And You Thought Iran Was Bad?

From Saudi Arabia, our partners in peace, our partners in the War on Terrorism.

President Bush actually held hands with the leader of the country that condones this.

And we stand idly by a let it happen. Some superpower we are.

When Religions Become Evil

Religious Zealots meet Democracy.

If you can't live with being offended, then leave the freedom and democracy of Sweden. You do not have any right to murder people for being offended.

A Victory For Their Side

Muslim extremists scare me

Born-again Christians scare me

What petrifies me?

Muslim extremists turned born-again Christians

Supporting Abbas

Suddenly when you're faced with the realization of a Hamas dictatorship in the land bordering Israel, the guy who took over for Arafat doesn't seem so bad anymore, does he?

Oh, and it's good to know that cutting off that aid to the Palestinian Government worked so well, I mean look how democracy flourished, electing terrorists who then go and stage a coup....fabulous.

Three snaps to the George W. Bush State Department

A Word Without Definition

I got a lot of criticism for arguing that the six people who planned to massacre soldiers at Fort Dix weren't terrorists, but just simple enemies of America.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Nightline last year;

"Somebody who is fighting against Israeli soldiers is an enemy and we will fight back, but I believe that this is not under the definition of terrorism, if the target is a soldier."

I would have to agree with her. The six men who set out to massacre soldiers at Fort Dix were enemies of America, but they were not terrorists. Terrorists are enemies who target the defenseless to create a sense of fear and terror. Terrorists target places that are easy to attack; commercial buildings, mass transportation, etc. Their targets are what people need to live their everyday lives and their goal is to scare us into changing our everyday lives.

Fort Dix is a military installation. When a person or group feels they must declare war on America, their targets should be soldiers, not private citizens. They will be labeled enemies and we will fight back, but military installations are the "legitimate" targets. American soldiers are trained, equipped, and well aware their job is to to defend themselves and their country and then fight enemies, while the civilian population is, for the most part, not trained and prepared to fight back immediately, nor should necessarily have to. It is appropriate, I think, to ask this simple question; If these six men weren't Islamic fundamentalists, if they were white supremacists, neo-Nazis, or just mentally-ill individuals with guns, would they still be terrorists? We cannot use the term "terrorist" so loosely and we need to put forth a more specific definition as to what it is.

While most of us will agree flying planes or driving bomb-filled cars into privately own civilian buildings is terrorism, as it is meant to terrorize people from going to work as they normally would, the definition of what is a terrorist does seem to expand depending on where you are. In Alabama, for example, the state's Department of Homeland Security recently listed gay rights organizations and anti-war groups as possible breeding grounds for terrorists. As far as I know, no gay rights or anti-war organization has sought to slaughter and incite fear in the minds of every American. No gay rights or anti-war groups have blown themselves up on buses or planted bombs on subways, but Alabama, until just recently, saw them as potential hotbeds of terrorism. I have, however, heard of ANTI-gay, PRO-life terrorism; Eric Rudolph, for example, who bombed an Alabama abortion clinic in 1998 and a lesbian nightclub in Atlanta in 1997.

Without a specific definition of what legally explains what terrorism is and who can be a terrorist, we're fighting a war based on each and every American's interpretation of the word and everyone's specific idea as to what is "terrorizing" to them. To some, I have no doubt pro-choice, pro-gay rights, anti-war groups are potential breeding grounds for what they would consider "terrorists," even if they never threaten to build a bomb. The same holds true for some who think the same way toward pro-life, anti-gay, socially conservative and nationalist groups. Some may consider Eric Rudolph a terrorist and I'm sure there are some who do not, even though they think the For Dix Six are terrorists.

You cannot fight a war against something that everyone interprets the meaning of differently. Perhaps if we wish to fight a "war on terrorism," we must come together and figure out what "terrorism" actually is.

A Giant Bullseye

Ron Paul must be steaming.

Is it really that important that we put our largest embassy in the world in Iraq? I would say it should be in London, Beijing, Tokyo or Moscow.

This is the bad policy Paul was talking about. They don't want us there, so what do we do? We built our biggest embassy there. For five seconds, put yourself in the people's shoes. Imagine, if you will, they built the largest mosque in the world in Washington, D.C.

How would we feel?

Just think about it.

Turkey: A Model For the Muslim World

This morning I awoke to hear of hundreds of thousands of people marching in the streets of Istanbul, but instead of them being Islamic fundamentalists trying to get support from Turkish secular Muslims to began a cultural war against the west, they were marching demanding their government remains secular. They were marching to demand their government remain Western. They were marching to defend nearly a century of Turkish values.

I have always heard, especially since 9/11, that the entire Muslim world was full of Islamic extremists, who hate democracy and hate America. When people say that to me, I remind them of Turkey.

Turkey is almost unanimously Muslim. It was once heart of the greatest Islamic empire known to man; the Ottoman Empire. Yet, it has become more culturally linked with it's neighbors to the west, rather than to the east. Turkey is what I think we all hoped and still hope Iraq would turn into one day.

Turkish secularism dates back 86 years to the 1921 constitution drafting the ideas of Turkey's first modern president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Unlike the empire the came before it, the new Turkey would not be a Caliphate with laws based on Sharia. It would instead reform into a secular state that practices Laïcité, a French word that stems from secularism in France after the French Revolution. Turkey would not allow any influence of Islam (or any other religion for that matter) in it's government. Even more amazingly, Muslims are prohibited from wearing traditional Islamic dress in schools, universities and government buildings, which is slightly more radical that here in the United States and way more radical that would be tolerated in it's near neighbors like Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Turkey is proof that even it's not the religion, rather the power it's given, that causes extremism. I have always said; give Christians the power Muslims are given in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia and we would look just as bad.

I had feared that since 9/11 and the Iraq debacle, the West and the Muslim world would become more polarized. Turkey sits at a crossroads, literally, as it is one of the few, if not the only, Islamic Western Country. Today's protests in Istanbul are proof that Turkey is no where near making a sharp turn toward Islamic fundamentalism, will remain the major Islamic western nation, and will serve as a model for the Muslim world to show they can be both modern and Islamic at the same time.