[BeanCounter]

I sometimes miss the old days of arguing with Steve over his apoligist ways with the Muslims. He must have picked it up when Khan painted his house. This morning things are starting to go the way I predicted. Not one word from the world wide Muslim population about the outrage below. I guess they agree with it. I wonder what the jaziya for Massachusetts Liberals will be? I wonder how safe we will be with nuclear arms in the hands of the extremists?

Speaking before an audience of tens of thousands in the Swat Valley town of Mingora on Sunday, cleric Sufi Muhammed declared democracy and Pakistan's judicial system "un-Islamic."

A Taliban spokesman in Swat went a step further Tuesday, calling anyone opposed to his strict interpretation of Islam a non-Muslim.

"Let the judges and the lawyers go to Islamic university," Muslim Khan said. After "they learn Islamic rules, Islamic regulation, they can continue to work."

The rise of the Taliban in Swat has alarmed and frightened some members of local civil society there.

"This is a time bomb for the country," said Aftab Alam, the head of the lawyers' association in Swat district.

Meanwhile, in another Taliban-run region called Orakzai, details emerged of militants forcing a small community of Sikhs to pay a jaziya, or "minority tax," of 10.5 million rupees (roughly $18,000) earlier this month.


Khan said if his vision of an Islamic society is fulfilled in Pakistan, terror mastermind Osama Bin Laden will be welcome to travel and live openly here. "Sure, he's a Muslim, he can go anywhere," Khan said.

Khan added that he would like to see sharia law implemented beyond Pakistan, even in America, a country he knows intimately. For four years, the Taliban spokesman lived in the United States, working as a painter near Boston, Massachusetts.