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Dr Kaukab Siddique | Editor-in-Chief Sha'ban 30, 1428. September 13, 2007. #70.

Jamaat al-Muslimeen Press Release

RAMADAN BEGINS September 14, 2007 according to the Sunnah of Muhammad, pbuh.

The crescent was not sighted anywhere on September 12. It will be sighted, inshallah, on September 13, and will be bigger than usual on the eve of Ramadan, and Ramadan will begin on September 14.

According to the Saudi authorities Ramadan began on September 13. They claimed that because the crescent was not seen on September 12, therefore Ramadan should begin on September 13, the 30 days of Shaban having been completed. ISNA and others who follow the Saudis began fasting on September 13.

Dr. Omar Afzal, distinguished Islamic expert on moonsighting who has been keeping track of the crescent for many years on an ongoing basis, says that the Saudis are dead wrong. The Saudis could not see the crescent because they have NOT looked for it for decades. Now they want to claim that they are following the Sunnah and are completing 30 days and starting Ramadan. In fact, he said, they are off by MORE THAN ONE DAY; hence they cannot see the crescent.

Our America: Code Pink: Vox Populi, Vox Dei

September 10: As the farcical presentation by General Petraeus began in Washington, women from the CODE PINK group suddenly got up from the visitors gallery to shout "Stop the War." The protestors were well dispersed in the gallery. As security bundled out one of them, another got up to protest. This went on for quite a while. The General, hopefully, got some idea of the sentiments of the American people. TV tried to ignore the women but after a while had to show what was going on because the voices were quite loud.

MOVE-ON.COM CONDEMNS GENERAL PETRAEUS

Most Americans have refrained from criticizing the U.S. military although they oppose the war. U.S. Muslims were the first to point to the rape of 14-year old Abeer al-Janabi as a symbol of America's military presence in Iraq.

Now the liberal left organization Move.On has come out with an advertisement calling Petraeus "Betray Us." After that the "Daily Show" lampooned Petraeus. It was well received. People are sick and tired of the ongoing pro-war propaganda coming out of the Pentagon and the White House.

OUR AMERICA: New Trend Analysis

General Petraeus Creates Furor by Supporting Bush: Military "Surge" Failed: War without End: Anbar Myth

Both Democrats and Republicans were shocked by the extent of General Petraeus' support for Bush's perspective on the war in Iraq. The General was as self-contradictory as the President. The military is winning, he would have Americans believe, but the army can't withdraw.

Bush will have to play with the dateline Petraeus provided. If things work out, the General said, the U.S. could withdraw 30,000 troops in July 2008. Some Americans will be fooled but basically the General was saying that we will keep the 130,000 troops we had before the "surge" and withdraw the extra 30,000 sent in January 2007. Will the war end? No! When will it end? Neither Petraeus nor Bush know.

In simple language, the U.S. is stuck in Iraq and cannot and will not withdraw. Authentic experts like Anthony Cordesman say that if the U.S. were to start withdrawing tomorrow, it would take 6 months just to take out the huge assembly of armored and other vehicles.

THE ANBAR STORY: The General and the President have made much of "reconciliation" in Anbar province. However, there is very little evidence that the people of Anbar, Sunnis, are supporting the U.S. against al-Qaida. There are always some collaborators in a conflict in which the U.S. spends one to two BILLION dollars a week.

The only extended reporting on Anbar appeared on C-Span, very different from the photo-op type propaganda on CNN. The C-Span report showed very dubious Sunni supporters. It mainly indicated two points: All this military activity is against Sunnis, the backbone of the Islamic resistance. Tens of thousands of supporters of the resistance are in U.S. concentration camps. On September 12, 2007 CNN reported that there are 24,000 detainees in ONE CAMP and the U.S. is carrying out psychological warfare against them to turn them into "moderate" Muslims.

SHIAS in TURMOIL: America's occupation of Iraq is supported by the Shia parties. Al-Sadr's hit squads have cleared large areas of Baghdad by killing thousands of Sunnis. Sistani thinks the elections held under U.S. military occupation were legitimate. General Petraeus says, Baghdad violence has gone down. However, America's Shia support base is crumbling.

In Kerbala itself, there was heavy inter-Shia fighting leaving scores dead and hundreds wounded. Some Shia groups, breaking away from Sadr's Mahdi Army, have been trying to get weapons directly from Iran. This resulted in several U.S. air attacks in Sadr City, causing dozens of civilian casualties. The U.S. is building a major base near the Iranian border, again giving the idea that the occupation is permanent.

Indian Muslims Oppose India's Drift into U.S. Fold.
No Support for Bombing Raids on Afghanistan and Iraq

by Hamza K, Calicut, Kerala, India

The Left parties and Muslims in India have expressed their disapproval of the "Indo-US Nuclear Deal" and strongly protested against the joint military and naval exercises conducted recently with the American fleets at the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean. They perceive that the Defense Framework Agreement India recently signed with the U.S. has been designed to integrate India with the global strategy of the President George Bush. Under this agreement India will have to provide facilities such as bases and ports to the American war ships and fighter planes when they are deployed for offensive operation. The inhuman dreadful attack on Afghanistan and Iraq and the atrocities carried out on civilians is still haunting their memory. The world is horrified at the carnage and brutality of the allied bombing on civilian population in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Under the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's United Progressive Alliance government, India has become a major regional power in South Asia and its strategic importance has been increased in many folds. Muslims do appreciate this progress. But the Muslim world perceives this unholy honeymoon as a compulsive development born of the changed world-set up brought about by the 911 terrorist attack and Bush's question, "Are you with US or against US ?".

Ever since India's independence, Indian foreign policy has been neither too East nor too West in its diplomatic approach, but neutral and non-alignment, albeit it seldom drifted to the Soviet Block during cold war. Muslims believe that the U.S. policies, after collapse of the Soviet Union, are directly responsible for the origin of Islamic terror groups that wreak havoc in the West. First time, the US waged war under the pretext of WMD, and when it became hollow, he advocated as "the regime change" and "establishment of democracy" in Iraq and Afghanistan. Muslims ask why such a policy of regime change and creation of democratic set up is not promoting in its stooge Arab States, where monarchical dictatorship prevails. This step-motherly attitude irritates the Muslim masses.

Further, the Muslim concern is that the Jewish lobby, the Christian evangelists, the Southern Baptist (the most fundamentalist Christian outfit in the US), and the Samaritans' Purse run by Frank Graham have been partners of the American crusade against Islam. It was the Southern Baptists, who publicly describe Islam as "Evil", were distributing food packets inscribed in Arabic, "The Truth was realized through Jesus Christ" throughout Afghanistan during the US attack. Such Christian groups have been taking advantage of distress and mayhem of civilian population in the war torn Africa and developing countries. The powerful Jewish lobby in Washington is behind the wars against Israel's hostile countries and after Iraq, now it turns to Syria and Iran. So an independent Palestinian State is a far-fetched dream. In the modern era of globalization, the anti-Muslim sentiment is more palpable in almost all countries and it has become an instinct to portray Muslims as extremists and terrorists. But ideologically, Muslims follow neither the East nor the West, but Islam is the best. And the war is not on terror, but on error.

Congratulations to U.S. Muslims who brought up the issue.

Tragic suffering of Iraqi girl, 14-year old Abeer al-Janabi. Now an independent and bold film maker has taken up the cause.

Redacted" stuns Venice
Fri Aug 31, 2007 11:03 AM ET

By Silvia Aloisi

VENICE (Reuters) - A new film about the real-life rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers who also murdered her family stunned the Venice festival, with shocking images that left some viewers in tears.

"Redacted", by U.S. director Brian De Palma, is one of at least eight American films on the war in Iraq due for release in the next few months and the first of two movies on the conflict screening in Venice's main competition.

Inspired by one of the most serious crimes committed by American soldiers in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, it is a harrowing indictment of the conflict and spares the audience no brutality to get its message across.

De Palma, 66, whose "Casualties of War" in 1989 told a similar tale of abuse by American soldiers in Vietnam, makes no secret of the goal he is hoping to achieve with the film's images, all based on real material he found on the Internet.

"The movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people," he told reporters after a press screening.

"The pictures are what will stop the war. One only hopes that these images will get the public incensed enough to motivate their Congressmen to vote against this war," he said.

Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi was gang raped, killed and burnt by American soldiers in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, in March 2006. Her parents and younger daughter were also killed.

Five soldiers have since been charged with the attack. Four of them have been given sentences of between 5 and 110 years.

"IT'S ALL ON THE INTERNET"

Halfway between documentary and fiction, "Redacted" draws on soldiers' home-made war videos, blogs and journals and footage posted on YouTube, reflecting changes in the way the media cover the war.

"In Vietnam, when we saw the images and the sorrow of the people we were traumatizing and killing, we saw the soldiers wounded and brought back in body bags. We see none of that in this war," De Palma said.

"It's all out there on the Internet, you can find it if you look for it, but it's not in the major media. The media is now really part of the corporate establishment," he said.

The film's title refers to how, according to De Palma, mainstream American newspapers and television channels are failing to tell the true story of the war by keeping the most graphic images of the conflict away from public opinion.

"When I went out to find the pictures, I said (to the media) give me the pictures you can't publish," he said, adding that because of legal dangers he too had to "edit" the material.

"Everything that is in the movie is based on something I found that actually happened. But once I had put it in the script I would get a note from a lawyer saying you can't use that because it's real and we may get sued," De Palma said.

"So I was forced to fictionalize things that were actually real."

The film, shot in Jordan with a little known cast, ends with a series of photographs of Iraqi civilians killed and their faces blacked out for legal reasons.

"I think that's terrible because now we have not even given the dignity of faces to this suffering people," De Palma said.

"The great irony about Redacted is that it was redacted."

Distributor Magnolia has planned a limited U.S. release for later this year, and the film may be easier to sell to European audiences rather than to the American public.

"This is a harrowing experience you put the audience through. It is not something you want to go to on a delightful Saturday evening but this message must be put forward and hopefully the public will respond," De Palma said.

Letter: Re: Hizbullah's Failure to Help Fatah al-Islam and Gaza

As Salaam u Alaikum,

Could you please mention what Fath al-Islam was doing when Hizbullah and most of Southern Lebanon was under attack last year by Israel? How many fighters did they send to the frontlines? or provide support to even to the refugees?

Also, in what way has Fatah al-Islam contributed to the Palestinian Resistance?

thank you.
rab rakha,
fahd

Ed. Note: Fatah al-Islam emerged in 2007. It seems to be an extension of the jihad in Iraq. Hizbullah is a much bigger movement and supported by two states. Its inability to help Fatah al-Islam and Gaza/West Bank does not speak well for it. During the war, it failed to hit Israel hard. It was a rare opportunity.

Just before 9.11.2007, German authorities charged some devout German Muslims with "terrorism." It seems to be a fake story meant to help Bush. The real problem German rulers, puppets of Israel, see is the steady conversion of Germans to Islam. This great nation will rise again, inshallah. Please remember that the following article was written from a hostile perspective.

German authorities watch increasing conversions to Islam with concern

05 September 2007 [Excerpts]

Berlin (dpa) - The German authorities are watching the rising tide of conversion to Islam with some concern, the daily Berliner Zeitung reported Thursday.

The newspaper cited figures compiled by a Muslim group that showed that 4,000 Germans had converted last year, compared with just 1,000 in 2005.

It was common knowledge that the German authorities were monitoring converts to Islam closely, it said.

Guido Steinberg, who researches Islamic issues, said extremists were targeting new converts, and terrorist expert Rolf Tophoven said converts tended to be fanatical.

According to Salim Abdullah, who runs the Islam Archive, there are currently 3.3 million Muslims in Germany, 18,000 of them of German origin.

The Interior Ministry estimates the number of converts at 15,000 but notes that woman converts tend to bring up their children as Muslims and estimates that 40,000 native Germans are living according to Muslim custom.

Abdullah attributed the increase in conversions to rising Islamophobia. "Whenever Islam falls under suspicion, many people start to feel solidarity with the religion," he told the Berliner Zeitung.

This had been visible immediately after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Abdullah noted that more women than men were converts, in a ratio of 60 to 40, but added that conviction rather than marriage to a Muslim was usually the reason.

2007-09-13 Thu 17:39:20 cdt
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