U.S. surge in Afghanistan launches reign of terror

U.S. officer: ‘You have to show up at their door … and start killing people’

Afghans rebuild a home destroyed by a U.S. airstrike, Tarok Kolache, 2011.

By Brian Becker, National Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition

“You can’t just convince them through projects and goodwill,” another Marine officer said. “You have to show up at their door with two companies of Marines and start killing people. That’s how you start convincing them.”

This was the comment made by a Marine officer to the Washington Post for its April 16 story about “signs of progress” for President Obama’s surge strategy in southern Afghanistan.

The officer was discussing how the U.S. strategy succeeded in the signing of a security pact between elders of the Alikozai area in southern Afghanistan and the U.S.-backed Karzai government.

Many hundreds of young men from the Alikozai area were killed in an onslaught by U.S./NATO troops in months leading up the agreement, according to the Washington Post account.

“We started stacking bodies like cordwood,” said an officer in Sangin, who like other Marines asked for anonymity to speak frankly. “And they came to a point where they said, ‘Holy [expletive], there aren’t that many of us left.’ ”

The Washington Post is an enthusiastic supporter of the expanding war in Afghanistan. The newspaper editorial policy insists that the war is necessary for an improvement in the lives of average Afghans.

Like other U.S. corporate-owned media outlets, the Post pretends that the U.S. counter-insurgency strategy is aimed at winning the hearts and minds of impoverished Afghan villagers. Its own reports about war strategy, however, reveal that the Pentagon cares as much about Afghan villages as it did about those in Vietnam that were razed and burned by U.S. troops to “save them” from falling under the control of Vietnamese communists.

In this recent story, the Post approvingly explains why it was necessary for a battalion of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division to completely destroy the village of Tarok Kolache after seven U.S. soldiers were killed and 70 others wounded in the first 100 days of an operation in the Arghandab district of Kandahar province last July:

… [I]nstead of sipping tea, [Lt. Col. David] Flynn decided to strike back.

An initial target was the village of Tarok Kolache, a collection of about a dozen mud-brick, multi-family housing compounds surrounded by pomegranate orchards. Video from surveillance aircraft indicated that the village had been vacated, save for insurgents who were manufacturing homemade explosives in the walled-off courtyards.

The Post carries before and after pictures of the entirely flattened village. “U.S. B-1B Lancer and A-10 Warthog jets conducted repeated bombing runs. A new ground-launched artillery rocket system also pelted the enclave. All told, almost 25 tons of ordnance was dropped on Tarok Kolache,” the Post states.

The U.S. war in Afghanistan is a terrorist enterprise. By employing these tactics of terror, the Pentagon seeks to force Afghan peasants to end their resistance to foreign occupation. They are succeeding in creating oceans of suffering among people, most of who have never heard of the World Trade Center or the September 11 attacks. In fact, a 2010 survey conducted by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) showed that 92 percent of 1,000 Afghan men surveyed in Helmand and Kandahar provinces knew nothing of the hijacked airliner attacks in 2001.

The real goal of the operation is not to “protect the American people.” Rather, it is to create a network of permanent military bases in an energy-rich and geostrategically important region that the U.S. Empire has targeted for enduring domination. The U.S. effort can kill thousands of Afghans and destroy their villages but it will not succeed in liquidating the resistance of the people. From Vietnam to Afghanistan—the Pentagon Brass have learned nothing.

Donald Trump "Arab Countries Wouldn't Even Exist If It Weren't For Us!"

Iraq Troop Talks Falter

Prepare Yourself for the grave - Sheikh Maqdisi (Press cc for subtitles)

The US swallowed these cups of tea to justify its imperial aims

NOTE: I found this article very close to the sentiments I held as the Mortenson scandal unfolded.... I think it is a good read from the Guradian today ...

In the mid-90s an American nurse, Greg Mortenson, was sleeping in his car to save rent so he could fulfil a promise he made to build a school in remote northern Pakistan. Fifteen years later, his book of his epic journey, Three Cups of Tea, has been in the US bestseller list for more than four years; thousands attend his speaker events; he has raised millions for his charity, and built hundreds of schools in the Gilgit-Baltistan region. His book was top of the reading list for US troops deploying to Afghanistan.

It was an extraordinary story – until this week, when it was dismantled in the US programme 60 Minutes and in an ebook by one of Mortenson's former supporters, Jon Krakauer. Mortenson has admitted to "some omissions and compressions" while largely defending his work. But his myth has fallen apart with such astonishing speed that every- one is left wondering how on earth it persisted for so long.

Mortenson's feet of clay expose far more than one fantasist: they also reveal a lot about the naivety of Americans concerning the world and their role in it. No one questioned him too closely, and, more importantly, no one listened closely enough to what the Pakistanis themselves had to say: the unravelling of the Mortenson fable has come as no surprise there. Even in such a highly connected world, some forms of information still don't travel and certainly make no headway against the word of an American hero. Americans swallowed his tale because they wanted to. What empires – particularly those involved in violent conflict – need, above all, is heroes.

Making Mortenson a credible hero means traducing the whole region of Gilgit-Baltistan which, in his script, becomes a wild region of extremist Islamism drawn to violent terrorism. Time and again, he braves personal danger to follow his dream. His big pitch for the last 15 years is that schooling will divert potential terrorists: a "one-man peace mission" in the war on terror. By this account, the insurgency in Afghanistan/Pakistan is not political opposition to foreign intervention but a form of false consciousness inculcated in the madrassas. Get to the child early enough and they will grow up good democrats. It's ludicrously naive given that all the 9/11 bombers were highly educated.

Even more importantly, it has no relevance in Gilgit-Baltistan, which is a peaceful, predominantly Ismaili region whose inhabitants see the Paris-based Aga Khan as their spiritual leader. There is a strong Tibetan Buddhist influence.

Rather than Mortenson waging a lonely battle against ignorance, the Aga Khan Development Network has been building hundreds of schools in the region and has a track record of staffing them and keeping them open. As the Pakistani journalist, Rina Saeed Khan, points out, Gilgit-Baltistan has one of the highest literacy rates in Pakistan. She asks, quite rightly, why Mortenson didn't join forces with the network given their experience and expertise, instead of struggling desperately to work it all out for himself.

But an American putting money into a foreign-sounding aid foundation doesn't quite have the same marketing appeal as the "one-man mission" line that captures perfectly the boom in DIY aid: a new wave of fledgling agencies driven by individuals frustrated and impatient with bureaucracies and politics, who launch their bid to "make a difference". A myth which turns development into an amateur's hobby.

To every age, their own type of hero: the British empire had Gordon of Khartoum in the 1880s, and the Americans have Mortenson. He is the gentle giant of a man who stumbles into exotic and dangerous locations of which he knows little, and makes friends. This is the innocent abroad – an image of America in the world that is also evident in Mortenson's rival in the New York Times bestseller lists in the last few years, Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love.

These hugely popular tales portray a deeply consoling myth of how the US engages with the world as these adventurous individuals wander through foreign climes, and in their expansive, endearing way want only to bring as much delight in their interactions with the locals as they experience themselves. Both books share the personal crisis/failure which is resolved by finding a new self (through a new sense of meaning or love) abroad: in both, the individual's emotional quest is the starting point and provides the narrative thread. These are knowable characters who effectively explain the exotic to home audiences. They offer homely, charming myths for an empire currently embroiled in deadly protracted wars, rather as Rudyard Kipling's fables delighted a previous age of imperialists.

But perhaps the most intriguing – and most serious – aspect of the Mortenson myth is that his "one-man mission to bring peace" is a continuation of a western drive to "civilise" the world. His parents were Lutheran missionaries in Tanzania. Mortenson describes grinding poverty and ancient tribal customs: it's a patronising form of orientalism.

Above all, Mortenson has talked about women's empowerment and his pledge to get girls into schools. Women need liberating from the oppressive tribal patriarchy. There is nothing original here – US foreign policy is now stuffed with the rhetoric of women's rights – but Mortenson has helped popularise one of the most astonishing conundrums: feminism has been co-opted as a rationale for the US war on terror. It dangerously justifies and confirms an American self-righteousness in central Asia.

Democracy Now finally Realizes the Enemy! Well Almost

This is a must listen-to interview and is perhaps the first time Amy Goodman had a chance to actually confront the Financial Empire located on the City of London... unfortunately, she twisted it into a partisan issue and wanted to concentrate on Mitt Romney as an isolated scenario and of course the guest didn't propose waging war against the usurers as a legitimate war propagated vehemnetly in the Quran... unfortunately as well most Muslims don't have an inkling of the enemy they are actually facing either and so its hard to criticise AMy Goodman and Democracy Now with the majority of us in complete delusion as well... I was quite shocked to see this type of work coming from Democracy Now... we've been talking about these realities for quite sometime and its not that people can disagree with our propositions, its just that they've never heard them before and don't even know what an offshore tax haven is, let alone the shady reality of the City of London and its intimate historical connections to Wall Street.. Nevertheless, here is to economic education... without it we fail and should take to the mountain path (looking better and bettrer each day actually)... All should pay attention in this interview to two key points... 1) he applauds Bretton Woods, (something retarded Austrians and their Islamist adherents oppose and 2) he discusses the Wall Street flight to the City of London and back again to set up a new monetarist system they destroyed in 1971 - we'll talk about these soon as things move forward with Muhattir ibn Muhammad and his supporters in the Muslim world... until then please educate yourselves and trust in Allah but tie your camels...   

There is no Substitute for the Shariah of Allah

Freeing the Captives

Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu,

Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu wassalam ala rasulillah,

This is a reminder again to attract your attention towards some people who are more beloved to ALLAH than us and are being tested by him, I wonder how many have taken action since reading this last time.

It has been narrated by Saeed through his chain from Hibban bin Jabalah, that the Messenger of Allah (SAWS) said: “Indeed it is obligatory upon the Muslims to free their captives or to pay their ransoms.”

Ibn Qudamah Al-Hanbali said (Al-Mughni 9/228):
It is obligatory to pay the ransom money for the Muslim prisoners, if it is possible.
This was also said by Umar bin Abdul-Aziz, Imam Malik and Ishaq. It has been narrated from Ibn Zubair that he asked Al-Hassan bin Ali about freeing the prisoners. Al-Hassan replied: “It is obligatory upon the entire Earth on which he was fighting.”

Sheikh-ul-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said (Al-Fatawa 28/635):
Freeing the prisoners is one of the greatest compulsory deeds and spending ransom money and other means towards that, is one of the greatest ways to come close to Allah.

Abu Dawud mentions the hadith narrated by Abu Talha Al-Ansari and Jabir Bin Abdullah, that the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said, “No man forsakes a Muslim when his rights are being violated or his honour is being belittled except that Allah will forsake him at a place in which he would love to have His help. And no man helps a Muslim at a time when his honour is being belittled or his rights violated except that Allah will help him at a place in which he loves to have His help”.

By the blessing of ALLAH azzawajal we all are living in the comforts of our home we can go where we want and do what we like but there are people who are our dear brothers and sisters that are imprisoned and are alone sitting in between 4 closed walls and they have no one to talk to they are seperated from their families and kids and at times abused and tortured or killed.

Abu Musa reported the Messenger of ALLAH(S.A.S.) saying “A believer is like a brick for another believer, the one supporting the other. The Prophet then clasped his hands with the fingers interlaced (while saying that).” (Bukhâri 3 /626 and Muslim 4/6257)

The Messenger of ALLAH(S.A.S) said that we are a single body, if one part feels suffering the whole body is restless.

Is not the Muslim the brother of a Muslim? "...he does not forsake him, nor despise him."

So don’t wait and go grab your pen or the keyboard and let them know that you care about them. I will make a list of points here in all the possible ways you can help them whether you are brother or sister.

1) Raise your hands towards the heaven and make dua and dua and dua, do not under esitmate the power of the dua especially the dua of the oppressed, beg ALLAH and plead him and ponder upon the situation of the prisoner while making dua of how they are feeling in the 4 closed walls which would make you cry and humble yourself.

some of the best times to make dua are
i) Right after the completion of Fard salah

ii) third part of the night

iii) During your prostration
iv) Between asr and maghrib on Jummah
v) Between Adhan and Iqama.

And when My slaves ask you (O Muhammad SAW) concerning Me, then (answer them), I am indeed near (to them by My Knowledge). I respond to the invocations of the supplicant when he calls on Me (without any mediator or intercessor). So let them obey Me and believe in Me, so that they may be led aright. [Quran 2:186]

Is not He (better than your gods) Who responds to the distressed one, when he calls on Him, and Who removes the evil, and makes you inheritors of the earth, generations after generations? Is there any ilah (god) with Allah? Little is that you remember! [Quran 27:62]

Here are some duas that might help inshALLAH.

i) ALLAHumma fukka qayda asrana wa asral-muslimeen (O ALLAH! Break free the shackles of our prisoners and the prisoners of the Muslims)

ii) ALLAHumma innahum fi hajatin 'ajilatin ila rahamatik fa anzil alayhim rahamatika Ya Rahmanu, Ya Raheem (O ALLAH! They are in urgent need of Your Mercies. so send upon them Your Mercies. O Most Merciful, O Most Kind)

iii) ALLAHumma man adhahum fa adhihi, wa man adahum fa adihi (O ALLAH! Whoever has harmed them, then harm him)

Also if you can use the specific names of prisoners in the dua to help them

Abu Hamdun had a scroll on which was written the names of 300 of his close friends, and he used to supplicate for them – one by one – every single night. One night, he went to sleep without doing so. So, in his sleep, he heard a voice saying: “O Abu Hamdun, why did you not light your lamps this evening?” So, he woke up, and lit his lamp, and began supplicating for each and every name on the list until he completed it.”

(Narrated Abu Abdullah bin Al-Khattab)


2) Write a mail to the prisoners as I have said already how much it means to a prisoner to get a letter from someone who cares for him so please do write,
Here is the list of prisoners with their addresses (Make sure you also write the Prisoner ID Number/DetNumber on the envelope)

UK prisoners list http://www.helptheprisoners.org/prisoners/uklist.pdf
US Prisoners List http://www.helptheprisoners.org/prisoners/usalist.pdf
Europe Prisoners List http://www.helptheprisoners.org/prisoners/europelist.pdf

Others countries http://www.helptheprisoners.org/index.php?cat=prisoners

You can also email the prisoners there is a website which allows emailing only for UK prisoners and they charge a small amount please check it out here http://www.emailaprisoner.com/

People outside US who wants to send a mail to prisoners in US brothers please email tonasrullahikareeb@gmail.com and sisters email to peacethrutruth11@gmail.com

Please make sure you abide by the following guidelines while writing the mail:
i) please do not talk politics because the mail might not reach the prisoner or it might even put the prisoner in difficult situation.
ii) Please do not talk to the prisoner about his or her case in the mail
iii) you can probably search for Quranic ayats regarding patience and steadfastness and use those ayah whichever one is applicable.


3) Be concerned with the situation of the prisoners and let others know about them, you can check the news regarding the prisoners from these websites
http://www.helptheprisoners.org
http://www.cageprisoners.com/
http://www.qassam.ps/prisoners.html (For Palestinian prisoners)
http://www.justiceforaafia.org/

and there are many other websites.

4) If you know of any families of the prisoners , please try to go visit them and also encourage you wives to visit the wives of the prisoners and take your kids to play with their kids so they you minimize the phsychological effect the kids have due to their missing father or mother and also help them financially.

5) Help the prisoners families financially with whatever you can inshaALLAH.

6) The last but not the least but the most important thing and the highest priority is to join the Mujahideen and defend the Ummah .

[Quran 4:75] And why should ye not fight in the cause of Allah and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)?- Men, women, and children, whose cry is: "Our Lord! Rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will protect; and raise for us from thee one who will help!"


After posting all these possible ways to help the prisoners I don’t think myself and you have any excuse from helping the prisoners.

And do not postpone or procrastinate “DAYS GONE WILL NEVER RETURN” and you don’t want to be jealous seeing the reward that ALLAH gives to the oppressed on hereafter, here is the chance to reap the benefits and get high rewards.

courtesy sista fee.sabelillah

Shaykh Omar Abd ArRahman - Our Role In Islaam!

(O Allah, forgive him, bestow Your Mercy on him and let him join with the exalted companions.”)

Ameen

Jama'a al-Islamiya protests in front of US Embassy for release of Omar Abdel Rahman

(Source)

Hundreds of Jama'a al-Islamiya members and leaders organized a protest near the US Embassy in central Cairo to demand the release of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman from a US prison.

Abdel Rahman was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of seditious conspiracy against the US government for a New York City bomb plot.

Well-known Islamists Aboud al-Zumor and Montaser al-Zayat were among the protesters.

The US Embassy in Cairo issued a statement denying the alleged ill-treatment of Abdel Rahman and said he has not been prevented from contacting his family. Abdel Rahman "is receiving proper medical care and is frequently being given the right to communicate with lawyers, either through personal interviews or over the phone," according to the statement.

The embassy went on to explain that Abdel Rahman and others were convited after extensive investigations conducted by US authorities in 1993 revealed a plot to blow up several sites in New York City, including the United Nations Headquarters, the Federal Plaza building, and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, in addition to planned assassinations of a number of prominent political figures.

The embassy also issued a statement asking US citizens in Egypt to exercise caution and stay away from the embassy and from Tahrir Square lest the protest turn violent.

Translated from the Arabic Edition

The Ladder of Shaytaan 1 - Sheikh Abu Adnan

Please check the link for others parts IA.

Dollar Replacement Beat Goes On ... and On

Dollar Replacement Beat Goes On ... and On

Expert: U.S. should 'give up on the dollar' – The push to replace the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency has been gaining steam, with one expert arguing that America "must give up on the dollar." In a Financial Times op-ed, Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Peking University, said U.S. policymakers should lead the charge to create a more diverse reserve system, "in which the dollar is simply first among equals." The dollar has been the dominant reserve currency for decades, with central banks and other institutions around the world amassing vast reserves. Pettis argues that this has resulted in dangerous trade imbalances that threaten to destabilize the global economy. – CNN

Dominant Social Theme: Get rid of the dollar and all will be well. An "expert" says so.

Free-Market Analysis: This article from CNN comments on an editorial that just appeared in the Financial Times, which like the Economist magazine, tends to enunciate the positions of the Anglo-American power elite. It confirms our suspicions once again that Western elites have in mind swapping out the dollar, and maybe sooner rather than later. The idea of course is that if Western elites can create something closer to a one-world currency, global government itself becomes a considerably more realistic proposition.

The ramifications of course are profound. But there is no way to accomplish such a move without launching a huge promotional effort. This seems to us just what is going on. The larger populations especially of the West must get used to the idea of a new currency and thus, almost every day (or week) we hear of a new initiative aimed at weakening or otherwise "broadening" the dollar reserve system and eventually replacing it.

George Soros just hosted a dollar-replacement summit that he called a new "Bretton Woods." It didn' t really make headlines but it wasn't supposed to. Its existence was the big story, and it got loads of ink leading up to the letdown of the summit itself. The International Monetary Fund has taken to issuing white papers explaining how its SDRs can be turned into a true world currency complete with a real bond market. The BRICS, as we reported yesterday, are meeting regularly to create their own currency swaps that exclude the dollar. And now, in upcoming meetings the G20 (meeting again!) are to take up the issue of the dollar's shaky footing.

We find the whole thing increasingly contrived, as we have stated before. The dollar in our view was purposefully destabilized by the US Federal Reserve and by the Bush administration via serial wars, aggressively low interest rates and Bush's strange habit of endlessly refusing to veto expansive legislation. Anyone who studies the Bush presidency can see a trend leading the US economy into economic oblivion.

Now why would the President of the United States want to do such a thing? Well, if your family has elite connections going back generations (as the Bush family does) and if Western elites want to create a global government, they need to move the world from a series of disparate currencies to just one – and in order to do that, the dollar reserve itself must be undermined.

Of course, those involved aren't simply going to come out one day and announce that the new world order demands a new currency and therefore policies have been put in place to undermine the dollar (and perhaps the euro as well, new as it is).

No, it will be done, as so much is these days, furtively. The dollar will be destabilized softly, over an extended period of time along with America's national sovereignty. And in order to acclimate people to what is happening, various groups and editorialists will continually comment on upcoming changes. It is quite possible to categorize this recent FT editorial as one such desensitizing gambit.

In his editorial, Pettis (an economics professor in Peking of all places) rolls through the whole rusty paradigm of dollar replacement. Of course that's just the point. Promotions don't seek to be original. They're supposed to be repetitive – that is how dominant social themes morph into memes. Thus Pettis repeats for the umpteenth time that "countries such as China have been able to 'game the system' by stockpiling dollars, which has allowed them to grab a larger share of global demand for goods and services."

He points out predictably (and incorrectly), that money instability has reduced currency availability within the United States and thus jobs (that's not true) and flowed to "red hot" job markets in developing economies elsewhere in the world. The United States, he writes, then has to make a Hobbesian choice between printing more money (adding to the deficit) and "stimulating" the economy or opting for a more fiscally conservative approach that will leave unemployment consistently high.

Never mind that we hear over and over again that the US job situation is improving (it likely is not). The dollar reserve system actually collapsed in 2008 and had to be revived by an incomprehensible injection of some US$20 to US$50 trillion in loans and other sorts of dollar funding schemes – not just in the US but also around the world.

While the dollar system was propped up for a time, it is probably beyond salvage. The job situation in the US is terrible (not because of currency flows as Pettis argues) because the whole economic system is so distorted that it is impossible to tell a healthy company from an unhealthy one. Businesses don't want to hire and people are yet reluctant to spend.

Even if this situation changes, economic health will not improve much because central banks around the world will then have to raise rates and otherwise "sterilize" the world's economy of its massive dollar overhang. Rates go up and economic vigor, what there is of it, begins to recede. This can go on for years.

Pettis also runs through the usual options when it comes to the dollar's replacement. He examines the euro, before discarding the idea and then takes a look at the International Monetary Fund's SDRs. In fact, we have come to believe that Western elites dearly wish to replace the dollar with some sort of SDR derivative. Here's some more from the CNN commentary:

The global monetary system and the dollar will be discussed this weekend as finance officials from the Group of 20 economies gather in Washington for the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The dollar found some support Friday as investors turned cautious ahead of possible policy changes stemming from this weekend's summit. "Today's risk will come from sideline comments from the G20 and IMF meetings as well as the deluge of U.S. data," said Camilla Sutton, chief currency strategist at Scotia Capital. Investors are also focused on the outlook for global interest rates, as central banks adjust to rising inflation.

We wrote yesterday about the orchestration of world events when it comes to the BRICS, and how orchestrated this economic "threat" seems. We argued, hypothetically anyway, that the Western elites are still calling the shots and we would argue the same thing regarding the "dollar crisis." The BRICS are working on their own version of a dollar replacement, one that's perhaps gold-backed and the IMF is elaborating on SDRs.

It doesn't take a genius to see that at some point an additional crisis can be manufactured for the express purpose of pressuring the two sides to sit down at the table together and merge their approaches into one single currency. We don't know if the euro will be involved, or if perhaps the euro will be used to trigger a larger currency crisis but every time another article or white paper comes out on the issue, our suspicions are raised.

Conclusion: The IMF has been especially thorough with recent reports while cautioning that a replacement for the dollar is perhaps decades away. We used to believe that ourselves but these days we tend to believe the opposite of what elite institutions say. If the IMF is presenting the SDR as an alternative to the dollar "reluctantly," then its institutional stance is more likely an eager one. And if such changes can only occur tectonically over decades than we would tend speculate that they are more likely only years or even months away.

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The Great Arab Awakening

Revolution and Confusion

By PATRICK COCKBURN

(source)

Cairo

Egypt is filled with signs of an unfinished revolution. Politics and everyday life are in a state of flux. Even the skylight high in the ceiling of the Cairo Museum, through which thieves entered at the height of the uprising, has not been mended. The robbers lowered themselves by rope and stole items discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamun, including a gold military trumpet. They might have taken more treasures had they not been diverted by the museum gift shop, where they looted cheap but gaudy copies of ancient Egyptian artefacts which they found more attractive than the shabbier originals.

The robbers' confusion about what to do when they found the museum unguarded and at their disposal, is mirrored by that of government and protesters after the fall of Hosni Mubarak. All are conscious that a political earthquake has taken place, but somehow those who have misruled Egypt for decades are mostly still in place. Mubarak may have gone, but Egypt is now run by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, consisting of 18 generals led by Field Marshal Mohamad Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak's defense minister for 20 years.

Some in Cairo gloomily mutter "plus ça change", or knowingly quote the famous lines from The Leopard, Lampedusa's tale of revolution in Sicily: "everything must change so that everything can remain the same". It is easy to see why this is cited when Egyptians see the torture of suspects continuing, along with military courts that have tried 5,000 people since the revolution, sentences often handed down after 10-minute trials. Maikel Nabil, a 26-year-old blogger, received three years for criticizing the army.

But the past week has shown how difficult it is for the army to retain political credibility in a newly politicized country unless it meets protesters' demands. Mubarak was arrested on April 13 with his two sons, Alaa and Gamal. The army council says that sentences passed on young protesters will be reconsidered. Every time it resists change, its members equivocate and make concessions.

So far, the generals have not felt strong enough to behave otherwise, so long as they are pretending there has always been a big divide between Mubarak's corrupt dictatorship and state institutions such as the armed forces. Of course the two were indissolubly linked and the slogan "the army and people are one", shouted by protesters in Tahrir Square, was primarily a plea for soldiers not to shoot. The military are keen to disclaim responsibility for recent events, though many Egyptians see that it is the army that has ruled them, mostly badly, for 60 years.

The army's convenient fiction about its role is not entirely false. It is important to grasp one significant feature of the governments now reeling under the impact of the Arab Awakening. The regimes under threat mostly started off as military dictatorships brought to power by army coups. But by the mid-1970s military regimes throughout the Arab world had evolved into police states in order to coup-proof themselves. Rulers kicked away the military ladders they had climbed to power. In Egypt, army officers retained privileges such as clubs, luxurious housing, a cut of profitable business, and effective legal immunity. But in terms of real power they lost out to the mukhabarat, as the security and intelligence services are generally called.

The pattern was the same throughout the Arab world. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein was determined that nobody else was going to ride to power on the top of an army tank. After becoming president in 1979, power was concentrated in his extended family, the ferocious security services, and the Ba'ath party. In Libya, Muammar Gaddafi went a step further, after his unsuccessful war in Chad in the 1980s, when he largely dissolved the Libyan army.

I have spent the past 10 days in Libya and before that I was in Egypt. The differing course of the Arab Awakening in each country is significant. In Egypt, as in Tunisia, the establishment felt it could stay in business if it let the Mubarak and Ben Ali regimes go. In Cairo, there is talk of what "began as a revolution ending up in a military coup", since it was the army that finally forced out Mubarak. In Libya, as in Syria, the regime and the state could not be divided. Disaffected members of the establishment, such as the head of Special Forces Abdul Fattah Younis and foreign minister Moussa Koussa, had to defect rather than try to replace Gaddafi from within.

Absence of a professional army in Libya means that the rebels have to rely on long-retired soldiers to train new recruits. At the 17 February Camp in Benghazi last week a grizzled former sergeant, Nuri Tawi, who had retired 22 years ago after service in Lebanon, Chad and Rwanda, was trying without much success to show several dozen young men how to load a machine gun. Gaddafi has more trained troops but not enough to take and hold cities such as Ajdabiya and Misrata.

Over the past 20 years the Arab police states became quasi-monarchies with elderly rulers seeking to hand on power to their sons. Benghazi is littered with the abandoned projects of Gaddafi's sons, such as the palatial, almost completed Regency Hotel. Gaddafi's regal pretensions did not prevent him insisting on study of his Green Book's radical adages. Not surprisingly, the centre where it was studied, an attractive white crown-like structure, is burnt out. One Benghazi resident complained: "My cousin had to re-do a whole three-month term of his computer engineering course because he failed the section on the Green Book."

The political landscape is changing in North Africa and the Middle East both within states and in their relations with the outside world. In Egypt, any new government is likely to be less close to the US and Israel. In Libya, the opposition is weak militarily, but Gaddafi is likely to go down because of the strength of Nato backing for the rebels. It is dubious if foreign domination of an oil state such as Libya will ebb away after Gaddafi and his family have gone.

The strength of the rebels in east Libya is their skill in marrying mass protest to the requirements of the media. Demonstrations in front of the town hall and elsewhere in Benghazi are much better organized than their military manoeuvers.

But there is something deeply hypocritical about the concern shown by Nato and the Arab monarchies of the Gulf over the fate of Libyan rebels, when they ignore or promote savage repression in Bahrain. The majority Shia community is being systematically disenfranchised, deprived of jobs, its parties dissolved, and its leaders arrested and tortured. In response, there is hardly a bleat out of the US or Nato whose leaders are so eager to bring democracy to Libyans. It is reasonable to regard cynically the humanitarian pretensions of foreign leaders and the reformist zeal of Egyptian generals, but radical change is already with us because tens of millions of previously apathetic people have been politicized and some of the world's nastiest police states turned out to be more fragile than anybody expected.

Patrick Cockburn is the author of 'The Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in Iraq' and 'Muqtada! Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia revival and the struggle for Iraq'.

Influential scholar criticizes Salafi movement | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today's News from Egypt

Influential scholar criticizes Salafi movement | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today's News from Egypt

NOTE:

I suppose by "change to accomadate new issues" he means letting Russian rapists have their way with Chechan women, eating riba all over due to darura, drinking just a little bit of whiskey, and listening to your favorite pop star... this man is a fraud... by the way it was the Ikhwan that said nothing to support the 25 January movement... salafis are only speaking out now because for once Qaradawis allies wont rape them in prison... of course he's doing the best he can to return that status quo - - - we tell this proponent of Qatar World Cup but enemy of the mujahideen, you are an enemy - hands down --- May Allah give you what you deserve...

The prominent Islamic scholar Youssef al-Qaradawi leveled severe criticism at Egypt's Salafi movement, describing its thinking as both stagnant and extreme.

Al-Qaradawi, who heads the International Union of Muslim Scholars, blamed the rise of Salafis on the absence of a genuine role for the moderate Islamic institution Al-Azhar.

Salafi groups have called for drafting laws based on the Quran and the Prophet Mohamed’s teachings. Though they have abstained from politics in the past, Salafi leaders announced they were considering a political role following the 25 January revolution.

Until the 1970s and prior to leaving Egypt, al-Qaradawi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He considers himself a moderate Islamic scholar.

In an interview with Al-Masry Al-Youm, he accused Salafis of adhering to literal interpretations of the Quran and tradition, even though religious fatwa should change to accommodate new issues. Muslims should not be confined to the interpretations contributed by scholars from past eras, he said.

Al-Qaradawi added that the Salafi movement opposed the 25 January revolution and accused the revolutionary youth of deviating from Islam by disobeying authority. "Strangely enough, they now present themselves as the heroes of the revolution and its defenders," he added.

Egyptians have lost their confidence in Al-Azhar, he said, because its scholars obeyed the old oppressive regime.

Al-Qaradawi said Egyptians want a civil, democratic and pluralistic state that respects religions but upholds Islam as the official religion of the state and the source of legislation and guidance.

Gold Prices: Gold Breaks $1,500 as Investors Seek Security - CNBC

Gold Prices: Gold Breaks $1,500 as Investors Seek Security - CNBC

Gold rose above $1,500 an ounce on Wednesday for the first time ever as the dollar wilted, oil rose, worries over the U.S. economic outlook boosted demand for the metal as a haven and rising inflation lifted Asian demand.

AP

The Reuters-Jeffries CRB index was on track for its biggest one-day gain in a fortnight as commodity prices rallied.

Spot gold [XAU= 1500.9399 7.04 (+0.47%) ] hit a high of $1,505.40 an ounce and was last bid around $1,501 an ounce, against $1,493.90 late in New York on Tuesday.

U.S. gold futures [GCM1 1503.20 8.10 (+0.54%) ] for June delivery were last quoted around $1,503.

Silver tracked gold higher, extending a stellar performance that has seen the grey metal outperform other precious metals this year. Silver [XAG= 45.14 1.25 (+2.85%) ] hit a 31-year high at $44.79 an ounce and was later bid at about $44.73 against $43.89.

Gold prices are up 5 percent in April and look set to extend gains as the metal's appeal as a haven from risk was boosted by talk that Greece may have to restructure its debt and Standard & Poor's threat to downgrade America's triple-A credit rating.

"Gold has been acting as a currency in its own right, and that is why we are up at $1,500," said Simon Weeks, head of precious metals at the Bank of Nova Scotia. "There is an awful lot of bad news in the price. The S&P comment the other day has given us the final kicker to get up here."

While investors in the United States and Europe are seeing the metal chiefly as a safe store of value and a hedge against currency devaluation, stronger inflation and rising consumer incomes in China and India are also boosting demand there.

"The theme of longer term higher inflation than we have seen in the last 10 years in China is a pretty solid view, so gold is going to be an asset class that is probably going to be more in favor in China than it has been in the past," said Macquarie analyst Hayden Atkins.

China is the world's second-biggest gold consumer behind India, as well as being the biggest producer.

Rising Oil, Weaker Dollar

In the short term, losses in the dollar on Wednesday are supporting the precious metal above $1,500 an ounce. The dollar is usually sold off when risk appetite firms, as reflected in a rise in stock markets on Wednesday.

The dollar slid to its lowest in 15 months against the euro as the single currency was boosted by higher risk appetite and after a bond auction from Spain was well received by investors.

Weakness in the dollar boosts gold's appeal as an alternative asset and makes dollar-priced commodities cheaper for holders of other currencies. Gold priced in euros and sterling remained off recent highs on Wednesday.

Oil prices also recovered, rising back towards the multi-year highs they hit earlier this year as unrest in the Middle East and North Africa sparked fears of a supply outage.

Higher oil prices tend to benefit gold, both because they can boost commodities as an asset class and lift interest in gold as a hedge against oil-led inflation.

The gold:silver ratio — the number of silver ounces needed to buy an ounce of gold -- meanwhile fell to its lowest since 1983 below 34.

"The last time silver was this expensive in relation to gold was almost 28 years ago," said Commerzbank in a note. "Both precious metals are still reaping the benefit of the news of recent weeks and days."

Platinum was last near $1,800.99 an ounce against $1,761.50, while palladium was last bid around $754.97 against $726.95.

What "Humanitarian Aid" really Looks like???

BRICS Have Potential to Emerge as New Power - CNBC

Secret Memos Expose Invasion of Iraq (taken from www.khilafah.com)

Secret Memos Expose Invasion of Iraq

Tuesday, 19 April 2011 17:45

Independent 

Plans to exploit Iraq's oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world's largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show.

The papers, revealed here for the first time, raise new questions over Britain's involvement in the war, which had divided Tony Blair's cabinet and was voted through only after his claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

The minutes of a series of meetings between ministers and senior oil executives are at odds with the public denials of self-interest from oil companies and Western governments at the time.

The documents were not offered as evidence in the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the UK's involvement in the Iraq war. In March 2003, just before Britain went to war, Shell denounced reports that it had held talks with Downing Street about Iraqi oil as "highly inaccurate". BP denied that it had any "strategic interest" in Iraq, while Tony Blair described "the oil conspiracy theory" as "the most absurd".

But documents from October and November the previous year paint a very different picture.

Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq's enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair's military commitment to US plans for regime change.

The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP's behalf because the oil giant feared it was being "locked out" of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.

Minutes of a meeting with BP, Shell and BG (formerly British Gas) on 31 October 2002 read: "Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis."

The minister then promised to "report back to the companies before Christmas" on her lobbying efforts.

The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq "post regime change". Its minutes state: "Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity."

After another meeting, this one in October 2002, the Foreign Office's Middle East director at the time, Edward Chaplin, noted: "Shell and BP could not afford not to have a stake in [Iraq] for the sake of their long-term future... We were determined to get a fair slice of the action for UK companies in a post-Saddam Iraq."

Whereas BP was insisting in public that it had "no strategic interest" in Iraq, in private it told the Foreign Office that Iraq was "more important than anything we've seen for a long time".

BP was concerned that if Washington allowed TotalFinaElf's existing contact with Saddam Hussein to stand after the invasion it would make the French conglomerate the world's leading oil company. BP told the Government it was willing to take "big risks" to get a share of the Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world.

Over 1,000 documents were obtained under Freedom of Information over five years by the oil campaigner Greg Muttitt. They reveal that at least five meetings were held between civil servants, ministers and BP and Shell in late 2002.

The 20-year contracts signed in the wake of the invasion were the largest in the history of the oil industry. They covered half of Iraq's reserves – 60 billion barrels of oil, bought up by companies such as BP and CNPC (China National Petroleum Company), whose joint consortium alone stands to make £403m ($658m) profit per year from the Rumaila field in southern Iraq.

Last week, Iraq raised its oil output to the highest level for almost decade, 2.7 million barrels a day – seen as especially important at the moment given the regional volatility and loss of Libyan output. Many opponents of the war suspected that one of Washington's main ambitions in invading Iraq was to secure a cheap and plentiful source of oil.

Mr Muttitt, whose book Fuel on Fire is published next week, said: "Before the war, the Government went to great lengths to insist it had no interest in Iraq's oil. These documents provide the evidence that give the lie to those claims.

"We see that oil was in fact one of the Government's most important strategic considerations, and it secretly colluded with oil companies to give them access to that huge prize."

Lady Symons, 59, later took up an advisory post with a UK merchant bank that cashed in on post-war Iraq reconstruction contracts. Last month she severed links as an unpaid adviser to Libya's National Economic Development Board after Colonel Gaddafi started firing on protesters. Last night, BP and Shell declined to comment.

Iraq's burgeoning oil industry

Not about oil? what they said before the invasion

* Foreign Office memorandum, 13 November 2002, following meeting with BP: "Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP are desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity to compete. The long-term potential is enormous..."

* Tony Blair, 6 February 2003: "Let me just deal with the oil thing because... the oil conspiracy theory is honestly one of the most absurd when you analyse it. The fact is that, if the oil that Iraq has were our concern, I mean we could probably cut a deal with Saddam tomorrow in relation to the oil. It's not the oil that is the issue, it is the weapons..."

* BP, 12 March 2003: "We have no strategic interest in Iraq. If whoever comes to power wants Western involvement post the war, if there is a war, all we have ever said is that it should be on a level playing field. We are certainly not pushing for involvement."

* Lord Browne, the then-BP chief executive, 12 March 2003: "It is not in my or BP's opinion, a war about oil. Iraq is an important producer, but it must decide what to do with its patrimony and oil."

* Shell, 12 March 2003, said reports that it had discussed oil opportunities with Downing Street were 'highly inaccurate', adding: "We have neither sought nor attended meetings with officials in the UK Government on the subject of Iraq. The subject has only come up during conversations during normal meetings we attend from time to time with officials... We have never asked for 'contracts'."