Home front fears in war on terror ~

US officials have been making two main and, in some ways, contradictory points about the arrest of seven men in Miami for allegedly hatching a terror plot.

The first is an upbeat one: the alleged plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago and the FBI building in Miami was not far advanced at all, they say.

In the words of one official, the alleged terrorists were aspirational, rather than operational.

But their second point - made forcefully by the US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and the FBI director Robert Mueller - is a rather more frightening one: Americans must be aware of the heightened possibility of home-grown terror plots, of threats that can come from their own streets.

According to the indictment against them, the Miami group may have been inspired by al-Qaeda and may have thought they were in contact with an al-Qaeda operative, who turned out to be an undercover agent.

But they were not part of a sleeper cell, sent from a foreign country. They were, in the main, US citizens, who had allegedly developed a hatred for their own country.

Over the past year, the US authorities claim, they have disrupted three separate cases of home-grown terrorism.

One of those involved two men from Atlanta, who have since been linked to the arrests of 17 others in Toronto earlier this month in connection with an alleged plot to attack public buildings and behead the country's prime minister.

It is this case which has really provoked anguish in the US, prompting concerns about security along the border with Canada, and reflection on the possibility that Americans - inspired, perhaps, by extremist teachings - could carry out the sort of deadly attacks that were seen in London and Madrid.

It will be chilling for Americans to hear that, according to this latest indictment, the seven arrested men were boasting of an attack that would have been bigger than 9/11.

At the same time, there is, at this stage, plenty of uncertainty about the Miami arrests.

The families of the men, aged between 22 and 32, are loudly proclaiming their innocence.

Others are wondering how serious they could really have been if, as the indictment suggests, they were relying on their supposed al-Qaeda contact to supply them with boots.

Clearly, though, the FBI believes its undercover agent gathered enough evidence, over a period of months, to justify the arrests.

Whether or not the arrests result in convictions, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that there is a political dimension to the way they have been presented.

The attorney general has faced a lot of criticism about the government's methods of tracking terrorists after 9/11.

Those methods include the so-called warrantless wire tapping programme, and the newly-disclosed policy of monitoring the supposedly confidential bank transactions of tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Any breakthrough in the fight against terrorism can only bolster the government's defence of these kinds of programmes.

Yet there is also a potential downside for the Bush administration in talking up the threat of domestic terror.

One of the arguments made for the continued presence of US troops in Iraq is that it is better to fight terrorists abroad than to fight them at home.

If the US is having to do both, surely the public will begin to call this argument into question?

"By your definition, ANY religion should be rendered unconstitutional and illegal in the United States, since they all put a god above the United States Constitution, . . . "

Any religion that worships "a god" which seeks to destroy the Spirit of Liberty and Freedom in the country which protects those rights for all Citizens should be outlawed and its adherents banished forever. The nature of Islam has violently revealed itself as being anti-freedom and anti-liberty whereever it has been allowed to expand. It can't even keep its own peace, for it has none. Sow's ear, silk purse.

Your term, "a god", is an apt designation for the false 'deity' which commands its adherents to force, threaten, intimidate and slaughter non-believers who will not submit to its idiocy.

Yes, bannish them all. Sooner, rather than later. We created a charter agreed to by all who live here. Anyone who becomes a threat to that charter will be chastised by the self-protecting power of that charter.

Our Constitution is not a suicide pact.

"By your definition, ANY religion should be rendered unconstitutional and illegal in the United States"

I said that Islamic law is incompatible with liberty. And it is, insofar as liberty and human rights are defined in the modern sense. For instance, cutting off the hand of a thief would be considered cruel and unusual by modern society. Polygamy, honor killings, etc., are part of Islamic law. The tenets of other religions, such as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and so forth, are not only compatible with our Constitution, but did, in fact, contribute to its formula.

In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were ambassadors to Paris and London, respectively. Because America had suffered disruption and attacks on its ships by Muslim pirates, they met with and asked the representative of what is now modern day Libya, Sidi Haji Rahmand Adja, why the Muslims were doing this (they had been doing it against Christian shipping for centuries).

The following is a quote from the report issued to the Continental Congress by Jefferson and Adams:

(Adja said) "“…that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.”"

In 1829, John Quincy Adams wrote this:

"“….he [Muhammad] declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind…The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God…the faithful follower of the prophet may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force.”

He then offered the following comparisons between Christianity and Islam:

On Christianity:

"“And he [Jesus] declared, that the enjoyment of felicity in the world hereafter, would be reward of the practice of benevolence here. His whole law was resolvable into the precept of love; peace on earth – good will toward man…On the Christian system of morals, man is an immortal spirit, confined for a short space of time, in an earthly tabernacle. Kindness to his fellow mortals embraces the whole compass of his duties upon earth, and the whole promise of happiness to his spirit hereafter. THE ESSENCE OF THIS DOCTRINE IS, TO EXALT THE SPIRITUAL OVER THE BRUTAL PART OF HIS NATURE [Capitals in original].”"

On Islam:

"“Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST; TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE (Capitals in original)...Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant...While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men.”"

"“As the essential principle of his [Muhammad’s] faith is the subjugation of others by the sword; it is only by force, that his false doctrines can be dispelled, and his power annihilated.”"

In other words, John Quincy Adams considered Islam an enemy of America. Islam has not changed. It has not separated the religious from the political. It is still an enemy of America.

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