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    Muslim American News Briefs, September 16, 2007

Opinion Editorials

News

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* Hadith: Supplications of 3 People Are Not Rejected by God
* CAIR: Muslim Smokers Urged to Quit at Ramadan (AP)
* CAIR-WA: Muslims Invite Neighbors to Ramadan Dinner (Seattle PI)
            - CAIR: Fasting Feeds Spiritual Hunger (Times-Union)
            - CAIR-OH: Community, Sacrifice Converge in Ramadan (Disp)
            - CAIR-FL: Hearing Delayed for Muslim Prayers (SP Times)
* CAIR-MI: Bill Hits Cities that Ban Profiling (Free Press)
            - CAIR-MI Gives 'Know Your Rights' Presentation to Students
* CAIR: Hundreds Contact OH Paper About Anti-Iranian Cartoon
* IL: Convert Finds True Home in Islam (Sun-Times)
            - MO: Muslim Woman Fired from Job Files Bias Suit
            - IL: Fourth Man Charged with Mosque Break-Ins (Herald News)
            - IA: Muslims Find Spiritual Home at Midwest Mosque
* CA: Islamic Center Regroups After Fire (Mercury News)
* Giuliani Advisor: Raze Palestinian Villages (Harpers)
            - Giuliani's Advisors: AIPAC's Dream Team (Harpers)
            - Giuliani Packs Staff With Pro-Israel Hawks (Arab News)
* U.N. Envoy: Islamaphobia on Rise (Reuters)

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HADITH OF THE DAY: THE SUPPLICATIONS OF THREE PEOPLE ARE NOT REJECTED BY GOD - TOP

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "The supplications of three people are not rejected (by God): the supplication of a fasting person at the time of breaking fast, of a just ruler, and of a person who is wronged. God causes their supplications to rise above the clouds, and gates of heaven are opened for them, and God says: 'By My Majesty, I will help you, even (if) it be after a while.'"

Fiqh-us-Sunnah, Volume 4, Number 113C

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CAIR: MUSLIM SMOKERS URGED TO QUIT AT RAMADAN - TOP
William C. Mann, Associated Press, 9/13/07
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070913/ap_on_re_us/us_ramadan_smoking_1

Since smoking is among the activities that faithful Muslims deny themselves from sunup to sundown during Ramadan, the holy month that began Thursday, Muslim doctors are suggesting that American Muslims build on that smoke-free time to quit the habit.

Dr. Tariq Cheema, executive director of the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America, said Thursday that APPNA and its partners in the project do not plan to restrict the quit-smoking drive to the mosque.

"We're trying to capitalize on this, taking it to communities, faith-based schools, letting the children take it home to their mothers and fathers," Cheema said.

Ramadan, the ninth month on Islam's lunar calendar, is the holiest month because it was in Ramadan that God revealed the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad.

APPNA and the Islamic Medical Association of North America are partnering in the project with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based civil rights and advocacy group. APPNA is based in Westmont, Ill., while IMANA is based in Lombard, Ill.

"One of the important benefits of the Ramadan fast is the sense of discipline that it instills in an individual," the council's chief operating officer, Tahra Goraya, said in a statement. "We can use that discipline to help eliminate a major threat to public health." (MORE)

SEE ALSO: U.S. Muslims Kick Off Ramadan with Anti-Smoking Initiative
http://www.cair.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?mid1=777&&ArticleID=23081&&name=n&&currPage=1

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CAIR-SEATTLE: NON-MUSLIMS TO SHARE RAMADAN - TOP
Group issuing dinner invitations to better relations
Casey McNerthney and John Iwasaki, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 9/14/07
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/331632_ramadan14.html

Arsalan Bukhari loves to visit Canada, but rarely does because he doesn't like waiting for hours while officers search his belongings. Some of his buddies with coveted jobs at Microsoft can't make connecting flights because airport security stops them for questioning.

"I personally feel violated when they go through my car and my backpack," said Bukhari, a Muslim. "We're painted against these crazy, angry guys living on the fringe."

Bukhari's sentiments come at a time of growing fear in the community of Arab-Americans, Muslim-Americans and people of South Asian heritage. That fear was stoked even more last month when federal authorities released photographs of two men, apparently of Middle Eastern descent, who authorities said were acting suspiciously aboard Washington State Ferries.

Now members of the community are fighting back -- with politeness.

Bukhari and others from the Council on American-Islamic Relations are hosting a traditional dinner on Wednesday at the Islamic School of Seattle, and have invited city and state leaders to try to increase understanding of Islam. The meal will break Muslims' fasting during Ramadan, the Islamic holy month that began Thursday.

Local FBI agents have said they'll attend. So have labor union representatives and members of the World Affairs Council. But Bukhari said people don't need a fancy title to be welcomed.

"We want to meet them, shake hands and have them realize that we're just normal people," he said.

Bukhari, 27, who graduated with a degree in finance from Seattle University, became Washington president of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. And according to a study by the national CAIR, Bukhari is among 62 percent of American Muslims who have obtained at least a bachelor's degree. (MORE)

SEE ALSO:

CAIR: FASTING FEEDS SPIRITUAL HUNGER - TOP
Jeff Brumley, Florida Times-Union, 9/13/07
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/091307/met_199152958.shtml

If you work or go to school with Muslims, you may notice they're not joining you for lunch today. That's because it's Islam's holy month of Ramadan. From today through Oct. 12, observant Muslims will fast from dawn to dusk as they sacrifice food and other pleasures while focusing on the Quran, faith and family.

But that's no easy task in a society where food and other distractions are ever-present. The Times-Union interviewed four local Muslims from different walks of life about how they get through this monthlong spiritual exercise.

Parvez Ahmed, University of North Florida professor and chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Arlington resident

WHAT DO YOU VALUE MOST ABOUT RAMADAN?

What I value most is the ability to spiritually connect to God. It forces us to think more and feel closer to God by establishing a variety of rituals and spending a lot of time contemplating the Quran. Ramadan is the month of the Quran. We read the entire Quran during the month.

WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST CHALLENGING ABOUT THE MONTH?

Waking up earlier than usual - 5 o'clock - and eating something that early in the morning. Personally, that's very hard because I'm not a big breakfast person. But I have to eat something to sustain myself during the day. And sometimes when we have lunch meetings at work, that's very challenging.

HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR RAMADAN?

Not much, except as the month gets closer you get into a more reflective mood, which I always do. And also cutting down on TV and reflecting more on why we're here, how to be a better person and a better father.

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CAIR-OH: COMMUNITY, SACRIFICE CONVERGE IN RAMADAN - TOP
Meredith Heagney, Columbus Dispatch, 9/14/07
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/faith_values/stories/2007/09/

14/ramadan.ART_ART_09-14-07_B4_9L7SSPC.html?sid=101

For Muslims, the holy month of Ramadan is an exercise in self-improvement.

They abstain from food and drink -- water included -- from sunrise to sunset each day. They strive to pray more devotedly and read the Quran more dutifully.

Muslims increase their charitable acts, believing that God's rewards are multiplied during Ramadan.

Alaa Haykal, 16, takes special care to avoid gossiping and greediness and making promises she can't keep. She said she always tries to avoid those things, but Ramadan calls for even more attention to one's behavior, she said.

"It's kind of like a month of purity," said Haykal, a junior at Upper Arlington High School.

Ramadan began yesterday. Muslims believe Ramadan is the month in which God revealed the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad 1,400 years ago.

Mosques across central Ohio will hold iftars, dinners to break the daily fast, and say a special night prayer, called Taraweeh, said Asma Mobin-Uddin, president of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Ohio. (MORE)

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CAIR-FL: HEARING DELAYED FOR RAMADAN PRAYERS - TOP
Bail proceedings will start two hours later for two Muslim students facing weapons charges.
Kevin Graham, St. Petersburg Times, 9/14/07
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/09/14/Hillsborough/Hearing_delayed_for_R.shtml

A federal bond hearing today for two University of South Florida students will start two hours later than initially set, so supporters of the men can attend a mandatory Muslim prayer service and the hearing if they wish.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth A. Jenkins, who will preside over the hearing, agreed Thursday to push back the time from 2 to 4 p.m. Assistant federal public defender Dionja L. Dyer had filed a motion asking for the time change on behalf of one of the students, Youssef Megahed, 21.

Megahed's brother, Yahia, told the Times this week that many people wanted to testify for Megahed. But the hearing conflicted with a prayer service for the holy month of Ramadan, which will take place at mosques today from about 1:30 to 2:30 p.m.

Yahia Megahed did not return a call for comment.

Ahmed Bedier, executive director for Tampa's chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said he was still unsure whether he'd attend the hearing now that it had been changed. Others in the Muslim community had expressed their interest in going, he said.

"It shows that the judge's decision sends a message that the court respects religious accommodation and takes those matters serious," Bedier said. "I think that was the right move." (MORE)

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CAIR-MI: IMMIGRATION BACKLASH: BILL HITS CITIES THAT BAN PROFILING - TOP
Niraj Warikoo, Detroit Free Press, 9/14/07
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070914/NEWS05/709140403/1001/NEWS

Fed up with illegal immigration, a state legislator wants to crack down on communities with ordinances that prohibit the profiling of immigrants and minorities by hitting the municipalities in the pocketbook.

Under a bill introduced this week by State Rep. Kim Meltzer, R-Clinton Township, cities such as Detroit would lose millions in state revenue sharing money if they have laws that prohibit police and other city employees from targeting people based on appearance.

The Detroit City Council passed an anti-profiling ordinance in May after receiving complaints from immigrants and U.S. citizens who said they were being pulled over by police and asked about their immigration status based on how they look. Hamtramck is considering a similar ordinance.

But Meltzer said she's tired of the government having to pay for bilingual programs for students and those who are in the United States illegally. National security also is a concern, she said.

"We've had enough of this," Meltzer said. "It's so unfair and wrong ... let's push back."

Supporters of the anti-profiling ordinances say that Meltzer's bill ignores the fact that the ordinances allow police investigating crimes to ask people about their immigration status.

"There's nothing radical at all about this ordinance," Juan Escareño said of the Detroit anti-profiling law. He works on immigration issues for Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength (MOSES), a Detroit-based coalition of 65 groups in southeastern Michigan that led the push for the Detroit ordinance. "In fact, it's based on the U.S. Constitution," which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures.

He and others said Meltzer's bill was a publicity stunt that divides the region.

"All this ordinance does is clarify a person's constitutional rights," Escareño said of the Detroit anti-profiling ordinance. "Instead of writing this bill, she should spend time reading the U.S. Constitution and think about the state budget crisis."

Dawud Walid, head of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, was one of the supporters of the Detroit anti-profiling ordinance.

"It's really shameful that an elected official is using proposed legislation to cause more racial division in Michigan," Walid said. "Michigan is a state that is in a dire fiscal crisis and does not need to be seen ... as an immigrant-unfriendly state. ... How can a person just look at someone and suspect whether they're legal or not?" (MORE)

SEE ALSO:

CAIR-MI GIVES 'KNOW YOUR RIGHTS' PRESENTATION TO INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS - TOP

(SOUTHFIELD, MI, 9/14/07) - The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) yesterday gave a "Know Your Rights" presentation for incoming Western Michigan University international students at the Kalamazoo Islamic Center in Kalamazoo.

The presentation addressed the civil and religious rights of international students studying in America as well as civic responsibilities that international students owe to the society.

Some 75 students, staff and community members attended.

CONTACT: CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid, 248-842-1418, or dwalid@cair.com

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CAIR: HUNDREDS CONTACT OH PAPER ABOUT ANTI-IRANIAN CARTOON - TOP
Dianne Hardisty, Californian, 9/13/07
http://www.bakersfield.com/opinion/columnists/dianne_hardisty/story/236147.html

There's nothing "local" anymore. With the Internet, a letter to the editor, an editorial and even an editorial cartoon can sprout legs and trot across the globe to provoke protests.

Just ask Glenn Sheller, my colleague at The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, who recently published a cartoon by conservative Michael Ramirez in his Opinion section. Ramirez, a syndicated cartoonist, depicted Iran as a huge drain with cockroaches crawling in and around it.

The cartoon caught the attention of the Columbus chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which sent out an e-mail alert contending the cartoon demeaned all Iranians and was reminiscent of Nazi propaganda. Sheller received hundreds of protest e-mails from around the world. Their tone ranged from civil to threatening.

Sheller denies the organization's characterization of the cartoon and notes the irony of equating it with Nazi propaganda. After all, it's Iranian President Ahmadinejad who is calling for the destruction of the Jewish state and who denies the Holocaust ever happened.

It doesn't take much to trigger an international controversy these days. Letter to the editor writers in Bakersfield, who touch hot-button issues, such as animal rights, can provoke responses from people thousands of miles away. Their commentary is posted on special-interest Web sites, where visitors are urged to send protest letters. Sometimes the letters already are written for them. (MORE)

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IL: CONVERT FINDS TRUE HOME IN ISLAM - TOP
'I finally found a house where I can place all my morals, my ideals'
Rummana Hussain, Chicago Sun-Times, 9/14/07
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/557367,CST-EDT-muslim14.article

Aaron Siebert-Llera would wake up wearing the Star of David one day and a cross the next.

But the religion he eventually chose was neither his father's Jewish faith nor his Mexican-American mother's Roman Catholicism.

He chose Islam.

"I felt like I finally found a house where I can place all my morals, my ideals, the way I was living," says Siebert-Llera, who was a wallflower at nightclubs and shunned alcohol, which is prohibited by Islam, even when working the front door at a blues club while in college at San Francisco State University.

Siebert-Llera lost most of his friends when he converted three years ago.

His parents, who divorced when he was 7, thought it was a phase. They feared that their son, a die-hard Green Bay Packers fan who grew up in Madison, Wis., and California, would abandon his sense of humor and stop voting for Democrats and Green Party candidates.

Siebert-Llera's father, Jack, who teaches English as a second language, was particularly concerned.

Jack Siebert served on a scholarship committee with the father of John Walker Lindh, the infamous "American Taliban" captured in Afghanistan shortly after Sept. 11, and he worried that his youngest child might go the same route.

"Right away, I'm like, 'Papa, I'm not becoming Taliban and going to Afghanistan. I'm not becoming a right-wing nut who's going to be moving halfway across the world. . . . I'm not changing who I am," says Siebert-Llera, 31, a student at Loyola University's law school. (MORE)

SEE ALSO:

MO: LAWSUIT FILED ON BEHALF OF MUSLIM WOMAN FIRED FROM JOB - TOP
Casey Nolen, KSDK-TV, 9/13/07
http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=129452

A Florissant woman said she was fired for the way she dressed and now a lawsuit has been filed on her behalf.

The company, St. Charles-based Client Services, Inc., said it has a dress code.

The woman, Mariam Soultan, said it's a matter of religious freedom.

"I felt really comfortable during the interview," Soultan said about the day she thought she had found a part-time job that was the perfect fit.

The job involved she had previously done and would also allow her to stay home most of the day with her three-year-old child.

"I was hired right then and I accepted the position," Soultan said.

On her first day of work as a phone operator for the company's collection center, she was pulled aside and questioned about her attire.

"He said will the head scarf be a problem with the head sets," said Soultan referring to the hands-free headset she was required to use.

"I said, 'It shouldn't be a problem. I've had experiences before with headsets and they fit fine on the head scarf," she said.

Soultan, a Muslim, wears the scarf as part of her religious beliefs. She doesn't go out in public without it.

Soultan said she was told the company has a dress code that doesn't allow scarves, hats or other head covering.

She also said the company told her she couldn't continue working there unless she gave up the scarf.

"I think if I give up my scarf this time for this job, who knows what I would give up next time," said Soultan.

She said she stood her ground and Client Services followed through by telling her not to come back to work. (MORE)

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IL: FOURTH MAN CHARGED WITH MOSQUE BREAK-INS - TOP
Jennifer Golz, Herald News, 9/14/07
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/heraldnews/news/557307,4_1

_JO14_MOSQUE_S1.article

Charles Htun likely will celebrate his 20th birthday this weekend in DuPage County jail.

The Naperville man was sentenced Thursday to 90 days of periodic imprisonment in DuPage County Circuit Court for his hand in the July 21, 2006 break-in at the Islamic Center of Naperville, 450 Olesen Drive.

The mosque had been burglarized almost a dozen times last year, with small amounts of money taken from the offering box in each case.

Police staked out the center that July evening, and witnessed Htun and four accomplices enter and exit the building. Two were arrested on the scene, and Htun and another engaged in a high-speed car chase that ended in a crash near Hinsdale.

Andrew R. Talty, 19, of Plainfield, and Mark C. Domingo, 19, of the Heatherstone neighborhood on Naperville's southwest side, were arrested at the scene.

Talty pleaded guilty to a charge of burglary April 17 and was sentenced to 23 days in DuPage County jail. He also was put on three years probation and ordered to pay $2,000 restitution. (MORE)

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IA: MUSLIMS FIND SPIRITUAL HOME AT MIDWESTERN MOSQUE - TOP
Congregation cites similarities between Islamic and American values
Lea Terhune, USINFO, 9/14/07
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2007&

m=September&x=20070913152217mlenuhret0.8786737

A modest building with a blue dome, the Darul Arqum Islamic Center nestles in a quiet neighborhood not far from the State University of Iowa in Ames. The mosque serves members of the local Muslim community, including international students.

Saleem Baig, vice chairman of the mosque, said there are about 500 Muslims in Ames. The center has about 120 permanent members. The congregation outgrew the original mosque, located in a house, and fundraising began.

The new mosque was built and opened in November 2001. Just two months after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, the timing was delicate, but the mosque doors were opened to the local community.

"Close to 2,000 people showed up," Baig said, and interest continues. "We invite people and we have open house. A lot of people show up. Some of them are curious."

Although there was initial resistance from a few neighbors worried about increased traffic, the Ames community supported the mosque building project. The city council voted in favor of it, and the chief of police even spoke at Friday prayers.

"He assured us there would be no trouble: 'If there is any problem, you call us,'" Baig recalls him saying. Baig and other members of the Ames mosque spoke to USINFO in August.

Interfaith dialogue is integral to the center's activity. Civil engineering consultant Waddah Akili, a longtime member of the mosque, said he attends Ames Interfaith Council meetings "to bridge the gap if there are gaps to be bridged and to try to understand each other's position." The monthly meetings draw many denominations. "We try first to get to know each other before we try to tackle any specific issues," Akili says. (MORE)

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CA: DISPLACED BY FIRE, ISLAMIC CENTER REGROUPS FOR RAMADAN - TOP
Rebecca Rosen Lum, San Jose Mercury News, 9/13/07
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_6888921

Amid a row of women bowing in diaphanous, brightly-colored gowns, Sughran Ahmed prayed -- prostrate in silence, rising with the imam's sung, "Allah Akbar," God is great. Suddenly, her 3-year-old son, Muhammad Ali, broke free from his caretaker, ran to his mother and threw his arms around her neck. She smiled at him tenderly.

It is an affectionate congregation, said chairman Abdul Rahman of the Islamic Center of the East Bay, recently displaced by an Aug. 12 arson fire.

"I wish these positive feelings would rub off on the community," he said.

The figs, fruits and communion that break the fast at day's end tasted especially sweet this year.

Some 100 worshipers gathered at sundown Thursday for the first iftar, or fast-breaking meal, of this Ramadan. The seller of an Antioch restaurant, empty in escrow, offered it as a temporary prayer hall Sunday, tripping off a mad dash to get insurance and permits in time for the celebration.

Walnut Creek restaurateur Misbah Khelid donated the food.

"Why not?" he said. "It's a time of need."

The 30 days of reflection and fasting take place in the ninth month of the Muslim calendar, beginning at sunset after the first sighting of the new moon -- or, in these times of technological advancement, when calculations pinpoint the appearance of the new moon.

For much of mosque president Mohammed Chaudry's childhood, Ramadan fell during the summer months. But by the time he had become an adult, the fasting days had grown shorter. Now, they are long again.

Because Islam follows the lunar calendar, each year Ramadan falls 10 days earlier. Every third year, it moves back a month.

"It's a justice system by God," he said. If not for the lunar calendar, "people in the west would be condemned to a fast for 11 hours."

The Quran directs the faithful to abstain from food, drink and other worldly pleasures as early in the morning as one "can plainly distinguish a white thread from a black thread by the daylight," and until darkness falls. The fast ends with a three-day festival called Id-al-Fitr. (MORE)

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GIULIANI ADVISOR: RAZE PALESTINIAN VILLAGES - TOP
Ken Silverstein, Harpers, 9/14/07
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001213

On September 11, staffers for Barack Obama had a campaign ad taken down that had appeared as a "sponsored link" on Amazon.com's web page for The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, the controversial new book by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. Obama's campaign didn't place the ad; it apparently appeared on the Amazon page because his campaign, like those of other presidential candidates, pay to have their ads pop up when people do searches for key words like "politics."

That same day, in the face of questions from the media, Obama's campaign released a statement saying that while he had not actually read the book, its conclusions were "dead wrong" and that the senator "has stated that his support for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, which includes both a commitment to Israel's security and to helping Israel achieve peace with its neighbors, comes from his belief that it's the right policy for the United States."

Yet just five days earlier, Daniel Pipes-who, as I first reported here, has signed on as a foreign policy advisor to Rudy Giuliani's campaign-essentially argued for war crimes against Palestinians, and there was no cry of protest from the media or anywhere else.

"Believing that if you don't win a war, you lose it, I have long encouraged the Israeli government to take more assertive measures in response to attacks," Pipes wrote on his blog on September 6.

In a Jerusalem Post piece six years ago, "Preventing war: Israel's options," I called for shutting off utilities to the Palestinian Authority as well as a host of other measures, such as permitting no transportation in the PA of people or goods beyond basic necessities, implementing the death penalty against murderers, and razing villages from which attacks are launched. Then and now, such responses have two benefits: First, they send a strong deterrent signal "Hit us and we will hit you back much harder" thereby reducing the number of attacks in the short term. Second, they impress Palestinians with the Israeli will to survive, and so bring closer their eventual acceptance of the Jewish state.

The Geneva Conventions label collective punishments as a war crime. "No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed," according to Article 33. "Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited."

For the record, there's much I disagree with in the Mearsheimer/Walt Book. But there's something terribly wrong with the American debate on the Middle East when, due to public criticism, Obama's campaign flees from an unintentional link to that book, while a Giuliani advisor argues for a policy of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians and his comments pass unremarked. (MORE)

SEE ALSO:

MEET GIULIANI'S ADVISORS: AIPAC'S DREAM TEAM - TOP
Ken Silverstein, Harpers, 8/27/07
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/08/hbc-90001040

"The Republican Party is in desperate straits. How else to explain that Rudy Giuliani-a former mayor with no foreign policy experience-is the Republican front-runner, largely based on his supposed foreign policy expertise?"

So opens an amusing critique penned by conservative writer Doug Bandow about Giuliani's recent essay in Foreign Affairs. In that essay, Giuliani stated that the next U.S. president "will face three key foreign policy challenges. First and foremost will be to set a course for victory in the terrorists' war on global order." It seems that Democrats, and many Republicans besides Giuliani, just don't understand what needs to be done to confront the terrorist threat. The essay is filled with simplistic, idiotic arguments, and Bandow does a good job of demolishing them.

Let's take just one of Giuliani's insights-"For 15 years, the de facto policy of both Republicans and Democrats has been to ask the U.S. military to do increasingly more with increasingly less. The idea of a post-Cold War 'peace dividend' was a serious mistake-the product of wishful thinking and the opposite of true realism."

Bandow's rejoinder:

In an essay filled with silly nonsense, this statement stands out as being uniquely stupid. Between 1980 and 2000 the Soviet Union disintegrated, the Warsaw Pact disbanded, Maoism disappeared from China, the former Soviet republics and Eastern European satellites gravitated towards America and Europe, and Vietnam opened to the West. As a result, the United States found itself allied with every major industrialized state as well as many former communist countries while, as Colin Powell famously put it, America's enemies were down to Cuba and North Korea. In this new world, Giuliani believes that the U.S. shouldn't have reduced military spending even a little?

It's easy to see where Giuliani gets his ideas on foreign policy, given the team of foreign policy advisors he announced last month Norman Podhoretz's name attracted the most attention when the list was announced, and with good reason-take a look at this video (posted by Andrew Sullivan), for example, in which Podhoretz portrays a military attack on Iran as not only the best option but the only option.

There are a number of other notable hardliners advising Giuliani. Charles Hill of the Hoover Institution, the campaign's chief advisor, joined a number of leading neo-conservatives in signing a September 20, 2001 letter to President Bush that said that even if Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, "any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove [him] from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism." . . .

I asked Augustus Richard Norton of Boston University, an expert adviser to the Iraq Study Group, for his take on Giuliani's crew. He dubbed the group "AIPAC's Dream Team." (MORE)

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GIULIANI PACKS STAFF WITH HAWKS - TOP
Barbara Ferguson, Arab News, 9/14/07
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=101183&d=14&m=9&y=2007

Rudy Giuliani, the Republican presidential candidate, is working hard to claim his place as the Republican's leading hawk.

The former New York City mayor recently announced the latest choice to join his presidential campaign team is neoconservative Daniel Pipes.

Pipes is viewed by many as anti-Muslim. Ahmed Rehab, the director general for CAIR, the Council of American Islamic Relations in Chicago, wrote last week in Media Monitors Network: "Daniel Pipes is as much a scholar on Islam and Muslims as David Duke is a scholar on Judaism and Jews. Pipes is wedded to his personal political agenda to such a point that it dominates his worldview invalidating his ability to act as a neutral scholar on Muslim-related topics."

In his article, entitled: "The Islamophobe Who Cried Islamist," Rehab writes: "For Pipes, a 'bad' Muslim is a Muslim who challenges his views on Israel and a 'good' Muslim is one who agrees with them; in his 'scholarly' lingo, the code terms are 'Islamist' and 'moderate' respectively. (MORE)

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U.N. ENVOY: ISLAMAPHOBIA ON RISE, ESPECIALLY IN EUROPE - TOP
Stephanie Nebehay, Reuters, 9/14/07
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-29537020070914

The United Nations investigator on racism on Friday condemned a rising trend of Islamaphobia, especially in Europe, where he said it was being exploited by some right-wing political parties.

Doudou Diene, U.N. special rapporteur on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance, also accused Switzerland's most popular party, the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC), of inciting hatred.

He urged the withdrawal of the party's controversial campaign poster calling for expulsion of foreigners who commit serous crimes, depicting three white sheep booting out a black sheep under the headline "For the Security of All".

"In the current context, Islamaphobia constitutes the most serious form of religious defamation," Diene said in a speech and report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose 47 member states were holding a debate on religious defamation.

More and more political leaders and influential media and intellectuals were "equating Islam with violence and terrorism," and some were seeking to "silence religious practices by banning the construction of mosques", Diene said. (MORE)

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