by Anwar Khan

Certain knowledge about things inaccessible to the senses has always been a challenge to man. It has especially become so in our times—those of the fake news days. As news of the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey hit the waves, it was another field day for the alternative media folks to provide “analysis” and “conclusions” on the issues related to this sad event. As always, it ranged from the erudite to the outlandish. One particular Youtube video I was sent went so far as to claim that the whole event was an elaborate hoax, staged in a studio. The speaker “proves” this to be the case based on some pictorial anomalies, videography technique, and appearance of symbols and numbers of occult nature, according to him, indicating the fingerprints of some secret society. The video was watched by many and if the comments section was any indication (which is disabled now), his judgement on the issue was beyond a reasonable doubt. All the while the casket of the slain ambassador was being afforded state funeral, attended by his wailing family.(1)

While the space that the internet affords the voices we call the alternative narrative (a collective of blogs, radio shows, websites, researchers, writers and activists who challenge the false narratives and lies of the corporate media) is undoubtedly one of the most cherished developments, as it add tremendously to the richness of the information we receive, and advance our understanding of the world, this democratization of information also has a down side. It has caused a phenomenon we may call “information clutter” where on any particular issue many different claims can be made without anything ever being proved. This has resulted in utter confusion among many whose loathing and distrust of the corporate media has caused them to turn to the alternative narrative for information but only to find many varying and often contradicting information on the same subject matter. The average person has never been this overwhelmed by data before at any point in history and this has lead to a paradoxical state of affairs: an information surplus but a coherence deficiency.

The so called “truther movement” is a sobering example. Currently there are at least half a dozen groups fighting ferociously among themselves regarding whose take on the collapse of the two Trade Towers on 9/11 is most congruent with reality. The proponents of direct energy call the thermate folks “disinformation agents”, the mini-nuke fraternity call both “controlled opposition”. The no-plane theorists call everyone else “shills” while itself being labelled “kooks” by all the other factions for taking poetic license to a whole new level. The hubris of each group holding fanatically to their theories and failing to form a consensus on the least common denominator amongst the leading theories has done tremendous harm to the “truther movement”, and has arrested to a great degree the potential it once had to achieve a great deal more than it has thus far—in the process disillusioning many of this movement’s veterans. Some may say the beauty is in the detail, such that it is of essence to know “how” things are done. But this is more a case of looking at the finger and neglecting the heavenly glory, a state of affairs most desirable to Cass Sunstein—the government wizard in charge of fighting “conspiracy theories”.

In the light of all these divisions, squabbles, name-callings, all and all mistrust of each other in the leading alternative narrative movements (hereafter AN), we need to ask ourselves if it is, in its current state, offering any substantial diagnosis to our miseries – or is it just another instrument in the orchestra? Is the AN playing any decisive role in the collective awakening of the masses, or is it only adding to their confusion and bewilderment? Are we any closer to dislodging the corrupt centers of power that is taking humanity to the slaughter-house, or is it that, the AN, unknowingly acts as a ventilation for the frustrated, providing an illusion of freedom yet really constituting an inextricable part of the matrix? Clearly, the answers to these questions are not simple. What constitutes the alternative narrative? How do we measure success or failure? What exactly is the “purpose” of the AN? These are all valid rejoinders. Leaving philosophical hairsplitting for another day, let me take a bold stance and claim that I believe that as a whole the AN has failed to live to its potential, excepting certain noteworthy exceptions within it. We have won a few minor battles but winning the war is increasingly becoming a farfetched idea.

As a Muslim who lived through 9/11, I can assure you that today myself and 12 million other Muslims in the U.S. have never been more restless about our future. Islamophobia in the US and in Europe has never been this existentially threatening. A nuclear war with Russia has scarcely ever been so real. The Palestinian Question—a moral blemish on global conscience since 1947— has never been this removed from political priorities (the silly UNSC resolutions notwithstanding). Since the 13th century Mongol invasion, the Middle East has never been in such an extreme state of confusion and disorder (many would argue that this is on the whole far worse). ISIS and Co, despite some setbacks in Syria and Iraq, are not going anywhere any time soon. (They will metamorphosis into something much more sinister, just like how Al Qaeda turned into ISIS, reminding us of the truth of Einstein’s ‘energy cannot be destroyed’ theory). On a deeper level, the human condition has never been in such disarray; our minds have never been so confused; our nature never so badly manipulated; empathy never in such low supply; apathy never existing in such high quantities. And most pertinent to our discussion here, the alternative narrative has never been this divided amongst itself.

It is wholly possible, nay most probable, that the current divisions in the AN is to a great degree the machinations of Cass Sunstein and Co. After all the likes of his are experts in how to infuse genuine movements with co-intel, disinformation agents, gate-keepers and controlled opposition infiltrations to arrest the momentum in forming vehicles of genuine change in society. As Lenin said, “the best way to control an opposition is to lead it”. That is a reality as old as humanity itself and it is here to stay. But I wonder if Sunstein and his ilk would enjoy this much success had the AN had some sound principles to abide by, some intellectual framework underpinning its quest, some axioms binding all the different voices within it, rather than just their mistrust of the military-industrial-media complex?

Therefore, I will not— for a change—put the focus on the enemy’s strength and cunning. Rather, I will place it upon our weakness and failures. Moreover, I will assume—to the extent possible—that most people within the AN are genuine about their desire to reach to the bottom of the issues but are mistaken about some judgements, which have arisen from certain defective conceptions. This is usually the case when sound intellectual principles are missing from the cognitive process. In my own lifetime I have seldom interacted with a truth-seeker, activist, writer, researcher, radio-host within the alternative narrative except that I have been left with a bitter taste in the mouth. Part of it was my own shortcomings, perhaps for projecting my sensibilities onto others. But mostly it was my witnessing that many of the characters in the AM lack sound intellectual and logical principles which would enable them to grapple with the ever more sophisticated mind-rape that we are treated with, and are often clueless in finding coherence within the noise.

Towards that end, I would like to offer one potential solution that can address the increasing divisions, dissensions and resultant information clutter that is undermining the work of the AN and impeding its purpose and potential. I believe the AN needs to “standardize” its epistemology—the investigation of what justifies sound belief and distinguishes it from mere unsupported opinion— or risk being a collection of such a cognitive spectrum (which it currently is) where it is impossible to find two people of similar belief, a recipe for information clutter, confusion and ultimately failure to change our collective disposition.

Standardization is mainly an accident of centralization. The AN, on the other hand, by its very nature is decentralized, and staunchly independent. Each person within it operates on individually driven principles and motivations. They are bound together by some abstract concepts perhaps and nothing more at times. The voices within are so various and multifaceted that the very idea of brining them together in some shape or form sounds like an exercise in self-delusion. Maybe. But we also see an indisputable harmony and synchronicity within it that is driving many of its relative achievements. (Here I am a Muslim writing from a Muslim-centric point of view for the Saker, a platform dedicated to “stopping Empire’s war on Russia”. This is not just convergence of conveniences. There are things that bring us together on a deep level). Could it be that some agreed upon driving principle might be able to mitigate the many disappointments and dissensions that has plagued the AN? I believe it can if we standardize (not to be mistaken with homogenize) certain important principles in what we might call our “epistemology”, in order to make it less hackable by… well everything under the sun.

Every field has a “quality standard”, against which various bodies within it compare, judge and improve their trade. This encourages production of the best possible product. Shouldn’t the AN have a similar standard, in order to check the quality of its output? You may say what we are dealing with is conceptual and not material so standardization may not necessarily apply. I could not disagree more. Concepts (and conclusions) also have a quality standard. It is called logic: the validity or lack thereof of reasoning in statements. It is an unassailable achievement of us humans (some say gift from God) to come up with a mode of communication that calls out invalid reasoning entering communication.

People often say “mathematics is the only language shared by all human beings regardless of culture, religion, or gender. Pi is still approximately 3.14159 regardless of what country you are in”. Yes, but this applies even more fundamentally to logic. If A is B, and B is C, then A is C, is the same regardless of what country you are in. We often forget that mathematics is a branch of logic and not vise versa. But logic only will not help us for our purpose here. It only serves us with the proper arrangement and logical entailment of statements, not necessarily of their meaning. What we need is a framework that provides meaning beyond the mere arrangement and entailment of statements. What we need is hikma(‘wisdom’ in Arabic)—the science which investigates the nature of things as they really are, to the best of human effort. (2) As grandiose as it sounds, I truly believe that this form of traditional philosophy can provide a sound standard of epistemology, guiding us on how to organize our thinking, and to separate the political wheat from the political chaff.

In my days of studying classical Islamic sciences, we spent a great deal of time studying Aristotelian logic, Arabic grammar and rhetoric before we delved into metaphysics, with theology being the crowning jewel. This method—study of logic, grammar and rhetoric—is called the Trivium in the West. The trivium (which means “intersection of three roads” in Latin) along with the Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) constituted the liberal arts curriculum. This time tested way of learning was discontinued—barring some exceptions— in the US and European public schools in the early decades of the 20th century, mainly due to the influence of the Rockefeller run General Education Board and its European subsidiaries. In our times it is mainly taught in private schools and religious seminaries, in watered-down incarnations.

This curriculum was the cream of hundred years of human experience and analysis of “knowing”. The purpose of this approach to learning was to free the mind of incorrect beliefs, and to understand reality to the extent afforded by the human intellect. Theology was the premier study (before the Enlightenment pushed it to the back rows of intellectual human inquiry). One had to be equipped with all the right intellectual tools to avoid faulty judgements before arriving at Revelation, (after which the intellect was subservient to it in some degree)(3). Grammar was the systematic method of gathering raw data of a similar nature into a body of knowledge. When that gathering is complete we call it a subject. Logic was the method of bringing full understanding to that body of knowledge by systematically eliminating contradictions within it. Rhetoric was to communicate the result of grammar and logic to ourselves and to others with wisdom and persuasive appeal. The purpose of all this learning was to arrive at hikma.

The purpose of this needed detour is to point to the challenges of arriving at hikma in the absence of the prerequisite learning to learn process—which the Trivium really was— that is missing from many amongst us, even in the AN who pride themselves with their ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. In the absence of an education system that prepares us for understanding reality, we all need to re-asses if we are intellectually geared to not only detect the lies and half-truths of the MSM, but also the faulty reasoning and judgements from the AN that often gets a free pass? Perhaps some of us need to revisit what makes for sound education (which is the opposite of schooling). This is not to say that to get to the reality of things, one necessarily has to systematically study these disciplines. Many people have the God-given ability to see things for what they are. But in our times that very ability is manipulated on so many levels that the need to study epistemology is greater than ever.

Revisiting epistemology

Epistemology comes from the Greek episteme (knowledge) and logeo (to speak). It means the theory of knowledge: the study of the nature, sources, and validity of knowledge, or in other words how you know what you know. There are two components to it, (1) knowledge, and (2) how one arrives at it. Let us examine both.

Knowledge (ilm) is when a perception of something takes place in the mind. It divides into two parts: conception (taṣawwūr) and judgement (tasdiq). Conception is a perception of something that is free of any judgement. For example, we imagine the person of John without affirming or negating anything in relation to him. If we affirm or negate anything in relation to him – in other words predicate – for example, we say, “John is tall”, then we call this judgment. Now if this judgement is based on a conviction that is firmly rooted in the heart and also congruous to reality, we call it certainty (yaqīn), as in the statement “9/11 is an inside job”. If the judgement is based on a conviction that is firmly rooted in the heart but not congruous to reality, we call it compound ignorance (jahl murakkab), as in the statement, “They (Muslims) hate us for our freedom”. If the judgement is based on a conviction but not firmly rooted in the heart such that it maybe uprooted with some skeptical remarks, it is called immitation (taqlid), as in the statement, “Trump will fight the establishment”. If a judgement is not based on conviction at all – and therefore lacks any firmness in the heart – it is called conjecture (zann), as in “Russia hacked the US elections”. Therefore conjecture is the weakest of judgements.(4)

Macintosh HD:Users:anwarmangal:Desktop:epistemologylatest.png

 

Now let us see what is usually said about the second component of epistemology—how we arrive at it, or the causes of knowledge. Again, here we are drawing on the shared rational tradition of medieval Jews, Christians and Muslims, much of which was inherited from the Greeks. It is not peculiar to any one group.(5)

Causes of knowledge are three things: (a) sound senses, (b) Reason, (c) unanimously agreed upon report.(6)

The senses, the notion that hearing, seeing, smelling, taste, and touch, causing certain knowledge does not require much comment. But if for any reason you are in doubt, touch the nearest flame to remove it.

Reason is a cause of certain knowledge also. And whatever of it is established is self-evident, requiring no demonstration, just as the knowledge that the whole of a thing is a greater than the part of it. There are three modes of rational judgements: they are either characterized by necessity, possibility or impossibility.

1)Necessity is that whose non-existence the mind cannot conceive, for example 1+1 equal to anything other than 2

2)Impossibility is that whose existence the mind cannot conceive, for example a number being odd and even at the same time.

3)Possibility is that whose existence or non existence the mind can equally conceive, for example the Loch ness monster.

Unanimously agreed upon report (UAUR), something established by so many different chains of narration, such that it is inconceivable that all of the narrators would have been able to come together to agree on a falsehood.(7) For example the historical reports of a certain Alexander of Macedonia, or that there is a place called Madagascar. Unanimously agreed report also causes certain knowledge. Most of what an average person “knows” through the media—print and electronic—are assumptions of UAUR. In our age—the age of information warfare— the abuse and manipulation of this cause of knowledge is one of the main reasons of our political realities. Therefore, getting UAUR right is the most important pillar of a sound framework for the AN to start unclogging the information clutter which is an obstacle in valid judgements.

This brief prefacing on epistemology was to bring us to the forefront of the investigation on how we know what we know. It is a succinct analysis of the subject matter from a body of knowledge that is quite voluminous. The idea being that to be able to apply hikma to phenomenon we experience, we need to be standing on a solid ground which is not particular to us as individuals but rather universal to all.

Now let us move to some axioms—derived from the conceptual framework stated above—that I believe can further help the AN in separating the wheat from the chaff. Axiom is a statement that is regarded as established or self-evidently true. But here it is given a more liberal application, which is to say that it has some room for slight disagreement (with emphasis on ‘slight’), a confession of my fallibility if you will. The list here is, again, not exhaustive by any means but a starting point which should be further examined and added to as the AN consensus see fit. Am I asking for a Philadelphia Convention(8) to ratify the AN constitution? Perhaps I am. I will leave the preamble to the wordsmiths among you. I will go straight to the articles:

The 4 (for now) Articles of Hikma for the Alternative Narrative

(I) Anyone or any group that denies 9/11 being an inside job/conspiracy can not be part of the solution, and therefore not part of the AN. 9/11 being the watershed event of our lives that changed the world as we knew it, is the perfect litmus-test of our moral courage, intelligence and integrity. Our judgement of it being an inside job is corroborated by all the causes of knowledge, leading to a level of certainty that only a fool or a fraud will deny.

(a) While the AN may accept contributors who are silent on the issue (some may have legitimate reasons), the AN should never accept those who explicitly deny it, or subscribe to some half-baked, mainstream approved soft conspiracy theories.

(b) Any theory on 9/11 which directly or indirectly absolves state actors from responsibility— even if its subscriber hold the official version as a lie—should not be adopted by the AN as a strategy, and not necessarily as a final judgement on the ‘impossibility’ of such a claim. What is even worst is to ascribe the actions of 9/11 to ‘non-human entities’. This undeniably pushes the subscriber into a state of awe from which it is difficult to see the playing field level, as the antagonist is perceived bigger than life, and thus any action futile. This conveniently serves the Empire.

(c) Anyone maintaining the inside job narrative of 9/11 yet whitewashing Israel from participation in it cannot be part of the AN. (9)

 

(II) AN needs experts in their respective areas. Jack of all trade, ace of none cannot be a motto to live by. Mainstream academia, politics aside, have some very erudite experts in their areas of study, and this is something the AN can learn from them. A commentator on Russia should ideally know Russian and lived in Russia. A commentator on the Middle East should ideally know at least one Middle Eastern language and lived amongst its people. An occultist— the increasing favorite of the New Age conspiracists — should be able to interpret ancient Egyptian texts, among others, and not just sleuthing happily on Youtubistan, peddling other people’s ideas. Usually speaking, a mainstream academic will put many AN commentators to shame with their ability to deeply understand the subject matter, especially with research and bibliography (AN researchers love to quote Wikipedia on most affairs). It is an entirely different matter why mainstream academics choose to serve the Empire with their scholarship rather than fight it.

AN media, especially radio, suffers from adding to the information clutter by broadcasting opinions of all and sundry without checking their qualifications first. Have you found yourself listening to some show where the guest covers topics such as UFOs, Free Masonry, Muslim Brotherhood, and GMO in half an hour?

(III) While the role of the occult in today’s political, economic and social realities is a subject that demands close scrutiny, and most certainly not be dismissed out of hand, the way it is often blown off proportions by many in the AN conveniently serves the interest of Empire in more than one way. Some—like the Zeitgeist films—connect major modern political realities to secret societies (that also happen to be behind the creation of religions like Islam, Christianity and Judaism according to them), whose roots go back to ancient Egypt. The AN will do itself a world of good to stay away these New Age conspiracists who seek to fill the spiritual vacuum created by modernity by subscribing to unsubstantiated and shoddy conclusions, which not only fail the UAUR and Occam’s Razor test, but fail many other heuristic tool available to us. The same would apply to the subscribers of any idea that puts the levers of global institutions of influence in the hand of alien entities— the Reptilian Agenda being one of them. While AN should not adjudicate the claim as ‘impossible’, it does violate the principles of hikma on many levels and should be courteously discarded. This is not the same as denying the truth or role of the Anti-Christ or Dajjal in our political and social realities. It should ideally work as a spiritual element that pierces the modern material dialectics of our realities today and not necessarily as a notion that determines our strategies.

(IV) “Islamic terrorism” is a reality created and sustained by the Empire and not something that exists independent of it. Islamophobia is the desired reaction. Russophobia — the latest trend — is from the same sources. Those subscribing to it or help maintain this narrative should not be part of AN.(11)

Conclusion

I know I am being naive perhaps to (a) suggest a rather simple solution to a very complex situation, and (b) being slightly presumptuous that my “axiomatic” musings will somehow set us on the path of deliverance from a divisive state which would have left many a great mind clueless. But as long as basic conceptual shortcomings exist in any area, someone will try to point them, not necessarily believing it will lead to heavenly glory but rather to correct a flaw. Again, what is mentioned here is intended to start a process. It is not an end in itself. I intended to raise more questions than provide answers. This is the reason I have not mentioned other important issues that also have a direct bearing on the subject at hand, like what do I mean by the term “Empire”? Is it the American Empire? Anglo-Zionist Empire? Jewish Empire? Illuminati/Free-Mason Empire? Or a combination of some or all of them? I will leave that for our Convention to determine. So by a raise of hand, who is attending it?

Notes

(1) While the claim that the assassination of the Russian ambassador was a “hoax”, is not impossible, it is highly improbable and badly misinformed. For the simple reason that it violates, among other things, the law of parsimony or Occam’s Razor: among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Occam’s Razor, while not being an indisputable proof, is nonetheless a very useful heuristic tool to understand phenomenon. It is within the framework of hikma.

For the assassination to be a hoax, Turkish and Russian authorities would have necessarily cooperated quite intimately because this did not take place in some back alley in the dark of the night. It was in a state institution, in front of TV cameras, and many witnesses. Since the event took place in Turkey, she would have been naturally more involved. Turkey already suffering from falling tourist numbers due to many terrorist attacks this year, is risking decimating her tourism industry entirely— a significant 15% of her GDP— with this hoax (if the place is not safe for high level delegates it can not be that safe for average foreigners surely). Tourism lose means a tremendous hit to the economy. Which can send the ruling AKP party to the cleaners in elections and result in their ouster even before it. Who wants to be removed from office for a hoax that is achieving nothing more than “sending occult messages” to whom it may concern on “who rules the world”?. Also, it effectively means the acting ambassador will be living the rest of his life in some house in the Siberian expanse, or going through at least 10 major plastic surgeries to change his entire face, or a combination of both. It would have been easier for the Turks and Russians to actually assassinate him than go through the myriad problems associated with hoaxing it. Also, if it was a hoax, the Americans—the nemesis of the Russians — would have tried to point to it somehow. Unless they are also part of it — which is another assumption of this claim— in which case the whole Putin vs US narrative is a hoax itself. Anyone holding that cannot possibly be enjoying life. Therefore this theory has more assumptions than Joan Rivers’ plastic surgeries, and thus cannot possibly be that useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAMSLCfaD4M

(2) This is the same slogan raised by philosophical trends since the Enlightenment, but who, in actuality, are doing nothing more than serving positivist scientism, and deliberately stifling the bigger questions that was the Principale Propositum of the philosophical inquiry.

(3)“Reason is subservient to Revelation”, this is in a very specific sense and the truth of revelation does become established purely through reason (the rational entailment implied by a miracle occurring at the hands of someone claiming prophethood) but that once the revelation is proven true, not everything in scripture can be strictly reduced to something which has a linear logical structure – although this isn’t to say that it is ever “irrational”.

(4)While this particular passage is from Islamic sources(the examples being replaced with modern ones), this understanding of knowledge is by no means peculiar to Islamic scholarship only. Invariably there are similar definitions by Greek, Christian and some Jewish (Maimonides being one of them) scholars of hikma.

(5) Wolfs, The Philosophy of Spinoza, II, 133.

It is noteworthy that Muslims were studying Greek didactic philosophy and producing commentaries on Aristotle (that was then translated into Latin from the Arabic for teaching in European centers of learning in medieval times) because in the rational traditions of the Greeks, the Muslims saw an opportunity to refine the intellect in understanding shared concepts. Wisdom derived from it was for all. As the Prophet of Islam said “wisdom is the lost property of the believer, where ever he/she finds it, he/she may claim it”.

(6)Illumination—knowledge derived through a hyper-spiritual state— is also a valid source of knowledge, but particular to the recipient only. What is known through it may not be generalized.

(7)That historians Plutarch and Diodorus mention this monumental figure, whose name and exploits are also available in Sassanian and Sanskrit historical sources of the time; not to mention the cities that still exist by his name (Alexandria), with Hellenist architecture still surviving today in places he is purported to have conquered; and ethnic groups that are known to be of Greek origin (for example the Nuristanis of Afghanistan) in the midst of other homogenous groups. All these factors make the invention of Alexander inconceivable.

(8) The 1787 meeting that ratified the US Constitution.

Interestingly there is another AN convention taking place in Philadelphia where some brilliant ideas are being presented. But I often wonder if such events— in the absence of a basic intellectual framework around which to build a consensus upon— is nothing more than reinforcing common held beliefs of unfalsifiable nature, usually accompanied by self-congratulatory air of being “liberated”, and ultimately glorification of the ego, more than providing any strategy to overcome the Empire.

http://www.freeyourmindconference.com/

(9) This excludes Alex Jones as being part of a genuine AN. I promised I will not take names but this was a must. Other than his efforts to whitewash Israeli involvements in 9/11 and other conspiracies, Alex Jones violates our epistemology on so many levels that it is a disgrace to see this man become the face of the AN.

(10) One of the reasons I was attracted to the Saker was his undeniable expertise on the subject matter he dedicated his writing: Russia and military affairs. The Saker also seems to be one of the few in the AN who is consistently rational with his judgements. That is to say he is willing to suspend judgement till the very last minute, and entertain many competing theories without necessarily accepting them. This is deductive reasoning in action. He avoids pontificating on issues outside his area of expertise. Another example is Sibel Edmonds. I like her measured approach to Big Brother and whistle blowing issues and staying within her range of expertise, without unnecessarily delving into the occult and other unrelated issues. I should also mention James Corbett of thecorbettreport.com and Kevin Barrett of Truth Jihad. Their style of AN journalism should be a guide to those who want to go that route: reasonable, courageous, and relevant. Finally I should mention Sofia Smallstorm of http://www.aboutthesky.com/ who is doing some tremendous work on chem-trails and nano technology. There are many unsung heroes of the AN who deserve mentioning and salutations for their services. We own them a heartfelt thank you!

(11)I know this will infuriate many, but I believe Russia Today’s news, unfortunately, often fails this test. RT talks shows and documentaries are definitely a breath of fresh air, a most important contribution to the AN. But RT news (especially online) does not live to this expectation (sometime I feel as if they are two different organizations). RT news has been consistently peddling many uncorroborated news items, most dealing with refugee crimes in Europe and Muslim “brutalities” in general— something that is increasingly becoming RT news’ mainstay. The latest being this news item: “A 30-year-old woman has been beheaded in a remote Afghan village for visiting a local market alone, without her husband, local media report citing officials. The people behind the beheading may have links to the Taliban.” Other than the total irrelevance of such a random piece of news (there are thousands of such crimes daily), this is also fake news, reported by the USAID funded Tolo News — an operation of Saad Mohseni, chairman of the Moby Group and as far as I am concerned a CIA asset. Not only did the Taliban have no relation to this event (I am no fan of Taliban but I know that killing a woman in such an unwarranted manner in a tribal society where reprisals from her family and tribe can spell the end of Taliban operations in the area, is not a very smart strategy), the incident itself is most certainly fake news. There is no word from the victim’s family, no name, no interview, just a “confirmation from the provisional governor’s spokesperson” (who conveniently has a dog in the fight as this means more money extorted from the government for “security” operations) and “confirmed by Sar-e-Pul women’s affairs head Nasima Arezo”, (whoever she is) who most probably was informed by the governor’s office, without any further access.

https://www.rt.com/news/372124-afghan-woman-beheaded-husband/

I know it might be new to some people but killing women— as if they are cucumbers waiting to be chopped at any time— is not a favorite pastime in Afghanistan. Soros affiliated news organizations would like you to believe that but it really is not the case. Yes, there are the sad incidents of “honor” killings but not quite as many (every 15 seconds if you are following the MSM) as they would like you to believe. I can assure you that. I work in Afghanistan. And if such barbaric practices still take place, we need to be thankful to the American war in Afghanistan which has destroyed most traditional institutions like the tribal Jirgas(meetings) which used to settle “honor” related issues, often humanely. A far cry from the vigilantism that prevails because of the security situation.

Why is RT peddling sensationalist uncorroborated news (just like the MSM) that is disparaging the name of Islam and Muslims, while at the same time challenging other false premises of the Empire, is something that I would love to be enlightened about. AN has to be the vanguard against fake news, its raison d’être. It cannot participate in it.