Enemy combatant or American citizen?

Military tribunals or civil courts?

The charge against him, treason, is a death penalty offense for which no one has been executed since the 60s. This is going to be high in the news for a long time and will prompt some major constitutional questions.

Gadahn was just in the news yesterday for a new tape calling on Western Muslims to attack their own countries and suggesting targets. It will also probably feature prominently in media coverage.

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There is clearly something deeper going on that you’re worried about or have doubts about

You are correct about being troubled, specifically, spiritually troubled. This response is to Aziz too. Abu Noor, I think you’ve been reading too much of Umar’s long goodbye and seem to be stuck on the notion of ‘progressive devils’ being a fifth column of something or other…

When I first exchanged some emails with Aziz and he invited me to blog here, I told him that I had been closely following TI for some time, but I hadn’t really engaged or participated because I wasn’t in a very good headspace, I was somewhat angry about some of my conversion experiences, and I didn’t want to engage poorly or from a bad place (I was also upset about how some orthodox problem-solving seemed to create dysfunction in modern life – Islam should give us all the tools we need to succeed anywhere at any time). I was particularly upset about feeling ’silenced’ (don’t ask disrespectful questions) and how – internally – that imbued those questions or concerns with more power and interest than they probably merited just from being bottled up. The initial blogging I did was helpful for deflating that material and kind of getting it out of the way, and it was at about that point that I started blogging here.

I’ve continued to use the blogging to try to ‘process’ what comes in from the dunya and from other Muslim perspectives and communities, but I think that what may be happening is that in driving myself up against every point of contention in the media and every point of seeming incoherence within the ummah and within Islam, that it’s having an unhealthy spiritual effect, and I’m falling back into that bad headspace again, or at least not a very good space in which to be engaging other Muslims.

So I need to take a break from being a media junkie, abstain from the blogging and find other diversions for awhile. Finding more and new Muslim community offline in another context might be a good idea too.

To try to sum up the point, I do believe it’s a matter of spiritual integrity not to ignore the world and what’s happening in it if it challenges your faith or your practice, but wading out into this stuff day after day – seeking it out – for too long is also bad for your spiritual health.

So I’m going to dial my blogging way back for a bit…

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Cyber-bullying rises as climate data are questioned.

The e-mails come thick and fast every time NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt appears in the press.

Rude and crass e-mails. E-mails calling him a fraud, a cheat, a scumbag and much worse.

To Schmidt and other researchers purging their inboxes daily of such correspondence, the barrage is simply part of the job of being a climate scientist. But others see the messages as threats and intimidation – cyber-bullying meant to shut down debate and cow scientists into limiting their participation in the public discourse.
….

Trenberth says that is the most dispiriting aspect of the e-mails: Facts don’t carry more weight in the public debate. The nature of public discourse – be it climate change or health care – has changed; information that does not fit one’s worldview is now discounted or rejected.

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Dim lights can make it seem as if no one is watching, triggering moral transgressions in many people, a new study suggests.

Past research has shown that when people are concealed from view by others, say when they are wearing hoods, these individuals will be more likely to commit criminal acts and other bad behaviors.

But what about times when we’re not actually anonymous – people can see us – yet we feel like we’re hidden? The researchers of the new study describe it as the adult version of hide-and-seek: Kids often believe no one can see them when they cover their eyes even though they are hiding in plain sight. Turns out, a dark room can have a similar psychological effect on adults.

So does it follow that women who don’t cover are likely to be more honest and have fewer moral transgressions than those who do?

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The website of a top Saudi cleric who issued an edict calling for those who support co-educational environments to be put to death has been shut down on Sunday.

Shaikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak’s website was shut down following a barrage of criticism from religious scholars in Saudi Arabia and Egypt condemning his fatwa (religious ruling) as a call for violence.

Many religious scholars in Saudi Arabia denounced Barrak’s ruling, saying it was similar to rulings once issued by religious fundamentalists, or Takfiris, accusing other Muslims of apostasy and condemning them to death.

The important thing here is not that he said it, but the response that it got.

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Afghanistan on Monday announced a ban on news coverage showing Taliban attacks, saying such images embolden the Islamist militants, who have launched strikes around the country as NATO forces seize their southern strongholds.

The Taliban are making their own videos, they don’t need the media to get video drama when they’re standing right next to it. Here’s a Frontline documentary that aired on Tuesday, “Behind Taliban Lines.” At one point one of the fighters is shown holding up a small device – either a cell phone or a small digital camera – showing off video of one their own attacks.

This ruling is self-serving on the part of the Afghan government.

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Apparently some character named Daniel Hannan is involved:

In addition to being anti-tax and a vocal Eurospectic, Hannan is also well known for his outspoken criticism of publicly funded health care. Last summer he appeared on Fox News to bash proposals to fix the US health care system as well as rail against Britain’s health services.

‘Eurospectic’ – Did they mean ‘Eurocentric’?

Who knew Brits were pining for a US-style health system…

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Abdullah writes that there has been some speculation that this is an effort to create a distraction from the developing negative media frenzy over Mossad’s recent assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai.

A very good point:

Observers have rightly noted that while the European Union maintains its proscription of Hamas as a “terrorist organisation”, they are yet to produce any evidence that the organisation has carried out a single military operation outside Occupied Palestine.

This is in stark contrast to the Israeli government, which threatens, attacks and occupies the lands of neighbouring countries, and assassinates its opponents in other sovereign nations.

Related: Dubai has now named 26 suspects in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabouh, the Hamas figure.

Israel’s use of counterfeit foreign passports led one Australian reporter to worry about “terrorists” ability to do the same thing. Richard remarks:

Doesn’t this tell you heaps about western prejudices in favor of our own and against the unwashed hordes, that this reporter would not have realized that any nation that carries out an assassination on foreign soil while abusing the security of numerous erstwhile allies is engaging in terrorism. Why can’t these Mossad agents be called terrorists too?

If Israel would lift one finger to make a genuine effort toward peace and resolution I’d be happy to promote it, but everything Israel does seems to go in the other direction.

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“You [Iraqi] people do what ever you want to each other and this country just don’t give us a reason to come back or we’ll massacre every last damn one of you.”

“Indonesia is really just another enemy Muslim nation. … You keep screwing around with stuff like this we are going to kill a bunch of you. Millions of you.”

It wasn’t a ‘friendly’ firing if there is such a thing, and there’s no information on what was the catalyst. He finished his regular show and was called into the front office. No goodbyes, no swan song for the listeners…

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Najibullah Zazi, was charged in a civilian court with plotting to blow up subways in New York City, was given a lawyer, was Mirandized, was not sent to Guantanamo, was not subject to “enhanced interrogation techniques,” and was not put before a military commission. Today, he pled guilty, ensuring he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

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