Killing for Islam

If ignorance and poverty are responsible for the growth of extremist views in the Islamic world, someone needs ask to Muslim students, privileged enough and bright enough to attend some of the United Kingdom's best universities, why one-in-three of them endorses killing in the name of Islam. This finding is based on a poll of 600 Muslim and 800 non-Muslim students at 12 universities in the UK, and conducted by YouGov on behalf of the Center for Social Cohesion in the report "Islam on Campus." Among its findings of Muslim beliefs:

• 40 per cent support introduction of sharia into British law for Muslims
• One-third back the idea of a worldwide Islamic caliphate based on sharia law
• 40 per believe it is unacceptable for Muslim men and women to associate freely
• 24 per cent do not think men and women are equal in the eyes of Allah
• 53 per cent believe killing in the name of religion is never justified (compared with 94 per cent of non-Muslims)

Africa Continues to Boil

Eight people have been killed in separate attacks in western and central Kenya, government officials said Friday, underlining the difficulty of reversing Kenya's cycle of postelection violence despite President Mwai Kibaki and his rival agreeing to share power. On Thursday, Kibaki urged lawmakers to pass the laws needed to enforce the country's new power-sharing agreement that was reached last week. It calls for Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga to share power after both sides claimed victory in the Dec. 27 presidential election. Their dispute unleashed weeks of bloodshed, killing more than 1,000 people and exposing divisions over land and economic inequality.

China vigorously defended its policy on Darfur on Friday against critics seeking to link Beijing's close relations with Sudan to this summer's Olympic Games. Liu Guijin, China's special envoy for Darfur, said Beijing was working hard to help end the humanitarian crisis in the troubled Sudanese region, where five years of fighting between rebels and government troops and allied militia has killed at least 200,000 people and displaced 2.2 million since 2003.

Islamist insurgents killed five government soldiers while briefly seizing a strategic town in central Somalia late Thursday, police and residents said. A police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said several military vehicles were also destroyed in Belet Weyne, the provincial capital of the central Somali region of Hiraan, 200 miles north of Mogadishu. Islamist fighters have vowed to wage an Iraq-style war on the shaky Western-backed transitional government after Somali troops supported by their Ethiopian allies chased the Islamists from power in December 2005. The Islamists had seized control of much of the south and the country's capital, Mogadishu, which they had held for six months.

• JJ Commentary: What the media fails to report is that in each African country where violence runs rampant, it is Islam that is stirring up the unrest.

Useless Dialogue

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. sanctions against Iran have caused damage to the country's economy, Iranian business leaders and analysts say, even as the U.N. Security Council prepares to consider additional measures to force Iran to curb its nuclear program. The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog issued a report Wednesday that sets the stage for new Security Council sanctions. A first set of limited U.N. sanctions imposed last March were focused on companies involved in the nuclear program. But unilateral actions that the United States has taken in recent months have been broader, attempting to block dollar transactions into and out of Iran and targeting energy firms and financial activity.

The U.S. measures are driving up prices in Iran while increasing business costs and making it tougher for Iran to import ordinary goods, businessmen and analysts said this week. "The sanctions imposed by the U.S., especially in the past year, have been more harmful than we expected," said Saeed Laylaz, a prominent political and economic analyst in Tehran. "The main impact is that all of our imported goods have become more expensive."

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Thursday to push ahead with Iran's nuclear activities, saying the West is trying to stop the program to prevent Iran from emerging as a world power. The head of the U.N. nuclear agency, meanwhile, said he agreed with CIA estimates that Iran was three to eight years from being able to make nuclear arms. International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei urged the United States and other U.N. Security Council members to abandon "rhetoric" in the standoff with Iran and pursue dialogue, saying it was the best way to keep the country from acquiring nuclear weapons.

• JJ Commentary: Are you kidding me? Dialogue with the Muslim hardliners yields only lies and delays. Rhetoric doesn’t help either. Sanctions help some, but the Islamo-fascists will do anything to further their plan to wipe Israel from the face of the earth – and then attempt to take over the rest of the earth.

Respond Massively

BAGHDAD — Iraq's Shiite vice president narrowly escaped assassination Monday as a blast ripped through a government meeting hall just hours after it was searched by U.S. teams with bomb-sniffing dogs. At least 10 people were killed.

BAGRAM, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber attacked the entrance to the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, killing up to 23 people and wounding 20.

• JJ Commentary: Suicidal terrorists cannot be eliminated and stopped by conventional means. The only way to prevent – or at least reduce – terrorism is to respond massively. When 1,000 are killed for every one the terrorists murder, they will think twice before subjecting their people to that eventuality.

Just

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- A suspected Islamic militant told judges Wednesday he took part in the beheadings of three Christian girls on an Indonesian island wracked by religious violence to avenge the deaths of Muslims, but apologized to their families."We are not cold-blooded killers," Hasanuddin, 34, told the Central Jakarta District Court. "We just wanted revenge."

• JJ Commentary: The word "just" is (mis)used time and again to just-ify and rationalize criminal behavior, whether it's the petty thief or an Islamic terrorist. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay" says God not once, but three times, in the Bible (Deuteronomy 32:35, quoted again in Romans 12:19 and Hebrews 10:30). As even the world, says, "Two wrongs don't make it right." True just-ice can only come from a holy, righteous God, not in our hands.