If you want to dance with the devil, why not dance the fox-trotsky?

Below we have two pieces on Trotskyism and Islam, the second being excerpts from the Trots themselves, cut down for the sake of our readers. The gist of it? Well, who really cares? Perhaps we are "organically incapable" of analysing it properly too. Or maybe it's just silly and you don't want to bother trying to follow it. We leave it to you, dear reader, to decide if the Trots are really, truly, deeply as right about all things as they seem to think they are. Yes, they have every answer to all important questions about how to run the world, but don't ever hire a Trot to do your roof or mow your lawn. These are the geniuses who have allied themselves in solidarity with Islam, the Galloways, the Livingstones, the Left David Dukes of hazard.

The first article below is a nicely written piece of bourgeios propaganda that tries to con the workers with capitalistic flim flams such as reason, order, and clarity. Lucky for you the piece following is directly from the founts of Trot. We do it all for you.

Next time we might just do the cha cha che.
***

The new Islamo-Marxism: Where Trotsky meets bin Laden

By Bill King
web posted December 20, 2004

Karl Marx once infamously referred to religion as "the opium of the people", and argued that it served to dampen the revolutionary fervor of the masses. Yet if Marx were alive to witness the acts of ferocity being committed by zealots in the name of Islam, one suspects that even he would readily admit he got that one wrong.

Just such a reconsideration of religion is taking place today among the remnants of the Marxist left in Europe and North America -- only their reassessment is taking them in an even more dangerous direction. Since the morning of September 11th, 2001, Western Marxists have been steadily discarding Marx's old materialist dictum in favor of a new found admiration for one religion in particular: radical Islam.

This is not to say, of course, that we will soon see those on the far left swapping their belief in History and Progress for a belief in Allah and the Koran as interpreted by radical Wahhabi or Shia clerics. But given their all-consuming hatred of America and the West, Marxists are increasingly throwing their political lot in with those they feel are leading the struggle against "imperialism" -- namely, the forces of world wide jihad.

So far, this new phenomenon has been taken up in a comprehensive manner only by David Horowitz in his new book, Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left, which as the title indicates focuses on the American far left. Yet the reality of a new "Islamo-Marxism" is immediately apparent to any objective observer of the Marxist left in Europe and Canada as well. And while the idea that secular Western Marxists would seek to ally with militant Islamists may seem incongruous at first, if one looks at the history of organized Marxism in the industrialized West, it is not really so surprising.

In the decades after the Second World War, the far left in Europe and North America turned to a whole series of forces -- from "student vanguards" to "national liberation movements" -- to find a substitute for a working class that refused to play the revolutionary role assigned to it by radical intellectuals. Throughout the 1970's and 80's, as Marxism became progressively more ensconced in the world of university seminars and academic journals, and as once radical social movements joined the mainstream, the left found itself increasingly bereft of a social force that could serve as the "subject" of its revolution.

Towards the end of the last century, with the collapse of the Communist project around the world and the rise of the United States to the status of sole superpower, the long held goal of a socialist revolution in the West finally gave way in practice to the far more realizable, and hence all the more furious, end goal of anti-Americanism. The stage was now set for an embrace of those not afraid to strike at what Che Guevara once called the "belly of the beast". In the rubble of the World Trade Centre and the death of 3000 innocents on 9/11, political convergence between the radical left and radical Islam was born.

There were, of course, precursors to the new post-9/11 Islamo-Marxism, the most notable being the tacit approval that was given by the far left after 1967 to Palestinian terrorists whose specialty was targeting the most defenseless: children in Israel, elderly Americans on cruise ships, tourists in airports in Europe. Today, however, the face of the new Islamo-Marxism is seen most clearly not in its stance on the Israeli-Palestinian question, but in its cheerleading (PDF format) for the murderous "resistance" in Iraq -- a "resistance" whose tactics, such as the summary execution of cooks and cleaners from Nepal (a country that had not even sent troops to Iraq!) with a shot to the back of the head as they lay with their hands bound behind them, are reminiscent of those used by the right-wing death squads of El Salvador in the 1980's.

Galloway

As Joshua Kurlantzick points out in the December 2004 issue of Commentary, in his review of Horowitz's Unholy Alliance , it is in Europe that the political convergence between Marxists and Islamists is most advanced. But even Kurlantizick's article has been outpaced by the speed at which the alliance is growing. In England, for example, left wing Labourites, Trotskyists, and the Islamists in the Muslim Association of Britain have now formed an actual political party called "Respect" that has run in British and European elections. Its leader is none other than George Galloway, the former Labour MP with reported ties to Saddam Hussein's former regime and other Middle Eastern dictatorships.

Here in Canada, the tiny and splintered -- but often surprisingly influential -- Marxist movement has come down firmly on the side of radical Islam and jihad. One of the most sycophantic in its praise of all things Islamist is the Trotskyist Socialist Voice. This group of far leftists is so ingratiating towards those who would just as soon behead them, that they actually made a point of celebrating on their web site the fact that the Imam Ali Shrine was not damaged during last fall's fighting in the Iraqi city of Najaf. According to them, the fact that the mosque was spared was something that, "…working people around the world should join our Islamic brothers and sisters in greeting".

The largest Marxist group in Canada, the quasi-Trotskyist International Socialists (IS), has also chosen to cast its lot with the Islamists against the West. In fact, as far back as 1994, the IS's parent group in Britain, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), published a pamphlet entitled "The Prophet and the Proletariat", in which they called for "defending Islamists against the state", and for "occasionally" siding with radical Islamists while maintaining an ideological distance. Today, in the pages of the IS publication Socialist Worker, in which the Islamist torturers in Fallujah, serial murderers of women in Mosul, and holders of sharia courts in Najaf and Sadr City, are all labeled "heroic", that "distance" has all but disappeared.

As would be expected, there are more than a few ironies in Western Marxism's current suicidal death-clinch with militant Islam. By far the most glaring is that a political movement so profoundly Western (one that, despite its protestations, is itself a historical product of capitalism and liberal democracy, and even more, has its roots in the West's supposedly most enlightened, rational, and progressive thinking) would choose, because of its obsessive anti-Americanism, to side with the most retrograde, nihilistic, indeed fascistic, politico-religious movement of our era, one which abhors every "progressive" value the left claims to uphold.

Leon Trotsky's ice-picked body must be rolling over in its grave

Yet another irony is that, within Marxism, it is the Trotskyists that are spearheading the turn to radical Islam. While in recent years Trotskyism has been most infamously (and most mistakenly) linked to neoconservatism, the actual Trotskyites are in fact the most zealous among the Marxists in seeking to unite with the jihadists. It is a massive and ignoble irony -- one that points to the complete moral-ideological collapse of international Trotskyism, even by its own standards -- that a movement founded by the scientific-minded atheist and arch secularist Leon Trotsky, who in the words of Norman Geras, "embodied in his person at once the traces of his Jewish origin and a powerful attachment to the universalist dream of the radical", would today be knowingly aiding and supporting those who murder, torture, and behead to the cry of "Allahu Akbar!"

But if those are some of the most immediately apparent ironies, they are not the cruelest. The cruelest is that in championing the Islamist insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, today's Western Islamo-Marxists are supporting the very forces that are terrorizing and murdering politically active women, trade unionists, foreign aid workers, and left-wing activists in those countries -- and yet they continue to support those forces in the name of defending… the oppressed! Such "anti-imperialism" by comfortable Western Marxists in Europe and North America would almost be laughable were its consequences not so grisly and nefarious for those in far less safe places.

In another of his famous phrases, Marx once wrote that history repeats itself "the first time as tragedy, the second as farce". But it would seem that Marx got that one wrong too. For if the murder of millions by Stalinist Communism in the 20th century was tragedy, Islamo-Marxism's collusion with radical Islam in the first years of the 21st is more than just farce. It is farce, betrayal, and tragedy all at once -- and the collusion is just beginning. There can be little doubt that winning the global war against radical Islam will entail winning the ideological battle against its Islamo-Marxist allies right here at home in the West.

Bill King is a Vancouver based writer focusing on international politics, terrorism, and the radical left.

http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1204/1204islamomarxism.htm
***

Afghanistan, Islam and the Revolutionary Left

By Peter Taaffe

The following is a lengthy article written in February 2002. We are publishing it now because the issues it analyses, of war, Islam and the approach of Marxists, are relevant to the new world situation of increased imperialist intervention in the neo-colonial world and the continued threat of a US invasion of Iraq. CWI online, July 2002

Introduction

***

The Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida have suffered a severe military and political defeat. The scale of their defeat is heightened by the fact that there was virtually no resistance on the ground to the imperialists and the Northern Alliance. We have analysed this elsewhere (see the CWI's previous statements) and wish here to compare the positions taken by the CWI and its sections with those of other organisations, particularly those who claim to stand on the revolutionary left. This approach, the method of contrasts, was deployed by Leon Trotsky, particularly in the 1930s, as a means of educating the revolutionary cadre. Most of the revolutionary left erred, and sometimes quite grossly, during the war. Some were opportunist; mostly however they were ultra-left and sometimes managed to combine both opportunism and ultra-leftism.

Misuse of Trotsky's writings

***

The world has undergone colossal changes since Trotsky wrote. The reality which confronts us is entirely different today. Therefore, it would be completely mechanical to simply apply remarks made in the 1930s to the current situation. World relationships and particularly the relationship between the 'advanced' imperialist countries and the neo-colonial areas of the world have undergone immense changes. In the past, imperialism exercised direct, military domination of many – but not all – areas of what is now the neo-colonial world. This has been largely replaced by indirect economic control. Undoubtedly, the effects of this are, in general, no less oppressive for the masses. Nevertheless, independence for the former 'colonies', the development of new states and with this a national consciousness, as well as the relative strengthening of these regions vis-à-visimperialism – at least of the larger states – has considerably changed the position.

Marxists have to implacably oppose the continued imperialist domination and the obscene use of overwhelming military might to maintain their power against the masses in the neo-colonial world, as in the case of Afghanistan. But the profound changes which have taken place mean that it is ludicrous today to compare, for instance, the regime of the 'emperor' of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, in 1935 with the phenomenon today of bin Laden's al-Qa'ida and the Taliban. The colossal development of the means of worldwide communications – TV, radio, newspapers, Internet, etc. – is one of the most obvious differences between now and then. In consequence, there is a heightened awareness of what is happening internationally.

The masses in the 1930s would have understood little of the precise detail of the Haile Selassie regime. Moreover, Ethiopia was under attack by the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini at the time Trotsky was writing. Given the democratic illusions of the working class of Europe or the US in particular, together with the recent bloody example of what fascism would mean for them in the coming to power of Adolf Hitler and Mussolini, it was natural that the sympathies of the masses in the 1930s would be with Ethiopia against fascist Italy. The British and most of the European bourgeoisie together with the US, for their own imperialist strategic interests, also played on this sympathy for Ethiopia. It is nonsense to imply, however, as the sectarian organisations do by quoting these remarks of Trotsky, that the mass of the populations in most industrialised countries could take the same attitude today towards bin Laden and the Taliban.

Consciousness

This does not mean to say that we have to revise the past positions of Marxism, particularly elaborated by Lenin and Trotsky. We clearly differentiate between the advanced imperialist countries and those in the colonial or the neo-colonial world. In general we still support the peoples in the neo-colonial world in the struggle against imperialist domination, particularly when this takes on the form, as it did in Afghanistan, of military intervention. In this case we were clearly on the side of the Afghani people and in the imperialist countries we opposed the war. Support for the Afghani people and their resistance against the armed incursions of imperialism is not the same as support for the Taliban, even if this support is 'critical', as some left organisations have posed it.

Moreover, to call baldly and crudely for the 'defeat of US imperialism' and its coalition allies as an agitational slogan is wrong. When Lenin used the term "revolutionary defeatism", as Trotsky subsequently explained, it was in order to clearly delineate revolutionary Marxism from opportunism following the betrayal of the German social democracy and their opportunist international co-thinkers at the beginning of the First World War. It was primarily a policy for the cadres to draw a clear line of separation between the revolutionaries and the opportunists. It was not a policy that could have won the masses to the banner of Bolshevism or to the revolution. It was the programme of the Bolsheviks and everything that flowed from this, including the taking of power by the working class in alliance with the peasantry, which guaranteed the success of the Russian Revolution.

Many ultra-left organisations are organically incapable of understanding the approach of Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks. They take what have been essentially formulations used within the Marxist movement to sum up, delineate and clearly differentiate one idea or conception from another as an expression of what should be stated publicly. Consequently they have been unable to pass from a circle mentality and intervene successfully in mass movements. Even worse, they have miseducated a layer of young people and occasionally workers, who otherwise could play an important role in strengthening and building Marxism.

How we relate to the consciousness, which can be different in the industrialised world compared to the neo-colonial world, whilst still maintaining a principled Marxist position, is the key to finding a road to the working class and the youth. This is not an easy task; a correct position can only be arrived at through analysis and discussion, sometimes of the most painstaking kind. Such an approach is, however, foreign to many organisations of the revolutionary left. For them it is merely a question of presenting a 'programme', usually sucked out of their thumb or drawn out of the writings of Trotsky or Lenin from a different period, and mechanically applied to the situation irrespective of the ebbs and flows in the mood or understanding of the masses.

This was not the approach of Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution. The mood of the masses was a vital issue which was crucial in determining tactics at different turning points in the nine months between the February and October Revolutions. For instance, in July Lenin opposed the seizure of power by the Petrograd working class who were ready to take this step because it was premature, given that consciousness lagged behind throughout the rest of Russia and particularly amongst the peasant masses who formed the bulk of the Tsarist armies at that stage. A serious attempt to seize power would have risked the crushing of the Petrograd working class, and therefore the vanguard of the revolution, with the possible complete derailment of the revolution. In the event, the decision of the Bolsheviks to go along with the demonstration, but stopping short of an insurrection, lessened the repression which inevitably followed the July events. Similar care in gauging the mood of the working class in the three months before the October Revolution was a key, hotly disputed issue within the ranks of the Bolshevik party.

We have always taken the consciousness of the working class, which is not a static thing, into account in formulating demands and an approach towards issues such as war. This is not an easy task and even in a healthy Marxist organisation can provoke controversy and differences.
***

Friends, Romans, countrymen, workers and peasants, drug addicts and suicide bombers, Lenin me your ears: Quit Stalin.

How can we read that nonsense without laughing? And yet, here we are faced with half the world of the West lapping it up like porrige in a gulag. The idiot Troyskite rubbish flows down from on high, and the pseudo-intellectuals of our Left in the West think it's manna from Heaven. What on Earth are we going to do with these people?

A short piece for our Princeton University readers who can't concentrate on anything more than this length. And none of that, you know, like, hard stuff. No, this is pretty straight-forward. We've even kept the typos out so as not to confuse.

Yes, it's another look at the most important people on Earth.

Gaza Rally Erupts into Riot; Abbas Did Not Attend
19:59 Sep 14, '05 / 10 Elul 5765

(IsraelNN.com) Palestinian Authority (PA) police shot in the air Wednesday evening after a Hamas terrorist grabbed the microphone in a Gaza rally celebrating the PA takeover of the Gaza region. The smaller than expected crowd of about 2,500 began to riot and then dispersed after the gunshots.

PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) avoided the rally on the ruins of the former N'vei Dekalim community because of the small turnout and concerns for his security, PA sources said. Terrorists boycotted the rally, and Hamas scheduled its own rally for Friday.

http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=89861

NETZARIM, GAZA – Nearly every Palestinian who could Monday flooded into lands Israel had occupied for 38 years, their mood pulsing with celebration tinged with frustration.

Synagogues in several of the largest settlements in Gaza, which Israel did not demolish, were burned or bulldozed, a move condemned by Israel's foreign minister as "a barbarous act by people who have no respect for holy places."

The Palestinian Authority (PA) had insisted Israel demolish the houses of worship along with the homes of 8,500 settlers it evacuated last month, complaining that Israel's refusal to do so left the Palestinians in a "no-win situation" because the buildings would prove impossible to protect.

The cycle of blame and counter-blame is symbolic of what may be the direction of any return to negotiations. Talk is not of bridge-building, but of cutting losses and calculating gains, underscoring the gap in expectations about the land transfer and its role in setting the stage for future peace talks.

"We don't want them to leave behind anything that will remind of us of the Israeli occupation," says Mohammed Farouk, a high school student carrying a rusty mortar for memories. It was a bit of old ammunition that he, like many other young men, picked up as they scavenged for raw materials - from wiring and pipes to wood beams and broken chairs.

But many other Palestinians were disappointed at the way the day unfolded. As people picked and plucked at the ruins here, a Palestinian policeman ran to a lamp post waving his night stick. He yelled to one young person who was already halfway up the pole to leave the light in place.

"We want to protect things because it's in our interest, but there are people who want to destroy everything," complained Lieut. Izzadin Najar, sweating and breathless from chasing teenagers.

From 2 a.m. to 3 a.m., he says, the Palestinian police ringed the synagogue and tried to stop it from being damaged, but were quickly overrun. "There was a huge number of people and we couldn't control it," he says. "I'm unhappy with what I see because I wanted everything done in a civilized way. What will the world think about us?"

Mr. Najar had hoped that the Palestinians would be able to present a unified voice at such an important moment. But instead, an array of flags flew from synagogues and cars - as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian (PLFP) all tried to claim a share of the credit for Israel's withdrawal. "We should have be flying one flag, not many," Najar says.

The overwhelming majority of Palestinians, according to a poll released Sunday, believe that armed resistance caused the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

According to the poll, carried out by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 62 percent said attacks from Gaza against Israel should end after the withdrawal, while 35 percent said attacks should continue.

"It is a step toward freedom," says Mr. Farouk, the high school student. But his friends scoff and say it's ultimately a sad day. Palestinian aspirations for a state that includes the West Bank and a part of Jerusalem still seem far off, says one.

"What joy is there without that? Even in Gaza, we're still governed by the Israelis from the air, by the sea," says Ismail, who would only give his first name. "It's not enough."

But what isn't enough for Palestinians has been off-putting for many Israelis. An adviser to Mr. Sharon says Israelis will not be left with an appetite for making further gestures anytime soon.

"I think Israelis felt that by completing the withdrawal from Gaza, they had created an opportunity for peace for the Palestinians to seize upon," says Dore Gold, Sharon's adviser. "And what they saw was synagogues in flames, and that's something with a very ominous tone for the success of any future negotiations."

It was not only in the emptied Jewish enclaves in Gaza where the crush of Palestinians celebrating raised concerns. An Egyptian border guard shot and killed a Palestinian teenager along the Gaza-Egypt border Monday.

The shooting occurred after dozens of Palestinians rushed the wall along the border crossing at Rafah. Egyptian security forces allowed scores of Egyptians and Palestinians to flow through the border to mark the handover. Israel and Egypt had reached an agreement in which 750 Egyptian policemen would guard the route separating Gaza and Egypt, to allay Israeli concerns about Palestinian militants smuggling weapons into Gaza.

In Neve Dekalim, the twin synagogues that were the rallying point for fervent Jewish settlers resisting the evacuation a few weeks ago was crowded Monday with Palestinians scavenging whatever they could carry. A Hebrew poster signing the praises of the messiah was spraypainted with graffiti saying, "Yes to Islam."

Inside the former sanctuary, the floor was littered with shattered glass. Young men in the rafters with makeshift pick-axes sent debris and window panes crashing.

"We have been waiting for 38 years. What do you expect from me?" says Ahmed Ikheya from the third floor rafter. "We are not a destructive people, but we want to end the occupation and we don't want any memory of it."

Outside what used to be the regional council building of the Gush Katif settlement, a few Palestinian troops guarded against looters. "It is our mission to protect these buildings, but as you can see we are not very successful," says Maj. Mohammad Mansour. "The Palestinian resistance has more authority than the Palestinian Authority."

• Joshua Mitnick contributed to this report from Gaza.

http://www.csmonitor.com

Pal.s Rush to Raise New Gaza Flag


















In a movement that choked onlookers with true emotion Palestinian victims ran like little grasshoppers to claim bits of metal and nails for their next round of Katusha rockets and car bombs . The poor exploited victims, armed with mere AK 47s, rioted in an orderly fashion, smashing old religious buildings left behind by the evil Zionist Entity, pausing only long enough to avenge themselves on some of Yassir Arafat's relatives and a village full of Arab Christians.

Hamas commander Abu Abu Abu Wazu claimed, as the crowd tore apart a traitor and burned his stinking guts on a make-shift bridge, "Victory is at hand. Now we are so much closer to the evil Zionist Entity that some of our rocket scientist can manage to hit the ground before the Qassam rockets explode."

In the only accident of the day one Hamas fighter burned to death when he fired a mock RPG at a papier mache version of New Jerusalem. The fireworks inside the tube exploded and ripped his arm off. He burned quickly. He is a martyr. Praise Allah!


A gentle reminder that my book, An Occasional Walker, is available at the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Occasional-Walker-D-W/dp/0987761501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331063095&sr=1-1

And here are some reviews and comments on said book:

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2012/04/dagness-at-noon.html

Art is a rehearsal for eventuality. A poem told by the campfire, some old blind man recounting the tale of the siege of Troy, a story rhythmic and vivid, prepares us for life as we might experience it ourselves in coming time. We can pick and choose and sort out the men we want to be from the panoply of characters in a play, find our soul-mates in the past, live as they lived, and die as they died. When I first heard the story of the Iliad I wanted to be the top guy there. And so it was in Sunday school when I heard the story of Cain and Abel: I wanted to be God. But as time passed, I realized the best I could do in this Earthly existence is be the best me I can fake well enough to fool some girls into loving me at least briefly. I should have settled for being a hero. I should have paid more attention to the narratives of our lives. I want to correct past failings here. Let's look briefly at the cosmic struggles of our time and see what they say to us and where we might fit in realistically.

We talk about things that we hope to do, and we talk about the things we hope we've done. We go to plays and movies and watch dramas on television. We do these things to rehearse our responses to the future possible, to clear the way for whatever might befall us. To prepare ourselves for it we talk about death.

The stories below are both about death, and they are both preparatory for us. They both speak the unspeakable, they tell stories of nuclear war against our enemies.

The first story comes as a reaction from Muslims against an American congressman who raises the idea of nuclear assault on Mecca in retaliation for an attack on us. Unsurprisingly, Muslims think it's a bad idea to melt Mecca. They seem not too concerned that Islam is likely to provoke such a response, only that such a response would end up destroying one of their preferred religious sites. Muslims don't often bother to mention that they urge the destruction of the modern world and its replacement with a 7th century caliphate; dhimmis like us, if we aren't killed, being enslaved and made to live only to provide our new Muslim masters with jizya, the survival tax. Tancredo spoke the unspeakable. Having done that we can all get nervous in public. We'll follow in the steps of our nervous Muslim cousins.

Four years and a day after Muslims destroyed much of the Pentagon, the Pentagon is in the news with a story about using nuclear weapons against our enemies. The unspeakable is becoming quite articulate. We've excerpted below some paragraphs from that longer essay.

We aren't likely to act on a plan we haven't aired in public. Public societies, such as those in the West, need time to rehearse their reactions to public ventures. We talk things over, mull them in our collective national minds, and sometimes we think better of our ideas and go on to others. We don't react impulsively. Ours is a rationalistic society, whether Sweden or New Zealand. And here we are, our leaders talking about nuclear war on our enemies.

America, for all the farcical grunting, the chest-pounding histrionics and hair-pulling theatrics people perform at the mention of its name, America is not a militarily aggressive nation. But we have dropped the Big One. Twice. And now there's talk of it again. If America gets a good case of war fever, we could flatten the whole world in an hour, and no one can stop us.

So this debate is among us. No one else really matters. This is the time when we talk and listen and decide what role we will play in whatever eventuality comes to fruition. I want to be the president this time. Our mates here have chimed in that they want to be the ones pushing the buttons. But the fact is that to even write about this means the debate has now begun in earnest, and we are preparing ourselves for an eventuality that was almost impossibly remote even yesterday.
***

Congressman Tancredo Advocates Preemtive Nuclear Strike on Mecca

July 18, 2005, Washington, DC -

In a radio interview last Thursday, July 14, Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) advocated the United States preemptively strike Mecca with nuclear weapons. The Colorado Congressman's made his comments on the Pat Campbell Radio Show (AM 540) in response to Campbell's statement that terrorists are seeking the means to attack the United States with a dirty bomb. Tancredo suggested that a preemptive attack on Mecca would be enough of a threat to make terrorists think twice about attacking the United States again. Listen to his comments here:

SOUND FILE

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is alarmed at Congressman Tancredo's comments advocating an attack on Mecca. It is irresponsible for a member of the United States Congress to advocate destroying the holy site of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims with a nuclear weapon. For good reason members of Congress and the Administration have expressed deep concern at the negative effects of hateful rhetoric directed against the United States in some elements of the Arab and Muslim worlds. But we must also be keenly aware of the damaging and irrational rhetoric against Arabs and Islam expressed by members of Congress, the Administration, and the media.

Statements by members of Congress, just like the legislation they pass, are closely followed around the world. Tancredo's remarks will be widely distributed by media outlets throughout the world and will be seen as representative of the views of the United States government. At a time when the United States is asking religious tolerance of others shouldn't others expect the same from the United States?

This incident is all the more inexplicable as just last week, on July 14, Congressman Tancredo expressed extreme disapproval at a Chinese government official for his remarks regarding the use of nuclear weapons. Tancredo said "For a senior government official to exhibit such tremendous stupidity by making such a brazen threat is hardly characteristic of a modern nation." For more information, see:

http://tancredo.house.gov/pressers/0714TancredoSlamsSeniorChineseOfficialForNukeThreat2.htm

In a letter faxed to Congressman Tancredo today, former congresswoman Mary Rose Oakar, ADC President said, "While we must do all that we can to find terrorists and end their means to strike again, advocating for a nuclear attack against a holy place revered by the world's 1.2 billion followers of Islam is completely unacceptable and contrary to American values and tradition of freedom and tolerance of religion." Oakar said, "These remarks have no place in the United States Congress."

ADC demands Congressman Tancredo provide an immediate and public explanation for his remarks. We urge ADC members, supporters, and friends to contact the congressman and request a clarification and apology. Additionally, ADC asks Members of Congress and the Bush Administration to denounce Congressman's Tancredo's comments and to clarify that dropping a nuclear bomb on Mecca is not part of the United States policy to win the war on terrorism.

http://capwiz.com/adc/issues/alert/?alertid=7849551&type=CU
***

washingtonpost.com
Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan
Strategy Includes Preemptive Use Against Banned Weapons

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 11, 2005; A01

The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

The document, written by the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs staff but not yet finally approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, would update rules and procedures governing use of nuclear weapons to reflect a preemption strategy first announced by the Bush White House in December 2002. The strategy was outlined in more detail at the time in classified national security directives.

At a White House briefing that year, a spokesman said the United States would "respond with overwhelming force" to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, its forces or allies, and said "all options" would be available to the president.

The draft, dated March 15, would provide authoritative guidance for commanders to request presidential approval for using nuclear weapons, and represents the Pentagon's first attempt to revise procedures to reflect the Bush preemption doctrine. A previous version, completed in 1995 during the Clinton administration, contains no mention of using nuclear weapons preemptively or specifically against threats from weapons of mass destruction.

Titled "Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations" and written under the direction of Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the draft document is unclassified and available on a Pentagon Web site. It is expected to be signed within a few weeks by Air Force Lt. Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, director of the Joint Staff, according to Navy Cmdr. Dawn Cutler, a public affairs officer in Myers's office. Meanwhile, the draft is going through final coordination with the military services, the combatant commanders, Pentagon legal authorities and Rumsfeld's office, Cutler said in a written statement.
***

The first example for potential nuclear weapon use listed in the draft is against an enemy that is using "or intending to use WMD" against U.S. or allied, multinational military forces or civilian populations.

Another scenario for a possible nuclear preemptive strike is in case of an "imminent attack from adversary biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy."
***

The draft document also envisions the use of atomic weapons for "attacks on adversary installations including WMD, deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons."
***

The Joint Staff draft doctrine explains that despite the end of the Cold War, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction "raises the danger of nuclear weapons use." It says that there are "about thirty nations with WMD programs" along with "nonstate actors [terrorists] either independently or as sponsored by an adversarial state."

To meet that situation, the document says that "responsible security planning requires preparation for threats that are possible, though perhaps unlikely today."

To deter the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, the Pentagon paper says preparations must be made to use nuclear weapons and show determination to use them "if necessary to prevent or retaliate against WMD use."

The draft says that to deter a potential adversary from using such weapons, that adversary's leadership must "believe the United States has both the ability and will to pre-empt or retaliate promptly with responses that are credible and effective." The draft also notes that U.S. policy in the past has "repeatedly rejected calls for adoption of 'no first use' policy of nuclear weapons since this policy could undermine deterrence."
***
Hans M. Kristensen, a consultant to the Natural Resources Defense Council, who discovered the document on the Pentagon Web site, said yesterday that it "emphasizes the need for a robust nuclear arsenal ready to strike on short notice including new missions."
***

In spite of our attempts at levity above we do feel that the very fact that nuking our enemies is today part of the public discourse brings such a possibility to our immediate attention in a way that it could not have been without public articulation by members of the governing public. In other words, when the big guy speaks, we listen up quick. We think it's serious. How serious is something we should think about before we declare ourselves of any position at all.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Attention: News, Features, Government/Political Affairs, Religion Editors

“…no religious arbitration in Ontario…
one law for all Ontarians.", says Premier McGuinty

TORONTO – “I got a call about 4 pm Sunday afternoon while I was having dinner with my family, I thought the caller was joking, but it was true … no-faith based arbitration, I am so happy.” said Ms. Homa Arjomand, Coordinator of the International Campaign Against Sharia Court in Canada.

On Sunday Premier McGuinty was interviewed by the national news agency and made the following statements:

"I've come to the conclusion that the debate has gone on long enough," he said.

"There will be no Shariah law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians."

McGuinty said religious arbitrations "threaten our common ground," and promised his Liberal government would introduce legislation "as soon as possible" to outlaw them in Ontario.

To read the full story please click here:

http://www.canada.com/maritimes/news/story.html?id=4adaefa2-e576-4620-af87-cc70572dda44

Community education is needed now

“I want to thank Premier McGuinty for listening to the people and for having the courage to make this historic decision … this decision will improve the standard of human rights for everyone in Ontario.”, said Ms.Arjomand. “Our concern now is how to prevent religious arbitration from continuing underground and how to assure the laws of Ontario are followed and enforced. It seems we’ll need to educate the communities, especially the people who are most vulnerable to private religious courts… I look forward to assisting in this effort.”, added Ms.Arjomand.

Thank you to the activists

“Most of all, I want to thank all the people who worked on the campaign. This victory was the result of the hard work of thousands of activists, across Ontario, Canada and Europe who volunteered their time and skills to help bring an end to Sharia courts in Canada,” said Ms. Arjomand, “…to each and everyone of them I want to say thank you, we did this together.”

Sharia is a global struggle

“Together we have defeated the forces of ‘Political Islam’ in Ontario, but this is just the first step.”, added Ms. Arjomand. “We must not stop here, we need to continue the fight and assist people in other countries who live under the burdens of Sharia and Political Islam…countries such as England, India, Iran, Iraq, Netherlands and Nigeria… the people there are counting on us.”

About Homa Arjomand and the Campaign

Homa Arjomand is the Coordinator of the International Campaign Against Sharia Court in Canada. She started her campaign in Toronto in October 2003 with a handful of supporters, and today it has grown to a coalition of 87 organizations from 14 countries with over a thousand activists. Homa is a Toronto based transitional counselor and was a human rights activist in Iran until she was forced to flee in 1989.

Media Contact: Ms. Homa Arjomand 416-737-9500.

Email: homawpi@rogers.com Web site: www.nosharia.com