Iraq war deadliest for journalists since WWII

'THE Iraq war has been the most lethal for journalists since World War II, with 230 journalists and media staff killed since the conflict broke out.

The figures, compiled by french-based international press freedom organisation Reporters Sans Frontieres (ReportersWithout Borders) run from March 20, 2003 until the present day.

The figure is more than the number killed in 20 years of the Vietnam War or during the Algerian civil war, RSF said.

The latest fatality was 35-year-old Al Iraqiya TV journalist Riyad Assariyeh, who was shot dead by unidentified gunmen as he left his home in Baghdad this week.

RSF said that "clearly targeted murder" brought to 15 the number of Al Iraqiya journalists killed since coalition forces removed Saddam Hussein from power.'

Suspicion of outsiders an element of the human condition

'Suspicion of outsiders, of people who behave or worship differently, may be an ingrained element of the human condition, a survival instinct from our cave-man days. But we should also recognize that historically this distrust has led us to burn witches, intern Japanese-Americans, and turn away Jewish refugees from the Holocaust.

Perhaps the closest parallel to today’s hysteria about Islam is the 19th-century fear spread by the Know Nothing movement about “the Catholic menace.” One book warned that Catholicism was “the primary source” of all of America’s misfortunes, and there were whispering campaigns that presidents including Martin Van Buren and William McKinley were secretly working with the pope. Does that sound familiar?

Critics warned that the pope was plotting to snatch the Mississippi Valley and secretly conspiring to overthrow American democracy. “Rome looks with wistful eye to domination of this broad land, a magnificent seat for a sovereign pontiff,” one writer cautioned.

Historically, unreal suspicions were sometimes rooted in genuine and significant differences. Many new Catholic immigrants lacked experience in democracy. Mormons were engaged in polygamy. And today some extremist Muslims do plot to blow up planes, and Islam has real problems to work out about the rights of women. The pattern has been for demagogues to take real abuses and exaggerate them, portraying, for example, the most venal wing of the Catholic Church as representative of all Catholicism — just as fundamentalist Wahabis today are caricatured as more representative of Islam than the incomparably more numerous moderate Muslims of Indonesia (who have elected a woman as president before Americans have).'

Considerable distrust of Muslim Americans

"A New York Times poll of New York City residents that found that even this city, the country’s most diverse and cosmopolitan, is not immune to suspicion and to a sadly wary misunderstanding of Muslim-Americans.

The poll found considerable distrust of Muslim-Americans and robust disapproval of the mosque proposal. Asked whether they thought Muslim-Americans were “more sympathetic to terrorists” than other citizens, 33 percent said yes, a discouraging figure, roughly consistent with polls taken since Sept. 11, 2001. Thirty-one percent said they didn’t know any Muslims; 39 percent said they knew Muslims but not as close friends.

A full 72 percent agreed that people had every right to build a “house of worship” near the site. But only 62 percent acknowledged that right when “house of worship” was changed to “mosque and Islamic community center.” Sixty-seven percent thought the mosque planners should find “a less controversial location.” While only 21 percent of respondents confessed to having “negative feelings” toward Muslims because of the attack on the World Trade Center, 59 percent said they knew people who did."

Mosques in America

The only mosque in America I've been to is the King Fahad mosque in LA. It's a nice mosque, no doubt built with Saudi money.

From Wiki:

"Small-scale migration to the U.S. by Muslims began in 1840, with the arrival of Yemenites and Turks,^[32] and lasted until World War I. Most of the immigrants, from Arab areas of the Ottoman Empire, came with the purpose of making money and returning to their homeland. However, the economic hardships of 19th-Century America prevented them from prospering, and as a result the immigrants settled in the United States permanently. These immigrants settled primarily in Dearborn, Michigan; Quincy, Massachusetts; and Ross, North Dakota. Ross, North Dakota is the site of the first documented mosque and Muslim Cemetery, but it was abandoned and later torn down in the mid 1970s. A new mosque was built in its place in 2005.^[28]

• 1906 Bosnian Muslims in Chicago, Illinois started the Jamaat al-Hajrije (Assembly Society; a social service organization devoted to Bosnian Muslims). This is the longest lasting incorporated Muslim community in the United States. They met in coffeehouses and eventually opened the first Islamic Sunday School with curriculum and textbooks under Imam Kamil Avdih (a graduate of al-Azhar and author of Survey of Islamic Doctrines).
• 1907 Lipka Tatar immigrants from the Podlasie region of Poland founded the first Muslim organization in New York City, the American Mohammedan Society^[39] .
• 1915, what is most likely the first American mosque was founded by Albanian Muslims in Biddeford, Maine. A Muslim cemetery still exists there.^[40][41]
• 1920 First Islamic mission station was established by an Indian Ahmadiyya Muslim missionary, followed by the building of the Al-Sadiq Mosque in 1921.
• 1934 The first building built specifically to be a mosque is established in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
• 1945 A mosque existed in Dearborn, Michigan, home to the largest Arab-American population in the U.S.

Construction of mosques sped up in the 1920s and 1930s, and by 1952, there were over 20 mosques.^[28] Although the first mosque was established in the U.S. in 1915, relatively few mosques were founded before the 1960s. Eighty-seven percent of mosques in the U.S. were founded within the last three decades according to the Faith Communities Today (FACT) survey. California has more mosques than any other state."

A third of New Yorkers think Muslims are more sympathetic to terrorists than non-Muslim Americans

Damn!

"Nearly a decade after the Sept. 11 attacks ignited a wave of anxiety about Muslims, many in the country’s biggest and arguably the most cosmopolitan city still have an uneasy relationship with Islam. One fifth of New Yorkers acknowledged animosity toward Muslims. Thirty-three percent said that, compared with other American citizens, Muslims were more sympathetic to terrorists. And nearly 60 percent said that their friends had negative feelings toward Muslims because of 9/11."

Two-Thirds of New Yorkers want planned Islamic center moved

"Two-thirds of New York City residents want a planned Muslim community center and mosque to be relocated to a less controversial site farther away from ground zero in Lower Manhattan, including many who say they favor the project, according to a New York Times poll."

Saddam wanted WMD

'The definitive account of Saddam's WMD ambitions is the Duelfer Report, issued by the Iraq Survey Group in 2005. Yes, the Duelfer Report concluded that Saddam didn't have active WMD. But at numerous points in the 1,000-page document, it asserted (with quotes from Iraqi politicians and scientists) that Saddam's goal was to free himself of U.N. sanctions and restart his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and other WMD.

The report: "Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq's WMD capability. . . . Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability." The Survey Group described Iraqi plans to develop three long-range ballistic missiles.'