Islamic Fundamentalism is a British and American Creation Targeted at the Former Soviet Union, China and India

AlkalizeForHealth

"The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease."
- Thomas Edison

   Iran is the main Shi'ite Muslim power. Iraq has a Shi'ite Muslim majority. Why would President Bush want a democratic Iraq if not to give power to the Shi'ite majority? For Iraq, democracy means Islamic fundamentalist government.

Al-Jazeera is an American / Jewish front, feeding disinformation to the Arab world.

"No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent." - Abraham Lincoln

Know your enemy 1, 2, 3, 4

School textbooks used in Islamic countries and teaching Islamic fundamentalism are printed by the United States. Islamic fundamentalism was used as a weapon by the U.S. against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, and continues as a means to destabilize the Soviet empire and encircle Russia. Many of the former Soviet states (such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan) have mostly Muslim populations. Much of the population of China is Muslim, particularly in the western provinces. The present war in Iraq has removed the secular government and will result in an Islamic fundamentalist government closely tied to Iran. Iran and the U.S. are closely allied in this endeavor. The outcome of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan will be an Islamic fundamentalist government allied to Iran and compliant to NATO, with permanent U.S. military bases there.  Turkey may be the next domino to fall. If you look at a map of Central Asia, you will see the growing strength of the Muslim countries pointing like an arrow into Russia, China and India, serving to weaken these countries and also providing a physical barrier separating these countries from Middle East oil.

Emperor's Clothes Newsletter

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Part 3: Afghanistan: The War the  Establishment Wants us to Forget

by Jared Israel
[Posted 24 September 2004]

To read Part 1 of this series, go to
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/moore.htm

For Part 2, go to
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/moore.htm

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[ www.tenc.net ]


NATO and the UN have turned the KLA terrorists into the government of Kosovo. And from that position, they have been dispatched to attack neighboring countries, particularly Macedonia. [2]

Similarly, the only reason NATO would create a Muslim extremist 'government' in Afghanistan is to destabilize surrounding states, with the big targets being especially Russia and China.

The process of absorbing rank-and-file Taliban into a Western-controlled Afghan Army was an integral part of the Afghan invasion.  Thus by January 2002, thousands of Taliban soldiers were fighting on the US/NATO side. [2A]

This went virtually unreported in the Western media, as did a recent statement by Hamid Karzai, the US-chosen 'President" of Afghanistan. Mr. Karzai said Taliban clerics should participate in - indeed control - the new Afghan parliament:

[Excerpt from Agence France Presse begins here]

Karzai said he wants Afghan clerics to be in
parliament like Pakistan's pro-Taliban Islamist leader
Maulana Fazlur Rehman, from the Pakistani six-party
Islamist alliance which swept to victory in North West
Frontier Province and holds the balance of power in
the federal parliament.

"I want our Taliban and our mullahs (clerics) to come
and do the same," Dawn quoted Karzai saying. [3]

[Excerpt from Agence France Presse ends here]...
   

=========================================================

What? We invaded Afghanistan?  Where's that place?

=========================================================

Why did they instead accuse bin Laden and invade Afghanistan?  (And then *stay* in Afghanistan!?)...

Any explanation of Bush policy must take into account that the US *and NATO* have taken a strategic military position in Central Asia. Once you do take that into account you realize that Afghanistan fits a pattern begun under Bush, Sr. and continued under Clinton: the encirclement of Russia.

This encirclement is perhaps the most spectacular strategic military reversal ever carried out without the defeat in war of the target country. Almost all of Eastern Europe, once pro-Soviet, is now in or working closely with NATO.

The encirclement of Russia is not only a military threat. This is especially clear regarding the invasion of Afghanistan.

The US and NATO also invaded Afghanistan to enforce direct discipline over a chaotic situation in which Muslim extremists were fighting each other. Following that invasion NATO created a united, Muslim extremist government.  [7]

The Soviet Union fought a decades-long war in the 1980s to prevent the formation of just such an Afghan government under NATO domination.

The underlying US/European strategy is to use Muslim extremism in Afghanistan and others states in various ways to destabilize primarily Russia, but also China and India.  The US and Europe are now pushing antisemitism openly and covertly in part because this powerful prejudice fuels Muslim extremism everywhere. Case in point: last year Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir used wildly anti-Jewish arguments to justify a fanatically extremist speech to Muslim heads of state. They gave him a standing ovation. [8]

As part of this strategy, the US/European Establishment wants to more effectively utilize the Iranian brand of Muslim extremists. Hence the Iraq invasion, which removed the Baath Party's political apparatus. (Saddam Hussein's regime was fascist, but it was too secular and too anti-Iran to suit the geopolitical needs of the US/European Establishment which requires that the Muslim Fundamentalist brand of fascism control Iraq.)

Even before the invasion we said that Iran would be the obvious winner if the US went in. [9]

Why has the Establishment encouraged opposition to this war including by giving the antiwar opposition unprecedented media coverage?

Because massive opposition to the invasion will help the US government to do what the Establishment wants it to do: allow Muslim extremists to take power in Iraq. Thus the real *goal* of the Iraq war will be portrayed as an unintended consequence either of US errors or of a supposed 'neocon' effort to help Israel, or both these *lies*.  

The Afghan invasion and the Iraq invasion are linked, and the link is, in a word, Iran. Or to put it differently, the link is the US/European Establishment's desire to increase the power of Muslim extremism in Central and Southwest Asia while putting it more directly under Western control, and specifically to empower and more fruitfully utilize Iran.

In this regard, consider a comment made last week by Zalmay Khalilzad. Khalilzad is the protégé of Zginew Brzezinski who is *still* the overall leading US geopolitical strategist. [10]

Khalilzad has been the political architect, on the ground, for the Afghan and Iraq invasions.

Now he operates as US Ambassador to Afghanistan.

Agence France Presse reports that a week ago Khalilzad criticized some "uncooperative" leaders in Iran.  Here's the key section from the Agence France Presse dispatch:

[Agence France Presse dispatch starts here]

...there are some [pro-] al-Qaeda people there, there are some people that are not entirely cooperative with the [Afghan] central government," he said.

However those in the Iranian foreign ministry particularly were working closely with Kabul, he added. [11]

[Agence France Presse dispatch ends here]

So: The Iranian foreign ministry cooperates closely with the Karzai government in Kabul. That is the same Karzai government that was installed by top US operative Zalmay Khalilzad! [7]

Emperor's Clothes charges that the NATO-arranged cooperation of Muslim extremists in Afghanistan and Iran is aimed at secular states in the region, especially Russia. And meanwhile our so-called antiwar leaders babble on about pipeline politics and ignore the creation of a Muslim extremist juggernaut, from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan, pointed like a spear direct at the heart of Muslim Central Asia.

Jared Israel
Editor, Emperor's Clothes

(Continued in Part 4, coming soon...)

...

Footnotes  and Further Reading

========================================================

[1] 'Encircling Russia, not oil, motivates US policy in Afghanistan!' at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/oil-1.htm#1

[2] On NATO's use of KLA terrorists against Macedonia, go to
http://emperors-clothes.com/mac/list-m.htm

[2A] http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20020118/world.htm#3

[3] Agence France Presse -- English, September 17, 2004 Friday, 4:31 PM GMT, 504 words, US envoy says 'barbarian handlers' within Iranian government gaining power, Washington

[4] http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/092304Y.shtml

[5] http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/ritter.htm

[6] Both Truthout and Moore have claimed that a deal to actually build a pipeline came out of the Afghan war.  It didn't. See, 'And They Still Haven't Built a Pipeline Through Afghanistan!'
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/relief.htm

[7] See, "The IDLO, Backed by the US and Iran, Planned Islamic Rule for Afghanistan," at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/idlo.htm

Regarding US installation of Hamid Karzai as Afghan President, go to
http://emperors-clothes.com/archive/khalilzad-facts.htm#3

[8] "Reader says Jared Israel Quoted Mahathir 'Out of Context'" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/letters/hay.htm

[9] See http://emperors-clothes.com/news/iran.htm and other articles on Iraq and Iran, listed at
http://emperors-clothes.com/iraq-iran.htm

[10] http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/brz.htm

[11]Agence France Presse -- English, September 17, 2004 Friday, 4:31 PM GMT, 504 words, US envoy says 'barbarian handlers' within Iranian government gaining power, Washington Sept 17

Emperor's Clothes
[ www.tenc.net ]

This Website is mirrored at
http://emperor.vwh.net/
 

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BUSH & THE MEDIA COVER-UP THE JIHAD SCHOOLBOOK SCANDAL
By Jared Israel
[Posted 9 April 2002]
=======================================

Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal?

Or perhaps I should say, "Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal that's waiting to happen?"

Because it has been almost unreported in the Western media that the US government shipped - and continues to ship - millions of Islamist (that's short for Islamic fundamentalist) textbooks into Afghanistan.

Only one English-speaking newspaper we could find has investigated this issue: the Washington Post. The story appeared March 23rd. (A)

According to Washington Post investigators, over the past twenty years the US has spent millions of dollars producing fanatical schoolbooks, which were then distributed in Afghanistan.

"The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then [i.e., since the violent destruction of the Afghan secular government in the early 1990s] as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books..." -- Washington Post, 23 March 2002 (A)

According to the Post, these violent Islamist schoolbooks, which "served...as the Afghan school system's core curriculum" produced "unintended consequences."

Core curriculum? Unintended consequences?

Yes, reports the Washington Post, according to unnamed officials the schoolbooks "steeped a generation in [Islamist] violence."

How could this result be unintended? Did they expect that having fundamentalist schoolbooks in the core curriculum would produce moderate Muslims?

LET'S BE REASONABLE

Nobody with normal intelligence could expect to distribute millions of violent Islamist schoolbooks without influencing school children towards violent Islamism. Therefore one would assume that the unnamed US officials who, we are told, are distressed at these "unintended consequences" must previously have been unaware of the Islamist content of the schoolbooks.

But surely someone was aware. The US government can't write, edit, print and ship millions of violent, Muslim fundamentalist primers into Afghanistan without somebody in high places (in the US government) approving those primers.

So if the books weren't supposed to be Islamist, that is, if their fanatical content contradicted US policy in Afghanistan, shouldn't the mass media and top politicians, such as President George Bush, now be calling for an investigation? Shouldn't they be demanding to know the identity of the official or officials who subverted the *intended* US policy by flooding Afghanistan with jihad primers?

Indeed, considering the disastrous consequences, shouldn't US officials and the media be questioning the very practice of violating the sovereignty of other countries by distributing millions of Islamic fundamentalist schoolbooks?

Yet after a thorough Internet search we could find no evidence that any mainstream Western newspaper, with the exception of the Washington Post, or any TV station or government leader has questioned - let alone denounced - sending fundamentalist schoolbooks to Afghanistan.

Quite the contrary.

For example, here's what the Boston Globe (owned by the NY Times) wrote about the old textbooks:

"Those schoolbooks that still exist are pro-Taliban screeds and deemed unusable."
-- Boston Globe, March 17, 2002 (B)

This is implicitly misleading. How could Elizabeth Neuffer, who wrote this article, and who is the Globe's UN Bureau Chief, not know that these schoolbooks were made in USA? Was the UN also involved in distributing the Islamist books? Perhaps instead of hiding US complicity, she should do some investigative reporting!

Other newspapers went further, lying more elaborately about US involvement. Here is the Daily Telegraph from Sydney, Australia:

[START DAILY TELEGRAPH EXCERPT]

"AFGHAN children ran, skipped and dawdled to their classrooms like pupils everywhere yesterday for the start of a new school year -- with girls and women teachers back in class and subjects like math replacing the Islamic dogma of the Taliban.

"In a symbolic break from a war-scarred past, children opened new textbooks written by Afghan scholars based at universities in the US.

"There are even pictures of people -- images banned by the fundamentalist Taliban."
- The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), March 25, 2002 (C)

[END DAILY TELEGRAPH EXCERPT]

By beginning the article with the irrelevant but cheery image, "Afghan children ran, skipped and dawdled, etc.," the Telegraph prepares us for an upbeat news experience. We are not disappointed. In the new schoolbooks, we are told:

"There are even pictures of people -- images banned by the fundamentalist Taliban."

This creates the impression that the Taliban were responsible for the bad old texts. Good thing we invaded Afghanistan and brought US influence to bear!

Unfortunately, as the Washington Post investigators reported:

"Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code." -- Washington Post, March 23, 2002

Other than their objections to the human face, the Taliban were perfectly happy with the US-produced primers.

Next, as if presenting evidence of a sea change, the Telegraph tells us great news: Afghan children now have new schoolbooks "written by Afghan scholars based at universities in the US."

Similarly, an article five weeks earlier in the Omaha World-Herald declares that, "Afghanistan stands at least a chance of hauling a modern, healthy society up out of the ashes of war and oppression," partly because University of Nebraska at Omaha "officials and staffers" will be "cranking up their presses in neighboring Pakistan" to churn out schoolbooks, all funded by "a $ 6.5 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development [AID]." (D)

Neither newspaper mentions the fact that the bad *old* schoolbooks "were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to the University of Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies." -- Washington Post, March 23, 2002)

What about the US government? Have any US congressmen demanded an investigation to find out who in the US government was involved in the production of jihad primers that "steeped a generation in [Islamist] violence"?

No they have not.

SPEAKING OF FORKED TONGUES...

What about George Walker Bush?

You may recall that George and Laura Bush have made passionate speeches denouncing Islamic fundamentalism. At first Mr. Bush told us we needed to attack Afghanistan in order to stop Mr. bin Laden. But later on he (and Laura Bush) told us we were fighting to crush the vicious fundamentalists.

Has George Bush said anything about the textbooks?

Yes, Mr. Bush talked about the jihad primers in a March 16th radio broadcast. He held nothing back:

"And before the end of the year, we'll have sent almost 10 million of them [that is, new textbooks] to the children of Afghanistan. These textbooks will teach tolerance and respect for human dignity *instead of indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry*." -- My emphasis - Radio Broadcast, March 16, 2002 (E)

Note the phrase, "instead of indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry."

So according to Bush, Afghan school children won't have to contend with bad schoolbooks anymore because finally the US has taken charge, replacing those other guys, those evil educators who published textbooks "indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry."

The amazing thing is not only that he tells such total lies but that he delivers them with such righteous indignation.

What about the new textbooks? Will they "teach tolerance and respect for human dignity" as Honest George promises?

To be precise (which may be an unwise move in the New World Order) how will the new textbooks that George Bush Junior is shipping into Afghanistan differ from the old ones?

You know, those old books that were also designed at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and also paid for by US AID? You know, those old, un-American books that George Bush Junior attacked for "indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry"? You know, those terrible old books that were shipped into Afghanistan by US AID when George Bush Senior was President?

Here's the Washington Post again:

"On Feb. 4, [Chris Brown, head of book revision for AID's Central Asia Task Force] arrived in Peshawar, the Pakistani border town in which the textbooks were to be printed, to oversee hasty revisions to the printing plates. Ten Afghan educators labored night and day, scrambling to replace rough drawings of weapons with sketches of pomegranates and oranges, Brown said."] - My emphasis, Washington Post, March 23, 2002

So it appears that the only change is that some violent pictures have been removed from the printing plates and some fruit has been added. There is no indication that the texts have been changed.

What does a non-fundamentalist Afghan educator think about the new schoolbooks?

"'The pictures [in the old schoolbooks] are horrendous to school students, *but the texts are even much worse,'* said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, an Afghan educator who is a program coordinator for Cooperation for Peace and Unity, a Pakistan-based nonprofit.'"
-- (My emphasis, Washington Post, March 23, 2002)

So the Untied States government is right now shipping into Afghanistan millions of Islamic Fundamentalist schoolbooks whose texts, according to a non-Fundamentalist Afghan educator, are not just "horrendous," they are "much worse."

Is it possible that this is all a terrible mistake? That Mr. Bush and US AID just don't know what's in the new schoolbooks?

Apparently not.

According to the Washington Post, the "White House defends the religious content" of the schoolbooks. And as for US AID, the Agency for International Development, which pays for the books:

'It's not AID's policy to support religious instruction,' Stratos said. 'But we went ahead with this project because the primary purpose . . . is to educate children, which is predominantly a secular activity.'"
(-- Washington Post, March 23, 2002)

So because education is predominantly secular it's OK for the schoolbooks to be fundamentalist. Likewise, since marriage is predominantly monogamous it's OK to cheat on your wife. And since banks are after all mainly places where people deposit money to keep it safe, it's fine to go rob a bank.

Got it?

Mr. Bush describes the texts of the old books as "indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry." But note, having been republished in the new books, these exact same texts have undergone a transformation. They have been reborn as "religious instruction" (says US AID) or "religious content" (says the White House). It's a modern miracle.

Reading these news reports and statements one might feel a certain sympathy for citizens of the US and allied countries, required to hold in their minds at one time a) the conviction that Mr. Bush is sincerely fighting Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan and b) the knowledge that the US is spending millions of dollars to indoctrinate Afghan school children with Islamic fundamentalism.

Not to worry. This problem has been solved by the US and allied mass media, which, with the exception of the Washington Post, have never told their readers and viewers who it was that produced the old books or what it is that's in the new ones.

Even the Washington Post has pulled its punches. For example, consider the headline of the March 23rd article, the only one that deals critically with the jihad primers.

Here's the headline:

"From U.S., the ABC's of Jihad; Violent Soviet-Era Textbooks Complicate Afghan Education Efforts."

"Violent Soviet-Era textbooks." This phrase doesn't even make it clear that the books were shipped in by the USA! They could have been hateful *Russian* books.

And the phrase, "Complicate Afghan Education Efforts" sounds like the books are hindering current US attempts at effecting progressive change. Nobody would guess from this headline that US AID has been forcing Islamic fundamentalist texts on Afghan kids for 20 years. And that they're still importing the same fundamentalist texts today.

(This is important because studies show that with any given article, most people only read the headline.)

In the body of the article itself the Post asserts without offering any evidence that steeping "a generation in [Islamist] violence" was an "unintended consequence" of giving these kids violent Islamist schoolbooks.

"Unintended consequence" is fast becoming the US Establishment's favorite excuse for the many disasters of its foreign policy. "We didn't know. We weren't prepared. We used old maps. We didn't see the train. We thought there were tanks in the refugee column. Who could have expected this to happen?" and on and on.

But does the case of the Islamist textbooks seem like "unintended consequences?" Or, quite the contrary, doesn't it show every indication of being "deliberate policy!"

In a forthcoming article we will examine other "unintended consequences" of US policy in Afghanistan.

-- Jared Israel



***********************
FURTHER READING:
***********************
1) 'Congressman: U.S. Set Up Anti-Taliban to be Slaughtered' can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/rohr.htm

2) 'Washington's Backing of Afghan Terrorists: Deliberate Policy.'
A Washington Post article with introduction by 'Emperor's Clothes'. Can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/anatomy.htm

3) 'CIA worked with Pakistan to create Taliban'
>From 'Times of India.' Can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/pak.htm

4) ''Gaping Holes in the 'CIA vs. bin Laden' Story,'' by Jared Israel can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/probestop-i.htm

*******************
FOOTNOTES
*******************
A) Washington Post, March 23, 2002, "From U.S., the ABC's of Jihad; Violent Soviet -Era Textbooks Complicate Afghan Education Efforts."
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/abc.htm

B) The Boston Globe March 17, 2002, Sunday, THIRD EDITION FOCUS; Pg. E1 "THE TASK: EDUCATING A GENERATION OF WOMEN, AND QUICKLY WITH A FEMALE LITERACY RATE OF LESS THAN 4 PERCENT, TEACHERS FACE OBSTACLES EVEN WITH THE TALIBAN GONE" By Elizabeth Neuffer

c) The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), March 25, 2002 * WORLD; Pg. 19, "Girls' return spells out school changes - WAR ON TERROR: A NATION'S HOPE"
By ALEXANDRE PEYRILLE and MEHRDAD BALALI in Kabul

D) Omaha World-Herald, February 8, 2002 EDITORIAL; Pg. 6B

E) March 16, 2002 Saturday, FDCH Political Transcripts, "GEORGE W. BUSH DELIVERS WEEKLY RADIO ADDRESS"

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***

A Diabolical Game

The US In Bed With Terrorists

By Nico Varkevisser *

[Posted on 3 February 2003]

Source http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/nico/diabolic.htm

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[ www.tenc.net ]

On October 16, the Stratfor Website reported that Islamist terrorists held a secret congress in NATO-controlled Bosnia.[1]

To summarize, Strafor reported that:

1)     “Russian and Yugoslav intelligence sources claim that more than 150 Islamic radicals from more than 50 countries held a secret congress in Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on Oct. 8..” Stratfor adds that Strana.ru, “a pro-government Russian media source,” also reported that the meeting had taken place “citing ‘well-informed diplomatic sources.’“

2)     The terrorists supposedly put aside all differences in order to declare a “jihad on the ‘European race’  - meaning both Americans and Europeans - because it has become ‘the willing slaves of Jews and Israel.’”

3)     Stratfor comments that, “The fact that the meeting purportedly was held in Bosnia suggests the country may become a center for international Islamic militants to coordinate operations in Europe. This seems especially possible in light of electoral victories by Bosnian Muslim nationalists earlier this month. Muslim Bosnia, unlike Republika Srpska, still is considered friendly to the West and might become an easy locale for Islamist operations as the United States focuses on hunting them in other regions.”

Stratfor develops this theme: “In Bosnia and the Balkans in general, Orthodox Christian Serbs remain pariahs to Washington and Western Europe, even after overthrowing former Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic and installing a pro-Western regime. Thus, Serbs rather than Muslims command the main focus of U.S. and European intelligence agencies.”

Stratfor gives no sources that we can check for this report. However, we do know that 1) the NATO-backed side in the Bosnian war was fighting to set up an Islamic fundamentalist state; that 2) other Islamic fundamentalist governments were heavily involved in helping their Bosnian comrades and 3) that the Pentagon coordinated the work of these outside fundamentalists. (These points are discussed further, below.) So the idea that terrorists would find Bosnia a likely setting for a meeting is perfectly plausible.

Moreover, there are other reports that the meeting took place; it is mentioned, for example, in an Oct. 11 dispatch from Itar-Tass. Assuming the alleged meeting did take place,  Strafor has neglected some crucial points.

First, Strafor suggests that the Islamists held their meeting without the knowledge of Western intelligence agencies. But in fact Bosnia is the last place Islamist groups would be able to get together *on the sly.*

Indeed, we can hardly call Bosnia a country. It is merely an *area* controlled by NATO in general and the US in particular. At the top there is a Lord Protector under the disguised title, ‘Representative of the International Community,’ who wields virtually all power. He appoints ‘ministers’ and makes laws; he even chose the design of the ‘national’ flag. Nothing can happen without his approval. So when Stratfor says that “the country may become a center for international Islamic militants to coordinate operations in Europe”, we can hardly believe such a thing would be possible without the consent of the powers who control that area.

So, if the meeting took place, it did so with Great Power complicity. Which brings me to the second point: Islamic fundamentalist terrorism is not simply a problem of some isolated bands of extremists, dangerous only if they are unknown to western security forces.

On the one hand, Islamic fundamentalism is a real ideology (or several closely related ideologies) with totalitarian goals. It has many real adherents and it is trying to remake the world. But on the other hand, it has grown with a good deal of sponsorship from Islamic states, North America and Europe. 

If you believe that all the fears about Islam are simply propaganda to justify the war on terrorism, consider these words of the much-celebrated Bosnian leader, Alija Izetbegovic, portrayed in the Western media as a Muslim moderate:[2]

[Start Quote From Alija Izetbegovic’s Book]

 

“The exhaustive definition of the Islamic Order is: the unity of religion and law, education and force, ideals and interests, spiritual society and State, and all of it with the harmonization of spontaneity and obligation…the Muslim does not exist at all as an independent individual. If he wants to live and remain Muslim, he must create an environment, a society, and an order. He must change the world, or he will be the victim of change. History has not seen an Islamic movement that was not at the same time a political movement, because Islam is a religion, but at the same time a philosophy, an ethics, an order, a style, and an environment; that is, a total way of life.”

 

[End Quote From Alija Izetbegovic’s Book]

Izetbegovic favors Iranian-style fundamentalism, but the above applies to the Wahhabi school exported from Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates and  other Islamists as well.  I am not speaking of personal religious beliefs. Islam means ‘submission’ and Islamic fundamentalism regulates all aspects of life.  Islamic law, shariat,  does *not* distinguish between crime and sin. Or to put it differently, anything which the religious authorities interpret to be a sin becomes a crime.

There is much evidence that Western states have played a double game, sponsoring Islamic fundamentalism to crush secular forces in order to destabilize target nations while at the same time publicly condemning Islamic terror.

Even Stratfor cannot hide the fact that Islamic terrorists have a safe heaven in Bosnia. Thus in the above-quoted report, Strafor says, “Since Sept. 11, 2001, regional governments have rounded up several cells of foreign Islamic militants. But Bosnia has not been among those who succeeded in breaking those cells”.

“Not succeeded”? Or *deliberately* not succeeded?

And Straford says Bosnia is a likely center for “international Islamic militants to coordinate operations in Europe” because “In Bosnia and the Balkans in general, Orthodox Christian Serbs remain pariahs to Washington and Western Europe…Serbs rather than Muslims command the main focus of U.S. and European intelligence agencies.”

Perhaps to Strafor this is an explanation, but to me it just raises more questions.

*Why* do “Orthodox Christian Serbs remain pariahs to Washington and Western Europe”?

Since there is no evidence of organized terrorism among the Serbian population, whereas there are certainly hundreds of terrorists living among Bosnian Muslims, *why* would “Serbs rather than Muslims command the main focus of U.S. and European intelligence agencies”?

Unless of course these agencies wish to allow Islamist terrorists to function unhindered in Bosnia, which NATO directly controls!

That Western powers are supporting Islamist terrorism was suggested in an interview, given at the end of October, by the former Czech Foreign Minister, Jiri Dientsbier. (Dientsbier had also been a special UN Human Rights official in Bosnia.)

In the interview with the Prague newspaper, Pravo, Dientsbier said that

“terrorism, including the latest terrorist act in Moscow, did not break out last September when the United States was under attack, it started much earlier in Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo.”

Dientsbier said further that, “not only the media but also the politicians, who divided the terrorists into ‘good ones’ and ‘bad ones,’ were doing service to terrorism. This is the case with the Chechens and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) as well.”

“During the NATO-led bombardment on Yugoslavia, the Kosovo Liberation Army was used as a ground force. The KLA engagement during the NATO-led air strikes on Yugoslavia enabled this organization to rule in Kosovo and mastermind and carry out attacks in Macedonia, southern Serbia and Montenegro,” Dientsbier said. Further he said the Albanian extremists had also killed thousands of Albanians, adding that ongoing efforts to arrest those responsible had produced no results.[3]

Other sources also reveal the close co-operation between the US-military and Muslim terrorist groups. The Dutch Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) wrote in its official report last year on Srebrenica that the Pentagon in fact has armed Muslim terrorists. This is what Richard J. Aldrich wrote in The Guardian of April 22, 2002, in an article with the title, “US Sponsored Foreign Islamists In Bosnia”:[4] 

[Start Excerpt From “US Sponsored Foreign Islamists in Bosnia”]

“The official Dutch inquiry into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, released last week, contains one of the most sensational reports on western intelligence ever published. Officials have been staggered by its findings and the Dutch government has resigned. One of its many volumes is devoted to clandestine activities during the Bosnian war of the early 1990s. For five years, Professor Cees Wiebes of Amsterdam University has had unrestricted access to Dutch intelligence files and has stalked the corridors of secret service headquarters in western capitals, as well as in Bosnia, asking questions.

His findings are set out in “Intelligence and the war in Bosnia, 1992-1995.” It includes remarkable material on covert operations, signals interception, human agents and double-crossing by dozens of agencies in one of dirtiest wars of the new world disorder. Now we have the full story of the secret alliance between the Pentagon and radical Islamist groups from the Middle East designed to assist the Bosnian Muslims - some of the same groups that the Pentagon is now fighting in “the war against terrorism.”

…By 1993 these groups, many supported by Iran and Saudi Arabia, were anxious to help Bosnian Muslims fighting in the former Yugoslavia and called in their debts with the Americans. Bill Clinton and the Pentagon were keen to be seen as creditworthy and repaid in the form of an Iran-Contra style operation - in flagrant violation of the UN security council arms embargo against all combatants in the former Yugoslavia.

The result was a vast secret conduit of weapons smuggling though Croatia. This was arranged by the clandestine agencies of the US, Turkey and Iran, together with a range of radical Islamist groups, including Afghan mojahedin and the pro-Iranian Hizbullah. Wiebes reveals that the British intelligence services obtained documents early on in the Bosnian war proving that Iran was making direct deliveries.

Arms purchased by Iran and Turkey with the financial backing of Saudi Arabia made their way by night from the Middle East. Initially aircraft from Iran Air were used, but as the volume increased they were joined by a mysterious fleet of black C-130 Hercules aircraft. The report stresses that the US was “very closely involved” in the airlift. Mojahedin fighters were also flown in, but they were reserved as shock troops for especially hazardous operations.

…The volume of weapons flown into Croatia was enormous, partly because of a steep Croatian “transit tax”. Croatian forces creamed off between 20% and 50% of the arms. The report stresses that this entire trade was clearly illicit. The Croats themselves also obtained massive quantities of illegal weapons from Germany, Belgium and Argentina - again in contravention of the UN arms embargo. The German secret services were fully aware of the trade.

Rather than the CIA, the Pentagon’s own secret service was the hidden force behind these operations. The UN protection force, UNPROFOR, was dependent on its troop-contributing nations for intelligence, and above all on the sophisticated monitoring capabilities of the US to police the arms embargo. This gave the Pentagon the ability to manipulate the embargo at will: ensuring that American Awacs aircraft covered crucial areas and were able to turn a blind eye to the frequent nightime comings and goings at Tuzla.

Weapons flown in during the spring of 1995 were to turn up only a fortnight later in the besieged and demilitarised enclave at Srebrenica. When these shipments were noticed, Americans pressured UNPROFOR to rewrite reports, and when Norwegian officials protested about the flights, they were reportedly threatened into silence.

…Iranian and Afghan veterans’ training camps had also been identified in Bosnia. Later, in the Dayton Accords of November 1995, the stipulation appeared that all foreign forces be withdrawn. This was a deliberate attempt to cleanse Bosnia of Iranian-run training camps. The CIA’s main opponents in Bosnia were now the mojahedin fighters and their Iranian trainers - whom the Pentagon had been helping to supply months earlier.

Meanwhile, the secret services of Ukraine, Greece and Israel were busy arming the Bosnian Serbs. Mossad was especially active and concluded a deal with the Bosnian Serbs at Pale involving a substantial supply of artillery shells and mortar bombs. In return they secured safe passage for the Jewish population out of the besieged town of Sarajevo…”

[End Excerpt From “US Sponsored Foreign Islamists in Bosnia”]

The close relations between the US and the Muslim terrorist groups is not limited to the Balkans. In the eighties the US and Saudi Arabia sponsored them in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. Now the same Mujahideen who fought the Russians are back in power under direct US/European control; in other words, Afghanistan is basically in the position of Bosnia.

And, as happened in Bosnia in October, a month earlier Muslim groups from Central Asia held a meeting in US/NATO-controlled Afghanistan.

[Start report from Kyrgyzstan Security Chief][5]

 

Radical Islamites made an important step for joining their efforts in the struggle for establishing the state, which would be based on Shariat. The state is going to be established on the Fergana Valley. This was said by the chairman of the National Security of Kyrgyzstan, Kalyk Imankulov.

Mr. Imankulov advised that Muslim fundamentalists of the Fergana Valley decided to create a joint organization – the Islamic Movement of the Central Asia. This movement incorporates separatists from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Chechnya and even from China. The headquarters of the new association is reportedly in the Badahshan mountainous area of Afghanistan.

 

[End report from Kyrgyzstan Security Chief]

So, centered in Bosnia, Muslims apparently organize under NATO’s nose to destabilize Europe and in Afghanistan too they hold a unification congress to speed up terrorist actions against Russia.

Behind the farce that the US is fighting terrorism is the reality that they use fascist and reactionary groups as instruments to reshape the political map of the world.

Nico Varkevisser

========================================================

FOOTNOTES

========================================================

*  Nico Varkevisser is a member of the Editorial Board of Emperor’s Clothes, Chairman of Global Reflexions in Amsterdam, Director of the Cuban Review and Vice-Chairman of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic.

[1] You can read the full report from Strafor at

http://eha.no-ip.org/eHa/183

[2] Izetbegovic, Alija. 1999 [1980]. Le manifeste Islamique (original title: Islamska deklaracija). Beyrouth-Liban: Éditions Al-Bouraq. (pp. 75-76)

[3] http://news.serbianunity.net/bydate/2002/October_30/4.html

[4] http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/used.htm

[5] http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/09/16/36647.html 

***

The US & Iran, Allies in Terror - Part 2

by Jared Israel, Francisco Gil-White,
Petar Makara, and Nico Varkevisser

[Posted 13 April 2003]

To read Part 1, go to http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/deja.htm

========================================================

In Part 1, the authors contrasted the fierce verbal attacks US and Iranian leaders made on one another in 1993 and 2003 - and found they were identical.  In each case, the US Secretary of State (Powell or Christopher) accused Iran of supporting terror and Iran accused the US of supporting Israel, which, said the Iranians, was a terrorist state. According to a Dutch report issued last year, in 1993, at the same time the US and Iran were trading insults, the Pentagon was coordinating a giant Iranian, Saudi, Pakistani onslaught on Bosnia. This included thousands of Mujahideen (Islamic fundamentalist terrorists) who trained and indoctrinated the Bosnian Muslim army and spearheaded terrorist attacks.  The article continues...
-- John Flaherty 

==================

Hazardous operations...

==================

The Guardian says the Mujahideen shipped into Bosnia "were reserved as shock troops for especially hazardous operations." This is an imprecise formulation. What was the practical function of these Mujahideen?

A London Telegraph article reported on the takeover of the Bosnian town of Fojnica by the Mujahideen. The Telegraph reports that the Mujahideen trained and led the Bosnian 'government's' infamous Handzar division. The rank and file consisted of Bosnian and Albanian Muslims who were following the tradition of local Muslims who joined the German Nazi Waffen SS during World War II. The Mujahideen trained other Bosnian troops as well (see pictures, http://www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/deja.htm#pic ).
[5]

[Start excerpt from Telegraph article] [6]

These are the men of the Handzar division. "We do everything with the knife, and we always fight on the frontline," a Handzar told one UN officer.

Up to 6000-strong, the Handzar division glories in a fascist culture. They see themselves as the heirs of the SS Handzar division, formed by Bosnian Muslims in 1943 to fight for the Nazis. Their spiritual model was Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who sided with Hitler... [7]

They are trained and led by veterans from Afghanistan and Pakistan, say UN sources. The strong presence of native Albanians is an ominous sign. It could mean the seeds of war are spreading south via Kosovo and into Albania, thence to the Albanians of Macedonia.

Pakistani fundamentalists are known to have had a strong hand in providing arms and a small weapons industry for the Bosnian Muslims.

Hardline elements of the Bosnian army, like the Handzar, appear to have the backing of an increasingly extreme leadership in Sarajevo...

[End excerpt from Telegraph article]

The "hazardous operations" of the mujahideen leading these Handzar troops included terrorist attacks on the non-Muslim population of Bosnia. (And remember, it was *Pentagon intelligence* which, according to the Dutch government report, coordinated these "hazardous operations"! )

Describing the work of the mujahideen who dominated the town of Fojnica, the Telegraph reports:

[Start excerpt from Telegraph article]

"The first political act in this new operation appears to have been the murder of the two monks in the monastery. Last month Brother Nikola Milicevic, 39, and Brother Mato Migic, 56, were surprised by a four-man squad.

After an argument, Brother Nikola was shot dead on the spot. His colleague was only wounded, but finished off by a shot in the neck. [6]

[End excerpt from Telegraph article]

Terrorist attacks such as the execution of the two Christian monks were intended to a) assert mujahideen control and b) exacerbate Christian-Muslim tensions, thus pushing rank-and-file Muslims into the Islamist camp. Thus, the presence of *thousands* of these terrorists had an immense impact on Bosnia, whose total population was at the time only about 4.3 million. [6A]

As Francisco Gil-White points out in the article, "Moderate Democrat or Radical Islamist?" this jibes with the methods advocated by Bosnian leader Alija Izetbegovic. [8]

==================================

What are we to make of Warren Christopher?

==================================

Warren Christopher, US Secretary of State in 1993, seems like a mild-mannered man, almost painfully polite. But don't judge a book by its cover.

At the very time that Christopher's government was coordinating Iranian and Saudi terror in Bosnia, he was was engaged in a dramatic battle of words with Iranian leaders over Iranian terrorism!

What can we say about Mr. Warren Christopher?

We can say that he was lying to divert the world's attention from mass murder and the destruction of a secular society, sponsored and coordinated by Pentagon intelligence.

==========

Conclusion

==========

[Start quote from Los Angeles Times]

Beginning in 1992, as many as 4,000 volunteers from throughout North Africa, the Middle East and Europe came to Bosnia to fight Serbian and Croatian nationalists on behalf of fellow Muslims. They are known as the moujahedeen. A military analyst called them "pretty good fighters and certainly ruthless." [9]

[End quote from Los Angeles Times]

Perhaps one day the US may come into military conflict with Iran. But one *cannot* deduce this merely from the harsh things that the US and Iran say about one another in public. And if the US does ever come into military conflict with Iran, you can be sure of one thing: it will *not* be because Iran supports Islamist terror.

One last thought. As you will recall, in 1993, the Iranians charged that American public condemnations of Iran were aimed at:

"...diverting world public opinion from Washington's full-scale support for Israeli-sponsored state terrorism and for terrorist activities against those countries which oppose U.S. domination...''

But as the Dutch report shows, at the very time that an Iranian official uttered these words, the US was in fact providing full-scale support for *Iranian-sponsored* state terrorist activities against the Bosnian Serbs. And it was the Serbs who opposed U.S. domination.

And, according to the Dutch report, it was Ukraine, Greece and *Israel* which provided the Bosnian Serbs with arms to resist this attack by *thousands* of mujahideen and the local Islamic fundamentalist troops they led.

Some of these mujahideen were from the pro-Iranian Hizballah, which specializes in attacking Israel, and some were battle-hardened from fighting the Reds in Afghanistan. Those would be the infamous 'Afghan Arabs'.

But wait. Don't we have a name for the 'Afghan Arabs' whom Iran and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were shipping into Bosnia and whose terrorist actions Pentagon intelligence was coordinating?

Why yes, we do.

It's Al Qaeda.

=====

At this point in the text, as posted Online, there is a photo of a man with a beard in military camafloge dress. You can view the picture at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/deja.htm#pic-a

The caption follows.

* Photo Caption *  To the left, Abu Abdel Aziz, leader of mujahideen terrorists/trainers in Bosnia. The photo appeared in Newsweek, 5 October 1992, with an article entitled, ''Help from the Holy Warriors.'' The London Times wrote that "Aziz claimed to have spent six years fighting in Afghanistan, and had also seen service as a 'holy warrior' in the Philippines, Kashmir and Africa." (9 May 1993). And nine years later, the Gulf News had him leading terrorists who kidnapped European and Asian tourists in Philippines. (5 July 2002 )

***

Jared Israel
Francisco Gil-White
Petar Makara
Nico Varkevisser
The Editors, Emperor's Clothes


========================================================

* Footnotes and Further Reading *

========================================================

[5] A Bosnian Islamist newspaper commerorates the Bosnian Waffen SS Division knowns as 'Handzar' (Scimitar). See, "Himmler was their Defender!"
http://emperors-clothes.com/bosnia/svijet.htm

[6] Daily Telegraph 29 December 1993; Headline: Albanians and Afghans fight for the heirs to Bosnia's SS past; Byline: Robert Fox; Dateline: Fojnica, Bosnia-Herzegovina

[6A] http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00031513.htm

[7] "'Palestine Is Our Land And The Jews Are Our Dogs' - Anti-Semitism, Misinformation, And The Whitewashing Of The Palestinian Leadership"
by Francisco J. Gil-White http://emperors-clothes.com/gilwhite/Israel.htm#part2

[8] "Moderate Democrat or Radical Islamist?: Who is Alija Izetbegovic, the man the US sponsored in Bosnia?"
by Francisco Gil-White
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/gilwhite/alija1.htm

[9] Los Angeles Times October 7, 2001; Section: Part A; Part 1; Page 1; National Desk Headline: Response To Terror; Bosnia Seen As Hospitable Base And Sanctuary For Terrorists; Byline: Craig Pyes, Josh Meyer, William C. Rempel, Times Staff Writers; Dateline: Zenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina

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http://emperor.vwh.net/
 

***

========================================================

* Key US Official says US 'Goal' in Iraq is...Islamic Rule *

by Jared Israel
[Posted 7 May 2003]

========================================================

Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute a few weeks before the invasion of Iraq, George Bush, Jr. said:

"Arab intellectuals have called on Arab governments to address the freedom gap so their people can fully share in the progress of our times...[A] new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region." [1]

Washington, we are told, wants to foster secular democracy in Iraq, but alas, the Islamists are resisting: [2]

[Excerpt from the Chicago Tribune starts here]

...[The] more radical leaders are boldly challenging Washington's plans for a secular, democratic future for the country.

On Friday, about 100 top Shiite clerics gathered in Baghdad to demand the creation of an Islamic state where music, television and all Western influences would be banned. "

[Excerpt from the Chicago Tribune ends here]

======================

Secular, Washington style...

=======================

Since people in the U.S. have been primed to believe the above story, it's a good thing very few have seen the following, from the BBC: [3]

[Excerpt from the BBC article starts here]

"US 'should back Islamic Iraq'
By Steve Schifferes
BBC News Online, Washington

Noah Feldman, a law professor from New York University, will be advising the future Iraqi interim authority on how to design a new constitution.

He will be working for retired US general Jay Garner - Iraq's interim leader - in the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. He told BBC News Online that in his view the US should support democracy in Iraq even if it was a not a secular democracy.

Speaking in Washington before departing for the region, he argued that the separation of church and state, although a central part of the US constitution, might not be appropriate for a country which was overwhelmingly Muslim. And he said that he believed the US Government was broadly united on this goal, citing comments by White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, who cited Turkey's Islamic democracy as a good model for the region."

[Excerpt from the BBC article ends here]

Given that there is no shortage of supply of law professors eager to oversee the writing of the constitution of a new state, it is clear that whoever got this job would have ideas and goals consistent with those of the US foreign policy establishment.

Given the aggressive US posture in Iraq, if Washington wanted Iraq to be a secular democracy, surely Mr. Feldman would have said so, and firmly, rather than conceding before he started that, "he believed the US Government was broadly united on this goal" of giving Iraq an Islamic government with no separation of church and state, meaning, apparently, the imposition of Shariat, or Muslim religious law, in a country where it had not previously been in force. [4]

This interview, posted on the Website of the BBC, appears to be a clarion call to the Islamists: the US needs you to apply pressure so it can appear to give in to what it really wanted to do in the first place. And that is reflected in the BBC's unusually apt headline, "US 'should back Islamic Iraq'.

If this BBC article is accurate, then the claim made by proponents and opponents of US policy alike, that the invasion of Iraq is the beginning of a US attempt to move Muslim states away from religious rule towards a more 'Western' kind of government - this assumption is false. The US-led Empire is perpetrating a fraud of immense proportions.

=========================

You will find the truth in Istanbul

=========================

I have made an extraordinary accusation. Surely, to support such an accusation we would prefer to have more than general statements from one BBC interview.

It would be better if a) Feldman pointed to some existing country and/or political group as a model, the better to judge what he is aiming to accomplish in Iraq and if b) we had other evidence, besides this one interview.

And fortunately we do have more.

In the BBC interview, Feldman is quoted as citing what he calls "Turkey's Islamic democracy" as his model for Iraq. And he claims that others in the foreign policy Establishment uphold the Turkish model as well, witness remarks by White House press spokesperson Ari Fleischer.

Moreover, in other interviews, Prof. Feldman also offers Turkey as his model. For instance, talking to CNN last month, he praised what he called the "Islamically-inclined people" working in Prime Minister Erdogan's government in Turkey as "serious Muslims, who are also committed to true democracy..." [5]

By examining Feldman and Fleischer's remarks about the political situation in Turkey, we can get a concrete idea of what they actually advocate. This can give us a benchmark for judging the real goals of the US foreign policy establishment, not only regarding Iraq, but as regards Muslim populations in general, because Turkey is a trendsetter. It is a beacon to the peoples of Central Asia, all of whom are Turkic speakers. The Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz in Central Asia, the Uighurs in Western China, and the Azeris in Azerbaijan - all look up to and identify with Turkey as the most successful modern incarnation of the Turkic peoples. Turkey also has strong historical ties to populations in the Caucasus and the Balkans.

The media and US leaders claim they are trying to bring secular democracy to the Muslim world. The editors at Emperor's Clothes editors have argued that the US-led Empire's real goal is to foment Islamic fundamentalism with the aim of using the Muslim populations in Central Asia and the Caucasus to destabilize Russia, China and India. By examining what the US empire is really doing vis a vis Turkey, we can get a better idea of who's right - us, or the US foreign policy establishment.

So let's look at what Prof. Noah Feldman and Press Secretary Ari Fleischer have said - and done - about Turkey, starting with their amazing claim that Turkey is an *Islamic* democracy. Let's take a good, careful look.

I can tell you, it doesn't look good.

[To be continued...]

- Jared Israel
Editor
Emperor's Clothes

==========================

* Footnotes and Further Reading *

==========================

[1] Headline: George W. Bush Delivers Remarks At The American Enterprise Institute Annual Dinner Speaker: George W. Bush, President Of The United States President George Bush Delivers Remarks At The American Enterprise Institute Annual Dinner, Washington Hilton February 26, 2003

[2] -- Copyright 2003 Chicago Tribune Company Chicago Tribune April 23, 2003 Wednesday, Chicago Final Edition Section: News; Pg. 1; Zone: C Length: 1504 Words Headline: Imams Exercise Newfound Clout; Mosques Gaining Postwar Power Byline: By Paul Salopek, Tribune Foreign Correspondent. Tribune Foreign Correspondent Tom Hundley In Qatar Contributed To This Report

[3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2976993.stm
US 'should back Islamic Iraq' By Steve Schifferes BBC News Online, Washington

[4] Islamic rules apply to areas that are left to personal discretion in most societies. Consider, for example, these elaborate requirements for intimate personal hygiene. [Scroll down to the subhead, 'Rules of Toilet']
http://islam-pure.de/imam/fatwas/practical02.htm#Rules%20of%20Toilet%20[Takhalli

While Shari'a, or Islamic law, may not currently be enforced with the ferocity of the Taliban or the Saudi Arabian government in all Islamist states, keep in mind two things.

A) Wherever it is enforced, it subjects *all* citizens to the rule of men whose authority derives from Islam and who are trained in its ancient teachings. This leads to very sharp conflict, for example in places like Nigeria. To understand what motivates the non-Muslims who are resisting Shari'a in Nigeria, consider the case of Adama Yunusa. This 19- year-old had sued her fiancé, Isa Katagum, for impregnating her and refusing to marry her. So: we have Ms. Yanusa, 19 years old, that is, little more than a child, and Mr. Katagum, perhaps not much older. And we have a personal tragedy, small, but very real for these young people. What do they need? They need some intelligent help from their elders, so they can resolve the mess they have gotten themselves in. How did the Shari'a court deal with this little tragedy?

First, Ms. Yanusa could not, of course, meet the Shari'a requirement to produce four male witnesses who could confirm that she had had sex with Isa Katagum. So the Shari'a court threw out her charges. Second, since she was pregnant, and it was therefore apparent that she'd had sex with *someone,* the judges, in their exercise of 1300-year-old wisdom, found her guilty of the crime of fornication. She was sentenced to 100 strokes of the cane, to be administered publicly, after the baby was born. [Scroll down to, 'Sharia: Woman Gets 100 Strokes Over Pregnancy']
http://members.internettrash.com/rolfbmiller/engl-akt2.html

B) Once Shari'a is in force, its severity can increase according to the rulings of religious authorities and/or the mood of the Islamic population. And in States governed by Shari'a, the *only* views that count are those of Muslim men

[5] Show: CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown 23:00 April 9, 2003 Wednesday Transcript # 040901cn.V84 Section: News; International Headline: Pentagon Officials Caution Dangerous Days May Yet Lie Ahead Guests: Noah Feldman, Hisham Melhem, Imam Hesham Al Husainy

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========================================================

Another suppressed news report uncovered by Emperor's Clothes!

* Top Legal Advisory Group Pushes for Sharia, or Muslim Religious Law *
The U.S. and Iran agree: Sharia is 'all you need...'

In this section: What is the IDLO, and why is it important that it is backing Sharia?
by Jared Israel
[Posted 26 May 2003]

========================================================

Summary of the article, so far:

Previous Contents:

1. Top legal group backs Sharia but the news isn't fit to print
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/idlo.htm#head1

2. Roundtable for Islamism
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/idlo.htm#head2

3. What is Sharia?
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/idlo.htm#head3

Here's a summary of what Jared Israel has written so far:

While doing research, he chanced upon an Associated Press (AP) dispatch so far unseen by the general public. The dispatch concerned a Roundtable conference supposedly held to advise Afghans on reforming their legal system. The conference was sponsored by the IDLO, a top group 'advising' poor countries on their legal systems. The head of the IDLO told the AP that the conference had endorsed the use of Sharia, or Muslim religious law! 

Mr. Israel checked out the IDLO Website and found that the Roundtable conference had been set up in advance to guarantee that Sharia would be endorsed.  One striking feature: The US and Iranian governments both participated in this meeting officially called to reform the legal system of US-controlled Afghanistan!

Mr. Israel then explained that Sharia is the detailed system of rules for every aspect of life, derived from the scholarly study of religious texts expressing the supposed thoughts, words and deeds of Mohammed.

Now, in sections 4 and 5,  Mr. Israel looks at who is behind the IDLO, and discusses the significance of the fact that the IDLO has put its power behind the use Muslim religious law.

-- John Flaherty

***

====================

4. Who controls the IDLO?

====================

How significant is it that the International Development Law Organization is pushing Sharia? That depends on the question: How influential is the IDLO? Answer: Very.

The IDLO (previously called the IDLI) is a project of the US-led Empire at the highest levels of power.

"Italy will continue to follow closely the activities of IDLO and its work with developing countries. The Italian Government already provides IDLO with substantial financial assistance for carrying out specific projects. In addition, the Government has granted IDLO a contribution by law..."
- Carlo Ciampi, President of the Italian Republic, Addressing an IDLO meeting on 23 March 2003. [5]

The IDLO's main sponsors include: [6]

*The Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA);

* The Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (This fund is financed by the oil-exporting Arab countries and located in Kuwait. Given financial realities, it is surely dominated by the Islamic fundamentalist states - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Emirates. One can imagine its 'social development' policies...) [7]

* The Kuwait Fund for Arab and Economic Development.

* The World Bank;

* The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

* USAID (This US funding organization, controlled by the foreign policy establishment, coordinates its work with both the CIA and the semi-covert National Endowment for Democracy. USAID is the funding agency that has been distributing tens of millions of Islamic fundamentalist schoolbooks in Afghanistan); [11]

* Coca Cola;

* The governments of Finland, France, Italy, Japan, Denmark, France, Netherlands and the USA;

* Microsoft;

The IDLO's current vice-chairmen are:

*Mohammed Y. Abdel-Aal
Senior Legal Advisor
Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (term expires 2004)

* Attilio Massimo Iannucci
Deputy Director General
General Directorate for Development Cooperation
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy
(Permanent Representative) [8]

==========================================

5. The significance of the IDLO's endorsement of Sharia

==========================================

The IDLO Roundtable was no minor affair. The status of the IDLO, the presence of representatives from the US (including the State Department), Japan, Germany, Italy and Norway, the heavy presence of top officials from the US-installed Afghan government, and the stated purpose, to reform the Afghan legal system, all make it clear that the US-led Empire endorsed this conference.

By the way, isn't it interesting that three representatives of the Iranian fundamentalist government took part? The Roundtable was ostensibly called to advise a commission reforming the legal structure in *US-run* Afghanistan. If it is true, as we have been told, that a) the US wants to combat fundamentalism and encourage secular rule and b) the US and Iran are enemies then c) why would Islamist Iran be helping plan the reform of the legal system of a country conquered by the U.S.?

(Emperor's Clothes has documented that despite public displays of hostility, the U.S. and Iran have covertly cooperated in terror. [9])

The IDLO is not a propaganda outfit. It advises 'developing countries' about their legal systems.

The credibility of this 'advice' does not derive solely from the expertise of the advisers. Indeed, if the issue were only legal expertise, the 'developing countries' could do without the IDLO. This is after all the 21st century, not the 19th. Poor countries may lack cash (hence the term, 'poor'), but they do not lack trained personnel. For example, tens of thousands of highly educated Afghan citizens fled when the secular government was destroyed by the U.S. and Saudi-backed mujahideen a decade ago. Many would return if their help were desired to build a secular society!

When IDLO 'experts' arrive in a 'developing country' bearing the message that Sharia contains "all the elements that are really required," they are not speaking simply as experts. They represent the power of the US-led Empire, just like officials of earlier empires.

And indeed the discourse of NGOs and other organizations of the US-led Empire has an eerie similarity to the outlook of the British and other Empires past. Consider the much-used phrases, 'developing world' and 'emerging nations' (were they previously shrouded in mist?) and then read the words of Rudyard Kipling, the poet of the British Empire:

"Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child."
-- The White Man's Burden
By Rudyard Kipling [10]

In reality the 'developing' and 'emerging' nations - which we are amazingly told include the Republics of the former Soviet Union! - are quite developed.

They are cauldrons boiling with political struggle.

In many areas, Muslim extremism, with its central demand to impose Sharia, is locked in mortal combat with anti-Sharia forces. These may include trade unions, secularist military forces, advocates of women's rights or secular education, socialists, nationalists, communists, non-Muslim religious groups, and Muslims who believe religion should be a private affair. (Many Muslims who oppose Sharia are intimidated into silence by the deadly menace of the extremists.)

So when the IDLO endorses Sharia it is intervening with great power on one side of a world-significant political conflict. It is putting its weight behind theocratic rule, against all the above-named forces.

There are two questions we must answer:

1) In saying that Sharia has "all the elements that are really required," is the Western establishment helping or hurting societies with large Muslim populations?

2) Why doesn't the media straightforwardly report the existence of the US-led Empire's pro-Sharia policy?

***

NEXT: Section 6: "Selling Muslims on self-destruction, or, 'Pride cometh before a fall...'" 
To be emailed shortly, or read it now at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/idlo.htm#head6

[Footnotes and Further Reading Follow The Appeal]


==========================

* Footnotes and Further Reading *

==========================

[5] Speech by Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, President of the Italian Republic at a private meeting with the IDLO board, March 28, 2003
http://www.idli.org/Ciampi_speech.htm

[6] http://www.idli.org/finance_funding.htm

[7] The HQ of the Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development has to be seen. If they'd scrimped a little putting up this building, they could have Funded a lot of Social Development for poor Arabs...
http://www.arabfund.org/aohq/tour.htm

[8] http://www.idli.org/board_of_directors.htm

[9] For more on US-Iranian relations, go to
http://emperors-clothes.com/#usiran

[10] "The White Man's Burden,"
By Rudyard Kipling
McClure's Magazine 12 (Feb. 1899).
http://www.boondocksnet.com/ai/kipling/kipling.html

[11] 'Bush & the Media Cover up the Jihad Schoolbook Scandal, by Jared Israel at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/jihad.htm

www.tenc.net

***
 

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Another suppressed news report uncovered by Emperor's Clothes!

Top Legal Advisory Group Pushes for Sharia, or Muslim Religious Law
by Jared Israel

** Email #3: "Selling Muslims on self-destruction, or, 'Pride cometh before a fall...'" **

Posted to Emperors Clothes newsletter list, 29 May 2003

========================================================

In email #2 in this series, Jared Israel showed that the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) is "is a project of the US-led Empire at the highest levels of power." It is controlled by a mix of the leading governments and banks in the US-led Empire, with a large US, Saudi and Kuwait presence. It is run in part by the Italian government.

Mr. Israel noted that when the IDLO sends "advisers" to poor countries, they are not merely experts. When the IDLO tells poor countries that Sharia, or Muslim religious law, has, "all the elements that are really required to underpin a human rights agenda and a modern state agenda", they are speaking with the authority of the US Empire.

Now Mr. Israel answers the question: is the IDLO's endorsement of Sharia a good thing or a bad thing for Muslims?

-- John Flaherty

***

====================================================

6. Selling Muslims on self-destruction, or, 'Pride cometh before a fall...'

====================================================

One might get the impression from the media that the use of Muslim religious law is a foregone conclusion in areas with large Muslim populations. But in fact, many of these areas have had strict secular constitutions (Turkey) or even communist societies (Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Balkans, and Western China) for many decades.

Most Muslims in these areas have had a secular orientation. It is the Western and Arab establishments and their satellites which have intervened to whip up Muslim fundamentalism to destabilize these areas, causing great suffering, including to Muslims.

*Case in point: Schoolbooks for extremism in Afghanistan*

Starting in 1983 and continuing to the present day, USAID has distributed tens of millions of Muslim fundamentalist schoolbooks in Afghanistan. During most of this period, the books had pictures depicting jihad fighters slaughtering infidels.

Now the White House justifies *continuing* to distribute millions of these schoolbooks (sans pictures) in Afghanistan because, they say, the books fit the religious orientation of local people! What hypocrisy! As if such sentiments, to the extent that they exist, do not derive in large measures from the *tens of millions* of extremist books that USAID distributed and which were the main schoolbooks for the innocent children of Afghanistan! Nothing like US aid! [11]


*Case in point: Saudi Arabia funds fanaticism*

It is precisely because so many Muslims are *not* fundamentalists that Saudi Arabia has spent billions of petrodollars proselytizing for Islamic extremism:

"The Saudi government has systematically financed the propagation of Salafi Islam, [also known as the Wahabbi sect] by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on three out of seven universities in Saudi Arabia [that] are religious universities. They built thousands of mosques around the world, including the United States. They have given free scholarships to non-Saudis, to come and study Salafi and become Salafi. They sent 2,000 Salafi clerics around the world every summer. They print books by the millions in every language to promote Salafi Islam. They have conventions, conferences."
- Ali Al-Ahmed, interviewed on PBS, 9 November 2001 [11A]

So, Western and Arab governments and NGOs help the Islamists sell fundamentalism to Muslims.

In the U.S., salespeople say, "Don't sell the steak; sell the sizzle!" This means, close the sale by associating the product with some strong emotion.

In the case of Islamism, much of the sales pitch is based on pride and its flip side, shame. The Islamist says, 'We were civilized when Europeans were barbarians. But now look at us!' Thus, by evoking the emotions of pride and shame, the Islamist sells the past. Consider:

"...the provisions of the Qur'an are such that by their disciplined interpretation, with the aid of the Hadith and Sunna and other sources of interpretation, Islam can, as intended, provide the solution to contemporary social problems. Fourteen centuries ago Islam was a spiritual, social, and legal revolution. Its potential for effecting progress remains unchanged. This is essentially the belief of enlightened fundamentalist Muslims. Islamic fundamentalism is not, therefore, a regressive view of history and contemporary reality. Islam at the height of its civilization, between the seventh and eleventh centuries, was neither repressive nor regressive. It was a progressive, humanistic, and legalistic force for reform and justice."
- Islamic Law -- the Sharia
Middle East Library [12]

Note that the writer says, "Islamic fundamentalism is not...regressive..." But immediately after that:

"...Between the seventh and eleventh centuries, ...[Islam] was...progressive...."

Between the seventh and eleventh centuries? A thousand or more years ago? This reminder of past glory has powerful appeal in the Muslim world, and particularly in the Arab world, because of three factors:

a) Resentment towards anything that is presented as "Western" (e.g., classical liberalism, socialism, communism, Christianity, Judaism, etc.) as part of a rejection of Western colonialism, and current injustices, real or imagined;

b) The teaching of the Koran that God has ordained that Islam should rule the world and

c) The tremendous role of pride and shame in most cultures with large Muslim populations and the consequent passion over perceived loss of status.

Unscrupulous people, whether the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al Husseini, or the Muslim Brotherhood, or Fatah, created by Hajj Amin's followers, or the Ayatollah Khomeini or the Saudi fundamentalists - all have played the pride/shame card to foment Muslim extremism, with its imposition of Sharia.

But why did the British Empire support Muslim extremism? Why did the British sponsor the Muslim fanatic, Hajj Amin al Husseini, who distorted political life in the Middle East? [13]

Why did the US spend billions of dollars destroying the secular government of Afghanistan in the 1980s? Was it 'just' to fight the Soviet Union? Then why, after the Soviet Union disappeared, did the US continue - why does it still continue - to ship millions of Muslim fundamentalist textbooks into Afghanistan? [11]

Why does the US-led Empire advocate the imposition of Sharia today, as exemplified by the IDLO conference in Rome?

Consider this comparison.

Suppose someone tried to tell the people of Denmark:

* That the Vikings were World-changing explorers;

* That they had an immense and progressive impact in the 10th century;

* That therefore it is not regressive for Danes today to memorize the writings of the Vikings and to put Viking scholars in charge of all aspects of Danish life;

* That from their interpretation of Viking texts these scholars should tell Danes how to live - whether to shave their facial hair, appropriate measures for disciplining (!) their wives, proper methods of intimate hygiene, punishments for people who say negative things about Denmark or who seek to give up Danish citizenship, and when it is allowable to kill non-Danes who refuse to pay a special tax.

How would the Danes respond?

Mr. Loris of the IDLO would not have the nerve to tell Danes that the writings of the Vikings have "all the elements that are really required to underpin a human rights agenda and a modern state agenda which are completely compatible with international standards."

If an organization with the power of the IDLO tried to foist such nonsense on the Danes, what would the Danes think? They would think: "These people want to colonize us and therefore they want to tie us to backward and outdated ideas which, in their generous opinion, 'are all we need' to be outdated, and backward, so they can take advantage of us!"

That is precisely the role of Sharia. It was the great and passionate advocate of the Turkish nation, Kemal Ataturk, who pulled Turkey out of certain destruction precisely by driving the caliphate - the religious center of the Muslim world - from Turkey. By doing so he cut the link between politics and religion in Turkey. [14] [Also see footnote on genocide in Turkey 14A]

Why, today, do we see the US-led Empire backing the institution of Sharia law in Turkey? As I will show in two upcoming articles, during both the Clinton and Bush governments the White House and Foreign Service have violated Turkish sovereignty by intervening in favor of Recep Erdogan, the leader of the Islamic fundamentalist party in Turkey.

Why has the US done this?

Why did the British Empire eighty years ago oppose Kemal Ataturk and back the Turkish Sultan? Why? Why do you think? Because Ataturk was a secularist and a modernizer who wished Turkey to be independent of foreign domination whereas the Sultan was a backward-looking Islamist in league with the British.

In the modern world adherence to Sharia law reduces the intellectual, political and scientific power of a people and renders them weak so they can be ruthlessly exploited economically, politically and militarily, so they can be used by Great Powers as a destructive force against secular states.

That is precisely the case with this Empire of Western and Arab Establishments run by the Americans. It is not love for Muslims that causes the Empire to back the fundamentalists, openly in Afghanistan and then Bosnia, covertly in Kashmir and Chechnya, openly in Kosovo and Macedonia, openly and covertly in Palestine. It is not love for Muslims that is behind the Empire's secret alliance with the Iranian destroyers of Iran and its open love affair with the Saudi destroyers of Arabia. [15]

The operatives of the US-led Empire understand the power of pride and shame in Muslim cultures. They go to the Muslims and they say: "To be great again you must do what you did 14 centuries ago. Sharia has 'all the elements that are really required...'"

And in this way, they push many people to *look backwards*.

'We are going on a trip,' say the Muslims. 'Shall we perhaps take the Land Rover?'

'On no,' say the Imperialists, 'No, no, you take this one-thousand-three-hundred-year-old camel. It is really all you need...'

And meanwhile, the Imperialists fly First Class.

Societies which look backwards self-destruct. That is a law of history.

If you would know anything, know this: you can't go home again because *home is no longer there*. You can love the past, or you can hate it, and in any case hopefully you will learn from it. But you *cannot* live in the past.

When people try, it is not *yesterday* they get, but a terrible *today*. We must move forward, re-think, find new solutions out of human creativity, "climb the stairway of our own achievements," or we will not have a "progressive and humanistic effect." Quite the contrary.

The British told Turkey, 'Keep the Caliphate. It is really all you need.' And When Kemal Ataturk drove the Caliphate out of Turkey he declared, 'We will show them!' - meaning the West - 'We will show them that we can achieve just as much as they!' And to that end he removed from Turkish politics the religious baggage that held down Turkish political life so they could create a great modern nation.

God save the Muslims from these Empire builders who, posing as friends, sponsor fundamentalist leaders, saying that Sharia is "all you really need."

Yes, all you really need to be hopelessly backward, to be losers in *somebody else's* Empire, to be slaves.

***

Coming soon, Email #4.  "'No news' ain't good new"  and "A parting thought from Mr. Milosevic"
To be emailed shortly; you may read it now at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/idlo.htm#head6


==========================

* Footnotes and Further Reading *

==========================

[11] 'Bush & the Media Cover up the Jihad Schoolbook Scandal, by Jared Israel at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/jihad.htm

[11A] We have provided a link to the transcript of the PBS broadcast on Saudi support for extremism, and also a link to our own page, which includes the full text of the broadcast but takes you direct to the quote cited above. http://www.emperors-clothes.com/archive/pbs.htm#a http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/interviews/ahmed.html

[12] Islamic Law--the Sharia
Middle East Library http://www.mideasti.org/

[13] "'Palestine Is Our Land And The Jews Are Our Dogs'- Anti-Semitism, Misinformation, And The Whitewashing Of The Palestinian Leadership,"
By Francisco J. Gil-White *
http://emperors-clothes.com/gilwhite/Israel.htm#part2

[14] http://www.bartleby.com/65/at/Ataturk.html

[14A] Regarding Ataturk and the genocide against the Armenian and Greek populations of Turkey during and after World War II, please see, "Regarding the Armenian and Greek Genocides in Turkey," at http://emperors-clothes.com/genocide.htm

[15] Regarding the involvement of the US-led Empire in terror in the Balkans, see, "The Terrorists Attacking Macedonia Are Nato Troops, Not Rebels," by Jared Israel and Rick Rozoff
http://emperors-clothes.com/mac/times.htm

* The US-Iranian alliance behind the Islamist terror in Bosnia is documented and discussed in the article, "U.S. & Iran: Enemies in Public, but Secret Allies in Terror," by Jared Israel, Francisco Gil-White, Peter Makara, and Nico Varkevisser at
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/deja.htm

* Regarding the US-Saudi sponsorship of the mujahideen in Afghanistan - to the tune of billions of dollars - see: 'Washington's Backing of Afghan Terrorists: Deliberate Policy,' by Steve Coll
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/anatomy.htm

And also see, "Afghan Taliban Camps Were Built by NATO,"
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/camps.htm

* Regarding our contention that the U.S. never severed covert ties to Osama bin Laden, see "Bin Laden in the Balkans," at http://emperors-clothes.com/news/binl.htm

And also see, 'Newspaper Articles Documenting U.S. Creation of Taliban and bin Laden's Terrorist Network' at
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/doc.htm

And also see, "Gaping Holes in the 'CIA vs. bin Laden' Story,"
by Jared Israel at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/probestop-i.htm

www.tenc.net
 

***

========================================================

Jared Israel on 'How the Lies of Scott Ritter Reveal the Strategic
Goals of the Bizarre Iraq War'  - A Series

* Part 4: Readers ask, "Why this focus on Scott Ritter?" Jared Israel replies. *

[Posted 15 May 2004]

For other articles so far published on Ritter, see footnote [1].

========================================================

[ www.tenc.net ]

Regarding our articles on Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector who  mobilized opposition to the Iraq war, several readers have asked: why are you pursuing him? One wrote:

    "I always had nagging doubts about Scott Ritter and you are confirming them and it is interesting but what is the point of bringing this man down? Is he so relevant?"

Here are my thoughts.

Ritter is important because, first of all, he has played a decisive role, creating support for a strong US military (June of 1992), for military action against Iraq (November of 1997 through December 1998) and after that, in a complete about face, working night and day to mobilize sentiment against war with Iraq. [2]

When I first examined Ritter's media coverage I thought, what's bothering me about this?  I saw that Ritter had a virtual open door to the media both when he was a hawk and also later, when he was a dove. Why such coverage *both* times?  I discovered that Ritter never explained his change from hawk to dove - indeed, he denied he had changed, insisting that so-called neoconservatives had misled people into believing he was ever a hawk. But that was obviously a lie, and the media knew it was a lie since they had broadcast his hawk statements many times.  Yet although the media continued to treat Ritter as big news, they didn't treat his sensationally unexplained reversal as any kind of news! Nor did his political enemies, from Madeleine Albright to George Bush. Why not? Why were they protecting this guy?  Who was this Ritter, who walked between the raindrops?

>From our research, especially regarding the demonization of the Serbs and the whitewashing of the PLO, we at Emperor's Clothes have concluded that the US and European establishments have a two-faced geopolitical strategy. This involves hidden sponsorship of Islamic extremism, antisemitism, anti-Slav racism and other horrors.

It is impossible to deduce this strategy from the official statements of US and European leaders alone, because such statements are a form of theater, like the poses struck by supposedly competing 'fighters' in wrestling matches on US television.

The interlocking establishments of the US and Europe are the most effectively duplicitous ruling class in history. We who study it are in the position of paleontologists; we must look for certain bones, certain evidence, from which we can derive information. When we find a huge fossilized tooth we know there was a large animal back then. Ritter is precisely such a tooth.

Or, to mix my metaphors, Ritter is a smoking gun.

Why didn't the media and the Bush administration expose him for:

a) Reversing his conclusions while claiming to use the same facts and

b) Falsely claiming that he had never changed his stand?

Why didn't they loudly and ruthlessly confront the Ritter of 2001 with the statements of the Ritter of 1998? Why didn't they run attack ads: "Will the real Scott Ritter please stand up?" They are quite capable of this sort of thing, you know. And they could easily put together the material. I dug it up with help from a couple of other people at Emperor's Clothes. The media and the government intelligence agencies have thousands of researchers on call, 24/7.

Studying the record, I found that on the rare occasions that CNN, for example, broadcast a program in which someone challenged Ritter for reversing positions, the challenge was weak and the moderator skewed the debate in Ritter's favor.  Sometimes reporters stated outright that Ritter had not changed - an obvious lie.

In 2001 Ritter was arrested on a sex charge which, had it been made public at the time, would have destroyed him as a political force and dealt a crippling blow to the opposition to war with Iraq. What other person could have substituted for Scott Ritter, the UNSCOM inspector who said "Iraq has disarmed!" Answer: nobody.

Then why was he treated with kid gloves?  Why were his court records sealed, so that the media didn't learn he was arrested for 18 months? After the story leaked out, the US Attorney's office in Albany announced they would request permission from the Justice Department to bring Federal sex crime charges against Ritter. Now another 17 months have passed and charges have not been filed, though according to the Albany Times-Union, the case is active.  Why is the Bush Justice Department holding up the prosecution of their' worst enemy'? [3]

Why did only a handful of media outlets even mention Ritter's arrest?

When the media does not cover sensational stories, such as Ritter's reversal on the *facts* about Iraq, or his sex arrest, when Ritter's supposed enemies do not take advantage of these vulnerable positions to bring him down, then we have a smoking gun.

*That* is what interests me.

My interest is *not* whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. I am studying Ritter, not Iraq. I am sure the US did *not* invade Iraq over the issue of weapons. I am convinced they invaded because they wanted to turn Iraq into an Islamist state with close ties to Iran. [I know this is  not the accepted view, among supporters or opponents of the Bush administration. For relevant articles, see
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/iraq-iran.htm ]

The US had to occupy Iraq to set the stage for an acceptable transition to Islamism, which involved weakening or destroying certain forces and empowering others. And then it needed to leave Iraq under conditions that morally strengthened Islamists everywhere.

If I am right, if that is a key part of their strategy, then it stands to reason that:

A) The establishment first needed public support to enable their George W. Bush Puppet to go into Iraq and

B) Then they needed at least part of the public, mobilized by their supposedly anti-war Puppets (Ritter, Ramsey Clark, Chomsky, Soros, Robin Cook, etc.) to clamor for the US to leave, whispering that the whole thing was a scheme by "Those Jews" to help Israel. (Just for the record, the worst thing for Israel is a string of Islamist states from Saudi Arabia to Central Asia.  Saddam Hussein was Israel's enemy; but the Islamists, linked to Iran, are a much bigger threat. Moreover, in the middle east, anger at the US inevitably expresses itself as anger at Israel. The Iraq debacle is a disaster for Israel.)

By mobilizing significant sentiment against war with Iraq, and then feeding it with absurd blunders by Bush et al, the establishment can have its Bush puppet turn Iraq over to the Islamists without *appearing* to desire that end. Since the debacle will be blamed on so-called neoconservatives, a group which has been *falsely* identified in the public mind with Israel, everyone will be mad at "The Jews." People who are pro war may tell themselves "The Jews got us into a war we didn't need and then bungled it." Those who opposed the invasion may tell themselves, "The Jews are using the US to fight Israel's battles." The US establishment would then have what it wants, a string of Islamist states from Saudi Arabia to Central Asia, putting vast pressure on Turkey, and then, especially if Turkey fell to militant Islam, putting horrific pressure on the former Soviet Union, not to mention Europe, India and China.

A key strategic goal for this establishment is to present militant Islam as the hard core of opposition to US hegemony even as it covertly uses the Islamists to decimate potential rivals and weaken secular forces.

Inflamed Islam is a weapon, and Iraq is an important  part of the plan. Antisemitism, magnified by the Iraq war, stimulates Muslim extremism which of course has the practical effect of strengthening Islamist forces worldwide.

A horrific hypothesis, and all the worse if it fits the facts! Which gets us back to the question: why study Ritter?  Answer: because he's important and because to understand who is he and what he is being used for, we have to know facts. Deciding whether I am right or wrong is not just a matter of opinion.  People often write to Emperor's Clothes disputing our 'slant' on things.  But we derive our 'slant' from studying the facts.  To decide whether my hypothesis is right you  need to examine hard evidence.

What Ritter has done, how he has been used and how he has been treated by powerful forces constitutes evidence because my hypothesis about Ritter's behavior coincides with my general theory. First Ritter  provided the main justification for war with Iraq, single-handedly creating a pro-war constituency. Then once that was in motion, he was crucial in creating an antiwar constituency. Both constituencies are needed to effect US policy (if I am right, of course.)

(Parenthetically, Ritter is a real bargain for the powers-that-be - he does two jobs for the price of one! Just recently we've seen the same sort of  thing with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, changing costumes and appearing as two astoundingly different characters within a few days!  One day he was virtually egging Congress on by 'warning' that there are vast numbers of even worse pictures of Abu Ghraib prison, which the government then dutifully fetched for Congress as fast as their little legs could run. Did you ever hear of a US presidential administration, let alone this administration, voluntarily and speedily making available horribly negative evidence?

But then, a quick change of costume, and the familiar Rumsfeld - tough guy, we mean business - was flying to Iraq to boost the morale of the troops.

It makes your head swim. But it makes sense. Both camps - pro and antiwar - must be maintained in order for the US foreign policy establishment to manipulate this nightmare. And capable performers like Rumsfeld and Ritter are asked to play more than one part, like skilled performers in a traveling acting troupe. You see, it's hard to get good help...)

There's a lot more to this. The point is, in order to facilitate discussion of all these issues, it is most useful to study this huge fossilized tooth called 'Scott Ritter.' What is real? What is illusion? Am I factually correct that the Bush administration could have wiped the floor with him, both regarding his flip from hawk to dove and his 2001 arrest, but chose not to do so? And if having seen the facts you agree that I am right, then you can ask, 'why on earth would they make such choices?' You cannot ignore this question. It is a dog with the head of a cat. It demands explanation.

I have done considerable research to determine whether I am right or