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Politics : America Under Siege: The End of Innocence -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Captain Jack who wrote (12403)	12/30/2001 8:20:07 AM
From: lorne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27754

Pakistan may regulate Islamic religious schools. Sunday, December 30, 2001 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan's military regime appears poised to clamp down on the militant Islamic religious schools that preach holy war against the United States and that sent thousands of students to fight in Afghanistan for the recently ousted Taliban regime. The U.S. government, which views the schools as recruiting grounds for terrorists, has been pressing Islamabad for such a crackdown for several years. Now, after the terrorist attacks on the United States, the government of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has drafted a law that would boost its authority to regulate the institutions, giving the state power over what the schools teach, their funding, enrollments and teachers. Any madrassa failing to meet those standards could be shut down immediately. The government also would be empowered to ensure that a madrassa does "not encourage an atmosphere of religious confrontation, sectarianism, polarization or hatred" and does "not indulge in military or paramilitary training." Violations of the law would carry jail terms of up to two years, fines of up to $800 or both. Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup, is expected to approve the law tomorrow at a meeting of top aides unless tensions with India interfere, officials said. They declined further comment. The law could be the first step in a broader campaign by Musharraf to crush Islamic militants who advocate a Taliban-style regime for Pakistan and are blamed for killings and other violence. Musharraf and other senior officials have been speaking in more aggressive terms about dealing with the threat from religious extremists since the collapse of the Taliban. Yet other promises by leaders to deal with Pakistan's problems have gone unfulfilled because of resistance, corruption or bureaucratic inertia. Some 6,000 religious schools, or madrassas, are known to be operating across the country, providing free food, board and instruction to hundreds of thousands of boys and young men. A senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said more than 600,000 boys and young men attend Pakistani madrassas, including 34,000 foreigners, most of them Afghans and Arabs. The state-run education system, meanwhile, has virtually broken down, although many madrassas educate their students only in Islam, foregoing lessons in science, mathematics, geography or other subjects. Only some of the religious schools are thought to be of grave concern to Pakistani and U.S. officials. Islamic political parties and militant groups are likely to resist any attempt by the government to regulate madrassas, possibly with violence. "If forced, we will take the law into our own hands and the responsibility goes to the government," said Asadullah Abasi, a top official of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, or JUI, an Islamic party that runs hundreds of madrassas, had close ties to the Taliban and educated some of its top leaders. Abasi, the director of a small madrassa in Islamabad, accused Musharraf of acting at the behest of the Bush administration and against "the ideology of Islam." But there is uncertainty about the ability of the JUI and other militant Islamic groups to rally serious opposition to the government. Islamic parties failed to whip up nationwide outrage against Musharraf's decision to end Pakistan's support for the Taliban and enlist in the U.S.-led anti-terrorism coalition. That failure, some analysts said, suggests that most Pakistanis, fed up with sectarian violence, would not oppose a crackdown on madrassas as long as it was not indiscriminate or seen as being launched under U.S. pressure. seattletimes.nwsource.com

To: Captain Jack who wrote (12403)	12/30/2001 11:17:30 AM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27754

Protecting Bin Laden's Secrets Arabs in Pakistani Jail Defy U.S. Interrogators washingtonpost.com Edward Cody Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, December 30, 2001; Page A01 KOHAT, Pakistan, Dec. 29 -- They flew in nightly aboard U.S. C-130 Hercules cargo planes, alighting at the Pakistani air force base outside Kohat. Under cover of darkness, they drove south in unmarked four-wheel-drive vehicles about 10 miles down the Bannu Road to the Kohat district jail to begin their midnight interrogations of captured al Qaeda fighters.

To: Captain Jack who wrote (12403)	12/30/2001 4:00:30 PM
From: joseph krinsky	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27754

Jack- People who are convicted of felonies I think they lose their rights as part of the conviction. I don't think just being arrested for a crime should be a basis for losing your rights, since some people who are arrested are not guilty of anything, the police have made a mistake, or the person identifying them is wrong either by design or accident. The cases where someone has been put to death and it's been later to have been found that the person was in fact innocent, and was convicted by "foul play" (hiding evidence) on the part of the prosecutors and or police, I believe those people should be tried for murder and meet the same fate as their victim, since in effect they murdered them. As far as losing citizenship, in a related idea, I also believe that green card holders should only be allowed to have the green card for a set period of ten years, and after that they have to make a choice. Either apply for citizenship and pass the test, or lose their green card and have to go back to wherever they came from. I don't think the test has to be very hard, but I think a person should be able to read, write and speak English, at a level that can be understood by "the average guy" not anything fancy, and I also think they should be able to pass a test showing knowledge of general history of the country. Dates and names not being that important, just something like when we started, and how our country progressed over the years, etc etc. I don't think having a permanent green card semi society is a good thing for a country. IMO the idea is to have people that want to stay here, be Americans, embrace our ideas, values, and way of life, and not have one foot in the door and one foot in the other door. Those types cannot be "counted on", since they have divided loyalties. I think that in the light of what's happened and is continuing to happen, the country should be rounding up all illegals and sending them home where ever that is, and tell them that if they come back illegally, we're going to put them in prison forever, or make it a capital crime to be here illegally twice and then just execute them. The people that are in office are sworn to protect to the country, it's their job to make things safe for the citizens. If they aren't doing or taking the steps that are necessary to do that that then they need to be voted out of office and people put in there that will live up to their oaths of office.