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Who is to blame for Islamic extremism?
And how do we deal with it?

Islamo-fascism and Islamic Jihadis are the newest additions to along list of terms offensive to Muslims. But who is to blame for Islamic extremism and how do we deal with it?

Under the leadership of the late Egyptian President Nasser, the early sixties were the golden years of Arab nationalism. Nasser’s popularity marginalized Islamic extremists, not only in Egypt, but through out the Muslim world. Arabs were ready to soar to new heights, on all fronts and in all fields. Arab Christians, Muslims, Sunnis and Shiites lived in harmony and the region was at peace.

America was best suited to support those emerging Arab regimes, in Iran and else where, just as we supported Russia in the after-math of the collapse of the Soviet Union. However in the early fifties our CIA overthrew Mossadegh, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, and reinstalled the highly unpopular Shah, causing much public anger. Twenty years later the Shah was overthrown by a popular revolt, leading to the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran under the leadership of the exiled religious scholar Ayatollah Khomeini.

In the late sixties, we armed Israel and encouraged it to decimate the Nasser regime as well as the armies of Syria and Jordan, resulting in Israel’s forty years long occupation of the remaining Palestinian lands and the Syrian Golan Heights and placing three million Arabs under its brutal occupation that continues today.

To divert the anger and energy of those hot headed young religious fanatics a way from the injustices perpetuated by the very corrupt and super wealthy royalties, the oil sheiks headed by the Saudi Royal family began recruiting and financing Arab youth under the banner of Islamic Jihad, to liberate Muslim lands of Afghanistan from the ‘infidel’ Soviet occupiers. Our CIA encouraged, trained and armed those fighters, headed by Osama Bin-laden.

In 1980 and for eight more bloody years, we encouraged and armed Sadam Hussein to wage war against Khomeini of Iran, a war that consumed the lives of more than two million of their citizens and much of the wealth of both nations. In the early eighties, using American made F16s and Abram tanks Israel expelled the PLO from Lebanon; occupied a third of the country and nearly wiped out the capital Beirut. This lead to the creation of Hizb Allah, a Lebanese resistance movement, consisting largely of Shiite Muslims, armed and funded by their Shiite brothers in Iran.

Only days before Sadam invaded Kuwait, our ambassador to Iraq told Sadam that the US would not get involved in inter-Arab conflicts. This enticed Sadam and duped him into invading oil rich Kuwait. His invasion of Kuwait was our country’s alibi to destroy Sadam’s army in operation Desert Storm in the early nineties. As if that was not enough, we imposed a decade long crippling economic embargo against Iraq, resulting in more than a million deaths.

Then came the terrorist attacks of Sept, II, leading to our invasion of Afghanistan, with an insufficient number of troops. Having tamed Sadam Hussein we should have never invaded Iraq in 2003, but rather used all of our resources to quickly develop Afghanistan and make it a modal for others to look up to. That would have been a good time to use our influence with Israel to forge a head with a comprehensive peace with its Arab neighbors. Had we done that, the Middle East would have been much to our liking today.

Unprovoked and using a multitude of lies, the most famous of which was Sadam’s nuclear weapons program, President Bush ordered our troops to occupy Iraq in 2003. Then in a mind boggling act of stupidity and arrogance Mr. Paul Bremmer, President Bush appointed governor of Iraq dismantled the Iraqi army, handing Al-Qaeda a vast new haven to recruit in and to launch its attacks from. This lead to the ongoing destructive civil war and the loss of nearly four thousand US troops, the maiming of tens of thousands more and the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars. Add to that another hundred thousand Iraqis dead and four million displaced.

At the same time the Bush administration, which fumbled in Iraq, colluded with the Israeli Prime Minister Sharon to eliminate Chairman Arafat, founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization ‘PLO’, and President of the Palestinian Authority. Arafat was the only Palestinian leader with enough public support capable of delivering a lasting peace to Israel. In his absence, Islamist Hamas won the election and took charge.

Just Last year, Hizb Allah, seeking the release of Lebanese prisoners from Israel, captured two Israeli soldiers in an ambush and offered prisoners swap. Israel refused and used the Hizb Allah operation as a pretext to launch a pre-planned assault against Lebanon, using American made attack-planes, missiles and tanks; with Americas’ blessings Israel wiped-out much of Lebanon’s infrastructure. Hizb Allah countered by launching thousands of rockets into Israel.

While neither party won a decisive victory, Israel’s failure to destroy the rocket launchers which kept hammering Israel for more than a month, and its inability to make any gains on the ground, despite of its American equipped military, was a victory for Hizb Allah nonetheless. Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia, Sunni and Shiite, poured in to the streets proclaiming Nasser Allah to be the leader of all Muslims.

In the last half century we succeeded in toppling nearly all popular secular leaders who kept extremists at bay and we protected subservient, tyrannical monarchies instead; lacking the support of their subjects, those tribal sheiks sought the support of the clergy by building religious institutions for them. In the absence of national heroes and with much indignation with Israel, America, and with the West, frustration, hopelessness and despair prevailed, leaving Muslims no choice but to look to their faith, to their religious institutions, often into the arms of fanatical and manipulative extremists, thus incubating more of them.

Six years after our invasion of Afghanistan, much of it remains under the Taliban and Al-Qaeda control, making victory there ever more difficult. The weekly suicide bombings in neighboring Pakistan have the potential to turn it into a nuclear Taliban state. The situation in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan and Somalia is getting worse by the day.

Nearly all Arabs, most Israelis and much of the world are for the creation of an independent Palestinian state, without which there can be no peace. Extremists in the Israeli lobby are preventing its realization. The survivability and usefulness of powerful lobbies had become dependent on a continued state of insecurity for Israel and America. If we are to have any luck containing Islamic extremists, we must contain our own extremists first, rather than allowing them to contaminate our democracy, the same should go for Israel. A just resolution to the Arab Israeli conflict will go a long way in strengthening moderates and marginalizing extremists throughout the world, something no military power can accomplish.

A dead war looms on the horizon and it is approaching fast, this time with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The merchants of fear are using the same lies of the nuclear program again; those same trigger happy individuals are already beating the drums of war against Iran. With their clout in Congress and in the news media, their new war seems to be unstoppable, regardless of who is in the White House. An attack on Iran will not only ignite Iran nuclear facilities and military basis, but may ignite the oil wells of the gulf and the entire Muslim world as well. Tens of thousands of our soldiers and millions of people more may vanish, in this most unpredictable war. Oil supplies could come to a screeching halt, oil prices may soar to hundreds of dollars a barrel and the world economy could take a steep nose dive. The Middle East may witness a total chaos if not The Armageddon many zealots pray for, which I hope we can somehow avoid.

Of course appeasement can be dangerous at times, but to totally relying on the military to settle all conflicts is far more detrimental. History teaches us that extremists, be they nationalists or religious, ultimately cause far more damage to their own people than they do to their enemies, that was the case with Hitler’s Germany, Japan , the Soviet Union, Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel and America are sadly going down that same high-way.

While we can not be blamed for much of the turmoil in the Muslim world, hamburgers were not the only thing we exported to them. In the view of the overwhelming majority of Muslims , we have brought them high unemployment, soaring inflation, wars, occupations, prisons, death, destruction, poverty, civil war, ethic-cleansing and mass displacements, despite of the few thriving oil sheikdoms, Much of that was done through our surrogate Israel. And with every US Veto at the UN in favor of Israel, we antagonized a billion Muslims time and time again.

Freedom, justice, peace and prosperity are not exclusively Judaic-Christian needs but a common necessity for all of man kind, Muslims are no exception. Israel, America and the West must accept this fact and learn to live with it.

Mike Ali
Mokena, IL

Who is to blame for Islamic extremism?
And how do we deal with it?

Islamo-fascism and Islamic Jihadis are the newest additions to along list of terms offensive to Muslims. But who is to blame for Islamic extremism and how do we deal with it?

Under the leadership of the late Egyptian President Nasser, the early sixties were the golden years of Arab nationalism. Nasser’s popularity marginalized Islamic extremists, not only in Egypt, but through out the Muslim world. Arabs were ready to soar to new heights, on all fronts and in all fields. Arab Christians, Muslims, Sunnis and Shiites lived in harmony and the region was at peace.

America was best suited to support those emerging Arab regimes, in Iran and else where, just as we supported Russia in the after-math of the collapse of the Soviet Union. However in the early fifties our CIA overthrew Mossadegh, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, and reinstalled the highly unpopular Shah, causing much public anger. Twenty years later the Shah was overthrown by a popular revolt, leading to the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran under the leadership of the exiled religious scholar Ayatollah Khomeini.

In the late sixties, we armed Israel and encouraged it to decimate the Nasser regime as well as the armies of Syria and Jordan, resulting in Israel’s forty years long occupation of the remaining Palestinian lands and the Syrian Golan Heights and placing three million Arabs under its brutal occupation that continues today.

To divert the anger and energy of those hot headed young religious fanatics a way from the injustices perpetuated by the very corrupt and super wealthy royalties, the oil sheiks headed by the Saudi Royal family began recruiting and financing Arab youth under the banner of Islamic Jihad, to liberate Muslim lands of Afghanistan from the ‘infidel’ Soviet occupiers. Our CIA encouraged, trained and armed those fighters, headed by Osama Bin-laden.

In 1980 and for eight more bloody years, we encouraged and armed Sadam Hussein to wage war against Khomeini of Iran, a war that consumed the lives of more than two million of their citizens and much of the wealth of both nations. In the early eighties, using American made F16s and Abram tanks Israel expelled the PLO from Lebanon; occupied a third of the country and nearly wiped out the capital Beirut. This lead to the creation of Hizb Allah, a Lebanese resistance movement, consisting largely of Shiite Muslims, armed and funded by their Shiite brothers in Iran.

Only days before Sadam invaded Kuwait, our ambassador to Iraq told Sadam that the US would not get involved in inter-Arab conflicts. This enticed Sadam and duped him into invading oil rich Kuwait. His invasion of Kuwait was our country’s alibi to destroy Sadam’s army in operation Desert Storm in the early nineties. As if that was not enough, we imposed a decade long crippling economic embargo against Iraq, resulting in more than a million deaths.

Then came the terrorist attacks of Sept, II, leading to our invasion of Afghanistan, with an insufficient number of troops. Having tamed Sadam Hussein we should have never invaded Iraq in 2003, but rather used all of our resources to quickly develop Afghanistan and make it a modal for others to look up to. That would have been a good time to use our influence with Israel to forge a head with a comprehensive peace with its Arab neighbors. Had we done that, the Middle East would have been much to our liking today.

Unprovoked and using a multitude of lies, the most famous of which was Sadam’s nuclear weapons program, President Bush ordered our troops to occupy Iraq in 2003. Then in a mind boggling act of stupidity and arrogance Mr. Paul Bremmer, President Bush appointed governor of Iraq dismantled the Iraqi army, handing Al-Qaeda a vast new haven to recruit in and to launch its attacks from. This lead to the ongoing destructive civil war and the loss of nearly four thousand US troops, the maiming of tens of thousands more and the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars. Add to that another hundred thousand Iraqis dead and four million displaced.

At the same time the Bush administration, which fumbled in Iraq, colluded with the Israeli Prime Minister Sharon to eliminate Chairman Arafat, founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization ‘PLO’, and President of the Palestinian Authority. Arafat was the only Palestinian leader with enough public support capable of delivering a lasting peace to Israel. In his absence, Islamist Hamas won the election and took charge.

Just Last year, Hizb Allah, seeking the release of Lebanese prisoners from Israel, captured two Israeli soldiers in an ambush and offered prisoners swap. Israel refused and used the Hizb Allah operation as a pretext to launch a pre-planned assault against Lebanon, using American made attack-planes, missiles and tanks; with Americas’ blessings Israel wiped-out much of Lebanon’s infrastructure. Hizb Allah countered by launching thousands of rockets into Israel.

While neither party won a decisive victory, Israel’s failure to destroy the rocket launchers which kept hammering Israel for more than a month, and its inability to make any gains on the ground, despite of its American equipped military, was a victory for Hizb Allah nonetheless. Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia, Sunni and Shiite, poured in to the streets proclaiming Nasser Allah to be the leader of all Muslims.

In the last half century we succeeded in toppling nearly all popular secular leaders who kept extremists at bay and we protected subservient, tyrannical monarchies instead; lacking the support of their subjects, those tribal sheiks sought the support of the clergy by building religious institutions for them. In the absence of national heroes and with much indignation with Israel, America, and with the West, frustration, hopelessness and despair prevailed, leaving Muslims no choice but to look to their faith, to their religious institutions, often into the arms of fanatical and manipulative extremists, thus incubating more of them.

Six years after our invasion of Afghanistan, much of it remains under the Taliban and Al-Qaeda control, making victory there ever more difficult. The weekly suicide bombings in neighboring Pakistan have the potential to turn it into a nuclear Taliban state. The situation in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan and Somalia is getting worse by the day.

Nearly all Arabs, most Israelis and much of the world are for the creation of an independent Palestinian state, without which there can be no peace. Extremists in the Israeli lobby are preventing its realization. The survivability and usefulness of powerful lobbies had become dependent on a continued state of insecurity for Israel and America. If we are to have any luck containing Islamic extremists, we must contain our own extremists first, rather than allowing them to contaminate our democracy, the same should go for Israel. A just resolution to the Arab Israeli conflict will go a long way in strengthening moderates and marginalizing extremists throughout the world, something no military power can accomplish.

A dead war looms on the horizon and it is approaching fast, this time with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The merchants of fear are using the same lies of the nuclear program again; those same trigger happy individuals are already beating the drums of war against Iran. With their clout in Congress and in the news media, their new war seems to be unstoppable, regardless of who is in the White House. An attack on Iran will not only ignite Iran nuclear facilities and military basis, but may ignite the oil wells of the gulf and the entire Muslim world as well. Tens of thousands of our soldiers and millions of people more may vanish, in this most unpredictable war. Oil supplies could come to a screeching halt, oil prices may soar to hundreds of dollars a barrel and the world economy could take a steep nose dive. The Middle East may witness a total chaos if not The Armageddon many zealots pray for, which I hope we can somehow avoid.

Of course appeasement can be dangerous at times, but to totally relying on the military to settle all conflicts is far more detrimental. History teaches us that extremists, be they nationalists or religious, ultimately cause far more damage to their own people than they do to their enemies, that was the case with Hitler’s Germany, Japan , the Soviet Union, Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel and America are sadly going down that same high-way.

While we can not be blamed for much of the turmoil in the Muslim world, hamburgers were not the only thing we exported to them. In the view of the overwhelming majority of Muslims , we have brought them high unemployment, soaring inflation, wars, occupations, prisons, death, destruction, poverty, civil war, ethic-cleansing and mass displacements, despite of the few thriving oil sheikdoms, Much of that was done through our surrogate Israel. And with every US Veto at the UN in favor of Israel, we antagonized a billion Muslims time and time again.

Freedom, justice, peace and prosperity are not exclusively Judaic-Christian needs but a common necessity for all of man kind, Muslims are no exception. Israel, America and the West must accept this fact and learn to live with it.

Mike Ali
Mokena, IL

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Transsexual Refuge
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Asking questions about the efficacy of torture are a sign of our times. If the truth be known there are vast numbers of people in our communities who use underhanded dirty game play to gain power and influence over their spouses, workmates etc. Such game play causes stress, which can be shown scientifically to cause diseases even serious disease such as heart disease and strokes etc. To be the victim of such manipulation is to be tortured and it is not only common but on the rise. And worst of all the victims do not realize the source of their woes. There are many relationship artificially held together precisely by these means. I have launched a website to provide free information to inform people and help them discover for themselves. I am not asking anyone to accept anything on trust. It needs to be seen to be believed. Check it out at http://www.annavictoria.net and be shocked at what torture is meted out in Western democracies particularly, every single day. Regards

Ok Alex, thanks for the clarification. Fair enough. We'll have to agree to disagree on whether or not "real oversight" is available and/or possible and on whether or not the information gained via torture is actually viable.

C. Welton Gaddy,

Question of torture is asked, because YOUR PRESENT SYSTEM APPROVES IT.

SHAMELESS AND BARBARIC.

History tell that the oppresers always called the oppressed BARBARICS to justify there actions.

Infact they call others what they are them selves in reality!!!!!!!

"(all leftist pacifists need not reply as yr position that we should never go to war is a total fallacy) "

Actually, it's a fallacy to say that's what the anti-war position is today.

Even if you think war is sometimes justified or necessary, doesn't mean that Iraq hasn't always been the wrong F'n war.

We go to war and we blow off the heads/maim slaughter (all leftist pacifists need not reply as yr position that we should never go to war is a total fallacy) kill someones, brother/father/son by the 100's of thousands and we say "ok" but when it comes to trying to save numerous lives vs the torture of one , we go bazonkers, as if we can take back with the left hand all the death and destruction we deal with the right hand. If there is a good reason for war, then there must be a good reason for torture, but to cry that we are losing our humanity is like the fat guy who orders orders
a pizza pie with a diet coke.

Yes, I think Mr Gaddy is wrong on his statement re holding our values during world wars. War is ugly but we fight(and kill) because we have to. Dresden , firebombing/a-bombing Japan, were hard and ugly choices but the alternatives(longer war, Allied landings on Japan) were worse.

On torture, it isnt an easy choice , no one should do this lightly and I think with "real oversight", it can be done. I wish it would never be done, but there will be a case were the "alternative" of no torture could be costly/deadly to many innocent people. When that time comes, I think all options s/b available.

Joet, there are many human conditions where we dont have first hand knowledge or know of anyone who has experienced "that " condition , but that does not disqualify us from making a decision.
I and those who support allowing torture in very specific cases value life, we value the lives of those we can be saved vs the life of the cretin who plots and dares to take many more lives.

That last (3:55) post wasn't mine, but hey, I'll subscribe to it. thanks, whoever.

To steal from Dawkins, Alex seems to be saying, "Off of the top of my head, never having been tortured, or having known anyone who has, I think torture might work sometimes and with that extravagent premise in mind it might be worth trying, especially if you have no regard for the human dignity of the person being tortured or the person doing the torturing. Correct me if I'm wrong

Actually Alex, I'm a little confused. Are you taking our panelist to task for not condemning the atrocities of WWII, or, are you making the argument that since those atrocities were ok, torture is ok now?

Given your statement "if you capture a terrorist who may provide needed information that will save innocent lives ? what would you do ?", it seems like you are arguing for the latter.

You didn't answer my question Alex.

TJ, Thanks for the real heavy commentary, if only real life problems could be solved with soundbites.
Here's one for you regarding torture.."dont worry be happy", another problem solved. A bit more context please...

Alex, how many wrongs does it take to make a right?

As a previous letter writer pointed out, I guess God messed up by allowing Satan to torture Job. Clearly the argument is ...why are we torturing ?
Is there a good reason ? but saying ...never...makes no sense.

Mr gaddy writes:"Our government did not abandon or ignore our fundamental values even amid the horrors of our involvement in world wars; our opposition to worldwide domination by totalitarian regimes based on fascism or communism."

-So in WW2, was it right that we fire bombed Japanese cities where innocent civilians were burned alive(this was napalm and firebombs which killed 80-100,000 people, yet you worry about the values of torturing a handful of people ?) ? was it right that we bombed Dresden(you should read the accounts of how women and children were consumed in a firestorm,again...our values ?) and wreaked total havoc and death on a non -military target ? Was it right that we dropped nuclear bombs on 2 cities in Japan, How many women and children died ? what were our values then ? Was it excused because we were at war with a brutal enemy ? And now ? if you capture a terrorist who may provide needed information that will save innocent lives ? what would you do ? I think you would do nothing yet you excuse the brutality of WW2 under the guise of fighting fascism and totalitarianism. But who are we fighting now ? certainly not "Dora the Explorer", but islamofacists, Taliban, Al qaeda and the brutal murderers of Danny Pearl. Nice writing doesnt make the argument, the devil is always in the details.

Can any of you even IMAGINE how difficult - unfathomable - yes, metaphysically implausible - it is that a minister can maintain the idea of NO TORTURE - EVER.

WHILST - at the same time

maintaining a ministry in MONROE, LOUISIANA.

TORTURE IS MORALLY INDEFENSIBLE IN EVERY CASE, IRRESPECTIVE OF THE PERPETRATOR OR THE OBJECT OF THE TORTURE.

Thank you. Rev. Gaddy

I still do not believe it - not in MONROE (never in Monroe)- mmmaaayyyeeebe in.........Lafayette ?....no, not even in Lafayette.........oh,....well, I cannot think of any place where NO TORTURE would fly - EXCEPT in those few, small Quaker outposts in the immoral desert that is REDNECK America.

Redneck, America? everything between Lubec, Maine, and Adak, Alaska.

Frankly, I have a hard time taking anyone who claims there is any religious or humanistic justification for torture seriously.