Author: Ghostdog

On March 12-14, a conference entitled “Arab Reform Issues: Vision and Implementation” was held at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria, Egypt. This was a semi-secret conference in which participants were invited only three days before the start. It was closed to the public and the press. The outcome and final declaration were not widely distributed. Here is what the delagation had to say in its final statement. If this was implemented and had some weight behind it, there may be hope for the Middle East.

I dislike the House of Saud. I hate the hypocrisy of the country. I wish Muhammad bin abd-el Wahhab never existed and that Saudi Arabia had no oil so that the petro-dollars could not be used to wipe out Islamic cultural expressions around the world. I do not like my Islam defined by these characters. I, however. like Slate, the online journal. Read it quite regularly, I do. Today, however, I was not happy to read the an article on Slate entitled: “Stop Scapegoating the Saudis, Maybe They’re Not Responsible for Everything That Ails Islam”, by Lee Smith. I like…

All right, allow me one more indulgence and then I will keep quite for a while. I am a pacifist. I am also pragmatic and take responsibility for my actions. I subscribe to the Kurtzian view of war. If you are going to fight a war, fight it to win. War is an act of barbarism. Thus, to have rules such as the Geneva conventions govern the conduct of fighting and treatment of combatants, to me, seems ridiculous. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now argued for the right to drop the bomb on the Chinese and the Vietnamese. He understood the horror…

Okay, so Yassin is dead. Another so-called religious leader espousing humanist values of tolerance, peace, and the brotherhood of man is gone. I, for one, will not grieve for him. He chose violence as a solution and he died by the very actions of the words he preached. What I will grieve for is the end of any hope for stability and peace in Palestine and Israel. Lets call this what it is, the assassination of one terrorist by another. Israel is complicity in the formation of Hamas to further its own aims by creating instability and a power struggle…

From the Associated Press Cairo, Egypt – Even before its first broadcast, a satellite television station financed by the U.S. government and directed at Arab viewers is drawing fire in the Middle East as an American attempt to destroy Islamic values and brainwash the young. Al-Hurra, or The Free One, is to start broadcasting Saturday. President Bush has promised the news station, which will build up to 24-hour programming within a month, will “cut through the hateful propaganda that fills the airwaves in the Muslim world.” It already has landed a one-on-one interview with Bush. White House Press Secretary Scott…