Interesting Times

 Here  it  is ~ your  very  own  secret  decoder  ring:  something  to  help  you  decipher  news  and  views  pertaining to Islam and Muslims, a  few  things  to  keep  in  mind  so  that  whenever  you  are  reading  or  listening  to  something  and  these  key  words  or  key  names  pop  up  you  can  contemplate  what  the  propagandists  want  you  to  believe  and  why  in  the  light  of  what  is  really  going  on.  You  may  want  to  add  to  them  as  you  get  further  down  the  rabbit-hole  and  discover  more  and  more  of  what  lies  beneath  the  surface.  But  be  warned:  decoding and deconstruction  can  rapidly  go  from  a  part-time  hobby  to  a  full-time  job.  Once  you  get  started  it's  hard  to  stop. ~SuZ

click on desired link to go directly to that section

Al-Qaeda
Bin Laden
Caliphate
Democracy
Evil
Freedoms
the "Good" War in Afghanistan
Islam-[your suffix here]
Jihad
Militants
9/11/01
Pakistan
Shari'ah
Taliban 
War on Terror

Are you afraid of a growing "Islamist" terrorist network called "al-Qaeda" which seeks domination through a global caliphate and the destruction of "Infidels" everywhere by means of WMD because of hatred for people's freedoms? You're supposed to be. Western leaders and their pundits want you to be. Why? Is al-Qaeda really all they say it is? ~SuZ

"Al-Qaeda, for  example,  is  another  front  which  the  mainstream  media  helped  blow  out  of  proportion.  In  fact,  a  small  group  of  individuals  continues  to  this  date  to  participate  in  CIA  covert  operations  in  different  parts  of  the  world  in  the  name  of  al-Qaeda.  There  are  numerous  documents  that  prove  beyond  doubt  the  links  between  the  intelligence  assets  within  so-called  al-Qaeda  and  successive  U.S.  administrations."    
~Abid  Ullah  Jan,  From  BCCI  to  ISI: The  Saga  of  Entrapment  Continues

footnote 35:  See Centre for Research on Globalisation, Foreknowledge of 9-11: Compilations of key articles and documents, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CRG204A.html, May 2002, section 3.

For relevant analysis and links also see: 

Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Ladin

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'Al-Qaeda' is a Manufactured Intelligence Front
Kawther Salam 

"....The Al-Qaeda terror organization has caused immense damage to Islam, to Moslems worldwide and to the interests of the peoples of all Arab and Muslim countries. The actions of Al-Qaeda have only served to promote the interests of the U.S. and Israel, which are clearly interested in "reshaping" the Middle East in such a way that they can more easily rape and plunder the region at will.

"In fact the C.I.A is using the terrorist actions of its proxy Al-Qaeda in order to give the U.S. an excuse to extend their power into and invade the Arab countries, first countries with rich plunder (Oil) like Iraq, Iran, Saudia Arabia, and second any country which is a "threat" to Israel, or more exactly which Israel dislikes for whatever reason. The third objective for which the C.I.A. is using its proxy Al-Qaeda is to engender fear and hate of Islam and Muslims worldwide. This corresponds to an old and tried ploy of colonizers: to slander and denigrate the target population so that it is acceptable and even called for to commit genocide against them. The peoples of Ireland, Africa and the Americas have all suffered this tragedy, and these regions have been colonized. The next obvious victims are Arabs and Muslims by extension because they live in geographic areas rich in oil and other resources, and because Muslims as a collective are not white enough to be respected as full humans by the criminals in London, Washinton and Tel Aviv."

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"Ana raicha Al Qaeda"

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Next...?

"What I find most interesting is that "terrorist" attacks and "Al Qaeda" always seem to appear where we know the US wants to make a kill...."

Islamists and Populists and Homies, Oh My!

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Is Al Qaeda the Modern Incarnation of 'Emmanuel Goldstein'?

"The essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies, all this is indispensibly necessary." --Emmanuel Goldstein, 1984, by George Orwell

Captured al-Qa'eda man was FBI spy

Yemen Seizes 'Israel Linked' Cell

Attack on US Embassy in Yemen Linked to Mossad

The report, quoting an unnamed source, said investigations and data retrieved from a computer seized from the cell, showed there was correspondence between the Islamic Jihad group’s deputy leader Bassam Abdullah Fadhel Al-Haidari and an Israeli intelligence agency. Saba quoted the source as saying that the correspondence between the two sides included a request from the Israeli side to implement terrorist attacks inside Yemen.

Former agent for French military intelligence Pierre-Henry Bunel has this to say about 'al Qaeda':

"The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the 'TV watcher' to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism..."

For the truth about the al-Qaeda tapes that are released with such precision timing:

Al Qaeda Tapes: Direct Link To Military Psyops And Donald Rumsfeld

Analyst: Al-Qaeda Videotapes Digitally Doctored

Comments  section  for  the  above  article:

http://www.haloscan.com/comments/sonof101/020807article2/

ABC: Al Qaeda Videos May Be Doctored

Why do those who rally the world against the Islamic caliphate fear and hate the possibility of it so? What kind of government is a caliphate? In what sense would it be global? Would it destroy all other governments or could it exist alongside them?  Would it be oppressive? Who wants a caliphate? 

From Caliphate Online comes a non-Muslim view of the Caliphate (words of Tony Blair):

They demand the elimination of Israel; the withdrawal of all Westerners from Muslim countries, irrespective of the wishes of people and government; the establishment of effectively Taleban states and Sharia law in the Arab world en route to one caliphate of all Muslim nations. We don't have to wonder what type of country those states would be. Afghanistan was such a state. Girls put out of school. Women denied even rudimentary rights. People living in abject poverty and oppression. All of it justified by reference to religious faith.

 
From the same site comes a Muslim view of the Caliphate (words of Abdul-Kareem Newell):

The Caliphate (khilafah) is a unique political system from the ideology of Islam that bears no resemblance to any of the Muslim Governments today. Although many commentators and historians have tried to interpret the Caliphate within existing political frameworks, it is in fact a unique political system, built upon a concept of citizenship regardless of ethnicity, gender or creed that is totally opposed to the oppression of any religious or ethnic grouping. [Read more about what it actually is as opposed to what it is not at the Caliphate Online link.]

"It has been said that
democracy is the worst form of government
except
all the others that have been tried."
~Sir Winston Churchill~

A famous quote from a famous man...a man who, in addition to kind of, sort of upholding this dubiously stated superiority of democracy, believed in eugenics and the use of genocide and ethnic cleansing by superior races or societies, possibly because of his awareness stated here: "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." So weeding out as many undesireables as possible and using propaganda to control the rest might be seen as necessary in the kind of democracy we have wherever we are said to have it--a democracy of the elitists, by the elitists and for the elitists.

So what really is democracy and--where is it?  Is America a democracy of some kind? ( Or democratic republic I am generally informed.)  We're supposed to think so.  And we are supposed to support the exporting of democracy to other countries (the biggest and most fraudulent export in our war economy). But what sort of democracy and how and why?

Is democracy truly superior to any other form of government? When US leaders talk about democracy, what are they really saying and--more importantly--what are they really doing? ~SuZ

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The New Meaning of Democracy
by Abid Ullah Jan

Let Bush and Blair give a new meaning to democracy. Let them impose Karzai, Musharraf and Mubarak type of dictators around the world. Let them fully support war, occupation and repression carried out by democracies like Israel. The worldwide demonstrations are an indicator of the kind of two world orders we are going to witness in the near future. Labels and notions of democracy, or otherwise, are irrelevant. The marchers have put faces on the numbers. Majorities around the world have clearly rejected global tyranny. The marchers who flung themselves into action clearly showed that threat to Bush and Blair doesn’t lie in Afghanistan or Iraq. The “World of Disorder” they want to fight against doesn’t lie outside their borders.

Welcome to the Fourth Reich
by David McGowan
author of Derailing Democracy: The America the Media Don't Want You to See and Understanding the F-Word: American Fascism and the Politics of Illusion

These are the people who would rob you of your freedoms and liberties. These are the people who have nothing but the most thinly-veiled contempt for democracy, for civil liberties, for human rights, for racial tolerance, and for the right of self-determination for people everywhere. These are the people who, without so much as a hint of shame, would wage genocidal war around the world while spouting platitudes about 'democracy.'

The End of Democracy
FIRST DROP OF THE RAIN TO COME
Abid Ullah Jan
Following the end of the Cold War in which liberal democracy triumphed over Communism, Francis Fukuyama claimed it was "the end of history." In this devastating critique of democracy, Abid Ullah Jan (author of 'A War On Islam?') claims that far from being the end of history, the unprovoked attack on Iraq, despite massive global opposition and lack of support from a majority of nations in the United Nations, it is in fact "the end of democracy."

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On the views of the author:

From US President George W. Bush's 
State of the Union Address
2002:

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.  By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger.  They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred.  They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States.  In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction.  We will develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect America and our allies from sudden attack.  (Applause.) And all nations should know:  America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security.

We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side.  I will not wait on events, while dangers gather.  I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer.  The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons.  (Applause.)

My Comments [SuZ]
23 August 2008:

As many others have asked--who has more "weapons of mass destruction" than the United States? Who has a more horrific record of freely using WMDs against large numbers of innocent civilians?

Who is currently threatening what little peace is left in the world by declared intentions to "deploy effective missile defenses" in Poland thus provoking Russia to do the same in Syria?

What regime is more dangerous than that of  the U.S.? What regime is doing more than threatening other sovereign nations with the world's most destructive weapons but is actually opportunistically attacking and devastating them on pretexts that are nothing more than lies?

What regime is responsible for the evils of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo?

Perhaps North Korea, Iran and Iraq should have been considered as a potential axis of evil with the US, Great Britain and Israel recognized as an actual, active axis of evil. 

From US President George W. Bush's Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People
September 2001
[what I think he should also have said, in italics --SuZ]

Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, ["a manufactured front, a myth to sustain interventions and occupations"] but it does not end there.  It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. [We can go anywhere and kill anyone in the name of fighting terrorism.]  (Applause.)  

Americans are asking, why do they hate us?  They hate what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government.  [Well ok, I wasn't so much elected as appointed by the Supreme Court which was also appointed...but still, that's not as bad as self-appointed, right?]  Their leaders are self-appointed.  They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.  [I kinda hate our freedoms too and will do more than anyone else to diminish them. I was right: "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier... just so long as I'm the dictator." Hehe.]

They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.  [They must hate the freedoms of Egypt's, Saudi Arabia's and Jordan's people too. I have heard they are way too free over there....But I'd never want to overthrow anybody, would I? Hehe.]   They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East.  [They want to do to the Israelis what the Israelis have been doing to the Palestinians these past 50-some years.]  They want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa. [Who's "they" again? I'm getting confused...oh yes, al-CIA da and Mossad --"to sustain interventions and occupations."]

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"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

[Top 2 photos @ Gitmo, bottom photo @ Bagram...or is it a Democratic National Convention holding area for demonstrators? Can you tell?]

What do the above pictures show the American regime doing? Teaching our enemies to love our freedoms or teaching our non-enemies to be our enemies? Or teaching everyone (at home and abroad) not to speak out and not to fight back? Or just trying to make the world safe for democro-fascism (as much of an oxymoron as Islamo-fascism!)?

Islamist, Islamism, Islamofascism...Who makes this stuff up?

Hiding Behind Islamism
by Abid Ullah Jan
05 July 2006

“Islamic fundamentalism” was blown out of proportion after the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. By late 1990s, this term was turning into a cliché without enough impact to generate the required amount of fear of Islam. Islamophobes, thus, invented the term “Islamism” to add new dimensions to presenting Islam as a threatening menace.

Eight years down the road, the one-line definitions of “Islamism” and “Islamists” have flooded the corporate media. Most reporters and analysts are frequently using these terms without realizing that they are promoting the myth of “Islamism” and serving sinister objectives which they may not necessarily support.

Irrespective of the deceptive definitions, “Islamism” is used to keep the image of an enemy alive. It is used as a glue to hold the crumbling American empire and associated alliance together. “Islamism” scares non-Muslims and keeps the European Union and others at bay from thinking outside the box for initiatives such as, coming up with an alternative to the present monetary system or taking an independent course to economic development. -more-

"It is necessary to understand the links between the present day monetary system, American dominance and fascism. Many of us do not realize the way “Islamism” is used to avoid the global depression on the pattern of the Wall Street crash in 1929. The impending depression is directly linked to the supremacy of the United States." 
       Abid Ullah Jan, Hiding Behind Islamism

from Jihad and Jihadism by Abid Ullah Jan 

Jihad in its various forms and stages is obligatory upon Muslims. Jihadism is a product of US opportunism. Jihad is always for self-actualisation, eradication of mischief and eliminating oppression with a focus on spiritual aspect at all levels. Jihadism is a double edge sword used for self aggrandisement and expansion of the American rule through the use of lies and indiscriminate force with a narrow focus on worldly gains only.

For Muslims, it was a Jihad in Afghanistan. However, for the US, with no relation to Islam and sympathy for Muslims whatsoever, it was simply promotion of violence to weaken an arch enemy, the Soviet Union. It was pure Jihadism, a selective practice and policy without any concern for the people under occupation.

Today, Jihadism and Jihadists are mere labels that the US uses as a bogyman to criminalise resistance to its illegitimate occupations and to justify the policy of total domination through its “war on terrorism.”

The purpose of sponsoring Jihadism in Afghanistan was not to spread Islamic faith, defend Muslims or reap rewards in the hereafter. If it were Jihad based on the Islamic concept, it should have been launched and sponsored by the US simultaneously in Kashmir, Palestine and Afghanistan. Relying on Jihadism then and now is simply to extend sovereign American power. <more>

also read Target: Jihad, Madrassa or Islam?

Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for Allah loveth those who are just. Allah only forbids you, with regard to those who fight you for (your) Faith, and drive you out of your homes, and support (others) in driving you out, from turning to them (for friendship and protection). It is such as turn to them (in these circumstances) that do wrong.
~MTQ 60:8,9
 

also read Demystifying Jihad by Abid Ullah Jan

US: 30 Militants killed in west Afghanistan clash

Afghan officials issued contradictory statements about what had happened and it was not immediately clear why they offered such differing accounts.

An Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman, Gen. Mohammad Zaher Azimi, confirmed the clash but said five of the 30 dead were civilians.

However, the Afghan Interior Ministry claimed that U.S. coalition bombs killed 76 civilians, including 19 women and 50 children under the age of 15. The ministry called the bombing a "mistake." Read more....

          Comment:  Interestingly, the US and Pakistani bombs are not killing any civilians these days. All those who die as a result of their bombing are militants by default. Lying in the "mainstream" is one things and winning hearts and minds is totally another. Those who read these lies have mostly and already sold their minds and hearts to the "mainstream" media. What miserably fails the aggressors is their inability to changes the facts on the ground and win hearts where they count the most: the front lines. These lies fell upon the surviving victims of the US aggression worse than the physical bombs. No wonder why the resistance and retaliation increases by the day, which is the key objective of the warlords for prolonging the war of terrorism as well. --Abid Ullah Jan 
                                                      Dictatorship Watch

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I just finished reading what I would have found to be a very reasonable and well-informed article on Islamic Militancy if not for the author's having bought into the myth that al-Qaeda, the perpetrators of 9/11, and various "false flag" terrorists are Islamic rather than Western intelligence community members or patsies or paid thugs.

I see that they are succeeding in their goal of manufacturing realities and confusing the issues on the road to dividing and conquering. It would seem that all is proceeding according to plan and yet, "...the best of planners is Allah." So we shall see...

Iraq Has Only Militants, No Civilians
by Dahr Jamail

From the beginning of the American occupation in Iraq, air strikes and attacks by the U.S. military have only killed "militants," "criminals," "suspected insurgents," "IED [Improvised Explosive Device] emplacers," "anti-American fighters," "terrorists," "military age males," "armed men," "extremists," or "al-Qaeda."

The pattern for reporting on such attacks has remained the same from the early years of the occupation to today. Take a helicopter attack on October 23rd of this year near the village of Djila, north of Samarra. The U.S. military claimed it had killed 11 among "a group of men planting a roadside bomb." Only later did a military spokesperson acknowledge that at least six of the dead were civilians. Local residents claimed that those killed were farmers, that there were children among them, and that the number of dead was greater than 11. <more>

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There is website called Militant Islam Monitor. Their mission? "...to provide an online resource documenting the activities and identities of Islamist individuals and groups in the United States and abroad." Why? "...to provide the informational arsenal necessary to take part in the struggle against militant Islam and terrorism." What is militant Islam?

"Militant Islam is a Utopian ideology, initiated in the 20th century, that attracts only a portion of Muslims, (10 to 15 percent) seeks to gain control of governments, and is nakedly aggressive toward all those who stand in it' s way, no matter what their faith...Unnoticed by most westerners, militant Islam has unilaterally declared war on Europe and the United States... The enemy in this war is not terrorism, but militant Islam." - Dr. Daniel Pipes, Militant Islam Reaches America

Oh good. Another smokescreen for what America and Europe are doing in the Middle East and at home and why.

I wonder why it is that just about the first thing that pops in my head when I think of 9/11 is "conspiracy theory". And yet, when you look over the facts carefully, the craziest and most dangerous conspiracy theory seems to be the one created by the government and propagated by the corporate media. ~SuZ

Debunking conspiracy theorists' paranoid fantasies about Sept. 11
Copyright Gerard Holmgren. Jan 2003.
http://911-strike.com/debunking.htm

This work may be freely copied and distributed without permission as long as it not for commercial use. Please include the author's name, the web address where you found it and the copyright notice.

Astute observers of history are aware that for every notable event there will usually be at least one, often several wild conspiracy theories which spring up around it. "The CIA killed Hendrix" " The Pope had John Lennon murdered ", "Hitler was half Werewolf", "Space aliens replaced Nixon with a clone" etc,etc. The bigger the event, the more ridiculous and more numerous are the fanciful rantings which circulate in relation to it.

So its hardly surprising that the events of Sept 11, 2001 have spawned their fair share of these ludicrous fairy tales. And as always, there is - sadly - a small but gullible percentage of the population eager to lap up these tall tales, regardless of facts or rational analysis.

One of the wilder stories circulating about Sept 11, and one that has attracted something of a cult following amongst conspiracy buffs is that it was carried out by 19 fanatical Arab hijackers, masterminded by an evil genius named Osama bin Laden, with no apparent motivation other than that they "hate our freedoms."

Never a group of people to be bothered by facts, the perpetrators of this cartoon fantasy have constructed an elaborately woven web of delusions and unsubstantiated hearsay in order to promote this garbage across the internet and the media to the extent that a number of otherwise rational people have actually fallen under its spell.

Normally I don't even bother debunking this kind of junk, but the effect that this paranoid myth is beginning to have requires a little rational analysis, in order to consign it to the same rubbish bin as all such silly conspiracy theories.

These crackpots even contend that the extremist Bush regime was caught unawares by the attacks, had no hand in organizing them, and actually would have stopped them if it had been able. Blindly ignoring the stand down of the US air-force, the insider trading on airline stocks - linked to the CIA, the complicit behavior of Bush on the morning of the attacks, the controlled demolition of the WTC, the firing of a missile into the Pentagon and a host of other documented proofs that the Bush regime was behind the attacks, the conspiracy theorists stick doggedly to a silly story about 19 Arab hijackers somehow managing to commandeer 4 planes simultaneously and fly them around US airspace for nearly 2 hours ,crashing them into important buildings, without the US intelligence services having any idea that it was coming, and without the Air Force knowing what to do.

The huge difficulties with such a stupid story force them to invent even more preposturous stories to distract from its core silliness, and thus the tale has escalated into a mythic fantasy of truly gargantuan proportions. <more>
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Victims of 9/11/01

Think about who was truly responsible for this tragedy
they should be held accountable!!!

More Victims of 9/11:

Other Resources:

From BCCI to ISI: The Saga of Entrapment Continues
by Abid Ullah Jan
The author digs up the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) issue to show how the Bank became a victim of a grand entrapment process by the U.S. government and how that process continues till this day. The book shows how ISI, Pakistan's military intelligence agency, has played a role in another frame-up: this time for 9/11. How in the process ISI itself was trapped is another interesting aspect covered in this book.

Afghanistan: The Genesis of the Final Crusade
by Abid Ullah Jan
This books takes American analysts and researchers, who have concluded 9/11 as an "inside job," to another level of realization by answering the question: Why was there a need for an inside job? What was the real motivation? Why did they do it? Where are they leading the world? What is in store for the world irrespective of which party occupies the White House and represent the majority in the US congress and senate?

The Ultimate Tragedy: Colonialists Rushing to War to Save the Crumbling Empire
by Abid Ullah Jan and Rory Winter
As their façade of democracy unravels the colonial fascists are set to wage another world war. The world cries out for justice as regional wars being waged to maintain their status quo of oppressive colonization fail utterly. Operation 9/11, the war on Afghanistan, the disastrous occupation of Iraq, escalating tensions with Iran, Israeli terrorist attacks on Lebanon …these are not isolated acts of extremism and war crimes. They are the first warning signs of a growing desperation in the ranks of colonialists to grab, control and monopolize the world’s resources under the guise of a new world order.
With Abid Ullah Jan and Rory Winter’s incisive and sometimes surprising analysis, you can understand the hidden agenda and powerful players behind today’s news headlines.

September 11, 2001 Revisited: The Series
David McGowan
Center for an Informed America

ISI and Operation 9/11

There are those who would destroy it... 

Christopher Hitchens says, "Pakistan is the Problem" and informs readers that "The very name Pakistan inscribes the nature of the problem. It is not a real country or nation but an acronym devised in the 1930s by a Muslim propagandist for partition named Chaudhary Rahmat Ali. It stands for Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, and Indus-Sind. The stan suffix merely means "land." In the Urdu language, the resulting acronym means "land of the pure." It can be easily seen that this very name expresses expansionist tendencies and also conceals discriminatory ones. "

Syed Jamaluddin says, "Divide Pakistan to Eleminate Terrorism."  His belief is "It is now established that Pakistan is not a genuine country with any sound political basis but simply an assembly of certain nations which were put together by the British rulers to create a colony of its own kind. Pakistan’s existence has always been a burden and now it is finally proved that Pakistan’s existence will cause great danger to the entire humanity."

"Danger to the entire humanity" or to...  

In 1967, David Ben Gurion said, "The world Zionist movement should not be neglectful of the dangers of Pakistan to it. And Pakistan now should be its first target, for this ideological State is a threat to our existence. And Pakistan, the whole of it, hates the Jews and loves the Arabs.  

...and those who would save it... 

After a Bomb Blast in Islamabad Marriot on 20 September 2008, Zahir Ebrahim had this to say:
For Heavens sake peoples of Pakistan and the World: stop blaming India's RAW, Jihadis' Taliban and Al-Qaeeda, etc., as the prime-movers of this new atrocity on the Pakistani peoples. Misdiagnosing a systemic disease is a sure protocol for never finding its cure!

The destabilization of Pakistan has needed a confluence of patsies and mercenaries. A patsy or dupe is one who strongly believes in what he/she is doing, but is deftly controlled by puppetmasters. A mercenary is one who sells one's allegiance to the highest bidder at any moment in time. The suicide bombers and cultivated “jihadis” of the likes that Pakistan has never seen in its entire history before, are patsies. The Pakistani ruling-elite are the mercenaries. Between the two, Black-ops dollars have been well spent in Pakistan!

...That is all the reality there is to this new spate of terror in my city in Pakistan – a further excuse for more premeditated, pre-planned, devilishly orchestrated American Intervention in Pakistan until they take over the entire Tribal Belt in order to be in closer proximity to China, and break-off Baluchistan as a new independent neo-liberal 'Gulf State'. The dismemberment of Pakistan is the larger agenda; and Mr. Zardari - like his distinguished predecessor - is the new "decider" of that agenda.

Why our media-pundits/columnist/so-called-scholars refuse to publicly acknowledge this blatant fact is beyond ordinary comprehension, when surely, all of them in the privacy of their homes, will concur with that diagnosis.

And not all of them are mercenaries or patsies – what co-opts them into this rehearsing the asinine “unbirthday party” song that leads them to RAW, Taliban, Al-Qaeeda, “Between Imperialism and Islamism”, and every place else on earth, except to the greatest 'benefactor' of Pakistan since its inception? <...more...>

And Abid Ullah Jan sees it as "A US warning to Pakistani 'leaders' as they issued statement that any invasion on Pakistani soil will not be tolerated".

Mr. Jan has been warning and educating the public for some time regarding the dangers to Pakistan's future:

In 2006 he wrote, "Musharraf won't depart without putting a final nail in Pakistan's coffin" and was proved right 2 years later. There were some other important points he made therein, of which we would all do well to sit up and take notice:
Response of some Pakistanis to the excerpts from The Musharraf Factor shows that Pakistani nation is still not reading the writing on the wall. It will, however, soon face the music it deserves for losing a golden opportunity of self-rule in an independent, sovereign state. People get the kind of leadership they deserve. At the same time, people with good intentions get equally punished through the effects of unthinking compliance when they refuse to act or fail to make a difference. Iraq and Afghanistan are two clear examples before us.

Iraqis failed to muster enough courage to stand against a weaker Baathist and secularist regime, to establish an exemplary society and a model of governance. They are now paying a far greater price then they would have, had they stood up to Saddam Husain’s externally supported tyranny.

Similarly, Afghans lost their opportunity. Instead of collectively working for the common good of their people after having an unprecedented situation of peace, law and order in the country under the Taliban, many Afghans joined campaigns that ended with yet another foreign occupation of their country—this time with the full approval of the United Nations. The result is before our eyes. Afghans, who were delivered from one occupation at a great cost, are now reeling under another indefinite and far worse occupation.

...The galvanizing force that brought Pakistan into being was Islam; not culture, nor ethnicity, not even language or geography....

The loss of faith in Islam has led to the loss one half of Pakistan in 1971, and continues to weaken the rest of the nation with every passing day. There is no other justification at all for separating this piece of land in South Asia, calling it Pakistan, or keeping people of different cultures and ethnic backgrounds together for a long time. If a secular state was the objective, a single independent state of India made more sense than two separate entities, which drained their resources on arms building and bloody wars.

...The whole idea of the secularization of Pakistan to make it functional is based on the assumption that Pakistan, and other Muslim countries, can survive without being Islamic or democratic in the true sense and that they can endure a compromise on the principles on which Muslims must put the foundation of their collective life. At the same time, a serious attempt to live by Islam could not occur without risking the labels of extremism and terrorism.

Despite Turkey’s 80-years experiment with secularization, it has yet to succeed. Countries like Turkey and Egypt, for example, have long histories as nations to survive. Whereas, Pakistan didn’t exist as a nation before 1947, nor any other known factor except Islam is there to make it a nation. As such Musharraf’s regime took to de-legitimizing Pakistan’s entire foundation....

...Pakistan was to be an extraordinary state—a homeland for Indian Muslims and an ideological and political leader of the Muslim world. Providing a homeland to protect Muslims from the bigotry and intolerance of India’s Hindu population was important, but the real motive behind Pakistan movement was to demonstrate to the world a model of an Islamic State based on the principles of freedom, fraternity and equality of Islam. The Pakistan movement also looked to the wider Muslim world, and its leaders were concerned about the fate of other Muslim communities living under duress, stretching from Palestine to the Philippines.[7]

This is exactly what is now considered as “political Islam” of the “Islamists.” This is what the 9/11 Commission has referred to as the “Islamic ideology” and declared a war on it. Accordingly, Pakistan has to be dismantled because its raison d’être has no place in the modern world in which a crusade on Islam is now officially and publicly recognized. <...from The Musharraf Factor...>

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When it comes to Shari'ah, what images are conjured up by the corporate media and by the slightly less mainstream rabid Islamophobes for the general public's education about Islam? Let's see...

Here's a popular one on some websites of a woman about to be stoned to death:

It just doesn't happen to be real; it was taken from a movie. But I guess they feel it is true to the general idea they are trying to communicate.

Shari'ah law only makes the news here in the US if a severe punishment such as stoning, beheading, hanging, whipping or amputation is carried out. Especially if there is some question as to actual guilt.

We are rightly repelled by such images. Punishment for real crime is not supposed to be attractive or even provoke a ho-hum reaction. It should be a deterent. And there are very real problems--in all justice systems everywhere--with systemic corruption, with wrongful convictions, with cruelty.

But those connected with Shari'ah just happen to get the most attention where anti-Islamic sentiment is being encouraged, to the extent that non-Muslims may be left with the impression that Shari'ah is all about terrorized citizens tip-toeing through a blood-soaked land strewn with corpses and body parts, afraid of their own shadows.

Nothing could be further from the truth were true Shari'ah to be implemented by a truly Islamic government, God willing.

Allah commands justice,
the doing of good,
and liberality to kith and kin...

Qur'an 16:90

The Purposes of the Shari'ah
by Abdul Wahid Hamid

The main purpose of the Shari`ah is to realise and secure the general good or the interests (masaalih) of people by promoting their welfare as individuals and as a collective body and keeping harm and injury away from them. This it seeks to do, in order of priority, by:

1. guaranteeing their ‘vital needs’ (duruuriyaat)
2. catering for their ‘requirements’ (haajiyaat)
3. allowing for ‘betterment’, enhancement or improvements (tahsiiniyaat) in the quality of their life.
   <more>

Capital Punishment in Islam
by Huda 

....The spirit of the Islamic penal code is to save lives, promote justice, and prevent corruption and tyranny.

Islamic philosophy holds that a harsh punishment serves as a deterrent to serious crimes that harm individual victims, or threaten to destabilize the foundation of society.
<more>

Shari'ah Punishments
by Khurram Murad

This article looks at Basic Principles, Proportional Justice, Part of a Whole, Functional Nature, Retributional Qisaas, Mercy and Leniency, Alleged Cruelty, Reform Syndrome and Procedural Justice. It conclude with a quote from Prophet Muhammad (saws):

To let nine criminals go free is preferable to convicting
one innocent man.

Her Honor: An Islamic Critique of the Rape Laws of Pakistan from a Woman-Sensitive Perspective     
by Asifa Quraishi

This article critiques the rape laws of Pakistan from an Islamic point of view, which is careful to include women’s perspectives in its analysis. Unlike much of what is popularly presented as traditional Islamic law, this woman-affirming Islamic approach will reveal the inherent gender-egalitarian nature of Islam, which is too often ignored by its academics, courts, and legislatures. This article will demonstrate how cultural patriarchy has instead colored the application of certain Islamic laws in places like Pakistan, resulting in the very injustice, which the Qur’an so forcefully condemns. <more>

I have had alot of embarassments in my life. One of them is that the first time I can remember hearing of the Taliban was while watching Southpark (Towelie Ban). I didn't have a clue what they were talking about.
                                                  
Later, after I had become a Muslimah and was trying to clear up some misconceptions about Islam on a discussion forum, I finally knew what most people knew about the Taliban. But when challenged to express what I thought about them as Muslims and their reported violent imposition of Shari'ah law in Afghanistan, I couldn't. I knew enough to realize that I still didn't have a clue because, it seemed clear, no one else who was writing about them did either. Since then, I have been trying to find out what it was I knew I didn't know. ~SuZ

*****************************************
Taleban 'burn Pakistan schools'

Suspected pro-Taleban militants have burnt down three more girls' high schools in the Swat valley of north-west Pakistan, officials say.

Ten schools have been destroyed in the district in the last four days.

Nearly 70 state-run schools have been burnt down in the area in recent months, affecting over 17,000 students.

There has been no word from militant groups in relation to the latest arson attacks, but local militants group have admitted to such attacks in the past.

Correspondents say militant groups trying to enforce strict Islamic law want the schools to be shut down. 
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I am also seeing in the news lately, in addition to story after story about how the Taliban are
burning down girls' schools
and don't want females to be educated,
is how the Taliban is funded by
opium production. 
I thought this a bit strange really.  So did this reader who commented on the news blog item 
Time to Target the Taliban Drug Cartel:

This is an odd story. When the Taliban were in power they all but eradicated opium production. Like alcohol, illegal drug use is forbidden in Islam. People were afraid of the Taliban.

When we invaded we allied ourselves with heroin traffickers as a matter of expediency. Most are still powerful warlords today - Dostum being the most notorious, but also many of the people associated with the Karzai government.

I have also been to Afghanistan, in 2003, and what I learned was that practically all of the opium poppies were grown in areas with artificial irrigation. Afghanistan is not a good country for agrigulture of any kind. It was no secret where the poppies were grown - just go to the irrigation projects. A friend told me of a famous photo of some place that the Soviets were touting as a great agricultural project in the 80s. A recent photo shows the same project, but its all poppies.

So I am a little skeptical of all this. I don't think there will be any serious drug eradication campaign in Afghanistan in the near future because the priority is on stabilizing the country. And what you call Taliban - you are referring to an ethnic Pashtun insurgency that's not necessarily trying to impose the Shariat. You will also find the the trafficking routes head north into the 'stans. It would be nice if the bad guys were the drug traffickers and we were on the opposite side, but unfortunately its not that simple.

CIA Tickling People to Death

Torah and the Taliban
from As Thou Goest by the Way
by A.S. Adler

Shortly after the events of 9/11/01, the author noticed several things about the Taliban that did not appear to be consistent with the generally negative view of them given in the US media . It looked as though the Taliban might be just what they claimed to be: genuine religious Moslems of very high integrity. <more>

Where Do We Stand in Afghanistan Today?
by Abid Ullah Jan

"The ground realities as reported by non-Muslim writers and analysts confirm that Taliban were the least evil then and they are the least evil today. Most unfortunately, as Muslim writers, we are damned if we draw a similar conclusion."

 

**********************************************
‘Taliban not burning girls’ schools’

ISLAMABAD: Various gangs of criminals are active in the NWFP in guise of the Taliban, provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said on Saturday, adding that the Taliban should not be blamed for the burning of girls’ schools and other militant activities.

The criminals want to serve the agenda of their “international masters”, Hussain told the state-run PTV channel.
********************************************************************

US accused of backing terrorism in Pakistan

The words of the Taliban Administration itself regarding their view of women and education

 
********************************************************************

 The Spoils of War:
Afghanistan's Multibillion Dollar Heroin Trade
by Michel Chossudovsky

The Lies and Crimes of 911:
A Canadian View of the War on Terror's Origins
by Prof. Anthony J. Hall

By presenting the conflict as an epic struggle between savagery and civilization, the War on Terror is being sold to the public in much the same guise as the US Indian wars and the scores of similar invasions that have stripped Indigenous peoples of their lands and resources around the world. The War on Terror's propagandistic subtext would picture our soldiers as champions of democratic salvation shining the light of Judeo-Christian civilization even into those dark Eurasian caves where Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and the axis of false and evil religion are said to dwell. <...more...>

The world war is on
by Abid Ullah Jan

...the US is neither going for a just-war, nor is WMD, Saddam, Osama, or the Taliban its ultimate objective. Unfortunately, we are blind to the reality that the US is not even independent in making decisions to go to war. It might sound strange, but the only unjust cause and result of the post-September 11 war is Greater Israel.

....R. James Woolsey, a former CIA director during the Clinton administration, says the first world war of the 21st century is not a war against terrorism per se. After all, Spain's ETA and Ireland's IRA terrorists are not enemies of America. So the world war now under way, Mr. Woolsey argues, is being waged on three different but related fronts – Iran, Iranian backed Hizbollah, Ba’ath parties of Syria and Iraq, and Egypt’s Islamic Jihad. He says the fourth world war has been almost entirely financed by Saudi Arabian wealth.

On the other hand, not content with making war on Iraq, Norman Podhoretz of Commentary magazine, the highbrow Zionist monthly, calls on the United States to launch World War IV. He considers the hoax Cold War as World War III. But this time he has a very hot war in mind – what he describes as “the war against militant Islam”. <...more...>

Truth and Lies in the War on Terror (1/5)

Truth and Lies in the War on Terror (3/5)

Who says it's not a war on Islam?
by Abid Ullah Jan

Few things today are more shallow than the reasons most people have for supporting Bush and Blair war on "terrorism" and accepting their claims that it is not a war on Islam. To understand if it is a war on Islam, we need to honestly and impartially scan the horizon since 1990.

Apart from the massive air strikes, commando raids and a prolonged "dirty war" against Islamic movements, the police repression, deportation, torture, censorship and death squads that we are certainly going to face are certainly not planned after the September 11 attacks. The US "war on terror" is no more than translation to the physical level, of the systematic approach that started with 

(1) introduction of the rancid notion of "Islamic fundamentalism," 
(2) classification of Islam; 
(3) equating "fundamentalism" with extremism and then terrorism; 
(4) removal of governments, like Mr. Erbakan in Turkey, for having affiliations with Islam 
(5) support of governments' cracking down on "Islamic extremists" such as Egyptian and Algerian regimes;
(6) development of agendas for government's like Musharraf; 
(7) initially supporting the Taliban and then demonizing them to show the world the failure of Islam. 

The coming physical horror is simply execution of the judgments passed by the western intellectuals upon Islam in the past decade or so.

Just have a look at how the ground has been prepared for the coming "dirty war." <...more...>

Truth and Lies in the War on Terror (2/5)

Truth and Lies in the War on Terror (4/5)