So glad people are resading Friedman here--and glad Bush has forced them to change in the ME.
He has done them a favor. Wonderful things are brimming there.
Lash
Lash wrote:So glad people are resading Friedman here--and glad Bush has forced them to change in the ME.
He has done them a favor. Wonderful things are brimming there.
I've long admired Tom Friedman's knowledge and expertise about the Middle East and have bought and read most of his books. Unlike many pundits, he talks AND LISTENS to and learns from the common people as well as the leadership and wealthy. He has an exquisite understanding of the difference in thinking between the generations of the populace. We tend to ignore the signals coming from the younger generations at our peril.
BBB
I agree. He seems more even-handed than most of the cadre of writers who have taken up Iraq and Middle Eastern issues.
I think I "trust" him and the two others I mention all the time. He's been popping up on CNN and Fox of late as news analyst--a pleasant surprise.
Did you read The Lexus and the Olive Tree?
Lash
Lash wrote:I agree. He seems more even-handed than most of the cadre of writers who have taken up Iraq and Middle Eastern issues.
I think I "trust" him and the two others I mention all the time. He's been popping up on CNN and Fox of late as news analyst--a pleasant surprise.
Did you read The Lexus and the Olive Tree?
I've read all of his books except the last one, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, which is still in my pile of books to get to. I have a bad habit of reading several books at the same time. When I buy a new one, I can't wait to get into it even if I'm reading something else.
BBB
Cool. I hope he'll take 1400 names before he puts them on planes...
He is impervious! I can't believe he's still alive.
France ejects 12 Islamic 'preachers of hate'
France ejects 12 Islamic 'preachers of hate'
By Colin Randall in Paris
(Filed: 30/07/2005)
The gulf between British and French treatment of preachers of hatred and violence was thrown sharply into focus yesterday when France announced the summary expulsion of a dozen Islamists between now and the end of August.
A tough new anti-terrorism package was unveiled by Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister and a popular centre-Right politician.
Nicolas Sarkozy: 'We have to act against radical preachers'
His proposals reflect French determination to act swiftly against extremists in defiance of the human rights lobby, which is noticeably less vocal in France than in Britain.
Imams and their followers who fuel anti-western feeling among impressionable young French Muslims will be rounded up and returned to their countries of origin, most commonly in France's case to its former north African colonies.
Mr Sarkozy also revealed that as many as 12 French mosques associated with provocative anti-western preaching were under surveillance. Imams indulging in inflammatory rhetoric will be expelled even if their religious status is recognised by mainstream Muslim bodies.
Those who have assumed French citizenship will not be protected from deportation. Mr Sarkozy said he will reactivate measures, "already available in our penal code but simply not used", to strip undesirables of their adopted nationality. "We have to act against radical preachers capable of influencing the youngest and most weak-minded," Mr Sarkozy told the French daily Le Parisien.
The first to be caught in the new round of expulsions is an Algerian, Rena Ameuroud, whose brother Abderraham was jailed in France earlier this year for his part in a jihadist training exercise in the Fontainebleau forest south of Paris. He faces immediate deportation for allegedly urging fellow-worshippers at a Parisian mosque to engage in "holy war".
At least seven French nationals are now known to have been killed while fighting with anti-coalition insurgents in Iraq, in some cases as suicide bombers, the minister said. A further 10 are believed still to be there. France, which has Europe's largest Muslim population with estimates varying from five to nine million out of a population of 60 million, has long prided itself on its stern approach to terrorism.
Mr Sarkozy's crackdown on those "promoting radical Islamist polemic" was disclosed at the end of a week that began with French anger at Britain's failure to extradite the alleged financier of Islamist bombings in Paris in the mid-1990s. Rachid Ramda, 35, an Algerian, has been held for 10 years while fighting attempts to return him to stand trial. Survivors and victims' relatives who gathered this week at the St Michel station in the heart of Paris to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the worst attack, which killed eight, called on Britain to "stop protecting" Ramda.
They are unimpressed by his supporters' claims that he is a "gentle and peaceful" man who devotes his time in the Belmarsh top-security jail in south-east London to learning the Koran by heart, studying English literature and comforting other Muslim prisoners. Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, has approved Ramda's extradition - as did his predecessor David Blunkett - but his removal depends on High Court proceedings.
French ministers and commentators have long expressed exasperation at British handling of individuals who support terrorism, arguing that greater emphasis is being placed on their human rights rather than on security interests.
More countries need to expel any religious school that teaches hate and religious extremism. Seems we're gonna have to start deporting some christians from the US.
BBB, A woman Iraqi journalist was on nightline recently, and she said conditions for women are worse now than under Saddam. The Bush administration is gonna keep telling the world that things are progressing in Iraq. Unfortunately, the majority of people will believe Bush and not the first hand report by a professional woman journalist from Iraq.
The following link pretty much repeats what the Iraqi journalist said about conditions for women in Iraq. None of the reports from this administration have ever mentioned the worsening conditions for women while continuing to repeat that "progress is being made."
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE140012005
