Kwanza Is A Celebration Of What Exactly???

Kwanzaa: A Holiday from the FBI

By Ann Coulter
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 29, 2005

President Bush's 2005 Kwanzaa message began with the patently absurd statement: "African-Americans and people around the world reflect on African heritage during Kwanzaa."

I believe more African-Americans spent this season reflecting on the birth of Christ than some phony non-Christian holiday invented a few decades ago by an FBI stooge. Kwanzaa is a holiday for white liberals, not blacks.

It is a fact that Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 by a black radical FBI stooge, Ron Karenga, aka Dr. Maulana Karenga. Karenga was a founder of United Slaves, a violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers and a dupe of the FBI.

In what was probably ultimately a foolish gamble, during the madness of the '60s the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the organization, the better. Karenga's United Slaves was perfect. In the annals of the American '60s, Karenga was the Father Gapon, stooge of the czarist police.

Despite modern perceptions that blend all the black activists of the '60s, the Black Panthers did not hate whites. They did not seek armed revolution. Those were the precepts of Karenga's United Slaves. United Slaves were proto-fascists, walking around in dashikis, gunning down Black Panthers and adopting invented "African" names. (That was a big help to the black community: How many boys named "Jamal" currently sit on death row?)

Whether Karenga was a willing dupe, or just a dupe, remains unclear. Curiously, in a 1995 interview with Ethnic NewsWatch, Karenga matter-of-factly explained that the forces out to get O.J. Simpson for the "framed" murder of two whites included: "the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, Interpol, the Chicago Police Department" and so on. Karenga should know about FBI infiltration. (He further noted that the evidence against O.J. "was not strong enough to prohibit or eliminate unreasonable doubt" – an interesting standard of proof.)

In the category of the-gentleman-doth-protest-too-much, back in the '70s, Karenga was quick to criticize rumors that black radicals were government-supported. When Nigerian newspapers claimed that some American black radicals were CIA operatives, Karenga publicly denounced the idea, saying, "Africans must stop generalizing about the loyalties and motives of Afro-Americans, including the widespread suspicion of black Americans being CIA agents."

Now we know that the FBI fueled the bloody rivalry between the Panthers and United Slaves. In one barbarous outburst, Karenga's United Slaves shot to death Black Panthers Al "Bunchy" Carter and Deputy Minister John Huggins on the UCLA campus. Karenga himself served time, a useful stepping-stone for his current position as a black studies professor at California State University at Long Beach.

Kwanzaa itself is a lunatic blend of schmaltzy '60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism. Indeed, the seven "principles" of Kwanzaa praise collectivism in every possible arena of life – economics, work, personality, even litter removal. ("Kuumba: Everyone should strive to improve the community and make it more beautiful.") It takes a village to raise a police snitch.

When Karenga was asked to distinguish Kawaida, the philosophy underlying Kwanzaa, from "classical Marxism," he essentially explained that under Kawaida, we also hate whites. While taking the "best of early Chinese and Cuban socialism" – which one assumes would exclude the forced abortions, imprisonment for homosexuals and forced labor – Kawaida practitioners believe one's racial identity "determines life conditions, life chances and self-understanding." There's an inclusive philosophy for you.


(Sing to "Jingle Bells")
Kwanzaa bells, dashikis sell
Whitey has to pay;
Burning, shooting, oh what fun
On this made-up holiday!


Coincidentally, the seven principles of Kwanzaa are the very same seven principles of the Symbionese Liberation Army, another charming invention of the Least-Great Generation. In 1974, Patricia Hearst, kidnap victim-cum-SLA revolutionary, posed next to the banner of her alleged captors, a seven-headed cobra. Each snake head stood for one of the SLA's revolutionary principles: Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba and Imani – the same seven "principles" of Kwanzaa.

With his Kwanzaa greetings, President Bush is saluting the intellectual sibling of the Symbionese Liberation Army, killer of housewives and police. He is saluting the founder of United Slaves, who were such lunatics that they shot Panthers for not being sufficiently insane – all with the FBI as their covert ally.

It's as if David Duke invented a holiday called "Anglika," and the president of the United States issued a presidential proclamation honoring the synthetic holiday. People might well stand up and take notice if that happened.

Kwanzaa was the result of a '60s psychosis grafted onto the black community. Liberals have become so mesmerized by multicultural nonsense that they have forgotten the real history of Kwanzaa and Karenga's United Slaves – the violence, the Marxism, the insanity. Most absurdly, for leftists anyway, is that they have forgotten the FBI's tacit encouragement of this murderous black nationalist cult founded by the father of Kwanzaa.

Now the "holiday" concocted by an FBI dupe is honored in a presidential proclamation and public schools across the nation. Bush called Kwanzaa a holiday that promotes "unity" and "faith." Faith in what? Liberals' unbounded capacity to respect any faith but Christianity?

A movement that started approximately 2,000 years before Kwanzaa leaps well beyond merely "unity" and "faith" to proclaim that we are all equal before God. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28). It was practitioners of that faith who were at the forefront of the abolitionist and civil-rights movements. But that's all been washed down the memory hole, along with the true origins of Kwanzaa.

_____________________

I've always wondered how many African-Americans actually observe this "holiday". I agree with Ann that most probably observe Christmas. Are both observed? The way it seems to be portrayed in the media is that ONLY Kwanza is observed by all African-Americans. All of the African-American families in my neighborhood have their Christmas lights out and are probably more enthusiastic about it than other families. Haven't seen any Kwanza candles about.

One thing that Ann failed to mention in her article was that when "Dr." Karenga was asked many years ago about why he invented this holiday, he replied, "I wanted an excuse to get drunk and party with my bruthas."

Nice foundation for a holiday!

More From The "Religion Of Peace And Tolerance"

Western Muslims' Racist Rape Spree

By Sharon Lapkin
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 27, 2005

In Australia, Norway, Sweden and other Western nations, there is a distinct race-based crime in motion being ignored by the diversity police: Islamic men are raping Western women for ethnic reasons. We know this because the rapists have openly declared their sectarian motivations.

When a number of teenage Australian girls were subjected to hours of sexual degradation during a spate of gang rapes in Sydney that occurred between 1998 and 2002, the perpetrators of these assaults framed their rationale in ethnic terms. The young victims were informed that they were “sluts” and “Aussie pigs” while they were being hunted down and abused.

In Australia's New South Wales Supreme Court in December 2005, a visiting Pakistani rapist testified that his victims had no right to say no, because they were not wearing a headscarf.

And earlier this year Australians were outraged when Lebanese Sheik Faiz Mohammed gave a lecture in Sydney where he informed his audience that rape victims had no one to blame but themselves. Women, he said, who wore skimpy clothing, invited men to rape them.

A few months earlier, in Copenhagen, Islamic mufti and scholar, Shahid Mehdi created uproar when – like his peer in Australia – he stated that women who did not wear a headscarf were asking to be raped.

And with haunting synchronicity in 2004, the London Telegraph reported that visiting Egyptian scholar Sheik Yusaf al-Qaradawi claimed female rape victims should be punished if they were dressed immodestly when they were raped. He added, “For her to be absolved from guilt, a raped woman must have shown good conduct.”

In Norway and Sweden, journalist Fjordman warns of a rape epidemic. Police Inspector Gunnar Larsen stated that the steady increase of rape-cases and the link to ethnicity are clear, unmistakable trends. Two out of three persecutions for rape in Oslo are immigrants with a non-Western background and 80 percent of the victims are Norwegian women.

In Sweden, according to translator for Jihad Watch, Ali Dashti, “Gang rapes, usually involving Muslim immigrant males and native Swedish girls, have become commonplace.” A few weeks ago she said, “Five Kurds brutally raped a 13-year-old Swedish girl.”

In France, Samira Bellil broke her silence – after enduring years of repeated gang rapes in one of the Muslim populated public housing projects – and wrote a book, In the hell of the tournantes, that shocked France. Describing how gang rape is rampant in the banlieues, she explained to Time that, “any neighborhood girl who smokes, uses makeup or wears attractive clothes is a whore.”

Unfortunately, Western women are not the only victims in this epidemic. In Indonesia, in 1998, human rights groups documented the testimony of over 100 Chinese women who were gang raped during the riots that preceded the fall of President Suharto. Many of them were told: “You must be raped, because you are Chinese and non-Muslim.”

Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported that in April 2005, a 9-year-old Pakistani girl was raped, beaten with a cricket bat, hanged upside down from the ceiling, had spoonfuls of chillies poured into her mouth, and repeatedly bashed while handcuffed. Her Muslim neighbours told her they were taking revenge for the American bombing of Iraqi children and informed her they were doing it because she was an “infidel and a Christian.”

In Sudan – where Arab Muslims slaughter black Muslim and Christian Sudanese in an ongoing genocide – former Sudanese slave and now a human rights’ activist Simon Deng says he witnessed girls and women being raped and that the Arab regime of Khartoum sends its soldiers to the field to rape and murder. In other reports, women who are captured by government forces are asked; “Are you Christian or Muslim?” and those who answer Christian, are gang raped before having their breasts cut off.

This phenomenon of Islamic sexual violence against women should be treated as the urgent, violent, repressive epidemic it is. Instead, journalists, academics, and politicians ignore it, rationalize it, or ostracize those who dare discuss it.

In Australia, when journalist Paul Sheehan reported honestly on the Sydney gang rapes, he was called a racist and accused of stirring up anti-Muslim hatred. And when he reported in his Sydney Morning Herald column that there was a high incidence of crime amongst Sydney’s Lebanese community, fellow journalist, David Marr sent him an e-mail stating, “That is a disgraceful column that reflects poorly on us all at the Herald.”

Keysar Trad, vice-president of the Australian Lebanese Muslim Association said the gang rapes were a “heinous” crime but complained it was “rather unfair” that the ethnicity of the rapists had been reported.

Journalist Miranda Devine reported during the same rape trials that all reference to ethnicity had been deleted from the victim impact statement because the prosecutors wanted to negotiate a plea bargain.

So when Judge Megan Latham declared, “There is no evidence before me of any racial element in the commission of these offences,” everyone believed her. And the court, the politicians and most of the press may as well have raped the girls again.

Retired Australian detective Tim Priest warned in 2004 that the Lebanese gangs, which emerged in Sydney in the 1990s – when the police were asleep – had morphed out of control. “The Lebanese groups,” he said, “ were ruthless, extremely violent, and they intimidated not only innocent witnesses, but even the police that attempted to arrest them.”

Priest describes how in 2001, in a Muslim dominated area of Sydney two policemen stopped a car containing three well-known Middle Eastern men to search for stolen property. As the police carried out their search they were physically threatened and the three men claimed they were going to track them down, kill them and then rape their girlfriends.

According to Priest, it didn’t end there. As the Sydney police called for backup the three men used their mobile phones to call their associates, and within minutes, 20 Middle Eastern men arrived on the scene. They punched and pushed the police and damaged state vehicles. The police retreated and the gang followed them to the police station where they intimidated staff, damaged property and held the police station hostage.

Eventually the gang left, the police licked their wounds, and not one of them took action against the Middle Eastern men. Priest claims, “In the minds of the local population, the police are cowards and the message was, 'Lebanese [Muslim gangs] rule the streets.'”

In France, in the banlieues, where gang rape is now known simply as tournantes or ‘pass-around,’ victims know the police will not protect them. If they complain, Samir Bellil said, they know that they and their families will be threatened.

However, Muslim women in the French ghettos are finally fighting back against gang rape and police non-action. They have begun a movement called, “We’re neither whores nor doormats.” They are struggling against the intrinsic violence that plagues their neighbourhoods and the culture that condones it.

In most French prosecutions, the Muslim rapists state that they do not believe they have committed a crime. And in a frightening parallel with the gang rapists in Australia, they claim the victim herself is to blame and accuse her of being a “slut” or a “whore.”

According to The Guardian, during the recent French riots, a Saudi Prince with shares in News Corporation boasted to a conference in Dubai that he had phoned Rupert Murdoch and complained about Fox News describing the disturbances as “Muslim riots.” Within half an hour he said, it was changed to “civil riots.”

Swedish translator, Ali Dashti, stated that in Sweden when three men raped a 22-year-old woman recently, they said one word to her. “Whore.” Such stories, according to Dashti, are in the Swedish newspapers every week. And, the politically correct “take great care not to mention the ethnic background of the perpetrators.”

Sweden’s English newspaper The Local reported in July that Malmo police commander Bengt Lindström had been charged with inciting racial hatred. He sent e-mails from his home computer to two city officials. To the head of healthcare, he wrote: “You...treat old Swedes who have worked hard building up the fatherland like parasites and would rather give my taxes to criminals called Mohammed from Rosengärd.”

In Malmo, the third largest city in Sweden, the police have admitted, Dashti says, that they no longer control the city. “It is effectively ruled by violent gangs of Muslim immigrants.” Ambulance personnel are regularly attacked and spat upon and are now refusing to help until a police escort arrives. The police are too afraid to enter parts of the city without backup.

In early 2005, Norwegian newspapers reported that Oslo had recorded the highest ever number of rape cases in the previous twelve months. However, Fjordman explained, the official statistics contained no data regarding “how immigrants were grossly over represented in rape cases”, and the media remain so strangely silent.

Oslo Professor of Anthropology, Unni Wikan, said Norwegian women must take responsibility for the fact that Muslim men find their manner of dress provocative. And since these men believe women are responsible for rape, she stated, the women must adapt to the multicultural society around them.

The BBC pulled a documentary scheduled for screening in 2004, after police in Britain warned it could increase racial tension. “In these exceptional circumstances... Channel 4 as a responsible broadcaster has agreed to the police’s request...” The documentary was to show how Pakistani and other Muslim men sexually abused young, white English girls as young as 11.

The number of rapes committed by Muslim men against women in the last decade is so incredibly high that it cannot be viewed as anything other than culturally implicit behaviour. It is overtly reinforced and sanctioned by Islamic religious leaders who blame the victims and excuse the rapists.

In three decades of immigration into Western countries, Islam has caused social upheaval and havoc in every one of its host countries. No other immigration program has encountered the problems of non-assimilation and religious ambiguity.

Everywhere in the world, Muslims are in conflict with their neighbours. And as Mark Steyn recently said, every conflict appears to have originated by someone with the name of Mohammed.

In July 2005, Melbourne Sheik Mohammad Omran told Sixty Minutes that “...we believe we have more rights than you because we choose Australia to be our home and you didn’t. “

In the same interview visiting Sheik Khalid Yasin warned “There’s no such thing as a Muslim having a non-Muslim friend, so a non-Muslim could be your associate but they can't be a friend. They're not your friend because they don't understand your religious principles and they cannot because they don't understand your faith.”

Despite being told over and over by Islamic scholars, and witnessing massive influxes of Islamic crime, Western countries continue to believe in the reality of assimilation and moral relativism.

In Australia, Lebanese Christians have assimilated and become a respected part of our community. The Premier of Victoria is a Lebanese Christian as is the Governor Of New South Wales. However, Lebanese Muslims have encountered serious problems because of their refusal to accept our right to live our way of life. Nothing so clearly demonstrates that it is not an issue of race — but of culture.

Live And Let Spy

Live and let spy ... Ann Coulter

World Net Daily ^ | 21 Dec 2005 | Ann Coulter

Apart from the day the New York Times goes out of business – and the stellar work Paul Krugman's column does twice a week helping people house-train their puppies – the newspaper has done the greatest thing it will ever do in its entire existence. (Calm down: No, the Times didn't hold an intervention for Frank Rich.)

Monday's Times carried a major expose on child molesters who use the Internet to lure their adolescent prey into performing sex acts for webcams. In the course of investigating the story, reporter Kurt Eichenwald broke open a massive network of pedophiles, rescued a young man who had been abused for years and led the Department of Justice to hundreds of child molesters.

I kept waiting for the catch, but apparently the Times does not yet believe pedophilia is covered by the "privacy right." They should stop covering politics and start covering more stories like this.

In order to report the story, the Times said it obtained:

copies of online conversations and e-mail messages between minors and the creepy adults;

records of payments to the minors;

membership lists for webcam sites;

defunct sites stored in online archives;

files retained on a victim's computer over several years;

financial records, credit card processing data and other information;

The Neverland Ranch's mailing list. (OK, I made that last one up.) Would that the Times allowed the Bush administration similar investigative powers for Islamofacists in America!

Which brings me to this week's scandal about No Such Agency spying on "Americans." I have difficulty ginning up much interest in this story inasmuch as I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.

But if we must engage in a national debate on half-measures: After 9-11, any president who was not spying on people calling phone numbers associated with terrorists should be impeached for being an inept commander in chief.

With a huge gaping hole in lower Manhattan, I'm not sure why we have to keep reminding people, but we are at war. (Perhaps it's because of the media blackout on images of the 9-11 attack. We're not allowed to see those because seeing planes plowing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon might make us feel angry and jingoistic.)

Among the things that war entails are: killing people (sometimes innocent), destroying buildings (sometimes innocent) and spying on people (sometimes innocent).

That is why war is a bad thing. But once a war starts, it is going to be finished one way or another, and I have a preference for it coming out one way rather than the other.

In previous wars, the country has done far worse than monitor telephone calls placed to jihad headquarters. FDR rounded up Japanese – many of them loyal American citizens – and threw them in internment camps. Most appallingly, at the same time, he let New York Times editors wander free.

Note the following about the Japanese internment:

The Supreme Court upheld the president's authority to intern the Japanese during wartime;

That case, Korematsu v. United States, is still good law;

There are no Japanese internment camps today. (Although the no-limit blackjack section at Caesar's Palace on a Saturday night comes pretty close.) It's one or the other: Either we take the politically correct, scattershot approach and violate everyone's civil liberties, or we focus on the group threatening us and – in the worst-case scenario – run the risk of briefly violating the civil liberties of 1,000 people in a country of 300 million.

Of course, this is assuming I'm talking to people from the world of the normal. In the Democrats' world, there are two more options. Violate no one's civil liberties and get used to a lot more 9-11s, or the modified third option, preferred by Sen. John D. Rockefeller: Let the president do all the work and take all the heat for preventing another terrorist attack while you place a letter expressing your objections in a file cabinet as a small parchment tribute to your exquisite conscience.

________________

You go girl!

When does J.D. Rockefeller come under investigation for crimes against the United States of America? The dims certainly have a problem keeping classified information actually classified. And in the process endangering Americans!!!!

The Patriot Guard Riders: American Heroes

Patriotic Bikers Show Support For Troops

When our military men and women are killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, a rapidly growing group back home hopes to send an important message to their families.

The Patriot Guard Riders is made up of thousands of motorcyclists. Their goal is to honor fallen soldiers at funeral services across the nation.

News on 6 anchor Craig Day talked with their executive director who lives in Green Country.

When a fallen soldier is brought home, chances are members of the Patriot Guard Riders will be there. Their goal is to show respect for fallen heroes and their familes.

Executive Director Jeff Brown says, "You don't even have to ride a motorcycle to the patriot guard riders. The only prerequisite is that you do have an unwavering respect for our men and women in uniform."

Patriot Guard Riders started with a loose group of motorcyclists. It is now an organized and coordinated effort which has grown to more than 2,500 members in all 50 states and Puerto Rico.

"It's just unbelievable the support that we're getting across the country," says Brown.

Brown lives in Broken Arrow. He says the group is not a protest or counter-protest organization. But riders will work to protect mourning family and friends from interruptions created by protestors if the family asks them to.

"I can't think of any circumstance that is any more personal than burying a loved one," says Brown. "And any type of protest is absolutely incredible to me. That someone could do that."

In a few cases, the motorcycle riders have revved their engines to drown out protestors.

"These young men and women have fought and died for the right of these people to demonstrate and we recognize that and we appreciate that, but it's just not the time and place," Brown answers.

They say it is a time for respect, and a place for a solemn tribute to those who've served and died for their country.

The Patriot Guard Riders website has had two million hits in the past 30 days.

___________________


It's wonderful to have the Patriot Guard Riders protecting grieving families from the SCUM-OF-THE-EARTH war protestors. God bless them. If you would like to learn more about their organization, you can visit their website at:

The Patriot Guard

And for the record, I understand that war protestors are guaranteed the right of free speech in our country (a right protected by the deaths of American soldiers throughout history), but not when it is at the expense of true American heroes and their grieving families.

Our Way or the Highway.

Disgruntled Dems Consider Challenge to Lieberman
Monday, December 19, 2005
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

WASHINGTON — Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman may be some Republicans' idea of a good Democrat, but a growing number of fellow party members in his home state couldn't disagree more.

"It's at the point where he's no longer interested in his own party's opinion, he's really out of touch with reality," said Mitchell Fuchs, chairman of the Fairfield Democratic Town Committee in Connecticut. "For me, he's crossed the line a number of times."

Passions flared after Lieberman's recent trip to Iraq. Upon his return, the three-term senator pointed to what he views as progress on the ground there and suggested that Democrats should avoid harsh criticisms of President Bush's Iraq policy.

In turn, Republicans and administration officials, including Bush, used the senator's comments to bolster their case for war and underscore Lieberman's differences with other Democratic leaders on the issue. Republicans have since charged that Democrats lack a coherent, unified message on Iraq.

The series of events has sparked petitions and protests outside of Lieberman's district office in Hartford and prompted a potential challenge from a former and formidable political foe.

In an interview with FOXNews.com, former U.S. senator and Connecticut Gov. Lowell Weicker said he will challenge Lieberman in 2006 if no credible anti-war Democrat or Republican jumps into the race first.

"I'm not going to let [Lieberman] get a free pass on this. And that's what's going to happen if no one steps up to bat," said Weicker, who as a Republican lost his Senate seat to Lieberman in 1988. In 1990, Weicker went on to become governor, elected as an independent.

Weicker, 74, said he would run for Senate against Lieberman as an independent, not a Democrat. He said he has been against the war in Iraq "from the onset," and doesn't take lightly the notion of coming out of retirement to challenge the incumbent.

"I have no desire to put my neck on the chopping block. I'm in the business of winning," he said.

Meanwhile, a letter with 55,000 signatures — mostly from out of state — was delivered to Lieberman's district office in Hartford last Tuesday urging the senator to stop "trying to stifle debate" on war policy and join "the majority of Americans in questioning President Bush's foreign policy."

The group circulating the letter, Democracy for America, is led by Jim Dean, a Connecticut resident and brother of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.

On top of that, Democrats attending the regular State Central Committee meeting last Wednesday criticized Lieberman and called for support for a primary challenge against him at the party's convention in May.

"I speak to Democratic state senators all the time. They always said, 'Joe is a rat, but he's our rat.' Now they are saying, 'Joe's a rat and we can't afford to have him at the top of our ticket,'" said Democrat Keith Crane of Branford, Conn. "I think Joe is going to get a rude awakening in May."

Crane runs DumpJoe.com, one of a handful of anti-Lieberman sites that have cropped up in recent years. He said Democrats see Lieberman as increasingly out of touch with his constituency, the majority of whom are Democrats and voted against Bush in the last two presidential elections. In 2004, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry beat Bush in Connecticut 54 percent to 43 percent.

Crane said many Democrats hope to persuade Weicker to run in their party's primary.

"This has to be a grassroots thing," he said.

Lieberman has been known to buck his party before — in 1998, he was one of the only major Democrats to rebuke publicly then-President Bill Clinton for his sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. He has previously sided with Republicans on many economic and foreign policy issues.

Lieberman's office did not respond to FOXNews.com in repeated calls for comment, but the senator still has supporters among the state party leadership, and they say they are part of the moderate majority in the state. Audrey Blondin, a longtime friend and political supporter of the senator, says she wouldn't want him any other way.

"I respect Joe, he has never been afraid to say what he thinks and explains in detail why he thinks that way. He's not one who is swayed by public opinion," said Blondin, who is a member of the Democratic State Central Committee. Blondin said she shares her fellow Democrats' harsh opinion of the Bush administration on the war, but respects Lieberman's position.

Jim Diamond, also a member of the State Central Committee, representing Stamford, Lieberman's hometown, agreed with Blondin.

"Joe Lieberman has made a career out of acting in a bipartisan fashion. He's been the lead Democrat on fighting terrorism and homeland security and for that he gets a lot of support across both sides of the political aisle," Diamond told FOXNews.com.

"I think [critics] are in the minority," he said. "Often it’s the people on the extremes of the political spectrum who make the most noise."

But Fuchs of Fairfield and Crane say a growing number of local Democratic leaders are vocalizing their dissatisfaction with Lieberman, and support for a primary challenge is growing.

"I've talked to town [Democratic committee] chairs all over the state, and I would say many of them are getting upset with [Lieberman]," said Fuchs. Meanwhile, the Democratic town committee in Manchester is set to pass a resolution in early 2006 withdrawing its support for Lieberman, according to reports.

Democrats interested in defeating Lieberman in a Democratic primary say they will continue to court Weicker. But they may find Weicker unreceptive, as he said he is also unhappy with the Democrats' lack of veracity on the war issue.

"My criticisms are probably as stiff against the Democrats as they are against the Republicans," Weicker said, adding, "As much as I disagree with the Republican policy, I couldn't disagree more with the deafening silence on behalf of the Democrats on the war."

Running as an independent, he said, "allows me the integrity of my position, which is, I'm not happy with either side."

Asked about Democratic concerns that by running as an independent, Weicker could split the Democratic vote and end up giving Connecticut a pro-war Republican senator, he responded, "Their problem is not my problem. My problem is to get elected."

Most political observers say that Lieberman still remains a tough man to beat, despite the recent rancor.

"I think he has a safe seat right now because there is no one really with the ability to challenge him," said Gary Rose, political science professor at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield.

Lieberman won his last two Senate elections by large margins, even in 2000 when he was running unsuccessfully as Al Gore's vice president.

Weicker could change that, Rose said, suggesting that he has the political stature, the fundraising capability and the reputation as an independent to pose the perfect challenge.

"[Weicker] has all the ingredients that's needed to unseat an incumbent. He has a sizable following in this state and he's right on the issue of Iraq," according to a majority of people in the state, Rose said.

Diamond said he doesn't agree and believes that Lieberman, who steers a moderate course, appeals to both Democrats and Republicans and is not as vulnerable as some would suggest. He also won't concede that a majority of Connecticut voters are against the war.

"If it turns out to be a 1988 rematch between Weicker and Lieberman, I have no doubt the senator will be victorious," Diamond said

_______________

The dumbocratic way: Think like we do or else! Damn the facts, damn your convictions, toe the party line or we will destroy you!

New York Times Blows It Again!

Unwarranted Outrage
The Times blew our cover.

I have no doubt that revelations in the New York Times that the NSA has been conducting selective and limited surveillance of terrorist communications crossing into or out of the United States will be immensely valuable to our enemies. I also have no doubt that these and similar actions can be legal, even when conducted without warrants.

How could that be? From the sound and fury of the last few days from politicians and pundits, you would think this is a development as scandalous as Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy's authorization to wiretap Martin Luther King Jr. But the legality of the acts can be demonstrated with a look through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). For example, check out section 1802, "Electronic Surveillance Authorization Without Court Order." It is most instructive. There you will learn that "Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year" (emphasis mine).

Naturally, there are conditions. For example, the surveillance must be aimed at "the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers." Wait, is a terrorist group considered a foreign power? Yes, as defined in section 1801, subsection (a), "foreign power" can mean "a group engaged in international terrorism or activities in preparation therefore," though the statue language would explicitly apply to "a faction of a foreign nation or nations."

But isn't international terrorism that which takes place abroad, as opposed to homegrown domestic terrorism? Not exactly: Section 1801 subsection (c) defines international terrorism as, among other things, terrorist actions that "occur totally outside the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to coerce or intimidate, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum." So if you are hiding, making plans, facilitating, attacking, or intending to spread fear inside the US, and have a link abroad, you are an international terrorist. Quite sensible.

O.K. fine, but what about the condition that there be "no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party?" Doesn't that necessarily cut out any and all communication that is domestic in origin or destination? Well, not quite. Return to section 1801, subsection (i): "United States person," which includes citizens, legal aliens, and businesses, explicitly "does not include a corporation or an association which is a foreign power."

Well sure, but does that mean that even if you are a citizen you cash in your abovementioned rights by collaborating with terrorists? Yes you do. You have then become an "Agent of a foreign power" as defined under subsection (b)(2)(C). Such agents include anyone who "knowingly engages in sabotage or international terrorism, or activities that are in preparation therefor, for or on behalf of a foreign power," and even includes those who aid and abet or knowingly conspire with those engaged in such behavior.

Wait, that includes anyone, even citizens? Yes — subsection (b)(1) is the part that applies to foreigners; (b)(2) covers everybody. And the whole point of the act is to collect "foreign intelligence information," which is defined under section 1801 subsection (e)(1)(B) as "information that relates to, and if concerning a United States person is necessary to, the ability of the United States to protect against sabotage or international terrorism by a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power."

Whoa, you say, that is way too much power for the president to wield without checks and balances! Well, true, and since Congress wrote this law, they included reporting requirements. The attorney general must report to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 30 days prior to the surveillance, except in cases of emergency, when he must report immediately. He must furthermore "fully inform" those committees on a semiannual basis thereafter, per section 1808 subsection (a). He must also send a copy of the surveillance authorization under seal to the so-called FISA Court as established in section 1803; not for a warrant, but to remain under seal unless certification is necessary under future court actions from aggrieved parties under section 1806 (f).

This is significant, because it means that some of the same politicians who have been charging abuse of power may also have been briefed on what was going on long ago. The White House should get ahead of the story by noting which congressmen were informed of these activities, instead of allowing them to grandstand so shamelessly. It would also help if the White House released some information on how the surveillance has helped keep the country safe. What attacks were disrupted, what terrorists were taken down, how many people saved? A few declassified examples would be very useful to ground the discussion in reality rather than rhetoric.

So how do the revelations in the Times help the terrorists? Think it through — if you were a terrorist and you believed (as most people seem to) that the NSA would ignore your communications if they crossed U.S. borders, your best move would be to set up communications relay stations inside the U.S. Terrorists are well known for their ability to find and exploit loopholes in our laws, and this would be a natural. For all we know our intelligence agencies have been exploiting these types of communications for years without the terrorists knowing it. Now they will fall silent, because now the bad guys know better. So New York Times writer James Risen will sell his book, the Times will increase circulation, politicians will beat their breasts and send out fundraising letters, and who will pay in the end?

You can answer that one.

— James S. Robbins is senior fellow in national-security affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council, a trustee for the Leaders for Liberty Foundation, and an NRO contributor.

__________

For those dumbocrats who are feigning self-righteous indignation now because of the new information from the "paper of record" regarding our government's "spying", get a grip! I'm sure an overwhelming number of Americans have no problem with the NSA monitoring the conversations and activities of KNOWN AL QAEDA OPERATIVES AND SYMPATHIZERS!!!!! Thanks to the NY Times, our enemy now knows that the government of the United States has been monitoring their conversations. Think they will think twice before they communicate as they have been?

Also, I find this excerpt from an article in the NY Times very amusing and certainly exposes the bias of the paper: "WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - President Bush offered a vigorous and detailed defense of his previously secret electronic-surveillance program today...." This bit of drivel, by hack David Stout, is so indicative of the sickness (liberalism) that has infected major media outlets across the country. Oh I see, its "HIS SECRET PROGRAM"! Hate to burst your bubble, Dave, but the Senate intelligence committee has been briefed on this many times over the past 4 years. If the selective monitoring of known low-lifes, whose sole purpose is to harm this country and our citizens, can keep us safer, then more power to them!!! And most Americans agree with me.

If you are not participating in illegal activities or plotting against the United States in the first place, then you should not be worried about someone listening to your conversation.

Free Speech! (unless you're conservative.)

Hecklers Disrupt Coulter's Speech At UConn

December 8, 2005
By GRACE E. MERRITT, Courant Staff Writer

STORRS -- Music that seemed to come from somewhere in the raucous audience that packed the Jorgensen Center at the University of Connecticut Wednesday night brought Ann Coulter's speech to an abrupt end about 15 minutes after she started.

After waiting with her bodyguard on stage for several minutes for the music to stop while a section of the audience chanted "You suck, you suck," an irritated Coulter said she would not finish her speech. She said she would go straight to questions and answers, suggesting the disruption was the best the liberals could do to counter her.

"I love to engage in repartee with people that are a lot stupider than I am," she said. `We're having a question and answer right now with the little crybabies."

Coulter, a well-known, conservative author and commentator, fielded questions ranging from the war in Iraq and Democratic leadership to abortion with the witty, provocative responses that have made her a frequent guest on such TV talk shows as "Hannity & Colmes" and "The O'Reilly Factor."

Responding to a question about withdrawing troops in Iraq, Coulter pointed out the United States still has troops in Bosnia and said various aspects of life are improving in Iraq, with elections being held, women voting and the insurgency growing smaller.

One student asked what she would do if she had a child who came out as gay.

Coulter replied: "I'd say, `Did I ever tell you you're adopted?'"

She also aimed plenty of criticism at the Democratic Party, calling U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer of California a great candidate for Democrats because "she is a woman and learning disabled." She also aimed barbs at Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.

"If the Democrats want to stick to the middle of the road, why did they pick Ted Kennedy. Didn't he have some trouble sticking to the middle of the road?" she said.

In response to threats to Coulter at other appearances, security was tight with guards and campus police flanking the stage and searching every bag the crowd of 2,600 took into the Jorgensen Center for Performing Arts.

The UConn College Republicans invited Coulter, a Connecticut native, in an effort to bring a well-known, provocative speaker to get students talking and thinking about the conservative perspective.

Some students were upset that the student government spent $16,000 to bring what they consider a "hateful" speaker to campus.

To provide another viewpoint to Coulter's, the Progressive Students' Alliance had brought in Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who made headlines in August by camping out near President Bush's Texas ranch to protest her son's death in Iraq. Sheehan's speech Monday also was paid for with student government funds.

Prior to Coulter's speech, a small group of protesters shivered outside as they held up signs and handed out a Coulter bingo card in which each block on the grid had a key word such as liberal, abortion, feminists and terrorism.

Just before the event, Students Against Hate held an alternative event focusing on discrimination at UConn and intended to provide "balance" to the Coulter talk. During the talk several students from various racial groups and of various sexual orientations spoke about how harsh words have wounded them.

Hana Kim, 20, of Stamford, cried as she recalled her experience hearing two young men express shock and disapproval in a loud conversation that a friend was dating an "Asian chick."

Jerome Smith, a UConn graduate, talked about how he hid his homosexuality while at UConn, afraid his fraternity brothers and family would shun him.

"Words are sharp tools and certain people like Ann Coulter use them to hurt people," he said.

________________

Hana Kim, 20, of Stamford, cried as she recalled her experience hearing two young men express shock and disapproval in a loud conversation that a friend was dating an "Asian chick."

Oh, the horror!!! The world would be a lot better place if people would just grow some thicker skin. It's not poor little Hana that has the problem. It's the morons who have a problem with dating Asian women. So misguided, right IMOM?!

Seriously though, I am sick of the cries of "free speech" only applying to lefties. If they have a problem with Coulter, why don't they respectfully wait for her to finish her speech and then confront her during the Q&A with some well thought-out arguments backed by meaningful facts and empirical evidence. Oops. I guess that doesn't really apply to their arguments since libs only know how to speak in bumper sticker language. "Bush lied and people died." "Make love not war." "Give peace a chance." "No justice no peace." Certainly a lot easier than developing valid arguments.

The Koran: A New Mein Kampf?

The Koran: A New Mein Kampf?

by Robert Spencer
Posted Dec 7, 2005

Last week in New York Oriana Fallaci said that “the Koran is the Mein Kampf of this movement. The Koran demands the annihilation or subjugation of the other, and wants to substitute totalitarianism for democracy….You will find that all the evil that the sons of Allah commit against themselves and against others is in it."

This statement has caused considerable controversy. Some maintained: “There are moderate Moslems…Tarring the whole religion is counterproductive…If there are no moderate muslims, as Fallaci says, then we are doomed.” But of course, Fallaci did not say that there were no moderate Muslims; she said that there was no moderate Islam. As Ibn Warraq has said, "There may be moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate." There are peaceful Muslims who have no intention of working by violent or subversive means to impose Sharia on the West. This does not mitigate the fact that some high-profile moderates, such as Cleveland Imam Fawaz Damra, who signed the recent Fiqh Council of North America's fatwa against terrorism, turned out to be deceivers. Still, to say that the Koran is the Mein Kampf of the jihad movement is not to deny the reality that many, if not most, people who identify themselves as Muslims are primarily interested in living ordinary lives.

How could the Koran be the Mein Kampf -- that is, the inspiration and guidebook, the motivating force -- of the jihad movement, and yet there could be peaceful Muslims? In the first place, because jihadists themselves routinely invoke it as the justification for their acts of violence, and as a means to recruit other Muslims into their movement. Any cursory glance at the statements of jihadists shows them to be filled with Koran quotes and appeals to other Muslims that they represent "pure Islam."

Nor are these jihadists misrepresenting what the Koran says. They take the book's many martial verses at face value. Over 100 Koranic verses exhort believers to wage jihad against unbelievers. “When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads and, when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly” (Koran 47:4). This is emphasized repeatedly. Jews and Christians are among those to be fought: “Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Koran 9:29).

There is no doubt that Muhammad meant such verses literally. Nonetheless, the fact that warfare against unbelievers is not a twisting of Islam, but the Islamic mainstream, and is repeatedly affirmed in the Koran, Hadith, example of Muhammad, and rulings of every school of Islamic jurisprudence, still does not make every Muslim a terrorist.

Why? Because the Koran is in difficult, classical Arabic, and must be read and recited during Muslim prayers in that language only. A surprisingly large number of Muslims have scant acquaintance with what it actually says. This is common to a degree that may surprise non-Muslims.

So is the Koran the Mein Kampf of the totalitarian, supremacist movement of Islamic jihad? If we take seriously the words of the book itself and how they are used by jihadists, then it clearly is their inspiration. Are we to ignore the jihadists' many clear statements on this because they offend contemporary sensibilities? The challenge for peaceful Muslims today is to confront, not to deny, this obvious fact, and to formulate strategies for a large-scale rejection of literalism in the Islamic community in America and worldwide, so that Muslims can coexist peacefully as equals with non-Muslims without the continuing recrudescence of this supremacist impulse.

Can it be done? The odds against it are prohibitive. But we do not do genuine Muslim reformers any favor whatsoever by denying that there is any work they need do with the Koran and Islamic tradition, or by pretending that the source of the problem is other than what it is.

Mr. Spencer is director of Jihad Watch and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (Regnery -- a HUMAN EVENTS sister company) and Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith (Encounter).

_______________________________

I like this analogy:

"I join an environmental group because I agree with its goals about the environment.

Over time the group's leaders begin to espouse ideology that states that terrorist acts in the name of "saving" the environment are okay, even required by the organization's charter.

Other leaders in the group do not condemn these statements and do nothing to stop these terrorist acts. They do not at all refute the conclusion that the group's charter requires terrorist acts.

I'm still sitting there as a member of this organization. I am not a terrorist. I do not commit terrorist acts. Nevertheless, I am in fact a member of a terrorist organiztaion---a group which espouses that it's very founding charter requires terrorism in order to reach the group's goals.

Islam today is a terrorist organization and so long as few Muslims condemn, refute and reject terrorism in the name of Allah, it will remain so."

23 posted on 12/07/2005 6:33:53 AM PST by wouldntbprudent

More Gold From Howie Dean

Dean: US Won't Win in Iraq

LAST UPDATE: 12/6/2005 6:20:37 AM
Posted By: Jim Forsyth

(SAN ANTONIO) -- Saying the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong," Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean predicted today that the Democratic Party will come together on a proposal to withdraw National Guard and Reserve troops immediately, and all US forces within two years.

Dean made his comments in an interview on WOAI Radio in San Antonio.

"I've seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, 'just another year, just stay the course, we'll have a victory.' Well, we didn't have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening."

Dean says the Democrat position on the war is 'coalescing,' and is likely to include several proposals.

"I think we need a strategic redeployment over a period of two years," Dean said. "Bring the 80,000 National Guard and Reserve troops home immediately. They don't belong in a conflict like this anyway. We ought to have a redeployment to Afghanistan of 20,000 troops, we don't have enough troops to do the job there and its a place where we are welcome. And we need a force in the Middle East, not in Iraq but in a friendly neighboring country to fight (terrorist leader Musab) Zarqawi, who came to Iraq after this invasion. We've got to get the target off the backs of American troops.

Dean didn't specify which country the US forces would deploy to, but he said he would like to see the entire process completed within two years. He said the Democrat proposal is not a 'withdrawal,' but rather a 'strategic redeployment' of U.S. forces.

"The White House wants us to have a permanent commitment to Iraq. This is an Iraqi problem. President Bush got rid of Saddam Hussein and that was a great thing, but that could have been done in a very different way. But now that we're there we need to figure out how to leave. 80% of Iraqis want us to leave, and it's their country."

Dean also compared the controversy over pre-war intelligence to the Watergate scandal which brought down Richard Nixon's presidency in 1974.

"What we see today is very much like what was going in Watergate," Dean said. "It turns out there is a lot of good evidence that President Bush did not tell the truth when he was asking Congress for the power to go to war. The President said last week that Congress saw the same intelligence that he did in making the decision to go to war, and that is flat out wrong. The President withheld some intelligence from the Senate Intelligence Committee. He withheld the report from the CIA that in fact there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction (in Iraq), that they did not have a nuclear program. They (the White House) selectively gave intelligence to the United States Senate and the United States Congress and got them to give the go ahead to attack these people."

___________________

I absolutely love Howard Dean! He has done more for the Republican party than anyone else. Keep talking, Howie, and more voters will run screaming in terror from the dumbocratic party. 06' and 08' are looking better and better with each passing day.

In the words of little Howie: "Yyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!"

American Psycho

Ramsey Clark in Baghdad

By Christopher Hitchens
Slate | December 5, 2005

All must agree that Saddam Hussein is entitled to the best legal defense team, and that it is a very special responsibility of the Coalition authorities to provide cast-iron protection to those who undertake the task. (This remains true even if, as is strongly implied in a Nov. 29 article by John Burns in the New York Times, Saddam and his lawyers have been caught hinting at involuntary changes in the composition of the prosecution team.)

But the phrase "best defense" and the name "Ramsey Clark" do not have the same apposition as, say, peaches and cream. Clark used to be Lyndon Johnson's attorney general and in that capacity tried to send Dr. Benjamin Spock, Marcus Raskin, and others to jail for their advocacy of resistance to the war in Vietnam. (In a bizarre 2002 interview in the Washington Post, he took the view that he was still right to have attempted this, even though Raskin was eventually exonerated.) From bullying prosecutor he mutated into vagrant and floating defense counsel, offering himself to the génocideurs of Rwanda and to Slobodan Milosevic, and using up the spare time in apologetics for North Korea. He acts as front-man for the Workers World Party, an especially venomous little Communist sect, which originated in a defense of the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956.

I was wondering when Clark would pop up in Baghdad, and there he was last Monday, presenting his credentials to the judge in the Saddam Hussein case and being accepted at his face value as a defense spokesman. He lost no time in showing what he is made of.

The first charge being brought against Saddam Hussein is that in 1982, after his motorcade came under fire near the mainly Shi'ite town of Dujail, he ordered the torture and murder of 148 men and boys. It's a relatively minor item in the catalog, but there it is. The first prosecution witness in the case, Wadah al-Sheikh, has actually testified that he knows of no direct link between Saddam and the killings. The defense team has to hope that it can prove the same, or perhaps suggest that no such massacre occurred. Not so Ramsey Clark. In a recent BBC interview, he offered the excuse that Iraq was then fighting the Shi'ite nation of Iran:

He (Saddam) had this huge war going on, and you have to act firmly when you have an assassination attempt.

Just go back and read that again. Ramsey Clark believes that A) the massacre and torture did occur and B) that it was ordered by his client and C) that he was justified in ordering it and carrying it out. That is quite sufficiently breathtaking. It is no less breathtaking when one recalls why Saddam "had this huge war going on." He had, after all, ordered a full-scale invasion of the oil-bearing Iranian region of Khuzestan and attempted to redraw the frontiers in Iraq's favor. Most experts accept a figure of about a million and a half as the number of young Iranians and Iraqis who lost their lives in consequence of this aggression (which incidentally enjoyed the approval of that Nobel Peace laureate Jimmy Carter). And Ramsey Clark says that the aggression is an additional reason to justify the massacre at Dujail.

Rather than say what substance I think Ramsey Clark is made of, I shall quote from Jeffrey Blankfort. There are various Web sites devoted to undermining the war effort in Iraq, one or two of which are also devoted to attacks on my own moral turpitude. I can't read them all but I do usually look at the e-mail I get from Blankfort. He is a very serious guy with whom I have had a few exchanges. He is one of the few to have noticed what Ramsey Clark said, and here is his comment:

The problem is…that Clark is one of the most well-known representatives of the anti-war movement and represents the ANSWER coalition and in my mind this is more than the conflict of interest that it unquestionably is. Thus, the message that it sends to the Iraqi people is that the anti-war movement doesn't really care about any Iraqis other than those who have been killed by US and UK forces, that it, in fact, does not condemn Saddam for his long history of human rights violations and for his launching a bloody war against Iran that took well over a million lives.

That is to say the least of it. He adds:

It is long past time for the anti-war movement to drop its double standards. It can begin by saying Ramsey Clark does not speak for us. He certainly does not speak for me.

This is a nice twist on the self-regarding "Not In Our Name" slogan under which the anti-war movement filled the streets to hear speeches from Saddam sympathizers, Fidel and Kim groupies, and Islamic fundamentalists. Not really anti-war at all, but pro-war on the other side. It was more like a single standard if you ask me, but let's put this to the test.

So, how about it, Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore and Tim Robbins and all the rest of you? Do you need any prompting to say what you think? Or is the only crime scene to be found in the Downing Street memo and the identifying of a CIA bureaucrat? We know what Clark is made of: What about you? I meanwhile shall recline, happy in the knowledge that Saddam Hussein has engaged the services of an attorney who proclaims him to be guilty as charged.

EuroTwit!

Belgian Woman Identified As an Iraq Bomber
ap/abcnews | Dec. 1. 2005 | RAF CASERT


MONCEAU-SUR-SAMBRE, Belgium - Authorities have identified a woman who carried out a suicide attack against a U.S. patrol in Iraq as a 38-year-old Belgian who had two marriages to radical Muslim men.

Muriel Degauque, who grew up near the industrial city of Charleroi, entered Iraq from Syria last month and detonated explosives strapped to her body in a failed attack against U.S. troops.

Her mother, Liliane Degauque, told Belgian TV networks that her daughter was "so nice" — but began to change when she married an Algerian man and turned to Islamic fundamentalism.

The case underscored the growing reach of international terrorism.

"It is the first time that we see that a Western woman, a Belgian, marrying a radical Muslim, and is converted up to the point of becoming a jihad fighter," federal police director Glenn Audenaert said.

In her younger years, Degauque lived a conventional life in southern Belgium. Media reports said she finished high school before taking on several jobs, including selling bread in a bakery. They also said she had run into problems with drugs and alcohol as an adolescent.

After marrying her second husband — a Moroccan man — authorities said Degauque became a member of a terror cell that embraced al-Qaida's ideology.

"This is our Belgian kamikaze killed in Iraq," read the headline of Thursday's La Derniere Heure newspaper, over a picture of the smiling young woman.

When Liliane Degauque saw police coming to her doorstep Wednesday, she immediately knew what it was about. She had heard reports the evening before there had been a terrorist attack on Nov. 9 by a Belgian woman.

Muriel's second husband was believed to have died in Iraq at some point before her death.

"For three weeks already I tried to contact her by telephone but I got the answering machine," she told the RTBF network on Thursday.

Authorities Thursday formally charged five of 14 suspects detained with involvement in a terrorist network that sent volunteers like Degauque to Iraq. A 15th suspect was picked up in France.

Those placed under arrest in Belgium were a Tunisian and four Belgians, three of whom had North African roots. The other nine were released.

"This action shows how international terrorism tries to set up networks in western European nations, recruit for terror attacks in conflict areas and look for funds to finance terrorism," said Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt.

Islamic radical groups linked to al-Qaida terror network are suspected of setting up networks in Belgium and other European nations with large Muslim communities. There are currently 13 Belgian and Moroccan nationals on trial for allegedly being members of an Islamic group suspected in recent bomb attacks in Spain and Morocco.

_______________________


This is just further proof that, thanks to the war in Iraq, we are fighting TERRORISTS there and not here!!!! I don't understand why this point isn't emphasized more. I hope they all flock there so our brave fighting men and women can help arrange their meeting with Allah.

Do homicidal women bombers get 72 virgin men??