Clipmarks | Kore7's 'terrorism' clips

The Biggest Threat to the West Lies Within Itself, Not with Islam

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:32:52 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Simon Jenkins on threats to peace and democracy.

This defeatism led the American Congress to allow its president to authorise torture and detention without trial in what Senator Robert Byrd called “the slow unravelling of the people’s liberties”. It enabled a British Home Office to curb free speech and habeas corpus. It arms police, fortifies buildings and impedes the free movement of citizens. It makes every Christian suspicious of every Muslim.

Clip Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

The biggest threat to the West lies within itself, not with Islam

The chief threat to world security at present lies in the capacity of tiny groups of political Islamists to goad the West into a rolling military retaliation.

Extremists on each side feed off the others’ frenzied scenarios so as to garner money and political support for their respective armies of the night. Each sees the other as a cosmic menace and abandons communal tolerance and peaceful diplomacy to counter it.

To portray Islam as a whole as a concerted threat to western security, and to imply that the West’s democratic institutions and freedoms are not proof against that threat, is absurd and close to treason. Then to demand that western freedoms be dismantled and stored away for the duration of a “war on terror” is to wave the flag of surrender.

I believe in the robustness of the democracies created in the West over the past half-century. I am not sure that our leaders do.

Tags: terrorism, islam, christianity, religion, freedom, war, peace, democracy, west, torture

"We're Not Dangerous...We're Persian!"

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 02:51:00 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: While it's hard to beat the hilarity of his opening bit, Iranian comedian Jobrani's entire politically incorrect routine is online: 1, 2. Sometimes you just gotta laugh at the seriousness of the world....

(Via The Daily Dish.)

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

Maz Jobrani on the differences between Persians and Arabs on the Axis Of Evil Comedy Tour DVD.

[Video]

Tags: persian, iran, maz jobrani, comedy, politics, muslim, middle east, terrorism, arab, america

The Terror Presidency

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 17:28:38 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Excerpts from the much-talked-about book by Jack Goldsmith, recounting his days of advising the White House on the legal boundaries of American executive power. Goldsmith explains how he was made to sign off on the unprecedented orders of presidential authority we know and love today.

He famously was present at the dramatic hospital-room showdown on national surveillance between Gonzales, Card and a frail Ashcroft, calling it "the most amazing scene I'd ever witnessed." Goldsmith resigned 10 months in.

They believed cooperation and compromise signaled weakness and emboldened the enemies of America and the executive branch. When it came to terrorism, they viewed every encounter outside the innermost core of most trusted advisers as a zero-sum game that if they didn't win they would necessarily lose.

Clip Source: www.slate.com

The Terror Presidency

"Why don't we just go to Congress and get it to sign off on the whole detention program?" I asked, explaining that the Supreme Court would have a much harder time striking down a wartime detention program that had Congress' explicit support.

"Why are you trying to give away the president's power?" Addington responded. He believed that the very act of asking for Congress' help would imply, contrary to the White House line, that the president needed legislative approval and could not act on his own.

Addington once expressed his general attitude toward accommodation when he said, "We're going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop." He and, I presumed, his boss viewed power as the absence of constraint.

These men believed that the president would be best equipped to identify and defeat the uncertain, shifting, and lethal new enemy by eliminating all hurdles to the exercise of his power.

Tags: terror, president, bush, cheney, addington, executive, power, secrecy, legal, torture

Zogby Survey Uncovers American Bias, Hypocrisy

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:30:07 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Detailed results worth viewing at source.

Pollster John Zogby said, “Over my years of polling, I’ve learned that Americans tend to offer socially acceptable responses when questioned on their own views about race and prejudice. That’s why in this poll we predominantly asked people about “most Americans’” views on race and prejudice. We believe this provides a far more accurate window into how people really think about these issues. Americans are more forthcoming when discussing the problem in the context of their neighbors’ lives than in the context of their own lives.”

Clip Source: www.zogby.com

Released: July 23, 2007

New Zogby/GSN Survey Reveals That:

A Racist Lives Next Door - Most Americans believe they don’t make decisions based on race…but think their neighbors do

A gay President is OK, but most Americans wouldn’t sanction his or her marriage

They also think most Americans believe:

Republicans are most responsible for many of the world’s ills

Muslims are most likely to engage in terrorism

People least want to work with the morbidly obese

The “Report Card on American Prejudice” is part of a wide-ranging effort by GSN to spur a national dialogue on intolerance and bigotry.

The survey of 10,387 American adults, one of the most comprehensive ever conducted on prejudice, according to Zogby, explores attitudes about race, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender, physical appearance, and politics.

Tags: survey, poll, zogby, usa, bias, hypocrisy, race, racism, politics, religion

A Tragic Legacy

Sun, 24 Jun 2007 19:01:48 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

And the president who vowed to lead the war for freedom and democracy has made torture, rendition, abductions, lawless detentions of even our own citizens, secret "black site" prisons, Abu Ghraib dog leashes, and orange Guantánamo jumpsuits the strange, new symbols of America around the world.

New essay by Glenn Greenwald on the future legacy of America's reaction to 9/11.

Clip Source: www.salon.com

A tragic legacy

How a good vs. evil mentality destroyed the Bush presidency.

One who believes himself to be leading a supreme war against Evil on behalf of Good will be incapable of understanding any claims that he himself is acting immorally.

These principles illuminate a central, and tragic, paradox at the heart of the Bush presidency.

The president who vowed to lead America in a moral crusade to win hearts and minds around the world has so inflamed anti-American sentiment that America's moral standing in the world is at an all-time low.

The president who vowed to undertake a war in defense of American values and freedoms has presided over such radical departures from the defining values and liberties of this country that many Americans find their country and its government unrecognizable.

Tags: bush, legacy, 9/11, terrorism, iraq, war, liberty, torture, guantanamo, history

Re-Thinking The War

Wed, 09 May 2007 17:58:26 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Here's looking forward to a time when clips on America's reputation are more fitting for the nation we aspire to be.

When the next major terrorist attack comes, the question will simply be how much liberty Americans have left. That is a victory al Qaeda could not have achieved by force of arms. It is something they have achieved with our witting and conscious help.

Clip Source: andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

This is why the Iraq war, so far, must be seen as a huge al Qaeda propaganda victory. Their narrative is that Muslims are under siege by an evil, imperialist, infidel army that tortures and abuses Muslims at will. Before Iraq, this was an absurdity. After Iraq, less so. Iraq has helped sustain al Qaeda's narrative with imagery and violence that will always stain the image of America in the Middle East. Yes, the paranoia of the Arab street would have invented such atrocities even if they didn't exist. But they did exist and continue to exist. The images of Abu Ghraib did not shock Iraqis used to far worse horrors under Saddam. But they did help educate Arabs and Muslims across the world into believing the very worst about U.S. intentions. Because this war is a war of ideas and ideals, this matters a huge amount. Our one massive advantage - that we are a free and decent civilization - has been fatally blurred.

Tags: america, us, war, iraq, al qaeda, abu ghraib, liberty, torture, foreign policy, terrorism

An Easter Sermon on Viral Marketing

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 20:10:28 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: By the inimitable Robert Wright.

The ultimate in viral marketing was Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice. Deemed a threat to the social order, he was crucified under Roman auspices. But the Romans forgot one thing: If you face a small but growing movement that threatens the imperial order, you shouldn’t attack the men in ways that help the memes.

Clip Source: theunknowncandidate.blogspot.com

An Easter Sermon

Jesus knew viral marketing.

In the Gospel of Mark, the disciple John complains that nondisciples are selling bootlegged copies of Jesus’ miraculous powers. “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”

Jesus tells John to quit obsessing about the intellectual property and to focus on getting the brand out. “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.” Jesus adds, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

Fast-forward two millennia. Weeks after 9/11, George Bush says roughly the opposite. His famous “You’re either with us or against us” means that those who don’t follow his lead will be considered enemies. The rest is history. Today, Jesus has more than a billion devoted followers. Mr. Bush has ... well, fewer than that.

Tags: marketing, viral, history, politics, empire, revenge, retribution, terrorism, terror, islam, jesus, christ, easter, religion, fundamentalism, america, abu ghraib, al qaeda, bush, war, meme, memes, bible

Ten Ways to Make Sure That Peace Stays Dead

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 11:41:24 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

Too many people on each side see the other as wholly culpable. Too many people on each side see themselves as wholly innocent, wholly victimized, ill-served by the well-meaning, abandoned by former allies, betrayed by the media, misunderstood by people who should know better, forgotten by the world.

Too many people on each side see only the suffering that has been caused them. Too many people have learned to wall themselves off from the suffering that they have caused.

Clip Source: www.haaretz.com

Ten ways to make sure that peace stays dead

By Bradley Burston

1. There is only one side to any story. My side.

2. The people on the other side, children included, are undeserving of sympathy.

3. Even the maimed and the dead on the other side are undeserving of sympathy.

4. The term massacre may only be used to describe casualties on my side.

5. The automatic fire, bombing, shelling or other lethal action taken by my side are acts of self-defense. If there are fatalities as a result of fire by my side, whether intentional or incidental, they deserved to die.

6. The concept of drawing comparisons of moral equivalency or mutual responsibility for violence is, in all cases, obscene, disgraceful, artificial, mendacious.

All political, military, social and religious modalities can be reduced to pure victims and pure villains, which is to say, Us and Them, which is to say, Us and animals/murderers/mass-murderers/racist genocidalists/Nazis/Hitler.

Option 7A: The goal of the left, the center, this newspaper, its writers, even some of its readers, is the destruction of the State of Israel.

Option 7B: The destruction of Israel is a worthwhile goal.

8. If I am a pro-Israel extremist, responding to a pro-Israel moderate, I should attack and dismiss the writer as a whiner, a crybaby, a defeatist, a moron, a wimp, an imbecile, a self-hater, an extreme leftist, naïve, brainwashed, a pipe-dreamer, duped by the pro-Arab bias of the mass media, a traitor.

9. If I am a pro-Palestinian extremist, responding to a pro-Palestinian moderate, I should immediately dismiss the writer as a sell-out, a fool, misguided, an Uncle Tom, unaware of the real facts, duped by a the pro-Israel bias of the mass media, a traitor.

10. The depth of my conviction, that is, the degree of my extremism, is directly proportional to the distance from my home to the Holy Land. The farther away, the more foaming-at-the-mouth my fanaticism.

Tags: israel, palestine, palestinians, israelis, middle east, war, terrorism, peace, list, suffering, victimization, vengeance, revenge, compromise, enemy, sympathy, fanatacism, extremism, dead, politics

Prominent conservative surveys the wreckage of contemporary conservatism

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 17:52:12 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: The entire article is highly reccommended for those that want to trace the GOP's post-9/11 "stumble into neoconservatism" from an insider's perspective. Bramwell's honesty and way with words are refreshing.

Until recently, it has been almost impossible for me to speak candidly about the conservative movement, for it was my strange fate to serve as director and later trustee of the movement’s flagship journal, National Review. Earlier this year, at William F. Buckley’s request, I resigned both positions. I can therefore now declare what perhaps has oft been thought but never, at least not often enough, expressed. Notwithstanding conservatives’ belief that they, in contrast to their partisan opponents, have thought deeply about the challenges facing the United States, it is they who have become unserious.

Clip Source: www.amconmag.com

November 20, 2006 Issue

The American Conservative

Good-bye to All That

by Austin W. Bramwell

Despite their vacuity, the metaphors have inspired specific policies. In defending the invasion and occupation of Iraq (and possible attacks on Syria or Iran), conservatives invoke 9/11 with astonishing alacrity. I once heard an NR senior editor, a man revered for his high-mindedness, begin his defense of the Iraq occupation by reminding the audience that on 9/11 “they” attacked “us.” In his mind as in others’, the invasion of Iraq has so inescapable a connection to 9/11 that only a traitor or fool would deny it.

In short, the steps in the causal logic whereby Iraqi democracy defeats anti-American terrorism are so numerous and doubtful that it becomes impossible to believe that Bush’s supporters have ever actually thought them through. Those who wonder what error befell the conservative movement since Bush took office are asking the wrong question. Since 9/11, the conservative movement has not made unsound or fallacious arguments for supporting Bush’s policies. Rather, it has made no arguments at all. T.S. Eliot once asked, “Are you alive or not? Is there nothing in your head?” The answer: “Nothing, again, nothing.”

Tags: bramwell, austin bramwell, national review, conservatives, neoconservatives, 9/11, iraq, war, politics, usa, foreign policy, middle east, islam, terrorism

American Conservative Magazine: GOP Must Go

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 15:05:26 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

There may be little Americans can do to atone for this presidency, which will stain our country’s reputation for a long time. But the process of recovering our good name must begin somewhere, and the logical place is in the voting booth this Nov. 7. If we are fortunate, we can produce a result that is seen—in Washington, in Peoria, and in world capitals from Prague to Kuala Lumpur—as a repudiation of George W. Bush and the war of aggression he launched against Iraq.

Clip Source: www.amconmag.com

November 20, 2006 Issue

GOP Must Go

It should surprise few readers that we think a vote that is seen—in America and the world at large—as a decisive “No” vote on the Bush presidency is the best outcome. We need not dwell on George W. Bush’s failed effort to jam a poorly disguised amnesty for illegal aliens through Congress or the assaults on the Constitution carried out under the pretext of fighting terrorism or his administration’s endorsement of torture. Faced on Sept. 11, 2001 with a great challenge, President Bush made little effort to understand who had attacked us and why—thus ignoring the prerequisite for crafting an effective response. He seemingly did not want to find out, and he had staffed his national-security team with people who either did not want to know or were committed to a prefabricated answer.

As a consequence, he rushed America into a war against Iraq, a war we are now losing and cannot win, one that has done far more to strengthen Islamist terrorists than anything they could possibly have done for themselves. Bush’s decision to seize Iraq will almost surely leave behind a broken state divided into warring ethnic enclaves, with hundreds of thousands killed and maimed and thousands more thirsting for revenge against the country that crossed the ocean to attack them. The invasion failed at every level: if securing Israel was part of the administration’s calculation—as the record suggests it was for several of his top aides—the result is also clear: the strengthening of Iran’s hand in the Persian Gulf, with a reach up to Israel’s northern border, and the elimination of the most powerful Arab state that might stem Iranian regional hegemony.

The war will continue as long as Bush is in office, for no other reason than the feckless president can’t face the embarrassment of admitting defeat. The chain of events is not complete: Bush, having learned little from his mistakes, may yet seek to embroil America in new wars against Iran and Syria.

Tags: american, conservative, conservatives, gop, bush, bush administration, war, iraq, policy, washington, election, campaign, midterm, vote, voters, referendum, principles, conservatism

Who Hijacked Islam??! (Video)

Fri, 13 Oct 2006 00:39:26 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Agree with him or not, you won't be able to ignore this guy.

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

Vlog #9: Who Hijacked Islam??!

Added July 28, 2006
From ummahfilms

Tags: islam, muslim, muslims, religion, extremists, fundamentalism, nationalism, terrorists, terrorism, stereotypes, media, hollywood

New Poll: Democrats Open Up Giant Gap Before Midterm Elections

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 04:21:58 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

Government corruption, Iraq and terrorism were the three most important issues to poll respondents. They said Democrats would do a better job on all three. The party had a 21-point advantage on handling corruption and a 17-point advantage on Iraq. A longstanding GOP advantage on terrorism vanished; Democrats had a 5-point edge.

Yet another set of record-breaking poll results in.

Clip Source: www.usatoday.com

Poll: Democratic candidates open large lead in congressional races

Updated 10/9/2006 7:32 PM ET

WASHINGTON — Four weeks before congressional elections, a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows Democrats hold a 23-point lead over GOP candidates. That's double the lead Republicans had a month before they seized control of Congress in 1994.

President Bush's approval rating was 37%, down from 44% in a Sept. 15-17 poll. The approval rating for Congress was 24%, down 5 points from last month.

The plummeting GOP ratings in the poll of 1,007 adults, taken Friday through Sunday, come after a series of dismal developments for the party. They include high levels of violence in Iraq; a National Intelligence Estimate that contradicted upbeat administration statements on Iraq; a new Bob Woodward book about internal White House disagreements over Iraq policy, and the Sept. 29 resignation of GOP Rep. Mark Foley hours after reports that he exchanged sexually explicit instant messages with teenage House pages.

She called the Foley scandal "the absolute crystallization for people of everything they dislike about Washington and the congressional Republicans."

Two-thirds of those in the survey said they are following the page scandal very or somewhat closely.

On the question of which party's candidate would receive their vote if the election were held today, Democrats held a 23-point lead over Republicans among every type of person questioned — likely voters, registered voters and adults. That's the largest lead Democrats have held among registered voters since 1978 and a jump from last month's 48%-48% split among likely voters.

Tags: poll, survey, usa today, gallup, voters, election, house, congress, representatives, conservatives, democrats, politics

The Rich Get Richer - James Kurth (The American Conservative)

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 02:39:24 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Wide-ranging article by Kurth exploring the historical rise and fall of first-world financial inequality through the lens of globalization, foreign policy, and the rise of Islamism.

Clip Source: www.amconmag.com

The American Conservative

September 25, 2006 Issue

Growing income disparity doesn’t presage a new labor movement at home — but it may signal more terrorism for us abroad.

by James Kurth

Tags: globalization, history, politics, conservatives, socialism, communism, marxism, interest, war, finance, rich, taxes, government, inequality, world, terrorism, islam

Official Catholic Doctrine on Torture and Terrorism

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 14:25:19 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: From The Catechism of the Catholic Church fnished in 1992, with accompanying Apostolic constitution, by a commission chaired by the current Pope Benedict XVI.

(Via Sullivan.)

Clip Source: www.kofc.org

The Catechism of the Catholic Church

Use your browser's BACK button to return to the main Catechism page.

PART 3, SECTION 2 2, CHAPTER 2 2, ARTICLE 5, SUBSECTION 2, HEADING 4

Respect for bodily integrity

2297 Kidnapping and hostage taking bring on a reign of terror; by means of threats they subject their victims to intolerable pressures. They are morally wrong. Terrorism threatens, wounds, and kills indiscriminately is gravely against justice and charity. Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity. Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.⁹¹

2298 In times past, cruel practices were commonly used by legitimate governments to maintain law and order, often without protest from the Pastors of the Church, who themselves adopted in their own tribunals the prescriptions of Roman law concerning torture. Regrettable as these facts are, the Church always taught the duty of clemency and mercy. She forbade clerics to shed blood. In recent times it has become evident that these cruel practices were neither necessary for public order, nor in conformity with the legitimate rights of the human person. On the contrary, these practices led to ones even more degrading. It is necessary to work for their abolition. We must pray for the victims and their tormentors.

Tags: torture, terrorism, law, doctrine, catholic, church, catechism, pope, benedict, human rights, religion, malleus maleficarum

FEAR FACTOR: Crying wolf about the British airline terrorist plot

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 02:51:40 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: Still waiting to be proved wrong that citizens were in danger of anything on August 10 besides a massive dose of manufactured hysteria.

There are, of course, other details that came out, but these are the main ones; and, over the last three weeks, doubts have been raised about each one of them. If the initial story offered by Chertoff and Townsend--and their British and Pakistani counterparts--represents a house, then that house is now tottering on its foundations and ready to collapse in ruins.

Clip Source: www.tnr.com

by John B. Judis

Only at TNR Online | Post date 09.05.06

n August 28, The New York Times ran a story on its Web page, "details emerge in british terror case," about the plot to blow up airliners that British investigators claimed to have uncovered last month. But the story did not appear in the newspaper itself nor in The International Herald-Tribune, its international edition, and it can't be found on LexisNexis. And the Times, fearing that it violated British law forbidding the revelation of details of a pending court case, blocked British Internet users from seeing the article.

The article did much more than reveal a few details about the pending case. It contained the most recent, and most damning, revelations about how American and British officials initially presented the case. According to sources quoted by the authors, these officials--including Michael Chertoff, the head of the Department of Homeland Security--grossly exaggerated the threat that the plotters posed. The 25 people that the British arrested were, to be sure, up to no good. But whether they were about to blow up U.S. airliners headed westward from London's Heathrow is not entirely clear, and it wasn't clear on August 10 when the case broke into the press. Here, briefly, is how what were initially claimed to be indisputable facts about the Heathrow plot that have become widely disputed.

Tags: london, england, august 10, bomb, bombers, terrorists, terrorism, muslim, pakistan, plot, airport, airline, security, fear, hysteria, manipulation