Greetings from Guantanamo Bay

Welcome to "Taliban Towers" at Guantanamo Bay, the most ghoulishly distasteful tourist destination on the planet.

As these astonishing mementoes show, the US authorities are promoting the world's most notorious prison camp as a cheap hideaway for American sunseekers – a revelation that has drawn international anger and condemnation.

Just yards from the shelves of specially branded mugs and cuddly toys, nearly 300 "enemy combatants" lie sweltering in a waking nightmare.

It is six years since foreign prisoners, many captured in Afghanistan, were first taken to this US-occupied corner of Cuba. Yet even now, no charges have been brought against them.

While the detainees lie incarcerated, visitors can windsurf, take boat trips and go fishing for grouper, tuna, red snapper and swordfish.

The United States' 1.5million service personnel and Guantanamo's 3,000 construction workers are eligible to visit the "resort", which boasts a McDonald's, KFC and a bowling alley.

They even have a Wal-Mart supermarket.

The vacation comes at a knock-down price: just $42 (£20) per night for a suite of air-conditioned rooms, including a kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedrooms.

But it is the souvenirs that have led to the greatest criticism. One T-shirt from the gift shop is decorated with a guard tower and barbed wire. It reads: "The Taliban Towers at Guantanamo Bay, the Caribbean's Newest 5-star Resort."

Another praises "the proud protectors of freedom". A third displays a garish picture of an iguana and states: "Greetings from paradise GTMO resort and spa fun in the Cuban sun."

A child-sized shirt says: "Someone who loves me got me this T-shirt in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."

There are mugs inscribed with "kisses from Guantanamo" and "Honor Bound To Defend Freedom".

The Guantanamo holiday trade was exposed by Zachary Katznelson, a British-based human rights lawyer and spokesman for Reprieve, the group leading the international campaign against the camp.

"When I see the conditions the prisoners have to cope with and then think of the T-shirt slogans, I am appalled," he said. "To say I am repulsed is an understatement. Unbelievable as it may seem, the US authorities are proud of the 'souvenirs' and what they are doing."

Mr Katznelson represents 28 of the detainees and makes regular visits to the prison.

"The military keeps a tight hold on everything that is available in Guantanamo Bay and someone senior has given their approval for this disgusting nonsense," he said.

Full Story: Daily Mail

Excellent questions Ron Paul!

On a side note, this article provides much needed insight into the recent battle in Basra, to which Paul eluded.

Yesterday

Yesterday, marked five years since the illegal invasion of Iraq. We're thousands of deaths and billions of dollars into this mess.

Did we even remember?

If you haven't already, please take a few minutes to say a prayer for the innocent people who have and are dying as a result of this illegal war.

Abu Sa"id al-Khudri, may Allah be pleased with him, reported that the Messenger of Allah (SAW) had said: "Whoever amongst you sees anything objectionable, let him change it with his hand, if he is not able, then with his tongue, and if he is not even able to do so, then with his heart, and the latter is the weakest form of faith."

A few weeks ago, I told myself protesting was the least we could do. I thought we as a people had to at least be at the "then with your tongue" level. Sadly though, there were so many "activists" who were MIA at protest time. There were four that took place in San Francisco yesterday, and I only made it to one despite having a generally flexible schedule. (insha'Allah we can make up for it by doing something, anything, for Iraq.) Sadly, I spoke to several people who didn't even remember what March 19th marked. More of us used the Internet to celebrate an Egyptian sports victory than to make a statement against the war. We're too busy planning weddings, having headaches, studying and attending baby showers to really care about our brothers and sisters dying. So I stand corrected. Protesting, letter writing, donating, lobbying seem to all be ideals. We're not there yet. Saying a prayer and hating the war from the depths of our hearts is the least we can do.

Saddam Provided More Food than U.S.

Iraq Slashes Food Rations, Putting Lives at Risk
by Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail

The government also wants to reduce the number of people depending on the rationing system by five million by June 2008.

Iraq’s food rations system was introduced by the Saddam Hussein government in 1991 in response to the UN economic sanctions. Families were allotted basic foodstuffs monthly because the Iraqi Dinar and the economy collapsed.

The sanctions, imposed after Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion of Kuwait, were described as “genocidal” by Denis Halliday, then UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq. Halliday quit his post in protest against the U.S.-backed sanctions.

The sanctions killed half a million Iraqi children, and as many adults, according to the UN. They brought malnutrition, disease, and lack of medicines. Iraqis became nearly completely reliant on food rations for survival. The programme has continued into the U.S.-led occupation.

But now the U.S.-backed Iraqi government has announced it will halve the essential items in the ration because of “insufficient funds and spiralling inflation.”

The cuts, which are to be introduced in the beginning of 2008, have drawn widespread criticism. The Iraqi government is unable to supply the rations with several billion dollars at its disposal, whereas Saddam Hussein was able to maintain the programme with less than a billion dollars.

“In 2007, we asked for 3.2 billion dollars for rationing basic foodstuffs,” Mohammed Hanoun, Iraq’s chief of staff for the ministry of trade told al-Jazeera. “But since the prices of imported foodstuff doubled in the past year, we requested 7.2 billion dollars for this year. That request was denied.”

The trade ministry is now preparing to slash the list of subsidised items by half to five basic food items, “namely flour, sugar, rice, oil, and infant milk,” Hanoun said.

The imminent move will affect nearly 10 million people who depend on the rationing system. But it has already caused outrage in Baquba, 40 km northeast of Baghdad.

“The monthly food ration was the only help from the government,” local grocer Ibrahim al-Ageely told IPS. “It was of great benefit for the families. The food ration consisted of two kilos of rice, sugar, soap, tea, detergent, wheat flour, lentils, chick-peas, and other items for every individual.”

Another grocer said the food ration was the “life of all Iraqis; every month, Iraqis wait in queues to receive their food rations.”

Read on here.

"Them Iraqians need to be converted"

This is an old video. However, this shows a good example of the "religious extremism" that exists in the United States- it just happens they are Southern Baptists and Evangelical Christians...

The Arrogance of America: "Roasting" an Iranian President.

To: Curesponse@columbia.edu

I can understand the pressure that Columbia was under when it invited Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as a guest to speak before its student body in New York. I do thank you for doing so.

Perhaps it was this pressure that required Columbia's President, Lee Bollinger, to lunch a tirade against the invited guest and find that he exhibited “all the sings of a petty and cruel dictator” and that he was “brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.” If these comments were made under pressure that that doesn't say much for the independence of our academic institutions, on the other hand if they were made to cause resentment in Iran for the arrogant treatment of its invited President, then they appear to have wildly succeeded.

I am curious as to whether there is any precedence for this at Columbia or any other University in the world where an invited speaker is subjected to taunt and ridicule as part of their Introduction. Introductions, after all, are supposed to be flattering and intended to highlight the achievements of the speaker/guest. The only exception is when the event is a "Roasting". Did someone forget to tell the Iranian President that he had been invited to a Roast?

Usually a speaker is invited so that the audience can find out what he stands for. I am sure Columbia students, New Yorkers, especially the loud vocal New Yorkers know what Columbia's President stands for, and certainly AIPAC appreciated the brilliancy of those comments, but such self-righteous comments uttered from the pulpit of Columbia by the High Priest of Columbia had no place in an Introduction.

We seem to have become so proud of our "freedom of speech", that we have forgotten that we as Americans do not have all the right answers, (and in some cases we don't even have the wrong answers - in other words we are totally clueless). We are, after all the 800-pound Gorilla that pulverizes whatever it steps on. How can we totally neglect the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by our invasion of Iraq, the killing, jailing, maiming of thousands of Palestinians, the destruction of our own civil rights, the neglect shown to Katrina victims, the waste of billions of dollars in arms when hundreds (if not thousands) in the US sleep on the streets or in parks and go without insurance.

We sit here in our isolated halls of freedom and chastise individuals and countries that we have never visited and to which the only access we have is through the myopic, cynical view presented by the US Media. Our people sit in an ignorance well being spoon-fed miss-information and one-liners from the media and our politicians lead us guided by night goggles worn (during the day time) by our intelligence agencies. Is it a surprise then that we know so little about what is happening in the world?

How can the President of Columbia University neglect the sad state of education that exists, not just in the quality of education, at the primary and high school levels, but also the exorbitant cost required to attend college and instead taunt the Iranian President on his educational deficiencies?

We have become an arrogant nation that believes that what it does is right, that those who disagree with us are terrorist, and that those who seek to protect their independence are a threat to us. Our strength and our power have indeed gone to our heads as we hippopotamus like wreck wherever we set foot.

We are good at manufacturing reasons to create enemies; it may be more helpful to use our tremendous resources to make friends and to understand where the world is headed. Indeed our economic survival may depend on this as the rest of the world races ahead in educating its people and in developing their economy.

How much time do we have before China comes calling to collect its trillion dollar debt, before Japan comes calling and before all the Indian software engineers and entrepreneurs have departed back to India taking with them their education, their experience and the wealth that they created? Perhaps the sages who live in New York can answer the question but given the track record displayed so far, rather than finding a solution these sages will find another country to blame. After all even after Iran has been destroyed, there are other countries already on the hit list and we haven’t even scratched the surface.

May I humbly suggest that the next time Columbia invites someone to speak, do let him or her know they will be roasted.

Javed Ellahie

1. For those of you haven't yet done so, individuals who were bothered (?) by how Ahmadinejad was treated during his visit to Columbia are being asked to email their thoughts to Curesponse@columbia.edu.
2. Some other great Iran related stories:
1. Iran Labels CIA a "Terrorist Organization"
2. Iranian University Chancellors Ask Bollinger 10 Questions
   

How dare the US Senate!

I still can't get over the US Senate's resolution to divide Iraq. Who do they think they are? What audacity!

The US Senate motion Thursday that Iraq be divided into three “federal” units for Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds gives practical shape to the principle of divide and rule, enshrined in the neocon “Project for the New American Century” that has underpinned everything that the Bush White House has done since the 9/11 attacks gave it the excuse to attack first Afghanistan and then Iraq.

And leave it to the Democrats in the Senate to indulge the idea that America has any right to divvy up Iraq in the first place. This crass violation of the sovereignty of a country was put forward by leading Democrat Joe Biden, whose party is busy trying to figure out how to distance itself from a war that has become unpopular with American voters while at the same time maintaining a hawkish stance toward the global war on terror. Good luck.

From an Iraqi point of view, division is anathema. Leaving aside the outrageous proposition that the future of Iraq should be decided in the US Congress and not by Iraqis, partition would tear apart the many mixed communities that still live together in harmony and take pride first and foremost in being Iraqis, not Shiites, Sunnis or Kurds.

Continue at ArabNews

Cholera Spreads in Iraq as Health Services Collapse

And it continues to get worse. The recent outbreak of cholera in northern Iraq has health officials scrambling for ways to treat those that are sick. With water shortages and lack of medicine the disease is spreading fast having already affected 5,000 people. I wonder just how bad officials will allow it to get until they attempt to do something about it. According to the article 10 people have died with the number expected to rise.

"The outbreak is among the most serious signs yet that Iraqi health and social services are breaking down as the number of those living in camps and poor housing increases after people flee their homes.

"The disease is spreading very fast," Dr. Juan Abdallah, a senior official in Kurdistan's health ministry, told a UN agency. "It's the first outbreak of its kind here in the past few decades."

"There is a shortage of medicines to control the disease and the focal point [the source of the disease] hasn't been identified yet," Dr. Dirar Iyad of Sulaimaniyeh General Hospital told the UN News agency Irin. Ten people have already died and he expects more deaths to occur "over the next couple of days as victims are already in an advanced stage of illness."

Read the rest of the story here: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2914413.ece

Not So Fast, Christian Soldiers

An excellent article on the Pentagon's support of Evangelical brain washing of US troops (props to the LA Times for publishing it). The article is co-authored by Michael Weinstein and Reza Aslan (author of No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam - a book which I'm still trying to find the chance to read). Excerpts below:

Maybe what the war in Iraq needs is not more troops but more religion. At least that's the message the Department of Defense seems to be sending.

Last week, after an investigation spurred by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not be delivering "freedom packages" to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had originally intended.

What were the packages to contain? Not body armor or home-baked cookies. Rather, they held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which "soldiers for Christ" hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers.

The packages were put together by a fundamentalist Christian ministry called Operation Straight Up, or OSU. Headed by former kickboxer Jonathan Spinks, OSU is an official member of the Defense Department's "America Supports You" program. The group has staged a number of Christian-themed shows at military bases, featuring athletes, strongmen and actor-turned-evangelist Stephen Baldwin. But thanks in part to the support of the Pentagon, Operation Straight Up has now begun focusing on Iraq, where, according to its website (on pages taken down last week), it planned an entertainment tour called the "Military Crusade."

Apparently the wonks at the Pentagon forgot that Muslims tend to bristle at the word "crusade" and thought that what the Iraq war lacked was a dose of end-times theology.

American military and political officials must, at the very least, have the foresight not to promote crusade rhetoric in the midst of an already religion-tinged war. Many of our enemies in the Mideast already believe that the world is locked in a contest between Christianity and Islam. Why are our military officials validating this ludicrous claim with their own fiery religious rhetoric?

Read on at latimes.com

The Mamma Mia Anti-War Movement

From The Cat's Blog

Today ZNet offered its progressive readers two interesting articles; one by Cindy Sheehan and the other one by Amy Goodman. Good articles. They make sense and light important aspects of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I can only hope that people reading these two articles can also remember (better: guess) that there are 1 million Iraqi killed by this illegal, immoral war of aggression and a country completely destroyed.

The same with Afghanistan, where, day after day, the US and its allies keep slaughtering children, women, innocent people and these heroic actions of our boys and girls go unreported by mainstream media but also by many among the so-called alternative ones. Meanwhile what is called the anti-war movement’s policy makers close their eyes on that front, the just war.

What is called the "anti-war movement" doesn’t even consider to use the word “resistance” while we are presented, day after day, with the compassionate side of patriotism. As US peace movement’ spokesperson (by the way, by whom and when she was elected?) Phyllis Bennis recently wrote, “I don't think we gain strength by making sympathy with resistance fighters a demand of our movement.”

But that sympathy is always granted to the mass murderers, our troops.

Read on here

Baghdad: 6 million people, 117 degrees and no water

By Richard Becker, Western Regional Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition
Friday, August 3, 2007

A crime against humanity committed by the occupying power

For the past 24 hours, Baghdad has had virtually no running water.

Major parts of the city of six million people have lacked running water for six days, while daily high temperatures have ranged from 115 to 120 degrees. The tiny amount of water dripping through the pipes is causing many of those who must drink it to suffer acute intestinal illness.

According to reports, not enough electricity is available to run Baghdad’s water pumps. This in a country with vast energy resources.

Corporate media outlets—to the extent they have reported this horrific and mind-boggling story at all—have treated it as a failure on the part of Iraqis.

In reality, it is an appalling war crime committed by the occupying power, the U.S. military. It threatens the lives of tens of thousands of people in the short term and unthinkable numbers of people unless it is rectified immediately.

According to Article 55 of Geneva Conventions (1949) to which the U.S. government is a signatory: "To the fullest extent of the means available to it the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate."

Article 59 states: "If the whole or part of the population of an occupied territory is inadequately supplied, the Occupying Power shall agree to relief schemes on behalf of the said population, and shall facilitate them by all the means at its disposal."

To say that a huge city deprived of running water is "inadequately supplied" would rank as one of the great understatements of human history.

Of course, the shortage of water—the most vital of all necessities—does not extend to the U.S. personnel and contractors occupying Iraq.

The U.S. government tries to relieve itself of its obligations by pretending that Iraq’s "sovereignty" was restored in June 2004. But that is just another hoax.

Since its illegal invasion and conquest of Iraq in the spring of 2003, the real state power in the country has been the U.S. military.

This latest catastrophe to afflict the Iraqi people is another poisonous fruit of imperialist occupation. Not even in the worst times during the U.S. blockade of Iraq from 1990-2003, did such a disaster occur.

The U.S. regime in Iraq must provide the people of Baghdad with relief in the short-term to avert unprecedented disaster. The U.S. occupation must come to an immediate end. The officials responsible for the terrible crimes committed against the Iraqi people must be held accountable. The U.S. government owes Iraq vast reparations for the death and destruction imposed on that society by an illegal war of aggression.

Endorse ANSWER DC and LA antiwar protests here
Endorse ANSWER Week of Student Resistance here

Iraq on My Mind

"Having spent a fair amount of time in occupied Iraq, I now find living in the United States nothing short of a schizophrenic experience. Life in Iraq was traumatizing. It was impossible to be there and not be affected by apocalyptic levels of violence and suffering, unimaginable in this country.

But here's the weird thing: One long, comfortable plane ride later and you're in Disneyland, or so it feels on returning to the United States. Sometimes it seems as if I'm in a bubble here that's only moments away from popping. I find myself perpetually amazed at the heights of consumerism and the vigorous pursuit of creature comforts that are the essence of everyday life in this country -- and once defined my own life as well.

Here, for most Americans, you can choose to ignore what our government is doing in Iraq. It's as simple as choosing to go to a website other than this one.

The longer the occupation of Iraq continues, the more conscious I grow of the disparity, the utter disjuncture, between our two worlds.

In January 2004, I traveled through villages and cities south of Baghdad investigating the Bechtel Corporation's performance in fulfilling contractual obligations to restore the water supply in the region. In one village outside of Najaf, I looked on in disbelief as women and children collected water from the bottom of a dirt hole. I was told that, during the daily two-hour period when the power supply was on, a broken pipe at the bottom of the hole brought in "water." This was, in fact, the primary water source for the whole village. Eight village children, I learned, had died trying to cross a nearby highway to obtain potable water from a local factory.

In Iraq things have grown exponentially worse since then. Recently, the World Health Organization announced that 70% of Iraqis do not have access to clean water and 80% "lack effective sanitation."

In the United States I step away from my desk, walk into the kitchen, turn on the tap, and watch as clear, cool water fills my glass. I drink it without once thinking about whether it contains a waterborne disease or will cause kidney stones, diarrhea, cholera, or nausea. But there's no way I can stop myself from thinking about what was -- and probably still is -- in that literal water hole near Najaf."

Read on Dahr Jamail's article at TomDispatch.com. Jamail goes on to quote emails from his friends in Iraq which offer sobering insight into their daily lives.

Living a comfortable life in a rich city in the Middle East not far away from Iraq, I can definately relate to Jamail's schizophrenia.

Iraqi Child Prostitution on the Rise

By Guest Blogger Yesi King

MSNBC has come up with a video of Iraqi women who have been forced into prostitution to survive as refugees in Syria.

Bush’s "Democratic Revolution" in Iraq has produced some dismal results, but the story of young girls—some only 6 years old---being exploited takes the cake. It is both appalling and heartbreaking.

The video is served up with typical western-media cynicism--as though America played no part in this latest horror story from Iraq.

Furthermore, how do our fellow Muslims supporting such an atrocity sleep at night? Perhaps it is that I am a naive convert, but I just don't get it.

Mounting Costs of the Iraq War

By Guest Blogger Shahtaj Siddiqui

I can't recall how many times I've arrived on the landing page of Yahoo! News, Google News or BBC News and seen the same headlines: ‘June named deadliest month for US soldiers in Iraq,’ or ‘Iraq bombing kills 37.’ Sadly, personally I read the headlines, reflect a moment on how wrong/terrible/unjust the war is, and move on to other news. Reports of these repeated attacks, now seemingly commonplace, bear a bitter truth that, despite efforts from Iraq Body Count, etc., we are unaware of the mounting costs of the Iraqi occupation.

Thankfully, there are organizations that are keeping tabs on such news. An October 2006 study published by The Lancet, a reputed British medical journal, estimated war-related deaths in Iraq at 15,000 per month, spiking to 30,000 per month during violent periods. Wait. October 2006. It’s now July 2007. Why haven’t we heard about the exorbitant casualty rates here?

Michael Schwartz, a contributor to Counterpunch, writes,

“The U.S. and British governments quickly dismissed these results as ‘methodologically flawed,’ even though the researchers used standard procedures for measuring mortality in war and disaster zones. (They visited a random set of homes and asked the residents if anyone in their household had died in the last few years, recording the details, and inspecting death certificates in the vast majority of cases.) The two belligerent governments offered no concrete reasons for rejecting the study’s findings, and they ignored the fact that they had sponsored identical studies (conducted by some of the same researchers) in other disaster areas, including Darfur and Kosovo. The reasons for this rejection were, however, clear enough: the results were simply too devastating for the culpable governments to acknowledge. (Secretly the British government later admitted that it was ‘a tried and tested way to measuring mortality in conflict zones’; but it has never publicly admitted its validity).”

(Read on at: Counterpunch)

Congress recently approved another $166 billion for the war in Iraq, bringing US military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan to a conservative estimate of $12 billion a month, thus far a total of half a trillion dollars spent on the war. (ABC News). These war funds are appropriated by our work and our tax money. How much longer can we go with our work, our effort, our money being used to murder innocent civilians? For how long do we remain apathetic? What is the price of our apathy?

Cindy Sheehan "Resigns"

FORT WORTH, Texas - Cindy Sheehan, the soldier's mother who galvanized an anti-war movement with her month-long protest outside President Bush's ranch, said Tuesday she's done being the public face of the movement.

"I've been wondering why I'm killing myself and wondering why the Democrats caved in to George Bush," Sheehan told The Associated Press while driving from her property in Crawford to the airport, where she planned to return to her native California.

"I'm going home for awhile to try and be normal," she said.

In what she described as a "resignation letter," Sheehan wrote in her online diary on the Daily Kos blog: "Good-bye America ... you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can't make you be that country unless you want it.

"It's up to you now."

Sheehan began a grass roots peace movement in August 2005 when she camped outside Bush's Crawford ranch for 26 days, demanding to talk with the president about her son's death. Army Spc. Casey Sheehan was 24 when he was killed in an ambush in Baghdad in 2004.
. . .
When Sheehan first took on Bush, she was a darling of the liberal left. "However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the 'left' started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used," she wrote in the diary.

She said she sacrificed a 29-year marriage and endured threats to put all her energy into stopping the war. What she found, she wrote, was a movement "that often puts personal egos above peace and human life."

She said the most devastating conclusion she had reached "was that Casey did indeed die for nothing ... killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think."

Read the full story at: Yahoo News

Robert Fisk: The true story of free speech in America [and the UK]

This is sickening...excerpts below (emphasis mine), full article here.

The story so far: Sami al-Arian, a Kuwaiti-born Palestinian, was a respected computer professor at the University of South Florida who tried, however vainly, to communicate the real tragedy of Palestinian Arabs to the US government. But according to Sugg, Israel's lobbyists were enraged by his lessons - al-Arian's family was driven from Palestine in 1948 - and in 2003, at the instigation of Attorney General Ashcroft, he was arrested and charged with conspiring "to murder and maim" outside the United States and with raising money for Islamic Jihad in "Palestine". He was held for two and a half years in solitary confinement, hobbling half a mile, his hands and feet shackled, merely to talk to his lawyers.

Al-Arian's $50m (£25m) Tampa trial lasted six months; the government called 80 witnesses (21 from Israel) and used 400 intercepted phone calls along with evidence of a conversation that a co-defendant had with al-Arian in - wait for it - a dream. The local judge, a certain James Moody, vetoed any remarks about Israeli military occupation or about UN Security Council Resolution 242, on the grounds that they would endanger the impartiality of the jurors.

In December, 2005, al-Arian was acquitted on the most serious charges and on those remaining; the jurors voted 10 to two for acquittal. Because the FBI wanted to make further charges, al-Arian's lawyers told him to make a plea that would end any further prosecution. Arriving for his sentence, however, al-Arian - who assumed time served would be his punishment, followed by deportation - found Moody talking about "blood" on the defendant's hands and ensured he would have to spend another 11 months in jail. Then prosecutor Gordon Kromberg insisted that the Palestinian prisoner should testify against an Islamic think tank. Al-Arian believed his plea bargain had been dishonoured and refused to testify. He was held in contempt. And continues to languish in prison.

As the reporter who first revealed the death of hotel worker Baha Mousa in British custody in Basra - I suppose we must always refer to his demise as "death" now that the soldiers present at his savage beating have been acquitted of murder - I can attest that Arab Muslims know all too well how gentle and refined our boys are during interrogation. It is we, the British at home, who are not supposed to believe in torture. The Iraqis know all about it - and who knew all about Mousa's fate long before I reported it for The Independent on Sunday.

...

Because it's really all about shutting the reality of the Middle East off from us. It's to prevent the British and American people from questioning the immoral and cruel and internationally illegal occupation of Muslim lands.

And in the Land of the Free, this systematic censorship of Middle East reality continues even in the country's schools. Now the principal of a Connecticut high school has banned a play by pupils, based on the letters and words of US soldiers serving in Iraq. Entitled Voices in Conflict, Natalie Kropf, Seth Koproski, James Presson and their fellow pupils at Wilton High School compiled the reflections of soldiers and others - including a 19-year-old Wilton High graduate killed in Iraq - to create their own play. To no avail. The drama might hurt those "who had lost loved ones or who had individuals serving as we speak", proclaimed Timothy Canty, Wilton High's principal. And - my favourite line - Canty believed there was not enough rehearsal time to ensure the play would provide "a legitimate instructional experience for our students".

And of course, I can quite see Mr Canty's point. Students who have produced Arthur Miller's The Crucible were told by Mr Canty - whose own war experiences, if any, have gone unrecorded - that it wasn't their place to tell audiences what soldiers were thinking. The pupils of Wilton High are now being inundated with offers to perform at other venues. Personally, I think Mr Canty may have a point. He would do much better to encourage his students to perform Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, a drama of massive violence, torture, rape, mutilation and honour killing. It would make Iraq perfectly explicable to the good people of Connecticut. A "legitimate instructional experience" if ever there was one.

Day of the Land - A Lasting Stand for Liberation and Return

(Free Palestine Alliance - USA)

March 30, is Day of the Land ("Yaoum Al-Ard") for the Palestinian people.

In 1976, Palestinian Arab masses within the areas colonized by Zionism in 1948 rose up in the Galilee (Al-Jaleel) in a popular rebellion against land expropriation and Zionization of Palestine. From that day, March 30th has become the embodiment of the oneness of the Palestinian people in the face of exile, destitution, and attempted theft of our national identity. Successive uprisings have since taken place, mostly within 1967 borders, just as they have been all over Palestine since the turn of the 20th century in opposition of consecutive colonial policies.

It is a day to celebrate the relentless resistance of a people facing conspiracies at the hands of a tripartite assault: US imperial designs, the Zionist movement, and despotic Arab functionaries. Only yesterday, functionaries wearing the garbs of national leaders, completed their assembly in Riyadh, the heart of the Arab peninsula (Al-Jazeera Al-Arabiyya), as they convened the Nineteenth Arab Summit for the purpose of reaffirming the so-called "Arab Initiative", which capitulates in total to the demands of Israel and the US State Department. In addition to transforming Arab land into playgrounds for invading armies, another key part of this presumably Arab plan is to open wide the Arab gates for Zionist normalization while simultaneously using linguistic acrobatics and detractions, like "finding a solution of the refugee problem", or "solving the refugee problem in accordance with international law", to terminate the Palestinian Right of Return.

We warn that any language that explicitly avoids supporting the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees to their original homes and property along with payment of all due compensation, is an attempt to maneuver around this non-negotiable and inalienable right. We also warn of language that talks about a Palestinian state within 1967 border and remind all that Palestinian land is not divisible.

These same leaders also had the audacity to speak of Arab unity and to issue a fake criticism of the US ongoing destruction of Iraq. As if we are to forget that it is these very functionaries who either opened Arab gates for the US armed forces to overtake Iraq, or rode in as conquerors of Iraq on US Humvees, and who continue to make Arab lands available for US imperial military bases. They are the ones who watched from the sidelines as Israeli forces swept into Lebanon scorching the land and people, some even cheering the Israelis to finish the job quickly; although to their dismay, Israel instead was dealt a major defeat. They are the ones who bartered Palestine and its people for crumbs at the back doors of the White House, while watching successive policies of strangulation further cripple the besieged Palestinian people. And as they speak of "unity", in reality they are implementing US designs of sectarianism and de-Arabization, pitting even families against each other, as evident in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon.

Our Day of the Land is a sustaining challenge to these very political programs. It is a unifying cry that insists on the Arab belonging of Palestine despite the passage of time. It is our people's stance for history to record that we are one and indivisible.

Advice from a MSA Alum and a Young Muslim “Activist”

by Cassie Williams

We’re activists. We are passionate about issues that are close to our hearts – Palestine, dispelling misconceptions about Islam, the war in Iraq, Imam Jameel, etc. Throughout the year, at campuses around the state and country, we see young Muslim students getting riled up about this or that, putting on protests, rallies, lectures, seminars, Fast-a-Thons, and sit-ins to promote these heartfelt issues.

But where is Allah swt in the mix? Where is Islam? Where is our spirituality?

We say that we are speaking out and doing all this for the sake of Allah….but are we?

How many times have we, as Muslim students, prior to an MSA sponsored event, sat down together as a group, in a circle and just made du’aa together and asked Allah swt to put His blessing in the event, to add barakah to our studying for all the effort that we put in to working for His cause, to open the eyes of the ignorant, to open the hearts of our opponents, to open the ears of those who have previously refused to listen?

How many times have we sat down together as an MSA before making a decision on how to handle a controversial situation and asked Allah to guide our decision-making process and lead us down the straight path?

How many times have we openly and sincerely prayed for our adversaries like Daniel Pipes, Paul Wolfowitz and the like?

We don’t do these things because we sometimes lose sight of the legacy of our deen when our hearts are stirring with the fires of passion, anger, and activism. But let us not forget our legacy, especially the legacy that our beloved Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) left for us. He left us with myriad stories of how he handled situations very similar to the ones we face on our campuses and communities.

For example, we all know the story of the Prophet’s visit to the people of Taif. He came to bring them the message of peace, the most amazing message ever revealed, that of Islam. He came gently, humbly, respectfully. And what did they do? They ran him out of Taif, throwing stones at him and taunting him until he bled as he fled for safety. And as he left Taif, angels from Allah swt came to the Prophet (pbuh) and said to him,

“O, Prophet of Allah! I am at your service. If you wish, I can cause the mountains overlooking this town on both sides to collide with each other, so that all the people therein would be crushed to death, or you may suggest any other punishment for them."

The Prophet (pbuh) replied with this amazing words that we should remember at all times, “Even if these people do not accept Islam, I do hope from Allah that there will be persons from among their progeny who would worship Allah and serve His cause."

The Prophet (pbuh) faced much more treacherous adversaries, much stronger, bolder, more brazen adversaries than the likes of Daniel Pipes. The story of the Prophet’s journey to Taif is just one in hundreds, if not thousands of stories that we, as students, must contemplate, reflect upon, share with one another, and act upon.

These are not just stories for us to memorize. They are pieces of a complete instruction manual that the Prophet (pbuh) left for our benefit. Each story has its place in our lives. And until we realize that our activism will not be complete without deep reflection, du’aa and purification of the soul, we will continue to waste the legacy of our beloved Messenger and make a lot of clamor without a lot of success.

I hope that this will be an opportunity for us to take some time together to think about the purpose and intentions of the Muslim Student groups on our college and high school campuses. Maybe we can think about how to implement the character of the Prophet, his sunnah, du’aa, and true supplication for Allah’s blessing and guidance in our youth activities.

Our work is futile without the blessing of Allah swt. Therefore, sit together as an entire MSA, go around the group and allow each person to share their du’aa for an upcoming event. Not only will this ensure that you allow Allah swt to take the reigns, it will also bring you closer together as a group, as brothers and sisters for the sake of Allah swt. The joining together of spirituality and activism is an amazing dynamic when practiced regularly.

I pray that Allah swt inspires you to implement this harmonious link in your MSAs. I pray that Allah swt guides you all in your personal activism and in your personal spiritual growth. I pray that Allah swt leads you toward fulfilling the rich, bountiful history left by our Prophet (pbuh) and his followers. I pray that Allah swt gives you success and allows your activities to help open the eyes, ears, and hearts of those you target. And I pray that Allah swt will join us all together, all the young Muslim activists who worked for His cause, on the Day of Judgment and will keep us in His shade and place us on pillars of light reserved for those who loved one another for His sake. Ameen.

'War on Terror': terrorizing Americans into consent

Its about time articles like this one by Zbigniew Brzezinski are published in the mainstream American press.

American Muslims as well as peace activists in the US and around the world have been bringing up the same points against the fear strategy called 'War on Terror' since the the very beginning of the 'War on Terror', but they were accused of being unpatriotic cowards, or worse, of supporting terrorism.

It is only now, over 5 years later, that such arguments are being heard and accepted by the American public.

Below are excerpts from the Brzezinski's article "Terrorized by 'War on Terror'" (emphasis mine):

The "war on terror" has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration's elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America's psyche and on U.S. standing in the world.

The phrase itself is meaningless. It defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed enemies. Terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare -- political intimidation through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.

But the little secret here may be that the vagueness of the phrase was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated by its sponsors. Constant reference to a "war on terror" did accomplish one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear. Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue. The war of choice in Iraq could never have gained the congressional support it got without the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Support for President Bush in the 2004 elections was also mobilized in part by the notion that "a nation at war" does not change its commander in chief in midstream.

To justify the "war on terror," the administration has lately crafted a false historical narrative that could even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By claiming that its war is similar to earlier U.S. struggles against Nazism and then Stalinism (while ignoring the fact that both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were first-rate military powers, a status al-Qaeda neither has nor can achieve), the administration could be preparing the case for war with Iran. Such war would then plunge America into a protracted conflict spanning Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and perhaps also Pakistan.

Government at every level has stimulated the paranoia. Consider, for example, the electronic billboards over interstate highways urging motorists to "Report Suspicious Activity" (drivers in turbans?). Some mass media have made their own contribution. The cable channels and some print media have found that horror scenarios attract audiences, while terror "experts" as "consultants" provide authenticity for the apocalyptic visions fed to the American public. Hence the proliferation of programs with bearded "terrorists" as the central villains. Their general effect is to reinforce the sense of the unknown but lurking danger that is said to increasingly threaten the lives of all Americans.

The entertainment industry has also jumped into the act. Hence the TV serials and films in which the evil characters have recognizable Arab features, sometimes highlighted by religious gestures, that exploit public anxiety and stimulate Islamophobia. Arab facial stereotypes, particularly in newspaper cartoons, have at times been rendered in a manner sadly reminiscent of the Nazi anti-Semitic campaigns. Lately, even some college student organizations have become involved in such propagation, apparently oblivious to the menacing connection between the stimulation of racial and religious hatreds and the unleashing of the unprecedented crimes of the Holocaust.

The atmosphere generated by the "war on terror" has encouraged legal and political harassment of Arab Americans (generally loyal Americans) for conduct that has not been unique to them.

The record is even more troubling in the general area of civil rights. The culture of fear has bred intolerance, suspicion of foreigners and the adoption of legal procedures that undermine fundamental notions of justice. Innocent until proven guilty has been diluted if not undone, with some -- even U.S. citizens -- incarcerated for lengthy periods of time without effective and prompt access to due process. There is no known, hard evidence that such excess has prevented significant acts of terrorism, and convictions for would-be terrorists of any kind have been few and far between. Someday Americans will be as ashamed of this record as they now have become of the earlier instances in U.S. history of panic by the many prompting intolerance against the few.

Beginning to understand Iraq (and the Middle East)

When internal fighting and killing first started in Iraq around two years ago I was very distressed and completely confused. The US occupation is illegal, unjust, and inhuman; that's an easy one to figure out. But, what do I say about the "sectarian violence"? Are Muslims really killing each other? Who do I protest against? Will I do more harm than good by speaking against one political party or another?

Since then the chaos has spread to other parts of the region, and has gained more news and media coverage. According to mainstream American media, all the problems in the Middle East seem to boil down to one thing: the Sunni-Shia struggle.

I am still not entirely clear about the situation in Iraq; I don't think anyone can be given the limited and distorted media coverage. Still, there is one thing I know for a fact: the so-called Sunni-Shia sectarian violence only started after the US-led occupation. Iraqis had peacefully coexisted for decades until they were "shocked and awed".

No, I am not in denial. There are definitely ignorant, misled Sunnis and Shias who are perpetrating the daily massacres against innocent Iraqi civilians. However, I refuse to believe that all Iraqi Shias are carrying out an Iranian plot to take over Iraq, or that all Iraqi Sunnis want to avenge Saddam's death by killing as many Shias as possible.

As for speaking out against regional political parties and figures, I will strongly condemn any party that chooses to work closely with foreign powers (US,UK,Israel France,...), against the interest of its own people. If that happens to be "Shia" groups in Iraq and "Sunni" parties in Lebanon then so be it. I trust that people will be mature enough to realize that my political opinions are based on political stances, not religious ones.

In the past week or so, I have come across several excellent articles that offer interesting analyses of the situation in Iraq and the Middle East in general (links and excerpts below). I think they are a must-read for anyone looking to truly understand the situation in the Middle East. These articles all make the point that there is so much more to the situation than Sunnis and Shias.

As far as Muslims go, we cannot afford to be ignorant about the situation. We cannot sit back and watch as our enemies divide us.


Sunnis Will Not Be Persuaded That Iran Is Their Real Enemy
"Despite the US-Shia alliance that brought his rule to an end, sectarianism did not become serious until the US-led occupation replaced Saddam's regime with one based on quotas, a process destined to divide Iraq along sectarian and ethnic lines."

The Shia-Sunni Divide: Myths and Reality
"The consensus in both Sunni and Shia circles appears to be that attempts to emphasise Sunni- Shia rivalries are intended to deflect attention from both the US occupation of Iraq and continuing Israeli aggression. That the US is working to fuel such tensions is almost an article of faith for Muslims on both sides. In its attempt to create an anti-Iran alliance, they say, the US is resorting to a strategy which aims to raise the spectre of sectarianism across the Muslim world."

How Easy It Is To Put Hatred on A Map
"Our guilt in this sectarian game is obvious. We want to divide the "other", "them", our potential enemies, from each other, while we - we civilised Westerners with our refined, unified, multicultural values - are unassailable."


Baghdad New Alliance
"Bush’s new strategy can be described as a policy of escalation and rejection of conceding failure. In addition, it is a plan to take revenge on Baghdad that deprived him from achieving the long-promised victory. By allocating 17,000 additional troops to Baghdad – while knowing that there are no clearly-defined fighting fronts – Bush in fact seeks to cause the biggest amount of damage to its people and buildings."