No hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11

Osama bin Ladin’s role in the events of September 11, 2001 is not mentioned on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” notice.

Five years later Rex Tomb, chief of investigative publicity for the FBI explains, “The reason 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11… He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11.”

Among many questions, author Ed Haas starts with, “If the U.S. government does not have enough hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11, how is it possible that it had enough evidence to invade Afghanistan?”

Project Censored: News

Special thanks for Zanjabil, the writer of Zanjabil web blog for drawing my attention to this news item.

French Muslims Struggle to Have Mosques

The construction of grand mosques in France has become a mission impossible as rightists stand as the main roadblock and derail strenuous efforts made by Muslims to have a proper place of worship just like other communities in the secular country.“Islam is the second largest religious group in France. Surely we can have a decent place,” Mohamed Aboulbaki a Muslim leader from the town of Montreuil, east of Paris, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Monday, July 9.

“The Catholics, Protestants and Jews all have a place to pray in dignity. Why not us?”

In Montreuil, plans for building a modern-style grand mosque was halted after a lawsuit won by far-right politicians.

The case of Montreuil echoes that of the Mediterranean port city of Marseille — home to 250,000 Muslims — where the building of a grand mosque was frozen in April following a similar lawsuit.

The construction of a mosque in the Paris suburb of Creteil is also challenged in court.

Rightists made no secret of their Islamophobic views.

“What we want to halt is the Islamization of our country,” Patricia Vayssiere, the far-right councilor from Montreuil, told AFP.

Vayssiere, a senior member of the far-right National Republican Mouvement (MNR), added that they see the building of a mosque as encouraging the emergence of Islam as political force in France.

“We are not against Islam as long as it remains a private matter.”

But Aboulbaki blasted the right-wing’s Islamophobic tone.

“The idea that building a mosque amounts to encouraging Islamization and fundamentalism must be removed once and for all,” he said.

France must “get its mosques out of the basements” if it wants its Muslim population to fully integrate into mainstream society, added Aboulbaki.

France is home to around six million Muslims, the largest Muslim minority in Europe.

Muslims have only 1,500 mosques or prayer houses, most of which are housed in small, modest halls, often described as “basement mosques.”

France’s first mosque, the Great Mosque of Paris, opened in 1926 in Paris’ Latin Quarter. It was built with help from Algerian donors.

Double-standards

Far-rightists have seized on provisions of a law on the separation of church and state to argue that city councils are illegally subsidizing religion by awarding leases for little money.

But French officials have admitted that the decades-long church and state law is exploited when it comes to the construction of mosques.

“The fundamental issue is that there is a double-standard,” said Didier Leschi, the director of the religious affairs office at the Interior Ministry.

“Long-term leases are only being challenged when they are for mosques.”

The Montreuil city council agreed to a long-term lease of land for the paltry sum of one euro (1.4 dollars) while Marseille had demanded 300 euros per year for a plot for the new mosque. Both, after court rulings, have reviewed the leases.

“In Montreuil, there is opposition to the symbolic sum of one euro but in the 1930s, the Catholic Church in the Paris region got long-term leases for 1,000 francs, or about 1.50 euros,” said Leschi.

Vincent Geisser, a researcher on Islam, says that not all politicians are Islamophobic, but rather support the construction of mosques to help ease some of the tensions in the immigrant-heavy suburbs.

“Many mayors see a mosque in their community as a sort of clinic, with clearly identified people that they could talk to and enlist for help,” said Geisser.

US Christian tells Muslim women what they can wear

At Comment is Free Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College, defends Jack Straw’s offensive and insensitive statements on the niqab:

“Straw defended women’s right to wear less intrusive headscarves; yet he also argued that something is seriously wrong when, in conversation with another person, one cannot engage in face-to-face interaction. Straw was saying that to wear the nijab is a decision to close yourself off from everyone around you….

“As he pointed out, wearing the nijab is not commanded by the Koran and represents a cultural choice, not a religious duty. So long as other ways are available for Muslim women to cover their heads, agreeing not to wear the nijab is a way of signifying one’s membership in a liberal society at minimal cost to one’s religious commitments.”

So, problem sorted then. Though some of us might note the quite stunning arrogance of Christians like Wolfe lecturing adherents of another faith on the nature of their religious duties.

Interviewed in yesterday’s Daily Mail, the Tories’ new shadow minister for community cohesion, Sayeeda Warsi, answered this sort of arrogance rather well: “… when Jack Straw stood up and said, ‘You should not wear the face veil’ I thought, oh my gosh, we now have white men standing up and telling us what to do. And I really thought that men should just butt out of women’s wardrobes.”

U.S. Behind Crisis of Gaza

 

Officials in the Bush administration awoke on the morning of Jan. 26, 2006, to catastrophic news.

Hamas, a violent Islamist movement whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel, had won Palestinian parliamentary elections – elections that were deemed free and fair and a cornerstone of President Bush’s initiative to bring more democracy to the Muslim world.

For the next 17 months, White House and State Department officials would undertake an all-out campaign to reverse those results and oust Hamas.

Instead of undermining Hamas, though, the strategy helped widen political fissures in Palestinian politics that have delivered another setback to the president’s vision of a stable, pro-Western Middle East.

The administration’s drive to change the political facts in the Middle East foundered on opposition in Congress, the differing goals of allies such as Saudi Arabia, and an inability to provide Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas with the backing he needed to confront Hamas.

Austria Mosques Multi-purpose (A should-be-followed example)

Austria’s mosques are edging more closer to performing the real role of mosque in Islam; serving as a place of worship as well as offering educational classes, cultural events and other community services.“It is indeed a landmark achievement for mosques in Austria,” Sheikh Ramadan Ismail, a preacher, told IslamOnline.net.

He said mosques in Austria have realized the daunting challenge ahead in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

“Mosques have become cultural forums that attract many Austrian Muslims, and a fortress against extremist ideologies,” added Ismail.

The mosque’s social effort is also aimed at instilling Islamic values and traditions into the younger generations and help them integrate into society without losing their Islamic identity.

“They are preventing the younger generations from melting into the western pot of traditions and practices that go against the very essence of Islam,” noted Abdel Aal Ayyad, the caretaker of Al-Fath Mosque in Vienna.

There are 200 mosques and prayer rooms across the European country, including 60 in Vienna alone.

A law issued in 1867, which guarantees respect for all religions, gives Muslims the right to build mosques and practice their religion in Austria.

Muslims, estimated at nearly half a million, make up some 6 percent of the country’s eight-million population.

Islam, which was officially acknowledged in Austria in 1908, is considered the second religion in the country after Catholic Christianity.

Exemplary Mosque

The Shura mosque in Vienna stands as an example on mosques are no longer just a place of worship but rather a multi-purpose institution that cater for Muslims of all stripes.

The mosque serves as a club organizing soccer tournaments, volleyball matches and races, renting the playground of a nearby club for this purpose.

In weekends, the mosque becomes a seat of learning, offering Qur`an, Arabic, German and computer classes for up to 100 students.

It enlists highly qualified students and provides them with sophisticated teaching tools.

Muslim students get a chance to socialize, which helps close the ranks of the sizable minority.

Magdy Sherif, a father of three, believes the mosque’s role is indispensable.

“It teaches my children Arabic and helps them learn the Qur`an,” he said, noting that state and even Arabic schools lack in this.

“I also want to nurture a love for mosque-attending in my children, and teach them their mother tongue,” added Sherif.

Young Muslims seem to be making the best of the multi-services offered by mosques.

“I made new friends, mastered Arabic and memorized some parts of the Noble Qur’an,” said Malek Ismail, 14.

For Iraqis, it`s 9/11 everyday

Shortages; lack of electricity; potable water; tanks rolling through the streets night and day; gunfire and explosions. Iraqi health care in shambles. 200 bodies turn up daily in the Baghdad morgue. For Iraqis, it’s 9/11 every day.

A Short History of The Republic of Iraq

By Dr. Sadiq H. Wasfi and Dahlia Wasfi

“For the poor throughout history who have suffered violence, death, hunger, sickness, and indignity at the hands of powerful oppressors who would not respect their humanity, and especially for the Iraqi, Arab, and other victims of the fire this time—with a call for action to end the scourge of war, economic exploitation, and poverty.”—Ramsey Clark
Dedication for The Fire This Time: U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf. Thunder’s Mouth Press, New York 1992.

The region of Mesopotamia—modern-day Iraq —has been a magnet for greedy conquerors for thousands of years. Time and again, thieving invaders coveting her rich natural resources and advanced society have pillaged “the land between two rivers.” Time and again, the invaders were defeated and expelled.

The Americans led by “leaders” comprised of rich oil barons and neo-conservative Zionists are the latest in a long line of imperialists. If they had only read history, however, they could have predicted that they, too, would suffer great losses from an unwavering resistance. They could have predicted that they, too, will have to leave. In the words of Yogi Berra, they “made the wrong mistake.” But while imperialism in Western Asia is nothing new, our weaponry and war crimes may put Americans in the history books as Iraq ’s most barbaric invaders ever.

Throughout the last hundred years, Iraqis have experienced much social, political, and economic turmoil. The British occupied the region in the early 20th century, and installed a puppet monarchy to serve the interests of the Empire. King Faisal, with pro-British agents Nuri Al-Said and Saleh Jabr, traded Iraq ’s wealth and their own dignity for power and greed.[i] Many Iraqis identified them as traitors, as evidenced by demonstration slogans: “Nuri Al-Said, Al-Qundara; Saleh Jabr, Al-Qeetanheh” (“Al-Said is the shoe, Jabr is its shoelace.”)

On July 14th, 1958 (marked as Iraq ’s first Independence Day), a coup lead by General Abdul Karim Qasim— Iraq ’s self-proclaimed “only leader”—resulted in the dissolution of the “Kingdom” of Iraq . The royal family was assassinated, and the “ Republic of Iraq ” was born—a development that took Western powers by surprise.