Peace-Forum

Boko Haram: African Taliban of Nigeria

2012-01-28T13:03:00.000+05:00

Nigeria's militant Islamist group Boko Haram - which has caused havoc in Africa's most populous country through a wave of bombings - is fighting to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state.

Its followers are said to be influenced by the Koranic phrase which says: "Anyone who is not governed by what Allah has revealed is among the transgressors".

Boko Haram promotes a version of Islam which makes it "haram", or forbidden, for Muslims to take part in any political or social activity associated with Western society.

This includes voting in elections, wearing shirts and trousers or receiving a secular education.

Boko Haram regards the Nigerian state as being run by non-believers, even when the country had a Muslim president.

But residents in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri, where the group had its headquarters, dubbed it Boko Haram.The group's official name is Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad, which in Arabic means "People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad".

Loosely translated from the local Hausa language, this means "Western education is forbidden".

Boko originally means fake but came to signify Western education, while haram means forbidden.

Since the Sokoto caliphate, which ruled parts of what is now northern Nigeria, Niger and southern Cameroon, fell under British control in 1903, there has been resistance among the area's Muslims to Western education.

Many Muslim families still refuse to send their children to government-run "Western schools", a problem compounded by the ruling elite which does not see education as a priority.

Audacious

Against this background, the charismatic Muslim cleric, Mohammed Yusuf, formed Boko Haram in Maiduguri in 2002. He set up a religious complex, which included a mosque and an Islamic school.

Boko Haram despises Western education and wants Islamic law imposed

Many poor Muslim families from across Nigeria, as well as neighbouring countries, enrolled their children at the school.

But Boko Haram was not only interested in education. Its political goal was to create an Islamic state, and the school became a recruiting ground for jihadis to fight the state.

In 2009, Boko Haram carried out a spate of attacks on police stations and other government buildings in Maiduguri.

This led to shoot-outs on Maiduguri's streets. Hundreds of Boko Haram supporters were killed and thousands of residents fled the city.

Nigeria's security forces eventually seized the group's headquarters, capturing its fighters and killing Mr Yusuf.

His body was shown on state television and the security forces declared Boko Haram finished.

Boko Haram: Timeline of terror

2002: Founded
2009: Hundreds killed when Maiduguri police stations stormed
2009: Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf captured by army, handed to police, later found dead
Sep 2010: Freed hundreds of prisoners from Maiduguri jail
Dec 2010: Bombed Jos, killing 80 people and blamed for New Year's Eve attack on Abuja barracks
2010-2011: Dozens killed in Maiduguri shootings
May 2011: Bombed several states after president's inauguration
June 2011: Police HQ bombed in Abuja
Aug 2011: UN HQ bombed in Abuja
Nov 2011: Co-ordinated bomb and gun attacks in Yobe and Borno states
Dec 2011: Multiple bomb attacks on Christmas Day kill dozens

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But its fighters have regrouped under a new leader and in 2010, they attacked a prison in Maiduguri, freeing hundreds of the group's supporters.

Boko Haram's trademark has been the use of gunmen on motorbikes, killing police, politicians and anyone who criticises it, including clerics from other Muslim traditions and a Christian preacher.

The group has also staged several more audacious attacks in different parts of northern Nigeria, showing that it is establishing a presence across the region and fuelling tension between Muslims and Christians.

These include the 2011 Christmas Day bombings on the outskirts of Abuja and in the north-eastern city of Damaturu, a 2010 New Year's Eve attack on a military barracks in Abuja, several explosions around the time of President Goodluck Jonathan's inauguration in May 2011, followed by the bombing of the police headquarters and the UN headquarters in Abuja.

In a 15-minute video posted on YouTube, the group's leader Abubakar Shekau defended the group's targeting of Christians, saying this was revenge for previous attacks on Muslims.

He also said his group would not be defeated by the security forces.

The attacks have raised global concern, with a US Congressional report - released in November 2011 - warning that Boko Haram was an "emerging threat" to the US and its interests.

The report said Boko Haram may be forging ties with al-Qaeda-linked groups in Africa, but the group denies this.

Analysts say northern Nigeria has a history of spawning groups similar to Boko Haram.

The threat will disappear only if the Nigerian government manages to reduce the region's chronic poverty and builds an education system which gains the support of local Muslims, the analysts say.

Nigeria: A nation divided

Despite its vast resources, Nigeria ranks among the most unequal countries in the world, according to the UN. The poverty in the north is in stark contrast to the more developed southern states. While in the oil-rich south-east, the residents of Delta and Akwa Ibom complain that all the wealth they generate flows up the pipeline to Abuja and Lagos.

Terrorism Rejected in Islam- Edict [Fatwa] by Islamic Scholars: "رفض الإرهاب في الفتوى الإسلام للعلماء المسلمين". WebpageTranslator. "فتوى بشأن الإرهاب هو 600 صفحة (الأردية إصدار) ، (النسخة الإنكليزية) 512 صفحة مرسوم ...

[Extracted form interview of Dr. Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri, an Islamic Scholar of repute, who recently issued 600 pages long Edict (Fatwa) declaring Terrorism as forbidden in Islam, complete interview reproduced in links ...

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jihad & Tolerance:

A mind-boggling mix: Chinese hackers, Russian gangsters, Al Qaeda operatives and much more..

2012-01-22T20:22:00.000+05:00

TO describe Reamde as fun would be akin to describing murder as “a little bit of mischief”. This, Neal Stephenson’s 13th novel, is literary haute couture; it’s smart, it’s edgy, it’s mind-bendingly layered, and it has a complexity that will make you weep. Whether said weeping will be from joy or frustration is debatable, but rest assured — there will be tears.

There is one really fundamental difference between Reamde and Stephenson’s earlier works. Canonical as they are, Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon and The Diamond Age are all very much ‘niche’ publications: their appeal is primarily to sci-fi aficionados. The Baroque Cycle on the other hand, steps far out of sci-fi into the realms of speculative fiction/alternate history, but is still dense and sometimes painful to read. Reamde, however, is immensely accessible, even to those of us who may still be Luddites. That said, devout Stephenson fans — those people who are constantly thrilled by his erudition and scope — will probably also love Reamde, which is in many ways a pre-cursor to his earlier cyberpunk novels.

The plot of Reamde is particularly ridiculous at first glance: Richard Forthrast, a former marijuana smuggler, founds a Fortune 500 mega-corporation based on a virtual gaming world called T’Rain that is the basis for an entire shadow economy; real-life gamers wind up treating it as a full-time job, “farming” gold pieces and developing virtual characters from within the game to sell for actual real-life currency and thereby earning a living. As the novel begins, Richard has hired Zula, an Eritrean orphan who is his adopted niece, whose boyfriend, Peter, is involved in selling stolen credit card information. The buyer of said information is an associate of the Russian mafia, and during the data transfer, finds his computer system — and by extension, those of his criminal cohorts — compromised by a virus, “Reamde”, that is the brainchild of a Chinese T’Rain player. In an
effort to recover the virus — rather than pay the $73 worth of T’Rain’s virtual currency in ransom — the Russians kidnap Zula and Peter, along with a Hungarian hacker, and fly to Xiamen in China to locate and eliminate the hacker.

While involved in tracking down the hacker and preparing to terminate him with, as spy thrillers would put it, “extreme prejudice”, the Russians come into contact with Al Qaeda operative Abdallah Jones, a wanted terrorist, who
despite being black and Welsh, seems to think that China is the perfect place to hide. Oh, and that kidnapping Zula will somehow further his goals. Seven hundred pages later, having completed a quick circuit of the world and a massive discussion of aeronautical navigation, philology, virtual economies, technology and the epistemology of colour palettes, the plot widens just a tiny bit more to incorporate a jihadist attack on Las Vegas, something odd going on in the world of T’Rain, and a Hollywood Western-style shootout with more guns than actual people. This, for the sake of perspective, is a short version of the plot.

The fact that Stephenson is able to maintain even a vestige of narrative control over this runaway juggernaut of a novel is testament to his abilities as a writer. While Reamde occasionally transitions from novel to spatterfest-in-book-form, it is constantly entertaining, and Stephenson demonstrates just how much of a polymath he really is. Between detailed explanations of T’Rain’s mythology (what, asks a remarkably pretentious English fantasy writer, is the reason for naming the Tolkien-ish elf-analogues in T’Rain “K’Shetriae”? Why the apostrophes and the uppercase letters?) and an equally detailed exposition on how T’Rain managed to convert artificial currency into real-world wealth (a sly dig at investment banking, one wonders?), Stephenson ranges far and wide over literary territory. His exposition is dense, technical and highly readable — there is no way to avoid being sucked into the text of Reamde.

The only real issue that one faces with Stephenson is his characterisation. Almost every single person in Reamde is so astoundingly competent and level-headed that it is not hard to imagine them fixing the whole planet in under a week if
given the chance. No matter what sort of psychotic-breakdown-inducing situation they are in, whether it’s plotting international flights to avoid detection by national air forces, finding a single Chinese hacker with only a smart-phone while being menaced by an unstable Russian gangster gone rogue, or hiking across inimical terrain, they radiate a sense of perspective that is practically Zen in its serenity. These aren’t protagonists; frankly, they start to seem like über-mensch. By page 500, I was wondering why they hadn’t yet solved the problems of world hunger while curing cancer and fixing the Eurozone crisis.

To his credit, Stephenson is meticulous about explaining the acquisition of each character’s particular highly-specialised skill-set. All the exposition in the world, however, is insufficient to mitigate the suspension of disbelief required as the characters of Reamde steal private jets, turn DVDs into lethal weapons, slip in and out of China without visas and — my
favourite — manoeuvre wild mountain lions into attacking their enemies. These are the people who I would want on my side if aliens were ever to invade Earth.

There is humour among all of this though. Stephenson spins dual plot-lines, allowing them to run parallel before a final act of convergence; while the real-world antics of hackers and gangsters are painfully rooted in actual events, the world of T’Rain has a hilarious civil war between “the Earthtone Coalition” and “the Forces of Brightness”, all over a question of the colour palettes used in designing virtual characters. As terrorists commit acts of grievous bodily harm on one another, authors argue about the semantics of right and wrong in a world of pixels and bytes. Spies shoot at each other and assume identities at the drop (or addition) of a hat, while a formerly obese programmer tracks his caloric intake on a multitude of computer screen.

It is difficult to not be amused — or at least engaged — on some level by Stephenson and his writing. Although Reamde admittedly falls short of the quantum meta-philosophy of Anathem or the historicism of The Baroque Cycle, it still manages to keep itself relevant and stimulating. Much like Stephenson himself, it is wide-ranging, unpredictable and clever. It may not aspire to be much more than a thriller, but Reamde manages to encompass far more than just guns and mayhem of the physical sort.

Reviewed by Mohsin Siddiqui :Reamde (NOVEL), By Neal Stephenson, William Morrow, New York, ISBN 0061977969, 1056pp.
http://www.dawn.com/2012/01/22/fiction-a-mind-boggling-mix-chinese-hackers-russian-gangsters-al-qaeda-operatives-and-much-more.html

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When is a terrorist not a terrorist?

2012-01-18T14:00:00.000+05:00

War with Iran or not? By Alan Hart
The longer and complete form of the first question in the headline is – When is a terrorist not a terrorist in the eyes of the Obama administration (not to mention all of its predecessors) and the governments of the Western world?

Answer: When he or she is an Israeli Mossad agent or asset. In the case of the assassination of Iranian scientists, the Mossad’s assets are almost certainly members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) also known as The Peoples’ Mujahedin of Iran, which is committed to overthrowing the regime of the ruling mullahs. Many of its activists are based in Iraqi Kurdistan where Mossad has a substantial presence. It does the training there, selects the targets in Iran and provides the bombs and other weapons, and MKO members do the actual killing.
It’s reasonable to presume that Mossad is more comfortable operating out of Iraqi Kurdistan with Iranian MKO assets than it was when its own agents were posing as CIA officers to recruit members of Jundallah, a Pakistan-based Sunni extremist organization, to carry out assassinations and attacks on installations and facilities in Iran.
Some of the essence of that Israeli false flag operation has been revealed by Mark Perry in an article for Foreign Policy. His report is based on information he acquired about memos buried deep in the archives of America’s intelligence services which were written in the last years of President George “Dubya” Bush’s administration, plus conversations he had with two currently serving U.S. intelligence officials and four retired intelligence officers who worked for the CIA or monitored Israeli intelligence operations from senior positions inside the U.S. government.
According to Perry’s sources, one of whom has seen the memos, the Mossad agents who were posing as CIA agents to recruit Jundallah operatives had American passports and were “flush” with American dollars.
The memos tell the story of an investigation which debunked reports from 2007 and 2008 accusing the CIA, at the direction of the White House, of covertly supporting Jundallah. The investigation apparently showed that the U.S. “had barred even the most incidental contact with Jundallah.”
The memos also gave details of CIA field reports on Mossad’s recruitment of Jundallah operatives, mainly in London and “under the nose of U.S. intelligence officials.”
Perry’s sources confessed to being “stunned by the brazenness of Mossad’s efforts.” And one of them said: “It’s amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with. Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open. They apparently didn’t give a damn about what we thought.”
I take issue with the first part of that statement. What is really amazing is not what Mossad and almost of Israel’s political and military leaders think they can get away with, but what they KNOW they can get away with because of the Zionist lobby’s control of Congress on all matters relating to policy for the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel.
And that in turn is why, generally speaking, Israel’s leaders don’t give a damn about what American administrations think, They come and go but the Zionist lobby’s control of Congress is a permanent fixture. (In private conversation with General Moshe Dayan when he was Israel’s defence minister, I once summed up Israel’s unspeakable but implicit message to the governments of the world in the following way. “We know we shouldn’t have done this but we’ve done it because we also know there’s nothing you can do about it.” Dayan didn’t comment but the look on his face said something like, “You’re right but I’m not going to say so.”)
Though Israel doesn’t usually comment on reports about Mossad’s activities, a senior government spokesman described Perry’s account of Mossad agents posing as CIA agents as “absolute nonsense.” As I was reading the denial I used a Jimmy Carter expression – “BS” (Bull Shit).
After the latest assassination of an Iranian scientist, Rick Santorum, the right-wing religious joker in the pack of Republican presidential hopefuls, said this: “On occasions scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that’s a wonderful thing.”
A different view was offered by Jewish American journalist Richard Silverstein. For his weblog Tikun Olam he wrote this: “These are shameful acts by a shameful Israeli government exploiting Iranian terrorists for their own ends. I find it disgusting that Israel can get away with such acts with impunity.”
Disgusting it certainly is but there’s no mystery about why Israel can commit crimes including acts of naked state terrorism without fear of being called and held to account for them by the UN Security Council. When after the 1967 war it refused to label the Zionist state as the aggressor and require it to withdraw from the newly occupied Arab lands without conditions, it effectively created, at the insistence of the U.S., two sets of rules for the behaviour of nations – one set for all the nations of the world minus Israel and the other exclusively for Israel. That was the birth of the double standard which is the cancer at the heart of Western foreign policy.
Now let’s pause for a moment to imagine what the response would have been if Iranian agents or assets had assassinated an Israeli scientist (just one) in the Zionist state.
Led by America, Western governments would have bellowed their condemnation of the terrorism and pledged full support for all efforts to hunt the terrorists down and bring them to justice. And they would, of course, have blamed the government of Iran even if there was not one shred of evidence of its authorization. The assassination of an Israeli scientist might even have tipped the Washington decision-making balance in favour of the mad men who want the U.S. either to attack Iran or give Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu the green light to go, with or without nuclear tipped, bunker-busting bombs.
And Israel? How would it have responded? With or without a green light from President Obama it almost certainly would have bombed selected targets in Iran, even if doing so was likely to set the region on fire and do vast damage to Western interests in the region and the whole Muslim world. (As I note in my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, in the chapter headed The Liberty Affair – “Pure Murder” on a “Great Day”, the lesson of the cold-blooded Israeli attack on the American spy ship was that there is nothing the Zionist state might not do, to its friends as well as its enemies, in order to get its own way).
Now… At the risk of inviting a charge from some and perhaps many readers that I am naive in the extreme, I have to say I am inclined to the view that the Obama administration was telling the truth when it strongly denied any American complicity in the latest Israeli/MKO assassination. The New York Times put it this way:
“The assassination drew an unusually strong condemnation from the White House and the State Department, which disavowed any American complicity… ‘The United States had absolutely nothing to do with this,’ said Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared to expand the denial beyond Wednesday’s killing, categorically denying any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran.”
The NYT report then quoted Mrs. Clinton as saying this:
“We believe that there has to be an understanding between Iran, its neighbours and the international community that finds a way forward for it to end its provocative behaviour, end its search for nuclear weapons and rejoin the international community,”
That in my opinion is code for something very like: “This administration is not completely mad. We know that an attack on Iran could have catastrophic consequences for the region and the world. Despite the mounting and awesome pressure we are under from Netanyahu and those who peddle his propaganda here in America, we know that the nuclear problem with Iran must be solved by jaw-jaw and not war-war.”
How catastrophic the consequences of an Israeli attack on Iran could be for the region and the world has been put into words by Philip Giraldi, currently the executive director of the Council for the National Interest and a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer. The scenario he presents under the headline What War With Iran Might Look Like takes us all the way to World War III. His article can be found at http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org/news/the-cost-of-israel-to-the-us/item/1319-what-war-with-iran-might-look-like
So I believe NYT reporter Scott Shane was on the right track when he wrote that the statements by U.S. officials appeared to reflect serious concern about the (Israeli/MKO) assassinations of Iranian scientists because they could “backfire” and make Iran’s leaders less willing to talk. And, I add, more willing to give in to those forces in Iran, the Revolutionary Guards in particular, who might well be saying that Iran must possess nuclear weapons for deterrence.
My guess is that U.S. officials are also concerned by the possibility that more assassinations could provoke an Iranian response which would give Israel the pretext to attack. (It’s by no means impossible that the main purpose of the assassinations is to provoke an Iranian response to give Israel the pretext for an attack).
That brings me to my own speculation about what is really going on behind closed doors in the Obama administration. At executive level it is, I think, in a state of something close to total panic about what to do to prevent an Israeli attack on Iran if Netanyahu is not bluffing.
My reading of Obama’s latest turn of the sanctions screw on Iran is that it’s his way of not only putting more pressure on the ruling mullahs. It’s also his way of saying to Netanyahu something like, “Give me more time to solve the Iranian nuclear problem by all means other than war.”
Obama needs more time not only to try to get serious and substantive talks with Iran going but also to establish beyond any doubt whether Israeli threats to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities are a bluff (to put pressure on the U.S.) or not. In an article for Ha’aretz under the headline Israel and U.S. at odds over timetables and red lines for Iran, Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel wrote:
“Do Barak and Netanyahu really intend to attack on their own, or is Israel only trying to prod the West into more decisive action? That is the million-dollar question. It has been discussed intermittently for the past three years and it seems that Washington does not have a satisfactory answer to it.”
In a few days time General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, is scheduled to arrive in Israel for talks with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Chief of Staff Lt. General Benny Gantz and other senior Israeli defense and intelligence officials.
Dempsey knows that when U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta met with Netanyahu and Barak last November, they refused to give him a commitment that Israel would not attack Iran without informing America of its intention to do so.
If I am right about the panic in the Obama administration, my guess is that Dempsey will try to obtain the commitment Panetta failed to get. What if Dempsey does not succeed?
My guess is that whatever he may say in public after his meetings, Dempsey will tell the Israelis in private that if they go to war with Iran they will be on their own. The U.S., I can almost hear him saying, will not become engaged except to defend its own national interests if and as necessary “because the American people, most of them, are tired of war.” He could add “and we don’t have the money to pay for it.”
An interesting question for the coming days is something like this: What if Dempsey returns to Washington without being able to give behind-closed-doors assurance that Israel (despite what it might continue to say to the contrary in public for propaganda purposes) will not go it alone with an attack Iran?
In theory there is a card President Obama could play. He could put Israel on public notice that if it attacked Iran and if as a consequence America’s own bests interests were harmed, the U.S. would have to rethink its relationship with the “Jewish state”. A statement to that effect would imply that the days of America’s unconditional support for Israel right or wrong could be coming to an end.
But that’s not a statement Obama could make this side of November’s presidential election. So if Netanyahu is not bluffing, and if he was determined to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities before November’s election, there’s nothing Obama could do to stop him, even knowing that the end game could be, as Giraldi speculated, World War III.
My own view has always been that Netanyahu is bluffing to the extent that he even he is not crazy enough to order an Israeli attack on Iran without a green light from the U.S. and American cover and participation,
I hope I am right. If I am it could be that General Dempsey will return to Washington with the news Obama wants and needs – that without a green light from the U.S, Israel will not bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.
http://www.opinion-maker.org/2012/01/when-is-a-terrorist-not-a-terrorist/#

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The Divergent Faces of Israel

An Analyses: By Lawrence Davidson

Part I – Zionist Reality

Last month Amira Hass, one of Israel’s best, bravest and most disliked journalists wrote a short piece in Haaretz entitled "When ‘fascist’ is not a rude word." Here she tells us that "in fascist regimes the state is above all" and then notes that the sort of fascist style bills pouring out of Israel’s Knesset would "make Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter [the leaders of the far right party of France] look like amateurs."

Could this be so? Could that singular country which, for 64 years made every effort to show but one face to the American public, the face of a Dr. Jekyl, be hiding the hideous features of a Mr. Hyde? Could it be that the "only democracy in the Middle East," the friend and ally that allegedly reflects American values, the mighty dam protecting the West from the flood of Islamic radicalism, the supposed champion of gender equality in the patriarchal East, and the reliable, if indirect, source of financial support for 99% of the U.S. Congress, is morphing into a fascist state?

Deeply indoctrinated Americans are going to need more than Amira Hass’s word on this. They are going to need supporting evidence and so here are some other "experts" they might consult.

Your average pro-Israel Americans might look up Danny Danon, who is a good looking, clean shaven sort of fellow as well as a Likud Party member of the Israeli Knesset. Danon has been working very hard to pass laws that would root out all those who might not be loyal to his Jewish state. It seems that, in his efforts to be "just like us," he is following in the footsteps of Senator Joseph McCarthy. One can hear the echo when Danon proclaims, "there are many people who act against the State that protects them. Anyone who is not faithful to the State should not be a citizen." He mainly has in mind that quarter of the population who are not Jewish, but he would also throw into this category those Israeli Jews audacious enough to stand up for political equality for all citizens. In other words, Danon’s aim is to manufacture statelessness. And as both 20th century European history and Israel’s 45 years in the Occupied Territories attests, statelessness is a one-way road to physical and cultural destruction.

When our figurative American supporters of Israel are done talking to Danny Danon, they might move on to consult Benni Katzover. Katzover is a major figure in the Israeli "settler movement" and a supporter of the terrorist activities of the Zionist "price tag" campaign, a bunch of "patriots" who attack Palestinians and Israeli peace groups whenever the government frustrates their helter skelter expansionist activities on the West Bank. Katzover may well have the same ends as Danon, but he is much more out front about them. "I would say that today, Israeli democracy has one central mission, and that is to disappear. Israeli democracy has finished its historical role, and it must be dismantled and bow before Judaism." All those leftists who find this proposal frightening are just "against anything that smells of holiness, and…act against the foundations of Jewish faith." One wonders what American Zionists who see Sharia law undermining the foundations of democracy make of Benni Katzover?

While estimates vary, it is not unreasonable to assume that Danny Danon and Benni Katzover together command the support of at least 25% of the Israeli Jewish population. Otherwise the Israeli Knesset would not look and act as it does and the settler movement would not be so openly aggressive. And this category of Israelis are nothing if not aggressive. According to a recent survey the Danon-Katzover types are mostly young and express their opinions in an "open and unabashed" racist way. They express open hatred for Arabs and a wish that those under Israeli control would die.

Part II – Jewish Humanitarians

Of course, there are other Israelis who represent the opposite point of view. Thus, our figurative American supporters of Israel might also want to interview some of them.

First they should look up Uri Avnery. Avnery is a founding member of Gush Shalom, the Israeli Peace Bloc. Avinery has solid Israeli credentials: he was a heroic fighter in the 1948 war, a well known journalist and was a distinguished past member of the Knesset. However, he has also always asserted that Israel evolved along the wrong path. It should not be a "nationalistic, theocratic ‘Jewish State’" but rather a "modern, liberal state belonging to all its citizens irrespective of national or religious roots." This position earned him a lot of enemies including Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion and his successor Golda Meir. Both considered Avnery a "public enemy." Subsequently there was an assassination attempt and the office of his newspaper, Haolam Hazeh, was bombed. Avnery is a shining light of humanism in Israel’s dark corner, but he is not the only one.

After talking to Avnery our figurative inquirers should move on to Rabbi Arek Ascherman, the Director of Special Projects for Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel. Ascherman’s position is that the only legitimate way you can have Israel be a Jewish place is by having its institutions uphold Jewish values. For Ascherman that means getting in the way, as best one can, of the "ugly side" of Israeli behavior and policies such as standing against the house demolitions, land confiscations, settler encroachments, arbitrary arrests, beatings, and killings of Palestinians, etc. For his efforts Ascherman and his organization have suffered the same sort of attacks as has Avnery. Asherman’s car has been stoned (by Israelis), he has been arrested and beaten up. His fate reminds one of the treatment received by civil rights workers in the 1960s U.S. This seems to be another way that Israel is "just like us."

Avnery and Ascherman are but drops in a very shallow bucket. They and the other Israeli Jewish men and women who fight for human decency in the a country falsely rumored to be "a light unto the nations" probably command the support of, at most, 15% of the Israeli Jewish population.

Part III – The Indifferent

And what of the rest of Israel’s Jews? Well the survey mentioned above found that the other 60% are indifferent to the Palestinians, but in a generally negative way. For instance, many in this category (up to 46%) "would not be willing to live next door to them." It is actually the negatively tinged indifference of this majority of Israeli Jews that allows the more assertive and aggressive 25% to gain power and assure the country’s status as a truly apartheid state. The 15 % that may support Avnery and Ascherman essentially become social mistakes within the Israeli milieu. They have somehow escaped the full impact of Zionist education and ideology. They have broken free of the conformist pressures of family, community, army and media propaganda. And, having freed themselves from what Gabriel Kolko calls "enforced consensus," they collectively become a fringe element.

Part IV – Conclusion

It is strange, all countries have such self-aware and active humanitarians and all of them probably have these people in the same relative proportion–about 15%. This is just large enough to remind us of what good humanity is capable of, but just too small to help us realize that good.

http://www.opinion-maker.org/2012/01/the-divergent-faces-of-israel/

Zionism, Israel & Pelistine:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB1773E4A1EDD2F41

History of Israel:Power Point Slide Show

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الديمقراطية؟ خمسة دروس يمكن لمصر أن تتعلم من باكستان ; Democracy? Five Lessons Egypt Can learn from Pakistan

2012-01-16T14:22:00.001+05:00

Pakistan is a perfect example of what not to do with a military junta. When Hosni Mubarak resigned from the Egyptian presidency in February, many commentators asked whether Pakistan--an unstable Muslim country outside the Arab Middle East--would go the way of Egypt, experiencing what was then thought to be revolutionary change.They should have asked whether Egypt would suffer the fate of Pakistan: a parliamentary democracy with a freely elected government but dominated by a military with a host of extraconstitutional powers.Today, the question remains as valid as it was last winter. Egypt is on course to follow Pakistan's quasi-praetorian path. There has been a change in government. Mubarak is gone. But the regime lives on through the powerful Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. Egypt's democrats can learn from the successes and failures of their Pakistani counterparts. Here are five lessons from Pakistan.

1) Don't let the military divide and rule the civilians.

In Pakistan, warring parties managed to pass a constitutional amendment that reduced presidential powers and the dominance of the Punjab province. But the collapse of a coalition between the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) caused a political crisis in which the army had to intervene, albeit short of a coup. The army has not fully retreated to the barracks since then.

To avoid the same fate, Egypt's political parties must cooperate, leaving no vacuum for military intervention. The generals there have signaled that they want to influence the composition of a constitution-drafting Constituent Assembly. Though it has since backtracked, the military could again try to interfere with the constitution-drafting process by leveraging secular and Coptic Christian fears of Islamist influence. To keep the military at bay, it's key that the Muslim Brotherhood--which, combined with the Salafist movement, won over 60 percent of the vote--ensures that the drafting process won't be a majoritarian enterprise alienating non-Islamists.

Egypt's major political parties have real competing interests and values. But these differences should not inhibit them from ensuring that elected representatives, not the military, choose who drafts a new democratic constitution.

2) Empower parliament and improve its capacity and competence.

Pakistani politicians pronounce the sovereignty of parliament, yet its National Assembly is inefficient, has a meager attendance rate and inadequately staffed oversight committees. This has created a vacuum in Pakistan that is filled by an activist Supreme Court, agenda-driven media and an interventionist army.

Egyptian democrats should avoid the fate of Pakistan by not only bestowing parliament with real legislative, budgetary and oversight powers but also improving the capacity and competence of legislators. After Egypt's 2005 elections, the Muslim Brotherhood actively worked to enhance discussion of the federal budget and increase the competency of its legislators over policy issues through its "parliamentary kitchen." But these efforts should be expanded to include formal educational programs for legislators on policy issues and legislative strategies.

3) Selectively roll back the military's powers.

In Pakistan, the prime minister, president and army chief--known as the troika--meet informally to determine foreign and security policy. The army chief-dominated troika has contributed to political stability in the country. But it is inherently antidemocratic, not sustainable beyond the current cast of characters and offers little depth to policy making.

Egypt can avoid this kind of concentration of power through an informal civil-military consensus. Egyptian democrats should carefully select which powers they will rescind from the military. They should block the military's attempts to create a presidential system that would allow it to contain parliament. But too aggressive a rollback of the military would likely result in a backlash that could jeopardize gains made this year. A more prudent course would be to create a consensus-building national-security council led by the elected prime minister that can provide a platform for civil-military dialogue.

4) It's the economy, stupid.

Since Pakistan's 2008 elections, which brought in a democratic government, the country has gone from being one of Asia's fastest-growing economies to the continent's sick man. Economic growth is stifled by poor governance: the state-owned airlines and railways are bleeding billions of dollars a year, and electricity blackouts often exceed twelve hours a day. Ninety-two percent of Pakistanis feel their country is going in the wrong direction, with inflation their primary concern.

Egypt also faces a tough economic outlook. The Cairo Stock Exchange's main index has dropped by 40 percent this year. Egypt's economy has grown by around one percent. Unemployment and inflation, causes of the revolution, have risen since Mubarak's resignation. Foreign direct investment has dropped by 20 percent. Without competent economic stewardship, public stamina for a democratic transition will be weak.

To avoid the post-transition loss of confidence experienced by Pakistan, Egypt's democrats must develop a coherent economic policy that combats corruption and puts the country back on the path of structural reform while also building jobs. They will need to privatize state-owned companies, deftly reduce subsidies, and bring back foreign investment and tourism. A technocrat untainted by association with previous autocratic governments should serve as finance minister.

5) Minority rights are key to maintaining a big-tent coalition.

In Pakistan, the fragile coalition government led by the PPP has managed to survive nearly four years in part due to concessions made with small, regional parties. Politics is the art of compromise. Some Pakistani politicians have succeeded due to clever management of coalition politics.

Egyptians should follow this example of compromise. A civilian-led constitution with an empowered parliament will require a big-tent coalition. The Muslim Brotherhood-led Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) will need to ally with the secular Egyptian Bloc and Wafd Party and guarantee that Copts and secular Egyptians do not become second-class citizens under the next constitution. While the FJP could ally with the Salafist-led al-Nour Party to push through Islamic measures, doing so risks an intractable intracivilian conflict, potentially even pushing secular politicians into the arms of the military.

The recent decision by the Muslim Brotherhood to protect churches during New Year's is a step in the right direction. But Egyptian Christians do not simply want to be a protected minority: they want to be full citizens with the same rights as Muslims.

Egypt is in the midst of a difficult and uncertain transition. Its embryonic democratic experiment could fail for many reasons. But Egyptian democrats will increase their odds of victory if they learn from the mistakes of their Pakistani counterparts. Civilian leaders must close ranks, adopt a consociational model, and isolate the increasingly feckless leadership of the armed forces.

This article originally appeared at NationalInterest.org, an Atlantic partner site.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/01/5-ways-egypt-can-avoid-becoming-pakistan/251393/
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How Thomas Jefferson’s secret Bible might have changed history

2012-01-12T23:32:00.000+05:00

Thomas Jefferson and his Bible

The 'Jefferson Bible' was Thomas Jefferson's attempt to extract an authentic Jesus from the Gospel accounts.by Marilyn Mellowes.The White House, Washington, D.C. 1804.

Thomas Jefferson was frustrated. It was not the burdens of office that bothered him. It was his Bible. Jefferson was convinced that the authentic words of Jesus written in the New Testament had been contaminated. Early Christians, overly eager to make their religion appealing to the pagans, had obscured the words of Jesus with the philosophy of the ancient Greeks and the teachings of Plato. These "Platonists" had thoroughly muddled Jesus' original message. Jefferson assured his friend and rival, John Adams, that the authentic words of Jesus were still there. The task, as he put it, was one of abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its lustre from the dross of his biographers, and as separate from that as the diamond from the dung hill.

With the confidence and optimistic energy characteristic of the Enlightenment, Jefferson proceeded to dig out the diamonds. Candles burning late at night, his quill pen scratching "too hastily" as he later admitted, Jefferson composed a short monograph titled The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth. The subtitle explains that the work is "extracted from the account of his life and the doctrines as given by Matthew, Mark, Luke & John." In it, Jefferson presented what he understood was the true message of Jesus.

Jefferson set aside his New Testament research, returning to it again in the summer of 1820. This time, he completed a more ambitious work, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth Extracted Textually from the Gospels in Greek, Latin, French and English. The text of the New Testament appears in four parallel columns in four languages. Jefferson omitted the words that he thought were inauthentic and retained those he believed were original. The resulting work is commonly known as the "Jefferson Bible."

Who was the Jesus that Jefferson found? He was not the familiar figure of the New Testament. In Jefferson's Bible, there is no account of the beginning and the end of the Gospel story. There is no story of the annunciation, the virgin birth or the appearance of the angels to the shepherds. The resurrection is not even mentioned.

Jefferson discovered a Jesus who was a great Teacher of Common Sense. His message was the morality of absolute love and service. Its authenticity was not dependent upon the dogma of the Trinity or even the claim that Jesus was uniquely inspired by God. Jefferson saw Jesus as

a man, of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, (and an) enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions of divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition by being gibbeted according to the Roman law.

In short, Mr. Jefferson's Jesus, modeled on the ideals of the Enlightenment thinkers of his day, bore a striking resemblance to Jefferson himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Editor's note: Mitch Horowitz is editor-in-chief of Tarcher/Penguin and editor of Penguin’s new reissue of The Jefferson Bible.

By Mitch Horowitz, Special to CNN

(CNN) – Imagine the following scenario: A U.S. president is discovered to be spending his spare time taking a razor to the New Testament, cutting up and re-pasting those passages of the Gospels that he considered authentic and morally true and discarding all the rest.

Gone are the virgin birth, divine healings, exorcisms and the resurrection of the dead, all of which the chief executive dismissed as “superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications.”

Such an episode occurred, although the revised version of Scripture remained unseen for nearly seven decades after its abridger’s death. Thomas Jefferson intended it that way.

During most of his two terms in the White House, from 1801 to 1809, and for more than a decade afterward, Jefferson – the third U.S. president and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence – committed himself to a radical reinterpretation of the Gospels.

With a razor and glue brush at this side, Jefferson lined up English, French, Greek and Latin editions of Scripture and proceeded to cut up and reassemble the four Gospels into an exquisitely well-crafted, multilingual chronology of Christ’s life.

Jefferson lined up different editions of Scripture.

In Jefferson’s view, this revision represented a faithful record of Christ’s moral code, minus the miracles that the Enlightenment-era founder dismissed as historical mythmaking.

The book eventually became known as The Jefferson Bible and is now being rediscovered in new editions, including one published this month by Tarcher/Penguin, and as the focus of a Smithsonian exhibit.

Ask most people today if they have heard of Jefferson’s Bible and you will receive blank stares. Indeed, for much of American history, The Jefferson Bible was entirely unknown. Jefferson intended it as a work of private reflection, not a public statement.

As contemporary readers discover the work, it is tempting to wonder how American history might look different had Jefferson’s radical document come to light closer to its completion.

Jefferson was still working on his Bible during his presidency, so its theoretical publication wouldn’t have compromised his electability. But if the book had been made public after its final completion in 1820, when Jefferson had only six more years to live, it likely would have become one of the most controversial and influential religious works of early American history.

A curator handles a "source" Bible from which Jefferson cut out passages.

That was a scenario Jefferson took pains to avoid. After being called an “infidel” during his 1800 presidential race, Jefferson knew the calumny he could bring on himself if word spread of his “little book.” Although he had his work professionally bound, he mentioned it only to a select group of friends. Its discovery after his death came as a surprise to his family.

Jefferson’s wish for confidentiality held sway until 1895 when the Smithsonian in Washington made public his original pages, purchased from a great-granddaughter. In 1904, Congress issued a photolithograph edition and presented it for decades as a gift to new legislators, a gesture that would likely cause uproar in today’s climate of political piety.

Because of the book’s long dormancy following Jefferson’s death, and its limited availability for generations after – arguably the first truly accessible edition didn’t appear until 1940 –The Jefferson Bible has remained a curio of American history.

So how would the earlier publication of The Jefferson Bible have changed American history? It's impossible to know for sure, but the 1820s inaugurated a period of tremendous spiritual experiment in America: It was the age of Mormonism, Unitarian Universalism and Shakerism, among other new faiths.

There’s little doubt that many Americans, who were already fiercely independent in matters of religion, would have seen The Jefferson Bible as the manifesto of a reformist movement– call it “Jeffersonian Christianity” – focused not on repentance and salvation but on earthly ethics. Such a movement could have swept America, and also have spread to Europe, where Jefferson was esteemed.

A broad awareness of Jefferson’s work would have surely engendered a more complex view of the religious identity of Jefferson and other founders. Indeed, one of Jefferson’s most trusted correspondents while he was producing his Bible was his White House predecessor, John Adams, who in turn confided to Jefferson his distrust of all religious orthodoxy. These men were impossible to pin pat religious labels on.

Because Jefferson published relatively little during his lifetime, the appearance of The Jefferson Bible would have created a different, and more confounding, public image of the statesman as someone struggling deeply with his own religious beliefs. The Jefferson that appears behind his reconstruction of Scripture is someone who brushed aside notions of miraculous intervention and canonical faith.

As The Jefferson Bible conveys, however, Jefferson considered Jesus’ moral philosophy the most finely developed in history, surpassing the ethics of both the ancient Greeks and the Hebrews. He insisted that Christ’s authentic doctrine was marked by a stark, ascetic tone that clashed with the supernatural powers attributed to him.

“In extracting the pure principles which he taught,” Jefferson wrote in 1813, “we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms. ... There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man.”

Jefferson’s minimalist approach to the Gospels reveals an attitude that he disclosed only privately, just months before his death: “I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know."

In that sense, Jefferson the politician wouldn’t have stood a chance in the current presidential race, where faith and piety are on constant display. The political process might be more open today to candidates of varying degrees and types of belief if The Jefferson Bible were more central to the nation’s history.

The Jefferson Bible opens a window on Jefferson’s struggle to find a faith with which he could finally come to terms. It was this kind of intimate, inner search – not the outward pronouncement and establishment of religious doctrine – that the man who helped shape modern religious liberty sought to protect in America.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Mitch Horowitz.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/11/my-take-how-thomas-jeffersons-secret-bible-might-have-changed-history/

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► 30:02► 30:02

Jefferson's Bible - C-SPAN Video Library

c-spanvideo.org30 min
In his retirement years Thomas Jefferson compiled his own version of the four ... Former President Jefferson ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826 . The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth: Extracted Textually from the Gospels Greek, Latin, French, and English
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library| The entire work (15 KB) | Table of Contents for this work || All on-line databases | Etext Center Homepage |

Header

Front Matter

Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1

Chapter 2 CHAPTER 2

Chapter 3 CHAPTER 3

Chapter 4 CHAPTER 4

Chapter 5 CHAPTER 5

Chapter 6 CHAPTER 6

Chapter 7 CHAPTER 7

Chapter 8 CHAPTER 8

Chapter 9 CHAPTER 9

Chapter 10 CHAPTER 10

Chapter 11 CHAPTER 11

Chapter 12 CHAPTER 12

Chapter 13 CHAPTER 13

Chapter 14 CHAPTER 14

Chapter 15 CHAPTER 15

Chapter 16 CHAPTER 16

Chapter 17 CHAPTER 17

Courtesy: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/JefJesu.html
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“Terrorists in Love: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals,” by Ken Ballen

2012-01-11T15:28:00.002+05:00

By Dina Temple-Raston;

In early November, I was among a small group of journalists who traveled to the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the arraignment of a terrorism suspect named Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. He is the accused mastermind of the U.S.S. Cole attack in Yemen in 2000. After his capture in 2002, al-Nashiri spent four years in a CIA black site, where he was waterboarded and subjected to mock executions. From there, he was sent to Guantanamo Bay. For more than nine years, the only people who saw him were his guards, intelligence officers and his lawyers. So when we arrived for his arraignment, many of us simply wanted to lay eyes on a man who had survived that history.

Ever since the 9/11 attacks, suspected terrorists have become like characters in a novel — larger than life. And that’s part of the reason why, when al-Nashiri strode into the GITMO courtroom, many of us were surprised to see him take human shape. Speaking to his lawyers and the judge, he seemed so unexceptional. At one point he even turned and waved to the gallery. (One of his lawyers told me later that al-Nashiri was told, in no uncertain terms, never do to that again.) The al-Nashiri arraignment was a reminder that most terrorism suspects are ordinary men who swerve violently from expectation.

’Terrorists in Love: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals’ by Ken Ballen

That’s the message in a new book, “Terrorists in Love.” Written by former federal prosecutor Ken Ballen, it tracks the quotidian events that can lead sensitive young men to violent jihad. Ballen is now president of a Washington-based nonprofit organization called Terror Free Tomorrow, which tries to understand why extremists embrace terrorism. He interviewed more than a hundred Islamic radicals over several years to pin down what turned them from pious young men to religious warriors. About half the interviews took place at a rehabilitation center for violent fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia; the other half were in Pakistan and Indonesia. The result is an unusual atlas of extremism — a riveting, behind-the-scenes look at the events that turned six young Muslims into terrorists.

The book opens with the heart-wrenching story of Ahmad al-Shayea, a suicide bomber who, in many ways, has been to heaven and back. On Christmas Day 2004, he became the first suicide bomber in Iraq to survive an attack. Ballen’s description of what was left of Ahmad after a suicide bombing is haunting. “His nose curved to a straight hooked point, like a ski jump. The fingers on his right hand ended in a stump that resembled melted candle wax, while his left-hand fingers were twisted like the roots of the miswak stick jihadis regularly chew in imitation of the Prophet Muhammad. . . . His fingernails were little more than yellowed brown stumps, the color of toes infected with athlete’s foot.”

Ahmad joined the fight because he was having difficulty with an abusive father. Looking for a place where he would be appreciated, Ahmad decided to join fellow Muslims fighting American forces in Iraq. But that, too, proved to be a negative experience. He waited months for a mission. Shuffled from one safe house to another, he was never trained for anything. He was allowed to hold a Kalashnikov, but not to fire one. Finally, he was asked to take a tanker truck into a wealthy neighborhood in Baghdad with two other men. He was told that he simply needed to drive the truck to a designated place and park it. On the way to Baghdad, the men teased Ahmad good-naturedly and talked to him like a brother. Ahmad said that for the first time, he began to feel he was part of something. Then, just a thousand yards from where they were supposed to park the truck, the two other men jumped out and shouted at Ahmad to pull the tanker up to the concrete blocks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/terrorists-in-love-the-real-lives-of-islamic-radicals-by-ken-ballen/2011/12/12/gIQASmjgfP_story.html

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Top 8 Reasons Why Jesus is not Son of God

2012-01-03T15:50:00.001+05:00

Playlist: Trinity & Bible

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Social ethics in Islam

2011-12-30T19:31:00.000+05:00

EVERY human being is connected with Allah spiritually. However, in this material world, we also get ourselves connected with other entities, such as parents, family, community, society, country, etc. As time goes by, new connections are added at every new stage in life.

The ethics of connectivity with others has deep spiritual roots in religion. Its understanding makes our lives happy and more comfortable. We live, move and have our being among these relationships and sometimes our existence depends partially or fully on them. Our day-to-day condition — happy or otherwise — is also subjected to the interaction with these relationships.

Every entity with which we are connected, entails certain rights and responsibilities. We are to fulfil these to maintain a kind of cordiality in relationships. The teaching of Islam encompasses the whole life; it guides us first to fortify our spiritual bond with Allah. This is fundamental and the core of Islam’s overall message. Every individual is supposed to strengthen the spiritual link with Him by continuous remembrance of His existence. One has to keep one’s mind and thoughts towards Allah to earn His blessings.

Similarly, Islam encourages us to maintain happy relationships with other fellow beings. It urges civility, humility, tolerance and straight dealing with our fellow beings. These values subordinate the self and emphasise the others and are essential for cordial and peaceful coexistence in society. Islam is a religion of peace which can only be realised when an individual has happy relations with others.

The Holy Prophet (PBUH) likens Muslim brotherhood to a building composed of bricks. Every brick is joined and connected with other bricks, thereby fortifying the building. The Prophet started his mission of preaching Islam by inviting his relatives to it first. Though his relatives did not all respond positively, his invitation indicates the weight he gave to relatives.

When he established himself in Madina, he tried to conclude peace agreements with many tribes, such as those of the Jews of Madina, the Christians of Najran, and the Makkans at Hudaibiya. He dispatched emissaries to rulers of far-off lands such as Rome, Iran and Abyssinia inviting them to peace and good relations with them.

We come across a number of verses in the Quran, directing us to fulfil the obligations to those we are connected with. The Quran says: “And do not forget liberality between yourselves. Truly Allah is all-Seer of what you do” (2:237). Verse 4:36 also enjoins us to “worship Allah and join none with Him in worship, and do good to parents, kinsfolk, orphans, Al-Masakin (the poor), the neighbour who is near of kin, the neighbour who is a stranger, the companion by your side, the wayfarer (you meet), and those (slaves) whom your right hands possess. Verily, Allah does not like such as are proud and boastful.”

There are numerous factors that can imbalance relations in society and Islam forestalls them. Greed for material wealth is one such impediment that causes fissures among close relatives. A greedy person usurps the other’s property unjustly; therefore, Islam directs us: “And eat up not one another’s property unjustly” (2:188).

Another factor that is likely to affect good relations is differences in opinion. Sometimes we have differences with people around us, but these should not be made a matter of ego and waiting for the other party to take the initiative to normalise a relationship. We must understand that coming to terms quickly after differences brings us peace and serenity.

Islam allows a diversity of opinion; this existed among the Prophet’s companions. Friction among close relatives is part of human nature but one needs to be watchful that these do not reach a point of no-return. Islam does not give importance to difference of ethnicity, caste, status and language, etc., as all such factors cause cracks in happy relations in society.

A balanced approach in maintaining worldly relations is the right course. Unnecessary intrusion in the affairs of others also affects relations. Nobody likes meddlesome behaviour, therefore, one must be careful to not overreach. Over-engagement and unnecessary intrusion in the affairs of others are portents of a darker scenario.

Presently, we face a situation that can best be described as being stuck between the devil and the deep sea. We give importance to material wealth and social status. Our modern culture has promoted isolated living. We live behind closed doors with little interaction with neighbours, relatives and other members of society. Everyone has become individualistic, focused on self-interest alone most of the time.

It is generally observed that residents of, say, an apartment block do not care for others when they park their vehicles and block common passages. Some throw trash from their balconies and others do not pay their monthly maintenance charges regularly. Similarly, a teacher who is supposed to build the future can be found involved in self-service. A student who will manage a future society is unaware of his responsibility. A doctor who is to assure his patient’s health can be found making money alone. Thus few think of their social responsibility. This negligence can lead to fissures and unbalanced situations in society.

For a human being as a social animal it is important to feel a close connection and mutual empathy; however, this seems to be on the decline due to excessive materialism and the self-centred approach of modern urban living. In order to achieve a worthy lifestyle, we have to follow the teachings of Islam, i.e. treating well those with whom we are connected. Everyone should feel responsive to and respect the rights of others.

By Amin Valliani, an educationist: amin.valiani@itrebp.org
http://www.dawn.com/2011/12/30/social-ethics-in-islam.html

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India’s Muslim Dilemma: भारतीय मुसलमानों की दुविधा

2011-12-30T18:30:00.000+05:00

Why the time has come for affirmative action to end the deprivation and dispossession of India’s Muslims.

It’s one of those seasons again when India’s politicians rediscover the existence of Muslims. With elections in five states, including Uttar Pradesh, and possibly early general elections looming on the horizon, the Congress has dipped into its ancient bag of tricks and come up with the reservation card for Muslims.
Law Minister Salman Khurshid suggests the government is considering a six percent quota for “backward Muslims” under the 27 percent quota allocated for economically backward communities.

Given the mess the Congress finds itself in right now and with Rahul Gandhi, the party’s prime minister-in-waiting, having invested himself heavily in UP, it badly needs a miracle to rescue itself. And who could deliver it better than the tried and tested folks, often derided as its vote bank and repeatedly taken for a royal ride! Just throw some crumbs at them, make some suitable noises and trust Muslims to come rushing back into your arms.
The nobility of the Congress’ intentions notwithstanding, even if the government goes ahead and announces the quota for Muslims, there could be many a slip between the cup and lip. The move is certain to be challenged in the courts, as it was in Andhra Pradesh. The Bharatiya Janata Party and its numerous avatars are waiting with bated breath to pounce on the opportunity to scream “Muslim appeasement” and launch another glorious yatra to revive their fortunes.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad is already threatening agitation against the proposal. And Praveen Togadia has the audacity to demand Muslims covert to Hinduism if they want reservations.

Things could get more exciting when other communities that come under the 27 percent quota join the protests. The Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav, that great messiah of Muslims, is vehemently opposed to the idea and could go to any extent to protect its constituency. There will be many others. In the end, the government may be persuaded to withdraw the proposal.
The Congress wouldn’t lose anything in the bargain though. It could still claim the Muslim vote for its “efforts” to help the community get its due. If anyone would come a cropper, it will be the Muslims. But then they have been here before. The Congress knows this game of empty rhetoric and gestures all too well, having turned it into an art over the years, although one would like to give the benefit of doubt to Salman Khurshid. He is seemingly trying to do his bit.
The less said of Dr Singh’s ‘leadership’ the better. One is yet to discover what he really stands for and believes in. If this government had been serious about the predicament of the Muslims, it wouldn’t have slept all these years on the recommendations of the Sachar Committee.
In a fleeting moment of generosity and apparently to acknowledge the Muslim role in returning Congress to power after years in wilderness, the prime minister had picked up eminent jurist Justice Rajinder Sachar to probe the condition of the community. You didn’t need a Supreme Court judge to assess the state of Muslims. It’s there for everyone to see all across the length and breadth of the country.
Yet the findings of the Sachar committee were astounding. Weighed down by the so-called guilt over the Partition and faced by antipathy and often open hostility by successive administrations since Independence, the Muslims have gone from being the ruling class to the lowest of the low in six decades.
In a country that they ruled for nearly a thousand years, Muslims today find themselves struggling on the farthest fringes of the world’s greatest democracy. According to the Sachar panel, the Muslims’ condition today is worse than that of the Dalits, the low caste Hindus who have for centuries suffered the worst possible discrimination and exploitation.
Demolishing the myth of Muslim appeasement, Justice Sachar’s findings actually exposed systemic discrimination and complete injustice at all levels against the community. Justice Sachar repeatedly talks of the disturbing “development deficit” the community suffers from in all walks of life.
The Muslims have lower employment rates (48 and 9.6pc for males and females) than Dalits (52.8 and 23 percent respectively). In twelve states where the Muslims’ population share is 15.4 percent, their employment rate is just 5.7 percent. In big states like UP and Bihar, this proportion is less than a third of their population share.
This exclusion from the table extends to all areas, from lower bureaucracy to the judiciary to elite civil services. Muslims’ share in the IAS, IPS and IFS is 2.2, 3.0 and 1.6 percent respectively. In the armed forces, their proportion is said to be just two percent. According to another survey by ActionAid and Indian Social Institute, 41.9 percent of Muslims in rural areas have an annual income less than Rs10,000, which is less than $200 dollars.
Let’s face it. The Muslims are India’s new untouchables. It’s all very well to showcase the cool Khans of Bollywood and sport icons like Sania Mirza as the new faces of India’s Muslims. The larger reality of the community unfortunately is different. Facing political and economic marginalisation and security concerns on the one hand and being perpetually under the scanner of security agencies as usual suspects, they find comfort in numbers and in their ghettoes and slums in urban India. Poverty in small town India and rural areas is even worse. Little of the government benefits and programmes, targeting the vast majority of the economically struggling communities, trickles down to them.
It’s five years since Justice Sachar submitted these findings and possible solutions to the government. We are yet to discover what Dr Singh, or the Congress leadership, thinks about them, let alone act on the urgent recommendations to address the dangerous deprivation and dispossession of the country’s largest minority.
Regardless of the eventual outcome of the Muslim quota proposal, it’s past time for real and bold action to check the marginalisation and alienation of the community. Reservations or affirmative action, call it what you will, there is a desperate need to stop the free fall of an entire community. While the caste-based reservations for the communities long discriminated against because of their birth makes sense, there must be a way to help the large deprived communities such as Muslims. The quota in education and jobs – as little as six percent – may not be the be-all and end-all magic wand to end all of Muslims’ woes but it’s a start and better than doing nothing.
The US example proves that affirmative action actually works. It has already transformed hundreds of millions of lives in India since Independence. Pre-Mandal, who could have imagined a Dalit woman heading the country’s most populous and important state? So the quota could make a life-changing difference to Muslims as well. Besides, it’s in the national interest to lift Muslims out of the hole they find themselves in. India cannot aspire for global leadership and glory while a huge chunk of its population, around 200 million, remains out in the cold.

The writer is a commentator on Middle East and South Asian affairs. Email: aijaz.syed@hotmail. com
http://www.columnspk.com/india%E2%80%99s-muslim-dilemma-by-aijaz-zaka-syed/

Verdict on Godhra गोधरा पर फैसला

Advani, Modi and communalism

Will India Accept Modi?

Roy slams world's silence on Indian occupation of Kashmir

Comments:

Muhammad Ali Jinnah agreed to united India with safeguards for all Muslims of India, by accepting The British Cabinet Mission of 1946 to India. Promulgated on 16 May 1946, the plan to create a united dominion of India as a loose confederation of provinces came to be known by the date of its announcement:

A united Dominion of India would be given independence.
Muslim-majority provinces would be grouped - Baluchistan, Sind, Punjab and North-West Frontier Province would form one group, and Bengal and Assam would form another.
Hindu-majority provinces in central and southern India would form another group.
The Central government would be empowered to run foreign affairs, defence and communications, while the rest of powers and responsibility would belong to the provinces, coordinated by groups.
The Central government would be empowered to run foreign affairs, defence and communications, while the rest of powers and responsibility would belong to the provinces, coordinated by groups.'

The Congress Working Committee had initially approved the plan. However, on 10 July, Jawaharlal Nehru, who later became the first prime minister of India, held a press conferencein Bombay declaring that the Congress had agreed only to participate in the Constituent Assembly and "regards itself free to change or modify the Cabinet Mission Plan as it thought best. The Muslim League gave its approval to the plan. There was an impression that the Congress also had accepted the scheme and the Plan would be the basis of the future constitution of India.Jinnah, in his speech to the League Council, clearly stated that he recommended acceptance only because nothing better could be obtained. [This could have saved the killing and migration of millions ] Kanji Dawarka Das in his famous book "Ten Years to freedom 1937-47" and Jaswant singh in his recent book "Jinnah India-Independence-Partition" writes all details of congress working committee debates and untimely press conference by JLN in which congress rejected the last effort to avoid partition.[from Wikipedia]

I personally feel Jawahar Lal Nehru and his associates mischievously turned down Cabinet Mission Plan 1946, and divided India for personal gains and to keep exploiting Muslim minority in India. Imagine in united India [Over 1000 Million] the Muslims population would have been equal [50-58%] or more than Hindus [Pak 180 Mn+BD 150 Mn+ 200 Mn=580 Million]. It would have not been possible to treat them unfairly.

You Indian Muslims sacrificed your present for our batter future, but you were betrayed. A prosperous, economically strong Pakistan would have been source of moral strength. We could have provided economic and moral support to our Muslim brothers in India, but alas! the White Masters were replaced by Brown Sahibs ... The day is not far off when we shall throw away this yoke of slavery... and help brothers to stand at their own with dignity. Indian and Pakistani leadership can learn from European Union, US-Canada, resolve issues like Kashmir and live like good neighbours. Concentrate towards welfare of their citizens.
However just a reminder from the Holy Book:
"Verily, God does not change men's condition unless they change their inner selves"[Quran;13:11]

ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّ اللَّـهَ لَمْ يَكُ مُغَيِّرًا نِّعْمَةً أَنْعَمَهَا عَلَىٰ قَوْمٍ حَتَّىٰ يُغَيِّرُوا مَا بِأَنفُسِهِمْ ۙ وَأَنَّ اللَّـهَ سَمِيعٌ عَلِيمٌ ﴿٥٣﴾

This is because Allah has never changed a favor which He has conferred upon a people until they change their own condition; and because Allah is Hearing, Knowing;[Quran;8:53]

یہ اس لئے کہ اللہ تعالیٰ ایسا نہیں کہ کسی قوم پر کوئی نعمت انعام فرما کر پھر بدل دے جب تک کہ وه خود اپنی اس حالت کو نہ بدل دیں جو کہ ان کی اپنی تھی اور یہ کہ اللہ سننے واﻻ جاننے واﻻ ہے (53)

यह इसलिए हुआ कि अल्लाह उस उदार अनुग्रह (नेमत) को, जो उसने किसी क़ौम पर किया हो, बदलनेवाला नहीं हैं, जब तक कि लोग उस चीज़ को न बदल डालें, जिसका सम्बन्ध स्वयं उनसे है। और यह कि अल्लाह सब कुछ सुनता, जानता है (8:53)
তার কারণ এই যে, আল্লাহ কখনও পরিবর্তন করেন না, সে সব নেয়ামত, যা তিনি কোন জাতিকে দান করেছিলেন, যতক্ষণ না সে জাতি নিজেই পরিবর্তিত করে দেয় নিজের জন্য নির্ধারিত বিষয়। বস্তুতঃ আল্লাহ শ্রবণকারী, মহাজ্ঞানী। (53)
"ஏனெனில், எந்த ஒரு சமுதாயமும் தன் உள்ளத்திலுள்ள (போக்குகளை) மாற்றிக் கொள்ளாத வரையில், அல்லாஹ் அவர்களுக்கு வழங்கிய அருட்கொடைகளை மாற்றிவிடுவதில்லை - நிச்சயமாக அல்லாஹ் (எல்லாவற்றையும்) செவியுறுபவனாகவும், (யாவற்றையும்) நன்கறிபவனாகவும் இருக்கின்றான். (8:53)
ഒരു ജനവിഭാഗത്തിനു് താന്‍ ചെയ്തുകൊടുത്ത അനുഗ്രഹം അവരുടെ സ്വന്തം നിലപാടില്‍ അവര്‍ മാറ്റം വരുത്തുന്നത് വരെ അല്ലാഹു മാറ്റിക്കളയുന്നതല്ല എന്നത്കൊന്നുത്രെ അത്‌. അല്ലാഹു എല്ലാം കേള്‍ ക്കുന്നവനും അറിയുന്നവനുമാണ് എന്നത്കൊന്നുു‍ം (8:53)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946_Cabinet_Mission_to_India
Why Pakistan? http://pakistan-posts.blogspot.com/p/pakistan-theocracy.html
Treatment of Minorities [Non Muslims] in Islam & Pakistan: Debate
India’s Muslim Dilemma: भारतीय मुसलमानों की दुविधा: Short link: http://goo.gl/KaedS

Visit: http://aftabkhan.blog.com

The real 'invented' people? Palestinians or Israelis

2011-12-26T21:07:00.000+05:00

Newt Gingrich's controversial statement begs the question: Who invented a nationality? The Palestinians or the Israelis?

The state of Israel and the Israeli people were invented from scratch by the Zionist movement [
It is hard to believe that anyone who defends Israel's legitimacy as a state would buy into former Speaker Newt Gingrich's argument that Palestine is an "invented nation".

The singular triumph of the Zionist movement is that it invented a state and a people - Israel and the Israelis - from scratch. The first Hebrew-speaking child in 1900 years, Ittamar Ben-Avi, was not born until 1882. His father, the brilliant linguist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, created a modern language for him to speak by improvising from the language of the Bible.

The founder of the Israeli state was Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), an assimilated Viennese writer who was convinced by the Dreyfus trial in France - and the horrendous right-wing anti-Semitism that resulted from it - that Jews had to get out of Europe.

In 1897, he wrote the book that would essentially inaugurate the Zionist movement. It was called Der Judenstaat (meaning "the Jews' state" or "the Jewish State"), which was his proposal for moving the Jews out of Europe and into their own country.

He didn't specify where the Jewish homeland should be. He was more concerned about quickly obtaining territory anywhere for Jews to seek refuge.

Later, he decided that Palestine made the most sense because that was where the Jewish people both began and exercised self-determination in ancient times, and where there already was a small minority of Jews. But he also spoke of finding a place in Africa or the Americas if Palestine was unavailable.

The reaction to Herzl's idea was primarily that he was a bit crazy. Jews committed to assimilation insisted that Jews were not a nation, but a religious faith. Their nationalities were French, German, Polish, Iraqi or American - not some imaginary Jewish nationality that had not existed for 1900 years.

100 years ago: 'just an idea'

As late as 1943, during the worst days of the Holocaust, the American Jewish Committee - which adhered to the assimilationist view - resigned from the body created by American Jews to respond to the Nazi catastrophe over its "demand for the eventual establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine".

Seventy-plus years later, it is impossible to argue that the Israeli nation is not as authentic and worthy of recognition as any in the world (more authentic than some, in fact).

The Hebrew language is spoken by millions of Jews and Palestinians. The Israeli culture is unique: Bearing little resemblance to any other in the world. In fact, diaspora Jews have as little in common with Israelis as African-Americans have with Africans.

Israelis are not just Jews who happen to live in Palestine, even though the concept of Israel-ness started just over a hundred years ago as nothing but an idea. They are Israelis, entitled to self-determination, peace and security in their own land.

And the Palestinians are every bit as much a nation. If the ultimate definition of authentic nationhood is continuous residence in a land for thousands of years, the Palestinian claim to nationhood is ironclad. They never left Palestine (except for those who either emigrated or became refugees after the establishment of Israel).

Those who deny that Palestinians have a nation base their case on two arguments, both of which are logically incoherent. The first is that Palestinians never exercised self-determination in Palestine; they were always governed by others from ancient times to the present day.

The answer to this is: So what?

What makes a people real?

Most nations in the world lacked self-determination for long periods of their history. The Polish nation existed between 1790 and 1918 even though the state was erased from the map - divided between Russia and Austro-Hungary. It achieved independence in 1918 only to again lose it to the Nazis, and then the Soviets from 1939 until 1989. Would anyone today argue that the Polish nation was invented?

The idea of it is ridiculous, especially when offered by Israelis or Americans (or Canadians, New Zealanders, Australians... ) whose national existence would have been unimaginable a few centuries ago.

The second argument is that Palestinians never thought of themselves as Palestinians until Jews started moving into their territory, that Palestinian nationalism is a response to Zionism.

Again, so what?

When European Jews docked in Jaffa, Palestine in the early immigration waves of the late 19th century, there were Arabs waiting at the port. When the Jews purchased land, it was Arabs who had to move out.

And if those Arabs didn't call themselves Palestinians until the Zionist movement began, neither did the Jews call themselves Israelis. Until 1948, they were just Jews. But each of the two peoples knew who they were and who the other was.

The bottom line is that today, the Palestinian nation is as authentic as the Israeli nation - and vice versa. Those who think either is going away are blinded by hatred.

To put it simply, the first part of the phrase self-determination is the word self. Both nations have the absolute right to define themselves as two nations which, hopefully, will evolve into two states. The alternative is national catastrophe not for one nation, but for two.

But why would Newt Gingrich care about that?

By MJ Rosenberg, a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network. The above article first appeared in Foreign Policy Matters, a part of the Media Matters Action Network.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/2011/12/2011122495928144388.html

Zionism, Israel & Pelistine:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB1773E4A1EDD2F41

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Lessons of History: Do it at your own peril

2011-12-26T20:30:00.001+05:00

It is conventional wisdom that one can learn from history and avoid committing the same mistakes which were committed by our predecessors in the past. It is not wholly true. Of course one can gain an understanding of human nature by reading past history and can find the solution to problems of the present in its light. However, some people, particularly politicians of all ilks, try to find solutions to current problems by exclusively situating them in the present context believing that there is no need to learn from history. This approach sometimes leads to disastrous consequences. One cannot fully ignore the past.
One such example where past precedent was ignored is the Treaty of Versailles which was concluded after the First World War. In the conference was a young British historian Charles Webster (1886-1961), the author of the The Congress of Vienna. Prior to this treaty at Versailles, a number of treaties were concluded after the defeat of Napoleon who had changed the whole map of Europe and redesigned it according to his ambitions. First, he was defeated in 1814 and exiled to St Elba. He could not stay as a prisoner there and escaped. He was welcomed by the French army and again fought a battle at Waterloo in 1815 in which he was again defeated. This time he was imprisoned at St Helena where chances of his escape were nil.
Metternich, the chancellor of Austria, who supervised and made all arrangement for the resettlement of Europe, was a conservative and wanted to check any revolutionary movement. The main approach of the leaders at Vienna was not to punish the French nation. They accused Napoleon for all their troubles and imprisoned him. It was decided that the French monarch would be restored and the French were allowed to participate in the proceedings of the congress .The result of this policy was that the conservative powers of Europe ensured peace in Europe and prevented revolutionary movements. This leniency ensured that not only justice but done but the French nation was also put back on the road to recovery.
The young historian Webster, by quoting the example of the Congress of Vienna advised the leaders who gathered at Versailles to decide the fate of Germany and implored them to treat it generously. His advice was ignored and the leaders decided on harsh terms of treatment which were imposed on Germany. The country had to pay a huge amount in reparation which destroyed her economy. It was forced to hand over some of its territory as punishment as well. When the terms of the treaty were ready, the German delegation was summoned in the presence of the leaders. They were not allowed to sit and kept standing like criminals. They were not given any chance to plead their case and were asked to sign the treaty or be ready for war. Humiliated and insulted, the German delegates had no choice but to sign the treaty which soon became unpopular in the country. The Germans called it a dikat.
When Hitler came to power, he mobilised nationalistic emotion of the German people against this very treaty. Germany wanted to regain its dignity and honour. When Hitler promised that, the Germans supported him. He soon not only made the country financially strong but got back the territory which it had lost as a result of treaty. After the occupation of France during the Second World War, Hitler forced France to sign a treaty which was in favour of Germany and restored the German honour.
It is argued by historians that the Treaty of Versailles laid down the foundation of the Second World War by punishing the whole German nation as war criminals. It Germany had been treated as France had been in the Congress of Vienna, there could have been peace in Europe. A J P Taylor, the British historian in his book on The Origin of Second World War rightly points out that Treaty of Versailles structured Germany in such a manner that war became inevitable. Even without Hitler, Germany under any other leader would have had to go to war in efforts to undo the Treaty of Versailles which had humiliated it to a great extent. Therefore, Hitler may have been responsible for the war but it cannot be discounted that was operating in an environment which was conducive to his extremist rhetoric.
However, after the Second World War, Germany was not treated as it was when the Treaty of Versailles was finalised. On the contrary, the US gathered a huge amount of aid for Germany to restructure its economy. It was done to check the Russian influence in the country. Germany soon rebuilt itself and became a member of the western capitalist bloc. The same treatment of relative leniency was meted out to Japan which facilitated its rehabilitation and late led to Japan becoming a key international partner of the US. The motive of helping out both these countries was the same: to make them into allies of capitalism and use that against Russia. The diplomats who ignored history when the Treaty of Versailles was signed committed a grave mistake which led to much destruction in the form of the Second World War. They had learnt their lesson after that and took a wiser course of action in dealing with Germany and Japan.

The writer is one of the pioneers of alternate history in the country.
http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2011/12/ignoring-history/

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Happy Birthday God !

2011-12-25T20:02:00.000+05:00

Happy Birthday God ! Can You digest this phrase? Christmas is here and so the marketing of Jesus’s godship through festivals, wine, dance parties, Christmas cards and Christmas cakes will be in full boom. In my school days, Christmas was celebrated with a teacher becoming Santa Claus and giving us gifts.... keep reading >>

Iraq: What is, will be, and might have been

2011-12-15T19:31:00.002+05:00

Was it worth it? The answer is still unclear for both Iraqis and Americans.

In the swirling commentary attending the departure of the last US combat troops from Iraq, and as assessments are made of the legacy of the fateful US invasion of eight years ago, that is the question which keeps repeating itself.

For the Iraqis, moving into a new era of, at best, fragile democracy and tenuous security, having suffered perhaps many tens of thousands of deaths, the car bombs and the blast walls, the vicious sectarian cleansings, the millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, the shredding of their economy and society…the question must be asked: Was it worth it?

For the Americans, groping toward a new and uncertain relationship with a liberated but at best tenuously stable Iraq, having expended so much blood and treasure, suffered a loss of prestige and global support, seen the shattering of the chimera of Iraq as a pro-American icon and model for the region, and having unwittingly facilitated the strategic reemergence of Iran…again it must be asked: Was it worth it?

In posing the question at this juncture, we know that no real historical accounting is yet possible, for we cannot know the future. Will the great geo-political gamble of the American invasion result in continued Iraqi progress toward a future of democracy, independence, peace and prosperity? Or will it lapse into something far more grim? We think we can assess the investment in cost and suffering, but we cannot, as yet, assess the return.

But even as we take stock at this inflection point, viewing the situation entirely in hindsight, I daresay few observers do so from the proper perspective.

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Americans, for their part, seem to have forgotten why they invaded Iraq in the first place. The fervid dreams of a handful of neo-cons aside, the Bush administration did not invade Iraq because it wanted to remake the Middle East. It was not seeking some great and transcendent good; it was trying to avoid what it feared would be a great and transcendent evil. It took the risks associated with action because it feared the risks of inaction.

George W Bush believed that history in Iraq, left unchecked, would continue to move in the wrong direction. The sanctions regime was eroding; several countries, France and Russia prominent among them, were working hard to eliminate them. Once free of sanctions, it was thought, Saddam Hussein could go back to reconstituting his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities.

Bush’s rationale never really depended on the dodgy intelligence, which suggested an imminence of threat. That may have been politically useful in making a case for war, but what the Bush administration feared in any case was a latent threat: The UN had already catalogued the Iraqi regime’s past WMD progress, including its ability to build a nuclear weapon. That knowledge, once gained, cannot be eradicated. It was that knowledge, combined with Saddam’s clear record of viciousness at home and abroad, and his continued pattern of deception in dealing with the inspections regime which militated action; since the know-how associated with WMDs could not be eliminated, the thinking went, Saddam’s regime had to be.

We will never know what course history might have taken had Bush not intervened. We will never know whether, years hence, a nuclear-armed Iraq could have “Finlandised” the western littoral of the Gulf, intimidating the Gulf Arab regimes into meeting his demands on production limits, thus dictating the world price of oil and, with it, holding the global economy hostage to his whims. How else might such power, in the hands of one so unaccountably evil, eventually have been misused?

Similarly, for Iraqis, what new horrors might eventually have been in store, if and when Saddam, or his equally perverse sons, been relieved of the international sanctions burden and freed to carry on as they had before? Remember, no sooner had Saddam seized power, than he launched a disastrous eight-year war with Iran, producing grievous human losses. Have those been forgotten? No sooner was that war over than he invaded Kuwait, bringing ignominious defeat in a war with the United States and a huge international coalition, followed by 12 years of penury under punishing international sanctions.

Who has forgotten the Anfal campaign against the Kurds, in which thousands were murdered and many thousands more displaced? Who has forgotten the tender mercies visited on the Shia of southern Iraq when they rose up after the so-called First Gulf War?

How does one account the cost in human dignity and honor when an entire people is forced to live in abject submission to a vicious dictator and a violent, mafia-like regime? Against the backdrop of current history in the region, we might ask what additional outrages Iraqis might eventually have suffered in their attempts to be rid of such tyranny.

No, we do not know the answers to these questions, and the ultimate account of history will remain elusive for some time to come. Indeed, there will surely be multiple histories, as Iraqis, Americans and others make their own judgments regarding the past.

But as we weigh the evidence, we would all do well to avoid the glib, facile and unreflective assessments of some, and to take into account not only what is and what has been, but also what might otherwise have been.

Robert L Grenier is chairman of ERG Partners, a financial advisory and consulting firm. He retired from the CIA in 2006, following a 27-year career in the CIA's Clandestine Service. Grenier served as Director of the CIA Counter-Terrorism Centre (CTC) from 2004 to 2006, coordinated CIA activities in Iraq from 2002 to 2004 as the Iraq Mission Manager, and was the CIA Chief of Station in Islamabad, Pakistan, before and after the 9/11 attacks.

Previously, he was the deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, and also served as the CIA's chief of operational training. He is credited with founding the CIA's Counter-Proliferation Division. Grenier is now a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and speaks and writes frequently on foreign policy issues.

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/2011/12/20111214165849592245.html

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INDIA TOYING WITH DANGEROUS COLD START WAR DOCTRINE

2011-12-11T13:21:00.001+05:00

The article in non-Asian entities would particularly need to be read in the context of almost perennial hostile relations prevailing between

India

and

Pakistan

since independence from colonial rule in 1947.

Britain

gave up this rich colony to avert the replay of events that occurred to some other European powers while leaving their African colonies in blood of the natives and considerably bruised themselves. Britain left in haste, leaving many thorny territorial division issues between

India

and

Pakistan

unresolved, ‘Kashmir’ the major one. The state had predominantly Muslim population but a Hindu chieftain ruled it. There have been military conflicts of varying intensity between India and Pakistan in 1948, 1965 and 1971, the last being more devastating for Pakistan when India also helped public revolt against Pakistan by launching full-fledged military offensives and its eastern wing, erstwhile ‘East Pakistan’ was clipped that emerged as Bangladesh. Thus, the hostility simmers, forcing both the countries to maintain large standing armies as of operational necessity. India and Pakistan now possess nuclear weapons, which means looming war scenario, has an added dangerous dimension to it. Some major powers and the beneficiaries are happy with threatening status quo in Kashmir. The simmering hostility nourishes their national interests perhaps better than the resolved conflict would do. Hence, no effective arbitration has been attempted ever by any power or organization except UN in early years of their inception by adopting Resolutions 38(1948) and 47(1948), which recognized Kashmiris right to choose between

India

and

Pakistan

through a plebiscite.

India

concurred initially but later backtracked. Tragedy of the time is that the Subcontinent remains prone to a horrific nuclear conflagration, possibly at the cost of world peace. (Assume the views expressed below are of author’s [Brig Gen (Ret) Dr. Muhammad Aslam Khan Niazi] and may not be construed as of the publishing source or Pak Army).

-------------------------------------------------------------

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

---Voltaire

Indian Military ‘Cold Start Doctrine’ (CSD) for war surfaces occasionally in Indian and Pakistani media as an unexplored paradigm. The opinion makers enjoy Voltaire’s philosophy support across the board, that in the third millennium globalized world politics, has become synonymous to the ‘Controversy Theory’ which allows the scholars perceptional as well as approach variations while evaluating any concept, doctrine or theory. Even Voltaire was not spared by ‘controversy’. While it is usual to attribute the above quote, for instance, to Voltaire, there is considerable evidence that in fact Evelyn Beatrice Hall wrote it in her ‘The Friends of Voltaire’ under a pen name, Stephen G. Tallentyre.

CSD is very high-sounding concept with its compulsory corollary ambiguity and those not possessing deep insight to the operational methodology tend to bolster its psychological fall out on the Pakistani readership, which is the only significant gain so far for

India

. Wittingly or unwittingly, its interpretation through plethora of contemporary theories projects it like an intricate myth if not monster. At times, it virtually appears that the war would flash like a bolt that would mince

Pakistan

’s military retaliatory capability to the dust unless some big ‘ifs’ were not resolved by Pak Army. It is therefore pertinent to put the threat, haunting world peace in real perspective that had a brush with almost an imminent nuclear conflict in early 2002.

The roots of CSD like doctrine were nourished more by the unbridled euphoria of a maverick Indian Army Chief than by operational necessity. General Krishnaswamy Sundarrajan, besides being an architect of several brilliant episodes as well as reverses, was perceived by Indians to have carried a feather in his cap called Operation Brasstacks. Commencing in July 1986 as a war game, it developed into an ever-biggest exercise in Asia when air, artillery, armor and mechanized formations’ ‘blitzkrieg-like’ integrated deep offensive strategy was tested. The much-trumpeted exercise reached its crescendo in December 1986, employing three strike corps (I Corps-Mathura, II Corps-Ambala and XXI Corps-Bhopal) along Indo-Pak south-eastern borders but to the misfortune of Indian Chief,

Pakistan

had shrewder military strategist, General Zia-ul-Haq who lie in wait to let Indian Chief put all his eggs in one basket, Rajasthan. Before he went with broad smile to launch cricket diplomacy in

India

, he ordered his Army reserves in the North to sally unobtrusively from army garrisons by the time Sundarji (Indian Chief’s short name) had achieved optimum assembly of forces comprising nine divisions excluding the holding corps, in Rajasthan. It was fantastic move by Pak Army and a masterpiece work of ISI and military intelligence outfits. Soon in Pak Army GHQ, heap of signal interception reports (sinrep) indicated that scramble back from Rajasthan to their original battle locations was ordered to all the Brasstacks forces immediately. When a formation complained of lack of transport, a sinrep indicated, it received prompt advice to use all mobility means, even obsolete like bull carts. Thus some young Pakistani officers, referred to ‘Operation Brasstacks’ in light vein as ‘Operation Bull Carts’. Sundarji’s dream of flashing sabre like masterstroke to cut

Pakistan

into two halves simply crashed in the sand dunes that he had nurtured all along to eliminate status quo in operational equation between

India

and

Pakistan

prevailing since 1947. Thanks to Rajiv Gandhi, Indian Prime Minister who rescued Sundarji by agreeing with Gen Zia-ul-Haq to de-escalate the conflict in February 1987. Later Sundarji candidly admitted his failure, saying, he had over reached with Brasstacks. Not many people know the severity of dilemma Indian Army intended to create in the region and the reverses it faced in the process.

Briefly, one would put here the heightened concern for lack of strategic equivalence between the forces system of the two countries to rest by maintaining that it cannot be achieved in number game, as Pak Army is in comfortable position without it vis-à-vis country’s weak economy. Jonathan Marcus, a BBC defence correspondent had also observed in 2003, “In straight numerical terms of population, economic might, military manpower and equipment it is almost meaningless to speak about an India-Pakistan balance”. Nevertheless, through persistent sharp scrutiny of Indian Army doctrines that are ‘war-gamed’ by Pakistan without laxity ever and her expansion as well as modernization, Pak Army has taken some potent measures by regrouping, modernizing and at times resorting to modest new raising of forces level to keep adversary’s hostile designs in effective check. Strategic imbalance, for several reasons, would remain Pak Army’s perennial friend and it has to coexist with it. Pak Army has some spare arrows in the bow to act as force multipliers in the power game like its ever readiness to counter war as a cherished ideological duty, conventional or nuclear if it is thrust upon it and exploiting geo-strategic advantage that geography renders it. Pak Army is in position to deploy and employ holding corps as well as reserves in a manner that achieves effective counter level, yet with remarkable economy of effort. It has overwhelming edge in time and space factor and hence expeditious assembly of forces and convenient readjustment of the forces posture is possible if a hypothesis unfolds, other than the one on which defensive/offensive manoeuvre is mounted. Thus, its strategic orientation remains superior, allowing it to operate on interior lines, an advantage that Indian army cannot achieve.

Instead,

India

has to maintain Eastern Command far away for Chinese and

Bangladesh

borders as well as Northern Command for Chinese border and Pakistan Northern Areas/Line of Control. Western, Southern and South Western Commands remain poised against international borders with

Pakistan

while Central Command is in the depth at Lucknow because it has to meet certain operational contingencies in different directions. On achieving credible nuclear deterrence,

Pakistan

stands compensated for Indian preponderance in the conventional forces ratio while Indian nuclear claw has also been defanged that she would have been rattling on

Pakistan

every now and then. In fact, Sundarji’s venture of 1986-87, in all probability was driven by such hypothesis that

Pakistan

would resort to ‘diplomacy’ means only to de-escalate once haunted by the spectre of Indian nuclear force projections and not confront

India

by mobilizing its holding or punch formations for war. Their hypothesis was way off the mark.

Despite such reverses, however, the flare for concept of simultaneity, targeting more than one objective at a time, lightening strikes against deep objectives in a theatre and destruction of Pakistan Army lingered on among Sundarji’s subordinates. On the contrary, three years of evaluation of Sundarji’s finesse enabled Pak Army to further fine tune its offensive as well as defensive plans. Not content with it, General Mirza Aslam Beg, Pak Army Chief, kicked off yet another mega exercise, ‘Zarb-e-Momin’ (Stroke of a Believer) in 1989 in Central Punjab that the world rated as the beginning of Pakistan Army ‘glasnost’ ensuring that posture-balance was maintained to pre-empt any mischief from the adversary.

Foxland and Blueland wrestled for several weeks at the final stages of exercise with troops. Chief Control HQ at Sargodha, assisted by Blueland and Foxland Senior Controls, orchestrated the entire conduct, monitoring and evaluation. Three corps, two armoured brigades, two artillery divisions, an air defence division and the Pakistan Air Force participated….Fourteen new concepts were tested; many vital lessons were learnt.The events were covered by national and international media. Several international delegates, Asian as well as Western, visited and were briefed including the leaders of, what Zbigniew Brzezinski also called them, the holy warriors. Gulbadin Hikmatyar, Prof Burhanudin Rabbani, Sibghatullah Mujadadi, Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf and Mulvi Younis Khalis were prominent. Some observations, they made, were point black and dictated by their grip on war making strategy. Over all the visiting delegates appreciated, the conduct that was meticulous and agreed that Blueland manoeuvres could blunt Foxland offensives. That was precisely the message Gen Beg had intended to convey across the border.

Indian Military hierarchy’s frustration with what Sundarji had left for them as a model doctrine, employing three strike corps in ‘blitzkrieg’ style, grew worse in the wake of ‘Operation Parakaram’ that trailed December 13, 2001 attack on Indian Parliament. Mobilization of Indian army was ordered on 18 December 2001 to maul

Pakistan

severely for its alleged involvement that

India

detected ‘marvellously’ in just about three days time. Other than a few leading powers, world was oblivious of the Indian ‘responsibility’ to spark off an inferno in the Subcontinent. However, assembly of Indian forces was sluggish and stretched over three weeks. In the mean time, President Musharraf played his cards by ordering formations to occupy battle locations. He also gave a ‘turn about’ address to the nation, renouncing ‘Jihadis’ to woo Western sympathies, particularly of US that could not afford to see

Pakistan

switch its forces from Western to its Eastern borders. International actors’ intervention averted the conflict. Thus, masked operational lacunas in Indian Army planning, surviving comfortably hitherto fore, came under sharp scrutiny. Walter Ladwig III of Oxford University clearly saw the flaws in Indian’s war making ambitions like loss of strategic surprise, large size of strike forces that forced a long gap between political decision and military action and finally denuding of holding corps of any offensive punch. Hence, it was imperative to evolve a doctrine that should over-ride such weaknesses of one of the largest standing armies in the word that had clung to defensive-defence strategy since partition. In other words, a dangerous conflict averted in 2001 led to Indian pursuits that are more lethal in the realm of deceptive war making in all forms.

Indian Army Chief, General Padmanabhan unveiled CSD in April 2004. Could it be summed up as a novel and brilliant idea? Certainly not because it carried conspicuous Sundarji’s stamp with mix of Indian Army Chief’s astuteness who managed now to substitute Sundarji’s lightening ‘blitzkrieg-like’ deep offensives doctrine with sharp and crisp shallow multiple strikes called CSD, also claiming to knock out their own holding and offensive corps’ capability gaps. In other words, now Indian defensive corps could contribute as effectively as strike corps, at least hypothetically and the latter were to become known as Integrated Battle Groups (IBGs). Media leaks suggested that initially Indian army would constitute eight IBGs and each would be a concentrate of firepower and mobility under lavish air umbrella, built upon division size armour or mechanized formation with ability to operate as groups or sub-groups executing independent operations within the Group’s area of operation. The destruction of Pakistan Army has been retained as most lucrative objective, employing tremendous firepower and state-of-art means of ground as well as aerial mobility that would interdict and destroy its reserves, comprising mechanized formations.

General Padmanabhan’s brand of CSD sounded fantastic, as did Sundarji’s blitzkrieg and concept of simultaneity during peacetime about a decade earlier. Once the military logisticians, assembly of forces experts and their Ordnance Corps would have sat together to formulate the inventories to equip the Army with Padmanabhan’s long indent for latest machines, weapons and munitions, finance organ of Indian Government would have shuddered. Commenting on CSD within a month of its unveiling in his May 2004, what he called, strategic paper, Dr. Subhash Kapila, almost had rub with the vision that CSD could not be harnessed militarily as per the perceived scales and if proceeded with, it would amount to asking for moon. He wrote as an indirect admission, “The unveiling of a new war doctrine throws up a host of factors for discussion in terms of why a new war doctrine is required, what are the attendant factors in putting it into operation, the limiting factors that may come into play...”. Commenting three and half years later in December 2007, Dr. Subhash Kapila’s apprehensions further blossomed. He even argued to defer CSD until 2010 because, “

India

’s COLD START WAR DOCTRINE woven around the operational concept of offensive operations at the very outset of hostilities cannot proceed towards success on Indian Army undertaking military operations with incomplete military inventories…”. Hence, it says all to conclude that CSD is a concept on paper and may be nothing more than at experimental stage with old clattering machines. Conversely, maintaining vigilance about an adversary is the hallmark that Pak Army must observe. For its consumption, it has to underscore the need for meeting an adversary in the battlefield as if they are equipped right now to the needle details. Indian endeavour to fling strategic surprise on

Pakistan

as a pre-emption strategy must be checkmated by covert peacetime measures so that its forces instinctively remain out of their bite through ruses, well conceived by military leadership even when the war balloon has not gone up yet.

One would not question Indian Army’s prerogative to equip its forces to any limit but a pertinent question comes up here. Why did General Padmanabhan switch to intense multiple SHALLOW manoeuvres concept? Obviously, the answer is that in the presence of nuclear strike capability with Pakistan Army, there has to be a limited war on the cards. In other words, the change of heart did not emanate from his vision but driven by a compulsion, forced on Indian army under the obtaining politico-military environments. Therefore, CSD has another inhibiting factor that Indian battle sweeps have to remain short of reaching nuclear retaliation threshold. Answer becomes a question again if one asks the proponents of CSD that when

India

initiates conflict under the label of limited war, how friendly

India

would remain with

Pakistan

to keep the war under ‘limited’ tag. Do the adversaries prescribe the counter measure levels to each other? What

India

marks as limited objectives, in Pakistan Army reckoning they might not be ‘limited’ category? Military will and intentions on two sides have to differ because they work against each other. Though

Pakistan

would never ever be nuclear button-happy-power but when destruction of our Army is envisaged by CSD, that is the centre of gravity of our survival, how would Indian war wizards ensure that

Pakistan

would desist from using nukes, particularly once Pakistan Army’s concept of operations hinges on offensive-defence strategy? About the nukes, Shireen Mazari says, “

Pakistan

’s nuclear escalation ladder has only ‘one rung’.” Thus, she seals the argument.

The proposition would remain dangerous when

India

intends resorting to such measures like CSD under the assumption that by subjecting

Pakistan

to retribution, it would desist from proxy war in Kashmir that

Pakistan

denies. Instead,

Pakistan

maintains that Indian state terrorism has pushed Kashmiris to the brink. The scholars, world over have labelled CSD as dangerous to execute on prefixed speculations based on tunnel vision. CSD creates space of legitimacy for

Pakistan

to demand from

India

to rub off its intrusive footprints in Baluchistan, FATA, Pak-Afghan border areas and thus leverage for escalation of crisis is afforded to

Pakistan

to recover its internal stability. On

Pakistan

side, there is undue haste instead to sacrifice all its national interests and strong diplomacy pivots without

India

shifting from its non-yielding stance by an iota. Affording

India

the facility of trade corridor to Central Asia through

Pakistan

and granting ‘Most Favoured Nation’ status while ‘Kashmir’ wound still festers since decades, would be a folly with no parallel. Indian military collaboration with

Israel

is also a cause of change in Indian overtone when she talks of military ventures or handles Kashmiri demonstrations in mode and severity parallel to Israeli handling of the Palestinians’ demonstrations. With

Israel

colluding now with Indian military extensively, resentment against

Israel

has grown manifold in

Pakistan

though, it did not enjoy a favourable score since inception of state of

Israel

India

has to realize that its stakes in regional peace are far greater than

Pakistan

and hence its unimpeded economic spiral would be a factor to force

India

to reach for reconciliation with

Pakistan

in an earnest manner. Seeking ‘peace’ through dialogues and negotiations fervently by both the powers is the ultimate option they would have to embrace but an early embrace would augur well for the regional as well as for the world peace. Powers that have the clout with

India

and

Pakistan

must facilitate the adversaries to reach at workable solution. International community is also encumbered with the responsibility to caution

India

to desist from such momentary madness of 18 December 2001 that could have far-reaching repercussions beyond remedy.

By Brig Gen (Ret) Muhammad Aslam Khan Niazi, PhD, Member of the IFIMES International Institute. [International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) – Ljubljana]

Brig Gen (Ret) Dr. Muhammad Aslam Khan Niazi. Dr. Makni (his acronym) has military experience of about 32 years and is from the Regiment of Artillery is also an author of a book: “The New Great Game: Oil and Gas Politics in Central Eurasia”. Recipient of "sitara-e-imtiaz", he served on various command, staff, instructional, administration, operational, research and evaluation appointments during his career. As a young officer, he saw actions in 1971 Indo-Pak War on the Eastern border. Holds first class Master’s degree in International Relations and acquired doctorate in 2002-2007, from University of Peshawar,

Pakistan

. He has attended national and international seminars/conferences and appeared selectively as an analyst on Pakistani as well as foreign media channels. Also a member of the IFIMES International Institute and a member of WSN Foundation International Advisory Board, his book, “The New Great Game: Oil and Gas Politics in Central Eurasia” was published by Raider Publishing International, simultaneously from New York, London and Swansea in February 2008.

The International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) in Ljubljana, Slovenia, regularly analyses events in the Middle East and the Balkans. BrigGen (Ret) Muhammad Aslam Khan Niazi, PhD, (Pakistan), member of the IFIMES International Institute, has analysed the concept of cold start war doctrine in India. His article entitled “INDIA TOYING WITH DANGEROUS COLD START WAR DOCTRINE” is published in its entirety.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There have been Following criticism to this strategy:

1.It may result in declaration of Total War and General Mobilization by Pakistan.

2.Publicly announcing the "Cold Start" strategy is self contradictory takes away the element of surprise and defeats the purpose.

3.Although the plan reportedly has a significant air support component, it is unclear to us how much joint versus parallel planning has taken place. No mention of a major operational role for the Indian Navy or parallel sea-launched attacks. Pakistan has clearly announced comprehensive use of Air power and Air Defence in case of a Cold Start during Azm e Nau 3 along with an announced Naval offensive strategy.

4.The unimplemented plan has the added virtue of accentuating Pakistani discomfiture and angst, which in theory may have some deterrent value.

5.The precise function of the Cabinet Committee on Security in ratifying decisions to take military action, the character of the military's advisory responsibilities to the Cabinet, the possible ad hoc nature of decision-making in the upper levels of the Indian government and the role of Congress Party figures like Sonia Gandhi in this process are not clearly understood.

6.It is not implementable statistically

7. The concept of istishhad (martyrdom) may compel Pakistani paramilitary,armed civilians, Mujahideen and Military Units to fight till death creating tough pockets of resistance wasting time crucial to the doctrine.

8.Although Cold Start is designed to punish Pakistan in a limited manner without triggering a nuclear response, they can not be sure whether Pakistani leaders will in fact refrain from such a response.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wiki Leaks on CSD: http://www.ndtv.com/article/wikileaks-revelations/wikileaks-us-on-indian-army-s-cold-start-doctrine-69859?cp&cp

Please visit: http://aftabkhan.blog.com

BOONE LIFE: A Columbia woman tells how she converted to Islam

2011-12-08T20:51:00.001+05:00

COLUMBIA — Jessica Fay is a blonde. But you wouldn't know that from looking at her, and that's just the way she likes it.

Related Media

"No one can really judge me straight off, 'Oh, you're a dumb blonde, I'm not going to listen to what you have to say,'" Fay said. "When I cover my hair, people can't judge me right away off of the color of my hair."

Fay is Muslim, and she wears the hijab, the Islamic veil that covers a woman's hair. She said there are a many reasons she likes wearing the veil, which is required by the Quran, the Islamic holy book. The veil also comes with a certain dress code that usually includes being covered from head to toe, with most of the arms covered, too.

"It's kind of nice because when I walk down the street, I don't see (men) going and looking at my body — they're looking straight at me," Fay said. "I feel more a sense of respect and dignity from that, knowing I don't have to show my boobs to get respect from a man."

For the past two years, Fay has taken baby steps to become a Muslim. It took her a few years to adopt the veil. She said she was nervous other people would judge her when she started wearing it. She used a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia to help her transition, and since she returned to America wearing the hijab, she has experienced support and curiosity.

Some would call her process a conversion, but Fay refers to it as her "reversion."

"In Islam, what they believe is that all babies are born Muslim," Fay said. "If their family is not Muslim, they learn a different religion or whatever. So they call it reversion because you're reverting back."

Becoming Muslim can be difficult for those who weren't raised in a Muslim family or with an Arab background. Islam, which requires prayers five times a day and prohibits alcohol and some other foods, takes commitment.

As a college student, not being able to drink alcohol can be difficult, Fay said. She added that it doesn't help that she's already in an awkward transition in her life, as she started graduate school this year.

Many of her undergraduate friends have left Columbia, and she has a hard time keeping in contact with the ones who still remain, she said.

"It's hard to find something that your friends are going to want to do with you that doesn't involve drinking," Fay said. "But then again, I want to think about: I wear hijab and I don't want to misrepresent my religion and make people think, 'Oh, that’s OK.'

"It's a process," she said.

Fay isn't Arab, which leads some people to be curious about her, such as when she's trying to get a table at a restaurant or is in the supermarket. She said sometimes people are more open to discussing Islam with her because of the color of her skin.

"People may be just a little more curious than if I looked Arab. Then they'd be like, 'Oh, that's expected, I don't have to ask her why.'"

Despite the stereotype, only 12 percent of Muslims worldwide are Arab, according to PBS.

Fay said she hopes that her looks will lead those who don't understand Islam to ask questions. She wants to be a good representative of her religion, which she said she thinks is often misunderstood.

"I hope to educate them in a way, if only to show that I'm not oppressed by my hijab," Fay said. "I go to the gym and I work out. I'm going to run a 5K. I'm doing things. I'm also a shy person, but I'm talking out more in class. I want to educate, but I'm not going to pressure anyone."

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2011/12/05/reversion-columbia-woman-tells-how-she-converted-islam/

Must Read-Women in Islam:http://peace-forum.blogspot.com/2011/08/women-subjugated-or-emancipated.html

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Zionist Christians: Useful tool for Zionist Jews

2011-12-06T22:01:00.001+05:00

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 powerful pro-Israel groups in Washington. Once considered a marginal doctrine among evangelicals, the dispensationalist theology of Christian Zionism includes a belief in the rapture, when the faithful are to be lifted up to Heaven while the rest of humanity—including most of the Jews—will perish.

The Zionist Jews consider Zionist Fundamentalist Christians as useful idiots, serving their purpose of colonial Zionist existence in Palestine and world domination through control of world economy & USA, while Zionist Fundamentalist Christians consider Jews nothing more than ‘sacrificial lamb’, more: http://wp.me/p1dL2Q-gi

http://aftabkhan.blog.com

Muslims of France: Musulmans de France

2011-12-01T01:08:00.002+05:00

There are an estimated five million Muslims in France today, which is the largest such population in Western Europe. What challenges have generations of Muslim immigrants in France been facing to retain their cultural identity? Read more >>>> http://wp.me/p1dL2Q-gc

Please visit: http://aftabkhan.blog.com

NATO attack on Pakistan: A blatant aggression: Analysis

2011-11-30T14:03:00.007+05:00

Crying wolf

By Ikram Sehgal: A defence and political analyst.

[Cry wolf is an expression that means "raise a false alarm", derived from the fable The Boy Who Cried Wolf]

The compulsions for survival have driven our leaders over the past decade to allow the US-Pakistan relationship to gradually degenerate into a master-slave relationship. Pakistan is now subjected to various insults across the board periodically; in the past year the vilification of the Pakistan Army and the ISI by key US public officials has become a regular affair. To add injury to the never-ending insults, 24 of our soldiers were brutally murdered by the strafing of four US helicopter gunships; most of them died in the first attack while asleep. While the borders may not be well marked, the map reference coordinates of our position at Salala – two kilometres well inside Pakistan – were well defined; the US and Nato violated standard operating procedures (SOPs) governing coordination with Pakistan.

Universal perception holds that this was a calculated act of provocation for our perceived support for the Taliban. Or was it more than that; the pre-meditated murder being carried out with a more sinister motive? The reaction in the drawing rooms of the elite matched the outrage in the streets, the near universal cry being “enough is enough”. PM Gilani rode the crest of the public anger with his “no further business as usual” stance.

To quote M K Bhadrakumar from a recent article, “Pakistan’s doublespeak (about drones) may be ending. Future US drone operations may have to be conducted factoring in the possibility that Pakistan might regard them as violations of its air space.” What he went on to say was more meaningful, “Washington may have seriously erred if the intention on Friday night was to draw out the Pakistani military into a retaliatory mode and then to hit it with a sledgehammer and make it crawl on its knees pleading mercy.”

The perfunctory “regret” aside, there is not even a hint of an apology; but then, which master has ever apologised to a slave? To its credit, the Defence Cabinet Committee (DCC) did not turn the other cheek as usual. Instead, it decided to (1) close Nato’s supply through Pakistani territory immediately (2) demand the US vacate Shamsi airbase (meant for drone operations) within 15 days and (3) “revisit and undertake a complete review” of all “programmes, activities and cooperative arrangements” with the US, Nato and the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), including in “diplomatic, political and intelligence” areas. The Federal Cabinet went one up in deciding not to participate in the Bonn Conference that is to be held in early December.

The 140,000 (97,000 US and 43,000 Nato) Isaf troops depend on fuel, food and equipment coming from outside landlocked Afghanistan. Spokesman Lt Gen Keeley insisted that their operations will not be affected because “Isaf uses a vast supply and distribution network to ensure coalition forces remain well-stocked.” Less than half is funnelled through the so-called Northern Distribution Network (NDN) encompassing Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Many knowledgeable logistical experts maintain that contrary to Isaf claims the NDN is not adequate for supplies in the longer-term, particularly because heavy equipment, stores and aviation fuel come through Pakistan. Speaking on NBC News, respected US defence analyst retired US General Barry McCaffrey warned that the coalition effort in Afghanistan was “one step short of a strategic crisis. I do not believe we can continue operations at this rate, so we’ve got to talk to them, we’ve got to pay them, we’ve got to apologise for this strike. We have no option, literally.”

To quote my article “Terms of Endearment” published on September 29, 2011, “Our civilian and military sacrifices compare at a ratio of almost 10:1 to all Afghan civilian and coalition forces put together. Is it an amazing coincidence that every time the PPP coalition is in danger of a meltdown, the army and the ISI are put on the block by the US to relieve the existential threat to this inept and corrupt Pakistani government?” This incongruous thought becomes stronger two months later; was the Salala strike meant to bail out Zardari because of the Haqqani memo and or the NRO? Was the helicopter attack meant only as a warning shot, misfiring when a missile hit a billet full of soldiers sleeping off duty, and the high casualty figures raised a storm?

Nevertheless the Nato strike did shift attention from both the memo and the NRO. Unfortunately for Zardari, Husain Haqqani is not present in Washington DC to give events the usual spin about “the danger to democracy”. It would be nice if the president and supreme commander came out personally with a strong statement condemning this murderous attack instead of oblique references through his spokesman. It may not altogether eliminate the pervasive suspicion about his inclinations and motives but it would go some way in partially dispelling the prevailing notion of all this being meant to distract the focus from him.

Teetering perilously on a fail-safe line as a much-vilified partner in the US-led war, continuing without a defined “terms of engagement”, is impossible. Former governor Huntsman (and a Republican presidential candidate) correctly termed our relationship as being one of a “transactional” nature. “Out-of-the-box” thinking must provide for a genuinely productive and meaningful relationship in the future.

People like Sandy Berger and Bruce Reidel have brushed off the Pakistani reaction as being without substance, confidently predicting we will be back “on line” within days – the dangers of our “crying wolf” once too often! The acid test of our political (and military) leaders will be to put national interest before personal salvation. Effective in his own quiet way, Kayani must comprehend the consequences of his remaining a perennial “silent soldier”. While he could possibly have considered fading from the scene as an option (the first year of his three-year extension expired coincidentally on November 27), he has responsibilities not only to the soldiers dying under his command but also to the people of this country.

With the entire Republican slate of US presidential candidates baying for our blood, I wrote two months ago, “The US Congress would do this country the greatest favour if it passes the Bill to cut off aid to Pakistan; this government can than declare freedom! First, we should re-affirm our commitment to continue fighting the war on terror, but on our own terms. Second, we must pull out as many troops as we can from Fata and mobilise the tribal militias as in the past. Third, we must not take any further aid of any kind, economic or military, saddled with conditions. Fourth, we must charge transit fees (and the wear and tear to our infrastructure) at internationally acceptable rates for all goods passing through Pakistani territory.” The Nato containers and oil tankers stuck in Pakistani territory must be allowed through as they present a security threat but no more should be offloaded from ships till we have a suitable agreement for payment of adequate transit fees in place.

To preserve sanity in a future relationship, sometimes a divorce is necessary. Pakistan must disengage from the war in Afghanistan while continuing its own war against terrorism within Pakistan. If the US wants to shed the blood of its young soldiers, propping up someone like Karzai for the next 50 years – that is its call.

Email: isehgal@pathfinder9.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A senior Pakistani army official has said a NATO cross-border air attack that killed 24 soldiers was a deliberate, blatant act of aggression, hardening Pakistan's stance on an incident that could hurt efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.

Islamabad decided on Tuesday not to attend a major conference on the post-2014 future of Afghanistan in Germany next week, an angry riposte to the attack that threatens to set back peace efforts in Pakistan's troubled neighbor.

Continuing Pakistan's angry tone, Major General Ishfaq Nadeem, director general of military operations, said NATO forces were alerted they were attacking Pakistani posts, but helicopters kept firing. His comments, from a briefing to editors, were carried in local newspapers on Wednesday that characterized the attack as blatant aggression.

"Detailed information of the posts was already with ISAF (International Security Assistance Force), including map references, and it was impossible that they did not know these to be our posts," The News quoted Nadeem as saying at the briefing held at army headquarters on Tuesday.

NATO helicopters and fighter jets attacked two military border posts in northwest Pakistan on Saturday in the worst incident of its kind since Islamabad allied itself with Washington in 2001 in the war on militancy.

Fury over the attack is growing, with another protest in the city of Lahore and more tough editorials in newspapers.

The helicopters appeared near the post around 15 to 20 minutes past midnight, opened fire, then left about 45 minutes later, Nadeem was quoted as saying. They reappeared at 0115 local time and attacked again for another hour, he said.

Nadeem said that, minutes before the first attack, a U.S. sergeant on duty at a communications centre in Afghanistan told a Pakistani major that NATO special forces were receiving indirect fire from a location 15 km (9 miles) from the posts.

The Pakistanis said they needed time to check and asked for coordinates. Seven minutes later, the sergeant called back and said "your Volcano post has been hit," Nadeem quoted the sergeant as saying.

Nadeem concluded that confirmed NATO knew the locations of the Pakistani posts before attacking, said The News.

REINVIGORATED MILITARY

The NATO attack shifted attention away from Pakistan's widely questioned performance against militants who cross its border to attack U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan, and has given the military a chance to reassert itself.

Islamabad's decision to boycott next week's meeting in Bonn will deprive the talks of a key player that could nudge Taliban militants into a peace process as NATO combat troops prepare to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday Pakistan's decision to boycott the conference was "regrettable" but hoped to secure Islamabad's cooperation in future.

"Nothing will be gained by turning our backs on mutually beneficial cooperation," Clinton told reporters in South Korea.

The army, which has ruled Pakistan for more than half of its history and sets security and foreign policy, faced strong criticism from both the Pakistani public and its ally, the United States, after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

The al Qaeda leader had apparently been living in a Pakistani garrison town for years before U.S. special forces found and killed him in a unilateral raid in May.

Pakistanis criticized the military for failing to protect their sovereignty, and angry U.S. officials wondered whether some members of military intelligence had sheltered him. Pakistan's government and military said they had no idea bin Laden was in the country.

The army seems to have regained its confidence, and won the support of the public and the government in a country where anti-American sentiment runs high even on rare occasions when relations with Washington are healthy.

More than 1,000 students from a hardline Pakistani religious party protested in Lahore, yelling "Death to NATO" and "Death to America."

"If NATO and America do something like this again, we are going to turn Pakistan into their graveyard," said 23-year-old university student Zahoor Ahmad.

History student Mudassir Durrani said: "This attack is a slap in the faces of the Pakistanis who support America. It is time for secular and religious forces to come together to fight America."

NATO hopes an investigation it promised will defuse the crisis and that confidence-building measures can repair ties.

But the military is firmly focused on NATO, and analysts say it is likely to take advantage of the widespread anger to press its interests in any future peace talks on Afghanistan.

The army is well aware that many Pakistanis believe the war on militancy their country joined has only served U.S. interests while thousands of Pakistani soldiers have died fighting.

"If the military and government are not in sync with the public opinion, they are seen as the bad guys, they are seen as the lackeys of the Americans," said Mahmud Durrani, a former national security chief and ambassador to Washington.

"The leadership has no choice but to condemn it (NATO). The anger in the public is phenomenal."

Exactly what happened at the posts along an unruly and poorly defined border is still unclear.

A Western official and an Afghan security official who requested anonymity said NATO troops were responding to fire from across the border. Pakistan says the attack was unprovoked.

Both explanations are possibly correct: that a retaliatory attack by NATO troops took a tragic, mistaken turn in harsh terrain where differentiating friend from foe can be difficult.

Nadeem was adamant that all communications channels had informed NATO that it was attacking Pakistani positions. "They continued regardless, with impunity," The News quoted him as saying.

(Additional reporting by Chris Allbritton in ISLAMABAD and Mubasher Bukhari in LAHORE; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Paul Tait) http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/30/us-pakistan-nato-idUSTRE7AT0JZ20111130

More, analysis & videos: http://pakistan-posts.blogspot.com/2011/11/us-nato-attack-on-pakistan-analysis.html

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A new Middle East?

2011-11-25T21:50:00.002+05:00

ALMOST a year has gone by since citizens of various Arab nations rose up against long-entrenched dictatorial regimes but their frustration has not been assuaged. Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring, is the only nation which has seen an orderly transition to democracy with the election of a constituent assembly. Elsewhere there is tumult. Yemen`s President Ali Abdullah Saleh has signed a deal, promising to step down after three decades in power but there is reason to be cautious. He has backtracked on promises to hand over power several times. Mr Saleh`s stubbornness has brought his impoverished nation to the brink of civil war with hundreds killed since the protests began. Yemeni activists also question why the deal gives Mr Saleh immunity from prosecution. Meanwhile, Cairo`s Tahrir Square is once again rife with protests. Dozens have been killed as the authorities have violently put down demonstrations. The protesters want a quicker transition to democracy and are suspicious of the military`s intentions to tinker with the constitution. Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, head of Egypt`s ruling military council, has made overtures to the protesters yet many Egyptians feel the generals have no intention of handing over power.

► 4:49► 4:49

Arab Spring Sour: 'Egypt revolt one long military ...

Egypt's ruling military council has accepted the resignation of the Cabinet and agreed to form the national ...

The Gulf is also in flux. In Bahrain, the head of a government-appointed commission has said the sheikhdom`s forces “used torture and excessive force against demonstrators” to smother the strategic nation`s forgotten revolution. This has strengthened the opposition and human rights observers` claims that the Bahraini state discriminates against and is brutal towards its own people. The state now needs to back up claims it will punish those involved in abuses. The commission has also established there is no proof of Iranian involvement in fomenting protests, a strong indicator that the movement is homegrown. In Kuwait, several opposition activists were arrested recently after protesters stormed parliament and clashed with police last week. The opposition has called for the prime minister`s dismissal and parliament`s dissolution in the wake of a corruption scandal reportedly involving the premier — a royal — and several legislators.

Major questions remain about the direction of the Arab Spring. In nations where dictators have fallen (Egypt and Libya) it remains to be seen whether the people`s democratic aspirations will be thwarted by a new set of autocrats. Yemen`s and Syria`s future is also uncertain given the tribal and sectarian divisions within those societies. As for the Gulf monarchies, they will put up the toughest resistance to change. One thing appears certain: much ground still needs to be covered before the Arab masses can reach their goal of establishing representative governments that ensure full social, political and economic rights.
http://www.columnspk.com/a-new-middle-east-editorial-by-dawn/

	Arab revolts - past and present Arabs have historically revolted every decade against rulers and the west has counter-revolted most attempts.	The contradictions of the Arab Spring The spirit of 1968 flows through Arab Spring and Occupy movement - as its counter-current attempts to suppress uprising.	The struggle for Syria The Syrian people are being sacrificed at the altar of US imperialism, says author.

Arab revolts - past and present

Arabs have historically revolted every decade against rulers and the west has counter-revolted most attempts.

The contradictions of the Arab Spring

The spirit of 1968 flows through Arab Spring and Occupy movement - as its counter-current attempts to suppress uprising.

The struggle for Syria

The Syrian people are being sacrificed at the altar of US imperialism, says author.

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European Muslims- Problems & Opportunities [Urdu] یورپ کے مسلمان : مسائل اور مواقع

2011-11-24T17:47:00.002+05:00

مغرب میں مقیم مسلمانوں کے مسائل:یورپ میں مسلمانوں کو متعدد مسائل کا سامنا ہے اور ان کے حل کے لیے منظم کوششوں اور واضح لائحۂ عمل کی ضرورت ہے۔ یہی وہ طریقہ ہے جس سے ہم اپنے ہدف حاصل کرسکتے ہیں۔... .... Read morel >>>hhttp://goo.gl/XR6OG

Zionist West versus Islam

2011-11-19T16:03:00.006+05:00

Henry Kissinger New World Order: Video

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OIC seeks to devise legal mechanisms for the implementation of resolution 16/18 Meeting of Experts to discuss the fight against religious discrimination in Washington.

The much awaited clash of civilizations is now right before us; the perpetrators are none other than who had sponsored this book. By Raja G Mujtaba

Islam bashing has become part of a well organised move in the West. This is nothing new, such acts are spread over the entire history of 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 these invasions, a warrior in the person of Sultan Salahuddin Ayubi, a Kurd emerged and fought out these crusades against Islam.

Now on 9/11, Bush assumed the role of Pope Urban 2nd and declared it a crusade in his State of the Union address against Islam after the 9/11 event. The magnitude of this false flag has been so intense that its ripples are being felt even now. Its splinter effects have spread across not only the US but Western Europe as well. Burning of Holy Quran by Pastor Terry Jones in Florida was the most glaring act. Other than this, there have been numerous attacks on Mosques and Muslims in the entire length and breadth of the US. As if this was not enough, caricatures of Holy Prophet Muhammad (S A W) were perpetrated in Europe. Dutch MP, Geert Wilders launched a very aggressive campaign against Islam when he addressed the British Parliament. First it was absolutely wrong on the part of the British to allow such a speech and then it was even worse when he was allowed to get away with it.
Operation Desert Storm under General Colin Powel was the first stage of “War against Islam” it was orchestrated first by instigating Saddam Hussain to invade Iran that was going through a process of revolution and then Kuwait to create a fear and terror in the minds of the Gulf Cooperation Council states on the Persian Gulf. When Iraq was fighting Iran, I was adviser to Kuwait Air Force & Air Defence for its automation. I was observing that daily night flights were taking place to provide arms and ammunition to Iraq. Although it was not in my assignment to advise them on this but sensing what was to come for Kuwait after Saddam fails to defeat Iran was not being accepted by the Kuwaiti authorities. They thought that Iraq would be able to defeat Iran hence Kuwait would be on the side of the victor and then it was the Arab nationalism that had been inculcated by Col Lawrence that became a strong factor to support Iraq. The US and her allies played a smart move, through Iran-Iraq war, US was avenging her humiliation at the hands of the Iranian students who had occupied the US Embassy and taken over four hundred hostages in Tehran.
Before all this, the US had built huge bases in Saudi Arabia much beyond the Saudi needs but at their expense. It was a great game of chess being played at the expense of the Arab Kings and Sheikhs to extract their wealth and take control of their oil and political body. Soon after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the UN Security Council was moved, media hype was created and the troops began to arrive in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States to ‘liberate’ Kuwait. Iraq’s military might was destroyed, No-Fly Zones were established, oil exports were taken over. Iraq was completely cut off and no trade was taking place, hospital ran out of medicines, stores had no stock even of essentials where baby food was not to be seen; this was such a cruel act on the part of the US and her allies that almost a million babies and people died for want of food and medicines. When Madeline Albright was confronted with this astronomical figure of deaths, she said that this was a price worth it.
Such venomous acts are doing no service to humanity at large and the countries in particular on whose lands such campaigns are being held. Every country no matter how big or small it maybe has a strong Muslim population. Reaction of such population is but natural thus it brings chaos and destruction in the country where such acts are allowed in the name of the basic freedoms of speech and expression. Freedom of expression etc. are good but not at the cost of religious sentiments of other communities. Such freedom only disrupts peace and harmony not only in the country of occurrence but it runs polarization and deep wedge between such communities around the world.
Ever since 9/11, the world is being pushed deeper and deeper into a state of war. Many Muslim countries have been attacked and numerous are being planned to be attacked. Reasons to do are always engineered and the blame is fixed on the target country. Since 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan are under constant state of destabilization. Libya was the last country to have been attacked. A country that was living in peace and refusing to accept the American hegemony has been put to anarchy. Now Yemen, Syria and Iran are under focus. Several attempts have been made on Pakistan but without success. Also there is a well coordinated move taking place in Africa where Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia etc. are being threatened. It is not to be forgotten that Arab kingdoms in the Arabian Peninsula are also under threat. The sword of destabilization and anarchy is hanging on their necks also.
This is a very crucial time in the history of Muslims, and there is no body or any coordinated effort to face the threats and challenges. Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) that was formed a few decades back became a center of hope and inspiration for the Muslims but soon it became apparent that it has been plagued by the termites planted by the West. Now, as Mahathir Muhammad said it’s not OIC but Oh IC. This can be well gauged from its impotence and lack of assertion on any issue inflicting the Muslim world. It has not been able to resolve any conflicts within the Muslim world. The expected diplomatic role of this body has been a complete disappointment.
Now to check Islam bashing or spread of Islamophobia that’s being created by the neo-cons and the Zionists is merely a lip service. The press release of the OIC secretariat is placed below for the benefit of the readers to assess for them how pathetic the state is.
“Informed sources at the General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) disclosed on Thursday, 17 November 2011 that a meeting of experts will be held in Washington DC on 12 December 2011 and will last three days to discuss ways and means to implement resolution 16/18 on “Combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to violence, and violence against persons based on religion or belief” which was issued by the United Nations Human Rights Council last March, and prepared by the OIC in collaboration with the United States of America. The resolution, which received large support in the HRC, aims to combat religious discrimination, all what may lead to hatred and violence, and combating the phenomenon of Islamophobia spreading in the West. OIC member states and other countries are expected to participate in the said meeting.
The sources said that Washington meeting, which will be held at the level of experts, will endeavor to lay down legal mechanisms for the implementation of resolution 16/18 in order to pave the way for creating national legislations in the UN Member States that can reduce religious discrimination and incitement to religious hatred and violence.
The sources also noted that the meeting will also attempt to overcome the obstacles that prevent the implementation of the resolution, such as understanding the principle of freedom of expression, which is considered sacred by Western countries, while the OIC will endeavor to formulate frameworks for implementation of the resolution that ensure non insulting or defamation of religions or religious sanctities that lead to hostility and discrimination in many Western countries.
In the meantime, the UN Third Committee adopted by consensus resolution 16/18 last Tuesday. The OIC sources considered such achievement an additional success for the resolution. The sources added that countries such as Australia, Brazil and Thailand have confirmed their absolute support for the resolution during the meeting and have become additional co-sponsors for the resolution.
The OIC Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Ufuk Gokcen gave an elaborate presentation on the resolution at an interfaith meeting held recently in Marrakech, Morocco. The participating countries expressed their full support for the resolution which was secured earlier during the meeting that was co-chaired by the OIC Secretary General Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Istanbul last July.”
Enough killings have taken place under the garb of ‘War On Terror,’ the number runs into millions, this is no coincidence but a well thought out agenda of the Zionists and the Neo-Cons. This was executed by Bush-Blair and Company. They have committed crime against humanity for which they need to be charged and tried in a neutral court of justice. This court should have representations from the Muslim world also. Without bringing these criminals to justice world would never see peace. If not, then the way the Muslim countries are being victimized and attacked a new Salahuddin Ayubi will arise and put everything to rest.
http://www.opinion-maker.org/2011/11/zionist-west-versus-islam/

Conspiracy Theories- NWO:
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A vision of the whole human race

2011-11-18T21:51:00.001+05:00

Revolutionary ideas do not come from books and manifestos, but from experiences and connections with different peoples: Tarak Barkawi
On February 22, 1803, Colonel Edward Despard was hung and beheaded in London for organising a revolutionary conspiracy to overthrow King George III and establish a republic in Britain.

Among the crowd of 20,000 in front of the gallows was Colonel Despard's wife and partner in conspiracy, Catherine, an African American who Despard met during his military service in the Caribbean. She helped him compose the speech he made with the rope around his neck:

"... his Majesty's Ministers... avail themselves of a legal pretext to destroy a man, because he has been a friend to truth, to liberty and to justice. Because he has been a friend to the poor and the oppressed. But Citizens, I hope and trust, notwithstanding my fate ... that the principles of freedom, of humanity and of justice will finally triumph over falsehood, tyranny and delusion, and [over] every principle inimical to the interests of the human race."

What Despard meant by the "human race" was far in advance of the political theorists of his time. He included in this concept not only white males, but women and men of every colour and every status and class, native peoples, slaves and all the mixtures of white, brown and black that he had encountered during his service in the Americas.

How did the son of a family of small, Irish landlords, who became an accomplished professional soldier, develop such an expansive view of humanity?

As a boy in Ireland, he watched peasants driven off the land as English-backed landlords enclosed land that had been held in common. As a young officer building fortifications in Jamaica, he was nursed by Afro-Caribbean women. He learned to effectively command multi-racial work parties, and saw firsthand the terror used to enforce discipline among slaves, sailors, soldiers and workers.

Along with a young Horatio Nelson, Despard led a harrowing expedition to evict the Spanish from Nicaragua. They successfully captured the main Spanish fort but then their men began to die from starvation and disease.

Challenging societal norms

Survival was possible only by cooperating with nearby free communities of Mosquito Indians - composed in fact of native Americans, runaway slaves and lower class whites who preferred freedom to backbreaking labour. (Nelson, who became Britain's greatest naval hero, would later unsuccessfully appeal for clemency for Despard and for a pension for Catherine.)

Despard then became the Crown's leading official in British Honduras. There he sought to distribute land to indigent men and women of colour. He set aside lands for common use; sought to keep food prices down "for the poorer sort of people"; and worked with Indians who understood the local ecology.

The landlords and big merchants were outraged. One railed that Despard had placed the "lowest Mulatto or free Negro" on an equal footing with the wealthy whites.

Not to be trifled with, the landlords and merchants appealed to their networks in London and had Despard removed. Despard and Catherine returned to London and started plotting their conspiracy which ended on the gallows.

What does the story of Edward and Catherine Despard offer us today, as we live through another moment of upheaval, revolution and counter-revolution?

One thing the Despards teach us is that new political ideas do not generally arise from intellectuals and theorists alone. Rather the cut and thrust of experience and practice throws up new political possibilities. 'Practitioners' like Despard draw on their stock of ideas to develop new and creative responses to the situations that confront them.

It is worth remembering that many of those we regard as great thinkers were also practitioners. Karl Marx was a revolutionary not an academic, and his comrade Friedrich Engels managed a facto Karl von Clausewitz, the philosopher of war, was a Prussian officer with much experience of war. Socrates too was a veteran soldier; Freud a working psychologist; Keynes a civil servant. Gandhi was an activist.

Even Rene Descartes, the supreme rationalist philosopher, was a professional soldier who sought to 'gather experiences'. His worry that he might be a brain in a vat, fooled by his senses, was perhaps an early modern case of PTSD.

Despard developed his expansive concept of the human race because he had lived and worked in the multi-racial world of the 18th century Atlantic, not because he had read Immanuel Kant. In any case, Kant's cosmopolitanism was profoundly limited by comparison with Despard's. Kant believed that "Humanity achieves its greatest perfection with the White race".

In Haiti in 1801, revolting slaves managed to produce a constitution that went well beyond the liberal thought of the day. All slaves were freed and everyone made equal before the law. The US Constitution of 1787 regarded slaves as three-fifths of a person so that their white owners could have more representation in Congress.

Counter-revolution

And so, when we look upon the Arab Spring, we should not interpret it as a matter of Arabs having finally read John Locke and Thomas Jefferson and applied Western ideas. We should look instead for the new ideas, the new possibilities, the new politics created up by the protesters, activists and ordinary people who have made revolution.

We should be cognizant too that the Arab Winter will be a university of counter-revolution, as new forms of repression, of neo-imperialism and of exploitation are developed in response to novel circumstances.

The Despards have one last, difficult lesson to teach us. For over two centuries, liberal political theorists have been writing of human rights and democracy. Their well-intentioned acolytes have sought to spread the word around the world.

Yet today, despite globalisation and multiculturalism, it is difficult to imagine political activism, cooperation and resistance across lines of race, religion and region that match what the Despards achieved.

Think about it: A lordly Irish officer in the 18th century finds common cause, even love, with Indians, Africans and all manner of oppressed folk, and returns to the West as a revolutionary citizen of the world. Catherine, too, of slave origins and "violently in love" with her husband, crossed lines to help organise London's sailors (white and black), longshoremen, and other workers in the failed plot to create a republic.

Here and there, in our time, Westerners, Christians and Muslims may find common cause - as in the Palestinian solidarity movement; or whites, blacks and mixed race people, as in the resistance to the apartheid regime in South Africa.

But in a jingoistic age, when Westerners, Asians and Muslims are all convinced of their own superiority, a multi-racial, multi-regional, multi-cultural resistance movement on the model the Despards cooked up is almost unthinkable.

Despite our own delusions, we have regressed - not progressed - from the Despards' vision of the whole human race.

Tarak Barkawi is Senior Lecturer in the Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge. Al Jazeera readers can find out more about the Despard conspiracy in Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker’s The Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (London: Verso, 2000). 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/2011/11/2011115131942562643.html

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Roy slams world's silence on Indian occupation of Kashmir

2011-11-13T14:17:00.004+05:00

NEW YORK: Renowned Indian activist and novelist Arundhati Roy has decried the silence of the international community over the continued “brutal Indian occupation of Kashmir” and said Kashmiris should be given the right to self-determination.

“Kashmir is one of the most protracted and bloody occupations in the world — and one of the most ignored,” she told a large audience at the Asia Society during a discussion on “Kashmir — a case for freedom”.

[Previously In an interview with Times of India published in August 2008, Arundhati Roy expressed her support for the independence of Kashmir from India after massive demonstrations in favor of independence took place—some 500,000 separatists rallied in Srinagar in the Kashmir part of Jammu and Kashmir state of India for independence on 18 August 2008, following the Amarnath land transfer controversy. According to her, the rallies were a sign that Kashmiris desire secession from India, and not union with India. She was criticized by Indian National Congress (INC) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for her remarks]

Under the Indian military rule in Kashmir, Ms Roy said, freedom of speech was non-existent and human rights abuses were routine. Elections were rigged and the press controlled.

She said the lives of Kashmiris were made miserable by gun-totting security personnel who harassed and terrorised people with impunity, adding that disappearances were almost a daily occurrence as also kidnapping, arrests, fake encounters and torture. Mass graves have been discovered and the conscience of the world remains unstirred.

The outspoken activist, who surprised the audience with her candour, called for demilitarising Kashmir as a step towards peace in the region. “Why the international community doesn’t see that when you have two nuclear-armed states, like Pakistan and India, there couldn’t be a better thing than a buffer state like Kashmir between them, instead of it being a conflict that is going to spark a nuclear war.”

Ms Roy accused US President Barack Obama of stepping back from calling for a solution of the Kashmir issue after initially supporting it, but relenting after seeing `consternation’ in India over his remarks.

“He (Mr Obama) hasn’t said a word about Kashmir since,” she said, adding that the US president was more interested in selling military aircraft and Boeings to India.

The apathy towards Kashmir, especially in the western world, Ms Roy said, was because of their pursuit of commercial interests in India where they were more eager to “sell their goods than human rights”.

She said India had also successfully used the argument that if it gave up Kashmir another Islamic state would emerge — a prospect the West feared. “That’s why India had made no effort to bring back to the valley Kashmiri Pandits who fled to camps in New Delhi at the height of the 1998 uprising in the state. Aren’t 700,000 troops enough to protect the Pandits?”

She said so little was known about the atrocities being committed by more than half a million Indian troops, the continuing repression and indignities let loose on Kashmiri men, women and children.

More than 700,000 troops were concentrated in the tiny valley, with checkpoints at every nook and corner of Kashmiri towns and cities. The huge Indian presence, she added, was in sharp contrast with 160,000 US troops in Iraq.

Ms Roy alleged that Indian army or security personnel were killing young children, adding that Kashmiris were not radical Islamists or jihadists as India portrayed them. She deplored the Indian government’s attempts to demonise Kashmiris who were moderate Muslims.

Roy slams world's silence on Indian occupation of Kashmir ...

NEW YORK, Nov 12: Renowned Indian activist and novelist Arundhati Roy has decried the silence of the international community over the ...

www.dawn.com/.../roy-slams-worlds-silence-on-indian-occupation-of- kashmir.html

http://www.dawn.com/2011/11/13/roy-slams-worlds-silence-on-indian-occupation-of-kashmir.html

Part-2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U7g91cXHhs&feature=related

Part3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QbpfUjZkcc&feature=related

What is the Kashmir Issue ? http://pakistan-posts.blogspot.com/p/kashmir.html

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ارون دتی راے*/ترجمہ و تلخیص: اطہر وقار عظیم

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