MORE EGYPTIANS JOIN RANKS OF POOR WHILE RICH GET RICHER

From CIC Friday Magazine --

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1. MORE EGYPTIANS JOIN RANKS OF POOR WHILE RICH GET RICHER
[By Dr. Mohamed Elmasry]
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CAIRO, Egypt - I cannot recall any occasion in recent history when Egyptian
university professors threatened to stage a national strike, much less
actually do so. Ever since my own time among their ranks during the late
1960s, it just never happened.

Today, I still have peers, colleagues and former students who hold long
term positions at Egypt's national universities. We weren't paid well back
then, but just as in the past, many academics and other professionals
manage to obtain a few years of lucrative extra work in rich Gulf
countries, allowing them to supplement their low Egyptian salaries with
savings from abroad.

But even "moonlighting" isn't enough any more. The financial condition of
Egyptian professors has deteriorated massively over the past decade. Today,
their average monthly salary stands at US$544 and lags far below the
current inflation rate. By comparison, Egyptian private universities offer
their professors about ten times the salaries paid by national
institutions, yet they just barely manage.

So now history is being made, with professors in the country's national
universities demanding a modest 80-per cent wage increase -- just to reach
the minimal standard of living they had 10 years ago. The government has
promised only to "study" the situation.

Egyptian government figures have pegged the annual inflation rate at 12 per
cent, but experts are saying it's really much higher, especially when the
rising cost for basic items, some reaching 70 percent, is factored in. Even
though the exchange rate between the American dollar and the Egyptian pound
is declining, prices are still going up, signaling that the economy is in
real trouble.

University professors are not the only ones steadily joining the ranks of
the working-poor in my native land. The Egyptian Medical Doctors'
Association recently announced plans to stage a sit-in and organize
protests to win more pay for its members from the Ministry of Health. The
basic monthly salary for a new graduate MD working for the government is
$40 (no, that wasn't a typo - I did mean forty dollars!). The vast majority
of them cannot afford to open new private practices, which are urgently
needed in many parts of the country. A very small minority of new MDs goes
into private practice only because their parents are doctors with already-
established practices, or are wealthy enough to fund their start-up costs.

Public school teachers are even lower on the wage ladder. Those fortunate
enough to find jobs in the first place get just one dollar a day and
receive no pay for vacation periods when schools are not in session. Many
opt to work instead (or hold double jobs) as taxi drivers and waiters,
earning tips to compensate for their low salaries. UN figures show that 40
percent of Egyptians earn less than 2 dollars a day.

The situation has become so serious that basic food items are often priced
beyond reach for Egypt's poor. Bread, which is subsidized by the
government, has become scarce and 15 people recently died when bread
lineups stampeded. It is all too common now to hear reports of parents
committing suicide out of despair, because they can no longer afford to
feed their children.

The government claims that rising food prices are due to worldwide price
increases; and while this is a poor excuse for the little that has been
done to rectify the problem, it is at least partly true. Egypt imports more
than half its requirements in wheat and beans, which are the only source of
protein for more than 90 percent of the population. Most families can't
afford to eat meat more than three or four times a year.

A major reason why food availability and distribution have become such
critical problems is that Egypt has no national plan for food self-
sufficiency (as does India, for example) and the situation is worsening
every day. Many politicians have confided to me a shocking revelation --
that the U.S., for political and economic reasons - has always been opposed
to any policy by any Egyptian government to implement plans for food self-
sufficiency.

When a brave young Egyptian film director produced a powerful documentary
showing how the nation's poor actually live, he could not hold an audience.
The film was so depressing that viewers would exclaim aloud in disbelief
and walk out of the theater midway through it. What that film and plain
statistics show is that the gap between the very rich and the desperately
poor in Egypt is widening at an alarming rate; and what used to be called
the "middle class" has lost so much ground it has almost ceased to exist.

Forbes Magazine recently counted four Egyptians from one family, the
Sawiris, who have joined the ranks of global multi-billionaires. Their
combined wealth is in excess of US$20 billion. But none of them builds
hospitals, schools, universities, research facilities, or training centres
to improve the conditions of their own people.

So even though Egypt's economic growth rate was 7.1 per cent last year, the
country's grossly skewed distribution of wealth is threatening social
peace.

And the government's aggressive policy of privatization is further
compounding the problem. Worse still, it does not retain any ownership
share in the public sector services it sells. Nor does it regulate the
market even for basic food items (apart from inadequate bread subsidies).
It also relinquishes some services at fire-sale prices - such as air-wave
license fees to high-profit wireless communication companies. And in a
country where the Nile historically supplied the entire nation with potable
drinking water (and could still do so with wise management), public water
supplies cannot be trusted and those who can afford it, buy environmentally
costly bottled water.

Similarly, the rich can afford to escape Cairo's heavily polluted air on
weekends to relax at their Mediterranean villas; but for those of the
general population who must stay within the city day in and day out, cancer
rates are rapidly increasing. The rich continue to send their children to
private schools and universities and these lucky few know they are
guaranteed jobs after graduation in companies owned by their parents,
families, or their families' friends; meanwhile unemployment among the so-
called middle class and below is reaching more than 50 per cent.

Finally, I asked a friend, who is an academic and a former government
minister, if there is anything left in Egypt that is still publicly owned.
He said, in effect, there is almost nothing "and that little will be sold
soon." Sadly he added, "I think that if the government could sell the Nile
itself, the Pyramids, and even my own family, they would do it."

Tragically, in Egypt, social justice is just empty social talk.

(Dr. Mohamed Elmasry is national president of the Canadian Islamic
Congress. He can be reached at np@canadianislamiccongress.com)

JORDAN -- THE RIVER AND THE COUNTRY

From CIC Friday Magazine --

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1. JORDAN -- THE RIVER AND THE COUNTRY
[By Dr. Mohamed Elmasry]
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AMMAN, Jordan -- Among the smaller nations of this region with large
histories, Jordan, which lies on the ancient and famous Damascus-Arabia
trade route, can hold its own with any neighboring state for having a long
and colorful story to tell.

For centuries, it was administrated from Damascus and, along with
Palestine, was known as South Syria.

The area of modern Jordan extends east of the River Jordan, from the Yarmuk
River in the north to the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea; it stretches
eastward from the Syrian Desert to the frontiers of Iraq and down to the
Arabian Desert. Jordan's total length is 380 kms and its width varies from
150 to 380 kms. Modern Jordan would have been landlocked, however, except
for a unique exchange of territory with Saudi Arabia which took place in
1965. Jordan gave up a substantial tract of inland desert in return for a
small piece of sea-shore near Aqaba.

The River Jordan, which shares its name with this small but pivotal
country, is not much of a river by world standards. From its source to its
mouth it drops by 1300 meters and is always below its surrounding
countryside, with much of its course also below sea-level. It seldom
exceeds 30 meters in width and much of its flow is diverted for irrigation.
The Yarmuk and Zarqa are major tributaries, but most other streams that
join the Jordan on its way to the Dead Sea are often dry for much of the
year.

The Dead Sea, which is the saltiest body of water on earth, is in trouble.
It has fallen more than 20 meters over the past 40 years. Studies by the
University of Jordan show that the sea is now dropping at the alarming rate
of one meter of depth each year. The water level began (and has continued)
to drop much faster since 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank
territories and took control of the watercourses and aquifers that feed the
River Jordan.

Between the second and third centuries of the Common Era, Christianity
gained a strong foothold east of the Jordan River. Ancient writers like St.
Jerome (349-419 CE) mentioned this area, which came to be called the
Transjordan. But the first to write scientifically about it was the German
traveler Ulrich Jasper Seetzen in his 1813 book, "A Brief Account of the
Countries adjoining the Lake of Tiberius, the Jordan and the Dead Sea."

Today Jordan is home to nearly six million people, while its capital of
Amman accounts for more than one million of the national population. Most
Jordanians are Muslim, but there is also a small Christian minority of
mainly Greek Orthodox adherents.

Although the area in and around Jordan was inhabited even in prehistoric
times, no civilization earlier than the Roman Empire has left any known
monuments. Within Amman itself lies Citadel Hill, which is believed to be
the site of an ancient city often referred to in the Old Testament as
Rabbath Ammon.

During the third century BCE, Rabbath Ammon was renamed Philadelphia after
the Ptolemaic ruler Philadelphus. The city later came under the rule of the
Nabataean Arab civilization, whose capital was the spectacular rock-carved
city of Petra.

During the Byzantine period, Philadelphia became the seat of early
Christian bishops and a number of churches were built.

The Citadel itself may have been built in the eighth century by Arab
Muslims. The entire area, including Amman, was absorbed into the Turkish
Empire until Amir Abdullah made Amman his capital in 1921, after the First
World War.

At the Citadel, a small archaeological museum houses a fine collection of
artifacts illustrating the life and history of Jordan from prehistoric
times down to the 1700s.

The country presents a variety of scenery and geology, from black basaltic
mountains to beautiful green valleys, from brightly hued sandstone
highlands to arid flat deserts. The country is divided on a north-south
axis by the old Turkish railway line, with the west mostly mountainous but
fertile (in fact, it is part of the ancient Fertile Crescent) and the east
a flat plateau of mainly desert.

Jordan's western mountain range follows the Great Rift Valley, a straight
fault line in the earth's crust which lines up the Sea of Galilee, the
Jordan Valley, the Dead Sea, the Wadi Araba, and on down to Aqaba; this
area has periodically been affected by earthquakes since before recorded
history and yet became one of the world's "cradles of civilization."

The country is mainly a tilted plateau region reaching an altitude of 1856
meters at Jabal (or Mount) Ram and sloping to the Dead Sea Lowlands which
include the lowest point on earth -- more than 400 meters below sea level.
Most of Jordan averages about 300 meters above sea level.

The climate is variable with at least one fall of snow during the winter,
while summers (reaching the mid-30s in deg. C) can be so hot that touring
the country is not recommended then. The rainy season begins with an
occasional shower during November and December with the heaviest rains
arriving in January and February, sometimes for three or four days without
a break. The best months for traveling in Jordan are March and April.

If you enjoy the stark beauty of desert scenery, your chances of being
rained out of a visit are very slim -- some parts of the Jordanian desert
go without rain for two or three years at a time! But when the moisture
does come, it is usually as a short, intense downpour. Small shallow pools
are rapidly formed and last for a few days. And during this brief time, a
remarkable phenomenon occurs.

Within a short time of a pool's formation, it becomes alive with numerous
tiny swimming creatures that rapidly mate and reproduce. They bury their
offspring in the mud at the bottom of the pool, there to await the next
rain, when the whole frantic cycle will be repeated. It is amazing that
these creatures can survive such long droughts and somehow work their way
through to new life again as soon as water touches the soil.

About 30 km south of Amman, on the way to Petra, lies Mount Nebo which is
one of the alleged sites of the tomb of Moses. In 1932, Franciscan monks
built a church there and excavated the area. Even though the authenticity
of the site has never been confirmed, it attracts many Jewish, Christian
and Muslim visitors, as all three faiths revere Moses as a major patriarch.

On a clear day, one can look out from the Franciscan church and see the
Mount of Olives, Jericho, and even the Dead Sea (the Jordan River itself is
hidden in its deep gorge). It is believed that Moses stood here and
surveyed the Promised Land, for the Biblical name of Mount Nebo is
preserved in the modern name of a nearby hill called Jabal Nab.

This special site inspires present-day visitors, just as it inspired the
Irish poet Frances Alexander (1818-1895) who wrote:

By Nebo's lonely mountain,
On this side Jordan's wave,
In a vale in the land of Moab
There lies a lonely grave;
And no man knows that sepulchre,
And no man saw it e'er;
For the angels of God upturned the sod,
And laid the dead man there.
O lonely grave in Moab's land;
O dark Beth-Peor's hill;
Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
And teach them to be still.
God hath His mysteries of grace,
Ways that we cannot tell,
He hides them deep, like the hidden sleep
Of him he loves so well.

(Dr. Mohamed Elmasry is national president of the Canadian Islamic
Congress. He can be reached at np@canadianislamiccongress.com)

Zbigniew Brzezinski: How to End the War

March 30, 2008
The Washington Post

How to End the War
By Zbigniew Brzezinski

[Zbigniew Brzezinski was national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter. His most recent book is "Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower."]

Both Democratic presidential candidates agree that the United States should end its combat mission in Iraq within 12 to 16 months of their inauguration. The Republican candidate has spoken of continuing the war, even for a hundred years, until "victory." The core issue of this campaign is thus a basic disagreement over the merits of the war and the benefits and costs of continuing it.

The case for U.S. disengagement from combat is compelling in its own right. But it must be matched by a comprehensive political and diplomatic effort to mitigate the destabilizing regional consequences of a war that the outgoing Bush administration started deliberately, justified demagogically and waged badly. (I write, of course, as a Democrat; while I prefer Sen. Barack Obama, I speak here for myself.)

The contrast between the Democratic argument for ending the war and the Republican argument for continuing is sharp and dramatic. The case for terminating the war is based on its prohibitive and tangible costs, while the case for "staying the course" draws heavily on shadowy fears of the unknown and relies on worst-case scenarios. President Bush's and Sen. John McCain's forecasts of regional catastrophe are quite reminiscent of the predictions of "falling dominoes" that were used to justify continued U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Neither has provided any real evidence that ending the war would mean disaster, but their fear-mongering makes prolonging it easier.

Nonetheless, if the American people had been asked more than five years ago whether Bush's obsessions with the removal of Saddam Hussein were worth 4,000 American lives, almost 30,000 wounded Americans and several trillion dollars -- not to mention the less precisely measurable damage to the United States' world-wide credibility, legitimacy and moral standing -- the answer would have been an unequivocal "no."

Nor do the costs of this fiasco end there. The war has inflamed anti-American passions in the Middle East and South Asia while fragmenting Iraqi society and increasing the influence of Iran. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent visit to Baghdad offers ample testimony that even the U.S.-installed government in Iraq is becoming susceptible to Iranian blandishments.

In brief, the war has become a national tragedy, an economic catastrophe, a regional disaster and a global boomerang for the United States. Ending the war is thus in the highest national interest.

Terminating U.S. combat operations will take more than a military decision. It will require arrangements with Iraqi leaders for a continued, residual U.S. capacity to provide emergency assistance in the event of an external threat (e.g., from Iran); it will also mean finding ways to provide continued U.S. support for the Iraqi armed forces as they cope with the remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The decision to militarily disengage will also have to be accompanied by political and regional initiatives designed to guard against potential risks. We should fully discuss our decisions with Iraqi leaders, including those not residing in Baghdad's Green Zone, and we should hold talks on regional stability with all of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran.

Contrary to Republican claims that our departure will mean calamity, a sensibly conducted disengagement will actually make Iraq more stable over the long term. The impasse in Shiite-Sunni relations is in large part the sour byproduct of the destructive U.S. occupation, which breeds Iraqi dependency even as it shatters Iraqi society. In this context, so highly reminiscent of the British colonial era, the longer we stay in Iraq, the less incentive various contending groups will have to compromise and the more reason simply to sit back. A serious dialogue with the Iraqi leaders about the forthcoming U.S. disengagement would shake them out of their stupor.

Terminating the U.S. war effort entails some risks, of course, but they are inescapable at this late date. Parts of Iraq are already self-governing, including Kurdistan, part of the Shiite south and some tribal areas in the Sunni center. U.S. military disengagement will accelerate Iraqi competition to more effectively control their territory, which may produce a phase of intensified inter-Iraqi conflicts. But that hazard is the unavoidable consequence of the prolonged U.S. occupation. The longer it lasts, the more difficult will it be for a viable Iraqi state ever to reemerge.

It is also important to recognize that most of the anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq has not been inspired by al-Qaeda. Locally based jihadist groups have gained strength only insofar as they have been able to identify themselves with the fight against a hated foreign occupier. As the occupation winds down and Iraqis take responsibility for internal security, al-Qaeda in Iraq will be left more isolated and less able to sustain itself. The end of the occupation will thus be a boon for the war on al-Qaeda, bringing to an end a misguided adventure that not only precipitated the appearance of al-Qaeda in Iraq but also diverted the United States from Afghanistan, where the original al-Qaeda threat grew and still persists.

Ending the U.S. military effort would also smooth the way for a broad U.S. initiative addressed to all of Iraq's neighbors. Some will remain reluctant to engage in any discussion as long as Washington appears determined to maintain indefinitely its occupation of Iraq. Therefore, at some stage in 2009, after the decision to disengage has been announced, a regional conference should be convened to promote regional stability, border control and other security arrangements, as well as regional economic development -- all of which would help mitigate the unavoidable risks connected with U.S. disengagement.

Since Iraq's neighbors are vulnerable to intensified ethnic and religious conflicts spilling over from Iraq, all of them -- albeit for different reasons -- are likely to be interested. More distant Arab states such as Egypt, Morocco or Algeria might also take part, and some of them might be willing to provide peacekeeping forces to Iraq once it is free of foreign occupation. In addition, we should consider a regional rehabilitation program designed to help Iraq recover and to relieve the burdens that Jordan and Syria, in particular, have shouldered by hosting more than 2 million Iraqi refugees.

The overall goal of a comprehensive U.S. strategy to undo the errors of recent years should be cooling down the Middle East, instead of heating it up. The "unipolar moment" that the Bush administration's zealots touted after the collapse of the Soviet Union has been squandered to generate a policy based on the unilateral use of force, military threats and occupation masquerading as democratization -- all of which pointlessly heated up tensions, fueled anti-colonial resentments and bred religious fanaticism. The long-range stability of the Middle East has been placed in increasing jeopardy.

Terminating the war in Iraq is the necessary first step to calming the Middle East, but other measures will be needed. It is in the U.S. interest to engage Iran in serious negotiations -- on both regional security and the nuclear challenge it poses. But such negotiations are unlikely as long as Washington's price of participation is unreciprocated concessions from Tehran. Threats to use force on Iran are also counterproductive since they tend to fuse Iranian nationalism with religious fanaticism.

Real progress in the badly stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process would also help soothe the region's religious and nationalist passions. But for such progress to take place, the United States must vigorously help the two sides start making the mutual concessions without which an historic compromise cannot be achieved. Peace between Israel and Palestine would be a giant step toward greater regional stability, and it would finally let both Israelis and Palestinians benefit from the Middle East's growing wealth.

We started this war rashly, but we must end our involvement responsibly. And end it we must. The alternative is a fear-driven policy paralysis that perpetuates the war -- to America's historic detriment.

McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen [Muslims]; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Islamic] nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.--Treaty of Peace and Friendship Between the United States and Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary, Art. 11, June 17, 1797


March 12, 2008
Mother Jones

McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam
Televangelist Rod Parsley, a key McCain ally in Ohio, has called for eradicating the "false religion." Will the GOP presidential candidate renounce him?"
by David Corn

Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a "war" against the "false religion" of Islam with the aim of destroying it.

On February 26, McCain appeared at a campaign rally in Cincinnati with the Reverend Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus, a supersize Pentecostal institution that features a 5,200-seat sanctuary, a television studio (where Parsley tapes a weekly show), and a 122,000-square-foot Ministry Activity Center. That day, a week before the Ohio primary, Parsley praised the Republican presidential front-runner as a "strong, true, consistent conservative." The endorsement was important for McCain, who at the time was trying to put an end to the lingering challenge from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a favorite among Christian evangelicals. A politically influential figure in Ohio, Parsley could also play a key role in McCain's effort to win this bellwether state in the general election. McCain, with Parsley by his side at the Cincinnati rally, called the evangelical minister a "spiritual guide."

The leader of a 12,000-member congregation, Parsley has written several books outlining his fundamentalist religious outlook, including the 2005 Silent No More. In this work, Parsley decries the "spiritual desperation" of the United States, and he blasts away at the usual suspects: activist judges, civil libertarians who advocate the separation of church and state, the homosexual "culture" ("homosexuals are anything but happy and carefree"), the "abortion industry," and the crass and profane entertainment industry. And Parsley targets another profound threat to the United States: the religion of Islam.

In a chapter titled "Islam: The Deception of Allah," Parsley warns there is a "war between Islam and Christian civilization." He continues:

I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.

Parsley is not shy about his desire to obliterate Islam. In Silent No More, he notes-approvingly-that Christopher Columbus shared the same goal: "It was to defeat Islam, among other dreams, that Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492.Columbus dreamed of defeating the armies of Islam with the armies of Europe made mighty by the wealth of the New World. It was this dream that, in part, began America." He urges his readers to realize that a confrontation between Christianity and Islam is unavoidable: "We find now we have no choice. The time has come." And he has bad news: "We may already be losing the battle. As I scan the world, I find that Islam is responsible for more pain, more bloodshed, and more devastation than nearly any other force on earth at this moment."

Parsley claims that Islam is an "anti-Christ religion" predicated on "deception." The Muslim prophet Muhammad, he writes, "received revelations from demons and not from the true God." And he emphasizes this point: "Allah was a demon spirit." Parsley does not differentiate between violent Islamic extremists and other followers of the religion:

There are some, of course, who will say that the violence I cite is the exception and not the rule. I beg to differ. I will counter, respectfully, that what some call "extremists" are instead mainstream believers who are drawing from the well at the very heart of Islam.

The spirit of Islam, he maintains, is one of hostility. He asserts that the religion "inspired" the 9/11 attacks. He bemoans the fact that in the years after 9/11, 34,000 Americans "have become Muslim" and that there are "some 1,209 mosques" in America. Islam, he declares, is a "faith that fully intends to conquer the world" through violence. The United States, he insists, "has historically understood herself as a bastion against Islam," but "history is crashing in upon us."

At the end of his chapter on Islam, Parsley asks, "Are we a Christian nation? I say yes." Without specifying what actions should be taken to eradicate the religion, he essentially calls for a new crusade.

Parsley, who refers to himself as a "Christocrat," is no stranger to controversy. In 2007, the grassroots organization he founded, the Center for Moral Clarity, called for prosecuting people who commit adultery. In January, he compared Planned Parenthood to Nazis. In the past Parsley's church has been accused of engaging in pro-Republican partisan activities in violation of its tax-exempt status.

Why would McCain court Parsley? He has long had trouble figuring out how to deal with Christian fundamentalists, an important bloc for the Republican Party. During his 2000 presidential bid, he referred to Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as "agents of intolerance." But six years later, as he readied himself for another White House run, McCain repudiated that remark. More recently, his campaign hit a rough patch when he accepted the endorsement of the Reverend John Hagee, a Texas televangelist who has called the Catholic Church "the great whore" and a "false cult system." After the Catholic League protested and called on McCain to renounce Hagee's support, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee praised Hagee's spiritual leadership and support of Israel and said that "when [Hagee] endorses me, it does not mean that I embrace everything that he stands for or believes in." After being further criticized for his Hagee connection, McCain backed off slightly, saying, "I repudiate any comments that are made, including Pastor Hagee's, if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics." But McCain did not renounce Hagee's endorsement.

McCain's relationship with Parsley is politically significant. In 2004, Parsley's church was credited with driving Christian fundamentalist voters to the polls for George W. Bush. With Ohio expected to again be a decisive state in the presidential contest, Parsley's World Harvest Church and an affiliated entity called Reformation Ohio, which registers voters, could be important players within this battleground state. Considering that the Ohio Republican Party has been decimated by various political scandals and that a popular Democrat, Ted Strickland, is now the state's governor, McCain and the Republicans will need all the help they can get in the Buckeye State this fall. It's a real question: Can McCain win the presidency without Parsley?

The McCain campaign did not respond to a request for comment regarding Parsley and his anti-Islam writings. Parsley did not return a call seeking comment.

"The last thing I want to be is another screaming voice moving people to extremes and provoking them to folly in the name of patriotism," Parsley writes in Silent No More. Provoking people to holy war is another matter. About that, McCain so far is silent.

Iran, Israel, India, Lebanon, Somalia

October 26, 2007, 2007
The Independent (UK)

U.S. Hits Iran With Toughest Sanctions Since 1979
by Leonard Doyle

The Bush administration has moved a step closer to military conflict with Iran, imposing punitive measures on its Revolutionary Guard Corps and calling the al-Quds unit of the guards a terrorist organisation.

Vladimir Putin immediately called the new US sanctions the work of a " madman with a razor blade in his hand". The Russian President said: "Why worsen the situation by threatening sanctions and bring it to a dead end?"

. . . The US was forced to act alone, however, with Britain only offering rhetorical support for unilateral action outside the United Nations Security Council. A plan to have gradually tightening UN sanctions is foundering following opposition from Russia and China. . . .


[Livni also criticized the exaggerated use that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb, claiming that he is attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most basic fears.--Gidi Weitz and Na'ama Lanski, " Livni behind closed doors: Iranian nuclear arms pose little threat to Israel," Haaretz, October 24, 2007]


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October 26, 2007
The Washington Post

Hindus Detail Involvement In Deadly '02 Riots in India On Video, Assailants Tell of State Collusion
by Rama Lakshmi

Five years after one of India's worst episodes of Hindu-Muslim violence, a series of videotaped confessions released Thursday showed Hindu activists acknowledging their roles in the killings and detailing blatant state collusion.

In the video footage, recorded as part of an undercover expose by a New Delhi-based weekly magazine called Tehelka, Hindu activists and politicians bragged about hacking Muslims to death and burning their bodies. One assailant said he slit open a pregnant woman's stomach.

The violence began in February 2002 when a Muslim mob torched a train [It is still unclear whether any inflammable material was hurled into the train from outside or whether a short circuit triggered off the blaze.--see "Fresh probe in India train attack" at link below] in India's western Gujarat state, killing 58 Hindu passengers. Angry Hindu groups launched a wave of reprisal killings and set fire to Muslim homes and shops across the region. In all, an estimated 1,000 people died.

Human rights groups in India and the United States have charged that Gujarat's ruling party, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, tacitly supported the mob violence against Muslims. Several thousand cases related to the riots are still pending in Indian courts and state inquiry committees.

At a packed news conference on Thursday, the editor of Tehelka, Tarun Tejpal, released the magazine's forthcoming issue, which contains 106 pages of coverage on the killings. . . .

Reason and Revelation

September 29, 2007
The Wisdom Fund

Reason and Revelation
by Enver Masud

[Speech given by Mr. Masud at the Aligarh Muslim University Alumni Association of Washington, DC fund-raising dinner in Rockville, MD.]


When Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) passed away in 632 A.D., he was the effective leader of all of southern Arabia. By 711 A.D., Arabs had swept across North Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. In less than 100 years, the Bedouin tribesmen, inspired by the Word of God, had carved out an empire stretching from the borders of India to the Atlantic Ocean - the largest empire that the world had yet seen.

Muslims conquered lands as was the custom of the day, but Islam was not spread by the sword. Indonesia is a prime example. Indonesia, with 6000 inhabited islands, today has the largest Muslim population. No Muslim armies landed in Indonesia.

Muslims offered an appealing message: There is One God; mankind is one; goodness is the only measure of a person's worth. Man was urged to care for the poor, the infirm, the orphan, to respect all faiths, and to search for knowledge.

200 years later Muslims are divided; the path forward is less clear.

In the Baghdad of 813 A.D., Caliph al-Mumun struggling to build a nation, is caught between the ideas of literalists and those of religious thinkers, and he has a dream.

He sees a figure of light and gold standing before him.

"Who are you?" asks a frightened al-Mamun.

"I am Aristotle", the spirit says. "I have come to answer your question".

"And what is my question?" al-Mamun asks - he knows but wants the spirit to say it.

"Your question is, What is better for the affairs of man and the affairs of society, reason or revelation?"

Al-Mamun nods, and asks, "And what is your answer to the riddle?"

"My son," says Aristotle, "they are not in opposition. But to find true revelation, man must first choose reason, because reason is the doorway to revelation."

Of course, the dream is imaginary. Author Michael Hamilton Morgan describes it in his book "Lost History" (p. 47).

So great was al-Mamun's love of knowledge that after defeating the Byzantine emperor, he asks not for caskets of gold but a a copy of the Almagest - Ptolemy's book on astronomy written around 150 A.D.

Al-Mamun goes on to establish the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. Later al-Hakim will build the House of Knowledge in Cairo.

Revelation won hearts and minds

Reason gave Muslims the superior strategy and technology that helped win battles. Revelation taught Muslims the principles of just-war, and of mercy and compassion.

Muslims taught and practiced a degree of tolerance remarkable for their time. The Quran reminded them: "For each we have appointed a divine law and traced out the way. Had Allah willed He could have made you one community." (5:48)

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who was twice president of the Indian National Congress, a renowned scholar, and India's first Education Minister (my father was his private secretary), wrote:

"The unity of man is the primary aim of religion. The message which every prophet delivered was that mankind were in reality one people and one community, and that there was but one god for all of them, and on that account they should serve Him together and live as members of one family."

By providing opportunities based on merit to all, Muslims won the hearts and minds of the conquered people. Muslims worked side by side with Jews, Christians, Hindus, and others to create the centers of learning and cultural expansion in Iraq, Iran, Spain, Egypt, and India.

Knowledge lifted civilization

The Quran is replete with verses inviting man to use his intellect, to ponder, to think and to know, for the goal of human life is to discover the Truth. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) tells us: "The first thing created by god was the Intellect." And that: "One learned man is harder on the devil than a thousand ignorant worshippers." His words exhort us to: "Go in quest of knowledge even unto China." And to: "Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave."

The love of knowledge helped create cities that drew scholars from across the world.

Will Durant in his Story of Civilization (vol. IV, p. 237) writes:

"When Baghdad was destroyed by the Mongols it had thirty-six public libraries. Private libraries were numberless. It was a fashion among the rich to have an ample collection of books. A physician refused the invitation of the Sultan of Bokhara to come and live at his court, on the ground that he would need 400 camels to transport his library. Al-Waqidi, dying, left 600 boxes of books, each box so heavy that two men were needed to carry it. Princes like Sahab ibn Abbas in the 10th century might own as many books as could be found in all the libraries of Europe combined."

Muslims built a civilzation that would lift Europe out of darkness.

HRH, The Prince of Wales, in his October 27, 1993 speech titled, "Islam And The West", said:

"Not only did Muslim Spain gather and preserve the intellectual content of ancient Greek and Roman civilization, it also interpreted and expanded upon that civilization, and made a vital contribution of its own in so many fields of human endeavour -- in science, astronomy, mathematics, algebra (itself an Arabic word), law, history, medicine, pharmacology, optics, agriculture, architecture, theology, music.

"Cordoba in the 10th century was by far the most civilized city of Europe. . . . Many of the traits on which Europe prides itself came to it from Muslim Spain. Diplomacy, free trade, open borders, the techniques of academic research, of anthropology, etiquette, fashion, alternative medicine, hospitals, all came from this great city of cities. Mediaeval Islam was a religion of remarkable tolerance for its time, allowing Jews and Christians to practice their inherited beliefs, and setting an example which was not, unfortunately, copied for many centuries in the West.

"[Islam] has contributed so much towards the civilization which we all too often think of, wrongly, as entirely Western. Islam is part of our past and present, in all fields of human endeavor. It has helped to create modern Europe. It is part of our own inheritance, not a thing apart."

End of Empire, beginnings of Aligarh University

The Christian reconquest of Spain in 1492 under Ferdinand and Isabella was the beginning of the end of the Muslim era. By 1858, the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zaffar, who ruled little more than the city of Delhi, was exiled by the British to Burma.

In 1875, Sir Syed, seeking to improve literacy among Indian Muslims, founded the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College. This college became Aligarh University. It nurtured many leaders of India and Pakistan. You, the alumni of Aligarh University, are continuing the tradition by funding scholarships for those less fortunate than yourselves.

Today, as it was for Muslims in the early 7th century, the key to successfully negotiating the path ahead, for yourselves and for generations to come, remains reason and revelation.

Update on 'The Israel Lobby'

September 30, 2007
The New York Times

New Group Boasts Big War Chest and Rising Voice
Freedoms Watch, founded by the Republican Jewish Coalition, to raise $200 million to target 'radical Islam', Iran
by Don Van Natta, Jr

Freedoms Watch, a deep-pocketed conservative group led by two former senior White House officials, made an audacious debut in late August when it began a $15 million advertising campaign designed to maintain Congressional support for President Bushs troop increase in Iraq.

Bradley Blakeman, the president of Freedoms Watch, who left the Bush administration as an assistant deputy to the president.

Founded this summer by a dozen wealthy conservatives, the nonprofit group is set apart from most advocacy groups by the immense wealth of its core group of benefactors, its intention to far outspend its rivals and its ambition to pursue a wide-ranging agenda.

Its next target: Iran policy.

Next month, Freedoms Watch will sponsor a private forum of 20 experts on radical Islam that is expected to make the case that Iran poses a direct threat to the security of the United States, according to several benefactors of the group.

Although the group declined to identify the experts, several were invited from the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington research group with close ties to the White House.

. . . Freedoms Watch has quickly emerged from the crowded field of nonprofit advocacy groups as a conservative answer to the 9-year-old liberal MoveOn.org, which vehemently opposes the Iraq war.

The idea for Freedoms Watch was hatched in March at the winter meeting of Republican Jewish Coalition in Manalapan, Fla., where Vice President Dick Cheney was the keynote speaker, according to participants.

Next week, the group is moving into a 10,000-square-foot office in the Chinatown section of Washington, with plans to employ as many as 50 people by early next year.

One benefactor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the group was hoping to raise as much as $200 million by November 2008.

Raising big money will be easy, the benefactor said, adding that several of the founders each wrote a check for $1 million. Mr. Blakeman would not confirm or deny whether any donor gave $1 million, or more, to the organization. . . .

============================================================
September 25, 2007
I.N.N. World Report

Exclusive TV interview with Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer
Authors of "The Israel Lobby & U.S. Foreign Policy"
by Claire Brown

In an exclusive, and sometimes controversial, interview with I.N.N. World Report, Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, discuss their groundbreaking book, "The Israel Lobby & U.S. Foreign Policy."

After being asked about which 2008 Presidential candidate would stand up to the Israel Lobby, Stephen Walt responded, "It's obvious already that all of the major candidates have gone through enormous lengths to demonstrate their personal devotion to Israel, and that they will do nothing to change the U.S. - Israel relationship."

VIEW at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIPv298fdRY

CIA offered $2m to Lockerbie witness

October 3, 2007
The Herald (UK)

Revealed: CIA offered $2m to Lockerbie witness and brother
by Lucy Adams

The CIA offered $2m (£1m) to the Crown's key witness in the Lockerbie trial and his brother, sources close to the case have told The Herald.

Recently discovered papers show Scottish police officers investigating the 1988 bombing were aware the US intelligence service had discussed financial terms and witness protection schemes with Tony Gauci and his brother, Paul. . . .

---
October 4, 2007
The Scotsman

Lockerbie evidence withheld from defence
by Michael Howie

FRESH doubt has been cast over the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber after it emerged a document containing vital evidence about the bomb timer has never been shown to the defence.

The Scotsman has learned that the failure to disclose the classified document, which concerns the supply of timers identical to the one said to have been used to blow up Pan Am Flight 103, led a review body that examined the case against Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi to conclude a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.

It was not previously known that doubts over the timer were grounds for an appeal. . . .

Democracy, Not terror, is the Engine of Political Islam

Neocon policies designed to promote liberal opinion in the Middle East have in fact played into the hands of the religious parties
William Dalrymple, The Guardian

Six years after 9/11, throughout the Muslim world political Islam is on the march; the surprise is that its rise is happening democratically - not through the bomb, but the ballot box. Democracy is not the antidote to the Islamists the neocons once fondly believed it would be. Since the US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, there has been a consistent response from voters wherever Muslims have had the right to vote. In Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey and Algeria they have voted en masse for religious parties in a way they have never done before. Where governments have been most closely linked to the US, political Islam's rise has been most marked.

Much western journalism in the six years since 9/11 has concentrated on terrorist groups, jihadis and suicide bombers. But while the threat of violence remains very real, those commentators who have compared what they ignorantly call "Islamofascism" to the Nazis are guilty of hysteria: the differences in relative power and military capability are too great for the comparison to be valid, and the analogies that the neocons draw with the second world war are demonstrably false. As long as the west interferes in the Muslim world, bombs will go off; and as long as Britain lines up behind George Bush's illegal wars, British innocents will die in jihadi atrocities. But that does not mean we are about to be invaded, nor is Europe about to be demographically swamped, as North American commentators such as Mark Steyn claim: Muslims will make up no more than 10% of the European population by 2020.

Yet in concentrating on the violent jihadi fringe, we may have missed the main story. For if the imminent Islamist takeover of western Europe is a myth, the same cannot be said for the Islamic world. Clumsy and brutal US policies in the Middle East have generated revolutionary changes, radicalising even the most moderate opinion, with the result that the status quo in place since the 1950s has been broken. . . .

Convicting Padilla: Bad News for All Americans

Jose Padilla . . . believed he could separate plutonium from nuclear material by rapidly swinging over his head a bucket filled with fissionable material.--David Johnston, "At a Secret Interrogation, Dispute Flared Over Tactics," New York Times, September 10, 2006

August 17, 2007  (CounterPunch)

Convicting Padilla: Bad News for All Americans
By Dave Lindorff

[Lindorff's newest book is "The Case for Impeachment", co-authored by Barbara Olshansky.]

With habeas corpus a thing of the past, with arrest and detention without charge permitted, with torture and spying without court oversight all the rage, with prosecutors free to tape conversations between lawyers and their clients, and with the judicial branch now infested by rightwing judges who would have been at home in courtrooms of the Soviet Union or Hitler's Germany, for all they seem to care about common law tradition, the only real thing holding the line against absolute tyranny in the U.S. has been the jury.

Now, with Jose Padilla--a US citizen who was originally picked up and held incommunicado on a military base for three and a half years, publicly accused (though never charged) with planning to construct and detonate a so-called "dirty" nuclear device (this a guy without a high school education!), all based upon hearsay, evidence elicited by torture, and a few overheard wiretapped conversations where prosecutors claimed words like "zucchini" were code for explosive devices-convicted on a charge of "planning to murder," we see that juries in this era of a bogus "war on terror" are ready to believe anything.

That last line of defense-the common sense or ordinary citizens in a jury box-is gone too.

The jury in this case apparently accepted the government's contention that Padilla was a member of Al Qaeda, and had returned from a trip to Pakistan full of plans to wreak mayhem on his own country. They cared not a whit for the fact that the government had used methods against Padilla (three years of isolation and total sensory deprivation that had driven him insane) which would have made medieval torturers green with envy. They cared not a whit that there was no real evidence against Padilla.

This was, in the end, a case that most closely resembled the famous Saturday Night Live skit in which witches were dunked underwater to "prove" whether they were in fact witches, and where if they drowned, they were found to be innocent. In the end, Padilla's jury simply bought the government's wild and wild-eyed story. They decided he hadn't drowned, so he must be guilty.

Padilla can now expect to spend what's left of his life in prison. Since the government has already driven him insane, he will have the added burden of being mentally unbalanced from the outset of his incarceration. His survival prospects are not good.

The president promptly thanked the jury for their "good judgment."

We can no doubt expect many more Padillas now that the way has been paved for this kind of totalitarian approach to law enforcement.

Beginning today, we can expect the government to begin arresting people on an array of trumped-up charges, locking them away in black sites, on military bases, or maybe even overseas, subjecting them to all manner of torture, and then finally bringing them to trial on trumped-up charges. We can also expect juries, made fearful by breathless warnings that "evil ones" mean us and our nation harm, to buy the government's stories.

Who is at risk? That's hard to say, but it's clear that it won't just be hardened terrorist types. A presidential executive order signed by Bush on July 17 declares that anything that "undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction (sic) and political reform (sic) in Iraq" could be deemed a crime making the perpetrator subject to arrest. Would writing essays critical of the president, the war in Iraq, or the "reconstruction" effort in Iraq meet that standard? Who knows? Would being interviewed for commentary as part of a news story on English-language Al Jezeera TV (which Bush and Cheney have declared to be supportive of the Iraqi insurgency, and which Bush reportedly at one point considered bombing!)?

And how about anti-war protesters? We already have Washington, DC, under pressure from Homeland Security, threatening the organization World Can't Wait with multiple $10,000 fines for posting flyers around the city announcing an anti-war march and rally on September 15. If they go ahead with the protest, will they be joining Padilla?

I have little doubt that this administration would love to lock up journalistic critics and protesters in military brigs, so the question is: how would juries respond to charges that American journalists and protesters against the war were treacherously undermining the Bush war effort?

I used to be confident that most juries would laugh such cases out of court. After the Padilla decision, I'm not so sure.

You want to think that your fellow citizens have at least some measure of common sense, but this case suggests otherwise--that they are easily frightened, gullible, and willing to believe the most fantastic claims of the government.

The future does not look good for freedom in America.

Vital Lockerbie Evidence 'Was Tampered With'

September 2, 2007  (The Observer)

By Alex Duval Smith

The key piece of material evidence used by prosecutors to implicate Libya in the Lockerbie bombing has emerged as a probable fake.

Nearly two decades after Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Scotland on 21 December, 1988, allegations of international political intrigue and shoddy investigative work are being levelled at the British government, the FBI and the Scottish police as one of the crucial witnesses, Swiss engineer Ulrich Lumpert, has apparently confessed that he lied about the origins of a crucial 'timer' - evidence that helped tie the man convicted of the bombing to the crime.

The disaster killed 270 people when the London to New York Boeing 747 exploded in mid-air. Britain and the US blamed Libya, saying that its leader, Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, wanted revenge for the US bombing of Tripoli in 1986. At a trial in the Netherlands in 2001, former Libyan agent Abdulbaset al-Megrahi was jailed for life.

He is currently serving his sentence in Greenock prison, but later this month the Scottish Court of Appeal is expected to hear Megrahi's case, after the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission ruled in June that there was enough evidence to suggest a miscarriage of justice. Lumpert's confession, which was given to police in his home city of Zurich last week, will strengthen Megrahi's appeal. . . .

Iraq's Endless 'False Hopes'

September 1, 2007 (Consortiumnews.com)

By Robert Parry

Two-and-a-half years ago at another turning point in the Iraq War, columnists at the Washington Post and other leading American newspapers were ecstatic over how the Iraqi national election was finally fulfilling the neoconservative dream of remaking the Muslim world.

Now, however, some of the same columnists who praised the Jan. 30, 2005, election are denouncing it as a failure that must be undone so George W. Bushs newest turning point the American troop surge can achieve its fullest potential.

But remember back to those happy days in winter 2005 when Bush was the toast of Washington after his Second Inaugural Address that used the words freedom and liberty a staggering 42 times. Just 10 days later, U.S. commentators cheered themselves hoarse over the purple-finger election in Iraq.

Could it be that the neocons were right and that the invasion of Iraq, the toppling of Hussein and the holding of elections will trigger a political chain reaction throughout the Arab world? marveled Post columnist Richard Cohen. [Washington Post, March 1, 2005]

Another influential Post columnist, David Ignatius, was swept up in the excitement, too.

The old system (in the Middle East) that had looked so stable is ripping apart, with each beam pulling another down as it falls, Ignatius wrote. Crediting the U.S. invasion of Iraq for the sudden stress that started this collapse, Ignatius wrote, Its hard not to feel giddy, watching the dominoes fall. [Washington Post, March 2, 2005]

Editorialists at the New York Times were no less enthusiastic.

Times foreign policy columnist Thomas L. Friedman hailed the Iraqi election as one of several tipping points foreshadowing incredible changes in the Middle East. [NYT, Feb. 27, 2005]

A lead editorial in the New York Times expanded on Friedmans thesis. The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances, the editorial said. [NYT, March 1, 2005]

On the Contrary

At Consortiumnews.com, however, we were among the few contrarian voices warning about the dangers ahead from Iraqs sectarian voting patterns. . . .

IAEA-Iran Resolving Outstanding Questions

September 1, 2007 (Antiwar.com)

by Gordon Prather

The Cheney Cabal media sycophants at the New York Times and elsewhere are indignantly reporting that Iran continues to ignore certain sections of resolutions passed by Board of Directors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, requiring actions deemed "necessary" to satisfy their "concerns" about Iran's nuclear programs concerns subsequently "reaffirmed" by the UN Security Council, ever "mindful of its primary responsibility" under the UN Charter "for the maintenance of international peace and security."

But the reality is the IAEA has once again verified to all IAEA members and NPT-signatories "the non-diversion of the declared nuclear materials" by Iran. Furthermore, Iran and the IAEA Secretariat have just announced an important agreed "time table" for "resolution" by years end of "all outstanding questions" relevant to the implementation of Iran's Safeguards Agreement. And even some "questions" that aren't relevant. . . .

So, if by year-end the IAEA Secretariat is satisfied that Iran is in complete compliance with its Safeguards Agreement and so reports to the IAEA Board, then how can the Cheney Cabal possibly "justify" an attack on Iran's Safeguarded nuclear facilities?

Oh, well, they'll think of something.