Saturday, December 11, 2010
"A Drone Over The Skies Of Madinah" - A poem by Tariq Mehanna
A poem by Tariq Mehanna
'A DRONE OVER THE SKIES OF MADINAH ...'
(The Final Crusade)
Ask yourself: if the Prophet was with us today,
If he spoke the same words and lived the same way,
If he returned with the same message to relay,
How long would the forces of the world let him stay?
Back then, he taught humankind to: 'Bow down to none,
No idol, no tyrant, no oppressive nation,
Keep your heart and mind free from their domination,
True power is with God, so don't fear anyone!'
Quraysh let him be so long as he was benign,
And to his message, they thought that few would incline,
But when he preached openly, would not bend his spine,
The state turned against him, for he had crossed the line;
At first, they rushed to him seeking some compromise,
They'd give him the mic if he just ceased to chastise,
The ills around him they feared he would neutralize,
But he would not clothe his words in any disguise;
And he persisted in making more minds aware,
Of society's false gods of which to beware,
Of the tyrants of Earth, so the state could not bear,
And his "freedom of speech" vanished into thin air;
Choking him as he prayed, they tried suffocation,
Then imposed three years of economic sanction,
Signed off authorizing his assassination,
He was hunted in his land, forced to migration;
To track down this "radical", the vast land they'd comb,
Abu Jahl led the pack, his mouth frothing with foam,
Put him on a 'Wanted' list in his own home,
Like Jesus Christ before him at the hands of Rome;
And the Romes of today at whose hands we're abused,
Who preach to us values from which they're self-excused,
How similar the tools of repression they used,
The tyrants of past and present are ever fused;
Today, he'd see us consumed by the same fires,
With the gods in our hearts these worldly desires,
And the gods of the Earth nations and empires,
Headed by killers and professional liars;
He laid siege to Qaynuqa' for one woman's fear,
So what would he say to those who gang-raped 'Abeer?
Muffled 'Aafia's screams as she shed tear after tear?
And occupy Muslim countries year after year?
He'd come back to remind us to: 'Bow down to none,
No idol, no tyrant, no oppressive nation,
Keep your heart and mind free from their domination,
True power is with God, so don't fear anyone!'
In a repeat of that reality uncouth,
Imagine he stood and struggled for the same truth,
And had the same impact on society's youth,
Would they not once again fight this man nail & tooth?
Of course, they'd first test him to see what he's about,
Would he stay true like before, or would he sell out?
Would fear of the state instill in his mind some doubt?
No doubt, he'd be a mountain shaking off their clout;
In an era where his inheritors deprave,
The trust of their knowledge so their skins they would save,
He'd be an inspiration for every field slave,
Craving an example of the fearless and brave;
Their think-tanks would scramble to counter his appeal,
Find scholars for dollars with whom to make a deal,
To persuade us: 'The Prophet is just full of zeal,
Grieving injustices - quote - "perceived" and not real!'
They'd wiretap him as he said: 'Bow down to none,
No idol, no tyrant, no oppressive nation,
Keep your heart and mind free from their domination,
True power is with God, so don't fear anyone!'
Then they'd name him on a federal indictment,
American court would charge him with incitement,
Through Surat at-Tawbah - marked 'Criminal Statement'
Khalid bin al-Walid as his co-defendant;
They'd say he conspired from the North to South Pole,
And seek a life sentence with no chance of parole,
In a bright orange suit on lockdown in the Hole,
Such do they treat those spirits they cannot control;
Like the rest of us who have committed no crime,
But to be a proud Muslim at this point in time,
As the war on his message has reached its full prime,
Giving those who live by it more mountains to climb;
When they saw that in this message he would persist,
They would designate him a global terrorist,
And just like Quraysh, they would pound an angry fist,
Before placing his name on their own target list;
Over the skies of Madinah, they'd send a drone,
Distribute 'Wanted' posters with his bearded face shown,
Talk to local tribes, make the reward money known,
For those who capture or kill him and retrieve each bone;
They'd study Badr and Uhud, learn his strategy,
And profile those who pledged to him under the Tree,
Try to identify his 'Number Two' and 'Three,'
Is it Abu Bakr, 'Umar, 'Uthman, or 'Ali?
To the Prophet's Mosque, they'd send an entire brigade,
To round up the Ansar who had given him aid,
To kick down his family's door in a night raid,
To make him the target of their final crusade;
Because his message would still be: 'Bow down to none,
No idol, no tyrant, no oppressive nation,
Keep your heart and mind free from their domination,
True power is with God, so don't fear anyone!'
Imagine if the Prophet was with us today,
If he spoke the same words and lived the same way,
If he returned with the same message to relay,
They'd reserve him a cell at Guantanamo Bay ...
Tariq Mehanna
Monday 9th of Dhu al-Hijjah 1431/
15th of November 2010
Plymouth Correctional Facility, America
Isolation Unit - Cell #108
FOOTNOTES:
1.) Abeer Qasim al-Janabi, a 14-yr old Iraqi girl who was gang-raped,
beaten, shot, and burned along with her parents and siblings by American soldiers in March of 2006, south of Baghdad. (May Allah have Mercy on them)
2.) Referring to the hadith: "The scholars are the inheritors of the Prophets."
3.) Referring to the Pledge of Ridwan given under a tree on the day of Hudaybiyah, as mentioned in Surat al-Fath, v.18.
A new alliance: Turkey, China and Pakistan
What is more poignant is the fact that Mr. Auslin is chagrined about the improvement of the Turkish-Chinese relations. The Murdock owned Wall Street Journal is concerned about the rise of the Turkish power. It states–
What is the rationale for Prime Minister Erdogan reaching out to China and its president, Hu Jintao? Earlier this year, Messrs. Erdogan and Hu agreed to form a “strategic partnership,” aimed largely at increasing the bilateral trade between their two countries. Currently, Sino-Turkish trade totals $17 billion, but the two leaders want to increase that figure to $50 billion by 2015 and $100 billion by 2020. Yet clearly, the Sino-Turkish relationship is likely to deepen beyond increased trade. Conducting air exercises with the Chinese Air Force is yet another sign that Mr. Erdogan is fundamentally altering Turkey’s foreign policy and security strategy, while possibly gaining influential Chinese support for cotinued pressure on Kurdish separatists.
As for Mr. Hu, increasing China’s influence in Turkey is a shrewd strategy. In particular, Sino-Turkish military exercises can only worry Washington and Turkey’s other NATO allies; how far will such activities go? Turkey is part of the consortium building the next generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which will have to carry the burden of being America’s only front-line fighter aircraft in large numbers. Will Ankara invite PLA Air Force officials to watch F-35 testing and exercises once the Turkish Air Force gets the plane? Will PLA Air Force officers be allowed to test fly it? What other military sales might China make to Turkey in their enhanced relationship—ballistic missiles or advanced diesel submarines? WSJ. A Coming Sino-Turkish Axis?
Ankara is turning away from Israel and cozying up to China. WSJ. Michael Auslin.
Majority of Muslims desire the Shariah
According to the survey – Turkish Muslims expressed more mixed views of the role Islam is playing in their country’s political life. Of the 69% who say the religion plays a large role, 45% see it as good and 38% see it as bad for their country. Among the minority of Muslims who say Islam plays a small role in politics, 26% consider this to be good for Turkey and 33% say it is bad. In 2007, Islamist AKP party made the history by winning the largest majority of votes (47%) among Turkish political parties.
According to the survey, majority of people in Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and Nigeria are in favour of the strict biblical punishments (followed in Islamic Shari’ah) for adultery, pre-planned murder, armed robbery and treason against country (very bad for American politicians).
According to the survey, 80% of Muslim participants are against suicide-bombing targeting civilians (non-combatant). However, in Israel, every person above 16 is a combatant (trained killer under compulsary military training).
And now the BUT (the Israeli Hasbara part of the survey)…. The PEW report keeps calling both Hamas and Hizbullah as “militants”, a degrading term coined by the Zionazi entity. But the Zionazi military which absorbed Jewish terrorist militias such as Irgun, Hagana and Stern Gang in 1949 – is called Israel Defense Force. It’s still a terrorist organization supported by the USAID$3 billion each year.
The US Lt. Col. David Kilcullen, senior adviser to Gen. David Petraeus (the military poodle of Zionism, as professor James Petras called him), is quoted saying: “If I were a Muslim in the Middle East, I would probably be a Jihadist”.
According to the survey – Palestinian Islamic resistance, Hamas, is more popular in Jordan (60%) than Egypt (49%), Lebanon (49%), Nigeria (49%), Indonesia (39%), Pakistan (18%) and Turkey (9%). In election 2006, Hamas received 44.45% votes as compared to USrael’s favorite Fatah (41.43%). Interestingly, Turkey with the least favorable ratings for Hamas – Turkish humanitarian group IHH was the one which initiated the first Freedom Gaza flotilla.
According to the survey – Lebanon’s Islamic Resistance, Hizbullah, is more popular in Jordan (55%) than in Lebanon (52%) – followed by Nigeria (45%), Indonesia (43%), Egypt (30%), Pakistan (19%) and Turkey (5%). The PEW claims that Hizbullah support in Lebanon comes from Shia (94%), Sunni (12%) and Christians (20%). Interestingly, Thomas Friedman and Elliott Abrams’ Hasbara lies in the New York Times after the June 2009 election: “The majority of Lebanese have rejected Hezbollah’s claim that it is not a terrorist group.” The victory of March 14 “no doubt came as a huge relief to a good majority of Lebanese,” mused Claude Salhani. In fact, the Lebanese Opposition lead by Hizbullah received 53.4% of the votes against the pro-US March 14 ruling coalition headed by Sa’ad Hariri’s 43.4% votes. It’s the ‘religious seat quota’ which did not allow Hizbullah to form a government in Beirut.
Interestingly, PEW boys did not go to Iran, Malaysia or Syria – which are considered ‘home away from home’ for both Hamas and Hizbullah.
Friday, December 10, 2010
WikiLeaks Cables Show Deeper U.S. Military Role in Muslim World
McClatchy Newspapers
December 10, 2010 "Miami Herald" - - From the Saudi-Yemen border to lawless Somalia and the north-central African desert, the U.S. military is more engaged in armed conflicts in the Muslim world than the U.S. government openly acknowledges, according to cables released by the WikiLeaks website.
U.S. officials have struck relationships with regimes that generally aren't considered allies in the war against terrorism, and while the cables show U.S. diplomats admonishing the regimes to respect the laws of war, they also underscore the perils of using advanced military technologies in complex, remote battlefields with sometimes shifty friends.
Cables released this week indicate that the United States:
-Provided Saudi Arabia with satellite imagery to help direct airstrikes against Shiite rebels after earlier strikes resulted in civilian casualties.
-Collaborated with Algerian forces in 2006 and 2007 to capture militants allegedly bound for Iraq and, more recently, obtained permission to fly U.S. surveillance planes through Algerian airspace to hunt suspected al-Qaida members.
-Killed a militant Islamist leader in a 2008 airstrike in Somalia and, later, fielded requests from Somali officials to "take out" more suspected militants.
Experts said that the revelations of secretive American operations in Muslim countries could offer fodder to Islamist militants who accuse the United States of aggression against Muslims and of siding with authoritarian and unpopular regimes.
"This kind of feeds the al-Qaida narrative, that we're doing it everywhere," said Lawrence J. Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington and a former Pentagon official in the Reagan administration.
The Pentagon hasn't acknowledged its role in Saudi Arabia's sporadic fight against a Yemeni Shiite group known as the Houthi.
But a cable from the U.S. embassy in Riyadh says that in February, a senior Saudi defense official asked the U.S. for satellite maps of its border with Yemen to help the underequipped Saudi air force target the rebels, and the U.S. ambassador, James B. Smith, agreed.
A previous Saudi airstrike had hit a medical clinic, while another bombing run turned back when pilots learned that the target - selected by the Yemeni government - wasn't a rebel site but instead the headquarters of a political opponent of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The strikes "were necessarily being conducted without the desired degree of precision," said the Saudi official, Prince Khaled bin Sultan. When Smith produced a satellite image of the bomb-damaged clinic, bin Sultan suggested that his air force needed more advanced aircraft.
"If we had the Predator, maybe we would not have this problem," he said, referring to a drone aircraft the U.S. has used extensively in strikes on suspected terrorists in Pakistan and elsewhere.
The cable said that Smith agreed to furnish the Saudis with the satellite imagery because, while the Houthi clashes appeared to be dying down, the imagery would help Saudi forces keep a better eye on suspected al-Qaida activity in that area.
In the meeting, however, bin Sultan said that the more immediate priority for his government was reaching a cease-fire with Yemen and the Houthi.
"Then," the prince said, "we can concentrate on al-Qaida."
Peter Singer, the director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the center-left Brookings Institution in Washington, said the exchange illustrates the dangers of U.S. forces relying on local allies who have other objectives.
"There are no guarantees that our ally might not also use the tools against another of their enemies - indeed, they would be almost remiss not to," Singer said. "The end result is that you may get the action you may have wanted, but you also incur all sorts of unexpected side effects, including in these cases being drawn into local disputes that aren't fully in our strategic interests."
Cables also show that the U.S. military has established a partnership with Algeria to combat al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, one of the terrorist organization's most fearsome franchises.
In February 2008, U.S. officials in Algiers reported that they'd worked with Algerian military intelligence - a "prickly, paranoid group," according to a cable - to root out networks funneling dozens of militants to Iraq. However, the cable noted that Algerian authorities "do not like to discuss our cooperation" publicly, and that while the FBI had opened an office at the U.S. Embassy, "the Algerians are not rushing to cooperate."
Late last year, U.S. officials asked - and promptly received - permission to fly EP-3 surveillance aircraft through Algerian airspace to hunt militants. However, two months earlier, senior Algerian defense officials complained to a visiting U.S. diplomat that the U.S. military hadn't shared information from previous surveillance flights.
In Somalia, the Pentagon acknowledged at the time that a 2008 U.S. airstrike killed Aden Hashi Ayro, an Afghanistan-trained jihadist who U.S. officials thought was al-Qaida's "point man" in the East African nation. It remained unclear, however, whether the U.S. military was coordinating with Somalia's weak and unpopular transitional government, which has been battling al-Shabaab, the Islamist militia that Ayro led, since 2007.
A May 2009 account of a meeting between U.S. officials and the Somali prime minister didn't specifically refer to the Ayro strike, but it said that the Somali government thought such strikes were "necessary" and discussed a phone call two weeks earlier in which the country's prime minister had asked the U.S. to "take out" insurgents that Somali officials had learned were meeting in a remote southern town.
The cable was the result of a brief meeting between U.S. officials from the embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, and the Somali prime minister, Omar Sharmarke, who'd stopped over at Nairobi's airport on his way from the Somali capital, Mogadishu, to a meeting in Libya. The U.S. has no diplomats in Somalia.
During the meeting, Sharmarke mentioned that his May 16 phone call to U.S. military officials in Kenya asking for actions against the militants had been made with the consent of Somalia's President Sheikh Sharif.
Such strikes had angered the Somali population previously, however, and U.S. officials asked Sharmarke whether his government could withstand fallout from additional strikes "and their potential collateral damage."
The prime minister, the cable recounted, "without hesitation, said 'Yes.' "
(Source)
Advice to Muslims in Britain - Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi
From the poor servants of Allaah, your Brothers from Supporters Of Sunnah in Britain to their beloved and honorable Shaykh Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi and his Noble brothers and sisters from Tawheed wal Jihad,Assalaamu Aleykum wa Rahmatullaahi wa Barakatu,We ask Allaah that this message reaches you in a state of good health and rising Imaan Ameen
Our dear Shaykh, Allaah knows how much our hearts yearn to be with you and the Muslims there person whilst asking these questions, and our questions are many but the brothers feel shy to occupy your time with our affairs. Firstly, what is the situation of our beloved Shaykh, as some words have been spread here in Britain that the Shaykh May Allaah protects him has been arrested by the Tawagheet of Jordan? This news saddens us and makes our days sad and nights full of worry for our Honorable Shaykh and Muslim Brother. Please can give us the authentic news on the situation with our Shaykh.
Secondly, Our Dear Shaykh we a small group of Muslims, like many other Muslims in Britain who have risen in order to call society to the Tawheed, to reject all the Tawagheet on the earth and Worship Allaah exclusively, we call by grace of Allaah to the establishment of Khilafah and Supporting the Dawah and Jihad - How ever our dear many from our Brothers and Sisters from the Muslims have labeled us with having no Hikmah, because they say we should not speak out publicly in matters such as the leaders and authority or the jihad - because this will lead to our arrest without any real result and that is not Hikmah - But our concern and distress is that of these brothers and sisters attribute that methodology to you. And Shaykh Abu Qatadah(fakarallaah asra).This is why Oh Shaykh we write to you asking for advice and clarification.
Finally we humbley request of you Shaykh and the Muslims there to make dua that Allaah allows us and you to live as muslims from Ahl Sunnah wal Jamma\'ah/Taifah Mansoorah and grants us places in Jannah next to each other in the Akhirah Ameen. Your Brothers in Islaam Abu Rumaysah, Abu Abbas and Abu Nusaybah fromwww.supportersofsunnah.com
Our beloved brothers, May Allah reward you for your noble letter.
Regarding what you asked about our imprisonment and the constrictions upon us then it’s a matter that we have become used to and something we have trained ourselves on, and its always renewed therefore we don’t know about which of them you ask about, and in any way this is the taxes and duties that comes along for everyone that carries this Dawah and who aids the jihad and the Mujahideen openly under the shadows of the new world wars against Islam that we live under. In Sahih Bukhari it's mentioned that Waraqah bin Nawfal said to out beloved prophet saws since the dawn of the prophet-hood: "no man came with what you came with except that he was shown enmity." So this is the virtues of the people of Tawhid, and it’s the standard of the truth of following this path and the scales of following the Millah of Ibrahim and the path of the prophets, and we give you the good news that despite all the constrictions and interrogations and continues imprisonment and chasing and being monitored only makes us firm on the covenant by the willing of Allah, and we wont change and we wont sack of or resign and we ask you to make duaa for us.
Regarding the method of your Dawah that you asked about then its part of this introduction and we have explained that in our old essay that we called "Millat Ibrahim" and its widespread and translated by the grace of Allah into many languages, and we have made evident in it the most important foundations and the greatest duties of the Dawah of the prophets and they are the milestones of this Dawah and the strongest bonds, that no man who comes with it except that he will feel the enmity.
And nobody wants to conceal the Dawah and call to it except the one who is foolish to himself or someone who conceals it out of fear and weakness, and the last is not allowed to disapprove of the one who calls to it openly and is willing to bear its consequences, and it's not permissible for him to let him down or to rebuke his actions or to distort and disapprove of him. But the duty on him if he isn’t capable of what his brother is doing is to make duaa for him with firmness, victory and aiming and maybe by that he is participating in the reward instead of him striving to let him down and weaken him and get the heavy load of sins. And you may Allah reward you shouldn’t be affected by the likes of their betrayal and remember what came in the description of the saved sect that will remain by the will of Allah that (they wont be harmed by those who contradict and betrays them).
And what you mentioned about the Tawaghit and the leaders and those in order and the idols and the misguided sects, if it's with the intention of repelling it and warning from following them and to expose their falseness and to belittle their rules and laws and to clarify their injustice, then that is from the pure Millah of Ibrahim and the Dawah of the prophets and messengers. And in the description of the Kuffar by the khalil (close friend) of Al-Rahman, Ibrahim peace and blessings be upon him:" They said: "We heard a young man talking (against) them who is called Ibrahim (Abraham)." And the meaning of (talking against them) in this ayah came explaining the prophets saws adherence to the call of Ibrahim and to clarify the description of the Kuffar of Quraish to his call by them saying also what's mentioned in the Quran:" And when those who disbelieve (in the Oneness of Allah) see you (O Muhammad) they take you not except for mockery (saying): "Is this the one who talks (badly) about your gods? " While they disbelieve at the mention of the Most Beneficent (Allah)
And the purpose of mentioning their gods is what they used to describe the prophet saws with, saying that he used to be little their gods and made fun of their dreams and insult their fathers, and this was truly the Dawah of the prophet saws that his opponents summarized with these clear words. As his Dawah used to founded on declaring the Tawhid and to be free from the shirk and belittling their gods and clarifying that they don’t harm or benefit and doesn’t deserve to be worshiped besides Allah, but he didn’t curse their fathers a sheer curse as it may seem from their sayings, but between the misguidance of their fathers and the ignorance of their minds in worshiping idols that doesn’t harm or benefit and their deviance from the Tawhid.
And they saw that as cursing of their fathers, as we see today how many ignorant people see the true Dawah of the prophets as comparing the Dawah of the prophet saws as belittling the current idols and being free from the earthly Tawaghit, they see that as contrary to wisdom and damaging for the Dawah and the likes that they deem suitable with their minds. And we have explained all of the above in the book we referred to. But we should also explain as we mentioned that the one who calls to Dawah should avoid sheer cursing even to their idols and what they worship and their Tawaghit if that brings a bigger evil as Allah said: "And insult not those whom they (disbelievers) worship besides Allah, lest they insult Allah wrongfully without knowledge."
As it is not from the guidance of our prophet saws to curse and swear that wont cause any benefit or gain for the Dawah to Tawhid, and it is the duty on the one who wants to follow the path of the Dawah of the prophets and messengers to adopt their manners and to adhere to their seerah as in that they will find success in both worlds, and he shouldn’t be a curser or vulgar and indecent and repel people from the path of Allah with his bad manners. Contemplating the seerah of the prophet saws and his method of Dawah to the people according to their differences and maintaining their levels leads you to wisdom and intelligence in Dawah.
Looking into the prophetic policy and what he saws took into consideration in his and his companion's time of weakness, and his choices in all the different stages of his Dawah and giving preponderance to the Islamic benefits and his looking into what it could lead to and its consequences all of that aids the one giving Dawah and gives him success in his choices and his method, so follow that and in that you will find what's sufficient and the cure and prosperity from everything else and any other paths and new methods.
May Allah aid you our beloved brothers to what leads to the victory of the Tawhid and the religion and may Allah guide us all and not make us among the misguided.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
A Flood of Drone Strikes
By Fatima Bhutto
With governments like Pakistan’s current regime, who needs the strong arm of the CIA? According to Bob Woodward's latest bestseller Obama’s Wars, when Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari, an obsequiously dangerous man, was notified that the CIA would be launching missile strikes from drones over his country’s sovereign territory, he replied, “Kill the seniors. Collateral damage worries you Americans. It doesn’t worry me.”
Why would he worry? When his wife Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan in 2007 to run for prime minister after years of self-imposed exile, she was already pledged to a campaign of pro-American engagement. She promised to hand over nuclear scientist and international bogeyman Dr. A.Q. Khan, the “father” of the Pakistani atomic bomb, to the International Atomic Energy Agency. She also made clear that, once back in power, she would allow the Americans to bomb Pakistan proper, so that George W. Bush’s Global War on Terror might triumph. Of course, the Americans had been involved in covert strikes and other activities in Pakistan since at least 2001, but we didn’t know that then.
This has been the promise that has kept Zardari, too, in power.
According to the recent cache of State Department cables released by Wikileaks, his position and those of his colleagues in government haven’t wavered. In 2008, for example, Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani enthusiastically told American Ambassador Anne Paterson that he “didn’t care” if drone strikes were launched against his country as long as the “right people” were targeted. (They weren’t.) “We’ll protest in the National Assembly,” Gilani added cynically, “and then ignore it.”
In fact, protests by the National Assembly have been few and far between and yet, by the end of November, Pakistani territory had been targeted by American unmanned Predator and Reaper missile strikes more than 100 times this year alone. CIA drone strikes have, in fact, been a feature of the American war in Pakistan since 2004. In 2008, after Barack Obama won the presidency in the U.S. and Zardari ascended to Pakistan's highest office, the strikes escalated and soon began occurring almost weekly, later nearly daily, and so became a permanent feature of life for those living in the tribal borderlands of northern Pakistan.
Barack Obama ordered his first drone strike against Pakistan just 72 hours after being sworn in as president. It seems a suitably macabre fact that, according to a U.N. report on “targeted killings” (that is, assassinations) published in 2010, George W. Bush employed drone strikes 45 times in his eight years as President. In Obama’s first year in office, the drones were sent in 53 times. In the six years that drone strikes have been used in the fight against Pakistan, researchers at the New America Foundation estimate that between 1,283 and 1,971 people have been killed.
While the dead are regularly identified as “militants” or “suspected militants” in newspaper stories and on the TV news, they almost never have names, nor are their identities confirmed or faces shown. Their histories are always vague. The Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) took a careful look at nine drone strikes from the last two years and concluded that they had resulted in the deaths of 30 civilians, including 14 women and children. (Perhaps, of course, superior American military intelligence classified them as “militants in training.”) Based on this study, an average rate of error can be calculated: 3.33 civilians mistakenly killed in each drone attack. The dead, Pakistanis will assure you, are largely unnamed, faceless, unindicted, and un-convicted civilians.
Pakistanis are considered irrelevant, however, and collateral damage, as it turns out, doesn’t seem to worry anyone in the governing elite.
Think of it this way: this summer, monsoon rains and floods submerged one-fifth of Pakistan, affecting 20 million people. It was the country’s worst natural disaster in its history. Although the body count, under the circumstances, was considered comparatively low -- 2,000 killed -- the United Nations concluded that the destruction caused by the floods surpassed the devastating Asian tsunami of 2004, the Pakistan earthquake of 2005, and the recent earthquake in Haiti combined. Two million homes were destroyed and the crucial food belt in the key agricultural provinces of Punjab and Sindh was ravaged. Millions of children were left homeless or at risk of contracting cholera, dysentery, and other water-borne diseases. According to the World Heath Organization, 1.5 million potentially fatal cases of diarrhea and another two million cases of malaria are still expected.
During what U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon termed the worst disaster he’d ever seen, with the country desperate and prostrate, the CIA launched its most extensive drone campaign yet. Over the 30 days of September, as Islamabad rushed to assure Washington that it would not divert too many troops from the war effort to help with flood relief, 20-odd drone strikes were called in. They would produce the highest number of drone fatalities for a single month in the last six years.
In 2009, in one of the many State Department cables Wikileaks loosed on the world, U.S. Ambassador Anne Paterson confirmed that key player and Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Kayani directed his forces to aid those American drone strikes. Various U.S. operations in the country’s northern and tribal regions were, the ambassador wrote, “almost certainly [conducted] with the personal consent of… General Kayani.”The Pakistani media has welcomed the release of the State Department documents because much that reporters and pundits have long claimed (and which Washington has long denied) has now been confirmed: that, for instance, the mercenary private contractor Blackwater (now known as Xe Services) has been operating in Pakistan at the behest of the Americans, that the country’s military high command has given the green light for drone strikes on its own people, and that the infamously corrupt government of President Zardari has turned the country over to the Americans in exchange for money.
Pakistan already receives approximately two billion dollars in military aid a year, and that’s just for the army. Under the Kerry Lugar Bill passed by the U.S. Congress, if Pakistan plays nice, opens up its nuclear secrets, and the Army’s internal documentation on how it selects the Chief of Army staff and other matters, the country will get $7.5 billion dollars of “civilian aid” over five years -- and this is just the tip of the financial iceberg, which, of course, offers the present leadership the chance to extend their incompetent rule just a little longer.
One newspaper baron and government chamcha -- apple polisher in Urdu -- became the laughing stock of the country’s new media when he went on television to suggest that revelations about how Pakistan’s government had lied to its people, subverted its national sovereignty, and coordinated foreign attacks didn’t faintly measure up to those about leaders in other countries. Look at Berlusconi!
The Pakistani political establishment has always believed that the West is best. It has, after all, been the ultimate source of their power and so, on December 3rd, Prime Minister Gilani called a meeting of the Joint Chiefs, the Defense Minister, and various cabinet ministers, including the Finance Minister, to discuss the Wikileaks scandal and strategies for dealing with any potential embarrassments in yet-to-be-released cables. (Lie, undoubtedly. It worked so well before.)
Tariq Ali, the Pakistani writer and historian, reacted to the Wikileaks revelations swiftly and with a frustration and anger felt by many Pakistanis. “The Wikileaks,” he wrote, “confirm what we already know: Pakistan is a U.S. satrapy. Its military and political leaders constitute a venal elite happy to kill and maim its own people at the behest of a foreign power. The U.S. proconsul in Islamabad, Anne Patterson, emerges as a shrewd diplomat warning her country of the consequences if they carry on as before. Amusing, but hardly a surprise, is that Zardari reassures the U.S. that if he were assassinated, his sister would replace him and all would continue as before. Always nice to know that the country is regarded by its ruler as a personal fiefdom.”
Still, that elite carries on with little sense of the grim absurdity of recent events. As the Wikileaks documents pour out, various members of parliament are queuing up to have their names put forward as possible replacements for the prime minister. Since the only person capable of replacing the president is his sister, there’s no need for debate there.
Like many military chiefs in the past, General Kayani is putting forward his own set of favored names, overstepping the official limits of his office with impunity, while the unelected dark overlord of the government, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, has been offering himself for another unelected posting.
Malik came to public notoriety as Benazir Bhutto’s security adviser -- until her assassination. The job of policing the nation was always a peculiar reward to offer a man who couldn’t keep his one charge safe. Malik, for whom President Zardari issued a presidential pardon and who had all corruption charges against him dropped under the National Reconciliation Ordinance (an odious law pardoning 20 years worth of graft carried out by politicians, bankers and bureaucrats) was also given a senate seat by his friend the president.
Zardari, it is worth noting, did not stand for elections either, has no constituency, and was made president in the very same manner as Pakistan’s previous ruler General Pervez Musharraf: he was selected by his own parliament.
What will Pakistan’s elite learn from Wikileaks? Undoubtedly nothing. And if we’re going by the White House’s response so far, nor will Washington feel more constrained than it ever has when it comes to choosing its allies and running the South Asian arm of its informal global empire.
The Zardari government makes no secret of its gratitude for American support. They have, after all, watched as a foreign power bombs its land, illegally detains or renders its citizens, and turns a blind eye to Pakistan’s flagrant censorship and abuse of human rights.
This obeisance to power is the key to Zardari’s American engagement. And so it will remain. While we wait for Wikileaks to reveal the rest of the cables, which are unlikely to have any bearing on Washington’s future dealings with the corrupt governments of Zardari in Pakistan or President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan (or anywhere else for that matter), we watch as American officials argue for expanding their drone attacks southwards into the natural-gas-rich province of Balochistan. That it shares a border with Iran hardly seems a coincidence.
The Zardari regime’s essential acquiescence has recently been acknowledged via a multi-year “no strings attached” offer of a military aid package by Washington. At the height of the devastation wreaked by the summer floods, the Health Secretary of Balochistan and the Deputy Chairman of the Pakistani Senate both alleged that aid could not be airlifted out of an air base in the city of Jacobabad on the border between Sindh and Balochistan, two flood ravaged provinces, because it was being used by the Americans for their drone strikes in Pakistan. The American embassy issued a swift and suitably hurt-sounding denial, but the damage was done -- and the message was clear: the war against Pakistan continues unabated, with its own government at the helm.
Johann Hari: How Goldman gambled on starvation
By now, you probably think your opinion of Goldman Sachs and its swarm of Wall Street allies has rock-bottomed at raw loathing. You're wrong. There's more. It turns out that the most destructive of all their recent acts has barely been discussed at all. Here's the rest. This is the story of how some of the richest people in the world – Goldman, Deutsche Bank, the traders at Merrill Lynch, and more – have caused the starvation of some of the poorest people in the world.
It starts with an apparent mystery. At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly and stratospherically. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent. In a global jolt of hunger, 200 million people – mostly children – couldn't afford to get food any more, and sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in more than 30 countries, and at least one government was violently overthrown. Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, calls it "a silent mass murder", entirely due to "man-made actions."
Earlier this year I was in Ethiopia, one of the worst-hit countries, and people there remember the food crisis as if they had been struck by a tsunami. "My children stopped growing," a woman my age called Abiba Getaneh, told me. "I felt like battery acid had been poured into my stomach as I starved. I took my two daughters out of school and got into debt. If it had gone on much longer, I think my baby would have died."
Most of the explanations we were given at the time have turned out to be false. It didn't happen because supply fell: the International Grain Council says global production of wheat actually increased during that period, for example. It isn't because demand grew either: as Professor Jayati Ghosh of the Centre for Economic Studies in New Delhi has shown, demand actually fell by 3 per cent. Other factors – like the rise of biofuels, and the spike in the oil price – made a contribution, but they aren't enough on their own to explain such a violent shift.
To understand the biggest cause, you have to plough through some concepts that will make your head ache – but not half as much as they made the poor world's stomachs ache.
For over a century, farmers in wealthy countries have been able to engage in a process where they protect themselves against risk. Farmer Giles can agree in January to sell his crop to a trader in August at a fixed price. If he has a great summer, he'll lose some cash, but if there's a lousy summer or the global price collapses, he'll do well from the deal. When this process was tightly regulated and only companies with a direct interest in the field could get involved, it worked.
Then, through the 1990s, Goldman Sachs and others lobbied hard and the regulations were abolished. Suddenly, these contracts were turned into "derivatives" that could be bought and sold among traders who had nothing to do with agriculture. A market in "food speculation" was born.
So Farmer Giles still agrees to sell his crop in advance to a trader for £10,000. But now, that contract can be sold on to speculators, who treat the contract itself as an object of potential wealth. Goldman Sachs can buy it and sell it on for £20,000 to Deutsche Bank, who sell it on for £30,000 to Merrill Lynch – and on and on until it seems to bear almost no relationship to Farmer Giles's crop at all.
If this seems mystifying, it is. John Lanchester, in his superb guide to the world of finance, Whoops! Why Everybody Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay, explains: "Finance, like other forms of human behaviour, underwent a change in the 20th century, a shift equivalent to the emergence of modernism in the arts – a break with common sense, a turn towards self-referentiality and abstraction and notions that couldn't be explained in workaday English." Poetry found its break with realism when T S Eliot wrote "The Wasteland". Finance found its Wasteland moment in the 1970s, when it began to be dominated by complex financial instruments that even the people selling them didn't fully understand.
So what has this got to do with the bread on Abiba's plate? Until deregulation, the price for food was set by the forces of supply and demand for food itself. (This was already deeply imperfect: it left a billion people hungry.) But after deregulation, it was no longer just a market in food. It became, at the same time, a market in food contracts based on theoretical future crops – and the speculators drove the price through the roof.
Here's how it happened. In 2006, financial speculators like Goldmans pulled out of the collapsing US real estate market. They reckoned food prices would stay steady or rise while the rest of the economy tanked, so they switched their funds there. Suddenly, the world's frightened investors stampeded on to this ground.
So while the supply and demand of food stayed pretty much the same, the supply and demand for derivatives based on food massively rose – which meant the all-rolled-into-one price shot up, and the starvation began. The bubble only burst in March 2008 when the situation got so bad in the US that the speculators had to slash their spending to cover their losses back home.
When I asked Merrill Lynch's spokesman to comment on the charge of causing mass hunger, he said: "Huh. I didn't know about that." He later emailed to say: "I am going to decline comment." Deutsche Bank also refused to comment. Goldman Sachs were more detailed, saying they sold their index in early 2007 and pointing out that "serious analyses ... have concluded index funds did not cause a bubble in commodity futures prices", offering as evidence a statement by the OECD.
How do we know this is wrong? As Professor Ghosh points out, some vital crops are not traded on the futures markets, including millet, cassava, and potatoes. Their price rose a little during this period – but only a fraction as much as the ones affected by speculation. Her research shows that speculation was "the main cause" of the rise.
So it has come to this. The world's wealthiest speculators set up a casino where the chips were the stomachs of hundreds of millions of innocent people. They gambled on increasing starvation, and won. Their Wasteland moment created a real wasteland. What does it say about our political and economic system that we can so casually inflict so much pain?
If we don't re-regulate, it is only a matter of time before this all happens again. How many people would it kill next time? The moves to restore the pre-1990s rules on commodities trading have been stunningly sluggish. In the US, the House has passed some regulation, but there are fears that the Senate – drenched in speculator-donations – may dilute it into meaninglessness. The EU is lagging far behind even this, while in Britain, where most of this "trade" takes place, advocacy groups are worried that David Cameron's government will block reform entirely to please his own friends and donors in the City.
Only one force can stop another speculation-starvation-bubble. The decent people in developed countries need to shout louder than the lobbyists from Goldman Sachs. The World Development Movement is launching a week of pressure this summer as crucial decisions on this are taken: text WDM to 82055 to find out what you can do.
The last time I spoke to her, Abiba said: "We can't go through that another time. Please – make sure they never, never do that to us again."
Inside Story - Protecting Sudan's oil
For comprehensive background info please listen to this:
There was a recent election in Sudan, and the issue of Darfur and the arrest warrant for Oma Bashir has recently come to the press again. Additionally, there are several email’s and requests coming in for you to cover this issue. Brother, can you give us a breakdown of the situation in Sudan and elaborate on what the Islamist movements could do with regard to this traditionally Muslim land inshallah?
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Two-third Afghans want Taliban’s return: Poll
WASHINGTON - Almost two-third of Afghans are willing to accept deal allowing Taliban leaders to hold political office in the war-torn country, according to a new poll.
The poll released Monday also shows that Afghan confidence in US military operations to secure the country is dropping while Afghan support for the insurgency is rising. After a big drop last year, more than a quarter of Afghans again say attacks against US and other foreign military forces are justifiable.
Afghans indicated that they were pessimistic about the direction of their country and less confident about the US-led coalition troops, according to results of a poll conducted for The Washington Post, ABC News, the BBC and ARD television in Germany.
More than a half of Afghans said the US and NATO forces should begin withdrawing from the country in mid-2011 or sooner. A year ago, 61 percent of Afghans said they supported the deployment of 30,000 additional US troops.
while the new poll indicated 49 percent support the move, with 49 percent opposed.
Moreover, more than a quarter of Afghans said attacks against US and other foreign military forces were justifiable. Overall, about 75 percent of Afghans said they believe their government should negotiate with the Taliban, and nearly two-third indicated a willingness to accept a deal allowing Taliban leaders to hold political office.
The poll found support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai remains strong, despite allegations of corruption. About 65 percent of Afghans rated Karzai’s leadership as good or excellent, compared with 72 percent in 2009.
The number of people who blame US forces for violence rose from 5 percent last year to 14 percent this year, while the number blaming the Taliban fell from 42 percent to 33 percent, the survey indicated.
Results are based on in-person interviews with a random national sample of 1,691 Afghan adults Oct 29-Nov 13 by the Afghan Centre for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research in Kabul. The margin of errror is 3.5 percentage points.
"David Letterman: Agent of Influence", Saudis use MBC to passify population
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 RIYADH 000651
SIPDIS
NOFORN
DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/ARP (JHARRIS), R (MARK DAVIDSON), NEA/PPD (WALTER
DOUGLAS)
EO 12958 DECL: 10/20/2050
TAGS PGOV, PHUM, PTER, ECON KISL, SA
SUBJECT: IDEOLOGICAL AND OWNERSHIP TRENDS IN THE SAUDI MEDIA
Classified //David Letterman, Agent of Influence//
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
The Charade of Israeli-Palestinian Talks
President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel leave through the doorway in the Cabinet Room of the White House, as the president walks the prime minister to his car following their meetings, July 6, 2010. (Photo: Pete Souza / Official White House Photo)
Monday 06 December 2010