The humiliation of Malika Soltayeva

BTL says it well so I wont rephrase what's there.

The news event is disturbing but that doesnt stop the NYT from puttings its own spin on it - its not the relation to islam that's being questioned here but rather the new relationship with Moscow. Ideology before reason!

predictably, the conservative bloggers have taken this as another opportunity to bash Russia.

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August 30, 2006

In Chechen’s Humiliation, Questions on Rule of Law

By C. J. CHIVERS

ARGUN, Russia, Aug. 26 — The humiliation of Malika Soltayeva, a pregnant Chechen woman suspected of adultery, was ferocious and swift.

Ms. Soltayeva, 23, had been away from home for a month and was reported missing by her family. When she returned, her husband accused her of infidelity and banished her from their apartment. The local authorities found her at her aunt’s residence. They said they had a few questions.

What followed was no investigation. In a law enforcement compound in this town in east-central Chechnya, the men who served as Argun’s police sheared away her hair and her eyebrows and painted her scalp green, the color associated with Islam. A thumb-thick cross was smeared on her brow.

Ms. Soltayeva, a Muslim, had slept with a Christian Russian serviceman, they said. Her scarlet letter would be an emerald cross. She was forced to confess, ordered to strip, and beaten with wooden rods and hoses on her buttocks, arms, legs, hands, stomach and back.

“Turn and be condemned by Allah,” one of her tormentors said, demanding that she position herself so he could strike her more squarely.

The torture of Ms. Soltayeva, recorded on a video obtained by The New York Times, and other recent brutish acts and instances of religious policing, raise questions about Chechnya’s direction.

Since 2004, the war in Chechnya has tilted sharply in the Kremlin’s favor, as open combat with separatists has declined in intensity and frequency. Moscow now administers the republic and fights the remaining insurgency largely through paramilitary forces led by Ramzan A. Kadyrov, the powerful young Chechen premier.

Mr. Kadyrov’s public persona is flamboyantly pro-Russian. He praises President Vladimir V. Putin and has pledged to rebuild Chechnya and lead it back to the Kremlin’s fold. “I cannot tell you how great my love for Russia is,” he said in an interview this year.

But beneath this publicly professed loyalty, some of Chechnya’s indigenous security forces — with their evident anti-Slavic racism, institutionalized brutality, culture of impunity and intolerant interpretation of a pre-medieval Islamic code — have demonstrated the vicious behavior that Russia has said its latest invasion of Chechnya, in 1999, was supposed to stop.

Human rights groups and Chechen civilians say that these security forces’ ambitions and loyalties are uncertain and that their actions are unchecked. The republic’s course, they say, is dangerous for Russians and Chechens alike.

Few people have yet compared the current disorder with the end of the brief period of Chechen autonomy, in the late 1990’s, when rebels and foreign Islamic mercenaries operated terrorist training camps in the forests, and when Islamic courts sentenced criminals to execution by firing squads, which were broadcast on Chechen television news. But Mr. Kadyrov’s police and security forces, known as kadyrovsty, are staffed mostly with uneducated young men, some of whom have been fighting for years, including many former rebels who have changed sides.

Recent videos of their conduct, provided to The New York Times by outraged Chechens, show an unsettling pattern.

One shows a man and a woman in the town of Shali, each married to someone else, who were suspected of flirting in a car this summer. The police swarmed around the couple, jeering at them, and directed the man to kick the woman. The couple was then forced to dance a brief lezginka, a traditional and often sexually charged dance. The police kicked the woman, too, and pulled her scarf and hair.

Although the faces of several of the officers are clear, they have yet to come under investigation by higher authorities.

Another instance of unrestrained behavior occurred in late July in Kurchaloi, when one of Mr. Kadyrov’s units killed a rebel, Akhmad Dushayev, and beheaded his body. The severed head was displayed on a pipe in the town’s center, residents said in interviews.

Videos show that, later, the kadyrovsty, many in police uniforms, casually amused themselves with the head, joking as they displayed it in a garage. Another video shows the head adorned with a cap and with a cigarette in its mouth.

Residents said the police justified the beheading by saying that Mr. Dushayev had previously cut off the head of a pro-Kremlin Chechen fighter, and that the vengeance was fair play.

Ms. Soltayeva’s own experience, much of which was captured on video, was an accumulation of terror, pain and loss.

She was seized March 19, and mocked throughout a torture session that lasted nearly two hours. “Call for Sergei!” one of the policemen said, using the name of her assumed lover as he beat her. “Sergei! Help!”

Next they told her to dress, and drove her to her husband’s courtyard and made her dance before her neighbors. “Look how ugly you are,” another policeman said.

When she staggered away, several of them kicked her with their heavy black boots. Two days later she miscarried, and has been largely out of public view since.

The episode, which took place five months ago, was not investigated, even though videos showing the torture were passed along on cellphones throughout Argun and other Chechen towns. The videos circulated widely enough that accurate details of her abuse were known by roughly half of the Chechens interviewed by The New York Times.

“It is just outrageous lawlessness,” Ms. Soltayeva said in an interview in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital.

As is common in crumbling marriages, the details of Ms. Soltayeva’s family life and behavior are in dispute. Her former husband’s family says she had an affair with a Russian serviceman she met at a store where she worked as a cashier. She says that she did not, and that she was faithful to her husband even though he beat her.

Her whereabouts in the weeks leading up to her beating are also a source of contention.

Ms. Soltayeva said she was away from home because she had been abducted by masked men who eventually released her, a phenomenon in Chechnya that is common enough that her own family says they believe her. Her husband’s family, and the police, say that she left Chechnya to try to live with her Russian lover, and that she returned when it did not work out.

Natalya Estemirova, a staff member at the Grozny office of Memorial, a private human rights group, said she tried to bring the case to the Chechen authorities, but they threatened Ms. Soltayeva with criminal charges for falsely claiming to have been kidnapped. They showed no interest in the police violence, she said.

Allegations of state-sponsored horrors, and claims that Russian and Chechen officials have allowed servicemen to commit crimes with impunity, have been a regular accompaniment to the Chechen wars.

Human rights groups have documented mass graves, extralegal executions, widespread use and tolerance of torture, illegal detention, rape, robbery and kidnapping.

Some cases have seemed a matter of policy, as when suspected rebel supporters have been abducted during police and military sweeps. Other cases appeared to flow from the rage, drunkenness or frustration of ordinary soldiers fighting a savage guerrilla war.

What has made several recent cases different is that many of the kadyrovsty, unsophisticated gunmen who have had little contact with the world beyond Chechnya, have acquired cellphones with small video cameras and have casually, even gleefully, recorded their own crimes.

The video sequences are then shared, multiplying as they swiftly pass from phone to phone.

In a long interview earlier this year, Mr. Kadyrov said that his units were being professionalized and that the armed men under his command integrated into formal government structures. He insisted that they would be able to provide security and competent policing.

[On Aug. 29, The Times provided Mr. Kadyrov’s office with four videos of Ms. Soltayeva’s torture. Mr. Kadyrov said through a spokeswoman that upon viewing them he had ordered the Chechen Interior Ministry to investigate. “Criminal charges will be brought against all responsible for this,” said the spokeswoman, Tatyana Georgiyeva.]

Ms. Estemirova said that the unit in Argun that seized Ms. Soltayeva had been formally disbanded in the spring, but that its members were simply transferred into new “professional” battalions, known as North and South.

“They were assimilated into North and South and never checked by prosecutors,” she said. “Now they are more difficult to arrest.”

The Foreign Correspondent

Fiction from the Frontlines

Journalists cashed in on the demand for sensational stories during the US-led war in Afghanistan by interviewing fake Taliban and Al Qaeda members and quoting "anonymous" sources.

By Amir Zia

August 2006 Newsline

Islamabad 2001: A Pakistani journalist was urging a retired army officer on telephone to pose as a serving Inter-Services Intelligence official and give an interview to the bureau chief of a leading western wire agency as an anonymous source. After arguing with the retired official for several minutes in a mix of Urdu and Punjabi, the journalist finally called out to his bureau chief saying that his ISI source was on the line.

An hour after the telephone interview, the western agency filed a sensational story about the divide within the ranks of Pakistan's military establishment and ISI's opposition to President Pervez Musharraf's decision to withdraw support to the Afghan Taliban.

The story was a hit - and so was the stringer who arranged the fake interview.

As hundreds of foreign correspondents descended on Islamabad, Peshawar, Quetta, and some, even Karachi, to report on the war in Afghanistan and terrorism, a new breed of journalists, known usually as "fixers," and stringers, got unprecedented importance.

The majority of foreign journalists were unable to go inside Afghanistan to cover the war and were desperately trying instead, to find some exciting stories from within Pakistan. Small pro-Taliban rallies were being blown out of proportion and many Pakistani stringers were aiding them in procuring quotes from "anonymous" army, intelligence and interior ministry officials to support their pre-conceived stories about Pakistan and its role in terrorism.

In addition, "fake" interviews with the Taliban and Islamic militants were also conducted.

The task of genuine journalists, who wanted to file only factual stories, was becoming increasingly difficult because they were competing against these sensationalist stories.

Often reputed foreign newspapers and wire agencies ran stories without verifying them because of stiff competition.

International wire agencies, which usually avoid anonymous sources as a rule of thumb, lowered their standards of proper sourcing, banking more and more on mysterious anonymous sources, from places like Multan, Lahore and Peshawar, which often fed them detailed accounts of the interrogation of some key Al Qaeda suspect being conducted in Islamabad.

Often the same story had different versions; at other times, stringers lifted the content from the story of a rival agency/newspaper and peppered it with their own language to make it sound different.

The real irony was, despite the fact that foreign media organisations would often recognise that the information was not credible, they still went ahead and used it. In fact, some of these international wire services and newspapers actually sought out stringers who claimed that they had close contacts with intelligence agencies and paid them handsomely for their "work."

A reputed foreign newspaper filed a story regarding the defection of Afghan foreign minister, Abdul Wakil Muttawakil, which proved to be totally incorrect, much to the editor's embarrassment.

Often, intelligence officials exchanged information with some journalists on a quid-pro-quo basis and used them to leak information and even plant misleading stories.

Then there were many Afghans, who were desperately trying to sell all sorts of stories about Al Qaeda camps and the Afghan Taliban to western journalists in exchange for a few bucks. One such Afghan stringer claimed that he had escaped from the Kandahar prison of the Taliban/Al Qaeda, but later it was discovered that he had been living at an Afghan refugee camp in Peshawar for the past one year.

Some daring local journalist even presented Pakistani tribesmen as fierce Afghan Taliban warriors.

French correspondent Joel Marc Epstein and photographer Jean Paul Guilloteau of the Paris weekly L'Express, and their local stringer Khawar Rizvi, were arrested in Balochistan in December 2003 on charges of arranging interviews and photographs of "fake Taliban."

The trend of concocting stories and quoting fake anonymous sources that started during the time of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, continues to this day. And what's more, it has helped change the fortunes of dozens of stringers who earned mega-bucks in dollars for their dubious "meritorious" services.

Controversy over Islamic Fascism

Or, My disappointment with the Left

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The left has dutifully taken up cudgels on behalf of Islamic opponents of term used by George Bush.

Is this the same left that once disavowed religion as the “opium of the people”? Well, time has moved on the new left has interpreted Marx’s quote to mean : “All religions except Islam are the opium of the people. Islam is the new salvation of the oppressed.”

Many forget that the left used this term liberally against Hindu nationalism and yes, this was much before its current opposition to Islamic Fascism.

So let me get this right. According to the left,

Hindu Fascism = Bad! BAD!!

Islamic Fascism = GOOD! (that is if it exists, which of course it doesn’t, because you cant malign a whole religion, let alone one what is a “religion of peace”…..)

Never mind that Hinduism is one of the most tolerant of religions and India has had a long-standing tradition of accepting the persecuted from other lands. The Dalai Lama had this to say about it “India has not only given birth to great religious tradition like Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism but has also sheltered many, like Zoroastrianism, Islam, Christianity. The religious tolerance we see around the world is also an Indian tradition.” (Dalai Lama, August 2001).

So the left did not bat an eyelid before it began its parroting of the lies being put out by fundamentalist Indian Muslims or their apologists, just like its unquestioningly repeating the arguments of the vocal Muslims in the west. What happened to the tradition if critical inquiry that was such an integral part of the Left?

And yes, for me personally, it’s sad to see my heroes, Katha Politt, Amy Goodman and others stumble.

Others have not had their thinking blinkered and one is thankful for people like Nick Cohen.

"Far too many people on the Left are inclined to make excuses for Islamic fundamentalism. They accept its misogyny so long as it doesn’t target Western women. They accept its fascism so long as it is anti-American fascism. We now have a Stop the War coalition led by Islamic fascists and Marxist-Leninists, and much of the Left is silent about it. Acknowledging the horrors of Islamic fundamentalism would sully their consciences, which they want to keep clean for the battle against America ... Much of the Stop the War coalition now actually supports a fascist resistance movement and ignores their Iraqi comrades entirely. You have to look back to the Hitler-Stalin pact for a historical parallel. The concept of fascism is being lost. It’s something you hear about on the history channels. But Islamic fascism is still fascism ... Islamofascism has been ripping through the Arab world, often supported by America, and it should be the Left’s worst nightmare. It’s everything the Left has resisted since the French revolution. To equivocate in the face of it would be an absolute abdication of intellectual responsibility ... " — Nick Cohen, The Observer.

On the other hand, Katha Pollitt, writing in the Nation (September 11, 2006 Issue) finds that the term cannot be accurately applied to Islamic fundamentalism because:

“For starters, it's a terrible historical analogy…European fascist movements of the 1920s and '30s were nationalist and secular, closely allied with international capital and aimed at creating powerful, up-to-date, all-encompassing states. Some of the trappings might have been anti-modernist--Mussolini looked back to ancient Rome, the Nazis were fascinated by Nordic mythology and other Wagnerian folderol--but the basic thrust was modern, bureaucratic and rational.”

Well, actually, Katha, Islamic terrorists use the Koran but are just as fascinated with a glorified Islamic past as the Nazis and Italian fascists once were. They look to establish a global Caliphate or at least theocracies in the countries where Muslims predominate.

Furthermore, as Bharat Karnad writes, “Misguided practitioners of Islam are the problem as were the fascists in their time. So, how are the black turbaned Taliban different from Mussolini's 'Black Shirts' who marched on Rome?”— Bharat Karnad, Times of India August 27, 2006.

Ms. Pollitt then weaves a number of muddled arguments that tie opposition to the Iraq War to opposition to the term “Islamic Fascism” and link the use of this term to cynical attempts to win back soccer moms (!). Her facts on the Taliban, Saudi Arabia and Iraq are right but the analysis is wrong.

In the end she hits the nail on the head when she admits that the term “" enrages to no purpose the dwindling number of Muslims who don't already hate us.” So this is what it all boils down to? Worrying about enraging Muslims? Shouldn’t we be asking the question: Why are these Muslims enraged to begin with and more importantly do they really speak of all Muslims?

Ironically, arguments like this strengthen religious fundamentalists, by making theirs the only voice people that is heard from from among the Muslims.

BTW the Nation article essentially reproduces arguemnts from an earlier article by a well-known news network.

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PS. Did any of the leftist users of the term Hindu Fascism, do a NEXUS search on the term? Its never too late, you know. Incidentally the term was propogated by Islamic organizations as in this example.

other views:
islamic admirers of fasicsm
Denial by Eric S. Margolis incidentally a staunch supporter of the Taliban“Mujahideen”.
A more nuanced and complete analysis.

A post by Eskow on huffington that uses the same reasoning.
Another view.

Kashmir Pandits

A Video on the horrors visited upon Kashmiri Hindus.

American Muslims

August 27, 2006

America's Muslims Aren't as Assimilated as You Think

By Geneive Abdo
Washington Post
Sunday, August 27, 2006; Page B03 - Outlook

….But over the past two years, I have traveled the country, visiting mosques, interviewing Muslim leaders and speaking to Muslim youths in universities and Islamic centers from New York to Michigan to California -- and I have encountered a different truth. I found few signs of London-style radicalism among Muslims in the United States. At the same time, the real story of American Muslims is one of accelerating alienation from the mainstream of U.S. life, with Muslims in this country choosing their Islamic identity over their American one.

A new generation of American Muslims -- living in the shadow of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- is becoming more religious. ….. American Muslims are becoming a people apart. Young, first-generation American Muslim women -- whose parents were born in Egypt, Pakistan and other Islamic countries -- are wearing head scarves even if their mothers had left them behind; increasing numbers of young Muslims are attending Islamic schools and lectures; Muslim student associations in high schools and at colleges are proliferating; and the role of the mosque has evolved from strictly a place of worship to a center for socializing and for learning Arabic and Urdu as well as the Koran.

…..
Imam Zaid Shakir -- who teaches at San Francisco's Zaytuna Institute, America's only true madrassa … Many of these young American Muslims look to Shakir (and to celebrated Zaytuna founder Hamza Yusuf) for guidance on how to live pious lives in the United States.

… young Muslim professionals sit on cushioned folding chairs and listen intently as Yusuf delivered his lecture. "Everywhere I go, I see Muslims," he told them. "Go to the gas station and the airport. Muslims are present in the United States, and that was not true 20 years ago. There are more Muslims living outside the Dar al-Islam [Islamic countries, or literally the House of Islam] than ever. So we have to be strategic in our thinking, because people who are our enemies are strategic in their thinking."

[Politically correct explanation of “enemies” as not being Americans – deleted]

….In my years of interviews, I found few indications of homegrown militancy among American Muslims. … Yet, outside the workplace, Muslims retreat into the comfort zone of their mosques and Islamic schools.

It is too soon to say where the growing alienation of American Muslims will lead,

Geneive Abdo is the liaison for the Alliance of Civilizations at the United Nations and author of "Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in America After 9/11" (Oxford).

Pakistan and Iran

August 27, 2006

By the way, Pakistan's religous politcs are so scary that even the Iranians are freaked out about it.

This is what Iranian blogger "Hoder" has to say about it:

"Moreover, a nuclear Pakistan has always been a threat to Iran and a source of instability. Radical Wahabi and anti-Shia groups such as Sepah-e Sahabeh have murdered Iranian citizens or diplomats in the past twenty years. They helped create the Taliban, which almost got into war in Iran in late in late 90s."

Pamela Constable: A day late and a dollar short

but still making excuses for Pakistan.

That's our Pamela. She has another "analysis" in the press today about how Pakistan maybe, just maybe a tad bit fundamentalist and, horrors of horrors, exporting Islamic terrorism! Goodness!

But she quickly qualifies all this as being not her views but those of “Pakistani and foreign experts.” Read this to mean native journalists because this “journalist” hasn’t a clue!

In fact accorting to Pajama Constable “Some observers” even suggested, that India may be exaggerating its role as a victim of terror. Can you tell that to the families of the over two hundred dead from eight bombs placed on seven commuter trains in Bombay, Ms. Constable?

You could ascrible a lot of what Constable writes to ignorance....... if you were feeling particularly charitable. But the reality is that she cannot really use that excuse becasue she has lived in the region for years.
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A somewhat more observant jounalist, Christina Lamb, describes the role of Pakistan in the London Times (Times Online August 13, 2006, yes alomost 10 days before Pam's analysis)

"For budding suicide bombers all roads seem to lead to Pakistan — and last week’s global alert over a suspect massive terrorist attack did nothing to dispel that view.

“The moment I heard the first news about the airline plot, I knew it was just a matter of time until we heard the word Pakistan,” said a US intelligence agent. “Whether it’s 9/11, the Bali bombs, 7/7 and now this, Pakistan is always the connection. That’s gotta raise some questions." The roots of Pakistan’s reputation as a haven for jihadists run deep. It was, after all, in the city of Peshawar that Al-Qaeda was born after ISI, Pakistan’s military intelligence, started to recruit Arabs to fight in the Afghan jihad.

It was ISI that turned the Taliban from a bunch of religious students into a movement that took over Afghanistan. "

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Pakistan's Awkward Balancing Act on Islamic Militant Groups

By Pajama Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 26, 2006; A10

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- For the past five years, Pakistan has pursued a risky, two-sided policy toward Islamic militancy, positioning itself as a major ally in the Western-led war against global terrorism while reportedly allowing homegrown Muslim insurgent groups to meddle in neighboring India and Afghanistan.

Now, two high-profile cases of terrorism -- a day of gruesome, sophisticated train bombings in India in mid-July and a plot foiled this month to blow up planes leaving Britain for the United States -- have cast a new spotlight on Pakistan's ambiguous, often starkly contradictory roles as both a source and suppressor of Islamic violence, according to Pakistani and foreign experts.

Moreover, increasing evidence of links between international attacks and groups long tolerated or nurtured in Pakistan, including the Taliban and Kashmiri separatists, are making it difficult for the military-led government here to reconcile its policy of courting religious groups at home while touting its anti-terrorist credentials abroad.

"The conundrum for the military still persists," said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani army general. "The question always is, should we totally ban these organizations or keep them for later use?" Although the government has "selectively" prosecuted extremist groups, he said, "at the conceptual level, it has deliberately followed an ambiguous policy."

The basic problem for Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is that he is trying to please two irreconcilable groups. Abroad, the leader of this impoverished Muslim country is frantically competing with arch-rival India, a predominantly Hindu country, for American political approval and economic ties. To that end, he has worked hard to prove himself as a staunch anti-terrorism ally.

But at home, where he hopes to win election in 2007 after eight years as a self-appointed military ruler, Musharraf needs to appease Pakistan's Islamic parties to counter strong opposition from its secular ones. He also needs to keep alive the Kashmiri and Taliban insurgencies on Pakistan's borders to counter fears within military ranks that India, which has developed close ties with the Kabul government, is pressuring its smaller rival on two flanks.

"It is clear that our current policy of stout denial fools nobody," columnist Irfan Husain wrote in the Dawn newspaper last Saturday. By allowing Islamic militant groups to flourish while seeking praise for helping to break up the plot in Britain, he said, Pakistani officials are "determined to see only one side of the coin," but "the rest of the world is bent on examining the other side very closely indeed."

Until recently, Musharraf had handled this balancing act with some success, Pakistani and foreign experts said. He formally banned several radical Islamic groups while quietly allowing them to survive. He sent thousands of troops to the Afghan border while Taliban insurgents continued to slip back and forth. Meanwhile, his security forces arrested more than 700 terrorism suspects, earning Western gratitude instead of pressure to get tougher on homegrown violence.

But this summer, a drumbeat of terrorist violence and plotting in India, Britain and Afghanistan have begun to blur the distinction between regional and international Islamic violence. Pakistan, which has a large intelligence apparatus, is now in the awkward position of denying any knowledge of local militants' links to bombings in India and Afghanistan, while claiming credit for exposing their alleged roles in the London airliner plot.

"It is ironic that our very success in thwarting plots and arresting a large number of terrorists reinforces the perception that this country is a bastion of terrorism," said Shafqat Mahmood, a former Pakistani legislator, suggesting that Islamic militancy has been permitted to flourish in Pakistan at the country's peril. "Our triumphs in the war against terror have become advertisements of our failure," he said.

In an interview last week, Riaz Mohammed Khan, Pakistan's foreign secretary, expressed indignation that India had swiftly blamed Pakistani-based groups for the train bombings, saying Pakistan had "no evidence whatsoever" of any such links and that India had ignored its repeated offers to collaborate in any investigation of the attacks, which killed more than 180 people.

Khan said his government "opposes all terrorism" and had worked diligently to expose the role of Pakistanis in the London plot. Pakistan has arrested a British national of Pakistani origin, Rashid Rauf, whom sources described as a member of a banned sectarian group, Jaish-i-Muhammed. Pakistan also placed under house arrest the former head of Lashkar-i-Taiba, another militant group blamed by India in the bombings.

But Khan said the government needed to address the "root causes" of Islamic militancy, such as poverty and lack of education, and could not simply arrest all members of suspect religious groups. He also said that the chronic suppression of Palestinians and other Muslims abroad had created armed struggles that should not be "wholly discredited."

Despite the arrests, Indian officials suggested that Musharraf, after sincere efforts to curb militant groups, was now giving them freer rein in order to secure their electoral support. They said that both the Taliban and some pro-Kashmir militants had now gone beyond their original aims and forged ties to al-Qaeda.

"Whether this is a loss of control by Musharraf or a deliberate shift in strategy, for us the results are the same," said a senior Indian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, in a recent interview in New Delhi. He said India wants to resume stalled peace talks over the disputed territory of Kashmir, but that the recent spread of violence to "the Indian heartland" had provoked enormous public anger. "No government can be immune to public opinion," he said.

In Afghanistan, officials have repeatedly accused Pakistan of harboring and aiding the revived Taliban insurgency, which has launched a wave of violent attacks and suicide bombings across the southern part of the country this spring and summer. Pakistan has denied the charges and periodically arrested some Taliban figures, but there are widespread reports of insurgents operating freely on both sides of the border.

As for India, Pakistan is eager to resolve the Kashmir issue, but its relations with New Delhi have been hostile for years and remained captive to the persistent violence in the territory. India has repeatedly accused Pakistan of sending armed insurgents across the border, but Pakistan has insisted it provides only political support to the separatists.

Islamabad's fragile new alliance with the West has developed only since 2001, when Musharraf renounced the Taliban and embraced the anti-terrorist cause. The U.S.-Pakistan relationship has been strained both by Musharraf's foot-dragging on democratic reforms and by India's high-profile rapprochement with Washington, including a controversial new nuclear energy agreement.

Analysts said the Musharraf government may now be playing up its role in foiling the London plot in order to reinforce its importance as a strategic Western ally.

Some observers suggested that in different ways, both Pakistan and India are using the terrorist threat to bolster their competing relations with the West. Just as Pakistan, the regional underdog, may be exaggerating its role as a terror-fighter, they noted, India, the aspirant to global influence, may be exaggerating its role as a victim of terror.

Others suggest that U.S. policy in the Middle East is making it difficult for Muslim countries such as Pakistan to remain peaceful and in control of large, impoverished populations who increasingly turn to religion and identify with the struggles of Muslims in other countries.

But critics said Pakistan's problems with Islamic violence cannot be resolved as long as the military remains in power. In an unusual move last month, a diverse group of senior former civilian and military officials wrote an open letter to Musharraf, warning that the country is becoming dangerously polarized and that a uniformed presidency only exacerbates the problem by politicizing the armed forces. The only solution, the group wrote, is a transition to a "complete and authentic democracy."

kudos to the N Y Times

In contrast to the shoddy piece in the WP - that attributed islamic terrorism to unemployment or foreign policy, this opinion article addresses the real problems.

The WP has a real problem with its journalists having virtually no understanding of cultures or politics around the world. Most rely on secondary sources, often butteresed by "interviews" with people who support those sources.

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August 16, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor

Muslim Myopia

By IRSHAD MANJI

New Haven

Last week, the luminaries of the British Muslim mainstream — lobbyists, lords and members of Parliament — published an open letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair, telling him that the “debacle” of both Iraq and Lebanon provides “ammunition to extremists who threaten us all.” In increasingly antiwar America, a similar argument is gaining traction: The United States brutalizes Muslims, which in turn foments Islamist terror.

But violent jihadists have rarely needed foreign policy grievances to justify their hot heads. There was no equivalent to the Iraq debacle in 1993, when Islamists first tried to blow up the World Trade Center, or in 2000, when they attacked the American destroyer Cole. Indeed, that assault took place after United States-led military intervention saved thousands of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo.

If Islamists cared about changing Iraq policy, they would not have bothered to abduct two journalists from France — probably the most antiwar, anti-Bush nation in the West. Even overt solidarity with Iraqi suffering did not prevent Margaret Hassan, who ran a world-renowned relief agency in Baghdad, from being executed by insurgents.

Meanwhile, at least as many Muslims are dying at the hands of other Muslims as under the boots of any foreign imperial power. In Sudan, black Muslims are starved, raped, enslaved and slaughtered by Arab militias, with the consent of an Islamic government. Where is the “official” Muslim fury against that genocide? Do Muslim lives count only when snuffed out by non-Muslims? If not, then here is an idea for Muslim representatives in the West: Go ahead and lecture the politicians that their foreign policies give succor to radicals. At the same time, however, challenge the educated and angry young Muslims to hold their own accountable, too.

This means reminding them that in Pakistan, Sunnis hunt down Shiites every day; that in northern Israel, Katuysha rockets launched by Hezbollah have ripped through the homes of Arab Muslims as well as Jews; that in Egypt, the riot police of President Hosni Mubarak routinely club, rape, torture and murder Muslim activists promoting democracy; and, above all, that civil wars have become hallmarks of the Islamic world.

Muslim figureheads will not dare be so honest. They would sooner replicate the very sins for which they castigate the Bush and Blair governments — namely, switching rationales and pretending integrity.

In the wake of the London bombings on July 7, 2005, Iqbal Sacranie, then the head of the influential Muslim Council of Britain, insisted that economic discrimination lay at the root of Islamist radicalism in his country. When it came to light that some of the suspects enjoyed middle-class upbringings, university educations, jobs and cars, Mr. Sacranie found a new culprit: foreign policy. In so doing, he boarded the groupthink express steered by Muslim elites.

The good news is that ordinary people of faith are capable of self-criticism. Two months ago, 65 percent of British Muslims polled believed that their communities should increase efforts to integrate. The same poll also produced troubling results: 13 percent lionized the July 7 terrorists, and 16 percent sympathized. Still, these figures total 29 percent — less than half the number who sought to belong more fully to British society.

Whether in Britain or America, those who claim to speak for Muslims have a responsibility to the majority, which wants to reconcile Islam with pluralism. Whatever their imperial urges, it is not for Tony Blair or George W. Bush to restore Islam’s better angels. That duty — and glory — goes to Muslims.

Irshad Manji, a fellow at Yale University, is the author of “The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith.”

August 16, 2006
The new Macaca craze.

(No its not a dance)

Macaca mulatta is a monkey not a haircut.

Some intersting blogs that describle the incident involving the mean spirited Allen and his rather pathetic denials.

Shittiest.Explanation.Ever

Jeff's google assisted explanation of the epithet

SepiaMutiy

The Video

How racist is George Allen?

From Salon.com:

With his Confederate-flag-draped past, Sen. George Allen is in trouble for using a term for monkeys -- and a racial slur elsewhere in the world -- to ridicule a dark-skinned man at a campaign rally.

By Michael Scherer (Salon)

Aug. 16, 2006 | WASHINGTON – […… ]

With his stiff boots and square sideburns, he comes off as easygoing. Down home. Macho. Red blooded. He tosses around the football and dips tobacco. The people love him in southern Virginia. He speaks their language.

He'll talk about the "real America," the one without homosexuals, movie moguls or Ivy League professors who want to ban guns and burn flags. He'll talk about an America where people have "values" and don't run away from the terrorists when the fighting gets tough. At his best, he begins to inhabit a symbolic fantasyland, becoming the lead cavalryman in a two-century-old culture war between North and South, city and countryside, the New York Times and the local church. He becomes a walking, talking American flag with a clear shot for the White House in 2008.

He [ ] can get carried away. And like so many other talented people, he [ ] is revealed as George Allen the man, the unruly jock who likes to act tough and intimidate -- maybe to a fault.

Last Friday, it all began innocently enough at another outdoor rally with a hundred or so people just a few miles from the Kentucky border. As is the habit of both campaigns, Allen's Democratic opponent, Jim Webb, had sent a 20-year-old volunteer named S.R. Sidarth to cover the campaign event with a camcorder. Sidarth, an Indian-American who was born and raised in Virginia, affirmed in an interview with Salon on Tuesday that he had introduced himself to Allen and his staff earlier last week. They all seemed to be getting along well, Sidarth thought at the time.

Then Allen took the microphone. "My friends, we are going to run this campaign on positive constructive ideas," Allen said, before pointing in the direction of Sidarth, who stood in the crowd, the only nonwhite person on the scene. "This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is: He's with my opponent. He's following us around everywhere."

In three syllables, ma-ca-ca, Allen burst a hole in his front-running Senate campaign, and possibly sank his chances for a 2008 run at the White House. He uttered sounds from another time and place. No one seemed to know what he meant. Was the senator speaking Latin? Did Sidarth have a funny middle name? Five days later, Allen, whose campaign did not return Salon's calls Tuesday, continued to plead ignorance about letting loose the utterance, as if he had suddenly been taken over by an evil spirit and spoken in tongues. "I don't know what it means," Allen said of the word in an interview with the Washington Post on Monday.

But those three syllables do not often come together by accident. In fact, George Allen may well have been the only one at the rally whose family background would have introduced him to the word "macaca."

Though he doesn't like to use it, the senator's full name is George F. Allen. He gets the middle initial from his grandfather, Felix Lumbrosso, a French-Italian who was incarcerated by the Nazis during World War II. Felix raised Allen's mother, Etty, in Tunisia, a French protectorate in North Africa. As a child, Allen's grandparents lived near the family home, and Etty spoke five languages around the house. Allen makes no secret of his heritage on the campaign trail. "I have my grandfather's bloodlines," he said at a recent swing through a suburb of Richmond. "My grandfather is French-Italian. I have about one-sixteenth Spanish in me."

In North Africa, the word "macaca," often spelled "macaco" or "macaque," is far more than a string of random syllables. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word dates back to the mid-1600s, as a Flemish approximation of the Bantu word for monkey in the Congo and southern Gabon. The word migrated north, taking on all the racist connotations that followed African colonization. [ ]

[ ] An online dictionary of ethnic slurs lists "macaque" as a French and Belgian word for black North Africans. In the Oxford Spanish Dictionary, "macaco" and "macaca" carry the colloquial meaning of "little devil," "Chinaman" and "ugly person." [ ]

To understand the full import of Allen's gaffe, it is worth taking another look at the video, which will live for eternity on the Internet and in political attack ads. It is not just a matter of what Allen says, but very much a matter of how he says it. He has singled out one member of the audience, a 20-year-old volunteer whose ethnicity already distinguishes him in a former bastion of the Confederacy. Allen is smiling. He is enjoying himself. It is exceedingly difficult to see Allen as doing anything other than connecting with the crowd by attempting to humiliate another human being -- to make him feel like an outsider, like he doesn't belong, like he will never belong. "Let's give a welcome to macaca, here," the senator crows. "Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia."

[ ]

Whatever the truth of George Allen's childhood, it is clear that he has been trying in recent years to turn over a new leaf in public. Ryan Lizza, the author of the New Republic piece, asked Allen about the Confederate flag pin he wore in his senior photo at a tony California high school. Allen responded by mentioning the funding he is seeking in Congress for historically black colleges. Lizza asked about Allen's initial opposition to Martin Luther King Day, the noose he once hung on a ficus tree in his law office, and Allen's support of a Confederate History and Heritage Month that did not mention slavery. [ ]

Praising Hezbollah damning the terrorists

August 14, 2006

Hmm.... the Washington Post is beginning to sound errily like a newspaper in Pakistan. Note the similarities in these two reports praising the stouthearted Hezbollah.

________________
From the Washington Post:

'The Best Guerrilla Force in the World'
Analysts Attribute Hezbollah's Resilience to Zeal, Secrecy and Iranian Funding

By Edward Cody and Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, August 14, 2006; A01

BEIRUT, Aug. 14 -- Hezbollah's irregular fighters stood off the modern Israeli army for a month in the hills of southern Lebanon thanks to extraordinary zeal and secrecy, rigorous training, tight controls over the population, and a steady flow of Iranian money to acquire effective weaponry, according to informed assessments in Lebanon and Israel.

"They are the best guerrilla force in the world," [..]

The group's battlefield resilience also came from an unusual combination of zeal and disciplined military science, [..]

The fighters' Islamic faith and intense indoctrination reduced their fear of death, [..] giving them an advantage in close-quarters combat and in braving airstrikes to move munitions from post to post.

[...deleted but you get the drift they are mythic fighters...].

_____________________________________________________________
Now for the Pakistan version: From the Pakistan Newspaper, Dawn

How many F-16s does Hezbollah have?

Dawn August 11, 2006 Friday Rajab 15, 1427

By Ayaz Amir Dawn

[..] Lebanon -- a country scarcely bigger than Sargodha and Rawalpindi divisions combined -- has shown more guts than we can imagine.

Hezbollah has no F-16s, no anti-aircraft defences to speak of, yet it has fought the might of the Israeli army for four weeks and continues to stand up to it. No Arab army has shown as much grit, none has fought Israel this long. And far from Hezbollah breaking, it is Israel which is getting stuck in South Lebanon.

[...]

To get an idea of the battle picture in South Lebanon turn not to BBC or CNN, both little better than apologists for the Israeli army. Read the Israeli press, especially Haaretz (www.haaretz.com). More and more Israelis while still in favour of the war are questioning the way it is being conducted. The swift victory they were led to believe in has turned out to be a mirage. The Israeli army has taken heavy casualties and Hezbollah is still raining rockets on northern Israel.

As a sign of how the war is faring, Maj Gen Udi Adam, GOC Northern Command, has been replaced by Maj Gen Moshe Kaplinsky. The security cabinet has decided, after an agonizing debate, to expand the offensive in South Lebanon. Sounds suspiciously like a reinforcing of failure.

Fifteen IDF soldiers were killed on Wednesday, � "in a series of firefights across the front�" as Haaretz reports. "Twentyfive soldiers were wounded in Wednesday's actions, six seriously."

[..] "Commanders in the sector said Wednesday night that Hezbollah guerrillas were closely following the movement of Israeli forces. They said the group is analyzing the IDF's firing positions, and doing a good job of pinpointing those locations where the forces are exposed."

This should give a flavour of the fighting. Israel has not faced anything of the kind in its entire history. Regular Arab armies it has beaten black and blue, brought Arab countries to their knees after a few days of fighting. This is different because Israel is being compelled to fight a war whose tactics are being dictated by the enemy -- Hezbollah. Israel can push in as many troops as it likes. It will face more guerrilla attacks.


[this is where the WP article diverges from Dawn's analysis]

This looks like the emergence of the Middle East's second Vietnam, the first being Iraq. The Americans thought their occupation of Iraq would be a smooth affair. They now know better. The Israelis thought they would vanquish Hezbollah swiftly. There have been surprises in store for them.

Only the gullible think that the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah is what triggered this war. There is a growing body of evidence to show that Israel had planned this assault for a long time. That it hasn't turned out the way it figured is a different matter.

What we don't know is what the Bush administration is up to. For all we know it could be preparing to bomb Iran. Mind-boggling thought but the war party in Washington is capable of anything.

But enough to drive one to despair is the utter helplessness of the Muslim world. A rabbit wouldn't be more transfixed by the headlights of a car as Arab and Muslim leaders are by the threat of American power. No one is saying they should send their armies in aid of Hezbollah. But at least they can speak out louder than they have so far.

Time was when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto sent Pakistani fighter pilots to Syria during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war ( a mistake I can't imagine Air Chief Marshal Tanvir making in a hurry), something which the Syrians have not forgotten. Now we can't even bring ourselves to say the right words about Lebanon. These are not proud days to be a Pakistani.

Hezbollah has no F-16s but it is running rings around one of the best armies in the world. We can have 500 F-16s in our air force but given the crisis of resolve we face, we will remain a country ready to jump at the sound of a single phone call.

Note: this was written a few days before the Post article appeared.

Lovely Pamela

August 14, 2006

And from our lovely Pamela Constable, comes this gem on Indian Muslims. Now then, she would have us know that in contrast to the accounts in the times or the guardian, the islamic citizens that are being targeted with suspicion are not those in Britain, where the terror plot was uncovered, or in the US where the planes were headed, but in India! What a journalistic scoop! Way to go WP editors!

This of course is in contrast to the account published only a day ago by her colleagues, Kevin and Joshua (see earlier post below), but then maybe Pamela didn't get the WP sunday edition delivered to her hotel in India.
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This from another blog:

In an email posted from Delhi, Pamela Constable, a high-flying foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, put it this way:

“I did not go to journalism school because I thought it was more important to get started in the real world, and I never looked back.”

______________________________
In interviews she comes across as shallow but eager to glorify herself as a "westerner in foreign lands" "a woman" "a christian" under difficult if not dangerous situations. An adventuress!

But its clear to those of us from those difficult regions that she belongs to the "air conditioned, five star hotel" journalists that live in their little cocktail circuit, ocassionally foraying into the regions beyond exploiting local aqauintaces - she does not even speak the local languages - before retreating to her priveliged environs.

She wrote a book - "Fragments of Grace" - here is an extract from the Telegraph in Calcutta:

"Fragments of Grace documents the turmoil and mayhem in south Asia, but also provides a glimpse of the lives of ordinary individuals in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka. But through it all, Constable remains an outsider for whom the religious, cultural and social life of this part of the world is unintelligible, hard, backward, dull and dirty. Let alone Afghanistan, even New Delhi is for Constable sweltering...full of wheedling beggars and haughty clerks and gloppy food and infuriating traffic?."

Here is another review of her book.

----------------------------

She also finds that Pakistan practices a "reasonable" form of Islam.
______________________________
Muslims in India 'Targeted With Suspicion'
Residents of Thriving Bombay District Describe Rising Tension in Wake of Train Bombings

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, August 14, 2006; A07

BOMBAY -- At first glance, the Nayanagar district of Bombay could be a showcase for the rising prospects of India's long-struggling Muslim minority. It features wide, clean streets, brightly painted high-rise apartments and a populace that includes doctors, engineers and real estate agents.

But in the wake of the devastating July 11 train bombings in Bombay, in which more than 200 people were killed, residents here say they feel fingers of suspicion and hate pointing at all Muslims, not just jobless slum youths and bearded students from Islamic radical groups.

"We are law-abiding citizens, but the whole community is being targeted with suspicion now," said Azimuddin, 40, a physician who with dozens of neighbors rushed to help victims of one bombed train that had just pulled out of Nayanagar station. "Every one of us is a question mark."

Tensions have intensified in the past week, with warnings of further terrorist attacks in Bombay and New Delhi during India's Independence Day celebrations Tuesday. The U.S. Embassy has warned all American citizens in India to remain off the streets during the next week.

On top of that, the alleged bomb plot thwarted in Britain has added to the jittery sense of vulnerability across India, with all airports and military facilities on high alert. With most of the suspects in that case of Pakistani descent, the Times of India newspaper Saturday portrayed India as "truly in the arc of terror."

The cumulative impact on Muslim communities such as Nayanagar's is palpable. In a dozen conversations, residents barely contained their anger and bitterness as they traced a history of growing discrimination, ostracism and violence, punctuated by Bombay's Hindu-Muslim riots of 1993 and a worse rampage of anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat state in 2002.

"Of course I'm angry. I'm 52 years old, and I grew up in a Bombay of friendship and compassion. That's gone now," said Abdul Majid, who owns a small construction company. "We are all against terrorism, but how are terrorists born? If you torture people and deny them jobs and education long enough, you create terrorists."

Government officials have noted with relief that Bombay's heterogeneous population pulled together quickly to restore normality to the huge, fast-paced seaside city that is home to both India's financial center and its powerhouse Bollywood entertainment industry.

But police investigations have led to the arrests of 13 Muslim men, including a Bombay physician and a software technician, all with alleged links to a banned Islamic students group and some with suspected ties to the Pakistan-based radical organization Lashkar-e-Taiba. There have been late-night raids in a dozen Muslim communities in Bombay and unusual security checks of Muslims traveling abroad, including several irate members of the pampered Bollywood set.

"This Islamophobia is being imported from the West and filtering like a poison into India's bloodstream," said Mahesh Bhatt, a Bollywood producer who complained that when his film crew flew to Dubai for a shoot last week, the sole Muslim, a choreographer, was singled out by police for questioning about his passport and travel.

Police officials here declined several requests for interviews, but in public statements and letters to newspapers last week, they insisted that Muslims in general are not being targeted because of the bombings. They also denied Indian press reports that the government had ordered special scrutiny of Muslims who travel abroad, including white-collar employees of multinational companies.

Some human rights activists in Bombay said the behavior of the police had been largely professional and not abusive after the bombings, despite the fact that they are under enormous pressure to solve the crimes and that most evidence so far has pointed to militant Muslims. Officials have met with Muslim community groups, called mohalla committees, seeking cooperation and promising restraint.

A senior government official in New Delhi, who spoke on condition he not be named, said it would be a grave error to tar India's 140 million Muslims with the terrorist brush. He said that despite occasional flare-ups of religious violence, radical groups seeking to exploit religious tensions have failed because India's secular democracy has been able to address Muslims' grievances and absorb them into Hindu-dominated society.

"To say that Indian Muslims are becoming terrorists, nothing could be a more dangerous assumption," the official said. He noted that to date, no Indian Muslims had been found to be involved in al-Qaeda. "There is a fundamental ethos shared by the majority of Muslims and Hindus," he said. "At the end of the day, the vast majority of both groups see through the game."

For years, however, activists have pointed out that Muslims, who make up about 15 percent of the populace, comprise only a tiny percentage of police, army officers, public servants and public university students. They have long blamed systematic exclusion by the Hindu-dominated government and society, and some have pressed for job and education quotas similar to those reserved for other Indian minorities.

Until recently, Indian officials tended to play down the problem, while some militant Hindu groups such as Bombay's Shiv Sena have denounced Muslims as self-defeating, religiously insular and untrustworthy because of their roots in Pakistan, the Muslim-ruled neighbor and rival nuclear power that broke off from India in 1947.

Now, there are signs that the establishment is belatedly recognizing the problem of Muslims being left behind. Outlook, a major newsweekly, ran a cover story last week on a 15 percent literacy gap between Muslims and non-Muslims. It described the high number of Muslim youths who quit school and become jobless as a newly "frightening" and "ominous" phenomenon.

There is also a growing realization that globalization, which has thrust India into a proud new era of information technology and international business development, has beamed a different message into its long-scattered and isolated Muslim communities. Instant access to information has raised their awareness of conflicts from Iraq to Lebanon and increased their identification with aggrieved Muslims elsewhere.

"It feels like the whole world is against Muslims," said one young man, checking his BlackBerry as he headed for Friday prayers at a mosque in Mahin, a lower-class Muslim district in Bombay where several hundred youths were rounded up and questioned after the train bombings.

Most people interviewed said they believed the bombings were the work of sophisticated international terrorists, not the result of homegrown, pent-up Muslim frustrations. But as Indian media reports this week described webs of connections between banned Indian Muslim groups, Pakistani radicals and pan-Arab militant groups, the line suddenly seemed to blur.

A variety of Hindus said they had good personal relations with neighbors or colleagues who are Muslim, and some said they felt confident India's secular fabric would survive the current specter of Islamic terrorism. But others confessed it was hard not to succumb to negative stereotypes and ill wishes toward the Muslim minority in the wake of so much mayhem and bloodshed.

"There is fear now in the Bombay psyche," said Ashok Seth, 45, a pharmacist who works near Nayanagar. "I am a Hindu and I sit and eat together with the Muslims in the next shop. They are not terrorists, they are my friends. But I'll be honest, there is a growing feeling that there is a fight in the world between the West and Muslims. And even here, some people say it's good if Muslims are being killed; the fewer left the better."

In the alleys of Mahin on Friday, clean-cut young men in jeans mingled with bearded religious students in skullcaps as hundreds of Muslims headed for the mosque. In 1993, Mahin was at the epicenter of religious rioting that convulsed Bombay and led to a series of bombings after Hindu radicals demolished a historic mosque.

But on July 11, as in wealthier Nayanagar, residents of this shabby district rushed to help victims of a bombed train that exploded near Mahin station. Everyone interviewed in the community said they condemned the train bombings, and several said they feared such acts made it even more difficult for Indian Muslims to achieve acceptance and success.

"Some brand this as a terror spot, but they should have seen how people came out with bedsheets to carry the wounded and the dead," said Deepak Talwar, 46, a lawyer in Mahin. "Of course Muslims' sentiments are hurt when they see gory images of Lebanon, but no one here wants to be a party to all that. Islam preaches harmony, and that is the only way for us all to survive."

Washington Post with yet another brilliant analysis

August 13, 2006
OK so today, only a few days after the massive terror alert Kevin Sullivan and Joshua Partlow of the post put up this analysis for why muslim youth in Enland turn to terrorism. The subtitle "Unemployment, Foreign Policy Fuel Extremism" is instructive.

The analysis is clearly at odds with the findings that most terrorists are not poor or impoverished and infact are from among the most priveleged sectors of islamic society. It also goes a long way towards letting extrmists like Mr. Bukhari speak on behalf of all Muslims.



__________________________________
Young Muslim Rage Takes Root in Britain
Unemployment, Foreign Policy Fuel Extremism

By Kevin Sullivan and Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 13, 2006; A01

LONDON, Aug. 12 -- Naweed Hussain sat in his little real estate office Friday, trying to focus on spreadsheets instead of the angry clatter outside.

Furious young Muslim men crowded around the local mosque on his street, surrounded by television cameras. They complained that their friends, other young Muslim men from Walthamstow, in East London, had been unfairly accused of plotting to blow up airliners. Police guarded the home of one suspect in what authorities call a plot to kill people on an "unimaginable" scale, allegedly planned right here in Hussain's working-class neighborhood.

"Why is it not happening in some other country?" wondered Hussain, 53, a soft-spoken man in a tie and black-rimmed glasses who has lived here since he migrated from Pakistan 40 years ago. "Why is it happening here?"

Ah yes Mr. husssain but it is happening in other countries.

The answer is that Britain has become an incubator for violent Islamic extremism, fueled by disenchantment at home and growing rage about events abroad, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Four bombers killed themselves and 52 others in attacks on the London public transit system on July 7, 2005 , followed by an almost identical but failed attack two weeks later. Last month Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair said that at least three "serious conspiracies" had been disrupted in the previous 12 months. Then this week, police said they thwarted a plot to blow up as many as 10 airliners flying from Britain to the United States that could have killed thousands.

In one of Europe's largest Muslim communities, young men face a lack of jobs, poor educational achievement and discrimination in a highly class-oriented culture. Prime Minister Tony Blair is the most outspoken ally of President Bush, and their policies in Iraq and Afghanistan are seen by many Muslims as aimed at Islam.

Britain's long tradition of tolerance has made it an oasis for immigrants and political outcasts from around the world, with its large influx of Pakistanis and other Muslims leading to the nickname Londonistan. Especially during the 1980s and 1990s, Britain became the refuge of choice for scores of Islamic radicals who had been expelled or exiled from their home countries for their inflammatory sermons and speeches.

More than any other country in Europe, Britain is struggling to cope with a surge in recruits and supporters of radical Islamic networks, according to interviews with British Muslims, and European and British counterterrorism officials and analysts. Officials said the threat is growing much faster than British authorities had expected or planned for.

"The U.K. is at the forefront of the wrath of extremists," said Magnus Ranstorp, terrorism researcher for the Swedish National Defense College in Stockholm.

The British security (not secret?) service, known as MI5, disclosed last month that it had about 1,200 Islamic militants under surveillance who were considered capable of carrying out violent attacks. Peter Clarke, the head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism branch, said police were engaged in 70 separate terrorism investigations, the most ever. "This is unprecedented and the flow of new cases shows no sign of abating," Clarke said. "If anything, it is accelerating."

Since the July attacks, Blair's government has toughened anti-terrorism laws, making it a crime to "glorify" terrorism and easing procedures for deporting clerics and others who advocate violence. The government has increased the number of Muslim police officers on the beat and conducted extensive outreach in Britain's Muslim community, which officially numbers 1.6 million people but is widely believed to be 2 million or more.

The attacks last summer, and this week's disclosure of a plot to bomb jumbo jets from the sky, have created a sense of unease not often seen in a nation that stoically endured some of World War II's worst bombings and a 30-year campaign of violence by the Irish Republican Army. Being a target of a new kind of terror -- one without specific demands, that seems to many here to be motivated by vengeance and hate -- has created a new uncertainty.

"There is more nervousness now between communities and about the future," said Colin Sumers, 32, an information technology consultant from Bournemouth. "Where is this all heading? How do you answer these problems? What do these terrorists want?"

Asghar Bukhari of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, which advocates Muslim involvement in the democratic process and opposes violence, said, "It's not hard to comprehend the mind of a Muslim." He said young British Muslims look around the world and "everywhere they are getting bombed," so they increasingly respond by saying, "Don't just sit down and take it -- let's fight them."

Harming the United States clearly remains a top priority of al-Qaeda and other radical groups, and the plot uncovered this week allegedly involved planes heading to major U.S. cities. But officials said Britain is an increasingly enticing target for extremists eager to strike back at the West, particularly Bush and Blair.

"This is the second-best thing," Ranstorp said. "You can't get to the United States? Punish Britain. Punish the little brother."

Seeds of Radical Islam

Sitting in his office in Walthamstow, Hussain said he has watched with dismay as his neighborhood has grown more angry in recent years. "I never expected anything like this," he said, working at a wooden desk by the window, under a framed map of England.

Since he arrived in Walthamstow as a 14-year-old boy from Islamabad, Pakistan, Hussain has seen the neighborhood's industrial past fade away and the South Asian immigrant population swell, part of the great migration of people from around the world -- including many former British colonies -- that has made London one of the world's most diverse cities.

Little is known about the background or motives of suspects in the latest case. The 19 suspects who have been publicly identified all have Muslim names; 14 are from London, including several from Walthamstow; four are from High Wycombe, a quiet suburb west of London; and one is from the city of Birmingham. They range in age from 17 to 35, all but three of them in their twenties. Friends interviewed in Walthamstow said the suspects were either born in England or were from families who have lived for many years in London. Police have released no further information about them.

Hussain said many Pakistani immigrants moved out of tiny apartments cramped with relatives and now own multiple cars and houses and flourish financially. But over the years, he has also seen the seeds of radical Islam grow around him.

Despite the prosperity of some Muslims, statistics released by the government earlier this year showed that unemployment rates were higher among Muslims than for any other religion. Among Muslims aged 16 to 24, almost 28 percent were unemployed, compared with about 12 percent of Britons overall in that age group. Many here argue that isolation and disenchantment among young Muslims provides a fertile environment for extremist groups recruiting new members.

"Whoever teaches or preaches or brainwashes them, the police need to stop them," Hussain said.

Menzies Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats and a leading opponent of Blair's government, said the reasons young Muslims turn to violence are more complicated than simply economic and social disadvantages.

"I used to think it was about having a stake in society, about people having poor housing and poor education," he said. "But the more you look at it, explaining it away as a lack of a stake in the success of the country might not be the easy answer some people think it is."

'Democracy by Force'

"The root is foreign policy," said Bukhari, who has emerged in the past year as a leading voice of the young Muslim community. "Only a half-wit wouldn't understand that this is about" British and American policies in the Middle East.

Ahmed Versi, editor of the Muslim News, said he receives at least two e-mails a day with pictures of dead bodies: Muslims who have been killed in conflicts around the world -- most recently in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Hezbollah -- an effort widely seen here as backed by the United States and Britain. He said the photos are part of mass mailings to e-mail lists across the Muslim world, which inflame sentiments and aid recruiting by extremist groups.

"Young children torn to pieces, killed by the Israelis," Versi said. "Iraq is also a major cause. Young people see these pictures."

Ehsan Hannan, spokesman for the London Muslim Center, said British foreign policy, which she said advocates the "spread of democracy by force," was creating enough anger to push some people from anger to violence.

On Friday, several leading Muslim politicians and 38 Muslim groups, including the moderate Muslim Council of Britain, wrote to Blair calling for "urgent" changes to British foreign policy, arguing that the "debacle" of Iraq and other policies in the Middle East had put British civilians at risk at home and abroad.

On Friday afternoon, dozens of Muslim men came to the Darul Uloom Qadria Jalani mosque near the house of another Walthamstow suspect. After prayer services, many of the men denounced the British government, the United States and Israel -- which many see as allied against Islam.

"It's George Bush's policy that got us here today," said one worshiper, a law student, who declined to give his name. "It's his wars that have breeded the mentality and hate that is here today. And what we're angry about is that our Prime Minister Tony Blair doesn't represent the beliefs of the people."

Feeling Under Siege

On Sept. 11, 2001, Hussain was managing a retail electronics shop, surrounded by television sets that replayed the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon over and over. "It is still in my mind," he said.

Since that day, and especially since the bombings in London last year, many British Muslims have felt under siege, discriminated against and feared for having a beard or dressing in traditional Muslim clothing. When the news broke this week of the arrests in the alleged bomb plot, one of Hussain's two daughters, Afsheen, 15, asked him: "Why do they call them Muslim terrorists? Are we like that?"

Hussain said when he walks around the city, people look at him and draw conclusions about him because he is a Muslim. He said that angers him, but he has also felt suspicious of others. Last weekend, when his brother visited London, Hussain rode on the subway to Piccadilly and Trafalgar Square to go sightseeing. It was his first subway ride since the bombings last year. "I saw someone carrying a big bag and it did cross my mind, you know: There could be a bomb in there," he said. "If it was a bearded man, it would have been worse."

Still, many young Muslims believe they have been unfairly targeted by police. Scotland Yard released statistics on Friday showing that 1,047 people had been arrested under the Terrorism Act between September 2001 and the end of June. Of those, only 158 were eventually charged with offenses covered by the law. Officials did not say how many of those arrested were Muslims. But Muslim officials have complained that the vast majority of those arrested were Muslims, and that the low number of people charged suggests that most of the arrests were unwarranted.

Many Muslims have been especially skeptical of the police since last summer, when officers shot and killed an innocent Brazilian electrician they mistook for a terrorism suspect. Then in June, police conducted a massive raid in the Forest Gate neighborhood of East London and arrested two brothers they suspected of preparing a chemical attack on London. Police shot one of the brothers during the raid and later released the men with an apology, saying officers had acted on incorrect intelligence.

In East London on Friday, many people said that the police track record made them skeptical that the 23 suspects still in custody were guilty. "They said this was intelligence-driven and we have seen intelligence of the British," said Hamza Qureshi, 20, a student.

'Muslim First and Foremost'

"Britain became the center of gravity for militant causes in Europe in the latter half of the 1990s and this made a very solid base for radicalization," said Petter Nesser, an analyst at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment who studies radical Islamic networks in Europe.

Welcoming immigration regulations combined with strict European Union human rights standards have often made it tough for Britain to expel the most radical of the newcomers. While Britain in recent months has eased deportation laws to try to get rid of several clerics who advocated violence, human rights laws have prevented deportations to countries such as Syria and Algeria, where deportees could be subject to torture or other inhumane treatment.

Courts have repeatedly sided with nine Afghans who hijacked an Ariana Airlines plane in 2000, took its passengers and crew hostage and flew to Britain. They requested political asylum status, arguing they would be persecuted by the extremist Taliban government that was then in place. After serving relatively short jail terms, the men have won court decisions preventing their deportation to Afghanistan. Blair called such decisions an "abuse of common sense," but judges have responded that they are simply enforcing the law.

Blair and other British officials have also lamented the failure of many in the Muslim community to fully integrate into British society, preferring to live instead in neighborhoods where they rarely mix with others.

"The identity of Muslims in the U.K. is Muslim first and foremost and British second," Ranstorp said, echoing a recent Pew global survey of Muslim attitudes that found that 81 percent of British Muslims who responded agreed with that sentiment. Only Pakistan had a higher percentage of people who considered themselves Muslims first, the survey showed.

Correspondent Craig Whitlock and staff writer Anushka Asthana in Washington and special correspondent Alexandra Topping in Isle of Wight, England, contributed to this report.