Headlines:
- America undertaking vote recounts as public wary of election result
- Modi’s aggression met with silence by Pakistan’s rulers
- Fidel Castro, an American opponent, dies
- Islam is a “Malignant Cancer”: New US National Security Adviser
- Dutch Lawmakers Debate Limited Ban on Muslim Headwear
- A Hard Winter: Afghan Refugees Return from Pakistan
America undertaking vote recounts as public wary of election result
More than a fortnight after Donald Trump’s victory in the US Presidential elections, large sections of the American public are still in shock over the result. The Obama administration was compelled on Friday to issue a statement supporting the result, over speculations of foreign intervention to affect the result. According to the New York Times: “The Obama administration said on Friday that despite Russian attempts to undermine the presidential election, it has concluded that the results “accurately reflect the will of the American people.” The article also reports that $5 million had been raised by Friday mid-day for vote recounts in three states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — where his margin of victory was extremely thin.”
In fact it is not foreign powers that intervene in America’s election but the American elite themselves who manipulate their own elections. The elite is not able to trust the general population to decide who should rule. Hence, for example, the population does not directly elect the president, but votes for members of the Electoral College, and it is up to these members, the actual ‘electors’ to vote for the President. One of America’s ‘founding fathers’, Alexander Hamilton explained the role of this small number of electors as follows: “A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.”
Only in Islam can we trust the general Muslim population to elect the Amir al-Mu’mineen because we are bound by the Hukm Shar’ii to do so. After judicial screening to ascertain legal qualification, candidates will be shortlisted in an open political process by elected representatives of the Ummah within a tight timeframe that excludes opportunities for political manipulation. The final decision is for the Ummah to make directly.
Modi’s Aggression Met with Silence by Pakistan’s Rulers
Unable to contain the renewed Kashmiri uprising, India has chosen instead to direct its anger and aggression against Pakistan. Almost every day brings news of military and civilian deaths in Pakistan from cross-border firing. Earlier this week, for example, Indian firing resulted in the deaths of 9 civilians travelling in a bus, and even rescue workers arriving in an ambulance were fired upon.
Pakistan, however, is refusing to take appropriate action in response. In a front-page article in the Dawn Newspaper headlined, “Tit-for-tat action against India ruled out” the Prime Minister’s foreign affairs advisor Sartaj Aziz is quoted speaking in parliament on Friday, portraying the matter as internal to India. “It is an indigenous freedom movement…led by youths. We will continue [to offer] political, diplomatic and moral support to Kashmiris,” he said.
Pakistan well knows that passiveness at this point will only encourage further aggression from India’s Hindu leadership, as the same article reports parliamentarians warning: “Several lawmakers urged the government to stop exercising restraint, saying that it would only embolden the Narendra Modi government in pressuring Pakistan on all fronts.”
Indeed, on the same day, Modi was threatening to cut the supply of water to Pakistan, as reported by The Indian Express in an article headlined: Water that belongs to India cannot be allowed to go to Pakistan: PM Modi in Bathinda.
Pakistan has repeatedly abandoned the Kashmiri Muslims to India’s Hindu leadership. Kashmir is well within Pakistan’s strategic reach, and would have been won by Pakistan in 1999 if Nawaz Sharif, then also Prime Minister, had not conceded to America to abandon Pakistani troops in Kargill. The Pakistan Army, by training, deployment and attitude, is fully poised to take back Kashmir even now. Pakistan only needs sincere leadership to allow them to do just that.
Fidel Castro, an American opponent, Dies
Cuban state media reported on Friday the death of Cuban revolutionary and ex-President Fidel Castro at the age of 90, who stood against American imperialism for more than half a century and implemented domestically the socialist ideology. During his rule, Cuba remained a client state of the former Soviet Union within the Western hemisphere, and continued even after the collapse of the Soviet Union to oppose American hegemony. The Western hemisphere’s opposition to America reached a crescendo during Bush’s presidency as America was drained by wars against Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, with Castro’s retirement from the Cuban Presidency in 2008, and the untimely death of Venezuela’s Chavez in 2013, the Obama administration has been able to restore relations with Cuba and recover much of its strength in Latin America.
The life of Fidel Castro proves that it is possible for even a small ideological country to stand up to America and pursue an independent domestic and foreign policy. Islam provides Muslims with a much more powerful ideology than intellectually-bankrupt socialism. And Muslim countries are much larger, much more populous, much more resource-rich and at much greater distance from America. Then why do our Muslim rulers live in fear of America, careful not to even utter a single word of disrespect and, for example, rush to welcome Trump on his election victory despite his foul-mouthed insults against Muslims and Islam? It is time to replace our rulers with sincere leadership that is politically aware and can properly evaluate the reality of American strength in international affairs.
Islam is a “Malignant Cancer”: New US National Security Adviser
US president-elect Donald Trump famously said in a CNN interview last March that “Islam hates us.” In this light, his pick for national security adviser is pitch perfect. Retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn served as Trump’s national security adviser during the campaign and agreed Friday (Nov. 18) to continue on. Flynn, a registered Democrat, served as head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency before he was ousted in 2014. Since then, he’s been a brash critic of President Barack Obama and the national security establishment’s approach to defeating terrorism – and he’s made no secret of his disdain for Islam. “Islam is a political ideology…it definitely hides behind this notion of it being a religion,” Flynn said in a speech at the annual conference of ACT for America, the largest anti-Muslim grassroots organization in the US. “It’s like cancer…a malignant cancer in this case.” Flynn also serves as an adviser for the group, which was founded by Brigitte Gabriel, a leader of the anti-Islam lobby in the US. Flynn has described Gabriel as “incredibly courageous.” At other times, Flynn has been more careful to specify that “radical Islam” is the source of his ire. He led the charge in excoriating Democrats for not using the words “radical Islamic terrorism,” and published a book this summer called The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies. In it, Flynn writes that “without a proper sense of urgency, we will eventually be defeated, dominated, and very likely destroyed by Muslim militants… They are dead set on taking us over and drinking our blood.” His rhetoric rarely distinguishes between extremism and ordinary Muslims; instead, Flynn insists that Muslims have “banned the search for truth” because they believe the Quran, Islam’s Holy Book, is infallible. Flynn rivals Trump in his penchant for posting frequent and controversial messages on Twitter, a primary vehicle for his anti-Muslim rhetoric. In one of his most notorious tweets, Flynn wrote that the “fear of Muslims is rational.” The national security adviser appointment does not require Senate confirmation, even though the role offers the potential to significantly shape US foreign and military policy. Critics say that Flynn’s anti-Islam rhetoric spells trouble for the US. Flynn is “convinced that all Muslims who practice traditional Islam are a security risk. That is not only untrue but extremely dangerous,” says Will McCants, Director for the Brookings Project on US relations with the Islamic world and the author of The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State. The effect will be to alienate many of the world’s Muslims, he says, and send them “into the arms of jihadist recruiters” who contend “America seeks to destroy their religion.” [Source: Quartz]
Ever since September 11, US officials have become more open in their vitriol towards Islam. Yet, despite this venom, many Muslims around the world still continue to think that America and the West will somehow treat them fairly.
Dutch Lawmakers Debate Limited Ban on Muslim Headwear
Dutch lawmakers on Wednesday debated a limited ban on face-covering headwear worn by some Muslim women that would outlaw the veils in places such as schools, hospitals and on public transportation. Only a few hundred Muslim women in the Netherlands wear concealing niqabs or full-face burqas, but successive governments have still sought to ban the garments, following the example of other European countries such as France and Belgium. Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk said the Dutch proposal did not go as far as the complete bans in those countries. He called the legislation “religion-neutral,” but conceded that the debate about people wearing burqas on Dutch streets had played a major role in the proposal. Plasterk said that in a free country like the Netherlands people should be allowed to appear in public with their faces covered, if they want to, but that in government buildings and in health and education settings such as hospitals and schools, people need to be able to look each other in the face. It was not immediately clear when lawmakers would vote on the issue. If the legislation passes Parliament’s lower house as expected, it must also be approved by the Senate before becoming law. A small group of people wearing full-face veils watched the debate from the public gallery. Independent lawmaker Jacques Monasch, called the burqa “a symbol of oppression of women” and objected to the presence of the veiled spectators in the gallery. One opponent of the legislation, Fatma Koser Kaya of the centrist D66 party, said the law was unnecessary because many institutions in the Netherlands already have independent authority to stop women from wearing burqas and niqabs in certain situations. “What are we banning today?” she asked. “This is symbolic lawmaking … because in practice it already happens.” [Source: Associated Press]
The Dutch are no longer using their ideological precepts to debate the ban on the niqab. Freedom of religion permits Muslim women to wear the niqab in private and public. However, Dutch lawmakers cite fear and security to justify the partial ban. This only proves that Western liberalism in unworkable in practice.
A Hard Winter: Afghan Refugees Return from Pakistan
Caught in the middle of political tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan are some two million Afghan refugees – registered and unregistered – who now face the option of either returning voluntarily or being deported from Pakistan. And it couldn’t happen at a worse time. Winter in Afghanistan can be bitterly cold. The country is also experiencing a spike in violence, with increased attacks from the Taliban and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) fighters, leading to peak levels of civilian casualties and internal displacement as people flee the fighting. Returnees at the UNHCR processing centre get a quick lesson in defusing explosive devices . The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, is also concerned about refugees returning to a country that is among the most affected by undetonated landmines – an enduring legacy of the Soviet invasion. According to the UN Mine Action Service, 1,587 communities in 257 districts across the country are affected. The UNHCR is offering returning Afghans training in how to spot and defuse a mine. Although the return to Afghanistan was voluntary for all those who are registered as refugees, the distinction between their situation and those who are unregistered and deported by the Pakistani authorities can be arbitrary. Some families describe how some of their members were registered with the UNHCR but others were not, largely because they had been unable to complete the paperwork. Some had registered but failed to get their refugee cards renewed, leaving them ineligible for the UNHCR’s help on their return to Afghanistan. Pakistan has repeatedly justified the move to deport registered and unregistered Afghans on the grounds of national security, accusing some Afghan refugees of posing a threat. This has led to a crackdown on the two million Afghans living in the country, leaving them with little option but to return. According to MoRR data, as of October 15, a total of 191,946 Afghans who are not registered with the UNHCR have returned to Afghanistan. Of this, roughly 20,000 had been deported, or roughly 2,000 each month this year. Projections by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the agency charged with helping unregistered refugees and deportees, suggest that by the end of the year, the number of undocumented returnees – those not registered with the UNHCR – will increase by 97,636. NHCR numbers indicate that roughly 350,000 registered Afghan refugees have already returned this year – making the total number of Afghans returning from Pakistan over half a million. Another 50,000 refugees are going to return to Afghanistan by the middle of December. [Source: Al Jazeera].
Once Afghans and Pakistanis were unified and fighting the Soviet Union, and today both are victims of America’s war against Islam.