Solutions? Here We Are!

The long-awaited speech by the President of the United States of America on the cusp of meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been received with truly mixed feelings. Mostly the feelings are mixed between incredulous and disbelieving.

Mind, the president relieved himself of his impressions and feelings about the eventuality of a Palestinian state alongside that of the State of Israel, in the context of a longer, large speech of the general conditions currently prevailing in the Middle East and North Africa. Where support of long-time allies were disposed of, and a selective attack mounted on another.

It isn't entirely clear why a speech focusing primarily on the "Arab Spring" also mentioned Israel and President Barack Obama's view of how Israel should comport itself officially in the prosecution of reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority, for the 'political awakening', confrontations and state brutality taking place really have nothing to do with Israel.

Other than the occasional reported outburst from protesters in Libya, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt about the Israeli aggressors. And the equally pointed expressions of exasperation by the ruling elite masquerading as benevolent dictators that the protests have been fomented by the Israeli Mossad.

But it is President Obama's considered opinion, one to which he has given great weight, that Israel must seriously consider and follow through with a series of concessions to the demands of the Palestinians to create an environment where the Palestinians might consider sitting down at the negotiating table for serious talks about peace with the Israelis.

No one seems to expect any manner of concessions to be available from the Palestinians.

The 'right of return' remains sacrosanct; the PA's Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's admission of his belief that returning Palestinians should be absorbed within the new Palestinian State is not favoured by the Palestinian Authority, Fatah and Hamas, and Mr. Fayyad is definitely out of favour.

The borders issue has received an unequivocal - almost - endorsement by President Obama; back to 1948, and bargain if you can for 'mutually agreed swaps'.

With a Palestinian Authority that has visions of sugar plums in the shape, colour and fragrance of swapping promises for accessing the entirety of the region, usurping the very ground that the State of Israel sits upon. The mourning of the Nakba will be concluded in the triumph of accession, righting a wrong that the United Nations imposed upon the poor Palestinians.

And the accursed, usurping Jews can just go back from where they came from - anywhere but the Middle East. And that nicely settles the issue of an undivided Jerusalem.

Arctic Resource Ownership

Map of the polar region, showing Peary's 1909 route to the North Pole. (Corbis) Read more: http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/05/19/is-the-rush-for-the-arctic-back-on/#ixzz1MtMBs1kc

Canada has had a long-standing territorial dispute with Denmark in the Arctic over Hans Island. The Arctic territorial nations all lay claim to ownership of 'their portion' of the Arctic area, but the territories are not clearly defined and there is much overlap in claims. Particularly with the discovery of great natural resources to be mined and claimed to enrich those nations with sovereignty of the areas in dispute.

Russia, the United States, Canada and Norway, along with Denmark, all claim ownership of various areas of the Arctic. Russia famously made headlines when it planted a three-foot titanium flag using a submersible, to hammer home the point that it plans to claim its territory and with it the riches ensconced there in natural resources.

As the environment changes and passage through the area becomes feasible year round eventually, shipping challenges Canada's claim to the North West Passage. Those who plan to increasingly use it as an efficient transitway claim it is international waters and is not in the possession of Canada.

Early explorers from Norway, Russia and the United States all gave those countries an investment in the future.

Now Denmark has unveiled a plan for its Arctic territories to lay claim to the North Pole sea bed. "We expect that Denmark will be able to document claims to an area that among other things includes the sea bed at the North Pole" referring to a ten-year strategy. This initiative will lead to a confrontation for ownership with Russia, the U.S., Canada and Norway.

Thanks to new undersea mining technologies - it lies within the capacity of those nations that can document and prove to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea their claims to ownership - they will be able to harvest 30% of the world's undiscovered gas resources and the 90 billion barrels of oil to be derived from those undersea areas.

All of the nations claim their ownership of the Arctic area in a 200-mile radius from their shorelines. Russia is invested in proving that the gas, oil and diamonds that exist on its claimed territory - the Lomonosov Ridge - is theirs alone. But experts also say that the Ridge does not represent part of the continental shelf, but the point where two ocean floor plates spread.

Since the Ridge extends from Russia to Canada, claims by Canada should have at least as much merit as Russia's. From time to time all the countries involve say they are invested in working amicably together. Then greed gets in the way of good intentions and each embarks on its individual plans to prove ownership, disputed by the others.

The geographic and geopolitical assertions on all fronts with a view to ownership of seabed resources will remain a contentious issue for some time to come until full clarification can be achieved through proper mapping and documentation and geological identification. Meanwhile the issues involved see all those nations jostling for primacy and injuring diplomatic relations.

All Bets Off!

There continue to be reverberations of blame-and-shame directed toward the United States, its executive and the orders given to the Navy SEALs to conduct an operation with the distinct purpose of eliminating the world's foremost terrorist. ...This is not the manner in which a civilized country prosecutes its agenda of forestalling terrorism. There are laws to be observed, international standards of niceties to be acknowledged.

And what the United States ordered be done was to conduct an official assassination. Yes, they did. They did what the Israeli Mossad has long considered to be effective and needfully useful.

Onlookers and bystanders are offended. Of course those who considered Osama bin Laden to be an honoured mujahedeen, a man of principle, a pious man of God, actually following orders from on high to defend Islam from the infidels and Crusaders are beside themselves with rage. Citing their determination to carry on without him, that his precious blood would not be spilled for no cause; he will be avenged.

Even his estranged sons whose own sensibilities were offended by their father's insistence on slaughtering innocent civilians; those of the West and Muslims as well, were dreadfully upset that their father was not politely arrested and placed on trial. Exception is also taken to the fact that his body was buried at sea; had film been taken of a Muslim scholar offering last rites in a land burial many claim they would have found that acceptable.

The burning question is why does it matter what his end was like considering the violence he espoused and demanded in the mass slaughter of innocent people? He was guilty of mass murder, and he continued to agitate for further slaughter in the name of Islam. He posed as a dire threat to the well-being of a good portion of the Globe, given the off-shoots of al-Qaeda posed and determined to terrorize their targets.

The niceties of the law become forfeit when facing up to a resourceful, indomitable, resistant-to-reason adversary who will grasp at any measures, however vile and destructive to wound an enemy mortally. Osama bin Laden was simply treated to his own brand of action in an act of official retribution for the thousands of lives he was responsible for terminating.

The United States is again being treated in some quarters - say for example, Britain, where the infiltration into society at many levels, including politics and academia of tolerance for Islamist rhetoric and claims for justice have been astoundingly successful, as an intolerant brute of a nation. An undercurrent of sympathy for bin Laden and recrimination toward the U.S. for killing the al-Qaeda leader runs through that society.

Even the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, had a sympathetic take on the situation: "I think the killing of an unarmed man is always going to leave a very uncomfortable feeling because it doesn't look as if justice is seen to be done." Justice? Why justice was indeed done, and seen to be done. It is the interpretation of justice that is at question here. Kill unmercifully and be yourself treated to no mercy.

Osama bin Laden whose sole raison d'etre is the destruction of Western society and the elevation of Islamism had no compassion whatever for those whom he delivered to death. He felt that anyone associated with the West was tainted and had no right to live. He engineered death traps, inspired followers to think of more inventive and useful ways to slaughter people.

Was he really owed the dignity of being handled with respect? His life was to be given the respect and the dignity and the honour that was denied by him to countless others? He used every and any means at his disposal to destroy life, why was his life worthy of special consideration? Those who express reservations about the manner in which his life was taken are clearly confused.

It's the same old story about reservations taken by those who are uninvolved; those who are not threatened, demanding of those who must defend themselves that they do so fully observing the fine points of the law. When you're dead because of a lack of attention to the big picture and too much attention to the fine details, the finality of it all cannot be reversed.

When faced with a deadly venom-spewing architect of death it is best removed expeditiously. Those who speak derisively of the U.S. action in removing any further options from bin Laden, whose voices caress the words "moral obligations", are sadly delusional.

The Dignity of Moral Indignation

Pakistan is well and truly fed up. Their faultless assistance to the West in the interests of halting international jihad has been questioned once too often. Pakistan has made many sacrifices, all of them for naught, since the innuendos and accusations continue to mount. While Pakistan must continue to protect itself from the slurs and the slanders it has undergone in the process a humiliating and undeserved blow from its erstwhile partner in the war on terror.

Pakistan's parliamentarians will no longer facilitate American-led operations in their country. For their sovereignty has been breached once too often, and they have no intention of absorbing any further, future insults on this magnitude of order and insult. The adventure that blind-sided Pakistan's military and its secret service must never be permitted to repeat itself; the U.S. raid that culminated in the death of Osama bin Laden was intolerable.

What self-respecting country could, after all, abide the insult to its lawful autonomy suffered by Pakistan as a result of the "situation arising for unilateral U.S. action in Abbottabad". No consultation, no assistance requested, no permission to invade sovereign territory - unsupportable, insufferable, hubristic scorn of a trusted friend and staunch ally.

As for the drone strikes which Pakistan has made known at the very highest levels of American authority that it will no longer tolerate: "Such drone attacks must be stopped forthwith, failing which the government will be constrained to consider taking necessary steps including withdrawal of (the) transit facility allowed to NATO".

Now that's hitting them where it counts. It's been done before, on a strictly petulantly temporary basis, but this time it will be a permanent withdrawal of agreement - should NATO and specifically the United States not deign to apologize and to withhold from future such strikes. The NATO troop supplies transiting across the northwestern border crossings already under militant attacks may be withdrawn.

What then, NATO? Complete withdrawal of NATO troops, a suitable conclusion for all concerned. And then, of course, Afghanistan will be at the complete mercy of the Afghan Taliban, trained, protected, armed and given haven by official Pakistan which never dreamed that their own Pakistani Taliban would arise to offer them untold grief.

Still, with the Afghan Taliban back in place, Pakistan would be assured that its plans to possess its neighbour's 'trust', turning off any potential inroads by its political nemesis India, might very well eventuate. And then, emboldened by success, Pakistan could then return its attention to booting India out of Kashmir. And from there forward - who knows?

Perhaps it would be a matter of effectively striking India with nuclear weaponry before that country had the opportunity to respond with alacrity; that the damage done India would suffice to lend Pakistan the ultimate advantage....

Devious to the end ... and the end is deadly.

An Impression of Pakistan

Pakistan is furious, beside itself with anger. Its sovereignty, its air space has been invaded by a foreign country's military. Moreover, a military engagement of the highest priority had not been vetted through disclosure of the event in its planning stages with Pakistan's government, or with its military or its secret service. That the United States failed to communicate its intention with official Pakistan is an insult to its honour, and one that will not be forgotten nor forgiven.

Pakistan is, after all, a staunch ally of the West in the battle against Islamist extremism. Pakistan has made many sacrifices in the war against terror. Pakistan's prime minister has warned the United States his country has every intention of protecting and defending its airspace from any further, future such incursions. Pakistan will not stand by to be insulted again.

The people of Pakistan are infuriated beyond frenzy that a foreign power would stain the honour of their country in such a brazen manner.

Pakistan, the recipient of billions of support funding for its military annually from the United States, is indebted to no one; no country, no foreign military machine, no diplomatic missions, and certainly no president other than their own. The humiliation that the country is reeling under is indefensible.

An ally should not be treated in such an insultingly cavalier manner. And it hardly bears repeating that no one in an official capacity had any knowledge of the presence of Osama bin Laden within Pakistan.

While it does seem peculiar that elite military officers located in an secure army academy a stone's throw from the al-Qaeda leader's compound knew nothing of his presence, and Islamabad's total ignorance of Osama bin Laden's six-year residence in a garrison town located within an hour's drive of the capital, it is nevertheless true.

The Inter-Services Intelligence agency simply overlooked his presence; there is no truth whatever to the U.S.-sourced rumours that state otherwise.

As minor pay-back, for the second time, Pakistan has outed the CIA station chief tasked with representing American interests in Islamabad. Like his predecessor, Mark Carlton, has left Pakistan since he is now a marked man in the down-payment on some measure of revenge at insulting the country.

Sullying the honour of Pakistan by insinuations that it has colluded with the world's greatest terrorist threat is unforgivable.

"The army is very much hurt. There was an understanding to continue our co-operation in the war on terrorism and then in the following weeks they did this. It shows how much they trust us. The Americans think they can do whatever they want, but the Pakistan people are full of hate for them." Pakistani government source

Sad how misunderstood Pakistan is. It is not a crucible for teaching jihadis terror methodology. It is not a haven for the Taliban and for al-Qaeda. It does not have a multitude of Saudi-funded madrassas teaching fundamentalist Islamism and glorifying martyrdom to impressionable students left with the impression that they must fulfill their obligations to Islam by becoming mujaheddin.

However could the world have gained such an impression of Pakistan?

In Pursuit of Terrorism

"He was a huge man, hunted by the world. So why would he have chosen to live here, in a military restricted area, so close to the academy and to so many barracks, without a proper security detail of his own?" Neighbour of House 254; Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound

"How many times have we heard that Osama has been killed already? At least five. And this time is no different. I can't believe he was here and I don't believe he is dead." Pakistani anti-terrorist commando

It is likely quite true that Pakistan's President, Asif Ali Zardari, as he petulantly claims, had little actual knowledge of Osama bin Laden's residence so close to Islamabad. It is also likely to be more true that Pakistan's infamous secret service, the ISI, and the country's military elite, both of which have long been infiltrated by Taliban and al-Qaeda agents, collaborated on establishing bin Laden and his family in Abbottabad.

The locals, all of whom represented wealthy elite, many of them former high-placed military officers, were well aware that Arab-speaking people comprising an extended family, and choosing to isolate themselves from the community, lived very close to the country's top military academy. The residents of the compound were never seen, apart from two Pashtun brothers.

Those two identified themselves as having come from the North-West Frontier province, an isolated mountainous tribal area. The story bruited about was that they had run afoul of another tribe through a feud that threatened their very lives. The compound they built a stone's throw from the military academy six years earlier represented their escape from tribal retribution.

The gate leading to the compound, set into its four-to-six metre high retaining wall topped with barbed wire, was always closed. Few entered or exited, and they were always authorized to do so. Security was tight, and those existing within the compound lived an extremely secluded life. The story seemed plausible enough to neighbours in a country where tribal vengeance was lethally traditional.

But the military installation would know in minute details everything about every resident in the area. It is not even remotely plausible that they would not be aware of whom the compound sheltered. The former Pakistani high commissioner to Britain and formerly located in Abottabad as a government functionary stated his own disbelief at the government's disclaimer of knowledge.

"I believe it is inconceivable that the authorities in Pakistan did not know about Osama bin Laden's whereabouts in Abottabad. This is not some sort of place you have an outlaw like Osama bin Laden, unless ... through the connivance of the authorities." So put that absurd
disclaimer to rest. Although President Zardari defies the international community's thoughts on Pakistan's complicity.

It is, without doubt, an embarrassment to Pakistan's government. It is also unquestionable that there is more authority residing within the military and the ISI than within the government of Pakistan. In the past President Zardari has been forced to admit that he has not always been made aware of what the military is involved in. In forging peace with India he must first have the assurance of the military that he may proceed.

This is a country whose government has never been able to extend its authority to Waziristan and the NWF provinces. It is also a government and a military that has always fomented problems for Afghanistan, nurturing, training, arming the Taliban, before they had to face a Taliban of their own. Yet Pakistan plays both sides of the fence, claiming to be a partner with the West against global terrorism.

This nuclear-armed Islamic country has confronted its neighbour India time and again over its conflicted position with respect to Kashmir, claiming ownership and coming to the brink of war now and again. Attacks on India, in Kashmir and more recently in Mumbai, were conducted with the active assistance of the Pakistan military in league with Lashkar e Taiba.

"Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn't reflect fact", stressed President Zardari, in defending his administration from the calumny of the truth; that official Pakistan remains in league with both the Taliban and al-Qaeda. And Pakistan hastens to assure the United States that it is totally innocent of collaboration with the enemy.

Despite the U.S. secret service knowing full well the extent of Pakistan's collaboration. And the billions keep rolling in, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer, to help Pakistan pay for its costly military. It has become addictive to Pakistan; swear allegiance to the West's need to protect itself from jihadists, and count the billions - roughly $20-billion since 9-11 - that accrue.

Pity a forensic audit couldn't be conducted to trace how much of U.S. taxpayer-funded treasury has been invested in aiding and abetting the Taliban, let alone paying for the bin Laden compound.

Do We Care? Should We?

The narrative got a little carried away with itself. The world's past-perfect number one terror agent did not, after all, grab for the nearest machine gun in his bedroom when confronted with U.S. Navy SEALS but his astonishment at being accosted was taken as a signal that he was resisting his own abduction, so he was therefore put out of commission, and the abduction carried out without any further fuss or mess.

Oh, apart from his wife also being put out of commission in a far gentler way that she will recover from.

Osama bin Laden, not so much. Shots aimed directly at the head, and another for good measure at the heart have that long-lasting effect, after all. Should we mourn the passing of this dread menace to the world? Only if you enjoy the spectacle of masses of innocents dying long before their time. Only if you're a devoted member of violent jihad. Only if you belong to Hamas and Hezbollah; if you're part of the Iranian establishment.

Oops, wrong there; for it seems that ordinary Muslims, some of whom would be dispatched on his orders without the blink of an eye, feel that whatever else he was, he was a Muslim and as such being killed by infidels is a travesty, a dishonour, an affront to all Muslims. Of course the reverse is also true, that non-Muslims felt rather put-upon being mortally threatened by someone who espoused it as a solemn and sacred duty to kill them in the name of Islam.

To take this lethal threat to the international community out of commission is not, on a scale of to-dos to make the world a better place, too low a priority. Having done so, it has caused a sense of quiet satisfaction among those whom al-Qaeda has threatened, among those who have lost loved ones, among those who believe he had no right to live while others died at his command.

And, of course, it has caused shrill outrage among those who venerated him.

Who are, even now, feverishly planning how they may best undertake to avenge their peerless martyr. The entire event has captured the attention of the United Nations, as well. The Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, considers the event a "watershed moment in our common global fight against terrorism." An opinion not shared by Navi Pillay, High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Who qualifies the operation as an 'illegal' act by a state entity. The High Commissioner has requested that Washington supply her with minute details to convince that the assassination of Osama bin Laden was a needfully necessary act of spring cleaning. This was a stealthy operation, one long planned, to extinguish the evil genius of jihad central. There are no rules to this particular game.

The United States more or less made up its own rules on the fly. There were existing templates and they were taken due note of. Success builds upon future successes. Kill and be killed. The niceties of legal conventions occasionally should be dispensed with.

For The Greater Good

"We will always reserve the right to defend ourselves. We will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. Tonight, we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who've worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome."

Another little-reported interview with Benjamin Netanyahu, after yet another successful IDF exploit? Responding to another attempt to breach the protective wall between the Palestinian Territories and Israel with murderous intent? The successful Iron Dome shielding Israel from Hamas-propelled rocket attacks? The apprehension of another group of terrorists entering Jerusalem to blow up civilians?

Not Netanyahu? Ah, Barack Obama, of course.

This is not Hamas being referred to, or Fatah-associated militias on a murder spree caught before their mission could be completed. This is Osama bin Laden caught asleep in his bedroom in his luxurious, well guarded villa in the scenic mountains of Pakistan. He sleeps now in perpetuity, released from his mortal coil. His cold flesh food for carnivorous fish, his bones settling on the ocean floor.

If he had the time to recognize what was occurring when the Navy SEALS burst into his compound and through to the second floor, to understand that his long and successful career in instilling fear and terror in the hearts of Western civilian populations was coming to a close, it would be interesting to know whether he felt fear and terror. He was resolute in his determination to sever life from innocents; how resolute was he finally on his own behalf?

The highly successful targeted operation, in the planning stages for a long time, and for which a rehearsal was staged on a purpose-built set comprised of a look-alike compound in the United States went off flawlessly. The man who pioneered the strategic art of confounding his chosen enemies with a series of impeccably organized and executed attacks claiming thousands of innocent lives no longer exists.

His legacy does, unfortunately; those countless hate-mongers who inspired by his cunning and bold example, do their utmost to emulate him, devising new and sometimes successful pursuits in establishing new standards for mass murder. Recruits range from the mentally retarded to adventurously vulnerable adolescents, along with the seasoned warriors who value their own lives, and exploit those of the gullible.

A mere 30 miles distant from Islamabad, that secret, guarded compound. A veritable stone's throw from an elite military base of the Pakistan military. In a town where the wealthy and the entitled live, and where the ISI and the military must make it a common practise to know who goes there. The presence of Osama bin Laden and his family quite unknown to the Pakistan government.

What an amazing surprise. Who knew? Well, no one. The United States is jubilant, the operation the first of its kind in precision perfection. The Israeli raid on Entebbe, foiling the PLO and Idi Amin's guard not representing a template? Is it legal, is it moral for a country to order its specially trained militias to embark on high-stakes missions like this or to use predator drones to 'take out' high-value targets?

After all, the bad guys don't care who they kill in the pursuit of their agenda. The good guys do care, take especial steps to ensure civilians are not caught in cross-fire. Sigh, those predator drones striking the wrong target; civilian deaths. And the raid on bin Laden's compound that saw him shot in the head, twice, and the chest, once, to ensure the job was done ... an estimated 22 unidentified men and a woman also died.

So there are sacrifices ... for the greater good. The greater good representing the avoidance, through acting thus, of further civilian deaths on the good guys' side. Somewhat like the aerial bombing of Dresden. Like Little Boy hitting Hiroshima. Like seven dead Turks aboard the Mavi Marmora? Like dead Palestinian Gazans whom Hamas used as human shields during the IDF invasion responding to rocket attacks?

Depends. The international community does not invest too heavily in criticizing a power like the United States, taking its inspiration from another country that responds as it must to deadly provocations from a determined enemy. But the international community does respond with vigour and passion to a tiny country encircled by deadly antagonists, decrying "disproportional" or "inhumane" responses.

Funny how things play out.

'Justice Has Been Done'

In April 2001, the ISI funded the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, headed by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, to hold a three-day International Deoband Conference near Peshawar. (The Deobandi are a sect of Sunni Islam, among whose adherents are the Taliban and Pakistani extremists who believe in active jihad.) Hundreds of thousands of people attended the meeting, which pledged support to the Taliban. A message from Osama bin Laden was read out in support of Mullah Omar. Western embassies in Islamabad were appalled at the rally, as it was in total defiance of UN sanctions against the Taliban. In late April, the ISI allowed Lashkar -e-Tayyaba, one of the largest extremist groups fighting in Kashmir, to hold a similar rally near Lahore, in which it denounced the British government for placing it on a list of terrorist groups. By staging such rallies, when all political rallies were banned by the regime, the ISI was sending an unambiguous message to the Americans and the UN: that Pakistan continued to support the Taliban even as the UN attempted to seek an end to the civil war in Afghanistan. Ahmed Rashid: Descent Into Chaos

Not quite. Vengeance has had its day. But it is a hollow cause for celebration. For truth is, the death of Osama bin laden has been too long in coming. In the years since the attacks on the World Trade Center, and the years previous to that exercise in wholesale terror, with previous attacks on symbols of the West, the man with the mission had ample opportunity to leave a legacy by creating an empire of jihad through the enthusiastic connivance of eager young Muslims eager to become one with Islamist militant fanatics.

Osama bin Laden's bold challenge of the "infidel" United States, his assertion that the West was intent on completely subjugating the Islamic world for the larger purpose of humbling Islam to Christianity - and in the process taking ownership of the wealth that resided in Islam's geographies in the form of fossil fuels greedily acquired by Western interests, leaving little of value behind for the true owners - made him a popular revolutionary figure.

The boldness of his enterprise in planning and targeting the very symbols - military, political, financial of the most powerful nation on Earth, guaranteed him a place of honour in the Muslim pantheon of revolutionary heroes. "Dead or alive", claimed U.S. President Barack Obama's predecessor, but the target eluded him, just as it had his predecessor, before 9-11. Is there a strange twist to justice here that the scion of a Muslim man from Kenya, a biracial president, now claims victory on the death of the prime nemesis of the West?

Had this man who was born from wealth and privilege and who portrayed himself as a humble mujaheddin in the service of Allah, been apprehended at a far earlier date, thousands of lives would have been spared. Among them thousands of Muslim lives who fell victim to the bloody depredations of al-Qaeda-affiliated militias. For although it is Western targets that claim world headlines when jihadist disaster strikes, it is Muslim lives that represent the larger life-forfeited contingent.

There was much conjecture about the health of bin Laden; he was presumed to be morbidly ill with some dread disease on more than one occasion; thought so because of his ascetic appearance in seemingly difficult circumstances, living inconspicuously in mountain caves. Yet it was within a palatial mansion adjacent to a Pakistani military installation in a small town not far from Pakistan's capital, where the political-military head of al-Qaeda was discovered to be discreetly residing.

His death is at this juncture, more symbolic than practical. He had ample time and opportunity to help establish countless offshoots of al-Qaeda, spreading them throughout the world; not only in the Middle East the Far East and the African Maghreb, but through little associated cells in North America. And his chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri is alive and well and more than capable of filling not only his own operational role but that of bin Laden's as well. He can now issue videos inspiring the faithful to destroy the West.

Burial at sea could guarantee that no shrine could be erected over his burial site, but bin Laden remains an inspiration to the jihad-embracing men and women who venerated him for his contempt for the West and his unswerving devotion of violent jihad. Jihadists are now honour-bound to redeem bin-Laden's infelicitous death at the hands of infidels, by mounting further devastating attacks.

They have been empowered.

BP's Compensatory Responsibilities

Isn't that just like human nature? Tucking the conscience and ethics away in a corner - as high up as possible, so it's a real stretch to reach them and pluck them down for later use - in favour of diligently taking advantage of opportunities when they present themselves. Something like the sudden loss of law and order when disaster strikes and people begin looting, not to waste unexpected opportunities.

In this instance it is the opportunities that presented themselves in the chaos and rush of a presidential order to begin compensating townsfolk living directly in the wake of an unprecedented Gulf Coast oil spill a year ago when BP was desperately attempting to contain the Gulf of Mexico disaster in the wake of a rented oil rig being stricken and eleven men working on it drowning, with the following runaway oil gusher.

The U.S. government negotiated (furiously strong-armed) a $20-billion claims compensation and clean-up package for Gulf Coast residents from BP. And then of course there was the billions consumed in various other initiatives to try to control the oil spillage. The company is preparing to sell off assets to the value of $30-billion to help pay their bills. It is, needless to say, their responsibility.

On the good news side of the equation are stories coming out of the area that in most instances the ocean itself appears to have helped considerably in the clean-up by pushing the grease and oil away from land, and absorbing what it could. That beaches and wetlands are no longer impacted, with oil contamination nowhere to be seen. Aquatic life is returning to normal, and birds normally seen in the area are also returning. Nature coming to its own rescue.

And then there are other stories, describing the "BP rich", the new "spillionaries"; Gulf towns and their residents who have taken what some might consider to be excessive advantage of spectacular opportunities to do well by themselves. Such as cleanup companies submitting bills for payment not bothering to complicate matters by itemizing things, and by submitting documentation with their invoices. Stamped paid.

A subcontractor billing BP $15,400 monthly for rental of a generator that it usually rents out for $1,500 a month. A company charging BP over $1-million a month for land that it had formerly rented out for less than $1,700 a month. "This parish raped BP. At the end of the day, it really just frustrates me. I'm an elected official. I have guilt by association", confessed the chairman of the St.Bernard Parish Council.

People living in areas that hadn't recovered from the depredations of Hurricane Katrina, where almost every home was flooded, made compensation claims to BP for payback following the spill. Money flowed generously to people claiming their lives, their properties, their livelihoods had been deleteriously impacted by the oil spill crisis.

People who vituperatively blasted BP, a foreign enterprise that degraded the U.S. coastline and created a disaster for the environment and for thousands of people who depended on the marshes and the oceans to supply them with their livelihood, went out of their way to take BP to the cleaners. It was clear to many that businesses that had been hit by the recession, not the spill, were receiving BP compensation.

"I don't understand how BP is just giving its money out like this. Give it to the people who deserve it", said the manager at St.Bernard's off-track betting parlour, noting the increase in customers gambling claims money, increasing her business to the extent that employees had to work overtime to accommodate all the new business.

Less Super Power?

There has long been universal agreement that the United States of America is the last one standing in the ring of global power as the single remaining global powerhouse. The Cold War lapsed into history leaving the Soviet Union dissolved and one super power only. Cause for celebration since the United States is and always has been, despite its blighted errors, been on the side of the angels.

That would be the angels of Freedom and Human Rights and Justice.

While there may be many other countries and nations whose track record and whose support of those inalienable virtues in a restive and volatile world are undeniable, they lack the military, social, political and diplomatic clout that the United States has honed over the years.

China and India have larger populations by far, but they haven't the additional indispensable ingredients: advanced technologies, an omnivorous economy, diplomatic outreach, political stability, an large and educated population and historical antecedents.

Most other advanced countries of the world are endowed with some, if not many of the requisite virtues, social-political traits, stability and financial clout, but they are runners-up to the throne that the U.S. occupies.

China, India, Brazil and Russia may continue to grow their bona fides and their entitlements and no one can read the future, but there is no real reason to believe that the U.S. is really when all is said and experienced, prepared to surrender itself to second-string status.

France has demonstrated a newly-realized aptitude to take the place of the United States in initiating military solutions to seemingly intractable political-social situations abroad, as has done Britain, and to a lesser, more restrained degree, Germany. They all have rather insalubrious past histories demonstrative of a serious fall from grace.

Japan too abandoned its reach toward a world power status and became instead an economic power.

The ebb and flow of history, the interconnectedness of world powers, of politics and finances with global corporate interests have resulted in a softening of former antipathies and a general consensus toward social and political union.

And up the centre aisle has marched the backwater nations of the Muslim world; Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, led by the Arab nations and taunted by Iran.

The coalition of disaster-nations like North Korea, Burma, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan in destabilizing the world order and the orderly world that would prefer to live and let live, innovate and entrench, enjoy resource and build financial empires march us toward future uncertainty.

The pretenders to the throne of super-powerdom will remain pretenders - or willing assistants.

In the final analysis it seems clear that the United States, once again institutionally allergic to global power, and prepared to sit back and allow working coalitions to lead, will be given little choice but to take up the reins and direction of the world order.

It will become, increasingly, an imperative its leaders may not be capable of avoiding.

Vanguard Leadership Group

US Black Students Demand Arabs Stop Calling Israel Apartheid
by Maayana Miskin

The African-American student organization Vanguard Leadership Group is standing with Israel when it comes to use of the term “apartheid.” The term is “false and deeply offensive” when applied to Israel, the group said in advertisements published on Thursday.

The Vanguard Leadership Group spoke out in response to “apartheid” claims from the group Students for Justice in Palestine. Under an ad titled, “Words matter,” the group said, “We request that you immediately stop referring to Israel as an apartheid society and to acknowledge that the Arab minority in Israel enjoys full citizenship with voting rights and representation in the government.”

“It is highly objectionable to those who know the truth about the Israelis' record on human rights and how it so clearly contrasts with South Africa's,” the group said.

Students for Justice in Palestine “has chosen to manipulate rather than inform with this illegitimate analogy,” Vanguard Leadership said. “Decency, justice, and the hope of peace and reconciliation in the Middle East compel us to demand an immediate cessation to the deliberate mischaracterizations of Israel.”

Ceasing use of the term “apartheid” when discussing Israel would be a “first step toward raising the level of discourse,” the letter concluded.

Anti-Israel groups have long accused Israel of being an “apartheid state,” borrowing the term from South Africa, where for many decades a small white minority ruled the black majority by force. Racial discrimination was enforced by law, and black residents were denied citizenship, given inferior public services, barred from using white theaters, pools, churches, and other facilities, and judged under different laws.

In Israel, Arabs and other non-Jewish minorities are full citizens, with the same rights and obligations as any other Israeli. One exception is the fact that Arab citizens are not required to serve in the IDF, although they are allowed to do so, and a handful choose to enlist.

Palestinian Authority Arabs are not granted rights as citizens because they do not wish to become citizens, but rather, hope to create a new Arab state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Similarly, Israelis have no rights under PA law, and in fact, are forbidden to own land or even to enter PA-controlled areas.

As published online at ArutzSheva, 11 April 2011

U.S. Homeland Security Debate

NY Debate on Homeland Security Becomes Heated
by Elad Benari

A hearing in Manhattan on the subject of homeland security exploded on Friday when an Arab-American activist testified that she was taught as a youngster to “hate Jews” and “hate America”. Her comments enraged a Brooklyn lawmaker, who in response grabbed a Koran and accused her of spreading “hate and poison.”

The meeting was attended by ex-Muslim Nonie Darwish, director of Former Muslims United and founder of Arabs for Israel.

Darwish was born in Cairo and spent her childhood in Egypt and Gaza before immigrating to America in 1978, when she was eight years old. Her father, a high-ranking Egyptian military officer, died while leading covert attacks on Israel when he was in Gaza. While he was considered a “shahid” (martyr), earning Darwish and her family an elevated position in Muslim society, Darwish developed a skeptical eye at an early age, questioning Muslim culture and later abandoning Islam.

Darwish authored the book Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, in which she warns about the Islamic Sharia law and how it is manifested in Islamic countries.

She has said in the past that the hatred Muslims have for Jews is even worse than the hatred the Nazis had for them.

The New York Post quoted Darwish as saying during Friday’s meeting: “Check what's going on -- it's not a secret. You’re supposed to hate Jews, you’re supposed to hate America, you’re supposed to hate Western culture.”

In response, Democratic Senator Eric Adams held up a copy of the Koran and said: “This is offending this hearing by having her here. This is not our enemy...You’re bringing hate, hate and poison into a diverse country.”

The meeting chairman, Republican Greg Ball, instructed Adams to quiet down, which resulted in a shouting match between the two. Adams suggested that Ball condoned bigotry, and in response, Ball accused Adams of playing to the TV cameras.

“I'm glad no one is between those TV cameras and you,” Ball told Adams, “because that's the most dangerous place in New York City right now.”

Darwish was followed later by Frank J. Gaffney Jr., a former Defense Department official who has publicly criticized Islam. In his testimony Gaffney denounced Sharia law as a threat to the United States.

Also taking part in the hearing was Long Island Republican Representative Peter T. King, who initiated a Congressional hearing held last month on the question of homegrown Islamic terrorism.

The New York Times reported that King prefaced his comments by noting that “99 percent” of Muslims in the United States are “outstanding Americans” and not terrorists.

King added, however, that “the fact is: The enemy, or those being recruited by Al Qaeda, live within the Muslim community, and that’s the reality we have to face. This is not to put a broad brush over a community, but you go where the threat is coming from, and that’s the reality today.”

Click here for an op-ed by Nonie Darwish on the subject of Muslim women under Sharia law.

As published online at ArutzSheva, 11 April 2011

Until Islam Feels Fully Avenged

There's some stinging irony in the fact that both the United States and Afghanistan represent centres of extreme fundamentalist religious ideologies. Let it be said that there the similarities in the two countries, tenuous though they are, come to a slamming halt. The United States is, and always has been, a civilized country. Afghanistan never has been mistaken for one throughout its long history. The United States is a relatively "new" country, while Afghanistan represents one with a hoary old past.

And while the United States has never really been 'occupied', never had foreign troops stationed on its soil, Afghanistan has had that profound experience, repeatedly. The United States is a technologically modern country, with an independent judiciary, and a Republican-style Democracy where citizenship is taken seriously and justice, fairness are liberty are top-of-mind for all its citizens. Afghanistan represents a stone-age throwback, rife with political and social corruption, where the concept of citizenship is an unknown.

There are political rivalries in each of these countries, but in the United States those rivalries are settled at the ballot box, or if otherwise done, handled in a court of law. In Afghanistan the rivalries are ethnic and tribal and clan-based, and there is nothing gentle or civil in the manner in which disagreements are solved. Murder and assassinations settle outstandingly irksome problems with one's neighbours, and never, ever are purported insults to Islam, the Koran or the Prophet countenanced outside of casually-committed capital punishment.

Murder is not officially condoned, but there are times when it is overlooked because a far more serious crime has been encountered. That of profaning the Koran, for example. The public outcry that results from insulting Islam can be heard in Outer Space where Allah doubtless covers his ears in disgust, while witnessing his creatures imbued with free will running amok, determined to slaughter those who dare defy the strictures against profaning his name.

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, whose longevity in his political post owes entirely to the presence of American and other NATO-member troops in his country as they do his battle against the viciously bloody ravages of the fanatical Taliban, calls upon the United States Congress to censure a fundamentalist American citizen/cleric for destroying a Koran. A little-noticed non-event until Mr. Karzai transformed it into a national outrage.

When fanatical clerics preached enmity from their mosques, all over the country, inciting the ever-volatile response from the faithful to go out and demonstrate their incendiary anger with the hateful foreign invaders whose like burns Korans, the results were predictable. Hatred, looting, pillage, beatings, slaughter, and wholesale destruction seem to come naturally to the Koranic faithful.

In the United States it is lawful for any citizen to publicly behave in a manner that will be seen by some as insulting. It is their right in a free society to express themselves to that degree. In the world of Islam there are no rights, much less those of free speech. In the Islamic world there is fear and anger and hatred. And that fear and anger and hatred is dispatched whenever the world of Islam feels insulted.

The threat of violent reprisal is usually sufficient to still foreign criticism. No one willingly awakens the restless slumber of that massive beast.

In Kandahar, following an earlier riot of hatred and anger unleashed against the foreign presence of humanitarian aid workers working for the United Nations in Mazar-i-Sharif, another furious crowd of offended Muslims attacked in Kandahar, slaughtering another eight people to avenge themselves against the act of a Florida pastor torching a Koran in memory of the 9-11 attacks.

Anger: Afghan protesters burn an effigy of U.S. President Barack Obama during a demonstration in Jalalabad

The United Nations representative for Afghanistan is forgiving. He does not 'blame' Afghans for reacting to the atrocious insult to Islam. He does blame an ignorant fundamentalist preacher for inciting Afghans to display their hurt feelings. Standards of acceptable behaviour are obviously held to a different yardstick; the burning of a Koran is more reprehensible than the slaughter of innocent people who wished no harm to Afghans.

We know this must be so, since even the President of the United States speaks in measured tones of profound regret that a Koran was destroyed, and seems to equate in a most generously egalitarian manner the comparison between that atrocity and the viciously rampaging mobs that hunted down humanitarian aid workers and their guards to demonstrate unequivocally that what one Westerner wreaks in offence to Islam will be paid for many times over by other Westerners until Islam feels fully avenged.

American Intelligence; Unparallelled

"For decades, U.S. intelligence agencies have routinely shared critical information with the covert operations organizations of such allied countries as the United Kingdom, Israel, Germany and other NATO powers. However, these “old-line” powers do not possess the deep resources of human intelligence (“humintel”) required for understanding the new Middle East, U.S. State Department analyst Lazlo Toth told Fox News Reporters yesterday. “What is more, many of those countries have agendas that are in fact at odds with the development of new, fragile democratic movements in the Middle East. The old European powers, the Israelis, none of them have a vital agenda in the emergence of popular-driven government. In fact, some of them are actively opposed to it. So we realized that we needed to find new friends in the region. And now we have found them.”

Toth explained that U.S. intelligence agencies have for the past 12 months been working with new security partners: the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood. “This once-controversial group, which long ago renounced the use of force, has an incredibly far-ranging web of connections,” Toth said. “Their assets extend through every Middle Eastern country, a number of nations in Asia, and even extend to a network of campus student organizations in the U.S. They have so much to offer us, now that we have won their trust,” Toth said. “It took time for us to convince some of the 'Old Guard' inside our intel agencies that we have no long-term quarrel with the Brothers,” Toth told Fox reporters. “But this administration has been unrelenting about this, making a number of transfers and forced retirements in order to clear away irrational opposition to our new approach.”

The Muslim Brotherhood shares America's concern with human rights, democratic governance, and the need for values-based political activism, Toth said. “We just needed to strongly motivate some of our senior staff in order to make them see it.” Posted by Roland Shirk on April 1, 2011 4:01 PM |on the Jihad Watch web site http://www.jihadwatch.org

And then there is another reality, one that appears to have bypassed U.S. Intelligence, but one that is shared by many writers who are knowledgeable about the Muslim Brotherhood, their very long history in Egypt, their agenda, and their spread throughout the world. Take, for example, the Canadian Muslim scholar Tarek Fatah and what he has to say about the Muslim Brotherhood in his book Chasing a Mirage, The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State:

From India to Indonesia and Morocco to Malaysia, the Muslim Brotherhood ideology of jihad and Islamic supremacy is being challenged by fellow Muslims. However, in Canada, the United States, and the West it seems the Muslim Brotherhood and its Pakistani wing, the Jamaat-e-Islami of Abul Ala Maudoodi, dominate the Muslim narrative. The few voices that do stand up to the open exhibition of jihadi ideology in Canada and the United States face serious obstacles. For example, two Muslim experts who were hired by the US TV network PBS to advise it on a series on Islam ensured that Canadian filmmaker Martyn Burke's documentary Islam vs. Islamists was excluded. It was later widely reported that the two knew the very Islamist groups that were the subject of the documentary investigation. It took months of lobbying by the producer, including a viewing for members of the US Congress, to compel PBS to lift what amounted to a covert ban.

But it appears that although Muslims themselves who are aware of the Brotherhood agenda, through familiarity with their insiders are not taken seriously by those in the U.S. who claim they know better. After all, the Muslim Brotherhood have taken great pains to cultivate the impression that they share "America's concern for human rights, democratic governance and the need for values-based political activism". It's just that inconvenient little fact that's being overlooked that it is their particular view of values and the political activism that they support; quite unlike, in fact, that of the Americans.

The contacts within the Muslim Brotherhood of which U.S. State Department Toth is so proud of having disarmed and cultivated represent a cleverly integrated suspicion-disabling group whose agenda is clear to some, though not to those whom Toth represents: "Today's movement for an Islamic theocracy is structured around the creation of an Islamic State based on the works of Abul Ala Maudoodi and Hassan al-Banna of the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Muslim Brotherhood." (Tarek Fatah)

There is also the opinion of an authoritative scholar on Middle Eastern affairs, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics who wrote in an article titled "The Left and the Jihad", speaking of political accommodation between Islamism and leftist groups:

"The latter show every indication of appearing to see some combination of al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Hamas and (not least) Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as exemplifying a new form of international anti-imperialism that matches - even completes - their own historic project. This putative combined movement may be in the eyes of such leftist groups and intellectual trends hampered by "false consciousness", but this does not compromise the impulse to "objectively" support or at least indulge them.

And, it would appear, under the new accommodating spirit of the American administration led by President Barack Obama that is the unifying principle; taking from the left's accommodation of political Islamism and reaching an accord with the very groups whose hidden agenda, and sometimes not-so-hidden agenda, is to collapse the values and priorities, political structure and justice system of the Western world, into a Sharia-led global caliphate; by any means and stealth as good as any.

"We - the befuddled infidels - talk airily about "reforming" Islam. But what if the reform has already taken place and jihadism is it? What if the long percolation of Islam through Wahhabism, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Iranian revolution, and contemporary Western-promoted whining over grievances such as "colonialism" is the reform? Mark Steyn, America Alone

Muslim victimhood crying aloud for understanding and commitment to their cause on the part of the West's judicial and political and intelligence establishment. Permitting their supporters to feel superior to others who view the poor misunderstood victims of Islamophobia as harbouring an agenda whose fulfilment will make victims of them, while allowing the triumph of political Islamism through both violent and disarmingly diplomatic overtures to the better natures of those in the West who do not want to be labelled anti-Islam.

In his book Descent Into Chaos, Ahmed Rashid documents compellingly just how stupidly blind the United States and Britain and their allies have been in going into Afghanistan, in being manipulated by Afghans and by Pakistan, allowing themselves to be used, bled of treasury and personnel, while sectarian, tribal and inter-country intrigues, drawing in Iran, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan, along with Russia and nearby Uzbekistan have proceeded in a drawn-out, endless bloody conflict.

"Afghanistan had always tried to balance regional powers, taking money from the Soviets and the United States and balancing the demands of both Iran and Pakistan. However, Mohammed Daud overrode Afghanistan's balancing act and tilted decisively toward the Soviets, thereby increasing the influence of the two rival communist parties Khalq (the Masses) and Parcham (the Flag). Daud's tilt led to a crackdown on the country's nascent Islamic fundamentalist movement, which in order to avoid arrest fled across the border to Pakistan in 1975. The Afghan Islamists were linked with the Muslim Brotherhood and Pakistan's Jamiat-e-Islami, who gave them sanctuary."

In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood, throughout its long history has worked tirelessly to spread their gospel of violent jihad to overthrow moderate Islam, and it is their inspiration along with that of the Saudi's Wahhabist school of fundamentalist Islam that has promoted the concept of an re-awakening among the world's Muslims, to submit themselves entirely to Islam, to reject any accommodation with forbidden Western values. And, as Ahmed Rashid demonstrates, the Muslim Brotherhood remains an inspiring jihadist Islamist force to this day, despite its clever manoeuvres to intellectually disarm its detractors, those who are determined to look behind their veil of sinister intent:

Seizing the opportunity to weaken India, the ISI encouraged young Kashmiris to come to Pakistan for training. The ISI first trained secular and nationalist Kashmiri groups but quickly switched its support to Kashmiri Islamic groups, who were linked to Pakistan's own Islamic parties. These Kashmiris drew their inspiration from the Muslim Brotherhood and described their struggle as an Islamic war of national liberation, but not as a jihad. However, in 1995-1996, fearing that the insurgency was petering out, the ISI shifted its support again - this time to Pakistani and Kashmiri extremist groups belonging to the Deobandi sect of Sunni Islam, which believed in a jihad to defeat India and "Islamize" Kashmir. It was precisely at this juncture that the ISI also switched its support in Afghanistan from Gulbuddin Hikmetyar to the Deobandi-inspired Taliban. This decision had less to do with religion than with the fact that in both Kashmir and Afghanistan such groups were more extreme in their hatred for India and more willing to do the ISI's bidding. the ISI soon shifted many of the Kashmiri training camps to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

This just happens to be the very same tail-that-wags-the-dog ISI, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate that has been infiltrated through-and-through with Islamists that influences whatever the government of Pakistan has done, and with whom the United States intelligence services have traditionally done business with.

"Washington had lavishly aided Pakistan's military, and U.S. legislators now asked where were the results of that aid. Between 2002 and 2007, the Bush administration had provided Pakistan with $3.5 billion in aid, more than half of that for the military. Between 2002 and 2005 the military had received another $3.6 billion in payments for use of its facilities and services by the U.S. Defence Department, while the United States had forgiven Pakistani debt worth over $3.0 billion. The CIA had paid large secret sums to the ISI in order to improve its performance and provide reward money for catching al-Qaeda leaders. the army received another $30 to $40 million to improve border security. Washington provided for the computerization of all international passenger traffic at the country's airports, the creation of an air wing for the army to monitor FATA, the building of access roads in FATA* and police training in several fields, including crime scene analysis and a centralized fingerprint ID system. Officially by 2007, the United States had provided $10 billion in aid to Islamabad, and unofficially the figure was much higher, yet FATA and indeed Pakistan were now greater threats than ever before. With terrorism on the increase, U.S. legislators were asking the Bush administration where the money had gone. *Federally Administered Tribal Areas Ahmed Rashid, Descent Into Chaos

And now, in 2011, with a new Democratic American administration replacing the Republican-Bush era, legislators can look around them at the accomplishments of the State Department, the CIA, the diplomatic and the military-industrial machinery, and ask, even while their country is in the deep dudgeon of monumental debt, what has been achieved by liberally sprinkling their treasury funds around the Middle East and the Muslim world, to achieve a detente, and to better understand the Islamist agenda.

Quite outstanding intelligence work there. Understandable why they would not seek the assistance of countries whose intelligence networks traditionally and conventionally they had sought. It might be too embarrassing to admit how utterly gulled they have been.

Unparalleled professionalism.

What If?

It's not all that far a stretch of probability. It happened in Afghanistan with the U.S. and Pakistan conspiring to aid the mujahadeen, training and arming them to confront Soviet forces in the invasion of Afghanistan. And those mujahadeen formed the core of the Taliban which then ruled Afghanistan when the Soviet troops left.

And from among the mujahadeen another corps was formed, that of al-Qaeda. The alliance between the Taliban and al-Qaeda was a natural one.

And the flaming enmity of al-Qaeda toward the West and specifically the United States became the most evident turning point of the Islamist revival. Which has since spread incorrigibly throughout the Muslim world. The Islamists have succeeded in overturning moderate Islam to reflect a fundamentalist, fanatic version of Islam which conducted its own internal war within the ummah.

Islamists who fought in Afghanistan were recruited from all over the Muslim and Arab world. Many of them returned to their source, and one of those sources was eastern Libya. In 2009 a Canadian intelligence report described eastern Libya as an "epicentre of Islamist extremism", where "extremist cells" were well represented.

Canada's Integrated Threat Assessment Centre identified "several Islamist insurgent groups" based in mosques in Benghazi, urging its members to fight in Iraq. They are suspected of having infiltrated the ranks of the rebel forces now battling Moammar Gadhafi's forces. And, like a nightmare recurring, the United States, Britain , France and Qatar are considering arming the rebels.

A recently-convened conference of 40 governments and international bodies reached agreement to continue the NATO-led aerial bombing of Libyan forces, hoping to force Gadhafi to comply with the United Nations resolution to end its violence against its civilians. The conflict in Libya is between the West and the East of the country; a tribal conflict.

In many of the cities that rebound from government control to rebel occupation and then back again, there are citizens who battle on the government side, against the rebel forces. This is a country that has been riven by clan warfare and tribal antipathies, a reflection of what exists in every Arab and Muslim country globally.

It is into this melee that the West has intervened, focusing on the presence of a maniacal tyrant determined to continue his personal ownership of a country, violating the human rights of his own exploited people, celebrating his ownership of the proceeds of the country's natural resources. In the West this is considered moral anathema; in the Middle East it reflects tradition.

International aid agencies are on the scene, concerned that the conflict has cut off medical supplies, water, electricity and food to countless civilians. The focus of concern from within the international community and the reason for their involvement has been the security and safety of the civilian population. But the civilian population appears fractionated by loyalties, further complicating matters.

And through all of this, while the West and their Arab and African state allies remain anxious to have Western powers involved and commit to what they will not, Moammar Gadhafi keeps insisting that he is concerned for his peoples' welfare: "Stop your brutal and unjust attack on our country ... Hundreds of Libyans are being killed because of this bombardment. Massacres are being mercilessly committed against the Libyan people."

And on their part, the spokesmen for the rebels deny al-Qaeda links, despite damning admissions seen elsewhere. And the head of the U.S. European Command informs the U.S. Senate that American intelligence on rebel forces, while demonstrating some involvement of al-Qaeda or Hezbollah, they are lacking "detail sufficient to say there is a significant al-Qaeda presence."

Just Too Precious

What a coalition this is! Western powers and a few Arab countries united in opposition to Moammar Gadhafi's determination to remain in power and to punish those of his people with the temerity to oppose his continued rule. The united front is anything but united. It is fractious and querulous.

While France and Britain took the initiative with huge umbrage at the prospect of Gadhafi targeting his own people with wild brutality, insisting that the United Nations pass a resolution for a no-fly zone as a humanitarian necessity, they rely on the fire-power of the United States.

The United States, willing enough to be involved - but unwilling this time around to be the presumptive leader where it remains a target of Arab loathing for interfering in the affairs of Middle Eastern countries in its zeal to protect its oil interests - awaits leadership from elsewhere.

Standing ready and eager to hand that leadership over to France, to Britain, to NATO. But NATO's participation requires all 28 of its members to agree. And Turkey, the sole Muslim member of NATO, is abrasively resistant to NATO's involvement in the battering and bombing of Libya.

Along with China and Russia, both of whom have their own internal dissents to cope with. Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has described the Allied bombing of Libya's military as "indiscriminate force", as "a medieval call for a crusade". No one has mentioned Russia's brutal incursion into Georgia and its support of South Ossetia.

China for its part, describes the air strikes on Libya as comparable to "the blood-soaked tempests that Iraq has undergone for eight years and the unspeakable suffering of its people". No one has made any mention of the blood-soaked tempests in Tibet and the unspeakable suffering of the Tibetans with the loss of their culture, their heritage, their lives. And perhaps that is just as well.

The Arab League has now back-tracked on its complaints that in calling for the United Nations to authorize a no-fly zone, it had no intention of seeing civilians killed - as they contend was occurring under the coalition attacks. It has now re-affirmed its commitment to ensuring that mad-dog Gadhafi no longer wages war on his own.

Although that sentiment has not yet been communicated to Moammar Gadhafi and his forces are busily engaged doing just that.

Italy now threatens to take back control of its air bases. Italy doesn't mind being militarily subservient and at the service of the United States' forces, but it takes umbrage at being used and taken-for-granted by France and by Great Britain. Italy foresees the feasibility of NATO taking charge in the absence of American leadership.

Germany, along with Turkey, has no wish to see NATO involved. That would force Berlin to backtrack on its refusal to become involved in the entire inconvenient mess.

And so, what's the agenda? Protection of the rebels? The long shilly-shallying until the Arab League decided to back a no-fly option gave the Gadhafi regime ample opportunity to strengthen and consolidate its resources, and weaken the initial successful advance of the rebels.

What happens if there is a stand-off between the government forces and the rebels? And a division of the country ensues? Leaving Gadhafi in control of the north, the rebels the south. That would result in a waiting game. The coalition will not be around forever. And the battle will re-commence.

And here's a funny thing; the coalition heads of state all favour the elimination of Moammar Gadhafi. That he flee with his family, which he is not inclined to do, or that he be 'eliminated', which is to say dispatched, or rather assassinated, or killed by bombing. The bombing of his compound did not succeed in dispatching him.

And while the heads of state anticipate his removal by means fair and foul, it is their military chiefs who want no part of anything like that, considering it to be an 'unwise' move, and not within their mandate.

Isn't that just too precious?

"Extent of Radicalization"

In the interests of arriving at a better understanding of the lethal phenomenon of Muslim radicalization it would seem to make eminent good sense to study it. To form a committee at a high level to invite knowledgeable academics, religious insiders, those who have security and intelligence experience, to add their testimony to arrive at a consensus opinion. To better aid the authorities in counter-acting terrorist threats.

In the U.S., Representative Peter King, who heads the house homeland security committee intends to proceed with congressional hearings on the "extent of radicalization" within the country as an urgent matter reflecting the state of threats posed by homegrown Muslim terrorists. One should, after all, know one's enemy. The better to deal with the threats they pose. And it is an imperative, after all, one that "is too important to ignore in the name of political correctness".

The very thought of such an exercise is anathema, however, to civil libertarians and many Democrats in the United States. And, understandably, an outrage to the Muslim community. Whose deep moral conviction appears to be that one cannot skewer an entire religious population for the violent acts of a relative few among them. Except that there is one little niggling fact that an impressive number of Muslims sympathize with the terrorists' agenda.

In that Muslims in general tend to consider themselves victimized by the larger society around them. It appears fairly universal among the Muslim ummah that "Islamophobia" is the fount of all ills. That because of that unwarranted phobia, Muslims are simply reacting. That phobia has resulted in unfair targeting of Muslims and scorn of Islam, insufferable attitudes resulting in persecution of the righteous.

The American Civil Liberties Union decries the "deeply flawed theory" that radicalization is conflated with religious practise. Perhaps forgetting or choosing to overlook the obvious fact that fanatical Muslims - and they are legion - interpret many passages in the Koran to encourage violent jihad. And they in turn recruit fervent young Muslims to gird their loins as swords of Allah.

U.S. cleric Anwar al-Awlaki now living in Yemen and broadcasting from there, encouraging and inspiring violent young men to conspire to martyrdom in the service of Islamism is the most notorious of the American Muslims who have made their mark as leaders in the battle. His writing and instructions and inflammatory rhetoric has been responsible for inciting young Muslims from North America to attempt martyrdom.

Martyrdom is achieved by seeking an illustrious death dedicated to the service of Allah by serviceably managing to mangle as many other lives in the process as possible. Serving up to Allah the premature deaths of Crusaders, Jews and apostates. Interestingly enough, while Democrats recoil at the very thought of the hearings, the White House has not stated its objections.

What it has done under Barack Obama, is reflective of what George W. Bush did in the wake of 9/11; dispatched representatives to mosques to assure Muslims that they are highly respected, that the initiative is not meant to distrust their loyalties, to single them out from among other Americans.

By and large, other Americans do not seek to systematically inspire recruits to violence and terrorism. It is not a matter of guilt by association, actually. More a prudent and most intelligent measure taken to confront the reality of what is occurring. And in the process seeking to arm oneself with knowledge sufficient unto the day.

The first order of that knowledge already recognized, that Islam does indeed inspire violent jihad. Or, put more correctly, Islam is interpreted in a manner that convinces restless young men who resent and find fault with Western response to Muslim provocation and violent unruliness in the world, to react decisively.

Austerity Protest Fever

A labour objector, protesting against the state government in Wisconsin attempting to deal with the large and mounting deficit posed himself on a ledge off the capital building in Madison. Threatening to jump in support of his impassioned position on the sanctity of labour contracts. People defending their turf, unwilling to give up anything in favour of the larger perspective of balancing the state's financial books.

As though a page was hastily torn out of recent history, emulating the frustrated agitation of the young Tunisian fruit-seller Mohamed Bouazizi, whose self-immolation sparked an ever-growing protest in North Africa and the Middle East autocratic governments; against heartless bureaucratic interference in free enterprise.

Or, as though Americans were closely watching the violence of the belt-tightening protests in Greece.

However they have been inspired, American trade unionists will not stand for austerity measures hitting and belittling their entitlements. Even though, in the face of reasonable accommodation, those entitlements far surpass the wages and incidental entitlements - through successful union bargaining - that most Americans, particularly obviously, the unemployed can count on.

A recent poll showed, rather surprisingly, that most Americans - despite their straitened circumstances and the still-struggling economy that is wresting itself out of a deep depression, albeit with remaining high unemployment figures - support union collective bargaining entitlements. After all, the state succumbed to the rigorous bargaining set forth by the unions.

Except that the cumulative effects of all those weak-kneed legislators agreeing to some really exceptionally unworkable perquisites turned out to be unworkable. In that the state, even in good times, found it increasingly difficult to maintain contracts that had salaried workers paying little-to-nothing for their own medical and retirement plans.

It is also surprising to hear of the poll results, given that in the country many of the states pride themselves on being "right to work" states. Which, translated, means low-wage, non-unionized states, where union busting is a state sport, and workers take the jobs that are available and lump it, sans benefits.

President Barack Obama is squarely on the side of the unions, in a growing fever of blow-back across state lines. He would be, as a liberal-minded president, concerned with the state of his country's lower and middle classes, the working poor to the working entitled. Besides which, during his run for the presidency he had huge union support.

He could hardly now, in their time of need, desert those who had so enthusiastically supported him. And he has not. In his speeches while making note of the dire economic times and the circumstances that have impacted so deleteriously on state finances, the federal government has not been exempt from the same pressures.

"I don't think it does anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified or their rights are infringed upon. We need to attract the best and brightest to public service. These times demand it", he emphasized in a televised address. But these times also demand stringent actions to tame the runaway deficit and resulting debt.

And it is not outside the realm of reasonability that the governor of Wisconsin has sought to have state government workers take on some of the responsibility for their own health care and pension benefits to more closely resemble a balanced picture. Limiting collective bargaining rights for most public employees represents a step back in time.

It's those who bargain with them who need a little more backbone. The need to do so should cut across party lines. The Democratic legislators who fled across state lines to stall the inevitable are only imperilling the financial fortunes of the state, aside from behaving in a childish, even illegitimate manner to protest what they hadn't the guts to pull off.

Clearly, the President of the United States is not prepared to pick up a picket sign and join the union protest. He took his own necessary steps not all that long ago. He recognized the need to reign in costs to the taxpayer in light of the fact that the taxpayer is already groaning under an unsupportable burden. Aside from the fact of huge unemployment.

"I recently froze the salaries of federal employees for two years. It wasn't something I wanted to do, but I did it because of the very tough fiscal situation we are in. I believe that everybody should be prepared to give up something in order to solve our budget challenges. I think most public servants agree with that. Democrats and Republicans agree with that."

But do they? Does he?

Photo: Ray Cunningham

Saving Libya

"The international community must send a very clear message: the killing of innocent civilians - the citizens of its own country - constitutes a gross violation of human rights and must carry serious consequences." Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Citizens of countries other than Libya are also at grave risk. Their governments are hastily assembling means and methods of delivering them to safety, away from strife-torn Libya. But there are citizens of African countries whose governments are not so well organized, have not the wherewithal to come to the aid of their citizens, and perhaps would not even if they could.

Col. Moammar Gadhafi has engaged thousands of Africans to come to Libya to work as labourers. He has, more latterly, brought in additional thousands of Africans soldiers as mercenaries, arming and instructing them to violently assist in putting down the insurrection that has broken out across the country.

Unlike Libyan soldiers who might hesitate to murder Libyans, the African mercenaries harbour no humanitarian scruples.

They have paid dearly for the reputation they swiftly gained by the use of extraordinary violence against Libyan protesters. Any that have been separated from their units have been summarily dispatched by angry Libyan mobs. But the larger fall-out for Africans in Libya is that innocent black African workers are being wrongly identified as mercenaries and they now fear for their lives.

On a larger, country-wide scale, anti-regime forces are meeting against pro-regime forces, but it can be assured that the former represent the majority. It is assumed that several thousand Libyans have already given up their lives in battling for the cause of their country's freedom from the tyrannical rule of Moammar Gadhafi, the King of Kings, their great revolutionary hero, a much-misunderstood figure of benevolent love for his people.

He has addressed his countrymen declaring his love for them and his bellicose determination to settle with blood the criminal acts of defiance on the part of regime protesters. He has urged Libyans to: "Feel at ease in the squares and the streets. Live the life of dignity. Moammar Gadhafi is one of you. Dance, sing, rejoice!".

They would dearly love to do all of these things, but without Moammar Gadhafi. Currently they are unable to dance, sing and rejoice, nor do they have much dignity in their desperate search for security from the threats imposed on their longevity by the helicopter gunships, warplanes and other similar threats mounted against them by their great benefactor.

Moreover, because the country is in a dreadful turmoil and chaos itself reigns comfortably along with the delusional Gadhafi, transportation has been hobbled. Desperate people willing to become refugees fleeing their country are finding it difficult to find refuge elsewhere. Worse, those undertaking the dangerous and arduous migration out of country are being set upon and robbed of their meager possessions.

And the UN's World Food Program is warning that the country's food supply chain has been disrupted and is "at risk of collapsing". Aid agencies fear that many Libyans are trapped, unable to travel, and unable to find sources of available food in a country that is a net food importer. People are fast running out of what little food they have, but fear exposing themselves to harm should they exit their homes.

All eyes have turned to the American President Barack Obama and his careful announcements. Registering that caution against the recent situation in Egypt which resolved relatively peacefully with a minimum of lives lost, and when the U.S. turned against a long-time ally, urging President Hosni Mubarak to leave office and depart his country.

Toward a long-time adversary, a known supporter of international terrorism, a human-rights abusing megalomaniac, the U.S. administration has made nothing resembling a direct call for the relinquishing of power by Moammar Gadhafi, even while Libya's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Shalgham, addressed that body, imploring of them "Please UN, save Libya.