I spent a long weekend in London meeting with a handful of prominent Iraqis, including two leading Shiite clerics. The group’s mission is to memorialize the brutality that existed under Saddam Hussein and to create a museum akin to the Holocaust Museum.
The Iraq Memory Foundation works to document the first-hand testimonies from Iraqi survivors of Saddam's regime. For nearly 30 years, Iraqis suffered from his brutality, but so many Americans say, "So what, that's their problem, they've been fighting for years and will always fight." Just look into the eyes of an Iraqi dad who had to watch with his wife, their eight-month old daughter fly a foot into the air as the current was turned on to an electric cable attached to their child’s wrist. Saddam should have been taken out even if his most serious weapon of mass destruction was a Red Ryder BB gun.
On a visit to Hyde Park's Speaker's Corner, I engaged a British Imam. Here are a few highlights of our exchange:
- Should leaving the Islamic faith be punishable by death? His response, "In Britain, no, but in an Islamic state, yes." In an Isalmic state, conversion to a different religion is considered synonymous with treason.
- Some people are concerned about Muslim immigrants not assimilating into the British culture. The Imam's response - "As Muslims we have fully integrated into British society, but we have no desire to assimilate to an inferior culture." Ironically, Britain today has "reverse assimilation" as exemplified by the fact that British police sniffer dogs wear "booties" with rubber soles so as not to offend Muslims.
- On the Muslim who was found not guilty of beating his wife in a German secular court because it did not violate Shari'a law, his response was, "Just as we punish our children to reprimand them, so too sometimes it is justifiable to reprimand our wives. It is our duty."
How does a multiculturalist embrace two cultures where one hangs homosexuals as they did the 14-year old boy in Iran last month, while the other protects and advances the rights of homosexuals? Similarly, is multiculturalism possible when we contrast Islam with Christianity? One says the Quran must dictate the function of government in a theocratic caliphate-type system of government. The western worldview embraces Jesus' comment, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto God what is God’s”... one of the earliest statements on the separation of church and state. How do multiculturalists justify the concept of religious freedom and a culture that kills those who leave the Muslim faith?
Dining at the House of Lords, graciously hosted by Baroness Caroline Cox and Lord Malcolm Pearson, joined by my friend Gerard Batten, who ran for Mayor of London, we discussed the impact of political correctness on British culture. A UK judge recently said that Shari'a law is permissible in domestic relationships, distressing women's rights advocates. Adding to this, the recent resolution passed by the United Nations, banning criticism of Islam and Mohammed, essentially making it akin to 'hate speech', drives all of us to discern what we can do, as private citizens on both sides of the pond, to maintain the free speech traditions we've enjoyed in western civilization, and for which so many have died.
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God Bless, Foster ****
27 comments:
Thanks for sharing, Foster! I always like reading about your activities and wish there were more frequent updates from you!
God bless and godspeed,
Kyle
In a class on Islam at my church, it occurred to me that orthodox Christians actually have more in common with Muslims than with the more liberal Christian churces. To wit: We both acknowledge that we're sinners in need of God's redemption. The churches that call themselves "inclusive" don't share that.
So there's a starting point. Imagine how many Muslims would become Christians if they realized the open hand of Jesus was being offered to them, too.
Michael Rittenhouse
Dallas
My very dear Foster
Many thanks for sending this.
It was so honest and true.
My view about the question "what we can do, as private citizens on both sides of the pond, to maintain the free speech traditions we've enjoyed in western civilization, and for which so many have died".
is: to
1- Allow freedom of expression and free speech as long as it does not cause or incite physical harm (not psychological) to others...once it can lead to physical harm to people it should be illegal ( it could be considered conspiracy for doing a crime) . For example, it does not cause any physical harm to others if some one said "There is no God" but it certainly cause severe harm if some one promoted killing apostates, beating women, stoning to death, killing homosexuals, using any violence to spread the religion (ABCs of Radical Islam). Saying an opinion that dose not cause or incite harm others physically is very different from teaching a child to use violence and kill innocents . Once we set the borders we can win the war. Many liberal left tries to create 'borderless world' and that is their way to win any discussion. Once we clarified the different types of speech and set borders of "causing OR inciting physical harm to people" we can start a real change in the society ...in fact we can win many reasonable liberal to our side. Part of this could be a huge campaign against the ABCs (I have the material for this ready and we can even do it on the web with people signing it). As long as we do not focus of creating reasonable and acceptable borders for freedom of speech (Does it cause or incite physical harm to others or not?) we will not be able to win this war.
We should fight those extreme Liberal left with their weapon. They want no borders ...so let us start putting the border (physical damage) that we know that many -including many true liberals-will agree on this. Once this happens we can do another campaign of lobbying to congress people (I am more than happy to talk to them via I.S.L.A.M one by one to start having limits.
In summary:
1- We need to set the border of "speech/education that causes or incites physical damage to others" (ABCs)
2- Start a web based campaign to get millions of signatures to do pressure on politicians
3- Proper lobbying in DC to members of congress and senators and other law makers.
(Note: I insisted of using the word physical damage as it is absolute while psychological damage is a relative issue.)
Tawfik Hamid
www.TawfikHamid.com
...also doing a univeral Interfaith agreement against the vilent teaching (Killing Apostates, Beating wmen, Stoning women untildeath, usinviolence to spread Islam, etc) can expose many Islamists to the public and shows that they are not "moderates".
Speaking about "moderate" and "Radical" without properly defining them is like some one saying that the pyramid is small and another one saying "it is Big"....they can argue FOREVER until they set parameters for what do they mean by their definition.....for example...the pyramid is big compared to an ant and small compared to a galaxy....without defining what do we mean by "small" and "big" i.e. how many cubic meters exactelly the discussion is endless....the moment we agreed upon that the definition that" big" is if the size is more than or equal to 500 cubic meters....then and only then people can say it is "Big". Because until now the parameters for defining moderate Islam and Radical Islm is vague in the west, things seems to be endless......once we set these parameters many things could be exposed and laws can be created.
The first step in my view is to set these parameters clear (The Apostate, Beating woe,stoning wmen for fornication-killing gays- Declaring wars to spread Islam) ...and once this happenes next steps will follow (public/political/legal pressure)
Tawfik Hamid
www.IsamForPeace.org
My dear Foster
Besides my other comments....I would like to add the following comment on this part: "The group’s mission is to memorialize the brutality that existed under Saddam Hussein and to create a museum akin to the Holocaust Museum"......My suggestion is to ask these Sheiia clerics to make the museum also memorialize the brutality of stoning women until death for sexual "misconduct" that the Iranian Mullas fully bless and support! I wonder if they will agree on adding this brutality to the museum as well!!!!!!!!!.......My view is to also have a museum (even on the Internet!) for the brutality of the Islamists all over the world from beheading to torturing victims to mutilating the dead bodies to honor killing..... to....to....to......
I am happy to start this Internet based museum - (this will cost much less than having a building and will reach far more people).
Tawfik Hamid
Great work Foster!
Keep fighting the GOOD fight.
Thanks Foster for promoting the truth and defending our valued freedom of speech. Mark Steyn recently was on trial in British Columbia for statements in his book America Alone that was classified as "hate speech". Canada does not have the freedom of speech.
Don Dougall
Seeing an Iman at Hyde Park, availing himself of the freedom of speech in order to advocate against the evils of it, made quite a picture.
Americans intuit (and many see the laws of God as inspiring and trumping governmental laws) that a government cannot create faith by force; in fact the presence of force to sustain a belief system is the best proof without force the system is unsustainable.
Think about it. The drafters of the US Constitution wisely made free speech and with it the freedom to think unfettered almost unlimited (there is a reason it is the first of the ten amendments in our bills of rights). Through jurisprudence we have furthered this protection by balancing the right of one not to be slandered or libeled against the freedom to express views. Could you sue against someone who speaks ill of you? Yes, but the speech has to be factually incorrect. And if you are a public figure you’d also have to prove the false statements made were made maliciously. In other words, freedom of speech is so important it protects even innocent mistakes, and it enshrines religious or political speech even the type that people find repugnant.
That is why ensuring the mechanisms of Iraqi self-government facilitate and protect freedom of speech are some of the most important seeds to plant for individual freedom and against extremism. I would even go so far as to create entities that agitate the closed-minded with the exercise of that right. If we are in the business of nation-building, which we most certainly are here, not leaving this cornerstone of American democracy as their building block would be akin to 1990 redux.
I am in agreement about your comments regarding the brutality of the Saddam regime. How this was allowed to continue for as long as it did, I'm unable to understand.
I'm curious as to how we, as Americans, can coexist with Islamic factions that do not recognize the value of a secular state/country?
What are your thoughts on this view because I am quite certain that I don't have all the information to make a correct judgement.
Foster, I am always looking for news that I can not find in the mainstream media. Your informaton was moving and a powerful reason why retreat is not an option. Thank you, Phil Burress
Superb work, Foster! I especially enjoyed your mention of the 550 tons on yellowcake that were shipped to Canada. They say it's very(!) difficult to transfer it safely...and this detail alone tells us that George Bush is the poker-face master of the universe!
Howdy Foster, Thanks for going the extra mile to have discussions with these Muslim leaders. I have no doubt that you went to find truth and hoped that the search would bring a more positive result. One of the sad aspects of our current environment is that in an ever more secular western world, we are facing a spiritual battle of epic proportions. What you experienced in London is a true representation of Islam. Moderates are cultural Muslims. True believers are making news as 'fanatics'. I just read a book,"Unveiling Islam", written by brothers, Ergun Caner (now D.Min,Th.D.Professor of Theology at Liberty Univ.) and Emir Caner (Ph.D.Assoc. Professor at Southeastern Baptist Seminary), former Mislims who became Christians. They were well schooled in Islam and are now similarly endowed in their Christian faith. The book is a point-by-point scriptural comparison of the two faiths, as well as a direct comparison of Jesus and Muhammad. Foster, we need to deepen our understanding of this most important clash of cultures, so I urge you and those who have added comments here, to read this book and add your voices to the debate.
Thanks and blessings,
Ed Bartolini
I have to ask Michael Rittenhouse to consider that Christian churches follow Christ more or less while Muslims do not, so we have a diffrence of 'kind' not degree. Muslims do not have a theology of original sin as we do.
Ambassador Joseph Wilson spent more than two decades in the US Foreign Service. As the acting ambassador to Iraq in 1990, he was the last American official to meet with Saddam. "He successfully parried the dictator's threats to use American hostages as human shields against US bombing and was given a patriot's welcome by President George H.W. Bush on his homecoming...In 1991 President H.W. Bush called Ambassador Wilson a "true American hero."
According to his book, at the request of the CIA, he had traveled to Niger and found no evidence to support the rumor of a uranium deal. "The White House retaliated viciously. Seeking revenge against Wilson and trying to intimidate intelligence professionals who had begun telling reporters of prewar pressure to skew their analyses of the threat posed by Iraq, senior administration officials did the unthinkable:They disclosed the undercover status of Wilson's wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame.."
Wilson was not the only diplomat to question the accuracy of the information in the President's State of the Union address that sent this country into war.
"The director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, also told the U.N. Security Council that the documents involving the Niger-Iraq uranium sale were fakes.
"The agency had been given about a half-dozen letters and other communications between officials in Niger and Iraq,...the problems were glaring. One letter, dated October 10, 2000, was signed with the name of the Allele Habibou, a Niger Minister fo Foreign Affairs who had been out of office since 1989. Another letter, allegedly from the President of Niger Tandja Mamadou had a signature that had obviously been faked and a text with inaccuracies so egregious, the senior I.A.E.A. official said, that "they could be spotted by someone using Google on the Internet."
"The large quantitiy of uranium involved should have been another warning sign. Niger's 'yellow cake' comes from two uranium mines owned by a French company with it's entire output presold to nuclear power companies in France, Japan, and Spain. "Five hundred tons can't be siphoned off with anyone noticing" according to another I.A.E.A. official.
Dear Foster,
Many thanks for all your efforts in helping peaceful Muslims and also for everything you do around the country and the world to help so many in need. You are an inspiration to all of us. Thanks also for providing a forum for people to examine the many issues relative to our involvement in Iraq. Maureen
Niger Uranium: Still a False Claim
By Joseph Cirincione
Publisher: Carnegie
Proliferation Brief, Volume 7, Number 12
Of all the controversies surrounding the non-discovery of WMD in Iraq, none has dominated the news cycle over the past year as much as the Niger uranium hullabaloo-and none has been so misconstrued by experts and pundits alike. A year ago, revelations by Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador sent to Niger to investigate whether Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Iraq, forced the administration to recant its public statements on the subject. Now, with the Butler inquiry's conclusion that the British intelligence judgment was "well-founded" and the Senate Intelligence Committee's claim that Wilson's report had little impact on officials, some are calling for Wilson to publicly apologize. A little common sense shows that a Niger uranium sale-even if attempted-was always highly improbable and was never a serious threat.
Allegations Abound
In late September, a British white paper judged that "Iraq has . . . sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa, despite having no active civil nuclear power programme that could require it." In December 2002 and January 2003, several administration officials, including Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, repeated the allegation-without citing the British report. In his January State of the Union address, President Bush said the now-infamous sixteen words, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Evidence Deflates
Iraq purchased uranium from Niger, Portugal and Brazil during the early stages of its nuclear program in the 1970s, but by the next decade halted these imports because it became self-sufficient in uranium production. In March 2003, Iraq had an inventory of over 500 tons of natural uranium and almost two tons of low-enriched uranium. This uranium was kept under IAEA seal and checked annually by the nuclear agency-theoretically unavailable to the Iraqi regime for use in a nuclear program.
No unclassified CIA assessment prior to 2002 discussed Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Africa, although most noted, "A sufficient source of fissile material remains Iraq's most significant obstacle to being able to produce a nuclear weapon." The now-declassified October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) claimed, however, that Iraq "began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake," reportedly in Niger, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The NIE said that "foreign government service" reports indicated that in early 2001 Niger and Iraq "reportedly were still working out arrangements for this deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of yellowcake," although the NIE said it could not confirm the reports on possible Iraqi uranium procurement. (The Department of State's intelligence bureau, INR, noted in a separate dissent: "the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are . . . highly dubious.")
The primary evidence for the Niger uranium claim was a series of documents purporting to show a uranium purchase deal with Iraq. On March 7, 2003, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei concluded that the documents provided to the IAEA by the United States were unsubstantiated and likely forged. He told the UN Security Council, "Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents, which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transaction between Iraq and Niger, are in fact not authentic. We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded."
It was not until July 2003, however, that the administration acknowledged the problems with the forged documents-when Joseph Wilson revealed that he had visited Niger at the CIA's request in February 2002 to investigate the alleged uranium sale. Wilson said that he not only found the allegation "bogus and unrealistic," but said that his conclusions were likely forwarded to the vice president, who made the initial inquiry in a CIA briefing.
Then-Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet said on July 11, "These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President .This was a mistake." On July 22, Deputy National Security Advisor Steven Hadley said that he deleted a reference to Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium in Africa from President Bush's October 7, 2002 Cincinnati speech based on a telephone call from DCI Tenet and two CIA memos sent to himself-one of which was also sent to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. Hadley said that this second memo detailed
some weakness in the evidence, the fact that the effort was not particularly significant to Iraq's nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already had a large stock of uranium oxide in their inventory. The memorandum also stated that the CIA had been telling Congress that the Africa story was one of two issues where we differed with the British intelligence . . . based on what we now know, we had opportunities here to avoid this problem. We didn't take them . . . having been taken out of Cincinnati, it should have been taken out of the State of the Union.
The British Push Back
At the time, the British government continued to defend the Niger statement. Tony Blair said in July, "The evidence that we had that the Iraqi government had gone back to try to purchase further amounts of uranium from Niger did not come from so-called 'forged' documents. They came from separate intelligence."
This additional intelligence appears to involve an alleged visit to Niger in 1999 by Iraqi officials. According to the Butler report, in 2000 the British intelligence agencies "judged that Iraqi purchase of uranium ore could have been the subject of discussions" because uranium accounted for three-quarters of Nigerian exports, "[p]utting this together with past Iraqi purchases of uranium ore from Niger, the limitations faced by the Iraqi regime on access to indigenous uranium ore and other evidence of Iraq seeking to restart its nuclear programme." (This visit is said to be separate from a 1999 discussion during an international meeting, where Iraqis, as reported by Ambassador Wilson, expressed their interest in Niger "commodities.") Although the Butler report said that additional evidence surfaced in 2002 to support this judgment, disagreements among the intelligence community about the alleged sale persisted. The report says that the intelligence on the uranium claim was "inconclusive."
Citing these additional reports, many now claim that the administration was correct in its statements because additional evidence beyond the forged documents existed. But why did the U.S. administration backtrack on the Niger uranium claim in July 2003 if this was true? It is significant that then-Iraq Survey Group (ISG) chief David Kay did not mention the Niger uranium controversy in his October 2 testimony to the Senate and House Select Intelligence Committees. To reporters, however, Kay said, "With the yellowcake issue we have found no conclusive proof of attempts. We have found one other offer of uranium to them from another African country. Not [Niger]. But we're still investigating that. So far we have no evidence that it moved beyond what's probably an unsolicited offer, at least the document we have in hand looks like an unsolicited offer."
The Numbers Tell
So, as far as concrete evidence is concerned, the claim appears shaky at best, hardly the stuff that should make up presidential decisions. But could Iraqi interest have been converted into an actual deal? Three memos from officials on the ground said no-reports from the U.S. Ambassador to Niger Barbaro Owens-Kirkpatrick, Marine Corps General Carleton Fulford and Ambassador Wilson all concluded a deal was highly unlikely. Here is why:
Niger has two uranium mines, both owned by a French multi-national consortium (COGEMA) that receives all of Niger's ore for processing. With annual yellowcake production around 2,900 tons, Niger has the third-highest uranium production in the world behind Canada and Australia. Almost all of this yellowcake is exported to France, Japan, and Spain (the countries that make up the COGEMA consortium).
To obtain 500 tons of yellowcake as outlined in the NIE, Iraq would have had to: 1) import one-sixth of the uranium that Niger produces in an entire year, and 2) hide these imports from the consortium that tightly controls the mines and pre-sells the uranium to its members before it is even mined. These are not trivial matters. Even on a much smaller scale, French, international or U.S. authorities would certainly have detected such activity-especially after Niger signed a comprehensive safeguards agreement with the IAEA in June 2002.
The numbers tell us that Iraq's alleged interest in Niger uranium - even if true - never represented an immediate or significant threat to the United States. Simple math and common sense confirm that the claim should never have appeared in administration statements as evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapon program.
#1 - As long as free society greases the squeaky wheel all is lost.
#2 - Lets take a ride up to lake solitude in August.
I believe that what you exhale is not a pollutant. Plants use CO2 in photsynthesis. I believe that we are in a solar warming cycle. According to Diamond his book Collapse, during the 11 century the viking settled in Greenland because it was warm. They raised catle and crops. The Inuits kayaked across the Artic Ocean (polar cap was mealted) and attacked the Vikings. In the 12th century the climate cooled (97 yrs of no sunspots) and they were wiped out by the little ice age. I think that the Global warming bandwagon is a method to generate money. Ask Al Gore and his carbon credit company, his movie and his speaking engagements.
Don Dougall
Thanks for keeping us posted Foster. I appreciated readding your notes on global warming and where the U.S. stands. Your information is clear and concise and it is not what we are hearing from the main stream press.
Keith Staser
Hello Foster
Let me clarify something about "Radical Islam"; there is nothing in Islam that is found to be radical by its adherents. If one was to act beyond the bounderies of what is prescribed in Islam it is deemed to be "Un-Islamic" and have no bearing on Islam.
People have now got into thrashing Islam in whatever way they can based on the acts of people who have nothing to do with Islam- the birth of Islamophobia!
Just in passing, the Catholic Church in the US has paid millions of dollars to compensate (?) men who have been sexually abused by clergy who took advantage of these young men. Should we talk about Radical Catholisism? No, I dont think so- these acts were perpretrated by sexually deprived clergy and had nothing to do with the religion.
What I would encourage is a better understanding of Islam.
To Foster, pardon my use of your name, but to foster better relationship with all major religions and tolerance and understanding is the way forward.
To this end I would invite Foster to use his good offices to set up a conference and platform venue to be attended by eminent scholars and clergy from all the major religions and also to invite Dr Zakir Naik (www.peace.tv) as the representative of the Islamic faith to speak and to enagage in an open question and asnwer session.
It is time to put an end to Islamophobia and it is to be seen whether this humble comment on your blog will result in this conference to break down the bariers!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080803/lf_afp/lifestylepolandsexreligioncatholic_080803032310
is this a casae of radical Catholicism or what...............?
Sorry made a mistake where one could contact Dr Zakir Naik (http://www.peacetv.tv/) - it is not the URL that I gave in my previous post!
Foster- please do invite Dr Zakir Naik to address the inter-religious understanding that I hope your organization (whose interest and objectives are to foster understanding and peace on earth@!) will undertake!
Sorry made a mistake where one could contact Dr Zakir Naik (http://www.peacetv.tv/) - it is not the URL that I gave in my previous post!
Foster- please do invite Dr Zakir Naik to address the inter-religious understanding that I hope your organization (whose interest and objectives are to foster understanding and peace on earth@!) will undertake!
Foster
Your readers would be interested in hearing about a Christian from TEXAS who tried to convert a Muslim:
http://www.peacetv.tv/sp-yusuf_estes.php
Yusuf Estes also has his own web sites where one can get to know what happened when Estes tried to convert a Muslim:
www.YusufEstes.com
Yusuf Estes also has his own web sites where one can get to know what happened when Estes tried to convert a Muslim:
www.YusufEstes.com
Estes on Priests and Clergy:
www.911bible.com
I've seen you play golf Foster and am not sure about your last comment in the Palin article. Must admit that your creative lead got me into the article. McClain/Palin is what the nation needs. I'm more excited about this ticket than any other in my life. Thanks for your work.
Parfully yours,
ron b.
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