On Sunnis and Shi'ites - An Explanation

[nonesuche]

I found this piece to be very enlightening in that I have struggled with understanding the theological differences at times, so I thought it might help to bring this to the forum for educational purposes.

On Sunnis and Shi'ites
By Mark M. Alexander
Friday, February 16, 2007

After publishing an op-ed entitled "The Real Islam" last summer, I was bombarded by requests to produce a follow-up piece outlining the differences between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims. Well, here it is, with one caveat: The historical complexities and theological nuances of the 1,400-year-old rift in Islam make the 600-year division between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, or the contemporary divisions within Protestantism, seem simple by comparison. There is no way a thousand-word essay can say it all. Thus, though I may outline these differences in a nutshell, I'm certain to leave countless other nuts yet to be cracked.

Muslims today make up about one person in four, some 1.4 billion altogether. Of these, nearly 90 percent are Sunni; the remaining 10 percent are primarily Shi'ite. Of the world's 52 majority-Muslim states, only five are majority Shi'ite: Iran (90 percent), Azerbaijan (80 percent), Bahrain (70 percent), Iraq (66 percent) and Lebanon (50 percent). With minor exceptions, the rest are majority Sunni. These facts notwithstanding, Shi'ite Muslims exert an influence in the Muslim world and beyond that transcends their comparatively meager numbers.

As both friend and foe, Shi'ite Iraq has been a focal point of U.S. foreign policy for at least three decades. Iran's enormous oil wealth, hard-line theocracy and pursuit of nuclear weapons continue to pose problems for the Middle East and the West. Azerbaijan's post-Soviet dictatorship not only enjoys enormous oil and natural-gas wealth, but also functions as an unavoidable corridor for oil transport between Russia, Central Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Bahrain hosts a key U.S. naval base and enjoys a reputation as a strong and growing world financial hub. Lebanon, once the Westernized gem of the Middle East, is now plagued by Hizballah and Syrian interference but continues to hold a pivotal role regarding Israeli security and regional democratization. For better or for worse, the Shi'ites cannot be ignored.

Two prevailing issues lend urgency to our understanding of these, the two great sects of Islam. First, as Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein demonstrated in a series of biting reports over the past several years, even the most senior and seasoned U.S. legislative, foreign-policy, intelligence and law-enforcement leaders have next to no understanding of the differences between Sunnis and Shi'ites, what countries are dominated by which sect, or why it matters. Second, as is so readily apparent in Iraq today, Sunnis and Shi'ites have little compunction when it comes to slaughtering each other. This is because each considers the other heretical -- that is, outside the oma or community of true Islam.

Across the entire Muslim world, it's dangerously naïve to think that the differences between Sunnism and Shi'ism are all that matter; in fact, it's far more complicated. Yet given that these differences do matter, what are they?

It is no small detail that the rift between Sunnis and Shi'ites dates to the death of Muhammad, Islam's founder. Shortly before his own death in 632 AD, Muhammad's last surviving son, Ibrahim, also died. By this time, Islam was already tightly woven into a religious and political community led by a man who was at once both a religious and political leader. In the absence of an heir apparent, the question of succession -- who would lead Islam after Muhammad -- quickly engulfed this nascent but powerful Islamic oma.

The term Sunni comes from the Arabic word sunna, which roughly translates as "example," indicating those who follow the example of Muhammad. Sunnis refer to themselves properly as Ahlus Sunnah wal-Jamaa'h, roughly "the people of the example [of Muhammad] and the community." The name is meant to connote their own claim as the heirs of "orthodox" Islam and as the majority among competing Muslim sects.

The name was chosen because Sunnis believed themselves to be following the example of Muhammad in several key respects. Muhammad, they say, did not designate a successor or dictate a procedure for selecting one. Also, Muhammad's claim to prophethood was unique -- his successor would be a leader of the community, not another prophet. Finally, what was clear was that Islam should remain united under one individual -- a leader of the oma, a military commander and the final arbiter of disputes within the community and interpreter of its law. Implicit in these assertions was the belief that Islam's leader need not come from a particular family, clan or tribe.

Consequently, Abu Bakr, one of Muhammad's inner circle and among the first converts to the new religion, became Islam's first leader, or caliph. Serving as caliph from 632 to his death two years later, Abu Bakr was the first of whom Sunnis recognized as the four "Rightly Guided Caliphs." Before his death, Abu Bakr named another of Muhammad's inner circle, Umar, as his successor. Umar ruled as caliph to his death in 644, during which time he created a sort of electoral college to choose future successors. This group chose Uthman as Islam's third caliph (644-656), followed by Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law and cousin, who held the title until his death in 661. The caliphate continued after Ali but was marked by increasing political disunity and corruption through several dynasties, causing Muslims to look back on the era of its first four caliphs as the "Golden Age" of Islam.

Golden to the Sunnis, that is. The Shi'ite minority, by contrast, considered Ali as the rightful heir of Islam, designated as such by Muhammad himself. The intervening three leaders -- Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman -- were, therefore, illegitimate. They stole Ali's position from him, Shi'ites say, despite all three having been present when Muhammad allegedly designated Ali as his successor at the oasis of Ghadir al-Khumm.

For the Shi'ites, Ali was no mere caliph; to them, he enjoyed a similar -- but not identical -- prophetic status as Muhammad before him. Whereas Muhammad received revelation from Allah (wayh), Ali and his successors received divine inspiration (ilham) allowing them to guide and judge Islam sinlessly, both spiritually and politically. Thus, for Shi'ites -- also called Shi'a Ali, the "party of Ali" -- Ali is the first imam, the leader of the oma descended from Muhammad. To them, the Imamate, not the Caliphate, is the rightful ruler of Islam.

In 874, Muhammad al-Qa'im became the twelfth imam at the age of six, and the end of Muhammad's line. Shi'ites claim that for the next 67 years he existed in a state of "lesser occultation," where he was directly accessible to his followers, followed by an inaccessible "greater occultation" which will continue until the Last Days. When this "Hidden Imam" is again revealed, he will initiate an apocalyptic struggle against the foes of Islam, hailing the end of the world. In the meantime, the rule of Islam resides in the ayatollahs, the "sign of Allah," who act in the name of the Hidden Imam.

In the lead up to the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Ayatollah Khomeini never directly claimed to be this Hidden Imam, but his followers propagated the idea in order to legitimize Khomeini's claim against the secular government of the pro-Western Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, and to consolidate power after the Shah's exile. Today, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadi-Nejad purports to be making preparations for the Imam's second coming, which he believes to be close at hand. While Ahmadi-Nejad is doubtless a true believer, this claim may be intended to buttress the hard-line theocracy's often-tenuous rule in Iran, as well as helping mobilize fellow Shi'ites across the border in Iraq.

There, Shi'ite-Sunni relations will be at the heart of conciliation or disintegration -- whichever may occur. Indeed, religious, ethnic and tribal divides define four conflicts being simultaneously waged in Iraq today: Shi'ite on Shi'ite violence in the south; Shi'ite-Sunni sectarian violence in Baghdad; Ba'athist-inspired violence against the government; and al-Qa'ida/jihadist violence against anti-Western Shi'ites and the pro-U.S., Shi'ite-dominated government.

While religious violence is not the exclusive cause of the violence in Iraq, without it the conflict would be greatly simplified and far more manageable. As it is, working to quell one of Iraq's conflicts often has the result of inflaming another.

It may be an oversimplification to say so, but a Vatican II-styled resolution between Sunnis and Shi'ites may be just what the Muslim world -- and the rest of the world -- needs most.




Mark Alexander is executive editor and publisher of The Patriot Post, the Web's "Conservative E-Journal of Record."

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MarkMAlexander/2007/02/16/on_sunnis_and_shiites

[nonesuche]

This is Thompson's Original Piece from a year ago but also another good and I think timely explanation of the forces at play within jihad and terrorism.



The real Islam
Mark Alexander

Responding to breaking news of the thwarted Jihadi attacks against a dozen commercial flights from Great Britain to the United States this week, President George W. Bush did the unthinkable: He described the would-be killers in accurate terms.

"The recent arrests that our fellow citizens are now learning about are a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation," the President remarked.

Key words: "Islamic fascists".

Nearly five years since September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush has finally dropped his politically correct gloves and called the enemy of the West by the descriptor it deserves. This enemy is exclusively Muslim, and it has a modus operandi and worldview consistent with other forms of fascism.

Predictably, America's Islamic lobby was quick to object. "We have to isolate these individuals because there is nothing in the Koran or the Islamic faith that encourages people to be cruel or to be vicious or to be criminal," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "Muslims worldwide know that for sure."

For sure?

In a recent article in Jurist, Ali Khan of the Washburn University School of Law echoed Awad. "It is becoming fashionable for elected officials in the Anglo-American world, notably in the United States and the United Kingdom, to employ abusive language involving Islam," he wrote. "Phrases such as 'Islamic terrorism,' 'totalitarian Islam,' 'crimes of Islam,' and 'Islamic fascism' are freely used, with sadist disrespect, to condemn real and imagined terrorists who practice the faith of Islam."

Is it possible, then, that by equating the doctrine and practice of Islam with the acts of a radicalized few, President Bush is blurring these lines?

Not according to Daniel Pipes, historian of Islam and director of the Middle East Forum. The President, he says, is "identifying not Islam the religion, but a radical form of Islam." Indeed, how many times have we heard presidential speeches laced with language about the "religion of peace" and our commonality as "people of the book"? Such language allows Awad and Khan to take comfort in the knowledge that Islam is good, but that terrorism -- which doesn't in any way represent Islam -- is bad.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's recent address to the U.S. Congress certainly reflected the President's heretofore clear distinction between terrorism and Islam. In that speech, the prime minister spoke of the war in Iraq as "a battle between true Islam, for which a person's liberty and rights constitute essential cornerstones, and terrorism, which wraps itself in a fake Islamic cloak; in reality, wages a war on Islam and Muslims and values, and spreads hatred between humanity. Wherever human kind suffers a loss at the hands of terrorists, it is a loss of all humanity."

So, is our fight against terrorism or against Islamic fascism? To wit, is Islam peaceful, or intrinsically fascist?

The answers couldn't be clearer. Terrorism is not an enemy; it's a tactic. Muslim examples aside, terrorist tactics have been adopted by groups as varied as Northern Ireland's IRA, Colombia's FARC, the Shining Path of Peru, West Germany's Baader-Meinhof Gang, Italy's Brigate Rosse, Spain's Basque ETA, and our homegrown Symbionese Liberation Army. Mostly separatists and leftists, none of these groups viewed terrorism as an end in itself, but as a means to another, political end.

Unlike terrorism, Islam is an ideology bent on territorial expansion and political domination. These traits, along with iron-fisted socioeconomic controls, are the essential characteristics of fascism. When this expansion requires violence, Islam turns to jihad, and within the context of jihad, terrorism is an acceptable tactic. According to Pipes, "Islam is a political religion in a way that none other is. There are many elements within the religion and the history of Islam that suggest there is a dynamic of conquest." Pipes continues, "There is something inherently expansionist about Islam. Jihad is expansionist warfare."

Stephen Schwartz, executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, coined the term "Islamofascism," and he compares it other forms of fascism: "Islamofascism similarly pursues its aims through the willful, arbitrary, and gratuitous disruption of global society, either by terrorist conspiracies or by violation of peace between states. Al-Qaeda has recourse to the former weapon; Hezbollah, in assaulting northern Israel, used the latter. These are not acts of protest, but calculated strategies for political advantage through undiluted violence." Schwartz continues, "Fascism was totalitarian; i.e. it fostered a totalistic world view -- a distinct social reality that separated its followers from normal society. Islamofascism parallels fascism by imposing a strict division between Muslims and alleged unbelievers."

When we look to the deserts of the Middle East at the founding of Islam in the early 7th century, such a picture is clear. At that time, increased trade across western Arabia created unprecedented wealth, resulting in the rise of new urban centers that directly challenged traditional tribal structures and loyalties. These urban centers quickly came to represent a different set of interests from the tribal communities, and a period of internecine conflict and social upheaval ensued.

In this context, the prophet Mohammed offered an alternative: the oma, the community professing the exclusive divinity of Allah, the moon god of polytheistic Arabia, and Mohammed as Allah's prophetic voice. In creating the oma, Mohammed and his followers forged an inextricable merger of politics and religion. To this day, there has never been a separation -- a "Reformation" -- in Islam. This is due to the very nature of the oma, which must not only be defended militarily, politically and economically -- but also expanded. Mohammed's efforts to reconstitute the basis of authority and organization in Arabia -- from polytheism to a political monotheism, from cities and tribes to the oma -- made Islam's expansionism a certainty.

Allah, the moon god and supreme deity of the pre-Islamic Arab pantheon, served Mohammed's expansionist cause well. Contrary to the claims of Islam, Mohammed did not introduce the idea of Allah to Arab peoples in the 7th century; a fact well established by such renown Islamic scholars as Columbia's Arthur Jeffery, Harvard's Henry Preserved Smith, Oxford's Kenneth Cragg and the University of Edinburgh's W. Montgomery Watt. This Allah was married to his feminine counterpart, the sun goddess Allat, and together they had three daughters, the goddesses Al-Lat, Al-Uzza and Manat. A host of less gods and sub-deities completed the Arabian pantheon. Today, it is no wonder that the crescent moon -- the symbol of the moon god and his cult -- adorns the flags of Muslim states, sits atop mosques and minarets, or that Muslims fast during the month beginning and ending with the appearance of the crescent moon (Ramadan). Indeed, the symbol of ancient Arabia's moon god is the symbol of Islam itself.

The cult of the moon god was particularly strong in Mohammed's tribe, as well as in the strategic religious and trade center of Mecca. Drawing on these traditional beliefs, along with their accompanying loyalties and acceptable practices among devotees of the moon god, Mohammed and his oma were able to mount a serious and sustainable challenge to the status quo of Arabian power.

Like other forms of fascism, Islam's expansionist impulse would involve violence, subjugation to the state, and conformity to the ideology of the system. As Mohammed writes in the Koran, "Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection (Surah 009.029)." Further, Al Bukhari records Mohammed as saying: "I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah'."

If this is what Islam is all about -- fascist expansionism and totalitarianism -- where do moderate or liberal Muslims come from? In short, they come from the same place that liberal Christians and Jews come from. Confronted by the 18th century Enlightenment and its heir, modernism, all religious expressions have found themselves influenced by the ideas and ideals of secular humanism. As Muslims integrated with the West and the West came into increased contact with the Muslim East, Islam experienced the same synthesis. Consequently, liberal Christians, Muslims, Jews and atheists, all under the influence of modernism, confess the same essential creed: The intrinsic equality of human beings, a basic commitment to man's reason, the supremacy of the individual, and man's innate goodness in the state of nature. Thus, like liberal Christianity or Judaism, liberal Islam isn't Islam at all; it's an entirely different religion.

In the end, any realistic assessment of Islam must accept "fascism" as a term that is far more descriptive than pejorative. In his remarks on the hurtful nature of the term, Professor Khan said that if anyone is "using the label in this broad sense, and thus accusing Islam and not merely the militants, they should say so."

Well, we're saying so.

And regarding the "deafening silence" of Islamic leaders and adherents in the United States who never condemn the slaughter of innocents by their fellow Muslims, we invoke the inimitable words of President Bush the week of 9/11: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

[Dihannah1]

Thanks for sharing None!  I believe I asked about his awhile ago, as I didn't really understand the differences.

[nonesuche]

neither did I Dihannah and I'm still not sure I understand many of the nuances, which is why I enjoy having pdh and anna and tyler posting too. I'm just not as well-versed but expect it's time I learned more.

[nonesuche]

I found this an interesting 'christian' perspective on Islam, but the more I read and digest, the more concerned I am that al jihad is succeeding in it's growth due to the non-radical muslims not fighting this just as Hitler rose to power due to many not recognizing him as a real threat until it was too late?

I do feel for the female he mentions in this piece, for some have emigrated here to escape the radicals as well, perhaps that is her story?

Islam Is Not The Enemy
By Frank Pastore
Sunday, February 18, 2007

The elevator doors opened and in walked a young woman dressed in the traditional veiled hijab–I’m assuming she was a Muslim–and I thought to myself, “Is she my enemy?” Looking at the reaction to my last column, there’s a whole bunch of people whose default position is to believe so–and maybe they’re right. In their minds, “Islam is the enemy. We’re at war. She shouldn’t be here.” It’s that simple to them.

But, of course, in the real world, it is so much more complicated–and ancient. Humanity has been dealing with this prob-lem for a long time. Plato addressed the theological-political problem in his Laws back in the 5th century B.C. Today, for most of us, the problem occurs in the struggle to reconcile two conflicting beliefs.

As Christians, we believe Islam is a false religion–and the belief is reciprocal.

As Americans, we believe in the free exercise of religion, including Islam–but this belief is not reciprocal.

So, how do we deal with tolerating a religion that is itself intolerant of us? Ought we to pride ourselves on our tolerance and eagerly embrace their intolerance even if it leads to our own destruction? Or, perhaps we ought to abandon our First Amendment and be intolerant of Islam while tolerating only those “acceptable” religions that we decide are “peaceful”? Or, should we intolerantly force them to abandon their religion and embrace a “moderate” replacement that we approve of?

None of these options work for me. I’m a Christian American and I want to live at peace with others, but if someone wants to kill my family, it’s a fight to the death. I don’t think we’re there, yet. Nor do I want to pass an Amendment that would legalize religious discrimination. I don’t want to adapt to them, I think they should adapt to us and embrace toler-ance–the whole “live and let live” thing. Nor do I want to force someone to change their religion against their will–how could this even be done? There’s got to be another option. But, is there?

See, the problem is, Christianity teaches the Golden Rule while Islam doesn’t. The Koran teaches that every Muslim is superior to every non-Muslim and that men are superior to women. A Muslim may treat a Jew, a Buddhist, or a Christian with respect, but they will never be considered equals, for they are dhimmis, a near-slave status in Muslim teaching. This is the fundamental reason why Islam is incompatible with democracy and thereby the West. How can you have a democracy among non-equals? Let alone the fact that half of all Muslim populations are immediately excluded from the political process simply because of their gender. Either the West will cease to be the West, or Islam will cease to be Is-lam. But the two cannot blend and remain what they are. It is the defining characteristic of each that it has almost noth-ing in common with the other.

In Islam, the world is divided into the world of believers, dar al Islam, and that of unbelievers, dar al harb. Islam is not merely at war with the West, it is at war with the world. No authority is higher than the infallible divine law contained in the closed canon of the Koran. Sharia law trumps all other claims to divine law, all natural law, and all positive law. No Muslim can be under any authority other than sharia law. To do so is to render oneself apostate and deserving of death. Reason itself is unable to inquire into the morality of the divine law. This is why the concepts of state, citizen, nation, pluralism and tolerance are alien to Islam. It is also why perhaps there is no more clear instance of the reformer’s di-lemma in all of history. To reform one must question, and to question is forbidden.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, “Americans are alarmed by the advance of Islam into our society, and properly so, for who will assimilate to whom? Could a Muslim have written the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Constitu-tion? Does Islam believe in the separation of church and state, that all men are created equal, that there should be no religious test for political office holders, that government ought to be secular?”

The answer, of course, is no.

The challenge of the West to live peaceably with Islam is made perhaps impossible by both the historical record and sim-ply by looking around today. What do nearly all the problem spots around the world have in common? What dominant Muslim country has anything approaching real human rights? Where are the Muslim denunciations of violence, terrorism, genocide, and slavery coming from the many mosques, universities, newspapers and capitols throughout the Muslim world? For that matter, where are the condemnations of these things coming from the American Muslim community? There are over one billion Muslims on this planet and their collective silence on these evils is deafening and threatening. What are we non-Muslims to think, other than that the vast majority of Muslims must either support if not tolerate such things? Perhaps “moderate” Islam is merely a Western fiction created to avoid addressing the unavoidable and inevitable reality of civilizational incompatibility.

The loudest and most clear message we non-Muslims hear from the Muslim world is “Convert, submit to Dhimmitude, or die.” Come to think of it, I’m not hearing any other message. And that is what is so deeply troubling.

Are we to take comfort in being told not all Muslims are radical? Perhaps, and I hold on to that. But, if just one-hundredth of one-percent are future jihadists, you’re still talking 100,000 killers hoping to blow up a school bus or fly a plane into a building. We are at war with these radicals, make no mistake.

So, as I remember that young woman in the elevator with the hijab, I think of these things.

Maybe she’s an American citizen who loves this country and is bothered by what she sees, too. Maybe her family fled re-ligious persecution back in the old country. Maybe she actually wants to live here and raise her family here. Her Muslim husband might be in the National Guard. She might even be a Republican. And maybe, just maybe, she’s someone who worries about these things just as I do, and is trying to reform her religion into something that can live peaceably in modernity.

It’s these last thoughts that stop me short of seeing her as the enemy.

Or, maybe she’s in a sleeper cell. I probably wouldn’t know until it was too late, anyway.



The Frank Pastore Show is heard in Los Angeles weekday afternoons on 99.5 KKLA and on the web at kkla.com, and is the winner of the 2006 National Religious Broadcasters Talk Show of the Year. Frank is a former major league pitcher with graduate degrees in both philosophy of religion and political philosophy.

[mrs. red]

None,
This article posted right above, is my great fear with why this election is so crucial to our way of life.  I have lived here in New England, where, for the most part people are liberal.  They make mock of those of us that fear what we think is happening, they say that it's my lack of understanding and "intelligence" that makes me fear what the terrorists want to do.  

This article is why I support the war in Iraq... if, like I have stated before, we only afford women the right to read, that is enough for me.  I think that women can be a formidible powerful force if given the real chance.

This article speaks quite clearly and loudly for what is at stake and why, thanks for putting this thread together.

[nonesuche]

I needed to do this thread for myself Mrs Red, I have been lazy about understanding all the underpinnings of this.

Today I found this article, a piece regarding comments by Woolsey our former CIA Director. I had not heard that bin Laden had issued a call-out to his forces to bomb oil supplier points for the US in the hope to hobble us and strike back.

I hope it's because he feels some real heat right now, I say ' go get him' to our forces ASAP !





Former CIA Director: Kick Oil AddictionJames Woolsey Talks With ABC7
 By Erik Rosales

Feb. 16 - KGO - Getting out of Iraq, and fighting terrorism elsewhere -- could be, to some extent, in our control. That's according to the former head of the CIA. James Woolsey said that every time we stop at the gas pump -- we're indirectly helping the terrorists.

James Woolsey, Fmr. CIA Director: "This war against Islamist totalitarianism, of several varieties, will go on for decades like the cold war."

President Clinton's former CIA director, James Woolsey believes, a way out of the Iraq war, and way to build resilience against terrorism, is through alternative energy, and limiting our dependency on foreign oil. Woolsey says every time we as a nation pull up to the pump, we are effectively sending billions of dollars to terrorists.

James Woolsey: "We're sending that in part to Saudi Arabia and the states of the gulf, and number of which have wealthy families that support the Wahabi's of Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government certainly does. And they have several billion dollars a year to run the Madrasis in Pakistan for example, to teach the Pakistani boys to be suicide bombers. This is the only war we've ever fought, besides the civil war, were we pay for both sides."

Just yesterday, Al Qaeda issued a statement calling on fellow terrorists around the world to attack oil installations in countries that supply oil to the United States.

Woolsey, who sits on board, for a Washington based think tank that tracks energy and security issues seeks to reduce the flow of U.S. dollars to the middle east.

To decrease his oil dependence, he now drives a 58 mile per gallon hybrid and has two more on order. A vehicle with a bumper sticker that reads, 'Osama Bin Laden hates my car.'

James Woolsey: "If we were all driving plug in hybrids, and getting with ethanol in the tank, something like 500 miles per gallon of gasoline, Bin Laden would have a lot harder time issuing those sorts of statements that Al Qaeda came out with yesterday."

Woolsey says the Bush administration is finally coming around to think energy conservation is important, he just wished it had happened sooner. He says reducing oil imports is a national security imperative.

Copyright 2007, ABC7/KGO-TV/DT.

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=politics&id=5043508

[nonesuche]

I feel like I'm flooding the forum again but some of this is just too pertinent not to include. Tyler has such a grasp of the radical muslim impacts in northern Europe, so this piece affords some insight into that situation in Britain:

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\02\19\story_19-2-2007_pg1_6

UK set to ban ‘supermosque’

LAHORE: Britain was likely to block plans to build a “supermosque” – capable of holding up to 70,000 - the Sunday Telegraph reported.

It said that the government was expected to reject the proposal since it would be located too close to the main venues of the Olympic Games, which London is set to host in 2012.

However, the government’s main objection is that Tablighi Jamaat - an ultra-orthodox Muslim organisation with close links to the Wahhabi form of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia and which sends hundreds of British Muslims to Pakistani madrassas every year – is behind the plans. Two of the 7/7 London suicide bombers are believed to have visited one of the group’s mosques, while a leaked United States intelligence memo claimed that Al Qaeda was using the group to “network with other extremists”.

However, more than 3,000 Muslims living near the planned site in West Ham, in London’s east end, have also called for halting the project, stressing that any new mosque should include all strands of Islam. daily times monitor

[mrs. red]

It's true None, great articles.

Did y'all know that ethanol can be used for fueling cars and yet the energy makers refuse to acknowledge this use for.... corn.  A readily renewable resource and not one governmental of oil company wants to deal with it.....

we really do have to understand that we are paying for terrorism... by the very things we take for granted.

[Cat]

i have advocated corn and soybeans,etc to make a renewable fuel source.Also,it does not pollute.CAT

[nonesuche]

Mrs Red,

It's the oil companies with the enormous profits fighting the ethanol, actually the auto makers have far less clout now. So if I have an issue with Bush that one likely ranks #1 on my list .

I tried to get a hybrid when I had to buy a car in December but couldn't wait the 3 months for it to arrive? not good !