The Good Insurgents
by pessimist
General Phil Sheridan: "The only good Indians I ever say were dead."
There is an attitude among many the Red State Brain-demised that looks upon Muslims in a manner very similar to this prejudicial quote: "The Only Good Indian is a Dead Indian":
Somehow, I doubt there are any references in the New Testament to The Prince of Peace ever handling a weapon. In fact, His attitude about weapons can be demonstrated by this passage: Jesus said to Peter, 'Put your sword into its sheath.' (John 18:11)
But these are confusing times, made much the worse by the evil acts, ineptitude, and malfeasance of our C-Average Sovereign and the BFEE/PNAC Petroleum Pirate Posse. Want proof?
When's the last time you read anything from Israel that had the slightest sympathetic slant toward Muslims?
It is definitely confusing. Up until three months ago, it was clear to everyone that the Sunnis were the enemies of the United States and the new Iraqi government. Up until a month ago, everyone knew that the U.S. proscribed Hezbollah and that Hamas was an enemy of the Palestinian nation in Washington's eyes. And another small matter: We knew that the collapse of the Soviet Union gave birth to a number of new states and that the greatest success had actually been achieved in the "Muslim republics." Freedom and democracy in Muslim states were always a dream that gave America goose bumps.Suddenly, everything is the opposite. Now that America is dying to disengage from Iraq, terrorist organizations, "Sunni triangles" or "rebellious tribal groups" from the recent past have become acceptable.
Dare I Fight No More Forever?
So who is the "bad Muslim?" Perhaps the Muslim Brotherhood? Egypt's democratization campaign, even if it is slow, will require the cooperation of the Muslim Brotherhood. And suddenly the Americans are also beginning to talk with them. But while Washington is talking with the Muslim Brotherhood about democracy, hundreds of members of this organization are being arrested in Egypt for participating in demonstrations.Washington also has become silent in regard to Hezbollah. Washington has no choice but to recognize what has already been evident for some time: Hezbollah is part of Lebanese politics.
But it seems that the largest dose of confusion is reserved for another Islam. For more than 15 years, Islam Karimov, the president of Muslim Uzbekistan, has been the darling of Washington. More than $500 million passed into the hands of the amiable leader, while his intelligence interrogators cooked Uzbek dissidents in boiling water in the torture dungeons. Washington knew about this, but Karimov is a friend, a symbol of liberation from the Soviet Union, a paragon of "freedom." Washington also is well aware of how many people were killed last week in Uzbekistan.
Perhaps, now that Sunnis are no longer bad guys and Shi'ites have stopped committing suicide, the time has come for redefining the notion of democracy, and this would clear up the confusion.
It will prove nearly impossible to clear up the confusion when it is evident to those who choose to discern the true nature of the feelings of Iraqis toward the United States.
Hint to wrong-wingers: we aren't winning either their hearts or their minds:
Establishing The Reservation
Our Homes Destroyed By U.S. Firepower, Iraqis Have Little Enthusiasm for the 'New Iraq'
Two years ago the White House thought it had emerged victorious in its bid to dislodge former leader Saddam Hussein and its chief, George W. Bush, went on television declaring, “mission accomplished.”
If they have no idea, they should visit Falluja, which their forces have turned into a “homeless town.”It seems that the trade in tents in our land has peaked, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis currently living in tent cities due to ongoing U.S. military operations. First we heard about sprawling tent camps erected to house the fleeing refugees from Falluja, a city with nearly 300,000 inhabitants which the U.S. military had to destroy -- ostensibly to pacify it.
Then came reports of tent cities rising on the outskirts of the oil-rich centers of Kirkuk and Khaniqeen. And now we hear of yet another tent city – this one for the fleeing inhabitants of the border town of Qaim, which for the past week has been the scene of ferocious fighting.
The presence of so many tent cities comes amid a latest government study on the situation in the country.
And still our occupiers and their government would like us to talk about “the new Iraq” and want us to be “optimistic” about the future.Our Red Crescent and the International Red Cross have mobilized their forces in the country. Their main task is to pitch tents in the desert to house families uprooted as a result of fighting. As they hand out their tents and sacks of flour, they invite international media to cover their humanitarian gestures. But the media are barred from covering bombardment and shelling by U.S. tanks, warplanes and helicopter gunships. We still lack any pictures of the destruction that took place in Qaim.
But we are certain of one thing:
The actions of the United States in Iraq aren't matching the rhetoric. It is thus no surprise that the Iraqis are demanding that Bu$hCo clarify its position on their future:
Not Easily Buffaloed
An Open Letter to President Bush: 'Prove to Iraqis You are Not an Imperialist Force'
The Free Iraqi Society Party demanded that the United States of America schedule a withdrawal of its forces from Iraqi land in order to prove to the Iraqi nation that American forces did not come to Iraq as an imperialist force.The Secretary General of the party, Abd al-Muhsin Shalash, sent an open message to American President George Bush on the occasion of the International Day of the Family. The letter discusses the importance of compensating the Iraqi nation for its losses after the occupation of Iraq began.
The letter also calls for; “the construction of Iraq’s infrastructure to show the good intentions and love that you claim feel toward the Iraqi nation; the return the Green Zone and the Presidential Palace, symbols of Iraqi sovereignty, to the representatives of the people and the elected national assembly; and the withdrawal of American forces outside the cities as a first stage in their complete withdrawal.”And Al Shalash called for compensation, paid to each Iraqi family that lost its income sources and livelihood because of the last war, to equal the compensation that the United States gave to the Gulf countries during the invasion of Kuwait.
The letter also reiterated the importance of a withdrawal of all American forces, to be replaced with forces from the United Nations under the condition that these forces not come from countries that took part in the invasion of Iraq.
These points seem fairly clear to me. But the author of this next article remains skeptical:
Spitting Bull
Can The Bush People Really Be So Clueless?
The author wonders how the United States could be so out of touch with what its own soldiers and investigators are doing, while it “rants around the world” about democracy and human rights.
First, let us first agree that the criminal desecration of the Holy Koran crime by American investigators at the Guantanamo detention camp actually happened. Three former British prisoners revealed that the Camp’s guards walked on the Holy Koran and flushed pages from it down toilets. Even the Pentagon has confirmed that there is evidence of this type of desecration.Certainly, it is not the desecration of the Holy Koran, but the protests that have so tarnished the image of the United States in the eyes of the Islamic world. And so we ask:
Could it be that Rice and her conservative administration didn’t realize the seriousness of the crime – of the desecration of the Holy Koran that occurred at that great palace of democracy in Guantanamo? Could she have been so clueless as she arrived in Iraq, a day after American soldiers set out to desecrate two mosques in Al Anbar Governorate, and after they drew black crosses on the walls and tore apart a number of Koran’s as they desecrated these mosques?These questions look simple compared to the most bitter question:
Brother blogger Matt Davis linked to a rather incredible post by the Rude Pundit [strongly recommended!] which begins to illustrate - in a way those of us old enough to remember this '60s sitcom will greatly understand - just what it looks like to those incarcerated by Bu$hCo:
If Stalag 13 Had Been Like Bagram
The Germans in this version were being good soldiers, according to the paradigm the Bush administration has created. They were trying to stop imminent attacks on their own men. Remember: Hogan's Heroes were guilty. They committed espionage. They thwarted the Germans every chance they could. Hogan and the other prisoners wouldn't have given up any information if the niceties of the Geneva Convention had been followed, right? And if they had been innocents, if LeBeau had simply been driving past Stalag 13, delivering wine, well, that's just collateral damage.
President Theodore Roosevelt: "I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. The most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian."
I'm quite sure that the modern day Iraqi 'Indian' would disagree in the strongest possible terms:
America's 'Compulsive Bullies'
Whatever noises the American military and its political bosses may make now, U.S. abuse of prisoners has completely demolished any and all credibility Washington had as a defender of human rights. Laughably, the U.S. army spokesman in Kabul still has the gumption to crow that the U.S. military doesn't tolerate any "mistreatment" (read as torture) of detainees.Who is going to believe him?
Indeed, the horrific stories of prisoner torture, humiliation and abuse emanating from overseas U.S. prisons are so prolific and so profuse that no sane person can buy Washington's bunkum that such treatment is just an exception. By all accounts, it seems like the rule. In fact, the picture conjured up by these reports puts the prisons of America's war on terror in close league with the concentration camps of the Second World War Nazi thugs.
And whatever noises the American military and its political bosses may make now, their credibility as practitioners of human rights and as respecters of religious diversity stands completely demolished. Their moral standing, by every reckoning, is less than zero. Let there be no doubt.
And if the horrors of Auschwitz continue to sear humanity's soul, so should the pyramids of naked Iraqi prisoners at Abu Gharib, the desecration of the Holy Koran, the religious humiliation of inmates at Guantanamo Bay, and the torture of Afghan detainees at Bagram Airbase.They can do whatever they like, but in the popular perception, the U.S. military -- even in honest sections of America itself -- will appear as no more than a clutch of compulsive bullies, not civilized human beings.
This image of an American military version of the Brownshirts isn't restricted to the Muslim nations of South Asia. It is shared by a country on another continent - with a common border shared with the United States:
September 11th Made U.S. 'Fascistic,' and Mexico Must Adjust
After four years of Fox Administration servility toward Washington, Mexico's relations with the United States have reached a low point. Recent U.S. policies, especially the construction of a wall on the border, show that fascistic, anti-immigrant policies have taken hold in Washington, and that we need to react by finding a way to stop Mexico's migrant workers from going there.The wall or ‘armor', as it has come to be called in the Mexican press, that will rise along the border between Mexico and California is going to be, as far as we know, only 4.5 kilometers long, but its political significance is very big: the wall is a warning, not to a government that is out of touch with reality and has no clear political direction, but to the Mexican people, that understand with ever-greater clarity the urgency of stopping not just a few {migrant workers from heading toward the United States}, but of stopping the vast majority.
The Anti-immigrant groups that have multiplied in Arizona and California over recent months, from Minutemen to the National Alliance to Ranch Rescue, are not the expression of a small minority of extreme right-wingers, as was the case in the 1930s and 40s when John Steinbeck and John Passos wrote their novels. These groups reflect the feelings of an ample cross-section of Americans.All the studies and polls of recent months indicate that a clear majority of Americans approve of the actions of the U.S. forces in Asia, and the role that multinational [corporations] have in those conflicts, just as they support a tougher policy toward Mexican migrant workers. This tendency, which has taken hold at the expense of agricultural workers, has been utilized regularly by George W. Bush during 2004 [the election], and has been accompanied by criminal policies that have led to Afghanistan and Iraq, and the restructuring of the global legal order to suit his imperial will -- in complete disregard for the principal of peaceful coexistence between nations or the fundamental rights of so many people.
American history is replete with rallying slogans: 'Remember the Alamo!' Remember Goliad!' 'Remember the Maine!' 'Remember Pearl Harbor!' 'Remember 9/11!'
Thanks to the ill-considered and insane ignorance of Bu$hCo's Oil Banditti, has Islamia adopted 'Remember The Koran?'
Outrage At U.S. Over Koran Becomes a Rallying Cry
Even before it has been confirmed, the supposed profanation of the Koran on the American base at Guantanamo is causing an outrage in the Arab-Muslim world. It is in Afghanistan that the most violent demonstrations have taken place, the scandal crystallizing the latent discontent of the population since the 2001 American invasion. Originally confined to the southeast of the country, the demonstrations have now reached 10 of the 34 provinces.Numerous organizations and governments are agitated at the supposed profanation. In a statement from Beirut, Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite party stressed that “the horrible American act constitutes an attack on the feelings of all Muslims” and called for a “vigorous reaction.” In Iraq, Shiite and Sunni imams have also protested vigorously. In Egypt, the Muslim Brothers have demanded public apologies from Washington.
In Pakistan, the demonstrations mostly took place in the big cities, bringing together only a few hundred people each time, with cries of “Death to America” and slogans hostile to President Musharraf, an ally of the United States in the “war on terrorism.”
Elsewhere in Asia, hundreds of radical Islamists gathered peacefully in a mosque in Jakarta to denounce the “insult by American soldiers, not only to the Holy Koran, but to all Muslims.”
The biggest demonstrations in the Arab world took place in the Palestinian territories. Nearly 2,000 people demonstrated in the Jabaliya refugee camp, in the north of Gaza, against “the profanation of the Koran by the dirtiest hands, those of the Americans.”
Several countries have reacted officially. Saudi Arabia has called for a “rapid” investigation. Libya has denounced “irresponsible and immoral acts,” claiming that they were likely to foster terrorism. The Indonesian foreign affairs minister demanded “an investigation,” saying that if these acts turn out to be true, they are “immoral.”
They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it.
- Makhpiya-Luta (Red Cloud), Lakota leader
— SAUDI TV: Saudi Cleric Explains, 'Appetite for War and Annihilation Flows In the American Mind', March 5, 00:05:01, MEMRI [Windows Media]
Despite sending Laura 'Lump-in-the-bed' Bu$h to the Middle East to show that at least one member of the Bu$h family has some guts (however ill-used in poorly-thought-out distraction campaigns), the news from American-occupied countries grows steadily worse:
Karzai's Last Stand?
Will Afghanistan Go the Way of Iraq?
Current Anti-American unrest is a sign of a deeper discontent that could turn much uglier, the author suggests.
AFGHANISTAN, not Iraq for a change, is in the news for all the wrong reasons. Spontaneous demonstrations against the Government and its American backers, triggered by reports that the Holy Koran was desecrated at Guantanamo, have erupted in several cities in the country, including the Capital, Kabul.President Karzai’s response to Wednesday’s protests has been predictable. Instead of reassuring the Afghan people and the world that order and peace would be quickly restored, Karzai chose to point out that Afghan security forces were not up to the task of dealing with such protests. The Afghan leader, currently in Brussels, wants the global community to continue helping his government. “We need international assistance for many, many years to come,” he insists.
Speaking honestly, you can’t run a country or government with foreign aid. More importantly, you can’t expect foreign aid to pour in if the security situation in Afghanistan remains what it is today.
It’s warlords like Abdul Rashid Dostum who run the show. These lawless warlords are given free reign by the U.S. and Afghan governments because they are seen to be {or claim to be} fighting the Taliban, the erstwhile rulers of Afghanistan. Karzai, himself a Pashtun, cannot fight for the interests of the Pashtun majority. They have no warlords fighting for their interests. They continue to remain at the receiving end, because they are still identified with the Taliban.
This alienation of the majority, the Pashtuns, is at the heart of Afghan unrest. As long as the majority of the Afghan population is kept out of the political process, Afghanistan will continue to remain unstable. It’s hardly a secret that Karzai is not in charge of Afghanistan. His government is limited to the Capital in Kabul. It’s not for nothing he is called the President of Kabul!
The violent demonstrations Wednesday, though stemming from injured religious sensitivities, are an expression of an alienated and suppressed people.
I somehow doubt that King George cares much should this happen, because it would fit in with his apparent plan to bring about the Final Conflict - 'Bring It On!'.
His opponents are all too willing to accommodate him:
The New Ghost Dance
"And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon [Har Megiddo]." - Revelation 16:16
A short sentence in an American magazine has managed to do what al-Qaeda has not been able to achieve since September 11, 2001 - inflame large sections of the Muslim world and reignite passions between Islam and the Christian West. Muslim groups now say that they have proof from other sources that such incidents did occur.Pakistan's News International published a story in its May 17 issue based on an interview with a detainee at Lahore's Adyala prison. The man had recently been released from Guantanamo Bay and was being held pending final clearance. He claimed that he had personally witnessed several incidents of desecration of the Koran by US soldiers in Guantanamo.
The initial spontaneous reaction in Afghanistan against the report on the desecration of the Koran has now turned into an organized anti-US movement. There was a swift reaction in ethnic Tajik-dominated Badakshan, where 300 clerics issued a religious ruling against the US, and across the country mosques echoed with anti-US rhetoric, from Kandahar to the Panjshir Valley during last Friday's sermons. US forces arrested a few clerics, but this only added salt to the wounds. These protests have escalated and are expected to come to a head on May 27, when Islamic movements in 25 countries, notably Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia, will launch mass gatherings.
Political upheavals in the Central Asian republics of Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan could open the way in these countries for increased civil liberties and a voice for once-repressed forces in the country, especially Islamic ones. Similarly, the crackdown in Uzbekistan could have the same effect by heightening the voices of opposition. And given geographical and cultural ties, this renewed Islamic fervor could easily spread to the ethnic Tajik and Uzbek regions of Afghanistan, where Islamic movements have been weakening over the past 10 years due to the Pashtun Taliban rule in Kabul. The ethnic Pashtun belt of Afghanistan and Pakistan is already under heavy Taliban influence.
A largely disjointed al-Qaeda could not have wished for better, as its underlying ideology is to stoke the fires of a civilizational battle leading to Armageddon - which the Bible sees as the final battle between the forces of good and evil, prophesied to occur at the end of the world when Christ will return to smite his enemies, led by the Antichrist. The same battle is predicted in the Islamic faith.
The Muslim media from Egypt to Pakistan consistently paint al-Qaeda, the US-led "war on terror", the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and events such as those in Uzbekistan in the perspective of the "End of Time" and Har Megiddo.
Al-Qaeda is working to turn the story of Megiddo and the End of Time into reality. And the president of the United States, George W Bush, believes Armageddon is at hand: "The evil one is among us," he said in 2002, in a clear reference to the Antichrist. To quote Michael Ortiz Hill, "[T]he Commander in Chief of the most powerful military force in human history has located American foreign policy within a Biblical narrative that leads inexorably towards the plains of Megiddo ..."
"Hear me, my friends, for it is not the time for me to tell you a lie. No one put bounds on us. We were free as the winds, and like the eagle, heard no man's commands.
"Before the white man came to our country, the Lakotas were a free people. They made their own laws and governed themselves as it seemed good to them. The priests and ministers tell us that we lived wickedly when we lived before the white man came among us. Whose fault was this? We lived right as we were taught it was right.
"When the Lakotas believed these things they were happy and they died satisfied. What more than this can that which the white man offers us give?
"If this is not in the heaven of the white man I shall be satisfied.
- Makhpiya-Luta (Red Cloud), farewell address to the Lakota people on July 4, 1903
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