FrogScorpia

Muffled Screams of Gaza

2010-01-17T14:31:00.001-05:00

Turkish Weekly Journal

The recent Egyptian government’s decision to seal the few “tunnels of life” that allowed people of Gaza to bypass the on-going inhumane economic strangulation, its harassment and cruel treatment of the participants of Gaza Freedom March and the Viva Palestina humanitarian convoy earned it a prominent position in history’s page of shame. A page crowded by wealthy Arab nations who failed the Palestinian people and abandoned them at their most vulnerable time.

However, by no means should that sideline drama veil or in any way divert attention away from the root cause of the problem- the over six decades long oppression imposed upon the Palestinian people.

Truth be told: in that period, the state of Israel has occupied Palestine with iron fist; denying Palestinians the right to self-determination and coercing part of their “elite” to surrender into what seems like a condition of eternal subjugation. However, the gravest of all the Palestinian sufferings is embodied in the suffering of the people of Gaza as they endure a vicious economic strangulation unilaterally imposed by Israel. And despite world wide condemnation of that egregious draconian policy, Israel continues to operate with impunity devoid of any conscience.

In their 575 pages report released last September, the fact-finding mission on Israel’s disproportionate use of force in Gaza appointed by the UN Human Rights Commission has confirmed the ugly truth that most of the Western media were inoculated to under report, or outright ignore.

The mission was led by Judge Richard Goldstone- former member of the South African Constitutional Court and former Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. And while the report also blamed Hamas, it highlights that “there was strong evidence to establish that numerous serious violations of international law, both humanitarian law and human rights law, were committed by Israel during the military operations in Gaza…actions amounting to war crimes and possibly, in some respects, crimes against humanity, were committed by the Israel Defense Force.”

According to article 39 of the report, the Israeli forces have intentionally targeted and attacked Al Quds Hospital in and the adjacent ambulance depot in Gaza with white phosphorous shells- an internationally banned chemical substance that, among other things, instantaneously burns the human being into skeleton.

However, despite the condemning findings in the report; sadly, it too, has proven yet another exercise in futility. And, though the key recommendation of Goldstone was for the UN Security Council to pass a resolution mandating a credible investigation into the war crimes allegations by the International Criminal Court, no such action has been taken.

In reaction to the report, the US Congress—while succumbing to the “Israel Lobby”—has passed a non-binding resolution condemning the Goldstone Report. The resolution was intended to express unequivocal blind loyalty to Israel, and to pressure the Obama administration to use its veto power (as a permanent member of the Security Council) against any resolution that might expose Israel. Apparently, the strategy worked; and the report is now piling dust in the oblivion.

For whatever it’s worth, it is this kind of culture of impunity that, according to Goldstone, “emboldens Israel and her conviction of being untouchable.” However, this concern was immediately dismissed as anti-Semitic by the vocal blind loyalists and the supporters of oppressive Zionism. Never mind that Judge Goldstone is Jewish, and he is a supporter of Israel’s right to exist.

Make no mistake, anti-Semitism is a real racist phenomenon; however, the politically motivated excessive use of the term to character assassinate and silence legitimate critics and peace and justice advocates such as former President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu simply defeats the purpose.

Meanwhile, though the Obama administration is showing signs of discomfort with the current Israeli government, the U.S. foreign policy toward Middle East is still driven by blind loyalty.

As the Obama administration tries to reduce the post 9/11tension between US and the Islamic world and rein in on the rapid growth of extremism, the Palestine issue remains an open sore that is festering in America’s foreign policy. And, while the current administration has attempted to demonstrate its intention of becoming an honest broker by appointing a credible diplomat—former Senator George Mitchell—as the Middle East Envoy, Israel continues its belligerent oppression and expansionist policy by defiantly building new settlements.

Led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Israel is adamant to continue the ever-expanding land grab driven by illegal home demolitions and confiscations, daily dreadful human rights abuses at check points, random imprisonment and assassinations, suppression of independent media, and systematic ethnic-cleansing of Palestinians. This, needless to say, has frustrated the Obama administration whose out of the ordinary reaction to Netanyahu’s visit to the US has caused Israel a big embarrassment.

Not since 1990 when then Secretary of State, James Baker, sent a blunt (public) message to then Israeli Prime Minister, Ytsakh Shamir, telling him “call us when you are serious about peace...the telephone number is 1-202-546-1414'' has US leadership sent Israel a stern message that its actions are unacceptable.

And though this was not a decision to stop or even suspend the roughly $3 billion unrestricted aid given to Israel every year, it still turned many heads and galvanized the usual suspects to come after Obama with all sorts of accusations.

In an article intended to rally the troops against Obama, Jerusalem Post’s hawkish columnist, Caroline Glick, wrote “It isn't every day that a visiting leader from a strategically vital US ally is brought into the White House in an unmarked van in the middle of the night rather than greeted like a friend at the front door; is forbidden to have his picture taken with the president; is forced to leave the White House alone, through a side exit…”.

However, at the end of the day, convincing Israel to do the right thing and to stop establishing new facts on the ground to further complicate an already complex political issue will require more than symbolism. And nothing substantive is likely to happen till the US modifies its one-sided Middle East policy. Meanwhile, Israel will continue business as usual. It might invade Gaza again. Some opinion makers in Israel are already boasting about how “Operation Cast Lead 2” would look like with the use of “advanced Israeli-made Marakava 4 Tanks”.

Nothing equates to oppression more than the choice that an apathetic witness makes to not, at least, hate the cruelty that he or she witnessed in the mind and heart. And oppression is what Pharaoh and Hitler have done to the Jews and indeed what Israel does to the Palestinian people on a daily bases.

A New Paradigm for Engaging Somalia

2010-01-17T14:30:00.000-05:00

Huffington Post

The stakes are much higher than ever before. And, despite the negative reports that dominate the news and thus perpetuate the sense of hopelessness, voices of reason are becoming more audible against the current senseless violence, chaos and extremism. More and more Somalis are coming to realize that the path ahead leads nowhere except the assured suicide of a nation.

In various circles--especially within the Somali Diaspora--there are lively discussions on the seemingly forgotten values of compromise, coexistence, collective security and common-good. And the consensus seems to gravitate toward two particular priorities.
First, in supporting the unity government despite its relative challenges, deficiencies and dysfunctions, so long as it puts reconciliation on top of its agenda and works toward the eradication of the clan-based appointment system known as "4.5" (four point half).

Second, advocating for the international community's direct involvement in solving the Somali political problem. Yes, that same political entity that has no transparent vision, mission or any form of accountability as it has no physical office or address, no overtly known leader or board of trustees, no telephone number or e-mail address. And yes, that same political powerhouse that prematurely used the military option against the Islamic Courts Union and supported Ethiopia in its brutal occupation of Somalia, and abandoned Somalia for two decades to descend into the lowest of the low. After all it is the only thing that makes pragmatic sense.

On their part, as was reiterated in the 16th meeting of the ICG (International Contact Group) recently held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the international community is committed to take a more active role in the Somali issue.

The atrocious December 3 bombing that killed 22 people, including cabinet ministers, graduated medical students, faculty and parents during a graduation ceremony is now recognized as the tipping point of two decades of violence in Somalia. Since that horrific event, there has been anxious maneuvering on the part of the international community to accelerate its involvement and take direct sustainable actions that help stabilize the situation.

Though the international community's interest in Somalia is broad, here is some of the oft-cited strategic rationale:

 To prevent potential spread of transnational terrorism
 To prevent radicalization of Somali Diaspora youth
 To find a home for the floating command center known as AFRICOM (Africa Command Center)
 To control the Indian Ocean and thus control the life-line of China's energy security as its oil imports from various African nations travel through that route
 To protect one of the world's most critical commercial arteries from piracy
 To monitor and stabilize the threat coming from a volatile geographical area that the Pentagon refers as The Arc of Instability [Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Kenya. 2/3 of the world's refugee population come from three of these countries]
 To provide access to the identified but unexplored natural resources

The UN economic sanctions imposed on Eritrea for its role in funding the militant Al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam against the unity government are seen as the first step toward the reinvigorated commitment. Meanwhile, within the international community, more specifically the US policy which functions as its moral compass, the remnants of the previous administration are relentlessly pushing the military option--including the use of private security contractors--as they claim that al-Qaida has already set up an active terrorist franchise in Somalia, though there is hardly convincing evidence to confirm that.

As was learned from the Iraq war, if you draw the devil on the walls long enough, the devil will eventually appear in person. Claim that Al-Qaida has found a base in Somalia long enough and that will surely become the case in due course. That could ignite new problems and disasters in Somalia.

If there is any wisdom to be gained out of this young 21st Century, it has to do with the costly lesson that "hard power" (mainly military, technological, and economic) alone cannot sustain peace or political influence. Any effort intended for effective political problem-solving and conflict-resolution must be made of a mix that includes "soft power" (public diplomacy, humanitarian and development aid, strategic educational campaigns, political and/or economic pressure). China uses this latter approach to expand its political influence around the world.

If military power alone could stabilize Somalia or in any way solve its political problem, it would've happened when thousands of US Marines were stationed in Somalia between 1992 and 1994; or when the late General Mohamed Farrah Aidid assembled the largest ever clan-coalition between 1995 and 19996; or when Ethiopia unleashed its brutal 2 year occupation between 2007 and 2009.

So, any effective engagement on the part of the international community would require an approach that is radically different from the one applied in the last two decades; and this, needless to say, would require new thinking. The all too familiar kneejerk reactions when it comes to dealing with "Islamists" have proven counterproductive. Relying solely on violence would only make matters worse, especially for the estimated 3.5 million people on the verge of starvation.

And, since all other things have failed, it behooves the international community to try soft power while expanding the African Union-mandated AMISOM into a UN operation. Adding forces from Muslim countries such as Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Pakistan, and keeping the frontline states such as Ethiopia and Kenya out.

Soft power is by no means cheap; however, it is much cheaper than wars and their destruction of lives and properties.

Therefore, the international community should flood Somalia with food and medicine--an amount that far exceeds what would eventually be stolen and end up in the wrong hands. The supply should be so abundant that the biggest problem becomes keeping pace with storage and distribution of these essential human needs. Despite the seeming humanitarian extravagance, this approach, which I referred to as Operation 3.5 in another article, is likely to be much cheaper than the military option.

Second, to invest in a national disarmament project in which people are offered to sell their weapons for highly competitive prices and all disarmed individuals are offered training programs such as micro-enterprise (small businesses to sustain themselves) and perhaps offered small grants after completing such programs.

Third, start a strategic reconstruction project--a massive construction project to build a safe haven for essential institutions and to provide jobs to many who currently have to do the unthinkable to feed themselves and their families.

Fourth, to empower civil societies already engaged in promoting inter-Somali dialogue that are sporadically building bridges of understanding, collaboration and forgiveness. With the right training and funding, some of these organizations could play pivotal role in paving the way for a viable organic reconciliation process woven with the necessary religious and cultural values.

Fifth, offer confidence-building amnesty to key individual players who are on the US terrorist list, as these lists further radicalize people.

There is cross-generational rising political consciousness, or movement, if you will, that is gaining traction. Its motto is, "enough is enough." The rapidly growing segment of the population which espouses that view is ready to welcome any new idea or initiative that is different than the rackets of the past two decades. They hinge their hope on President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, whose vision, charisma and moral balance radiate promising optimism.

Shariah in Lawless Somalia

2009-10-16T23:44:00.002-04:00

Abukar Arman
Sunday Times (South Africa)

Nowhere in the world is Shariah more contested ( yet seldom debated) than in war-weary Somalia where each of the entities competing for power claims to have embraced it while condemning its detractor, or rather, its enemy, as a dangerous imposter.

All the colorful politics motivating each contender aside, the most pressing question begging an answer is: Can lawless Somalia be governed by Shariah?

Short answer: It depends!

If by Shariah we mean the Talibanesque, self-righteous, and unjust brand currently being practiced by the Somali Neo-Islamists known as al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam, the answer is: No.

As these two groups have been asserting their authority through violence-driven territorial expansion, they have been rapidly loosing the public confidence necessary for them to sustain any gains. Horrific accounts attesting to their ignorance and to the cruelty of their method have been stirring panic and cultivating hate. Stories such as the two Neo-Islamist assassins who followed their victim-to-be into a mosque and prayed alongside him only to shoot him in the head after he stepped outside the mosque raise serious questions regarding these groups’ understanding of Islam and Shariah.

Theirs is an obtuse, if not dysfunctional, interpretation of Shariah. They are oblivious to the education-based societal transformation that the classic Shariah seeks to achieve. To them, Shariah is a purposeless, uncompassionate, punishment-driven set of laws that are arbitrarily implemented without consideration of time, circumstances or objectives.

Therefore, it is a matter of time before the masses would conquer their collective fear and revolt against this accountable to no one, selectively oppressive, and entirely alien brand of Shariah.

If, however, by Shariah we mean the classic concept of Islamic governance adapted to address contemporary political, social, economic, and spiritual challenges in a just way, the answer is: Yes.

As a country whose national institutions have been utterly destroyed and almost all threads that once wove its society together have been unraveled, Islam is the only thread that remains intact. Therefore, adopting Shariah as a set of rules, regulations, and values to govern Somalia is not only feasible but perhaps the only sensible means to resuscitate that dying state.

Granted, the name “Shariah” connotes a politically radioactive concept in the West and that there are those who believe that Shariah and governance are mutually exclusive; however, that is hardly a fair estimation of this profoundly misconstrued system. [One might gain a broader perspective of this concept by reading Noah Feldman of Harvard’s article “Why Shariah?” published by N.Y. Times March 16, 2008]

The Somali people are desperate for a government and indeed a system of governance (any for that matter) that they can invest their trust in; a system that protects them against injustices and guards their God-given right to life, to own property, to enjoy basic freedoms and to exercise their freewill.

Therefore, President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and his government would have to identify the most crucial needs of the people.

Granted, in a number of his speeches while visiting the Somali Diaspora in the United States, he highlighted security, humanitarian needs, and capacity building as being his top priorities. While no one would dispute the importance of these three, some question ‘why is peace and reconciliation not part of the top three priorities?’ They argue that there should be an ongoing process that resists any temptation to give up prematurely.

That being said, the model of Shariah that is likely to succeed is the one that genuinely addresses the following categories of needs:

First: Preserving the sanctity of life and the provision of a secure environment in which the average Somali could reach his/her optimum potential. Within this, protecting the lives of civilians and addressing the humanitarian crisis reign high.

Second: Instituting a peace and reconciliation policy that would keep the door open and the peace process in motion.

Third: Protecting individual properties against any abuses including nationalization, and state properties by establishing a transparent system of accountability.

Fourth: Instituting policies that guarantee equality before the law and protect the rights of women and minorities.

Fifth: Protecting individuals from power abuse and preserving individual’s honor by protecting him or her against false accusations, imprisonment, slander, and character assassination.

Sixth: Protecting freedom of assembly, conscience, and thought.

Seventh: Promoting education and protecting the God-given right of the individual citizen to question and scrutinize their leaders by protecting their right to elect their representatives.

Eighth: Enacting policies promoting ethical and moral conduct that, among other things, criminalize favoritism and other corruptions such as bribery and nepotism.

Ninth: Paving the way for the development of independent institutions that, on one hand, ensure a system of checks and balances, and on the other, enhance the overall function of the government.

Tenth: Instituting policies that protect the sovereignty of the nation and promote neighborly coexistence with neighboring states and with the rest of the international community.

President Ahmed must succeed in persuading people to accept the legitimacy of his government and to trust the individuals appointed to exercise that authority. And, in order to achieve that, those entrusted to lead must resort to taking tangible actions that would restore law and order and improve the lives of people. They must do away with the clan-based quota system that by and large appoints incompetent demagogues who neither serve the nation nor the clans in whose name they were appointed. More importantly, they must streamline all the militias led by shrouded warlords who are now considered government allies into a disciplined army that is accountable.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Abukar Arman is a writer who lives in Ohio. His articles and analysis are widely published.

Institutional Islamophobia and the Politics of a Minor's Choice

2009-09-16T12:40:00.003-04:00

Abukar Arman

Not since France’s banning of wearing the hijab or Islamic headwear in schools has institutional Islamophobia unveiled its ugly head under the spotlight of world attention.
In Florida, political pressure has caused the scale of justice to tilt.

The case of Rifqa Bary—a 17 year old Muslim girl who converted to Christianity then ran away from her parents’ home in Ohio (to Florida)—has set the stage for the ideological bankrupt Neocons and Right Wing evangelical to pursue another desperate attempt to resuscitate their all but defunct “clash of civilization” scare.

Rifqa claimed that her parents believe in ‘honor killing’ and that they were planning to execute her as a result of her religious conversion- a claim that later proved inconsistent, to say the least.

Discrepancies to Rifqa’s account emerged when her parents started to openly discuss their daughter’s situation. Clearly Rifqa had her way with her family. "We love her; we want her back. She is free to practice her religion, whatever she believes in. That's O.K.," Mr. Bary told media and law enforcement.

The local police, the children’s services and the county prosecutor in Ohio all concluded that the Bary family is a caring family who is genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of their daughter. The Bary family knew about their daughter’s conversion three years earlier, and had even allowed her to join the cheerleading team of her high school.

The parents believe that their daughter was “brainwashed” by an internet-based virtual Pastor by the name Blake Lorenz who leads a religious outfit called the Global Revolution Church. Mr. Lorenz openly espouses anti-Islamic views. He has been quoted saying “Christians are at war with Islam and Islam is evil.”

It should surprise no one that this case has attracted the ‘who-is-who’ among the usual suspects- the founder of paranoia fueling website JihadWatch, Robert Spencer; the notorious neocon policy worrier and the founder of Center for security Policy, Frank Gaffney, and Right Wing “legal pit-bull,” John Stemberger, to name a few.

Their strategy was predictably straight out of the Neocon/Right-Wing playbook crafted by the same overzealous special interest ideologues whose “global war on terrorism” policy has left a legacy of destruction and massive political debris around the world that would take generations to clean.

To these political predators, facts are elastic variables; they are inflated when they are available to support their cause and are conveniently fabricated when they are not. They rely on propaganda as the means to demonize and dehumanize others. And they use any means at their disposal to reach their goal, regardless of the fairness, decency, or how their actions may hurt others.

In dealing with the case at hand, instead of providing convincing evidence to support Rifqa’s claim, they resorted to a two track strategy that puts the brand of Shariah (Islamic law) that promotes the killing of an apostate on trial, and to wage a smear campaign on Noor Islamic and Cultural Center (NICC) in Columbus area by accusing it of espousing extremist ideologies and being connected to international terrorism. [This author is one of the many Central Ohio Muslims who worship in that center]

Of course, this diversionary tactic is designed to stir public suspicion and outrage. It is nothing but smoke screen to cover the real issues. Whether a minor has a choice and whether a non-family adult could hide a minor.

During a controversial fatwa—religious edict—that sentenced an Afghani man who converted to Christianity to death a few years ago, over 100 scholars in the US and many more around the world have written a unified opinion that no one should be sentenced to death for deciding to change his or her religion. And that the only time such sentence has a religious (as well as secular) justification is in case of proven treason against the state.

The Qur’an—the highest authority of the moral code in Islam—unequivocally states that “Let there be no compulsion in religion” Chapter 2: Verse 256. Because, like love and similar matters of the heart, faith is a conviction embraced in the heart; and as such, can never be forced. Forcing such matters renders the opposite effect.

Also, in Chapter 4: Verse 137, God says, “Behold, as for those who come to believe, and then deny the truth (converted or became apostate) and again come to believe and again deny the truth and thereafter, grow stubborn in their denial of the truth, God will not forgive them, nor will He guide them in any way.” This verse clearly indicates that even those who professed Islam and then rejected it more than once cannot be condemned to execution. They are only accountable to God.

Also, in Chapter 18: Verse 29, God says “The Truth is from your Lord; so let him who please believe and let him who please disbelieve”.

"Hate groups appear to be using this family matter as an opportunity to attack the Muslim community and Islamic organizations in order to further their religious and political goals," read a statement issued by NICC. And “These Islamophobes are not only paranoiac but are so manipulative. Their method of guilt by association is comical in a way and dangerous in another. To follow their logic is to declare the disciples of Jesus who joined him in the last supper as co-conspirators in the crucifixion” added Dr. Hany Saqr, the center’s Director.

Back to the real issue of contention: on their part, investigators from Florida have completed their interstate investigation. Their findings are believed to being in agreement with previous investigations done in Ohio. Their report was turned to Circuit Judge Daniel Dawson, who, instead of sending Rifqa back to her parents, decided to grant a motion filed by Mr. Stemberger in which he requested the evidence to be sealed- an evidence that could very well vindicated the parents.

The Florida statute dealing with Juvenile Justice and Interstate Compact on Juveniles is clear “A person may not knowingly provide aid to an unmarried minor who has run away from home without first contacting the minor's parent or guardian or notifying a law enforcement officer.” Mr. Lorenz hid the runaway girl for two weeks; however, no one is after him, so far. He is currently “reorganizing” his church to protect it from future lawsuits.

In this all too familiar circus, I cannot help but wonder: what if a non-Muslim minor was recruited through cyber space by an adult Imam (Muslim cleric) who leads a religious entity called the Global Revolution Mosque whose objective is to target youth of all ages in order to change the world through spiritual revolution!

Bridges of Rhetoric and Suspicion

2009-08-16T02:03:00.003-04:00

Abukar Arman
Huffington Post

In his attempt to improve relations with the Muslim world, President Obama has done what no other American president has ever done before.

Starting with his inauguration speech in which he stressed on the importance of relaxing the defensive posture so that the demonization process could stop. Following with his speech at the Turkish Parliament in which he offered the reassurance that neither the US nor the West is in war with the Muslim world. And concluding with his historic Cairo speech in which he highlighted the importance of mutual respect in order for genuine dialogue and understanding to take root.

However, the litmus test is how quickly certain unjust policies instituted after the tragic events of 9/11 are reversed, and how impartially America treats Muslims facing the justice system.

“At our department, our Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) is building stronger relationships with Arab and Muslim Americans…,” asserted Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, in her recent speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. And, while Secretary Napolitano projects a pristine picture, unfortunately the reality on the ground tells a different story- one in which rhetoric is in abundance and substance is scarce.

For almost a decade now, the constitutional right guaranteeing the presumption of innocence until proven guilty was routinely compromised any time the accused was a Muslim. Granted, Muslims, by and large, enjoy more freedom to practice their religion and build religious institutions in America than in any other country, including their own. However, Muslims of Arab background continue to be subjected to routine harassment and mistreatment. Recently, another Muslim group—the Somalis—has joined them to share their uncomfortable space under the spotlight.

For the Somalis, matters have taken the wrong turn when 20 young men turned out missing in the Minneapolis area and three turned out dead. These youth are believed to have joined al-Shabab, and are feared to come back with militant ideologies. Al-Shabab is listed in the US as a terrorist organization.

While the Somali community is generally mindful that a serious investigation is indeed warranted, it is concerned about how sensationalized media reports are already indicting the community and its religious institutions in the court of public opinion. For this could set the stage for severe backlash, and for law enforcement to exert unchecked authority.

And now that two Somali youth are in custody and one pleading guilty to aiding al-Shabab and the second’s process being underway, the metaphorical audible whispers of the community have been: the stage is set for the FBI to make multiple arrests during the holy month of Ramadan and right before the eighth 9/11 memorial day.

The Somali community feels “under siege.”

And this sense of cynicism settled in when complaints about FBI officers entering homes and businesses under false pretences and without any court warrant were brushed off by the very watchdog mandated to guard against abuse of power and protect constitutional rights- CRCL.

It has grown more profoundly when, in what seemed inexplicable stretch of jurisdiction, complaints about counterintelligence professionals from New York Police Department showing up at homes and businesses in Minneapolis were again defended by CRCL representatives as standard operational procedure. These kinds of dismissive treatments, needless to say, put shroud of suspicion around that office’s claim of independence. CRCL representatives should never function as the FBI’s public relations office. Of course, there is nothing wrong with projecting a good image of the law enforcement offices and authorities that protect our lives and communities, but that should be the function of a different department.

To make matter worse, this whole thing comes at a time when relations between US Muslims and law enforcement authorities has been strained over the discovery that the FBI has been sending informants and planting agent saboteurs in mosques to provoke worshippers and trap unsuspecting youth.

“While law enforcement professionals are in general fact-driven people, a significant number of them still function as though it is 2003 and America is waging an ill-advised war against Iraq. And changing that frame of mind where facts and fiction confluence will take time,” said one community member who was a victim of that frame of mind.

Earlier this year, a coalition of America's largest Muslim organizations issued an open letter asserting their intention to halt cooperation with the law enforcement authorities so long as the FBI continues mixing politics with law enforcement practices and implicating reputable organizations with sheer innuendoes. Despite the vicious disinformation routinely cooked by the likes of Daniel Pipes, Steven Emerson, Robert Spencer and David Horowitz who believe that the seven million Muslims in America are “sleeping cells” and “ticking bombs,” facts indicate the complete opposite.

In conclusion, in order to build bona fide bridges of understanding that could significantly reduce elements hindering the US and the Muslim world to work together on critical issues of mutual importance, the following real change must take place:

First, real policies, such as the US Patriot Act must be improved and made more balanced.

Second, Muslims should be treated as stakeholders and not as aliens with bombs strapped around their waists.

Third, both the administration and local governments should appoint competent Muslims as high level policy advisors, not simply as tokens. The more independent-minded these individuals are, the more credibility they earn for their respective offices.
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
Abukar Arman is a writer who lives in Ohio. His articles and analysis are widely published.

Somalia, Outside the Violence Box

2009-07-16T11:49:00.001-04:00

Abukar Arman
Huffington Post

Whether in Somalia or elsewhere, any attempt to tame religious extremism with violence leads to costly tragedies and disenchantments. And any one who doubts this ought to simply reevaluate the miserable results of GWT- global war on terrorism.

So it goes without saying: a non-violent paradigm to solving problems is direly needed. And since political problems are often fueled by internal and external elements, effective collaboration between these elements is necessary for the non-violent approach to work.

That said: the Somali political problem is escalating into a new phase of violent struggle. And unless the current momentum is significantly slowed, a longer lasting much bloodier sectarian war is bound to replace the old ones.

The Islamist group that led a successful insurgency campaign that ended the Ethiopian occupation has primarily split into a faction that is now part of the unity government and another that is sworn to oppose it to the end. And, in recent months, in what is clearly a politically-driven campaign to decapitate the unity government, the opposition faction made of al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam, an entity that I refer to as the neo-Islamists, have carried out strings of violent attacks, high profile assassinations and suicide bombings in various parts of the country. However, few have openly challenged their self-righteous claim to be fighting a just, religious war. Indeed even fewer challenged the religious justification they employ in defending their deadly campaign. Instead, the unity government, in what seems like a reactionary move, opted to follow the ill-advised strategy of its predecessor—the former TFG—by responding violence with equally indiscriminate violence without any regard for the helpless civilians.

However, according to the latest Foreign Policy magazine, “a recent report by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center revealed that Osama bin Laden’s outfit had an awful experience trying to operate out of Somalia, for all the same reasons that international peacekeepers found Somalia unmanageable in the 1990s: terrible infrastructure, excessive violence and criminality, and few basic services, among other factors. In short, Somalia was too failed even for al Qaeda.”

In spite of this, the theatrical blame game continues in full force. And the hyperbole of the two actors currently competing for power is already setting off alarm bells as well as setting the stage for ramifications that could outlast any future peace reconciliations. The neo-Islamists accuse the unity government of being a foreign agent installed in power by the U.N. and the West and believe they are religiously ordained to end that foreign domination. And the unity government on its part accuses the neo-Islamists in being agents of al-Qaida and foreign terrorists who want to launch transnational terror campaigns from lawless Somalia.

The latter accusation has only worked to lionize the neo-Islamists to legendary status. They rapidly developed a reputation as brainwashed “global jihadists” with whom resistance is futile. Now, as anecdotal stories go, they routinely enter villages or towns and demand youth to fight on their side or their families to pay into their war chest. In an oral culture where scrutiny is irrelevant and facts and fiction often confluence, this kind of reputation is more potent than any army. So it should surprise no one that the neo-Islamists are rapidly spreading their sphere of influence and now control much wider territories than the unity government.

However, the current coalition of neo-Islamists is not monolith and therefore should not be treated as such. Among them are political pragmatists such as Sheikh Hassan Dahir Awes who, at least at this juncture, is driven by existentialist motives. These individuals are influential stakeholders who led the insurgency who could not partake in post occupation power-sharing mainly because they are on a U.S. terrorist watch list and are “wanted, dead or alive.”

All the neo-Islamists are not emotionally-driven jihadists whose ultimate goal is to be killed on the battle field. They make rational decisions when they deem it necessary. Why else would they tactically retreat when they were facing annihilation between the Ethiopian land invasion and American aerial bombardment in late 2006 and early 2007? If their ultimate goal is engaging the enemy face-to-face and attaining martyrdom through that process, why would many of them hide their identities by covering their faces?

So, it is not entirely implausible for these rational survivalist individuals to sign on to any deal that would ensure them positions and take them off that controversial list which mainly worked to further radicalize many individuals and groups around the world.

Granted, the unity government has been in dialogue with these individuals. However, the unity government, more specifically the Transitional Parliament, has resorted to what many consider a haphazard call for help as President Ahmed’s office continued their behind the scene negotiation with key figures of the neo-Islamists.

In a statement that would not only offend the supporters of the unity government but also work to further radicalize the neo-Islamists, the Speaker of the Parliament did the unthinkable. He called on Somalia’s neighboring states among which are the very Ethiopian troops whose oppressive occupation ended only a few months earlier. “We ask neighboring countries - including Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Yemen - to send troops to Somalia within 24 hours,” said Sheikh Aden Mohamed Nur.

And while there are some parliament members known for decency and high integrity, by and large, that institution has earned a profound reputation for corruption. It is infested with pro Ethiopia demagogues who could care less about the well being of their people and the interest of their nation.

So what is the alternative to violence?

Aside from refraining to rush into an artificial collective reconciliation process, there should be an attempt made to restore confidence and change people’s defeated psyche by providing them (including the armed ones) the essentials that they immediately need. In other words, food, medicine and the right understanding of their religion!

Instead of sending more weapons to Somalia, as did the Obama administration recently, imagine a two track benevolent campaign launched concurrently to positively impact hearts and minds.

Operation 3.5: A two year goodwill campaign whose primary objective is to save the 3.5 million Somalis on the verge of starvation by flooding the country with food and medicine. The unity government, assisted by a commission appointed by the donor countries, could set up a sound, transparent checks and balances process. And, instead of contracting the big name international Non-Governmental Organizations, many of whom have already taken an antagonistic position against the neo-Islamists, to contract faith-based NGOs such as Islamic Relief, Life, Somali Relief Fund, Mercy International, and Somali operated ARAHA—America Relief Agency for the Horn of Africa—to distribute the food and medicine. The African peacekeepers—AMISOM—could provide the security necessary to operate the distribution stations in strategic places.

Done right, the likely credibility that this kind of operation would earn the unity government, the donor nations, AMISOM, etc. is beyond measure. More importantly, this seemingly grandiose humanitarian endeavor could cost a fraction of the billions of dollars spent on Somalia since 1991.

Operation Middle Ground (Deen Al Wasata): this campaign could be launched immediately after Operation 3.5 gets off the ground. Its primary objective is to cultivate an environment conducive to the discovery, teaching and reinforcement of the right teachings of Islam which is described in the Quran itself as “the middle ground religion”; particularly in areas of peace and coexistence, freedom of religion and choice, etc.

In this campaign, the unity government could solicit Muslim scholars, mosques, schools, Islamic courts, dugsis (madrasas) to teach how forcing religion upon people negates the teachings of Islam.

The following are examples of what the Quran teaches about forcing one’s understanding or faith upon others. Allah (God) commands that “There is no compulsion in religion” Surah (Chapter) 2, Ayah (Verse) 256. He also says “So remind them (O’ Muhammad) for you are only a reminder. You are not one who should be authoritarian over them (in teaching them about their religion)” Chapter 88, Verses 21 and 22. He also says “And if it had been thy Lord’s will, they would all have believed (all mankind.) Wilt thou (O’ Muhammad) then compel mankind, against their will to Believe? (Nay!)” Chapter 10, Verses 99 and 100. [This particular kind of operation could be extended to countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, etc.]

The survival of the unity government and indeed the restoration of peace and order depend on the support of the masses. That is what helped the Islamic Courts Union defeat the warlords and that is what helped the insurgency end the two year brutal Ethiopian occupation. It is all about ‘What have you done for us lately?’

Abukar Arman is writer who lives in Ohio. His articles and analysis are widely published.

Viewpoints: Somalia's Neo-Islamists

2009-06-08T07:54:00.003-04:00

Abukar Arman

Foreign Policy Association

In light of the rising violence in Mogadishu and how dramatically power seems to be slipping out of the hands of the unity government, the specter of what is commonly referred to as "the curse" is once again creeping back into the Somali collective psyche.

In the eighteen years since the collapse of the central government, fifteen official attempts have been made to reconcile warring factions competing for power, all of which have failed. And now the Islamists who were the last hope to save this severely hemorrhaging nation are divided. Their division not only has the potential to topple a shaky unity government, but to ignite sectarian strife with long lasting negative consequences.

This current round of violence is being waged by a coalition made of remnants of the Alliance for Re-liberation of Somalia, some of the forces of the now defunct Islamic Courts Union and other militant individuals and groups that I will refer to as Neo-Islamists.

This new coalition, while driven by different objectives ranging from regional to transnational, are unified in their vision to topple the current unity government and implement a non-compromising, puritanical form of Shariah (Islamic law.) And while the majority of the Somali people generally support Islamists above those who came to power in the past several decades and believe it is inevitable to govern Somalia by Sharia, they overwhelmingly reject the excessive, intolerant, draconian brand already being imposed in some pockets around the country.

How did the Islamists earn such support? And what is the current intra-Islamist rift about?

Ask any lay person or expert about the most peaceful period that Somalia has known during the last two decades of civil war, or about the period in which piracy was almost brought to halt, or about when the entire nation started to beat with a collective pulse of optimism and the unanimous answer would be 'during the Islamic Courts rule.' The Courts' battle cry of restoring law and order by applying Shariah, and restoring the Somali dignity by defending the country against any foreign forces intending to subjugate the nation's will and deny its sovereignty had a profound popular support.

In two major milestone victories, Hassan Dahir Awes and Al-Shabab, in collaboration with other Islamists, altered the course of Somali modern history; and as such, were held in high esteem even by those who were concerned about their rigid interpretation of Islam. Both Awes and Al-Shabab, who are both on the U.S. terrorist list, were key components of the Islamist coalition that freed the country from the parasitical and often deadly exploitation of the warlords in June 2006, and freed the country once again from the brutal Ethiopian occupation in December 2008.

However, they would soon squander this political capital; first by rejecting the UN-brokered peace plan that some of their colleagues in the liberation struggle agreed to sign on.

While the Neo-Islamists claim to have been betrayed by their comrades, they would fall short in selling this notion to the public and would continue to be seen as a group that dutifully takes marching orders from Eritrea (the country that funded the insurgency movement in order to win a proxy war against Ethiopia).

The second mistake made by the Neo-Islamist movement was to insist on haphazard implementation of their version of Shariah and waging a violent campaign as the Somali parliament overwhelmingly approved Islamic law to become the law of the land.

Third, by undermining their earlier heroic marks with other self-serving, political ones that are now causing deaths, chaos, conditions of insecurity, and internal displacement, they undermined their own cause.

And lastly, they inadvertently have become the reason why Ethiopia is positioning itself for the reoccupation of Somalia. All along, the pretext for the Ethiopian occupation has been that Somali Islamists pose an existentialist threat. Many independent reports have confirmed that Ethiopian forces are already setting up check-points and harassing people indiscriminately deep in Somali territory.

The strategic illogic of the Neo-Islamists violent campaign only indicates their assertive ignorance- not only of the political dynamics at play and indeed the timing, but of the very Shariah that they carry the banner for. Shariah law neither endorses rejecting peace whenever it's offered nor does it endorse violence as the first option in settling conflicts.

Despite all of that, the unity government, apparently for political expediency, made a leap of faith and adopted Shariah without first engaging the Neo-Islamists regarding their interpretation and priorities. How does banning movies take precedence over, say, dealing with those who committed atrocities over the years, or returning wrongfully occupied properties to their rightful owners?

The classical Shariah applied during the peak of the Islamic civilization was based on what is explicitly or implicitly deduced from the Qur'an; from the Sunnah or what was practiced or taught by the Prophet (peace be upon him); from Qiyas (analogy) attained through a rigorous process of analysis and thorough discourse, and from Ijma' or the consensus of the scholars. This approach to the application of Shariah is critical in addressing controversial contemporary issues that might not be clear in the first two sources of authority. Issues such as whether or not an individual can donate a kidney in order to make money; or if girls can pursue professional careers, say, become a doctor; or if there could ever be Shariah-compliant stem cell research; or if a form of governance called democracy could be adopted.

While it is not clear what approach the unity government has in mind, the Neo-Islamists only recognize the first two authorities, and are in many ways selective at that.

Contrary to Prophet Muhammad's approach to societal reform, the Neo-Islamists put more emphasis on punishment rather than rigorous public education that, in due process, cultivates an environment conducive to moral living. Furthermore, they haphazardly employ violence as the first option in settling differences including against their own brethren in faith.

Despite its bad name in the West, the primary reason for Shariah is to ensure peace and order, and to establish a just system whereby individual and community security and rights are protected. The ultimate goal of the Shariah is to build a good society where, among other improved conditions, the security of the individual and that of the community is ensured, their properties are protected, and their dignity and respect are defended. Where the individual's right to think freely and pursue personal ambitions are protected, where commerce is encouraged and education is provided, where the needy are cared for and crimes are all but eliminated.

It goes without saying that in current day Somalia this understanding is by and large non-existent. Because this understanding does not develop at random, it must be cultivated. Therefore, it would require a rational discourse at the grassroots level- in Somalia and the Diaspora as well as between Islamic scholars.

The Neo-Islamists and the religious leaders that shape their obtuse frame of mind must be challenged religiously and jurisprudentially but not militarily. It is the only way to prevent perpetual sectarian strife in Somalia- a challenge that this predominantly Muslim nation has never faced.

Neo-Islamists can only win this war of ideas or interpretation when they succeed in winning the hearts and minds of the Somali people. And, judging from their current approach, they are convinced that sustained violence would achieve them that end.

However, contrary to their conviction, their best projected scenario is likely to become their worst nightmare. They may topple the unity government and force their way to the top, but, soon after, as a result of hyperbolic transnational claims of some of the Neo-Islamists, Somalia would likely be declared the epicenter of international terrorism. And this could set the stage for more civilian deaths and destruction.

Abukar Arman is a writer who lives in Ohio. His articles on Islam, Somalia, Middle East and U.S. foreign policy are widely published.

Piracy, Geopolitics, and Private Security

2009-04-30T00:06:00.002-04:00

Abukar Arman
Huffington Post

Make no mistake the proliferation of piracy in the Somali coast is a serious problem- not only for the international community but for Somalia in general, and more specifically, for the current Islamist led government of national unity. After all, Islamic law has zero tolerance for banditry, whether sea-based or land-based.

That said: piracy in Somalia was not born out of vacuum- it was initially an act of protestation by local fishermen to the illegal hyper-fishing practiced by numerous fishing companies primarily based in Europe and Asia . The reckless greed of these “fishing mafia” has been dangerously depleting sea life in that part of the world. In due course, the local fishermen would be joined by others, including some of the profiteering elements of the Somali civil war, for reinforcement and thus creating an identity conflation.

The partnership would describe itself as the de facto Somali coast guard. It would offer the following reasons for its controversial activities: to prevent the fishing mafia from abusing the Somali sea resource, and to prevent mercenary ships from dumping toxic chemical waste in the Somali waters. Leaders of the partnership would offer interviews to the international media challenging the conventional wisdom that identified their acts as “piracy” and the monies they collect as “ransom.” This claim would not only help present a moral argument in defense of the partnership’s illegal activities, but, it would enable them to score a few public relations points. However; while the grievance that they put in the center stage is real and deserves a serious attention, there is practically zero evidence to indicate that these pirates are driven by altruistic objectives.

Meanwhile, the number of high-jacked ships and vessels (commercial or otherwise) and the cost of freeing them and their crews have been escalating.

Today, piracy is not only disrupting international trade, it is preventing the flow of the humanitarian aid to a several million Somalis on the verge of starvation and is perpetuating the very culture that kept Somalia into an abyss of anarchy. The insurance rate for a single trip in the Gulf of Aden went up from $500 last year to about $20,000 this year. And there are roughly 30,000 ships that travel through the Gulf of Aden every year and little over 100 have been victims of piracy the last 12 months. And this indeed is a serious matter.

However, the nagging query that most media seem to ignore is: at a time when massive budget cuts became survival necessity for most of the wealthy nations, how could seemingly manageable level of threat logically justify the multi-national deployment of the mightiest navies of the world to engage in much costlier and indeed indefinite endeavor (operation water circus)? How many warships are needed in order to carry surveillance operation on Eyl and Harardheere where all the Somali pirates are based? We are talking about two bone-dry coastal villages that no rat could find a place to hide.

These pirates are not falling off the sky, and it is not like there is a tourist industry that could give the commissioned speedboats anchored along the shores of these two villages the appearance of leisure boats.

To adequately understand the piracy situation would require context beyond the illegal activities. Albeit, in the past eight years, America and much of the world were inculcated with an ill-advised notion that context is obsolete and that the official statement is all that matters in understanding complex issues such as extremism, terrorism and indeed piracy. It goes without saying that that mindset has not only failed to reduce or irradiate any of these ills, it, in fact, exacerbated them.

With that in mind, clearly missing out of the piracy discussion is a couple of critical factors: First, the importance of the Indian Ocean as a premier strategic region in light of the ‘shifting economic balance of power from West to East’ and China ’s rapidly expanding influence in Africa .

In his insightful essay—Center Stage for the 21st Century: Power Plays in the Indian Ocean —Robert D. Kaplan presents a compelling argument that the power that controls the Indian Ocean controls the new century. Kaplan is one of a few neoconservatives whose ideas still generate some interest; he is a National Correspondent for The Atlantic magazine and a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

Kaplan points out that “the Indian Ocean accounts for fully half the world's container traffic. Moreover, 70 percent of the total traffic of petroleum products passes through the Indian Ocean , on its way from the Middle East to the Pacific…” Furthermore, “More than 85 percent of the oil and oil products bound for China cross the Indian Ocean .”

Second is what Phil Carter, Acting Assistant Secretary for African Affiars, describes in his speech “U.S. Policy in Africa in the 21st Century” at The Africa Center for Strategic Studies last February, “the professionalization of Africa ’s security sector.” And if this sounds like a thinly veiled euphemism and a page out of the last administration’s foreign policy playbook, it is.

Currently there are three possibilities being considered—reenergizing the Africa Command Center known as AFRICOM which was rejected by all African nations asked to host; providing US Navy escort services, or simply securing lucrative deals for private security contractors such as Blackwater—however, there is only one that is readily available for hire. And under such inevitable scenario, Obama’s foreign policy would be seen as nothing but a continuation of the old bankrupt neocon scheme.

Meanwhile, like in the peak of the Cold War era, Somalia remains as an exploited pawn in a deadly chess game. And as, Nick Nuttall, the spokesman for the United Nations Environment Program, recently said “European companies and others” will keep using Somalia “as a dumping ground for a wide array of nuclear and hazardous wastes.” Nuttall confirmed the horrific allegations that “There’s uranium radioactive waste, there’s leads, there’s heavy metals like cadmium and mercury, there’s industrial wastes, and there’s hospital wastes, chemical wastes, you name it.”

For a solution to the piracy dilemma, the Obama administration should:

1) Distance itself from anything that reminds the world of the last eight years

2) Ensure safe passage for the humanitarian aid

3) Introduce a UN resolution banning the dumping chemical waste in the Somali waters and banning the illegal hyper-fishing in the Somali coast

4) Introduce a UN resolution that mandates a massive international effort to clean the countless barrels and containers of radioactive materials dumped in the Somali waters

5) Sign a security treaty with the Somali unity government. [This will not only mark the first time the US signs any treaty with Somalia, it will send a peace message to the rest of the Muslim world that America is indeed ready to establish formal relationship with any one on issues of mutual interest]

6) Help build a Somali navy to protect its waters

7) Use the legal option in order to freeze and confiscate assets

There is no military solution to this problem. The military option will only win the pirates more support and sustain the current state of lawlessness.

From Fairfax To Richmond, "The Jihad Way?"

2009-04-29T23:47:00.003-04:00

In his OpEd titled From Fairfax To Richmond, "The Jihad Way?", Marc Fisher of Washington Post tries to smear Dr. Esam Omeish who recently announced his candidacy for state delegate (35th District of Fairfax County)

Esam Omeish's campaign web site is fairly typical for a candidate for state delegate. The big issues for his Fairfax County district are traffic congestion, growth issues and public education.
But Omeish, who is running for the Democratic nomination in the 35th district, covering an area from Vienna west to Monument and Leehigh, is no ordinary candidate. He's a surgeon with a classic immigrant success story, having arrived in this country as a young boy who spoke no English, yet rose up through the Fairfax school system to attend Georgetown University.
And Omeish is also a Muslim fundamentalist rabble-rouser whose videotaped rants urging crowds of demonstrators to adopt "the jihad way" led to his resignation from Virginia's state Commission on Immigration just 24 hours or so after Gov. Tim Kaine appointed him to the panel last fall.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2009/04/from_fairfax_to_richmond_the_j.html

I guess one man’s “rabble-rouser” is another’s “straight-faced activist.”

As an accomplished surgeon, Dr. Esam Omeish has been treating patients (from all walks of life) at their most vulnerable times; and as a selfless activist, has invested years in building bridges of understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims in the US.

Over the years, Dr. Omeish has not shied away from speaking truth to power.

Just like any committed activist frustrated by the ugly facts on the ground would, Dr. Omeish shouted out the truth that the world needed to hear. He raised his voice on behalf of the voiceless and the oppressed people of Palestine so that it may echo inside the bulwarked chambers of justice; so that it may galvanize people of conscience to join in demanding basic human rights for the Palestinian people. [Who would not understand that where there is no justice there is never peace?]

Any people subjected to similar daily humiliation that systematically corrodes the dignity endowed by the Creator to the human being regardless of his/her color, ethnicity or religion would resist their oppressor to their last breath. And, any people who are arbitrarily denied the rights of movement, routinely subjected to psychological, physiological, and economical torture like the people of Palestine would have to endure a daily jihad in order to keep their sanity and to survive- Jihad in the most comprehensive sense…including self-defense.

So, what is the concern, Mr. Fisher? Is it because Dr. Omeish mentioned the most misunderstood word in the American lexicon (jihad) in the public sphere, in a post 9/11 climate? Whatever it may be, at the end of the day, I am confident reason will prevail over fear. And objective voters will ultimately ask themselves: why can we not trust a licensed surgeon who is in the life-saving business, who is entrusted to operate daily on American patients under general anesthesia, to make decisions dealing with “congestion, growth issues and public education”?

Abukar Arman

The Jihad against the Abuse of Jihad

2009-03-24T08:47:00.003-04:00

Abukar Arman
Truthout

In light of the rampant extremism and militarism around the world, nothing proves more dangerous than the manipulative alteration of truth to reach certain political ends. In the final analysis, it is this tactic that facilitates the demonization process that blurs ideologies and beliefs in the West and Islamic world. And, no concept is more abused by both sides than the concept of Jihad.

To the Muslim extremists and their cronies, jihad is a narrowly defined license to fight their perceived enemies (including Muslims, as is the case in Somalia ) even if that leads to committing atrocities against innocent civilians. And to the Western extremists and their cronies, Jihad is a religiously sanctioned perpetual holy war led by irrational militant non-state actors sworn to destroy Western values and civilization.

However, Jihad is a complex concept deeply embedded in Islam. It is an Islamic principle that all Muslims who adhere to the teachings of their religion embrace. And, contrary to prevalent post 9/11 perception, the concept does not connote senseless violence against innocents or suicide bombing.

While the concept projects different relevance to different people, the Arabic word means to strive or struggle toward achieving a higher aim which includes the “struggle in the way of God.” It also means self-defense; and to strive against injustices, and to attain the ultimate goal of Tazkiyatul Nafs or purification of the soul- morally, spiritually, and ethically. Indeed it is this latter aspect, the jihad with oneself as one resists temptations and strives against his/her evil tendencies, which Prophet Muhammad referred to as “the Greater Jihad.” Because, purification of the soul or simply self-purification is an around-the-clock process in which one engages in a steadfast introspection.

Despite the human being’s great achievements in the fields of science and technology; in the compilation and standardization of knowledge, and, yes, in the art of its dissemination, humanity still remains in an embryonic if not an imbecilic stage when it comes to morality and ethics.

Human beings, though endowed by their Creator profound faculty that renders them superior to other known creatures, they are given by that same Creator the capacity or the freewill to bring themselves to “the lowest of the low”. Needless to say it is this latter capacity that inspires human vices and wickedness- extremism in all its forms and manifestations (socially, economically, politically and religiously) and the ever-increasing appetite to exploit others; to kill and destroy.

The human being remains a profound enigma and a paradox of clashing potentialities. As we surpass the animals in the realm of intellect and wisdom, we surpass them in savagery as well. There is no animal group that plays “war games” and makes deliberate plans to oppress or annihilate others while they are bellyful- all in the name of ideology, religion, economic exploitation, strategic opportunism, or simply racism.

So when the Prophet was referring to a particular aspect of Jihad in such high regard he was not merely offering an opinion. Rather, he was pointing to what the majority of the Muslim scholars consider the peak of piety; to a process that, according to the Qur’an, leads to the ultimate salvation.

As He does throughout the Qur’an in order to put emphasis on the message that follows, in the Chapter Al-shams (The Sun,) God swears multiple times; in fact, more than any other time: "(I swear) By the sun and its glorious splendor; and by the moon as it follows it; and by the day as it reveals it; and by the night as it conceals it; and by the sky and what built it; and by the earth and what smoothes it out all over; and by the soul and who gave it balance and order, and inspired it with the capacity to turn to disobedience and the capacity to fear God; Verily, whosoever purifies the soul attains the highest of success, and verily whosoever corrupts it descends into utter failure!" And the engine that drives this process is known as Taqwah (sincere fear and devotion to God.) It is through Taqwah that one attains profound God-consciousness which cultivates one’s capacity to self-police against all evil.

So how could such noble concept get so distorted? How come the robe-wearing extremists of the East and the suit-wearing extremists of the West are the ones who hold monopoly on the definition of Jihad?

In the past 8 years of the on-going global political discontent, one persistent warning has been systematically ignored- when militant politics takes over the stage, reason makes run for exist. This was a period when people were generally herded toward one side of the argument or the other. Two nihilistic manifestos dominated the political discourse and brought the world closer to a self-fulfilling prophecy known as the “clash of civilizations”: the global war on terror and the global Jihad.

The former was based on an erroneous premise that “political Islam” in all its manifestations is anti-democratic and anti-Western, and, as such, should never be afforded a space in the market place of ideas. They insisted that such movements were dangerous fronts for Muslim militants with sinister transnational “Jihadist ambition” who were set to destroy the West; because, they simply hated it for its freedom and economic success. Therefore, they were to be met at wherever their incubation place was- with “preemptive” force if they were based in foreign lands and by draconian policies if they were stationed in the West.

The proponents of this view work hard to conceal two particular facts that dismantle their claim by default: the success of the Turkish political system lead by a democratically elected Islamist government, and the millions of Muslims who live peacefully in the US and various parts of Europe in spite of ever-growing Islamophobia.

The latter, on the other hand, was based on an opposite yet equally erroneous premise- that the West is collectively bent on destroying Islam…by occupying the Islamic world; exploiting its natural resources, oppressing its peoples and Westernizing Islamic values. And as such Jihad against them is not only right, but the moral thing to do.

The proponents of this manifesto, such as Al Qaeda, selectively use the confrontational rhetoric often used by their counterparts in the West—secularist and evangelical Zionists—to lend credence to their claim. And they, too, work hard to conceal two particular realities: that Muslims are afforded more rights in the West than in most of the so-called Islamic countries when it comes to practicing their religion freely and establishing Islamic institutions; and also that the Obama administration is adamant about its desire to improve relations with the Muslim world.

Back to the abused concept: Until Jihad is openly discussed and deciphered both in the Islamic and the Western world, and its true nature is widely unveiled, the abuse of the concept for self-serving political ends will inevitably continue and so would its unjust violent expression.

On the Menace of the Vanishing Somali Youth

2009-03-09T07:35:00.001-04:00

Abukar Arman

Turkish Weekly

Somalia has a new government that many consider to possess what it takes to spearhead sustainable peace and bring the lawlessness of the past two decades to an end. However, this article is not about that, or about the so-called Somali piracy.

This article is about mysteriously disappearing Somali boys ages 14-21. It’s also about a well-respected religious leader accused of leading a mosque that not only brainwashed the boys and young men into embracing violent extremism and suicidal nationalism, but facilitated and funded their travel to Somalia in association with Al Shabab- an entity enlisted in the US as a terrorist organization. And, of course, an entire community set to pay the price.

The impetus:

Late last summer, as the Somali community of Minneapolis was struggling to figure out the fate of at least a dozen Somali youth, meticulously coordinated deadly bombings shook up two cities in the peaceful northwestern region of Somalia (Somaliland) and the northeastern (Puntland.) Shortly after, a controversial community activist laid the blame directly on Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center of Minneapolis. He accused the center of engaging on clandestine activities that recruited the suicide bombers who carried out the deadly operation. What ensued was a cacophony of accusations and counter-accusations.

Real or perceived, the allegations triggered legitimate security concerns, especially in light of the widely covered Mumbai terrorist attack. Both in the US and UK, the threat clarion was blown. Consequently, Somalis traveling to and fro oversees are being thoroughly interrogated at their points of entry.

According to the CIA, Somalia as a war-ravaged state is a fertile breeding ground for terrorism. The 2006 Ethiopian invasion of Somalia is believed to have inspired some Somali expatriates around the world to join the anti-occupation insurgency.

While they are refraining from saying it, the FBI is on an investigative trail extending from the scene of the crime in northern Somalia to Minneapolis. Agents have been showing up at mosques in Minnesota, Ohio, and Virginia. On the other hand, the FBI outreach team is tirelessly working on building bridges of understanding with the community. Likewise, the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the Department of Homeland Security has been reassuring Somali community leaders that they would be watchful of any law enforcement violations against their community.

Across the seas, the MI5 and other British law enforcement agencies are expressing the same concerns and have been following the same footsteps. And, according to travelers who went through the UK, Somalis are routinely subjected to more questionable scrutiny
and one may say harassments. Many of these travelers complained that they were coerced to answer religiously intimidating questions such as “Have you been into a mosque while you were traveling?” and “Who did you meet in the mosque?”

The Mystery:

Every year over 300,000 children and adolescents turn out missing in the US and UK. Some are runaways who might or might never go back to their families; others might fall victims of one violent crime or another, but seldom do these daunting cases allude to some international conspiratorial or criminal activities.

Just a few weeks ago, in Reston, Virginia, a 14-year-old Somali American boy turned out missing. The news created hysteria among the Somali community. The knee-jerk conclusion was that the ‘ Minneapolis phenomenon’ has made its way to Virginia. So, people rushed to the nearest international airports- Baltimore/Washington International and Dulles.

Amidst this frantic condition a local organization-- Somali American Community Association-- has taken a more reasoned approach by sending an alert to every individual and organization in their database and mobilizing a neighborhood wide search. Within 24 hours of their door-to-door “have you seen the boy in this picture” campaign, the troubled juvenile was found hiding in his friend’s family home.

The Backlash:

The Somali community of Minneapolis feels it’s being prosecuted in the court of public opinion. They believe the reputation of one of their respected religious leaders-- Sheikh Abdirahman Sheikh Omar-- is being smeared.

Sheikh Abdirahman, as he is known, is the imam of Abubakar Mosque. An imam is the highest cleric of a given mosque. And though Sheikh Abdirahman is in the center of this whole controversy, his version or that of the mosque is seldom sought by the media.

Interested in his perspective regarding the vanishing youth phenomenon and any backlash against his person, the mosque, and the Minneapolis Somali community, I called the imam for an interview. He called back an hour or so later ready to speak.

The imam opened up: “The fact of the matter is that the Somali community in Minneapolis is made of primarily refugees who settled here in recent years. And as an uprooted society coming from a war-torn country, Somalis, especially the youth, have been facing numerous challenges. They are at-Risk of being attracted to truancy, delinquency, and gangster life,” said Sheikh Abdirahman.

The problem is exacerbated as some families are led by single parents, or parents who are not literate in their own native language. Many of these parents face difficulties in becoming functional in this new society. This coupled with the incrementally diminishing role of the extended family which provided social safety net that not only sustained family cohesion, but helped retain their Islamic values. So, as a result of the current condition, parents and children grew apart- both in terms of culture and values. There are some mothers who were abandoned by all their children; in some case five or six children. This is an anomaly both within the Islamic context and in Somali culture. “Of course, we, like any community, have all types of people. We have a number of our youth graduating from colleges and universities who are becoming productive citizens, and we have close to 3000 in the juvenile justice system and the prisons (out of an estimated 70,000) and 9 Somali-on-Somali murders,” said Sheikh Abdirahman.

It was these daunting realities that compelled some concerned leaders to galvanize the entire community to pull its resources and build institutions such as mosques and schools in order to help save these at-risk youth and build their character which should be based on the best aspect of their two worlds. Therefore, the role of Abubakar Islamic Center mosque is the same as any other mosque which is to operate as a house of God and provide a spiritual ground where people can “worship The Creator, so He may strengthen their piety and spiritual purification.”

As to whether or not the allegations that the mosque has been engaging in some criminal activities that include brainwashing children into becoming suicide bombers and providing resources and contacts necessary to join Al Shabab in Somalia, he said these are “unsubstantiated…politically motivated rumors that unfortunately started within our community. Our mosque is far from being such an evil institution that would promote or engage in such activities,” added Sheikh Abdirahman.

“I am an educator. I have been working for the Minneapolis public schools for 10 years. I teach math and science. I am not in the business of corrupting minds and hearts or leading the same young minds that I am committed to save to their annihilation in this life and the hereafter,” said the sheikh whose pictures have been paraded around in the pages of many media outlets, especially in the US and UK. Sheikh Abdirahman is currently a PhD student at the Graduate Theological Foundation.

There are a number young men and women who before graduating from universities in the Twin Cities have studied Quran and developed good character in the mosque. The mosque, according to Sheikh Abdirahman, encourages the young to embrace their religion and adopt all the good values in their newly found community. “We emphasize the importance of promoting that which is good: peace, justice, and good neighborliness and to prevent that which is evil and harmful to the individual and the society” said the Sheikh.

There is a glaring deficiency in this…everything is overblown out of proportion without having credible evidence to substantiate a transnational threat that. Many wonder if this is the hysteria of global war on terror- still kicking. Whatever the case may be, the last thing that all concerned parties want is, as one Somali community member put it, “to create another one of those all too familiar scenarios where the devil is repeatedly painted on the wall, until he shows up in person.”
In the spirit of preventing such a scenario, Abubakar Mosque, together with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR-Minneapolis,) has hosted a community wide open house in which the director of the FBI is among the invitees.

The Media:

The prevalent feeling among the Somali community of Minneapolis is that the media, local and beyond, have not been fair with them. “Media is a weapon of mass destruction, so to speak. Media, by and large, had a field day at our expense. Our collective reputation has been tarnished. Personally, though I never committed any crime any where, I regularly find my picture appearing in stories that incriminate me with innuendoes,” said Sheikh Abdirahman, describing a situation familiar to this author.

As a result of lazy reporting and relying entirely on a single source, “I was denied to go to Hajj before boarding my flight. And, to me, that was the worst punishment that any one could inflict on me- denying me to worship God, The Creator”.

When it comes to mistrusting the media, Sheikh Abdirahman is not an isolated voice. More and more of the Minneapolis Somali community feel that the media is more interested in amplifying all the negatives and ignoring their positive contributions.

Especially in these uncertain, politically volatile times, media cannot loose its sense of objective skepticism.

In his speech on Feb 23 at the Council on Foreign Relations, the FBI Director Robert Mueller compared his agency’s work to that of scientists and astronomers in a lookout for planets outside our solar system. “The universe of crime and terrorism stretches out infinitely before us, and we, too, are working to find what we believe to be out there, but cannot always see”. Needless to say in such endeavor assumption shape opinions more than facts.

Meanwhile, the mosque continues to receive hate e-mails and phone calls and assumptions continue to divide the community at large. And, banks, in reaction to the sensationalized news, have started in cities such as Columbus , Ohio , to reject doing business with Somali-owned money remittance services even as they observe the federal compliance guidelines.

Is “Good Leadership” the Panacea that Somalia Needs?

2009-02-09T15:32:00.001-05:00

by Abukar Arman
The American Muslim

Granted, the Somali political conundrum is multifaceted in nature. And, one of these facets and indeed most frequently cited element perpetuating Somalia ’s violence and anarchy is the lack of good leadership capable of ensuring good governance.

After all, according to the official account, this very element is what toppled the Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

The indicators of TFG’s fatal incompetence are many; however, the one that highlights it the most is their decision to usher in the broadly loathed Ethiopian occupation, and for callously becoming the instrument that executed Ethiopia ’s brutal free fire policy.

It goes without saying that there is no good governance without good leadership; and, of course, there is no good leadership without a holistically competent leader who is morally grounded to set the high standards.

Good governance requires setting in motion the necessary process that allows good decisions and policies to be effectively framed and implemented as well as setting up an objective system of accountability. And particularly for Somalia , it also requires the facilitation of a systematic process that ascertains the establishment of genuine civil societies free from clan politics and non-sectarian Islamic institutions. Among other things, these institutions could play the critical role of reforming an entire segment of the society that is suffering from the residual effects of a prolonged civil war and state of anarchy.

A few days ago, in order to inspire a fresh paradigm conducive to peace and reconciliation, the newly expanded parliament (the outcome of the Djibouti peace accord) elected Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed as Somalia ’s new president.

Is he the right leader to rehabilitate this failed state?

“The ascendancy of Sheikh Sharif provides an opportunity to create an inclusive coalition governing from the center outwards,” says John Prendergast, co-chairman of the Enough Project that studies the Horn of Africa.

Based on his short but high profile presence on the Somali political stage, the new president might have what it takes. He stands in sharp contrast with those who have been jostling for power in the past several decades when politics became a vile enterprise and a deadly zero-sum game.

In his essay ‘Faithless Power versus Faithful Authority in Somalia ’, Prof. Abdi Ismail Samatar describes the said era with this observation: “Any sense of imaan (faith) vanished from the ethos of those competing for public power as the nation descended into an abyss. Civic-minded and faithful Somalis kept a low profile and failed to mobilize the population.”

While his peace strategy that led to his election has been challenged as it created division within the Alliance for Re-liberation of Somalia --a coalition that he was representing in the Djibouti peace conference-- few question the worthiness of his vision, the sincerity of his commitment, and his willingness to sacrifice for his country. He often cites an episode in Islamic history when Prophet Muhammad negotiated and signed the Treaty of Al Hudaibia-- a lopsided deal favoring his enemy-- in order to secure peace and stability as the source of his inspiration.

In his acceptance speech and his subsequent interview with the Saudi Gazette, the newly elected president hit all the high notes, so to speak. He promised to diligently guard the responsibility entrusted on him; to reach out to all Somalis and make peace and reconciliation his priority; to reject nepotism and deal justly with all Somali clans; to stop militant extremism, and to cultivate peaceful relationships with neighboring countries.

Many analysts consider this too tall of an order for any transitional leader to accomplish; however, with the right team and the right prioritization, the new president has a reasonable shot of set a momentum toward lasting peace.

Meanwhile, the first task awaiting the new president is finding the right person to hand the most pivotal position of the soon to be new government. Rumors are heavy towards the appointment of the former Prime Minister Ali Khalif Galeydh who served in the first Transitional National Government (TNG).

While Dr. Galeydh is considered by some as a polarizing figure who comes with certain political baggage, most would agree that he is a giant among the current candidates. He is a diplomatically astute individual who is capable of stitching together a competent government ready to deal with a volatile and a rapidly changing world, and persuade the hardliners within the opposition to coalesce with the new government.

Galeydh’s main political base might be the resistance movement with all its diverse shades as he took a firm stance against the Ethiopian occupation.

The second most pressing task is to extend an olive branch to the Asmara wing of the ARS and Al-Shabab. However, it is important to note that, unless a profound gesture of goodwill is extended to them for confidence building, mere symbolism and empty rhetoric might have a counter-effect. The international community, more particularly the U.S. , can set this in motion by removing Al-Shabab and Hassan Dahir Awes off the terrorist list since they are not charged with specific crimes. Such a list has only proven to further radicalize people.

President Ahmed’s election comes at a time when the majority of the Somali people have come to the realization that the “Islamists” are the only group that have proven to possess the moral rectitude required to restore peace and order and work for the common good. Equally important, at a time when the pendulum of the American politics is swinging back to the realm of reason, realism and pragmatism. And while this creates a fertile ground for peace and reconciliation, the looming specter still remains for Ethiopia and its cronies to resort to their all too familiar sabotaging tendencies.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Abukar Arman is a writer who contributed to groups such as Foreign Policy Association, International Herald Tribune, Aljazeera, Scoop and the Journal of Turkish Weekly

Gaza: What "Moral Clarity"?

2009-01-19T19:07:00.002-05:00

Abukar Arman
Foeign Policy Forum

Hillel the Elder is a prominent figure in Jewish history. He is perhaps one of the most quoted Rabbis. One day, a man approached him with a challenge. “Teach me all the Torah while I stand on one leg,” the man demanded. The Rabbi wisely responded “What is hateful to you, don't do unto others - that's the whole Torah. The rest is commentary. Go and learn.”

How are Hillel’s words, shared by all Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) as well as many other faiths, relevant to our profoundly volatile world? And what role can people of conscience play in cultivating justice and peace around the world?

Alas, Hillel’s role is now filled by secularist Machiavellians who exploit faith and claim moral justification in order to advance a political end. And, carrying the flag for this group is none other than Charles Krauthammer- the syndicated columnist and diehard neocon ideological warrior.

In his piece “Moral Clarity in Gaza” which appeared on Washington Post, Krauthammer has this callously offensive declaration to offer: “Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.”

This kind of erroneous moral conviction, coupled with blind U.S. support, is what justifies Israel’s defiance of the International Law and its stubborn pursuit of the ever-failing approach of enforcing a military solution to a political problem.

With this backdrop, people of conscience must come to the realization that in their quest for justice – more particularly in the realm of peace and human rights – they will inevitably come to face moments in history when it becomes profoundly incumbent upon them to assume the role of the prosecutor.

They must strive to make the case against those accused of abusing power in the universal court of ethics and moral conduct. This might be the only way to secure voice for voiceless, and to protect the common good of all societies.

However, these foot soldiers of justice must take a judicious approach that primarily affords the benefit of the doubt to the declared victims without denying the accused their right to representation. For, blindfolding justice spoils the equilibrium of law and order, and ultimately destroys peace and security.

As Gaza suffers a brutal collective punishment of economic strangulation and disproportionate death and destruction, the rest of occupied Palestine continues to undergo a daily routine of humiliation and inhumane treatment that many now compare to the old Apartheid system in South Africa.

As reported by different human rights groups --including many is Israel-- the Palestinians are routinely subjected to harsh treatments that make life unbearable for them. Civilians are often subjected to prolonged detention without charges. They are subjected to strip searches at checkpoints, torture in prisons, and random home demolitions that throw families into conditions of instant homelessness.

In the meantime, Israel continues to forbid Palestinian civilians the right to return (a deal-breaker of a number of peace plans) while it continues the systematic implantation of “settlers” to “establish new facts on the ground” that would later justify annexation.

Such population transfer by an occupier against the will of the occupied is both illegal and immoral; yet, the state of Israel, driven by uncontrolled appetite for land-grab, insists on the legitimacy of its current ever-expanding policy.

This and other such provocative and humiliating policies push the Palestinians into a position of utter desperation; Hence the firing of rockets, however ineffective. And their actions in turn creates the impetus that sets the stage for Israel to continue its brutal oppression and bombardment of one of the most impoverished and indeed densely populated geographical areas in the world.

So, what “Moral scrupulousness” is there to be attributed to Israel, Mr. Krauthammer? Is it because Israel warned civilians? How can one accept reports by the very unrepentant invader who shuns transparency and deliberately denies the international media to cover the war and offer the world objective accounts? Are you troubled by Israel’s bombings of UN schools used as shelters, hospitals, mosques, etc.? Has your judgment been impaired by emotions, or been corroded by hate?

Nothing affirms our humanity more than our capacity to empathize. It is this frame of heart that enables us to feel the agony of the pains experienced by others, and to treat others as we like to be treated.

However, empathy seldom develops in vacuum. For, it requires a deliberate effort to look within oneself by way of reflection and observation on one’s attitude toward that which matters and that which seem to not matter. It requires a sense of introspection – the big mirror that all individuals, nations as well as religions need to put in front of themselves to see the image of their quintessential values. But, introspection also has a prerequisite named willingness. And as the human being has the capacity to block the entire sun with one or two fingers, so can nations and indeed faith communities.

Ironically, as a state founded by people escaping oppression, Israel seems to suffer from moral myopia as it paints itself in the pages of infamy as a symbol of the oppressed that morphed into an oppressor.

“We the Jewish people should know and feel more acutely than other populations that the murder of innocent civilians is inhuman,” said the Israeli musician and peace activist Daniel Bareboim.

Ignorance

2009-01-05T10:20:00.003-05:00

More than the spears
or the arrows,

More than the knives
or the swords,

More than the bullets
Or the bombs,

I fear ignorance!

For, it is ignorance that causes
The paralysis of the intellect,
and the corrosion of the conscience.

Ignorance hyper-activates the tongue
And inspires the limb into eminent dysfunction
That celebrates death and destruction.

The Belligerence of Oppression

2009-01-03T07:11:00.000-05:00

Abukar Arman

By now, most of the world is aware of the horrific news of death and destruction that visited upon the people of Gaza. Millions have watched in utter shock the footage depicting Israel’s indiscriminate and disproportionate bombing of Gaza.

This brutal military campaign that already took the lives of over 300 people, including children of all ages and women, and injured over 1000 people is likely to continue as the so-called international law can neither stop Israel nor could hold it accountable. Certainly not in its current arrangement!

For decades there was a widely accepted international norm that kept the word “oppression” out of anything written or spoken about the state of Israel. The exception being: when the combination was used to describe the historical suffering of the Jewish people. All others were immediately dismissed as Anti-Semitic assertion or expression.

This unique and profoundly privileged status was made possible by a number of factors. Chief among them, of course, is the U.S. foreign policy toward Israel; a policy that, over the years, not only provided absolute and unquestioning support, but also billions of the U.S. taxpayers’ dollars to beef-up the Israeli military.

By all objective accounts, what has taken place and continues to make life unbearable for the people of Gaza constitutes war crimes.

In his latest article in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz entitled The Neighborhood Bully Strikes Again, Gideon Levy, one of Israel’s journalistic voices of conscience writes this: “Once again, Israel’s violent responses, even if there is justification for them, exceed all proportion and cross every red line of humaneness, morality, international law and wisdom.”

Levy reinforces his charges with blatant honesty by writing “What began (Saturday) in Gaza is a war crime and the foolishness of a country. History's bitter irony: A government that went to a futile war two months after its establishment (Lebanon)
…embarks on another doomed war two months before the end of its term.”

The question that begs moral and ethical evaluation is: do oppressed people who are denied their basic human rights, who are kept under inhumane economic strangulation, whose homes are routinely demolished and their lands confiscated…have the right to defend themselves?

Meanwhile, what if the impetus of the current deadly military campaign against the Palestinian people had little or nothing to do with these over-sensationalized rockets? What if it was staged to attain a political end?

“Indeed, this is another voluntary war by Israel, and seems to be motivated more by dishonored Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and Defense Minister Barak's desire to not leave office without somehow erasing the memory of their failed Lebanon invasion two years ago…,” comments Rabbi Michael Lerner in reaction to the Gaza massacre. In addition to this motive, the current brutal overreaction is intended to provoke
Iran into a reactionary mishap.

Whether or not President-elect Barack Obama would bring fresh ideas that can pave the way for lasting peace between Israel and Palestine is yet to be seen. However, if his position expressed during his visit to Israel last summer is any indication, he is likely to continue business as usual with perhaps a slight difference in style.

Obama said what resembled the sound-bite mantra of the Israeli leadership to justify any heavy-handed actions against the Palestinians. He said he did not think “…any country would find it acceptable to have missiles raining down on the heads of their citizens."

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is the most stubborn and indeed the most volatile political dilemma facing the world. Today, as in its inception over sixty years ago, the victims are denied their day in court. The cruelly caged, oppressed people of Palestine have a story to tell in the court of history…if only history would lend them the opportunity to be heard.

The saga of the oppression suffered by the people of Palestine does not begin with “…we became under rocket attack and we reacted accordingly,” unless, of course, the narrative is controlled by the oppressor.

Now that Israel is one of the mightiest military powers on the face of the earth; now that it has routinely been exercising that power without sense of proportionality and restraint and thus putting world security at a greater risk, it is high time to hold it accountable.

It is about time that the state of Israel is pressured to comply with the Geneva Convention or be dealt with as a rogue state.

Human Rights Day Celebration in Gaza

2008-12-11T13:01:00.001-05:00

Abukar Arman

It was Dec 10, 1948 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Today this document is the most widely translated and perhaps the most referenced.

And as the international community and media around the world eagerly await the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR,) some communities still remain under the boots of domination and oppression. And no modern community has suffered more than the people of Palestine. This suffering has gotten worse since the Palestinian people exercised their democratic right and overwhelmingly elected Hamas-- an entity that both Israel and the U.S. consider a terrorist organization-- as its legitimate representative in January 2006.

UDHR is a powerful fusion of religious and secular principles whose aim is to uphold the existential values that sustain humanity. Its profound importance is based on its recognition of the fundamental rights of all human beings to breathe life in peace and through liberty, to have equal access to justice, and be able to live in dignity. However, UDHR is not without shortcoming. The document is simply a declaration not an international treaty that is binding. And this perhaps explains the inconsistency in its application and why the state of Israel could continue its inhumane treatment of the Palestinian people with impunity.

Ironically, several months ago, the state of Israel also celebrated its sixtieth anniversary. Some welcomed this historic occasion as a celebration of a triumph for justice while others bemoaned it as a glorified failure of the state of Israel to confront its bloody past and oppressive present!

In his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, documents horrific accounts that began with systematic extermination of villagers that continue today mainly by way of inhumane treatment, uprooting of communities for land grab, and economic strangulation. And as a result of a sustained media blackout, most of the world remains misinformed or woefully ignorant about the miserable condition in which the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, live.

Some global leaders and Nobel Peace Prize laureates such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have, in one way or another, condemned Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people.

“The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world. An entire population is being brutally punished,” wrote Carter in an article published by the Guardian newspaper. The world “must not stand idle while innocent people are treated cruelly,” said Carter. “It is time for strong voices in Europe, the US, Israel and elsewhere to speak out and condemn the human rights tragedy that has befallen the Palestinian people,” he added.

Carter was accused of anti-Semitism for comparing the Israeli treatment of the Palestinian people to that of the old Apartheid system of South Africa in his book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid. However, he was neither the first nor the last high profile leader to make that comparison.

Buried through the pages of history are the words of Mandela when he, On Dec 4, 1997, in a speech delivered during the commemoration of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People said “… the UN took a strong stand against apartheid; and over the years, an international consensus was built, which helped to bring an end to this iniquitous system. But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”.

Moreover, Tutu, as a special UN envoy that led a fact-finding mission to Gaza last May, described what he witnessed as a “gross violation of human rights” that is contrary to the teachings of Holy Scripture. Depicting the daunting impact of the economic blockade, he said the Gaza strip was "forlorn, deserted, desolate and eerie place." Furthermore, he talked about the children whose conditions are seldom covered in the evening news: "We were struck particularly by the absence of the sounds of children shrieking and playing."

While they are far from making an immediate impact that would free the Palestinian people from its current misery, these vocal leaders have triggered a global, conscience-based movement that would continue the arduous struggle till Israel profoundly changes its treatment of the Palestinian people.

The latest to join these champions of conscience is Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann- the current president of the United Nations General Assembly.

Like those before him, he too compared Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people to "the apartheid of an earlier era." And like those before him, he too was accused of being “Israel-hater” and being driven by anti-Semitic motives.

Going public with what no UN high official has ever vocalized, and others would only whisper, d’Escoto addressed the de facto double standard that exists and how the world accepted an endless peace process that leads to no where. The failure to establish a Palestinian state made "a mockery of the United Nations and greatly hurts its image and prestige," he said.

Recognizing the Israeli Palestinian issue as a case of yesterday’s oppressed people doing the same to others, d’Escoto said the cruelty of the Holocaust affords Israel neither a justification nor "the right to abuse others, especially those who historically have such deep and exemplary relations with the Jewish people."

D’Escoto urged a paradigm shifting action that would end the human suffering and not just offer symbolic rhetoric. He called on the international community to consider stricter measures against Israel ….measures similar to those taken against South Africa in the 1980s that include "boycott, divestment and sanctions."

Whether in Israel, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia or any where else, the vicious cycle of oppression and human misery can only be broken when all people of conscience rise to resist it, and pressure the powers that be to heed the moral will of the people.

Somali Piracy and the Enchanting Water Circus

2008-12-09T11:25:00.000-05:00

Abukar Arman
Scoop

If you ever felt this whole saga of these invincible maritime desperadoes getting away with the most fantastic piracy operations along the Somali coast is so incredibly bizarre, you are not alone.

Regardless of what many media groups have sensationally been reporting, there is not enough information available to adequately explain the nature of this high sea drama or to pinpoint all those who are involved. However, there are some, state and non-state actors, who are openly positioning themselves to be the beneficiary.

That said, let there be no mistake, the pirates are real. And, like chemical waste dumping, illegal fishing, weapon-smuggling, drug trafficking, illegal oil exploration, illegal human trafficking, and a host of other criminal activities, piracy is a thriving business in Somalia. These lucrative enterprises have steadily soared in the past two decades while Somalia was rapidly descending into a deadly spiral of anarchy.

During that period, Somalia experienced only six months of relative peace and order in 2006 before the Washington-backed Ethiopian invasion abruptly ended the Islamic Courts Union rule and caused Somalia to sink into its worst political and economic conditions. Today, with over a million IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) and a total of over three million people being on the verge of starvation, Somalia is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Yet, with its 1880 mile coastline and its vicinity to the Middle East and Bab Al-Mandab-- one of the world’s most critical trade arteries-- Somalia still remains the most coveted strategic space.

Washington’s influence in The Horn (of Africa) has been on a steady decline since pulling its troops out of Somalia in 1994 following that infamous episode known as “Black Hawk Down.” But, now that a whole new geopolitical dynamic is rapidly developing in the Middle East and The Horn — the increased volatility of the Middle East as Israeli Iranian tensions increase, and China’s multi-billion dollar oil deals with various African nations to name a couple—Washington is compelled into a Cold War like maneuvering for influence.

Ensuring dominance throughout the region in terms of land, water, and air is the name of the game- A game that historically shattered the region’s aspiration for peace, co-existence and development.

The National Intelligence Council’s report, Global Trends 2025, projects that the U.S. will have competitions in its role as the world’s most influential nation.

As a result of their rapid economic growth, new influential players such as Russia, China, India, and Brazil are not only going to have “a seat at the international high table, (but) will bring new stakes and rules of the game.” The NIC report also makes a daunting projection that in the coming decade or two, powerful nations would be competing for access to resources essential to survival- food, water, and energy.

Going back to the pirates: if they did not exist, they would have been invented! Their almost daily criminal activities have dwarfed all other less covered criminal enterprises. The unintended consequence of their actions is paving a way for the architects of chaos, the so-called independent security contractors (ISC) - clandestine military forces immune from all laws and accountabilities.

Already the American and European ISCs are actively out-maneuvering each other to position themselves for hefty contracts to escort ships through the troubled waters of Somalia and to fight piracy. But, if history is a reliable mechanism to forecast political outcomes, this all too familiar approach has only one plausible result, disaster.

Pirates in Somalia are said to have high-jacked over 90 ships and vessels since January. Currently, there are over a dozen ships parked along the coastal area of the north eastern region of Somalia waiting to be bailed out with hefty ransoms. These high-jacked ships include a weapon-smuggling Ukrainian cargo ship carrying 33 Soviet-made T-72 tanks, rifles and heavy weapons destined to Southern Sudan; also, a super tanker bigger than three football fields carrying 2 million barrels of crude oil worth 100 million dollars to the U.S. The latter was high-jacked near Mombassa, Kenya in broad daylight.

Here you may want to restrain your inquisitive urges: How could these village-dwelling thugs who wear macawis (cultural skirts) for camouflage gear and dacas (flip-flops) for combat boots pull such sophisticated operations? How do they execute with such precision and successfully high-jacks new ship virtually every other day? How could they stealthily dodge all the sophisticated land, sea, and air counterterrorism surveillances stationed in and around the Indian Ocean?

By no means are these high sea hooligans innocent. While they are, on one hand, being used as a gambit or a pretext to geopolitical positioning, they are partnering with international organized crime and any other devils willing to make a deal.

Ironically, for decades the Straits of Malacca (between Malaysia and Sumatra of Indonesia) have been the leading area for piracy. And, according to IMB (International Maritime Bureau) -- an agency that, among other things, monitors maritime crimes-- the piracy enterprise costs the shipping industry over 10 billion dollars per year. Most shipping companies do not report ransoms that they pay or goods robbed for fear of having to pay high insurance premiums.

Meanwhile there are widespread anecdotal accounts of “wealthy businessmen” from U.S. , Australia , and Western Europe being sited in remote areas of the piracy infested region. Meanwhile the mightiest nations of the world continue to send their war ships to “the world’s most dangerous waters”.

Piracy in Somalia cannot be solved militarily...Solving this problem will require objective focus on the root cause- the political quandary that broke down law and order and made Somalia a free-zone for crime, exploitation, and human suffering. A starting point for the soon-to-take-office new U.S. Administration is to put this issue on top of its foreign policy priority and to develop a sound policy toward Somalia.

*************
Abukar Arman is a freelance writer who lives in United States. His articles and analysis have appeared in the pages of various media groups and think tanks.

Viewpoints: The Specter of Detrimental Trusteeship in Somalia

2008-11-24T23:34:00.000-05:00

Source: FPA Features
Author: Abukar Arman

As America and indeed the rest of the world were counting down the last few days before a historic election, Somalia was hard-pressed to face another less promising replay of an old history; one destined to take it where no other sovereign state has ever gone before- to the oblivion!

Though it is not officially being called such, by de facto, Somalia is now the first country in the 21st Century to be placed under trusteeship.

The trusteeship system was established to help the Trust Territories (former colonies) attain the capacity for self-determination and self-governance. This is good so long as there is a trustee willing to help in capacity-building and a trustee council providing the necessary supervision and scrutiny.

The irony in this case is that it is not the United Nations imposing this decision; rather, it is the Horn of Africa regional authority known as the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). The UN has suspended the trusteeship mandate in 1994, passing it over to this regional group comprised of Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and Somalia. And contemplating what impact this precedent might have on the sanctity of the state sovereignty enshrined in the UN Charter requires a whole different discussion. This article, needless to say, deals with the imminent ramification of IGAD's decision, and how that might further complicate the already volatile situation in Somalia.

Some are already convinced that the “Declaration of the 13th Extraordinary Session of the IGAD Assembly of Heads of states and Governments” is a better alternative to the current state of chaos and relentless violence. Others feel they heard this all too familiar argument when the Ethiopian tanks roared into Mogadishu after crushing the Islamists who established relative peace and order in a number of Somali towns and regions. The horrific result of that ill-advised invasion is the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

True, when the options are limited, choosing the lesser of two evils is the logical approach to problem solving. However, what is in reality a “lesser evil” is open for debate.

IGAD has long been accused of being subservient to the wishes of Washington's loyal partner in the region on its failed foreign policy driven by the global war on terrorism. Despite the expressed protestations by some of its members such as Eritrea and Djibouti, IGAD had opted to remain silent on Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia- an act that would ultimately compel Eritrea to withdraw its IGAD membership.

The supporters of this controversial declaration base their argument on the premise that expedient, selective power-sharing is the solution. And since the declaration, among other things, compels Somalia's beleaguered Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to form a new coalition government in two weeks, they are counting on a high profile Islamist accepting the Prime Minister position. And the name often mentioned is that of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed- the ousted chairman of the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS). However, it is important to note that, in his current status, after breaking up with ARS, this charismatic leader is widely believed to have little or no direct influence on the steadily growing insurgency determined to drive the Ethiopian forces out of Somalia.

Others, however, consider the IGAD declaration a manipulative charade to lend the façade of legitimacy to the Ethiopian occupation of Somalia.

Adding insult to an injury, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, who engineered and called for the meeting, is the current IGAD Chairman..

And while there are indeed other questionable provisions in the declaration, number 16 and 17 clearly stick out. The former states in no uncertain terms that “the anchor of all the efforts in relation to Somalia must be IGAD”. And, the latter, in an extrajudicial overreach devoid of any diplomatic refinement, asserts that “in default of the above, the IGAD Assembly shall meet and review its options, as it will not be business as usual”.

Wittingly or otherwise, the TFG and IGAD agreed to sign onto a scheme mimicking the UN Trusteeship only to place Somalia at the mercy of its occupier, Ethiopia. This is a case of putting the fox in charge of the barn.

Part of Ethiopia's strategic plan is to keep Somalis at war with one another. This is articulated in its National Security Policy and Strategy posted on the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Foreign Affairs website. And, candidly speaking, it is why for the last 17 years no other country has armed Somali factions against one another, and tried to micromanage Somali political affairs more enthusiastically than Ethiopia. IGAD has been the enabler.

The situation in Somalia is desperate today than it has ever been. Among other things, Ethiopia is set to discredit any vestige of nationalist leaders and to spread violence and hate. Imagine this scenario: Sheikh Sharif becomes a Prime Minister and takes his position as one of the Ethiopia-dependent cardboard figures. Insurgents fire at the Ethiopian troops, and the latter responds with indiscriminate shelling in a scale comparable to the “Mogadishu massacre” of early 2007.

Meanwhile, piracy and kidnapping of international aid workers, and the reckless actions of various criminals and extremist outfits in Somalia continue to overshadow the suffering of over 1 million internally displaced persons and over 3 million on the verge of starvation.

Surrender of the Conscience

2008-11-04T09:26:00.002-05:00

With their pacifier,
Let them lull you.
Into a deep slumber,
Let them hypnotize you.

With their petty games,
Let them exhaust you.
Into a bloody nightmare,
Let them seduce you.

Let them sing your praises
And glorify your ignorance
Lest you find:

Power in vacuum,
Freedom in oppression,
Peace in chaos,
And, bliss in agony.

Abukar Arman

Somalia after the Ethiopian Occupation

2008-10-27T09:55:00.001-04:00

Abukar Arman

In light of the development of several critical issues that include U.S. economic volatility and the new political direction it’s likely to turn towards, it’s not farfetched to predict that Washington-supported Ethiopian occupation of Somalia will soon come to an end.

However, what ensues might not provide comfort to some who erroneously bought into the mindset that politics and Islam cannot and should not mix. But, unfortunately, their reaction would be the element that would tip the scale.

Evidently, Ethiopia is unable to feed her own people and thus could not feasibly sustain this occupation without Washington’s financial, political and technical support. In fiscal year 2007, U.S. awarded the Ethiopian regime approximately $300 million dollars in a non-humanitarian aid, and it was supposed to award double that amount in fiscal year 2008 in order to “fight against Islamists in neighboring Somalia”. Be as it may, today, Ethiopia is on a political slippery slope that unless it takes drastic measures (and soon) it can become the next epicenter of violence in the Horn of Africa.

The cruel occupation and the violent insurgency that it inspired have paved the way for the creation of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. According to the UN estimate, 3.5 million Somalis are now on the verge of starvation, and about 1.5 million are IDPs (internally displaced persons). This coupled with the widely documented brutal oppression against ethnically Somali people of Ogadenia have profoundly contributed to the rapid erosion of Ethiopia’s international image. Ethiopia has become Africa’s hegemonic brute with a long record of gross human rights abuses and war crimes violations.

Last year, ten U.S. Senators have sent a joint, bi-partisan letter to the Secretary of State expressing their grave concern over Ethiopia’s mounting human rights violation record. Likewise, the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that became known as The Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act.

Compounding the pressure is the insurgency getting much fiercer and more popular every day, and the utter erosion of public trust of the TFG (Transitional Federal Government.) So, however one assesses this situation, there is no escaping the writing on the wall: the lethal debacle that led to the worst misery in Somali history is coming to an end.

Now, the question is: Would that establish peace and order in Somalia? Would that set the stage for Somalia to become, as some have been saying, a breeding ground or a safe haven for fugitive terrorists? Would that ensure security for Somalia’s neighbors and respect their territorial integrities?

Of course, it would be naïve to think that the Somali political problem, as intertwined set of complex issues as it is, could be solved the day after the Ethiopian troops vacate Somalia. It will take a process, a painful one at that; but certainly nothing like the current nightmare.

Naturally, the insurgents will declare victory. But, they are not monolithic; neither in ideology nor in identity. They are a mixture of what’s left of the ICU (Islamic Courts Union) and its radical wing Al-Shabaab, secularist nationalists, victims of the occupation, and clan loyalists. However, it’s highly plausible for an inter-factional power struggle to ignite. One that is reminiscent of the May 2006 when ICU was fighting for its survival against a CIA-backed gang of most abhorred warlords in Mogadishu who called themselves the Alliance for Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism.

In due course, there will be peaceful surrenders, amnesty, and disarmaments.

How soon will this come to pass; and, whether or not the triumphant entity will be willing to share power; and, how susceptible would they be to radicalization depends mainly on how Washington reacts. And the last thing that Washington wants to do is to repeat the same ill-advised reaction that led to the current catastrophe in the first place.

For almost a decade, the mention of the word “Islamist” has virtually blurred the West’s sense of perspective. Everything was seen through the biased prism of “global war on terrorism” hence a blanket rejection was thrown over any form of “political Islam”- a phrase loaded that connotes something sinister and evil.

However, even in this landscape of predisposed negative attitude toward anything that mixes Islam with politics, the Islamists have an unmatched record of public service; even against the internationally recognized TFG. The former operates schools, hospitals, and for six months before the occupation removed every checkpoint in Mogadishu and brought semblance of peace.

Of course, the Islamists have made many reckless mistakes. Certain hardliners within the courts have haphazardly restricted certain liberties such as the right to watch movies and the right of women to opt out to wear hijab.

Even against this backdrop, Islamists still ride high when it comes to sincerity of action. However, they would be welcomed with vigilant skepticism and self-confidence that the will of the masses will ultimately prevail.

People look forward to a new, consensus-building leadership who puts law and order first. Leadership that would bring an end to the kidnapping, rape, human-trafficking, and indeed piracy. Leadership that would subscribes to enlightened nationalism devoid of irredentist aspiration. People will embrace pluralistic, non-puritanical Islamic governance.

Lastly, people are yearning for a visionary and a charismatic leader who would articulate a new vision and inspires the masses to dream a new Somalia.

Islamophobia Run Amok

2008-09-29T12:34:00.000-04:00

Abukar Arman
September 23, 2008

While each has its distinctive history; like Anti-Semitism and racism, Islamophobia is a real phenomenon that cultivates hate among communities, stereotypes a whole group for the acts of a few, and justifies transgression against the innocent. And like the rest, Islamophobia was developed and is fostered by special interest groups who often have access to power in order to reach a political, social, or an economic end.

With few exceptions, gone are the days when the perpetrators of hate would march with banners explicitly expressing their bigoted perceptions and attitudes. However, that is hardly an indication that the phenomenon has ceased to exist.

Today, hate speech and propaganda are often craftily camouflaged as talk radio punditry, political lampooning, speeches, or political infomercial.

Last year, in a bizarre outburst of bigotry that makes Islophobes such as David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer as objective intellectuals, radio talk show host Michael Savage of the Savage Nation had this ranting and raving to share with his audience: "I'm not gonna put my wife in a hijab. And I'm not gonna put my daughter in a burqa. And I'm not gettin on my all-fours and braying to Mecca. And you could drop dead if you don't like it."

Spewing his hate via hundreds of the over 1200 radio stations owned by a notoriously Islmophobic corporation Clear Channel, he continued his provocative diatribe: "You can shove it up your pipe. I don't wanna hear anymore about Islam. I don't wanna hear one more word about Islam. Take your religion and shove it up your behind. I'm sick of you."

Along the same path, albeit more artistically, the July 2008 issue of the New Yorker Magazine had on its front page a political caricature of Barack and Michelle Obama. The couple is standing in the middle of the Oval Office. Obama is wearing a traditional Islamic dress with turban and sandals. He is approvingly fist-bumping with a militant looking Michelle as his sinister left eye gazes away. Michelle is wearing Angela Davis style afro and a guerilla fatigue with an M-16 hanging from her back. Looking over them is an Africa-American looking picture of Usama Bin Laden…hanging over the fire place where the American flag is set on flames.

Then came September 4, 2008-- the Republican Convention --where the merchants of fear and paranoia found their ideal platform. Inadvertently or otherwise, the underlying theme seemed to be to broaden the definition of the enemy from a cult-like Al-Qaida to a much broader indeed more fluid definition that indicts all those who practice Islam as suspect or worse.

Rudolph Guiliani, the former New York City Mayor, condemned the democrats for being "politically correct" and avoiding the use of the term 'Islamic terrorism'" to describe the enemy.

Taking the politically synthesized Anti-Islamic mantra to the next level by directly speaking to the race-conscious voters, former congressional leader Dick Army, who now leads one of the most power lobby groups in Washington, had this to say. Barack Obama's "funny name" could "give people concerns that he could be or has been too much influenced by Muslims, which is a great threat now." Obama is Christian.

It is a shame that the media is less interested in what Mr. Army and others who routinely use more provocative and broadly condemning terms such as "Islamo-fascism," "Islamic terrorism," and "Jihadism" to describe the enemy send to the 7 million Muslims in United States and 1.2 billion around the world.

Last week, many localities around the U.S. were hit by a new "swift-boating" campaign. This one, targeting swing states, is aimed to induce paranoia by distributing "28 million DVDs" of the propaganda film Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West.

The film, like any Goebbelian piece of propaganda, connivingly exploits the human tendency to surrender their capacity to think critically when their emotions are stirred or fear is instilled in their hearts. The film does this successfully as it is made of selective footages from various parts of the world of individuals expressing hate, training, and committing acts of terror and the bloody scenes of their crimes. It is a dangerously effective way of collectively demonizing Muslims as the so called experts featured in the film use all the aforementioned hot button terminologies to describe the terrorists and interlink all these cases with their subjective narrative.

This latest campaign is carried by an obscure New York based group named The Clarion Fund whose funders are not known.

In pursuit of their goal to effectively disseminate the DVDs and secure subliminal legitimacy, this group has selectively targeted the newspaper distribution apparatuses of various cities in critical states. Here in central Ohio, the Columbus Dispatch has distributed 10,000 copies of the DVDs through its most widely read issue- the Sunday Dispatch. The same was done by the New York Times, the Miami Herald and a host of other newspapers.

Venomous hyperbole aimed to stir fear and paranoia and indict all Muslims continues despite the Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties´ conclusion that "Words matter" and its recommendation that U.S. officials and representatives should "…avoid inflating the religious bases and glamorous appeal of the extremists´ ideology." According to a memo from the said department, the terminologies used should depict the terrorists as the dangerous cult leaders they are.

External Factors and the Prospect of Peace in Somalia

2008-08-21T12:56:00.000-04:00

By Abukar Arman

No objective individual would disagree that the commonsensical approach to problem-solving is to first identify the problem, then tackle it at its source. Likewise, no reasonable individual would have difficulty understanding how any effort invested on treating symptoms at the expense of the core problem is an exercise in futility. Except, when it comes to the Somali political problem!

For approximately two decades and 14 different conferences, the Somali problem was approached in ways that ignored its multifaceted nature and thus failed to address the role of the external actors in fueling the fire. In each of these sensationalized, indeed costly "reconciliation conferences," ill-advised focus was put on clan power-sharing that placed the cart before the horse and granted individual clan representatives official licenses to loot.

During that period, the Somali problem has metamorphosed into different political dynamics, groups, and indeed challenges; depending on that particular period’s influential actors and the balance of power. However, since the Ethiopian occupation, a natural political fusion has systematically taken its course; one that ultimately merged, and therefore reduced, the Somali problem into two groups- albeit these two groups espouse several competing interests that push the Somali one to bottom.

On one hand, there is the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and Ethiopia along with its partner, Washington. On the other, there is the Alliance for Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) and Eritrea . However, it's worth noting that at this critical juncture, neither the TFG nor ARS is entirely free to make independent decisions in the best interest of the Somali people or for the future of the Somali state without grave repercussions.

As a result of an unprecedented brain-drain, Somalia remains a mummified geographical body with rapidly fading history, corroding identity, and questionable reason to exist as a nation state. This failed state is now at the mercy of the international community. More specifically, at the mercy of external actors who wield powers that routinely frustrate any positive political dynamics that could inspire hope and pave the way for peace.

A case in point: While the Somali people were eagerly awaiting for the signing of the (hole-riddled) UN-backed Djibouti peace accord, a circus of acts and counter-acts made its way to the center stage of the political theatre of that country- dashing the hopes of millions whose lives hang on the balance.

Eritrea, Ethiopia's archenemy, driven by the old adage "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," began to pull its strings of influence by pressuring a faction of the ARS still situated in Asmara to break ranks with their Western supported colleagues who have partaken the Djibouti peace process.

While a failed peace process and the continuation of the violent insurgency is in strategic best interest of Eritrea as that could, in due course, drain Ethiopia economically and demoralizes its military, it entails a hefty price paid by the helpless Somali civilians who die as a result.

Reacting to the news of Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys becoming the Chairman of the Asmara-based faction of the ARS, Washington who considers Sheikh Aweys a terrorist and has a warrant for his arrest has issued a statement reasserting its position.

The "United States does not consider Aweys a legitimate representative of the opposition movement, the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia," said Nicole Thompson, a spokeswoman for the State Department. Concurrently, John Yates, the U.S. Envoy for Somalia , has held a press conference in Kenya confirming his government's commitment to continue its global war on terrorism. Plainly stated, this means neither Sheikh Aweys nor Al-Shabab, an entity that Washington lists as a terrorist organization, will be considered as partners for peace any time soon- all the while, making diplomacy a distant dream.

Furthermore, in order to remove one of the major obstacles of peace and defuse the insurgency, the UN Special Envoy, with a support from Washington , has encouraged the TFG Prime Minister, Nur Hassan Hussein, to sack the Mayor of Mogadishu Mohamed Omar Habeeb (aka Mohamed Dheere).

Mohamed Dheere is broadly recognized as one of the most vicious warlords and the most loyal enforcer of the brutal policies of the Ethiopian occupation. Following the news reports that he was sacked by the Prime Minister, thousands of Mogadishu residents took their jubilation to the streets. The action was not only seen as an olive branch to the people of Mogadishu who suffered under his reign, but as a first step toward eliminating the elements that radicalizes insurgency. Mohamed Dheere was not just loathed for his brutality, but for the provocation of his vulgar boast. It is no secret, Al-Shabaab-- the militant wing of the defunct Islamic Courts Union-- is now much fiercer and enjoys much more popularity than pre Christmas 2006 when the Ethiopian bombings started to drop in Mogadishu .

However, this seemingly sound strategy has apparently offended another external actor- the Ethiopian occupation. Therefore, before the Mayor could clear his highly protected compound, he was reinstated by the TFG President, Abdullahi Yusuf- their mutual clan-based hatred notwithstanding.

Immediately following the announcement of the reinstatement, eleven pro Ethiopia TFG cabinet ministers have submitted their resignations. These resignations were not, in any way, a protest against the reinstatement; rather, they were against one of the main pillars that sustain the occupation.

As the old adage goes: in politics, nothing happens at random! These ministers were herded to topple Prime Minister Hussein's government. And, once again, both Washington and Eritrea--the remote control influencers--are reminded who has the capacity to make the ultimate decisions in Somalia. In the mean time, the worst humanitarian crisis in the world continues to get worse.

Somali Peace Requires Constructive International Engagement

2008-07-24T18:33:00.002-04:00

Atlantic Community

Lasting peace in Somalia requires a holistic approach and constructive engagement on behalf of the international community. The peace accord needs to be adapted to recognize that the precondition “cessation of violence” cannot be fulfilled before Ethiopian occupation troops have left.

What Role Should the International Community Play In Order to Rescue the Peace Accord?

The international community (more specifically Europe and America) has vested interest in paving the way for sustained peace in Somalia for the following reasons:

Somalia still remains geopolitically vital as it commands access to the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea- a key global trade route. As the world increasingly turns to Africa for oil and other energy-related raw materials, the importance of this route is likely to increase in the near future. Continuous war and political volatility in Somalia would render the whole Horn of Africa at risk of perpetual war and humanitarian catastrophe.
Europe and North America host the largest post civil war Somali Diaspora- over one million in UK, US, and Canada alone. Unsurprisingly, most of them are now citizens of their adopted countries who exercise their rights for political activism and advocacy. They engage media, express their concerns in academic circles, and exert pressure on their elected officials and political institutions for constructive contribution.
Somalia's waters are now considered the most pirate-infested in the world. Increasingly countries around the world have been issuing warnings against sailing too close to the Somali shores, more specifically, the northeastern region. These waters are so dangerous that the United Nations Security Council has unanimously adopted Resolution 1816 (2008) in early June that allows foreign states to dispatch their military to combat piracy. Dozens of ships ranging from those carrying humanitarian aids to tourists have been hijacked for ransom off the Somali coast over the past year.

That said, it is neither in best interest of Europe nor America to pursue policies that lend blind support to the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia and/or the Ethiopian occupation forces. Anything perceived as an unjust or unfair approach would not only carry the potential to derail the current peace process but to radicalize many more Somalis, especially of the younger generation. And nothing illustrates this potentiality more than the result of Washington's draconian approach (bombing villages and wiping out their livestock) to pursue "three fugitive international terrorists," and its relentless support of TFG and the Ethiopian invasion.

Al-Shabab-- the militant wing of the defunct Islamic Courts Union-- is now much fiercer and enjoys much more popularity than pre Christmas 2006 when the Ethiopian bombings started. [It is Iraq all over again] So, it goes without saying, it is high time for constructive engagement, and for pressuring the UN to set up a war crimes tribunal for Somalia- an initiative supported by a number of Somali and non-Somali human rights organizations. Already the European Union is on record for supporting the investigation of war crimes and violations that may have occurred in Mogadishu.

In closing, while a thorough scrutinization of the peace accord is indeed imperative in order to fix its detrimental holes, it is equally imperative to prudently avert the development of any ill-advised campaign to stir the old negative impulses of cynicism. It is incumbent upon all Somalis from all corners of the political divide to find a way to patch together this accord and its subsequent phases.

Abukar Arman is a freelance writer who lives in Ohio . His commentaries and analysis on Islam, US foreign policy and Somalia have been published by media groups such as International Herald Tribune, Aljazeera Magazine, Arab News, and Global Politician.

This is an extract from the article "The Somali Peace Express and the Role of the International Community." Download the pdf below to view the full article which provides background on the political situation within Somalia and information about the role Somali militias.

Download PDF: The Somali Peace Express.pdf

The Upshot of the Somali Peace ExpressBy

2008-06-24T08:46:00.002-04:00

Abukar Arman

Despite its shaky start, the UN-brokered Somali peace accord still has the potential to achieve a historical milestone. Two essential elements that were absent in the 14 previously failed peace conferences were prominent in this one. There were genuine peace-makers with considerable political capital and a relatively neutral third party to facilitate the process.

Naturally, the Somali people are anxiously trying to find some sort of inspiration and are galvanized by the optimistic appeal of this latest one. However, this is hardly unique.

Like a person lost in a desert for a long period finds hope and motivation to survive upon seeing a desert mirage, Somalis found temporary comfort to ease their desperate psyche in every one of the aforementioned peace conferences.

That said, objective assessment of what was signed in Djibouti by the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) would require focus on the most critical issues of contention.

Because, ultimately what renders any peace accord or a political settlement as success or a failure is not the ensuing cheers and the celebrations but whether or not the critical issues of contention were legitimately and substantively addressed and indeed implemented. More than any other factors these ensure what promises are kept and what deadlines are met.

Of course for the TFG, the most critical issue was the cessation of violence against the Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu (its known protection) and gaining recognition from the ARS.

On the other hand, for the ARS, the most critical issue, as their name indicates, was the “re-liberation” of Somalia from neocolonialism- ending the daily oppression of the Ethiopian troops and playing a role in the political future of Somalia . That being the case, the logical question that begs an answer is: If the occupation was (and remains to be) the very source of the insurgency, how would then the ‘cessation of violence’ as a precondition be possible?

The ARS is now fragmented to at least four different groups They are the Jago Doon (position- seekers) whose primary goal is to be appointed to a position of power by any means. The Jeeb Doon (money-seekers) whose primary goal is to fill their proverbial pockets with whatever monies they can get their hands on. The Jihaad Doon (Jihad-seekers) whose primary goal is to drive Ethiopia out of Somalia, or die while engaging the enemy head on, and the Jawaab Doon (answer-seekers,) whose primary goal is to cultivate lasting peace through dialogue and pragmatic negotiation.

There is no question that in politics it pays to be a pragmatist who makes compromises and concessions when and where necessary. But the pragmatist is as effective as his or her prudence and ability to distinguish the fraud from the authentic.

It is implausible for the Ethiopian troops to pack and leave Somalia in the specified period of time, especially when the language of the agreement legitimizes their occupation. And, more importantly, affords them a wiggling room to define or influence the definition of what constitutes a “sufficient number of UN forces” (as they are to leave Somalia only after such vaguely infinite goal is attained).

Meles Zenawi did not decide to occupy Somalia for altruistic reasons or out of neighborly dutifulness. So, it is virtually naïve to assume that he no longer has plans to micromanage the rest of the commenced peace process, and keep on violating the arms embargo. And that he is not interested to buy more time (at least another 5 months,) till the U.S. elections are finalized and the fate of a lucrative enterprise known as global war on terrorism becomes clear.

The reality that the international community and many idealistic Somalis would rather ignore is that the cessation of violence is highly unlikely while the Ethiopian troops still remain in Somalia, and the man known as Colonel Gabre continues to rule Somalia, as Professor Hassan Mahadallah said, “…like a ruthless colonial governor asserting his authority with great deal of impunity over the Somali people and ironically the TFG itself.” The British Channel 4 has done a documentary expose (Warlords Next Door) in which Colonel Gabre’s absolute power is featured.

The ARS negotiators were not oblivious to these facts and that their most critical item was buried in the seventh article of an eleven article agreement. There is a widely accepted view that they were cornered to make some counterintuitive concessions.

The meeting was adjourned the day before the agreement was announced with an ultimatum from the chairman that the parties will either agree to a deal the next day or the conference will be aborted. This caused the wire services buzzing with waves of ominous news that the conference was about to fail. The next day there was a ceremony of frantic handshakes and nervous smiles that gave birth to the current peace accord express.

That being said, bringing lasting peace to Somali will require a holistic approach. An approach that not only addresses all critical issues of contention, but ensures the inclusion of all influential actors and stakeholders and, in due course, brings the external influencers such as Ethiopia and Eritrea to frame a multilateral comprehensive peace plan.

Make no mistake; while the Somali problem is an internal conflict, and most of the atrocious killings and human rights violations of almost two decades were committed by Somalis against other Somalis, it is the external element that pushed every peace process off track.

And while a thorough scrutinization of the peace accord is indeed imperative in order to fix its detrimental holes, it is equally imperative to prudently avert the development of any ill-advised campaign to stir the old negative impulses of cynicism. It is incumbent upon all Somalis from all corners of the political divide to find a way to patch together this accord and its subsequent phases.
*************
Abukar Arman is a freelance writer who lives in Ohio.

Campus Watch's Spin

2008-04-21T11:05:00.003-04:00

Here is the official Campus Watch spin regarding my artcile Islam in the Age of Extremism:

http://www.campus-watch.org/correction/32

Setting The Record Straight
Campus Watch corrects false allegations made against it.

Response to:
Islam in the Age of Extremism
by Abukar Arman
Global Politician
April 8, 2008

In an exercise in moral equivalency and intellectual relativism masquerading as a call for moderation, Abukar Arman posits that Al Qaeda and its supporters represent a line of thought and action on which Campus Watch occupies the opposite extreme--a supposed mirror image of the murderers for which Arman's piece is an apologia.

He writes:

Extremists on both sides of the fence find justifications in their myopic vision and dogmatic interpretation of their respective ideologies. They set up programs and apparatuses to create an environment conducive to groupthink where they could coerce freethinkers, limit the scope of their independent analysis, and zealously suppress the emergence of any new paradigm that could threaten the status quo. And nothing illustrates this better than a project known as Campus Watch that blacklists freethinking professors and scholars in academia- the very institutions that supply the market place of ideas [courtesy of two of the most belligerent Noecons and most notorious Islamophobes in the U.S. , David Horowitz and Daniel Pipes]

Campus Watch coerces no one, limits no professor's ability to speak his mind, has no blacklists, and is not connected with David Horowitz. Nor are Daniel Pipes and Horowitz guilty of the absurd charges Arman levels against them.

CW does not "suppress the emergence of any new paradigm," although Arman falsely conflates the positions of CW and other critics of politicized scholarship and agitprop in Middle East studies with those of terrorists. In doing this, he seeks to defend extremism and the academics who qualify it through their shoddy work. He fails on both counts.

(Posted by Winfield Myers)

© 2002 - 2008 The Middle East Forum. Campus Watch contact e-mail: campus-watch@meforum.org

Islam in the Age of Extremism

2008-04-14T09:41:00.002-04:00

Abukar Arman
Al-Arabiya
4/09/2008

Extremism is the root cause of the proliferation of violence throughout the world. It is the impetus pushing lawlessness, gluttonous greed and downright disregarding of human rights. It is a massive boulder blocking the path to peace.

Like in terrorism, there is an array of opinions dictating what constitutes extremism. So, in order to be more specific, I would define extremism as any attitude, action or reaction that leads to the absolute deviation from the norms that make human coexistence possible. It is the malfunction or the breaking of the valve that calibrates our emotions, intellect, decency, bigotry, greed, and self-righteousness.

Today extremism manifests in all fronts of life. In the religious front, the promotion of puritanical zealotry and the moralization of hate continue to divide faith communities and set the stage for religious wars. In the sociopolitical front, tribalism, ethno-centrism, patriotism and such have been galvanizing brutal violence and paving the way for genocidal campaigns. Likewise, in the economic front, the corrupted attitude of “What is our oil doing in their land?” has set the stage for a perpetual war aimed to facilitate for the privilege of the fittest.

Furthermore, in the political front, the concept that a nation has the exclusive right to wage war against another under the “preemptive war doctrine” and/or impose “regime change” has paved the way for brutal occupation, radicalized insurgency, civil war and chaos. On another front, the Enron-ization of corporate America and the recently exposed predatory sub-prime mortgage lending schemes have set the stage for economic blowback and are likely to handicap the world economy.

Little over a year ago, I framed this debate question “Religious and Secular Extremism: is one lesser ‘evil’?” on the Foreign Policy magazine forum. This ignited an on-line discourse that generated over 40 postings and over 16,000 hits.

The gist of my argument was that as al- Qaida is the epitome of modern day religious extremism, neo-conservatism is the quintessence of modern day secular extremism. And because of their runaway fanaticism and militarism they are the two sides of the same coin.

The two abhor dialogue and find comfort in the violence-first -approach to solving problems. Both glorify zero sum modus operandi where each promotes its self-centric ideology that not only rejects the other, but demonizes it as an entity that is impossible to coexist with. And while one is driven by a ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude and righteous hysteria and is more reckless with its rhetoric, the other is driven by ‘mightier-than-thou’ attitude and sheer hubris. What’s ironic, however, is that, though the latter group is more conniving and arguably more deadly, the former seems to bear the brunt of the blame for global mayhem.

Contrary to their gown-wearing counterparts, the suit-wearing extremists are more sophisticated and more illusive. They consult with image-makers and PR specialists and speak the language of the dominant with seductive eloquence. As such, the suit-wearing extremists are more prone to fly under the radar of public sensibilities and media scrutiny, and this not only gives them the leverage but the impunity to go for the kill- painting all Muslims and Islam on one broad negative paintbrush.

Exploiting the post 9/11 climate of fear and suspicion, the Neocons have started to fan the flames of hate and bigotry against Muslims. Neocon pundits such as Charles Krauthammer and so-called Islam expert, Robert Spencer, continue to argue that it is not the fringe outfits such as al-Qaida that are extremists but the whole religion of Islam. This vocal camp insists that it is the Quran itself that is to blame. Never mind that that spiteful condemnation declares over one billion Muslims as the enemy. And never mind how the propellers of such propaganda fail to explain why an estimated 7 million Muslims in America, who consider the Quran as their principle authority, have not stirred state of pandemonium; especially in light of what has been happening to their brethren in recent years.

Relentlessly pursuing their objective of creating public apprehension against Muslims, the same special interest characters and their cronies have been pushing books such as Oriana Fallaci’s The Rage and the Pride despite its negative reviews of bigotry and Islamophobic biases.

Michael Ledeen, one of the most notorious neoconservative pundits, hailed Fallaci’s venomous diatribe as “a terrific book.” He claimed that she has a “wonderful way with words” in reference to one of the most caustic and indeed provocative statements in the book in which the author writes “the children of Allah spend their time with their bottoms in the air, praying five times a day."

Reacting to the Islamophobia driving the book, Cathy Young, in her article on Reason magazine entitled “The Jihad Against Muslims: When Does Criticism of Islam Devolve Into Bigotry?” criticizes Fallaci for her wholesale condemnation of Muslims. She “hardly (makes) any distinction between radical Islamic terrorists and Somali street vendors who supposedly urinate on the corners of Italy ’s great cities, writes Young”.

However, by no means is Fallaci’s kind of demonization exclusive to secular extremists. Others use similar though less vulgar. Extremists on both sides of the fence find justifications in their myopic vision and dogmatic interpretation of their respective ideologies. They set up programs and apparatuses to create an environment conducive to groupthink where they could coerce freethinkers, limit the scope of their independent analysis, and zealously suppress the emergence of any new paradigm that could threaten the status quo. And nothing illustrates this better than a project known as Campus Watch that blacklists freethinking professors and scholars in academia- the very institutions that supply the market place of ideas [courtesy of two of the most belligerent Noecons and most notorious Islamophobes in the U.S. , David Horowitz and Daniel Pipes]

Meanwhile, the Neocon propaganda machine continues to tarnish the image of Islam, and the “Armageddonites” or the Evangelical Zionists such as Pat Robertson, Rod Parsley, and John Hagee continue fanning the flames of hate. However, like al-Qaida, this collaborative group seems to have forgotten that the ultimate fate of extremism is self-destruction!

So, Senator Barry Goldwater was wrong when he, in his 1964 acceptance speech of the Republican Party presidential nomination, declared that “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.”

Extremism only creates equal or worse reaction. The attack by al-Qaida was an extreme act of aggression, the reaction it generated was even more extreme, and the subsequent trend of violence and chaos is leading to collective suicide. And until the world comes to the understanding that it is extremism, and not terrorism, as some fallaciously argued, that is the most dangerous challenge facing the world. We are in an environment where some suit-wearing extremists are openly advocating dropping a nuclear bomb on Iran . In the mean time, eyes remain selectively fixated on the gown-wearing!

Granted religious extremism as in Al-Qaeda, the Crusaders, and the inquisitors has caused many deaths and destructions; however, make no mistake, it was secular extremism that was responsible for some of the most atrocious crimes against humanity with profound impunity. From the holocaust, the on-going systematic genocide of the Palestinian people, the ethnic-cleansing in the Balkans, the Cambodian genocide, the Rwandan genocide; and never mind slavery, colonialism, Stalinism, etc.

In fairness, however, there is one category that makes religious extremism much dicier than the rest- its potentiality for rousing popular appeal.

Therefore, Prophet Muhammad said “Beware of extremism in your religion.” True Islam is the middle way between excess and neglect, between zealotry and apathy.

Strangulation in the Dark: Palestine, Somalia, and the American Mainstream Media

2008-03-04T09:24:00.001-05:00

by Abukar Arman
TAM

Whenever the media fails to press and keep the powerful at check the inevitable consequence is prolonged oppression, lethal destruction, and radicalized insurgency. Aside from Baghdad, nowhere is such consequence more evident than in Gaza and Mogadishu.

While in all three cases predatory foreign intervention is exacerbating the situation, this article focuses on the latter two because of the magnitude of their man-made humanitarian crisis. In each case the crisis has rapidly evolved into a catastrophe.

And as if the damage resulting from the inhumane blockade that cut off fuel, electricity and other material and services essential to the survival of the civilian populations in Gaza was not enough, the Israeli military is getting ready to wage “a major military offensive”. Already, heavy air and ground attacks are underway. But, the worst might be yet to come. The BBC reports that Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said “…they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger holocaust because we will use all our might to defend ourselves,” on Israeli army radio.

In a similar oppressive approach, the Ethiopian forces continue their routine indiscriminate shelling of densely populated Mogadishu neighborhoods. According to Elman Human Rights group “seven thousand civilians, mostly women and children” have been killed in 2007- the first year of the occupation.

Since the occupation, life in Mogadishu has become so unbearable that approximately 1 million civilians, mostly women and children, have fled for safety and became what is known as Internally Displaced Persons (IDP). They now inhabit makeshift refugee camps and are deprived of goods and services essential for their survival. According to the U.N., the total number of people in Somalia at-risk of starvation is now 1.5 million, thus making the situation there “the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa.”

Meanwhile, the belligerent oppression continues with impunity.

B’ Tselem-- Israeli human rights group— documented a case of a heart patient Fawziyeh a-Dark (a 66 year old woman) who died of heart attack after the Red Crescent ambulance coming to transport her to the hospital was denied permission to go through the checkpoint. According to the report, the driver called the patient’s husband and urged him to bring the wife to the checkpoint so he could receive her there.

Later when the patient was brought to the checkpoint, she was denied to cross over to the other side. In a helpless frenzy, the husband kept begging the Israeli soldiers to let his wife get the medical attention that she desperately needed to no avail.

“Let her die, let her die, it doesn’t interest me, it is forbidden to cross” heartlessly said one of the soldiers manning the checkpoint, and die she did.

Similarly under the Ethiopian occupation, as documented by many local and international human rights groups, civilians are routinely denied their most basic rights, including the right to have a medical attention. Both the occupation and the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces are reported to practice random killings of civilians to psychologically intimidate the masses.

The recent broad daylight brutal killing of the unarmed brother of the TFG’s Minister of Information while speaking on his cell phone outside his home only highlights the horrors anecdotically reported by helpless civilians whose loved-ones have fallen victim before their eyes.

According to Human Right Watch, both Israel and Ethiopia are in direct violation of Articles 33 and 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention as they have been collectively punishing entire populations for the sins of the few. Both have been violating their respective obligation (as the occupying forces) to ensure the flow and distribution of food, medical and all other humanitarian relief goods and services to civilians.

So why is it that we do not see these kinds of reports in our nightly news or the front pages of our newspapers?

In order to provide a contextual answer, let us follow the bloody tacks of history back to the Rwandan genocide. Shamefully prominent in these pages is the indictment of the American mainstream media- its failure to adequately scrutinize the Clinton administration’s callous approach to the genocide in that country, and how that failure contributed to one of the most brutal atrocities known to mankind.

So, once again, history seems to be repeating itself. And, needless to say, this time Washington’s fingerprints are found both in Palestine and Somalia.

For years Washington has been allotting billions of dollars of the U.S. tax revenues to the state of Israel and shielding it against any UN resolution (however symbolic) that might be critical of it. And, since 9/11, Washington has been providing diplomatic, economic, and military support to Ethiopia. Furthermore, U.S. warplanes in pursuit of three suspected international terrorists have bombed Somali villages while Ethiopian tanks roared into Mogadishu in late 2006. Still, media remains shamefully silent.

Evidently, the American media is a different animal than the one admired by Alexis de Tocqueville in his classic book Democracy in America almost two centuries ago.

Since 9/11, the mainstream media, the very entity that was once upon a time a valuable counterweight to power, has become the very instrument used by the powerful to justify their transgressions. Mainstream media has become so profoundly mesmerized by the ways and the means of the powerful. As a result, they routinely offer free pass for those who are elected to craft policies, those in command of their implementation, and those special interest groups who build the first two’s towers of power and influence.

The mainstream media has willingly forfeited its role as a credible watchdog that guarded democracy and the rule of law and exposed the abuses of the power-lords against the weak. And the consequence of this squandered role at a time when the world is incrementally becoming more like a global town cannot be overstated.

In recent years, mainstream media has grown more comfortable in redefining the nature of its business as being “entertainment,” and its objective as being “bottom line” or profits. Of course, that same media became an effective advocate for Darfur and as such may have prevented a Rwanda-like genocide.

Why this selective morality?

Because, along with other human rights and humanitarian advocate, the Darfur cause brought together three powerhouses, those in the entertainment business, those in the profit making business, and the so-called religious right.

It is within this backdrop that strangulation of the people of Gaza and Mogadishu continues. The entertainment-oriented media has hypnotized the world so effectively that it made the sirens being sounded by human rights and humanitarian advocacy groups so inaudible.

The Role of People of Conscience in Cultivating Peace and Preventing Human Rights Abuse

2008-02-16T21:57:00.000-05:00

This is the full text of a message delivered at the 5th Annual Martin Luther King Human Rights Forum held on Jan 17th, 2008 at the MLK Center in Atlanta, Georgia by Abukar Arman.

Greetings of peace, Salaam.

The MLK Human Rights Committee, distinguished guests, brothers and sisters:

Senseless wars are raging across the globe, the appetite for exploitation and oppression is in an all-time high, extremism in all its forms - economic, social, political, and indeed religious - is on the rise, at a time when justice became an orphaned child; when many of its great champions such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., El-Hajj Malik Shabbaz, and Gandhi are no longer with us.

But, people of conscience cannot and should not find comfort through the path of the least resistance neither for CONVENIENCE nor for FEAR.

Why? Because, they are the voice of the voiceless; they aspire to cultivate state of equilibrium within humanity; they provide the balance essential for humanity to sustain its moral integrity; they breakdown the barriers of prejudice such as race, class, ethnicity, religion, and geographical regions.

These endangered species stand up for the rights of individual political prisoner, as well as for those targeted groups abused through the so-called extraordinary rendition programs, as well as those innocent civilians suffering the brutality of occupation.

It is in that context and in the spirit of Martin Luther King's vision that transcended US-oriented civil rights and embraced global-oriented human rights that I would like to bring to your attention what is now officially recognized as Africa's worst humanitarian crisis- Somalia.

While the political factors that led to the current situation are many and are mainly self-inflicted, it is the predatory foreign intervention that fueled it and indeed perpetuated it. Ethiopia has been funding Somali warlords against one another overtly and covertly. Ethiopia has micromanaged all 14 so-called Somali reconciliation conferences except one.

Then came Christmas 2006-- the very day that the Christian world prays for "peace on earth"-- when Ethiopia troops marched into Mogadishu. This day engraved one of the most dreadful facts on the wall of infamy: For the first in the history of Africa an African nation invaded another African nation, and a year later it still occupies it with a brutality that created the continent's worst humanitarian crisis.

The brutal occupation has created close to 1 million internally displaced persons (almost half of the total Mogadishu residents) who are by and large denied receiving food and medical care as the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the Ethiopian occupation accuse them of being "the families of the insurgents," thus compounding the number of Somalis at the risk of utter starvation to 1.5 million.

These victims who are mostly women and children are dying slow death as the propaganda machine, the Meles Zenawi regime and its Washington-based Ethiopian lobby, continues to veil these killing fields between the capital Mogadishu and the town of Afgoye with denials and disinformation; This regime's well-documented record of domestic cruelty and human rights violations notwithstanding.

That said, the initial invasion and the subsequent brutal occupation was not without a pretext: Meles Zenawi has packaged his invasion as a national security issue, an extension of the global war on terrorism, a preemptive war of some sort- something that easily resonated with Washington who was after "three international terrorists" on the run.

Today, Ethiopia finds itself in a predicament similar to that faced by Washington vis a vis Iraq. Each additional day of the occupation plants more seeds of anger and hatred that further radicalizes insurgents and could set the stage for perpetual violence and chaos that could, as many analysts warned, set the entire Horn on political fire.

Unilateral predatory intervention defies the international rule of law, more particularly, that of the United Nations and the African Union and it indeed flies in the face of the people of conscience, the peace-loving people of the world.

In the spirit of the vision of Martin Luther King, Jr., we must collaborate to end this brutality and occupation. But, as this humanitarian and political crisis has not been making headlines, we would not be able to make a difference until each one of us seriously learns about the core political issues, actors, and factors adding fuel to the fire burning in Somalia; until we start educating others; until we start writing to influential stakeholders and policy-makers and urge them to provide leadership; until we flood the media, phone calls, letters, and Op-Eds.

The responsibility rests on us. Let us not become only the hearers who find comfort in inaction, but the carriers and the doers- those who, against all odds, translate the message into action. And, let us keep reminding the world that profound testimonies are amply found in the pages of history, that no peace is ever attained by keeping people under the boots of oppression and the cruelty of occupation.

Peace!

Engaging Somalia Via The Road Least Traveled

2008-01-07T22:59:00.000-05:00

Abukar Arman

The report card is in, and the end of the year accumulative grade indicates miserable failure. Worsening conditions for the ailing nation of Somalia, costly quagmire for Ethiopia and political wild-goose chase that produced a new hotbed of Anti-Americanism in the Horn for the US.

So now is the time for all, especially for Washington, as the most influential contributing force blamed for the current humanitarian catastrophe, to ponder the mistakes made, opportunities missed, and ways to constructively reverse course toward order and lasting peace.

Framing the right policy hinges not only the objective analysis of the current situation, but the political dynamics that paved the way for the Washington-backed Ethiopian invasion and the subsequent occupation of Somalia.

A year has passed since the Ethiopian invasion that drove the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and installed the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu and the situation in Somalia is horrifically grimmer than any other time in Somalia’s modern history.

According to the UN observers, the situation there has deteriorated to become Africa's worst humanitarian crisis, dwarfing Darfur in severity. Approximately 1 million Mogadishu residents, fleeing the ever-increasing violence, had become internally displaced persons (IDPs), compounding the problem to put 1.5 million, mostly children and women, on the verge of starvation.

The rationale driving the "pre-emptive war" and the subsequent “regime change" was for Ethiopia to protect its national security concerns, and for Washington to continue its global war on terrorism and pursue three fugitive international terrorists that ICU was suspected of providing safe haven to.

In retrospect, the highly sensationalized heavy-handed initiatives and reckless rhetoric by certain radical elements within the ICU, have, on their part, given credence to all the charges.

Intoxicated with their swift defeat of the CIA-backed warlords and their counterintuitive ascendance to power, ultraconservative members of the ICU started to infringe in people's freedoms and haphazardly implement socially regressive and sometimes brutal policies. These individual freewheelers shut down movie theatres for playing Western films and prohibited people from watching soccer matches. They flogged drug dealers and amputated thieves, selecting those with weak clan affiliations.

These acts, though they were not based on ICU policies, would build a case against it in the court of public opinion. Domestically, as ironic as it may sound, the most offensive infringement on these freedoms, which almost endangered the popularity of the courts that brought six months of peace in Mogadishu, came with the banning of khat- a narcotic leaf traditionally chewed for its stimulant effect.

All that notwithstanding, the ICU has taken three objective steps indicating that the moderates on the driver’s seat could have been engaged diplomatically:

First, by not seeking revenge against their enemies after defeating and disarming them and allowing these warlords to retreat to their clan territories indicated that by policy the ICU accepted violence only in self-defense; this even created a rift within ICU, as some were eager to eradicate those they knew were employed mercenaries who wished them the same.

Second, immediately after taking over Mogadishu, they reached out to the international community with an olive branch.

In a 4 page letter addressed to the State Department, the United Nations, African Union, Arab League, and the European Union, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the then Chairman of the ICU has outlined the primary goals and objectives of the courts. Among other things, the letter condemned international terrorism and expressed the courts’ desire to bring peace and order, and its respect for their neighbours’ territorial integrity.

Third, they agreed to sit and negotiate with the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) despite President Abdullahi Yusuf's reputation as the most brutal warlord who slaughtered more "Islamists" than any other.

Moreover, the peaceful period while the ICU ruled has inspired an unprecedented influx of Somalis of various Diaspora communities into Mogadishu, setting in motion the process of replenishing the technocratic capacity of an ailing nation suffering from a sever case of brain-drain.

Alas, Washington, while viewing Somalia through the prism of the global war on terrorism, was too wary of any Islamist government taking over Somalia, and as such, was credulous enough to accept Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s hyper inflated intelligence which led to the nightmare scenario that many objective analysts have warned against.

Now, what if Washington gave the ICU the benefit of the doubt; what if it refrained from partnering with those who perpetuated Somalia misery and political pandemonium for almost two decades; what if it allowed the repatriation trend continue on its course to ultimately balance the scale.

What if Washington worked with civil societies and Diaspora groups in capacity- building, putting emphasis in three particular areas: peace-building and reconciliation, institution-building and good governance, reconstruction and economic development!

What if, consistent with UN Resolution 1724, Washington refrained from “any action in contravention of the arms embargo and related measures, and should take all actions necessary to prevent such contraventions,” or “any action that could provoke or perpetuate violence and violations of human rights, contribute to unnecessary tension and mistrust, endanger the ceasefire and political process, or further damage the humanitarian situation”!

For start, it behoves Washington to either navigate this ship back to a safe shore by stuffing the genie back into the battle and ending the Ethiopian occupation, or to jump off and allow Somalia to settle its own issues. For, nothing radicalizes the Somali streets more than foreign occupation.

The Africa Command Prospect and the Partition of Somalia

2007-12-18T13:30:00.000-05:00

Abukar Arman
Intellectual Conservative

As the US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, was recently visiting American forces in Djibouti, the Washington Post was reporting how the Pentagon has been spearheading a seemingly dicey initiative to pressure Washington into recognizing the secessionist northwestern region of Somalia known as “Somaliland” as an independent state.

In an article titled ‘U.S. Debating Shift of Support in Somali Conflict’ that appeared on December 4, 2007, the Post highlights how some Pentagon officials are convinced it is time “to forge ties with Somaliland, as the U.S. military has with Kenya and other countries bordering Somalia.” The article quotes a senior defense official who asserts that "Somaliland is an entity that works." And another unnamed official who confirms the Pentagon’s view is that "Somaliland should be independent," and that the US should “build up the parts that are functional and box in Somalia's unstable regions, particularly around Mogadishu.”

This initiative clearly contradicts the State Department’s wait-and-see approach to this diplomatically sensitive issue. And, handled haphazardly, this could set ablaze the volatile inter-tribal tensions looming in northern Somalia, and, according to the article, “set a precedent for other secession movements seeking to change colonial-era borders,” therefore, “opening a Pandora's box in the region."

That said, it is worth noting that aside from the on again, off again, clan-driven skirmishes that make headlines every now and then, throughout the Somali civil war, the northwestern region has enjoyed relative peace and stability.

Naturally, this unprecedented aggressive approach by the Department of Defense raises questions worth pondering: When did the Pentagon become the engine propelling the US foreign policy? Why would the Pentagon care whether or not Somaliland becomes an independent state? And, more importantly, how prudent is it to take this kind of an approach?

In answering the first question, remember how the events of 9/11 have “changed the world” and how as a result the notoriously Islamophobic Neocons ascended to (absolute) power; remember that moment in history when in certain circles it was fashionable to declare diplomacy dead and to claim that militarization of the American foreign policy was imperative to the survival of the nation. It is then that the rules of the game profoundly changed. Today, while the icons of that political machine have disappeared for one reason or another, the policy imprint they left behind will probably take generations to undo.

Last summer, US Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, addressed an audience of several hundred, mostly Somali scholars, activists, students, and professionals, at a Somali studies conference held in Columbus, Ohio. In her speech, Dr. Frazer said “we were against the Ethiopian invasion.” This, of course, contradicted what the Somali people and the world already knew — that in January 2007, Washington switched hats from a “tacit supporter” of Ethiopia’s aggression to an active partner in the illegal invasion. A US Air Force AC-130 gunship launched aerial attacks against "suspected Islamist terrorists" based in Somalia.

So, was Dr. Frazer not being entirely honest? Perhaps not, though her statement was cleverly inserted into a context which could only give the impression that Ethiopia invaded Somalia in spite of Washington’s objections. After all, her statement was consistent with the State Department’s position; alas, that was superseded by the hawkish wishes of the Pentagon. And this brings me to the latter of the two original questions. And the simple answer is the establishment of the Africa Command or AFRICOM as it is commonly known.

AFRICOM is a US command center completely devoted to Africa. The primary objective of the command center is to promote US national security by “working with African states and regional organizations to help strengthen stability and security . . .” and creating an environment in which sustainable economic growth is possible. The command center is supposed to focus on “war prevention rather than war-fighting.”

It is no secret that many in the Pentagon consider the Somali port city of Berbera as the ideal location for AFRICOM. However, considering the site-selection criteria jointly developed by the Pentagon and the State Department, including “political stability; security factors; access to regional and intercontinental transportation; availability of acceptable infrastructure; qualify of life; proximity to the African Union and regional organizations; proximity to U.S. government hubs; adequate Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA),” Somalia may not appear to be a prime candidate. However, detaching the secessionist northwestern region from the rest of chaotic Somalia gives a different picture. This explains why the Pentagon's view is that "Somaliland should be independent."

The Pentagon is pressed against time. October 2008 is the deadline for AFRICOM to become fully operational. In the meantime, Somalia’s situation is worsening by the day. The situation there is now considered the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa. According to the UN, approximately one million civilians fleeing Mogadishu have become internally displaced persons (IDP) threatened by severe food shortage.

Oblivious to the scale of this humanitarian catastrophe and how their approach could potentially add another layer of complexity, the Pentagon is eager to accelerate the establishment of AFRICOM, especially now that China is making profound strides in Africa and the European Union is following suit. However, the real setback to Washington is its own self-defeating foreign policy that is treated as suspect everywhere.

According to Congressman Donald Payne, the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Washington should expect “a lot of skepticism, because there has been so little attention given to Africa . . . All of a sudden to have a special military command, I think the typical person would wonder why now and really what is the end game?"

The neocons’ legacy, the DADD syndrome, or the Diplomatic Attention Deficit Disorder, is still propelling Washington’s foreign policy and continues to project America negatively throughout the world, especially in the Muslim world and Africa.

US foreign policy regarding Somalia ought to focus on ending the Ethiopian occupation and therefore ending their widely condemned human rights abuses, as well as facilitating an all-inclusive reconciliation conference before the 2009 general elections. This is congruent, at least in part, with a nine-point recommendation articulated in a communiqué issued by the Somali Cause upon the conclusion of its two-day conference on December 1, 2007. Somali Cause is a nine-member coalition which includes eight US-based organizations and one Canada-based organization.

Somalia: Shifting Policy or a Face-saving Gimmick

2007-12-03T00:18:00.000-05:00

Abukar Arman -
12/1/2007

By all standards, the situation unfolding in Somalia is horrifically grim, and according to the UN, it is the worst crisis in Africa; worse than the crisis in Darfur that outraged the world’s conscience in an unprecedented way.

However, unlike Darfur , Washington has a role in the creation of this massive humanitarian crisis and therefore must have a role in rectifying it.

As Washington was claiming to care about winning the “hearts and minds of the Muslim world” in order to curb the ubiquitous Anti-Americanism around the world, it was stubbornly pursuing that same ill-tempered foreign policy that considers all“Islamists”-- euphemistically understood as all Muslims who believe that their religion is a comprehensive way of life-- potential enemies; that same policy that has proven miserable failure everywhere it was implemented.

As a result, creepily emerging in the past few months was the nightmare scenario that many analysts warned against as John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN, in his last days, aggressively pushed for resolutions that would ultimately pave the way for Ethiopia to invade its neighboring Somalia under the pretext of a preemptive war to protect its national security and contain “the spread of terrorism”.

And as the mainstream media can no longer disregard the magnitude of the human suffering in that part of the world, graphic pictures of the grisly effects of a callously ignored preventable violence and starvation are making their way to the living rooms of millions of household- an ominous reminiscence of early 1990s.

Civilians fleeing Mogadishu ’s brutal violence have reached one million in number- half of the city’s population. These civilians are mainly women and children. And because they cannot cross over to neighboring countries for safe haven since the boarders have been closed for almost a year, they became IDPs (Internally Displaced People). These separate IDPs are deprived of food as almost all aid agencies have pulled out when they found the continuous harassment by the Transition Federal Government (TFG) and the Ethiopian occupation forces unbearable. As a result, “malnutrition rates (is) now reaching 20% among the under 5, way over the UN emergency thresholds”.

Pope Benedict XVI urged global intervention to help end the violence and starvation. "I am anxiously following developments and I call on those who have political responsibilities on the local and international levels to seek peaceful solutions that can bring relief to these people," said the Pontiff. A week earlier, the European Union passed a resolution that "strongly condemns the serious violations of human rights committed by all parties to the conflict” and called for "an independent panel to investigate war crimes and human rights violations”.

Accordingly, these turn of events have compelled Washington to dash for public relations damage control.

The State Department issued a written statement urging all parties in the Somali conflict to “ensure unfettered delivery of humanitarian aid to those affected,” and added that the United States will “remain committed to resolving the ongoing political and humanitarian crisis in Somalia,” something that Washington has given adequate lip-service in the past as it stayed on course, following the same foreign policy blueprint.

However, in an interview with Voice of America , Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, stunned Washington ’s critics by asserting that “the surge in violence in Mogadishu is shared by political extremists as well as forces of the country's transitional government and the Ethiopian troops…”. She also added that“…it is time for Somali moderates to come forward and work to end chronic violence”.

Is this a declaration of policy change? Or perhaps another preemptive strike aimed to create the impression of positive change that would in turn create media echo effect that would shape a favorable public opinion?

Unfortunately, the statement, while it may have raised curiosity in certain circles, rings a bit hollow to those who have been following closely Washington’s deadly enterprise in Somalia.

If the statement, especially the phrase “Somali moderates”, is a euphemism for those who would blindly embark on Washington ’s haphazard engagement in Somalia (by proxy or otherwise), disenchantment will inevitably ensue. Why? You guessed it: Washington ’s credibility-deficient foreign policy with its unenviable track record, especially in the Islamic world.

However, if Dr. Frazer’s statement, which was unique in tone and aspiration, was a genuine attempt to indicate Washington’s paradigm shift; that it finally came to the realization that the US long-term strategic interest in the region and that of Ethiopia are running in a collision course, then the State Department ought to recognize that it needs to do some plowing before it can harvest any thing.

Washington ’s image has been steadily eroding since spring 2006 when ‘Operation Dung beetle,’ a CIA covert operation that financed some of the most brutal warlords to hound after the Islamic courts became public news. This subsequently led to the June 2006 popular uprising that firmly established the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and chased the despised warlords out of Mogadishu .

The courts ruled for 6 months that is described as the most peaceful period that war-torn Somalia has known since the civil war erupted in 1991. Washington viewed this as a threat and ill-advisedly opted to support the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia which, in due course, led to the humanitarian and political mayhem at hand.

There are various reports indicating that the courts had a radical element, but this element was at the fringes of the decision-making process. It was the much broader moderate base within the ICU that had the popular support. And it was clearly this latter group that made ‘reaching out to the international community with an olive branch’ its first priority, and agreed to hold face-to-face talks with the TFG until the provocatively expanding Ethiopian military presence has disrupted the process, causing the political rhetoric to heat up, thus setting the stage for the radical element to step to the front and aggressively make its first deadly move.

Despite that ill-starred backdrop, Washington still has a chance to rectify its wrongs and play a constructive role in helping stop the brutal bloodletting in Somalia by pulling the plug on the Ethiopian occupation and initiating through the UN Security Council a resolution that would replace them with UN forces instead of the mirage of the African Union forces. Similar points was argued by Sadia Ali Aden , president of the Somali Diaspora Network (a group that this author is associated with), in an on-line debate hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations a few months ago.

“By no means is Washington ’s record immaculate. However, the two nations direly need each other to save one another” said Ms. Aden.

Red herring in the Horn: Somalia’s latest drama

2007-11-05T13:50:00.000-05:00

By Abukar Arman
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Nov 5, 2007, 00:55

For almost two decades, the Somali political theatre was inundated with random episodes of tragic comedies that frustrated the average observer and fatigued donor countries that funded numerous failed projects to solve the Somali conundrum.

The drama generated by these episodes routinely blurred the vision of the average Somali activist (especially in the Diaspora), analysts around the world, and indeed stakeholders from seeing with clarity and dealing with the real issues.

Recently the entertaining drama has been the sensationalized departure of a man who in 10 short months left a legacy of infamy and earned his unenviable place in Somali history: Transitional Federal Government (TFG) Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi.

This sensationalized drama became a bigger story than the relentless brutality of the Ethiopian occupation, the systematic ethnic-cleansing, the targeted assassinations of vocal media figures, the rampant piracy, the senseless violence and strategically self-destructive insurgent tactics, and the horrific humanitarian crises causing starvation and displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians, mainly children and women.

So how did a prime minister who perfected the marketable image of the GWT age (Global War on Terrorism) get pulled off his horse any way? After all, Gedi had all the necessary credentials to keep him in his post: the lack of vision, the pelican throat for greed and corruption, the shallow mind and the quixotic view of world politics, the right frown, the right lingo that labeled all his oppositions with the dreaded T-word, and, of course, the lapel pin to shield him with artificial air of patriotism.

More importantly, how can an action of this magnitude -- sacking the ideal figure at the most critical hour -- be credited to a cardboard president who reportedly cannot even call a private meeting in his own presidential palace without first getting clearance from representatives of the Ethiopian occupation forces.

Of course, there was a rift between President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and his former prime minister over the usual business: who stole the most donation dollars, and who was hoarding essential posts for his closest of kin and clan; but, that is hardly the force that kicked Gedi out. And any one who simply focuses on connecting the dots will conclude that this latest drama was settling an issue much bigger than “Abdullahi and Gedi’s” myopic political claptrap.

While in pursuit of their respective “strategic interests,” the most battle-tested army in Africa and the sole superpower of the world have partnered almost a year ago to dismantle the Islamic Courts Union -- a defunct entity that brought six months of peace and order in Mogadishu that many now lament --.and establish the TFG in Mogadishu.

Both Abullahi and Gedi were handpicked by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia who micromanaged the Somali political affairs for over a decade, they also had Washington’s blessings.

But, Gedi’s fortunes would dramatically change once he publicly criticized the secret contract deal his president signed with China that was exposed by the Financial Times of London. He felt left out of the deal and aired his frustration publicly. Oblivious to how his declared position would put Meles, who had his own deal with China to protect, in the spotlight, Gedi threatened to pronounce the contract null and void. Over night he became politically radioactive, so to speak.

And once Gedi sensed he was being ganged up on, he pulled his clan card, and did what many thought was unthinkable: he reached out to the same clan leaders that he once labeled with the T-word. He urged them to continue their struggle to free Somalia from the Ethiopian occupation . . . Something that proved to be the final straw that broke the camel’s back.

With Gedi gone, so is any opportunity for the salivating American oil companies to win contracts in either Somalia or Ethiopia. And Meles is mindful that he cannot be seen as the man who conned the US out of its economic and hegemonic interest in the region, because this will be the beginning of an end for the US/Ethiopian partnership in the Horn. But, before continuing this line of argument, let us take a necessary detour for a moment.

Most of us know what a red herring is. It is smoked fish used by fugitives to lure bloodhounds off the scent track. And in the metaphorical sense, it is anything used to divert attention from the real issue.

Meles is determined to compete with neighboring Sudan, even at the expense of his relations with Washington. Because, as a result of its high profit margin China oil deals, Sudan’s economy has been growing at an incredible rate; and as such, is fast emerging as the Horn’s undisputed economic giant.

And having learnt the ABCs of influencing the American political apparatus, Meles has built a strong lobby led by former high-ranking Congressman Dick Army of Texas.

In early October, even as HR 2003, the Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007 (a bill that, among other things, called for accountability regarding Meles’ brutal human rights abuses in dealing with the people of Ogadenia, Oromia, and the Amhara) passed the House with bipartisan support, the Ethiopian ambassador in Washington had enough confidence to publicly rebuke those members who supported the bill.

In the meantime, the Senate is considering imposing some measure of economic sanctions on the Meles’ regime for its dealings with China. This, of course, is a long departure from that cozy relationship that led to the joint operation that led to the Iraqization of Somalia. And as the end of Bush’s second term approaches, the political pressure to avoid another failed enterprise increases.

From Washington’s perspective: the Bush Doctrine cannot face history with three failed regime-change initiatives (Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia). In other words: diversionary tactics aside, Bush will either have Somalia as one success story to highlight in his exit speech or US and Ethiopian interests will collide head-on.Abukar Arman is a freelance writer who lives in Ohio.
Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal

On Propaganda and Islamophobia

2007-10-19T02:01:00.000-04:00

By Abukar Arman

The daunting reality facing people of conscience is the seemingly impossible task of controlling propaganda in a free society, and how the protected freedom of the perpetrators increases the vulnerability of their potential victims.

In the past few years, while many good things happened to Muslims in America, dark clouds continue to gather over them as a result of relentless propaganda by certain special interest groups. All one has to do is to randomly listen to talk show radio on the AM dial and hear the overtly expressed hate that hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions in America internalize every day and night. And this, needless to say, makes the backlash of any terrorist attack in the US soil a nightmare scenario for all Muslims.

'But, these are words,' the proponents of status quo argue. 'It is not that they are throwing Molotov cocktail bombs in their homes' they insist in order to minimize the power of words.

Perhaps the most powerful skill possessed by human beings (though not all) is the ability to assemble letters and turn them into words, then cultivate these words into dynamic ideas that shape perceptions, condition attitudes, and change minds. And, like all other skills, this too can be used positively or negatively.

Throughout history, words inspired actions that freed generations from the iron fists of despotism. By the same token, words demonized human beings by labeling their thoughts wicked and their lives contemptible, thus justifying policies of repression and oppression against them.

"We constantly speak of human beings in ways which implicitly deny their humanity - in words which reduce them to being mere representatives of a class, mere symbolic representations of some principle. Bourgeois, Bolshevik, Fascist, Communist... ," said Aldous Huxley in a 1936 speech delivered at the Albert Hall, London. "Not one of these words describes the concrete reality of the men and women to whom it is applied... Most people would hesitate to torture or kill a human being like themselves. But when that human being is spoken of as though he were not a human being, but as the representative of some wicked principle, we lose our scruples," Huxley added.

And history tends to repeat itself so long as we don't use lessons of our past experiences to avert recreating another dreadful chapter. Yesterday it was the Jews; today, it is the Muslims enduring a brutal barrage of demonizing disinformation that some compare to the pre World War II atmosphere.

In this age of Reality TV where the real, the unreal, and the surreal are deeply entangled, few have the ability to decipher the disinformation or propaganda for what it truly is. Few would question: Is stereotyping a major religion in its entirety ethical or even prudent? Is there any historical or a current trend supporting the so-called 'Islamo-fascism' propagated by certain vociferous political and religious provocateurs?

(And assuming their charges were correct) The question that begs an answer is, why are the millions of Muslims in the U.S. not wreaking 'fascistic' havoc? More importantly, why do these provocateurs and their Grand Wizards such as Robert Spencer, David Horowitz, Televangelist Pat Robertson, Daniel Pipes, and Steve Emerson, and the cottage industry of fear, outfits such as FrontPage Magazine, JihadWatch, and LittleGreen Footballs keep ranting and raving hate speech that indiscriminately offends Muslims and only gives more fuel to the radical elements?

Hate speech is described as words uttered, recorded, written, pictured, or communicated in any other means (softly or loudly) that are "intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person or a group of people based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion...".

However, as a result of the heinous aggression of 9/11 and the subsequent fear industry, a number of people became desensitized to the dangers of the slithering Islamophobia and its mirrored image, anti-Americanism.

In his radio program on WLW-AM, owned by Clear Channel, host Bill Cunningham had this message for his listeners: "The great war of this generation's time is the war against Islamic fascists... They do not live for life, they live for death. Only through death can they believe they can be with those 72 virgins in heaven and have sex with children for eternity, which is the goal of that religion." And, confident on how frightened into silence Muslims in the US are, when he was asked whether or not he was concerned how his remarks might've offended Muslims, he said he did not get any calls protesting his remarks. So, "I moved on to the Bengals," Cunningham said.

And in the political spectrum, early this summer, while being critical of how in their first two debates the democratic presidential candidates avoided connecting terrorism with Islam, the now frontrunner republican candidate, Rudy Giuliani, had this to say: "During their two debates they never mentioned the word Islamic terrorist, Islamic extremist, Islamic fascist, terrorist, whatever combination of those words you want to use, (the) words never came up... Maybe it's politically incorrect to say that. I don't know. I can't imagine who you insult if you say Islamic terrorist. You don't insult anyone who is Islamic who isn't a terrorist."

Now imagine if media routinely described the widely reported sexual abuses committed by individual members of the Catholic clergy as 'Catholic-pedophiliac culture' and blamed everything on Roman Catholicism or the church doctrine. Or, imagine the Zionist brutal oppression of the Palestinian people being routinely referred to as Zio-Nazism or being blamed on Judaism and the teachings of the Torah!

Recently, however, realists such as General John Abizaid who came to terms that in no way is the venomous rhetoric employed by the propagandists in US' best interest started to speak out.

"Adding the word Islamic extremism, or qualifying it to Sunni Islamic extremism ... all make it very, very difficult because the battle of words is meaningful, especially in the Middle East to people," said the former Commander of the U.S. Central Command.

It is crucial to "figure out how we don't turn this into Samuel Huntington's Battle of Civilizations and we work toward an area where we respect mainstream Islam. There's nothing Islamic about Bin Laden's philosophy, there's nothing Islamic about suicide bombing. I believe that these are huge difficulties that we need to overcome, this notion of Christianity versus Islam. It's not that, it doesn't need to be that," he added.

In its true essence, propaganda is different than other forms of communication as it consciously employs half-truths, falsehoods and misleading information to manipulate feelings and attitudes. Propaganda mainly targets the emotion, because emotions stir the targeted subject into a frenzy of impulsive actions.

Hitler clearly understood this. In his infamous Mein Kampf, he wrote: for propaganda to be more effective it "must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect. We must avoid excessive intellectual demands on our public. The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous,"

And while it is often projected as 'factual' or 'historical', propaganda has little or no connection with truth or history. "Historical truth may be discovered by a professor of history. We, however, are serving historical necessity. It is not the task of art to be objectively true. The sole aim of propaganda is success," wrote Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels.

Accordingly, both facts and history are treated as ever-morphing blocs of information and accounts whose sole purpose is to be conveniently exploited by those who control their access - subjective media, repressive regimes, think tanks, etc.

Today, these gate-keeping entities subjectively frame the debate through relentless disinformation. They box all Muslims with a point of view together - they label some with the dreaded T-word, and frighten the others into utter silence or into an uncomfortable position of having to prove one's "moderate" inclinations all the time.

The propagandists confidently count on their ferocious "noise machine" made of primarily a network of pseudo-media and loyal bloggers with the capacity to repeat any lie long enough to turn it into the prevailing 'truth'.

Recently, a local interfaith body - the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio - that this author is connected with - announced its plan to host an educational forum called "Many Voices of Islam." Its purpose was to provide Muslims a unique opportunity to define themselves and openly share their various spiritual perspectives. The machine waged a hysterical campaign... accusing the association of lack of patriotism, supporting Hamas, and on exposing the country to greater danger.

Ironically, and perhaps while counting on the herd mentality of the frightened masses, this same propaganda machine promotes David Horowitz's spread-the-hate campaign called "the Islamo-fascism Awareness Week" coming to a university campus near you.

Horowitz and his affiliates' hateful mission was first unveiled in George Washington University when students promoting that event plastered provocative fliers all over the university; the most despicable among them being a poster bearing the image of a Muslim man with Islamic attire that read "Hate Muslims? So Do We!"

Meanwhile (and however symbolic), a silver-lining emerged behind the dark clouds hanging over the Muslims in America. Last week, New York's Empire State Building was lit up in green to honor the Muslim holiday Eid-al-Fitr, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

An Open Letter to The Interfaith Association of Central Ohio

2007-10-13T23:33:00.000-04:00

THE PEACE AND JUSTICE FOUNDATION
11006 Veirs Mill Rd, STE L-15, PMB 298
Silver Spring, MD. 20902

In the Name of God, Most Beneficent, Most Merciful

October 11, 2007

Greetings of Peace:

This comes in response to an article submitted to FrontPage Magazine by a deeply disturbed bigot by the name of Patrick Poole. At the conclusion of a recent trip to Columbus, I was given a copy of an article titled “HAMAS in the House.” This bigoted commentary intrigued me for a number of reasons.

For starters, it impugned the integrity of a number of people and organizations that I happen to know personally: Anisa Abdel Fattah, Ahmed Yousef, Robert D. Crane, Abukar Arman, Ahmad Al-Akhras, Mohamad Salah, the American Muslim Council (AMC), Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), SAAR Foundation and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).

In addition to the aforementioned individuals and organizations, Mr. Poole also attacked a number of others who I’ve come to know only through careful research, in my capacity as an advocate with a Metropolitan Washington-based human rights organization - individuals and organizations such as Fawaz Damra, Sami Al-Arian, Sheikh Ahmed Yasin, Mousa abu Marzook, the World Islam and Studies Enterprise (WISE), HAMAS, the Muslim Brotherhood, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda.

Mr. Poole also referenced an incident that unfolded on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, this past August (2007), with the clear intent in mind of hoping to help orchestrate a similar embarrassment for Ohio officials at the State Capitol in Columbus. With this in mind I would like to offer a little food for thought, God willing.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once noted that the true measure of a man (or woman) is not determined during times of “relative comfort and convenience,” but rather, during times of “challenge and controversy.” In this hour the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio is being challenged by the powerful winds of religious bigotry. In order to help you collectively STAND UP to the challenge, I offer the following FACTS.

1. Anisa abd el Fattah is not an “extremist.” She is an intelligent, opinionated and deeply committed activist who cares (among other things) about the tragic plight of the Palestinian people - a people who for the past 60 years have been trapped in an ongoing genocide. That being said, IF she stated, in a letter to the editor of the Columbus Dispatch (as Poole alleges she did) that, “There are no Israeli civilians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. There are only illegal Jewish settlers, who, by Israeli law, are also citizen-soldiers…” - with the implication being that it is permissible for any and all Israelis to be deliberately targeted (according to Islamic law) - she clearly mis-spoke; and if given the opportunity I’m sure that she would correct this misperception.

2. Dr. Ahmed Yusuf is not an “extremist.” He is a deeply committed and caring Palestinian activist; someone who is routinely described by those who know him as a “moderate” - and someone who is understandably committed to the liberation of his people. As one of the principle founders of UASR, I always found him to be genuinely committed to dialogue and peaceful resolution whenever possible. (And I’ve known Dr. Yousef for many years.)

Concerning the work of UASR, I had the pleasure of attending a number of their periodic Roundtable Discussions - including one, by the way, in which the well known islamophobe Daniel Pipes was the featured presenter. (Even he was accorded, from start to finish, far more courtesy than a number of participants thought he deserved.)

There is a book entitled Islam And The West: A Dialogue, edited by Imad Ad-Dean Ahmad & Ahmed Yousef, and published jointly by the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR) and the American Muslim Foundation (AMF). It features a number of these thought-provoking dialogues between leaders and activists from the Muslim community, and writers, journalists and policymakers from the non-Muslim community. This is what the UASR was really all about - conflict resolution through productive dialogue!

3. With all that Mr. Poole had to say about Dr. Robert D. Crane and his dubious connections to UASR (a “HAMAS terrorist front“) and the American Muslim Council - a now defunct organization whose good work he impugns simply because of the personal failings of one of its leaders - he failed to mention that Dr. Crane also served in a number of Republican administrations. (I guess Poole’s operational model is Guilt by association, but avoid the inconvenient truths.)

4. Abukar Arman and Ahmad Al-Akhras are two very active Columbus, Ohio residents who are also not deserving of Mr. Poole’s scare-mongering. As the national vice-chairman of CAIR - an organization that has done much to foster good, healthy American-Islamic relations for over a decade now - one would think that the city of Columbus would feel privileged to have someone like Ahmad Al-Akhras as a resident. As for Abukar Arman, a very decent and caring man, who I know well and interact with often, it was shocking to learn (again, according to Mr. Poole) that someone of such quality and temperament would be forced off of the board that oversees Central Ohio Homeland Security. (If this is indeed true, it is Central Ohio’s loss.)

5. Mohamed Salah, a U.S. citizen of Palestinian birth, was imprisoned and tortured by Israeli authorities for nothing more than exercising his material concern for the humanitarian plight of his own people! After his subsequent return to the U.S. - after approximately five years of unjust confinement - he and his family were then persecuted by his own adopted government. A political trial ended several months ago with Mohamad Salah and his codefendant being found innocent of ALL terrorism-related charges - despite the poisonous (pro-prosecution) post 9/11 climate that surrounded the trial, and the millions of dollars that the US Government devoted to its prosecution!

6. In the opinion of many observers (both Muslim and non-Muslim), the ordeal of Imam Fawaz Damra - like that of Dr. Sami Al-Arian - was also nothing more than a totally unjustified, politically and religiously-driven witch-hunt, which at the end of the day has brought enormous shame on the better of the two Americas.

In the case of Dr. Al-Arian, Mr. Poole failed to mention that when the controversy first erupted around the now defunct World Islam and Studies Enterprise (WISE) at the University of South Florida, many years ago, an outside independent investigation of WISE was commissioned by the university. At the end of the investigation, the finding was that not only were there NO OVERSEAS TERRORIST LINKS to the enterprise, but that WISE was deemed to be an asset to the University of South Florida community!

7. As for Musa Abu Marzook, he too was considered a “moderate” leader within the Hamas organization. Despite this, however, after many years of legal and productive residence in the U.S., Marzook became a political prisoner for a number of years before agreeing to leave the country and never return. When the Clinton Administration designated Marzook a global terrorist in 1995 (if I‘m not mistaken, AFTER his deportation) it was pure politics - US/Israeli style - and nothing more.

As for the punitively disparate treatment accorded to HAMAS - and, by extension, to the Palestinian people by the power brokers within the “international community“ - human rights advocates from a variety of persuasions have for years raised the question: If America and other western nations could recognize a distinction between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and its political wing, Sein Fein; between the openly terrorist wings of anti-Castro Cuban organizations and their American-based political wings, why aren’t the same distinctions made for the political, humanitarian, and military resistance wings of Hamas?!

(We won’t even mention the US and European based organizations that regularly contribute to the brazen violations of well established international law in the occupied territories of Palestine. And as for Israel’s brutal execution of the paraplegic Palestinian leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yasin - along with other innocent bystanders, a few years ago - we were also among those who condemned that extrajudicial murder; and for good reason.)

8. Regarding the raids on the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and the SAAR Foundation (ala, “Operation Greenquest”), we have yet to see a prosecution come out of it; and thus, as far as we are concerned it was nothing more than another well publicized witch-hunt of prominent Muslim organizations in America.

As I near my conclusion (I’ve already gone on a lot longer than I had planned to) I would like to end with a few thoughts on the aborted Capitol Hill conference. I have some first hand knowledge on that initiative because I was one of the main organizers.

It is true that the Sergeant-at-Arms at the U.S. Capitol canceled our use of space on the day before a scheduled event (in the process, violating our rights as U.S. citizens). This action, needless to say, rankled the feathers of a good number of people beyond our own ranks (i.e., senior and mid-level staffers in other offices on Capitol Hill). Why, and how, did it happen?

On the day before the event - a Friday that also signaled the summer recess for the members of both chambers - the Sergeant-at-Arms contacted the congressional office who had reserved the space for our event. He then contacted the congressman directly (he was about to board a plane for a flight out of the country), with a message that his office had received some sort of “intelligence” that raised security concerns about the event that was scheduled to be held the following day. He wanted to know if the congressman was planning to be present - and of course the answer was no.

The short of it is this. We have since met with the congressman; he apologized for the mishap and assured us that we will be able to plan the event again with his full knowledge and support. Should Anisa Abd’el Fattah, Abukar Arman, or Ahmed Al-Akhras wish to be included in the lineup of speakers again, they will be more than welcomed.

(I’m sorry to have to burst Mr. Poole’s bubble, but the “precedent” that he so joyfully alluded to in this matter, will soon be reversed. I pray that the Ohio State House will be spared such an embarrassing ordeal.)

As a final thought, it would behoove us to revisit an observation made by former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brezinski, writing in the March 25, 2007, edition of The Washington Post. (We also feature these excerpts among the closing thoughts in our book titled Islam & Terrorism: Myth vs. Reality.)

“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 damage these three words have done - a classic self-inflicted wound - is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks..” He also noted, “The terror entrepreneurs, usually described as experts on terrorism, are necessarily engaged in competition to justify their existence.”

I can’t help but wonder if this is the primary motive behind Mr. Poole’s shrill episodes of fear and hate-mongering. Whatever it is, people of good will (and sincere faith) must resist such demagoguery, and lead the way to the better angels within human nature. If not now, when?

May your October 28 conference be a blessed event!

Mauri’ Saalakhan
Director of Operations
The Peace And Justice Foundation

Finkelstein-ed Academia and the Truth about Palestine

2007-09-16T19:34:00.000-04:00

Abukar Arman

The long bitter saga of DePaul University ’s scandalous decision to deny tenure to one of its most prolific and internationally renowned public intellectuals, Professor Norman Finkelstein, is officially over. But, not before bringing to light what some consider the most dangerous trend stifling intellectual freedom in the American academia and various circles of influence.

The most famous among the trend-setters are Alan Dershowitz with his legal bullying tactics, and Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz with their infamous Campus Watch. Their apparent target is any and all voice of influence, particularly in academia, that challenges the blind consensus on the Israeli issue and questions whether that its treatment of the Palestinian people is fair or in self-defense.

In recent years, Finkelstein became the leading voice and the public persona of a small army of conscience determined to carry the moral cause championed for years by the late Edward Said- the plight and the oppression of the Palestinian people.

And though within this army of conscience there are those who promote the two-state-solution and those who consider that a moot point and thus promote the single-state-solution, the well being of both peoples has been the central pillar of their argument.

However, to the likes of Dershowitz, Pipes, and Horowitz, the mere mention of the Palestinian rights constitutes Anti-Semitism. Therefore, any one who dares to speak to that issue must be finkelstein-ed. To them, this is not only an effective mechanism to silence, but a moral obligation that all Zio-dogmatists, the blind supporters of Israel , should uphold. But, what does it mean to be finkelstein-ed?

It is to be maliciously branded Anti-Semitic. It is to be gagged, to be silenced, to be profiled, to be tainted, to be ostracized, and to be humiliated. It is to be intimidated, to be harassed, to be dehumanized, to be demonized. It is to be targeted, to be rejected, to be denied access, to be falsely accused, to be black-listed, and to be black-mailed. It is to be ganged upon, to be viciously manhandled, to be wrongly punished, and to be to be brutally injured. It is to be betrayed, to be ambushed, to be caged, and to be buried alive. It is to be intellectually shackled, to be morally scorned, and to be emotionally tortured. It is to be trapped and be hunted down. It is to be ill-indicted, to be ill-represented, and to be ill-judged. It is to be denied due process, to be railroaded. It is to be misconstrued, to be repressed, to be oppressed, to be enraged, to be outraged, and to be pushed to the edge. It is to be brow-beaten, to be bullied around, and to be sucker-punched. It is to be wronged, to be accused of heresy and to be excommunicated. It is to be maligned, to be libeled, to be slandered, and to be exploited.

It is to be crucified....for being the voice of the voiceless, for championing intellectual freedom, for intellectual honesty; for active scholarship, for speaking truth to the power; for moral sanity, for ethical clarity, for refusing to bow to the pressures of a prevalent groupthink, for upholding God-given rights, for upholding the First Amendment.

It does not matter whether one is a Jew or a Gentile, or whether or not one is well-intentioned or ill-intentioned, one is at risk of being finkelstein-ed so long as one dares to criticize Israel . Never mind that allowing criticism and dissent ultimately nurture democratic values. To the Zio-dogmatists with their myopic tribal warrior mentality, criticizing Israel is tantamount to condemning all Jews.

And no one addresses this issue more succinctly than a man named Kevin (from Las Cruces State , New Mexico ) who posted his comment on Ha’aretz’s forum (an Israeli newspaper):

“Finkelstein is a Jew and son of Holocaust survivors. (It is) So sad to see how Jews turn on him because they don`t appreciate the truth of his message. I can tell you, that it would be easy for many to hate Jews because of what Israel does and how Israel was created (ethnic cleansing). But Good Jews like Finkelstein, Chomsky, Halper, Avernery and many others make the world realize that not all Jews are heartless murderers and liars. Jews should (appreciate) these people instead of hounding and attacking them.”

Alas, these introspective words fall on deaf ears.

Last week, Finkelstein and the university issued a joint statement that, on one hand, reaffirmed what his peers were attesting all along per his academic and intellectual capacity; and on the other hand, the statement finalized the professor’s resignation.

Apparently this was not a good compromise as far as Dershowitz was concerned. He was not going to stop because he simply destroyed a man’s career; he had to throw that last punch.

In his patented over- dramatized outrage, he claimed the university’s written statement declaring that "Professor Finkelstein is a prolific scholar and an outstanding teacher" was offensive. He insisted that “The university has traded truth for peace". Then, he went directly after the man whom he has been ferociously attacking and trading insults with for months by saying "The statement that (Finkelstein) is a scholar is simply false. He's a propagandist".

And perhaps as a victory dance, or to show others who might be coming through the pipeline and follow Finkelstein’s principled path how low he (Dershowitz) could go, he had this repugnant statement to make: "I'm happy he's out of academia. Let him do his ranting on street corners."

America is at a crossroad of history. There is a deliberate campaign to silence those who question status quo; there is a daunting trend that clearly outlaws dissent, regardless of its legitimacy. Yet, only few are outraged by the imminent negative consequences these trends may have on freedom of thought and expression. And coincidently, these are, more or less, the same few who decided to break the shackles of fear and speak the truth about Palestine.

Somali politics' monkey-see-monkey-do

2007-07-21T12:26:00.000-04:00

Abukar Arman
July 5, 2007
Middle East Times

It has been over four decades, 47 years to be exact, since Somalia became an independent nation, and the British and the Italian Somali-lands united into one democratic nation - the first of its kind in Africa. In due course, this budding nation would become the continent's most dysfunctional, its first failed state, and also the first to be occupied by another African country.

On this sad reality, virtually all Somalis agree. However, on the factors leading to the current situation, almost all disagree. Bring five Somali experts to discuss the fundamental cause of their country's political conundrum and you are likely to get a dozen different answers. Of course this is what Meles Zenawi's Ethiopia has exploited over the years.

To some, the culprit behind Somalia's circumstances is the dreaded "clannism" - that narcissistic system that classifies Somali polities into superior laan dheer and inferior "laan gab," where the first is perpetually conniving and positioning itself to subjugate the latter. Others would argue it is simply a rebellious anti-autocratic movement run amok. Still others would claim it is the natural order of things when resources are limited: the classic Darwinian "survival of the fittest." Yet others would argue it is the ultra-aggressive culture of certain regions against more pacifist and pluralistic ones. Some would claim it is about land-grab and systematically establishing new demographic facts on the ground in favor of specific clans. And the list would go on.

And while the perception of the cause or causes may differ, what the proponents of each view have in common with the others is that, regardless of what their actual clan record may be, the role of victim is exclusively reserved for the narrator's own.

It is with this backdrop that the current "National Reconciliation Congress" is being organized. Never mind that the Ethiopian occupation and the recent massacre of Mogadishu add another facet of complexity to the matter. Never mind that common sense dictates that no problem is ever solved without first being accurately defined. The race to symbolism is on at full speed, and donor nations remain blindfolded.

In other words: business as usual. No one knows what the problem is, nor its root cause, nor why violence has become the dominant problem-solving method among a society famed for its oral tradition conflict resolution. How did it all start and who is accountable?

By and large, for almost two decades, the Somali clan leaders and intellectuals who participated in the 14 earlier failed reconciliation conferences chose the path of least resistance in their attempt to solve the Somali political conundrum. They submitted to the powerful urge to gang up against anyone who either challenged the all-too-familiar notion that "clannism is the problem and power-sharing is the remedy," or argued that the Somali problem was multifaceted in nature and, as such, required something beyond "power-sharing." People are conditioned to react in certain, predictable ways when they are not sure why. Not unlike the simian subjects of the following experiment.

Five monkeys were put in a cage. Inside the cage, a banana was hung on a string and a set of stairs placed under it. Predictably, one of the monkeys tried to climb up the stairs and reach for the fruit. The minute it set foot on the stairs, all the other monkeys were sprayed with cold water, shocking them senseless. The set-up was later recreated and, shortly thereafter, another monkey made the same attempt. As in the first time, all the other apes were sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, the animals got the picture - and they felt they had to prevent their collective punishment from happening again.

At this stage, the water hose was removed, one of the five creatures was replaced with a new monkey, and the same experiment was repeated. Upon seeing the banana and trying to reach for it, the fresh monkey was surprised with a ferocious gang-beating. After another attempt and another attack, the new monkey came to understand that his actions would result in harsh punishment.

Next, another one of the original five was removed and replaced with yet another monkey. Again, the moment the newcomer reached the stairs, it was attacked ferociously. The other monkey who arrived right before him enthusiastically joined in the beating, though the first never experienced the collective punishment suffered by his caged fellows. Again, the third monkey of the original five was removed and replaced with a new one ... Later the fourth and fifth monkeys were replaced with new beasts. Each time, the same severe reaction was the outcome. To the monkeys, this was the way things ought to be.

For a long time, the profiteers of the Somali civil war, the warlords, the anarchists, and the current occupational force have controlled the water hose and conditioned the people to accept the erroneous notion that a sustainable reconciliation is attainable without addressing what is at issue, without admitting wrongs, without accountability, and without willingness to compromise and, indeed, forgive.

Make no mistake, for a genuine reconciliation to be attained, a new paradigm that puts all grievances into account is direly needed. So is a safe venue, conducive to sincere dialogue. Therefore, the first order of business for Somali politics should be to develop a practical conceptual framework for that paradigm and to secure the right venue, not to resort to arm-twisting, coercion, and compulsion.

When the Politics of Polarization Prevails: Islamophobia and the Specter of Neo-McCarthyism

2007-07-21T12:16:00.000-04:00

Abukar Arman - 7/19/2007
Global Politician

As a beneficiary of the climate of hysteria and suspicion resulting from those heinous acts of terrorism that shock the world on 9/11, pseudo news outlets such as Front Page Magazine has been raised to prominence in certain Islamophobic circles.

They persistently preached their politics of hate in order to sustain what could only be described as the worst foreign policy initiative undertaken by the United States of America- the Iraq war and a never-ending military quest to conquer a deadly mirage known as "global war on terror."

To keep this "overblown threat" ubiquitously alarming, any effort to rationally put the security threat in its appropriate perspective or to build a bridge of understanding between Islam and the West must be viewed as outright dangerous or dubious at best.

Unlike the Middle East Forum which is operated by Daniel Pipes, a man many regard as the Islamophobe par excellence, Front Page Magazine, founded by David Horowitz, a man who is no stranger to controversy, does not pretend to foster any analytical objectivity when it comes to Muslims and Islam.

In his own description, his on-line magazine is dedicated to fighting one particular brand of terrorism; you guessed it, "Islamic terrorism."

However, both Horowitz and Pipes are considered as "experts" in a network of Islamophobes made of individuals, think tanks, lobby and media groups whose primary goal is to marginalize Muslims and kick these "Little Green Footballs (LGFs)" out of the orbit of influence. [LGF is also the most popular website that the network has]

Coincidently, in a span of less than a month, Front Page Magazine has dedicated three or so articles aimed to smear this writer and activist's name along with other Muslims of good community standing. All three vicious diatribes were authored by the same man, Patrick Poole- an obscure character who apparently specializes in maligning Muslims and Islamic organizations.

And in the hyperbolic nature of his argument and paranoia-driven logic that he employs, Poole sounds as someone inspired by Paul Sperry's propaganda book 'Infiltration' in which he claims that the LGFs have been infiltrating their way up to the White House and that it is incumbent upon the good guys to stop them.

Whatever the case may be, this Front Page hit-man has unleashed a barrage of disinformation, half-truths, and innuendoes that implicates many Muslims whose only crime seem to be that they hold a different opinion of the Israeli/ Palestinian issue.

Not that they deny Israel's right to exist as a nation among nations, but they, in some way or another, have been shedding a light on the world's most invisible human rights abuses and what many are now openly describing as that which fuels the raging inferno of the global politics. To the network, these are "terrorist sympathizers" who should be targeted as enemy. But not only Muslims are targeted, for neither former President Jimmy Carter who was recently called "Anti-Semite" and "bigot" nor Professor Norman Finkelstein who was denied tenure at DePaul after the academic review committee has recommend him were Muslims. They were just critical of Israel .

Pipes and Horowitz have co-founded the infamous Campus Watch which, in a manner reminiscent of the McCarthy era tactics of political intimidation and silencing the critics, blacklists reputable professors and academicians who are not willing to sustain the culture of impunity in relation to Israel . Yet there is very little outrage.

In recent years I have written about a wide range of topics that could have flown in the face of the network. I criticized the Neocon-driven foreign policy as a failure-bound policy propelled by psychological intimidation known as "groupthink." I argued against Washington inadvertently turning Somalia into another Iraq and how it was imprudent to paint the now defunct Somali Islamic Courts on one paint brush since all were not militant extremists. But, it wasn't till my article The Finkelstein Principle was published by several media outlets that the heads in certain circles have turned.

If there was ever a straw that broke the camel's back, it probably was this one; for indeed it is the one article that earned me the most hate mails.

Why? Because, as a world renowned scholar who authored several books and numerous articles on the Israeli Palestinian issue and a man whose parents were holocaust survivors, Finkelstein's candid criticism of Israel and the scandalous harassment that that criticism has earned him is not easily dismissible. It is this rampant culture of intimidation that unfortunately suppresses the truth and makes viable political solution to the Middle East problem an impossible task.

Consistent with the Iraq Study Group, experts such as Jonathan Stevenson, professor of strategic studies at the U.S. Naval War College have been arguing that it is time for Washington to change its belligerent foreign policy toward the Muslim world. Stevenson recently wrote "…one of the most important objectives of counter-terrorism is winning 'hearts and minds' to forestall radicalization."

However, winning hearts and minds will remain a tall order so long as the neo-McCarthy windmills continue to operate in full force and generate the negative energy of fear and hate that sustain political polarization.

The unfortunate reality facing America today is that a great number of people have found comfort in the so-called path of the least resistance, the path that requires little or no critical thinking, the one that conveniently sustains the status quo.

The Finkelstein Principle

2007-06-19T19:12:00.000-04:00

Abukar Arman

Just like all other actions, speaking the truth has its reaction and indeed price.

A few months ago, I was honored to join two Middle East experts — Professor John Mueller and Professor John Quigley — in a panel discussion on Jimmy Carter’s “controversial” book (Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid).

As I, a small-time writer, was franticly searching for material to make me sound halfway intelligent, I came across numerous articles, essays, and reviews that offered little or no refutation of the content of the book and instead focused on the author’s alleged “anti-Semitic” motive.

Leading that ad hominem campaign was none other than Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard. No surprise there, as the long time civil-libertarian has lately turned into a blatant advocate of legalizing torture, executing collective punishment, and sustaining the brutal subjugation of the Palestinian people.

As I continued my search, I was distracted by a profoundly more caustic campaign of character assassination by Dershowitz and company aimed at Assistant Professor Norman Finkelstein of DePaul.

I must confess I became more intrigued when I discovered that the latter, albeit being attacked for “anti-Semitic” and “bigoted” views, happens to be the son of two holocaust survivors.

Dershowitz has been on this case for several years. And according to the New York Times, in recent years he lobbied professors, alumni and the administration of DePaul, a Roman Catholic university in Chicago, to deny Finkelstein tenure- a campaign that many faculty members at DePaul and elsewhere complained as being “heavy-handed tactics.” This to them could not be dismissed as an isolated episode of the incivility of modern politics.

So what is the impetus of this ferocious animosity?

Apparently Finkelstein simply did the unthinkable- he dared to set the truth in motion. And, in a time of universal deceit, as George Orwell said, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Like Carter, Finkelstein surrendered to his conscience and decided to swim against the political tides. He criticized the state of Israel for its brutal treatment of the stateless Palestinians. He also, in his scholarly researches, exposed how the Zionists exploited “anti-Semitism” (a real racist phenomenon) to camouflage the atrocities committed by the state of Israel, and how the holocaust tragedy was exploited and was made a “lucrative industry”.

Any one who read his books or perhaps watched Finkelstein recently on the Doha Debates — one of the premiere debate forums moderated by Tim Sebastian, former host of the BBC HardTalk — as he lucidly argued in favor of the motion “This house believes the pro-Israel lobby has successfully stifled Western debate about Israel’s actions” would see why Dershowitz and company would go down as low as defaming Finkelstein’s mother.

In that debate, Finkelstein came across as someone who has reconciled with the fact that he would have to sacrifice a great deal as he fights this lonely and a fateful battle. He was hardly uncomfortable referring to himself as the oldest untenured Assistant Professor.

And though those who campaigned to block his tenure accuse him of academic deficiency, a great number of his peers express otherwise. They scream foul and argue that Finkelstein is being politically persecuted for his intellectual views.

Professor Avi Shlaim of Oxford University, a world renowned scholar and author of many books had this passionate appeal in a recent interview: “Israel has no immunity to criticism, moral immunity to criticism, because of the Holocaust. Israel is a sovereign nation-state, and it should be judged by the same standards as any other state. And Norman Finkelstein is a very serious critic and a very well-informed critic and hard-hitting critic of Israeli practices in the occupation and dispossession of the Palestinians”.

He said Finkelstein has made “…an important contribution to the study of Zionism, to the study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, in particular, to the study of American attitudes towards Israel and towards the Middle East”.

To Shlaim it is important to separate “questions of anti-Semitism from critique of Israel”. And presenting himself as an example, he said “I am critical of Israel as a scholar, and anti-Semitism just doesn't come into it. My view is that the blind supporters of Israel — and there are many of them in America, in particular — use the charge of anti-Semitism to try and silence legitimate criticism of Israeli practices. I regard this as moral blackmail”.

Echoing a similar sentiment, a letter of support signed by hundreds of Finkelstein’s peers had this to say: “To challenge the status quo of Zionist historiography in the U.S., as Finkelstein has done in his scholarship, most certainly ignites controversy; but his ability to address the subject with thorough documented evidence that encourages readers to see the subject of Palestine and Israel anew is precisely why scholars around the world value his work” read a letter of support”.

In response to the news of his denial of tenure, he unapologetically reiterated his principled, indeed inspirational stand by saying: "They can deny me tenure, deny me the right to teach. But they will never stop me from saying what I believe."

In an era when intellectual freedom is routinely suppressed; and at a time when people of good character and moral integrity have become the unprotected endangered specie, here comes Finkelstein walking self-assuredly like a mammoth of moral rectitude.

Discomfort, Anger, Tears, and Foolishness

2007-05-18T16:58:00.000-04:00

May God bless us with Discomfort
at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships,
so that we may live deep within our hearts.

May God bless us with Anger
at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
so that we may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless us with Tears
to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war,
so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless us with enough Foolishness
to believe that we can make a difference in this world,
so that we can do what others claim cannot be done.

- A Franciscan Benediction

Doublethink and the Mogadishu Massacre

2007-05-11T18:19:00.000-04:00

Tehran Times

TEHRAN, May 4 (MNA) -- The prospect of the ill-advised partnership between Meles Zenawi’s Ethiopia and the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) ever solving the Somali problem is dead on arrival.

And though their ferocious military campaign has created a horrific carnage that the International Committee of the Red Cross called “the worst in 15 years” and the UN described as the worst humanitarian crisis of the day, the duo continue to garner support from Washington, whose initial interest was to hunt down “three global terrorist” desperadoes, but now seems to be comfortably laying in the middle of a dangerous intersection, blindfolded, with a big stick in the hand.

Some observers suspect willful blindness staged by the hawkish wing of the administration to pave the way for what could eventually lead to a full-fledged U.S. military involvement. These observers point to a pattern of questionable decisions the administration continues to make in dealing with the situation in Somalia.

Perhaps the most inflammatory among them is the ill-timed visit of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer to Baidoa to meet with President Abdullahi Yusuf as the highest ranking U.S. official to visit Somalia in recent years.

The meeting took place at an extremely sensitive time, when the European Union was expressing concern for war crimes violations, when Human Rights Watch was blaming the U.S. for holding hundreds of ghost prisoners in secret prisons in Ethiopia, and when Amnesty International was blaming the TFG for exacerbating an already deteriorating humanitarian crisis by deliberately preventing the flow and distribution of food to some hundreds of thousands of civilians who fled Mogadishu.

In light of all this, it seems Washington does not care about winning the hearts and minds of the majority of Somalis, those who are against the Ethiopian occupation, who condemn the brutal slaughter in Mogadishu, and who believe there still is a window of opportunity for the United States to involve itself constructively.

“I got nauseated from looking at this picture,” said a retired Somali politician as he handed me a newspaper clip showing the picture of Dr. Frazer and President Abdullahi Yusuf shaking hands and smiling triumphantly to the camera. “Doesn’t this remind you of that infamous handshake of Donald Rumsfeld cutting a deal with Saddam Hussein?” he added.

This, needless to say, is a long way from the “tacit support” position of only a few months ago.

Other observers believe it is Meles’ mastering the language of the day and constantly defining the conflict in whatever illusive terms best justify the actions of Ethiopia and the TFG.

Their spin doctors offer a menu of definitions intended for both domestic and international consumption.

The brutal slaughter in Mogadishu is sometimes described as an old-fashioned inter-clan power struggle where one particular clan’s uncompromising resistance has led to an unavoidable deadly duel. Other times it is described as a direly needed cleansing process of an untamable city that became a “terrorist-breeding” swamp and a “threat to global security”. Other times it is described as a power struggle between the “secularist” TFG and the “extremist” Islamic Courts Union (ICU). Yet, other times, it is described as a struggle between anarchy-addicted profiteers and a constitutionally-driven transitional government.

Of course, these definitions are by no means free of contradictions. However, they get free passes from the media, mainly for two reasons.

First, because the media, by and large, are absent from the seen of the crime, and, as such, are heavily dependent on second-hand information or cooked reports. Second, because most of the media groups in the United States are still embedded, at least in spirit. These groups diligently disseminate the official version without scrutiny. Even when they know where this runaway train might be headed, they still defend the status quo and any wild pursuit of “peace” and “freedom” through war and chaos. And this brings me to the next point, doublethink.

Orwellian doublethink is a mindset acquired by an individual or a group through a conscious process of choosing to embrace two logically contradictory ideas or beliefs at the same time; because that is a testimony to jingoistic conformity.

Meanwhile, the nightmare continues. Corpses decay in the streets, violence spreads across the Somali borders, and hatred proliferates in a country that became the poster child of Africa’s brain drain. A country ruled by brutes with big guns, by individuals with myopic vision and a demonstrated record of deficiency in the capacity to compromise.

Meanwhile, the Meles Doctrine prevails and his “preemptive war” is declared a success by the TFG prime minister.

Meanwhile, a neoconed nation is being taken to the cleaners, once again.

If only a few months ago the multifaceted Somali political dilemma was streamlined into a conflict between two entities -- the TFG and the ICU -- the Ethiopian-led invasion has driven the situation right into the minefields of clan politics.

In spite of that, however, Washington still has a golden opportunity to “…use Somalia as a springboard for reestablishing good relations with the Islamic world” and to restore lost credibility around the world.

Washington could rein in Ethiopia and the TFG by pressuring the former to immediately withdraw its troops and the latter to retreat to Baidoa and to start negotiating with the ICU. It could pressure the UN to send peacekeepers, spearhead a peace and reconciliation conference, and form an international committee to oversee the process.

Ungovernable Somalia and the Imminent Collision of Hegemonic Interests

2007-03-26T02:17:00.001-04:00

Atlantic Free Press
Thursday, 22 March 2007
by Abukar Arman

Modern day Somalia became a nation of profound paradox and a web of political conundrum — a country where perception is always reality; where the “mundane” is a cherished deadly thrill; where “new” political dynamics are nothing but old, and, where potential “solutions” are problems. But, that is not all.

Once again, Somalia became a magnetic political rink that lures powerful entities with incompatible strategic interests into a potentially deadly competition that causes more suffering for that dying state.

In the past it was between the super powers of the Cold War who armed Somalia to the danger zone and paved the way to its ongoing demise. Today, it is between partners on the “global war on terror” with dichotomous interests: Ethiopia — a country lately became known as ‘the Hegemon of the Horn’ — and Washington.

Beneath the veneer of their mutual strategic interest highlighted by their recent military cooperation against the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) there is an intriguing political undercurrent that is rapidly gathering momentum as Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the leadership of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) continue their “business as usual” approach and implement a successive, haphazard set of initiatives that proven to add fuel to inter-clan deadly polarization and keep Somalia in perpetual chaos. The reckless invasion of the residence of an influential clan leader as he met with other clan elders and the former president of the Transitional National Government is but one such example.

The Ethiopian/US invasion prematurely ended a delicate peace process, six months of law and order, and threw Mogadishu back into that all too familiar vacuum of nihilism. Today, motors and artilleries are routinely fired from all directions; assassinations — including high profile ones — became part of the daily rituals; robbery and rape became rampant, and a full-fledged insurgency is underway.

The latter was ignited by the Ethiopian occupation which is seen by the majority of Somalis as that country’s centuries-old hegemonic aspiration coming to fruition. Not only because the TFG Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister recently insinuated annexation enthusiastically, but because of the reports of systematic establishment of new “facts on the ground” that continues to settle thousands of Ethiopian families in various regions such as “Somaliland” and “Puntland” that could, in due course, make annexation of Somalia a tantalizing option.

That is why many Somalis are generally skeptical of the authenticity of the TFG. To many, there is no difference between the TFG led by Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi and President Abdullahi Yusuf and the Ethiopian regime led by Meles. They consider the first duo as self-serving charlatans and the latter as their master and puppeteer.

Yet, as ironic as it may be, the trio insists on convening a “national reconciliation congress” and is already appealing to the international community for the most important element in attaining their objective: “urgent funding.” They are determined to bring together 3000 Somalis who would neither see this as flawed process nor as a delusional enterprise.

According to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi "The situation in Somalia is broadly positive in a sense that the transitional government is embarking on a reconciliation process.” On the other hand, according to the Somali civil societies, voices coming from various Somali intellectual circles and the Diaspora-based organizations: a reconciliation conference that grants one of the parties in conflict the sole authority to dictate who participates, under what terms and preconditions, and more importantly, who arbitrates would, at best, prove an extravagant exercise in futility.

In the mean time, the Bush administration is undergoing a great deal of pressure.

The clock is ticking rapidly toward the end of their second term. The pendulum started to swing back as the administration apparently started to cleanse itself from the influence of a number of Islamophobic and zealot officials; Congress has a new majority, and lawmakers such as Russ Feingold, a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs, are turning up the heat- they are publicly expressing their dissatisfaction with the current policy toward Somalia and are soliciting a better alternative.

However, even with its current policy toward Somalis, the Bush administration realizes the importance of restoring law and order in Mogadishu and establishing a “broad-based” government to the attainment of its strategic goals. It is for this reason that the State Department is actively pushing to bring back ousted leaders such as the last Speaker of the Parliament, Sharif Hassan Aden, and the Islamic courts leaders such as Shiekh Sharif Ahmed.

These leaders carry significant political credibility and clout that could help disarm Mogadishu, restore peace and order, and give credence to any future (mutually organized) intra-Somali reconciliation conference. Alas, neither one is in the Meles’ approved list.

For Meles who micromanaged most of the 14 previously failed “reconciliation” conferences, maintaining the status quo is the sure approach to attaining his overall objective. It is what diverted attention away from him; what veiled his dictatorial tendencies and his regime’s systematic disenfranchisement of certain ethnic groups such as the Amhara; what gave him a carte blanche on human rights abuse; and, of course, secured his country an endless follow of US taxpayers’ dollars as a “partner” in the perpetual global war on terror.

Obviously, that which benefits Meles does not only hurt Somalia.

The Overblown Terror Threat and Islamophobia

2007-01-28T02:10:00.000-05:00

by Abukar Arman
Antiwar.com

Analysts both in the Muslim and the Western world by and large agree that fear and lack of objective dialogue are the root cause of Islamophobia and anti-Americanism. And while the debate on which one of the two ignited the other is still ongoing, one fact remains irrefutable: more people were victimized as a result of Islamophobia than the other way around.

A recent public opinion survey conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) indicates that Muslims are still viewed negatively in the US There are estimated 7 million Muslims in America and over 50 thousand in Central Ohio alone – the majority being Somalis.

Among a number of questions raised in the survey, the open-end question "When you hear the word 'Muslim,' what is the first thought that comes to your mind?" had the revealed the most daunting reality that Muslims still carry the 9/11 burden. Six percent of those surveyed indicated positive perception as they offered response such "good religion," "good people," "faithful," "devout," "misunderstood." On the other hand, twenty-six percent of them indicated to espouse negative perceptions about Muslims as they offered answers such as "violence," "hatred," "terrorists," "war," "guns," "towel-heads" and "rag-heads."

The irony is that this came at a time when Muslims in the US and in the West were doing more outreach than ever before. Are the powerful engines that propel the "war on terror" blowing smoke of fear and distrust that ultimately hindered efforts toward building bridges of understanding?

I recently had an opportunity to interview Professor John Mueller, the author of bestselling book Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them. Professor Mueller is a national security expert. He holds the Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies at the Mershon Center.

In that interview arranged by SomaliLink Journal, Professor Mueller reiterated the premise of his book that America is frightened senseless…and that there are some "well-meaning" special interest groups "who grossly exaggerated the threat of terrorism" and as a result created "terrorism industry" that in due course became an economic abyss.

The national treasury is being drained as the US tries to build a bulwark against a mirage of fear and dashes to every corner of the world where "the al-Qaeda flag is waved."

"If there were any sleeper cells or al-Qaeda operatives who are as determined, as inventive and as demonically competent as assumed, why have they not done it yet, especially when carrying a terrorist act does not require flying planes into buildings? Could it be because they are not yet here? If not, they must not been trying hard enough or perhaps they are far less dedicated, diabolical, and competent than we are being told." said Professor Mueller. "Apparently, there are no terrorists under the bed or hiding in mosques – the very lamppost that they should be avoiding in the first place" he added.

And while Professor Mueller acknowledged the need and the importance of enhancing the security of the United States, he repeatedly pointed out the sheer absurdity that justifies the post 9/11 fear-driven policies and initiatives. He said the FBI embraces a spooky line of reasoning that he refers to as "I-think-therefore-they-are." He quoted the FBI Director Robert Mueller who said "…the greatest threat is from al-Qaeda cells in the US that we have not yet identified," who substantiates his claim by repeating "his alarmist mantra" and telling the public "I remain very concerned about what we are not seeing."

According to Professor Mueller, it is this kind of mindset combined with the rhetoric of fear-mongering politicians whose aim often is to frighten voters to their side; lazy journalism and the media's desire to sensationalize the news; and those in the security business who are motivated to seize this golden opportunity to push their services and maximize their profits that perpetuate the terrorism industry, keep Muslims demonized, and the anti-terrorism laws irrationally rigid.

Even a well-meaning innocent person could be held as an "enemy combatant."

"When a judge raised a hypothetical question on who might be detained as an enemy combatant and asked 'what about an old lady in Switzerland who donates money to an orphanage in Afghanistan who, unbeknown to her, finances al-Qaeda? Could she be detained as an enemy combatant?' The answer provided by the Justice Department representative was simply 'Yes.'"

The rationale of course is that "we live in age of terror" – a notion that Professor Mueller outright rejects as "hyperbolic." He said "the probability of an American being killed by an act of terrorism is 1 in 80,000, which is more or less the same probability of being hit by an asteroid." But, no one is frightening people with the latter.

"Including 9/11 in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism in the last three decades is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer, or severe allergic reaction to peanuts." Yet, the message often repeated is that the sky is about to fall….which makes diplomacy seem irrelevant. Despite all this, Professor Mueller still maintains a rare sense of optimism. He believes an introspective government working with people of goodwill can change the course of history.

And, in order to reverse the current trend, two main things must happen: first, the gross inflation of the threat of terrorism that implicitly portrays Muslims as ticking bombs must be appropriately calibrated. Second, diplomacy and constructive dialogue must be revived, and moderate Muslims must be engaged. by Abukar Arman

Analysts both in the Muslim and the Western world by and large agree that fear and lack of objective dialogue are the root cause of Islamophobia and anti-Americanism. And while the debate on which one of the two ignited the other is still ongoing, one fact remains irrefutable: more people were victimized as a result of Islamophobia than the other way around.

A recent public opinion survey conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) indicates that Muslims are still viewed negatively in the US There are estimated 7 million Muslims in America and over 50 thousand in Central Ohio alone – the majority being Somalis.

Among a number of questions raised in the survey, the open-end question "When you hear the word 'Muslim,' what is the first thought that comes to your mind?" had the revealed the most daunting reality that Muslims still carry the 9/11 burden. Six percent of those surveyed indicated positive perception as they offered response such "good religion," "good people," "faithful," "devout," "misunderstood." On the other hand, twenty-six percent of them indicated to espouse negative perceptions about Muslims as they offered answers such as "violence," "hatred," "terrorists," "war," "guns," "towel-heads" and "rag-heads."

The irony is that this came at a time when Muslims in the US and in the West were doing more outreach than ever before. Are the powerful engines that propel the "war on terror" blowing smoke of fear and distrust that ultimately hindered efforts toward building bridges of understanding?

I recently had an opportunity to interview Professor John Mueller, the author of bestselling book Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them. Professor Mueller is a national security expert. He holds the Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies at the Mershon Center.

In that interview arranged by SomaliLink Journal, Professor Mueller reiterated the premise of his book that America is frightened senseless…and that there are some "well-meaning" special interest groups "who grossly exaggerated the threat of terrorism" and as a result created "terrorism industry" that in due course became an economic abyss.

The national treasury is being drained as the US tries to build a bulwark against a mirage of fear and dashes to every corner of the world where "the al-Qaeda flag is waved."

"If there were any sleeper cells or al-Qaeda operatives who are as determined, as inventive and as demonically competent as assumed, why have they not done it yet, especially when carrying a terrorist act does not require flying planes into buildings? Could it be because they are not yet here? If not, they must not been trying hard enough or perhaps they are far less dedicated, diabolical, and competent than we are being told." said Professor Mueller. "Apparently, there are no terrorists under the bed or hiding in mosques – the very lamppost that they should be avoiding in the first place" he added.

And while Professor Mueller acknowledged the need and the importance of enhancing the security of the United States, he repeatedly pointed out the sheer absurdity that justifies the post 9/11 fear-driven policies and initiatives. He said the FBI embraces a spooky line of reasoning that he refers to as "I-think-therefore-they-are." He quoted the FBI Director Robert Mueller who said "…the greatest threat is from al-Qaeda cells in the US that we have not yet identified," who substantiates his claim by repeating "his alarmist mantra" and telling the public "I remain very concerned about what we are not seeing."

According to Professor Mueller, it is this kind of mindset combined with the rhetoric of fear-mongering politicians whose aim often is to frighten voters to their side; lazy journalism and the media's desire to sensationalize the news; and those in the security business who are motivated to seize this golden opportunity to push their services and maximize their profits that perpetuate the terrorism industry, keep Muslims demonized, and the anti-terrorism laws irrationally rigid.

Even a well-meaning innocent person could be held as an "enemy combatant."

"When a judge raised a hypothetical question on who might be detained as an enemy combatant and asked 'what about an old lady in Switzerland who donates money to an orphanage in Afghanistan who, unbeknown to her, finances al-Qaeda? Could she be detained as an enemy combatant?' The answer provided by the Justice Department representative was simply 'Yes.'"

The rationale of course is that "we live in age of terror" – a notion that Professor Mueller outright rejects as "hyperbolic." He said "the probability of an American being killed by an act of terrorism is 1 in 80,000, which is more or less the same probability of being hit by an asteroid." But, no one is frightening people with the latter.

"Including 9/11 in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism in the last three decades is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer, or severe allergic reaction to peanuts." Yet, the message often repeated is that the sky is about to fall….which makes diplomacy seem irrelevant. Despite all this, Professor Mueller still maintains a rare sense of optimism. He believes an introspective government working with people of goodwill can change the course of history.

And, in order to reverse the current trend, two main things must happen: first, the gross inflation of the threat of terrorism that implicitly portrays Muslims as ticking bombs must be appropriately calibrated. Second, diplomacy and constructive dialogue must be revived, and moderate Muslims must be engaged.

The Making of Another Iraq

2007-01-04T14:24:00.000-05:00

FPIF Commentary

Abukar Arman January 3, 2007
Editor: John Feffer, IRC

Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org

A new front in the “global war on terror” has emerged with its center in war-torn Somalia. The target of the new front, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), both brought back normalcy to seemingly untamable southern Somalia and anxiously legislated morality to the point of social suffocation. According to the U.S. State Department, its greatest sin was its purported link to al-Qaida.

The military action to crush these “Islamic extremists” is already underway. Washington-supported Ethiopian troops carried out a preemptive attack against Somalia at the end of December. Ethiopian tanks roared all the way to the capital Mogadishu and then on to Kismayo near the Kenyan border. The invasion proved easier than expected. The comparatively more powerful Ethiopian army teamed up with a militia loyal to the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to achieve their objective of regime change with an ease ominously reminiscent of the entry into Baghdad of the “coalition of the willing.”

With Ethiopian troops now in charge of Mogadishu, the political situation in Somalia has escalated dangerously. Militias are once again lining up according to clan loyalties. Ruthless warlords are resuming their pre-ICU roles, already setting up the infamous roadblocks, returning to banditry, and even carrying out vindictive assassinations. “My suspicion is that this is just another face of the conflict—clan versus clan; warlords versus warlords; ICU versus TFG—and the final chapter is not written yet,” says Abdi Kusow, one of the leading Somali intellectuals in the diaspora.

The presence of foreign troops has profoundly changed the political dynamics in Somalia. A grassroots-driven, wrathful nationalism will intensify, with ramifications beyond the Somali geographical boundaries. Indeed, unless the current trend is immediately reversed, the conflict will likely set the entire Horn of Africa on fire, spark an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, and widen the divide between the West and the Islamic world.

A Flawed Resolution
Until recently, the Islamic Courts controlled all but a small area of Somalia. The federal government, with the support of the Ethiopian troops, maintained control over the southwestern town of Baidoa. Then, in early December, Washington pushed a controversial resolution through the UN Security Council. The resolution authorized military intervention and the partial lifting of the arms embargo imposed on Somalia before the largest humanitarian mission in modern history (Operation Restore Hope) was undertaken 14 years ago. Many of Washington's closest allies, including Britain, refused to cosponsor the resolution for its partiality and polarizing nature. The decision was also poorly timed, since the Khartoum peace talks between Somalia's two major contending forces, the ICU and the TFG, was scheduled to resume the following week.

The ICU claimed that the resolution essentially ushered in Ethiopia through the back door by, among other things, failing to address the Ethiopian troops already present in the country since they first intervened in July.

The UN resolution opened up the flow of arms and money to the regime of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who perpetuated Somalia's political hemorrhage for the past sixteen years through the financing, training, and arming of one faction against another. The resolution not only gave the estimated 8,000 troops who had been operating in Somalia the legitimacy to continue arming and “protecting” one side of the parties in conflict (TFG) but to take action against any group that “threatens the stability of the region,” a phrase euphemistically understood to mean “Islamists.” After the passage of the resolution, Ethiopia used Washington's preemptive war doctrine to widen its intervention. This intervention into Somali internal affairs also discredited the moderates for whom such foreign preconditions were a kiss of death.

By taking on the ICU in order to find a handful of suspected terrorists in its midst, Washington was imprudently “looking to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut,” as an unnamed Western diplomat aptly put it. The same diplomat added that “even if they do get their six or so ‘high-value' terror targets they will pay for it in frankly hundreds of people being converted to the cause.” Similarly, U.S. intervention in Iraq, presented as a way to combat terrorism, actually served as a recruitment opportunity for al-Qaida.

“I think the U.S. government panicked. They saw Islamic group; they said, Taliban is coming,” says Herman Cohen, former assistant secretary of State for African affairs. As with Iraq, Washington fell for politicized intelligence, probably from Ethiopia, which was eager to enlist U.S. assistance to deal with a potential security threat of its own. By giving tacit support to Ethiopia and because of its ill-advised preference for military solutions over diplomatic negotiations, Washington is helping to remake Somali in the image of Iraq....

Read the full piece by linking to FPIF http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3864

Iraqization of Somalia Could Widen the Divide between the West and the Islamic World

2006-12-08T20:55:00.000-05:00

American Chronicle

As the international community embarks on a frantic diplomatic quest to extinguish the raging political and sectarian fire in Iraq, fatalist ideologues within the Bush administration, in partnership with certain money-motivated regional political powerbrokers, are busy igniting another one in Somalia.

Remnants of the Neocons led by John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN, are stubbornly pursuing their bankrupt ideology based on the ill-advised perception that ‘all Islamists are irredeemable extremists’ and that ‘force is the only means to deal with them’.

The Ambassador succeeded in getting a highly controversial resolution adopted by the UN Security Council in the face of various friendly warnings (including the European Union) who thought forced intervention would cause unnecessary deaths, destruction, and unprecedented refugee crises as other countries in the Horn might be drawn into a bloody struggle.

The resolution mandates partial lifting of the arms embargo on Somalia and approves a military intervention by African nations despite repeated objections by the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) who said they would consider any foreign intervention as an act of war.

The ICU’s position on this issue is popular among Somalis who are already outraged that an estimated 8000 Ethiopian troops are illegally deployed in various strategic locations in Somalia, and see this military intervention initiative as an ill-intentioned plan masterminded by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia (Somalia’s nemesis par excellence).

Just last week, Dec 2nd, I attended a conference to promote peace and unity in Somalia. The conference was held in the Center for International and Strategic Studies (Washington, DC) and attracted over one hundred Somali intellectuals, scholars, diplomats, and political activists who came from various cities in North America.

The prevalent theme was that externally, Meles Zenawi is playing a menacing role to keep Somalia divided, and his vicious “fear and smear campaign” has, by and large, been successful and that it is a matter of time before he is given the green light to invade Somalia (preferably unilaterally as there is a precedent) and “crush” the Islamists next door.

And internally, ICU, with its various shortcomings, is the best thing that happened to Somalia in the past 16 years. And due to a severe shortage of technocrats and civil servants, the courts suffer from lack of capacity in areas of diplomacy and overall governance; as such, they ought to be supported and, on the other hand, pressured to continue their dialogue with the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and to reach a power-sharing agreement them- it is the only way to sustain peace.

Two weeks earlier, the Ethiopian people expressed their opposition to any military intervention that they see as their Prime Minister’s attempt to smokescreen his internal human rights abuses. During the Addis Ababa Marathon some 25,000 people have turned the event into spontaneous anti-war demonstration denouncing Prime Minister Zenawi’s obsessive itch for a preemptive war” against Somalia. The crowd was reportedly chanting “No to the Meles war”.

Could this intervention be a diversionary tactic to disguise the draconian measures exercised by the Ethiopian Prime Minister in order to hang onto power, or perhaps a desperate effort to resuscitate a dying ideology?

Whatever it may be, skepticism is high. In the blogsphere and in popular Somali websites many are wondering: how is a country abandoned by the world to die a slow death in the hands of its ruthless warlords all of a sudden attracting worldwide attention? Why is Somalia now the center of gravity?

The controversial military intervention is not without a pretext; though the 86-page report by The Monitoring Group made a variety of claims that many analysts considered outlandish political claptrap. The report, ironically, is peppered with various allegations similar to those used to justify the war of Iraq. The parallel to the pre Iraq invasion is curiously staggering if not eerily haunting. Most of the critical elements that made the war on Iraq possible are at hand as Meles Zenawi declared “we are ready” to take on ICU.

There is the demonized entity that perfectly fits the role… as some in the ICU leadership have threatened to call on a world-wide jihad (the mother of all wars) should they be invaded. There is also the allegation that ICU exported 720 of its army (Al Shabaab or The Youth) to help Hezbollah against Israel, and gave access to Iranian scientists to explore uranium in Dhusa Mareb reminiscent of the “yellow cake” purchase in Niger.

However, if there was one particular thing that discredited the report it has to be the claim that ICU has sent one fourth of its estimated 3000 Al Shabaab militia at a time when they were struggling for their own survival against the warlords to an entity that they have no known ties with and for a cause (defensive jihad) that they were already in the middle of.

Make no mistake, the resolution at hand is not going to advance peace; if any, it would radicalize ICU and give the extremists the upper hand. The resolution, I am afraid, would be seen as the second phase of ‘Operation Dung Beetle’- the covert action fiasco of last summer that brought the US in an unholy alliance with the most despised warlords.

Abukar Arman is a freelance writer who live in Hilliard, Ohio

Somalia Conflict Risk Alert

2006-11-27T12:37:00.000-05:00

In its statement below, not only is the International Crises Group (ICG) joining the European Union (EU), the Arab League (AL) and voices of reason around the world who are optimistic about the ongoing peace negotiation between the Islamic courts and the transitional government, they are warning against yet another US foreign policy disaster. ICG predicts a disastrous outcome for all stakeholders should an unwelcome military intervention be approved by the UN Security Council, something that Ambassador John Bolton and the remnants of the Neocon warmongering machine are still pushing forward.
Abukar Arman

Somalia Conflict Risk Alert
INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP

Nairobi/Brussels, 27 November 2006: The draft resolution the U.S. intends to present to the UN Security Council on 29 November could trigger all-out war in Somalia and destabilise the entire Horn of Africa region by escalating the proxy conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea to dangerous new levels.

Instead of siding with one party in the civil conflict – the weak and fragmented Ethiopia-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) – the Council should apply maximum pressure on both it and the Eritrea-backed Council of Somali Islamic Courts (CSIC) to resume negotiations without preconditions.

The proposed resolution, which has the backing of African members of the Security Council, would authorise deployment of a regional military force (IGASOM) in support of the TFG and exempt that entity and troop contributing countries – Ethiopia, Uganda and possibly Kenya, amongst others – from the existing UN arms embargo. While its objectives are to strengthen the TFG, deter the CSIC from further expansion and avert the threat of full-scale war, it is likely to backfire on all three counts.

Crisis Group has consistently opposed deployment of a regional intervention force – especially one involving front-line states such as Ethiopia – unless it has the consent of all warring parties, and called for more robust enforcement of the UN arms embargo. The UN Monitoring Group, which reported on 16 October, similarly cited the dangers of such a deployment and urged instead strengthening the arms embargo through surveillance of all Somali borders.

Despite international recognition, the TFG has never enjoyed broad support or legitimacy within Somalia, and the TFG parliament split badly when it debated the issue of foreign troops in March 2005. Actual deployment would likely fracture the parliament beyond repair and reinforce the impression that the TFG is simply a proxy for Ethiopia. The loss of legitimacy in the eyes of the Somali public would be irreversible.

The CSIC, which controls most of south central Somalia, has repeatedly declared that it will wage a “jihad” against any foreign troops on Somali territory, including the Ethiopians already deployed there. It would likely perceive Security Council passage of the resolution as tantamount to a declaration of war. Rather than wait for the TFG to arm itself, it might well launch a pre-emptive attack on its seat in Baidoa. The CSIC is viewed as a danger to its neighbours because of its irredentist views, and support for international terrorist elements and cross-border Ethiopian rebel groups. In addition, it threatens to unseat the internationally recognised TFG. Instead of prioritising military protection of the TFG against the CSIC – which is itself receiving military support from as many as eight external countries – the international community should challenge the CSIC to reform its stance on each of these points and work towards a negotiated solution with the TFG.

The TFG and CSIC are scheduled to meet in Khartoum in mid-December for a third round of Arab League facilitated peace talks. Although previous talks made little headway, more effective international pressure on the parties, including a more active involvement from the UN Secretary General via his Special Representative, would increase the likelihood of success. Without this, the resolution would give the CSIC an excuse to withdraw altogether and would kill any hope of a negotiated ceasefire. Military confrontation would be the only remaining option.
Instead of authorising deployment of a regional force, the Council should push both parties to resume peace talks immediately. First on the agenda should be a comprehensive ceasefire covering:

· disengagement of opposing forces;
· withdrawal from Somalia of all foreign troops and military trainers; and
· deployment of an International Verification Mission to monitor compliance
with the agreement.

Any UN-sponsored military deployment should be designed to support an agreed ceasefire, not undermine efforts to achieve such a ceasefire, and should be made up of forces acceptable to both parties. If either party fails to demonstrate genuine commitment to this process, the Council should impose travel bans on its leaders, freeze assets and authorise economic sanctions against business interests.

As so often in Somalia, the consequence of an ill-considered intervention is likely to be more conflict, not less. Military measures must remain a weapon of last resort.

Contacts: Andrew Stroehlein (Brussels) 32 (0) 2 541 1635Kimberly Abbott (Washington) 1 202 785 1601To contact Crisis Group media please click here

The International Crisis Group (Crisis Group) is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation covering over 50 crisis-affected countries and territories across four continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict.

The Somali Political Cliffhanger

2006-11-12T15:24:00.000-05:00

The Somali Political Cliffhanger
By Abukar Arman

Middle East Times (Egypt)

As the third round of the Khartoum peace talks ended in disappointment, the question on the minds of many stakeholders is “How would the Somali political riddle ever be solved peacefully?” How would a country that is allergic to political stalemates and is already fatigued by years of tail-chasing “peace negotiations” survive this round of disappointment?

There are no easy answers in this suspenseful saga.

Nevertheless, it behooves all objective stakeholders to refrain from pouring more fuel onto this fire. Furthermore, it is critical to contextualize the problem at hand in order to pinpoint the most serious impediment to the peace process.

Granted, the Somali political problem is constantly changing- today’s problem could be tomorrow’s solution and vice versa. However, at this juncture, nothing seems to present more serious challenge to the peace process than the constant drum-beat for more bloodshed by certain network of fear merchants.

This network is relentless in keeping the pressure on. They effectively dominate public opinion and push a dangerously simplistic notion that with a strong hammer and a determined mind, all political problems are solvable. To them, all that Somalia needs is one decisive war to “eradicate the Islamists” who they consider the only threat facing the Horn of Africa.

The Khartoum was aborted and indefinitely postponed when the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) protested both the presence of (UN estimated) 8000 illegally deployed Ethiopian troops in Somalia and a special privilege afforded to Kenya in its newly appointed role as the vice chair of the conference- two political developments that the courts considered were advantageous to their counterpart, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

The TFG wasted no time. They immediately unleashed a barrage of inflammatory charges that accused the ICU of being guilty of crimes that, among other things, included the assassination of former Somali speaker of the parliament who was, ironically, known before his assassination as the most vocal critic of TFG president and his prime minister for their respective roles in ushering Ethiopian troops into Somalia. Even more dramatically as these charges were read immediately after the postponement was announced, they accused the courts of having a sinister global “jihadi agenda”, and for developing a terrorist hit-list to be executed in places such as Addis Ababa and Nairobi. TFG spokespeople repeated the ominous sound bite that the ICU demands were nothing less than a declaration of war…

Of course these wholesale accusations are not entirely new as TFG representatives have either said or insinuated tem in the past; however, the timing is a whole different story.

Why this take-no-prisoner approach? Why in such haste? Has the TFG given up on any future peace talks and decided to place all its bets on Ethiopia’s kick-the-door-down military initiative?

Whatever the motive, one should never underestimate the fact that the demands made by the ICU resonate with the average Somali (especially the intellectuals in the Diaspora) regardless of clan affiliations.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi who was held with high esteem from his days as a freedom fighter based in Mogadishu, and later as a principled leader of his nation who reciprocated the favor by welcoming thousands of Somali refugees fleeing the civil war into his country is now widely known as the most dangerous political arsonist in the Horn- a masterful post 9/11 Terror-preneur who will exploit any opportunity to gain an economic or a political edge. And Kenya who enjoyed a similar esteem, as it hosted Somali refugees and facilitated a marathon peace conference that gave birth to the current TFG, has fallen from grace ever since it turned into a staunch supporter of the Ethiopian plan- a decision that many believe was designed to sustain the refugee industry that the Kenyan economy became so dependent on.

From their perspective, however, both Ethiopia and Kenya consider the ICU as an outfit of irredeemable extremists who could be menace to the peace of the region.

Ever since they came to power, the ICU has been under the microscope, both internally and externally. Some analysts are convinced that there are criminal elements within the courts. But that is hardly shocking since characters of all shades and persuasions have joined the courts in recent months.

At this stage of extreme anxiety, it is almost impossible to analyze with accuracy whether or not a given attitudes or positions will, in due course (as threats subside), self-calibrate. Whatever the case maybe, there is an ample evidence indicating that the extremist element does not call the political shots.

Judging from their repeated declaration that their primary goal is to secure peace for their homeland, their appeal to the international community for understanding, and indeed their recognition of the legitimacy of the TFG and their willingness to share power with them, the moderate pragmatist element is clearly the propelling force moving ICU’s political engine.

These facts cannot be ignored.

Recently, when a female student asked the ICU chairman Sheikh Sharif Ahmed in a BBC broadcasted town-hall meeting in Mogadishu “Will you allow women to work in the media?”, the chairman answered reassuringly "Actually, I am happy a woman is asking this question - at a university campus".

Probing questions were streaming from all directions. However, at the end of the day, the message was laud and clear to the over 400 students who were in the attendance ‘it is a new day, and there is nothing to fear’.

“For years the Mogadishu air was filled with the smell of gunpowder…Today, the air is filled with appetizing aroma of the slow-roasting goat meat and onion-fried rice coming from the neighborhood homes”, said Abdulqadir as he echoed a sentiment widely heard since the warlords were chased out of Mogadishu.

How long would this peace last?

Somalia: Caught Between Cynicism and the Specter of War

2006-10-28T18:35:00.000-04:00

Sat, 2006-10-28 04:37

By Abukar Arman

Asian Tribune (Thailand)

After ridding off Mogadishu and other areas in southern Somalia what was widely considered as the nation’s deadliest political parricides-- the warlords -- no sustainable peace is yet attained.

Internally, ever since the Transitional National Government (TFG) made its ambivalence to negotiate with the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and participate in the Khartoum peace process known, ICU has taken certain unilateral measures that broadened its sphere of influence- measures that further alienated the paralyzed TFG. In fact, some analysts consider this as a prelude to an immanent clash between these two entities.

While the TFG is widely criticized for its incompetence as they remain in their self-imposed exile within the same country that they were elected to rule, the ICU has succeeded in securing peace and order in Mogadishu. They cleaned the city, for most part; they opened the ports, and stopped consumer exploitation and the importation of expired food and medicinal products. However, they started to loose public confidence as they started to impose harsh, top-down brand of Sharia. Also, as they alienate various civil society organizations (religious and secular) who not only cheered them against the warlords a few months earlier, but helped them get accepted as champions of the public interest.

ICU’s biggest challenge might be how to moderate those who are dangerously intoxicated with the euphoria resulting from the swift victory over the warlords who are riding high with a false sense of invincibility and indeed infallibility.

Though they only constitute a fringe minority, these individuals routinely freelance on narrow-vision fatwas and espouse rigid interpretation of Islam. These seem to be oblivious to the fact that the Qur’an itself was revealed in a piecemeal process, attesting to what the majority of the Islamic scholars agree: that societal reform is a process and that it should only be approached as such; and that no reform ever takes place without education.

As a result of the image that they project, some experts were quick to blame the September 17th murder of an Italian nun in Mogadishu and the attempted assassination of TFG President, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, in Baidoa the day after on ICU….describing these crimes as the “prevalent fanaticism” that personifies the courts. In reality, of course, the ICU issued statements condemning both acts and their perpetrators.

Either way, as more and more controversial (social and religious) measures are implemented in its name, it might become very difficult to convince people that this is not "the Taliban in their heyday."

Externally, Ethiopia continues to aggressively use "war on terror" to push what the majority of Somalis recognize as that nation’s historical hegemonic ambition toward war-torn Somalia. "We will use all means at our disposal to crush the Islamist group…" said Ethiopia’s Information minister, Berhan Hailu. Threats like this one, coupled with the widely reported claim that Ethiopian forces are already in various towns in Somalia, has galvanized the ICU to run for its survival and mobilize some of its armed militias to specific boarder towns.

When not threatening a unilateral military confrontation, the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, has actively been pushing a military intervention initiative that would send troops from “frontline states” such as his own, Kenya, and Uganda. And while the initiative has recently been approved by the African Union, it is adamantly opposed by the president of Djibout, Ismail Omar Guelleh, who is on record saying "to send troops to Somalia is meant to serve the interest of particular nations and not Somalia", and the Eritrean president, Isaias Afwerki, who labeled the initiative as an "Ethiopian crusade."

In the meantime: In a frantic diplomatic effort aimed to defuse the intensifying tensions in that part of the world, the UN and the Arab League have been sending their respective envoys to various countries to directly or indirectly pressure the TFG to not boycott the Khartoum peace process and for ICU to stop taking steps that could damage the peace process.

The US, on its part, has been the anxious spectator ever since the June fiasco in which the Bush administration was caught red-handed supporting the most vicious warlords of Mogadishu…

However, this might change soon.

The voices urging US paradigm shift toward Somalia have been growing in authority. An October 18th Washington Post editorial piece asserted that the Bush administration "ought to appoint a special envoy to the region that could begin to work with the Ethiopian, Eritrean and regional Somali governments, and try to restrain them from touching off a regional war." Moreover, the administration "should seek contact with moderate elements in the Islamic courts (there are some) and encourage the ongoing mediation efforts of the Arab League" concluded the piece.

Already there are sporadic reports confirming that the State Department has been working through indirect diplomatic channels in dealing with the ICU. This may prove to be a golden opportunity for the US to mend fences with the Islamic world and regain its lost credibility, and to demonstrate that its controversial "war of terror" is not war on Islam. Conversely, this may also prove that the ICU is not, as some accuse them, ragtag radicals who severely lack both the vision and the diplomatic skills necessary to run a modern state.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Abukar Arman is a freelance writer who lives in the US.
- Asian Tribune -

Education or mind infection?

2006-10-09T02:02:00.000-04:00

When the human being breaks the shackles of his or her biases and prejudices, speech becomes streams of sincere eloquence.

abukar arman

Education or mind infection?
By Nurit Peled-Elhanan
Speech given at Connecticut College, New London, CT 09/27/06

I would like to dedicate these words to all the Palestinian boys and girls, and to all the Lebanese boys and girls, and to all the Iraqi boys and girls who have been massacred by mind-infected Israeli and American soldier boys, and who have recently joined my own little girl in the underground kingdom of dead children, which is growing under our feet as I speak. I would like to tell them not to worry: “You will be well received there, children, and no one will hurt you just because you wandered off on your way to school or because you wore a scarf on your head or because you lived in a certain place. Rest in peace, everyone is equally worthy in your new world. This is the world where Israeli children dwell side by side with Palestinian children. There they lay, victims and murderers, whose bloods have long been absorbed by the holy land which has always been indifferent to blood. There they rest, all of them, victims of deceit.

All of you dead children were deceived, because your death has achieved nothing at all and the world goes on living as if your blood had never been shed. Because the leaders of the world keep playing their murderous games, using you as their dice and our grief as fuel for their killing machines. Because Children are abstract entities for generals and grief is a political tool. Living at both sides, that of the victims and that of the killers, I keep asking myself, what are the means by which good Israeli children are turned into murdering monsters, what are the means by which they are so mind-infected as to kill and torture and humiliate other children, their parents and grandparents, and sacrifice their own life for nothing but the folly and megalomania of their chiefs. In the so-called Western enlightened world everyone feels very well-founded when they blame Islam for suicide bombing and terror. But who would ever blame Judaism for murder? And yet, Ulta Orthodox Jewish children who have never left Brooklyn know that to kill Arabs is a 'mitzva' (holy commandment) for they are 'vilde hayeths' (wild beasts). And Israeli children actually commit the crimes of slaughter and tporture. Neither Judaism nor Islam
nor any religion for that matter are the cause for murder and terror. Racist education is. American imperialism is, and Israeli ruthless regime of occupation is. The women and children who suffer most from western violence today are Muslim women but racism has its way and the blame for their suffering is attributed to their being muslim.

The western world today is infected with fear of Islam and of the muslim womb. Great France of liberte egalite and fraternite is scared of little head-scarved girls, Jewish Israel calls in public speeches and schoolbooks the Arab citizens of Israel a demographic nightmare and the enemy from within. As for the Palestinians refugees living under occupation, they are defined in Israeli History schoolbooks as a 'problem to be solved". Not long ago the Jews were a problem to be solved.

This in spite the fact that the people who are destroying the world today are not Muslim. The people who are using the most sophisticated disastrous weapons to kill thousand of innocent civilians are not Muslim. They are Christian, and Jewish. Nevertheless people who belong to the Judeo-Christian cultures, who support American-British and Israeli crimes against humanity, and particularly against Muslims all over the world, people who send their children to fight these ruthless useless wars in the name of democracy and freedom which are cover names for greed and megalomania, dare call themselves enlightened and blame it all on some imaginary clash of civilizations… What does this fear-stricken world offer as a solution to Palestinian, Iraqi or Afghan people who are harassed, abused, tortured and famished by western crimes and exploitation? The general offer this enlightened world gives them is: Be like us. Constitute a Democracy like ours, embrace our values which despise you, which consider you an inferior primitive lot to be cultivated or cleansed away.

This, ladies and gentlemen is the attitude that permit American soldiers to rape, torture and kill Muslim men women and children by the thousands, that permits Israeli soldiers to order Palestinian women to strip in front of their children for security reasons, jailers to keep them in inhuman conditions, without necessary hygienic aids, without clean water or clean mattresses and separate them from their breast-fed babies and toddlers. To block their way to education, to confiscate their lands, to destroy their water wells, to uproot their trees and to prevent them from working their fields. This is what permits Israeli pilots to drop a hundred bombs of one ton a day on the most crowded area in the world –Gaza. This is what permits Israel to issue racist laws that separate mothers from fathers and children.

Palestinian Iraqi and Afghan women are mothers like me. And when they lose a child, even if it is one of 12, their pain is equal to mine. But in addition to losing their children they also lose their homes and their livelihood and their future because the world does not listen to their sufferings and does not punish their murderers. Their honour as women and mothers is crushed. Their identity is destroyed and their cry is not heard. Their faith and customs, their centuries-old ways of life are disregarded and despised.

Not only American soldiers but also Israeli soldiers who actually perform massacres of 'Arabs' - Palestinian or Lebanese - may never see an Arab human face until they are drafted to the army, but they learn, for 12 long years, that these people are primitive, bear children in order to send them to the streets and throw stones at our peace-keeping soldiers, uneducated because they don’t receive our education, conniving and dirty because they have different notions about politeness, they dress differently and cover their heads with different pieces of cloth. Well, from my experience there are many more Kafiehs in the camp of peace lovers than there are kippas. Israeli children are deprived from knowing their immediate neighbours, their history and their culture and their merits. Israeli children are educated to see their neighbours as an unwanted element. This is not education; this is mind infection.

The scientist Richard Dawkins was the first to speak about viruses of the mind. Children, because their minds are gullible and open to almost any suggestion, are not immune to mental infections of all sorts of propaganda and fashion. They are easily persuaded to pierce their faces and tattoo their bottoms, to turn their hats around and bare their bellies, to believe in angels and fairies. They are equally easy to acquire political beliefs and to appropriate mental maps which will later influence their decisions on the question of the future borders of the state and on the necessity of war. All of Our children are mind-infected from an early age. So that by the time they are old enough to become real soldiers, they have already learned to be good soldiers, which means their minds are totally infected and they are incapable of questioning the 'truth' that has been inculcated to them. This is part of the explanation one can give to the terrible deeds that are committed today by good Israeli boys, who are characterized once and again as "people of values". Therefore it is high time to ask, what values are these? The following lines are part of a personal preface by Tal Sela, one of my university students to his term-paper, which included the analysis of a History textbook:

On the 5th of September 1997 I found myself in Lebanon, on a rescuing mission. All my friends were in the battle, 12 soldiers were killed. The following days I was happy: " I am alive, I survived" I said to myself. However, a year later I was in deep depression-- sad and morose. I decided to consult a psychologist. After a few sessions I was able to gather up my forces again, both physical and moral. I could reorganize my thoughts. Then I understood that the mental crisis I had was in fact a moral crisis, a crisis of consciousness. What I actually felt was frustration, shame and anger. … How could I be so gullible and let myself be duped? How can I explain that a man of peace exposes himself to such a morbid experience of his own free will? Today, like every two weeks, I drove peace activists to the military check-points of the Israeli army in the occupied Palestinian territories. I saw an officer put tight handcuffs on a taxi driver because he failed to obey the soldiers' order to park here and not there. "We told him a thousand times" the soldiers said. The man was lying on the ground in the worst heat of the summer, thirsty, for hours on end. His friend was luckier: He had to stand on his feet, in a cell, without handcuffs. What pushes these young Israeli boys to play the rôle of supreme judges until they lose all judgment? In my opinion it is the Grand Zionist narrative, which serves as a collective conscience to the whole Israeli society, explicitly as well as implicitly. This grand narrative is the system of values that makes us belong to this particular collective.

This is the system that dictates the relationships between us and the Palestinians. How else can one explain young people who were educated to love their neighbour as they love themselves killing their neighbours, destroying their educational institutions, their libraries and their hospitals, for no apparent reason other than their being neighbours? The only explanation is that their minds are infected by parents, teachers and leaders, who convince them that the others are not as human as we are, and therefore killing them is not real killing; it has other legitimating names such as "cleansing" "purifying", "punishment", "operation", "mission", "campaign" and "war". Although I speak about Israeli boys this is not an Israeli affair because, as you know, the epidemic is worldwide. My nephew, Doroni, 7 years old, who lives in the US, came home on Halloween day and said he wanted to be a soldier, and then to go to Iraq and save America. How many American young men, ignorant as he is of the absurdity of this statement, actually went to Iraq and died there without knowing why, but with the words "save America" on their lips? The question is, how were these false values imprinted on their minds and how can they be erased?

The human psyche, says Dawkins, has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta across generations and the tendency to fasten group labels on people rather than see them as individuals. We all suffer because of labels, but only those of us who died because of labels have realized that the way to fight labels is to refuse
labels. The way to defeat false value systems is to expose them. The viruses of the mind are only partially weakened by young people like Tal and other Israeli Refusniks such as 'Combatants for Peace'. But most of our mind infected children would not be free of the grip of those viruses until they find their final rest in the ever-growing, underground kingdom of dead children. Only there will they realize that is doesn’t matter whether their head was bare or not in a synagogue or a church or a mosque, whether they were circumcised or not, whether they pronounced forbidden words, ate pig or cow or whether they had a hot chocolate after their salami pizza just before they were blown up by someone who didn't. Israeli, American, English, Italian mothers raise their children with all the love and care in order to sacrifice them to the god of death, as if their uterus is a national or rather an international asset. And fathers urge their children to commit themselves to armies those interests have nothing to do with defense. And when these children die for the profits of somebody else their parents bear it with dignity and pride, as they were taught, put their dead children's photographs on the mantelpiece and sigh: He was so handsome in uniform. It is time to tell these parents that no one is andsome in the uniform of brutality. It is time to tell them uniforms and ranks and medals have become ugly. Tell them their dignity and pride are misplaced. It is time to tell Jewish people that the only way to discourage anti-Semitism is by condemning the only government in the world who deliberately sends young Jewish boys and girls to their certain death and who persecutes to the point of genocide a whole Semitic nation, explain to them that it is the Jewish government and the actions of its army, not some primordial hatred for the Jewish race, which are the reasons for the invention of the new sign we often see in pro-Palestinian demonstration, where the Star of David is equated with the swastika.

It is a terribly hard task for people who were educated in Israel or in the USA or in any other 'western' 'democratic' country, to admit we were raised on false racist values. On heterophobia. The only thing that can enhance such a change of spirit is the constant image of the mutilated small bodies of the victims of these values.

Tomorrow is Yom Kippur, the holiest day for the Jews. On this day people are required to ask forgiveness. Not to forgive but to try and be forgiven. I would like to quote one stanza from a poem written by the late Hanoh Levin, one of Israel's greatest playwrights, in the 1970s:

Dear Father, when you stand on my grave
Old and tired and very lonely,
And you see how they burry me in the ground –
Ask me to forgive you my father.

We must all ask our children's forgiveness for not being more alert, for not fighting hard enough to keep our promises for a better world, for not refusing the evil viruses before and for letting them be the victims of the horrible, mental infection we are all suffering from, to look at their innocent, astonished, disillusioned small faces and ask ourselves: why does that streak of blood rip the petal of their cheek???
_________________________________________________________________________________

(Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan is a Lecturer in Language Education at Hebrew University in Jerusalem specializing in discourse in Israeli education with emphasis on visual and verbal presentation of Palestinian and non-western Jews. In September 1997, Nurit’s daughter Samarder was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber. She and her family are members of the Palestinian and Israeli Bereaved Families for Peace. Her two elder sons are active in the peace movements of the Refusenik and Combatants for Peace, a new movement of Israeli and Palestinian ex fighters. Dr. Peled-Elhanan is the recipient of the European Parliament 2001 Sakharov Prize for Human Rights and Freedom of Thought. She is now touring the US together with a Palestinian women (Hanan Abu Ghosh) who lost her 17 year old brother to Israeli gunfire.)

A Blink of an Eye Could Derail the Somali Peace Process

2006-09-23T17:48:00.001-04:00

Abukar Arman
PeaceJouranalism

On their route to untangle one of the most complex political webs in modern history and negotiate a lasting peace, the visionaries among the Somali leadership have no choice but to remain steadfast and persevere despite the inevitable obstacles along the way.

The apparent failed bid to assassinate President Abdullahi Yusuf of the Transitional Federal Government ( TFG ) a few days ago was one such obstacle to peace. But, Somalia cannot afford to be shocked to blink.

The terrorist act that took place in Baidoa and killed 11 people, including the president’s brother, and injured 19 others was a deliberate effort to sabotage the delicate peace process between TFG and ICU (Islamic Courts Union).

People in Baidoa and all across Somalia are in state of shock, panic, and bewilderment: ‘Who would do such thing?’ and ‘Who could benefit from sustaining the status quo and perpetuating sporadic chaos?’

Answers to these questions are critical to the peace process and indeed the security of the nation. However, finding fact-based answers would require not only a thorough investigation (in a country that lacks both national law enforcement and intelligence) but a total independence of the prevalent zero-sum political culture. However, competing assessments are already blurring any objective pursuit of facts.

Before the flames of the burning vehicles was putout and parliament members hiding for their lives in the assembly were told it was safe to come out, Ismail Mohamed Hurreh (Bubaa), the TFG Foreign Minister, was asserting with a reassured conviction that “Al-Qaida” was the group that executed that deadly terrorist act. Needless to say, in post 9/11 Somali politics, “Al-Qaida” is euphemistically used in certain circles to mean ICU.

Concurrently, in recent years, though many recognize as an effort to justify its flagrant infringement on Somali political affairs, Ethiopia has routinely charged that certain influential components of the current ICU have “direct link to international terrorism”. The majority opinion of the international experts and researchers is that the Ethiopian claim is an unsubstantiated hypothesis propagated for self-serving interest. However, should the alleged presence of Al-Qaida is ever established, the Somali conundrum will find itself on the most horrid spot in world politics, and will take an ill-omened precedence in the “global war on terrorism”.

On their part, the ICU denied any involvement. Sheikh Sharrif Ahmed, the ICU Chief Executive, said adamantly “We reject any form of violence as we look forward to achieving peace”. The Sheikh is widely known as “a moderate Islamist responsible for steering the courts in a convincing political direction and establishing a sense of law and order in Mogadishu and the southern parts of the country”.

Abdurahim Ali Muddey, a spokesman for the Supreme Council of Somalia, the legislative body of ICU, was even more direct: "Those who carried out this attack are the enemies of Somalia , they wanted to undermine our ability to resolve differences by ourselves", he said. "We condemn such acts because they are un-Islamic," added. Mr. Mudey blamed the attack on "those who want to create fear and insecurity to justify the deployment of foreign forces in our country". The implicated foreign element is understood to be Ethiopia .

President Abdullahi Yusuf, on the other hand, complimented Ethiopia for its response following the failed assassination attempt. He also said “ Ethiopia is a friendly neighbor” who had nothing to do with what happened in Baidoa. Ethiopia , in the meantime, has reiterated its controversial offer to send troops to Somalia to protect President Yusuf's government—an act that the ICU repeatedly protested for its illegality, and stated that it will consider it as a military invasion.

Unlike TFG, ICU has a broad-based support from Somalis of all walks of life but that hardly translates into a good international image. In the recent days, some media groups carried negative stories implicating the courts as the Neo-Taliban of the Horn (of Africa ) and as a group that is persistently scrambling to pave the way in establishing a “terrorist haven”....

For ICU to shake off that negative image, it will require a steady demonstration of unwavering commitment to the peace process, and implementation of measured steps leading to moderate reform. This, especially the latter piece, might not be an easy objective to achieve. That is to say, not so long as certain extremist elements within the group continue to self-destructively freelance on Fatwas that give them freehand to enforce controversial social reform.

In conclusion, the Baidoa terrorist act carries the potential to heighten suspicion between TFG and ICU and thus cause a detrimental setback to the peace process, but not if the handful of visionaries on both sides decides to deny the peace saboteurs gaining an easy victory. Therefore the peace process must continue without any unnecessary delays.

Leadership on both sides must focus on the big picture.

This is a moment of test; and it is this kind of a moment, when anger is most consuming and the will to pursue peace is wholly weakened, that genuine leadership rises up to the challenge, negotiates, and compromises for the broader good.

Until then, the saga of the Somali political struggle continues with its natural frailty, and the elements that earned Somalia its reputation as “the poster-child of failed states’ are, by and large, present.

Somalia: It Is Time to Put the Nation's Interest Before Any Special Group's

2006-09-07T14:21:00.000-04:00

Abukar Arman
Media Monitors Netwok

As has been the case for the past 15 years, here is yet another ‘good news, bad news’ political development that puts this peace-starved nation on that roller coaster of hope and despair once again.

On one hand, the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) has signed an agreement with the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) to, among other things, build a joint national army and to form a peace committee to determine the scope of that army and the steps of implementation.

On the other hand, Monday’s violence between TFG forces and a local militia over who should rightfully control the Baidoa Airport that left at least 12 people dead and 11 others wounded adds yet another dangerous element to a cachet of equally dangerous elements that could easily combust into renewed civil war and chaos.

In its latest adventure, TFG seem to have decided to abandon ‘the gracious guest’ role in order to assert more authority, consolidate power, and gain political leverage that might strengthen its position at the roundtable with ICU. This, however, does not come without a hefty political price and the threat of widening the conflict.

And considering the thin political ice that it has been on since the mass resignations of a few weeks ago that almost collapsed the whole government, the last thing that the TFG needs is to create and environment that would deepen political hostilities and violence in Baidoa.

Locals, especially the militia that welcomed TFG into this town about a year ago, have increasingly been expressing frustration per their gradually decreasing political clout, and on what the locals see as TFG’s selective assertion of authority (since their town is the only one under the TFG control) which, in essence, undermines the coveted regional autonomy that the locals have attained and conditionally surrendered to the transitional government under the assumption that their town would be the capitol city of new Somalia.

Another good news is that both Ethiopia and the Eritrea were recently warned by the UN and US to stay out of interfering with the Somali affairs, especially “at this volatile stage”. Furthermore, the delegation led by Sheikh Sharif Ahmed who met with the UN’ special envoy to Somalia François Fall a few days were reassured that so long as the arms embargo is still in place, no foreign troops could intervene in Somalia militarily ‘unless Somalia's challenging parties agree up on the issue’.

But the bad news, on the other hand, is that both Ethiopia, which already has its troops in various Somali territories, and Eritrea, which supports any group that would resist or challenge its arch enemy, are already adding fuel to the fire; and worse, they are likely to continue for a long time since the warnings neither come with a set of “teeth” nor with specific deterrent consequences.

In other words, any significant retaliation from, say, the militia that lost control of the airport to the TFG will constitute a threat to the latter, which in turn will give Ethiopia the pretext to intervene and Eritrea to follow suit. And such scenario will inevitably drag the ICU into the action and thus rendering the peace and reconciliation process, at least in the foreseeable future, impossible.

With all these possibilities in mind, perhaps the best course of action for the TFG is to follow the footsteps of the ICU, and implement certain confidence-building measures in Baidoa, namely, resource-sharing with the locals in terms of economic opportunities and capacity-building, especially in areas of education and health. Furthermore, as ICU has earned public confidence and support by restoring law and order in Mogadishu and reopened both the air and the seaport, the TFG could, on its part, zoom onto certain measurable successes to achieve. And there is no more dignified success that it could achieve than to get that mammoth political burden—Ethiopia-- off its back.

Ever since they came to power, both President Abdillahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Geddi have overtly competed to demonstrate their allegiance (and some say, blind loyalty) to the dictates of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s regime.

So, in order to establish themselves as legitimate leaders in the eyes of the great majority of the Somali people, they must prove their independence of any hegemonic, foreign influence. They must seize this opportunity and do all within their capacity to expedite the peace process in order to reach a comprehensive sustainable agreement with ICU that includes the formation of a joint national government.

It is time for the TFG to emerge out of its political cocoon and end its self-imposed exile within the very country that it was elected to govern. It is time to put the interest of the nation before the personal ones. It is time to focus on the positive and work hard for lasting peace.

Pronouncing Blame on the Israel Lobby

2006-08-29T16:47:00.000-04:00

Just like other critics before him who attacked Mearsheimer and Walt as soon as their paper (The Israeli Lobby and the US Foreign Policy) hit the public domain, Dana Milbank of Washington Post dedicated his entire column to what now became a predictable ad hominem diatribe against any one who dares to speak against the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

In his case, Milbank hinges his argument Mearsheimer’s mispronounciation of congressman Bayner’s name. This, he apparentlly believes would be a sufficient prove that the two scholars should not be trusted. So he confidently departs away from any thing that remotely resembles objective refutation. Milbank appeals to his readers’ emotions and prejuidices by questioning Mearsheimer and Walt’s motives without refuting their argument.

That said, I will be remiss if I don’t acknowledge that in his ad hominem he is much more reasonable than Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz per his hyperbolic reaction and false claim that the materials used in the original document which inspired yesterday’s forum was gathered from ‘websites of neo-Nazi hate groups’ Milbank’s insinuation of Anti-Semitism notwithstanding.

Milbank conveniently avaoids answering million dollar question: whether or not the Israeli lobby played a major role influencing the US foreign policy of late. Does the lobby brow-beat, coerce, and seduce with financial contributions?

In the words of former U.S. Ambassador Edward Peck who is now with the Idependent Institute "Of Course There Is an Israel Lobby", and the reaction to the impetus report proves the claims in the report. "The expected tsunami of rabid responses condemned the report, vilified its authors, and denied there is such a lobby—validating both the lobby’s existence and aggressive, pervasive presence and obliging Harvard to remove its name", says Ambassador Peck.

It is crucial to pointout that though individual affiliates may break the law as they sometimes do in any law-abiding organizations, AIPAC, like the countless other special interest groups in Washington, uses legitimate means to influence policy and to promte what it sees as being in the best interest of its client. But, as Mearsheimer and Walt argued in their original paper and reinforced by subsequent papers and articles such as Ari Berman’s recent article (AIPAC’s Hold) on The Nation Magazine, this one has too many policy makers and political leaders are blindly marching to their drums. In the latter article, berman closes with a profound quote from Zbigniew Brzezinski’s that the Middle East needs an American leader brave enough to say "Either I make policy on the Middle East or AIPAC makes policy on the Middle East."

Abukar Arman

You may watch the video
rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/intl/intl082806_lobby.rm
-----------------------------------------------------------

Pronouncing Blame on the Israel Lobby

By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, August 29, 2006; Page A02

It was quite a boner.

University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer was in town yesterday to elaborate on his view that American Jewish groups are responsible for the war in Iraq, the destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure and many other bad things. As evidence, he cited the influence pro-Israel groups have on "John Boner, the House majority leader."

John Mearsheimer got some names wrong in blaming "the Israel lobby" for many U.S. foreign policy sins. (Courtesy Of John J. Mearsheimer)
A national political reporter for the Post, Milbank writes Washington Sketch, an observational column about political theater in the White House, Congress and elsewhere in the capital. He covered the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns and President Bush's first term. Before coming to the Post as a Style political writer in 2000, he covered the Clinton White House for the New Republic and Congress for the Wall Street Journal. Actually, Professor, it's "BAY-ner." But Mearsheimer quickly dispensed with Boehner (R-Ohio) and moved on to Jewish groups' nefarious sway over Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who Mearsheimer called " Von Hollen."

Such gaffes would be trivial -- if Mearsheimer weren't claiming to be an authority on Washington and how power is wielded here. But Mearsheimer, with co-author Stephen Walt of Harvard's Kennedy School, set off a furious debate this spring when they argued that "the Israel lobby" is exerting undue influence in Washington; opponents called them anti-Semitic.

Yesterday, at the invitation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), they held a forum at the National Press Club to expand on their allegations about the Israel lobby. Blurring the line between academics and activism, they accepted a button proclaiming "Fight the Israel Lobby" and won cheers from the Muslim group for their denunciation of Israel and its friends in the United States.

Whatever motivated the performance, the result wasn't exactly scholarly.

Walt singled out two Jews who worked at the Pentagon for their pro-Israel views. "People like Paul Wolfowitz or Doug Feith . . . advocate policies they think are good for Israel and the United States alike," he said. "We don't think there's anything wrong with that, but we also don't think there's anything wrong for others to point out that these individuals do have attachments that shape how they think about the Middle East."

"Attachments" sounds much better than "dual loyalties." But why single out Wolfowitz and Feith and not their non-Jewish boss, Donald Rumsfeld?

"I could have mentioned non-Jewish people like John Bolton," Walt allowed when the question was put to him.

Picking up on the "attachments" lingo, Mearsheimer did mention Bolton but cited two Jews, Elliott Abrams and David Wurmser, as "the two most influential advisers on Middle East affairs in the White House. Both, he said, are " fervent supporters of Israel." Never mind that others in the White House, such as national security adviser Stephen Hadley, Vice President Cheney and President Bush, have been just as fervent despite the lack of "attachments."

This line of argument could be considered a precarious one for two blue-eyed men with Germanic surnames. And, indeed, Walt seemed defensive about the charges of anti-Semitism. He cautioned that the Israel lobby "is not a cabal," that it is "not synonymous with American Jews" and that "there is nothing improper or illegitimate about its activities."

But Mearsheimer made no such distinctions as he used "Jewish activists," "major Jewish organizations" and the "Israel lobby" interchangeably. Clenching the lectern so tightly his knuckles whitened, Mearsheimer accused Israel of using the kidnapping of its soldiers by Hezbollah as a convenient excuse to attack Lebanon.

"Israel had been planning to strike at Hezbollah for months," he asserted. "Key Israelis had briefed the administration about their intentions."

A questioner asked if he had any "hard evidence" for this accusation. Mearsheimer cited the "public record" and "Israeli civilian strategists," then repeated the allegation that Israel was seeking "a cover for launching this offensive."
John Mearsheimer got some names wrong in blaming "the Israel lobby" for many U.S. foreign policy sins. (Courtesy Of John J. Mearsheimer)

A national political reporter for the Post, Milbank writes Washington Sketch, an observational column about political theater in the White House, Congress and elsewhere in the capital. He covered the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns and President Bush's first term. Before coming to the Post as a Style political writer in 2000, he covered the Clinton White House for the New Republic and Congress for the Wall Street Journal. As evidence that the American public does not agree with the Israel lobby, the political scientist cited a USA Today-Gallup poll showing that 38 percent of Americans disapproved of Israel's military campaign. He neglected to mention that 50 percent approved, and that Americans blamed Hezbollah, Iran, Syria and Lebanon far more than Israel for the conflict.

Walt kicked off the session with a warning that we face a "threat from terrorism because we have been so closely tied to Israel." This produced chuckles in the audience. Walt allowed that this was "not the only reason" for our problems, but he did blame Israel supporters for the hands-off position the Bush administration took during the Lebanon fighting.

"The answer is the political influence of the Israel lobby," Walt said. He also hypothesized that if not for the Israel lobby, the Iraq war "would have been much less likely."

Up next, Mearsheimer ridiculed U.S. leaders for "falling all over themselves to express support for Israel." And he drew groans from the crowd when he spoke about a lawmaker who, after questioning Israel's policy, "met with various representatives from major Jewish organizations, who explained to him the basic facts of life in American politics."

When the two professors finished, they were besieged by autograph- and photo-seekers and Arab television correspondents. Walt could be heard telling one that if an American criticizes Israel, "it might have some economic consequences for your business."

Before leaving for an interview with al-Jazeera, Mearsheimer accepted a button proclaiming "Walt & Mearsheimer Rock. Fight the Israel Lobby."
"I like it," he said, beaming.

Fighting Words: The Abuse of Islam in Political Rhetoric

2006-08-21T15:52:00.000-04:00

Professor Ali Khan of Washburn University School of Law in Kansas presents a sobering argument against the ubiquitous spare-no-Muslim campaign promoted by certain special interest groups in order to implicate Islam as innately “tyrannical”, “fascistic”, “evil”, etc., and in the process alienate Muslims, especially those in the West who have been becoming part of the social fabric in places such as US and UK.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jurist Legal News and Research
August 20, 2006

It is becoming fashionable for elected officials in the Anglo-American world, notably in the United States and the United Kingdom, to employ abusive language involving Islam. Phrases such as "Islamic terrorism," "totalitarian Islam," "crimes of Islam," and "Islamic fascism" are freely used, with sadist disrespect, to condemn real and imagined terrorists who practice the faith of Islam. For years, and long before the 9/11 attacks, neo-conservative scholarship has been determined to popularize the concept of the essentialist terrorist [PDF] who purportedly draws his deepest inspiration from the puritanical beliefs of Islam and equipped with cruelty, commits violence against innocent Jews and Christians. According to this, occupations, invasions, territorial thefts, assassinations, house demolitions, human rights violations, and other such grievances have nothing to do with Islamic resistance. Islamic terrorism, according to neo-conservative scholarship, stems from the Sharia, from passages of the Quran, and from a puritanical mindset that manufactures pretexts to maim and kill. These killers, it is further contended, wish to impose Islamic law over the entire world.

Gradually but successfully, the propagandized essentialist terrorist and the attendant abusive language against Islam have entered political rhetoric. Presidents, prime ministers, congressmen, senators, and other officials are now freely using abusive language to malign Islam, not through uncaught moments of Freudian slips but as a policy of expressive audacity.

Commenting on the alleged plan of British nationals of Pakistani descent to blow up US-bound planes over the Atlantic, President Bush said: "This is a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists." Senator Rick Santorum distinguishes between terrorism and Islamic fascism, arguing that terrorism is a tactic but what the West is fighting is “Islamic fascism” which is “truly evil” and which is “as big a threat today as Nazism and communism.”

This new trend to openly curse Islam echoes the words of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said: "We should not be apologetic or defensive in defining the problems of terrorism."

One wonders why elected officials in supposedly democratic nations, which tout the principles of equal respect and dignity for all, use abusive language to wound the sentiments of more than a billion people across the world. Several explanations come to mind.

First, the abusive language may be described as an effect of an over-generalization. Suppose that Muslim militants indeed wish to impose Islam on the Anglo-American world, a supposition that even the militants would ridicule as blatant propaganda to infuriate domestic audiences. Though mounted on a questionable supposition, the label is accurate to the extent that the use of violence to forcibly modify the values of a foreign nation is indeed fascism - a definition that, ironically, would also paint President Bush as an American fascist for his forcible democratization of Afghanistan and Iraq. Even if President Bush were declared a fascist, it would be wrong to describe his foreign policy as American fascism because that is tantamount to over- as well as mis-generalization.

Islamic fascism as a descriptive label also fails to capture the limited meaning of describing militants who are supposedly fascists. The label comes across as a prescriptive indictment, suggesting that Islam is intolerant, violent, and aggressively self-righteous in imposing its values on non-Islamic cultures. If Anglo-American politicians are using the label in this broad sense, and thus accusing Islam and not merely the militants, they should say so. If they are using the label in a limited sense and do not wish to antagonize the entire Muslim world or malign the faith of Islam, they must abandon the label. The label of Islamic fascism even in a limited sense is not an intelligent use of the language, for it is susceptible to multiple interpretations. Its use in the broad sense is highly provocative and counterproductive to the war on terrorism. It foolishly alienates all Muslims.

Second, there might be a democratic argument for politicians using abusive language involving Islam. But no American politician would describe pedophilia scandals in some Catholic churches as Catholic pedophilia. Such an over-generalization would be politically unwise because no prudent politician would want to lose Catholic money and votes. Likewise, no politician would use abusive language against Jews or Judaism for fear of alienating that community, not to mention the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which keeps a close tab on what American politicians are saying and doing. Because American Muslims do not have loads of money, lobbying clout, or votes, however, they constitute a minority that can be easily sacrificed and trashed. If this is the reason behind abusive rhetoric against Islam, however, it reveals a sad truth about democracy in general and American democracy in particular which has had a tainted record when it comes to the abusive treatment of minorities including native Indians, Blacks, and others.

Third, there seems to exist an unexamined assumption in American political circles that Islam is a foreign religion, an outsider, the other. Politicians who use abusive language against Islam do not see Islam as part of American multi-religious fabric. Despite their enchantment with secularism, they still see this nation as Christian, perhaps Judeo-Christian, ignoring the fact that millions of Muslims, immigrants and native born, now live in all states of the United States. Hundreds of mosques in America, though under surveillance, furnish indelible signs that Islam has arrived in this country, not to forcibly convert anyone but to enrich American culture, diversity, history, architecture, sciences, and, yes, laws. Let American politicians greet Islam and Muslims with Assalaam ulaikum (peace be upon you) if for no other reason than to remind them that their religion is one of peace and not of violence.
-------------------------------------------------

Ali Khan is a professor at Washburn University School of Law in Kansas. His publications are available here.

"Look What You've Done!"

2006-08-17T17:13:00.000-04:00

In his 700 word article “Look What You’ve Done!” which appeared on counterpunch.com, John Walsh offers a succinct and an eye-opening expose of how the groupthink mentality that had many U.S. lawmakers (and mainstream media) faithfully marching in recent years is shaped and masterfully maintained.

The author thanks AIPAC president Howard Friedman “for much of the material in this article, which is taken directly from his latest fundraising letter to AIPAC supporters and members”.

August 16, 2006

"Look What You've Done!"
AIPAC Congratulates Itself on the Slaughter in Lebanon

By JOHN WALSH

"My fellow American," Howard Friedman, President of AIPAC, begins his letter of July 30 to friends and supporters of AIPAC, "Look what you've done"! After warning that "Israel is fighting a pivotal war for its life," by which he means Israel's wanton slaughter and all-out destruction in Lebanon, Freiedman condemns "the expected chorus of international condemnation of Israel's actions" and Europe's call for "a cease-fire immediately." Then he exults: "only ONE nation in the world came out and flatly declared: Let Israel finish the job. . That nation is the United States of America--and the reason it had such a clear, unambiguous view of the situation is YOU and the rest of America Jewry." (All emphases in the original here and below.) Here I must take issue with President Friedman since I bet that most Jewish Americans, in contrast to the AIPAC crowd, were horrified by the slaughter in Lebanon. In fact if anyone other than President Friedman wrote this, he would be accused of fabricating a Jewish plot and labeled a nutty conspiracy theorist and scurrilous anti-semite.)

"How do we do it"? President Friedman asks a little further on. The answer is "decades of long hard work which never ends." Not only is it hard work--but it's eternal. However, President Friedman is not content with generalities and gives us some of AIPAC's trade secrets. Here are two notables:

"AIPAC meets with every candidate running for Congress. These candidates receive in-depth briefings to help them completely understand the complexities of Israel's predicament and that of the Middle East as a whole. We even ask each candidate to author a 'position paper' on their views of the U.S.-Israel relationship--so it's clear where they stand on the subject." (Would it not be great to see these "position papers"? I wonder how many candidates would release them? And what do the candidates get for all this effort? A pat on the back?)

"Members of Congress, staffers and administration officials have come to rely on AIPACs memos. They are VERY busy people and they know that they can count on AIPAC for clear-eyed analysis.. We present this information in concise form to elected officials. The information and analyses are impeccable--after all our reputation is at stake. This results in policy and legislation that make up Israel's lifeline." (Another way to read this is that the pea-brained hillbillies who make up most of the Congress can be led by the nose if the memos are simple enough. Testimony to this fact enters my mailbox, as I write, in the form of a must-read interview with Noam Chomsky, which details just how distorted the discussion of Israel and the war on Lebanon has become in the U.S.)

President Friedman's letter continues with more headliners: "Unfortunately, our work has just begun"! "Hizballah must be defeated." And finally, "The war is a diversion"!!!! This last section argues that the war in Lebanon is a "distraction," to "divert attention away from Iran's nuclear weapons program"! (In case you haven't noticed President Friedman loves exclamation points, which leads one to wonder whether a good dose of lithium might not be in order.) But this "analysis' is hopelessly confused since Israel started the war on Lebanon using a minor border skirmish as an excuse - as Chomsky points out in the interview alluded to above. It leaves one wondering about AIPAC's analyses. Are they "clear-eyed" as Friedman claims, or wild-eyed?

President Friedman closes with the exhortation: "Now is the time for us, American Jews, to stand up and tell our elected officials that they must demand Iran halt its pursuit of atomic arms." In other words, next stop Iran if AIPAC can swing it. And in that lies a great danger. The Bush administration is losing ever more of its base and only the neocon establishment and AIPAC remain securely in its camp. (Even some of the born-agains are deserting.) With the November elections coming, Rove and Bush desperately need AIPAC support, and so they may be even more susceptible than usual to its demands for going after Iran. Indeed this is a dangerous time.

John Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com. He thanks President Friedman for much of the material in this article, which is taken directly from his latest fundraising letter to AIPAC supporters and members.

Tony Blair means only one thing when he talks about his values

2006-08-04T03:25:00.000-04:00

Commentary:

In his Tony Blair means only one thing when he talks about his values (below), Peter Wilby offers a fresh perspective and a profound analysis of the Blair/Bush (read Bush/Blair) foreign policy schizophrenia.

And, while generally the widespread state of media complacency, and indeed complicity, allow Blair and Bush to write and rewrite their own history without much scrutiny, they could not do much about reversing the dramatically decreasing credibility of said two leaders; especially, among moderate Muslims.

abukar arman
www.frogscorpia.blogspot.com

Comment

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tony Blair means only one thing when he talks about his values

He claims his aim is to spread democracy and the rule of law, but his true commitment is to the global market

Peter Wilby
Friday August 4, 2006
The Guardian

So now we know. The purpose of intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan was not regime change, Tony Blair explained in Los Angeles on Monday, but "values change". By bombing and shooting their way into Baghdad and Kabul, he and President Bush wanted to convince the benighted locals of the benefits of democracy, free markets and the rule of law.

They think Israel can achieve the same ends by pulverising Lebanon, and thus dealing a blow to the "arc of extremism", successor to the still undefeated "axis of evil". And the reason extremism appears to be growing is that, in reality, we are winning. Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians, Lebanese - they're all embracing democracy, and presumably voting for Hamas and Hizbullah only because of what the Marxists used to call false consciousness. The terrorists - who are all "the same thing" whether they are in Gaza, Baghdad, Kashmir, Indonesia, Africa, Madrid or London - are becoming more and more desperate because "reactionary Islam" now faces "existential battles" for its survival.

Well, it's good to have that straight. Many thought it unkind to compare the Blair-Bush policies in the Middle East to the medieval crusades. But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Blair believes he is engaged in a holy war, even though he reckons this is true only of the other side. No wonder, with the stakes so high, he won't listen to Labour members, backbenchers, ministers or foreign-affairs advisers. Or even his own past words. "We could have chosen security as the battleground," he said in Los Angeles. "But we didn't. We chose values." Forget what he said about WMDs; strike it from the record.

Strike also from the record what was once the prime minister's favourite mantra: what matters is what works. Invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon clearly don't have to work in any conventional sense. Everything comes down to ideology after all.

So what is that ideology? What does Blair mean by values? Both in Los Angeles and, the previous day, in San Francisco, addressing the big cheeses from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, Blair tried to give some coherence to his political philosophy, and explicitly linked it to the Middle East. The "isms" that now dominate debate, he argued, are not socialism or capitalism. (Nor, we must assume, communitarianism, one of Blair's forgotten favourites.) They are "protectionism, isolationism, nativism". It is a battle between "open or closed" responses to globalisation, between "modern or traditional attitudes to a changing world".

On one side stand free trade, open markets, investment in education, science and technology; on the other, protectionism, tariffs, tight labour market regulation, resistance to foreign takeovers. No prizes for guessing which side Blair thinks he is on.

The key word here is "modern". It comes up repeatedly when Blair speaks. The "global fight", he said in Los Angeles, is "about modernisation". "Everywhere," he said at his monthly press conference in London yesterday, "we support a process of modernisation." This modernity, in Blair's mind, is associated with the "competitive global market" that he wishes the whole world, including Muslims, to embrace. That is what gives his political thinking, domestically and internationally, a kind of unity.

If he believed wholeheartedly in the rule of law, he would have a greater care for civil liberties and international conventions about when and how to wage war. If he were as committed to democracy as he says he is, he would pay more respect to the British public's views on the Iraq war and on Israel's bombing of Lebanon and to the Palestinian and Lebanese votes for Hamas and Hizbullah respectively. But Blair's true commitment is to the global market.

As things stand, the global market is run by the rich in the interests of the rich. Two-thirds of global trade is controlled by just 500 firms. The competitive element is competition between nation-states for their favours - in terms of investment, jobs, sponsorship of public projects. This is the modern world that Blair wants Islamic countries to join. When he and Bush talk about an "open" Middle East, they mean open not just to different political views and religions but also to global capital, restlessly searching for new markets and assets.

Even to some moderate Muslims, this is a big step. They live, for the most part, in traditional societies. Yet they are invited to join a global market under which, as Marx and Engels warned, "all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned". Some Gulf states contrive to allow Mammon to coexist with God, but Islam as a religious faith has developed no significant equivalent of Calvinism, which interpreted worldly commercial success as a sign of God's grace.

There lies the inadequacy of Blair's approach. As he acknowledges, we have to convince moderate Muslims that our values are preferable to those of reactionary Islam. But it is not, as he seems to think, enough just to find a settlement in Palestine. He also has to convince Muslims that our laws and political systems can better protect what they hold precious than can the fanatics and terrorists. This does not necessarily include sharia law and veiled women, but it does mean preserving a certain social and cultural integrity, and running their own economies as they wish.

What happened in Iraq immediately after the invasion - the wholesale privatisations, the grab for assets by US-based multinationals - justifies their scepticism.

But the modern world doesn't have to be under the thumb of global capital. We can be "open" to a global market but it need not be this one. The rules of global trade can be biased towards the poor, instead of being framed in the interests of the rich. They can encourage tariffs where they protect infant industries in developing countries, instead of allowing them only where they protect western interests. Crucially for Islamic countries, they can allow controls on capital movements, as well as on migration of people. They can nurture stronger trade unions, stricter health-and-safety regulation and improved environmental practices, instead of treating all these as market distortions. They can act against international monopolies and, again crucially for Islamic countries, in favour of local ownership. They can favour investment in public goods over private consumption.

In that kind of global market many poor Muslims might see something for them. In the global market we have now they see benefits only for rich westerners. Blair talks about liberty and tolerance. But the global market is highly illiberal and intolerant. It allows only one form of economic organisation and it is relentlessly hostile towards the traditional, as anyone who surveys British retailing or recalls what happened to mining communities will understand. Muslims might be persuaded of the merits of democracy and legality, but the merits of modernity, as defined by Blair, are a harder call.

· Peter Wilby is a former editor of the New Statesman

peter.wilby3@ntlworld.com

.

do keep changing their motive

ness in this age of media and in some cases Regardless of how frequent

AIPAC's Hold

2006-07-30T18:18:00.000-04:00

So long as one is not entirely free to articulate or promote any political view that one may have; so long as one feels that conformity to the group’s point of view is essential to his or her professional or political survival; so long as one is willing to compromise his or her principle and integrity in order to please or facilitate the group’s mission, objectives, and goals, one is pathetically restrained and indeed subdued by the shackles of groupthink.

Groupthink rousing the populace is tragical; groupthink rousing the political elite is tragically comical - Abukar Arman

AIPAC's Hold
Ari Berman

The Nation

In early March, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) held its forty-seventh annual conference in Washington. AIPAC's executive director spent twenty-seven minutes reading the "roll call" of dignitaries present at the gala dinner, which included a majority of the Senate and a quarter of the House, along with dozens of Administration officials.

As this event illustrates, it's impossible to talk about Congress's relationship to Israel without highlighting AIPAC, the American Jewish community's most important voice on the Hill. The Congressional reaction to Hezbollah's attack on Israel and Israel's retaliatory bombing of Lebanon provide the latest example of why.

On July 18, the Senate unanimously approved a non-binding resolution "condemning Hamas and Hezbollah and their state sponsors and supporting Israel's exercise of its right to self-defense." After House Majority Leader John Boehner removed language from the bill urging "all sides to protect innocent civilian life and infrastructure," the House version passed by a landslide, 410-8.

AIPAC not only lobbied for the resolution; it had written it. "They [Congress] were given a resolution by AIPAC," said former Carter Administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who addressed the House Democratic Caucus on July 19. "They didn't prepare one."

AIPAC is the leading player in what is sometimes referred to as "The Israel Lobby"--a coalition that includes major Jewish groups, neoconservative intellectuals and Christian Zionists. With its impressive contacts among Hill staffers, influential grassroots supporters and deep connections to wealthy donors, AIPAC is the lobby's key emissary to Congress. But in many ways, AIPAC has become greater than just another lobby; its work has made unconditional support for Israel an accepted cost of doing business inside the halls of Congress. AIPAC's interest, Israel's interest and America's interest are today perceived by most elected leaders to be one and the same. Christian conservatives increasingly aligned with AIPAC demand unwavering support for Israel from their Republican leaders. (In mid-July, 3,000-plus evangelicals came to town for the first annual "Christian United for Israel" summit.) And Democrats are equally concerned about alienating Jewish voters and Jewish donors--long a cornerstone of their party. Some in Congress are deeply uncomfortable with AIPAC's militant worldview and heavy-handed tactics, but most dare not say so publicly.

"The Bush Administration is bad enough in tolerating measures they would not accept anywhere else but Israel," says Henry Siegman, the former head of the American Jewish Congress and a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. "But the Congress, if anything, is urging the Administration on and criticizing them even at their most accommodating. When it comes to the Israeli-Arab conflict, the terms of debate are so influenced by organized Jewish groups, like AIPAC, that to be critical of Israel is to deny oneself the ability to succeed in American politics."

There are a few internationalist Republicans in the Senate and progressive Democrats in the House who occasionally dissent. Rep. Dennis Kucinich and twenty-three co-sponsors have offered a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire and a return to multi-party diplomacy between the US and regional powers, with no preconditions. But even its supporters admit the resolution isn't likely to go anywhere. Another bill introduced by several Arab-American lawmakers that stressed the need to minimize civilian casualties on both sides was "politically swept under the rug," according to Rep. Nick Rahall, a Lebanese-American Democrat from West Virginia who voted against the House resolution. Dovish American-Israeli groups, such as Americans for Peace Now, have largely stayed out of the fight.

The latest hawkish Congressional activity is primarily intended to show voters and potential donors that elected officials are unwavering friends of Israel and enemies of terrorism. "It's just for home consumption," said Rep. Charlie Rangel, a powerful New York Democrat who signed on to Kucinich's resolution. "We don't have the support of countries that support us! What the hell are we going to do, bomb Iran? Bomb Syria?" His colleagues, said Rahall, "were trying to out-AIPAC AIPAC."

Discussion in Congress quickly widened beyond Israel to include a broader policy of confrontation toward the entire Middle East. Congressmen sent a flurry of "dear colleague" letters to each other, hoping to pressure the Administration into tightening sanctions on Syria and Iran, Hezbollah's two main state sponsors. Former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross addressed a packed AIPAC-sponsored luncheon on the Hill, where, according to one aide present, Ross told the room: "This is all about Syria and Iran...we shouldn't be condemning Israel now." Said Rep. Robert Andrews, a Democrat from New Jersey and co-chair of the Iran Working Group, which this week hosted an official from the Israeli embassy: "I concur completely with that approach."

Democrats, as they did during the Dubai ports scandal, used the crisis to score a few cheap, easy political points against the Bush Administration. The new Prime Minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, found himself engulfed in a Congressional firestorm after he denounced Israel's attacks on Lebanon as an act of "aggression." Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel, who volunteered in Israel during the first Gulf War, called on Maliki to cancel his planned address before Congress. Asked Senator Chuck Schumer, who skipped Maliki's July 26 speech: "Which side is he on when it comes to the war on terror?" Howard Dean one upped his colleagues, labeling Maliki an "anti-Semite," during a speech in Palm Beach, Florida.

Ironically, during the 2004 campaign Dean called on the United States to be an "evenhanded" broker in the Middle East. That position enraged party leaders such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who signed a letter attacking his remarks. "It was designed to send a message: no one ever does this again," says M.J. Rosenberg of the center-left Israel Policy Forum. "And no one has. The only safe thing to say is: I support Israel." In April, a representative from AIPAC called Congresswoman Betty McCollum's vote against a draconian bill severely curtailing aid to the Palestinian Authority "support for terrorists."

Not surprisingly, most in Congress see far more harm than reward in getting in the Israeli lobby's way. "There remains a perception of power and fear that AIPAC can undo you," says James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. He points to the defeats of Rep. Paul Findley and Senator Charles Percy in the 1980s and Reps. Cynthia McKinney and Earl Hilliard in 2002, when AIPAC steered large donors to their opponents. Even if AIPAC's make-you-or-break-you reputation is largely a myth, in an election year that perception is potent. Thirty-six pro-Israel PAC's gave $3.14 million to candidates in the 2004 election cycle. Rahall said his opponent for re-election issued his first press release of the campaign after Rahall voted against the House resolution. "Everybody knew what would happen if they didn't vote yes," he says.

AIPAC continues to enjoy deep bipartisan backing inside Congress even after two top AIPAC officials were indicted a year ago for allegedly accepting and passing on confidential national security secrets from a Defense Department analyst. "The US and Israel share a lot of basic common values, the vast majority of the American people not only support Israel's actions against Hezbollah but also the fundamental US-Israel relationship and the bipartisan support in Congress reflects that," says AIPAC spokesman Josh Block. M.J. Rosenberg, himself a former AIPAC staffer, puts it another way: "This is the one issue on which liberals are permitted, even expected, by donors to be mindless hawks."

By blindly following AIPAC, Congress reinforces a hard-line consensus: Criticizing Israeli actions, even in the best of faith, is anti-Israel and possibly anti-Semitic; enthusiastically backing whatever military action Israel undertakes is the only acceptable stance.

Recent Gallup polls show that half of Americans support Israel's military campaign, yet 65 percent believe the US should not take sides in the conflict. But it's hard to imagine any Congress, or subsequent Administration, returning to the role of honest broker. What the region needs now, according to Zbigniew Brzezinski, is an American leader brave enough to say: "Either I make policy on the Middle East or AIPAC makes policy on the Middle East." One can always dream.

Can Bias Media Prevent the Next World War?

2006-07-26T00:08:00.000-04:00

Abukar Arman
WorldPress

Perhaps now more than any other time in human history, objective media is desperately needed—media to inform the masses; to provide voice to the voiceless; and to function as the objective counterweight that scrutinizes the powers that be.

We currently live in an era that can only be described as the most volatile in contemporary history; a time when extremism and terrorism, with all their methods and motives, are on the rise; when human rights violation and political polarization are rampant, and when respect for the international law that protects state sovereignty is systematically corroding, and mainstream media is increasingly betraying the very objective that inspired the founding fathers to have “freedom of press” prominently enshrined in the US constitution.

Can today’s media guard the greater public interest and prevent the next ‘Iraq’, or worse, the next World War?

In his thought-provoking documentary Orwell Rolls in His Grave, producer Robert Kane Pappas, together with a lineup of media experts, activists, and academics make a compelling argument that clearly negates any claim of objectivity in most of what mainstream media does. Even more condemningly, they charge that media, by and large, has evolved as unconscionably biased enterprise that poses direct threat to the preservation of democracy (for it became domesticated and indeed co-opted by the very powers that it was supposed to hold accountable in the first place).

At a time when media around the world, especially in least likely places such as the Middle East, are gradually reaching new heights in promoting unprecedented political openness, the quality of news coverage, programming, and the overall credibility of the American mainstream media is ironically ona declining trend as more and more media organizations are abandoning objective standards of journalistic ethos and becoming the “facilitators of venomous discourse” and the “purveyors of misinformation and propaganda”.

And nowhere does media bias manifest itself more than in the slanted reporting of the Israeli/Palestinian conundrum where reporting is, unfortunately, single-minded in perspective and predictable in conclusion.

In its report released on July 19th, 2006, the media watchdog FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) highlighted a closing editorial by (veteran media personality) Bob Schieffer of CBS Face the Nation three days earlier in which he did not even bother to project any semblance of objectivity. According to FAIR, Mr. Schieffer adapted a well-known fable “in an attempt to explain the causes of the current conflict—or rather, the lack of causes”.

Here is how he summed up the whole crises and its root cause:

“…when the war broke out in the Middle East, the first thing I thought about was the old story of the frog and the scorpion who were trying to cross a river there. The scorpion couldn’t swim, the frog was lost. So the scorpion proposed a deal, ‘Give me a ride on your back, and I’ll show you the way.’ The frog agreed, and the trip went fine until they got to the middle of the river, and then suddenly the scorpion just stung the frog. As they were sinking, the frog asked, in his dying breath, ‘Why would you do that?’ To which the scorpion replied, ‘Because this is the Middle East.’

In his one-sided editorial, Mr. Schieffer offered a metaphorical diatribe that erroneously labels the Palestinian people as the “scorpion” in that tale of suicidal exploitation. To support his labeling, he echoed what FAIR referred to as “…the media’s conventional wisdom in portraying the Palestinian raid that captured the Israeli soldier as an inexplicable provocation”. In that groupthink mindset, the New York Times, in its June 29 editorial titled “Hamas Provokes a Fight”, declared that “the responsibility for this latest escalation rests squarely with Hamas,” adding that “an Israeli military response was inevitable.” But neither Face The Nation nor the New York Times is alone in this crusade of disinformation.

The mainstream media seems to be credulously content with the official Israeli version which asserts that on September 2005 Israel unilaterally handed over “what the Palestinians supposedly wanted”, as Mr. Schieffer put it…and that on June 25th, 2006 Israel was flagrantly provoked by an attack carried by a terrorist organization sworn to annihilate the state of Israel who killed two of its soldiers and abducted a third, hence Israel’s legal and moral right to do what it did, and pledges to continue to do so till their soldier is returned.

While it is true that Hamas (also Hizballah) is in the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations and that members of its armed wing have taken an Israeli soldier hostage while killing two others, that hardly gives the full picture. What’s often omitted or underreported is that there are over 9000 (including 1/3 of the elected members of the Palestinian parliament) who, according to the Mandela Center for Human Rights, also include 342 juveniles are held by Israel.

In fairness to the mainstream media, the events they report are often accurate…however, the chronological sequence of these events (that often support one version of the narrative) and indeed the starting point are, at best, conveniently selective. Having said that, seldom (if at all) does mainstream media report the daily life of the average Palestinian man, woman, or child in West Bank and Gaza, and what Israel does in its freehand daily provocations that make life unbearable and often trigger knee-jerk, counter-productive reactions that only perpetuate the all too familiar violent tit-for-tat culture.

Among other forms of torture, terrorization, and provocation, the Israeli Air Force, for example routinely used the sonic boom torture in which they lower the altitude of their F16 fighter jets to fly close to the roofs of buildings and home. The Sydney Morning Herald and other media sources report a rise in miscarriages, premature births and stillbirths since the Israeli invasion of Gaza. The paper also reports that the sonic boom torture is also used at night when people are asleep to induce terror. “The sound is akin to that of a large bomb, and it can produce panic attacks, shock and nosebleeds (on children)” the report says. “The sonic booms, combined with all the other stress, have a bad effect on the health of pregnant women,” added Dr Adnan Radi, a senior obstetrician of Shifa Hospital in Gaza.

The media failed to adequately scrutinize the wisdom in Israel’s “inhumane” act to impose extra judiciary economic suffocation aimed to collectively punish the Palestinian people for electing Hamas. On January 2006, Israel decided to withhold the Palestinian monies they collect through taxation- $55 million a month essential to pay the salaries of civil servants. This, despite Hamas’ dramatic change per its modus operandi since it finally decided to partake in the Palestinian elections and uphold a self-imposed cease-fire for 17 months…never mind the day before this new crises exploded, Hamas has signed an agreement with Fatah to form a joint government that recognizes Israel (implicitly).

Once again the media failed to prevent this whole escalation by turning a blind eye to the early reports that Israel was planning months earlier to deliberately provoke Hamas (also Hizballah) into a fatal military confrontation- something that Alex Fishman, an Israeli senior security analyst and Professor Tanya Reinhardt of Tel Aviv University, and others have charged.

On June 8th the Israeli Army assassinated Abu Samhadana, a senior appointee of the Hamas government, and intensified its shelling of civilians in the Gaza Strip. And according to Professor Reinhardt, “Governmental authorization for action on a larger scale was already given (to be carried) by 12 June, but it was postponed in the wake of the global reverberation caused by the killing of civilians in the air force bombing the next day (Israeli killing of seven members of a Palestinian family picnicking on a beach and wounding 30 others including 13 children)”.

Could a similar manipulation of truth be underway vis a vis the invasion of Lebanon?

Well, according to Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, the current conflict was being cooked for several years. “Of all of Israel’s wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared…By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we’re seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it’s been simulated and rehearsed across the board” he said. “More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail. Under the ground rules of the briefings, the officer could not be identified,” he added.

While ironically some media organizations in Israel continue to expose their government’s mortal schemes, and set-up forums for rigorous debates on the reckless nature of their governments actions- how they threaten both Israel and world peace and whether or not her heavy-handed reaction and collective punishment would constitute “state terrorism” and “crimes against humanity”- the American media, except certain flashes of symbolic comments made in the passing, are too timid to report, analyze, and objectively debate what’s at issue…

Could syndicated columnist Gwynne Dyer be right—does one have to be a Jew in order to scrutinize the state of Israel since all else must face the detrimental risk of being labeled “Anti-Semitic”?

Whatever the case may be, lives are being lost from all sides, moderates are being radicalized, oil prices continue to skyrocket, and humanity is on the verge of yet another suffering of mass scale.

'Because This Is the Middle East'

2006-07-20T00:41:00.000-04:00

Action Alert

'Because This Is the Middle East'
CBS' Schieffer ignores context in Mideast crisis

7/19/06

On July 16, CBS Face the Nation host (and CBS Evening News anchor) Bob Schieffer dedicated the entire Sunday morning news show to the Middle East conflict. In his closing editorial, he adapted a well-known fable in an attempt to explain the causes of the current conflict—or rather, the lack of causes:

Finally today, when the war broke out in the Middle East, the first thing I thought about was the old story of the frog and the scorpion who were trying to cross a river there. The scorpion couldn't swim, the frog was lost. So the scorpion proposed a deal, ‘Give me a ride on your back, and I'll show you the way.’ The frog agreed, and the trip went fine until they got to the middle of the river, and then suddenly the scorpion just stung the frog. As they were sinking, the frog asked, in his dying breath, ‘Why would you do that?’ To which the scorpion replied, ‘Because this is the Middle East.’

Lest there be any doubt about who is the frog and who is the scorpion in that parable, Schieffer went on to spell it out:

It is worth noting that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip did not kidnap that Israeli soldier and provoke all of this because the Israelis were invading Gaza. No, all this happened in the wake of the Israeli withdrawal, which was what the Palestinians supposedly wanted. But this is the Middle East. Why would fundamentalists in Gaza and Lebanon choose to provoke this war at this time? There is no real answer except this is the Middle East.

Schieffer was echoing the media’s conventional wisdom in portraying the Palestinian raid that captured the Israeli soldier as an inexplicable provocation. The New York Times, in a June 29 editorial headlined “Hamas Provokes a Fight,” declared that "the responsibility for this latest escalation rests squarely with Hamas," adding that "an Israeli military response was inevitable."

The media assumption is that in withdrawing from Gaza in September 2005, Israel ended its conflict with at least that portion of Palestine and gave up, as Schieffer put it, "what the Palestinians supposedly wanted." In reality, however, since the pullout and before the recent escalation of violence, at least 144 Palestinians in Gaza had been killed by Israeli forces, often by helicopter gunships, according to a list compiled by the Israeli human rights group B’tselem. Only 31 percent of the people killed were engaged in hostile actions at the time of their deaths, and 25 percent of all those killed were minors.

From the time of the pullout until the recent upsurge in violence, according to B’tselem’s lists, no Israelis were killed by violence emanating from Gaza. Although during this period Palestinian militants launched some 1,000 crude Kasam missiles from Gaza into Israel, no fatalities resulted; at the same time, Israel fired 7,000 to 9,000 heavy artillery shells into Gaza. On June 9, just two weeks before the Hamas raid that killed two Israeli soldiers and captured a third, an apparent Israeli missile strike killed seven members of a Palestinian family picnicking on a Gaza beach, which prompted Hamas to end its 16-month-old informal ceasefire with Israel. (Though Israel has denied responsibility for the killings, a Human Rights Watch investigation strongly challenged the denial, calling the likelihood of Israel not being responsible "remote"; Human Rights Watch, 6/15/06.) Hamas has repeatedly pointed to the Gaza beach incident as one of the central events that prompted its cross-border raid—indeed, Schieffer's own CBS Evening News has reported that claim (CBS Evening News, 6/25/06). Even so, Schieffer seems unable to recall this recent event (see Action Alert, 6/30/06 ).

Hamas also points to the capture of some of its leaders by Israel as the provocation for its raid. If Israelis had every right, as Schieffer said, to respond with force to the capture of one soldier by Hamas, then how are Palestinians expected to feel about the more than 9,000 prisoners captured and held by Israel—including 342 juveniles and over 700 held without trial (Mandela Center for Human Rights, 4/30/06)?

Moreover, Israel's withdrawal did not remotely give Palestinians "what they wanted." In addition to its continued deadly attacks on Gaza, Israel has continued to control Gaza’s borders and has withheld tens of millions of dollars of tax revenue in response to Hamas’ victory in democratic elections in January 2006. Israel’s actions crippled the Gaza economy and prompting warnings from the U.N. of a looming humanitarian disaster (UNRWA, 7/8/06).

None of this is to say that Hamas, which has regularly ignored the distinction between military and civilian targets, does not share part of the blame for the current crisis. But to act as though Israel had been behaving as a peace-loving neighbor to Gaza until the soldier’s capture is a willful rewriting of very recent history. The most Schieffer can bring himself to say about Israel is this:

Israel had every right to respond, and it did. But again, this is the Middle East, so perhaps a response may have made it all worse by giving moderate Arabs in the region an excuse to distance themselves from Israel.

Israel’s “response” has resulted in the deaths to date of at least 103 Palestinians, while no Israelis have died other than one soldier killed by friendly fire (New York Times, 7/19/06). Meanwhile, Israel has also destroyed Gaza's main power plant and its water system, leaving tens of thousands of Gaza families without access to food, water and medical care (Oxfam, 7/19/06). In Lebanon, Israel has killed over 300 people, the vast majority of them civilians, wounded over 1000 and displaced half a million (MSNBC, 7/19/06). To call such devastation an "excuse" for Arabs to “distance themselves from Israel” is a trivialization of real human suffering.

Why is Bob Schieffer allowed to get away with such shallow, dismissive coverage of complicated and tragic events? Because it’s the Middle East.

ACTION: Please ask Bob Schieffer to accurately report the history and current reality of the conflict in the Middle East.

CONTACT:
Bob Schieffer
CBS Face the Nation
202-457-4481
ftn@cbsnews.com

You can also contact CBS's "Public Eye" ombudsman:
publiceye@cbs.com

Swift on Islamophobia: a modest proposal

2006-07-07T01:28:00.000-04:00

Abukar Arman

In light of the rampancy of Islamophobia in various circles and the groupthink mentality that fuels it, Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” is all that comes to mind…

Therefore, in order to completely eradicate global terrorism and the menace of the rapidly growing Muslim population around the world and securing broader wealth to those of us who deserve more, we are better advised to heed and enact the objective recommendations below and understand the goodwill impetus driving them.

It is a melancholy object to those of us of the Western culture when we see the streets of the cities and towns in US and Europe crowded with Mazlems, Mouzlims, Mohammedans or whatever and their veiled, apparently oppressed creatures of the female sex, followed by three, four, six, or more children.

The misogynist fathers care nothing about their families or parental responsibilities. They operate on a prehistoric mindset that sees no connection between the family size and their capacity to attain economic self-sufficiency and deprives women of all rights and privileges. Look at all mothers in Mazlem communities. Instead of being allowed to attend schools, earn professional degrees and become independent and productive members of the society, they are held hostage in homes by their male masters who keep them barefooted and pregnant.

It is an irrefutable fact that no other society in human history has oppressed its women like the Mazlems. This was proven by the Dingo Letter study that also warned against their rabbit like birth rate…

How ominous!

Consider how fast these Mouzlems have overtaken Europe; consider how the European blood has been diluted. Look at who represents France for the World Cup. Look who is their superstar- an Ayyraab. Soon the average European would be an Ayyraab-looking person, and Ayyraabic would become the lingua franca of the EU.

Imagine that!

Now who can blame our friends in Israel- the only real and robust democracy in the Middle East- for taking a preemptive action to guard against and systematically yet benevolently reduce the alarming overpopulation? Who could blame them for denying the Palestinian refugees the right to return to their incredibly disappearing homeland; or denying those in the occupied territory the right to free movement or interaction with family members on the other side? Furthermore, who could blame them for making life unbearable for those bloody Palestinians living in the disputed territory and replacing them with more civilized and productive settlers? Who could blame them for building a wall to separate the brutes from the civil? Who could blame them for confiscating the land for a better use?

Wherever they are, these Muzlims have proven to be the fifth column that all societies can do without. That is why one could never find a worthy person in their kind. Throughout history, even at the peak of their so-called civilization, they contributed nothing but violence and destruction. What have they ever contributed to the social, economic, political, or even moral advancement of mankind? Nothing, of course! Think about it for a second- and “a second” is all that one needs- how often do you see one of their kind receiving a Nobel Prize? They blame what the liberal media, as a result of their “unholy alliance” with them Mouzlins, loves to refer to as “brain drain”. But what brain capacity have they ever proven to have?

Whether across the seas or here in the US, all researches point out: unless they are subdued and de-Islamofied, each one of us would have to become a Mazlem, a Mouzlim, a Mohammedan, or whatever. Each one of us would be forced to pray five times a day. Therefore it is incumbent upon all patriotic people of conscience to lobby their lawmakers to expeditiously make laws that would protect us and posterity from such subjugation.

These laws should appropriately and indeed carefully target and ban religions that impose undue hardship to their worshipers.

Prudence dictates that we DILIGENTLY GUARD our values and way of life. With that in mind, recently a South African friend who is a partner of a private consulting firm that has a lucrative contract in Iraq offered the best idea in dealing with this menace. He said: “Rounding them all up and make money off them- that is the way. And since these kids, especially the boys are innately violent; since their hands are naturally clinched as a result of a baseless anger and false grievance against the West, and their defeatist psyche is programmed with misguided hate, you Westerners should sell the young boys to us”.

“Our firm”, he added, “would in turn deprogram these boys and train them to become our own human bombs to help us on our regime-change plans to unseat the current incompetents and their Muuszilin cohorts who turned our beloved South Africa into a Third World country. But not before we remove both kidneys, a lung, and an eyeball out of each boy so we may use what we need and sell the rest.”

My enterprising friend and the firm also want get their DNA sequence to be replicated by their advanced genetic engineering team. They also want to buy the little girls to work as laborer with the thousands of Bushmen already in captivity on what he called “Project Green Desert” initiated to replace the sandy soil of the Kalahari with more fertile soil.

In the mean time, he suggested that we incarcerate all the fathers and throw away the keys, and sterilize the mothers and ship them back to the terrorist swamps of their origin.

Personally, I think the idea is a win-win proposition. However one looks at it, it is a fair transaction-- we get what we want and they, in turn, get what they want.

To sweeten the deal even more, I think we should make a song out of the whole process-- how we rule the world and have to answer to no one-- and record it. Not just for its money generating potential (and that is always good) but for its First Amendment educational value. Later, we may opt to share some of the royalties with some of their failed and failing states. This ingenious idea we can call it Pecuniary Altruism.

That said, let me go back to the harsh reality of the matter: make no mistake, these kids- their innocent facade notwithstanding- are more dangerous than their parents, a pattern that, unless stopped, would continue for generations to come.

Furthermore, considering how profoundly indoctrinated they are in thinking that their kind are exploited and oppressed all around the world by people like me, I have no doubt in my mind that these kids are already thirsty for my blood and that of my kind.

But that is just the beginning. To make matters worse, these kids are already attending our Western schools and universities, and, in many academic fronts, they are dangerously excelling…However, what is even more dangerous is the fact that many of them have been and continue to be born in America and in various parts in Europe where they are granted full citizenship. In other words, it is a matter of time before we get a president named Sadam Ahmedinejad who would demand to be sworn-in with a hand on the Koran.

In their latest research, the Patriotic Enterprise Institute (PEI), the guardian of our values and our way of life, has produced a 911 page expose detailing a dangerous scheme that these Mohammedans were plotting in which they intend to overtake us while we were in deep slumber. Not surprisingly, they are a secretive society that always flies below the radar. How else do you think could their evil religion spread this broad and become the fastest growing religion in the world.

To counter this trend, both Hollywood and mainstream media opinion-makers must pull their share and unleash a relentless campaign to demonize them people. It is time to add a Mouzlim extremist character in every movie, television series, special feature, reality TV, documentary, etc. It is time for mainstream media to fill the airwaves with information, misinformation, disinformation, and whatever else it takes to show the world that these people are bad, bad, and bad.

According to the PEI report, this world menace plans to keep demanding for justice and fair treatment till they themselves become the policymakers and interpreters. Their tendentiously anti-democratic nature notwithstanding, they will keep pretending till they reach their grandiose goals of world domination. They will not stop till they control our Congress, our Supreme Court, and our White House. And the "White" before the "House" of course deserves its respect and indeed emphasis.

PEI also computed the dollar cost of their relentless, bloody terrorist acts and found out that cost of their terrorist campaign far exceeded the costs of all natural disasters around the world combined. And, speaking of dollars, South Africa is rich in gold and diamonds and it is the only real democracy in Africa. And my friend reassured me that the firm is willing to pay $10,000 worth of South African Krugerrand (K-Rand) or 22 Kt. gold coins for each boy.

Imagine how much wealth that could secure for you and me. It is time to round up people and test the game plan.

But rest assured, nothing will materialize so long as these Mouzlins keep founding their pseudo-institutions that regularly cite civil and human rights laws in order to facilitate their grand evil scheme and protect known terrorists and launder their bloody monies. That is why the PEI report clearly points out: “it is detrimentally imperative to decapitate this many-headed monster one head and indeed one organization at a time”.

[In an unorthodox approach that shocked the sensibilities of some of his temporaries who initially misread his satire, Swift (in the Eighteenth Century) succeeded to highlight the absurdity and ignorance of bigotry and awaken the dormant moral conscience of his society per their treatment of the Catholic Irish.

Today, in the English lexicon, the phrase "modest proposal" has come to indicate a proposal that is any thing but modest.

This is a salute to the Swifts of the world- the endangered species of our humanity. Those who spoke truth to the power and championed justice.]

Somalia: Why the International Contact Group Should Support the Islamic Courts Union

2006-06-22T12:07:00.000-04:00

by Abukar Arman
Yale Global

Between euphoria and frustration, clarity and confusion, moderates must develop a sustainable alternative solution to the lawlessness that paralyzed Somalia for over 15 years, and find a platform to showcase that. Of course the quest to accomplish that would not only require willpower and resilience to paddle against the ferocious waves of suspicion, fear, and hate, but also a real support (of moral and material value).

In light of the events of the past few weeks in Mogadishu, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) has emerged as being the group with the most feasible plan to restore law and order in mostly chaotic Somalia. The seemingly untamable south is now safe and ICU is determined to maintain it. And on this particular objective to maintain peace, the newly formed International Contact Group (ICG) should unequivocally support the union. Needless to say, in doing so, the ICG will, among other things, have a unique opportunity to prove its critics wrong.

Citing its seemingly haphazard formation and the fact that it is being led by the US, these critics have been charging that the whole fanfare about the formation of ICG was nothing other than a political window-dressing intended to divert attention away from the recent foreign policy fiasco in which a CIA led clandestine operation led to an unholy alliance between the US and some of the most loathed warlords in Somalia.

To dispel that stigma and rebuild trust, ICG must stand and deliver. In other words, provide more substantive support than symbolic. In all likelihood in such open support will be met with resistance from certain Islamophobic inters groups who are already claiming that ICU is nothing but a “Trojan horse” designed to deceptively usher in “Islamic extremism” and build “a safe haven for terrorism”.

As paradoxical as it may sound, on one hand Somalia is facing the danger of renewed violence on the other the opportunity to reconcile difference once and for all. ICU is in a good position to convene an all-inclusive reconciliation conference. They gained the public trust since they neither expressed political appetite to rule Somalia nor denied the legitimacy of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

In a recent letter aimed to engage the international community in a dialogue, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the chairman of ICU, has outlined the union’s political priorities as follow: to “remove and disarm all criminal elements that endanger the peace in the city (Mogadishu)”, “to contribute to the rebuilding of (Somalia) and create a peaceful environment and a country that is at peace with itself, and with its neighbors and with the international community”, and “to establish a friendly relationship with the international community that is based on mutual respect and interest and seek their support for the Somali peace process and respect their desire for peace”. In that same letter, he also appealed to the international community for “patience” and “understanding”.

It is this kind of conciliatory tone and moderate vision that has been the impetus driving Sheikh Sharif Ahmed’s rapid rise to fame. When members of the international media who came to interview him recently asked if they could take a picture with him, he quipped “it might be too dangerous for you” before graciously accepting it.

Somalis of various clan shades are still praising the leadership qualities that he demonstrated as he prudently negotiated the terms of the warlords’ surrender and worked out a peaceful deal. His strategy is widely believed to have spared many lives and prevented future vendettas.

Most analysts agree: what’s now known as the ICU movement is a spontaneously formed populist uprising against the abuses and exploitations of the warlords, and as such, the movement bears a profound historical significance to the average Somali, which is why it attracted “the good; the bad; and the ugly” as volunteers.

Today, along the great majority of ICU members who are driven by altruistic ideals of helping the oppressed and cultivating peace and justice, membership includes clan-enthusiasts, over-zealot ideologues, and common criminals (locally known as Moryaan).

When ICU forces took over the town Jowhar, it was reported that some of its militia members have resorted to looting, robbery, and power abuses reminiscent of that of the warlords. Needless to say, unless these Moryans are filtered out or genuinely rehabilitated they would discredit the authenticity of the movement as a peace-seeking one.

In the meantime, the UN is worried of certain new trends in Somalia that might lead to renewed violence and bloodshed. There are too many flammable elements that must be kept apart. On one hand, TFG has been gradually intensifying its confrontational rhetoric, especially since it succeeded in convincing African Union (AU) to pass a resolution mandating the deployment of Ugandan and Sudanese troops in Somalia- a mandate that the ICU said will consider it an act of war if and when it is enacted upon. On the other hand, it is widely reported that Ethiopian troops have illegally crossed into mainland Somalia and are supposedly headed to Baidabo- the town where the TFG is currently hosted- this while Yemen is intensifying its delivery of large supply of weaponry and ammunitions to TFG.

Indeed, the warning signs are flashing.

And according to Bruno Schiemsky, the coordinator of the UN Monitoring Group, it is only “a matter of time before the ICU and TFG clashed”. Needless to say such clash would only cause more bloodshed and promote militancy and extremism that could extend beyond Somalia.

Of course the transitional government is no match to the union…which means, Ethiopia will ultimately interfere directly in order to tip the balance of power in TFG’s favor which would set off a chain of reactions that would inevitably invite countries such as Eritrea and Sudan to partake this extremely volatile conflict.

While too many dots must be connected before a decipherable political pattern would emerge to help observers make better forecasts and recommendations, one thing remains morally clear: supporting those who removed all illegal checkpoints of extortion and banditry, who restored law and order, and inspired a sense of hope is the judicious thing to do.