Mark,

I agree that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a courageous and deserving woman, and I join you in welcoming her to the United States.

But I encourage you to get to know some other immigrants, because it sounds like you may be anti-immigrant in general. Most of them do not come to the U.S. to "lounge around at the taxpayers' expense," but to work. I think if you get to know some of them, you will find them more deserving on the whole than you previously assumed.

Statistically, people born in the United States receive more government benefits, on average, than people who migrate here. It's important that we preserve the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" and not treat people as assumed welfare queens just because they were born in another part of the world, whether they had government documents to enter the U.S. or not.

Yours in liberty,

starchild

First of all of she is not fighting radical Islam, she is fighting Islam, the relgion and belief system of 1.4 billion people. This article and many other like this is so inaccuarte and bias in favoring this raciest Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was never a Muslim. She is not apostate as she claims she was, thats a big lie. Here are the facts. Her father was a atheist who lived in the West for some time. Her parents were divorced. Therefore, from the begining she had a choice to pick a religion. So, her brother picked christianity. She was never a Muslim, she learned about Islam from the school that she went to. Also another lie is that she afraid of her family and her "former" husband. If so, why did, she invite her "former" husband, the guy that she claims was force to marry, and her family to her house in Netherlands? The point is she is a liar.

I am so happy that her anti-Muslim Immigrational backfired. If Hirsi Ali (morgan) policy on immigration was applied, Muslims especially women that Hirsi claim is "abused" would never get the chance like Hirsi to "leave" Islam by living in the West. Why wouldn't Hirsi allow Muslim women to come to the West, so they can learn about modern culture and leave the "evil" religion? Because she doesn't believe in it nor she cares about them. She just want money and power that is all. The fact is no real ex-Muslims would support banning or deporting Muslim immigrants or nuking Islamic countries. Just as no real Palestians ex-muslim would suport Israelis stealing palestian's land. Real ex-muslims want always good for their people.

Why do people always over credit Hirsi Ali (morgan) or other like her as a reformer, women right activist in Islamic countries like credit Hirsi for recent Fatwas against genital mutilation by Imams in Somalia. The fact is their messages are total waste and hateful but they get so much credit for nothing like Times made her one of the 100 influencial people. Her and other Islam critics only wants convince Westerners of the "evil" of Islam. All the Islam critics writing and message are in foreign language like English that no Muslim's first language. The fact is less than 0.01% of the Muslims actually read it. Look at biggest Islamic critic site, Faithfreedom, that they only have like 5 articles in Arabic and like 700 in English. The founder of Faithfreedom claims to be from Iran but there is article in Persian, just tiny web-page about Iran in English. The fact is they only wants to convince the Westernerss about Islam not the Muslims. There are so many Women right activists, I know some in personal life, that are fight for Women's right in Islamic countries but are not anti-Islamic. They should deserve the credit. The reason why Somali clerics issued a fatwa against female genital mutilation because some women right activist appointed that culture came from African tradition and has nothing to do with Islam. They write in the local language, they give lectures to women in local area and they are the one who should get credit.

Tarikur, if I wrote something really influential in English against Islam, then most of the Islamic world would riot and issue fatwas against me. Do you know why? Because, even if the Muslims in question did not speak English, my comments would be translated.

Starchild,

Even though I am American, I live in England. I am writing from a European, especially English, perspective. Here, in Britain, we have no limits whatsoever on the amount of asylum seekers we let into the country and more than half of them turn out to be cheats who just want free housing and childcare that the government is only too happy to provide - and that we hard-working taxpayers have to pay for. In America, however, I'm more willing to believe that the immigrants are genuine. I, after all, am from American immigrant stock myself.

Dear Mark Edward Manning,

What are you talking about? There are millions of book out in America vilifying and demonizing Islam, Muslims, the prophet, and the Quran. Just look at the web, there billions of sites. So how many of them got translated and given fatwas?Only fatwas came to those became well known and popular. The fact is vilifying demonizing Islam and Muslims brings hate,violence, intoralance. Both Muslims and Christians and every other people should be taught to respect other people's culture and religion, therefore teach toralance and love toward other people culture and relogion. Thats the only to live in peace without any world war III. Hate message like Ayaan Hirsi Ali (morgan) should be looked down upon in societies just as we look down upon a raciest message.

Botton line..she lied and misled...the end doesnt justify the means...here are some facts you "overlooked"

She was living in Kenya for over 10 years before and didn't experience five civil wars in Somalia as she claimed in 2002.

And if Hirsi Ali was so afraid of retribution from her family why did she contact a Dutch-based family member on arrival.

Why did she appear in a documentary made by the Dutch Muslim broadcaster within a year?

Why did she maintain contact with her father?

And why did members of her family say that Hirsi Ali was present and happy at her wedding when she maintained she was neither.

Stick with the facts...a liar is a liar

comment #7 sez...
*Botton line..she lied and misled...the end doesnt justify the means..*

and
*Stick with the facts...a liar is a liar*

now, i can agree here...and think that lying is even more egregious an offense when it comes to our elected officials talking to us...

examples:
"we know where the WMD are" : Rumsfeld
"it's a slam dunk" - Tenet (talking about the WMD)
" I will fire anyone i the WH that had anything to do with the leak" which changed to " anyone charged with a crime concerning the leak" - GWB

and more...including..
"I did not have sex with that woman" - slick Willie

ALL of those are bad...and there are tons more examples

how about we hold our elected Officials to that higher standard of the "ends not justifying the means" before we start ripping on other folks?

click the URL link under my name, there is an "Ends vs Means" Article written by me that talks about this one a bit better....

just sharing

Excelsior?

Or we could admit that there are times when lying is necessary and excusable, especially from public officials, and we could even agree that certain types of statements which some characterize as 'lies' are really more in the nature of factual interpretations and their validity is entirely subjective.

Dave

No. If public officials can't tell the truth, they can resort to "no comment". A lie is a lie, and unacceptable in any circumstances. Using lies for some things invariably leads to using lies for most things, which in turn erodes public confidence in the government. Tell me: do YOU believe anything the government, congress, or the administration tell you? No, of course not. Why? Because they all are infamous for lying, conniving, cheating, & stealing. Mr. Smith wouldn't have the chance of a snowball in hell in today's Washington.