiming they were a Western plot to make Muslims infertile or infect them with AIDS. The result: The number of newly crippled children rose by more than double the following year, and there were fears that the disease would spread into a dozen neighboring countries.

Now, after another tripling of cases in 2008, a big new anti-polio push is under way in Africa's most populous country, and this time, some Muslim clerics have made themselves part of the solution, joining community leaders, health workers and the victims themselves in waging the war. MSNBC

It's this type of mentality, and this level of intelligence, that is helping the strife to continue in southern Thailand. Especially the apparent lack or regards for life that you see in some of these communities.

[dogchow108]

Who were the Imams (as in names)?

Also, were the vaccines investigated?

[doc]

Names? Who knows. If you asked me the names of some of the Imams in Phuket, I wouldn't know either. But when you look at their educational system, and the preponderance of schooling towards Islamic studies (and little, if any, scientific purview), you can understand why these people are sceptical, especially in a relatively uneducated country like Nigeria, and especially when it comes to things that are Western in nature. Imams are as prevalent in these Muslim communities as priests are in the US. The educational process is different, however. The prejudice against western thought can be fairly high.

And as you know, ignorance is prevalent when education and awareness is low.

[dogchow108]

Did the articles not say?

[doc]

Names were not mentioned. You know Imams in Nigeria?

The vaccines were brought by western teams; probably the same stuff they use in other parts of the world. I'm not aware of medical teams bringing bad stuff to these countries. I am aware of bad stuff being "faked" in China and India and sold elsewhere (another thread, soon...)

[doc]

Mystery Shrouds Kidnap of Pro-Jihadist Canadian Activist by Pakistani Extremists

The September 11 terror attacks were a watershed event in the life of a Canadian journalist named Beverly Giesebrecht.

Soon after Al Qaeda terrorists killed 3,000 people in the U.S., Giesebrecht converted to Islam, adopted a new name — Khadija Abdul Qahaar — and spent the next two years studying the Koran in Egypt.

She created a pro-Jihadi Web site, Jihad Unspun, and she developed a network of contacts, contributors and translators, some of whom introduced her to the Taliban in Pakistan.

She wrote of her motivations online:

"I became obsessed with finding out what was really going on. In the early days of my research, I remember sitting at five in the morning, exhausted, after going from link to link to link to link, starring at the face of Osama bin Laden. This man does not have the face of a cold blooded killer. This is not a Charles Manson. There has to be something more.

"I made the decision to launch a website with the hope of informing the public about some of the things I had come to know and to give voice to the other side of war on 'terrorism.'

"There was no question in my mind, from the first days of my research, that the so-called war on 'terrorism' was a sham. This is not a war on 'terrorism' — this is a war against Muslims and our resources.

"It is my hope that this will inspire others to Islam and to take a stand against this shameful war on 'terrorism.'"

The anti-American Web site provided news articles, first-person commentary and opinion pieces that criticized Canadian support for American foreign policy, and translations of speeches and writings by Usama bin Laden and Taliban leaders, among others. Qahaar quickly established a reputation for being able to connect with militants, and she was even hired to help work in research and production of a documentary called "Dining With Terrorists" that aired on Al Jazeera.

And then last November, the Taliban, the group she had befriended, kidnapped her while she was chasing a story in the Bannu region of northern Pakistan. In a video released after her capture, Qahaar says she's being held by the Taliban, though it's not clear exactly who is holding her. Officials have not provided clarification, saying only that there are many criminal gangs in the region who call themselves the Taliban.

Now, four and a half months later, 11th-hour negotiations continue in efforts to save Qahaar's life and secure her release. Her captors have demanded $375,000 in ransom money by the end of March, and they have threatened to kill her if their demand isn't met. Fox News

How do you say "Oops" in Arabic...

Should we take up a collection?

[dogchow108]

I have been asked in the past what some of my lingo means and why I feel it is appropriate for certain situations.

This, my friends, is getting PWNT. If you don't get it, give up.


Although it is Fox News...hm, perhaps it is I who have been pwnt? =O


At any rate, you have to admire Fox News' diligence with the cute little ad they slapped right in the middle of the article "How a Christian Mom Makes $5,000 From the Comfort of Home"

[doc]

Yea, I did get a kick out of the christian mom ad, though I wonder if that was intentional or just a software added "religious" ad relevant to the "religious" news story.

Not surprisingly, I didn't find it on MSNBC. But, then again, anything that might be "conservative" leaning tends to not be noticed by them.

[doc]

I've always been amazed at various culture's marriage customs, especially after watching some of my Muslim friends here in Thailand go through the process. Here's an interesting news article from FoxNews that demonstrates one remote aspect:

SAN'A, Yemen — She was 2 years old when her father promised her in marriage to a man in his 30s. It was a swap, so the father could marry the man's sister without paying the obligatory bride-price.

At age 9, the girl was put on a sack of rice to appear taller next to the bridegroom in the wedding picture. At 11, she was taken to her husband's house to live. Despite promising not to consummate the marriage before she reached puberty, he tied her to a bed, stuffed a rag in her mouth and raped her, she says.

"One day he tied me up and attacked me," the girl, who is now 13 and has fled her husband, told The Associated Press on Wednesday, choking with tears during an interview at an orphanage that has given her shelter. Her name and her husband's aren't being used to protect her identity.

Child marriages are widespread in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, where tribal customs dominate society. More than a quarter of its females marry before age 15, according to a recent report by the Social Affairs Ministry.

The issue of child brides vaulted into the headlines here two years ago when an 8-year-old boldly went by herself to a courtroom and demanded a judge dissolve her marriage to a man in his 30s. She eventually won a divorce, and legislators began looking at ways to curb the practice.

In February, parliament passed a law setting the minimum marriage age at 17. But some lawmakers are trying to kill the measure, calling it un-Islamic. Before it could be ratified by Yemen's president, they forced it to be sent back to parliament's constitutional committee for review.

Child marriage is an issue elsewhere. In neighboring, more affluent Saudi Arabia, several cases of child brides have been reported in the past year, though the phenomenon is not believed to be nearly as widespread as in Yemen.

The U.S. on Wednesday sharply criticized the practice after a ruling by a Saudi judge upheld the marriage of a girl whose father gave her at age 8 to a man in his late 40s. The girl's mother has sought a divorce for her daughter.

"Child marriage is a clear and unacceptable violation of human rights in our view. U.S. officials at all levels frequently raise with the Saudi government our human rights concerns, especially those dealing with children and marriages," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.

Saudi Arabia sets no minimum age for marriage. But the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan this week quoted the kingdom's new justice minister, Mohammed al-Issa, as saying the government is doing a comprehensive study on underage marriage that will include regulations. He did not indicate how long the process would take.

In Yemen, poverty is the main reason families marry off young daughters, to get bride-prices up to several hundred dollars. Local traditions encourage the practice out of a belief a young bride can be shaped into an obedient wife, bear more children and be kept away from temptation.

The weak government relies on support from tribal leaders and Islamists so is reluctant to take action on customs they support.

Yemen once set 15 as the minimum marriage age, but parliament eliminated it in the 1990s, saying parents should decide when a daughter marries.

Legislator Sheik Mohammed al-Hazmi, one of the most ardent opponents of a minimum marriage age, says the new law is a "Western plot aimed at Westernizing our culture."

"The West wants to teach us how to marry, conceive and divorce. This is cultural colonization that we reject," he told AP.

Al-Hazmi said Islam permits the practice because nothing in the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad bans it. "Everything that is not forbidden is permitted," he said.

Lawmaker Sheik Shawki al-Qadhi vehemently disagrees. He said that according to Islamic law "a ruler can ban that which is permitted if it is proven to cause harm."

[dogchow108]

I vote we send Liu to lecture them on non-violence.

[liutangsanzang]

In India child forced prostitution is quite common. I vote for stop using money.

Dog, why not? How to travel non violently? On foot like in the old time? Will u pay the expenses?

Peace and love

[dogchow108]

Shoes kill insects. that would be unethical.

[liutangsanzang]

An article about the declarations of the Iranian president about Israel. The french press a few days ago commentated on some declarations of the new israelian minister of foreign affairs that were also seen as radicals. Judgements might be subjectives, yet can we doubt that palestinian children died because of israel army?

By Laura MacInnis Laura Macinnis – 3 mins ago
GENEVA (Reuters) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompted a walkout from his speech to a U.N. racism summit on Monday when he accused Israel of establishing a "cruel and repressive racist regime" over the Palestinians.
The summit had already been badly undermined by a boycott by the United States and some of its major allies over concerns that it would be used as a platform for attacks against Israel.
The boycott left Ahmadinejad, who has in the past cast doubt on the Nazi Holocaust, as the only head of state in attendance. His speech produced the kind of language that the Western countries and Israel had feared.
"Following World War II they resorted to military aggressions to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering," Ahmadinejad told the conference, on the day that Jewish communities commemorate the Holocaust.
"And they sent migrants from Europe, the United States and mother parts of the world in order to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine," he said, according to the official translation.
"And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine."
Dozens of diplomats in the audience promptly got up and left the hall for the duration of the speech.
"Such outrageous anti-Semitic remarks should have no place in a U.N. anti-racism forum," said British ambassador Peter Gooderham, whose country chose not to send a minister to Geneva.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store told the conference after Ahmadinejad had spoken that his words amounted to incitement to hatred. He said Iran had made itself the odd man out by undermining agreement on a conference declaration.
"Norway will not accept that the odd man out hijacks the collective efforts of the many," he said.
FEARS OF CONTROVERSY
Eight Western nations including the United States were avoiding the entire meeting, fearing it would be dominated by what U.S. President Barack Obama called "hypocritical and counterproductive" antagonism toward the Jewish state.
However, a number of the delegations that remained behind applauded Ahmadinejad's speech.
Arab and Muslim attempts to single out Israel for criticism had prompted the United States to walk out of the first U.N. summit on racism, in South Africa in 2001.
Although the declaration prepared for the follow-up conference does not refer explicitly to Israel or the Middle East, its first paragraph "reaffirms" a text adopted at the 2001 meeting which includes six paragraphs on those sensitive issues.
U.S. President Barack Obama, the first African-American leader of the United States, said on Saturday that Washington wanted a "clean start" to engage with the United Nations on the issues to be tackled at the meeting.
Rupert Colville, spokesman for Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights who convened the meeting, said she deplored the language used by Ahmadinejad.

"This speech was completely inappropriate at a conference designed to nurture diversity and tolerance," he said.
Earlier Pillay had urged participants to do all they could to ensure the declaration is adopted at week's end.
She said this was necessary to restore confidence in the United Nations as a forum to address frictions that can explode into xenophobic attacks, as occurred in her native South Africa last year, when 62 foreigners were killed. "We all should be mindful that a failure to agree on the way forward would negatively reverberate on the human rights agenda for years to come," Pillay said at the meeting's opening.

[doc]

However, a number of the delegations that remained behind applauded Ahmadinejad's speech.

Anyone know who those delegations were?