Eco-Islam

BBC

One local fisherman summarised neatly why the religious message has succeeded where government decrees failed: It is easy to ignore the government, he said, but no-one can break God's law.

Stockwell execution(cont'd)

BBC

The papers, from the probe into Jean Charles de Menezes' death, and leaked to ITV, suggest he was restrained before being shot eight times.

Well, we knew this from eyewitness accounts. I can't believe it's only coming out now!

Speaks for it's self

Tikkun.org

Anti-Zionists
David ben Yaacov asks:

Don't you think you and this magazine are made up of traitorous Anti-Zionists. Am I wrong or are you in league with the Christian and Islamic heretics? The left and right wing radical nutjobs? You cannot honestly believe in that the anti-Israeli liars and opponents are not anti-Jewish? Are you and the writers of this magazine sick in the head? The Arabs (I will NEVER acknowledge the fiction of this "Palestine" created by Roman oppressors who disappeared from history. The non-Israeli Arabs are living in a culture of death, how the hell can you negotiate with fanatics bent on our destruction? Until things change with the Arabs OCCUPYING Jewish land - Judea, Samaria, the Galilee, there will be no peace. The Arabs always try to win what they keep losing through their incredible stupidity and losses in war. They will never stop trying to destroy our Jewish nation. How can you honestly believe that the Arabs are going to stop murdering our citizens, our men, women and children? You and many others are completely deluded by this pie in the sky wishful thinking that we will have peace. The Arabs should have and should be expelled from Israel, from Judea, from the Yesha. Hard problems call for hard solutions. Im sorry but that is the only way I see out. Screw the Arabs, they lost, they support their terrorist brethren including Al-Qaeda, let them take their own people in. I am sick of traitors including Sharon caving into this defeatist, traitorous deluded thinking that giving up land automatically gives us peace. Let Israel kill those who kills its citizens. How can we let these heretics who pervert our faith occupy the holy Temple, with their obscene Dome of the Rock? over 800,000 Jews were EXPELLED from the Arab world from 1948 on. Do we ask for the Arabs to compensate them? Of course not. Israel is ours, we won it, they lost, thats the reality. Israel has nukes, they dare to attack us we should not hesitate to use them. If you pretend that Israel is based on a secular Judaism, you are sorely mistaken. The whole land of Israel is needed for it to grow, not just because of the historically Jewish sites and the significance of these and the fact that Jews have always lived in the land of Israel and Judah, but also because strategically speaking, Israel would be protected from an Arab army splitting the country in two if God forbid they attack us again. Your magazine and its left wing in the clouds writers and editors are secular fools who think you can actually negotiate with murderers. It sickens me that fellow Jews are anti-Zionist and collaborate openly and actively with the enemy. Are these heretics, because lets face it, Christians and Muslims basically stole our religion and developed their heretical perverted doctine from us. Whether they hate us or support Israel, like those right wing nutjob Christians who support Israel because in their mistaken heretical beliefs Israel somehow figures in their insane theology that in the end of course the Jews go to hell. A bunch of lunatic bastards who gall me with their heresy and polytheistic blasphemy. How will you answer to Jews and people of common sense, to God, your spineless, good intentioned yet impractical view and tactics. Israel has been unified, let us expel the Arabs who will not accept Israel. Two peoples who cannot live in peace side by side have to be separated, the Arabs must go.

Compassion

Tikkun.org

For all these reasons, it is very difficult to pity them. The “quality of life” and the “messianic vision” settlers – both have placed big bets. They wagered on their future. They bet and lost.

As did the million French settlers in Algeria, who were kicked out and returned to France, all within a few weeks, when the country attained its independence.

Suicide Terrorism

The American Conservative

RP: The central fact is that overwhelmingly suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign—over 95 percent of all the incidents—has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.

There will be a tiny number of people who are still committed to the cause, but the real issue is not whether Osama bin Laden exists. It is whether anybody listens to him. That is what needs to come to an end for Americans to be safe from suicide terrorism.

Israeli pullout

BBC

But I don't think we should give up any more territory, for example in the West Bank, because then maybe we will have no country at all.

I feel sad that a 17-year-old has been so brainwashed into being blind to the fact that those who lack a country are Palestinians, not Israelis!

[Palestinian leader] Mahmoud Abbas says 'Gaza today, Jerusalem tomorrow'.

If this means East Jerusalem, this makes no less sense than the whole of Jerusalem being Israeli, since it it is home to muslim, jewish and christian holy sites.

King Fahd

Link

When Saddam arrived in Kuwait, Fahd wrote him a letter, reminding him of how much the Saudis had contributed to his brutal war against Iraq[Iran-my correction]. "Oh Ruler of Iraq," Fahd wrote, "the Kingdom extended to your country $25,734,469,885. 80 cents." Analysing that sum, I once calculated the figure issued by Fahd courtiers was out by a dollar and a cent. By contrast, Fahd’s bankers calculated they spent $27.5bn on paying for America’s liberation of Kuwait - slightly more than they paid to Saddam.

Shoot to kill (cont'd)

QCtimes

What would I want to do to terrorists who struck this country with a nuclear device? Hit them, duh. Hit them hard, hit them repeatedly, hit them, their sponsors and allies, with every form of force — military, political, economic — we could muster. Hit them till they were destroyed. Then hit them again.

It's a terrorist war between religious fundamentalists on one side and imperialists on the other...

I mean, anybody who thinks fanaticism a trait exclusive to Islam must not have heard of Eric Rudolph, the Christian terrorist who bombed the Atlanta Olympics, a gay nightclub and two abortion clinics. Some alleged Christians in rural North Carolina, where he is believed to have hidden for five years, consider this murderer a hero.

Ah..but he's a christian, 'one of us'...

That police officer in London had an excuse. He had to act in a few pressure-packed seconds. And he made a decision that will haunt him the rest of his life.

He had but a few seconds to jump on an innocent man, push him to the ground, hold him down, and shoot him 8 times in the head. This is according to the reports we have to rely on until an inquiry is held.

Slayed Brazilian(cont'd)

Monthly Review

When it became clear that Mr. Menezes had not jumped the ticket barrier as alleged, had not behaved suspiciously, and had not been wearing "suspicious" clothing, the police allowed the Menezes family to explain this to the press alone, without corroborating them.

Lobbying for Exxon (ESSO)

Mother Jones

Forty public policy groups have this in common: They seek to undermine the scientific consensus that humans are causing the earth to overheat. And they all get money from ExxonMobil.

Elections in Japan

Washington Post

The cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has set Sept. 11 as the date for an election for parliament's lower house, it said in a statement.

Is that symbolic, or what?!

Democracy

BBC

Ohood Saif Ichlah, 19, also a UAE national, grew up in the UK. While she says "there's a lot to be said for democracy," she sees Western politicians' constant need to consider whether decisions will win them votes as a disadvantage.

This is not untrue. However, I don't think this is a good enough reason to reject democracy alltogether. The system we have in Britain or France, for example, is far from being ideal, but what we need is more democracy, not less. Incidentally, the idea that humans are not capable of having direct democracy is also used in 'our' countries to allow the government to limit our the people's decision power.
Furthermore, the media, as the BBC does here by pitting 'democracy' and 'Western politicians' against the UAE , often presents the situation as being democracy against no democracy, as if true democracy actually existed at state level anywhere on this globe.

Rural theatre and the London bombs

BBC

Keeping up appearances in Saudi Arabia

BBC

A large sign saying: "Exclusively ladies only, please remove your
face cover for security purposes," was displayed prominently in the cafe.
"That's to stop men from dressing up in veils and sneaking in here," they
told me. "People always want to do what's forbidden."

History

Japan Times

When a public junior high school teacher in Tokyo teaches about Japan's
acts of wartime aggression, some of her students ask why they should feel
responsible for what people did 60 years ago

As a european I would say the responsibility is to remember so as never to repeat the horrors of the past. That does not mean the youth of today are responsible for those horrors, obviously!

"I think junior high school students need to learn a positive view
of history so that they can nurture a positive self-identity," he said. "They
can learn how to view history critically at the high school level."

History is history.You can't invent history or make it sound positive. European countries have a history of colonialism. Nothing can morally justify colonialism today, even if we accept that some positive things came out of colonialism, such as the melting-pot society we live in today. Furthermore, as I pointed out above, the generations born after the war are not responsible for the atrocities of their forefathers, and therefore being taught about those acts of aggression shouldn't have a negative effect on how they view themselves. We are not defined by our nationality.

The biblical aspect of Hiroshima and Japan remembers

BBC

When he was told of the successful test of the atomic bomb - and
then took the decision to use it with no warning - he wrote in his diary: "We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark."

Japan Times

Yutaka Yoshida, a Hitotsubashi University professor, points out that rising
nationalism among younger generations, who feel less guilty about Japan's
wartime acts, has given new momentum to arguments against the Tokyo Tribunal.

I'd say they do feel guilty, which explains their defensive attitude. There is no need for them to feel guilty for something they are not responsible for, but knowledge of their nation's history is paramount.Knowledge is power.

The main point of contention in the debate over the tribunal is
whether the Allied Powers were justified in trying Japan's wartime leaders.
Technically, even scholars who fully accept Japan was to blame for the war
and acknowledge the judgments handed down by the tribunal say the proceedings
may have been flawed in terms of international law at that time.

I don't know if this is Mr Morioka's opinion, but if so, he'd better be careful of what he says, given his government's recent participation in an illegal war.

Terror in Israstein

BBC

Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the shooting a
reprehensible act by a "bloodthirsty terrorist".

Well, that's a start.Next step:admitting state terror. That's a long shot.

'Racist' murder

IOL

The killing has rekindled memories of the 1993 murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence, who was stabbed to death in London, which triggered soul-searching about racism in modern Britain.

Nude soldiers

BBC

Posing naked in the open air is reportedly a tradition in the unit, which displays the consequent photos around its headquarters.

The Unit Commander obviously didn't know this and only found out reading the paper over his morning coffee...

Royal Irish units to be disbanded

BBC

"It is a surrender to the IRA and is further evidence of bad faith on the part of the government." said Ian Paisley

Surely, if the Irish Republican Army are giving up their armed struggle, then there can be no such thing any more as the Irish Republican Army...

A man on a mission

or should that be a crusade?

King Fahd dies

BBC

"He was also a good friend of the United Kingdom. Our two countries have benefited very greatly over the years from his wise advice."

The ruler of a terrorist state, terrorising it's own people, home of Wahhabism and Bin Ladenism, and simultaeneously supported by 'western' terrorist states.