Bismillah [hidayahnet] Terror in the Name of US War's Error - Headlines News 8 Thul-Qoida 1426 H - 10.12.05
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiemIn the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful=== News Update ===Treat Us Like Human Beings, Saudi Reporter Tells US Ambassador: Omar Al-Zubaidi, a well-known reporter for the Arabic satellite channel ?Al-Arabiya?, ripped his visa application and other papers in two in front of the American ambassador at a press conference. http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1section=0article=74353d=8m=12y=2005=== 'I am not a terrorist'For the past 14 months, Abdullah Khadr says he has done nothing but talk. In Pakistan, the spies, cops and consular officials were asking the questions and recording his answers. Since his return to Toronto last Friday, it's been the lawyers. http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1c=Articlecid=1134082213044call_page=TS_Newscall_pageid=968332188492call_pagepath=News/Newspubid=968163964505 'I was never in al-Qaeda,' newly freed Khadr sayshttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051209/KHADR09/TPNational/?query=khadr Khadr's life here likely to be hard, sister sayshttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051209/KHADRREUNION09/TPNational/?query=khadr ==='Sleeper Cell' movie awakens fears in Muslim viewersAdults more concerned than teens, Israeli actors play Muslims. Sleeper Cell, a 10-hour thriller about American Muslim terrorists that's set to debut at 10 p.m. Sunday on Showtime, contains some of the most disturbing depictions of Muslims ever shown on American television and already has religious leaders bracing for a possible upswing in bigotry. http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID==/20051202/NEWS05/512020314Islamic action hero fails to win over Muslims http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-te.md.sleepercell04dec04,1,223317.storyIs America ready for `Sleeper Cell'? Showtime's controversial news series looks at Islamic extremists http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10285301MUSLIM WRITER IN SIX MAN TEAM ON 'SLEEPER CELL'http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-ca-sleeper4dec04,2,2008355.story Showtime's 'Sleeper Cell' has Muslims as terrorists but goes beyond stereotypical depictions of the faithhttp://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20051201--lz1c01cell.html ===Thirteen Years Later: The destruction of the Babri MasjidMontreal - December 9, 2005 (MMN): This past Tuesday, December 6, marked thirteen years since the destruction of the Babri Masjid at the hands of a mob (of at least 150,000, other estimates of up to 1 million) of Hindutva zealots, led by Hindu extremist leaders like Lal Krishna Advani. It was the jewel of Faizabad, Ayodhya, a beautiful three-domed mosque structure erected in 1526 and named after its builder, Babur, the first of the Mughals. http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/tyl.htm===Debating The American Crusade: Bush sold America his global war using an old Christian heresy. Not surprisingly, it's led to a new crusade. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/251384_tony09.html===The Iron Fist of Jesus : Under Bush (who believes he is fulfilling a divine mission), America's regime continues its ongoing military, economic, and social assault on the Arab world, which according to the Christo-Fascists, is populated by evil Muslims ready to slice the white, Christian throats of good Americans if given the chance. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11256.htm===The New Face Of America: When you close your eyes and picture America, what do you see? http://www.aclu.org/rumsfeld/flash/index.html===US terror watchlist 80,000 names long: A watchlist of possible terror suspects distributed by the US government to airlines for pre-flight checks is now 80,000 names long http://tinyurl.com/9kv4d===What We Said vs. What We did The administration lied about WMD, lied about their earnest intent to go to war only as the last possible option and only when it was demonstrably unavoidable, lied about every aspect of the Iraqi situation, did so from the start and at every available opportunity, and continues to do so to this day. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11259.htm===In Pictures: What our dollar's Buy: Faces of war. - Warning - Images depict the reality and horror of war. http://tinyurl.com/8denj===Pictures presents about 4,000 photographs showing the Iraq War killing and maiminghttp://iraq-kill-maim.org/ ===The American Terror on the Iraqi children Pictureshttp://iraq-kill-maim.org/kid-kill/kid-kill-01. htm===Un-American inefficient : Team Bush is hell-bent on preserving torture as an option if they think we, the public, will let them get away with it. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/col/story/373099p-317210c.html===Truth for the TroopsIf, as Samuel Johnson said, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, then support our troops is very close by. It is being used to deflect criticism of the war in Iraq, or to rebut those who call for a pullout or question how incompetents seized control of the government in a coup by ideologues
Bismillah [hidayahnet] Treat Us Like Human Beings, Saudi Reporter Tells US Ambassador
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiemIn the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful=== News Update === Treat Us Like Human Beings, Saudi Reporter Tells US Ambassador Raid Qusti, Arab NewsRIYADH, 8 December 2005 ? Omar Al-Zubaidi, a well-known reporter for the Arabic satellite channel ?Al-Arabiya?, ripped his visa application and other papers in two in front of the American ambassador at a press conference. He had been told to submit the application and other documents to the US Embassy in Riyadh but he tore them up, saying, ?We do not want your visa!? The reporter complained to the ambassador about the abuse and humiliation he experienced when he went to apply for a business visa to the US. He said that he and another colleague were called ?animals? by an embassy employee at the front gate. He told the ambassador that Saudi citizens were often mistreated and dealt with rudely when they applied for US visas. He demanded that they should be respected ?as human beings.? ?One of the employees told my colleague and me while we were waiting in line to enter the embassy grounds, ?The animals go back,? referring to Saudi citizens,? Al-Zubaidi said. ?Thank you Mr. Ambassador. We do not want your visa,? he said, before he ripped the papers in two. ?I can do my business elsewhere. I can go to Europe; I do not need to go to the US.? Al-Zubaidi then went on to address a sore point with many Saudis who have been accepted for study at American colleges and universities. ?What is happening is a pity and a shame. Many Saudi students from remote villages and towns have had to come to Riyadh to apply for their visas. The Jeddah visa section is closed and no one knows when it will reopen. These students dream of studying in the US and returning to the Kingdom with a degree. Some of them have had to sleep in mosques because they have no money for hotels. And after all this, they are then abused and humiliated at the US Embassy.? The US ambassador, James C. Oberwetter, apologized to the reporter for what happened and said that such a thing was ?unacceptable. I deeply regret hearing that you were badly treated. This is something we will not tolerate.? He promised to investigate the matter. During the press conference, the US Ambassador and the US Consul General explained to the press the problems of issuing visas to large numbers of Saudi students and the immense pressure on the embassy to process them. In a press release the US Embassy said that up through Dec. 1, the embassy processed almost 700 student visas for study in the United States; in the entire year of 2004, only 647 student visas were issued. The total number of visas issued to Saudis increased from 16,004 in 2004 to 27,657 so far in 2005. In a statement released to the press, the ambassador said, ?It is unfortunate that at a time of increased visa demands, the Consulate in Jeddah had to suspend visa services on Nov. 13 due to security concerns. We have asked the Saudi government to help us address these concerns.? At present, no visas ? either student or tourist ? are being issued in Jeddah.The ambassador said that Saudis ?should be patient and plan well ahead? when applying for US visas. A request for an interview for a visa takes eight weeks and beyond that, another week is needed to obtain the visa after the passport has been collected from the applicant. The statement said that students who had not yet received visas for their academic studies in January 2006 should request delayed admission to the US.Replying to an Arab News inquiry about the questions Saudis are asked in the personal visa interview, the ambassador said that everyone was treated the same, without exception. ?The questions that are being asked are because of new procedures. We realized that our old procedures did not work,? the ambassador said, referring to the Saudis who entered the US and carried out the 9/11 attacks. He said that the US Embassy, along with the Saudi Ministry of Higher Education, was seeking ways to ?smooth? the way for the large number of Saudi students who have been accepted for study in the US. In response to a question about the number of Saudis who had complained that they had had to wait longer than usual for a visa because their names were similar to those of the 9/11 terrorists, the Consul General said that normally the process of evaluating papers takes two weeks after submission. source: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1section=0article=74353d=8m=12y=2005 ===-muslim voice-___BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW -- All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in any way reflect the official views of Hidayahnet unless sanctioned or approved otherwise. If your mailbox clogged with mails from Hidayahnet, you may wish to get a daily digest of emails by logging-on to http://www.yahoogroups.com to change your mail delivery
Bismillah [hidayahnet] 'I am not a terrorist'
telling the Americans his brother Abdullah was a leader of the Khaldan camp, a reputed training ground in the late 1990s for Al Qaeda's most notorious members. But Abdurahman Khadr later recanted the claim, saying he only wanted to impress the Americans. There are two other brothers in the Khadr family. Omar Khadr, 19, is Canada's only detainee at the U.S. camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and will appear before a military commission next month on charges of murder and attempted murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. army medic. The youngest son is Karim, now 16. He also lives in Toronto but is paralyzed after being shot in the battle that killed his father. The plight of Khadr family members typically evokes little sympathy in Canada but their claims raise important questions about how the Canadian government handles security post-9/11 and the scope of our relationship with the U.S. Lawyers for Omar Khadr have long complained that while countries such as the U.K. and Australia have publicly fought for the rights of their citizens at Guantanamo, the Canadian government has done little. It took a federal court injunction to prohibit Canadian intelligence officials from interrogating Omar while in U.S. custody. Another court challenge, this one launched by civil rights lawyer Clay Ruby and involving Abdurahman, argues that the federal government unconstitutionally denied the 22-year-old Khadr his passport. Although the legislation dealing with passports has since been amended, at the time Khadr applied, security was not listed as grounds to refuse a passport. A federal court justice has reserved his decision. source: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1c=Articlecid=1134082213044call_page=TS_Newscall_pageid=968332188492call_pagepath=News/Newspubid=968163964505 Related News:'I was never in al-Qaeda,' newly freed Khadr sayshttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051209/KHADR09/TPNational/?query=khadr Khadr's life here likely to be hard, sister sayshttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051209/KHADRREUNION09/TPNational/?query=khadr ===-muslim voice-___BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW -- All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in any way reflect the official views of Hidayahnet unless sanctioned or approved otherwise. If your mailbox clogged with mails from Hidayahnet, you may wish to get a daily digest of emails by logging-on to http://www.yahoogroups.com to change your mail delivery settings or email the moderators at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the title change to daily digest. YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "hidayahnet" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Bismillah [hidayahnet] Ten Steps to Creating Evil Traps for Good People
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiemIn the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful=== News Update === Ten Steps to Creating Evil Traps for Good PeopleLet's outline some of the procedures in this research paradigm that seduced many ordinary citizens to engage in this apparently harmful behavior. In doing so, I want to draw parallels to compliance strategies used by influence professionals in real-world settings, such as salespeople, cult recruiters, and our national leaders (see Cialdini, 2001). Among the influence principles to be extracted from Milgram?s paradigm for getting ordinary people to do things they originally believe they would not are the following ten:1) Offering an Ideology so that a big lie provides justification for any means to be used to achieve the seemingly desirable, essential goal. Presenting an acceptable justification, or rationale, for engaging in the undesirable action, such as wanting to help people improve their memory by judicious use of punishment strategies. In experiments it is known as the ?cover story? because it is a cover-up for the procedures that follow which might not make sense on their own. The real world equivalent is known as an ?ideology.? Most nations rely on the same ideology of ?threats to national security? before going to war or suppressing dissident political opposition. It is a convenient familiar ideological theme that fascist governments and military juntas have used to destroy socialist or communist opposition. When citizens fear that their national security is being threatened they are willing to surrender their basic freedoms when the government offers them that exchange. In the Unites States, the fear of the threat to national security posed by terrorists has led too many citizens to accept torture of prisoners as a necessary tactics for securing information that could prevent further attacks. That reasoning contributed to the background of the abuses by the American guards at Abu Ghraib prison. See the provocative analysis by Susan Fiske and her colleagues on why ordinary people torture enemy prisoners (Fiske, Harris, Cuddy, 2004). 2) Arranging some form of contractual obligation, verbal or written, to enact the behavior.3) Giving participants meaningful roles to play (teacher, student) that carry with them previously learned positive values and response scripts. 4) Presenting basic rules to be followed, that seem to make sense prior to their actual use, but then can be arbitrarily used to justify mindless compliance. Make the rules vague and change them as necessary. 5) Altering the semantics of the act, the actor, and the action, (from hurting victims to helping learners by punishing them)?replace reality with desirable rhetoric.6) Creating opportunities for diffusion of responsibility for negative outcomes; others will be responsible, or it won?t be evident that the actor will be held liable. 7) Starting the path toward the ultimate evil act with a small, insignificant first step (only 15 volts).8) Having successively increasing steps on the pathway be gradual, so that they are hardly noticed as being different from one?s most recent prior action. (By increasing each level of aggression in gradual steps of only 30 volts, no new level of harm seemed like a noticeable difference to the Milgram participants.) 9) Changing the nature of the influence authority from initially ?Just? and reasonable to ?Unjust? and demanding, even irrational, elicits initial compliance and later confusion, but continued obedience. 10) Making the exit costs high, and making the process of exiting difficult by allowing usual forms of verbal dissent (that make people feel good about themselves), while insisting on behavioral compliance (?I know you are not that kind of person, just keep doing as I tell you.?) Such procedures are utilized across varied influence situations where those in authority want others to do their bidding, but know that few would engage in the end game final solution without first being properly prepared psychologically to do the unthinkable. From:The Psychology of Power and Evil: All Power To the Person? To the Situation? To the System?Philip G. Zimbardo, Psychology Department, Stanford University http://www.zimbardo.com/===-muslim voice-___BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW -- All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in any way reflect the official views of Hidayahnet unless sanctioned or approved otherwise. If your mailbox clogged with mails from Hidayahnet, you may wish to get a daily digest of emails by logging-on to http://www.yahoogroups.com to change your mail delivery settings or email the moderators at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the title change to daily digest. YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "hidayahnet" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email
Bismillah [hidayahnet] 'Sleeper Cell' movie awakens fears in Muslim viewers
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiemIn the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful=== News Update === 'Sleeper Cell' movie awakens fears in Muslim viewers Showtime's 'Sleeper Cell' has Muslims as terrorists but goes beyond stereotypical depictions of the faithBy Sandi DolbeeUNION-TRIBUNE RELIGION ETHICS EDITOR :: Showtime photo ::Hollywood's favorite bad guy is a Muslim terrorist, preferably one who looks like he's come from the Middle East, is accompanied by a mysterious-sounding Arabic soundtrack and ends up on the losing side. Showtime's Sleeper Cell stars Oded Fehr (front), with (from left, back) Henri Lubatti, Alex Nesic, Michael Ealy and Blake Shields. Ealy is cast as an undercover FBI agent who also happens to be a Muslim. The Siege pitted Denzel Washington, Annette Bening, and Bruce Willis against Muslim fanatics who wanted to take a bite out of the Big Apple. Executive Decision paired up Kurt Russell and Steven Seagal to take on Arab hijackers. The small screen has followed the big screen, from Fox-TV's breathless 24 series to the CBS CIA drama, The Agency. Now it's Showtime's turn, with a 10-hour project called Sleeper Cell that will start airing Sunday. But along with the all-too-frequent f-words, cable-allowed sex scenes and graphic violence, Sleeper Cell offers at least some hints of texture to what has been years of copycat, cookie-cutter portrayals of evildoers in the name of Allah. The bad guys in Sleeper Cell are Muslims. But so is the hero. Undercover FBI agent Darwyn Al-Sayeed (Michael Ealy) is an African-American Muslim, born into the faith in the USA, who infiltrates a secret cell of extremists in Los Angeles plotting much mayhem. The show also captures the real-life ethnic diversity of the world's second largest religion (in the U.S., for example, only about 25 percent of Muslims are of Arab descent). The cell includes a blond-haired convert from Berkeley, a French-born tour bus driver, a Bosnian school teacher and the leader, an Arab masquerading as a Sephardic Jew. The creators of Sleeper Cell argue that there are other differences worthy of notice. One of the things we really wanted to do is just sort of portray this issue in a much more complex way, said Cyrus Voris, who discussed the show with co-producer Ethan Reiff during a recent seminar on Islam at the University of Southern California's Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism. Yes, we are showing Islamic extremists, Voris told journalists from around the country gathered for the weeklong conference. But we're also showing a moderate Islamic character, Darwyn, who is the hero of the show, who is very much anti-extremism and is trying to stop the extremists. Perhaps its best attribute is the show's pivotal subtext: the struggle within Islam itself for who will speak for the faith. This struggle is highlighted in the fourth episode when a Yemen scholar comes to the U.S. to denounce violence and preach to other Muslims that extremism is not the real Islam. They (terrorists) are using the label Islam to kill and murder innocent people ? something that the prophet would never condone, the Yemen scholar says. Reiff said illuminating this struggle was incredibly important to him and Voris (neither is Muslim; one is Jewish and the other Episcopalian). That's the only way you can formulate a strategy to win the so-called war on terrorism ? if you can find a way to helpfully aid those people within the Muslim world, all around the world, who are on the same side as you are, Reiff said. I don't think we're concentrating on that to the degree that we should be. Muslim writing, acting Pakistani-born screenwriter Kamran Pasha is particularly happy with that episode. He wrote it. It is painful for me as a believer to see people who reflect very poorly on my faith, said Pasha, who joined the Sleeper Cell team after the pilot was approved. I'm deeply proud of this show, he said in an interview. What I'm proud of is I got a chance to show what Islam means to me. The producers said that when it came time to cast the role of the Yemen shaikh, there was a line of Muslim actors clamoring for it. Egyptian-born Marc Casabani, whose credits include appearances on Without a Trace, LAX, and 24, got the job. I wanted that part because he is a positive role model for all people, not just people of Middle Eastern descent, not just for Egyptian Americans, said Casabani, who makes a point of saying he's from Alexandria, birthplace of movie legend Omar Sharif. Casabani credits Showtime with trying to show the other side. There is nowhere in the Koran and the prophet, peace be upon him, that advocates this kind of behavior, he adds. The actor, by the way, played a terrorist on 24, the Fox-TV series whose fascination with Islamic extremists drew protests from the Muslim community. Last season, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group, convinced Fox to air public service announcements depicting positive images of
