Regarding the Attacks in Paris:

As jihadists rampaged through Paris on Friday night, radical panellists at a Muslim debate in Britain reportedly told of the duty to establish an Islamic state.

Speakers at the Quiz A Muslim event in Bedford included Taji Mustafah, of radical Islamic organisation Hizb-ut Tahrir, and Moazzem Begg, a former Guantanamo Bay inmate and founder of campaign group Cage, whose director called Jihadi John a ‘beautiful young man’.

The panellists said that there is an ‘Islamic’ duty to ‘struggle’ for an ‘Islamic state’, as 132 were executed in shootings and suicide bombings

...another panellist, Dr Sheikh Haitham Al Haddad, of the Muslim Research and Development Organisation - who has previously called jihad ‘one of the most virtuous acts to Allah’ said: ‘We should not ask if we need to catch up with the British. We should be partners in defining what British is… in what the law of the land is.’

The panellists said that there is an ‘Islamic’ duty to ‘struggle’ for an ‘Islamic state’, as 132 were executed in shootings and suicide bombings

Exactly. Suppose, for example, that Japs bomb Pearl Harbor? How do you "use" that?

I know! Tell people we're being attacked. Yeah, that's the ticket, sho nuff!

One great thing about the US Constitution is that we have the right to free speech.

Another is that non-citizens aint entitled to it.

Is Engineer correct that you are mentally ill?

There is nothing in Islam that can justify the taking of an innocent life, nothing that can condone what murderous Islamic State fanatics have done in its name. This gang of criminals has brought our faith into grave disrepute and besmirched its honour.

Muslim leaders must act before it is too late.

We must demonstrate that this horrendous slaughter in Paris was not sanctioned by us or perpetrated with our blessings. And we must prove to young impressionable Muslims that we do not condone this carnage.

The French Muslim community should have acted more assertively already. They should be marching in the streets, chanting ‘Not in my name!’, ‘Not in the name of Islam!’

But instead, there is an eerie silence. They are doing nothing tangible to oppose the poisonous ideology that originates from Saudi Arabia and lies at the heart of IS theology, and which sadly has infected European Islam. In Great Britain, the Muslim Council of Britain, the Islamic Society of Britain and the Muslim Association of Britain should be bussing in Muslims from Scotland, Wales, all over the United Kingdom, to protest in our capital at what happened. They should be organising a mass ‘Not in our name’ march of all Muslims, irrespective of sect or denomination, condemning IS unreservedly for all it stands.

A tiny rally in Trafalgar Square on Saturday night is not good enough. Prominent Muslim organisations need to spearhead the fight against IS and the ugliness and intolerance that it represents.

It is not the first time that these self- proclaimed Muslim groups have failed us.

In the aftermath of the tragic July bombings in 2005, there was no co-ordinated response or protest march organised by the UK Islamic community. Fifty-two innocent people, including five Muslims, were murdered, but no Muslim organisation took to the streets shouting ‘not in our name’.

Yet, Muslims can mobilise ourselves whenever we believe it is warranted.
For example, we were quick to gather collectively in protest against Salman Rushdie when his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses was accused of blasphemy, and quick to march in London in 2006 against the Danish cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad.

Yet if there had been a mass rally by Muslims immediately after the London bombings a decade ago, there would be less extremism in the UK today. It would have sent a powerful message that Islam does not countenance bloodshed, except when it is in legitimate self-defence. And, if we had done so, we would not have more than 750 young British people going to Syria to join IS.

So why do we play the fiddle while Paris burns? Muslims are fettered by a misguided loyalty – by the idea that we must not ‘wash our dirty linen in public’ and criticise our faith, because our enemies will take advantage.

This is rubbish. The Koran says the highest loyalty is not to Islam, but to truth and justice. We have a responsibility to make sure this sort of atrocity does not happen again.

If we do nothing, our inaction gives a twofold message: first, to the Muslim community, that innocent French lives do not matter; and second, to the vast majority of the British population, that we are condoning murder.

In France, the collective silence from the country’s Muslim leaders will again be interpreted as tacit acquiescence. It will aid and abet Marie Le Pen’s National Front in next month’s important regional elections.
IS is a toxic corruption of our faith, a cancer in our midst.

Not only do we need to resist its jaundiced conflation of jihad (inner struggle) with bloody aggression, but we must also combat IS for its anti-non-Muslim, homophobic and repressive female ideology.

Muslims need to condemn unreservedly the horrific slaughter that took place on Friday night. We must show that we will defend the values of this great society – and, in this way, we will also show that we protect the true teachings of Islam

I dont know why he said it but I have heard it a few times over the last months. Do you have a diagnosis?

So there isn’t a solution. Unless you think a ground war is a solution. Ultimately, it might have to come to that, I suppose. But if it is to come to that, we’re going to have to be a very different country, a more mature and decent country, than we currently are. We’re going to have to have a draft, so that all this doesn’t fall on the same 1 percent of the population that’s already suffering and committing suicides in intolerable numbers; and we’re going to have to convert some portion of the economy to war footing. Because it’ll be a real war that can’t be won by having people going out and doing more shopping, as they urged us to do after 9/11. It’s going to be brutal. And not for the three or four years it might take to vanquish ISIS, but for 20 or so, because as we’re still learning in Iraq, who do these idiot critics think is going to come in and run Syria, some latter-day incarnation of Vaclav Havel?

And if you’re being remotely honest, you know all this. These Republicans are so completely full of **** that it’s hard to read and watch. Here’s a Mitt Romney tweet from shortly after the press conference ended: “Tired of Obama’s dissembling. No one calling for massive troop intervention. Instead calling for winning strategy to replace current failure.” Completely dishonest nonsense, and I guess here would be a good time to point out that Bill Kristol has called for 50,000 troops to fight ISIS just yesterday. Yeah, I know it was just a tweet. But this is the trick, even when they’re not limited to a tweet. Just use vague language about winning strategies and being strong not weak without saying what it means.

If forced to be specific, they might say, let’s step up the air war. OK then, let’s step up the air war. But let’s be aware of what it might be inviting. So Obama follows the Republicans’ advice, steps up the air war, and then someday in the near future we have our own Paris. What would they say then? Would they have his back, because, hey, buddy, you took our advice, you tried, now let’s stand together? Please. There would be instant hearings and perhaps even impeachment.

And then there’s the stupid reactionary posture of the presidential candidates who have suggested establishing a religious (i.e. non-Muslim) test for entry into the country, and the governors who have already announced that they won’t be accepting Syrian refugees. In smacking down these people at the press conference, Obama was at his best. “The people fleeing Syria,” he said, “are the most harmed by terrorism.” Duh. To use Paris as an excuse to refuse these people help makes any decent American ashamed.

That’s the Republicans. And the media, with questions like Acosta’s and Allen’s, enable them. The underlying premises of most media coverage of how Obama handles this situation going forward will be simple: hawkish good, dovish bad. That’s how it always goes once this kind of fever takes hold.



Have we learned nothing? Nothing from all the dead bodies shipped back home, and the ones buried over there? Nothing from the many trillions of dollars that we will be spending until 2060 or so to care for the veterans of these wars? Nothing from the carnage and mayhem that our Iraq invasion helped loose upon the world? Nothing from those bellicose atmospherics in Washington in those post-9/11 days, when people who knew better were slinging around phrases like “abject pacifists” to describe the people who were warning that war isn’t easy and whom time has obviously proven correct?

The way this country’s political establishment, including the agenda-setting media, behaved in those days was a disgrace. What’s happening now is in part a consequence of our belligerent immaturity then. There are no good answers here. One feels a certain sympathy for Obama being in this impossible situation; on the other hand he did ask for it, he is the president, and he has to come up with something. Since there are no good choices, he’ll probably make a mistake. But for God’s sake, at least let it be a different mistake than the one we made in 2003

who do these idiot critics think is going to come in and run Syria, some latter-day incarnation of Vaclav Havel?

ive it back to Assad, he can do it. I think he has learned his lesson.

They are not immigrants, they are colonists.

Well, these individuals were speaking in the UK, not the US and there they don't have a Bill of Rights.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU brings together in a single document the fundamental rights protected in the EU. The Charter contains rights and freedoms under six titles: Dignity, Freedoms, Equality, Solidarity, Citizens' Rights, and Justice. Proclaimed in 2000, the Charter has become legally binding on the EU with the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, in December 2009.

14th Amendment, Section 1: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of Citizens...

15th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged....

In 1952's Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, the Supreme Court upheld the right of Congress to expel noncitizens who were former Communists. "In recognizing this power and this responsibility of Congress, one does not in the remotest degree align oneself with fears unworthy of the American spirit or with hostility to the bracing air of the free spirit," Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote in his concurrence. "One merely recognizes that the place to resist unwise or cruel legislation touching aliens is the Congress, not this Court."


immigrants facing deportation do have some rights. Most are entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge, representation by a lawyer (but not one that's paid for by the government), and interpretation for non-English-speakers. The government must provide "clear and convincing" evidence to deport someone (a lower standard than "beyond a reasonable doubt").

On the other hand, some immigrants who are suspected terrorists may not be allowed to confront the evidence against them. In 1996, Congress established the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, a secret tribunal that can examine classified evidence.

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Well, these individuals were speaking in the UK, not the US and there they don't have a Bill of Rights.

Bullshit.

Quote:

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU brings together in a single document the fundamental rights protected in the EU. The Charter contains rights and freedoms under six titles: Dignity, Freedoms, Equality, Solidarity, Citizens' Rights, and Justice. Proclaimed in 2000, the Charter has become legally binding on the EU with the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, in December 2009.

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/fundamental- rights/charter/index_en.htm

Ursula Haverbeck-Wetzel says there's no proof that Auschwitz was a death camp and that that's "only a belief." Those thoughts spoken in a Hamburg court Thursday—and others, such as the "Holocaust is the biggest and most sustainable lie in history" comment she made on TV in April——are what just earned her a 10-month stay in a German prison, the Local reports.

Her crime: inciting hatred. The 87-year-old extremist who's been dubbed "Nazi-Oma" ("Nazi Grandma") has been steadfast for years in her conviction that the Holocaust is a sham. And Haverbeck-Wetzel, who used to run an ultra-conservative center that was shut down for spreading Nazi propaganda, has her share of supporters: The Telegraph notes that far-right activists filled the courtroom's benches, with others outside demanding to be let in.
They would have seen quite a spectacle. Haverbeck-Wetzel tried to goad the court into proving to her Auschwitz was a death camp, saying, per RT.com, "You know about it [Auschwitz] only through the grapevine—like me." This spurred Bjoern Joensson, the presiding judge, to retort, "It is pointless holding a debate with someone who can't accept any facts," adding: "Neither do I have to prove to you that the world is round."

In Germany, the crime of incitement of hatred includes anyone who publicly "approves of, denies, or downplays" what the Nazis did during the Holocaust. "I will never accept this verdict!" Haverbeck-Wetzel told the court. (A California middle school decided to nix a Holocaust-denial lesson plan.)