Yuram Almanfi's Blog

Visions of Violence in Defense of the Dollar

"In contrast to the murderous vision of violent extremists, we are joining with allies and partners around the world to build their capacity to promote security, prosperity, and human dignity," wrote U.S. President Barack Obama in a document entitled “Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership”.[i]

While not identifying the "violent extremists" referred to by President Obama, the report details the United States’ own vision of violent extremism being directed against Iran. Diminishing hopes for peace in the Middle East, the war department report makes it crystal clear that U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf has two objectives; first, denying Iran’s right to develop peaceful nuclear technology and second, providing unflinching support for the Zionist regime’s paranoid pursuit of security.

According to the report, "U.S. policy will emphasize Gulf security, in collaboration with Gulf Cooperation Council countries when appropriate, to prevent Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon capability and counter its destabilizing policies. The United States will do this while standing up for Israel’s security and a comprehensive Middle East peace."[ii]

Under the claim of standing up for the "security" of the Zionist regime, the U.S. has employed its own "murderous vision" here; a build-up to a war with Iran that appears to be a carbon copy of the scenario used in the march to war with Iraq in 2003. A U.S. Congressional Research report on the Iraq war captures the essence of the plot: “After 16 weeks, inspectors turned up some evidence of undeclared activities, but not enough to convince a majority of the Security Council members that military force was necessary. Nonetheless, on 19 March 2003, U.S. and British forces attacked Iraq to forcibly eliminate its WMD.”[iii]

The pretext for the Anglo-American invasion was based on unresolved issues outstanding since 1998, which according to U.N. Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission Chief Hans Blix, neither verified nor excluded the possibility that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.[iv] Iraq had even agreed to overflights by American U-2 spy planes about which then President Bush alleged that Iraq was merely stalling for time.[v] Of course, no WMD were ever found in Iraq.

President Ahmadinejad has reiterated a willingness to resume negotiations with the Western powers[vi] and has even allowed a team of IAEA inspectors to return to Iran.[vii] No doubt, these inspectors will find some ambiguous, inconsequential shred of evidence, the significance of which will then be magnified to gargantuan proportions by the Western media, and held up as proof positive of the “smoking gun” confirming the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. The inspectors will exit Iran and present their findings; there will be an exchange of charges and denials; ultimatums will ensue and then Israel will be allowed to bomb the various targeted sites in multiple Osirak-style raids, using U.S. supplied ordnance and intelligence. In an understandable and justifiable response, Iran may close the Strait of Hormuz causing an anticipated 50% rise in crude oil prices,[viii] resulting in widespread economic havoc. The raids may even take place during Noruz to minimize "collateral damage", which would be touted by the West as a humanitarian gesture. Also, 20 March 2012 is the target date for the Iranian Bourse to begin trading crude oil in currencies other than the U.S. dollar.[ix]

Iran's nuclear program is nothing more than a convenient excuse for the U.S. to use military force to protect the "reserve currency" status of the dollar. Recall that Saddam announced Iraq would no longer accept dollars for oil purchases in November of 2000[x] and the U.S.-Anglo invasion occurred in March 2003. Similarly, Iran opened its Bourse in 2008,[xi]^{, [xii]} so it is a credit to Persian negotiating ability that the "crisis" has not come to a head long before now.

Europe is on the brink economic chaos[xiii] due to the prudent monetary policies of the European Central Bank, which has refused to print money to buy government debt,[xiv] quite unlike the U.S. Federal Reserve. Having been lured by cheap 1% bailout loans from the FED to prevent government defaults, Europe caved in to the Zionist-inspired U.S. pressure and agreed to shoot itself in the financial foot by imposing oil sanctions on Iran, thus guaranteeing a European double-dip recession.[xv] For the U.S. however, these financial events help ensure that the Euro will not pose the threat it once did to the dollar’s hegemony over oil transactions.

In contrast, India has declared it will buy Iranian crude in gold and China is expected to follow suit.[xvi] Both nations have robust economies and nuclear weapons as well, so the U.S. will probably not do anything beyond sending trade missions headed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to both countries[xvii] to beg for currency devaluation and jobs. China is especially significant, since it holds a plethora of dollars as a result of perpetual U.S. trade deficits.[xviii] What this suggests is that China may now be preparing to dump its dollar holdings, absorb its losses and allow the renminbi to float on world currency markets.[xix]

One of the few growth sectors in the U.S. is the arms industry, and this is partially fueled by the 3 billion+ dollars the U.S. sends to Israel as foreign military aid, [xx] almost 75% of which returns to U.S. arms manufacturers (Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon[xxi] to name a few) as weapons purchases.[xxii] With facilities throughout the U.S.,[xxiii] the arms industry can pressure Senators and Representatives into opposing defense budget cuts by threatening plant closures in their respective districts at election times. This partially explains why both Democrats and Republicans are hawks and usually support every war.

Remember also, since the end of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, the U.S. dollar "floats" on world currency markets and is not backed by gold.[xxiv] This occurred because the U.S. was running out of gold reserves trying to finance its obscene war in Vietnam.[xxv] Supported in part by the mammoth Greenspan-created credit bubble until it burst in 2007,[xxvi] the once-almighty dollar is now backed by the power of the U.S. military, which enforces its acceptance in world markets and will continue to do so as long as America is the sole remaining superpower.[xxvii]

Unless the U.S. is willing to concede defeat to the Asian economic powers lead by China and India, it has no other option except to use military force to postpone the inevitable demise of the dollar.[xxviii] This means it must either choose to support Israel's paranoid push to attack Iran, or watch the dollar and its global empire ride off into the sunset.

Yuram Abdullah Weiler is a former engineer turned freelance writer from Denver, Colorado USA. A Shiite Muslim, he has made a pilgrimage to Syria and Iraq. He frequently contributes to Tehran Times and welcomes comments at yuram@sahafa.com.

Endnotes

[i] Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense. U.S. Department of Defense, January 2012. http://www.defense.gov/news/Defense_Strategic_Guidance.pdf (Accessed 30 January 2012)

[ii] Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership. Op.cit.

[iii] Sharon A. Squassoni, Iraq: U.N. Inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction. Congressional Research Service, 7 October 2003. http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RL31671.pdf (Accessed 30 January 2012).

[iv] Sharon A. Squassoni, Iraq: U.N. Inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction. Op.cit., page 13.

[v] Sharon A. Squassoni, Iraq: U.N. Inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction. Op.cit., page 16.

[vi] Iran’s Nuclear Program. New York Times, 26 January, 2012. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iran/nuclear_program/index.html (Accessed 30 January 2012).

[vii] IAEA nuclear inspectors begin Iran visit. The Guardian, 29 January 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/29/iaea-nuclear-inspectors-iran-visit (Accessed 30 January 2012).

[viii] Iran’s Nuclear Program. Op.cit.

[ix] Iran to regularly offer crude oil on bourse next year. Tehran Times, 11 January 2012. http://www.tehrantimes.com/economy-and-business/94459-iran-to-regularly-offer-crude-oil-on-bourse-next-year (Accessed 31 January 2012)

[x] Ed Haas, Iran, Bourse and the U.S. Dollar. NewsWithViews.com, 28 January 2006. http://www.newswithviews.com/public_comm/public_commentary31.htm (Accessed 30 January 2012).

[xi] Iranian oil bourse. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_oil_bourse (Accessed 31 January 2012).

[xii] William Clark, Petrodollar Warfare: Dollars, Euros and the Upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse. Information Clearing House, 8 August 2005. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9698.htm (Accessed 30 January 2012).

[xiii] Mega Fail: 17 Signs That The European Financial System Is Heading For An Implosion Of Historic Proportions. The Economic Collapse, 13 December 2011. http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/mega-fail-17-signs-that-the-european-financial-system-is-heading-for-an-implosion-of-historic-proportions (Accessed 31 January 2012).

[xiv] Simon Maierhofer, Fed Won’t Admit it – But QE3 is Already in Force. ETFGuide, 27 January 2012. http://www.etfguide.com/research/759/8/Fed-Won't-Admit-it-But-QE3-is-Already-in-Force/ (Accessed 31 January 2012).

[xv] Heather Stewart, European Central Bank announces emergency measures to protect euro. The Guardian, 8 December 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/08/european-central-bank-euro-ecb (Accessed 31 January 2012).

[xvi] India to pay gold instead of dollars for Iranian oil. CommodityOnline, 24 January 2012. http://www.commodityonline.com/news/india-to-pay-gold-instead-of-dollars-for-iranian-oil-45424-3-1.html (Accessed 31 January 2012).

[xvii] Lucy Hornesby, Will Geithner Get What He Wants in China. Reuters, 10 January 2012. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/11/us-china-us-iran-idUSTRE80A0CN20120111 (Accessed 31 January 2012).

[xviii] Kimberly Amadeo, Is the Collapse of the U.S. Dollar Imminent? About.com, 12 April 2011. http://useconomy.about.com/od/criticalssues/p/dollar_collapse.htm (Accessed 31 January 2012).

[xix] Yu Yongding, China can break free of the dollar trap. Financial Times, 4 August 2011. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2189faa2-bec6-11e0-a36b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1l1QGuz2N (Accessed 31 January 2012).

[xx]Josh Ruebner, The U.S. Can’t Afford Military Aid to Israel. Huffington Post, 26 February 2010. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-ruebner/us-cant-afford-military-a_b_478104.html (Accessed 31 January 2012).

[xxi] Andrew Seaman and Jim Wolf , The health and defense industries are readying for battle as a bipartisan committee determines how to trim $1.5 trillion from the federal budget over the next 10 years. Reuters, 3 August 2011. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/11/us-usa-debt-lobbying-factbox-idUSTRE77A63Z20110811 (Accessed 31 January 2012).

[xxii] Jeremy Sharp, U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel. Congressional Research Service, 16 September 2010. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf (Accessed 31 January 2012).

[xxiii] Projected Defense Purchases: Detail by Industry and State. Calendar Years 2009 Through 2015. Department of Defense, October 2010. http://www.economics.osd.mil/DEPPS2010.pdf (Accessed 31 January 2012).

[xxiv] The End of the Bretton Woods System (1972–81). International Monetary Fund. http://www.imf.org/external/about/histend.htm (Accessed 31 January 2012).

[xxv] Benjamin Cohen, Bretton Woods System. Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy. http://www.polsci.ucsb.edu/faculty/cohen/inpress/bretton.html (Accessed 31 January 2012)

[xxvi] Jim Quinn, Treasuries: The Bastard Child of the Mother of All Bubbles. Minyanville, 24 September 2010. http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/alan-greenspan-ben-bernanke-debt-great/9/24/2010/id/30248?page=full (Accessed 31 January 2012).

[xxvii] F. William Engdahl, Crisis of the U.S. Dollar System. Global Research, 14 October 2006. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3482 (Accessed 31 January 2012).

[xxviii] Asia emerges as global economic power house. Indian Express, 16 June 2010. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/asia-emerges-as-global-economic-power-house/634545/ (Accessed 31 January 2012).

The Age of Wrong

“This is the age of Wrong and the followers of Right have passed away... Do you not see that the Divine Commands are neglected and what is forbidden is practiced with relish?” - Imam Husain (A.S.)[1]

At the behest of their war-profiteering corporate masters, the pseudo-scholarly pundits are once again prostituting themselves on the political streets of America by calling for a preemptive attack against Iran. One recent call for a “surgical strike” comes from U.S. Council on Foreign Relations scholar Matthew Kroenig, who presents his case in an essay replete with logical flaws entitled “Time to Attack Iran” published in the journal Foreign Affairs.[2]

Kroenig argues that a military strike now would spare the Middle East and the rest of the world a Saddam-like threat and would substantially improve U.S. national security. He points out that diplomacy and sanctions have failed to stop Iran’s peaceful nuclear program, and while not specifying any names, he alleges that many countries are shifting their alliances from the U.S. to Tehran and may even begin their own nuclear programs, resulting in a regional nuclear arms race.[3] He warns that the window of opportunity for an attack will close as Iran moves its nuclear facilities into more secure locations, so if the U.S. does not act now, it will “forfeit its last opportunity”[4] to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Emphasizing the gravity of the nonexistent threat, Kroenig warns, “A nuclear-armed Iran would immediately limit U.S. freedom of action in the Middle East.”[5] Implicitly acknowledging that Israel is nuclear-armed and dangerous, he correctly assures us that Iran, if it had a nuclear weapon, would never use it in a first strike, but if Iran was attacked by the Zionist regime, the resulting conflict could “easily spiral out of control”[6] and enmesh the United States in another long-term regional quagmire. In short, Kroenig opines that the best option is an immediate, carefully managed preemptive U.S. strike to avoid more costly military actions that would be needed in the future to contain a nuclear-armed Iran.[7] Additionally, a U.S. assault now would deter unilateral Israeli action with all of its unpredictable implications for the volatile Middle East region.

Kroenig goes on to provide us with the details of his battle plan. The “preventive operation” would consist of strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities at various sites in Isfahan, Arak, Natanz and Tehran. He even suggests the type of bomb to be used, namely a 30000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which in lauding its destructive potential, he gleefully proclaims is “capable of penetrating up to 200 feet of reinforced concrete.”[8] Furthermore, he assures us that Washington would be able to limit civilian casualties by attacking at night, and that most of those killed in the assault would be military personnel, scientists and engineers staffing the plants. Also, he claims that by using precision-guided missiles on targets, adjacent buildings would be “unscathed”.[9] In conclusion, Kroenig sees only two options: Either America must fight a conventional war with Iran now or else confront a nuclear-armed Iran in the future.[10] Therefore, according to him, the only sensible option is for the U.S. to strike decisively now and make sure Iran’s “entire nuclear infrastructure is reduced to rubble”.[11]

Kroenig bases his faulty conclusion on the highly politicized IAEA Board of Governors 8 November 2011[12] report, which he claims shows Iran is committed to developing nuclear weapons.[13] The fact is that Iran has eschewed nuclear weapons entirely, as evidenced by Ayatollah Khamenei’s fatwa[14] (ruling) against them,[15] and the Islamic Republic’s policy since October of 2003 has been to cooperate fully with the IAEA as stated in the report.[16] While apparently satisfied with information provided about activities with a possible military application before 2003, the IAEA seems concerned about its “ability to construct an equally good understanding of activities in Iran after the end of 2003,” and as a result, “has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.” In short, Kroenig bases his case for an immediate “surgical strike” against Iran on the IAEA’s lack of a good understanding of Iran’s nuclear program since 2003.[17]

Who else is behind this irrational, unjustifiable and immoral call for attacking Iran?

Leon Panetta, U.S. Defense Secretary, said, ”The United States does not want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. That’s a red line for us and that’s a red line, obviously, for the Israelis.”[18]

Norman Podhoretz, neoconservative ideologue and editor at large for Commentary magazine writes, “As the currently main center of the Islamofasist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11, and as the main sponsor of the terrorism that is Islamofascism’s weapon of choice, Iran too is a front in World War IV. Moreover, its effort to build a nuclear arsenal makes it the potentially most dangerous of all.”[19]

John Yoo, professor of law at University of California at Berkeley, Assistant U. S. Attorney General from 2001-2003 under Bush and drafter of the Torture Memo writes, “Because of the Obama administration’s reluctance to confront this looming threat, others--such as the Republican presidential candidates--must begin preparing the case for a military strike to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.”[20]

Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of the Zionist regime, who has said that a nuclear Iran will lead to another holocaust, remarked, “One of those regional powers is Iran, which is continuing its efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. A nuclear Iran would constitute a grave threat to the Middle East and the entire world, and of course it is a direct and grave threat to us.”[21]

Others fanning the flames of fear of Iran and Islam include the Islamophobic pseudo-scholars Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, David Yerushalmi of the Society of Americans for National Existence, Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, Robert Spencer, of Jihad Watch and Stop Islamization of America, and Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism.[22] Islamophobes among the ultra-right wing Christian-Zionists include John Hagee of Christians United for Israel, Pat Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network and Center for American Law and Justice, Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, and Franklin Graham of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse.[23]

It is well known that the U.S. has sought to dominate the energy-rich Persian Gulf region for some decades,[24] but why call for an attack on Iran at this time? While the war mongers justify a preemptive strike by insisting Iran will soon have a nuclear weapon, perhaps the true but unspoken reason behind the current hysteria is that the Zionists fully realize world opinion is turning against them, hence they are feverishly pushing the U.S. to take the military initiative.[25] Moreover, with the American economy in shambles and the national debt at record levels, budget cuts loom on the horizon even for the previously sacrosanct Pentagon, making future funding for an Iranian escapade unlikely.[26] Additionally, in an election year, starting a war would be a good means of distracting voters from the numerous economic and social problems plaguing America.

Why is there no international outcry for the Zionist regime to disclose its nuclear arsenal and submit to inspections by the IAEA? Israel has an estimated arsenal of some 300 to 400 nuclear weapons[27] and has long history of aggressions in the region. It has attacked Osirak Iraq in 1981,[28] Syria in 1967, 1997 and 2007, Tunisia in 1985 and 1988,[29] Lebanon in 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996 and most recently in 2006,[30] and Gaza in 2008 and 2011[31]. Iran has attacked no one, so why is belligerent Israel allowed to have nuclear weapons, but nonviolent Iran must be attacked for merely pursuing a peaceful nuclear program?

Islam, of course, permits individuals and countries to arm and defend themselves to protect their territory, rights and dignity. However, Islam does not allow starting a defensive war based on mere suppositions or unsupported allegations. The Islamic scholar A.K. Ahmed writes, “There is no concept of a ‘preemptive strike’ in Islam. The concept of ‘preemptive strike’ was nurtured by the heathens who always struck from behind or without provocation”.[32]

The Western Axis continues to threaten Iran and denigrate Muslims as “terrorists”, while Islam offers the concept of Jihad in place of their program of endless wars, occupations and bloodshed. Basically, Jihad is the struggle to enjoin the good and forbid evil on the path of improving the human condition. By engaging in Jihad, Muslims ensure that no single country will be allowed to dominate the natural resources given to us by Allah for the benefit of all humanity.[33]

We are living in the Age of Wrong, as the recent terrorist attack that took the life of the Iranian scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan demonstrates. As Muslims, we must not neglect the Divine Commandments. We have an obligation to defend Iran, as Ayatollah Khomeini rules, “If the enemy attacks the lands of the Muslims or their borders, it is the duty of all Muslims to defend them by any means possible, including the sacrifice of one’s life and expenditure of one’s wealth.”[34]

Endnotes

[1] A. K.Ahmed, The Hidden Truth About Karbala. Qom: Ansariyan, 2009. Page 202.

[2] Matthew Kroenig, Time to Attack Iran: Why a Strike Is the Least Bad Option. Foreign Affairs: Council on Foreign Relations, January/February 2012. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136917/matthew-kroenig/time-to-attack-iran (Accessed 7 January 2012)

[3] Matthew Kroenig, op. cit. Page 2.

[4] Matthew Kroenig, op. cit. Page 2.

[5] Matthew Kroenig, op. cit. Page 2.

[6] Matthew Kroenig, op. cit. Page 3.

[7] Matthew Kroenig, op. cit. Page 2.

[8] Matthew Kroenig, op. cit. Page 4.

[9] Matthew Kroenig, op. cit. Page 4.

[10] Matthew Kroenig, op. cit. Page 8.

[11] Matthew Kroenig, op. cit. Page 6.

[12] IAEA Board of Governors, Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran. IAEA Report GOV/2011/65, 8 November 2011. http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/IAEA_Iran_8Nov2011.pdf (Accessed 9 January 2012)

[13] Matthew Kroenig, op. cit. Page 6.

[14] Iran, Holder Of Peaceful Nuclear Fuel Cycle Technology. Mathatba, 11 August 2005. http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=302258 (Accessed 10 January 2012)

[15] Bill Weinberg, Iran issues anti-nuke fatwa. World War 4 Report, 12 August 2005. http://www.ww4report.com/node/929 (Accessed 10 January 2012)

[16] IAEA Board of Governors, op. cit. Annex Page 1.

[17] IAEA Board of Governors, op. cit. Annex Page 4.

[18] Scott Pelley, Panetta: Iran will not be allowed nukes. CBS Evening News, 19 December 2011. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57345322/panetta-iran-will-not-be-allowed-nukes/ (Accessed 10 January 2012)

[19] Norman Podhoretz, The Case for Bombing Iran. Commentary Magazine, June 2007. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-case-for-bombing-iran/ (Accessed 10 January 2012)

[20] John Yoo, An Unavoidable Challenge. National Review, 31 December 2011. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/286953/unavoidable-challenge-john-yoo (Accessed 10 January 2012)

[21] Barak Ravid, Amos Harel, Zvi Zrahiya and Jonathan Lis, Netanyahu trying to persuade cabinet to support attack on Iran. Haaretz, 2 November 2011. http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/netanyahu-trying-to-persuade-cabinet-to-support-attack-on-iran-1.393214 (Accessed 10 January 2012)

[22] Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and Faiz Shakir, Fear Inc., The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America. Center for American Progress, August 2011. Pages 7, 27. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/08/pdf/islamophobia.pdf (Accessed 11 January 2012)

[23] Wajahat Ali et.al., op. cit. Pages 71-76.

[24] Finian Cunningham, War Plan Iran: The US Finally Admits Its Criminal Bankruptcy. WNY Truthers, 11 January 2012. http://www.wnytruthers.com/archives/8706 (Accessed 11 January 2012)

[25] Israeli Leaders Seen Pushing for Iran Strike. Global Security Newswire, 2 November 2011. http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/israeli-leaders-seen-pushing-for-iran-strike/ (Accessed 11 January 2012)

[26] Adam B. Lowther, Five Reasons Not to Attack Iran. The Nation, 10 January 2012. http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/international/10-Jan-2012/five-reasons-not-to-attack-iran (Accessed 11 January 2012)

[27] Anthony H. Cordesman, Israeli Weapons Of Mass Destruction An Overview. Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2 June 2008. Page 8. http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/080602_israeliwmd.pdf (Accessed 11 January 2012)

[28] 1981: Israel bombs Baghdad nuclear reactor. BBC 7 June 1981. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/7/newsid_3014000/3014623.stm (Accessed 11 January 2012)

[29] Michael S. Ladah & Suleiman I. Ajlouni, Mr. Bush, What about Israel's defiance of UN Resolutions? Media Monitors Network, 29 September 2002. http://www.mediamonitors.net/michaelsladah&suleimaniajlouni1.html (Accessed 11 January 2012)

[30] The Israel-Lebanon Conflict—(1978-Present). Historyguy.com. http://www.historyguy.com/israel-lebanon_conflict.html (Accessed 11 January 2012)

[31] Ramzy Baroud, Masked in Gaza: The Untold History of Palestinian ‘Militancy’. London Progressive Journal, 18 December 2011. http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/view/944 (Accessed 12 January 2012)

[32] A. K. Ahmed, op. cit. Page 177.

[33] Ayatollah Mahmud Taleqani, Jihad and Shahadat. North Haledon, NJ: Islamic Publications. Page 50.

[34] Ayatollah Khomeini, Hamid Algar trans., Islam and Revolution. North Haledon: Mizan, 1981. Page 439.

Questions from a “Loyal American”

“Islam is a violent religion. That is why we are punishing them and will continue to do so for many years until they reform their idiotic aggressive and violent religion,” writes one “loyal American citizen”, unleashing a virulent polemic against Islam and Muslims.

“I, as a loyal American citizen, am disturbed when we are attacked. You know what happened following Pearl Harbor. Unless the Islamists cease their aggressive activities, they will receive the same massive retribution,” threatens our dutiful but deluded denizen, obviously brainwashed beyond coherency by the Western media. This person goes on to demand responses to a list of questions on Islam, the answers to which may benefit those still in possession of their faculties.

Are you a follower of Islam?

I am an American convert to Islam. I first visited a masjid (mosque) here in Denver in November of 2003, and I will never forget the warm welcome I received. In the carpeted but otherwise austere masjid, I experienced a calm sense of truth and peace like never before and when I first prostrated on a disc of earth from Karbala, Iraq, I knew Islam was for me. Six months later after much soul-searching and study, I formally accepted Islam by reciting the Shahada, the Islamic creed, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad (pbuh) is the Messenger of Allah”.

Have you read the Qur’an?

I have read the Qur’an in both English translations and the original Arabic. When I first read the Qur’an in English translation, I was struck by the first person narrative; it was as if God Himself was speaking directly to me. The Holy Prophet Muhammad (S) said, “The best of you is the one who learns the Qur’an and teaches it,”[1] so I continue to study Qur’an and Arabic each day.

Do you therefore follow the teachings of Sharia Law?

A common function of any government is establishing and maintaining order in a society by enforcing laws, using harsh punishments in certain cases. The U.S. leads the world in incarceration, with a privatized, corporate-run for profit prison system that jails 25% of the world’s prison population.[2] 67 nations, including the United States, China, Japan, Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia, imposed the death penalty for specific crimes in 2010.[3]

Islam with its code of law, Sharia, is no different in this respect. A Muslim is obligated to follow Sharia, which is derived from two primary sources: The Qur’an and the Traditions of the Holy Prophet (S) known as Sunnah. In Islam, the society is based on law and no one, not even the ruler is above it. A true Islamic government is obligated to legislate based on Sharia--the Qur’an and Sunnah--and the judiciary is obliged to pass judgment based on it without regard to the social standing of the litigants.

The Holy Qur'an says, “O you who believe! Be custodians of justice and witnesses for God, even though against yourselves or your parents or your relatives. Whether a man is rich or poor, God is his greater well-wisher than you. So follow not the behests of lust lest you swerve from justice; and if you prevaricate or avoid (giving evidence), God is cognizant of all you do.” (Surah al-Nisa, 4:135)[4]

Do you believe that an adulterous woman should be stoned to death?

Islam rightly views adultery as a very serious offence that if not dealt with harshly, threatens morality and leads to the development of a corrupt society. Concerning adultery, the Qur’an says, ”Do not even go near adultery. It is an indecent and evil act.” (Surah al-Isra17:32) [5]

Adultery is one of six crimes considered to be such a grave threat to the society as to require a fixed penalty known as “hadd” upon conviction. Other crimes in this category include sodomy, defamation, drinking alcohol, theft and robbery. In other cases, the Islamic judge has some discretion in decreeing the penalty which is known as “ta’zir”.[6]

To be convicted, the adulterer must be aware of the prohibition against the unlawful act, be free, an adult, and not coerced. There is no punishment to a woman who is forced to commit adultery; in fact, she must be paid compensation. Adultery can be proven by evidence or confession. The adulterer must confess four times or the act witnessed by four men for a conviction. Punishment for a married adulterer is stoning and for an unmarried man is whipping with 100 lashes.[7]

In contrast to Islam, America has become a nation that views adultery and sexual promiscuity as the norm. Between 1987 and 2002, the percentages of women aged 35 to 39 cohabiting with men outside of marriage doubled from 30 to 61 percent.[8] By housing male and female soldiers in shared quarters,[9] the military encourages promiscuous behavior, with the result that three out of four female American soldiers is sexually harassed and one out of every three is raped.[10] Finally, American-influenced “sexual freedom” is a major factor in the worldwide Aids epidemic causing 1.5 million deaths each year, second only in number to the Black Death of 1348.[11]

Do you believe that a thief should have his hands cut off?

Like adultery, Islam views theft as a serious crime against the society and if theft is proven by two confessions or two witnesses, the punishment would be to cut four fingers of the right hand of the thief. However, an Islamic court would only issue this ruling in the case of repeated and persistent theft in absence of any mitigating circumstances. For example, if someone steals food during a famine, this punishment would not be executed. Similarly, if an adolescent steals something even repeatedly, he would be disciplined but his hand would not be cut.[12]

The U.S. leads in social inequality of corporate capitalism, in which the top 1 percent of the society has increased their wealth by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007, while the rest saw a decline of over 2 percent.[13] Goldman Sachs, which received more government bailouts than any other investment firm, paid its CEO US$250,000 a day and gave senior employees billions in bonuses for selling worthless securities, causing working people to loose their pensions and homes.[14] What kind of strong message would be sent if one of these capitalist corporate thiefs, properly tried and convicted in an Islamic court, were to have his hand cut?

Do you believe in honor killings?

Islam forbids honor killings and I personally condemn them. Crossing religious and cultural boundaries, the practice of honor killings persists not only in some Islamic countries, but also in many other parts of the world and even in the “civilized” western countries of Great Britain, Brazil and Sweden. In India, some 5000 women a year are killed on the pretext of insufficient dowries, while in Latin America, so-called crimes of passion are treated lightly.[15]

Do you believe that all Jews should be killed?

Islam does not advocate genocide whereas the European nations colonized the New World on the blood of millions of the Native Peoples, prompting the late American Historian Howard Zinn to ask, “Was all this bloodshed and deceit--from Columbus to Cortes, Pizarro, the Puritans--a necessity for the human race to progress from savagery to civilization?”[16] Jews have enjoyed religious freedom throughout the Islamic world. Concerning Andalusian Spain, Historian Tim Wallace-Murphy writes, “For the Jews, the Arab invasion was a godsend,” adding, “The Jews not only welcomed the Muslims as saviors but also actively collaborated with the invaders.”[17]

Regarding faithful followers of the other divine religions, the Holy Qur’an says, “Indeed the faithful, the Jews, the Christians and the Sabaeans--those of them who have faith in Allah and the Last Day and act righteously--they shall have their reward with their Lord, and they will have no fear, nor will they grieve.” (Surah Al-Baqarah, 2:62)

Do you believe that all non-believers in Islam should be killed?

Islam does not teach this nor do I personally believe this and in fact, Islam teaches that we should be just not only to Muslims but also to the enemies of Islam and even in times of war. The Holy Qur'an says, “Do not kill anyone whom Allah has forbidden you to kill without a just cause. Whoever is killed unjustly, We have given the heir of that person the right to demand satisfaction or to forgive.” (Surah Bani Isra'il, 17:33)[18]

Of course, self-defense against enemies and attackers is permitted. One prominent Islamic grand scholar writes that Allah has promised to defend Muslims, which is a promise that assures the existence of Islam until the Day of Resurrection. The Holy Qur’an says, “To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight) for they have been oppressed and verily Allah is well able to assist them.” (Surah Al-Hajj, 22:39)[19]

Do you believe that the destiny of Islam is to take over the world?

All Abrahamic faiths have traditions concerning the eventual establishment of a just world government. Judaism has its Messiah, Christianity has its second coming of Christ (a.s.) and Islam has its Imam al-Mahdi (a.s.). The inception of his rule will occur following a worldwide period of unprecedented lawlessness, injustice and turbulence.[20]

According to Shi’a Islamic tradition, Imam al-Mahdi (a.s.) will appear and institute a worldwide government of truth and justice based on the Qur’an and Traditions of the Prophet (S) with its seat in the Mosque at al-Kufa, Iraq. Among the features of this worldwide Islamic government will be as follows: The world will be filled with peace and tranquility, wealth will be distributed equally, everyone’s needs will be met, properties will be returned to the rightful owners, envy and deceit will disappear, and all ruins will be rebuilt.[21]

There are large numbers of Islamic citizens living on a starvation diet in your rich countries today. Why don't you feed them?

Feeding the poor and orphans is an obligation in Islam, as commanded by the Holy Qur’an, “And they feed for the love of God, the poor, the orphans and the captive; we feed you for the sake of God alone. No reward do we desire from you nor thanks.” (Surah al-Insan 76:8-9)[22]

Excepting Iran, none of the 40-odd countries with Muslim majorities has a political system qualifying as a true Islamic government. Many countries, like Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Yemen, have suffered under corrupt U.S.-supported dictators, some of whom have been ousted in the “Arab Spring”. Others, like Iran and Iraq, have suffered under years of U.S.-imposed economic sanctions which caused upwards of a million deaths in Iraq alone.[23]

Worldwide hunger is caused by a Western corporate-dominated food supply chain resulting in over 9 million deaths annually despite an abundance of food supplies.[24] In America, one out of every four children is born into poverty with one out of every eleven living at less than one-half the poverty level.[25] The U.S., with a political system designed to keep the poor in poverty, has almost 17 million families who are “food insecure”, political gibberish for malnourished.[26]

Your Qur’an says, "Kill all Jews. Kill all apostates. Kill all non-believers." That does not sound very peaceful to me. Islam is a violent religion and has been for 1400 years.

I can find no verse in the Holy Qur’an that commands such a thing. Those who bring verses to justify any such act are misguided and will be called to account for their actions by Allah.

In your oil-rich countries, you have about 50% illiteracy. What does that say about Islam?

The poverty and high illiteracy rates in some Middle Eastern countries say very little about Islam but speak volumes about the legacy of European colonialism and now American support of dictators and economic sanctions in the region. Beginning with a CIA military coup in Syria in 1949, a CIA coup in Iran in 1953, supporting a coup by Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party in 1963 in Iraq, through the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the 2001 Afghanistan invasion, the 2003 Iraq invasion and lately the NATO operation in Libya, the U.S. has a long history of creating chaos and disruption in the Middle East.[27] How could these war-torn countries be expected to prosper?

The contributions to science and civilization by Islam are practically non-existent. Islam has contributed practically nothing to modern science.

The above statement is patently false. The Islamic world has always encouraged learning and in fact preserved the scientific knowledge of the ancient Greeks through the European Dark Ages. From 750 to 950 CE, the caliphate in Baghdad supported a massive translation effort of Greek scientific works in to Arabic, without which there would have been no European Renaissance.[28]

Islamic scholarship was the foundation upon which European culture was built. Where would Western civilization be without al-Khwarizmi’s algebra?[29] Al-Battani catalogued 489 stars and accurately calculated the solar year to within minutes. Al-Uqlidisi, a little-known Syrian mathematician, introduced decimal fractions.[30] Other highlights of the contributions of the Islamic World to the West include Avicenna’s medical text, “Cannon”, the astrolabe navigational device, optical quality glass and lens making, and the so-called Gothic arch.[31]

Islam granted women the right to buy and sell property, manage her own money and to inherit,[32] long before the enlightened West, which only did so grudgingly in the 19^th century. For example, women did not have the right to own property until 1870 in Great Britain, 1900 in Germany and 1907 in France.[33] Individual states in the U.S. only began passing laws granting married women the right to own property in the 19^th century.[34]

To conclude, let us look briefly at some of the contributions of so-called enlightened Western Civilization and in particular those of the United States:

War on a massive scale never before seen with over 150 million deaths in the 20^th Century.[35]

The threat of nuclear war, with over 20000 nuclear warheads stockpiled worldwide.[36]

Nuclear disasters at Fukushima, Tokaimura, Mihama and Tsuruga, Japan; Chernobyl, Ukraine; Kyshtym, former Soviet Union; Three Mile Island, U.S.; Windscale, U.K.; and many others.[37]

The United States is the only nation in the world to have used nuclear weapons in war, with atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,[38] killing over 150000 people.[39]

The U.S. is awash in 104 million cubic meters of radioactive waste left over from nuclear weapons manufacturing activities.[40]

U.S. military spending equals that of all the rest of the countries in the world combined.[41]

The U.S. operates 11 large nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, while no other country in the world has even one such ship, which is comparable in size and capability.[42]

The U.S. pollutes the environment with over 3 million tons of toxic chemicals each year.[43]

May Allah save us from the perpetrators of these abominations and hasten the arrival of His promised Mahdi (a.s.) to deliver all humankind from its injustices.

2011-11-15

Endnotes

[1] Ayatullah Sayyid Kamal Faghih Imani and a Group of Muslim Scholars, An Enlightening Commentary into the Light of the Holy Qur’an. Vol. 10. Esfahan: The Scientific and Religious Research Center Amir-ul-Mu’mineen Ali (a.s.), 2005. Page 429.

[2] Bill Moyers, U.S. Prisons and Drug Laws. Bill Moyers, Journal, PBS. 2 April 2010. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04022010/profile3.html (Accessed 8 November 2011).

[3] Death Sentences and Executions 2010. London: Amnesty International Ltd., 2011. Page 5. http://www.amnesty.org.uk/uploads/documents/doc_21367.pdf (Accessed 8 November 2011).

[4] Syed M. Rizvi, Textbook on Shi’a Islam. Nashville, TN: Cold Tree Press, 2008. Page 181.

[5] Syed M. Rizvi, op. cit. Page 231.

[6] Al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli, Shara’i al-Islam Fi Masa’il al-Hallal wal-Haram. Vol. 3-4. Qom: Ansariyan 2008. Pages 234-264.

[7] Al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli, Shara’i al-Islam Fi Masa’il al-Hallal wal-Haram. Op. cit., Pages 234-239.

[8] Paula Y. Goodwin, Ph.D., William D. Mosher, Ph.D., and Anjani Chandra, Ph.D., Marriage and Cohabitation in the United States: A Statistical Portrait Based on Cycle 6 (2002) of the National Survey

of Family Growth. National Center for Health Statistics. Vital Health Stat 23(28). 2010. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_028.pdf (Accessed 29 October 2011).

[9] Anne G. Sadler, R.N., PhD, Brenda M. Booth, PhD, Brian L. Cook, DO, MSc, and Bradley N. Doebbeling, MD, MSc, Factors Associated With Women’s Risk of Rape in the Military Environment. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 43:262–273 (2003). Page 268. http://www.veteransforpeace.org/files/pdf/Sadler Military Environment.pdf (Accessed 29 October 2011).

[10] Anne G. Sadler et.al., op.cit. Page 266.

[11] Aids. http://www.poverty.com/aids.html (Accessed 5 November 2011).

[12] Al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli, op. cit. Page 254-257.

[13] Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 And 2007. Congressional Budget Office, October 2011. http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12485 (Accessed 29 October 2011).

[14] Chris Hedges, No Arrests Inside Goldman Sachs, Though We Were Arrested Outside. Truthdig, 4 November 2011. CommonDreams website. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/04-6 (Accessed 7 November 2011).

[15] Hillary Mayell, Thousands of Women Killed for Family "Honor". National Geographic News, 12 February 2011. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/02/0212_020212_honorkilling.html (Accessed 30 October 2011).

[16] Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States. New York: Harper, 2001. Page 17.

[17] Tim Wallace Murphy, What Islam Did for Us, Understanding Islam’s Contribution to Western Civilization. London: Watkins, 2006. Page 101.

[18] Muhsin Qara'ati, Lessons From Qur'an. Islamic Seminary, no date. Part III. http://www.al-islam.org/lessons/ (Accessed 23 October 2011).

[19] Ayatullah Sayyid Kamal Faghih Imani, op.cit.. Pages 310,311.

[20] Belial, Antichrist, and Dajjal: Personification of Lawlessness in Abrahamic Eschatology; Signs to the Rightly Guided World. Mahdawiat, no date. http://www.mahdawiat.com/english/pages/news.php?nid=547 (Accessed 11 November 2011).

[21] Ayatullah Sayyid Kamal Faghih Imani, ed., The Promised Mahdi, The Deliverer of the Whole of Mankind. Esfahan: The Scientific and Religious Research Center Amir-ul-Mu’mineen Ali (a.s.), 2008. Page D.

[22] Syed M. Rizvi, op. cit. Page 226.

[23] Tariq Ali, Bush in Babylon, The Recolonization of Iraq. London: Verso, 2003. Page 139.

[24] Hunger and World Poverty. http://www.poverty.com/index.html (Accessed 5 November 2011).

[25] James J. Farrell, One Nation Under Goods, Malls and the Seductions of American Shopping. Washington: Smithsonian, 2003. Page 123.

[26] Hunger in America: 2011 United States Hunger and Poverty Facts. World Hunger Education Service. http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/us_hunger_facts.htm (Accessed 7 November 2011).

[27] U.S. Intervention In The Middle East, Information Clearing House. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6308.htm (Accessed 30 October 2011).

[28] Allison Abbott, Rebuilding the Past. Nature, Vol. 432, 16 December 2004. http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Polemics/nature_fs.pdf (Accessed 29 October 2011).

[29] Michael H. Morgan, Lost History, The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers and Artists. Washington D.C.: National Geographic, 2007. Page 56.

[30] Michael H. Morgan, op. cit. Pages 94, 95.

[31] Tim Wallace Murphy, op. cit. Page 117, 122, 124, 125.

[32] Lois Lamya ' al-F'aruqi, Women in a Qur'anic Society. Al-Tawhid. No Date. http://www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/women-society.htm (Accessed 5 November 2011).

[33] Jackson J. Spiegelvogel, Western Civilization, A Brief History, Vol. II, Since 1500, 2^nd Ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2011. Page 514.

[34] Married Women's Property Laws. Law Library of Congress. No Date. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awlaw3/property_law.html (Accessed 5 November 2011).

[35] Piero Scaruffi, Wars and Genocides of the 20th Century. 2009. http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/massacre.html (Accessed 30 October 2011).

[36] World Nuclear Stockpile Report. Ploughshares Fund. http://www.ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report?gclid=CLeVubnLkKwCFRJShwoduVe7mw (Accessed 30 October 2011).

[37] Victoria Ward, Japan Crisis: 10 Worst Nuclear Disasters in History. The Telegraph, 15 March 2011. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8382778/Japan-crisis-10-worst-nuclear-disasters-in-history.html (Accessed 11 November 2011).

[38] Nuclear weapons and the United States. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United_States (Accessed 30 October 2011).

[39] Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki - cite_note-rerf-deaths-0 (Accessed 30 October 2011).

[40] Steven Schwartz ed., 50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons. The Brookings Institute, August 1998. http://www.brookings.edu/projects/archive/nucweapons/50.aspx (Accessed 30 October 2011)

[41] Greg Easterbrooke, U.S. Military Budget Equals Rest of World Combined! The New Republic, 2 July 2011. http://www.wattscookinblog.com/2010/12/u-s-military-budget-exceeds-all-other-countries-combined-is-it-any-wonder-we-are-the-worlds-1-warmonger/ (Accessed 30 October 2011)

[42] Laicie Olson, U.S. vs. Global Defense Spending. The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, 21 May 2010. http://armscontrolcenter.org/policy/securityspending/articles/US_vs_Global/ (Accessed 30 October 2011).

[43] Pollution Causes 40 Percent Of Deaths Worldwide, Study Finds. Science Daily, 13 August 2007. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070813162438.htm (Accessed 11 November 2011).

The Pitfalls of Persuasion

By Yuram Abdullah Weiler

2011-01-15

“What is the morality of subordinating truth to cheerfulness in keeping the citizen posted on the state of his nation?”[i]author Vance Packard presciently asks in 1957.A deep question relevant to our time indeed, considering how Americans have elected politicians representing the same predatory capitalist criminals who brought them--and the rest of the world for that matter--to the brink of financial catastrophe just two short years ago. How can we explain this breathtakingly blatant display of irrationality? Lurking behind this contradictory behavior is a calculated campaign of pernicious persuasion combined with mind-molding doses of compulsory cheerfulness.

Recently in a second-hand store, I found a textbook for a sociology class I took in the early 1960s. Entitled “The Hidden Persuaders” by American journalist and social critic Vance Packard,[ii]the book, first published in 1957 and written in lucid language, provides deep insights into how Americans have been programmed to become easily persuaded,sheep-like people or “sheeple”[iii](my thanks to colleague Hamid Golpira for this term).

In this seminal work, Packard examines the manipulative marketing methods developed by what was then called “Madison Avenue,” which even in the 1950s used a variety of psychological techniques including depth probing, subliminal suggestion, symbol manipulation, hypnotism, conscious autosuggestion and compulsory cheerfulness, now called positive thinking, all aimed at creating loyal, obedient customers for businesses.

Political strategists quickly realized that the same methods used to sell products to consumers could be used effectively to sway voters in elections. Already by early 1956, the bastion of corporate America, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, was ebulliently proclaiming that in future election campaigns, “Both parties will merchandise their candidates and issues by the same methods that business has developed to sell goods.”[iv]

In the 1956 election, the merchandising of candidates was well underway. Substantive discussion of issues was curtailed by carefully orchestrated election campaigns,emphasizing candidate images and symbolism, and playing upon voters’ irrational fears and emotions. Republican campaign strategists hired professional persuaders from a New York advertising agency,who successfully steered voters into selecting incumbent Dwight Eisenhower over Democrat challenger Adlai Stephenson, as if they were choosing between“competing tubes of toothpaste in a drugstore.”[v]

The corporate connection with the Republican Party was also becoming entrenched by this time. Democrats, seeking to mimic their rivals, sought to enlist a high-profile ad agency to market their candidate, but much to their chagrin,found none to be interested. The reason for this lack of success became clear in a post election Senate report on campaign contributions. Of the 37 leading Madison Avenue ad firms, not a single one contributed to the Democrats;all their money went to the Republicans.[vi]

With Hollywood actor Reagan’s ascendancy to the presidency in 1980, the gutting of intelligent public political discourse was virtually complete. Frequently confusing his facts, Reagan possessed an uncanny ability to shirk responsibility for his faulty decisions, which earned him the title of the “Teflon President” from the media.[vii]To deflect poignant questions, the “Gipper” would simply smile, shake his head and utter a cheery catch phrase like “There you go again,” effectively embarrassing the questioner into retreat.

Stressing in his inaugural address that “peace is the highest aspiration of the American people,”[viii]Reagan went on to support Saddam Hussein in his bloody war against Iran and oversaw a massive military buildup that included the B-1 bomber, the MX missile and the “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). As a fiscal conservative, Reagan spoke frequently of balancing the budget while allowing the deficit to swell from $700billion to over $3 trillion. He opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, making Martin Luther King’s birthday a holiday and supported the apartheid regime of South Africa while denying that he was a racist.[ix]

Purported to be one of the most popular U.S. presidents in history, Reagan mesmerized citizens with his cheerful, persuasive rhetoric. But now, the pitfalls of persuasion are becoming clear as Americans avoid grappling with complex issues that have resulted from this baseless optimism. No one has seriously addressed the problems caused by Reagan’s drastic cuts to social programs, or has held him culpable for the deaths of tens of thousands of Latin Americans who were slaughtered by the death squads of right-wing governments he supported.[x] And of course, no one has dared to mention that Reagan opened the floodgates of financial support to the Mujahideen, later known as Al-Qaeda, to fight a proxy war against the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan.[xi]

Elsewhere in his book Packard warns, “We still have a strong defense available against such persuaders: we can choose not to be persuaded,”adding that “we cannot be too seriously manipulated if we know what is going on.”[xii] Unfortunately, most Americans have chosen not to know what is going on by deliberately remaining ignorant of what is being done around the world by their government in their name and funded by their tax dollars. Instead, they chose to believe gibberish from hawks like William Kristol, who in 1998 wrote, “Thereis no middle ground between a decline in U.S. power, a rise in world chaos, and a dangerous 21^st century, on the one hand, and a Reaganite reassertion of American power and moral leadership, on the other.”[xiii]

Following the Reagan regime’s intellectual emasculation of the polity, Bush and his henchmen came to power in the coup of 2000, which most mentally-manipulated Americans still seem to regard as an election. The time had arrived for “a catastrophic and catalyzing event - a new Pearl Harbor,”[xiv]as the orchestrated attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were alluded to in a report by Thomas Donnelly, former deputy executive director of the Project for the New American Century.

The moneyed miscreants achieved their final victory over the residue of democracy and made a killing trading put options[xv]while killing almost 3,000 unsuspecting people. After some 50 years of intense psychological conditioning, most Americans cringed in fear, believing everything they were told and ready to obediently comply with demands to relinquish their few remaining Constitutional rights. They scarcely protest as their government monitors email and cell phone communications, or spies upon them because of their political activity or religious affiliation.[xvi] Not only do they submit to humiliating full body scans at airports, but a majority of Americans actually support them.[xvii]

As for the question of how Americans could have voted as they did in the last election, the Billionaire Koch Brothers merely capitalized on 50 years of perfected persuasion that played upon citizens’ fears and emotions. By bankrolling ultra-right-wing politicos through front organizations like the Tea Party, and aided by the Murdock-controlled media chain, they easily manipulated the ever-unsuspecting American voters once again into supporting the billionaires’ choices of candidates.[xviii]

Addressing Packard’s question on the morality of subordinating truth to cheerfulness in keeping citizens posted on the state of their nation, I maintain that not only is it immoral, it is a deliberate, insidious mind control method designed to completely obliterate one’s ability for rational and realistic thought.[xix] Perpetual positive thinking has created a citizenry of starry-eyed zombies incapable of critical thought and in constant denial of the problems confronting humanity while cheerfully consuming two thirds of the world’s antidepressant drug supply.[xx]

Packard concludes his book by stating, “The most serious offense many of the depth manipulators commit, it seems to me, is that they try to invade the privacy of our minds. It is this right to privacy in our minds--privacy to be either rational orirrational--that I believe we must strive to protect.”[xxi]After 50 years of unceasing manipulation of their deepest fears and irrational emotions, most Americans have willingly exchanged this right for politicians’ hollow assurances of protection against future terrorist attacks.

I am certain that if Mr. Packard were alive today, he would be shocked to see how Americans have squandered their defenses and willingly have become subservient marionettes controlled by the elitist moneyed manipulators, allowing them unobstructed access to their minds.

Endnotes

[i] Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders, New York: D. McKay Co., 1957, page 258.

[ii] Vance Packard, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vance_Packard (Accessed 6 January 2011)

[iii] Hamid Golpira, Mind War 4, Tehran Times, 28 May 2008. http://www.tehrantimes.com/Index_view.asp?code=169683 (Accessed 8 January 2011)

[iv] Vance Packard, op. cit., page 187.

[v] Vance Packard, op. cit., page 193.

[vi] Vance Packard, op. cit., page 198.

[vii] Howard Kurtz, 15 Years Later, the Remaking of a President,The Washington Post, 7 June 2004. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20802-2004Jun6.html (Accessed 9 January 2011)

[viii] Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address, 20 January 1981. http://www.reaganfoundation.org/pdf/Inaugural_Address_012081.pdf (Accessed 9 January 2011)

[ix] Political Positions of Ronald Reagan, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ronald_Reagan (Accessed 9 January 2011)

[x] Reagan: Media Myth and Reality, Media Advisory, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, 9 June 2004. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1832 (Accessed 9 January 2011)

[xi] Shaista Wahab and Barry Youngerman, A Brief History of Afghanistan, New York, Infobase Publishing, 2007, page 179.

[xii] Vance Packard, op. cit., page 265.

[xiii] William Kristol, Foreign Policy and the Republican Future, the Weekly Standard, 7 September 1998, page 8. http://www.newamericancentury.org/RepubFuture-Sept 7,98.pdf (Accessed 9 January 2011)

[xiv] Thomas Donnelly, Rebuilding America’s Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century, The Project for the New American Century, September 2000, page 51. http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf (Accessed 9 January 2011)

[xv] Insider Trading Pre-9/11 Put Options on Companies Hurt by Attack Indicates Foreknowledge, 9-11 Research. http://911research.wtc7.net/sept11/stockputs.html (Accessed 9 January 2011)

[xvi] Eroding Liberty: Rights And Freedoms We Have Needlessly Lost In The Name Of National Security, New York Civil Liberties Union. http://www.nyclu.org/pdfs/eroding_liberty.pdf (Accessed 9 January 2011)

[xvii] Bruce Drake, Poll: Public Backs Full-Body Scans at Airports, but Splits on Pat-Downs, Poll Watch, Politics Daily. http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/11/22/poll-public-backs-full-body-scans-but-split-on-pat-downs/ (Accessed 9 January 2011)

[xviii] Adele Stan, Tea Party Inc.: The Big Money and Powerful Elites Behind the Right Wing's Latest Uprising, AlterNet/The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute, 24 October 2010. http://www.alternet.org/media/148598/tea_party_inc.:_the_big_money_and_powerful_elites_behind_the_right-wing's_latest_uprising?page=entire (Accessed 9 January 2011)

[xix] Benjamin Kerstein, America and the Danger of Positive Thinking, New Ledger, 13 January 2010. http://newledger.com/2010/01/the-danger-of-positive/ (Accessed 10 January 2011)

[xx] Harriet Fraad, Why Are Americans Passive as Millions Lose Their Homes, Jobs, Families and the American Dream?, Tikkun, 2 February 2010. http://www.alternet.org/media/145481/why_are_americans_passive_as_millions_lose_their_homes,_jobs,_families_and_the_american_dream?page=entire (Accessed 11 January 2011)

[xxi] Vance Packard, op. cit., page 266.

Breaking the Stranglehold

“The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights’ (PCHR) longstanding experience has resulted in the conclusion that Israel is genuinely unwilling to fulfil its international legal obligations, and to investigate –and if appropriate prosecute – all those suspected of committing serious violations of international law,”[i] declares the PCHR in its report.

Criticizing the lack of substantive investigation into Zionist war crimes committed during their murderous assault on Gaza from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009, the PCHR asserts that “the Israeli system is incapable of conducting independent, credible investigations in conformity with international standards,” and “are illustrative of a desire to frustrate and not further, the pursuit of justice.”[ii] Sadly, it concludes, “Over 20 months after the end of the offensive, it is clear that both Israel and the Palestinian authorities have proven themselves unwilling and/or unable to pursue accountability, and uphold victims’ legitimate rights.”[iii]

Indeed, the futility of such investigations and even the so-called peace process itself is implied by acclaimed journalist Chris Hedges, who intimates that to speak to Zionists about the origins of their rogue regime “in which stateless European Jews established a country in a land that had been primarily Muslim since the seventh century, is to shout into a black hole.” He writes of an “emotional barrier” that causes them difficulty “to acknowledge the profound injustice the creation of the state of Israel meant for Palestinians.”[iv]

According to Ayatullah Mutahhari, the Holy Quran lists four factors which lead to the decline and downfall of societies: injustice and social oppression, disunity and discord, failure to enjoin good and forbid evil, and finally debauchery and moral corruption.[v] The U.S. and Israel appear to be similarly matched regarding their potential demise.

Pursuing injustice and oppression have been on-going efforts by the Zionist state in collaboration with its Washington benefactor. That both countries are built on foundations of racism and genocide carried out upon their respective native populations make them ideal partners for perpetuating the facade of a “peace process.” Indian author and activist Arundhati Roypoints out that in 1987, the U. S. and Israeli regime were the only two countries to vote against a UN resolution on international terrorism because neither wanted to recognize the legitimacy of the Palestinian struggle for independence.[vi]

Elsewhere, the PCHR states, “For many years in Palestine, international law, and the rule of law, have been sacrificed in the name of politics, and cast aside in favour of an elusive peace process. Justice is a necessary precondition for the achievement of sustainable peace and must constitute the foundation of any peace negotiations.”[vii]

Against this background, another round of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks took place[viii]and, given that no legitimate representative of the Palestinian people had a place at the negotiating table nor was a neutral mediator present, the null outcome of this exercise in bilateral deception was quite predictable. As usual, Israel is being portrayed in the western media as bending over backwards with selfless offers of peace while the Palestinians are being cast as selfish and unreasonable ex-terrorists who have repeatedly turned down Israel’s overly generous “peace” concessions.

The current round of peace negotiations seems to have been orchestrated by the U.S. administration to win voters before November elections. In desperate need of political capital, Obama appears to have pushed the one-sided talks, even begging Netanyahu to extend the so-called moratorium on illegal settlements in Occupied Palestinian lands. However, with the “freeze” thawing in time for U.S. midterm elections, Netanyahu would seem to be the one who strengthened his political position from the lack of progress.[ix]

On the role played by the U.S., Occupied West Bank resident Sam Bahour writes, “Finally, and most damaging to the prospects of peace is the United States. Never being a neutral mediator and always using Israel for its own geostrategic plans the U.S. refuses to release its monopoly on the Palestinian-Israel issue. While it arms, funds and diplomatically covers for one side, it murmurs words of peace out of half of its mouth to the other.”[x]

By publicly opposing any unilateral action on either side while privately allowing settlement construction, the U.S. and its Israeli partner maintain a stranglehold on the “peace process,” effectively choking off any meaningful dialogue.[xi] However, the American-Israeli match goes beyond the continuing injustice done to Palestinians by the peace process, which my wife likens to putting a soiled bandage on an infected wound and expecting it to heal.

The depth of moral depravity of the U.S. has been unveiled by the disclosure of torture and sexual abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, not to mention the ongoing slaughter of civilians by unmanned drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan.[xii] The Zionists continue to add to their long list of heinous crimes against humanity with the relentless blockade to starve the people of Gaza,[xiii]the recent massacre of 9 humanitarian aid volunteers on the Mavi Marmara[xiv] and now by killing Gaza’s children who, in order to trade scrap metal for food, have resorted to gathering it in the unilaterally-created buffer zone between Gaza and the Zionist state.[xv]

That the U.S. and Israel both have committed and continue to commit injustices on their minority populations is well documented.[xvi]^,[xvii] The disunity and discord within their respective societies is a featured aspect of daily life. The flagrant violations of international law by the U.S. and Israel[xviii]^,[xix]suffice to prove their failure to enjoin good and forbid evil. Finally, the rampant scandals and corruption present in both countries’ political systems establish their moral turpitude.[xx]^,[xxi]^,[xxii]

Ayatullah Mutahhari writes that ultimately, all such perpetrators of evil - both individuals and societies - along with their oppressive governments will be wiped off the face of the earth and justice will prevail, as alluded to in the Holy Quran: “For the scum disappears like froth, while what benefits the people remains on earth.” (13:17)[xxiii]

People of the Resistance in Palestine and elsewhere, stand firm and be patient. We shall break the U.S.-Israeli stranglehold. As the Quran tells us, it is just a matter of time until we will see both of these perpetrators of evil - America and Israel - vanish like froth.

By Yuram Abdullah Weiler

‏2010‏‏-10-20

Endnotes

[i] Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), Genuinely Unwilling: An Update, August2010, page 7. http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/2010/Genuinely Unwilling- An Update.pdf (Accessed 9October 2010)

[ii] PCHR op.cit., page 8.

[iii] Committee of Experts Release Report on Domestic Investigations: Time for Resort to Mechanisms of International Criminal Justice, PCHR Press Release, 21 September2010. http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6988:committee-of-experts-release-report-on-domestic-investigations-time-for-resort-to-mechanisms-of-international-criminal-justice-&catid=36:pchrpressreleases&Itemid=1 (Accessed 9 October 2010)

[iv] Chris Hedges, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, New York: Public Affairs,2002, page 47.

[v] Ayatullah Murtaza Mutahhari, Social and Historical Change: An Islamic Perspective,Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1986, page 135, 136.

[vi] The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations with Arundhati Roy,interviews by David Barsamian, Cambridge: South End Press, 2004, page 53, 54.

[vii] Justice Cannot Be Held Hostage to Politics: Decision of PA an Insult to Victims, PCHR Press Release, 29 September 2010. http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7019:justice-cannot-be-held-hostage-to-politics-decision-of-pa-an-insult-to-victims-&catid=36:pchrpressreleases&Itemid=194 (Accessed 9 October 2010)

[viii] Mark Weiss, Responsibility for talks collapse lies with Israel, say Palestinians,The Irish Times, 16 October 2010. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/1016/1224281250376.html (Accessed 16 October 2010)

[ix] Victor Kotsev, Middle East Squeeze on Obama, The Asia Times Online, 8 October 2010. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LJ08Ak01.html (Accessed 10 October 2010)

[x] Sam Bahour, Palestinian Sam Bahour's take on the peace process, The Jewish Post and News, 24 September 2010. http://www.jewishpostandnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=531:bahour&catid=38:local-news&Itemid=112〈=en (Accessed 10 October 2010)

[xi] Mu Xuequan, U.S. opposes unilateral steps by Israeli or Palestinian side: spokesman, Xinhua News, 16 October 2010. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-10/16/c_13559690.htm (Accessed 16 October 2010)

[xii] Daya Gamage, PAKISTAN: U.S. Unmanned Drone Attacks within Pakistan Record High: Threat to Civilians, Asian Tribune, 2 October 2010. http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2010/10/03/us-unmanned-drone-attacks-within-pakistan-record-high-threat-civilians (Accessed 16 October 2010)

[xiii] Jonathan Cook, Israel’s 1.5 Million Starving Prisoners, Alternet, 30 June 2010. http://www.alternet.org/story/147376/ (Accesed 16 October 2010)

[xiv] Alan Goodman, Israel’s Killing of Humanitarian Activists: An Outrageous Massacre to Enforce Horrific Crimes, San Francisco Bay Area Independent MediaCenter, 31 May 2010. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/05/31/18649394.php (Accessed 16 October 2010)

[xv] Harriet Sherwood, Israeli Troops Accused of Shooting Children in Gaza, Guardian UK, 12 October 2010, on Common Dreams website. http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/10/12 (Accessed 14 October 2010)

[xvi] Brett E. Garland, Cassia Spohn, Eric J. Wodahl, Racial Disproportionality in the American Prison Population: Using the Blumstein Method to Address the Critical Race and Justice Issue of the 21st Century, Justice Policy Journal, Volume5, No. 2, Fall 2008. http://www.cjcj.org/files/racial_disproportionality.pdf (Accessed 16 October 2010)

[xvii] Hassan Jabareen, EU Israel Informal Human Rights Working Group: The Arab Minority in Israel, Letter to EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, Adlah, 16 August 2010. http://www.adalah.org/newsletter/ara/sep10/EU-IsraelInformal Human Rights Working Group.pdf (Accessed 16 October 2010)

[xviii] Nahida H. Gordon, US military aid to Israel violates domestic, international law,The Electronic Intifada, 7 April 2010. http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11188.shtml (Accessed 16 October 2010)

[xix] Frank Jordans, Israel Flotilla Raid Violated International Law, U.N. Council Says,The Huffington Post, 16 October 2010. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/22/israel-flotilla-raid-viol_n_735447.html (Accessed 16 October 2010)

[xx] CorporateCrime Reporter, Public Corruption in the United States, Washington D.C., The National Press Club Report, 16 January 2004. http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/corruptreport.pdf (Accessed 16 October 2010)

[xxi] Martin Patience, Israel faces corruption 'epidemic', BBC News, 24 September 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6276071.stm (Accessed 16 October 2010)

[xxii] Paul Eidelburg, Corruption in Israel, Jewish Indy, 15 April 2010. http://www.jewishindy.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=11928 (Accessed 16 October 2010)

[xxiii]Ayatullah Murtaza Mutahhari, op. cit., page 124.

Somewhere in the War Zone

“O mankind! We created you from a single pair, a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may get to know each other (not for you to despise each other).” The Holy Quran, Surah al-Hujurat, 49:13.[1]

Commenting on this verse, Agha Pooya and S.V. Mir Ahmed Ali write, “This verse deals with the natural brotherhood of man,”[2]adding that it “renders null and void all distinctions based on race, color, caste and social position.[3]”

In sharp contrast to Islam, the U.S. has a long history of virulent racism directed against Blacks and other minorities. The land was usurped from its inhabitants by systematic genocide, one of the most notorious examples being the slaughter of Native Peoples at Sand Creek in what later became the State of Colorado.

Old Steel Mill at Pueblo, Colorado USA

Having briefly written about the Sand Creek Massacre, I felt obligated to visit to the historic site located in southeastern Colorado near the small rural town of Eads about 180 kilometers east of the former steel mill center of Pueblo. As family matters required us to be in Pueblo, my wife suggested extending our trip since we would be relatively near by. Neither of us expected that our journey from Pueblo to Sand Creek would give us a startling glimpse of America in decay and a cursory encounter with its lingering racism.

Mustard Gas "Leakers" at Pueblo Chemical Depot

Traveling east from Pueblo on U.S. Highway 50, we passed the old Pueblo Army Depot, now renamed “Pueblo Chemical Depot,” as if it contained useful products instead of 7% of the U.S. stockpile of chemical weapons of mass destruction.[4] Located 22 km east of Pueblo at North Avondale, this relic from World War II still stores over 2,000 tons of mustard gas projectiles[5] whose leakage poses a constant threat, with the most recent incident having just occurred in June 2010.[6]

The "Iron Curtain" of Autoracks

From here, Colorado Highway 96 branches off onto the high plains and from 8 km east of Boone, the road parallels the old Missouri Pacific Railroad main line. Once a busy east-west rail corridor, the track now owned by the Union Pacific is used to store automobile transport railcars idled by the recession.[7] Referred to by locals as the “Iron Curtain,” the almost unbroken line of parked railcars extends some 35 km from the Crowley County line to Sugar City.[8] The sight of over 1,000 rusting autoracks in a row presented a strikingly dramatic visual indication of the dire state of the declining U.S. economy.[9]

For-Profit Private Prison at Olney Springs

About 60 km east of Pueblo is Olney Springs, home to the area’s only growth industry, the Crowley County Correctional Facility. A privatized prison run by Corrections Corporation of America for the State of Colorado, this medium security detention center confines over 1700 inmates on a 9 hectare site[10] and presumably provides employment for locals in this economically depressed rural area. In reality, the high-paying jobs are almost always filled by candidates recruited from outside the local community.[11]

The Lone Motel in Eads

Arriving in late afternoon at the Travelers Lodge, the one and only place to stay in Eads, we were shocked by the squalid motel’s filthy and dilapidated condition. The debris-strewn vacant parking lot together with the paint peeling from doors and window trim emphasized the severity of America’s economic decline. Upon entering our room, we were confronted by an offensive pungent odor that perhaps was the lingering stench of the atrocities committed at nearby Sand Creek over a hundred years ago.

Downtown Eads

Taking a walk into town, we found it almost deserted except for an occasional car whose driver would stare at us suspiciously. Many storefronts still bearing American flags were boarded up and one building appeared to have collapsed, giving an overall impression of a sordid but patriotic community in an advanced state of decay. My wife inquired about a restaurant from passerby who reluctantly informed us that there was a pizzeria on the main highway, but it had already closed for the day.

Having found no alternatives, we grudgingly returned to eat at a diner next to the motel, which, like our room, exuded a strange odor. As Muslims, we are very careful about food,so decided it would be safest to have salad and fish. After dinner we returned to our room and since it was Thursday night, I went outside after sunset to read Dua’ Kumayl and thought to myself that perhaps this was the first time anyone had recited the beautiful supplication in Eads.

We eagerly left the motel early next morning, but before continuing on to Sand Creek, we stopped at a convenience store for a quick breakfast. Inside, a radio was blaring from behind the counter, tuned to a talk show whose host sounded like the local version of Rush Limbaugh. Seated around one of the grimy tables were four husky men, whom I assumed to be local residents. “Good morning,” I said with the friendliest greeting that I could muster. In response, I received the same suspicious stares as I had the day before.

I decided to buy a copy of the local newspaper as well as one from nearby Lamar. Searchingfeverishly for a bit of international news, I found absolutely none, but I did see this brief paragraph in the Kiowa County Press:

“Bill and Shirley Krum have heard from their grandson, Hunter Krum, that he has earned the rank of Lance Corporal. He is somewhere in the war zone. Let’s pray for our men and women, boys and girls in the military.”[12]

Somewhere in the war zone? No mention of specifics, just a vague undefined locale half way around the world where men, women, boys and girls are fighting against whom and for what reason we are not told. It’s just “the war zone” for the good citizens of Eads.

Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site

After breakfast, we headed east on Highway 96, followed the signs on the well-marked route to County Road 54, turned north for a few kilometers on this dirt road then east again on Road W, finally arriving at Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site. We were greeted by a national park summer employee, Bruce Hallman, a science teacher at Eads High School in the off-season, who gave us brochures and a brief history of the site.

Captain Silas Soule's Grave in Denver's Riverside Cemetery

The massacre in which at least 165 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho were slaughtered took place on 29 November 1864 under the command of an ordained Christian minister, Colonel John Chivington. One gallant officer, Captain Silas Soule, refused to allow his troops to participate in the bloodbath. “I refused to fire and swore that none but a coward would, for by this time hundreds of women and children were coming towards us and getting on their knees for mercy,” he later wrote.[13] Despite death threats, Captain Soule testified at the congressional investigation that the military operation was indeed a massacre and for his honorable conduct, he was assassinated in Denver in 1865.[14]

High Plains at Sand Creek

We hiked up the trail in the stifling 35° C heat to a bluff overlooking the dry riverbed of Sand Creek where the massacre actually took place. The only sound in the silent heat was that of the mourning doves, whose dolorous call sounded like the voices of Native Indians. At the top of the ridge, we quietly offered a brief prayer asking for Allah’s mercy on the innocent souls who were slaughtered there and that justice is done for them.

I had scarcely finished, when I caught a glimpse of someone walking towards me and had a bizarre feeling of discomfort as if Col. Chivington himself had returned from the grave.

“Do you know much about this place?” asked the stranger who was dressed in jeans, a western shirt, high-heeled boots and cowboy hat.

My wife has studied the history of the Sand Creek Massacre extensively, but sensing a hidden agenda, I guardedly responded, “No, not much. Do you?”

“Yes, I do. I’ve read a lot about it and you know, there really wasn’t a massacre here,” he said, callously contradicting Captain Soule’s testimony.

“But at least 165 innocent people were killed here!” I protested.

“Look, these savages used to raid each other’s tribes. It was a way of life for them. The elders knew the white man was superior and would prevail, but the young warriors rebelled and attacked white settlers and did awful things to them,” he explained.

“So, in your opinion what took place here was justified?” I asked.

“What happened here was just like what happened after the Civil War. When Lincoln freed the slaves, they ran amok attacking and killing whites, so the Ku Klux Klan killed a few and strung ‘em up as a warning,” he answered, fully exposing his racist agenda.

“Oh, so then you must empathize with the people of Fallujah who hung the dead bodies of 4 Blackwater mercenaries from a bridge as a warning,” I countered.

“Fallujah?” he asked with an expression of sublime ignorance on his face.

“Yes, Fallujah...west of Baghdad in Iraq, you know, don’t you? The U.S. launched a massive bloody attack there in 2004,” I said.

“No, I’m afraid I have no knowledge of that,” he admitted with prideful indifference.

“You should know because the United States illegally invaded Iraq in 2003 and your tax dollars go to help finance the ongoing occupation,” I clarified.

“Listen, man has always conquered man. That’s the way of the world. As a Christian, I don’t go along with it, but who listens in Obama’s socialist government?” he retorted.

“As a Muslim, I am obligated to fight against injustice, so I often write my representatives and senators to express my views. By the way, Bush started the war in Iraq not Obama,” I responded.

“A Muslim? You sound like a liberal to me. Yeah, I bet you’re a foreigner, too. Why don’t you go back where you came from?” he snorted as he left in a xenophobic huff.

“Buy me a ticket, I’ll be happy to go to Iran,” I shouted back.

After our encounter with small-town America and its redneck culture of ignorance, my wife and I headed back to the relatively cosmopolitan atmosphere of Denver, stopping only for early and late afternoon prayers at a public park in Hugo, Colorado. Now and then in Denver, a Muslim brother can be seen doing his Salaat on the sidewalk beside his taxi without notice by passersby. In Hugo however, our Salaat attracted a few curious onlookers and gave them perhaps their first direct exposure to Islam and Muslims.

Muslim Grave at Riverside Cemetery, Denver CO USA

Contrary to the views of the local citizenry of Eads, the real war zone encompasses the entire U.S. from rural towns to its large cities. Every day, Muslims striving for the truth must do jihad against the ignorance, prejudice and racism of narrow-minded people, like the one we encountered at Sand Creek, who choose to remain oblivious of the truth about their country and its violent history. This is Islamic jihad in America.

As Ayatullah Seyyid Taleqani explains, “This is the Islamic jihad. This is the meaning of ‘jihad.’ ‘Jihad’ means ‘striving for the truth’; it is not similar to war and murder.”[15]

Yuram Abdullah Weiler

2010-07-29

Endnotes

[1] The Holy Quran, Translated by Yusuf Ali, Lahore: Ashraf, 1979, page 506. (Slightly edited by author.)

[2] The Holy Quran, Translated by Agha Pooya Yazdi and S.V. Mir Ahmed Ali, New York: TahrikeTarsile Qur’an, 2009.

[3] The Holy Quran, Surah al-Hujurat, 49:13, Multilingual Quran, Ahlul Bayt Digital Islamic Library Project website, http://quran.al-islam.org/ (Accessed 17 July 2010)

[4] U.S. Army Chemical Material Agency, website. http://www.cma.army.mil/pueblo.aspx (Accessed 11 July 2010)

[5] Pueblo Depot, Center for Land Use Reinterpretation, website. http://ludb.clui.org/ex/i/CO3174/ (Accessed 10 July 2010)

[6] Pueblo News Releases, U.S. Army Chemical Material Agency, website. http://www.cma.army.mil/newsrelease.aspx?criteria=site&value=PCD&showall=1 (Accessed 11 July 2010)

[7] N. D. Holmes, DRGW.net website. http://www.drgw.net/news/news-archive-3-2009.html (Accessed 10 July 2010)

[8] SE Colorado residents fed up with parked rail cars, Trainorders.com website, 27 November 2009. http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,2065981,2066039 (Accessed 11 July 2010)

[9] N. D. Holmes, Towner Line Update, DRGW.net website. http://www.drgw.net/gallery/TownerLineFireRebuild (Accessed 10 July 2010)

[10] Corrections Corporation of America, Crowley County Correctional Facility website. http://correctionscorp.com/facility/crowley-county-correctional-facility/ (Accessed 11 July 2010)

[11]Christopher Setti, Prisons and Their Effect on Local Economies: The Colorado Experience, University of Denver, December 2001. http://www.centerfortaxpolicy.org/reports/02-Prisons.pdf (Accessed 11 July 2010)

[12] DorrisLessenden, About Town, Kiowa County Press, 25 June 2010, page 8.

[13] Brochure, Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior.

[14] J. Lawrence French, A Forgotten Hero of the Sand Creek Massacre, Kiowa County Colorado website, 25 March 2008. http://www.kiowacountycolo.com/_disc0/0000000b.htm (Accessed 11 July 2010)

[15] Ayatullah Sayyid Mahmud Taleqani, Jihad and Shahadat: Struggle and Martyrdom in Islam,Mehdi Aedi and Gary Legenhausen ed., North Halendon NJ, Islamic Publications International, 1986, page 54.

Mediterranean Massacre

“History has shown that as long as Israel is allowed to act with impunity, it will continue to violate international law. It is innocent Palestinian civilians who continue to suffer the horrific consequences,” stated the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.[i]

On 31 May 2010, Israel committed an act of war in international waters by attacking and commandeering an unarmed flotilla of ships loaded with much-needed food, medicine, and other humanitarian supplies bound for Gaza. Based on numerous reports, at least 9 aid workers were martyred in this unprovoked assault by the rogue Zionist regime.[ii]

The flotilla was organized by caring individuals and NGOs in response to the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Cargo manifests clearly indicating supplies being transported were made available for inspection. No resistance was offered against boarding by Israeli commandos; in fact, a white flag of surrender was hoisted in hopes of avoiding a confrontation.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and International Criminal Court Prosecutor Louis-Moreno Ocampo condemned the Israeli attack on the aid ships, declaring that “no one is beyond reach,” and that perpetrators of international crimes must be held to account.[iii]

Expressing understandable outrage and exasperation, Pakistani columnist Mahir Ali asks, “What exactly does Israel have to do in order to earn the pariah status it deserves more richly than most other states?”[iv]

Apparently, the above act of Israeli intransigence wasn’t enough. On 5 June 2010 Israel hijacked the one remaining ship of the flotilla, the Rachel Corrie, and its cargo of humanitarian aid. Rachel Corrie was the brave young American peace activist who was brutally crushed to death when runover by a U.S.-supplied Israeli army bulldozer while attempting to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home in Gaza.[v]

U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Alejandro Wolff, with a rare hint of criticism toward Israel, stated that the United States was “deeply disturbed by the recent violence and regrets the tragic loss of life and injuries suffered among those involved in the incident last night aboard the Gaza-bound ships.”[vi]

Then in a dazzling display of illogic, Representative Wolff blamed the victims by claiming, “Hamas’ interference with international assistance shipments and the work of nongovernmental organizations complicates efforts in Gaza. Its continued arms smuggling and commitment to terrorism undermines security and prosperity for Palestinians and Israelis alike.”[vii]

For the record, Israel, not Hamas, is responsible for creating the humanitarian disaster in Gaza that prompted the flotilla and Israel, by its barbarous acts, shows a commitment to state-sponsored terrorism. Its ongoing siege of Gaza since 2007 in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1860, and devastating attacks in December 2008 and January 2009, cause Palestinians to lack food, housing and basic medical supplies.[viii]

In sharp contrast to the U.S. representative and not mincing words, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called the attack “murder conducted by a state.” Turkey has lost 9 of its citizens in this Mediterranean massacre and took the first step of an appropriate response by withdrawing its ambassador from Tel Aviv.[ix] Understandably, Turkey is calling for international punitive action against Israel.[x]

President Abdullah Gul of Turkey appealed for action, saying, “The international community should not remain indifferent in the face of this attack in international waters.”[xi] In response to his call, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy has offered its services for escorting future Gaza-bound aid ships to protect them against another lethal Israeli terror attack.[xii]

Predictably, Israeli deputy U.N. Ambassador Daniel Carmon defended Israel’s homicidal attack, claiming the peace activists on board the flotilla “cynically used the guise of humanitarian aid to send a message of hate and to implement violence.”[xiii] Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren shrieked, “Israel will also do whatever it takes to defend itself from Hamas terror.”[xiv]

Despite worldwide condemnation of the pariah polity’s latest act of blatant barbarism, American support for Israel remains steadfast. One US media outlet claiming to be “fair and balanced” ran an article implying that the nuclear-armed Zionist entity is in imminent danger of annihilation by terrorists. Another report links the organizers of the humanitarian flotilla to Al-Qaeda and 50 of its passengers to terrorist groups.[xv]

It is sad to see such warped press coverage of this unfortunate tragedy and even more disheartening to witness the continuing support by the U.S. of a government that would commit such an atrocity on unarmed humanitarian aid workers. How can the U.S. claim to be a law-abiding, peace-seeking member of the international community and support a country that acts with such arrogance and impunity towards human life?

Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor of Physics at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, answers the question quite succinctly, “The Israeli tail wags the American dog.”[xvi]

However, with its Mediterranean massacre, Israel has unwittingly handed the international community a rare opportunity to unite in support of the besieged people of Palestine. This tragedy could be the means of finally breaking the siege of Israeli intransigence, exposing their war crimes and relieving the plight of the Palestinians.

Given that this unexpected Israeli impetus has renewed hopes for justice in Palestine, we simply must maintain the momentum. Allowing it to dissipate would profane the sacrifices made by the martyrs who gave their lives on the Mavi Marmara.

Yuram Abdullah Weiler

2010-06-12

Endnotes

[i] Palestinian Center for Human Rights, On Historic Occasion of the First Review Conference of the International Criminal Court, Press Release: PCHR website, 6 June 2010. http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6736:on-historic-occasion-of-the-first-review-conference-of-the-international-criminal-court-the-palestinian-and-israeli-human-rights-organizations-call-all-states-to-u (Accessed 6 June 2010)

[ii] Video Reports, Israel Kills 20 : Attacks Gaza Aid Fleet: Information Clearing House website, 31 May 2010. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25580.htm (Accessed 6 June 2010)

[iii] NGOs gathered in Kampala Call for End to Impunity Crisis Following Israeli Attack on Aid Convoy: Center for Constitutional Rights website, 1 June 2010. http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/ngos-gathered-kampala-call-end-impunity-crisis-following-israeli-attack-aid- (Accessed 8 June 2010)

[iv] Mahir Ali, How far would be too far for Israel?: Dawn website, 2 June 2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/21-mahir-ali-how-far-would-be-too-far-for-israel-260-sk-04 (Accessed 9 June 2010)

[v] Israel navy seizes Gaza aid ship: Frontpage, Dawn website, 6 June 2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/israeli-navy-seizes-gaza-aid-ship-660 (Accessed 10 June 2010)

[vi] Peter Fowler, US "Deeply Disturbed" By Gaza Flotilla Incident:NewsRoom America website, 31 May 2010 http://www.newsroomamerica.com/story/17560.html (Accessed 6 June 2010)

[vii] Peter Fowler, US "Deeply Disturbed" By Gaza Flotilla Incident, op.cit.

[viii] Israeli assault on the aid flotilla: the challenge of truth, the absurdity of the blockade: International Federation for Human Rights website, 2 June 2010. http://www.fidh.org/Israel-Flotilla (Accessed 8 June 2010)

[ix] Mary Fitzgerald, 'It is murder conducted by a state': Irish Times website, 1 June 2010. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0601/1224271593736.html (Accessed 6 June 2010)

[x] Turkey calls for international punishment of Israel: Front page, Dawn website, 8 June 2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/turkey-calls-for-international-punishment-of-israel-860 (Accessed 10 June 2010)

[xi] Mary Fitzgerald, 'It is murder conducted by a state': Irish Times website,op. cit.

[xii] Tehran Times Political Desk, IRGC Navy ready to escort Gaza-bound aid convoys: Tehran Times, 7 June 2010. http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=220806 (Accessed 8 June 2010)

[xiii] Margaret Basheer, UN Security Council Holds Emergency Session on Israeli Raid:Voice of America website, 31 May 2010. http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/Israeli-PM-Cancels-White-House-Meeting-95257909.html (Accessed 6 June 2010)

[xiv] Israeli Ambassador: Israel Will Do 'Whatever It Takes' to Defend Itself: Fox News website, 6 June 2010. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/06/israeli-ambassador-israel-takes-defend/ (Accessed 6 June 2010)

[xv] Dana Lewis,Israel: Global Jihad Linked to Flotilla: Liveshots blogs, Fox News website, 2 June 2010. http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/06/02/israel-global-jihad-linked-to-flotilla/(Accessed 10 June 2010)

[xvi] Pervez Hoodbhoy, The Flotilla Killings: Editorial, Dawn website, 8 June 2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/editorial/the-flotilla-killings-860 (Accessed 10 June 2010)

A Pashtun Paradox from Peshawar

“The real problem with American society is that we’re supremely greedy, stupid and lazy when it comes to our politics and government. Most of us invest next to nothing in thinking about issues and voting intelligently, let alone other more robust forms of political participation,” said Dr. David Michael Green, Associate Professor of Political Science at Hofstra University in New York.[i]

Greece is bankrupt and the European Union is teetering on the edge of financial collapse.[ii] A global climate catastrophe is at hand with atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide estimated at 390 parts per million, well above the sustainable level scientists peg at 350.[iii] A gigantic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico not only has caused an environmental disaster of Exxon Valdez proportions (British Petroleum-BP-was behind that one, too!), but also has exposed US government malfeasance in regulating BP’s offshore drilling.[iv]

Iraq is once again proving that the mission is anything but accomplished, as a deadly new wave of bombings engulfs the land of two rivers,[v]adding to the 1.3 million plus Iraqis killed as a result of the US invasion. President Obama’s “surge” of 30,000 troops into war torn Afghanistan is failing, causing only more bloodshed and strengthening the determination of Afghan resistance fighters to eject their US occupiers.[vi]

Meanwhile back in Pakistan, the CIA is busy killing innocent civilians with their ever-expanding fleet of unmanned drones, as US special forces flood into the Northwest frontier, ratcheting up for the next military operation against the Pakistani Taliban.[vii]

Clearly, the time was ripe to stage another dramatic episode from the “War on Terror” to divert the attention of the gullible American public from the aforementioned problems.

Enter Faisal Shahzad, the latest to star in a cast of Muslim militants, all allegedly having received their terrorist training in Pakistan. First, there was Richard Reid, a British native who spent two years in Pakistan, and was convicted of attempting to down American Airlines flight 63 on 22 December 2001 using explosives packed in his shoes.[viii] Next was Junaid Babar, a Pakistani-American who was arrested in New York for plotting bomb attacks in England in April 2004. Then came Najibullah Zazi, an Afghani who received explosives training in Pakistan in 2008, and admitted plotting a suicide attack in the New York subway system in September 2009.[ix]

Now comes the paradoxical Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen from a well-to-do Pakistani family of Pashtun ancestry, whose father was a Vice Air Marshal in the Pakistani Air Force. Shahzad stands accused of attempting to detonate an improvised explosive device inside a sports utility vehicle in Times Square near 45^th Street and Seventh Avenue on 1 May 2010. According to the 5-count indictment, he received his bomb-making training in Waziristan, Pakistan.[x]

“This is a tragedy for me and every Pakistani, every Pashtun,” laments Faiz Ahmed, former mayor of the village of Mohib Banda, the Shahzad family’s ancestral home in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, about 25 km from the provincial capital of Peshawar.[xi] However, the tragic tale is not without its problems.

First, Mr. Shahzad does not exactly fit the profile of a potential terrorist and, in fact, seems to have been a textbook example of a successful American immigrant. While Richard Reid had numerous brushes with the law and converted to Islam while in prison,[xii]Faisal Shahzad is a college graduate, married with two children and held a lucrative job as a financial analyst. Then in July 2009, 3 months after gaining his US citizenship, he suddenly quit his job, packed his belongings, abandoned his home, allowing it to slip into foreclosure, and hurriedly moved back to Pakistan.[xiii]

Next are the puzzling details of the alleged attack in which no one was injured and the bomb failed to detonate. The crude explosive device consisted of propane, gasoline and M-88 firecrackers, which according to Phantom Fireworks President Bruce Zoldan, “wouldn’t damage a watermelon.”[xiv] Despite that, Mr. Shahzad is charged with terrorism and using a weapon of mass destruction.[xv] Retired Pakistani general, Brigadier Javed Husain, remarked that claiming Shahzad was using a “weapon of mass destruction” was a laughable exaggeration.[xvi]

Finally, there was the dramatic, last minute capture of the suspect by US officials on board an airliner about to take off for Dubai.[xvii]

Retired Brigadier General Talat Masood suggests the motive for this latest orchestrated Pakistani terrorist drama is to allow the US and the international community to put increased pressure on Pakistan to clear out its militant jihadi sanctuaries.[xviii] To that end, US National Security Adviser General James Jones and CIA Director Leon Panetta have already met with Pakistani President Ali Zardari and Army Chief of Staff General Parvez Kayani, no doubt to plan the next US attack to be unleashed upon Waziristan.[xix]

In his role as terrorist du jour, Shahzad has waived his legal rights and is cooperating with FBI, CIA and Defense Department Investigators. US officials claim that Shahzad admitted that his Times Square bombing escapade was backed and funded by the Pakistani Taliban, as US Attorney General Eric Holder had insisted earlier.[xx] This, of course, provides justification for continued US acts of terrorism on Pakistani soil.

However, other US officials seem to be reading from different versions of the script. Senior US commander General David Petreaus stated that Shahzad was a lone wolf, who perhaps was inspired by militants but had no direct contact with them. Other sources contradicted Petreaus and claimed that US officials had found Shahzad’s funding link in Pakistan,[xxi]which may be a reference to the Hanif Rajput Catering Service, owned by wealthy Pakistani Mohammad Ashraf Khan, whose son, Salman Ashraf, was detained in connection with the investigation.[xxii] Still another source suspects a link between Shahzad and Kashmiri militants.[xxiii] US investigators appear to be floundering, considering the multiple arrests taking place everywhere from Long Island to Pakistan.[xxiv]

In the meantime, the US continues its targeted assassinations program, initiated by former President Bush and expanded by President Obama. Over 500 alleged terrorists have been killed in Pakistan by CIA drones since the summer of 2008.[xxv]

Is Professor Green correct? Are Americans too stupid or lazy to comprehend that the current chaos in Pakistan and Afghanistan stems from their own government’s past support of the very same organizations it now brands as “terrorist,” such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban? Are Americans incapable of grasping the undeniable fact that the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence collaborated in the 1980s to create Al Qaeda, then known as the Mujahideen, to wage a proxy war against the Soviet Union?[xxvi]

Over 1,200 Pakistanis have been killed in suicide and bomb attacks since August 2009[xxvii]as a consequence of US-induced violence in the region. Is it surprising that some of them would be extremely angry and perhaps even sufficiently enraged to contemplate launching counter attacks against their American assailants? No, absolutely not.

However, in the case of Mr. Faisal Shahzad, the botched bombing story reads a bit too much like a script from a low budget Hollywood movie to be convincing. I believe this “terrorist attack” is nothing more than a fabricated fable from Washington’s fear factory.

Yuram Abdullah Weiler

2010-05-29

Endnotes

[i] David Michael Green, The Age of Ennui, The Regressive Antidote website, 8 May2010. http://www.regressiveantidote.net/Articles/The_Age_Of_Ennui.html(Accessed 20 May 2010)

[ii] IanTraynor, Crisis in Greece leaves EU future in balance, warns Angela Merkel, Guardian UK website, 5 May 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/05/greece-crisis-threatens-eu-future-merkel-germany (Accessed 22 May 2010)

[iii] 350Science, 350.org website. http://www.350.org/about/science (Accessed 22 May 2010)

[iv] Greg Palast, Slick Operator: The BP I’ve Known Too Well, Truthout website, 5 May 2010. http://www.truthout.org/slick-operator-the-bp-ive-known-too-well59178 (Accessed 22 May 2010)

[v] Bushra Juhi, New wave of Iraq bombings kill 60 mostly worshippers, Arab News website, 23 April 2010. http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article46583.ece (Accessed 22 May 2010)

[vi] Jackson Diehl, Can Obama save his Afghanistan surge? The Washington Post website,14 May 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/13/AR2010051304377.html (Accessed 22 May 2010)

[vii] Tom Englehart, Obama’s Flailing Wars A Study in BP-Style “Pragmatism”,TomDispatch website, 16 May 2010. http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175248/tomgram:_engelhardt,_obama's_afpak_flip-flop_/ (Accessed 20 May 2010)

[viii] Bombing attempt on American Airlines 63, in main article Richard Reid (shoebomber), Wikipedia website. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid_(shoe_bomber) (Accessed 22 May 2010)

[ix] Amir Mir, Faisal Shehzad: a lone wolf operator, The International News website, 8 May 2010. http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=238104 (Accessed 22 May 2010)

[x] Indictment, United States of America v. Faisal Shahzad, Southern District Court of New York, http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/2010/20100504_COMPLAINT.PDF (Accessed 24 May 2010)

[xi] Julie McCarthy, In Pakistan, Shahzad's Family, Friends Express Dismay,National Public Radio website, 5 May 2010. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126536422(Accessed 20 May 2010)

[xii] Who is Richard Reid, BBC News Word Edition, 28 December 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1731568.stm (Accessed 22 May 2010)

[xiii] Faisal Shahzad: ‘Modern Boy’ from a Pakistani village, Mohib Banda, posted on DesPardes website, http://despardes.com/?tag=mohib-banda (Accessed 24 May 2010)

[xiv] Colleen Long and Michael Rubinkam, Times Square bomb suspect bought M-88 fireworks, AP, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette website, 5 May 2010. http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100505/NEWS03/100509775 (Accessed 23 May 2010)

[xv] Tim Reid, Times Square suspect is charged over ‘weapon of mass destruction’, Times Online website, 5 May 2010. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7116173.ece (Accessed 23 May 2010)

[xvi] Julie McCarthy, In Pakistan, Shahzad's Family, Friends Express Dismay, op.cit.

[xvii] Tim Reid,Times Square suspect is charged over ‘weapon of mass destruction’, op.cit.

[xviii] Julie McCarthy, In Pakistan, Shahzad's Family, Friends Express Dismay, op.cit.

[xix] Baqir Sajjad Syed, Accord Reached for Operation in North Waziristan, Dawn website, 20 May 2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/timing-to-be-decided-by-pakistan-accord-for-operation-in-north-waziristan-050 (Accessed 22 May 2010)

[xx] NYC Bomb Suspect Claims Taliban Support: US Officials, AP, Dawn website, 22 May2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/16-nyc-bomb-suspect-claims-taliban-support-us-officials-02-sa (Accessed 22 May 2010)

[xxi] Anwar Iqbal, Shahzad a ‘lone wolf’: Petraeus, Dawn website, 8 May 2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/shahzad-a-lone-wolf-petraeus-850 (Accessed 23 May 2010)

[xxii] Caterer among six arrested in NY bomb plot, Dawn website, 22 May 2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/03-caterer-among-six-arrested-in-ny-bomb-plot-ss-03 (Accessed 22 May 2010)

[xxiii] US arrests three in Times Square bomb probe, Dawn website, 14 May 2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/04-us-arrests-timesquare-bomb-probe-qs-01 (Accessed 23 May 2010)

[xxiv] William K. Rashbaum and Scott Shane, 3 in Custody May Have Supported Bomb Suspect, New York Times website, 13 May 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/nyregion/14terror.html (Accessed 25 May 2010)

[xxv] CIA drones hit wider range of targets in Pakistan, Dawn website, 20 May2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/04-cia-drones-pak-qs-04 (Accessed 22 May 2010)

[xxvi] Jayshree Bajoria, The ISI and Terrorism: Behind the Accusations, Council on Foreign Relations website, updated 28 May 2009. http://www.cfr.org/publication/11644/ (Accessed 22 May 2010)

[xxvii] Pakistani Taliban chief ruthless and theatrical, Dawn website, 3 May 2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/04-hakimullah-profile-qs-06 (Accessed 22 May 2010)

Parallels in Palestine

“One of the greatest crimes against humanity occurred right here in the United States of America. Support for the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People is a start to right this great wrong,” declared the American Indian Movement in a press release on 24 September 2009.[i]Perhaps my natural sense of outrage and revulsion at the injustices and atrocities inflicted upon indigenous peoples by the U.S., Zionists and other colonizing powers is inherited from my mother. Before she died, she told me that ancestors on her father’s side of the family traced their roots back to the Iroquois nation.

The United States of America, of course, voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.[ii] Only a country that denies the rights of its own Native Indians could object to the right of self-determination[iii]for other indigenous peoples.

Likewise, only a country that had itself executed genocide on its own native peoples on a massive scale could be such an ardent supporter of the Zionist regime, which is currently engaged in a native Palestinian genocide.

How massive was the Native Indian genocide committed by the Euroamerican colonizers? According to the late Professor Howard Zinn, of the 10 million Native Indians who lived north of present-day Mexico when Columbus arrived, less than a million remain.[iv] Other scholars put the indigenous population in 1492 as high as 18 million.[v] Based on a nadir population of 250,000 around 1900, [vi] the American Indian holocaust perpetrated by Euroamerican colonizers claimed at least 9 million lives.

“That there was tragedy, deception, barbarity, and virtually every other vice known to man in the 300-year history of the expansion of the original 13 Colonies into a Nation which now embraces more than three million square miles and 50 States cannot be denied,”[vii] grudgingly conceded a U.S. Senate committee on Indian Affairs.

How did the U.S. colonizers usurp Native Indian lands? The pattern was already in place by 1713 with the Treaty of Utrecht, which established a “buffer” zone of Native Indian land between French and British colonial powers. Caught between the two, Native Indians defended their homes, families and lands with understandable ferocity against an invasion by Euroamerican colonizers who ignored the treaty and settled in the buffer zone.[viii] Characterizing Native Indian resistance as unprovoked attacks on peaceful settlers, the invaders demanded U.S. Army protection from the “uncivilized savages.”

Forced eviction, relocation and starvation were among the atrocities committed by the U.S. government to carry out its genocide. Native Indians were removed at gunpoint from their homes and forced to resettle on reservations whose total area was only a small fraction of their ancestral lands. Some Indian nations were deliberately divided, such as the Cheyenne and the Seminole, separating relatives and extended families from one another by great distances. The viscously cruel tactic of destroying food crops and slaughtering buffalo led to the starvation and near extinction of many American Indian nations.[ix]

And if forced eviction, relocation and starvation proved insufficient to break the Native Indian will to resist, then the U.S. Cavalry supplemented by settler militias were called in with Howitzers to execute a massacre. One such bloodbath occurred in November of 1864, when 700 militiamen, many of them drunk, surrounded and attacked a peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho village at Sand Creek, Colorado. At the end of the one-sided battle, 200 Native Indians had been killed and mutilated, over half women and children.[x]

Looking at the methods employed by the Zionist colonizers against Palestinians, one immediately sees parallels to those used by the U.S. government to exterminate Native Indian peoples. The same methods of massacres, forced eviction, relocation and starvation used to colonize native lands in the U.S. have been employed in Palestine.

In March of 1948, Zionist forces launched a systematic plan to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its indigenous population. Heavily armed Zionist militias seized control of numerous multiethnic cities such as Jaffa, Haifaو Safat and Tiberias, and ruthlessly drove out native Palestinian inhabitants.[xi] Massacres took place in Deir Yasin, where 100 men women and children were killed,[xii] Tantura, where 200 men were murdered and in 368 other Palestinian villages and cities.[xiii] By the winter of 1948, 90 percent of the native population--some 750,000 Palestinians--had been turned into refugees.[xiv]

Ethnic cleansing continued and by 1952, Palestinians had been forcibly evicted from another 40 villages. Settlements were built on top of the rubble of the 370 villages destroyed in 1948 to obliterate all evidence of the former Palestinian residents. [xv] Not satisfied with the Palestinian territory it occupied, “Israel” attacked Egypt and Jordan in 1967, seizing Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza, creating another 275,000 Palestinian refugees.[xvi]

Currently, “Israel” is tightening its grip on the Occupied West Bank aided by U.S. and E.U.-trained security forces,[xvii] and is starving out Gazans, denying them desperately-needed food and medical supplies, with its ongoing blockade helped by Egypt’s new steel wall.[xviii] Like the American Indians of the 18^thcentury caught between French and British colonizers, Gazans today find themselves caught between the U.S.-supported Israeli-Zionist regime and the U.S.-controlled Egyptian dictatorship, while Palestinians in the West Bank are squeezed between U.S. “ally” Jordan and the apartheid wall.

Great Lakota Nation leader Russell Means, speaking to American Indian students in 1995, reminded them, “At Wounded Knee in 1973, we were surrounded by the armed might of the United States of America, the most militarily powerful country in the world, but we were free.“[xix] Similarly, Palestinians in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank may be surrounded by the armed might of the U.S.-financed Zionists, but they too will be free.

“The white man knows that he is alien and he knows that North America is Indian,” observes Native American scholar Vine Deloria, Jr.[xx] Similarly, the Eurozionist colonizer knows that he is alien and that “Israel” is Palestinian.

Someday, Palestine will be free of Eurozionist colonizers, the Americas will be free of Euroamerican colonizers and indigenous people everywhere will be free to exercise their right of self-determination.

Someday, the United States, Britain, Israel, France and all who are complicit in colonizing lands belonging to Native American Indians, Palestinians and other indigenous peoples around the world will be held accountable for their crimes.

Yuram Abdullah Weiler

2010-02-23

Endnotes

[i] Press Release-United Nations Assembly In New York, Ministry of Information, American Indian Movement Grand Governing Coucil, 24 September 2009, http://www.aimovement.org/moipr/UNstatement.html (Accessed 10 February 2010)

[ii] General Assembly Adopts Declaration On Rights Of Indigenous Peoples, Sixty-first General Assembly, 13 September 2007, http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/ga10612.doc.htm(Accessed 13 February 2010)

[iii] United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, U.N. General Assembly Resolution 61/295, 13 September 2007, Article 3, page 4. http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf(Accessed 13 February 2010)

[iv] Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, New York: Harper, 2005, page 16.

[v] Russell Thornton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987, page 26.

[vi] Russell Thornton, op. cit., page 159.

[vii] Hearing before the committee on Indian affairs, united states senate session on Tribal Sovereign Immunity 9-24, 1996, Republic of Lakota Website, http://www.republicoflakotah.com/2009/158-year-struggle-for-legal-justice/ (Accessed 12 February 2010)

[viii] Robert Kagan, Dangerous Nation, New York: Random House, 2007, pages 21- 23.

[ix] Russell Thornton, op.cit., page 51.

[x] The Sand Creek Massacre, http://www.lastoftheindependents.com/sandcreek.htm(Accessed 14 February 2010)

[xi] Ilan Pappe,A History of Modern Palestine, New York: Cambridge, 2006, 2^nd ed., page 129.

[xii] Deir Yassin (9 April 1948), Key Historical Events, Electronic Intifada, http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/257.shtml (Accessed 14 February 2010)

[xiii] Ilan Pappe, op. cit., pages 129, 135-136.

[xiv] Ilan Pappe, op. cit., page 138.

[xv] Ilan Pappe, op. cit., page 146.

[xvi] KarlSabbagh, Palestine A Personal History, New York: Grove, 2007, page 319.

[xvii] Jon Elmer, A Prescription for Civil War, Al-Jazeera English, 8 February 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/12/2009121311331278355.html(Accessed 14 February 2010)

[xviii] Hamas: Mubarak helping Israel starve Gaza Palestinians, Haaretz, 25 January 2010, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1144989.html (Accessed 14 February 2010)

[xix] Russell Means, Free to be Responsible, Navajo Community College, Fall 1995, http://www.russellmeans.com/ (Accessed 13 February 2010)

[xx] Vine Deloria, Jr., “Foreward American Fantasy,” in The Pretend Indians: Images of Native Americans in the Movies, Gretchen M. Bataille and Charles L. P. Silet, eds., Ames: Iowa State University, 1980, page xvi, as quoted in Ward Churchill, Fantasies of the Master Race, San Francisco: City Lights, 1992, page 16.

Nuclear Wisdom

“The only sane policy for the world is that of abolishing war,” declared Nobel Peace Prize laureate Linus Pauling in a lecture presented in December of 1963.[i]

Nuclear weapons are thousands of times more powerful than conventional weapons. By analogy, nuclear wisdom is thousands of times more powerful conventional wisdom.

Conventional wisdom views the world in terms of threats to economic domination and perceives nuclear bombs as its ultimate weapon. Nuclear wisdom views the world in terms of threats to fulfilling human needs and perceives justice as its ultimate weapon.

Dr. Pauling’s words, spoken after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize for 1962, are an example of nuclear wisdom. They remain an antidote to the insane conventional wisdom prevailing in the United States, which assumes as axiomatic the veracity of American exceptionalism, the inevitability of war and the necessity of ever-increasing “defense” budgets to ensure U.S. hegemony.

In December 1964, another Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr.Martin Luther King warned, “Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world.”[ii]

At the time Dr. King spoke those eloquent words, the U.S. had already amassed over 30,000 nuclear weapons of mass destruction.[iii] Meaningful progress towards disarmament and world peace remains elusive as a renewed nuclear arms race[iv]looms, which would include deploying weapons in space. War, poverty, hunger and injustice continue to plague humankind just as they did 45 years ago.

The conventional wisdom of the cold war postulated the need to stockpile ever more powerful nuclear bombs to counter the “communist threat.” It viewed the United States as the unique peace-loving defender of human rights among the nations of the world that would never use its nuclear arsenal to attack others, albeit the obvious non sequitur of U.S. nuclear first strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The conventional wisdom of that day also postulated the survivability of a massive nuclear attack. Schools conducted “Duck and Cover” drills, neighbors built backyard bombshelters to protect against radioactive fallout and the “DEW” line radar installations in Canada[v]scanned the skies for the Soviet nuclear missile attack which never came.

Another dictum embraced by conventional wisdom was the need for atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. I vividly recall my mother’s shock and outrage when she learned that the milk she bought was contaminated with the carcinogens Strontium 90[vi]and Iodine 131[vii] due to radioactive fallout from nearby U.S. open-air atomic bomb explosions. Those children who drank that fallout-laced milk face up to twice the risk of thyroid cancer.

Conventional wisdom paved the way for nuclear arms to become a tool of U.S. foreign policy. Those nations that behaved in a manner consistent with America’s perceived interests were rewarded with the requisite atomic bomb-building technology and those that did not were branded as pariahs and denied the nuclear knowledge.

Pakistan, for example, was permitted to pursue the technology for an atomic bomb while the American high command looked the other way. However, the tacit U.S. permission to build atomic arms was withdrawn after President Bhutto ventured upon the scorned path of humanitarian efforts to actually help his people by nationalizing key industries and with land reform policies. First warned by Henry Kissinger that he “would have to pay a heavy price,” he was then arrested by order of U.S.-supported dictator Zia ul-Haqq and finally assassinated on 4 April 1979.[viii]

Former President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto once referred to Pakistan’s weapon as the “Islamic Bomb,” which counterbalanced India’s “Hindu Bomb,” also developed under American auspices. Since U.S. ally Saudi Arabia covertly funded Pakistani nuclear weapons research, Iranian-born scholar Vali Nasr suggests that “Sunni Bomb” would be a more appropriate epithet.[ix] I would venture “Wahhabi Bomb” to be even more so.

Israel is another case in point and remains an undisclosed nuclear state to this day, with an estimated arsenal of 200 nuclear weapons. The U.S. was well aware of the Dimona nuclear facility by 1958 and was convinced that Israel was seeking atomic bombs. While never officially condoning the Zionist nuclear arms program, the U.S. also did nothing to stop it, and watched as Israel’s arsenal grew from 2 weapons in 1967 to over 200 today.[x]

Today, the conventional wisdom doggedly drones that Iran is a nuclear threat, despite the fact that Iran doesn’t possess a single nuclear weapon, has no nuclear weapons program and has openly declared its abhorrence of nuclear warfare.[xi]

I would speculate that there are “intelligence” experts in the Pentagon--Mossad moles no doubt--who refer to Iran’s mythical nuclear device as a “Shia Bomb.” And surely these same experts are convinced that Iran’s imaginary bomb poses a greater threat than Israel’s very real nuclear arsenal that could perhaps be called the “Zionist Bomb.”

Recently, another world famous Black American has earned the Nobel Peace Prize. “Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics,” declared the Norwegian Nobel Committee, adding, “The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations.”[xii]

I congratulate President Obama on receipt of this honor, but fail to see any substantive progress being made on the issue of nuclear disarmament. 13 years have passed since the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was signed, and while President Obama has voiced his support, it still remains to be ratified. In fact, the U.S. was the only nation to vote against a 2008 U.N. General Assembly resolution calling for its entry into force.[xiii]

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican’s Permanent Observer at the U.N., also questioned progress on disarmament, referring to the 13 year old CTBT and the lack of 9 ratifications preventing its enforcement. The Archbishop also questioned the efforts of world leaders who increased military spending 4% in a year of economic crisis.[xiv]

The U. S., China, Israel and North Korea have all failed to ratify the treaty while Pakistan and India have out rightly refused to sign it. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei warned, "Without the CTBT we will continue to see qualitative development of nuclear weapons. Without the CTBT in force we risk that new countries might in fact be tempted to test nuclear weapons—without violating any legal norm."[xv]

Our collective experience over the last 50-odd years has shown that the nuclear powers lack the ability, incentive, determination, and, I might add, the wisdom to resolve these issues. As succinctly put by Dr. King, “We will take direct action against injustice despite the failure of governmental and other official agencies to act first.”[xvi]

The nuclear wisdom expressed by Dr. King and Dr. Pauling compels to take action. For if, by conventional wisdom, Iran poses a threat with a single imaginary nuclear device, then by logic, how much more menacing is the threat posed by Israel’s very real 200-plus atomic weapons? And how much graver is the threat posed by the U.S. arsenal of 2,200 operationally deployed nuclear warheads with thousands more stockpiled as spares?[xvii]

We must replace the conventional wisdom of maintaining world peace by threat of nuclear mass destruction by the nuclear wisdom of abolishing war and maintaining peace through justice. As the world’s most daunting nuclear power, the U.S. is obligated to take the lead and must be compelled by all peaceful means to do so.

As a first step, the U.S. could lead the way by ratifying the CTBT. As a second step, it could renounce the use of nuclear weapons as Iran has done. As a third step, the U.S. could formally apologize for the nuclear atrocities it committed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And as a giant fourth step, it could set an example for the world by beginning to disarm unilaterally.

But this is undoubtedly expecting too much of a country that seems obsessed with squandering billions of dollars to rescue banks while ignoring an ever-increasing number of jobless and homeless citizens.[xviii]

Yuram Abdullah Weiler

2009-11-21

Endnotes

[i] Linus Pauling, Science and Peace, Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1963, Nobel Prize Organization, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1962/pauling-lecture.html (Accessed 22 October 2009)

[ii] Martin Luther King, The Quest for Peace and Justice, Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1964, Nobel Prize Organization, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-lecture.html (Accessed 22 October 2009)

[iii] U.S.Nuclear Warheads 1945 - 2002, The Radiochemistry Society, 2003, http://www.radiochemistry.org/history/nuke_tests/nuclearweapons/warheads.html(Accessed 15 November 2009)

[iv] Global Trends 2025: A World Transformed, National Intelligence Council, November 2008, http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_2025/2025_Global_Trends_Final_Report.pdf (Accessed 5 November 2009)

[v] BeaufortGyre Exploration Project, History, US Military Buildup of Thule and DEW Line (1950s-1960s),Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, http://www.whoi.edu/beaufortgyre/history/history_dew.html (Accessed 14 Nov 2009)

[vi]Strontium-90, Division of Public Health, Delaware Health and Social Services, April 2007, http://www.dhss.delaware.gov/dph/files/strontiumfaq.pdf(Accessed 15 November 2009)

[vii]Radioactive I-131, The Milk Connection, National Cancer Institute, http://www.cancer.gov/cancer_information/doc.aspx?viewid=a450d25a-3c92-4110-a0f6-229a6ab0ba01 (Accessed 15 November 2009)

[viii] Pakistan People’s Party Website, http://www.ppp.org.pk/zab/zabbio.html (Accessed 24 October 2009)

[ix] Vali Nasr,The Shia Revival, New York: Norton, 2006, page 222.

[x] Nuclear Weapons, WMD Around the World, Federation of American Scientists, FAS web site, http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/ (Accessed 14 November 2009)

[xi] AyatollahAli Khamenei, Nuclear Issue a Pretext for Bullying, Speech by Iran’s Supreme Leader, http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/news/ayatollah-ali-khamenei/ (Accessed 25 October 2009)

[xii] The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009, Press Release, The Norwegian Nobel Committee, 9 October 2009, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2009/press.html (Accessed 25 October 2009)

[xiii] Kaegan McGrath, In Focus: The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), NTI website, updated 8 October 2009, http://www.nti.org/e_research/e3_special_ctbt.html (Accessed 25 October 2009)

[xiv]Sixty-fourth General Assembly First Committee 5th Meeting (AM), United Nations General Assembly, Department of Public Information, 8 October 2009, http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2009/gadis3387.doc.htm (Accessed 25 October 2009)

[xv] Progress towards Reducing the Threat and Numbers of Existing Nuclear Weapons, NTI website, http://www.nti.org/db/disarmament/index.html (Accessed 25 October 2009)

[xvi] Martin Luther King, The Quest for Peace and Justice, op. cit.

[xvii] Robert Norris and Has Kristensen, Nuclear Notebook: U.S. Nuclear Forces 2009, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 2009, http://www.thebulletin.org/files/065002008.pdf (Accessed 20November 2009)

[xviii] Chris McGreal, UN Investigator Accuses US of Shameful Neglect of Homeless, The Guardian UK, 13 November 2009, on Common Dreams website, http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/13-0 (Accessed 13 November 2009)