[iwar] [fc:Of.course.it's.a.war.on.Islam]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-10-17 18:31:35
Next message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:Signs.of.a.cunning.bioterrorist]"
Previous message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:Israel.vows.new.era.of.war.on.terrorism.after.minister.slain]"
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]
Message-Id: <200110180131.SAA05335@big.all.net>
To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List)
Organization: I'm not allowed to say
From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com
Precedence: bulk
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 18:31:35 -0700 (PDT)
Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Of.course.it's.a.war.on.Islam]
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

                     Of course it's a war on Islam
  Bush and Blair call it a fight against terrorism, but many British
               Muslims see it as an assault on freedom
                             Faisal Bodi
                     Wednesday October 17, 2001
                             The Guardian

 It doesn't seem so very long ago that another US president called
Bush appeared before the American people to inform them that Operation
Desert Storm had got under way. This was not a war against the Iraqi
people, he assured them. It was a war to oust their despotic ruler
from neighbouring Kuwait and usher in a new world order.
Ten years on and more than 500,000 "excess" child deaths later
(according to Unicef's figures), Saddam Hussein is still in power in a
country reduced from a bread basked to a begging bowl by his iron-fist
rule and US-led sanctions. Palestinians have not seen their rights
restored. And the Kashmiris are still fighting for independence.
With these gaping holes still festering, Bush junior has inflicted
another wound on the bleeding body of the Muslim ummah, or nation, in
the name of a war against international terrorism. Added to the list
of injuries now comes Afghanistan, already weakened by two decades of
internationally-assisted internecine warfare.
Of course, that's not how Bush and Blair want the world to see their
new double-act. Indeed the prime minister has gone on a charm
offensive, turning itinerant imam in his quest to woo Muslim opinion.
None of it washes except with the stooges who dutifully march down to
Downing Street every time Mr Blair wants to suggest that since British
Muslims are on side this cannot be a war against Islam. Since
September 11 my imam has extended Friday prayers with a special
supplication reserved for times of affliction, imploring God to
annihilate Islam's enemies, to "rock the ground underneath their
feet".
From Gaza to Jakarta the Muslim world is in uproar, nearing upheaval
as it reacts to Pope Bush and Archbishop Blair's crusade: in Iran (no
friend of the Shia-hating Taliban), Malaysia, Indonesia, Palestine and
Pakistan.
If they could vote with their feet in other countries - Egypt and
Jordan have banned marches since the al-Aqsa intifada erupted a year
ago - they would be marching to the nearest jihad recruitment office,
just as they are in South Africa, where one organisation is raising
1,000 volunteers to fight the Americans.
For the rank and file believer, a drawn-out military offensive against
terrorist groups and those that harbour them can only mean one thing:
the extirpation of Islam as a political threat to the west's
exploitation of our countries. With the help of a handful of western
states, the US-led coalition is attempting to deal once and for all
with those who refuse to yield to the American world order.
Soon after September 11, it was reported that Britain and the US were
drawing up a secret 10-year plan to combat the forces of "radical
Islam", a blueprint for a new cold war to be fought principally by
means of espionage, subversion and economic sanctions, backed by
periodic and, theoretically, limited military incursions.
This war is the first to carry the blessing of all the world's major
military powers: a grand global coalition against Islamic movements.
Russia would like no better than a free hand crush the independence
struggle in Chechnya and suppress similar movements on its southern
flanks. To its east, China is brutally smothering its own insurgency
in Xinjiang, home to more than 50m Muslims. India, another nuclear
power, has some 700,000 troops quashing an insurrection in majority
Muslim Kashmir.
Operation Enduring Freedom is in fact a war against liberty, a war
against those Muslims who cling to the hope that, just like their
counterparts in the west, they too will one day be able to determine
and direct their own fate. Ever since independence, Muslim societies
from Marakesh to Mindanao have had their aspirations for self-rule
repressed by western-backed elites and dictators.
Take Algeria, where a ferocious war has been waged on Islamists (after
elections they won in 1991 were annulled) with the active approval and
connivance of the west.
In Turkey, the largest mainstream Islamic party has been banned twice;
now in its third guise, its leader Tayyib Erdogan faces trial for
comments he made years ago. Forgotten by the world, hundreds of
Turkish Islamists are serving 100-year-plus sentences for defying the
taboo on mixing faith and politics.
In the central Asian republic of Uzbekistan, suddenly a valuable
coalition partner, an authoritarian regime has executed scores of
Islamist dissidents since a 1999 attempt on the life of its dictator,
Islam Karimov. There is indeed a blight we can call extremism, a
scourge within that Islamists can rightly be accused of neglecting,
despite valiant efforts by scholars such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi. But
there is also near-unanimous agreement that internal problems within
the House of Islam will never been solved while its walls are ablaze.
What the Muslim world needs right now is a long period of calm and
stability, not one based on security apparatuses and dictators but on
the free expression of the collective will of its peoples. If the west
is not prepared to help in that endeavour, it should at least cease
being a hindrance. The worst thing it can do is to become our enemy.
·Faisal Bodi is a writer on Muslim affairs.

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Pinpoint the right security solution for your company- Learn how to add 128- bit encryption and to authenticate your web site with VeriSign's FREE guide!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/yQix2C/33_CAA/yigFAA/kgFolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

------------------
http://all.net/ 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Next message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:Signs.of.a.cunning.bioterrorist]"
Previous message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:Israel.vows.new.era.of.war.on.terrorism.after.minister.slain]"
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2001-12-31 20:59:55 PST