Invasion of Kuwait

The Invasion of Kuwait, also known as the Iraq–Kuwait War, was a major conflict between Ba'athist Iraq and the Emirate of Kuwait, which resulted in the seven-month-long Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, and subsequently led to direct military intervention by US-led forces in the Gulf War and the setting alight by Iraq of 600 Kuwaiti oil wells.

In 1990 Iraq accused Kuwait of stealing Iraqi petroleum through slant drilling, although some Iraqi sources indicated Saddam Hussein's decision to attack Kuwait was made a few months before the actual invasion. ome feel there were several reasons for the Iraqi move, including Iraq's inability to pay more than US$14 billion that had been borrowed to finance the Iran–Iraq war, and Kuwaiti overproduction of petroleum which kept revenues down for Iraq. The invasion started on 2 August 1990, and within two days of intense combat, most of the Kuwait Armed Forces were either overrun by the Iraqi Republican Guard or fell back to neighboring Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The Emirate of Kuwait was annexed, and Saddam Hussein announced a few days later that it was the 19th province of Iraq.
Alleged economic warfare and slant drilling
In 1988 Iraq's Oil Minister, Issam al-Chalabi, stressed a further reduction in the crude oil production quota of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members so as to end the 1980s oil glut. Chalabi argued that higher oil prices would help Iraq increase its revenues and pay back its US$60 billion debt. However, given its large downstream petroleum industry, Kuwait was less concerned about the prices of crude oil and in 1989, Kuwait requested OPEC to increase the country's total oil production ceiling by 50% to 1.35 million bpd. Throughout much of the 1980s, Kuwait's oil production was considerably above its mandatory OPEC quota and this had prevented a further increase in crude oil prices. A lack of consensus among OPEC members undermined Iraq's efforts to end the oil glut and consequently prevented the recovery of its war-crippled economy. According to former Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, "every US$1 drop in the price of a barrel of oil caused a US$1 billion drop in Iraq's annual revenues triggering an acute financial crisis in Baghdad". It was estimated that between 1985 and 1989, Iraq lost US$14 billion a year due to Kuwait's oil price strategy. Kuwait's refusal to decrease its oil production was viewed by Iraq as an act of aggression against it.
The increasingly tense relations between Iraq and Kuwait were further aggravated when Iraq alleged that Kuwait was slant-drilling across the international border into Iraq's Rumaila field. The dispute over Rumaila field started in 1960 when an Arab League declaration marked the Iraq–Kuwait border 2 miles north of the southernmost tip of the Rumaila field. During the Iran–Iraq War, Iraqi oil drilling operations in Rumaila declined while Kuwait's operations increased. In 1989, Iraq accused Kuwait of using "advanced drilling techniques" to exploit oil from its share of the Rumaila field. Iraq estimated that US$2.4 billion worth of Iraqi oil was "stolen" by Kuwait and demanded compensation. Kuwait dismissed the accusations as a false Iraqi ploy to justify military action against it. Several foreign firms working in the Rumaila field also dismissed Iraq's slant-drilling claims as a "smokescreen to disguise Iraq's more ambitious intentions".
On 25 July 1990, only a few days before the Iraqi invasion, OPEC officials said that Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates had agreed to a proposal to limit daily oil output to 1.5 million barrels, thus potentially settling differences over oil policy between Kuwait and Iraq. At the time of the settlement, more than 100,000 Iraqi troops were deployed along the Iraq–Kuwait border, and American officials expressed little indication of decline in tensions despite the OPEC settlement.
Iraqi hegemonic claims
Many westerners believed that Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was largely motivated by its desire to take control over the latter's vast oil reserves. The Iraqi government justified its invasion by claiming that Kuwait was a natural part of Iraq carved off as a result of British imperialism. After signing the Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913, the United Kingdom split Kuwait from the Ottoman territories into a separate sheikhdom. The Iraqi government also argued that the Kuwaiti Emir was a highly unpopular figure among the Kuwaiti populace. By overthrowing the Emir, Iraq claimed that it granted Kuwaitis greater economic and political freedom.
Kuwait had been loosely under the authority of the Ottoman vilâyet of Basra, and although its ruling dynasty, the Al Sabah family, had concluded a protectorate agreement in 1899 that assigned responsibility for its foreign affairs to Britain, it did not make any attempt to secede from the Ottoman Empire. For this reason, its borders with the rest of Basra province were never clearly defined or mutually agreed.
Invasion
On 2 August 1990 at 2:00 am, local time, Iraq launched an invasion of Kuwait with four elite Iraqi Republican Guard divisions (1st Hammurabi Armoured Division, 2nd al-Medinah al-Munawera Armoured Division, 3rd Tawakalna ala-Allah Mechanized Infantry Division and 4th Nebuchadnezzar Motorized Infantry Division) and Iraqi Army special forces units equivalent to a full division. The main thrust was conducted by the commandos deployed by helicopters and boats to attack Kuwait City (see Battle of Dasman Palace), while the other divisions seized the airports and two airbases.
In support of these units, the Iraqi Army deployed a squadron of Mil Mi-25 helicopter gunships, several units of Mi-8 and Mi-17 transport helicopters, as well as a squadron of Bell 412 helicopters. The foremost mission of the helicopter units was to transport and support Iraqi commandos into Kuwait City, and subsequently to support the advance of ground troops. The Iraqi Air Force (IQAF) had at least two squadrons of Sukhoi Su-22, one of Su-25, one of Mirage F1 and two of MiG-23 fighter-bombers. The main task of the IQAF was to establish air superiority through limited air strikes against two main air bases of Kuwaiti Air Force, whose aircraft consisted mainly of Mirage F1s and Douglas (T)A-4KU Skyhawks. Meanwhile, certain targets in the capital of Kuwait City were bombed by Iraqi aircraft.
Despite months of Iraqi sabre-rattling, Kuwait did not have its forces on alert and was caught unaware. The first indication of the Iraqi ground advance was from a radar-equipped aerostat that detected an Iraqi armour column moving south. Kuwaiti air, ground, and naval forces resisted, but were vastly outnumbered. In central Kuwait, the 35th Armoured Brigade deployed approximately a battalion of Chieftain tanks, BMPs, and an artillery battery against the Iraqis and fought delaying actions near Al Jahra (see Battle of the Bridges), west of Kuwait City. In the south, the 15th Armoured Brigade moved immediately to evacuate its forces to Saudi Arabia. Of the small Kuwaiti Navy, two missile boats were able to evade capture or destruction.
Kuwait Air Force aircraft were scrambled, but approximately 20% were lost or captured. An air battle with the Iraqi helicopter airborne forces was fought over Kuwait City, inflicting heavy losses on the Iraqi elite troops, and a few combat sorties were flown against Iraqi ground forces. The remaining 80% were then evacuated to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, some aircraft even taking off from the highways adjacent to the bases as the runways were overrun. While these aircraft were not used in support of the subsequent Gulf War, the "Free Kuwait Air Force" assisted Saudi Arabia in patrolling the southern border with Yemen, which was considered a threat by the Saudis because of Yemen–Iraq ties.
Iraqi troops attacked Dasman Palace, the Royal Residence, resulting in the Battle of Dasman Palace. The Kuwaiti Emiri Guard, supported by local police and M-84 tanks managed to repel an airborne assault by Iraqi Special Forces, but the Palace fell after a landing by Iraqi Marines (Dasman Palace is located on the coast). The Kuwaiti National Guard, as well as additional Emiri Guards arrived, but the palace remained occupied, and Republican Guard tanks rolled into Kuwait City after several hours of heavy fighting.
The Emir of Kuwait, Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah had already fled into the Saudi desert. His younger half brother, Sheikh Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, was shot and killed by invading Iraqi forces as he attempted to defend Dasman Palace after which his body was placed in front of a tank and run over, according to an Iraqi soldier who was present and deserted after the assault.
Towards the end of the first day of the invasion, only pockets of resistance were left in the country. By 3 August, the last military units were desperately fighting delaying actions at choke points and other defensible positions throughout the country until out of ammunition or overrun by Iraqi forces. Ali al-Salem air base of the Kuwaiti Air Force was the only base still unoccupied on 3 August, and Kuwaiti aircraft flew resupply missions from Saudi Arabia throughout the day in an effort to mount a defense. However, by nightfall, Ali al-Salem air base had been overrun by Iraqi forces. From then on it was only a matter of time until all units of the Kuwaiti Military were forced to retreat or be overrun.
Kuwaiti resistance movement
Kuwaitis founded a local armed resistance movement following the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. Most of the Kuwaitis who were arrested, tortured, and executed during the occupation were civilians. The Kuwaiti resistance's casualty rate far exceeded that of the coalition military forces and Western hostages. The resistance predominantly consisted of ordinary citizens who lacked any form of training and supervision.
Aftermath
After the Iraqi victory, Saddam Hussein installed Alaa Hussein Ali as the Prime Minister of the "Provisional Government of Free Kuwait" and Ali Hassan al-Majid as the de facto governor of Kuwait. The exiled Kuwaiti royal family and other former government officials began an international campaign to persuade other countries to pressure Iraq to vacate Kuwait. The UN Security Council passed 12 resolutions demanding immediate withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, but to no avail.
Following the events of the Iraq–Kuwait war, about half of the Kuwaiti population, ncluding 400,000 Kuwaits and several thousand foreign nationals, fled the country. The Indian government evacuated over 170,000 overseas Indians by flying almost 488 flights over 59 days. It was the biggest civilian evacuation in history. Alaa Hussein Ali was placed as head of a puppet government in Kuwait, prior to its brief annexation into Iraq.
During the 7-month occupation, the forces of Saddam Hussein looted Kuwait's vast wealth and there were also reports of violations of human rights. A 2005 study revealed that the Iraqi occupation had a long-term adverse impact on the health of the Kuwaiti populace.

A century later today this situation remains unchanged; And the ME continues to bleed

By Lateef Farook  

During the second half of 19th century the British Empire wanted to ensure the Middle East remains destabilized. It was around the same time that the Zionist Jews were planning to set up a separate Jewish state in Palestine where more than 97 percent of the population were Palestinian Arabs-both Muslims and Christians.

Zionist wanted to bring in Jews from all over and settle them in Palestinian lands which, the migrant Jews have not even seen, after killing and kicking out Palestinians from their lands and homes into refugee camps where they still languish.

It was the time when most of the Middle East was under Turkish Ottoman Empire. This was a hurdle which needed to be removed. The opportunity came during World War 1 when Turkey was defeated by allied forces led by Britain and France.

Anticipating the downfall of the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France began secret talks since 23 November 1915 to divide Middle East and bring the entire region under their control. These talks ended up in Sykes-Picot Agreement. Russia was in decline, but Britain and France got Russia involved.

This was the worst ever western conspiracy from which the Middle East suffers even today. After the war Britain and France, as per the agreement, divided the Middle East and defined the borders of their respective new states and shaped the region to suit their purposes.

As per Sykes-Picot Agreement Palestine in the Mediterranean, Jordan, Baghdad and areas around the Persian Gulf were grabbed by Britain while Syria, Lebanon and Turkish Cilicia were brought under French control. Later Egypt was brought under British control while North African countries Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Mauritania came under French control.

Neither France nor Britain actually ‘owned’ these territories, but they were to effectively control them from London and Paris .This situation continues to date.

British kept the Arabs in dark of these secret negotiations while Zionists were active partners.The Arabs came to know of the Agreement only when the Russian Communists released its contents in the media- Izvestia

This agreement violated  assurances given by T E Lawrence  ,British Army officer tasked with convincing the Arabs to fight against the Ottoman Empire promising Arabs freedom and their own rule after the war .The Arabs trusted the British but were betrayed .

Documents in the National Archives declassified and published disclosed various assurances of Arab independence provided by Secretary of War, Lord Kitchener, the Viceroy of India, and others in the War Cabinet.

Great Britain never intended to honour the promises that they made. They had used the Arabs to get the Ottoman Empire out of the way protect their own interests.

The entire time Lawrence was negotiating with the Arabs, Great Britain, behind everybody’s back, was negotiating with France, and planning to divide up the Middle East after the war. They needed to make sure there was no united Arab kingdom that would ever get in the way.

In the newly created western European model of the nation-states, Britain and France installed corrupted Arab stooges as rulers giving titles such as kings and created Royal families. This concept of Royal family dividing the people and the rulers were in complete violation of Islam which insists on equality.

These, ruthless dictators were expected not to introduce democracy, freedom and develop their countries, keep the people in poverty and illiteracy especially on Islam and never allow Islam to emerge as a force.

Thus today’s political, economic, religious and social scenario in the entire region is the direct outcome of this British French conspiracy.

In partitioning the Middle East Palestine was brought under British Mandatory Authority which, between 1923 and 1948, did everything possible for the Zionist Jews to drive out Palestinians, grab Palestinian lands and create the required infrastructure for a separate Jewish state. For example Jewish migrants were allowed to use arms while Palestinians were tied to lamp post and killed for using a pen knife.

Even before Palestine was brought under British control , in 1917 the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour  wrote to Walter Rothschild, a leader of the British Zionist Jewish community, stating that: "His Majesty's government view with favor  the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object .

Balfour wrote a memorandum from the 1919 Paris Peace Conference in which he declared that: "The four Great Powers (Britain, France, United States and Soviet Union) are committed to Zionism.  And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land"

 On 30 September 1918, disgusted Arabs, religious leaders and other notables in Mecca 

declared in Damascus a government   loyal to Sharif of Mecca. However Britain supplied weapons and money to Ibn Saud, current ruler of Saudi Arabia, and got Sheriff of Mecca removed and brought the Holy cities of Makkah and Madinah under the control of Ibn Saud family.

“This is the last time the Arab world had a united Islamic State led by a religious leader: the Ottoman Empire, the caliphate,”

Later United States and Soviet Union joined Britain and France, blackmailed member countries in the United Nations and passed a UN resolution establishing the Zionist Jewish state of Israel in 1948, in violation of all known laws, norms and cherished human values.

Britain and France never allowed their stooges, Arab dictators, to be removed .For example in 1956 Egypt’s popular President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized Suez Canal, which was under British control. Britain, France and Israel jointly invaded Egypt but were forced to withdraw due to pressure from US President Dwight Eisenhower.

Avenging this setback in its war of aggression in June 1967 Israel, with the backing of US,UK, France and Russia, annexed Egypt’s Sinai and Gaza, Syria’s Golan Heights,  West Bank and East Jerusalem  from Jordan. This was a crippling blow to Arabs.

During the past few decades Arab dictators   perhaps under pressure from their US- European masters began establishing secret ties and various deals with Zionists virtually abandoning Palestinians. Israel was behind all subsequent wars in the region. Today’s state of affairs was such that Saudi, Jordan, Israel and Israel’s Palestine authority secretly planned the invasion, destruction and the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.

In the midst under the guise of fighting a war on terrorism US, Britain France and Russia together with Israel demonized and declared war on Islam and Muslims and turned almost developed Arab countries such as Iraq, Libya and Syria into virtual killing fields   besides driving more than 58 million millions of Arabs into refugee camps. For example US-European oil companies grabbed the oil wealth of Iraq besides its billions of investments in the West. In Libya alone they looted 145 tons of Libyan gold besides gaining control over Libyan oil wealth   and its investments abroad. Today Iraqis and Libyans are in refugee camps while Syria is emptied of its people.

Thus four powers have created the environment for the creation of Greater Israel with occupied Palestinians lands and parts of Syria and Iraq and Egypt.

The question is how log these crimes will continue?

Latheef  Farook is Colombo based senior journalist. He can be reached at E mail-almfarook19@gmail.com  16 MAY 2016

US Seizure of Iran Assets "Highway Robbery"

The foreign minister denounced as "highway robbery" and vowed to fight the US Supreme Court ruling that $2 billion in Iran's blocked assets must be used to compensate the families of US soldiers killed in attacks allegedly linked to Iran.

Tehran was given access to its frozen funds in US banks after international sanctions were lifted in January under the July 2015 nuclear deal, in return for temporary curbs on its nuclear program.

The Central Bank of Iran had complained that US Congress was intruding into the business of federal courts when it passed a law in 2012 stating that the frozen money should go toward satisfying a $2.65 billion judgment against Iran won by the families in a US federal court in 2007.

The Supreme Court found that the Congress had not usurped the authority of the courts.

The ruling would affect, among others, the families of 241 US soldiers killed in truck bomb attacks on a US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in October 1983.

"It is a theft. Huge theft. It is highway robbery. And believe me you, we will get it back," Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an interview with the New Yorker published on Monday.

"People can legislate in other countries to confiscate American assets. Would you be happy with that? The United States has committed a lot of crimes against Iranians, against the people of Vietnam, the people of Afghanistan, the people of Iraq," Zarif said.

"Can they legislate in their own countries that for every collateral damage suffered because of American bombing … Would you be willing to accept it?"

"So why should we accept the Supreme Court ruling? The Supreme Court is the Supreme Court of the United States, not the Supreme Court of the world. We're not under its jurisdiction, nor is our money," he said.

  US Backseat Approach a Problem

In response to a question about complications related to the implementation of the nuclear deal, the top diplomat said, "The most important problem is that the United States is taking a backseat after eight years of scaring everybody off, imposing heavy penalties on people who wanted to do business with Iran. Billions of dollars of penalties were imposed on various European financial institutions.

"The United States was supposed to go to various banks and tell them bygones are bygones."

A US ban on access to its financial system and the US dollar in the transactions involving Iranian businesses has deterred international firms from entering Iran's market.

This has sparked protest from Tehran, arguing that the ban is preventing the delivery of promised benefits from the accord.

"I want to see European banks doing business with Iran without fear of US retaliation. A lot depends on it. As we implemented our obligations fully, we are entitled to benefit fully. The United States needs to do way more. They have to send a message that doing business with Iran will not cost them. Period. No ifs and buts," Zarif said.

"International regimes, international treaties, international norms are observed not because of the goodness of anybody but because they bring benefits. If they don't, then the longevity of those agreements comes into jeopardy."

Asked whether the deal is in danger of collapse, he said, "No, the deal is in place. But if one side does not comply with the agreement, then the agreement will start to falter."

  US Policy Shift Needed for Détente   

Zarif said a detente in Tehran-Washington relations is contingent on a considerable shift in US policy toward Iran.

"As the Leader [of the Islamic Revolution] said last year, if the experience of the nuclear negotiations proves that the United States is changing its approach toward Iran—is basing its approach to Iran on mutual respect and interests—then there is a chance of change."

On the attempts by US lawmakers to impose new sanctions on Iran over its missile tests earlier this year, Zarif said, "The missile tests are our right. We have made it very clear that these will not be used other than in self-defense. They're not designed to be capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

"What do you expect, Iran to lie dead? You've covered the Iran–Iraq war, you remember missiles pouring on Iranian cities with chemical weapons. You remember that we didn't have any to defend ourselves … Here I think you owe us. US planes were giving [former Iraqi dictator] Saddam Hussein intelligence to hit our civilians with chemical weapons. We don't owe anybody anything on defense."

Where will we end up? Terrorism, Islamophobia and the logic of fascism

BY ILYA AFANASYEV 

27 April 2016

Fascism is not only a form of prejudice, it is also a political logic. A logic that reduces complex problems to ‘us and them’ issues.

Rally for 'Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West' (PEGIDA) hold German flags during a demonstration in Dresden, Germany, Jan. 5, 2015. Jens Meyer /Press Association. All rights reserved.

What is fascism? Perhaps one way to answer this question is to say that fascism is a political logic that assumes that there is an easy solution to complex political, economic and societal problems, and that this solution is grounded in being ‘honest’ and ruthless about who ‘us’ and ‘them’ are.

Political practice is then understood as a necessity and even a moral obligation to pursue this reductive identity-based vision to its logical conclusions. In this view, the complexity of society and all structural socio-economic conditions are rendered ultimately unimportant, while identity is equated with ideology and political action. Hence, for example, in classic Nazism, an integrated, baptised and ‘Germanised’ Jew, who had nothing to do with any ‘Jewish community’, was seen as ultimately representing the same coherent entity, conceived as a conscious and malevolent political agent, as a traditional religious Jew, who spoke Yiddish and practised Judaism. No matter what their appearances were, they were all the same at some level and must have been treated as an alien element in the body of the nation.

Today, a very similar logic is propagated by those who are obsessed with the connection between Islam and terrorism. Charlie Hebdo’s recent editorial ‘How did we end up here?’ is a perfect example of it. The article’s main argument is that every Muslim, who publically reveals her or his religion, engages in an act of terror and is, therefore, complicit in violent terrorism.

A peaceful intellectual, a polite baker who does not serve ham sandwiches or a woman daring to wear the veil in public – they all are members of the same entity that is not only different from ‘us’, but is also attacking ‘us’, either with their alien cultural practices or their bombs, a distinction between the two turned into a difference of scale, not of quality.

A conclusion, which is offered implicitly, is that to end terrorism we must admit that ‘Muslims’ are a problem, alongside those ‘politically correct’ lefties who do not want to acknowledge that. The only thing that is still missing here is an explicit form of biological racism: we are not yet told that everyone of ‘Muslim descent’ is guilty by definition. For now, we are ‘only’ sold comprehensive cultural discrimination.

At least, this is the case at the level of discourse. When one looks at it in practice, the situation is already more blurred, as police forces across western countries are systematically harassing those citizens and immigrants who look ‘Muslim’. For many liberals and leftists, the far-right undercurrent of Charlie Hebdo’s editorial is obvious in its attempt to build a case for a comprehensive discrimination against, in fact, a heterogeneous group of people mainly engaging in harmless activities. But we should notice that there is more to it. Fascism is not only a form of prejudice, it is also a political logic. A logic that reduces complex problems to ‘us and them’ issues.

Multiple factors, homegrown and otherwise

Terrorism is a complex problem. Any attempt to deal with it cannot be separated from understanding its multiple roots, causes and structural conditions. As even security services admit, Islamist terrorism in the west is linked to western countries’ foreign policies across the globe. This is logical in the most basic common-sense way: if you claim to wage a war, how can you be so surprised that there will be people who would want to bring it back to you?

But there is also a more complex socio-economic and geo-political dimension, related to both the west’s historical support of various Islamists movements, as well as its ongoing support of the most oppressive dictatorships across the world. Next, although systematic poverty and exclusion of (post)immigrant communities in Europe is not the only explanation of terrorism (neither is it its justification, for that matter), terrorism is indeed inseparable from the structural conditions imposed on those communities by European states and societies.

Finally, one should not dismiss the role of Islamism as a form of religiously-sanctioned political ideology and practice that attracts alienated individuals seeking empowerment. In that sense, all well-meaning proclamations that ‘terrorism has nothing to do with Islam’ are not only a form of wishful thinking, but also an explicitly harmful contribution to the reification of ‘Muslims’ as a coherent and uniform group.

The key point here is that none of the reductive singular explanations will do. Islamism and its rise in the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and Europe is a complex story. The attractiveness of violent Islamism to a certain segment of immigrant and post-immigrant communities in the west (a very small segment, one should add) cannot be understood outside the long history and immediate politics of the west’s actions in Muslim-majority regions, those regions’ own political, socio-economic and ideological dynamics, as well as the systemic poverty and exclusion affecting minorities in the west itself. These are just three interconnected factors causing and shaping Islamist terrorism today. There are many more, as well as many more forms of terrorism, both in the west and in the world as a whole.

Banal binaries

All this should be fairly banal, but instead, we are constantly being sold a different identity-focused narrative. It is assembled in a few simple steps. There is a terrifying problem of terrorism, terrorism perpetrated by ‘them’ against ‘us’, and the only solution is to admit that there are ‘us’ and ‘them’ and stop pretending that ‘they’ are not a threat, with all their veils, refusal to serve ‘us’ ham sandwiches, smart talk of Muslim ethics and bombs.

Only when we admit that can we somehow get rid of the actual physical threat of terrorism. For now, nobody is yet telling us how exactly to solve this problem in practice (although Trump with his suggestions of banning Muslims from entering the US is coming close).

That is the difference between fascism as political practice and fascism as logic and rhetoric. But the latter is of course enabling the possibility of the former. This is why it should be resisted fiercely. To everyone who insists on a direct link between Islam, ‘the Muslims’ and terrorism, we should reply that there are no ‘Muslims’ as a coherent group, that religion itself, independently of whether we like it or not, is not a cause of political violence and that the problem of terrorism will never be solved by an insistence on any reductive identity-based approach to it.

Serious solutions

Of course, a genuine solution to the problem of terrorism is difficult to imagine short of a radical transformation of the world. Such a transformation would address the three problems singled out above and involve at least three massive structural changes.

First, ending the neo-colonialist practices of the west, Russia and China. Second, opening up a political space for going beyond the wrong choice between phony-capitalist murderous dictatorships and thuggish Islamism in the Middle East (and other post-colonial regions). Third, resurrecting the social state in Europe, one able to efficiently address the appalling conditions and exclusion of its post-immigrant communities.

While these changes remain utopian, the problem of terrorism is going to stay with us and will influence where we are going to end up. Its actual influence has nothing to do with challenges to ‘our way of life’ or any other pseudo-threats, omnipresent in the rhetoric of mainstream politicians.

The real danger is in what must be called the myth of terrorism: a view that terrorism is the ultimate form of evil, simultaneously an act of war and the most despicable vile crime, somehow both cunning and meaningless. This emotional and a-political understanding of terrorism is widespread and makes the job of those who want to reduce politics to scapegoating imagined communities easier.

The potential harm here is not only in increasing prejudices against people who are already discriminated against, but also in the replacement of necessary struggles over the forms of political-economic organisation and the distribution of wealth with reductive and simplistic politics of ‘us and them’. This is why we must prevent the supporters of fascist logic from using it to enable a new age of fascist politics to prevail in the west.

*About the author

Ilya Afanasyev is a Research Fellow at the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), the University of Oxford, having studied history for his first degree in Moscow.

Where will we end up? Terrorism, Islamophobia and the logic of fascism

ILYA AFANASYEV 

Fascism is not only a form of prejudice, it is also a political logic. A logic that reduces complex problems to ‘us and them’ issues.

Rally for 'Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West' (PEGIDA) hold German flags during a demonstration in Dresden, Germany, Jan. 5, 2015. Jens Meyer /Press Association. All rights reserved.

What is fascism? Perhaps one way to answer this question is to say that fascism is a political logic that assumes that there is an easy solution to complex political, economic and societal problems, and that this solution is grounded in being ‘honest’ and ruthless about who ‘us’ and ‘them’ are.

Political practice is then understood as a necessity and even a moral obligation to pursue this reductive identity-based vision to its logical conclusions. In this view, the complexity of society and all structural socio-economic conditions are rendered ultimately unimportant, while identity is equated with ideology and political action. Hence, for example, in classic Nazism, an integrated, baptised and ‘Germanised’ Jew, who had nothing to do with any ‘Jewish community’, was seen as ultimately representing the same coherent entity, conceived as a conscious and malevolent political agent, as a traditional religious Jew, who spoke Yiddish and practised Judaism. No matter what their appearances were, they were all the same at some level and must have been treated as an alien element in the body of the nation.

Today, a very similar logic is propagated by those who are obsessed with the connection between Islam and terrorism. Charlie Hebdo’s recent editorial ‘How did we end up here?’ is a perfect example of it. The article’s main argument is that every Muslim, who publically reveals her or his religion, engages in an act of terror and is, therefore, complicit in violent terrorism.

A peaceful intellectual, a polite baker who does not serve ham sandwiches or a woman daring to wear the veil in public – they all are members of the same entity that is not only different from ‘us’, but is also attacking ‘us’, either with their alien cultural practices or their bombs, a distinction between the two turned into a difference of scale, not of quality.

A conclusion, which is offered implicitly, is that to end terrorism we must admit that ‘Muslims’ are a problem, alongside those ‘politically correct’ lefties who do not want to acknowledge that. The only thing that is still missing here is an explicit form of biological racism: we are not yet told that everyone of ‘Muslim descent’ is guilty by definition. For now, we are ‘only’ sold comprehensive cultural discrimination.

At least, this is the case at the level of discourse. When one looks at it in practice, the situation is already more blurred, as police forces across western countries are systematically harassing those citizens and immigrants who look ‘Muslim’. For many liberals and leftists, the far-right undercurrent of Charlie Hebdo’s editorial is obvious in its attempt to build a case for a comprehensive discrimination against, in fact, a heterogeneous group of people mainly engaging in harmless activities. But we should notice that there is more to it. Fascism is not only a form of prejudice, it is also a political logic. A logic that reduces complex problems to ‘us and them’ issues.

Multiple factors, homegrown and otherwise

Terrorism is a complex problem. Any attempt to deal with it cannot be separated from understanding its multiple roots, causes and structural conditions. As even security services admit, Islamist terrorism in the west is linked to western countries’ foreign policies across the globe. This is logical in the most basic common-sense way: if you claim to wage a war, how can you be so surprised that there will be people who would want to bring it back to you?

But there is also a more complex socio-economic and geo-political dimension, related to both the west’s historical support of various Islamists movements, as well as its ongoing support of the most oppressive dictatorships across the world. Next, although systematic poverty and exclusion of (post)immigrant communities in Europe is not the only explanation of terrorism (neither is it its justification, for that matter), terrorism is indeed inseparable from the structural conditions imposed on those communities by European states and societies.

Finally, one should not dismiss the role of Islamism as a form of religiously-sanctioned political ideology and practice that attracts alienated individuals seeking empowerment. In that sense, all well-meaning proclamations that ‘terrorism has nothing to do with Islam’ are not only a form of wishful thinking, but also an explicitly harmful contribution to the reification of ‘Muslims’ as a coherent and uniform group.

The key point here is that none of the reductive singular explanations will do. Islamism and its rise in the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and Europe is a complex story. The attractiveness of violent Islamism to a certain segment of immigrant and post-immigrant communities in the west (a very small segment, one should add) cannot be understood outside the long history and immediate politics of the west’s actions in Muslim-majority regions, those regions’ own political, socio-economic and ideological dynamics, as well as the systemic poverty and exclusion affecting minorities in the west itself. These are just three interconnected factors causing and shaping Islamist terrorism today. There are many more, as well as many more forms of terrorism, both in the west and in the world as a whole.

Banal binaries

All this should be fairly banal, but instead, we are constantly being sold a different identity-focused narrative. It is assembled in a few simple steps. There is a terrifying problem of terrorism, terrorism perpetrated by ‘them’ against ‘us’, and the only solution is to admit that there are ‘us’ and ‘them’ and stop pretending that ‘they’ are not a threat, with all their veils, refusal to serve ‘us’ ham sandwiches, smart talk of Muslim ethics and bombs.

Only when we admit that can we somehow get rid of the actual physical threat of terrorism. For now, nobody is yet telling us how exactly to solve this problem in practice (although Trump with his suggestions of banning Muslims from entering the US is coming close).

That is the difference between fascism as political practice and fascism as logic and rhetoric. But the latter is of course enabling the possibility of the former. This is why it should be resisted fiercely. To everyone who insists on a direct link between Islam, ‘the Muslims’ and terrorism, we should reply that there are no ‘Muslims’ as a coherent group, that religion itself, independently of whether we like it or not, is not a cause of political violence and that the problem of terrorism will never be solved by an insistence on any reductive identity-based approach to it.

Serious solutions

Of course, a genuine solution to the problem of terrorism is difficult to imagine short of a radical transformation of the world. Such a transformation would address the three problems singled out above and involve at least three massive structural changes.

First, ending the neo-colonialist practices of the west, Russia and China. Second, opening up a political space for going beyond the wrong choice between phony-capitalist murderous dictatorships and thuggish Islamism in the Middle East (and other post-colonial regions). Third, resurrecting the social state in Europe, one able to efficiently address the appalling conditions and exclusion of its post-immigrant communities.

While these changes remain utopian, the problem of terrorism is going to stay with us and will influence where we are going to end up. Its actual influence has nothing to do with challenges to ‘our way of life’ or any other pseudo-threats, omnipresent in the rhetoric of mainstream politicians.

The real danger is in what must be called the myth of terrorism: a view that terrorism is the ultimate form of evil, simultaneously an act of war and the most despicable vile crime, somehow both cunning and meaningless. This emotional and a-political understanding of terrorism is widespread and makes the job of those who want to reduce politics to scapegoating imagined communities easier.

The potential harm here is not only in increasing prejudices against people who are already discriminated against, but also in the replacement of necessary struggles over the forms of political-economic organisation and the distribution of wealth with reductive and simplistic politics of ‘us and them’. This is why we must prevent the supporters of fascist logic from using it to enable a new age of fascist politics to prevail in the west.

How Saudi Arabia dangerously undermines the United States

By Ralph Peters

Iran is our external enemy of the moment. Saudi Arabia is our enduring internal enemy, already within our borders and permitted to poison American Muslims with its Wahhabi cult.

Oh, and Saudi Arabia’s also the spring from which the bloody waters of global jihad flowed.

Iran humiliates our sailors, but the Saudis are the spiritual jailers of hundreds of millions of Muslims, committed to intolerance, barbarity and preventing Muslims from joining the modern world. And we help.

Firm figures are elusive, but estimates are that the Saudis fund up to 80% of American mosques, at least in part. And their goal is the same here as it is elsewhere in the world where Islam must compete with other religions: to prevent Muslims from integrating into the host society.

Wahhabi cult of Islam

The Saudis love having Muslims in America, since that stakes Islam’s claim, but it doesn’t want Muslims to become Americans and stray from the hate-riddled cult they’ve imposed upon a great religion.

The tragedy for the Arabs, especially, has been who got the oil wealth. It wasn’t the sophisticates of Beirut or even the religious scholars of Cairo, but Bedouins with a bitter view of faith. The Saudis and their fellow fanatics in the oil-rich Gulf states have used those riches to drag Muslims backward into the past and to spread violent jihad.

The best argument for alternative energy sources is to return the Saudis to their traditional powerlessness.

I’ve seen Saudi money at work in country after country, from Senegal to Kenya to Pakistan to Indonesia and beyond. Everywhere, their hirelings preach a stern and joyless world, along with the duty to carry out jihad (contrary to our president’s nonsense, jihad’s primary meaning is not “an inner struggle,” but expanding the reach of Islam by fire and sword).

Here’s one of the memories that haunt me. On Kenya’s old Swahili Coast, once the domain of Muslim slavers preying on black Africans, I visited a wretched Muslim slum where children, rather than learning useful skills in a state school, sat amid filth memorizing the Koran in a language they could not understand. According to locals, their parents had been bribed to take their children out of the state schools and put them in madrassas.

Naturally, educated Christians from the interior get the good jobs down on the coast. The Muslims rage at the injustice. The Christians reply, “You can’t all be mullahs — learn something!” And behold: The Saudi mission’s accomplished, the society divided.

The Saudis build Muslims mosques and madrassas but not hospitals and universities.

The basic fact our policy-makers need to grasp about the Saudis is that they couldn’t care less about the welfare of flesh-and-blood Muslims (they refuse to take in Syrian refugees but demand Europe do so). What the Saudis care about is Islam in the abstract. Countless Muslims can suffer to keep the faith pure.

The Saudis build Muslims mosques and madrassas but not hospitals and universities.

Another phenomenon I’ve witnessed is that the Saudis rush to plant mosques where there are few or no Muslims, or where the Wahhabi cult still hasn’t found roots. In Senegal, with its long tradition of humane Islam, religious scholars dismiss the Saudis as upstarts. Yet, money ultimately buys souls and the Saudis were opening mosques.

And jihadi violence is now an appealing brand.

In Mombasa, Kenya, you drive past miles of near-empty mosques. Pakistan has been utterly poisoned, with Wahhabism pushing back even the radical (but less well-funded) Deobandis, the region’s traditional Islamist hardliners.

Shamelessly, the Saudis “offered” to build 200 new mosques in Germany for the wave of migrants. That was too much even for the politically correct Germans, and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s deputy had as close to a public fit over the issue as toe-the-line Germans are permitted to do.

But our real problem is here and now, in the United States. Consider how idiotic we’ve been, allowing Saudis to fund hate mosques and madrassas, to provide Jew-baiting texts and to do their best to bully American Muslims into conformity with their misogynistic, 500-lashes worldview. Our leaders and legislators have betrayed our fellow citizens who happen to be Muslim, making it more difficult for them to integrate fully into our society.

President Obama meets with King Salman in September.

In the long run, the Saudis will lose. The transformative genius of America will defeat the barbarism. But lives will be wrecked along the way and terror will remain our routine companion.

Why did we let this happen? Greed. Naivete. Political correctness. Inertia. For decades, the Saudis sent ambassadors who were “just like us,” drinking expensive scotch, partying hard, playing tennis with our own political royalty, and making sure that American corporations and key individuals made money. A lot of money.

But they weren’t just like us. First of all, few of us could afford the kind of scotch they drank. More important, they had a deep anti-American, anti-liberty, play-us-for-suckers agenda.

And we let the Saudis exert control over America’s Muslim communities through their surrogates. No restrictions beyond an occasional timid request to remove a textbook or pamphlet that went too far.

Think what we’re doing: The Saudis would never let us fund a church or synagogue in Saudi Arabia. There are none. And there won’t be any.

Wouldn’t it make sense for Congress to pass a law prohibiting foreign governments, religious establishments, charities and individuals from funding religious institutions here if their countries do not reciprocate and practice religious freedom? Isn’t that common sense? And simply fair?

Saudi money even buys our silence on terrorism.

Decades ago, the Saudi royal family realized it had a problem. Even its brutal practices weren’t strict enough for its home-grown zealots. So the king and his thousands of princes gave the budding terrorists money — and aimed them outside the kingdom.

Osama bin Laden was just one extremist of thousands. The 9/11 hijackers were overwhelmingly Saudi. The roots of the jihadi movements tearing apart the Middle East today all lie deep in Wahhabism.

Which brings us to 28 pages redacted from the 9/11 Commission’s report. Those pages allegedly document Saudi complicity. Our own government kept those revelations from the American people. Because, even after 9/11, the Saudis were “our friends.”

(We won’t even admit that the Saudi goal in the energy sector today is to break American fracking operations, let alone face the damage their zealotry has caused.)

There’s now a renewed push to have those 28 pages released. Washington voices “soberly” warn that it shouldn’t be done until after the president’s upcoming encounter with the Saudi king, if at all.

Do it now. Stop bowing. Face reality.

If we’re unlucky, we may end up fighting Iran, which remains in the grip of its own corrupt theocracy — although Iranian women can vote and drive cars, and young people are allowed to be young people at about the 1950s level. But if fortune smiles and, eventually, the Iranian hardliners go, we could rebuild a relationship with the Iranians, who are the heirs of a genuine, Persian civilization. Consider how successful and all-American Iranian-Americans have become.

War with Iran will remain a tragic possibility. But the Saudi war on our citizens, on mainstream Islam, and on civilization is a here-and-now reality.

Ralph Peters is Fox News’ strategic analyst.

The 20th anniversary of Dr. Kalim Siddiqui

Waseem Shehzad

Colleagues, friends and admirers of the late Dr Kalim Siddiqui gathered in Toronto to pay tribute to this great son of Islam and a leading intellectual of the last century.

Glowing tributes were paid to the late Dr. Kalim Siddiqui on the 20th anniversary of his passing away. One of the leading intellectuals and activists of the late-20th century, his colleagues, friends, and admirers participated in a memorial conference on April 23 in Toronto to not only remember him but reflect on his works and life’s struggle.

Dr. Kalim Siddiqui is most fondly remembered as founder and director of the Muslim Institute in London as well as leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain. This latter role overshadowed his more important intellectual contributions because he was in the media virtually on a daily basis. And this media attention was not confined to Britain where he lived. but the entire global media was fixated on the novel idea of the Muslim Parliament. It was also a major challenge to the hypocrisy of Western political systems that claim to guarantee the rights of all citizens but discriminate against minorities, especially religious minorities like the Muslims.

Dr. Kalim’s political activism was underpinned by his intellectual work. It provided solid grounding for his experiment in social engineering where the Muslim Parliament idea generated power without territory. He described it as a “non-territorial Islamic State,” much to the chagrin of the British establishment. The British were not amused.

Many of his colleagues, among them ICIT Director Zafar Bangash and Imam Muhammad al-‘Asi, as well as his son Iqbal Siddiqui, and social and political activist, Dr. ‘Ali Mallah highlighted Dr. Kalim’s extensive contribution to Muslim political thought as well as activism. Sharing anecdotes from the late scholar’s life, they provided insights into his great personality both at the intellectual as well as political level and shared many examples of his courage and determination.

His death on April 18, 1996 in South Africa where he had just attended the highly successful international conference on “Creating a New Civilization of Islam” left a huge void in the Ummah. As an academic, visionary, and activist, Dr. Kalim had created a special place for himself in the field of Muslim political thought through his writings and speeches. Such clarity unfortunately is lacking among many Muslim writers today many of whom have become mired in narrow sectarian polemics.

Dr. Kalim was far above such sectarian considerations as Imam al-‘Asi, pointed out. He always spoke about and wrote in terms of the broader goals of Islam and the Prophet’s (pbuh) Sirah and Sunnah. He exuded confidence where others spread pessimism.

His understanding of Western political systems and thought was profound and deep and he directed Muslims to seek solutions to their problems in the Qur’an and the Sunnah and the Sirah of the noble Messenger (pbuh). He insisted that the Islamic civilization would emerge only from within the roots of Islam and not through ideas borrowed from the West. He exuded great confidence and inspired others around him.

ICIT Director Zafar Bangash who was a close colleague and associate of Dr. Kalim’s from the very beginning (the two were closely involved in setting up the Muslim Institute), highlighted his eventful life taking the conference participants on a journey into Dr. Kalim’s activities starting with the establishment of the Muslim Institute in London. The Institute, as it came to be called, was based in Bloomsbury, the intellectual heart of London close to University College London (UCL) where both Dr. Kalim and Zafar Bangash were students. Dr. Kalim had just obtained his PhD in International Relations from UCL in 1972 while Zafar Bangash was an undergraduate at the same institution.

Dr. Kalim was also the author of numerous papers and books starting with his hard-hitting book on Pakistan titled, Conflict, Crisis and War in Pakistan (1972). The book not only traced the origins of the Pakistan movement and how the British-created landed aristocracy hijacked it but how the dream of Pakistan was turned into a nightmare resulting in the humiliating defeat of the Pakistan Army in December 1971 and the loss of half the country.

Thereafter, he produced a number of highly analytical books including Towards a New Destiny (1974), Functions of International Conflict: the case study of Pakistan (1974), The Islamic movement: a Systems Approach (1976), and Beyond the Muslim Nation-states (1977). These years were also interspersed with holding seminars at the Muslim Institute in London where leading academics and political activists from all over the world were invited to speak.

The Islamic Revolution in Iran provided the Muslim Institute with a new and unique challenge: how to communicate the success of this most remarkable achievement by one part of the Ummah to the rest, who happen to be from a different school of thought. Dr. Kalim, the driving force behind the Muslim Institute’s work, was uniquely placed to perform this role and he devoted his full energies to doing just that.

Throughout the 1980s, the Muslim Institute became the hub of activities where international seminars were organized to discuss the burning issues of the day. These included such topics as the Hajj, integration and disintegration in the politics of Islam and kufr, Muslim political yhought under colonialism, impact of nationalism on the Muslim world, and the Islamic Revolution in Iran, among others.

Leading Islamic scholars, thinkers, activists and leaders of Islamic movements from different parts of the world participated in these seminars. The London seminars provided these scholars a platform as well as an opportunity to discuss the hot topics of the day. They also provided an opportunity for Muslims from different schools of thought to interact with each other and discover how much they had in common.

Since Dr. Kalim was a heart patient having suffered his first heart attack as early as February 1974, he knew he did not have too much time in life. In the latter part of his life, he concentrated his intellectual energies on two areas: a deeper study of the Qur’an and a different approach to the study of the Sirah of the noble Messenger (pbuh). Dr. Kalim invited Imam Muhammad al-‘Asi to embark on the tafsir of the noble Qur’an and his (Dr. Kalim’s) paper on the Sirah, Political Dimensions of the Sirah, that was published posthumously (1998), was taken up by the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT) to produce a significant body of Sirah literature. Imam al-‘Asi’s monumental tafsir, The Ascendant Qur’an: Realigning Man to the Divine Power Culture, as well as a series of books on the Sirah of which Power Manifestations of the Sirah: Examining the Letters and Treaties of the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) by Zafar Bangash are the best known.

Dr. Kalim’s son, Iqbal Siddiqui who flew in especially from London to participate in the conference had worked closely with his father, especially on the Muslim Parliament project, as well as in the preparation of Dr. Kalim’s last book, Stages of Islamic Revolution, whose first edition was published a few day’s before Dr. Kalim’s untimely death. His writings have influenced people far and wide and have contributed to clarifying many aspects of Muslim political thought that was hitherto mired in some confusion under the influence of Western political thought.

The fact that so many people still remember Dr. Kalim 20 years after his passing away and given the fast-paced changes in the Muslim world is a tribute to his great intellectual contribution. Dr. Kalim’s thoughts and ideas need to be more widely circulated and studied. They are as relevant today — or perhaps even more so — than they were 20 years ago.

He was a great scholar as well as an activist who while in poor physical health, never rested for a day and continued to struggle for the upliftment of the Ummah. He would not have wanted it any other way.

May Allah (swt) rest his soul in peace, ameen.

Kalim Siddiqui