Hey Luiz ,-and all Thanks for the posts everyone, -free speech is a wonderful right, along with all the ideals of human freedom and individual rights that have allowed a tiny nation founded on these ideals to grow, create, and prosper, to become the worlds predominant nation in some 20 decades -12 family generations, in human history, --An amazing accomplishment.
<br>-We in the U S are again learning what it means to be a free people with certain inalienable rights, -life -liberty, -the pursuit of happiness, -among them, -seeking truth and justice necessary to maintain them, -ideals kept, adopted by all seeking freedom in making the U S their permanent home, instilled by numerous wars against oppression and terrony, with many U S lives sacrificed, handed taught and sometimes dramatically relearned, from generation to generation.
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<br> We are currently in the first month in a war with TERRORISTS -
<br>-Terrorists and those that follow them, ---not other nations.
<br> If you’ve read about and followed the money trails, -laundering, false banks, drug money, and other sources of Bin Lauden to finance terrorist activities you find that he has bought and paid for the Talib, -They would never give him up, he has put them and maintains them financially in power. -
<br> This is the message the U S has to get through, -we are at war with terrorism, --
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<br>-Was very impressed by the following article-interview by cnn with Nabil Falmy -
<br> His reference to Mcveigh -[Oklahoma City bombing} and acts of various terrorists in recent history . -
<br>-Their will always be crazed extremists of all types beliefs and nationalities ready to kill others, and those like Biny ready to use hatred fear and even distorted religious concepts to manipulate and use them to rise to power.
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<br>-CNN) -- The war on terrorism that has begun in Afghanistan has had repercussions across the world, and has prompted anti-American protests in Muslim nations. Nabil Fahmy, the Egyptian ambassador to the United States, joined CNN's John King to explain why some Muslims are protesting.
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<br>JOHN KING: Why? The president says he does not understand it. Why do we see these pictures?
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<br>NABIL FAHMY: Well, I think it is important to put them in context. You will always see pictures of demonstrations, where they exist. But if you compare (them) to the actual context in which they are, you will see that the majority of the people in the Middle East, including the Muslim world, are not on the side of the terrorists. And we should not assume them to be, because when one assumes that the minority that demonstrates (has) a right to represent the majority -- (it) ultimately empowers the terrorists, and I think it's wrong.
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<br>I agree with the president that the focus is not against Islam. And we should not allow the argument to be taken hostage and marginalized. This is about criminals, terrorist criminals. They happened to be from the Middle East this time around, but there have been terrorists all over the world. Historically, you go back to Europe, the Red Army, the Baader-Meinhof in Germany, the Japanese Red Army. ... And frankly, Timothy McVeigh.
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<br>So, it's a problem: these are terrorists; let's focus on getting the terrorists.
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<br>KING: Grade the president in how effective he has been in making that case -- that this is against terrorists, not against Islam. ... Does the average person in the Arab world see President Bush frequently enough to get that message?
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<br>FAHMY: What impressed me most about what the president said is that he realized this is going to be an ongoing debate. It is not going to be fulfilled by one explanation. And he knows that.
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<br>So he went to the mosque, the center here in Washington with the Islamic leaders, and he's going to have to speak out on the issue over and over again. Civilized societies will have a much more difficult time in dealing with this than the terrorists, so he is going to have to keep speaking about it. He is going to have to keep showing actual action in what he is doing. And we will do the same.
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<br>KING: One thing that would help him dramatically would be frequent outspoken comments supporting him from leaders in the Arab world. Can you tell us what your president, Hosni Mubarak, has done? And is that a fair statement that the Arab leaders -- moderate nations, supporters of the United States -- have an obligation to speak out and speak out frequently?
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<br>FAHMY: Obligation, sure, but actually we have been fighting terrorism for 10 years. So we have a national interest in fighting terrorism. This is not a response to the U.S. We are happy to do it, because we're friends of the U.S., but it is also our problem. We are on the same side on this.
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<br>President Mubarak has spoken out before the military attacks, after the military attacks, and frankly several religious leaders in Egypt have spoken out recently about this -- condemning terrorism, and looking for a peaceful solution to this whole problem. So, Egyptians are speaking out. We tend -- and I understand this -- we tend in the news to cover the bad news, so one only sees the negative sense of it. But the Middle East is there. Work with it. Don't push it away ... because it would only complicate the problem.
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<br>KING: When we saw the videotape released by Osama bin Laden, to his left ... was the gentleman who leads a group called the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Tell us about that group and how integrated it is with bin Laden, whether it still has significant operations in your country, and what is being done to crack down on it?
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<br>FAHMY: This organization in particular emerged after the assassination of President (Anwar) Sadat (in 1981). ... It peaked in its activities in Egypt in the first three or four years in the '90s, and terrorism actually came almost to a complete standstill in Egypt in '95 -- and one incident in '97 after that.
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<br>It does not operate in Egypt anymore. All its members in Egypt have been arrested, and that is why those who were not arrested left the country, either to Europe or to Asia and other countries. We tried to extradite them, to no avail. But they have court cases, court verdicts against them in Egypt. They are on our list as much as they are on yours. So it is something which we stand on the same side with you on.
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<br>KING: The United States and Egypt are the two principal third parties, if you will, that tend to get involved in trying to broker disputes between the Israelis and the Palestinians. ... The president has said it would be a giant help to his efforts to build an international coalition if the Israelis and the Palestinians could at least reach a detente -- a cooling-off period.
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<br>No one has any hopes for a comprehensive peace, but a cooling-off period. What is your sense of the situation right now, and do you get any sense that this behind-the-scenes pressure on both parties is having any affect?
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<br>FAHMY: Again, I agree with the president on this. When we dealt with terrorism, it was a sustained issue, a sustained campaign, where we needed the support of the public. To do the same now today in the Middle East, you need to engage the public. The foremost issue in the Middle East today with the public is the Palestinian - Israeli conflict, whether it's on the Arab side or on the Palestinian side.
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<br>Consequently, if you establish a détente, or have a process there, you will have a great opportunity of conserving a coalition to deal with other issues at the same time. But finding peace between the Palestinians and Israelis was always important. It didn't become important only because of the coalition; it was always important. But it would be tremendously helpful for the coalition if we could really manage it in a more coherent manner.
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<br>I have seen the Palestinians take significant measures to calm things down, and I see the level of violence deteriorating. I would hope that the Israeli government on its part would withdraw from the territories that it reoccupied after the recent events, and that they would relax a little bit the restrictions that are put on Palestinian travel -- even from one Palestinian village to the other -- because this is a process which we have to build on the momentum rather than fight against each other on.
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<br>KING: You mentioned the assassination of President Sadat a bit earlier. He lost his life, most believe, because he made peace with Israel. Any indications on your part now (that) President Mubarak has tried to (influence) Prime Minister Sharon? Is there any continuing dialogue at this moment, or is the separation to the point where the parties are not talking to each other?
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<br>FAHMY: President Sadat lost his life because of peace with Israel. Prime Minister (Yitzhak) Rabin lost his life (in 1995) for exactly the same purpose, trying to achieve peace with the Arabs. We all have a vested interest in this.
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<br>We are working with the U.S., with the Israelis, with the Palestinians to move things forward. I am hopeful.
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<br>KING: Osama bin Laden says in that videotaped message: all this would end, the terrorist attacks on the United States would end, if the United States picked up and left. No one assumes that will happen, no one believes that will happen. But would it solve the problem: if the United States just withdrew from the Middle East and said, "You are on your own"?
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<br>FAHMY: The U.S. part in the Middle East one can debate, support or disapprove of. But it's not a justification for terrorism.
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<br>KING: It will never happen, in your view?
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<br>FAHMY: Whether it happens or not is not the point. There is no justification for killing civilians, one way or the other.
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<br> -very impressed with the historical perspective -
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<br>-Again we need to understand and make all understand that this is a war on TERRORISTS and their paid henchmen.
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<br>-Their main propaganda weapon is as the Egyptian ambassador’s main concern and comment was on civilian casualties
<br> The following article is by a CNN reporter lead to a staged preprepared remote village with unsubstantiated claims, -
<br> This is what we will continue to see ---and fuels the terrorists propaganda .
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<br>-KORAM, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Correspondent Nic Robertson was among a group of international journalists escorted Sunday to the village of Koram in eastern Afghanistan to view what the Taliban say is damage caused by U.S. airstrikes.
<br>ROBERTSON: The Taliban is taking a very small group of journalists on a tour of selected sites inside Afghanistan. Today, they took us to a village called Koram in the mountains some 60 miles west of Jalalabad.
<br>This is a very remote village tucked away in a high mountain gulley. There were some 40 or 50 houses there. The village, when we arrived, there were men digging in the rubble of the houses. About 80 to 90 percent of the houses were destroyed. A local official told us that some 200 people have died in the village. They say that about 400 to 450 people live there.
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<br>It is impossible to verify whether or not so many people died in the village. However, local officials say some of the bodies were taken away and buried in villages elsewhere in the area by relatives, and certainly around that village we were able to count about 30 fresh graves.
<br>Now, the Taliban say that this village had nothing to do with any terrorist training camps, and when we put it to one villager that this could have been a place ... high, secure in the mountains, remote, rock-built houses ... when we put it to him that this could have been a place, perhaps, where terrorists were training, he brandished some field implements at us and said, "Is this what Osama bin Laden is fighting with?"
<br>The answer from the villagers there, the survivors of the attack, certainly say that this was a village they were living in, and that it was not a place where terrorists were based.
<br>And certainly, the indications that we saw in the village was of a dwelling place. There were dead goats on the mountainside, an unexploded bomb on the mountainside, dead cattle within the village, dead chickens and certainly an atmosphere of more of a rural, domestic situation than one of military debris strewn around the area.
<br>CNN: Are your reports being critiqued by the Taliban? Are you limited in what you can say, or can you speak freely?
<br>ROBERTSON: We can speak freely. What the Taliban have told us we must do is that whenever we leave the hotel, we must go out with an official representative of the government here. They say we're not free to roam around and go and dig up stories for ourselves. However, they have told us that we can visit any site that we choose to visit. We selected to visit the city's military airfield, and we expect to be going there in about an hour's time.
<br>So, although there are no restrictions on what we say, and apparently there are no restrictions on where we can go, we do have to be accompanied by a government representative.
<br>CNN: What is the mood of the people that you meet and what is their reaction to your presence?
<br>ROBERTSON: Well, there was a very, very violent reaction at the village where the 200 people supposedly met their deaths. When we first arrived, a man came forward brandishing an ax, and another came brandishing a stick.
<br>People there were very, very angry about the attack. Now, the Taliban guards with us told the people to lay down their sticks and axes, and they certainly let us in and let us talk to them.
<br>There is clearly a very high level of anger among these people against the United States at this time. On the route to this village, and it's some 60 miles away, passing through two small villages, there were two, what appeared to be impromptu yet government-backed demonstrations. They were anti-American, anti-Pakistani and anti-British demonstrations, chanting slogans of "Death to Bush," "Death to Tony Blair."
<br>So there appears to be on the streets certainly a great deal of resentment to the current bombardment, a backing of the Taliban's position at this time, people say, and also a great deal of animosity to anyone who looks like an outsider.
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<br>-C -comment -
<br> We will continue to see Talib propaganda and may evan see them slaughter a villiage of other ethnic Afghans to further insite others .
<br>-We need to LEAD ,-hold to our convictions ,-once these terrorists are defeated it will be a victory for humanity ,--but one that we will always need to maintain a vigilance against .
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