Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s — a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration†and label them as terrorists.
But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.
There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.
Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some†called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,†that he had “blood on his hands,†and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.†But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.
And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.
Exhibit A for the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism is Fox News’s new star, Glenn Beck. Here we have a network where, like it or not, millions of Americans get their news — and it gives daily airtime to a commentator who, among other things, warned viewers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration’s “totalitarian†agenda (although he eventually conceded that nothing of the kind was happening).
But let’s not neglect the print news media. In the Bush years, The Washington Times became an important media player because it was widely regarded as the Bush administration’s house organ. Earlier this week, the newspaper saw fit to run an opinion piece declaring that President Obama “not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself,†and that in any case he has “aligned himself†with the radical Muslim Brotherhood.
And then there’s Rush Limbaugh. His rants today aren’t very different from his rants in 1993. But he occupies a different position in the scheme of things. Remember, during the Bush years Mr. Limbaugh became very much a political insider. Indeed, according to a recent Gallup survey, 10 percent of Republicans now consider him the “main person who speaks for the Republican Party today,†putting him in a three-way tie with Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich. So when Mr. Limbaugh peddles conspiracy theories — suggesting, for example, that fears over swine flu were being hyped “to get people to respond to government orders†— that’s a case of the conservative media establishment joining hands with the lunatic fringe.
It s not surprising, then, that politicians are doing the same thing. The R.N.C. says that “the Democratic Party is dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals.†And when Jon Voight, the actor, told the audience at a Republican fund-raiser this week that the president is a “false prophet†and that “we and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression,†Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, thanked him, saying that he “really enjoyed†the remarks.
Credit where credit is due. Some figures in the conservative media have refused to go along with the big hate — people like Fox’s Shepard Smith and Catherine Herridge, who debunked the attacks on that Homeland Security report two months ago. But this doesn’t change the broad picture, which is that supposedly respectable news organizations and political figures are giving aid and comfort to dangerous extremism.
What will the consequences be? Nobody knows, of course, although the analysts at Homeland Security fretted that things may turn out even worse than in the 1990s — that thanks, in part, to the election of an African-American president, “the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years.â€
And that’s a threat to take seriously. Yes, the worst terrorist attack in our history was perpetrated by a foreign conspiracy. But the second worst, the Oklahoma City bombing, was perpetrated by an all-American lunatic. Politicians and media organizations wind up such people at their, and our, peril.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) – Foreign Affairs Minister Hassan Wirajuda said the visit of Mohamed Elzorkany, Egypt`s assistant foreign affairs minister for Asia, was aimed at boosting bilateral trade cooperation between the two countries.
The bilateral relations between Egypt and Indonesia was limited to the political field so far, and therefore the ties would be expanded to include economic, social and cultural fields.
“The close political relations between Indonesia and Egypt will be intensified and translated into cooperation in other fields, including trade,†Wirajuda said. Elzorkany visited Jakarta as parts of his Asian tour which included China, Mongolia, and Malaysia.
During his two-day visit in Indonesia, the Egyptian official held meetings with Foreign Affairs Minister Hassan Wirajuda, Trade Minister Marie Elka Pangestu, and National Education Minister Bambang Sudibyo.
Elzorkany at a dinner reception hosted by the Egyptian ambassador to Indonesia, here on Monday evening, said that Egypt and Indonesia had big potential to intensify the bilateral cooperation in the trade and investment fields.
Indonesia and Egypt had close bilateral relations and both nations had set up a joint commission to improve cooperation in various fields, especially trade and investment, he said.
Egypt which recorded an economic growth at 7.1 percent last year, was a gate to Africa, Europe and other Arab countries, he said, hoping that Indonesia could use his country`s potential to penetrate those regional markets.
The bilateral trade value of the two countries reached US$1.1 billion, with Indonesia enjoyed a surplus of US$900 million.
Egypt`s exports to Indonesia include phosphates, cotton, fruits, and carpets, while its imports from Indonesia are among other things crude palm oil (CPO), rubber, paper, and tires.
Elzorkany believed that the two nations had huge potentials to achieve progress in the future.
Indonesia and Egypt as developing countries also supported each other in various international forum including in G-15, he said.
ISLAMABAD, June 16 (Reuters) – The Pakistani military said on Tuesday it had unconfirmed reports that a weekend bombing raid in the South Waziristan tribal region wounded Tahir Yuldeshev, a senior Uzbek militant linked to al Qaeda.
“There are reports, but not confirmed, that he was wounded in the strike,†Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas told a news conference on Tuesday.
Pakistani warplanes had targeted compounds on Saturday in Makeen, a village in the mountains where Pakistani Taliban leader and al Qaeda ally Baitullah Mehsud holds sway. The military has been softening Mehsud’s defences before launching an all out offensive on his stronghold in the remote region, as part of a broader campaign to push back a Taliban tide rolling in from the northwestern borders with Afghanistan.
U.S. officials have welcomed Pakistan’s decision to go after Mehsud in Waziristan, a hotbed of Taliban and al Qaeda activity on the border with Afghanistan. Major-General Abbas said the “preparatory phase†of the offensive had begun, but added that it was premature to disclose tactical details.
The army launched a drive against Taliban factions in Swat valley and surrounding areas northwest of Islamabad in late April, and more than 1,300 militants have been killed in that theatre of operations alone.
In the past 24 hours, the military killed 13 militants in Lower Dir and Swat, and lost one soldier, Abbas said.
Together with missile attacks by U.S. drone aircraft, the Pakistani military actions have piled pressure on al Qaeda and the Taliban in areas of northwest Pakistan that they had hitherto regarded as sanctuaries.
Hitting and possibly killing Yuldeshev would mark a major success.
Yuldeshev was a leader in the Islamist militant underground opposed to the communist government in Uzbekistan before and after the break-up of the Soviet Union.
The veteran central Asian jihadi took refuge in Pakistan in the 1990s after fleeing a crackdown on Islamists in his homeland. During this time he forged links with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network.
Yuldeshev shot to prominence in March 2004, when Pakistani forces surrounded his base in South Waziristan, but he escaped while his fighters mounted a fierce defence.
The operation drew world attention because of feverish, but ultimately misplaced speculation that the army had cornered al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al Zawahri.
NEW DELHI: Crisis within Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over its failure to return to power compounded by it remaining 90 seats behind the Congress in new Lok Sabha has raised many questions. It has incited a blame-game within the party with senior party leaders even going public in stating their views on who/what should be held responsible for the party’s poor performance. In Jaswant Singh’s opinion, the party’s failure in “conveying†its message “ended up with diminished electoral support.â€
Suggesting tacitly that BJP should cease banking on its religious-Hindutva campaign to turn voters towards it, he said: “There is a need for ideological distillation of thought. The BJP has to be a current party. It cannot be a party of yesterday. I think there is lack of clarity on what Hindutva means.†Singh made these comments in a television interview.
Sudheendra Kulkarni, a close associate of veteran party leader L.K. Advani, accused second rung of party’s leadership for being a fractured lot and blamed the party extremists for having alienated the Muslim-vote. Some party members have also blamed hardliners for giving too much importance to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as a future prime minister. The same leaders also hold excessive importance given to party-candidate Varun Gandhi’s “communal†speeches as having turned secular voters away from BJP. While this helped Varun win from his constituency- Pilibhit, it spelt loss for the party as a whole, according to them. Senior party leader Yashwant Sinha has gone a step ahead of others in listing the reasons he holds responsible for the party’s defeat in the resignation letter he faxed last week to his party colleagues. Sinha shocked his party colleagues by resigning from all party posts, including that of vice-president, in-charge of Karnataka affairs and as head of foreign affairs cell. Hitting out at party leadership, Sinha demanded resignation of all office bearers of party and Parliamentary Party, as party owes “collective responsibility†for its defeat in Lok Sabha elections.
Describing his “little euphoria†over his victory, for which he had worked very hard, from Hazaribagh (Jharkhand) as “short-lived†as BJP failed to return to power, Sinha emphasized that party must analyze reasons of its performance. “One would like to understand voting behavior of minorities, first-time voters, women, scheduled castes and tribes, urban middle class, government employees and most importantly, farmers and industrial workers in this election. Which is the vote bank we have lost? Which is the vote bank we have gained? And finally, an analysis of factors which helped the Congress Party increase its tally from 145 seats in the last election to 206 in this,†Sinha stated.
Blaming party leaders for not deliberating over BJP’s defeat, Sinha said: “Our reluctance to introspect and introspect comprehensively and openly is unacceptable to a large number of people within the party. So is rat race for posts.†“If the responsibility is collective, as I have often heard you say, then all of us should jointly share responsibility for our defeat. Let the party implement its own Kamraj Plan under which all office bearers of party and Parliamentary Party should resign from their posts which then should be filled up through process of election laid down by our constitution,†Sinha said.
Sinha credited Advani for having set a “fine example of accountability†by initially declining to accept post of Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha. Advani agreed only after being persuaded by party leaders. In an apparent attack on leaders like Arun Jaitley and Kulkarni (Advani’s close associate), who have “drawn their conclusions, apportioned blame and given themselves a clean chit,†Sinha said: “It appears as if some people in the party are determined to ensure that principle of accountability does not prevail so that their own little perch is not disturbed.â€
“We failed to carry out a review after our defeat in last election,†he said. “I am getting a sinking feeling that once again there is a conspiracy of silence. We are shying away from pinpointing our weakness and fixing responsibility. We are hoping that time shall heal our wounds,†Sinha said.
Interestingly, “news†about Sinha’s resignation came in just when party President Rajnath Singh was addressing a press conference (June 13). When questioned on Sinha’s resignation, Singh said that he had not received the letter and had learnt about it through media. Later, however, party sources said that Sinha’s resignation received by fax had been accepted. Sinha has resigned only from the party posts he held and not from the party.
On “disarray†in party leadership, Singh said: “The media reports are far from truth. The leadership stands united and the party is united in analyzing outcome of elections that have not come up to its expectations.†BJP will hold brainstorming session on election performance in August after budget session, Singh said. “Henceforth all party leaders and functionaries should refrain from formally or informally sharing their views and inputs outside party forums such as media or any other platform about internal deliberations within the party†that “might negatively impact image of the party, failing which they will invite disciplinary proceedings against themselves,†Singh said.
Amid the backdrop of BJP’s internal crisis, it has also been suggested that party should change its name and also its constitution. There is, however, no doubt that the BJP leaders have been forced to finally accept that they erred in adding a communal touch to their campaign by the importance they gave to Varun and Modi. They have also silently come to terms that negative-campaign, blaming Manmohan Singh as a “weak†Prime Minister and use of communal card bears little relevance for today’s Indian voter. Besides, with more than three-dozen parties in the present Lok Sabha, it is time the BJP accepted that what appeals to the party and its hardliners should not be expected to hold the same importance for the voters. The voter’s decision would be based by what holds greater significance in his/her political calculations. If BJP’s political agenda does not appeal to the voter, he/she has other parties to turn to. The BJP leaders need to seriously reflect on why they failed to win votes and also what prompted the voters- perhaps deliberately- to support other parties!
Director-General of Kano State Pilgrims Welfare Board, Alhaji Sani Lawal Kofar-Mata says 60 percent of intending pilgrims from Kano have already acquired the mandatory e-passports for this year’s hajj in Saudi Arabia.
Kofar-Mata, who spoke with newsmen in Kano yesterday on the board’s preparation for the upcoming pilgrimage, said the high level of awareness of the Kano people was responsible for the progress attained in the area of passport.
He said Kano was allocated 7,000 hajj seats for this pilgrimage by the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), saying the number of the seats allocated to the state was quite enough and that his board would not ask for more seats because of the difficulty in managing a large number of pilgrims in Saudi Arabia.
All the seats, according to him, had already been sold through the state’s hajj saving scheme and direct sale of the seats. He described the process for the sale of the seats as transparent because each of the 44 local government areas got its own share of the seats.
Kofar-Mata said unlike in the past where the seats were being allocated to the councils’ center officers for sale to the prospective pilgrims, the seats are now directly under the control of councils’ chairmen.
He expressed satisfaction with officials of Kano immigration office for their cooperation and understanding in processing and issuing e-passports to the intending pilgrims from the state.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Immigration Service has flagged-off the issuance of e-passport for this year’s pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia for Zone B comprising Kano , Kaduna , Sokoto and Zamfara states in compliance with directive of Minister of Interior Mr. Godwin Abbe.
Flagging-off the event in Kano, Assistant Comptroller General of Immigration Zone B Mr. A R Kolade assured of a hitch-free exercise, and that only Nigerians would get the passport. He said the service has enough passport acquisition cameras and good computer production system to meet up any expected pressure, saying the passport will be issued to all in good time for issuance of visa by the Saudi Embassy.
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States on Tuesday added six African countries to a blacklist of countries trafficking in people, and put US trading partner Malaysia back on the list.
Chad, Eritrea, Niger, Mauritania, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe were added to the list in the annual report, which analyzed efforts in 173 countries to fight trafficking in humans for forced labor, prostitution, military service and other reasons.
Staying on the blacklist list are US allies Saudi Arabia and Kuwait but also Cuba, Fiji, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, Sudan, and Syria, according to the State Department report for 2009.
Removed from the list were Qatar, Oman, Algeria, and Moldova.
“This is modern slavery, a crime that spans the globe, providing ruthless employers with an endless supply of people to abuse for financial gain,†US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in introducing the report.
The “Trafficking in Persons Report†said “the global economic crisis is also boosting the demand side of human trafficking.â€
The 17 countries on the blacklist could face sanctions, including the withholding of non-humanitarian, non-trade related US aid.
The report said Malaysia fails not only to “fully comply†with minimum standards to eliminate trafficking but “is not making significant efforts to do so.â€
Last year the report elevated Malaysia to a “watch list†from the 2007 blacklist after finding that it was “making significant efforts†to comply with such standards.
The new report said that while the government took early steps to fight sex trafficking, it has yet to fully tackle labor trafficking in Malaysia.
It also said there were “credible allegations,†including those in a Senate report this year, that some immigration officials took part in trafficking and extorting refugees from Myanmar.
Like many African and other poor countries, the report said, Zimbabwe “is a source, transit and destination country for men, women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation.â€
Some of the many Zimbabweans who fled to neighboring countries amid Zimbabwe’s severe economic and political crisis faced “human trafficking,†it said. It charged that members of Zimbabwe’s military were involved in trafficking.
Chad “showed no results in enforcing government policy prohibiting recruitment of child soldiers,†the 320-page report said.
The government of Niger “demonstrated marginal efforts to combat human trafficking, including traditional slavery, during the last year,†it said.
“The government of Mauritania made inadequate efforts to raise awareness of trafficking during the last year,†it added.
Eritrea showed no progress in prosecuting or punishing traffickers, while Swaziland showed no effort to do the same.
The report said Saudi Arabia and Kuwait admit men and women from Asian and African countries to work as domestic servants or other low-skilled laborers, but then subject many to “involuntary servitude.â€
It added that Saudi Arabia made “no discernible efforts†to punish or prosecute traffickers, although Kuwait “demonstrated some progress†in punishing them.
North Korea does not recognize or make any attempt to identify trafficking victims, it said. Nor does it make any effort to prosecute perpetrators.
But another longstanding blacklist member Myanmar showed some progress to fight cross-border trafficking as well as limited efforts to investigate and prosecute internal trafficking, it said.
Fiji, described as a source country for child laborers and prostitutes, showed no significant efforts to protect victims or prosecute perpetrators, it said.
GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are being “treated more like animals than human beings,†former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said on Tuesday.
On a visit to the enclave, he condemned Israel’s January bombardment of Gaza and its continuing trade blockade, which he said forbids even children’s toys.
“I understand that even paper and crayons are treated as a security hazard,†he told Gazans at a local United Nations office. “I sought an explanation of this when I met with Israeli officials and I received none, because there is no explanation.â€
Carter, 84, has spent far more years as a human rights activist than he did in the White House from 1977 to 1981. He is easily the most outspoken former U.S. president on the Middle East conflict, and seen by many Israelis as a harsh critic.
He ignored a U.S. government ban on dealings with Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas and had talks with its leaders.
Israel tightened a blockade on Gaza in 2007 when Hamas took control after routing rival Fatah forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas, who favors a peace deal with Israel. In late December, Israeli forces bombed then invaded Gaza, devastating its already battered infrastructure.
Since then, Israel has blocked imports of steel, cement and other goods to the population of 1.5 million Palestinians, saying Hamas could use many items for military purposes.
Carter, a Democrat, said he had seen for himself there had been almost no reconstruction in Gaza over the past five months.
“Never before in history has a large community like this been savaged by bombs and missiles and then been deprived of the means to repair itself,†he said.
DAMASCUS (Reuters) – U.S. envoy George Mitchell discussed on Saturday Washington’s Middle East peace efforts with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, marking a further thaw of relations between the two countries.
“We are well aware of the many difficulties … yet we share an obligation to create conditions for negotiations to begin promptly and end successfully,†Mitchell, President Barack Obama’s Middle East envoy, said after the meeting.
His visit to Syria was preceded by talks between U.S. and Syrian security officials in Damascus on Friday that included discussions on Iraq, sources in the Syrian capital said.
A U.S. embassy official said the meeting was between a “military-led†U.S. team and a Syrian delegation. The official declined to give further details.
Relations between Syria and the United States improved after Obama took office in January and U.S. officials said he was committed to seeking a peace deal between Syria and Israel as part of an overall Middle East peace deal.
“Syria has an integral role to play in reaching comprehensive peace,†Mitchell said.
The Syrian government, however, remains under U.S. sanctions, partly because of what the United States describes as a Syrian role in helping insurgents infiltrate Iraq. Obama renewed the sanctions last month and said Syria still posed a threat to U.S. interests.
A big reason for the reliability of an area’s water system is the water tower. You see water towers everywhere, especially if you live in a flat area full of small towns. Each water system has one or more towers. In this article, we will look at how water towers work. The next time you drive by a water tower, you will know exactly what it is doing.
A water tower is an incredibly simple device. Although water towers come in all shapes and sizes, they all do the same thing: A water tower is simply a large, elevated tank of water.
Water towers are tall to provide pressure. Each foot of height provides 0.43 PSI (pounds per square Inch) of pressure. A typical municipal water supply runs at between 50 and 100 PSI (major appliances require at least 20 to 30 PSI). The water tower must be tall enough to supply that level of pressure to all of the houses and businesses in the area of the tower. So water towers are typically located on high ground, and they are tall enough to provide the necessary pressure. In hilly regions, a tower can sometimes be replaced by a simple tank located on the highest hill in the area.
A water tower’s tank is normally quite large. A normal in-ground swimming pool in someone’s backyard might hold something like 20,000 or 30,000 gallons (that’s a lot of water!), and a typical water tower might hold 50 times that amount! Typically, a water tower’s tank is sized to hold about a day’s worth of water for the community served by the tower. If the pumps fail (for example, during a power failure), the water tower holds enough water to keep things flowing for about a day.
One of the big advantages of a water tower is that it lets a municipality size its pumps for average rather than peak demand. That can save a community a lot of money.
Say that the water consumption for a pumping station averages 500 gallons of water per minute (or 720,000 gallons over the course of a day). There will be times during the day when water consumption is much greater than 500 gallons per minute. For example, in the morning, lots of people wake up at about the same time (say 7:00 a.m.) to go to work. They go to the bathroom, take a shower, brush their teeth, etc. Water demand might peak at 2,000 gallons per minute at 7 a.m. — there is a big cost difference between a 500-gallon-per-minute pump and a 2,000-gallon-per-minute pump. Because of the water tower, the municipality can purchase a 500-gallon-per-minute pump and let the water tower handle the peak demand. At night, when demand normally falls to practically zero, the pump can make up the difference and refill the water tower.
In most towns, the water people drink comes from either a well, a river or a reservoir (normally a local lake). The water is treated in a water treatment plant to remove sediment (by filtration and/or settling) and bacteria (typically with ozone, ultraviolet light and chlorine). The output from the water treatment plant is clear, germ-free water. A high-lift pump pressurizes the water and sends it to the water system’s primary feeder pipes.
The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin — greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday’s election.
While Western news reports from Tehran in the days leading up to the voting portrayed an Iranian public enthusiastic about Ahmadinejad’s principal opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, our scientific sampling from across all 30 of Iran’s provinces showed Ahmadinejad well ahead.
Independent and uncensored nationwide surveys of Iran are rare. Typically, preelection polls there are either conducted or monitored by the government and are notoriously untrustworthy. By contrast, the poll undertaken by our nonprofit organizations from May 11 to May 20 was the third in a series over the past two years. Conducted by telephone from a neighboring country, field work was carried out in Farsi by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award. Our polling was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
The breadth of Ahmadinejad’s support was apparent in our preelection survey. During the campaign, for instance, Mousavi emphasized his identity as an Azeri, the second-largest ethnic group in Iran after Persians, to woo Azeri voters. Our survey indicated, though, that Azeris favored Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi.
Much commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as harbingers of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of Iranians even have access to the Internet, while 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all age groups.
The only demographic groups in which our survey found Mousavi leading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and graduates, and the highest-income Iranians. When our poll was taken, almost a third of Iranians were also still undecided. Yet the baseline distributions we found then mirror the results reported by the Iranian authorities, indicating the possibility that the vote is not the product of widespread fraud.
Some might argue that the professed support for Ahmadinejad we found simply reflected fearful respondents’ reluctance to provide honest answers to pollsters. Yet the integrity of our results is confirmed by the politically risky responses Iranians were willing to give to a host of questions. For instance, nearly four in five Iranians — including most Ahmadinejad supporters — said they wanted to change the political system to give them the right to elect Iran’s supreme leader, who is not currently subject to popular vote. Similarly, Iranians chose free elections and a free press as their most important priorities for their government, virtually tied with improving the national economy. These were hardly "politically correct" responses to voice publicly in a largely authoritarian society.
Indeed, and consistently among all three of our surveys over the past two years, more than 70 percent of Iranians also expressed support for providing full access to weapons inspectors and a guarantee that Iran will not develop or possess nuclear weapons, in return for outside aid and investment. And 77 percent of Iranians favored normal relations and trade with the United States, another result consistent with our previous findings.
Iranians view their support for a more democratic system, with normal relations with the United States, as consonant with their support for Ahmadinejad. They do not want him to continue his hard-line policies. Rather, Iranians apparently see Ahmadinejad as their toughest negotiator, the person best positioned to bring home a favorable deal — rather like a Persian Nixon going to China.
Allegations of fraud and electoral manipulation will serve to further isolate Iran and are likely to increase its belligerence and intransigence against the outside world. Before other countries, including the United States, jump to the conclusion that the Iranian presidential elections were fraudulent, with the grave consequences such charges could bring, they should consider all independent information. The fact may simply be that the reelection of President Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people wanted.
Ken Ballen is president of Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion, a nonprofit institute that researches attitudes toward extremism. Patrick Doherty is deputy director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. The groups’ May 11-20 polling consisted of 1,001 interviews across Iran and had a 3.1 percentage point margin of error.
CHICAGO, IL– Prof. Inamul Haq was honored with the Community Builders Chicago’s community service award at its annual convention held last week.
Prof. Haq has served several Chicago area Muslim educational institutions in various capacities. His appointments have included a ten year stint as Principal at Universal School in Bridgeview and the Foundation School in Villa Park. He currently teaches at Elmhurst College, IL where he is professor of Islamic Studies. He is also an adjunct professor at Loyola University, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Chicago Theological Union (CTU).
His passion for sharing information on Islam manifests itself through his weekly Friday sermons that he delivers at various area mosques and through his active participation and promotion of interfaith dialogues through the Chicago Theological Union, www.ctu.edu where he serves on the Board of the Cardinal Bernadine Center.
Mr.Inamul Haq is a founder member of the International Strategy and Policy Institute, an Oakbrook based think tank whose mission is to promote the correct understanding of Islam and Muslims in the United States. www.ispi-usa.org He serves on the Chicago Committee of Human Rights Watch, www.hrw.org which has ‘ worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world’.
Mr. Inamul Haq studied at International Islamic University in Islamabad, Pakistan and at Drew University in New Jersey. He has been frequently interviewed by local media, including Chicago Tribune and PBS regarding issues covering Islam and Muslims.
Editor’s Note: The Iraq Special Operations Forces (ISOF) is probably the largest special forces outfit ever built by the United States, and it is free of many of the controls that most governments employ to rein in such lethal forces. Research support provided by the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute, the Center for Investigative Reporting and New American Media. NAM Middle East correspondent Shane Bauer spent early 2009 reporting from Iraq This article was first published in The Nation.
Iraqi soldiers (not ISOF) stand guard during joint operation with US army in Diyala province, 70 miles northeast of Baghdad, May 16, 2009. Along a seam dividing central Iraq from the largely autonomous enclave of Kurdistan, a row is bubbling over which authority owns these Kurd and Arab neighbourhoods, with palm groves and billion-barrel oil fields.
Reuters/Saad Shalash
The light is fading from the dusty Baghdad sky as Hassan Mahsan re-enacts what happened to his family last summer. We’re standing in the courtyard of his concrete-block house, his children are watching us quietly and his wife is twirling large circles of dough and slapping them against the inside walls of a roaring oven. He walks over to his three-foot-tall daughter and grabs her head like a melon. As she stands there, he gestures wildly behind her, pretending to tie up her hands, then pretending to point a rifle at her head. “They took the blindfold off me, pointed the gun at her head and cocked it, saying, ‘Either you tell us where al-Zaydawi is, or we kill your daughter.’â€
“They just marched into our house and took whatever they wanted,†Hassan’s mother says, peeking out the kitchen door. “I’ve never seen anyone act like this.†As Hassan tells it, it was a quiet night on June 10, 2008, in Sadr City, Baghdad’s poor Shiite district of more than 2 million people, when the helicopter appeared over his house and the front door exploded, nearly burning his sleeping youngest son. Before Hassan knew it, he was on the ground, hands bound and a bag over his head, with eight men pointing rifles at him, locked and loaded.
At first he couldn’t tell whether the men were Iraqis or Americans. He says he identified himself as a police sergeant, offering his ID before they took his pistol and knocked him to the ground. The men didn’t move like any Iraqi forces he’d ever seen. They looked and spoke like his countrymen, but they were wearing American-style uniforms and carrying American weapons with night-vision scopes. They accused him of being a commander in the local militia, the Mahdi Army, before they dragged him off, telling his wife he was “finished.†But before they left, they identified themselves. “We are the Special Forces. The dirty brigade,†Hassan recalls them saying.
The Iraq Special Operations Forces (ISOF) is probably the largest special forces outfit ever built by the United States, and it is free of many of the controls that most governments employ to rein in such lethal forces. The project started in the deserts of Jordan just after the Americans took Baghdad in April 2003. There, the US Army’s Special Forces, or Green Berets, trained mostly 18-year-old Iraqis with no prior military experience. The resulting brigade was a Green Beret’s dream come true: a deadly, elite, covert unit, fully fitted with American equipment, that would operate for years under US command and be unaccountable to Iraqi ministries and the normal political process.
According to Congressional records, the ISOF has grown into nine battalions, which extend to four regional “commando bases†across Iraq. By December, each will be complete with its own “intelligence infusion cell,†which will operate independently of Iraq’s other intelligence networks. The ISOF is at least 4,564 operatives strong, making it approximately the size of the US Army’s own Special Forces in Iraq. Congressional records indicate that there are plans to double the ISOF over the next “several years.â€
According to retired Lt. Col. Roger Carstens, US Special Forces are “building the most powerful force in the region.†In 2008 Carstens, then a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, was an adviser to the Iraqi National Counter-Terror Force, where he helped set up the Iraqi counterterrorism laws that govern the ISOF.
“All these guys want to do is go out and kill bad guys all day,†he says, laughing. “These guys are shit hot. They are just as good as we are. We trained ‘em. They are just like us. They use the same weapons. They walk like Americans.â€
When the US Special Forces began the slow transfer of the ISOF to Iraqi control in April 2007, they didn’t put it under the command of the Defense Ministry or the Interior Ministry, bodies that normally control similar special forces the world over. Instead, the Americans pressured the Iraqi government to create a new minister-level office called the Counter-Terrorism Bureau. Established by a directive from Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, the CTB answers directly to him and commands the ISOF independently of the police and army. According to Maliki’s directive, the Iraqi Parliament has no influence over the ISOF and knows little about its mission. US Special Forces operatives like Carstens have largely overseen the bureau. Carstens says this independent chain of command “might be the perfect structure†for counterterrorism worldwide.
Although the force is officially controlled by the Iraqi government, popular perception in Baghdad is that the ISOF–the dirty brigade–is a covert, all-Iraqi branch of the US military. That reading isn’t far from the truth. The US Special Forces are still closely involved with every level of the ISOF, from planning and carrying out missions to deciding tactics and creating policy. According to Brig. Gen. Simeon Trombitas, commander of the Iraq National Counter-Terror Force Transition Team, part of the multinational command responsible for turning control of the ISOF over to the Iraqi government, the US Special Forces continue to “have advisers at every level of the chain of command.â€
In January 2008 the US Special Forces started allowing ISOF commanders to join missions with them and the ISOF rank and file. Starting last summer–when Hassan’s family was attacked–ISOF battalions began launching missions on their own, without American advisers, in Sadr City, where political agreements forbid the Americans from entering. Accusations of human rights abuses, killings and politically motivated arrests have surfaced, including assaults on a university president and arrests of opposition politicians.
The US government has been focused on turning out “as many men in arms as possible, as quickly as possible,†says Peter Harling, senior Middle East analyst at the International Crisis Group. “There has been very little impetus to build checks and controls to prevent abuse. It’s been very much about building up capability without the oversight that could prevent some of the units [from] turning into proxies working for some politician.â€
In Sadr City opposition to the Iraqi government and the US occupation is strong. There is no longer any visible militia presence, but pictures of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr still stick to the US-built concrete walls that enclose the city, and calls to prayer end with a demand for the hastened exit of “the enemy.†There, the ISOF uses a policy of collective punishment, aimed at intimidating civilians, charges Hassan al-Rubaie, Sadrist member of the parliamentary Security and Defense Committee. “They terrorize entire neighborhoods just to arrest one person they think is a terrorist,†he says. “This needs to stop.â€
US Special Forces advisers have done little to respond to allegations of abuse. Civilian pleas, public protests, complaints by Iraqi Army commanders about the ISOF’s actions and calls for disbanding it by members of Parliament have not pushed the US government to take a hard look at the force they are creating. Instead, US advisers dismiss such claims as politically motivated. “The enemy is trying to discredit them,†says Carstens. “It’s not because they are doing anything dirty.â€
On the same night Hassan Mahsan’s house was raided, 26-year-old Haidar al-Aibi was killed with a bullet to the forehead. His family says there was no warning. They tell me how it happened as we drink tea on the floor of their living room, furnished only with thick foam cushions and mournful depictions of the Shiite martyr Hussein. A woman weeps loudly in the corner, the sleeping child of her dead son almost obscured by the folds of her black garments.
Fathil al-Aibi says the family was awakened around midnight by a nearby explosion. His brother Haidar ran up to the roof to see what had happened and was immediately shot from a nearby rooftop. When Fathil, his brother Hussein and his father, Abbas, tried to bring Haidar downstairs, they were shot at, too. For about two hours he lay lifeless on the roof while his family panicked as red laser beams from rifle scopes danced on their windows. “We had tests the next day at the university,†Hussein says. “We didn’t think he would go like this.â€
Down the road, around the same time that night, police commando Ahmed Shibli says he was also being fired on. He illuminates two bullet holes in his house with a kerosene lamp as we talk. The men who busted open his front door called themselves the dirty brigade, he says, and they were carrying American weapons, not the AK-47s or PKCs the National Police use. When they entered, they fired immediately. “It wasn’t a warning shot. They shot at me like they wanted to kill me as I was getting down on the ground. It was like we were first-degree terrorists.†They fired again, he says, fatally shooting his ailing 63-year-old father. As blood poured from the old man’s hip, Ahmed says the men held a gun to his little boy’s head and forced his wife to search the room for the police-issued weapon he had left at work.
Ahmed and his brother were hauled to the outskirts of the city, along with Hassan, where they were lined up with other men in the dark. Hassan insists on substantiating his story by showing me an official complaint issued by a local army commander named Mustafa Sabah Yunis, alleging that an “unknown armed squadron†entered the area and arrested him.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi Army was rushing in to respond to the gunfire, and according to Hussein al-Aibi, these soldiers were shot at as well. He tells me the army got Haidar off the roof and drove him to the hospital. On the way, Fathil says, the vehicle was stopped by a dirty brigade operative, who asked Iraqi Army Major Abu Rajdi where they were going. According to Fathil, Rajdi told the operative, “This is a college student who has nothing to do with anything, and you shot him recklessly.†The operative responded by hitting Rajdi and saying, “Turn around and go back, or we’ll shoot him and we’ll shoot you too.â€
At Haidar’s funeral, Fathil asked Rajdi to testify. “You are a representative of the government, and you saw it all happen,†he told the major. “You saw that he didn’t have a weapon in his hand.†Fathil says the major declined. “This is the dirty brigade,†he recalls Rajdi saying. “We are afraid of them. When we see them, we retreat. If I testify against them, I’ll be killed the next day. They kill and no one will hold them accountable, because they belong to the Americans.â€
Major Rajdi’s fear and distrust of the ISOF are echoed by other members of the regular Iraqi Army. “Sometimes we are surprised when the Special Forces enter,†says Lt. Colonel Yahya Rasoul Abdullah, commander of the Third Battalion of the Forty-second Brigade in Sadr City. “Bad things happen. Some people steal, and some abuse women. They don’t know the people on the streets like us. They just go after their target. We have suffered from this problem.â€
Accounts of older ISOF operations I heard around Baghdad suggest that the Americans may have knowingly allowed violence against civilians. In Adhamiya, long the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency in Baghdad, two hospital employees described their 2006 run-in with the ISOF to me. According to both witnesses, a self-identified ISOF operative named “Captain Hussam†unloaded his machine gun in the Al Numan Hospital after seeing the body of his superior, who had died under the hospital’s care. An American operative with a red beard stood by silently watching. According to one witness, the Iraqi operative demanded his commander’s death certificate, threatening to “torture you, kill you and kill the people of Adhamiya†if they didn’t comply. The witnesses said the eight operatives who entered the hospital were driving Humvees, vehicles that only the Americans and the ISOF use. The next day, Captain Hussam returned, a witness said, offering a box of bullets as an apology.
The effective head of the American ISOF project is General Trombitas of the Iraq National Counter-Terror Transition Team. A towering man with a gray mustache and a wrinkled brow, Trombitas spent nearly seven of his over thirty years in the military training special forces in Colombia, El Salvador and other countries. On February 23 he gave me a tour of Area IV, a joint American-Iraqi base near the Baghdad International Airport, where US Special Forces train the ISOF. As we walk away from the helicopter, he cracks a boyish smile. Though he’s worked with special forces all over the world, he tells me the men we are about to meet are “the best.â€
Trombitas says he is “very proud of what was done in El Salvador†but avoids the fact that special forces trained there by the United States in the early 1980s were responsible for the formation of death squads that killed more than 50,000 civilians thought to be sympathetic with leftist guerrillas. Guatemala was a similar case.
Some Guatemalan special forces that had been trained in anti-terrorism tactics by the US during the 60s later became death squads that took part in the killing of around 140,000 people. In the early 1990s, US Special Forces trained and worked closely with an elite Colombian police unit strongly suspected of carrying out some of the murders attributed to Los Pepes, a death squad that became the backbone of the country’s current paramilitary organization. (Trombitas served in El Salvador from 1989-90 and in Colombia from 2003-2005, after these incidents took place.)
“The standards get looser when the Americans aren’t with [the local special forces], and they can eventually become death squads, which I believe actually happened in Colombia,†says Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo, a book about the hunt for Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar by CIA and US Special Forces. The tactics taught in each country are the same, Bowden says. “They teach the same kind of skills. They use the same equipment.â€
Trombitas told the official blog of the Defense Department that the training missions used in Latin America are “extremely transferable†to Iraq. Salvadoran Special Forces even helped train the ISOF, he tells me. “It’s a world of coalitions,†he says. “The longer we work together, the more alike we are. When we share our values and our experiences with other armies, we make them the same.â€
Trombitas guides me into a warehouse where ISOF operatives, most of them in black masks, have been preparing for our arrival. He walks me through a special display of their American equipment–machine guns, sniper rifles, state-of-the-art night-vision equipment and fluffy desert camo that makes soldiers look like teddy bears. He takes me up a catwalk overlooking a fake house stocked with cartoonish posters of big-breasted women pointing pistols, a couple of real men dressed as “terrorists†with kaffiyehs wrapped around their faces and a 10-year-old boy playing hostage.
As we stand in the observation area, the door explodes. After a minute of constant shooting, the operatives march out with the “terrorists,†the boy and a poster of an ‘80s-style villain, wearing a jean jacket and holding a woman hostage. More than twenty bullet holes are centered on his forehead. “Look at that marksmanship,†Trombitas says, smiling proudly.
Trombitas gets to the issue of human rights before I do. He assures me that US Special Forces take allegations of human rights abuses very seriously–two Iraqi men were let go for prisoner abuse since he took over in August last year, he says–but he won’t comment on specific cases. I raise the issue of accountability and bring up one well-documented mission that caused waves in the Iraqi Parliament: in August the ISOF raided Diyala’s provincial government compound, reportedly with the support of US Apache helicopters. They arrested a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, Iraq’s main Sunni Arab party. They also arrested the president of the university, also a Sunni, and killed a secretary and wounded four armed guards during the night.
I barely get the word “Diyala†out of my mouth before the American operatives standing around us start to grumble nervously and a translator jumps in. “For the reputation of the ISOF, please, let’s cut that off,†he says.
Abdul-Karim al-Samarrai, a member of the ruling United Iraqi Alliance and the parliamentary Security and Defense Committee, says that what happened in Diyala was one of many signs of the prime minister’s bad intentions for the ISOF. “Politicians are afraid because this force can be used for political ends,†he says. In response to outrage from members of Parliament over the arrest of politicians by the ISOF, Maliki, who is officially required to approve every ISOF target, denied any knowledge of the Diyala mission. His claim of innocence raises important questions. If the man who is supposed to be in charge of the ISOF has no knowledge of its missions, then who is ultimately responsible for the force? Was Maliki lying to cover up the fact that he is using the force for political purposes? Or was someone else–namely the Americans–calling the shots?
Diyala was only the first publicized case of possibly politically motivated arrests. In December the ISOF arrested as many as thirty-five officials in the Interior Ministry who were thought to be in opposition to Maliki’s Islamic Dawa Party. This past March the ISOF arrested at least one leader of the Awakening Councils, semiofficial Sunni neighborhood militias that have been increasingly at odds with Maliki over his failure to keep a promise to incorporate the councils into the military or give them other employment.
The Maliki government has developed a “culture of direct control,†says Michael Knights, a Lafer Fellow at the Washington Institute and the head of its Iraq program. Knights visits Iraq regularly and has close contact with the country’s security services. He says the people in charge of the ISOF at the regional levels are “personally chosen loyalists or relatives of Maliki. It reminds me of Saddam.†Knights says that Maliki is only supposed to approve or reject missions that come to him, but occasionally he will “assert his prerogative as the commander in chief and tell the ISOF to do something or not to do something.†Knights raises the possibility that the ISOF will become Maliki’s personal death squad. “The prime minister is looking for re-election, and there are not that many restraints on his ability to target political opponents, as [his government] has been doing with the Sadrists for years now.â€
Samarrai, along with other members of Parliament, is calling for disbanding the Counter-Terrorism Bureau. He says there is no legal basis for an armed brigade to exist outside the control of the Interior or Defense ministry. “People are afraid of the existence of an organization with such dreadful capabilities that reports directly to the prime minister,†he says.
Member of Parliament Hassan al-Rubaie is concerned about the close relationship between the ISOF and the Americans. “If the US leaves Iraq, this will be the last force they will leave behind,†he insists. He is worried that such a powerful and secretive force that is closely tied to the Americans could turn Iraq into a “military base in the region†by allowing the United States to continue to conduct missions in Iraq with the cover of the ISOF. “They have become a replacement†for the Americans, he says.
President Obama has said he plans to increase reliance on the US Special Forces; Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s recent appointment of Stanley McChrystal as commander of Afghanistan suggests that he is keeping his word. From 2003 to 2008, McChrystal was the head of the Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees the Army’s most secretive forces and is responsible for the training of special forces abroad. McChrystal was also commander of US Special Operations Forces in Iraq for five years, during which time, according to the Wall Street Journal, he commanded “units that specialize in guerrilla warfare, including the training of indigenous armies.â€
“The eventual drawdown in Iraq is not the end of the mission for our elite forces,†Gates said in May 2008. Gates hasn’t spoken on the issue since Obama took office; but Obama says he will institutionalize irregular warfare capabilities, and the White House stresses the need to “create a more robust capacity to train, equip and advise foreign security forces, so that local allies are better prepared to confront mutual threats.â€
Bowden says those “local allies†are often used for covert operations. “The United States Special Operations Command cultivates relationships with special forces in other countries because it gives the United States the opportunity of intervening militarily in a covert way,†he says. “The ideal covert op is one that is actually carried out by local forces.â€
As I stand on the tarmac with Trombitas in Area IV, waiting for our helicopter to return and fly us back to the Green Zone, I ask him how long the United States will be involved with the ISOF. “Special forces are special because we do maintain a relationship with foreign forces,†he says. “Part of our theater-engagement strategy is to maintain a relationship with those units that are important to the security of the region and to the world.†As our helicopter appears in the lightly clouded sky, he chooses his next words carefully: “We are going to have a working relationship for a while,†he says.
An internally displaced girl, fleeing from the Swat region, waits for tea at a UNHCR camp 75 miles northwest of Islamabad, June 4, 2009.
REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro
The latest example: Pakistan’s once beautiful Swat Valley has been turned into a battlefield. Last week, Pakistan finally bowed to Washington’s angry demands to unleash its military against rebellious Pashtun tribesmen of Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) – who are collectively mislabeled `Taliban’ in the west. They are not the Afghan Taliban, but it’s convenient for the western media and Pentagon to slap that label on them.
The Obama administration had threatened to stop $1.2 billion annual cash payments to bankrupt Pakistan’s political and military leadership, and block $5.5 billion future aid, unless Islamabad sent its soldiers into Pakistan’s turbulent NWFP along the Afghan frontier and crushed attempts to re-establish Islamic Law and autonomy. Many people in the region want Islamic law because in utterly corrupt Pakistan it represents the only honest and swift judicial system. The only other `law’ available has to be bought.
Pakistan’s army and air force claimed to have killed 1,000 `terrorists’ (read: mostly civilians) and almost emptied the valley of its inhabitants. UN sources now say the operation has created close to 2 million refugees.
Pakistan’s armed forces, who are being paid by the US to fight Pashtun tribes, have scored a brilliant victory against their own people. Too bad Pakistan’s military does not manage to do as well in wars against India. Blasting civilians at home, however, is much safer and more profitable.
Unable to pacify Afghanistan’s Pashtun tribes (again, lumped together as `Taliban’), a deeply frustrated Washington has begun tearing Pakistan apart in an effort to end Pashtun resistance in both nations. CIA drone aircraft have so far killed over 700 Pakistani Pashtun. Only 6% were militants, according to Pakistan’s media, the rest civilians.
Pashtun, also improperly called Pathan, are the world’s largest tribal people. 15,000,000 live in Afghanistan, forming half its population. 26,000,000 live right across the border in Pakistan. Up to 3,000,000 Afghan Pashtun are refugees in Pakistan.
True to their strategy of divide and rule, Britain’s imperialists split the Pashtun by an artificial border, the Durand Line (which became today’s Afghan-Pak border). Pashtun reject this artificial border.
Many Pashtun tribes agreed to join Pakistan in 1947 provided much of their homeland remain autonomous and free of government troops. Pashtun Swat, where Islamic Sharia law was in force, only joined Pakistan in 1969 after assurances of autonomy and religious freedom. As Pakistan’s Pashtun increasingly aided Pashtun resistance in Afghanistan, US Predator drones began attacking them. Washington forced Islamabad to violate its own constitution by sending troops into Pashtun lands. The result was the current explosion of Pashtun anger.
I have been to war with Pashtun and have seen their legendary courage, strong sense of honor, and determination. They are also hugely quarrelsome, feuding, prickly, and notorious for seeking revenge.
One learns never threaten a Pashtun or give him ultimatums. These mountain warriors defied the US by refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden because he was a hero of the anti-Soviet war and their guest. Doing would have violated their ancient code of `Pashtunwali’ that still guides them.
Now, Washington’s ham-handed policies and last week’s Swat atrocity threaten to ignite Pakistan’s second worst nightmare after invasion by India: that its 26 million Pashtun will secede and join Afghanistan’s Pashtun to form an independent Pashtun state, Pashtunistan.
This would rend Pakistan asunder, probably provoke its restive Baluchi tribes to secede, and might tempt mighty India to intervene military, risking nuclear war with beleaguered Pakistan.
The Pashtun of Northwest Frontier have no intention or capability of moving into Pakistan’s other provinces, Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan. They just want to be left alone. Alarms of a `Taliban takeover of Pakistan’ are driven by ignorance or propaganda.
Lowland Pakistanis have repeatedly rejected militant Islamic parties. Many have little love for Pashtun, whom they regard as mountain rustics best avoided. Pakistan’s Islamist parties have traditionally won less than 10% of the national vote.
Nor are Pakistan’s well-guarded nuclear weapons a danger – at least not yet. Alarms about Pakistan’s nukes come from neoconservative fabricators worried about Israel.
The real danger is in the US acting like an enraged mastodon, trampling Pakistan under foot, and forcing Islamabad’s military to make war on its own people. Pakistan could end up like US-occupied Iraq, split into three parts and helpless.
If this continues, at some point nationalistic Pakistani soldiers may rebel against the corrupt generals and politicians on Washington’s payroll.
Equally ominous, a poor people’s uprising spreading across Pakistan – also mislabeled `Taliban’ – threatens a radical national rebellion similar to India’s spreading Maoist Naxalite rebellion.
As in Iraq, ignorance and military arrogance continue to drive US Afghan policy. Obama’s people have no understanding what they are getting into in `Afpak’ than did the Bush administration. They will learn the hard way.
CHICAGO, IL– In his historic address to the Muslim world President Obama made references to the contributions that Muslims have made to America. One of the accomplishments he listed was that an American Muslim “built our tallest building.â€
He was referring to the famed architect Fazlur Rahman Khan, who designed Chicago’s Sear’s Tower. The Dhaka born Khan graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and joined the firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in 1955, made partner there in 1966 and became a U.S. citizen a year later.
He also had several other accomplishments to his name including the John Hancock Center and the Hajj terminal in Jeddah.
In 1998, a street in Chicago was named after him. Bangladesh also put him on a stamp.
The first accredited Islamic college in the US is being planned by an influential Muslim body hoping to produce “a generation of indigenized scholarsâ€.
The management committee from the Zaytuna Institute, which is dedicated to classical Muslim scholarship, last week recommended launching Zaytuna College in autumn 2010. The board of trustees is expected to vote on it later this month.
The college would be open to men, women, Muslims and non-Muslims, and would be on a level comparable to the best religious seminaries and higher education institutions in the US, the brochure says.
The initiative, described as a “Muslim Georgetown,†is backed by widely respected Islamic scholars and clerics across the world, who argue there is a need for institutions that can wed religious texts to a contemporary context.
There are thought to be about 7,000,000 Muslims in the US, and in Cairo last Thursday, President Barack Obama noted that Islam had “always been a part of America’s story.â€
“They have fought in our wars, served in government, they have stood for civil rights, they have started businesses, they have taught at our universities, they have excelled in our sports arenas, they have won Nobel prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic torch.â€
Every state had a mosque and there were more than 1,200 mosques within the country’s borders, Obama said, before adding: “Let there be no doubt, Islam is a part of America.â€
Imam Zaid Shakir, scholar in residence at the Zaytuna Institute, said: “We’re an expanding Muslim community in North America and we don’t have any seminary or college that is endeavoring to produce a generation of indigenized scholars.
“Non-Muslims are free to study here. We are not a closed society or a secretive one. Our goal is to have a 50/50 gender split in the student body. We’re talking about a generation of American Muslim scholars, period.â€
His key concerns, shared by others at Zaytuna, are that there are few scholars who can meet the religious and pastoral needs of the west’s Muslim community and that much of the younger generation has become alienated from the mosque and the religious culture.
Students on the bachelor program will study the Qur’an, jurisprudence, legal theory, theology, hadith science, Islamic spirituality and Arabic. There will also be an emphasis on studying history, literature, philosophy, political science and economics and sociology.
The brochure states: “We see no dichotomy between what is called ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ in the modern world. We believe our students will be able to contextualize Islamic knowledge in a dynamic and productive way.â€
Shakir, an African-American air force veteran who converted to Islam in the 1970s, studied in Syria and Morocco. It is hoped that by obtaining accreditation – a process that can take up to seven years – Zaytuna college will offer a local alternative to those who are thinking of studying overseas. It has even been suggested that its classes in Islamic studies will rival those offered at places such as Yale and Stanford. “We want to be recognized by Al-Azhar [the university where Obama gave his speech] and other educational institutions in the US,†he said.
The initial enrolment will comprise 30 students, with up to 50 students added each year. The operating budget is forecast at $3m for the first year.
The biggest financial overheads will come with the creation of a $30m endowment and $20m for property purchasing. The college will, for a while, work out of rented buildings.
The legendary journeys of the 14th century Muslim traveler Ibn Batuta were monumental to say the least. In 1325 he set out on the Hajj pilgrimage from his native Tangier. After performing his Hajj he continued his journeys in West Africa, Spain, China, the Maldives, and elsewhere. He returned to his native land 29 years and dictated his travelogue which continues to be a classic. No wonder a crater on the moon and a mall in Dubai is named after him as a tribute. Now, a part of his journey is captured on the giant screens of IMAX theaters in ‘Journey to Mecca.’ (http://www.journeytomeccagiantscreen.com/)
IMAX documentaries which have so far covered subjects as varied as Mt. Everest to the deep sea top outer space has accomplished a unique feat in making the sights and sounds of 14th century Islamic civilization to the present day in the making of Journey to Mecca. Shot in Saudi Arabia and Morocco in both English and Arabic, the movie is a visual delight right from the beginning. The film begins with a dramatic cinematic capture of Ibn Batuta’s dream on a starry night seeing the entire Muslim world by traveling on the back of a huge bird—it is a sight to be seen.
After consulting his friends and family, he sets out on his journey determined to travel alone and obtain the highest of rewards. As he sets out towards Egypt he is attacked by robbers only to be freed by their leader who takes into consideration his status as a pilgrim. The robber offers him protection for a fee but later on turns around and becomes his friend. When he urges him to take the easy route, Ibn Batuta remains adamant that he take the road less traveled. “The greater the hardship the higher the reward,†he says. Finding the sea route closed he eventually joins a pilgrim caravan through Syria.
Along the way, he encounters the full sights and sounds of the 14th century Middle East. The colorful spice laden bazaars, the never ending camel trains of pilgrims, the wise old scholar, and the background Arabic and Berber sounds provide a breathtaking experience. The film ends with Ibn Batuta finally reaching Mecca and performing the Hajj. The film ends with a close-up look at contemporary Hajj, showing a whirlpool of pilgrims in all their majestic simplicity. The domed screen of the IMAX theaters adds up to a unique experience.
The narration of the movie is masterfully done by Ben Kingsley, of ‘Gandhi’ fame. The role of ibn Batuta isfaithfully played by theMoroccan actor Chems Al Deen Zinoun. Sadly, he died in an accident last year.
Journey to Mecca opened in Abu Dhabi last year and has since been on screen in theaters in Detroit and Toronto. Its Toronto debut, at Ontario Science Centre, has been such a success its showing has been extended for another four months.
Her throat was slashed and her body riddled with stab wounds. She was left to bleed to death in her newly acquired luxury apartment in Dubai. Her only crime, starting a new life and turning the page on an abusive relationship. The Lebanese pop sensation, Suzanne Tamim, was nearly decapitated in a July 2008 murder drama that has gripped the Middle East for the past year. The story is like something out of one of the sensational Arab dramas that play out across television sets in the GCC. However, this was no drama.
Before her body had even been removed from the scene, there was already a suspect in the form of a playboy Egyptian billionaire named Hisham Talaat Moustafa, said to be a former boyfriend of Tamim’s. Moustafa had a reputation for having closely-knit political ties to Hosni Mubarak’s government and is even a good friend of the President’s son, Gamal. The public never expected him to be arrested or even put on trial for the murder of Tamim. For the most part, the Egyptian elite are seemingly above the law and are never called to account for their actions.
In a trial that has been played out all over Egyptian media for the past several months, justice was finally served this week as the accused, Hisham Talaat Moustafa, was found guilty of hiring a hit man to carry out his deadly plot. The prosecution’s case was wound tighter than a drum and all the sordid details of the murder were brought out for all to see.
The motive was jealousy, as Tamim had ended her relationship with Moustafa and began a new one with a wealthy Iraqi kick-boxer in the months leading up to her death. Moustafa hired a former security officer, named Mohsen el-Sukkary to travel to Dubai with orders to bring back Tamim’s head in order to claim his fee of $2 million dollars. It took less than 12 minutes for the murder to be carried out as el-Sukkary flashed a fake ID in front of her video telecom and said he had some papers for her to sign to secure her new property. Tamim let him in not knowing that it would be the last thing she would ever do.
Following the verdict of guilt, both Moustafa and Sukkary were sentenced to death by hanging. Prior to the sentence being read, Moustafa maintained his innocence as he read from the Holy Quran from behind the bars of the courtroom defendant’s cage. Tamim’s family watched intently as the scales of justice finally tilted in their favor. Family members openly wept when the death sentences were read. The defense plans to appeal the verdict.
Egypt, and by extension most of the Middle East, has a reputation for having a light hand when bringing wealthy businessman to justice for their crimes. The Middle East is primarily comprised of very conservative Muslim governments, however wealth is the primary catalyst which can make even the staunchest critic turn a blind eye and deaf ear. Even in the case of Moustafa, most political commentators have revealed that the only reason that justice was carried out was because of pressure from the Dubai government who has long been trying to shed its own reputation as an ‘anything goes’ playground for the rich and famous. Had another government not been included in the deadly plot, perhaps justice would have remained blind to this man’s sins—he might have gone free.
Iran has found its long-sought-after partner to help develop part of the world’s largest natural-gas field, even as the possibility of linking it to a future pipeline to Europe seemed to rise.
China came out the big winner on June 3 when representatives from the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) met in the Chinese capital and signed a $4.7 billion contract for developing Phase 11 of the South Pars gas field.
South Pars, shared between Iran and Qatar, has estimated gas reserves of some 14 trillion cubic meters, enough to supply Europe’s gas needs for about a quarter of a century.
The CNPC’s gain is the French energy company Total’s loss. In 2004, Total signed a memorandum of understanding with NIOC to develop Phase 11, one of 24 sections that make up the Iranian part of South Pars, and among those with the highest potential.
However, according to Iranian officials, the French company delayed signing the final agreements for too long, despite warnings from Tehran that time was running out. Total said just a few months ago it would not be ready to sign such a contract for some time yet.
Total, in an official statement released on June 3, said it still wants to be part of the deal, but that does not appear to be an option. However, the Iranian government is offering the French company an opportunity to participate in the development of other sections of South Pars and in the production of liquefied natural gas.
NIOC managing director Seifollah Jashnsaz, who was in Beijing for the signing, told reporters he hoped daily production at the site would reach some 50 million cubic meters (some 18 billion cubic meters annually).
The deal is a boon for China because the country’s continued economic growth hinges on access to energy resources. Iran profits not only from the Chinese investment but also from a high-profile agreement that demonstrates Tehran can attract partners to major projects, despite international sanctions.
Meanwhile, in comments that highlight Iran’s potential as an energy exporter, U.S. special energy envoy Richard Morningstar on June 4 left the door open for Iran to participate in the Nabucco pipeline project if relations between Washington and Tehran were normalized.
Nabucco is set to extend from Austria to Turkey’s eastern borders.
However, Morningstar explained clearly that including Iran in the project — an EU-led initiative that Brussels hopes can pipe Caspian and/or Middle East gas from the South Caucasus, across Turkey, and into Europe — without first resolving the issue of Iran’s nuclear-development program could “have a negative effect.†This comes at a time when the new U.S. administration is calling for renewed dialogue with Iran.
Morningstar was speaking in Turkey, which plays a key role in the Nabucco project. Technically, the project description on Nabucco’s website describes the pipeline as “starting at the Georgian/Turkish and/or Iranian/Turkish border.â€
While Nabucco’s route is fairly certain, its sources of gas are not. Nabucco plans to bring some 31 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas annually and hopes to include gas from the Caspian Basin and Middle East in the pipeline.
But so far, Azerbaijan and Egypt seem to be the only committed suppliers — providing only enough gas for the first phase of the project (8 bcm annually).
None of the Central Asian states have made any specific pledges to supply gas for Nabucco. Iraq appears to be interested but that gas is in Iraq’s Kurdish region and the regional government there and central government in Baghdad are not in agreement on all the details of gas sales.
Iran, with the second-largest gas reserves in the world, could fill Nabucco by itself. Nabucco’s website indicates the pipeline’s shareholders envision a day such as the one Morningstar spoke of, when better relations between Iran and the United States remove the obstacles to Iran’s participation in energy-resource development and exports.
Exxon Mobil Corp. said Monday the Turkish government approved an agreement between Exxon and Turkish oil company TPAO to explore two deepwater blocks in the Black Sea.
The move would help Exxon Mobil, the largest U.S. oil company by market value, to expand its presence in the Black Sea, an area considered a frontier for exploration that is becoming increasingly attractive as oil-rich nations around the world become more restrictive.
The Irving, Texas, company said in November it signed an agreement with TPAO, but the deal still needed the blessing of Turkey’s government.
Turkey is a net importer of oil and it is accelerating its efforts to find oil in the Black Sea and become energy independent. The government hopes that the Black Sea turns out to be like the Caspian Sea, rich in oil reserves.
Exxon Mobil will be the operator of the project for the initial exploration phase, taking a 50% stake in the two-million-acre Samsun block and the eastern part of the five-million-acre 3921 block. Water depths for the blocks reach about 6,500 feet.
In December Exxon Mobil announced that it had further expanded its presence in the Black Sea by signing an agreement with Romanian oil company Petrom to explore deepwater portions of the Neptun Block off Romania.
Continuation of the book by Harun Yahya, The Secrets of the Hypocrites.
They Boast of Wealth
Fierce competition for this world distracted you until you went down to the graves.
At-Takathur: 1-2
The source of hypocrites’ boasting is the worldly values they possess. With their beauty and material wealth, they boast and show off to others. One point on which they flatter themselves is that the number of deniers is greater than that of believers. Two facts regarding this, which they are unable to grasp because of their lack of reasoning, is that Allah has already revealed this fact in the Qur’an, and that this works in believers’ favor, not against them. Indeed, everyone knows that a small group acting in a rational manner will always be victorious in any struggle against a larger one that acts irrationally, and may have many more advantages than the latter.
They Become Spoiled and Rejoice When Blessings are Given Them
Hypocrites are full of self-love and imagine themselves to be always superior and more intelligent than anyone else. They become taken in by the belief that whenever a blessing is given them, their true worth “has at last been realized†and become even more spoiled. For instance, hypocrites grow angry and despair whenever a believer gives them advices and criticizes their mistakes. But they begin to swell up with pride and behave disrespectfully when anyone takes the slightest interest in them or shows them the slightest respect. Alternatively, if they are praised on account of the pleasing behavior they have displayed in an imitative manner, suddenly they begin regarding themselves as above everyone else and look down on those around them. When material blessings are bestowed on them, the same state of mind emerges.
In fact, however, Allah increases His blessings to test people, though they are unaware of this. The state of mind and final end of this community, which is unable to comprehend Allah’s order, is revealed in these terms in the Qur’an:
When they forgot what they had been reminded of, We opened up for them the doors to everything, until, when they were exulting in what they had been given, We suddenly seized them and at once, they were in despair.
Al-An‘am: 44
They Regard Their Blessings as a Sign of Superiority
The way hypocrites regard the blessings given them as signs of superiority is encountered in the example of Qarun, a classic denier described in the Qur’an. Given a bounteous fortune as a test by Allah, Qarun swelled with pride because of the blessings he possessed and interpreted them as a sign of his superiority over others. He imagined that he deserved that fortune and failed to bear in mind that it was a blessing from Allah. This, of course, stemmed from his failure to honor Allah with the honor that is due to Him and to comprehend his own helplessness. The example of Qarun in the Qur’an is an important one for hypocrites: Qarun was one of the people of Musa, but he lorded it over them. We gave him treasures, the keys alone to which were a heavy weight for a party of strong men. When his people said to him, “Do not gloat. Allah does not love people who gloat.â€
Al-Qasas: 76
They are Timid
They swear by Allah that they are of your number, but they are not of your number. Rather, they are people who are scared.
At-Tawba: 56
With their odd, satanic logic, hypocrites lack the courage whose impression they seek to give. Times of war and difficulty are important in manifesting the sickness in their hearts. In the time of the Prophet (s), for example, when the hypocrites were summoned to war, they promised to participate. But when war actually broke out, they turned and fled due to the terrible fear they felt of others. This is clear proof of their timid natures:
. . . when fighting is prescribed for them, a group of them fear people as Allah should be feared, or even more than that. They say, “Our Lord, why have you prescribed fighting for us? If only You would give us just a little more time!†. . .
An-Nisa’: 77
They are Physically and Spiritually Unclean
Hypocrites are members of the Religion of the Ignorant. Those who adhere to it live far removed from the lifestyle that Allah has chosen for people. They determine that lifestyle’s rules under the inspiration of satan. Judging one another in terms of material criteria, envying one another, and hundreds of other devilish forms of behavior constitute the elements of their false religion.
Their behavior results in an ugly, ignorant state of mind, one that constantly designs evil, never interprets events in an auspicious manner, works against others and brings to mind the spirit of satan himself.
Indeed, Allah has issued the following provision regarding hypocrites who live according to such an ugly mindset:
They will swear to you by Allah when you return to them, so that you leave them alone. Leave them alone, then! They are filth. Their shelter will be Hell as repayment for what they did.
At-Tawba: 95
As this verse tells us, these people cannot claim to be physically clean. Indeed, spiritual and physical cleanliness are inter-related concepts. Those with evil in their hearts will inevitably lead an unclean life. Furthermore, Allah reveals in one verse that He increases that uncleanness on account of the sickness in their hearts:
But as for those with sickness in their hearts, it adds defilement to their defilement, and they die while they are disbelievers.
At-Tawba: 125
The darkness that forms in their souls due to the sickness in their hearts also manifests itself in their faces. The faces of such people are described in these terms in the Qur’an, “It is as if their faces were covered by dark patches of the night†(Surah Yunus: 27). It is noteworthy that the light in believers’ faces imparts a feeling of ease to those who behold it, while on the faces of the hypocrites darkness prevails.
They are Parsimonious and Encourage Others to be So
The men and women of the hypocrites are as bad as one another. They command what is wrong and forbid what is right and keep their fists tightly closed. . . .
At-Tawba: 67
Spending generously in the service of Allah is a religious observance commanded in the Qur’an, and that is pleasing to Him. He emphasizes the importance of this in several verses and in particular, reveals that the person who behaves in this way actually stands in need of it. That is because someone who spends generously does so in order to raise his degree in the Hereafter, his place in Paradise. Allah sends believers many blessings from His presence.
Hypocrites, however, cannot understand that this important observance will actually work to their advantage, and so never behave in such a way. Because all their energies are directed towards increasing their material means, they imagine that the more they spend, the greater loss they will incur. In any case, their objective is the fragmentation of the community of believers and to prevent them living by religious moral values by dividing them from one another. Thus they are able to live as members of the society of the ignorant and distance themselves entirely from religious moral values, without feeling the slightest pang of conscience or encountering any difficulty. For that reason, they wish to be of no material or spiritual use to the community of believers, or for believers to be of any use to one another. Being parsimonious, they encourage others to be tight-fisted, too.
We are told how these people, unable to comprehend that believers have no need of anything and that Allah’s help is always with them, call on them to be tight-fisted:
They are the people who say, “Do not spend on those who are with the messenger of Allah, so that they may go away.†The treasuries of the heavens and Earth belong to Allah. But the hypocrites do not understand this.
