Signal, No Noise

Neo-Nazis Seek Foothold in Kindergartens

mungurk — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:41:53 +0000

Neo-Nazis Seek Foothold in Kindergartens

Neo-Nazis at a demonstration in Halbe, eastern Germany.

An eastern German state is so worried about neo-Nazis trying to take over kindergartens that it has ordered teachers to vow allegiance to democracy. But that won’t tackle the underlying problem — the racist youths who assaulted immigrants in the 1990s are now parents intent on rearing little skinheads.

The government of the eastern German state of Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania took the unusual step last month of ordering anyone setting up a children’s day-care center to pledge their support for Germany’s democratic constitution. The move followed a number of cases in which neo-Nazis had tried to take over the running of a kindergarten, influence teaching in nurseries or get recruited as teachers.

The announcement conjured up dark visions of neo-Nazi pied pipers teaching toddlers the Hitler salute. While such fears are exaggerated, and incidents have been isolated, anti-Nazi campaigners say they have indeed detected a new and disturbing phenomenon: the attempted indoctrination of young children by teachers and parents in the former communist east, which continues to grapple with a strong neo-Nazi presence even after more than a decade of government policies to counter the problem.

Schleswig’s decree followed a widely reported case in February when the village of Bartow in the northeast of the state almost permitted a father of seven to take over a kindergarten which had been on the verge of closing due to a lack of funds. The man had agreed to run it free of charge. When the mayor checked out his credentials, he found out that he was a member of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), which glorifies the Third Reich. He politely declined the offer.

Racist Books in Nurseries

Concern is also growing that in some thinly populated regions there may be enough neo-Nazi parents to secure a majority on parent boards.

“Within the far-right scene there appears to be a more or less clear strategy to encourage young women to train for teaching and social work jobs because that offers an opportunity to spread nationalist ideology,” Heike Radvan, an educational scientist at the Berlin-based Amadeu Antonio Foundation, an anti-racism group, told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

“This is an observation we have made over the long term, and the trend seems to be increasing.”

An editorial in Deutsche Stimme (the German Voice), the newspaper of the NPD, published in April encouraged members to go into teaching to promote “nationalist education” for young Germans.

NPD spokesman Klaus Beier said on Tuesday that the party wasn’t actively lobbying its members to become kindergarten and nursery teachers. “But of course it is quite natural and normal that NPD members and sympathizers should want to get involved in these areas. Kindergartens and schools should be politically neutral but unfortunately they are being instrumentalized by left-wingers,” Beier told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

The party’s regional organisation in Mecklenburg said in a statement in July that efforts underway to counter far-right influence in kindergartens amounted to “politically correct brainwashing” of children. “The parents will find ways to prevent this kind of re-education,” the statement said.

Analysts doubt whether the neo-Nazi scene is pursuing a deliberate long-term indoctrination strategy. They say the debate about extremists in kindergartens is detracting from the far bigger problem of toddlers being influenced by their own far-right parents.

A New Generation

The youths who made international headlines by assaulting immigrants and asylum-seekers in the 1990s have had children, and are demanding a say in their education.

The prospect of a second generation of eastern neo-Nazis has dashed any lingering hopes that the upsurge in far-right support following German unification in 1990 might have been a temporary phenomenon caused by the collapse of the eastern economy and the resulting social upheaval and mass unemployment.

“A generation socialized in the far-right scene in the 1990s has now had children and we have to deal with the phenomenon of children of right-wing extremists in nurseries and schools,” Friedemann Bringt, who advises local authorities in the eastern state of Saxony on how to cope with far-right intimidation, told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

“Right-wing extremism has become embedded in eastern Germany since the 1990s and has a stable voter base.”

It is a depressing trend for anti-racism campaigners and government officials who have run programs to combat racism and neo-Nazism in the region since the 1990s.

“Far-right thinking is commonplace in many regions of eastern Germany and many people don’t view it as extremist,” Bernd Wagner, a prominent analyst of the far-right who co-founded EXIT, a group that helps neo-Nazis quit the scene, told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

“Many people — normal citizens, not just youths — view racial ideologies as common sense,” Wagner said. “The view that races are embroiled in a battle for survival is widespread. It’s social Darwinism. People view strangers as a potential threat that must be driven away.

“I am concerned that right-wing extremists could become managers of kindergartens,” said Manuela Schleswig, the state’s social affairs minister. Effective August 1, all managers setting up new nurseries or taking over existing ones in the state have been required to declare that they and their staff subscribe to the principles of democracy.The announcement conjured up dark visions of neo-Nazi pied pipers teaching toddlers the Hitler salute. While such fears are exaggerated, and incidents have been isolated, anti-Nazi campaigners say they have indeed detected a new and disturbing phenomenon: the attempted indoctrination of young children by teachers and parents in the former communist east, which continues to grapple with a strong neo-Nazi presence even after more than a decade of government policies to counter the problem.

Racist Books in Nurseries

Anti-racism activists say there has been a growing incidence of far-right members either training to be kindergarten carers or attempting to influence nurseries — for example parents bringing in racist books or demanding that photos of immigrant children be removed from the walls.
Concern is also growing that in some thinly populated regions there may be enough neo-Nazi parents to secure a majority on parent boards.

“This is an observation we have made over the long term, and the trend seems to be increasing.”
An editorial in Deutsche Stimme (the German Voice), the newspaper of the NPD, published in April encouraged members to go into teaching to promote “nationalist education” for young Germans.

A New Generation

The youths who made international headlines by assaulting immigrants and asylum-seekers in the 1990s have had children, and are demanding a say in their education.
The prospect of a second generation of eastern neo-Nazis has dashed any lingering hopes that the upsurge in far-right support following German unification in 1990 might have been a temporary phenomenon caused by the collapse of the eastern economy and the resulting social upheaval and mass unemployment.

“Right-wing extremism has become embedded in eastern Germany since the 1990s and has a stable voter base.”

It is a depressing trend for anti-racism campaigners and government officials who have run programs to combat racism and neo-Nazism in the region since the 1990s.

Analysts said far-right views remain endemic in the east because decades of authoritarian rule until the fall of the Berlin Wall had made the region fertile ground for right-wing ideology. The problem was compounded by East Germany’s education system, which failed to instill a sense of national responsibility for the crimes of the Nazis.”Far-right thinking is commonplace in many regions of eastern Germany and many people don’t view it as extremist,” Bernd Wagner, a prominent analyst of the far-right who co-founded EXIT, a group that helps neo-Nazis quit the scene, told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Part 2: Teaching the Teachers

Activists say teachers need better training on how to spot far-right parents and how to counter any attempts by them to influence their work. The Amadeu Antonio Foundation, named after an Angolan immigrant who was murdered by neo-Nazis in the town of Eberswalde near Berlin in November 1990, is running a training course for teachers in the northeastern town of Ludwigslust.

“We show how to identify extremist parents by their clothing. Teachers need to know that they can set up a code of conduct for the nursery and simply evict parents who don’t stick to the rules,” Sandra Pingel-Schliemann, one of the project’s coaches, told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

“We get reports of constant confrontation with far-right people in some nurseries. One has to ask oneself what happens in the minds of little children who grow up with an ideology of hatred at home and then come to the nursery where they are taught exactly the opposite.

“We have noticed that the children of far-right parents tend to be very uncommunicative. When you ask them on a Monday what they did that weekend they won’t tell you.”

Swastika Cakes and Kids Called ‘Odin’

In some cases far-right parents can be identified by the Nordic names they call their children. “Some parents bring in children and say their child is called ‘Odin’ or ‘Heil Odin,’ says Heike Radvan, the education scientist. Nordic mythology is popular with Nazis and “Odin” is the name of one of its main gods.

Radvan also said she had heard of one mother who opposed a school calling itself “School Without Racism” and posted a recipe for a swastika-shaped cake on her home page.

Some parents try to curry favor with nurseries by providing unpaid help. “There are cases where mothers in a first step get involved in the nursery, for example by helping to build a playground,” said Radvan. “But then it becomes clear that they’re trying to bring in ideology. They may bring in a racist children’s book, for example. Or they might argue that a picture should be removed from the wall because it shows an immigrant child.”

Eastern Germany has been dogged by right-wing extremism ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Attacks on Jewish property and racist assaults on ethnic minorities are still commonplace in the region.

Assaults on people of dark skin color have become so frequent that immigrant groups have labelled parts of the east as “no-go areas”. Police recorded 891 far-right assaults in Germany in 2009, of which 351 were deemed racist and a further 31 anti-Semitic, according to the 2009 report of domestic intelligence service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). The statistics show that on a per capita basis, the incidence of attacks is highest in eastern regions.

The total of recorded far-right crimes in 2009 was 18,750, including offenses such as arson, daubing swastikas on headstones in Jewish cemeteries or smashing the windows of takeaway restaurants run by immigrants.

The NPD openly espouses Nazi ideology but also benefits from Germany’s liberal laws on freedom of speech and is a legitimate party — despite a failed attempt in the past by the federal government to ban it — which entitles it to public funding.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution describes its as a “racist, anti-Semitic, revisionist” party bent on removing democracy and forming a Fourth Reich. It has seats in the regional parliaments of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony.

‘Time to Tackle the Parents’

So far none of Germany’s 15 other regional states has said it plans to issue a similar decree ordering nursery operators to sign up to the constitution. And several anti-racism campaigners said it wouldn’t help.

“I think it’s nonsense and totally exaggerated to respond by issuing such a rule,” said Wagner, the former police officer who co-founded EXIT. “It won’t have any impact because any NPD member would simply sign a pledge to the democratic constitution.

“Besides, what about the far-right parents who bring their children to the nursery? We urgently needed to address the welfare of children who grow up in such families and find out what scope local authorities have to deal with that.”

But amid all the gloom, there are some rays of hope, said Bringt, the anti-Nazi campaigner who runs an advice center in Dresden.

“I’ve got a positive feeling because we here in Saxony have launched some 120 pro-democracy initiatives over the last 10 years. That’s how I measure success. Victims of neo-Nazis know now that there are advice centers they can go to. And local authorities have set up structures for tackling the problem. But it’s a phenomenon that will take a very long time to combat.”

Switzerland Confidential: Behold the Legal Sex Drive-Thru

mungurk — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:53:52 +0000

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Switzerland Confidential: Behold the Legal Sex Drive-Thru

By: ALLIE TOWNSEND

It looks like police in Zurich are subscribing to the “if you can’t beat them, build them little huts to do the nasty in” theory of prostitution control. Only in Europe.

Prostitution has become such a problem in Switzerland that Zurich officials have made proposals to add “sex boxes” to the city. The idea itself is adopted from German cities like Essen and Cologne, and will be a way for prostitution to continue on behind closed, uh, doors.

The boxes will serve as quickie drive-throughs, so-to-speak, and will free up city streets from unsightly acts that haunt Zurich residents whose homes overlook the city’s red light district. “They get up to all sorts in broad daylight – and we’re sick to death of looking at it,” one resident told the U.K.’s Metro. (Silvio Berlusconi and the Politics of Sex)

From the looks of things, the boxes are big enough to conceal vehicles while prostitutes and clients handle business, away from the public eye.

This somewhat laissez faire approach to Swiss sex industry control even comes an official police endorsement: “We can’t get rid of prostitution, so have to learn how to control it,” Police spokesman Reto Casanova said.

Mosque Protesters Now Pointing Old, Rented Missiles at Park51

mungurk — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:40:07 +0000

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Mosque Protesters Now Pointing Old, Rented Missiles at Park51

Fast Company’s Mark Borden tweets this terrifying photo of a rented, decommissioned missile that “Ground Zero” “Mosque” protesters are driving around the proposed Islamic community center site today, and perhaps indefinitely. Take that, “productive interfaith dialogue” prospects!

Send an email to Jim Newell, the author of this post, at newell@gawker.co

Report: Iran Paying Taliban to Kill U.S. Troops

mungurk — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:26:51 +0000

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Report: Iran Paying Taliban to Kill U.S. Troops

Published September 05, 2010 | Sunday Times

KABUL — At least five Iranian companies in Afghanistan’s capital are using their offices covertly to finance Taliban militants in provinces near Kabul, according to an investigation by London’s Sunday Times.

Afghan intelligence and Taliban sources have told the newspaper that the firms, set up in the past six months, provide cash for a network of district Taliban treasurers to pay battlefield expenses and bonuses for killing the enemy and destroying their vehicles.

The Iranian companies win contracts to supply materials and logistics to Afghans involved in reconstruction. The money often comes in the form of aid from foreign donors.

Profits are transferred through poorly regulated Afghan banks — including Kabul Bank, which is partly owned by President Hamid Karzai’s brother Mahmood — to Tehran and Dubai.

From these countries, the money returns to Afghanistan through the informal Islamic banking system known as hawala to be dispersed to the Taliban.

“This means the companies involved in funding the insurgency can cover their tracks easily. It makes it harder for us to trace the cashflow,” a senior Afghan intelligence official said.

Iranian companies have been established with the intention of winning contracts funded by foreign aid so that donors’ cash could be channeled into the insurgency, the official said. Western officials believe the network may have been set up by the Al-Quds force, an elite branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

The Iranian embassy in Kabul refused to respond to the allegations. But according to the Taliban treasurer, who has been interviewed by The Sunday Times, Iran is paying bonuses of $1,000 for killing an American soldier and $6,000 for destroying a U.S. military vehicle.

Parents say priest got daughter pregnant

mungurk — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:21:51 +0000

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Parents say priest got daughter pregnant

Published: Aug. 28, 2010 at 2:37 PM

READING, Pa., Aug. 28 (UPI) — A Pennsylvania family has sued the diocese of Allentown, saying Catholic officials failed to supervise the priest who impregnated their daughter.

The young woman was 19 when she gave birth, The Allentown Morning Call reports. But her family says the Rev. Luis Bonilla Margarito began having sex with her when she was a 17-year-old senior at Reading Central Catholic High School, where he was a chaplain.

The lawsuit, filed in Berks County, also names Bonilla, the high school and the current and former bishops of Allentown as defendants.

The diocese dismissed Bonilla in November from St. Joseph’s Church in Reading and from the high school. Officials said they had learned of his affair with a young woman.

The young woman’s parents say they secretly videotaped a counseling session between Bonilla and their daughter because they had become suspicious of his advice and discovered they had taped a sexual encounter. The parents said they overheard him telling her she did not have to obey them because she was legally an adult.

The parents say Bonilla continued to have sex with their daughter after his dismissal.

Catholic Church defends male-only priesthood

mungurk — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:19:20 +0000

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Catholic Church defends male-only priesthood

Barring women from being Catholic priests is not the result of sexism 2,000 years ago, it’s because women cannot fulfill a basic function of the priesthood, “standing in the place of Jesus,” a leading British Catholic thinker argued Monday.

“This teaching is not at all a judgment on women’s abilities or rights. It says something about the specific role of the priest in Catholic understanding – which is to represent Jesus, to stand in his place,” argued Father Stephen Wang in a statement sent out by the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales.

It’s rare for the Catholic Church to defend its fundamental positions in this way.

Wang was responding to the announcement that campaigners for female priests will plaster posters on London buses next month during the pope’s visit to London.

The ads read “Pope Benedict – Ordain Women Now!” and will be on 15 double-decker buses running in some of London’s main tourist areas, including Parliament and Oxford Street, said Pat Brown, a spokeswoman for Catholic Women’s Ordination (CWO).

The group spent “in excess of 10,000 pounds” ($15,500) on the ads and is hoping donations will help make up at least part of that cost, Brown told CNN Friday.

Wang rejected both the tone and the content of the ads, saying that while an atheist ad campaign last year was “hesitant and ended with gentle exhortations,” this one ends “with a shout.”

And it’s based on a fundamental misunderstanding, said Wang, the dean of studies at London’s main seminary for Catholic priests, Allen Hall.

Pope John Paul II declared in 1994 that the church has no authority to ordain women, a position confirmed a year later by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI. At the time, Ratzinger was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the arbiter of Catholic Church dogma.

Wang called the late pope’s position “surprising,” saying John Paul had meant he did not have the power to change “something that has been such a fundamental part of Christian identity from the beginning.”

The bottom line is that Jesus chose 12 men – and no women – to be his apostles, Wang argues.

The choice was “deliberate and significant, not just for that first period of history, but for every age,” Wang says.

Men and women are equal in Christianity, he continues, but “this does not mean that our sexual identity as men and women is interchangeable. Gender is not just an accident.”

He compared the role of a priest to that of an actor playing King Arthur or British soccer star Wayne Rooney in a movie.

“No one would be surprised if I said I wanted a male actor to play the lead,” he said, admitting the analogy was “weak.”

But, he said, “it shouldn’t surprise us if we expect a man to stand ‘in the person of Christ’ as a priest, to represent Jesus in his humanity – a humanity that is not sexually neutral.”

The Catholic women’s group says that in addition to its bus campaign, it plans to hold a vigil September 15, the day before the pope’s visit, outside Westminster Cathedral.

The group also plans to demonstrate at Lambeth Palace, the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury – the head of the Church of England – during his meeting with the pope.

And members plan to hold a banner along the route of the popemobile, the secure vehicle which carries the pope, in London.

Pope Benedict plans to visit England and Scotland September 16-19. It will be the first state visit to the United Kingdom by a pope, according to the British Foreign Office. John Paul’s trip in 1982 was officially a pastoral visit.

CNN’s Richard Allen Greene and Melissa Gray contributed to this report.

Police kill Green Terrorist who held 3 at Discovery Channel

mungurk — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:17:03 +0000

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Police kill gunman who held 3 at Discovery Channel

Posted 9/1/2010 9:14 PM ET


Enlarge	by Manuel Balce Ceneta, AP

An armored vehicle drives near the Discovery Channel network’s building in Silver Spring, Md., Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010. Police shot and killed a man upset with the Discovery Channel network’s programming who took two employees and a security officer hostage at the company’s headquarters Wednesday, officials said. All three hostages escaped safely. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

By Sarah Brumfield, Associated Press Writer

SILVER SPRING, Md. — A man who railed against the Discovery Channel’s environmental programming for years burst into the company’s headquarters with at least one explosive device strapped to his body Wednesday and took three people hostage at gunpoint before police shot him to death, officials said.

The hostages — two Discovery Communications employees and a security guard — were unhurt after the four-hour standoff. Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger said tactical officers moved in after officers monitoring Lee on building security cameras saw him pull out a handgun and point it at a hostage.

An explosive device on the gunman’s body detonated when police shot him, Manger said. Police were trying to determine whether two boxes and two backpacks the gunman had also contained explosives.

A law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing said authorities had identified James J. Lee as the likely suspect.

NBC News reported that after its producers called Discovery’s general number, a man identifying himself as James J. Lee got on the phone and said he had a gun and several bombs.

“I have several bombs strapped to my body ready to go off. I have a device that if I drop it, if I drop it, it will … explode,” the man told NBC.

He said he built the bombs in about three weeks. “I did a lot of research. I had to experiment,” he said.

Manger said the suspect held the hostages in the lobby area of the first floor. Authorities said they will methodically go through the building and identify any suspicious items.

The “building is still a crime scene,” Manger said. “We still have work to do.”

Manger said police spent several hours negotiating with the armed man after he entered the suburban Washington building about 1 p.m. None of the 1,900 people who work in the building were hurt, and most made it out before the standoff ended.

Lee was convicted of disorderly conduct for a protest he organized outside Discovery’s offices in February 2008. According to court records, he paid homeless people to carry signs and set off a scramble for money when he threw fistfuls of cash into the air, calling it “just trash.”

Lee served two weeks in jail. County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said Lee was ordered to stay 500 feet away from Discovery headquarters as part of his probation, which ended two weeks ago. A magistrate ordered a doctor’s evaluation, but the result was not immediately available Wednesday.

“The Discovery Channel produces many so-called ‘Environmental Programs’ supposedly there to save the planet,” Lee said in an ad he took out in a Washington newspaper to promote the protest. “But the truth is things are getting WORSE! Their programs are causing more harm than good.”

In court and online, Lee faulted the Discovery Channel for shows as varied as “Future Weapons,” “It Takes a Thief” and “Planet Green.”

A lengthy posting that could be seen Wednesday on a website registered to Lee said Discovery and its affiliates should stop “encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants,” a possible reference to shows like “Kate Plus 8″ and “19 Kids and Counting.” Instead, he said, the network should air “programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility.”

Discovery Communications Inc. operates U.S. cable and satellite networks including The Discovery Channel, TLC and Animal Planet. Discovery shows include “Cash Cab” and “Man vs. Wild,” and TLC airs “American Chopper” and “Kate Plus 8.”

David Leavy, Discovery’s executive vice president for corporate affairs, said all employees had been accounted for. “We’re relieved that it ended without any harm to our employees,” he said.

Melissa Shepard, 32, of Peterborough, N.H., a consultant who works in the building, said she was on the third floor with several other workers when someone announced over a loudspeaker that there was a situation in the lobby and people should stay at their desks.

After some time, they were told to move to the other end of the building. She said she was among a dozen workers who went into an office, shut the door and turned off the lights.

Then she said someone knocked on the door and told them to leave the building. She said there was some confusion as they were told to go to an upper floor or down the stairs.

“Finally, I screamed, ‘Tell us where we need to go! … I just want to get out of there,’” she said. “I was shaking. … I was like, ‘What do we do? What do we do?’”

Adam Dolan, a sales director in Discovery’s education division, said that when he got to the bottom floor he saw shattered glass near the company’s day-care center and suspected it was broken to get the children out. He later got an e-mail saying the children were safe and had been taken to a McDonald’s.

Dolan said the company has unarmed security guards who won’t let anyone into the building without a badge.

Leavy said Discovery hopes and expects to be open Thursday. “The priority is going to be nurturing and responding to employee needs over the coming days as this is a scary event,” he said.

Discovery officials are familiar with the suspect and his past protest at the building, Leavy said.

At Lee’s trial, The Gazette of Montgomery County reported, Lee said he began working to save the planet after being laid off from his job in San Diego.

He said he was inspired by “Ishmael,” a novel by environmentalist Daniel Quinn, and by former Vice President Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Quinn told The Associated Press from his home in Houston that he found out about the standoff in Maryland from the media. Just a few hours later, he said he was feeling “a bit ragged” after getting calls from reporters across the country.

He said he had never heard of Lee and was stunned that Lee’s manifesto advocated things like human sterilization and an end to farming, ideas Quinn said he would never support.

“He wants to get more exposure … and he thinks that he can get it … by occupying Discovery,” Quinn said. He added that if he could talk to Lee, he would tell him “he’s giving a bad name to the ideas that he’s trying to espouse.”

___

Associated Press Writers Kathleen Miller in Silver Spring; Matthew Barakat in Rockville, Md.; Matt Apuzzo, Eileen Sullivan and Nafeesa Syeed in Washington; Ben Nuckols in Baltimore; Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Houston; and Jacob Jordan in Atlanta contributed to this report.

mungurk — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:44:28 +0000

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Aamir Qureshi / AFP-Getty ImagesThe nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan.

Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, widely considered the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, has kept a low profile since his unprecedented 2004 television address accepting sole responsibility for providing nuclear know-how to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. President Pervez Musharraf pardoned Khan the following day, but after a period under house arrest, he remains closely watched by authorities. NEWSWEEK PAKISTAN’S Fasih Ahmed recently conducted an e-mail interview with the nuclear scientist hailed as a hero inside his own country and a threat to global security outside of it. Excerpts:

Pakistan’s nuclear assets are often described as the “Islamic bomb.” Given that no other Muslim-majority country has the bomb, is this description something that you agree with?

The term “Islamic Bomb” was mischievously coined by the Western world to frighten the rest of the world and to portray Muslims, and Pakistan, as terrorists who should not possess an atom bomb. The Western world is united in Muslim-bashing and ridiculing Islam and its golden values.

The U.N. has slapped sanctions on Iran—ostensibly as punishment for the Islamic country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. How do you see global geopolitics shifting if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons?

In Iran the same mischievous propaganda is at work to befool the rather ignorant—or less knowledgeable—public that it poses a threat and is a fanatic, terrorist country. Have we already forgotten that, despite the repeated statements of no WMD in Iraq that were made by [former U.N. weapons inspector] Hans Blix after IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors made regular visits to that country, Bush and Blair still attacked Iraq? In this process they killed thousands of people, destroyed an ancient civilization, occupied the country, and put stooges in place to play their part in the killing of their own people. Iran, as everyone knows, is a member of the NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] regime, that it is open to IAEA inspection of all its sites, to which it is adhering, and that it cannot produce nuclear weapons material or nuclear weapons. This is yet another example of Western hypocrisy.

Most here take pride in the fact that Pakistan is a nuclear state and believe this has served as a deterrent to conventional war with India.

Yes, I fully agree. Our nuclear program has ensured our survival, our security, and our sovereignty … I am proud to have contributed to it together with my patriotic and able colleagues.

Former ISI chief Javed Ashraf Qazi recently told Pakistan’s Dawn News TV channel that CIA agents were caught in 1994–95 trying to buy information on Pakistan’s nuclear program. The refrain that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are unsafe and can fall into the hands of radical Islamic organizations is also often played up in the Western press. How secure is the nuclear arsenal?

Nobody ever penetrated Kahuta [the site of Pakistan’s main nuclear facility], nor could they do so. The Americans, contrary to their tall claims, were totally in the dark about the status of our program. Majors—or even generals, for that matter—had no access to sensitive and classified information … [Kahuta] or PAEC [Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission] were never a department store where one could go and pick up a bomb! The American and British intelligence agencies tried to bribe and buy two of our scientists, who refused all sorts of incentives and reported the matter to me.

Can nuclear weapons fall into the wrong hands?

This is again a Western myth and one of their phobias. A nuclear weapon—good or dirty—is a highly complicated and sophisticated device. A large number of parts are needed, and expertise is required to assemble such a device. Even scientists and engineers without the relevant experience are not able to do this, let alone to talk of illiterate, untrained terrorists.

We have examples of countries, like South Africa and, to an extent, Libya, that decided to give up on their nuclear ambitions. How realistic is the possibility of a world with no nukes?

It is very convenient to give South Africa and Libya as examples of self-deweaponization. However, let us look at the backgrounds first. In South Africa the “whites” destroyed their nuclear weapons before handing over power to the “blacks.” They could not accept the fact that “black” people should—or could—possess them. The Libyans panicked after the West attacked Iraq and eliminated Saddam Hussein by falsely accusing that country of possessing nuclear weapons.

The U.S. was aware of Pakistan’s nuclear program but turned a blind eye to it during the original Afghan jihad. As soon as the Soviets were defeated, the U.S. Congress barred American military aid to Pakistan. Has the world made an unfair distinction between Pakistan’s and India’s pursuit of a nuclear program?

The Afghan War was a blessing for our nuclear program. It was not that the Western countries actively supported it but that they were too scared and occupied with the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and its future consequences to actively oppose it. Neither the Americans nor the British had a clue about the status of our program until 1990. After the Afghan War they slapped sanctions on us to extract concessions from [fomer Pakistani president] Benazir Bhutto’s government, but [former president] Ghulam Ishaq Khan and [former Army chief] Gen. Aslam Beg frustrated their nefarious designs.

There have been reports that the American Joint Special Operations Command wanted to assassinate you. How safe do you feel?

It is all pure humbug. Nobody ever tried to assassinate me. I traveled all over the world at a time when everyone knew that I was the architect of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. The fact is that Allah Almighty had not yet fixed the time and place for my demise. I never was, and never will be, afraid of so-called threats. When our predetermined time comes, Hazrat Izrael [the angel of death] will find us, no matter where we are hiding.

Have the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq made the world safer?

No, the world is not a safer place. Nationalists—call them fundamentalists or extremists if you like—have obtained a mobilization point with [the wars], have united, and are determined to negate the plans and designs of the Western countries.

The CIA chief, Leon Panetta, said earlier this year that Pakistan is now the headquarters of Al Qaeda. British leaders have declared Pakistan the exporter of global terrorism. Is this accurate, and, if so, what can Pakistan do to turn the tide?

The CIA chief—like his bosses and those before him—is a liar. There is no headquarters of Al Qaeda in Pakistan. Yes, Pakistan has become very unsafe due to foreign troops in Afghanistan. Our cohesion has been shattered. The spineless political leaders have turned our country—a nuclear and missile power with [180] million people—into a beggar state, a third-rate country. If there had been any pride left in our leaders, they would have responded appropriately and nobody would have dared to say such things in the first place.

Obama Says Iraq Combat Mission Is Over

mungurk — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:31:58 +0000

source
By HELENE COOPER and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: August 31, 2010
(Doug Mills/The New York Times) President Obama addressed the nation from the Oval Office about the end of combat in Iraq on Tuesday night.

WASHINGTON — President Obama declared an end on Tuesday to the seven-year American combat mission in Iraq, saying that the United States has met its responsibility to that country and that it is now time to turn to pressing problems at home.

In a prime-time address from the Oval Office, Mr. Obama balanced praise for the troops who fought and died in Iraq with his conviction that getting into the conflict had been a mistake in the first place. But he also used the moment to emphasize that he sees his primary job as addressing the weak economy and other domestic issues — and to make clear that he intends to begin disengaging from the war in Afghanistan next summer.

“We have sent our young men and women to make enormous sacrifices in Iraq, and spent vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home,” Mr. Obama said. “Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it’s time to turn the page.”

Seeking to temper partisan feelings over the war on a day when Republicans pointed out that Mr. Obama had opposed the troop surge generally credited with helping to bring Iraq a measure of stability, the president offered some praise for his predecessor, George W. Bush. Mr. Obama acknowledged their disagreement over Iraq but said that no one could doubt Mr. Bush’s “support for our troops, or his love of country and commitment to our security.”

Mr. Obama spoke for about 18 minutes, saying that violence would continue in Iraq and that the United States would continue to play a key role in nurturing a stable democracy there. He celebrated America’s fighting forces as “the steel in our ship of state,” and pledged not to waver in the fight against Al Qaeda.

But he suggested that he sees his role in addressing domestic issues as dominant, saying that it would be difficult to get the economy rolling again but that doing so was “our central mission as a people, and my central responsibility as president.”

With his party facing the prospect of losing control of Congress in this fall’s elections and his own poll numbers depressed in large part because of the lackluster economy and still-high unemployment, he said the nation’s perseverance in Iraq must be matched by determination to address problems at home.

Over the last decade, “we have spent over a trillion dollars at war, often financed by borrowing from overseas,” he said. “And so at this moment, as we wind down the war in Iraq, we must tackle those challenges at home with as much energy and grit and sense of common purpose as our men and women in uniform who have served abroad.”

Mr. Obama acknowledged a war fatigue among Americans who have called into question his focus on the Afghanistan war, now approaching its 10th year. He said that American forces in Afghanistan “will be in place for a limited time” to give Afghans the chance to build their government and armed forces.

“But, as was the case in Iraq, we cannot do for Afghans what they must ultimately do for themselves,” the president said. He reiterated that next July he would begin transferring responsibility for security to Afghans, at a pace to be determined by conditions.

“But make no mistake: this transition will begin, because open-ended war serves neither our interests nor the Afghan people’s,” he said.

This was no iconic end-of-war moment with photos of soldiers kissing nurses in Times Square or victory parades down America’s Main Streets.

Instead, in the days leading to the Tuesday night deadline for the withdrawal of American combat troops, it has appeared as if administration officials and the American military were the only ones marking the end of this country’s combat foray into Iraq. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are all in Baghdad for the official ceremony on Wednesday.

The very sight of Mr. Obama addressing Americans from the Oval Office — from the same desk where Mr. Bush announced the beginning of the conflict — shows the distance traveled since the Iraq war began. On the night of March 20, 2003, when the Army’s Third Infantry Division first rolled over the border from Kuwait into Iraq, Mr. Obama was a state senator in Illinois.

Mr. Bush was at the height of his popularity, and the perception at home and in many places abroad was that America could achieve its national security goals primarily through military power. One of the biggest fears among the American troops in the convoy pouring into Iraq that night — every one of them suited in gas masks and wearing biohazard suits — was that the man they came to topple might unleash a chemical weapons attack.

Seven years and five months later, the biggest fears of American soldiers revolve around the primitive, basic, homemade bombs and old explosives in Afghanistan that were left over from the Soviet invasion. In Iraq, what was perceived as a threat from a powerful dictator, Saddam Hussein, has dissolved into the worry that as United States troops pull out they are leaving behind an unstable and weak government that could be influenced by Iran.

On Tuesday, a senior intelligence official said that Iran continues to supply militant groups in Iraq with weapons, training and equipment.

Saudi Arabia Crushing Political Opposition in Name of Counterterrorism

mungurk — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:28:48 +0000

source

Riyadh reportedly crushing dissent

Published: Aug. 31, 2010 at 1:54 PM

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Aug. 31 (UPI) — A crackdown in Saudi Arabia on Islamic militancy is used as a pretense to arrest dissidents seeking political reform, opponents said.

Washington praised Saudi Arabia for rounding up scores of Islamic militants in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Critics, however, said the ruling monarchy is using the crackdown as an excuse to silence opposition forces in the kingdom, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Mohammad al-Qahtani, who represents detained dissident and former Judge Suliman al-Reshoudi, complained the monarchy was using the fight against terrorism as an excuse.

“Using the anti-terror campaign has been the conspicuous Saudi policy to arrest and harass political reformists and human-rights activists,” he told the Journal. “It is a serious threat to those dedicated to nonviolent change in the nation.”

Lawyers have sued the Saudi interior ministry for what they say was the arbitrary arrest of the former judge, who is still held without charge more than three years after his arrest. The U.S. State Department, meanwhile, mentioned Reshoudi’s name in its write-up on human rights in Saudi Arabia.

The interior minister threw out the case, however, and the Saudi government told the Journal it wouldn’t comment on ongoing internal matters.