by Ghassan Kadi
When the so-called “Arab Spring” took off, Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Muammar Gaddafi, made a televised speech to Libyans warning them, and the world, of what would happen should the central government in Tripoli fall apart.
His predictions included that Al-Qaeda would come in and Libya would be partitioned into at least three states. Apart from being unable to predict that the resurrected Al-Qaeda was going to rename itself as Daesh, he was accurate in every detail. But the West did not listen.
Gaddafi himself warned the EU that should his government be toppled, the EU would end up getting inundated with Jihadists. . “If I go down, Europe will go down” he said, but the West did not listen again.
Before him, the unsavoury ex-Egyptian President Mubarak has made many such similar statements. In his own “after-me-the-flood” warnings, he told his American allies that should he be removed forcefully or by means of a revolution, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) would step in. Even though Mursi was later on deposed, Mubarak’s predictions were indeed accurate to a high degree. And even with the heavy clamp down of current President Sisi on the MB, the spectre of their return to power is very plausible.
When the “Arab Spring” reached Syria, it became clear to the eyes of observers and knowers of the macro and micro politics of Syria that the only way for the enemies of Syria to reach their objective is by mobilizing an Islamist Jihadi sensation.
Syrian officials, including Army officers, diplomats and key personnel were all approached by recruiters offering high sums of money for them to defect and join the so-called “revolution”.
At that point in time, pro-Syria activists did not “exist”. There was no call for their “existence”. When it became clear that there was a struggle within Syria, the first wave of activists came from the pro-Palestine line of activism.
That was a very sad moment of time indeed as some of those “activists”, especially Western ones, were unable to see the forest from the trees. They fell into traps of the Sykes-Picot lie and decided that Palestine should be the first priority up the ladder, not really knowing or caring to learn and know that Palestine is historically and geographically an integral part of Syria, and also not really caring to learn and know that had it not been for official Syrian Government support, the Palestinian cause would have been lost and forgotten. Many of them supported the “revolution”, not seeing that it is primarily a war between sectarianism and secularism. Some of them woke up later on and changed their position but, others kept up their stand, despite the many twists and turns of the war.
Activists, both Western and indigenous, who were able to see beyond the slogans and the narratives of colour revolutions, knew well, from the early days, that the support that the Syrian anti-government forces were receiving from Western media, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the EU and the USA was not about implementing political reforms in Syria. They were able to see what was behind the very transparent façade.
Some activists alleged that it was the preferential treatment of the “Syrian regime”, one that favoured Alawites against Sunnis, that gave rise to the sectarian tension. Many pro-Syrian activists, including myself, hopelessly tried to explain to those activists (who were mainly Western and did not know much about Syria at all other than what they have read and heard on the Murdoch media) that what was happening was in fact a war between secularism and sectarianism; and neither a civil war, nor a sectarian war, but those Western activists did not want to listen.
Now, the advent of Jihadism into the EU shoots this allegation in the heart. I would like to go back to those activists and see what interpretation they can give for the rise of Jihadi fundamentalism in the secular democratic EU.
As supporters of Syria emerged from nowhere, they made their position known. They made all the communications they could make. They set up Facebook groups. They expressed their understanding and vision. Syrians in Damascus marched in the streets carrying huge flags showing to the world their knowledge of the conspiracy against Syria and their support to her President and government. But the West did not see or hear anything.
We have to stop here for a moment and give real credit to Syrians who took to the streets, if not a salute. Many of them had an axe to grind with their government security apparatus (Mukhabarat). Many others were genuinely seeking political reform including political plurality in the state that had been under a single-party rule for nearly half a century. Many others had grown sick and tired of corruption and cronyism. But when these and those realised that the conspiracy against Syria was bigger than all of those issues, big as they are, they decided to stand behind their nation and against the mass conspiracy.
They told their stories, each in his/her own way and capacity, but the West did not want to listen.
The message that the genuine and savvy people of The Levant wanted to relay to the West was clear. It was a message of warning of dire consequences if the message was not heard and taken to heart. All the cries went out to no avail. The West went deaf and blind.
The West had another agenda in mind. Its agenda was to topple Bashar Assad without giving any consideration to the consequences; none, none so ever. The leaders of the alleged free-world acted like morons. They fell for the trick of the regional anti-Assad Islamist coalition. That coalition that was comprised of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar had no objective other than one that was sectarian, aimed to further promote their business and with Israel’s security in mind. They saw in Assad a threat against Sunnis and an instrument that will serve Iranian expansion. And the West, the stupid West, bought the story of an alleged revolution. It had its own axe to grind with Bashar and had no hesitations to aid and support them and encourage them to create what became ISIS/IS/Daesh.
Later on, President Assad himself warned Europe from the eventual influx of terrorists, but the EU and the rest of the West did not want to listen. The world “warned” has been used so many times in this article. The objective here is to emphasize that the West was made aware again and again of the possible consequences of its actions in Syria, but remained defiant because it did not want to listen
It was as if the West did not learn from Afghanistan, did not learn from Iraq and did not learn from Libya. It was as if the West did not learn from its failed experience with Al-Qaeda. Failure upon failure did not stop the West from embarking on another journey of predestined failure.
The West seems to have an irrevocable contract with stupidity and short-sightedness.
For as long as it adamantly wishes to stick to its guns, the West now deserves to be told by those who tried to nudge it into clear vision: “we told you so”.
On the surface, this will sound like a statement of glee, but it is not.
The recent terror attacks in the EU must have a direct link to the fact that the anti-Syrian coalition, including the EU has 1) ignored all warnings about the rise of Jihadis, 2) facilitated their movement into Syria in the hope of scoring a quick and swift victory against her government, and 3) fell victim to political correctness in accepting refugee swarms that included terrorists that it (ie the EU) have helped create in the first place.
Sad but true, no one knows when the wave of terror in the EU is going to end and how. No one knows how much further it is going to spread, to what extent and for how long. No one knows how many more innocent people are going to get killed. What we do know is the fact that if the EU Parliament and individual European governments had put any effort, any tiny amount of effort to put facts and logic together, they would now be in a position that would allow them to understand why they are facing the predicament of terror. All indications point towards the direction that they do not intend to take any real and effective steps towards understanding the nature of the huge problem they are facing, let alone making any steps towards resolving it.
Western leaders continue to run around in circles chasing their own tails. With all the tragedies that have hit Europe, they do not seem to have learned yet. They have got one foot inside the door of the fight against Daesh, and the other foot inside the door of the fight against Syrian President Bashar Assad. They are still carrying the “Assad-must-go” banner. They still do not seem to want to know who is fighting Daesh and who is feeding it, and all the while refusing that they were instrumental in creating it.
And even though their alleged strategy to fight Daesh did not yield any outcome, and despite the fact that the collaboration between the Russian air might and the Syrian Army on the ground has yielded amazing results in a relatively short period of time, they continue to sit and ponder about the most effective way to fight Daesh militarily.
But the West is not the only party that did not listen. It is not the only party that should be told: We told you so.
The Muslim World continues to bury its head in the sand and to refuse to address the Daesh syndrome at its core. Many enemies of Daesh are also still refusing to accept that Daesh is a perverted form of Islam that has roots that go back centuries; long before America was discovered, and much longer before Wahhabism was established.
Muslim clerics keep reiterating that Daesh does not represent Islam, and it doesn’t. But those same Muslim clerics are not 1) identifying that the greatest asset Daesh has is based on misinterpretations of the Quran, 2) they are not prepared to accept that their own doctrine is based on those same radical views, 3) they are refusing to reform their views, 4) and last but not least, they are not condemning radical preachers who are recruiting Muslim youth into the ranks of Daesh.
Very few outspoken Muslim journalists have made stands to the above, but their voices are not being heard, and they are seen merely as trouble makers and/or as self-hating Muslims and even apostates.
What will Muslim clerics who are now refusing to face reality do if/when Daesh attains more strength? What will the Saudis do if/when the ideology they fostered threatens their throne? What will Egypt’s Al-Azhar (which is meant to be the most highly respected Sunni Muslim theological institution) have to say if/when it suddenly wakes up to realize that the Daesh doctrine has become mainstream?
The fight goes on, and those on the side of knowing what Daesh is, look at the confused world that is still denying and refusing to define Daesh and say; but we told you so.
Wise words Mr Kadi.
They were warned but would not listen. They’re not listening still.
The western leaders know exactly what they’re doing, they’re not leading, they’re following their “master”s plan !
I sense a lot of frustration from Mr Kadi and with very good reason. Being warned and warned and warned and they continue on the same course. One word comes to mind when thinking about these so-called leaders: morons. The AngloZio Empire and its minions are blind, deaf and dumb to what they have created.
They are not morons. ” AngloZio” Empire know exactly what they are doing.
To think that the powers that be are blind, deaf and dumb, you would also have to think that they cared about the well being of the average shitkicker on the street.
Everything below them is there to be used. Even the minions.
Peter AU. They are morons. They didn’t, and still refuse to accept the consequences of their action. No one can convince me that Hollande was “planning” for the 13th of Nov 2015 Paris attacks. It is simply a result of his stupidity and short-sightedness,
After the Paris attacks, Hollande seemed about to join Russia in the fight against Daesh, but Obama called him into head office and France joined the US fake fight against Daesh, dropped a few bombs then lost interest and wandered off.
Hollande is either a bought and paid for US toy boy or he is being directly blackmailed. Merkel I believe is being blackmailed. The average person just goes along with the crowd-group think, which is easily managed. Not so much morons but simply human nature.
It has been well studied. Go to page 1-4 in the US unconventional warfare manual.. http://www.al-akhbar.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/Special_Forces_Report.pdf The neutral or passive majority in the graph are the human sheep that can be led in any direction.
The so called leaders are bought or blackmailed and the passive majority are led like lambs to the slaughter. It doesn’t matter if they don’t particularly believe the MSM they are just sheep that can be moved at will.
The graph on page 1-4 of the UW manual is something that I have noticed in every group of people. The large passive majority, and on one side of that you could have the elite, and the other side the resistance to the elite.
When you start looking at the passive majority as morons, then I guess you become one of the elite.
The likes of Holland is not a moron but he is controlled.
There is one consistent pattern I see here from the destabilisation of the middle east, to the attacks on Russia and China, Daesh, the destabilisation of Europe, even Pannama leaks, is money moving back into the US.
Blackmail, yes, but also generalised corruption and lack of public-mindedness among Western leaders. A great disaster for these countries.
On the Panama Papers’ aim being “money moving back into the US”: this is just an aspect of the implementation of FATCA (the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act), the aim of which is to require all banks everywhere to become extensions of the US IRS, as Canada’s former Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said.
“The Economist has called FATCA’s ‘extraterritoriality stunning even by Washington’s standards’.”
Once it’s understood that the US is the only place where a financial institution, whether offshore or regular, will be safe from FATCA, then the US national debt will be no more.
See also, “Fiscalité: Ceux qui transfèrent des actifs aux USA auront une surprise de taille mais surtout très coûteuse” by Raphaël H. Cohen (14/3/2016) http://brunobertez.com/2016/03/14/fiscalite-ceux-qui-transferent-des-actifs-aux-etats-unis-auront-une-surprise-de-taille-mais-surtout-tres-couteuse/
Thanks for the link to “U.S. Unconventional Warfare efforts.”
So, then, they cite what John F. Kennedy castigated as the height of immorality, and go on to establish as the mainstay of US foreign policy?
Very interesting…
@Peter AU,
You are so correct. They act accordingly as ordered. The plan is moronic when looked at by normal people, never the less it’s a plan.
Yesssss. Thanks for the empathy.
They won’t listen to anyone, perhaps they harbour a secret death wish. Putin himself had earlier warned that the West’s policies of regime change would turn against them. They wouldn’t listen. Before 9/11, right after the assassination of Massoud, Putin tried his best to warn Bush that “someone” was plotting some nasty trick against the US, hoping that perhaps it was not too late to prevent it. Bush did nothing (or perhaps he was unable to act?)
When 9/11 did happen, Putin tried again to warn him against rash action that would compound the disaster. Having failed to convince him over the phone, Putin traveled to the US, laid out all the arguments he could muster, but it was all in vain. Bush invaded Afghanistan. The warning went the same way as the earlier one to Clinton against Osama bin Laden:
Barbara Walters to Putin:” I am aware that when you met with President Clinton, you warned him about the bin Laden problem but you said that your words were ignored and that this surprised you.” http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21392
Russia warned the US about the Tsarnaev brothers: they wouldn’t listen, and the Boston marathon bombing took place. Even Snowden knew about this warning – http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160326/1036998513/brussels-attack-preventable.html
The Russians again warned about the bombings in Europe: the warning fell on the same deaf ear.
And so on, and so forth. As you can see, Mr. Kadi, warnings mean nothing to the West. Nothing can get past their hubris. According to the sages who coined that word, this is a sign that the gods are about to destroy them – or, as ML King warned America in 1967 (again in vain, of course):
“And it seems that I can hear God saying to America, ‘You’re too arrogant! And if you don’t change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I’ll place it in the hands of a nation that doesn’t even know my name. Be still and know that I’m God’. “http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16183.htm
Thank you, Ghassan Kadi. You speak at the level of entire paradigms, and sometimes your articles resonate here and sometimes they seem not to. But you continue with your main points, and I believe that one day you will prevail – and the Muslim world will begin to acknowledge the origin of Daesh as existing in its own historical and doctrinal deviations from the true word. Maybe it will help if the West can recognize this too? I don’t know.
You also continue to speak of this movement as if it has a life of its own – and I hear this. In the west we are quick to call all the terrorist actors paid mercenaries or dupes of the US, under CIA or perhaps Turkish/Mossad control. But you always speak as if they have a life of their own also.
Maybe one day you can address this split between our view in the west of an armed, directed and controlled menace, versus the view that seems to come from you and other commentators from the Middle East, that this is partly also an out-of-control phenomenon with a life of its own.
It seems important – life and death important – to know how much of what we see is controlled, and how much has its own form of sovereignty.
Grieved. When I read your response after I have been bashed, misquoted and had a few articles grossly misunderstood by many, I felt a sigh of relief and a sense of “it’s worth the trouble and effort”. I
Thank you so much
@ Grieved….
“It seems important – life and death important – to know how much of what we see is controlled, and how much has its own form of sovereignty.”
Why does… “It seems important – life and death important” to you?
Seems to me that the two are inextricably linked together, like yin and yang or heads and tails of the same coin. Neither possesses it’s own “sovereignty” and a life apart from the other
But just as a seed needs water and soil in order to grow and flourish………
Hitler possessed the seed of a fascist fanatical nationalist ideology that could irresistibly appeal to the defeated German people’s psychic suffering the devastating effects of an economically wrecked nation paying exorbitant war reparations after having lost the first “world world”.
However that seed would have forever laid barren in the dry German soil until it was watered (read as) financed by the international financiers and their big banks in London and New York in order to grow the the Nazi regime into the might of the Third Reich in their quest to defeat Soviet Russia.(among other things)
Similarly, the ideological seeds of a religion born out of tribal wars in ancient times as depicted in the teachings of the Quran and the recent devastation of the ME and NA wrought by the West would have forever laid barren in the desert sands but for the watering/financing and supplying of deadly arms that the US and the Western and Arab Nations have given Daesh to grow into the terrorist Caliphate scourge it has since become.
Cut off all of ISIS/IS arms and financing entirely today and I bet that within six months from now Daesh will wither and die on the vine and remain but a distant memory of an unattainable quest for power and glory in the twisted minds of all those mercenaries on the ground that have sold their souls to a savage ideology and an unworthy god formed entirely in their own egotistical image, at the behest of the West.
Maybe then we can begin to deal with all of the human distortions inherent in the Quran and in most of the other world religions and reclaim our true humanity by awakening to our own inherently spiritual being that’s seeded, watered and nourished by the fertile soils from within our immortal God given souls.
I guess what I’m saying here is that it doesn’t much matter what the cause/seed of a poisonous plant is but that it be totally deprived of water/financing and thus cut off at the root. Otherwise it keeps growing and we just keep hacking away at the leaves and branches while the elitists powers that be will keep feeding/financing any kind of distorted tribalistic, nationalistic, religious or demoniacal cult ideologies that they deem best severs their own interests and vile purposes.
Seems to me that it’s not a question of “either or” nor one of degree of support, but rather that one can’t live and survive without the other. Take away one half and it neuters the other half. But once it’s already alive, well feed and growing as has become Daesh and threatens the entire world, I guess that it needs to be dealt with on all fronts simultaneously and eventually killed at it’s roots.
Excellent post RayB.
To which I will only add: unless the poverty and lack of opportunity that provides this endless stream of cannon-fodder is addressed, it will only continue.
This is yet another reason the Silk Road project is being subjected to hybrid warfare – it’s potential to reduce the supply of recruits.
When Turkey became interested in joining an Iran-led Middle-Eastern trade-bloc (also including Syria) , they were offered EU memberships by the French – a promise they had no intention of keeping.
Much of what we are currently seeing is a result of that fateful decision.
I doubt resolving the issue of poverty and alack of opportunity would get us very far. Several recent studies show that many of the young people now fighting within Daesh and the Nsra front, etc., are from well-off, no-problem families. Not the majority of course, but a sizeable number.
And we have the recent case of the son of a professor in Russia, a young and happily married man who grew up in a nice Orthodox Russian home, was married to a lovely and loving wife, and yet moved to Syria with wife and tiny tots to join Daesh, after being converted to Islam by an Egyptian he’d met at the local gym.
What did the nice Egyptian young man do to achieve such complete success? He did what Putin had perceived as early as 2001: emotional manipulation skills:
“I think that the United States is to some extent losing the war, not in the military sphere, but in the information sphere. Strange as it may seem, I think that terrorists are outplaying us all in the information field. They are more aggressive and they present their case more vividly. They are more emotional, they achieve their goals better than those who fight terrorism by appealing to universal human values while having nothing in common with them. They make very effective use of this in fighting us and I think that we are all losing. This is the area in which much still needs to be done.” http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21392
It is a serious error to underestimate the skills of the terrorist recruiters at packaging their message into the most attractive, hard-to-resist products.
I agree totally and in the same line was my comment in the previous post of Ghassan about this issue.
I do not deny that extremist fundamentalism is instilled in the Muslim youth by certain clergy, but this is all in order to achieve social-economic and geopolitical goals, mainly for Western elites to benefit, and without all the fueling and if it would exist the joint effort of all the antions and intelligence services in fighting it, would be a matter of days or weeks, the same way they were wiped out the left wing terrorist groups in Europe in the past without reparing in means and ways ( mainly in ways ).
Apologies, Mr.Ghassan Kadi, for calling you by your first name.
Since here we call each other by our nickname when we are discussing … I got carried away.
I noticed I did it also in the other thread, sorry.
When Tony Blair was first running to be Prime Minister of the UK, posters appeared all across Britain showing him as a Demon in Human disguise. While this was passed off as ‘electioneering’ by the other side, it is a rule of life that great evil must reveal its true form to those whose support it seeks – and this rule has been followed throughout Human history.
It was Blair who started the Kosovo war, and blew up the main civilian TV centre in Serbia, when a BBC journalist phoned back to his MI6 handler that the last foreign correspondents had left the building.
It was Blair who travelled the world and sold the official lie about 9/11. It was Blair who invaded Iraq, and murdered millions there. And this last fact is key.
We know that ISIS is, first and foremost, a creation of MI6. Saddam’s senior Sunni hierarchy were imprisoned after Blair’s invasion, and made to watch as Iraq was handed over to the Shiites and Iran. Then they were recruited to oversee the ISIS movement, which is fully Sunni secular at the top, and only becomes ‘extremist’ Wahhabi when you reach the lower ranks, to fool naive impressionable young Muslims to join the ’cause’. Saudi Arabia is used to provide the funds that sweeten the whole deal, and grease all the wheels.
ISIS leaders were trained by the West at locations still maintained by Britain and America all across the Middle East (especially Jordan, Qatar, Israel and Turkey). Britain created numerous weapon and terrorist pipelines into Syria, so if one allied nation got ‘cold feet’, others (like Turkey) would still keep the terrorist assets flowing.
The claim that any of this was an ‘accident’ or a ‘mistake’ by those that really run the West allows one to understand the person making this statement is either a fool, or much more likely a disinformation agent.
But the real question is this. Tony Blair has the most excellent relationship with Putin, and protected Putin from fatal potential actions by the EU when Putin was first rising to power. So was the real plan to use the Sunni/Wahhabi uprising to draw Russia into the situation it now finds itself in in Syria (which seemingly is going 100% Putin’s way)? I have no doubt Tony Blair and those he works with want a World War, and have done everything they can to groom the population of our planet to accept a successful path to war. Russia is a threat to no decent nation, but the facts don’t get in the way of perceptions held by fools and malicious warmongering politicians like Hillary Clinton that get voted into power by such fools.
There is an old saying that in order to win the war, you may have to lose the current battle. I would love to think Russia’s astonishing success in Syria has helped make our world a safer place, but I fear the great evils on this planet see their master plan proceeding as desired.
“The claim that any of this was an ‘accident’ or a ‘mistake’ by those that really run the West allows one to understand the person making this statement is either a fool, or much more likely a disinformation agent.”
Totally agree, the same I think, and since some of these people claim themselves having a better knowledge of the issue than others and they do not seem fools at all, I can only conclude that they are disinformation agents.
“Tony Blair has the most excellent relationship with Putin”
While Blair may have seemed to get on with Putin (whatever that may mean), reading the declassified Clinton-Blair conversations about Putin and Russia, one finds that Blair was no more than a tool used by Clinton to watch for the chink in the mental armour of a “highly intelligent” and “disciplined” Putin – and report back.
Here is a sample:
“Clinton and Blair also discussed how to get Putin to accept the deployment of American anti-missile missile batteries close to the Russian western frontier:
Clinton: “I want to talk to you about it in greater detail, maybe before I go to see him [Putin]. We can’t get this done without serious adverse implications unless both Russia and Europe believe this can be something that benefits all of us. Since it’s a defense system, I’m committed to that. I think there might be some way to plug him into that. …The more time you spend with him, the more it will pay off.”
That sounds just like the usual manipulative geopolitics.
Blair: “Yes. I will carry on with it.” http://russia-insider.com/en/bill-clinton-and-tonny-blair-moose-lips-sink-yeltsins-ships/ri12258
In no way thw West are neither mistaken nor have miscalculated anything, they are supporting the vermin since the very beginnig. Hollande lelction campaign was financed from Qatar, and we all know the leading role of Qatar in the creation and support of Al Qaeda, DAESH/ IS/SIS.
“Francois Hollande negotiated with the emir of Qatar” ( I will translate it since it is not available in English for you to read ):
http://www.voltairenet.org/article174021.html
“Former French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius was received on February 2, 2012 in Doha, Qatar, as a special envoy of the socialist candidate for the presidential election Francois Hollande and current President of France since yesterday. Fabius was received at Doha by Emir Hamad Ben Khalifa al-Thani who will address the position of Francois Hollande in the war against Syria and the Emir possible support the Socialist candidate.
The emir of Qatar had already close links with Nicolas Sarkozy and with his wife Carla Bruni -to whom never stops lending some private aircraft- as well as with Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe and Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand, who helped him obtaining the necessary permits for reconditioning the residence Lambert (in the Paris Ile Saint-Louis) after purchasing it from the Rothschild family.
The emir of Qatar has increased its investments in France. After guaranteeing himself the services of a number of high French personalities, such as business lawyer and former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, the emir has partially acquired several media (Lagardere group) and a football club (Paris Saint-German ). He also announced on December 9, 2011, the creation of a fund of 50 million euros for young leaders from French neighborhoods ‘in difficulty’.
The Wahhabi emirate, rival of Saudi Arabia, has become the main sponsor of Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. In violation of the UN resolution, the emirate hired 5,000 mercenaries to form the special forces that took the brunt of the ground fighting in Libya. Later he moved those forces into Syria, as well as about 1.500 members of Al-Qaeda in Libya led by Abdelhakim Belhaj, to form the Free Syrian Army, which some hundreds of Syrian defectors joined. To terrorize the population, men of Al-Qaeda have committed particularly gruesome crimes, beheading men or cutting off members, while cutting the breasts to women and even skinning the bodies.
Emir Hamad ben Khalifa al-Thani owns satellite news channel Al-Jazeera, which has lately characterized by spreading false images on regional topicality -indeed they are shot in studies- as propaganda war intended to favor the interests of the emir in Libya and Syria. The Al-Jazeera group hopes gradually being implemented in France with the upcoming release of Al-Jazeera Sports.
Since 2006, Francois Hollande declared that the diplomacy of “Qatar is moving rather in the sense of stability and the pursuit of peace.”
The fight continues as the western people struggle for understanding – and most of them don’t even know it.
They are a people seduced by printed money and convenient propaganda.
Ironically, if the BRICS ever can break the system that perpetuates this neoliberal Plato’s Cave, then one day humanity might have a chance.
As I’ve said a thousand times and many more times to follow: the first step is stopping the co-opted mainstream media. Then we can begin to see the inconvenient truth of our actions.
>And even though their alleged strategy to fight Daesh did not yield any outcome, and despite the fact that the collaboration between the Russian air might and the Syrian Army on the ground has yielded amazing results in a relatively short period of time, they continue to sit and ponder about the most effective way to fight Daesh militarily.<
This is the second article now telling us that Daesh is the fault of Muslims and the "west" is merely muddled rather than an instigator.
Very disappointing to read two of these articles on this site in a row.
Peter AU, I don’t see any correlation between what you quoted and your conclusion. But yes, I do not blame Daesh only on the West. The fertile ground for its proliferation is in the perverted and archaic version of Islam that Muslim cleric have not been able to denounce. This is fact.
Ghassan, perhaps you must specify this statement:
“The fertile ground for its proliferation is in the perverted and archaic version of Islam that Muslim cleric have not been able to denounce. This is fact.”
Because to say this is in no way a fact, since the Shi´a Clergy has condemned in an unmitigated way this aberration of Islam DAESH/IS/ISIS is, from Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on how Daesh (ISIS) was created”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAhwwNCErU8
“I believe that even children, if you explain to them some of the self-evident facts, they would not accept this assessment”
” DAESH is of American origins -and there is a US admission to this- of American, Saudi, Pakistani origins, of course there are some Gulf states who gave huge resources from the beginning, it later became DAESH, after it rebelled against its mother and father ( Al Qaeda ), and it began to have its own project, and it is now being exploited, protected, financed, its oil and gas in being bought and sold, and its movement of human resources is being facilitated, and it is being used in the current regional conflict”
“Therefore, I hope that no one tries to confuse ( people ) in identifying and knowing the enemy (…) So always there is a twisting of the truth”
“Nasrallah: ISIS is a “real existential danger” to the whole region”
http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/21153
“Ayatollah Khamenei’s letter to youth in West”
http://217.218.67.231/Detail/2015/12/10/441078/Iran-Ayatollah-Khamenei-letter-to-youth-in-West-France-Paris-attacks
So, the Shi´a has spoken not only to theirs but even to Westerners also.
Let´s go to be fair in this.
What we are waiting for is the words of the Sunni Clergy, more concretely for the voice of one of his “most highly respected Sunni Muslim theological institution, Al Azhar” as you point out.
Perhaps Mr Kadi meant the Sunni clerics?
What you say about the Shia clergy is correct, but even the Egyptian president has called the Al-Azhar ulema and scholars to denounce “the perverted and archaic version of Islam”:
“[T]hat corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world. It’s antagonizing the entire world!
I am saying these words here at Al Azhar, before this assembly of scholars and ulema—Allah Almighty be witness to your truth on Judgment Day concerning that which I’m talking about now.
All this that I am telling you, you cannot feel it if you remain trapped within this mindset. You need to step outside of yourselves to be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective.
I say and repeat again that we are in need of a religious revolution. You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move…. because this umma is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost—and it is being lost by our own hands.” http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/01/president-sisis-speech
The call was not very well received, and in fact he was misunderstood and misinterpreted. (just like Mr Kadi – who should not let such comments discourage him from writing, as I for one appreciate his contribution to this forum.)
@RMM
I have been reading the Clinton emails.
Among the British and NATO-directed mercenaries who flooded into Libya, was an Egyptian presence – military ‘special ops’ keen on getting a slice of the action.
To what extent Sisi (ex-military) knows about this, I can’t say.
But Egypt cannot put the chaos down to religious extremism alone – the Libya involvement was related to acquiring a stake in the oil-industry, and they are far from having their hands clean in the overthrow of Ghadaffi.
Now, will Sisi go public with this?
I might take him a bit more seriously then.
@Eimar,
About your doubts with Al- Sisi, see for yourself,
“Hezbollah: Cease of transmission of Al-Manar seeks to silence Resistance”
http://hispantv.com/newsdetail/el-libano/231374/hezbollah-critica-cese-transmision-almanar-nilesat
“(…) Nilesat reported Tuesday to the Ministry of Telecommunications of Lebanon the cease in broadcasting of the satellite television Al-Manar from 8 am local time in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, arguing that the channel broadcasts programs inciting allegedly to “sectarian strife”.
“This cruel measure from the Egyptian satellite provider Nilesat flagrantly violates freedom of expression and attempts to silence the voice of truth and resistance” – reads the statement released Wednesday by the Islamic Resistance Movement in Lebanon (Hezbollah).
The Lebanese resistance movement, which urges the Egyptian authorities to lift the cut of transmission, ensures that this act has failed and neither will be able to silence Hezbollah, nor will affect their struggle in defense of truth and justice.
Hezbollah also warns that this measure will enrage the Egyptian people and that stopping the transmission of Al-Manar largely benefits the Israeli regime and the enemies of resistance.
The measure is taken on the eve of the visit of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, to Egypt, where he intends to sign a contract with the authorities in Cairo to supply crude oil for a period of five years.
This decision is in line with the recent measures who have taken the Cooperation Council Gulf states ( GCC-composed by Arab countries bordering the Persian Gulf ) to punish Lebanon and Hezbollah for its support to Iran and the fight against terrorism in Syria and Iraq.”
Salam Sister elsi,
Thank you. While Ghassan Kadi blames the Holy Quran and it’s interpenetration, the blames lies with hijacking of the Islam by the Companions of Prophet Mohammad (saws) while his body was still warm and he was not still buried yet.
Islam was hijacked on the onset like any other religion and Islam is no exception. Thus Ghassan Kadi is right that the ideology of Daesh/Tafkiri/Kharjite/Wahhabi started while Prophet Mohammad (saws) his body was still warm and he was not still buried yet.
So, it has nothing to do with Holy Quran, it is to do with intentional changing of the Islamic Religion by the Companions. For the last 1500 years, whenever the Shia raised the issue, they were blamed by the Sunni, that they disrespect and blame the Companions. That Prophet Mohammad didn’t appoint his successor. The successor and all leaders after them are appointed by the Will of Allah, due to Predestination. Thus, the Shia are refusnik (Rafidi) and reject the Will of Allah, therefore the Shia are heathen.
For this reason the Shia were persecuted by Sunni throughout the last 15 centuries and this persecution still continues.
However, to be fair to be to the Sunni, some of them now agreeing that Islam was hijacked the Companions, and this is the first change to come, where most of the Sunni will agree to that.
The second phase/change is to look into the religion and agree on what was changed by the Companions.
For example, a Pedophile Caliph if he wanted to marry a 6 years old while he is 70 years old, cook a hadith (sayings) of the Prophet Mohammad that the Prophet married a 6 years old when he was 52 years old.
God help the mankind. God bless Obama, Trump, Putin, Kerry, Lavrov, John McCain, Lindsay Graham that for the factious Daesh and the these changes are coming to the Muslims and Middle East. Almost everyday, a new Sunni Cleric comes and agrees with the Shia that the Companions hijacked the Islam.
Best regards,
Mohamed
So, brother Mohamed, then you agree with Ghassan Kadi when he talks about the deliberated misinterpretation of Islam for espurious interests.
In that, I can not discuss the issue since I do not have acknowledge enough of Islam to do it, and since you both do not seem to agree in other issues, quite the contrary, I guess we can conclude that, definitely, yes, there is a need of reforming Islam and of reaching a general consensus about what i the real message to spread and in condemning in an unmitigated way this Takfirist terrorism and excomulgate ( or whatever you call it in Islam ) all those clerics spreading hatred and violence. But for that you have also to topple those governments who pay them, both in the Arab world and in the West. Uphill task.
I do not agree with your American blessed, they all have their part in the ISIS issue, were it not for them the thing would have not reaches such extremes.
http://data2.whicdn.com/images/110303937/large.png
مساء الخير.
Elsi, the Shia have denounced the terrorist modus operandi of Daesh, but their theology in as far as the issues that can lend themselves to advocating violence are identical to those of the Sunnis.
Now we are making some progress. Would you care to elaborate what issues in theology specifically do you have in mind?
@ Ghassan Kadi,
When a conglomerate of powerful countries are firmly decided to reduce your own country to ashes unless you agree being its puppet or its lackey and lend yourself being looted and raped, and to achieve this goal it does not repair in means, you can not but defend yourself, even resorting to violence.
This is why Hezbollah, for example, have the support of most of the Lebanese population.
It is not “as if the West did not learn…”, they really did not. The West not just “seems to have an irrevocable contract with stupidity and short-sightedness”. It has, even if it “knows what they are doing”. They did it out of the stupidity, short-sightedness and arrogance which comes with living in the mental bubble in which they condemned themselves to live for centuries (Judeo-Anglo- Europocentrism). They cannot think out of the box and acknowledge that there is a different world outside that box. One remembers the famous boutade of Montesqieu: ” Ah ! Ah ! monsieur est Persan ? C’est une chose bien extraordinaire ! Comment peut-on être Persan ? “, by which he castigated the ethnocentrism of the French of the 18th Century.
The same is true with the Muslim world. They created the pseudo-category of “Islamophobia” (copied after the “antisemitism”) wich allows them to block their ears to any Siren chants from outside.
Turks also protest Syrian refugees commit crimes; it’s difficult to call this Islamophobia. From the Turkish press:
Hundreds march against Syrian refugees
A crowd in the southern province of Kahramanmaraş marched against the presence of Syrian migrants in the city on July 13, before attacking a number of Syrians and brawling with the police.
Protesters, many of whom were carrying Turkish flags and making the ultra-nationalist “grey wolf” hand gesture, claim that the migrants are committing crimes and breaking the peace in Kahramanmaraş.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/hundreds-march-against-syrian-refugees.aspx?pageID=238&nID=69122&NewsCatID=341
Well, “protesters making the ultra-nationalist “grey wolf” hand gesture?
So, they are not the Turkish common people who is protesting against and blaming the Syrian refugees for committing crimes and breaking the peace, but those who fight with ISIS in the same game of creating chaos and throwing the people against each other both in the West and in the Middle East. They were also NeoNazis who appeared in the memorial of Brussels with the aliby of protesting against the refugees and instead thrown themselves over the peaceful people mourning the victims and destroyed the memorial.
The “grey wolves” were/are fighting against the SAA and Russian Air Forces in the NorthWest of Syria, they are training and guiding the ISIS mercenaries through the Turkish border, and was a “grey-wolf” who personally killed, and then boasted about it in the social networks, the Russian pilot. I a see it, “grey-wolves” are the stay-behind network of the Turkish current stablishment and therefore they work for the same goal all the stay-behind networks in the world have been, spread chaos and fear amongst the population in order to not dare to rise up against the dictatorial and suicidal politic and the shameless grand larceny of what they are object.
Give me a break!
Statement A: Muslims must take responsibilty for Daesh.
Statement B: Christians must take responsibility for the Crusades.
If statements A and B are both correct, who is responsible for finding a solution?
Of course, all of us are responsible, begining in the one and only place each of us can make a difference as individuals; without externalizing blame and creating division.
The answer lies within. Why is this so difficult for Western minds to appreciate?
My answer is different from Mr. Kadi. He believes the problem belongs to someone else. I believe it belongs to everyone, secularists included. His is the reaction of a child, caught stealing cookies but blaming his sibling because she was stealing cookies first.
When have you taken responsibility for yourself by pointing your finger at someone else?
When has it been ok to do something because the other guy is doing it too?
The simple idea Mr. Kadi is missing, is that by blaming the ‘other’ he is creating division, while absolving himself of responsibility for making the problem worse than it is.
Are you a lawyer Mr. Kadi? This is what lawyers do, by framing issues outside of the reality of introspective and emotional truth. Are you guilty of ‘disrespecting Erdogan’, for example, because you tell the truth about his megalomaniacal behaviour?
The answer is obviously NO. But then you concede this inversion, externalizing onto another, when it suits your purposes.
I’ve said it too often lately but I will repeat it again, the Western perspective is that of the ego centred ‘I.’ When you take this view, you remove yourself from your environment and excuse yourself from fixing yourself. Instead of choosing to be a dignified and responsible human being, you accept your status as a ‘victim’ of externalities.
Now, unable to think of yourself as a connected human being, you search desperately for a solution outside of yourself. You consume to fill the void but nothing can fill the hole in your heart. When you see suffering you respond by making a charitable donation to an NGO that does exactly the opposite of what is promised. Or maybe you kill two birds with one stone by buying ‘ethical’ chocolate.
In politics you search furiously for a candidate or ideology that will make everything better. You become a Stalinist or supporter of Trump because these are your only outlets for feeling you are not doing harm, while in fact you are doing terrible damage to potentially millions of Kulaks or Mexicans. You externalize the cost and tell yourself their suffering is tolerable because it will deliver humanity to Utopia. Your every response has the opposite effect of your desired intention.
I’ve had the opportunity in my life, to catch the ghosts of my individualistic ambitions. Each time I did catch a ghost, I was immediately dissappointed to discover nothing had changed. I still felt empty despite reaching my goal.
Daesh is itself a ghost of a different sort. Even if you do manage to catch and destroy it, unless you have changed your perspective, it will not make a difference. A new bogeyman will appear just as fast as you destroy the previous one. Western consciouness and externalized reality, not to mention our economy, need external monsters to justify war. We are a society of war which obfuscates this reality as a matter of course.
The only solution is for all of us to do the necessary work and fix ourselves by searching within. The fraudulent war on terror can never be won because it was designed by a consciousness that can never conceive of its own responsibility in making it; which is my main criticism of everything Mr. Kadi writes.
By doing so he failing to address the problem choosing to frame the phenomenon of Daesh as something that absolves him of his own responsibility.
Statement A: Muslims must take responsibilty for Daesh.
Statement B: Christians must take responsibility for the Crusades.
If statements A and B are both correct, who is responsible for finding a solution?
Of course, all of us are responsible, begining in the one and only place each of us can make a difference as individuals; without externalizing blame and creating division.
The answer lies within. Why is this so difficult for Western minds to appreciate?
My answer is different from Mr. Kadi. He believes the problem belongs to someone else. I believe it belongs to everyone, secularists included. His is the reaction of a child, caught stealing cookies but blaming his sibling because she was stealing cookies first.
When have you taken responsibility for yourself by pointing your finger at someone else?
When has it been ok to do something because the other guy is doing it too?
The simple idea Mr. Kadi is missing, is that by blaming the ‘other’ he is creating division, while absolving himself of responsibility for making the problem worse than it is.
Are you a lawyer Mr. Kadi? This is what lawyers do, by framing issues outside of the reality of introspective and emotional truth. Are you guilty of ‘disrespecting Erdogan’, for example, because you tell the truth about his megalomaniacal behaviour?
The answer is obviously NO. But then you concede this inversion, externalizing onto another, when it suits your purposes.
I’ve said it too often lately but I will repeat it again, the Western perspective is that of the ego centred ‘I.’ When you take this view, you remove yourself from your environment and excuse yourself from fixing yourself. Instead of choosing to be a dignified and responsible human being, you accept your status as a ‘victim’ of externalities.
Now, unable to think of yourself as a connected human being, you search desperately for a solution outside of yourself. You consume to fill the void but nothing can fill the hole in your heart. When you see suffering you respond by making a charitable donation to an NGO that does exactly the opposite of what is promised. Or maybe you kill two birds with one stone by buying ‘ethical’ chocolate.
In politics you search furiously for a candidate or ideology that will make everything better. You become a Stalinist or supporter of Trump because these are your only outlets for feeling you are not doing harm, while in fact you are doing terrible damage to potentially millions of Kulaks or Mexicans. You externalize the cost and tell yourself their suffering is tolerable because it will deliver humanity to Utopia. Your every response has the opposite effect of your desired intention.
I’ve had the opportunity in my life, to catch the ghosts of my individualistic ambitions. Each time I did catch a ghost, I was immediately dissappointed to discover nothing had changed. I still felt empty despite reaching my goal.
Daesh is itself a ghost of a different sort. Even if you do manage to catch and destroy it, unless you have changed your perspective, it will not make a difference. A new bogeyman will appear just as fast as you destroy the previous one. Western consciouness and externalized reality, not to mention our economy, need external monsters to justify war. We are a society of war which obfuscates this reality as a matter of course.
The only solution is for all of us to do the necessary work and fix ourselves by searching within. The fraudulent war on terror can never be won because it was designed by a consciousness that can never conceive of its own responsibility in making it; which is my main criticism of everything Mr. Kadi writes.
By failing to address the problem of our inversion of consciousness, blaming another and choosing to frame the phenomenon of Daesh as something caused by someone else, the writer of this column guarantees we will remain helpless and hopeless, waiting for someone to do what we are unwilling to do for ourselves.
Darn.
Please read the last paragraph of the 2nd post for my concluding paragraph.
In 1991 Eastern Europe adored the West. Coca-Cola, Mac Donalds, porn: you name it. 25 years later things have changed. The West wants to lead in accepting refugees? Eastern Europe doesn’t, thank you very much. In 25 years – 1991 to 2016 – East Europe has changed from “We want to be like you” to “Those guys are more brainwashed than us”.
The author is not being honest with the reader. And not answering simple questions put to him by others previously.
The are clerics who’ve been on these very pages doing exactly what the author says they have not been doing!
This article was debunked by this blog before it was ever written.
Only someone who is being utterly disingenuous would seek to: try and blame something inherent in Scandanavian culture for the actions of the volunteer SS Nordland brigades and what those who ran from the front did then and thereafter. It’s not really a credible hypothesis. Even though those paramilitaries were volunteers unlike those paramilitary forces the author is referring to. Unless that is you believe that the soldiers food is paid for by the torn up pages of scripture, that their food comes down to them as manna from heaven, that their prayers result in them farting out bullets and ammo? Is that how industrialised warfare works?
If you have to try and avoid the understanding that in war and in politics that money does not talk in order to propagate your meme then safe to say that you’re writing gibberish.
Another…typo! Apologies.
< Money does talk
Speaking of which those of us lucky enough not to have been shell shocked into writing gibberish by phantom shells that no one ever paid for, have to go and work. It's almost as if we all live in a petrodollar world (not a yellow submarine)?
God bless.
Your pre-assumptions are false.The oligarchy in the West, which is to a majority jewish supremacists-zionists in its core, knew what would happen and they wanted it to happen.The rulers in the region made the wrong underlying assumption that the jewish supremacists would like to have stability and have their little cut.Thats not what they wanted.They want nothing less than the destruction of the region including Europe.They and their muppets want the islamisation of Europe.Its not that they are “overhelmed” by invaders ” refugees” or like the picture of Hollade suggests that they are bitten by their own reactions (blowback).Nope the destruction is fully wanted.They want to finish western civilisation,russian civilisation,chinese civilisation,islamic civilisations to win the great game of eternal rule over the planet.
Never forget:They know what they are doing.Their only problem is sellling it to the public.Thats why they have to market dschihadists as “activists” and the onslaught of headchoppers as “Arab Spring”.There is no “refugee crisis”.Its the wanted destruction of the national states in Europe which will further lead to the destruction of Russia.
“But the West did not listen.” — oh, they listened all right!
The author writes: “It was as if they did not learn from Afghanistan…Iraq…Libya” My question is – learn what? All 3 cases are a resuonding success for the empire. Look at the facts:
Afghanistan – total chaos rules in the heart of Central Asia. Heroin production is better than ever. ISIS is spreading fast and radical Wahhabis are poised to threaten CSTO members, and Russia and China, eventually.
Iraq – total chaos and lawlessness rules large parts of Iraq. The central gov is weak and cant do much about the lawlessness. The Kurds can declare independence and get away with it because there is no one to stop them. Through the destruction of Iraq they facilitated the creation of ISIS since the core of the organization is made up of ex Iraqi officers and soldiers. I presume that the plan was also to have ISIS infiltrate Iran and Caucuses once they were done in Syria/Iraq.
And lastly, Libya. Besides plain robbery of the Ghadaffi family in particular, and the Libyan and African people in general, the goal was once again chaos. Instability in Libya means instability in all surrounding regions. Egypt will never finish off Muslim Brotherhood so long as there is a jihad highway coming in from Libya. Tunis is threatened, and so is another gov that the empire would love to bring down – Algeria. Mali has been taken under control of the empire due to Libya’s instability. All of east, west, and central Africa is threatened by ISIS. So Libya, perhaps, is the biggest success of the empire.
Lastly, let’s take a quick look at why this was panned. Refugees, and terrorist infiltrators, are not some blowback – it is a planned campaign. The first part of the plan was to surround America’s “allies” (read, colonies) by chaos from the south (all of Levant and south coast of Middle Earth Sea – yes, thats how we call it in Serbia – ruled by ISIS & collaborators such as Muslim Brotherhood and assorted local Wahhabi lunatics); the second part of the plan is the threat represented by the big bad bear from the east and north (Arctic).
Is the plan working? It is, and magnificently. True, the empire cant get their natural gas pipeline to Europe, just yet. They certainly won’t stop trying. In the meantime, NATO presence in Europe, and around Russia and China in general, is being drastically strengthened. For now, it’s just another American battalion here and there, but the long term buildup is obvious. The NATO forces serve 2 purposes in Europe:
1st (and foremost) to occupy Europe and keep it in America’s grip tightly. 2nd purpose is to threaten Russia. Has the empire succeeded with respect to both purposes? Spectacularly. Destroying all those countries was a resounding success for the empire.
Whats a few thousand American/ NATO soldiers/ cannon fodder lives in the end? To the empire it means nothing.
Whats a trillion dollars spent, more or less? How hard is it for them to just add a few more digits into electronic accounts, or print more dollars? Who’s going to stop them?
And now, let’s talk about the refugees, and terrorist infiltrators. Is somebody actually trying to argue that the planners of Arab Spring (but really, Arab fall) didnt anticipate the mass migration? That it wasn’t planned, and supported by colonial EU governments? Don’t be fooled by Mogherinis crocodile tears. She is probably dancing on the graves of the victims right now.
The goal behind the refuge crisis is, once again, chaos. Surprised? Don’t be. The Saker said that he expects popular revolutions across the EU, starting with the rebellious and free spirited people of France. He expects them to say “enough is enough” to their respective colonial governments. So do I. And so does the empire. Hence the terrorist infiltrators. All of EU will burn before they are free of imperial oppression. When people do rise, first will come attempts to co-opt them, and hijack popular revolutions. Syriza anyone? If that doesn’t work, the empire will do what it does best – create chaos. There will be war in Europe.
The war in Europe can take on many forms: right vs. left; Christian vs. Muslim; terrorist vs. police/army. It doesn’t matter. The point is, Europe will burn.
The empire will never allow any colonies to become free. EU, Japan, Korea, and Wahhabi kingdoms will all burn before they are free. The logic is very simple, yet exceptionally effective. When the rich and powerful who are used to neoliberalism face the prospect of their entire country burning before their eyes, where will they go? Russia, China, or USA?
The rich will move to USA, bringing their wealth and thus allow the empire to continue to prosper, for a while longer. The USA will continue to play the role of bastion of economic/political/security stability while the world burns. Thats how they are going to remain powerful for now and the foreseeable future.
The empire does not look ahead for 1,2 or 5 years, nor does it aimlessly wander from one crises to another depending on the presidential administration. Their plans are set for decades, even centuries ahead, and all apparatchiks work towards the realization of the plans that are far bigger than them.
There are no mistakes or coincidences in the policies of the empire. Iraq and Libya (and all victims of the empire) were not mistakes; it was policy. The policy will continue. It seems that the witch Hillary Clinton is to become the public face of the empire. A criminal (according to American law) & a lunatic like her coming to “power” signals that the empire’s policy if chaos and destruction of nations is about to go into overdrive.
I hope that Donald Trump represents the other side of empires policy, the need to retreat and regroup in the face of recent defeats. Although I sincerely doubt that anything will change regardless of who is the president, or, better put, the public face of the empire.
Thanks.
The aspect of the war in Syria that pits open-sourced secularists against DRM sectarianists is old. Because the west fears a loss of its own fundamentalist sectarian Christian prejudices it cannot call out the war for what it is. And you are so right in pointing out that many of us who should know better do not.
We see it now in the divide between Sanders and Clinton. We can even see it here at Saker occasionally when some will not look climate change square in the face.
You can see it starkly in Arabic speaking middle-eastern authorities like Juan Cole who persist in attempting to blame both Assad and Daesh. I assume that someone like him gets blinded by a fundamentalist belief in an ideology of western democracy.
Further
“What will the Saud do if their throne is threatened?”
Is the author is ignorant of the history? There’s a famous book by a famous journalist who will be well respected by the readers called the Siege of Mecca. Airbrushed out of the authors narrative. this is an awful article but in the next article the author will claim people have misread or not understood what has been written. Perhaps because what has been written is self-contradictory nonsensical gibberish.
–
The following is for the reader, those who can read, who are honest and are not blinded by immature constructs from their own imaginations. I wrote this because our gracious host clearly has an interest in the topic:
there are the famous questions put to the Saud by the world’s leading Islamic scholars in the 1920’s (to paraphrase: Who are you? Where did you come from? What are you doing to the Hejaz, why are you killing the descendants of Abraham and blowing up the buildings and trying to wipe out all history of Islam whilst violating all Islamic tenants and principals? those scholars had quite a reaction to the non-answer they got , and their actions changed history for better or worse.
I ask the dear reader to go and do their own research and not to rely on articles that have been disassembled with ease. There are better and more reliable sources out there many of hem linked from comments sections.
The Siege of Mecca is a good place to start.
Salam Another Anon,
Mecca had lots of sieges by the Muslims. I presume you are taking about the current siege happened in 1979. According to the Sunni belief, due to Predestination, each and every Caliph and/or Leader is installed with the Will of Allah. And, they call this Caliph, the Leader of Pious Muslims.
The very first siege of Mecca took place by the Sixth Caliph, the grandson of Abu Suffiyan, the Arch Enemy of Islam. He (Yazid) blazed the Holy Mecca to capture the Family of Prophet Mohammad (saws). He mercilessly mascaraed the whole family of the Prophet, as he saw that the Prophet took away Mecca and it’s riches from his grandfather Abu Suffiyan.
Abu Suffiyan, his son Muawiya, and his grandson are forefathers of the Deash/Tafkiri/Karajite/Wahhabi Theology. The planing of this theology started during the times of the Prophet and was put into effect while the Prophet body was still warm and he was not yet buried.
The author Ghassan Kadi, knows the history very well. The motive for him to blame the Holy Quran without providing any proof/verses from the Holy Quran which supposedly according to him lead to false interpretations of the Holy Quran is has to do with Basic Laws of Hinduism/Judaism/Christianity/Islam …..
The Basic Commandments of God, which are unchangeable and are not open to negotiations.
1. Thou Shall Not Commit Murder
2. Thou Shall Not Commit Fornication (not adultery as the word in both Hebrew Scripture and Holy Quran is same, “Zina”).
3. Thou Shall Not Steal
…………..
And, same sex marriage is not allowed. According to the ex-President Jimmy Carter, if Jesus was here today, he will allow the same sex marriage. The Homosexuals existed throughout the times, even in Jesus times too. The Sixth Caliph Yazid above was a Homosexual too.
Jesus sermon on the Mount, that I have not come to destroy the Commandments, but have come to uphold the Commandments.
However, both Judaism and Christianity have moved away from the Basic Commandments of God. Now the envelope is being pushed on the remaining religion Islam, which still practices the Basic Commandments of God.
Best regards,
Mohamed
Thank you for your reply I appreciate it, sorry for the late reply.
Yes there it’s true the structure of the ka’ba has been attacked previously, a few times in that early era, but i’m not sure that any of that information was or is of use to the Saker’s audience, and as you know brother time is short (& we all have other things to do!). It’s of interest to archaeologists and architects because this history means that as a consequence of the actual material structure of the ka’ba not being sacred ( it is the site itself) all those rebuildings going back past the beginning of the Islamic era would’ve left a wealth of information below ground about who built those structures, how they lived, their connections to others…etc. However all of that information is now lost.
Perhaps a series of article on the Ummayad’s could be of more interest and use to people then vacuous polemical debate that is only projecting personal opinions without any evidence. Or relevance. :)
Certainly the figure, the life of Mu’awiya would be of great interst to lovers of history and followers of the Orthodox Church.
You will not agree I think but for our audience i think it’s reasonable and fair to generalise and say that most orthodox Muslims have respected the first four Rightly Guided Caliph’s, the implication being that the fifth was not so! This is or was orthodox Sunni Islam. The Shia I grew up with and am friends with, we never felt the need to discuss these things and they didn’t really matter to us but it is undeniably true that the orthodox Sunni Muslims grieved in silence for too long and most don’t even know the history of import events in early islamic history after the time of the first four Caliph’s.
What is of interst to the Saker’s audience is the relationship of the Ummayad’s with their fellow Arabs and Muslims. Why were they recruiting Arab mercenaries from all kinds of backgrounds at the very beginning of their reign? Why had the Arabs from the peninsular distanced themselves from them? Why did the Ummayad’s lose the ability to even recruit Arab mercenaries from, say Syria, and complete the cycle and return from whence they came and start to recruit slaves as soldiers because no one else would fight for them? The reason I write this is because it’s only in recent times that some have decided to ignore thousands of years of Islamic tradition and add the first Ummayad Caliph to their legitamate political leaders: it’s a position of illogic that can be discussed with ease and people who have been deceived can be corrected if they have ears and eyes but unfortunately there must be someone somewhere propagating this radical radical change. I wonder who that could be? I wonder?
That story of the Ummayad’s could be an interesting exploration for this audience. Not forgetting the Spanish part of the story. If those Ummayad’s hadn’t been so crazy and paranoid, like all power hoarding tyrants are, then those in Spain would’ve carried on wondering to the north without any obstruction, and then those who propagate the clash of civilisation meme would now really be in a pickle!
What I’d like to ask the Saker community about is of some knowledge and information of the early Christian communities like the Arians who were in Spain at the time. And their links with the early Muslims they encountered (that would not be the Ummayed court). History, information, data is always more interesting then vacuous polemical gibberish (others were correct the author of this series has been writing like a lawyer – most certainly no application of any scientific methodology here).
God bless
Peace be upon you and all others
@ Mr. Ghassan Kadi:
“The recent terror attacks in the EU must have a direct link to the fact that the anti-Syrian coalition, including the EU has 1) ignored all warnings about the rise of Jihadis, 2) facilitated their movement into Syria in the hope of scoring a quick and swift victory against her government, and 3) fell victim to political correctness in accepting refugee swarms that included terrorists that it (ie the EU) have helped create in the first place [..]”
^ All true.
And all it‘s…
“Sad but true [..]”
– You’re my mask – You’re my cover, my shelter
You [you] – You’re my mask – You’re the one who’s blamed
Do [do] – Do my work – Do my dirty work, scapegoat
Do [do] – Do my deeds
For you’re the one who’s shamed [..] –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_4OfD-wmGs
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“Sad but true, no one knows when the wave of terror in the EU is going to end and how. No one knows how much further it is going to spread, to what extent and for how long. No one knows how many more innocent people are going to get killed. What we do know is the fact that if the EU Parliament and individual European governments had put any effort, any tiny amount of effort to put facts and logic together, they would now be in a position that would allow them to understand why they are facing the predicament of terror. All indications point towards the direction that they do not intend to take any real and effective steps towards understanding the nature of the huge problem they are facing, let alone making any steps towards resolving it [..]”
I’m not really disagreeing with you, but with all due respect, Sir… pffft! *eye-roll*
When I start seeing main-stream politicians [and I’m not talking about the Le Pens or Farages type. I’m talking about the Merkels, Junckers, Tsipras, Breedloves, Hollandes… that type!], and/or other high ranking officials being blown up along side random civilians, then I might start to agree with assertions such as: “they are facing the predicament of terror” or “the nature of the huge problem they are [now] facing”…
Truth is: if it doesn’t affect ‘them’ directly, they just can’t give two hoots one way or another. And worse than that; (and dog knows who) but someone gave them affirmations that it’d never affect them directly, their family, or the people they care for, so long they go along with A, B and C…
That’s what’s goin’ on here!
To tie the above up with your message from Gaddafi warning ‘the EU – that should his government be toppled – the EU would end up getting inundated with Jihadists.’
But you see? This is what happens to naive people. This is what happens when people believe in nonsense like: ‘unintended consequences,’ or in other words… genuine mistakes made by their opponent, for example :/
That’s not to say I’m implying Gaddafi was stupid. Naive and stupid are two very different things!
I do believe Gaddafi had the best at heart for his Libyan brothers and sisters, as much as he had a grand liberating vision for the rest of Africa too.
All I’m saying is that he measured his opponents by the same yard-stick he measured himself with (he assumed ‘they’ cared about ‘their’ people as much as he did). Noble as that principle may be, it really doesn’t work! Not with evil ones.
They only care about themselves and their own kind [other evil ones just like themselves] provided they can get something out of it in the process. That’s it! That’s all they care about.
His son, Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, was equally naive by thinking he could mingle with the sharks [Rothschilds and others], and think he could a) be accepted as one of them and b) eventually change their minds and show them their wrong ways…
It just doesn’t work like that in the world of the 1 percenters.
-TL2Q
PS; aaaaand that’s as far as I got with your post, Mr. GK. But I do promise to read the rest it ;-)
” /…/ but the West did not want to listen.”
Quite correct, Ghassan Kadi. But strangely enough you don’t address the very plain corollary which reads:
What exactly was the problem then?
At bottom, it’s very simple indeed. What we euphemistically keep referring to as “The West” is the historical product of half a millennium of wanton destruction, rape, and genocide leading right up to the current rampage in the Middle East. Hence, when you Mr. Kadi bemoan the serial rapists’ disinterest in some ‘sane advice’, your point is rather moot. The West’s self-love, narcissism, and arrogance are highly appropriate traits for aristocracies committed to parasitism.
In this light, Jihadist terror at the expense of the Euro-trash is poetic justice at its finest.
Karben, Germany.
The father of a refugee familiy has obliged his wife and two children to lie down in the middle of a principal street in karben, Germany. The family of four had been lodged in a 50 square meter (540 square foot) flat. However, the father insists on being given a house, because in Irak he has been promised in Germany they would give him a house.
http://www.fnp.de/lokales/wetterau/Sitzstreik-zunaechst-ohne-Folgen-fuer-Fluechtlinge;art677,1942675
Another source worth avoiding if you want o know more about this topic is Adam Curtis’ blatant piece of doctored propaganda, his film on the Saud.
Like some other examples I can think of the documentary is so misleading it takes self parody to comical levels (the Siege of Mecca never happened! Only went on for a few months, and changed the World…*facepalm*). The most obviously disingenuous editing by Curtis was to start documenting the rise of the Saud from the 30’s onwards. Work that poor deserves to be dismissed so my best advice to Saker’s community is to not bother and watch something more interesting instead in your free time.
Curtis deliberately chose that point to begin his rigorous account because it conveniently airbrushed out WWI (oops! just a minor omission as far as the region is concerned) and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of the Hejaz and the continuous (that would be ongoing) knock on effect upon the whole Arabic world as a result of that act. Not forgetting the blowing up of sacred and ancient monuments covered with stone Qur’anic inscription. If you’re going to spend hours earnestly (?) debating the beliefs of people who believe in holy scripture then do you not think that it would be slightly odd behaviour for a people who believe that those words are the Word of the creator to be blowing those words up? Eh?
More importantly if you’re going to import the greatest builders of the West whilst you dynamite away the history of the Arabic peoples (all of them)?do you not think that they might have suggested that it might have been easier and cheaper to just move the graves instead of blowing up the shelters built above them? Crazy idea I know, it’s not as if people have been moving graves for thousands of years.
I’m hoping the average reader of Saker’s blog has some understanding of the importance of calligraphy in the various Islamic cultures combining and drawing upon the even older crafts of Byzantium and also obviously of China too (paper!). The humane and open hearted reader would ask the question ‘What kind of Muslim would have spent the better part of the last ninety years blowing up the Qur’an? Non stop! Nevermind the forgotten Buddha’s. Yemen! is there anywhere left or have they completed their operation? (Those who are arrogant would’ve assumed ‘reader’ above only applies to non-Muslims).
As said before the best source anyone could hope to find upon the Saud is the Saker’s pen pal. Which is why the words in the article above are comical. Unfortunately. The Saker’s friend doesn’t believe that they know everything, but when it comes to the Saud certainly he knows better the most. Here and elsewhere. Almost as much as those scholars he mentions from the 20’s :) And he’s not going to get any support from any clerics who gets their food from certain sources (not manna from heaven). That is not going to happen. And he doesn’t expect it to happen.
Any author will be incapable of countering the propaganda of those who have greater resources then them if they:
A) deny that they have greater resources
B) deny that they are using those greater resources
C) by denying that propaganda exists in this world (fortunately there is plenty of evidence!)
D) by indulging in clearly inaccurate and misleading pronouncements that can be easily shown to be incorrect all of which ultimately undermines anything of value that you may be attempting yet failing to articulate. An immature approach?
E) by ignoring the easy simple and humane understanding the people can be dogmatic even when using the text of a scientist like Darwin (have the readers heard Dawkins talk himself into distilurbing knots of late whilst being humiliated by the opposing speaker in a public forum? He’s an idiot! At best. With a cult following, we couldn’t make it up! If you listen to his comments on abuse…it’s all very odd! Strange behaviour.)
E Minus.
Adam Curtis has some decent documentaries, especially those about people, power, perception management, social engineering and population control. The Living Dead (3 parts) is a good idea of how the West re-writes collective memory (WW2 and Germany were the primary topic).
Perhaps his piece on the House of Saud is bad (I’ve never seen it; you’ll have to give me the title) but in one of his older documentaries he has an interview with a gentlemen who basically highlights how backwards and monkey-like people from Saudi Arabia are as they come into the UK (and are unable to understand how to use the modern toilet….). I won’t go into detail but I believe it was the second episode of the The Mayfair Set.
All anyone needs to know about the House of Saud is that they are a group of crypto-Jews who, like Jews of the old, use Islam as a means to collect revenue.
It is the responsibility of every human being to do them harm if they are able.
Another apolgy mod – not easy typing whe travelling to work please ignore or remove the previous incomplete comment. I appreciate the efforts of the Saker community in trying to foster mature debate, to share knowledge. these articles have been unfortunate detour.
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Dear John, I know if I would go that far! but first:
Bitter Lake – Adam Curtis
Available to watch on the BBC :)
Some of his previous work was very well done and interesting. Which is why you have to ask why in a two hour documentary about The Phenomenon could or would anyone circumnavigate the cleansing of the “Hashemite” Arabs and others of the Hejaz is The Issue.
All Muslims believe that those referred to as the Hashemite have some Jewish ancestry and that is why they are known as the Hashemites, Hashim someone who most Muslims believe in pre-Islamic Arabic history married a jewess and unitised the two Houses of Abraham.
Throughout Islamic history we can observe that many Muslims have been happy to celebrate their links with Judaism and any Jewish ancestry. Why would they not? Ignoring the Arabs John Rambo will remember from his time in C.Asia, hehe, that some of the Pashtun tribal people’s believe that they are the Tribe of Benjemin, who never ‘returned’ following the era of the first exile. It’s what they believe. Muslims seem as if they are a people who have celebrated any Jewish or Christian ancestry. Did you know that in the DVD collectors edition of Rambo III that our pal John Rambo decides to stay on in Afghanistan and chill out, smoke a chillum, and then retire?
Leni Riefenstahl would’ve applauded that film. Just as she would applaud Curtis’ skilfull negotiation of the ethnic cleansing of the Hejaz when the Saudi state was created, from where those who don’t know the history will consequently be incapable and not well informed enough to make the simple and direct linear connection with what was done to the Hejaz and the consequential knock on effect further north, and say what is happening in Yeman today, the simple scale of the tragedy. If someone wants to argue that such an understanding is not required that you have to ask what is it that they understand?
No one will be capable of getting their head around events in the region without understanding the line and the link between events in the region this past century. How could a storyteller ignore such a beginning of the Saud story?
Imagine if the Putin ‘dynasty’ came to power in Russia. And they quickly renamed the nation Putinland. After a thousand years of patriotic Russian stories. Do we think the people of Russia might find such a development to be just a little queer? Odd? Especially if the Russians believed that Russia as it is known was a sacred land entrusted to the Russian people on behalf of the family of Abraham? The moment when they put their name on the map? To repeat why or how could any storyteller avoid this fascinating development?
You can’t ignore this history. Ask the predominantly Muslim people of Yemen. Of Syria. The ‘Hashemites’ of Jordan! Of the land we now know of as Saudi Arabia.
You can ask for Islamic clerics to comment but we all know what happens to such clerics in the Islamic heartland which has been an important and crucial development this past century. Ninety years of history will help explain to the Saker’s audience why the most useful Islamic source they have available to them is a scholar based in the Carribean. Indeed he has helpfully explained to the Saker’s audience why plucking random verses from the Qur’an is a fruitless and possibly dangerous exercise. For Muslims let alone others.
I heard a wiser and more articulate soul then me express the following:
“If you want to hear what a community have to say then it would be helpful if you stopped punching them in the face”
Who would want to disagree?
For students of Islam i’d like to give one further favourite reference. The novel Dune by Frank Herbert, and the recent documentary on the unmade Dune movie that inspired all the best recent Sci-Fi movies. A science fiction masterpiece that explores the power of the voice. And the concept of prophetic revelation. Worth remembering that this work inspired some of our greatest artists. Of course if the Saud knew Islam, or much of anything, then their clerics would have already have passed a fatwa on poor old Frankie :), but they are ignorant of his work, as they are of what most people have in their hearts. Frank Herbert might have lost the thread by the time he was writing Dune Messiah but at least he was having fun.
And to balance out Curtis here is a spoof documentary that was more fun then Bitter Lake:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WwylBRucU7w
Excellent work Mr. Kadi. The Imperialist/Islamist project to encircle Russia/China continues, despite all the warnings and past failures.
All religions have a lot to answer for. They recruit and brainwash children. Only when religion is made Adults Only will things everywhere improve.
The American-Russian artist Andrew Warhola painted, or printed (cheap and easy!) celebrities in the tradition of religious Russian orthodox art, (he was copying his mothers technique) paintings of saints etc. and then sold those cheap prints back to those selfsame celebrities for millions.
He was clearly a satirist of the highest order. You have to admire his humour no matter what you think of the individual.
Humans do not require a belief in say ‘God’ or much of anything in order to construct what we can easily identify to be ‘Religions’ or dogmatism. There is some evidence (the 20th century).
But people, I mean all of us, we do love to deceive ourselves.
They certainly need God to construct the religion of Atheism.
‘Religions’ or dogmatism’
Did they also require a monocle to help them selectively read with only one eye open?
What is that is required to edit out the horrors and history of the 20th century from your projections on how it is humans behave? In Europe, Asia, America and Australia? How does one reach such a level of enlightenment? With a lobotomy?
I believe that people here aren’t interested in re-reading the kind of debates that they had with their friends when they were fourteen years old. Looking at the diversity and history of guests and speakers that the Saker has been engendering a dialogue with, I believe that is a safe assumption to make.
Why should the West (USA) hear? Even when they fail, they left behind a massacred and destroyed nation. Hundres of thousand of dead civilian, notably women and children. Why should a handful of americans and a little hundreds of europeans civilian death bore them?Are children being massacred? Not theirs for sure. Why should they listen?? They don´t need to.