REPORT: ISLAMIC TERRORISTS FROM BOSNIA PLANNED ATTACK ON VATICAN

Sofia News Agency reports that "Italian authorities have received a tip-off that a group of Islamists were planning a bomb attack on the seat of Roman Catholicism, according to reports. The Corriere newspaper carried an unsourced report on Friday that a group of Islamists from Bosnia were planning a bomb attack on the Vatican. According to the report the group, made up of seven men and three women, has already arrived in Rome. Checks have been launched along the border with Slovenia and security at airports has been tightened, the Corriere newspaper wrote. Italy has identified 13,600 targets at risk of attack, including the Vatican so far."

Reports of potential danger to the Vatican have been rife since September 11, and security has been greatly heightened. The involvement of Italy in the Iraq war has increased threats against Italy itself -- although the Vatican seems distant from those specific threats because it opposed the war.

But Catholicism remains a main hindrance to the spread of radical Islam and targets dear not only to Christianity but to Italy's tourist trade are subject to threats. The Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua was named as one such target about two years ago, and operatives associated with al Qaeda attempted to assassinate the Pope in Manila in 1994 -- an attempt thwarted when a mysterious blast destroyed the terrorists' apartment.

-- - (David@excite.com), August 29, 2004

Answers

What a violent group of people.

-- - (David@excite.com), August 29, 2004.

David, please don't generalize them all. The terrorists and/or the fanatics don't represent all mulims. Bad guys could be find in every group or religion, but that doesn't mean the whole community is evil.

-- Abraham T (Lijothengil@yahoo.com), August 29, 2004.

Smite the neck and cut fingertips of unbelievers (8.12:) When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.

-- - (David@excite.com), August 29, 2004.

Yes, I agree. We should cut off every Muslim's fingers. That'll teach 'em!

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), August 29, 2004.

http://www.themodernreligion.com/terror/terrorism_verses1.htm

http://www.kuftaro.org/English/WOT/Islam_and_Religious_Tolerance.htm

http://www.crescentlife.com/islamic%20rights/religious_tolerance.htm

-- Abraham T (Lijothengil@yahoo.com), August 29, 2004.

Great sites, Abraham. Many people don't understand that Islam teaches peace, just as Christianity does. Judging all Muslims by Osama bin Laden's standard is like Judging all Christians by Fred Phelps.

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), August 29, 2004.

Technically "Islam" doesn't mean "peace" but "submission"....kind of like the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics wasn't actually a Union of independent states which were each true republics! Or all those "Workers" Parties which didn't actually care for workers!

So on the one hand we have the rhetoric "islam is for peace" and on the other we have the Koran, 1400 years of Muslim warfare (both among themselves and with everyone else), and repeated current examples of less than peace-loving charm coming from the mouths of a sizable number of Mullahs and other "leaders".

I don't doubt that MANY muslims (especially in the US) are peaceful and wonderful people. I see dozens of them every day on my way to work and often share the elevator and grocery line with them.

But just as there is a distinction between Christians and "The Church" and thus, not every wild thing a man who happens to be Christian does is attributable to the Church, so too with Islam, but in reverse: Christian theology holds war to be THE LAST RESORT AND EXCEPTIONAL. Muslim theology holds war to be one of many options - not at all an exception to the rule.

In Christianity the Church as preached individual non-violence as a noble thing to do (martyrs are not normally considered to be people who blow themselves up while boarding a packed school bus). Sure, one may resist evil...but always keeping in mind the need to avoid causing more evil. "Just War" theory doesn't give ANYONE a blank check.

I believe many Muslims can live peacefully and interpret their Koran in peaceful ways - especially as they don't have a "pope" and hence like Protestants can pretty much interpret things as they go. BUT... thus far a faily large percentage of Muslims in Africa, the Middle East and Asia (Malaysia) ARE ROUTINELY KILLING Christians as well as their fellow Muslims and they are doing so while invoking their theology...and aren't getting censored too heavily for it.

So Islam = Peace, but we have a civil war raging in Sudan and Algeria, Sudanese Muslims killing Christians, Somalians killing each other, Nigerians and Ivory Coast Muslims torching Christian villages...Malasians killing Christians, East Timorese, etc.... Turks killing Kurds, Iranian and Iraqi Shiites killing Iraqi Sunnis and vice versa, Taliban Afgans killing other Afgans...

All while many schools are preaching war with the West?

There's an awful lot of people involved in all these wars...and more importantly, there's an awful lot of theology going on JUSTIFYING all these various insurgencies, uprisings, bombings and terror attacks.

Maybe some small sect of Islam is peaceful and interprets the Koran that way...but as Steve555 knows, the Koran is vastly more easy to interpret for war (for many reasons) than the Bible is to use for "Just war".

Al Qaeda may not speak for "Islam" but "Islam" isn't doing a whole lot theologically to prove Osama to be a fool. If they are...then it behooves them to let us in on this no doubt titanic struggle so we in the West realize what a peace loving religion they have.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), August 30, 2004.

Joe, you yourself touched on the reason why “Islam” isn’t seen to have a single loud voice condemning Al-Quaeda. Every Muslim is free to interpret the Koran as he likes. Islam has no priesthood, no hierarchy, no supreme religious authority. The Imams (prayer leaders), Sheiks (chiefs) and the Shia Ayatollahs know that they have no religious basis for authority. They hold “office” only by consent of the small group of Muslims around them who could change their minds at any time and choose someone else. So they don’t make forthright condemnations that would put a section of their fellow muslims offside.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), August 30, 2004.

Yes, but the point of those who claim that Islam is a peaceful religion is that the extremists are well, extreme...the rarity, the odd balls, not the "mainstream" or common face of things.

Christians can look aghast at the IRA or KKK and say "they are terrorists who happen to have come from a Christian background" rather than "good Christians" carrying out the highest dictates of Christ.

This is what everyone is trying to claim (both the Pope and President) and in a way this puts them on notice that we expect nothing less of them.

But the reality is not so clear cut as history and current events show us.... if the terrorists WERE the odd nut cases, the "extreme fringe" representative of only 1 or 2% of Muslims, then you'd expect huge swaths of Muslims to be totally dumping on them, not just theologically but culturally and socially as well.

Instead we see WESTERN "elites" joining most Muslim scholars and Mullahs and governments in the chorus of the glories of the Muslim suicide bombers...when it comes to Israel, which establishes the PRINCIPLE that "martyrdom" can be won via acts of violence aimed at unarmed civilians! By excusing their crimes against the innocent they enshrine a dangerous precedent with religious sanction - sowing seeds of more violence in the young.

This is a far cry from Catholic Just War theory or anything the world of Christians churches is talking about. And that's the problem. Islam isn't a peaceful religion - they don't send out missionaries to convince others of the rightness of their revelation. They send out soldiers to capture territory or smite their enemies.

The only places where Muslims apparently are at peace are Western lands where they are overwhelmingly minorities, granted equal rights under the secular law (which as Catholic roots).

But in their lands, where Shariah rules, the principle has been established among a sizable portion of Muslim people and their thinkers that terror tactics are OK with respect to the "evil Jews". It thus is rationally hard for them to say the same tactics are bad with respect to the Americans or Westerners who are equally vilified as "evil" by other Muslim and Western "elites" who loath the Catholic cultural worldview (pro-life, family, subsidiarity, etc) found in the West, particularly in the USA.

Until this principle is argued against and shown to be wrong from within a Koranic perspective (as well as a civilizational, "metaphysic" perspective) the terror war won't end...because violent wars begin in the heart and mind - in the dreams and ideologies of men before spilling into the streets and battlefields.

So long as great numbers of people really believe the myth of Marx, bloodshed in the name of Utopia is possible. But when they cease to believe it or believe it fully, war suddenly becomes less and less worth the effort and risk.... this is what happened in Eastern Europe.

Right now the great myth of Muslim Martyrdom via violence is sweeping the globe. The Muslim nations of the world recently held a meeting in Malasia (the largest Muslim nation in the world) and could not come to a definition of terrorism, much less condemn it! That's got to mean something for all of us.

Terrorists - as Cardinal Ratzinger noted years ago - are much like the nihilists in the West who have a magical view of the world...they don't negotiate except through violence and threat of violence. No compromise. No treaties among equals... no overarching search for truth and coexistence. In their world view killing the totally innocent is a talisman, a ritual that will spark utopia.

We see signs of this irrational behavior in the West too - When people cease ARGUING as in exchanging reasons and counter-reasons and instead launch invectives and insults and hatred at their enemies (mostly Social Left on Cultural Right), hyperbole and wild conspiracy claims spilling into the streets in the place of reasoned "dialogue".

My hope is that at least here, politics will remain the field of battle - that somehow we as a human family can re-learn how to listen and dialogue once more - as was the cultural situation of the Roman empire in which Christianity flourished. The persecutions existed but were largely confined to Rome or major cities, and weren't universally enforced... so long as there was cultural freedom to speak and discuss, argue and reason, the best Religion or theory was able to rise to the top - all things being equal, the truth always wins for the benefit of the majority of human beings.

Unlike Communist China or Muslim nations were NO freedom is allowed the Christian to dialogue with a neighbor and win through the use of words (eu-vangelion) his neighbor over to the truth who is Christ.

Whereas we understand "martyrs" to be people who are violently killed by those who could not stand to reason with them, the Communists and many Muslims seem to pre-empt this by summarily executing those they disagree with - while preaching as virtue (as principle) this same anti-reasoning, anti-dialoguing violence.

I hope that in Iraq and elsewhere people will learn that armed rebellion against overwhelming strength (which also has the moral highground) will lead Muslims to conclude that the truly humane and noble path of disagreement ought to lead away from the streets back into the parliment chambers and mosques.

If the God of Abraham truly revealed his will to Mohammed via the angel Gabriel in 622 AD, then the truth will win in the end - stacked up apples to apples against the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

But if the only way to preserve the Koran or Marxism intact is determined to be by direct force of arms... then every honest person will have to conclude that those "new gospels" aren't of God or good.

Either way we Catholics are called to evangelize, to defend the truth and good. If by all means we can do this peacefully, we are bound to do so. If in rare circumstances we have to fight to restore the tranquilitas ordinis, then we ought to fight to win as swiftly as possible so as to minimize the harm. And then immediately work to rebuild and restore dignity and fraternity with our former foes.

It's a shame, this wounded humanity of ours...but this is what we get when we Catholics don't evangelize our culture and the world.

The world is dying for lack of Christ - and we can either bear witness to him as white martyrs or as "red". Had we spent the 1960's and 70's actually carrying out the Vatican II spirit of holiness rather than rebellion, none of these things would be happening because by now the West as a whole would be effectively evangelizing the East. But no. We didn't convert and seek holiness then, so now we're faced with the prospect of martyrdom for the faith now.

War only postpones the final confrontation of hearts and minds. Sometimes - when the signs of the times aren't right and passions and conditions are such that one can't wait, war is justified. But as soon as it can be ceased and words can take the place of weapons, we must seek to engage and reach out and win over those who would be our enemies.

Would that no Cains had no murderous intents for the Abels among us...but alas, they do. Would that building walls or retreating to the desert were enough to escape them...but alas, they always aren't. Would that stern warnings and words could alone stave off physical confrontations...but as we see in Iraq with Al Sadr... people are fickle and quick to fight against all reason and respect.

Madmen ought to be sent to the mad-house...and their followers dispersed, disarmed, and then "made disciples" of the good shepherd who does not prey on his sheep.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), August 31, 2004.

“Allah says, when you encounter those that deny Islam, strike [their] necks” Quran, sura 47, verse 4.

With this in the Koran, Muslims have carte blanche on their aggression towards other cultures & creeds. Perhaps most don't know of this passage from the Koran but those that are aware either commit the "crimes against humanity" that are happening the world over against Christians & Jews and even Hindu's and Buddhists or pay lip service by tacitly remaining quiet of protest against it and even finding excuses for those Muslims carring out these acts of hatred.

One wonders if Mohammed was around today if he would be held and incarcerated by the International Criminal Court, for jusitfying these crimes committed by his followers against humanity.

-- jim (jim.voucher@morex.ac.kr), September 04, 2004.

"So on the one hand we have the rhetoric "islam is for peace" and on the other we have the Koran, 1400 years of Muslim warfare (both among themselves and with everyone else), and repeated current examples of less than peace-loving charm coming from the mouths of a sizable number of Mullahs and other "leaders"."

You're an educated man, so I need not remind you of the Crusades, the Inquisition, the countless "savages" who were killed in the proccess of "civilizing" the New World and Africa. Not to mention all the violence in Europe between Protestants and Catholics. All religions have blood on their hands. You simply can't judge an entire group of people by the transgressions of a few.

"So long as great numbers of people really believe the myth of Marx, bloodshed in the name of Utopia is possible. But when they cease to believe it or believe it fully, war suddenly becomes less and less worth the effort and risk.... this is what happened in Eastern Europe."

Umm...what? How did we jump from al Quaeda to Communism? There's a bit of a difference, you know...

"We see signs of this irrational behavior in the West too - When people cease ARGUING as in exchanging reasons and counter-reasons and instead launch invectives and insults and hatred at their enemies (mostly Social Left on Cultural Right), hyperbole and wild conspiracy claims spilling into the streets in the place of reasoned "dialogue"."

Oh yeah, because conservatives have really been kicked to the curb in this country. When will they ever regain power? Oh wait...

"The world is dying for lack of Christ - and we can either bear witness to him as white martyrs or as "red". Had we spent the 1960's and 70's actually carrying out the Vatican II spirit of holiness rather than rebellion, none of these things would be happening because by now the West as a whole would be effectively evangelizing the East. But no. We didn't convert and seek holiness then, so now we're faced with the prospect of martyrdom for the faith now."

Rebellion is healthy. Didn't you ever rebel against anything? Come on. You seem like an old guy, you were probably just about the right age to have been a long-haired hippy freak back in the 60's. You probably listened to Buffalo Springfield and Janice Joplin. You were probably out on the streets protesting to bring your brothers home. The 60's saw some real progress. We saw the first real environmental progress. We saw people passionately fighting for something good. People cared about the way society was going. We've lost too much of that. My generation is more concerned with watching bad top forty music on MTV than fighting the man. Kids with long hair get their asses kicked. It's a shame.

The thing you have to understand is that radical ideologies are always going to appeal to a disposessed people. When your life is terrible, you will join any kind of revolutionary movement that promises a better future. It happened to the peasants in Russia in 1917. It happened to Germany in the 30's. It happened to the Cubans in '59. It happened to Vietnam in the 60's. It happened to Iran in the 70's, and it's been happening to the Palestinians for half a century. If you want to fight terrorism, cut it at the roots. Right now we're just hacking off leaves. Our fight should be against poverty, ignorance, and oppression, conditions that create a breeding ground for islamic fundamentalism. Yes, we do need military action as well, but our war should be primarily a "soft war", a war using humanitarian aid and books rather than bombs and bullets.

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), September 04, 2004.

"You're an educated man, so I need not remind you of the Crusades, the Inquisition, the countless "savages" who were killed in the proccess of "civilizing" the New World and Africa. Not to mention all the violence in Europe between Protestants and Catholics. All religions have blood on their hands. You simply can't judge an entire group of people by the transgressions of a few."

Yes, I actually am educated. Now the Crusades which began as you recall in 1095, were in RESPONSE to Muslim atrocities - which began in 633 AD. Four hundred years of playing defense only is quite a long time of "turning the other cheek". Of course, you do recall that Muslims sacked Rome in the 800s too right?

So my point is that Catholicism didn't START wars for the hell of it - and the wars weren't launched for national gain - unlike Muslim invasions.

As far as body count, the Crusaders didn't kill willy nilly - chivalry (Catholic moral teaching) meant that non-combatants were spared... it wasn't genocide and it wasn't ethnic cleansing. On both sides... most defeated soldiers were held for ransom, not summarily executed. To find true bloodbaths you have to go to modern times - and the armies launched by atheistic socialist regimes.

WWI wasn't started by Catholic countries and the political regimes in power weren't inspired by Catholic ideas. Ditto for WW2 and all the rest of it.

"So long as great numbers of people really believe the myth of Marx, bloodshed in the name of Utopia is possible. But when they cease to believe it or believe it fully, war suddenly becomes less and less worth the effort and risk.... this is what happened in Eastern Europe."

My point is that BOTH communism and Al Qaeda have a powerful utopian theories of human history and destiny driving their foot soldiers onward, justifying terrorist acts by invoking some future paradise. Whereas Catholic Just war theory and morality forbids the intentional killing of the innocent.

"Oh yeah, because conservatives have really been kicked to the curb in this country. When will they ever regain power? Oh wait"

Well, you aparently haven't been watching much TV coverage of the Protest Warriors getting beat up at the DNC and other events... nor have you seen pro-lifers get assaulted routinely... I have.

The Left is really violent - their "peace-protests" are VIOLENT! I have witnessed their inability to argue: point and counter point. On planes, in restaurants, in public... the spittle and froth and hatred for Catholic sexual morality, for GOP accomplishments, for reforms... its all heat and no light. Few and far between are the Leftists who don't use sound bytes and slogans in place of facts and figures.

"Our fight should be against poverty, ignorance, and oppression, conditions that create a breeding ground for islamic fundamentalism. Yes, we do need military action as well, but our war should be primarily a "soft war", a war using humanitarian aid and books rather than bombs and bullets."

I am 34 years old. Nuf said. And where in the world have you been these past 3 years!!! Spending $200 billion in Iraq, increasing oil production CREATES JOBS IN THE MIDDLE EAST! Liberating Afganistan and Iraq creates jobs for those poor people. Providing a aegis of military might in the region allows those nations to stop building up their arsenals (in defense of a Hussein Iraq), and allows them to spend their oil money on peaceful things.

(The same aegis (NATO) allowed post-WW2 Europe and Japan to spend their money on domestic rebuilding rather than armaments. Not needing to spend on defense allows nations to spend on productive things...which is why the US will continue to provide security for Iraq and Afganistan for some time now...until those nations' armies and police get settled and the borders are secured.)

Humanitarian aid...books not bullets! Have you never gone to the DoD website to check out all the hundreds and thousands of humanitarian projects we've been doing on behalf of the Iraqis and Afganis?

We've rebuilt their electrical grid, their hospitals and schools, we've rebuilt their old oil infrastructure - providing Iraqi jobs and income for their national good... ditto in Afganistan.

Yet the American employees helping rebuild these nations are called mercenaries! When killed by terrorists or thugs they get riped on by the Left for selling out. The Left howls about how the money could have been spent here at home...which isn't an answer to terrorism!

If you have to fight terrorism, then you have to spend money. And if we do spend money rebuilding Iraq and Afganistan...the Left is mad and doesn't want it spent! So how serious are they really about "solving the root problems"? Not much.

We ARE creating the freedoms and civil conditions which allows free people to create their own wealth and thus escape poverty and repression...

Have you never read the Iraqi blogs? Things are booming so much that people are flocking to the cities to get work - and finding it.

No, the Left is all doom and gloom - eager to find bad news on the economy to hype their socialist dreams and yet despite their best attempts the ecomony is getting better.

Here's a hint: when there's a housing boom in the USA, that's a sign that an awful lot of us Americans have good enough paying jobs to afford new homes! So the economy must be doing better than it was before for this to happen!

They claim "all the good jobs are going abroad and being outsourced" (wait, isn't that a GOOD THING FOR SOLVING THE ROOT CAUSES OF TERRORISM BY PROVIDING POOR 3RD WORLD PEOPLE WITH JOBS?)...

But this can't be true - otherwise where would all these millions of Americans be getting the money to buy new homes? You can't get a home mortgage (average price $215,000) on a burger flipping job.

Ditto in Iraq and elswhere.... the world economy (which runs on oil) is improving but most of the problem in the Middle east is caused by dictatorships and socialist central planning which keeps people from doing what they need to do for their own good.

So I conclude, anti-Bush, that things are going just fine, given the circumstances, and that the Left is clueless, given the facts.

I wasn't born yesterday, but I wasn't born in the 50's or 60's either. I'm just well travelled, have a post-grad degree, am fairly well read (I read both Left and right pubs), and have the chance to speak with lots of people from different walks of life and points of view.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), September 07, 2004.