None. This is Bernard Lewis fantasy.

But for a small percentage of the Muslim population, who you say are operating “under a lot of scrutiny” and on a “small budget” (911 didn’t cost much, ya know…), they are doing a lot of damage world wide. It only takes a small group of devotees to strap on bomb belts, take control of tribal villages and expand that little by little, or fly airliners into buildings.

They are hard to eradicate anywhere since fear often prohibits the locals’ cooperation. (i.e. NWFP, SWAT, portions of Iraq not long ago, N. Africa, etal) Amazingly effective for a “miniscule” group by using fear, backed up with weaponry. Saddam’s regime was far from a majority as well, yet that did not stop him from holding sway.

You might find this site informative… http://baheyeldin.com/writings/history/brief-notes-on-the-historical-and-modern-caliphate.html An Egyptian family blog. They have a page (the link above) on the historical and modern caliphate. As they say, it’s usually the quest of extremists. The ones you think have no power, no influence, and no financial backing.

No warrent, no email. FOIA is for getting a lot of redacted pages these days.

Ride well.

As my cyber-handle suggests, I’ve got some biker experience and quite often over the past 15 years had my own “habeas corpus” rights denied. And I’ve taken it to the courts pro per/per se each time… as have many of my friends.

Fact is abuse of habeas corpus didn’t start under this WH admin. Ignorance of your rights in our judicial system constitutes their very loss. So I guess my response to you as to whether it “bothers” me is … yes… Do I think it’s new problem that just cropped up? No. Is there legal remedy? Yes.

I think the “entire Constitution subverted” comment is a tad vague, and I shall just interpret that as your inherent frustration. We can all get that way.

It’s interesting you’d want to “secure” emails, speeches, internet (did I read that rightly?). Rather the opposite of the FOIA in concept, don’t you think? So I’m not sure where you’re going there.

I certainly think privacy for personal financial and medical (to name two) is important. But then, both are more apt to be confiscated by a hacker for monetary/criminal gain than by some overworked, over innundated US official who you believe may be blindly sifting for incriminating data on anyone. The manpower and time is not there to waste on unimportant targets. Just like, in the “drug war”, feds don’t take down petty small time dealers unless they’re trying for the big time importer. They triage.

In reality, there is no ultimate security or safety. And we can have laws… or no laws. With the first comes those who do not follow the laws anyway. With the second comes no legal remedy for the first when wronged. Kind of an ugly catch-22, so to speak.

But very happy to hear that you are not blind to the challenges, and do keep your ear to the ground.

So, what, exactly, does that mean in your mind - “bringing back the Caliphate”? What, in your mind,IS the Caliphate, in the historical sense? What do you think it is in the minds of the nut cases that you believe are trying to bring it back? What exactly would be involved in “brining back the Caliphate” - that is, what would be the scope and magnitude of such a project? What would it look like? What specific effects do you believe it would have to “bring back the Caliphate” - assuming that is even possible? How much of the world would that encompass? In what way would it be worse than the situation in the world now?

And what is the probability that this tiny band of Muslim wack jobs with no real power operating under a lot of scrutiny and on a small budget could succeed in “bringing back the Caliphate” anywhere, let alone on any kind of significant scale?

And what is the probability of a tiny band of Muslim wack jobs with no real power operating under a lot of scrutiny and on a small budget “bringing back the Caliphate”, compared to the probability of a far, far larger group of Christian wack jobs, who have managed to achieve great power and enormous wealth managing to bring about something that looks an awfully lot like the Apocalypse?

Stephanopolous: “Do you think President Bush is lying?”

McD: “I believe the president would mislead the American people in order to get us into a war with Iraq”

Then McD was vilified as “Baghdad Jim” even though every single thing he predicted has come true!

I’d say Bonoir has more than proven his liberal/progressive bona fides. He was a good congressman and I was glad to see when he joined the Edwards campaign.

Note for those who revile Ken Pollack as I do:

He and McD held a debate in the fall of 2002 in Seattle about the coming Iraq War. Pollack became completely unhinged when McD predicted the administration was not interested in inspections, but was plannina full-out assault on Iraq, and that it was likely that, before this war was over, we would see guerilla fighting (Iraqi insurgency) and about a million dead Iraqi civilians.

Pollack threw a little tantrum and I really thought he was going to cry.

What makes me cry is that McD was, in fact, right about every single one of those predictions.

I can’t look at the photos of Abu Graib anymore. I feel the same horror as when I look at photos of Holocaust victims, or lynchings of blacks in America.

So, I can come here and put in my two cents without getting attacked and labeled as a “troll” or a “sexist” (which was always ridiculous to have to tolerate over there, considering that I’m a woman.)

And yes, you will notice some of those commenters are now showing up here because they think this is the only blog in the entire blogosphere that also supports their candidate. I actually read some comments over there to the tune of “I can’t ever trust Josh Marshall again! He’s such a hyposcrite! I will NEVER go to TPM or Kos or C&L again!” Believe me, there’s a whole lotta whining goin’ on.

The arguement you make infers “I have nothing to hide, so its ok.” that permits a very dangeous slow disintergration of our constitutional rights.

Is it ok that a US citizen can and have been rendered on US soil, without Haebus Corpus?

Is it ok that our 1st 4th 5th, oh hell the entire constitution has been subverted / suspended to “stop the Caliphate quest.”

Tell me what difference you personally have experienced in your life?

The fact that our use of speech, the internet, email and personal property, financial records are not secure has caused me to make changes in the way I lead my life. But it is not about “I or ME ” In my view it is about “US” as a nation. “You don’t know what you got until it is gone” is not a road we , as a nation can afford to go down.

I am not blind to the challenges you point out, but not at the expense of our Constitution.

Malbrunot, one of the two French journalists held hostage for 124 days back in 2004 was shown a map by one of his captors that laid out the Caliphate territory they sought… from Andulusia (Spain) to the border with China. Lots of Europe in that path, unfortunately. The IHT had an article/interview with Malbrunot that is no longer available on the original link, but here is an archived quote from that article.

_____

His jailers’ references to bin Laden were frequent, he said. A guard insisted to Malbrunot that it was the Christians who were waging war against the Muslims. “Our objective,” the jailer went on, sketching a European map of the future that squares with Al Qaeda’s notions, “is to overthrow all the Arab rulers, and to return to the caliphate [Islamic rule] from Andalusia [Spain] to the border with China.”

_____

Even many Muslims, not necessarily of the jihadist flavor, look to a UMC (Union of Muslim Countries). http://1muslimnation.wordpress.com/2006/08/13/a-proposal-to-unite-muslim-world-a-union-of-muslim-countries-umc/ Not sure how they would designate a state as a Muslim country if it were not Islamic/Sharia law governed. Then what happens to the infidels there? Lots of Taliban/Afghanistans we do not need.

If you choose to believe the Islamic Caliphate is a figment of the world’s imagination, you are certainly free to do so. However I sure hope you aren’t involved in the intel/strategy biz for this nation. Ignoring their oft stated goals is not in the best interest for any of us.

1: relative opulance compared to other countries. Our standard of living here is not equalled in most parts of the world. Our “poverty” level includes TVs, DVDs, cell phones, vehicles…. The American lifestyle is far from the norm. Although we are certainly a self-absorbed nation who too often assumes the rest of the world lives and should think the way we do.

2: Suicide bomber free at the moment… I have sacrificed no discernable liberty in my daily life. Then again, I don’t have terrorists calling me.

And what liberties have you *personally* lost for such diligence by others? Can you still not speak your thoughts? Travel where you wish? Have you lost your library card? Has someone shown up at your door to ask you of a phone conversation you had, or a book you checked out? Or has taking your shoes off at airports really gotten to you? Tell me what difference you personally have experienced in your life? Or is your indignation founded on just reading media reports about possible abuse (as if the intel folks had time to waste with petty-infractions)?

3: military and intel brain trusts must be doing something right because we are all still here, and (so far) no more attacks on homeland soil. Granted, it’s far from perfect, and too many old guard military/intel brain trusts still clinging to old notions. But we slowly making headway in intel improvement (of which we had virtually none in the 90s).

And I believe younger blood, more conducive to dealing with the very different type of warfare and stateless enemy we face, will increase - replacing that old guard. Changes do not happen overnight… and some may prove ineffective. But our attentions to improvement are well placed for the times.

But I suggest that, again by comparison to other parts of the world, your and my days aren’t filled with stress about car and suicide bombs. (x fingers it will stay that way.) Our threats come mostly from internal human idiocy and envy… drunk drivers, highway accidents, crime for financial gain, etc.

matahrley- i don’t live in the middle east. I could care less what happens there.

And this one hasn’t?!

Actually, this one has been more like “Obama sucks, so you better support Hillary”. And Edwards almost might as well not exist, despite Larry’s claims that he supports him rather than Hillary.

Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

(P.S. CNN just announced that they are replaying last night’s ABC/Facebook debates — tonight.)

Told locals here thaty Obama was just playing the GWB talking points from ‘99 and 2000, now you cans ee so.

No wonder the media swoons over him so!

Empty Suit 2.0 = Barack Obama’08