NewTrendMag.org
News
#
1028
[
Arabic
][
Deutsch
][
Español
][
Français
][
Italiano
]
Rabi' al-Awwal 15,1427/April 14, 2006 #25
IRAN
U.S. Facing No-Win Situation as it threatens Nuclear War
by Kaukab Siddique
I can write about Iran with some assurance. I met
Imam Khomeini twice, once in Qum and once in Tehran,
during the first years of the Islamic revolution. After
he passed away, I visited his grave to pay my respects.
I differed with the Iranian regimes post-Khomeini. However,
I have kept an eye on developments there and have written
extensively on Iran, often critically. Here are my thoughts
on the current situation [April 2006].
In spite of Iran's cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan,
the U.S. government is threatening military action
against the Islamic Republic. The Zionist/corporate/liberal
media are fanning the flames of possible war. Seymour
Hersch has gone to the extent of claiming that the U.S.
will use nuclear weapons against Iran. He might be in the
know or he might be trying to embarrass the
Bush administration.
. Let us look at the arguments and options under debate:
1. The Zionists would like the U.S. to carry out "regime
change" in Iran which implies the use of force to unseat
an elected government. [Radical warmongers such as
Christopher Hitchins have gone to the extent of claiming
that the Iranian goverment is not an elected government!]
The U.S. government is encouraged in its desire for "regime
change" by Chalabi-type Iranians who claim that large numbers
of young people in Iran love America and hate the "mullahs."
This kind of fantasy is possible for people who visit North
Tehran and meet westernized [gharabzadah] Iranians.
Also, Iranians generally like to argue with and criticize
their government. This creates the incorrect impression
of disunity.
Any attempt to overthrow the Islamic government would
be swamped by the massive response of the Iranian people.
The anniversary of the revolution in February which drew
huge crowds should have warned people who do not live
outside reality. Regime change from within is nothing
more than a fantasy. Ahmedinejad has mass support and
has been able to mobilize public opinion.
2. Regime change from outside too is a fantasy because
the U.S. military is stuck in Iraq and is in no
condition to invade Iran. The Islamic Republic has
strategic depth and vast quantities of weaponry
available for popular resistance. IRAQ, through three
years of resistance, may well have saved IRAN from the
military clutches of the U.S.
3. BOMBING by the U.S. AIR FORCE, including nuclear
strike, is the only option open to the U.S. This could
do severe damage to Iranian military capacity and at
least some damage to its nuclear project. It could kill
20,000 to 40,000 Iranians in a matter of days. However,
this won't work for a variety of reasons:
3a. Iran is capable of absorbing punishment. In the city
of Bam, an earthquake killed 30,000 people in one day.
Iran did not ask anyone for help and swiftly took care
of the damage done.
3b. Iran's MARTYRDOM COMPLEX is very different from that
of Al-Qaidah and Taliban. While Al-Qaidah operates to hit
and hurt opposing forces, often the most vital economic
structures as happened in 9.11, Iran is good at dealing
with hurt inflicted on itself. This attitude is best
symbolized in the self-flagellation ceremonies in memory
of Imam Husain. The Iranians are at their best when they
are being hurt by the enemy. Saddam Husain did not
understand this and invaded Iran when Iran had disbanded
its regular forces because of their loyalty to the Shah.
3c. When the Iranians tried to take Basra at the end of
Iran-Iraq war, they lost 10,000 young people in a couple
of days as the Iraqis hit them with heavy artillery from
dug-in positions. Losses do not deter Iran. If the U.S.
succeeds in killing large number of Iranians in a nuclear
strike or heavy bombing from the air, the ensuing war will
probably be open-ended.
4. If the U.S. attacks, it is no exaggeration to stipulate
that the entire Iranian nation will rally to support the
Islamic government. IMAM KHOMEINI's Line will be empowered
as never before. The Imam had taught Iranians that their
real enemy is the U.S. [whom he called the "Great Satan."]
Owing to short sighted policies of junior leaders in Iran,
who took over during his illness, IRAQ came to be seen as
the enemy of Iran. It was a strategic blunder by the
post-Khomeini Iranian government. An AMERICAN ATTACK would
create tremendous ideological focus for the Iranians.
5. If the U.S. attacks, the entire Muslim world [the masses]
will rally to support Iran. Thus the Shia-Sunni divide will
be bridged. Already Islamic movements in Pakistan and the
Arab world [including the Ahle Hadith, "wahhabis,"] are
showing outright support for Iran regardless of
sectarian differences.
6. Whether the U.S. attacks alone or is supported by
Israel, the Muslim world will see it as the Israeli
hand coming out of the American sleeve. Gone are the
days when Israel could attack the Iraqi nuclear
facility and succeed. There was no Islamic movement
to challenge Israel.
6a. Israel-type attack cannot succeed because Iranian
nuclear facilities are said to be decentralized and
underground. The chances of direct hits and
substantial damage are low.
6b. If ISRAEL ATTACKS, all the "front" regimes the U.S.
has installed to create a buffer between Israel and the
Islamic masses will come under internal pressure and
probably collapse.
6c. If it attacks, Israel will have signed its death
warrant. No project for peaceful dismantling of Israel
will get a hearing in the Muslim world. According to
Islamic Hadith narrations, if and when a final battle
takes place, the Jews will find no place to hide. Even
the rocks themselves will cry out if a Jew is
concealed behind them.
WHAT COULD IRAN DO:
1. Shut down its own oil production.
2. Hamper or put a stop to the transportation of oil
through neighboring waterways.
3. Actvate Hizbullah against Israel.
4. Fire missiles into "Saudi" Arabian oil installations.
5. Iran could, if things get really bad, hook up
with al-Qaidah and even the Taliban. Reactive support
for the Taliban could lead to a swift Taliban
victory in Afghanistan.
6. An Islamic victory in Afghanistan would activate
Islamic forces in Pakistan and bring about the
overthrow of General Musharraf with whom the Iranians
are now cooperating in the "war on terror."
DOES IRAN HAVE THE RIGHT TO NUCLEAR WEAPONRY?:
American analysts agree that the enrichment of uranium
announced by Iran does not mean that it can now have a
nuclear weapon. That will not be possible for several
years. There is NO INDICATION AT ALL that Iran is going
for a nuclear weapon. It certainly does not have the
capacity at this time.
By contrast ISRAEL already HAS a NUMBER OF NUCLEAR BOMBS
at its facility at Dimona. Thus the U.S. and UK have
created a situation in the Middle East in which the
gangster regime in Tel Aviv has nuclear weapons while
Muslim countries face military action if they show even
the inclination for such an effort. The Middle East is
being systematically DISARMED to make it subservient to Israel.
Within that context, Iran definitely has the right to have
nuclear weapons to defend itself against Israel. So, what's
the moral outrage all about in the Zionist media? People
like Christopher Hitchens should be in an institute for
the mentally disturbed rather than giving out political
advice on corporate media TV screens.
Research Paper Documents Zionist Control of U.S.
Foreign Policy but most Americans will not not know
about it because .....
Two learned professors recently wrote a research paper in
which they documented the Israeli factor in U.S. foreign
policy as well the Zionist hand behind the Iraq war. The
corporate media are trying to discredit the paper. Here
is a letter the editor of New Trend wrote to the
Philadelphia Inquirer in response to one such attempt.
Subj: Re: "Attacking the 'Israel Lobby.' " [Inquirer April 3]
Date: 4/5/2006 8:44:21 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: KSidd37398
To: inquirer.letters@phillynews.com
Dear Editor
Max Boot's hatchet job on a serious critique of the
Israel lobby takes away from analysis of an issue which
has skewed American foreign policy. John Mearsheimer
[University of Chicago] and Stephen Walt
[Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government]
certainly have better academic credentials than Max Boot.
To call their work "nutty" indicates that Boot is trying
to smear them.
The two scholars have thoroughly researched Israel's role
in the subversion of America's foreign policy interests,
with 41 pages of references. Boot has not been able to deal
with any of the points they made. Name calling certainly
does not help in serious debate.
Boot's process of reasoning is faulty. He tries to
compare the Israel Lobby with other lobbies but conveniently
forgets that Social Security, the Second Amendment and
Roe v. Wade supporters do not deal with foreign policy.
He is comparing "apples with oranges" and trying to get
away with it.
Mearsheimer and Walt don't need to call the invasion of
Iraq a "Zionist Plot." Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Leiberman
have not concealed their inclinations. They are blatant
supporters of Israel and of the war against Iraq.
U.S. support for Israel has turned the entire Muslim world
against us. As a result, the U.S. has to spend billions of
dollars to prop up oppressive regimes in Egypt, Jordan,
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Algeria and now in Iraq,
to stop the emergence of global opposition to Israel.
Iraq under Saddam never harmed the U.S. in any way. Our
expensive war there emanates from the Israeli lobby. The
people whom Boot is trying to discredit, astute
researchers, have shown in a very scholarly fashion
that the hand of Israel behind the war is a fact,
not a conspiracy theory.
Sincerely
Kaukab Siddique, Ph.D
Associate Professor of English
AFGHANISTAN
Why are Afghans Welcoming the Upsurge of the Taliban?
'He cried out "Allah, Allah" and everyone thought it was funny.'
[These are excerpts from an extensive report published in the
New York Times last year. We cannot publish it in full
owing to copyright restrictions. The prisoner being mistreated
by the U.S. in this report was not a Taliban fighter but an
average middle class Afghan, a taxi driver. It's not difficult
to imagine the fate of actual Taliban captured by the U.S. on
the field of battle. Also, in that case it would not have been
published in the NY Times - Editor]
"For Mr. Dilawar, his fellow prisoners said, the most
difficult thing seemed to be the black cloth hood that
was pulled over his head. "He could not breathe," said
a man called Parkhudin, who had been one of
Mr. Dilawar's passengers.
Mr. Dilawar was a frail man, standing only 5 feet 9
inches and weighing 122 pounds. But at Bagram, he was
quickly labeled one of the "noncompliant" ones.
When one of the First Platoon M.P.'s, Specialist Corey
E. Jones, was sent to Mr. Dilawar's cell to give him some
water, he said the prisoner spit in his face and started
kicking him. Specialist Jones responded, he said, with
a couple of knee strikes to the leg of the shackled man.
"He screamed out, 'Allah! Allah! Allah!' and my first
reaction was that he was crying out to his god,"
Specialist Jones said to investigators. "Everybody heard
him cry out and thought it was funny."
Other Third Platoon M.P.'s later came by the detention
center and stopped at the isolation cells to see for
themselves, Specialist Jones said.
It became a kind of running joke, and people kept showing
up to give this detainee a common peroneal strike just
to hear him scream out 'Allah,' " he said. "It went on
over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it
was over 100 strikes."
In a subsequent statement, Specialist Jones was vague
about which M.P.'s had delivered the blows. His estimate
was never confirmed, but other guards eventually
admitted striking Mr. Dilawar repeatedly.
Many M.P.'s would eventually deny that they had any
idea of Mr. Dilawar's injuries, explaining that they
never saw his legs beneath his jumpsuit. But Specialist
Jones recalled that the drawstring pants of Mr.
Dilawar's orange prison suit fell down again and again
while he was shackled.
"I saw the bruise because his pants kept falling down
while he was in standing restraints," the soldier told
investigators. "Over a certain time period, I noticed
it was the size of a fist."
As Mr. Dilawar grew desperate, he began crying out more
loudly to be released. But even the interpreters had
trouble understanding his Pashto dialect; the annoyed
guards heard only noise.
"He had constantly been screaming, 'Release me; I don't
want to be here,' and things like that," said the one
linguist who could decipher his distress, Abdul Ahad Wardak.
The Interrogation
On Dec. 8, Mr. Dilawar was taken for his fourth
interrogation. It quickly turned hostile.
The 21-year-old lead interrogator, Specialist Glendale
C. Walls II, later contended that Mr. Dilawar was
evasive. "Some holes came up, and we wanted him to
answer us truthfully," he said. The other interrogator,
Sergeant Salcedo, complained that the prisoner was
smiling, not answering questions, and refusing to stay
kneeling on the ground or sitting against the wall.
The interpreter who was present, Ahmad Ahmadzai,
recalled the encounter differently to investigators.
The interrogators, Mr. Ahmadzai said, accused Mr.
Dilawar of launching the rockets that had hit the
American base. He denied that. While kneeling on the
ground, he was unable to hold his cuffed hands above
his head as instructed, prompting Sergeant Salcedo to
slap them back up whenever they began to drop.
"Selena berated him for being weak and questioned him
about being a man, which was very insulting because of
his heritage," Mr. Ahmadzai said.
When Mr. Dilawar was unable to sit in the chair position
against the wall because of his battered legs, the two
interrogators grabbed him by the shirt and repeatedly
shoved him back against the wall.
"This went on for 10 or 15 minutes," the interpreter
said. "He was so tired he couldn't get up."
"They stood him up, and at one point Selena stepped on
his bare foot with her boot and grabbed him by his beard
and pulled him towards her," he went on. "Once Selena
kicked Dilawar in the groin, private areas, with her
right foot. She was standing some distance from him,
and she stepped back and kicked him.
"About the first 10 minutes, I think, they were actually
questioning him, after that it was pushing, shoving,
kicking and shouting at him," Mr. Ahmadzai said. "There
was no interrogation going on."
The session ended, he said, with Sergeant Salcedo
instructing the M.P.'s to keep Mr. Dilawar chained
to the ceiling until the next shift came on.
The next morning, Mr. Dilawar began yelling again. At
around noon, the M.P.'s called over another of the
interpreters, Mr. Baerde, to try to quiet
Mr. Dilawar down.
"I told him, 'Look, please, if you want to be able to
sit down and be released from shackles, you just need
to be quiet for one more hour."
"He told me that if he was in shackles another hour,
he would die," Mr. Baerde said.
Half an hour later, Mr. Baerde returned to the cell.
Mr. Dilawar's hands hung limply from the cuffs, and
his head, covered by the black hood, slumped forward.
"He wanted me to get a doctor, and said that he needed
'a shot,' " Mr. Baerde recalled. "He said that he didn't
feel good. He said that his legs were hurting."
Mr. Baerde translated Mr. Dilawar's plea to one of the
guards. The soldier took the prisoner's hand and pressed
down on his fingernails to check his circulation.
"He's O.K.," Mr. Baerde quoted the M.P. as saying. "He's
just trying to get out of his restraints."
By the time Mr. Dilawar was brought in for his final
interrogation in the first hours of the next day, Dec.
10, he appeared exhausted and was babbling that his
wife had died. He also told the interrogators that he
had been beaten by the guards.
"But we didn't pursue that," said Mr. Baryalai, the interpreter.
Specialist Walls was again the lead interrogator. But
his more aggressive partner, Specialist Claus, quickly
took over, Mr. Baryalai said.
"Josh had a rule that the detainee had to look at him,
not me," the interpreter told investigators. "He gave
him three chances, and then he grabbed him by the shirt
and pulled him towards him, across the table, slamming
his chest into the table front."
When Mr. Dilawar was unable to kneel, the interpreter
said, the interrogators pulled him to his feet and pushed
him against the wall. Told to assume a stress position,
the prisoner leaned his head against the wall and
began to fall asleep.
"It looked to me like Dilawar was trying to cooperate,
but he couldn't physically perform the tasks,"
Mr. Baryalai said.
Finally, Specialist Walls grabbed the prisoner and
"shook him harshly," the interpreter said, telling
him that if he failed to cooperate, he would be shipped
to a prison in the United States, where he would be
"treated like a woman, by the other men" and face the
wrath of criminals who "would be very angry with anyone
involved in the 9/11 attacks." (Specialist Walls was
charged last week with assault, maltreatment and failure
to obey a lawful order; Specialist Claus was charged
with assault, maltreatment and lying to investigators.
Each man declined to comment.)
A third military intelligence specialist who spoke some
Pashto, Staff Sgt. W. Christopher Yonushonis, had
questioned Mr. Dilawar earlier and had arranged with
Specialist Claus to take over when he was done. Instead,
the sergeant arrived at the interrogation room to find
a large puddle of water on the floor, a wet spot on Mr.
Dilawar's shirt and Specialist Claus standing behind
the detainee, twisting up the back of the hood that
covered the prisoner's head.
"I had the impression that Josh was actually holding the
detainee upright by pulling on the hood," he said. "I
was furious at this point because I had seen Josh tighten
the hood of another detainee the week before. This behavior
seemed completely gratuitous and unrelated to
intelligence collection."
"What the hell happened with that water?" Sergeant
Yonushonis said he had demanded.
"We had to make sure he stayed hydrated," he said
Specialist Claus had responded.
The next morning, Sergeant Yonushonis went to the
noncommissioned officer in charge of the interrogators,
Sergeant Loring, to report the incident. Mr. Dilawar,
however, was already dead.
The Post-Mortem
The findings of Mr. Dilawar's autopsy were succinct.
He had had some coronary artery disease, the medical
examiner reported, but what caused his heart to fail
was "blunt force injuries to the lower extremities."
Similar injuries contributed to Mr. Habibullah's death.
One of the coroners later translated the assessment at
a pre-trial hearing for Specialist Brand, saying the
tissue in the young man's legs "had basically been pulpified."
"I've seen similar injuries in an individual run over
by a bus," added Lt. Col. Elizabeth Rouse, the coroner,
and a major at that time.
After the second death, several of the 519th Battalion's
interrogators were temporarily removed from their posts.
A medic was assigned to the detention center to work night
shifts. On orders from the Bagram intelligence chief,
interrogators were prohibited from any physical contact
with the detainees. Chaining prisoners to any fixed
object was also banned, and the use of stress
positions was curtailed.
In February, an American military official disclosed
that the Afghan guerrilla commander whose men had
arrested Mr. Dilawar and his passengers had himself
been detained. The commander, Jan Baz Khan, was
suspected of attacking Camp Salerno himself and then
turning over innocent "suspects" to the Americans in
a ploy to win their trust, the military official said.
The three passengers in Mr. Dilawar's taxi were sent
home from Guantánamo in March 2004, 15 months after
their capture, with letters saying they posed "no
threat" to American forces.
They were later visited by Mr. Dilawar's parents,
who begged them to explain what had happened to
their son. But the men said they could not bring
themselves to recount the details.
"I told them he had a bed," said Mr. Parkhudin. "I
said the Americans were very nice because he had
a heart problem."
In late August of last year, shortly before the Army
completed its inquiry into the deaths, Sergeant
Yonushonis, who was stationed in Germany, went at
his own initiative to see an agent of the Criminal
Investigation Command. Until then, he had
never been interviewed.
"I expected to be contacted at some point by
investigators in this case," he said. "I was
living a few doors down from the interrogation
room, and I had been one of the last to see
this detainee alive."
Sergeant Yonushonis described what he had witnessed
of the detainee's last interrogation. "I remember
being so mad that I had trouble speaking," he said.
He also added a detail that had been overlooked in
the investigative file. By the time Mr. Dilawar was
taken into his final interrogations, he said, "most
of us were convinced that the detainee was innocent."
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107,
this material is distributed without profit.)
RAPE AWARENESS A MUST FOR Muslim WOMEN IN AMERICA
As Salaamu Alaikum Community,
Please contact Baitul Salaam if you want to do a
Sexual Assault Awareness training or just bring in
a speaker to your community. It does not take much
planning. We have the resources and contacts. Just
call us if you want to make this subject part of a
Ta'leem or Halaqah in your community. It is
easy to do, insh'Allah.
This is not an easy subject to discuss however
it is necessary. In our community we have this
problem of sexual assault at many levels. It is
not only just one or two people that we have heard
about or that some type of public action has been
taken (reports to the police and in one case a
trial may happen any day).
We must train ourselves to project ourselves on all
levels. The best protection is education. What you
don't know can hurt you and members of your family.
Here are some myths in our community about sexual
abuse and sexual misconduct.
1. Your Hijab protects you from sexual assault.
Wrong! Your Hijab lets those in the thinking world
know you are not a part of the everyday hype of
showing bare skin in public, etc. However you are
not protected from a rapist due to rape is not about
sex it is about power. If you get in the sight of a
rapist your Hijab may even be a trigger. So beware
and be cautious. Also know that most women are raped
by people they know in some way this is called
acquaintance rape. Many women are raped in their
homes by their husbands, fathers, cousins and
sometimes sons, neighbors or the friendly man who
always helped you with taking your groceries from
your car, etc. Women can be abusers in general and
women can be sexual abusers and predators so be aware
of who you are around at all times.
2. If you don't go out at night you will not be raped.
Wrong again! Now not going out at night may help
decrease the possibility in some way. We should not
be at night alone unless we just have too at anytime.
However many women are raped at home during the day by
intruders and again those they know, relatives, the
friendly neighbor and or the husband.
3. If you don't speak to men, etc.
WRONG! This may be a trigger for a rapist. We of course
do not have any unnecessary conversation with men or
anyone for that matter. However not ever speaking to
men will not keep you from being raped.
As one who works with our families who are struggling
with abuse I hear and have medical reports in the Baitul
Salaam files of various types of sexual abuse to adults
and children. It is not just a few misguided Muslims it
is happening in some of our most respected families and
to people who are doing all they can to live this Deen
in honesty and with truth. It is happening in Atlanta
and every other major city. It is happening in
small towns and villages.
It is happening around us and in many cases to some of us.
I am sending this as a warning and hopefully people will
pay more attention to the social ills that are happening
in our community with the desire to see them not happen
or at least that our community stop lying to itself.
We must come out of the state of denial on issues such
as sexual assault. We need leaders who will not only
just talk but take action.
Please pass this on to all (male and female) young and old.
If you have any comments just remember what Prophet
Muhammad said to the early community about how to approach
each other and you will get an open objective ear.
May Allah forgive all of us for our shortcomings.
ma salaam
Hadayai Majeed
Administrator
Baitul Salaam Network, Inc.
www.baitulsalaam.net
2006-04-13 Thu 21:34:55 cdt
NewTrendMag.org