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Politics : Stop the War! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zonder who wrote (13591)	4/15/2003 1:01:53 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21614

I guess you're too tired to pay attention either. I told you the 1943 date was a typo. I meant to type 1945 and stated so in a previous post. And as for your flippant, AND FALSE, comment that the Padishah unilaterally dragged Turkey into WWI is equally false. He didn't possess that kind of power after the "young turks" came to power and established a parliament and re-established a Turkish constitution limiting the powers of the Padishah. To say he took Turkey to war is like saying the King of England took England to war.. Neither of them possessed that kind of unilateral power at the time of WWI. Just because I do not agree with you on the current US foreign policy, you are Googling details, trying to find mistakes in what I post, Uh.. no.. I don't have to find them. They are IMPLICIT in your statements. All I "google" for is documentation and facts to back up my point. The fact that you don't agree with current US policy is obvious. But what you have failed to discuss is what you would replace it with, if anything. It seems to me that you were quite content with the status quo in Iraq, if not the entire middle east. That, somehow, the rest of the world must accord these un-elected, despotic regimes with some semblance of respectability and legitimacy as if they represented the will of their population. There's no doubt that GWBJr is "peeing" in a lot of political "swimming pools" over in the middle east. He is destablizing a stagnant and cancerous situation, with the apparent view that doing nothing guarantees the regional sickness will only grow worse. And I happen to agree with that assessment. In the process he's going to alienate a whole mess of vested interests who prefer to maintain the status quo, or have their own agenda for destablizing the region in their own favor (such as Saddam's imperialist ambitions towards neighboring Arab states). But since certain other vested governments were unwilling to assist in maintaining order in the region, preferring to advance their own cynical agendas, often through, or by obstructing, the UN process, Bush decided to go it alone. I'd give your point of view a whole lot more credence were you to complain as vigorously about the vested interests of France, Germany, and Russia in supporting Saddam's regime, as you are in criticizing Bush for destroying it. The reality is that the US is not particularly to blame for the mess that exists in the middle east. We played little to no part in dividing up the Ottoman Empire, nor did the US play an active political role in supporting Israel until 1973, when it appeared that they might be destroyed by multiple Arab attacks upon it. But we're stuck cleaning up the mess that is left, and hopefully we'll be left with something that, while possibly not as democratic as we'd like to see, results in little threat to other nations in the region. And in the most positive scenario, maybe, just maybe, we'll see an democratic example set in Iraq that other Arab nations might feel pressured to pursue, if only to pay more attention to the welfare of their citizens than attempting to stir up trouble for their neighbors or other countries. If there's anything I'm tired of, it's hearing people such as yourself, criticizing what others do, while offering no viable alternatives yourselves... Or only acting when folks like Bush force you to act (as he did with the UN last September). Hawk

To: zonder who wrote (13591)	4/15/2003 2:04:23 PM
From: lorne	Respond to of 21614

Muslim Group Says Call to Jihad Is a Sin Tuesday, Apr. 15, 2003. By Vladimir Isachenkov The Associated Press A Russian Muslim group on Monday urged the faithful to shun the prayers and ignore the orders of the chief of a rival Islamic organization that declared jihad against the United States, denouncing the call to holy war as a "great sin." Supreme Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin, head of the Central Islamic Department of Muslims of Holy Russia, announced the jihad at an antiwar demonstration earlier this month, saying his group would raise money to "buy weapons for fighting America and food for the people of Iraq." The Prosecutor General's Office warned Tadzhuddin that his statement violated federal law forbidding actions that incite ethnic and religious hatred and said he would be prosecuted if he repeated the offense. On Monday, Ravil Gainutdin, the head of the Council of Russian Muftis, a group that rivals Tadzhuddin's, presided over a meeting that passed a fatwah, or religious edict, condemning Tadzhuddin. "Talgat Tadzhuddin has taken himself out of the bosom of Islam and posed as a false prophet," by announcing that God was speaking through his mouth, Gainutdin said in a statement on behalf of his group. Tadzhuddin's call for jihad carried "neither clerical nor legal nor moral force," and must not be obeyed by Muslims, Gainutdin said. He said that the call for jihad was a "great sin that could bring misfortune to millions of people." Tadzhuddin, who is based in the city of Ufa near the Ural Mountains, was unavailable and his aide refused to comment on the edict. Tadzhuddin's group has the following of some Muslim communities throughout the country, but Gainutdin's organization claims to have wider representation. Gainutdin said Monday that his group is followed by about 65 percent of Muslim communities, while his rival commands only some 15 percent and the rest is controlled by an independent Muslim authority in the Caucasus. Tadzhuddin's statement has been condemned by many Islamic leaders throughout the country. However, Muslim clerics in Dagestan supported his call for jihad. The two muftis have been locked in an intense power battle since the early 1990s. According to media reports, Gainutdin started as Tadzhuddin's secretary and protege, but later set up a separate group. In 1995, an Islamic congress headed by Tadzhuddin accused Gainutdin of fostering schism and declared him out of the bounds of Islam, but his group has steadily gaining strength. It remains unclear which of the rival muftis has had more success in winning the Kremlin's support. Tadzhuddin has recently met with President Vladimir Putin, but his call for jihad had clearly baffled the Kremlin and might have weakened his position. Putin has called the Iraq war illegitimate and a threat to global stability, but spoken for developing cooperation with the United States despite their differences. Gainutdin accused his rival of hampering Putin's foreign policy, saying Monday that Tadzhuddin's statement had incurred "colossal damage to the authority of Russia's Muslim group and the nation's foreign policy." An estimated 20 million of Russia's 145 million population are Muslims. According to some observers, the Kremlin's opposition to the war in Iraq has been partly based on concern that the fighting could rock Russia's internal stability and fuel Islamic extremism. themoscowtimes.com