http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070124/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq


By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer


1 hour, 29 minutes ago


WASHINGTON - The Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee dismissed President Bush's plans to increase troops strength in Iraq on Wednesday as "not in the national interest," an unusual wartime repudiation of the commander in chief.


The vote on the nonbinding measure was 12-9 and largely along party lines.


"We better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder," said Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record) of Nebraska, the sole Republican to join 11 Democrats in support of the measure.


Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record), D-Del., the panel's chairman, said the legislation is "not an attempt to embarrass the president. ... It's an attempt to save the president from making a significant mistake with regard to our policy in Iraq."


The full Senate is scheduled to begin debate on the measure next week, and Biden has said he is willing to negotiate changes in hopes of attracting support from more Republicans.


House Democrats intend to hold a vote shortly after the Senate acts.


Even Republicans opposed to the legislation expressed unease with the revised policy involving a war that has lasted nearly four years, claimed the lives of more than 3,000 U.S. troops and helped Democrats win control of Congress in last fall's elections.


"I am not confident that President Bush's plan will succeed," said Sen. Richard Lugar (news, bio, voting record) of Indiana, senior Republican on the committee.


But he said in advance he would vote against the measure. "It is unclear to me how passing a nonbinding resolution that the president has already said he will ignore will contribute to any improvement or modification of our Iraq policy."


"The president is deeply invested in this plan, and the deployments ... have already begun," Lugar added.


He suggested a more forceful role for Congress, and said lawmakers must ensure the administration is "planning for contingencies, including the failure of the Iraqi government to reach compromises and the persistence of violence despite U.S. and Iraqi government efforts."


Divisions over the war were on clear display as the committee met.


Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said he wanted to change the measure to say flatly that the number of troops in Iraq "may not exceed the levels" in place before Bush announced his new policy. The suggestion failed, 15-6.


Sen. Norm Coleman (news, bio, voting record), R-Minn., sought to amend the legislation to show support for an increase troops in the Anbar province in western Iraq, but not in Baghdad, where the sectarian violence is particularly fierce. His proposal also fell, 17-4.


Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., chastised fellow lawmakers, accusing them of being reticent to respond to Bush's plans. He said he would seek passage of legislation at a later date cutting off funds for the war.


Hagel's remarks were among the most impassioned of the day, and he was unstinting in his criticism of the White House.


"There is no strategy," he said of the Bush administration's war management. "This is a pingpong game with American lives. These young men and women that we put in Anbar province, in Iraq, in Baghdad are not beans; they're real lives. And we better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder."


A Vietnam veteran, he fairly lectured fellow senators not to duck a painful debate about a war that has grown increasingly unpopular as it has gone on. "No president of the United States can sustain a foreign policy or a war policy without the sustained support of the American people," Hagel said.


At least eight other Republican senators say they now back legislative proposals registering objections to Bush's decision to boost U.S. military strength in Iraq by 21,500 troops.


The growing list — which includes Sens. Gordon Smith (news, bio, voting record), George Voinovich (news, bio, voting record) and Sam Brownback (news, bio, voting record) — has emboldened Democrats, who are pushing for a vote in the full Senate by next week to rebuke the president's Iraq policy.


In his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, Bush urged skeptical members of Congress to give the plan a chance to work.


Many lawmakers remained reluctant.


"I wonder whether the clock has already run out," said Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine. She said she was worried that U.S. troops in Iraq are already perceived "not as liberators but as occupiers."


Bush did get a word of support from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, one of the 2008 Republican presidential hopefuls.


"I believe we should give the president the support to do this. I want us to be successful in Iraq," he said Wednesday on NBC's "Today" show. "I know how important it is to the overall war on terror. Success in Iraq means a more peaceful world for America, it means a victory against terrorists. Failure in Iraq means a big defeat against terrorists and the war on terror is going to be tougher for us."


But Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill., appearing on the same show, said, "I think all of us are talking about a phased redeployment which would leave American troops in the region to send a strong message, not only to the Iraqi government that we want to help them, but also to neighbors, like Iran, that we're not abandoning the field."

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, Most Merciful


Dr. Sami Al-Arian Begins Hunger Strike


Never Convicted Muslim Professor Lingers in Prison and Harassed by the Government


WASHINGTON, DC - Jan. 23, 2007 (MASNET) Yesterday, Dr. Sami Al-Arian began a hunger strike to protest continued government harassment. Earlier, Dr. Al-Arian appeared before a new grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, where he was subpoenaed by a federal prosecutor to testify a second time in the same case. After Dr. Al-Arian expressed his ethical stance against testifying, a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia held him in civil contempt, once again prolonging his suffering and imprisonment by up to 18 months. Dr. Al-Arian's originally scheduled release date is April 13.


Last November, the same judge placed Dr. Al-Arian in civil contempt for not testifying. At the time, his attorneys argued that cooperation was a clear violation of the plea agreement he reached with Florida prosecutors last May. One month after he was held in contempt, the grand jury term expired. However, less than a month later, a new grand jury was once again impaneled by Gordon Kromberg, a federal prosecutor who allegedly boasts about his contempt for Muslims and Arabs while touring Israel.


During yesterday's court appearance, Dr. Al-Arian's attorney requested to delay the judge's decision until further evidence could be brought to light supporting Dr. Al-Arian's decision not testify and the highlighting the government's abuse of power. However, the judge denied the request and ordered that Dr. Al-Arian be held in civil contempt. -Please read below Dr. Al-Arian's statement before the judge-


This is the second hunger strike by Dr. Al-Arian, who is a diabetic, during his nearly four-year imprisonment. Following his February 20, 2003 incarceration, he went on a 140-day hunger strike to protest the government's political persecution. During that time, he was hospitalized and lost 45 pounds.


In recent weeks, Dr. Al-Arian has been placed under particularly arduous conditions after he was moved from Warsaw, Virginia to Atlanta because of what prison authorities deemed a "mistake." Not only did the nonsensical move further isolate Dr. Al-Arian from family and friends, but he was also denied phone calls and visitations in Atlanta.


Mahdi Bray, Executive Director of MAS Freedom Foundation stated "The government after years of incarcerating Dr. Al-Arian and spending millions of the taxpayers' dollars, was unable to get a single conviction by a federal jury in this case. In short they lost the case. Yet they've used every trick in the book to persecute Dr. Al-Arian and his family. His prison treatment is extremely inhumane, including periods of 23 hour lock-down in a rat and roach infested environment, deliberately improperly dressed while forced to walk in sub-freezing weather, and threats and abuse from guards and U.S. marshals. These latest developments in Dr. Al-Arian's case are a clear and outrageous display of government corruption and abuse of power. In spite of an agreement intended to resolve his case once and for all, the government has continued to harass Dr. Al-Arian and mire him further in legal purgatory. Clearly the U.S. Bureau of Prisons is complicit in the inhumane treatment of Dr. Al-Arian. Congress, who has oversight over the U.S. prison system, needs to be alerted to this abuse and inhumane treatment."


Dr. Al-Arian vows that he will remain on a hunger strike until the government ends its vindictive campaign against him and allows him to return to his wife and children.


ACTION TO BE TAKEN


Please write to the following individuals to ask for an immediate end to Dr. Al-Arian's suffering:


1- Honorable Judge Gerald Lee


U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia


401 Courthouse Square, Alexandria, VA 22314


2- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales


Department of Justice


U.S. Department of Justice


950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530-0001


Fax Number: (202) 307-6777


BY E-MAIL:


E-mails to the Department of Justice, including the Attorney General,


may be sent to AskDOJ@usdoj. gov.


3- The Honorable John Conyers, Jr


2426 Rayburn Building


Washington, DC 20515


(202) 225-5126


(202) 225-0072 Fax


John.Conyers@ mail.house. gov


4- Senator Patrick Leahy


433 Russell Senate Office Building


United States Senate


Washington, DC 20510


(299029)224- 4242


senator_leahy@ leahy.senate. gov


---------------


Dr. Al-Arian's Statement before Judge Gerald Lee of the Eastern District of Virginia


January 22, 2007 (Fair summary not verbatim):


"Thank you, your honor, for giving me the opportunity to address the court. First of all, I have no contempt whatsoever for this honorable court, but all the respect in the world for it.


The initial draft of the plea agreement presented by the government to my defense team contained a cooperation clause. I told my defense team, Bill Moffitt and Linda Moreno, that my belief system and conscience are totally against talking about anyone, and if the government insisted on including this section they should break off negotiations and proceed towards trial. The chief prosecutor in my trial, Mr. Terry Zitek, acknowledged as much during the November 6, 2006 hearing in Tampa before Judge Moody when he said: `Mr. Al-Arian said no cooperation and we said fine and took it out.'


Furthermore, from the outset of the negotiations both the government and the defense agreed that the disposition of the count I pleaded to on level 26 with three points deduction to level 23. The sentencing guideline for level 23 is 46-57 months. It was also agreed between the parties that I will receive time served and have an expedited deportation. Therefore, the government agreed to recommend the low-end of the guideline, which was essentially time served.


However, there was always the risk that the judge (Moody) would go for the higher end or somewhere in between. So I asked Mr. Bill Moffitt what we could do to ensure the low end. He advised me that the only way to guarantee the low end would be to include cooperation which I totally ruled out; this would have reduced it to level 21 with a maximum sentence of 37 months, way below the time served. So I took the risk of serving 11 more months; in fact I am serving 11 more months for totally refusing the cooperation section.


Moreover, in August 2000, I was subpoenaed by the government in a federal immigration proceeding, and I was asked the following question: "Do you believe in the use of violence to free Islam? My answer was one word, "No." Despite the absurdity and awkwardness of such a question, it was count 47 in the indictment and count 50 in the superseding indictment.


I also would like to bring to the court's attention to the way I have been treated for the past three weeks. In the past three weeks, I have been to four prisons. I spent fourteen days in the Atlanta penitentiary under 23-hour lockdown, in a roach and rat infested environment. On two occasions, rats shared my diabetic snack. When I was transported from Atlanta to Petersburg (Virginia) and from Petersburg to Alexandria, they allowed me only to wear a t-shirt in subfreezing weather during long walks. In the early morning, the Atlanta guard took my thermal undershirt which I purchased from the prison and threw it in the garbage and when I complained, he threatened to use a lockbox on my handcuffs which would make them extremely uncomfortable. In Petersburg, the guard asked me to take off my clean t-shirt and boxers and gave me dirty and worn out ones. When I complained, he told me to `shut the f up.' And when I asked why he was treating me like that, he said `because you're a terrorist.' When I further complained to the lieutenant in charge, he shrugged it off and said if I don't like it, I should write a grievance to the Bureau of Prisons. When I said he had the authority to give me clean clothes, he refused and said if I don't like it I should write a grievance to the Bureau of Prisons. During one of the airlifts, an air marshal further tightened my already tightened handcuffs, and asked me `Why do you hate us?' I told him, `I don't hate you.' He said, `I know who you are, I've read your s-h-i-t.' These are examples of the government's harassment campaign against me that's been taking place for years because of my political beliefs."


The judge then interrupted Dr. Al-Arian and told him that he should not be harassed but that he (the judge) has no control over the bureau of prisons. He added that Dr. Al-Arian should not be mistreated because of his political beliefs. He nonetheless held him in contempt.


-END-


-------------------------------------------------------------


The Freedom Foundation is the public affairs arm of the Muslim American Society (MAS), a national grassroots religious, social, and educational organization. MAS is America's largest grassroots Muslim organization with over 50 chapters nationwide. Learn more at www.masnet.org


-------------------------------------------------------------


MAS Freedom Foundation


1050 17th Street NW, Suite 600


Washington, DC 20036


Tel: (202) 496-1288


Fax: (202) 463-0686


URL: http://www.masnet.org/index_publicaffairs.asp


Email: MAS4Freedom@aol.com

Dear fellow human,


Today humanity is being challenged. Unthinkable atrocities take place on daily basis. There is an evil force at work that aims to destroy us. The agents of this evil respect nothing; not even the lives of children. Every day there are bombings, every day innocent people are targeted and murdered. It seems as if we are helpless. But we are not!


The ancient Chinese sage Sun Zi said, "Know your enemy and you won't be defeated". Do we know our enemy? If we don't, then we are doomed.


Terrorism is not an ideology, it is a tool; but the terrorists kill for an ideology. They call that ideology Islam.


The entire world, both Muslims and non-Muslims claim that the terrorists have hijacked "the religion of peace" and Islam does not condone violence.


Who is right? Do the terrorists understand Islam better, or do those who decry them? The answer to this question is the key to our victory, and failure to find that key will result in our loss and death will be upon us. The key is in the Quran and the history of Islam.


Those of us, who know Islam, know that the understanding of the terrorists of Islam is correct. They are doing nothing that their prophet did not do and did not encourage his followers to do. Murder, rape, assassination, beheading, massacre and sacrilege of the dead "to delight the hearts of the believers" were all practiced by Muhammad, were taught by him and were observed by Muslims throughout their history.


If truth has ever mattered, it matters most now! This is the time that we have to call a spade a spade. This is the time that we have to find the root of the problem and eradicate it. The root of Islamic terrorism is Islam. The proof of that is the Quran.


We are a group of ex-Muslims who have seen the face of the evil and have risen to warn the world. No matter how painful the truth may be, only truth can set us free. Why this much denial? Why so much obstinacy? How many more innocent lives should be lost before YOU open your eyes?


We urge the Muslims to leave Islam. Stop with excuses, justifications and rationalizations. Stop dividing mankind into "us" vs. "them" and Muslims vs. Kafirs. We are One people, One mankind! Muhammad was not a messenger of God. It is time that we end this insanity and face the truth. The terrorists take their moral support and the validation for their actions from you. Your very adherence to their cult of death is a nod of approval for their crimes against humanity.


We also urge the non-Muslims to stop being politically correct lest they hurt the sensitivities of the Muslims. To Hell with their sensitivities! Let us save their lives, and the lives of millions of innocent people.


Millions, if not billions of lives will be lost if we do nothing. Time is running out! "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing." Do something! Send this message to everyone in your address book and ask them to do the same. Defeat Islam and stop terrorism. This is your world, save it.


The ex-Muslim Movement

Salaam brother /Sister


I was doing a search on internet and notice that i was able to find everything that i have posted in here , I would like to remove my profile and all the treads that i have posted.


how do i go about that can you please remove me and then email me?

Bismillah


as salam alykom brothers and sisters


HAPPY HIJRI YEAR



what did we all learn from the past Hijri year and what do we intend to do in the new one????

Hey, “Down Under”. Here’s a sobriety check point for your multicultural euphoria. I'd suggest listening and actually paying attention to what the peaceful inner strugglers™ are saying. Check out this latest bit of peaceful inner struggler™ dialogue. It's a bracing look at the virulent hatreds, lawless chaos and violence and self aggrandizing lunacy that would be visited upon your shores in the presumed future nation called Australia’istan – southern hemisphere province.


Jews are pigs, says Muslim cleric
.

Quote:SYDNEY'S most influential radical Muslim cleric has been caught on film calling Jews pigs and urging children to die for Allah.
Firebrand Sheik Feiz Mohammed, head of the Global Islamic Youth Centre in Liverpool, delivered the hateful rants on a collection of DVDs called the Death Series being sold in Australia and overseas.


"Today many parents, they prevent their children from attending lessons. Why? They fear that they might create a place in the their hearts, the love, just a bit of the love, of sacrificing their lives for Allah," Sheik Feiz says in the video.


"We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid (holy warrior). Put in their soft, tender hearts the zeal of jihad and a love of martyrdom."


An Australian citizen born in Sydney who has spent the past year living in Lebanon, Sheik Feiz was exposed this week in a British documentary Undercover Mosque.


Investigators found Sheik Feiz's DVDs being sold by children in the carpark of the Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham and other Islamic bookshops. The entire set can be bought online for $150.


"The peak, the pinnacle, the crest, the highest point, the pivot, the summit of Islam is jihad," he declares in the film, before denouncing "kaffirs" (non-Muslims).


"Kaffir is the worst word ever written, a sign of infidelity, disbelief, filth, a sign of dirt."


In an excerpt from a video lecture series called Signs of the Hour, Sheik Feiz then ridicules Jews as pigs.

# 1

Hate Preachers


Not a single Imam preaches religious fascism and racial hatred. Extremism has not been created by the fanatical clerics. Muslim clerics never played any role for the radicalization of Muslim youths. There is no culture of hate, spite and distrust in the Masajid or in Muslim schools. The so- called hate preachers are just religious scholars to satisfy the social, spiritual and emotional needs and demands of the British Muslims in their own languages. The Western media and politicians have an assumption that Islam threatens its liberal sensibilities and it is right to have a go at Islam. It is now open season for attacks on Muslims by politicians, media, institutions and individuals of different faiths or no faith.


The writer Oriana Fallies recently asserted that there is no difference between Muslim extremist and Islam. She still had no trouble winning an audience with the Pope Benedict.


David Cameron, the rising Tory star, campared Islamic extremist to the Nazis threat in the 1930s. Nazism is a European invention, practiced by so-called civilized Europeans. Nazi ideology is exclusively based on the supremacy of one race, while Islam is the exact opposite, all races being equal. Bush and Blair have repeatedly pointed to their cultures’ compassionate values, and condemned the barbarity of Muslim militants. The speech by the Pope, which aroused a world wide storm, went well with Bush’s Crusade. The head of OFSTED said that the rise of Muslim schools is a threat to Britain’s sense of national identity and fail to teach tolerance. America’s religious Right regards Islam is an evil ideology that inspires young angry Muslim males in western society. Tony Blair considers veil as a mark of separation and he fully supported the LEA who suspended and sacked the poor teacher. Masajid, Imams, Muslim schools with bilingual Muslim teachers, veil, Halal foods and Arabic and Urdu languages are not a mark of separation but marks of identity. Universities and colleges across Britain are to spy on Muslim students for their suspected involvement in Islamic extremism and supporting terrorist violence. Racist incidents in London schools have increased 26% since the 7/7 bombing and the debate about the wearing of the veil has prompted further incidents. An EU report said that Europe’s Muslims face broad discrimination. Islamophobia included” discriminatatory and aggressive treatment by police”, a factor cited in youth unrest. A German teacher described the defeat of Ottoman forces at the edge of Vienna, as something to be celebrated, otherwise, boys would have been circumcised and the girls would have to cover from head to toe. The real hate preachers are Western politicians, teachers and media and not Muslim clerics and Muslim teachers.


The long-term solution to terrorism lies not in Guantanamo Bay or British prisons, but in education – education about other religions, tolerance, free speeches, the history and the respect for human life. It is not the Muslim schools or Muslim majority state schools; it is those schools where native Brits are in majority, needs serious attention in terms of anxiety, bullying of Muslim pupils and threats to Muslim teachers. The role of schools to be highlighted in challenging Islamophobia, schools need to ensure that all children must learn about Islam. Muslim majority state schools should be designated as Muslim community schools with bilingual Muslim teachers as role models. Those are the real issues tackling extremism and alienation of the Muslim youths.


Iftikhar Ahmad


www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

Bismillah


Islam is spreading in Rwanda, I want those who say it was spread to sword to show me one sowrd raised in rwanda read :


RUHENGERI, Rwanda -- The villagers with their forest green head wraps and forest green Korans arrived at the mosque on a rainy Sunday afternoon for a lecture for new converts. There was one main topic: jihad.



They found their seats and flipped to the right page. Hands flew in the air. People read passages aloud. And the word jihad -- holy struggle -- echoed again and again through the dark, leaky room.


It wasn't the kind of jihad that has been in the news since Sept. 11, 2001. There were no references to Osama bin Laden, the World Trade Center or suicide bombers. Instead there was only talk of April 6, 1994, the first day of the state-sponsored genocide in which ethnic Hutu extremists killed 800,000 minority Tutsis and Hutu moderates.


"We have our own jihad, and that is our war against ignorance between Hutu and Tutsi. It is our struggle to heal," said Saleh Habimana, the head mufti of Rwanda. "Our jihad is to start respecting each other and living as Rwandans and as Muslims."





http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2002Sep22.html


Alhamdulilah we will sit and wait and see


Salam

Bismillah


This post was deleted upon the request of the poster. But I didnt physically delet it otherwise the whole thread would have disappeared since this is the original post.


I hope readers will benefit here.