Nine Eleven "changed everything" has become popular. In fact, nothing has changed since 1775. The imperialist mindset remains the same. The then founders killed the native American Indians and believed they are giving themselves a free America.. The (hopefully outgoing) current President shamelessly apologizes to a King, instead to the victims and compounds their pain by distancing himself with the "wrongdoing of a few".
The popular press joins the imperial masters in debating pictures, prison guards and chain of command with the Generals and Colonels. Attacker's perspective is inundated while the victims' perspective is completely blotted out. They do not understand, no tragedy could ever be understood without the victims perspective.
Their Abu Gharaib was guarded by the Brigadier General Janis Leigh Karpinski, a Jewess from New York replaced with the Major General Geoffrey Miller, the commander in charge of the prison at Guantánamo. One can soar high or dive deep to imagine the possible improvements that the Guantánamo chief may have now brought to Abu Gharaib!
The very little that we now know about Guantánamo and by extension it's Commander in charge, Major General Geoffrey Miller is through the interviews given by the "Tipton Three" of UK (Shafiq Rasul, Ruhal Ahmed and Asif Iqbal) to Guardian Newspaper. They all survived three whole months of solitary confinement for acts they did not commit. Guardian reports Ahmed saying "all the time I was kneeling with a guy standing on the backs of my legs and another holding a gun to my head." The Tipton Three are yet to have the privilege of getting a simple five letter "sorry" from neither the Cowboy of Crawford nor the No:10 Dud of Downing!
Another Abu Gharaib that is yet to be discovered is within and amidst us. America's patronage to the pornographic "industry" made it one of the most profitable business with a domestic annual revenue of $12 Billion. The glamour of defense industry lures growing minds and turns them into the likes of Brigadier General Karpinski who said, "I think what attracted me originally was that the Army offered the opportunities to do all the exciting things I could never do as a school teacher or in any other capacity."
The end products of such a society are the likes of Lynndie England, her boyfriend Charles Grainer, Steven Stefanowicz, John Israel (prison guards at Abu Gharaib) and others, such as the infamous young men of Columbine. With the blooming industries of pornography, gambling, drugs and violence, our home made Abu Gharaib will unfold itself sooner or later.
The discourse that is equally important if not more, is to genuinely explore the deep rooted causes for such inhumane behavior by the soldiers and the leaders of the USA.
The rare courageous journalist, Seymour Hersh reports in a recent piece in New Yorker that Mr. Rumsfeld chafed over what he saw as the reluctance of senior Pentagon generals and admirals to act aggressively. By mid-2002, he and his senior aides were exchanging secret memorandums on modifying the culture of the military leaders and finding ways to encourage them “to take greater risks.” One memo spoke derisively of the generals in the Pentagon, and said, “Our prerequisite of perfection for ‘actionable intelligence’ has paralyzed us. We must accept that we may have to take action before every question can be answered.”
Contrary to Seymour Hersh is a Lt. Gen. William Boykin, an evangelical Christian (under review) for saying "his God was superior to that of the Muslims", is now linked to the abuses of detainees in Iraq.
Islamophobia today is as much a reality as anti-Semitism was during the Nazi Germany. Assimilated Muslims in the Yugoslavia were challenged to drop their pants and the Muslim women in France are made to reveal their hair, both to prove their patriotism. The West is rarely content with the Muslims.
The founding leadership killed native American Indians and later generations thrived on plantations and the current leadership also wants to assure its place in history. They shamelessly articulate to convince the citizenry that smaller nukes that can actually be used are better than the big ones that cannot be used. Simple Economics 101.
Talking of economy, our defense department finds itself helpless in spite of a budget six times bigger ($400 billion) than the budget of education department ($70 billion). They award millions of dollars worth of contracts to Private Contractors run by former government (defense department) employees who then become 'interrogators' at places like Abu Gharaib.
Titan Corporation is one such organization. It is based out of San Diego with approximately 12,000 employees and annual sales of approximately $2.0 billion. 95 percent of its revenues comes from the U.S. government defense contracts. Their clientele includes the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense and all branches of the armed services. Their A to Z product line includes products such as "Advanced Training Solutions", "Affordable Weapon", to a X-Craft.
Steven Stefanowicz of Titan Corporation is an alleged "interrogator" of Abu Gharaib. The ex-generals and colonels who started Titan Corporation perhaps trained him. The Titan, that could either be as the Titanic (in size) or the other Titan whose ideological white supremacist doctrine was that all civilization was created by the "white" race, led in particular by the "Nordic" race and that the civilizations of Greece and Rome declined due to mixture with the African and Middle-Eastern slaves. Therefore, Stefanowicz may have believed that the Abu Gharaib enslaved prisoners must be treated as such. Urinating at and keeping human beings in a leash can be done only with such twisted titanic beliefs.
Unlike those who seemingly enjoyed torture, rape & sodomy, a courageous young man (a.k.a. whistle blower) from within, Army Specialist Joseph Darby slipped an anonymous note under the door of his commander. His simple and quiet act has become the single biggest reason to expose the heinous acts of US soldiers at Abu Gharaib. Joseph Darby is a hero to some but not to all. His wife now fears retaliation for a noble act of her husband, in the land of the free!
Joseph Darby and other such courageous people proves that actions that are genuine and sincere does make a difference. The Generals and Colonels can only perpetuate death and destruction with their new toys of smaller and more lethal nukes. The Army and War Colleges must remember the words of Margaret Mead who once said, "I have spent most of my life studying the lives of other peoples -- faraway peoples -- so that Americans might better understand themselves."
Monday, June 13, 2005
Monday, April 25, 2005
Monotheism versus Moneytheism
Monotheism versus Moneytheism
By Shakeel Syed
The claimants of monotheism have become adherents of moneytheism!
The perpetrators of this new paradigm must be held accountable. We define our character when we say a word of justice to an oppressive royal or a ruler. And if we do not we also become accountable.
A recent news magazine reports a headline "Geneva caters to an ailing king". A water-front feast on caviar, kebab and coffee while their maidens are guarded by Swiss soldiers and their toddlers are dandled by Filipino nannies. The 80+ year old wheel-chair confined patriarch with an entourage of 350 is heard to be re-tracking his princely wild days in Geneva & Marbella, Spain, his two most loving cities. This is the self-proclaimed custodian of the two most Holy Mosques, Fahd bin Abdul Aziz!
Across the waters in France was the other 80+ year old octogenarian gulf ruler, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. He is claimed to have been elected as first President of the UAE in 1971 with five successive (re-elected) five year intervals. The year of 1971 must be an auspicious one for the "elected rulers." The Prime Minister of Dubai, Sheikh Maktum ibn Rashid al-Maktum also happens to be serving his prime ministerial terms since 1971 with an interim absence between 1979 & 1990.
While a war of the United States upon Iraq looms over, they are busy on the streets of Geneva and Marbella. The Saudis have clogged the Geneva streets with Mercedeses, delighting the merchants on the elegant Rue du Rhone. The local tourist bureau estimates the royals spending a whopping $10 million a day. And this is just the beginning!
Fahd flew into Geneva with two 747s, a Boeing 757 mobile hospital, a Boeing 777, a Falcon 900 and a couple of Gulfstreams. His entourage took more than 400 rooms in the city's five-star hotels and rented 600 Mercedes limos exhausting Geneva's entire auto rental inventory. An additional 150 Mercedeses were imported from Germany to cater to the wheel-chair bound ailing guest.
One of the royal family's staff member is reported to have said "domestic concerns are for another day, another place. I am more worried about the diabetes from all the rich food, pinching a roll of fat at his waist."
Tensions between royals and the people have grown as they are tired of the financial bloat and moral laxity of the royals. These ailing kings, rulers and presidents must completely be stripped of their titles and completely removed from their ornate palaces. Their hereditary successors must be made to realize that their real inheritance is to resume the life like everyone else and struggle on the streets to make an earnest living.
They mistakenly believe that they are securely unchallenged and supreme. They have falsely made themselves think that it is permanent and invincible. Monotheistic Islam is the very state of nature. Every part of it is capable of regenerating all other parts. It is only a matter of time that it happens. It is only then that there will be the restoration of a just order, where the monotheistic belief is properly valued and practiced.
The claimants of monotheism must question and expose such obnoxious excesses of unprecedented magnitude from the adherents of moneytheism. This discourse is completely missing from our intellectual and political dialog. Voluminous scrolls have documented the ills of others but no one cares to speak, write or debate about our own. There is a clear absence of descriptive and analytical political thought from the massive intellectual industry of the Muslims.
Without a paradigm of political thought that describes and explains the present political situation, we cannot even begin to work towards the regeneration of monotheistic political power. The original model at Madinah had to defeat the power of falsehood, which was then local, or at best regional, and there were no vast disparities in the areas of technology and economy. In the contemporary situation the false and secular civilization is globally organized in a world economy with inter-linking political systems, that includes the corrupt systems of Muslim rulers and regimes. Monotheism, therefore, has to repeat itself in a vastly more complex world than existed 1,400 years ago. This difference between the two historical situations has to be bridged by sincere leadership and profound contemporary thought in absence of Prophethood and Divine Revelation in the original model.
Monotheism has no frontiers and is fervently preached to the entire humanity by all the Prophets from Abraham to Muhammad (peace be upon all of them) and this must now be intensely continued by its' claimants. And, the adherents of Moneytheism has to be sent and sent away quickly in the dustbin of forgotten history.
Shakeel Syed is a freelance writer on socio-political issues and lives in California.
By Shakeel Syed
The claimants of monotheism have become adherents of moneytheism!
The perpetrators of this new paradigm must be held accountable. We define our character when we say a word of justice to an oppressive royal or a ruler. And if we do not we also become accountable.
A recent news magazine reports a headline "Geneva caters to an ailing king". A water-front feast on caviar, kebab and coffee while their maidens are guarded by Swiss soldiers and their toddlers are dandled by Filipino nannies. The 80+ year old wheel-chair confined patriarch with an entourage of 350 is heard to be re-tracking his princely wild days in Geneva & Marbella, Spain, his two most loving cities. This is the self-proclaimed custodian of the two most Holy Mosques, Fahd bin Abdul Aziz!
Across the waters in France was the other 80+ year old octogenarian gulf ruler, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. He is claimed to have been elected as first President of the UAE in 1971 with five successive (re-elected) five year intervals. The year of 1971 must be an auspicious one for the "elected rulers." The Prime Minister of Dubai, Sheikh Maktum ibn Rashid al-Maktum also happens to be serving his prime ministerial terms since 1971 with an interim absence between 1979 & 1990.
While a war of the United States upon Iraq looms over, they are busy on the streets of Geneva and Marbella. The Saudis have clogged the Geneva streets with Mercedeses, delighting the merchants on the elegant Rue du Rhone. The local tourist bureau estimates the royals spending a whopping $10 million a day. And this is just the beginning!
Fahd flew into Geneva with two 747s, a Boeing 757 mobile hospital, a Boeing 777, a Falcon 900 and a couple of Gulfstreams. His entourage took more than 400 rooms in the city's five-star hotels and rented 600 Mercedes limos exhausting Geneva's entire auto rental inventory. An additional 150 Mercedeses were imported from Germany to cater to the wheel-chair bound ailing guest.
One of the royal family's staff member is reported to have said "domestic concerns are for another day, another place. I am more worried about the diabetes from all the rich food, pinching a roll of fat at his waist."
Tensions between royals and the people have grown as they are tired of the financial bloat and moral laxity of the royals. These ailing kings, rulers and presidents must completely be stripped of their titles and completely removed from their ornate palaces. Their hereditary successors must be made to realize that their real inheritance is to resume the life like everyone else and struggle on the streets to make an earnest living.
They mistakenly believe that they are securely unchallenged and supreme. They have falsely made themselves think that it is permanent and invincible. Monotheistic Islam is the very state of nature. Every part of it is capable of regenerating all other parts. It is only a matter of time that it happens. It is only then that there will be the restoration of a just order, where the monotheistic belief is properly valued and practiced.
The claimants of monotheism must question and expose such obnoxious excesses of unprecedented magnitude from the adherents of moneytheism. This discourse is completely missing from our intellectual and political dialog. Voluminous scrolls have documented the ills of others but no one cares to speak, write or debate about our own. There is a clear absence of descriptive and analytical political thought from the massive intellectual industry of the Muslims.
Without a paradigm of political thought that describes and explains the present political situation, we cannot even begin to work towards the regeneration of monotheistic political power. The original model at Madinah had to defeat the power of falsehood, which was then local, or at best regional, and there were no vast disparities in the areas of technology and economy. In the contemporary situation the false and secular civilization is globally organized in a world economy with inter-linking political systems, that includes the corrupt systems of Muslim rulers and regimes. Monotheism, therefore, has to repeat itself in a vastly more complex world than existed 1,400 years ago. This difference between the two historical situations has to be bridged by sincere leadership and profound contemporary thought in absence of Prophethood and Divine Revelation in the original model.
Monotheism has no frontiers and is fervently preached to the entire humanity by all the Prophets from Abraham to Muhammad (peace be upon all of them) and this must now be intensely continued by its' claimants. And, the adherents of Moneytheism has to be sent and sent away quickly in the dustbin of forgotten history.
Shakeel Syed is a freelance writer on socio-political issues and lives in California.
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