The Rant

by Mamoun Fandy For Muslims, a role in the war on terror The time has come to issue a fatwa to excommunicate Osama bin Laden and his followers from the world of Islam. In fact, as terrorism rages, we need a stream of solid counter-fatwas - legal pronouncements in Islam — from the Muslim community. Thus far we have heard fatwas, such as the one issued last month by the Fiqh Council of North America, telling us that Islam does not condone violence or that Islam condemns these actions. These types of words are not enough. We need to move beyond abstract condemnations and actually exclude those who give Islam a bad name. In the same spirit that bin Laden and his group label moderate Muslims as Western lackeys, it is time Muslim leaders pronounce bin Laden by name as non-Muslim. That's right, excommunicate him. A clear fatwa should come from the centers of theology in the Muslim world — from al-Azhar University, a prestigious school of Islamic law in Cairo, and from Mecca. And if a mosq

Officer Says Pentagon Barred Sharing Pre-9/11 Qaeda Data With F.B.I. By PHILIP SHENON Published: August 16, 2005 WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 - A military intelligence team repeatedly contacted the F.B.I. in 2000 to warn about the existence of an American-based terrorist cell that included the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a veteran Army intelligence officer who said he had now decided to risk his career by discussing the information publicly. The officer, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, said military lawyers later blocked the team from sharing any of its information with the F.B.I. Colonel Shaffer said in an interview that the small, highly classified intelligence program known as Able Danger had identified by name the terrorist ringleader, Mohammed Atta, as well three of the other future hijackers by mid-2000, and had tried to arrange a meeting that summer with agents of the F.B.I.'s Washington field office to share the information. But he said military lawyers forced members

If you get your news from the Mainstream Media one would learn that all that has happened in Iraq lately is that a lot of car bombs have gone off killing many people. Thaks to the internet, it is possible to learn of some of the good things that are also happening. http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/007358.php

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congressional forecasters said Monday the federal deficit this year, though still huge, won't be as bad as originally projected -- a welcome turn for President Bush who inherited healthy surpluses four years ago and saw them disappear in a sea of red ink. At the same time, the fiscal outlook remains troubled for years to come, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said. The CBO predicted a $331 billion deficit for the budget year ending Sept. 30 and a $314 billion deficit for next year. Last year's deficit was a record $412 billion. In February, the White House had predicted this year's shortfall would set a higher record of $427 billion. The short-term improvement was attributed to an $84 billion surge in estimated tax receipts, including a 42 percent increase in revenues from corporate profits. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Budget-Deficit.html?oref=login&oref=login

by Dennis Prager ". . . every person who believes in God and every God-based religion is hurt by the epidemic of Muslims murdering in the name of God. It reinforces every anti-religious stereotype and thus further alienates people from taking seriously any God-based religion. Bad religious people are far more destructive to the cause of religion than are atheists." Read the whole thing: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-prager14aug14,0,4727027.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary

Sunday, August 14, 2005 Defend Free Speech, Not Treason - Some Advice to the West Speech that incites riot is prohibited. Speech motivating enemy soldiers must be stopped. Speech costs the most when humans must pay for it with their lives. If Abu Hamza al Masri urges Muslims to commit acts of terror, and they do, he must be silenced. If he believes Islam is at war with the West, regardless of whether the West believes this notion, he is no longer a free citizen. He is committing treason and must be tried, not just deported. In Lebanon, speech that promotes sectarian violence is banned completely. There are 18 different religious groups living side by side in a country slightly larger than Puerto Rico (three times the size of Rhode Island), and without a dominant religious group. A fanatic Sunni might believe that the Shia are heretics and that the Bahai and Druze should be killed, but he's not allowed to say it. Taken to an extreme, this is a country where a Protestant could quite