America needs Islam? Like the Middle East needs more sand.

Can't these bigots just live life and mind their own damn business? If this tree didn't like it here, why did he stay? Money, that's why. He made millions in the NBA, and his Frito commercials.

What a tool.

Posted by: Prickzilla at February 22, 2005 9:06 AM

"There is no morals"- and apparently a sizeable dearth of English teachers, too.

Posted by: Miss Moneypenney at February 22, 2005 9:09 AM

Hakeem has a wonderful sense of irony (unintended for sure) when he stated the U.S. is morally bankrupt. This coming from a Nigerian where corruption is almost a national pastime not to mention horrible ethnic and religious conflict.

Posted by: johnb at February 22, 2005 10:37 AM

I am sorry I do not buy the innocent stuff. Any committed muslim hopes for the overthrow of our way of life and would be willing to do anything to accomplish their goal. Muslims know a lot more about these "charities" than any of us do. They are after all doing what the quran says to do.

Posted by: Carolyn2 at February 22, 2005 11:11 AM

Why do we put up with this crap ? His sole talent
in life is being able to throw a leather ball
through a hoop. Somehow that doesn't strike me as
any qualification to be a social commentator.
Though we need to ask the question as to why we
pay such people so much money for something with no
real social value. His annual income could feed
a town of people for a couple of years atleast.

Posted by: sococm at February 22, 2005 11:12 AM

Olajuwon needs to study the history of Nigeria, a country cobbled together by the British from disparate groups (much like Iraq), and one that holds on because the Muslims control the military, and the few Christians allowed into the government are aware of this, and play the same kind of collaborationist role as do the current Christians in the Lebanese government.

The northern Muslims appropriate to themselves much of the country's wealth, which depends almost entirely on the oil which is under the lands of the Christians in southern Nigeria, and to the enterprise and industry which is almost entirely a product of Nigeria's Christian population (the Ibo, the Christians among the Yoruba, and the smaller tribes). As in Malaysia, where the Muslims "tax" the non-Muslims through the Bumiputra system, in Nigeria it is the Muslims who "tax" the Christians.

The West made a colossal error, based on its willingness to appease Islam, in not supporting to the hilt the Biafrans in their war for independence. Only two countries in the world recognized a Free Biafra -- Israel, and Ghana. But the entire West, had it understood Islam back then (the Biafran War began, after many massacres and other atrocities conducted by Muslims against Christians, in 1967). The Muslims of the North called in Egyptian pilots, who gleefully and wantonly bombed Ibo (properly, Igbo) villages.

Colonel Ojukwu, in his famous Ahiara Declaration, spelled out the reasons for the declaration of Biafran Independence: above all, the "Jihad" against the Christians. This basketball player, it seems, does not realize that Islam has been a far more successful vehicle of cultural imperialism, the longest-lasting and cruelest kind, that makes people forget their own origins and own past, for the sake of some vehicle of Arab imperialism (as Anwar Shaikh, V. S. Naipual, and Ibn Warraq have all noted), where virtually the first thing the new convert does is slough off his old name, and assume an Arab one.

The culture of the Igbo-Ukwu, per contra, was lovlingly collected and studied, as Ibos know, by Ulli Beier, who came from a country that "Hakeem" Olujuwon no doubt despises -- "imperialist-Zionist" Israel.

If, and when, the Christians of what is southern Nigeria at the moment decide to fight for their independence again, instead of continuing to be robbed blind by the Muslim drum-majorettes of the north, they should be supported, both on moral grounds, and on geopolitical grounds. Any weakening of Islam anywhere is useful; pushing back the forces of dar al-Islam, and depriving them of oil wealth (in Nigeria as in southern Sudan, or in the attempts by Muslims to creep into power into other black African countries, including two former Portuguese colonies, where oil has been discovered) will be useful.

If the State Department, and the Pentagon, have not yet jointly set up a special Task Force to figure out ways to weaken Islam in black Africa, and support the present Christians, they should get cracking. And American blacks, who in origin are in the main Ibo-American, should help. It is true that black ministers have to worry about the mosques rising next door, thanks to the idiotic likes of Mayor Menino of Boston -- but they should not forget the Muslim imiperialism in West and East Africa, either.

Posted by: Hugh at February 22, 2005 11:21 AM

The last thing we need to import to the US is a racist belief system like Islam.

Posted by: Suzan at February 22, 2005 11:44 AM

America don´t need islam, but Middle East need christianism.

Posted by: Franze at February 22, 2005 11:52 AM

Now that he's retired and out of the NBA he all of the sudden gets "morals". I wonder how many one night sex stands he had when he played basketball. Here's an article from ESPN about his ties to terrorism.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1987790

Updated: Feb. 10, 2005, 6:05 PM ET

Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- A mosque established and funded by basketball star Hakeem Olajuwon gave more than $80,000 to charities the government later determined to be fronts for the terror groups al-Qaida and Hamas, according to financial records obtained by The Associated Press.

Olajuwon told the AP he had not known of any links to terrorism when the donations were made, prior to the government's crackdown on the groups, and would not have given the money if he had known.

"There is no way you can go back in time," Olajuwon said in a telephone interview from Jordan, where he is studying Arabic. "After the fact, now they have the list of organizations that are banned by the government."

A Treasury Department spokeswoman, Molly Millerwise, declined to discuss Olajuwon's contributions but said, "In many cases donors are being unwittingly misled by the charities."

Federal law enforcement officials said they were not investigating Olajuwon, a 7-foot center born in Nigeria who played 17 seasons for the NBA's Houston Rockets before retiring in 2002.

Olajuwon, who became a U.S. citizen in 1993, was known as "The Dream" and won the NBA's Most Valuable Player award in 1994, when he led the Rockets to the first of back-to-back championships.

The Olajuwon-founded Islamic Da'Wah Center in Houston gave more than $60,000 in 2000 and $20,000 in 2002 to the Islamic African Relief Agency, the center's tax records show.

The government shut down the relief agency in October, saying it gave money and other support to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.

But the agency and its possible ties to terrorism had been in news stories years earlier, before Olajuwon's contributions:

# The U.S. Agency for International Development cut off two government grants to the Islamic African Relief Agency in 1999, saying funding the group "would not be in the national interest of the United States."

# A former fund-raiser for the relief agency, Ziyad Khaleel, was named in a federal trial in 2001 as the man who bought a satellite telephone that bin Laden used to plan the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

# Numerous news organizations reported shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks that the relief agency was among more than two dozen Islamic charities under scrutiny for possible terrorist ties.

Olajuwon also participated in a 1999 celebrity bowling tournament for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which the U.S. government shut down in 2001, accusing it of sending money to Hamas. The Islamic Da'Wah Center gave more than $2,000 to the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation in 2000, according to its tax returns.

At the time, Olajuwon was vice president of the mosque -- which was named after him -- and provided more than three-quarters of its money. Olajuwon heads the separate foundation that now controls the Islamic Da'Wah Center.

All the donations came before the government designated the Holy Land Foundation and the Islamic African Relief Agency as terrorist fronts. Vipul Worah, an accountant for Olajuwon's charities, said U.S. authorities have never asked about the contributions.

Olajuwon, who is married with four daughters, became a Muslim during his professional career and was known for playing in key games while observing dawn-to-dusk fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Tax returns for Olajuwon's Islamic Da'Wah Center show it gave the Islamic African Relief Agency $61,250 in 2000 and $20,000 in 2002.

Those donations accounted for 2.2 percent of the $2.8 million the Islamic African Relief Agency received during 2000 and 1.4 percent of the $1.4 million it raised in 2002, records show.

Olajuwon said the donations came after fund-raisers from the Islamic African Relief Agency visited Houston. He said the group told him donations would help the needy in Africa.

"They came and approached us and everything was legitimate. I had no knowledge of their activity," Olajuwon said.

The Treasury Department alleged in October that several top officials of the group's branches overseas are al-Qaida members or associates and the group gave bin Laden hundreds of thousands of dollars in 1999.

The federal government says the Sudan-based Islamic African Relief Agency's U.S. branch is IARA-USA, based in Columbia, Mo. That group has challenged the terrorist designation in court, saying it is separate from the Sudanese group.

Shereef Akeel, a lawyer for IARA-USA, acknowledged the U.S. group and the Sudanese group "may be in a partnership together" and some people with links to IARA-USA have terrorist associations.

"Just because someone traveled in the same circles, just because one employee was at the same conference as someone who supported terrorism, doesn't mean the organization sponsors or condones acts of terrorism," Akeel said.

The Holy Land Foundation was shut down in December 2001. Federal authorities say it was the main U.S. fund-raiser for Hamas and sent $12.4 million to the Palestinian terrorist group from 1995 to 2001. Hamas has claimed responsibility for dozens of suicide bombings in Israel that have killed scores of people, including Americans.

The Holy Land Foundation and several leaders are awaiting trial on criminal charges of supporting terrorism -- charges they deny. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler rejected the group's 2002 lawsuit challenging its terrorist designation, ruling federal officials had "ample evidence" of financial support for Hamas.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said in July that an indictment against several officers was "neither a reflection on the well-meaning people who may have donated funds to the foundation, nor is it a reflection on the Muslim faith and its adherents."

In 2000, the year after Olajuwon participated in the Dallas bowling tournament for the Holy Land Foundation, the Islamic Da'Wah Center gave the group $2,430, tax records show. That money was a tiny fraction of the $13 million the foundation raised that year.

Olajuwon said the bowling tournament was one of many charitable events he has attended.

"I get all sorts of requests from charitable organizations," Olajuwon said. "It was a bunch of kids and I gave them autographs."

Posted by: cross at February 22, 2005 12:04 PM

Jesus. 'Cross' is a windy bastard. Anybody read his screed? Synopsys only, please.

Posted by: Havoc at February 22, 2005 12:53 PM

Oh, yeah, and Deport Hakeem along with the rest of the muslim riffraff.

Posted by: Havoc at February 22, 2005 12:55 PM

Why do you even post this fool's statement on this website?
This idiot called "Akeem" in Nigeria went to America when the hardship being suffered in Nigeria could not be endured.
There is a proverb in Hakeem native language (Yoruba) that says that when somebody is filled (or just finished eating), it is then he/she will be looking for something to break his/her stomach.In his native language we say it like this "Hakeemu yo tan o wa n wa bekun bekun" if any body has his contact just tell him that he would understand.
This is the summary of the stupidity being displayed by this Hakeem.
Do you now see the problem with the US embassy in Nigeria? when christians apply for visa they are not given but the stupid idiots are the ones being given visa. I mean those that will get to America and become a treat to the world as a whole.
Please deport the stupid guy...
Written by,
Ayatollah Dase (SWT).

N.B I am a Nigerian and I am even from Hakeem Olajuwon's south western Nigerian.

Posted by: Dase at February 22, 2005 1:07 PM

Well maybe the innocent routine is not fake, could he be a dumb jock?

These morally corrupt people where just moral enough for him to except our cash.
But Islam has never been known to let morals get in the way of cash.

This land of the morally corrupt people just so happens to be a place he calls home?
Why, Mr Olajuwon would you live among such morally corrupt people, are you and your superior intellect here to say us, from ourselves?

Mr Olajuwon has no problem using the very freedoms that were bought and paid for with American blood to advocate the removal of the American Constitution and all the freedoms this great country was founded upon.

I wonder how much of our infidel money Mr Olajuwon would have made, if America had better morals, say like Saudi Arabia?

Does Mr Olajuwon just ignore it when Mohammad claimed
"if a black man comes to you his heart is more gross than a donkey’s"?
I wonder what spin the Imam gives Olajwon about that passage?
“We overlook your gross heart, because of your immense cash pile”

I hope the American public learns what this guy is about, and proceeds with the proper boycotting of all products that he indorses.
Stop the cash at the anti-American source from going to the morally bankrupt Islamic jihad.

Posted by: Bar at February 22, 2005 1:47 PM

Jesus. 'Cross' is a windy bastard. Anybody read his screed? Synopsys only, please.
Posted by: Havoc [TypeKey Profile Page] at February 22, 2005 12:53 PM

You didn't like my ESPN copy and paste article? Don't like my opinions? What's your problem Havoc? Does anybody read your screed?

Posted by: cross at February 22, 2005 2:09 PM

Oh come on, you two. Compared to Catherine? Or even to Hugh. *chuckles*

Posted by: Gary at February 22, 2005 2:47 PM

Havoc should email the AP or ESPN and tell them their article was nothing but a monotonous piece of writing that doesn’t live up to his high literary standards. lol

Posted by: cross at February 22, 2005 3:08 PM

Cross, that article also claims he became a muslim after he started playing pro ball, in other articles I read where he was born into a devout muslim household. I'll see if I can locate the article again.

Posted by: Carolyn2 at February 22, 2005 4:11 PM

Here it is, it is all about his faith.

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/55/story_5556_2.html

Posted by: Carolyn2 at February 22, 2005 4:23 PM

OK, guys. Chill out.

Posted by: Havoc at February 22, 2005 4:32 PM

Carolyn2, I read the article. Hakeem Olajuwon seems like a thick headed simpleton. Thinks islam is better than Christianity. The Christian athletes he spoke with probably just got tired of his closed mindedness when they said "no ones cares about it anyway". What a baffoon Olajuwon turned out to be. Shaq always had his number and beat his ass in every game. Olajuwon sucs.

Posted by: cross at February 22, 2005 5:08 PM

Maybe this is the kind of morality he means
Twenty-first Century African Slaves – In the Land of Islam

Posted by: Giaour at February 22, 2005 5:45 PM

Dear Olajuwon,

So America NEEDS Islamic morality, you say?

Americans like everyone else are INDIVIDUALS that act freely of their own will. The only way you could accurately assess the morality of the American people would be to personally know each and every one of the 295 million people living in America and assess the moral decisions each one of them makes in his or her life. You have no way of doing this. So you have no business making statements like this. But, more importantly.....

An inherent and unsurmountable problem with Islam is that it is built on assertions that cannot be proved in any way. Muslims have no way of knowing if ANY OF THE THINGS THEY HAVE BEEN TAUGHT are true (whether or not Muslims accept them as truth makes no difference in this matter). Your condemnation of the American people is based on the assumption that Islamic teachings of morality are valid and universal. But you have no way of not knowing they are, since the deity who makes these moral commands (like 'slay the infidels') cannot be shown to exist, and no other religion or belief system has ever registered the degree of bloodthirstiness that Islam possesses. So unless you can come up with some fresh evidence there is no reason to listen to you or any other Muslim-megalomaniac making such sweeping moralizing statements about Americans (or anyone else). The world is therefore completely free to reject Islamic doctrines---and YOU.

Islam constitutes conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit genocide. Some morality!!!!!!!!!!

PYTHAGORAS

Posted by: pythagoras at February 22, 2005 7:03 PM

Morals = code of good conduct, ethic principles that guide our actions and relationships.

Islamic morals: Oppression, intimidation, lack of freedom, ferocious censorship, public executions.

While I agree that in the West, we may sometimes go too far, it is completely idiotic to suggest we need to swing back to the Dark Ages and Islamic "morals". At least we have the freedom to choose how we act. In Islam there is no choice. You do as some 7th Century tribal lunatic warlord dictates or you die. These are morals? Only to a brainwashed dullard who won't think for him/herself.

Another word for the Twisted Islamic Dictionary: morals. It means one thing to the normal world, and something entirely different to the Islamic world. Like tolerance, peace, honor, etc.

Posted by: feralee at February 22, 2005 9:03 PM

America needs Islam? Like the Middle East needs more sand. I couldn't agree more with that statement.

Posted by: flameon1 at February 23, 2005 12:14 AM

America needs Islam? Like the Middle East needs more sand. I couldn't agree more with that statement.

America needs more brainless, self-righteous Black celebtries spewing more 5% garbage too, while trying to beat the latest felony rap!

Posted by: Jakester at February 23, 2005 1:49 AM

Giaour: Your link to 21st century slaves doesn't work.

Hugh--I agree completely about the Biafran civil war. One of the major problems with US foreign policy is that it believes it needs to stand by every set of borders present in the year 1960-1975-1988, etc., investing too much in national treasure and prestige in this futile project. Further, in the late 1950's and 1960's, the UN"s Dag Hammarskjold (a cold, bureaucratic person if ever there was one), committed the UN to keeping the borders of colonial territories then being crafted into "new nations" intact.

Had places like the southern Sudan, Biafra, Katanga, and others been allowed to go their own way in the 1960's, Africa might today be in a lot better shape. Nigeria as it exists today, like Sudan, is simply a postcolonial preservation of a predatory Islam and its traditional prey.

Posted by: Kepha at February 23, 2005 10:22 PM