Headlines:
- Trump Intent on Pursuing ‘Muslim Ban’
- Russia and the Syrian regime giving Erdogan the town al-Bab in payment for Aleppo
- Trump loses first round to China’s President Xi
- What Trump Team said about Islam
- Top US General Says Afghanistan War at Stalemate, More Troops Needed
- Trump, Changing Course on Taiwan, Gives China an Upper Hand
- Jewish entity Retrospectively Recognises “Illegal” Settlements
- Assad’s Slaughterhouse Defies Description Amnesty
- Trump the Dictator
- Trump Pushes Dark View of Islam to Center of America’s Policy-Making
- Hamas Leader Ends ‘Successful’ Visit to Egypt
- Trump Travel Ban, Other Pressures Lead Pakistan to Rein in Islamist Militants
Trump Intent on Pursuing ‘Muslim Ban’
Despite court suspensions of his ban on immigrants from seven Muslim countries, US President Donald Trump is proceeding ahead quickly to reinstate the ban. According to Politico:
“We will win that battle. The unfortunate part is that it takes time statutorily, but we will win that battle. We also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order,” Trump said during an exchange with pool reporters on board Air Force One.
The American disbelieving establishment know that the presence of large numbers of Muslims amongst their own citizens limits their ability to wage war on Islam. Previously in history, the West were only able to rally their populations to fight Islam in the crusades after fabricating untold lies about the nature of Muslims and Islam. But today, large numbers of common Western people are able to directly perceive the true reality of Muslims and sympathise with Muslims and realise the deceit of the political class.
Stopping Muslims from entering the West is against the West’s own stated principles and values. This is why they need someone like Trump, who does not care for political niceties, and is able to stoke and channel the anger of the American people in the directions required by the elite.
Russia and the Syrian regime giving Erdogan the town al-Bab in payment for Aleppo
According to a report on the BBC news website, Russia and the Syrian regime are cooperating with Erdogan to allow Turkish troops to take the town of al-Bab, just north-east of Aleppo. The report explains how Turkish and Russian-Syrian forces are active in different but adjacent areas, which indicates some prior tacit agreement between them over which areas to take control of:
Today, the city and its suburbs (Qabasin, Bizaa and Tadif) are almost surrounded. Operation Euphrates Shield forces, led by the Turkish army, are closing in from the north, while the Syrian army, which has quickly advanced over the last two weeks, moves in from the south.
The Russian air force has also bombed the IS positions south of al-Bab, leaving Turkish aviation to strike targets in the city itself. This suggests that rather than competition between the Syrian army and the Euphrates Shield forces for al-Bab, there is coordination and a shared area of influence.
In fact, al-Bab is payment to Erdogan for his role in the fall of Aleppo. Russia and the illegal Syrian regime, despite their overwhelming force at their disposal, were completely unable to defeat the mujahideen present in Eastern Aleppo without Turkey’s treacherous role in betraying them. The payment for this treachery was to limit the spread of Kurdish forces within Syria, as the BBC report goes on to explain:
The objective of the Turkish intervention in northern Syria is to prevent the linkage of the Kurdish cantons of Afryn and Kobane. After regaining the town of Manbij from IS in August, the Kurdish-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had planned to next seize al-Bab and thus unify their territories. A race towards al-Bab began between the SDF and the Turkish army. This was halted in December when Turkey bombed the SDF, sending a message that their advance needed to stop.
Neither the Syrian regime nor Turkey had any interest in the Kurds taking al-Bab. The agreement between Russia and Turkey, in August 2016, joined by the Iranians, came at the expense of Kurdish interests. In the deal, Turkey also ceased aiding rebels in exchange for Russian neutrality in Turkey’s campaign against the Kurds.
East Aleppo was retaken by the regime soon after the conclusion of this agreement; al-Bab, it seems, will be left for the Turks.
Erdogan is typical of our deceitful and treacherous rulers who are always ready to betray us, cooperating with the disbelievers even when they are in conflict with other Muslims. The dispute between Erdogan and the Kurds is a dispute between Muslims. But Erdogan has seen fit to ally with the enemies of Muslims in order to win this dispute. And in doing so he has betrayed a most noble revolution in Syria, a revolution that Erdogan himself once saw truth in.
Trump loses first round to China’s President Xi
The new US administration had carefully planned their first move with China even before inauguration by having President-elect Donald Trump take a phone call in December from the leader of Taiwan, and then had him questioning the ‘One China’ policy under which Taiwan is understood to be part of China. However, Trump has now had to withdraw from this position after facing the prospect of cold relations with China. According to the New York Times:
When President Trump took a phone call from the leader of Taiwan in December and asserted that the United States might no longer be bound by the “One China” policy, his defenders hailed it as a show of strength — the latest delicate issue on which Mr. Trump was willing to challenge decades of diplomatic orthodoxy.
On Thursday evening, Mr. Trump fell back into line. In a call with President Xi Jinping of China, he pledged fealty to One China, a 44-year-old policy under which the United States recognized a single Chinese government in Beijing and severed its diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
As the article further explains:
Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, administration officials said, was among those who urged Mr. Trump to publicly endorse the One China policy as a way to defuse tensions with Mr. Xi. Before Thursday, the two leaders had not spoken since Nov. 14; administration officials said that the Chinese leader would not get on the phone with Mr. Trump without assurances from the administration that he would commit to the policy.
These events only prove that the nature of relations between great powers is largely determined by institutional factors that are far beyond any individual’s particular convictions. Any incoming president within the US has to adjust himself to established policy frameworks and only has very limited ability to set his own course within those.
Such events should also give confidence to Muslims that, once their state is established, the Islamic Khilafah based on the method of the Prophet ﷺ, then the great powers will be forced to engage with it within the standard conventions of relations between powers.
What Trump Team said about Islam
It was a straightforward question, asked of Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to the president, during a radio interview last week. His answer was anything but straightforward, however. “It’s not a discussion about Islam as a religion or not a religion,” he replied. “It’s about radical Islamic terrorism. We are prepared to be honest about the threat. We’re not going to white it out, delete it as the Obama administration did.” But is it a religion? “I think you should ask him that question,” Gorka continued. “But I would say that’s really a misreading of everything he’s said over the last 18 months.” A closer look at Mr Trump’s comments over the last year and a half only complicates the matter, however – as do the views of the advisers closest to the new president. Mr Trump has repeatedly warned of the dangers of “radical Islamic terrorism” – a line viewed as a direct rebuke of Barack Obama, who while president had pointedly refused to use the term. He slammed Mr Obama and Hillary Clinton for being “founders” of the so-called Islamic State. He publicly feuded with the parents of a Muslim US soldier killed in Iraq. He has, at times, advocated a temporary ban on Muslims entering the US and instituted a “watch list” for those already in the US. These policies and actions, critics say, reveal an anti-Islamic animus that lies at the heart of Mr Trump’s politics. “From start to finish, the 2016 presidential election vividly revealed that Islamaphobia is alive, and potent and politically resonant as ever,” writes University of Detroit Professor Khaled Baydoun. “Scapegoating Islam and vilifying Muslims was far more than merely campaign messaging; for Donald Trump it was a winning strategy.” At times Mr Trump did little to dispel this conclusion. “I think Islam hates us,” he said during an interview in March 2016. At other moments, he struck a more measured tone, drawing a distinction between the more than 1.6 billion who follow the Islamic faith and the smaller subset of “bad and dangerous people” who happen to be Muslims. In one camp are the more outspoken of Mr Trump’s advisers, who echo the president’s most bellicose anti-Muslim rhetoric. They include National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, senior adviser Steve Bannon and attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions. Mr Flynn, for instance, called Islam a “political ideology” that “hides behind this notion of it being a religion” – the line that prompted the pointed questions for Gorka last week. Mr Bannon, who served as head of the nationalist media website Breitbart before taking a top position in Mr Trump’s presidential campaign, called Islam “the most radical religion in the world” and warned that members of the faith had created “a fifth column here in the United States”. A slightly narrower view has been advanced by Mr Sessions, considered the architect of Mr Trump’s immigration policies. “We have a toxic ideology, hopefully very small within Islam; certainly most people, most Muslims don’t agree with this violent, jihadist approach,” he said. “And we need to figure out a better way to identify that.” [Source: BBC News]
The hatred towards Islam expressed by Trump’s team is hardly surprising. However, the US media has created the impression that earlier administrations were comparatively milder in their treatment of Muslims and this is not true. Since September 11, 2001, the US has declared war on Islam and this continues unabated today.
Top US General Says Afghanistan War at Stalemate, More Troops Needed
In a stark admission, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan told Capitol Hill lawmakers Thursday that after 15 years of war, the conflict remains a “stalemate” – and said thousands more troops are needed to train Afghan forces. Army Gen. John W. Nicholson, Jr. offered lawmakers a grim assessment about the prospects for truly ending a war that so far has cost more than 2,000 American lives — and billions of dollars — since 2001. The challenge, he testified, is made even tougher by Russia and Iran’s aid to the Taliban, amid signs the militant group is making territorial gains. “I believe we’re in a stalemate,” Nicholson told Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., when asked directly if the U.S. and its allies are winning or losing. He said he has “adequate” resources for counterterrorism, but is facing a shortfall of a few-thousand troops to train Afghan forces. He made clear those additional troops could come from allies as well as the U.S., and said the subject would be on the table when Defense Secretary Jim Mattis attends a NATO defense meeting next week in Brussels. At the Senate hearing Thursday, Nicholson also told lawmakers a U.S. special forces soldier had been “severely wounded” that morning in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan. Twelve Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October. In further evidence that the war is far from over despite then-President Barack Obama declaring an end to the combat mission in 2014, the United Nations reported Monday a record number of Afghan civilians were killed in Afghanistan last year. The report said nearly 3,500 were killed and nearly 8,000 wounded. A government watchdog group also says the Afghan government only controls 60 percent of the country right now.
America takes extreme pride in its military might, and yet it is unable to defeat a rag tag group called the Taliban. Likewise, the US has suffered in Iraq and elsewhere in the Muslim world. This is a wakeup call for those who claim that the Islamic Khilafah will struggle against the US. If the US is unable to defeat Islamic militants, than how can she defeat a powerful Islamic state?
Trump, Changing Course on Taiwan, Gives China an Upper Hand
By backing down in a telephone call with China’s president on his promise to review the status of Taiwan, President Trump may have averted a confrontation with America’s most powerful rival. But in doing so, he handed China a victory and sullied his reputation with its leader, Xi Jinping, as a tough negotiator who ought to be feared, analysts said. “Trump lost his first fight with Xi and he will be looked at as a paper tiger,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China, in Beijing, and an adviser to China’s State Council. “This will be interpreted in China as a great success, achieved by Xi’s approach of dealing with him.” Mr. Trump’s reversal on Taiwan is likely to reinforce the views of those in China who see him as merely the latest American president to come into office talking tough on China, only to bend eventually to economic reality and adopt more cooperative policies. That could mean more difficult negotiations with Beijing on trade, North Korea and other issues. At the same time, the Chinese leadership will view statements by Mr. Trump with even greater skepticism. “Even though Trump has said he will support the ‘One China’ policy, China cannot fully trust him,” said Yan Xuetong, dean of the school of international relations at Tsinghua University, in Beijing. “Even his own people don’t trust him.” China’s official reaction to the telephone call, in which Mr. Trump affirmed that America would abide by the longstanding policy, was polite, even upbeat. “The conversation was very cordial,” Lu Kang, the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said at a regular news briefing on Friday. “The One China principle is the political foundation of China-U.S. relations.” [Source: New York Times]
It is still too early to conclude that the Trump administration has gone soft on China. There are several issues like North Korea, South China Sea, Tibet, Taiwan and territorial disputes with China’s neighbors that have made permanently America’s relations with China tense, and this is not about to change any time soon.
Jewish entity Retrospectively Recognises “Illegal” Settlements
The Jewish entity’s parliament, after announcing the construction of 6000 new settlement homes has announced that it will retrospectively recognise settlements previously considered as illegal. Many commentators have argued this to be a huge turn in peace talks which posited a two-state solution as a way to solve this dispute. However, whilst the Jewish entity’s actions have become more aggressive, the world, including Trump who released an official statement saying how settlement building would harm peace talks, continue to push a two-state solution.
Assad’s Slaughterhouse Defies Description Amnesty
A new report by Amnesty International exposes the Syrian government’s calculated campaign of extrajudicial executions by mass hangings at Saydnaya Prison. Between 2011 and 2015, every week and often twice a week, groups of up to 50 people were taken out of their prison cells and hanged to death. In five years, as many as 13,000 people, most of them civilians believed to be opposed to the regime, were hanged in secret at Saydnaya. The report also highlighted that the government deliberately inflicted inhuman conditions on detainees at Saydnaya Prison through repeated torture and the systematic deprivation of food, water, medicine and medical care. The report documents how these extermination policies have killed massive numbers of detainees. The findings of the report are based on an intensive investigation, which was carried out over the course of one year, from December 2015 to December 2016. It involved first-hand interviews with 84 witnesses that included former Saydnaya guards and officials, detainees, judges and lawyers, as well as national and international experts on detention in Syria. The report reveals a routine of mass extrajudicial executions by hanging inside Saydnaya prison that was in place between 2011 and 2015. Every week – and often twice a week – victims were hanged in groups of up to 50 people, in the middle of the night and in total secrecy. There are strong reasons to believe that this routine is still ongoing today. Large numbers of detainees have also been killed as a result of the authorities’ extermination policies, which include repeated torture and the systematic deprivation of food, water, medicine and medical care. In addition, detainees at Saydnaya Prison are forced to obey a set of sadistic and dehumanizing rules.
Trump the Dictator
One of the first acts of new US President Donald Trump was to ban the entry into the US from 7 Muslim nations. But the executive order has struggled to legally defend itself. A federal judge halted the order and then the appeals court denied the US government’s emergency request to resume President Donald Trump’s travel ban. This meant the ruling by US District Court Judge James Robart, who suspended the ban, still remains in place. The US Justice Department filed an appeal asking to pause Robart’s sweeping decision that temporarily halted enforcement of several key provisions of Trump’s executive order. On hearing both sides Trumps justice department failed to provide any information the number of US citizens killed by people from the banned countries. The judge in fact informed the Justice Department representative that no terrorists attack has ever committed by someone from the countries in the ban. The justice department contended that the executive had the right to issue such a ban and the judge had no constitutional jurisdiction to halt it. The judge reminded the whole court the legislator had to ensure executive order were rational and built on some facts, something neither Trump or any of his supporters have bene able to provide. In fact they continue to reiterate that Trump can act as a dictator.
Trump Pushes Dark View of Islam to Center of America’s Policy-Making
It was at a campaign rally last August that President Donald J. Trump most fully unveiled the dark vision of an America under siege by “radical Islam” that is now radically reshaping the policies of the United States. On a stage lined with US flags in Youngstown, Ohio, Trump, who months before had called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslim immigration, argued that the United States faced a threat on a par with the greatest evils of the 20th century. The Islamic State (IS) was brutalizing the Middle East, and Muslim immigrants in the West were killing innocents at nightclubs, offices and churches, he said. Extreme measures were needed. “The hateful ideology of radical Islam,” he told supporters, must not be “allowed to reside or spread within our own communities”. Trump was echoing a strain of anti-Islamic theorizing familiar to anyone who has been immersed in security and counterterrorism debates over the past 20 years. He has embraced a deeply suspicious view of Islam that several of his aides have promoted, notably retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, now his national security adviser, and Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s top strategist. This worldview borrows from the “clash of civilizations” thesis of political scientist Samuel P. Huntington and combines straightforward warnings about extremist violence with broad-brush critiques of Islam. It sometimes conflates terrorist groups, like al-Qaeda and the IS, with largely nonviolent groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots and, at times, with the 1.7 billion Muslims around the world. In its more extreme forms, this view promotes conspiracies about government infiltration and the danger that Shariah, the legal code of Islam, may take over in the US. The executive order on immigration that Trump signed last Friday might be viewed as the first major victory for this geopolitical school. And a second action, which would designate the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist political movement in the Middle East, as a terrorist organization, is under discussion at the White House, administration officials say. [Source: New York Times]
Trump is continuing the crusade declared by George Bush, and expanded under Obama. It is envisaged that the intensity of the crusade will increase under Trump. Banning Muslim is just the first step in many measures to be unveiled soon.
Hamas Leader Ends ‘Successful’ Visit to Egypt
Hamas, the ruling Palestinian movement of the Gaza Strip, concluded a “successful” visit to Egypt on Friday, according to Egypt’s state-run news agency, the first visit by the group’s top leader in over three years. Hamas top official Ismail Haniyeh and his delegation departed Egypt to return to Gaza after talks with the country’s security and political authorities, including intelligence chief Khaled Fawzy, Egypt’s MENA reported. The two sides discussed the Jewish entity’s blockade of Gaza, Palestinian reconciliation and the lingering power outage in the strip. The agency quoted Hamas’ statement as saying the talks will have “positive results” on the situation in Gaza. It said that the delegation stressed that it doesn’t interfere in Egypt’s internal affairs. “The Egyptian brothers have presented a comprehensive vision on all issues … such vision will have positive results on the Egyptian and the Palestinian people,” it said. The agency gave no further details on future arrangements. But Haniyah posted on his Twitter saying after arriving in Gaza that the relations with Egypt will witness “paradigm shifts.” Egypt’s relations with Hamas deteriorated since the 2013 military ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood group, Hamas’ mother movement. Authorities accused the group of supporting militants to carry out attacks in Egypt. For most of the past decade, Egypt has been a quiet partner with Israel in the blockade on Hamas-ruled Gaza, stifling the economy and largely blocking its 2 million people from moving in and out of the territory. [Source: ABC News]
It appears Sisi is keen to reassert Egypt’s influence over Hamas in anticipation of new directions from the Trump administration. However, anything short of a complete liberation of Palestine from foreign occupiers will produce the same situation witnessed for the past seventy years.
Trump Travel Ban, Other Pressures Lead Pakistan to Rein in Islamist Militants
To U.S. and international officials, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed is a terrorist who orchestrated a bloody urban siege that killed 166 people in India in 2008. But to his many devout followers in Pakistan, he is a champion of Islamic values and Kashmiri independence from India. To U.S. and international officials, Shakil Afridi is a courageous man who helped the United States track down and kill Osama bin Laden in 2011. But to many Pakistanis, he is a traitor who sold his services to a Western adversary of Islam and should remain in prison. Therein lies the conundrum facing Pakistani officials today as they scramble to forestall punitive actions by the Trump administration — and ease pressure from other foreign partners, including China — without provoking turmoil at home, especially among Muslim militants the state has long coddled as proxies against India. Suddenly confronted with a U.S. president who has declared war against Islamist extremism and has expressed little interest in the long history of political accommodation and security alliances between Washington and Islamabad, officials here are seeking a middle ground that may no longer exist. The disarray was evident in clashing public statements by two government officials concerning the draconian travel ban imposed by Trump last week on all visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries. White House aides suggested last week that ban might be expanded to include Pakistan and other countries with terrorist links. On Saturday, Pakistani media outlets quoted a White House spokesman telling the BBC that there are “no immediate plans” to add Pakistan, Afghanistan or Lebanon, but warning that this could change if the countries stop complying with U.S. requests for information. Foreign Ministry spokesman Nafees Zakaria, addressing a news conference Thursday, noted deferentially that “it is every country’s sovereign right to decide its immigration policy.” He said Pakistan looks forward to continuing its “long-standing and cooperative relations” with Washington. The crackdown on Saeed and his group, which has been allowed to function freely for the most part, is seen by many here as a hasty conciliatory gesture to the new administration in Washington. But Pakistani officials insist it was the product of long internal deliberation — and further proof of a permanent shift from official tolerance for extremists who once served as Pakistan’s deniable agents in India and Afghanistan. [Source: Washington Post]
Pakistan has a long history of apprehending and handing over militants and innocent civilians to America. What Pakistanis will like to know if there will be any more Aafia Siddiquis handed over to the US to please the Trump administration.