Category Archives: Politics

Five Myths of Terrorism – including that it works

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Five Myths of Terrorism by Michael Shermer

(1)   The myth of pure evil, which holds that perpetrators commit pointless violence for   no rational reason.

(2)  That terrorists are part of a vast global network of top-down centrally controlled conspiracies against the west

(3)  That terrorists are diabolical geniuses as 9/11 Commission report described them as “sophisticated, patient, disciplined, and lethal”

(4)  That terrorism is deadly on a vast scale

(5)  That terrorism is effective and it works

Michael Shermer, a regular contributor of social and psychological issues in Scientific American magazine has written a detailed analysis and the latest results of scientific research at various American universities.

This one page article explains that how much there is disconnect between the reality and myths about terrorism.

The article also discusses the scientific study of aggression:

(i)            Instrumental violence

(ii)           Revenge

(iii)           Dominance and recognition

(iv)           Ideology

It is an interesting and informative article.

For details, please click the hyperlink below:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=five-myths-of-terrorism-including-that-it-works

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USA BANKROLLED ANTI MORSI ACTIVISTS

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 Last Modified: 10 Jul 2013 13:29

 
Berkeley, United States – President Barack Obama recently stated the United States was not taking sides as Egypt’s crisis came to a head with the military overthrow of the democratically elected president.But a review of dozens of US federal government documents shows Washington has quietly funded senior Egyptian opposition figures who called for toppling of the country’s now-deposed president Mohamed Morsi.Documents obtained by the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley show the US channeled funding through a State Department programme to promote democracy in the Middle East region. This programme vigorously supported activists and politicians who have fomented unrest in Egypt, after autocratic president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a popular uprising in February 2011.The State Department’s programme, dubbed by US officials as a “democracy assistance” initiative, is part of a wider Obama administration effort to try to stop the retreat of pro-Washington secularists, and to win back influence in Arab Spring countries that saw the rise of Islamists, who largely oppose US interests in the Middle East.Activists bankrolled by the programme include an exiled Egyptian police officer who plotted the violent overthrow of the Morsi government, an anti-Islamist politician who advocated closing mosques and dragging preachers out by force, as well as a coterie of opposition politicians who pushed for the ouster of the country’s first democratically elected leader, government documents show.

Information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, interviews, and public records reveal Washington’s “democracy assistance” may have violated Egyptian law, which prohibits foreign political funding.

It may also have broken US government regulations that ban the use of taxpayers’ money to fund foreign politicians, or finance subversive activities that target democratically elected governments.

‘Bureau for Democracy’

Washington’s democracy assistance programme for the Middle East is filtered through a pyramid of agencies within the State Department. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars is channeled through the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), USAID, as well as the Washington-based, quasi-governmental organisation the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

In turn, those groups re-route money to other organisations such as the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute (NDI), and Freedom House, among others. Federal documents show these groups have sent funds to certain organisations in Egypt, mostly run by senior members of anti-Morsi political parties who double as NGO activists.

The Middle East Partnership Initiative – launched by the George W Bush administration in 2002 in a bid to influence politics in the Middle East in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks – has spent close to $900m on democracy projects across the region, a federal grants database shows.

USAID manages about $1.4bn annually in the Middle East, with nearly $390m designated for democracy promotion, according to the Washington-based Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED).

The US government doesn’t issue figures on democracy spending per country, but Stephen McInerney, POMED’s executive director, estimated that Washington spent some $65m in 2011 and $25m in 2012. He said he expects a similar amount paid out this year.

 

A main conduit for channeling the State Department’s democracy funds to Egypt has been the National Endowment for Democracy. Federal documents show NED, which in 2011 was authorised an annual budget of $118m by Congress, funneled at least $120,000 over several years to an exiled Egyptian police officer who has for years incited violence in his native country.

This appears to be in direct contradiction to its Congressional mandate, which clearly states NED is to engage only in “peaceful” political change overseas.

Exiled policeman

Colonel Omar Afifi Soliman – who served in Egypt’s elite investigative police unit, notorious for human rights abuses – began receiving NED funds in 2008 for at least four years.

During that time he and his followers targeted Mubarak’s government, and Soliman later followed the same tactics against the military rulers who briefly replaced him. Most recently Soliman set his sights on Morsi’s government.

Soliman, who has refugee status in the US, was sentenced in absentia last year for five years imprisonment by a Cairo court for his role in inciting violence in 2011 against the embassies of Israel and Saudi Arabia, two US allies.

He also used social media to encourage violent attacks against Egyptian officials, according to court documents and a review of his social media posts.

US Internal Revenue Service documents reveal thatNED paid tens of thousands of dollars to Soliman through an organisation he created called Hukuk Al-Nas (People’s Rights), based in Falls Church, Virginia. Federal forms show he is the only employee.

After he was awarded a 2008 human rights fellowship at NED and moved to the US, Soliman received a second $50,000 NED grant in 2009 for Hukuk Al-Nas. In 2010, he received $60,000 and another $10,000 in 2011

. Exclusive: US bankrolled anti-Morsi activists

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Jesus’ Crucifixion & Contradiction with Islam’ By Fayyaz Sheikh

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Reza Aslan’s book , Zealot-The life and times of Jesus of Nazareth has created a lot of buzz among Christians, Jews and Muslims alike. His book is best seller on Amazon, Ebay and NYT. There are already lot of reviews and articles on the book.

Among Jews and Christians, the main point of controversy is the Aslan’s assertions that the Jesus was not  a gentle peace-loving person, but  a zealot political activist who challenged the Roman Empire, and for which he was crucified. Among Muslims, his remark that the Jesus of Nazareth was crucified in contradiction to the Muslim’s belief, has restarted the  old debate. Mr. Aslan does not compare the Quran’s narrative with Christian narrative in the Book. He presents only Christian’s narrative, because book is about Jesus of Nazareth.

Before I give some excerpts from Mr. Aslan’s  book , I want to mention the Quran’s narrative as I posted in the comments and excerpt of Mr.Faris’ article.

First Background and then Quran’s Sura 4, Verse 157; Explained by Mr.Ezz Hamza, and my best recollection about narrative; After Jesus Christ challenged the Roman King, it was ordered to arrest him. The arresting soldiers did not know the identity of the Jesus Christ or his residence because he was moving from place to place. One of Christ’s confidants ( most likely Judas Iscariot or Shabih ) betrayed him and agreed to help the Roman soldiers. He told the soldiers that he will kiss the Christ and you will know the identity of the Christ. He kissed the Christ while the slodiers were hiding. But after kissing the Christ, confidant’s own body transformed into the shape of Christ. The Christ was lifted up to heavens and his confidant was left behind in the shape of Christ. Later the confidant was arrested, soldiers thinking that he was the actual Christ and later crucified him. In this background read the Sura 4, Verse 157

4:157 That they said (in boast), “We killed Christ JESUS the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah.;- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not.” 

Controversy over crucifixion is not new. It started in early period of Christianity , long before the emergence of Islam. Mr. Faris- Al-Kariyani  writes  in one of his article;

“Throughout the course of church history the heresy of the Shabih (  my explanation of Shabih: Shabih , supposedly, is the confidant of Jesus who betrayed him and helped the soldiers to capture Jesus. This confidant was later crucified by Romans, thinking he was Jesus as per narration by verses in Quran )  has never disappeared. From time to time it reappeared among the Christian communities in the East, preached by scattered groups of heretics. In the year A.D. 185 a heretic sect of the descendant of the priests of Thebes who embraced Christianity claimed that “God forbids that Christ should be crucified. He was safely lifted up to heaven.” Also in the year A.D. 370 a hermetic Gnostic sect that denied the crucifixion of Jesus taught that He “was not crucified but it seemed so to the spectators who crucified Him.” Again, in the year A.D. 520 Severus, bishop of Syria, fled to Alexandria where he encountered a group of philosophers teaching that Jesus Christ was not crucified but that it only appeared so to the people who nailed Him on the cross. In A.D. 560 the monk Theodor denied Christ’s human nature and thus denied His crucifixion. About A.D. 610 Bishop John, son of the governor of Cyprus, began to proclaim that Christ was not crucified but that it only seemed so to the spectators who crucified Him.

Among those who preached the theory of the Shabih is the Persian self-proclaimed prophet Mani (A.D. 276). He said that Jesus was the son of a widow, and the one who was crucified was the son of the widow of Nain whom Jesus raised from the dead. In another Manichaean tradition we read that Satan was the one who sought to crucify Jesus but he failed and was crucified in His place.”

 Excerpts From Mr. Aslan’s Book;

Mr. Aslan writes in Authors note, on page xx of his book;

“The reader will notice that I rely primarily on the Gospel of Mark and Q material (the material unique to the Gospels of Mathew and Luke) in forming my outline of the story of Jesus.”

Mr. Aslan writes with certainty in Introduction, on Page Xviii of his book:

“In the end, there are only two historical facts about Jesus of Nazareth we can confidently rely on; the first is that a Jesus was a Jew who led a popular Jewish movement in Palestine at the beginning of First Century C.E; the second is that Romans crucified him for doing so.”

Pages 153-157 are mostly devoted to the crucifixion period and , as a reader ,I was expecting these pages will elaborate and provide some concrete historical proof about Aslan’s certainty obout crucifixion of Jesus as he wrote on page Xviii, but on the contrary these pages are full of uncertainty.

“And yet perhaps no other moment in Jesus’s brief life is more opaque and inaccessible to scholars than this one. That has partly to do with the multiple traditions upon which the story of Jesus’s trial and crucifixion rely. Recall that while Mark was the first written Gospel, It was preceding by written blocks of oral and written traditions about Jesus that were transmitted by his earliest followers.”

“These so- called passion narratives set up a basic sequence of events that the earliest believed occurred at the end of Jesus’ life: the Last Supper. The Betrayal by Judas Iscariot.  The arrest at Gethsemane. The appearance before the high priest and Pilate. The crucifixion and the burial. The Resurrection  three days later.”

“ Mark’s contribution to the passion narratives was his transformation of ritualized sequence of events into a cohesive story about the death of Jesus, which his redactors, Mathew and Luke, integrated into  their Gospels along with their own flourishes( John may have relied on separate set of passion narratives for his Gospel, since almost  none of the details he provides about last days of Jesus’ life match what is found in synoptics).”(  Gospels by Mark , Mathew and Luke together are called Synoptics.)

“ As with everything else in the Gospels, the story of Jesus’s arrest, trial, and execution was written for one reason and one reason only: to prove that he was the promised messiah. Factual accuracy was irrelevant. What mattered was Christology, not history”.

“So, then, one can dismiss the theatrical trial before Pilate as pure fantasy for all the reasons stated above. If Jesus did in fact appear before the Pilate, it would have been brief and, for Pilate, utterly forgettable.”

“ As a result, this final , most significant episode in the story of Jesus of Nazareth is also the one most clouded by theological enhancements  and flat out fabrications. The only means the modern reader has at his or her disposal to try to retrieve some semblance of historical accuracy in the passion narratives is to slowly strip away the theological overlay imposed by the evangelists on Jesus’ final days and return to the most primitive version of the story that can be excavated from gospels. The only way to do that to start at the end of the story, with Jesus nailed to the cross.”  From this point the author moves on to the subject of why Jesus was crucified and crucifixion was common practice among Romans , to punish the Non-Romans for crimes against state. The author writes at the end of Introduction on page xxxI.

“Granted , writing a biography of Jesus of Nazareth is not writing a biography of Napoleon Bonaparte. The task is somewhat akin to putting together a massive puzzle with only a few of the pieces in hand: one has no choice to but to fill in the rest of the puzzle based on the best, most educated guess of what the completed image should look like.”

 

My comments;

Both Muslims and Christians agree that there was crucifixion, but the only contradiction is whether the person crucified was actual Jesus or somebody else?  Applying today’s forensic scientific knowledge, it is not an easy task unless Jesus’ body is found and identified with crucifixion evidence and DNA tests. If Jesus was risen to heaven, how one can find the body? Eyewitnesses accounts can also differ. How one can recognize a Jesus if someone else’s body was transformed into Jesus as narrated by Quranic verses?

Mr. Aslan does not cite any archaeological evidence but his best personal interpretations and best guesses based primarily on Gospels and other scholars’ work on Gospels. I think his statement of certainty, it is a historic fact that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, is based on the fact that among major scholars of the Gospels, there is no dissent on this point. He has written this book from the Christian’s perspective, and it is written in a beautiful prose for ordinary reader like me.

Conclusion; Nothing much changed. It is a matter of belief.

.P.S. There have been debates on this controversy between the Islamic and Muslim Scholars. The famous one was between Dr. Floyd E. Clark and Ahmed Deedat. It is  more than two hours debate .I listened to Ahmed Deedat  from 48;00 and rebuttal by Floyd Clark. If you have time at hand and interested in this topic, It is worth listening.  link to debate is :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbMzCkHOBhE&feature=player_detailpage

Fayyaz  Sheikh

 

 

 

Some Ramadan Thoughts on the ‘Americanness’ of some American Muslim Organizations

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By  in Alim

“Our organizations only cry out for alliance with others over our own personal issues – Egypt, Syria and Turkey or shari’ah bans, not that which affects this society, our society at its core – justice, prejudice, voting rights, healthcare. Yet all of the apologists among us want other Americans to consider Muslims, American.”

Throughout the year, American Muslims have been asked to write to their legislative representatives over a host of issues – mostly relating to US involvement with Muslim governments, shari’ah law bans and incidents of masajid vandalism. American Muslims have protested in the streets of various cities over US involvement or lack of it in the Muslim world. All major organizations such as ISNA, ICNA, CAIR, CIOGC, MPAC and so on have all weighed in from their various perspectives. We of course have not gotten together to pray for Nelson Mandela, the killing in Senegal or the plight of the disappeared in Brazil or Argentina. We are silent.

Saturday evening, all day Sunday and all day Monday, I waited for some response to the verdict in the Trayvon Martin trial. I really did not care which side that response was on. I cared about a response, any response from these organizations that, claim Americanness regularly when their own self-interest are involved. Only CAIR voiced a feeble, ‘we will support an investigation…’ We did not discuss the case as it was unfolding on live TV. Even conversations about justice, evidence or lack of it, prejudice or lack of it were nowhere in our media.

The beginning of Ramadan did not quell listserve debates on the latest from Egypt, Syria or Turkey. We debated the ousting of Morsi, the continuing debacle in Syria and the ‘too little help, too late’ policy of the US. We even had prolonged, spirited debates on the meaning of the protests in Turkey. Most other Americans however, were busy with healthcare, immigration, voting rights and lastly, Trayvon Martin.

As Americans of various ethnicities and ages poured into the streets either to support or decry the verdict, Muslim Americans remain focused on Egypt, Syria and Turkey while living in America. Ramadan is a time for reflection and I am terribly sad to report that many American Muslims are not either Muslim in their sensibilities or American in their understandings of the need to stand up for justice or against injustice. There is little that has to do with this place of our sustenance that even moves us unless the issue is us. Our organizations only cry out for alliance with others over our own personal issues – Egypt, Syria and Turkey or shari’ah bans, not that which affects this society, our society at its core – justice, prejudice, voting rights, healthcare. Yet all of the apologists among us want other Americans to consider Muslims, American.

We could have vigorously discussed the merits of the case, the potential slippery slopes of either verdict. We could have discussed what this case means for the history of race relations in this country. We could have discussed the potential outcome of ‘stand your ground,’ what constitutes a ‘threat’ to which the response is lethal force, or the refusal of a police department to arrest a user of lethal force until facts could be obtained.

What are our various positions now that we have missed every opportunity to lead a discussion? Do we feel that in light of the facts, that there were prosecutors and defense attorneys, a judge, jury displays of evidence and a ruling that the system worked? Could the prosecutor have been more able? Was the defense convincing that Trayvon Martin caused his own death? How can we lead society in a rational discussion of ‘maslaha?’ Click link for full article;

http://www.alimprogram.com/articles/some-ramadan-thoughts-on-the-americanness-of-some-american-muslim-organizations/

Posted By F. Sheikh