الأربعاء، سبتمبر 21، 2011

The People of Lut and The City which was Turned Upside Down

The People of Lut and The City which was Turned Upside Down


The Lake of Lut, or Dead Sea
The people of Lut rejected (his) warning. We sent against them a violent Tornado with showers of stones, (which destroyed them), except Lut's household: them We delivered by early Dawn,-  As a Grace from Us: thus do We reward those who give thanks. And (Lut) did warn them of Our Punishment, but they disputed about the Warning. (Surat al-Qamar:, 33-36)

Lut lived at the same time as Ibrahim. The Old Testament says that Lut was Ibrahim's nephew and that they travelled some distance together in Ibrahim's long journeys.
Lut was sent as a messenger to one of Ibrahim's neighbouring communities. These people, as the Qur’an tells us, practiced a perversion unknown to the world up to then, namely sodomy. When Lut told them to give up this perversion and brought them Allah's warning, they denied him, refused his prophethood, and carried on with their perversion. In the end, these people were destroyed by a dreadful disaster.
The city where Lut resided is referred to as Sodom in the Old Testament. Being situated at the north of the Red Sea, this community is understood to have been destroyed just as it is written in the Qur’an. Archaeological studies reveal that the city is located in the area of the Dead Sea which stretches along the Israel-Jordan border.
Before examining the remains of this disaster, let’s see why the people of Lut were punished in this fashion. The Qur’an tells how Lut warned his people and what they said in reply; 
    The people of Lut rejected the messengers. Behold, their brother Lut said to them: “Will ye not fear (Allah)? I am to you a messenger worthy of all trust. So fear Allah and obey me. No reward do I ask of you for it: my reward is only from the lord of the Worlds. Of all the creatures in the world, will ye approach males, And leave those whom Allah has created for you to be your mates? Nay, ye are a people transgressing (all limits)!” They said: “If thou desist not, O Lut! thou wilt assuredly be cast out!” He said: “I do detest your doings.” (Surat ash-Shuara: 160-168)
The people of Lut threatened him in response to his inviting them to the right way. His people detested him because of his showing them the right way, and wanted to banish both him and the other believers beside him. In other verses, the event is told as follows; 
    We also (sent) Lut: He said to his people: “Do ye commit lewdness such as no people in creation (ever) committed before you? For ye practise your lusts on men in preference to women : ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds.”And his people gave no answer but this: they said, “Drive them out of your city: these are indeed men who want to be clean and pure!” (Surat al-Araf: 80-82) 
Lut called his people to an obvious truth and warned them explicitly, but his people did not heed any warnings whatsoever and continued to reject Lut and to deny the penalty of which he told them. 
    And (remember) Lut: behold, he said to his people: “Ye do commit lewdness, such as no people in Creation (ever) committed before you. Do ye indeed approach men, and cut off the highway?- and practise wickedness (even) in your councils?” But his people gave no answer but this: they said: “Bring us the Wrath of Allah if thou tellest the truth.” (Surat al-Ankaboot: 28-29)
Receiving the above answer from his people, Lut asked for the help of Allah, 
    He said: “O my Lord! help Thou me against people who do mischief!” (Surat al-Ankaboot: 30) “O my Lord! deliver me and my family from such things as they do!” (Surat ash-Shuara: 169)
Upon Lut’s prayer, Allah sent two angels in the form of men. These angels visited Ibrahim before coming to Lut. Giving Ibrahim the good news that his wife would give birth to an infant, the messengers explained the reason of their being sent: the insolent people of Lut were to be destroyed. 
    (Ibrahim) said: “And what, O ye Messengers, is your errand (now)?” They said, “We have been sent to a people (deep) in sin; To bring on, on them, (a shower of) stones of clay (brimstone), Marked as from thy Lord for those who trespass beyond bounds.” (Surat adh-Dhariyat: 31-34) Excepting the adherents of Lut: them we are certainly (charged) to save (from harm),- All - Except his wife, who, We have ascertained, will be among those who will lag behind. (Surat al-Hijr: 59-60)
After leaving Ibrahim’s company, the angels, who were sent as messengers, came to Lut. Not having met the messengers before, Lut first became anxious, but then calmed down after talking  to them; 
    When Our messengers came to Lut, he was grieved on their account and felt himself powerless (to protect) them. He said: “This is a distressful day.” (Surah Hud: 77) He said: “Ye appear to be uncommon folk.” They said: “Yea, we have come to thee to accomplish that of which they doubt. We have brought to thee that which is inevitably due, and assuredly we tell the truth. Then travel by night with thy household, when a portion of the night (yet remains), and do thou bring up the rear: let no one amongst you look back, but pass on whither ye are ordered.” And We made known this decree to him, that the last remnants of those (sinners) should be cut off by the morning. (Surat al-Hijr: 62-66)
Meanwhile, his people had learned that Lut had visitors. They did not hesitate to approach these visitors perversely as they had approached others before. They encircled the house. Being afraid for his visitors, Lut addressed his people as follows; 
Lut said: “These are my guests: disgrace me not: But fear Allah, and shame me not.” (Surat al-Hijr: 68-69)
The people of Lut retorted;
They said: “Did we not forbid thee (to speak) for all and sundry?” (Surat al-Hijr: 70)
Thinking that he and his visitors subjected to evil treatment, Lut said:

“Would that I had power to suppress you or that I could betake myself to some powerful support.” (Surah Hud: 80)

His “visitors” reminded him that they were the messengers of Allah and said; 
(The Messengers) said: “O Lut! We are Messengers from thy Lord! By no means shall they reach thee! now travel with thy family while yet a part of the night remains, and let not any of you look back: but thy wife (will remain behind): To her will happen what happens to the people. Morning is their time appointed: Is not the morning nigh?” (Surah Hud: 81)
When the perversity of the city people reached its fullest extent, Allah saved Lut by means of the angels. In the morning, his people were destroyed by the disaster of which Lut had informed them in advance. 
And they even sought to snatch away his guests from him, but We blinded their eyes. (They heard:) “Now taste ye My Wrath and My Warning.” Early on the morrow an abiding Punishment seized them: (Surat al-Qamar: 37-38)
The verses describe the destruction of this people as follows; 
But the (mighty) Blast overtook them before morning, And We turned (the cities) upside down, and rained down on them brimstones hard as baked clay. Behold! in this are Signs for those who by tokens do understand. And the (cities were) right on the high-road. (Surat al-Hijr: 73-76)
When Our Decree issued, We turned (the cities) upside down, and rained down on them brimstones hard as baked clay, spread, layer on layer,-Marked as from thy Lord: Nor are they ever far from those who do wrong! (Surah Hud: 82-83)
But the rest We destroyed utterly. We rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): and evil was the shower on those who were admonished (but heeded not)! : Verily in this is a Sign: but most of them do not believe. And verily thy Lord is He, the Exalted in Might, Most Merciful. (Surat ash-Shuara: 172-175)
When the people were destroyed, only Lut and the believers, who were only as many as one “household”, were saved. Lut’s wife did not believe either and she was also destroyed. 
We also (sent) Lut: He said to his people: “Do ye commit lewdness such as no people in creation (ever) committed before you? 
For ye practise your lusts on men in preference to women : ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds.”
And his people gave no answer but this: they said, “Drive them out of your city: these are indeed men who want to be clean and pure!”
But we saved him and his family, except his wife: she was of those who legged behind.
And we rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): Then see what was the end of those who indulged in sin and crime! (Surat al-Araf: 80-84)
Thus, Prophet Lut was saved along with the believers and his family with the exception of his wife. As described in the Old Testament, he emigrated with Ibrahim. As for the perverted people, they were destroyed and their dwellings were razed to the ground. 


The Obvious Signs” in the Lake of Lut


The 82nd  verse of Surah Hud, clearly states the kind of the disaster that befell the people of Lut. “When Our Decree issued, We turned (the cities) upside down, and rained down on them brimstones hard as baked clay, spread, layer on layer
The statement of “turning (the cities) upside down” implies that the region was totally destroyed by a violent earthquake. Accordingly, The Lake of Lut, where the destruction took place, bears “obvious” evidence of such a disaster.

We quote German archaeologist Werner Keller as follows; 
    Together with the base of this mighty fissure, which runs precisely through this area, the Vale of Siddim, including Sodom and Gomorrah, plunged one day into the abyss. Their destruction came about through a great earthquake which was probably accompanied by explosions, lightning, issue of natural gas and general conflagration.
As a matter of fact, the Lake of Lut, or the Dead Sea as it is otherwise known, is located right on the top of an active seismic region, that is, an earthquake zone: 
    The base of the dead sea is located with a tectonic rooted downfall. This valley is located in a tension stretching between the Taberiye Lake in the north, and mid of Arabah Valley in the south.
The event was expressed as “we rained down on them brimstones hard as baked clay, spread, layer on layer” in the last part of the verse. This is in all probability meant to be the volcanic explosion that took place on the banks of the Lake of Lut, and because of which the rocks and stones that erupted were in a “baked form”. (The same event is related in the 173rd verse of Surat ash-Shuara as “We rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): and evil was the shower on those who were admonished (but heeded not)!”)
In relation to this subject, Werner Keller writes; 
    The subsidence released volcanic forces that had been lying dormant deep down along the whole length of the fracture. In the upper valley of the Jordan near Bashan there are still towering craters of extinct volcanoes; great stretches of lava and deep layers of basalt have been deposited on the limestone surface.
    A satellite photograph of the region where the people of Lut lived.
These lava and basalt layers constitute the greatest evidence that a volcanic explosion and earthquake had once taken place here. The catastrophe depicted in the following expression as “we rained down on them brimstones hard as baked clay, spread, layer on layer” in the Qur’an most probably points to this volcanic explosion, and Allah knows best. The expression “When Our Decree issued, We turned (the cities) upside down” which occurs in the same verse, must be referring to the earthquake which caused volcanoes to erupt over the surface of the earth with devastating impact, and to the fissures and debris brought by it, and only Allah knows the truth of it.

The “obvious signs” conveyed by the Lake of Lut are indeed very interesting. In general, the events which are related in the Qur’an take place in the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt. Right in the middle of these lands, is the Lake of Lut. The Lake of Lut, as well as the incidents that have taken place around it, deserves attention geologically. The Lake is approximately 400 meters below the surface of the Mediterranean. Since the deepest place in the Lake is 400 meters, the bottom of the Lake is 800 meters below the surface of the Mediterranean.

The Lake of Lut, or Dead Sea as differently called.
This is the lowest point on the earth. In other areas which are lower than sea level, the depth is at most 100 meters. Another property of the Lake of Lut is that the salt content of its water is very high, the density being nearly 30 %. Because of this, no living organism, such as fish or moss, can survive in this lake. This is why the Lake of Lut is called the “Dead Sea” in Western  literature. 

The incident of Lut’s people, which is recounted in the Qur’an, occurred around 1800 B.C. according to estimates. Based on his archaeological and geological researches, the German researcher Werner Keller noted that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were in fact located in the Siddim Valley which was the region at the furthers and lowest end of the Lake of Lut, and that there were once big and widely inhabited sites in those regions.

The most interesting structural characteristic of the Lake of Lut is an evidence showing how the disaster incidence recounted in the Qur’an took place; 
On the eastern shore of the Dead Sea the peninsula of el-Lisan protrudes like a tongue far into the water. El-Lisan means “the tongue” in Arabic. Unseen from the land the ground falls away here under the surface of the water at a prodigious angle, dividing the sea into two parts. To the right of the peninsula the ground slopes sharply down to a depth of 1200 feet. On the left of the peninsula the water remains remarkably shallow. Soundings taken in the last few years established depths of only fifty to sixty feet. That extraordinary shallow part of the Dead Sea, from the peninsula el-Lisan to the southernmost tip, was the Vale of Siddim.
Photographs of the Lake of Lut taken from satellite.
 Werner Keller noted that this shallow part, which was discovered to have formed subsequently, was the outcome of the aforementioned earthquake and the massive collapse this earthquake had caused. This was the place where Sodom and Gomorrah were situated, that is, where Lut’s people lived. 
 
Once, it was possible to cross this region by walking. However, now, the Vale of Siddim, where Sodom and Gomorrah were once situated, is covered by the flat surface of the lower part of the Dead Sea. The collapse of the base as a result of the dreadful catastrophe that came to pass in the beginning of the 2nd. millennium B.C., caused salt water from the north to flow into this recently formed cavity and filled the basin with salty water.  

The traces of the Lake of Lut are visible… When one takes a rowing boat across the Lake of Lut to the southernmost point, if the sun is shining in the right direction, one sees something quite fantastic. Some distance from the shore and clearly visible under the surface of the water, there are the outlines of the forests which the extraordinarily high salt content of the Dead Sea preserved. 

An illustration showing the volcanic eruption and the collapse that followed it, which caused the whole people to disappear.

The trunks and roots in the shimmering green water are very ancient. The Siddim valley, where these trees were once in blossom green foliage covered their twigs and branches, was one of the most beautiful locations in the region. 

The mechanical aspect of the disaster that befell people of Lut is revealed by the researches of the geologists. These reveal that the earthquake which destroyed  the people of Lut, came about in consequence of quite a long crack in the earth (a fault line), along the 190 kilometres distance making up the bed of the River Sheri’at. River Sheri’at makes a fall of 180 meters in total. Both this and the fact that the Lake of Lut is 400 metres below sea level are two important pieces of evidence showing that an enormous geological event has taken place here.  

The interesting structure of River of Sheri’at and the Lake of Lut make up only a small part of the crack or split passing from this region of the earth. The condition and length of this crack have only recently been discovered.


The fault starts from the outskirts of Mount Taurus, stretches to the southern shores of the Lake of Lut and proceeds over the Arabian desert to the Gulf of Aqaba and continues across the Red Sea, ending up in Africa. Along the length of it, strong volcanic activities are observed. Black basalt and lava exist in the Galilee Mountains in Israel, high plain regions of Jordan, the Gulf of Aqaba and other areas nearby.

All these remains and geographical evidences show that a catastrophic geological event took place in the Lake of Lut. Werner Keller writes, 
Together with the base of this mighty fissure, which runs precisely through this area, the Vale of Siddim, including Sodom and Gomorrah, plunged one day into the abyss. Their destruction came about through a great earthquake which was probably accompanied by explosions, lightning, issue of natural gas and general conflagration. The subsidence released volcanic forces that had been lying dormant deep down along the whole length of the fracture. In the upper valley of the Jordan near Bashan there are still towering craters of extinct volcanoes; great stretches of lava and deep layers of basalt have been deposited on the limestone surface.
Overhead view of the mountains around the Lake of Lut

National Geographic makes the following comment on December 1957; 
    The mount of Sodom, a barren wasteland, rises sharply above the dead sea. No one has ever found the destroyed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, but scholars believe that they stood in the Vale of Siddim across from these cliffs. Possibly flood waters of the Dead Sea engulfed them following an earthquake.


Pompeii Had a Similar End 


The Qur’an tells us in the following verses that there is no change in Allah’s laws; 
    They swore their strongest oaths by Allah that if a warner came to them, they would follow his guidance better than any (other) of the Peoples: But when a warner came to them, it has only increased their flight (from righteousness),- On account of their arrogance in the land and their plotting of Evil, but the plotting of Evil will hem in only the authors thereof. Now are they but looking for the way the ancients were dealt with? But no change wilt thou find in Allah's way (of dealing): no turning off wilt thou find in Allah's way (of dealing). (Surat al-Fatir: 42-43)
    Above is a fresco representing the luxury and prosperity of the city of Pompeii before the disaster. Down are petrified corpses unearthed in excavations made in Pompeii.
Yes, “no change will be found in Allah’s way (rules)”. Everybody, who stands against His laws and rebels against Him, is subject to the same divine law. Pompeii, the symbol of the degeneration of the Roman Empire, was also involved in sexual perversity. Its end was similar to that of the people of Lut.

The destruction of Pompeii came by means of the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius.


The volcano Vesuvius is the symbol of Italy, primarily the city of Naples. Remaining silent for the last two millennia, Vesuvius is named the “Mountain of Warning”. It is not without cause that Vesuvius is known as such. The disaster that befell Sodom and Gomorrah is very similar to the disaster that destroyed Pompeii.
 
To the right of Vesuvius lies Naples and to the east lies Pompeii. The lava and ash of a huge volcanic eruption, that happened two millennia ago, caught the inhabitants of that city. The disaster happened so suddenly that everything in the town was caught in the middle of its everyday life and remains today exactly as it was two millennia ago. It is as if the time had been frozen.

The removal of Pompeii from the face of the earth by such a disaster was not purposeless. The historical record shows that the city was exactly a center of dissipation and perversity. The city was marked by a rise in prostitution to such an extent that even the number of brothels was not known. Male organs in their original sizes were hung on the doors of the brothels. According to this tradition, rooted in Mithraic belief, sexual organs and sexual intercourse should not be hidden but displayed openly.  


But the lava of Vesuvius wiped the whole city off the map in a single moment. The most interesting aspect of the event is that nobody escaped despite the terrible violence of the eruption of Vesuvius. It is almost like they did not even notice the catastrophe, as if they were charmed. A family eating their meal were petrified right at that moment. Numerous petrified couples were found in the act of intercourse. The most interesting thing is that there were couples of the same sex and couples of young boys and girls. The faces of some of the petrified human corpses unearthed from Pompeii were unharmed. The general expression on those faces was bewilderment.

Here lies the most incomprehensible aspect of the calamity. How did thousands of people wait to be caught by death without seeing and hearing anything?

This aspect of the event shows that the disappearance of Pompeii was similar to the destructive events mentioned in the Qur’an, because the Qur’an particularly points to “sudden annihilation” while relating these events. For example, the “inhabitants of the city” described in Surah Ya-seen died all at once in a single moment. The situation is told as follows in the 29th. verse of the surah;
     It was no more than a single mighty Blast, and behold! they were (like ashes) quenched and silent. 
In the 31st verse of Surat al-Qamar, again the “instantaneous annihilation” is emphasised when the destruction of Thamud is recounted; 
    For We sent against them a single Mighty Blast, and they became like the dry stubble used by one who pens cattle.
The death of the people of Pompeii took place instantaneously as just as the events recounted in the above verses.  

Despite all these, things have not changed much where Pompeii once stood. The districts of Naples where debauchery prevails do not fall short of those licentious districts of Pompeii. The Island of Capri is a base where homosexuals and nudists reside. The Island of Capri is represented as a “Homosexual paradise” in tourist commercials. Not only on Capri and in Italy, but in nearly all the world, a similar moral degeneration is at work and people insist on not learning from the awful experiences of past peoples.  

Source: Islamicity.com

الثلاثاء، أغسطس 23، 2011

Muslims and their supporters have to get organized and stop assuming the FBI is their friend

Attorney Rejects FBI/CIA Request To Inform On His Muslim Clients
Placed on the U.S. Government's Terrorist Watch List

By Nick Meyer

August 21, 2011 "
AAN" - -The attorney-client privilege assuring confidentiality between the two parties is one of the most cherished rights of the American law system, but according to internationally recognized lawyer, author and professor Francis A. Boyle of the the University of Illinois-Champaign, government agents violated that privilege in a jarring summer 2004 visit.

Speaking to The Arab American News, Boyle confirmed recent reports that he was visited by two agents from a joint FBI-CIA anti-terrorist fusion center located about a 90-minute drive away in Springfield, Ill. in his office in Champaign, who attempted to persuade him to become an informant on his Arab American and American Muslim clients.

He said he repeatedly refused their requests to violate his clients' constitutional rights, only to find himself placed on the U.S. Government's terrorist watch list.

"There's five or six of them, and my lawyer informed me that I'm on all of them," Boyle said

"I filed an appeal but they told me, sorry, I would stay on the watch list forever until the agencies that put me on there took me off."

Boyle, who has represented several high profile Arab and Muslim clients in the past, also said the agents repeatedly questioned him about interviews he has given in various international media outlets that were critical of U.S. foreign policy towards Arab and Muslim countries. Similar reports have also come out including a recent one about agents allegedly spying on University of Michigan professor and writer Juan Cole.

Boyle's visit began innocently enough as the two agents introduced themselves to Boyle's secretary, he said.

They identified themselves as businessmen who wanted to speak with him about matters of international law and were wearing suits and ties, looking reputable. Boyle let them in.

"They misrepresented who they are and what they're about to my secretary," Boyle said.

They also gave him no indication that Boyle would be placed on the terrorist watch list after leaving what Boyle called a "nearly hour-long interrogation."

Speaking of interrogations, Boyle was subjected to one an hour and a half long upon returning from a lecture in Canada at the end of the summer of 2004.

The pattern has continued for Boyle, who has a Ph.D in Political Science from Harvard University specializing in International Relations and has authored books such as "Biowarfare and Terrorism," which links the U.S. biowarfare development to the October 2001 post-9/11 anthrax attack on Congress, and "The Palestinian Right to Return Under International Law," which was released in March 2011.

"I was flying in from Malaysia and two armed federal agents on the jet port saw me and my passport and took me into custody; they said 'You're coming with us,' and two guys with guns you're not going to argue with," he said.

"After searching me they said they were looking for someone on the watch list but not you, of course; how many Francis Anthony Boyles are there in America?"

Other extensive searches of Boyle occurred in Switzerland and Chicago.

He's still waiting for an explanation as to why he was placed on the terrorism watch list and concerned about the future.

"I'm not supposed to talk about clients' business to anyone let alone to become an informant on them, that violates their constitutional rights and also my ethical obligations as an attorney to maintain privacy," Boyle said.

"Whether you like lawyers or not, we're sort of the canaries in the mineshaft of democracy, the first line of defense."

An article in Criminal Justice Magazine in Summer 2002 said that immediately following the September 11 attacks against the U.S., then-Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a controversial order that permits the government to monitor all communications between client and attorney when there is 'reasonable suspicion' to 'believe that a particular inmate may use communications with attorneys or their agents to further or facilitate acts of violence or terrorism.' The order raises constitutional concerns under the First, Fourth Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments according to authors Paul Rice and Benjamin Saul.

Boyle believes that the rights of attorneys and anti-war critics as well are under attack, as is the Constitution in general as many analysts have been saying.

"They've gone after many other lawyers, and what they did to Juan Cole doesn't surprise me either," Boyle said.

"We're living in a police state now and what people really need to understand, especially Arabs and Muslims, is that the police are not their friends," Boyle said.

"No Arab or Muslim should talk to the FBI without a lawyer present, you have to be very careful dealing with these people."

Boyle noted that about 1,200 non-citizens were rounded up immediately after the 9/11 attacks and that the only charges brought against them were actually for routine immigration violations or in some cases ordinary crimes as asserted in the 165-page report "America's Challenge" about civil liberties, domestic security and national unity after the attacks, released by the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.

More than one million people are currently on watch lists according to a USA Today report in 2009, but Boyle believes he's in more exclusive company on a list of about 5,000 people who were asked to be informants.

Guarding against unjust tactics in the name of security is something that should drive Arab Americans and Muslims, and others, he said.

"Arabs and Muslims and their supporters have to get organized and stop assuming the FBI is their friend, and to set up watch committees and inform themselves as to their rights under the law., and fight back in court," he said.

"It's only going to get worse...the FBI and the CIA are completely out of anyone's control. And Arabs and Muslims are going to have to sit down and figure out how to combat this," he said.

Boyle said they should band together to demand that the Department of Justice re-institute the Edward Hirsch Levy Guidelines, which terminated the FBI COINTEL spying program and were revoked after 9/11 by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. He also said the communities need more lawyers and journalists to fight on their behalf.

He remains concerned about the possibility of retribution against he and others should another attack occur but plans to remain firm in his commitment to his country and its ideals of freedom.

"It feels sort of like a loaded gun sitting there," he said. "But I was born here and I will stay here as a U.S. citizen, and stand and fight for the rights and future of this country."

الأربعاء، مارس 09، 2011

USA Soldiers Rape Muslim Women & Children

An American Atrocity in Afghanistan By Dave Lindorff
March 09, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- The people of Afghanistan know who was flying the two helicopter gunships that brutally hunted down and slaughtered, one by one, nine boys apparently as young as seven years old, as they gathered firewood on a hillside March 1. In angry demonstrations after the incident, they were shouting “Death to America.”


Americans are still blissfully unaware that their “heroes” in uniform are guilty of this obscene massacre. The ursine US corporate media has been reporting on this story based upon a gutless press release from the Pentagon which attributes the “mistake” to “NATO” helicopters.


The thing is, this terrible incident occurred in the Pech Valley in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, where US forces have for several years been battling Taliban forces, and from which region they are now in the process of withdrawing. Clearly then, it is US, and not “NATO” helicopters which have been responding to calls to attack “suspected Taliban forces.”


So why can’t the Pentagon say that? And if they won’t say that, why won’t American reporters either demand that they clearly state the nationality of whatever troops commit an atrocity, or exercise due diligence themselves and figure it out?


There is a second issue too. Most publications appear to have followed the lead of the highly compromised New York Times, and are going with the Pentagon line that the boys who were killed were aged 9-15. That’s bad enough. It’s hard to see how helicopter pilots with their high-resolution imaging equipment, cannot tell a 9-year-old boy when they see one, from a bearded Taliban fighter. But at least one news organization, the McClachy chain, is reporting that the ages of the boys who were murdered from the air were 7-13. If that latter range of ages is correct, then it is all the more outrageous that they were picked off one by one by helicopter gunners. No way could they have mistaken a 7-year-old for an adult.


No wonder the even the famously corrupt Afghan President Hamid Karzai refused to accept an apology proffered for this killing by Afghan War commander Gen. David Petraeus.


Calls by this reporter to the Pentagon for an accurate report on whose troops were flying those two helicopters, and for an accurate accounting of the ages of the nine victims, have thus far gone unanswered. This, I have discovered, is fairly standard for the Defense Department. If it’s a story about some big victory, or a new eco-friendly plan for a military base’s heating system, you have to beat the Pentagon PR guys off with a stick, but if you call them about something embarrassing or negative, you get passed from Major Perrine to Lt. Col. Robbins to Commander Whozits, and nobody give you an answer. Finally you’re given someone to email a question to, and that message goes into the Pentagon internet ether and never gets returned.


So let’s give an honest report here. Two US helicopter gunships, allegedly responding to a report of “insurgent” activity on a hillside in Kunar Province, came upon the scene of 10 young Afghan boys who were collecting brush for fuel for their families. The gunships, according to the account of a lone 11-year-old surviver who was hidden by a tree, systematically hunted down the other nine boys, hitting them with machine gun and rocket fire and killing them all--their bodies so badly damaged that their families had to hunt for the pieces in order to bury them.


This atrocity is being described as a “mistake,” but it was no mistake, clearly. The crews of the helicopters were shooting at fleeing human beings who made no attempt to return fire (obviously, because all the boys had were sticks, which they surely dropped when the first shots were fired).


They almost certainly saw that they were dealing with kids, because it would be hard to mistake even a nine year old for an adult, particularly in a country where young kids go around with their heads uncovered, and don’t have beards, while adult males generally wear head coverings, and have full beards. But killing kids is part of the deal in America’s war in Afghanistan. Even in Iraq, 12 year olds were being classified by the US military (in contravention of the Geneva Conventions) as being “combat age,” for example in the assault on the city of Fallujah.


Let’s also be clear that this slaughter of nine Afghan children is the ugly reality behind Gen. Petraeus’s supposed policy of “protecting civilians.” Here’s a number that tells the true story about that policy: since Gen. Petraeus assumed command after the ousting of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, US airstrikes in Afghanistan have gone up by 172%. That’s not counting attacks by remote-controlled, missile-firing drone aircraft, which are also up by a huge amount. Those airstrikes and drone attacks are notoriously deadly for civilians--far more so than ground attacks, but of course they have the advantage for our “heroes” in uniform of reducing the number of US casualties in this hugely one-sided conflict.


There are so many aspects to this story that are disturbing, it’s hard to know what’s worse. Clearly we are deliberately murdering kids in Afghanistan, and this particular incident is just an example we know about. The men who did this will hopefully pay for their crimes by living with their guilt, but hopefully there will be an honest investigation and proper punishment too by military authorities (I’m not holding my breath). Petraeus and his boss, Commander in Chief Obama, should also be called to account and punished for implementing a war plan that calls for this kind of brutal slaughter of civilians.


But the US media are also guilty here. How can Americans reach proper conclusions about this obscene war against one of the poorest peoples in the world if our supposedly “fair and balanced” media simply perform the role of Pentagon propagandist, running Defense Department press releases as if they were news reports?


The blood of these poor Afghan kids is smeared not just on the hands of Obama and the generals, and the soldiers who pull the triggers and push the buttons that unleash death, but on the desks and keyboards of American newsrooms that cover up their crimes.
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net


http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27641.htm

الاثنين، فبراير 21، 2011

The Death of Rendition Victim Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi by Andy Worthington

Return to torture: cleared Guantánamo detainee Abdul Rauf al-Qassim fears return to Libya

16.6.07

On Friday, the Washington Post reported on the case of a 42-year old Libyan, Abdul Rauf al-Qassim, one of around 80 prisoners currently languishing in Guantánamo who were cleared for release at least a year ago. Many of these prisoners –- including 17 Uyghurs from China’s Xinjiang province –- are still held because the Pentagon cannot guarantee that they will not be tortured or murdered if they are returned to their home countries and cannot find another country to accept them (although the Uyghurs may well join their five compatriots who were dumped in a refugee camp in Albania in May 2006). After the suffering that these prisoners have endured in American custody, this concern for their welfare remains one of the more surreal episodes in the reality-defying saga of the ‘War on Terror’, and is not helped by the fact that the majority of them are held in solitary confinement for 22 hours a day, in circumstances that would tax some of the most hardened convicted criminals in America’s ‘Supermax’ prisons.

Tony Blair and Colonel GaddafiIn al-Qassim’s case, however, the problem is not that he cannot be returned to his home country, but that he doesn’t want to go, and is ‘publicly fighting’ the Pentagon’s plans to return him to Libya. Since March 2004, when British Prime Minister Tony Blair –- looking as comfortable as a schoolboy lost in the wrong part of town — was welcomed by Colonel Gaddafi in his Bedouin tent in Tripoli, the Libyan regime –- once an implacable terror-sponsoring enemy –- has become the West’s new best friend in North Africa. Never mind that the State Department reports annually that torture and abuse are still rife in Libya’s prisons, Gaddafi has renounced his Weapons of Mass Destruction, has joined the merry Western World of mega-bucks, oil deals and arms sales, and is a staunch ally in the ‘War on Terror’.

Ever since the first reports leaked out that the CIA had ‘rendered’ al-Qaeda suspects to Libya for ‘interrogation’, the former pariah’s status as friend to the West has been one of the more reprehensible manifestations of the murky realpolitik that actually underpins the whole US-led anti-terror coalition. It’s not the only corrupt alliance by any means, of course. In defense of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, the US and the UK have been happily dealing with numerous repressive, undemocratic regimes, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and Uzbekistan. Other regimes –- in theory less dictatorial –- have also queued up to be paid and not punished, including Morocco, Jordan and, at the time of writing, Kenya and Ethiopia. At the other end of the scale –- at least in the early years of the ‘War on Terror’ –- al-Qaeda suspects were also ‘rendered’ to Syria for ‘interrogation’, in a deal that reveals the West’s purported commitment to human rights and justice for the hollow, dead-eyed rhetoric that it really is: while President Bush was publicly calling Syria a member of the ‘axis of evil’, he was also busy engaging Syrian intelligence –- the notorious Mukhabarat –- as proxy torturers.

Despite being cleared for release by the Pentagon, Abdul Rauf al-Qassim has good reason to fear being returned to Libya. A soldier in the Libyan army from 1983 to 1989, he then deserted, traveling to Afghanistan ‘to immigrate and to start a new life’. After fighting with the mujahideen until 1993, when the last remnants of the Soviet regime fell, he ‘traveled back and forth between Pakistan and Afghanistan’ –- at one point studying at university in Quetta –- and also met and married an Afghan woman, Rahima, with whom he had a daughter, Khiria, who has spent the whole of her young life without her father.

Abdul Rauf al-Qassim's wife and daughter

Abdul Rauf al-Qassim’s wife, Rahima, and his daughter, Khiria.

Al-Qassim was captured in Lahore in May 2002, at the house of a Pakistani, after escaping from war-torn Afghanistan with his pregnant wife, but although it was clear that he had not taken up arms against the Americans, it was far less clear that he would not be regarded as a threat by the government of his home country. In his Administrative Review Board in May 2005 (convened to review the prisoners’ status as ‘enemy combatants’), he explained –- via a statement made to his Assisting Military Officer –- that he had received military training at two Libyan camps in Afghanistan, but only because he was living there, and admitted that he had joined the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group –- exiled opponents of the Gaddafi regime –- but only ‘out of desperation — he was broke, had no place to go, was hungry, unemployed and had no way to support himself’. He added that his family ‘did not receive monetary support from the [LIFG], but he received food, shelter and an allowance for clothes’. He also agreed with previous statements he had made: that he ‘did not believe in violence’, and that he ‘angrily defined [al-Qaeda’s] leadership and members as “savages” who twist the meaning of Islam, thereby hurting all Muslims’.

Although al-Qassim stated that a Libyan delegation, who visited Guantánamo in 2004 (and were actually flown there by the CIA), told him that they ‘knew he was with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group only by name’, that he was ‘obligated to be with them’, and that they would ‘take care of him’, he repeatedly told his Assisting Military Officer that he was ‘afraid of returning to Libya’. ‘He said he does not want to go to Libya because he feels he cannot trust them and because they put people in prison for no reason’, his AMO reported. ‘He said he feels that if he returns to Libya, even after being released by the United States, he would be sent back to prison’. Such was his concern that the Presiding Officer of his ARB noted, ‘For the record, make sure that we put in our report that the Detainee is afraid of returning to Libya’, a comment that has clearly been ignored by the administration, as it prepares to fulfil his worst fears.

Al-Qassim is not without friends in America. The Center for Constitutional Rights has taken up his case, fighting for him in the courts and, with the help of the Afghan Human Rights Organization, tracing his wife and daughter. In addition, Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, has embraced his cause, urging the government to consider other options, and pointing out that, because he has an Afghan wife and child, he is eligible for Afghan citizenship. In a letter to the State Department, he wrote that it would be a ‘grave injustice’ to send al-Qassim to Libya, ‘because the State Department has reported that the country engages in torture, including electric shocks and suffocation’, and in a recent interview he said that, ‘by virtue of his alleged connection to a group that opposes the Libyan government’, al-Qassim was ‘at particular risk for abuse’, adding, ‘The State Department doesn’t have a leg to stand on if they’re going to contradict their own analysis’.

It remains to be seen whether the campaign mounted by Rep. Markey and CCR will be successful, although the omens are not good. In December 2006, unnoticed by almost everyone, another Libyan, 38-year old Mohammed al-Rimi (aka al-Futuri), was returned to Libya from Guantánamo. An economic migrant, who had traveled to Afghanistan via Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, al-Rimi explained in Guantánamo that he had spent two years in Afghanistan with the vast worldwide missionary organization Jamaat-al-Tablighi, and denied that he had any militant connections. Although he added that he had had problems with the Libyan authorities, and had left Libya because of religious persecution, he was apparently willing to return home when told that he had been cleared for release. On his return, Saleh Abdulsalam, a spokesman for a government-related charity, said that al-Rimi had been diagnosed with tuberculosis but was not wanted by Libyan authorities and would ‘go back to his family soon’, although according to human rights activists, this was a lie, and he has simply exchanged one prison for another.

What may help al-Qassim –- if his lawyers can extract enough leverage from it –- is a decision made by the UK’s Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) on 27 April, that two Libyan prisoners held without charge or trial in the UK’s own mini-version of Guantánamo could not be returned to Libya because they were at risk of being tortured. The Commission’s decision was particularly galling for the British government because, in October 2005, Libya signed a ‘memorandum of understanding’, promising that it would not torture or ill-treat Libyans returned from the UK. This was touted by the Foreign Office as the answer to a problem that had long preoccupied them –- how to bypass international conventions prohibiting governments from sending people back to a country where they might face torture or ill-treatment –- but it became increasingly more urgent as they cooperated with American intelligence in the wake of 9/11, and it seems clear, from the ways in which both the Americans and the British have been attempting to neutralize the prohibitions against returning people to countries where they face torture, that Abdul Rauf al-Qassim is part of a concerted effort by both countries to undermine international legal safeguards. Unfortunately for the Foreign Office, the SIAC judges concluded that the ‘memorandum of understanding’ was not worth the paper it was written on. One can only hope, for al-Qassim’s sake, that the State Department feels the same way.

Note: The Pentagon refers to al-Qassim as Abdul Rauf al-Qusin, and his name is also transliterated as Abdul Raouf al-Qassim or Abdul Ra’ouf al-Qassim. In documents presented to the Supreme Court in May 2007, which unsuccessfully sought an injunction to prevent his return to Libya, he is referred to as Abu Abdul Rauf Zalita.

For more on the Libyan detainees in Guantánamo, see my book The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK). To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed.

As published on CounterPunch.

Return to torture: cleared Guantánamo detainee Abdul Rauf al-Qassim fears return to Libya | Andy Worthington

Return to torture: cleared Guantánamo detainee Abdul Rauf al-Qassim fears return to Libya

16.6.07

On Friday, the Washington Post reported on the case of a 42-year old Libyan, Abdul Rauf al-Qassim, one of around 80 prisoners currently languishing in Guantánamo who were cleared for release at least a year ago. Many of these prisoners –- including 17 Uyghurs from China’s Xinjiang province –- are still held because the Pentagon cannot guarantee that they will not be tortured or murdered if they are returned to their home countries and cannot find another country to accept them (although the Uyghurs may well join their five compatriots who were dumped in a refugee camp in Albania in May 2006). After the suffering that these prisoners have endured in American custody, this concern for their welfare remains one of the more surreal episodes in the reality-defying saga of the ‘War on Terror’, and is not helped by the fact that the majority of them are held in solitary confinement for 22 hours a day, in circumstances that would tax some of the most hardened convicted criminals in America’s ‘Supermax’ prisons.

Tony Blair and Colonel GaddafiIn al-Qassim’s case, however, the problem is not that he cannot be returned to his home country, but that he doesn’t want to go, and is ‘publicly fighting’ the Pentagon’s plans to return him to Libya. Since March 2004, when British Prime Minister Tony Blair –- looking as comfortable as a schoolboy lost in the wrong part of town — was welcomed by Colonel Gaddafi in his Bedouin tent in Tripoli, the Libyan regime –- once an implacable terror-sponsoring enemy –- has become the West’s new best friend in North Africa. Never mind that the State Department reports annually that torture and abuse are still rife in Libya’s prisons, Gaddafi has renounced his Weapons of Mass Destruction, has joined the merry Western World of mega-bucks, oil deals and arms sales, and is a staunch ally in the ‘War on Terror’.

Ever since the first reports leaked out that the CIA had ‘rendered’ al-Qaeda suspects to Libya for ‘interrogation’, the former pariah’s status as friend to the West has been one of the more reprehensible manifestations of the murky realpolitik that actually underpins the whole US-led anti-terror coalition. It’s not the only corrupt alliance by any means, of course. In defense of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, the US and the UK have been happily dealing with numerous repressive, undemocratic regimes, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and Uzbekistan. Other regimes –- in theory less dictatorial –- have also queued up to be paid and not punished, including Morocco, Jordan and, at the time of writing, Kenya and Ethiopia. At the other end of the scale –- at least in the early years of the ‘War on Terror’ –- al-Qaeda suspects were also ‘rendered’ to Syria for ‘interrogation’, in a deal that reveals the West’s purported commitment to human rights and justice for the hollow, dead-eyed rhetoric that it really is: while President Bush was publicly calling Syria a member of the ‘axis of evil’, he was also busy engaging Syrian intelligence –- the notorious Mukhabarat –- as proxy torturers.

Despite being cleared for release by the Pentagon, Abdul Rauf al-Qassim has good reason to fear being returned to Libya. A soldier in the Libyan army from 1983 to 1989, he then deserted, traveling to Afghanistan ‘to immigrate and to start a new life’. After fighting with the mujahideen until 1993, when the last remnants of the Soviet regime fell, he ‘traveled back and forth between Pakistan and Afghanistan’ –- at one point studying at university in Quetta –- and also met and married an Afghan woman, Rahima, with whom he had a daughter, Khiria, who has spent the whole of her young life without her father.

Abdul Rauf al-Qassim's wife and daughter

Abdul Rauf al-Qassim’s wife, Rahima, and his daughter, Khiria.

Al-Qassim was captured in Lahore in May 2002, at the house of a Pakistani, after escaping from war-torn Afghanistan with his pregnant wife, but although it was clear that he had not taken up arms against the Americans, it was far less clear that he would not be regarded as a threat by the government of his home country. In his Administrative Review Board in May 2005 (convened to review the prisoners’ status as ‘enemy combatants’), he explained –- via a statement made to his Assisting Military Officer –- that he had received military training at two Libyan camps in Afghanistan, but only because he was living there, and admitted that he had joined the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group –- exiled opponents of the Gaddafi regime –- but only ‘out of desperation — he was broke, had no place to go, was hungry, unemployed and had no way to support himself’. He added that his family ‘did not receive monetary support from the [LIFG], but he received food, shelter and an allowance for clothes’. He also agreed with previous statements he had made: that he ‘did not believe in violence’, and that he ‘angrily defined [al-Qaeda’s] leadership and members as “savages” who twist the meaning of Islam, thereby hurting all Muslims’.

Although al-Qassim stated that a Libyan delegation, who visited Guantánamo in 2004 (and were actually flown there by the CIA), told him that they ‘knew he was with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group only by name’, that he was ‘obligated to be with them’, and that they would ‘take care of him’, he repeatedly told his Assisting Military Officer that he was ‘afraid of returning to Libya’. ‘He said he does not want to go to Libya because he feels he cannot trust them and because they put people in prison for no reason’, his AMO reported. ‘He said he feels that if he returns to Libya, even after being released by the United States, he would be sent back to prison’. Such was his concern that the Presiding Officer of his ARB noted, ‘For the record, make sure that we put in our report that the Detainee is afraid of returning to Libya’, a comment that has clearly been ignored by the administration, as it prepares to fulfil his worst fears.

Al-Qassim is not without friends in America. The Center for Constitutional Rights has taken up his case, fighting for him in the courts and, with the help of the Afghan Human Rights Organization, tracing his wife and daughter. In addition, Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, has embraced his cause, urging the government to consider other options, and pointing out that, because he has an Afghan wife and child, he is eligible for Afghan citizenship. In a letter to the State Department, he wrote that it would be a ‘grave injustice’ to send al-Qassim to Libya, ‘because the State Department has reported that the country engages in torture, including electric shocks and suffocation’, and in a recent interview he said that, ‘by virtue of his alleged connection to a group that opposes the Libyan government’, al-Qassim was ‘at particular risk for abuse’, adding, ‘The State Department doesn’t have a leg to stand on if they’re going to contradict their own analysis’.

It remains to be seen whether the campaign mounted by Rep. Markey and CCR will be successful, although the omens are not good. In December 2006, unnoticed by almost everyone, another Libyan, 38-year old Mohammed al-Rimi (aka al-Futuri), was returned to Libya from Guantánamo. An economic migrant, who had traveled to Afghanistan via Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, al-Rimi explained in Guantánamo that he had spent two years in Afghanistan with the vast worldwide missionary organization Jamaat-al-Tablighi, and denied that he had any militant connections. Although he added that he had had problems with the Libyan authorities, and had left Libya because of religious persecution, he was apparently willing to return home when told that he had been cleared for release. On his return, Saleh Abdulsalam, a spokesman for a government-related charity, said that al-Rimi had been diagnosed with tuberculosis but was not wanted by Libyan authorities and would ‘go back to his family soon’, although according to human rights activists, this was a lie, and he has simply exchanged one prison for another.

What may help al-Qassim –- if his lawyers can extract enough leverage from it –- is a decision made by the UK’s Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) on 27 April, that two Libyan prisoners held without charge or trial in the UK’s own mini-version of Guantánamo could not be returned to Libya because they were at risk of being tortured. The Commission’s decision was particularly galling for the British government because, in October 2005, Libya signed a ‘memorandum of understanding’, promising that it would not torture or ill-treat Libyans returned from the UK. This was touted by the Foreign Office as the answer to a problem that had long preoccupied them –- how to bypass international conventions prohibiting governments from sending people back to a country where they might face torture or ill-treatment –- but it became increasingly more urgent as they cooperated with American intelligence in the wake of 9/11, and it seems clear, from the ways in which both the Americans and the British have been attempting to neutralize the prohibitions against returning people to countries where they face torture, that Abdul Rauf al-Qassim is part of a concerted effort by both countries to undermine international legal safeguards. Unfortunately for the Foreign Office, the SIAC judges concluded that the ‘memorandum of understanding’ was not worth the paper it was written on. One can only hope, for al-Qassim’s sake, that the State Department feels the same way.

Note: The Pentagon refers to al-Qassim as Abdul Rauf al-Qusin, and his name is also transliterated as Abdul Raouf al-Qassim or Abdul Ra’ouf al-Qassim. In documents presented to the Supreme Court in May 2007, which unsuccessfully sought an injunction to prevent his return to Libya, he is referred to as Abu Abdul Rauf Zalita.

For more on the Libyan detainees in Guantánamo, see my book The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK). To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed.

As published on CounterPunch.

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