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Religious Terrorism is Terrorism by those whose motivations and aims have a predominant religious character or influence.

In the modern age, after the decline of ideas such as the divine right of kings and with the rise of nationalism, Terrorism more often involved anarchism, nihilism and revolutionary politics, but since 1980 there has been an increase in activity motivated by religion.^[1]

Former United States Secretary of State Warren Christopher said that Terrorist acts in the name of religion and ethnic identity have become "one of the most important security challenges we face in the wake of the Cold War."^[2] However, political scientists Robert Pape and Terry Nardin,^[3] social psychologists M. Brooke Rogers and colleagues,^[4] and Mark Juergensmeyer have all argued that religion should be considered only one incidental factor, and that so-called "religious" Terrorism is primarily geopolitical.

Definition[link]

According to Juergensmeyer, religious Terrorism consists of acts that terrify, the definition of which is provided by the witnesses - the ones terrified - and not by the party committing the act; accompanied by either a religious motivation, justification, organization, or world view.^[5] Religion is sometimes used in combination with other factors, and sometimes as the primary motivation. Religious Terrorism is intimately connected to current forces of geopolitics.

Bruce Hoffman has characterized modern religious terrorism as having three traits:

• The perpetrators must use religious scriptures to justify or explain their violent acts or to gain recruits.
• Clerical figures must be involved in leadership roles.^[6]
• Apocalyptic images of destruction are seen by the perpetrators as a necessity.^[7]

Martyrdom and suicide terrorism[link]

This section requires expansion.

Important symbolic acts such as the blood sacrifice link acts of violence to religion and terrorism.^[8] Suicide terrorism, self-sacrifice, or martyrdom has throughout history been organized and perpetrated by groups with both political and religious motivations.^[9] The Christian tradition has a long history of heterodoxical and heretical groups which stressed self-immolative acts and scholarship has linked this some degree to modern political groups such as the Irish Republican army.^[10] Suicide terrorism or martyrdom is efficient, inexpensive, easily organized, and extremely difficult to counter, delivering maximum damage for little cost. The shocking nature of a suicide attack also attracts public attention. Glorifying the culture of martyrdom benefits the terrorist organization and inspires more people to join the group. According to one commentator, retaliation against suicide attacks further increases the group's sense of victimization and commitment to adhere to doctrine and policy. This process serves to encourage martyrdom and so suicide terrorism, self-sacrifice, or martyrdom therefore represent "value for money".^[11] Robert Pape, a political scientist who specializes in suicide terrorism, has made a case for secular motivations and reasons as being foundations of most suicide attacks that are oftentimes labelled as "religious".^[12]

Financing[link]

This section requires expansion.

Terrorism activities worldwide are supported through not only the organized systems that teach holy war as the highest calling, but also through the legal, illegal, and often indirect methods financing these systems which sometimes utilize organizations as fronts to mobilize or channel sources and funds, including charities.^[13] Charities can involve the provision of aid to those in need and oblations or charitable offerings occur in nearly all religious systems with sacrifice as a furtherance of the custom.^[14]

Criticism of the concept of "religious terrorism"[link]

Robert Pape compiled the first complete database of every documented suicide bombing from 1980-2003. He argues that the news reports about suicide attacks are profoundly misleading — "There is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world's religions". After studying 315 suicide attacks carried out over the last two decades, he concludes that suicide bombers' actions stem from political conflict, not religion.^[15]

Michael A. Sheehan stated in 2000, "A number of terrorist groups have portrayed their causes in religious and cultural terms. This is often a transparent tactic designed to conceal political goals, generate popular support and silence opposition."^[16]

Terry Nardin wrote, "A basic problem is whether religious terrorism really differs, in its character and causes, from political terrorism... defenders of religious terrorism typically reason by applying commonly acknowledged moral principles... But the use (or misuse) of moral arguments does not in fact distinguish religious from nonreligious terrorists, for the latter also rely upon such arguments to justify their acts... political terrorism can also be symbolic... alienation and dispossession... are important in other kinds of violence as well. In short, one wonders whether the expression 'religious terrorism' is more than a journalistic convenience".^[3]

Professor Mark Juergensmeyer wrote, "..religion is not innocent. But it does not ordinarily lead to violence. That happens only with the coalescence of a peculiar set of circumstances - political, social, and ideological - when religion becomes fused with violent expressions of social aspirations, personal pride, and movements for political change."^[17] and "Whether or not one uses 'terrorist' to describe violent acts depends on whether one thinks that the acts are warranted. To a large extent the use of the term depends on one's world view: if the world is perceived as peaceful, violent acts appear to be terrorism. If the world is thought to be at war, violent acts may be regarded as legitimate. They may be seen as preemptive strikes, as defensive tactics in an ongoing battles, or as symbols indicating to the world that it is indeed in a state of grave and ultimate conflict".^[18]

David Kupelian wrote, "Genocidal madness can't be blamed on a particular philosophy or religion."^[19]

Riaz Hassan wrote, "It is politics more than religious fanaticism that has led terrorists to blow themselves up."^[20]

See also[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• From Bhindranwale to Bin Laden: The Rise of Religious Violence, University of California
• Sikh Terrorism in Punjab, Human Rights Watch
• It's the Occupation Stupid by Robert A. Pape, Foreign Policy magazine, October 18, 2010
• Booknotes interview with Jessica Stern on Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill, October 12, 2003.

Alan Dershowitz
Born	Alan Morton Dershowitz (1938-09-01) September 1, 1938 (age 73) Brooklyn, New York
Nationality	American
Ethnicity	Jewish
Education	Brooklyn College (A.B.) Yale Law School (LL.B)
Occupation	Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School
Spouse	1. Sue Barlach 2. Carolyn Cohen
Parents	Harry and Claire Dershowitz
Website
www.alandershowitz.com

Alan Morton Dershowitz (born September 1, 1938) is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history. He has held the Felix Frankfurter professorship there since 1993.^[1]

Dershowitz is known for his involvement in several high-profile legal cases and as a commentator on the Arab–Israeli conflict. As a criminal appellate lawyer, he has won 13 of the 15 murder and attempted murder cases he has handled, and has represented a series of celebrity clients, including Mike Tyson, Patty Hearst, and Jim Bakker.^[2] His most notable cases include his role in 1984 in overturning the conviction of Claus von Bülow for the attempted murder of his wife, Sunny, and as the appellate adviser for the defense in the O.J. Simpson trial in 1995.^[3]

A political liberal,^[4][5][6][7] he is the author of a number of books about politics and law, including Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case (1985), the basis of the 1990 film; Chutzpah (1991); Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case (1996); the best-selling The Case for Israel (2003); Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights (2004)^[8] and The Case for Peace (2005).

Early life[link]

Dershowitz was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to Harry and Claire Dershowitz, an Orthodox Jewish couple, and was raised in Borough Park.^[9] His father was a founder and president of the Young Israel Synagogue in the 1960s, served on the board of directors of the Etz Chaim School in Borough Park, and in retirement was co-owner of the Manhattan-based Merit Sales Company.^[10] According to Dershowitz, Harry had a strong sense of justice and talked about how it was "the Jew's job to defend the underdog."^[11]

Dershowitz's first job was at a deli factory on Manhattan's Lower East Side in 1952, at age 14. He recalls tying the strings that separated the hot dogs and once getting locked in the freezer.^[12] He attended Yeshiva University High School, where he played on the basketball team. He was a rebellious student, often criticized by his teachers. The school's career placement center told him he had talent and was capable of becoming an advertising executive, funeral director, or salesman. He later said his teachers told him to do something that "requires a big mouth and no brain ... so I became a lawyer."^[13] After graduating from high school, he attended Brooklyn College and received his A.B. in 1959. Next he attended Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal,^[9] and graduated first in his class with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) in 1962.^[1] He has been a member of a Conservative minyan at Harvard Hillel, but is now a secular Jew.^[14] He is married to Carolyn Cohen and has three children.^[15]

Career[link]

After being admitted to the bar, Dershowitz served as a clerk for David L. Bazelon, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He said that "Bazelon was my best and worst boss at once ... He worked me to the bone; he didn't hesitate to call at 2 a.m. He taught me everything—how to be a civil libertarian, a Jewish activist, a mensch. He was halfway between a slave master and a father figure." During the 1963–1964 term, he served as law clerk for the Supreme Court Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg. He told Tom Van Riper of Forbes that getting a Supreme Court clerkship was probably his second big break; his first was when, at age 14 or 15, a camp counselor told him he was smart but that his mind operated a little differently.^[12] He joined the faculty of Harvard Law School as an assistant professor in 1964, and was made a full professor in 1967 at the age of 28, at that time the youngest full professor of law in the school's history.^[16] He was appointed Felix Frankfurter professor of law in 1993.^[1]

Much of his legal career has focused on criminal law, and his clients have included high-profile figures such as Patty Hearst, Harry Reems, Leona Helmsley, Jim Bakker, Mike Tyson, Michael Milken, O.J. Simpson and Kirtanananda Swami. He sees himself as a "lawyer of last resort"—someone to turn to when the defendant has few other legal options—and takes those cases that are what he calls "the most challenging, the most difficult and precedent-setting cases."^[15] He is currently advising Julian Assange's legal team.^[17]

Recognition[link]

Dershowitz has been described by Newsweek as America's "most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer and one of its most distinguished defenders of individual rights."^[1] He was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1979, and in 1983 received the William O. Douglas First Amendment Award from the Anti-Defamation League for his work on civil rights.^[18] In November 2007, he was awarded the Soviet Jewry Freedom Award by the Russian Jewish Community Foundation.^[19] In December 2011, he was awarded the Menachem Begin Award of Honor by the Menachem Begin Heritage Center at an event co-sponsored by NGO Monitor.^[20] He has been awarded honorary doctorates in law from Yeshiva University, the Hebrew Union College, Monmouth University, University of Haifa, Syracuse University, Fitchburg State College, Bar-Ilan University, and Brooklyn College.^[1] In addition, he is a member of the International Advisory Board of NGO Monitor.^[21]

Cases[link]

Pornography (1976)[link]

In 1976, Dershowitz handled the successful appeal of Harry Reems, who had been convicted of distribution of obscenity resulting from his acting in the pornographic movie Deep Throat. In public debates, Dershowitz commonly argues against censorship of pornography on First Amendment grounds, and maintains that consumption of pornography is not harmful.^[22]

Claus von Bülow (1984)[link]

Dershowitz represented Claus von Bülow, a British socialite, at appeal for the attempted murder of his wife, Sunny von Bülow, who died in 2008 after going into a coma in Newport, Rhode Island in 1980. He had the conviction overturned, and von Bülow was acquitted in a retrial.^[23] Dershowitz told the story of the case in his book, Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow case (1985), which was turned into a movie in 1990. Dershowitz was played by actor Ron Silver, and Dershowitz himself had a cameo role as a judge.

Józef Glemp (1989)[link]

In 1989, Dershowitz filed a defamation suit against Cardinal Józef Glemp, then Archbishop of Warsaw, on behalf of Rabbi Avi Weiss. Glemp had accused Weiss and six other New York Jews of attacking nuns at a much-disputed convent on the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Glemp's statement about Weiss, made in July 1989, was coupled with suggestions that Jews control the world's news media. Dershowitz's account of the lawsuit appears in his book Chutzpah (1991).^[24]

Mike Barnicle (1990)[link]

Dershowitz sued The Boston Globe in 1990 over a remark reporter Mike Barnicle attributed to him, in which Dershowitz allegedly said he preferred Asian women because they are deferential to men. Dershowitz reportedly received a $75,000 out-of-court settlement and the newspaper's ombudsman questioned Barnicle's credibility, according to The Boston Phoenix.^[25]

O.J. Simpson (1995)[link]

O.J. Simpson murder case Dershowitz acted as an appellate adviser to O.J. Simpson's defense team during the trial, and later wrote a book about it, Reasonable Doubts: The Criminal Justice System and the O.J. Simpson Case (1996). He wrote: "the Simpson case will not be remembered in the next century. It will not rank as one of the trials of the century. It will not rank with the Nuremberg trials, the Rosenberg trial, Sacco and Vanzetti. It is on par with Leopold and Loeb and the Lindbergh case, all involving celebrities. It is also not one of the most important cases of my own career. I would rank it somewhere in the middle in terms of interest and importance."^[26] The case has been described as the most publicized criminal trial in American history.^[27]

Jeffrey Epstein (2006)[link]

Dershowitz provided legal assistance to friend and reported billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who was investigated following accusations that he had repeatedly solicited sex from minors. Dershowitz investigated some of Epstein's accusers and provided both the police and the State attorney’s office with a dossier containing information about their personal behavior, which had been obtained from their personal MySpace pages, including allegations of alcohol and drug use. Eventually, in 2008, Epstein plead guilty to a single state charge of soliciting prostitution and began serving an 18-month sentence.^[28]

Views[link]

On Israel[link]

While Dershowitz is a leading supporter of Israel, Dershowitz self-identifies as "Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestine".^[29] Dershowitz engaged in highly publicized debates with a number of other commentators, including Meir Kahane, Noam Chomsky, and Norman Finkelstein. When former U.S. President Jimmy Carter had his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (2006) published—in which he argues that Israel's control of Palestinian land is the primary obstacle to peace—Dershowitz challenged Carter to a debate at Brandeis University. Carter declined, saying, "I don't want to have a conversation even indirectly with Dershowitz. There is no need to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine."^[30] Carter did address Brandeis in January 2007, but only Brandeis students and staff were allowed to attend. Dershowitz was invited to respond on the same stage only after Carter had left.^[31]

He also took part in the Doha Debates at Georgetown University in April 2009, where he spoke against the motion "this House believes it's time for the US to get tough on Israel," with Dore Gold, President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Speakers for the motion were Avraham Burg, former Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel and former Speaker of the Knesset; and Michael Scheuer, former Chief of the CIA Bin Laden Issue Station. Dershowitz's side lost the debate, with 63 percent of the audience voting for the motion.^[32]

Harvard-MIT divestment petition[link]

Randall Adams of The Harvard Crimson writes that, in the spring of 2002, a petition within Harvard calling for Harvard and MIT to divest from Israel and American companies that sell arms to Israel gathered over 600 signatures, including 74 from the Harvard faculty and 56 from the MIT faculty. Among the signatures was that of Harvard's Winthrop House Master Paul D. Hanson, in response to which Dershowitz staged a debate for 200 students in the Winthrop Junior Common Room. He called the petition's signatories antisemitic, bigots, and said they knew nothing about the Middle East. "Your House master is a bigot," he told the students, "and you ought to know that." Adams writes that Dershowitz cited examples of human rights violations in countries that the United States supports, such as the execution of homosexuals in Egypt and the repression of women in Saudi Arabia, and said he would sue any professor who voted against the tenure of another academic because of the candidate's position toward Israel, calling them "ignoramuses with PhDs."^[33]

"New Response to Palestinian Terrorism" (2002)[link]

In March 2002, Dershowitz published an article in The Jerusalem Post entitled "New Response to Palestinian Terrorism." In it, he wrote that Israel should announce a unilateral cessation in retaliation, at the end of which it would "announce precisely what it will do in response to the next act of terrorism. For example, it could announce the first act of terrorism following the moratorium will result in the destruction of a small village which has been used as a base for terrorist operations. The residents would be given 24 hours to leave, and then troops will come in and bulldoze all of the buildings." The list of targets would be made public in advance.^[34] The proposal attracted criticism from within Harvard University and beyond.^[35] James Bamford argued in The Washington Post that it would violate international law.^[36] Norman Finkelstein wrote that "it is hard to make out any difference between the policy Dershowitz advocates and the Nazi destruction of Lidice, for which he expresses abhorrence—except that Jews, not Germans, would be implementing it."^[37]

Mearsheimer and Walt[link]

In March 2006, John Mearsheimer, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, Professor of International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, co-wrote a paper entitled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," published in The London Review of Books.^[38] Mearsheimer and Walt criticized what they described as "the Israel lobby" for influencing U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East in a direction away from U.S. interests and toward Israel's interests. They referred to Dershowitz specifically as an "apologist" for the Israel lobby. In an interview in March 2006 for The Harvard Crimson, Dershowitz called the article "one-sided" and its authors "liars" and "bigots."^[39] The following day on MSNBC's Scarborough Country, he suggested the paper had been taken from various hate sites: "every paragraph virtually is copied from a neo-Nazi Web site, from a radical Islamic Web site, from David Duke’s Web site."^[40] Dershowitz subsequently wrote a report challenging the paper, arguing that it contained "three types of major errors: quotations are wrenched out of context, important facts are misstated or omitted, and embarrassingly weak logic is employed."^[41] In a letter in the London Review of Books in May 2006, Mearsheimer and Walt denied that they had used any racist sources for their article, writing that Dershowitz had offered no evidence to support what they said was his false claim.^[42]

2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict[link]

In July 2006, Dershowitz wrote a series of articles defending the conduct of the Israel Defense Forces during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. There was an international outcry at the time regarding escalating Lebanese civilian deaths and the destruction of civilian infrastructure resulting from Israel's stated attempt to weaken or destroy Hezbollah. After the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour indicated that Israeli officials might be investigated and indicted for possible war crimes, Dershowitz labeled her statement "bizarre," called for her dismissal, and wrote about what he called the "absurdity and counterproductive nature of current international law."^[43] In a Boston Globe editorial several days later, he argued that Israel was not to blame for civilian deaths: "Israel has every self-interest in minimizing civilian casualties, whereas the terrorists have every self-interest in maximizing them—on both sides. Israel should not be condemned for doing what every democracy would and should do: taking every reasonable military step to stop the killing of their own civilians."^[44]

Second Amendment and the U.S. Constitution[link]

Dershowitz is strongly opposed to firearms ownership and the Second Amendment, and supports repealing the amendment, but he vigorously opposes using the judicial system to read it out of the Constitution because it would open the way for further revisions to the Bill of Rights and Constitution by the courts. "Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a public safety hazard don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."^[45]

Views on torture[link]

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Dershowitz published an article in The San Francisco Chronicle entitled "Want to Torture? Get a Warrant," in which he advocated the issuance of warrants permitting the torture of terrorism suspects, if there were an "absolute need to obtain immediate information in order to save lives coupled with probable cause that the suspect had such information and is unwilling to reveal it."^[46] He argued that authorities should be permitted to use non-lethal torture in a "ticking time bomb scenario," and that it would be less destructive to the rule of law to regulate the process than to leave it to the discretion of individual law-enforcement agents. He favors preventing the government from prosecuting the subject of torture based on information revealed during such an interrogation.^[47] The "ticking time bomb scenario" is the subject of a play, The Dershowitz Protocol, by Canadian author Robert Fothergill, in which the American government has established a protocol of "intensified interrogation" for terrorist suspects.^[48]

William F. Schulz, Executive Director of the U.S. section of Amnesty International, found Dershowitz's ticking-bomb scenario unrealistic because, he argued, it would require that "the authorities know that a bomb has been planted somewhere; know it is about to go off; know that the suspect in their custody has the information they need to stop it; know that the suspect will yield that information accurately in a matter of minutes if subjected to torture; and know that there is no other way to obtain it."^[49] James Bamford of The Washington Post described one of the practices recommended by Dershowitz—the "sterilized needle being shoved under the fingernails"—as "chillingly Nazi-like."^[36]

Animal rights[link]

Dershowitz is one of a number of scholars at Harvard Law School who have expressed their support for limited animal rights.^[50] In his Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights (2004), he writes that, in order to avoid human beings treating each other the way we treat animals, we have made what he calls the "somewhat arbitrary decision" to single out our own species for different and better treatment. "Does this subject us to the charge of speciesism? Of course it does, and we cannot justify it, except by the fact that in the world in which we live, humans make the rules. That reality imposes on us a special responsibility to be fair and compassionate to those on whom we impose our rules. Hence the argument for animal rights."^[51]

Support For The People's Mujahedin of Iran[link]

On February 29, 2012, Dershowitz filed an Amicus Brief in support of the People's Mujahedin of Iran, also known as the MEK, a group designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization.^[52][53] The MEK was placed on the list for attacks on U.S. military personal and civilian contractors, and is believed responsible for the deaths of three U.S. Army officers, three U.S. civilian contractors, as well as the wounding of USAF General Harold Price, during an assassination attempt.^[54][55]

The People's Mujahedin of Iran renounced violence in 2001.^[56] However, a 2004 FBI report on the group states that, "MEK is currently actively involved in planning and executing acts of terrorism.”^[57][58] Additionally, in 2009, seven people plead guilty to providing material support to the People's Mujahedin of Iran.^[59][60]

Criticism[link]

Norman Finkelstein[link]

Shortly after the publication of Dershowitz's The Case for Israel (2003), Norman Finkelstein of DePaul University said the book contained plagiarism.^{[61] [62]} Dershowitz denied the allegation. Harvard's president, Derek Bok, investigated the allegation and determined that no plagiarism had occurred.^[63] However, Dr. Frank Menetrez investigated and corresponded with both Harvard and Dershowitz and concluded that "neither Dershowitz nor Harvard, however, has identified the specific issues or arguments that Harvard allegedly investigated and rejected. In particular, neither of them has ever said whether Harvard investigated the identical errors issue."^[64]

In October 2006, Dershowitz wrote to DePaul University faculty members to lobby against Finkelstein's application for tenure. The university's Liberal Arts and Sciences faculty voted to send a letter of complaint to Harvard University.^[65] In June 2007, DePaul University denied Finkelstein tenure.^[66]

Books[link]

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alan Dershowitz

• Alan Dershowitz at The Huffington Post (June 2005– ). Dershowitz's blog.
• Alan M. Dershowitz Faculty directory entry at Harvard Law School, incl. hyperlinked "Bibliography."
• Alan M. Dershowitz at the Internet Movie Database.
• Alan M. Dershowitz Official website. (Top menu features hyperlinks to his biography and selected publications.)
• Interview with Alan Dershowitz from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Alan M. Dershowitz Personal group space at Gather.com.
• SWINDLE Magazine Interview
• Alan Dershowitz debates Meir Kahane 1985
• Alan Dershowitz Playlist Appearance on WMBR's Dinnertime Sampler May 11, 2005

Sam Harris may refer to:

• Sam Harris (author) (born 1967), American author and neuroscientist
• Sam Harris (basketball) (born 1984), Australian basketball player
• Sam Harris (playwright) (1872–1941), American playwright and theater producer
• Sam Harris (rugby) (born 1980), New Zealand rugby footballer
• Sam Harris (entertainer) (born 1961), American actor and recording artist

See also[link]

• Samantha Harris Shapiro
• Samuel Harris (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources. (May 2009)

Syed Zaiduzzaman Hamid, better known as Zaid Hamid, is a Pakistani security consultant and political commentator.^[1][2] His byline in newspaper articles has been Zaid Zaman.^[2]

Early life and education[link]

Zaid was born in Karachi, in 1964. His father, Col. Zaman Hamid (Retd), served in the Pakistan Army. Zaid spent his early life in Karachi. He received a Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degree in Computer Systems Engineering from NED University, Karachi in 1980's.^[3]

Political views[link]

Through his TV programmes, Hamid has claimed that a nexus between India's RAW, the CIA and is responsible for the destabilization of Pakistan. He also claims that the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, were part of a plan hatched by "Hindu Zionists"", and that it was an attempt by the Indians to stage an attack just like the Americans executed the September 11 attacks.^[1][2][4][3]

Criticism[link]

A number of noted Pakistani journalists, writers and Islamic scholars^[5] have criticized Hamid and have described his views on politics and security as conspiracy theories.^[6][7][8][9]

References[link]

External links[link]

• BrassTacks website
• Syed Zaid Zaman Hamid

Raymond Arroyo is a New York Times bestselling author, and a producer. He is the news director and lead anchor of EWTN News, the news division of the Eternal Word Television Network, a Catholic broadcast network founded by Mother Angelica, a nun of the Poor Clare order. He is creator and host of the news magazine The World Over Live.

Biography[link]

Personal Life[link]

Raymond Arroyo is from New Orleans, Louisiana. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife Rebecca and their three children.

Career[link]

Arroyo graduated from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts where he studied with Stella Adler, Uta Hagen, and others. Prior to working at EWTN, Arroyo worked at the Associated Press, the New York Observer, and for the political columnist team of Evans and Novak. He is best known as host of the EWTN news program The World Over Live, where he has interviewed many Catholic figures including the first and,to this date, only English language conversation ever recorded with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who would later become Pope Benedict XVI. Other interviews include Mel Gibson, who was interviewed on the set of his film The Passion of the Christ. > Arroyo's biography of EWTN's founder, Mother Angelica, was a New York Times bestseller, as were each of his following books. He is also the editor of Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality (Doubleday), "Mother Angelica's Private and Pithy Lessons from the Scriptures" (Doubleday), "The Prayers and Personal Devotions of Mother Angelica" (Doubleday), and co-author of, "Of Thee I Zing: America's Cultural Decline from Muffin Tops to Body Shots" (Threshold Editions). He has been featured on The Today Show, Good Morning America, and Access Hollywood, "Hannity and Colmes", “CNN Headline News”, and other television shows. He is a frequent guest, and occasional substitute host, of "The Laura Ingraham Show" on radio. His writings have been published by Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, The Financial Times, and The National Catholic Register.^[1]

Books[link]

• Arroyo, Raymond (2005). Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles. Doubleday Religious. ISBN 978-0-385-51092-9. 
• Arroyo, Raymond (2007). Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles. Image Books. ISBN 978-0-385-51093-6. 
• Arroyo, Raymond (2007). Madre Angelica: La historia notable de una monja, de su nervio, y de una red de milagros. Image Books. ISBN 978-0-385-52116-1. 
• Mother Angelica (2007). Raymond Arroyo. ed. Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality. Doubleday Religious. ISBN 978-0-385-51985-4. 
• Mother Angelica (2008). Raymond Arroyo. ed. Mother Angelica's Private and Pithy Lessons From the Scriptures. Doubleday Religious. ISBN 978-0-385-51986-1. 
• Mother Angelica (2010). Raymond Arroyo. ed. The Prayers and Personal Devotions of Mother Angelica. Doubleday Religious. ISBN 978-0-307-58825-8. 
• Ingraham, Laura (2011). Of Thee I Zing: America's Cultural Decline from Muffin Tops to Body Shots. Contr. Raymond Arroyo. Threshold. ISBN 978-1-4516-4204-9. 

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Website