"Nº 2 da Al-Qaeda diz que o fim do Ocidente está eminente" in CNN, 5 de Julho de 2007

In a newly released videotaped message similar to a "fireside chat," al Qaeda's second-in-command issues advice and directives for the Muslim world, terrorism expert Laura Mansfield said Wednesday.

In the one-hour, 34-minute video, titled "The Advice of One Concerned," Ayman al-Zawahiri includes clips from other videos and news broadcasts, including one from al-Furqan, the video production arm of the Islamic State of Iraq, according to Mansfield, who obtained the video.

Al-Zawahiri says in the message that the defeat of the West is imminent, and that "the enemy" is trying to forestall the inevitable, Mansfield said.

"The good omens of the new dawn of victory have begun to loom on the horizon, with Allah's permission and will," he says.

"And the stage preceding victory is normally, in the history of nations, the stage in which there is most seen an increase in conspiracies, plots and inciting of discord in an attempt by the enemy, who has begun to see his defeat approach, to push back and delay the defeat as much as he can."

Al-Zawahiri does not reference the recent terrorism incidents in the United Kingdom in the video.

Mansfield said it appears to be more of a "state of the ummah [community]" style of address "intended to try and provide advice to the Muslim world in a manner similar to the 'fireside chat.' "

Al-Zawahiri advises people in Iraq and the Palestinian territory, Mansfield said, and renews his call for young men to join the jihad in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Included is a video clip of the late Sheikh Abdullah Azzam -- an extremist in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation -- reminding Muslims that jihad is their responsibility.

Al-Zawahiri also rebukes Fatah for battling Hamas in the Palestinian territory, telling party members to "return to your religion, your Islam, your honor and your Arabness."

Last month, al-Zawahiri, in an audiotaped message posted on several Islamist Web sites, voiced his support for Hamas leaders who maintain control of Gaza after a split with Fatah, a more moderate Palestinian faction.

"We say to you, now that you are in control of Gaza, you should remember two things: One is that being in power is not a goal in itself, but the goal is, rather, to implement the rule of Allah," al-Zawahiri said in that audiotape, according to a CNN translation.

"Two, this control is incomplete and unstable, for the [Israeli] plans are being made to invade Gaza. Unite with your mujahedeen brothers in Palestine and do not stir up problems with them.

"Unite your ranks with all of the mujahedeen in the world for the upcoming battle [of Gaza] that I expect the Egyptians and Saudis to participate in."

The audiotaped message was a reversal of al-Zawahiri's previous criticism of Hamas, issued after its leaders agreed to form a unity government with Fatah leaders.

Hamas fighters wrested control of Gaza from Fatah security forces two weeks ago, prompting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, based in the West Bank, to replace the Hamas leadership with an emergency government.

Since then, the United States, the European Union and Israel have agreed to release funds to the new Palestinian government. The money had been frozen after Hamas won legislative elections last year.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/07/04/zawahiri.video/index.html
JPTF 2007/07/05

"O amplo apelo do Islão militante" in BBC News, 4 de Julho de 2007

por Magdi Abdelhadi

The news that many of the suspects in the failed car bomb attacks in Britain are medical doctors from the Middle East has shocked many and raised questions about connections between class, education and militant Islam.

There is a popular misperception that only the destitute or ill-educated are drawn to the ranks of militant Islamic organisations. But nothing could be further from the known facts. It is true that the appeal of political Islam - from the militant to the more moderate versions - is quite strong among the poor, because it promises a just and equitable society free from corruption and oppression. But the leaders and the middle echelons of such groups are often well-educated middle class men. The 19 young men behind the 9/11 attacks on Washington and New York six years ago were middle class university graduates or students. Not to mention, of course, the leader of al-Qaeda himself, Osama Bin Laden, the son of a Saudi billionaire, and his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian-trained doctor from a very well-known and respected middle class family in Cairo. Many of the leaders of Palestinian Islamist groups, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, are either medical doctors, engineers or university professors. And the oldest and most influential movement of political Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, whose doctrine is blamed for the mushrooming militant groups across the world, is largely an organisation of middle class professionals.

Islamic 'utopia'
Islamist groups are not only transnational in ambition, with members who do not recognise national boundaries, but they also have a wider appeal across the class barrier. The lure of an Islamic utopia, where justice and virtue prevail according to a puritanical version of Islam, is too strong to resist for rich and poor alike. For many it is an end that justifies any means. Some believe that their 'Islamic utopia' is not only an answer to the problems of their own societies, but for the entire world
It is an idea that has an enormous appeal for the masses in Middle Eastern states lacking in freedom, social justice and the promise of a fulfilling existence. It is particularly attractive for young idealists who want to make the world a better place. While far-left groups during the 1960s and 70s (such as Bader-Meinhof in Germany and the Red Brigades in Italy) justified violence on the grounds they were battling an evil capitalist order, young Islamist militants feel justified in their jihad against what they see as an immoral and oppressive world order. The lawyers, the engineers, the doctors and the students who once led the struggle for national liberation against colonial powers are again the standard-bearers of a movement that claims to have a cure for all the ills of their societies. However, some Islamists are more ambitious and believe that their "Islamic utopia" is not only an answer to the problems of their own societies, but for the entire world, including the "decadent West". Ironically, their global ambition has become all the more visible because of the very global forces they wish to vanquish, including of course America's global "war on terror".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6267194.stm
JPTF 2007/07/04

"Brown: Não digas que os terroristas são muçulmanos" in Daily Express, 3 de Julho de 2007

Gordon Brown has banned ministers from using the word “Muslim” in ­connection with the terrorism crisis. The Prime Minister has also instructed his team – including new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith – that the phrase “war on terror” is to be dropped. The shake-up is part of a fresh attempt to improve community relations and avoid offending Muslims, adopting a more “consensual” tone than existed under Tony Blair. However, the change provoked claims last night that ministers are indulging in yet more political correctness. The sudden shift in tone emerged in comments by Mr Brown and Ms Smith in the wake of the failed attacks in London and Glasgow. Mr Brown’s spokesman acknowledged yesterday that ministers had been given specific guidelines to avoid inflammatory language. There is clearly a need to strike a consensual tone in relation to all communities across the UK

Mr Brown’s spokesman
“There is clearly a need to strike a consensual tone in relation to all communities across the UK,” the spokesman said. “It is important that the country remains united.” He confirmed that the phrase “war on terror” – strongly associated with Mr Blair and US President George Bush – has been dropped. Officials insist that no direct links with Muslim extremists have been publicly confirmed by police investigating the latest attempted terror attacks. Mr Brown himself did not refer to Muslims or Islam once in a BBC TV interview on Sunday. Ms Smith also avoided any such reference in her statement to She said: “Let us be clear – terrorists are criminals, whose victims come from all walks of life, communities and religions. Terrorists attack the values shared by all law-abiding citizens. As a Government, as communities, as individuals, we need to ensure that the message of the terrorists is rejected.” Tory backbencher Philip Davies said: “I don’t know what purpose is served by this. I don’t think we need pussyfoot around when talking about terrorism.” But former Tory homeland security spokesman Patrick Mercer said: “This is quite a smart idea. We know that the vast majority of Muslims are not involved in terrorism and we have to accept there are sensitivities about these matters.”
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/12172
JPTF 2007/07/04

"Não em nosso nome" in Guardian, 3 de Julho de 2007

por Asim Siddiqui

Blaming UK foreign policy is not the answer. Where are the Muslim marches in revulsion against acts of terror in Islam's name?

The events of the last few days have been sobering for us all. The response from some UK Muslim groups (influenced by Islamist thinking) is still largely to blame foreign policy (undoubtedly an exacerbating influence but not the cause), rather than marching "not in my name" in revulsion against terrorist acts committed in Islam's name. By blaming foreign policy they try to divert pressure off themselves from the real need to tackle extremism being peddled within. Diverting attention away from the problems within Muslim communities and blaming others - especially the west - is always more popular than the difficult task of self-scrutiny. And what part of foreign policy do the Islamists want us to change to tackle terrorism? Withdrawal from Iraq?

The UK presence on the ground in Iraq is minuscule compared to the US. We currently have 5,500 troops from 40,000 at the start of the invasion. We will reduce them further to 5,000 by the end of the summer. The bulk of which will be located near Basra airport in a supporting role. Next year will likely see the numbers dwindle even further. Our troop presence is far more symbolic than military. It provides the Americans with their "coalition of the willing". The US, by contrast, is the only serious occupier in the country with over 160,000 troops. The government will not (and cannot) admit it, but we have been in withdrawal mode since the end of the war.

And once we've left Iraq, will they be satisfied? Of course not. Their list of grievances is endless: Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestine, Burma ... so long as the world is presented as one where the west is forever at war with Islam and Muslims there is nothing we can do to appease the terrorists and those who share their world view. Instead it is this extremist world view that must change.

Take for example the idea that radical Islamists are concerned about Muslim life (let's ignore human life in general for a moment). Where is their outrage at the 400,000 Muslims slaughtered in Darfur? Where are the marches and calls for action against this ongoing genocide? Where is the "Muslim anger" boiling up amongst British Islamists? It is nowhere to be seen because the Darfurians have been massacred by fellow Muslims, not by the west. Hence it does not appear on the Islamist radar screen as a "grievance". Such is the moral bankruptcy of this ideology.

No, it's not foreign policy that's the main driver in combating the terrorists; it is their mindset. The radical Islamist ideology needs to be exposed to young Muslims for what it really is. A tool for the introduction of a medieval form of governance that describes itself as an "Islamic state" that is violent, retrogressive, discriminatory, a perversion of the sacred texts and a totalitarian dictatorship.

When the IRA was busy blowing up London, there would have been little point in Irish "community leaders" urging "all" citizens to cooperate with the police equally when it was obvious the problem lay specifically within Irish communities. Likewise for Muslim "community leaders" to condemn terrorism is a no-brainer. What is required is for those that claim to represent and have influence among young British Muslims to proactively counter the extremist Islamist narrative. That is the biggest challenge for British Muslim leadership over the next five to 10 years. It is because they are failing to rise to this challenge that the government feels it needs to act by further eroding our civil liberties with anti-terror legislation to get the state to do what Muslims should be doing themselves. If British Muslim groups focus on grassroots de-radicalisation then this will provide civil liberty groups the space they need to argue against any further anti-terror legislation.

Of course I would like to see changes in our foreign policy and have marched on the streets (with thousands of non-Muslims) in protest on many occasions. But blaming foreign policy in the face of suicide attacks is not only tactless but a cop-out that fails to tackle extremism, fails to promote an ethical foreign policy and fails to protect our civil liberties.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/asim_siddiqui/2007/07/not_in_our_name.html
JPTF 2007/07/03

"O que está por detrás deste terror?" in Jornal de Notícias, 3 de Julho de 2007

1. Os últimos dias de Junho ficaram assinalados no Reino Unido por tentativas frustradas de atentados terroristas em Londres e Glasgow. Embora ainda não haja certezas quanto aos autores, os indícios conhecidos sugerem estarmos na presença de acções ligadas aos meios islamistas-jhiadistas, aparentemente infiltrados no país através do Médio Oriente e inspirados no modelo da al-Qaeda. Face a estes acontecimentos surge uma questão: quais as razões mais profundas por detrás destes actos de terror?

2. Num texto surpreendente publicado no Guardian o ex-islamista e jihadista britânico Hassan Butt faz um apelo veemente à renúncia ao terror afirmando que "matar em nome do Islão não é mais do que um anacronismo". Relatando a sua experiência, refere que lhes "era ensinado por predicadores britânicos e paquistaneses radicais" que a reclassificação do globo como "Terra da Guerra (Dar ul-Harb) permite a qualquer muçulmano destruir a santidade dos cinco direitos que a cada ser humano são garantidos sob o Islão: vida, bem-estar, terra, pensamento e crença. No Dar ul-Harb vale tudo, incluindo a traição e a cobardia de matar civis".

3. Este relato mostra a complexidade do problema. Por isso, há uma separação que urge traçar entre os muçulmanos que querem viver a sua vida normalmente e praticar pacificamente a sua religião (o Islão) e os que se apropriam para fins políticos do Corão e dos Ahadith. Estes últimos desenvolveram uma ideologia política radical (o islamismo), que no seu extremo violento (o jihadismo) usa o terror. Este é o legado que as actuais e futuras gerações vão ter de enfrentar.
http://jn.sapo.pt/2007/07/03/mundo/o_esta_detras_deste_terror.html
JPTF 2007/07/03

"Pelo menos seis turistas espanhóis morreram num ataque terrorista com carro bomba no Iémen" in ABC 2 de Julho de 2007

Al menos seis turistas españoles han muerto -siete según la policía yemení- y otros siete han resultado heridos tras la explosión de un coche bomba en la provincia de Mareb, zona turística situada a 190 kilómetros de la capital yemení. El ataque, provocado por un terrorista suicida, tenía como blanco un convoy en el que viajaban 14 turistas. Dos personas de nacionalidad yemení han perdido también la vida. Los turistas españoles partieron el día 30 de junio desde Madrid, Barcelona y Bilbao en un viaje organizado por Viajes Banoa para visitar Yemen, que se ofrece como el 'País de la Reina de Saba'. El tour -cuyo precio supera los 2.000 euros- estaba programado para un grupo de entre seis y quince personas, más un guía, y la duración era de 25 días.

Vinculación con Al Qaeda
Por el momento nadie se ha responsabilizado del ataque, aunque la Policía del país lo atribuye a la red terrorista Al Qaeda, que tiene una importante presencia en la región, lugar de origen de la familia de Osama Bin Laden. Al Qaeda ya fue responsabilizada del atentado del año 2000 contra el USS Cole en Aden, en el que murieron 17 marinos estadounidenses, y contra un petrolero francés, que provocó la muerte a una persona en 2002. El embajador español en Yemen, Marcos Vega Gómez, se encuentra en estos momentos de camino al lugar donde ha ocurrido el atentado. El ministro de Asuntos Exteriores, Miguel Angel Moratinos, comparecerá ante los medios de comunicación a las 19:30 horas en la sede del Ministerio.

Advertencias de Exteriores
El Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores advierte, en su página en Internet, de que existe riesgo de atentados terroristas en algunas zonas de Yemen, por lo que recomienda "máxima vigilancia" a la hora de emprender un viaje a este país. "Existe riesgo de acciones terroristas y algunas tribus recurren al secuestro de ciudadanos extranjeros para conseguir algún trato de favor del Gobierno. Por ello, se desaconseja vivamente visitar el país sin el concurso de una agencia de viajes de confianza", indica el Ministerio.

16 turistas muertos desde 1994
Dieciséis españoles han muerto desde 1994 en el extranjero, víctimas de atentados contra turistas, incluidos los seis fallecidos hoy en Yemen. El último atentado en el que se vieron afectados españoles se produjo en la Casa de España de Casablanca el 16 de mayo de 2.
http://www.abc.es/20070702/internacional-internacional/menos-cuatro-muertos-siete_200707021716.html
JPTF 2007/07/02

"Programa do ‘Rato Mickey‘ do Hamas acaba: Farfur foi martirizado por um ‘agente israelita‘" in BBC News, 1 de Julho de 2007

The Hamas-affiliated al-Aqsa channel aired the last episode on Friday, showing the character, Farfur, being beaten to death by an "Israeli agent". "Farfur was martyred defending his land," said the show's presenter Saraa. Israeli critics had said the show was outrageous and some Palestinian ministers tried to get it shelved. In the final broadcast an actor said to be an Israeli agent tries to buy the land of the squeaky-voiced Mickey Mouse lookalike. Farfur brands the Israeli a "terrorist" and is beaten to death. He was killed "by the killers of children", Saraa says. Al-Aqsa television told the Associated Press news agency the show, Tomorrow's Pioneers, was making way for new programmes.

'Indoctrination'
The channel had ignored demands from Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti for the show to be stopped. Mr Barghouti said it "was wrong to use a programme directed at children to convey political messages". In an earlier show, Farfur had said: "You and I are laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists. "We will return the Islamic community to its former greatness, and liberate Jerusalem, God willing, liberate Iraq, God willing, and liberate all the countries of the Muslims invaded by the murderers." The Israeli organisation, Palestinian Media Watch, said Farfur took "every opportunity to indoctrinate young viewers with teachings of Islamic supremacy".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6257594.stm
JPTF 2007/07/01

"Esposas temporárias ou prostitutas?" in El Pais, 1 de Julho de 2007

Mehdieh y Siavosh se han prometido amor... por un mes. Así se lo permite el matrimonio temporal (sigheh) que contempla el islam chií. Pero ni siquiera su incorporación a la ley tras la Revolución Islámica ha logrado vencer los recelos que suscita en la sociedad iraní, tal como ha probado la polémica desatada por las recientes declaraciones de un ministro partidario de promoverlo. Dado que en Irán las relaciones sexuales fuera del matrimonio están prohibidas y penadas, el sigheh ofrece una cobertura legal a jóvenes como Mehdieh y Siavosh que no pueden afrontar una boda. Sin embargo, muchos iraníes temen que sirva para promocionar la prostitución.

Maryam hace un gesto de desconfianza cuando la periodista le menciona el matrimonio temporal. "Sí, en el islam existe esa posibilidad, pero en nuestros días las mujeres lo rechazan", explica. Más allá de cuestiones religiosas, el énfasis que la sociedad iraní pone en la virginidad de las novias (con chequeo ginecológico incluido) convierte la opción en una hipoteca de su futuro. Aunque nadie hace alarde de ello, el sigheh es aceptado para viudas y divorciadas, pero una virgen necesita el permiso de su padre, algo altamente improbable.

"Nosotros hemos sorteado esa dificultad porque mi padre está enfermo", confía Mehdieh, de 23 años y a punto de concluir sus estudios universitarios. "De acuerdo con el islam, basta con nuestro compromiso personal; es la sociedad la que nos exige firmar un documento", añade Siavosh, de 28, un hombre muy religioso que parece bastante incómodo con el arreglo. Su trabajo en un puesto de kebabs no le da para alquilar un piso, una condición sin la cual no puede pedir la mano de Mehdieh. "Si tuviera el dinero, iría ahora mismo a hablar con su familia", asegura. De momento, mantienen su matrimonio en secreto.

Su angustia es compartida por millones de jóvenes. Por un lado, la ley islámica vigente en Irán prohíbe las relaciones sexuales fuera del matrimonio. Por otro, el paro (que oficialmente ronda un 10%, pero que muchos economistas sitúan en un 30%) y las dificultades económicas han retrasado la edad de la boda. Según las autoridades la media es de 23 años para las mujeres y de 26 para los hombres, pero un reciente estudio del Comité de Ayuda Imam Jomeini afirma que en las zonas rurales, sacudidas por una fuerte emigración masculina a las ciudades, las mujeres se están casando a los 30. La mitad de la población está por debajo de esa edad.

Con ese trasfondo, el ministro del Interior, el hoyatoleslam Mustafa Purmohamadi, sugirió a principios del mes pasado promover el sigheh entre los jóvenes para evitar "los problemas sociales que se derivan de la imposibilidad económica para contraer matrimonio". Su propuesta desató tal polémica que el portavoz del Gobierno, Gholamhosein Elham se vio obligado a tomar distancias. "No es una idea de la administración. El ministro se expresó en su calidad de clérigo", dijo. Hace 15 años ya hubo un intento oficial de promover el matrimonio temporal como alternativa a las relaciones extramaritales, pero la reacción social obligó a retirarlo.

"Quienes lo critican es por falta de conocimiento", asegura el hoyatoleslam Ali Teimuri, un clérigo autorizado a firmar contratos matrimoniales, que señala las condiciones de la costumbre. "El hombre no puede desatender a su esposa, si ya está casado, y debe contribuir al pago de los gastos corrientes de su nueva pareja". El islam permite el matrimonio hasta con cuatro mujeres, algo cada vez más infrecuente en Irán. No hay limitación para el número de sigheh, una institución que sólo acepta la rama chií de esa religión.

¿Y si una joven universitaria virgen a la que su novio ha propuesto un matrimonio temporal le pide consejo? "Le preguntaría si ve un futuro en esa relación, si cree que puede desembocar en algo permanente y la formación de una familia", responde. "Pero si el chico sólo pretende disfrutar de su cuerpo, entonces le aconsejaría que no destruya su vida". No sólo la suya. Los posibles hijos de esas relaciones quedan a expensas del reconocimiento paterno, a falta de lo cual se les considera ilegítimos y carecen de derecho a la herencia.

"Renovamos nuestro compromiso ante Dios de mes en mes para no olvidarnos de nuestro acuerdo", interviene Siavosh cuando se menciona esa posibilidad. "Somos adultos, pensamos en el futuro". Mehdieh confía en Siavosh y la actitud cariñosa y protectora de éste, que en todo momento se refiere a ella como "mi mujer", parece respaldarla.

Otros han buscado una aplicación más utilitaria del sigheh. Una agencia de viajes ha anunciado vacaciones en el Mar Caspio para las parejas que deseen un matrimonio temporal. El paquete incluye alojamiento y un clérigo para registrar el contrato. Y es que ocasionalmente algunas jóvenes liberadas también utilizan la fórmula para viajar con sus novios y poder dormir en la misma habitación de hotel, o evitarse problemas con la policía moral

Pecados legalizados
El hoyatoleslam Ali Teimuri, clérigo autorizado a firmar contratos matrimoniales, trata de explicar las bondades de esta polémica entre los iraníes. "Si uno pasa delante de las universidades, los institutos o los parques, ve a chicos y chicas que hablan y se tocan. No sólo pasa en Irán sino en todas partes. El islam dice que hay que legalizar esa relación para que no sea pecado (haram)", expone, "no podemos castigar a los jóvenes por esa necesidad".

Teimuri compara el sigheh con una medicina. "Al enfermo no le gusta tomarla, pero ve que le ayuda", argumenta. En su opinión, "las mujeres están sensibles al respecto; tenemos que trabajar para que lo acepten sin que ninguna se ofenda". Para él, se trata de una forma de matrimonio tan legítima como el convencional.

"No se trata sólo de que el hombre siga sus impulsos sexuales, sino también de atender las necesidades afectivas de la mujer y de ayudarla en sus necesidades económicas", precisa el religioso. Teimuri rechaza además un sigheh por horas. "Eso no es aceptable. No les daría tiempo ni a salir de mi despacho; para una semana, no tendría problemas, pero por dos horas no es lógico".
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/Esposas/temporales/prostitutas/elpepuint/20070701elpepisoc_6/Tes
JPTF 2007/07/01

"O meu apelo aos meus companheiros muçulmanos: devem renunciar ao terror" in Observer, 1 de Julho de 2007

por Hassan Butt

As the bombers return to Britain, Hassan Butt, who was once a member of radical group Al-Muhajiroun, raising funds for extremists and calling for attacks on British citizens, explains why he was wrong.

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy. By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology. Friday's attempt to cause mass destruction in London with strategically placed car bombs is so reminiscent of other recent British Islamic extremist plots that it is likely to have been carried out by my former peers. And as with previous terror attacks, people are again articulating the line that violence carried out by Muslims is all to do with foreign policy. For example, yesterday on Radio 4's Today programme, the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said: 'What all our intelligence shows about the opinions of disaffected young Muslims is the main driving force is not Afghanistan, it is mainly Iraq.' He then refused to acknowledge the role of Islamist ideology in terrorism and said that the Muslim Brotherhood and those who give a religious mandate to suicide bombings in Palestine were genuinely representative of Islam. I left the BJN in February 2006, but if I were still fighting for their cause, I'd be laughing once again. Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the 7 July bombings, and I were both part of the BJN - I met him on two occasions - and though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslim across the world, what drove me and many of my peers to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain, our own homeland and abroad, was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary state that would eventually bring Islamic justice to the world. How did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting this (flawed) utopian goal? How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion? There isn't enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a dualistic model of the world. Many Muslims may or may not agree with secularism but at the moment, formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion. There is no 'rendering unto Caesar' in Islamic theology because state and religion are considered to be one and the same. The centuries-old reasoning of Islamic jurists also extends to the world stage where the rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) have been set down to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war. What radicals and extremists do is to take these premises two steps further. Their first step has been to reason that since there is no Islamic state in existence, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr. Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world. Many of my former peers, myself included, were taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief. In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians. This understanding of the global battlefield has been a source of friction for Muslims living in Britain. For decades, radicals have been exploiting these tensions between Islamic theology and the modern secular state for their benefit, typically by starting debate with the question: 'Are you British or Muslim?' But the main reason why radicals have managed to increase their following is because most Islamic institutions in Britain just don't want to talk about theology. They refuse to broach the difficult and often complex topic of violence within Islam and instead repeat the mantra that Islam is peace, focus on Islam as personal, and hope that all of this debate will go away. This has left the territory of ideas open for radicals to claim as their own. I should know because, as a former extremist recruiter, every time mosque authorities banned us from their grounds, it felt like a moral and religious victory. Outside Britain, there are those who try to reverse this two-step revisionism.

A handful of scholars from the Middle East has tried to put radicalism back in the box by saying that the rules of war devised by Islamic jurists were always conceived with the existence of an Islamic state in mind, a state which would supposedly regulate jihad in a responsible Islamic fashion. In other words, individual Muslims don't have the authority to go around declaring global war in the name of Islam. But there is a more fundamental reasoning that has struck me and a number of other people who have recently left radical Islamic networks as a far more potent argument because it involves stepping out of this dogmatic paradigm and recognising the reality of the world: Muslims don't actually live in the bipolar world of the Middle Ages any more. The fact is that Muslims in Britain are citizens of this country. We are no longer migrants in a Land of Unbelief. For my generation, we were born here, raised here, schooled here, we work here and we'll stay here. But more than that, on a historically unprecedented scale, Muslims in Britain have been allowed to assert their religious identity through clothing, the construction of mosques, the building of cemeteries and equal rights in law. However, it isn't enough for Muslims to say that because they feel at home in Britain they can simply ignore those passages of the Koran which instruct on killing unbelievers. By refusing to challenge centuries-old theological arguments, the tensions between Islamic theology and the modern world grow larger every day. It may be difficult to swallow but the reason why Abu Qatada - the Islamic scholar whom Palestinian militants recently called to be released in exchange for the kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston - has a following is because he is extremely learned and his religious rulings are well argued. His opinions, though I now thoroughly disagree with them, have validity within the broad canon of Islam. Since leaving the BJN, many Muslims have accused me of being a traitor. If I knew of any impending attack, then I would have no hesitation in going to the police, but I have not gone to the authorities, as some reports have suggested, and become an informer. I believe that the issue of terrorism can be easily demystified if Muslims and non-Muslims start openly to discuss the ideas that fuel terrorism. (The Muslim community in Britain must slap itself awake from this state of denial and realise there is no shame in admitting the extremism within our families, communities and worldwide co-religionists.) However, demystification will not be achieved if the only bridges of engagement that are formed are between the BJN and the security services. If our country is going to take on radicals and violent extremists, Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims whose homes and souls are firmly planted in what I'd like to term the Land of Co-existence. And when this new theological territory is opened up, Western Muslims will be able to liberate themselves from defunct models of the world, rewrite the rules of interaction and perhaps we will discover that the concept of killing in the name of Islam is no more than an anachronism.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2115832,00.html
JPTF 2007/01/07

"Ameaça terrorista ‘crítica‘ na sequência do atentado em Glasgow" in Guardian, 1 de Julho de 2007

Britain was braced last night for a fresh wave of terrorist attacks as the national threat level was raised to 'critical' following an attempted car bombing of Glasgow airport.
Just four days into his premiership, Gordon Brown was dealing with the most dangerous situation facing Britain since the attacks on London in July 2005. Police and intelligence officers confirmed that there was a direct link between the Scottish attack and the attempting car bombing of London on Friday - confirming the reality of a renewed UK offensive by Islamic extremists. Last night the Prime Minister summoned intelligence chiefs and ministers to a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee in Whitehall to discuss the deteriorating security situation. It was agreed to raise the threat level to the highest degree possible, a decision that confirmed another attack is expected imminently. In a televised address from Downing Street, a sombre-faced Brown urged people to be 'vigilant' and support the police and security services. He said: 'I know that the British people will stand together, united, resolute and strong.' As night fell, armed police began stopping vehicles entering airports throughout the UK after warnings were circulated that a nationwide terror cell is preparing more attacks. Liverpool and Glasgow airports were closed down. At 3.11pm, a Jeep Cherokee wreathed in flames crashed into the doors of the main terminal building at Glasgow. Driven by two 'Asian-looking' men, it came to a halt as they threw petrol over it and appeared to try to detonate the vehicle. With the help of bystanders, the two men were overpowered and arrested. One was fighting for his life last night, after throwing petrol over himself and setting it alight. There was a further twist last night as the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, where the man was being treated, was evacuated after a suspect device was found. Strathclyde Police later said that the man had possibly been wearing a suicide belt.

The Jeep attack, bearing the hallmarks, police said, of an al-Qaeda plot, came 36 hours after extremists attempted a double car bomb attack in the heart of London's West End using two Mercedes packed with petrol, nails and 'patio gas' canisters. The attacks appeared to have slipped completely under the radar of the security services. Amid concern over further attacks, police also said that they were stepping up the hunt for five terror suspects who have evaded control orders. In a day of dramatic developments, intelligence sources confirmed the attack on Glasgow airport appeared to be aimed at killing passengers setting off at the start of the Scottish school holidays. The British attacks prompted the White House to tighten security at US airports. As with the failed London attack, the explosives and gas canisters which appeared to be in the Jeep did not detonate, a stroke of fortune that may again have saved the lives of hundreds. Witnesses described chaotic scenes as the Jeep sped towards the terminal entrance. Robin Patterson, 42, of Rochester, Kent, saw the car burst into flames. 'There was an enormous explosion and it really was a big explosion,' he said. 'The guy next to the car, his skin and clothes just fell off him. He was like an absolute lunatic.' Another described one of the men throwing punches at police while screaming: 'Allah, Allah.' The Prime Minister's new terrorism adviser, Lord Stevens, said last night: 'Make no mistake, this weekend's bomb attacks signal a major escalation in the war being waged on us by Islamic terrorists. Now it is clear a loose but deadly network of interlinked operational cells has developed.' Meanwhile in London, a massive investigation into what could have been Britain's most deadly terror attack widened last night. Police and intelligence sources told The Observer that they were now investigating the existence of an Islamic terror cell in the capital. One major branch of the inquiry is tracking down a number of terror suspects who have slipped their control orders, a development that raises fresh questions over their effectiveness. One man being sought is Lamine Adam, 26, who, in evidence at the recent Crevice terror trial that saw five jailed for plotting fertiliser bomb attacks in the UK, allegedly boasted of targeting nightclubs. One of the Mercedes cars involved in the attack was left outside the busy Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket, in the centre of the West End. The other Mercedes was found in a nearby street. Other men urgently wanted by police are his brother Ibrahim, 20, and Cerie Bullivant, 24, who have also evaded control orders. The government's independent reviewer of anti-terror legislation, Lord Carlile, has said that there is 'solid evidence' that the trio had wanted to join insurgents abroad and attack British troops serving in Iraq. Security sources said it remains 'possible' that the men were involved in the attempt to bring carnage to London.

After being briefed on the progress of the police investigation, the new Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, released a statement urging greater vigilance. It read: 'The police are clear that the most important contribution that the public can make is to carry on reporting anything suspicious and to remain vigilant. I must stress we must not let the threat of terror stop us getting on with our lives.' The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, reiterated that the capital faced 'a very real threat' and called on Londoners to be 'vigilant'. Hundreds of extra police were drafted on to the streets to step up security and to reassure the public. The Gay Pride Festival, which saw hundreds of thousands of people making their way from Baker Street to Trafalgar Square, was accompanied by 350 officers, while extra police were drafted in for the Wimbledon tennis championships and the Diana concert at Wembley. Among other terror suspects police want to track down are former tube worker and 26-year-old Londoner Zeeshan Siddiqui. Court evidence has heard how he trained with a London suicide bomber in Pakistan. Another individual police desperately want to track down, even if only to eliminate him from their investigation, is Bestun Salim, who disappeared from his Manchester home last year, and is alleged to have links to Ansar al-Islam, a group linked to the terrorist network of the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's notorious insurgent leader who was killed last year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2115693,00.html
JPTF 2007/07/01

"Isto vai acabar mal (3)" in Abrupto 30 de Junho de 2007

por Pacheco Pereira


- Qual é (foi) a posição portuguesa em relação ao novo tratado europeu?
- Por que razão o governo não informou os portugueses das suas posições na Cimeira Europeia, para que estes pudessem confrontar as posições com os resultados?
- Por que razão o governo não entendeu comunicar ao Parlamento em sessão plenária a sua análise da situação europeia?
- Por que razão a oposição se basta em ter audiências privadas e em participar no Conselho de Estado e não exige o conhecimento público de qual é a posição portuguesa em todo este processo?
- Por que razão, ingleses, polacos, holandeses, dinamarqueses, franceses e alemães, entre outros tem direito a conhecer a posição dos respectivos governos, e os portugueses não tem?
- O governo português fez qualquer reivindicação, defendeu qualquer interesse, mostrou qualquer incómodo, em relação ao texto e ao conteúdo do novo tratado?
- Existiram (existem) verdadeiras negociações, tradeoff, entre Portugal e as outras nações da União, em particular, as mais poderosas, ou Portugal abdica de qualquer posição própria a favor de se colar a uma posição (da Alemanha? Da França?) para obter assim “simpatias” futuras noutro tipo de matérias (financeiras)?
- Favorece ou desfavorece o peso relativo de Portugal no conjunto da União Europeia, a existência de um Presidente em vez das presidências nacionais rotativas?
- Favorece ou desfavorece o peso relativo de Portugal no conjunto da União Europeia, o fim do princípio “um comissário-uma nação” na Comissão Europeia?
- Favorece ou desfavorece o peso relativo de Portugal no conjunto da União Europeia, o novo sistema de votos que será implementado depois de 2017?
- Vê Portugal vantagens ou inconvenientes na moratória garantida pela Polónia em atrasar o novo sistema de votação para 2017?
- Defendeu Portugal o reforço do poder dos Parlamentos nacionais exigido pela Holanda, ou opôs-se-lhe?
- Sente-se Portugal confortável com a perda do poder de veto que o anterior sistema de votação virtualmente garantia para os “interesses vitais” de cada País?
- Defende Portugal, ou sente-se confortável, com um sistema de votação que dá na prática à Alemanha o poder de vetar qualquer decisão europeia?
- Sente-se Portugal confortável com o aumento de matérias que passam da unanimidade para maiorias, mais ou menos qualificadas, com o correlativo enfraquecimento da posição de países como Portugal no processo de decisão?
- Está Portugal de acordo com o reforço de poderes e competências do Parlamento Europeu, assente numa lógica demográfica onde Portugal conta muito pouco, posição até agora considerada negativa para um país que sempre defendeu apenas e essencialmente o reforço dos poderes da Comissão?
- Aceita Portugal sem problemas o caminho de subsumir a sua diplomacia e a sua política externa progressivamente numa política “europeia” cada vez mais feita em Bruxelas?
- Será que Portugal, ao aceitar o aparecimento de uma diplomacia própria da UE, está de acordo com a tendência crescente para que deixe de haver representação nacional, embaixadas, por exemplo, em muitas partes do mundo, a favor de representações comunitárias?
- Fez o Primeiro-ministro qualquer compromisso secreto para que em Portugal não haja referendo no Conselho Europeu?
- Foram, esse compromisso, ou outros do mesmo teor, tomados por outros países mantido em segredo para tentar fazer passar “por cima” as soluções da Constituição Europeia, desrespeitando a vontade expressa de holandeses e franceses (e outros mais se tivessem que votar em referendo) que lhe disseram “não”?
- Sente-se Portugal bem com uma “democracia” em que apenas se pode responder que “sim”?
Etc., etc, etc.
- Não seria melhor, mesmo que as respostas fossem muito más e retratassem uma impotência generalizada de Portugal na União Europeia, que se soubesse com clareza as linhas com que nos cosemos nesta nova realidade política da União Europeia, em vez de estarmos a enganar os portugueses?
http://abrupto.blogspot.com/
JPTF 2007/06/30

"O plano de fazer explodir carros-bomba em Londres foi anunciado na Internet?" in CBS News 29 de Junho de 2007

Hours before London explosives technicians dismantled a large car bomb in the heart of the British capital's tourist-rich theater district, a message appeared on one of the most widely used jihadist Internet forums, saying: "Today I say: Rejoice, by Allah, London shall be bombed." CBS News found the posting, which went on for nearly 300 words, on the "al Hesbah" chat room. It was left by a person who goes by the name abu Osama al-Hazeen, who appears regularly on the forum. The comment was posted on the forum, according to time stamp, at 08:09 a.m. British time on June 28 -- about 17 hours before the bomb was found early on June 29. Al Hesbah is frequently used by international Sunni militant groups, including al Qaeda and the Taliban, to post propaganda videos and messages in their fight against the West. There was no way for CBS News to independently confirm any connection between the posting made Thursday night and the car bomb found Friday. Al-Hazeen's message begins: "In the name of God, the most
compassionate, the most merciful. Is Britain Longing for al Qaeda's bombings?" Al-Hazeen decries the recent knighthood of controversial author Salman Rushdie as a blow felt by all British Muslims. "This 'honoring' came at a crucial time, a time when the whole nation is reeling from the crusaders attacks on all Muslim lands," he said, in an apparent reference to the British role in Iraq. "We say to Britain: The Emir of al Qaeda, Sheikh Osama, has once threatened you, and he carried out his threats. Today I say: Rejoice, by Allah, London shall be bombed," the message reads. Speaking at a news conference Friday after the bomb scare in central London, the Metropolitan Police force's Counter-Terrorism Commander Peter Clarke said that officials had "no indication that we were going to be attacked this way". Prior to the Thursday night posting by al-Hazeen, there had been no specific allusions to threats against London or Britain seen on al Hesbah, or any other major jihadist forums in recent weeks. Several responses to the posting by other forum members expressed hope that an attack against London would be realized in the near future. In response, al-Hazeen urges patience, saying, "Victory is very close, but you are just rushing it." Reached by CBSNews.com Friday, the Metropolitan Police's media office could not confirm whether investigators were aware of the Internet posting on al Hesbah. Intelligence sources who spoke to CBS News Friday morning seemed to express surprise at the discovery of the device, suggesting there had been "no warning, no intel, no smell" as a prelude to the plot — a vacuum of information which reportedly had Britain's domestic intelligence agency "very, very worried". The attempted bombing in London's Haymarket area came one week before the second anniversary of the July 7 bombings that killed 52 people on London's transportation network. Also Friday, a London jury was expected to hand down a verdict in the case against five young men who were charged with trying to blow up city buses and trains in 2005. The men, all from London, were arrested after police found homemade devices on trains and buses that had failed to detonate properly — sending puffs of smoke from backpacks that frightened commuters, but injured no one. Early reports from law enforcement officials indicate that the car bomb found Friday morning may also have failed to detonate properly — causing smoke to appear in the passenger area. It was the smoke that prompted people to call explosives officers to the scene. One explosives expert told the British Broadcasting Corporation that the device — comprised of gas canisters and nails — appeared to be a fairly crude construction, and not the work of anyone with an extensive knowledge of weaponry. Britain has wrestled since the July 7, 2005, over how to deal with the threat of "homegrown" terrorism. Young men from the country's large Muslim population are easy prey for radical clerics and propaganda campaigns propagated on Internet forums such as al Hesbah. In addition to messages calling for jihad in Britain, detailed video demonstrations of how to construct bombs using gas canisters are readily available on the forums.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/29/terror/main2997517.shtml?source=mostpop_story
JPTF 30/06/2007

"A polícia esperava ataque ao estilo de Bagdade" in Times 29 de Junho de 2007

This is what has been expected and feared for some months - that terror tactics honed on the streets of Baghdad would be visited on London and other Western targets. The police and security services have been preparing for a vehicle-borne attack using either a car or, in the worst case scenario, a hijacked petrol or chemical tanker. Earlier this year Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner warned that “vehicle borne weaponry is the greatest danger that we can face”. Counter-terrorism Command confirmed recently that it has been conducting security spot checks on tanker vehicles entering London for more than a year. There was no specific intelligence that a car or lorry bomb attack was imminent - hence the UK threat level remained at “severe” rather than “critical” - but the expectation has been that al-Qaeda cells in Britain would attempt to explode such a device. The incident, which despite some early reports does not appear to have been a suicide bomb attempt, copies tactics used by two previous terrorist gangs. Omar Khyam, jailed for life in April, discussed attacking the Ministry of Sound nightclub while Dhiren Barot, imprisoned last year, wanted to use stretch limousines packed with gas cylinders and explosives to blow up London landmarks. The automatic assumption in the wake of this failed attack was that there are other devices yet to be discovered. The enduring hallmark of al-Qaeda is that it attacks multiple targets without warning with the aim of maximising casualties and publicity. London faces a day of disruption while suspicious vehicles are cordoned off and examined. Compared to the days of the IRA’s British bombing campaigns, the car bomb at Haymarket appears amateurish. The Mercedes contained several propane gas cylinders, large containers of petrol, a huge number of nails and some means of detonation to turn this cocktail of ingredients into a huge fireball. But al-Qaeda is trying to operate in a climate in Britain which is more hostile to terrorist activity than ever before. High-strength hydrogen peroxide, which was used to make the 7/7 suicide bombs, is much more difficult to purchase than it was before July 2005. The terrorists, however, are adept at finding ways - sometimes crude, sometimes quite ingenious - of turning everyday materials, cheaply and easily obtained, into bombs. The devices may be amateurish but security experts have no doubt that they are still lethal. And the lessons these ruthless, ideologically-driven young men are learning in Iraq can only serve to make their future efforts more professional.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2005228.ece
JPTF 2007/06/29

"Uso da raça para colocação de alunos nas escolas limitado pelo Supremo Tribunal" in New York Times 28 de Junho de 2007

In a decision of sweeping importance to educators, parents and schoolchildren across the country, the Supreme Court today sharply limited the ability of school districts to manage the racial makeup of the student bodies in their schools.

The court voted, 5 to 4, to reject diversity plans from Seattle and Louisville, Ky., declaring that the districts had failed to meet “their heavy burden” of justifying “the extreme means they have chosen — discriminating among individual students based on race by relying upon racial classifications in making school assignments,” as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the court.

Today’s decision, one of the most important in years on the issue of race and education, need not entirely eliminate race as a factor in assigning students to different schools, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in a separate opinion. But it will surely prompt many districts to review and perhaps revise programs they already have in place, or go back to the drawing boards in designing plans.

The opinion’s rationale relied in part on the historic 1954 decision in Brown vs. Board of Education that outlawed segregation in public schools — a factor that the dissenters on the court found to be a cruel irony, and which they objected to in emotional terms.

Chief Justice Roberts said the officials in Seattle and in Jefferson County, Ky., which includes Louisville, had failed to show that their plans considered race in the context of a larger educational concept, and therefore did not pass muster.

“In the present cases,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote, recalling words from an earlier Supreme Court ruling, “race is not considered as part of a broader effort to achieve ‘exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints.’ ”

“Even as to race,” he went on, “the plans here employ only a limited notion of diversity, viewing race exclusively in white/nonwhite terms in Seattle and black/other terms in Jefferson County.

“Classifying and assigning schoolchildren according to a binary conception of race is an extreme approach in light of this court’s precedents and the nation’s history of using race in public schools, and requires more than such an amorphous end to justify it.”

In the now familiar lineup, Justices Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. sided with the chief justice on most points.

Rather than working toward a level of diversity and its “purported benefits,” the chief justice wrote, the school had “worked backwards to achieve a particular type of racial balance.”

“This is a fatal flaw,” the ruling said. “When it comes to using race to assign children to schools, history will be heard.”

The four dissenters wrote, in effect, that the majority was standing history on its head. Justice Stephen G. Breyer said that today’s result “threatens to substitute for present calm a disruptive round of race-related litigation, and it undermines Brown’s promise of integrated primary and secondary education that local communities have sought to make a reality.”

“This cannot be justified in the name of the Equal Protection Clause,” Justice Breyer went on, alluding to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which bars states from denying people “the equal protection of the laws.”

Justice Breyer’s dissent was joined by Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens, the tribunal’s longest-serving member, who wrote a separate dissent that was remarkable for its feeling.

“While I join Justice Breyer’s eloquent and unanswerable dissent in its entirety, it is appropriate to add these words,” Justice Stevens wrote. “There is a cruel irony in the chief justice’s reliance on our decision in Brown vs. Board of Education.”

Today’s ruling breaks faith with the 1954 ruling, Justice Stevens asserted. “It is my firm conviction that no member of the court that I joined in 1975 would have agreed with today’s decision,” he wrote.

Justice Kennedy’s opinion concurring in part with Chief Justice Roberts, and with the overall judgment, agreed that the Seattle and Louisville plans went too far. However, in language that some people on the losing side found heartening, he said that race may still be a component of plans to achieve diversity in the schools.

“Diversity, depending on its meaning and definition, is a compelling educational goal a school district may pursue,” he wrote.

But Mark Rahdert, a Temple Law School professor and a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, said that today’s ruling means that “racial balance” will be “the new catchphrase conservatives will use to attempt to eradicate any form of affirmative action.”

As for Justice Kennedy’s “willingness to leave the door open to some forms of affirmative action,” it will be impossible as a practical matter, Mr. Rahdert said.

The decision today, in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, No. 05-908, and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, No. 05-915, runs to some 180 pages, including the dissents. It was eagerly awaited by the National School Boards Association and by the Council of the Great City Schools, representing 66 urban districts, which had filed briefs on behalf of Seattle and Louisville and had warned of disruption if the justices overturned lower court rulings upholding the diversity plans.

The Bush administration participated as a “friend of the court” on behalf of the plaintiffs who challenged the diversity plans.

One plaintiff was a white woman in Louisville whose son was denied a transfer to attend kindergarten in a school that needed more black pupils to keep its black population at the district’s required minimum of 15 percent.

The other plaintiffs were Seattle parents who opposed the district’s “tiebreaker” system, which applies only to the city’s 10 high schools and is aimed at keeping the nonwhite proportion of their student bodies within 15 percentage points of the district’s overall makeup, which is 60 percent nonwhite.

Harry Korrell, lead attorney for the plaintiff-parents in Seattle, said his clients were “very pleased” with today’s decision. “This case was about protecting all children — regardless of skin color — from race discrimination,” he said.

Unlike the Seattle district, the Jefferson County school system was once segregated by law. Its current diversity plan was adopted in 2000, after the district emerged from 25 years of federal court supervision.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/us/28cnd-scotus.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
JPTF 28/06/2007

"À procura das raízes num Chipre dividido" in Turkish Daily News, 26 de Junho de 2007

Armed with vague childhood memories, printouts of Google Earth maps and hand drawings of streets that might no longer exist, I crossed into north Cyprus in search of my grandmother's home town.
It was a journey to the birthplace of a larger-than-life woman whose memory I cherish, to the house my besotted grandfather built for his 17-year-old bride in 1928.
"When you marry, find someone handsome because you'll have to look at him for the rest of your life," my barely literate but very practical grandmother advised me when I was 10.
She died aged 90. That was before 2003, when the crossing points on the U.N.-patrolled green line that splits the Mediterranean island opened, allowing Greek and Turkish Cypriots the first glimpse of each other in nearly 30 years.
The Nicosia checkpoint was not the busy spot I remembered from previous trips. Lethargic officials now sat in white booths, waiting for the occasional car to pass.
"The honeymoon is over," said Mete Hatay, a Turkish Cypriot researcher for the Oslo-based International Peace Research Institute, my companion on this trip. "Fewer and fewer people cross over every day. Reality has overtaken curiosity."
I've lived my adult life away from this island and this journey is not hard for me. But I know that people on both sides of this divide, which has defied decades of international peace efforts, still nurse open wounds.
For many of the 160,000 Greek Cypriots who fled in 1974 when Turkey launched a military operation in reaction to a Greek Cypriot coup, it is a heart-breaking experience, especially when they find their ancestral homes occupied by Turks.
"For the Turkish Cypriots, moving to the north was more like migrating to freedom, not the tragedy it was for the Greek Cypriots," said Mete, whose grandmother comes from the south.
About 40,000 Turkish Cypriots were also displaced after inter-communal fighting in the 1960s, shortly after Cyprus declared its independence from the British.

Worlds apart:
As we drove through the divided capital had seen few benefits from Cyprus's accession to the European Union in 2004.
In the south, luxury showrooms, hotels and restaurants abound in a tourism-driven economy. In the north, shops sell fashions of past decades and provincial casinos are the main attraction for the few foreigners who venture here.
Star-and-crescent flags are everywhere. One is painted on the mountain, its huge form outlined with flashing lights.
We reached the town of Kythrea, 15 km northeast of Nicosia. It's known in Turkish as Degirmenlik -- water mills.
The bleak, crumbling town was foreign to me. Gone were the animals grazing in green fields and farmers picking oranges and olives that impressed me as a suburban child visiting relatives.

Most houses appeared deserted and the land abandoned.
The large Church of Holy Mary Chardiakiotissa was built with the island's trademark yellow sandstone in a gothic-orthodox style mix. The bell tower is now adorned with speakers for the muezzin's call to prayer.
Nearby stands the simple, white, two-storey house where my grandmother arrived as a bride, where my mother and her siblings were born.
I knocked on the door but there was no answer.
"The people who live there are Turks from the Aegean coast," said a friendly neighbour, Ramazan Kaldirim, 23, whose family came here from a village near the Black Sea in 1976.
I told him I have no claim on this house, sold after my grandfather died in the 1950s. I am connected to it only through stories of happy matchmakings and tragic deaths, of children's mischief and friends' kindness during hard times.
We also stopped at my uncle's 19th century house to admire its carved stone entrance, now padlocked. He lived here until 1974 and he drew for me the maps of my mission.
Back in Nicosia, he asked me if his house was still standing but barely looked at the snapshots I show him.
"I know what my house looks like," he told me.
JPTF 26/06/2007
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=76710

"Montagem de Angela Merkel nua faz levantar as... sobrancelhas" in Der Spiegel online, 26 de Junho de 2007

It's not exactly how one expects to see German Chancellor Angela Merkel: The broad, friendly smile seems completely at odds with her open blouse, two bare breasts spilling out. On each breast, one of Poland's governing Kaczynski twins is affixed - Prime Minister Jaroslaw is suckling on the left, President Lech has attached himself to the right. One of them is holding up the "victory" sign right in Merkel's cleavage. The image is on the cover of this week's Wprost, a conservative Polish newsmagazine that has not shied away from firing barbs at Germany in the past. The headline reads: "Europe's Step-Mother." As current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, Merkel, the magazine seems to be saying, is treating the rest of Europe like her step-children. And during last week's EU summit in Brussels, the article inside makes clear, she has been particularly condescending to the Poles. The magazine writes of Germany's "post-colonial reflexes" and says that six decades after the end of World War II, "the Germans still aren't able to treat Poles like partners." "The cover's message," Stanislaw Janecki, editor-in-chief of Wprost, told SPIEGEL ONLINE, "is that Germany, especially Ms. Merkel, was trying to treat Poles and the Polish leaders as small children completely unable to act on their own and somehow dependent on Germany.... There is the impression that Germany, being more powerful, wants to dominate Poland and that the Kaczynski brothers want to stand up to this domination."

Merkel's Head with a 21-Year-Old Body
"We imagined it to be a little funny," Janecki says. "The stepmother is often more sexy and more friendly that the real mother is. The body is of a young, 21-year-old model. I would say it is quite a nice body, and we didn't want to say anything bad about Ms. Merkel." He says they got the image from a model agency the magazine works with and they were looking for somebody "who was not so thin but someone who also has a good body." It's not the first time the Polish weekly Wprost has gotten in trouble in Germany. This week, the cover depicts Chancellor Angela Merkel breast-feeding the Kaczynski twins. But it could have been worse, the editor-in-chief points out. At least they used a 21-year-old model.

Relationship 'Clearly Not Working'
German reactions to the cover photograph have been predictably shrill. News agency dpa called the image "drastic." Many papers, including the Cologne daily Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, wrote of the Chancellor being "mocked" and "ridiculed." Tabloid Bild dove into its Rolodex and quotes a number of German politicians angrily denouncing the image's "tastelessness." The Wprost cover is just the most recent salvo fired in an ongoing media war (more...) between the two countries. Janecki's weekly has attracted unwanted attention for its covers on more than one occasion, the most offensive being a 2003 cover showing then Chancellor Gerhard Schröder being ridden dominatrix style by Erika Steinbach - head of a group representing Germans booted out of Poland following World War II - clad in Nazi garb. More recently, Germany's Die Tageszeitung has printed images of the Kaczynskis with potatoes as heads. And DER SPIEGEL recently switched around the Wprost cover by depicting Merkel being ridden by the Polish leaders. But reaction in the Polish press this week to the EU summit, which saw Merkel pushing through an 11th hour compromise deal (more...) after threatening to isolate Poland, has been far from universally critical of Germany. Daily Dziennik criticized Prime Minister Jaroslaw's pre-summit suggestion that Poland would have more influence in the EU had 6 million Poles not been killed in World War II (more...). And the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza said that the Kaczynskis had "crossed the line of European good taste."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,490795,00.html
JPTF 26/06/2007

"Debate público sobre a Europa: escasso e manipulado" in Público, 23 de Junho de 2007

por Pacheco Pereira

Uma das matérias sobre as quais em Portugal não temos um verdadeiro debate público é a Europa. Pode parecer estranho que tal debate não exista, com os jornais cheios de anúncios de colóquios, conferências, mesas-redondas, seminários sobre a Europa, e televisões, rádios, jornais com maior peso de artigos, programas e debates sobre a mesma matéria. Se se olhar com atenção, muitas destas actividades são financiadas, ou co-financiadas ou apoiadas de alguma maneira pelos gabinetes nacionais das instituições europeias, Comissão Europeia e Parlamento Europeu.

Estas instituições e outras que lhes são subsidiárias mantêm igualmente programas regulares de televisão e rádio, actividades escolares, prémios e concursos, publicações em número considerável, desde banda desenhada a ensaios, discos com orquestras "europeias" juvenis, que, aliás, também são subsidiadas, um canal de televisão "europeu", a Euronews, e mil e uma iniciativas menos conhecidas e pouco transparentes, dirigidas em particular aos jornalistas e aos "fazedores de opinião". Digo pouco transparentes, porque muitas vezes os resultados de iniciativas "jornalísticas" pagas com dinheiro europeu acabam por ser publicados em jornais e passados nos outros media, sem se perceber a diferença entre essas encomendas e um trabalho jornalístico ou de reportagem normal. Até os deputados europeus têm uma verba para convidar jornalistas e só quem saiba do que se trata, uma ínfima minoria de directamente interessados, é que consegue perceber por que razão de vez em quando obscuros deputados têm direito a artigos sobre a sua actividade europeia. Trata-se no seu conjunto da mais gigantesca máquina de propaganda existente na Europa, muito eficaz em muitos países como Portugal, exactamente porque não é vista como tal.

Como qualquer outra máquina de propaganda, ela selecciona o que é "positivo" e tenta minimizar e ocultar o que é negativo. Ela fornece uma imagem doce, altruísta, pacífica, progressista, moralmente superior e intangível da construção europeia, completamente higienizada dos factos problema e que faz uma política que nunca nomeia, para poder demonizar todos os que entendem que, tratando-se de políticas, de decisões e escolhas políticas, elas não podem ser apresentadas sem se perceber a política, ou seja, não devem numa democracia ser servidas aos cidadãos como "pensamento único", liofilizado da política, ou seja, como propaganda. Uma das razões pelas quais se nota que se trata de propaganda está no apagar das fracturas estratégicas de pensamento político sobre a Europa a favor de um debate que se pretende interno, meramente táctico, de discussão apenas de nuances dentro de um consenso artificial.

No caso português esta imposição do "consenso" é tanto mais grave quanto no sistema partidário não existe oposição ao europeísmo constitucional dos últimos anos, com PS, PSD e PP do mesmo lado, apenas com o PCP como oposição consentida, porque inócua. No último Prós e Contras, a mesa que é suposto representar uma contradição, lá tinha de um lado o poder europeu, Durão Barroso, solitário na sua representação institucional majestática, logo acima do debate, e do outro Mota Amaral e Carlos Carvalhas, nenhum dos quais interessado em obrigar Barroso a ter que responder a perguntas que não fossem ou "de dentro" ou de cartilha, nenhum com o animus que é necessário ter para um debate ser a sério.

Há muitos exemplos de como se cria um "pensamento único", o ideal da propaganda. Darei apenas um: a afirmação mil vezes repetida, como se fosse um facto inquestionável, de que foi o voto "não" dos franceses e holandeses à Constituição europeia que criou o "impasse europeu". Nunca, jamais, em tempo algum, se diz que foi uma má "Constituição", um mau tratado, uma construção de engenharia política sem pés na realidade e sem cabeça na prudência dos pais fundadores, que provocou o "impasse europeu". Logo, como não se pode mudar os povos, há que os afastar do processo de decisão para impedir que eles produzam ruído "populista", de ser "contra a Europa por questões mesquinhas de política interna", de ter "medo", mais uma série de coisas menores, que justificam que se esteja a preparar uma versão do mesmo tratado que recebeu o "não", apresentado como um remendo de somenos que não precisa de ir a referendo, mas pode ser decidido apenas num Conselho Europeu e ratificado sem grandes ondas pelos governos e parlamentos "consensuais" sobre a Europa.

Veja-se o caso português, ainda mais exemplar pela debilidade da vida pública nacional. Há uns meses que se ouve falar vagamente de um "tratado abreviado", de um "minitratado", de um acordo institucional para substituir o tratado de Nice. O que acontece com o tratado de Nice é já exemplar do mecanismo de esquecimento e apagamento da história típico da propaganda. Quando se nomeia Nice, o que aliás acontece raras vezes para acentuar o esquecimento, parece que esse tratado foi feito por algum ET, não tem autores, nem responsáveis e ninguém parece ter votado o seu texto. Ora o tratado de Nice, que também Portugal aprovou sem reservas, foi feito pelos mesmos autores da Constituição europeia, e tinha sobre ela o grande mérito de ser mais despido de retórica e mais atreito à "nudez forte da verdade": era um compromisso de hard power puro e duro, que traduziu uma conjuntura europeia e que todo este mambo-jambo do "minitratado" quer alterar. É essencialmente isto que está em causa: quem manda na Europa, sob a forma moderna do direito de bloquear, mais do que sobre a forma antiga do direito de decidir.

Nada há de mais político do que isto, nada há de mais decisivo para as nações europeias do que a medida institucional do seu poder, e é por isso que nações como a Polónia e o Reino Unido são contra e são demonizadas na propaganda por o serem. Os motivos ingleses são sempre apresentados como sendo fruto de uma excentricidade qualquer, do seu eurocepticismo, ou seja, do facto de eles terem uma ideia sobre a construção europeia que não é a do gaullismo, reconstruído no eixo França-Alemanha e hoje ultrapassado pela crescente aisance alemã, libertada das sombras que menorizavam a sua política externa. Ora é exactamente o facto de o tratado que se prepara garantir que a Alemanha tem um poder de veto virtual sobre tudo que preocupa a Polónia. Isto é apenas o emergir mais visível do mapa dos conflitos europeus da primeira metade do século XX que está à tona, com todos a olhar para o lado como se não estivesse lá. Lá nos países bálticos, na República Checa, na Roménia, lá na pacífica Dinamarca, nos Balcãs, e não é com uma demonização dos motivos polacos que se resolve o problema e se enterra a história.

O que a propaganda nunca quer admitir é que todo este processo dos últimos dez anos europeus foi mal conduzido e levou naturalmente aos impasses actuais, nunca quer admitir que existe um fosso crescente entre o "europeísmo" de engenharia política supranacional vertido na Constituição e a vontade política de povos e nações, e quer impedir a todo o custo um maior controlo da burocracia de Bruxelas pelos parlamentos e eleitores. O que é que aconteceria se os eleitores europeus entendessem que não tem qualquer sentido haver um Euronews, gabinetes nacionais da Comissão, agências europeias inúteis e burocráticas distribuídas como benesses pelos diferentes países, e considerassem uma patetice haver legislação europeia sobre os implantes mamários e máquinas de jogo nos casinos? A verdade é que a burocracia de Bruxelas não é uma invenção dos eurocépticos ingleses, mas um problema da democracia na Europa.

Ora, no meio disto tudo, muito pouca gente em Portugal questiona o que o Governo pode ou deve fazer sobre esta matéria, mesmo que se admita que seja pouco, e a oposição basta-se em ter umas audiências privadas e vir depois anunciar uma moratória absurda sobre a discussão quando ela é mais necessária, como se estes assuntos europeus estivessem acima da política vulgar e não devessem ser discutidos pelos cidadãos, a quem não se dá, aliás, sequer o direito de saber o que é que se anda a decidir sobre esta matéria. É por isso que o défice democrático é maior em Portugal do que no resto da Europa.
http://abrupto.blogspot.com/
JPTF 2007/06/25

"Aprendamos com a intransigência dos polacos" in Times 22 de Junho de 2007

The Brits and the French know how to play the game, a German diplomat embroiled in the European Union treaty negotiations told me last week. “We know we can rely on them. But the Poles, they are something else. I am not sure they understand the game at all.” Well, bravo for the Poles. They come fresh to the labyrinthine process of EU negotiations with a firmer grasp of their national interest than the current occupant of 10 Downing Street. Their reluctance to let Germany grant itself significantly greater voting power makes it Warsaw 1, Berlin 0, as today’s EU summit kicks off. Intransigent? Yes. Unacceptable? No. Look at France’s beloved Common Agricultural Policy. While EU leaders congratulate themselves on creating a foreign aid programme, recently branded one of the most wasteful and inefficient in the world, 40 per cent of the EU’s entire budget is still spent subsidising European farmers to keep African food out of the market. What hypocrisy. On Tuesday, José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, told Poland that it risked losing money and support if it blocked a deal to reform the EU’s institutions. What, for exercising its democratic right to object? That is blackmail. Unlike Lech Kaczynski, the President of Poland, Mr Barroso is not elected. The money he threatens to remove belongs primarily to British, Dutch, French, Italian and German taxpayers. What do those who foot the EU’s bills think about a new voting system that will not only change the relative voting power of different countries, but also dramatically reduce the power of individual nations to stop legislation, by raising the threshold for a blocking coalition? Do they agree with Brussels that we must make it easier for the EU to pass more laws? The Dutch don’t. Their perfectly reasonable “red card” proposal, which would allow a majority of national parliaments to block legislation that they did not like, has been dismissed out of hand. “The Dutch climbed a few trees and we now have to get them back down again,” an EU ambassador in Brussels said this week.

That is how Europe’s political elite views its citizens: they don’t know what’s good for them. Best to keep them out of it. As Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has said, better to use “different terminology without changing the legal substance” of the old constitution, then present it to the public as an “amending treaty” that no longer requires a referendum. What fools they take us for. Do they really think that they can sustain the fiction that this “treaty” is essential for the EU to function, and yet so unimportant as to not be worth us bothering our little heads about? Do they expect us to believe that a document cleansed of the word “constitution”, but that still incorporates a full-time EU president and foreign minister, gives the power to make international treaties, and overrides national parliaments on criminal law, employment law, social policy and immigration (to name but a few), is so different from the one that Dutch and French voters rejected two years ago? Britain has pushed through the enlargement of the Union, it must therefore accept a change in voting weights. But it need not accept the higher thresholds for blocking legislation that could prevent us keeping out measures such as the Working Time Directive. Claims of gridlock are much exaggerated. Since the constitution was voted down two years ago, the EU has created the world’s first emissions trading scheme and the European Defence Agency. Sciences Po, the Paris institute, says that the EU has been adopting new rules and regulations 25 per cent faster since enlargement. But clearly not fast enough for those who fear that the federalist project may falter if anyone has time to think. In Britain, no one under 50 has had a chance to vote in a referendum on the direction of the EU. Yet those whom we elect as temporary holders of political office blithely continue to hand power permanently to unelected institutions. Whether this treaty ends up being a giant leap towards greater integration or just another step on the way is a less important distinction than it may appear. Each step hands power to the European Court of Justice, which seizes every opportunity to expand its domain, including slowly eroding national vetoes on tax. Our leaders give away more power then they realise. Unlike most MPs, I read every page of the original constitution. The loopholes are legion. Take the charter of fundamental rights, which Tony Blair has said Britain will never sign up to. It enshrines employment and social rights that would turn our clock back 30 years and grant workers co-decision powers in the businesses that employ them. Germany wants to leave the charter out of the new treaty but to include a reference that will make it legally binding nevertheless. Mr Blair wants a paragraph to exempt Britain. But lawyers tell me that it would be almost impossible to make the wording watertight. Oh, and the charter could come in by the back door, through powers to coordinate member states’ “economic and employment policies”. The EU should have grown out of trying to define national issues as European. It should be focusing on the few big challenges, such as climate change and trade, that are truly international. As Ed Balls, Gordon Brown’s confidant, put it in a recent pamphlet, we must stop doing “ ‘more EU’ for the sake of it”. Mr Brown himself must not condone the arrogance of those who act as though the Dutch and French had never voted. He must promise a referendum. It would not be a referendum on his premiership, as he may fear, but a chance to restrain an EU elite that has proved its total disregard for democracy.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/camilla_cavendish/article1963916.ece
JPTF 22/06/2007

"Os polacos são os verdadeiros europeus?" in Der Spiegel Online, 21 de Junho de 2007

If Germany had never invaded Poland, there would be no need to talk about EU voting rights today, says Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. In Brussels there is irritation that Poland is playing the "history card" once again. But Germans in particular should be wary of being too quick to judge. Warsaw was destroyed during World War II, and over 6 million Poles were killed. The Poles are playing the history card in their current dispute with the EU, but with reason. In the dispute over the voting rights in the European treaty, the Polish Prime Minister Jarolsaw Kaczynski has now come up with an argument that any German would find it difficult to contradict. "If Poland had not had to live through the (World War II) years of 1939-1945, Poland would today be looking at the demographics of a country of 66 million." The Polish leader was attempting to justify his demands for an alternative voting rights system, rather than the one proposed by the German rotating EU presidency. There is no question that not only the history of Poland, but that of every European country, would have been much happier without the German invasion of Poland and its monstrous consequences. It should be remembered that during World War II there were an estimated 6 million Polish victims of the German occupation -- of which 5.7 million were civilians. In Poland alone, 2.4 million Jews were murdered. Kaczynski made the statement on Polish radio on Tuesday but otherwise it didn't really resonate at home. However in Brussels and Berlin the comments were registered with concern and were seen as an indication the Polish government is now doing what it often does when it runs into trouble: plays the history card. And this Thursday evening, when the Polish square-root idea is broached, one can expect this kind of reminiscing again. Warsaw is isolated and is threatening to use its veto. But anyone who thinks that a hopeless cause would make the Polish prime minister or president break out in a sweat doesn't know the Polish mentality. When there's nothing more to be done, that's when things really get going for people like the Kaczynskis.

Caught in the Amber of History
The Catholic twins are caught up in the amber of history. But what we might consider isolationism, and even parochialism, the Kaczynskis and most Poles see as a political defensive fortification. While amber conserves, it also protects from outside blows. Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker has called on the Kaczynskis to make a "leap into the present." "You will not be happy in the long-run if you are always looking in the rearview mirror." Juncker is right. But it is worth looking in the Kaczynskis' rearview mirror. Because what the Polish president and his brother, the prime minister, see there is not the same thing that Tony Blair or Jean-Claude Juncker, Angela Merkel or Jose Manuel Barroso see. For the Kaczynskis objects in the mirror appear closer than they really are. In their rearview mirror, for example, it is the end of August 1939, a few days before the German invasion of Poland and a man by the name of Jozef Beck appears in view. He is Poland's foreign minister and he is receiving the US diplomat Joseph K. Davies in his office in Warsaw. The two are discussing the danger of war breaking out. Davies, previously US ambassador to Moscow, is pretty pessimistic, but Beck sees things differently. The Germans should come! If the Wehrmacht attacks, Polish troops will be in Berlin within three weeks. Davies thought Beck was completely crazy. And he turned out to be right. The Wehrmacht marched into Warsaw four weeks later, and the biggest ever program of destruction in the history of mankind got underway. Davies urged Beck to form an alliance with Moscow. That was out of the question for the Poles, just as, in all their quarrels with Brussels, it would be out of the question for the Kaczynskis today. The pattern of thought is certainly similar: Before, it was the Germans and the Russians who occupied us, now the EU wants to pull a fast one on us. But how did the Kaczynskis come to this conclusion? A look in their rearview mirror provides some answers.

No New Beginning, Rather Soviet Occupation
The Kaczynskis' father was badly injured fighting in the Warsaw uprising, while their mother joined the anti-German resistance at the age of 14 and worked as a medic. Several of their uncles died in Nazi concentration camps, on the way to Russian deportation, or in the Soviet mass shootings. For the Kaczynskis and their countrymen there was no new beginning in 1945. Instead, they were occupied by the Soviets. On Stalin's orders the Polish borders were shifted and millions of people were resettled. The suffering of these millions of Poles also belongs to the history of the expulsion of Germans from Polish lands, though it is often forgotten. A country that was on the brink of civil war fell under the Soviet yoke, but the Polish desire for freedom was never broken. And the fierce courage that was fired up during the Warsaw uprising against the Nazi occupation in 1944, came back to life in 1980 with the founding of the independent Solidarity trade union. In the end, despite martial law and all that went with it, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union broke apart. Without the courage of the Poles, there would never have been a new Europe, the constitution of which is being fought over so fiercely today. These facts could have been emphasized, for instance, in an historical preamble to the European constitution -- something that could have possibly avoided the current conflict. The Poles are not just concerned with the specific voting rights, and that they will lose influence in the future (which is difficult to deny), but -- perhaps above all -- about the recognition of their services to history. The bravery paired with obstinacy of people like Beck and the Kaczynskis spawned both: The Warsaw Uprising, Solidarity -- and the blockade in Brussels. For the Poles these all go back to the same unbending attitude. In German sitting rooms people like to hang pictures of a stag in the morning dew -- but over Polish sofas there is an image of the Polish cavalry in 1939, attacking German tanks with raised sabers. Kitschy? Sure. But it causes any German who sees it to go red with shame and be moved to tears.

Poles Are the True Europeans
The martyr-like pose of the Poles has started to get on the nerves of many Europeans -- most of all, because they always adopt it whenever the going gets tough on the international stage. That was the case during the negotiations for Poland's EU membership, it's the case now during the treaty debate, and it will be the case in the future too. Whoever is concerned about this or whoever -- like Jean-Claude Juncker -- cheerfully tells the Warsaw brothers to stop moaning, should definitely bear in mind that the Poles live a more European life, and in particular work in a more globalized way, than most Europeans. While the euros are counted in Luxembourg, tens of thousands of Poles travel by bus every day from Warsaw, Krakow, and Wroclaw to other European countries to find work. Practically every pub in Ireland has Polish staff. No nation is as cosmopolitan as Germany's eastern neighbor. While the Germans regard foreign countries from the comfort of a hotel bar or beach, the Poles are busy cleaning rooms or plucking strawberries. Is this historically just, bearing in mind recent German-Polish history? No. In actual fact, it should all be the other way round. For this reason, the Poles are allowed to be annoying. They have their reasons. And they secretly know that they now have a glowing future in Europe anyway.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,490014,00.html
JPTF 2007/06/21