Twin Terrors of the Holy Land: The Sexy Fundamentalist and a White-Haired Zionist

September 22, 2008

Robert Weitzel, Sep 21, 2008

Mention 9/11 to most Americans and the two numbers are considered sufficient to give meaning to that day. But mention 9/12, the day after when “terror” became our national mantra and the “smoking gun” brandished by a neocon-infested administration for its devilish designs in the Middle East and the numbers are meaningless beyond the platitudinous, “they hate our freedoms” and “God Bless America.”

Such platitudes, hawked ad nauseam by TV “faith-healers” and political snake oil peddlers, may act as a balm to soothe a body politic traumatized by the attacks on 9/11, but they do not explain—only obfuscate—the real causes that brought terror to our “blessed shores.”

Like many Americans on the seventh anniversary of 9/11, I turned to the Bible for an answer, a problematic move for an atheist such as myself. Predictably, I went straight to verse 9:11 in the Book of Revelation—the Bible’s most terror filled text—and found a short blurb about Abaddon the Destroyer; admittedly, an interesting coincidence, but not a “big picture” explanation.

However, thanks to Providence or serendipity, the very next verse, 9:12, was a godsend: “One terror now ends, but there are two more coming.”

Considering the last seven years, plagued to biblical proportion as they have been by the Bush administration’s criminal domestic and international response to 9/11, no prophet is needed to give meaning to the first half of Rev 9:12, while only a cursory vita review of the Republican and Democratic vice presidential candidates is needed to illuminate the rest of the verse.

John McCain will be the oldest man ever elected as a first-term president. He is also the fellow who made an enemy of the religious right in 2000 when he blasted them for “the evil influence that they exercise over the Republican Party.” McCain needs youth and sex appeal and religious right muscle to prevail. He needs Sarah Palin . . . who happens to be an “end times” fundamentalist.

Barack Obama will be the first “black” man ever elected president. He is young and inexperienced in foreign affairs. He is also not polling well among influential older white voters. Obama needs age and white hair and foreign policy muscle to prevail. He needs Joseph Biden . . . who happens to be a self-professed Zionist.

Behold the twin “terrors” of the Holy Land: a sexy fundamentalist and a white-haired Zionist.

Introducing Governor Palin to Master’s Commission graduates, a youth ministry whose vision is to “see young men and women who are not afraid to lead and are violent in their pursuit of righteous,” Ed Kalnins, pastor of the Wasilla Assembly of God church where Palin was baptized, told the audience that she is the “real deal.”

Pastor Kalnins is the same guy who believes that certain parts of the world are controlled by demons—guess which parts—and preaches an “end times” theology, the radical fundamentalist belief that the corruption of the Holy Land, that would be Muslims, Jews, sundry heretics and unbelievers, must be purified by God’s cleansing fire before the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ can occur.

Knowing Palin is the “real deal” and that several of the churches she’s attended are associated with the likes of Christians United for Israel, a right-wing “end times” organization dedicated to leading the charge to Armageddon (beginning with the nuking of Iran), odds are good Palin embraces this apocalyptic vision.

Frederick Clarkson, author of “Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy” recently told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, “[Palin’s] well-documented belief that she’s living in the “end time” . . . and her interpretation of the Book of Revelation may be driving her public policy and particularly her foreign and military policy views.”

Palin clarified one of her foreign and military policy views for the Master’s Commission graduates by assuring them that the invasion of Iraq was “a task from God.” For a would-be vice president this policy view, one first held by medieval Crusaders as they whacked off Muslim heads, is a real diplomatic nonstarter for the 325 million Arabs living in the Middle East, not to mention the billion-plus Muslims worldwide.

But the mother of all diplomatic nonstarters among Middle East Arabs is a comment Joseph Biden, the current chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Obama’s would-be foreign policy advisor, made during an interview with the Jewish-American cable network, Shalom TV, “I am a Zionist.”

Having a declared Zionist as the vice president of Israel’s most ardent—to the point of irrational—ally waves a shoe in the face of Arabs who are convinced (rightly or wrongly) that Zionism’s ultimate goal is to fulfill the 3000-year-old biblical mandate in Genesis 15:18 to reclaim the land between the Nile and Euphrates rivers as Eretz Yisrael, a territory that includes all or part of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, a slice of Turkey and upwards of 160 million Arabs.

Considering the brutal tactics used by a succession of right-wing Israeli governments—backed by U.S. dollars and military hardware—to secure the Vermont-sized “Eretz Yisrael-lite,” it’s little wonder that Arabs living within the biblical boundaries of Eretz Yisrael feel terrorized by Israel’s chutzpa and its 200 nuclear warheads and have long since elevated their terror alert to blood red.

Keep in mind that when a terrorized people lack a superpower ally and more sophisticated means, their only recourse is to throw stones or strap explosives to their backs or pack suitcases with mini-nukes and deadly microbes or hijack airliners with box cutters and visit their enemy’s “blessed shores” This is not to excuse it. This is not to condone it. This is to explain it.

Come November Americans will choose one of two “terrors” (since our political system allows only two choices): the Middle East in flames to fulfill a biblical “end times” prophecy or the Middle East in flames to secure a biblical Eretz Yisrael. Either way, 325 million Arabs will have an answer that will undoubtedly send a twinge of terror, and most likely rage, down many a “radicalized” spine.

If the Bible or patriotic platitudes or political snake oil continue to be the extent—or sincerity—of our search for understanding the cause of 9/11, we will sooner than later have two more numbers of national significance and another annual occasion for remembering and mourning.


Biography: Robert Weitzel is a contributing editor to Media With a Conscience. His essays regularly appear in The Capital Times in Madison, WI. He can be contacted at: robertweitzel@mac.com

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The Making of Recent U.S. Middle East Policies

September 22, 2008

A New and Revealing Study of the Influence of the Neocons

By BILL and KATHLEEN CHRISTISON | Counterpunch, Sep 20 / 21, 2008

Stephen J. Sniegoski, The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel, Enigma Editions, Norfolk, Virginia, 2008

Not a few honest political analysts have long recognized the tight relationship between the Israel-U.S. partnership and the disastrous Bush administration adventures throughout the Middle East, including its backing for Israel’s systematic oppression of the Palestinians. Stephen Sniegoski has had the persistence to ferret out mountains of impossible-to-challenge evidence that this Israel-U.S. connection is the driving force behind virtually all Middle East decisionmaking over the last eight years, as well as the political courage to write a book about it.

Sniegoski’s new book demonstrates clearly how U.S. and Israeli policies and actions with respect to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the other Gulf states, and even most recently Georgia are all tied together in a bundle of interrelated linkages, each of which affects all the others. The right wing of Israeli politics, the neoconservatives in the U.S. who strongly support Israel, and the aging Israel lobby in the United States all have worked together, and are still doing so, to bring about more wars, regime changes, and instability, specifically the fragmentation of any Middle Eastern states that might ever conceivably threaten Israel.

In addition, one purpose of such wars and other changes is explicitly to intensify the discouragement of Palestinians as the latter’s potential allies are knocked off one by one, making it easier for Israel, over time, to finish off the Palestinians. That’s the theory. Those who believe it is vital to improve the human rights situation and the political outlook for the Palestinians must not only work to reverse present Israeli policies, but it is probably more important that we in the United States work even harder to reverse U.S. policies.

This is a long but quite splendid book. After a foreword by ex-Congressman Paul Findley and an introduction by Professor of Humanities Paul Gottfried, Ph.D., the text itself has 382 pages covering the entire history of the neoconservatives from the 1960s to 2008. The author has clearly spent untold hours reading all the writings he could find by not only the top few neocons but also numerous others who are far less well known but still important figures in the movement.

The neocons, by the way, are by and large not conspiratorial. They prefer to write voluminously and act openly with respect to their philosophies and actions. The word “transparent” in the title of the book emphasizes this very point. On the other hand, the neocons are also very skilled propagandists and are more than willing to spin “facts” in many situations in ways that often do not leave readers with an honest, unvarnished version of “truth.”

Sniegoski states his own main argument as follows:

“This book has maintained that the origins of the American war on Iraq revolve around the United States’ adoption of a war agenda whose basic format was conceived in Israel to advance Israeli interests and was ardently pushed by the influential pro-Israeli American neoconservatives, both inside and outside the Bush administration. Voluminous evidence, much of it derived from a lengthy neoconservative paper trail, has been marshaled to substantiate these contentions.” [Page 351]

The author then points out that

“… what was an unnecessary, deleterious war from the standpoint of [“realists” in] the United States, did advance many Israeli interests, as those interests were envisioned by the Israeli right. America came to identify more closely with the position of Israel toward the Palestinians as it began to equate resistance to Israeli occupation with ‘terrorism.’ … Israel took advantage of the new American ‘anti-terrorist’ position. The ‘security wall’ built by the Sharon government on Palestinian land isolated the Palestinians and made their existence on the West Bank less viable than ever. For the first time, an American president put the United States on record as supporting Israel’s eventual annexation of parts of the West Bank. Obviously, Israel benefited for the very reason that the United States had become the belligerent enemy of Israel’s enemies. As such, America seriously weakened Israel’s foes at no cost to Israel. The war and occupation basically eliminated Iraq as a potential power. Instead of having a unified democratic government, as the Bush administration had predicted, Iraq was fragmenting into warring sectarian groups, in line with the original Likudnik goal.” [Pages 356-357]

And yet one more quote is in order here:

“Since one is dealing with a topic of utmost sensitivity, it should be reiterated that the reference to Israel and the neoconservatives doesn’t imply that all or even most American Jews supported the war on Iraq and the overall neocon war agenda. … A Gallup poll conducted in February 2007 found that 77 percent of [American] Jews believed that the war on Iraq had been a mistake, while only 21 percent held otherwise. This contrasted with the overall American population in which the war was viewed as a mistake by a 52 percent to 46 percent margin. … [Nevertheless,] evidence for the neoconservative and Israeli connection to the United States war is overwhelming and publicly available. There was no dark, hidden ‘conspiracy,’ a term of derision often used by detractors of the idea of a neocon connection to the war. … It should be hoped that … Americans should not fear to honestly discuss the background and motivation for the war in Iraq and the overall United States policy in the Middle East. Only by understanding the truth can the United States possibly take the proper corrective action in the Middle East; without such an understanding, catastrophe looms.” [Pages 371-372]

The reader will note that the above excerpts all come from near the end of Sniegoski’s book. Before reaching this point in the book, you will be treated to informative and well-written chapters on the origins of the neoconservative movement, the Israeli origins of the United States’ Middle East war agenda, and neocon planning against Iran, as well as chapters entitled “World War IV” (a very important chapter), and “Democracy for the Middle East.” A particularly important chapter on “Oil and Other Arguments for the War” argues that oil was not as important a reason for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq as was Israel.

This book is a veritable bible on the neocons — and a frightening one. Anyone who thought that neocon thinking and policymaking had become passé with the political eclipse of the likes of Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith will be disquieted to find that these individuals were only the tip of the iceberg and that on all issues having to do with Israel neocon thinking lives on in policymaking councils and is about to be passed on to the next administration, whether it be Democratic or Republican.

Bill Christison was a senior official of the CIA. He served as a National Intelligence officer and as director of the CIA’s Office of Regional and Political Analysis.

Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst. She is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession. They can be reached at kb.christison@earthlink.net.

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These Are the Consequences of War

September 22, 2008
Antiwar. com, September 22, 2008
by Aaron Glantz

The following is an excerpt from Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations by Iraq Veterans Against the War and Aaron Glantz. From March 13-16, hundreds of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans gathered in Silver Spring, Md., to testify about atrocities they had personally committed or witnessed while deployed. Among those who testified was former Marine Corps Pfc. Vincent Emanuele of Chesterton, Ind. He served in Iraq in 2003 and 2005.

An act that took place quite often in Iraq was taking pot shots at cars that drove by. This was quite easy for most Marines to get away with because our rules of engagement stated that the town of al-Qaim had already been forewarned and knew to pull their cars to a complete stop when approaching a United States convoy. Of course, the consequences of such actions pose a huge problem for those of us who patrol the streets every day. This was not the best way to become friendlier with an already hostile local population. This was not an isolated incident, and it took place for most of our eight-month deployment.

We were sent out on a mission to blow up a bridge that was supposedly being used to transport weapons across the Euphrates, and we were ambushed. We were forced to return fire in order to make our way out of the city. This incident took place in the middle of the day, and most of those who were engaging us were not in clear view. Many hid in local houses and businesses and were part of the local population themselves, once again making it very hard to determine who was shooting from where and where exactly to return fire. This led to our squad shooting at everything and anything, i.e., properties, cars, people, in order to push through the town. I fired most of my magazines into the town, but not once did I clearly identify the targets that I was shooting at.

Once we were taking rocket fire from a town, and a member of our squad mistakenly identified a tire shop as being the place where the rocket fire came from. Sure enough, we mortared the shop. This was one of the only times we actually had the chance to investigate what we had done and to talk to the people we had directly affected. Luckily, the family who owned the shop was still alive. However, we were not able to compensate the family, nor were we able to explain how it was he could rebuild his livelihood. This was not an isolated incident, and it took place over the course of our eight-month deployment.

Another task our platoon took on was transporting prisoners from our base back to the desert. The reason I say the desert and not their town is because that is exactly where we would drop them off, in the middle of nowhere. Now, most of these men had obviously been deemed innocent, or else they would have been moved to a more permanent prison and not released back into the population. We took it upon ourselves to punch, kick, butt-stroke, or generally harass these prisoners. Then, we would take them to the middle of the desert, throw them out of the back of our Humvees while continually kicking, punching, and at times throwing softball-sized rocks at their backs as they ran away from our convoy. Once again, this is not an isolated incident, and this took place over the duration of our eight-month deployment.

The last and possibly the most disturbing of what took place in Iraq was the mishandling of the dead. On several occasions, our convoy came across bodies that had been decapitated and were lying on the side of the road. When encountering these bodies, standard procedure was to run over the corpses, sometimes even stopping and taking pictures with these bodies, which was also standard practice whenever we encountered the dead. On one specific occasion, I had shot a man in the back of the head after we saw him planting an IED device; we pulled his body out of the ditch he was laying in and left it to rot in the field. We saw the body again up to two weeks later. There were also pictures taken of this gentleman, and his picture became the screen-saver on the laptop belonging to one of our more motivated Marines.

The larger point that I’d like to touch on is that these are the consequences for sending young men and women into battle. These are the things that happen. And what I’d like to ask anyone who’s viewing this testimony is to imagine your loved ones put in such positions. Your brothers, your sisters, your nieces, your nephews, your aunts, and your uncles, and more importantly, and maybe most importantly, to be able to put ourselves in the Iraqis’ shoes who encountered these events every day and for the last five years.

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POLITICS-INDIA: Polls Uncertain With Jammu Divided From Kashmir

September 22, 2008

By Athar Parvaiz Bhat | Inter-Press Service News


SRINAGAR, Sep 21 (IPS) – Plans by the central government to conduct elections in Jammu and Kashmir, due originally in November, remain uncertain because of the serious regional and religious differences that have cropped up between the two main regions that make up the composite territory.

Relations between Hindu-majority Jammu and the Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley have been souring since May over a move to transfer forest land to a board that manages a popular, annual pilgrimage to the Hindu cave shrine of Amarnath, deep in the Kashmir Himalayas.

Agitations over the controversial move resulted in the regional People’s Democratic Party (PDP) withdrawing support to the coalition government led by chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad of the Congress party and the state being placed under direct central rule on Jul. 7.

And now, the federal government, the election commission, political parties and civil society leaders are unable to agree on when to schedule elections for a new state assembly.

“I don’t think holding elections would be a good thing to do at a time when the state is passing through a difficult situation. The entire state is on edge due to the communal and regional tension. I reckon that it will cause the situation to deteriorate further,” Balraj Puri, a noted expert on the Kashmir conflict who is based in Jammu, told IPS.

“Let the situation calm down. I think an internal dialogue between the two regions should be started on a priority basis to bring about a rapprochement,” said Puri who favours autonomy for the different regions of the state.

Prof. Rekha Choudhary, who teaches political science at Jammu University, believes that by planning to hold elections the central government appeared to be insensitive to the serious regional polarisation that has occurred. ”I think holding elections in the state in the current circumstances would be a huge risk. We have never seen the kind of hostilities between the regions of the state like what exists today,” she said.

Choudhary said the central government seems to be driven by the belief that holding elections would help bridge the gap between the Jammu and Kashmir regions. “In Kashmir pro-freedom groups that have appealed for a total boycott of the elections are going to gain in popularity by capitalising on the popular mood of hostility against India. And in Jammu, the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which favoured the land transfer to the Hindu shrine board, is going to benefit,’’ she said.

India’s Kashmir state is a classic example of linguistic and ethno-religious diversity and comprises the three distinct regions of Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh. Together, these regions are known to the world as Indian Administered Kashmir.

About 55 percent of the state’s total population of 10 million is settled in the alpine Kashmir region, traditionally the seat of power. While 98 percent of the people who live in Kashmir are Muslim, Jammu’s population is 60 percent Hindu. Ladakh accounts for two percent of the total population.

About a third of the area of the former princely state Jammu and Kashmir is under the administration of Pakistan.

In 1989, people in Muslim-dominated Kashmir began an armed struggle in favour of freedom from India and this spilled over into the Muslim areas of Jammu.

Political analysts say the mistrust between the Jammu and Kashmir regions has been brewing for a long time. The people and leaders of these regions have been competing for central developmental funds and prized positions in administration.

“The government of India never tried to evolve a mechanism to hold all the regions together in order to give them a feeling of belongingness. It never had a focused policy regarding Kashmir and was keen on installing puppet regimes in the state which would serve its own interests,” observes Gul Mohammad Wani who teaches political science at Kashmir University.

“Jammu region is demanding a greater share in power which, according to them, has always remained centred in Kashmir. On the contrary, people in the Kashmir region are demanding complete freedom from India,” Wani said.

Observers say that if the elections are not held by November, they will have to be postponed till April given the harsh winter in Kashmir and Ladakh. Out of a total of 87 assembly constituencies, a majority of them, 50, fall in Kashmir.

Most political parties prefer to delay polls till next year. The exception remains the pro-Hindu BJP which may benefit from the communal divisions, especially in Jammu.

“We suggest that congenial conditions be created for holding elections before announcing election dates,” says Omar Abdullah, president of the pro-India National Conference party. His viewpoint is shared by Mehbooba Mufti, leader of the PDP which also favours Kashmir remaining a part of India.

At least 42 people died during the agitations against the land transfer with the movement quickly morphing into revival of calls for freedom from Indian rule — not heard for the last five years.

Suspicions between the two regions worsened after traders in the Kashmir region announced snapping of relations with their Jammu counterparts in reaction to what they called “economic blockade” of their region by the people of Jammu during the agitation.

Kashmir receives essential supplies and exports its produce to markets in India solely through the 300 km-long Jammu-Srinagar highway.

“How can we think of maintaining trade ties with the traders from Jammu when they were party to the recent economic blockade of Kashmir by the people of Jammu,” says president of the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries (KCCI) Mubeen Shah. “The wounds, inflicted by the economic blockade of Kashmir, will take a lot of time to heal up’’

According to economists, boycotting trade with Jammu would mean immense loss to traders on both sides.

“Kashmir’s total trade is estimated at Rs 520 billion (11.3 billion US dollars) per annum out of which the yearly trade exchange between the Kashmir and Jammu regions is Rs 270 billion (six billion dollars),” says Prof. Nissar Ali who teaches economics at Kashmir University.

Traders in Kashmir have now intensified their demand for reopening the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road, which connects Indian Kashmir with the Pakistan administered part.

Before Pakistan and India grabbed control of parts of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947, the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road served as the main link between Kashmir and the markets of Rawalpindi in Pakistan and beyond.

On Aug. 11, thousands of Kashmiri traders and common people took out a symbolic march towards Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan administered Kashmir, to assert this demand. At least five people were killed and many others injured when police, stopped the march by opening fire some 20 km ahead of the Line of Control, the de-facto border between the Indian and Pakistani parts of Kashmir.

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Peace is not the absence of conflict; it’s a way through it

September 22, 2008

Statesman.com, Sunday, September 21, 2008

By Susan Van Haitsma

September 21 is International Day of Peace, a day established by the General Assembly of the United Nations for “commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace within and among all nations and people.” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also has urged all combatants to honor the day by standing down from battle. “I call for a day of global ceasefire: A 24-hour respite from the fear and insecurity that plague so many places,” he stated on this date last year. “I urge all countries and all combatants to honor a cessation of hostilities. I urge them to ponder the high price that we all pay because of conflict. I urge them to vigorously pursue ways to make this temporary ceasefire permanent.”

What is peace? Is it a temporary condition between periods of conflict? A worthy but unattainable ideal? Just a hope, or a dream?

Peace is not as elusive as that. It’s got a past, present and future. Peace is not so much a goal as a process. As the great nonviolent organizer, AJ Muste famously said, “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.”

Peace is not the absence of conflict; it’s a way through it. Because we humans are always going to be in conflict in some form or another, making peace means actively addressing conflict and injustice – not running away from it — using nonviolent methods. The choice is always available.

Some forms of peacemaking are so common that most people do it just like breathing. It’s the smile of affirmation, the word of encouragement, the humor that eases tension, the candid statement that clears the air. It’s the community garden, the guitar lesson, the basketball game. We make peace a hundred times a day because it’s the natural thing to do.

Peacemaking is also a discipline. We may make conscious decisions to refrain from gossip or name-calling, learn how to apologize, let go of a grudge, and firmly and respectfully stand up to bullying. Nonviolence, at its best, involves confronting an adversary while simultaneously preserving the adversary’s dignity.

People using principled nonviolence catch courage from one another. Like the father who forgives the man who murdered his daughter and then visits him in prison, the unarmed peace team that intercedes between armed militias, the former gang member who talks kids out of retaliatory violence, the soldier who refuses to return to war.

Peacemaking is done spontaneously or may be strategically planned – and is often both. Actions may be immediate responses to overt violence or symbolic acts that address root causes of injustice. Methods may include civil disobedience, nonviolent resistance and creative intervention. Like the elderly woman who is first to crawl under the barricade, the young people who sit in the road to halt business as usual, the cellist who plays Bach in the middle of a besieged town square, the student who faces down the rolling tanks.

The more we know about nonviolence, the more likely we are to use it. If media reports about people who commit violence dominate the news at the same time that nonviolent actions are ignored or minimized, what message does this convey, especially to young people who want to be heard?

I’m not convinced that violence sells the news, but I do think that the news sells violence, and it doesn’t have to.

I’d like to see what would happen if, even just for one day, like a Global Day of Ceasefire, all major media outlets around the world directed their journalists, photographers and videographers to document the ways people are choosing active nonviolence in the face of conflict, terror and injustice. Inspiration is contagious. A temporary ceasefire could become permanent.

Susan Van Haitsma writes as makingpeace on the Austin American-Statesman reader blogs.

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Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: We Muslims who despair of terrorism

September 22, 2008

The Independent, Monday Sep 22, 2008

Change font size: A | A | A

The admired Scots-Pakistani novelist Suhayl Saadi and his wife, Alina Mirza, who runs a Pakistani film festival in Glasgow, are dear friends. They got married at the Marriot in Islamabad, just bombed by Islamicist murderers who sent in a delivery of lethal explosives in a lorry, during Ramadan. Nice work, guys. Allah will surely reward you aplenty for the slaughter of the blameless, sent off with less ceremony than goats and chickens who, at least, are prayed for as their throats are cut. Ah but they only razed a temple of Western decadence, and many Muslims who worked or went there weren’t “real” Muslims, only Shias and disobedient women, reprobates and sinners for sure.

The couple are devastated, rendered hopeless – for the first time that I can remember. For years, in spite of Pakistan’s many failures, they have kept up a fierce optimism, as if heartfelt belief would, one day, drive away the evil forces that circulate and in parts overrun their ancestral homeland.

There are many more like them, Pakistani-Britons who are proud of the culture of Pakistan, its creative movers and shakers, and millions of extraordinary, generous people. But their pride and idealism are fast draining away.

My father came from Karachi. He fled the place in the 1920s and went back only once, a fortnight before he died in 1970. He never recovered from the experience. It was as if his heart gave up. The country was in the grip of the military again and savagery ruled. It still does. I have never felt the desire to go look for cousins, aunts and uncles.

The newly elected President, Asif Zardari, husband of Benazir Bhutto, new best friend of the United States, is one of that nation’s dodgiest characters. He replaced a military dictator, who replaced another allegedly corrupt politician, Nawaz Sharif, now a big player in the latest political configuration.

Armageddon is on its way as Pakistan dissolves at its north-western borders into that lawless territory that is Afghanistan. American interventions, demands and military incontinence in the region bolster Islamic reactionaries and guerrillas.

India meanwhile, with many similar endemic problems and ruthless governance in Kashmir, nevertheless flowers economically and still holds on to democracy and fundamental freedoms. Sadly Pakistan “proves” what the rest of the world believes, and not without reason, that Muslims are incapable of decent leadership or progressive politics and move instinctively to political and personal tyranny.

Look around and the evidence punches you in both eyes. Saudi Arabia, Iran and various nations in the Middle East and most “Islamic” states elsewhere are failing entities where the people are either afraid or oppressing others. I, a Muslim who fights daily against the unjust treatment of Muslims in the West, have to face the blinding truth that although we have serious external enemies, more Muslims are hurt, wounded, killed and denied by other Muslims who feel themselves to be virtuous.

Lest our detractors rub their hands with satisfaction, I tell them loud and clear, this is not exoneration of Guantanamo Bay, the destruction of Iraq, Belmarsh, Israel’s criminal treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, the fascists in Cologne who tried this week to run an anti-Islam rally, the viciously anti-Muslim BNP and the many ways Europe humiliates us Muslims.

But I am saying that Muslims enthusiastically participate in “rendition”, torture co-religionists in prisons, bomb fellow-worshippers from Iraq to Pakistan and beyond, subjugate their women, cut off hands and necks, keep their young cowering or brainwash them to the point when they are unfit to inhabit this century. If we respect and care for our own so little why should the rest of the world give a damn?

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Kashmir Countdown

September 21, 2008

Source:  Kashmir Watch

Anil Raina chronicles the recurrence of Kashmir’s freedom cries from generation next

Protestors pelting stones at policemen in down town Srinagar


Till last summer, Kashmir had managed to reclaim its status of a tourist’s hub. Hotels were booked till year end, business was picking up after years of turmoil and it seemed that good times were returning to the Valley.

People were coming to terms with the pain of loss and getting over the fatigue of being hapless victims of 19 years of strife. At the time, no one knew that the situation would change so dramatically and so soon. Today, the state resembles the days of early militancy. The air is once again rent with calls for Azadi and the baton of freedom struggle has once again been passed from one generation to the other, with even children participating in the movement.

AN AUGUST MARCH

The march in Srinagar’s Muzaffarbad Road on August 22 looked like an ocean of people covering the highway from Pattan to Sheeri: a generation of young men, who were toddlers in 1990 when Kashmir exploded with massive public demonstration, was leading the procession. The security forces had withdrawn after failing to halt this march at 10 different places. Hurriyat leader Sheikh Aziz was killed on August 11, which lent fuel to the movement. Aziz’s killing during the Muzaffarbad Chalo march organized by the Kashmir based separatist groups and supported by People Democratic Party (PDP) made the situation volatile. People in the valley came out on the streets and started demanding instant Azadi (freedom) angered by what they called a cold-blooded murder by the security forces.

Burned CRPF bunker in Srinagar


Following this, all of Kashmir had erupted; dozens of people were killed in police firing and soon the Valley took on a different hue from what it was two months ago when the only buzz in the air was of election rallies, a pleasant spring and thousands of tourists. The People’s March at Srinagar’s Muzaffarbad Road changed all that. “We will not stop. We have to cross the LoC. We have to re-unite Kashmir,” said Abdul Rasheed Dar, a peace-loving businessman until now. “Kashmir has woken up. The movement is alive again.”

UNITED THEY STAND

For the first time, a million Kashmiris assembled in Eidghah last month at the call of the Hurriyat to conduct a rally to voice their demand for a free Kashmir. The rally lasted for 12 hours. Earlier it was a fight for leadership and ideology between the several extremist groups such as JKLF, People League, Dukhtaran-e-Millat and others, but following the Amarnath land row, they have melted their differences and become united with a single point agenda of making Kashmir an independent country. The stage was shared by hardliners such as Syed Ali Shah Geelani, and the merger was named the Co-ordination Committee. Hurriyat Chirman Syed Ali Shah Geelani wanted an end to the dialogue with the Centre, demanding trilateral talks involving Pakistan. The hardliner wanted the moderate faction to launch an active boycott campaign in the forthcoming assembly elections and stop offering a resolution proposal on Kashmir to the Centre. “We cannot let go of the opportunity. If we fail to rise up to people’s expectations, they will never forgive us,” said a senior Hurriyat leader on condition of anonymity. “Only a united Hurriyat will be in any position to lead and maintain the current momentum.

More than 10 lakh people responded to the Eid Ghah Chalo call sent out by the Hurriyat


“We have seen the beginning of militancy in our Valley through the ’90s. We have seen the crisis during the first elections in 1996 and as members of the minority community we still survived by sheer determination of not abandoning our heaven but now we shall pay the price for being on the other side of extreme militancy engineered by own brethren in our own land,” says a distraught Pran Nath Koul, a school teacher, who managed to stay in the Valley despite decades of militancy, but could not stand the threat caused by the mobilization of erstwhile lower heads of extremist Jehadi groups in the wake of Amaranth land row. Koul did not sleep at night just to guard his wife and three children from those who protected him even in adverse crisis. Koul’s family is one of the over 1,500 Hindu families who were not targeted by extremist Islamic Militants even through that time in the last 20 years.

BUSINESS FIRST

Koul’s sentiments are seconded by several Hindu families in the Valley who feel that their own Hindu brethren have left them fighting a cause that was never their own. Had their brothers in Jammu for the first time in the history of Jammu and Kashmir not blocked the economy of Kashmir after the Amaranth land row, they would still continue to live in peace.

Protestors torch a police van in Srinagar


“Whatever the people are doing is the manifestation of their anger against the government of India,” said senior Hurriyat Leader Bilal Lone. Sahil-ul-Islam, political advisor to Hurriyat chairman Merwaiz Umer Farooq said, “We have repeatedly informed Delhi about the anger in the new generation. The Kashmir issue remains unaddressed but they can’t take every Kashmiri for a ride as they did before. Mobilization is the only answer.

“Unity is the need of the hour and that is why the leadership is united once again and we just want to channelize it and carry out a peaceful, non-violent movement, keeping the aspiration of the people of Kashmir in mind. The bandage approach of the people of India is no longer needed and we want the issue to be resolved for once and for all,” said Hurriyat chairman Merwaiz Umer Farooq. The 32-year-old is considered a moderate Kashmiri separatist leader  and has a strong base in the Bakra community. The Bakras are traditionally well-to-do people based in Srinagar, and have been at the forefront of anti-India politics in Kashmir.

(L) Unity among pro-freedom leaders: Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Shabbir Shah (R) About 3 lakh people gathered for the UN rally at TRC ground at Srinagar


Sajad Bhat, an apple supplier whose business was hit by the blockade on the highway because of which his produce could not be transported for 10 days and suffered great loses said, “So far it was a battle between Jammu and Kashmir and with rest of India, but now it has become too personal. My driver, who was delivering fruits to a Delhi market, was beaten so badly that I had to compensate their family despite incurring huge loses in business. I do not believe in massacring those responsible for the economic blockade, but in future if this continues, I have no option but to support the cause of fellow businessmen who for no fault of theirs have become victims of vote bank politics.”

However, the point in question is not about individuals gains or loses, says Riyaz Khan a chemist in Srinagar who has been in business since 10 years. “I never used to visit religious meetings since I believe that the protector is bigger than the destroyer; I would not even have participated in rallies until my business got hampered. I have got six people to feed from the profits that I earn from the shop. I used to get adequate supplies from the distributors before the road was blocked. I could not support my family for those 10 days when my people were dying for the medicines that could have saved their lives,” he says.

CRPF personals in action


The political leadership of all hues in the Valley is in a dilemma. Rendered ineffective by the mass upsurge, they are unsure about the way out of this situation which most of them felt was too serious. A senior leader said that dialogue was the only way out. But he has no clue where and how to get started. “If India and Pakistan fail to include Kashmiris in the dialogue process, we will be forced to launch non-violent agitation in Kashmir,” rounded off JKLF Chief Yasin Malik.

[Mumbai Mrror]

Posted on 21 Sep 2008 by Webmaster

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UK: Thousands march at Labour conference against war

September 21, 2008

Socialist Worker online, Sep 20, 2008

by Ken Olende

More than 5,000 people marched through central Manchester today against the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the spread of war to other countries.

The demonstration was timed to coincide with the start of the Labour Party conference. As marchers passed the conference venue many held their palms up towards it, shouting “blood on your hands”.

Falak, a young woman from Liverpool, said, “If you don’t speak up nothing’s going to change. The threats to Iran and the trouble in Pakistan show this war isn’t over.”

At a rally at the demonstration’s end Tony Woodley, the joint general secretary of the Unite union, called on marchers to remember the “many thousands of innocent victims of the lunatics that have taken us to war”.

Lindsey German, the convenor of the Stop the War Coalition, said, “In the middle of this economic crisis Gordon Brown should be helping the people struggling to pay the bills, not spending £3 million a day on the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Rose Gentle of Military Families Against the War said she was disgusted how the government treats its own soldiers. “They leave them to rot once they get back,” she said.

The demonstration was diverse and good spirited. There were banners from Stop the War groups from around the country and trade union banners from Bristol Health Service Unite to Kirklees Unison.

The march was called by Stop the War, CND and the British Muslim Initiative.

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Exposing the fallacy of anti-Zionism equaling anti-Semitism

September 21, 2008

lobby18.jpeg

Khaled Amayreh | Uruknet.info, Sep 21, 2008

Influential Zionist circles around the world have been bullying western governments to promulgate legislations that would incriminate critics of Israel on the ground that anti-Zionism is actually anti-Semitism in disguise.

The Zionist efforts have not been a complete failure as some western politicians and lawmakers are shamelessly parroting the Zionist canard, ignoring the huge chasm between the pathological hatred of Jews, commonly known as anti-Semitism or Judeophobia, and the moral rejection of Israel’s manifestly criminal policies toward the Palestinian people.

In recent years, a famous French author was found guilty of displaying “anti-Semitism” for writing a book on Zionist mythology with regard to Palestine.

In Austria, a British historian was dumped in jail for questioning the Israeli-Zionist narrative regarding the holocaust.

And in the United States, the country of the First Amendment, a major British Publishing House has been “ousted” because it publishes books the world-wide Jewish lobby considers “anti-Israeli.”

Fortunately, there are many conscientious Jews who courageously reject the Zionist claim that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are two sides of the same coin.

The small but increasingly active group, known as Natori Karta (guardians of the City) represents the most pronounced Jewish opposition to Zionism and Israel.

The group believes that Zionism is inherently immoral and antithetical to true Judaism.

In light, one is almost innately prompted to ask how can a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews who include Torah sages of impeccable credentials be anti-Semites?

Well, the classical Zionist answer is that Jews who reject Zionism are self-hating Jews!!!

This explanation, however, is as valid as claiming that Germans who rejected the Third Reich were self-hating or incomplete Germans.

I am making this analogy because there is really more commonality between Zionism and Nazism than there is between Zionism and Judaism.

What do they want?

But what do the Zionists hope to achieve by trying to outlaw criticisms of and public opposition to Israel and Zionism, especially in the West?

Well, their ultimate goal is clear. They want the rest of the world to recognize and acknowledge that Israel is a special nation since Jews are said to be a special people.

They want the world to acknowledge that the rules and norms that apply to the rest of the world, e.g. the rule of international law, doesn’t apply to Israel.

They want me and you and the entire humanity to acknowledge that while war crimes and crimes against humanity may be condemned when perpetrated by the “goyim” (the non-Jewish world), the same crimes must be tolerated and even accepted as legitimate when perpetrated by Jews.

And when the world speaks up against such crimes when committed by Zionist Jews, the ready-made charge of “anti-Semitism” will be unleashed in the face of Israel critics.

And if the critics happen to be Jewish, the disgusting mantra of “self-hating Jews” will be invoked to silence and intimidate the Jewish critics.

Well, the world must never succumb to Zionist intimidation and bullying. We are supposed to be living in an ethical universe where right is right and wrong is wrong.

And if we allowed these self-worshiping megalomaniacs, God forbid, to have their way, then at one point we would be forced to morph ourselves into robot-like slaves in the service of a universal satanic power that is hell-bent on controlling the peoples of the world by controlling the governments of the world.

Hence, we must never allow ourselves to succumb to this monstrous “Jewish power” that is trying to bastardize universal morality and corrupt human conscience. We must continue to call the spade a spade even if we see it in the hands of the strongest of men.

Israel is not hated because it is Jewish

It is important though to make it abundantly clear that Israel is no more hated for being “Jewish” than Nazi Germany was for being Aryan or German.

Israel is hated because of her evil ideology and equally evil practices. A country whose birth and survival were and continue to be at the expense of another people is an evil country and has no right to exist.

A country that is dedicated to the destruction and obliteration of another people is an evil country regardless of how many admirers its has around the world.

Israel is hated because of its systematic, institutionalized oppression, ethnic cleansing, mass murder, home demolition, apartheid, racism and slow-motion genocide of non-Jews as is the case in the Gaza Strip.

Israel is hated because it oppresses people and discriminates against them in ways reminiscent of the Nazi era because the victims don’t belong to the “holy tribe”!!!

In short, Israel is hated because of its evil acts, not because of its Jewish identity. Claiming that it is hated because of its religion or “race” is a canard amounting to a Big Lie.

Anti-Zionism highest moral obligation

There is no doubt that anti-Semitism, like Islamophobia and other forms of racism, must be fought relentlessly and uprooted, although this may well be an impossible task, given the human nature.

However, anti-Zionism is a different thing, since Zionism represents evil in is ugliest form. Yes, Zionism produced many scientists and made some technological advancements. But so what? Nazi Germany, too, produced many scientists and made technological advancement.

In the final analysis nations, like individuals, are primarily judged according to their moral credentials not scientific achievements, especially if these achievements are utilized to further injustice toward fellow human beings. This is why a given scientist who does and supports evil should be viewed as an evil man no matter how many prestigious awards he has won.

For all these reasons, I believe that standing against Zionism is a high moral obligation upon the entire humanity.

In the final analysis, combating Zionism also serves the best interests of the Jewish people.

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Former Israeli military and intelligence officials active in Arab countries

September 20, 2008
International Middle East Media Center, Sep 19, 2008
by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies

The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, reported on Thursday that dozens of former Israeli military officers and a large number of Mosad (Israeli Intelligence) and Shabak (Israeli secret service) members are active in cooperation with the Israeli Security devices in several Arab countries in the Gulf.

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The countries in question have outstanding relations with the United States, and the Israeli security services are active there through specialized foreign security agencies.

The Haaretz report added that the security officials are carrying wide range of security activities in the Arab Gulf and are spending tens of millions of US Dollars.

There activities include training Arab security personnel on operating advanced weaponry, intelligence equipment, border protection techniques, techniques to counter kidnapping attempts, coups, and attempts to occupy strategic facilities such as Oil refineries.

The report mentioned several names of senior Israeli security officials who are participating in these programs such as Giora Island, the former head of the Israeli National Security Council, and General Doron Almong.  In addition, several companies and the Air Force Development Agency are active in the Arab Gulf under the direct supervision of the Israeli Security Ministry.

The Swedish AGT international company, which was formed by the Israeli-American businessman, Mani Kochavi, won a contract worth hundreds of millions of US Dollars to construct a project which belongs to the Israeli Internal Security  in one of the Arab gulf Emirates.

Haaretz added that Al Zawiya newspaper based in the Arab gulf reported on the issue in March 2008.

Kochavi is also the head of the Sentry Technology Group (STG) which is of the corporations which managed to garner fast growth in the security arena in the United States.

The STG was also a partner with the Israeli Air Force Industries which sells equipment and the required technologies specialized in airport security in the United States and other countries, including countries in the Middle East.

Recently STG purchased equipment worth tens of millions of US Dollars in Israeli companies which specialize in developing monitoring and control programs.

The former Israeli Air Force leader, Etan Bin Elyahu, said that he left STG several years ago, after it started operating outside the United States.

Kochavi is hiring dozens of officers who previously worked in the Israeli army, in addition to hiring several senior officials of the Israeli army and the air force industries, and officials who worked with the Shabak and the Mosad.

A spokesperson for  Kochavi stated that all company’s operations are conducted under the supervision of the Israeli security agency and all of its branches.

Kochavi is an Israeli who moved to live in the United States and collected his fortune in the real estate business. In Recent years, and especially after the September 11 attack, he got involved with the Homeland Security and developed relations with Israeli security agencies. He then started hiring former senior security officials.

The Israeli security agencies are very active in encouraging security industries and weapon manufacturing and are active in exporting them to several Arab Countries, especially the countries that have good relations with the United States and could find themselves threatened by Iran.

category arab world | israeli politics | news report author email saed at imemc dot org

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