Afghanistan: War, Tribalism and Opium

The primary justification for the Afghan invasion was to eradicate Al-Qaeda, and promises were made to rebuild Afghanistan with a representative government, creating political stability and economic prosperity. For sure, Al-Qaeda has been dismantled substantially if not completely, with most of its leaders including Usamah Bin Laden dead.

However, there is very little progress made on the political front, primarily due to the failure to bring the dominant Pashtun based Taliban to the table. The political process is further exasperated by the criminal actions of the US-led forces: the frequent killings of innocent civilians, urinating on dead Afghans, and the burning of the Quran are just some examples from a long list. Consequently, the attitudes of ordinary Afghans towards the Americans have progressively hardened, along with a growing distrust of the Afghan security forces.  

Read More ..... http://www.aopnews.com/opinion/zakaria_war_tribalism_opium.shtml

Rashid al-Ghannushi, George Galloway and the Radical Fringe

“I am a better Pakistani than Hussain (the pro-war Labour candidate) will ever be”  George Galloway

The election victory of Rashid al-Ghannushi in Tunisia and the recent victory of George Galloway in the Bradford by-election have been scorned, by the anti-Islamic extremist brigade; the usual suspects are the likes of Melanie Phillips, Douglas Murray, the infamous Daily Mail tabloid and of course the far-right fascists. Since Galloway and Gannushi were elected by the masses in a free and fair election, does this mean, the democratic process of free election a bad thing now? When hate governs the heart, principles become irrelevant as long as you can hurt those you despise; where the end justifies the means.

However, for different reasons, the anti-Islamic brigade has found alliance amongst the Muslims - the radical fringe; they express criticism of George Galloway, because he is viewed as a rival stealing the leadership of the Muslim community, and they scorn Rashid al-Ghannushi for not turning Tunisia into a Caliphate overnight. The radical fringe cannot take leadership because they propose that Muslims should keep out of the political process in the UK, and then moan about the adverse outcome, as the best way forward! And conveniently they do not participate in the election process as they would most likely fail miserably, nor have they managed to mobilise the masses to an alternative course of action.

Their first port of complaint is that George Galloway is not a Muslim, and thus should not be trusted to represent the Muslim community; this only depicts their childish mindset. The rival Labour candidate, Imran Hussain, is a Muslim and pro-war. Moreover, almost all the Muslim MPs to date have turned out like nasty coolies serving in the British Raj. In contrast, apart from George Galloway, many other non-Muslim MPs have been better representatives of the Muslims in the UK, on domestic and foreign issues.

Gay ‘Marriages’: So what’s next?

Demanding the rights of gays to marry in Church is as ‘logical’ as the atheists demanding the right to be baptised as atheists! It is bizarre that the pro-gay liberal brigade wants the Christian Church to endorse homosexuality, when it is clearly condemned by God in the first place. Like theft, adultery, murder and rape, homosexuality is also a sin according to all the Abrahamic faiths (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) and the bulk of other faiths and non-faiths also have a similar position. Surely, the logical place to start would have been to demand that the Church adopt a secular book of prayers and abandon the Bible. Then whatever the current fad is the Church can endorse.

The pro-gay camp has always argued to keep religion out, as they argued on the basis of secular values of personal freedom; thus, it is for free individuals to decide what activities take place inside their bedrooms. The argument more or less goes along the lines, if two consenting adults are in love, it is their ‘right’ to form a relationship, so keep God out of it, this is the 21st century. Yet, now they want bring to God and religion into it. For decades, religion was the enemy and they derided the values of this institution, so why are they seeking its approval now? This shows the contradictory nature of secularism.

Of course, they cannot obtain that endorsement from devout Christians; hence they are using the legal instrument to coerce the Church to comply. The secular institution is the new Pope or Archbishop, dictating what values the Church should endorse. Unfortunately, some Christians have already submitted to the liberal bullies; they have literally bent over exposing their rear ends, preaching the alleged biblical justification for the joys of homosexuality. This is one step away from endorsing the slur that Prophet Jesus did not marry, because he was not attracted to females, implying the obvious.

2012 – Will it be a Happy New Year?

We have just entered 2012 and there are no signs of Armageddon as predicted by some, but it’s still early days. However, I would happily bet that the world would go on past 2012, because to date nobody can predict the relatively small phenomena like earthquakes and hurricanes, therefore, what are the chances of predicting the end of the world? As the year comes to an end, most people utter “Happy New Year”, yet few reflect on the statement: will it be a ‘happy’ one? Will there be peace and prosperity for all? Will it be a greener planet, where conflict, crime and poverty are eliminated; and in societies families and communities take precedence over the few greedy making extortionate profits?

They say by examining the past you understand the present, which in turn allows you to prepare for the future. Hence, the pertinent question is: what have we learnt from the events of 2011?

At the end of the year, the West is still struggling with the debt crisis, economic stagnation, rising unemployment and trying to prevent the collapse of the Euro-Zone; despite the Arab Spring, real democracy and freedom has not materialised in the Arab world; Africa is rich with natural resources and minerals, yet it is still working on becoming self-sufficient trying to eliminate basic poverty; Palestinians are still looking for a homeland, Iraq has an uncertain future, the feuding Afghans will never unify; and for sure India will move on to become a greater power with China and Brazil. Then you have the Muslims in the West debating the important subject of saying "Merry Christmas" or "Happy New Year", otherwise they are still making noise about how they were the leading nation 800 years ago!

The US Exit from Iraq: What were the Reasons for this Costly War?

Finally, following the announcement made by President Barak Obama, the last batch of US troops are exiting Iraq very soon; the inhabitants of Fallujah are rejoicing by burning the US and Israeli flags; for sure so are the relatives of the victims of this unjust war, especially those who survived the gruesome torture in Abu-Ghraib and other prisons. The rest of the masses in Iraq were indifferent, ‘ungrateful’ to their liberators! This is a suitable point to reflect and speculate -what were the reason(s) behind this costly war?

One can imagine the US officials stating to the troops “mission accomplished”, a cliché often seen in Hollywood films. What was that mission? To locate Iraq’s WMDs. Regardless of your viewpoint, according to the ‘official’ figures, the blood of 100,000 Iraqis and almost 5000 US soldiers confirmed that Iraq had no WMDs; thus, Saddam Hussein and the rest of the world were telling the truth. In contrast, George Bush with his neo-conservative Zionist cabal were lying through their teeth, thus the huge mass protests within and all round the world; the maxim of democracy, majority opinion rules was discarded as irrelevant, it was war as usual.

Ironically, the pre-war evidence furnished only corroborated the view that Iraq’s WMD was a false pretext. The UN inspectors failed to produce any evidence, not even one bomb; despite the pleas from UN Inspector, Scott Ritter, this was ignored! The British Cabinet Minister, the late Robin Cook who was a physicist stated that you cannot hide Nuclear weapons, because they are easily detected from space. The heap of lies piled up with a fabricated ‘dodgy’ dossier to outlandish claims of a 45 minute threat posed to British forces was entertained for the tabloid mobs.  

Nuclear-Israel versus a Nuclear-Free Iran

Facts are the best antidote against poisonous media propaganda. Nuclear-free Iran is militarily weaker than nuclear-Israel, backed by the mighty US; based on the disparity of military capabilities, any impartial observer would identify the likely aggressor. In this case, this is corroborated with a substantive track record of invading and attacking other nations. Unlike Israel, Iran has not invaded anyone in the last 300 years or more; it lives peacefully with all its neighbours.

From the 1950s, Iran was virtually colonised through the CIA installed puppet, Reza Shah Pahlavi, who was eventually ousted by the popular revolution in 1979, led by the late Ayatollah Khomeini. In response the US, in collusion with the other western powers, initiated a proxy war through Saddam Hussein of Iraq that lasted for almost a decade. The country is now surrounded by hostile US military bases, and there is constant talk of bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, largely incited by the neo-conservatives, the far right and the Zionist commentators.  

There has already been much provocation of Iran: mysterious explosions, computer viruses, economic sanctions, and assassination of the leading physicists that are a hallmark of Mossad and the CIA. Tensions heightened recently as the British government froze Iranian assets, and expelled the diplomats, in response to the embassy raid, so the war drums beat louder. 

Apostasy: According to the Scriptures (Part II)

Without doubt, according to the major monotheistic religions (Islam, Christianity and Judaism), apostasy is a major sin. Most other religions would probably have the same viewpoint; otherwise, if the follower can exit the religion with full impunity, in this life and in the hereafter, then the core values cannot have any real significance. Being indifferent to apostasy implies a lack of conviction in the fundamental values; this axiom is applicable to religious and secular apostasy.   

Whilst there is concurrence on apostasy being a sin, there are differences in terms of the punishment prescribed for such actions, and each religion deal with the issue in accordance with the laws prescribed.  However, can any religion really prescribe punishment for apostasy in the first place, given that all religions encourage apostasy of non-believers?

By rational necessity, any religion endorses its viewpoint as being the only option; otherwise, it would struggle to justify its own existence. Therefore, the de facto position is that all religions, implicitly or explicitly, encourage non-believers to become apostates of their respective religion. Indeed, all the converts to any religion are apostates of their former religion or beliefs. The prophet (saw) of Islam encouraged the pagan Arabs, Christians and Jews to apostatize from their old religion, as did the early Christians within the Roman Empire, and all the Christian and Muslim activists around the world continue to operate on the same principle today. It is inconsistent to expect other religions to permit apostasy with impunity, and concurrently use punishment to prevent apostasy from within.