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....mmmmmm...looks like they are making homemade noodles....my FAVORITE!!!! *slurp*  

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I guess I couldn't just call it 'Tajiki-style' since Uzbeks and other women wear it like this too....but for layman's terms I am referring to it as thus. (This is a comment continuing the comment I just posted two seconds ago...in case you are lost)  

Today I am featuring Tajikistan, sweet Tajikistan, dear to my heart. Now, for those of you that know, I have been posting these pictures for the past (year?) to give you examples of what Muslim women look like around the world, to show you that we all are different, yet share a common bond (Islam). I also wanted to show you that we all dress differently...some wear Hijab, some do not, some cover their arms and legs, some do not, etc. I myself am a Hijabi, as I have mentioned before....I wear my hijab Tajiki-style (obviously) but sometimes I wear it, uh, 'arab' style (I just coined that phrase....) around my neck and under my chin. But most frequently, I wear it Tajiki-like (like the women in these pics....)  

If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees. (Both of these quotes are from Khalil Gibran...I forgot to put that in my last one...) (btw, I took both of these photos and I am quite proud of them, Mashallah!!! )
 

And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
 

I have learnt silence from the talkative,
toleration from the intolerant,
and kindness from the unkind;
yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

~Kahlil Gibran

Here is just a nice story that I thought I would add in my blog, since I am usually throwing in the negative ones. (uh, sorry about that)...In my town (which is NOT the town listed below) there are ALOT of Somalian Refugees....

Somalian immigrants face many challenges
By Chad Klimack
BLACKLICK -- Imagine one day packing your bags, buying an airline ticket and moving to Somalia. Once you crossed the Atlantic, you would need to adjust to a foreign language, a different climate, strange foods, new cultural mores and more.
That is what many of the Somalian immigrants now living in the area have to cope with on a daily basis. They also have to find work, support themselves and secure an education for their children. It can be difficult, said Asili Omar, who moved from Somalia to the United States 11 years ago.
"It's not easy when you come here," said Omar, 35, who lived in Washington, D.C., before moving to Columbus.
Today, Omar lives in Blacklick with her family. And while she feels comfortable living in the United States, she still faces new challenges on a daily basis.
One challenge is finding work. Omar recently lost her job, and she is struggling to find a new one because she never received an "American" education.
"I've never been to school," Omar said. "I'm self taught. I went to the library and learned."
Omar wants to go to school, but she said she cannot find any adult education classes in the area. Hence, she has had a difficult time building her resume and attracting employers.
Local Somalian residents face another hurdle whenever they want to go to church. Omar is Muslim, and she said she has to drive to the north side of Columbus to find a Muslim church.
Still, Omar said she is happy living in Blacklick. People have not shunned her because of the way she looks -- like many Muslim woman, Omar wears a head scarf -- and they have treated her son and daughter with respect.
"It's my experience that American people are very friendly," Omar said.
Omar is particularly happy with the education her daughter is receiving at Summit Primary. The district offers an English as a Second Language program, and school officials have tried to accommodate students from other countries, particularly those from Somalia.
For example, most Muslims abstain from eating pork, so Licking Heights uses a menu that lists pork products. Licking Heights also allows Muslim students to miss school for Islamic holidays, and Somalian girls are allowed to observe their religion by wearing head scarves. By contrast, a school in Muskogee, Okla., suspended a student in 2003 for wearing a head scarf.
Licking Heights seventh-grader Faduma Farah, 13, regularly wears a head scarf to school, and Farah said she appreciates the fact the school honors her religious beliefs.
"Some people ask why I wear it, but they don't treat me different," Farah said.
Aside from her head scarf, Farah looks like most other students at Licking Heights. One day earlier this week, she wore a stylish jeans jacket and a long dress to school and carried a flashy, black purse. She also works hard in class and enjoys joking with her peers.
However, Farah said she did not always feel so comfortable living in the United States. When she first moved to the country seven years ago, she could not speak English, and she struggled to fit in.
"It was hard at first, but it got easier over time," Farah said.
Jody McRainey works at Waggoner Grove, the Blacklick development where almost all local Somalian families live, and McRainey understands why Licking Heights has worked so hard to accommodate Farah and other Somalian students.
"They've had this small school district, and then we built this very large complex on Waggoner Road. There has been some culture shock," said McRainey, noting as many as 300 Somalian children live at Waggoner Grove.
Officials at Waggoner Grove have tried to help Licking Heights by offering English classes and other support services, such as job placement, to Somalian residents.
"Hopefully, folks in the school district will not be panicked by the growth in the school district. They'll embrace it." said Terry Alton, who also works at Waggoner Grove.
Alton has two elementary-aged children, both of whom go to Licking Heights. The pair have Somalian classmates, and they enjoy going to school with them, Alton said.
"They're just like any other kid," she said. "This is a fantastic opportunity to have an influence on our children, show them we have a very diverse country."
Omar cannot speak for the other ethnic groups who live in the area or attend Licking Heights, but she said Somalians are giving, kind people who can be a benefit to any community.
Alton agreed. She said an elderly Somalian woman moved to Waggoner Grove not too long ago, and the woman could not speak English and had no possessions.
The other Somali residents soon came to her aid, however.
"The people in this community bought her furniture, pots, pans, forks, everything," said Alton, adding the incident illustrated the emphasis the Somali culture places on respect and selflessness.
That emphasis currently is providing Omar with some comfort as she searches for a new job.
"Somalian people, they help each other," she said. "They baby-sit each other, work with each other; that's our culture."

An American Woman's Jihad
Muslim convert recounts spiritual journey
February 14, 2005
By Mary Chu
Sun Staff Writer
"As adults we must each own our own beliefs," said Prof. Fidelma O'Leary, biology, St. Edward's University, to a packed auditorium in Goldwin Smith on Friday night. Her lecture, "An American Woman's Jihad," detailed her spiritual journey as an Irish-American Muslim.
"Islam [is] a development of the faith that I already had... Islam worked for me and I was completely at peace with my religion. [But it was] a long journey filled with jihad [and] a struggle to surrender my will to the will of God," said O'Leary, who was raised as a strict Catholic in Ireland before converting to Islam and moving to the United States.
"I was raised in a culture where thinking about religion was taboo. I was a teenager, so naturally I rebelled: I started thinking," she added. She started to have questions about the religious beliefs and practices she was raised on and she began to study religion.
O'Leary became a "person of faith, searching" for an answer. When she came across the Qur'an, she "fully related to it."
The transition to Islam was one filled with obstacles for O'Leary. She refers to the rift between herself and her family caused by her religious beliefs as her "first jihad and first painful struggle as a Muslim."
O'Leary was also featured in the 2003 National Geographic documentary film Inside Mecca, which followed three Muslims from three different continents on their Hajj, their pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. A screening of the film preceded the lecture.
When describing the thought process behind making the documentary, O'Leary said, "at first I didn't want to do it because I thought it would take from my Hajj. Then I realized that they wanted to gently demolish that stereotype of what a Muslim woman is. I was also really tired of [watching] people who weren't Muslim get on TV and tell me what it meant to be Muslim and I thought, we need to represent ourselves."
In terms of her views on other religions, O'Leary said, "there's beauty in all religions. Islam is a very inclusive path. It never claims exclusive access to God or to paradise."
When asked about her views as a scientist and as a person of faith, O'Leary explained, "I think all knowledge and all wisdom [are] God's and as scientists we're just trying to figure it out. I don't see any contradiction."
"Inside Mecca" was met with warm responses from students.
"She used what she knew about science and her own inquisitive nature to explore her spiritual side. Well, I think partly because I am a Muslim, I felt chills as I saw millions of Muslims coming together for the common purpose of Hajj in the documentary. It was beautiful," said Farzana Nuruzzaman '06.
C.U. administration commented on the importance of events like the one with O'Leary.
"[There is] incredible and woeful ignorance about Islam and the Muslim traditions in this country, and that was ever so apparent in the tragedy of 9/11," said Susan H. Murphy '73, vice president for student and academic services, who officially kicked off Islam Awareness Week.
"We have much to learn in this country and around the world and Islam Awareness Week is an important part to our community," she added.
O'Leary's lecture and film screening was sponsored by the Muslim Educational and Cultural Association (MECA).
 

This is an extremely bizarre case...and I found it in a German newspaper...I wonder why we haven't heard anything about this in the U.S........

Der Spiegel Online
The US Stands Accused of Kidnapping
By Georg Mascolo and Holger Stark

The case is extremely sensitive. A German citizen may have been kidnapped by American agents and illegally taken to Afghanistan. Now, German authorities are quietly investigating the case. But no one here wants it to interfere with US-German rapprochement.

That all-important piece of evidence is pitch black and about 20 centimeters long. It's a single strand of hair from the head of Khaled el-Masri, 41, and spent most of its life heavily oiled and slicked back. Now, the hair has become a global player; current German-American relations largely hinge on it.

El-Masri, namely, is part of one of the most unusual criminal cases in recent years. The father of four claims he was kidnapped by United States agents one year ago in Macedonia, carted off to a prison in Afghanistan, and accused of being an al-Qaida terrorist. The tress from his do may be able to confirm his story. Scientists at the Bavarian archive for geology in Munich are currently using a method called isotope analysis, which can search for trace elements such as sulphur, to roughly determine where in the world el-Masri has been in recent months. Munich's Ludwig-Maximilians University is world famous for the procedure -- in fact, isotope analysis has helped solve many difficult crimes in the past.According to initial results, el-Masri's story is, in fact, true. Fearing far-reaching global diplomatic consequences, the German government, however, wants to see the case treated rather discretely. After all, el-Masri's allegations are not directed at some random rogue state but at the most powerful nation in the world and a close partner of Germany's. Government officials here are concerned: The explosive topic shouldn't, under any circumstances, harm trans-Atlantic relations now that there has been, with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Europe last week, the first noticeable sign of rapprochement between Germany and the US since the Iraq conflict.Another key aspect in the big picture is, of course, President George Bush's visit to Mainz next week. Officials feel that nothing should be allowed to cast a shadow over that event, either. After all, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government just recently sighed in relief when the German federal prosecutor's office dismissed war crimes charges against US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for the torture scandal in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.Germany doing what it can -- quietlyStill, no state in the world can just look away when a foreign nation kidnaps and deports one of its citizens and acts as if it were outside or above the law. Nevertheless, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer's response was a grumbling "no" when asked if the case was on the agenda for his meeting last week with Rice.Yet while keeping the case low-profile is considered vital, some steps at resolution have been made. German Interior Minister Otto Schily, the only German minister who was a loyal friend to the US even during the Iraq war, headed to Washington recently to visit with CIA director Porter Goss. One of the points on Schily's agenda was likely an attempt to explore whether another "el-Masrigate" can be avoided in the future. Berlin wants assurance that this was a one-time lapse. At the request of the Justice Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, and the Chancellory, the German intelligence services had done their homework before Schily's visit. Sure enough, the Americans quietly admitted to kidnapping el-Masri and vaguely implied how the whole matter had somehow gotten out of hand.

One of the key figures in the deadly Sept. 11 attacks, the Hamburg-based Yemenite Ramzi Binalshibh, told the CIA of a coincidental meeting he had once had on a train ride. He was told of a man by the name of "Khalid al-Masri" who had apparently urged Mohammed Atta's Sept. 11 pilot crew to get training in Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan. Binalshibh was also told that this man "al-Masri" had helped Atta's men establish contact with a senior al-Qaida member in the city of Duisburg in western Germany's Ruhr region.It's still not clear who this mystery man really is, even though he popped up in the official report of the Sept. 11 commission. The CIA and FBI have both been looking for the alleged contact, but so far, all efforts have been in vain.

The wrong man?At one point, the authorities thought they had him cornered, in the southern German town of Neu-Ulm not far from Stuttgart. That's where the Lebanese-born el-Masri, who's been a German citizen since 1995, lives and where his kids attend a Christian kindergarten. According to the authorities in Neu-Ulm, el-Masri is a well-integrated member of the community, although he is known to have close ties to a multicultural house in town being observed by German authorities as a known Islamist hotspot. El-Masri allegedly had contact with Reda Seyam, a suspected al-Qaida member, though authorities never found any concrete evidence that el-Masri engaged in any sort of terrorist activity.In Germany, the information on el-Masri isn't even enough for authorities to launch an investigation. The situation in the United States is completely different, though: Following Sept. 11, US President George W. Bush has authorized American agents to act outside of all internationally accepted legal norms in the fight against terror.Thus, the first opportunity was to be used to ferret the suspect from Neu-Ulm off to be interrogated in the secret prisons in Afghanistan. On Dec. 31, 2003, el-Masri boarded a bus in Munich bound for Macedonia. He was looking, he said later, to get some time away. A week of vacation in Skopje seemed just the thing. He and his wife had fought heavily, el-Masri claimed. When he crossed the Serbian-Macedonian border, patrols pulled him off the bus. All explanations were in vain as three armed Macedonian men in street clothes took him to a hotel. After three weeks of interrogations, one of the Macedonians told el-Masri that "the matter is now no longer in our hands." El-Masri recalls that seven or eight masked men put some diapers and a dark-blue training suit on him, before bringing him to an airplane, fastening him up tight with a seatbelt and then sedating him with an injection."Laws don't apply"In a city that el-Masri believes was Kabul, several masked men with American accents beat him, he claims. Tied up with handcuffs and foot shackles, a man of Lebanese descent relayed the cold, hard truth to him: "You are in a country where the laws don't apply to you."Following endless interrogations, a hunger strike, and permanent proclamations of innocence, el-Masri says he was flown to Albania one day and then transported back to Macedonia in a car. Aboard the plane a man passed on an important news item to him that helped el-Masri place events in a proper timeframe: Germany has just elected a new president. It was May 28, 2004.Maybe the whole case would have never become a heated political issue if the German investigators hadn't worked so tirelessly and thoroughly. The Munich-based state prosecutor Martin Hofmann, who at least officially is investigating against unknown perpetrators, is now fairly convinced that el-Masri isn't lying: "There's just no indication that he is."The prosecutor has checked the basic parameters of el-Masri's testimony. The bus driver, for example, testified that el-Masri really sat in the vehicle that left Munich on New Year's Eve 2003. El-Masri was on board until they reached the Macedonian border, but not for the remainder of the trip. In addition, there's a stamp of entry in el-Masri's passport dated Dec. 31, 2003, as well as an exit stamp from Jan. 23, 2004 -- the day he was apparently flown to Afghanistan.Investigators making headwayWorking through the Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the state prosecutor sent inquiries to the police authorities of all countries allegedly involved: To the FBI, of course, but also to the Macedonian, the Albanian and the Afghani authorities. The FBI said it would cooperate as much as possible, but avoided any specific response to the inquiry from Germany.But even without that help, the German investigators have made some progress. Because el-Masri claimed that he felt a trembler during his imprisonment, they checked for earthquakes in the Hindukush last year. Sure enough, the seismographs detected several quakes between Kabul and Kandahar, and that, in turn, corresponds with the preliminary result from the isotope analysis. It provides important information indicating that el-Masri was, in fact, in the region at the time. "That's a key part of the puzzle," say investigators.State prosecutor Hofmann is, therefore, confident that the real circumstances behind the story -- which some parties don't want to be made public -- will be known at last. "Things are looking pretty good," says Hofmann.

Translated from the German by Patrick Kessler

Singer Islam gets libel damages
Yusuf Islam, the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens, has won substantial damages from two UK newspapers which falsely claimed he supported terrorism.
The Sun and Sunday Times also published apologies after they made the false allegations in two articles in October.
The papers had suggested US authorities had been right to refuse his entry into the country in September.
Mr Islam said the settlement cleared his good name, and the damages would help victims of the Asian tsunami.
He said that both newspapers have now acknowledged that he is not, and never has been, involved in or supported terrorism, and that he abhors all such activities.
Peace award
They also pointed out that Mr Islam was recently presented with the Man for Peace award by a group of Nobel Peace Laureates.
The singer also said the newspapers have undertaken not to repeat the false allegations and also agreed to pay his legal costs.
Mr Islam said he was "delighted by the settlement" which he said "helps vindicate my character and good name".
The singer, who converted to Islam in 1977, was thrown out of the US after his flight from London was diverted from Washington to Maine.
The 56-year-old said afterwards he was well treated but only found out his name was on a "no-fly list" when he switched on the television to hear the news in the hotel room he was put up in.
After he was awarded the libel damages on Tuesday, Mr Islam said: "It seems to be the easiest thing in the world these days to make scurrilous accusations against Muslims, and in my case it directly impacts on my relief work and damages my reputation as an artist.
"The harm done is often difficult to repair."
'Pragmatic view'
The Sunday Times and the Sun both confirmed they were making payments to Mr Islam but declined to specify the amounts.
Sunday Times managing editor Richard Caseby said there had been an "agreed settlement".
"The Sunday Times always denied liability and we disagreed with Cat Stevens' lawyers interpretation of the article, but we took a pragmatic view of the case, " he said.
Sun spokeswoman Janet Anderson said Mr Islam's statement was correct but declined to comment further.
Mr Islam intends to contribute the damages from both newspapers to projects for orphans which he has started in tsunami-hit South East Asia.
'No explanation'
He visited Indonesia in January and is set to release a charity single entitled Indian Ocean later this month.
"I have been supporting orphans and needy families for many years now," and I don't intend to stop," he said.
"I have never knowingly aided any terrorist group or any charitable organization that equips or supports terrorists.
"I will continue working for peace and supporting the poor and destitute around the world."
The singer added that he still did not know why he was put on a 'no fly' list.
"Six months after the fiasco of my deportation from the USA, my formal requests for clarification from the authorities there are seemingly being ignored," he said.
"Instead, I am hearing reports second, third or even fourth-hand through the media citing US officials attempting to offer explanations".
 

I thank you God for most this amazing day
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
- e e cummings


Another beautiful day, Mashallah!!!!!!!!!!! It's practically SPRING! Yippeee!

This is going to sound a little weird, but my sister's friend Pong just informed me that my URL , when misspelled (blogpsot instead of blogspot) leads to a Bible site. This is so odd...do you think someone intentionally created a URL with that so similiar to mine? I mean I don't know. I am puzzled by it. Why would a bible site have the URL-habibee.blogpsot.com..... Especially Habibee is a Muslim name. I don't know. I am confused. (Obviously.) Well, ok, hmmm. I guess for any of u Christians out there, if you wanna check it out, there it is.

Where is the world headed? I am almost frightened to ask.

Army Files Cite Abuse of Afghans
Special Forces Unit Prompted Senior Officers' Complaints
By R. Jeffrey SmithWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, February 18, 2005; Page A16

Members of an Army Special Forces unit allegedly punched, slapped, kicked and beat Afghan civilians in two villages southeast of the capital of Kabul last May, prompting official complaints from two senior Army psychological operations officers who were present and said they witnessed the incidents.

The allegation is detailed in internal Army criminal files, released yesterday, that also document other allegations of abuse in Afghanistan as recent as last year. Previous abuse allegations have mostly concerned U.S. military activities in Iraq in 2003; these documents detail parallel conduct in Afghanistan in 2004.

In one strikingly similar event, the Army last year found about half a dozen photographs that depict masked U.S. soldiers standing with their weapons pointed at the heads of handcuffed and hooded or blindfolded detainees at a base in southern Afghanistan and, in one case, pressing a detainee's head against the wall of a "cage" where he was brought for interrogation.
The photographs were found on a compact disc left in one of the unit's offices, and the discovery set off a lengthy search by the Army for additional copies in the cars, homes, barracks, computers and cameras of members of the unit, part of the 22nd Infantry Regiment based in Fort Drum, N.Y.

None of the photos have been published -- unlike a set of photos the news media obtained last summer depicting similar acts of abuse and humiliation in Iraq -- and an Army spokesman said yesterday that they are being withheld from release "to protect the privacy" of the Afghan victims.

The acts photographed in Afghanistan occurred without provocation between December 2003 and February 2004 and violated Army regulations, according to testimony in the Army documents. The Geneva Conventions, which the Bush administration pledged to respect in Afghanistan "to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity," bar inhumane treatment as well as any "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment."

Members of the unit said they took the pictures for sport and also said they destroyed some images after photos appeared in the media of similar acts at the U.S. military's Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to the documents.

"I realized there would be another public outrage if these photographs got out, so they were destroyed," said a soldier whose name was deleted from an Army investigative report dated July 8, 2004. Another said his squad leader had directed that photos be deleted from a camera, adding that "I realize it makes me and my unit look bad, and in no way meant for this to happen."

Several of the published photos of earlier abuse in Iraq depicted the corpse of Manadel Jamadi, who had been in the custody of a Navy SEAL team and CIA interrogators. Yesterday, the Associated Press reported for the first time a claim by Army guards at the prison that before the man's death, he had his hands handcuffed behind him and was suspended by his wrists in an effort to coerce his cooperation.

The wire service, quoting what it described as a summary of an interview conducted by investigators with one guard, Sgt. Jeffery Frost, said Frost had depicted Jamadi's arms as so badly stretched he was surprised they "didn't pop out of their sockets." Eight Navy workers have received nonjudicial punishments in the case, while two others are awaiting further Navy judgment.

None of those involved in the seven new cases of alleged abuse detailed in the Army documents released yesterday were charged by the Army with criminal wrongdoing, although six soldiers received unspecified administrative punishment for dereliction of duty in taking or participating in the photos. Although investigators found probable cause to charge another soldier in the unit with assault for punching a bound detainee in the back of the head, the documents do not indicate any punishment was imposed.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained the new documents under a court order compelling the Army to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request filed with four other organizations, said in a statement that they show military abuses were widespread.
The abuse -- including photos that the ACLU said depicted "mock executions" -- cannot "be dismissed as the rogue actions of a few misguided individuals," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero.

Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin, an Army spokesman, did not address the claim directly but said the Army has "made a lot of progress in detainee operations over the last year" and is committed to investigating abuse allegations.

In the case involving alleged abuses in the Afghan villages of Gurjay and Surkhagen last May, all of the Special Forces personnel interviewed by Army investigators denied impropriety. "The fact is that villagers who offer resistance or even try to escape are dealt with very aggressively due to the number of detainees we have to deal with," the unit's unnamed commander said, noting that nine or fewer soldiers were responsible for controlling 50 to 90 detainees.

The commander added, however: "Everyone knows that we have such a small force very far away from any other real support that [angering] . . . the locals by beating them for no apparent reason will just make things worse for our isolated unit. One of the core things in Special Forces that we are taught early on is to win the hearts and minds."

But one of the Army psychological operations officers, whose name was deleted from the copy of the report provided to the ACLU, told investigators that "throughout the day, I witnessed . . . [name deleted] punching people, slapping them, pulling his M-9 [pistol] out and threatening to shoot the village people. This was done in front of the villagers with no discrimination. I witnessed [name deleted] strike multiple villagers throughout the day."

The officer said he witnessed one Special Forces member take a man, who had his hands bound and his eyes covered, behind a wall. "For the next one to two minutes, you could hear the sounds of someone being beaten. After that, [name deleted] brought him out," bleeding from the "mouth and/or nose." The witness said the soldier also fired his pistol behind the wall after announcing to other villagers that he planned to kill the man.

Other soldiers said the man taken behind the wall had been found with an explosive device. The soldier accused of beating him said the man incurred his injuries in a fall. Army investigators terminated their investigation without reaching a conclusion because the victims reside in "a high-threat combat area" and are allegedly anti-U.S. combatants.


Is there no dignity left for us? Are we less than animals- that you can beat us? Starve us? Torture us? Rape us? Kill us? Is no one watching? Does no one care?

1942-STYLE BIGOTRY TARGETS MUSLIMS IN THE U.S. TODAY Lillian Nakano, Los Angeles Times, 2/19/05
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-vo-nakano19feb19,0,5062741.story

Lillian Nakano is a third-generation Japanese American from Hawaii and was active in the redress campaign as a member of Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress. She lives in Torrance.

Feb. 19, 1942, was a day that changed the lives of Japanese Americans forever. I was a teenager growing up in Hawaii when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which set into motion the removal and incarceration of more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry in inland concentration camps. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, a tense atmosphere of suspicion and hysteria engulfed the West Coast and Hawaii. Decades of anti-Japanese and anti-Asian legislation and racism had already laid the foundation for the events that soon took place. We were rounded up without due process even though we had nothing to do with the attack. Our family was shipped to California, then to Arkansas and finally to Wyoming, where we spent the duration of the war. Upon our release from the camps, Japanese Americans began to pick up the pieces of wrecked lives, in the face of continuing racism and hostility. For years, we suppressed our anger, bitterness and shame about the unfair treatment we got. Today, many in the Japanese American community will attend the annual Day of Remembrance events in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities, with the goal of teaching new generations the lessons from that painful time. Some of my fellow Americans are now being targeted because they are Muslim, Arab or Middle Eastern. When the attacks of Sept. 11 happened, I mourned for the innocent lives that were lost. But I also began to identify and sympathize with the innocent Muslim Americans who immediately became victims of the same kind of stereotyping and scapegoating we faced 63 years ago. They too have become targets of suspicion, hate crimes, vandalism and violence, all in the name of patriotism and national security... Some ideologues on the right seek to rewrite history in order to justify government policy and racial profiling. One example is Michelle Malkin's 2004 book, "In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror," which not only rehashes the untruths that Japanese Americans have heard for years but also asserts: "The most damaging legacy of this apologia and compensation package [redress won by Japanese Americans] has been its impact on national security efforts. The ethnic grievance industry and civil liberties Chicken Littles wield the reparations law like a bludgeon over the War on Terror debate." There is no justification for racism or denial of civil liberties - not in 1942 and not in 2005.

NEB. WOMAN SETTLES MUSLIM GARB LAWSUIT KEVIN O'HANLON,
Associated Press, 2/19/05 http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/10938250.htm
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - A Muslim woman who was barred from accompanying her children to a public swimming pool because she was fully clothed settled a lawsuit Friday against the city of Omaha. The city said it amended its swimming pool dress code to accommodate religious or medical needs. Other details of the settlement with Lubna Hussein were not made public. "My little girls have been waiting for a chance to try out the water slides, and they'll finally get the opportunity this summer," Hussein said. "We're happy to feel like part of the community again." The American Civil Liberties Union filed the federal lawsuit last year, alleging Hussein, who wanted to accompany her three children to the pool, was twice turned away in 2003 after she told employees she couldn't wear a bathing suit because of her religious beliefs. Hussein is required by her religion to keep her body covered, except her face and hands, while in public. Common clothing for Muslim women includes long robe-like dresses and head scarves. Hussein told pool workers she did not intend to swim, but they said she could not be in the pool area in street clothes, according to the lawsuit. Hussein claimed other people in the pool area were not wearing bathing suits when she was turned away…

This kid was like, 11 or 12. You have to be a really sick person to threaten a little boy.

Police Remove Teacher After Disturbance With Muslim StudentBy LAURA KINSLER lkinsler@tampatrib.com

Published: Feb 20, 2005

TEMPLE TERRACE - ``If I make one phone call, you will not see the light of day.''
It sounds like a line from ``The Sopranos,'' but a class of sixth-graders at Greco Middle School said it was their substitute teacher who uttered the threat against a Muslim student Tuesday.
School Principal Janet Spence called Temple Terrace police to remove the first-year teacher, Shari Deanna Wilson, from school grounds.
Deputy Chief Patricia Powers said: ``She was asked to leave school grounds, and she refused. We wrote a trespass warning telling her not to return to the school.''
The child's parents, who asked that their last name not be published, said Wilson made discriminatory remarks about their son, whose first name is Islam, in front of the class. He told Spence that when he confronted the teacher, she threatened him.
Linda Cobbe, public affairs coordinator for the Hillsborough County school district, said the Office of Professional Standards took disciplinary action against Wilson, but the case would be sealed for at least 10 days.
At a minimum, Wilson appears to have violated the district's rules of civility. The student handbook defines threats and intimidation of a student as a zero-tolerance violation.
The boy's family reported the incident to the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The family says they fear for the boy's safety and have kept him home from school.
``They're really concerned for the future safety of their son,'' council Director Ahmed Bedier said. ``They're afraid that this person will retaliate.''
Wilson could not be reached for comment.

This article makes me ashamed. I am ashamed for the treacherous people that are doing this. The saddest thing to me is the fact that they feel no shame themselves, and so I have to feel ashamed for them. This is disgusting. Is this the way that America wants the world to see our country? I am so shocked too. No one is SAYING ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My heart is slowly breaking. Everyday I see the capability of the human being to do harm to another, and I cannot fathom it. We were created by something so beautiful and yet we are so, so ugly.


From: Newsday.com ~Author: Marie Cocco
U.S. interrogations demean women
Degrading sexual exploitation mars the questioning of detainees in such places as Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo

February 22, 2005
We know as much about the women as we do about the men. That is almost nothing.

We do not know who the woman is who approached a Yemeni detainee at the U.S. prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, wearing a tight T-shirt and taunting him about sex. "You are a young man and have needs," she reportedly suggested, bending so her breasts fell toward the table. "What do you like?"

We do not know who has touched detainees suggestively, or strutted around in lacy bras and panties.

We don't know who pretended to be menstruating and smeared something meant to be taken as blood - perhaps red ink? - on the Muslim detainees. We know this was meant to break the men down by violating a religious taboo against contact with women and with menstruating women in particular. It is considered unclean and makes Muslim men unfit to pray. We do not know if the women are U.S. military personnel or contractors working at the Guantánamo holding pen. We know the Pentagon has confirmed that this sexual degradation has taken place, and it continues to be investigated.

And we have heard no official voice - not from Congress, not from the White House - that has abhorred the use of American women as sexual teases in the war on terror.Even if you accept, which I do not, the premise that anything goes in this war - that detainees can be held indefinitely without charge, or physically abused, or secretly shipped off to distant countries where torture is routine - does that mean the honor of American women is to be sacrificed, too? The sexual humiliation of the detainees is sexual humiliation of the women as well. When the Abu Ghraib prison scandal came to light, with its photos of naked men and leering female jailers, we could not believe our eyes. Official investigations identified as foundations of the scandal the makeshift nature of the prison, the shortage of trained personnel, the chaos inherent in running such a place in a war zone. None of this is true about the prison at Guantánamo Bay. It is neither chaotic nor understaffed. What goes on there is systematic, calculated, controlled. There is a clear chain of command.Military officials will not openly discuss the use of sexual interrogation techniques, because their investigations are unfinished. Privately, they believe the episodes occurred in 2002 and 2003, a time when they say the rules for questioning were in constant flux. There is, as well, a sense - a hope? - that sexual humiliation was rare and unauthorized.But the theory of rogue wrongdoing wears thin. How do you explain why, or how, an American woman would know that contact with menstrual blood would so defile a Muslim man that he's rendered religiously unfit?

"That didn't just pop into their heads," said Lory Manning, a retired Navy captain and director of the Women in the Military project of the Women's Research and Education Institute. "I'm appalled, one, at the reports, and two, at the lack of interest."The silence is kept even by women in Congress who serve on the House and Senate Armed Services committees. My efforts to get them to talk about this story failed on a bipartisan basis.They were in hearings, or rushing home for the President's Day break, or off to fact-finding missions abroad. Even Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, Armed Services committee members and feminist icons in the Democratic and Republican parties, kept mum.

Why this unnerving inattention?The American military has an unseemly history of tolerating harassment and violence against its own women. Now, as they serve in Afghanistan and Iraq in part to liberate those far-off women from abuse, military women are again reporting rape at the hands of their fellow soldiers and official lassitude in pursuing cases.The demeaning use of our own women for sexual exploitation at Guantánamo should be seen for what it is. A new turn in an old and shameful story.
Email: cocco@newsday.com

PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO THIS!!!!

ASK STATE DEPT. TO BLOCK ENTRY OF GUJARAT MASSACRE FIGURE
Indian official accused of complicity in riots that left 1,000+ Muslims dead (WASHINGTON, D.C., 2/23/05) -
CAIR today called on the Bush administration to block the entry of an Indian official accused of complicity in the massacre of more than 1,000 Muslim civilians. Narendra Modi, chief minister of India's state of Gujarat, is the "chief guest" of the Asian American Hotel Owner Association (AAHOA) at its annual convention next month in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

SEE: http://www.aahoa.com/events/Narendra_Modi.asp

CAIR is seeking to block Modi's entry based on a section (Sec. 604) of the International Religious Freedom Act that makes any foreign official who has engaged in "particularly severe violations of religious freedom" inadmissible to the United States.

SEE: http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/laws/majorlaw/intlrel.htm

Following anti-Muslim riots in 2002, senior officials in Gujarat told human rights activists that they had been directed by Modi to allow the massacres to run their course. Modi allegedly called the riots "anticipated Hindu reaction" and "a natural outpouring." (Christian Science Monitor, 7/23/04, 9/15/03)

India's National Human Rights Commission reported a "comprehensive failure of the State to protect the Constitutional rights of the people of Gujarat."

SEE: http://www.nhrc.nic.in/Gujarat.htm

FOR BACKGROUND ON THE 2002 GUJARAT MASSACRES, GO To: http://hrw.org/reports/2003/india0703/Gujarat-02.html.
The Washington Post said, "Human rights investigators found that the anti-Muslim violence had been encouraged and in some cases assisted by (Modi's) government." (Washington Post, 4/19/04)
A citizens panel, which included retired Indian Supreme Court judges, said the anti-Muslim rioters had acted "with the deliberate connivance and support" of the Gujarat state government. (Washington Post, 12/16/02)
Modi is also a key proponent of the militant and exclusivist Hindutva (Hindu-ness) philosophy "that aims to unite Hindus, and consolidate their votes, largely around fear of Muslims." (New York Times, 12/12/02)
Those opposed to Modi's entry into the United States have formed a group, the Coalition Against Genocide (CAG), to press for action by the AAHOA and by U.S. government officials.

SEE: http://www.imc-usa.org/ and http://www.coalitionagainstgenocide.org/

"Our nation should not reward a man accused of complicity in the massacre of civilians by granting him a visa or a place of honor at a convention," said CAIR Board Member Parvez Ahmed. CAIR outlined its concerns in a letter to Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom John Hanford.

ACTIONS REQUESTED: (As always, be POLITE.)

1. Contact Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to as that Narendra Modi be ruled inadmissible to the United States based on Section 604 of the International Religious Freedom Act, which bars entry to any foreign official who has engaged in "particularly severe violations of religious freedom."
CONTACT: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Department of State
2201 C St NW
Washington, DC 20520
E-Mail: http://contact-us.state.gov/ask_form_cat/ask_form_secretary.html
Web Site: www.state.gov
Phone: (202) 647-4000
Fax: (202) 647-2283
COPY TO: president@whitehouse.gov, info@aahoa.com, roccacb@state.gov, cair@cair-net.org

2. Contact your elected representatives to make them aware of your concerns.
GO TO: http://capwiz.com/cair/dbq/officials/



PLEASE PUT A STOP TO GENOCIDE. IF EVERYONE SPOKE UP, IT WOULD MAKE A DIFFERENCE. IT ONLY TAKES ONE PERSON TO MAKE A CHANGE.

Whoa. When did this happen?? Have I been living in a cave???

FAMILY, FRIENDS DENOUNCE CHARGES AGAINST `PIOUS MAN'
Ellen Gamerman, Baltimore Sun, 2/23/05
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-te.abuali23feb23,1,5432509.story
FALLS CHURCH, Va. - By the U.S. government's account, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali used his time studying in Saudi Arabia to plot the assassination of President Bush. But to supporters here, the young man's studies at Saudi Arabia's University of Medina were nothing more than a spiritual break before a settled life in American suburbia. Two divergent stories about Abu Ali emerged yesterday as the 23-year-old student from Northern Virginia sat in federal custody. To U.S. officials, the young man is a shadowy would-be assassin who hatched a plan with an al-Qaida member in 2002 and 2003 to shoot the president or kill him with a car bomb. To friends and family, the U.S. citizen is a high school valedictorian who dreamed of marrying an American, perhaps working as an engineer and teaching the Koran. In the family's Falls Church home at the top of a 10-story high rise, Faten Abu Ali, the suspect's mother, was still processing the news that her son was suspected of attempting to kill the president and facing a string of charges. She said she heard the charges for the first time in court yesterday. "I laughed on every count," she said. "I know the government is lying." But U.S. officials are taking this case seriously. "After the devastating terrorist attack and murders of Sept. 11, the defendant turned his back on America and joined the cause of al Qaida," U.S. Attorney Paul J. McNulty said in a statement. "He now stands charged with some of the most serious offenses our nation can bring against supporters of terrorism." After the court appearance yesterday, Abu Ali's relatives said they were eager to see him for the first time since he was detained in Saudi Arabia without charges in June 2003. The family has been fighting for his return; a lawsuit on his behalf contends the U.S. government encouraged Saudi officials to hold him there for interrogation… "We believe in the U.S. justice system. We believe this country is based on good morals."

I wish I could join the Peace Corps...check this out: http://www.peacecorps.gov/ques/rasul_land.html

I would LOVE to do this. But I have to finish college first...blah! And I sorta have to convince my husband too...but that is a minor detail. I will not let it deter me. ....inshallah. Inshallah.

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Today is Nigeria.  

~~The mere physical man is like the ant crawlingon the paper, who observes black lettering andattributes its production to the pen and nothing more.(El Ghazali, Alchemy of Happiness) ~~

I think I am going to plant some lettuce...inshallah. The weather is just a wee bit nicer and already I am making elaborate plans for my container garden (sigh...I am stuck in a rental, and thus cannot spread my wings on my own SOIL!!) I am certain this is boring to you. (Whoever 'you' are...) What happened to my witty yet somewhat sagacious blogging techniques? Alas, mid-semester and already my brain is wiggly mush. O ma! I am slightly depressed right now. I want to go to Bangladesh, but I just don't see the possibility anytime soon. Work and School. That is my whole life. I am so jealous of Babua (astaghfirallah) that he got to go for a WHOLE MONTH!!! But he brought me back some sweet CD's so I guess I CAN'T complain....and my new saris and ICE TODAY magazines go lovely in my collection... Hai Allah! I am becoming materialistic. The epitomy of everything I hate. I have to go make du'a.

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a wedding.... 

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Today I decided to do Turkmenistan as my country....But I had all these awesome, awesome pics and I can't find them... 

I watched Hotel Rwanda today. It was such a powerful movie that I have no words to say. I can't form these emotions into words. It made me want to go out and join the Peace Corp or something. (well, i already wanted to do that...but still...) I suggest that everyone watch it. It also makes me sick to know that my country did pretty much nothing to help them and that we consider ourselves the 'World Police' but only when it suits our needs. Hypocritical. Simply Hypocritical. *shaking head*

Please sign this petition to boycott the Olympics in Beijing in 2008. (By the way, hello...sorry it has been awhile since my last post...I sort of do it in spurts because of school...)

Petition to Boycott Beijing!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I really do not understand what is so freaking hard about living a life of NON-VIOLENCE...living PEACEFULLY....etc. When is there going to be "peace in the Middle East"? In my lifetime? I sure hope so, but the way things are looking, I'm beginning to think the phrase is an oxi-moron. Oh my gosh, people. WHY KILL EACH OTHER?! What the hell. Sorry I am cussing, but I am so pissed off, and a little (no, alot) frustrated. This whole thing is STUPID. The whole 'fighting over the land', 'we're better than they are', 'if we oppress them, they will give up and move out eventually', 'hey, let's start suicide bombing innocent people in the streets'. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I have never been so SICK of something in my life. Sometimes I insist that I never want to hear the words Israel or Palestine ever again, but I always get sucked back in. Well, no more. I am telling you, no more. This is the end of the line for me. I will not post something about this ever again (unless I forget that I wrote this, in which case, please remind me nicely.) THIS IS IT FOR ME! I have no sympathy for either side, when they blatantly flout God and even use him and his name in order to get what they want. SHAME ON THEM BOTH...and I hope God has mercy on them both. Because they're gonna need it.

Imagine my shock, when I read that there was an actual AMERICAN newspaper (a prominent one, at that) writing an article in what sounds like criticism of Israel. Heaven forbid. I thought I had died and woke up in another country. This hardly ever happens (I didn't say it DIDN'T happen, but it HARDLY EVER happens...)

Israelis Act to Encircle East Jerusalem
Enclaves in Arab Areas, Illegal Building Projects Seen Intended to Consolidate Control
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 7, 2005; Page A15
JERUSALEM -- The Israeli government and private Jewish groups are working in concert to build a human cordon around Jerusalem's Old City and its disputed holy sites, moving Jewish residents into Arab neighborhoods to consolidate their grip on strategic locations, according to critics of the effort and a Washington Post investigation.
The goal is to establish Jewish enclaves in and around Arab-dominated East Jerusalem and eventually link them to form a ring around the city, a key battleground in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict because of its Jewish and Muslim holy sites, according to activists involved in the effort and critics of the campaign. {I am really getting tired of this conflict...}The Israeli government has sometimes violated its own laws and regulations to advance the encircling effort, the Post investigation found. Critics of the plan charge that the government is subsidizing and protecting Jewish groups that are deliberately scuttling peace efforts by establishing Jewish enclaves in overwhelmingly Palestinian neighborhoods. {Um, is there something new you wanna tell me?} As part of the effort, the Israeli government began work on expanding the West Bank's largest settlement, Maleh Adumim, without required building permits and in violation of the settlement's master development plan. The work was ordered stopped in September after Post inquires about the project. {That's all it took to stop it? Wow, someone should tell the people of Palestine how to do that...}
In addition, Israeli security forces seized a Palestinian-owned hotel on the border of eastern Jerusalem after expelling its owners and declaring them absentee. {That sounds legal.}Nearby, a private Jewish organization has bought and occupied two illegal houses that the Israeli government is paying private security guards to protect.
"There's a dovetailing of government actions and settlement activity," said Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer who has fought numerous court battles against Jewish takeovers of Arab-owned houses and land. {Mashallah. An Iraeli lawyer that is fighting for justice. Alhumdullilah! Mashallah, mashallah, mashalla! And that is not meant to be sarcastic in any way. I really mean it. I will pray for his health and happiness in life.} The government, he said, has adapted its pro-settlement policies "to service messianic groups" that are moving into Arab neighborhoods.
A report by the State Attorney's Office that has not yet been released concluded that almost every major ministry in the Israeli government assisted in the construction, expansion and maintenance of illegal settlement outposts, according to the Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth. The report found that "every echelon, from minister to low-level clerks, ignored settlers' violations of the law . . . bypassing the zoning laws and master plans" and improperly funneling state money to settlement expansions, even after being ordered not to by Israel's attorney general, according to the newspaper.
In meetings with senior Israeli officials Sunday on her first trip to the region as secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice reportedly warned Israel not to take unilateral steps that could influence the city's status. "We do believe that unilateral steps in Jerusalem, particularly those that might appear to prejudge future discussions, would be unhelpful at this time," she said in a television interview with Israel's Channel 1.
Daniel Luria, a spokesman for Ateret Cohanim, one of the most prominent private groups involved in moving Jews into Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, said a main focus of his organization was returning Jews to property their ancestors had abandoned during Arab riots in the 1920s and '30s. He said the group's goal was not to block Palestinian access to Jerusalem's Old City or prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But he asserted that both results were inevitable and desirable side effects of the group's activities, which he described as creating "the shield of Jerusalem."
"If, as a result of what we do, it means the city can't be divided, fine, Jerusalem belongs to the Jewish people," Luria said. "It would be the biggest disaster for the Jewish world if Jerusalem were divided and a Palestinian state was created on Jewish land." {Call me crazy, but I somehow think that God has a different take on this whole 'situation' in the Middle East. I really don't think that ANYONE has any right to OWN the earth, no matter how small the section, and also they don't have a right to not allow others to inhabit it. God created this entire earth. He didn't break it up into sections at that time and say, 'ok, the jews are gonna go here, and the muslims will reside here...and the xtians will live up here. I'm gonna set the Buddhists on this side, and the Taoists will group up over there.' There is no Catholic land, or Mormon land, so why can there be a 'jewish-only' land. It's just not fair, and God is the epitomy of fairness. I think that both the Israelis and the Palestinians should be taken out of there and put in opposite ends of the world, and that NOONE should be allowed to live in Jerusalem. It should be their punishment for being so terrible to each other~two creatures of God killing each other. SHAME ON THEM! And especially in a city that is holy to us both. How holy can it be when the streets are running with both of our blood?}
Effie Eitam, a leader of the pro-settlement National Religious Party who was housing minister from March 2003 until last June, said the government was a full participant in the campaign to encircle Jerusalem, key parts of which he claimed to have initiated. "It's all done under the eye of the state," he said.
But Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the government was not coordinating its moves with any private groups and was not involved in any illegal activity. {Meanwhile, Sharon himself is involved in 'illegal activity' of his own....} "There's no collusion against the law by the government with these people," he said.
Making Room for Settlers On a barren hillside just outside Jerusalem, yellow backhoes and bulldozers spent about six weeks late last year leveling a space the size of four football fields for a new police station -- the first step in expanding the settlement of Maleh Adumim to reach the edge of Jerusalem, less than two miles away.
But the work was illegal, according to the Supreme Planning Council, Israel's highest development authority in the West Bank. Israeli army Lt. Talya Somech, a spokeswoman for the West Bank's civil administration, said that without building permits or approved plans, the project "violated the laws of planning and construction." It also violated Maleh Adumim's master development plan.

U.S. GUARDS THREW MUDWRESTLING PARTY AT IRAQI CAMP Reuters, 2/7/05 http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20050207-0634-iraq-mudwrestling.html BAGHDAD - U.S. military police threw a mudwrestling party at a prison camp in Iraq and a woman who took part has been found guilty of indecent exposure and demoted, the U.S. military said on Monday. At least three female guards stripped to their underwear and wrestled each other in a paddling pool full of mud in the grounds of Camp Bucca, the biggest U.S. camp for detainees in Iraq, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said. Several guards who watched the wrestling have been reprimanded for failing to intervene. The party took place on Oct. 30 last year, when one U.S. military police battalion, the 160th, was about to hand over responsibility to another, the 105th. Officers from both battalions were involved and photographs were taken. A prison guard found the photos sometime later and handed them over to the camp's commanders.

Wow, it sounds like a real party over there. I'm sure glad that American troops don't take war too awfully serious. It's not like people are freaking dying or anything.

THE ABU GHRAIB SCANDAL YOU DON'T KNOW Adam Zagorin, Time, 2/14/05 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1025139,00.html
American soldiers often have a tough time with Arabic names, so to guards, he was just "Gus.'' To the world outside Abu Ghraib prison, he became an iconic figure, a naked, prostrate Iraqi prisoner crawling on the end of a leash held by Private Lynndie England, the pixyish Army Reserve clerk who posed in several of the infamous photographs that made the name Abu Ghraib synonymous with torture. Now, it emerges, there may be another dimension to Gus' story and certainly to the horrors of Abu Ghraib. In what amounted to a perversion of the traditional doctor's creed of "first, do no harm," the medical system at the prison became an instrument of abuse, by design and by neglect. As uncovered by legal scholars M. Gregg Bloche and Jonathan Marks, who conducted an inquiry published by the New England Journal of Medicine, not only were some military doctors at Abu Ghraib enlisted to help inflict distress on the prisoners, but also the scarcity of basic medical care was at times so severe that it created another kind of torture. Medical personnel and others who worked at the prison tell TIME that, with straitjackets unavailable, tethers--like the leash on Gus--were put to use at Abu Ghraib to control unruly or mentally disturbed detainees, sometimes with the concurrence of a doctor. That such a restraint-- which is supposed to be placed around legs, arms or torsos--ended up instead around a man's neck seems to be a case of a medically condoned practice degenerating into abuse. But there was also medical disarray at the prison: amputations performed by nondoctors, chest tubes recycled from the dead to the living, a medic ordered, by one account, to cover up a homicide. That in itself would have made Abu Ghraib a scandal even without the acts of torture inflicted on the inmates by their guards. In most cases, U.S. frontline troops in Iraq have received top-quality medical care, producing the lowest death rate of any military conflict in history. But the care at Abu Ghraib has often been at the other end of the scale of humane treatment, at least until recently. Although the prison was at times crowded with as many as 7,000 detainees, no U.S. doctor was in residence for most of 2003. Military officials say a few Iraqi doctors saw to minor illnesses but not major traumas. In a statement obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, an Army medic based at Abu Ghraib spoke of examining from 800 to 900 detainees daily as they were admitted. If he worked a 12-hour day, that gave him less than a minute for each exam. Ken Davis, an MP who served at Abu Ghraib in late 2003, told TIME that he once escorted a prisoner who had broken his foot the day before and had still not received treatment. "He was in terrible pain," Davis recalled. "There was no doctor and really nothing we could do."

STORIES FROM THE INSIDE Bob Herbert, New York Times, 2/7/05 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/opinion/7herbert.html
During the whole time we were at Guantánamo," said Shafiq Rasul, "we were at a high level of fear. When we first got there the level was sky-high. At the beginning we were terrified that we might be killed at any minute. The guards would say to us, 'We could kill you at any time.' They would say, 'The world doesn't know you're here. Nobody knows you're here. All they know is that you're missing, and we could kill you and no one would know.' " The horror stories from the scandalous interrogation camp that the United States is operating at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are coming to light with increased frequency. At some point the whole shameful tale of this exercise in extreme human degradation will be told. For the time being we have to piece together what we can from a variety of accounts that have escaped the government's obsessively reinforced barriers of secrecy. We know that people were kept in cells that in some cases were the equivalent of animal cages, and that some detainees, disoriented and despairing, have been shackled like slaves and left to soil themselves with their own urine and feces. Detainees are frequently kicked, punched, beaten and sexually humiliated. Extremely long periods of psychologically damaging isolation are routine. This is all being done in the name of fighting terror. But the best evidence seems to show that many of the people rounded up and dumped without formal charges into Guantánamo had nothing to do with terror. They just happened to be unfortunate enough to get caught in one of Uncle Sam's depressingly indiscriminate sweeps. Which is what happened to Shafiq Rasul, who was released from Guantánamo about a year ago. His story is instructive, and has not been told widely enough. Mr. Rasul was one of three young men, all friends, from the British town of Tipton who were among thousands of people seized in Afghanistan in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. They had been there, he said, to distribute food and medical supplies to impoverished Afghans.

oh wait, I found more on that Hijab story....

The mom who took her son out of school, said:
"That got out of hand," she said. "It wasn't a racial thing. It was about equal rights and fairness to all students."
But Farris said if anyone has made the issue a racial argument, it was Whiteside.
Bullitt Central students Charlie Johnson and Cayce Dever, both seniors and student government officers, agreed with Farris.
"I feel they were using the dress code to hit on something broader, and that's hate," Charlie said.
Cayce said that when she participated in a counterprotest last week with other students, including Charlie, she spoke with protesters standing with Whiteside and told them that federal law protected the Muslim students' cultural dress.
"They said I didn't understand because I didn't have white pride," Cayce said.
"I said, 'I have American pride.' "
Whiteside said last week that she would no longer demonstrate "if it's going to be out of context," and that she planned to circulate a petition pushing for "equal rights for everyone."
Charlie said that even though some students disagree with the school's dress code, the student body seemed to be united in support of the Muslim girls.
"The whole dress code is about being modest -- not showing your body," he said.
"The hijab is the same thing. I don't feel by them wearing it that they're tromping on anyone's right to wear jeans."
Students also posted messages on the double-sided marquee in front of the school.
One side read, "Education breeds tolerance." The other read, "Lack of education breeds intolerance."
Principal Karen Hayden said the sign would be changed, but only to advertise the school's upcoming homecoming basketball game.
"I'm proud of my kids," she said.


I'm proud of them too! (beaming smile)

Check this out:

KKK PROTESTS HIJAB IN KENTUCKY MOTHER PROTESTS SCHOOL'S DRESS CODE Associated Press, 2/7/05
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/10835604.htm

SHEPHERDSVILLE, Ky. - A mother has pulled her son out of Bullitt Central High School after protesting what she believes is an unfair application of the school's dress code. Lisa Whiteside began protesting outside Bullitt Central last week after learning that two Muslim students who had enrolled after winter break had been allowed to wear a hijab, a traditional head scarf that covers the hair and neck. Whiteside said her son, a senior, was given in-school suspension for wearing a white button-down shirt. {Students are required to wear uniforms...} School board attorney Eric Farris said that school records indicated that the student wasn't disciplined, but received a warning Sept. 1 that his shirt was a violation of the school's dress code, which requires students to wear polo-style shirts. {I'm confused...did he or didn't he get suspension? UNCLEAR.} The dress code also prohibits "headwear," including hats, visors, bandannas and sunglasses. But Farris said federal protections of such religious garments as hijabs override the dress code. Whiteside said her son was turned away from the school Thursday when he wore a T-shirt with the words "FBI" and "Firm Believer In Christ" on it. Farris said Whiteside and her son went to the school office and asked administrators if he could wear the shirt. When they said no, she told them she would remove him from the school, he said. Bullitt Central's dress code prohibits T-shirts of any kind, unless they feature the school's logo. It also requires students to wear khaki, black or navy pants, skirts or walking shorts. Students may wear jeans on special days scheduled by administrators. Whiteside said she transferred her son to the school district's adult learning center, in part, because of a disagreement with Bullitt Central administrators over her son's writing portfolio. {she sounds a bit like a trouble making mom} School officials and students said Whiteside's protests attracted the attention of the Ku Klux Klan. {Oh my gosh! I bet she didn't expect that!!!} She was joined outside the school by other men and women, some of whom were clad in white robes and carried Confederate flags and white-supremacist regalia. Whiteside said she didn't organize any involvement with the KKK, adding that her concerns were being misconstrued by students and school officials as racially driven…{um, yeah, because they weren't racially driven, they were RELIGIOUSLY driven- get it right, people.}

Ok, so this is so messed up. A Christian woman gets mad because some muslim girls can wear a headscarf, and so she decides to cause trouble~how un-Christian-like~ and I feel bad that her son could not wear his Christian t-shirt, but it's not a double standard, because there is no comparison. Yes, they both (the headscarf and the shirt) could fit into a religious category, but his t-shirt is not REQUIRED by his religion. I don't remember reading in the Bible that young men MUST wear T-shirts proclaiming they are Christians. Muslim girls wear Hijab for an entirely different reason..it's unfortunate that someone would take it upon themselves to cause trouble where trouble is not needed. That is most definetly not 'what Jesus would do.'

This is a little update regarding a post that I posted a couple weeks ago, about the show '24' and how it depicted this Muslim family as terrorists:

FOX TO AIR '24' DISCLAIMER TONIGHT
Kiefer Sutherland will say U.S. Muslims reject terror
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 2/8/05) -
CAIR announced today that the Fox television network will air a disclaimer this evening during its drama series "24" stating that American Muslims reject terrorism.
SEE: http://www.fox.com/24/
The disclaimer, read by actor Kiefer Sutherland, will state: "I'm Kiefer Sutherland. I play counter-terrorist Jack Bauer on Fox's 24. While terrorism is obviously one of the most critical challenges facing our nation and the world, it's important to recognize that the American Muslim community stands firmly beside their fellow Americans in denouncing and resisting terrorism in every form." Fox consulted with CAIR on the text of the disclaimer, which is scheduled to air in the first ten minutes of tonight's program. CAIR, along with the Muslim Public Affairs Council, recently met with representatives of Fox and the show's producers to address the depiction of a "Muslim" family that is at the heart of a terror plot in the popular program. Many Muslims are concerned that the portrayal of the family as a terrorist "sleeper cell" may cast a shadow of suspicion over ordinary American Muslims and could increase Islamophobic stereotyping and bias.

I was very touched that they would be willing to make a disclaimer, and I wish I could thank them personally...

I don't think I am going to survive my sister's teenage years.

This is my last pic. I have lots more, but they are Bitmaps, and stupid Hello won't publish anything but Jpeg. So, since I am not technologically advanced enough to use any other kind of picture publishing thingy, I am stuck just showing you this many pics. This girl has her face painted, which is common in Comoros... 

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Today I am featuring Comoros, and island Muslim country. Some of my pics are in black and white, but when you see a color one, just look at how colorful their clothing is. I LOVE color!!!  

Hello All. Sorry I have been so terrible with the posting lately. School started again, and of course, I am very busy. Also, my little brother was born on Jan. 24th, so I sort of got a little tied up with that. But I am back momentarily. So I will post some more pics, and beg of you 'maf karo' (Forgive me).