VOICES of SOLDIERS

Protect Khadr from questions at Guantanamo, lawyer asks

"There are al-Qaeda operatives in Canada and we have to assume that they are planning operations against Canada," lawyer Doreen Mueller said.

"[Mr. Khadr] has provided a great deal of specific information on al-Qaeda operatives in Canada."

Nathan Whitling was in Federal Court arguing for a temporary injunction to prevent further visits by officials from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

"[Mr. Khadr] has said that he does not want to be interrogated any further by any officials of the Canadian government," Mr. Whitling said. "Any further interrogations in the face of this assertion would itself constitute a Charter violation."

Arab media reaction to the London bombing...........

"Abd Al-Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the London Arabic-language daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi who often expresses support for Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, [2] gave an interview to Al-Jazeera TV which aired on July 7, 2005. (To view this interview, visit http://memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=743.)

In the interview, Atwan said: "There is no doubt that Tony Blair, the prime minister of Britain, got a good slap from these explosions. Tony Blair was at the height of glory up to the last moments before these explosions. When I say the height of glory, I mean that he succeeded in ensuring that London, the capital of Britain, would host the Olympics, and likewise he was reclining in his seat as the head of the G8 summit. In addition, he had begun his term as leader of the European Union. Through these achievements, the man wanted to cover up the big failure incurred by the British and American policy in Iraq.

"These explosions came and blew up everything. They prove that the war Blair and Bush waged against terrorism, on which they have spent about $250 billion, in addition to the killing of some 2,000 British soldiers and 100,000 Iraqi citizens – this war up till now has not been successful. If the Al-Qa'ida organization is really behind these explosions, this proves that it has reorganized its ranks, succeeded in recruiting new expertise, and reached the heart of the European capitals – Britain following Madrid, and maybe in the future – Washington or New York."

But the authorities said they weren't suicide bombers.................

Melanie Phillips- Sound familiar..........?

"Because of the shambles of our immigration and asylum system and the chronic inability by successive governments to police it properly, the astonishing fact is that faced with an unprecedented threat to our security the government simply lost control of our borders. As a result, no-one could know who was coming in or going out. As the head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, observed, this made the job of countering the terrorist threat infinitely more difficult. Indeed, one might go further and say it made it impossible.

People who were not supposed to be here because they were illegal immigrants posing as asylum seekers have simply been allowed to disappear into the country in their thousands. Clearly, the vast majority of such people pose no security threat; but it is equally obvious that it is not possible to make a country safe if its borders are so permeable and administrative chaos allows people simply to vanish below the official radar."

At least the Toronto Sun gets it- time to take off the rose colored glasses and get to work with that $10 billion for security

"Just last month, the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, chaired by Liberal Sen. Colin Kenny, again warned that Canada's borders continue to be insecure.

In other words we are sleepwalking towards a disaster. "

Peter Worthington.........

"Curiously, one country that has escaped what could be called Islamic terror is Canada -- not because we are more vigilant and alert, but because we are useful to potential terrorists.

Our strange laws require that any who claim to be refugees, even though they enter Canada fraudulently with false passports and a background of training in terrorist camps, cannot be deported without years of reviews and appeals, often while living on welfare with medical and legal advice.

Why would any terror organization jeopardize this convenient status by committing a terrorist act here and possibly provoke Canada's government into tightening the rules?

Meanwhile, we can sympathize with the Brits, join the CBC in blaming `Bush, and feel our neutrality protects us from bad guys. "

Salim Mansur.........

"How long will democracies in the West, apart from the United States, persist in the denial of the war that Osama bin Laden and his worldwide al-Qaida network of Muslim fanatics have declared against them and their allies in the Arab-Muslim world?

This is a global war of an entirely new sort, with no past precedent to draw upon as a lesson. It is not a war between or among sovereign states, pursued by conventional means in pursuit of clearly defined national interests.

The closest analogy in this asymmetrical war would be to raids by bandits against organized society with the purpose of eventually gaining recognition for banditry.

Bandits win, if they win at all, when lawfully organized society is drained of its will to eliminate banditry from its midst.


"

VICTOR HANSON........

"Causes
Failed states in the Middle East — autocratic, statist, unfree, intolerant of women and other religions — blame the West for their self-inflicted miseries. Sometimes they are theocratic, like the late Taliban or the current Iranian mullahs. But more often they are dictatorial like the Syrians, Pakistanis, Saudis, or Egyptians, who all, in varying degrees and in lieu of reform, have come to accommodations with the terrorists to shift popular anguish onto the West and the Jews.

That is the Petri dish of Islamic fascism, an evil that will only disappear when the dictatorships that allow it or nourish it do as well. Whether the jihadists are in Iraq, the United States, or Europe, they all share a sick notion that someone else (the decadent Western oppressor and unbeliever) is responsible for their own poverty and backwardness rather than the fundamentalism, corruption, bias, and intolerance endemic to the Middle East."

Frank Gaffney

"First, the determination of our enemies to destroy as many of us as possible remains a threat to all Western democratic societies. Notions that the Free World can safely disengage from this war or any of its fronts — including Iraq — should be put to rest along with the unwarranted sense of security born of the absence of deadly post-9/11 attacks here at home.

Second, the nature of those Western societies — in particular, their openness, their civil liberties, and the freedom of movement they encourage — makes them particularly susceptible to such attacks, as well as the object of the enemy's malevolence.".........

Amir Taheri-

"The London attack was not the work only of the few individuals who carried it out. It was the bitter fruit of a faith that has been hijacked by a minority of extremists while the majority of its adepts watch with a mixture of awe and ill-concealed pride. The real fight against this enemy of humanity will start only when the so-called "silent majority" in Islam speaks out against these murderers and those who brainwash, train, finance and deploy them."


Another column by Taheri

"It is, of course, possible, as many in the West love to do, to ignore the strategic goal of the Islamists altogether and focus only on their tactical goals. These goals are well known and include driving the “Cross-worshippers” (Christian powers) out of the Muslim world, wiping Israel off the map of the Middle East, and replacing the governments of all Muslim countries with truly Islamic regimes like the one created by Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and by the Taleban in Afghanistan."

Ralph Peters

"The terrorists expect a repeat of Madrid, with British support for free Iraq collapsing. But Londoners aren't madrileños. During the Blitz, they withstood massive Nazi terror attacks night after night. They've endured decades of IRA bombings. The English intelligentsia will find a way to blame America, but the British people will not yield to terror."

Readying for terrorism- it takes constant, realistic drills to prepare

Mark Steyn on the bombings

"This is the beginning of a long existential struggle, for Britain and the West. It's hard not to be moved by the sight of Londoners calmly going about their business as usual in the face of terrorism. But, if the governing class goes about business as usual, that's not a stiff upper lip but a death wish."