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Save the date: June 21, 2003. Jamaat
al-Muslimeen's 4th International Islamic
Symposium. Greensboro, North Carolina.
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It's the anniversary of Allama Iqbal, Poet of the
East. Here are a three of
his couplets:
Apni millat pur qiyas aqwame maghrib say na kur
khas hay tarkeeb main qaum-e-rasool-e-hashmi
un ki jamiat ka hay mulk o nasab pur inhisar
quwwate mazhab say mustahkam hay jamiat tri
daman-e-deen hath say chuuta to jamiate kahan
aur jamiate hui rukhsat to millat bhi gai!
[Trans: Do not think of your community in terms of
the nations of the West
The nation of the Messenger of the Banu Hashim of
Arabia is distinct in its
organization.
Their collectivity depends on country and race
Your collectivity is solidified by the power of
religion.
If you lose hold of your faith-based life, then
where is your collectivity?
and if your collectivity is lost, your entire
community will be swept away!
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"ISRAEL
IS OUT TO DESTROY
PALESTINE
WITH
U.S.
HELP"
Those are the words of Kathleen Christison who
has just returned from
occupied Palestine. She quoted Hanan Ashrawi that
Israel is not just
committing daily atrocities, it is determined to
DISMANTLE THE ENTIRE
PALESTINIAN NATIONAL ENTITY. With
Bush's
help,
Israel is saying to the
Palestinians: "You are at our mercy." Ms.
Christisan said: When she went to
Jenin,
she broke into sobbing. It was utterly
devastated by the
Zionists.
They have left nothing behind. The West Bank is
dotted with hilltop
Jewish
settlements, like the fortresess of the
crusaders. Israeli roads cut through
Palestinian crop lands and olive trees. Soon
there will be nothing left to
build any kind of Palestinian state on, Ms.
Christison concluded. [Source:
C-Span,
April 18, 2003. Ms. Christison resigned
from the
CIA
in 1979 and for
the last 24 years, according to herself, has been
trying to regain her
humanity.]
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Shia Demonstrations
in Iraq Orchestrated by U.S.:
Chalabi & Zubaydi both U.S. Men
Iran-Supported SAIRI Working with U.S. as
Controlled "Opposition"
Murder of Al-Khui in Najaf Indicates Undercurrent
of Inner-Shia Conflict
Viewers of U.S. TV channels are wondering
about "anti-U.S.
demonstrations" in Baghdad. Is this indeed a sign
of "liberation" that people
can demonstrate against the U.S. and be shown
doing so on
CNN?
Thousands of
Shia are flocking to Kerbala and getting
publicity on U.S.
media
without any
adverse comment about the breast beating which
goes on in these ceremonies.
Here's New Trend's analysis of the Shia situation
in Iraq.
1. The great majority of Iran's Shias are
secularized and
nationalistic. They supported Saddam Hussain
against the U.S. invasion.
1A. Some of these secularized elements were
not able to fit into the
Baath Party system. They went overseas and
gradually started working with the
U.S. to help overthrow their own government.
Among them are Chalabi and
Zubaydi (who claims to be the governor of
Baghdad), two Shias whom the U.S.
has brought forward to test the setting up of a
puppet regime. They are
probably expendable.
2. The religious Shias of Iraq were lead by
Ayatollah al-Khui, a man of
great learning who was also open-minded about the
majority of the world's
Muslims who are Sunnis. Al-Khui was also
acknowledged as spiritual leader by
religious Shias outside Iraq, including those in
Pakistan
and
India.
3. The revolution led by Imam Khomeini in
Iran brought a powerful rival
to Al-Khui's leadership. The victory of the
revolution rapidly spread
Khomeini's influence among the world's Shia.
4. However, the Iraqi Shia still accepted
Ayatollah al-Khui as their
leader and under his advice, they did not accept
Khomeini's call to rise up
against Saddam Hussain. Even when wave after wave
of Iranian forces attacked
Basra, the Shias of Iraq did not rise up.Al-Khui
did not support sectarianism
as a political tool. He sensed that it would lead
to the Shias being seen as
a fifth column in Muslim countries.
5. During the Iran-Iraq conflict small
segments of the Iraqi Shias moved
towards the Iranian side of the equation. Saddam
Hussain saw such moves as
treachery and clamped down hard on this segment.
Their leader Ayatollah Baqir
as-Sadr is said to have been tortured and
executed in prison, thus leading to
the undying hostility between Iran-backed Shia
and Saddam.
6. Iranian influence did not spread in Iraq
owing to the refusal of
Al-Khui to take sides and also owing to the
arrival of large numbers of
Iranian Shia who sought refuge in Iraq after
facing torture and clamp downs
in Iran following their attempts to bring down
the Khomeini regime. [The
largest such Iranian group is the
Mujahideene
Khalq Organization or MKO.]
After Al-Khui passed away, his family set
up a foundation in England
to carry on the non-political propagation of
Shiaism. Over the years, they
seem to have gotten close to the British
government, particularly to Mr.
Blair.
NOW WE COME TO THE EVENTS OF April 9 in the
Imam Ali mosque in Najaf,
Iraq.
It appears that the U.S. has been working with
both Al-Khui's people as well
as the inheritors of Baqir as-Sadr's line
organized in a movement known as
SAIRI (Supreme Assembly of Islamic Revolution in
Iraq) which is backed by
Iran.
Abdul Majid al-Khui appears to have
come to Najaf with $3 million
from the U.S. government. His work was to meet a
Shia supporter of Saddam,
Al-Karadi, and to create reconciliation between
the Shia who had supported
Saddam and those who had been neutral. Al-Khui's
supporters handed out money
for five days and finally a meeting was held in
the Ali mosque where Al-Khui
and the pro-Saddam cleric were both there. It
appears that the crowd had been
infiltrated by SAIRI's people (pro-Iran) who
attacked the two clerics and
hacked both of them to death.
Our analysis indicates that the U.S. is working
on both sides of the Shia
spectrum, be it Chalabi's people, al-Khui's
people or Iran's SAIRI. It
appears that the pulling down of the statues and
the looting were all
"permitted" by the U.S. forces to gain the
support of Shias living in the
"Saddam City" district of Baghdad. The looting
was a "reward" given to the
Shias for their cooperation with the invasion.
The "anti-U.S. demonstrations" are also being
"permitted" by the U.S. to
giving credence to a loyal "opposition" which is
being created. Without U.S.
"green signal", the demonstrations would have
never made it to CNN.
There is absolutely no question of the U.S.
permitting any real opposition.
The Ansar al-Islam Kurds were bombed into
eternity. The Shia exiles from
Iran, the MKO, were also thoroughly bombed and
their remnants pursued. The
Fidayeen Saddam and the mujahideen from overseas
face death without trial or
at least arrest and open ended imprisonment.
Iran is dreaming of a sectarian empire.
The U.S. has its own designs
to attach Iraq to its circle of client states.
The Iranian-U.S. romance is on
for now.
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One Day Iraqis will Put Saddam's Statue Back on
its Pedestal
Liberation Deal: American Food for Iraqi Souls
Iraq has now been freed, as
Egypt
had been freed
by its third defeat at
Israeli hands in 1973..
Iqra: Iraq Is Free
By: Shahid Alam
Iqra, recite, proclaim, affirm, avow, declare:
Iraq is free.
Iraq has been freed from ten thousand years of
tyranny; freed from darkest
infamy; freed from cold villainy; freed from
centuries of stasis; freed from
nights of searing pain; freed from terrible
torture; freed from sanctioned
starvation; freed from laser-guided precision;
freed from bombs that explode
with shock and awe.
The whole world was witness to this historical
moment. They saw the dark
head of the tyrant, the granite head of
Ozymandias draped in the fabric of
freedom, effaced, his sneer blotted out, his
terror nullified, brought down
by the force of an armor-clad Bradley vehicle.
Iraqis, many dozens of them,
cheered lustily. A few even kissed the liberators
on both cheeks, in
authentic Arab style.
The nay-sayers, skeptics, doubting Thomases,
Pacifists, prophets of doom,
and the patriotically challenged were wrong about
America's war in Iraq. The
millions who marched in the streets, protesting
the war, are now gnashing
their teeth. In deep shame, penitent, they have
announced that they will
march again in the millions, to curse, flog,
flagellate themselves for
marching against the war that freed Iraqis.
This was not a war on Iraq, much less a war
against Iraq. It was a war in
Iraq: a war for the Iraqis. It wasn't the first
time that a great civilizing
nation has fought a war in a barbarous land
against its homegrown tyrants.
Civilized nations have carried this burden
uncomplainingly, showing equal
dedication in freeing lands of their peoples and,
when the occasion
demanded, freeing peoples of their lands. It is
United States now that
carries the torch of freedom, bravely torching
anyone who shows the gall to
oppose the forward march of the brave and free.
Consider the freedoms this war has bestowed on
Iraq.
First and foremost, this war has freed Iraq of
its WMDs. If Americans have
not yet found any caches of WMDs inside Iraq,
this was expected all along.
In the days leading up to the war, the WMDs were
smuggled into
Syria
for
safe-keeping. But that only means that Americans
will have to go the extra
mile, into Syria. And perhaps Syria will smuggle
them into Egypt, Egypt into
Libya, Libya into Iran, and Iran into Sudan. Is
this an Arab conspiracy to
hitch a freedom ride on Bradleys and Abrams
tanks?
Instantly, the American liberators have turned
the Iraqis free to pillage
their museums, strip their hospitals, plunder
their universities, and loot
their homes. The acutely funny Donald Rumsfeld
explained that "freedom's
untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes
and commit crimes and do
bad things." Quickly, the Iraqis are learning
that the gift of freedom comes
at a price. And they are eager to prove that
their freedom is worth the
price they are being asked to pay. If Madeline
Albright could sacrifice the
lives of half a million Iraqi children for
American security, surely the
Iraqis too can give up their national treasures
for a fleeting taste of
freedom.
After years of being locked out, the war has
freed Iraq to spread the
welcome mat to American Corporations. For
thirteen long years, since Gulf
War I, American capital was not free to outbid
Russian, French and German
capital in developing Iraq; it was an
unconscionable abridgement of freedom.
Now the playing fields have been leveled. The
Bechtels, Halliburtons,
Northrops, Exxons, Triremes are free at last to
claim their pound of Iraqi
flesh.
The liberation of Iraq is being unctuously
greeted by Franklin Graham's Good
Samaritans, the pastoral faction of American
capital. Their would-be victims
are now free, after years of softening with
sanctions and bombings, to
receive the good word of the Lord. Even as I
write, the Samaritan convoys
are converging on Iraq, ready to trade American
food and water for Iraqi
souls. The Iraqis never knew a better bargain,
getting something for
nothing.
Iraq has now been freed, as Egypt had been freed
by its third defeat at
Israeli hands in 1973, to derive the inestimable
benefits of normal
relations with Israel. After 55 years, Iraqi oil
is now free again to flow
to Haifa. And, one might add, Iraqi water too.
Freed from the threat of Iraq's WMDs, Israelis
can now attack the
Palestinian problem, the Palestinians in Judea
and Samaria , with greater
freedom. The pace of ethnic cleansing, too slow
for an early final solution,
can now be accelerated. Now that Iraq is free,
with help from the Americans,
the Palestinians can be teleported to the deserts
of Western Iraq.
The war has freed another Arab capital from the
threat of Israel's Samson
option. The five million citizens of Baghdad,
once the unimpeded looting
stops, can sleep in peace. This is another
inestimable gift of the war: an
Iraq free from nuclear holocaust.
If one counts all the advantages of America's war
in Iraq, and I have
barely started, history will record this war as
the greatest opening in
Iraqi history, when Iraqis were freed from the
coils of convoluted tyranny.
Once the Iraqis wake to this shattering truth,
they will also acknowledge
their deep debt to Saddam Hussein. It was his
anti-Zionism, his methodical
recklessness, his development of WMDs that
precipitated the American war in
Iraq, the war that freed them. Without Saddam,
the Iraqis would still be
toiling under some vapid dictatorship, like Hosni
Mubarak's, allied to
Israel and receiving bribes from USAID.
I can imagine a day, once the fog of America's
war in Iraq clears, when the
Iraqis may restore Saddam Hussein's statue to the
high pedestal it occupied
in Baghdad's Central Square. And these are the
words that American visitors,
in shock and awe, will read inscribed on its
base: Saddam Hussein/A Brave
Iraqi/Serendipitous Architect of Our Freedoms.
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M. Shahid Alam teaches economics at Northeastern
University, Boston, USA.
His recent book, Poverty from the Wealth of
Nations, was published by
Palgrave (2000). © M. Shahid Alam
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2003-04-22 Tue 19:48ct