Jerusalem’s significance in Islamic civilization

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Jerusalem is considered one of the most ancient cities in the world. It was demolished and reconstructed more than eighteen times throughout history. It was established 5000 years BC by the Arab Jebusites who grow up in the heart of the Arabic peninsula. They moved with other Arabs, constructed Jerusalem and called it the city of peace.

Historians believe that all the residents of Jerusalem shared a Canaanite origins and their mother tongue was the Canaanite language. After the Babylon conquest, Persian was added as an official language. In the beginning, Canaanite people were shepherds and when they settled afterwards in Palestine it was named after them Canaan. Historians were in consensus that the first monuments recognized in Palestine were theirs. They were the first Palestinian inhabitants after departing the Arab peninsula.

Undoubtedly, Jerusalem has Islamic origins, since all the messengers were sent from God with one religion which is Islam. God the Almighty says: “Indeed, the religion in the sight of God is Islam.” [Qur'an 3: 19]. Islam is the first religion, because the Exalted is He sent Noah peace be upon him with the message of Islam a pure religion. God the Almighty said by the tongue of Noah: “And if you turn away [from my advice] then no payment have I asked of you. My reward is only from God, and I have been commanded to be of the Muslims.” [Qur`an 10: 72] and: “And Abraham instructed his sons [to do the same] and [so did] Jacob, [saying], “O my sons, indeed God has chosen for you this religion, so do not die except while you are Muslims.” [Qur`an 2: 132]. And says about Lut peace be upon him: “And We found not within them other than a [single] house of Muslims.” [Qur`an 51: 36]

Al-Aqsa mosque is the oldest mosque inhabited for worshipping God alone after the sacred mosque. Therefore, all the Prophets visited the blessed mosque and offered their prayers there. Abdullah ibn ‘Umar may God be pleased with them both said: “The Prophets built and inhabited Bayt al-Maqdis and there isn’t an inch in Bait Al-Maqdis where a Prophet has not prayed or an Angel has not stood.” (Al-Anas al-Jaleel bi Tarikh al-Quds wa al-Khalil 1/239).

When it comes to the issue of the construction of al-Aqsa Mosque, we would find it a matter which occupied the minds of both Muslim scholars and historians. There was a dispute over who founded its earliest construction, the first opinion is that Adam peace be upon him established the two mosques. This opinion was mentioned by the scholar Ibn al-Jawzy and Ibn Hajar the scholar of hadith in Fath supported this opinion. He attested to what Ibn Hisham mentioned in his book al-Teejan that when Adam built the Ka’baa, God commanded him to walk to Bayt al-Maqdis and to build it. So, he built it and worshipped God there. This opinion was confirmed-as said by the scholar in al-Fath- based on this, Adam is the one who established al-Aqsa mosque or one of his offspring because the interval of time between constructing the two mosques is only forty years, (Fath al-Bary 6/409).

The second opinon is that Prophet Abraham peace be upon him is the one who established the mosque because this fact is well recognized by textual evidence of the Qur`an. If it is proved by textual evidence that he has built the Ka’baa, so building al-Aqsa mosque is preponderantly acceptable due to time convergence of both mosques. Among the supporters of that opinion Sheikh Ibn Taymia who said: “Prophets prayed in al-Aqsa mosque since the time of al-Khalil (Abraham).” (Majmou` al-Fatawa 27\258). In a different occasion he said: “al-Aqsa mosque exists since the time of Abraham peace be upon him.” (Majmou` al-Fatawa 27\251).

Engineering specialized researchers confirmed the absolute similarity between the structures of the honorable ka’baa and the blessed Aqsa mosque. By using 3d engineering application and without taking into consideration the two different areas of the ka’ba and al-Aqsa mosque, by means of maps and photos, researchers clarified the superposition of the four angles of the two structures. This supports with more scientific evidences the assumption that Adam peace be upon him built both mosques and fixed their limits with inspiration from God the Almighty. [Bayt al-Maqdis studies magazine].

Since the central message of every prophet is Islam, therefore it is necessarily that al-Aqsa mosque is of Islamic origin. Prophets are brothers, have the same religion and their doctrines may differ. A person’s faith is incomplete until he believes in all God’s messengers and scriptures, God the Almighty says: “The Messenger has believed in what was revealed to him from his Lord, and [so have] the believers. All of them have believed in God and His angels and His books and His messengers.” [Qur`an 2: 285]

The Islamic identity of Jerusalem is reinforced by being the first qibla [direction of prayer] for Muslims. The Prophet peace and blessings be upon him and his companions continued for 16 months praying towards Bayt al-Maqdes until the command of turning towards Bayt al-Haram was revealed in God’s words: “We have certainly seen the turning of your face, [O Muhammad], toward the heaven, and We will surely turn you to a qiblah with which you will be pleased. So turn your face toward al-Masjid al-Haram. And wherever you [believers] are, turn your faces toward it [in prayer].” [Qur`an 2: 144]

Changing the direction of prayer from al-Aqsa mosque to Ka’baa never affects the position of Jerusalem among Islamic sanctuaries and it is still the first of the two directions of prayer and the third holiest mosque to Muslims. 

[by Ali Gomaa, Source: http://ali-gomaa.com]
The reward of a prayer in the Sacred Mosque (in Makkah) is worth 100,000 prayers, a prayer in Prophet's mosque (in Medina) is worth 50,000 prayers and a prayer in al Aqsa Mosque (Jerusalem) is worth 50,000 prayers more than in any other mosque. The figures vary in traditions but it does signify the special status.

Read more:

• The Covenant, Chosen Race & Jerusalem: http://wp.me/PCgrB-4Z
• The Covenant, Bible &amp; Qur’an: http://wp.me/PCgrB-54
• Zionism Versus Racism : http://wp.me/PCgrB-4h
• Children of Israel,  Ishmael & Peace: http://wp.me/PCgrB-4m
• Jihad, Psycho-Religio Aspects: http://wp.me/PCgrB-4t
• The Guidance: http://wp.me/PCgrB-4z
• Islam-A Perspective- Introduction: http://wp.me/PCgrB-4C
• Jerusalem-Attaining Peace: http://wp.me/PCgrB-5j

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New weapons, new wars

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THROUGHOUT history, the emergence of new and more effective weapons has usually led to war or escalated violence.

Each new weapon — the broadsword, lance, longbow, siege machine, heavy cavalry, gunpowder, cannons, repeating rifle, machine-gun, battle tank, aeroplane, helicopter, submarines, ballistic and cruise missile — in its time changed military equations and led to aggression by those who had gained the military advantage, even if temporarily.

Unfortunately, nuclear weapons were no exception. On the other hand, other than decisive defeat or victory, wars ended, or were avoided, when military power, and the weapons which are its essential components, were equally matched.
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In the modern world, the asymmetry of military power and weapons systems has grown dramatically. Smaller and poorer nations have little or no capacity to defend themselves against the superior military power of larger and more technologically advanced states.

Even the militaries of mid-sized states are unable to defend themselves against the military prowess of the great powers, specially the United States. Saddam Hussein’s military crumbled twice in short order. For most states and groups confronting superior power and weapons, the only recourse is asymmetric warfare.

Referring to Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama declared in his re-election victory speech that “a decade of war is ending”. However, there is a clear and present danger that the past decade of mainly land wars could be replaced by wars fought in the skies and cyber space with even more deadly consequences.

Several new weapons have been or are about to be developed, deployed or used which may yield this outcome: attack drones, anti-ballistic missiles, cyber weapons and stealth, laser and space weapons technologies. Of these, drones, ABM systems and cyber weapons, have already begun to enhance the proclivity of their possessors to use force.

The use of the Predator and Reaper drones by US forces on the Pakistan-Afghan border has increased the frequency and lethality of attacks against Al Qaeda and the Taliban insurgents. No doubt, this capability has contributed to the US decision to withdraw its land forces from Afghanistan. But, as the land war draws to a close, there will be an inevitable tendency for the US to rely ever more on drones to continue to support the regime or factions it leaves behind in Afghanistan.

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There is a parallel concern in Islamabad that drones could be used for ‘precision’ strikes against Pakistan’s strategic capabilities. Overcoming this suspicion may be key to future Pakistan-US cooperation.

Drones may also become a weapon of choice if and when Western powers decide to play a more active role in support of the opposition forces in Syria. However, their use would lead to an escalation of the conflict and its extension to neighbouring countries.

Drone capabilities are being rapidly developed by other powers. China, India and Pakistan may soon have a capability that matches that of the US. No doubt, Iran will work overtime to reverse-engineer the US drone it captured.

There will be considerable temptation for all these powers to use drones against insurgents and other ‘difficult’ targets, rather than seek political solutions. The insurgents will find asymmetric means — IEDs, suicide attacks — to respond. Internal and cross-border conflicts would thus expand and be prolonged.

Cyberwar is also a reality now. The so-called Stuxnet virus, widely believed to have been used by the US and/or Israel to crash Iran’s centrifuges, is the most celebrated contemporary case of cyberwar. But the US secretary of defence, in a recent speech, alluded to cyber attacks on the US itself. There is no doubt that this covert war is being waged on a wide front, especially among the most advanced ‘IT powers’.

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The escalation of this ‘war’, or its ‘crossover’ into the realm of physical conflict is a constant danger. Thus, in response to crashing centrifuges or escalating economic sanctions, the target country could launch a cyber strike against the presumed adversary to bring down its electrical grid or disrupt civil air traffic.

In the absence of international control, states will presume that their military command and control systems are under cyber attack. They may delegate military decisions, like the launch of tactical missiles, to junior commanders, multiplying the likelihood of a conflict and its instant escalation. Detection of presumed cyber attacks could also lead to war by miscalculation.

The third ‘new’ weapon — anti-ballistic missiles — is potentially the most destabilising.

Some days ago, the New York Times carried an article asserting that Israel’s recent Gaza operation was designed as a “test” for Israel’s anti-ballistic missile systems against Iranian missiles. The article leads to the disturbing presumption that the greater the success of Israel’s Iron Dome ABM system, the greater the likelihood of an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. This would be the clearest illustration of how a so-called ‘defensive’ system can contribute to ‘offensive’ action.

During the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union expressly limited ABM systems to one on each side. They agreed that their widespread deployment would destabilise ‘Mutual Assured Destruction’ and nuclear deterrence. However, the faster technological development of ABM systems by the US and the decline and disappearance of the Soviet Union enabled the US to discard the ABM treaty and its restraints.

Now, there is every likelihood that ABM systems will proliferate. The US is deploying ABM systems against tactical, medium and long-range missiles, in the Arab part of the Gulf as well as in Europe. The proposed European deployment has evoked a strong response from Moscow which believes that these ABM deployments are aimed principally to neutralise Russia’s strategic capabilities. Intentions to deploy similar systems in Asia will no doubt evince opposition from Beijing. The stability of great power nuclear deterrence could be in jeopardy.

Closer to home, India too is in the process of acquiring advanced ABM systems. This could erode ‘minimum nuclear deterrence’ between Pakistan and India. To preserve the credibility of nuclear deterrence, Pakistan would have a choice: follow the extremely expensive path of acquiring ABM systems also, or the cheaper route of multiplying the number of offensive missiles and nuclear warheads.

Western analysts have not explained this as the reason for Pakistan’s enlargement of fissile material production. Adding ABM systems to the uncertain nuclear and missile equations in South Asia is equivalent to throwing a match into a tinderbox.

It is surprising that the international community has taken no steps to address the danger of new wars posed by these new weapons. The Geneva Conference on Disarmament — the sole multilateral disarmament negotiating forum — remains preoccupied by the agenda of Western powers — a treaty to halt fissile material production — while nudging aside calls for nuclear and space disarmament.

It is time that the Geneva body turned its attention to controlling those new and emerging weapons which pose a real and present threat to peace and security. It should put on its agenda and consider, as a priority, measures to regulate and control the deployment and use of drones, cyberwar and anti-ballistic missiles.

The writer is a former Pakistan ambassador to the UN.

http://dawn.com/2012/11/25/new-weapons-new-wars/

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Israel's Oppression: The latest Gaza catastrophe

What now for the people and politics of Gaza?

He was one of the last Palestinians to be killed during Gaza's eight-day war with Israel - a conflict which Hamas, despite the loss of a military chief and scores of men, celebrated as its victory.>>>> keep reading

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Many aspects of the current assault on Gaza pass under the radar screens of world conscience.

The media double standards in the West on the new and tragic Israeli escalation of violence directed at Gaza were epitomised by an absurdly partisan New York Times front page headline: "Rockets Target Jerusalem; Israel girds for Gaza Invasion" (NYT, Nov 16, 2012). Decoded somewhat, the message is this: Hamas is the aggressor, and Israel when and if it launches a ground attack on Gaza must expect itself to be further attacked by rockets. This is a stunningly Orwellian re-phrasing of reality. The true situation is, of course, quite the opposite: Namely, that the defenseless population of Gaza can be assumed now to be acutely fearful of an all out imminent Israeli assault, while it is also true, without minimising the reality of a threat, that some rockets fired from Gaza fell harmlessly (although with admittedly menacing implications) on the outskirts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. There is such a gross disproportion in the capacity of the two sides to inflict damage and suffering due to Israeli total military dominance as to make perverse this reversal of concerns to what might befall Israeli society if the attack on Gaza further intensifies. The reliance by Hamas and the various Gaza militias on indiscriminate, even if wildly inaccurate and generally harmless, rockets is a criminal violation of international humanitarian law, but the low number of casualties caused and the minor damage caused, needs to be assessed in the overall context of massive violence inflicted on the Palestinians. The widespread non-Western perception of the new cycle of violence involving Gaza is that it looks like a repetition of Israeli aggression against Gaza in late 2008, early 2009, that similarly fell between the end of American presidential elections and scheduled Israeli parliamentary elections. Pointing fingers Inside Story Americas - Gaza: How can the US manage the crisis? There is the usual discussion over where to locate responsibility for the initial act in this renewed upsurge violence. Is it some shots fired from Gaza across the border and aimed at an armoured Israeli jeep or was it the targeted killing by an Israeli missile of Ahmed Jabari, leader of the military wing of Hamas, a few days later? Or some other act by one side or the other? Or is it the continuous violence against the people of Gaza arising from the blockade that has been imposed since mid-2007? The assassination of Jabari came a few days after an informal truce that had been negotiated through the good offices of Egypt, and quite ironically agreed to by none other than Jabari acting on behalf of Hamas. Killing him was clearly intended as a major provocation, disrupting a carefully negotiated effort to avoid another tit-for-tat sequence of violence of the sort that has periodically taken place during the last several years. An assassination of such a high profile Palestinian political figure as Jabari is not a spontaneous act. It is based on elaborate surveillance over a long period, and is obviously planned well in advance partly with the hope of avoiding collateral damage, and thus limiting unfavourable publicity. Such an extra-judicial killing, although also part and parcel of the new American ethos of drone warfare, remains an unlawful tactic of conflict, denying adversary political leaders separated from combat any opportunity to defend themselves against accusations, and implies a rejection of any disposition to seek a peaceful resolution of a political conflict. It amounts to the imposition of capital punishment without due process, a denial of elementary rights to confront an accuser. Putting aside the niceties of law, the Israeli leadership knew exactly what it was doing when it broke the truce and assassinated such a prominent Hamas leader, someone generally thought to be second only to the Gaza prime minister, Ismail Haniya. There have been rumours, and veiled threats, for months that the Netanyahu government plans a major assault of Gaza, and the timing of the ongoing attacks seems to coincide with the dynamics of Israeli internal politics, especially the traditional Israeli practice of shoring up the image of toughness of the existing leadership in Tel Aviv as a way of inducing Israeli citizens to feel fearful, yet protected, before casting their ballots. Under siege Beneath the horrific violence, which exposes the utter vulnerability, of all those living as captives in Gaza, which is one of the most crowded and impoverished communities on the planet, is a frightful structure of human abuse that the international community continues to turn its back upon, while preaching elsewhere adherence to the norm of "responsibility to protect" whenever it suits NATO. More than half of the 1.6 million Gazans are refugees living in a total area of just over twice the size of the city of Washington, DC. The population has endured a punitive blockade since mid-2007 that makes daily life intolerable, and Gaza has been harshly occupied ever since 1967. Israel has tried to fool the world by setting forth its narrative of a good faith withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, which was exploited by Palestinian militants at the time as an opportunity to launch deadly rocket attacks. The counter-narrative, accepted by most independent observers, is that the Israeli removal of troops and settlements was little more than a mere redeployment to the borders of Gaza, with absolute control over what goes in and what leaves, maintaining an open season of a license to kill at will, with no accountability and no adverse consequences, backed without question by the US government. From an international law point of view, Israel's purported "disengagement" from Gaza didn't end its responsibility as an Occupying Power under the Geneva Conventions, and thus its master plan of subjecting the entire population of Gaza to severe forms of collective punishment amounts to a continuing crime against humanity, as well as a flagrant violation of Article 33 of Geneva IV. It is not surprising that so many who have observed the plight of Gaza at close range have described it as "the largest open air prison in the world".  Israel pounds Gaza Strip from air and sea The Netanyahu government pursues a policy that is best understood from the perspective of settler colonialism. What distinguishes settler colonialism from other forms of colonialism is the resolve of the colonialists not only to exploit and dominate, but to make the land their own and superimpose their own culture on that of indigenous population. In this respect, Israel is well served by the Hamas/Fatah split, and seeks to induce the oppressed Palestinian to give up their identity along with their resistance struggle even to the extent of asking Palestinians in Israel to take an oath of loyalty to Israel as "a Jewish state". Actually, unlike the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel has no long-term territorial ambitions in Gaza. Israel's short-term solution to its so-called "demographic problem" (that is, worries about the increase in the population of Palestinians relative to Jews) could be greatly eased if Egypt would absorb Gaza, or if Gaza would become a permanently separate entity, provided it could be reliably demilitarised. What makes Gaza presently useful to the Israelis is their capacity to manage the level of violence, both as a distraction from other concerns (eg backing down in relation to Iran; accelerated expansion of the settlements) and as a way of convincing their own people that dangerous enemies remain and must be dealt with by the iron fist of Israeli militarism. No peace In the background, but not very far removed from the understanding of observers, are two closely related developments. The first is the degree to which the continuing expansion of Israeli settlements has made it unrealistic to suppose that a viable Palestinian state will ever emerge from direct negotiations. The second, underscored by the recent merger of Netanyahu and Lieberman forces, is the extent to which the Israeli governing process has indirectly itself irreversibly embraced the vision of Greater Israel encompassing all of Jerusalem and most of the West Bank. The fact that world leaders in the West keep repeating the mantra of peace through direct negotiations is either an expression of the grossest incompetence or totally bad faith. At minimum, Washington and the others calling for the resumption of direct negotiations owe it to all of us to explain how it will be possible to establish a Palestinian state within 1967 borders when it means the displacement of most of the 600,000 armed settlers now defended by the Israeli army, and spread throughout occupied Palestine. Such an explanation would also have to show why Israel is being allowed to quietly legalise the 100 or so "outposts", settlements spread around the West Bank that had been previously unlawful even under Israeli law. Such moves toward legalisation deserve the urgent attention of all those who continue to proclaim their faith in a two-state solution, but instead are ignored. This brings us back to Gaza and Hamas. The top Hamas leaders have made it abundantly clear over and over again that they are open to permanent peace with Israel if there is a total withdrawal to the 1967 borders (22 percent of historic Palestine) and the arrangement is supported by a referendum of all Palestinians living under occupation. Israel, with the backing of Washington, takes the position that Hamas as "a terrorist organisation" that must be permanently excluded from the procedures of diplomacy, except of course when it serves Israel's purposes to negotiate with Hamas. It did this in 2011 when it negotiated the prisoner exchange in which several hundred Palestinians were released from Israeli prisons in exchange for the release of the Israel soldier captive, Gilad Shalit, or when it seems convenient to take advantage of Egyptian mediation to establish temporary ceasefires.   As the celebrated Israeli peace activist and former Knesset member, Uri Avnery, reminds us a cease-fire in Arab culture,hudna in Arabic, is considered to be sanctified by Allah, has tended to be in use and faithfully observed ever since the time of the Crusades. Avnery also reports that up to the time he was assassinated, Jabari was in contact with Gershon Baskin of Israel, seeking to explore prospects for a long-term ceasefire that was reported to Israeli leaders, who unsurprisingly showed no interest. Waiting for justice There is a further feature of this renewal of conflict involving attacks on Gaza. Israel sometimes insists that since it is no longer, according to its claims, an occupying power, it is in a state of war with a Hamas governed Gaza. But if this were to be taken as the proper legal description of the relationship between the two sides, then Gaza would have the rights of a combatant, including the option to use proportionate force against Israeli military targets. As earlier argued, such a legal description of the relationship between Israel and Gaza is unacceptable. Gaza remains occupied and essentially helpless, and Israel as occupier has no legal or ethical right to engage in war against the people and government of Gaza, which incidentally was elected in internationally monitored free elections in early 2006. On the contrary, its overriding obligation as Occupier is to protect the civilian population of Gaza. Even if casualty figures in the present violence are so far low as compared with Operation Cast Lead, the intensity of air and sea strikes against the helpless people of Gaza strikes terror in the hearts and minds of every person living in the Strip, a form of indiscriminate violence against the spirit and mental health of an entire people that cannot be measured in blood and flesh, but by reference to the traumatising fear that has been generated. We hear many claims in the West as to a supposed decline in international warfare since the collapse of the Soviet Union twenty years ago. Such claims are to some extent a welcome development, but the people of the Middle East have yet to benefit from this trend, least of all the people of Occupied Palestine, and of these, the people of Gaza are suffering the most acutely. This spectacle of one-sided war in which Israel decides how much violence to unleash, and Gaza waits to be struck, firing off militarily meaningless salvos of rockets as a gesture of resistance, represents a shameful breakdown of civilisation values. These rockets do spread fear and cause trauma among Israeli civilians even when no targets are struck, and represent an unacceptable tactic. Yet such unacceptability must be weighed against the unacceptable tactics of an Israel that holds all the cards in the conflict. It is truly alarming that now even the holiest of cities, Jerusalem, is threatened with attacks, but the continuation of oppressive conditions for the people of Gaza, inevitably leads to increasing levels of frustration, in effect, cries of help that world has ignored at its peril for decades. These are survival screams! To realise this is not to exaggerate! To gain perspective, it is only necessary to read a recent UN Report that concludes that the deterioration of services and conditions will make Gaza uninhabitable by 2020.  Completely aside from the merits of the grievances on the two sides, one side is militarily omnipotent and the other side crouches helplessly in fear. Such a grotesque reality passes under the radar screens of world conscience because of the geopolitical shield behind which Israel is given a free pass to do whatever it wishes. Such a circumstance is morally unendurable, and should be politically unacceptable. It needs to be actively opposed globally by every person, government, and institution of good will. Richard Falk is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/11/2012111874429224963.html Read More >>>> Peace-Forum: The Zionist Cuckoos in Christianity's Nest Stuart Littlewood views the ideology of Christian Zionism, which is rampant in the United States and has made some inroads in other "Christian" societies, and argues that, in essence, Christian Zionism is "a gross corruption of ... Peace-Forum: Zionist Christians: Useful tool for Zionist Jews Zionist Christians: Useful tool for Zionist Jews. Christian Zionists believe that in order to fulfill Biblical prophecy, Israel must conquer most of the Middle East. They are a growing force in American politics with ties to many ... Peace-Forum: Palestine History: Just on a Billboard If you are as puzzled as I am as to how a true Christian could possibly be taken in by Zionism, a short paper on the phenomenon is available from the Irish-Palestinian alliance, Sadaka. Sadaka sums up the Christian Zionist . Peace-Forum: Zionist West versus Islam The notorious crusades were initiated in by Pope Urban 2nd in 1096 when the Church was losing its hold on Christians, this ploy was used by them to bring the Christians back under the yoke of the Church. As a reaction to ...

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David Petraeus scandal , Morality, Ethics & Security

Gen David Petraeus, one of America's most prominent military officers, resigned after admitting he had had an affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell. Now the top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen John Allen, has been linked to another woman already tied to both Gen Petraeus and Mrs Broadwell.
The David Petraeus scandal Updates <<<click>>>

Petraeus: Victim of American infantilism By: Robert Grenier Former CIA station chief Robert Grenier heads ERG Partners, a financial consultancy firm.

A feckless violation of the General's personal life has cost the US one of its top public servants.

Bordel Militaire Controle: That was the rather bureaucratic term applied to official "supervised military bordellos" run by the French Army during much of the 20th century. Clear-eyed French defence officials of the First World War conceded that some proportion - and perhaps a large proportion - of the soldiers whom they deployed in expeditionary settings would seek to satisfy their carnal urges when and where they could, and that generally no good would come of it.

They considered that burgeoning prostitution, a hostile and alienated local populace, and rampant disease would undermine social support for the troops, and their fighting abilities. And so, exercising the rigorous logic characteristic of the culture which gave us Descartes, they reasoned that rather than wringing their hands, it would be better to set up medically-supervised institutions that would at least limit the negative results of behaviour which they could not otherwise hope to adequately control. 

Such an unsentimental application of moral reason is foreign to tender American sensibilities, but even puritanical US officials - after being forced during World War II to deal with the undisciplined appetites of conscript armies - eventually had to accommodate the fact that unless they took preventive measures, venereal disease would do to American armies what the Axis Powers could not.

Perhaps a bit closer to home, earnest American moralists of the current day who preach "abstinence-only" sex education in a sex-obsessed culture, and who have questionably passing acquaintance with relevant statistics concerning teen pregnancy, are being badly embarrassed by those more practical souls who supplement their preaching with ready access to contraceptives.

"In the absence of a crime and dereliction of professional responsibility, the matter should have ended there, with none of us the wiser, and a highly dedicated and competent public official still at work for his country."

I mention these as examples of the reasoned efforts of honest, clear-minded people to accommodate high-minded moral values to the practical realities of ordinary human behaviour. They stand in sharp contrast to the latest spate of puerile nonsense currently on such garish display in Washington.

One doubts that there is anywhere on the planet so remote as to have been spared the myriad details of the sex scandal that has claimed the career of General David Petraeus, most lately Director of the CIA. Still, it is worth briefly reviewing the core facts of the case, as they have been revealed to us: A woman in Tampa complains to the Federal Bureau of Investigation of threatening e-mails sent from an anonymous source. The FBI investigates, and finds them to have been sent by another woman residing in North Carolina. Scrutiny of this woman's e-mail reveals that she is involved in an illicit affair with General Petraeus. After a thorough investigation, including interviews with both Petraeus and the woman, it is determined that the offending e-mails neither meet the threshold for criminal harassment, nor has there been any security breach involving Director Petraeus's communications with his paramour.

CIA director Petraeus quits over extramarital affair

That is where this investigation should have ended. It was appropriate that FBI officials, who might have been concerned about the future potential for blackmail of a senior US official with access to highly sensitive national security information (of whom, by the way, there are many thousands of others), should inform that person's superior (in Petraeus's case General James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence). In the natural course of these events, CIA security officials - whose duty it is to guard such confidential personal information zealously - would have insisted that General Petraeus make a clean breast of the matter to them in order to help ensure that he could not be suborned later by, say, a hostile intelligence service that might independently learn of his affair. In the absence of a crime and dereliction of professional responsibility, the matter should have ended there, with none of us the wiser and a highly dedicated and competent public official still at work for his country.

Yes, it would be better if all those many thousands of individuals entrusted with safekeeping of America's national security secrets - and the rest of us, as well - could be relied upon to lead unerringly virtuous lives, both public and private. It would be better if they never abused drink, felt financial difficulty, or succumbed to the lure of messy sexual dalliances. But the fact is that some of them will: It is an actuarial certainty. The US Intelligence Community has long understood this, and has mechanisms in place to deal with such peccadilloes privately, while limiting the scope for others to exploit the personal vulnerabilities thus revealed. This is only sensible.

But in the case of General Petraeus, none of what should have happened did happen. The FBI did not close down its investigation. Instead, it continued to search, we are told, "for some link between Petraeus and the harassing e-mails", the ones that they had already found not to be criminal. Why this degree of solicitousness on the part of these over-dedicated public servants? Well, let us not forget that a criminal case involving a high-profile figure is the sort of thing that gets faceless Justice Department bureaucrats noticed.

Such opportunities should not be passed up. Before long, FBI agents were sharing information concerning General Petraeus's private life quite liberally as their feckless "investigation" continued. By the time word reached General Clapper, one presumes that it was the certainty of imminent mass public mortification that induced him to suggest Petraeus resign. At that point the floodgates of salacious gossip, invariably sourced in a fully complicit media to "anonymous" government sources, opened wide - a perfect example of "your American tax dollars at work".

"The most celebrated military officer of his generation - a public servant of rare competence and dedication - has been unnecessarily hounded from public life."

The reader should not be fooled by the supposed trove of "classified documents" subsequently found in a raid of the former mistress' home. The FBI, stung by the nascent criticism of having thoroughly violated the privacy of two citizens who have committed no crimes and then driving a campaign of public opprobrium in the bargain, is hell-bent to find some wrongdoing to which it can point as justification.

The fact that a reserve Army officer who possesses security clearances and has spent years engaged in research in which she was being actively aided by many serving military personnel turns out to have official military documents in her possession should come as no great surprise. No one - even in the FBI - has had the temerity thus far to claim there is any substantive compromise of national security in any of this material. At the end of the day it is most likely that such violations of document protocol as may have been committed will merit only administrative sanction at best.

No one is coming out of this episode looking righteous: Not the protagonists, not the law enforcement community, not the pandering media, and not the scandal-obsessed public. But in the end, the most celebrated military officer of his generation - a public servant of rare competence and dedication - has been unnecessarily hounded from public life, and his continued service to the country has been lost. And his example will not be lost on the most senior public officials, who must know that, if ensnared in a compromising situation, any attempt to seek official help will very likely not protect them, but instead assure their public humiliation and private destruction.

Americans appear to be mightily enjoying this spectacle, whatever their protestations to the contrary. Theirs is a childish and hypocritical culture, as it has always been. But they should know: Infantilism comes at a price.

Former CIA station chief Robert Grenier heads ERG Partners, a financial consultancy firm.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/11/20121118134148775889.html

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FACTS ABOUT DAVID PATRAEUS:

• David Petraeus resigned as head of the CIA due to an extra-marital affair with Paula Broadwell
• Broadwell met Petraeus in 2006 at Harvard University function
• Petraeus' former spokesman said his affair began after he left military and ended four months ago 
• President Obama gave Petraeus 24 hours to decide after hearing about the affair
• Petraeus called his involvement in the affair "extremely poor judgement" 
• Michael Morrell, who was Petraeus’ deputy, will be acting CIA chief 
• Petraeus assumed command of US forces in Iraq in 2007
• He then took command of US troops in Afghanistan in 2010 
• Petraeus left the military to become CIA director in September 2011 
• He oversaw the agency's use of drones for targeted killings 
• His military career lasted for 37 years 
• Petraeus has been married to his wife Holly since 1974

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Continue reading the main story

David Petraeus' downfall is down to his liaison with Mrs Broadwell, a former military officer, academic researcher and fitness enthusiast. She graduated from the West Point military academy, then spent 15 years in the US Army as a defence policy analyst and intelligence officer in South Korea and Germany.

In 2000 at Heidelberg Castle in Germany, she married Scott Broadwell, a flight surgeon (now a radiologist). They live in Charlotte, North Carolina, and have two sons. After Mrs Broadwell left the army, the family moved to Boston, where she enrolled at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. There she began a career as an academic military researcher, a path that brought her into contact with Gen Petraeus.

Mrs Broadwell, now 40, met the then-lieutenant-general in 2006 when she approached him to write an academic project on his leadership style. Over the following years she went with him to Afghanistan as he took command of the Nato operation there and spent months working closely with him, before distilling her research into the glowing biography, All In: The Education of David Petraeus.

A friend of Gen Petraeus has said his affair with Mrs Broadwell only began in late 2011, after he had left the military to head the CIA. In the spring of 2012, Mrs Broadwell is said to have become jealous of another woman. She allegedly sent anonymous emails to the woman, Jill Kelley, apparently warning her to stay away from Gen Petraeus.

Jill Kelley

Jill Kelley is a Tampa, Florida socialite who reportedly hails from  Catholic Lebanese family that immigrated to Philadelphia in the 1970s.

Mrs Kelley, 37, and her husband Scott Kelley, a surgeon, describe themselves as having been friends with Gen Petraeus and his family for more than five years.

Now Gen John Allen is under investigation after being accused of sending "flirtatious" to Mrs Kelley beginning in 2010.

There is no suggestion that Mrs Kelley, a mother of three daughters, had an affair with either Gen Petraeus or Gen Allen.

Both men wrote letters in September 2011 on behalf of Mrs Kelley's twin sister, Natalie Khawam, attesting to her good character in a messy custody dispute. A judge had earlier denied Ms Khawam custody of her young son, saying she appeared to lack honesty and integrity.

In May, Mrs Kelley received threatening emails accusing her of seeking an intimate relationship with the general. FBI officials say those emails were traced to Mrs Broadwell.

In Tampa, Mrs Kelley has served as an unpaid "social liaison", helping to organise gatherings at MacDill Air Force Base, which is the home of US Central Command.

Since the Kelleys moved to Tampa, they have been involved in at least nine legal actions, according to court records. Most involve real estate transactions, including a home repossession and an $11,000 (£6,930) judgment against them in a Pennsylvania case.

Gen Petraeus was stationed there before he moved to Afghanistan to run the Nato operation. Gen Allen was deputy commander there from July 2008 to June 2011.

Holly Petraeus

Holly and David Petraeus met in the 1970s when he was a cadet at West Point and her father was superintendent

Holly Petraeus, Gen Petraeus' wife of 38 years, was the daughter of the general in charge of West Point when David Petraeus was a cadet there.

Mrs Petraeus, who has long been an advocate for soldiers' families, has been without her husband for long periods in recent years, even testifying before the Senate about the impact of extended deployments on military spouses.

In January 2011 she was hired to run a veterans' affairs office at the newly established Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

In that position, which was created as part of the Democrats' overhaul of financial services industry regulation, Mrs Petraeus is tasked with protecting armed services members from predatory lending practices.

Mrs Petraeus' father, Gen William Knowlton, was the superintendent of West Point and Gen Petraeus was a cadet there in 1973 when the couple met.

The couple have two adult children, including an army officer deployed in Afghanistan.

"This unrelenting pace of deployments is a retention issue," Mrs Petraeus said in 2003 after testifying before a Senate committee.

"Families will not be willing to go it alone forever with little relief in sight."

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David Petraeus' tough lesson

By Dan K. Thomasson

Probably the best advice my father ever gave me was never to write anything you wouldn't be comfortable seeing printed on the front page of your newspaper. It's not a complicated rule and should be followed by everyone with a long distance to fall. That is the classic definition of tragedy and Gen. David Petraeus fits it almost perfectly, having ended a glorious career in an inglorious fashion in the time it takes to read a few emails he never should have written in the first place. How incredible that the head of the CIA would trust his future to a device that is notoriously unsecure — the Internet? Forget about the morality or lack of it involved here. Adultery is never a justifiable act and this is not meant to do so. It is not surprising, however, that a man of his stature, under great pressure during long absences from home on the front lines of national defense, would look for creature pleasures with a smart, vital, engaging, type-A personality 20 years his junior. Dumb? Certainly. But not rare. Have you not heard of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and Kay Summersby? That Petraeus' part-time companion turned out to be a jealous and indiscreet handful is not unusual in these situations. Ask Bill Clinton. What is shocking is that a normally cautious man who has spent a lifetime in sensitive positions would fail to recognize the danger of his actions or the pain it would cause others if discovered. It is amazing that the woman, Paula Broadwell, his devoted biographer and also schooled in intelligence matters, would recklessly challenge by email another woman she perceived as a rival for the good general's attention. The second woman read it as a threat and reported it. Hello, FBI; so long, general. The FBI discovered evidence of an affair in emails between Petraeus and Broadwell. Sexual chemistry tops caution almost every time, even among those who know what's at stake. Some reach heights that lead them to believe they are immune from the self-restraint any prudent person would follow. Others are just so caught up in the emotion that they become careless. Petraeus may have been a little of both. If those close to Petraeus noticed the electricity between the general and Broadwell, which they reportedly did, they apparently failed to warn him — not unusual for subordinates when dealing with superiors at that exalted level. In fact, the head of the FBI and the attorney general of the United States blinked several times before telling the national intelligence director and the president. Agents already had determined it was a matter not involving national security. As a news executive, I spent more than a year lecturing on libel, slander and other subjects, including Internet security. The message delivered repeatedly was don't trust emails. My father's advice came through loud and clear. What a hard lesson Petraeus has had to learn. Dan K. Thomasson’s column is distributed by the Scripps Howard News Service. From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121114/OPINION01/211140308#ixzz2CDKufVdA People are now also asking, if Petraeus didn't share classified information with Broadwell, why did he have to resign? What's the big deal?

In the military, the strict rules against marital infidelity have been justified by the claim that affairs leave people vulnerable to blackmail. (It was the same claim used to justify the irritating 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' policy towards homosexuality, too.) Now this has never rung quite true to me. Even someone who isn't having an affair but has a spouse and children is vulnerable to blackmail simply to protect their family. By that logic, why not go one step further and just demand that none of our public figures have relationships at all? At least it would stop us having to mentally picture John Major and Edwina Currie in flagrante again.

We might even go so far as to take a leaf from our Continental cousins and stop thinking of extramarital dalliances as such a big deal. Affairs, acknowledged or not, are rarely a good indicator of how effective someone is at their job. We've long acknowledged that marriages for love followed by a lifetime of sexual fidelity is not the historical norm. As Catherine Hakim notes in her book The New Rules, "The time has come, alongside the technology, to redraw the rules of marriage for the 21st century."

There is one silver lining of this Petraeus mess for us culture vultures. I'd pretty much had it with Homeland - the unlikely plot twists, the ill-advised affairs, the thought that the CIA would use unsecured connections to transit classified information… until this affair broke. Now I see that the shoddy planning, bed swapping, and poor security measures are exactly how things really go down at Langley. But give me David Harewood over David Petraeus any day - now there's a man worth going 'All In' for.

Related Stories

• David Petraeus profile
• Gen John Allen profile
• Following the Gmail trail
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20301476

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Why America Failed?

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Why America Failed shows how, from its birth as a nation of "hustlers" to its collapse as an empire, the tools of the country's expansion proved to be the instruments of its demise

Why America Failed is the third and most engaging volume of Morris Berman's trilogy on the decline of the American empire. In The Twilight of American Culture, Berman examined the internal factors of that decline, showing that they were identical to those of Rome in its late-empire phase. In Dark Ages America, he explored the external factors—e.g., the fact that both empires were ultimately attacked from the outside—and the relationship between the events of 9/11 and the history of U.S. foreign policy.

• In his most ambitious work to date, Berman looks at the "why" of it all
• Probes America's commitment to economic liberalism and free enterprise stretching back to the late sixteenth century, and shows how this ideology, along with that of technological progress, rendered any alternative marginal to American history
• Maintains, more than anything else, that this one-sided vision of the country's purpose finally did our nation in

Why America Failed is a controversial work, one that will shock, anger, and transform its readers. The book is a stimulating and provocative explanation of how we managed to wind up in our current situation: economically weak, politically passe, socially divided, and culturally adrift. It is a tour de force, a powerful conclusion to Berman's study of American imperial decline.

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During the final century of the Roman Empire, it was common for emperors to deny that their civilization was in decline. Only with the perspective of history can we see that the emperors were wrong, that the empire was failing, and that the Roman people were unwilling or unable to change their way of life before it was too late. The same, says Morris Berman, is true of twenty-first century America. The nation and its empire are in decline and nothing can be done to reverse their course. How did this come to be?

In Why America Failed, Berman examines the development of American culture from the earliest colonies to the present, shows that the seeds of the nation's "hustler" culture were sown from the very beginning, and reveals how the very tools that enabled the country's expansion have become the instruments of its demise.

At the center of Berman's argument is his assertion that hustling, materialism, and the pursuit of personal gain without regard for its effects on others have been powerful forces in American culture since the Pilgrims landed. He shows that even before the American Revolution, naked self-interest had replaced the common good as the primary social value in the colonies and that the creative power and destructive force of this idea gained irresistible momentum in the decades following the ratification of the Constitution. As invention proliferated and industry expanded, railroads, steamships, and telegraph wires quickened the frenetic pace of progress—or, as Berman calls it, the illusion of progress. An explosion of manufacturing whetted the nation's ravenous appetite for goods of all kinds and gave the hustling life its purpose—to acquire as many objects as possible prior to death

The reign of Wall Street and the 2008 financial meltdown are certainly the most visible examples today of the negative consequences of the pursuit of affluence. Berman, however, sees the manipulations of Goldman Sachs and others not as some kind of aberration, but as the logical endpoint of the hustler culture. The fact that Goldman and its ilk continue to thrive in the wake of the disaster they wrought simply proves that it is already too late: America is incapable of changing direction.

Many readers will take exception to much of Why America Failed—beginning, perhaps, with its title. But many more will read this provocative and insightful book and join Berman in making a long, hard reassessment of the nation, its goals, and its future.

"Morris Berman is one of our most prescient and important social and cultural critics. He marries a laser-like intelligence with a deep moral core. His writing is as lucid and crisp as it is insightful.His newest book, Why America Failed, rips open the dark and dying carcass of empire.His analysis is sobering and often depressing .But the truth at this stage in the game is depressing, very depressing. Those who refuse to face this truth because it is unpleasant, because it does not inspire happy thoughts or offer false hope, are in flight from the real. The collective retreat into self-delusion has transformed huge swaths of the American populace into a peculiar species of adult-children who live in aPeter Pan world of make believe where reality is never permitted to be animpediment to desire. It is too bad Berman, who sees and writes about all this with a stunning clarity, lives in Mexico.It gets lonely up here."

—Chris Hedges, author of Death of the Liberal Class and Empire of Illusion

"Morris Berman's masterpiece is a brutally honest, wonderfully crafted,exceptionally well-documented treatise on how America was spawned, several hundred years ago, to devour its offspring—financially, socially, and technologically. Why America Failed shines a harsh, unavoidable light upon the cunning business mindset at the core of America's creation, expansion, and devolution. Berman describes with stunning clarity how and why the 'hustler'mentality, upon which our country was predicated, eviscerated alternative moral or social doctrines, and thus incorporated the seeds of our self-destruction from its very inception. This book is as uncomfortable to read as it is impossible to miss."

—Nomi Prins, author of It Takes a Pillage and Other People's Money

"Morris Berman noticed that it's not morning in America anymore. His message may wake up the millions who are oversleeping while the late-day storm cloudsgather over this land."

—James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency

"As the decline of America's empire becomes both starker and graduallyevident, nothing is more important than accessible analyses of the causes of that decline. Far too few such works exist because of the taboos against writing them. All the more welcome then is Morris Berman's clear, bluntly but cogently written work. Sensitive to the contradictions of U.S. history and how they arenow playing themselves out in a changed world, this book will challenge and provoke in all the best senses of those words. Genuinely important to read and to think about."

—Richard D. Wolff, Emeritus Professor of Economics,University of Massachusetts Amherst

Morris Berman (born 1944) is an American historian of culture and science and is considered a social critic. Berman was born in Rochester, New York. He earned his BA in mathematics at Cornell University in 1966 and his Ph.D. in the history of science at The Johns Hopkins University in 1972. He is an academic humanist cultural critic who specializes in Western cultural and intellectual history. Despite his status as an academic, Berman's books are written for a general audience. They are concerned with the state of Western civilization and with an ethical, historically responsible, or enlightened approach to living within it. Emphasized in his work are the legacies of the European Enlightenment and the historical place of present-day American culture.

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Americans live in a dream world that has been Manufactured by Cooperation's. While more importantly given consent by the Political LEFT&RIGHT. Sad truth is, that when AMERICANS wake up, they will find the world that was fed to them...is no more real then their idea of American Democracy. Beginnings of an American CIVIL WAR which is also what Chomsky has been hinting on.

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