London to Host Islamic "Celebration" of 9/11

[MMMMMM]

excerpt:
"London to host Islamic 'celebration' of Sept 11
By Thair Shaikh
(Filed: 08/09/2002)

Extremist muslim clerics will meet in London on September 11 to celebrate the anniversary of al-Qaeda's attacks on America and to launch an organisation for Islamic militants.

The conference, which will be attended by the most radical mullahs in Britain, will argue that the atrocities were justified because Muslims must defend themselves against armed aggression.

It will launch the Islamic Council of Britain (ICB), which will aim to implement sharia law in Britain and will welcome al-Qa'eda sympathisers as members.

The conference, to be held at Finsbury Park mosque, north London, will be attended by followers of militant groups and chaired by their Muslim leaders, including Omar Bakri Mohammed, whose al-Muhajiroun group wants to establish a worldwide Islamic state." end excerpt

What idiocy. I'm inclined to think that England should deport them all for advocating aggressive violence. Unfortunately, the Enlightenment and Age of Reason bypassed much of the Muslim world and there are still a great many who believe in truth through revelation rather than through reason. The problems arise when they adopt a militant posture over it--I suspect that deporting all Islamic militants who are on visas or green cards (or the British equivalents) would probably be a good idea. After all, those who are not citizens are GUESTS--and can and should be deported for certain things and IMO calling for jihad is one of them. Granted not everyone attending that "celebration" would be calling for jihad but I bet the figure would be over 90%. Why allow the enemy to wage war from within one's own borders? Likewise the USA should probably deport all Muslims who call for jihad from within the USA if they are not already naturalized citizens. THEY'RE GUESTS--if they don't like us, well, why are they here--but we can live with that. But when they go so far as to be our guests and call for jihad against us, I think it's probably time we (and Great Britain) tell these individuals to get the hell out.


http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtri...optease_2.html

[tsherif]

I agree that this celebration is retarded. Anyone that thinks killing thousands of innocent people is remotely Islamic is an idiot.

However, I think your comment that the age of reason passed the muslim world by is a bit heavy handed, if not completely racist. Didn't the Kansas school board vote against teaching evolution/big bang theory in schools? Didn't Pat Robertson say that Orlando would be hit by a meteor for allowing gay pride parades. Religious nuts are everywhere. You can't paint a whole people by them. Especially considering the fact that the muslim world carried the arts and sciences for 1000 years while Europe was in the dark ages.

Also, I don't see how you want to defend the ideals of freedom and democracy by taking them away from people.

[MMMMMM]

tsherif: "However, I think your comment that the age of reason passed the muslim world by is a bit heavy handed, if not completely racist. Didn't the Kansas school board vote against teaching evolution/big bang theory in schools? Didn't Pat Robertson say that Orlando would be hit by a meteor for allowing gay pride parades. Religious nuts are everywhere. You can't paint a whole people by them. Especially considering the fact that the muslim world carried the arts and sciences for 1000 years while Europe was in the dark ages. "

First, I said the Age of Reason bypassed MUCH of the Islamic world, not ALL of it. And it did. Also, as you point out, there are some elements in our society which subscribe to truth through revelation rather than through reason--but the proportion here is much lower. You can verify this for yourself if you do enough searching and reading. So my comment may be a bit heavy-handed but it is nonetheless accurate and not at all racist. Fundamentalist Islam is far more popular in the Arab/Muslim world than is fundamentalist Christianity in the West. The fact that the Islamic world led in terms of science during the Dark Ages has nothing to do with the fact that after the Enlightenment and Age of Reason the reverse became true, and has remained so until today. I'm not saying this to merely slam them, but because their vision of an Islamic-ruled religious world is in direct conflict with the rest of the world (especially the West, because we embrace secularism and fundamentalist Islam hates secularism) and because it is erroneously based on truth through revelation rather than through reason.

tsherif: "Also, I don't see how you want to defend the ideals of freedom and democracy by taking them away from people."

I'm not saying we should take away any ideals of freedom and democracy from anyone. I'm saying that if foreigners are guests in our country and they call for war against us and join militant organizations dedicated to our overthrow, then they should be unceremoniously booted out (and so should England boot out their visiting Islamic militants). Who says we have to keep our doors open to guests who are trying to harm us? What's that got to do with freedom and democracy? They are guests and they should no longer be welcome if they are trying to harm us--it's not as complicated as you seem to be making it.

[tsherif]

First off, I can see your point on the freedom/democracy issue. Although I feel uneasy with the idea of deporting people just for saying they want a holy war, how many times do you have to hear someone say "I'm going to kill you" before you think "Hey, maybe this guy is up to no good"?

Although I would agree that the Middle East is more religious in general, I don't think fundamentalism is as rampant as you seem to think it is. Although my experience is mostly in the more secular Egypt, I have to say that among the educated there, the desire is not to have the religion in place of science, but to find some kind of balance between the two. Keep in mind that secularism was incubating in Europe for 300 years before it was thrust upon the arab world. Of course it will take some time for it to integrate itself into the culture. And the economy being what it is in most arab countries, the education system tends to be pretty weak, which doesn't help matters.

Also, keep in mind that secularism, in it's current state, is not the be all and end all of philosiphy. It has produced it's own share of problems: Columbine, Oklahoma, Tom Green.

[ripdog]

I saw one of these clerics being interviewed on MSNBC or FOX, I don't know which. The guy answered every question with an explanation of how the U.S. brought 9/11 on itself and how we pretty much deserved it. He talked of what we should do to appease the Islamic extremists..I was doing the dishes and couldn't follow the conversation word for word. The host told the guy he was out of time and how lucky he was to be in a country like Britain or the U.S., where he can make statements like this without having to worry about having his tongue cut out. Thank you for your time. With that the feed to this guy cut out abruptly. I was grinning to myself.

Right wing Christians by and large don't advocate killing their counterparts, while Islamists advocate destroying the
West and Israel. That's a pretty big difference. There's an interesting book written by Daniel Pipes about Militant Islamists in the US. He estimates that 15% of Muslims are
Islamists so we are dealing with around 200 million of these
crazy bastards who seek to destroy are way of life.

Bruce