Back in 2001, almost everyone misinterpreted my comment sometime after 9-11 that whoever planned it had the right to protest but I disagreed with its execution. Yet the moderate Muslim clerics in America soon decried it.
Ever since then, the mainstream media (MSM) has filtered out their response and provided what I perceived as unfair commentary. What rankled me the most was the Russian Orthodox church taking a Crusader attitude to it.
Then the US government led a neo-Crusader war in Afghanistan and later in Iraq. I call these conflicts neo-Crusader because the optics in the Middle East and most Muslim countries is colored by religion.
According to Muslim claims, one reason 9-11 happened because of one US military base on Saudi soil. The result of this is the current Islamic State in northern Iraq, and the radicalization of individuals in the West sympathetic to the jihadi cult and its extremism, worldwide.
Not all of this war is positive: the Taliban, al Qaeda, and even the Islamic State are barely contained.
FWIW I view in general terms the conflict in the Middle East as a global conflict where secularism and its variety of consumerism versus the political extremism that I call "the jihadi cult."
To call it radical Islam may be mistaken, since the MSM have filtered out the historical justification that the jihadi cult makes, which paints it as a continuation of the Crusades but with American secularism having replaced the Catholic church as defenders of Western values.
After reading about the Jordanian pilot being burned alive by the Islamic State, I heartily agree with the Jordani call to "wipe them out."
However, it is because of the oil wells in Syria that that conflict continues; it is because of the pipeline across Afghanistan that region may see more conflicts with the Taliban; and it is because of the pipeline from Russia into the Ukraine that is behind that conflict.
No nation is willing to admit to that. Even the US government will censor it. Instead, the Islamic State is a distraction as are the terrorist incidents in America, in the UK and even in Canada.
So is the Charlie Hebdo attack, the killing of a British soldier in the UK, the Bostom Marathon bombing, and the bombings in London. The MSM will never expose the fact that our worldwide oil supply is running out is the main reason for these conflicts.
Instead, the pretext for the conflicts (the West's demand for oil and its consumption) will be discounted as conspiracy theory.
Meanwhile, the propaganda against Islam continues unabated, despite the fact that most of the propaganda is too a distraction from the truth: the jihadi cults of al Qaeda, Islamic State and the Taliban are no longer tacitly supported by most moderate Muslim clerics. Ergo, the Islamophobes' fear mongering is no cause for concern, for it only feeds into the fears of right-wing conservatives without balancing it with the simple fact that most Muslims are not blood-thirsty terrorists.
Even Salafi Muslims are distancing themselves from the Islamic State.
Radical Islam is the threat, but not one MSM outlet will suggest bombing those oil wells that the Islamic State own. That is because the conflict is over oil and who owns it.
Update: February 13, 2015
Perhaps the Noble Qur'an in Surat Al-Baqarah, specifically Surah 2:6-21 (Shakir translation) best sums up extremist groups such as Al Qaeda, Islamic State and the Taliban as well as their allies in Nigeria and in Kenya.
Surely those who disbelieve — whether you warn them or not, it is the same to them — will not believe. God has set a seal upon their hearts and upon their hearing and there is a covering over their eyes, and there is a great punishment for them.
There are some people who say: "We believe in God and the last day"; and they are not at all believers. They desire to deceive God and those who believe, but they deceive only themselves and they do not perceive.
There is a disease in their hearts, so God added to their disease and they shall have a painful chastisement because they lied. When it is said to them, "Do not make mischief in the land," they say: "We are but peace-makers."
Now surely they themselves are the mischief makers, but they do not perceive. When it is said to them: "Believe as the people believe," they say: "Shall we believe as the fools believe?" Now surely they themselves are the fools, but they do not know.
When they meet those who believe, they say: "We believe;" and when they are alone with their Shaitans, they say: "Surely we are with you, we were only mocking." God shall pay them back their mockery, and He leaves them alone in their excessiveness, blindly wandering on.
These are they who buy error for the right direction, so their bargain shall bring no gain, nor are they the followers of the right direction. O men! serve your Lord Who created you and those before you so that you may guard against evil.
This quote is in reference to Muslims, specifically extremists, and in it God admonishes the true believer in Islam to not "make mischief in the land" while declaring themselves peace-makers and reformers.
Apparently the extremists in the Islamic State claim to be serving God yet their acts speak for themselves: wanton acts of violence against innocent Christians, Muslims, Yazidis and humanitarian aid workers. This is not Shariah; this too is a mockery of Shariah.
Despite claiming to be Muslim, the Islamic State has mocked God while committing horrible acts of violence, contrary to Islamic law. It is no wonder that the whole world has decried what they did to the Jordanian pilot.
Because of this latest spectacle of violence, most Muslims have aligned with the West, specifically America, including Canada, Japan, the UK and also Jordan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and even Saudi Arabia — to name a few of the Middle East nations. Their religious leaders have condemned the violence, and their political leaders have sent personnel to bomb the extremists. Other nations have sent humanitarian aid.
Recently the Syrian Foreign Minister criticized the violation of Syrian air space by the Jordanians. He has also rejected plans by the West to send in ground troops on Syrian soil.
Since the Islamic State occupies both sides of the border between Syria and Iraq, it is expedient to deal with the imminent threat of the extremists and let the diplomats both Syrian and Jordanian to work out the rules of engagement.
As well, the lack of protection of humanitarian aid workers has led to kidnappings and murders by the Islamic State. This is sad and tragic for their surviving families, especially since innocent lives have been lost.
Earlier I have endorsed the opinion that Jordan should help wipe out the Islamic State. Now that the UAE is also stepping up to the plate to help defeat the extremists, this is both good news and bad news. The bad news: more innocent victims might be killed. This is a given, considering the ruthless violence that the Islamic State is capable of. As for the good news, it disproves the conservative fallacy that "all Muslims are not to be trusted."
For not all Muslims are terrorists.
Indeed, extremism and other acts of violence that lead to terrorism are the work of jihadi cult members who pretend to believe in God and violently carry out their version of Sharia as the only true law. Were they truly believers of God's Oneness, they would not excuse their violence against Muslims and non-Muslims by misquoting the Quran.
Instead, they would treat both Muslims and non-Muslims kindly. Indeed, the extremists commit acts of violence that invalidate their claims of being Muslims, for they have become a law unto themselves.
While this war could be shortened by taking out the oil wells and sabotaging the oil pipeline leading to Banias, Syria, both sides want to keep these assets from harm, lest pollution from burning raw oil contaminate the landscape. Most importantly, if oil assets are destroyed, the war may escalate into a scorched earth scenario that will lead to more innocent lives being lost.
Since neither side wants that to happen, we shall see the continuation of the endless war which began when the US government sent its troops to "liberate" Baghdad in 2003.
It is quite clear that the West wants Assad's oil. Heck, the West also wants Russia's oil, which explains the current Ukraine crisis.
So this endless war is not going to stop any time soon. Meanwhile, more home-grown terrorism in Asia, Europe, The Americas (Canada and the US) and even Australia and New Zealand will be uncovered in the future.
Originally posted Feb 7, 2015 at 1:14 AM PST
References:
Background on Islamic State: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant
The Oil Factor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oil_Factor
Drop in Oil Prices - News Junkie Press: http://newsjunkiepost.com/2015/02/07/a-discussion-about-saudi-arabia-will-isis-come-home-to-roost/
Muslim American associations and organizations that condemned 911:
http://gandhara.blogspot.com/2015/02/muslim-american-organizations-that.html
Quote from Quran: http://quran.com/2
Syrian Foreign Minister says Syria does not need help: http://www.cp24.com/world/syria-s-foreign-minister-says-country-doesn-t-need-help-battling-is-1.2227156
Syria rejects foreign ground troops to fight ISIS: http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/02/09/Syria-rejects-foreign-ground-troops-to-fight-ISIS-.html
Background on the Yazidis: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-28686607
Humanitarian aid worker dead: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31375445
Oil from Iraq and Saudi Arabia are moved through pipelines to Banias in Syria and Sidon and Tripoli in Lebanon. — page 226, The Arabs, Edward Atiyah
Showing posts with label Taliban. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Taliban. Show all posts
20141026
The Politics of Homegrown Jihadi (satire)
Radicalized Islam is more political than religious, and thus inspires a cult of homegrown jihadis with nothing to lose except their lives.
God Almighty has no mercy for the evil that men are capable of doing.
This is not Satan's work; the body count suggests that, despite their religious leaning, al Qaeda, Islamic State, Taleban, and other radicalized religious group including Army of God antiabortion radicals only hide behind the holiness of God himself.
For these men and women who radicalize may speak of God but their use of violence shows their materialist political activism to be a clear and present danger to society
As long as the West continues forcing its Crusade of Democracy on the Middle East, so shall we experience more attacks by lone wolf jihadi at home.
Yes, I am suggesting that the US foreign policy of forcing the Middle East to accept democracy is what is causing the Muslims to radicalize against it.
If you think the two reported incidents in recent months of radical Muslims killing Canadian soldiers had nothing to do with the Islamic State, then you are mistaken.
By trying to force democracy on Syria by tacit support of the rebels there, it became obvious that this was all a laughable cover for intrigue against Russia by the US which culminated in the Ukraine crisis.
However, the European Community is rallying around the supposed underdog, the Ukraine — controlled by a far right government — while Russia is only protecting its Russian citizens, many of whom had dual citizenship. The problem started when the new government wanted to enfranchise only Ukrainians.
In response, the far right elements of the Russian-Ukrainians rebelled, but both sides are right-wing. Very few Ukrainians and Russians are left-wing, who they view as criminals who should never hold power, due to the economic devestation that the Soviet government had caused in the Ukraine, including massive starvation.
However, the Ukrainian crisis is also a proxy war with the US government propagandizing to the Europeans and Russia aiming to protect its citizens.
All in all, both the Syrian and the Ukrainian crises are designed to polarize the world's people. The anti-Russian propaganda is almost as bad as the Russian propaganda but the Ukrainian counter-propaganda is just as bad.
As for Syria, its propaganda gets almost everything right but condones the corruption of top Syrian oligarchs. Likewise, Russia's leader Putin also condones the corruption of top Russian oligarchs with their billions being invested in the European Community.
It is only a matter of time before World War 3 flares up, should cool heads not prevail. However, what you see in each area — be it the Islamic State being carved out of northern Iraq this year, the Syrian crisis declares as of October 2011, and the Ukraine-Russia conflict — is merely the US-led West versus Russia with full support from China.
I guess the Cold War still is in its death throes, and the incident on September 11, 2001 was an aftershock with the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts a few tremors. A decade later, Arab Spring majorly affected Libya and Syria.
It is time America stopped caring about the Middle East so much that it thinks forcing democracy on Afghanistan, Iraq and now Syria will lead to peace. The resultant anarchy is a sure sign that democracy at gunpoint is not working.
Returning to the recent two incidents of homegrown terrorism in Canada, that is just karma for Harper sending 16 jets and 300 personnel to Kuwait. Nobody was surprised in Ottawa.
Remember that Kuwait also has a handful of al Qaeda veterans who were released from Gitmo not too long ago. So it is obvious that these former Jihadis are working for Kuwait, and most likely Canada and America are collaborators in a proxy war between the West and the Red axis (China and Russia).
Although it looks good to bomb northern Iraq in the news, the IS may likely be a puppet of the Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi axis, funded by oil money.
Overall, this makes us all complicit in the Middle Eastern problem every time people in the free world drive their SUVs to fill up at the gas pump. That is why I take the bus, because I have already paid for my portion of the gas to run that bus in advance. ;)
NEWS UPDATE: the Ottawa gunman purported by PM Harper and mainstream media to be a possible terrorist are false and defamatory.
M. Zehaf-Bibeau was not a homegrown terrorist — al-Qaeda, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and the Taleban have a tendency to lie to support their cause. I am sure Osama bin Laden did it after 9-11, which is evidenced by his first video denying involvement, but later changing his tune when he saw the effect it had on the stock market.
It looks like Zehaf-Bibeau did not get help for his addictions and mental health issues in 2011 as he demanded, simply because the homeless and poor are rejected by most drug rehabilitation centres due to their profit mentality e.g. drug rehab for profit.
At the street level, very few major cities in Canada are willing to cough up public money to put addicts requesting treatment into a treatment program, mainly because most homeless addicts in rehab will walk away because they lost the ability to await positive changes, which can take up to three or more years.
If M. Zehaf-Bibeau had entered a treatment centre for the homeless, there is a good chance that he would have gotten kicked out within a week. Therefore, this article has me bleeding heart a-going.
Therefore Ottawa's shooting scare is because their hands are not clean of how they treat the homeless addicts daily. Indeed, karma is a bitch - too bad three people had to die. May they all rest in peace.
Reference:
20140309
The Cat Has Rabies (satire)
Meeting with President Bush in 2001, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, an ally of Saddam Hussein at the time, offered to mediate a resolution between the United States and Iraq. There is an Arab proverb, the New York Times reported the Yemeni president as saying. If you put a cat into a cage, it can turn into a lion. Mr. Bush responded that he had no intention of reconciling, a senior administration official said.
"This cat has rabies," Mr. Bush said, referring to Mr. Hussein, and then added with a bluntness that was said by officials in the room to have shocked Mr. Saleh, "The only way to cure the cat is to cut off its head."
My opinion is the cat was given rabies in the form of military aid by America and earlier the UK. This is a pattern of UK and later American involvement in the Middle East that is tied to oil.
Indeed, Big Oil in the hands of the West and dominated by America is thus a threat to the Middle East and Muslim nations in Africa, according to Al Qaeda. Hence the ISIS' takeover of oil assets in Syria. This also explains the rebels in Libya, their takeover of oil assets in three ports, and the North Korean oil tanker.
NATO's limited role in the Libyan Civil War in 2011 and the failure of the US State Department to secure its embassy in Benghazi a year later are directly related to the current troubles in Libya today. Libya itself is slowly breaking up with not only ethnic tension arising from the Berber community of western Libya but also among Arab tribal clans based on the three classical provinces of ancient Libya: Tripolitania in the west, Cyrenaica in the east and Fezzan in the south.
With rebels holding wells in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, the situation has deteriorated due to political infighting due to the machinations of the Muslim Brotherhood. Due to decades of the Qaddafi regime playing tribes against each other, and bribing a tribe to achieve political dominance here and there, the Libyan people are extremely weary of dictatorships. Their peaceful demonstrations in Tripoli had only turned violent due to militants' presence in the protests earlier last month.
Meanwhile, the military aid given to Israel by America to ensure its survival has resulted in criticism in the Middle East by Muslim nations and is a direct cause of the rise of pan-Arab nationalism and later pan-Muslim nationalism within the region and other hotspots both in Africa, South Asian and Southeast Asia.
Both the Afghanistan and Iraq situation only led to the rise of the al Qaeda armn ISIS to be established in Iraq, only to be exported to Syria after Arab Spring went horribly wrong there. In the case of Syria, the corruption of the Assad regime is well known, especially its exploitation of the Lebanese Civil War in the 1970s and invasion of part of south Lebanon by Israel. Indeed, Syria impoverished Lebanon during that time until it left in 2005.
Thus Assad may consider himself the savior of the Levant, yet he is only the protector of corruption and extortion. It would be interesting to see how Lebanon deals with the many Syrians who automatically became Lebanese citizens between 1980 and 2000, seeing as their citizenship was illegal due to Syrian dominance of northern Lebanon.
Back in Yemen, the "rehabilitation" of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula consists of using the militia to rout out Sunni militancy in south Yemen that favors pan-Arabian nationalism over the republican ideals of the central hegemony in Sana'a. Yemeni government uses oil dollars to bribe tribal clans in northern Yemen. In this way, the Shi'a north is placated to moderate militancy while the Sunni south is forced to accept al Qaeda ideology (pan-Muslim nationalism) at gunpoint.
Here is what the difference between pan-Arab nationalism and pan-Muslim nation is: the former is a united Arab organization that is nominally Muslim but promotes a secular government (think of the failed UAR of Egypt and Syria) while the latter is a worldwide caliphate which considers the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan to be a dupe of America, promoting Sharia law based on tribal customs rather than on the Quran.
Given that Al Qaeda has submitted authority to the Taliban, and that the Taliban originate in Pakistan, it is interesting to note that Yemen is the hotbed of al Qaeda militants due to the drone attacks there. For it is they who aid the ISIS forces in Iraq and in Syria, along with militants from the Maghreb and elsewhere in the world.
Ah, the karma of Cold War politics in Afghanistan is biting us in the ass!
"This cat has rabies," Mr. Bush said, referring to Mr. Hussein, and then added with a bluntness that was said by officials in the room to have shocked Mr. Saleh, "The only way to cure the cat is to cut off its head."
My opinion is the cat was given rabies in the form of military aid by America and earlier the UK. This is a pattern of UK and later American involvement in the Middle East that is tied to oil.
Indeed, Big Oil in the hands of the West and dominated by America is thus a threat to the Middle East and Muslim nations in Africa, according to Al Qaeda. Hence the ISIS' takeover of oil assets in Syria. This also explains the rebels in Libya, their takeover of oil assets in three ports, and the North Korean oil tanker.
NATO's limited role in the Libyan Civil War in 2011 and the failure of the US State Department to secure its embassy in Benghazi a year later are directly related to the current troubles in Libya today. Libya itself is slowly breaking up with not only ethnic tension arising from the Berber community of western Libya but also among Arab tribal clans based on the three classical provinces of ancient Libya: Tripolitania in the west, Cyrenaica in the east and Fezzan in the south.
With rebels holding wells in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, the situation has deteriorated due to political infighting due to the machinations of the Muslim Brotherhood. Due to decades of the Qaddafi regime playing tribes against each other, and bribing a tribe to achieve political dominance here and there, the Libyan people are extremely weary of dictatorships. Their peaceful demonstrations in Tripoli had only turned violent due to militants' presence in the protests earlier last month.
Meanwhile, the military aid given to Israel by America to ensure its survival has resulted in criticism in the Middle East by Muslim nations and is a direct cause of the rise of pan-Arab nationalism and later pan-Muslim nationalism within the region and other hotspots both in Africa, South Asian and Southeast Asia.
Both the Afghanistan and Iraq situation only led to the rise of the al Qaeda armn ISIS to be established in Iraq, only to be exported to Syria after Arab Spring went horribly wrong there. In the case of Syria, the corruption of the Assad regime is well known, especially its exploitation of the Lebanese Civil War in the 1970s and invasion of part of south Lebanon by Israel. Indeed, Syria impoverished Lebanon during that time until it left in 2005.
Thus Assad may consider himself the savior of the Levant, yet he is only the protector of corruption and extortion. It would be interesting to see how Lebanon deals with the many Syrians who automatically became Lebanese citizens between 1980 and 2000, seeing as their citizenship was illegal due to Syrian dominance of northern Lebanon.
Back in Yemen, the "rehabilitation" of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula consists of using the militia to rout out Sunni militancy in south Yemen that favors pan-Arabian nationalism over the republican ideals of the central hegemony in Sana'a. Yemeni government uses oil dollars to bribe tribal clans in northern Yemen. In this way, the Shi'a north is placated to moderate militancy while the Sunni south is forced to accept al Qaeda ideology (pan-Muslim nationalism) at gunpoint.
Here is what the difference between pan-Arab nationalism and pan-Muslim nation is: the former is a united Arab organization that is nominally Muslim but promotes a secular government (think of the failed UAR of Egypt and Syria) while the latter is a worldwide caliphate which considers the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan to be a dupe of America, promoting Sharia law based on tribal customs rather than on the Quran.
Given that Al Qaeda has submitted authority to the Taliban, and that the Taliban originate in Pakistan, it is interesting to note that Yemen is the hotbed of al Qaeda militants due to the drone attacks there. For it is they who aid the ISIS forces in Iraq and in Syria, along with militants from the Maghreb and elsewhere in the world.
Ah, the karma of Cold War politics in Afghanistan is biting us in the ass!
20140307
Le Tonnerre / The Thunder (poem)
Ceux qui croient
en l'unicité de Dieu,
et dont les cœurs se reposer
dans le souvenir de Dieu,
en vérité, dans le souvenir de Dieu
ne tranquillisent les coeurs?.
Ceux qui croient
en l'Unicité de Dieu,
et font de bonnes oeuvres,
toutes sortes de bonheur
est pour eux et un bel endroit
de la déclaration finale.
In the original translation, Quran 13: 28-29 declares:
28. Those who believe (in the Oneness of Allah - Islamic Monotheism), and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of Allah, Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.
29. Those who believe (in the Oneness of Allah - Islamic Monotheism), and work righteousness, Tuba (it means all kinds of happiness or name of a tree in Paradise) is for them and a beautiful place of (final) return.
In my sect of Buddhism, Buddha Remembrance consists of recitation of the Nembutsu. In Islam, Zikr (dhikr) refers to remembrance, specifically by recitation of the names of God silently. Given that the name of the Buddha is contained in the Nembutsu, zikr is remotely similar to Buddha Remembrance.
When one casts away the quasi-polytheism that Buddhism appears to be, it appears to be more similar to Islam than to Christianity but only within the context of that proverb from the Quran. To objectors of the monotheism faiths (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) who as strangers to Buddhism misunderstand the statues of Buddhas and the many Bodhisattvas, gods and other cosmic creatures who protect the Dharma as idolism, Rai Manuhar Kuchwáhhah has said:
“O Moslem! if the Kâbah be the object of thy worship,
Why dost thou reproach the adorers of idols?”
Just as the Muslims do their perambulations around the Kaaba, the Buddhists do their walking meditations. To the stranger of Buddhism, it might look like the Buddhist is pacing about, to and fro, but instead he is deep in meditation.
Thus it seemed to be a shame when the Taleban blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas because of their misunderstanding. These graven images carved from rock were not created for idolatry but out of devotion for the Buddha. They do not work righteousness through acts of violence and by threats, repress human nature into a parody of religious devotion. Instead, the Taleban and their compatriots, al Qaeda, as well as imitators in Africa, only serve what they call "Shaitan".
Because they cannot hide their mischief due to their exaggerated devoutness, such thugs project their fear of evil within their hearts as an external "Shaitan". So when I hear them calling America, Israel and the West, the "great Shaitan", I interpret it as the great evil hidden in their hearts.
Recently I read of how, in February 2009, the founder of the Pakistani Taleban sect TNSM, Sufi Mohammad was asked to help the Pakistan Army pacify the Taleban in the Swat Valley. While the Pakistan government allowed for Sharia courts, Sufi Mohammad said that because the government would not allow for the courts to work within their own system, rather than aligning with Pakistan's justice system, he declared that Sharia would not work within democracy by saying:
"Democracy is un-Islamic."
At that point, negotiations for disarming the Pakistani Taleban ended. Sufi Mohammad blames democracy for causing factionalism within Pakistan. I have to laugh at this statement because the factionalism actually proves that democracy is not working in the rural areas of Pakistan. It appears to work in certain parts of Islamabad and other urban areas of Pakistan in a limited fashion, depending on your connections with the ruling elite.
By July of 2009, the Pakistan government arrested Sufi Mohammad and charged him with sedition. As of January 2011, he has denied any ties with his organization TNSM and the Pakistani Taleban, declaring that he had only been seeking to establish Sharia in Malakand in Swat district.
I'm not fond of Sufi Mohammad's group TNSM because in October 2007 members of his group used dynamite to erase the face of the twenty-three foot high image of a seated Buddha carved sometime in Seventh century CE. It is a reddish rock face on a hillside southwest of Jehanabad (Shakhorai) near Manglawar in Swat district. In the West this would be considered defacement of a national heritage treasure.
What vandals! This is like going up to a bronze image of the Buddha and whipping out a ball peen hammer to beat the face of the Buddha into lumps of metal. Is this not unlike the statement by Paul the Apostle who said "If your hand offends you, cut it off"? I suppose then if my face offended me, then I am to get plastic surgery! Sorry, I'm stuck with my face for life. Plastic surgery is not an option. :p
When religious leaders make these statements in Christianity, they are forms of rhetoric and are not meant to be carried out by the devout. Yet almost everything in TNSM tends to be taken literally. It is like they are stuck in a childlike state of mind, and have no ability to understand symbolism and metaphor. It makes me wonder how educated Sufi Mohammad and his son "Radio Mullah" truly are.
Unlike the Pakistan in Taleban militants of TTP, the father of the Taleban Maulana Sami ul Haq is not against vaccination. In December 2013, he issued a fatwa favoring polio vaccination, stating that "vaccination against deadly diseases is helpful in their prevention according to research conducted by renowned medical specialists." He added that the vaccines used against these diseases are in no way harmful.
My take on this is that Maulana Sami ul Haq was probably moved by the fact that vaccinations after partition kept much of Pakistan from polio's ravages. Sadly though, his proposal to train Pakistan men for jihad if elected president means he is a man to watch carefully in Pakistan.
Given that ul Haq is the father of the Taleban, it means that the Taliban of Afghanistan are applying the philosophy of a foreigner to ensure that Sharia is the rule of law in Afghanistan. However, it also implies that America leaving Afghanistan should not result in a smaller force there since the experience in Iraq shows that an occupation force of NATO troops will have no hope in pacifying the Taliban there.
So whatever strategy they have after 2014, be prepared for the Taliban to come into the news more often through the year.
Reference:
Quran 13 - Noble Quran:
http://www.noblequran.com/translation/surah13.html
Zikr / Dhikr - Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhikr
Kaaba - Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaaba
Taleban in Pakistan -Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taleban_in_Pakistan
TNSM - Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi
Sufi Mohammad - Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufi_Muhammad
Pakistan's Heritage at Risk - Archaeology:
http://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/pakistan/
Maulana Sami ul Haq - Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maulana_Sami_ul_Haq
en l'unicité de Dieu,
et dont les cœurs se reposer
dans le souvenir de Dieu,
en vérité, dans le souvenir de Dieu
ne tranquillisent les coeurs?.
Ceux qui croient
en l'Unicité de Dieu,
et font de bonnes oeuvres,
toutes sortes de bonheur
est pour eux et un bel endroit
de la déclaration finale.
In the original translation, Quran 13: 28-29 declares:
28. Those who believe (in the Oneness of Allah - Islamic Monotheism), and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of Allah, Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.
29. Those who believe (in the Oneness of Allah - Islamic Monotheism), and work righteousness, Tuba (it means all kinds of happiness or name of a tree in Paradise) is for them and a beautiful place of (final) return.
In my sect of Buddhism, Buddha Remembrance consists of recitation of the Nembutsu. In Islam, Zikr (dhikr) refers to remembrance, specifically by recitation of the names of God silently. Given that the name of the Buddha is contained in the Nembutsu, zikr is remotely similar to Buddha Remembrance.
When one casts away the quasi-polytheism that Buddhism appears to be, it appears to be more similar to Islam than to Christianity but only within the context of that proverb from the Quran. To objectors of the monotheism faiths (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) who as strangers to Buddhism misunderstand the statues of Buddhas and the many Bodhisattvas, gods and other cosmic creatures who protect the Dharma as idolism, Rai Manuhar Kuchwáhhah has said:
“O Moslem! if the Kâbah be the object of thy worship,
Why dost thou reproach the adorers of idols?”
Just as the Muslims do their perambulations around the Kaaba, the Buddhists do their walking meditations. To the stranger of Buddhism, it might look like the Buddhist is pacing about, to and fro, but instead he is deep in meditation.
Thus it seemed to be a shame when the Taleban blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas because of their misunderstanding. These graven images carved from rock were not created for idolatry but out of devotion for the Buddha. They do not work righteousness through acts of violence and by threats, repress human nature into a parody of religious devotion. Instead, the Taleban and their compatriots, al Qaeda, as well as imitators in Africa, only serve what they call "Shaitan".
Because they cannot hide their mischief due to their exaggerated devoutness, such thugs project their fear of evil within their hearts as an external "Shaitan". So when I hear them calling America, Israel and the West, the "great Shaitan", I interpret it as the great evil hidden in their hearts.
Recently I read of how, in February 2009, the founder of the Pakistani Taleban sect TNSM, Sufi Mohammad was asked to help the Pakistan Army pacify the Taleban in the Swat Valley. While the Pakistan government allowed for Sharia courts, Sufi Mohammad said that because the government would not allow for the courts to work within their own system, rather than aligning with Pakistan's justice system, he declared that Sharia would not work within democracy by saying:
"Democracy is un-Islamic."
At that point, negotiations for disarming the Pakistani Taleban ended. Sufi Mohammad blames democracy for causing factionalism within Pakistan. I have to laugh at this statement because the factionalism actually proves that democracy is not working in the rural areas of Pakistan. It appears to work in certain parts of Islamabad and other urban areas of Pakistan in a limited fashion, depending on your connections with the ruling elite.
By July of 2009, the Pakistan government arrested Sufi Mohammad and charged him with sedition. As of January 2011, he has denied any ties with his organization TNSM and the Pakistani Taleban, declaring that he had only been seeking to establish Sharia in Malakand in Swat district.
I'm not fond of Sufi Mohammad's group TNSM because in October 2007 members of his group used dynamite to erase the face of the twenty-three foot high image of a seated Buddha carved sometime in Seventh century CE. It is a reddish rock face on a hillside southwest of Jehanabad (Shakhorai) near Manglawar in Swat district. In the West this would be considered defacement of a national heritage treasure.
What vandals! This is like going up to a bronze image of the Buddha and whipping out a ball peen hammer to beat the face of the Buddha into lumps of metal. Is this not unlike the statement by Paul the Apostle who said "If your hand offends you, cut it off"? I suppose then if my face offended me, then I am to get plastic surgery! Sorry, I'm stuck with my face for life. Plastic surgery is not an option. :p
When religious leaders make these statements in Christianity, they are forms of rhetoric and are not meant to be carried out by the devout. Yet almost everything in TNSM tends to be taken literally. It is like they are stuck in a childlike state of mind, and have no ability to understand symbolism and metaphor. It makes me wonder how educated Sufi Mohammad and his son "Radio Mullah" truly are.
Unlike the Pakistan in Taleban militants of TTP, the father of the Taleban Maulana Sami ul Haq is not against vaccination. In December 2013, he issued a fatwa favoring polio vaccination, stating that "vaccination against deadly diseases is helpful in their prevention according to research conducted by renowned medical specialists." He added that the vaccines used against these diseases are in no way harmful.
My take on this is that Maulana Sami ul Haq was probably moved by the fact that vaccinations after partition kept much of Pakistan from polio's ravages. Sadly though, his proposal to train Pakistan men for jihad if elected president means he is a man to watch carefully in Pakistan.
Given that ul Haq is the father of the Taleban, it means that the Taliban of Afghanistan are applying the philosophy of a foreigner to ensure that Sharia is the rule of law in Afghanistan. However, it also implies that America leaving Afghanistan should not result in a smaller force there since the experience in Iraq shows that an occupation force of NATO troops will have no hope in pacifying the Taliban there.
So whatever strategy they have after 2014, be prepared for the Taliban to come into the news more often through the year.
Reference:
Quran 13 - Noble Quran:
http://www.noblequran.com/translation/surah13.html
Zikr / Dhikr - Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhikr
Kaaba - Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaaba
Taleban in Pakistan -Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taleban_in_Pakistan
TNSM - Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi
Sufi Mohammad - Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufi_Muhammad
Pakistan's Heritage at Risk - Archaeology:
http://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/pakistan/
Maulana Sami ul Haq - Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maulana_Sami_ul_Haq
20140115
Is War On Terrorism Worth 3000 American Lives? (satire)
On March 20, 2003 the US launched the War against Terrorism. This was in response to three passenger jets being launched as bombs against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
Fortunately, many brave passengers forced the crash of the third plane somewhere in rural Pennsylvania before it could reach its target, the White House.
According to what became a part of the official story, a scion of the Saudi Arabian bin Laden financial empire, Osama, chose himself to become the mastermind of a shadowy Muslim fundamentalist group called al-Qaeda that had been formed with the aid of the Pakistani and support from like-minded Islamist from Egypt.
What is not commonly know is that CIA operatives working within the hierarchy of power within Washington, DC, capitol and home of the Chief Executive of America, the President, have been operating undercover as diplomats within the US Embassy at Islamabad.
They have consistently vetoed the CIA's recommendation to continue with intelligence gathering in the Middle East, leaving that job to the National Security Agency, which according to reports keeps a close eye on the region via the Israeli spy satellite that US investors owns a good chunk of.
As a result of influence by the CIA-trained diplomats in Islamabad, numerous trade deals and also various offers of US aid courtesy of the American taxpayers have been made, or are ongoing. Thus, the Pakistani military has accepted these offers with the tacit approval of government officials in Islamabad.
For Pakistani's military secret service, ISI, has been well funded to supply training to the Taliban, and in aiding in the overthrow of the legitimate government in Afghanistan circa 1989.
However, this move by proxy via Pakistan is the indirect result of US foreign policy, which has been influenced by anti-communism since the McCarthy era in the mid-1950s.
For Afghanistan had been under the thumb of Soviet domination for a decade preceding the civil war that continued throughout much of the 1990s.
Intelligence sources indicate that Osama bin Laden was originally the son of the family that formed the bin Laden corporation which has enjoyed strong trade ties with the Bush family's Carlyle Group since the 1960s.
Officially, Washington has associated bin Laden with al-Qaeda, and has denied any ties between the Bush family and him.
Furthermore, bin Laden had not been captured as of January 31, 2009, and his escape into Pakistan has been confirmed and denied and reconfirmed so many times that President Bush has stated that bin Laden isn't important to the war cause that now has seized the imagination of the American people today.
In my option, the War against Terrorism is American foreign policy just as much as the War against Drugs is.
For this is what American foreign policy consists of: economic dominance of the world in the interests of national security.
This explains American legislation on drug use, mental health, and poverty, both within domestic policy and in influencing other nations to follow suit. Such laws are purported to serve the people, to regulate their happiness, their peace of mind, and their material benefit. Instead, such laws are being abused, serving to oppress the poor even more, and to divide the community.
Drug abuse and its effect on community, the drive to close down mental institutions while retraining mental health care personnel, and the social security system with its overworked administration has only served to prove the old adage that "the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer."
Yet American foreign policy only indirectly led to September 11, 2001.
We have to question over $2 billion going to Israel, almost a billion to Egypt, and millions to other nations such as Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.
In total, at least $4 billion from the US go to the Middle East, the majority of it to Israel.
We thought it was for oil, but it's more than that that runs the American money machine. There's also millions of thirsty people in the Middle East, but it is developed nations that own most of the fresh water.
However, it's not just about oil or water; it's also about political power.
Bush's administration went to war because it couldn't afford to alienate millions of Americans who wanted justice to be served in the name of the 3000 people who died in 9-11.
Yet, are lives of thousands of innocent Muslim children, men and women worth the lives of 3000 people? A lot of Americans think so.
I don't. Neither do the Democrats, some of whose representative in DC regret the invasion of Iraq.
Even so, I do not believe it is wise to fully withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq because the threat of al-Qaeda still lingers as of January 15, 2013.
Although Osama may have been executed in Pakistan and his body supposedly dumped in the ocean by the US, al-Qaeda used Iraq as the launching ground against Sunni Muslims' enemies including Shi'a Muslims both in Iraq, Syria and the Levant.
It is not in the US's best interests to bring the troops home, for the enemy is threatening the homeland of the Syrian Arabs whose ancestors chose Jesus over Mohammad. Even though today, in Syria there are Shi'a and Sunni Muslims fighting against each other with Bashar al-Assad depending on Shiite militants, both domestic and abroad (Hezbollah being funded by Iran).
According to the reports from Syria, many Muslims from Syria have become refugees in Jordan (mostly Palestinians), Egypt (predominantly Sunnis), Iran (probably Shiites) and Turkey (secular Syrians and possibly some Christians). I have not read one report about Syrian Christians, but possibly they are refugees in Lebanon along with some Shi'a and a few Sunni militants).
Most likely though the Syriacs are refugees in France and the UK, due to the former colonial powers' ties to the Levant, including Palestine.
There may even be some Syriacs arriving in the US and Canada, for all I know.
In any case, the death of Osama bin Laden has not weakened al-Qaeda. Instead, other home-grown militants in the West are willing to train to become a vital part of what could be seen as the mythical hydra, a beast with many heads.
According to the myth, Hercules was challenged with the task to rid a certain Greek city of this beast, the Lemaean Hydra, a water dragon with heads too numerous to depict. When he cut one head off, two heads replaced it. In a cave beside Lake Lerna the dragon lives, guarding the entrance to the Underworld.
An offspring of Typhon and Echidna, both of whom were noisome children of the earth goddess Gaia, it was lured out by Hercules using fire arrows. After realizing cutting off the heads of the Hydra would be a long task, he retreated to his camp where his nephew Iolus awaited his return. During his absence, Iolus had been visited by the goddess Athena who slyly gave the young lad the inspiration to cauterize the wounds after cutting off the heads of the beast.
With this knowledge, Hercules returned to battle the creature and succeeded in cutting off all the heads but one. At this point, Athena turned his sword golden and Hercules slew the beast. Then he took the arrows in his quill to dip the heads in the poisonous blood of the Hydra.
In actual fact, Hercules was a pawn in the rivalry between Athena and Hera, the wife of Zeus who was King of the Greek Gods and father to Hercules. The reason for this rivalry is that Athena was born from Zeus' head thus making her equal in power to her father. Hera had to learn to give birth on her own to Hephaestus to match him.
Within context of modern times, the myth of Hercules' second task of slaying the Hydra can be applied to Syria and the Middle East. Al-Qaeda is the hydra. America is Hercules. The UK is Zeus. Hera is France, since they had a riot recently that burned a part of Paris. Syria and the Levant represents the cave in which the hydra dwells, and the Lerna is the Mediterranean Sea, whose waves wash on shores of nations from which came most of the members of al-Qaeda. The poisonous blood of the hydra represents the works of Sayyid Qutb and the messages of its current leaders on-line today at Youtube e.g. hate propaganda.
However, the problem here is the firebrand necessary to burn the heads of the hydra might mean more than conventional munitions, for it suggests the pacification of Iran regarding nuclear development might hide the movement of plutonium the US and other nuclear power desire from Iran.
For the nuclear powers were afraid that Iran would arm itself and provide arms to North Korea and other nations who are not too close to the US, including the Ukraine. But that's fodder for another myth at another time.
Originally posted: January 31, 2009 6:34 PM
Hercules and the Hydra: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lernaean_Hydra
The works of Sayyid Qutb: In the 200s CE the Ghassanids migrated Syria due to a dam flooding their villages in Yemen.
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