Free Republic

Imagine if the principal of a Catholic school in the metro D.C. region was found guilty of failing to report an allegation of child sexual abuse. It'd be considered worthy of front page news for the Washington Post, at the very least a front pager for the paper's Metro section. Yet reporting the conviction of Abdalla I. Al-Shabnan on July 31, the Post buried the story on the 6th page of the Metro section. Here's how staffer Tom Jackman opened his story: The director general of a controversial private Islamic school in Fairfax County has been found guilty of a...

WASHINGTON — Two years after protracted American-Saudi negotiations persuaded the State Department that the Saudis would remove religious intolerance from their national textbooks, a new study finds the books still portray non-Sunni Muslims as the enemies of true believers. The report from the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute finds that the Saudi textbooks are filled with the austere supremacism of the Wahhabi sect of Islam, despite promises from the Kingdom in 2006 to alter them. For example, a textbook for 10th graders on Islamic jurisprudence not only says it is permissible in Islam to murder a homosexual,...

By Jerry Markon and Ben Hubbard Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, July 15, 2008; Page B01 A Saudi-funded academy in Fairfax County used textbooks as recently as 2006 that compared Jews and Christians to apes and pigs, told eighth-graders that these groups are "the enemies of the believers" and diagrammed for high school students where to cut off the hands and feet of thieves, a Washington Post review of the books has found. Saudi officials acknowledged that the textbooks used at the Islamic Saudi Academy had contained inflammatory material since at least the mid-1990s but said they ordered revisions in...

High school students in the Wahhabi-led school learn that "the Jews conspired against Islam" and Sunni Muslims should shun all Shia Muslims. They also are taught that killing an apostate or an adulterer is acceptable under Islamic law. And polytheists (defined elsewhere as Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and even Shia and Sufi Muslims) likewise can be subject to death for their transgressions. It is troubling enough to consider such lessons being ingrained in the minds of teenagers in Riyadh and throughout the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But the same textbooks are in use in Alexandria, Va., at the Islamic Saudi...

The State Department has no authority to close a Saudi-supported school criticized for violent teachings, a spokesman said Tuesday, despite an official request for guidance from the Northern Virginia county that leases space for the school's main campus. The department will "respond as appropriate" to Fairfax County supervisors, spokesman Rob McInturff said. "We work with the Saudi government ... to revise educational materials in Saudi Arabia, but this is a private school in the U.S.," Mr. McInturff said. "We don't monitor their activities or anything like that." Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald E. Connolly sent a letter Monday...

Oil Is Not the Only Saudi ExportSaudi hate is no worry for the just-say-no-to-energy crowd. By Deroy Murdock Look what your petrodollars helped to finance: “The cause of the discord: The Jews conspired against Islam and its people. A sly, wicked person who sinfully and deceitfully professed Islam infiltrated [the Muslims].” “In these verses is a call for jihad, which is the pinnacle of Islam. . . . Only through force and victory over the enemies is there security and repose. Within martyrdom in the path of God (exalted and glorified is He) is a type of noble life-force that...

The arrest of a top official at a Saudi-financed school in Northern Virginia has fueled further criticism of the institution following findings released last week that say its textbooks contained violent and intolerant language. snip The school's director general, Abdalla Al-Shabnan, was arrested June 9 and charged with obstruction of justice - a misdemeanor count that follows accusations that he failed to report an allegation of child abuse made by a student at the school. A 5-year-old girl at the academy's campus in Fairfax said she had been sexually assaulted by a family member, according to court documents. Mr. Al-Shabnan,...

(CNSNews.com) - Religious textbooks at the Islamic Saudi Academy (IPA) in Fairfax, Va., which have sparked controversy for content that allegedly promotes violence and hatred toward non-Muslims, will be rewritten and reissued by the time students return to school in the fall, said school officials. "We hope the books will be clean from any kind of misunderstanding that people think about," the head of Islamic teachings at the academy, who asked not to be named, told Cybercast News Service on Tuesday. The IPA official, however, denied that the books used until now contain lessons that teach children to hate non-Muslims...

McLEAN, Va. (AP) — Textbooks at a private Islamic school in northern Virginia teach students that it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam, according to a federal investigation released Wednesday. Other passages in the school's textbooks state that "the Jews conspired against Islam and its people" and that Muslims are permitted to take the lives and property of those deemed "polytheists."

The books say it’s OK for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts McLEAN, Va. - Textbooks at a private Islamic school in northern Virginia teach students that it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam, according to a federal investigation released Wednesday. Other passages in the school's textbooks state that "the Jews conspired against Islam and its people" and that Muslims are permitted to take the lives and property of those deemed "polytheists." The passages were found in selected textbooks used during the 2007-08 school year by the Islamic Saudi Academy, which teaches 900 students in...

Yesterday, the Board of Supervisors of Fairfax County, Virginia, near Washington, DC, unanimously voted to continue leasing county property to the Islamic Saudi Academy, which is funded by the Saudi government. The school had been criticized for using textbooks which included virulently anti-Semitic and anti-Christian language and teachings. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a report last year urging the State Department to shut the school down unless it materially changed the textbooks to remove the hateful language. To quote the Commission, "Moreover, a 2006 report analyzing some Saudi textbooks from the 2005-2006 school year found that...

Bilal Hamuda Machmud Zaalah, head of the Islamic Jihad in Qabatya, and his deputy, Adin Machmud Hasani Avidot, also a member of the terrorist group, were killed today during a joint operation by the IDF and the ISA near Jenin. Forces from a reconnaissance battalion in the Paratrooper Brigade surrounded an area suspected to be the site in which the two men were hiding and then identified the two hiding in a in a nearby vehicle. After confirming that the two men were armed, forces fired at the wanted men, killing both. The forces uncovered explosives, an M-16 rifle equipped...

Dialogue effort is largest of its kind By Sandi Dolbee UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER December 16, 2007 SAN DIEGO – In what is being described as the first such effort of its kind, two major Jewish and Muslim groups will launch “serious education programs” in the United States and Canada aimed at bridging a divide formed from centuries of animosity over land, politics and religion. “When we are killing each other in the name of God, sensible religious people have an obligation to do something about it,” Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said yesterday to about...

A news organization should stake out the school, follow the kids home and out the parents of the students (if not by name then by home country and/or type of employment, ie diplomat, imam, charitable organization, etc.). ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Its most virulent critics have dubbed it "Terror High," and 12 U.S. senators and a federal commission want to shut it down. The teachers, administrators and some 900 students at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax County have heard the allegations for years -- after the Sept. 11 attacks and then a few years later when a class valedictorian admitted...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Its most virulent critics have dubbed it "Terror High," and 12 U.S. senators and a federal commission want to shut it down. The teachers, administrators and some 900 students at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax County have heard the allegations for years — after the Sept. 11 attacks and then a few years later when a class valedictorian admitted he had joined al-Qaida. Now the school is on the defensive again, with a report issued last month by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom saying the academy should be closed, pending a review of its...

Islamofascism: A federal panel wants a Saudi school inside the Beltway shut for promoting hate, something we've urged for years. But remarkably, this madrassa still has powerful backers.The Washington Post rebuked the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom for singling out the academy in a report criticizing Saudi Arabia for promoting religious intolerance in schools it runs around the world. As we've reported in these pages, the Alexandria, Va.-based Islamic Saudi Academy is a breeding ground for terrorists, including the al-Qaida operative convicted last year of trying to assassinate President Bush. The commission has asked the State Department to close...

With such a headline, you'd be excused for assuming this piece is just another attack on our failing schools, just another screed against the evils of teachers unions, or a whack against the left wing lunatics who run our universities. No, this time the title is no mere hyperbole. This time it says exactly what it means for in the state of Virginia a school is being run by radical Islamists, funded by a foreign nation, and under condemnation from the U.S. government. In this time of war, the State of Virginia really is allowing our enemies to run a...

A congressionally mandated panel that promotes religious freedom is recommending the Bush administration close a Virginia-based Islamic school run by the Saudi government if school officials don't comply with demands to turn over textbooks that may include lessons on jihad and intolerance toward other religions. "Significant concerns remain about whether what is being taught at the (school) promotes religious intolerance and may adversely affect the interests of the United States," said a report released by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Saudi embassy officials say the books long ago were cleaned up and made available to commission members, but...

A CHALLENGE TO H.R. 25 [alleged fair tax] SUPPORTERS What part of our federal Constitution grants power to Congress to lay and collect a “sales tax”? I have been told by some proponents of H.R. 25 to read Article 1, Section 8, but, I do not see “sales tax” in the list of specific taxing powers granted in that part of the Constitution. I guess it’s safe to assume at this point in time the promoters of H.R.25 were pretending that a power was granted to Congress to lay and collect a “sales tax”. In addition, those who promote H.R....

Advocates of replacing the income tax with the FairTax — a consumption tax in the form of a national retail sales tax (NRST) on new goods and services — regularly point to the complexity of the tax code, the millions of hours and dollars wasted on compliance costs, the evils of the withholding tax, and the abuses of the IRS to bolster their case for the FairTax. The twin truths that taxation is theft (no matter how the money is collected) and that the US government should never be given a budget that is in the trillions (no matter how...

I consider myself to be fairly liberal on most issues. So some of you might be surprised that I am about to take a position that’s usually the providence of hardcore conservatives. I support HR25—the Fair Tax Act of 2005. Yeah. The one that would replace virtually the entire tax system with a 23% sales tax. I read about it most recently in an unnecessarily hostile editorial by Matthew Holmes. Truth be told, his article did nothing to convince me that the tax is a good thing. But it convinced me to wade through the full text of the legislation,...

Many of the proposals that are being brought before you have merit. But they have merit in the same sense that treating the symptoms of a serious disease rather than the underlying cause of the disease has merit. If we have no means of treating the underlying disease, then we treat the symptoms in the hope the disease will run its course and the patient will improve. If we have not yet accurately diagnosed the disease, then we alleviate the symptoms until the tests are completed and we can attack the underlying problem. On the other hand, if we understand...

Why NTU Supports the FairTax: The Fair Tax Act of 2005 would promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national sales tax to be administered primarily by the States. Legislative Status: Rep. John Linder (GA) introduced H.R. 25 in the House of Representatives on January 4, 2005. Senator Saxby Chambliss (GA) introduced S. 25 in the Senate on January 24, 2005. NTU has endorsed the FairTax since 1998 and continues to work for its adoption Benefits of the FairTax: The FairTax plan brings fairness, transparency,...

How to Install an Internal Modem on system Installing an internal modem is not an easy task. You have to open the computer to install modem cards. Given steps applies to all computer system. Shut down the computer and disconnect all peripheral devices from the computer, then remove the computer's cover. Find a slot that matches the pins. PCI modems have fewer pins and fit into a smaller slot than ISA modems. Put new modem into that slot if it will physically fit. First unscrew the metal plate on the slot holder on the back panel, and insert the modem...

A Battlefield for Tax Reform There are a few significant battlefields in the war for tax reform. One of them is Free Republic. What makes the Free Republic battlefield significant is that the debate is at the cutting edge. The debate on Free Republic is the most current and most knowledgeable. It is a year ahead of other significant battlefields (radio talk shows, political town-hall meetings, conversations among neighbors and coworkers.) The trend on Free Republic with respect to tax reform is going to show up in the real world. Free Republic is a tiny segment of the world, albeit...

We are grateful for the opportunity to expose some of the inequities in the U.S. tax laws. When we began this project, we thought we would highlight a few, mostly wellknown inequities, such as the seemingly interminable inequity between the deductibility of health insurance premiums for the self-employed versus C Corporations. Unfortunately, our investigation uncovered much more. What we found were dozens of sections of the Internal Revenue Code which, on their face, disadvantage small firms. There is little doubt that this is just the surface of the problem. The root causes of these disparities are several.

  EXCLUSIVE Satellites on speeders Go slow ... bikers face brake     By GEORGE PASCOE-WATSON Political Editor SPEEDING bikers are to have their throttles shut down by SATELLITE, it was revealed last night. But motorcycle experts have condemned the spy-in-the-sky move as “lethally dangerous”. Riders breaking the speed limit will receive two warnings before their throttle is cut, leaving them without power. Roads minister Stephen Ladyman — a former boy racer — will endorse the controversial plan today. But one expert who trialled the Intelligent Speed Adaptation bike for the government, warned: “This will have profoundly dangerous consequences.”  ...

This month's defeat of local politicians who built the equivalent of a day-care center for illegal Hispanic immigrants in a leafy Washington, D.C., suburb was a victory not just for immigration reformers but also anti-terror watchdogs. Angry voters in Herndon, Va., swept out their bleeding-heart mayor and two of his allies on the town council and replaced them with candidates who are not expected to renew the lease of a controversial hiring site set up to help illegal aliens find work. Lost in all the controvery, however, is the more disturbing fact that the site -- a covered building featuring...

From the Moonbats themselves SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 2006 NEW YORK CITY Unite for change - let's turn our country around! The times are urgent and we must act. Too much is too wrong in this country. We have a foreign policy that is foreign to our core values, and domestic policies wreaking havoc at home. It's time for a change. INITIATING ORGANIZATIONS: United for Peace and Justice, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, International ANSWER/NYC chapter, National Organization for Women, Friends of the Earth, U.S. Labor Against the War, Climate Crisis Coalition, People's Hurricane Relief Fund, National Youth and Student Peace Coalition, Veterans for...

A few days ago I received an e-mail from Homa Arjomand. She is a Canadian, Muslim lady who has been working to assure that some Canadian Muslims were not successful in getting the Canadian government to accept the Sharia (Muslim law) to be put in place for Muslims there. The e-mail was to announce the success of her efforts, as Canada just shot down this effort. There are many more than one billion Muslims (just the Sunnis number a billion) around the world. Despite the scenes of death and destruction we see almost every day, carried out by some portion...

MOSCOW, September 7 (RIA Novosti) - Several Russian spacecraft manufacturers have approached the Federal Space Agency, Rosaviacosmos, with a proposal to set up an international association of space-related institutions and companies, the agency's official spokesman said Wednesday. Vyacheslav Davidenko said Rosaviacosmos leadership is now considering the possibility of the agency joining the would-be association and that the founding companies will gather for their first session September 12.

Former S. Side mosque official pleads guilty to meth charges September 4, 2005 BY NATASHA KORECKI, Federal Courts Reporter The onetime treasurer of a Chicago mosque with ties to two people accused of funding terrorism admitted he delivered drugs to an undercover federal agent. Tariq Isa, 57, of Cicero pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to distribute and attempted distribution of pseudoephedrine, knowing it was intended to be used to make methamphetamine. Isa is the third member of the Al Qassam Mosque, also known as the Chicago Islamic Center, on the South Side, to face federal charges. Two other former mosque...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) -- An airplane that raised questions in this college town is being used by the FBI to monitor people who might have terrorist connections, agency officials acknowledged. The FBI denied knowledge of the plane earlier this week after aviation officials disclosed that the aircraft was conducting law enforcement surveillance. Agent Thomas V. Fuentes said the FBI issued the denial because a reporter asked if the airplane is doing electronic surveillance, which it is not. Fuentes and agent James H. Davis said the FBI is not aware of any threat to Bloomington or the state, but is watching...

That means their view on the "end times." Folks, back in 2004, National Review Online's correspondent Rod Dreher, interviewed David Cook, a Rice University scholar of Muslim apocalypticism. I want to share his observations with you:Rod Dreher: What are the main beliefs of Islamic eschatology? David Cook: Referring to Sunni Islam, the principal beliefs are: 1)There are a series of signs or portents previous to the end: moral and social decay, natural and cosmic disasters, and political events that will demonstrate in an incontrovertible manner that the end is about to happen. 2) A tempter, or Antichrist, called the Dajjal...

The Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria is an outpost of militant Islam, say critics who point out that the school's 1999 valedictorian is charged with joining al Qaeda and plotting to assassinate President Bush. Two other persons connected to the academy also have been linked to terrorism-related cases, and a U.S. senator has asked the Justice Department to investigate the school. The school was founded in 1984, primarily to serve children of the Saudi diplomatic corps. Today, the student body is more diverse, with nearly three dozen countries represented, but much of the funding still comes from the Saudi government....

Al Qaeda High - Alleged Bush Assassin a Graduate of Local Saudi Madrassa Stella Jatras, who normally follows the Balkans for us, reports on efforts to establish yet another Saudi Madrassa outside Washington, D.C. Nestled snuggly in the Northern hills of Virginia, lies the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), better known as Al-Qaeda High. ISA's most notable graduate - so far - is Ahmed Omar Abu Ali. Ali was arrested recently for plotting to assassinate President Bush. Ali was born in Houston and later moved to Falls Church, Va., where he was valedictorian of his class at ISA. After graduation, a...

The religious and philosophical justifications for promoting Jihad –which means holy war - around the world, is found in the Quran, says Dr. Hussein Shehata, a professor at al-Azhar University in Cairo. According to Dr. Shehata, the following terms in the Quran combine to justify the spreading of Jihad: in Arabic- Al-Jihad bi-al-Lisan – which means - Jihad of the Tongue, and al-Jihad bi-al-Qalam – Jihad of the Pen. Both combine for preaching and writing to promote Jihad. This command is complemented by Al-Jihad bi-al-Mal - the Financial Jihad; namely, raising money for needy Muslims and supporting the Jihad warriors...

Virginia man charged in alleged plot to assassinate Bush By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press Writer ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- A former high school valedictorian in Virginia was charged Tuesday with conspiring to assassinate President Bush and conspiracy to support the al-Qaida terrorist network. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, a U.S. citizen, made an initial appearance Tuesday in U.S. District Court. He claimed that he was tortured while detained in Saudi Arabia since June of 2003 and offered through his lawyer to show the judge his scars. The indictment said that in 2002 and 2003 Abu Ali and an unidentified coconspirator...

SAUDI 'SOLDIER' BY STEPHEN SCHWARTZ IN Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday, a 23-year-old Northern Virginia man of Saudi Arabian background named Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was charged with conspiring to assassinate President Bush. Abu Ali and his accomplices are accused of plotting to kill the president by gunfire or a car bomb. The indictment also spells out such criminal activities as assisting and receiving support from Osama bin Laden's band of murderers. Abu Ali was extradited to Virginia after many months in a Saudi jail. What's most remarkable about this case is the degree to which this would-be assassin is a...

Apt Pupil By Ben JohnsonFrontPageMagazine.com | February 24, 2005This week, the Justice Department accused 23-year-old Virginia native Ahmed Omar Abu Ali of plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush. Media coverage has predictably centered on Abu Ali’s claims of torture while he was held in a Saudi Arabian prison and on the fact that the accused was “his high school’s valedictorian.” Largely omitted from this coverage is the fact that his high school operates under the authority of the Saudi Arabian government, teaches an extremist form of Wahhabi Islam, and has direct ties to at least three other terrorists...

War brutalizes man, every afghan bears living testimony to this. If the landscape of Afghanistan bears the craters of the endless war, the political and military leadership in Afghanistan also carries war's indelible scars. It is important never to lose sight of this. Ahmed Shah Mas'ud was born to an army family in 1953 in the Panjshir Valley north of the Afghan capital Kabul. His father was a colonel in the Afghan Army and enrolled his son at Kabul's Lycee Istiqlal High School. Upon graduation Mas'ud joined Kabul's Polytechnic Institute. In 1973 King Zahir Shah was deposed and exiled by...

We Lose If LOST Winsby William F. JasperThe Law of the Sea Treaty is not just a bad idea; it is a very dangerous legal document that heralds a major step into world government and grants vast powers to the UN.Some bad ideas just keep coming back again and again, like a vampire that hasn’t been properly disposed of with the wooden stake to the heart. The United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) is just such a creature. Pronounced dead several times over the past couple of decades, it was largely forgotten — except by its internationalist sponsors....

One killed, eight wounded in Gush Katif junction suicide bombing Oded Sharon, 36, from Gan Yavne, an Israel Security Agency officer, was killed, an IDF officer seriously wounded, and 4 IDF soldiers and 3 members of the ISA were lightly wounded in a suicide bombing attack at the Gush Katif junction in the central Gaza Strip on Tuesday evening (Jan 18). While search procedures were being carried out, the suicide bomber with explosives strapped to his body detonated himself. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

Major suicide bombing terror attack averted IDF forces intercept furniture truck carrying explosives near Nablus. Terrorist cell involved had carried out previous suicide bombing attacksMaariv International West Bank checkpoint. Security forces recently foiled a planned suicide bombing, planned by the joint Hamas-Tanzim terrorist infrastructure in Nablus. According to senior defense sources, the IDF and ISA, acting on recently received intelligence information, uncovered at the Hawara checkpoint, at the entrance of Nablus, an large shipment of explosives hidden inside a cupboard, which was transported in a furniture truck on its way from Nablus to Jerusalem. The discovery was made two days...

SAN FRANCISCO Visa reports that consumers spent 15.5 percent more the day after Thanksgiving than they did on the same day last year.

A northern Virginia school that caters to children of Saudi diplomats is teaching first-graders that Judaism and Christianity are false religions. The allegations come from a Muslim group. The Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism is calling on the Islamic Saudi Academy to remove the textbook used to teach first-graders. The teachers' edition of the textbook emphasizes several points, including the statement "All religions other than Islam are false religions." A second notation tells the teacher to ensure "explaining that all religions, other than Islam, are false, including that of the Jews, Christians and all others." The coalition's director, Kamal Nawash,...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A school that caters to children of Saudi diplomats is teaching first-graders that Judaism and Christianity are false religions, according to a Muslim group concerned that such teachings breed hatred. Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism is calling on Islamic Saudi Academy to remove the textbook used to teach first-graders. The teachers' edition of the textbook outlines several points of emphasis, including the statement, "All religions other than Islam are false religions." The coalition's director, Kamal Nawash, a Muslim, said it would be acceptable to teach that Islam is the only correct religion. But to explicitly tell first-graders...

The coalition against terrorists is engaged in a war to ensure the will of the many prevails against the wishes of a few, said Defense Department leaders before the House Armed Services Committee today. Army Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, and Peter Rodman, assistant defense secretary for international security affairs, told the representatives that the recent attacks in Baghdad and Karbala underscore the danger still facing the coalition in the region. Attacks March 2 against Shiia pilgrims killed 117 and wounded 500. Abizaid said the attacks were the responsibility of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist affiliated with...

THE first evidence that some of Saddam Hussein’s followers believe he is dead has emerged from intercepted communications between senior officials in the toppled regime, according to American intelligence sources. Electronic eavesdropping on Iraqi telephone links has for the first time picked up references to Saddam’s death. Iraqi officials began referring to him in the past tense after last Monday’s bombing of a property in the Baghdad district of al-Mansour where the dictator was believed to be at the time. Several American officials cautioned yesterday that the evidence was not conclusive, and the telephone conversations may have been a ruse...

It has taken me several days to understand what I want to say about Ilan Ramon. Beyond the traditional role of Western hero - the adventuring astronaut who embodies the Western world´s idea of courage, someone who dares to pioneer the limits of human understanding and human capability - there was something more. It is that "more" that has been so hard to define. But finally, I think I do understand. The Jewish people sent Ilan Ramon as its representative, to join hands with the world in exploring a new frontier for the betterment and enlightenment of mankind. Despite the...