In the Name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful
The Canadian Islamic Congress Friday Bulletin
Friday, February 3, 2006 - Muharram 4, 1427, Year:9 Vol:9 Issue: 17
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THIS FRIDAY BULLETIN CONTAINS SIX ITEMS:
1. CANADAS MISSION IN AFGHANISTAN LACKS PURPOSE
2. BOOK REVIEW: JAMES YEE'S FOR GOD AND COUNTRY (2005)
3. INTRODUCING HAMAS -- THE NEW LIKUD
4. SANITIZED IMAGES HIDE BRUTAL TRUTH ABOUT WAR, SAYS FISK
5. MARCHING BACKWARDS ON CIVIL RIGHTS -- THE COLD HARD FACTS
6. E-MAIL RESPONSES
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1. CANADAS MISSION IN AFGHANISTAN LACKS PURPOSE
[By Dr. Mohamed Elmasry]
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The use of the military in any conflict is only a means to achieve well-
defined political goals. The less defined those goals are, the less
successful the military mission will be; in fact, the results can be
disastrous.
Take Canadas military mission in Afghanistan. NATO has some 9,000 troops
there, of whom only 650 are Canadians. Now Canada is sending 2,200 more
soldiers to replace some of the 19,000 American troops to be withdrawn.
Recently a number of Canadian military personnel have been killed or
wounded. The more people Canada posts in Afghanistan, the more casualities
our forces will experience; and not only the families of fallen soliders
will suffer, but the entire country as well.
So why are Canadians in Afghanistan?
The simplest answer is something like this: Canada is a member of NATO,
which means it is obliged to help other NATO members (in this case the
Americans) in their military missions overseas. Unfortunately, that
obligation prevails, no matter how misguided our allies' missions might be.
Afghanistan poses no threat whatsoever to Canadas security. Zero, zilch,
nada. And to those who naively think that Canada's military is there to
help the poor Afghanis, Canada spends more than $600 million annually on
its military operations (so far), and committed only $200 million to help
Afghanis (not known how much was spent if any).
Canadians have traditionally been proud that their country has often been
the first to work under the UN peacekeeping banner in many hotspots around
the globe.
But Canada's involvement in Afghanistan is not, and has never been,
peacekeeping. Canada joined the Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) coalition
in 2001 "in order to destroy the Taliban shield that was protecting Al
Qaeda's infrastructure in Afghanistan." And then, Canadians were being
killed by American "friendly fire." OEF underwent a name change to the
International Security Assistance Force, whose mandate was to protect the
Afghani interim government from its "enemies," but it was essentially the
same old operation. Canada contributed to both OEF and ISAF.
More recently, the name has changed again -- this time at the insistence of
the new Afghani government -- to the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT).
The term "Reconstruction" is blatantly inappropriate, however, as there is
nothing in Afghanistan to be re- constructed.
For example, how many new universities, schools, libraries, hospitals,
roads, factories, training centres, clean water plants, sewage treatment
facilities, etc. are on the PRT agenda? And what plans has the PRT
developed to help Afghani farmers switch from opium cultivation to more
beneficial crops?
The U.S. bombed and invaded Afghanistan to get rid of the Taliban
government because the latter refused to hand over Al Qaeda leaders. Now
Afghanistan has a president with no grass roots support in most of the
country, and who barely controls even its capital city of Kabul. As a
former American CEO, the only support Hamid Karzai gets is from Afghanis
who can personally and materially benefit from his American connections.
One Canadian analyst explained our country's objective as being, "to limit
and then destroy the remnants of the Al Qaeda-supported Taliban, and
prevent them from interfering with the construction process."
But it does not matter how much America hates the Taliban; they are a
popular movement with strong grassroots support. President Karzai even said
recently he could work with them, but such is the prevailing distrust of
Karzai as an American mouthpiece, the call to co-operate was ignored. This
desperately unproductive situation leads many Afghanis to perceive
Americans -- and the Canadians who follow them -- as hostile foreigners
occupying their country. Is it any surprise that some turn to suicide
bombing?
Canadians are finally waking up to the fact that there was no real debate
over the decision to send our military to Afghanistan. Nor was there any
discussion of concrete objectives, or how to measure our success there.
When will we even know our mission is over?
Right wing militarist politicians are trying to sell our ever- increasing
military presence in Afghanistan to fellow Canadians, but at what cost?
Meanwhile, the Americans are leaving Afghanistan because there is no oil;
because it is one of the poorest countries in the world; and because the
Afghanis are a hard-headed people who fiercely resist foreign occupation --
they dug in their heels against the British and Russians and in the end
demoralized them both. As well, the Americans believe that Al Qaeda's
operations there have been sufficiently disrupted. But above all, America
is not at all interested in the human development of Afghanis, not one bit.
Of course, many will remember an early spate of propaganda about invading
Afghanistan to free "burqa-clad women cowering in their houses" and give
them education and jobs, as well as vague promises to feed starving
children and train youth to find jobs instead of joining up with the
Taliban. But none of this was ever achieved, or even seriously attempted,
because there was simply no political will to push the U.S. into providing
adequate resources. One in six Afghani women still dies in childbirth, and
the female literacy rate is still a mere 14 per cent.
The only positive thing to happen in Afghanistan was achieved by the UN;
the holding of parliamentary elections. But elections do not bring instant
food, health care, education, clean water, or security. A massive longterm
program of international aid would fill that yawning gap -- and that's
where Canadas true role in Afghanistan should be focused. Maybe our prime
minister-elect, Stephen Harper, is listening.
(Dr. Mohamed Elmasry is national president of the Canadian Islamic
Congress. He can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED])
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2. BOOK REVIEW: JAMES YEE'S FOR GOD AND COUNTRY (2005)
[By Ayub Khan -- The Yemen Observer -- Jan. 21, 2006]
===========================================================================
It is no secret that Muslims in the United States and elsewhere live under
constant scrutiny and suspicion. They are often asked to prove their
loyalties to the countries of their residence. It is one thing to doubt the
loyalties of relative newcomers. It is another to doubt, on spurious
grounds, the loyalty of people whose patriotism would make others envious.
These are uncertain times, however, and no one is above suspicion. James
Yees For God and Country proves how deep- rooted that suspicion is.
Former U.S.Army Muslim Chaplain, Captain James Yee, has impressive
background and stellar credentials. A third generation Chinese- American,
he graduated from the elite West Point military academy. He was a
commissioned officer in the U.S. Army for 14 years, during which he
traveled to Saudi Arabia as part of his military service. That tour of duty
turned out to be prophetic as it sparked his interest in Islam and he soon
converted to the faith. To strengthen his religious knowledge, he went to
Damascus in Syria and studied under traditional Islamic scholars for four
years. He also married a Syrian.
In 2001, he was commissioned as one of the first Muslim chaplains in the
United States Army. He was sought after as a spokesman to educate fellow
soldiers about Islam and Muslims. Subsequently, he was selected to serve as
the Muslim Chaplain at Guantanamo Bay where detainees from Afghanistan and
elsewhere are being held as "unlawful combatants."
When he first landed on Guantanamo Bay, he received some valuable advice
from the previous chaplain. "There are other things about this place that
will be a little harder to take," said Chaplain Hamza. "I dont want to
discourage you on your first night, but you need to be prepared. This is
not a friendly environment for Muslims, and I dont just mean the
prisoners....You need to watch your back." Yee soon realized the usefulness
of the advice.
Guantanamo Bay is one of the most inhospitable places on earth. The weather
is harsh and the working conditions tough. Yee sought to make the best of
it and tried to do his job in as professional manner as possible. To his
dismay he found out that Islam was used as a weapon against the detainees.
Detainees told him about the humiliations they had to suffer. One detainee
complained that prisoners were forced to sit in the center of a satanic
circle outlined by lit candles. They were the ordered to bow down as
interrogators ordered, "Satan is your God, not Allah! Repeat after me!"
Yee says that these reports were corroborated by the translators. Female
guards were used to provoke the detainees. Yees account also further
corroborates the charges about Quran desecrations. The guards understood
the great reverence Muslims have for the Quran but did not respect it and
instead claimed that the detainees might be hiding weapons inside their
holy book. "And in plain view of the prisoners, MPs would violently shake
the Quran, looking for something to drop out. Theyd break the binding and
drop the Quran on the floor.
I never heard of an incident where a detainee hid anything dangerous in the
Quran -- doing so would be considered an insult. The detainees would
become outraged when the guards touched their holy books, and this behavior
often led to some of the worst clashes on the blocks."
The increasing reports about insults against not only prisoners, but also
directed at several translators, made him wonder about his mission. He had
come to Guantanamo to ensure that the detainees could practice their
religion, but now he wondered if his was merely a "political appointment, a
piece of theater meant to display the understanding and sensitivity we
purported to have toward Islam."
Despite all these troubles, Yee tried to perform his duties in as
professional manner as possible and received glowing evaluations. But on
Sept.10, 2003, on his way back to Washington state he was arrested in
Jacksonville, Florida, for espionage, sedition and a host of other charges,
and prosecutors sought the death penalty.
He was imprisoned in the Consolidate Naval Brig in Charleston, S.C. where
he was kept in solitary confinement for 76 days. During his detention he
drew his strength from the Quran and the story of Prophet Joseph, "an
innocent man who was unjustly accused and wrongly imprisoned." The
governments case soon began to fall apart and the most serious charges
were two counts if mishandling information and another of lying to an
investigator. In their relentless pursuit to nail him, the prosecution then
charged him with spurious charges of adultery and pornography. The reports
of the adultery charges and frequent media leaks nearly drove his wife to
suicide. Eventually, all charges were dropped and Yee was honorably
discharged. But he did not receive any apology.
Apart from Yees fascinating personal narrative, this book provides a
gripping account of what really goes on at Guantanamo Bay. For God and
Country is the disturbing story of a true patriot, one who believed that he
could be loyal to both his faith and his country. For this he was accused
of being a traitor. In the end, however, it is the reputation of America as
a fair and just country that suffered along with James Yee.
(This article was edited for the Friday Bulletin.)
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3. INTRODUCING HAMAS -- THE NEW LIKUD
[By Bradley Burston -- Ha'aretz --January 27, 2006]
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Ladies and Gentlemen, may we introduce ... Hamas -- the new Likud. It's
1977 all over again, People of Israel. Once again, everything we knew, is
wrong.
Sound familiar? The party in power, the only party which has ever held
power, the party which made a people, has shown itself to be bottomlessly
corrupt. It has long been unresponsive to crying social needs. It has
proven incapable of making peace. It is ineffectual at bringing its people
security. There is no end to the cronyism, the economic inequality, the
graft, the hidebound, unwieldy construction of interlocking, profoundly
anti-democratic institutions.
Then one day, voters who have swallowed and suffered this for decades,
revolt. Overnight, a virtual one-party system is overturned in a stunning
victory by a lean, clean, dynamic rival, a movement long shunned for a
violent past and an unbending, maximalist take on who should own the
entirety of the Holy Land.
If the stage of history is often lit by irony, the proximity of the
implosion of the Likud and the rise of Hamas may hold lessons for us, and
for Hamas as well.
In 1977, the Likud of Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir was derided abroad
-- and by the left at home -- as a group led by terror warlords, a movement
with roots in armed wings that had engaged in bombings and cold-blooded
shootings.
It was seen, incorrectly, as inexperienced in everything except opposition.
It was seen, ingenuously by the left, as little more than an outgrowth of
the Irgun and Lehi, heirs to Deir Yassin, implacable in its opposition to
sharing or ceding land.
It was on May 17, 1977 that Begin's Likud defeated Labor. Exactly six
months and two days later, the first leader of an Arab nation to publicly
set foot on Israeli soil -- a man who had ordered his armies to attack
Israel on Yom Kippur -- shook Begin's hand and drove with him to Jerusalem,
where he would address the Knesset the next day.
It was the Likud that would trade away every last inch of the Sinai desert
-- 89 percent of all the land mass captured in the 1967 war -- in exchange
for a peace treaty with Egypt.
It was the Likud, in what was effectively its last, arguably suicidal act
as a political party, that would recast the nature of political discourse
in Israel by unilaterally leaving the Gaza Strip.
Even if Anwar Sadat was fated to become a shahid for peace, his journey to
Jerusalem suggests a broader concept. If both Israel and its Arab enemy can
claim victory in the same war, they may both be able to leverage that claim
into some form of peace.
There were analysts abroad who have called this week's Hamas victory "the
end of unilateralism." It may, however, be just the beginning.
Whether it is or not, whether Israel will actually withdraw from more of
the West Bank, will depend to a great extent on what Hamas decides its guns
are for. If they are for attacking Israelis, no government in Jerusalem
will be able to suggest a further pullback. But if the rifles are for
keeping order, and for enforcing a truce, a withdrawal could well take
place, and Hamas will be able to claim yet another victory. Moreover, if
calm is maintained, Israel will be able to claim another victory as well.
It won't be simple for either side. The grief over thousands of casualties
is still fresh.
For Hamas, the ideological leap will be tremendous. Though some in Hamas
have made noises about finding a way to live with the 1967 borders, the
concession for them will be as painful as that of Begin's creed of Greater
Israel, which originally called for a Jewish state in all of what is now
Israel, as well as all of the territories and the present kingdom of
Jordan.
How likely is the scenario that Hamas will see to calm in hopes of an
Israeli withdrawal? In a matter of 20 days, both Israel and Palestine have
witnessed the passing of their founding generation, the generation that
seemed capable of burying us all.
God is in the unexpected. Left to our own devices, our fossilized
expectations, our unwillingness to believe in a better future, we'll mess
up God's work every time.
But thank God... that we can be so wrong.
(This article was edited for the Friday Bulletin.)
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4. SANITIZED IMAGES HIDE BRUTAL TRUTH ABOUT WAR, SAYS FISK
[By Ian Herbert -- The Independent -- Jan. 24, 2006]
===========================================================================
The sanitized images of war broadcast on television are a "lethal weapon"
masking atrocities which demonstrate that conflict can "never be
justified," an Independent debate was told last night.
"War is not about victory or defeat. It is about the total failure of human
spirit," stated The Independent's Middle East correspondent, Robert Fisk.
"When you see the things I see, you would never support war ever again."
The increasingly chaotic conflict in Iraq is utterly unjustifiable and a
by-product of the same Western thirst for "control, control, control" of
the Middle East's assets and resources that has been evident for centuries,
he added. "We've always gone to the Middle East to 'liberate' people,
taking with us our guns and our swords, our horses and our helicopters."
Fisk, whose new book The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the
Middle East, has been published by Fourth Estate, said there could be no
lasting settlement in Iraq for as long as the occupiers remain there. He
made a powerful case for presenting in the media the full horror of war --
images such as the blood that poured over the top of his shoes in a Baghdad
hospital, and the bones he saw where the feet on a child's legs should have
been; a horrific sight that was edited out in newspaper images.
"One thing that unsettles people is the sense that there is a slightly
voyeuristic element to seeing people suffering," suggested Simon Kelner,
The Independent's editor-in-chief, who chaired the debate. Fisk replied
that film-makers saw fit to include the full gore of war in productions
such as Saving Private Ryan, and there was no reason why news broadcasts
should be any different. Most of the 600-strong audience at Manchester Town
Hall agreed when the issue was put to a vote.
Fisk, who has covered the Middle East for The Independent for 19 years,
described the difficulties of the current anarchy in Iraq. "Can we do any
more than put together the little tiny pieces?" he asked. "Sometimes I
think what we see of the Iraqi war is what we see on the roof of a
Renaissance cathedral after a massive earthquake in northern Italy; little
tiny bits of colour, and we try to string them together to make sense."
Called to one atrocity, he managed to take a picture of a baby on fire and
spend 20 seconds with an eyewitness before 40 Iraqis were "beating like
fury on the roof of the car" and he left. "Mouse reporting, they call it.
Many of us are asking, 'Are the risks worth it?'" On the other hand, those
reporters who must settle instead for "hotel journalism," reporting from
their hotel rooms because "there are armed men to protect them, who tell
them they can't leave," owe it to their readers to say so.
Fisk was asked how he'd preserved his sanity in over 30 years of covering
the Middle East. "You have to tell yourself that you don't come here to
die, you come here to report," he answered. "It is becoming increasingly
difficult to justify risking one's life [while sometimes feeling you are
not] having an effect. I sometimes wonder if I should have chosen something
safer and different and maybe happier, and I wonder if my 30 years in the
Middle East wasn't a curse. Well, if so, my book is the story of that
curse."
(This article was edited for the Friday Bulletin.)
=========================================================== 5. MARCHING
BACKWARDS ON CIVIL RIGHTS -- THE COLD HARD FACTS [By J.L. Chestnut --
Counter Punch -- Jan. 27, 2006]
===========================================================
It is difficult to converse with people who oppose what they call quotas,
reverse discrimination and preferential treatment. Such people usually say
they are not opposed to anti-discrimination laws, but they downplay the
ugly fact that much of the racist past remains with us. They also are
ambivalent about most claims that arise from black America.
For example, I have debated against college educated people, black and
white, who argue heatedly that reparations are undesirable and unnecessary
for ruling out the racist abominations that have haunted America since
1619. They say they do not believe the racial present is anywhere near as
bad as the racial past, or that mainstream white people still perceive a
darker skin color as materially different than their own and derive comfort
from that difference.
There's a comfort level for white people when they deal with black people.
Generally, this comfort level is born of illusion, inspires its own notions
of white supremacy, and then rationalizes it as necessary and proper. The
late New York Senator Daniel Moynihan once said that whites have castrated
blacks for so long that the blacks now do it to themselves. That castration
occurs in many different forms.
I watched one example of this social castration first-hand and up close in
the nation's capitol during the heated federal courtroom arguments and
disagreements in the black farmers' case. I was fascinated and disgusted by
the openly patronizing, racist attitude of many white government
functionaries toward my poor black farmer clients, and worse, the
acquiescence in all this degrading racist nonsense by black government
functionaries.
On the other hand, I have witnessed even blacks who try to be Republican
and white, yield to a deeply instinctive human impulse and fight back. They
might pick the wrong targets, but they sometimes lash out in unexpected
bitterness and hatred. I was startled by one example in another federal
courthouse, this time in Montgomery. We had completed the arraignment of
Jamil Abdullah Alamin (alias H. Rap Brown) and I stopped in the hallway to
answer questions from reporter Alvin Benn. A black man dressed in Muslim
garb stood to the side and listened intently.
Jamil, convicted of murder in Georgia, was already under sentence of life
without parole and that sentence was on appeal. I merely repeated to Benn
what I had said in court; i.e. that the government brought Jamil back to
Montgomery only because officials view him as a dangerous black radical and
wanted to tack a few more years on to his sentence in case he won his
appeal in Georgia. The charge in Alabama of shooting at federal officers in
Lowndes County was hardly worth the trip from Georgia. Naturally, the
government denied my claim and said Jamil was being tried in Alabama
because, "If you shoot at one of ours, you will be prosecuted!"
After Benn left, the Muslim brother and several other blacks angrily called
the government vile names and another Muslim brother said in an agitated
voice, "You see, these damn government people view all people of color
differently and as the enemy. Today is the first time in history that the
government has tried to add some years on to someone already serving life
without parole. They would only do that to a person of color. This white
government has always hated black people. It is government for, by and of
white people! " A dignified but very pregnant black woman said amen and
called the black prosecutor assigned to the case, "a college educated Tom,
a black misfit who sold his damn soul for a second-class government job."
Among other negatives, racism distorts our belief system, and to varying
degrees we are all held hostage by racism. A fundamental difference between
blacks and whites is that most blacks would effectively address the problem
of racism while many whites deny there is much of a problem. I hear white
people in Selma self-righteously blame one of my attorney colleagues and
activist, Rose Sanders, for racially segregated schools and damn near
everything else that is wrong in this town. For the record, local schools
were created segregated in the 1860s and remained so until I filed suit to
integrate them more than a hundred years later in the 1970s.
Along the same fraudulent lines, I reject the racist pretension that we
blacks have a greater propensity for crime than whites; that poverty has
little or nothing to do with criminals or criminality; that subsistence
welfare payments are routinely abused to produce welfare kings and queens;
that race and class are necessary to preserve the nation; and that blacks
who don't bow to white manipulation are dangerous and even un-American.
There is not a scintilla of evidence that proves any of that nonsense.
As long as Americans place a value on skin color, regardless of how
ridiculous, white supremacy will reign, if only in secret. Indeed, white
supremacy has reigned all these centuries because it is American to the
core, and it is inseparable from American history. As I look around today
in 2006, it is almost as if the civil rights movement was a mistake. Many
who battled at Ground Zero in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia in the 1960s
have now lived to witness the really reactionary mood of the country today
and the government's unceasing efforts to undo much, if not all, we
achieved with great sacrifice in race relations and civil rights.
The march backwards really began with George Wallace, Richard Nixon and
Ronald Reagan.
(J.L. Chestnut, Jr. is a civil rights attorney in Selma, Alabama. He is the
founder of Chestnut, Sanders and Sanders, the largest black law firm in
Alabama. He can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] This article was
slightly edited for the Friday Bulletin.)
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6. E-MAIL RESPONSES
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Asalamalykum;
As a Canadian, I really congratulate the Canadian Islamic Congress for your
efforts. It is a step in the right direction and the "1000 mile trip starts
with one step." Your step is already a large one.
Maro Bay
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Re: Audio/Video content broadcast by the Arab media
Every time a terrorist or terrorist group wants to pass a message to the
world, Arab satellite broadcasters are the first to put that kind of
content on the air.
Not only don't they know how accurate that content is, but they also don't
realize the impact it has on Muslim communities in the west as well.
So I am asking, is there any process in place in the Arab/Muslim world that
measures the impact of broadcasting these messages and whether doing so
serves any useful purpose?
The damage is already done, of course, no matter how Muslims in the west
struggle to clear Islam of blanket associations with terrorism, yet these
broadcasters always come back to remind people about it.
Are these satellite broadcasters really serving their viewers and
listeners? Do they have a clear mission? Or are their broadcast policies
being dictated from elsewhere?
Please use your communication powers to address this serious issue at the
highest level of discussion. Let Muslims take their future into their own
hands and let us start from now on to fix problems at their roots instead
of ignoring them, or pretending they don't exist.
God bless us and have mercy on us, because the future is certainly unclear.
Tarif
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NOTE: Some letters may have been edited for clarity and length;
however, writers' opinions are unaltered.]
===========================================================================
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DISCLAIMER:
All material published by The Friday Bulletin is the sole
responsibility of its author(s). The opinions and/or assertions
contained therein do not necessarily reflect the editorial views of
The Friday Bulletin, nor those of the Canadian Islamic Congress and
its officers.
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