[Remainder of article]

We must engage our own Muslim community leaders, and send the respected ones among them with facts to the Middle East and South Asia to meet with impartial and respected Islamic legal scholars; people who are respected by the man on the street and who are clearly not in the employ of their respective Governments. Scholars in Mecca, Medina and Riyadh will be central in this regard, as will scholars in India and Pakistan.

These scholars must be convinced to issue fatwas declaring Osama bin Laden's teachings and opinions illegal. Because it is prohibited by mainstream Islam, they cannot declare Osama bin Laden an infidel (a practice called takfir) and we should not expect this of them. These opinions will help bolster the consensus mentioned above and may convince the Taliban that they need to hand Osama bin Laden over.

We must encourage Muslim countries to lead the fight against Osama bin Laden. Support the Northern Alliance which has 15,000 troops in Afghanistan and work on the Pakistani moderates to get involved in the fight.

If retribution, as seems to be the case, has to take place and America must feel it is the prime agent in the pursuit of justice, then no military action can afford not to involve moderate Muslim forces and their cooperation. This is not a plea for war, far from it: there is too much bellicose rhetoric as it is.

In the not too distant future, we must make some subtle noises that we will be willing to reassess our foreign policies in the world.

I think if we take the steps outlined above we may be able to ostracise Osama bin Laden from the Muslim community and energise moderate Muslims to take centre stage again.

(The writer is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies, New York University.)

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If your husband is insisting that your parents must 'pay' you for your wedding expenses, kick him where it hurts him most and leave him.

If it is you that is accepting monthly payments from your parents who are on Social Security - it's truly a very sad commentary on the relationship between some children and their parents. Why did you accept even one such payment?

GSC

That was an eminently sensible (and sensitive) posting of yours. I think you did the exact right thing when your daughter demanded a 5-star wedding.

After reading this letter of yours, I've glanced through most of your other letters. I think you're a wonderful person.

-- GSC

The Bush-Rove-McCain slush-factory will soon be working at full steam!

Obama-Biden should ensure that they will not respond weakly to attacks that will now come out from the Bush-Rove-McCain slush-machine. (That was, if I recall rightly, what took Kerry-Edwards down).

[At the same time, Obama-Biden surely do not have to manufacture anything at all!! - GW Bush and Gang are war criminals, and McCain supports and is supported by that Gang of War Criminals.

That's the message that needs to be taken properly and in full force to the people - alongside, of course, very important stuff like the disaster to economy that Bushonomics has brought to the US, the criminal negligence in regard to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina... and so on. There is plenty of ammunition available.

But what (I feel from outside) the US citizen wants to hear is exactly how Obama-Biden will really change things around for the better - for the USA and for the world. How they will, for example, enable the US to hold its head up proudly once again as a leading democracy in the world...

-- GSC

As an outsider (an Indian citizen), I feel:

1. During GW Bush's very first term, he (along with his Gang) had demonstrated time and again that they were a bunch of liars, war criminals, incompetents and thieves.

2. Despite plenty of evidence being placed before them, US citizens voted this bunch of war criminals back into power in 2004 - right to this day the movement to impeach that war criminal you have as POTUS has not taken off. In what way are US citizens any better than Germans under Nazi rule? At least, Germans had the excuse that there was a murderous dictatorship that had taken over the reins of power in pre-WWII Germany - and that they would have been thrashed, smashed or killed if they protested. I guess US citizens would say they were scared stiff after 9/11 and that Karl Rove (and GW Bush and Dick Cheney and the rest of that foul gang) preyed on their inmost fears - the rest of the world does NOT excuse this display of blindness/ pusillanimity displayed by US citizens.

3. Now you are at a stage of history where you could (and we all could), perhaps, start working to get the world back on its tracks - the whole world that got derailed by the GW Bush Gang of War Criminals ever since 9/11 from the hard tasks of tackling the real problems and issues ahead - and there are very real global problems and issues ahead for us, no question about it.

4. But I see few signs, if any, that US citizens are 'getting their act effectively eogether'. John McCain - a supporter of and supported by - the War Criminal GW Bush - is running Barack Obama neck-and-neck! Could anything be more utterly absurd? (Absurd or not, that is precisely what is happening in the US today!!)

1. GW Bush and Gang have long been proven to be liars, war criminals, scoundrels and thieves...

2. John McCain supports and is supported by a bunch of liars, war criminals, scoundrels and thieves...

3. It really is time for the US to redeem itself - once and for all cease being a nation led by q bunch of liars, war criminals and thieves!

-- GSC