Religious extremists in 3 faiths share views: report

By Claudia ParsonsWed Jun 13, 5:49 PM ET

Violent Muslim, Christian and Jewish extremists invoke the same rhetoric of "good" and "evil" and the best way to fight them is to tackle the problems that drive people to extremism, according to a report obtained by Reuters.

It said extremists from each of the three faiths often have tangible grievances -- social, economic or political -- but they invoke religion to recruit followers and to justify breaking the law, including killing civilians and members of their own faith.

The report was commissioned by security think tank EastWest Institute ahead of a conference on Thursday in New York titled "Towards a Common Response: New Thinking Against Violent Extremism and Radicalization." The report will be updated and published after the conference.

The authors compared ideologies, recruitment tactics and responses to violent religious extremists in three places -- Muslims in Britain, Jews in Israel and Christians in the United States.

"What is striking ... is the similarity of the worldview and the rationale for violence," the report said.

It said that while Muslims were often perceived by the West as "the principal perpetrators of terrorist activity," there are violent extremists of other faiths. Always focusing on Muslim extremists alienates mainstream Muslims, it said.

The report said it was important to examine the root causes of violence by those of different faiths, without prejudice.

"It is, in each situation, a case of 'us' versus 'them,"' it said. "That God did not intend for civilization to take its current shape; and that the state had failed the righteous and genuine members of that nation, and therefore God's law supersedes man's law."

COMMON WORLDVIEW

This worldview was common to ultranationalist Jews, like Yigal Amir, who killed Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, to U.S. groups like Christian Identity, which is linked to white supremacist groups, and to other Christian groups that attacked abortion providers, it said.

"Extremists should never be dismissed simply as evil," said the report. "Trying to engage in a competition with religious extremists over who can offer a simpler answer to complex problems will be a losing proposition every time."

Harvard University lecturer Jessica Stern, the conference's keynote speaker, spent five years interviewing extremists for her 2003 book "Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill."

She said it was dangerous for U.S. President George W. Bush to use terms such as "crusade" or "ridding the world of evil."

"It really is falling into the same trap that these terrorists fall into, black and white thinking," Stern told Reuters on Wednesday. "It's very exciting to extremists to hear an American president talking that way."

Stern said to compare violent extremists from the three faiths was not to suggest that the threat was the same.

"These are not equivalent," she said. "The problems arising from Christian or Jewish extremism are not threatening to the world in the same way as Muslim extremism is."

Conference organizers say their aim is to develop a nonpartisan strategy to combat religious extremism.

The guest list includes representatives of the State Department, Homeland Security, the New York Police Department and the U.N. missions of Israel, Iraq, Britain and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

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Burger King Woes

Last weekend, I was treading along the freeway to Chicago, IL. I stopped at a local Burger King somewhere in the middle for a quick bite against my better judgment. Past experiences at KFC, Burger King and Pizza Hut have been horrible. I asked specifically for no tomatoes, extra pickles and a (un)healthy dose of mayo. I grab the sandwich and run towards the freeway again. At a rest stop nearby, I quickly discover that the BK guy couldn't take a simple order. Oh' well. That's the last I ever go back to the King. Apparently he's like our current dictator, Mr. Bush. All gold and show, no substance, no results.
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News Clips - March 13, 2007

House GOP try to halt Muslim seminar

Halliburton's Dubai move sparks US political ire

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Toronto Eateries

It's been almost 3 months now in this metropolitan colossal called Greater Toronto Area, or aptly Toronto. Being me, I've obviously played scavenger at a couple of eateries, most notably Licks, Imperial Chinese, Duffs (1604 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, ON M4G 3B7), Pickle Barrel (5941 Leslie St, North York, ON M2H 1J8), Hafez (4924 Yonge Street, North York), Farhat Shawarma, Madina Mediterranean, and Shawerma Max (4969 Yonge Street, North York, ON M2N 5N6).

By a "civilian" standard, Pickle Barrel and Shawarma Max barely made it. Duffs failed miserably. In fact, tonight I just ordered a takeout from Duffs. The waitress took my card, swiped it, and almost threw it so that it slid back to me. Strike One. I took the wings out, and took them home. Barely 20 minutes from order to takeout to home. Wings were dead cold. "Crispy sandwich with fresh fries" was a joke. The sandwich was bland and the fries tasted like they were reheated under the lamp. Hafez is OK but like most Mediterranean eateries, the place is rough and not exactly consistent. Shawarma Max is like tap water - consistent, OK, but not really something to write home about. Pickle Barrel is like a step-sister of Denny's (or IHOP). Imperial Chinese is GOOD. Definitely a place where I can go back to (and I have).

McDonald's, I swear, tastes better and fresher in Canada. Don't know why? Maybe in the US, they take their customers for granted?
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SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL

Tue Jan 2, 8:03 PM ET

The Fatal Hazing of a Dictator

NEW YORK--Take note, dictators considering an alliance with the United States: we'll throw you to the wolves as soon as you cease to be useful.

Saddam Hussein's order to execute 148 men and boys in Dujail, in northern Iraq, in 1982 was his nominal casus morti. Actually, he was the fatal victim of a labor-management dispute.

Anyone who works for a difficult boss can sympathize with Saddam. After unsuccessfully attempting to reach President George H.W. Bush and other top officials (who were on vacation) to ask for permission to invade Kuwait, he finally touched base with Bush's ambassador to Iraq on July 25, 1990. At the time Hussein was a close American ally, receiving billions of dollars in arms shipments and subsidies. Baath Party-ruled Iraq, a U.S. client state, had waged the 1980-88 war against Iran largely at Washington's behest.

Then as now, human rights were not a consideration of U.S. foreign policy.

Tensions with Kuwait, whose territorial legitimacy had not been recognized by any Iraqi leader since the country's founding in 1920, had been rising over alleged "slant drilling" beneath the border into Iraqi oilfields and Kuwait's refusal to reduce oil production to raise prices as requested by the OPEC cartel.

At the fateful meeting, Saddam asked Ambassador April Glapsie: Would the U.S. object to an invasion? "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait," she replied. "Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America."

The signal was clear. Bright green.

When Iraqi forces entered Kuwait one week later, President Bush stayed mum. He only turned against Saddam later, in response to diplomatic pressure from Britain, which had close economic ties to Kuwait, and Israel, which considered Iraq a mortal enemy. Everything that followed--the Gulf War, the sanctions of the 1990s, the 2003 invasion, the deaths of 3000 American servicemen and the Iraqi dictator's execution--resulted from Saddam's decision to rely on Glaspie rather than waiting for the boss (Bush) to return from vacation.

In the old days, a tyrant could torture and loot his country, secure in the knowledge that his American masters would dispatch a military helicopter to spirit him off the roof of his palace before falling into the hands of a raging mob, plunder-stuffed duffel bags in tow. In 1986 the U.S. Air Force delivered two of our pet dictators--Haitian strongman Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier and the Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos--to exile in the French Riviera and Hawaii, respectively. U.S. Customs turned a blind eye to Marcos' 24 suitcases of gold bricks and diamonds stashed in diaper bags. Duvalier was similarly well provisioned, although he eventually lost his chateau, villa in Cannes and two luxury apartments in Paris to a bitter divorce. Reza Muhammed Shah Pahlawi of Iran, Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua, and Nguyen Van Thieu--the last president of South Vietnam--also jetted off on Air America.

Leftist complaints that the government was shielding men who had murdered and looted on a grand scale were ignored. Years of doing America's bidding, reasoned the wise men of Langley, earned a dictator the right to a safe (and plush) retirement. Moreover, golden parachutes were attractive incentives when they tried to recruit new leaders.

The system of residual lèse majesté started to unravel in 1989. President Bush ordered American troops to depose Panamanian leader General Manuel Noriega after murders of political opponents had turned him into an international embarrassment. Previously his long pro-U.S. resume--he'd been on the CIA payroll since the 1950s--would have entitled him to preferential treatment. But Bush, a typical CEO, tried to lowball Noriega with a $2 million dollar payoff to go into exile in Spain. Insulted by the offer, Noriega refused.

Bush arranged for his former employee to be imprisoned for 15 years for drug trafficking and money laundering, charges that are now believed to have been wildly exaggerated if not entirely invented. Stripped of his dignity and treated like a common criminal, the former head of state was reduced to federal inmate no. 38699-079.

Now we use the veneer of legality to dispose of our former lap-dog leaders in circumstances that recall the mob that killed Mussolini and his mistress. Saddam's American-paid executioners failed to grant him basic courtesies traditionally extended to the condemned. The deposed dictator was denied his request to die by firing squad, not permitted the right to wear his military uniform, even refused a farewell visit from his wife.

Years of abuse by American guards who photographed him in his underwear and deprived him of sleep followed the release of humiliating videos of his capture and "medical exam" after he'd obviously been forcibly drugged. In 2004 American troops had murdered his sons and 14-year-old grandson, and released photos of their bloodied faces--an insult to Islamic tradition--on Iraq's collaborationist television. Death must have come as something of a release.

Hazing of high-profile prisoners isn't new. Albert Speer, the German architect and armaments minister sentenced to 20 years in prison at the Nuremberg Trials, recalled having been subjected to the same 24-hour lights and no-eye-covering torture as Saddam. Speer was dragged into the gymnasium where General Keitel and other top Nazis had just been hanged, and ordered to clean up the mess made by the dead men's loosened bowels and bladders.

Like Saddam, Speer had it coming. That's why it's so remarkable that the world recoils in disgust at their mistreatment. The New York Times reported that Saddam's hanging had deteriorated "into a sectarian free-for-all that had the effect, on the video recordings, of making Mr. Hussein, a mass murderer, appear dignified and restrained, and his executioners, representing Shiites who were his principal victims, seem like bullying street thugs." Only a nation run by frat boys could elicit sympathy for such monsters.

(Ted Rall is the author of the new book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.)

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George W. Bush - The Salesman of Death

by Sherman YellenWed Jan 24, 9:47 PM ET

When I was young, my first major theatre experience was watching Lee J. Cobb in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" on Broadway. It was a powerful melodrama about a man whose worship of success and whose false values lead to his ruin; a man who believed that all he needed was a ready smile, a dirty joke, and another chance to make that big sale that would keep him from failure.

The chances ran out for Willy Lohman as his dreams of glory proved to be dead-end fantasies, he ultimately lost his insecure hold on reality which lead to his suicide. "Attention must be paid," his wife Linda cries out, lamenting the ruin of her foolish, faithless, dreamer of a husband, when the world turns against him, but we all know that Willy has brought on his own ruin, step by step descending into failure and death. Willy had nothing to sell except a belief in the power of his own personality, a selfish egotism, and that was hardly enough to hold off his personal tragedy, the loss of his job and the loss of his son's respect, leading to the loss of his sanity.

Personality - the great overrated American virtue - divorced from substance equals tragedy. We should keep this in mind as we examine our candidates for '08. Willy was not merely the spoiler of his own life, but that of his sons' lives, sons whom he had infected with his worship of success at any price. If I recall that play properly, Willy never has a moment when he comes to an understanding of where he has gone wrong.

I thought of Willy Loman as I watched George Bush deliver his State of the Union address. Here was a man like Willy who was absolutely confident of his own charm, a personality man who had nothing of substance to sell; a man who brings ruin to all around him as he clings to his fantasies of success. Only unlike Willy, George Bush is our Salesman of Death. He stood there delivering his tired spiel, unpacking his tawdry goods; the misbegotten war, while peddling terror and no taxes as if they were shiny new stock.

He dragged out all the initiatives that he should have considered six years ago, which now seemed shopworn, threadbare, and counterfeit in his hands, new sources of energy, health care, and his disastrous No Child Left Behind and its destruction of our educational system. Never has America had a leader who is so incorruptible, because there is nothing in George Bush that could be corrupted. To corrupt someone implies that they begin with some virtue, and it was difficult to think of any virtue known to man possessed by this President. George W. Bush had death to sell to the Congress and the American people, the death of our young soldiers to be sacrificed to his desperate need for another chance, another big score, all part of his fantasy of success, and his dread of failure.

As even the Democrats in Congress bobbed up and down in response to his lies and banalities, I was a bit confused, and annoyed; then I realized that nobody was paying close attention to his words, this sign of deference may have been an effort to stay awake, like the snoozing John McCain (news, bio, voting record), or the jumping up and down of Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) to keep her foot from falling asleep. I expected Laura, like the loyal Linda Loman, to shout out from the balcony, "Attention must be paid," but instead she was playing a game of three card Monte, undoubtedly taught to her by Rove himself, exploiting the heroism of an African American working man, one who never enjoyed any of the benefits of Bush's America, to distract from her husband's failures and lend George some of this hero's aura.

Perhaps the real Linda Loman was Condi Rice whose face was a mask of tragedy. Medea or Medusa, take your pick, it was awful to behold in its desperation for Condi like Laura and the Cheneys the tragedy wasn't what they had done to America, but what they had lost for themselves, power, respect, and honor. Perhaps the material profits of war are not enough for some people.

Sadly, one knows that George W. will never have a moment when he understands how he went wrong, and what a disaster he has brought down on the American family. The big difference between that great play and this President is that you could weep for Willy Loman but never for this salesman of death.

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In 2007, I resolve to ...

In 2007, I resolve to ...

• Be The Listener before being The Decider. - President Bush

• Aim before I fire. - Vice President Cheney

• Augment wonky policy prescriptions with personal style. - Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

• Augment personal style with wonky policy prescriptions. - Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

• Pick fights with Republicans, not Democrats. - Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

• Deposit cash in the bank, not the freezer. - Rep. William Jefferson, D-La.

• Deposit classified documents at the National Archives, not under construction trailers. - Former national security adviser Samuel Berger

• Study Middle East history. - Incoming House Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas

• Look for men my own age. - Former representative Mark Foley, R-Fla.

• Stop trying to tell jokes. - Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. John Kerry

• Stick to telling jokes. - Ranting comedian Michael Richards

• Blame America second. - Ranting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

• Visit Auschwitz and the Holocaust Museum. - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

• Get a decent haircut and not blow up the world. - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il

• Give up power when my term is up. Really. - Russian President Vladimir Putin

• Not buy green bananas. - Condemned Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein

Reject "hypothetical" murder confessions. - Book publisher Judith Regan

• Wear underpants. - Singer Britney Spears

• Ignore Donald Trump. - Talk show hostess Rosie O'Donnell

• Ignore Rosie O'Donnell. - Businessman/reality TV star Donald Trump

• Stay ahead of Warren Buffett in charitable giving. - Microsoft founder Bill Gates

• Give my $200 million golden parachute to shareholders or the Gates' foundation. - Former Pfizer CEO Hank McKinnell

• Learn to play solitaire. - Jailed former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling

• Learn to speak Greenspanese. - Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke

• Never play football, or ride my motorcycle, without a helmet. - Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger

• Use my head, not lose my head. - French soccer star Zinedine Zidane

• Retire gracefully after my 754th home run. - San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds

• Play golf left-handed, to give others a chance. - Tiger Woods

• Shut my mouth and catch the damn ball. - Dallas Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens
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