Obsession: Potent, Powerful, Provocative

Danish Cartoon Controversy, Election 2008, Film and Video, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islamophobia, Journalism and Media

Potent, powerful, and provocative. That’s what Nordstrom department stores have to say about Obsession, Calvin Klein’s cologne for men. These qualities are shared, no doubt, by another Obsession, a DVD currently being distributed by the Clarion Fund (http://clarionfund.org/), a nonprofit shell organization devoted to propagandizing against Islam. Subtitled “Radical Islam’s War Against the West,” copies of Obsession have been distributed as “paid advertising” in dozens of American newspapers, including the Charlotte Observer and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Desperate for cash, traditional print media are not very fussy about their advertisers these days. Ann Caulkins, the publisher of the Charlotte Observer, told the paper’s religion reporter that the DVD met the newspaper’s criteria for ads: “We’re all for freedom of expression, freedom of speech. This is in no way reflecting our opinions, but it is something we allow,” she said, adding that the newspaper would not allow material that is racist, profane, or “offers graphic images of body parts,” which at least distinguishes the paper from anything in the CSI television franchise. Continue reading Obsession: Potent, Powerful, Provocative →

Cholera outbreak spreads in Iraq

Iraq, Iraq War


The victims include seven children and two women.

Reported in Al-Jazeera, Thursday, September 11, 2008

Babel, a central Iraqi province, is on alert after Iraqi authorities declared it a disaster zone marking the country’s latest cholera outbreak.

At least five people died on Thursday while 90 new cases had been reported, local and national health officials said.

Babel’s provincial council, said: “The laboratory reports from Babel health department indicate there are 200 cases of suspected cholera, vomiting and diarrhea in the province”.

At least 20 people, including seven children and two women, have died from cholera in the past three days, a local official said. Continue reading Cholera outbreak spreads in Iraq →

Pro-McCain Group Dumping 28 Million Terror Scare DVDs in Swing States

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Election 2008, Film and Video, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islam in Europe, Islamophobia, Israel, Terrorism Issue


Sally Lopez of Lemoyne, PA displays a copy of the DVD that came in the mail.

by Erik Ose, The Latest Outrage, September 12, 2008

This week, 28 million copies of a right-wing, terror propaganda DVD are being mailed and bundled in newspaper deliveries to voters in swing states. The 60-minute DVDs, titled “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West,” are landing on doorsteps in a campaign coinciding with the 7th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Funding is coming from a New York-based group called the Clarion Fund, a shadowy outfit whose financial backers are The program was originally shown on Fox News in the days leading up to the 2006 mid-term elections, and right-wing activist David Horowitz toured the country screening the film on college campuses during 2007. Mainstream religious groups have called Obsession biased and divisive. It cuts between scenes of Nazi rallies and footage of Muslim children being encouraged to become suicide bombers. Continue reading Pro-McCain Group Dumping 28 Million Terror Scare DVDs in Swing States →

Strait Talk from Palin

Election 2008, Luke R. E. Publican


GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin was interviewed on ABC, noting that she can handle foreign policy with Russia because from her state of Alaska she can actually see Russia. Perhaps not from her major’s office in Wasilla or capitol office in Juneau (which is off the map shown above to the bottom right)…

In the past month or so this blog has shifted emphasis from the large swathe of posts covering some aspect of the study of Islam or the Middle East to the current presidential election in the United States. In large part this is because the political game overrides the “united” part with a partisan division into red and blue states. The candidates have specific stands, as well as generic punch lines for the public, on a range of these issues. Certainly the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which daily claim American military lives and many more civilians, are a major part of the electoral mix. Before the conventions it was John McCain, the proud war-first-not-country-first candidate vs. Barak Obama, who had the judgment to say going into Iraq was a big mistake.

But McCain surprised everyone (including party pooper — and I mean that literally — Joe Lieberman, no doubt) by choosing a VP candidate with zero foreign policy experience, who had never left the country (outside of tourist visits to Canada and Mexico) until a ceremonial trip to visit the Alaska National Guard troops (which she has no authority over when outside Alaska) in Kuwait, and who thinks being next to Russia across the Bering Strait makes her a specialist on post-Cold-War policy making. What I want to know is how strong the binoculars are from Juneau, where you can sure see Canada on a clear day, or Anchorage. It may not matter if the hottest governor in the nation is prepared to get even hotter and go to the gates of hell to look Putin (apparently she does not know how to pronounce Dmitry Medvedev’s name) in the face with that pitbull smile of hers. Of course, after all, as she stated, from her state of Alaska she can actually see Russia. If seeing is believing, Palin is the poster child for Republican optical illusions. Continue reading Strait Talk from Palin →

Hardliner Repression of Iranians Online

CyberOrient, Iran

Hardliner Repression of Iranians Online

by Elham Gheytanchi, Co-authored by Babak Rahimi, The Huffington Post, September 10, 2008

As Tehran’s nuclear crisis grabs headlines and there is talk of easing relations with Iran by opening an US interest section in Iran for the first time since hostage crisis of 1979, an ominous development is taking place inside Iran: the escalation of state repression against Iranian dissidents online. In the wake of the ninth anniversary of the July 1999 student uprising, which shocked the regime to its foundation, the hard-liner administration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stepped up the arrest of political dissidents, who have used the Net as an alternative medium to express their views against the Islamic Republic. Coupled with their suspicion of the international community, and continued attachment to a dogmatic vision of an Islamist society, the recent developments raise concern over the extent to which hard-liners are determined to muzzle dissent in cyberspace, hence advancing their sphere of influence over the Iranian civil society — especially over women’s rights and human rights groups who have suffered the most in the latest attacks. Continue reading Hardliner Repression of Iranians Online →

What Palin says about McCain

Election 2008, Journalism and Media

What Palin says about McCain
By Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera, September 4, 2008

If selecting a running mate is a real test of a presidential candidate’s judgment, then John McCain’s decision to name Sarah Palin as his choice reveals a poor sense of astuteness and serves to underline his desperate political expediency.

Beyond the much taunted image of a maverick, his critics argue McCain’s decision has once again exposed his opportunistic tendencies.

They draw an unflattering profile of a spoiled son of a Navy admiral who misused the good name of his political guru and predecessor in the Senate, the late Barry Goldwater, and who callously left his first wife and children to marry into a $100 million fortune.

And this time, by choosing Palin, he betrayed all of that which he preached over the last 18 months – even 18 years.

“Barack Obama can start writing his inauguration speech,” wrote me an informed friend the night McCain held his first appearance with Governor Palin.

I am not sure I would go that far. Continue reading What Palin says about McCain →

Palin and McCain’s Shotgun Marriage

Election 2008, Ethics, Iraq War, Terrorism Issue

[Webshaykh’s Note: This is the most cogent and responsible commentary on McCain and Palin that I have read anywhere.]

Palin and McCain’s Shotgun Marriage
By FRANK RICH, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, September 7, 2008

SARAH PALIN makes John McCain look even older than he is. And he seemed more than willing to play that part on Thursday night. By the time he slogged through his nearly 50-minute acceptance speech — longer even than Barack Obama’s — you half-expected some brazen younger Republican (Mitt Romney, perhaps?) to dash onstage to give him a gold watch and the bum’s rush.

Still, attention must be paid. McCain’s address, though largely a repetitive slew of stump-speech lines and worn G.O.P. orthodoxy, reminded us of what we once liked about the guy: his aspirations to bipartisanship, his heroic service in Vietnam, his twinkle. He took his (often inaccurate) swipes at Obama, but, in winning contrast to Palin and Rudy Giuliani, he wasn’t smug or nasty.

The only problem, of course, is that the entire thing was a sham. Continue reading Palin and McCain’s Shotgun Marriage →