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The new age of Islamic Travel

Recently there have been a couple of incidents reflecting the hazards of being and Islamic traveller.  First Jarrar is told to change his shirt because of its Arabic script.  Second a Northwest Airlines flight is diverted because of 12 "unruly" Muslim passengers. I quite liked this analysis in Salon about this situation.  May Allah help us all and may our fellow non-Muslim passengars have compassion and mercy on us: GO-AROUNDS Re: Passenger vigilantism The Raed Jarrar case is especially troubling because it makes so little sense. Not only did security at JFK assume that Jarrar was potentially dangerous because of…

Muslim condemnations of London bombing… [updated]

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2 thoughts on “Military-Industrial Complex”

  1. I read Bush’s comments and frankly, I think people are alarmist to equate his call for a greater role for the military to a call for martial law. Reasonable minds may disagree whether this enhanced role for the military is needed but martial law it’s not. Bush’s comments, however, is just another piece of news that keeps my Republican friends (and I do have some) baffled — big government is back, and bigger still.

  2. My jaw just about hit the floor reading that.
    FEMA’s normal rules for any disaster say that local authorities are the first responders and FEMA shouldn’t be expected to arrive with help for 72-96 hours. They flayed Michael Brown alive because, despite having handled several hurricanes in the past just fine, and despite the fact that FEMA was FASTER to respond to Katrina than previous hurricanes, they weren’t johnny-on-the-spot with everything.
    The only way to get the kind of instant response people demanded is to have the military ready to deploy on a moment’s notice anywhere in the country. Either that or to create a whole new corps of Federal “disaster response teams” made up of thousands of people–which is not what FEMA is right now at all, they have barely a thousand employees and their job is COORDINATION, not search/rescue/delivery of services.
    So make up your mind. Do you want to bash Bush for not breaking the law and sending in the military immediately, or do you want to bash him for asking permission to change the rules so in the future he can send in the military immediately?
    Or is the only consistent goal here to criticize anything and everything Bush does no matter whether it makes sense or not?

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