Courtesy Roger Cohen

ISTANBUL — “Iran is the center of terrorism, fundamentalism and subversion and is in my view more dangerous than Nazism, because Hitler did not possess a nuclear bomb, whereas the Iranians are trying to perfect a nuclear option.”

Benjamin Netanyahu 2009? Try again. These words were in fact uttered by another Israeli prime minister (and now Israeli president), Shimon Peres, in 1996. Four year s earlier, in 1992, he’d predicted that Iran would have a nuclear bomb by 1999.

You can’t accuse the Israelis of not crying wolf. Ehud Barak, now defense minister, said in 1996 that Iran would be producing nuclear weapons by 2004.

Now here comes Netanyahu, in an interview with his faithful stenographer Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, spinning the latest iteration of Israel’s attempt to frame Iran as some Nazi-like incarnation of evil:

“You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran.”

I must say when I read those words about “the wide-eyed believer” my mind wandered to a recently departed “decider.” But I’m not going there.

The issue today is Iran and, more precisely, what President Barack Obama will make of Netanyahu’s prescription that, the economy aside, Obama’s great mission is “preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons” — an eventuality newly inscribed on Israeli calendars as “months” away.

I’ll return to the ever shifting nuclear doomsday in a moment, but first that Netanyahu interview.

This “messianic apocalyptic cult” in Tehran is, of course, the very same one with which Israel did business during the 1980’s, when its interest was in weakening Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. That business — including sales of weapons and technology — was an extension of Israeli policy toward Iran under the shah.

It’s also the same “messianic apocalyptic cult” that has survived 30 years, ushered the country from the penury of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, shrewdly extended its power and influence, cooperated with America on Afghanistan before being consigned to “the axis of evil,” and kept its country at peace in the 21st century while bloody mayhem engulfed neighbors to east and west and Israel fought two wars.

I don’t buy the view that, as Netanyahu told Goldberg, Iran is “a fanatic regime that might put its zealotry above its self-interest.” Every scrap of evidence suggests that, on the contrary, self-interest and survival drive the mullahs.

Yet Netanyahu insists (too much) that Iran is “a country that glorifies blood and death, including its own self-immolation.” Huh?

On that ocular theme again, Netanyahu says Iran’s “composite leadership” has “elements of wide-eyed fanaticism that do not exist in any other would-be nuclear power in the world.” No, they exist in an actual nuclear power, Pakistan.

Israel’s nuclear warheads, whose function is presumably deterrence of precisely powers like Iran, go unmentioned, of course.

Netanyahu also makes the grotesque claim that the terrible loss of life in the Iran-Iraq war (started by Iraq) “didn’t sear a terrible wound into the Iranian consciousness.” It did just that, which is why Iran’s younger generation seeks reform but not upheaval; and why the country as a whole prizes stability over military adventure.

Arab states, Netanyahu suggests, “fervently hope” that America will, if necessary, use “military power” to stop Iran going nuclear. My recent conversations, including with senior Saudi officials, suggest that’s wrong and the longstanding Israeli attempt to convince Arab states that Iran, not Israel, is their true enemy will fail again.

What’s going on here? Israel, as it has for nearly two decades, is trying to lock in American support and avoid any disadvantageous change in the Middle Eastern balance of power, now overwhelmingly tilted in Jerusalem’s favor, by portraying Iran as a monstrous pariah state bent on imminent nuclear war.

A semblance of power balance is often the precondition for peace. Iran was left out of the Madrid and Oslo processes, with disastrous results. But that’s a discussion for another day.

What’s critical right now is that Obama view Netanyahu’s fear-mongering with an appropriate skepticism, rein him in, and pursue his regime-recognizing opening toward Tehran, as he did Wednesday by saying America would join nuclear talks for the first time. The president should read Trita Parsi’s excellent “Treacherous Alliance” as preparation.

The core strategic shift of Obama’s presidency has been away from the with-us-or-against-us rhetoric of the war on terror toward a rapprochement with the Muslim world as the basis for isolating terrorists.

That’s unsustainable if America or Israel find themselves at war with Muslim Persians as well as Muslim Arabs, and if Netanyahu’s intense-eyed attempt to suck America into a perpetuation of war-on-terror thinking prevails.

The only way to stop Iran going nuclear, and encourage reform of a repressive regime, is to get to the negotiating table. There’s time. Those “months” are still a couple of years. What Iran has accumulated is low-enriched uranium. You need highly-enriched uranium for a bomb. That’s a leap.

Israeli hegemony is proving a kind of slavery. Passage to the Promised Land involves rethinking the Middle East, starting in Iran.

11-17

Courtesy AKT

Damascus, 26 March (AKI) – Around 12,000 Iraqi refugees living in Syria will be resettled in Europe and the United States, according to an official from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Germany, the US, Canada, The Netherlands and other countries, have agreed to host a number of Iraqi refugees in Syria, an unnamed source told Adnkronos International (AKI).

The resettlement of the refugees began in February and the UNHCR is continuing to evaluate tens of thousands of files to establish who has the necessary requirements to qualify for resettlement.

“Germany has agreed to take in 2,500 refugees, and the same with The Netherlands, while the United States 5,000 others,” the official source told AKI.

“Some of the refugees will attend classes that will help them integrate to their new host country.”

The UNHCR source, however, rejected the notion that religion played a role in the selection of candidates.

“There is no preference about this point and among the conditions by host countries there is absolutely no discrimination in this sense,” said the source.

The UNHCR provides food aid to Iraqi refugees living in Syria and emergency financial aid grants of up to 100 dollars a month to many of them, including widows, senior citizens and handicapped people.

Syria hosts almost two million refugees from the strife-torn nation at an annual cost of 1.6 billion dollars. Damascus has appealed to the UNHCR and the international community to guarantee the refugees a dignified life.

11-17

By Geoffrey Cook, MMNS

Orlando–April 3rd–Very few people in the West, who are otherwise aware of the Kashmir conflict, are cognizant that both the Pakistani Autonomous Region of Azad Kashmir and the Indian “State” of Jammu and Kashmir (J & K) have territories attached to them.  Azad has its Northern (high) Areas, and J & K has Ladakh, as well as China which holds a huge chunk of a mainly uninhabited portion of the former Princely State of the former British Colonial power.

Your author was on the e-list, and dialogued with an individual who was campaigning to win the independence of the former small princely state of Hunza from Pakistan, and, thus, would separate it from Azad Kashmir.

Your writer was fortunate to hear Daniela Bredi of Rome (Italy’s) comments here in Central Florida on the deep historical background that only recently led up to the Kargil conflict between the modern nuclear South Asian neighbors of India and Pakistan.  The affair was probably initiated by radicalized Islamist Arabs who had come down from Afghanistan, after the Soviet War, and appropriated the wintry heights above the Indian occupied territory below.  Your scribe does not assume — as many assert in the Occident — that this was a Pakistani conspiracy, but rather it was the initiative of these groups of freelancers who infiltrated over the Durand frontier to attack the Indian Army at the fringes of J & K.  Rawalpindi, then, made a decision that it was within their Generals strategic interests to back up the scheme of these irregulars.

The Professor, whose fieldwork and historical research cover this arena, emphasized that the modern Kargil was once known as the independent Muslim “Kingdom” of Purig, but today is an annexed District of Ladakh which is administered through occupied Kashmir.  The “District” of modern Kargil, the historical Purig, is a complex of high mountain valleys whose population is 80% Muslim.  Therefore, it is claimed by Pakistan due to its religion although that had nothing to do with the recent belligerence.

Ladakh other District is mainly Mahayana Buddhist.  Geographically Ladakh lies upon the Tibetan Plateau, and their culture is identical to Lhasa’s, and they look to the Dalai Lama’s government in Dharmsala for political and noetic leadership.  They, also, resent the Indian occupation, for New Delhi has instituted a similar policy as Peking has done to Tibet Major; i.e., making developmental improvements (such as irrigation that has made this high desert “bloom), but have settled their retired soldiers there Indianizing the Region; and, thereby, peripherializing the Ladkhis into a minority within their own land.

The Islamic people came into what is now the second District of the territory of Ladakh from Kashmir Proper (i.e., the Vale).  Since the raise of the Islamic Republic, the people of Kargil (Purig) were never under the sway of Islamabad.  There are two reasons for this:  When Ladakh was ceded to British India, they were already under Leh having been conquered by the Ladakhis in a past century.  Thus, when this region was divided by the Line of Control (LoC) – as finally determined by the Simila Agreement in 1971 — Ladakh was on the Indian side of the divide.  In one District the majority of Ladkhi society is Buddhist.  Yet, even in the Islamic District, the Muslims look to the Dalai Lama for political guidance, too. 

A mixed Muslim-Buddhist society adhered together without rancor until the British withdrew in 1947.  Upon the outburst of the protracted Kashmir struggle, the Buddhists became more assertive.  Accordingly, the Muslims began looking towards their cousins in the Vale as a political buttress even though in their immigration into the Mountains, they had taken up some Shia customs while those in the Valley remained staunchly Sunni.

Presently, India herself is seriously considering dividing “their” Administered State of Kashmir and Jammu into three autonomous regions based upon religion – the Islamic Vale, the Hindu and Sikh Jammu and Ladakh as a “Buddhist” Region.  Of course, this would lead to an uncertain political future for the present Islamic District of Kargil.  It is apparent that tensions would arise between the traditional Buddhists and Hindu settlers with the Muslim minority in the negotiations for any possible Constitution for a potential future Autonomous Region of Region of Ladakh. 

11-17

This is the introduction to a book by Harun Yahya, The Secrets of the Hypocrites.

Introduction

Among the people there are some who say, “We believe in Allah and the Last Day,” when they are not believers. They think they deceive Allah and those who believe. They deceive no one but themselves, but they are not aware of it. There is a sickness in their hearts and Allah has increased their sickness. They will have a painful punishment on account of their denial.

Al-Baqara: 8-10

To most people, the word hypocrite does not mean much. Some interpret it as meaning “two-faced” or “liar,” as they use it in everyday speech, but remain unaware of its significance in the Qur`an. People with some knowledge of religion, on the other hand, think of the hypocrites as a group of deniers who mainly lived at the time of our Prophet (May Allah bless him and grant him peace [s]).

The fact is, the hypocrites are a group whom Allah mentions in hundreds of verses of the Qur`an and He reminds us to be on our guard against them. From the Qur`an, we also learn that hypocrites as a group are not encountered only infrequently, but on the contrary, they are “organized” within every community of believers.

When we look into the Qur`an, we can see that this rule applies to all times: to the followers who accompanied the Prophet Musa (peace be upon him [as]), to those who believed in the Prophet Sulayman (as), to the community of the Prophet Ibrahim (as), to that of our Prophet (s) who lived 1,400 years ago—in short, whatever Muslim community the Qur`an mentions, one can see that there were hypocrites within it. That is because, as the verse reveals, ”This is Allah’s pattern with those who passed away before. You will not find any alteration in Allah’s pattern” (Surat al-Ahzab: 62), Allah tests every community of believers in similar ways. If there is any community of believers, then inevitably there will be a group of hypocrites within it. This is an unchanging law of Allah.

For that reason, Allah reveals in many verses of the Qur`an the characteristics of this community that represents a danger to believers. And therefore, hypocrites are one of the kinds of people most often described in the Qur`an.

These people are able to live, sometimes for many years, among those sincere believers who totally dedicate their lives to Allah. They pretend to be like those who struggle on His path, dedicating their lives and property. But in fact, they are nothing of the sort and are concerned solely with their own interests. This group has been seen in every true and honest community of believers throughout history. Indeed, as stated above, the Qur`an provides a great deal of information about the hypocrites in the communities of many prophets, including Prophet Muhammad (s).

In this book, we shall be examining one by one the characteristics of hypocrites, with the details set forth in the Qur`an. We shall then turn our focus on self-satisfaction, a major defect that hypocrites suffer from.

As later chapters will consider in detail, self-satisfaction is one of the most important distinguishing features of hypocrites. Anyone with a hypocritical character imagines himself to have no need of anything and to be always on the right path. For that reason, as revealed in the verses, “No indeed! Truly man is unbridled seeing himself as self-sufficient” (Surat al-‘Alaq: 6-7), their unbridled nature and denial constantly increase. Since they regard themselves as superior to others and independent of all needs, they are unable to submit to the commandments of Allah or to take advice.

But the better to understand the true character of the hypocrites and their perverted logic, we first need to grasp the difference between the hypocrite and the typical denying personality.

The Difference between Deniers and Hypocrites

But most people, for all your eagerness, are not believers.

Surah Yusuf: 103

As the above verse tells us, most people do not have faith. Those who do not believe in Allah have always constituted the majority on Earth. This group, known as “deniers,” includes those who openly deny Allah, idolaters and all those with sickness in their hearts, as well as hypocrites. The one characteristic they share in common is that they do not fear Allah as they should and live their lives far removed from His book. However, there is one group among the deniers listed above whom Allah says are “in the lowest level of the Fire.” Surat an-Nisa’: 145

So what is the difference that makes the hypocrites so much worthy of punishment than other deniers?

A denier does not believe in Allah and totally rejects His existence—together with moral values and the Qur`an, of course. A hypocrite, on the other hand, does not deny Allah directly, but claims that he believes in His religion and the Qur`an. In contrast to the deniers who openly declare their rejection of Allah, the hypocrite conceals his denial and gives the impression of being a believer. He will claim to have faith and to fear Allah. Through His verses, however, Allah reveals that a hypocrite does not tell the truth and that the true faith of a believer is absent from his heart. In Surat al-Baqara, it is stated that:

Among the people there are some who say, “We believe in Allah and the Last Day,” when they are not believers.

Surat al-Baqara: 8

Since the hypocrite claims to have faith, he is to be found among the community of sincere believers. He will sometimes spend his entire life among them. But since he conceals his denial, he constantly seeks conflict among believers, desiring to harm those who truly believe in Allah and to cause them to make concessions regarding their belief. This conflict-producing characteristic of hypocrites is revealed in the Qur`an:

When the hypocrites and people with sickness in their hearts said, “What Allah and His messenger promised us was mere delusion.”

Surat al-Ahzab: 12

If they had been overrun from every side, and had then been asked to revert to disbelief, they would have done so and hesitated very little about it.

Surat al-Ahzab: 14

Despite all his denial, the hypocrite will never come out and openly declare “I am a denier.” On the contrary, he will claim to have an exceedingly high level of taqwa, or heedfulness. In his view, believers are on the wrong path and he, himself, is on the true one. He maintains that his aim, therefore, is to encourage believers towards the true path. This is another one of the hypocrites’ methods of instigating corruption.

11-17

By Dr. Aslam Abdullah, Editor-in-chief of TMO

Responding to a question about taking an American as a hostage, one of the Somali pirates told a news reporter, “We do not kill people because we are Muslims. We are peaceful.” What a pitiful declaration of faith by a pirate who indulges in criminal acts.

The statement is not an isolated expression of one’s thinking. It gives an insight into the mind of a number of Muslims who believe that their faith is a a combination of a few rituals and few holy words without having any reflection on the character and behavior of an individual.

Some Muslims tend to believe that by offering a few rituals, observing a few dietary rules and giving preferences to certain dress code, their commitment to God is complete. They do not view Islam as a way of life reflecting every aspect of their life. To them, it does not matter how their relationship with their spouses or children are, or how do they respond to the needs of their neighbors or how do they conduct their business. To them, praying five times a day and wearing a certain dress are more than enough to fulfil one’s obligation to God.

The Somali pirate’s statement is not different from the attitude of those who have total disregard to God’s guidance in their public life and dealings.

In fact, this attitude is the direct outcome of the teachings that many of our religious leaders offer to Muslims. They put emphasis on the form while neglecting the contents. They are very strict on issues such as on the length of a beard or a trouser or the width and girth of a scarf, etc., but they are unconcerned about the way a Muslim treats hi fellow Muslim brother or sister, or the manners towards one’s family members or the duties towards the country and the community or the relationship with non-Muslims. Islam is not a religion of mantras or a few fixed formulas. It is a manifesto for one’s life.

It invites people to maintain a balance in their life by following rules that benefit them alone. For instance, when it declares salat or prayer an obligation, it means that prayers will bring about a change in the behavior and attitude of the people.

It means prayers will not be mechanical, routing exercise, rather it will be viewed as part of a training to discipline oneself so that one is always conscious of God’s presence in every aspect of one’s life. If prayer does not produce that result then it is not effective as declared by Prophet Muhammad (s) in one of his sayings.

It is this attitude of separating divine guidance from real life that has created an imbalance in our lives, both individual and communal. When we say that God’s domain is only the masjid, or His power is confined to matters that deal with spirituality, then we are assuming that in matters pertaining to business and relationship, we can act on the basis of our whims and desires or individual interests.

This is fundamentally opposed to the Divine teachings that declare emphatically that His Guidance is meant to be followed in all aspects of life, specially in areas that involve other people. One of the main reasons of disintegration of many our communities is this dichotomy that many of us manifest. The importance of God is realized only in situation that we realize, we cannot handle on the basis of our thoughts actions. Otherwise, God is conveniently ignored. The attitude exemplified by the pirate deserves to be challenged and questioned because Islam is not a license to do whatever one can as long as certain rituals are observed.

11-17

Courtesy Stewart Dougherty

Fifty years ago, on March 23, 1959, Ian Fleming’s novel, Goldfinger was published to great popular acclaim. In the movie released five years later, arch villain Auric Goldfinger attempts to detonate a nuclear device inside the gold depository at Fort Knox, radioactively contaminating the nation’s gold reserves for decades and making them untouchable. Goldfinger’s motive is to drive up the value of his personal gold holdings. He has deposited 20 million British Pounds’ worth of gold in Amsterdam, Caracas, Hong Kong and Zurich, and estimates that the value of his bullion will increase by ten times after the U.S. gold supply is neutralized. So he stands to profit by his crime in the amount of 180 million British Pounds, or $504 million at the then conversion rate of $2.80 per Pound.

The book and subsequent movie were blockbuster successes. The world was gripped by Goldfinger’s daring scheme, dubbed “Operation Grand Slam,” and its larger-than-life mastermind and villain. People viewed Goldfinger’s plan as the boldest criminal adventure of all times, at least as of that time.

In the 1964 movie, Goldfinger delivered a stirring address to several U.S. gangsters he sought to enlist as partners. He exclaimed: “Man has climbed Mount Everest, gone to the bottom of the ocean. He’s fired rockets at the moon, achieved miracles in every field of human endeavor – EXCEPT CRIME!”

What a difference fifty years make. In the context of today’s metastasizing epidemic of financial crime, Goldfinger’s $504 million theft could only be regarded as completely insignificant. Crime has not merely climbed Mount Everest, it has been launched to Mars.

On March 19, 2009, nearly 50 years to the day after the publication of Goldfinger, Neil Barofsky, Special Inspector General of the TARP Programs (SIGTARP) made the following comments in testimony presented to the United States House Ways and Means Committee:

“We stand on the precipice of the largest infusion of Government funds over the shortest period of time in our Nation’s history. History teaches us that an outlay of so much money in such a short period of time will inevitably attract those seeking to profit criminally. If, by percentage terms, some of the estimates of fraud in recent government programs apply to the TARP programs, we are looking at the potential exposure of hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money lost to fraud.”

Barofsky repeated this warning in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee on March 31, 2009. Nothing had occurred in the 12 days since his prior testimony to change his mind that potential TARP fraud was in the “hundreds of billions of dollars.” So much for Goldfinger and his previous arch-villain status. Time turned him into a piker, and the hurricane of history hurled him aside.

A universal fact is that all life forms seek to expand and thrive. This applies not just to the organisms of the human body and natural world, but also to the organisms of the human mind. Just as the forces of good seek to prevail, so do those of evil. Avarice, theft and corruption are life forms, just like restraint, honesty and truthfulness. They all strive for greatness, triumph and glory.

When then-Treasury Secretary Paulson first proposed the $700 billion TARP 1 Program in September, 2008, a collective sense of incredulity gripped America, and the world. The dollar amount of the request was astonishing, and Congress’s initial response to the proposal was a flat out “No.” Faced with defeat, Paulson arranged a closed-door session with top Congressional representatives. During that meeting, he outlined a “nuclear winter” scenario if the $700 billion funding request were denied. Shaken by Paulson’s predictions, which included bank closures, empty ATMs, mass unemployment and social chaos, Congress did an about-face and approved the enormous $700 billion plan.

At the time, $700 billion appeared to be a staggering and surely-adequate amount of money to fix the nation’s banking and economic problems. Only a tiny number of economic experts, including Nouriel Roubini of NYU, predicted that the cost of the bailout would ultimately be measured in many trillions of dollars, not mere hundreds of billions.

Now, only six months later, direct and indirect bailout costs exceed $13 trillion dollars, more than eighteen times the original, then-huge amount approved for TARP 1. And bailout costs are escalating as the economy continues to contract, and, in certain sectors, crater.

To put these numbers in perspective, the United States of America, or, more precisely, The American people, are said to own 261 million ounces of gold, supposedly stored in the same Fort Knox vault that Goldfinger found so appealing. At $1,000 per ounce, the people’s gold has a value of $261 billion dollars. TARP 1 alone has cost 270% of the entire value of that singular, tangible American asset. The total $13 trillion bailout cost thus far is 4,980% of the value of America’s gold asset. Fort Knox has been robbed, not by Goldfinger, but by the cheats who concocted the nuclear financial waste that has crippled America’s financial system and economy.

To place the numbers in additional perspective, Special Inspector General Barofsky now tells us that something close to the entire amount of TARP 1 (“hundreds of billions of dollars,” in his words, and likely around $500 billion by our estimates), will be consumed by fraud, or stolen. In other words, roughly twice the value of the nation’s entire gold supply will be wiped out not by the original fraud, but by the fraud associated with the bailout money designated to deal with the original fraud. Fraud upon fraud upon fraud, in a mind-numbing daisy chain of crime, corruption and greed.

While Mr. Barofsky spoke about anti-fraud measures the government hopes to implement to mitigate this fraud, it is difficult to have much confidence in them, particularly since he also referred in the same speech to problems the government is experiencing in hiring competent auditors and regulators to oversee bailout spending. After 25 years of regulatory failure, from the S&L crisis, to the dot con scandals, to epic fraud at Enron, Worldcom, and other major corporations, to blatant, illegal Comex precious metals short concentrations and related price manipulation, to the Madoff Ponzi scheme, to the current banking and credit emergencies, it is clear that government has simply been incapable of getting ahead of financial fraud in America. In each and every case cited above, government regulators arrived at the crime scenes long after the frauds had been committed and the money had disappeared. The defrauded have been fortunate to receive fractions of pennies for each lost dollar. Sadly, financial regulation in America is an after-the-fact phenomenon. So Mr. Barofsky’s fraud warnings must be taken seriously.

The current cost of the bailout and associated guarantees now exceeds $13 trillion, with no end in sight. The expenditure of every bailout dollar is 100% experimental because the nation has never before faced a financial catastrophe like this, and is therefore flying blind. Given the bailout cost, it is now clear that the equivalent of the nation’s entire economy has been plundered. While in the past thieves have concentrated their criminal energies on robbing a bank, art museum, or Brink’s vault, the criminals behind our current crisis decided to steal a first-world nation’s entire economy. They committed the unthinkable: the theft of a nation.

Sensors in retail stores can detect a package of chewing gum being shoplifted. Payment verification systems can spot a bad check in a tenth of a second. Credit card authorization programs can instantaneously detect an irregular spending pattern, and shut down a compromised account. “Eye in the sky” casino cameras can zoom in on a dealer lifting a $1.00 chip, or a blackjack player rearranging cards to personal advantage. IRS computers, watching a nation of 300 million people, can pick up in seconds a $50.00 mismatch between 1099- and tax return-reported interest income. Fraud detection has become an advanced science and practice throughout the world that can prevent even the smallest of crimes.

But for more than a decade, a multi-trillion dollar Wall Street fraud raged with such virulence and intensity that it has crippled not just the economy of the world’s most-powerful nation, but now the global economy. United States regulatory authorities, funded by taxpayers at a cost of billions of dollars per year, never spotted anything, until the entire system, according to Paulson, nearly collapsed.

Is this plausible? Is it plausible that an entire economy could be looted for a decade without regulators, politicians, or banking insiders knowing or doing anything about it? Does that make any kind of logical sense whatsoever? Or is this the colossal kind of crime that billions of dollars’ worth of political contributions and lobbyist influence, combined with epic greed, criminality, money know-how and malicious intent, can buy?

In a time of crisis, it is difficult for people to see the obvious. They mourn for better days, which have disappeared. They cling to hope that their circumstances, which have collapsed, will miraculously improve. But it is false hope, because the vacuum of the future has inhaled their past, and that past is never coming back.
What is obvious is this: the creation out of thin air of billions of dollars of bailout money, “hundreds of billions of dollars” of which will be stolen by the same criminals who looted the country in the first place, cannot re-start an economy whose capital has been stolen. There is a saying: “If you keep doing what you have been doing, you will keep getting what you have been getting.” And that is what is in store for America, more of the same, unless we fundamentally reassess our approach to this crisis.

If knowledge sets one free, the first thing the people need to know now is that the current economic emergency was not an accident; it was a crime. It was the theft of a nation, and the victims are its people.

Accepting this, they must respond. They must reconsider every idea they have about money, financial security, and the competence of the state to protect their welfare. This process inevitably will result in a paradigm shift on the subject of money. It will lead to the adoption by the people of a new reserve currency: the People’s reserve currency. And most likely, they will gravitate to the financial security provided by money that has a 5,000 year history of international value, stability, acceptance and prestige: gold.

From the beginning of civilization, only 5 billion ounces of gold have been produced, in a world of 6.5 billion people, and hundreds of trillions of dollars’ worth of paper currencies and paper assets backed by nothing: in other words, anti-money. The people are going to rediscover economic truth, and in particular, the power of the theory of supply and demand. When they do, the paradigm shift will be enacted, as they replace currencies that have utterly failed them with true money that can restore their financial health and set them free.

11-17

By Ghalib Begg

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

April 8, 2009–CIOM organized a meeting of various community and religious leaders in Dearborn.

Cabinet Minister Frans Timmermans of the Netherlands met with community leaders and imams.  Floris Van Hovell, Counselor for Public Democracy and D.W. Schiff, Consul General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands were also present.

The event was graciously hosted by the Islamic Center of America with the help of our new CIOM Secretary, Hajj Bedoun and our past Chairman-Elect, Hajj Eide Alawan.

Ghalib Begg, Chairman of CIOM, moderated the event and Imam Hassan Qazwini, Imam of CIOM member Masjid, welcomed the guests. It was emphasized that there are strong bonds that connect the Muslim world to the Netherlands, highlighting that over 750,000 Muslims call the Netherlands home and constitute about 5% of its total population, about the same number equal to the Muslim population in Michigan.

Minister Timmermans then thanked the Council and spoke about the necessity for Muslims to dialogue with the respective countries in which they reside.  He also spoke about Islamophobia and the paranoia being spread against Islam in Europe and, in particular, the Netherlands. Minister Timmermans advised Muslims not to pay attention to provocative acts such as the inflammatory movie Fitna.  Minister Timmermans believes that paying attention to these destructive acts only encourages those who commit them by giving them undeserved notariety.

At the end of Miniser Timmermans’s remarks, there was a very honest and open discussion that occurred addressing Muslim-European-Muslim-American relations.  In attendance were, Imam Muhammad Musa, Sh. Ali Suleman Ali, Imam Baqar Berry, Imam Ali Elahi, Imam Dawud Walid, Imam Mustafa El-Turk, Sh. Radwan Baitiya and a number of other Muslim community activsts and leaders of Michigan along with Interfaith Partners, and Chair and CEO of the Michigan Round Table for Diversity & Inclusion.

11-17

DALLAS – TEXAS: The Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA) organized this past weekend their two-&-a-half days Spring Convention at Westin Galleria Dallas. Dr. Syed Samad President; Dr. Zaleef Munir President-Elect; Dr. Manzoor Tariq Secretary; Dr. Saima Zafar Treasurer; Dr. Rukhsana Mahmood President APPNA Alliance; and many senior members of APPNA were all present. Chair APPNA Spring Meeting Dr. Khalid Mahmood, and Co-Chari Dr. Dawood Nasir and Dr. Jalil Khan greeted everyone on the third floor of the hotel, as guests and delegates kept coming in on Friday and Saturday. Special guests included Honorable Consul General of Pakistan Aquil Nadeem, Honorable Mayor of Richardson Steve Mitchell; the City of Richardson Councilperson Candidate Amir Omer; and many more.

Programs included two grand receptions, which were Dinner of Friday Night and APPNA Banquet on Saturday night. In his keynote address, Mr. Aquil Nadeem, Honorable Consul General of Pakistan said: “Since its founding in 1976 by a handful of physicians, AAPNA has taken great strides. It now represents over 15,000 physicians across the Unites States. Today it is the largest and most influential Pakistani group in the United States and has been extremely successful in bringing together Pakistani Americans than any other organization. Although there are several ethnic media news papers and radio stations in places where we have sizable Pakistani community which is a positive thing since this media keeps our community informed about developments in Pakistan; however there is a need for us to have our presence in the English mainstream media including TV, Radio, and Print Media. This presence will help us effectively project our point of view in US where media plays an important role in decision-making process at various government institutions. We should also try to encourage our young Pakistani students to undertake studies in journalism at universities. I deeply appreciate the national spirit and sense of sacrifice exhibited by the APPNA, when the appeal was made to send donations and relief goods for the unfortunate victims of earthquake in Kashmir and NWFP in 2005. As a result of these efforts millions of dollars were donated to relief fund. The APPNA’s generous assistance to the people displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 in US is also highly commendable as it was great step in assimilating two communities.”

Dr. Syed Samad President of APPNA informed about the progress of various working programs of the organization like APPNA MERIT; APPNA SUKOON and APPNA SEHAT. He said there is opportunity for doctors to serve the humanity in Pakistan and work closely with the Obama Administration in President’s Healthcare Initiative (work through community clinics and health fares for the 15% uninsured Americans).

Dr. Zaleef Munir President-Elect said APPNA leadership has to work hard towards uplifting the image of Pakistani-Americans and play a leading role and said she looked forward to returning to the hospitable Texans in 2010 for the national APPNA Convention near Dallas.

Meetings like this one are held three to four times a year in various cities and even countries (upcoming October to be in Australia and New Zealand). These meetings are important to all the doctors, since they receive the Continuing Medical Education (CME) Credits and exchange ideas about new valuable inroads in the world of Health Sciences.

For this meeting, Dr. Mehmooda Nisar was Chair CME. Topics discussed included Pain Control; Revolutions in Preventive Cardiology; EMR; Medical Ethics; Gastrointestinal Bleeding; Mood Disorders and so on. Speakers included Dr. Mohammad Tariq; Dr. Aman Ullah Khan; Dr. Imran Shahab; Dr. Arif Toor; Dr. Azfar Malik; Dr. Syed Asfand Yar Sadiq; Dr. Akram Khan; and many others. Special parallel sessions for Women; Families and Young Professionals Network (YPN) were organized.

For more information about APPNA, once can visitwww.appna.org.

11-17

By Rizwan Jafry

Letter to the Editor R: Anwarul  Islam’s comments (April 4th 2009 edition) about Mr. Syed Aslam’s response to Harun Yahya’s Interview

Mr. Islams comments about Syed Aslams letter were very entertaining.  Mr. Islam’s objections initially seem to be based on his opinion about the tenor of Mr. Aslam’s response and not on the subject matter since he states that he “knows nothing about evolution”.

Mr. Islam then contradicts himself by stating that he has read about evolution in the main stream press and then proceeds to give his opinion on a subject he claims to know nothing about and further derides people with the use of the term “heard mentality” for taking the time and effort to study evolution in a scientific manner.

Mr. Islam please engage brain before engaging mouth.

Rizwan Jafry  (Detroit, MI)