Headlines:
- Trump feels he is under siege by US government
- America begins betrayal of Turkey in Syria
- Trump Administration Escalates War in Yemen
- Islam to Overtake Christianity as World’s Largest Religion by 2070
- Aleppo Report Accuses All Sides of Brutal War Crimes
- Pakistan OKs Military Cross-border Operations against Terrorists
Trump feels he is under siege by US government
As further conflict began in Washington, now over the Russian links of attorney general Jeff Sessions, the New York Times reports those close to US President Donald Trump as describing him under siege:
“Mr. Trump, according to his advisers inside and outside of the White House, has felt besieged by what he regards as a mostly hostile bureaucracy, consisting in part of Democrats and people who opposed his election who are now undermining his presidency with leaks. He believes that they are behind the stories about confusion and dysfunction in his administration and, most of all, that they have made his relationship with Russia a recurring issue.
“That is the real story,” said Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, when asked for comment on how the White House views the constant string of stories based on what they have called leaks. Several of those stories have raised questions about ties between the president’s 2016 campaign and Russian officials.
Allies of Mr. Trump say his sense of being surrounded by hostile forces will be relieved once his own appointments fill the thousands of political jobs that have not yet been filled. But people close to Mr. Trump concede that the White House’s sluggish hiring process, in which insufficient work was done to tap people for key deputy roles at major agencies during the transition process, is a large part of the problem.”
Every incoming US President feels immediately under assault by other power centres within the US government. Sooner or later, all American presidents learn that they have to work within the existing power structure, beholden as it is to elite interests, irrespective of their campaign promises to the American people.
This is a feature not just of the American political system but of all Western democratic systems, including those implemented currently in Muslim lands, based on the concept of separation of powers, first championed by the French thinker, Montesquieu, in the early eighteenth century, in opposition to the unity of rule in the Ottoman State. Montesquieu argued that separating governmental powers would result in extensive checks and balances within ruling. However, he failed to recognise the dangers inherent in creating multiple competing power centres within government. In reality, this separation has only weakened the executive power of the government while ensuring the dominance of elite interests in all governmental affairs. In contrast, the Uthmani Sultan was accountable to the people directly, based on a fixed shar’ widely known among them. The example of one of the last great Uthmani Khulafah is instructive: Sultan Abdul Hameed, widely portrayed in the West as a tyrannical dictator, was in fact removed from office after decades of rule by a simple legal document – a fatwa issued by the Sheikh al-Islam.
America Begins Betrayal of Turkey in Syria
After drawing Turkey into Syria to help stabilise the Syrian government, America has begun working against Turkey to limit its role there.
According to the BBC:
A US-allied Syrian militia has said it will hand over villages west of the town of Manbij to the army in order to stop Turkish-backed rebels taking them.
The Manbij Military Council, part of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance, announced it had “transferred defence of the frontline”.
The move came after a deal was agreed with Russia, a staunch ally of President Bashar al-Assad, it added.
In fact, America is the one that has been controlling the entire theatre of operations in Syria from the beginning. It is America that introduced outside powers such as Russia and Turkey into the conflict as well as organising the funnelling of funds and weapons to various groups on the ground either directly or through other agent governments such as those in the Gulf States. America advances, blocks, or withdraws any one of these as it pleases. When will these governments realise that they are being manipulated as if they were mere pieces on a chessboard where both sides are controlled by the same player? Why do they continue to fear America, when America is itself fearful of once more entering the battlefield against Muslims? Our Muslim governments easily have the capacity to eject America from the region. All that prevents them is their personal slavish subservience to the West.
Trump Administration Escalates War in Yemen
Despite Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric about withdrawing from conflicts abroad, the new US Administration appears to be choosing the path of intensifying foreign conflicts. America’s military-industrial complex was often frustrated with President Obama’s practice towards the end of this term of delegating conflicts in the Muslim world to other powers, and has been impatient to demonstrate US power on the battlefield. They now have their opportunity with Trump, despite the impression he conveyed during his campaign. According to the New York Times:
“The United States military on Friday carried out a second night of airstrikes against suspected Qaeda terrorists in Yemen in what Pentagon officials said was part of a larger campaign to roll back territorial gains the group has made in the past two years.
It was the most intense series of strikes ever against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or A.Q.A.P. In all of 2016, the United States conducted a total of 38 strikes in Yemen, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal. Yet in the last two days, armed Reaper drones and attack planes conducted more than 30 strikes against Qaeda militants, equipment and safe houses across south-central Yemen, Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said on Friday.”
The military-industrial block in America thrives on escalating military conflict. But in addition to this particular block, the American political leadership well knows that it is close to losing the American empire in Muslim lands, just as Britain lost its empire before, and so is making every effort to save it. The Muslim Ummah is returning to Islam and the day is not far, with Allah’s permission, when we will see all Muslims lands reunited under the righteous Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) on the method of Prophethood ﷺ.
Islam to Overtake Christianity as World’s Largest Religion by 2070
Islam is the only religion growing faster than the world’s population, and it will be the largest in the world by 2070, research has found. US-based Pew Research Centre analysed demographic change among the world’s major religions and found that the world’s population of Muslims will grow by 73 per cent between 2010 and 2050, compared to 35 per cent for Christians, the next fastest-growing faith. The world’s population will grow by 37 per cent over the same period. If those rates of growth continue past 2050, Muslims will outnumber Christians by 2070, the report found. It also says that Muslims will make up 10 per cent of Europe’s population. In 2010 there were 1.6bn Muslims in the world, and 2.17bn Christians. By 2050, there will be 2.76bn Muslims and 2.92bn Christians – and if both religions continue at that rate of growth, Islam will have a larger number of followers than Christianity by 2070. Atheists, agnostics and non-religious people will decline from 16.4 per cent of the world’s population to 13.2 per cent by 2050, the report added, despite growing in Europe and North America. The changes are partly due to the various fertility rates each religion has. Muslims have the highest, at 3.1 children per woman, followed by Christians, at 2.7. Islam also has a much younger follower-base than other religions, meaning believers still have childbearing years ahead. 34 per cent are aged under 15, compared to a global average of 27 per cent. Christianity is also likely to suffer as more converts leave to become non-religious or to join other faiths, the report predicted. Around 40 million people are projected to switch into Christianity globally, while 106 million are predicted to leave. The report also summarises findings from a survey last year into European attitudes towards Muslims. “Majorities in Hungary, Italy, Poland and Greece say they view Muslims unfavorably, while negative attitudes toward Muslims are much less common in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Northern and Western Europe. “People who place themselves on the Right side of the ideological scale are much more likely than those on the Left to see Muslims negatively,” it said. [Source: The Daily Telegraph]
Despite the relentless western intervention in Muslim lands accompanied by vicious negative campaigns against the Islamic world, Islam is on the rise.
Allah says,
وَإِذْ يَمْكُرُ بِكَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا لِيُثْبِتُوكَ أَوْ يَقْتُلُوكَ أَوْ يُخْرِجُوكَ وَيَمْكُرُونَ وَيَمْكُرُ اللَّـهُ وَاللَّـهُ خَيْرُ الْمَاكِرِينَ
“Remember how the Unbelievers plotted against thee, to keep thee in bonds, or slay thee, or get thee out (of thy home). They plot and plan, and Allah too plans; but the best of planners is Allah.”
(Al Anfal: 30)
Aleppo Report Accuses All Sides of Brutal War Crimes
A UN-established commission has issued a damning report on human rights violations in Syria’s war-ravaged Aleppo, accusing both sides to the conflict of committing war crimes. The commission gathered evidence to confirm witness accounts that the Syrian and Russian governments used prohibited cluster munitions on civilians in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, suggesting the deliberate destruction of hospitals with repeated airstrikes, among other rights violations. Cluster munitions release smaller “bomblets” that cover a wider area than regular bombs, and are criticized for causing damage beyond intended targets. CNN has reached out to Russian officials and the Syrian mission to the UN for a response to the report, but they have not yet replied. Both countries have in the past denied deliberately targeting hospitals and schools, as well as the use of cluster bombs. The commission could not always distinguish whether it was Syrian or Russian planes carrying out particular airstrikes. The report also said Syrian forces carried out a deadly aid convoy attack in September 2016, giving a harrowing account of how machine guns were fired from aircraft at those who had survived rounds of bombings. The commission heard more witness testimony of chemical attacks using chlorine gas, saying the evidence pointed to the Syrian regime being behind them. The report said the use of chlorine in attacks was a war crime and showed “a blatant disregard for international legal obligations.” But the commission said it found no evidence that Russia had used chemical weapons. Both Syria and Russia have denied using chemical weapons. [Source: CNN]
The report forgets to highlight the role of the US and the UN in laying the framework for Assad’s forces and Russian troops to commit war crimes. Only the Khilafah state (Caliphate) upon the method of the Prophethood can punish the major powers for the crimes they have committed in Syria.
Pakistan OKs Military Cross-border Operations against Terrorists
Pakistan’s civilian government is pursuing a high-risk strategy in authorizing its army to conduct cross-border strikes against terrorists. A flurry of terror attacks in the country is forcing its leaders to try to quell public anger by taking a more aggressive approach in fighting the problem, which has killed more than 125 people and shattered a relatively quiet period that has been fostered by a major military campaign. The attacks have been linked to Islamic State and its allies, with Pakistan saying they have been instigated from Afghanistan’s side of the border. Afghanistan has blamed attacks in its territory on groups operating from Pakistan. Pakistan also wants to be seen as an active ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism at a critical time, with new President Donald Trump’s administration currently developing its foreign policy — including aid — in the region. The army has just been tasked with carrying out a nationwide initiative aimed at rooting out Islamic extremists, even in areas like Punjab province that previously were considered off-limits. Pakistan’s military, which has long played a strong role in the country, is believed to have ties with some extremist groups. The decision to authorize the military to carry out missions unilaterally outside Pakistan’s territory has rankled Afghanistan at a time that both are suffering from Islamic State’s attacks, which are disruptive to both countries’ leadership. “This is a clear-cut decision of the government, and the military is authorized to take action within the country or across the country, that where there is terrorism, they will have to take action,” said Pakistan Finance Minister Ishaq Dar. Instead of cooperating to fight terror groups, as both sides agree they must do, the two governments are allowing the gap between them to expand. “Both countries are faced with terrorism and both need to work together; neither can do it on its own,” said Ishaq Khan, a Pakistani security expert and retired army brigadier. [Source: Voice of America].
Ever since, American forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the security situation of Pakistan has greatly deteriorated. Yet despite this obvious fact, the Pakistani leadership refuses to address American presence in Afghanistan as the principal cause behind the violence occurring in Pakistani cities. What is required is severance all ties with America, not more security operations.