Free Republic

President Bush took his case for freedom, democracy, tolerance and "respect" for Islam to the United Nations. His speech was eloquent at times and uniquely American in its plea for understanding and help in freeing people from oppression in the Middle East. The only problem with the speech was that most of the oppressors and who knows how many of the "oppressed" see us, not themselves, in bondage to the pursuit of wealth and pleasure. They see even those who claim to be professed believers in God falling short in the way they live; and witness our "decadence" on constant...

A New York rally by the Islamic Thinkers Society outside the Israeli consulate yesterday featured chants of "The mushroom cloud is on its way! The real holocaust is on its way!" The demonstration by the Queens-based group was monitored by the Investigative Project on Terrorism whose members noted signs including "Islam will Dominate" and a picture with an Islamic flag flying over the White House. The chants were in Arabic and translated by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, headed by Steve Emerson, a former reporter for CNN. Here are some excerpts from the chants: Leader (in Arabic): "With our blood...

BIRMINGHAM, England — Ten days after Islamic radicals carried out deadly attacks on the London transport system, Britain's largest Sunni Muslim group today issued a binding religious edict, a fatwa, condemning the July 7 suicide bombings as the work of a "perverted ideology." In the northern city of Leeds, which has been a focus of the investigation into the bombings, six men were arrested under Britain's anti-terror law. West Yorkshire police said the men are not believed to be involved in the bombings, but offered no further details on why the six were arrested. "At this stage, these arrests are...

The Italian best-selling writer and journalist Oriana Fallaci was ordered to stand trial in Italy on charges she defamed Islam in her best selling book. This is my quick review of the first paragraph of the article. Read More at the site

The Mullahs' Killing Fields By Donna M. Hughes FrontPageMagazine.com | December 14, 2004A former political prisoner and the daughter of two slain parents vowed to make sure the voices of Iranians who have suffered under the Islamic fundamentalist regime heard. The two women said they stand by other activists who continue to be arrested, tortured, and executed in Iran for supporting freedom and democracy. On the occasion of International Human Rights Day (Friday, December 10), the torture and execution of political prisoners in Iran was the focus of a briefing in New York hosted by the non-governmental organization Women’s...

PAKISTAN has tried, without much success, to crack down on the madrasses, religious schools, which are often subsidized by Islamic conservatives from Saudi Arabia. Now a weakness has been found; child abuse. Many of the madrassa students are children under 14, and its common knowledge that some of the clerics and teachers running the madrasses will sexually molest their students. In the past, not much attention was paid to this, because it was so shameful. In the province of Punjab (the largest in Pakistan), there have been 500 complaints about such abuse in the last six months. The government decided...

Radical Islamic cells in Europe are financing terror networks by withdrawing hundreds of thousands of dollars a month from cash machines with fake credit cards, according to France's top anti-terrorism judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere. The judge said two years ago investigators uncovered one such financing cell in France. Ten suspected Islamic militants were withdrawing more than $100,000 a month from cash-machines in other European countries. "The (Islamic) European networks finance themselves primarily through microfinancing systems - criminal activity that is very profitable," he said Wednesday. (AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

Relations ... the very word gives one the positive mindset of working as a team to accomplish established goals. Throughout the past 228 years, Americans have fought through their own differences of opinion to achieve great successes for this nation. What myself, and tens of millions of others, are interested in knowing is your interpretation of the term relation. Webster's defines it as "an aspect or quality (as resemblance) that connects two or more things or parts as being or belonging or working together." This column wasn't created to accuse Muslim organizations of having ties to terrorist networks. That issue...

Three alleged members of a radical Dutch Islamic group were arrested and deported to the Netherlands from Portugal because police feared they were planning an attack on then-Prime Minister Jose Barroso, a former top Portuguese police official said today The Dutch government confirmed that three men arrested June 11 in Porto were members of a group referred to by Dutch intelligence as the Hofstad Network, which has been linked to the November 2 killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. The suspects, whose names have not been confirmed by authorities in either country, are believed to have been arrested in...

The war we're losing Posted: June 30, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc. June 28, the day in 2004 that the Americans transferred sovereignty to Iraqis and proconsul Paul Bremer hastily departed Baghdad, is a day freighted with historic significance. On June 28, 1914, 90 years before, Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip fired the shots that killed the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and led, five weeks later, to World War I. On June 28, 1919, German representatives, their country under an Allied starvation blockade, prostrate before a threat by Marshal Foch to march on Berlin, signed the Versailles...

Baathists, Islamic radicals, and foreign fighters in Iraq have adjusted their sights in their efforts to torpedo the establishment of a democratic government in that country, a senior U.S. military officer said here today. Since terrorists in Iraq have had scant success against U.S. and coalition troops, they're now focusing attacks on newly trained Iraqi security forces and other targets, U.S. Army Gen. John Abizaid told Senate Armed Services Committee members. There are now, he said, about 200,000 Iraqi security forces. Abizaid is commander of U.S. Central Command. In addition to attacks on Iraqi police stations, the March 2 bombings...

CARACAS (AFP) - President Hugo Chavez has said the US government must address a report by US News and World Report, in which US officials are quoted as saying Venezuela is a potential terror hub and a base for Colombian FARC guerrillas. "I challenge the staff of US News and World Report or its owners to come here and look for one single shred of evidence, to show the world one single shred of proof," Chavez told foreign reporters here Wednesday. He added that "the US government should respond to this call. (The magazine) supposedly cites information provided by US...

Celebration of Barisan Nasional's 50th anniversary is used to deliver a broadside in time for elections MALAYSIAN Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad once again trained his guns on the country's Islamic fundamentalist opposition party as he addressed a gathering yesterday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the ruling coalition. He slammed the rival Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), calling it a 'bunch of liars' and saying its members peddled false promises. Only the 14-party Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition could guarantee that the power-sharing formula between the races would continue, he said, with an eye on imminent national elections. He...

AS the net closed in on alleged Bali mastermind Hambali - Asia's most wanted man, who was arrested in Thailand a month ago - it transpired that he was carrying a forged Spanish passport. It was yet another piece in the jigsaw puzzle linking global terrorism to Spain. The al-Qa'ida cell in Spain made videos of potential targets in the US including the twin towers in New York. It also had videos of terrorist training camps in Indonesia and Afghanistan with footage on the preparation of car bombs. The pilots of the suicide flights met in Spain. Part of al-Qa'ida's...

Envoy's card found in raid on Hamburg apartment, officer says BERLIN A German federal police officer testified in court Tuesday that a raid on the apartment of an alleged member of the Hamburg cell that led the Sept. 11 attacks turned up the business card of a diplomat from the embassy of Saudi Arabia in Berlin and Saudi officials have not responded to German requests to explain how the defendant came to have the card. An investigator from the Federal Office of Criminal Investigations, known by its German initials, BKA, said in court that the Moroccan defendant, Mounir Motassadeq, also...

HAMBURG - Islamic fundamentalists may have succeeded for the first time to infiltrate the police in the German partstate Hamburg. This was reported by the German weekly magazine 'Der Spiegel'. A 41 year old Moroccan man, who holds contacts to radical muslims and who was arrested in a police raid on Wednesday, appears to be an informant with the police. He had acces to the police archives. The man went to the mosque that is known to have links to Mohammed Atta, one of the September 11 suicide pilots. Atta lived and studied in Hamburg prior to the September 11...