Why the Western media will never like Narendra Modi

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/western-media-narendra-modi-india-new-york-times-economist/story/1/2598.html

Why the Western media will never like Narendra Modi

By Minhaz Merchant

Since the Narendra Modi government took office last May, Western media criticism of India has grown sharper. Prime Minister Modi was never a favourite of India’s mainstream media either. He still isn’t.

The relationship between Modi and the media has long been vitiated by old biases. Social media has enabled the prime minister to largely bypass the Indian and foreign media. This though has made the relationship with traditional media even more fraught. Journalists have large egos. Being ignored does not endear to them a prime minister seen as remote and aloof.

 Foreign journalists meanwhile are puzzled. Most are middle-level careerists who head their newspapers’ South Asian bureaus. An Indian posting is a stepping stone to a top editorial job back home or in a larger bureau in Europe, China or the United States.

For these mid-career journalists, India is a challenge. Most know they’ll be transferred out of New Delhi in a few years even as they are finding their feet in the country. For example, Simon Denyer, the Washington Post‘s former New Delhi bureau chief with who I appeared in 2012 on a Times Now debate on the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s famed silences, was sent off to Beijing before he had a chance to do extended reportage out of India. Besides, as we agreed in that particular debate, foreign journalists cater to an audience that knows little about India and is easily swayed by undercooked foreign reportage.  

Should Indians though bother about how foreign media projects India? Not unduly. American and European media are far too insular to give India more than cursory coverage, some of it of uneven quality. However, when bias morphs into deception, it’s time to set the record straight. Let’s take specific examples.

In a recent story in Quartz (the Indian arm of a popular, edgy American website), the headline said breathlessly: “Indian millionaires are fleeing the country”.

The article begins thus: “India’s millionaires do not want to live in India. In the last ten years, some 27 per cent of India’s 160,600 high net worth individuals (HNWIs) have left the country, according to a report by property consultant Knight Frank. A high net worth individual is a person having investable wealth of more than $1 million (Rs 6.28 crore).That’s second only to China, where 76,200 HNWIs packed up and moved out between 2003 and 2013. India’s ‘wealthy migrants’ tend to favour the UK, the US and Australia.”

And then out comes the truth in the rest of the article: “India’s wealthy are moving to other countries to make even more money. “HNWIs are not exactly leaving India, but these are the people who are leaving the country for employment opportunities. These days salary levels are pushing a lot of individuals in the HNWI bucket,” Kartik Jhaveri, director of Transcend Consulting, a wealth management service, told Quartz. Much of this exodus, Jhaveri explained, is temporary, with investments (particularly in real estate) remaining parked in India as these millionaires head out for new jobs or business expansion.”

Indian millionaires “fleeing” India? When the headline and the opening paragraphs misrepresent  so brazenly the main thrust of the article that follows, it’s not just the sub-editor who should be fired. The responsibility travels all the way up to the top.

Turn now to The New York Times, older than Quartz and with gravitas bordering on the pretentious. In an error-speckled piece by its “editorial board” titled “Narendra Modi’s Rise in India”, the newspaper wrote: “Modi’s economic record in Gujarat is not entirely admirable, either. Muslims in Gujarat, for instance, were much more likely to be poor than Muslims in India as a whole.”

When the error was pointed out on social media and elsewhere (Muslims in Gujarat are actually among the least poor in India), the Times was forced to recant: “An earlier version of this editorial relied on a 2012 Indian government report on poverty rates, which included the rate for Muslims in Gujarat in 2009 and 2010. Newer data shows that poverty among that group has declined substantially in the last two years.”

Factual errors can be put down to journalistic incompetence. But misstatements? Bias? Any newspaper that values its editorial integrity and professional reputation would not have published a piece overflowing with invective as The Economist did shortly after the prime minister’s speech at Madison Square Garden in New York last September.

The piece, titled “I give you Narendra Modi”, began with droll prose: ‘YEAH, go that way,’ yells a frazzled cop guarding a security cordon outside Penn Station. Which pain-in-the-ass sports star or musician is snarling traffic around Madison Square Garden, an arena normally graced by Wrestle Mania, the Knicks and the Rolling Stones? Actually, today’s performer is a politician: Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister.”

The magazine was forced to issue this “apology” a few days later:

“Editor’s note: The second sentence of this blog post was changed on September 29 to make clear that The Economist does not consider Mr Modi to be a ‘pain in the ass’; that epithet is merely how we imagined an uninformed New Yorker might feel about someone who causes a traffic jam.”

The Economist prides itself on its journalism. Neither its original piece nor its mocking apology justify that pride.

 Francois Gautier, the French editor-in-chief of La Revue de I’Inde, puts all of this in historical perspective: “The British set upon establishing an intermediary race of Indians whom they could entrust with their work at middle-level echelons and who could one day be convenient instruments to rule by proxy, or semi-proxy. The tool to shape these British clones was education. In the words of Macaulay: ‘We must at present do our best to form a class, who may be interpreters between us and the millions we govern; a class of persons, Indians in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.’ The unfortunate element of course is that Western journalists now quote Indian intellectuals: ‘See we are not saying anything, Indians themselves are saying it.'”

How should the Modi government respond to such bias? It shouldn’t. The government must instead communicate its policies daily through a structured media briefing. Each key ministry must have a designated spokesperson (like the excellent Syed Akbaruddin of the ministry of external affairs) who briefs the media by rotation. The only thing worse than misinformation is no information.

Dissent is the soul of democracy. Openness, like sunlight, is a disinfectant. In the absence of a structured daily information protocol by the government, which accommodates both dissent and openness, genuine achievement risks being ignored while errors of judgment are magnified by Indian and foreign media who deeply resent that they no longer have access to the top.

 

Why Western Media Hates Modi @

http://www.sify.com/news/why-do-the-western-media-hate-modi-imagegallery-features-oeohAUdcihasi.html

 

NYT’s  Modiphobia: bias masquerading as fact @ http://www.firstpost.com/politics/the-nyts-modiphobia-bias-masquerading-as-fact-1454675.html

 

 *** Hitting the “DELETE” button is easier…but…
try to press the “FWD” button & make people aware!

Allowing illegal ex-terrorists

Allowing illegal inflow of ex-terrorists in Bharat- II

Ashwani Kumar Chrungoo

ORGANISER

Lakhs of 1947 refugees who are living in the State and are struggling for their citizenship rights, compensation and voting rights for the last 66 years have been in principle sidelined by the policy of rehabilitation for ‘ex-terrorists’—while the ex-terrorists, their Pakistani wives and children have been given preference over them. This is a very awkward situation that the nationalist forces in the State have been put to by the powers that be.

The wives and children of the ‘returnee ex-militants’ who are generally Pakistan citizens and have been brought up in the Pakistan social set-up (where India-baiting is a common cord), after entering India via an illegal route, envisage for them the following:

Relief, cash assistance, jobs and packages at the cost of public exchequer, grant of constitutional right to purchase and sale of movable and immovable property in India and naturalisation of citizenship in India.

The “Procedure” given in the “Policy” adopted by the Government in the year 2010 for rehabilitation has been given a complete good-bye by allowing the ‘returnees’ to adopt Nepal route. How and why the governments allowed illegal arrival of the so-called ex-terrorists is a big mystery. It has not only put the policy for rehabilitation into the dustbin but has also allowed illegal immigration from Nepal to India.

Why Pakistan should give passports to these people and how Nepal gives its visa to them is another mystery. People having Pakistan passports and Nepal visa need also Indian visa to enter Indian borders (from Nepal route as well) but in these cases, no such Indian visa has been issued to these people. Thus, this is a clear case of not only     ‘illegal immigration’ but also of ‘illegal trafficking’ to which the Government of India is either a silent spectator or has some tacit understanding with the J&K government. Here it needs to be emphasised that the procedure to adopt Nepal route illegally envisages violation of a number of national laws, bilateral treaties and international conventions.

The people coming from Pakistan/PoK under the policy need to be put in the counselling centres under the supervision and surveillance for three months but no such counselling centres have been established by the government. In fact, these people were allowed to form association and go for protests against the government demanding various facilities and privileges. It seems that the role of the intelligence agencies and the security forces has been minimised to the lowest level on the subject and the role of Bureau of Immigration and High Commission of India in Pakistan has been brought to a naught. Whether the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu is in the picture or not is another mystery.

One is reminded of the patronage given to the secessionist elements post Maqbool Bhat execution in Kashmir, release of 77 dreaded terrorists in Kashmir in 1989 and release of 5 terrorists in return for release of Rubaya Syed in 1989. All these incidents were followed by a substantial increase in terror related incidents coupled with mayhem and generalized anarchy to which we are all witness. It further militarised the general society and laid foundations for radical fundamentalism and grass-root level broad-based terrorism in the Jammu and Kashmir State.

The relative improvement in the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir is largely due to the following factors: Better border management techniques employed by the security forces, neutralisation of terrorism in the areas under the control of security forces and Village Defense Committees (particularly in Doda district) and overall sacrifices made by the valiant security forces in the line of duty.

For the last three to four months, a number of terror related incidents took place in Kashmir in which a number of security forces, elected panchs and sarpanchs were killed by the terrorists.  Some fidayeen attacks were also carried out on security forces’ camps. There is a general belief that these attacks might have been carried out by these ‘ex-militant returnees’ from PoK/Pakistan. There are reports that some of the ‘returnees’ have gone into hiding and are engaged in “re-grouping” in certain vulnerable areas.

The two and a half decades of terrorism has taken a heavy toll on the peace loving people of J&K. The victims of terrorism are still without any concrete process of relief and rehabilitation. The way in which the government has sought to facilitate the return of the ex-militants would not only demoralise these victims of terrorism but would also send a wrong message to the nationalist forces in the State. The younger generations in the State would also be misled into the belief that anti-national activities and terrorism have a premium in the Jammu and Kashmir State.

The Jammu and Kashmir government has been vehemently pressurising the government of India to recognise the “illegal immigration from Nepal route” as a genuine passage for the ‘returnee ex-militants’. This insistence of the J&K government creates a number of questions and formally opens illegal flood gates for Pakistan citizens to settle in the Indian territory for ever as the first class citizens of India.

It is  for the first time in the history of Independent India that an elected government is not only helping illegal immigration but is also advocating for an illegal passage to be recognised as the legal one and that too for the people who were/are directly connected with terror and anti-national subversive activities.

This policy has the potential to ultimately negate all the gains achieved in the control of terrorism in the State over these years.  source

One Region in Myanmar Limits Births of Muslims  : New York Times

HILARIOUS  LOGIC:2+2=Zakir Naik – Islamic State on Minorities

Cruelty to our Food?

Are we cruel to our Food?

Yahoo Health

October 5,12

1. Lobster : 

These spiny guys can live as old as we do, but thanks to our appetite for lobster rolls, they usually don’t. A recent study in the journal Animal Behavior showed that, contrary to previous thinking, lobsters and crab can feel pain and exhibit signs of stress. Lobsters also have a central nervous system, according to other research. But that hasn’t persuaded many to stop eating them. Some high-end restaurants even offer live lobster sashimi, where you choose your lobster from a tank and it appears on your plate in seconds, slit down the middle and squirming.

What’s being done: Not much, although boiling lobster is illegal in the Italian town Reggio Emilia. Domestically, Whole Foods no longer sells live lobsters. In 2005, the chain conducted an internal study on the crustacean and how it gets to stores. They were persuaded by numerous studies that show lobsters can get stressed, are able to learn, and are aware of their surroundings. Many are held in storage facilities for several months, and because there’s no way to minimize that distress, Whole Foods decided to stop carrying them live.

What to eat instead: Nosh sustainable, ethically caught shellfish, though it sounds simpler to find than it is. (Origins can be fishy, so check out our feature on how to choose the best shrimp.) If you’re worried about the ethics of eating seafood at all but want to get your omega-3s, choose a plant-based source, like ground flaxseed.

2. Shark-fin soup: 

The name hides nothing: This soup is made with fins that are sliced off sharks in open waters. The fish are then tossed back into the water, where they can drown or bleed to death. Many of the fins served in the United States come from endangered shark species, according to a recent study by Stony Brook University and the Field Museum in Chicago. More status symbol than tasty (or nutritious), shark-fin soup is a popular gourmet treat in Asia and is abundant in restaurants across the United States, too.

What’s being done: Shark finning was banned in Hawaii in 2010, and it’s since been made illegal in Washington, Oregon, California, and Illinois. Last July, China’s Government Offices Administration of the State Council announced that the Chinese government would no longer serve shark-fin dishes at official events, according to conservation organization WildAid.

What to eat instead: Pretty much anything under the sun, but you might want to start with a seafood bisque. Just steer clear of these 12 fish that are bad for both you and the environment.

3. Veal: 

Many male calves are destined to become veal, since they can’t produce milk. Just days after one of these calves is born, he can be moved to a crate so small that he can’t turn around. There, he’s typically fed milk or formula and is not allowed to exercise, which results in the pale fatty flesh for which veal is famous. Veal are usually slaughtered when they’re just 5 months old.

What’s being done: In 2009, the Humane Society recorded undercover abuse of calves at a Vermont slaughter plant. The USDA and Vermont Agency of Agriculture suspended operations there for an investigation, and a year later, the plant’s owner pleaded no contest to animal cruelty charges. But there’s some good news: Veal crates are illegal in Arizona, California, Maine, Michigan, and Ohio.

What to eat instead: If you’re craving the tenderness of veal, grab a meaty Portobello mushroom burger instead. Ours is topped with pesto and roasted red peppers and slapped on a whole-wheat bun for a cruelty-free 277 calories.

4. Foie gras: 

Foie gras, which means “fatty liver” in French, is a silky-smooth delicacy from goose or duck that’s often served in elegant, high-end restaurants–the kind of thing you might splurge on as a treat. How it gets to your plate isn’t quite so elegant, though. The short version is this: Workers restrain the birds and insert a long metal tube down its throat, through which they pump pounds of corn several times a day. After about a month of force-feeding, they’re slaughtered, and their livers become your dinner.

What’s being done: It’s illegal to force-feed ducks in several countries, including the UK, Austria, Israel, Denmark, and Poland, but it’s not necessarily illegal to sell the stuff. Stateside, the production and sale of foie gras is banned in California, but some restaurants have gotten around the ban by giving it away, reports Los Angeles Magazine. In 2006, it was banned in Chicago, but then-mayor Richard M. Daley called the ban “the silliest law” ever passed by City Council, and it was repealed in 2008.

What to eat instead: Get your rich pate fix sans guilt with vegan walnut pate. The animal-free version is made with herbs and meaty nuts, and it’s cholesterol free.  Harness your hormones to lose unhealthy belly fat for good!

5. Eggs: 

So you don’t eat foie gras, shark-fin soup, or even meat? You still might not be eating cruelty-free. The innocent little egg sometimes comes from hens who live in cages so small they can’t even spread their wings. It’s not surprising that the eggs from these hens, claustrophobic and living in their own waste, are up to 21 times more likely to harbor salmonella, according to a 2008 study from Belgium.

What’s being done: Thankfully, things might be looking up for chickens. Congress is considering a new bill–H.R. 3798, or the Egg Products Inspection Act Amendments of 2012–that would give hens twice the amount of living space, prohibit excessive ammonia in the henhouses, and require labeling on egg cartons to list how the egg-layers lived. More than 8 million chickens are slaughtered each year in the U.S., according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, so this could be big for the little cluckers. (Check out more on happier hens here.)

What to eat instead: Organic is a must for anything chicken-related, since poultry feed can have all kinds of bad stuff in it, from antidepressants to arsenic. Cage-free is nice, too, since those eggs don’t come from chickens that are trapped in battery cages all the time. But the best option? Seek out eggs with the “certified humane raised and handled label,” which means that your eggs underwent a voluntary, thorough inspection by an independent animal-welfare group. Or buy from a farmer you trust. Check out LocalHarvest to find truly sustainable farmers near you.

6. Balut:  

Speaking of eggs, balut is a soft-boiled duck egg, where the embryo is almost fully formed–feathers, bones, and all. The egg is cracked open, the soupy liquid drunk, and the fetus dug out to eat. It’s popular in the Philippines, Laos, and other Southeast Asian countries.

What’s being done: Thanks to domestic foodie demand, this “snack” is available in the U.S. too. Dekalb Market in Brooklyn hosted its first ever balut-eating contest this summer–and the winner downed 18 embryos in 5 minutes.

What to eat instead: Regular eggs (organic, cage-free, preferably my-farmer-sold-them-to-me eggs, that is) will give you a protein fix without the feathered fetus.

7. Beef:  

How well is your cow treated before it turns into your burger patty? Not great, you think, since you know how lax the laws are regarding factory farms. But how bad can it get, really? Very, according to the animal-rights group Compassion Over Killing, which recently released an undercover video taken at Central Valley Meat Co., a California slaughterhouse that supplies beef to the USDA National School Lunch Program, In-N-Out Burger, Costco, and McDonald’s. Workers there illegally shocked the cows repeatedly with electric prods, sometimes as many as 40 times. Many of the cows there died slow, agonizing deaths, and some captured on video weren’t even dead when they got to the slaughtering stage.

What’s being done: Since the video came out, the aforementioned companies severed their ties with Central Valley Meat Co. The USDA closed the plant down for a few days to address mishandlings, but then continued their lunch program contract with the company, reported Food Safety News.

What to eat instead: If you’re set on meat, go local and humane. Get your beef at a farmer’s market, where you can ask the farmer about their breeding–and slaughtering–practices.

8. Pork:  

Want to know the secret to beating bacon cravings at brunch? Consider where your pig came from. Even though they’re some of the most intelligent animals alive, most breeding pigs are kept in gestation creates: tiny spaces about 2 feet wide in which pigs can’t even turn around, according to the Humane Society. They stay pent up most of their lives to endure constant impregnation.

What’s being done: Gestation crates are banned in Sweden and the U.K. Stateside, they’re banned in Florida, Oregon, Maine, and Rhode Island, with phase-out plans in several other states. The three largest fast food chains in America–McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s–recently announced they’d be phasing out the practice for pigs. Most recently, Qdoba, Jack in the Box, and Subway pledged to eliminate gestation crates by 2022.

What to eat instead: This little piggie went to market–the farmer’s market. It’s the very best way to learn what happens to your meat, from pig’s pen to pork chop.

Free Speech Security Threat For US

FREE SPEECH IS NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT FOR US:IMAM 

Tiffany Gabbay

The Blaze

There are religions that promote turning the other cheek even when mocked, but it appears Islam is not one of them. According to one of the most prominent imams in North America, Islam never condones violence, but it also, under no uncertain terms, “everaccepts” speaking ill of the Prophet Muhammad.

In fact, so grave is mockery of the prophet considered, that the cleric – Mohammad Qatanani, who leads one of the largest mosques in New Jersey – even believes free speech that criticizes Islam poses a national security threat to the U.S. and that those responsible should be investigated by the Department of Homeland Security.

“We, as Americans, have to put limits and borders [on] freedom of speech,” Qatanani, leader of the Islamic Center of Passaic County (ICPC), told TheBlaze. He explained that while Americans may ”have the freedom“ to speak their mind, ultimately, they “have no right to [talk about Muslim] holy issues“ as it will incite ”hatred or war among people.”

Qatanani said he thinks agitators who slander Islam, or, more specifically, the Prophet Muhammad, incite violence and hence, pose a national security risk that threatens the safety of Americans at home and abroad. Thus, America should disregard its First Amendment as it is typically applied and instead act in accordance with sharia law for the ultimate “good” of society.

In an exclusive interview with TheBlaze, the cleric, who was nearly deported in 2008 for failing to disclose his former ties to the terrorist organization Hamas on a 1996 Green Card application, explained that Muslims are required by Islam to respect the law of the land in their host-countries. He followed up that statement, however, with a treatise on how those who slander the prophet be pursued legally.

While some leaders within the Muslim community have spoken out against the anti-America driven violence in the Middle East, many have qualified their condemnation with moral equivalence, treating a film dubbed “Innocence of Muslims” (which some claim served as the catalyst for the attacks), with even harsher disdain than they do murder. Qatanani said the Obama White House should take legal action against the filmmakers.

“My position is that White House has to say strong in its condemnation [of the filmmakers] and take this person to court. If he is innocent, we will accept that… The government has strong case against this person.”

When asked what can be done to prevent future attacks, Qatanani invoked Homeland Security again, suggesting that the department actually step-in to prevent artists, composers, movie-makers, or satirists (among others), from producing works critical of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. He believes it is in America’s best interest to quell this kind of free speech as it “ruins” America’s image abroad and will ultimately hurt people.

Qatanani’s statements make it appear that, in so many words, the cleric is advocating for the U.S. to operate by sharia law – the religious law of Islam – when it comes to freedom of speech as it relates to Islam. If so, it would seem to echo comments in a previous report on TheBlaze outlining Islamists’ “10-year plan” to make slandering Islam unlawful on an international level. 

American freedom versus Islamic freedom

One of the most revealing insights made by the controversial faith leader came when he juxtaposed American freedom with the type of freedom permitted under sharia law.

The imam acknowledged that observant Muslims view freedom only through the lens of that which is permitted by the Quran and Sunnah, the two sacred texts of Islam, and is therefore much different from the way Americans view freedom.

“They [Muslims] think our [American] freedoms are too much,” Qatanani said. “The freedom of the American people is so different from their [Muslims’] freedoms. We believe freedoms have limits and rules, otherwise we will get people into trouble…Freedom according to Islam must be according to the Quran and Sunnah. You can do [anything] you like within the teachings of these two resources. This is the difference and main reason [for the conflict].”

A different standard of freedom?

“People there [in the Middle East] don’t understand the American Constitution and freedom of speech,” Qatanani said. We have to understand each other because misunderstanding is a killing issue… The issue of Prophet Muhammad is very delicate – they [Muslims] will not accept in any way, anybody who talks badly about Muhammad.”

He went on to explain that not even Jesus or Moses, who Muslims also revere as heroes and prophets, would be permitted to speak ill of their ultimate Prophet Muhammad and stated emphatically, and repeatedly, during the interview that Muslims will never “accept” or tolerate such slander even in the U.S. under the auspices of freedom of speech.

At one point Qatanani said that it is essentially fine to mock Jesus or Moses (as Americans often satire various religious figures) but that is absolutely verboten to mock Muhammad. Later, he added that Muslims would be equally upset if anyone were to slander Christian or Jewish figureheads.

On the embassy attacks 

At the end of the day Qatanani was consistent in his call for peace, however, he was particularly fixated on the “Innocence of Muslims” as egregious enough to justify violence.

“I believe the producer of the film’s [goal] was to have people hate each other. We are against the bad reaction, but the producer wants people to react that way [rioting]. He has a hidden agenda.”

In fairness, TheBlaze has reported that the filmmakers appear to be dubious characters with checkered pasts, and perhaps even ill-intentions. That said, they were certainly within their “right” under American law to produce the movie, whether tasteful or not. Qatanani pressed that irrespective of context, such movies and rhetoric will be exploited by extremists and thus, America has a responsibility to prevent inflammatory material that could agitate jihadists from reaching the mainstream.

An interesting point to note was that throughout the discussion, Qatanani repeatedly called for peaceful action and condemned violence as being anathema to true Islam. Conversely, he referred to the attacks on U.S. embassies abroad that left a U.S. ambassador, two Navy SEALs and one additional civil servant dead, as merely ”a bad reaction.”

He then repeated calls for peace and maintained that such “bad reactions” go directly against Islam’s peaceful nature.

“We condemn any bad reaction that is not peaceful. That is not Islamically acceptable, even by the teachings of the prophet. It is unacceptable.”

So who is Qatanani?

Qatanani’s notoriety soared in 2008 when U.S. immigration authorities attempted to deport him.

Born in the Palestinian city of Nablus, Qatanani was arrested, pleaded guilty and was convicted in an Israeli military court in 1993 for aiding Hamas during an uprising that same year. When he immigrated to the United States in 1996, the cleric failed to include information about his ties to the terrorist group on his U.S. Green Card application. The omission, along with the cleric’s checkered past, prompted immigration officials to file a motion to deport Qatanani and his family.

Qatanani and his attorneys have since minimized the cleric’s history, maintaining that he was merely among hundreds of other Palestinians detained during the uprising and that he had been convicted in absentia and later subjected to harsh interrogation tactics, even “torture.”

Ultimately, Qatanini and his family were granted permanent residency in 2008, but the case is currently being appealed through the New Jersey Immigration Court of Appeals. He is also suingthe FBI and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency for the release of any records that bear relevance on his ability to remain in the U.S. The imam filed his suit under the Freedom of Information Act in a U.S. District Court in Newark at the end of June, 2012. His suit claims the of Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have ignored his requests for records for more than five months.

It should also be noted that Qatanani has been much admired, not only in the Muslim community but interfaith communities as well. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has even embraced the cleric, calling him a “friend.”

Miseducation?

So what does one of America’s most high-profile and perhaps controversial Islamic scholars think is really behind the animus Islamists harbor for the West? “Miseducation.”

According to Qatanani, “miseducation on both sides” is fanning the flames of discontent in the “Muslim or Arab world…and the solution is education for everyone.” For the cleric, misunderstanding can, and clearly has, led to “killing.”

“The people here don’t understand the Arab world, how they think and deal with holy issues — issues related to the Quran and Prophet Muhammad,” the imam told TheBlaze.

The imam clarified his position by saying that there is an onus on each and every person — Muslim or not — to weigh the potential harm that could come from his or her words. The message Qatanani was attempting to convey is that “we have to stop” putting people’s lives in danger and sabotaging Muslim-American relations with anti-Islamic language and imagery. He did not address the lives that are put in danger from actual acts of agression waged by Muslims who are not respecting another culture’s “law of the land.”

Qatanani said that in these sensitive times following the Arab Spring, Muslims abroad “want to be close to America” but that saboteurs are getting in the way. “I believe that understanding each other and education is the key,” Qatanani said, adding that cross-pollination is possible if Muslim and American scholars travel to one another’s regions to educate the public.

“So we need to build that bridge. The Muslims living here in U.S. can do that.”

=======================================================

Muslim Rage & The Last Gasp of Islamic Hate

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Newsweek

Once again the streets of the Arab world are burning with false outrage. But we must hold our heads up high. Ayaan Hirsi Ali on how she survived Muslim rage—and how we can end it.

It is a strange and bitter coincidence that the latest eruption of violent Islamic indignation takes place just as Salman Rushdie publishes his new book, Joseph Anton: A Memoir, about his life under the fatwa.

In 23 years not much has changed.  ‘Salman Rushdie reads from the prologue of his new memoir.

Islam’s rage reared its ugly head again last week. The American ambassador to Libya and three of his staff members were murdered by a raging mob in Benghazi, Libya, possibly under the cover of protests against a film mocking the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.

They were killed on the watch of the democratic government they helped to install. This government was either negligent or complicit in their murders. And that forces the U.S. to confront a stark, unwelcome reality.

Until recently, it was completely justifiable to feel sorry for the masses in Libya because they suffered under the thumb of a cruel dictator. But now they are no longer subjects; they are citizens. They have the opportunity to elect a government and build a society of their choice. Will they follow the lead of the Egyptian people and elect a government that stands for ideals diametrically opposed to those upheld by the United States? They might. But if they do, we should not consider them stupid or infantile. We should recognize that they have made a free choice—a choice to reject freedom as the West understands it.

How should American leaders respond? What should they say and do, for example, when a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s newly elected ruling party, demands a formal apology from the United States government and urges that the “madmen” behind the Muhammad video be prosecuted, in violation of the First Amendment? If the U.S. follows the example of Europe over the last two decades, it will bend over backward to avoid further offense. And that would be a grave mistake—for the West no less than for those Muslims struggling to build a brighter future.

For a homicidal few in the Muslim world, life itself has less value than religious icons, such as the prophet or the Quran. These few are indifferent to the particular motives or arguments behind any perceived insult to their faith. They do not care about an individual’s political alignment, gender, religion, or occupation. They do not care whether the provocation comes from serious literature or a stupid movie. All that matters is the intolerable nature of the insult.

The riots in Muslim countries—and the so-called demonstrations by some Muslims in Western countries—that invariably accompany such provocations have the appearance of spontaneity. But they are often carefully planned in advance. In the aftermath of last week’s conflagration, the State Department and Pentagon were investigating if it was just such a coordinated, planned assault.

The Muslim men and women (and yes, there are plenty of women) who support—whether actively or passively—the idea that blasphemers deserve to suffer punishment are not a fringe group. On the contrary, they represent the mainstream of contemporary Islam. Of course, there are many Muslims and ex-Muslims, in Libya, Egypt, and elsewhere, who unambiguously condemn not only the murders and riots, as well as the idea that dissenters from this mainstream should be punished. But they are marginalized and all too often indirectly held responsible for the very provocation. In the age of globalization and mass immigration, such intolerance has crossed borders and become the defining characteristic of Islam. Where the Protests Are

And the defining characteristic of the Western response? As Rushdie’s memoir makes clear, it is the utterly incoherent tendency to simultaneously defend free speech—and to condemn its results.

I know something about the subject. In 1989, when I was 19, I piously, even gleefully, participated in a rally in Kenya to burn Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses. I had never read it.

Later, having fled an arranged marriage to the Netherlands, I broke from fundamentalism. By the time of Sept. 11, 2001, I still considered myself a Muslim, though a passive one; I believed the principles but not the practice. After learning that it was Muslims who had hijacked airplanes and flown them into buildings in New York and Washington, I called for fellow believers to reflect on how our religion could have inspired these atrocious acts. A few months later, I confessed in a television interview that I had been secularized.

Next >>> NEXT   1  2  3

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GMO Fraud in India

Publicly funded GMO research in India exposed as fraud to secretly sneak in Monsanto seeds

January 09, 2012 – Jonathan Benson

http://www.naturalnews.com/ 

The nation of India is currently embroiled in a massive scandal involving the use of taxpayer dollars to fund research into genetically-modified organisms (GMO). The Coalition for a GM-Free India (CGMFI) is demanding an immediate end to public sector funding of GMO research after the Indian government and several research institutions were caught using Monsanto’s genetic traits in supposedly “indigenous” GM crops.

From all sides, India, the world’s ninth largest economy, has been continually bombarded by foreign interests pushing it to adopt GMO technologies. The World Bank, for example, set the stage for the hijacking of India’s agricultural system back in the late 1990s when it forced the country to globalize its seed economy. More recently, Monsanto and other key players in biotechnology have repeatedly pushed Indian farmers to adopt GMO technologies by lying to them about its alleged, but unfounded, agricultural benefits

Rather than fully capitulate to this political pressure, India decided to develop its own publicly-funded GMO research arm that would be tasked with developing indigenous GMOs not connected to any multinational corporation. But now it turns out that this program is a failure as well, as these so-called indigenous GMOs were exposed as containing patented Monsanto traits.

“The current fiasco proves once again that the Indian scientific community is not averse to scientific frauds, misleading the nation and the people,” said CGMFI. “We do not need this (GMO) technology force-fed to our farmers and consumers, we have sufficient workable and viable solutions for the agrarian crisis. We demand that the government and public sector institutions work on these solutions rather than fraudulently promote GM technology.”

CGMFI refers, of course, to methods that have already been proven to safely and effectively improve agriculture, such as non-GM hybridization, and various chemical- and pesticide-free crop management practices like crop rotation and polyculture. GMO crops have never been proven to improve crop yields, and have actually been shown time and time again to increasing reliance upon and use of toxic herbicides and pesticides

“All of this is ultimately experimentation happening at the expense of hapless Indian farmers and this is unconscionable,” added CGMFI about government-funded biotechnology research. “These scarce and valuable resources should be utilized for taking proven, safe, farmer-controlled technologies to the farmers.”

Sources for this article include:

http://gmwatch.eu/latest-listing/1-news-items/13579-stop-all-gm-research-in-the-public-sector

http://www.naturalnews.com/030913_Monsanto_suicides.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/033368_farmers_Monsanto.html

Germany betraying Britain again

http://www.thetrumpet.com/?q=8952.7731.141.0

Germany betraying Britain – again

Gerald Flurry

On Dec. 9, 2011, British Prime Minister David Cameron shocked the world when he vetoed a Franco-German plan to fix Europe’s debt crisis.

Standing before a room full of European leaders determined to amend EU treaties to cede more power to the EU, Mr. Cameron defended British interests. “What is on offer is not in Britain’s interest, so I didn’t agree to it,” he stated flatly. “We will not be presenting this new treaty, when it’s agreed, to our parliament. It will not involve Britain.”

It is hard to overstate the significance of this event.

Many say that Dec. 9, 2011, will go down as the day Britain left the European Union!

There’s something misleading about that statement. Most of the media will tell you that Britain abandoned the EU. In fact, just the opposite happened. For years, the EU, under German leadership, has been taking power away from its member states, including Britain. If Britain agreed to the plan outlined on December 9, it basically would have had to hand control of its finances over to European leaders. By refusing the plan, Britain was simply protecting its fiscal sovereignty.

In other words, Europe created this conflict!

Why would it do that? Because it wants to push Britain out of the European Union!

What does this mean to you? This event is going to plague Britain for years to come—as well as America! Yes, it will hurt the United States far more than you can imagine. America’s financial troubles are about to get far worse.

A Tipping Point

The Guardian’s European editor, Ian Traynor, wrote this: “When the dust settles, Friday December 9 may be seen as a watershed, the beginning of the end for Britain in Europe. But more than that—the emergence for the first time of a cold new Europe in which Germany is the undisputed, preeminent powerimposing a decade of austerity on the eurozone as the price for its propping up the currency” (emphasis added throughout).

I will say that date absolutely will be seen as a watershed!

“For the first time in the history of the EU, the Germans are now in charge,” said Charles Grant, who directs a think tank called the Center for European Reform.

Germany is in charge, and everyone can see that now. This is the most authoritative step Germany has ever taken.

Did you know that we have been prophesying this very event for some 70 years? It is, in fact, prophesied in your Bible! And believe it or not, it is going to lead directly into the worst trouble this Earth has ever experienced!

The Bible prophesies that “ten kings” are going to unite themselves in Europe as the Holy Roman Empire (Revelation 17:12-13). Events today are moving quickly to fulfill that pivotal prophecy!

The EU is not a democratic union. Germany has gained so much strength today that it won’t have to worry about persuading people to join that 10-nation configuration: It can demand that they do! It is gaining that much financial and economic power—and also rapidly growing in military power. Germany has established real authority.

We have reached a tipping point that will begin to move events in Europe faster than ever. Britain was the real instrument in stopping Hitler in World War ii, at least in the beginning. It has been the biggest obstacle slowing Europe from moving forward with its plans. Getting Britain out of the way is like moving a boulder off the highway: Now Germany can move at lightning speed!

The idea that Britain decided to pull out of the EU is a big deceit. It was pushed into a situation where it was forced out. This has been plotted and planned for years.

What Herbert Armstrong Said

The prophecies in the Bible are sure. It was because of those prophecies that Herbert W. Armstrong foretold—decades in advance—exactly what we are seeing today!

Here is what he wrote in 1956—55 years ago. This is phenomenal! Speaking about the uniting of European nations, he wrote, “We Americans, with the British, gave them the idea. We’ve tried to organize the European nations together against Russia. They are going to unite against us! … The Germans are coming back from the destruction of World War ii in breathtaking manner. Germany is the economic and military heart of Europe. Probably Germany will lead and dominate the coming United States of Europe.

“But Britain will be no part of it!”

How did he know that? How do you explain that? Fifty-five years ago, he said not only that this European Union would come together and that Germany would dominate, but also that Britain would be ousted! Today it is being splashed across the headlines of news media around the world.

That ought to capture our attention. How could Mr. Armstrong possibly know? Because he understood Bible prophecy. This is what Scripture said would happen. It isn’t something you have to guess about: You can absolutely know.

The Bible is a coded book, and the only way we can decode it is to get help from God. One third of the Bible is prophecy, and 90 percent of it is for this end time. That prophecy is being fulfilled faster now than ever before!

In recent times, America and Britain have been friends to the Germans. But Mr. Armstrong said those European nations, led by Germany, would unite against our nations. That is about to happen!

The United States allied with Britain to provide the real power to conquer the Germans in World Wars i and ii. Today, both America and Britain aredrowning in debt. America has the most debt of any nation in history, and it seems people have no clue how deadly dangerous that is. Meanwhile, Germany has never been stronger financially and economically! Its power is destined to grow, and that will seriously impair America and Britain.

Understand: I am not putting the Germans down. The German people are a great people, and Bible prophecies explain that they will achieve marvelous things in the World Tomorrow, when Jesus Christ rules as King of kings.

However, if you look at the Germans’ past, the reality is that they have been the deadliest warring people in history! Even in recent times, they started both world wars. And prophecy says the worst is yet to come.

Double Cross

After defeating Germany in World War ii, America and Britain helped to build it back into a power. They helped it to reach where it is today.

This makes what Germany just did to Britain all the more heinous. Pushing the British out of the EU was a blatant double cross. Germany has a historyof double-crossing people. As Winston Churchill said, the Germans were very prone to betray their supposed friends and surprise and shock them by some sudden act. Prophecy reveals that they are going to double-cross America as well.

The Prophet Ezekiel foretold these events—and the good news he reveals is that all the suffering that is about to come from this, in the end, is going to help the whole world come to know God!

As I prove in my booklet Ezekiel—The End-Time Prophet (request a free copy), Ezekiel’s prophecy is only for this end time. Ezekiel wrote it when he was a prisoner; he couldn’t deliver the message. We must deliver it today, or he lived his life in vain.

Ezekiel 23 contains a prophecy about two women who committed immoral acts. Verse 4 reveals that these women, Aholah and Aholibah, represent Samaria and Jerusalem. This is an end-time prophecy, so who are Samaria (which represented the 10 tribes of Israel, anciently) and Jerusalem (which represented the ancient nation of Judah) today?

Prophetically, Aholah refers to the modern nations descended from Israel—primarily America and Britain—and Aholibah refers to the descendants of Judah, which today is the Jewish nation in the Middle East.

Verse 5 reads, “And Aholah played the harlot when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbours.”

Who are the Assyrians in end-time prophecy?

The Assyrians

Consider this: Virtually every historian draws attention to the war-like nature of the Assyrian people. James McCabe, author of History of the World, says the Assyrians were a “fierce, treacherous race, delighting in the dangers of the chase and in war. The Assyrian troops were notably among the most formidable of ancient warriors …. They never kept faith when it was to their interest to break treaties, and were regarded with suspicion by their neighbors in consequence of this characteristic …. In organization and equipment of their troops, and in their system of attack and defense and their method of reducing fortified places, the Assyrians manifested a superiority to the nations by which they were surrounded.”

Dr. Herman Hoeh, historian and author of Compendium of World History,wrote, “Ancient Assyria was the greatest war-making power in all history” (Plain Truth, January 1963).

James Hastings wrote, “The Assyrians of historic times were more robust, warlike, ‘fierce,’ than the mild industrial Babylonians. … The whole organization of the state was essentially military” (“Assyria and Babylonia,”Dictionary of the Bible).

Leonard Cottrell, in The Anvil of Civilization, made this amazing statement: “In all the annals of human conquest, it is difficult to find any people more dedicated to bloodshed and slaughter than the Assyrians. Their ferocity and cruelty have few parallels save in modern times.” It’s interesting that Cottrell can only compare their ferocity with those “in modern times.”

Only one nation has stood out that way in modern times, and that is Germany. That is obviously what he is referring to here.

The Assyrians in prophecy are the modern-day Germans. As Herbert Armstrong wrote, “Today the descendants of those Assyrians are known to us as the German people” (The United States and Britain in Prophecy). You can see more proof of this truth in our October/November 2010 edition. It is extremely important for you to prove to yourself if you are to truly understand what is happening in Europe!

The warlike nature of the ancient Assyrians is clearly visible in that of the German people in modern times.

“Not a single neighbor of the Germans,” wrote Emil Ludwig in 1941, “could ever trust the Germans to remain peaceable. No matter how happy their condition, their restless passion would urge them on to ever more extreme demands” (The Germans: Double History of a Nation). You could certainly see that trait on display before World War ii, when nations made several concessions to the Germans to try to appease them, yet Hitler always wanted more.

After World War ii, many voices warned about the dangers in rebuilding war-ravaged Germany. The April 1952 edition of the Plain Truth contained this headline: “Does America Dare Arm Germany?” The article said, “Our leading generals in Europe have adamantly warned that Germany is a calculated risk.” Still, our nations went ahead and built it back up. Through the Marshall Plan, we poured millions and millions of dollars into Germany.

There were even voices of warning once a unified Europe began to build.

Notice this remarkable statement from Herbert W. Armstrong in March 1973, writing about when Britain joined the European Community: “Britain is going to look back on Monday, Jan. 1, 1973, in all probability, as a most tragically historic date—a date fraught with ominous potentialities! For that date marked the United Kingdom’s entry into the European Community.”

In 1995, as the European project was gaining steam, Margaret Thatcher said this: “You have not anchored Germany to Europe,” which was the plan behind European unification. “You have anchored Europe to a newly dominant, unified Germany. In the end, my friends, you’ll find it will not work.” Mrs. Thatcher was absolutely correct!

Remember

Return now to Ezekiel’s prophecy. Verses 6-8 of chapter 23 go into greater detail about what is happening today: an illicit love affair between America, Britain and Germany!

America and Britain have convinced themselves that they have a wonderful friendship with the Germans. But is it true? If you see what just happened to Britain, you know it is not true!

Verse 9 reveals the terrifying outcome of this immoral relationship: “Wherefore I have delivered her [Aholah, representing America and Britain]into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians [Germany], upon whom she doted.”

In a small way, this has already happened to Britain. But you watch as this prophecy is fulfilled completely: It is about to get far, far worse.

In 1953, Mr. Armstrong wrote about the unifying of this European power, and concluded with the statement, “Definitely Britain will not be in it.” The reason he knew that is because Britain is going to be a victim of it!

In his 1978 book The Incredible Human Potential, Mr. Armstrong said again, “Britain will not be in that empire soon to come.” When he wroteMystery of the Ages in 1985, he repeated that statement.

In a co-worker letter dated June 10, 1980—nine years before the Berlin Wall fell—here is what he wrote, “It now looks entirely feasible that Yugoslavia may be included in this revived Roman empire. Also the pope’s native Poland and Romania, and possibly Hungary. Add Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and France. There will be a union of ten nations in the general area of the medieval Roman Empire in the new united Europe. Probably Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden will not be included. But Ireland may. Britain will not!”

An astounding statement! Mr. Armstrong could never have made such statements if he didn’t understand biblical prophecy.

The Bible is God’s Word. The living God prophesied all that, and He is bringing it to pass just like He said He would, in intricate detail! This is a warning from God to all of us—primarily America and Britain.

Verse 17 talks about the Babylonians. That is speaking of a modern-dayBabylon, which is actually a resurrection of the old Holy Roman Empire!

Watch the news out of Europe. Notice that the European Central Bank is now being run by a Jesuit-trained Roman Catholic, Mario Draghi. He is authoritatively implementing very strict fiscal policies among eurozone states. Notice that at the very summit in Brussels at which Britain was muscled out of Europe, leaders received news that Pope Benedict xvi was “praying to the Virgin Mary for the sake of Italy and Europe” (Economist, Dec. 9, 2011). Keep an eye on the headlines, and you will see more and more evidence of the Vatican and Germany working together. The Bible foretold it, and we have been warning about it for years: the emergence yet again of that church-state combine called the Holy Roman Empire.

Read Deuteronomy 28:49-52, which warns of God bringing a destructive nation against modern Israel. It says of this power, “he shall besiege thee in all thy gates.” That is talking about a trading blockade. It’s about finances and the economy. Somebody is going to damage America and Britain financially! Britain would absolutely starve to death shortly if it didn’t get its exports out and its imports in. The U.S. is going to suffer deeply as well.

“Britain will not be in that empire now building in Europe,” we wrote in the July 2004 Trumpet. “And when those headlines flash across the pages of newspapers worldwide proclaiming Britain’s exit from an otherwise united Europe, remember that one man and where you read it first.”

Remember what Herbert W. Armstrong said 50, 60, even 70 years ago! When you see those headlines—and they are right there to see—remember who told you that! He thundered that message for all those years, telling us everything that was coming. And we have continued to proclaim the same message.

Will you heed these warnings?

Good News in the End

In Ezekiel 23:36, God says He wants His loyal, faithful people to go to the modern nations of Israel and declare their abominations! God is deeply upset and disgusted with the sins and immorality saturating America and Britain today!

Terrible suffering is coming. The prophecies are sure—we are watching themunfold!

And what makes that so wonderful is that, if you follow those prophecies out, they directly lead to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ!

Look how the good news, the positive outcome, begins to be revealed in verses 48-49: “Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness. And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols: and ye shall know that I am the Lord God.” After all the punishment God is going to put them through, they will get to know God. In the end, all that suffering is going to bring people to get to know God! Nothing could be more important than that. It is a very difficult way to learn this lesson, but what wonderful news!

Still, how terrible that they won’t listen to God’s Word now, and turn from their sin. They have to suffer unimaginably before they will turn to God and get to know Him.

Why won’t we listen now to God’s Word, heed what He says, and let Him protect us from all of this? God will do so. He has promised it in the Bible, and He cannot lie! But we must do our part as well: We have to respond to God, and obey Him and live as He commands.

Take a good look at Europe, especially at Germany, in light of God’s prophecies. God put those warnings in Scripture for a reason: because He wants to save us from that suffering!

Go back into recent history. Realize how many millions of people in World Wars i and ii fought and bled and died in order to prevent Germany from ruling over them! Yet now, Germany rules Europe once again! What does that portend for this world? Both history and prophecy loudly cry out the answer! There is no excuse for us not knowing that!

But here is the good news. It is all a sign leading directly into the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The Messiah is about to return to rule this world, and bring it true prosperity and peace and joy!

https://worldmonitor.wordpress.com      China’s Satellite threatens Taiwan

Europe Strikes Back at Islam

Europe’s Radical Right Strikes Back at Islam

thetrumpet.com

Andrew Miller

A Vatican-dominated Europe is about to take radical action against the threat of radical Islam and bring the specter of the Crusades to life once again.

A  33-year-old man made international news on December 14 when he unleashed a volley of bullets and grenades into a group of bystanders near a Christmas market in Liege, Belgium. The attacker, a Belgian of Moroccan descent, killed a toddler and two teenage boys in this onslaught before killing himself. Over 120 people were wounded, some reportedly being blinded by flying shrapnel.

The motive of the attacker is still under investigation, but the Karachi Post in Pakistan reports that the attack was linked to the sentencing of an Islamic family charged with killing Sadia Sheikh over her refusal to accept an arranged marriage. If true, this motive would make the attack the latest events in a gruesome string of Islamist violence stretching across Europe.

A mob of some 20 radical Islamists recently stormed a debate being held in Amsterdam, screaming “Allah Akbar” and demanding the execution of two prominent liberal Muslim scholars. This confrontation took place just days after a group of disgruntled Muslim youths threw rocks at a man dressed as Santa Claus in the southwestern Slotervaart neighborhood of Amsterdam.

A similar rock attack took place against Roman Catholics celebrating a religious event at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Virgin of Santa Cruz in the southern French city of Nimes.

The Danish Islamist group Kaldet til Islam (Call to Islam) has even dispatched a 24-hour vigilante “morals police” to enforce sharia law in parts of Copenhagen. These patrols target non-Muslims caught drinking, gambling, going to night clubs or engaging in other activities deemed to be contrary to Islam.

Such violent episodes are pushing more Europeans to believe that radical action needs to be taken against the threat of Islam. Xenophobic ideas that were once characteristic only of fascist radicals are now working themselves into the mainstream of European politics.

On the morning of June 4, Muslim worshipers in southern Denmark found their mosque defaced with drawings of the prophet Mohammad and slogans urging Muslims to go home. A few months later, a dismembered pig was found on the construction site of a planned mosque outside of Copenhagen. Both incidents were the work of the Danish Defense League, a far-right vigilante group founded for the express purpose of taking action against Muslims in Denmark.

The Bloc Identitaire movement—with a wild pig as its logo—is now emerging as a force on the French political scene. Like the Danish Defense League, it likens Muslim immigrants to invaders threatening European civilization. The English Defense League, the Norwegian Progress Party, the Dutch Party for Freedom, the Hungarian Jobbik Party, the Austrian Freedom Party and the Italian Northern League have similar views in other parts of Europe.

Perhaps the most shocking episode highlighting the rise of anti-Islamic sentiments in Europe was the July massacre of 77 people in an effort to incite an anti-Islamic revolution by self-described Christian fundamentalist Anders Behring Breivik. In a 1,500-page online manifesto titled 2083—A European Declaration of Independence, he railed against Islamic immigration and claimed that multiculturalism was sapping Europe of its Christian heritage.

According to the Telegraph, “Breivik has already become a heroic figure for sections of the ultra far right, much in the same way Timothy McVeigh became a hero for sections of the militia movement in the United States.” Two Italian parliamentarians of Italy’s Northern League Party publiclydefended the logic behind Breivik’s Oslo massacre, even if they did distance themselves from his violence methods.

In his online manifesto, Breivik argued that Europe has to get back to its Catholic roots if it is ever going to repel the threat of Islam. “Today’s Protestant church is a joke,” he wrote. “I am a supporter of an indirect collective conversion of the Protestant church back to the Catholic. … When a just and conservative pope mounts the chair of Peter, the tide will set strongly toward Rome. We will hear of conversions on every hand.”

There is definitely a radical element in both the Catholic and Islamic faiths! Even though most of the peoples of Europe currently stand aghast at the brutal murders committed by Anders Behring Breivik and those like him, many are starting to sympathize with his ideas about the need to take radical action against the “threat of Islam.” A Vatican-dominated Europe is about to take radical action against the threat of radical Islam and bring the specter of the Crusades to life once again.

Constantine’s Sword

http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/movies/18swor.html

When Love of Religion Leads to Hatred of Others

STEPHEN  HOLDEN

At the heart of Oren Jacoby’s screen adaptation of James Carroll’s book “Constantine’s Sword” lies a question to which each person of faith must his find own answer. When your core beliefs conflict with church doctrine, how far should your loyalty to the church extend? The same could be asked of loyalty to a government or a political party.

Mr. Carroll, a former Roman Catholic priest and an acclaimed author whose memoir, “An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us” won a 1996 National Book Award, vehemently disagrees with the church on many issues but still embraces Catholicism. A former anti-Vietnam War activist, now in his mid-60s, he is an eloquent screen presence who conveys the same searching moral gravity that characterized other Catholic war resisters during the Vietnam era.

At once enthralling and troubling, the film, whose title has been simplified from the book’s “Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History,” does about as good a job as you could hope of distilling a 750-page historical examination of religious zealotry and power into 95 swift minutes. Because the book was published several months before 9/11, the film adaptation, which was written by Mr. Jacoby and Mr. Carroll and uses the voices of Liev Schreiber, Philip Bosco, Natasha Richardson and Eli Wallach, updates the book’s pessimistic vision of how religions demonize one another to include Christian and Islamic fundamentalism as well as anti-Semitism.

What must Middle Eastern Muslims feel, Mr. Carroll wonders, when George W. Bush throws around concepts like good and evil and uses the word crusade to describe the Iraq war? Mr. Carroll worries that we may be heading toward an all-out holy war between state-supported religious extremists.

The movie begins in Colorado Springs where Mikey Weinstein, an alumnus of the United States Air Force Academy, describes the harassment of his son, Casey, a Jewish cadet, by evangelical Christians who over several days blanketed the student cafeteria with fliers promoting the Mel Gibson film “The Passion of the Christ.” There is no doubt in his mind that the film promoted an inflammatory view of Jews as Christ killers. He sued the Air Force, but the case never made it to trial.

Aggressively arguing the evangelicals’ right to proselytize is Ted Haggard, the former pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, who was filmed for this movie before his fall from grace in a scandal involving a former male prostitute. Fiery-eyed and grinning maniacally, Mr. Haggard suggests a Paul Lynde caricature of a fire-and-brimstone preacher. The evangelical fervor in Colorado Springs is the somewhat tenuous topical hook on which the movie’s exploration of religion and power is hung.

Woven into the film is Mr. Carroll’s family history. Born Irish Catholic, he is the son of a former F.B.I. agent who became a three-star general and an enthusiastic prosecutor of the Vietnam War. When Mr. Carroll was a boy, his family had a private audience with the pope, and he recalls his feelings of awe. Years later he became an ardent opponent of the Vietnam War. His estrangement from his father began when, shortly after becoming a priest, he referred to napalm in a sermon.

The movie then dives into the distant past for Mr. Carroll’s alternative, shadow history of the Catholic Church. He dates the notion of Christian militancy to the early fourth century, when the future emperor Constantine I, on the eve of a battle for control of the Roman Empire, had a vision of the cross in the sky inscribed with words promising that under its sign he would conquer. After the battle, in which he led a victorious army wielding a sword in the shape of a cross, he legalized Christianity and the cross, previously a minor symbol, became synonymous with Christian might.

He traces the origins of Christian anti-Semitism to Constantine’s birthplace in Trier, Germany, where Crusaders sailing down the Rhine systematically destroyed Jewish communities, which the pope refused to protect unless the people converted. Centuries later Trier was the site of an agreement between the Catholic Church and Hitler, negotiated with the future Pope Pius XII, whose later refusal to speak out during the Holocaust Mr. Carroll considers to be a great shame of the church.

In the most moving segment Ms. Richardson is heard reading a letter written in 1933 to Pope Pius XI by Edith Stein urging him to speak out against Nazi persecution of the Jews. A Jewish convert to Catholicism and a Carmelite nun, Stein died in Auschwitz in 1942. The letter, which went unanswered, was made public in 2003, five years after she was canonized.

Above and beyond criticizing the church’s refusal to stand up to Hitler, “Constantine’s Sword” is a cri de coeur about the abuse of religion when aligned with the state. Jesus, “the prince of peace,” Mr. Carroll insists, was not an intolerant warmonger.

“If you think of religion as a great lake,” he warns, “it’s a lake of gasoline, and all it’s going to take is someone to drop a match into it for a terrible conflagration.”  Continued @ movies.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/movies/18swor.html

Also Read >>:  Religious Tolerance 

Prologue: Justice Denied

The American Behind India’s 9/11—And

HOW U.S. BOTCHED Chances to Stop Him

November 22, 2011 – PROPUBLICA

– Sebatian Rotella

This story was co-published with PBS FRONTLINE

During a meeting overseas last summer, a senior U.S. official and Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of Pakistan’s armed forces, discussed a threat that has strained the troubled U.S.-Pakistani relationship since the 2008 Mumbai attacks: the Lashkar-i-Taiba militant group.

The senior U.S. official expressed concern that Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, a terrorist chief arrested for the brutal attacks in India, was still directing Lashkar operations while in custody, according to a U.S. government memo viewed by ProPublica. Gen. Kayani responded that Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), had told prison authorities to better control Lakhvi’s access to the outside world, the memo says. But Kayani rejected a U.S. request that authorities take away the cell phone Lakhvi was using in jail, according to the memo to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the National Security Council.

The meeting was emblematic of the lack of progress three years after Lashkar and the ISI allegedly teamed up to kill 166 people in Mumbai, the most sophisticated and spectacular terror strike since the September 11 attacks. The U.S. government filed unprecedented charges against an ISI officer in the deaths of six Americans. Yet, Pakistani authorities have not arrested him or other accused masterminds. The failure to crack down on the jailed Lakhvi, whose trial has stalled, raises fears of new attacks on India and the West, counterterror officials say.

“Lakhvi is still the military chief of Lashkar,” a U.S. counterterror official said in an interview. “He is in custody but has not been replaced. And he still has access and ability to be the military chief. Don’t assume a Western view of what custody is.”

In the United States, stubborn questions persist about the case’s star witness, David Coleman Headley, a confessed Lashkar operative and ISI spy. The Pakistani-American’s testimony at a trial in Chicago this year revealed the ISI’s role in the Mumbai attacks and a plot against Denmark. It was the strongest public evidence to date of ISI complicity in terrorism.

But the trial shed little light on Headley’s past as a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration informant and the failure of U.S. agencies to pursue repeated warnings over seven years that could have stopped his lethal odyssey sooner — and perhaps prevented the Mumbai attack.

U.S. officials say Headley simply slipped through the cracks. If that is true, his story is a trail of bureaucratic dysfunction. But if his ties to the U.S. government were more extensive than disclosed — as widely believed in India — an operative may have gone rogue with tragic results. Both scenarios reveal the kind of breakdowns that the government has spent billions to correct since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Obama administration has not discussed results of an internal review of the case conducted last year, or disclosed whether any officials have been held accountable.

During an interview in Delhi, former Indian Home Secretary G.K. Pillai asserted that U.S. authorities know more about Headley than they have publicly stated. Several senior Indian security officials said they believe that U.S. warnings provided to India before the Mumbai attacks came partly from knowledge of Headley’s activities. They believe he remained a U.S. operative.

“David Coleman Headley, in my opinion, was a double agent,” said Pillai, who served in the top security post until this past summer. “He was working for both the U.S. and for Lashkar and the ISI.”

The CIA, FBI and DEA deny such allegations.

File photos of Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in November, 2004 (bottom) and on November 26, 2008 (top) as fire engulfs the top floor after a shootout with terrorists. (AFP PHOTO / PAL PILLAI (top) | AFP PHOTO/Getty Images/SEBASTIAN D’SOUZA (bottom))

An investigation by ProPublica and FRONTLINE during the past year did not find proof that Headley was working as a U.S. agent at the time of the attacks. But it did reveal new contradictions between the official version of events, Headley’s sworn testimony and detailed accounts of officials and others involved in the case. The reporting also turned up previously undisclosed opportunities for U.S. agencies to identify Headley as a terrorist threat, and new details about already-reported warnings.

U.S. and foreign officials say his role as an informant or ex-informant helped him elude detection as he was training in Pakistani terror camps and traveling back and forth to Mumbai to scout targets. And three counterterror sources say U.S. agencies learned enough about him to glean fragments of intelligence that contributed to the warnings to India about a developing plot against Mumbai.

In contrast, some U.S. officials say spotting a threat is harder than it seems. Glimmers of advance knowledge are part of the landscape of terrorism. In cases such as the Sept. 11 attacks and the 2004 Madrid train bombings, security forces had detected some of the suspects but not their plots.

“I just have to dispel some of these notions,” said Philip Mudd, a former top national security official at the FBI. “We look at a grain of sand and say … ‘why couldn’t you put together the whole conspiracy when you saw that grain of sand?’ Well, you got to reverse it. Every day coming into a threat brief, you’re not looking at a grain of sand and building a beach. You’re looking at a beach and trying to find a grain of sand.”

New information about the case comes partly from the DEA. After months of silence, DEA officials recently granted an interview with a ProPublica reporter and went over a timeline based on records about their former informant. The DEA officials said Headley’s relationship with the anti-drug agency was more limited than has been widely described.

The DEA officially deactivated Headley as a confidential source on March 27, 2002, according to a senior DEA official. That was weeks after he began training in Lashkar terror camps in Pakistan and six years before the Mumbai attacks. The senior official denied assertions that Headley had worked for the DEA in Pakistan while he trained with Lashkar in 2002 and beyond.

“The DEA did not send David Coleman Headley to Pakistan for the purpose of collecting post-9/11 information on terrorism or drugs,” the senior DEA official said.

The denial adds another version to a murky story. Officials at other U.S. agencies say Headley remained a DEA operative in some capacity until as late as 2005. Headley has testified that he did not stop working for the DEA until September 2002, when he had done two stints in the Lashkar camps.

Some U.S. officials and others involved say the government ended Headley’s probation for a drug conviction three years early in November 2001 to shift him from anti-drug work to gathering intelligence in Pakistan. They say the DEA discussed him with other agencies as a potential asset because of his links to Pakistan — including a supposed high-ranking relative in the ISI.

A senior European counterterror official who has investigated Headley in recent years thinks the American became an intelligence operative focused on terrorism.

“I don’t feel we got the whole story about Headley as an informant from the Americans,” the official said. “I think he was a drug informant and also some other kind of an informant.”

The transition from registered law enforcement source to secret counterterrorism operative would help explain the contradictory versions. But the duration and nature of intelligence work by Headley, if it was done, remain unknown.

Federal prosecutors and investigators declined to be interviewed on the record for this story. Pakistani officials, who also refused to be interviewed, have said they have cracked down on Lashkar and have denied that the ISI was involved in the Mumbai attacks.

Nonetheless, ProPublica and FRONTLINE talked to U.S. and foreign counterterror officials and other well-informed sources while reporting in the United States, India, Pakistan and Europe. A number of those officials and sources requested anonymity for their security or because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the sensitive case.

Headley was a wildly elusive figure who juggled allegiances with militant groups and security agencies, manipulating and betraying wives, friends and allies. He played a crucial role in an attack that had resounding international repercussions. And his unprecedented confessions opened a door into the secret world of terrorism and counterterrorism in South Asia — and closer to home.

Excerpt From Chapter 1:  [link to this chapter]

David Coleman Headley is not his original name. The 51-year-old was born Daood Gilani in Washington, D.C. His father, Syed Saleem Gilani, was a renowned Pakistani broadcaster. His mother, Serrill Headley, was a free spirit from a wealthy Philadelphia family. They moved to Pakistan when he was a baby, but the parents divorced and Serrill returned alone.

Chapter Index

• Chapter 1: The Prince
• Chapter 2: Informant and Militant
• Chapter 3: Mission in Pakistan
• Chapter 4: The Path to Holy War
• Chapter 5: Narrow Escapes
• Chapter 6: Target Mumbai
• Chapter 7: “Congrats On Your Graduation”
• Chapter 8: The Downfall
• Epilogue

Video: PBS Frontline – A Perfect Terrorist

Interactive: Timeline: A Lethal Odyssey

Complete coverage:Pakistan’s Terror Connections

A German’s View……….

A German’s View on Islam
Emanuel Tanay, M.D.

pattayatalk.com

A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates.

When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism.  

‘Very few people were true Nazis,’ he said, ‘but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.’

We are told again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is the religion of peace, and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace.

Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant.

It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectra of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics, who bomb, behead, murder, or honor kills. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.

The hard quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the ‘silent majority,’ is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.

China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.

The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a war mongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.

And, who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving’?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.

Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don’t speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.

As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts; the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

Emanuel Tanay, M.D.

—————- RELATED STORIES ——————–

For Moderate Muslims @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avYtAyCxUbA&eurl=http://ibloga.blogspot.com/

Wafa Sultan’s Video @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMK3dC-eIrQ&feature=related

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