Jihad Is Not Terrorism. Terrorism Is Not Jihad

In the polarized world that we currently live in, where sensational information travels faster than a tsunami, what “Jihad” really is has become lost in the storm since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The term Jihad is often defined as a “fight,” or a “holy war,” but it actually means a struggle, not just against others but against desire, ambition and human aspirations to follow what is preached by Islam. The Quran mentions “Jihad Fi Sabilillah,” or the “struggle towards the path of Allah.”

As Abul Ala Maududi, the political philosopher and scholar, explains the term in his book Jihad in Islam, which was first published in Urdu in the 1960s, “Jihad should be under guidance of the Quran and Prophet’s Hadith, otherwise it is not Jihad but violence.” [The Hadith, for those who don’t know, is a written record of the Prophet’s teachings].

Maududi explains: “Jihad in Islam is not merely a ‘struggle’. It is instead a ‘struggle’ for the ‘Cause of Allah’. The ‘Cause of Allah’ is essential for the term of ‘Jihad’ in Islam.

After all, the Holy Quran clearly says about Cain’s killing of Abel:

For that cause we decreed for the Children of Israel that whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind. Our messengers came unto them of old with clear proofs (of Allah’s Sovereignty), but afterwards lo! many of them became prodigals in the earth. (5:32).

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the last prophet according to Islamic belief, also said “A believer continues to guard his Faith (and thus hopes for Allah’s Mercy) so long as he does not shed blood unjustly.” (Source: Bukhari/ Riyad-us-Saliheen)

Terrorism, in fact, is completely the opposite of Jihad. Any act of violence that instills fear in the minds of innocent people is an act of terror, particularly because this fear is not a fear against anything wrong, like corruption or theft. Instead, it is a fear of the powerful who wish to become more so.

Those who terrorize have forgotten that “Islam” means “peace,” and that the Holy Quran teaches tolerance towards other faiths and guides:

“There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error. And he who rejecteth false deities and believeth in Allah hath grasped a firm handhold which will never break. Allah is Hearer, Knower.” (2:256)

Yes, Islam does provide guidelines for war. But in those guidelines, the killing of women, children, the old and the weak is expressly forbidden. Even destruction of a standing crop or a tree is not allowed, as Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, the first Caliph, told Islamic armies:

“I instruct you in ten matters: Do not kill women, children, the old, or the infirm; do not cut down fruit-bearing trees; do not destroy any town . . . ” (Source: Imam Malik’s compilation of the Hadith “Kitab al-Jihad.”)

The Prophet also said that no non-combatant can be killed by a Muslim army in any circumstances:

“Do not kill any old person, any child or any woman” (Source: The collections of Abu Dawood, prominent Islamic scholar, and Maulana Wahiduzzaman, translated by the author).

By Abu Zafar

It’s Not the Koran, It’s Us

Image via: VeteransToday.com

The Corporate Media Chorus Willfully Ignores That U.S. Actions Fuels Jihad, Not Islam

For a brief time after the 9/11 terror attacks, Americans could be heard asking the reasonable question: Why do these men from Middle Eastern countries (back then, mostly Saudis) hate us so much that they would give their own lives to cause us pain? Within a few weeks, the official explanation became: They hate us for our freedom, end of story.

When you follow the money, it is easy to understand why the government avoided any honest discussion of the causes of terrorism. By one estimate, U.S. taxpayers have squandered $10 trillion over four decades to protect the flow of oil on behalf of multinational corporations. The result is an empire of U.S. military bases which have garrisoned the Greater Middle East. In the Persian Gulf alone, the United States has bases in every country save Iran. 

These bases support repressive, undemocratic regimes, and act as staging grounds to launch wars, interventions and drone strikes. And they generate tremendous profits for defense contractors.

The existence of these bases helps generate radicalism, anti-American sentiment and terrorist attacks. The drone attacks have incited even more hatred for us, which should come as little surprise. The U.S. uses drones to incinerate suspected militants (and anyone else in the vicinity) on secret evidence, but only if they are living in Muslim nations like Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq or Somalia. We don’t fly killer drones over dangerous neighborhoods in Detroit or Chicago, or in Iguala, Mexico, where 43 students were recently massacred by gang members aided by corrupt police.

The fact that our misguided foreign policy creates terrorism is almost never discussed in polite society. 

There is of course no justification for a terror attack on innocents. But if our leaders truly cared as much about protecting Americans from terror as they do about protecting corporate profits, they would have an honest discussion of what’s prompting the violence.

The truth is that nearly every terror attack or threat to America by an Islamic extremist can be directly linked to “blowback” from our ventures in the Middle East. 

Osama bin Laden cited the presence of U.S. troops on Saudi holy land as a motivation for the 9/11 attacks. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said the Boston marathon bombing was “retribution for the U.S. crimes against Muslims in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.” Faisal Shahzad said his attempted bombing in Times Square was “retaliation for U.S. drone attacks” in Pakistan, which he had personally witnessed. The underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, said that his attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner bound for Detroit was revenge for U.S. attacks on Muslims. Last month in Chicago, a teenager was arrested attempting to travel to Syria to join ISIS. He explained in a letter to his parents that he was upset that he was obligated to pay taxes that would be used to kill his Muslim brothers and sisters overseas. But when the Chicago Tribune told the story, it left this fact out, instead reporting that the teen had complained about the immorality of Western society.

And long before the Senate released its damning torture report, Al Qaeda and ISIS were using accounts of U.S. torture as a recruiting tool.

The truth about what is radicalizing Muslims to hate the West is rarely discussed in the mainstream press or in political debate. Instead, we are told by corporate-funded terror experts like the Brookings Institution’s William McCants and the Aspen Institute’s Frances Townsend that Islam is the origin of radical ideology. Anti-American jihadis supposedly learn to hate by reading the Koran and going to mosques. So one-sided is the discussion that even Bill Maher, a prominent liberal, has publicly described Islam as the “one religion in the world that kills you when you disagree with them.”

With the launch of our latest multi-billion-dollar war in Iraq and Syria, the United States has now bombed at least 13 countries in the Greater Middle East since 1980. 

A UN report suggests that Washington’s latest air campaign against ISIS has led foreign militants to join the movement on “an unprecedented scale.” 

This time, the terror experts haven’t bothered to pretend that we have a coherent plan or any chance of improving the dire situation in those countries. Still, they agree that ISIS militants’ anti-U.S. hatred originates with their Islamic faith and is unrelated to any U.S. actions.

As the novelist Upton Sinclair once observed: It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Leonard C. Goodman

Jihadis Are Like Jews Who Left For Palestine

The Theme Of The Broadcast Was About Possibly Confiscating The Passports Of Jihadists.

In the interview, Broertjes, a politician for Dutch Labor and former editor-in-chief of the highbrow Volkskrant daily, was asked whether he thought Jihadists who are leaving to fight in Syria and Iraq should be prevented from departing.

He opposed such steps, and added: 

“Dutchmen after World War II went to Israel to fight the English. We didn’t prevent them then.”

Terrorism and Jihad

By Shaykh Abu Aaliyah Surkheel

This is a brief overview of what Islam has to say about jihad, terrorism and the sanctity of human life. It bases itself, not on the need to please policy makers or the powers to be, nor on a colonialised mindset desperate to fit Islam into some acceptable liberal mould, but upon the texts of the Qur'an and the Sunnah, and the consensus (ijma') and considerations of mainstream Muslim jurists.

On a personal note, combating terrorism, and its ideological underpinnings, has long been a significant part of my da'wah or outreach programme; and all praise is for God. It was animated long before the events of 9-11 or 7-7; since 1992 in fact, when a few of my teachers in shari'ah alerted me to its realities, dangers and its unIslamic character. What follows is, as stated earlier, a brief trek across some of that terrain:

♦

1. The first thing to mention in this regards is Islam's outlook concerning the sanctity (hurmah) of human life. For as Islam views it, the human creature is indeed a sacred creation; so much so that: Whoever kills a person for other than crimes of manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he has killed the whole of humanity; and whosoever saves the life of one person, it shall be as if he has saved the whole of humanity. [5:32] Such, then, is the extraordinary value placed on human life in the Qur'an. And thus, as will be shown, acts of terror where women, children and other civilians are intentionally targeted and killed is categorically repudiated by Islam and by the agreement of those versed in law and learning among the Muslims.

2. Jihad as a word stems from jahada, which means: to strive, to exert oneself, to take extraordinary pains. As for its religious sense, al-Raghib al-Asbahani (d.425H/1034CE) defines it thus: 'Exerting one's utmost ability in repelling an enemy, and it is of three kinds: namely, contending against the outward enemy, the devil, and one's ego. Each of these enters into God's statement, exalted is He: And strive for God as He rightly must be striven for. [22:78] And strive with your wealth and your lives in the cause of God. [9:41] Also: Those who believed and left their homes and strove with their wealth and their lives in the cause of God. [8:72]'1

3. In Islam, the decision about war and peace is not left to scholars, soldiers, or anyone else. Rather it rests with the head of state who wields executive authority. This being a cardinal rule of warfare in Islam. Ibn Qudamah al-Maqdisi (d.620H/1223CE) explains the rule like so: 'The question of declaring war [or not] is entrusted to the head of state and his decision (amr al-jihad mawkulun ila'l-imām wa ijtihadihi). Compliance with the decision is the subject's duty in terms of what the authorities deem fit in the matter.'2 Al-Buhuti (1051H/1641CE) echoes the principle: 'Declaring jihad or not is entrusted to the head of state and his decision, for he best knows the condition of the Muslims and of the enemy.'3

4. The classical Islamic doctrine that forbids killing non-combatants and civilians in an outward (military) jihad takes its cue from the Prophet's words, peace be upon him: 'March forth in the name of God, trusting in God and adhering to the religion of God. Do not kill elderly men, infants, young children or women.'4 And Ibn 'Umar relates that the Prophet, peace be upon him, 'forbade the killing of women and children.'5

5. After quoting the last hadith, imām al-Nawawi (d.676H/1277CE) typified the juristic consensus on the issue when he said: 'Scholars concur upon acting by this hadith and forbid the killing of women and children, provided that they do not engage in combat. But if they do, the overwhelming majority of scholars (jamahir al-'ulema) hold that they may be fought.'6 Ibn Qudamah, explaining the logic behind the consensus against not fighting women, the elderly, children, monks or traders, writes that each of these 'are non-combatants (laysa min ahl al-qital).'7 Again, he states: 'It is not permissible to kill a child among them, nor the insane, nor a woman, monk, elderly man, someone with a debilitating illness, and nor a blind man – except if they fight.'8

6. Thus, as has been shown, the intentional targeting and killing of civilians, which a fringe minority now seek to pass off as a bonafide jihad, is a gross departure from the classical juristic consensus and a perversion of the prophetic teachings. The wanton carnage and urban mayhem unleashed upon civilian lives, and the twisted re-readings of Islam's scriptural sources by the current vanguards of terrorism, must continue to be denounced, repudiated and textually exposed. In unmasking terrorism (hiraba) for what it truly is, it has been aptly contended that: 'Terrorism is to jihad what adultery is to marriage.'9 The Qur'an says: 'What! Have you slain an innocent soul though he has killed nobody? Truly you have done a thing most foul.' [18:73]

7. One argument extremists use to justify their acts of terror is to allege that civilians living in a democracy aren't innocent at all. Their logic runs like this: In a democracy the government represents the will of the people, therefore civilian populations are complicit in their government's foreign policies and are thus legitimate targets in war. This allegation is as false as it is factually distorted. What this reductionist everyone's-guilty-in-a-democracy argument ignores or overlooks is that large swathes of citizens in a democracy may not agree with their government's foreign policies, or even have voted them into power! So how can such citizens be complicit in their government's actions? The anti-war demonstrations and protests against the Iraq war, for instance, which scores of millions of ordinary citizens across Western Europe and the United States rallied behind, is enough to show the fallacy of such logic. Moreover, as we shall see below, the shari'ah still considers such people as not being min ahl al-qital – “actual combatants”.

8. A more direct rebuttal of this twisted logic would be to look at the context in which the Prophet, peace be upon him, prohibited the killing of women, children and other civilians in war. This injunction was given when the Prophet, peace be upon him, and the early Muslims were in the midst of war with the pagan Arabs of Mecca, whose goal was no less than the extermination of Muslims. The Makkan idolators were a tightly–knit confederacy whose tribal elders would make decisions collectively at their tribal councils. The average person in such a society had far greater access to their elders and leaders and far more influence on policies than any citizen in today's Western democracies. In fact, it was not uncommon for women (either married or related to tribal leaders, or those with social influence) to pressurise, cajole and even threaten their husbands into war with the Muslims, on pain of family disgrace and tribal ignominy, if they did not do so. During the battle of Uhud, women, led by Hind, even went out onto the battlefield to lend moral support to the aggressors. In spite of knowing all this, the Prophet, peace be upon him, still insisted: 'Do not kill elderly men, young children, or women.'10 And when he once saw a woman that had been killed, he said: 'This is not one who should have been fought.'11

9. Another proof used to justify the killing of civilians is a hadith in which the Prophet was asked about some of the idolators whose settlements had been attacked at night and which resulted in a few women and children being killed. This led him to say: 'They are from them (hum minhum).'12 There are two reasons why this hadith cannot be used in this manner: Firstly, a large body of jurists consider the hadith to have been abrogated by the explicit command to 'not kill civilians in war.'13 Secondly, jurists who do permit night raids that could result in civilian loss clearly state: 'This is provided they [women, children and other non-combatants] are not deliberately targeted.'14 It is also interesting that a leading jurist of early Islam, as well as the actual sub-narrator of this hadith, imām al-Zuhri, would qualify the above hadith by immediately relating the hadith which forbids killing civilians. Thus: 'Whenever al-Zuhri related this hadith, he would say: “Ka'b b. Malik's son narrated to me; from his uncle … that the Prophet, peace be upon him, forbade the killing of women and children.”'15

10. Another aspect of the shari'ah which bears on the subject, but which has also come under extremism's aberrant re-readings, is the notion of 'aqd al-aman – “the covenant of security”. What this implies is that Muslims residing, for instance, in a non-Muslim land – either native born, naturalised or legal resident – are under an explicit pact or contract which renders all non-Muslim life, property and honour sacrosanct. That is, Muslim citizens of non-Muslim countries cannot engage in acts of aggression against their own state of fellow citizens. Ibn Qudamah said: 'As for treachery towards them, this is expressly forbidden. For they only granted him security on condition that he not betray them and that they be safe from his harm. If this is not stipulated in explicit terms, it is implicitly implied. …This being so, it is unlawful for us to be treacherous to them, since this is betrayal; and our religion has no place for betrayal. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said: “The Muslims fulfil their contracts.”16'17

11. It isn't possible to stress enough how seriously orthodox Islam takes the obligation to honour contracts and covenants, or how unlawful it is for a Muslim who lives or resides in a land to then attack it or its citizens. What should also be appreciated is that a Muslim may even hold the following opinion with no internal contradiction with the above ten points: that America and Britain are waging wars of aggression in the Middle East; however, Muslims who are under a pledge of security may not attack their country, nor its soldiers, nor any of its citizens. One hadith has this threat of humiliation and ignominy: 'For every person who betrays a covenant will have a flag at his back on the Day of Judgement, which will be raised according to the level of his treachery.'18

♦

To conclude: the chorus of condemnation from Islam's textual sources and religious authorities, against acts of terror, must continue to ring out urgently and loudly. If we wish to be dissenting voices on any issue of domestic or foreign policy, we must find legitimate ways within the democratic process to voice such dissent.

It is to their credit that Muslim scholars, despite differences between them on a whole array of theological and legal issues, have come out so unanimously against terrorism. What we also ask of them is to continue to strive to expose and eradicate the deviant notions and assumptions that underpin it. Our governments (British and American) also have a responsibility to act. For they can drain much of the extremists' anger by securing a fair resolution to the Palestinian problem, closing Guantanamo Bay prison, and enacting just foreign policies. It is for the Muslim scholars, however, to vanquish the twisted fiqh-cum-theology of the terrorists.

≈

1. Mufradat Alfaz al-Qur'an (Damascus: Dar al-Qalam, 2002), 208.

2. Al-Mughni (Saudi Arabia: Dar al-'Alam al-Kutub, 1999), 13:11.

3. Kashshaf al-Qina' (Riyadh: Maktabah al-Nasr al-Hadithah, n.d.), 3:41.

4. Abu Dawud, Sunan, no.2614.

5. Bukhāri, no.3015; Muslim, no.1744.

6. Sharh Sahih Muslim (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyyah, 1995), 12:43.

7. Al-Mughni, 13:178.

8. 'Umdat al-Fiqh (Riyadh: Dar al-Mayman, 2009), 220.

9. Abdal Hakim Murad, Contentions, 5/7, at http://www.masud.co.uk

10. Abu Dawud, no.2614.

11. Abu Dawud, no.2669; Ibn Majah, no.2842.

12. Bukhāri, no.3012.

13. See: Ibn Hajr al-'Asqalani, Fath al-Bari Sharh Sahih Bukhāri (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-'ilmiyyah, 1989), 6:182.

14. As per the classical Hanbali jurist, al-Buhuti, Kashshaf al-Qina', 3:47-8.

15. Cited in Fath al-Bari, 6:182. I am grateful to Muḥammad Nizami for pointing out this report to me.

16. Al-Tirmidhi, no.1352.

17. Al-Mughni, 13:152.

18. Muslim, no.1738.

The War Between The Civilised Man and The Savage

A Provocative Ad Which Debuted Last Month In San Francisco Is Making Its Way To New York Subways Today.

By Hamid Dabashi
Courtesy Of "Al-Jazeera"

Starting from Monday, September  24, 2012, as the UN General Assembly picks up momentum in New York and heads of states from around the world come to the Big Apple for their annual gatherings, New Yorkers and their out of town guests are treated to quite an advertising spectacle.  

"In any war between the civilised man and the savage," the ad will read, "support the civilised man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad."  

The ad began its debut last month in San Francisco on city buses, and is now heading to New York subways.According to CNN: "New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority initially rejected the ad... But the authority's decision was overturned last month when a federal judge ruled that the ad is protected speech under the First Amendment."    

An organisation called the "American Freedom Defence Initiative" has produced the ad and "has been fighting to place the message in New York's subway system since last year after the authority refused to display it". 

According to the Washington Post, "A conservative blogger who once headed a campaign against an Islamic centre near the September 11 terror attack site won a court order to post the ad in 10 subway stations next Monday... The blogger, Pamela Geller, said she filed suit Thursday in the nation's capital to post the ad in Washington's transit system after officials declined to put up the ad in light of the uproar in the Middle East over the anti-Islam film." 

Over the last few days, since the news of this ad started circulating the media, pictures of the ad have appeared on the internet - with many Americans categorically denouncing its evident racism, while the more enterprising New Yorkers initiated a Twitter campaign to protest the ad to start on the same Monday with the hashtag #MySubwayAd. 

What's In An Ad?

Two crucial aspects of this ad have far reaching implications that its immediate and boorish racism can in fact conceal. We need to unpack this ad for the sign of something else that it is - first, who exactly is its audience, and second, what to make of its vintage vulgarity.  

"We need to unpack this ad for the sign of something else that it is - first, who exactly is its audience, and second, what to make of its vintage vulgarity."

The timing of it with the UN General Assembly may create the impression that it is intended for a primarily global audience, while its astonishing vulgarity might make it appear as exceptional and the work of a lunatic fringe. Both these impressions need further scrutiny.  

Though the timing may in fact have targeted a global impact, a proposition compromised by the fact that the UN delegates don't usually take the bus or the subway in New York and are in fact chauffeured around in their diplomatic limousines while escorted by the New York police motorcades, the primary target of the ad is in factdomestic and only by extension global. That it is intended for Washington, DC may also mean targeting foreign embassies, but coupled by its initial campaign in San Francisco almost definitively marks its domestic targets. Targeting the domestic and foreign audiences need not be mutually exclusive, and can in fact be complementary. But given the foreign policy implications of the ad, the domestic audience should not be overlooked.  

Domestic Targets

The fact that this ad is primarily (but not exclusively) targeted for domestic use is evident in the two dominant tropes of "civilised man" and "savage" - the two terms immediately applied by the white supremacist European colonial settlers in the US and the Native Americans, respectively. As I have said on many occasions, the visual tropes and active vocabularies of white supremacist racism is very limited and they keep regurgitating it against one target of their anxiety or another. The "civilised man" was (and remains) the white European man and "the savage" was his designated trope for the Native Americans. "Savage" has in the course of American history been subsequently extended and transmuted to include African Americans, Latino Americans, and now only by extension Muslim Americans - all the moving targets of anxiety for white supremacists.  

Like all racist adages, the ad partakes in very old racist tropes and the appearance of the phrase "civilised man" twice in the span of a short sentence reveals the racist pedigree back to the early American history - and that it is in fact a woman who is using this phrase is an absolutely delightful mot juste that reveals the supreme victory of the phrase in the collective consciousness of racist brutes beyond age and gender!  

The target of the ad is thus primarily domestic against what is called multiculturalism, old and new immigrants, and the massive demographic changes in American society - a deeply anxiety-provoking fact for the fictive white man and his white supremacist limited regime of knowledge at work here.    

Precisely the same anxiety had led only a decade ago to "the clash of civilisation" thesis by Samuel Huntington, which Gellar now violently vulgarises. In my critique of "the clash of civilisation" thesis, published more than a decade ago in the International Journal of Sociology, I have already demonstrated in detail how the rise of civilisational thinking during the 1990s in the US was already targeted far more domestically than globally - a claim I made in 2001 and confirmed four years later when Samuel Huntington published his Who Are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity (2005).     

The "clash of civilisation" thesis was the Harvard University professoriate version of this illiterate buffoonery that is now riding on New York subways - identical racism put in two different parlance, one polished and careful and the other vulgar and naked, both targeting domestic non-white Native Americans, African Americans, and recent immigrants by way of consolidating a fictive white man at the centre of American history and political culture.  

The fact that the principal culprit behind this bigotry is in fact a domestic danger to reason and sanity in the US has not been lost on progressive Americans who have been on her case for quite some time. The Southern Poverty Law Centre, a non-profit civil rights organisation "dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society", has in fact done a thorough exposé on her.  

In a way, this ad is in fact a badge of honour for Muslims to have joined the ranks of Native Americans, African Americans, Latino Americans and others who have periodically been the subject of white supremacist hatred. Muslims have finally arrived in America!  

"The ad is not an exception that proves a rule, but an exception that camouflages the rule."

In this sense, Geller's pathological utterance in public is thus identical to Mitt Romney's now infamous tape in which he openly denigrates and dismisses half of the American population as lazy freeloaders. 

Romney and Gellar are just not too intelligent to say what they mean in more guarded language. Indeed as Romney subsequently said in an attempt to justify his 47 per cent comment, he did not put it elegantly. Exactly. He is a badly educated and vulgar rich man who says things very nakedly, as is Geller. Two vulgar racist class-conscious supremacists thrown into the public ill-prepared to camouflage their racism as a Harvard professor would.    

The Exception That Hides The Rule 

The second most visible aspect of this ad, immediately connected to the first, is its astonishing vulgarity. That vulgarity in effect and unwillingly mimics Zionism - stealing other people's homeland and crying uncle! By incitement to murder, by encouraging ethnic cleansing, by being associated with a vulgar Zionist who has been an inspiration to the European mass murderer, Anders Breivik, this ad stages a particular brand of American Zionism appropriately placed where usually advertisements for Calvin Klein underwear or "Gentlemen's clubs" and other similar commercials appear. 

By thus commercialising the Zionist cause, it places it squarely within the visual regime of loutish consumerism - where it now squarely belongs. It thrives on mimicking Zionism in its advanced stage of having wedded the ethnic cleansing of Palestine to the consumerist fetishism definitive to American militarism. 

But Americans and non-Americans alike baffled by the depth of this vulgarity in effect blind themselves to what this blatant vulgarity conceals and reveals at one and the same time.  

To understand this concealment, this commodified mystification of Zionism, we need a quick detour to the sublime insight of the exquisite French semiotician Roland Barth (1915-1980) in his reading of Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront(1954). In one of his most insightful short essays in his Mythologies (1957), "A Sympathetic Worker", Barth speaks of a certain kind of "truth vaccine" by which he means how in Elia Kazan's film "a small gang of mobsters is made to symbolise the entire body of employers, and once this minor disorder is acknowledged and dealt with like a trivial and disgraceful pustule, the real problem is evaded, is never even named, and is thereby exorcised".   

This is exactly what we are seeing here. The thick vulgarity of the ad turns it into a caricature, safely distances it from Harvard political scientists theorising "the clash of civilisation", as it distances it from the very core of American imperialism, so that "once this minor disorder is thus identified and acknowledged" as "a trivial and disgraceful pustule", the real problem - namely the fact that the entire American foreign policy, its demonisation of Muslims in the courses it teaches in its military academies, its flushing the Quran down the toilet by way of torturing Muslim "savages", by drone attacks on innocent people in Pakistan or Afghanistan, and by its unconditional support for Israel repeatedly articulated by President Obama are all "evaded, never even named, and thereby exorcised".   

So if you are angered, disgusted and outraged by this ad, watch it, you are being taken for a ride, and not just on San Francisco buses or the New York subway cars. For the ad is not an exception that proves a rule, but an exception that camouflages the rule.  

As to what exactly should be the Muslim response to this racist Islamophobic ad - well you just read one response: no kicking, no screaming, no climbing any walls, no burning any flag, no act of violence, no room for any corrupt Pakistani politician to cover up his own corruption by inciting to murder - just a little theoretical tit for a bit of vulgar tat. They want to terrorise you into silence; you turn around and theorise their vulgarity. That's all - on to the next atrocity.  

CounterTerror Adviser Defends Jihad As 'Legitimate Tenet Of Islam'

Published May 27, 2010
Courtesy Of "FOX News"

White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan speaks to reporters in the White House Jan. 7. (AP Photo)

The president's top counterterrorism adviser on Wednesday called jihad a "legitimate tenet of Islam," arguing that the term "jihadists" should not be used to describe America's enemies.

During a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, John Brennan described violent extremists as victims of "political, economic and social forces," but said that those plotting attacks on the United States should not be described in "religious terms."

He repeated the administration argument that the enemy is not "terrorism," because terrorism is a "tactic," and not terror, because terror is a "state of mind" -- though Brennan's title, deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism and homeland security, includes the word "terrorism" in it. But then Brennan said that the word "jihad" should not be applied either.

"Nor do we describe our enemy as 'jihadists' or 'Islamists' because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children," Brennan said.

The technical, broadest definition of jihad is a "struggle" in the name of Islam and the term does not connote "holy war" for all Muslims. However, jihad frequently connotes images of military combat or warfare, and some of the world's most wanted terrorists including Usama bin Laden commonly use the word to call for war against the West.

Brennan defined the enemy as members of bin Laden's Al Qaeda network and "its terrorist affiliates."

But Brennan argued that it would be "counterproductive" for the United States to use the term, as it would "play into the false perception" that the "murderers" leading war against the West are doing so in the name of a "holy cause."

"Moreover, describing our enemy in religious terms would lend credence to the lie propagated by Al Qaeda and its affiliates to justify terrorism -- that the United States is somehow at war against Islam," he said.

The comment comes after Brennan, in a February speech in which he described his respect for the tolerance and devotion of Middle Eastern nations, referred to Jerusalem on first reference by its Arabic name, Al-Quds.

"In all my travels the city I have come to love most is al-Quds, Jerusalem, where three great faiths come together," Brennan said at an event co-sponsored by the White House Office of Public Engagement and the Islamic Center at New York University and the Islamic Law Students Association at NYU.

Jihad In Islam — Myth and Reality

By Bassam Javed
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Courtesy Of "The International"

Today, the Muslim world faces a dilemma removing misconceptions about Islam. The process is becoming more and more difficult as the western media continues to hype non-events and minor incidents and concoct conspiracies to malign Islam and the Muslims. The stereotypes in the western media that implicate Islam and the Muslims in every act of terror around the world expose their deep rooted prejudice and ignorance about the Muslims and the religion of Islam. Their linking of Muslims to every act of terror and dubbing them as extremists or terrorists misleads their masses and widens the gap between societies and religions.

The biggest misconception that the western media spreads relates to is Jihad, which literally means struggle in the path of Godí. The word has on many occasions been taken out of context to propagate negative views on Islam.

After subduing communism, the guns have now been trained on Islam and the phenomenon of Jihad. Jihad is being projected in a distorted manner and the Muslims as fanatics and terrorists. It is that the way Jihad is being perceived and portrayed in the western world as references are made from contemporary journalistic material. In the present-day world around us, we can observe a strange phenomenon wherein one country strives for ascendancy over another through exploitation of the religions and their manifestations. The analyses of trends of negativity being projected about Islam and the Muslims by the western media provide credentials to the theory that there is dire need for the west to get educated on the religion of Islam and its contents and manifestations. Today, wherever conflicts are taking place wherein one party is Muslim, the conflict depicts the regional power struggle or the overtones of religious conflict between Islam and the other religions. To name a few conflict-stricken areas, Kashmir, Palestine, Kosovo, Chechnya and a few others may be cited, where one party is always Muslim. In the endeavour to preserve the sanctity of Islam, the conflicts turn into resolute struggles and acquire the characters of Jihad (holy struggle).

Jihad is a much wider concept. The religious connotation of the word is strife or struggle. Jihad is multi-faceted. At the very basic level, it means struggling against instincts within oneself that militate against the following of basic tenants of Islam. Secondly, it directs Muslims to enjoin the good and forbid the evil. In fact, this is a universal message for everybody and even the Quran directs its followers to respect Christians and Jews as they are followers of holy books. Thirdly, Jihad also means struggle against aggression and oppression. Wherever there is oppression, injustice, denial of rights or of the freedom to practice religion, struggle against these is also jihad. The tools employed against Jihad are no different than those employed by western powers against the weaker powers; however they are given the name of sanctions. The tools such as diplomacy, politics, economic pressures, etc. so often used by the west are also the tools used against jihad. Jihad is waged against the aggressor and the oppressor. Killing of innocent people including children, women, the sick and the elderly in the name of jihad is simply not permitted by the Muslim religion. Jihad encompasses much more than the ëwaging of holy warsí as resorting to the same is limited and very well defined in Islam. Islam propagates harmony and peace, contrary to popular western belief, and is not a religion of war.

If we examine recent history, the areas of conflict wherein the armed forces or the people took to jihad, like Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, a number of common factors emerge from these conflicts. The first factor is aggression or oppression against Muslims. In each of these conflicts, be it Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir or Palestine, the Muslim communities were forced to take up arms against aggression. They were either invaded without provocation or subjected to brutal oppression that forced them to fight back. In some of the cases even genocide was carried out. Had they not been obliged to take up arms to defend themselves, their rights and freedom would have been usurped. Indian State terrorism against the people of Kashmir with frequent rapes of their women, Israeli intransigence in refusing Palestinian rights, Russian repression against the Chechens, and so on, are some of the black incidents wherein those at the receiving end had to fight for defence of their religion.

Seeing the resolute belief in Jihad of the followers of Islam, some foreign elements have started exploiting its spirit for their own nefarious designs. Jihad is also at times exploited by militant groups independently of their respective countriesí official policies. Jihad can be declared only by an Islamic state and not by religious or militant groups. What is jihad carried out for? It is for freedom, for an end to occupation, and for response to aggression. Islamic history tells us that jihad never seeks to occupy othersí territories or to employ force to spread Islam.

The image of armed jihad is very different to the one that is often portrayed in the western media. With the clock ticking away, the gap between the reality and the image is being constantly being widened, courtesy the western press. Sometimes, the distortion of the same is so obvious and deliberate to portray jihad as ëIslamic fundamentalismí. The mantra of the terminology draws sympathy from international community as a threat to global security. When it comes to Islam the masses forget that every religion has fundamentalists. Some of the radical states like Israel and India have been successful in enlisting global support for the conflicts that they are engaged in and the ones that are essentially of their own making.

In their respective cases it is Kashmir and Palestine. They successfully exploit the western media for publishing their version of the conflict whereas the version of the ones that are striving through jihad to resist the dominance of the aggressors, dose not find a place in any of the international publishing house. The exploitation by the western media with its distorted reporting has done a great harm to the image of Islam and the concept of Jihad especially through routine stereotyping of the Muslims as being bad guys. In the Bosnian conflict it was commonly reported that ëthe Bosnians are being killed by Serbiansí but never reported as ëthe Muslims are being killed by Christiansí. This is the dangerous path the west has embarked upon to malign Islamic tenets that may one day create havoc when these conflicts would turn into major wars fought on religion basis. Let us all hope and pray that time remains a mirage.

Motivation For Jihad

By Charles V. Peña,
December 18, 2009
Courtesy Of Anti-War News

Last week, five Americans – Ahmed Abdullah Minni, Umar Farooq, Aman Hassan Yemer, Waqar Hussain Khan, and Ramy Zamzam (all from the Northern Virginia area just outside of Washington, DC) – were arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks. The five were allegedly in touch with a Taliban recruiter for several months and went to Pakistan just after Thanksgiving to try and join up with al-Qaeda. According to Mustafa Abu Maryam, youth coordinator of the mosque they attended in Alexandria, VA, "I have always known these kids as fun-loving, career-focused children that had a bright future for themselves. As far as I know they were wholesome kids. Very goofy. You know, talked about girls. Very wholesome." Farooq was an accounting student at George Mason University. Zamzam (thought to be the leader of the group) was a dental student at Howard Univeristy. By all accounts they all seemed pretty normal – or at least they didn’t exhibit any outward signs of being would-be terrorists. So there is understandably much hand-wringing over how and why these five young men could – if proven to be true – have been converted to the cause of al-Qaeda and radical Islam.

During the Bush administration we were constantly told that they, i.e., the terrorists, attacked us on 9/11 because they hate us for who we are. In other words, because they hate freedom and democracy, our way of life, our culture, our values. There doesn’t seem to be much evidence that Minni, Farooq, Yemer, Khan, and Zamzam hated America. If they really hated America, why would they go to Pakistan to wage jihad rather than trying to blow something up here?

In a speech at Cairo University in Egypt in June, President Obama talked about seven sources of tension between Islam and America:

• Violent extremism in all of its forms,
• The situation between Israelis, Palestinians, and the Arab world,
• Rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons (i.e., Iran),
• Democracy (ironic given that the speech was in Egypt which is a democracy in name only),
• Religious freedom,
• Women’s rights, and
• Economic development and opportunity.

Again, there isn’t much evidence that any or all of the above were motivating factors for the five young men now being held in Pakistan.

The answer – which is a microcosm for larger U.S. foreign policy – is staring us straight in the face. And, like we do with foreign policy, we want to ignore it.

Reportedly, the group made what is described as a farewell video (but not necessarily a martyrdom suicide terrorism video) with reference the ongoing conflicts in the world (presumably Iraq and Afghanistan) and that young Muslims had to do something to defend Muslims. According to Pakistani authorities, the young men men "were of the opinion that a jihad must be waged against the infidels for the atrocities committed by them against Muslims around the world."

In other words, Minni, Farooq, Yemer, Khan, and Zamzam appear to have been motivated by what we do. In simple terms, because our policies result in actions that kill Muslims. Harvard professor Steven Walt did a back-of-the-envelope (and conservative, i.e., low end) calculation and came up with the number 288,000 for how many Muslims the United States has killed in the last 30 years (in contrast, Walt calculates that Muslims have killed about 10,000 Americans over the same time period – 2,800 of which were the result of the 9/11 attacks). He provides plenty of caveats:

• The United States is not solely responsible for some of those fatalities, most notably in the case of "excess deaths" attributable to the U.N. sanctions against Iraq.
• The United States is not solely to blame for the sectarian violence that engulfed Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
• The fact that people died as a result of certain U.S. actions does not by itself mean that those policy decisions were wrong.

Even with the caveats, the numbers can’t be ignored. So why is it so hard for us to understand that Muslims – perhaps including the five young men from Northern Virginia – would be motivated to become terrorists?

Because it’s hard to acknowledge to ourselves that terrorism is a consequence of U.S. policy choices and actions. No one wants to be accused of hating America, claiming that America is at fault, or saying that America deserves to be attacked – all of which are not true. But confusing fault and blame with cause and effect only results in continuing to come up with the wrong answers.

For example, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman claims that the problem is what he calls "the Narrative" of anti-American jihad. According to Friedman:

The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda, and outright lies about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11. Propagated by jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations and books – and tacitly endorsed by some Arab regimes – this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand "American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy" to keep Muslims down.

In other words, in Friedman’s view the problem is Muslims. So the solution would have to lie with changing Muslims and the Muslim world (no surprise coming from someone who was a cheerleader for invading Iraq).

But what Friedman conveniently ignores are two undeniable facts (not half-truths, propaganda, and outright lies) about the Narrative:

• The United States is an occupier in Muslim countries (this was true even before the decision to invade Iraq and one of the primary grievances cited by Osama bin Laden in his calls to Muslims to make America a target for terrorism).
• The United States supports authoritarian and oppressive regimes in Muslim countries (another grievance cited by bin Laden).

Throw in the undeniable fact that U.S. military action has resulted (and continues to result) in killing Muslims (even if sometimes justified) and you have a pretty potent cocktail for recruiting terrorists.

There is one thing Friedman gets right: "Many Arab Muslims know that what ails their societies is more than the West, and that The Narrative is just an escape from looking honestly at themselves." But if Friedman truly understood The Narrative, he would understand that the only way for Muslims to look honestly at themselves (and not give their ruling governments an easy way to, in his words, "deflect onto America all of their people’s grievances") is to remove the United States from the equation. In other words, we need to stop trying to be part of the solution and understand that we are part of the problem.

Read more by Charles V. Peña

• More Sanctions, More Insanity – November 19th, 2009
• Not Every Tragedy Is Terrorism – November 12th, 2009
• The Clock Is Ticking – November 5th, 2009
• Commuting to War – October 29th, 2009
• The Shoe on the Other Foot – October 22nd, 2009

CIA Hired Blackwater To Kill Jihadists

By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: August 19, 2009
Courtesy Of The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.

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Blackwater security contractors flew over Baghdad in 2007. For years, Blackwater played a significant role in the Iraq operation.

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Leon E. Panetta, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, canceled a program to locate and kill the leaders of Al Qaeda.

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Executives from Blackwater, which has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not successfully capture or kill any terrorist suspects.

The fact that the C.I.A. used an outside company for the program was a major reason that Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A.’s director, became alarmed and called an emergency meeting in June to tell Congress that the agency had withheld details of the program for seven years, the officials said.

It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program. American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations.

Officials said the C.I.A. did not have a formal contract with Blackwater for this program but instead had individual agreements with top company officials, including the founder, Erik D. Prince, a politically connected former member of the Navy Seals and the heir to a family fortune. Blackwater’s work on the program actually ended years before Mr. Panetta took over the agency, after senior C.I.A. officials themselves questioned the wisdom of using outsiders in a targeted killing program.

Blackwater, which has changed its name, most recently to Xe Services, and is based in North Carolina, in recent years has received millions of dollars in government contracts, growing so large that the Bush administration said it was a necessary part of its war operation in Iraq.

It has also drawn controversy. Blackwater employees hired to guard American diplomats in Iraq were accused of using excessive force on several occasions, including shootings in Baghdad in 2007 in which 17 civilians were killed. Iraqi officials have since refused to give the company an operating license.

Several current and former government officials interviewed for this article spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing details of a still classified program.

Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, declined to provide details about the canceled program, but he said that Mr. Panetta’s decision on the assassination program was “clear and straightforward.”

“Director Panetta thought this effort should be briefed to Congress, and he did so,” Mr. Gimigliano said. “He also knew it hadn’t been successful, so he ended it.”

A Xe spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee, also declined to give details of the program. But she praised Mr. Panetta for notifying Congress. “It is too easy to contract out work that you don’t want to accept responsibility for,” she said.

The C.I.A. this summer conducted an internal review of the assassination program that recently was presented to the White House and the Congressional intelligence committees. The officials said that the review stated that Mr. Panetta’s predecessors did not believe that they needed to tell Congress because the program was not far enough developed.

The House Intelligence Committee is investigating why lawmakers were never told about the program. According to current and former government officials, former Vice President Dick Cheney told C.I.A. officers in 2002 that the spy agency did not need to inform Congress because the agency already had legal authority to kill Qaeda leaders.

One official familiar with the matter said that Mr. Panetta did not tell lawmakers that he believed that the C.I.A. had broken the law by withholding details about the program from Congress. Rather, the official said, Mr. Panetta said he believed that the program had moved beyond a planning stage and deserved Congressional scrutiny.

“It’s wrong to think this counterterrorism program was confined to briefing slides or doodles on a cafeteria napkin,” the official said. “It went well beyond that.”

Current and former government officials said that the C.I.A.’s efforts to use paramilitary hit teams to kill Qaeda operatives ran into logistical, legal and diplomatic hurdles almost from the outset. These efforts had been run by the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism center, which runs operations against Al Qaeda and other terrorist networks.

In 2002, Blackwater won a classified contract to provide security for the C.I.A. station in Kabul, Afghanistan, and the company maintains other classified contracts with the C.I.A., current and former officials said.

Over the years, Blackwater has hired several former top C.I.A. officials, including Cofer Black, who ran the C.I.A. counterterrorism center immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks.

C.I.A. operatives also regularly use the company’s training complex in North Carolina. The complex includes a shooting range used for sniper training.

An executive order signed by President Gerald R. Ford in 1976 barred the C.I.A. from carrying out assassinations, a direct response to revelations that the C.I.A. had initiated assassination plots against Fidel Castro of Cuba and other foreign politicians.

The Bush administration took the position that killing members of Al Qaeda, a terrorist group that attacked the United States and has pledged to attack it again, was no different from killing enemy soldiers in battle, and that therefore the agency was not constrained by the assassination ban.

But former intelligence officials said that employing private contractors to help hunt Qaeda operatives would pose significant legal and diplomatic risks, and they might not be protected in the same way government employees are.

Some Congressional Democrats have hinted that the program was just one of many that the Bush administration hid from Congressional scrutiny and have used the episode as a justification to delve deeper into other Bush-era counterterrorism programs.

But Republicans have criticized Mr. Panetta’s decision to cancel the program, saying he created a tempest in a teapot.

“I think there was a little more drama and intrigue than was warranted,” said Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.

Officials said that the C.I.A. program was devised partly as an alternative to missile strikes using drone aircraft, which have accidentally killed civilians and cannot be used in urban areas where some terrorists hide.

Yet with most top Qaeda operatives believed to be hiding in the remote mountains of Pakistan, the drones have remained the C.I.A.’s weapon of choice. Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has embraced the drone campaign because it presents a less risky option than sending paramilitary teams into Pakistan.