Letter Never Sent

From the Observer:

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,
“Permission to fight (against disbelievers) is given to those (believers) who are fought against, because they have been wronged and surely, Allah is Able to give them (believers) victory” [Quran 22:39]

“Those who believe, fight in the Cause of Allah, and those who disbelieve, fight in the cause of Taghut (anything worshipped other than Allah e.g. Satan). So fight you against the friends of Satan; ever feeble is indeed the plot of Satan.”[Quran 4:76]

Some American writers have published articles under the title ‘On what basis are we fighting?’ These articles have generated a number of responses, some of which adhered to the truth and were based on Islamic Law, and others which have not. Here we wanted to outline the truth – as an explanation and warning – hoping for Allah’s reward, seeking success and support from Him.

While seeking Allah’s help, we form our reply based on two questions directed at the Americans:

(Q1) Why are we fighting and opposing you?
Q2)What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?
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I enjoyed his column in the San Antonio Current when I was a busboy. Joe Bob’s America: Draft Insanity:

Actually, I don’t even think this discussion has anything to do with the needs of the military. I got the impression, from the comments and emails, that the people in favor of a compulsory draft were more interested in indoctrinating young people than in beefing up the armed services.

“There are no free rides in life!” was the sacred mantra from several of them. The idea was that 18-year-olds should be forced to go through military training because it would teach them some kind of lesson about how grateful they should be. For the ones unfit for military service, there was talk of sending them into ghettos, hospitals and nursing homes as a kind of domestic Peace Corps. There were constant references to Boot Camp, as though it were some kind of end in itself. The idea is that someone who goes through Boot Camp ends up a better person. They come out disciplined and patriotic and moral.

What a wonderfully Soviet idea — that we have the power to MAKE people become good citizens. All those famous soldiers who passed through the rigors of Boot Camp — Lee Harvey Oswald, Charles Whitman, Timothy McVeigh, John Muhammad — no doubt cheated on their pushups or they would have become community leaders. The fact is, Boot Camp can be just as destructive as it is constructive, depending on the person. We’ve all seen “Full Metal Jacket.”

So what is this about really? I think it’s about fear and sacrifice. The vast middle class is fearful and paranoid. They want to offer some sacrifice to the gods of self-denial. So they offer up their children — or, more cynically, other people’s children.

We should heed the words of a famous man who explained just exactly why the compulsory permanent draft violates our freedoms. That kind of conscription, he said, “rests on the assumption that your kids belong to the state. If we buy that assumption then it is for the state — not for parents, the community, the religious institutions or teachers — to decide who shall have what values and who shall do what work, when, where and how in our society. That assumption isn’t a new one. The Nazis thought it was a great idea.”

Who said it? Some long-haired 60s draft resister? Some pacifist Harvard professor? Ronald Reagan said it. I had no idea he was such a wussy-boy.

Two US bases in Afghanistan hit by rockets. Luckily no one was hurt. Send those American mercenaries home.

If the FBI ever breaks into my house I hope they’d catch a lungful of whatever it is growing in my sink.

WASHINGTON – They have broken into homes, offices, hotel rooms and automobiles. Copied private computer files. Installed hidden cameras. Listened with microphones in one couple’s bedroom for more than a year. Rummaged through luggage. Eavesdropped on telephone conversations.

It’s the FBI, operating with permission from a secretive U.S. court in a high-stakes effort pitting the nation’s premier law enforcement agency against the world’s spies and terrorists.

Most Americans never see this side of the FBI.

Bastards. Via BoingBoing.net:

Darpa hired a consulting firm, SRI, to investigate the feasibility of re-designing the Internet to eliminate online anonymity to catch terrorists and evil underpants gnomes. The consultants gathered a whack of experts from various disciplines who told them it was stupid all around: bad for privacy, bad for the Constitution, technologically unsound, and unlikely to provide any assistance to the nation’s intelligence agencies whose problem isn’t an absence of information, but rather an absence of analysis — you don’t get faster analysis by throwing more chaff into the radar-field.

Anyway, the snake-oil consultants decided that the group was far too negative and basically made up its own conclusions, submitting them to Darpa as the “consensus” of the august experts they met with — a positive outlook would mean more consulting dollars.

And then someone leaked the whole story to the NYT.

You’re probably tired of hearing Voltaire, but he happens to be one of my favorites so tough luck! Enjoy.

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.