From The Financial Times.
The beginning of Ramadan on Monday will give a welcome boost to UK beverage company Nichols whose fruit cordial brand Vimto has become a key feature of the Muslim holy month in Saudi Arabia. Do Tizer and Irnbrew have a place?
The purple soft drink containing juices, herbs and spices was originally developed as a health tonic in 1908 to take advantage of growing demand for soft drinks created by the growth of the temperance movement before the first world war.
The drink has become a popular feature of Ramadan in Saudi Arabia and neighbouring countries as a pick-me-up beverage once daytime fasting is over.
Vimto is bottled and distributed in Saudi Arabia with advertising support by Aujan Industries, a local family business with whom Nichols has worked since the 1920s as it sought to establish the alcohol-free tipple throughout the British Empire and beyond.
John Nichols, chairman, said strong first-half sales of Vimto, aided by Ramadan’s earlier occurrence this year due to the advancing lunar calendar, had helped mitigate tougher domestic trading for its other core beverage brands Sunkist and Panda.
While other western brands such as Knorr soups are also heavily marketed as suited to Ramadan’s fasting regime, Vimto has established a particular appeal says Mr Nichols.
I’m not a fan of Vimto which is why the item below has lasted so long at the back of my fridge. But it is still in date so I suspect its days are numbered now that my family is aware of its presence on the premises . . . 

by Hugh Fitzgerald (Sept. 2008)
 

Ramadan day 1.
DIGOS, Philippines (AFP) — Five people were killed and 32 others were wounded when a powerful bomb ripped through a packed passenger bus in the southern Philippines on Monday, police and disaster officials said.
The blast, caused by an improvised explosive device, tore through the bus, which was parked inside a terminal in the city of Digos on troubled Mindanao island, they said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the incident.
Officials had warned the public to brace for possible attacks by Muslim separatist rebels, who are on the run from a military offensive on Mindanao.
The renegade guerrillas from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are responsible for a wave of deadly attacks this month on Mindanao. More than 100 rebels as well as more than 40 civilians and soldiers have been killed.
The clashes have put on hold peace talks between the government of President Gloria Arroyo and the MILF, which recently warned that the upsurge in violence could lead to a full-blown war in the mainly Roman Catholic country.
Police said they were also looking at the possibility the attack could have been carried out by a Muslim crime group known as the Al-Khobar gang as the bus firm, Metro Shuttle, had apparently received threats.
The gang is composed mostly of foreign Muslim rebels and preys on businesses in the south.
Provincial police chief Cesario Darantinao said that members of the gang were believed to be responsible for another bomb attack on a Metro Shuttle bus last month. That attack, also in Digos, killed three people.

From The Telegraph
Politicians are too scared to speak out against forced marriage in case they lose valuable Muslim votes, according to a veteran Labour MP.
Ann Cryer said politicians in areas with high Muslim populations, many of which are Labour heartlands, should be at the forefront of the campaign to stop young couples being made to wed against their will by their families.
But she claimed that some politicians are afraid to speak out on the issue in case they alienate Muslim voters.
Mrs Cryer, who is stepping down as MP for Keighley in West Yorkshire at the next general election . . . said: "There still is a nervousness to talk about this, especially those MPs in constituencies affected by these issues.
"They should be fighting on the front line, but they are the ones keeping quiet on the issue because they don't want to lose votes.
"Some of the Muslim leaders in my area are doing their communities a disservice and trying to keep them in the backwoods. They don't seem to have any understanding about the importance of having integration and cohesion, or to promote women to leadership roles in the community."
Mrs Cryer has been at the forefront of efforts to ban forced marriages and honour killings. A law that she backed, the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act, which will come into effect this month, will help by giving women the right to apply for an injunction in court and prevent a ceremony going ahead. Her campaigning has also led to the Government raising the minimum age for a marriage visa from 18 to 21.
When Mrs Cryer announced her retirement last week, the Prime Minister said: "She knows every inch of her constituency and her understanding of its communities is second to none.
However Mrs Cryer's claims have been dismissed by Khalid Mahmood, the Muslim Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr.
He claimed that MPs would not be so easily swayed by the perceived opinions of their constituents, and pointed out that many politicians supported the war in Iraq despite opposition from Muslim voters.
Mr Mahmood said: "In terms of being scared, I think that's complete nonsense. . . People do things because they believe in them, not because of this cynical reason. If that was the case, MPs would have stood up against the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. . . although it (forced marriage) is an issue, it's not an epidemic as Ann sometimes makes it out to be."
I have a great deal of respect for Ann Cryer and her family. The Queen could do worse in the next Honours list following her retirement than declare her Baroness Cryer. Sillier women get more for less service.

American Terrorism in the Balkans

As the credit crunch bites – or crunches – supermarket giant Tesco reveals its new survival strategy: good grammar. From The Telegraph:

Tesco has bowed to pressure from those lobbying for the use of good English and have altered checkout signs reading "ten items or less" in the interests of being gramatically correct.

From now on, signs in new stores are to say "up to 10 items" after a long running argument with those who have objected to the use of the word "less" in that context.

Many have argued that the signs ought to read "ten items or fewer" instead of "ten items or less". Their argument is that the word 'fewer' should be used when it refers to quantities that can be counted. 'Less', they say, should refer to quantities that cannot be counted.

The new form of words comes from a suggestion by the Plain English Campaign.

"There is a debate about whether the word should be 'less' or 'fewer'," a campaign spokesman said. "Saying 'up to ten items' is easy to understand and avoids any debate."

Guidance from Oxford University Press says: "Less means 'not as much'. Fewer means 'not as many'. This can be tricky when referring to quantities. For example, we say less than six weeks, not fewer than six weeks, because we are not referring to six individual weeks, but to a single period of time lasting six weeks."

Hopes that changing the wording would provide a satisfactory solution to the knotty problem appear premature with some critics claiming that the new signs are themselves ambiguous.

Some would argue that "up to ten items" could mean "ten items and no more" or "nine items or fewer".

A Tesco spokesman said: "The debate about what is right has been going on for years now, and I still don't think we know if 'less' or 'fewer' is correct.

"The new signs will be in the rolling out of new stores. We are not going to see any new ones in existing shops so shoppers in those will not see the change."

“Rolling out”? It’s a shop, not a lump of pastry.

As this news item points out, “up to ten items” is still ambiguous. One reader suggests “up to and including ten items”. Better still, another suggests "<=10 items”.

Tesco is obviously trying to position itself as middle to lower middle class; it is aware “less” may be less than grammatical but isn’t snooty about it.  In Waitrose, where the posh people shop for their polenta with nary a split infinitive, only “ten items or fewer” will do. But “ten items or less” is good enough for Morrisons, whose slogan “more reasons to shop at Morrisons” attracts the aitch-dropping shopper.

US supermarket chain Fresh & Easy is a subsidiary of Tesco. I would be interested to hear how they approach the "ten items or less" issue.

With the amount of advance publicity it has received I don’t think any of our UK readers will forget Channel 4 tonight, at 8pm.

David Thompson writes:

Tonight sees the return of Channel 4’s extraordinary Undercover Mosque investigation. Sara Hassan, whose covert filming is featured in tonight’s programme, reports on what she found in one of Britain’s “most respected centres for moderate Islam.” 

In a large balcony above the beautiful main hall at Regent’s Park Mosque in London - widely considered the most important mosque in Britain - I am filming undercover as the woman preacher gives her talk. What should be done to a Muslim who converts to another faith? “We kill him,” she says, “kill him, kill, kill… You have to kill him, you understand?”

It’s heartening to see the wisdomofMuhammad still shining upon the world.

Adulterers, she says, are to be stoned to death - and as for homosexuals, and women who “make themselves like a man, a woman like a man... the punishment is kill, kill them, throw them from the highest place.”

I’ve remarked before on how the enthusiasm for sacralised murder never quite fails to jar. And despite repeated exposure to such impressive piety, I still can’t help noting that the quoted sermons feature the word “kill” no fewer than nine times. However, the news isn’t all bad.

These punishments, the preacher says, are to be implemented in a future Islamic state. “This is not to tell you to start killing people,” she continues. “There must be a Muslim leader, when the Muslim army becomes stronger, when Islam has grown enough.”

Naturally, as with most things Islamic, inconsistencies abound.

Regent’s Park Mosque has a major interfaith department, which arranges visits from the Government, the civil service, representatives of other religions and thousands of British school children a year. I watched as an interfaith group was brought in to meet the mosque’s women’s circle for a civilised exchange. But when the interfaith group wasn’t there, the preacher attacked other faiths, and the very concept of interfaith dialogue. One preacher said of Christians praying in a church: “What are these people doing in there, these things are so vile, what they say with their tongues is so vile and disgusting, it’s an abomination.” As for the concept of interfaith live-and-let-live: “This is false. It does not work. This concept is a lie, it is fake, and it is a farce.”

Doubtless these inconsistencies will be resolved “when the Muslim army becomes stronger.” Allah willing, of course.

An amusing example of someone trying to promote Islam could be heard the other day on the BBC World Service. Owen Bennett-Jones (of the famous Bennett-Joneses) delivered the glad tidings from Bihar that Muslims in a madrasa there gave shelter to several Hindus, who were then heard on camera saying something in an Indian language, describing this event.

What was clear, however, was that the story, despite the best efforts of Owen Bennett-Jones and the BBC World Service, came across in a way differently from that intended.

Why? Well, because we all know, we are familiar with, the fact that massive aid by Infidels to Muslims, all the time, is treated matter-of-factly, as a matter of course. No one notes that Israel send teams of disaster specialists and earthmoving equipment to Turkey during the Istanbul earthquake. No one does anything but take for granted the American military hospitals quickly set up in Pakistan after the last earthquake, hospitals which are still there, treating not the survivors but any Pakistani who cares to take advantage of advanced Western medicine; the Americans, and other Infidels, were quick to send aid to Indonesia, and to the hardest-hit island, that of Muslim-mad Aceh, after the tsunami. And no one remarks on this, no one bats an eye.

But when in Bihar, there are floods, and an example can be found of Muslims not attacking Hindus but acting in a most un-Islamic manner, with a single director of a single madrasa actually allowing Hindus to find shelter in that madrasa -- well, for the BBC World Service, and for Owen Bennett-Jones, this becomes a story worth reporting to the entire world.

What the BBC World Service, Defender of the Faith (that Faith being Islam) whenever it can do that Faith some service fails to note is that the story simply invited, on the part of listeners, precisely the kind of observations I have made in this posting.

It was, you see, with its tale of some Muslims in Bihar actually giving shelter from nature's distempers to some Hindus, simply a case of Man Bites Dog.

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) -- Bristol Palin, the 17-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin, is pregnant and will keep the baby and marry the father, a senior aide to Sen. John McCain confirmed to CNN Tuesday.

Bristol Palin, second from right, holds infant brother Trig at Friday's announcement of their mother's candidacy.

Republican presidential candidate McCain was aware of Bristol Palin's pregnancy before he chose her mother for his running mate, the aide said.

"Senator McCain knew this and felt in no way did it disqualify her from being vice president," said the aide. "Families have difficulties sometimes, and lucky for her she has a supportive family."

The 17-year-old, a senior in high school, is about five months along, in her second trimester, according to the aide.

The aide said it was decided the campaign would reveal this information now because of rampant Internet rumors that Sarah Palin's 4-month-old baby, who has Down syndrome, was actually Bristol's.

"In the course of correcting that, we needed to get the truth out," said the McCain aide.

Sarah and Todd Palin issued a statement saying they are "proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents."

They also asked the media to respect their daughter's privacy.

The McCain aide insisted a key point to keep in mind is that Bristol decided to keep the baby, a decision "supported by her parents."

To give the BBC some credit I was pleasantly surprised at how blunt the editor has allowed the writer to be about who is responsible for the persecution of these Somali Christians and the dangers they face.
By Noel Mwakugu  BBC News, Nairobi
In a secluded house just outside the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, a group of men and women meet at least once a week to worship in secret.
Their prayer session is simple and conducted in Somali. Elders take turns to pray or read verses from the Somali bible before a sermon is delivered.
There are dozens of Somalis living in Nairobi who have converted from Islam to Christianity. Some say they have been practising Christianity for more than 10 years. But they live in constant fear of persecution from members of the Somali community, which is predominantly Muslim.
For a few, it was the threat of religious persecution that forced them to leave their homes and seek refuge in Kenya.
"There was a group of people who wanted to kill me, so I was one of the first refugees to leave Mogadishu because I knew I would be a target as soon as the government collapsed," says Michael, one of the converts. "The fundamentalists could easily attack me and kill me," he says.
Some of his fellow converts were not so lucky.
"They killed some of my friends. There was a small fellowship that used to meet in my house, about 12 of them, six of them were killed," he says.
Despite fleeing to Kenya, where Christianity is the major religion, life has still not improved for the Somali Christians.
They say they have suffered at the hands of their families and fellow Somalis in Kenya who are angry with their decision to change their religion. They have been targets of physical attacks and beatings. In other instances, they have had their wives and children taken away from them. To ward off these reprisal attacks, many hold on to their Muslim names in an attempt to blend in.
The Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya (CIPK) has rejected claims that the Somali Christians are facing persecution.
"I don't believe the stories by the Somali Christians that they have faced persecution because they converted to Christianity. These are lies," said Sheikh Hassan Omar, a CIPK official. He dismissed the claims as a ruse to get try to get asylum in the US and other Western countries. "I would advise them, if they want to go [to the US], they should look for other channels and should not involve Islam and Muslims in the issue."
Despite the hardships the face, this unique group of Christians says its numbers are growing. In the late 1990s, there were barely 20 Somali Christians in Nairobi, but now their number is close to 200, they say.
And they pray that one day they will be accepted by a society that jealously guards its religious beliefs. 

From The Australian
SUSPECTED Taliban militants arrested by Australian special forces in Afghanistan have been detained in "dog pens" in actions that have left Australian Muslim groups outraged and prompted a protest from the Afghan ambassador in Canberra.
The empty dog pens were used to hold overnight four suspected Taliban insurgents who were arrested in a raid by special forces soldiers on April 29.
The raid - in response to the fatal shooting two days earlier of Sydney-based commando Lance Corporal Jason Marks - resulted in allegations of mistreatment of Afghan prisoners.
An army inquiry last week rejected those claims, saying they were not supported by medical evidence.
Asked by The Australian to confirm that Afghan prisoners were held in the dog pens, Defence officials answered in the affirmative. "Yes, however this holding area provided the best secure, safe and isolated short-term accommodation until the following day," the spokesman said. And the use of the pens pales in significance compared with the atrocities committed by the Taliban before the regime was ousted in the aftermath of the US terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Then, alleged adulterers were routinely stoned to death.
Remnants of the regime are still committing abuses. Earlier this month suspected Taliban extremists abducted and executed a Japanese aid worker.
His death was preceded days earlier by the killing of three Western women aid workers just outside the capital Kabul. It was one of the deadliest attacks in years and came amid growing concern about the deteriorating security situation in the country.
I can’t work out if those are the words of the defence spokesman or Mark Dodd for the Australian. Either way I love the way Australians say what they think.
But there are cultural sensitivities at play over the use of dog pens. Islamic decrees warn Muslims against contact with dogs, which are regarded as unclean.
The use of dog pens for human detention has been strongly criticised by Afghan ambassador Amanullah Jayhoon, who warned the incident could provide valuable propaganda for the Taliban.
Australia's peak Muslim body, the Islamic High Council, expressed alarm at the practice. "This is of concern to us whether they are Muslim or other people being confined in accommodation designed for dogs," said council spokesman Mohamed Mehio. "This is a matter of human rights."
Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon last night denied wrongdoing by the Diggers. "The facilities in which the detainees were held were the most secure facilities available at the remote Afghan army patrol base," he said. "The detainees were held for 24 hours at this transit facility, which was the time required to arrange appropriate transport to move them to a purpose-built detention facility at Tarin Kowt."
Article 25 of the Geneva Convention states: Prisoners of war must be quartered in conditions as favourable as those enjoyed by the detaining power.
"The conditions shall make allowance for the habits and customs of the prisoners and shall in no case be prejudicial to their health.
"The premises provided for the use of prisoners of war, individually or collectively, shall be entirely protected from dampness and adequately heated and lighted."
Knowing that the Australians are conscious of the welfare of their pets and working livestock I have no doubt that army dogs are quartered in clean pens, temperature controlled so not too hot, not too cold as required above, with a constant supply of fresh drinking water, cosy bedding, veterinary treatment and the added bonus of a bonio and the promise of walkies. 
1 in 5 Afghan children die before the age of 5 because their mothers  are children themselves and as females are forbidden to seek medical attention when the children need it. Only a male relative can take a child out to the doctors. I expect some of those children and their child mothers would like such comfort.

Bristol?

How very singular.

(They usually come in pairs.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBUfMNBjBTI

by Theodore Dalrymple (Sept. 2008)


I’ve been arrested only three times in my life: which, as a prison guard once proudly said to me, in explaining that he had been assaulted by prisoners only three times in his forty year-long career, I don’t think is bad, do you? more...

Well I certainly don’t envy "Sara" and "Mirza" who did the undercover filming for tonight’s Dispatches. Sitting through that kind of preaching for 2 months deserves a medal.
Like all Channel 4 documentaries it was a bit repetitive,  but for once it is a message that need to be hammered home.
The programme concentrated on the Regent’s Park Mosque, with a brief look at first the King Fahad Academy by interviewing the former teacher Colin Cook. Secondly an organisation professing to be independent of the Saudi Arabia establishment but which is under their control which supplies literature and Qu’rans for Mosques and schools.
They didn’t travel outside Central London.
It relied too heavily on the premise that the Saudi Wahabism was the sole villain and that “moderate” or “classical” or “traditional” Islam really was peaceful and tolerant.
However showing Gordon Brown and his sidekicks (Jack the Strawman among them) meeting and greeting a constant stream of senior Saudis showed how eager our government has been for their money. This was before Denis MacShane, former Foreign Office Minister spelled it out.
Finally the Umm Saleem the Mosque preacher woman at her private mentor session interrogating a woman who worked for the NHS.

From The Telegraph
A Muslim woman was forced out of her job at a hospital after refusing to bare her arms in order to comply with new hygiene rules.
The radiographer was told by managers at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading that she must either follow the national dress code designed to combat superbugs and roll her sleeves up, or leave.
She refused to abide by the rules and left her job, claiming she was discriminated against and forced to choose between her religious beliefs and her livelihood. Islam teaches that women should dress modestly and cover their bodies while in public.
The woman, who did not want to be identified, said she wants to "prevent the policy from being universally applied, so other Muslim women do not experience the same trauma." She said that she fears she may not be able to get another job, but has vowed to campaign against the NHS's "bare below the elbows" policy.
The rules require all doctors and nurses who come into contact with patients to have their arms bare below the elbows, by wearing short-sleeved clothes or rolling up their sleeves. Jewellery, watches and false nails were also banned to reduce the risk of infection by staff. This is hardly a new policy. 100 years ago the Edwardian nurse’s uniform had sleeves which unbuttoned so they could be rolled up when necessary. A clean starched white cuff to go over the roll to keep it tidy and in place was part of the kit. And women didn't come stricter or more sober than an Edwardian Matron and Sisters.
However the policy was criticised by some Muslim doctors and medical students for going against the teachings of the Qu'ran on dress.
In the latest case, the radiographer was employed by an agency to work at the Royal Berkshire on June 16 this year and was told about the dress code.
The hospital claims she initially complied with it and said it was "surprised" when weeks later she told managers that she could not abide by with the rules.
After a meeting with her bosses on August 1 she was given an ultimatum and chose to leave her post.
Clare Edmondson, Director of Human Resources for the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, said: "When she voiced her objection, she accepted the opportunity to meet with the Trust Chaplain and we also offered her the opportunity to meet with an Imam to discuss her concerns, but this was declined.
"The Trust Chaplain and Imam both stand behind our 'bare below the elbows policy' and support the Trust in this instance, they do not cite any diversity issue and agree that the policy is an acceptable professional requirement for everyone who works for the Trust in clinical areas."
Dr Majid Katme, spokesman for the Islamic Medical Association, said: "Any practising Muslim woman should have the right to cover her arms, as long as her job doesn't jeopardise the care of the patient”.
Peter Oborne pooh-poohed the last report of Muslim objections to this requirement as exagerated and sensational. With the name of the hospital, the names of the managers, the date of the her service and her role all reported I think we can accept this incident as accurate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0aod8l7BLw

(with reservations about the vocalist)

Move over Peaches Geldof and Moon Unit Zappa. Ship-shape and Bristol fashion - no rigging, natch - Wikipedia gives the lowdown on the hockey/soccer sprogs:

Palin eloped with her high-school boyfriend, Todd Palin, on August 29, 1988, when she was 24 years old.^[6] Todd works for the oil company BP as an oil-field production operator.^[113] He is also a Bristol Baysalmonset-netter and owns a commercial fishing business.^[20] He is a champion snowmobiler, who has won the 2,000-mile (3,200 km) "Iron Dog" race four times.^[6] The family lives in Wasilla.

The couple have five children: sons Track (19) and Trig (4 months) and daughters Bristol (17), Willow (14) and Piper (7).

Cue for a song:

Yesterday, a WIBG radio panel show, organized by the Center for Security Policy (CSP), had a segment that dealt with Saudi and Muslim Brotherhood front group influence in private Muslim and public charter schools. Download here:

http://www6.sendthisfile.com/d?t=PJmEzGRwuD2bJkdD7ot9HyFc

My panel colleague Patrick Poole of Central Ohioans against Terrorism discussed the abysmal abuse of public taxpayer funds and failure by CAIR in running public charter schools in Columbus, Ohio with the acquiesence of State of Ohio 'educrats' and the Mayor of Columbus. At one point in his radio panel remarks, he called what CAIR was doing tantamount to "Arab racism," because the charter school's students were Somali legal humanitarian refugees who speak neither Arabic, nor as usually required, English.  Columbus, Ohio has the second largest Somali Muslim population in America, while Minneapolis, with its own charter school problems at the Inver Heights Tarek ibn Zayed (TIZA) academy, that I discussed on the WIBG radio panel, was another.

Today, in a Pajamas Media (PJM) article on the topic, Poole unveiled the travesty of these exclusive Somali Muslim charter schools and mindless support by Columbus's mayor and the educational establishment, as well as the infilitration of CAIR national leadership in perpetuating this disaster, as well as infiltration of Homeland Security advisory groups by ineligible Somali nationals.  Note this opening salvo in Poole's PJM article:

On this date, September 1st, in 2004, the attack on a Beslan school in North Ossetia began.  When it was over 3 days later, 331 people were dead, 186 of them children.

At the time, U.S. media made comparisons to the 1999 Columbine school shooting, in which two students shot and killed 15 classmates.  This misleading analogy obfuscated far more than it clarified.  One was an attack by two mentally disturbed youths out to kill as many students as possible, and the other was a well-planned Islamic terrorist attack, possibly with outside assistance, in an attempt to gain independence for a Muslim region.

Years later, many details of Beslan remain unclarified.  The number of attackers, whether any of the terrorists escaped, who fired first in the final assault, and what actually killed the victims are all still debated.

Just as after the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., the media asked the question, "Why do they hate us?" in a process of blaming ourselves for Muslim behavior, parents of the dead Beslan children aimed their anger at the Russian government of Vladimir Putin, for botching the rescue attempt and for using excessive and indiscriminate force.

The Boston Globe summarized:

But the grief was joined by rancor as survivors blamed their government, and each other, for the death toll in the country's worst terrorist act.

Whatever mistakes Putin made, and whatever other personal faults Putin may have, and whatever bad tactical decisions were made by commanders at the site in Beslan, responsibility lies soley with the terrorists who invaded the school.  They set up bombs among the students;  whether or not those bombs were accidentally or purposely ignited, and whether they were ignited before or after the rescue attempt began, is of little import.  The terrorists shot several many victims execution style, and dumped their bodies out the windows, in the first hours of the attack.  They came prepared to kill, they came intending to kill.

In another case of blaming anyone other than the Muslims who carried out the attack, David Satter of the Weekly Standard  allows his anti-Russian (lingering anti-Soviet) feelings to lead him into terrorism-excusing and bizarre conspiracy-theorizing:

It is now all but certain that the terrorists' attack on the school could have been prevented. According to internal police documents obtained by the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow knew four hours in advance that an attack on a school in Beslan was planned for September 1, 2004.
[...]
Besides these indications that the disaster could have been prevented, there is evidence that the terrorists' real aim was not to kill the hostages but to negotiate a political settlement of the Chechen conflict.
[...]
In fact, the conditions suggested by Basayev [leader of the terrorists] were not unreasonable. While he proposed formal independence for Chechnya in exchange for security for Russia, he also said an independent Chechnya would conclude no military or political agreements directed against Russia, would remain in the ruble zone, and would join the Commonwealth of Independent States.
[...]
The evidence that is now available makes it clear that, despite Putin's promise to protect the host ages, Russian forces attacked the school in Beslan according to classic military doctrine for destroying reinforced objects without the slightest regard for innocent life. This was done although agreement had been reached between the former Chechen president and local Russian political authorities on negotiations that would have ended the crisis. It is also possible that the ease with which the terrorists took over the school was not solely the result of official incompetence. The Russian authorities may have deliberately allowed the terrorists to take over the school in order to have an excuse to destroy them.

Too many journalists and pundits, while educated on some topic or another, are completely uneducated about Islam.  On both the "right" and the "left", too many journalists and pundits have excuses for the actions of jihadis.

Previous Days in the "Religion of Peace™":

Aug 29: Jihad on European Synagogues
Aug 28: Poet Laureate Baraka
Aug 27: Bombardment of Algiers
Aug 26: Sistani vs. Sadr
Aug 25: Cape Town Jihad