On the one-hand, Wahhabism was originally forged by a reformer. Muhammad Ibn Abdel-Wahhab sought an Islam based on its sources: The Book (the Quran), The Sunna (Muhammad's tradition) and The Hekmah (common-sense interpretation). Earned high praise by Sheikh Muhammad Abdoh-the all-time Egyptian reformer and liberator.
On the other hand, Turkey, once relieved by Ata Turk in 1923 of the yoke of the Caliphate, began to move on as a secular State. Secularity, supported by its armed forces, was its way forward, straddling both Asia and Europe.
But then, as of the 1920's, the unification of most of the Arabian peninsula by King Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud came at a heavy cost. The cost of ceding to the Wahhabis (Al Alsheikh) all matters relating to Islam. About the same time frame, Turkey's stabilization came also at a heavy cost to secularity: No tangible civil rights to either opposition or to the Kurdish minority.
In both Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) and Ankara (Turkey), the sword became the arbiter. That is the sword of a repressive Islam in Riyadh, and the sword of a repressive secularity in Ankara. In both countries, the contents of Islam was converted into non-Islamic authoritarianism.
Yet after nearly 100 years, something happened in both capitals. On the way to the 21st century, a new ideology came to the Saudi government as of the reign of King Abdullah -openness. But to the Turkish scene, came Ordogan, bent on closing the door to secularity, and espousing Islamism. From King Abdullah to King Salman, the road was leading to cutting Wahhabism down to size.
But in Ankara, under Ordogan, the road was leading through dictatorship and Islamism. Expunging secularism for the sake of an Ottoman-like revival.
The two opposite currents had a direct effect on the Muslim Brotherhood and its sanctuaries in both Qatar and Turkey, among other places. In tandem with the New Egypt, Riyadh closed its door to the Brotherhood. That was a historical extension of King Abdul-Aziz's famous retort to the Brotherhood: "Why a Brotherhood center in Riyadh, when we all are Brothers and are all Muslims!!"
The reverse took place in Ankara where, Ordogan raised his hand of four fingers in a symbolic salute to the Brotherhood.
From reading the tea leaves of the future, the gradual shrinkage of the Wahhabi role in governance is most likely to succeed. Riyadh now seeks true integration in the modern world community. By contrast, the gradual islamization of the new sultanate of pro-Ottoman Ordogan, is most likely to falter due to the historic inculcation of the Ata Turk secularism.
It is a tradition built in the Turkish Constitution as being the sacred trust of the huge NATO-supported armed forces. It was nearly a year ago that a coup against Ordogan nearly succeeded. Its reversal by Ordogan came at the cost of more than 250 people killed and more than 2000 injured.
Reflection on the happenings in both Riyadh and Ankara is a comparative way of guessing at the future in the entire Middle East, following the liberation of Mosul (Iraq) and Raqqa (Syria). While the destruction of the so-called caliphate of ISIS in its two centers of power is a most welcome development, one has to wonder as to what next?
What can the future role of an islamized Turkey and of a less-Wahhabi Saudi Arabia be? In Riyadh, we have a crown prince, Muhammad Bin Salman, seemingly bent on a Saudi Arabia for the 21st century. Can Syria or Iraq remain territorially united? And if not, what might be the effects of an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq, or of Kurdish nationalism in Turkey? Could the diplomatic isolation of Iran in the New Middle East last while the influence of Tehran in Damascus, Baghdad, Beirut and Sanaa (Yemen) is a fact of political life?
For now, such questions have to remain unanswered. What is assured for now, is that Islam, whose main thesis is unity, shall continue to be divisively interpreted. Especially in the holy land of Mecca and Medina, and in the land of the neo-Ottomans!! No relation or linkage to the Fourth Caliph after Muhammad: Othman Ibn Affan. He was an enlightened leader. The Ottomans, whether old or re-invented, are not.
Note: New blog postings will resume on a weekly basis after my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "War on Jihadism By Ideology: The New Islamic Religious Revolution"
Friday, July 21, 2017
Friday, July 7, 2017
The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Arab Calamity Caused by Nasser
That was the Six-Day War, begun by Israel on June 5, 1967. It ended by its occupation of Sinai (Egypt), the Golan (Syria), the West Bank (Jordan), Gaza (Egyptian administration), and East Jerusalem (Jordan and the Muslim world). Israel was the aggressor; Nasser was the unwitting creator of those circumstances. Thus in mere 6 days, Israeli administered-territories quadrupled.
Yet there has never been an Egyptian commission of inquiry into Nasser's huge miscalculations whose disastrous consequences are still plaguing the Arab world. Nasser's leadership, though still perceived as gaining honor for the Arab homeland, gained that homeland neither muscle nor relevance to the world community or to regional or universal institutions.
In a historical summary, Nasser was largely about Nasser being seen as the Arab world leader. It was a fake leadership: The Egyptian-Sudanese unity collapsed as Nasser pushed President Naguib (of Sudanese parentage) out; the cozying up with Russia translated into anti-west; the union with Syria into a United Arab Republic lasted only for 3 years (1958-1961). Then came the intrusion into the civil war in Yemen (1962-1967) causing a rupture with Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf; the enthusiasm for the 1969 Qaddafi rise to power in Libya was mere empty optics; and the coddling of Arafat of the PLO was at the expense of both Jordan and Lebanon.
There is no doubt that internally in Egypt, Nasser caused the re-start of Egyptian industrialization; the construction of the Aswan dam; the launching of agrarian reform; the moving forward with the Egyptian nuclear program for energy; and the inclusion of the peasants and workers into parliament.
There is also no doubt that Nasser did not steal from the public treasury; stimulated free university education for all; and garnered respect for Egypt as a player in African unity, and in the non-aligned movement.
These are achievements whose roots were mostly planted prior to his military coup of July 23, 1952 (65 years ago). And the price for whatever was achieved under his leadership internally was inordinate: the the abrogation of the historic Egyptian Constitution of 1923; the muzzling of all voices of dissent; the disbanding of the vestiges of Egyptian democracy (1922-1952).
There was also the encouragement of the Islamists in order to counter the influence of the communists; the break-up of viable agricultural land holdings in favor of micro-agricultural land holdings of 5 acres or less; the improper ascertainment of the adverse effects of stopping the silt from the Nile water behind the Aswan dam.
Under Nasser, Egypt with its vast and underused human intellectual resources, became a one-man show. The show was called "the struggle," and was given a cliche by the Nasser mouth-piece, Mohamed Hassanain Haikal, in the propagandistic words: "No voice is above the voice of the struggle."
And officially, the propagator was Abdel-Qadir Hatem who refashioned the Egyptian Information Department in the model of a Goebbels Nazi operation. Lies by Ahmed Saeed of the "Voice of the Arabs" were given credence. Calling Saudi King Faisal, Jordan's King Hussein, and Tunisian President Bourguiba "traitors" was common currency as a Nasser means of intimidation of whoever in the Arab world dared to say, "Gorilla!! Your Eyes are Red" -an Egyptian saying.
As the only dinner guest to dinner hosted by Haikal in Cairo on a Friday 1969, my host asked for my opinion of his weekly column in Al-Ahram newspaper. It was entitled "Frankly Speaking" (Bissarahah). Its heading in that particular issue was "The Four Traitors."
I have cited above three of those four, but the name of the fourth escapes me. My response was: "How do you measure treachery? There is no agreed pan-Arab definition, as each Arab sovereign State pursues its policies guided only by its national interest."
Measuring Nasser's achievements against Nasser's blunders, I find the scales tipping heavily on the side of blunders. For those affected a whole region, and decided the history of hundreds of millions for years to come. Nasser was not a very educated man. He was ill-fated by a conspiratorial mind. That mind dictated his preference for persons whom he trusted over persons who possessed experience.
Haikal is a prime example: a high school graduate; with no university education; but with self-education focused only on copying (Naql), translation, and plagiarism (no attribution to original sources). A story teller in the mode of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves." The author of Nasser's "The Philosophy of the Revolution."
In it, there is a vacuous blueprint consisting of aspirational generalities. A Bla Bla Bla that glitters but does not educate. Its real companion, though more in the superlatives, is Qaddafi's "Green Book." Two books considered by their die hard fans historic, yet you find them today in the dustpan of history.
More strategically located beside Nasser was General Abdel-Hakim Amer, commanding ill-equipped large armed forces. Amer's education in military strategy and military intelligence could not be compared to that of his Israeli counterparts. The latter were methodically sent for specialized education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.
That is while Amer was dispatched by Nasser to the Northern Region (Syria) during the short-lived United Arab Republic. (Egypt was the Southern Region). As Amer in Syria (1958-1961), assisted by the then Syrian Interior Minister, Abdel-Halim Al-Sarrag, was turning Syria into a security State, Israel was innovating militarily.
The flow of US armaments into Israel was the price which Ben Gurion as Prime Minister had extracted from President Eisenhower for withdrawal from Sinai in 1957. Israel had, at that crucial junction, shifted away from France and refocused on the innovative American military technology. By comparison, Egypt was reliant on Soviet weaponry: simpler to use, but technologically inferior to the American arsenal.
The stage was set for the Israeli historic strike of June 5, 1967 against all its Arab neighbors. Nasser was preoccupied with his war in Yemen where napalm was used by Egypt against opposing Arab forces; Amer of Egypt was no match for General Moshe Dayan; the Baath Party of Syria which collapsed the union with Egypt was taunting Nasser as a paper tiger because of the stationing of the UN Blue Helmets on the Egyptian side of the line of demarcation with Israel.
With Nasser's ego being nearly the size of the Giza pyramids, and against the quiet advice of the experienced Egyptian Foreign Ministry, he forced the withdrawal of the UN forces from the scene. And with the Nasser megaphone, false Egyptian claims of having closed the Gulf of Aqaba, were magnified. That played well in the hands of Israel. At the UN, Aba Eban, Israel's then Foreign Minister declaimed. "Israel is besieged."
American President Lyndon Johnson, together with UN Representative, Ambassador Goldberg, must have known that a big push by Israel against the Arabs was in the making. The USSR could only give lip service to their Arab allies. Russian global strength was receding; American hegemony was on the rise; and Israel was a willing strategic American ally. New American war weapons were tested in Israel held territories.
And on June 5, 1967, the Israeli air force struck all Egyptian airfields destroying Egypt's aircraft as they slept on their tarmacs. By noon, Nasser's Egypt had no air cover, and that great country laid defenseless. But Nasser had an obtuse explanation: "We expected the enemy to come from the east; it came from the west!!" DA!! Our Arab forebears have counselled: "War is trickery."
But Nasser had little education in culture. His education was in how to pretend that the Arab calamity could be repackaged to the Egyptians as only "a set-back" (Naksah).
Has the October War of 1973 which was astutely planned by Sadat, Nasser's successor, mitigated that Arab disaster of 1967? Not really!! It led to Egyptian recovery of its territory through the Peace Treaty of 1979 with Israel. But other Arab territories are still under Israeli suzerainty.
That 1973 war also led to a later treaty of peace between Jordan and Israel. These peace moves, combined with the absence of a meaningful Palestinian leadership, have drastically redrawn the Middle East map for a long time to come.
Nasser, in effect, was a phantom leader. "Eternally-Remembered?" How misleading!! Nasser was nearly all throat and imagery. Substance was not his substance.
Note: New blog postings will resume on a weekly basis after my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "War on Jihadism By Ideology: The New Islamic Religious Revolution"
Yet there has never been an Egyptian commission of inquiry into Nasser's huge miscalculations whose disastrous consequences are still plaguing the Arab world. Nasser's leadership, though still perceived as gaining honor for the Arab homeland, gained that homeland neither muscle nor relevance to the world community or to regional or universal institutions.
In a historical summary, Nasser was largely about Nasser being seen as the Arab world leader. It was a fake leadership: The Egyptian-Sudanese unity collapsed as Nasser pushed President Naguib (of Sudanese parentage) out; the cozying up with Russia translated into anti-west; the union with Syria into a United Arab Republic lasted only for 3 years (1958-1961). Then came the intrusion into the civil war in Yemen (1962-1967) causing a rupture with Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf; the enthusiasm for the 1969 Qaddafi rise to power in Libya was mere empty optics; and the coddling of Arafat of the PLO was at the expense of both Jordan and Lebanon.
There is no doubt that internally in Egypt, Nasser caused the re-start of Egyptian industrialization; the construction of the Aswan dam; the launching of agrarian reform; the moving forward with the Egyptian nuclear program for energy; and the inclusion of the peasants and workers into parliament.
There is also no doubt that Nasser did not steal from the public treasury; stimulated free university education for all; and garnered respect for Egypt as a player in African unity, and in the non-aligned movement.
These are achievements whose roots were mostly planted prior to his military coup of July 23, 1952 (65 years ago). And the price for whatever was achieved under his leadership internally was inordinate: the the abrogation of the historic Egyptian Constitution of 1923; the muzzling of all voices of dissent; the disbanding of the vestiges of Egyptian democracy (1922-1952).
There was also the encouragement of the Islamists in order to counter the influence of the communists; the break-up of viable agricultural land holdings in favor of micro-agricultural land holdings of 5 acres or less; the improper ascertainment of the adverse effects of stopping the silt from the Nile water behind the Aswan dam.
Under Nasser, Egypt with its vast and underused human intellectual resources, became a one-man show. The show was called "the struggle," and was given a cliche by the Nasser mouth-piece, Mohamed Hassanain Haikal, in the propagandistic words: "No voice is above the voice of the struggle."
And officially, the propagator was Abdel-Qadir Hatem who refashioned the Egyptian Information Department in the model of a Goebbels Nazi operation. Lies by Ahmed Saeed of the "Voice of the Arabs" were given credence. Calling Saudi King Faisal, Jordan's King Hussein, and Tunisian President Bourguiba "traitors" was common currency as a Nasser means of intimidation of whoever in the Arab world dared to say, "Gorilla!! Your Eyes are Red" -an Egyptian saying.
As the only dinner guest to dinner hosted by Haikal in Cairo on a Friday 1969, my host asked for my opinion of his weekly column in Al-Ahram newspaper. It was entitled "Frankly Speaking" (Bissarahah). Its heading in that particular issue was "The Four Traitors."
I have cited above three of those four, but the name of the fourth escapes me. My response was: "How do you measure treachery? There is no agreed pan-Arab definition, as each Arab sovereign State pursues its policies guided only by its national interest."
Measuring Nasser's achievements against Nasser's blunders, I find the scales tipping heavily on the side of blunders. For those affected a whole region, and decided the history of hundreds of millions for years to come. Nasser was not a very educated man. He was ill-fated by a conspiratorial mind. That mind dictated his preference for persons whom he trusted over persons who possessed experience.
Haikal is a prime example: a high school graduate; with no university education; but with self-education focused only on copying (Naql), translation, and plagiarism (no attribution to original sources). A story teller in the mode of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves." The author of Nasser's "The Philosophy of the Revolution."
In it, there is a vacuous blueprint consisting of aspirational generalities. A Bla Bla Bla that glitters but does not educate. Its real companion, though more in the superlatives, is Qaddafi's "Green Book." Two books considered by their die hard fans historic, yet you find them today in the dustpan of history.
More strategically located beside Nasser was General Abdel-Hakim Amer, commanding ill-equipped large armed forces. Amer's education in military strategy and military intelligence could not be compared to that of his Israeli counterparts. The latter were methodically sent for specialized education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA.
That is while Amer was dispatched by Nasser to the Northern Region (Syria) during the short-lived United Arab Republic. (Egypt was the Southern Region). As Amer in Syria (1958-1961), assisted by the then Syrian Interior Minister, Abdel-Halim Al-Sarrag, was turning Syria into a security State, Israel was innovating militarily.
The flow of US armaments into Israel was the price which Ben Gurion as Prime Minister had extracted from President Eisenhower for withdrawal from Sinai in 1957. Israel had, at that crucial junction, shifted away from France and refocused on the innovative American military technology. By comparison, Egypt was reliant on Soviet weaponry: simpler to use, but technologically inferior to the American arsenal.
The stage was set for the Israeli historic strike of June 5, 1967 against all its Arab neighbors. Nasser was preoccupied with his war in Yemen where napalm was used by Egypt against opposing Arab forces; Amer of Egypt was no match for General Moshe Dayan; the Baath Party of Syria which collapsed the union with Egypt was taunting Nasser as a paper tiger because of the stationing of the UN Blue Helmets on the Egyptian side of the line of demarcation with Israel.
With Nasser's ego being nearly the size of the Giza pyramids, and against the quiet advice of the experienced Egyptian Foreign Ministry, he forced the withdrawal of the UN forces from the scene. And with the Nasser megaphone, false Egyptian claims of having closed the Gulf of Aqaba, were magnified. That played well in the hands of Israel. At the UN, Aba Eban, Israel's then Foreign Minister declaimed. "Israel is besieged."
American President Lyndon Johnson, together with UN Representative, Ambassador Goldberg, must have known that a big push by Israel against the Arabs was in the making. The USSR could only give lip service to their Arab allies. Russian global strength was receding; American hegemony was on the rise; and Israel was a willing strategic American ally. New American war weapons were tested in Israel held territories.
And on June 5, 1967, the Israeli air force struck all Egyptian airfields destroying Egypt's aircraft as they slept on their tarmacs. By noon, Nasser's Egypt had no air cover, and that great country laid defenseless. But Nasser had an obtuse explanation: "We expected the enemy to come from the east; it came from the west!!" DA!! Our Arab forebears have counselled: "War is trickery."
But Nasser had little education in culture. His education was in how to pretend that the Arab calamity could be repackaged to the Egyptians as only "a set-back" (Naksah).
Has the October War of 1973 which was astutely planned by Sadat, Nasser's successor, mitigated that Arab disaster of 1967? Not really!! It led to Egyptian recovery of its territory through the Peace Treaty of 1979 with Israel. But other Arab territories are still under Israeli suzerainty.
That 1973 war also led to a later treaty of peace between Jordan and Israel. These peace moves, combined with the absence of a meaningful Palestinian leadership, have drastically redrawn the Middle East map for a long time to come.
Nasser, in effect, was a phantom leader. "Eternally-Remembered?" How misleading!! Nasser was nearly all throat and imagery. Substance was not his substance.
Note: New blog postings will resume on a weekly basis after my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "War on Jihadism By Ideology: The New Islamic Religious Revolution"
Friday, June 23, 2017
The Imperial Presidency of Donald The Mindless
In the early 1960's I sat at the UN to interview Mohamed Ali, the world boxing champion. Warming him to that interview in a UN Radio Studio, I humorously asked him: "Do you really think that you are the greatest?" With humility and a smile, his response was: "It is the world that says so!!"
The greats hardly ever describe themselves as such. Trump is an embarrassing exception. His call to "Make America Great Again" does not mean what it says. Its practical meaning is: "America shall be for whites only." All others are potentially un-American.
Never in the history of the cabinet meetings at the White House has there been one like that held by Trump in June. It was for the sole purpose of having himself being praised by members of his own cabinet. It was a disgusting show of servility. Cravenly submissive to the narcissist, egocentrism of Trump, they bathed him, one at a time, in adulating "thank you for the honor of serving under your leadership."
One of the most sickening behavioral traits of that mindless American President is his lashing at any critic. On May 13, he spoke at the commencement exercises of Liberty University, a bastion of religious evangelism. In that address, he said of criticism:
"Nothing is easier or more pathetic than being a critic, because they're people that can't get the job done."
Yet it is well established that the primary lesson of a liberal democracy is how to live with critics. It was the composer Jean Sibelius who quipped: "No one ever put up a statue of a critic." Egomaniacal Trump has his name on every building or a golf course he owns, leases, or has licensed his name to be stamped on it. This is typical of Trump's delusional mental disorder that is marked by infantile feelings of personal omnipotence and grandeur.
Trump's famous "I alone can fix it" could now be added to "I know more than the generals know." This is to appreciate the total nonsense of these irresponsible utterances revealing the gap between his empty words and their empty results.
His first baptism by fire was in Yemen where one of the seals was killed. But Trump blamed that mishap on the Pentagon.
Now finding it expedient to leave the generals face the blame for future mishaps, he has n ow ceded his central function as Commander In Chief to General Jim Mattis, his Defense Secretary.
It is now the Pentagon which would decide on a useless military surge in Afghanistan of 5000 more troops to be thrust in that unwinnable 16-years-old war. A war that rages on without any American arching strategy, and from which Obama had wisely begun to disengage as a gradual exit strategy.
Nonetheless, Trump focus on being not responsible for any bad outcome (his sole focus is on garnering ritualized flattery), shall not shield him from what The New York Times of June 16 has aptly characterized. The paper mocked Trump's self-absorbed tweet celebrating the 242nd birthday of the US army. Trump, the Tweeter-In-Chief has said: "Proud to be your commander-in-chief." This is the man who sought multiple deferments from military service. Thus the paper mocked his escapist decision to give General Mattis "the authority to determine troop levels in Afghanistan."
In the 1950's I witnessed as a UN staff member the Permanent Representative of Israel disparaging Saudi Arabia by a novel attack. He, in effect, said that the only UN member which is a family business is Saudi Arabia. Well, by that measurement of statehood, it would not be far fetched to apply it today to the Trump administration. But not as a State, but as a government. Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, partake of official meetings with visiting Heads of State.
The fact of that American family business masquerading as the apex of executive power in the US is more compounded by other factors outside of blood relations. The intertwining of family and State business, representing violations of both ethical and legal nature, has been tolerated by a supinely-submissive Republican controlled Congress. A collective exhibition of mutual and moral slackness.
With the accumulation of portfolios of vital national interest in the hands of Kushner, from government organization to Middle East peace, comes the issues of conflict of interest. Trump and his enablers have vouched for a legal impossibility: The President is immune from conflict of interest. By what legal standard? None, except by dictatorial fiat. As a mindless president, Trump has declared that he could run his world-flung business and the U.S. simultaneously.
From all indications, especially through the avalanche of executive orders, paraded before cameras as Trump jabs his pen on folders bearing his tower-like signature, Trump fancies the US a corporation. His cabinet is his corporate board, his angry look as a threatening menace.
In his hallucinatory state of mind, Trump believes that his signature moves programs forward. No major legislation has so far moved forward, especially in the areas of health care, tax reform, trade promotion and national security. Only in the matter of appointing a very conservative justice to the Supreme Court, deregulation to benefit Wall Street, and environmental degradation through exiting the Paris accord on climate change.
All are nearly negatives, which Trump counts as "fulfilling my promises to the American people." The outcome has been the federal judiciary issuing stays of the application of his bans, including the Muslim ban which he declares to be not a ban. This is while his acolytes claimed it to be a non-ban. But the courts took Trump's own words as evidence of unconstitutionality.
This is while we see the rise of states and cities declaring their own defiance of federal power regarding rounding up illegal immigrants. Their police departments shall not cooperate with federal authorities in the pursuit of unconstitutional measures.
The American Declaration of Independence unanimously approved by the 13 United States of America on July 4, 1776 includes several passages which in their totality constitute obstruction of justice when violated by the Executive. One of these refers to endeavoring "to prevent the population of these states," through "refusing to pass (laws) to encourage their migrations hither." Trump bans against Muslims and plans to build walls on the Mexican-American border should be taken by the judiciary into account with these passages in mind.
As to the Constitution, Article III, Section 3 states: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies giving them aid and comfort."
President, Donald Trump, assisted by others like General Flynn, his former national security advisor, have by Trump's silence on Russia's interference in the 2016 elections, given eloquent evidence of culpability. Not one word of protest against Russia's cyber attack during the campaign and transition has issued from the mouth of that mindless president.
Trump's test balloon launched on June 13 by his friend, Christopher Ruddy, suggesting that Trump may fire Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, is either a phony attempt at intimidation, or a terrible misreading of the pulse of the American people. They will have to conclude that their president is a crook. That admission by Ruddy may also indicate that Trump uses and abuses his executive privilege which prevents the divulgence of private conversation with the president.
Loosening that rule is also a manifestation of Trump's mistaken belief that he is above the law. He, as the saying goes, could run, but can't hide. His attempt to protect Flynn, his chipping away at the elaborate American civil rights edifice, his feverish attempts to dismantle the Obama legacy including the opening to Cuba, and his calling the investigations in the Russian connection a "witch hunt" is a reminder of a concerned rat moving in all directions in the hope of escaping capture.
Donald: What is happening in the way of multiple investigations is not "a witch hunt." It is a hunt for the truth. And the only recognizable truth about your five months presidency is what your main strategist, Steve Bannon, has admitted to: "The destruction of the administrative State."
That administrative State seems to be marching towards an inevitable goal: Putting an end to the charade of the presidency of a mindless president.
Statistical fact checking shows that Trump has lied 500 times since June 2015. The most recent lie being his bluffing that his conversations with Jim Comey had been taped. Now under the pressure of a Congressional subpoena to force Trump to disgorge these tapes, he came out on June 22 admitting that there were no such tapes.
The implication of that forced divulgence from the American Liar-in-Chief is clear: He intentionally meant that lie for possibly these purposes: (a) to intimidate Comey into silence; (b) to distract public attention away from the Russian investigation; and/or (c) to heap scorn on law enforcement.
There is a new theory called "Mindfulness." It advocates knowing yourself as a means of constructive engagement. By that standard, Trump, through his utterances and actions, is entitled to the counter-theory: "Mindlessness." It advocates self-absorption combined with always being on the offensive.
Donald the Mindless has been, if not on the defensive, in a constant attacking mode: From "crooked Hillary," to "I have inherited a mess." From "That judge is Mexican," to "The intelligence services have failed." From "The Muslims hate us," to "China is ripping us off." From: "The Media is the enemy," to "I heard it from someone."
The superlatives are his lexicon. His imperial presidency is not to "Make America Great Again." It is to "Make America Hate Again." Where are all the allies gone? Even Mexico and Canada are no more America's longest unarmed borders.
Note: New blog postings will resume on a weekly basis after my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "War on Jihadism By Ideology: The New Islamic Religious Revolution"
The greats hardly ever describe themselves as such. Trump is an embarrassing exception. His call to "Make America Great Again" does not mean what it says. Its practical meaning is: "America shall be for whites only." All others are potentially un-American.
Never in the history of the cabinet meetings at the White House has there been one like that held by Trump in June. It was for the sole purpose of having himself being praised by members of his own cabinet. It was a disgusting show of servility. Cravenly submissive to the narcissist, egocentrism of Trump, they bathed him, one at a time, in adulating "thank you for the honor of serving under your leadership."
One of the most sickening behavioral traits of that mindless American President is his lashing at any critic. On May 13, he spoke at the commencement exercises of Liberty University, a bastion of religious evangelism. In that address, he said of criticism:
"Nothing is easier or more pathetic than being a critic, because they're people that can't get the job done."
Yet it is well established that the primary lesson of a liberal democracy is how to live with critics. It was the composer Jean Sibelius who quipped: "No one ever put up a statue of a critic." Egomaniacal Trump has his name on every building or a golf course he owns, leases, or has licensed his name to be stamped on it. This is typical of Trump's delusional mental disorder that is marked by infantile feelings of personal omnipotence and grandeur.
Trump's famous "I alone can fix it" could now be added to "I know more than the generals know." This is to appreciate the total nonsense of these irresponsible utterances revealing the gap between his empty words and their empty results.
His first baptism by fire was in Yemen where one of the seals was killed. But Trump blamed that mishap on the Pentagon.
Now finding it expedient to leave the generals face the blame for future mishaps, he has n ow ceded his central function as Commander In Chief to General Jim Mattis, his Defense Secretary.
It is now the Pentagon which would decide on a useless military surge in Afghanistan of 5000 more troops to be thrust in that unwinnable 16-years-old war. A war that rages on without any American arching strategy, and from which Obama had wisely begun to disengage as a gradual exit strategy.
Nonetheless, Trump focus on being not responsible for any bad outcome (his sole focus is on garnering ritualized flattery), shall not shield him from what The New York Times of June 16 has aptly characterized. The paper mocked Trump's self-absorbed tweet celebrating the 242nd birthday of the US army. Trump, the Tweeter-In-Chief has said: "Proud to be your commander-in-chief." This is the man who sought multiple deferments from military service. Thus the paper mocked his escapist decision to give General Mattis "the authority to determine troop levels in Afghanistan."
In the 1950's I witnessed as a UN staff member the Permanent Representative of Israel disparaging Saudi Arabia by a novel attack. He, in effect, said that the only UN member which is a family business is Saudi Arabia. Well, by that measurement of statehood, it would not be far fetched to apply it today to the Trump administration. But not as a State, but as a government. Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, partake of official meetings with visiting Heads of State.
The fact of that American family business masquerading as the apex of executive power in the US is more compounded by other factors outside of blood relations. The intertwining of family and State business, representing violations of both ethical and legal nature, has been tolerated by a supinely-submissive Republican controlled Congress. A collective exhibition of mutual and moral slackness.
With the accumulation of portfolios of vital national interest in the hands of Kushner, from government organization to Middle East peace, comes the issues of conflict of interest. Trump and his enablers have vouched for a legal impossibility: The President is immune from conflict of interest. By what legal standard? None, except by dictatorial fiat. As a mindless president, Trump has declared that he could run his world-flung business and the U.S. simultaneously.
From all indications, especially through the avalanche of executive orders, paraded before cameras as Trump jabs his pen on folders bearing his tower-like signature, Trump fancies the US a corporation. His cabinet is his corporate board, his angry look as a threatening menace.
In his hallucinatory state of mind, Trump believes that his signature moves programs forward. No major legislation has so far moved forward, especially in the areas of health care, tax reform, trade promotion and national security. Only in the matter of appointing a very conservative justice to the Supreme Court, deregulation to benefit Wall Street, and environmental degradation through exiting the Paris accord on climate change.
All are nearly negatives, which Trump counts as "fulfilling my promises to the American people." The outcome has been the federal judiciary issuing stays of the application of his bans, including the Muslim ban which he declares to be not a ban. This is while his acolytes claimed it to be a non-ban. But the courts took Trump's own words as evidence of unconstitutionality.
This is while we see the rise of states and cities declaring their own defiance of federal power regarding rounding up illegal immigrants. Their police departments shall not cooperate with federal authorities in the pursuit of unconstitutional measures.
The American Declaration of Independence unanimously approved by the 13 United States of America on July 4, 1776 includes several passages which in their totality constitute obstruction of justice when violated by the Executive. One of these refers to endeavoring "to prevent the population of these states," through "refusing to pass (laws) to encourage their migrations hither." Trump bans against Muslims and plans to build walls on the Mexican-American border should be taken by the judiciary into account with these passages in mind.
As to the Constitution, Article III, Section 3 states: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies giving them aid and comfort."
President, Donald Trump, assisted by others like General Flynn, his former national security advisor, have by Trump's silence on Russia's interference in the 2016 elections, given eloquent evidence of culpability. Not one word of protest against Russia's cyber attack during the campaign and transition has issued from the mouth of that mindless president.
- His firing of FBI Director, James Comey, for investigating what Trump called "the Russia thing." By his own admission in a TV interview with Lester Holt, he provided the Russian investigation as the reason for that firing;
- During his testimony on June 8, 2017 before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the question of Trump's attempt to have Comey abandon the Flynn investigation was confirmed. An honest finger pointing to Trump's attempt at obstruction of justice;
- During that historic testimony, the former FBI Director called Trump's trail of statements by which that mindless president tried to put the onus of firing Comey on Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General: "Those were lies, plain and simple." For the first time ever has an American president been called "a liar," repeatedly before Congress by an officer of the U.S. ;
- Trump, by his professed anger at Comey's refusal to publicly disclose that the President was not personally under investigation, has made himself actually the target of investigation.
- The revelation that Trump has cajoled Comey to pledge "loyalty" to him could not but point to the bubble in which Trump exists as a pretended potentate.
- Instead, Comey, being the then director of an independent law enforcement agency, promised only his "honesty." Not enough for Trump "the Predator in Chief." An apt characterization by the New York Times of June 9, 2017.
- The day following Comey's testimony, Trump accused the dismissed FBI Director of lying. At a rambling press conference in the White House Rose Garden, Trump, in the presence of Romania's President said: "Yesterday showed no collusion (with Russia), no obstruction."
- Then he hinted that he had tapes of his conversations with Comey. Comey, in his testimony, said: "I hope there are tapes." Various challenges to Trump to produce these tapes have gone unheeded. Pure bluster!!
- The misdeeds committed by Trump's aides and close associates shall, under agency law, be regarded as amounting to impeachable offenses. Said Elizabeth Drew in her article in the New York Review of Books of June 22, 2017. "Mike Flynn, Trump's former campaign adviser and dismissed national security advisor is obviously a problem for the president." Her article is titled "Trump: The Presidency in Peril."
- No less than seven Trump associates have been linked to Russia including his own son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kushner is now a subject of a criminal investigation. He is suspected of having discussed with Russia's Ambassador to the US a secret back channel using the Russian Embassy as a conduit. The purpose is to deny US Intelligence Services the possibility of tracking those channels. If such an infantile attempt at hiding secrets from the powerful American intelligence community (16 such organizations) is proven, it could amount to a charge of espionage.
- With Trump and his entire phalanx and Trump himself lawyering up, important Republican Senators, and even senior Cabinet officers (e.g. Defense Secretary Mattis), are beginning to distance themselves from that toxic president.
- In a rare such example, Republican Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina presiding over the Intelligence Committee, asked Comey: "Do you have any doubts that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 elections?" Comey's response was a single lethal word: "None."
Trump's test balloon launched on June 13 by his friend, Christopher Ruddy, suggesting that Trump may fire Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, is either a phony attempt at intimidation, or a terrible misreading of the pulse of the American people. They will have to conclude that their president is a crook. That admission by Ruddy may also indicate that Trump uses and abuses his executive privilege which prevents the divulgence of private conversation with the president.
Loosening that rule is also a manifestation of Trump's mistaken belief that he is above the law. He, as the saying goes, could run, but can't hide. His attempt to protect Flynn, his chipping away at the elaborate American civil rights edifice, his feverish attempts to dismantle the Obama legacy including the opening to Cuba, and his calling the investigations in the Russian connection a "witch hunt" is a reminder of a concerned rat moving in all directions in the hope of escaping capture.
Donald: What is happening in the way of multiple investigations is not "a witch hunt." It is a hunt for the truth. And the only recognizable truth about your five months presidency is what your main strategist, Steve Bannon, has admitted to: "The destruction of the administrative State."
That administrative State seems to be marching towards an inevitable goal: Putting an end to the charade of the presidency of a mindless president.
Statistical fact checking shows that Trump has lied 500 times since June 2015. The most recent lie being his bluffing that his conversations with Jim Comey had been taped. Now under the pressure of a Congressional subpoena to force Trump to disgorge these tapes, he came out on June 22 admitting that there were no such tapes.
The implication of that forced divulgence from the American Liar-in-Chief is clear: He intentionally meant that lie for possibly these purposes: (a) to intimidate Comey into silence; (b) to distract public attention away from the Russian investigation; and/or (c) to heap scorn on law enforcement.
There is a new theory called "Mindfulness." It advocates knowing yourself as a means of constructive engagement. By that standard, Trump, through his utterances and actions, is entitled to the counter-theory: "Mindlessness." It advocates self-absorption combined with always being on the offensive.
Donald the Mindless has been, if not on the defensive, in a constant attacking mode: From "crooked Hillary," to "I have inherited a mess." From "That judge is Mexican," to "The intelligence services have failed." From "The Muslims hate us," to "China is ripping us off." From: "The Media is the enemy," to "I heard it from someone."
The superlatives are his lexicon. His imperial presidency is not to "Make America Great Again." It is to "Make America Hate Again." Where are all the allies gone? Even Mexico and Canada are no more America's longest unarmed borders.
Note: New blog postings will resume on a weekly basis after my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "War on Jihadism By Ideology: The New Islamic Religious Revolution"
Friday, June 2, 2017
The New American Rebellion: Cities and States Against Trump
The man is out of control. "Make America Great Again" is his call. Its practical effect is "Make America the World's Pariah." Trump may be impeached before too long. His swagger in public maybe a mask of his fear of eventual humiliation. The appointment of a special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, to investigate the possibility of a Trump-Putin axis signals the ultimate check on a president gone rogue.
The recent straw straining the American camel's back is Trump's abandonment of the Paris global climate accord of 2015. Resorting to a junk misinterpretation of that 195 States voluntary accord on the reduction of fossil emission, Trump declared on June 1 at the White House that that agreement was an economic straight jacket. "I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris."
The rebuke of that isolationist move against combating global warming came fast and furious. Not only from heads of State, especially those who lead the "least developed countries;" but also from American business, corporate executives, climate activists, and American state governors and city mayors. A new American rebellion of cities and States against an erratic president is now afoot.
Led by former New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg in the east, and Governor Brown of California in the west, the rebellion is a practical application of the Tenth Amendment of the US Constitution. It reads: "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."
From his campaign for the presidency (June 2015 to November 2016), it became clear that Trump is not conversant with the Constitution. A Muslim father of a US army officer killed in Afghanistan, Mr. Khan, angered by Trump's foolish call for a Muslim ban on entering the US, posed a challenge to Trump at the Democratic National Convention. Flourishing a copy of the American Constitution, Mr. Khan posed this historic challenge to Trump: "Have you ever even read the U.S. Constitution?"
The fact that the federal government in America is one of "enumerated" (limited) powers, has created for the states and cities which are in favor of the Paris climate accord the requisite space for this new check on Trump's "act of gratuitous destruction" (to quote Paul Krugman, a Nobel Laureate in economics).
This challenge by city mayors and state governors to Trump's headlong isolationism has been in the making since their opposition to Trump's executive orders for the deportation of "illegal immigrants." In one of the so-called "sanctuary cities," Mayor De Blasio of New York City led the charge. He instructs the New York Police Department not to cooperate with federal agents attempting to arrest persons who lacks documentary evidence for being in America.
In America, police departments (47000 in all) are not controlled by the federal government. They, as in the case of education, are subject to control only by cities (in the case of the police) or by community school boards (in the case of public education).
The spark that has further ignited the states and cities rebellion against Trump's "reckless climate decision," has been described by John Niles, the Director of the Carbon Institute of California, in these words: "Mr. Trump's decision is not only an arrogant abrogation of science and cooperation, but also defies logic. Ignoring the opportunities in clean innovation and relying on 18th century technologies is a mistaken bet to 'make American great again.'"
This new assertion of local power over federal power in America, is taking place against a series of Trumpist isolationist moves which have created voids now filled by China. Trump's avoidance of reaffirming US commitment to NATO, his abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, his reduction of the budgets of the State Department in favor of a 10% increase in the military budget, have alarmed an America whose leadership has, since 1945, been the mainstay of the postwar world order.
As of now, former New York City Mayor Bloomberg, together with 30 mayors, several governors, 80 university presidents, and more than 100 businesses, are now negotiating with the UN to formalize their contribution to the Paris climate deal. Declared Bloomberg: "We are going to do everything America would have done if it has stayed committed." It is incorrect to claim that such an initiative has no formal mechanism for entities that were not countries to be full parties to the Paris accord.
Although the UN is an inter-state system, its Charter, a World War II document dating back to 1945, declares in its preamble "We the peoples of the United Nations determined ... to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedoms." The cluster of US cities and states now rising against Trump in support of the climate accord endorsed by 195 States, falls in that category of legitimated UN participants. This is particularly so because such an American cluster includes states whose status under the US Constitution is regarded as "supreme."
Adding to that relevance to UN purposes is the continuous creation by the UN of new mechanisms to overcome the strictures imposed by the literal interpretation of the UN Charter. The most important examples are the creation of peace-keeping operations (there is no mention in the Charter of the term "peace-keeping"); the expansion of the authority of the UN Security Council to impose travel bans on individual citizens of sovereign States; and the avoidance of voting in the Security Council for fear of paralysis through the veto, by creating "presidential statements" to replace formal decisions.
Add to the above is that Mayor Bloomberg is a UN envoy on climate change. In that capacity of improvised American leadership outside of a White House going backward on international commitments, Bloomberg declared his approach to the UN was "a parallel pledge." Declared California's Governor, Jerry Brown: "If the President is going backward, we are going forward." California's economy is the 6th largest economy in the world.
In America, that fight has now shifted from the federal government to lower levels of government including academia and industry. This is a rebellion whose vanguards include Governor Jay Inslee of Washington State, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, and Governor Jerry Brown of California. All of them, democrats, have declared an alliance committed to upholding the Paris accord.
Now we have new European allies for the new American rebellion of cities and states against Trump. France's president, Emmanuel Macron welcomed that uprising in these words: "I want to say that they will find in France a second home... I can assure you that France will not give up the fight." And during her meeting in Berlin with India's prime minister, Narenda Modi, Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel pledged her support, and distanced the European Union from Trump. This is while she welcomed China's leadership in the global push for action on climate.
Under Trump, America is being transformed. Not in the way the Trumpists have hoped. But in the rise of new checks and balances not before used to chain a president who thinks that running a country is akin to running a company. As a country of laws, the system may yet force Trump out of the White House which he has recently dubbed "The People's House."
The U.S. Constitution begins with these words: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union ..." It now looks that the "more perfect Union" is in the making via this new cities and states rebellion.
NOTE: New blog postings will resume on a monthly basis after my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "The New Islamic Religious Revolution: Fundamentals of Islamic Law and Practice"
The recent straw straining the American camel's back is Trump's abandonment of the Paris global climate accord of 2015. Resorting to a junk misinterpretation of that 195 States voluntary accord on the reduction of fossil emission, Trump declared on June 1 at the White House that that agreement was an economic straight jacket. "I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris."
The rebuke of that isolationist move against combating global warming came fast and furious. Not only from heads of State, especially those who lead the "least developed countries;" but also from American business, corporate executives, climate activists, and American state governors and city mayors. A new American rebellion of cities and States against an erratic president is now afoot.
Led by former New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg in the east, and Governor Brown of California in the west, the rebellion is a practical application of the Tenth Amendment of the US Constitution. It reads: "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."
From his campaign for the presidency (June 2015 to November 2016), it became clear that Trump is not conversant with the Constitution. A Muslim father of a US army officer killed in Afghanistan, Mr. Khan, angered by Trump's foolish call for a Muslim ban on entering the US, posed a challenge to Trump at the Democratic National Convention. Flourishing a copy of the American Constitution, Mr. Khan posed this historic challenge to Trump: "Have you ever even read the U.S. Constitution?"
The fact that the federal government in America is one of "enumerated" (limited) powers, has created for the states and cities which are in favor of the Paris climate accord the requisite space for this new check on Trump's "act of gratuitous destruction" (to quote Paul Krugman, a Nobel Laureate in economics).
This challenge by city mayors and state governors to Trump's headlong isolationism has been in the making since their opposition to Trump's executive orders for the deportation of "illegal immigrants." In one of the so-called "sanctuary cities," Mayor De Blasio of New York City led the charge. He instructs the New York Police Department not to cooperate with federal agents attempting to arrest persons who lacks documentary evidence for being in America.
In America, police departments (47000 in all) are not controlled by the federal government. They, as in the case of education, are subject to control only by cities (in the case of the police) or by community school boards (in the case of public education).
The spark that has further ignited the states and cities rebellion against Trump's "reckless climate decision," has been described by John Niles, the Director of the Carbon Institute of California, in these words: "Mr. Trump's decision is not only an arrogant abrogation of science and cooperation, but also defies logic. Ignoring the opportunities in clean innovation and relying on 18th century technologies is a mistaken bet to 'make American great again.'"
This new assertion of local power over federal power in America, is taking place against a series of Trumpist isolationist moves which have created voids now filled by China. Trump's avoidance of reaffirming US commitment to NATO, his abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, his reduction of the budgets of the State Department in favor of a 10% increase in the military budget, have alarmed an America whose leadership has, since 1945, been the mainstay of the postwar world order.
As of now, former New York City Mayor Bloomberg, together with 30 mayors, several governors, 80 university presidents, and more than 100 businesses, are now negotiating with the UN to formalize their contribution to the Paris climate deal. Declared Bloomberg: "We are going to do everything America would have done if it has stayed committed." It is incorrect to claim that such an initiative has no formal mechanism for entities that were not countries to be full parties to the Paris accord.
Although the UN is an inter-state system, its Charter, a World War II document dating back to 1945, declares in its preamble "We the peoples of the United Nations determined ... to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedoms." The cluster of US cities and states now rising against Trump in support of the climate accord endorsed by 195 States, falls in that category of legitimated UN participants. This is particularly so because such an American cluster includes states whose status under the US Constitution is regarded as "supreme."
Adding to that relevance to UN purposes is the continuous creation by the UN of new mechanisms to overcome the strictures imposed by the literal interpretation of the UN Charter. The most important examples are the creation of peace-keeping operations (there is no mention in the Charter of the term "peace-keeping"); the expansion of the authority of the UN Security Council to impose travel bans on individual citizens of sovereign States; and the avoidance of voting in the Security Council for fear of paralysis through the veto, by creating "presidential statements" to replace formal decisions.
Add to the above is that Mayor Bloomberg is a UN envoy on climate change. In that capacity of improvised American leadership outside of a White House going backward on international commitments, Bloomberg declared his approach to the UN was "a parallel pledge." Declared California's Governor, Jerry Brown: "If the President is going backward, we are going forward." California's economy is the 6th largest economy in the world.
In America, that fight has now shifted from the federal government to lower levels of government including academia and industry. This is a rebellion whose vanguards include Governor Jay Inslee of Washington State, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, and Governor Jerry Brown of California. All of them, democrats, have declared an alliance committed to upholding the Paris accord.
Now we have new European allies for the new American rebellion of cities and states against Trump. France's president, Emmanuel Macron welcomed that uprising in these words: "I want to say that they will find in France a second home... I can assure you that France will not give up the fight." And during her meeting in Berlin with India's prime minister, Narenda Modi, Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel pledged her support, and distanced the European Union from Trump. This is while she welcomed China's leadership in the global push for action on climate.
Under Trump, America is being transformed. Not in the way the Trumpists have hoped. But in the rise of new checks and balances not before used to chain a president who thinks that running a country is akin to running a company. As a country of laws, the system may yet force Trump out of the White House which he has recently dubbed "The People's House."
The U.S. Constitution begins with these words: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union ..." It now looks that the "more perfect Union" is in the making via this new cities and states rebellion.
NOTE: New blog postings will resume on a monthly basis after my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "The New Islamic Religious Revolution: Fundamentals of Islamic Law and Practice"
Friday, May 19, 2017
Series of Failed Mischief By the Muslim Brotherhood In Egypt and Abroad!!
Here is a great Arab proverb in my translation: "Like the ram attacking a mountain, breaking its horns, but not the mountain."
The Muslim Brotherhood, once mixing faith with politics, has signed on its warrant for gradual extinction. Not only in the New Egypt, but anywhere it claims representation. Born 88 years ago near where I grew up in Egypt, it started with advocacy for Islamic reform under the guidance of Hassan El-Banna. Then degenerated into a call for Islamic rule.
The murder in 1947 of Egypt's Prime Minister, Al-Naqrashi Pasha by the Brotherhood signaled its descent on a slippery slope to an accelerated end. Under Prime Minister Ibrahim Abdel-Hadi, Al-Naqrashi's successor, secular Egypt liquidated Hassan El-Banna in 1948. That revenge took place only hours before El-Banna was about to flee to Syria.
Al-Hodheibi, as a successor of El-Banna, was less militant. But the seeds of suspecting every move by the Brotherhood had already been sown. The fact that the Brotherhood had infiltrated Egyptian impoverished masses through bread, sugar, tents and aspirin was of no use for its longevity.
Its penetration of the armed forces led to a short period of good feelings about the movement. The shot fired at Al-Manshiah, Alexandria, in 1954, at Nasser, who had dislodged Naguib out of the leadership of the coup against the monarchy, was a shot heard around the Muslim world. Whether it was a real or a fake attempt on the life of that rising dictator, cannot be proven by probative evidence.
What is ascertainable is the placement of the Brotherhood under a ban since 1954 till the January Revolution of January 25, 2011. Nearly 6 decades out in the cold. In spite of Nasser's liquidation of the great judge Abdel-Qader Auda in the 1950s and Sayed Qutb in the 1960's, the Brotherhood continued to cater to the religious masses.
The assassination of Nasser's successor, President Sadat, in October 1981 at the hands of Al-Islambully, an Islamist, jolted the Brotherhood into silence verging on being underground. But again, that historic crime signaled two convictions: the sword was a Muslim Brotherhood tool of last resort; and that the Brotherhood's Guidance Bureau was divided upon itself like a Mafia family.
From 1981 to 2011, a period of 30 years of being "the Disbanded Group" (Al-Jamaa Al-Monhallah), the Brotherhood under Mehdi Akef kept its head down, unable to match the power, the resources, or the discipline of the Egyptian Armed Forces.
Then the Brotherhood took two roads, both of which led to dead ends.
The first path to nowhere was reliance on internal as well as external funding. But funding does not create lasting loyalty. It only provides temporary energy for mercenaries (the Mamelouk phenomenon). The second path to nowhere was reliance on public propaganda, especially in Asia, Europe and North America. Their megaphones inflated their numbers in Egypt to 30% of the population.
That percentage is a big fat lie. There are no 30 million loyal Brotherhood adherents in Egypt. How do I know? As an attorney, when you do not have the census to provide evidence, you rely on circumstances. There has never been social science research in Egypt to prove by figures who is who, politically and socially.
Thus the smoke screen of the Brotherhood was the rally (like the Trumpist rallies of disaffected Americans).
But rallies do not legislate. They only indicate the popular depth of attitudes. As in the case of 35 million Egyptians rising on June 30, 2013 against the Brotherhood's rule. That was a corrective revolution constituting lawful popular recall of Morsi as president, in the absence of a Constitutional provision.
After the Battle of the Camel in Cairo on January 27/28, 2011, the Brotherhood which had described the rebellion against Mubarak unislamic, joined the Revolution. It was the winning side. And the Brotherhood, being imbued by opportunism, and getting recognition and the protection of the Armed Forces, sought to become the post-Mubarak regime.
Egypt obliged. The elections, pitting Muhammad Morsi of the Brotherhood against General Shafik, were held in June 2012. That was before the Constitution was drafted and legislated. A typical case of putting the cart before the horse. I voted for Morsi -a big mistake!! But within 5 months of Morsi becoming President, he pre-empted the Constitution by declaring himself in November 2012 to be exempt from the application of the law. A new combination of Sultan and Califah was now in power.
The Islamic Constitution of 2012 was not "Made in Egypt." It was "Made By the Brotherhood." And it ran counter to Egypt's DNA -a 7000 year secular State. Islam did not create a State, it created a community; Egyptian sovereignty does not permit of ceding Sinai to Hamas immigration; and the Armed Forces are the guarantor of that sovereignty, their being the only permanent institution in terms of cohesion and loyalty to the motherland. Above all, diversity of faith has always been an Egyptian hallmark.
The companion revolution of June 30, 2013 against the Islamic rule was a revolt against the Brotherhoodization of Egypt: No to the creation of Brotherhood militias; no to suppression of the Copts, women, and Shiis; no to any affinity with ISIS marauders; no to having Qatar or Turkey or any outside entity dictating how should 100 million Egyptians govern themselves.
And no to a white robe, a long beard, a pair of sandals, a raisin-like spot on the forehead, and a skull cap being the manifestations of authority. Faith and governance cannot mix; religion has been defined as "how others are treated" (Al-Din Al-Moaamalah); and Sharia is supplemented by legislation.
The expulsion of Morsi and Islamic rule on July 3, 2013, was a classic process of recall by the popular will manifested on June 30, 2013. The Islamic Constitution of 2012, now replaced by the secular Constitution of June 2014, contained no provision allowing for a legislated recall of Morsi.
Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, together with an amalgam of civic, secular and religious leaders, including the Coptic Church, failed through 4 days of negotiations with Morsi to start again through a new plebiscite. The Brotherhood refused to participate in those attempts as they regarded the presidency of Morsi as the only legitimacy (Shariyah) they can recognize.
To them the majority of the Egyptian people, including the Armed Forces, were usurpers. Even clearing the Brotherhood occupation of the Rabaa and Al-Nahda public squares in August 14, 2013, was propagandized by them as a brutal attack on human rights.
How can that be? Two main public squares in the capital of Egypt being occupied by a Brotherhood rebellion for six weeks!! Declared them Islamic Emirates was a case of internal rebellion presaging civil war. Throughout those six weeks, the Government continuous appeals to the marauding occupants went unheeded. So went the Brotherhood's calls for external intervention by force in Egypt under the false label of "humanitarian intervention." The mere passage of American naval vessels in the Suez Canal was hailed by the Brotherhood as the start of a forceful abrogation of the new secular established order!!
In Rabaa, hundreds died. Not by Government designs, as the Brotherhood propagandizes. But by the criminal designs of Brotherhood gangs who, like ISIS and its affiliates, sought victimhood (Shahadah) as a means of legitimation.
Yet more Brotherhood propaganda spewed out, especially abroad, that El-Sisi's presidency lacks legitimacy!! More advocacy by some Egyptians in New Jersey, such as a TV broadcaster named Ayat Orabi, declaring on social media obscenities such as "the Egyptian Armed Forces are a collection of whores!!" More visits to Washington by Brotherhood sympathizers to demonstrate against El-Sisi!! All in vain!!
Secular Egypt marched steadily on. The administration of interim President Adly Mansour handed power to its successor administration, that of El-Sisi. These steps came about after approval by plebiscite of the 2014 secular Constitution. These were open and fair elections (El-Sisi vs. Hamdain Sabbahi). El-Sisi, the former Defense Minister and the mediator with the Brotherhood for participation, was the choice of the majority.
El-Sisi did not come to the presidency on top of a tank. He was given the baton in an orderly democratic process of post-Islamization in an Egypt which was spared the agony of civil war.
A series of failed mischief by the Muslim Brotherhood which, among other things, tried to marginalize Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, the citadel of an inclusive and universalistic Islam. Jihadism is now being confronted by "The New Islamic Religious Revolution" on which I am authoring a book.
The word "Idea" comes from the Greek "to see." It is a pattern that enables you to understand the true nature of a phenomenon.
The phenomenon of the Muslim Brotherhood, now declared in its birthplace, Egypt a terrorist organization is not hard to understand. Its idea is "Islam as a path to a fascist theocracy." The firewall against its conversion of Egypt into an emirate is the Armed Forces. Its enablers, especially those in America, such as Ayat Orabi of New Jersey, and Sheikh Salem Abdel-Galeel in Cairo are, judging by their false propaganda, sheer haters of interfaith harmony.
With the Egyptian arena preempted by secularism, the Muslim Brotherhood is in hot pursuit for life support overseas. Their megaphones, whether in Qatar, Turkey, or America, produce echo chambers. Collapsing the New Egypt is nothing but a pipe dream.
Their abuse in America of the freedom of speech is an overreach. It has turned into calls for violence against Christians, into a jihadi call for criminalized hatred.
Their mischievous veil of "political opposition" behind which they hide their calls for sectarian violence might be pierced through legal means. They have no idea (means of understanding) of the consequences of their unending mischief.
"Virtue" in Latin means "strength." Just show me one single virtue which the Muslim Brotherhood can claim!! Even the "Rabaa Salute," depicting their claimed victimhood at Rabaa Square on August 14, 2013 when hundreds died, is a crooked finger!!
NOTE: New blog postings will resume on a monthly basis until my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "War On Jihadism Ideologically: The New Islamic Religious Revolution"
The Muslim Brotherhood, once mixing faith with politics, has signed on its warrant for gradual extinction. Not only in the New Egypt, but anywhere it claims representation. Born 88 years ago near where I grew up in Egypt, it started with advocacy for Islamic reform under the guidance of Hassan El-Banna. Then degenerated into a call for Islamic rule.
The murder in 1947 of Egypt's Prime Minister, Al-Naqrashi Pasha by the Brotherhood signaled its descent on a slippery slope to an accelerated end. Under Prime Minister Ibrahim Abdel-Hadi, Al-Naqrashi's successor, secular Egypt liquidated Hassan El-Banna in 1948. That revenge took place only hours before El-Banna was about to flee to Syria.
Al-Hodheibi, as a successor of El-Banna, was less militant. But the seeds of suspecting every move by the Brotherhood had already been sown. The fact that the Brotherhood had infiltrated Egyptian impoverished masses through bread, sugar, tents and aspirin was of no use for its longevity.
Its penetration of the armed forces led to a short period of good feelings about the movement. The shot fired at Al-Manshiah, Alexandria, in 1954, at Nasser, who had dislodged Naguib out of the leadership of the coup against the monarchy, was a shot heard around the Muslim world. Whether it was a real or a fake attempt on the life of that rising dictator, cannot be proven by probative evidence.
What is ascertainable is the placement of the Brotherhood under a ban since 1954 till the January Revolution of January 25, 2011. Nearly 6 decades out in the cold. In spite of Nasser's liquidation of the great judge Abdel-Qader Auda in the 1950s and Sayed Qutb in the 1960's, the Brotherhood continued to cater to the religious masses.
The assassination of Nasser's successor, President Sadat, in October 1981 at the hands of Al-Islambully, an Islamist, jolted the Brotherhood into silence verging on being underground. But again, that historic crime signaled two convictions: the sword was a Muslim Brotherhood tool of last resort; and that the Brotherhood's Guidance Bureau was divided upon itself like a Mafia family.
From 1981 to 2011, a period of 30 years of being "the Disbanded Group" (Al-Jamaa Al-Monhallah), the Brotherhood under Mehdi Akef kept its head down, unable to match the power, the resources, or the discipline of the Egyptian Armed Forces.
Then the Brotherhood took two roads, both of which led to dead ends.
The first path to nowhere was reliance on internal as well as external funding. But funding does not create lasting loyalty. It only provides temporary energy for mercenaries (the Mamelouk phenomenon). The second path to nowhere was reliance on public propaganda, especially in Asia, Europe and North America. Their megaphones inflated their numbers in Egypt to 30% of the population.
That percentage is a big fat lie. There are no 30 million loyal Brotherhood adherents in Egypt. How do I know? As an attorney, when you do not have the census to provide evidence, you rely on circumstances. There has never been social science research in Egypt to prove by figures who is who, politically and socially.
Thus the smoke screen of the Brotherhood was the rally (like the Trumpist rallies of disaffected Americans).
But rallies do not legislate. They only indicate the popular depth of attitudes. As in the case of 35 million Egyptians rising on June 30, 2013 against the Brotherhood's rule. That was a corrective revolution constituting lawful popular recall of Morsi as president, in the absence of a Constitutional provision.
After the Battle of the Camel in Cairo on January 27/28, 2011, the Brotherhood which had described the rebellion against Mubarak unislamic, joined the Revolution. It was the winning side. And the Brotherhood, being imbued by opportunism, and getting recognition and the protection of the Armed Forces, sought to become the post-Mubarak regime.
Egypt obliged. The elections, pitting Muhammad Morsi of the Brotherhood against General Shafik, were held in June 2012. That was before the Constitution was drafted and legislated. A typical case of putting the cart before the horse. I voted for Morsi -a big mistake!! But within 5 months of Morsi becoming President, he pre-empted the Constitution by declaring himself in November 2012 to be exempt from the application of the law. A new combination of Sultan and Califah was now in power.
The Islamic Constitution of 2012 was not "Made in Egypt." It was "Made By the Brotherhood." And it ran counter to Egypt's DNA -a 7000 year secular State. Islam did not create a State, it created a community; Egyptian sovereignty does not permit of ceding Sinai to Hamas immigration; and the Armed Forces are the guarantor of that sovereignty, their being the only permanent institution in terms of cohesion and loyalty to the motherland. Above all, diversity of faith has always been an Egyptian hallmark.
The companion revolution of June 30, 2013 against the Islamic rule was a revolt against the Brotherhoodization of Egypt: No to the creation of Brotherhood militias; no to suppression of the Copts, women, and Shiis; no to any affinity with ISIS marauders; no to having Qatar or Turkey or any outside entity dictating how should 100 million Egyptians govern themselves.
And no to a white robe, a long beard, a pair of sandals, a raisin-like spot on the forehead, and a skull cap being the manifestations of authority. Faith and governance cannot mix; religion has been defined as "how others are treated" (Al-Din Al-Moaamalah); and Sharia is supplemented by legislation.
The expulsion of Morsi and Islamic rule on July 3, 2013, was a classic process of recall by the popular will manifested on June 30, 2013. The Islamic Constitution of 2012, now replaced by the secular Constitution of June 2014, contained no provision allowing for a legislated recall of Morsi.
Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, together with an amalgam of civic, secular and religious leaders, including the Coptic Church, failed through 4 days of negotiations with Morsi to start again through a new plebiscite. The Brotherhood refused to participate in those attempts as they regarded the presidency of Morsi as the only legitimacy (Shariyah) they can recognize.
To them the majority of the Egyptian people, including the Armed Forces, were usurpers. Even clearing the Brotherhood occupation of the Rabaa and Al-Nahda public squares in August 14, 2013, was propagandized by them as a brutal attack on human rights.
How can that be? Two main public squares in the capital of Egypt being occupied by a Brotherhood rebellion for six weeks!! Declared them Islamic Emirates was a case of internal rebellion presaging civil war. Throughout those six weeks, the Government continuous appeals to the marauding occupants went unheeded. So went the Brotherhood's calls for external intervention by force in Egypt under the false label of "humanitarian intervention." The mere passage of American naval vessels in the Suez Canal was hailed by the Brotherhood as the start of a forceful abrogation of the new secular established order!!
In Rabaa, hundreds died. Not by Government designs, as the Brotherhood propagandizes. But by the criminal designs of Brotherhood gangs who, like ISIS and its affiliates, sought victimhood (Shahadah) as a means of legitimation.
Yet more Brotherhood propaganda spewed out, especially abroad, that El-Sisi's presidency lacks legitimacy!! More advocacy by some Egyptians in New Jersey, such as a TV broadcaster named Ayat Orabi, declaring on social media obscenities such as "the Egyptian Armed Forces are a collection of whores!!" More visits to Washington by Brotherhood sympathizers to demonstrate against El-Sisi!! All in vain!!
Secular Egypt marched steadily on. The administration of interim President Adly Mansour handed power to its successor administration, that of El-Sisi. These steps came about after approval by plebiscite of the 2014 secular Constitution. These were open and fair elections (El-Sisi vs. Hamdain Sabbahi). El-Sisi, the former Defense Minister and the mediator with the Brotherhood for participation, was the choice of the majority.
El-Sisi did not come to the presidency on top of a tank. He was given the baton in an orderly democratic process of post-Islamization in an Egypt which was spared the agony of civil war.
A series of failed mischief by the Muslim Brotherhood which, among other things, tried to marginalize Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, the citadel of an inclusive and universalistic Islam. Jihadism is now being confronted by "The New Islamic Religious Revolution" on which I am authoring a book.
The word "Idea" comes from the Greek "to see." It is a pattern that enables you to understand the true nature of a phenomenon.
The phenomenon of the Muslim Brotherhood, now declared in its birthplace, Egypt a terrorist organization is not hard to understand. Its idea is "Islam as a path to a fascist theocracy." The firewall against its conversion of Egypt into an emirate is the Armed Forces. Its enablers, especially those in America, such as Ayat Orabi of New Jersey, and Sheikh Salem Abdel-Galeel in Cairo are, judging by their false propaganda, sheer haters of interfaith harmony.
With the Egyptian arena preempted by secularism, the Muslim Brotherhood is in hot pursuit for life support overseas. Their megaphones, whether in Qatar, Turkey, or America, produce echo chambers. Collapsing the New Egypt is nothing but a pipe dream.
Their abuse in America of the freedom of speech is an overreach. It has turned into calls for violence against Christians, into a jihadi call for criminalized hatred.
Their mischievous veil of "political opposition" behind which they hide their calls for sectarian violence might be pierced through legal means. They have no idea (means of understanding) of the consequences of their unending mischief.
"Virtue" in Latin means "strength." Just show me one single virtue which the Muslim Brotherhood can claim!! Even the "Rabaa Salute," depicting their claimed victimhood at Rabaa Square on August 14, 2013 when hundreds died, is a crooked finger!!
NOTE: New blog postings will resume on a monthly basis until my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "War On Jihadism Ideologically: The New Islamic Religious Revolution"
Friday, April 28, 2017
Do Not Blame Instability on Foreign Conspiracies - Blame It on Marginalizing Minorities
Attributing instability to foreign conspiracies is like blaming your household problems on your absent neighbors. Conspiracy advocates are essentially escapists. They are also brainwashed by the old colonial narrative. But if a nation looks at itself from within, it shall soon discover that salvation comes from within. No conspiracy has a chance for success unless a nation is so fragmented that a conspirator could come in through national cracks.
Take a broad look at the history of the Middle East. The Ottoman Empire collapsed (1516-1916) because it abused its minorities. Al-Astanah (Constantinople) regarded the Greeks, the Serbs, and the Arabs as empire-servers, not empire co-builders. The so-called Ulamas (Islamic scholars), through their deep ignorance of Islam, advocated disengagement from the west. Those Ulamas were the forefathers of Boko Haram (Western learning is sinful).
But Turkey revived in 1923 with Ata Turk ending the Caliphate and made Turkey secular. The imperial period was no more. However denying the Kurds the right to use their language and have an autonomous status in this 21st century will keep Ankra as the capital of a country which is in constant battle within itself. And if Ordogan fancies himself as the new Islamic Sultan, he must be smoking some strong weed (hashish).
In Syria, now flattened and fragmented, the minority (the Alawites-Shiis) are brutalizing the majority (Sunnis). Under Bashar, a war criminal, Syria has descended from "a failed State" to a "non-State." Bashar (ironically it means in Arabic "good tidings") might keep on fighting. But what he shall end up with is a partitioned Syria, with an Alawite enclave protected by a Russian base and is smaller than Lebanon. Again the disappearance of Syria did not result from foreign machinations. It is the inevitable outcome of a lopsided power sharing between an oppressive minority and an internally-colonized majority.
So it is laughable to still read banners at the entrance of Damascus declaring a blatant fiction: "One Nation With An Eternal Message!!" (Ummatun Wahidah That Risalaton Khalidah).
An Eternal Message has been bequeathed to the Muslims in the Quran -DIVERSITY. For Islam is not "a faith and a State." It is "a faith and a Nation." Islam does not create a State. The Quran gives clear evidence on diversity being both a natural human phenomenon the respect for which is a predicate for good governance. "If your Lord had so willed, He could have made mankind one nation." (Chapter II, Verse 118)
The terms "minority" and "majority" might also apply to women in Saudi Arabia. In spite of the huge oil wealth, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a bifurcated governance: The Governorate in Riyadh, and the Wahhabis in Diriyah. Riyadh rules, and the Wahhabis run the country's social life with a belief in denying gender equality. Whereas women sat on the councils of the Prophet Muhammad, today's Saudi women are subjected to walls, to totally covered faces except for eye peep holes, and to total rule by their male folks. Can this last forever? Impossible. Is 50% of the Saudi population a minority? Yes, a minority in being deprived of rights equal to those enjoyed by the male half of that population.
This may explain why, in Egypt, recent attacks on the Coptic minority (10% - 15%) of the nearly 100 million population have triggered the declaration of emergency laws by the government. Reporters of the New York Times based in Cairo, such as Declan Walsh do no justice to that paper's motto "All The News That Is Fit to Print." It is misleading to read a headline in that paper's issue of April 11, 2017: "Attacks Show Isis' Strategy for Egypt: Gaining Ground by Killing Christians."
Rubbish!! Does ISIS, a faction on the run, has a strategy? Are they gaining ground in Egypt? Could hits and runs or suicide bombings be a strategy -a term reserved for structural command and control? It is ominous for world peace to find the America of Trump so divided upon itself to the point that its unstable President could not accomplish through his first 100 days one single piece of legislation. And daily descriptions in US media of El-Sisi as having engineered a military coup in July 2013 against the Muslim Brotherhood shall have no effect on the New Egypt. Egypt is now becoming the only strong State in that volatile region. It is demographically cohesive.
For within the space of a few years, we might have a new Sudan (without Darfur and Kurdufan); a new Libya (back to 3 provinces); a new Yemen (South Yemen and North Yemen); a new Iraq (Kurdistan is gone, and might be followed by a fictitious sectarian divide between the Sunnis of the north, the Shiis of the south). And the non-reconciled Palestinian statelets of Ramallah and Gaza. All the historic outcomes, not of foreign conspiracies, but of uneven minorities - majorities relationship.
But Egypt is, and shall remain, a different story. Though with impoverished educational and public information systems, its DNA of national unity is always pumping reflexive energy.
This energy could be augmented by an Egyptian one person lobby in Washington, D.C. -A Copt, preferably a female, speaking good "American" as Ambassador.
That would be an enlightened response, representing a true "thinking outside the box." A monumental return to the Egypt bequeathed by Muhammad Ali. From 1832 to 1839, that Egypt has nearly conquered the ailing Ottoman Empire. Cairo's weapon was diversity!!
NOTE: New blog postings shall be periodical, until my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "War On Jihadism Ideologically: The New Islamic Religious Revolution"
Take a broad look at the history of the Middle East. The Ottoman Empire collapsed (1516-1916) because it abused its minorities. Al-Astanah (Constantinople) regarded the Greeks, the Serbs, and the Arabs as empire-servers, not empire co-builders. The so-called Ulamas (Islamic scholars), through their deep ignorance of Islam, advocated disengagement from the west. Those Ulamas were the forefathers of Boko Haram (Western learning is sinful).
But Turkey revived in 1923 with Ata Turk ending the Caliphate and made Turkey secular. The imperial period was no more. However denying the Kurds the right to use their language and have an autonomous status in this 21st century will keep Ankra as the capital of a country which is in constant battle within itself. And if Ordogan fancies himself as the new Islamic Sultan, he must be smoking some strong weed (hashish).
In Syria, now flattened and fragmented, the minority (the Alawites-Shiis) are brutalizing the majority (Sunnis). Under Bashar, a war criminal, Syria has descended from "a failed State" to a "non-State." Bashar (ironically it means in Arabic "good tidings") might keep on fighting. But what he shall end up with is a partitioned Syria, with an Alawite enclave protected by a Russian base and is smaller than Lebanon. Again the disappearance of Syria did not result from foreign machinations. It is the inevitable outcome of a lopsided power sharing between an oppressive minority and an internally-colonized majority.
So it is laughable to still read banners at the entrance of Damascus declaring a blatant fiction: "One Nation With An Eternal Message!!" (Ummatun Wahidah That Risalaton Khalidah).
An Eternal Message has been bequeathed to the Muslims in the Quran -DIVERSITY. For Islam is not "a faith and a State." It is "a faith and a Nation." Islam does not create a State. The Quran gives clear evidence on diversity being both a natural human phenomenon the respect for which is a predicate for good governance. "If your Lord had so willed, He could have made mankind one nation." (Chapter II, Verse 118)
The terms "minority" and "majority" might also apply to women in Saudi Arabia. In spite of the huge oil wealth, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a bifurcated governance: The Governorate in Riyadh, and the Wahhabis in Diriyah. Riyadh rules, and the Wahhabis run the country's social life with a belief in denying gender equality. Whereas women sat on the councils of the Prophet Muhammad, today's Saudi women are subjected to walls, to totally covered faces except for eye peep holes, and to total rule by their male folks. Can this last forever? Impossible. Is 50% of the Saudi population a minority? Yes, a minority in being deprived of rights equal to those enjoyed by the male half of that population.
This may explain why, in Egypt, recent attacks on the Coptic minority (10% - 15%) of the nearly 100 million population have triggered the declaration of emergency laws by the government. Reporters of the New York Times based in Cairo, such as Declan Walsh do no justice to that paper's motto "All The News That Is Fit to Print." It is misleading to read a headline in that paper's issue of April 11, 2017: "Attacks Show Isis' Strategy for Egypt: Gaining Ground by Killing Christians."
Rubbish!! Does ISIS, a faction on the run, has a strategy? Are they gaining ground in Egypt? Could hits and runs or suicide bombings be a strategy -a term reserved for structural command and control? It is ominous for world peace to find the America of Trump so divided upon itself to the point that its unstable President could not accomplish through his first 100 days one single piece of legislation. And daily descriptions in US media of El-Sisi as having engineered a military coup in July 2013 against the Muslim Brotherhood shall have no effect on the New Egypt. Egypt is now becoming the only strong State in that volatile region. It is demographically cohesive.
For within the space of a few years, we might have a new Sudan (without Darfur and Kurdufan); a new Libya (back to 3 provinces); a new Yemen (South Yemen and North Yemen); a new Iraq (Kurdistan is gone, and might be followed by a fictitious sectarian divide between the Sunnis of the north, the Shiis of the south). And the non-reconciled Palestinian statelets of Ramallah and Gaza. All the historic outcomes, not of foreign conspiracies, but of uneven minorities - majorities relationship.
But Egypt is, and shall remain, a different story. Though with impoverished educational and public information systems, its DNA of national unity is always pumping reflexive energy.
This energy could be augmented by an Egyptian one person lobby in Washington, D.C. -A Copt, preferably a female, speaking good "American" as Ambassador.
That would be an enlightened response, representing a true "thinking outside the box." A monumental return to the Egypt bequeathed by Muhammad Ali. From 1832 to 1839, that Egypt has nearly conquered the ailing Ottoman Empire. Cairo's weapon was diversity!!
NOTE: New blog postings shall be periodical, until my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "War On Jihadism Ideologically: The New Islamic Religious Revolution"
Friday, April 7, 2017
Striking Syria Is a Legal Strike For Humanity!!
This is not in praise of Trump. It is a salutation for the doctrine of "international humanitarian intervention." It is easy to understand. When a State commits genocidal acts against its own citizens, it is lowering the walls surrounding it (we call it sovereignty) for the outside world to jump over them and say "enough." Bashar Al-Assad has used against his own citizens chlorine bombs, nerve gas, and now, in Idlib, has used Sarine gas. On Tuesday, April 4, about 100 victims, including dozens of children, have suffocated.
By doing so, he has proved that, to him and his supporters, sovereignty meant a fake license in the hands of the State (and Syria is no longer a State except in name only) to kill en masse. How obtuse for him to miscalculate in a big way: that the Trump search for accommodation with Putin is a shield for his murderous regime; that the non-action by Obama on crossing "red lines" shall hold under Trump; that Trump's support for that inaction before the Trump's presidency shall hold; and that the justification used by him as his war on ISIS shall save him from being considered a war criminal.
Launching 59 missiles by the US navy on April 6 against the Syrian Shayrat airfield from which the Sarin attack on Idlib was launched demonstrates a general fault line in Arab thinking about America. That comprehension deficiency boils down to the non-understanding of the U.S. as a compartmentalized State.
Because of the decline in education in the Arab homeland, the process of thinking about issues is very linear: things are either white or black; relations are based on being a friend or a foe; if you take from me, it is a zero-sum situation whereby I lost totally and you gained totally. No nuancing, no compartmentalization.
How is America compartmentalized? A modern State can do many things simultaneously, regardless of the surface appearance of contradictions. Here are actual examples from the recent episode of striking Syria -a strike which may lead to other strikes in the coming days:
By doing so, he has proved that, to him and his supporters, sovereignty meant a fake license in the hands of the State (and Syria is no longer a State except in name only) to kill en masse. How obtuse for him to miscalculate in a big way: that the Trump search for accommodation with Putin is a shield for his murderous regime; that the non-action by Obama on crossing "red lines" shall hold under Trump; that Trump's support for that inaction before the Trump's presidency shall hold; and that the justification used by him as his war on ISIS shall save him from being considered a war criminal.
Launching 59 missiles by the US navy on April 6 against the Syrian Shayrat airfield from which the Sarin attack on Idlib was launched demonstrates a general fault line in Arab thinking about America. That comprehension deficiency boils down to the non-understanding of the U.S. as a compartmentalized State.
Because of the decline in education in the Arab homeland, the process of thinking about issues is very linear: things are either white or black; relations are based on being a friend or a foe; if you take from me, it is a zero-sum situation whereby I lost totally and you gained totally. No nuancing, no compartmentalization.
How is America compartmentalized? A modern State can do many things simultaneously, regardless of the surface appearance of contradictions. Here are actual examples from the recent episode of striking Syria -a strike which may lead to other strikes in the coming days:
- The US national security council has just been reorganized: separating national security from politics;
- The professionals of the 17 US security agencies, together with the Pentagon and the military contracting industry have chased away the opponents of globalization, like Steve Bannon, from meddling in war and peace issues;
- The "America First" of Trump has been re-interpreted to mean: yes for rebuilding the infra-structure, but no for disengagement from the world;
- Investigating the connections between the Trump team and Russia shall go on, while Trump is allowed to garner the glory of a tough America to himself;
- The UN could be downgraded, while Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the UN, is upgraded to have a seat on the US national security council;
- The issue of human rights within States can be ignored as encumbering US diplomacy with those States.But the Syria attack on the UN Convention Against the Use of Chemical Weapons cannot be set aside;
- While Trump was dining with the Chinese President at his Florida privately-owned southern White House (Mar-A-Lago) -the U.S. navy was nullifying through that missile attack on the Assad regime, the presence of fixed Russian bases on the Syrian coast.
This is the essence of American mixing of party politics, strategy, national interest and diplomacy in a composite whole with so many facets that rotates all the time like a strobe light in a darkened night club.
As a result of this constant dynamic, the American strike on the Syrian Shayrat airbase, is expected to be followed by others. For the message telegraphed by American compartmentalization is not aimed only at Bashar who can no longer aspire to rule over a united Syria.
As a result of this constant dynamic, the American strike on the Syrian Shayrat airbase, is expected to be followed by others. For the message telegraphed by American compartmentalization is not aimed only at Bashar who can no longer aspire to rule over a united Syria.
The message is complex as it is directed, not from the White House, which under Trump is a house divided onto itself, but from the myriad of tissues which can only be deciphered by constant analysis. Deciphering here means being turned into ordinary writing, whose impact may last only for a short period, only to be replaced by fresh analysis.
This is a message that says, for now, the following:
- To the Gulf: there is no American abandonment; just pay for your own defense, and America, with two huge navies in the Mediterranean and the Gulf, shall keep its finger on the trigger;
- To Russia: there is a difference between asserting your power in your "near abroad" (the Ukraine...etc.) in the south, and your pressure on the "near abroad" (the Baltics ...etc.) in the north. The latter is shadowed by NATO, through Poland and Scandinavia;
- To North Korea: watch out, Pyongyang, we are watching. We have 37,000 American troops in South Korea. And your emboldened nuclear missile technology is a threat to East Asia and America's west coast. The time has come for planting nuclear weapons in South Korea;
- To ISIS: you may live on as free lancers of marauding hit and run; but Mosul (Iraq) and Raqqa (Syria) shall be over-run; and
- To regional strong Arab States, such as the New Egypt: we can cooperate in specific well-defined areas. The war on terror and American private investments are examples.
- The Russian thesis of "no intervention in internal affairs" has been well served by the Soviet and later Russian use of the veto in the UN Security Council. A non-changeable thesis since 1945. But this doctrine draws its life from another doctrine, namely, sovereignty.
But Moscow, on its attack at the UN Security Council on the American strike, ignores the growth of the doctrine of international humanitarian intervention. A doctrine which has grown out of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (protection of civilians in times of war), augmented by the UN Conventions against genocide, civil and political rights, the use of chemical weapons, and the non-resort to weapons of mass destruction.
Russia's present resort to the UN Security Council shall be of no avail. And if push comes to shove militarily in the eastern Mediterranean, America's military and economic power shall overwhelm Putin's Russia. Putin may have overplayed his hand, thinking that a Trump-Putin detente might preempt America's military actions.
Even a possible Putin blackmail of Trump for the latter's presumed sexual indiscretions while in Moscow in 2013 might cause the Trump administration to look the other way. It shall not.
While Putin may be the sole actor in Russia, Trump is beholden to the complexity of a compartmentalized America -a country of 50 States stitched together in one. The economy of California alone is bigger than the economy of France. And the half trillion dollars budget of the Pentagon makes America militarily ahead of the next 20 sovereign States of today.
Should America be the world's gendarme? No!! But at these times of our world being in disarray, a swift military action by the US is intended for several purposes. High among these purposes is the projection of US military power. This power is exercised now without a Congressional declaration of war.
For the enemy is diffuse, terrorism has neither boundaries nor uniforms nor real faith, unpredictability by a receding ISIS is outmatched by the unpredictability of a constantly innovating military "lean and mean" American machine.
Syria is expected to be hit again and again. The Syrian UN representative might babble on at the Security Council about "criminal aggression." But who is listening and what could an enfeebled international organization do, except to record a hollow speech?
"Take Assad's air force out" is the new norm. The real action on Syria is now in Washington, D.C., and Moscow, and Brussels (on billions of dollars for reconstruction).
In the era of "universal jurisdiction," any State can act. Yet, in the Arab world, complexities are tiresome. Analysis is deficient. Resort to vocalization is a national pastime. Arab media are nearly comatose!!
NOTE: New blog postings shall be periodical, until my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "War On Jihadism Ideologically: The New Islamic Religious Revolution"
NOTE: New blog postings shall be periodical, until my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "War On Jihadism Ideologically: The New Islamic Religious Revolution"
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