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It’s official. The Obama Administration won’t do anything at all to help the Syrian people against the Bashar al-Asad dictatorship. Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi is a bad dictator, but Bashar al-Asad is a good dictator?
The great Martin Kramer puts it perfectly:
“Earlier I noted that the Arab League gave Asad a license to kill because Syria is “occupied.” Now Clinton and Kerry have given him one because he’s a “reformer.” Asad hasn’t carried out any reforms, still supports terror, has stockpiles of WMD, and even tried to build a secret nuke facility. But unlike Qaddafi, he cleans up nicely and his wife is chic. Asad gets a pass; Asads always do.”
Ask yourself these simple questions: Which regime is more dangerous to U.S. interests? Which regime is sponsoring more terrorism at present? Which regime is killing Americans in Iraq? Which regime is allied with Iran and actively trying to destroy U.S. interests in the Middle East? Who is the worse dictator–more repressive; incompetent; and bad for regional stability, the United States, and the West–Egypt’s Husni Mubarak or Syria’s Bashar al-Asad?
Nobody is asking the U.S. government to bomb Syria or to send troops. It’s just a matter of supporting those seeking democracy when it also serves U.S. interests. Even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates seems to feel this way.
I have no idea whether Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supports the White House’s pro-Syrian policy or not but her attempt to defend it is the most pitiful performance of her 26 months in the job. Was this because her heart isn’t in it or just that the contradictions are too obvious to paper over?
Does anyone still believe that the United States is going to woo Syria away from Iran, especially now that it’s handing one victory after another to Tehran? Does anyone still believe that Syria is going to make peace with Israel? I mean someone who is a rational being who has some comprehension of international affairs, in other words not Senator John Kerry.
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By Barry Rubin
In his New York Times op-ed back in February, Muslim Brotherhood agent–disguised as sophisticated academic–Tariq Ramadan wrote:
“By deciding to line up behind Mohamed ElBaradei, who has emerged as the chief figure among the anti-Mubarak protesters, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership has signaled that now is not the time to expose itself by making political demands that might frighten the West, not to mention the Egyptian people. Caution is the watchword. “
But wait! Now it is the month of March and the Brotherhood has broken with ElBaradei. In fact, Brotherhood supporters by the hundred threw stones at ElBaradei and prevented him from voting on the constitutional amendments during the recent referendum. So much for democracy.
So to take Ramadan at his word, now that the Brotherhood has turned against ElBaradei and physically attacked him, does that mean–to paraphrase Ramadan–that:
The Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership has signaled that now is the time to expose itself by making political demands that might frighten the West and the Egyptian people. Confidence and aggression is the watchword.
In other words, the Brotherhood can toss away one of the main “proofs” of its moderation and lack of aggressiveness and the Western elite–including those in whose newspaper these words appeared–don’t even notice!
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
For several years I’ve been telling you that under its current Islamist regime, Turkey has become less and less of a democratic state. Hundreds of peaceful dissidents have been arrested, thrown in prison, and accused of seeking to overthrow the government violently when there is no real evidence. The regime has moved into an alliance with Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah. It has bought up much of the media and intimidated much of the rest.
Yet the idea that somehow this regime is a model of democracy in a Muslim-majority state–something for others to emulate, for goodness sakes!–has remained dominant in the West.
Still, one abuse has followed another, with the nature of this anti-democratic would-be dictatorship becoming increasingly apparent. Following on the arrests of journalists and closing of a publication merely because it asserted that it was about to publish proof that the arrests have been made on trumped-up charges, even the U.S. government finally protested, albeit very mildly.
But now the regime has trumped even that human rights’ violation.
An investigative journalist named Ahmet Shek has been working on a book about Fatitullah Gulen. But Gulen, a controversial Islamist who has huge amounts of money, his own media empire, has bought off some American Middle East experts, runs lots of schools, practically owns the Turkish police, and engages in a variety of stealth Islamist activities, is apparently not to be criticized or investigated.
So not only was Shek arrested–as an alleged terrorist!–and all the copies of his manuscript seized by the police, but the authorities then went on to raid his publisher’s office and two of his friends’ places. They deleted the versions on all of their computers. Then, realizing that an expert can restore deleted files, the police returned and took the hard disks with them.
One wonders how much repression is going to have to happen in Turkey before foreign media acknowledge and Western governments admit that the regime is oriented toward dictatorship and Islamism, making it an enemy of Western interests and certainly only a negative role model for the Arab world!
The leader of Turkey’s opposition says that the current, Islamist regime’s supposed policy of getting along with everyone–though really it means aligning with radical Islamist forces in the Middle East–has actually led to bad relations with a lot of countries.
And he also discusses relations with Israel:
Question: “Does the deterioration of relations with Israel…serve Turkey’s interests?”
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu: “The answer is no. In the first place, the deterioration of our relations with Israel has caused significant losses….Trade and tourism went down….But the greater loss is of a strategic nature and affects the entire region….[The fact that Turkey is] no longer enjoying the trust of Israel puts it out of the Middle East equation, further weakening the prospects of peace and stability in this key region [and]…could unexpectedly lead to situations that might hurt Turkey’s vital national interests.”
And here’s another brilliant article by Soner Cagaptay which gave me a new perspective on Turkish issues. Briefly, he points out that the current, Islamist regime in Turkey has dropped all the good things from Kemalism (secularism, gender equality, good relations with the West) and simply adapted all the problemmatic aspects (hardline stand on the Armenian and Kurdish issues; unbending nationalism, etc.)
Finally, the current Turkish regime–which likes Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi–is refusing to support NATO involvement in the Libyan crisis. Instead, it wants to mediate. Whose side is this regime on? Not that of NATO or the West. But it is on the side of Iran, Syria, Libya, Hamas, and Hizballah.
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By Barry Rubin
I’ve seen a lot in media expressing the views of the Gulf Arab states and officials’ statements–not all of them public, and not to mention similar expressions from Turkish and Iranian oppositionists–expressing horror and shock at Obama Administration Middle East policy. Remember, al-Jazira is NOT typical, as it is run by Islamists and follows the pro-Iran line of its owner, the Qatari government.
In this article in al-Sharq al-Awsat (translated by MEMRI), a Saudi-controlled but also relatively liberal newspaper, Tariq al-Homayed, the chief editor, expresses the combination of shock and horror at the Obama Administration. The conflict was hot over Egypt and even hotter over Bahrain, where the Saudis want the current regime to survive and U.S. officials have criticized Saudi intervention.
Indeed, he complains, the statements coming from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
sound “more like what we’d expect to hear from the Iranian foreign minister.” The “contradictory statements coming out of Washington have become more than merely perplexing; they are also suspicious.”
Why suspicious? Because it isn’t clear whether the U.S. government is more concerned about stopping revolutionary Islamism or undermining those who oppose it, more interested in containing Iran or letting Tehran’s influence spread, supporting moderate Arab countries or overthrowing their regimes.
The editor accuses U.S. policy of ignoring Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen and Iranian statements claiming Bahrain. (Reminds me of how Iraq used to claim Kuwait and that was ignored until 1990, when Iraq invaded and annexed that country.)
How, he asks, can U.S. policymakers complain when the Gulf Cooperation Council states intervene in Bahrain–according to previous agreements–and then demanding that these countries support intervention in Libya?
Israel could now say to Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and several other Arab governments (plus the Iranian and Turkish oppositions): Welcome to our world.
The fears of relatively moderate Arabs (and Turks and Iranians) that they are getting thrown under bus are not merely imaginery at all. For example, the New York Times had an article March 17 with the following headline:
“Interests of Saudi Arabia and Iran Collide, With the U.S. in the Middle.”
Now, of course, one understands what this means in linguistic terms. Yet the headline is amazingly revealing. Yes, the Saudis, not the United States, are now carrying on the main battle against the spread of Iranian influence and revolutionary Islamism. Of course, they cannot sustain this burden long without U.S. support.
Which raises the question: What’s the United States doing in the “middle” between Iran and Saudi Arabia! It should be backing the Saudis against Iran. Indeed, it should be leading the anti-Islamist coalition!
To be fair, the Obama Administration is putting early-warning stations into Saudi Arabia for the day when Iran has nuclear-tipped missiles. The Reagan Doctrine (is that still in force?) commits the United States to protect Saudi Arabia from an overt Iranian military attack.
Yet the headline is true. The current U.S. government is essentially neutral between the two sides. Sort of like a headline from 1941 reading, “Interests of Nazi Germany and Britain Collide, With the U.S. in the Middle.”
Saudi Arabia isn’t exactly like Britain under Winston Churchill but it is now on the front-line against the greatest threat of our time. U.S. policy already mishandled Iran in the 1970s and, more recently, the Obama Administration has watched Lebanon fall, Turkey’s government change sides, and Egypt jump ship.
Already a headline would be accurate that read: “Interests of Palestinians and Israel Collide, With the U.S. in the Middle.”
Or how about: “Interests of Venezuela and Moderate Latin American States Collide, With the U.S. in the Middle.”
Or: “Interests of Russia and Central Europe Collide, With the U.S. in the Middle.”
Yes, with this administration being in the “middle” is the best-case analysis. At worst, it’s on the wrong side altogether.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
Welcome to the Before It’s News Daily Featured 5 Stories. Each weekday we deliver the most important and interesting alternative stories to your inbox. Be the first among your friends and colleagues to get the scoop on the stories everyone should be talking about today.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft recently found that the natural radio wave signals coming from the giant planet differ in the northern and southern hemispheres, a split that can affect how scientists measure the length of a Saturn day. But the weirdness doesn’t stop there, researchers say…
Click here to read, “Weird Saturn Radio Signals Puzzle Astronomers”…
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has just completed a 5-year project called “Urban Photonic Sandtable Display”, or UPSD, that creates real time, color, 360-degree 3D holographic displays. Without any special goggles, an entire team of planners can view a large-format (up to 6-foot diagonal) interactive 3D display…
According to the EPA, “While short-term elevations such as these do not raise public health concerns – and the levels seen in rainwater are expected to be relatively short in duration – the U.S. EPA has taken steps to increase the level of nationwide monitoring of precipitation, drinking water, and other potential exposure routes to continue to verify that.”…
Looking to spice up your sex life? Try adding ginseng and saffron to your diet. Both are proven performance boosters, according to a new scientific review of natural aphrodisiacs conducted by University of Guelph researchers…
The toxic effects of the mercury, also known in vaccines as Thimerosal, have once again been confirmed, this time by researchers from the University of Brazil. Marking the sixth major study in recent months to condemn the use of mercury in medicine, the new study reveals that mercury causes serious brain damage, and is linked to autism and other developmental diseases…
Click here to read, “Sixth Study In Recent Months Links Mercury In Flu Shots To Brain Damage, Autism”…
CBN reporter Erick Stakelbeck today broke a fascinating story that the Iranian government has produced a video explaining why the current turmoil in Egypt, North Africa and the Middle East is consistent with Shia Islamic prophecy and indicates the reurn of the Twelfth Imam is very close. I have seen a 28 minute excerpt of the video and was interviewed for the story. It’s a grave development for Israel and the US because it reinforces the notion that the Iranian regime believes chaos and carnage in the epicenter are essential to the Mahdi’s coming. To see the CBN story, click here: http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2011/March/Iranian-Regime-Video-Says-Mahdi-is-Near-/
PS — I’m in Europe this week co-leading a pastors retreat through the Book of Colossians, so i won’t be able to post as often as usual. Thanks for understanding.
That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
There are sometimes rare and beautiful wares brought into the markets that are invoiced at almost fabulous rates.
Ignorant people wonder why they are priced so high. The simple reason is that they cost so much to procure. That luxurious article labeled 75 pounds was procured by the adventurous hunter, who at the hazard of his neck, brought down the mountain-goat, out of whose glossy hair the fabric was wrought.
Yonder pearl that flashes on the brow of the bride is precious, because it was rescued from the great deep at the risk of the pearl-fisher’s life, as he was lifted into the boat half-dead, with the blood gushing from his nostrils.
Yonder ermine, flung so carelessly over the proud beauty’s shoulder, cost terrible battles with Polar ice and hurricane. All choicest things are reckoned the dearest.
And so it is that the best part of a Christian is that which was procured at the sorest cost.
Patience is a beautiful trait, but is not worn oftenest by those who walk on life’s sunny side in silver slippers. It is the product of dark nights of tempest, and those days of adversity whose high noon is but a midnight.
For “the trying of your faith worketh patience.” Purity of soul is like purity in gold, where the hottest fires turn out the most refined and precious metals from the crucible. – T. Cuyler.
‘When other things are broken, they are nothing worth,
Unless it be to some old Jew or some repairer;
But hearts, the more they’re bruised and broken here
On earth
In heaven are so much the costlier and the fairer.’ – W.R. Alger.
Those who are broken in wealth, and broken in self-will, and broken in worldly reputation, and broken in their affections, and broken oft-times in health; those who are despised and seem utterly forlorn and helpless, the Holy Ghost is seizing upon, and using for God’s glory.
“The lame take the prey,” Isaiah tells us. God must have broken things.
“By reason of breakings they purify themselves.” – 1 Thess. 5:25
- The Christian’s Daily Challenge: E.F. & L. Harvey.
Walden Media has confirmed to The Christian Post that the Narnia 4 movie will be “The Magician’s Nephew,” not “The Silver Chair” as originally speculated by many fans.
“We are starting to talk to Fox and talk to the C.S. Lewis estate now about the Magician’s Nephew being our next film,” said Michael Flaherty, co-founder and president of Walden Media, during a recent interview with The Christian Post.
“If we can all agree to move forward, then what we would do is find someone to write the script. So, it could still be a couple of years.”
For the past several months, many Narnia fans were worried whether “Voyage of the Dawn Treader” could muster the box office numbers needed for Walden to produce another movie installment based on the beloved Chronicles of Narnia series.
“Dawn Treader” had a weak start in the domestic markets, taking in an underwhelming $24.5 million during the opening weekend in December and now grossing about $107 million. For a 3-D movie that cost $155 million, that isn’t good news.
However, the third Narnia installment, which was directed by Michael Apted, has fared better overseas. It recently surpassed the $300 million mark in foreign markets, bringing the box office total close to “Prince Caspian’s” $419 million, but still much less than “Wardrobe’s” $745 million in earnings worldwide.
Order Online: Inside the Voyage of the Dawn Treader
“That one (Dawn Treader) was a slow burn. It took a while for it to catch on. It did much better overseas for us but it finally ended up in a good place,” said Flaherty.
The Magician’s Nephew is the sixth book in the seven-title children’s book series by C.S. Lewis. The story, a prequel to the popular The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe book, is about the creation of the magical land of Narnia and how evil entered into the newly formed land. The tale also follows Professor Kirke from the “Wardrobe” as a young boy (Digory) and his introduction to Narnia through a magical ring given to him by his evil Uncle Andrew, a magician.
Flaherty called The Magician’s Nephew his favorite book after The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
“I love the Magician’s Nephew because it’s a great origins story. You get to learn so much about where the wardrobe came from, where the lamppost came from, where Narnia came from,” he said.
The first two Narnia films were produced by Disney, which severed the partnership with Walden after “Prince Caspian” posted disappointing results.
Flaherty attributed “Caspian’s” dismal performance to a poorly timed summer release and the story’s bent on deeper theological principles like waiting on God’s timing. He said that Walden has since learned a Christmas release would probably work best with a Narnia film and not to neglect the faith market.
Looking ahead, Walden Media believes “The Magician’s Nephew” has the potential to be a blockbuster hit like “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” because it is the second most popular book in the Narnia series.
Flaherty explained that box office performance for Narnia films appears to mimic the amount of people’s interest in the books.
“What’s interesting is that the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe over this period of time sold twice as many books as Prince Caspian and it did twice as much at the box office. Prince Caspian sold a third of the books as Dawn Treader and did a third at the box office,” he noted.
“So while it’s not always a correlation between books to film, so far with these first three films, it has been.”
With the Muslim world reaching a boiling point, U.S. intelligence fears that the unrest could create a power vacuum exploited by al-Qaida and its parent, the radical Muslim Brotherhood.
Both share a goal of bringing the Mideast under a single Islamic ruler, who could control world oil supplies and possibly even nuclear weapons.
The Obama administration finds the idea of such a “caliphate” preposterous. It isn’t even concerned about the prospect of Islamist regimes emerging from the revolts. Many of the Mideast protesters are “secular,” the White House believes.
Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough called it a “lie” that Muslims want a universal Islamic state. “People across the Arab world are proving the point,” he said, by calling for free elections.
Still, 61% of Americans believe the emergence of an Islamic caliphate is “likely” in the next 10 years, according to the latest IBD/TIPP poll, and intelligence officials say the call for a caliphate, while once fringe, has developed over the past few years into a global movement spanning many Muslim countries.
The University of Maryland recently surveyed Muslims in Indonesia, as well as Egypt, Pakistan and Morocco, and found that 77% agree with al-Qaida’s quest to “unify all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state.”
Experts say the movement is driven in part by growing anti-Western sentiment, but also by a longing for the “golden era” of Islam. At its height, the Muslim empire stretched from Spain in the west to the borders of China in the east.
The Maryland study describes the caliphate as a “collective identity” issue even among Muslims with a nationalistic bent, and a “strong motivator” within the global Muslim community. If so, the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida may have soft fields to plow in Mideast countries ousting secular, pro-Western leaders.
“This issue will continue to overshadow other geopolitical issues,” said Doug McLeod, a researcher with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terror at the University of Maryland.
The pious movement traces its roots to the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihadist group founded in Egypt in 1928. Its bylaws call for Muslims to “fight the tyrants and the enemies of Allah as a prelude to establishing an Islamic state.”
Its spiritual leader is Yusuf al-Qaradawi, arguably the most influential Islamic scholar in the region. After 9/11, he issued a fatwah calling for “the spread of Islam until it conquers the entire world and includes both the East and West, marking the beginning of the return of the Islamic caliphate.”
After Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was ousted, al-Qaradawi raised the banner of Islam in a sermon in Cairo’s Tahrir Square that drew more than a million followers.
Al-Qaradawi had been calling for “days of rage” before the rioting in Egypt and other Mideast countries, as he did after the Danish Muhammad cartoons were published. U.S. officials now believe he and the Brotherhood orchestrated much of the unrest.
Al-Qaradawi’s hand can be seen in uprisings in Yemen, where a close ally has led thousands of protesters in calling for an “Islamic state”: in Tunisia, where he’s demanded the return of exiled Brotherhood leaders, along with Islamic customs banned by the toppled secular regime; and in Libya, where the cleric has told Muslims it’s their religious duty to overthrow President Moammar Gadhafi and to restore the country to its “Islam character.”
Banned by Mubarak, the Brotherhood now has a real shot at appearing on an Egyptian ballot and gaining power. The Brotherhood has led post-Mubarak constitutional reforms and backs Mohamed ElBaradei for president. According to a leaked State Department cable, the “ElBaradei for President” Facebook page is run by al-Qaradawi’s son.
Meanwhile, Iran has been fomenting unrest in Bahrain and Lebanon. Tehran-supported Hezbollah sped the recent collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Beirut. Now an Islamist regime is taking over there.
Iran’s influence is especially troubling given its secret nuclear weapons program. U.S. intelligence worries that unrest in the region could lead to a nuclear arms race. Saudi Arabia, a rival of Iran, has reportedly entered into a secret nuclear pact with Pakistan.
Al-Qaradawi has said that Muslims should acquire nuclear weapons to “terrify” their enemies.
Over the next decade, Harvard professor Niall Ferguson warns, it’s far more likely that a caliphate will emerge from the Mideast turmoil than Western-style democracies, posing a direct threat to the West.
“If we find ourselves living next to a restored caliphate in which radical Islam is the ideology not just in Iran but (in) the entire region,” Ferguson recently told Britain’s Telegraph, “then the world will have changed in a way that is much more threatening to the security of Europeans, including Britain’s, than anybody today seems to be taking seriously.”
Analysts say that if a caliphate is ever recreated, it more than likely would grow out of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a 57-nation Muslim bloc that includes Saudi and Iran.
British cleric Anjem Choudary says al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood have assets on the ground in Libya and are ready to take control if Moammar Gadhafi is removed from power.
The top Muslim cleric accuses the U. S. and French-led coalition trying to topple Gadhafi of working to install a puppet regime, but he says there are al-Qaida operatives in Libya who will stop the West from installing a friendly government.
“Al-Qaida has their own agents and their own people in the region who are propagating their own Islamic ideas and their agenda. At the right time they will make the move, and we will see the emergence of Islam and Shariah in that particular region,” Choudary said.
“The power vacuum is very useful for anyone who has an agenda and an alternative system to put in its place,” he said.
“Al-Qaida is in fact a philosophy and an idea which is franchised now all around the world. You don’t necessarily have to be a member of al-Qaida. If you believe in the Shariah and if you believe in the concept of jihad, and you want Islam to be implemented, then you are adhering to the same ideas as the people of al-Qaida,” said Choudary.
“This is widespread throughout Africa and the more these people resist against oppression, the more they see the Americans, the British and the French bombing Muslims, the more they will be drawn towards Shariah as an alternative,” Choudary said.
Florida Security Council President Tom Trento agrees.
“He is telling the truth, because North Africa from Cairo going West has deep penetration by the Muslim Brotherhood. We also know that Gadhafi is hated by and hates the Brotherhood and al-Qaida,” Trento said.
“We also know that al-Qaida has their heart set on controlling petroleum. Libya is the No. 4 producer. There is no bigger prize in northern Africa than Libya right now,” Trento said.
He said Choudary is in a position to know if the Brotherhood or al-Qaida is poised to move if Gadhafi is removed.
“Choudary has deep analytical connections to a variety of organizations. He is the sort of philosophical mind for al-Qaida. He is a confidante of Osama bin Laden,” Trento said.
Trento is certain that these connections give Choudary inside information on whether al-Qaida is able to make such a power play if Gadhafi is gone from Libya.
Choudary’s comments came after he and other leaders of the outlawed Al-Muhajiroun organization gathered in front of the prime minister’s residence at No. 10 Downing Street in London to protest the British and American actions in Libya.
The press release for the protest said the operation is the latest example of American and British opposition to Islam.
“Under the guise of helping the people, once again we see the full might of the U.S. and its stooges, i.e. the British and French, murdering Muslim men, women and children in cold blood,” Choudary’s statement read.
“Yet again we see the fig-leaf excuse of defending democracy and freedom being used to justify atrocities against Muslims. The reality is that the Americans and the institutions that they control, such as the U.N. and Security Council, will do everything in their power to ensure that the Muslims do not rise to implement the Shariah and threaten their military and economic interests in the region,” Choudary’s statement said.
Choudary’s statement also claims that the military action is to cover up how the U. S. has benefitted from Gadhafi’s rule over the years.
“The clear truth is that the U.S., British and French have benefited from their puppets like Gadhafi and Mubarak for decades, they have been complicit in their torture of Muslims, they have even rendered Muslims to such countries to be tortured, all in order to stop the spread of Islam and for Muslims not to rise to establish the Islamic state which would spell the end of their hegemony,” Choudary’s statement asserted.
Jihad Watch publisher and Islam analyst Robert Spencer says that Choudary’s accusation that the U. S. and French-led coalition plans to install a puppet regime is giving the coalition way too much credit.
“Anjem Choudary is being a bit fanciful in suggesting the coalition that is attacking Gadhafi now from the West is going to install some Western puppet government,” Spencer analyzed.
“The glaring omission in this whole enterprise has been any discussion or any hint that anyone in this coalition has any idea of what’s going to follow Gadhafi at all or has made any provision for a post-Gadhafi Libya,” he observed.
But Spencer supports the analysts who say that radical Islam groups are on the ground in Libya and are prepared to take control.
“That’s the big problem with it, that the largest organized forces in Libya opposing Gadhafi are Islamic supremacist, pro-Shariah groups, including al-Qaida. So they’re most likely to be the beneficiaries of this intervention,” Spencer said.
Spencer added that because al-Qaida is in Libya, even if the Western coalition removes Gadhafi, the civil war will continue until the jihadi forces prevail.
Trento added that the U.S. is making it safe for jihad in North Africa and that the administration is making a tactical error by supporting the removal of Gadhafi.
“I regard very highly Ambassador John Bolton, but this morning he made the statement that, ‘Whoever comes next,’ with the assumption that, ‘I don’t know who’s coming next,’ can’t be as bad and as anti-American as Moammar Gadhafi,” he said.
“I thought, ‘How can you base national policy in the hope that the next isn’t as bad as the man in power and a man that we can manage to some extent?’” Trento added.
Choudary seems to echo that thought, because he says that the West’s intervention to topple Gadhafi wasn’t necessary. He says that Gadhafi’s days were already numbered.
“The Muslims in Libya are rising against oppression and calling for Islam and the Shariah. This is evident in the chants of the people. Many people believe that they’re fighting in jihad against Gadhafi and his own regime,” Choudary claimed.
“The removal of Gadhafi was something that was going to be done anyway by the people in Libya. The removal of all dictators is on our agenda. We do not need the Americans, the British and French to come in and bomb Baghdad, and bomb Kabul and bomb Tripoli in order to remove leaders,” Choudary added.
Choudary and his supporters took their cause to the British prime minister’s residence. The demonstration followed what Choudary called an urgent weekend conference on the status of the worldwide Muslim Ummah.
The Paltalk-hosted Web conference was a forum for some of the British Commonwealth’s most radical clerics to take shots at British and American foreign policy and to talk up Islamic law, or Shariah.
Choudary associate Abu Izzadeen was at the protest and a speaker at the conference, and he says that both events are commentaries on the anti-Islamic West.
“It was a commentary on the rise of Muslims around the world and the awareness of the need for change. That change is not hearkening back to the same promises we’ve had broken for many years of freedom and democracy and liberty, etc.,” Izzadeen asserted.
“Those slogans only brought to us humiliation and subjugation. What we need is an independent system where we are free from Western domination. It’s not about changing a particular person or an individual. It’s about changing a whole system,” he said.
Choudary’s openness about his intentions has created controversy during his American media appearances. MSNBC TV host Elliot Spitzer has said Choudary should be in prison, and Fox News Channel and nationally syndicated radio host Sean Hannity has called Choudary evil.
Spencer said that Choudary attracts attention because he’s open about his intentions.
“He attracts so much attention among such people (the pro-freedom and anti-Shariah groups) because he is so forthright about these objectives of Islamic jihad where most Islamic spokesmen dissemble about them. He is easy to point to and say, ‘This is the real agenda here,’ because he’s the one who’s being honest about it,” Spencer explained.
Spencer adds that Choudary is this open about his intentions because the British imam knows most Americans don’t take him seriously.
“He knows that most Americans don’t care, won’t pay attention and won’t take him seriously and don’t realize that what he’s expressing is the broad mainstream of Islamic teaching and not some radical offshoot like the KKK or something like that,” Spencer said.
“He knows that most Americans won’t realize the implications of what they’re hearing and he feels free to say what he wishes.”
There are many reasons to be worried about the bridge-leap the Obama Administration has just undertaken in its war with Muammar Gaddafi. How it will all end is just one of them.
Particularly concerning is the prospect that what we might call the Gaddafi Precedent will be used in the not-to-distant future to justify and threaten the use of U.S. military forces against an American ally: Israel.
Here’s how such a seemingly impossible scenario might eventuate:
It begins with the Palestinian Authority seeking a UN Security Council resolution that would recognize its unilateral declaration of statehood. Three top female officials in the Obama administration reprise roles they played in the Council’s recent action on Libya: U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, a vehement critic of Israel, urges that the United States support (or at least not veto) the Palestinians’ gambit. She is supported by the senior director for multilateral affairs at the National Security Council, Samantha Power, who in the past argued for landing a “mammoth force” of American troops to protect the Palestinians from Israel. Ditto Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose unalloyed sympathy for the Palestinian cause dates back at least to her days as First Lady.
This resolution enjoys the support of the other four veto-wielding Security Council members – Russia, China, Britain and France – as well as the all of the other non-permanent members except India, which joins the United States in abstaining. As a result, it is adopted with overwhelming support from what is known as the “international community.”
With a stroke of the UN’s collective pen, substantial numbers of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israeli citizens find themselves on the wrong side of internationally recognized borders. The Palestinian Authority (PA) insists on its longstanding position: The sovereign territory of Palestine must be rid of all Jews.
The Israeli government refuses to evacuate the oft-condemned “settlements” now on Palestinian land, or to remove the IDF personnel, checkpoints and facilities rightly seen as vital to protecting their inhabitants and, for that matter, the Jewish State itself.
Hamas and Fatah bury the hatchet (temporarily), forging a united front and promising democratic elections in the new Palestine. There, as in Gaza (and probably elsewhere in the wake of the so-called “Arab awakening”), the winner will likely be the Muslim Brotherhood, whose Palestinian franchise is Hamas).
The unified Palestinian proto-government then seeks international help to “liberate” their land. As with the Gaddafi Precedent, the first to act is the Arab League. Its members unanimously endorse the use of force to protect the “Palestinian people” and end the occupation of the West Bank by the Israelis.
Turkey (which is still a NATO ally, despite its ever-more-aggressive embrace of Islamism) is joined by Britain and France – two European nations increasingly hostile to Israel – in applauding this initiative in the interest of promoting “peace.” They call on the UN Security Council to authorize such steps as might be necessary to enforce the Arab League’s bidding.
Once again, Team Obama’s leading ladies – Mesdames Clinton, Power and Rice – align to support the “will of the international community.” They exemplify, and are prepared to enforce, the President’s willingness to subordinate U.S. sovereignty to the dictates of transnationalism and his personal hostility towards Israel. The concerns of Mr. Obama’s political advisors about alienating Jewish voters on the eve of the 2012 election are trumped by presidential sympathy for the Palestinian right to a homeland.
Accordingly, hard as it may be to believe given the United States’ longstanding role as Israel’s principal ally and protector, Mr. Obama acts, in accordance with the Gaddafi Precedent. He warns Israel that it must immediately take steps to dismantle its unwanted presence inside the internationally recognized State of Palestine, lest it face the sort of U.S.-enabled “coalition” military measures now underway in Libya. In this case, they would be aimed at neutralizing IDF forces on the West Bank – and beyond, if necessary – in order to fulfill the “will of the international community.”
Of course, such steps would not result in the ostensibly desired end-game, namely “two states living side by side in peace and security.” If the current attack on Libya entails the distinct possibility of unintended (or at least unforeseen) consequences, application of the Gaddafi Precedent to Israel seems certain to produce a very different outcome than the two-state “solution”: Under present and foreseeable circumstances, it will unleash a new regional war, with possible worldwide repercussions.
At the moment, it seems unlikely that the first application in Libya of the Gaddafi Precedent will have results consistent with U.S. interests. Even if a positive outcome is somehow forthcoming there, should Barack Obama and his anti-Israel troika of female advisors be allowed, based on that precedent, to realize the foregoing hypothetical scenario, they would surely precipitate a new international conflagration, one fraught with truly horrific repercussions – for Israel, for the United States and for freedom-loving people elsewhere.
A Congress that was effectively sidelined by Team Obama in the current crisis had better engage fully, decisively and quickly if it is to head off such a disastrous reprise.
The Israel Defense Forces is readying for the possibility that Syria might create a provocation along the northern border to divert attention from the growing protests against President Bashar Assad’s regime. Nevertheless, the defense establishment views this as unlikely.
Defense officials have been following events in Syria closely over the last few days, especially after the violence in the southern town of Daraa. Intelligence officials said that despite their earlier assessments that the Syrian regime was stable, and that the unrest sweeping other Arab countries would not affect it, they now believe it will be very hard for Assad to restore the status quo ante.
The IDF is also preparing for the possibility that Damascus might use Hezbollah or other militant organizations in Lebanon to heat up that front to divert attention from events in Syria. But one senior officer said that Assad and his people appear to be too busy suppressing the domestic unrest to have time for that. So for now, most preparations are at the intelligence level, and there is currently no plan to beef up IDF forces along the border.
The defense establishment attributes the unrest in Syria mainly to the country’s poor economic situation and the feeling that the government isn’t doing enough to improve ordinary people’s quality of life, being more concerned with enriching the Assad family’s cronies.
President Shimon Peres, who toured the northern border with senior IDF officials yesterday, echoed this view.
“We’re always talking about politics, but the reality is that Syria is a very poor country with a very low standard of living and [high] unemployment,” he told soldiers. “The moment the younger generation opens its eyes – and it has many means by which to do so, like Facebook – someone has to provide answers to this. That’s the problem of the entire Arab world: to escape from poverty, to escape from oppression.”
Referring to what he heard in his briefings from senior officers, Peres added, “The Iranians are investing $1 billion a year to bolster Hezbollah, at a time when there is unemployment and poverty in Iran. It would be one thing if they wanted to improve the masses’ situation, but they only seek to strengthen the Shi’ites in Lebanon. They have only one goal.”
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