Category Archives: Politics

Sometime, Is Hypocrisy a necessity?

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( Interesting article. Although it is about Europe, but applies to USA also. Biden promised humane treatment of refugees at border, but with thousands fleeing towards US border, Biden is reverting back to Trump policy. Is this hypocrisy a necessity?)

“Why is hypocrisy so odious?” asked the political theorist Judith Shklar almost half a century ago. Hypocrisy, she argued, is a necessity, a recognition that we are human and imperfect and that we cannot but transgress. The calling out of hypocrisy, Shklar observed, can often be more socially corrosive than the hypocrisy being called out.

There is, however, a different, darker form of political hypocrisy, too: the embrace of ideals to camouflage or justify that which otherwise would be unjustifiable. It’s less a case of personal hypocrisy than of the institutionalisation of political double standards. And, as two issues last week illustrate, the flaunting of double standards is becoming a feature of our age. First is the Home Office attempt to provide immunity for Border Force officials who kill migrants; second, the controversy over philosopher Kathleen Stock’s “gender-critical” views about trans rights.

A long time ago, this summer in fact, the government’s story was that its policy of “pushback” against Channel migrants was intended to save their lives. “The people-smugglers don’t care about the lives they endanger“, the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, tweeted. She warned social media companies to take down posts “glamourising” migrant crossings “before more men, women and children die in the Channel”.

Last week, the government announced that, among the revisions to the Nationality and Borders Bill, it will give Border Force officers immunity from prosecution if they kill migrants in the course of their work, so long as they were acting “in good faith”. The death of migrants, it seems, matters only if it happens at the hands of the wrong people.

However contemptible the new policy, it is nothing new. It is an approach common to virtually every rich nation today. From Greek border guards attempting to capsize dinghies full of people to Libyan coastguards, acting on behalf of the EU, shooting at migrants, “deterrence” at whatever the cost has long been the policy. It is what has led Western nations to close off almost all legal routes to migration and then blame migrants for adopting dangerous illegal ones. It is what has driven EU nations to abandon rescue operations in the Mediterranean while criminalising rescuers as “people traffickers”. It is what has led them to accept the 30,000 people who have drowned in the Med over the past 30 years as a price worth paying for Fortress Europe. By framing the problem as primarily one of evil smugglers, and their policies as necessary to bring down such people, politicians and policymakers can scrub their conscience clean and justify policies, such as providing immunity to immigration officials, that are actually responsible for the deaths.

The issue of free speech, as much as the immigration debate, is swaddled on all sides in hypocrisy and double standards. Last week, the universities minister, Michelle Donelan, wrote an op-ed bemoaning the state of British universities. Where once “we had debate and critical argument”, she argued, now there are “physical threats and often complete intolerance of all opposing ideas”.

Full article

posted by f.sheikh

America- Led NATO in Afghanistan: Crimes against Humanity Call for Accountability

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America- Led NATO in Afghanistan: Crimes against Humanity Call for Accountability

Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD

Was George W. Bush and NATO Pathological Liars to invade Afghanistan?……

When falsehood goes unchallenged, it attracts shallow and puppets accomplices into the fold. Pakistan military ruler General Musharaf and many puppet Arab dictators were conveniently hired to promote the bogus war on terrorism, and Afghanistan was the first casualty of this wicked cruelty. What General Musharaf and Arab stooges did was shameful and disgrace to the teachings of Islam allowing CIA-FBI to move freely and detain at will innocent people to fill the Guantanamo Bay torture headquarter. From an impregnable truth to a hallow hypothesis carved out by the then US President George W. Bush the “War on Terrorism” – was  in his words a “crusade” against Islam. Western war history is full of tragic tensions articulated by mentally retarded leaders like George W. Bush and Tony Blair (UK) to avoid accountability for the happening of 9/11 events in 2001. Afghanistan was a well calculated target to be invaded, bombed, terrorized, degenerated and destroyed for all futuristic times in history.

America under Joe Bidden presidency is moving fast to withdraw its remaining troops from Afghanistan. Taliban excelsior is on rise and nobody could predict the peaceful transition of Afghanistan under American or NATO’s occupation after 20 years of deaths and destructions.

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FBI CONCLUDES 15 YEARS INVESTIGATION OF ISLAM

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FBI CONCLUDES 15 YEARS INVESTIGATION OF ISLAM

Thinkers Forum USA Editors received this info from Firoz Kamal

Washington Post.

After 15 years of broadly targeting the 3.3-million-member community and extensively monitoring its activities, the FBI declared an end Friday to its surveillance of Muslim Americans, saying its exhaustive study of their beautiful culture was finally complete.

Officials confirmed that the program was started in the fall of 2001 when federal agents, captivated by Islam’s complex history and rich spiritual traditions, redirected the full force of the bureau’s intelligence-gathering apparatus toward developing a more thoughtful, nuanced appreciation of the Muslim-American way of life.

“We’d always known Islam was one of the great world religions, but it wasn’t until we recruited a network of 15,000 informants and infiltrated mosques all over the country that we came to understand just how magnificent and fascinating it truly is,” said FBI director James B. Comey, who noted that agents gained a valuable and eye-opening understanding of Islam—while also learning a lot about themselves and their own faith in the process—after entering the Muslim places of worship to collect as much information as they could on the intriguing personal beliefs of the religion’s followers.

“After analyzing the transcripts of thousands of phone calls and intercepting the communications of prominent Muslim-American leaders and academics, we’ve really come to admire their vibrant culture.”

“The considerable amount of intel we’ve gathered and carefully pored over for the past 15 years has shown us that their faith and customs are really quite inspiring,” Comey added.

“If there’s one thing we’ve taken away from all our surveillance, it’s what a glorious and enriching part of our world Islam is.”

According to sources within the bureau, the harvesting of internet data, widespread racial profiling, and the nationwide mapping of Muslim communities have allowed agents to closely observe the followers of Islam on an extremely personal level, thereby allowing them to develop a deep respect for the amazing ethnic and cultural diversity of the faith’s 1.6 billion believers, as well as the striking distinctions between the religion’s various sects, which, they stressed, went far beyond just Sunni and Shiite.

Remarking on all the information they had gathered, FBI officials emphasized that adherents of Islam speak dozens of beautiful languages—Arabic, but also Urdu, Pashto, Farsi, Bengali, Javanese, and many others—and noted that agents came to treasure this linguistic richness after installing recording devices throughout Muslim-American communities and then surreptitiously listening in on Quranic study groups, prayer sessions, and social events.

“Thanks to advances in video surveillance, we’ve been able to look inside Muslims’ homes and view some breathtaking calligraphy prints and handwoven tapestries,” said former agent Casey Hanna, who fondly recalled assignments that allowed him to overhear moving recitations of the Hadith, which he was fascinated to learn come from an oral tradition and are considered to be the direct word of the Prophet Muhammad.

“I went undercover in hundreds of Muslim-owned businesses and residences across the nation and was lucky enough to sample many variations on the aromatic stews and delectable desserts that serve as staples of halal cuisine—Arabian, North African, Indonesian. They were all delicious, and unlike anything I’d ever tasted.”

“I’ll never forget this one instance when I closely trailed a New York shop owner for three straight years—his coffee was just spectacular,” Hanna added. “Muslims were the first people to drink coffee, you know.”

After realizing they could not fully nurture their curiosity by limiting their study to Muslims in the United States, the FBI reportedly enlisted the help of the NSA to find out more about the incredible religion. Between 2002 and 2008, the bureau is known to have monitored 7,485 email addresses around the globe in order to learn answers to their many questions about Muslims’ compelling lives and rituals, from why they don’t eat pork, to what Muslim holidays are like, to why some Muslim women wear garments that cover their heads while others don’t.

Comey told reporters the FBI also received information from the CIA, whose enhanced interrogation techniques and clandestine intelligence-gathering methods yielded many interesting revelations from Muslim sources around the world, such as the fact that Arabs make up only 15 percent of the global Muslim population, and that through most of history, women in Islamic societies actually had more property rights than women in the West.

Saying they thoroughly enjoyed studying “such a lovely people and such a lovely faith,” Comey explained that agents would often remove a Muslim citizen from their community and keep them detained for days, weeks, or even months on end to learn everything they could from them about Islam.

“There’s no way I could remember the names of all the Muslim citizens that our agents brought in to discuss the beauty of Islam with one-on-one, but rest assured that with their help, the FBI has gained a deep and illuminating understanding of Islamic culture,” said Comey, who noted that by combing through thousands upon thousands of citizens’ banking records, agents discovered with astonishment how some observant Muslims set up special loan payment plans to avoid paying interest, as they consider it usury, which is forbidden under Sharia law.

“It’s crazy to think about, but until little more than a decade ago, I had no idea there were Five Pillars of Islam that guided all Muslims’ spiritual lives. I also didn’t know anything about the multitude of Muslim contributions to mathematics and science that have been absolutely vital to the world.

But that’s not to say they don’t value art, though. Poets like Rumi and Hafez drew upon mystical Sufist interpretations of the Quran to write verse that is every bit as sublime as, say, Keats or Coleridge. And don’t even get me started on the architecture.”

“As this program sadly comes to an end, I just want to thank Muslim Americans from the bottom of my heart for teaching us all about your faith and your culture,” he continued.

“We’ve learned so much about you over the years. More than you could possibly imagine.”

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