Thousands of Arabs Are Fleeing!! From What? From a Disastrous Arab System!!

Aylan Kurdi, a Syrian of 3 years of age.  Lying lifeless, face down, on a Turkish beach.  Washed by the sea waves as dead fish.  Nearby were the bodies of his brother and mother.  Emblematic of a disastrous Arab system.  Those bodies graphically depicted a lifeless Arab State system.  In fact a non-system, except in name only.

And across those merciless waves of the Mediterranean, thousands upon thousands of Syrians and Iraqis were in full flight.  With their babies and meager belongings, braving barbed wire, fences, and inclement weather.  All running from the horrors of misrule, butchery, and hunger in their countries of origin.  Mostly Muslim, running into the welcoming arms of Germany and Austria, facilitated by Greece and Italy.  Seeking refuge in Christian countries; in total fear of Muslim countries where death is everywhere.

Anomalies, yet realities.  Arab refugees, by the thousands, lost faith in their flags, traditions, symbols, and religious incantations.  To them, the words of Arab leaders were mere lies.  And they were lies.  In Damascus, the capital city of death, banners proclaimed that the Arabs were "One Nation, with an eternal message!!"  How cynical!!  As you raise your head to read that banner, you are greeted by a barrel bomb whistling its way to you from above.  With a clear warning: "Are you still here?!!"

Arab flags are mostly of three colors (red, white and black).  Representing a famed Arab poem.  That is when the Arabs truly believed in the words of their focal points, from rulers to poets.  The poet had meant red, for liberational struggle; white, for pure intentions; and black, for victory over an unjust past.  But the millions of refugees have come to see in their national flags only doom and gloom.  Trust in Arab governments is gone.  Trust in the often maligned West is the new creed.

ISIS, Bashar, sectarianism, and jihadism are now all one.  Yes, Islam is a faith of tolerance, collective care, and rescue for the downtrodden.  This is what the Book (the Quran) says. But is there much generalized faith in the great Quranic instruction which abhors senseless death, extra-judicial executions, car bombs, human suicide, and arcane interpretation of Islam?  If there is, show me.

Show me where is verse 32 of Chapter V of the Quran is observed.  Read it and judge for yourself. If follows:
"...We prescribed to the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul, unless it be for retaliation or because of spreading corruption on earth, it would be as if he had killed all mankind.  And whoever saves a life, it would be as if he had saved the life of all Mankind..."

Where is Bashar from that heavenly standard?  Where is Maliki, who as Prime Minister of Iraq, openly practiced sectarianism?  Did Qaddafi of Libya, or Saleh of Yemen abide by it?  We are not talking about lax observance of basic human rights!!  We are here dealing with genocidal acts against citizens!!

Most of the Arab geographic area now looks like a cesspool of brazen untruths, and unbelievable inequities.  Splashed over billions of screens of social media.  While Europe getting together to host Arab and other refugees, Arab petro-dollars are gearing up to  refurbish images of their leaders.  Through very costly western public relations firms.  Funding for image, not for substance.  Including fancy speeches about human rights in the halls of the UN General Assembly later this September.  Image, image, image!!

And speaking of "inter-faith!!"  The Arabs still regard it as "a dialogue."  A conversation.  A kind of a composition.  A statement in flowery words meant to enhance the standing of those who utter them.  Not the importance of the message, which is only honored in the breach.

Action?  The main action is in the West.  That is where compassion towards Muslim refugees is flowing beyond bounds.  Pope Francis has called for opening monasteries and the Vatican itself, to shelter that Muslim stampede.  Germany has allocated nearly $5 Billions to care for those arrivals in Munich.  Austrians have stood for hours to say to those immigrants: "Welcome to your new home."  Even an individual, a young woman lawyer in Florida, Carolina Maluje.  Partly Syrian, partly Chilean.  Told me recently: "I must do something for those Syrian immigrants."

An Arab foreign minister from a petro-dollar country was asked: "What has your country done for the Syrian refugees?"  His answer was an example of obscurity.  "Many of my countrymen are married to Syrian women," said he proudly.  How impenetrable to sight this can be!!  Thanks God, there arose Arab exceptions.  Mr. Naguib Sawiris, an Egyptian Copt and a billionaire, rose up to purchase a Greek or an Italian island to house those refugees.

The flood of Arab immigrants has revealed where the rule of the law is observed by only a minority of 22 Arab governments.  Arab advocacy of one common history, and one common language has remained only aspirational.  Non-supported by a broad culture.  A culture illuminating a road map drawn by the intersection of common interests.  As a result, the League of Arab States has been frozen in paralysis since the adoption of its Alexandria Charter in 1944.

No way could an Arab Union, similar to the European Union, emerge in the foreseeable future.  For loyalty, in the majority of Arab States, remains confined to the tribe, or the region, or the province.  That is unless you are in a country like Egypt or Tunisia.  Reason: national cohesiveness is a reflection of a historical continuum which began centuries ago.  The fate of a divided Sudan, a divided Yemen, a divided Syria may travel to cover other Arab States beyond these unhappy examples.

In spite of these disheartening contradictions, the migration catastrophe has evoked in the Arab homeland a sense of shame.  Acted upon individually, by each sovereign State as an act of charity.

Amr Musa, former Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, made a high-ringing statement on September 9 in Austria.  The occasion was the annual meeting of the International Peace Institute which was convened to discuss challenges to the present international legal system.  As usual, his emphasis was on hope for solidarity in regard to the immigration catastrophe affecting the Syrians and the Iraqis.

You read it, then ask the humorous American advertising question:  "Where Is the Beef?"  Proposals on top of proposals.  Who will implement?  Who will pay?  Who will evaluate the performance?  And who will remove the root causes?  Questions dancing over the horizon of hope.  Soon to be forgotten.  A high-level meeting.  But with a low-level energy!!

Nonetheless, Aylan Kurdi's lifeless body has, in its own way, convulsed the Arab State lifeless body to twitch.  A short spastic contraction of the fibers of the Arab muscle:

• Jordan is now a host of more than a million Syrians.  The only Arab State with historically open borders to all Arabs;
• Same numbers in Lebanon and Iraq;
• Egypt hosts a quarter of a million;

Of course, numbers do change.  What does not change may be presented succinctly hereunder:

• Europe had started a coordinated policy.  It is based on future quotas of Syrian and Iraqi immigrants.  With Germany taking the most.  While other members of the 28 Member States of the European Union, like Greece, may take the least;
• The Arab world, where the Syrian killing fields exist, has no coordinated policy in this regard.  Each State is on its own.  However the Arabs are bound together, through the League of Arab States.
• Those binding ties are focused on the League's image.  Ambassador Ahmed Bin Hilli, Under-Secretary-General of the League, on September 8 rose to defend the League against European criticism of weak Arab action.  The issue, he fulminated, will be discussed at the forthcoming 144th session of the League at the ambassadorial level.  Again the image is in the forefront; the real action, coordinated or not, remains in the realm of eternal hope.

In the meantime, policies, plans, and implementing mechanisms are being set-up elsewhere in Europe and the Americas.  Said the lady President of Brazil, "the image of that dead toddler, Aylan Kurdi has shocked us all as a challenge to the whole world."  A whale of a difference between Arab paralysis, and non-Arab actions. Primary reason why the Arabs are fleeing from most of their homeland.  In droves.  They are not heading East.  They are heading West in a massive Hijrah!!

Running away from an Arab State system whose nominal faith is the great Islam whose Book advocates: "Cooperate with all in what is good and pious.  And do not cooperate in what is sinful and aggressive." (Chapter V, Verse 2).

And since God is One under the principle of Tawheed (God's oneness), the castaways, mostly Muslim, are seeking the certitude of safety provided by Christian governments.  For there is action on the belief of "The Peace Prayer" of St. Francis of Assisi.  In part it says: "For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned."

All this is happening under the dark shadow of 9/11 where men, covering their box cutters under the cloth of Islam, caused the murder of 3000 innocent victims.

That faith in murder has been passed on to phantom governments like Syria's, and phantom caliphates like ISIS.

The Arab code of old was superior to the Arab code of today.  Because the older code regarded the admission of failure as the road to reform.  In his instructions to the Arab judiciary, Omar, the second Caliph to succeed the Prophet Muhammad in leading the nascent Muslim State said it all.  "Never hesitate to reflect on your judgment of yesterday.  For nullifying a bad judgment is better by far than perpetuating an error."

Alas!!  That was 1400 years ago.  Today's Mr. Hilli, the Under-Secretary-General of the League of the Arab States does not abide by that golden rule.  To him, admission of the shortcomings of the League is a sign of weakness.  Forgetting that the whole world is witnessing leaks in the plumbing of the Arab system.  Leaking millions of horrified millions of Arabs of all denominations.  Running away from what used to be a Homeland, but no more.

That broken system needs an army of plumbers.  For fixing the leaks in the moral infra-structure of Arab lands can never be done by pretending that it does not exist.  Reason why Omar, though a Bedouin, was, by all accounts, the real "Arab Profile in Courage!!"  Ignoring his Code shall result in a million Syrians expected to flee their country by the end of 2015.

How Appalling To See a Mainstream Writer Like David Brooks, Seemingly Legitimating The ISIS Mega Crooks!!

He is an admired Op Ed page writer employed by the New York Times.  When I buy that paper, I begin reading it not from the front.  But from the back.  Looking to learn something new from Paul Krugman on economics.  He is a Nobel Prize Laureate at Princeton University.  And from David Brooks, a distinguished commentator on American social trends and values.

Being a creature of habit, I did the same on August 28.  Both Krugman and Brooks were on the same Op Ed page.  What a jolt from reading Brooks!!  Under the title of "When Rapists Win."

To his credit, he begins, in his inimitable style, to assess ISIS as we all know it.  His first line sums it in a few words: "The ISIS atrocities have descended like distant nightmares upon the conscious of the world."  Yet, amazingly, his column proceeds, unpredictably, to an abyss of illogic.  Seemingly to legitimate the ISIS mega-crooks, by conceding to them their grounds.  On what basis, if I am reading him correctly?: On the basis of a fait accompli.

Herein lies the roots of my disgust with one of my favorite writers.  Samples raising red flags:

• "(ISIS) offers a confident vision of the future.  It fills the vacuum left by decaying nationalist ideologies;"
• (Its) intent is to use this as a wedge with which to expand beyond its base in Iraq and Syria and weaken secular nationalist borders in Lebanon, Jordan and in even more innately nationalist countries like Egypt;"
• "This is a war about a vision of history.  ISIS have legitimacy because it controls territory and has a place to enact them."

Mr. Brooks: "A confident vision of the future?!"  Does jihadism have "a future," or "a vision?"  Only because they marched in and occupied land where no government existed?  Where the Sunni population, crushed by the Maliki sectarian rule, which had been propped up by America's crazy invasion of Iraq in 2003, sided temporarily with the ISIS hordes?  And in Syria, Bashar had to vacate the northeast to hold his crumbling lines around Damascus?

Mr. Brooks: You are theorizing imaginatively about the issue of territorial control, illegally achieved, as if it were irreversible.  You are claiming for ISIS a pasture which our own government, the U.S., does not concede.  Let alone, the international coalition of 40 other countries.  Not even the Kurdish Pesh Merga which has pushed ISIS out of Kobani and other areas.

Your expression of defeatism is not only unsupported by the facts on the present ground of battle against that paper tiger, called the Baghdadi Caliphate.  It flies rudely in the face of two historical facts, not of the type of your depressing "vision of history."

Your first fallacy is that ISIS is "weakening secular nationalist borders."  It is the Arab Spring, wherever it has overcome the resultant civil wars, that is redrawing "the secular nationalist borders."  This is the start of nullification of the colonial borders forced upon the Arabs by the victors of the First World War.  The Arabs are now in the process of burying Mr. Sykes and M. Picot.  Two conspirators who nullified promises given to the Arabs in return for turning against Ottoman oppresive rule.  Post-Assad Syria may witness the rise of three states, replacing one unified Syria.

Your second fallacy is your unthinking statement about Arab nationalism.  For your claim: "For the past many decades the Middle East has been defined by nation-states and the Arab mind has been influenced by nationalism.  But these nation-States have been weakened (Egypt) or destroyed (Iraq and Syria).  Nationalism no longer mobilizes popular passion or provides convincing historical narrative."

Mr. Brooks: From where did you get that?  Surely, at least in the case of Egypt, you did not get it from the Egyptian street.  My proof on your distance from objective reality: The U.S. government and media still overlook the significance of 35 million Egyptians rising in a historical "Egyptian Intifadah," on June 30, 2013.  Calling on now deposed Islamist President Morsi, "IRHAL" (Begone!!).  In spite of these realities, the Brotherhood is still looked upon in many American quarters as a legitimate opposition whose removal constituted a coup by the Armed Forces.  A continuous affront to the free will of the overwhelming majority of the Egyptian people.

On these grounds alone, I doubt it, Mr. Brooks, that you are as familiar with Egyptian history as I am.  I am not in competition with you.  You have The New York Times as your vehicle.  I have the facts about the history of modern Egypt as mine.  And facts are more supreme and durable than media.  Especially when those media are either biased or uninformed.

As a teacher of Egyptian history, let me share with you a bit of that history:

• For the past 7000 years, Egyptian nationalism has been the glue that binds the nation;
• Never has Egypt witnessed civil war, nor, in spite of colonial British attempts, has it been split between North and South;
• The only army in the Arab homeland, whose recruits and officer corps owe allegiance only to the State, not to provinces, is the Egyptian army;
• In 1952, Colonel Nasser ousted King Farouk by staging an army coup.  Upon the King's departure from Alexandria, the front man of the coup, Muhammad Naguib saluted his monarch with a 21-gun salute.  Farouk's last words to General Naguib were: "Take care of Egypt's army."  That is nationalism at its best, Mr. Brooks.
• In spite of modest economic means, Egyptian women surrendered repeatedly since the 1870s, their golden ornaments to shore up state finances.  The first women revolt against the hijab, was in Egypt in the early 20th century; an assertion of Egyptian secularism;
• Egypt is the only Arab State which officially celebrates Christmas as a national holiday.  That is on January 7, which marks the Eastern Orthodox Christmas.  And the only mass political party in Egypt whose symbol is the Crescent with the Cross within it replacing the star -the Wafd party, established in 1919;
• In homage to the roots of the faith of its majority, Islam, the only Arab flag which is adorned by the falcon of Quarish, the Arabian tribe of which the Prophet Muhammad was a member of its main branch (the great Hashemites) is Egypt's flag.

And I hope that your argument, David Brooks, about the weakening of Arab nationalism, especially by a phantom called ISIS, had found its inanity (silliness) on August 6, 2015.  That is the date on which Egypt inaugurated Suez Canal II.  Built within less than one year by subscriptions from only Egyptian citizens.

With Suez Canal II yesterday, and now with the discovery of huge gas reserves off Egyptian territorial waters, Egyptian nationalism shall continue to express itself in the new song: "Tomorrow, Egypt Shall Be Sweeter."

Finally, and in regard to the assertions of The New York Times of August 18, 2015 which headlined "Egypt Expands State Power With a New Security Law," I have the following rebuttal:

State power in Egypt does not expand through the promulgation of security laws.  Laws are invariably an external result of internal developments.  That power expands through nationalist fervor.  Uncomplicated by the resort to the total denial of due process manifest in our American phenomenon of "Guantanamo."  Shameful, yet falsely trumpeted as a security measure.

Mr. Brooks: Guantanamo has "become (one of the) recruiting tools "for jihadism.  Quoting the words of none other than President Obama.  His efforts over the past 7 years to close that abysmal institution of horror and torture have failed.  Due to the obstructionism of the Republican-dominated Congress of the U.S.

In a Broken Democratic System, Donald Trump, An American Billionaire Clown, Is Bidding for the Presidential Crown!!

Here is a buffoon with billions of dollars.  Running on his riches with 25% approval rating.  Talking like a thug, yet aiming at the U.S. presidency on a Republican ticket.  Calling his other 15 contenders all kinds of nasty names.  With none of them standing up to him.  Including Jeb Bush about whom he said: "He cannot negotiate himself out of a paper bag!!"

On Donald Trump's head, a cap reads: "Make America Great Again."  Now none of his crowded field of opponents can use this phrase in their campaigns.  He has copyrighted it.  How?!  It is difficult in the law of patents (intellectual property) to protect such a common phrase.  You cannot patent "Hello!!"  But he did.

Trump, a real estate developer, is riding the wave of discontent of the general public.  People are weary of Washington, D.C.; of sluggish economic recovery; of partisan feuding between the Democrats and the Republicans; of economic inequality; of illegal immigration; and of the rise of China whose economy is today's second only to America's.  The words "establishment politics," evoke mistrust and anger across party lines.  On the scale of political respect, local measures are at the top; federal measures are well below them.

Several years ago, I read Trump's book "The Art of the Deal."  There is nothing exciting about that book.  With this publication, Donald Trump makes it sound as if it were the yellow brick road to richness.  And in the age of super commitment to riches, Trump peddles his persona along the line: "I can make you rich too.  I know how to make deals."

So what deals is he promising America if ever he became president -a very doubtful proposition?

• He will vanquish ISIS!  How?!  He says: "I can't tell you;"
• He will stop Mexican and other illegal immigrants from coming to America!  How: By building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.  Then insanely he adds: "I shall have Mexico pay for it;"
• As to China, Trump claims that he, if president, will force China to open up its markets to US products.  "They buy my condos!!"
• How about Russia?!  Trump will rebuild American military might that would scare off Putin from challenging the U.S.; no specifics;
• Thousands gather to hear him.  After insulting a woman anchor on Fox News, his popularity with women jumped in numbers.  His being foul-mouthed makes the public like him.  "He talks like any one of us," they say.  

"Make America Great Again" is repeated by that man who has never before run for any public office.  Through sneers, bombast, vulgar sound bites, Trump has shaken the system.  On both the Republican side (especially Jeb Bush), and the Democratic side (especially Hillary Clinton).  Diagnosing American  democracy, one spots cancer.  Money has subverted this great constitutional system, primarily through one fateful decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the case of "Citizens United," the Court, by 5 to 4, made a bad judgment.  Decided that spending money on electioneering is constitutionally valid.  Why?  A form of Free Speech!!  We know that "money talks."  But that is a saying applicable to transactions.  Not applicable to controlling the outcome of elections -the expression by the citizen of his or her choice as to who represent them in the enactment of legislation.

To American democracy, Citizens United is a cancer whose diagnosis is not hard to find.  That diagnosis is learnt from its impact whose best illustration is the Koch brothers.

• Charles and David Koch, the famous private billionaire brothers are, in the words of Time Magazine of August 17, 2015, "Power Brokers Recharging To Elect a Republican in 2016."  In a brilliant article by Philip Elliott, the brothers, through their unlimited funding of conservative candidates to Congress, "have retooled with more money, better strategy and a new plan for victory."
• How do they subvert the free will of the American people through their massive wealth?  One recent example: They convened for dinner a seaside summit for 450 like-minded conservative donors.  And Charles Koch welcomed his guests by triumphantly declaring: "we grew up with every advantage."
• Their institutional mechanisms include: The Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce; Americans for Prosperity; Generation Opportunity; and Concerned Women for America.  Their philosophy is limited government; their biggest focus for the next two years is on four States (Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia).  Without winning these States, no Republican nominee can win the White House.
• Transparency is not required of this conservative enclave which plans to spend $889 million before Election Day in 2016.  Obama is their political adversary.  While conservative Republican nominees like Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, and Ted Cruz are their favorites.  Said one of the loyal Koch donors, a lawyer by the name of Tim Busch: "These guys are using business principles to create political solutions."

So you can shout "one person one vote" all you want.  But the high dam of dollars lets through the sleuths (openings) selective publicity for or against candidates whose backgrounds may not be widely known.  TV ads are very expensive; massive mailings add to the cost, and the average citizen is caught in the web of hearsay that an enlighted decision on election day is quite difficult.  For this is an electorate as culturally diverse as the American pool of voters.  That is not democracy, but plutocracy -the rule of the wealthy.

Juxtaposing Trump with the Koch brothers yield the same undemocratic results.  For Trump prides himself on being his own funder to accomplish the defeat of the Democrats in 2016.  Thus trying to bring all three branches of government under the low stifling ceiling of conservatism.  Congress, the Executive, and a right-leaning U.S. Supreme Court.  Mixing extreme language with rudeness, he, in a search for "Make America Great Again," yells:

• "I am rich;" and he brags about his prior donations to his very Republican opponents; for the purpose of embarrassing them into silence; 
• On the wings of his private Boeing 757 plane, and his $7 million Sikorsky helicopter, he swaggers like a prize fighter wading into adoring crowds;
• Trump vulgarly mocks the modesty of Jimmy Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.  He spreads his hands, curls sneeringly his lips as he says: "Carter had it wrong when he would walk off Air Force One carrying his own suit bag in a show of solidarity with regular folk...  They don't want that.  They want someone who's going to beat China, beat Japan;"
• With untethered megalomania, he looks upon dealing with the world as if he is selling condos.  In his words: "Trump gets things done.  I know how to get things done."  "Jeb Bush (one of his 15 opponents) shall be unable to get things done with China, with Mexico;"
• He claims that other world leaders are "more cunning" than American leaders.  Proof: "The U.S. cannot get its products in China."  And Trump blames American indebtedness to China in the amount of $1.4 trillion, on the claim that "Our people are babies."
• "When was the last time that you saw this country have a victory?  We don't have victories.  What things am I going to do different?  Almost everything."
• Regarding ISIS, Trump has a solution: "We are going to have to do something very strong... One of the elements of what I said is that we go and take over that oil.  We just go in there and we blast the hell out of them, we take over that oil."
• On the Iran deal, he denigrates the expertise of Secretary of State John Kerry, plus that of the foreign ministers of the US other five partners.  "There are things in the deal that I'm sure (Kerry) doesn't even know about that I will find.  And if they make a mistake they've got big problems."

In the present broken democratic system in America, Trump flaunts his billions as a sure way of aspiring to the U.S. presidency.  On the unregulated campaign funding, he dismisses his need for outside donations.  "I'll take your money, if you insist.  But I shall spend a billion dollars of my own money to fund my campaign."

Unfortunately, the present system has availed idiots like Trump a hospitable environment.  His approval rating stands at 25%.  That of Congress is a miserable 9%.  In a recent survey, participants were asked to provide the first word that comes to their minds upon hearing specific names.  The result: "Liar," for Hillary Clinton; "Killer," for Jeb Bush; and "Arrogant," for Trump.

No wonder, David Duke, head of the Ku Klux Klan (anti-blacks), has supported Trump.  Trump's racism has been glaringly manifest.  Calling Mexican immigrants "rapists, criminals, and drug users."  White supremacist feelings are back.  People are, as per the description of The New Yorker magazine dated August 31, 2015 "fearful and frustrated."  By 2030, the Latino population shall be a full one-third of all Americans.  And by 2050, the whites in America are expected to be a minority.

Again to money as a determinant of electoral victory.  With Jeb Bush having raised $140 million, and Hillary Clinton $100 million, for their respective campaigns, the public sees in these figures, an early indication of pre-eminence.  Add to the mix what another Republican contestant, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the darling of The Tea Party, proclaims.  "All politicians are liars and thieves."

In support of that perception, a former political consultant for Trump, Roger Stone, adds his voice.  "There are two things going on.  One is the total revulsion of American voters with politicians and the entire political system.  And secondarily, just the belief that he (Trump) can't be bought."

As a decisive judgment by the Supreme Court, Citizens United has enhanced the cracks in the facade of the representativeness of the American system.  The power of that Court to impact the presidential election system was manifest in putting George Bush II ahead of Albert Gore in 2000.  A disastrous presidency in both birth and war-like approach to foreign policy.  Especially in warring on Afghanistan (2001) and on Iraq (2003).  Both losing wars.

In his new book on the need to amend the Constitution, retired Supreme Court Justice, John Paul Stevens, put in perspective the central issue of the dangerous absence of regulating campaign financing.  Said that venerable Justice: "I shall explain why it is unwise to allow persons who are not qualified to vote -whether they be corporations or nonresident individuals -to have a potentially greater power to affect the outcome of elections than eligible voters have."

Centuries before Justice Stevens, the Romans defined the primary motivation for good governance.  In two words: "Liberum arbitrium" (Free will, free choice).  So with the present enfeebled democratic system in America, where clowns like Trump is now bidding for the presidential crown, we should ask ourselves: "Is America entitled to advise other nations on how to practise democracy?"

To me, the answer is No.  Why?  When your own door is broken and left un-repaired, you have no credibility telling someone else to fix their broken windows.

Egypt's "Field of Dreams": Connecting the Seas Began in 1380 B.C.

That great American film, "Field of Dreams," captures the imagination by one sentence.  "If you build it, they will come."  The reference was to a mid western hope in the future of a corn field.  A corn field from which the ghosts of great baseball players, long departed, appear to the field owner.  Playing, then disappearing in the thick of corn stalks.  Wondering if it was a signal for carving out a baseball arena on his farm.  Yet afraid that no spectators would come, he was advised: "If you build it, they will come." 

So it was the case with Egypt's field of dreams.  Connecting the Mediterranean and the Red Seas.  A dream that began in Ancient Egypt in 1380 B.C.  A canal that shows Egypt as a world crossroads.  Making of commerce a rational substitute for conflict.  Yet when the dream became a reality with the opening of the first Suez Canal in 1869, it brought both commerce and conflict.

The Suez Canal of 1869 was the successor regime of all the prior efforts.  Beginning with Pharaoh Sitti I (1380 B.C.) through Amre Ibn Elass in the 7th Century A.D.  It was the latter who led the Arab and Islam into Egypt during the Second Caliphate of Omar Ibn Al-Khattab.  Amre wanted to link the two seas.

But Omar, with his clear Bedouin cum legal mind, vetoed the connection.  Allowed only a link from the Nile to the Timsah Lake to the Red Sea.  Omar feared foreign intervention if the two great seas were linked.  Amre, a successful military leader, didn't mind courting that challenge.  But Amre was over-ruled by his boss in Madina.

Amre couldn't play circles around Omar again.  He had done it before and gotten away with it.  Omar had instructed Amre not to march into Egypt -at least not yet.  Quick over-expansion of Islamized territory was not an acceptable formula for the Omar Khalifate.  But Amre, nonetheless, crossed over into Egypt with his armies.  Pretended that Omar's instructions arrived a bit too late.  Resulted in Omar keeping his "General Mac Arthur" (Amre Ibn Elass) under constant watch.  The first instance in history of civilian control over the military.

A digression intended to link the name of Suez to the inner core of the Egyptian psyche, and spirit.  Not with numbers. But with symbols often missed by Egyptian media for lack of connection to the Suez connectedness.  Lack of "Egyptianess!!"

Now Egypt has Suez I and Suez II.  A whale of a difference between the two symbols.  Though tied at the hip, implicating Egypt's sovereignty.

Suez I was a project spearheaded by Ferdinand de Lesseps, a French Vice-Consul in Alexandria.  Received from Khedive Said Pasha, a son of Muhammad Ali, the great founder of a strong Egypt, permission to dig the canal in 1854.  The hesitant Khedive needed England's view.  Though France and England were allies during the Crimean war, the British Consul offered no clear opinion.  Resulting in the signing of an agreement dated January, 1856.

An unconscionable agreement as far as Egypt was concerned.  An "adhesion contract," so heavily restrictive of one party, Egypt, while non-restrictive of another, the Canal Company.  This grave inequality of bargaining power is manifest in the following:

• The Company builds a feeder canal drawing fresh water from the Nile, covering all needs for work on the Suez Canal;
• In return, Egypt donates all land for work and construction, tax-free;
• The Company has the right to charge all Egyptian users of that fresh water.  Together with the free use of Egyptian mines and quarries; 
• Egypt provides for free, four-fifth of the labor needed, with new shifts of manpower every three months;
• All dues of passage in the Suez Canal, whether for human or cargo per tonnage to be collected by the Canal Company;
• Profits are to be debited 10% as interest on investment.  The balance is then divided between Egypt 15%; 10% for the foreign Canal founders; 75% for the canal administrators and upkeep.

So for 15% of the net profits, Egypt provides land, labor, fresh water, natural resources, and security.  For 99 years, a colonial regime was established by a foreign company on lands deducted from Egyptian sovereignty.  What an imperial bargain!!  The nominal suzerain, the High Porte of the Ottoman Empire responded: "Hell, No!!"

Ignoring that refusal, de Lesseps, went ahead with open bids for subscription, in November 1858.  Nearly  half a million shares were snapped up at 500 francs per share all over western Europe.

Egypt did not own the Company.  The Company owned Egypt.  And 1 million of its peasants (25000 each 3 months for 10 years), most of whom perished for lack of care.  While slavery was outlawed in Africa south of the Sahara, indentured slavery was instituted in Egypt by a contract with a Government which existed in name only.

British Prime Minister Palmerstone protested to Istanbul the loss of Egyptian lives.  Not primarily for humanitarian reasons.  But for fear of growing French influence in Egypt, the gateway through Suez to India where rebellion was seething.  Anglo-French rivalry in Egypt focused on the Canal.

That was Said Pasha.  But with Ismail Pasha succeeding him in 1863, Egypt acquired new claws.  The strong State was back, clawing at the illegally gotten advantages.  Attacking the enslavement of its citizens, to the applause of Great Britain.  Paying the avaricious Company two million Egyptian pounds for 177,642 shares bought by the weakling Said, but had remained unpaid.

Then Ismail labored for the reduction of the number of Egyptian Canal diggers; forced the Company to disgorge State land sequestered by the Company through machinations and bribes.  And with approval of the Ottoman High Porte, the Company received an eviction notice: Accept the reformation of that stupid contract or get the hell out!!

De Lesseps nearly had a heart attack; the astute Ismail agreed to have Napoleon III arbitrate; decision for Egypt on July 6, 1864: No enslavement; no crack of the whip on Egyptian backs; restitution of the huge swathe of land to the sovereign owner -Egypt.

The Company was left with only 200 meters on the two sides of the Canal.  The price was steep:  Nearly 3.3 million Egyptian pounds; an enormous price to retrieve what Egypt owns.  But Ismail paid up, saying: "I want the canal to be for Egypt, not Egypt for the Canal." The Ottoman Empire issued the firman (Imperial Executive Order) approving the deal in March 1866.

And with a big bang, the Suez Canal was inaugurated in 1869.  Monarchs were personally invited by Ismail who travelled to Europe, personally carrying to them invitations.  All expenses paid from his personal funds.  Ismailia, the city on the Canal, which was appropriately named after the patriotic Khedive, was bathed in light and splendor.

The French Empress, Eugenie, danced all night, and still asked for more.  A palace in Cairo by the Nile was built in her honor (now the Marriott Hotel).  Roads were paved to the Pyramids.  And the Opera Theatre was built at Opera Square, in the heart of Cairo.

By the standards of 1869, the cost of the party was huge, 1.5 million Egyptian pounds - i.e. pounds sterling.  Ismail, like the U.S. of today, was well practiced in deficit funding!!  The debts led to the British occupation of Egypt in 1882.  The Sudan also came under British hegemony.

The Canal continued to be the lighting rod for Egyptian nationalism; Sinai was ceded by the Ottoman Empire to Egypt in 1906; with the collapse of the Ottomans in World War I, Great Britain's creeping annexation leaped over the Canal and Sinai into Palestine.

From the records of the Canal Company, the aggregate cost of the Suez Canal was 17.5 million pounds.  Of that amount, Egypt paid the staggering amount of 16 million pounds.  Not counting the huge human cost and Egypt's exposure during times of weakness, to foreign intervention.  But with the end of World War II, Egypt, thanks to the impetus of the Canal, rediscovered its sinews of power: location, demography, diversity, cultural cohesion, and national fervor to wipe out any vestiges of past humiliation.

By 1956, the British occupation of the Canal Zone was gone; and Nasser, the new strong man of Egypt, nationalized the Suez Canal Company.  Egypt's adversaries cried foul; propagated in policy, media and foreign affairs, that "Egypt has nationalized the Canal!!"  Utterly stupid.  You don't nationalize what you own.  The nationalization was for the Canal Company which had been chartered under Egyptian laws.  And every shareholder was paid in full.

But the myth was propagated in order to "cut Nasser to size."  A prelude for the Israeli, French and British vicious aggression of 1956 against a country, Egypt, for daring to exercise its inherent sovereignty.  With the cessation of hostilities, peace-keeping by the UN was born.  But for a life of only 10 years.

For in 1967, Israel struck again in the so-called 6-day war.  Sinai was reoccupied; thousands of Egyptian military lives were lost in both Sinai and at the Canal.  Yet Egypt, under Sadat, burst again across the Canal in October 1973, destroying a newer myth: Israel's invincibility.

Now in little over than 40 years, a second Suez Canal has been dug.  Inaugurated on August 6, 2015 by El-Sisi, the present-day advocate of "the Strong State."  

But what a difference between the environment of building Suez Canal I and building its younger sister Suez Canal II.

We have seen from the above, the miserable circumstances surrounding the de Lesseps project (Suez Canal I).  Suez Canal II is the concretizatoin of the New Egypt:

• A historic symbol of washing away the oppression meted out to the Egypt of the 19th century;
• An abashed declaration of an Egyptian equivalent of "Yes, We Can;"
• Dug by the armed forces, under the command of Vice Admiral Mohab Mameesh, in less than one year;
• Funded in mere 8 days by totally -Egyptian subscriptions induced by the spirit of Egypt of January 25, 2011 and June 30, 2013;
• An impetus for China to build the Kra Canal in Thailand to bypass the Malacca Strait.  A new maritime silk road shortening the voyage by 1200 kilometers.  Ending up in Suez welcoming two arms;
• China is also planning road and rail routes through Pakistan.  All ending up in Suez "aller et retour;"
• 85% of world trade carried expeditiously by the giants of canal containers plying their cargo "24/7;" from Port Said to Suez, and vice-versa.
• Seventy kilometers of daily transit from 49 to 85 crossings over the next 10 years.  The volume of world trade moved by sea is expected to double in the next 20 years.
• CNN described Suez II, the new companion of Suez I, as a "game changer for the future of world trade;" "the most strategic waterway in the world;" "a vital lifeline connecting the East and West;"
• MAERSK, the largest shipping company in the world declared: "It is more profitable for us to use the Suez Canals.  We shall stop using the Panama Canal;"
• Suez II was projected to be dug and operational over a period of 5 years.  Shortened at El-Sisi's insistence to only one year.  "We don't have the luxury of time," declared the Egyptian President.
• And in short order, a Presidential decree was issued creating "The Suez Canal Economic Zone." From ship repairs to rest and recreation, to training in maritime commerce, to amusement parks.

Washing away the shame of yesterday: the slavery, foreign manipulation, and the arrogance of power.  Now all gone!!

Still doomsayers predict less financial and economic returns.  No proof on that.  Only to fulfil a self-induced prophecy of unfulfilled expectations.  But the Suez Canals are primarily about:

• National resurgence; and Arab achievement in the midst of the cyclone of destruction of the Arab Spring;
• An Arab symbol of hope and restored strength, dissecting the Arab homeland by flags of all nations parading on ships on water in the heart of the Eastern Desert.

Commented Judge and Senator, Mrs. Taghreed Hikmet of Jordan: "It is a gift from the nation to the world."  In its present hour of peril, the Arab Nation is in sore need of boosters.  That historic Nation could always count on its big sister, Egypt, to faithfully provide.

In a way, the Suez project is an Arab iconic project.  Protected by armed might from Port Said in the North to the Gulf of Aden in the South.  Defending the freedom of navigation, world commerce, and, above all, the sovereignty of the host and owner -Egypt of 100 million Arabs.

All of this is while combating terrorism, jihadism, and anti-Islamism.  And at the same time singing the new lyrics inaugurating Suez II: "Tomorrow Egypt Shall Be Sweeter!!"

Why Is the Republican Party (The Grand Old Party - GOP) Deserving of My Grand Contempt?

Mainly for two reasons: Subjecting US sovereignty to foreign interference, and to the power of special interests.  And, in the process, downgrading the majesty of the Office of the US President, for ideological reasons of the evangelical right wing.

Now to evidentiary details:

Starting with the downgrading of the majesty of the Office of the President.  It is impossible not to link between the constant attacks on Obama and his being black.  Racism in the US is a cancer in that body politic since the introduction of slavery.  Cures that have been developed, especially with the civil rights movement of the 1960s, have dealt with the outward symptoms, not with the roots.

Yes the Voting Rights Act was signed by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson in 1965.  But today, several States, called "red States" for being under Republican administrations, are chipping off at those rights.  Measures intended to make it ever harder for minorities (Blacks and Latinos) to exercise those rights.  The alarm bells sounded as of 2008.  The percentage of whites eligible to vote in the presidential elections, won by Obama that year, was 66% of the aggregate voters.  Guess what?  Same percentage of Black and Latino voters who rushed to the polling stations to have a man of color win.

This trend had to be obstructed, so reasoned the GOP in several states.  How could this be done without the appearance of violating the law?  Under the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution, "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."  It is called the supremacy clause.

This is "The United States," 50 of them; a federal system, where the states have all powers except for a few.  The few powers of the federal government are: to declare war, to collect taxes, to regulate interstate commerce, and others.  Those "other" powers are listed.  Whatever is not listed, belongs to the states.

As stated above, voting rights are governed by the 1965 Act.  But how to exercise those rights is decided by the states.  In order to make that exercise difficult, regardless of the principle of "equality before the law," the "red" states have been very busy:  Gerrymandering of electoral districts, intended to unfairly secure disproportionate influence at elections for non-minorities.  Shortening the hours for voting.  Placing polling stations at geographically far locations.  Requiring photo identification cards.  Closing polling stations on Sunday.

Yet this is the heart of the democratic process.  A process which the US is eager to have other countries adopt.  Vigorously calling for "respect for the right of dissent."

Such roll back of minority rights is not a mere assertion of states rights.  To understand its dimension in full must include the rejection by the neo-racists of the President.  Never has a US President been more subjected to personal slurs and affronts by the right, the Tea party, the evangelists and Republicans.  The list is endless and truly disgusting.  More importantly, un-American.

Here are samples, and attribution to specific Republicans in search of nomination for the presidency in 2016:

• Marco Rubio: "The President has no class."
• Donald Trump: "I don't know who he is."
• Lindsey Graham: "I don't know whether he is Christian."
• Scott Walker: "I presume he is, because he says he is."
• Mitch Mc Connell: "We shall make sure that he is a one term President.  (On Obama's inauguration day in January 2009).
• Ted Cruz: "He is the worst President in the history of the United States."
• A congressional member yelling at the President during his delivery of the State of the Union message: "You are a liar."  Obama's restrained response: "Thank you."

How can such affronts to the present occupant of the Oval Office not be demeaning to the majesty of that Office?  How can it not affect the credibility of the U.S. world-wide when its Head-of-State is called names (including, "he is a closet Muslim") as a civil polity?  How can the principle of separation of powers, underpinned by constitutional checks and balances, maintain its efficacy in a system where the Republicans have shut down the federal government earlier.  Now, they are threatening to do the same again.

Obama is also threatened by empty Congressional proposals for impeachment.  Faced with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, he has resorted to using his constitutional instruments in defense of the executive branch.  These are: his resort to issuance of executive orders, and of the use of his veto power.  Yet as a constitutional scholar, he had sought these mechanisms sparingly.

Obama's signature accomplishment of the "Affordable Care Act" was challenged by this Republican Congress more than 40 times.  Extending health insurance to millions of uninsured Americans, largely the poor and the elderly, it has been divisively called by his opponents "The Obama Care Act."  All Republican aspirants to succeed Obama have pledged collapsing that historic Act as of "Day One in the Oval Office."

Same totally negative attitude towards Obama's repeated attempts to fix the broken system of immigration; of tax reform; of bank regulation, of income inequality, of education reform (an area reserved for the states), of gun control, and of reforming the criminal justice system.  

Even the historic trade pact with Asia was about to be killed if not for a brief moment of bipartisan support. In Singapore, Secretary of State Kerry on August 5 voiced the obvious.  "No country can expect its economy to grow simply by buying and selling to its own people."

More glaringly is Congressional blocking of Obama's attempts to close down Guantanamo.  That is where more than a hundred Muslim detainees are still languishing in legal limbo since 9/11.

They are neither charged.  Nor are they released.  Several states of the U.S. do not want them loose in their neighborhood.   And foreign States do not want them either, largely for reasons of radicalization through prolonged incarceration.  An ugly relic of the party of war -the Republican Party, which has lurched into xenophobia since the criminal acts of destruction of 9/11.

Moving along into the area of foreign policy and its reflection on war and peace, one reaches the depth of Republican Party conversion.  From the party of Lincoln, the great emancipator, to the party of endless wars.  Especially in the Middle East.

It is well-known that sovereignty is an essential requirement for the ability of a State to conduct its own foreign policy.  Thus the US Constitution has assigned to the President the following powers: "He shall have the Power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur."

Clear enough!!  So let us examine the chaotic situation in Congress with regard to a present issue of war and peace in the Middle East.  I am not referring to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where no sane leadership exists on either side: of Israel, a brutal occupier, with no regard for international law or common sense fairness.  Nor on the side of the Palestinians, forever divided, habitually corrupt, and deeply committed to the falsehood of the UN creating their State for them, rather than the State, when in being, applying for UN membership.

I am examining the Iran nuclear deal where US sovereignty and Obama's commitment to disengaging America from the endless wars in the Muslim world are implicated.

Here we have a deal reflecting the coming together of 6 States with Iran's moderate leadership. A historic agreement, reached after 16 months of arduous negotiations.  Its only goal is to prevent Iran from weaponizing its enriched uranium, and be rewarded with the lifting of sanctions and reintegration into the international community.  Iran said "yes;" Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany said "yes."  The UN Secretary Council, usually a dysfunctional body because of the veto, unanimously said "YES."

Not yet America:  In US Congress, the deal has become the latest version of a football game with no rules. Here are the unbelievable details:

• The majority of both houses cried "foul."  Claimed that Obama was "fleeced" (as per the Republican Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.)  Even prior to digesting that 159 page report, they were asking for a better deal!!
• Obama, Secretary Kerry, and the great nuclear physicist, Moniz, Secretary of Energy, responded: (a) What is your "better deal;" (b) Your "disapproval" shall be vetoed by the President; (c) scuttling the deal will cause the sanctions regime to unravel; (d) Iran could be then forced to proceed to the development of a nuclear bomb; and (e) America's credibility is in the balance.
• Seventeen Republicans aspiring to occupy the Oval Office in 2017 gave these responses short shrift.  Called the deal "an appeasement" a la Munich in 1938; considered war against Iran a viable option; bought into the Netanyahu alarmist propaganda that the deal was an existential threat, not only to Israel, but to the whole world.

Then came Obama's definitive response to these falsehoods.  In his historic speech at American University in Washington, D.C. on August 5, Obama reminded the Republican Party of its horrific war misadventures in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Against the calls of out-of-control war-crazed John Bolton of "bomb Iran now," the President chuckled in derisive amazement: "Those people were wrong yesterday.  They are wrong today."  The party of war, bereft of any logical response, began to froth at the mouth:

• "The U.S. has become the main supporter of terrorism" -said Senator Ted Cruz;
• "Obama is marching the Israelis to the door of the oven." -said former Governor Mike Huckabee;
• "This is the worst President the U.S. has ever seen." -said Donald Trump.

With money pouring in for daily ads against the deal with Iran, the opposition had two very powerful backers.  The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in "Citizens United" which considered money gifted to electoral candidates as a form of "free speech."  And AIPAC (the American Israeli Political Action Committee).  AIPAC is funding "Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran" which is planning to spend $25 million to defeat that historic deal.  Of course there is no likelihood of "Citizens for a Nuclear Free Israel."

As the President met with 20 leaders of Jewish groups to win their support, Netanyahu had a packaged response to Obama's arguments about "no alternative other than war."  In blatant interference in US sovereign decisions, Israeli's Prime Minister called Obama's arguments as "utterly false."

For these reasons, the "Grand Old Party" deserves my grand contempt.  The President of the US is the constitutional manager of America's foreign affairs.  Israel is a foreign power, regardless of the degree of its strategic relationships with the US.  

I have not seen Obama pursuing Israel in regard to ending its colonist settlerism in Palestinian territories.  By the same same token, Israel should have no legitimate business in interfering blatantly in US sovereign decisions regarding what defines America's national interests.

Nothing in the annals of diplomacy is found to permit the Israeli ambassador to America to openly delve into an internal conflict between Congress and the President.  Were it the Ambassador of, say, Turkey (a NATO ally of the US), he or she would have been promptly thrown out as persona non grata.

In his speech on August 5 at American University, the US President reminded the Republican hordes of their lying to the country as they led it to the disastrous war in Iraq.  Without mincing his words, he bluntly chided their unending beating of the war drums.  Said he: "Many of the same people who argued for the war in Iraq are now making the case against the Iran nuclear deal."

But AIPAC's director of communication, Marshall Wittman, responded to President Obama on the same day.  Lying through his teeth, he said: "To remove any misinformation or confusion, AIPAC took no position whatsoever on the Iraq war."

Then, parroting his real Master's Voice (Netanyahu's), he felt obliged to insult the American President in nearly the same words.  So Wittman added: "This is an entirely false and misleading argument."  This is not mere lobbying.  This is being "an agent of a foreign power -Israel."

Watching the first televised Republican debate among the 17 Republican aspirants for the presidential office on August 6, I turned off that miserable show with one impression: Truly pathetic!!  Felt even sorrier for America when Michele Bachman, standing on the sidelines, was interviewed.

Though she was not one of the 17, Bachman seemed to speak for all of them in regard to the Iran deal.  Her insane solution was: "Bomb Iran now because the window of opportunity is fast closing."  Bachman, the queen of Islamophobia in the U.S. had claimed that God speaks to her!!

Does she have a private God who also communicates with other select Republican war lords like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld?  Two unindicted war criminals, afraid to leave the US for fear of being bagged to the Hague to stand trial before the International Criminal Court.

Isn't America's sovereignty worthy of support?!

In the avalanche of these acrimonious diatribes, it is uplifting to discover some sane voices.  Particularly those issuing from American Jewish leaders.  In a letter to the Editor of the New York Times of August 7, one such voice said: "I believe that Netanyahu's address to American Jews on Tuesday (August 4) and his in person speech to Congress in March were wholly inappropriate, insulting to the American president and people, and constituted an intrusion by a foreign leader into American domestic politics."

The author of that letter added: "It is up to the United States to make a decision on this deal on its merits."  Well said, Mr. Seymour Reich, former Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

Is America's sovereignty for sale?  

What we have in America today is nothing other than a power grab by Congress of presidential prerogatives; a distortion by money and lobbyists of the popular will through fair national elections, and the demeaning spectacle of a foreign power jumping over the high fence of American sovereignty to subvert an international deal seen by the Obama Administration as in the best interest of the American people and of world peace. Let each State define by itself, and for itself, the requirements of its own security.

Yes, American sovereignty matters!!

Islamophobia Degenerating Into Anti-Islamism: An Advocacy By Ayaan Hirsi Ali For "Reforming" Islam Through Editing the Quran!!

Ayaan Hirsi Ali - a young woman; an ex-Muslim; an ex-Somali.  A victim of Somali tribalism: genital mutilation, and an escapee from a pre-arranged marriage.  Her pain, we understand.  But her advocacy is Islamophobia that has crossed even the line of the most vehement anti-Islamist.

Her understanding of Islam is framed through her tribal experiences.  Islam, as a faith, has nothing to do with Ayaan.  Yet, in the West, she has become the poster child of virulent anti-Islamism.  Blaming what her tribe did to her on the religion of others.  1.5 billion Muslims.  For she has never met that faith, face to face.  Has never met young Egyptian women pilots.  Has never met Saudi women lawyers.  Nor Lebanese beauties who sing and dance.

Has never comprehended the Quranic vocabulary: The word "Read" means "Learn;" the term "Ayah" (verse) does not mean the words; it means "evidence" or "proof."  She is not an Islamic scholar.  Unfortunately she made the West see the rich Islamic culture through the parched land of her ignorance.

Because of predisposition to Islamophobia, the West has been using her as an excuse.  In return, she has used western pulpits to vent her grievance.  She has been regaled by membership in the Dutch Parliament.  And now she is described in the prestigious US magazine, Foreign Affairs

as "a public intellectual."  Presently occupying a post of distinction at Harvard as a Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government.  Her writings, whether of books or articles, such as the recent one in Foreign Affairs (July/August 2015), are celebrated.  Yet their context and content are part of the oxygen that jihadism is gasping for. 

Emboldened by that misplaced attention, Ayaan has embarked on a journey for which her anti-Islamism is her only guide.

Calling for world peace through reformation of Islam.  How?  By editing the Quran.  She must know from her Somali wretched days that under Islamic dogma, the Quran is taken as the word of God.  It is not authored.  It is revealed.  This has to do with faith.  And faith is non-negotiable.

Moreover, the Quran and the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad are subject to interpretation by Muslim qualified scholars.  In order to meet changing circumstances.  Ayaan Hirsi Ali is no faqih.  Otherwise she would have known that neither genital mutilation nor pre-arranged marriages are to be found in the Quran.

She had renounced Islam.  No big deal.  Contrary to Pakistani's anti-apostasy laws, Islam accepts apostasy.  It accepts Ayaan's decision to opt out.  The Quran says: "Surely those who disbelieve...cannot harm God in any way" (Chapter 47; verse 32).

So, Ayaan: if you are out of the game, stay out of the game.  Your pontification about "reforming" Islam through editing its primary pillar, the Qura, leads to a one-way street:  recruitment of idiots to fight for ISIS, endangering global security.

Here are the Ayaan arguments in her article in Foreign Affairs entitled "A Problem From Heaven," she starts off by: "We have a problem -not a problem from hell, but one that claims to come from heaven."  Believe what you wish Ayaan.  "In faith, there is no compulsion,"  so says the Quran -the Bible of Islam.  So why poke your stick into a hornets nest leading to more human tragedies?  Unless it is your way of victimization for validation.

• She is critical of Obama's statement before the UN General Assembly last September.  Why?  Because the U.S. President stated that "Islam teaches peace."  Well, Obama had voiced a fact. Islam means "the submission to God's will;" advocates peace; and accepts every faith, revealed or non-revealed.  What is the basis?  Tawheed (the Oneness of God).  Tawheed means that there is no special God for every faith.  In fact the God that you, Ayaan, think that you have abandoned is the same one which you have now espoused.
• She claims to be a "Muslim dissident."  How far from the truth.  And she is unaware of her own contradiction as she reports: "A few, including myself, have been forced by experience to conclude that we cannot continue to be believers.  Yet we remain deeply engaged in the debate about Islam's future."  
• I cannot find your "few."  The "few" is you.  And being "an unbeliever" by your choice is an automatic disqualification for an engagement "in the debate about Islam's future."  Reason: You cannot reform what you don't understand.  A pitchfork marauder like you, Ayaan, has no audience.  The Arab adage says: "You cannot give what you don't have."
• Ayaan then moves to the heart of her thesis.  A thesis of hallucination bred out not from the Quran and the Hadith (Muhammad's verified words and conduct.)  But from her own personal nightmare in Somalia.  Somalia the capital of Al-Shabab -a franchise of global terrorism.

First: In her misdirection, she attacks these two pillars of Islam: The Quran and the Sunna.  Saying: "the majority of otherwise peaceful and law-abiding Muslims are unwilling to acknowledge much less repudiate the theological warrants for intolerance and violence embedded in their own religious texts."

Second: She also attacks Al-Azhar.  Citing one source in a statement published in the Belgian newspaper De Standaard in March 2015.  Her source, Sufyan Al-Omari blames Al-Azhar for the rise of ISIS.  He, as quoted by a very receptive Ayaan, says: "The Islamic State does not fall from the sky...The texts to which (ISIS) appeals for support are exactly what we learnt at Al-Azhar.  The difference is that (ISIS) truly puts the texts into practice."

Third:  She quotes individuals whom she describes as "Islamic thinkers" as dreaming of "a version of their religion that no longer exalts holy war, martyrdom, and life in the hereafter."

Fourth: Ayaan cites an Iraqi cleric as arguing that "the Koran was created by the Prophet Muhammad, but was driven by Allah" (Whatever "driven" means).  This, she says, was part of a report from "the Middle East Media Research Institute.  In that report, Ayaan's source "proposes a modifiable religious ruling based on fiqh al-maqasid, or the juris prudence of the meaning."

Fifth:  She calls for US intervention in support of those bogus claims.  In her words in that article, she makes this ludicrous appeal: "American presidents and Secretaries of State need not give lectures on the finer points of Islamic orthodoxy.  But it is not too much to ask them to support Islamic reform and make the fate of Muslim dissidents and reformers part of their negotiations with allies such as Saudi Arabia and foes such as Iran alike."

Now for my rebuttal.

• The U.S. Government, especially since 9/11, has committed to the advocacy that America was not at war with Islam, but with terrorism which wears a false mask emblazoned with the word "Islamic" on it.  In view of this sane policy, no intervention in religious beliefs by America could be envisioned.  This is particularly so in the light of the US constitutional provision for separation between State and church.
• Ayaan's call for US intervention in the core of Islamic faith and beliefs is based on the wrong analogy.  For she, in her article, refers to the impact of Radio Free Europe, an American medium, on the collapse of the USSR.  She is obviously oblivious of the difference between the Muslim world and the world of communism.  With the exception of the bands of terrorists, from Al-Qaeda to ISIS, the Muslim community of 57 States has never threatened US security.  The USSR did.  Two vastly different situations.
• A recent report in the New York Times headlined: "Most U.S. Attacks Are Homegrown And Not Jihadist."  And the Christian Century of May 27, 2015, in its review of a new book entitled Europe and the Islamic World concluded as follows: "Readers will come away from the book profoundly suspicious of simplistic narratives about Muslim aggression and endless jihad.  Ideally, they will also be skeptical of any claims about what Islam does, as opposed to particular States or communities."
• It is clear that Ayaan anti-Islamism, aside from deriving from her tribal experience now elevated to a whole industry, does not know:  That the term holy war is a crusader term, never an Islamic term.  That jihad in Islamic jurisprudence means "personal self-improvement" and "self-defense."  That in Islam, there is no aggressive war waged beyond your borders.  That self-sacrifice is forbidden by the very terms of the Quran.  That those terms equate between male and female.  And that Islam bestowed on women the right to choose their spouses, the right to own property, and the right to unilaterally divorce an abusive husband.
• The list of misconceptions, intentional or out of ignorance, can go on and on.  But her attack on the texts of the Quran and the Hadith are so outrageous and uninformed.  They have the imprint of total insensitivity that I should leave the rebuttal to someone else.  As so could be found below.

To the credit of Foreign Affairs, Ayaan's article was followed by another, authored by William Mc Cants, Fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.  Mc Cants, in his opening paragraph, states: "Hirsi Ali is profoundly wrong when she argues that Islamic Scripture causes Muslim terrorism and thus that the U.S. government should fund Muslim dissidents to reform Islam."

Appropriately Mc Cants article is entitled: "Islamic Scripture Is Not the Problem."

Ayaan also attacks Al-Azhar.  If she were "a public intellectual," and concerned about her so-called Islamic reform, she seems not to know, or chooses to ignore, that the Religious Revolution advocated by El-Sisi is spearheaded by Al-Azhar.  In this context, it should be noted that Al-Azhar's document of August, 2011 remains a primary framework for that revolution.  One of its eleven principles provides as follows: "Islam does not recognize a State solely based on religion."  The Coptic Church has fully endorsed that document.  Witness the disbarment by Egyptian authorities of Imams who use their mosques as arenas for jihadi preaching.

As for the essential role of interpretation in Islamic jurisprudence, Ayaan does not even once refer to "ijtihad."  It is the application of the mind to the text.  One of its primary products is that public interest trumps.  It is called "Fiqh Al-Maslahah."

In my research in 2006 for the American Bar Association, I found that there is 80% commonality between Islamic jurisprudence and the U.S. Constitution.  I teach the subject as a law professor in New York City.  My late Al-Azhari father has blessed my marriage to a Catholic American woman.  He was on sound grounds.  Islam fully acknowledges diversity and the full right of others to their creed.

It is a shame that Ayaan Hirsi Ali does not accord the same diversity to her former Muslim co-religionists.  For she does not realize that Allahu Akbar is not a war scream as per ISIS.  It means "we are all equal before God."

Hirsi Ali's ignorance is not surprising.  She has made of it a real industry.  In her authorship of that book entitled "Infidel" -an incredible diatribe against Islam, she does not realize that the term does not mean "a Non-Muslim."  It means "a person who has no values."  An apt characterization of Ayaan and her campaign.  Her primary beneficiaries are the ISIS franchises.  They use her arguments against Islam as a war cry for jihadi recruitment.  In this regard, you, Ayaan are one of their enablers. 

Ayaan:  I judge you by your words.  By analysing them, I find you to be intellectually depraved.  You call for Islamic reformation a la reformation undertaken by Martin Luther.  His was a rebellion against central authority which made of faith a trade in the indulgences.  And a return to the holy scriptures.  Islam is a different setting.  There are no payment for coupon to go to paradise; no central authority, and a full adherence to text, modifiable by ijtihad (by common sense and changing circumstances).

Then you call yourself a "Muslim dissident."  But you have already opted out of Islam.  Enjoy your conversion.  Who cares?  The Quran says: "Whoever wishes to believe, let it be.  And whoever wishes to disbelieve, let it be."  Terming yourself a dissident is an obfuscation.  For dissidence does not mean anti-Islamism which has become your mission and your industry.

Your call for US intervention in support of your ridiculous theory is a clear call for cultural imperialism.  This means endless wars.  But you describe it as a path to peace.  How obscene!!

Through your ignorance about and antipathy about Islam, you regard Sharia as a frozen unevolved legal system.  A threat to individual human rights and friendly relations among nations.  Utterly insane.  With the exception of few Islamic States, the legal system is a hybrid.  Sharia plus legislated law.  The former is a family law jurisdiction.  The latter is everything else.

The poor treatment of women in Somalia has nothing to do with Islam.  It has to do with arcane practices elevated to the levels of law by ignorant imams.

The Quran and Hadith call for shura (consultations), which is institutionalized in today's parliaments.  Those two pillars of Islam call for the removal of an unjust ruler.  The only limitation is avoidance of mayhem (FITNA) resulting from such populist action.

The judicial system, in Islamic jurisprudence, encourages the judge to be defendant oriented.  Punishment for a proven guilt does not follow the literality of the Quran.  It is modifiable by legislated law.

Ayaan: Under your misguided notions, you look upon the Quran as if it was a textbook in need of revision.  Nearly two billion Muslims regard it as revealed.  It is a faith, regardless of poor Islamic practices.  A heavenly road map which all modern legal systems respect.

So enjoy your notoriety.  I pity those who, at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, sit to hear you expound on your anti-Islamism.  The only winners are those in the ranks of murderous terrorism who take your attacks on Islam as a justification for their conviction that Islam is under attack.  

You have elevated your personal vendetta against Islam to the level of an international cause.  The Hirsi Ali cause is a hopeless one.  It exists only in her tribally traumatized head.

From the foregoing, you, Hirsi Ali, could see the depth of my rejection of what you stand for.  Denigration of Islam and stirring up of inter-faith conflict.  

Yet there is one thing that you have said correctly.  Unintentionally.  You titled one of your books "Infidel."  This is because you have adopted the western error that "infidel" means "non-Muslim."  It doesn't mean this at all.  In Islamic jurisprudence, "infidel" means "a person who has no values."  Without realization, you have chosen the correct term.  An omnibus description of yourself.

The Muslims abide by this verse from the Quran:  "So woe to those who write the scripture with their hands, then say, 'This is from God,' to trade with it for a pitiful price!" (Chapter 2, verse 79).  This is the Muslim faith.  And Pope Francis said it all when he declared that freedom of expression does not include attacking the faith of others.

In the Global War On Jihadism, May God Save Egypt Also From Its So-Called Journalism

I asked a veteran guru of Egyptian journalism, Mr. Galal Dowidar, formerly the editor of Al-Akhbar of Cairo.  "Why is today's standard so debased?"  His answer was: "After the two revolutions of January and June, they have no material."  An honest and crisp response.

Now that anti-terrorism has been declared by Prime Minister Mahlab as war, it is time for another revolution.  A Public Information Revolution.  Based on an enforceable code.  Its aim is to create a credible civilian face for the Sinai war.  Its components are:  In depth research; credible evidence; deep penetration of Egyptian society; teach-ins on anti-jihadism; recruiting youth as intern reporters; putting national security ahead of the ingrained Egyptian desire to be funny; and becoming a tool of mass mobilization.  Other components: When to publish.  And when to shut up.

The army, the police, other security institutions, the judiciary, the executive of all branches, Al-Azhar and the Coptic Church, and all other educational institutions are all participants in weeding out terrorism.

For the Information Revolution is primarily an ideological response to the massive online rubbish spewing out daily from the Brotherhood/ISIS franchises.  In essence, those cabals are reminders of the "Wizard of Oz."   Fear is artificially generated by a mad person turning the wheel of panic.  From behind the black curtain of a mythical caliphate.

With selected targets, foreign or laundered internal funds, captured war materiel, and video games reflecting barbarism, they have aimed at employing fear hypnosis.  Encircled from the outside and from within, the jihadists keep alive the myth of invincibility.

They have no future.  Terrorism has never established a State.  Anywhere, Islamic or non-Islamic.  Putting up a sign and receiving endorsements (they call these Baiaa) are mere props for the theater of the absurd.  Butcherism combined with "jihadi fornication" are in-stock tools.  For them, Islam is a convenient cover for genocide.

Assassinating Egypt's Attorney-General Hisham Barakat.  Detonating deadly charges against the Sinai army defenders.  Using Bedouin grievances as incentives.  These are all proof of one verity: Jihadi forces of various stripes, including the Brotherhood, have coalesced.  Making of the holy month of Ramadan, a month of blood, not of charity.  Fomenting a Sunni/Shii split, a Muslim/Coptic conflict, or a Bedouin/nationalist cleavage.  All of these are the tools of dead-enders.

A case in point is the recent attack in Kuwait on the Mosque of Imam Jaafar Al-Ssadeq.  The Emir of Kuwait, descendant of nation-builders, has the appropriate response.  He prayed at the scene of the crime.

In the Arab homelands, national borders shall always stand tall.  Even if the national entity is geographically split.  As in Syria, or Yemen.  Statelets shall be defined by their future borders.

40,000 tweets by ISIS on a daily basis are no indicator of longevity.  It is only "the Wizard of Oz" syndrome.  Turning his sound machine to frighten Scarecrow and Tin Man.  But not Dorothy or her little dog Toto!!

So the Sinai war, being the Egyptian front on the global war on terror, urgently needs a reformed Egyptian journalism.  Those journalists should either shape up or ship out.  The list of examples of their banality and triteness is endless.

Claiming that El-Sisi is not a decisive decision-maker.  I don't work for him.  I am a mere employee of her majesty the truth.  A volunteer for "the Strong State," the New Egypt.  Thus I feel the sting of what is published in the newspaper "Al-Masriyoon."  It claims: "El-Sisi declarations about terrorism are contradictory."  They should know better.  The fight against jihadism is a daily changing nasty affair.  The Head of State is entitled to reflect that changing reality.

Claiming that every statement by El-Sisi should be fully-documented.  Time, place and manner.  Al-Watan newspaper downgrades El-Sisi declaration after the Sinai massacre of July 1.  He has said: "The armed forces shall conduct these attacks...The perpetrators shall know that Egyptian blood is not cheap."  What is wrong with that?  But Al-Watan finds fault with El-Sisi words.  "Nobody knows where El-Sisi said that and when?"  Is this the main issue?

Claiming that the new anti-terror law which is yet to be promulgated is obnoxious as it restricts freedom of expression.  All because of one article (Article 33) which is now being re-examined.  Al-Ahram newspaper writes: "This is a call for ignoring human rights.  It is contrary to the aims of the anti-terror campaign."  Oh, really?  In times of war, security considerations trump.  The great American emancipator, President Lincoln, suspended parts of the US Constitution.  The American civil war, in which 850,000 American troops perished, was on.  The survival of the U.S. was at stake.  And the slave owners were being assisted by Great Britain.  The same situation with the Brotherhood in Egypt being bolstered from abroad.  And the new Egyptian law is intended to replace the existing State of Emergency laws.

Claiming that the Sinai armies are not entitled to exhibit the bodies of the dead terrorists.  "Al Maqal" newspaper decries that action as "triumphalism unbecoming of the armed forces."  Amazing.  How about the jihadi daily massive of barbaric butcherism to keep us all hiding like rabbits in our holes?  The burning alive of the Jordanian pilot, Moaz Al-Kasasbeh, in a cage should sear the mind of humanity for a long time.  Telecast by ISIS repeatedly.

Claiming that the Government is derelict in divulging how the weapons of the jihadis have penetrated Egypt.  So "Al-Masri Al-Youm" writes: "Every Egyptian is entitled to know how these weapons entered Egypt; what kinds of weapons; and when have these weapons arrived?"  Then it adds: "Apparently all who raise these questions are attacked as unpatriotic."  But the whole world knows that the events in Libya and in Gaza have created points of entry for these weapons.  Does that newspaper put the priority at investigations of the weaponization of the present war, when the State institutions, including the judiciary, are overburdened with all types of investigations?  And haven't the armed forces bombed the Libyan borders and created a "cordon sanitaire" at the Gaza/Sinai borders?  Doesn't the whole world know that today Egypt is buying from us ultra-modern surviellance equipment?  Where is that technology going to be placed?  At the Libyan border!!  For decoration?  No!!  For border protection on the west (Libya).

Claiming that the State should not use the term "liquidation" in its anti-terror statements.  "Al-Shorook" newspaper writes: "The State establishes justice not vengeance and revenge."  Well!!  What is the difference between "containment, degrading, and ending jihadism," and "liquidation?"  Is this a war of combat for rescuing the homeland or a war of words?

The list goes on and on.  Ad nauseam.  Some of the same commentators described the status of journalism in Egypt as "the public information chaos."  Amen!!  Time for an "Information Revolution."  If it is a war, it should be fought like a war.  On all fronts.  By all means.  Akin to general mobilization.  May God save Egypt from jihadism and its inane journalism!!

The shallowness of present-day journalism in Egypt makes me over-nostalgic to its golden age.  Established in the 19th century by Lebanese Christians, it was the home of great essayists.  One of them was our neighbor in Sharqia Province -Zaki Abdel-Qader.  A few years later it was Ahmed Bahaul-Din and the twins, Ali and Mustafa Amin.  How about Fikry Abaza and El-Zayyat?  Today, these stalwarts are terribly missed.

There is strong evidence that the hallow carping of present-day journalists in Egypt leads the US press to draw absurd conclusions.  One of these is the perpetuation of the myth that the June 30, 2013 Revolution was a coup.  Witness the stupid conclusions in the Egyptian press about El-Sisi donning his military uniform during his visit with the Sinai troops following the treacherous attacks by the ISIS branch called "The Sinai Province."  And remember how Bush Jr. as president, who has never been in military service, was applauded when he donned a military uniform, parading himself on a battleship.  Falsely declaring about the American invasion of Iraq: "Mission Accomplished."

One of the side benefits of the two companion revolutions (January 2011 and June 2013) is that the average Egyptian has found his or her voice.  So did Egypt's journalism.  But with one difference in the case of the latter.  Most of their contributions seem to equate between democracy and a constant barrage against the government.

Credible statistics show that since January 2011, the army and the police in Egypt lost 258 martyred in the course of the war in jihadism in Sinai.  The bloody results of 74 attacks.  Over various periods of post-Mubarak rule.  The SCAF (Supreme Council of Armed Forces) from February 11, 2011 to June 30, 2012.  The Morsi rule, the Mansour rule, and the present El-Sisi rule.

All the while, the New Egypt is a building.  From the expected opening of the Second Suez Canal in early August, to ensuring the safety of its tourists, to combating the income inequality in the land of the Nile.  So enough is enough with spilling of ink to fill empty pages in Egypt's newspapers.

Aside from efforts for economic recovery and anti-terrorism, the main pending issue is the holding of elections for the lower house of parliament.  Egyptian journalism paid scant attention to the march of Egypt toward those parliamentary elections later this year.  The Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court has approved the draft bill on electoral districts (a total of 209), paving the way for its promulgation, following presidential approval.  The daily moan and groan is: "Nothing is OK with the New Egypt."  Their monument is a permanent wailing wall.

What a great free ride for the Brotherhood/ISIS/Sinai Province criminal consortium to read that headline in Egypt's so-call press:

"The disappearance of the President from view increases the public's fear of a tsunami of decisions.  The unknown envelopes Egypt.  And fear pervades the majority of its population."

In any country in a state of war, such fear-mongering would have prompted the authorities to prosecute the offending outlet.  The legal grounds are: "Aiding and abetting the State's enemies through falsely and maliciously causing public panic during wartime."