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PART 4 of 4
WORLD OF QUR'AN
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| Khomeini |
THE SECOND FONT
OF ISLAMIST TERRORISTS
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| THEY GOT WHAT THEY DESERVED, SAY IRANIAN OFFICIALS. |
International outrage for hangings of gay youth in Iran
The picture
shows the public hanging in mid-July 2006 of two Iranian boys, Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, age 18 and 16, for alleged
homosexual activity. The boys had been subjected to torture by lashings before being hanged.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Iran is one of only
five countries to continue executing juveniles and called for an end to what it called inhumane punishments, claiming that
Iran is in breach of international agreements which it has signed.
Public executions are common in Iran and the Islamic
Republic has executed possibly thousands of gay men since the Islamic revolution in 1979. Homosexuality is illegal in almost
all Muslim-ruled countries and punishable by death in many of them but Iran's record is deemed particularly shocking.
Pictures of the executions have been widely circulated on the Internet and the case
has had considerable global resonance: European and U.S.
gay organizations and publications launched protest campaigns and called for letter writing and demonstrations outside Iranian
embassies. BBC News, July 28, 2006
PROTESTING IRANIAN STUDENTS ATTACKED AS REGIME EXTENDS ISLAMIZATION CAMPAIGN.
May 2006
Several were shot and many arrested by
police during days of student demonstrations by thousands at several locations in Iran following
a purge of the faculty of Tehran University on the ninth anniversary of the election of Mohammad "Tehran Spring" Khatami on May 23rd.
As demonstrators chanted "We don't want nuclear energy" and "Forget Palestine - think of us,” riot-control police with helmets,
shields and clubs beat students into submission and cut phone lines. "The (Tehran) university campus is on fire, raids are
being conducted throughout the campus, and the students are in fear and anxiety... Gunfire is heard from all directions...
There is blood everywhere," one eyewitness has reported.
Read: MEMRI Special Dispatch #
1174, May 26, 2006., http://memri.org/sd.html
Human rights advocates, students
and expatriate Iranians announced a three-day hunger strike to begin on Friday,
July 14, 2006 to protest rising repression of dissent by the Ahmadinejad government. Supporters in New York City and Toronto issued a statement saying, “In such
an atmosphere, Iran’s democracy movement calls for the
unity and support of people of conscience from around the world.”
An EMPIRE of Many TRIBES is COLLAPSING
The mystery
is how Iran
is able to hold itself together, given the amazing variety of struggling ethnic groupings enfolded within her and their struggle
to hold their places. The official language is Farsi, yet some 50% of Iranians speak another language at home. Some 70% of
the population was born after Ayatollah Khomeini declared the Islamic "Republic" on April 1, 1979.
ISOLATION:
The Islamic Republic was overtaken by "hardliners" as they created a diplomatic gulf between Iran and the U.S. with the embassy-hostage
crisis in November 1979. The
current diplomatic isolation from the U.S. deepened when the Iranian Foreign Minister made
a no-show to his meeting alone with the US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on September 15, 2000 at a U.N. Afghanistan conference. At the same time, Iran’s trade with the
European Union nearly tripled between 2000 and 2005 as the Islamic Republic spent its hard currency on its weapons program.
The snub of the US in 2000 is still talked about in Islamist-speak as a humiliation of the weak superpower.
Years
without intelligent and coordinated Iran policy has resulted in the secrecy required for Iran to construct its nuclear centrifuge cascade. It was not an accidental isolation of Iran by the West but a purposeful creation of a secret regime by Iran, a politburo of power clerics, representing the faith of the last prophet which requires
the Islamization of the Earth.
There is little offered by peaceful diplomacy now and whatever diplomacy is happening is by the Europeans. A real,
peaceful solution with Iran will only transpire only when the Iranian government is accountable to the Iranian
people.
NUCLEAR THREAT: Its nuclear facilities
were not built overnight, and so in April 2006 there is little to negotiate. A vigorous program of sanctions directed at the
leadership rather than the civil society is under consideration by the nations of the West, including freezing of assets and
travel bans on regime officials.
Military
moves against the regime’s nuclear facilities would be very costly but perhaps still better than a nuclear-armed
Iran. But the will for military action perhaps has not yet transpired in the US
or Europe, where spring has brought out the protestors of
many descriptions. Britain seems to have opted out of possible military moves as China and Russia stand inscrutably on the sidelines, insisting that their governments do not sponsor
such international sanctions. .
Increasing China enters the picture,
a strongly-emergent, atheistic, undemocratic Giant who's economic dynamo craves energy and workers. China owns a lot, a very
lot, of US paper. They and they and the Saudi-Arabians. The Grand Old Republic is in debt to a lot of quite questionable
characters nowadays it seems. The desire for the preservation of wealth remains, as always, the most effective motivator
in individuals, familiess and nations.
Iran must now open all its sites to inspection, including the secret ones. Tehran
must also provide the details its dealings with Pakistani and North Korean nuclear scientists. The question of number of years
before Iran can build a nuke weapon is mute; a purchase of nuke material from N. Korea, most willing
to sell, would change the entire equation. Such an event would fundamentally change the balance of power in the Mid-east,
which is exactly the idea of this fringe-party and bellicose Islamist government of priests of the prophet who despised
infidels.
Hegemon
of the Aryan Plateau
Imagine a Giant Jihad Jinni Breathing Fire
The Dragon Menace of the Islamic Republic,
Neither Islamic nor Republic
Following large-scale military maneuvers earlier in April 2006 and a day after an Iranian announcement
of success in producing uranium enrichment, Expediency Council chief Hashemi Rafsanjani, landed in Damascus for four days
of talks. He declared Iran’s
nuclear program as “purely peaceful.” The discussions with the Baathist regime were expected to include continuing
to raise tensions on the Lebanon-Syrian border, causing troubles for Americans in Iraq, continuing
to foster anti-U.S. ideas and activities in the Mid-East, continued support of Hizballah’s terrorist campaign in Palestine
and the Middle East, strengthening of Iran’s grip on Palestine and the Shiite elements in Iraq, and expanding its ability
to open a second front against Israel. Close monitoring by the U.S. armed forces
have found no operational nuclear facilities and the observation has produced a wealth of data on Iran’s
arsenal and its strategic strengths and weaknesses.
A NEW REVOLUTION: As the divisions in the society deepen the current regime is widely
unpopular with only some 20% being in accord with its Islamist religious interpretations, and many of the tribal and religious
groups have a history of separatism from central power.
Many episodes of violence have been playing out recently, especially
in the south. Khuzistan in the south-west, “The Land of the Arabs,” was virtually wiped out in the Iraq war
of 1980-1988 with much of its population disbursed. Post-war recovery was hastened
by oil revenues but frictions prevail between Arabs and Islamic Republic ideologues who are believed to discriminate against
Arab Sunnis (and their ideologues) and to spend the region’s money on the building of Shiite mosques instead of
hospitals and schools.
The export
of reports of riotings have been greatly facilitated by the opening of the Iran/Iraq border and it is apparent that violent
acting out has been rising in Khuzistan. In an April 2005 rioting of Arabs in Ahvaz, over 20 died, hundreds were wounded,
and 300 arrested, ended in a brutal suppression where prisoners were summarily executed by gun. The Arabs had heard that the Iranian government intended to banish ethnic Arabs to replace them with ethnic
Persians. The question is: which of the myriad of Khuzistan Arab political parties and groupings are responsible for the rising
level of interpersonal violence? The government in Tehran blames the problems on the British.
This south-western region
is influenced by the neighboring province of Baluchistan, just to the east, which is also embroiled in ethnic and religious turmoil within an economy largely fueled by the
heroin trade from the poppy stuff which is brought easily over the border from Afghanistan. Glorious Leader Khomeini’s interpretation of the Qur’an (Twelver Shi’ism), the font
of dogma for the Islamic Republic, is in conflict with the majority of people in the province
of Sistan va Baluchistan who are Sunni. A wave of terrorist bombings hit the provincial capitol in June
2005. They feel dispossessed, in a violent mood, and drugs are exacting a cost in general lawlessness. Drug addiction is rife
in Iran, the supply line dependable and lucrative: the problems is huge, with many kidnappings
and shoot outs in the streets as well as the social stupidity heroin causes.
The Tehran government blames the groups
in Baluchistan for their own problems but those groups know that the Islamic Republics police forces and
the potent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are both lawlessly complicit in the drug smuggling. To the west in Khuzistan,
the people know it’s not the British to be blamed, but the demagogue controllers in the capitol. The disdain for the
Tehran government, which pervades Iran, is
measured by polls which reveal the unpopularity of the Islamic Republic by the people and perhaps a relaxation of blind clinging
to tradition in the countryside. History reveals the corollary between a fracturing of a body politic which becomes greater
the more the central power is weakened. After a short time the ayatollahs, now bolstered by peak oil prices, may have to find
something else to be.
A strong and unified Iran
would transform the Middle East and be a witness against the Islamism in which they are now bound. Or could
this be just another act in an ancient warfare and a forshadowing of the battles to come between Arabs and Persians?
The Brigades
of the Shahids of the Global Islamic Awakening
"Our
Missiles Are Ready to Strike at Anglo-Saxon Culture"
IRAN'S "SECRET" The London Arabic-language
Al-Sharq Al-Awsatn in May 2004 reported that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has begun registering suicide volunteers to
be sent to Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon. The information was gleaned from a tape
of a speech at a secret conference by "H.A.," a [Revolutionary] Guards intelligence theoretician, who teaches at
the Revolutionary Guards' Al-Hussein University.
In the tape, H.A. spoke of Tehran's secret
strategy aimed at taking over Arab and Muslim countries by means of helping revolutionary forces and organizations. He also spoke of a strategy drawn up for “taking over” the United Kingdom
and for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization. “The global
infidel front is a front against Allah and the Muslims,” he said, “and we must make use of everything we have
at hand to strike at this front, by means of our suicide operations or by means of our missiles. There are 29 sensitive sites
in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them.” Other
sources have reported that an Iranian intelligence unit has created an organization called The Brigades of the Shahids of
the Global Islamic Awakening to implement Iran’s efforts in their “Holy War.”
The Ayatollah
Proclaims
“Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled or
incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country of
the world …those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world… Islam
says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! … Islam says: Kill them, put them to the sword and scatter
… whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword!
… People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword
is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for Holy Warriors!”
Ayatollah KhomeinI, Supreme Leader of Iran
Holy Terror: Inside the World of Islamic Terrorism
Published in London, 1987
IRAN JOINS U.S. – RUSSIA AS MISSILE POWER
The
Ukrainian prosecutor-general Svyatoslav Piksun on March 18, 2005 admitted that 18 Ukrainian-held Soviet X-55 (Kh-55) strategic
air-to-ground cruise missiles were illegally exported in 1991 — without nuclear warheads - 12 to Iran and 6 to China.
The high-tech X-55 has a range of 1,900 miles, capable of carrying 200-kiloton nuclear warheads to Israel and far as all of
Russia to Japan. The missiles give Iran a missile capability previously held by only the United States and Russia, seriously
changing the balance of military power in the Middle East. Iran is thought to be very near the production of a nuclear weapon,
a subject of great international concern, given the islamofascist nature of its current regime.
DANGER! WASHINGTON GIVES UP THE FIGHT
but only for a little while?
IRAN NUKES PROBABLE IN TWO YEARS
Israeli attack with U.S. support to take out about 8 nuke facilities?
Abandoning its efforts to stop Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, the Bush administration
approved on June 13, 05 of the reappointment of Mohamed El Baradei for a fifth term as agency board director of the U.N.
IAEA nuclear watchdog.
This was in the face of Russian and Chinese support of Iran in the U.N. and a sudden
political weakness in the European Union, which made unlikely future support for a united international front capable
of bringing about U.N. Security Council sanctions capable of deterring Iran’s development of its nuclear plans.
Many now expect Iran to build a nuclear weapon within the next two years, drastically
affecting the balance of power in the Middle East. Washington is expected to
depend on diplomatic and intelligence-related resources to delay the actual production of the bomb for the duration of the
current administration.
ELECTIONS IN IRAN
IRANIAN "CLERICS" PACKED THE LIST
TO STEAL THE 2004 ELECTION Fundamentalist hardliners
packed the Iranian parliament by eliminating by decree some 2,500 candidates they deemed objectionable before the "elections"
in April 2004, leaving "moderate" President Mohammad Khatami and his cabinet as the only reformers still in office, facing
a hostile parliament and retaining little of reforms once hailed as the ``Tehran Spring.'' On the eve of the "election," the
last two big reformist newspapers where shut down.
Fundamentalists Shiite "clerics" grounded in Iran and Sunnis based
in Saudi Arabia have long been engaged in an Islamist civil war to the detriment to all Human beings living in the Middle
East, a battle of bigots which is the primary cause of the region's prevailing despotism and economic destitution. Currently,
both branches of radical Islamism are seen to be joining forces to destabilize Iraq to thwart a division of religion and state,
and an independant judiciary, anathemas to their interpretations of Islam, which impose a dictatorship of "clerics."
2005 ELECTIONS IN THE ISLAMIC "REPUBLIC"
The nation’s clerical leadership was happy with the high turnout for
the presidential election and the June 24, 2005 runoff, claiming that a high turnout of voters as a validation of the legitimacy
of the clerical leadership and of the Islamic state. "No matter what candidate they vote for, they will be voting for the
Islamic system," said the outgoing President Mohammad Khatami. But, in a surprise to everyone, except perhaps to the clerical
leadership, a dark horse emerged with the second highest vote after Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, age 70, who had been favored
to win the presidency. That dark horse candidate, the ultraconservative mayor
of Tehran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, won the presidency of Iran in a landslide victory, shocking the political establishment, conservatives
as well as reformers. . He received major support from the poorer, rural areas, as well as from the middle class, exposing
a significant class division. Many votes for Rafsanjani were votes against Ahmadinejad.
On the day of the run off Mr. Rafsanjani swept regally and confidently through voters to the ballot box in flowing
clerical robes and turban with his entourage. Mr. Ahmadinejad waited in line
for his turn to vote before allowing himself to be ushered to the ballot box only to end a chaos of swarms of supporters.
In the election leading to the run off Rafsanjani, age 70, a wealthy power broker supported by the nation’s business
class, was favored to win the Presidency, regaining the office he held from 1989 to 1997, but pre-election polls showed him
running below the 50% necessary to win. His nearest competitors included the reformist Mostafa Moin, 54, who has pledged to
tackle human rights abuses, and conservative Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, 43, an ex-police chief rumored to enjoy the backing of
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In May 2005 the hard-line Guardian Council rejected on the basis of their sex 89 women
who had registered to run for president in the June 17 election. Some 1,000 individuals overall had been forbidden to compete
in the election. Six unelected clerics and six judges dominate the Guardian Council, which acts as a virtual supreme court
for all aspects of society.
The ruling by the Council was greeted with outrage
and led to demonstrations by women protesting sex discrimination. Iranian women have voted in great numbers in recent elections
to support candidates who have promised more rights. The June election promised to be the tightest in Iran’s history
and to determine whether the nation maintains it’s uneven course of reform initiated by the outgoing President Mohammad
Khatami, a cleric.
Mr. Ahmadinejad is a 49-year-old "populist" and not part of Iran’s political elite. Often invoking Allah and
his faith, he had called for higher wages and a lowering of prices and made promises to provide pensions and low-interest
loans, expanded health insurance and to wipe out systemic corruption and cronyism in the nation. A civil engineer, Mr. Ahmadinejad
was in his early 20s during the Islamic revolution in 1979 and in the war with Iraq he served as an engineer with the Revolutionary
Guards. His political and economic views are viewed by many as a throwback to the early days of the revolution.
In this nation-state of 67 million people, half are under 25 years of age with a voting age of 15; thus, all candidates
targeted young voters. But everyone wondered what good could be brought by voting for a new president in a nation
with two parallel governments: the elected government and the more powerful unelected clerical government, the Guardian Council,
so firmly entrenched by the godhead itself.
There were widespread claims by reformes of vote fraud, systematic, organized conspiracy and influence peddling but
clerical official dismissed the charges and made no investigation. In a society where clerics and the military rule by loyalty
and fear many votes are thought to have been so influenced. The hard-line clerics had mobilized for Ahmadinejad.
His victory gives Iran’s Islamist ideology a monopoly on the control of all of Iran’s governing institutions,
both elected and appointed. Some believe there will be little impact on policies, as hard-liners through Guardian Council
have always been in control, but reformers fear an end to social changes achieved under the Khatami presidency that have widened
personal freedoms. "Ahmadinejad will have no obstacle: the Parliament, judiciary and the leadership will have maximum cooperation
with him," said Alireza Akbari, a former deputy defense minister and a general with the Revolutionary Guards.
A U.S. Administration spokesman said before the run off election, "we may be looking at a summer of simultaneous crises
on opposite sides of the world," one in Iran, and one in North Korea. Britain, France and Germany, who have taken over the
nuclear negotiations meant to hinder Iran’s nuclear ambitions, have set a deadline in July to make a full offer of financial
incentives to Iran. Ahmadinejad has declared his dedication that Iran will be a nuclear nation while denying any intention
to build nuclear weapons. He has often complained that Iran's negotiators have made too many concessions in these negotiations.
The world awaited agog the ultimate course of this witches’ brew of elections and Islamism. But - no suprise
really. Ahmadinejad of the Republican Guard is anointed and made president of the nation by the all-male, all Muslim Guardian
Council, which is the unelected guiding religious power of Iran, accountable only to Allah. So the government and Guardian
Council are accountable to no one, certainly not to the the people. The people under all Islamic regimes must depend
only on Allah ... because it is so they are taught since childhood. Now Allah, it seems, covets an A-bomb.
* Bigot (Norman-English): a term
of derision for people who cling blindly and tenaciously to creeds and beliefs that they believe (and constantly declare)
come bi gott! (i.e., by God!)
An intolerant, narrow-minded, prejudiced people.
Without general elections, without unrestricted
freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere
semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element. Public life gradually falls asleep, a few
dozen party leaders of inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule.... Such conditions must inevitably cause
a brutalization of public life: attempted assassinations, shootings of hostages, etc.
Rosa
Luxemburg (1870-1919),
German revolutionary,
Prison Notes 1918
PROGRESSIVES CALL FOR DEMOCRACY
On March 3, 2005, more than five hundred Iranian scholars, intellectuals,
journalists, students, artists and politicians signed an unprecedented public letter that denounced Iran's regime, calling
upon the mullahs to "obey the people's vote and the nation's will" by adopting the principles of democracy. Read their
letter at
http://www.iranfreedomfoundation.org/default.php?page_id=11
The Iran Freedom
Foundation is made up of American and Iranian scholars, professionals, philanthropists and human rights advocates who have
joined together to support the rights of the Iranian people.
SUDAN
“ARABIZATION” SWEEPS NORTH AFRICA
GLOBE FOR DARFUR
Campaign
In Darfur in western Sudan, the situation is as bad as it has been at any time in the last four years. The Arab janjaweed, supported by the Arab government of Sudan, continue to use rape and sexual violence on a daily basis
as weapons of war. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and the crisis has spread across two borders. World leaders
are being called to add action to their words to stop the violence.
We each can add our voices and be a part of
The Globe For Darfur
on April 29th, 2007
CLICK Time is Up. Protect
Darfur CLICK
New arms race in South Asia?
Dramatic expansion of
Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal underway.
The Institute for Science and International Security (Isis), a non-governmental nuclear watchdog, reported in July
2006 that satellite imaging has detected the construction of a new heavy water reactor at a nuclear production complex at
Khushap, in Pakistani Punjab. The new facility will be capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium for up to 50 warheads
a year. The new plant when completed “in a few years” will be 20 times the size of the existing reactor at Khushap.
Some 50 nuclear warheads are currently estimated in the Pakistani army inventory.
There is speculation that the new plant is supported by a
strategic military and diplomatic partnership between China and Pakistan. Click: Guardian article
ON THE EASTERN FRONT
Afghanistan-Pakistan
Pakistan Resumes Campaign in its Wild West
As 2006 began Pakistan's campaign against foreign militants in the country's tribal areas was again gaining strength after a period of faltering;
this is the area where Osama Bin Laden is believed to be hiding. Pakistani officials had said before the new offensive that
"the military campaign is bogged down, the local political administration is powerless and the militants are stronger than
ever."
A surge of Islamist jihadists moving back into Afghanistan from Pakistan is being swelled by a
forced repatriation by the Pakistani government. The operatives already in Afghanistan have recently begun deadly rocket attacks
on U.S. forces and the influx of more terrorists is expected to tax an insufficient number of U.S.-led coalition forces in
the country and pose a new challenge to the Karzai government in Kabul. The government in Kabul has been unable to gain effective
control of the Afghan countryside and it fears that the large numbers of returning terrorists will aggravate the threat.
Some 3
million Afghans had been living as refugees in Pakistan, creating the world’s largest refugee population. After more than two years of battling remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban hiding among the refugees
in South Waziristan, Pakistan wound down its military operations there at the end of 2004.
"There is not an inch of South Waziristan or the tribal area which we have not swept time and again, and if he (Osama)
was here in the tribal areas, I can assure you that he wouldn't have escaped my eyes and ears," reported the General in charge.
The South Waziristan
tribal area, a bulwark of Islamist ideology (i.e., pan-global militant Islam), formerly enjoyed de facto independence from
the Pakistani government. Pakistan has caught and killed over 1,000 foreign activists of al-Qaeda and the Taliban from various
parts of the world and, in addition, the UN refugee agency reports that from 2002, nearly 2.4 million Afghan refugees returned
home from Pakistan.
NORTH WASIRISTAN
LAST REMAINING LARGE TERRORIST CONCENTRATION
A census in 2005 determined that 1,861,412 Afghan refugees remained in the North West Frontier
Province and North Waziristan, 783,545 in Baluchistan, 136,780 in Sindh, 207,754 in Punjab, 44,637 in Islamabad and 13,097
in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the Northern Areas. These were given until June 20 to depart voluntarily or be forced into
a temporary camp for their removal to Afghanistan. Some of the refugees have been there since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
in the early 1980s. The presence of the refugees provides cover for hundreds of foreign terrorists from Afghanistan, Chechnya
and Uzbekistan, complicating Pakistan’s mission to remove the terrorists from their country. The Afghan colonies had
became jihad cultures enabling terrorists to easily move back and forth across the border and Pakistan finally realized that
it had become a global recruitment center for jihadists. The jihad culture dates back to the 1980s when Pakistan under General
Zia ul Haq opened its borders and actively encouraged the jihad against Red Army occupation.
Even after the Afghan refugees and the embedded jihadists are removed, North Waziristan, a stronger
base for al Qaeda and the Taliban than South Waziristan had been, will be a problem. The jihad culture there is supported
by a large number of Saudi-inspired madrassas (“religious” schools) and their alumni, some 70 percent of the local
population.
The humanitarian problem for the refugees is compounded by the welcome they may expect in Afghanistan’s
hotbeds of Taliban-led insurgents in areas where United Nations staff and most aid organizations have pulled out fearing attacks
on their workers. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says Afghanistan is not ready to receive them.
Returnees face attacks by rival tribal warlords and hunger. Jobs and food are also both in short supply in a country where
six to seven million people are reported to live on the brink of starvation. The UNHCR standard repatriation assistance package
includes a travel grant of US $3 to $30 per person depending on the distance to the recipient's destination in Afghanistan
and another $12 per capita to re-establish themselves in their homeland.
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report from Pakistan, June 11, 2005
TERRORIST SHIPPED OUT
Pakistan
in June 2005 turned over to the United States the Libyan Abu Farraj al-Libbi, an al-Qaeda operative said to rank third in
the terrorist organizations hierarchy captured during a shootout in May of this year.
He was one of Pakistan’s most wanted men for allegedly masterminding two bloody attempts to blow up President
Gen. Pervez Musharraf. It is believed that the government shipped al-Libbi out for internal security reasons, fearing a trial
could trigger more terrorist attacks in Pakistan.
Pakistan says
it has captured more than 700 al-Qaida suspects since the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States and has handed most
of them over to American authorities. They include al-Qaida's former No. 3, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a key planner of the Sept.
11 attacks who was arrested in March 2003 during a raid near Islamabad. Two other alleged al-Qaida leaders, Ramzi Binalshibh
and Abu Zubaydah, were also caught in Pakistan.
On February 10, 2006 the Pakistani
Supreme Court ordered a 15-day suspension of the nationwide ban on kite flying for the celebration of “‘Jashan-e-Baharan.”
BONDED
LABOR IN PAKISTAN
February 2006. The International Labour
Organisation (ILO) reports that over 1.7 million men, women and children are in bondage in Pakistan, a nation of some 162
million. They are mostly “haris,” landless tillers of the soil and mostly (1.3 million) under the control
of feudal lords (waderas) in Sindh. Such ersatz slavery is said to be rampant every where and poor families continue to be
exploited, particularly in farming and in the industries of brick kilns and carpet weaving. ”15 to 20 percent of the
children working at brick factories lose their eye sight due to unhealthy ambience,” said Dr. Kamran Ahmad, chairperson
of Mehergarh, which works is support of bonded laborers and to liberate them.
Sindh, one of Pakistan’s four provinces,
includes the lower portion of the Indus River south of Punjab and
the cities of Hyderabad and Karachi. At its center is a fertile plain, largely irrigated by water from the Indus.
Workers attempt to pay of the loans
with which they are encumbered but seldom do. Some 1 million of them are kept in private detention centers which are destitute
and prison-like. Poverty is the primary reason parents give up their children to drudge labor and this cycle keeps on going
for generations. The Pakistani government is charged with failure to liberate the haris because of apathy. Mehergarh
“Divine Justice”
Mukhtaran Bibi, a Pakistani woman, was sentenced
to be gang raped by a tribal council in 2002 because her younger twelve year-old brother had befriended a woman from a powerful
clan, supposedly offending the honor of the clan. rape is a long-practiced form of clan
warfare in this backward land, making the woman unsuitable for marriage, thus depriving her family of a dowery. This womans
humiliation was particularly severe: After the rape she was forced by village leaders to walk home nearly naked in
front of a jeering crowd.
Rumors abounded that she had committed suicide
but she testified against her persecutors in court and six men were originally convicted of the crime and sentenced to death
by an anti-terrorism court. However, five were later acquitted after appealing to the Punjab court, which cited a lack of
evidence. A sixth man had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment. The provincial government subsequently intervened,
ordering that the six men be detained for three months, pending the outcome of an appeal by the victim against the acquittal.
Six men who served on the village council were detained at the same time.
On Thursday, June 9, 2005 the Musharraf government
placed the victim under house arrest for planning a visit to the United States concerned, it is said, that Ms. Mukhtaran might
malign Pakistan's image if she were allowed to go abroad. She reported over the telephone that police pointed guns at her
when she stepped outside her house and soon her landline was cut off. On Friday, a day when courts do not ordinarily operate,
a court ordered the 12 men involved in her gang rape to be released, placing the victim’s life at risk. Ms. Mukhtaran continued her protests by cell phone until police arrested her and carried her reportedly
to Islamabad where she was berated before being led sobbing to detention at a secret location, barred from contacting anyone
including her lawyer.
On June 15 the Interior Minister told parliament
that the name of Mukhtaran Mai had been removed from the ECL, the exit control list that prevents overseas travel, saying,
“She is free to go anywhere. She can go wherever she wants.'' Since her humiliation she has spoken out against honor
killings, rapes and other attacks on women. She has also used her compensation money to found two schools in her village,
one each for boys and girls, taking care to enroll children of her attackers to show she bore no grudges. She also established
a shelter for abused women and bought a van that is used as an ambulance in the area.
Under Pakistan’s medieval justice system
and its grim Hudood Ordinances (which incarnate bigots' interpretations of Divine Will), women who cannot prove they were
raped or equally unable to disprove extramarital sexual
intercourse, can be convicted of adultery and are often stoned to death.
What is required for successful prosecution is
the witness of four male witnesses – “Muslims of good character” – to prove both adultery and rape
charges.
An estimated 80 percent of women prisoners in
Pakistan are in jail because they failed to prove rape charges and found themselves locked up on adultery convictions, according
to a 2004 report by the National Commission on the Status of Women. In April 1997, the parliament had passed a law making
death the punishment for men for gang rape, rather than jail and whipping, after a surge in the crime.
An attempt in recent years to introduce a bill
urging the repeal of the Hudood laws collapsed when opposition from Islamist "clergy" and associated political parties resulted
in the withering of expected support from other lawmakers. The reason given for
the opposition by the "clergy" of Islamism? “The laws are given in the
Koran and Allah does not give humans the right to change them.”
http://www.4anaa.org/projects/mukhtaran-mai.htm is the Web site of the Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Women, the group that is arranging Ms. Mukhtaran’s
visit to the U.S., operated by a group of Pakistani doctors.
Ms. Mukhtaran is the best hope for Pakistan’s
image abroad, a symbol of enlightenment and courage. The current reality of Pakistan's image is a reflection of President
Musharraf’s upholding of the Hudood laws and the thuggish behavior of his retrograde Islamists.
 
AFGHANISTAN
The conflict in Afghanistan
appears to have entered a new phase, fueled by new funding (including revenues from a bumper crop of opium poppies) and newly-trained
guerilla fighters arriving on an al-Qaeda “underground railroad" to and from jihadists training camps in the Al-Anbar
province of Iraq. Al-Qaeda is thought to have de-emphasized its operations in Afghanistan in order
to build up the insurgency in Iraq but now is focusing on bringing in better weapons, more effective killing techniques and
a renewed enthusiasm and esprit for the holy war against the West in Afghanistan.
Adolescent boys have been reported being trained as suicide bombers and, with
arms and explosives being imported from Iran, Iraq and Pakistan, the Taliban forces are larger, more effective, better funded,
armed and organized than at any time since the end of 2001.
Teams of
Arab instructors imported from Iraq are teaching their insurgent tactics and arms-producing skills to the Taliban, bringing
to bear armor-penetrating rockets, RPG rounds and Iraqi-style IEDs (improvised explosive devices) with high-velocity “shaped”
charges, together with remote-controlled devices and timers. Even when crudely made, these devices can be far more deadly
than Soviet-era munitions previously used. In addition to demolitions training, the senior Arab jihadists are also teaching
skills for springing ambushes and engaging in urban fighting.
A rise in U.S. fatalities
and casualties in the later months of 2005 was attributed to the new shaped-charge IEDs. Other guerilla actions against candidates
for office in Afghanistan brought the number of candidates killed to seven candidates when Abdul Hadi was shot
dead at the door of his house in the southern province of Helmand.
Even so, America's troops—roughly
20,000 in the country, all told—are continuing to hunt down the jihadists of Islamism, who continue to wish that their
women be kept locked away in their houses. In the last four months of 2005, according to U.S. military statistics, at least 450 Taliban fighters were killed, out of a total estimated fighting force of several
thousand.
A new layeha (manual of military rules)
for the Mujahideen in the Pashtun language "from the highest leader of the Islamic Emirates
of Afghanistan," was distributed to Taliban leadership at a meeting during Ramadan 2006. READ IT.
BATTLES RAGE IN SOUTH AND EAST
AFGHANISTAN
Helmand, one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan,
is a fertile 23,058 square-mile region in south-west Afghanistan, a mainly desert area thanks to the Helmand River which flows through it. It’s capitol is Lashkar Gah and its population numbers just over 1 million, largely
Pashtun tribes. A U.S. development program built a network of irrigation canals and a large hydroelectric
dam in the 1960s, earning Helmand the nickname “little America.” After communists won power in Afghanistan in 1978, the program ceased and the povince reverted to poverty and opium poppy production.
Currently the American USAID has been paying communities to abandon poppy farming and undertaking improvements in the infastructure,
including drainage and canal rehabilitation, under the Alternative Income Project (AIP). Recently, The USAID programs have
suffered from lack of funding and Taliban interference.
Across
from Helmand’s southern border is the Balochistan province
of Pakistan with its active Taliban training and
staging areas. The security implications for Afghanistan
continue to be agrievated by the alliance of Pakistan’s
military government with Balochistan’s pro-Taliban Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam party. To the north in the Whiristan province
of Pakistan, the government’s Pakistan's
Separate Peace of September may additionally cause problems on that area of the border. The defeat of the Taliban and their
fellow travelers is greatly hindered by the cross-border assistance they receive and by their ability to escape into Pakistan.
Earlier in 2006, NATO forces moved to take control of Helmand and
on July 31st NATO'S International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) initiated Operation
Mountain Thrust and Operation Medusa as NATO and Afghani troops began offensive
operations against the Taliban
and their allies in the south of the country. The Taliban fighters are supported al-Qaeda and by insurgents from tribes involved
in the opium trade, primarily the Ishakzai and Alikozai.
So began the greatest phase
of intense battles since the Taliban were routed from Afghanistan
following the September
11, 2001 World
Trade Center massacre. The British 16th Air Assault Brigade serves as the command for the 20 thousand-strong
NATO force which includes some 10,000+ Canadian, British and Dutch soldiers. In the face of heavy Taliban resistance, the
operation stalled as the British and Afghani troops were forced into mostly defensive position, reinforcements were called
for and provided and new military positions were established. The British were reporting the battles here as the most brutal
thay have fought since the Korean War. NATO reported losing some 30 men in the month and one half following Aug. 1, 2006.
Additional NATO troops, armoured vehicles and helicopters have been requested.
In addition to stepped up Taliban efforts in the south, the insurgency has intensified throughout
Afghanistan, especially in the east on the border with Pakistan, fueled by revenues estimated at around $1 billion from a
record poppy crop. More than 2,400 people have been killed since January and NATO is reporting very large fatalities being
inflicted on Taliban forces across the vast deserts and mountain ranges of Helmand and Kandahar provinces.
Nangarhar province, a long-time
al-Qaida enclave, on September 13, two rockets were fired into the capital city of Jalalabad just hours prior to the arrival
of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to officiate at the opening of a new $33 million
road linking the city of Jalalabad with the Pakistani border and the Khyber pass to the east. No casualties were reported.
Meanwhile, thousands of Canadian troops were reclaiming additional contested territory from the Taliban in the southern Kandahar province.
Very near the U.S. embassy
in the downtown area of the Afghani capitol of Kabul in the morning of September 8, an Islamikazi drove his car into an American convoy,
causing one of the most powerful explosions ever experienced in Kabul. The bombing
killed some 16 and wounded 29, including two American soldiers and reports were circulated that a suicide-bombing cell was
hunting foreign troops in the capitol. NATO has given the figure of 173 human beings have been killed by suicide bombers in
Afghanistan since the beginning of 2006, demonstrating the adoption by the Taliban of the tactics of al-Qaeda, “a dangerous
change in tactics:” the fatalities included 151 Afghan civilians, Afghan authorities, and members of NATO and U.S.-led
coalition forces.
An additional 2,500 NATO troops plus supplies
of military equipment have been requested but some resistance has been noted from Europe. British Prime Minister
Tony Blair found it necessary to reassert the responsibility of all NATO members to back the alliance's Afghan cause.
"It is clearly the case
that tactics pioneered elsewhere, such as Iraq, particularly suicide bombings, have been taken up in Afghanistan," said an
analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "There is no question that there is a global circuit now.
Technology and strategy and tactics are being shared among different groups in different theaters."
The U.S. Senate on September 7 agreed 98 to 0 to add $63 billion to a bill totaling $469.7 for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The addition was to support the apprehension of Osama bin Laden and to fight the opium trade in Afghanistan that is boosting the Taliban resurgence.
On the bright
side
and ?
Though more numerous than following their defeat in 2001, the Taliban is barely
a shadow of the military juggernaut that seized Kabul in 1996. Afghanistan's cities are returning to vibrant life, and most of the countryside
is peaceful, except for the impoverished backwaters of the south and east, where Mohammed Omar's Taliban, a nationalist Sunni
Islamist pro-Pashtun guerrilla movement, began some 10 years ago and came to rule Afghanistan in 1996.
Most of Mullah Omar's minions, simple village mullahs, were junior Islamist “scholars” trained in Pakistan’s
many madrassas, which “schools” for children were (are?) mostly financed from Saudi Arabia.
APOSTASY MEANS DEATH IN ISLAM
In
February 2006, Abdul Rahman’s wife and family accused him of being a Christian. He was arrested for rejecting Islam,
the crime of apostasy punishable by death under Afghanistan’s Sharia law. His trial began with a one-day hearing on March 16 in Kabul.
At
the hearing, the 41-year old defendant “confessed” that he had converted to Christianity while working for a Christian
group as a medical aide assisting Afghan refugees in Peshawar, Pakistan. He had returned to Afghanistan in 2002 to gain custody of his two children from their grandparents. During custody hearings in February,
officials discovered that he was carrying a Bible. Officials refused requests by the media to interview him in detention,
when a guard said they were going to chop the prisoner into little pieces.
The
matter marked but another battle between reformers and the powerful Islamist clergyMen who rule some 99% of the population
of 25 million and hold them captive to conformist Islam by just such punishments as this.
Islam
here and in Pakistan has been molded by the strict Wahhabi interpretations taught in the many schools (madrassas)
funded by Saudi Arabian oil money since the 1970s. Under
Saudi Islam, the individual has only the rights granted by Islam, to which religion he must remain forever submissive.
The
defendant refused to renounce his Christian faith and so the prosecution announced that it would indeed seek the
death penalty. Anything less, many claimed, would have encourage the Saudi-trained Islamist clergy and the Taliban
in rallying opposition to reformers among the masses, the innocently ignorant "believers" who have been taught since birth
that Christians are drunken, fornicating polytheists.
In the face of outrage from
Europe and America, Afghan prosecutors declared Mr. Rahman “mentally unfit for trial”
and he was released to a secret location on March 27. "Clerics," however, have threatened in unison to incite "believers"
to execute Rahman unless he reverts to Islam: crowds led by clerics were reported to have marched in the city of
Mazar-e-Sharif shouting “Death to Christians!” after his release from prison.
The accursed apostate appealed
to the United Nations for asylum outside of the spiritual gloom of Afganistan and, on the day after his release from prison,
he was living at a "secret location" in Italy. (Since his sentence of death is by a "religion" and not a state, he will be
in danger anywhere in the world that any Muslim wants to carry out the sentence, probably for a reward from a clergyMan
of Islam - in the name of the divine One.) The two children of the new Christian remain in Afghanistan, locked in the
tight embrace of Allah, the compassionate, the merciful.
“Surely
the unbelievers from among the followers of the people of the Book [i.e.
Jews and Christians] and the polytheists are in hellfire and will
be [there] forever. They are the worst of all men." Qur’an 98:6
Punishment for apostasy is based
on the following account, clearly “hearsay,” in the Sahih Bukhari, the most important hadith (traditions, sayings, actions of Muhammad or his companions)
in Sunni Islam:
Ikrimah relates that some
apostates (murtadd) were brought to the Khalifa Ali, and he burnt them alive; but Ibn Abbas heard of it and said that
the Khalifa had not acted rightly, for the Prophet had said, "Punish not with Allah's punishment (i.e., fire), but
whosoever changes his religion, kill him with the sword." Volume
4, Book 52, Number 260
Rahman demanded as ransom for Italian journalist
In
mid October, 2006, Italian photojournalist Gabriele Torsello, a former Christian who converted to Islam, was kidnapped while
he was traveling from Lashkar Gah.. His captors warned they would kill the journalist if Abdul Rahman were not returned to
Afghanistan by the end of Ramadan. Italy's defense ministry categorically rejected the demands and the fate of the victim remained unknown.
Although
his captors claimed to be Taliban militia, a Taliban spokesman said from Afghanistan, “The kidnappers of the Italian journalist are robbers and they have abducted the journalist
for handful money. We will drag the abductors to court if we find them." The new Afghan Constitution pledges “respect”
for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights yet with provision that those charged with the religious “crime”
of apostasy be tried under Sharia law.
JAIL TIME FOR FREE SPEECH
The editor of the monthly Women’s Rights magazine was
sentenced October 22, 2005 to two years in prison for apostasy, “abandonment of the faith”, under the blasphemy provisions of Afghanistan’s Shariah law. The editor, who had lived in Iran
as a refugee during the Taliban rule, claims to be an Islamic scholar with several degrees from Islamic universities. The
jail time was a compromise: the prosecutor had sought the death penalty after conservative Shiite clerics forced the removal
of the magazine from newsstands and the editor was arrested.
The charge for disrespecting Islamic law stemmed from two articles proposing that, although apostasy is taboo,
it is not a crime under Islam. Sayed Makhdum Raheen, liberal minister of information and culture in the government of President
Hamid Karzai, recommended leniency while pointing out that the Kabul primary court had erred by ignoring the Commission for
Investigating Media-Related Offenses, which had found no blasphemy in the articles. There will be an automatic appeal.
The matter is but another demonstration of the struggle that liberal forces face from religious fundamentalists
determined to enforce by any means the strictures of ancient, bigoted* dogmatics, including
Shariah law.
Abandonment of the faith is the charge by which Muslims who convert
to other religions are sentenced to death by beheading, for example in Saudi Arabia, where it is no doubt a capitalcrime.
*Bigot (Norman-English): a term of derision for
people who cling blindly and tenaciously to creeds and beliefs that they believe (and constantly declare) come bi gott! (i.e.,
by God!).
-
An intolerant, narrow-minded, prejudiced person.
Islamist terrorism plagues
BANGLADESH
Steady rise in ISLAMIST violence
Dhaka, 19 September, 2006 (Asiantribune.com): At
approximately 1:30
PM Bangladesh time, a judge ruled that the government would begin
its sedition trial of journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, possibly within fifteen days.
Choudhury is the Muslim journalist who was arrested by the Bangladesh government in 2003. He was imprisoned under often deplorable
conditions and tortured after angering the government and radicals by warning his country about the rise of Islamist terrorism
there, urging Bangladesh to recognize Israel, and advocating interfaith understanding and religious equality. Thanks to JihadWatch.
For full story CLICK http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/2040
Security shattered
in an atmosphere
of increasing
volatility and political instability.
As 2005 is ending, Islamists in the People’s Republic of
Bangladesh are continuing a
series of bomb attacks against the nation’s judiciary in their campaign to impose harsh Islamic law. Fear has brought
judicial proceedings in the country nearly to a halt and caused panic in the streets.
On Thursday, December 1, a suicide bomber exploded near a meeting
of lawyers in Gazipur, located some 20 miles north of the capitol of Dhaka; a police officer and a civilian died and 30 were injured. The bomber survived and is in police custody.
Earlier, on Tuesday, in the nation’s first successful suicide attacks, Islamikazis killed 6 people when they blew themselves
up inside the bar association in Gazipur where a meeting of some 50 lawyers and clients were meeting, and also at a police
checkpoint near the courthouse in the major port city of Chittagong in the south; both of bombers died. In the attacks on Tuesday the explosives used were said to be
much more powerful than previously.
In all, 11 have died so far in this week’s attacks and
100 were wounded. The capitol was brought to a near standstill Thursday as the judiciary called a nationwide strike to protest
the attacks; police in full riot gear were posted around the nearly-empty Dhaka and security was enhanced at all courthouses
in the country. In the last three months two judges have been killed, three injured and 13 have received death threats, according
to reports. The environment for the administration of justice in the country is said to have been seriously harmed as litigants
and officials refuse to show up at court.
On Wednesday, August 17, 2005 some 450 small homemade bombs exploded within
an hour of each other in almost every town and district across the country, killing 2 and injuring at least than 100. Many
of the bombs were placed in near government offices, court buildings, hotels, press clubs, markets and bus rail and rail stations
and at the airport of the capitol and largest city, Dhaka. The explosions caused panic and major traffic jams as people fled and rushed to schools to bring
their children home.
The day after the chain of bombings on the 17th of August, another
series of bombs exploded in Dhaka as a top Awami (People’s) League opposition leader was speaking at a Saturday rally of some 15,000, killing 16
and injuring hundreds. Police battled demonstrators storming police barricades
as businesses and schools shut throughout the country. The demonstrations were called to demand the government's resignation
for failing to prevent Wednesday's bombings. Other demonstrations took place in cities around the nation as international
concern about the situation in Bangladesh was rising.
The Awami, a mildly socialist political party, was dominant in Bangladesh from
independence in 1971 but lost to the Nationalist Party (BNP) in 1981 and 1991, won in 1996 but lost to the BNP in a landslide
in 2001, giving the BNP 47% of the vote and a two-thirds majority in the unicameral, 330-seat Parliament. As a center-right party, the BNP promotes multi-party democracy and a market economy. The current Prime
Minister, Begum Khaleda Zia, is charged with defending the nation’s long-held and cherished traditions as a moderate
Muslim democracy against Islamist tyranny.
With a population of 141 million, Bangladesh is one of the 10 most populated nations
in the world, one of the most densely populated (about 2,100 people per sq mile) and the third-most populous Muslim-majority
nation in the world (88% Sunni). Bangla (Bengali) is the nation's official language
while English is spoken in urban centers. Formerly part of Bengal, it became East Pakistan when India achieved independence in 1947. After a civil war with West
Pakistan (1971) culminating in military intervention by India, Bangladesh formed a separate
nation, primarily agricultural.
The nation is described as moderate Muslim governed by secular laws but the ruling
Bangladesh Nationalist Party has been charged with allying itself politically with Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh (Islamic Assembly
of Bangladesh), a political party seeking the eradication of the British-style common-law judiciary and its replacement by
strict Islamic law, Sharia
This Islamist alliance is associated with the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, the largest component
of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amali (coalition of “religious parties”) in Pakistan. The deterioration
of the educational system in Pakistan is directly attributed to the Jamaat’s student organization, the Islami Jamait-e-Talaba, its
terrorist tactics and insistence on traditional Qur’anic “education”. The Jamait is linked to international
terrorist groups, is a promoter of gun culture and deals in armaments, conducts brutal tortures, and it runs “underground
railroads” for fugitives and Islamist militants.
The Jamaats have become increasingly powerful in Bangladesh since 1971. The Bangladesh
BNP government denies a connection but in November a Parliamentarian from of the Nationalist Party was ejected for having
spoken publicly the widespread criticism of his party’s closeness with the Islamist forces. During recent years the
tide of religious radicalism has caused a serious deterioration in the nation’s secular democratic roots and many Bangladeshis
have been drawn to Islamist militancy, in part due to high unemployment and a crushing poverty for most of the population,
aggravated by a breakdown in governance due to terrorism and to infighting by political parties.
The Jamaat ul-Mujahedeen Bangladesh (the Bangladesh Assembly
of Holy Warriors), thought to control a 2,000-member suicide battalion, was banned in February 2005 for alleged links to a
series of bombings of religious shrines and other targets: the organization calls for the imposition of Islamic law and the
withdrawal of coalition forces from ”Muslim countries.” A grenade attack on another opposition party rally killed
5 people in February 2005 and scuttled a summit of South Asian leaders in Dhaka when India pulled out. Police blame Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh for all of the attacks. Hundreds of its cadres have been arrested in recent months but the recent suicide attacks and more powerful
explosives indicate an escalation by the group and advertise the organization, strength and rabid ideological commitment of
its members.
In March 2006 the U.S. Peace Corp. suspended operations in Bangladesh due to fear of Islamist attacks on its workers.
Note: On Friday, December 2, 2005, the State of Connecticut was forced to shut
down its 50 State court houses following 5 phone calls in which the callers said that bombs had been placed in court houses,
thus terminating State litigations for the day as the court houses were checked for bombs.
THE SHEIKHS OF ARABY
Feudal ally
of convenience to
the American
Republic
The United Arab Emirates (UAE)
is one of the several Islamo-autocratic states of the Arabian Peninsula,
a cabal of monarchist family owners of the former seven “Trucial Sheikdoms.” The 7 emirates are headed by royal
masters known as Sheikhs, who function as absolute monarchs in their own emirates —
Dubayy (Dubai), Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum; Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan; Ajman, Sheikh Humaid bin Rashid Al Nuaimi; Fujairah, Sheikh Hamad bin Muhammad Al Sharqi; Sharjah, Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi; Umm al-Qaiwain, Sheikh Rashid bin Ahmad Al Mualla; and Ras Al Khaimah, Sheikh Saqr bin Muhammad Al Qasimi.
PERSIAN GULF POWERHOUSE
A formerly impoverished
area on the Persian Gulf, the UAE has become the Gulf’s third largest producer of oil and gas with 10% of the world's
oil reserves; petroleum products now account for over one-third of its gross national product. It has transformed into
a modern state with a high living standard while maintaining a traditionally Arabic-feudal social structure. Abu Dhabi and
Dubai contribute some 80% of the nation's income.
It is now a significant
diplomatic power in the area: The UAE culture is deeply rooted in Wahhabi-Sunni Islam and it maintains close ties to other
Arab entities, especially by inter-marrages in the royal families. Investments to diversify the economy have made the Shiekdoms
“the Hong Kong of the Middle East" and a favorite tourist destination, particularly for the weathy. Its architectural
and landscaping projects are creating new national infra- and superstructures, which are breathtaking in their scope,
including the one of the largest and most modern seaports in the world.
NEARLY ALL INSTITUTIONS
EXIST TO INSURE
REGIME ROTECTION.
The seven Sheikhs form the Federal Supreme Council, which Council “elects” a President and a Vice President every five years; however, the Presidency is in fact hereditary to the
Al-Nahyan clan of Abu Dhabi and the Premiership is hereditary to the Al-Maktoom clan of Dubai. The president since the federation’s
founding in 1971 was Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan until his death in November 2004, when his son, the current Sheikh
of Abu Dhabi, was “elected.” This family-owned federal nation state has never had a popular election.
The
Supreme Council also “elects” a Council of Ministers and a 40-member Federal National Council, which reviews proposed
laws. The federal courts (in which Dubai and Ras al-Khaimah do not participate) and the emirate court systems apply both
secular and Islamic laws.
As with other oil-rich entities of the Arabiam peninsula, the UAE has a large population of people from other
countries to work in service and industrial jobs; of a total population of just over 4 million, some 3 1/3 million are foreign born, mostly all Muslims from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Thus, some 17% of the
population of the UAE is native-born, who are served by the other 83%. Islam is observed by some 96% of the population
and Arabic is the official language: some 90% of the people are literate. English
is preferred for government and commercial communications and by most non-Arab expatriates.
HUMAN RIGHTS WASTELAND
Also in common with all nations of the Arabian peninsula,
the UAW supports a nearly medieval system of servitude for men and women; thousands of young third-world women are brought
in to serve as virtual slaves in wealthy Arab families, or in prostitution or drudge labor. Boys as young as 8 are imported
to be camel jockies and to serve domestically and in prostitution. The UAE is not a signatory to the International Labor
Organization’s rules on freedom of association and unions are banned; many laborers and kept virtual prisoners as bonded
laborers, encumbered by large agent fees to obtain jobs and visas. A major problem with physical and mental abuse of workers
has been reported, especially against domestic workers. Pay is determined not by job or qualifications but by sex, race, age,
and nationality. Passports of the emigrants are confiscated and held by employers even though this practice is illegal (but
not enforced). Workers are forbidden from obtaining another work permit for six months when their employment contract is terminated.
A large sex industry in maintained to service the tourists.
MERCENARY
ARMED FORCES ABUILDING
Abu
Dhabi is headquarters for the UAE defense force mainly consisting of mercenaries, some 65 thousand men, mostly from other
Arab countries and Pakistan, serving under an officer corps of UAE nationals. Pilots are also primarily UAE nationals. These
forces, serve primarily as a protection force for the nation, the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. They served in the first
and second Gulf Wars in 1990 and 1993 and contributed troops to Kosovo and to the UN force in Somalia in 1993. The nation
is an important member of the U.S. led anti-terrorism coalition and has been a heavy purchaser of weapons of war, mostly from
from the U.S., Russia, the UK, Ukraine and Germany since the beginning of its military Expansion program in the mid-1990s.
Armaments are standardized to NATO specifications and expert military instructors
are hired and brought in from other nations.
A growing
program is underway to domestically produce arms and the UAE now produces many types of ships, ammunition, small arms, military
transport and unmanned air ships.
Early in 2006, the state-owned
Dubai Ports World was set to acquire by March 2 the assets and business of the privately-owned British company, Peninsular
& Oriental Ports North America (P&O Port), which firm holds the contracts for the management of ports
in New York City, Newark, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami, and Philadelphia. The approval by the U.S. President for U.S. port
management by a state-owned company of an Arab monarchy caused a major public furor when announced in February, 2006.
The UAE was a state supporter
of the Taliban before it was routed from power in Afganistan and two of the 911 Islamikazis who seized and crashed airliners
into the New York City World Trade Towers were from the UAE; all of these hijackers were Wahhabist Sunni Arabs.
In
January ’06, the Emirates' Minister of Justice and Islamic Affairs Mohammed Al Dhaheri said publishing the "blasphemous"
cartoons (printed in Demnark) was
"disgusting and irresponsible … This is cultural terrorism, not freedom of expression. The repercussions of such irresponsible
acts will have adverse impact on international relations." from The Emirates
News Agency, WAM.
(See Dubai TV, below.)
THE WAR OF WORDS
Dubai TV
A modern and "liberal" Arab-language TV channel broadcasts news, reformist and social content, sports, finance, business and family fare from the newly renovated official Dubai TV station in the United Arab Emirates, 24 hours a day, Al-Arabiya.
Satellite signals are beamed to the World of Qur’an and to North
America and Europe.
Al-Arabiya
is government-operated, by the Emirates’ Department of Information, and was launched with some U.S.$300 million in
February 2003 by the Hariri Group of Lebanon and by Saudi-controlled MBC, headed
by an in-law of the Saudi royal family, Sheikh Walid al-Ibrahim. The founders promised objectivity and accuracy in its programming
but a controlling interest by the Saudi royal family has led many to believe that programming is censored. .
Al-Arabiya
competes in Arab-language audiences with Qatar-based Al-Jazeera (see below).
The Free One A new Arabic-language satellite television station began broadcasting into the
Middle East on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2004. Al-Hurra, “The Free One” is broadcasting from the Washington
area but management intends to have facilities in several capitals, including Baghdad. The
network is operated by the Middle East Television Network, Inc., a non-profit organization, which is funded by the Broadcasting
Board of Governors (BBG), known for funding the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.
Publicly funded at a cost of some $62 million in its first year, with a largely Arab staff it built to 24-hour
programming within a month. However, as 2006 began the station has failed to capture a significant audience and BBC programming
is being added to improve ratings.
Thus, progress
is still ongoing. albiet slowly, to cut through the hateful propaganda that fills the airwaves in the World of Qur'an
from government-owned and controlled broadcasters.
HOT POTATO: The miniscule royal nation-state of Qatar on the Arabian Peninsula is stepping up its attempts to find
a buyer for the controversial Al Jazeera satellite “news” operation based there.
Al Jazeera television is a major source of “news” to an Arab audience estimated to be in the 30 -50 million
range, far ahead of any competitor. Qatar is currently allied with the U.S.,
which operates a huge military base built there to replace the Prince Sultan base near Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia when its use became politically sensitive prior to the second U.S. invasion
of Iraq.
Critics
continue to accuse Al Jazeera's management and reporters of being inflammatory, misleading and false, giving Qatar “
a headache, not just from the United States but from advertisers and from other countries as well," including Saudi Arabia
and Egypt in particular, as well as the U.S. In August 2004, the Iraq interim
government ejected Al Jazeera from that country: the Pentagon is currently funding Al Iraqiya TV there.
Al
Jazeera is known for focusing on civilian casualties in recent warfare and for a one-sided coverage of the Israel-Palestinian
conflict; it has also been the outlet for taped messages from Osama bin Laden to the Arab world. The U.S. has publicly wondered
about how quickly the network’s reporters often show up after insurgent bombing attacks in Iraq.
Qatar has long been
providing large subsidies for Al Jazeera whose chronic unprofitability has made it unattractive to buyers seeking profitable
investments: the 2004 budget of $120 million is said to have included a government
subsidy of some $40-50 million. Advertisers continue to withhold advertising from the network due to pressure from the U.S.
and from the royal, clerical and merchant families in control of the despotic Arab governments around the Persian Gulf, as
well as regimes in Egypt and Iran and other nations, who object to coverage of their internal problems and affairs.
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