Happy end of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting and hoped for reflection. The New Islamic Religious Revolution (see my book on it at Amazon, December 2017), launched by Al-Azhar in 2014 has to contend with the abuse of Islam as a political power tool. A span of time of nearly 1400 years.
It should be noted that Islam did not establish a State. It established a Nation, now numbering 1.7 billion population, spread over every continent and region. Including Iceland where Muslims fast for 20 hours during the month of Ramadan (the sun there sets for only 2 hours). After the 4 successors of the Prophet Muhammad assumed the title of Caliph to stress continuity, though within an Arab context, all so-called Caliphate which followed lacked legitimacy.
That early continuity was demonstrated by burying Muhammad at where he lived with his wife Aisha in Medina. Next to his burial grounds were buried the first two Caliphs, Abu-Bakr, then Omar. The Arab line of succession within Quraish (the tribe in Mecca which dominated Islam from its inception in 593 AD until 661 AD), held fast. That is until the transfer of the capital of Islam (the capital of the Nation) from Al-Medinah in Arabia to Damascus where the Ummayiads held sway.
Yet the Ummayiads of Syria kept the leadership of the Muslim nation for nearly 160 years with the Arabs. The Arabs were then on top of the ethnic fabric of that nation. Even after conquering the four civilizations surrounding tribal Arabia. These were the Yemenis to the south; the Persians to the east; the Byzantines to the north; and the Egyptians westward.
Yes, the Bedouins of Arabia gained not only territory, but also diverse civilizations, especially in the art of governance and medicine and philosophy. Nonetheless, all non-Arabs to the East, to the North, and to the West were , though Islamized, Mawalis (meaning subservient). The ruling class were Arabs, and those who possessed better knowledge and organizational skills were the Mawalis.
That latter class, by the 7th century, were the majority of Muslims. The armed forces brought the Arabs and the Mawalis together under the banner of Islam. But the Mawalis, whether in Persia, Syria and Palestine, Egypt or Morocco, were deprived of: army pay equal to that of the Arabs; riding horses, even in combat; restriction of their service to infantry (foot soldiers); and no permission to intermarry with Arab women.
One may call this apartheid of the first order which went against the soul of Islam. For Islam stands for equality. But the Ummayiad structure was primarily monarchical, patterned after the East Roman empire. The leader was Arab, but the system was either Roman or Persian. And that is what collapsed the Ummayiads in 750 AD. So the pendulum swung again in the direction of Medina in Arabia, and towards the family of the Prophet Muhammad.
So far the battle for the soul of Islam remained within Islam itself. Other faiths were left undisturbed, with full respect for Judaism. Christianity and other beliefs. That inter-Islamic struggle was about who was to be on top after the collapse of the last Arab caliphate, namely, the Ummayiads. Those who established the Abbasids in 656 AD resumed the linkage to the line of the Prophet Muhammad, since Abu-El-Abbas, the founder, was Muhammad's uncle. But the backbone of that 600 year regime was Persian.
In fact the last of the Ummayiads Caliphs, Marwan II who fled for his life to Egypt, was pursued by the Mawalis of the Abbasids to the Egyptian province of Al-Fayyoum where he was killed at the village of Bu-Seer.
The manipulation of Islam through its politicization now began in earnest, basing itself from its initial capital of Khorasan (Persia), before moving to Baghdad. Baghdad became the historic Abbasid capital as of the 7th century AD -the persianized capital of the Umma.
The Islam of Arabia which advocates inclusiveness was now the Islam of the Mawalis. The conquered became the conqueror. With that major shift in the fortunes of Islam, came also the repression of all those who spoke Arabic -though Arabic is the language of the Quran.
Power became the object of governance; the politicization of Islam by the non-Arabs proved to be a legitimating cover; the division between Sunni Islam and Shii Islam was advocated; those within the Shii branch were branded in part "Alawis" - the sect of Bashar Al-Asad; the sword, a word not mentioned at all in the Quran, became the instrument of enforcement, especially by the Ottomans, the Turkic races which swooped from central Asia on horseback to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea (the 16th century to the 20th).
Finally Islam, as of 1928, was co-opted by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood whose logo is still two swords framing the Quran, with the fighting words "Be Prepared" (Aaidoo) at the bottom of that trade mark of a wayward movement.
The historic and ideological lineage of the Muslim Brotherhood should be traced to Abu-Muslim Al-Khorasani (653 AD) in Eastern Persia.
Under the Abbasids, freedom of thought was suppressed. Even Abu-Hanifah and Malik, the founders of two great schools of Sunni thought, were whipped. The framework of the Abbasid system was the glorification of those fake Caliphs who followed the first four succeeding the Prophet Muhammad.
Examples on the disconnect between Islam and the period from the 7th to the 20th centuries abound. Here is an early example. The response of Al-Mansour, an early Abbasid ruler to those who criticized his brutality was very candid: "We are among people who saw us yesterday as ordinary street people and now we are their Caliphs. Such people shall never respect anything but punishment. So forget about forgiveness."
The second dominant feature of the Abbasids is to clothe their politics with a Muslim garb. The Caliph propagated himself as the protector of Islam. They made the Sultan or Caliph the projection of God on earth.
Thus Abu-Hanifah and Malik were punished because they declined Al-Mansour's invitation to be judges. Such declination, Al-Mansour feared, would signal to the rank and file.of Muslims that the Abbasid Caliphate lacked legitimacy.
The basis for the dogma of the Muslim Brotherhood, though appearing 13 centuries later, is one and the same as that of the Abbasids. To them, Islam is only a cover for raw power; the ballot box to them is the entry ticket to rulership.
To them, Egypt, the State of 7000 years was no more than a launching pad for a mythical Islamic realm. And one of their supreme guides expressed this candidly but grossly: "Hell with Egypt" (Toz Fi Masr).
Such words have historic consequences. The Brotherhood's affinity to the brutal past, starting from the Abbasids and stretching to Ordoghan, the present Ottoman ruler, needs to be understood in the light of that horrid continuum.
Islam's abuse as a political football has indeed deep roots.
Friday, June 15, 2018
Friday, May 25, 2018
Why is America's War In Afghanistan Another Endless Vietnam!! Unwinnable!!
I possess no military secrets, no capacity to read the future through analysis of tea leaves!! But history is my sole guide when I say that America's war in Afghanistan is destined to be another loser. The same was the case in Vietnam.
From the study of global conflicts, a valuable conclusion emerges: the indigenous population rising to confront a foreign invader always wins. It may take years for the Taliban in Afghanistan to overcome the American formidable military hardware, technology, and reliance on foreign and local intelligence. However such American assets can never compensate for the Taliban knowledge of their mountains, valleys, tribal affiliation, and a long history of ceaseless combat.
I am not evaluating the Taliban cause. I am assessing their assets, which are best expressed in Kipling's 19th century words about why Great Britain had suffered humiliating defeats in Afghanistan. This is not a question of valor. It is a question of the superior impact of a tribalized society forcing the Soviets to flee in the late 1980's.
Osama Bin Laden claimed that Soviet defeat was due to Al-Qaeda's combative resourcefulness. Bin Laden lied. He and his fighters were only a part of that tribal resistance effort. A supplementation, egged on by training by the Americans, the Pakistanis, the Saudis, and other actors. The spinal cord of combat and sacrifice was the Taliban.
As a term, Al-Taliban means "two students." A protest movement which capitalized on devotion to Islam, to hate for structure and institutions, to instant readiness to pick up arms. There was also involvement by female units as back-up reserves.
Their's is an economy based on opium production. Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic scene, versed in using the resources of India, Pakistan and Iran to great advantage. Tribal affiliation is the glue which keeps alliances forming and, when weakened, dissolving. To all of these human formations, Kabul, the capital, is where corruption resides. Afghan is a complex fabric which is dedicated to the sword which is forever ready to slice through invaders.
Afghanism is a blend of nativism, faith (mostly Sunnis; the west is Shii), and an outlook on life as a mere passage through an existence of intrigue. The only durable loyalty is to the core tribe.
It is the embodiment of what an Arab poet had once said about tribalism. "They never ask their brother, who calls for help in adversity; How was he wronged, by his enemy?"
There are historic icons, like Jamalu-Din Al-Afghani (1838-1897). His sole life, together with his companion, Sheikh Muhammad Abduh (a distinguished Egyptian Azhar scholar, 1849-1905), was devoted to combating foreign intrusion in the lands of Islam.
From this struggle, nurtured by these two reformers, grew the notion of total unity of Muslim countries. Unity in purpose, not in structure. For Islam did not create a State. It created a Nation.
From Muhamad Abduh and Al-Afghani, the central idea of Islam, namely the "One-ness of God" (Tawheed) became deeply ingrained. All faiths are one, because God is one. But don't step over boundaries through aggression. That would be a fight that shall end in the invader's exit, sooner or later. This is the only unshakable pillar in the Taliban movement.
Against this formidable background of tribal loyalties, combat resilience, and indigenous presence, American military planning, surges, and war technology make America in Afghanistan the non-announced underdog. Taliban casualties are quickly replaced; Trump's exhortation of Pakistan to do more in the Afghan struggle is a useless call. For it keeps the influence of New Delhi in Kabul at a minimum. Pakistan is a beneficiary of the Taliban movement.
9/11 was an understandable casus belli for American entry upon the invasion of Afghanistan in 2002. But after 16 years of American losses in blood and treasure, without a clear strategy except "the defeat of the Taliban," there is no end in sight for America.
Yes, Bin Laden is dead (and good-riddance). But he was an Arab, a foreign element in an Afghani demographic landscape. They protected him as a Muslim who helped them defeat the Soviets and usher in the collapse of Soviet communism. They were living up to a tribal code, not to an Al-Qaida affiliation. Eventually Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan.
From all indications, the effectiveness of the government in Kabul in fighting the Taliban is not greater than the effectiveness of government in Somalia in fighting Al-Shabab. The only difference between the dilemmas in Kabul and Mogadishu is that in Somalia, a terrorist gang, Al-Shabab, causes mayhem in the surrounding area. But in Afghanistan, the overwhelming sentiment is to rid the country of America's presence.
The war on the Taliban shall eventually lead to an American exit. Such an exit, ala Vietnam, shall also signify a clear recognition of the failure of "nation-building." The concept of "nation-building" when introduced from beyond national boundaries, as in the case of Afghanistan, is ultimately a losing proposition. The importance of the indigenous factor in all war-like situations, cannot be over-exaggerated. That factor is the elixir which keeps the Taliban to never contemplate falling within the sphere of America's influence. That is regardless of how many roads or schools America builds in Afghani ancestral lands.
The recent clear examples in the Arab world of the unvanquished resilience of the local populace confronting outside invasions are numerous. They may be found in the Algerian struggle for independence (1954-1962); the October war of 1973 (Egypt v. Israel); and the second Gulf War of 1990 (Kuwait v. Saddam of Iraq).
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), through poetry, has sung the praises of British colonialism. But even he, in regard to Afghanistan, lamented the prowess of Afghani women preying on the hapless British soldiers as they lay motionless on the open fields of Afghanistan. So did Arab women in Algeria during the war for independence. There I was an eye witness as UN spokesman in the early years of my UN career.
Scrutinizing the above statements, you might also have to conclude that America cannot win in Afghanistan. That is even when America uses non-military means which are known as "sanctions." For the ultimate goal of such methods is "regime change." A false coin.
When you flip the false coin of "nation-building" by an outsider, you shall find the term of "regime change." Again only sovereign people do their own "regime change." And again, if they need help from outside, especially when faced by a brutal dictatorship a la Saddam or Qadafi or Assad, that help goes by a fancy but good legal term. It is called "international humanitarian intervention." Cases in point: Kosovo; Iraq.
If you want to do nation-building, do it within your own borders. For nation-building has never been a matter for export. Otherwise it becomes imperialism.
Americans love fantasies. In films, theatre, novels, and even in foreign policy such as in the Middle East and the Pacific. Winning the war in Afghanistan is an American fantasy. Benjamin De Mott has noted that America was experiencing "a universal descent into unreality."
For his op ed column in the New York Times of May 25, 2018, David Brooks chose an apt title: "Trump's Magical Fantasy World."
Facts are difficult things to challenge. Their challenger is a fake peddler of falsities. Following history and tribal dynamics, it is impossible to see how America can win in Afghanistan.
From the study of global conflicts, a valuable conclusion emerges: the indigenous population rising to confront a foreign invader always wins. It may take years for the Taliban in Afghanistan to overcome the American formidable military hardware, technology, and reliance on foreign and local intelligence. However such American assets can never compensate for the Taliban knowledge of their mountains, valleys, tribal affiliation, and a long history of ceaseless combat.
I am not evaluating the Taliban cause. I am assessing their assets, which are best expressed in Kipling's 19th century words about why Great Britain had suffered humiliating defeats in Afghanistan. This is not a question of valor. It is a question of the superior impact of a tribalized society forcing the Soviets to flee in the late 1980's.
Osama Bin Laden claimed that Soviet defeat was due to Al-Qaeda's combative resourcefulness. Bin Laden lied. He and his fighters were only a part of that tribal resistance effort. A supplementation, egged on by training by the Americans, the Pakistanis, the Saudis, and other actors. The spinal cord of combat and sacrifice was the Taliban.
As a term, Al-Taliban means "two students." A protest movement which capitalized on devotion to Islam, to hate for structure and institutions, to instant readiness to pick up arms. There was also involvement by female units as back-up reserves.
Their's is an economy based on opium production. Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic scene, versed in using the resources of India, Pakistan and Iran to great advantage. Tribal affiliation is the glue which keeps alliances forming and, when weakened, dissolving. To all of these human formations, Kabul, the capital, is where corruption resides. Afghan is a complex fabric which is dedicated to the sword which is forever ready to slice through invaders.
Afghanism is a blend of nativism, faith (mostly Sunnis; the west is Shii), and an outlook on life as a mere passage through an existence of intrigue. The only durable loyalty is to the core tribe.
It is the embodiment of what an Arab poet had once said about tribalism. "They never ask their brother, who calls for help in adversity; How was he wronged, by his enemy?"
There are historic icons, like Jamalu-Din Al-Afghani (1838-1897). His sole life, together with his companion, Sheikh Muhammad Abduh (a distinguished Egyptian Azhar scholar, 1849-1905), was devoted to combating foreign intrusion in the lands of Islam.
From this struggle, nurtured by these two reformers, grew the notion of total unity of Muslim countries. Unity in purpose, not in structure. For Islam did not create a State. It created a Nation.
From Muhamad Abduh and Al-Afghani, the central idea of Islam, namely the "One-ness of God" (Tawheed) became deeply ingrained. All faiths are one, because God is one. But don't step over boundaries through aggression. That would be a fight that shall end in the invader's exit, sooner or later. This is the only unshakable pillar in the Taliban movement.
Against this formidable background of tribal loyalties, combat resilience, and indigenous presence, American military planning, surges, and war technology make America in Afghanistan the non-announced underdog. Taliban casualties are quickly replaced; Trump's exhortation of Pakistan to do more in the Afghan struggle is a useless call. For it keeps the influence of New Delhi in Kabul at a minimum. Pakistan is a beneficiary of the Taliban movement.
9/11 was an understandable casus belli for American entry upon the invasion of Afghanistan in 2002. But after 16 years of American losses in blood and treasure, without a clear strategy except "the defeat of the Taliban," there is no end in sight for America.
Yes, Bin Laden is dead (and good-riddance). But he was an Arab, a foreign element in an Afghani demographic landscape. They protected him as a Muslim who helped them defeat the Soviets and usher in the collapse of Soviet communism. They were living up to a tribal code, not to an Al-Qaida affiliation. Eventually Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan.
From all indications, the effectiveness of the government in Kabul in fighting the Taliban is not greater than the effectiveness of government in Somalia in fighting Al-Shabab. The only difference between the dilemmas in Kabul and Mogadishu is that in Somalia, a terrorist gang, Al-Shabab, causes mayhem in the surrounding area. But in Afghanistan, the overwhelming sentiment is to rid the country of America's presence.
The war on the Taliban shall eventually lead to an American exit. Such an exit, ala Vietnam, shall also signify a clear recognition of the failure of "nation-building." The concept of "nation-building" when introduced from beyond national boundaries, as in the case of Afghanistan, is ultimately a losing proposition. The importance of the indigenous factor in all war-like situations, cannot be over-exaggerated. That factor is the elixir which keeps the Taliban to never contemplate falling within the sphere of America's influence. That is regardless of how many roads or schools America builds in Afghani ancestral lands.
The recent clear examples in the Arab world of the unvanquished resilience of the local populace confronting outside invasions are numerous. They may be found in the Algerian struggle for independence (1954-1962); the October war of 1973 (Egypt v. Israel); and the second Gulf War of 1990 (Kuwait v. Saddam of Iraq).
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), through poetry, has sung the praises of British colonialism. But even he, in regard to Afghanistan, lamented the prowess of Afghani women preying on the hapless British soldiers as they lay motionless on the open fields of Afghanistan. So did Arab women in Algeria during the war for independence. There I was an eye witness as UN spokesman in the early years of my UN career.
Scrutinizing the above statements, you might also have to conclude that America cannot win in Afghanistan. That is even when America uses non-military means which are known as "sanctions." For the ultimate goal of such methods is "regime change." A false coin.
If you want to do nation-building, do it within your own borders. For nation-building has never been a matter for export. Otherwise it becomes imperialism.
Americans love fantasies. In films, theatre, novels, and even in foreign policy such as in the Middle East and the Pacific. Winning the war in Afghanistan is an American fantasy. Benjamin De Mott has noted that America was experiencing "a universal descent into unreality."
For his op ed column in the New York Times of May 25, 2018, David Brooks chose an apt title: "Trump's Magical Fantasy World."
Facts are difficult things to challenge. Their challenger is a fake peddler of falsities. Following history and tribal dynamics, it is impossible to see how America can win in Afghanistan.
Friday, May 18, 2018
By Invitation: In January, the Rabbi Was Unable To Go To Al-Azhar, But In May, Al-Azhar Was Able To Go To the Rabbi
When there is a will, there is a way!! Perfectly applicable to the mutual invitations between Al-Azhar and Rabbi Dr. Robert Widom of Temple Emanuel of Great Neck, New York and Al-Azhar through me.
During my visit in December 2017 with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, I was briefed on the plan for a global conference on Jerusalem that was to be held in Cairo in January of this year. The purpose was to invite me to it, and to have me recommend leaders of other faiths to be guests of Al-Azhar and to speak at that conference. My prompt response was: "I would be honored to come, and to invite my distinguished friend, Rabbi Widom to join." As I sat facing Dr. El-Taiyeb, the enthusiasm for that response was palpable.
But the leader of that great Reform Temple, with which I have been associated as an "honary member" since 1974, had a conflict of appointments. He could not attend, but his support for a non-change of the status of Jerusalem as a shared capital for Israel and a future State of Palestine was well known.
It was Widom's fair-mindedness over the past 44 years of my proximity to him, to his thoughts, and to the congregation of Temple Emanuel, which led me to invite over the years senior Egyptian diplomats to address that congregation.
So from 1980 to nearly 1990, "the pulpit" of Temple Emanuel of Great Neck reverberated by the voices that authoritatively expounded Egypt's outlook on peace in the Middle East. Those voices belonged to the late Dr. Esmat Abdel-Mcguid, and to the then Ambassador Amre Moussa, Ambassador Abdel-Raouf El-Reedy and Ambassador Hussein Hassounna, who spoke at that time in the name of the League of Arab States.
It was that activity on behalf of an Egypt which has been for 7000 years a universal cultural bridge which the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo has never recognized. For in 2007, as I was visiting the country of my birth, I was asked at a public meeting if I would visit Mehdi Akef, the then Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In reality that invitation was a challenge couched in the form of an invitation. I instantly could perceive several pitfalls in such an encounter. Primarily, such a visit could not be of any assistance to the central purpose of my visit at that time to Cairo. I was in the process of gathering ideas and material in preparation for my new seminar at Fordham University School of Law in New York.
The graduate seminar which lasted from 2008 to 2015, was entitled: "Islamic Law and Global Security." My Cairo coordinator was my late beloved friend Dr. Mahmoud Mahfouz, former Health Minister.
Upon entering the offices of Mehdi Akef, who was surrounded by a dozen of his top lieutenants, Akef immediately shot an arrow across the bow of the conference. He asked me: "Do you speak to the Jews?"
As I learnt at the UN and through litigation as an attorney, an odd question belies an odd perception. And an odd perception, however offensive it might be, calls for a determined counter offensive. "Supreme Guide," I responded, "I am an honorary member at Temple Emanuel at a New York suburb. And why don't I interact with the Jews, any Jews, for the sake of mutual understanding in the Middle East. This is especially critical following 2 peace treaties between Israel and two Arab States: Egypt and Jordan." Then a call to the Noon prayer offered me the chance of a quick exit.
It is such an obscurantist mind which has plagued the Muslim Brotherhood throughout its history since it began in 1928. That is even after its assumption of supreme power in Egypt from 2012 to 2013 under a misfit by the name of President Muhammad Morsi (now an Ex).
Now back to my comfort zone: my speaking on May 11 at Temple Emanuel, during religious services. It was on "The New Religious Islamic Revolution." That is the title of my recent book, authored as Trump was undeservedly elected President of the US and inaugurated in January 2017.
Trump and his base have disastrously converted Islamophobia in America in a war on Islam. Trump's first National Security Advisor, General Flynn, has declared that Islam was "a cancer," and not a religion but "a political ideology."
Such malicious characterization, which was followed up by Trump's successive executive orders banning citizens of seven Islamic countries from US entry, was a clear signal on what was to come. The new American administration was victim of seeing Islam through the criminal eyes and acts of jihadis.
That circumstance was enough reason for me not only to write that book in response. It was also enough reason to dedicate the book to the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, and to Al-Azhar itself, from which my late father had graduated.
Appearing at Temple Emanuel on the evening of May 11 was in essence Al-Azhar going to the Temple. The road of interfaith communication does not only run through the advocacy by Al-Azhar Al-Sharif of "The New Islamic Religious Revolution." That road also collides with the retrograde thesis of Sam Huntington in his book on "clash of civilizations."
At my presentation before the enthusiastic congregation at the Temple, I set forth before them the primary sources of my book, published by Amazon, in December 2017. These were the very words voiced by Dr. El-Taiyeb, in 2016 and 2017, before the European Parliament in Berlin, and in France, Russia, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates. And in Cairo before leaders of the youths of Rohynga of Myanmar.
That torch held aloft by the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, a graduate of the Sorbonne (Paris), as a trail blazer. His utterances were the essence of ideological attacks on ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and other criminal franchises. For those terrorists sought in vain to present Islam as a high dam separating Islam from the world of enlightenment.
Expressing that universalism at the Temple seems to have hit the mark: The Temple had arranged for me a reception after my speech featuring tens of copies of my book for sale. It was the first time for me as an author of more than a dozen of books to be in the role of signing copies of that book to a long line of Jewish purchasers of a book stating in English the very theme of the Islamic Revolution -namely: In faith, all of humanity is one.
And this is how I began that presentation at Temple Emanuel:
"I kept on drafting, then redrafting my remarks for us tonight: The topic of "the oneness of faith" has multi-layered meanings. It encompasses the existential question of "what is faith." Is it allegiance to duty or a person? Is it fidelity to one's promises? Is it sincerity of intentions? Is it belief and trust in and loyalty to God? Is it a firm belief in something for which there is no material proof?
We were born to think. And if you think, you have to believe that others think also -thoughts that crystallize in complex beliefs which we call faith. And all the questions which introduced my remarks are, in their totality, facets of faith."
A credible advocacy of a global cause needs an articulation in a language with which the global audience is familiar. Good English is a vehicle, so is good Arabic. Except that what is said in the Arab and Muslim worlds in classical Arabic has to be imported to America in classical English.
Otherwise the great culture of universalism shall always remain hidden from view. Not only by geography. But also by recognition that effective interpretation of words and concepts are truly the sinews of global understanding.
In this historic search for universal understanding, Al-Azhar and Temple Emanuel are but one as vehicles of interfaith.
During my visit in December 2017 with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, I was briefed on the plan for a global conference on Jerusalem that was to be held in Cairo in January of this year. The purpose was to invite me to it, and to have me recommend leaders of other faiths to be guests of Al-Azhar and to speak at that conference. My prompt response was: "I would be honored to come, and to invite my distinguished friend, Rabbi Widom to join." As I sat facing Dr. El-Taiyeb, the enthusiasm for that response was palpable.
But the leader of that great Reform Temple, with which I have been associated as an "honary member" since 1974, had a conflict of appointments. He could not attend, but his support for a non-change of the status of Jerusalem as a shared capital for Israel and a future State of Palestine was well known.
It was Widom's fair-mindedness over the past 44 years of my proximity to him, to his thoughts, and to the congregation of Temple Emanuel, which led me to invite over the years senior Egyptian diplomats to address that congregation.
So from 1980 to nearly 1990, "the pulpit" of Temple Emanuel of Great Neck reverberated by the voices that authoritatively expounded Egypt's outlook on peace in the Middle East. Those voices belonged to the late Dr. Esmat Abdel-Mcguid, and to the then Ambassador Amre Moussa, Ambassador Abdel-Raouf El-Reedy and Ambassador Hussein Hassounna, who spoke at that time in the name of the League of Arab States.
It was that activity on behalf of an Egypt which has been for 7000 years a universal cultural bridge which the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo has never recognized. For in 2007, as I was visiting the country of my birth, I was asked at a public meeting if I would visit Mehdi Akef, the then Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In reality that invitation was a challenge couched in the form of an invitation. I instantly could perceive several pitfalls in such an encounter. Primarily, such a visit could not be of any assistance to the central purpose of my visit at that time to Cairo. I was in the process of gathering ideas and material in preparation for my new seminar at Fordham University School of Law in New York.
The graduate seminar which lasted from 2008 to 2015, was entitled: "Islamic Law and Global Security." My Cairo coordinator was my late beloved friend Dr. Mahmoud Mahfouz, former Health Minister.
Upon entering the offices of Mehdi Akef, who was surrounded by a dozen of his top lieutenants, Akef immediately shot an arrow across the bow of the conference. He asked me: "Do you speak to the Jews?"
As I learnt at the UN and through litigation as an attorney, an odd question belies an odd perception. And an odd perception, however offensive it might be, calls for a determined counter offensive. "Supreme Guide," I responded, "I am an honorary member at Temple Emanuel at a New York suburb. And why don't I interact with the Jews, any Jews, for the sake of mutual understanding in the Middle East. This is especially critical following 2 peace treaties between Israel and two Arab States: Egypt and Jordan." Then a call to the Noon prayer offered me the chance of a quick exit.
It is such an obscurantist mind which has plagued the Muslim Brotherhood throughout its history since it began in 1928. That is even after its assumption of supreme power in Egypt from 2012 to 2013 under a misfit by the name of President Muhammad Morsi (now an Ex).
Now back to my comfort zone: my speaking on May 11 at Temple Emanuel, during religious services. It was on "The New Religious Islamic Revolution." That is the title of my recent book, authored as Trump was undeservedly elected President of the US and inaugurated in January 2017.
Trump and his base have disastrously converted Islamophobia in America in a war on Islam. Trump's first National Security Advisor, General Flynn, has declared that Islam was "a cancer," and not a religion but "a political ideology."
Such malicious characterization, which was followed up by Trump's successive executive orders banning citizens of seven Islamic countries from US entry, was a clear signal on what was to come. The new American administration was victim of seeing Islam through the criminal eyes and acts of jihadis.
That circumstance was enough reason for me not only to write that book in response. It was also enough reason to dedicate the book to the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, and to Al-Azhar itself, from which my late father had graduated.
Appearing at Temple Emanuel on the evening of May 11 was in essence Al-Azhar going to the Temple. The road of interfaith communication does not only run through the advocacy by Al-Azhar Al-Sharif of "The New Islamic Religious Revolution." That road also collides with the retrograde thesis of Sam Huntington in his book on "clash of civilizations."
At my presentation before the enthusiastic congregation at the Temple, I set forth before them the primary sources of my book, published by Amazon, in December 2017. These were the very words voiced by Dr. El-Taiyeb, in 2016 and 2017, before the European Parliament in Berlin, and in France, Russia, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates. And in Cairo before leaders of the youths of Rohynga of Myanmar.
That torch held aloft by the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, a graduate of the Sorbonne (Paris), as a trail blazer. His utterances were the essence of ideological attacks on ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and other criminal franchises. For those terrorists sought in vain to present Islam as a high dam separating Islam from the world of enlightenment.
Expressing that universalism at the Temple seems to have hit the mark: The Temple had arranged for me a reception after my speech featuring tens of copies of my book for sale. It was the first time for me as an author of more than a dozen of books to be in the role of signing copies of that book to a long line of Jewish purchasers of a book stating in English the very theme of the Islamic Revolution -namely: In faith, all of humanity is one.
And this is how I began that presentation at Temple Emanuel:
"I kept on drafting, then redrafting my remarks for us tonight: The topic of "the oneness of faith" has multi-layered meanings. It encompasses the existential question of "what is faith." Is it allegiance to duty or a person? Is it fidelity to one's promises? Is it sincerity of intentions? Is it belief and trust in and loyalty to God? Is it a firm belief in something for which there is no material proof?
We were born to think. And if you think, you have to believe that others think also -thoughts that crystallize in complex beliefs which we call faith. And all the questions which introduced my remarks are, in their totality, facets of faith."
A credible advocacy of a global cause needs an articulation in a language with which the global audience is familiar. Good English is a vehicle, so is good Arabic. Except that what is said in the Arab and Muslim worlds in classical Arabic has to be imported to America in classical English.
Otherwise the great culture of universalism shall always remain hidden from view. Not only by geography. But also by recognition that effective interpretation of words and concepts are truly the sinews of global understanding.
In this historic search for universal understanding, Al-Azhar and Temple Emanuel are but one as vehicles of interfaith.
Friday, May 4, 2018
The Historic Abandonment: The Present US Department of Justice Neither Defends Nor Enforces Civil Rights
The American Declaration of Independence (1776) was the promise. The U.S. Constitution (1787) was the fulfillment. The soul of both documents has always been ordered liberty. Expressed differently, Chief Justice Warren Burger (1969-1986) said it best: "Ever since people began living in tribes and villages, they have had to balance order with liberty. Individual freedom had to be weighed against the need for security of all."
Today's Department of Justice must be measured by these concepts. For these measurements have made America, until the age of Trump, a unique environment. That uniqueness stemmed from the creation of energies and talents of a diverse population of an ever-changing America.
Regretfully no more. The present Department of Justice, under the stewardship of Attorney General Jeff Sessions has, for all intents and purposes, abandoned its central mission. It no longer defends nor enforces civil rights. Though Trump has peddled his regime as one of "law and order," the facts on the ground prove that the reality exists outside "law and order."
No legal argument can prove this point like the recently-published book entitled "Fascism" by Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State. That book shall be reviewed in a future posting of this blog. Other good books have been recently published along the same theme of Trump's failure to govern this great union of 50 States effectively.
The global effect of that failure? America can no longer be a global guide to other sovereign States in the pivotal area of concern of the world of today -namely human rights. What compounds this dilemma are the constant attacks by President Trump against the Department of Justice (DOJ) and its head, Jeff Sessions. Trump labels DOJ and Sessions as "Disgraceful."
In these thoughtless attacks by a President on his own cabinet member, Sessions, lies an irony. The U.S. President sees in DOJ a role which has never been intended for the executive branch of the US Government. Since its establishment, DOJ has been regarded as an independent cabinet department which is immunized from interference by the White House.
But not under Trump. He, with no prior experience in government, has regarded DOJ as existing for his own personal legal protection. This thinking has been evidenced by the first and only conversation between president-elect Trump and the then outgoing President Obama. This conversation has been reported as follows: Trump, referring to Obama's former Attorney General, Eric Holder, is reported to have extolled to Obama: how effectively has Holder protected Obama. The surprised Obama responded: Holder was not there to protect me. He was there to protect the American people.
So as the legal challenges to his presidency multiply, including the ongoing investigations into Russia's role in electing Trump president of the U.S., Trump has continually manifested his disgust with the Mueller investigations. These are focused on the alleged Trumpian obstruction of justice and possible collusion with Russia in Trump elevation to the occupancy of the White House.
The issues demonstrating the abandonment by the present DOJ of its historic responsibilities cover a very long list of items. This imposes on us the task of selecting only two primary ones:
Voting Rights:
The right to vote is the gateway to self-rule. Tampering with that franchise is the pathway to suffocating democracy. Under Sessions, those rights have been under constant attack. For twenty solid years, the Republican party has surpassed the Democratic party in building up its representation from the ground up: from school boards to state government, to occupancy of congressional seats.
The Republicans spoke the language of the changed American street. This is while the Democrats focused on urban cities and the language of the elite: urbane, nuanced, and nearly incomprehensible to the half-educated or even the non-educated populace. The most current phrase of the Tea Party, which ushered in the Trump dark ages, was: "We need people who look and speak like us."
The Republican Party of today, a winner among the non-elite, evokes the memory of the defunct "Know Nothing Party" of the American post civil-war. The Trump governance ethos, now supported by 49 million Americans, is "don't trust either institutions or politicians."
With the Trump rallies, a modern Roman circus, becoming the Trump's mass way of governance, "America First" now means "America is for the whites only."
Today's Department of Justice must be measured by these concepts. For these measurements have made America, until the age of Trump, a unique environment. That uniqueness stemmed from the creation of energies and talents of a diverse population of an ever-changing America.
Regretfully no more. The present Department of Justice, under the stewardship of Attorney General Jeff Sessions has, for all intents and purposes, abandoned its central mission. It no longer defends nor enforces civil rights. Though Trump has peddled his regime as one of "law and order," the facts on the ground prove that the reality exists outside "law and order."
No legal argument can prove this point like the recently-published book entitled "Fascism" by Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State. That book shall be reviewed in a future posting of this blog. Other good books have been recently published along the same theme of Trump's failure to govern this great union of 50 States effectively.
The global effect of that failure? America can no longer be a global guide to other sovereign States in the pivotal area of concern of the world of today -namely human rights. What compounds this dilemma are the constant attacks by President Trump against the Department of Justice (DOJ) and its head, Jeff Sessions. Trump labels DOJ and Sessions as "Disgraceful."
In these thoughtless attacks by a President on his own cabinet member, Sessions, lies an irony. The U.S. President sees in DOJ a role which has never been intended for the executive branch of the US Government. Since its establishment, DOJ has been regarded as an independent cabinet department which is immunized from interference by the White House.
But not under Trump. He, with no prior experience in government, has regarded DOJ as existing for his own personal legal protection. This thinking has been evidenced by the first and only conversation between president-elect Trump and the then outgoing President Obama. This conversation has been reported as follows: Trump, referring to Obama's former Attorney General, Eric Holder, is reported to have extolled to Obama: how effectively has Holder protected Obama. The surprised Obama responded: Holder was not there to protect me. He was there to protect the American people.
So as the legal challenges to his presidency multiply, including the ongoing investigations into Russia's role in electing Trump president of the U.S., Trump has continually manifested his disgust with the Mueller investigations. These are focused on the alleged Trumpian obstruction of justice and possible collusion with Russia in Trump elevation to the occupancy of the White House.
The issues demonstrating the abandonment by the present DOJ of its historic responsibilities cover a very long list of items. This imposes on us the task of selecting only two primary ones:
Voting Rights:
The right to vote is the gateway to self-rule. Tampering with that franchise is the pathway to suffocating democracy. Under Sessions, those rights have been under constant attack. For twenty solid years, the Republican party has surpassed the Democratic party in building up its representation from the ground up: from school boards to state government, to occupancy of congressional seats.
The Republicans spoke the language of the changed American street. This is while the Democrats focused on urban cities and the language of the elite: urbane, nuanced, and nearly incomprehensible to the half-educated or even the non-educated populace. The most current phrase of the Tea Party, which ushered in the Trump dark ages, was: "We need people who look and speak like us."
The Republican Party of today, a winner among the non-elite, evokes the memory of the defunct "Know Nothing Party" of the American post civil-war. The Trump governance ethos, now supported by 49 million Americans, is "don't trust either institutions or politicians."
With the Trump rallies, a modern Roman circus, becoming the Trump's mass way of governance, "America First" now means "America is for the whites only."
- The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was adopted in order to ensure and facilitate access to voting. The ballot box is the ultimate container of the popular will. Texas, a traditionally "red State" (Republican) has now adopted voter identification requirements. The introduction by the Texas legislature of those requirements had the hallmarks of racism as affirmed by a ruling by a federal judge against it.
- DOJ has now abandoned its opposition to that measure of voter suppression, a shift in line with the preferences of Trump and Sessions. The non-white population is known to vote democratic. This is an electoral fact which has pushed Trump to claim that Hillary's surpassing him in 2016 in the popular vote by 3 million has been due to millions of people voting fraudulently, a charge which is wholly without merit.
- In Ohio, about 50% of the population, like other Americans, don't vote. It has been reported that 80 percent of the notices sent by the state to eligible voters were never returned. Though there was no indication that such result was due to voters' moving out of that jurisdiction, Ohio took the drastic measure of removing them from the voting rolls.
The upshot was a Supreme Court case (Hsted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute). That case challenged in January 2018 Ohio's practice of purging voters from the rolls if they failed to vote and/or failed to return the voting notice mailed to them. Remember that 80% of such notices were never returned.
The DOJ during the Obama administration had supported that lawsuit. Its support was solidly based on the National Voter Registration Act which clearly prohibits a State from removing voters from the rolls for failing to vote. But with Sessions, the DOJ abandoned a position which it had maintained for two decades under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Voter suppression, gerrymandering by States of electoral lines in order to reduce the effect of voting by a browning America, and non-substantiated charges of fraud, all point to one sorry conclusion. The Trump's Department of Justice's role in defending and enforcing civil rights, access to the ballot, and equal treatment, has nearly evaporated.
Trump's only ascertainable concern is for saving his own skin from the looming disaster of successful investigations by special counsel, Bob Mueller, into the alleged Russian intervention in the choice of an American president.
Justice System Reform:
The American Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments of the US Constitution) delineates the shape of America's respect for the rights of the accused. One is presumed innocent until proven guilty, through a fair and open court of law. Upon an arraignment of a suspect before a judge, the pleading of the suspect is invariably: "Not guilty, Your Honor."
Both Trump and Sessions have made the phrase "tough on crime," the vehicle for downgrading the right of the accused. Not only has the DOJ been active in selecting very conservative federal judges. The President himself has encouraged police officers not to be too concerned about injuring suspects during arrests. And his Attorney General, Sessions, has never abandoned exaggerating the volume of violent crime.
- The DOJ stands in opposition to bipartisan reform of sentencing guidelines. This is evidenced by Sessions ordering all federal prosecutors across the 50 states to seek the most extreme charges possible against criminal defendants. That is regardless of any extenuating circumstances.
- By contrast, Eric Holder, the Attorney General under President Obama, had a completely different approach. Holder had directed prosecutors to stay away from filing charges which carry unnecessarily harsh mandatory minimum penalties. That is with the exception of cases where the defendant had a significant criminal history, including gang leadership and drug trafficking.
- The result of this shift in charging has been an increase in mass incarceration. Harsher charging decisions made by prosecutors in the age of Trump/Sessions have been the primary cause.
- Just look up the book by Fordham Law professor John Pfaff, titled "Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration -and How to Achieve Real Reform." It clearly demonstrates that charging decisions have been the cause.
One of the most egregious attacks in America on reforming the criminal justice system is the project of privatizing the prison system. An owner of a private jail does not care about the legality of how his residents got to his jail. Like a hotel owner, he is focused on "full occupancy." The profit motive is the primary motivation. The main loser is justice.
It is a great irony that the reduction in crime in America, which began in the Bush/Obama era, is now bold-facedly, claimed by Trump as resulting from his being "a law and order president," a leader who is "draining the Washington swamps." In reality, the age of Trump demonstrates that the persistent swamp is located in Trump's White House. Including the racist and ethnic ban of citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering America.
Walling off of Muslims from entering America, is a part of the Trumpian march towards selectively disengaging the US from world affairs. Witness Trump's persistent call for a wall on the American/Mexico border. This reflects Trump's growing reliance on the popular myth that America is under attack.
The use of American laws as divisive tools within and outside America, especially when it comes to the Muslim world, ignores some basic American facts. In the US of today there are an estimated 3.5 million Muslims from 75 different countries (1% of the US population). Reporting on these facts, the American magazine, National Geographic of May 2018 said about them: "They (the American Muslims) are forming communities, building mosques, and thriving."
To this, I should add that many of these Muslims are enrolled in police departments all over the US, as well as in the armed forces. They included the son of Kizr Khan, formerly of Pakistan, an officer, who died in Afghanistan trying to save his troops from the carnage caused by a suicide bomber.
The father of that officer who died for the U.S. remains a strong advocate in America for the Rule of Law. His famous admonition to Trump shall live on for a long time. He shamed Trump at the Democratic National Convention of 2016 as he said: "Sir!! Have you even read the U.S. Constitution?!"
Michael Hayden, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency has wondered in his forthcoming book as follows: "How do you brief a president (Trump) who isn't interested in facts?" The title of this awaited book is "The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies."
Friday, April 20, 2018
Guantanamo Bay? Human Rights Laws Have Never Lived There!!
It is the darkest stain on America's human rights record!! Opened in 2002 in a fit of rage over 9/11, a criminal act to which neither Islam nor the Muslim world is related, it is still open. Challenging every Rule of Law. Obama tried to close it; Trump declares that he shall repopulate it. This is no way to MAGA (Make America Great Again). It is a way for ISIS to justify its lunatic existence.
Why is Guantanamo a human rights hell hole? The reasons are diverse, but their centrality resides in the following:
Thus a totally non-Rule of Law structure has been built. Infecting both Congress and the Executive, as far as law and order are concerned, with the Guantanamo disease.
Not only have the Geneva Conventions (1949) been blatantly flouted. So, among others, have been the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948); the UN Convention of Civil and Political Rights (1966); the UN Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966); and the Torture Convention.
Specifically on the Torture Convention: It is most ironic for a former US Vice President (Cheney) to regard "water boarding" (subjecting a detainee to the simulation of drowning to force out confessions) as not torture. Torture, which has been the modus operandi in Guantanamo against detainees (all Muslims), is legally regarded "a universal crime." A universal crime is defined as a crime punishable by any State anywhere. Universal is universal.
A brief legal analysis of the Torture convention reveals: (1) The Torture Convention is an international treaty; (2) The US is a signatory of that Convention; (3) Under the theory of integration, developed by US chief justice John Marshall, in the case Marbury v. Madison (1832), that Convention has become the law of the land; (4) Under that Convention, torture is considered "a universal crime;" (5) Therefore, all American states are estopped from extraditing any individual, regardless of their status on American soil, to any other country where there are "substantial grounds for believing that there is a danger of torture."
It should also be stated that Guantanamo has not served to enhance US security; has resulted in the conviction of only ONE detainee (out of more than 700), namely Khaled Sheikh Muhammad; has offered the jihadists, including ISIS and Al-Qaeda, justification for their existence; has demeaned the claim by the US that it is a governance based on the Rule of Law, including supporting human rights laws.
Keeping Guantanamo open is akin to keeping alive the aura of suspicion on the part of 1.7 billion Muslims that Islamophobia has, in America, become a war on Islam. No system of international peace and security can be sustained world-wide "without the gates of that hell hole been firmly shutdown."
Even the Alien Tort Claims Act provides American federal courts with jurisdiction over any claim of a violation of the law of nations. (the Kadic Case). The time may not be far into the future to get ready for massive reparations. Accountability Matters!!
THE US SYSTEM OF JUSTICE IS NOT ON THE SIDE OF GUANTANAMO. WHY? BECAUSE HUMAN RIGHTS HAVE NEVER RESIDED THERE. THE ONLY RESIDENT THERE GOES BY THE LONG NAME OF "ANTI-MUSLIMS POLITICAL MANIPULATION."
Why is Guantanamo a human rights hell hole? The reasons are diverse, but their centrality resides in the following:
- Scooping whole populations in Afghanistan and Pakistan in a massive American dragnet? A nasty violation of the American Constitution injunction against "attainder." What is attainder?: Grabbing a person anywhere and hauling them to prison without notice, arraignment or charges.
- No habeaus corpus application. What is that? Enabling the detainee to appear in a court of law to challenge the cause of their loss of freedom. No Guantanamo detainee (their number has once exceeded 700 Muslims) was allowed that legal relief.
- Who caused the deprivation of that elementary human right, which, in English, means "you have the body of the detainee?" By legislation of the US Congress, the legislative arm of the US Government. What was the reason for such unconstitutional legislation?: The laughable claim that these Muslims are neither American citizens, nor are they on US soil!!
- Really? But then what are they, and where are they on the part of the planet Earth called Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? They, from the ludicrous view violating human rights, are not American citizens, but "economy combatants." Thus, that foolish view goes on to say: these Muslims are not entitled to Habeaus Corpus application.
- But isn't the designation of "enemy combatant" the prerogative of a congressional action? Yes, but this is total war (where there is no distinction between military and civilian). So Congressional action has been dispensed with. Furthermore, so the lawless argument goes, those Muslims are not on American soil!!
- Oh My God!! Are you claiming that habeaus corpus can only apply on American soil? But Guantanamo Bay is American soil!! How do we know that?: The American flag is fluttering over it; the US Defense Department controls it; the Cuban Government has no scintilla of control over it; and the US Supreme Court had in 2004 dealt directly with it.
- How did SCOTUS (the Supreme Court of the US) deal with it? In the famous case of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004). (Hamdi was a Guantanammo detainee; Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense), the Supreme Court required the Defense Department to provide Hamdi with the opportunity to challenge his classification as enemy combatant.
- The importance of that case lies in: (a) the Court's recognition of Guantanamo as "territory of the US.;" (b) confirmed the lawful extension of Habeaus Corpus to anyone detained in such territory; (c) four of the Justices relied on the Geneva Conventions (1949) as a source of due process; and (d) declared that the term "enemy combatant" does not exist in those Geneva Conventions.
- Here we should note that since 2003, the year of the American war of choice on Iraq, those conventions were downgraded to things of the past (depasse). And therefore not applicable to what the Justice Department and White House counsel called a new type of war: non-conventional, since the adversary (the terrorists) wore no uniforms; held no recognizable boundaries; and had no clear command and control hierarchy. As could be seen below, these are all bogus claims rebutted by international rules of laws of armed conflict.
- Rasul v. Bush (2004) held that America had sufficient sovereign control over Guantanamo. Thus justifying the extension of Habeaus Corpus to "the foreign nationals seized in Pakistan and Afghanistan, during America's invasion of Afghanistan in 2002 and transferred to Guanatanmo."
- And Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006) denied the legality of the US establishment of "military commissions." Said the Supreme Court that those commissions, established as substitutes for the regular US criminal courts to try the Guantanamo detainees, were not authorized by the US Congress.
- The link made by the Supreme Court between the US legal system and international conventions were at its broadest in yet another case. In Boumedienne v. Bush (2008), the Court recognized the challenge raised by foreign nationals to the concocted term "enemy combatant," and to their endless detention at Guantanamo. Once more the absence of Habeaus Corpus application was noted, but on broader grounds. The Court's holding in that case declared that that deprivation violated the US Constitution federal laws, the US treaty obligations under the Geneva Conventions (1949), and Customary International Laws.
Thus a totally non-Rule of Law structure has been built. Infecting both Congress and the Executive, as far as law and order are concerned, with the Guantanamo disease.
Not only have the Geneva Conventions (1949) been blatantly flouted. So, among others, have been the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948); the UN Convention of Civil and Political Rights (1966); the UN Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (1966); and the Torture Convention.
Specifically on the Torture Convention: It is most ironic for a former US Vice President (Cheney) to regard "water boarding" (subjecting a detainee to the simulation of drowning to force out confessions) as not torture. Torture, which has been the modus operandi in Guantanamo against detainees (all Muslims), is legally regarded "a universal crime." A universal crime is defined as a crime punishable by any State anywhere. Universal is universal.
A brief legal analysis of the Torture convention reveals: (1) The Torture Convention is an international treaty; (2) The US is a signatory of that Convention; (3) Under the theory of integration, developed by US chief justice John Marshall, in the case Marbury v. Madison (1832), that Convention has become the law of the land; (4) Under that Convention, torture is considered "a universal crime;" (5) Therefore, all American states are estopped from extraditing any individual, regardless of their status on American soil, to any other country where there are "substantial grounds for believing that there is a danger of torture."
It should also be stated that Guantanamo has not served to enhance US security; has resulted in the conviction of only ONE detainee (out of more than 700), namely Khaled Sheikh Muhammad; has offered the jihadists, including ISIS and Al-Qaeda, justification for their existence; has demeaned the claim by the US that it is a governance based on the Rule of Law, including supporting human rights laws.
Keeping Guantanamo open is akin to keeping alive the aura of suspicion on the part of 1.7 billion Muslims that Islamophobia has, in America, become a war on Islam. No system of international peace and security can be sustained world-wide "without the gates of that hell hole been firmly shutdown."
Even the Alien Tort Claims Act provides American federal courts with jurisdiction over any claim of a violation of the law of nations. (the Kadic Case). The time may not be far into the future to get ready for massive reparations. Accountability Matters!!
THE US SYSTEM OF JUSTICE IS NOT ON THE SIDE OF GUANTANAMO. WHY? BECAUSE HUMAN RIGHTS HAVE NEVER RESIDED THERE. THE ONLY RESIDENT THERE GOES BY THE LONG NAME OF "ANTI-MUSLIMS POLITICAL MANIPULATION."
Friday, March 30, 2018
Absolute Justice For All: The Islamic Judicial Magna Carta Of Omar, In the 7th Century AD
It was promulgated 500 years before Magna Carta was issued in 1215. Magna Carta was extracted by British nobles from King John on behalf of human rights for his subjects. Omar Ibn Al-Khattab, the second to succeed the Prophet Muhammad, as the second of four Enlightened Caliphs, had a sense of absolute justice.
With law being basically an equalizer, the motto "Justice Is the Pillar of Governance" was Omar's creed. Unsurprisingly, it appears on the wall of every Arab court behind the judge's bench. In Arabic it says: "Al-Adl Asas Al-Mulk."
With our present world in disarray, especially in these waning days of jihadism, I opted for translating Omar's judicial creed from Arabic into English.
And for a suitable location for that first-ever translation, I annexed it to my book, recently published by Amazon. The book's full title is "War on Jihadism By Ideology: The New Islamic Religious Revolution." That publication has been dedicated to Al-Azhar in Cairo, and to its Grand Imam, Dr. El-Taiyeb.
Of course, Omar's judicial creed is the very anti-thesis of the catastrophe for justice and human rights summed up in one word: "Guantanamo." For it reads as follows as instructions for a nominee for a judgeship in Kofa, Iraq:
Here follows its full text:
From the above, a global legal conclusion emerges. Equal protection of the law, otherwise referred to colloquially as "no one is above the law" is the substance of Omar's judicial decree. At that time, mid of the 7th Century AD, judging was integral to rulership.
Prior to the promulgation of Omar's judicial decree, which adorns the entrance to the Institute of High Judicial Studies in Abbasiyah (a Cairo district), the Prophet Muhammad had planted the seed of that concept.
In appointing Moaz Ibn Jabal judge for Yemen, to succeed the Prophet's cousin and protege, Ali Ibn Abi-Taleb, he urged the pursuit of a novel concept for finding the law. In summary, he urged that if the judge cannot discover the rule of law applicable to any case, in either the Quran or the Sunna, he should extrapolate it through common sense -in Arabic "Al-Hekmah." Thus the Prophet made Al-Hekmah the modus operandi of Al-Ijtihad, which in effect is the brain of Sharia (Islamic Law).
From the 7th Century (Omar's decree in Arabia) to the 13th Century (Magna Carta in England), to the 19th Century, when the U.S. Constitution embraces the same concept, the thread holding that legal necklace is one and the same. For the 14th Amendment, ratified on July 9, 1868 provides for "any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
So, never accept the ancient Roman saying: "In times of war, the law falls silent." It never does!!
Ibn Al-Khattab put his declared faith in "equality before the law" in practice. Not only was he one of only 17 men in his tribe (Quraish) who could write when Islam began, thus able to enhance the enforcement of his sense of justice. Omar was also a dedicated protector of minority rights.
He chided and punished his appointed governor to Egypt in 641 AD for injustice to an Egyptian Christian subject (a Copt). Omar's words, on that occasion, shall always stand as testimony to "justice is the pillar of governance." For he told the errant Governor: "Why do you enslave people who were born free by the very fact of their birth!!"
NOTE: This blog posting is now monthly, appearing at the end of each month. This pattern shall continue while I am writing my autobiography.
With law being basically an equalizer, the motto "Justice Is the Pillar of Governance" was Omar's creed. Unsurprisingly, it appears on the wall of every Arab court behind the judge's bench. In Arabic it says: "Al-Adl Asas Al-Mulk."
With our present world in disarray, especially in these waning days of jihadism, I opted for translating Omar's judicial creed from Arabic into English.
And for a suitable location for that first-ever translation, I annexed it to my book, recently published by Amazon. The book's full title is "War on Jihadism By Ideology: The New Islamic Religious Revolution." That publication has been dedicated to Al-Azhar in Cairo, and to its Grand Imam, Dr. El-Taiyeb.
Of course, Omar's judicial creed is the very anti-thesis of the catastrophe for justice and human rights summed up in one word: "Guantanamo." For it reads as follows as instructions for a nominee for a judgeship in Kofa, Iraq:
Here follows its full text:
- "From Omar To Abu-Musa Al-Ashaari: Peace Be Upon You!!
- Know that judging is a firm religious duty, and a tradition observed. Be sure to understand the pleadings delivered before you. And when you reach a decision based on evidence, implement it. For there is no use in speaking about what is right if it lacks execution.
- Maintain a neutral face while on the bench, performing the role of a judge. This ensures that the powerful shall not aspire to your siding unjustly with them. Nor shall the powerless despair of your rendering justice unto them.
- The burden of proof is upon the plaintiff. And those impeaching that evidence should take a solemn oath that their denial has merit.
- Conciliation is permissible between litigants (referred to in general as Muslims). That is unless it is on a basis disapproved by Islamic jurisprudence, or denying what is permitted under that jurisprudence.
- Do not hesitate to review and amend a judgment which you might have reached the day before, only to discover, through your sense of fairness, that it was in error. That is because what is right does not age by the passage of time, as nothing could invalidate an obvious right.
- Returning to the zone of what is rightfully just supersedes any continuation down the path of what is unjust. And if someone claims a right that has not been uncovered before a proof was available, give them a time limit to provide such evidence. If they succeed, rule in favor of restituting to them those rights. But if they fail, they lose their cause. Thus no pretexts can stand, and no blindness to what is evident can prevail.
- Comprehension, comprehension of the pleadings in your court. Especially whatever is in those pleadings which is not based on text either in the Quran or in the Prophet’s tradition. In these situations, resort to prior cases decided by unanimity (ijmaa) or by analogy (quias). Educate yourself about those precedents, then make the judgments which seem to you to be supported by the Quran, as close as possible to the word of God, and nearest to the concept of fairness.
- People (the faithful) have a sense of what is right within their society. With the exception of those whose testimony had been previously impeached as false, or those previously convicted, or those whose sense of loyalty or family lineage is subject to doubt.
- Only God knows what people harbor in their bosoms, and He is the One who shields them from punitive measures. That is with the exception of situations where there is probative evidence and proven faith.
- You are hereby instructed to avoid becoming angry or anxious or bored, or upset by adversaries, or by turning your back upon issues of conflict. That is because good judging on issues of right and wrong is what God dictates to you, and is what you shall be remembered by.
- This is applicable to judges who are endowed with good will and who might rule even against themselves. It is the way prescribed by God for any relationship between a judge and his community.
- But those who resort to mere appearances which they know to be non-reflective of their true feelings, shall not be favored by God. Only honesty can be favored by God, and that is where God shall favor those who adhere to it, rewarding them in their livelihoods and through his limitless mercy.
Prior to the promulgation of Omar's judicial decree, which adorns the entrance to the Institute of High Judicial Studies in Abbasiyah (a Cairo district), the Prophet Muhammad had planted the seed of that concept.
In appointing Moaz Ibn Jabal judge for Yemen, to succeed the Prophet's cousin and protege, Ali Ibn Abi-Taleb, he urged the pursuit of a novel concept for finding the law. In summary, he urged that if the judge cannot discover the rule of law applicable to any case, in either the Quran or the Sunna, he should extrapolate it through common sense -in Arabic "Al-Hekmah." Thus the Prophet made Al-Hekmah the modus operandi of Al-Ijtihad, which in effect is the brain of Sharia (Islamic Law).
From the 7th Century (Omar's decree in Arabia) to the 13th Century (Magna Carta in England), to the 19th Century, when the U.S. Constitution embraces the same concept, the thread holding that legal necklace is one and the same. For the 14th Amendment, ratified on July 9, 1868 provides for "any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
So, never accept the ancient Roman saying: "In times of war, the law falls silent." It never does!!
Ibn Al-Khattab put his declared faith in "equality before the law" in practice. Not only was he one of only 17 men in his tribe (Quraish) who could write when Islam began, thus able to enhance the enforcement of his sense of justice. Omar was also a dedicated protector of minority rights.
He chided and punished his appointed governor to Egypt in 641 AD for injustice to an Egyptian Christian subject (a Copt). Omar's words, on that occasion, shall always stand as testimony to "justice is the pillar of governance." For he told the errant Governor: "Why do you enslave people who were born free by the very fact of their birth!!"
NOTE: This blog posting is now monthly, appearing at the end of each month. This pattern shall continue while I am writing my autobiography.
Friday, March 2, 2018
Getting to Know the State of Kuwait
While I was Secretary of the Board of UNITAR (The UN Institute for Training and Research), I was tasked with supervising a special study. It was (in short) "issues of Small States." Its drafter was an Eritrean scholar, friend of mine, by the name of Dr. Berhan Andemicael. Later, Berhan headed the NY Liaison Office of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as I moved from UNITAR to establish the first Peace Research Center within the then UN Department for Secretary Council Affairs.
This is the context of this monthly blog, entitled "Getting to Know the State of Kuwait." Reason: Kuwait is described by the Kuwaitis as a "Small State." I beg to differ. States, in my own definition, are neither big, mid-size, nor small. Each State from Monaco to Russia draws their description from two sources: The character of their people, and the contribution they make towards internal welfare, and external management of their foreign affairs.
With these parameters in mind, I have observed Kuwait through its presidency of the UN Security Council in February, as well as through its celebration of its Liberation Day on February 26, 2018. Not only did I observe both the Foreign Minister, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, as well as the Kuwait Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Mansour Alotaibi; my gaze roamed beyond, as a search light, shining a spot on the totality of that environment of a State, whose origins date back to the mid 17th Century.
As I peered through the fog of the endless practice of UN compromises, a requisite for Security Council complex drafting and passing of resolutions, I detected Kuwaiti calm and well modulated voice from the presidential chair. No screams, no shouts, no pointing of blaming fingers on issues, such as Syria, Yemen, Libya, Central African Republic, Palestine and ISIS.
The outward motion hummed on noiselessly. Its combustion engine was not that of a tractor, but of a Mercedes Benz. The goal was to move things forward, even through the boulders of big power rivalries seeking to score points, not necessarily moving towards the two principal objectives of the UN: peace and prosperity.
Not since the 1990s when UN Secretary-General Boutros Ghali issued his twin agendas, one for peace, the other for development, have I, as professor of international law and organizations, seen the likes of the Kuwait concept memorandum on energizing the peace and prosperity pillars on which the UN Charter of 1945 had been established. Seeing in it the spirit of a "small" but resilient State, I have assigned it a course of study for my spring intern from St. Francis College, New York City, Julia Cruet. Her successors (I only take one notable undergraduate each semester from St. Francis College -a class of one student!!), shall benefit by that historic concept paper introduced by Kuwait into the UN annals.
Beyond the UN realm, I came to discern in the public events organized by the Permanent Mission of the State of Kuwait to the UN, what I can only describe as "the of sinews resilience" of Kuwaiti Society. From that I learnt why the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait of 1990 had failed. That power grab by Saddam Hussein had collapsed, not only because of the collective military intervention by the UN. The roots of that failure, as I came to recently discover, grew deeper in the sands of Kuwait through a population that said: Saddam "you can burn our oil fields. But you shall not extinguish our 350 years of Kuwait ID!!"
How did I reach that conclusion? Not through fantasy of a person like myself who was born in the desert of an Egyptian province called Sharqiah, west of the two Suez Canals. But through:
So please note: Kuwait is not only a State; it is "a state of mind!!"
This is the context of this monthly blog, entitled "Getting to Know the State of Kuwait." Reason: Kuwait is described by the Kuwaitis as a "Small State." I beg to differ. States, in my own definition, are neither big, mid-size, nor small. Each State from Monaco to Russia draws their description from two sources: The character of their people, and the contribution they make towards internal welfare, and external management of their foreign affairs.
With these parameters in mind, I have observed Kuwait through its presidency of the UN Security Council in February, as well as through its celebration of its Liberation Day on February 26, 2018. Not only did I observe both the Foreign Minister, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, as well as the Kuwait Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Mansour Alotaibi; my gaze roamed beyond, as a search light, shining a spot on the totality of that environment of a State, whose origins date back to the mid 17th Century.
As I peered through the fog of the endless practice of UN compromises, a requisite for Security Council complex drafting and passing of resolutions, I detected Kuwaiti calm and well modulated voice from the presidential chair. No screams, no shouts, no pointing of blaming fingers on issues, such as Syria, Yemen, Libya, Central African Republic, Palestine and ISIS.
The outward motion hummed on noiselessly. Its combustion engine was not that of a tractor, but of a Mercedes Benz. The goal was to move things forward, even through the boulders of big power rivalries seeking to score points, not necessarily moving towards the two principal objectives of the UN: peace and prosperity.
Not since the 1990s when UN Secretary-General Boutros Ghali issued his twin agendas, one for peace, the other for development, have I, as professor of international law and organizations, seen the likes of the Kuwait concept memorandum on energizing the peace and prosperity pillars on which the UN Charter of 1945 had been established. Seeing in it the spirit of a "small" but resilient State, I have assigned it a course of study for my spring intern from St. Francis College, New York City, Julia Cruet. Her successors (I only take one notable undergraduate each semester from St. Francis College -a class of one student!!), shall benefit by that historic concept paper introduced by Kuwait into the UN annals.
Beyond the UN realm, I came to discern in the public events organized by the Permanent Mission of the State of Kuwait to the UN, what I can only describe as "the of sinews resilience" of Kuwaiti Society. From that I learnt why the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait of 1990 had failed. That power grab by Saddam Hussein had collapsed, not only because of the collective military intervention by the UN. The roots of that failure, as I came to recently discover, grew deeper in the sands of Kuwait through a population that said: Saddam "you can burn our oil fields. But you shall not extinguish our 350 years of Kuwait ID!!"
How did I reach that conclusion? Not through fantasy of a person like myself who was born in the desert of an Egyptian province called Sharqiah, west of the two Suez Canals. But through:
- Their orchestra playing in the UN General Assembly Hall;
- Their songs evoking the transition from the "hard times," to "the blessed times of plenty;"
- Their diverse skin color which reminds me of the American and the Egyptian models;
- The engagement by Ambassador Alotaibi and his Deputy, Mr. Bader AlMunayekh of little Kuwaiti girls dancing to their native music;
- The teamwork of their diplomats who seem never to forget why they are in New York serving Kuwait and the world;
- The outward openness and affability of their ladies whether diplomats, spouses, advisers or local recruits;
- Their generosity writ large not only at the Mission; but also worldwide through the "Kuwait Development Fund." They have even contributed significantly in 2018 towards the rebuilding of Iraq;
- Their national dress, especially the head gear, black AQAL (thick cord) holding in place a snow white Kaffieyeh covering a man's head, and needing constant adjustment with a flourish;
- Their security guards who never fail to greet every permitted visitor with the equivalent of the song in Oklahoma: "Oh What a Beautiful Day!!"
So please note: Kuwait is not only a State; it is "a state of mind!!"
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