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Civil Democratic Islam

Partners, Resources, and Strategies


By: Cheryl Benard

Contemporary Islam is struggling within itself over its values, identity, and place in the world, with rivals contending for spiritual and political dominance--as well as with the "outside" world. In Western eyes, the ideal Islamic community would be democratic, economically viable, politically stable, and socially progressive and would follow the rules and norms of international conduct. But as the international community strives to understand all this and, possibly, influence the outcome, the best approaches--or even whom to approach--are not always easy to determine. As an aid to the process, this report compares and contrasts the subgroups within Islam. The author recommends careful deliberation in deciding how to proceed, taking into account the symbolic weight of certain issues, the meaning likely to be assigned to any positions U.S. policymakers might take on these issues, the consequences for other Islamic actors, and the opportunity costs and possible unintended consequences. With all that in mind, the author then makes her own series of recommendations.


RAND | Monograph/Reports | Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies
Source: www.rand.org
Islam's own internal struggles make it difficult for outsiders to understand the actors and the issues. The author sheds light on these issues and suggests ways for the international community to cope.

Review: Civil Democratic Islam By Cheryl Benard

Since September 11, many authors, scholars, policymakers and researchers have contemplated the role of Islam in Muslim societies. At a time when the geostrategic, cultural, and sociological frontiers of the Muslim world are being redrawn in Washington and London , a strategy for the West to counter Muslim “fundamentalism” by supporting Muslim “moderates” has been drawn up in a report funded partially by a conservative American think-tank. The report, entitled Civil Democratic Islam: partners, resources, strategies, was drawn up by the US-based RAND corporation, with financial support from the conservative Smith Richardson Foundation, a trust fund that annually hands out in excess of $100 million to research organizations and universities.[1]
The report is the latest in a long series of policy papers dedicated to further the military, economic, and cultural onslaught of the West on the Muslim World. In a briefing given in summer 2002 to a top Pentagon advisory board, former RAND analyst Laurent Murawiec described Saudi Arabia as the “kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent” to US interests in the Middle East . He argued that Washington should demand that Saudi Arabia stop supporting “terrorism” or face seizures of its oil fields and its financial assets in the US . Murawiec urged a multi-stage imperial campaign in the Middle East, beginning with Iraq (“the tactical pivot”), continuing to Saudi Arabia (“the strategic pivot”) and finally to Egypt (“the prize”).[2]

Civil Democratic Islam was written by Cheryl Benard, a sociologist who had previously published feminist-themed novels (including Moghul Buffet and Veiled Courage) that ridicule religious figures and portray Muslim women as oppressed individuals living under the rule of totalitarian megalomaniac male patriarchs.

Despite the objection of millions of Muslim women to the controversial French ban on the hijab, or Islamic headscarf, in French public schools, Benard insisted in a recent commentary for the Christian Science Monitor that the new law is a positive push for women’s rights: “Throughout the Islamic world the hijab is often something girls and women wear because they are forced to – a symbol of restriction and intimidation.” Although a sociologist, Benard positions herself as an authority on Islamic jurisprudence, citing among other things a claim made by an unknown Egyptian author who contends that “the head scarf is not an obligation, but derives from an erroneous reading of the Koran.”[3]



"Muslims are compartmentalized depending on their degree of affinity for Western values and concepts."



Interesting to note is that Cheryl Benard is married to Zalmay Khalilzad, who is currently a Special Assistant to President Bush and the chief National Security Council (NSC) official for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia . Khalilzad is known to be probably the first and only Afghan-American neoconservative, with clearly hawkish views.[4] During the 1980s he was able to secure himself a permanent position in the State Department’s Policy Planning Council, working under neoconservative mastermind Paul Wolfowitz. He then served as undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration during its war on Iraq in 1991. After the 2000 election, Vice President Dick Cheney selected Khalilzad to head Bush Jr.’s transition team for defense issues.

Khalilzad is also known to have been involved in long-running US efforts to obtain direct access to oil and gas reserves in Central Asia, serving as an energy consultant to Chevron and as an advisor to US oil giant Unocal, which was interested in building a gas pipeline between Turkmenistan and Pakistan via Afghanistan. He is also known to have courted anti-Saddam and anti-Taliban groups both prior to and after the US invasion of both countries.



In Civil Democratic Islam, Cheryl Benard makes her intentions clear. The goal is the construction of a new, passive, Islamic discourse tailored to suit the West’s post-September 11 agenda. Elaborated in the most explicit of terms, the author leaves no doubts concerning the grandiose ambitions of her project: “It is no easy matter to transform a major world religion. If ‘nation-building’ is a daunting task, ‘religion-building’ is immeasurably more daunting and complex,” [emphasis added].[5]



Benard explains that Islam’s current crisis has two main components: “a failure to thrive and a loss of connection to the global mainstream.” From the author’s perspective, the Muslim world is civilization’s problem-child, “fallen out of step with contemporary global culture.” Again, the author utilizes convenient classical Orientalist discourse to stereotypically depict Muslims. Once more, Muslims are the “backward barbarians” whose lifestyle is antithetical to that of the West. If the modern West is dynamic, the world of Islam is stagnant. While the West honors human life and freedom, Islam is plagued by despots, terrorists, endless “hadith wars,”[6] and fanatic explosive-wearing youth who glorify death and encourage nihilistic concepts such as martyrdom. No reference is made to the West’s support for totalitarian secular regimes, Israel ’s endless pogroms against the Palestinians and ethnic cleansing perpetrated against Muslims in Eastern Europe and Chechnya , and of course, the US ’ carpet bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq is conveniently neglected.



The report suggests forging close ties with forces in the Islamic world that are more amicable to the West, identifying four essential ideological positions in Muslim societies vying for control over Muslim hearts and minds:

Fundamentalists who “reject democratic values and contemporary Western culture”
Traditionalists who “are suspicious of modernity, innovation and change”
Modernists who “want the Islamic world to become part of global modernity”
Secularists who “want the Islamic world to accept a separation of religion and state.”
The report says that the modernists and secularists are closest to the West, but are generally in a weaker position than the other groups, lacking money, infrastructure and a political platform. It suggests a strategy of supporting modernists and secularists by publishing their work at subsidized costs, encouraging them to write for mass audiences, getting their views into the Islamic school curriculum and helping them in the new media world that is dominated by fundamentalists and traditionalists.



It further recommends that traditionalists should be supported against fundamentalists, and that the US should pursue a policy of “encouraging disagreements” between the two. Another suggested strategy would be to confront and oppose fundamentalists by challenging their interpretation of Islam and exposing their links with illegal groups and activities. Furthermore, Benard urges the strengthening of Sufism, since it represents a more passive and tolerant interpretation of Islam.



What is striking to note is that in almost all areas of the report, Muslims are not dealt with as reasonable individuals with legitimate fears, but are conveniently compartmentalized into subgroups for analysis depending on their degree of affinity for Western values and concepts. Those subgroups are to be used as pawns to further the interests of US hegemony – a policy of “divide and rule.”



Rather than facing contemporary problems of marginalization and subordination imposed by despotic Western-supported regimes or by imperialist designs on their region, Muslims are portrayed as people who are out of touch with reality, as rigid ideologues who are endlessly engaged in age-old theological debates.

From the author’s perspective, Muslim violence and protest is not a reaction to injustice, but is simply an expression of illiterate, uneducated masses being led by well-funded, disciplined fundamentalists. The fundamentalists, we are told, are the real danger, because they advocate an “aggressive, expansionist version of Islam that does not shy away from violence… Their unit of reference is the not the nation-state or the ethnic group, but the Muslim community, the Ummah; gaining control of particular Islamic countries can be a step on this path but is not the main goal.”[7] Ironically, if using violence to achieve political goals and gain control of particular countries implies fundamentalism, then US foreign policy in the Muslim world is unbridled radicalism par excellence.



"Benard’s suggestions are Machiavellian, seeking to enforce Western hegemony."



Surprisingly, the author admits that even “many important secularists in the Islamic World are unfriendly or even extremely hostile to us [the West] on other grounds.”[8] Again, the main reason for their hatred is not the ugly reality of the US’ policies in the Middle East, but rather misguided ways of thinking manifested in “leftist ideologies, anti-Americanism and aggressive nationalism.”[9] Benard’s insinuations are clear: When Muslims hate or use violence, it is because they are inherently radical or misguided, but when the modern, enlightened, benevolent West uses the same tactics or espouses similar objectives, its behavior is either conveniently disregarded or immediately rationalized.

Ultimately, Benard’s suggestions are nothing more than a Machiavellian manifesto that seeks to enforce Western hegemony and cultural imperialism through an archaic policy of “divide and rule.” The type of Islam that Benard espouses is a passive and weak Islam that can be easily penetrated and hence reformulated to suit the West’s agenda.



The role model for Benard is Turkey , whom she regards as “one of the Islamic world’s most successful states” because of its policy of “aggressive secularism.”[10] The author seems to forget that despite decades of “aggressive secularism,” two Islamist governments were elected by the Turks in recent years, the last of which refused to grant the US access to Turkey ’s military facilities prior to the war on Iraq .



Not only does the author want to deform some of the basic aspects of Islam – issues such as jihad, shahada (martyrdom), and hijab – but she goes as far as to question the authenticity of the Qu’ran itself, when she contemptibly suggests that “it is widely accepted that at least two suras were lost” from the Muslim holy book.[11] To make nefarious suggestions about the Qu’ran, without any citation or evidence, is not only repugnant, but an exercise in poor scholarship. One suspects that if similar statements were made about Jewish scripture the author would have been prosecuted for anti-Semitism.



Benard’s policy recommendations, despite their virulent anti-Islamic undertones and their divisive implications for the Muslim world, are nothing new in the political lexicon of US foreign policymaking. Two decades ago, while Shi’ite fundamentalism emanating from Iran was considered the biggest threat to Western civilization, hundreds of Sunni Muslim “radicals” were being armed by the United States to wage jihad against the Soviet Union. The operating assumption at the time was that the Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islam was innately conservative and therefore a natural ally of the US against the communists and the radical Shi’ites.[12] Today, Sufis, modernists, secularists and some Shi’ites are being seen as a counterweight to Sunni fundamentalists. Indeed, history repeats itself in twisted ways.



Kareem M. Kamel is an Egyptian freelance writer based in Cairo, Egypt . He has an MA in International Relations and is specialized in security studies, decision- making, nuclear politics, Middle East politics and the politics of Islam. He is currently assistant to the Political Science Department at the American University in Cairo .

Footnotes:

Paul Reynolds, “Preventing a ‘Clash of Civilization’” BBC News March 29, 2004
Jack Shafer, “The Power Point that Rocked the Pentagon,” Slate MSN August 7, 2002
Cheryl Benard, “French Tussle Over Muslim Head Scarf is Positive Push for Women’s Rights,” RAND January 5, 2004
“ Iran Expert Khalilzadeh to Take Over US Policy in Near East ,” Iran Expert January 7, 2002
Cheryl Benard, “Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources and Strategies,” RAND
See “Appendix A: Hadith Wars” where the author refers to the manipulation of prophetic sayings as “a tactical tool” to be used in winning debates against fundamentalists. Ibid., pp.49-55
Ibid., 5
Ibid., 25
Ibid., 25
Ibid., 26
Ibid., 24
Tony Karon, “The Shi’ites the U.S. Thinks it Knows,” Time.com March 11th, 2004
http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1716/

December 5, 2008

Washington Arrogance Has Fomented a Muslim Revolution

by Paul Craig Roberts

"In a government of law, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy." Justice Louis Brandeis Is Pakistan responsible for the Mumbai attack in India? No. Is India’s repression of its Muslim minority responsible? No. Is the United States government responsible? Yes. The attack on Mumbai required radicalized Muslims. Radicalized Muslims resulted from the US overthrowing the elected government in Iran and imposing the Shah; from the US stationing troops in Saudi Arabia; from the US invading and attempting to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, bombing weddings, funerals, and children’s soccer games; from the US violating international and US law by torturing its Muslim victims; from the US enlisting Pakistan in its war against the Taliban; from the US violating Pakistan’s sovereignty by conducting military operations on Pakistani territory, killing Pakistani civilians; from the US government supporting a half century of Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their lands, towns and villages; from the assault of American culture on Muslim values; from the US purchasing the government of Egypt to act as its puppet; from US arrogance that America is the supreme arbiter of morality. As Justice Brandeis said, crime is contagious. Government teaches by example, and America’s example is lawlessness. America’s brutal crimes against the Muslim world have invited every Muslim to become a law unto himself – a revolutionary. It is not terror that Washington confronts but revolution. By illegal, uncivilized and undiplomatic behavior, the US has stirred Muslim peoples from their long slumber as serfs of Western colonial powers. Some Muslims have had all that they can take, and their fury drives them to rouse a billion of their fellows to throw off the yoke of foreign hegemony. The arrogant incompetence of American governments brought this conflict to the American people and inflicted it upon the world. By destabilizing Pakistan, the US lost a puppet and created an opportunity for Muslim revolutionaries to exploit. By enraging India against Pakistan, the Mumbai attack has created new problems for Pakistan that will focus that government’s attention away from combating Taliban sanctuaries on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. If the US picks up the slack, it will have invaded yet another country and become trapped in a larger quagmire. Having fomented terrorism, the American government now pretends to be the innocent victim, just as Israelis, having brought about terrorism by driving Palestinians from their homes and villages, pretend to be innocent victims. Today European members of NATO, an outdated organization formed to defend Western Europe against Soviet invasion, are sacrificing the lives of their soldiers fighting the American Empire’s war in Afghanistan. If America continues to have its way, Europeans will soon be dying in Ukraine, Georgia, and Iran. The American government, which preaches "freedom and democracy" has in the 21st century gone to great extremes to stamp out the US Constitution and the civil liberties that it guarantees. The US government has repudiated the Geneva Conventions and the prohibitions in US statutory law against torture. The US government has set aside habeas corpus, the ancient legal principle guaranteed by the US Constitution that prohibits governments from holding people in prisons without presenting charges. The US government has broken the laws of other nations by kidnapping foreign citizens and transporting them to other lands to be tortured. These massive crimes have been justified in the name of the "war on terror." In truth, America’s crimes foment revolution. It was the US government that created the "war on terror," which has been used to murder and dispossess millions of Iraqis and Afghans, to imprison US citizens as if they were medieval serfs, and to squander three trillion dollars for the sole purpose of enriching Halliburton and the military-security complex. Investigative journalist John Pilger has shown that the so-called "moral superiority of the West" is a hoax designed to shield from view the self-seeking West’s crimes against humanity. Obama promised change from this destructive behavior, but how does change arise when the most arrogant woman on earth is appointed Secretary of State and the rest of the new government is staffed with tried-and-true Likudniks and servants of the military-security complex? The change over which Obama will preside will have no American victories. The change will come from America as a failed state, from the dollar dethroned as reserve currency, from America repudiated by its allies and paid puppets, from massive unemployment for which there is no solution, from hyperinflation that produces anarchy. The day might arrive when Washington is faced with revolution at home as well as abroad.

Shaykh Husayn bin Mahmud: This is al-Qa’idah

Shaykh Husayn bin Mahmud: This is al-Qa’idah September 10, 2009

Posted by admin in : Jihad, Knowledge, True Shuyookh , trackback

I am posting this article here because we need more open minded articles that give more exposure to people, ideologues and groups that usually don’t have much exposure due to the media efforts to defame them.

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate

” This is Al-Qaeda (1) “

Thanks be to God: the Determiner of fates, the Creator of tall and heavy mountains, He who restores life and ends it, the Living, the Permanent, with all His majesty. May perfection, prayers, and peace upon the teacher of people, the one who is satisfied with all of destiny with its good and bad.

” Before I begin discussing the title, I would like to remind the people about a certain pillar of Islam. He was a continuation of the predecessors, and an expert of the age. Perhaps these words will move a heart and excite a soul in such a way that the chest will open and pray for the mercy and forgiveness of the Shaykh of Muslims, Abdullah bin Abd-al-Rahman al-Jibrin (may God grant him mercy and rest his soul). Many youths do not know the extent of the nation`s loss in this great cleric. In the recent past, if something happened, Muslims would say: `Let us await the opinion of the two shaykhs, Ibn-Baz and Ibn-Uthaimayn.` When Ibn-Baz died, they would say: `Let us await what Ibn-Jibrin will say.` The massive calamity that has befallen the nation is that there are no clerics today to refer to in this way. He who has mingled with religious circles knows the dangers (and benefits) of gathering the words of the nation and uniting it. The loss of Shaykh Ibn-Jibrin (may God rest his soul) is a loss of a piece of the religious structure, not just an expert. I do not think that Al Sa`ud (the Saudi Royal Family) were comfortable after the death of this great cleric. Shaykh Ibn-Uthaimayn and Shaykh Ibn-Jibrin were feared the most. The rest of their peers did not carry the same weight in religious circles. Shaykh Ibn-Baz (may God rest his soul) was more lenient than his two brothers. They did not fear him like they feared the others. Sultan Bin Abd-al-Aziz used to deliberately insult Shaykh Bin-Baz and keep him waiting at his door for long periods of time. The shaykh (may God rest his soul) only went to him about the needs of Muslims. He was patient (may God rest his soul). If one said that the last cleric and shaykh in the (Arabian) Peninsula who told the truth and only feared God has died, he would be saying the truth. Today the ruler is happy on his throne. Today the hypocrites and apostates are happy and breathing a sigh of relief. Today Muslims are mourning. Muslims today must be honest in their prayers to God. They should ask the Almighty, using His great names and attributes, to compensate the nation with a divine cleric who speaks the truth, whatever it might be, to the face to anyone, and only fear God in this. O God, have mercy on Shaykh Ibn-Jibrin. Forgive him and reward him with the best reward for a cleric of the nation of your prophet (prayers and peace of God be upon him). “Back to the topic:

“This is a simple article (perhaps small) but correct in meaning. It shows the reality of the nation`s condition today, the truth about what the rulers are calling for, and the truth about what is wanted from the sons of this nation. These rulers have exhausted all efforts and abilities in order to kill what is left of religion in the hearts of the public. They have used the media and other means to remove all the pride, eliminate all the manhood, and mutate what is left of the brain to create a subservient generation that lives on the margins and is sustained by scraps. This is a generation that we cannot say knows virtue or rejects vice. It is a generation that denies virtue and pursues vice. The rulers today are preparing the nation for a scheme that was devised in the dark: the Christian occupation of Muslim countries, once again. It is an occupation in the full meaning of the word: of hearts, minds, desires, countries, subjects, chastity, and wealth. This is not possible as long as religion is still in the soul and people promote virtue and reject vice. It will not be possible while the sword of jihad is still raised and not sheathed. Those who see this rabid campaign against religion and morals in the media, the curricula in the schools, and the monitoring of the clerics of Shari`ah, know the goals of these rulers and those who are behind them quite clearly.

“It has been ten years since the eighth Crusade against Islam. It is the war that the people of jihad have fought, headed by the mujahidin of Afghanistan. Despite this, there are still questions regarding the truth about Al-Qaeda and its ideology. Is it an independent organization, or is it under some umbrella group? Many brothers have written me asking for an article about the creed of Al-Qaeda. After all this time, all that has been said, and all the actions and sacrifices, how can people still not know the truth about the people of jihad in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Arabian Peninsula, Somalia, the Arab Maghreb and Chechnya? There are many sensitive questions about this matter, and what is here is meant to be read by everyone so that they can now know the clear, hidden but announced, truth. May the reader forgive us if we do not do well in presenting the concepts, for the most difficult thing to do is to make clear what is already clear.

” The Truth About the Term `Al-Qaeda` “During the first Afghan jihad against the Christian Soviets, the mujahidin descended on Afghanistan from everywhere. The natural destination was the `Services Office` established by Shaykh Abdullah Azzam (may God rest his soul), or the `Bayt al-Ansar (House of the Supporters)` later established by Shaykh Usama (Bin Ladin). This House would receive the youths, take their personal information, monitor their phases of development in the training centers, and then record the names of the fronts they were fighting jihad in. Because of the high number of volunteers, a separate department was created to preserve and organize these records and oversee the `Bayt al-Ansar` and the training camps. The youths agreed to call this process (Bayt al-ansar, the training centers, and the record-keeping) Al-Qaeda because this agency was the first place the mujahidin went to. This naming was not an anythinf new, for it was similar to the military base of any regular army. It differed in that it was the base of a mujahid Islamic army in the age of hesitation and non-participation in jihad. In the Medina of the time of the messenger of God (prayers and peace of God be upon him) and that of the the two shaykhs, as well as during part of the rule of Uthman (may God bless them all), there was a base from which the Muslims would launch to conquer the earth. The Arab mujahidin in Afghanistan were called the `Al-Ansar,` the `mujahidin,` or the `muhajirun` (immigrants). The term `Al-Qaeda` did not exist until the conquest of Kabul. Perhaps the Americans found some Bayt al-Ansar records, or pehaps some spies told them about Al-Qaeda, whereupon they took this name and made it famous. This is the origin of the word `Al-Qaeda,` which was used by the US media to divert people away from the truth that these people are in fact mujahidin for the sake of God (and so separate them from the rest of the nation). The Arab and international media quickly followed suit.

” The Creed and Ideology of Al-Qaeda “Talking about the creed and ideology of Al-Qaeda is to talk about Islam itself. A lot of people are not able to understand this simple and easy truth. Some might reject this truth or find it strange, because it is so simple. For ten years the enemy media has portrayed a dark, mysterious Al-Qaeda. It has tried, with all its magic, to widen the gulf between Islam and the mu jahidin. The truth is, the media has succeeded in mutating Muslims` ideas of Islam. It has told the people: `Al-Qaeda goes against these mutated ideas.` The media has ruined the great pillars and foundations of religion (the notion of jihad, the creed of loyalty and disavowal, and the truth of belief and monotheism). Jihad has become a source for discord and has been made harmful to the nation and its interests. They marginalized jihad after they severed many of its proofs. There is no jihad today except in Palestine, and no jihad in Palestine except with the approval of the `legitimate Palestinian leadership` Fatah (and Fatah is under the command of the Jews). So in reality, there is no jihad in Palestine except with the approval of the Jews. Anyone who goes against this is a deviant, extremist terrorist who does not know the meaning of legitimate jihad.

“As for the creed of loyalty and disavowal, it has been transformed from a religious to nationalist creed. Loyalty and disavowal are now tied to nationality and ethnicity. Loyalty to God Almighty has become loyalty to rulers and governments. Armies only know their kings or presidents, and when the ruler or government changes, so does their loyalty. People are loyal to the country, whether the government is Muslim or infidel. What is even stranger is the loyalty of many Muslim youths, who should be guiding humanity. Instead they play on soccer teams, many of which are in the lands of infidels. They go sports tournaments where they love, hate, go fanatical. You find many youths proudly pinning up pictures of Christian soccer players in their rooms and on their chests. They wear shirts with the names of those infidels, and then go into houses of God to pray with these shirts on. Many of these shirts have the symbols of these European clubs, which include crosses. What calamity is greater than Muslim youths willingly carrying crosses on their chests? If we could see how much these governments in our countries spend to market these games in newspapers and magazines and broadcast them on the screens, we would realize the magnitude of their conspiracies against the future of Islam. This is at a time when many Muslims are dying of thirst and hunger in refugee camps across the world.

“As for belief and monotheism, it is embarrassing. True belief has been separated from the heart, and you only find wicked `Irja` (Muslim school of thought where punishment and reward are only in the afterlife and a proclamation of faith is sufficient, deeds notwithstanding). Deeds are no longer part of faith. No matter what a person does and how many acts of non-belief he commits, he is still a Muslim as long as he proclaims `There is no god but God.` I wish people would have been satisfied with just this, but they have gone even further and canceled the laws of God. They set up constitutions and laws that go against His commands, and followed the priests and turbaned rabbis who allow what is forbidden and forbid what is allowed. The forefathers used to say that he who withholds bread has become an apostate, and he who allows a drop of alcohol has become an apostate. They have allowed usury, promiscuity, alcohol, gambling, non-belief, polytheism, support of God`s enemies, enmity to the supporters of God, and rule by other than what God has sent. They have forbidden adherence to the commands of Islam, the call to God, support for the people of Islam, and fighting and inciting jihad for the sake of God. He who wants proof of this, let them grab a musical instrument in any Arab country and play, in public, whatever they want, day and night, and no one will stand in their way. However, if he holds a Koran or a book about the Hadith and reads in one of God`s homes, you will find intelligence agents gathering around him like flies and taking him for interrogation and questioning. He will be tortured, threatened, and violently warned against going back to such a dangerous thing.

“Recently, slogans have spread among Muslims that show the extent of the conspiracy against Islam. Among th ese slogans are: freedom of religion, the brotherhood of humanity, and equality in rights and responsibilities among the people. The call to these slogans is led by Arab rules, headed by the betrayer of the Two Holy Mosques (Saudi King) Abdullah bin Abd-al-Aziz. If we give him the benefit of the doubt, we might say that he is just an Arab who does not know the truth of these slogans. But what about those who know and do not reject? `Liberty, fraternity, and equality` are old Masonic slogans that infiltrated Europe in order to take Jews from their bitter condition to the very top of the Christian countries (who used to prefer the Devil to these brothers of monkeys). Overnight, Jews became the victims of historical and religious persecution. They won the friendship and sympathy of Christians and rode on their backs, the way donkeys are ridden, and then proceeded to control their economy, media, and governments.

“Al-Qaeda for some means `extremist Islam,` `fundamentalist Islam,` `violent Islam,` the `Islam of bombs and terrorism,` the `anti-democratic Islam,` the `personal freedom-taking Islam,` the `Islam that cannot coexist with the other,` and the `dark, shadowy, rigid Islam.` Why? Because it went against the notions of peace, brotherhood, justice, equality, peaceful coexistence, national interests, inter-religious dialogue and civilization. It wanted to return Muslims to their previous state of loyalty to religion and disavowal of infidels and polytheists. But then again, these wretched notions are not suitable for the twenty first century. If we look at the origins of these statements and know the goals behind them, we realize the magnitude of the trickery and wickedness that many Muslims have fallen victim to. Here is Barack Obama, the Christian, saying that he is willing to hold talks with the `non-extremist` elements of the Taliban. As for the extremists, those who sever hands and stone people, they cannot be talked to. Extremists to them are those who uphold religious punishments, do not allow prostitution, vice, promiscuity, or proselytizing. A look at the report by the Rand Corporation and other institutions makes clear the truth of these terms used by Western and Arab media. Any research into Al-Qaeda literature will yield nothing. There is no written creed for Al-Qaeda or any recorded ideology. There are only personal efforts in some theological issues (upon which the mujahidin rely) from Muslim clerics across the world. Not writing down an ideology or creed is not the result of inability or ignorance, it is wisdom, for the true ideology of every Muslim is written and protected by God. There is no need to write out a separate ideology. Many previous clerics have already written about correct Muslim ideology and the ideology of the mujahidin. Based on this, it is evident that Al-Qaeda is not a group in the normal sense of the word. It is part of the general Muslim nation. No one can separate it from the body of the nation. The media, governments, and wicked clerics have tried to call the mujahidin all kinds of names in order to separate them from the body of the nation. They have called them `terrorists,` `a deviant sect,` `zealots,` `the people of bombings and destruction,` `the people of violence`, `secessionists,` `the people of takfir,` and other names that have been shattered on the rigid rock of truth (with the grace and blessings of God). The ideology of Al-Qaeda is the Koran, and then Sunnah. It is built according to the understanding of the nation`s forefathers. This is the Islam we know. The creed of Al-Qaeda is what is in the Koran and the correct Sunnah according to the understanding of the forefathers of the nation. This is the creed that we believe in. Unlike other groups, Al-Qaeda does not have an ideologue. There is the Koran, Sunnah and certain clerics who strive to understand this wide spectrum of texts. Clerics and seekers of knowledge use the writings of the nation`s clerics (old and new) without regard to the cleric`s theological affiliations, country, or group allegiance s. As for the people of innovation, they are not considered at all. When something is proved by religious evidence, it becomes an ideology and creed of Al-Qaeda.

“Some people affiliate Al-Qaeda to Wahhabism, and this is a great mistake. Many mujahidin brothers do not know Muhammad bin Abd-al-Wahab. They follow Muhammad bin Abdullah bin Abd-al-Mutalib al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, the messenger of God (prayers and peace of God ber upon him). Some people link Al-Qaeda to Salafism. It is like the above if they mean Salafism in its narrow context. If they mean that they follow the forefathers of this nation (the prophet (prayers and peace of God be upon him), the companions, and the followers), then this is correct, and he who is not like this is has no part in Islam. Some ignorant people affiliate Al-Qaeda to Shaykh Sayyid Qutb or Abu al-A`la al-Mawdudi and claim that Al-Qaeda is a continuation of the Egyptian jihadist group. These are incorrect assumptions. They seek to link Al-Qaeda to this person or that group so they can try to base it on the thinking of that person or group. They cannot and will not be able to do this, for the men of Al-Qaeda are wiser than they think. Sayid Qutb and Al-Mawdudi are among the good clerics of the nation, but they are human. They can be right, but they also make mistakes. The errors of these two men are drenched in the sea of their good deeds. Al-Qaeda takes from them what conforms to the truth (and this is a lot) and leaves what goes against it (like the rest of the clerics of the nation). The proof of this is that Sayid Qutb (may God rest his soul) came mostly from the Al-Ash`ari ideolody, while Al-Qaeda leaders are Sunnis. Al-Mawdudi believes in defensive jihad only, and this is known by the mujahidin to be false.

“Perhaps the clear difference between Al-Qaeda and other Muslims is that Al-Qaeda has announced its rejection of political enforcement. This is heart of the difference between Al-Qaeda members and other Muslims. By political enforcement we mean surrender to reality. When someone says that the state of the Jews (which is incorrectly and falsely called Israel) is a reality and that we must recognize it, you will find Al-Qaeda rejecting this political enforcement and announcing a revolution against this decrepit reality. They do not recognize it and work, with all their strength, to change it. When someone says that the nation is destined to have these traitors (the rulers) stifle it, change God`s laws, support the infidels, spread vice, steal the abilities of Muslims, and violate the honor of Muslim women, then the elements of Al-Qaeda will announce their complete rejection of this and work to change it. When some people say that Muslims cannot stand up to the US, the West, Russia, and their soldiers, Al-Qaida will shout at the top of their voice: `How oft, by Allah`s will, hath a small force vanquished a big one? Allah is with those who steadfastly persevere` (Partial Koranic verse, Al-Baqarah, 2:249). They do not stop like other people do, with mere talk, they carry arms to announce to the world the truth of this religious fact. Al-Qaeda is a revolution against this upside down reality. It is a total rejection of political enforcement. Its is a real victory for religious truths. It is an incitement for jihad for the sake of God with words, life, wealth, and the heart. It is a renunciation of everything that contradicts religious truth and divine promises.

“A researcher will not see, anywhere in the Muslim world, the truth of the Islamic creed of brotherhood as it is with Al-Qaeda. Here they are in Khurasan (Afghanistan) with their diverse citizenships and nationalities and with their different looks and ethnicities: the Adnani, the Qurashi, Hashimi, Qahtani Yemeni, Shami, Egyptian, Iraqi, Maghribi, Mashriqi…the northerner, the southerner, the black, the white, and the yellow. They have all pledged obedience to a Khurasani man. This is the Islamic relationship and political realization about the nature of religious obedience. It puts the intere sts of Islam before personal interests. It re-ignites how the first generation was like in cancelling anything that is not Islamic. This is the truth that is manifested in them and that is not present anywhere else. There you will find those who have pledged allegiance to people not from his country only hesitantly and without total acceptance. This is human nature in the absence of religious emotions. This is like friend of Musaylamah, who said: `The liar of Rabi`a is better for us than a harmful honest man.` If the religious feeling is gone, deviant philosophies appear, and this is what is prevalent in the world today. The people have, however, chosen a man who is honest in his call, faithful in his deeds…a mujahid for the sake of God. He sells his soul and world for his afterlife (we consider him so, but we do not presume over God). They have given him their spirits and hearts, as if they are saying: `The honest man of the Afghans is better for us than the lies of the Arabs.`

“The greatest and most visible beliefs that characterize the members of Al-Qaeda is that they are certain, without a doubt, of God`s promise. This certainty is nearly absent from most people of Islam, even most clerics. The men of Al-Qaeda are certain of God`s victory, just like people are certain that there is a dawn after night. The reason for this is God Almighty`s saying in his book: `Allah will certainly aid those who aid his (cause), for verily Allah is full of strength, exalted in might, (able to enforce His will)` (Koranic verse, Al-Hajj, 22:40). God has mentioned the conditions for this victory in the verse that follows it. God Almighty said: `(They are) those who, if we establish them in the land, establish regular prayer and give regular charity, enjoin the right and forbid wrong. With Allah rests the end (and decision) of (all) affairs) (Koranic verse, Al-Hajj, 22:41). Al-Zajaj wrote: `Allah will certainly aid those who aid his (cause).` Al-Sa`di (may God rest his soul) wrote in interpreting the verse: `He then mentioned the signs to those who will be made victorious and how they are identified. He who claims to support God and support his religion and does not have these characteristics is a liar. He said: `(They are) those who, if we establish them in the land…` Meaning, we gave it to them and made them its undisputed authority. `Establish regular prayer…` In its set times, with its conditions on Friday and in groups. `Give regular charity…` That they must personally give it to those who deserve it. `Enjoin the right…` And this includes the definition of what is right religiously and logically `Forbid wrong…` Meaning every wrong that is known, religiously and logically.`

“We assume and swear by the one and only God that the people of Islam will be victorious because they have been promised victory on account of the conditions they met during the rule of the Islamic Emirate. If the majority of the people of the earth gathered against them (and most people on earth are gathered against them now) they will not be defeated (God willing) because God is with them. He has promised them victory on account of the conditions they met when they controlled the land. The entire world testifies that they established prayers and that the mosques were filled with worshippers. They gave charity to the people who deserved it. They enjoined the right, forced people to adhere to the teachings of Islam, and implemented God`s law. They forbade what is wrong: theft, the violation of honor, and the trafficking of drugs. They demolished the Buddhist idols which were guarded for centuries by the Rejectionist (Shiite) Isma`ilis (sect). They shouted to the entire world: `And say: Truth has (now) arrived, and falsehood perished, for falsehood is (by its nature) bound to perish` (Koranic verse, Al-Isra, 17:81). He who is like this will be victorious. This promise is from God, and is one of the greatest reasons the mujahidin are steadfast at the time when some fall and others stand in the middle of the road. A brother told me that he and his brothers complained to a senior cleric at the beginning of the US invasion of Afghanistan about the defeat of the Islamic Emirate and the loss of its state. This great cleric replied to them and said: `By the one and only God, time will not end before you see the US fall because of these Afghans. God gave them the land and they established prayer, gave charity, promoted virtue, and forbade vice. God will make those who support him victorious. God will make those who support him victorious. God will make those who support him victorious. Be patient and steadfast and support them. You might hate something while God has a lot of good in it.` His words (may God protect him) ended this way. These are the blessings of god, which He gives to whomever He wishes.

“Written by Husayn Bin Mahmud
“14 Sha`ban 1430 hijri (5 August 2009)

Anything NICE about America?

Information Clearing House Newsletter NewsYou Won't Find On CNN August 31, 2009 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty" Simón Bolívar (South american liberator, soldier and statesman , 1783-1830) = "America's entire war on terror is an exercise in imperialism. This may come as a shock to Americans, who don't like to think of their country as an empire. But what else can you call America's legions of soldiers, spooks and special forces straddling the globe?" : Michael Ignatieff, New York Times, Jul. 28, 2002 = "The truth is that neither British nor American imperialism was or is idealistic. It has always been driven by economic or strategic interests". Charley Reese = "Imperialism is an institution under which one nation asserts the right to seize the land or at least to control the government or resources of another people". -John T. Flynn = "We could not leave them to themselves - they were unfit for self-government - and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was ... there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them". -U.S. President William McKinley, 1899, on the Filipinos = "I do not hesitate one second to state clearly and unmistakably: I belong to the American resistance movement which fights against American imperialism". - Paul Robeson = Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered Since The U.S. Invaded Iraq "1,339,771" www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html

Muslim Reminds the World that Muslims have been Subjected for Years

Muslim woman and her daughter Assaulted in Long Island, NY

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/cops-islandia-man-tried-to-run-down-muslim-mom-daughter-1.1399170

Cops: Islandia man tried to run down Muslim mom, daughter

August 27, 2009 By SUMATHI REDDY sumathi.reddy@newsday.com

Photo credit: SCPD | Joseph Ballance, 23, of 20 Winding Lane, Islandia (Aug. 27, 2009)

An Islandia man was charged thursday with threatening to kill a Muslim woman and her 20-year-old daughter and trying to run them down with his car at a Smithtown gas station, a misdemeanor charge that Muslim groups condemned as too light.

Joseph Ballance, 23, pleaded not guilty Thursday at an arraignment in First District Court in Central Islip, where he was charged with second-degree aggravated harassment.

Prosecutors asked for $5,000 bail, but Judge Joseph A. Santorelli ordered Ballance held on $10,000 cash bail or $30,000 bond. He also issued an order of protection for the victims and ordered a mental health screening for Ballance.

The police report says, on Aug. 20 at 3:50 p.m. at the Hess gas station on Smithtown Bypass, Ballance threatened the victim with extreme violence.

The victim, 49, and her daughter, both of Smithtown, were dressed in an abaya, a traditional Muslim garment that completely covered their bodies and face, except for their eyes.

The report said Ballance then started driving toward the mother. Det. Sgt. Robert Reecks, who heads the Suffolk County Police Department's Hate Crimes unit, said the man drove the car in reverse but didn't get close enough to the older woman to be charged with attempted assault.

In the mother's statement, she said a white male came up behind them yelling, "Take that stuff off. What do you think it is, Halloween?" The man followed them into the store, continuing to yell.

The woman said the man then drove his car so close to hers that she couldn't open the gas cap and he "kept striking a match on a matchbook like if I was to start pumping the gas he would throw the match at me," according to the statement.

In a statement signed by Ballance, he said that while he was at the station, "two people dressed for Halloween looking like the wicked witch," pulled in.

"They shouldn't be allowed to wear that around here," the statement said.

"I did nothing to them," he said in the statement. "There is nothing wrong with their car. I never touched them.

"This is not Iraq. They should not be dressing like that here. Send them back to Iraq."

Ballance's attorney could not be reached. Police did not identify the victims. Reecks said the hate component upgraded the charge to a misdemeanor.

But Muslim leaders criticized the charge as too lenient, and pressed for federal civil rights charges.

Nayyar Imam, president of the Islamic Association of Long Island in Selden, said he would request to meet with authorities about the charges. "These charges have to be ramped up," he said. "It's unacceptable."

Dr Joy Discusses the Slave Trade

Dr Joy addresses the African and Arab contribution to the American Slave trade

Interview with Dr Joy De Gruy

Dr Joy De Gruy Leary

Dr Joy De Gruy 8-24-09
Dr Joy describes her perspective on her visit to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

The Quran, Chapter 5

67. O Messenger. proclaim the (message) which hath been sent to thee from thy Lord. If thou didst not, thou wouldst not have fulfilled and proclaimed His mission. And Allah will defend thee from men (who mean mischief). For Allah guideth not those who reject Faith.

68. Say: "O People of the Book! ye have no ground to stand upon unless ye stand fast by the Law, the Gospel, and all the revelation that has come to you from your Lord." It is the revelation that cometh to thee from thy Lord, that increaseth in most of them their obstinate rebellion and blasphemy. But sorrow thou not over (these) people without Faith.

69. Those who believe (in the Qur'an), those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Sabians and the Christians,- any who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness,- on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.

70. We took the covenant of the Children of Israel and sent them apostles, every time, there came to them an apostle with what they themselves desired not - some (of these) they called impostors, and some they (go so far as to) slay.

71. They thought there would be no trial (or punishment); so they became blind and deaf; yet Allah (in mercy) turned to them; yet again many of them became blind and deaf. But Allah sees well all that they do.

72. They do blaspheme who say: "(Allah) is Christ the son of Mary." But said Christ: "O Children of Israel! worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord." Whoever joins other gods with Allah,- Allah will forbid him the garden, and the Fire will be his abode. There will for the wrong-doers be no one to help.

73. They do blaspheme who say: Allah is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One Allah. If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy), verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them.

74. Why turn they not to Allah, and seek His forgiveness? For Allah is Oft- forgiving, Most Merciful.

75. Christ the son of Mary was no more than an apostle; many were the apostles that passed away before him. His mother was a woman of truth. They had both to eat their (daily) food. See how Allah doth make His signs clear to them; yet see in what ways they are deluded away from the truth!

76. Say: "Will ye worship, besides Allah, something which hath no power either to harm or benefit you? But Allah,- He it is that heareth and knoweth all things."

77. Say: "O people of the Book! exceed not in your religion the bounds (of what is proper), trespassing beyond the truth, nor follow the vain desires of people who went wrong in times gone by,- who misled many, and strayed (themselves) from the even way.

78. Curses were pronounced on those among the Children of Israel who rejected Faith, by the tongue of David and of Jesus the son of Mary: because they disobeyed and persisted in excesses.

79. Nor did they (usually) forbid one another the iniquities which they committed: evil indeed were the deeds which they did.

80. Thou seest many of them turning in friendship to the Unbelievers. Evil indeed are (the works) which their souls have sent forward before them (with the result), that Allah.s wrath is on them, and in torment will they abide.

81. If only they had believed in Allah, in the Messenger, and in what hath been revealed to him, never would they have taken them for friends and protectors, but most of them are rebellious wrong-doers.

82. Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews and Pagans; and nearest among them in love to the believers wilt thou find those who say, "We are Christians": because amongst these are men devoted to learning and men who have renounced the world, and they are not arrogant.

83. And when they listen to the revelation received by the Messenger, thou wilt see their eyes overflowing with tears, for they recognise the truth: they pray: "Our Lord! we believe; write us down among the witnesses.

84. "What cause can we have not to believe in Allah and the truth which has come to us, seeing that we long for our Lord to admit us to the company of the righteous?"

85. And for this their prayer hath Allah rewarded them with gardens, with rivers flowing underneath,- their eternal home. Such is the recompense of those who do good.

86. But those who reject Faith and belie our Signs,- they shall be companions of Hell-fire.

So now they are putting diapers on Muslims.........sick sick sick

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/25/prolonged-diapering-revealed/

A CIA inspector general report released Monday in a less-redacted version reveals that “prolonged diapering” was on the agency’s list of approved “enhanced” interrogation techniques. The revelation is in Appendix F, included in the IG’s report on page 149, as part of a set of guidelines for “medical and psychological support to detainee interrogations.” The document is dated Sept. 4, 2003.

According to American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney Jameel Jaffer, this is the first document released publicly which categorizes diapering as an enhanced interrogation technique. Another ACLU source told RAW STORY that while they are familiar with the use of diapers on clients being transported, this is “news to us.”

The document in Appendix F of the IG report reads: “Captured terrorists turned over to the CIA may be subjected to a wide range of legally sanctioned techniques, all of which are used on U.S. military personnel in SERE training programs. They are designed to psychologically ‘dislocate’ the detainee, maximizing his feelings of vulnerability and helplessness, and reduce or eliminate his will to resist our efforts to obtain critical intelligence.” The list, organized in “ascending degree of intensity,” says the following were approved standard measures “without physical or substantial psychological pressure”:

Shaving Stripping Diapering Hooding Isolation White noise or loud music (at a decibel level that will not damage hearing) Continuous light or darkness Uncomfortably cool environment Restricted diet, including reduced caloric intake (sufficient to maintain general health) Water dousing Sleep deprivation (up to 72 hours)

A second list of “enhanced” measures “with physical or psychological pressure beyond the above” reads:

Attention grasp Facial hold Insult (facial) slap Abdominal slap Prolonged diapering Sleep deprivation (over 72 hours) Stress positions –On knees, body slanted forward or backward –Leaning with forehead on wall Walling Cramped confinement Waterboard

The appearance of diapering on the list seems to contradict an Office of Legal Counsel memo (PDF link) written by former Bush administration lawyer Steven Bradbury in 2005. Bradbury claimed diapering “is not used for the purpose of humiliating the detainee, and it is not considered to be an interrogation technique.” However, in the appendix of the IG’s report, “prolonged diapering” was on the list of approved interrogation techniques (P. 150). While diapering is included on page 149 as a standard technique — along with shaving, stripping, hooding and isolation — it is also listed as one of a number of “enhanced measures,” with an intensity level below waterboarding, but above the “abdominal slap.”

The report does not define “prolonged” as it applies to diapering, nor does it confirm whether it was used on any prisoners. It is also unknown when exactly diapering was authorized as an EIT, and whether or not the order was rescinded before the 2005 Bradbury memo. Describing standard diapering, Bradbury wrote, “The detainee’s skin condition is monitored and diapers are changed as needed so that the detainee does not remain in a soiled diaper.” Bradbury is one of three former Bush administration attorneys — including John Yoo and Jay Bybee — whose legal memos are being probed by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is reportedly in the process of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate instances of CIA detainee abuse.

Spencer Ackerman, reporting for the Washington Independent, speculates that “prolonged diapering” could be the “eleventh” EIT.

“The 2004 CIA inspector general’s report on torture says clearly that in 2002, the CIA proposed to the Justice Department the use of eleven “enhanced interrogation techniques,”’ Ackerman writes. “Ten of them got the approval of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in August 2002 in the infamous Jay Bybee/John Yoo memo declassified by the Obama administration in April: the attention grasp; walling; the facial hold; the facial or insult slap; cramped confinement; insects; wall standing; stress positions; sleep deprivation; the waterboard. But what happened to the eleventh?”

Quoting the memo, he writes, “The Agency eliminated one proposed technique — [REDACTED] — after learning from DoJ that this could delay the legal review.”

“But an appendix to the report written by former CIA Director George Tenet gives an indication as to what that eleventh technique was — and says that it’s permissible,” Ackerman continues. “Take a look at Appendix E, Tenet’s January 28, 2003 memorandum on guidelines for both ’standard’ and ‘enhanced’ interrogations. Tenet’s list of ‘enhanced’ techniques, you’ll notice, number eleven:

These techniques are, [sic] the attention grasp, walling, the facial hold, the facial slap (insult slap), the abdominal slap, cramped confinement, wall standing, stress positions, sleep deprivation beyond 72 hours, the use of diapers for prolonged periods, the use of harmless insects, the water board, and such techniques as may be specifically approved pursuant to paragraph 4 below.

Ackerman adds, “All the others on Tenet’s list were approved by the Office of Legal Counsel in August of 2002. But that diapering technique was never approved by the Justice Department. Tenet considered ‘the use of diapers for limited periods (generally not to exceed 72 hours)’ to be a ’standard’ technique, as I blogged earlier. But it’s at least conceivable that the Justice Department would have thought reviewing prolonged diapering would have delayed the 2002 review, since the humiliation and health issues of forcing someone to remain in their own filth for over three days raise serious legal issues.”

Ron Brynaert contributed to this report.

Is The USA A Sick Country Or What?

By Dave Lindorff

August 24, 2009 : "Information Clearing House" -- You see, here's the thing. When you hear about the sick, twisted things that America's torturers have been doing, courtesy of President George W. Bush and Vice President Darth Cheney, you have to remember that the US military and the CIA were not really all that reliable when it came to picking up the real terrorists. In fact, their batting average was pretty lousy.

According to even the Pentagon's own reckoning, for example, probably 85% of the captives being held at Guantanamo over the past eight years were not terrorists at all, and a fair number--probably the majority--weren't even fighting anyone when they were captured. I'm sure that the averages at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, or at the secret prison in Iraq are no better. The military was offering bounties in Iraq and Afghanistan for alleged terrorists, you see, and probably still is, but in both of those lawless, tribal countries, many people have used the offer to settle old feuds, turning in people they wanted to punish or dispose of, and many others just turned in random people to get the reward money.

Remember this when you hear about torture tactics that we are learning were used by our side--things that make waterboarding sound like a walk in the park. We're now getting confirmation of things that we journalists were hearing rumors of earlier: faked executions using blanks, faked executions in neighboring rooms, followed by threats of the same to a person who had just heard the screams and a shot in the cell next to him, threats with an electric drill, and now perhaps the worst yet--the threat to kill a captive's children. And of course there is the already disclosed case of a captive who had his genitals cut with a razor, and generous use of tasers in places on the body designed to cause maximum pain. That, and of course there are a lot raped captives (including young boys), and a lot of bodies yet to be dug up of captives who were simply killed during torture.

We've got a litany of horror and abuse here that sounds like the worst kind of stories that used to come out of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, or the Argentine Junta or Idi Amin's Uganda. About the only thing missing is word that the military and CIA torturers were eating their victims, or feeding them their own genitals, but who knows? Maybe we'll get there yet. It's hard at this point to rule anything out.

What has become of the US? We started out the victims of an attack in 2001, with the whole world rallying to our side, and within a matter of weeks, our government, acting in our name, had secretly embarked on a wholly unnecessary and totally criminal descent into the barbarity of Middle Ages.

And now? The new administration has claimed to have put a stop to the atrocities, but it remains adamant that it is not going to root out the evil that was already done to hundreds, perhaps thousands of people.

President Barack Obama says he does not want to look back at any crimes that were committed. He wants to go "forward." This is not the voice of justice, though. This is the voice of political gutlessness and of big power exceptionalism. The same America that demands the prosecution of war criminals in little countries like Cambodia or Serbia or Sudan, considers itself exempt from criminal liability for its own crimes.

Attorney General Eric Holder now says he is appointing a special prosecutor, John Durham, to investigate cases where CIA or private contract torturers "overstepped" the rules set by the White House and Justice Department, but he has said he will not allow the investigation to go beyond that to pursue the people who enabled those acts of torture--people like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who personally instructed torturers in Afghanistan to "take the gloves off" in one case, or Assistant Attorney Generals John Yoo and Jay Baybee (now a federal judge), who ruled that anything short of the destruction of bodily organs or of a pain level equivalent to death was okay. Nor will he allow any investigation to look at acts of torture that were authorized, like waterboarding, if they had the sanction of the Bush/Cheney White House.

This position taken by the new administration should sicken us all. Worse, it should be broadly condemned, because if the descent into barbarity which occurred with the highest White House sanction is not investigated thoroughly, and punished fully, there is no way we can say it will not happen again. In fact, it's safe to say that it will happen again, the next time another charlatan gets into office and uses fear to blind the American people to all that is right and decent, and to the importance of maintaining the rule of law.

I know there are terrible things happening right now which demand our attention and action--an escalating, endless war in Afghanistan that increasingly resembles Vietnam in 1966 or 1967, a presidential cave-on on health care reform, a sell-out on real action against climate change, and on and on--but this particular crime--the crime of failing to act to punish violations of the Geneva Conventions on treatment of prisoners of war, which is being committed today by the Obama administration--is so obscene, so directly in our faces, and is such a stain on the whole nation, that it demands action.

We will probably never know how many innocent lives have been destroyed by America's eight years of officially sanctioned torture, but we can at least see to it that the people who sanctioned it, and not just those who engaged in it (and that goes right up through the chain of command to the Commander in Chief and to the real power behind the throne, Dick Cheney), are put in the dock like the criminals at Nuremberg, to face the charge of war crimes. and crimes against humanity.

As the citizens of what we call a democracy, we can demand nothing less.

Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-area journalist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net.

The US War against Iraq: The Destruction of a Civilization

The Peoples Voice @ thepeoplesvoice.org

The US War against Iraq: The Destruction of a Civilization

08/21/09

05:51:20 pm

James Petras

The US seven-year war and occupation of Iraq is driven by several major political forces and informed by a variety of imperial interests. However these interests do not in themselves explain the depth and scope of the sustained, massive and continuing destruction of an entire society and its reduction to a permanent state of war. The range of political forces contributing to the making of the war and the subsequent US occupation include the following (in order of importance):

The most important political force was also the least openly discussed. The Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC), which includes the prominent role of long-time, hard-line unconditional Jewish supporters of the State of Israel appointed to top positions in the Bush Pentagon (Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz ), key operative in the Office of the Vice President (Irving (Scooter) Libby), the Treasury Department (Stuart Levey), the National Security Council (Elliot Abrams) and a phalanx of consultants, Presidential speechwriters (David Frum), secondary officials and policy advisers to the State Department. These committed Zionists ‘insiders’ were buttressed by thousands of full-time Israel-First functionaries in the 51 major American Jewish organizations, which form the President of the Major American Jewish Organizations (PMAJO). They openly stated that their top priority was to advance Israel’s agenda, which, in this case, was a US war against Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein, occupy the country, physically divide Iraq, destroy its military and industrial capability and impose a pro-Israel/pro-US puppet regime. If Iraq were ethnically cleansed and divided, as advocated by the ultra-right, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and the ‘Liberal’ President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations and militarist-Zionist, Leslie Gelb, there would be more than several ‘client regimes’.

Top Zionist policymakers who promoted the war did not initially directly pursue the policy of systematically destroying what, in effect, was the entire Iraqi civilization. But their support and design of an occupation policy included the total dismemberment of the Iraqi state apparatus and recruitment of Israeli advisers to provide their ‘expertise’ in interrogation techniques, repression of civilian resistance and counter-insurgency. Israeli expertise certainly played a role in fomenting the intra-Iraqi religious and ethnic strife, which Israel had mastered in Palestine. The Israeli ‘model’ of colonial war and occupation – the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 – and the practice of ‘total destruction’ using sectarian, ethno-religious division was evident in the notorious massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut, which took place under Israeli military supervision.

The second powerful political force behind the Iraq War were civilian militarists (like Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney) who sought to extend US imperial reach in the Persian Gulf and strengthen its geo-political position by eliminating a strong, secular, nationalist backer of Arab anti-imperialist insurgency in the Middle East. The civilian militarists sought to extend the American military base encirclement of Russia and secure control over Iraqi oil reserves as a pressure point against China. The civilian militarists were less moved by Vice President Cheney’s past ties with the oil industry and more interested in his role as CEO of Halliburton’s giant military base contractor subsidiary Kellogg-Brown and Root, which was consolidating the US Empire through worldwide military base expansion. Major US oil companies, who feared losing out to European and Asian competitors, were already eager to deal with Saddam Hussein, and some of the Bush’s supporters in the oil industry had already engaged in illegal trading with the embargoed Iraqi regime. The oil industry was not inclined to promote regional instability with a war.

The militarist strategy of conquest and occupation was designed to establish a long-term colonial military presence in the form of strategic military bases with a significant and sustained contingent of colonial military advisors and combat units. The brutal colonial occupation of an independent secular state with a strong nationalist history and an advanced infrastructure with a sophisticated military and police apparatus, extensive public services and wide-spread literacy naturally led to the growth of a wide array of militant and armed anti-occupation movements. In response, US colonial officials, the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agencies devised a ‘divide and rule’ strategy (the so-called ‘El Salvador solution’ associated with the former ‘hot-spot’ Ambassador and US Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte) fomenting armed sectarian-based conflicts and promoting inter-religious assassinations to debilitate any effort at a united nationalist anti-imperialist movement. The dismantling of the secular civilian bureaucracy and military was designed by the Zionists in the Bush Administration to enhance Israel’s power in the region and to encourage the rise of militant Islamic groups, which had been repressed by the deposed Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein. Israel had mastered this strategy earlier: It originally sponsored and financed sectarian Islamic militant groups, like Hamas, as an alternative to the secular Palestine Liberation Organization and set the stage for sectarian fighting among the Palestinians.

The result of US colonial policies were to fund and multiply a wide range of internal conflicts as mullahs, tribal leaders, political gangsters, warlords, expatriates and death squads proliferated. The ‘war of all against all’ served the interests of the US occupation forces. Iraq became a pool of armed, unemployed young men, from which to recruit a new mercenary army. The ‘civil war’ and ‘ethnic conflict’ provided a pretext for the US and its Iraqi puppets to discharge hundreds of thousands of soldiers, police and functionaries from the previous regime (especially if they were from Sunni, mixed or secular families) and to undermine the basis for civilian employment. Under the cover of generalized ‘war against terror’, US Special Forces and CIA-directed death squads spread terror within Iraqi civil society, targeting anyone suspected of criticizing the puppet government – especially among the educated and professional classes, precisely the Iraqis most capable of re-constructing an independent secular republic.

The Iraq war was driven by an influential group of neo-conservative and neo-liberal ideologues with strong ties to Israel. They viewed the success of the Iraq war (by success they meant the total dismemberment of the country) as the first ‘domino’ in a series of war to ‘re-colonize’ the Middle East (in their words: “to re-draw the map”). They disguised their imperial ideology with a thin veneer of rhetoric about ‘promoting democracies’ in the Middle East (excluding, of course, the un-democratic policies of their ‘homeland’ Israel over its subjugated Palestinians). Conflating Israeli regional hegemonic ambitions with the US imperial interests, the neo-conservatives and their neo-liberal fellow travelers in the Democratic Party first backed President Bush and later President Obama in their escalation of the wars against Afghanistan and Pakistan. They unanimously supported Israel’s savage bombing campaign against Lebanon, the land and air assault and massacre of thousands of civilians trapped in Gaza, the bombing of Syrian facilities and the big push (from Israel) for a pre-emptive, full-scale military attack against Iran.

The US advocates of sequential and multiple simultaneous wars in the Middle East and South Asia believed that they could only unleash the full strength of their mass destructive power after they had secured total control of their first victim, Iraq. They were confident that Iraqi resistance would collapse rapidly after 13 years of brutal starvation sanctions imposed on the republic by the US and United Nations. In order to consolidate imperial control, American policy-makers decided to permanently silence all independent Iraqi civilian dissidents. They turned to the financing of Shia clerics and Sunni tribal assassins, and contracting scores of thousands of private mercenaries among the Kurdish Peshmerga warlords to carry out selective assassinations of leaders of civil society movements.

The US created and trained a 200,000 member Iraqi colonial puppet army composed almost entirely of Shia gunmen, and excluded experienced Iraqi military men from secular, Sunni or Christian backgrounds. A little known result of this build up of American trained and financed death squads and its puppet ‘Iraqi’ army, was the virtual destruction of the ancient Iraqi Christian population, which was displaced, its churches bombed and its leaders, bishops and intellectuals, academics and scientists assassinated or driven into exile. The US and its Israeli advisers were well aware that Iraqi Christians had played a key role the historic development of the secular, nationalist, anti-British/anti-monarchist movements and their elimination as an influential force during the first years of US occupation was no accident. The result of the US policies were to eliminate most secular democratic anti-imperialist leaders and movements and to present their murderous net-work of ‘ethno-religious’ collaborators as their uncontested ‘partners’ in sustaining the long-term US colonial presence in Iraq. With their puppets in power, Iraq would serve as a launching platform for its strategic pursuit of the other ‘dominoes’ (Syria, Iran, Central Asian Republics…).

The sustained bloody purge of Iraq under US occupation resulted in the killing 1.3 million Iraqi civilians during the first 7 years after Bush invaded in March 2003. Up to mid-2009, the invasion and occupation of Iraq has officially cost the American treasury over $666 billion. This enormous expenditure attests to its centrality in the larger US imperial strategy for the entire Middle East/South and Central Asia region. Washington’s policy of politicizing and militarizing ethno-religious differences, arming and encouraging rival tribal, religious and ethnic leaders to engage in mutual bloodletting served to destroy national unity and resistance. The ‘divide and rule’ tactics and reliance on retrograde social and religious organizations is the commonest and best-known practice in pursuing the conquest and subjugation of a unified, advanced nationalist state. Breaking up the national state, destroying nationalist consciousness and encouraging primitive ethno-religious, feudal and regional loyalties required the systematic destruction of the principal purveyors of nationalist consciousness, historical memory and secular, scientific thought. Provoking ethno-religious hatreds destroyed intermarriages, mixed communities and institutions with their long-standing personal friendships and professional ties among diverse backgrounds. The physical elimination of academics, writers, teachers, intellectuals, scientists and professionals, especially physicians, engineers, lawyers, jurists and journalists was decisive in imposing ethno-religious rule under a colonial occupation. To establish long-term dominance and sustain ethno-religious client rulers, the entire pre-existing cultural edifice, which had sustained an independent secular nationalist state, was physically destroyed by the US and its Iraqi puppets. This included destroying the libraries, census bureaus, and repositories of all property and court records, health departments, laboratories, schools, cultural centers, medical facilities and above all the entire scientific-literary-humanistic social scientific class of professionals. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi professionals and family members were driven by terror into internal and external exile. All funding for national, secular, scientific and educational institutions were cut off. Death squads engaged in the systematic murder of thousands of academics and professionals suspected of the least dissent, the least nationalist sentiment; anyone with the least capacity to re-construct the republic was marked.

The Destruction of a Modern Arab Civilization

Independent, secular Iraq had the most advanced scientific-cultural order in the Arab world, despite the repressive nature of Saddam Hussein’s police state. There was a system of national health care, universal public education and generous welfare services, combined with unprecedented levels of gender equality. This marked the advanced nature of Iraqi civilization in the late 20th century. Separation of church and state and strict protection of religious minorities (Christians, Assyrians and others) contrasts sharply with what has resulted from the US occupation and its destruction of the Iraqi civil and governmental structures. The harsh dictatorial rule of Saddam Hussein thus presided over a highly developed modern civilization in which advanced scientific work went hand in hand with a strong nationalist and anti-imperialist identity. This resulted especially in the Iraqi people and regime’s expressions of solidarity for the plight of the Palestinian people under Israeli rule and occupation.

A mere ‘regime change’ could not extirpate this deeply embedded and advanced secular republican culture in Iraq. The US war planners and their Israeli advisers were well aware that colonial occupation would increase Iraqi nationalist consciousness unless the secular nation was destroyed and hence, the imperial imperative to uproot and destroy the carriers of nationalist consciousness by physically eliminating the educated, the talented, the scientific, indeed the most secular elements of Iraqi society. Retrogression became the principal instrument for the US to impose its colonial puppets, with their primitive, ‘pre-national’ loyalties, in power in a culturally purged Baghdad stripped of its most sophisticated and nationalistic social strata.

According to the Al-Ahram Studies Center in Cairo, more that 310 Iraqi scientists were eliminated during the first 18 months of the US occupation – a figure that the Iraqi education ministry did not dispute.

Another report listed the killings of more than 340 intellectuals and scientists between 2005 and 2007. Bombings of institutes of higher education had pushed enrollment down to 30% of the pre-invasion figures. In one bombing in January 2007, at Baghdad’s Mustansiriya University 70 students were killed with hundreds wounded. These figures compelled the UNESCO to warn that Iraq’s university system was on the brink of collapse. The numbers of prominent Iraqi scientists and professionals who have fled the country have approached 20,000. Of the 6,700 Iraqi university professors who fled since 2003, the Los Angeles Times reported than only 150 had returned by October 2008. Despite the US claims of improved security, the situation in 2008 saw numerous assassinations, including the only practicing neurosurgeon in Iraq’s second largest city of Basra, whose body was dumped on the city streets.

The raw data on the Iraqi academics, scientists and professionals assassinated by the US and allied occupation forces and the militias and shadowy forces they control is drawn from a list published by the Pakistan Daily News (www.daily.pk) on November 26, 2008. This list makes for very uncomfortable reading into the reality of systematic elimination of intellectuals in Iraq under the meat-grinder of US occupation.
Assassinations

The physical elimination of an individual by assassination is an extreme form of terrorism, which has far-reaching effects rippling throughout the community from which the individual comes – in this case the world of Iraqi intellectuals, academics, professionals and creative leaders in the arts and sciences. For each Iraqi intellectual murdered, thousands of educated Iraqis fled the country or abandoned their work for safer, less vulnerable activity.

Baghdad was considered the ‘Paris’ of the Arab world, in terms of culture and art, science and education. In the 1970’s and 80’s, its universities were the envy of the Arab world. The US ‘shock and awe’ campaign that rained down on Baghdad evoked emotions akin to an aerial bombardment of the Louvre, the Sorbonne and the greatest libraries of Europe. Baghdad University was one of the most prestigious and productive universities in the Arab world. Many of its academics possessed doctoral degrees and engaged in post-doctoral studies abroad at prestigious institutions. It taught and graduated many of the top professionals and scientists in the Middle East. Even under the deadly grip of the US/UN-imposed economic sanctions that starved Iraq during the 13 years before the March 2003 invasion, thousands of graduate students and young professionals came to Iraq for post-graduate training. Young physicians from throughout the Arab world received advanced medical training in its institutions. Many of its academics presented scientific papers at major international conferences and published in prestigious journals. Most important, Baghdad University trained and maintained a highly respected scientific secular culture free of sectarian discrimination – with academics from all ethnic and religious backgrounds.

This world has been forever shattered: Under US occupation, up to November 2008, eighty-three academics and researchers teaching at Baghdad University had been murdered and several thousand of their colleagues, students and family members were forced to flee.

The Selection of Assassinated Academics by Discipline

The November 2008 article published by the Pakistan Daily News lists the names of a total of 154 top Baghdad-based academics, renowned in their fields, who were murdered. Altogether, a total of 281 well-known intellectuals teaching at the top universities in Iraq fell victim to the ‘death squads’ under US occupation.

Prior to the US occupation, Baghdad University possessed the premier research and teaching medical faculty in the entire Middle East attracting hundreds of young doctors for advanced training. That program has been devastated during the rise of the US-death squad regime, with few prospects of recovery. Of those murdered, 25% (21) were the most senior professors and lecturers in the medical faculty of Baghdad University, the highest percentage of any faculty. The second highest percentage of butchered faculty were the professors and researchers from Baghdad University’s renowned engineering faculty (12), followed by the top academics in the humanities (10), physical and social sciences (8 senior academics each), education (5). The remaining top academics murdered at Baghdad University spread out among the agronomy, business, physical education, communications and religious studies faculties.

At three other Baghdad universities, 53 senior academics were slaughtered, including 10 in the social sciences, 7 in the faculty of law, 6 each in medicine and the humanities, 9 in the physical sciences and 5 in engineering. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s August 20, 2002 pre-invasion joke, “…one has to assume they (scientists) have not been playing ‘tiddlywinks’(a child’s game)”( justifying the bloody purge of Iraq’s scientists in physics and chemistry. An ominous signal of the academic bloodletting that followed the invasion.

Similar bloody purges of academics occurred in all the provincial universities: 127 senior academics and scientists were assassinated at the various well-regarded universities in Mosul, Kirkuk, Basra and elsewhere. The provincial universities with the highest number of murdered senior faculty members were in cities where the US and British military and their Kurdish mercenary allies were most active: Basra (35), Mosul (35), Diyala (15) and Al-Anbar (11).

The Iraqi military and allied death squads carried out most of the killing of academics in the cities under US or ‘allied’ control. The systematic murder of academics was a nation-wide, cross-disciplinary drive to destroy the cultural and educational foundations of a modern Arab civilization. The death squads carrying out most of these assassinations were primitive, pre-modern, ethno-religious groups ‘set loose’ or instrumentalized by US military strategists to wipe out any politically conscious intellectuals and nationalist scientists who might pursue an agenda for re-building a modern, secular society and independent, unified republic.

In its panic to prevent the US invasion, the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate provided a list, which identified over 500 key Iraqi scientists to the UN on December 7, 2002. There is little doubt that this list became a core element in the US military’s hit list for eliminating Iraq’s scientific elite. In his notorious pre-invasion speech to the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin Powell cited a list of over 3,500 Iraqi scientists and technicians who would have to be ‘contained’ to prevent their expertise from being used by other countries. The US had even created a ‘budget’ of hundreds of millions of dollars, drawn from the Iraqi ‘Oil for Food’ money held by the United Nations to set up ‘civilian re-education’ programs to re-train Iraqi scientists and engineers. These highly touted programs were never seriously implemented. Cheaper ways of containing what one American policy expert termed Iraq’s ‘excess scientists, engineers and technicians’ in a Carnegie Endowment Paper (RANSAC Policy Update April 2004) became clear. The US had decided to adopt and expand the Israeli Mossad’s covert operation of assassinating selected key Iraqi scientists on an industrial scale.

The US ‘Surge’ and ‘Peak Assassination’ Campaigns: 2006-2007

The high tide of terror against academics coincides with the renewal of the US military offensive in Baghdad and in the provinces. Of the total number of assassinations of Baghdad-based academics for which a date is recorded (110 known intellectuals slaughtered), almost 80% (87) occurred in 2006 and 2007. A similar pattern is found in the provinces with 77% of a total of 84 scholars murdered outside of capital during the same period. The pattern is clear: the murder rate of academics grows as the occupying US forces organize a mercenary Iraqi military and police force and provide money for the training and recruitment of rival Shia and Sunni tribesmen and militia as a means of decreasing American casualties and of purging potential dissident critics of the occupation.

The terror campaign against academics intensified in mid-2005 and reached its peak in 2006-2007, leading to the mass flight of tens of thousands of Iraqi scholars, scientists, professionals and their families overseas. Entire university medical school faculties have become refugees in Syria and elsewhere. Those who could not afford to abandon elderly parents or relatives and remained in Iraq have taken extraordinary measures to hide their identities. Some have chosen to collaborate with the US occupation forces or the puppet regime in the hope of being protected or allowed to immigrate with their families to the US or Europe, although the Europeans, especially the British are disinclined to accept Iraqi scholars. After 2008, there has been a sharp decline in the murder of academics – with only 4 assassinated that year. This reflects the massive flight of Iraqi intellectuals living abroad or in hiding rather than any change of policy on the part of the US and its mercenary puppets. As a result, Iraq’s research facilities have been decimated. The lives of those remaining support staff, including technicians, librarians and students have been devastated with few prospects for future employment.

The US war and occupation of Iraq, as Presidents Bush and Obama have declared, is a ‘success’ – an independent nation of 23 million citizens has been occupied by force, a puppet regime is ensconced, colonial mercenary troops obey American officers and the oil fields have been put up for sale. All of Iraq’s nationalist laws protecting its patrimony, its cultural treasures and national resources, have been annulled. The occupiers have imposed a ‘constitution’ favoring the US Empire. Israel and its Zionist flunkies in the Administrations of both Bush and Obama celebrate the demise of a modern adversary…and the conversion of Iraq into a cultural-political desert. In line with an alleged agreement made by the US State Department and Pentagon officials to influential collectors from the American Council for Cultural Policy in January 2003, the looted treasures of ancient Mesopotamia have ‘found’ their way into the collections of the elite in London, New York and elsewhere. The collectors can now anticipate the pillage of Iran.

Warning to Iran

The US invasion, occupation and destruction of a modern, scientific-cultural civilization, such as existed in Iraq, is a prelude of what the people of Iran can expect if and when a US-Israeli military attack occurs. The imperial threat to the cultural-scientific foundations of the Iranian nation has been totally absent from the narrative among the affluent Iranian student protesters and their US-funded NGO’s during their post-election ‘Lipstick Revolution’ protests. They should bear in mind that in 2004 educated, sophisticated Iraqis in Baghdad consoled themselves with a fatally misplaced optimism that ‘at least we are not like Afghanistan’. The same elite are now in squalid refugee camps in Syria and Jordan and their country more closely resembles Afghanistan than anywhere else in the Middle East. The chilling promise of President Bush in April 2003 to transform Iraq in the image of ‘our newly liberated Afghanistan’ has been fulfilled. And reports that the US Administration advisers had reviewed the Israeli Mossad policy of selective assassination of Iranian scientists should cause the pro-Western liberal intellectuals of Teheran to seriously ponder the lesson of the murderous campaign that has virtually eliminated Iraqi scientists and academics during 2006-2007.

Conclusion

What does the United States (and Britain and Israel) gain from establishing a retrograde client regime, based on medieval ethno-clerical socio-political structures in Iraq? First and foremost, Iraq has become an outpost for empire. Secondly, it is a weak and backward regime incapable of challenging Israeli economic and military dominance in the region and unwilling to question the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the native Palestinian Arabs from Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Thirdly, the destruction of the scientific, academic, cultural and legal foundations of an independent state means increasing reliance on the Western (and Chinese) multinational corporations and their technical infrastructure – facilitating imperial economic penetration and exploitation.

In the mid 19th Century, after the revolutions of 1848, the conservative French sociologist Emil Durkheim recognized that the European bourgeoisie was confronted with rising class conflict and an increasing anti-capitalist working class. Durkheim noted that, whatever its philosophical misgivings about religion and clericalism, the bourgeoisie would have to use the myths of traditional religion to ‘create’ social cohesion and undercut class polarization. He called on the educated and sophisticated Parisian capitalist class to forego its rejection of obscurantist religious dogma in favor of instrumentalizing religion as a tool to maintain its political dominance. In the same way, US strategists, including the Pentagon-Zionists, have instrumentalized the tribal-mullah, ethno-religious forces to destroy the secular national political leadership and advanced culture of Iraq in order to consolidate imperial rule – even if this strategy called for the killing off of the scientific and professional classes. Contemporary US imperial rule is based on supporting the socially and politically most backward sectors of society and applying the most advanced technology of warfare.

Israeli advisers have played a major role in instructing US occupation forces in Iraq on the practices of urban counter-insurgency and repression of civilians, drawing on their 60 years of experience. The infamous massacre of hundreds of Palestinian families at Deir Yasin in 1948 was emblematic of Zionist elimination of hundreds of productive farming villages, which had been settled for centuries by a native people with their endogenous civilization and cultural ties to the soil, in order to impose a new colonial order. The policy of the total deracination of the Palestinians is central to Israel’s advise to the US policymakers in Iraq. Their message has been carried out by their Zionist acolytes in the Bush and Obama Administrations, ordering the dismemberment of the entire modern Iraqi civil and state bureaucracy and using pre-modern tribal death squads made up of Kurds and Shia extremists to purge the modern universities and research institutions of that shattered nation.

The US imperial conquest of Iraq is built on the destruction of a modern secular republic. The cultural desert that remains (a Biblical ‘howling wilderness’ soaked in the blood of Iraq’s precious scholars) is controlled by mega-swindlers, mercenary thugs posing as ‘Iraqi officers’, tribal and ethnic cultural illiterates and medieval religious figures. They operate under the guidance and direction of West Point graduates holding ‘blue-prints for empire’, formulated by graduates of Princeton, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Yale and Chicago, eager to serve the interests of American and European multi-national corporations.

This is called ‘combined and uneven development’: The marriage of fundamentalist mullahs with Ivy League Zionists at the service of the US.

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James Petras is the author of more than 62 books published in 29 languages, and over 600 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has published over 2000 articles in nonprofessional journals such as the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, New Left Review, Partisan Review, TempsModerne, Le Monde Diplomatique, and his commentary is widely carried on the internet. James Petras, is a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books) and his most recent book is Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power (Clarity Press, 2008). He can be reached at: jpetras@binghamton.edu. | Read other articles by James petras, or visit his website: http://petras.lahaine.org/index.php

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