Minneapolis residents protest in 2006 after Ethiopia's US-backed invasion of Somalia (Abdi Aynte)

The story of Somali youth who vanished from the Twin Cities, possibly to fight alongside jihadists in their home country, is transforming the normally passionate and sometimes pugilistic debates at Minneapolis coffee shops into quieter introspection. Now a recurring topic of conversation among Somalis is “reconstructing the community’s tainted image,” said Dahir Awaleh, a 47-year-old small-business owner who frequents the popular Starbucks on Minneapolis’ Riverside Avenue.

“In Minnesota, Somalis are increasingly associated with terrorists,” he lamented, sipping his coffee. “Businesses are raided. Friends and family members are being interrogated by law enforcement agencies. Mosques are under surveillance.”

On a recent Saturday afternoon — a day when the shop’s customers are almost entirely Somali — Awaleh’s remarks drew quick nods from the half dozen Somali men he sat with. They said that the unknown number of Somali youth who left the Twin Cities, among other places, to fight in Somalia, is casting the community in a negative light, thanks to alarmist individuals and sensational news media.

“Individuals anointed by the news media as leaders are capitalizing on this tragedy,” said Mukhtar Osman, an engineering student at the University of Minnesota, who was recently held at the airport for hours when he returned from a family visit in Sweden. “My detention is a direct impact of reckless remarks made by so-called community leaders who claim that Somali youth may strike U.S. targets if they return. There’s no shred of evidence for this.”

Osman’s assertion is backed up by law enforcement. Andrew Liepman, deputy director of intelligence at the National Counterterrorism Center, recently told a Senate panel that his agency does “not have a credible body of reporting right now that leads us to believe that these American recruits are being trained and instructed to come back to the U.S. for terrorist acts.”

Self-radicalized?

Though much of the blame for the missing Somali youth has been directed at local mosques, there are signs that the youth, galvanized by the 2006 Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, may have radicalized themselves. Widely believed to be supported by the Bush administration, Ethiopia’s invasion “has attracted the rapt attention of Somali diaspora communities and heightened their nationalistic sentiments,” Liepman testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in March.

Extremist elements like al-Shabaab, a Somali group designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., have exploited the bitter reaction to the Ethiopian invasion and compelled young, despondent Somali men to join their ranks.

As a result, some of the men may have sold assets or worked overtime to pay the airfare to Somalia. Sources close to one of the missing young men, Abdisalam, known as “Bullet-head,” said that he sold his car just a few weeks before he left last year. At least a handful of the vanished youth have had decent paying jobs.

Earlier this month, a young man who uses the pseudonym “Abu Muslim” and claims to be a 23-year-old from Minneapolis, told a local radio station in Somalia that no one had recruited him to fight. “I chose to join the cause of jihad in my country,” he said in broken Somali, a clear sign that he grew up in the diaspora.

Also this month, al-Shabaab released a sophisticated 31-minute propaganda video designed to appeal to diaspora Somalis. The star of the video is a Caucasian man who calls himself “Abu Mansoor,” the American. He commands an English-speaking unit of about two dozen men, thought to be Somalis bred in the West. A Somali member of the unit, whose face is obscured, says in an American accent that he never thought he’d be leaving the comfort of home to carry an AK-47 in defense of his country.

‘Under Siege’

Whether the missing youth radicalized and financed themselves, or whether they have been actively recruited by certain individuals within the community, the negative impact of the story can hardly be overstated.

Last week, FBI agents raided the Minneapolis offices of money transfer business — a key lifeline for millions of Somalis who depend on monthly remittances from loved ones in the diaspora. Though the offices were not closed, the episode was another blow to a community shaken by fear, confusion and uncertainty.

Special agent E.K. Wilson of the Minneapolis FBI said the raids were part of an ongoing investigation, though he wouldn’t confirm or deny if they were related to the vanished youth.

That uncertainty surrounding the subject of the investigation is bedeviling the community. Returning to Somalia for any reason — marriage, traditional medical treatments or a just to visit family — is cause for intense scrutiny.

“Even people who tried to take vacation from their jobs were asked by their superiors if they were going to Somalia for jihad,” said Abdi Sheikh-Osman, an adjunct professor of law at the University of Minnesota. “Somalis fled a country where the government was the principal enemy. Now they face a similar situation. The community is effectively under siege.”

Back at the Starbucks, many in the crowd said they know countless friends and family members who have been interviewed by the FBI. They also said the news of a grand jury being convened to investigate the matter, while a welcome step, has increased anxiety among them.

Al-Shabaab in trouble?

Ethiopia’s withdrawal from Somalia late last year, a crucial recruiting tool for al-Shabaab, has probably hurt its bottom line, experts said. Left with a popular Islamist as the president of the nascent Government of National Unity and an unfriendly clannish society, al-Shabaab will inevitably see its membership dwindle, experts believe.

“The shabaab is already in trouble, thanks to the Ethiopian withdrawal,” wrote Ken Menkhause, a Somalia scholar at Davidson College in North Carolina. “It also runs the risk of having its most powerful ideological card — Somali nationalist, anti-foreigner sentiments — turned against it, as domestic adversaries accuse it of being a puppet of foreign jihadists bringing more trouble to the country.”

If such scenario bears fruit, the story of the vanished Somali youth may have reached its climax.

Abdi Aynte, a former fellow at the Minnesota Independent, is Washington correspondent for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World Service.

Image: ABC News

Burhaan Hassan was a fairly typical kid, the kind who asked his mother for $20 when he wanted to go see a movie on weekends. But on Election Day, while much of the world — including his single mother — was consumed by the historic election, he and a handful of Somali-American teenagers quietly boarded a plane to Kenya, en route to the front lines of a Jihad in Somalia.

Hassan, 17, wasn’t working and couldn’t afford the expensive airfare, said his uncle, Hussein Samatar, an immigrant from Somalia who now runs the African Development Group of Minnesota. “We believe someone — some group — has paid for his ticket,” he said.

Law enforcement agencies and community leaders fear that up to a dozen local boys have been conscripted by a radical group to fight a Jihad in Somalia, a lawless country in the Horn of Africa.

Special agent E. K. Wilson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) office in Minneapolis wouldn’t confirm or deny the fate of the “missing boys,” as they are known in the community. He would only say that his agency is aware that an unspecified number of Somali youths have traveled from throughout the United States, including Minneapolis, to “potentially fight in Somalia.”

Mysterious case

The lack of specificity in the case has jolted the Somali community in Minnesota, estimated at more than 70,000 — the largest in North America. The FBI would neither identify the missing teenagers nor give details of their trips, even though its agents have repeatedly interviewed family members, associates and travel consultants who may have unwittingly sold tickets to unscrupulous recruiters.

The FBI wouldn’t even confirm if a teenager whose remains the agency returned to his family last month was one of five suicide bombers who attacked government and foreign installations in Somalia, killing 24. Yet almost everyone in the community believes that 19-year-old Shirwa Ahmed, a University of Minnesota student, was indeed a culprit in those attacks.

Still, an eerie question — how could this happen to us? — has rattled the Twin Cities Somali community for the past few weeks. While virtually no one denies that the community has been infiltrated by jihadist recruiters, exactly who is to blame for the missing boys is a matter of considerable controversy.

Some activists blame Abubkar As-Saddique Islamic Center (AAIC), located just of Lake Street in south Minneapolis, for preaching intolerance to vulnerable young men. In addition to being the largest mosque in the Twin Cities, some of the missing teenagers, including Hassan, frequented its after-school and youth programs.

Earlier this month, law enforcement officials blocked AAIC’s imam and a youth coordinator from boarding a flight to Mecca for pilgrimage. This intensified the cloud of suspicion hovering over the center.

AAIC officials declined to be interviewed for this story, but released this statement:

“The AAIC does not engage in any political activity. It has not, and will not, recruit for any political cause. There has never been, nor will there ever be, any support of terrorists, their radical philosophy, or their acts by the AAIC. The Center unequivocally condemns suicide bombing and all acts of indiscriminate violence.”

“We needed leadership from them,” said Samatar referring to the AAIC. He says his nephew Hassan memorized the entire Quran at AAIC. A pious young man who reportedly felt a sense of belonging at AAIC, he was a senior at Roosevelt High School, where his academic excellence earned him advance admission to the University of Minnesota.

“He had all the qualities to succeed,” said Samatar wistfully. “Everybody assumed he would grow to become an amazing man.”

‘Disjointed youth’

Other community leaders call for a nuanced look at the situation. Abdisalam Adam, director of Daral-Hijra Center, a mosque in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, said the whole ordeal should prompt introspection in the community.

A member of a community panel established in the wake of the boys’ disappearances, Adam said young Somali men are in a “disjointed state from the rest of the community,” and in desperate need of emotional anchors.

“Some join gangs,” he said, while “others fall prey to cyber recruiters.”

Al-Shabaab's logo

A United Nations investigation recently uncovered evidence that extremist groups in Somalia have ratcheted up their online recruiting and fundraising capabilities. Among other things, the U.N. Monitoring Group, which is tasked with monitoring weapons flowing to Somalia, found that members of Al-Shabaab (”The Youth”), a Somali group designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, have “intensified their cyber activities.”

The U.N. report notes that, unlike more moderate Islamist groups in Somalia, Al-Shabaab has relatively young leaders, some from Western countries, in its ranks. Obscure young jihadists with foreign passports have greater mobility — a key advantage over more well-known leaders, experts believe.

Ken Menkhaus, a Somalia expert at Davidson College in North Carolina, said recruiting Somalis with foreign passports would have “some advantages if [Al-Shabaab] intends to attack sites outside Somalia.”

So far, the group hasn’t carried out attacks beyond Somalia, though it has issued threats. Still, young people with foreign passports also pose a risk to Al-Shabaab, said Menkhaus.

“They have an exit option if they get scared or have doubts … and could turn to law enforcement in the West and expose Al-Shabaab,” he said.

Greater oversight

Before these teenagers went missing, youth programs at mosques went minimally scrutinized, complained some community leaders. To address this, Adam, the Daral-Hijra Center director, urges mosque leaders to introduce greater oversight on youth activities.

“Our image as a community is tainted,” he said. “Instead of pointing fingers at our mosques and religious leaders, we need to repair our image. We need to minimize the influence of external factors by increasing oversight.”

Meanwhile, concerned Somali parents are keeping their teenage boys on shorter leashes to prevent them from leaving. Ahmed, a 16-year-old high school student who didn’t want his last name to be used, said his parents no longer allow him to ride the school bus. They personally deliver him to and from school.

“I’m under 24-hour surveillance,” he quipped, noting that his parents also confiscated his passport. “It’s fine with me, though — whatever makes them feel good.”

Abdi Aynte, a former fellow at The Minnesota Independent, is Washington correspondent for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World Service.

And it’s not Sen. John McCain?

You’re right, it isn’t.

It’s Sen. Barack Obama. The Illinois Democrat, who’s vying for his party’s nomination for the presidency, is charting a new political trajectory in his new ad. The 60-second spot, which began to air this week on CNN and MSNBC, looks outwardly to entice Democrats, independents and, yes, even disenchanted Republicans. It’s a political anomaly to Washington pundits, who are used to the roar of partisan ads at the peak of the political season.

But it’s business as usual for Obama, who, well before he was elected to the U.S. Senate, told the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, “We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes.”

The ad begins with a rerun of that statement. Translation: I’m the consensus-builder.

Depending on the timing, ads are an effective instrument of influence. During this primary season, however, Obama isn’t seeking the vote of the “people.” He needs to convince Democrats to nominate him for the nation’s top job. So why is he appealing to a broader base?

There are probably many complicated variables, but his rudimentary strategy is to cast himself as an agent of change-an alien of sorts, who, in contrast with his chief rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, transcends partisanship and the red and blue divide in America.

In fact, he unequivocally states that in his newest ad, “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America; there is the United States of America.”

It’s no doubt a salient strategy that has some Democrats uneasy – ostensibly for a good reason. The liberal-conservative divide in America isn’t penetrable with some hopeful message, for sure. It’s a settled polarity that, oftentimes, is based on a set of principles and key differences.

But this strategy is fit for the junior senator from Illinois, who’s competing with the former first lady, whose husband is the kingmaker of the Democratic Party – the establishment, so to speak. Obama is the underdog among Democrats, so his bets are better among independents and the branch of Republicans who are disenfranchised by President Bush’s brand of conservatism.

So it’s no surprise that the ad will air 200 times in Minnesota, a purple state with large number of independents. Other Democrats have inquired about the cost of advertising here, but never pulled the trigger. Couple that with the fact that Minnesota and at least half of the Super Tuesday states allow open primaries or caucuses. This means that voters can vote either party.

And while that might be risky during the primary, Obama is banking on independents to turn out for him in record numbers, as they did in Iowa. Those independents catapulted him to the “electability” spectacle and helped him pass an important threshold.

If they continue on that pattern in South Carolina this Saturday and in more than 20 states on Feb. 5, Obama is hoping that he will be aptly tooled to fight in November against Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who’s increasingly emerging as the likely Republican nominee.

Obama vs. McCain

So the ad pre-empts McCain by casting Obama as the more unifying figure in this race. McCain, though, has his own bipartisanship credentials to show off.

He’s also the wild card against Democrats. He poses a serious challenge to Sen. Clinton, whose “likability” factor is in bad shape, and who’s viewed as a more divisive figure than either McCain and Obama. Independents aren’t as fond of Sen. Clinton as they are of McCain and Obama.

Still, McCain fears Obama as an opponent. At 72, he’ll have a tough fight on his hands against the youthful, crowd-inspiring Obama.

Add that to Obama’s “inclusive” mantra, which sits well with independents, who essentially resuscitated McCain’s candidacy from a near-death experience. To the chagrin of hard-core Democrats, Obama talks about Ronald Reagan’s being a “transformative” leader. He recently told a Nevada newspaper that Reagan was able to bend Democrats his way.

Gambling on independents

Obama seemed to address a key question about America’s biggest swing voters: Are they more anti-Bush than pro-unity?

By invoking Reagan and showing Republicans in his first national ad, Obama seems to say that, while I’m a Democrat by virtue of deep convictions, I’ll extend an olive branch to Republicans who were alienated by the Democratic partisan bickering – the status quo folks. 

It’s a carefully choreographed jab at partisanship. It also subliminally suggests that Sen. Clinton resembles the status quo that failed to appeal to the “low-hanging fruit,” which is how Obama characterizes independents and disenfranchised Republicans.

Obama is at the cusp of his presidential bid, and I think he measured the nation’s fever more accurately than his rivals: Voters – especially independents – need not the unattainable “unity,” but they crave a consensus-building leader.

Whether his good strategy is going to yield positive outcomes remains to be seen.

In a few days Rep. Keith Ellison is heading to Norway, the land of the Nobel Peace Prize, to study peace and justice. The six-day tour will be his fifth official trip overseas since he was elected as the nation’s first Muslim and Minnesota’s first black in Congress.

Not so bad for a rookie, who commenced his term with overwhelming bad publicity for choosing Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an as the holy book he wanted to use during his unofficial swearing-in ceremony. 

And that’s not all: Critics questioned Ellison’s patriotism, challenged his faith and predicted a grim tenure for the north Minneapolis legislator. Now, ending his first year, he’s proven his critics wrong, with a record as one of Congress’ most solid — and least divisive — members.

Indeed, the Minneapolis Democrat is in high demand: The State Department and the Pentagon used him to showcase America’s religious diversity, and the speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., drafted him to join her highly publicized Middle East trip over the summer.

What explains Ellison’s winning streak, hurdles notwithstanding, is his mantra. “Peace should be the guiding principle of our nation,” as he told me earlier this year.

Though unabashedly liberal — some say Dennis Kucinich liberal — Ellison managed to vote pragmatically on more than one occasion. He took heat from many of his constituents for voting in favor of a bill in Congress that funded the war in Iraq, despite his fierce opposition to it.

To keep those same far-left constituencies happy, he signed on to a long-shot impeachment effort against Vice President Dick Cheney over the misuse of executive power.

Ellison’s imperfect moment came in July, when he wrongfully compared the Bush administration’s reaction to the terrorist acts of 9/11 to the Reichstag fire, which Nazis used to suspend civil liberties in Germany.

There’s little dispute that the Bush clique rolled back some basic civil rights, but to invoke the Nazi-era incident was, by Ellison’s admission, a critical lapse in judgment.

That said, Ellison was at the receiving end of a Nazi comparison: Conservative pundit Dennis Prager, who led the chorus against Ellison’s decision to use the Qur’an, compared Islam’s holy book to Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” or the “Nazi Bible.”

Prager and others unsuccessfully attempted to portray Ellison as an anti-Semite, whose alleged “connections” to the Nation of Islam disqualify him from serving in Congress. By visiting Israel twice — and demonstrating his unwavering support for Israel’s right to exist peacefully — and by joining the congressional Anti-Semitism Task Force, Ellison proved those critics plentifully wrong.

He was even asked to “prove to me that you are not working with our enemies” by CNN’s Glenn Beck. Ellison kept his moral compass in the right direction and disarmed Beck’s outrageous question with a gentle smile.

Even members of Congress took jabs at him. First, it was Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., who erroneously suggested that Ellison’s election was due to burgeoning illegal immigration.

Ellison’s response? A handshake in the chamber of the House and a pledge to sit down for a coffee, as Ellison said, “to talk it out.”

Then it was Rep. Bill Sali, R-Idaho. Just groomed as the leader of the freshman class of the congressional Republicans, he said in August that the Founding Fathers didn’t envision a Muslim in Congress.

Ellison sat down with Sali, presumably to “talk it out,” and the two had a “very amicable conversation,” Sali’s spokesman told me. Rick Jauert, Ellison’s spokesman, wasn’t aware of such a conversation, but he e-mailed me this statement: “It would be in keeping with [Ellison's] approach to previous inappropriate statements made by a member for [him] to react amicably.”

Like many residents in the Fifth Congressional District, I would want Ellison to continue representing me in Washington, not because of the God he worships or the color of his skin – both of which I share – but because of what he has done for the citizens of the district, the state and the nation as a whole.

“It’s getting harder and harder to keep up with my two identities,” said Iftu, who didn’t want to give her last name.

She’s one of an estimated half million torture victims in the United States. Minnesota has an estimated 30,000. That number is too high for the state because of higher immigration rate per capita, said Rosa Garcia-Peltoniemi, a senior consulting clinician with The Center for Victims of Torture, or CVT. The Minneapolis-based center is a national leader in the field.

Speaking at an immigrant roundtable Friday, Garcia-Peltoniemi said “the stigma associated with torture is a barrier to treatment,” but is common.

Iftu could attest to that. More than five years after she sought an asylum in the United States, she said she continued to resist coming to terms with the fact that she was repeatedly raped by Ethiopian soldiers who accused her of collaborating with the Oromo rebel groups.

Oromo is the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, but they have always been dominated by minority ethnic groups. A close ally of the United States in the war on terror, Ethiopia is often marked for its severe human rights violations.

Iftu’s husband, also an Oromo, was abducted by government soldiers 10 years ago. He was never seen again. A top officer in the region she grew up kidnapped her to work at his farm, “but I also became a sex object for him,” she said. “He raped me probably hundreds of times over the course of two years.”

More than 80 percent of the victims who registered with the CVT last year were separated from their spouses, according to Garcia-Peltoniemi. Majority of them were Africans and 60 percent were asylum seekers.

In recent months, Iftu was inspired by other torture victims who used their stories to influence public policy against repressive governments like Ethiopia.

“Think about a gay person coming out of the closet: It’s slow, painful and it causes hesitancy,” said Iftu, 31 who lives in Minneapolis. “In few years, I’m hoping to gain the confidence to share my story with the world.”

Still, she’s hesitant for a good reason: “In my culture, if you’re raped, you’re doomed. No future. Nothing!”

Help from the government

In addition to granting an asylum to people like Iftu, the government is encouraging victims to report anyone here or abroad who may have helped commit the crime. In most cases, victims are tortured by a person acting in an official capacity.

During the fiscal year 2006, the local investigative office of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, received 202 contacts from victims or witnesses who spotted potential perpetrators, according to Thomas Boyle, a criminal investigator with the agency.

“We’re investigating each and every one of these cases,” said Boyle, who added that his office is investigating wide spectrum of issues, including human trafficking, child pornography and human rights violations.

In 2005, ICE successfully deported Enos Kagaba, a Rwandan who was caught at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport destroying his fake documents. After four years of investigation and trial, Kagaba was found to have helped kill 5,000 people in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He’s serving life sentence in Rwanda.

In most cases, Iftu, the Oromo victim, said torture is directly committed by low-level officers who are unlikely to travel to the United States. “The commanders who sanction such atrocities regularly come to Washington unchecked,” she said.

Torture “is a low-tech enterprise: 43 percent of CVT victims were beaten. Some 23 percent were sexually assaulted, and 78 percent of the survivors suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PSTD,” said Gracia-Peltoniemi. “From a clinical perspective, the question is whether [survivors] will ever fully recover.”

Iftu said she plans to write a book about her ordeal.

“That and a restored justice in my country will heal my wounds—I hope,” she said.

About the photo: During the Rwandan genocide, women were tortured and raped, and many died from AIDs contracted from their torturers, leaving a generation of orphans to fend for themselves on the street. Photographer Paul Corbit Brown lived with them and captured this picture along with many others.
]]> http://minnesotaindependent.com/2622/double-life-the-public-face-and-private-pain-of-torture-victims-in-minnesota/feed 0 http://minnesotaindependent.com/2617/fugitive-playwright-fled-to-africa-authorities-say http://minnesotaindependent.com/2617/fugitive-playwright-fled-to-africa-authorities-say#comments Fri, 26 Oct 2007 01:52:14 +0000 Abdi Aynte http://www.minnesotaindependent.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/?p=2617 Hennepin County authorities on Tuesday filed another complaint against Mahamud Abdullahi Isse, who in June failed to show up for a child molestation charges against him. Minnesota Monitor first reported the 72-year-old’s disappearance, and last week we were first to report that he was spotted on a video clip shot in the Republic of Djibouti, a tiny country just north of Somalia. A respected poet and a playwright, Isse was performing at a mass wedding ceremony in Djibouti, his native country, in late June.

Authorities said they will continue to hunt for him, and will bring him to Minnesota if he’s apprehended. Isse is the oldest person in the history of Hennepin County’s most-wanted list, according to authorities.

The University of Minnesota is one of them: The week-long event is neither found on the calendar of events nor has anyone claiming to organize such an event come forward to admit it. Yale and Princeton, among other reputable institutions, have denied having any knowledge of Horowitz’s Islamophobic project.

But that’s hardly the most outrageous part of IFAW. A stated goal of the week is to protest “the silence of feminists over the oppression of women in Islam.” Horowitz, a born-again conservative pundit, instructs his followers to stage sit-ins outside women’s studies departments. Feminists are unobtrusive in the fight against oppressing Muslim women, Horowitz purports.

Another peculiar target is “the academic left.” Horowitz claims that it “has mobilized to create sympathy for the enemy and to fight anyone who rallies Americans to defend themselves.”

The IFAW literature accuses academics of pushing two phony arguments: “First, that George Bush created the war on terror” and, second, “that global warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat.”

Excuse me, but I fail to make a connection between feminists, academics, global warming and radicals who claim to be Muslims. What I see academics doing is untangling the real war on terror from the terror of war — in Iraq.

As intellectual authorities backed by solid scholarship, academics are also warning the world of the impending catastrophe if global warming isn’t addressed conscientiously. 

For Horowitz, whose clique in IFAW includes pundit outrageous Ann Coulter and former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., those academics are inseparable from his “Islamo-fascists.”

Clearly, the IFAW’s objective is as confused and misguided as its name suggests. Even President Bush, who briefly flirted with “Islamo-fascism,” has retreated from it, realizing that it’s too dicey. There may be Muslim fascists, but there is no Islamic fascism.

Linking “fascism” with Islam as Horowitz does posits that the faith of over 1.5 billion people around the world is intrinsically totalitarian. That abets the real fanatics who claim to defend the faith from flimsy messages like IFAW’s. Fascism doesn’t quite capture what I think Horowitz should try to tackle, which’s the real danger of fanaticism in all religions.

Horowitz appears to hope that any incendiary remark about Islam and Muslims at this juncture will stick.

But I’m afraid it won’t — at least not on college campuses.

“The United States has protected [Kurds], its strongest ally in Iraq, for more than 15 years. Why would it turn its back on us now?” asked Naqshabandi, 46, owner of the 7th Street bistro.

That’s not how Onder Uluyol, a Turk and a resident of Blaine, sees the recent cross-border fight between Turkey and the PKK, designated by the United States, the European Union and Turkey as a terrorist organization. The PKK, he said, wants to drive a wedge between the United States and Turkey, which are NATO allies.

This month alone the PKK has killed at least two dozen Turkish soldiers and captured eight, parading their images on Kurdish websites.

“Iraqi-Kurdistan is not doing enough to stop this terrorist organization,” said Uluyol, 41, a research scientist. “There’s an enormous public pressure to crack down on the PKK.”Responding to the mounting pressure, the Turkish parliament recently authorized the military to hunt the PKK, even inside Iraq, unnerving the Bush administration. The tension in the mountainous region near the Iraq-Turkey border couldn’t have come at a worse time for the administration: The Foreign Relations Committee in the U.S. House this month passed the “Armenian genocide resolution,” a symbolic but strong rebuke against Turkey.

In retaliation, Turkey has threatened to curtail its logistical support for the war in Iraq. More than 70 percent of all military hardware and supplies for the U.S. troops travels through Turkey.

Secession vs. federalism

Diplomatic conundrums are not on the radar of Naqshabandi, one of few Kurdish immigrants in Minnesota. Though the PKK doesn’t wield a significant influence among Kurds, he said the underpinning issue is that Kurds have few or no rights in Turkey, Iran and Syria, where they are in the minority.

“Iraqi-Kurdistan is the poster child of what Kurds across the region would like to see one day,” he said. “Thanks to the United States. That was not possible under Saddam Hussein — or any other government in the region.”

Kurdistan is the most stable, self-governing part of Iraq. Reaping the benefit of the federal system set up after the U.S. invasion, the oil-rich region has strong economic ties to Turkey and other neighbors.

Naqshabandi, a former cook for the U.S. troops who helped enforce the no-fly zone during Saddam Hussein’s administration, said U.S. soldiers roam around villages and towns in Kurdistan, sometimes unarmed.

“We see them as liberators,” he said. “Others see them as invaders.”

The PKK and other Kurdish rebel groups in the region call for independent Kurdistan. But Iraqi-Kurds, including President Jalal Talabani, say autonomy is their ultimate goal. Naqshabandi agrees.

“Independent Kurdistan, sandwiched between Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, can’t survive in that hostile environment,” he said with a little chuckle.

Uluyol, the Turkish scientist, couldn’t agree more. He contends that Turkish-Kurds will be better off in Turkey once the latter joins the European Union. 

“The current Turkish government granted the Kurds more rights than ever,” he said. “Turkey has to improve the conditions of its people before it enters the EU-and the current government is doing everything it can to achieve that goal.”

Earlier: Eric Black’s “History of Kurds Driving Future of Iraq War.”

Not quite.

Tutu has declined the invitation, unless the Catholic university reinstates Dr. Cris Toffolo as the head of the Justice and Peace Studies program. She was removed from her position after she challenged the university’s decision not to invite Tutu because of criticism against Israel. She remains a member of the faculty.

On Tuesday, some 100 faculty and staff members staged a rally on campus in her support. They held huge signs that read “reinstate Toffolo.”

“Who should stand up for the opportunity for…Tutu to speak at UST if not the director of the Justice and Peace Studies? It appears now that listening to…Toffolo’s advice would have saved the university tremendous embarrassment and prevented terrible damage to the institution’s reputation,” said the faculty and staff in a statement.

Tutu, who was scheduled to speak at a spring forum, sent a letter to Toffolo, stating that, though he welcomes the university’s invitation, he wouldn’t accept it pending her reinstatement.

“I will make an acceptance on my part dependent on your reinstatement and the clearing of your file,” he wrote to Toffolo.

Doug Hennes, vice president for university and government relations at St. Thomas, said Toffolo is welcome to file a grievance on her case. If she does so, a committee will examine her case and make recommendations to the president of the university.

Back on campus, dozens of students joined in the pro-Toffolo rally. Robert Wilkerson, a 20-year-old business major said the whole episode “is embarrassing” for the  St. Thomas community.

“It’s ridiculous that the university would demote Toffolo for her position,” he said.

That’s if voters in the district reject a Nov. 6 referendum that asks them to fill a $10 million gap in the district’s $70 million annual budget, according to Superintendent Ted Blaesing.

He calls the ballot a “begging event,” but he says the district has been forced to resort to it 12 times in his 15-year tenure. 

“This is a ludicrous way of funding education,” said an audibly frustrated Blaesing. “We need an adequate and predictable way of funding our schools.”

White Bear Lake is one of 36 school districts in the seven-county metro area facing funding shortages totaling $173 million for the 2008-09 school year, according to a recent survey by the Association of Metropolitan School Districts (AMSD).

That’s because the state Legislature approved biennial K-12 funding during the 2007 session. AMSD said it doesn’t expect more funding from the Legislature during the 2008 session.“Policymakers have not yet come to grips with the fact that they are not meeting the funding needs of our schools,” said Scott Croonquist, AMSD executive director.

State Rep. Mindy Greiling, DFL-Roseville, the K-12 Education Committee chair, said the House proposed $300 million more than the final bill that passed, which would have taken care of the shortfall. She blamed Governor Tim Pawlenty on the gap.

Pawlenty is currently on a trade mission to India.

School districts still have one option left under state law: They can put forward referendums asking residents to pay extra property tax to cover the budget shortfall. A number of metro school districts will have such ballots next month.

“Property tax is a very visible, regressive tax. People notice it easily,” said Blaesing, the White Bear Lake superintendent, whose district rejected levy ballots several times. “We’re caught in the crossfire.”

The Burnsville-Eagan-Savage area school district is also turning to voters next month for the fourth time in 10 years, according to Superintendent Ben Kanninen. Voters rejected a similar referendum last year, forcing the district to lay off 53 teachers.

If that happens again this year, Kanninen said the district will likely close at least two of its 16 schools, including one primary, and lay off dozens of teachers.

Blaesing and other superintendents said the Legislature got in the habit of under-funding schools and leaving them the difficult task of turning to residents for help.

Part of the budget crunch stems from unequal increase in revenue and spending. On average, metro school districts are expecting a 1.2 percent funding increase from the state next year, according to the AMSD report. Spending will increase an average of 2.4 percent in the same period at Burnsville-Eagan-Savage district. Other districts report similar or slightly higher spending rates.