7 ex-Gitmo prisoners return to terror

[The Fool]

As you say, round and round we go while you appeal to sacrifices while stabbing that in the back with your insinuations and nitpicking definitions.

I hesitate to ask, because you will probably respond, but do you have any definition of how a fanatical muslim out to kill you (or more likely me) can be defined? Would you accept any evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, by anyone other than yourself or perhaps a severely diminished UN bureaucrat?

Your pious references to those who have given their lives for this country, or other democracies, is insulting to those who do so now and who you imply are lying today. You are a fool.

sigh...this is like pulling teeth.
You define a fanatical muslim out to kill you as anyone the US army tells you is a fanatical muslim out to kill you....is that correct? If they told you Osama was an alien would you accept that too?

With enough people like you I could easily put an end to freedom and human rights and democracy to boot..... I hope you are a victim of arbitrary detention one day.....you deserve it.

 

[CapelDodger]

Elind: We clearly have a different sense of proportion when it comes to the current threat. You see a unique threat that justifies the suspension - if not overthrow - of principles that have served for centuries. I have a different sense of proportion.

It derives, I think, from having being born in a well-bombed city, growing up with The Bomb and the threat of International Communism, Vietnam, the 6-Day War and the IRA - I've only ever heard two IRA bombs go off, but I've had my daily life disrupted a lot more often. And apart from all that I've always been a history buff, and I appreciate just how often these unique threats have gone of phutt. Have, in fact, been distractions from what's really going on. And, of course, how often these unique threats have been promoted by people on the make.

I was watching when internment was introduced in Northern Ireland, and I don't think anybody still holds illusions about what a bad idea that was. But at the time, a lot of people bought into the idea that the the threat was unique and could only be countered by suspension of principles.

This, too, will pass.

 

[Elind]

Elind: We clearly have a different sense of proportion when it comes to the current threat. You see a unique threat that justifies the suspension - if not overthrow - of principles that have served for centuries. I have a different sense of proportion.

It derives, I think, from having being born in a well-bombed city, growing up with The Bomb and the threat of International Communism, Vietnam, the 6-Day War and the IRA - I've only ever heard two IRA bombs go off, but I've had my daily life disrupted a lot more often. And apart from all that I've always been a history buff, and I appreciate just how often these unique threats have gone of phutt. Have, in fact, been distractions from what's really going on. And, of course, how often these unique threats have been promoted by people on the make.

I was watching when internment was introduced in Northern Ireland, and I don't think anybody still holds illusions about what a bad idea that was. But at the time, a lot of people bought into the idea that the the threat was unique and could only be countered by suspension of principles.

This, too, will pass.

I appreciate your position better now, but as you say our proportions are different, even while the principles may not be that far apart. Simply, I don't advocate overthrow of these principles but I doubt that there has ever been any war where they had not been modified for a time, and I doubt that any war is winable if one is not prepared to make adjustments. I don't think your situation resulted in an overthrow of those principles, and are you so sure that the internment did nothing to save lives?

I also believe that this present scenario is unique in the historical sense. Terrorism with a religious driving force without clearly definable government backing (beyond secret support) and potential access to terrible weapons is not something we have faced before. As much as I applaud faith in the "rule of law" I don't see how blind faith in it can allow us to fight effectively. Criminal courts cannot and should not have to deal with foreign terrorists, who would use them as no more than sorry propaganda forums, at great expense.

Geneva conventions, seem to me to be designed for conflicts between relatively civilized nations, where there is some accountability on all parties to follow them. That clearly isn't the situation here. Do you think it reasonable to expect a captured terrorist to be required to give his rank and serial number only (I got that from movies), when questioned? We have certain standards that we expect to be followed, and we have seen fairly prompt action to that in the case of Abu Graib, which should be expected everywhere.

As to accountability for what happens to Guantanamo inmates, or others held elsewhere, I do agree that there should be oversight, but not by the entertainment oriented press, and I believe that there is a move to set up an independent congressional commitee to do so, which it seems could have been done a long time ago. Beyond that I think military tribunals are perfectly sensible.

I agree, this too will pass, but we disagree on one very basic issue and that is that I believe, in the case of fundamental religious fanaticism in support of murder, that one can convict on the basis of a self stated belief, to the extent that it is practical. This is not the same as conviction for being catholic, or protestant, it is conviction for belonging to a terrorist organization, like the IRA.

 

[Elind]

I came across this today, which is interesting and long overdue, but also puzzling to find in a Saudi newspaper, and a quick google search can't find it anywhere else. We will see if the entertainment press ever picks it up, and if anything else develops. I won't hold my breath.



JEDDAH/NEW YORK, 30 October 2004 — Over 2,500 Muslim intellectuals from 23 countries have signed a petition to the United Nations calling for an international treaty to ban the use of religion for incitement to violence.

It also calls on the Security Council to set up a tribunal to try “the theologians of terror.” The petition is addressed to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and to all members of the Security Council and its current chairman.

“There are individuals in the Muslim world who pose as clerics and issue death sentences against those they disagree with,” says Shakir Al-Nablusi, a Jordanian academic and one of the signatories. “These individuals give Islam a bad name and foster hatred among civilizations.”

Nablusi said hundreds of Arab writers and academics were collecting more signatures and hope to have “tens of thousands” by next month. Among those collecting signatures are Jawad Hashem, a former Iraqi minister of planning, and Alafif Al-Akdhar, a leading Tunisian writer and academic. Most of the signatories are from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states plus Iraq, Jordan and Palestine.

The signatories describe those who use religion for inciting violence as “the sheikhs of death”. Among those mentioned by name is Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian preacher working in Qatar. The signatories accuse him of “providing a religious cover for terrorism.”

Last year Qaradawi raised a storm when he issued a fatwa allowing the killing of Israeli pregnant women and their unborn babies on the ground that the babies could grow up to join the Israeli Army. Last September, Qaradawi in a fatwa in response to a question from the Egyptian Union of Journalists said killing “all Americans, civilian or military” in Iraq was allowed.

“We cannot let such dangerous nonsense to pass as Islam,” Nablusi says.

The petition also names the late Egyptian preacher Muhammad Al-Ghazzali who, in 1992, issued a fatwa for the murder of Farag Foda, an anti-clerical writer in Cairo. Within weeks of the fatwa, zealots murdered Foda in his home.

Other “sheikhs of death” mentioned include the Yemeni Abdul-Majid Al-Zendani, and the Saudis Ali bin Khudhair Al-Khudhair and Safar Al-Hawali. The two Saudis have described the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against the United States as “retaliations”, and thus justified under Islamic law.

Issuing murder fatwas has a long story.

In 1947 the late Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Ahmad Kasravi, one of Iran’s most prominent lawyers. A few weeks later, six men stabbed Kasravi to death in a court of law. In 1951 a group of mullas issued a fatwa for the murder of Iran’s Prime Minister Haji-Ali Razmara. He was shot dead a few days later. In 1989 Khomeini issued a fatwa for the murder of the British novelist Salman Rushdie.

The signatories of the petition also want the UN to order its member states to stop broadcasting the “mad musings of the theologians of terror.”