Mecca vs. Medina

Muhammad: Legacy of A Prophet is a very good PBS documentary. It's interesting that Islam was supposed to end tribal warfare, revenge, and the killing of women and children. Islam was supposed to liberate women and bring peace to Arabia. I wonder what Muhammad The Prophet would think of Muslims who claim to carry out "jihad" these days.

Watch the part about hijab, which shows how one sixteen year old chose for herself to wear hijab, and that her father did not want her to wear it. Watch the entire film here. Shukren Ammu for the link.

PS: It's also interesting that the Iraqi Imam in the documentary says that Muslims in America have more religious freedom than in many Muslim countries.

ExxonMobile Helps Qatar Prosper

Why do so many Arabs and leftists have no problem with Qatar, host to CENTCOM, prospering from its business with ExxonMobil, while they bitch and moan about Iraq's recently signed short-term service contract with ExxonMobile and other oil giants?

"In November 2005, ExxonMobil started production at the Al Khaleej block in the North Field at a rate of 750 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d). In July 2006, the company announced a $3-billion plan to expand this output to 1.6 Bcf/d by 2009, which will be used to fuel power plants and industrial customers in Ras Laffan, the RasGas LNG project, and as feedstock at the Oryx Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) Project. ExxonMobil is the largest foreign investor in development projects at Qatar’s North Field. Aside from Al Khaleej, the company is also involved in increasing natural gas supplies for the RasGas and Qatargas LNG projects, each of which will rely on significant increases in output from the North Field over the next several years (see the LNG Section below for additional details)."

Gitmo detainees should be considered guilty until proven innocent

I have met a few Arabs who've claimed that the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are "innocent" and should be released immediately. While a few Gitmo detainees may be innocent, it is obvious that many detainees are indeed guilty of horrendous crimes. One detainee is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the attacks on 9/11 and the person who beheaded WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl.

Nibras Kazimi has published a post about a former Gitmo detainee, released in 2005, who was responsible for murdering dozens of Iraqis since his release:

Al-‘Ajmi, the ex-Guantanamo guy, is seemingly responsible for an earlier truck bombing at the Iraqi Army HQ in the Harmat neighborhood of Mosul on March 23, 2008 that left 13 Iraqi soldiers dead and 30 injured, including 12 civilians. At least six of the dead soldiers were from Iraq’s Yezidi minority.

Today, there was another suicide bombing targeting a police station in Mosul that left scores dead and injured. I wonder if today's terrorist was yet another Kuwaiti or Saudi that had been released from Guantanamo...

It is important for the US military to release innocent detainees, but it is even more important to not release those who have ties to insurgents in Iraq, and who may end up in Iraq killing Iraqis and Americans. Gitmo detainees should be considered guilty until proven innocent. Leftists and Arabs who scream for their brothers at Gitmo can choke on it.

Having said this, I can understand why so many Americans are concerned that holding people for so long without trial violates the US constitution. The only solution is to give each Gitmo detainee a fair trial. If it is proven that a detainee has not committed a crime against the US, but does have ties to insurgents in Iraq or Afghanistan, the detainee should NOT be released to Saudi Arabia or Kuwait!

Truth?

Could this be true?  Listen to the interview with Iraqis, some of whom blamed the bombing on US forces.  One guy says the US does this to keep Iraqis divided! 

By ANDREW E. KRAMER

Published: June 19, 2008

BAGHDAD — The American military on Wednesday blamed a Shiite militia leader for detonating a car bomb that killed 63 people in a Shiite district a day earlier, saying he had intended to set off sectarian violence against Sunnis returning to the area as security improved.

Shiite militias drove Sunni residents from the area 18 months ago, when Baghdad was gripped in a cycle of revenge killings that ultimately divided the city between the sects. Enraged residents had blamed either American soldiers, who had been nearby, or Sunni insurgents from Al Deel, the bordering Sunni district. But the United States military blamed Haydar Mehdi Khadum al-Fawadi, and identified him as a leader of the Iranian-linked Shiite fighters known as special groups.

"We believe he ordered the attack to incite Shiite violence against Sunnis," Lt. Col. Steven Stover, an American military spokesman in Baghdad, said by e-mail. He said the military had corroborated its information from more than one source. "He's an all-around bad guy."

Perhaps to quell potential sectarian vendettas, the American military sent a convoy of Humvees with loudspeakers on their roofs to the area on Wednesday. The convoy traveled slowly down one street around noon, blaring a recorded message in Arabic: “The criminal Haydar Mehdi has committed the bombing. He does not care about your life.”

Truth

One reason I like the Economist is that they always tell the truth, even at the risk of being labeled "sectarian".  You will not see anything like this on Al Jazeera:

'An opinion poll in February that asked Iraqis "How would you say things are going overall these days?" found that 43% said they were going well, up from only 22% in September. Among Shias, the figure rose from 39% to 61%; among Sunnis, it went from a paltry 2% to 16%, but a notable jump all the same. If the poll were conducted today, the answers would be more positive still.

One clear reason for hope is that al-Qaeda's Iraqi branch has taken a big knock. The CIA's director, Michael Hayden, recently said it had suffered a "near-strategic defeat". Serviced mainly by Sunni radicals from the wider Arab world, al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia (as it calls itself) was responsible for most of the huge car bombs that terrorised Shia communities and provoked their backlash of sectarian cleansing, almost tipping Iraq into full-scale civil war two years ago. Such bombings and sectarian attacks are now scarcer.

Down but not out

But al-Qaeda is certainly not defeated. It is still active in the mixed Sunni-Shia province of Diyala and in the northern city of Mosul and its surrounding Nineveh province. It attacks the tribal leaders of the Sunni Awakening (or Sahwa) movement, for instance in the western province of Anbar, who have been persuaded to throw in their lot with the Americans. Most Sunni Arabs have turned strongly against it.'

"I believe these people are criminals."

BBC uncovers lost Iraq billions - thanks Molly.

Missing billions

The search for the missing billions also led the programme to a house in Acton in west London where Hazem Shalaan lived until he was appointed to the new Iraqi government as minister of defence in 2004.

Judge Radhi al Radhi: "I believe these people are criminals."

He and his associates siphoned an estimated $1.2bn out of the ministry. They bought old military equipment from Poland but claimed for top-class weapons.

Meanwhile they diverted money into their own accounts.

Judge Radhi al-Radhi of Iraq's Commission for Public Integrity investigated.

He said: "I believe these people are criminals.

"They failed to rebuild the Ministry of Defence, and as a result the violence and the bloodshed went on and on - the murder of Iraqis and foreigners continues and they bear responsibility."

Mr Shalaan was sentenced to two jail terms but he fled the country.

He said he was innocent and that it was all a plot against him by pro-Iranian MPs in the government.

There is an Interpol arrest warrant out for him but he is on the run - using a private jet to move around the globe.