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Politics : WAR on Terror. Will it engulf the Entire Middle East? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (10117)	10/12/2005 12:46:06 AM
From: Ben Wa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32591

Australia has it right: dailytimes.com.pk Thursday, August 25, 2005 Get out if you want Sharia law, Australia tells Muslims CANBERRA: Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks. A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown. Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the country if they did not accept that Australia was a secular state and its laws were made by parliament. “If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you,” he said on national television. “I’d be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that that is false. If you can’t agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to another country which practises it, perhaps, then, that’s a better option,” Costello said. Asked whether he meant radical clerics would be forced to leave, he said those with dual citizenship could possibly be asked move to the other country. Education Minister Brendan Nelson later told reporters that Muslims who did not want to accept local values should “clear off”. “Basically, people who don’t want to be Australians, and they don’t want to live by Australian values and understand them, well then they can basically clear off,” he said. Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spies monitoring the nation’s mosques. agencies

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (10117)	10/12/2005 6:08:24 AM
From: Scoobah	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32591

I'm a believer. McVeigh was too dumb for the job alone.

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (10117)	10/12/2005 7:40:32 AM
From: Scoobah	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32591

And here is just another example of the balck hole fully operational, when US aid, goes to the Arab world: Gone Missing in Iraq – $1.3bn DEBKAfile Special Report October 11, 2005, 2:02 PM (GMT+02:00) Interim defense minister Gen. Hazem Shaalan targeted Ibrahim Jaafari’s government in Baghdad has issued arrest warrants for 27 senior officials, members of the preceding interim government headed by Iyad Allawi. They are suspected of embezzling $ 1.3bn dollars of military procurement funds. Among the suspects are the former defense minister General Hazem Shaalan, who denies the charge, as well as the labor, transport, electricity and housing ministers. The Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit in a report reviewed by Knight Ridder accuses these officials of using their eight months in office (June 28, 2004 to February, 2005) to set up three intermediary companies to hide the kickbacks they received from contracts involving unnecessary, overpriced or outdated equipment. Altogether 89 arms deals with the United States, companies in Europe, Poland and some Arab states were found to have been awarded to favored weapons suppliers without a bidding process and without the required approval from the prime minister’s office. Instead of buying directly from a foreign company or government, Iraqi arms procurers hired third-party companies to negotiate the contracts. When Iraqi officials complained about unfulfilled contracts, they discovered they had no recourse to demand a refund because the Iraqi middlemen had vanished with cash running into millions. As to questions of where were the American officials in the Coalition Provisional Authority who oversaw the Iraqi interim government’s operations, spokesmen for Lt. Gen David H. Petraeus, who heads US training of Iraqi troops, and US embassy officials said they did raise concerns about corruption rumors, but were constrained form doing more to prevent wrongdoing because a sovereign Iraqi government was in place. The retired Iraqi officer Lt. Gen Abdul Aziz al-Yaseri, who worked for the defense ministry’s budget at the time of the alleged corruption, said: “There’s no rebuilding, no weapons, nothing. There are no real contracts even. They just signed papers and took the money.” DEBKAfile’s Baghdad sources believe that the missing sum is larger than $1.3 bn. They also refer to rumors that the charges leveled by the Jaafari government may be politically-motivated. They note that the prime minister, who heads the religious Shiite Dawa party, may be seeking to discredit his predecessor, Allawi, who is a secular Shiite and General Shaalan, who plan to run at the head of an independent list in the December 2005 general election. The two are closer to leading Sunni Muslim and Kurdish dissident circles opposed to the new constitution - which goes to a national referendum Saturday - than to the religious Shiite establishment. The scandal also breaks eight days before Saddam Hussein goes on trial for crimes against humanity and corruption. An astute defense team will not miss the chance of using it as fodder.