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When will the muslims wake up from their coma. This is just giving the green light to the dictators and their evil government funded shieks to act with a free hand against Islam.
<b>O believers! Take neither Jews nor Christians as your protecting friends: they are only protecting friends of one another. Whoever of you disobeys this commandment will be counted as one of them. Surely Allah does not guide the wrongdoers. 5:51</b>
<b> Torture "widespread" under U.S. custody: Amnesty</b>
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews....HTS-AMNESTY.xml
GENEVA (Reuters) - Torture and inhumane treatment are "widespread" in U.S.-run detention centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba and elsewhere despite Washington's denials, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
In a report for the United Nations' Committee against Torture, the London-based human rights group also alleged abuses within the U.S. domestic law enforcement system, including use of excessive force by police and degrading conditions of isolation for inmates in high security prisons.
"Evidence continues to emerge of widespread torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees held in U.S. custody," Amnesty said in its 47-page report.
It said that while Washington has sought to blame abuses that have recently come to light on "aberrant soldiers and lack of oversight", much ill-treatment stemmed from officially sanctioned interrogation procedures and techniques.
"The U.S. government is not only failing to take steps to eradicate torture, it is actually creating a climate in which torture and other ill-treatment can flourish," said Amnesty International USA Senior Deputy Director-General Curt Goering.
The U.N. committee, whose experts carry out periodic reviews of countries signatory to the U.N. Convention against Torture, is scheduled to begin consideration of the United States on Friday. The last U.S. review was in 2000.
It said in November it was seeking U.S. answers to questions including whether Washington operated secret detention centers abroad and whether President George W. Bush had the power to absolve anyone from criminal responsibility in torture cases.
The committee also wanted to know whether a December 2004 memorandum from the U.S. Attorney General's office, reserving torture for "extreme" acts of cruelty, was compatible with the global convention barring all forms of cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. Continued...
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews....HTS-AMNESTY.xml
<b>...The fact is that Allah never changes the condition of a people until they intend to change it themselves....13:11</b>
ALLAH SAID: <b>"I am as My servant thinks I am......And if he draws near to Me an arm's length, I draw near to him a fathom's length. And if he comes to Me walking, I go to him at speed."</b> Hadith Qudsi #15
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Quote:When will the muslims wake up from their coma. This is just giving the green light to the dictators and their evil government funded shieks to act with a free hand against Islam.
<b>O believers! Take neither Jews nor Christians as your protecting friends: they are only protecting friends of one another. Whoever of you disobeys this commandment will be counted as one of them. Surely Allah does not guide the wrongdoers. 5:51</b>
<b>Torture "widespread" under U.S. custody: Amnesty</b>
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews....HTS-AMNESTY.xml
GENEVA (Reuters) - Torture and inhumane treatment are "widespread" in U.S.-run detention centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba and elsewhere despite Washington's denials, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
In a report for the United Nations' Committee against Torture, the London-based human rights group also alleged abuses within the U.S. domestic law enforcement system, including use of excessive force by police and degrading conditions of isolation for inmates in high security prisons.
"Evidence continues to emerge of widespread torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees held in U.S. custody," Amnesty said in its 47-page report.
It said that while Washington has sought to blame abuses that have recently come to light on "aberrant soldiers and lack of oversight", much ill-treatment stemmed from officially sanctioned interrogation procedures and techniques.
"The U.S. government is not only failing to take steps to eradicate torture, it is actually creating a climate in which torture and other ill-treatment can flourish," said Amnesty International USA Senior Deputy Director-General Curt Goering.
The U.N. committee, whose experts carry out periodic reviews of countries signatory to the U.N. Convention against Torture, is scheduled to begin consideration of the United States on Friday. The last U.S. review was in 2000.
It said in November it was seeking U.S. answers to questions including whether Washington operated secret detention centers abroad and whether President George W. Bush had the power to absolve anyone from criminal responsibility in torture cases.
The committee also wanted to know whether a December 2004 memorandum from the U.S. Attorney General's office, reserving torture for "extreme" acts of cruelty, was compatible with the global convention barring all forms of cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. Continued...
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews....HTS-AMNESTY.xml
<b>...The fact is that Allah never changes the condition of a people until they intend to change it themselves....13:11</b>
ALLAH SAID: <b>"I am as My servant thinks I am......And if he draws near to Me an arm's length, I draw near to him a fathom's length. And if he comes to Me walking, I go to him at speed."</b> Hadith Qudsi #15
Why don't you also post an article about the muslim extremists beheading people??? There is plenty of blame to go around in the torture department.
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Quote:Why don't you also post an article about the muslim extremists beheading people??? There is plenty of blame to go around in the torture department.
There is no blame on the 'Defenders of The Faith' for beheading the enemy and the traitors. It's a totally legal act of war in Islam endorsed by Allah and The Messenger. And why shouldn't we be able to do what is within our means against such overwhelming aggression. The enemy in question were not tortured. And you have no accounts otherwise from all of those who were held for interrogation and released. Unlike you christians. Let's not lose sight of the fact that it is the Amerikans who have invaded the lands of the muslims and slaughtered the people.
Now that's our justification. It's legal within the Law to defend ourselves and carry out the appropriate punishments on the aggressors and those guilty of treason, whether miltary personnel or civilians assisting the enemy to achieve conquest of our lands.
So as you can see there is no blame on our boyz morally or legally. They have acted within the Law and be assured Allah will reward them for it because obeying Allah and His last Prophet are the best of good deeds. You Crusaders are up to your old tricks. But we have already been forwarned about you by our God, Allah- The Almighty, All Wise.
<b>How can you trust them? If they prevail against you, they respect neither treaty nor ties of relationship. They just flatter you with their tongues, but their hearts reject you, and most of them are transgressors. They have sold the revelations of Allah for paltry worldly gain and they have hindered others from His way; indeed evil are the deeds that they have done. They neither honor the ties of relationship nor observe the obligations of treaties with the believers; it is they who are the transgressors. 9:8-10 </b>
How about you christians? What is your Law on the matter of torture? And how are your morals on this issue of torture and blatantly lying about it? What does your book say?
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Quote:There is no blame on the 'Defenders of The Faith' for beheading the enemy and the traitors. It's a totally legal act of war in Islam endorsed by Allah and The Messenger. And why shouldn't we be able to do what is within our means against such overwhelming aggression. The enemy in question were not tortured. And you have no accounts otherwise from all of those who were held for interrogation and released. Unlike you christians. Let's not lose sight of the fact that it is the Amerikans who have invaded the lands of the muslims and slaughtered the people.
Now that's our justification. It's legal within the Law to defend ourselves and carry out the appropriate punishments on the aggressors and those guilty of treason, whether miltary personnel or civilians assisting the enemy to achieve conquest of our lands.
So as you can see there is no blame on our boyz morally or legally. They have acted within the Law and be assured Allah will reward them for it because obeying Allah and His last Prophet are the best of good deeds. You Crusaders are up to your old tricks. But we have already been forwarned about you by our God, Allah- The Almighty, All Wise.
<b>How can you trust them? If they prevail against you, they respect neither treaty nor ties of relationship. They just flatter you with their tongues, but their hearts reject you, and most of them are transgressors. They have sold the revelations of Allah for paltry worldly gain and they have hindered others from His way; indeed evil are the deeds that they have done. They neither honor the ties of relationship nor observe the obligations of treaties with the believers; it is they who are the transgressors. 9:8-10 </b>
How about you christians? What is your Law on the matter of torture? And how are your morals on this issue of torture and blatantly lying about it? What does your book say?
Wow Faris Mee. I guess it's legal in Islam to behead journalists and contractors??? Daniel Pearl was a journalist. He was beheaded because he was a jew. Is it legal also for the Suni and Shia muslims to blow up eachothers mosques while people worship inside? Did the Taliban have the right also to starve it's women and behead men for not having beards???
What kind of torture is America guilty of??? The Abu Grhaib scandal showed that America used humiliation tactics. I didn't see any videos of gruesome beheadings. Those soldiers which took part in that torture have been put in prison for their crimes!
Last year a group of Muslims attacked a group of Christian high school aged girls while they were on their way to school in the Sulawesi province of Indonesia. Three of them were beheaded and one was seriously wounded.
http://www.ds-osac.org/News/story.cfm?contentID=37907
I can spend all day referencing horrible acts of violence committed by Muslims in the name of Allah towards Christians...Christians who aren't playing any part in any war. Torture, murder, disfigurement etc. <b>You, Faris Mee, are the problem if you even think about condoning such acts.</b>
My thoughts about such acts was that the people who commited them weren't true muslims. They were evil men who didn't trully understand Islam or the Quran. This is why I found this site. To gain the perspective of real Muslims.
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<b> Wow Faris Mee. I guess it's legal in Islam to behead journalists and contractors??
</b>
C.C. Far more journalists and contractors have been released unharmed than have been executed. The few who have been dealt with are those guilty of actively working for the enemy army. The crusaders have "out-sourced" much of their army's responsibilities such as transportation, supplies and equipment to contractors. These creatures are working directly for the army to keep them equipped and battle-ready. Next you'll be telling the resistance to leave the crusader soldiers alone because "they're just doin' what they're paid to do".
<b>Is it legal also for the Suni and Shia muslims to blow up each others mosques while people worship inside?</b>
You will not find even ONE communique from the resistance about this sort of thing. In fact they have distanced themselves from it. They know the rules of war. Perhaps you should look at the crusaders for your answer to this;
04/29/06 <b> news.independent.co.uk </b>
In Syria, the world appears through a glass, darkly. As dark as the smoked windows of the car which takes me to a building on the western side of Damascus where a man I have known for 15 years - we shall call him a "security source", which is the name given by American correspondents to their own powerful intelligence officers - waits with his own ferocious narrative of disaster in Iraq and dangers in the Middle East.
His is a fearful portrait of an America trapped in the bloody sands of Iraq, desperately trying to provoke a civil war around Baghdad in order to reduce its own military casualties. It is a scenario in which Saddam Hussein remains Washington's best friend, in which Syria has struck at the Iraqi insurgents with a ruthlessness that the United States wilfully ignores.
The Americans, my interlocutor suspected, are trying to provoke an Iraqi civil war so that Sunni Muslim insurgents spend their energies killing their Shia co-religionists rather than soldiers of the Western occupation forces. "I swear to you that we have very good information," my source says, finger stabbing the air in front of him. "One young Iraqi man told us that he was trained by the Americans as a policeman in Baghdad and he spent 70 per cent of his time learning to drive and 30 per cent in weapons training. They said to him: 'Come back in a week.' When he went back, they gave him a mobile phone and told him to drive into a crowded area near a mosque and phone them. He waited in the car but couldn't get the right mobile signal. So he got out of the car to where he received a better signal. Then his car blew up."
Impossible, I think to myself. But then I remember how many times Iraqis in Baghdad have told me similar stories. These reports are believed even if they seem unbelievable. And I know where much of the Syrian information is gleaned: from the tens of thousands of Shia Muslim pilgrims who come to pray at the Sayda Zeinab mosque outside Damascus. These men and women come from the slums of Baghdad, Hillah and Iskandariyah as well as the cities of Najaf and Basra. Sunnis from Fallujah and Ramadi also visit Damascus to see friends and relatives and talk freely of American tactics in Iraq.
"There was another man, trained by the Americans for the police. He too was given a mobile and told to drive to an area where there was a crowd - maybe a protest - and to call them and tell them what was happening. Again, his new mobile was not working. So he went to a landline phone and called the Americans and told them: 'Here I am, in the place you sent me and I can tell you what's happening here.' And at that moment there was a big explosion in his car."
Just who these "Americans" might be, my source did not say. In the anarchic and panic-stricken world of Iraq, there are many US groups - including countless outfits supposedly working for the American military and the new Western-backed Iraqi Interior Ministry - who operate outside any laws or rules. No one can account for the murder of 191 university teachers and professors since the 2003 invasion - nor the fact that more than 50 former Iraqi fighter-bomber pilots who attacked Iran in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war have been assassinated in their home towns in Iraq in the past three years.
Amid this chaos, a colleague of my source asked me, how could Syria be expected to lessen the number of attacks on Americans inside Iraq? "It was never safe, our border," he said. "During Saddam's time, criminals and Saddam's terrorists crossed our borders to attack our government. I built a wall of earth and sand along the border at that time. But three car bombs from Saddam's agents exploded in Damascus and Tartous- I was the one who captured the criminals responsible. But we couldn't stop them."
Now, he told me, the rampart running for hundreds of miles along Syria's border with Iraq had been heightened. "I have had barbed wire put on top and up to now we have caught 1,500 non-Syrian and non-Iraqi Arabs trying to cross and we have stopped 2,700 Syrians from crossing ... Our army is there - but the Iraqi army and the Americans are not there on the other side."
Behind these grave suspicions in Damascus lies the memory of Saddam's long friendship with the United States. "Our Hafez el-Assad [the former Syrian president who died in 2000] learnt that Saddam, in his early days, met with American officials 20 times in four weeks. This convinced Assad that, in his words, 'Saddam is with the Americans'. Saddam was the biggest helper of the Americans in the Middle East (when he attacked Iran in 1980) after the fall of the Shah. And he still is! After all, he brought the Americans to Iraq!"
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk...360624.ece
<b> Did the Taliban have the right also to starve it's women and behead men for not having beards???
</b>
These are lies and inventions of the crusaders and those who had a "vested interest" in removing the Taliban. e.g. The drug lords.
<b> What kind of torture is America guilty of???
</b>
Napalm that melts the skin to the bones. White phosphorous that melts the skin to the bones. Depleted Uranium- the gift that keeps on giving. D.U. that is actively destroying the lives of untold babies. I know you don't care about this because in Christendom it is legal to slaughter as many unborn babies as one so chooses. However it is a despicable and unmentionable crime in Islam. And this DU will go on killing and disfiguring until the Day of Judgement. And it will be yet more evidence against the evils of christendom.
Cluster bombs that explode into untold many more bombs of death when the initial one explodes. Cannisters of cluster bombs painted yellow so that to someone who can't read english they are identical to food parcels. And in this way the crusaders are able to magnify greatly the killing and maiming of a huge number of innocent muslim children.
<b> Those soldiers which took part in that torture have been put in prison for their crimes!
</b>
In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.
<b> You, Faris Mee, are the problem if you even think about condoning such acts
. </b>
My thoughts about such acts was that the people who commited them weren't true muslims.
They were evil men who didn't trully understand Islam or the Quran. This is why I found this site. To gain the perspective of real Muslims.
The resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan do not resort to ilegal means. As you can see or should I say - "If you can see", torture, napalm, white phosphorous, cluster bombs, atomic bombs, agent orange, untold bio chemical weapons are all LEGAL in christendom. We, the muslims, act purely on what is permissible in our religion. Whereas you believe the use of all sorts of despicible weapons is O.K. whenever you feel it may advantage yourselves. Yet if a people fight back without any of these weapons you scream unfair.
This attitude permiates through your entire attitude to the world. Even to the extent of starving the entire Palestinian population because the 'democratic election' didn't go your way. Unbelievable. Your puppet loses the vote and so you declare to the world that the entire country is to be starved into submission.
Please cease from lecturing us 'til such time as you find a 'conscience'.
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Quote:It didn't stop Saddam using such weapons against iran or his own population. Muslims I think.
Saddam was acting in the capacity of Puppet Dictator Agent on behalf of America. His poison gas was supplied by the Crusaders. Who in Islam condones what he did? He was one of yours!
But all you can say to the truth of the filth of what America does is to imply "Our Puppet did it first to you and we are merely following in his footsteps." No remorse. No sense of guilt. Unbelievable.
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Quote:<b> Wow Faris Mee. I guess it's legal in Islam to behead journalists and contractors??
</b>
C.C. Far more journalists and contractors have been released unharmed than have been executed. The few who have been dealt with are those guilty of actively working for the enemy army. The crusaders have "out-sourced" much of their army's responsibilities such as transportation, supplies and equipment to contractors. These creatures are working directly for the army to keep them equipped and battle-ready. Next you'll be telling the resistance to leave the crusader soldiers alone because "they're just doin' what they're paid to do".
<b>Is it legal also for the Suni and Shia muslims to blow up each others mosques while people worship inside?</b>
You will not find even ONE communique from the resistance about this sort of thing. In fact they have distanced themselves from it. They know the rules of war. Perhaps you should look at the crusaders for your answer to this;
04/29/06 <b>news.independent.co.uk </b>
In Syria, the world appears through a glass, darkly. As dark as the smoked windows of the car which takes me to a building on the western side of Damascus where a man I have known for 15 years - we shall call him a "security source", which is the name given by American correspondents to their own powerful intelligence officers - waits with his own ferocious narrative of disaster in Iraq and dangers in the Middle East.
His is a fearful portrait of an America trapped in the bloody sands of Iraq, desperately trying to provoke a civil war around Baghdad in order to reduce its own military casualties. It is a scenario in which Saddam Hussein remains Washington's best friend, in which Syria has struck at the Iraqi insurgents with a ruthlessness that the United States wilfully ignores.
The Americans, my interlocutor suspected, are trying to provoke an Iraqi civil war so that Sunni Muslim insurgents spend their energies killing their Shia co-religionists rather than soldiers of the Western occupation forces. "I swear to you that we have very good information," my source says, finger stabbing the air in front of him. "One young Iraqi man told us that he was trained by the Americans as a policeman in Baghdad and he spent 70 per cent of his time learning to drive and 30 per cent in weapons training. They said to him: 'Come back in a week.' When he went back, they gave him a mobile phone and told him to drive into a crowded area near a mosque and phone them. He waited in the car but couldn't get the right mobile signal. So he got out of the car to where he received a better signal. Then his car blew up."
Impossible, I think to myself. But then I remember how many times Iraqis in Baghdad have told me similar stories. These reports are believed even if they seem unbelievable. And I know where much of the Syrian information is gleaned: from the tens of thousands of Shia Muslim pilgrims who come to pray at the Sayda Zeinab mosque outside Damascus. These men and women come from the slums of Baghdad, Hillah and Iskandariyah as well as the cities of Najaf and Basra. Sunnis from Fallujah and Ramadi also visit Damascus to see friends and relatives and talk freely of American tactics in Iraq.
"There was another man, trained by the Americans for the police. He too was given a mobile and told to drive to an area where there was a crowd - maybe a protest - and to call them and tell them what was happening. Again, his new mobile was not working. So he went to a landline phone and called the Americans and told them: 'Here I am, in the place you sent me and I can tell you what's happening here.' And at that moment there was a big explosion in his car."
Just who these "Americans" might be, my source did not say. In the anarchic and panic-stricken world of Iraq, there are many US groups - including countless outfits supposedly working for the American military and the new Western-backed Iraqi Interior Ministry - who operate outside any laws or rules. No one can account for the murder of 191 university teachers and professors since the 2003 invasion - nor the fact that more than 50 former Iraqi fighter-bomber pilots who attacked Iran in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war have been assassinated in their home towns in Iraq in the past three years.
Amid this chaos, a colleague of my source asked me, how could Syria be expected to lessen the number of attacks on Americans inside Iraq? "It was never safe, our border," he said. "During Saddam's time, criminals and Saddam's terrorists crossed our borders to attack our government. I built a wall of earth and sand along the border at that time. But three car bombs from Saddam's agents exploded in Damascus and Tartous- I was the one who captured the criminals responsible. But we couldn't stop them."
Now, he told me, the rampart running for hundreds of miles along Syria's border with Iraq had been heightened. "I have had barbed wire put on top and up to now we have caught 1,500 non-Syrian and non-Iraqi Arabs trying to cross and we have stopped 2,700 Syrians from crossing ... Our army is there - but the Iraqi army and the Americans are not there on the other side."
Behind these grave suspicions in Damascus lies the memory of Saddam's long friendship with the United States. "Our Hafez el-Assad [the former Syrian president who died in 2000] learnt that Saddam, in his early days, met with American officials 20 times in four weeks. This convinced Assad that, in his words, 'Saddam is with the Americans'. Saddam was the biggest helper of the Americans in the Middle East (when he attacked Iran in 1980) after the fall of the Shah. And he still is! After all, he brought the Americans to Iraq!"
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk...360624.ece
<b> Did the Taliban have the right also to starve it's women and behead men for not having beards???
</b>
These are lies and inventions of the crusaders and those who had a "vested interest" in removing the Taliban. e.g. The drug lords.
<b>What kind of torture is America guilty of???
</b>
Napalm that melts the skin to the bones. White phosphorous that melts the skin to the bones. Depleted Uranium- the gift that keeps on giving. D.U. that is actively destroying the lives of untold babies. I know you don't care about this because in Christendom it is legal to slaughter as many unborn babies as one so chooses. However it is a despicable and unmentionable crime in Islam. And this DU will go on killing and disfiguring until the Day of Judgement. And it will be yet more evidence against the evils of christendom.
Cluster bombs that explode into untold many more bombs of death when the initial one explodes. Cannisters of cluster bombs painted yellow so that to someone who can't read english they are identical to food parcels. And in this way the crusaders are able to magnify greatly the killing and maiming of a huge number of innocent muslim children.
<b> Those soldiers which took part in that torture have been put in prison for their crimes!
</b>
In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.
<b>You, Faris Mee, are the problem if you even think about condoning such acts
. </b>
My thoughts about such acts was that the people who commited them weren't true muslims.
They were evil men who didn't trully understand Islam or the Quran. This is why I found this site. To gain the perspective of real Muslims.
The resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan do not resort to ilegal means. As you can see or should I say - "If you can see", torture, napalm, white phosphorous, cluster bombs, atomic bombs, agent orange, untold bio chemical weapons are all LEGAL in christendom. We, the muslims, act purely on what is permissible in our religion. Whereas you believe the use of all sorts of despicible weapons is O.K. whenever you feel it may advantage yourselves. Yet if a people fight back without any of these weapons you scream unfair.
This attitude permiates through your entire attitude to the world. Even to the extent of starving the entire Palestinian population because the 'democratic election' didn't go your way. Unbelievable. Your puppet loses the vote and so you declare to the world that the entire country is to be starved into submission.
Please cease from lecturing us 'til such time as you find a 'conscience'.
Ferris Mee, your conspiracy theory about Americans planting bombs for Shias and Sunnis so that they kill one another is interesting. Perhaps you also think Lyndon Johnson killed JFK! I guess you also think that the war in Iraq was for oil??? Where is the oil? Why would the US bother supporting a new Iraqi government if we only wanted to destroy the country?
You never responded to my question about the Christian girls who were beheaded by Indonesia. What do you think of that act? I guess you'll suppose that those girls were under cover US spies right??? Would it be too much to ask for you to admit that those attrocities are wrong? I'll admit that the past use of the some the weapons which you outlined is deplorable. I don't like it one bit. I don't think my governement is perfect and I don't support the war in Iraq like you presume I do...I DO, however, Support the war in Afghanistan.
You are also making a horrible mistake when you say, "The Crusaders." The force which occupies Iraq and Afghanistan is the United States Military. NOT the Christian church. The US military is comprised of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics, Buddists, etc....ALL walks of life. Yes....there are Muslims in the US military!!!
Why are so many Iraqis participating in their elections? Why are schools in Afghanistan open to girls for the first time in years? Where were you when Sadaam was killing the kurds by the thousands???
Your denial of the Taliban situation in Afghanistan is laughable. There are thousands of reports that outline the way it was under the Taliban regime including under cover camera and former Taliban confessions. They were/are absolutely evil. You can't just brush off history like that. Keep in mind Ferris that Afghanistan AND Iraq is a reaction to 9/11. They brought it on themselves.
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Quote:Suck it up like a big boy and accept the fact that saddam and his cronies gassed iraqis was of his own volition.
Actual like the good lap-dog he is, the amerikans sooled him onto the Iranians within dayz of the 'iranian hostage crisis' ending. And who knows where he got that smelly stuff from? ![[Image: 2257zx.gif]](http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/8190/2257zx.gif)
![[Image: 1983_rumsfeld-saddam-hussein_1-200x125.jpg]](http://www.just-another-site.de/beatbush-grafiken_2/1983_rumsfeld-saddam-hussein_1-200x125.jpg)
Quote:...Carry on.
<b>O believers! Take neither Jews nor Christians as your protecting friends: they are only protecting friends of one another. Whoever of you disobeys this commandment will be counted as one of them. Surely Allah does not guide the wrongdoers. 5:51</b>
How can you trust them? If they prevail against you, they respect neither treaty nor ties of relationship. They just flatter you with their tongues, but their hearts reject you, and most of them are transgressors. They have sold the revelations of Allah for paltry worldly gain and they have hindered others from His way; indeed evil are the deeds that they have done. They neither honor the ties of relationship nor observe the obligations of treaties with the believers; it is they who are the transgressors. 9:8-10
<b> The fall and fall of Afghanistan
</b>
By William Fisher
NEW YORK - "Contractors in Afghanistan are making big money for bad work." That is the conclusion reached in a new report from CorpWatch written by an Afghan-American journalist who returned to her native country to examine the progress of reconstruction.
"The [George W] Bush administration touts the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan as a success story," the report said, but claimed that reconstruction has been "bungled" by "many of the same politically connected corporations which are doing similar work in Iraq", receiving "massive open-ended contracts" without competitive bidding or with limited competition.
"These companies are pocketing millions, and leaving behind a people increasingly frustrated and angry with the results," the report said. Foreign contractors "make as much as US$1,000 a day, while the Afghans they employ make $5 per day," the report charged.
Examples cited in the report by author Fariba Nawa included a highway that began crumbling before it was finished; a school with a collapsed roof; a clinic with faulty plumbing; a farmers' cooperative that farmers can't use; Afghan police and military that, after training, are incapable of providing the most basic security.
Nawa said such examples abounded in the country. She wrote, "Near Kabul city in the village of Qalai Qazi, Afghanistan, stands a new, bright-yellow health clinic built by American contractor The Louis Berger Group. The clinic was meant to function as a sterling example of American engineering, and to serve as a model for 81 clinics Berger was hired to build - in addition to roads, dams, schools and other infrastructure - in exchange for the $665 million in American aid money the company has so far received in federal contracts.
"The problem is, this 'model' clinic was falling apart: the ceiling had rotted away in patches; the plumbing, when it worked, leaked and shuddered; the chimney, made of flimsy metal, threatened to set the roof on fire; the sinks had no running water; and the place smelled of sewage," the report said.
The US-led reconstruction effort has directed substantial resources toward eradicating illicit poppy growing. It awarded a contract worth $120 million over four years to train opium growers in the cultivation of alternative crops.
One part of the program "instructed farmers in Parwan to grow more vegetables, and promised to find buyers for them both within the country and beyond. The farmers, who normally planted beans and lentils, grew green vegetables as encouraged. But instead of profiting, they lost money. Vegetables flooded the market and drove the price down," the report said.
In another part of the same program, the report said, it was determined that Afghan farmers, who make up about 80% of the working population, needed canals and irrigation systems and the means to get their product to domestic markets more efficiently, to minimize crop loss and to re-establish their access to the international market.
The contractor's solution was to build irrigation canals. But the report pointed out that poppies need very little water or fertilizer to thrive. The result, the report said, was that opium-poppy growers used the water in the canals to grow even more poppies.
The report said the US hired a number of public relations companies to put a positive face on the reconstruction effort. One of them was the Washington-based Rendon Group, which the report said had "close ties to the Bush administration". The Pentagon has awarded Rendon more than $56 million in contracts since September 11, 2001, "as part of a coordinated effort to disseminate positive press about America and its military in the developing world".
The contracts called for "tracking foreign reporters" and "pushing (and sometimes paying) news outlets worldwide to run articles and segments favorable to United States interests".
The report said Rendon was also granted a contract in 2004 to train staff at President Hamid Karzai's office in the art of public relations, and "later received another hefty grant of $3.9 million from the Pentagon to develop a counter-narcotics campaign with the Afghan Interior Ministry - despite objections from Karzai and the State Department".
The report charged that the contracting system used by international donors was broken. It said the US Agency for International Development (USAID) "gives contracts to American companies (and the World Bank and IMF [international Monetary Fund] give contracts to companies from their donor countries) who take huge chunks off the top and hire layers and layers of subcontractors who take their cuts, leaving only enough for sub-par construction".
"Quality assurance is minimal; contractors know well they can swoop in, put a new coat of paint on a rickety building, and submit their bill, with rarely a question asked. The result is collapsing hospitals, clinics and schools, rutted and dangerous new highways, a 'modernized' agricultural system that has actually left some farmers worse off than before, and emboldened militias and warlords who are more able to unleash violence on the people of Afghanistan."
Afghans, the report said, "are losing their faith in the development experts whose job is to reconstruct and rebuild their country ... What the people see is a handful of foreign companies setting priorities for reconstruction that make the companies wealthy, yet are sometimes absurdly contrary to what is necessary."
Meanwhile, the report said, "The security situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, directly threatening ongoing reconstruction. Some of the fighting is simply the result of deep frustration and distrust among Afghans who no longer believe the international community is looking out for their best interests."
The "deliberate use of warlords and militias in reconstruction efforts has only lent them more credibility and power, further undermining the elected government and fueling a Taliban-led insurgency that continues to gain power".
The basic infrastructure in the country, the report concluded, "is in shambles; the drug trade is booming. This result should be seen as a major setback to the 'war on terror'. To Afghans, who after decades of war, believed they would finally catch a break, it's a heartbreak."
Professor Beau Grosscup of California State University at Chico agreed. He said, "This report confirms that Afghanistan has been 'Enron-ized' by the Bush administration.
"As with the demise of Enron, the future of Afghanistan is one in which the 'get rich quick' class at the top will escape with their bounty, while the poor who were encouraged to invest heavily in 'reconstruction' and promised prosperity will be left to live in the rubble."
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HE06Df04.html
<b>How can you trust them? If they prevail against you, they respect neither treaty nor ties of relationship. They just flatter you with their tongues, but their hearts reject you, and most of them are transgressors. They have sold the revelations of Allah for paltry worldly gain and they have hindered others from His way; indeed evil are the deeds that they have done. They neither honor the ties of relationship nor observe the obligations of treaties with the believers; it is they who are the transgressors. 9:8-10</b>
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If it makes you feel any better Faris, contractors often get away with the same sort of thing in the UK, when working on government projects <_<
But it'll be made worse by the fact that you won't get proper tradesmen/engineers to go do the work in Afghanistan. As it is they have to pay through the nose to get anyone to go over there, and those that do go will only be going because they're so bad they can't get work here.
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<b>Ferris, I am still waiting for you to give your thoughts on the incident in Indosesia where the Christian girls were beheaded on their way to school. </b>
You silence on the issue is a little concerning.
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