Kansas Governor, Sam Brownback, Signs Anti-Sharia Bill, Effectively Banning Islamic Law
Reuters | Posted: 05/25/2012 7:48 pm Updated: 05/26/2012 12:09 am
By Kevin Murphy
KANSAS CITY, Kan., May 25 (Reuters) - Republican Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed a bill aimed at keeping state courts and agencies from using Islamic or other non-U.S. laws when making decisions, his office said on Friday, drawing criticism from a national Muslim group.
The law has been dubbed the "sharia bill" because critics say it targets the Islamic legal code. Sharia, or Islamic law, covers all aspects of Muslim life, including religious obligations and financial dealings. Opponents of state bans say they could nullify wills or legal contracts between Muslims.
Supporters said the law will reassure foreigners in Kansas that state laws and the U.S. Constitution would protect them. Opponents said it singled out Muslims for ridicule and was unnecessary because American laws prevail on U.S. soil.
Sherriene Jones-Sontag, a spokeswoman for the governor, said in an e-mail that the bill "makes it clear that Kansas courts will rely exclusively on the laws of our state and our nation when deciding cases and will not consider the laws of foreign jurisdictions."
Legislators supporting the bill said there were many cases around the country where judges or state agencies cited sharia law in deciding cases, especially involving divorce-related custody and property matters where Islamic code differs from U.S. law.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington denounced the Kansas law and said it is considering legal action.
About 20 states have considered similar legislation but the Kansas law is the only one signed in recent weeks, council spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said.
"It's unfortunate the governor chose to pander to the growing Islam-phobia in our society that has led to introduction of similar unconstitutional and un-American legislation in dozens of state legislatures," Hooper said.
Hooper said legislators have often referred to sharia law in supporting such legislation, but he said they take the word out of the bill to stave off legal challenges. The Kansas bill does not mention sharia.
Federal courts struck down an Oklahoma law voters approved in 2010 that barred state judges from considering sharia law in making decisions. The court called the law discriminatory. (Editing by Greg McCune and Stacey Joyce)
In response to the hacking to death of Lee Rigby, a young off-duty British soldier killed on a London street in broad daylight, Britain’s Home Office plans measures to prevent the radicalization of Muslim youth which include censorship of jihadist Internet websites, a crackdown on extremist organizations and the cleansing of mosques and place of learning from preachers promoting “a poisonous narrative.” That’s all very well but unless the government acknowledges the root of the problem those steps will constitute a mere band-aid covering a suppurating sore.
Scrubbing the Internet and gagging clerics will not eradicate the anger felt by Muslims when they witness the outcome of US and American wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere on their TV screens. That anger is justifiable; the way that a few — like the 7/7 London transport bombers, the Boston bombers and the two men who boasted about carving up a British soldier — unleash their fury on innocents, who have no say over their government’s actions, is cowardly and abhorrent. Moreover, they’re no warriors for Islam when the faith explicitly states that killing one innocent is akin to slaying all of humanity.
Leaders of Muslim communities in the UK have loudly condemned the barbaric incident but law-abiding British Muslims are suffering a backlash from right-wing groups, such as the British National Party (BNP) and the English Defense League (EDL), which have organized marches to ignite Islamophobic sentiment. The leader of the BNP says mass immigration is to be blamed and the perpetrators should be shot again and wrapped in pigskin. The EDL announced the movement is “at war” with Islamic extremism. British Muslims are being targeted by balaclava-wearing Nazi-leaning fascists. In recent days, mosques have come under attack or daubed with racist graffiti. Muslims are being spat at or threatened in the streets; women’s head scarves are being pulled off their heads by passersby. In short, Muslims in Britain are living in fear through no fault of their own.
However, British authorities don’t have clean hands either. The real scandal is that one of the perpetrators Michael Adebolajo, the son of Nigerian Christian immigrants, was known to UK anti-terror units three years prior to the attack after his arrest in Kenya when he was suspected of participating in an Al-Qaeda inspired plot. Upon his return to the UK, his family and friends say MI5 pressured him to infiltrate extremist groups and spy on Muslim scholars, which he allegedly refused to do. Likewise the dead Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarvaev was added to a CIA watch list following a tip-off from Moscow, 18 months before his home-made bomb exploded at the marathon’s finishing line.
History confirms that both the UK and the US have on occasion worked closely with Islamists and jihadists since the 1950s on the basis of as long as they’re “our terrorists” they’re good fellows. There are numerous examples dating back to the era of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser who swayed toward the Soviet Union.
In his memoir “The Game of Nations: The Amorality of Power Politics,” US intelligence veteran Col. W. Patrick Lang describes how the CIA sought to undermine Nasser’s popularity and nationalist spirit by seeking out “a religious spellbinder” on the lines of Egypt’s answer to Billy Graham. The CIA’s man in Cairo, Miles Copeland, came across the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and worked with the organization to topple the Egyptian leader, albeit unsuccessfully. Robert Baer writes in his book “Sleeping with the Devil” that the CIA funneled support to the MB because of “the Brotherhood’s commendable ability to overthrow Nasser.”
It won’t be news to you that the CIA was instrumental in the coup that rid Iran of its democratically-elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and worked to overthrow the Shah. But you may not realize that the CIA and Britain’s MI6 actively promoted the Ayatollah Khomeini to the extent that prior to his return from exile in France, the Iranians dubbed the BBC “The Ayatollah BBC.”
Fast forwarding to the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda’s main training base “Bayt Al-Ansar” was founded with the assistance of the CIA chief in Peshawar at a time when the US manipulated religious belief to attract anti-Soviet jihadists to fight against communism. Under the umbrella of NSDD 166, the US took part in the radicalization of Afghan schoolchildren, encouraging them to join the anti-Soviet resistance with textbooks promoting jihad and featuring violent images.
Michel Chossudovsky, a Canadian professor and author, wrote, “Advertisements paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the Jihad.” “Under the Reagan administration, US foreign policy evolved toward the unconditional support and endorsement of the Islamic “freedom fighters,” he writes, adding, “In today’s world, the ‘freedom fighters’ are labeled “Islamic terrorists.”
The CIA has also supported “freedom fighters” considered terrorists in Russia. Author John Laughland wrote that “the leading group which pleads the Chechan cause is the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya” with “the list of the self-styled “distinguished Americans” who are its members is a roll call of the most prominent neoconservatives who so enthusiastically support the “war on terror.”
Award-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh describes in the New Yorker under the heading “Our men in Iran” how US “Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian group known in the West as the M.E.K.” which has been linked to the assassination of six American citizens and is listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization. Hersh alleges that members of the M.E.K. trained in Nevada but that program ended when Obama took office.
Some of the most explosive revelations come from former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. In her book “Classified Woman” published last year, she accuses US government officials of collaborating with Al-Qaeda. During interviews she asserted that Al-Qaeda chief Ayman Al-Zawahri regularly met with US intelligence officials between 1997 and 2001. Sunday Times journalists wishing to remain anonymous allege a four-part series on this topic, scheduled to run in 2008, was dropped under pressure from “interest groups” associated with the US State Department.
It’s clear to me that the Islamic faith has been used and abused by Western intelligence agencies to suit their nation’s geopolitical agendas, nations that are almost as much to blame for terrorism acts, carried out by young and impressionable dupes, as those who light the fuse. Politicians, diplomats and spooks, who helped give birth to this Frankensteinian monster we call terrorism, can hardly complain when the creature turns on its master to wreak death and destruction wherever it goes.
Many Arabs and Muslims hate the U.S. because it stands in the way of fulfilling their dream of destroying Israel. The strong sentiments against Israel and the U.S. are the direct result of decades of indoctrination and incitement.
The anti-US protests that erupted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip before and during President Barack Obama's serve as a reminder that many Palestinians continue to loathe the U.S., primarily because of its support for Israel.
But U.S. support for Israel is not the only reason why such a large number of Palestinians -- as well as Arabs and Muslims -- hate the Americans with such intensity.
Palestinians who took to the streets during the week to protest against Obama's visit chanted slogans not only against him personally, but also in denunciation of U.S. policies and actions toward the Arabs and Muslims.
In Ramallah, for instance, hundreds of Muslim fundamentalists chanted slogans condemning the U.S. for "perpetrating massacres and atrocities" against Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"America is the number one enemy of Islam and Muslims," speakers at the anti-U.S. rally in Ramallah declared.
Palestinian Authority policemen, who are trained and funded by the U.S. and other Western countries, did not intervene even as the extremists also started criticizing the leaders of the Palestinian Authority for agreeing to meet with the "infidel" Obama.
Palestinian demonstrators in Bethlehem, who trampled on Obama's pictures and sprayed Nazi swastikas over them before setting them on fire, also explained that they were protesting not only against U.S. support for Israel, but also Washington's general attitude toward Arabs and Muslims.
"The Americans are the enemies of the Arabs and Muslims," shouted a Palestinian activist standing near Manger Square. "The Americans do only what the Jews tell them to do and that is why they are against all Arabs and Muslims."
The strong sentiments against Israel and the U.S. expressed by Palestinians are the direct result of decades of indoctrination and incitement.
Like the rest of the Arab and Islamic countries, Palestinians have been told that the U.S. is the "Great Satan" and number one enemy of all Arabs and Muslims.
Israel dismantles Palestinian 'Bab al-Shams' protest camp
Published March 24th, 2013 - 12:47 GMT via SyndiGate.info
A Palestinian flag flutters at a protest camp in the controversial West Bank area known as E1 located east of Jerusalem and near the Jewish settlement of Maaleh Adumim early on Sunday. Hundreds of Israeli police dismantled the protest camp on the outskirts of Jerusalem overnight, activists and police said. (Photo: AFP / Ahmad Gharabli).
Before dawn on Sunday, around 200 Israeli police officers removed some 40 demonstrators from the tent camp, which was set up during U.S. President Barack Obama's recent visit, police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, told the news site.
Activists set up the camp, named Bab al-Shams (Gate of the Sun), near the West Bank Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, in an attempt to draw attention to Israeli plans to boost building in E1, a controversial corridor of land east of Jerusalem.
Critics say that plans to build over 3,500 housing units in E1 would cut off the northern part of the West Bank from the south and would leave Palestinian areas of Jerusalem surrounded by a chain of Jewish ones, threatening the viability of a future Palestinian state.
During his visit last week, Obama highlighted the E1 settlement as particularly problematic.
One of the protest organizers, Palestinian legislator, Mustafa Barghouti, told AFP news agency by phone on Sunday that he and four others were arrested and taken for questioning at Maale Adumim police station.
CAIRO — Supporters of former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak and the human rights advocates who dedicated themselves to toppling the longtime autocrat never dreamed they would find themselves chanting the same slogans.
But with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s decision on Thursday to assume near-absolute power over his country, at least for now, secularists of all stripes have mobilized in ways unimaginable just a week ago. With Islamists largely backing Morsi, a battle is quickly taking shape over the degree to which religion will play a role in post-revolutionary Egypt’s government.
On Sunday, despite a nascent rebellion among the judiciary, Morsi’s office said he would hold firm to his decisions. He also flexed his newly expanded powers for the first time, changing several labor laws by fiat. In a sign of fear about instability to come, Egypt’s main stock index plunged by almost 10 percent on the first trading day since Morsi’s announcement. It was the steepest drop since the turbulent days immediately after the revolution.
But Morsi also announced he would meet with the Egypt’s judges group on Monday, laying the possibility for concessions.
Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood allies and his opposition plan to hold dueling demonstrations across the country on Tuesday in a bid to rally support, pro and con, in the biggest test yet of the power of each side to mobilize. With a new constitution set to be approved in the coming months, Tahrir Square — the heart of the revolution that toppled Mubarak — has in recent days become a rallying place for both liberal secularists and those who have scorned them as naive.
Members of the long-suppressed Muslim Brotherhood, meanwhile, have been marshalling themselves in front of the very institutions once used against them. With many judges and prosecutors threatening a strike, Egypt has quickly been embroiled in a crisis that may threaten the democratic ideals of the revolution more than any other development in the tumultuous 21 months since Mubarak was deposed.
CAIRO, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi will meet senior judges on Monday to try to ease a crisis over his seizure of new powers which has set off violent protests reminiscent of last year's revolution which brought him to power.
Egypt's stock market plunged on Sunday in its first day open since Mursi issued a decree late on Thursday temporarily widening his powers and shielding his decisions from judicial review, drawing accusations he was behaving like a new dictator.
More than 500 people have been injured in clashes between police and protesters worried Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood aims to dominate the post-Hosni Mubarak era after winning Egypt's first democratic parliamentary and presidential elections this year.
One Muslim Brotherhood member was killed and 60 people were hurt on Sunday in an attack on the main office of the Brotherhood in the Egyptian Nile Delta town of Damanhour, the website of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party said.
Egypt's highest judicial authority hinted at compromise to avert a further escalation, though Mursi's opponents want nothing less than the complete cancellation of a decree they see as a danger to democracy.
The Supreme Judicial Council said Mursi's decree should apply only to "sovereign matters", suggesting it did not reject the declaration outright, and called on judges and prosecutors, some of whom began a strike on Sunday, to return to work.
Mursi would meet the council on Monday, state media said.
Mursi's office repeated assurances that the measures would be temporary, and said he wanted dialogue with political groups to find "common ground" over what should go in Egypt's constitution, one of the issues at the heart of the crisis.
Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University, saw an effort by the presidency and judiciary to resolve the crisis, but added their statements were "vague". "The situation is heading towards more trouble," he said.
Sunday's stock market fall of nearly 10 percent - halted only by automatic curbs - was the worst since the uprising that toppled Mubarak in February, 2011.
Images of protesters clashing with riot police and tear gas wafting through Cairo's Tahrir Square were an unsettling reminder of that uprising. Activists were camped in the square for a third day, blocking traffic with makeshift barricades. Nearby, riot police and protesters clashed intermittently.
"BACK TO SQUARE ONE"
Mursi's supporters and opponents plan big demonstrations on Tuesday that could be a trigger for more street violence.
"We are back to square one, politically, socially," said Mohamed Radwan of Pharos Securities, an Egyptian brokerage firm.
Mursi's decree marks an effort to consolidate his influence after he successfully sidelined Mubarak-era generals in August. It reflects his suspicions of a judiciary little reformed since the Mubarak era.
Issued just a day after Mursi received glowing tributes from Washington for his work brokering a deal to end eight days of violence between Israel and Hamas, the decree drew warnings from the West to uphold democracy. Washington has leverage because of billions of dollars it sends in annual military aid.
"The United States should be saying this is unacceptable," former presidential nominee John McCain, leading Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on Fox News.
"We thank Mr. Mursi for his efforts in brokering the ceasefire with Hamas ... But this is not what the United States of America's taxpayers expect. Our dollars will be directly related to progress toward democracy."
The Mursi administration has defended his decree as an effort to speed up reforms that will complete Egypt's democratic transformation. Yet leftists, liberals, socialists and others say it has exposed the autocratic impulses of a man once jailed by Mubarak.
"There is no room for dialogue when a dictator imposes the most oppressive, abhorrent measures and then says 'let us split the difference'," prominent opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei said on Saturday.
WARNINGS FROM WEST
Investors had grown more confident in recent months that a legitimately elected government would help Egypt put its economic and political problems behind it. The stock market's main index had risen 35 percent since Mursi's victory. It closed on Sunday at its lowest level since July 31.
Political turmoil also raised the cost of government borrowing at a treasury bill auction on Sunday.
"Investors know that Mursi's decisions will not be accepted and that there will be clashes on the street," said Osama Mourad of Arab Financial Brokerage.
A senior Iranian commander says the victory of Palestinian resistance fighters in the eight-day war with Israel marks the second wave of Islamic awaking in the region.
Commander of Iran's volunteer Basij forces Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi on Friday hailed the unity among Palestinian factions and the contribution of other Muslim nations to end the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.
“Nations realized more than ever before that they need to come on to the stage and exhaust all their power and capacities,” Naqdi told a pro-Palestinian gathering in Tehran.
“The heroic nation of Lebanon and the Gaza Strip gallantly stood up and the people of Syria have well performed their obligation by their intelligence and maintaining the resistance front. Today it is the Egyptian people’s turn to complete the task, and they also have taken high steps,” he stated.
The commander said the ultimate defeat of the Israeli regime would depend on the alertness and further awakening in the West Bank and Jordan, urging the people there to play their “historical role” in the liberation of Palestine.
Terrorists destroyed part of an Egyptian base at Rafiah, challenging Cairo’s control over the Sinai after the ceasefire with Israel.
By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Rafiah crossing: Egyptian Troops stand guard
Flash 90
Islamic terrorists destroyed part of an Egyptian security building at Rafiah Saturday night, challenging Cairo’s control over the Sinai after the ceasefire with Israel. No one was injured in the explosion at the base, under construction on the Egyptians side of Rafiah, the smuggling capital of Gaza.
The attack came 48 hours after Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi granted himself extensive new powers, which were challenged by Cairo's judiciary.
A separate explosion injured three people further south in the Sinai, where Egypt is building a facility to help it protect the pipeline that ships natural gas to Israel and Jordan. Terrorists have bombed the pipeline more than a dozen times the past two years in an effort to scuttle the agreement to sell gas to Israel.
Saturdays night’s bombing underlined Egypt’s difficulty in re-asserting control over the Sinai, where Hamas terrorists from Gaza, along with Bedouin allies and Al Qaeda-linked terrorist cells, have carved out regions of authority. They have staged increasingly frequent terrorist attacks on Israel. Several Israelis have been killed in the attacks.
Maintaining peace and quiet in the Sinai is a primary task for Egypt, experts said; the new government needs to prove to the United States, Israel, and Hamas that it can carry out its promise to protect Israel from terrorists.
Attacks from the Sinai could undermine the truce, moving the field of battle into the Sinai and eventually spreading back into Gaza, even if Hamas abides by the ceasefire that ended the eight-day Pillar of Defense counterterrorist operation.
Egypt clashes escalate over President Morsi's power grab
CAIROSupporters and opponents of Egypt's president on Sunday grew more entrenched in their potentially destabilizing battle over the Islamist leader's move to assume near absolute powers, with neither side appearing willing to back down as the stock market plunged amid the fresh turmoil.
The standoff poses one of the hardest tests for the nation's liberal and secular opposition since Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly two years ago. Failure to sustain protests and eventually force Mohammed Morsi to loosen control could consign it to long-term irrelevance.
Clashes between the two sides spilled onto the streets for a third day since the president issued edicts that make him immune to oversight of any kind, including that of the courts.
A teenager was killed and at least 60 people were wounded when a group of anti-Morsi protesters tried to storm the local offices of the political arm of the president's Muslim Brotherhood in the Nile Delta city of Damanhoor, according to security officials.
It was the first reported death from the street battles that erupted across much of the nation on Friday, the day after Morsi's decrees were announced. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, identified the boy as 15-year-old Islam Hamdi Abdel-Maqsood.
The tensions also dealt a fresh blow to the economy, which has suffered due to the problems plaguing the Arab world's most populous nation since Mubarak's ouster.
Egypt's benchmark EGX30 stock index dropped 9.59 percentage points Sunday in the first trading session since Morsi issued his decrees. The losses were among the biggest since the turbulent days and weeks immediately after Mubarak's ouster in a popular uprising last year. The loss in the value of shares was estimated at close to $5 billion.
The judiciary, the main target of the edicts, has pushed back, calling the decrees a power grab and an "assault" on the branch's independence. Judges and prosecutors stayed away from many courts in Cairo and other cities on Sunday.
But the nation's highest judicial body, the Supreme Judiciary Council, watered down its opposition to the decrees on Sunday. It told judges and prosecutors to return to work and announced that its members would meet with Morsi on Monday to try to persuade him to restrict immunity to major state decisions like declaring war or martial law or breaking diplomatic relations with foreign nations.
Morsi supporters insist that the measures were necessary to prevent the courts, which already dissolved the elected lower house of parliament, from further holding up moves to stability by disbanding the assembly writing the new constitution, as judges were considering doing. Both the parliament and the constitutional assembly are dominated by Islamists. Morsi accuses Mubarak loyalists in the judiciary of seeking to thwart the revolution's goals and barred the judiciary from disbanding the constitutional assembly or parliament's upper house.
CBS Correspondent Holly Williams reports that Morsi said the new powers would only be temporary, and he'll relinquish them next year when Egyptians elect a new parliament and vote on a new constitution. Many Egyptians accept that.
The person who wrote this is a college student. Perhaps there is hope for us after all.
THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY WELL PUT AND I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT'S BY A YOUNG PERSON, A STUDENT!!! WHATEVER HE RUNS FOR, I'LL VOTE FOR HIM.
DIVORCE AGREEMENT Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al: We have stuck together since the late 1950's for the sake of the kids, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has clearly run its course.
Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right for us all, so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way. ...............
Here is a our separation agreement:
--Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a similar portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement.
After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.
--We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them.
--You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU.
--Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military.
--We'll take the nasty, smelly oil industry and the coal mines, and you can go with wind, solar and biodiesel. --You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell. You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them.
--You can have your beloved lifelong welfare dwellers, food stamps, homeless, homeboys, hippies, druggies and illegal aliens.
--We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks.
--We'll keep Bill O?Reilly, and Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood .
--You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us.
--You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security.
--We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.
--You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism, political correctness and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N. but we will no longer be paying the bill.
--We'll keep the SUV's, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Volt and Leaf you can find.
--You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors.
--We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right.
--We'll keep "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "The National Anthem."
--I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute "Imagine", "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing", "Kum Ba Ya" or "We Are the World".
--We'll practice trickle-down economics and you can continue to give trickle up poverty your best shot.
--Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.
Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like-minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you might think about which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.
Sincerely,
John J. Wall
Law Student and an American
P.S. Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin & Charlie Sheen, Barbara Streisand, & ( Hanoi ) Jane Fonda with you.
P.S.S. And you won't have to press 1 for English when you call our country.
Forward This Every Time You Get It ! Let's Keep
This Going, Maybe Some Of It Will Start Sinking In!!
But Morsi also announced he would meet with the Egypt’s judges group on Monday, laying the possibility for concessions.
By Kevin Murphy
KANSAS CITY, Kan., May 25 (Reuters) - Republican Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed a bill aimed at keeping state courts and agencies from using Islamic or other non-U.S. laws when making decisions, his office said on Friday, drawing criticism from a national Muslim group.
The law has been dubbed the "sharia bill" because critics say it targets the Islamic legal code. Sharia, or Islamic law, covers all aspects of Muslim life, including religious obligations and financial dealings. Opponents of state bans say they could nullify wills or legal contracts between Muslims.
Supporters said the law will reassure foreigners in Kansas that state laws and the U.S. Constitution would protect them. Opponents said it singled out Muslims for ridicule and was unnecessary because American laws prevail on U.S. soil.
Sherriene Jones-Sontag, a spokeswoman for the governor, said in an e-mail that the bill "makes it clear that Kansas courts will rely exclusively on the laws of our state and our nation when deciding cases and will not consider the laws of foreign jurisdictions."
Legislators supporting the bill said there were many cases around the country where judges or state agencies cited sharia law in deciding cases, especially involving divorce-related custody and property matters where Islamic code differs from U.S. law.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington denounced the Kansas law and said it is considering legal action.
About 20 states have considered similar legislation but the Kansas law is the only one signed in recent weeks, council spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said.
"It's unfortunate the governor chose to pander to the growing Islam-phobia in our society that has led to introduction of similar unconstitutional and un-American legislation in dozens of state legislatures," Hooper said.
Hooper said legislators have often referred to sharia law in supporting such legislation, but he said they take the word out of the bill to stave off legal challenges. The Kansas bill does not mention sharia.
Federal courts struck down an Oklahoma law voters approved in 2010 that barred state judges from considering sharia law in making decisions. The court called the law discriminatory. (Editing by Greg McCune and Stacey Joyce)
Scrubbing the Internet and gagging clerics will not eradicate the anger felt by Muslims when they witness the outcome of US and American wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere on their TV screens. That anger is justifiable; the way that a few — like the 7/7 London transport bombers, the Boston bombers and the two men who boasted about carving up a British soldier — unleash their fury on innocents, who have no say over their government’s actions, is cowardly and abhorrent. Moreover, they’re no warriors for Islam when the faith explicitly states that killing one innocent is akin to slaying all of humanity.
Leaders of Muslim communities in the UK have loudly condemned the barbaric incident but law-abiding British Muslims are suffering a backlash from right-wing groups, such as the British National Party (BNP) and the English Defense League (EDL), which have organized marches to ignite Islamophobic sentiment. The leader of the BNP says mass immigration is to be blamed and the perpetrators should be shot again and wrapped in pigskin. The EDL announced the movement is “at war” with Islamic extremism. British Muslims are being targeted by balaclava-wearing Nazi-leaning fascists. In recent days, mosques have come under attack or daubed with racist graffiti. Muslims are being spat at or threatened in the streets; women’s head scarves are being pulled off their heads by passersby. In short, Muslims in Britain are living in fear through no fault of their own.
However, British authorities don’t have clean hands either. The real scandal is that one of the perpetrators Michael Adebolajo, the son of Nigerian Christian immigrants, was known to UK anti-terror units three years prior to the attack after his arrest in Kenya when he was suspected of participating in an Al-Qaeda inspired plot. Upon his return to the UK, his family and friends say MI5 pressured him to infiltrate extremist groups and spy on Muslim scholars, which he allegedly refused to do. Likewise the dead Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarvaev was added to a CIA watch list following a tip-off from Moscow, 18 months before his home-made bomb exploded at the marathon’s finishing line.
History confirms that both the UK and the US have on occasion worked closely with Islamists and jihadists since the 1950s on the basis of as long as they’re “our terrorists” they’re good fellows. There are numerous examples dating back to the era of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser who swayed toward the Soviet Union.
In his memoir “The Game of Nations: The Amorality of Power Politics,” US intelligence veteran Col. W. Patrick Lang describes how the CIA sought to undermine Nasser’s popularity and nationalist spirit by seeking out “a religious spellbinder” on the lines of Egypt’s answer to Billy Graham. The CIA’s man in Cairo, Miles Copeland, came across the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and worked with the organization to topple the Egyptian leader, albeit unsuccessfully. Robert Baer writes in his book “Sleeping with the Devil” that the CIA funneled support to the MB because of “the Brotherhood’s commendable ability to overthrow Nasser.”
It won’t be news to you that the CIA was instrumental in the coup that rid Iran of its democratically-elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and worked to overthrow the Shah. But you may not realize that the CIA and Britain’s MI6 actively promoted the Ayatollah Khomeini to the extent that prior to his return from exile in France, the Iranians dubbed the BBC “The Ayatollah BBC.”
Fast forwarding to the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda’s main training base “Bayt Al-Ansar” was founded with the assistance of the CIA chief in Peshawar at a time when the US manipulated religious belief to attract anti-Soviet jihadists to fight against communism. Under the umbrella of NSDD 166, the US took part in the radicalization of Afghan schoolchildren, encouraging them to join the anti-Soviet resistance with textbooks promoting jihad and featuring violent images.
Michel Chossudovsky, a Canadian professor and author, wrote, “Advertisements paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the Jihad.” “Under the Reagan administration, US foreign policy evolved toward the unconditional support and endorsement of the Islamic “freedom fighters,” he writes, adding, “In today’s world, the ‘freedom fighters’ are labeled “Islamic terrorists.”
The CIA has also supported “freedom fighters” considered terrorists in Russia. Author John Laughland wrote that “the leading group which pleads the Chechan cause is the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya” with “the list of the self-styled “distinguished Americans” who are its members is a roll call of the most prominent neoconservatives who so enthusiastically support the “war on terror.”
Award-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh describes in the New Yorker under the heading “Our men in Iran” how US “Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian group known in the West as the M.E.K.” which has been linked to the assassination of six American citizens and is listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization. Hersh alleges that members of the M.E.K. trained in Nevada but that program ended when Obama took office.
Some of the most explosive revelations come from former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. In her book “Classified Woman” published last year, she accuses US government officials of collaborating with Al-Qaeda. During interviews she asserted that Al-Qaeda chief Ayman Al-Zawahri regularly met with US intelligence officials between 1997 and 2001. Sunday Times journalists wishing to remain anonymous allege a four-part series on this topic, scheduled to run in 2008, was dropped under pressure from “interest groups” associated with the US State Department.
It’s clear to me that the Islamic faith has been used and abused by Western intelligence agencies to suit their nation’s geopolitical agendas, nations that are almost as much to blame for terrorism acts, carried out by young and impressionable dupes, as those who light the fuse. Politicians, diplomats and spooks, who helped give birth to this Frankensteinian monster we call terrorism, can hardly complain when the creature turns on its master to wreak death and destruction wherever it goes.