That would be a miracle!! This coalition which is being cobbled together by the U.S. for that worthy cause is "a collection" of States. As is customary during church services, a basket is passed around to collect from the faithful financial donations for the poor. Some of the congregants drop money in the basket; others pass it down the pew while kneeling at worship.
Let us see what the Obama administration has garnered in its basket for the purpose of "degrading and defeating" ISIS -which British Prime Minister Cameron has aptly called "pure evil." From Saudi Arabia, we got funding and training of carefully selected Syrian opposition elements. Please underline the words "carefully selected," because nobody knows for certain the good guys from the bad guys. ISIS itself, though born in Iraq (2003-2010) matured in the Syrian civil war as of 2011.
OK!! Back to the Obama/Kerry/Hagel/basket of collected donations to defeat ISIS. Oh yes, here is the Jordanian donation: intelligence!! Good!! No troops? No!! Now here is the United Arab Emirates -ready for bombing ISIS from the air!! Hmm!! But who will coordinate these aerial missions? And don't we already have the U.S. doing this in Iraq, and now extending these assaults to Syria?
How about the Turkish donation? None!! Turkey has a long porous border with Syria, and has just been worried sick by ISIS holding captive around 50 Turkish consular officials trapped in Mosul. Remember that Mosul was an integral part of the Ottan Empire until its defeat in World War I. This resulted in Mosul's detachment from the Turks, making it a part of a new Iraq. The Emperial British plan for the re-conquered Middle East included ruling the newly minted Iraq, not from Baghdad, but from New Delhi, India.
Turkey is now jubilant, as it should be, for its success in getting its citizens released from the murderous ISIS grip. How? They negotiated, and ISIS released. From ISIS perspective, these were Muslims whose country refused to join the coalition, except for a promise (seemingly illusory) to tighten border controls over ISIS sympathizers crossing from Turkey into Syria, and thence, into Iraq. But wait a minute!! Negotiating with terrorists? Yep!!
The rules for freeing hostages are non-written; and this was the largest consular detainee contingent since 1979 when the Iranians held 59 U.S. consular officials for 444 days. The U.S., under Carter, tried force but failed (remember the special forces helicopters rescue operation which was obliterated by a desert storm). Reagan came along, bargained through Colonel North an Iran-Contra arms deal, and the U.S. hostages were flown home.
Where the U.N. Convention on "Protected Persons" (meaning those covered by diplomatic or consular immunities) of the 1960's failed, dealing through quid pro quo with the devil succeeded. There is a need for new international rules to regulate the unregulated: the age of the non-State actor!! Don't you wish that poor Jim Foley, Sotloff (of the U.S.) or Haines (of the U.K.) had been given, through some flexibility, the chance to survive the butcher's knife?! As they met that horrible end of life, they took also with them what they might have been useful as intelligence about ISIS.
Back to the collection basket!! How about Egypt's contribution to the coalition? Notice that all the nonsense about Egypt under El-Sisi becoming a military dictatorship -a fabrication by U.S. decision-makers, pundits, and neo-conservatives -has suddenly vanished. Of course Cairo is still smarting from such interventionary attacks, including the withholding of $250 million in aid mandated by the Egypt/Israel Peace Treaty of 1979. There are now some friendly U.S. noises about releasing those blocked funds as well as sanctioned military hardware.
Yet even with these palliative inducements, Egypt is emerging as a non-beast of burden, Mubarak era styles, for automatic support of continuously fluctuating American policies. Some of the U.S. friendly approaches to the now banned Muslim Brotherhood have left a bad taste in Egypt's mouth. Through the rise of ISIS, they have also been proven to be foolish. You don't force on historically-secular Egypt a stupid Brotherhoodization agenda for the sake of conforming to American expectations of an Egyptian opposition at all costs.
Aside from these considerations about Egypt and the anti-ISIS coalition, Cairo has its own absorbing campaign inside Sinai. It is a relentless struggle against other terror franchises, like "The Friends of Jerusalem" (Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis). Thus Egypt is a front in the anti-ISIS campaign, a front covering the sands at Sinai, not the sands of Anbar, Iraq.
However, Egypt has in its arsenal against terrorism what others cannot match. It is a veritable arsenal that goes by the name of "Al-Azhar," the citadel of proper Islamic learning, both Sunni and Shii, since 975 AD.
Al-Azhar is a unique combination of mosque, university, market-place of ideas, pan-Islamic, and the first "Tahrir Square" in Egypt, rallying national forces against Napoleon in Egypt (1798-1803), and the British (1882-1954). Al-Azhar even survived the amateurish attempts during the Islamic reign of the Muslim Brotherhood (2012-2013) to co-opt it.
But under the secular Constitution of 2014, the remarkable achievement of the Revolution of June 30, 2013, Al-Azhar's independence was restored; the election of its Rector (the Grand Imam) reverted, not the State, but to its Council of Scholars; its amity with the Coptic church was assured.
Above all, Al-Azhar's Document of August 2011 put truly Islamic fingers in the eyes of jihadi Islam as it declared that "no recognition could be accorded to any State which is solely based on religion." The Muslims are a community (UMMAH), not a State (Dawlah). Sharia is supplemented by legislation. With this type of booming and authentic voice from Egypt, makes the country akin to a Coalition's Department for Public Information." The delegitimation of ISIS is the only credible contribution against that crazy caliphah Al-Baghdadi -a mere street thug from Al-Anbar, Iraq.
Other contributors to the coalition (the number stands now at 40 States) have their roles: Bombing by France; training by the British and Australians; Qatar by arms and funding anti-Assad forces ... etc.
International organizations, like the U.N., have become more factories of statements of denunciation or support -soap bubbles in the wind!!
In that mix, everyone is wondering about the real weapon that has a chance of an immediate effect on containing ISIS: the foot soldier. None from the U.S., except for non-combat advisers whose task is "tactical." President Obama, reflecting national aversion to wars, has ruled it out. In fact, American history has ruled this out too. Since World War II, the mighty U.S. was involved in 5 wars: Korea; Vietnam; Iraq I (1991); Afghanistan; and Iraq II under Bush Junior.
With the exception of Korea, all the other wars were lost. Why? This is the age of asymmetric war, where the individual with an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) is an awesome combatant with neither a uniform, nor a copy of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 on the protection of civilians at times of war.
The coalition strategy calls for the training and equipping of Iraqi shii troops, Iraqi sunni tribes, kurdish troops, and trustworthy anti-Assad forces inside Syria. The U.S. Congress has, at long last, approved US arming and training "safe" anti-Assad fighters. Even Iran, an Assad supporter, is now tolerated by the U.S. to jump in the fray through Iraq, to combat ISIS. Indeed, wars makes for strange bedfellows!! The enemy of my enemy is a kind of friend.
The one billion riyal question is: Can This Coalition Win This Just War Against ISIS? We should all wonder. General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff described this phase as "extraordinarily complex." And when it comes to clearing out Iraqi and Syrian cities in the Iraqi north and west, and in the Syrian east, Pentagon officials say: "There is no one in this building who does not know that clearing out the cities will be much harder."
On the eve of the Normandy invasion against Hitler in June 1944, Churchill is quoted as having wondered: "But will the troops fight?" The same question should be asked of the Iraqi amalgam of foot soldiers, but in a different way: "Will the Shii troops turn their guns against the Sunni contingents, and vice-verse, after their U.S. training?" And: "Will the fractious Free Syrian Army, with its various ideological shades, go into combat against BOTH Assad and ISIS with the same goal in sight?" And "Where will Russia and Iran and Hezbollah be if the noose is tightened against Assad, their Damascus Killer-in-Chief, causing another regime change in the Arab world?"
U.S. media have pointed out that "the more the President and his aides have talked, the more confusion they have sown." The Pentagon has not yet given this U.S. mission a formal name.
Said a commentator whom I respect in his column in the New York Times, a few days ago: "For now, we seem to be settling out on an uncertain mission with unclear objectives on an unknown timetable using ambiguous methods with unreliable allies."
The icing was on the cake as Assad expressed his desire to join the anti-ISIS coalition. An Arab adage sums it all up: "Everyone is singing his own love song for his beloved Lailah!!
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Friday, September 12, 2014
Hey, ISIS!! You Are Neither Islamic Nor a Caliphate!! But You Are a State -Only For the Insane!!
Now here is something which we attorneys live by: "Show me the evidence." The second Caliph, Omar, in his instructions to the judges in the middle of the seventh century, laid it down. He said: "The burden of proof is on the plaintiff." In this posting, I consider myself a "plaintiff." So here is my proof.
You, ISIS, call yourselves "Islamic." But Islamic Law (Sharia), which I teach, denies you that status. None of your "jihadi" forays accords with Sharia. The list of my evidentiary items is long. But I shall abridge it to avoid cumulative evidence:
(1) You declared that your raison d'etre is for the propagation of Islam.
You, ISIS, call yourselves "Islamic." But Islamic Law (Sharia), which I teach, denies you that status. None of your "jihadi" forays accords with Sharia. The list of my evidentiary items is long. But I shall abridge it to avoid cumulative evidence:
(1) You declared that your raison d'etre is for the propagation of Islam.
- But Islamic Law does not extend jihad to the propagation of Islam.
- But in Islamic Law there is no proselytization. Islam, through the principle of Tawheed (God is one), has equated between all faiths. It left the final reckoning not to you, but to the Creator. There is no middle man who decides who is faithful to God and who is not. The Quran state: "If anyone invokes, beside Allah (God), any other god...his reckoning will be only with his Lord." (Chapter 23 "The Believers;" verse 117).
- But Islam abhors any use of force except for self-defense. Same with international law. The Quran states: "Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful breaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious." (Chapter 16; verse 125). Your most gracious way is head-cutting!!
- But prior to Muhammad's flight from Mecca to Medina, Muhammad and his Companions confronted their tormentors with the jihad of wisdom, the friendly advice, patience, endurance and immigration.
- The first Muslim immigration was to a Christian country, Ethiopia which welcomed them with open arms. It was later followed by the immigration (hijrah) of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina. This is where the true Islamic State was founded.
- In Islam, jihad is an internal striving for self-improvement. It becomes external only for self-defense. Islam regards the defensive war as the only just war. Muslims do not aggress; they only defend against external aggression.
- But this is neither jihad, which is a legal concept, specifically circumscribed, and judicially sanctioned. Nor is it Qital (combat) which is limited in scope as it arises from the exigencies of the State -the sovereign right to exist. This leaves you only with a threatening black flag which declares: "God, and Muhammad, his Prophet." You abide by neither.
- But the Quran establishes an inclusive community of believers across the entire spectrum of humankind. It speaks of "the people of the Book." It glorifies Jesus as "the word of God," born through immaculate conception. The Quran, which your practices have shredded, describes Moses as "God's Interlocutor" (Kaleemullah). It treats all others as equal through the call "Allahu Akbar" -meaning we are all equal before God.
(8) You have enslaved women through captivity, lust, and dehumanization through an austere forms of dress and conduct.
- Contrary to sterotypes, Islam, through the Quran and the Sunna, has equated between male and female. The Quran's verses in that regard are misread as to mean inequality in terms of inheritance, giving witness, and the like. These have been amended or supplemented by legislated law (man-made; not God-made). Thus today we have female judges even in Aden (Yemen), women pilots in Egypt, Presidents of States, and paratroopers in Jordan.
- Islam establishes the principle of cooperation for good work. (the Quranic verse is "cooperate in doing what is good." Islam abhors deceptive propaganda, epitomized by your savage videos, which advocates chaos (Fitna). Chaos is a formless void of confusion. In its allocation of degrees of danger to society, the Quran regards "Chaos" (fitna) as more destructive of society's fabric than murder. Reason: murder affects one; fitna affects all.
- Yet all the members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) -all 57 Member States are parties to a world-wide contract, called the U.N. Charter. The Charter is a treaty. The treaty is a contact. "O ye who believe! Fulfil all obligations" (The Quran; Chapter 5, verse I). Emphasis on "friendly relations" between States, which you are bent on disturbing, is of such importance, that it is a part of written in the preamble of the U.N. Charter.
- The Quran abhors saying by the mouth what one does not do, either by deed or at least by intention. Thus it says: "Why do you say what you do not do?!!"
- You lack the knowledge of Tafseer (interpretation of the intended words or speech). You lack the qualification for issuing Fatwas (a non-enforceable religions advice anchored in deep knowledge of Islam). You lack the support of Ijmaa (unanimity among Muslim scholars at a given time -a form of ijtihad). This is the application of the mind to the written verse.
- You lack basic knowledge of Islamic history. Muslim ministries of defense in various countries from Istanbul to Cairo to Khartoum were called "The Jihadiya Ministry." That was a proper usage of the term "jihad" -self-defense, proceeded by self-policing.
- In this context, you ISIS, are nowhere to be found, except as marauders, head-cutters, ransom-extortionists, natural resources snatchers, Islamophobia generators!!
- I am not finished yet, ISIS. This is only Part I. Part II shall be in a future blog. -IS (Insane State): Stay tuned. But keep your black masks on -another method of separating you from the rest of the human race!!
Friday, September 5, 2014
In Civil Wars, Seeking a UN Solution Is Like Seeking Dental Help From a Toothless Dentist
The U.N. General Assembly starts its 69th session in New York City later this month. Let us peek under the blue canopy to separate the wheat from the shaff. Mostly shaff.
The die was cast in San Francisco in June 1945. The course, character, function, role and mission of the U.N. were all irrevocably decided forever. The U.N. Charter gave birth to a World War II organization which was basically a clone of the League of Nations, except in few cosmetics. An inter-State system which falsely described its existence in a contradictory fashion for public consumption -a feel good heading!! The Charter begins with the words "We the people," but the "Nations" were only united in one respect: to prevent any surrender of substantive sovereignty.
The U.N. bestowed equality of sovereignty on its now 193 States. Great!! But in effect it saddled itself by two systems: equality in the General Assembly (the Parliament of Man/Woman); and a Security Council where the five "great powers" were respectively armed by an extinguisher of that equality -a veto power. In effect, we have under the charter a house of commons (the General Assembly) and a house of 5 lords (the powers possessing a veto), plus 10 non-permanent States as extras. This is the first split personality in the U.N.
If I say the "first split," I must produce "a second" without inventing it. The second split is Article 2, para. 7 which, in part, states: "Nothing contained in the present charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within domestic jurisdiction of any State..." So the State, at the U.N., is not only "sovereign;" it is also omnipotent because it can put a "domestic jurisdiction" label on any matter it could assert and defend as an internal matter.
In consequence, the hallowed "right of peoples to self-determination" is established only with regard to the inhabitants of an established State. It does not exist in regard to groups seeking to secede from States, or to the right to reunification in divided States. It is even more remote as to the exercise of minorities of their right to preserve their own separate identities, except what the State would authorize. As a matter of fact, there is no consensus on defining the word "people."
This uncertainty seeps also under the foundation of "the right of peoples to self-determination." Why?! Because it conflicts with the better established principle of sovereignty. This in part explains why States value their U.N. membership: it freezes the lines of their national boundaries at the time of joining the U.N. club.
But wait a minute!! The U.N. Security Council, in spite of the existence of the veto, has been able to play some role in deterring aggression. Yes, but only when the U.S., the U.K., France, China and Russia are together in accord, or when one or more of them decide to abstain or be absent.
This explains why Al-Assad has so far survived the hurricane of the Syrian civil war (the Russian veto either cast or threatened), and why Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu could flout international law as he grabs more Palestinian land (the U.S. veto is the real iron dome for the State of Israel). Building settlement on occupied lands is anathema to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and is totally not covered by the right of Israel to defend itself.
Of course, the Security Council can impose sanctions, either military or economic. But what the popular eye misses in this comforting scenario is that the Council does not possess what the charter had anticipated. It says, in Article 42 that the Council may use "armed force" by "air, sea or land forces." However, due to the cold war which followed on the heels of the victories of World War II, it is the State that can produce and can volunteer such armed forces. The Council has none of its own. In fact, the term "peace keeping" does not exist in the U.N. Charter. The term is the product of a transitory chance: The Suez War of 1956 which brought the U.S. and U.S.S.R together on the same page during the Eisenhower and the Khrushchev administration -a rare moment of common purpose.
In consequence, these national military contingents, which may be volunteered only by the will of the State, and also withdrawn by the will of the same State, have no ascertainable command and control at the U.N. Headquarters. The U.N. Secretary General is not a commander-in-chief; he or she is only the bursar who funds these operations as per decisions of the Security Council and the General Assembly.
When we teach the laws of the U.N. Charter, we, as professors of law, tend to make a great deal of the presumed importance of the difference in powers between the Secretary-General of the League of Nations, and his successor at the U.N.
We point to Article 99 of the Charter which enables Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, for example, to "bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security." The League's Secretary-General did not enjoy that capacity. He was primarily a mere clerk. But what can Mr. Ban do with this power in a Security Council whose decisions have to traverse the obstacle course of the non-exercise of the veto? At most, a resolution which reflects the diminished will of a toothless U.N.
In practice, the power granted to the Secretary-General under Article 99 has largely manifested itself in two procedures: formation of "Friends of the Secretary-General" from 4 to 5 Security Council Members. The other are statements by the Secretary-General of either support or condemnation of a global event -mere soap bubbles in the wind!! Ceremonizing!!
Some would say: But the General Assembly could also adopt resolutions on war and peace!! True. But those resolutions are only a wish list, mere recommendations, implementable only by the will of the sovereign leviathan called, the Member State.
So far, I have painted a bleak picture. I am right and wrong at the same time. I am right when I state that the U.N., as an inter-state system, is unsuitable for effective action in civil wars. Civil wars are domestic jurisdiction catastrophes, such as in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, the Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Somalia. . In such situations, any U.N. resolution is only carried out by the State.
Now let us look at where I am wrong in not delving in the exceptions. The most important exceptions are: When human rights are so vastly violated to the point of shocking the conscience of mankind. This is when States may intervene under the newly-minted doctrine of "international human intervention."
Also when the Security Council and/or the Assembly might call on regional organizations, such as the European Union or the African Union or the League of Arab States to act on behalf of the U.N. under Chapter 8. Also when the U.N. call goes out to capable individual members hidden within the vague term of "the international community" to come to the rescue. Also when a U.N. resolution emboldens domestic opposition to rise up and throw off the yoke of the local dictator. Also when a group of States get together, in their exercise of converging self-interest, to take collective action. In all these situations, you see in the U.N. only a flag, but no direct executive action.
We also have on the bright side of the U.N. value, the vast developmental and humanitarian assistance carried out by what is called "the Family of the U.N. Organization" -30 specialized agencies (e.g. World health, civil aviation, refugees, food).
This is not to mention the 2000 non-governmental organizations which truly represent "We the People" in the U.N. Charter. But their input, even when invited, is hardly translated into direct U.N. action. In any case, such NGO input is safely channeled, not through the Security Council, but through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). ECOSOC is hardly mentioned in media headlines. This is although it carries out the greatest bulk of global action relative to enhancing the quality of life for billions of human beings in the so-called "developing countries."
In spite of all of these bright spots in the global performance of the U.N., I am looking through the window of civil wars and ISIS animal kingdoms!! What I could see are pillars of dark smoke, with the fire department, called the U.N., with no engines to rush to these fires.
Could we repair these engines? How?! The Charter cannot be amended -except, except, except, by a new beginning to be called: "The World Under United Peoples!!" Sweet dreams!! Wake up, Pal!! You are now in the world of the non-State actor. Also known as "The Twilight Zone!!"
The die was cast in San Francisco in June 1945. The course, character, function, role and mission of the U.N. were all irrevocably decided forever. The U.N. Charter gave birth to a World War II organization which was basically a clone of the League of Nations, except in few cosmetics. An inter-State system which falsely described its existence in a contradictory fashion for public consumption -a feel good heading!! The Charter begins with the words "We the people," but the "Nations" were only united in one respect: to prevent any surrender of substantive sovereignty.
The U.N. bestowed equality of sovereignty on its now 193 States. Great!! But in effect it saddled itself by two systems: equality in the General Assembly (the Parliament of Man/Woman); and a Security Council where the five "great powers" were respectively armed by an extinguisher of that equality -a veto power. In effect, we have under the charter a house of commons (the General Assembly) and a house of 5 lords (the powers possessing a veto), plus 10 non-permanent States as extras. This is the first split personality in the U.N.
If I say the "first split," I must produce "a second" without inventing it. The second split is Article 2, para. 7 which, in part, states: "Nothing contained in the present charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within domestic jurisdiction of any State..." So the State, at the U.N., is not only "sovereign;" it is also omnipotent because it can put a "domestic jurisdiction" label on any matter it could assert and defend as an internal matter.
In consequence, the hallowed "right of peoples to self-determination" is established only with regard to the inhabitants of an established State. It does not exist in regard to groups seeking to secede from States, or to the right to reunification in divided States. It is even more remote as to the exercise of minorities of their right to preserve their own separate identities, except what the State would authorize. As a matter of fact, there is no consensus on defining the word "people."
This uncertainty seeps also under the foundation of "the right of peoples to self-determination." Why?! Because it conflicts with the better established principle of sovereignty. This in part explains why States value their U.N. membership: it freezes the lines of their national boundaries at the time of joining the U.N. club.
But wait a minute!! The U.N. Security Council, in spite of the existence of the veto, has been able to play some role in deterring aggression. Yes, but only when the U.S., the U.K., France, China and Russia are together in accord, or when one or more of them decide to abstain or be absent.
This explains why Al-Assad has so far survived the hurricane of the Syrian civil war (the Russian veto either cast or threatened), and why Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu could flout international law as he grabs more Palestinian land (the U.S. veto is the real iron dome for the State of Israel). Building settlement on occupied lands is anathema to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and is totally not covered by the right of Israel to defend itself.
Of course, the Security Council can impose sanctions, either military or economic. But what the popular eye misses in this comforting scenario is that the Council does not possess what the charter had anticipated. It says, in Article 42 that the Council may use "armed force" by "air, sea or land forces." However, due to the cold war which followed on the heels of the victories of World War II, it is the State that can produce and can volunteer such armed forces. The Council has none of its own. In fact, the term "peace keeping" does not exist in the U.N. Charter. The term is the product of a transitory chance: The Suez War of 1956 which brought the U.S. and U.S.S.R together on the same page during the Eisenhower and the Khrushchev administration -a rare moment of common purpose.
In consequence, these national military contingents, which may be volunteered only by the will of the State, and also withdrawn by the will of the same State, have no ascertainable command and control at the U.N. Headquarters. The U.N. Secretary General is not a commander-in-chief; he or she is only the bursar who funds these operations as per decisions of the Security Council and the General Assembly.
When we teach the laws of the U.N. Charter, we, as professors of law, tend to make a great deal of the presumed importance of the difference in powers between the Secretary-General of the League of Nations, and his successor at the U.N.
We point to Article 99 of the Charter which enables Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, for example, to "bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security." The League's Secretary-General did not enjoy that capacity. He was primarily a mere clerk. But what can Mr. Ban do with this power in a Security Council whose decisions have to traverse the obstacle course of the non-exercise of the veto? At most, a resolution which reflects the diminished will of a toothless U.N.
In practice, the power granted to the Secretary-General under Article 99 has largely manifested itself in two procedures: formation of "Friends of the Secretary-General" from 4 to 5 Security Council Members. The other are statements by the Secretary-General of either support or condemnation of a global event -mere soap bubbles in the wind!! Ceremonizing!!
Some would say: But the General Assembly could also adopt resolutions on war and peace!! True. But those resolutions are only a wish list, mere recommendations, implementable only by the will of the sovereign leviathan called, the Member State.
So far, I have painted a bleak picture. I am right and wrong at the same time. I am right when I state that the U.N., as an inter-state system, is unsuitable for effective action in civil wars. Civil wars are domestic jurisdiction catastrophes, such as in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, the Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Somalia. . In such situations, any U.N. resolution is only carried out by the State.
Now let us look at where I am wrong in not delving in the exceptions. The most important exceptions are: When human rights are so vastly violated to the point of shocking the conscience of mankind. This is when States may intervene under the newly-minted doctrine of "international human intervention."
Also when the Security Council and/or the Assembly might call on regional organizations, such as the European Union or the African Union or the League of Arab States to act on behalf of the U.N. under Chapter 8. Also when the U.N. call goes out to capable individual members hidden within the vague term of "the international community" to come to the rescue. Also when a U.N. resolution emboldens domestic opposition to rise up and throw off the yoke of the local dictator. Also when a group of States get together, in their exercise of converging self-interest, to take collective action. In all these situations, you see in the U.N. only a flag, but no direct executive action.
We also have on the bright side of the U.N. value, the vast developmental and humanitarian assistance carried out by what is called "the Family of the U.N. Organization" -30 specialized agencies (e.g. World health, civil aviation, refugees, food).
This is not to mention the 2000 non-governmental organizations which truly represent "We the People" in the U.N. Charter. But their input, even when invited, is hardly translated into direct U.N. action. In any case, such NGO input is safely channeled, not through the Security Council, but through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). ECOSOC is hardly mentioned in media headlines. This is although it carries out the greatest bulk of global action relative to enhancing the quality of life for billions of human beings in the so-called "developing countries."
In spite of all of these bright spots in the global performance of the U.N., I am looking through the window of civil wars and ISIS animal kingdoms!! What I could see are pillars of dark smoke, with the fire department, called the U.N., with no engines to rush to these fires.
Could we repair these engines? How?! The Charter cannot be amended -except, except, except, by a new beginning to be called: "The World Under United Peoples!!" Sweet dreams!! Wake up, Pal!! You are now in the world of the non-State actor. Also known as "The Twilight Zone!!"
Friday, August 29, 2014
In Libya's Civil War: How to Judge a Declaration as Confused and/or Idiotic?
Qaddafi is gone forever from Libya, Egypt's neighbor to the West. But the ghosts of destruction through civil war between the Islamists and the Secularists keep on multiplying. Libya has become a dangerous place for its people and the region, and the world lying to the north, across the Mediterranean. Militias fighting militias; Qaddafi's nuclear arsenal is gone, but the huge amounts of conventional weapons remain; deadly weapons keep on crossing the Egyptian borders to the east, the Tunisian borders to the west, and to Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) and beyond to the south, through Chad and Niger. A real security mess!!
But Egypt, though with a million-man army, both in active service and reserves, feels the jitters. The Sisi government, with pledges to 93 million Egyptians (a full 25% of all Arabs) of security and stability, cannot close its eyes to its long borders with a militias-run Libya. The Islamists of Libya are an integral part of the flying Islamist carpet of the Muslim Brotherhood, now banned in Egypt, but keeps on floating from Hamas, east of Suez, to Tripoli, Libya. A vaunted pan-Islamism, which now calls itself a caliphate in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and a caliphate in northern Nigeria (Boko Haram: "Western education is a sin") in western Africa.
This gathering Islamist storm is already rattling the windows of power in security-conscious Cairo. Storm windows need to be quickly installed, as Cairo uses its soft power to contain blood-shed in Gaza, and uses its iron fist to annihilate the terrorist "Friends of Jerusalem," a Hamas franchise.
The El-Sisi's one-two punch cannot be of lasting effect without at least some gesticulation in the direction of presently law-less Libya. This is the heart of the lesson of US air strikes against ISIS in Iraq, US air surveillance together with special forces operations in Syria (the Iraq-Syria borders are gone), and the pilotless drones over Yemen to contain the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsular (AQAP) of Al-Awlaki fame (or lack thereof).
Though seemingly regional, this is a global struggle for the defeat of those who claim that God (Allah) has permitted them to claim the entire world, beginning with the Arab/Muslim regions) for Sunni Islam. The Islamists have anointed themselves as jihadis (soldiers of God), even though the word of God is vastly at odds with those moronic jihadists. These terrorists, now waging a World War III against civilization, tell the befuddled youth from the U.S., Europe, Asia and Africa: "Come join us and be rewarded by paradise in the hereafter." But the Quran confronts their thesis of "cooperation for murder," by these words: "You help one another in righteousness and piety, but do not help one another in sin and rancor." (Chapter V, Verse 2).
This confrontation between the secularists (who won in Egypt) and the Islamists (who seem to be winning in Libya, Iraq and Syria) is existential. It is a zero-sum game, and after the dust of battle settles, only one of the two global factions shall remain standing. And it shall not be the Islamists, what with their fragmentation, territorial non-contiguity, savagery, and alienation of the vast Muslim masses in 57 States!!
However, on the side of the Islamists, stands idiotic western media, vacillating western leadership, hood-winked non-governmental organizations, and an America which is still looking at the jihadis as reformable, potentially democratic and a counterpoise in the Arab Spring to what the U.S. perceives as a lurch towards military governance. And when America gets really stunned by the Islamists barbarism, such as in the case of the beheading of the American photojournalist James Foley, America gets dressed up as a cop holding a search warrant, knocking on the door of the jihadis, entering their lair (where animals lie down) and solemnly declare: "You have the right to be silent!!"
Come on, America: this is war which is more ferocious than that in Iraq where, in 2003, you suspended the iconic Geneva Conventions of 1949. It is amazing that you enjoy nearly silently, Egyptian initiatives for peace for the Gazans and the Israelis, yet condemn Cairo for what you miscontstrue as Egyptian intervention in Libya. What a mockery!! Washington hits ISIS from the air under the justifiable claim of ISIS being an existential threat to the homeland 10,000 miles to the west. But looks upon a presumed Egyptian act of self defense a dangerous intervention by Cairo in the Libyan affair.
This is not only double standard. It is beyond being confused. It is a sheer self-defeating fantasy:
It is high time for America to stop acting confused. The Hamlet persona of "To Be or Not To Be" is not befitting a great power!! The struggle against terrorism, especially when it raises deceptively the banner of faith (Islam), is globally indivisible. You are either on the side of humanity and international humanitarian law, or on the side of darkness, amply represented by the flag of ISIS -a flag which amply deserved a recent act of maximum disdain performed in Sweden by two young Egyptian women!!
But Egypt, though with a million-man army, both in active service and reserves, feels the jitters. The Sisi government, with pledges to 93 million Egyptians (a full 25% of all Arabs) of security and stability, cannot close its eyes to its long borders with a militias-run Libya. The Islamists of Libya are an integral part of the flying Islamist carpet of the Muslim Brotherhood, now banned in Egypt, but keeps on floating from Hamas, east of Suez, to Tripoli, Libya. A vaunted pan-Islamism, which now calls itself a caliphate in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and a caliphate in northern Nigeria (Boko Haram: "Western education is a sin") in western Africa.
This gathering Islamist storm is already rattling the windows of power in security-conscious Cairo. Storm windows need to be quickly installed, as Cairo uses its soft power to contain blood-shed in Gaza, and uses its iron fist to annihilate the terrorist "Friends of Jerusalem," a Hamas franchise.
The El-Sisi's one-two punch cannot be of lasting effect without at least some gesticulation in the direction of presently law-less Libya. This is the heart of the lesson of US air strikes against ISIS in Iraq, US air surveillance together with special forces operations in Syria (the Iraq-Syria borders are gone), and the pilotless drones over Yemen to contain the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsular (AQAP) of Al-Awlaki fame (or lack thereof).
Though seemingly regional, this is a global struggle for the defeat of those who claim that God (Allah) has permitted them to claim the entire world, beginning with the Arab/Muslim regions) for Sunni Islam. The Islamists have anointed themselves as jihadis (soldiers of God), even though the word of God is vastly at odds with those moronic jihadists. These terrorists, now waging a World War III against civilization, tell the befuddled youth from the U.S., Europe, Asia and Africa: "Come join us and be rewarded by paradise in the hereafter." But the Quran confronts their thesis of "cooperation for murder," by these words: "You help one another in righteousness and piety, but do not help one another in sin and rancor." (Chapter V, Verse 2).
This confrontation between the secularists (who won in Egypt) and the Islamists (who seem to be winning in Libya, Iraq and Syria) is existential. It is a zero-sum game, and after the dust of battle settles, only one of the two global factions shall remain standing. And it shall not be the Islamists, what with their fragmentation, territorial non-contiguity, savagery, and alienation of the vast Muslim masses in 57 States!!
However, on the side of the Islamists, stands idiotic western media, vacillating western leadership, hood-winked non-governmental organizations, and an America which is still looking at the jihadis as reformable, potentially democratic and a counterpoise in the Arab Spring to what the U.S. perceives as a lurch towards military governance. And when America gets really stunned by the Islamists barbarism, such as in the case of the beheading of the American photojournalist James Foley, America gets dressed up as a cop holding a search warrant, knocking on the door of the jihadis, entering their lair (where animals lie down) and solemnly declare: "You have the right to be silent!!"
Come on, America: this is war which is more ferocious than that in Iraq where, in 2003, you suspended the iconic Geneva Conventions of 1949. It is amazing that you enjoy nearly silently, Egyptian initiatives for peace for the Gazans and the Israelis, yet condemn Cairo for what you miscontstrue as Egyptian intervention in Libya. What a mockery!! Washington hits ISIS from the air under the justifiable claim of ISIS being an existential threat to the homeland 10,000 miles to the west. But looks upon a presumed Egyptian act of self defense a dangerous intervention by Cairo in the Libyan affair.
This is not only double standard. It is beyond being confused. It is a sheer self-defeating fantasy:
- The Islamist intervention in Egyptian domestic affairs is on, since the popular unseating of the Islamist reign of terror in Egypt under Morsi from June 2012 to July 2013;
- American media and non-governmental organizations, including Haman Rights Watch, still obtusely describe the elected presidency of El-Sisi as a coup;
- Simultaneously, the spokeswoman of the U.S. State Department, Mary Harf, in effect declares on August 19, 2014 that President El-Sisi was leading the process for democratization in Egypt, but this would take a long time. Thanks, Ms. Harf, your assessment of democratization in Egypt has not been invited, unless you wish to eat your words about Egypt a couple of weeks earlier. At that time you charged Cairo of using U.S. aid to suppress peaceful demonstrations. In a riposte, the Cairo Foreign Ministry did not mince its words. It said that your statements reflect total incompetence and ignorance of the facts on the ground in Egypt;
- Compounding these contradictions, are the declarations of "The Friends of Jerusalem" (Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis) that it shall keep on liquidating Egyptian security forces in Sinai because they were the enemies of God through their fealty to El-Sisi -an enemy of God (as per Ansar);
- Now come the American charge that Cairo has placed its airports at the disposal of the air force of United Arab Emirates to attack the Islamists in and around Tripoli.
Aside from being a non-substantiated charge, let us suppose that it is true: how would it differ in its ultimate effect from U.S. similar and more direct actions elsewhere in Arab lands? And who gave the U.S. the right to complain that it was not consulted in advance of such actions? Does the U.S. consult Egypt before it undertakes its justifiable actions against ISIS and similar terrorist organizations? Is Washington, in its justifiable desire to defeat ISIS, consulting with Cairo on American rumored contracts with Al-Assad and Iran under the theory of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend?" Not so!!
- Then as "icing on the cake," enters The New York Times of August 26, with the provocative headline on its cover page: "Arab Nations Strike in Libya, Surprising U.S." The paper's demagogic reporter David Kirkpatrick, supported by his usual coterie ensconced at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (What kind of international peace do they advocate?) pipes in: In an interview with the New York Public Radio on August 26, that correspondent, in a self-convincing voice, says: "Egyptians lied to the U.S. This is a cold war between political Islam versus stability. The military government in Egypt never forgets U.S. backing of Morsi when he came to power." Thanks, David!! Apparently you see Cairo always from a faulty lens of an Egypt descending into dictatorship!!
- Now how does Mr. Kirkpatrick reach these conclusions? And more to the point, how does "one senior American official" perform an acrobatic outstretch in describing the presumed actions by the Emirates and Egypt in the following confused and/or idiotic words: "We don't see this as a constructive at all."
Well, the Carnegie people went even beyond these interventionary hallucinatory statements. A Michele Dunne, a senior associate at the Carnegie, raves from the bottom of a well of fiction when she solemnly declares: Such actions have "proved to be a gigantic impediment to international efforts to resolve any of these crises." Michele: time for you to take a break from your overworked brain at Starbucks;
- In what seem to be an anticipation by Cairo of these official and non-official American blitz against Cairo's self-defensive measures, President El-Sisi had a completely different version. Addressing one of his periodic meetings with Egyptian media, he referred to the allegations by the Muslim Brotherhood in regard to Egyptian armed forces involvement in attacks on the Islamist militias in Libya. The Egyptian President declared that there was no involvement by Egypt "outside of its borders."
- El-Sisi was on point in addressing the issue from an Egyptian sovereignty perspective. All other foreign declarations were fumings with no tangle effect on the existential battle between the Islamists and the secularists in Arab lands. It is a combat between those who declare their adversaries "apostates (Takfiris)," a fancy term by the Islamists, and those who declare that "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) (Tawhidis), a term that says faith is a matter of choice and conscience. The sword has no place.
It is high time for America to stop acting confused. The Hamlet persona of "To Be or Not To Be" is not befitting a great power!! The struggle against terrorism, especially when it raises deceptively the banner of faith (Islam), is globally indivisible. You are either on the side of humanity and international humanitarian law, or on the side of darkness, amply represented by the flag of ISIS -a flag which amply deserved a recent act of maximum disdain performed in Sweden by two young Egyptian women!!
Friday, August 22, 2014
Honoring Isis, the Egyptian Goddess of Mercy 5000 Years Ago; Dishonoring ISIS of Today as Murderers Without Borders
In Islamic jurisprudence, Jim Foley of New Hampshire is a martyr (a Shaheed). In memoriam, James Foley; decapitated by ISIS on August 19.
ISIS's very name is a cause for acute revulsion. The reasons are myriad. Foremost among these is their vocation. They are "Murderers Without Borders." Jim Foley was a photo journalist without borders. Add to that, ISIS's fanciful assumption of being the resurrected "Caliphate." A painful joke!! Under a street thug from Anbar, Iraq, called "Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi."
On top of that, comes the abuse of the term "ISIS." It should not be confused with the heroine of ancient Egypt, Queen Isis, the goddess of mercy, and compassion, the loving wife of Osiris, and the celebrated mother of Horus who appears in relief as a falcon.
Osiris/Isis/Horus is the ancient trinity of which the great Egyptologist, Professor James Breasted of Chicago University said in his 5-volume work on ancient Egypt that it presaged the trinity in Christianity.
It was in the 1950's when, as a junior researcher at the UN, I was asked to help find if genocide was ever practiced in ancient Egypt. At the New York Public Library, I read Breasted's five volumes in search for clues. I found none, with the exception of two episodes of "secondary genocide:" a siege, and the destruction of wheat fields. No mass killings of other humans, non-involved civilians. That was five-thousand years ago, with no national, let alone international conventions, on genocide. Only the rules of common sense for common humanity.
So from Isis the Queen, to ISIS, the head cutters; from giving life, to decapitation; from the creation of great monuments, to the destruction of temples, churches and mosques; from the belief in great science and engineering on the banks of the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates, to the stockpiling of material intended for destruction in the name of God. An amazing decline in values, an uptick in the elevation of fiction to the level of belief such as jihad in the ISIS fashion. History does not repeat itself; its gears are pushed in reverse.
The decapitation of Foley is a clear signal for a close look at our interpretation of faith and force. They don't mix. ISIS mixes them because it serves the purposes of using the garb of Islam to hide their tools for decapitation of civilization. They use the rage against the West on the Arab and Muslim streets as leverage; the lack of cohesiveness among the 1.6 billion Muslims as an incubator for breeding brainless future jihadis, ready to proclaim an Islamic People's Republic of Terror.
It is amazing how such vicious Muslim renegades can be thought of as possible negotiating partners! There are no values, no commitment to law either domestic or international; no feeling for the right of others to their beliefs; and no regard to their own book, the Quran, that murder is a capital sin!!
Holding Foley's severed head with one hand, and the black flag of ISIS with the other, is a gruesome macabre. On that black flag is the Islamic inscription of "Muhammad, God's Messenger." Neither Muhammad nor God have anything to do with these animals who are masquerading as humans. In fact the common blessing in Islam is "In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful." Where is the ISIS belief in God's graciousness and in God's mercy?
By their deeds, they mock Islam, let alone other creeds. In non-recognition of their flag, the Quran says: "And now they reject the truth when it reaches them: but soon shall they learn the reality of what they used to mock at" (Chapter 6, verse 5). The future cannot be on the side of darkness. ISIS began with 3000 fighters; says it now has 20,000. But as they lost at the Mosul Dam, so they shall lose what they had gained by stealth, jihadi false propaganda, ransoms, and commandeered resources. May their loss at the Mosul Dam, thanks to U.S. air strikes and indigenous military footprint on the ground, be the beginning of the end of their farce.
But to defeat them, we first have to go into the ISIS brain. I needed to find a manifesto, an interpretation of their outlook on jihad. I needed to read their words to assess their idiocy. Coming back empty, I looked into the declaration of their cohorts -"Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis," the Gaza-based lunatics. Here is a summary of a video released in late August urging Egypt's army and police to defect. Just read and wonder about the voodoo rationale of these transnational non-State actors.
Using the modus operandi of ISIS, that terrorist group whose name translates into "The Friends of Jerusalem," show how they kill members of Egyptian forces in Sinai. Their leader, Ibrahim Al-Rubaish, taunts his targets by saying: "You have sold your faith for a loaf of bread." Then he adds: "You have worshipped El-Sisi instead of God. Do not blame us for killing you only because you pray and fast. You do not cry for the death of the noble Mujahedeen as you murder them."
"The Friends of Jerusalem," whose terrorism in Sinai has forced Egypt to declare them and their allies, Hamas, a terrorist organization goes on in its video to say: "El-Sisi is standing by his friendship with America. He would have no chance of survival without your weapons guarding him and obeying his orders. By doing that, you have disobeyed your Creator and sided with El-Sisi." Then Al-Rubaish adds: "I have searched the Quran and the Sunna (Muhammad's prenouncements and conduct) and found no justification for you, soldiers and policemen, to put your duties above God's orders. Your livelihood is in the hands of God, not in the uniform that you are wearing."
This is only a small segment of their heinous propaganda, which proclaims them as the interpreters of Islam. Disobeying them is made to sound as rejecting God!! It is a savage psychological warfare aimed at untutored masses and intended for mass panic. From "The Friends of Jerusalem," to Hamas, to the Brotherhood which gave birth to Hamas, to ISIS -it is one single tapestry but with different colors, woven in hell. That tapestry hangs together; its elimination needs regional hands and international shock and awe actors. A piecemeal approach is likely to needlessly prolong the agony.
Against this incredible array of facts against ISIS and similar organizations, it is unbelievable to find American media calling on Egypt to make peace with the Muslim Brotherhood.
On CNN last Sunday, August 17, Fareed Zakaria once more is stuck on his old script. He proclaims that "the Arab Spring in Egypt has failed to advance the cause of democracy in view of its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood." Do the CNN pundits think that bringing Morsi back is possible? Is disfranchising the huge majority which voted for "El-Sisi Raiisi (my President)" a workable answer? When Egypt is fighting today for its secular identity, are those talking heads advocating a halt, so that their definition of democracy would prevail? Have they heard of "The Islamic project," called for by Morsi when he was in power, which was a scheme excluding everyone else except for Morsi's real base -the Muslim Brotherhood? Shouldn't the rise of ISIS change Zakaria's outlook in view of this game -changing menace?
This week, the Sinai authorities discovered five headless bodies in various parts of that desert province. The trademark of ISIS is already discernible in Egypt!!
The big question is: In an existential struggle, such as that of Egypt's secularists vs. the Brotherhood and its affiliates, which should come first, classical democracy or classical security?
During America's civil war, President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, together with other provisions of the American Bill of Rights. The American Union was fighting for its existence.
So is with Egypt of today: The survival of the State's identity within its historic character comes before Mr. Zakaria's definition of what should constitute ultimate freedom. He is blissfully immune from the politics of Tahrir, and from the aspirations for a better life for 93 million Egyptians. Zakaria's silence would truly be made of gold for the land of the Nile.
The truth does not exist within the CNN studios. It only shows its face on the Egyptian street so that a repeat of the James Foley's decapitation would never be attempted in Tahrir Square. Queen Isis stood for the victory of good over evil. ISIS stands for evil pure and simple. May the soul of Jim Foley rest in peace!! And may the Murderers without Borders receive their punishment from above and from below!!
ISIS's very name is a cause for acute revulsion. The reasons are myriad. Foremost among these is their vocation. They are "Murderers Without Borders." Jim Foley was a photo journalist without borders. Add to that, ISIS's fanciful assumption of being the resurrected "Caliphate." A painful joke!! Under a street thug from Anbar, Iraq, called "Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi."
On top of that, comes the abuse of the term "ISIS." It should not be confused with the heroine of ancient Egypt, Queen Isis, the goddess of mercy, and compassion, the loving wife of Osiris, and the celebrated mother of Horus who appears in relief as a falcon.
Osiris/Isis/Horus is the ancient trinity of which the great Egyptologist, Professor James Breasted of Chicago University said in his 5-volume work on ancient Egypt that it presaged the trinity in Christianity.
It was in the 1950's when, as a junior researcher at the UN, I was asked to help find if genocide was ever practiced in ancient Egypt. At the New York Public Library, I read Breasted's five volumes in search for clues. I found none, with the exception of two episodes of "secondary genocide:" a siege, and the destruction of wheat fields. No mass killings of other humans, non-involved civilians. That was five-thousand years ago, with no national, let alone international conventions, on genocide. Only the rules of common sense for common humanity.
So from Isis the Queen, to ISIS, the head cutters; from giving life, to decapitation; from the creation of great monuments, to the destruction of temples, churches and mosques; from the belief in great science and engineering on the banks of the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates, to the stockpiling of material intended for destruction in the name of God. An amazing decline in values, an uptick in the elevation of fiction to the level of belief such as jihad in the ISIS fashion. History does not repeat itself; its gears are pushed in reverse.
The decapitation of Foley is a clear signal for a close look at our interpretation of faith and force. They don't mix. ISIS mixes them because it serves the purposes of using the garb of Islam to hide their tools for decapitation of civilization. They use the rage against the West on the Arab and Muslim streets as leverage; the lack of cohesiveness among the 1.6 billion Muslims as an incubator for breeding brainless future jihadis, ready to proclaim an Islamic People's Republic of Terror.
It is amazing how such vicious Muslim renegades can be thought of as possible negotiating partners! There are no values, no commitment to law either domestic or international; no feeling for the right of others to their beliefs; and no regard to their own book, the Quran, that murder is a capital sin!!
Holding Foley's severed head with one hand, and the black flag of ISIS with the other, is a gruesome macabre. On that black flag is the Islamic inscription of "Muhammad, God's Messenger." Neither Muhammad nor God have anything to do with these animals who are masquerading as humans. In fact the common blessing in Islam is "In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful." Where is the ISIS belief in God's graciousness and in God's mercy?
By their deeds, they mock Islam, let alone other creeds. In non-recognition of their flag, the Quran says: "And now they reject the truth when it reaches them: but soon shall they learn the reality of what they used to mock at" (Chapter 6, verse 5). The future cannot be on the side of darkness. ISIS began with 3000 fighters; says it now has 20,000. But as they lost at the Mosul Dam, so they shall lose what they had gained by stealth, jihadi false propaganda, ransoms, and commandeered resources. May their loss at the Mosul Dam, thanks to U.S. air strikes and indigenous military footprint on the ground, be the beginning of the end of their farce.
But to defeat them, we first have to go into the ISIS brain. I needed to find a manifesto, an interpretation of their outlook on jihad. I needed to read their words to assess their idiocy. Coming back empty, I looked into the declaration of their cohorts -"Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis," the Gaza-based lunatics. Here is a summary of a video released in late August urging Egypt's army and police to defect. Just read and wonder about the voodoo rationale of these transnational non-State actors.
Using the modus operandi of ISIS, that terrorist group whose name translates into "The Friends of Jerusalem," show how they kill members of Egyptian forces in Sinai. Their leader, Ibrahim Al-Rubaish, taunts his targets by saying: "You have sold your faith for a loaf of bread." Then he adds: "You have worshipped El-Sisi instead of God. Do not blame us for killing you only because you pray and fast. You do not cry for the death of the noble Mujahedeen as you murder them."
"The Friends of Jerusalem," whose terrorism in Sinai has forced Egypt to declare them and their allies, Hamas, a terrorist organization goes on in its video to say: "El-Sisi is standing by his friendship with America. He would have no chance of survival without your weapons guarding him and obeying his orders. By doing that, you have disobeyed your Creator and sided with El-Sisi." Then Al-Rubaish adds: "I have searched the Quran and the Sunna (Muhammad's prenouncements and conduct) and found no justification for you, soldiers and policemen, to put your duties above God's orders. Your livelihood is in the hands of God, not in the uniform that you are wearing."
This is only a small segment of their heinous propaganda, which proclaims them as the interpreters of Islam. Disobeying them is made to sound as rejecting God!! It is a savage psychological warfare aimed at untutored masses and intended for mass panic. From "The Friends of Jerusalem," to Hamas, to the Brotherhood which gave birth to Hamas, to ISIS -it is one single tapestry but with different colors, woven in hell. That tapestry hangs together; its elimination needs regional hands and international shock and awe actors. A piecemeal approach is likely to needlessly prolong the agony.
Against this incredible array of facts against ISIS and similar organizations, it is unbelievable to find American media calling on Egypt to make peace with the Muslim Brotherhood.
On CNN last Sunday, August 17, Fareed Zakaria once more is stuck on his old script. He proclaims that "the Arab Spring in Egypt has failed to advance the cause of democracy in view of its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood." Do the CNN pundits think that bringing Morsi back is possible? Is disfranchising the huge majority which voted for "El-Sisi Raiisi (my President)" a workable answer? When Egypt is fighting today for its secular identity, are those talking heads advocating a halt, so that their definition of democracy would prevail? Have they heard of "The Islamic project," called for by Morsi when he was in power, which was a scheme excluding everyone else except for Morsi's real base -the Muslim Brotherhood? Shouldn't the rise of ISIS change Zakaria's outlook in view of this game -changing menace?
This week, the Sinai authorities discovered five headless bodies in various parts of that desert province. The trademark of ISIS is already discernible in Egypt!!
The big question is: In an existential struggle, such as that of Egypt's secularists vs. the Brotherhood and its affiliates, which should come first, classical democracy or classical security?
During America's civil war, President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, together with other provisions of the American Bill of Rights. The American Union was fighting for its existence.
So is with Egypt of today: The survival of the State's identity within its historic character comes before Mr. Zakaria's definition of what should constitute ultimate freedom. He is blissfully immune from the politics of Tahrir, and from the aspirations for a better life for 93 million Egyptians. Zakaria's silence would truly be made of gold for the land of the Nile.
The truth does not exist within the CNN studios. It only shows its face on the Egyptian street so that a repeat of the James Foley's decapitation would never be attempted in Tahrir Square. Queen Isis stood for the victory of good over evil. ISIS stands for evil pure and simple. May the soul of Jim Foley rest in peace!! And may the Murderers without Borders receive their punishment from above and from below!!
Friday, August 15, 2014
When Human Rights Watch Turns Its Advocacy Into a Comedy
While riding a Manhattan bus, a headline of a report by Kareem Fahim in The New York Times of August 12 quickly caught my eyes. It read "Systematic Killings in Egypt are Tied to Leader, Group says." Emanating from Cairo, it meant by "Leader" President El-Sisi; the "Group" was Human Rights Watch.
I am not usually a speed-reader, but quickly became one, till I stopped at a paragraph before suppressing my laughter. The paragraph reads: "The report calls for an investigation of Mr. Sisi who was commander of the armed forces at the time, and several other sitting government officials, including Egypt's interior minister."
So Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental organization based in New York City, has, by an act of God, made itself an international criminal court!! But there is one ICC which is based in the Hague, which came into being by the Rome Charter of 1998, with Egypt acceding to it, and the U.S. rejecting it, even though it had negotiated it.
To my knowledge, the ICC has no subdivisions, no chambers, no branches anywhere! Nor can the ICC be succeeded by an NGO which, from that report in The New York Times is sitting, without any legal standing, in judgement of a sovereign State -Egypt. The funny thing is that, as reported, Human Rights Watch "had conducted a yearlong investigation into violence that followed the military's ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi." A HA!! So we are back celebrating on August 14, 2014, the first anniversary of the events leading to Egypt's security forces, backed up by the army, breaking up the Muslim Brotherhood's double sieges at Rabaa and Al-Nahda by force.
Now that Human Rights Watch has completed its one-year long investigation into those momentous events, it now wishes to label El-Sisi and the Minister of Interior and other senior officials as defendants "accused" of "wide-spread and systematic killings of protesters...more than 800 people, and possibility more than 1,000!!
A very tall order by an NGO from whom I have seen no similar reports calling for investigations into Guantanamo, Abu-Ghraib, Helman, Gaza, Yemen, or... These are large geographical areas where dragnets caught thousands of citizens in their webs to throw them away into a forever-legal limbo combined with degrading torture. That is where an American NGO should go, and claim jurisdiction over the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and company who still claim that water boarding is not torture!!
OK!! Let us stay with Human Rights Watch's uninvited focus on post-Arab Spring Egypt which has fought off the Islamists attempts to turn it into an Islamic Emirate.
The Muslim Brotherhood was given a historic chance to rule Egypt under a presidency of their own. Morsi became President in June 2012, promising inclusiveness, security and development. Within only 5 months, he proved to be not the president of all Egyptians. Copts, Shias, and secularists were excluded. During a period of one year, he distinguished himself by "I am above the law" through his "Constitutional Declaration" of November 2012!
Let us ignore for a few moments the report of those false pretenders to universal jurisdiction, the Human Rights Watch. Let us focus on the "achievements" of the Morsi "one man, one vote, one time" during his incumbency -an incumbency which was terminated by 35 million Egyptians calling on June 30, 2013, not for his head, but for his seat. The armed forces, under El-Sisi, were only the auxiliaries of that Second Revolution, not its igniters.
Morsi, in a booklet published in Arabic by the Muslim Brotherhood in April 2013, called his program for Egypt "The Islamic Project." In its introduction his adversaries, the secularists, were attacked as "aiming at causing the public to reject the Islamic/Brotherhood experiment in order to perpetuate the environment of corruption which enabled them to accumulate ill gotten gains." (p.7) That 24-page booklet went on to cite the tactics of the anti-Morsi opposition. It listed 13 such tactics, including "the manipulation of the judiciary (tactic #5), "the fomenting of sectarian and ethnic violence" (tactic #6), and the propagation of "civil disobedience (tactic #13) -all of which on p. 8.
Then the Morsi manifesto goes on to respond to the question: "Is President Morsi a weak president or a strong president?" It answers as follows: He removed Field Marshall Tantawi: and General Anan; he cashiered the chief of National Intelligence; he dismissed the Attorney General, Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud; and he issued "the Constitutional Declaration" (of November 2012) concentrating all powers in Morsi's hands). On that achievement, the document cites Morsi as a genius because "although he rescinded that Declaration, he, in practice, preserved it effects." (p. 9)
The manifesto of April 2013 ridicules national secular opponents by name; denigrates Egyptian economic leaders; calls Israel "the Zionist Entity, and ridicules national consensus as destabilizing (pp.10-11)
The Morsi manifesto confronted Egypt with a clear and present danger: from civil war to splitting the country between North and South. That is not to mention their transparent attempt to ween away the public from its army at a time when the Brotherhood had its militias and Baltagias (thugs) as the enforcers of Islamist rule. A mere reading of the Islamist constitution of 2012 provides a non-controverted proof: The secularists, including the Christian minority, were pressured to abandon their seats on the Constituent Assembly; and articles agreed for inclusion in the final text were either deleted or re-written Islamicly. The plebiscite on that defective Constitution attracted only 22% of 53 million eligible voters, and its faked approval was less than 50%.
And when the call to prayer sounded in the parliamentary chamber, for the first time in any Egyptian Parliament since 1936, it was in effect a call to arms between the secularists and the Islamists. The former had their eyes on Egypt whose monuments were threatened by destruction a la Bamian Buddhist Temples by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The latter had their eyes on pan-Islamism, where Egypt historically does no belong.
When the Second Revolution of June 30, 2013, erupted, the lines of battle had already been drawn leading within 3 days to the ouster of a hated Islamic regime. That regime would have found common cause with ISIS on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Iraq and Syria. The Nile is immune from that sectarian lunacy.
With Morsi's ouster by the will of the masses (the Islamist Constitution contained no provision for presidential recall), the Islamists struck back. In Sinai, a war by proxy with Hamas, an offshoot of the Brotherhood; in Cairo, guerrilla urban warfare at Rabaa, east of Cairo, and Nahda, west of Cairo. Two small emirates arose in the capital of Egypt whose 93 million inhabitants constitute 30% of all Arabs from the Atlantic to the Gulf.
Time now to review the urban Islamist rebellion from July 3 to August 14, 2013, the period of the so-called "investigations" by Human Rights Watch -the new self-appointed Trustee over sovereign Egypt.
"The Watch" claims that Egypt's security forces struck on August 14 with a scant warning to the Rabaa demonstrators. A blatant lie. The government of Interim President, Counsellor Adly Mansour, pleaded with the occupiers who paralysed life in two major sections of Cairo, for 6 weeks, to leave peacefully. In New York City, the "Occupy Wall Street" movement was given 15 minutes by the New York Police Department before they were dispersed by well-justified force.
"The Watch" claims that for 12 hours elapsed before the Egyptian security forces allowed the demonstrators a safe exit. Wrong again. The guerrilla warfarers were permitted two safe exits publicly and repeatedly announced by the authorities. The central purpose of the authorities was to effect a peaceful end to a trench warfare by the Brotherhood.
"The Watch" claims that the demonstrations were "largely peaceful." Wrong. In the two emirates of Rabaa and Nahda, weapons were stored; hostages were taken; firearms were used; the first casualty, a police officer, was felled by bullets shot from within the rebellious crowd; street pavements afforded the well-rehearsed fighters plenty of stone-power to lob at the forces of law and order; the so-called "martyrdom" was celebrated; "Down with Egypt" became a battle cry; calls on the members of the police forces and the army to defect were broadcast; and foreign intervention and funding were invited.
"The Watch" claims that the Rabaa stand, the field hospital, and the mosque were torched, "probably by the security forces." Probably?! A case of conjecture whose advocate I would not admit to my lectures on the law of evidence. If you have no proof, zip your mouth!!
"The Watch" again shows how soft its head is on the law of evidence. It had to admit that "few of the demonstrators were armed;" but its selected evidence asserts that "the police killed hundreds of unarmed demonstrators." It also had to admit that the demonstrators lobbed Molotov cocktails at the police. Then it states that it was able to document these episodes in "a few cases." How few? And are you professionally capable to reach these vague conclusions on the basis of "hearsay evidence" gathered over one year of the occurrence, and collected from witnessed already biased for being a party to that conflict? Get Real!!
Egypt has lost nearly 500 army and police personnel, even before declaring your beloved Muslim Brotherhood and its franchise, Hamas, terrorist organizations. Its public is still under a terrorism alert in the subways and above ground. Its forces are still confronting the Islamic marauders in Sinai and on the Libyan borders. Yet at the same time, Egyptian engineers are now rebuilding the Coptic churches destroyed by the Islamists during their reign of terror in upper Egypt. They are also refurbishing neglected Jewish temples. Its diplomats are in an overdrive to rescue the Palestinians in Gaza from further death and destruction through the Egyptian cease fire initiative which is being prolonged whenever it comes to its end.
And now Human Rights Watch is calling for an investigation of the country's leadership including the Interior Minister who had nearly lost his life to a drive-by terrorist bomber. You must be nuts!!
When the State is fighting for its life, security takes priority front and center. The hundreds who were unfortunately killed at Rabaa and Nahda were put on harm's way by the Brotherhood whose baby organization. Egypt is a part of the presently-boiling Middle East in regard to which President Obama, in a recent interview on August 8 with Thomas Friedman said: "Our (meaning the U.S.) politics are dysfunctional, and we should heed the terrible divisions in the Middle East as a warning to us: societies don't work if political factions take maximalist positions."
Well said, Mr. President!! Maximalists, like the Brotherhood, Hamas, Jihad, and ISIS, never win. This is because they demand of their opposing party only one small thing: non-existence!!
So Mr. Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, and Ms. Sara Leah Whitson, Director of its Middle East Division: You were not deported from Egypt when stopped at the Cairo airport on Sunday, August 10. You cannot be deported if you were not admitted into the country.
And how arrogant can you get to proceed to Cairo after being denied a visa in order to perform another stunt for publicity as you presented yourselves to the airport authorities as "tourists." You were no tourists. You were "agent provocateurs" who wished to unfurl your report calling for investigating El-Sisi and others on the basis of an evidence-free report intended to harm, without credible cause, Egypt's standing worldwide.
To repair the damage to your reputation, and in the absence of the status of a super power, I strongly urge you to stay home to take care of the multitude of human rights issues on which you would be luckier in collecting credible evidence.
Unless you claim immunity from reason, it is "The Watch," not Egypt, that has a lot to account for. Egypt, through its venerated judiciary which was pummelled during the Brotherhood's rule, is capable of handling the events of August 2013. It has, without your prodding, appointed my friend, Counsellor Fouad Abdel-Monim Riyadh, formerly of the ex-Yugoslavia Tribunal, to head a national commission of inquiry into those events. So butt out!! Egypt is not a banana republic.
Your claim to world-wide concern everywhere for human rights rings hollow. Your "Watch Tower" must have been on vacation during the Bush Jr. administration. Where were you when John Yoo as counsel for the Department of Justice advised that the Geneva Protocols of 1949 providing for the protection of civilians during times of war are obsolete. Acting on this advice, the U.S. detained and tortured hundreds of civilians from various Muslim countries. The highly-placed perpetrators are still at large in the U.S., yet fearing detention if they ventured abroad.
Mr. Ken Roth, also known to me as "Mr. Watchman": I wish I were the attorney for "plaintiff Egypt" in a case against you and your funders in Cairo, a proper venue where the events took place. The cause of action would have been incitement to violence. The evidence would have been the limited riots of your "Muslim Brothers" in Egypt this August 14. Your attorney would have advised non-appearance at that trial. But in abstentia, I most probably would have secured a favorable verdict. And under the theory of universal jurisdiction, you would have been a target of detention in any of the members of the League of the Arab States (22 minus Syria -suspended membership, and Qatar -no diplomatic relationship with Egypt for its support of "Brotherhood" terrorism in Egypt). No statute of limitations.
But wait, here is a tip from this blogger: There is an exit!! Declare your actions as immunized as "Acts of State," under the official seal of "The People's Republic of Human Rights Watch." Then the whole world would have joined me in a prolonged and hearty laugh!!
I am not usually a speed-reader, but quickly became one, till I stopped at a paragraph before suppressing my laughter. The paragraph reads: "The report calls for an investigation of Mr. Sisi who was commander of the armed forces at the time, and several other sitting government officials, including Egypt's interior minister."
So Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental organization based in New York City, has, by an act of God, made itself an international criminal court!! But there is one ICC which is based in the Hague, which came into being by the Rome Charter of 1998, with Egypt acceding to it, and the U.S. rejecting it, even though it had negotiated it.
To my knowledge, the ICC has no subdivisions, no chambers, no branches anywhere! Nor can the ICC be succeeded by an NGO which, from that report in The New York Times is sitting, without any legal standing, in judgement of a sovereign State -Egypt. The funny thing is that, as reported, Human Rights Watch "had conducted a yearlong investigation into violence that followed the military's ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi." A HA!! So we are back celebrating on August 14, 2014, the first anniversary of the events leading to Egypt's security forces, backed up by the army, breaking up the Muslim Brotherhood's double sieges at Rabaa and Al-Nahda by force.
Now that Human Rights Watch has completed its one-year long investigation into those momentous events, it now wishes to label El-Sisi and the Minister of Interior and other senior officials as defendants "accused" of "wide-spread and systematic killings of protesters...more than 800 people, and possibility more than 1,000!!
A very tall order by an NGO from whom I have seen no similar reports calling for investigations into Guantanamo, Abu-Ghraib, Helman, Gaza, Yemen, or... These are large geographical areas where dragnets caught thousands of citizens in their webs to throw them away into a forever-legal limbo combined with degrading torture. That is where an American NGO should go, and claim jurisdiction over the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and company who still claim that water boarding is not torture!!
OK!! Let us stay with Human Rights Watch's uninvited focus on post-Arab Spring Egypt which has fought off the Islamists attempts to turn it into an Islamic Emirate.
The Muslim Brotherhood was given a historic chance to rule Egypt under a presidency of their own. Morsi became President in June 2012, promising inclusiveness, security and development. Within only 5 months, he proved to be not the president of all Egyptians. Copts, Shias, and secularists were excluded. During a period of one year, he distinguished himself by "I am above the law" through his "Constitutional Declaration" of November 2012!
Let us ignore for a few moments the report of those false pretenders to universal jurisdiction, the Human Rights Watch. Let us focus on the "achievements" of the Morsi "one man, one vote, one time" during his incumbency -an incumbency which was terminated by 35 million Egyptians calling on June 30, 2013, not for his head, but for his seat. The armed forces, under El-Sisi, were only the auxiliaries of that Second Revolution, not its igniters.
Morsi, in a booklet published in Arabic by the Muslim Brotherhood in April 2013, called his program for Egypt "The Islamic Project." In its introduction his adversaries, the secularists, were attacked as "aiming at causing the public to reject the Islamic/Brotherhood experiment in order to perpetuate the environment of corruption which enabled them to accumulate ill gotten gains." (p.7) That 24-page booklet went on to cite the tactics of the anti-Morsi opposition. It listed 13 such tactics, including "the manipulation of the judiciary (tactic #5), "the fomenting of sectarian and ethnic violence" (tactic #6), and the propagation of "civil disobedience (tactic #13) -all of which on p. 8.
Then the Morsi manifesto goes on to respond to the question: "Is President Morsi a weak president or a strong president?" It answers as follows: He removed Field Marshall Tantawi: and General Anan; he cashiered the chief of National Intelligence; he dismissed the Attorney General, Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud; and he issued "the Constitutional Declaration" (of November 2012) concentrating all powers in Morsi's hands). On that achievement, the document cites Morsi as a genius because "although he rescinded that Declaration, he, in practice, preserved it effects." (p. 9)
The manifesto of April 2013 ridicules national secular opponents by name; denigrates Egyptian economic leaders; calls Israel "the Zionist Entity, and ridicules national consensus as destabilizing (pp.10-11)
The Morsi manifesto confronted Egypt with a clear and present danger: from civil war to splitting the country between North and South. That is not to mention their transparent attempt to ween away the public from its army at a time when the Brotherhood had its militias and Baltagias (thugs) as the enforcers of Islamist rule. A mere reading of the Islamist constitution of 2012 provides a non-controverted proof: The secularists, including the Christian minority, were pressured to abandon their seats on the Constituent Assembly; and articles agreed for inclusion in the final text were either deleted or re-written Islamicly. The plebiscite on that defective Constitution attracted only 22% of 53 million eligible voters, and its faked approval was less than 50%.
And when the call to prayer sounded in the parliamentary chamber, for the first time in any Egyptian Parliament since 1936, it was in effect a call to arms between the secularists and the Islamists. The former had their eyes on Egypt whose monuments were threatened by destruction a la Bamian Buddhist Temples by the Taliban in Afghanistan. The latter had their eyes on pan-Islamism, where Egypt historically does no belong.
When the Second Revolution of June 30, 2013, erupted, the lines of battle had already been drawn leading within 3 days to the ouster of a hated Islamic regime. That regime would have found common cause with ISIS on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Iraq and Syria. The Nile is immune from that sectarian lunacy.
With Morsi's ouster by the will of the masses (the Islamist Constitution contained no provision for presidential recall), the Islamists struck back. In Sinai, a war by proxy with Hamas, an offshoot of the Brotherhood; in Cairo, guerrilla urban warfare at Rabaa, east of Cairo, and Nahda, west of Cairo. Two small emirates arose in the capital of Egypt whose 93 million inhabitants constitute 30% of all Arabs from the Atlantic to the Gulf.
Time now to review the urban Islamist rebellion from July 3 to August 14, 2013, the period of the so-called "investigations" by Human Rights Watch -the new self-appointed Trustee over sovereign Egypt.
"The Watch" claims that Egypt's security forces struck on August 14 with a scant warning to the Rabaa demonstrators. A blatant lie. The government of Interim President, Counsellor Adly Mansour, pleaded with the occupiers who paralysed life in two major sections of Cairo, for 6 weeks, to leave peacefully. In New York City, the "Occupy Wall Street" movement was given 15 minutes by the New York Police Department before they were dispersed by well-justified force.
"The Watch" claims that for 12 hours elapsed before the Egyptian security forces allowed the demonstrators a safe exit. Wrong again. The guerrilla warfarers were permitted two safe exits publicly and repeatedly announced by the authorities. The central purpose of the authorities was to effect a peaceful end to a trench warfare by the Brotherhood.
"The Watch" claims that the demonstrations were "largely peaceful." Wrong. In the two emirates of Rabaa and Nahda, weapons were stored; hostages were taken; firearms were used; the first casualty, a police officer, was felled by bullets shot from within the rebellious crowd; street pavements afforded the well-rehearsed fighters plenty of stone-power to lob at the forces of law and order; the so-called "martyrdom" was celebrated; "Down with Egypt" became a battle cry; calls on the members of the police forces and the army to defect were broadcast; and foreign intervention and funding were invited.
"The Watch" claims that the Rabaa stand, the field hospital, and the mosque were torched, "probably by the security forces." Probably?! A case of conjecture whose advocate I would not admit to my lectures on the law of evidence. If you have no proof, zip your mouth!!
"The Watch" again shows how soft its head is on the law of evidence. It had to admit that "few of the demonstrators were armed;" but its selected evidence asserts that "the police killed hundreds of unarmed demonstrators." It also had to admit that the demonstrators lobbed Molotov cocktails at the police. Then it states that it was able to document these episodes in "a few cases." How few? And are you professionally capable to reach these vague conclusions on the basis of "hearsay evidence" gathered over one year of the occurrence, and collected from witnessed already biased for being a party to that conflict? Get Real!!
Egypt has lost nearly 500 army and police personnel, even before declaring your beloved Muslim Brotherhood and its franchise, Hamas, terrorist organizations. Its public is still under a terrorism alert in the subways and above ground. Its forces are still confronting the Islamic marauders in Sinai and on the Libyan borders. Yet at the same time, Egyptian engineers are now rebuilding the Coptic churches destroyed by the Islamists during their reign of terror in upper Egypt. They are also refurbishing neglected Jewish temples. Its diplomats are in an overdrive to rescue the Palestinians in Gaza from further death and destruction through the Egyptian cease fire initiative which is being prolonged whenever it comes to its end.
And now Human Rights Watch is calling for an investigation of the country's leadership including the Interior Minister who had nearly lost his life to a drive-by terrorist bomber. You must be nuts!!
When the State is fighting for its life, security takes priority front and center. The hundreds who were unfortunately killed at Rabaa and Nahda were put on harm's way by the Brotherhood whose baby organization. Egypt is a part of the presently-boiling Middle East in regard to which President Obama, in a recent interview on August 8 with Thomas Friedman said: "Our (meaning the U.S.) politics are dysfunctional, and we should heed the terrible divisions in the Middle East as a warning to us: societies don't work if political factions take maximalist positions."
Well said, Mr. President!! Maximalists, like the Brotherhood, Hamas, Jihad, and ISIS, never win. This is because they demand of their opposing party only one small thing: non-existence!!
So Mr. Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, and Ms. Sara Leah Whitson, Director of its Middle East Division: You were not deported from Egypt when stopped at the Cairo airport on Sunday, August 10. You cannot be deported if you were not admitted into the country.
And how arrogant can you get to proceed to Cairo after being denied a visa in order to perform another stunt for publicity as you presented yourselves to the airport authorities as "tourists." You were no tourists. You were "agent provocateurs" who wished to unfurl your report calling for investigating El-Sisi and others on the basis of an evidence-free report intended to harm, without credible cause, Egypt's standing worldwide.
To repair the damage to your reputation, and in the absence of the status of a super power, I strongly urge you to stay home to take care of the multitude of human rights issues on which you would be luckier in collecting credible evidence.
Unless you claim immunity from reason, it is "The Watch," not Egypt, that has a lot to account for. Egypt, through its venerated judiciary which was pummelled during the Brotherhood's rule, is capable of handling the events of August 2013. It has, without your prodding, appointed my friend, Counsellor Fouad Abdel-Monim Riyadh, formerly of the ex-Yugoslavia Tribunal, to head a national commission of inquiry into those events. So butt out!! Egypt is not a banana republic.
Your claim to world-wide concern everywhere for human rights rings hollow. Your "Watch Tower" must have been on vacation during the Bush Jr. administration. Where were you when John Yoo as counsel for the Department of Justice advised that the Geneva Protocols of 1949 providing for the protection of civilians during times of war are obsolete. Acting on this advice, the U.S. detained and tortured hundreds of civilians from various Muslim countries. The highly-placed perpetrators are still at large in the U.S., yet fearing detention if they ventured abroad.
Mr. Ken Roth, also known to me as "Mr. Watchman": I wish I were the attorney for "plaintiff Egypt" in a case against you and your funders in Cairo, a proper venue where the events took place. The cause of action would have been incitement to violence. The evidence would have been the limited riots of your "Muslim Brothers" in Egypt this August 14. Your attorney would have advised non-appearance at that trial. But in abstentia, I most probably would have secured a favorable verdict. And under the theory of universal jurisdiction, you would have been a target of detention in any of the members of the League of the Arab States (22 minus Syria -suspended membership, and Qatar -no diplomatic relationship with Egypt for its support of "Brotherhood" terrorism in Egypt). No statute of limitations.
But wait, here is a tip from this blogger: There is an exit!! Declare your actions as immunized as "Acts of State," under the official seal of "The People's Republic of Human Rights Watch." Then the whole world would have joined me in a prolonged and hearty laugh!!
Monday, August 11, 2014
The Distance Between ISIS and Islam: Is Greater Than the Distance Between Mosul and the Moon!!
They call themselves a Caliphate -a successor regime of whom? Of the Prophet Muhammad? He defined Islam as "the system where people are not harmed by its word or its hand (action)." Of the four successors of Muhammad (Abu-Bakr; Omar; Othman, and Ali)? They advocated learning from Byzantium, Persia, and Egypt. Muhammad called for searching for knowledge "even in China." Of the Ottoman Empire? But that Empire was built on "the Millet" system where all religions were allowed to thrive.
Then it must be a Caliphate of their lunacy, of their insatiable hunger for brute power, of their worship of an age of darkness led by a crazy maniac all dressed in black calling himself "Caliph Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi." Even Al-Qaeda, of Bin Laden and Al-Zawahri, the criminal perpetrators of 9/11 among other calamities, have cut ISIS loose.
Their faith is in the sword; their mode is blitzkrieg; their joy is in decapitation of their opponents; their "Islam" is a black flag and a stolen Humvee; their advocacy is death to the Christians, the Yazidis, the Shia, the Jews, the Alawites, the unveiled women, the secular governance, and those who do not pay them their ransoms and their "estimated taxes." Works of art are their enemy; the great mosaics of Church windows and Islamic mosque domes are a threat which is brought down by dynamite; music and dance and cafe social gatherings are sinful; the West and the East should all perish. They are the new pretenders, the masters of the universe, the holy-inspired throngs with shoulder-carried grenade propellers and Kalashnikov rifles. National borders, indicative of sovereignty, are to be erased. Sovereignty resides in Caliph Al-Baghdadi -a street thug from Anbar!!
How do we measure the distance between ISIS and Islam, a distance co-equal to that between their temporary "Mosul" and the Moon?
The only verifiable yardstick is the Quran and the Sunna (the words and conduct of Muhammad). For these two sources are the primary sources of Sharia (Islamic Law). And they have so much tarnished Sharia to the point that several States within the American Union have adopted legislation banning its citation as a source of law in their courts!!
On this alone, ISIS has scored a crucial victory for their lunatic interpretations and actions. They have converted us to their own interpretation of Islam, thus causing us to ingest their poisonous pills. A historic ISIS contribution to Islamophobia!!
Their lunatic interpretation of the Quran and the Hadith (the traditions of Muhammad), combined with their savagery in the field reflected Islam in their ugly mirror. Relying on that false image, and suffering from anxiety about national security, the non-Muslim would become hostage to their propaganda. That ominous trend toward Islamophobia was also propelled by mistaken writings in the west about Islam. In his several books about Islam, Professor Bernard Lewis of Princeton University falsely asserts that there is a clash between Islam and modernity. Nonsense!!
The first word in the Quran is "IQRAA" (Read) meaning "Learn." Thus early Muslims avidly sought knowledge from Persia, Byzantium including Greece, and Egypt. In their wars, the ransom for a non-Muslim Prisoner of War was a book. That was the golden age of Islam which criminal gangs like ISIS wish to skip over, rewriting the thought and action parameters of "fundamentalist Islam." Fundamentalist Islam and reactionary Islamic are very opposite concepts: the former is light and tolerance, the latter is darkness and banishment of "The other!!"
The primary Islamic method of learning was developed by Al-Azhar which was established by the Shiis in Cairo in 975 AD as a citadel of Islamic learning. That was the seminar method whereby the student selects the instructor -a method which later travelled from Cairo to Andalusia (Spain) to Germany, to the Sorbonne in Paris, then to Oxford and Cambridge in the U.K. Islam and modernity go hand in hand, Professor Lewis, except in periods of decline such as the present one which we are sure to be transient.
So instead of what they say in televised sports, "let us go to the tape," we say "let us go to the Quran and to Muhammad's tradition, the primary sources of Islamic Jurisprudence."
ISIS (I don't care whether they call it ISIS or IS -both are deceptive appellations) declares that only Sunni Muslims are entitled to existence. Nobody else as they are the only "believers." Total idiocy!! The primary principle of Islam is Tawheed (the oneness of God) which means direct relationship between the individual and his/her Creator. There is no middleman.
This concept covers: the elimination of someone declaring the other "an apostate;" the equality between every faith and other faiths; and equality before the law. In fact, this doctrine accepts "non-faith," as the final judgement is left to God. The Quran, which in Islamic dogma, is the word of God as revealed to Muhammad, says: "Say, the truth is from your Lord. Let him who will, believe; and Let him who will, reject!!" (Chapter 18, verse 29)
On diversity and the need to welcome "the other," the Quran says: "Then will God says:" O Jesus the son of Mary! Recount My favor to thee and thy mother. Behold! I strengthened thee with the holy spirit, so that thou didst speak to the people in childhood and in maturity. Behold! I taught thee the Book and wisdom, the Law (the Torah) and the Gospel! and thou healest those born blind, and the lepers by My Leave. And behold!! Thou bringest forth the dead by My leave." (Chapter 5, verse 110).
ISIS hypocrisy is challenged forcefully by these Quranic admissions and instructions. And hypocrisy, in Islamic tradition, is a non-forgivable way of life. In fact, the Quran devotes an entire chapter of a total of 114 chapters to hypocrisy which ISIS has mastered. The Quran says: "When the hypocrites come to thee, they say, "we bear witness that thou art indeed His Apostle of God? Yea, God knoweth that thou art indeed its Apostle, and God beareth witness that the hypocrites are indeed liars." (Chapter 63; verse 1). Have you heard that Caliph Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi?
But obviously the great pretender "Al-Baghdadi, who is busy killing anybody he could catch, if he is not a ransom-paying Sunni, has no time for such Quranic details!!" Yet his delegitimation, as a pair of hands dripping with blood, lies in this Quranic statement: "On that account: We ordained for the children of Israel that if any one slew a person -unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land -it would be as if he slew the whole people; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people." (Chapter 5; verse 32) On that basis, the air strikes and humanitarian air drops in Kurdistan by the U.S., the U.K. and France, which began as of last Thursday to save the Yazidis, Christians and Kurds, are, under Islamic laws, to be regarded as fully sanctioned and justified.
In all of these arguments, the Quran is not the only yardstick. It is bolstered by the concept of "Wisdom" (Al-Hikmah), which is equally emphasized under Islamic Law by both the Quran and the traditions of Muhammad. It is the pillar of ljtihad (the application of reason to the revealed text of the Quran). Unfortunately, the non-Muslim world has focused on jihad, not on ijtihad. Even that focus was largely mis-directed. In Islamic Law, there is no aggressive war; only defensive war for the dual purposes of territorial protection and self-defense, both within national frontiers. Thus killing of the innocent, as in Mosul or Rakka or in Kurdistan, is totally abhorred by Islam.
Returning to Al-Hikmah (wisdom), we find the Quran saying: "For God hath sent down to thee the Book and Wisdom and taught thee what thou knewest not before, and great is the grace of God unto thee" (Chapter 4, Verse 113). Herein lies the legal bases of the evolution of Sharia to fit changing circumstances. Thus when the scholars of Islam say that Sharia is for "all times," they mean that it evolves with time. Examples follows:
On women, Islamic Law equates between men and women in their respective legal standings. Islam does not preclude women from the work place. During the time of Muhammad and of his four successors, women sat at governance meetings, participated in discussions, and even, at times, contradicted Muhammad himself. On severance of limbs: The practice in Islam, as decreed by the Caliph Omar, in his instructions to the judges, is that the judge should be defendant-oriented. He himself, upon an admission by a malfeasant that he had committed theft, ordered that person to go away, saying "Your guilt was perpetrated by society which denied you adequate means of livelihood. On the hijab, the Quran only mentioned "modesty in dress." On adultery, Islamic Law made it impossible to prove. For it provided for four persons to perceive penetration (an impossibility). On Quranic texts, legislated laws are a necessary supplement and modifiers (such as in the laws of inheritance, and in criminal law, and co-education).
As to religious fanaticism, the hallmark of ISIS, the Quran could not be clearer. It says: "O people of the Book! Commit no excesses in your religion; nor say of God aught but the truth." (Chapter 4, verse 171). ISIS cruelty is abhorrent to Islamic Law as based on Islamic legal outlook and practice. The Quran advises Muhammad to be kind and tolerant. It says: "It is part of the Mercy of God that dost deal gently with them. Wert thou severe or harsh, they would have broken away from about thee." (Chapter 3; Verse: 159).
Now behold ISIS, as it decapitates its hapless victims, shrieks "Allahu Akbar!!" That invocation which they have turned on its head means: "We humans are all equal before God regardless of our beliefs." Yet they call their fallen "a Shaheed" (martyr). But the martyr is the victim not the would-be executioner. The same process of upending Islamic definitions and values manifests itself through their recruitment of foreign fighters. Islamic Law calls on immigrants to abide by the laws of their newly-adopted countries, as they practice their inherited faith.
When ISIS took over control of the Mosul Dam, the main water regulator and feeder for Iraq downstream, they have engaged in another form of genocide -the tactic of siege through the threat of either flooding or manipulation of water resources. It was in Iraq, 1400 years ago, when Imam Ali, the fourth Caliph and cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, who upon prevailing over his war adversaries, the ummayads, directed his victorious troops not to withhold access to water for these rebels. Before their defeat, his adversaries have committed the opposite against that great founder of the Shiism.
May the U.S. air strikes vanquish the new barbarians!! ISIS has no place either in Islam or on any geographical map. Their war crimes may, unfortunately, go on for a while. But their end cannot be in doubt. Neither their war materiel, nor that ill-gotten wealth, nor their horrific videos by which they are seeking to propagate fear, shall ever, in the long run, insure their existence.
Their prediction of one day hoisting their black flag over the White House is proof of their unprecedented hallucination. A more assured bet is on a white flag of surrender flying over their black abodes. Neither God nor humanity are on their side. Compared to other similar jihadi organizations, ISIS is more distant from being Muslims, let alone human.
The translation of the Quranic quotations cited above are from Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Quran: Text, Translation and Commentary (U.S. edition, 2008). I teach "Islamic Law and Global Security" at Fordham University School of Law, New York City.
Then it must be a Caliphate of their lunacy, of their insatiable hunger for brute power, of their worship of an age of darkness led by a crazy maniac all dressed in black calling himself "Caliph Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi." Even Al-Qaeda, of Bin Laden and Al-Zawahri, the criminal perpetrators of 9/11 among other calamities, have cut ISIS loose.
Their faith is in the sword; their mode is blitzkrieg; their joy is in decapitation of their opponents; their "Islam" is a black flag and a stolen Humvee; their advocacy is death to the Christians, the Yazidis, the Shia, the Jews, the Alawites, the unveiled women, the secular governance, and those who do not pay them their ransoms and their "estimated taxes." Works of art are their enemy; the great mosaics of Church windows and Islamic mosque domes are a threat which is brought down by dynamite; music and dance and cafe social gatherings are sinful; the West and the East should all perish. They are the new pretenders, the masters of the universe, the holy-inspired throngs with shoulder-carried grenade propellers and Kalashnikov rifles. National borders, indicative of sovereignty, are to be erased. Sovereignty resides in Caliph Al-Baghdadi -a street thug from Anbar!!
How do we measure the distance between ISIS and Islam, a distance co-equal to that between their temporary "Mosul" and the Moon?
The only verifiable yardstick is the Quran and the Sunna (the words and conduct of Muhammad). For these two sources are the primary sources of Sharia (Islamic Law). And they have so much tarnished Sharia to the point that several States within the American Union have adopted legislation banning its citation as a source of law in their courts!!
On this alone, ISIS has scored a crucial victory for their lunatic interpretations and actions. They have converted us to their own interpretation of Islam, thus causing us to ingest their poisonous pills. A historic ISIS contribution to Islamophobia!!
Their lunatic interpretation of the Quran and the Hadith (the traditions of Muhammad), combined with their savagery in the field reflected Islam in their ugly mirror. Relying on that false image, and suffering from anxiety about national security, the non-Muslim would become hostage to their propaganda. That ominous trend toward Islamophobia was also propelled by mistaken writings in the west about Islam. In his several books about Islam, Professor Bernard Lewis of Princeton University falsely asserts that there is a clash between Islam and modernity. Nonsense!!
The first word in the Quran is "IQRAA" (Read) meaning "Learn." Thus early Muslims avidly sought knowledge from Persia, Byzantium including Greece, and Egypt. In their wars, the ransom for a non-Muslim Prisoner of War was a book. That was the golden age of Islam which criminal gangs like ISIS wish to skip over, rewriting the thought and action parameters of "fundamentalist Islam." Fundamentalist Islam and reactionary Islamic are very opposite concepts: the former is light and tolerance, the latter is darkness and banishment of "The other!!"
The primary Islamic method of learning was developed by Al-Azhar which was established by the Shiis in Cairo in 975 AD as a citadel of Islamic learning. That was the seminar method whereby the student selects the instructor -a method which later travelled from Cairo to Andalusia (Spain) to Germany, to the Sorbonne in Paris, then to Oxford and Cambridge in the U.K. Islam and modernity go hand in hand, Professor Lewis, except in periods of decline such as the present one which we are sure to be transient.
So instead of what they say in televised sports, "let us go to the tape," we say "let us go to the Quran and to Muhammad's tradition, the primary sources of Islamic Jurisprudence."
ISIS (I don't care whether they call it ISIS or IS -both are deceptive appellations) declares that only Sunni Muslims are entitled to existence. Nobody else as they are the only "believers." Total idiocy!! The primary principle of Islam is Tawheed (the oneness of God) which means direct relationship between the individual and his/her Creator. There is no middleman.
This concept covers: the elimination of someone declaring the other "an apostate;" the equality between every faith and other faiths; and equality before the law. In fact, this doctrine accepts "non-faith," as the final judgement is left to God. The Quran, which in Islamic dogma, is the word of God as revealed to Muhammad, says: "Say, the truth is from your Lord. Let him who will, believe; and Let him who will, reject!!" (Chapter 18, verse 29)
On diversity and the need to welcome "the other," the Quran says: "Then will God says:" O Jesus the son of Mary! Recount My favor to thee and thy mother. Behold! I strengthened thee with the holy spirit, so that thou didst speak to the people in childhood and in maturity. Behold! I taught thee the Book and wisdom, the Law (the Torah) and the Gospel! and thou healest those born blind, and the lepers by My Leave. And behold!! Thou bringest forth the dead by My leave." (Chapter 5, verse 110).
ISIS hypocrisy is challenged forcefully by these Quranic admissions and instructions. And hypocrisy, in Islamic tradition, is a non-forgivable way of life. In fact, the Quran devotes an entire chapter of a total of 114 chapters to hypocrisy which ISIS has mastered. The Quran says: "When the hypocrites come to thee, they say, "we bear witness that thou art indeed His Apostle of God? Yea, God knoweth that thou art indeed its Apostle, and God beareth witness that the hypocrites are indeed liars." (Chapter 63; verse 1). Have you heard that Caliph Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi?
But obviously the great pretender "Al-Baghdadi, who is busy killing anybody he could catch, if he is not a ransom-paying Sunni, has no time for such Quranic details!!" Yet his delegitimation, as a pair of hands dripping with blood, lies in this Quranic statement: "On that account: We ordained for the children of Israel that if any one slew a person -unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land -it would be as if he slew the whole people; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people." (Chapter 5; verse 32) On that basis, the air strikes and humanitarian air drops in Kurdistan by the U.S., the U.K. and France, which began as of last Thursday to save the Yazidis, Christians and Kurds, are, under Islamic laws, to be regarded as fully sanctioned and justified.
In all of these arguments, the Quran is not the only yardstick. It is bolstered by the concept of "Wisdom" (Al-Hikmah), which is equally emphasized under Islamic Law by both the Quran and the traditions of Muhammad. It is the pillar of ljtihad (the application of reason to the revealed text of the Quran). Unfortunately, the non-Muslim world has focused on jihad, not on ijtihad. Even that focus was largely mis-directed. In Islamic Law, there is no aggressive war; only defensive war for the dual purposes of territorial protection and self-defense, both within national frontiers. Thus killing of the innocent, as in Mosul or Rakka or in Kurdistan, is totally abhorred by Islam.
Returning to Al-Hikmah (wisdom), we find the Quran saying: "For God hath sent down to thee the Book and Wisdom and taught thee what thou knewest not before, and great is the grace of God unto thee" (Chapter 4, Verse 113). Herein lies the legal bases of the evolution of Sharia to fit changing circumstances. Thus when the scholars of Islam say that Sharia is for "all times," they mean that it evolves with time. Examples follows:
On women, Islamic Law equates between men and women in their respective legal standings. Islam does not preclude women from the work place. During the time of Muhammad and of his four successors, women sat at governance meetings, participated in discussions, and even, at times, contradicted Muhammad himself. On severance of limbs: The practice in Islam, as decreed by the Caliph Omar, in his instructions to the judges, is that the judge should be defendant-oriented. He himself, upon an admission by a malfeasant that he had committed theft, ordered that person to go away, saying "Your guilt was perpetrated by society which denied you adequate means of livelihood. On the hijab, the Quran only mentioned "modesty in dress." On adultery, Islamic Law made it impossible to prove. For it provided for four persons to perceive penetration (an impossibility). On Quranic texts, legislated laws are a necessary supplement and modifiers (such as in the laws of inheritance, and in criminal law, and co-education).
As to religious fanaticism, the hallmark of ISIS, the Quran could not be clearer. It says: "O people of the Book! Commit no excesses in your religion; nor say of God aught but the truth." (Chapter 4, verse 171). ISIS cruelty is abhorrent to Islamic Law as based on Islamic legal outlook and practice. The Quran advises Muhammad to be kind and tolerant. It says: "It is part of the Mercy of God that dost deal gently with them. Wert thou severe or harsh, they would have broken away from about thee." (Chapter 3; Verse: 159).
Now behold ISIS, as it decapitates its hapless victims, shrieks "Allahu Akbar!!" That invocation which they have turned on its head means: "We humans are all equal before God regardless of our beliefs." Yet they call their fallen "a Shaheed" (martyr). But the martyr is the victim not the would-be executioner. The same process of upending Islamic definitions and values manifests itself through their recruitment of foreign fighters. Islamic Law calls on immigrants to abide by the laws of their newly-adopted countries, as they practice their inherited faith.
When ISIS took over control of the Mosul Dam, the main water regulator and feeder for Iraq downstream, they have engaged in another form of genocide -the tactic of siege through the threat of either flooding or manipulation of water resources. It was in Iraq, 1400 years ago, when Imam Ali, the fourth Caliph and cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, who upon prevailing over his war adversaries, the ummayads, directed his victorious troops not to withhold access to water for these rebels. Before their defeat, his adversaries have committed the opposite against that great founder of the Shiism.
May the U.S. air strikes vanquish the new barbarians!! ISIS has no place either in Islam or on any geographical map. Their war crimes may, unfortunately, go on for a while. But their end cannot be in doubt. Neither their war materiel, nor that ill-gotten wealth, nor their horrific videos by which they are seeking to propagate fear, shall ever, in the long run, insure their existence.
Their prediction of one day hoisting their black flag over the White House is proof of their unprecedented hallucination. A more assured bet is on a white flag of surrender flying over their black abodes. Neither God nor humanity are on their side. Compared to other similar jihadi organizations, ISIS is more distant from being Muslims, let alone human.
The translation of the Quranic quotations cited above are from Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Quran: Text, Translation and Commentary (U.S. edition, 2008). I teach "Islamic Law and Global Security" at Fordham University School of Law, New York City.
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