The Eighth Crusade - The Modern Crusade

For more information about the first seven crusades, visit this site: The Crusades, Boise State University.

Fatwa: If you are sent to wage war against the Muslims, then it is not permissible for you to take part at all.
'When two Muslims fight (meet) each other with their swords, both the murderer as well as the murdered will go to the Hell-fire.' I said, 'O Allah's Apostle! It is all right for the murderer but what about the murdered one?' Allah's Apostle replied, "He surely had the intention to kill his companion."
Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 2, Number 30

At home with the Taliban
By Asra Q. Nomani, Salon Magazine, Oct. 10, 2001

Pakistani Police Kill 3 Protesters and a 13-Year-Old
By Douglas Frantz, The New York Times, 10 Oct 2001
"Naseer A. Tareen, a businessman in Quetta, said the protests were unlikely to spread beyond the vocal minority.
'The majority of Pakistanis are so docile that they will never come out in the streets,' he said. 'Public opinion is being hijacked by a minority who want to take us in a direction that we don't want to go.'"

Powell: No Immediate Plans to Attack Other Groups
By Jonathan Wright, Reuters, Wednesday October 10 6:04 PM ET
"The New York Times said on Wednesday that 'terrorists' based in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia and linked with al Qaeda were likely targets of future U.S. operations."

Instant Messages To Israel Warned Of WTC Attack
By Brian McWilliams, Newsbytes, The Washington Post, 27 Sep 2001, 11:48 AM CST
"Officials at instant-messaging firm Odigo confirmed today that two employees received text messages warning of an attack on the World Trade Center two hours before terrorists crashed planes into the New York landmarks.
Citing a pending investigation by law enforcement, the company declined to reveal the exact contents of the message or to identify the sender."

5 Israelis detained for "puzzling behavior" after WTC tragedy
By Yossi Melman, Ha'aretz English Edition, Israel
"The Foreign Ministry said in response that it had been informed by the consulate in New York that the FBI had arrested the five for 'puzzling behavior.' They are said to have had been caught videotaping the disaster and shouting in what was interpreted as cries of joy and mockery."

India in anti-Taliban military plan
"26 June 2001: India and Iran will 'facilitate' US and Russian plans for 'limited military action' against the Taliban if the contemplated tough new economic sanctions don't bend Afghanistan's fundamentalist regime."

US 'planned attack on Taleban'
By the BBC's George Arney, BBC, Tuesday, 18 September, 2001, 11:27 GMT 12:27 UK
"A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks."

U.S. Pursued Secret Efforts to Catch or Kill bin Laden
By James Risen, The New York Times, 30 Sep 2001
"The Central Intelligence Agency secretly began to send teams of American officers to northern Afghanistan about three years ago in an attempt to persuade the leader of the anti- Taliban Afghan opposition to capture and perhaps kill Osama bin Laden, according to American intelligence officials."

Bin Laden: "I Categorically State That I Have Not Done This"
AFP and AIP

ABC NEWS - An Exclusive Interview with Osama Bin Ladin
"At the same time, our primary target are military and those in its employment.
Our religion forbids us to kill innocents—children, women who are not combatants. Women soldiers who place themselves in the battle trenches receive the same treatment as fighting men."

Bin Laden Ready for Trial if Proof Given - Taliban
By Tom Heneghan, Reuters, Thursday September 20 5:38 AM ET

White House reneges on proof of bin Laden's guilt
By Kate Randall, World Socialist Web Site, 29 September 2001

The investigation and the evidence
BBC News, Friday, 5 October, 2001, 15:10 GMT 16:10 UK
"There is no direct evidence in the public domain linking Osama Bin Laden to the 11 September attacks."

What Really Happened
The history the government hopes you DON'T learn!

Bin Laden's middle class killers
By the BBC's Matt Frei in Lebanon, BBC, Saturday, 22 September, 2001, 15:54 GMT 16:54 UK
"His uncle Jemal, a suave banker, pointed out that Ziad was living with his girlfriend, which would be completely unacceptable to any devout Muslim, let alone a fundamentalist."
"He had been sent to Catholic school."
"He liked to have a drink, was fun-loving and sociable and he never expressed any anti-American feeling."

Will Gives a Window Into Suspect's Mind
By Peter Finn and Charles Lane, Washington Post Staff Writers, Saturday, October 6, 2001; Page A16
"The document was found by the FBI in a suitcase that Atta had checked for the flight from Boston to Los Angeles but that was never loaded aboard the plane. . . . Also found in the luggage, according to court documents, were a Koran and various materials that reflect Atta's pilot training, including a hand-held electronic flight computer used for navigation and a simulator procedures manual for Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft."
How fortuante for the FBI investigators that the airline missed his luggage and what good is a hand written will on board a plane you plane to crash?

Hijacked jets nearly collided
The Washington Times
"Although controllers don't have complete details of the Air Force's chase of the Boeing 757, they have learned the F-16 made 360-degree turns to remain close to the commercial jet, the employee said. "'He must've seen the whole thing,' the employee said of the F-16 pilot's view of Flight 93's crash."

White House lied about threat to Air Force One
By Jerry White, World Socialist Web Site, 28 September 2001
"Looking pale and shaken, he [Bush] taped a brief initial message from an underground bunker at an air force base in Louisiana. Several hours later—when all non-US military aircraft in American air space had been grounded—Bush was flown to another fortified location at the Strategic Air Command headquarters in Nebraska. The president did not return to Washington until 7 p.m., nearly 10 hours after the initial attack."

They can't see why they are hated
By Seumas Milne, The Guardian, Thursday, September 13, 2001
"Unconstrained by any superpower rival or system of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the global financial and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of treaties it finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United Nations; maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant regimes; and recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada rages."

An open letter to the President of the United States
By David Duke
"The obvious truth is that those who attacked us couldn't care less about the kind of government we have. They did not attack us because they hate our democracy or our freedoms. They certainly did not attack Switzerland or Sweden or any other democracies in the world.
I pray that you will agree with me that the American people deserve the utmost honesty before we take the most serious and dangerous step that a nation can ever make: go to war."

Will Anyone Dare to Ask Why?
By David Duke
"Maybe a good first question to ask is why these 'crazy,' 'cowardly,' Arabs never attack Switzerland or Sweden? What could it be that those countries do or don't do that causes them to be ignored while we are targeted.
Let me be very, very blunt.
The ultimate cause of this terrorism stems directly from our involvement in and support of the criminal behavior of Israel."

Quest for Justice
By Judith Stone (a Jew):
I guess I agree with Ehud Barak (3 June 1998) when he said, “If I were a Palestinian, I’d also join a terror group.” I’d go a step further perhaps. Rather than throwing little stones in desperation, I’d hurtle a boulder.
Hopefully, somewhere deep inside, every Jew of conscience knows that this was no war; that this was not G-d’s restitution of the holy land to its rightful owners. We know that a human atrocity was and continues to be perpetuated against an innocent people who couldn’t come up with the arms and money to defend themselves against the western powers bent upon their demise as a people.

The Cost of Israel to the American People
By Richard Curtiss
"First is the financial cost of Israel to U.S. taxpayers. Between 1949 and 1998, the U.S. gave to Israel, with a self-declared population of 5.8 million people, more foreign aid than it gave to all of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, all of the countries of Latin America, and all of the countries of the Caribbean combined – with a total population of 1,054,000,000 people.
In the 1997 fiscal year, for example, Israel received $3 billion from the foreign aid budget, at least $525 million from other U.S. budgets, and $2 billion in federal loan guarantees. So the 1997 total of U.S. grants and loan guarantees to Israel was $5.5 billion. That’s $15,068,493 per day, 365 days a year."

The Dark Side of Israel
By Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad
"An Israeli need not follow the Mosaic law nor even believe in God to qualify as a Jew as long as his mother meets the ethnic requirements. (On the other hand, the Israeli High Court has ruled that Messianic Jews - meaning Jews who accept Jesus as the Messiah - lose their status as Jews. Apparently Jews who question the ultra-orthodox definitions of Judaism are considered as little worthy of citizenship as Palestinians.)
The curfews that force people to remain indoors as many as 22 hours a day, the closures that prevent them from going to work, and the road system that cuts farms in half exemplify the difficult conditions Palestinians struggle against, simply to keep land which, under any private property law, should be theirs without question. Outright deportations, though illegal under international law, constitute yet another weapon in the Israeli arsenal.
There is no question that Israel’s policies regarding land ownership and water rights are not simply biased against Palestinians, but violent and illegal, and above all contrary to the fundamental concept of private property."

Vigilantes take up arms, vow to expel 'Muslim filth'
By Jack Kelley, USA Today
"There, they pushed boulders, stretched barbed wire and set tires afire to form a barricade that, they said, would stop even the biggest of Palestinian taxis. Then they waited for a vehicle to arrive.
As they crouched in a ditch beside the road, Shapiro, the leader of the group, gave the settlers orders: Surround any taxi, 'open fire' and kill as many of the 'blood-sucking Arab' passengers as possible.
'We are doing what (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon promised but has failed to do: drive these sons of Arab whores from the Land of Israel,' said Shapiro, 42, who moved here with his wife and four children 3 years ago from Brooklyn. 'If he won't get rid of the Muslim filth, then we will.'"

Why Chechnya Is Different
The Washington Post, Thursday, October 4, 2001; Page A30
"A typical Russian 'military operation' in Chechnya consists of invading a village or town, rounding up all of its inhabitants and separating out men and older boys for detention in open pits. Most are released to their families in exchange for bribes, but many are tortured and some summarily executed, their bodies left at dumps or sold back to relatives."

One year of the Intifada (uprising) marked today
By Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD, 28 September 2001
"Of those injured, 37% (West Bank) to 52% (Gaza strip) were children under age 18 years old. 36% of injuries were by live ammunition, the remainder by rubber-coated steel bullets, and other so-called "non-lethal" means. 64.7% of the injuries were to head (like Marwa's case) and upper part of the body. One third (West Bank) to one half (Gaza) of those injured were hit in the back.
An astonishing 58% were not involved in demonstrations or clashes (Hiam and Marwa are typical stories). 112 Emergency Medical Technicians were injured while trying to evacuate other injured individuals. 72 journalists were shot or beaten by Israeli soldiers/settlers and six press centers were shelled. Shelling of civilian areas has accelerated and over 4000 buildings were damaged (including 800 homes, 30 mosques, 12 churches)."