The United States has ceased to be relevant

August 25, 2007 at 3:53 pm | Posted in democracy, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Shia, Sunni, USA | 4 Comments

The relationship between Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Malaki and the U.S. dictatorship in Iraq, which has always been tempestuous, has now deteriorated further. Much to the annoyance of his U.S. overlords; al-Malaki rubbished the preposterous claims that Iran is destabilising Iraq as the U.S. Government likes to claim.  In fact al-Malaki pointed out the reverse is true and thanked Iran  for its “positive and constructive” role in “providing security and fighting terrorism in Iraq”.

The comment not only earned rebuke from the beleaguered U.S. President, they also led to the following threat:  “my message to him is, is that when we catch you playing a non-constructive role there will be a price to pay.” 

A rebuke that Prime Minister Nuri al-Malaki is not going to heed.  His response the U.S. President criticism of his administration was even more assertive. He said:    

“No one has the right to place timetables on the Iraq government. It was elected by its people. Those who make such statements are bothered by our visit to Syria. We will pay no attention. We care for our people and our constitution, and can find friends elsewhere.” 

This statement represents a recognition in the Iraq government of the now irrelevance of the United States: the ignominious defeat of British forces in the South and the failure of the U.S. surge to quell the rise of factional violence or the insurgency has left al-Malaki government in no doubt that the U.S. forces have to all intents and purposes already been defeated and that there is no appetite in the United States to reverse that outcome:  troop withdrawal is inevitable.    

Thus al-Malaki is looking to the future; a future in which the United States’ role in Iraq will be limited; he is no doubt also aware that should Hillary Clinton win the U.S. presidency he would not be able to count on her support. She said this week that Iraq needs a “less divisive and more unifying figure.”

In fact whilst politicians in the United States make much of the Iraq’s sectarian divisions and urge a national unity government, this is fundamentally undemocratic and quite fraudulent, it is not for Iraq’s sake that they wish a pluralist government. An estimated 63% of the population are Shia. However, that is only if one includes Kurdistan, which is effectively a separate entity from Iraq. Certainly the main Kurdish parties are separatists. Thus if the Kurds are discounted, and properly they should be, since they do not consider themselves Iraqis; Shia constitute nearly 79% of the Iraqi population and Sunnis only 21%. Thus the sectarian divisions in Iraq are overplayed; in truth Iraq is a Shia country.

It is this reality that the United States government continues to supress:  were they ever serious about installing democracy, they would support Shia majority rule and an Iranian style Islamic democracy; instead of doing all they could to prevent it. Yet it is clear that the United States cares little for Iraqi democracy; preferring anarchy and civil war to another autonomous Shia state in the region. 

As ineffectual as al-Malaki has been as premier, the fact that he was willing to publicly chastise the U.S.A. and actively court Iranian and Syrian influence, despite incurring Washington’s displeasure, is significant since it reflects the mood on the street. 

War with Iran

February 17, 2007 at 7:06 pm | Posted in Afghanistan, Crusade, EU, Imperialism, Iran, IRGC, Islam, Media, Monafiqeen-e-Khalq, Propaganda, Shia, UK, USA, Zionism | 19 Comments

Despite the Bush administration’s sabre rattling, it is far from certain that the United States will go to war with Iran; in fact, there is every indication that it will not be able to do so during George W. Bush’s presidency. For it is important to recognise that for this current U.S. administration, diplomacy is war by other means. Their belligerence is not incidental, it is intentional; this administration is fundamentally Zionist and hegemonic, and have repeatedly demonstrated a disinclination for diplomacy where they believe strategic or ideological objectives could be realised through force of arms alone. Furthermore this administration is committed to the overthrow of the legitimate and democractically elected Iranian government (Iran Freedom and Support Act of 2005). From the Bush administration’s perspective, they are already at war with Iran; in fact, George W. Bush used his State of the Union Speech to emphasis that point, broadening the enemy to Shia Islam. Thus, this begs the question: why has this U.S. administration not already launched an attack against Iran?

If one sees the United States as already at war with Iran, as this administration does, then it is clear that they are losing. U.S. diplomacy and economic warfare has failed to prevent Iran from enriching uranium and will not stop Iran from continuing its nuclear fuel programme, as both the Bush administration and European Union have already conceded; in fact economic warfare has shown that Iran does not need European investment or European custom. Conversely, the European Union and Turkey are very venerable to an Iranian oil and gas embargo. Hence the avoidance of military action to date is very telling. It would be extraordinarily naïve to think that Bush has thus far been prevented from trying to emulate Alexander the Macedonian by the niceties of international law, which he ignored when he waged war on both Afghanistan and Iraq.

In fact, whilst the Bush administration has been able to manipulate a series of confrontations and fabricated confrontations with Iran to its advantage in the English speaking media – hence they have been able to present an image of Iran (and thus Islam) as inherently evil – there is still little domestic support in the United States for military action against Iran – U.S. public opinion is very much opposed to military action against Iran. Moreover, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi has stipulated, George W. Bush categorically does not have the legal authority to launch a military attack on Iran, without the House’s approval. Thus the likelihood of war with Iran during George W. Bush’s presidency is not a measure of his intent; it is a measure of the willingness of the House of Representatives to authorise such a course. The Iranian government does not believe that they would and with good cause: any attack would run contrary to the U.S. national interest unless it brought about regime change in Iran and regional stability to the Middle East, which even the most optimistic of Pentagon military strategists do not envisage.

The U.S. military is currently hampered by its occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan; even were this not so, any U.S. force invading Iran would be heavily outnumbered. Moreover, whilst 52% of the U.S. military consists of badly trained and poorly motivated reservists and National Guard (46% of the US army in Iraq in 2005), Iran conversely has a highly motivated and well trained army, Pasdaran (IRGC), and Basij (volunteers), as well as an armed civilian population, with nearly every man having served two years in the military. The recent Israeli invasion of Lebanon saw the Iranian trained Hezbullah guerrilla force, outnumbered 20 to 1, yet they defeated the U.S. armed Israeli army in the battlefield within 34 days. That is a good indicator of the utter infeasibility of a U.S. invasion and occupation of Iran – the United States simply does not have the military capability.

Moreover, not only would the United States need exponentially more men under arms to occupy Iran than it presently has to commit, the likely reduction in Iranian oil and gas production on its own would send the energy markets spiralling out of control, however the consequences of an invasion are likely to lead to anarchy and insurgency throughout the Middle East. There are 200M Shia in the World over 100M situated in the Middle East, as the map indicates Shia are sitting on the majority of the World’s oil and natural gas reserves. Even most Saudi oil is situated is the predominately Shia Eastern Province, in the Qatif and Abu Sa’fah oil fields. A Shia uprising would certainly disrupt Middle Eastern oil and natural gas exports – most the World’s natural gas reserves are held by Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan – and both the U.S. and European economies are utterly dependent on Middle Eastern oil. For this reason, any U.S. military attack on Iran that threatens Middle Eastern oil exports would be economic suicide.

Therefore the most likely scenario for a U.S. military attack would be an aerial assault against the nuclear facilities in Bushehr, Arak, and Natanz in the aim of destroying them. However, it is hard to see what strategic benefit this would be: at the most this would only set Iran’s nuclear energy programme back, although the Israeli attack on the Iraq nuclear facilities in Osirak in June of 1981 failed to set back Iraq’s nuclear programme. Iran would still have the technology and would be able to resume its nuclear energy programme unabated outside of the auspicious of the IAEA.

Moreover, Iran would almost certainly respond militarily. Iran has already demonstrated this week the ability to sink U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf at will and thus block off the passage of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. The situation in Iraq is precarious enough for the U.S. military, were the United States at war with Iran, the Shia population would rise up and the situation would be unmanageable. Furthermore, Iranian forces can easily cross the border into Iraq, should they so desire and U.S. military bases in Iraq, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan are venerable to Iranian missile attacks. Even were Iran only initially to target the U.S. military in Iraq, the potential for escalation is obvious. Thus once again raising the prospect of a conflict that would destabilise the entire Middle East, which the United States cannot afford. Hence it is more likely that the Bush administration will to continue to support terrorist attacks in Iran by groups like Monafiqeen-e-Khalq and Jundullah under the guise of the Iran Freedom and Support Act of 2005, since these are deniable and unlikely to provoke a severe response.

Recalling the Bush administration’s view that diplomacy is war by other means – whilst attacking Iran would require an even greater degree of folly than the occupation of Iraq – the more unlikely it is, the keener they will be to inflate the possibility. This strategy is foolhardy and risks the law of unintended consequence. This said it is still hard to envisage the House of Representatives disregarding all reason and authorising a military attack on Iran during Bush’s presidency.

Bush declares Shia are the enemy

January 24, 2007 at 11:14 am | Posted in Iran, Islam, Shia, USA | 4 Comments

President George W. Bush, State of the Union Speech 2007:

“In recent times, it has also become clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia extremists who are just as hostile to America, and are also determined to dominate the Middle East.

Many are known to take direction from the regime in Iran, which is funding and arming terrorists like Hezbullah -a group second only to al-Qaeda in the American lives it has taken.

The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat.

But whatever slogans they chant, when they slaughter the innocent, they have the same wicked purposes.

They want to kill Americans… kill democracy in the Middle East… and gain the weapons to kill on an even more horrific scale.”

There are an estimated 215,959,328 Million Shia Worldwide, there are over 80 million in Iran and Iraq alone and over another 30 million in the Middle East. Shia certainly wish to have political power proportionate to their numbers: a concept known as democracy and self-determination, both of which the United States is adamantly opposed to. If the Shia are a threat to the United States it is so due to the latter waging war on the former. It is the United States that is a threat to democracy and financing terrorism in the Middle East.

The Martyrdom of Ayatullah Sayyed Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr

January 14, 2007 at 12:57 pm | Posted in Iraq, Islam, Saddam, Sadr, Shia, tyrant | Leave a comment

This is a translation from the account given by one of the security officers present during Saddam’s execution of Shaheed (martyr) Ayatullah Sayyed Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr and Shaheeda (martyr) Sayyida Bint ul Huda:

“They brought Sayyid Al-Sadr to the office of National Security in Baghdad and they bound him in chains, then Saddam arrived and said in Iraqi slang ‘Muhammad Baqir, are you trying to make a government?’ and then he started hitting his face and head with a strong rod. So the Sayyid said to him ‘I have left the government to you’ and then an argument broke out between them about this and about the Islamic revolution in Iran, which led Saddam into a fit of rage, so he ordered his henchmen to torture Sayyid Al-Sadr severely. Then he ordered the lashing of martyr Bint Al-Huda – after she had been tortured in another room – they brought here in unconscious and they were dragging her, so when the Sayyid saw her, he became upset and angry at her plight. He said to Saddam ‘If you are a man, then undo my restraints’. But Saddam took a rod and began hitting the martyred Sayyida and she was senseless, then Saddam ordered for her breasts to be cut, which caused the Sayyid anger and he said to Saddam ‘If you were a man, you would have faced me face-to-face and let my sister go, but you are a coward, between your bodyguards’. Saddam flew into rage and took out his gun and fired on the Sayyid and then his sister and then left like an insane man cursing and swearing”

Iranian elections a rejection of the Western Imperialism

December 18, 2006 at 3:45 am | Posted in Ahmadinejad, Argentina, Imperialism, Iran, Islam, Reformist | 9 Comments

Unlike the Presidential elections, turnout for the Assembly of Experts and municipal council elections in Iran is usually low. In 2002, just 12% of the electorate voted in the municipal council elections. Therefore the 60% turnout last Friday is staggering. The record turnout in Iran undoubtedly was a response to the United States, whose President, George Bush, encouraged Iranians not to vote as a sign of protest against the Islamic Republic, as did the US sponsored MKO cult and Shahists. Thus the elections not only proved that Iran has a vibrant democracy, equal to any in the West, it was a rejection of Western imperialism: Iranians firmly demonstrated their continued commitment to the Islamic revolution and the Velayat-e faqih.

Early indications show that the pro Faqih (Ayatullah al-Uzma Khamenei) Conservative wing has trounced the Reformists. Despite the reformist wing forming a single coalition, they were still unable to take a single council. Conversely, the Conservatives, who were broadly divided into two factions dominated the municipal council elections. The Conservatives have won a massive majority on the Tehran municipal council, which is divided by supporters of the Tehran Mayor Qalibaf and President Ahmadinejad. In effect, President Ahmadinejad’s supporters are now the largest opposition to the Mayor on the Tehran council. The reformists have once again been pushed into the political wilderness.

Moreover, former President Ayatullah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was defeated by President Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential election was resoundingly elected to the Assembly of Experts, as was his rival Ayatullah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, yet both are conservatives, which demonstrates that Tehranis have rejected reformism. This is a stinging rebuke for Ganji, the current darling of the MKO and the West, and for the Argentinian Government that have both made unsubstantiated allegations of Ayatullah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani involvement in political assassinations and terrorism, whilst he was President of Iran.

Much to the consternation of the Western imperialists, the biggest winner of these elections was the Faqih and the conservative movement that now dominates Iranian politics. There are healthy political disputes within the conservative camp but the reformist movement has wilted. This is unsurprising, Ahmadinejad has achieved more in a year, than the reformist did in eight. Three years of negotiations with Western imperialists over the nuclear issue led to nothing but Iran’s three year voluntary suspension of its nuclear energy programme. Ahmadinejad’s rejection of appeasement has brought dividends; Iran has completed the nuclear cycle and is now enriching uranium.

Reality is not changed through its denial. Western support for regime change is as forlorn as it is insipid; Iran is not about to abandon the Islamic revolution or Velayat-e faqih and will resist Western imperialism.

Trevor Phillips adds fuel to the fire

October 23, 2006 at 3:33 pm | Posted in Blair, Islam, Muslim | 1 Comment

Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the CRE has suggested that the teaching assistant, Aishah Azmi, suspended by Dewsbury’s Headfield Church of England Junior School School for refusing to remove her veil in front of a male teacher, “would be doing everybody, including herself, a great favour were she to decide either that she were to comply with the requirements for teaching in the classroom or to decide she didn’t want to do that job.”

The employment tribunal held that she had not be discriminated against but had been victimised by the school and also recognised the serious subjudice issues in this case.

Whilst, one might on the face of it think that Phillips has a point, his remarks where inconsistent with his office, he is the chair of a government agency, with statutory legal powers on race equality. This intervention, is extraordinary; he is urging a woman to abort a civil suit in the national interest.

In fact, not only does she have the right to pursue her case – all things being equal – she has every prospect of success. In fact it is startling that neither Blair nor Woolas have been held in contempt of court – unquestionably their comments were subjudice -for this reason alone, the case is a more than worthy of being a test case. Government ministers (the Prime Minister no less) really ought not to be indulging in subjudice, no matter how politic.

Hang Kobra Rahmanpour

October 22, 2006 at 5:37 pm | Posted in Iran, Islam | 6 Comments

Iranians rightly regard this interference as a form of Western imperialism; an act of tyranny
In Iran, there is considerable resentment to the imbecilic, disingenuous and imperialist attitude of Western chauvinists to Kobra Rahmanpour imminent death sentence – sentence that is long overdue – she has been in custody for six years and under sentence of death for four, she has exhausted the appeal process.

A process, that the Iranian judiciary has diligently applied, and perhaps allowed to drag on too long. Rahmanpour murdered her mother-in-law, she had due process, she was convicted upon the evidence. Her pleas of victimisation are nauseating, self-pitying and unrepentant:

“I want to live! I am a human being just like you. I do not want to die. However I am now a sol less body who in fear of the execution rope has forgotten how to laugh and be happy. A lot of people say to me how come your case has been so much publicized but you are still in prison? I have to tell them that I am only steps away from execution. I too like all of you am afraid of dying. Please help me so that this would not be my last letter.

People, friends!

My mother, father and handicapped brother are very worried about me. Your supports so far have been such a comfort to them. I wish my life was different. I wish I had finished my pre-university education. I wish I did not have to be a servant for my husband. I wish I had not reached insanity. I suffered a lot and was intimidated. I am a true victim. Now they are about to hang the victim. This was not and is not my destiny.

In these dark days of fear, I urge you once again to help me. I thank all mass media and all people who supported me before. Now, may be for the last time, I urge you to do everything you can to free me from execution. I like freedom. I dream about my freedom and a good life.

I have suffered enough. Help me to get rid of the nightmare of execution which wakes me up all the time. Do what you can. There is not much time left. Every minute takes me nearer to the rope. Please help me! I am afraid of the rope and death. I hate the rope that is waiting for me on the crane. I want to live. All other doors are closed to me. Nobody helps me. My only hope is the people. I want to hold my mother and father in my arms.

I want to thank my mother, father and all who have supported me.

Kobra Rahmanpoor

From Evin prison, Tehran, Iran Shahrivar 1385 (September 2006)”

She wants to live, so too did her mother-in-law whom she brutallymurdered, with malice aforethought, repeatedly stabbing her to death with a knife. In Iran there is little sympathy for this murderess. Iranians support the death penalty. It is not hard to see why the lives or murderers would be forfeit; Iran is not the only country to apply such logic. For Iranians, it is a private matter for the victims family whether they are prepared to accept the diyeh (blood money) or demand that the sentence be executed.

It would seem that the family are adamant that Rahmanpoor should hang. Iranians will respect that, it is a pity that so many Islamophobes and Western chauvinists will not. Iranians rightly regard this interference as a form of Western imperialism; an act of tyranny.

Straw Unveiled

October 21, 2006 at 12:02 am | Posted in Islam, Muslim | 4 Comments

A visible statement of separation and of differenceIt began with Jack Straw’s comments that the veil was “a visible statement of separation and of difference” but then it descended into a government attack on British Muslims under the pretext of social cohesion. Straw’s comments were banal and bordering on imbecilic; of course it is a visible barrier – that is what a veil is – yet it is a barrier between Muslim and non-Muslims, it is a barrier between male and female, like other garments of clothes. It is a personal choice that affected him not in the least. In fact, wearing the veil could not be a more non-injurious to others. The claim that this is a barrier to social inclusion is pure sophistry; for most British Muslims, the tone of their skin is a veil. Discrimination, compounded by legal inequalities, is not limited to women, who wear the veil; it is a pervasive British Muslim experience.

Jack Straw has been feted for bring the debate to the forefront, yet is far from clear what this “debate”. It cannot be the debate as to whether Muslim women ought to be allowed to observe the veil, since the government has categorically stated that it has no intention of introducing any proscriptive legislation in this regard. So what is this debate about?

The government voicing its disproval of the veil is not a debate, particularly when the government are committed to women having the choice whether they veil or not; it is nothing more, than a thinly veiled pretext for a staunchly anti-Islamic government, to yet again criticise the “British Muslim community”. Whether a small minority of Muslim women choose to wear the face veil makes not a jot of difference to social cohesion and integration.

Lebanese President Accuses US of Conspiring Against Lebanon

October 16, 2006 at 12:45 pm | Posted in Hezbullah, Islam, Lebanon, Zionism | Leave a comment

The US government would present itself as a friend of the Lebanese people, a peace broker, looking to support liberal democracy and wrestle the state out of the hands of an undemocratic Hezbullah. This Could not be further from the truth; Lebanese President Emile Lahoud last week accused the United States has orchestrated a full-size U.S. conspiracy against Lebanon.

During her visit in Egypt on Oct. 3, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described the “New Middle East”, as the US vision of a “future Middle East in which there is a democratic Palestine living in peace with its democratic Israeli neighbor”. Lahoud derided the claim that the United States had any interest in democracy or peace, pointing to the latest press reports that over 600,000 people have died as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, he said, “I wonder whether this was the new Middle East they are talking about”.

He urged the Lebanese people to stay united and consolidated against this US conspiracy to undermine their democracy and sovereignty. In other words to reject the pretensions of the US puppet, Prime Minister Seniora and the Hariri gang.

Despite US claims to the contrary, Sayyed Nasrallah and Hezbullah are more popular than they have ever been, were there to be a genuine democratic election in Lebanon, rather than the existing tripartite sham democracy, Sayyed Nasrallah would be Prime Minister.

British Army Chief Endorses Crusade Against Islam

October 13, 2006 at 1:35 am | Posted in Iraq, Islam, Terrorism | 5 Comments

Britain’s new chief of the general staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, in an interview in the Daily Mail made two interesting concessions about the “War on Terror”. The First, a concession that the Occupation of Iraq is a failure. Contrary to the assertions of the British government, he argued that the British presence in Iraq, “exacerbates the security problems…Whatever consent we may have had in the first place…has largely turned to intolerance,” and that “the difficulties we are experiencing round the world are caused by our presence in Iraq but undoubtedly our presence in Iraq exacerbates them”.

The analysis is hardly startling – it is self-evident – were it not for the fact that this is being said by the Chief of the British army. However there was also another frank admission that the war on terror is being fought against Islam, “We can’t wish the Islamist challenge to our society away and I believe that the army both in Iraq and Afghanistan and probably wherever we go next, is fighting the foreign dimension of the challenge to our accepted way of life”. This is far more significant because The Chief of the British army is acknowledging that this is a crusade against Islam.

It is clear from his comments that he perceives the British mission as opposing Islamism, yet the Saddam Baathist regime was secular; it is the present Iraqi government is Islamist. Thus we can infer that the British mission in Iraq is to oppose the Iraqi national Government.

Merkel’s extremism

September 27, 2006 at 10:46 pm | Posted in Islam, Merkel | Leave a comment

German Chancellor Merkel:

“Self-censorship out of fear is not tolerable.”

She was of course not referring to Germany freedom of expression laws, which must rank amongst the most draconian in the World. This after all is state-censorship. Rather, she was referring to the decision of Deutsche Oper not to deliberate offend Muslims, or Christians, in the wake of the Pope’s remarks.

No threats have been made against the Deutsche Oper, but they considered imprudent to needlessly engage in faith-baiting to increase the rather poor attendance of a production that has received unfavourable reviews.

The German Chancellor, suggest that this is mistake, perhaps she will feel the need to intervene further, and insist that the production goes ahead.

Chancellor Schroeder, to his credit, understood Germany’s economy depends upon gas and oil. Merkel on the other hand is a verciferous critic of Islam; she has also been one of the most vocal supporters of sanctions against Iran, notwithstanding that such a measure would amount to economic suicide. Merkel is more than impolitic; she is an extremist.

Spread by the Sword

September 24, 2006 at 10:31 pm | Posted in Christianity, Islam | 1 Comment

American author James Michener in his article ‘Islam: The Misunderstood Religion,’ that carried by Reader’s Digest in its May 1955 issue, says:

“No other religion in history spread so rapidly as Islam. The West thought that this surge of religion was made possible by the sword. But no modern scholar accepts this idea, and the Qur’an is explicit in the support of the freedom of conscience.”

This reason that Islam spread so widely was that it differed from Christianity in two regards: firstly, the majority of Christians were illiterate their relationship with their religion was not through a personal knowledge of God or the Bible it was through the teachings of the Church; secondly, Christianity was the religion of empire. Whereas in contrast Muslims, had a personal relationship with God through the Qu’ran; and Islam was the religion of the people. In short, Christianity was imposed by Rome, it was the oppressor religion, Islam was the religion of liberation.

The Cross and the Crescent

September 22, 2006 at 10:38 pm | Posted in Christianity, Crusade, Imperialism, Islam | Leave a comment

Lord Carey the former Archbishop of Canterbury, in his speech, “The Cross and the Crescent”, posits the following question:

“So allow me to ask an awkward question which I believe was hovering in the background of the Pope’s thesis and which many westerners are asking frequently these days: ‘Why is Islam associated with violence?’”

Had he rephrased his question, ‘Why are Christianity and Judaism associated with violence’, he would have his answer.

Islam is perceived as violent, when it reacts to Western (principally Christian and Jewish) aggression. Islam is the religion of the invaded, the occupied and the dispossessed; it is the religion of resistance; and the religion of the enemy. So long as Muslims are the victims and adversaries of Christian and Jewish imperialism, then this will remain the case. There is nothing very complicated here.

Lord Carey could look to his own statement:

“It is the firm view of most Muslims that the invasion of Iraq in 2004 is solely about oil. It is important to disabuse them of that notion by a rigid commitment to stand alongside Iraq until its infrastructure is rebuilt and there is a return to something approaching normality in that ancient land.”

Thus, Lord Carey, the former spiritual leader of the Anglican Church, is giving succour to a Crusade; for what else is it when Christian nations invade a Muslim country and try and impose their values and doctrine on it? He appears not to have considered that this is Christian violence.

He then addresses the issue of martyrdom in Christianity:

“I find it difficult to understand the argument that a person can be a blessed martyr if, in the cause of his conflict, he knowingly kills innocent people. Christian martyrdom is unlike this. We have no martyrology which honours people who kill innocent people. The martyr, for Christians, is one who does not kill but is killed for her or his faith. She or he suffers for God and his people and does so, not be fighting or killing, but by suffering. A terrorist by definition cannot be a martyr.”

The corollary here is startiling, if anyone who kills innocent is a terrorist, then this collectively applies to the British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is interesting since he reveals that at the age of 18 he too served in an occuaption of Egypt and Iraq.

The Pope was not taken out of context

September 18, 2006 at 2:11 am | Posted in Islam | 2 Comments

The Vatican has been at pains to point out that the Pope’s comments during his lecture at University of Regensburg have been taken out of context and that he did not intend to malign Islam. In his apology the Pope states:

“I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought.”

Yet unlike president Ahmadinejad, the Pope was not misquoted nor have his comments been misrepresented in the Muslim World. The Iranian newspaper Jamejam says,

“In a speech titled “Piety, Wisdom and Universities: Memories and Reactions” delivered Tuesday at Regensburg University in the German state of Bavaria, the pontiff claimed that unlike the Christian faith Islam rarely follows the rules of logic. Quoting a book titled “The Byzantine Empire,” the Pope said the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) had enjoined Muslims to spread their faith even by “such means as the sword.” The Pope also ridiculed the ideas of Jihad (holy war) and other holy Islamic rituals.”

Those who are taking his words out of context are those who have come to his defence. Whilst the Pope’s is unequivocal that all “violence is incompatible with the nature of God”, he is also equally unequivocal that Islam is violent,

‘The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: “There is no compulsion in religion”. According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels”, he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”.’

Thus he is at pains to assert that the Prophet Muhammad (saw) endorsed violent conversion, which is untrue, and to dismiss surah 2, 256, which contrary to his assertion in held to have been written 624 or 625, when the Prophet (saw) was in Medina. Hence it was written from a position of strength not weakness.

Moreover, the Pope clearly argued that Islam is irrational,

“The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent.”

Again this assumption is incorrect; Christianity came to learn of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, through the writings of Islamic philosophers such as Ibn Rashid and Ibn Sina.

Thus the Pope is accusing Islam of being “contrary to the nature of God”, because he holds it to be violent and irrational; and:

“Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God”, said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures.”

The Pope is of course entitled to his view; however maligning Islam and calling it evil and inhuman, will not lead to constructive dialogue between the two faiths. The Pope seems unclear as to what position he wants to take towards Islam: one of mutual respect or one of conflict.

Consequences for Iran’s Defiance

August 31, 2006 at 10:18 pm | Posted in Bush, Iran, Islam | Leave a comment

“There will be consequences for Iran’s defiance”

“There will be consequences for Iran’s defiance”. Or so President Bush has decreed. Iran must face the consequences for asserting its national sovereignty and international rights under the NPT. Iran is to be held accountable for refusing to acquiesce to the caprices of the United States; for refusing to surrender to Zionist hegemony in the region and for being an unabashed Islamic State. In short, Iran has dared to challenge the imperial authority of the United States; so in the parlance of the Bush regime, it is a “Rogue State”.

Iran shall once again be associated with Islamic fanaticism, although for the Bush administration, which is itself open to accusations of religious fundamentalism and extremism, the preferred phrase is Islamic fascism. Of course the term is intellectually vacuous: it would be far more sensible to do away with the hyperbolic and pejorative suffix and simply refer to Iran as an Islamic State.

However, no amount of sophistry or religious malediction will obscure the fact that US imperialism lacks political credibility in the World today. The Bush doctrine of a “clash of civilisations” (or more accurately a clash of ideologies) in the terms of good and evil is nihilistic; it leaves no room for compromise.

The problem with this worldview is that it is dependent upon two key factors: the first that the rest of the World is prepared to be polarised along these lines; and secondly that the United States can win this conflict. This is where it falls down, even if the United States could walk the rest of the West into this apocalypse – which it was unable to do with Iraq – the US has proved more effective at projecting its power through diplomacy and intimidation than through military might.

This is where we are in the Iranian nuclear dispute; the bombast and rhetoric of the Bush administration does not veil US impotence: they are utterly incapable of preventing Iran from continuing with its nuclear energy programme, as they are well aware. All that they can do is engage in diplomacy with Iran, yet due to the ideological fanaticism at the core of the Bush administration, the US is unwilling to do this. In fact, this conflict is entirely of the United States making, yet paradoxically, having stage-managed the crisis, the US finds itself unable to resolve it.

Undoubtedly there will be consequences for Iran’s defiance but they are unlikely to be to Bush’s liking.

Muslim letter to Blair

August 12, 2006 at 9:52 pm | Posted in Blair, Islam, Muslim | Leave a comment

The letter from Muslim MPs, Peers, the MCB and others to the Prime Minister:

Prime Minister,

As British Muslims we urge you to do more to fight against all those who target civilians with violence, whenever and wherever that happens.

It is our view that current British government policy risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad.

To combat terror the government has focused extensively on domestic legislation. While some of this will have an impact, the government must not ignore the role of its foreign policy.

The debacle of Iraq and now the failure to do more to secure an immediate end to the attacks on civilians in the Middle East not only increases the risk to ordinary people in that region, it is also ammunition to extremists who threaten us all.

Attacking civilians is never justified. This message is a global one. We urge the Prime Minister to redouble his efforts to tackle terror and extremism and change our foreign policy to show the world that we value the lives of civilians wherever they live and whatever their religion.

Such a move would make us all safer.

If one has nothing to say it is better to say nothing.

What this letter does not say but should say, and quite unambiguously, is that if Britain visits political violence upon Afghanistan and Iraq and give succour to those who visit political violence on Palestinians, Lebanese and Iranians, then you must surely expect that there will be those who will visit political violence on the UK. However this hardly needs non representative Muslim bodies and individuals largely intertwined with the British government to spell it out.

The letter could have been bold and said that the British Muslim community supports Lebanese and Palestinian resistance to Zionist aggression and call upon the Prime Minister to adopt a policy of neutrality towards the Middle East.

It could have also pointed out that the bombers on the 7th July like the Madrid bombers were in fact Wahhabi fanatics associated with Al-Qaeda and that Wahhabism is an off-shoot of Islam that was the brain child of the British Foreign Office, looking to foster an Arab uprising against the Ottoman empire in the 19th Century and that al-Qaeda itself was set up by the United States.

The letter could also have said suggested that the anger in most of Britain’s diverse Muslim communities against British foreign policy has not fueled more than one act of violence on our shores.

Moreover, it could have said that the British government’s support for Israel was extremist; rather than read as a veiled threat to the British government, should it not change its foreign policy

Blair’s Delusional Megalomania

August 2, 2006 at 9:19 pm | Posted in Blair, Crusade, Hamas, Hezbullah, Islam | Leave a comment

If there was ever any doubt that for Blair the “War on Terror” is a euphemism for a Crusade against, he has dispelled it. Blair:

“we have to empower moderate, mainstream Islam to defeat reactionary Islam.”

A comment that is not dissimilar to Pope Urban II call for Christians:

“to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends”.

Then of course the friends were Byzantine Christians and the vile race was Muslims. Just who Blair’s moderates are is unclear, but his reactionaries are Urban II vile race: Muslims.

Blair calls Hizbullah an example of “reactionary Islam”, he identifies mainstream Shia Islam and Sunni Islam as “reactionary”. He says:

“We posed a threat not to their activities simply: but to their values, to the roots of their existence.”

Yet even the Herald Tribune concedes that Arab street is behind Hizbullah. In fact, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Hizbullah were even recently feted in Al-Azhar and the most influential Sunni Scholar:

“the chairman of the World Union of Moslem Clerics, Dr. Yusuf Kardawi issued a statement in which he called on Jihad in Lebanon and Palestine employing oneself, money, speech and writing; and condemned all methods of failure, frustration and criticism.”

The committee head of Jabhat al-Amal al-Islami, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, Mr. Ibrahim Al-Keelani said,

“I call on the Arab rulers as I call on the nations to be with the resistance and jihad and support Hizbullah and Hamas”.

Thus Blair’s defintion of Islamic extremism is in fact mainstream Islam. Blair is calling for the defeat of a religion of over 1.5 Billion; this surely has to be regarded as delusional megalomania.

Islamic Extremism is a Zionist construct

July 16, 2006 at 12:12 pm | Posted in Islam, Zionism | Leave a comment

Martin Bright’s Channel 4 documentary, “Who Speaks for Muslims”, was warped by any standards, he castigates the Foreign Office for pandering to what he regards as Islamic extremists and political Islam. He suggests without qualification, that the majority of British Muslims follow the Sufi tradition; he does not even declare, which Sufi tradition he supposes the majority of Muslims to follow. Leaving aside, Bright’s absurd pretensions to know how best the mainstream British Muslim community (of whom he is completely ignorant) is best represented, his documentary is nevertheless very revealing. It demonstrates that, objections to political Islam and or Islamic extremism, are centre entirely within a Zionist paradigm. Hence, Islamic extremism is a Zionist construct.

The question of the extremity of Islamic opinion is measured in Muslim reaction to the Zionist occuption of Palestine and Zionist foreign policy. The issue of support for suicide bombing, or the more pervasive martyrdom operations is a red herring; the moral issue cannot be whether the bomber sacrifices his life in the pursuit of his objective, otherwise this would apply equally to all those who vicariously sacrifice their lives. The moral objection must be to the objective.

Yet if this is so, it is ludicrous to suggest that support for Arab political violence against the Zionist occupiers is anymore extreme than supporting Zionist political violence against the Arabs. Quite the reverse, for every action their is reaction: thus reciprocal Arab violence against a foreign aggressor is reasonable. It is extreme and somewhat perverse to deny Arabs or Muslim the right of self-defence, yet claim it for the Zionist aggressor. Nor is it extremist to regard the 7 July, London bombings as morally equivalent to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. It is extreme, only in relation to the consensus of Muslim opinion, to regard the London bombings as morally justified, but it is not an altogether unreasonable moral position.

Of course it is not only Muslims who regard martyrdom operations as an appropriate response to Zionist aggression. I would posit the majority of thinking Europeans, whilst not necessarily approving, regard it as a logical response. Hence the need to create the illusion of an Islamic menace sweeping through Europe, which is diametrically opposed to Western civilisation. Precisely because the opposite is true. European politicians may regualrly states that Israel has a right to exist, yet this clearly is not the view of the majority of Europeans. Ostensibly Europe may be anti-Muslim but so too is it anti-Zionist, only to a far greater degree. European support for Zionism undermines Europe’s relationship with the Muslim World, which is to Europe’s detriment. Europeans consistently recognise Zionism and the Zionist state as a greater source of instability than they do Muslim states.

Thus the threat to the West comes not from Islamic extremism but from Jewish extremism: from Zionism. On the superficial level Zionism is an anti-Islamic ideology, yet on the subterranean level it is anti Western civilisation. Zionism is fundamentally opposed to peaceful co-existence with the Muslim World and tries to draw Europe into this conflict, against European interests.

Operation Muslim Vote

April 5, 2006 at 5:50 pm | Posted in Iran, Islam | Leave a comment

In 2002, I wrote an article entitled “British Islamophobia post the 11 September”, for the Palestinian Times Monthly. As I opined in the article, Muslims cannot trust or rely on the Labour party, which despite relying more on the Muslim vote than Jewish vote to get reelected, determined, sub rosa, in 1997, to pursue a Zionist foreign policy agenda. This incidentally is rarely talked about, although it constituted a sea change in the foreign policy agenda when the Blairite regime took control of the Labour party. However since the 11 September 2001, the Blairite regime has moved from being at odds with the Muslim community over the Middle East to supporting, what is existentially an anti-Islamic foreign policy agenda or Crusade.

Notwithstanding, the events of the 11 September, New Labour were supporting this policy the Blairite regime were supporting this policy before that date and had adopted an anti-Muslim immigration and asylum policy, and effective sought to take control of Muslim politics by establishing the Muslim Council of Britain as a front organisation and shutting out the now defunct Muslim Parliament, which ceased to exist in 1998. The Muslims Council of Britain is an unelected and unrepresentative body. Despite its protestations of being non-partisan, the MCB is to all intents and purposes a subsidiary of the Labour party.

However, not only has the Labour party shown an abject hostility towards Britain’s Muslim community whom it has pointedly disenfranchised. Until Hizbullah and Hamas were effectively banned in the UK as proscribed organisations, they enjoyed considerable funding and support from the British Muslim community. In fact, Hizbullah is by far the most popular Muslim political movement in Europe. Hizbullah and Hamas, despite being legitimate political parties of government in Lebanon and Palestine respectively, with considerable UK support were prevented from running in 2005 election and local elections.

The problem for Muslims is achieving proportional and political polarity, social justice and legal equality. The kernel of the issue is that the largest non-Christian minority, is also the most persecuted religious minority and the least proportionally represented and the least protected in law. As none of the main three parties have shown an iota of interest in addressing any of the issues and discrimination facing Muslims, it would be forlorn to support any of them.

This strategy forwarded in this article was incremental in the May 2005 General Election, which saw the MAB and MPAC actively encouraging tactical voting, along with numerous Mosques and local Muslim groups. The tactic was only marginally successful; Labour candidates were defeated by Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and obviously Respect but there has not yet been a true political emancipation of British Muslims. However, there is hope; notwithstanding the fundamentally undemocratic nature of the British state.

Islam to be banned in British schools

March 24, 2006 at 12:04 pm | Posted in Islam | 32 Comments

Yesterday, Denbigh High School won its appeal before the House of Lords, against an earlier ruling of the Appeal Court that Shabina Begum Human rights were violated when the State run school denied her the right to an education, for no offence greater than observing the dress requirements of her faith. Having scanned the British media reaction to this case, it is apparent than in the triumphalism and sometimes blatant Islamophobia, few commentators have grasped the gravity of the situation: the Law Lords have outlawed Islamic religious observance in schools, which by corollary will translate to the work place, in a facsimile of the French headscarf ban.

The policy in France has further added to the insulation of Muslim women in French society. Those who wish to observe the requirements of their faith (the vast majority) are faced with a stark choice: do so and be denied an education and denied work outside the Muslim community or alternatively, to continuously compromise their faith and then statistically, end up still not being accepted into the non-Muslim workplace. France’s fractious tinderbox society is not a positive model of an enlightened or integrated multiculturalism; it is a revolution waiting to happen.

The UK, which before the introduction of the Human Right Act in 1988, which came into enforce in October 2000, was in the main progressive toward religious observation within State schools and Church of England schools. Yet now perversely Human rights legislation is interpreted to deny the most fundamental human rights; that of freedom of conscience. The requirement to wear a uniform in compulsory education or prison is undoubtedly oppressive. There are many matters of conscience other than religious observation, which might lead one to object to wearing a uniform.

The Law Lords ruling will result in many Muslim students, male and female alike, becoming prisoners of conscience in school, since they will be wearing their uniforms under protest.
Lord Bingham placed emphasis on the fact that the school had consulted with a local Mosque and developed a uniform policy that met the interest of Muslim culture and had been accepted by the majority of the local Islamic community. Unfortunately neither assertion is true. Had Lord Bingham given consideration to the real motives behind the campaigning anti Hizb-ut Tahrir head’s motives for adopting the the shalwar kameez, he might have come to a very different view. The head teacher, who by her own admission is not a Muslim, has taken position that is deliberately designed to be exclusive of Islamic observation.

The shalwar kameez is fashionable in the Indian subcontinent but it is not Islamic entire. The shalwar kameez can “if” it protects a woman’s modesty meet the requirements of religious observation, this said the vast majority of Muslim women and Islamic scholars throughout the World do not perceive that it does. In any event, if a Muslim woman does not consider it to sufficiently protect her modesty, as Shabina Begum clearly does not, then ispso facto it does not meet the requirments of religious observation. There is an essential as well as existential elements of the Hijab; any expert who is unaware of this is clearly bereft. One wonders how Lord Bingham could arrive at the conclusion that it meets the needs of Islamic culture, in paradox with all the leading Sunni Muslim religious authorities.

The question therefore as to whether the local community accepts this is irrelevant, as any Islamic scholar ought to have been able to tell the school that in Shabina Begum’s case the shalwar kameez would necessarily be against faith. Although, it clearly is not the case that the shalwar kameez is satisfactory to the local Muslim community.

The head choose the shalwar kameez precisely because it was un-Islamic, she made the point that she did not wnat their to be a distinction between Sikh and Muslims girls. Although, notably she has not asked Sikh boys to remove their turbans. It would have been more sensible to address this outdated concept of school uniforms, yet instead the Law Lords have given the green light to the abolishment of Islamic religious observation in state schools. This will not lead to integration it will lead to further segregation, and not just in schools.

Shabina Begum’s right to wear the jilbab infringed upon no other persons rights, denying her that right infringes upon the rights of 3% of the British population.

Massoud Shadjareh Chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission stressed:

“That children can be denied an education because of their religious beliefs is indicative of the fact that religious and cultural freedom in Britain today is nothing but a fallacy.”

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