AuntyM reveals her true identity at last:

Great post as usual Salmo...

Youve asked the key question. The answer I think lies in your description of the Muslims you know and why they bear resentment towards the united states.

To me its simple, at least to write. The US needs to get off its diplomatic high horse in Israel and exert some meaningful pressure on them to straighten a few things out...

Quit building settlements in Gaza or lose US $$. Establish a sovereign palestinian state by 2010. Hold them to it to the same degree that we held sadaam responsible for not having wmd's (that seemed to work in hindsight didn't it )...

Eventually someone has to be the better man, to take the philosophical high road as it were. Since we are America and we are always right I say why not us? (Waves flag)

Why shouldn't we have 'turned the other cheek' as I believe Jesus would have wanted us to do after 9/11? Why aren't we loving our enemies? How far would the 100B plus we are spending in Iraq to blow people up could we have spent in say, Lebanon or Gaza building kindergartens with western teachers and islamic culture? Hospitals anyone? Orphanages...win the trust and minds of the youth while still malleable and you are doing something meaningful to negate terrorism.

Invading a country merely because we don't like their leader is not a step down the road to peace.

Like it or not Americans we are in trouble for not practicing what we preach. When are we going to take responsibility for this as a nation?

I miss the udders.

Sounds pretty logical and unemotional to me. In fact, to do otherwise would be sheer hypocrisy.

Aunty you sure are dwelling on the white supremicist, bigot line.......A little anti-semitism is sneaking in but it is other members of the "dark side" slipping it in so I guess they will escape Darth's wrath....

I do like Archie Bunker.....If he were here he would say:

"Stifle Aunty...Stifle yourself!!!"

"Why shouldn't we have 'turned the other cheek' as I believe Jesus would have wanted us to do after 9/11? Why aren't we loving our enemies?"

H2O...you may not describe your anti-Christian/ anti-organized religion rants as hate but the above quote from your drivel shows the disdain you have for religion....Anyone who displays any sign of being religious is immediately branded as an extreme right wing moron...Your thinking being the "moderate" middle ground.

Actually you are not simply for separation of church and state but separation of church and everything and everybody...Whistle a BS tune with your typical twists and turns ....at the end of the day you seem to support religions that oppose the US and rail against anything that could support America or the politics you disagree with...Since alot of "Chrisitians" support republicans they must be insane and must be stopped...so your ilk are ranting and raving about what you call separation of church and state when you really are working to discredit religion and religious people and trying every chance you get to restrict the practice of the religions you do not like....

Witness your support of Islam and muslims. You must protect their right to worship the religion of death but scorn any religion of life. Since the islamists want to kill the Jews you are against them too....For the Palestinian muslims....the people who danced in the streets and cheered on 9/11..Oh I forgot that was our own fault....

Salmo says:
"Given that, does anyone really believe that Muslim mothers and fathers are purposely raising their children as cannon fodder for an impossible war against the U.S.?"

Actually Salmo parents throughout the Muslim world consider it a badge of honor to send a child on a suicide mission to kill an infidel. They pass that insane religious belief on from generation to generation. Remember that one dad who wrapped his two year old in a suicide bomber belt with explosvies and proudly had the picture taken so it oculd be send around the world? Not an isolated situation..

Muslims have killed more Muslims than anyone else as well and they were killing long before Geroge Bush came along and long before America came along and long before Israel was created.

Don't kid yourself

"Actually Salmo parents throughout the Muslim world consider it a badge of honor to send a child on a suicide mission to kill an infidel. They pass that insane religious belief on from generation to generation. "


I would love to see how you came up with that conclusion? I'm guessing, and this is just a guess, that this is an opinion you have formulated and really not a fact.

Perhaps the answer lies deeper in your post when you say:

"Remember that one dad who wrapped his two year old in a suicide bomber belt with explosvies and proudly had the picture taken so it oculd be send around the world? Not an isolated situation."

Yep convinces me to...

"Muslims have killed more Muslims than anyone else as well and they were killing long before Geroge Bush came along and long before America came along and long before Israel was created."

Silly me now I realize we are doing them a favor by killing them all faster. Makes perfect sense.

btw what is the "Muslim World"?

''Suicide is a major sin in Islam,'' Maher Hathout, imam of the Islamic Center in Los Angeles, explained. Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations pronounced that suicide ''would not be in accord with Islamic beliefs and practices.''

Well, sort of. The Koran does tell Muslims, ''Do not kill yourselves'' and warns that those who disobey will be ''cast into the fire.'' The Prophet Mohammed is reported to have said that a suicide cannot go to paradise.

Islamic laws oppose the practice.

This religious prohibition has had the intended effect. According to Franz Rosenthal, a scholar of the subject, ''suicide was of comparatively rare occurrence'' in traditional Muslim society. In contemporary Egypt, statistics bear out that suicide is exceedingly rare.

But those spokesmen are not telling the whole story, for Islamists consider suicide as not just legitimate, but highly commendable when undertaken for reasons of jihad (holy war). Going into war knowing with the certainty that one will die, they argue, is not suicide (intihar) but martyrdom (istishhad), a much-praised form of self-sacrifice in the path of God, a way to win the eternal affection of the houris in paradise.

A leading Islamist authority, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, recently explained the distinction this way: attacks on enemies are not suicide operations, but ''heroic martyrdom operations'' in which the kamikazes act not ''out of hopelessness and despair, but are driven by an overwhelming desire to cast terror and fear into the hearts of the oppressors.''

In other words, Islamists find suicide for personal reasons abominable, suicide for jihad admirable.
The jihad menace, Jerusalem Post (Israel), July 30, 2001. Guest Column by Daniel Pipes, director of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum


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The history of suicide attacks stretches back at least to the 11th century, when the Assassins, the disciples of the Persian master Alamut, conducted suicide raids on neighboring fortresses. The Koran forbids suicide, Mr. Post noted, but he added that suicide bombers often consider their deaths acts of heroism, not self-destruction, and believe they will be elaborately rewarded in the afterlife. Harvey Kushner, an expert in terrorism and chairman of the department of criminal justice at Long Island University, noted that suicide attacks are not condoned by most Muslims, but are espoused ''by leaders of religious factions within the Islamic community'' who have what he described as ''a contorted view of what is spiritually permissible.'' After their deaths, suicide bombers are often celebrated as heroes, said Vamik Volkan, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia Medical School and an expert on interethnic conflict.
Attackers Neither Mad Nor Desperate, New York Times Service, Sep. 13, 2001


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In his 1996 book on jihad, Rudolph Peters, a Dutch scholar, argues that while the umma, or Muslim community, has a duty to ''expand the territory of the state,'' the doctrine of jihad forbids, among other things, the killing of noncombatants like children, women and old people. Thus, it would appear that even if Islamic law were stretched to consider women and children at the American Embassies combatants, the hundreds of Africans, many of whom are Muslim, who were killed near those embassies could not be considered combatants. Muslim law also provides that ambassadors and their missions be respected as long as they do not engage in espionage. (That's why the Islamic Government in Teheran insisted on characterizing the American Embassy where hostages were seized in the 1970's as ''a nest of spies'').

Professor Peters says a ''war against unbelievers may not be mounted without summoning them to Islam or submission before an attack.'' In other words, people should be given a chance to embrace Islam as their faith before they are killed. Mr. bin Laden's defense of and reported ties to Egyptian and Palestinian suicide attacks on Israeli and American targets are also questionable under traditional Islamic precepts, scholars say. Islamic holy law forbids suicide. According to the traditions of the Prophet Mohammed, which believers claim are divinely inspired, the punishment is eternal repetition of the act by which a person dies. So if a man hangs himself, he'll spend an eternity choking. But as Professor Awn points out, Islam endorses martyrdom -- fighting, and if necessary, dying for one's faith. And one Muslim's suicide might be another's martyrdom.
Even a Jihad Has Its Rules, New York Times, Aug. 29, 1999


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Suicide operations caught the Arab imagination in 1983, when Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim guerrillas trained by Iran blew up 241 American servicemen and 58 French paratroops in a simultaneous operation in Beirut.

The technique - and the cult of martyrdom characteristic of the Shi'ite branch of Islam - was transferred to the Palestinians, leading to a series of bombs in Israeli buses and market places. Islam condemns suicide as a way to hell and damnation.

For the past 11 months of the intifada, Islamic scholars have debated whether blowing yourself up constitutes suicide or martyrdom. Some Saudi scholars continue to denounce suicide as a sin, but the argument has been won by the radicals who see it as a legitimate means of jihad, or holy struggle.

The term ''suicide bomber'' has been replaced with ''martyrdom operation''. Such is the prestige of the suicide bomber that no one in the Palestinian territories would dare to raise a voice against the practice.
New assassins queue eagerly for martyrdom, Daily Telegraph (England), Sep. 13, 2001


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ZARQA, Jordan -- The Hotaris are preparing for a party to celebrate the killing of 21 Israelis this month by their son, a suicide bomber.

Neighbors hang pictures on their trees of Saeed Hotari holding seven sticks of dynamite. They spray-paint graffiti reading ''21 and counting'' on their stone walls. And they arrange flowers in the shapes of a heart and a bomb to display on their front doors.
''I am very happy and proud of what my son did and, frankly, am a bit jealous,'' says Hassan Hotari, 54, father of the young man who carried out the attack June 1 outside a disco in Tel Aviv. It was Israel's worst suicide bombing in nearly four years. ''I wish I had done (the bombing). My son has fulfilled the Prophet's (Mohammed's) wishes. He has become a hero! Tell me, what more could a father ask?''

In more than a dozen interviews with former and current members of the militant group Hamas and with Israeli security officials who track them, USA TODAY was given a rare look into the secretive and terrifying world of suicide bombers and the culture that creates them.

Lured by promises of financial stability for their families, eternal martyrdom and unlimited sex in the afterlife, dozens of militant Palestinians like Hotari aspire to blow themselves up, Israeli and Palestinian officials say. Their goal: to kill or injure as many Jews as possible in the hope that Israel will withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank. Israel captured the land in 1967.
(...)

Since 1993, nearly 190 people have been killed and thousands injured in 28 suicide bombings in Israel.
(...)

''When I walk outside, young (Palestinian) children come up to me and say, 'Conduct another bombing to make us happy, sheik,' '' says Sheik Hasan Yosef, 45, the senior Hamas leader in the West Bank city of Ramallah. ''I cannot disappoint them. They won't have to wait long.''

At any time, Israeli officials believe, Hamas has from five to 20 men, ages 18 to 23, awaiting orders to carry out suicide attacks. The group also claims to have ''tens of thousands'' of youths ready to follow in their footsteps. ''We like to grow them,'' Yosef says. ''From kindergarten through college.''

In Hamas-run kindergartens, signs on the walls read: ''The children of the kindergarten are the shaheeds (holy martyrs) of tomorrow.'' The classroom signs at Al-Najah University in the West Bank and at Gaza's Islamic University say, ''Israel has nuclear bombs, we have human bombs.''

At an Islamic school in Gaza City run by Hamas, 11-year-old Palestinian student Ahmed's small frame and boyish smile are deceiving. They mask a determination to kill at any cost. ''I will make my body a bomb that will blast the flesh of Zionists, the sons of pigs and monkeys,'' Ahmed says. ''I will tear their bodies into little pieces and cause them more pain than they will ever know.''

''Allahu Akbar,'' his classmates shout in response: ''God is great.''

''May the virgins give you pleasure,'' his teacher yells, referring to one of the rewards awaiting martyrs in paradise. Even the principal smiles and nods his approval.

''You don't start educating a shaheed at age 22,'' says Roni Shaked, a terrorism expert and former officer in Israel's Shin Bet secret service. ''You start at kindergarten so by the time he's 22, he's looking for an opportunity to sacrifice his life.''

Some suicide bombers, like Hotari, come to their deadly missions by a slightly different route. They turn themselves into human bombs because they are frustrated by the economic and political duress Palestinians experience in Jordan and throughout the region.

Hamas says its recruiters, most of whom Israeli officials describe as charismatic religious leaders, look for two qualities in a potential bomber: an intense interest in Islam and a clean criminal record so as not to raise the suspicions of Israel's secret service.

Saeed Hotari, who was 22, fit both of those criteria. He was ''a devout Muslim who used to pray, observed fasting and performed all his religious obligations to the letter and spirit,'' his father says. One of nine children, he left Zarqa, outside the Jordanian capital of Amman, for the West Bank city of Qalqilya in 1999 to seek a better life.

In Qalqilya, he and two other Palestinian youths went to a mosque where Sheik Jamel Tawil, a Hamas leader, persuaded them to attend a Hamas-run class on Islamic study. All would eventually be suicide bombers and would carry out their attacks within days of each other.
(...)

After several weeks of schooling, the youths often volunteer to be suicide bombers, Yosef says. ''If someone confiscated your land, demolished your home, built settlements to prevent you from coming back, killed your children and blocked you from going to work, wouldn't you want to fight for your country?'' Yosef asks.

In return for ''martyrdom,'' Hamas tells the youths that their families will be financially compensated, their pictures will be posted in schools and mosques, and they will earn a special place in heaven.

They also are promised something more risqué: unlimited sex with 72 virgins in heaven. The Koran, the sacred book of Islam, describes the women as ''beautiful like rubies, with complexions like diamonds and pearls.'' In one of the passages of the Koran, it is said the martyrs and virgins shall ''delight themselves, lying on green cushions and beautiful carpets.'' Since the time of Mohammed, martyrs have always been considered those willing to die defending Islam.

For some young Muslims, that offer is too much to turn down.

''I know my life is poor compared to Europe or America, but I have something awaiting me that makes all my suffering worthwhile,'' says Bassam Khalifi, 16, a Hamas youth leader in Gaza's Bureij refugee camp. ''Most boys can't stop thinking about the virgins.''

But in the end, says Shaked, the Israeli terrorism expert, most of the bombers don't sign up for martyrdom for the promise of unlimited sex. ''They join because of their absolute devotion to God and their desire to die with Jewish blood on their hands,'' he says. ''It's not a heroic thing, it's a holy thing.''

A would-be bomber is selected for his mission only days, sometimes hours, before it is to occur, Israeli officials say. As part of the preparation, the recruit is taken to a cemetery, where he is told to prepare for death by lying between gravesites for hours. He wears a white, hooded shroud normally used to cover bodies for burial, a former Hamas member says.

The recruit is then taken to a safe house. A video is made in which he states his consent to become a suicide bomber and his devotion to Islam. It will be played for the public after his death. A still photograph is taken that will be reproduced and displayed through the West Bank and Gaza to honor him after death.

Because secrecy is paramount, Hamas leaders will not allow the recruit to say goodbye to his family or tell them his plans.
(...)

Once at the target site, the recruit is told to remain calm, blend in as much as possible and, when surrounded by Israelis, press a switch to explode the bomb, Hamas members say.
(...)

On June 1, it was Hotari's turn. Israeli officials, quoting eyewitnesses, say two Hamas operatives drove him to the Dolphin Disco in Tel Aviv, a popular club often packed with Russian immigrant teenagers. They said Hotari slipped unnoticed into line and positioned himself among several girls, including a 14-year-old who had survived Marmash's attack in Netanya.

Then, while flirting with one of the girls, Hotari triggered the explosives. The blast was so intense that it tore limbs from the victims' bodies, scattered their flesh up to six blocks away and vaporized Hotari and the girl next to him.

It killed 21 people, in addition to Hotari, and injured nearly 100.

Now, nearly 30 days later, his parents are preparing to mark the anniversary of his death, as devout Muslims often do.

''My prayer is that Saeed's brothers, friends and fellow Palestinians will sacrifice their lives, too,'' Hotari's father says. ''There is no better way to show God you love him.''

Devotion, desire drive youths to 'martyrdom' : Palestinians in pursuit of paradise turn their own bodies into weapons, USA Today, June 26, 2001

Is it not possible nor conceivable that the examples you a e exposed to are likened to examples we have have of religious extremists killing abortion doctors or bombing their clinics. Or even comprable to radical left wing parties such as ELF that burn and bomb industrial sites they deem harmful to earth?

I find it a bit irresponsible and naive to blanket all muslims as being one way or even a majority of them without first hand knowledge.

Yes, there are radical islamists that do not like America and vow to kill Americans. I fail to see the logic that connects them with ALL Muslims.

Grandpa-

You realize that you just said "Islam is the religion of death", don't you? Nice tolerant stuff there gpa. What's next on your religious hit list?

By exposing the hypocrisy of the right in clinging to the ideals of christianity while fighting an an unjust war, I am spreading hatred for christianity?

None of what I've been saying about christianity is 'about christianity'. Its about the rights insistence on cloaking their actions within the veil of god.

Like I said before, I hope the image you've made up of me sitting in my secret room, burning black candles, drinking blood and praising satan makes you feel better about your inability to gain traction in this argument. The truth you can't handle is that I am as mainstream a guy as there is and my constituency is growing.

This 'H2o hates christianity and christians' stuff you are coming up with is quite hilarious. Especially in light of some of the more hateful stuff you have posted.

Please, I encourage you to pick apart my words and explain how and where I am spreading hate? Only this time use the stuff that I actually wrote, not the **** you make up about what I write.,.....mmmk?

Gpa got a bee in his bonnet cuz he sees his man Bush's presidency circling the drainhole. Let my words be the broomstick that breaks it in half and allows it suck down the sewer where it belongs.

Grandpa, you should have gone fishing with me this morning instead of trolling for references on the Net.

You're right Ed.....Took the grandson trout fishing instead.....He is learning to hold a rod now....

I have to check in here every day to make sure that the insanity is still alive and well.

H2O....I have to admit your constituency is growing....Bringing AuntyM over to the dark side is a real feather in your cap...or is it a slam on her? Maybe you two can bite off the heads of some bats together and paint swastikas on your foreheads with bat blood.

Read this one more time.......Then H2O you can blame the Jews and Christians and exhalt the Muslim bombers and their supporter....clap clap clap all praise to Allah.....Death to the West ...Death to Rummy and Bush.....clap clap clap........Praise be to Allah...

"On June 1, it was Hotari's turn. Israeli officials, quoting eyewitnesses, say two Hamas operatives drove him to the Dolphin Disco in Tel Aviv, a popular club often packed with Russian immigrant teenagers. They said Hotari slipped unnoticed into line and positioned himself among several girls, including a 14-year-old who had survived Marmash's attack in Netanya.

Then, while flirting with one of the girls, Hotari triggered the explosives. The blast was so intense that it tore limbs from the victims' bodies, scattered their flesh up to six blocks away and vaporized Hotari and the girl next to him.

It killed 21 people, in addition to Hotari, and injured nearly 100. '

Now, nearly 30 days later, his parents are preparing to mark the anniversary of his death, as devout Muslims often do.

''My prayer is that Saeed's brothers, friends and fellow Palestinians will sacrifice their lives, too,'' Hotari's father says. ''There is no better way to show God you love him.''


HEAR THAT H2O? NO BETTER WAY TO SHOW GOD YOU LOVE HIM.....

There's plenty of culpability for all to share. You seem to miss my major point about SOMEONE needing to take the high road.

What are we waiting for?

AuntyM....now I know why they used to have separate men's and women's entrances at bars in Canada...and why there are men only clubs all over the world....to get away from Yappy Women who open their pie holes too much. Why not get off the computer for awhile and fetch your husband a beer then stay in the kitchen and do the dishes.

Aunty - please don't rise to the bait - it will end in a bad place.

for AM

Grandpa,

I guess I'm really only proving to you that the insanity remains alive and well here. Too bad.

The examples you provide are not isolated. Just as a handful of examples of radical anti-abortion Christians is not isolated. Most of us, however, don't paint an entire race, culture, or faith with the brush of their extremist minorities. If there really are a billion Muslims, and they all subscribe to the values in your examples, I think we'd already be toast. Obviously, you have your reasons for forming your opinions, but it appears to some of us who think ourselves moderate, that you are painting all Muslims of the world with the brush of the extremists, who by most observers are but a minority. A radical, extreme minority capable of garnering much publicity, but a minority nonetheless.

I have two close friends who have spent some time in Gaza, that hotbed of radical Muslim extremism. They report to me that their friends and all acquaintances there do not raise their children to become suicide bombers. Those Palestinians do not support Hamas. But they are very aware of the negative effects it has on their lives, but they cannot stop it. They don't want war, holy or otherwise. They want freedom and the opportunity to live their lives in pursuit of happiness - pretty much the same as you and I - but the Israeli government denies them this opportunity, with the full and mostly unqualified support of the U.S. government.

If you cannot understand why some Palestinians were dancing in the street on 911, then you must wish to remain blind to the complicity of the U.S. government in the deaths of thousands of Palestinians.

When my friend was in Gaza a year and a half ago (he trains psychologists and therapists to treat torture surivivors - maybe he could now find a post in Bagdad) he and others had to take shelter in the basement of the health clinic as the Israeli army was firing missles made in the U.S. from helecopters made in the U.S. He used his cell phone to call Representative Brian Baird and asked what the hell is going on as they are being shot at with U.S. munitions. Brain responded, "John, they're terrorists." At the health clinic? Or did he mean the Israelis are terrorists? That seems more like it.

The Israeli government directs its own terrorism against Palestinian civilians, combatants and non-combatants alike. And our government supports this. And with your blanket condemnation of all things Muslim, and your apparent support of our government's support of Israeli terrorism against Palestinians - terrorists or not - you will never be safe from potential Muslim terror directed at the U.S.

Muslim parents, in general, do not raise their children to be suicide bombers or terrorists. But some of them become susceptible to the encouragement you described in your examples, as they grow and witness the desparate and apparently hopeless conditions they are subjected to. Poverty, lack of freedom, your land taken away, life in refugee camps with no opportunity to make a living. If you were subjected to that, would you fight for your freedom and rightful place in this world, with any means at your disposal, even going up against Israel and the U.S?

Yours in the insanity,

Salmo g.