Canada, ISIS and Refugees

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Canada, France, ISIS, Middle East, politics, refugees

 

                ^{Like the US attack on Afghanistan after September 11th, 2001, the French bombing} of a Syrian city was rash, emotional, and unplanned, resulting in possibly hundreds of innocent civilian deaths. It is worrying to find a government reacting like any other thug on the street, except for the military at its command to be ‘merciless’ – a declaration no civilized leadership ought to voice. As outlined in my previous blog-post, there is only one way to eliminate ISIS, and it involves accurate intelligence, and then the active presence of a tri-lateral army, particularly that of Special Forces, trained and able to differentiate civilians from the enemy.

Prime Minister Trudeau’s vow to disengage Canadian warplanes from the conflict is laudable, yet his promise to assist in other ways – like training of Syrian and  Iraqi troops – is flawed, and will still result in this country being viewed as a combatant. My previous blog explains why this West Asian catastrophe should be left to those nations responsible for it. The money saved will help us in the truly Canadian task of assisting refugees fleeing this nightmare.

Of course we must take great care in whom we admit, and I wonder how many are suited to the task of separating potential terrorists from genuinely displaced people. If lie-detectors are used – more as a deterrent than for their questionable accuracy – how many inquisitors will know the right questions to ask? A detailed knowledge of the Koran will be required, as well as of the apocryphal texts, and the versions utilized by Wahhabite clergy, and the websites on which these perversions of Islam appear. A familiarity with Arab tribal affiliations is also vital. Indeed, every Arabist in the country ought to be consulted, asked to suggest the questions posed to aspirants for asylum here. But the less involvement we have in the military struggle, the fewer terrorists will regard Canada as a deserving target. A glance at non-involved nations will alone drive this point home. ISIS is at war with countries viewed, historically and currently,  as enemies of, exclusively, Sunni Islam – or their distorted Wahhabite concept of it. To ignore this is to remain ignorant of what is really happening, both there and in the West.

 

Sincerely, with love,

 

Paul William Roberts

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How to Deal with ISIS

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France, Middle East, politics, Saudi Arabia, terrorism, Wahhabism

       ^{At the so-called Peace Conference held at Paris in 1919, T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) arrived with Sheik Faisal, leader of the Arabs who had acted as vital British allies in the war against Ottoman  Turkey, and were promised, in return, a nation of their own. Lawrence and his friend were kept waiting for several weeks before Faisal was allowed to speak on behalf of his people and the lands they had been promised – which included Palestine [see documents in the British Arab Office archives]. Faisal was allowed only a brief time to speak, since by then the secret Sykes-Picot agreement had already divided up the major Arab territories, like Syria and Iraq, between Britain and France. Faisal left empty-handed, and Lawrence eventually committed suicide out of shame for the deceit he had, unwittingly, played a major part in perpetuating. The harsh treatment of Germany by major powers at that conference led directly to the rise of Hitler, who was persuaded by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, leading Muslim authority in Palestine, not to deport European  Jews there, since it would cause a severe conflict. This led directly to the Holocaust.}

                ^{In 1955, President Eisenhower in Washington was informed at an intelligence briefing that the hostility towards America displayed by the average Arab was a direct consequence of US support for tyrannical dictators in the region who effectively dashed the hopes of the masses for a semblance of democracy. Eisenhower, a decent man [see his last address on the dangers of a Military-industrial complex], was disturbed by this news, yet the CIA assured him the situation in West Asia was just as it should be. The US and UK destroyed Iran’s first democratically-elected government in the fifties, too, replacing it with a puppet Shah, whose mandate was to crush communism in any form, and in any way necessary. His Savak secret police used this excuse to eradicate all varieties of resistance, leading directly to the 1979 Revolution. Always favouring dictatorships, and craving light sweet crude oil – the finest – first the UK, then the US, backed Saudi Arabia – now the worst and most backward tyranny on earth – for its oil. No one knew, or else no one cared, that, traditionally, half the Saudi state’s income – hundreds of billions – went to the princes, while the other half went to an hereditary clergy. These clerics subscribed to what is, essentially, an Islamic heresy concocted by a self-proclaimed prophet in the 18th century named Wahhab, whose primary goals were to please the old King Ibn Saud, and to make himself Caliph of a vast Islamic state. To please the King, whose main desire then was to raid rich Persian caravans – forbidden in Islam, where a Muslim may not fight another Muslim – Wahhab declared the Shia, a sect ruling Iran, to be non-Muslims,, thus their caravans could be raided. Similarly, he banned the Sufis, Ismailis, and everything not orthodox Sunni Islam; also banning music and dancing while he was at it. In effect, he reduced the magnificence of Islam to a prison code. His descendants now rule Saudi religion with an iron hand, executing homosexuals, oppressing women, and so on; also using their share of the oil billions to establish free schools in poor countries, where their hate-filled perversion of Islam is taught, with an emphasis on Jihad as war against all infidels – an easy thing, since the Koran in Arabic is impossible to definitively understand, and all translations are merely interpretations. The Wahhabite clergy finance numerous websites which attempt to radicalize impressionable minds, often by quoting spurious apocryphal prophetic texts predicting a kind of End Time war, which will be fought in Iraq and Syria – although their strategic and tactical advice is designed for 9th century tribal war, not the 21st century variety, no matter that the countries mentioned still exist. It does not take a genius to work out that Saudi clerics, and some royalty, are behind the so-called Jihadist movement, and are funding the fantasised Islamic State, which is really just the resurrection of pseudo-prophet Wahhab’s monomaniacal dream 200 years ago. It is telling that the deranged kid, who shot a guard  and tried to invade Ottawa’s Parliament, told his mother he wished to study Islam in Riyadh, where all he would learn would be the heresy of Wahhab. A serious student would aim to study at al-Ahram in Cairo, the heart of Sunni orthodoxy.  To me, at least, this proves he was radicalized by Wahhabite websites, which need to be  identified, traced, and shut down. The financial affairs of Saudi clerics also need to be examined, and all funds frozen. Their schools in the undeveloped world need to be monitored for inciting hatred and distorting Islam, and then, ideally, replaced by UNESCO with real schools. The Saudi tyranny also needs to be dismantled, liberating women, as well as paving the way for real democratic elections.}

                ^{As the above snippets of history show, the originators of this current chaos in West Asia are the UK, France, and the US. Canada has no responsibility in the matter, which ought to be left to the three nations involved.}

^{Since the fanciful Islamic State, or ISIS, has now, contrary to Koranic teachings, declared war against innocent civilians – some even Muslims – in the West, the only possible response is massive retaliation. Between them, the UK, France, and the US need to put a million boots on the ground, backed up by drones, Stealth Bombers, Cruise  Missiles, and accurate intelligence. Attack, as we know, is the best method of defense. The ISIS leaders – not idiots in the least – need to be identified and, ideally, captured. To drive home the point, after a proper trial, I would not object to these poisonous individuals being publically guillotined in the Place de la Concorde, the video also posted on U=Tube, just to show that a liberal democracy does not mean weakness. If ISIS commanders, as is their wont, hide in public places or World Heritage sites, like Palmyra – which I know well and fear is now gone forever – Special Forces need to go in and take out only the enemy. I have seen the SAS and others in action, and know their extraordinary capabilities at such clean operations. A coalition of those three countries perpetrating this current mayhem, whether in the past or in the present, would symbolize much to the majority of Arabs who yearn only for peace. A million men on the ground would tell ISIS that their game was over.}

^{It will mean scouring Syria, removing Assad – let the Iranians or Russians have him if they’re so fond of him – sorting rebels from ISIS interlopers, and installing a provisional government until such a time as free and fair elections are feasible. Access to the important Shia shrine, the tomb of Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter, must be guaranteed for all Shia pilgrims – which is the main reason Iran is backing the sectarian Shia leader, Assad. Should the empire-hungry, and increasingly militant, Czar Putin object, he ought to told to back off, and take a salutary lesson from the military might displayed, realizing no Russian winter could save his country from a similar assault, if was  provoked.}

                ^{In Iraq, the situation would be different. Although the author of ISIS Apocalypse attributes the collaboration of Iraqi tribes to an al-Quaeda innovation, it is in fact a technique Saddam Hussein deployed whenever he sought mass-support, which shows that much of the ISIS insurgency there consists of skilled fighters from the old Sunni Republican Guard, which has a legitimate grievance relating to the current Shia domination over Baghdad’s parliament. Since the uninformed idiocy of US Intelligence services was responsible for creating this unthought-out mess, it behooves America to fashion a new Iraqi government in which Sunni, Shia, and others are are equally represented, and Kurdish loyalty is appropriately rewarded with a sovereign state. In the new Iraq, those all-important oil revenues must be equitably shared by all. If Iraqi Sunnis were convinced of such a bright future they would themselves rid the country of ISIS fanatics, whose whereabouts and strategies they will know well. Tribal leaders, if approached with the respect they warrant – not summoned to US HQ, as they were in 2003 – would also be of invaluable assistance. US Intelligence seems to have no understanding of tribal ways, possibly dating back to their brutal mistreatment of Native Indians after 1776?}

                ^{As for Saudi Arabia, my preference would be for a UK-US invasion of liberation, ousting the royalty, and rounding up those clerics most responsible for fomenting terrorism, and, if found guilty, offered – as Saudi law rarely offers – a choice between execution or a videotaped denunciation of their own distortions of Islam, including the admission that murder and terror are nowhere endorsed in the Koran, nor are killers or suicide-bombers promised rewards in paradise. If necessary, a videotaped debate between orthodox Islamic scholars and Wahhabite clergy should be arranged, to show Muslims worldwide that they have been wantonly misled, and often by the use of spurious texts written long after the Prophet’s death, in direct contradiction to his teachings. Even the Hadith states that Mohammed’s last words were an order for his followers not to schism and to take care of women’s rights. Nowhere does he sanction a priesthood, either, so the injunctions from Imams or Ayatollahs have no validity whatsoever for any devout Muslim. It rests upon the shoulders of Saudi clerics to undo the damage they have done to a faith they profess to uphold. Such a liberation of Saudi Arabia would also need to confiscate all oil revenues to be put in escrow and then be equitably divided up amongst the people by an elected government. Furthermore, the Saudi military should be deprived of all the sophisticated aircraft and weaponry supplied by the US, thus preventing any more attacks on Shia communities in the Yemen and elsewhere, which, to date, have been carried out freely.}

                ^{As opposed as I am to the two-state solution for Israel-Palestine’s eternal conflict, I think a Palestinian state is probably the only answer – but it ought to comprise parts of Jordan, Iraq, and Syria, with access to holy sites, like Hebron or Bethlehem, and Jerusalem, common to three religions, guaranteed under international law as neutral zones, with the proviso that any violence perpetrated by any member of any religion will result in all members of that faith being denied access to the site or shrine for many years. Similarly, any hostility from a new Palestinian state towards Israel would result in severe penalties, including a military purge and international embargoes. Israel must accept the same conditions, and receive funding for helping build infrastructures and agriculture – thus good relations – with the new Palestine. Any peace talks will now stall over the question of Jerusalem; this plan overcomes the problem by making all holy sites neutral, weapons-free areas, supervised by Israelis with oversight by UN peacekeepers. A glance at the map shows clearly those areas of Jordan, Iraq and Syria, largely empty now, that could easily become Palestine without threatening Israeli security.}

                ^{Since the UK and France drew the map – thank you Winston Churchill – and the US solidified its irrational borders, the three nations can just as easily redraw it along more rational lines to serve new needs.}

                ^{Canada, however, cannot be blamed for the Mess, and ought to have no military involvement. It is not hard to observe that most terrorist attacks are against the three imperialist culprits responsible for deceiving the Arabs or imposing military dictators in the region – as is yet again the case in Egypt, whose brief democracy displeased Washington, much as the one in Iran did sixty years ago. Dictators are so much easier to deal with: they do what they’re told, or else they’re replaced. A democracy does not jump so readily when the ringmaster cracks his whip.}

                ^{ISIS has to go. The appalling attacks in Paris alone are an act of war; and wars are won by overwhelming force and grim determination. Land a million troops pledged to erase ISIS from history, and the Arab tribes will  swiftly get the message. They admire enormous strength and ruthless retribution. The Hydra may have been able to grow more heads endlessly, yet ISIS will not be so endowed. The body of its leadership gone – ideally on U-tube – the many-headed networks or foreign cells will wither and die, especially when told they are violating Islamic principles rather than furthering them.}

^{The Caliphate was an early medieval dream, and even then it did not last long – besides having no sanction in the Koran. Those whose imperial hubris caused these problems ought now to correct matters in every way, and then, having done their very best, leave these new nations to shift for themselves peacefully and through their own form of democratic processes. Canada’s ‘allies’ have only ever summoned us to help fight their wars. Americans know nothing about us, except for the igloos; and the English scorn us privately as just another colony renamed. As Pierre Trudeau often said, our real friends are the Scandinavian countries, with which we have most in common, and which stay well away from neo-imperial adventures. Justin Trudeau should take his father’s advice, and let those who broke West Asia mend it. Canadians have no wish to be a super-power, nor do we have the means. An alliance with the neighbourhood bullies only brings you more trouble when you’re caught alone. Besides, we are going to need all that money spent on machines of death to fulfill all those rash election promises for which we voted.}

 

^{Sincerely with love,}

^{Paul William Roberts}

Canada Day

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Canada, England, France, Immigration, politics, Quebec, taxation, welfare

What do we have to celebrate? A lot, I would say. I still believe that this is the best place to live on earth, in spite of those who would make it otherwise. What can we, as Canadians, do to protect what we have? Well, there are radical ideas, like the overthrow of a governmental system that is antiquated and dysfunctional; or there are less disruptive notions, like learning from the mistakes of other nations. Take Britain, where three trillion pounds annually of taxpayers’ money is spent on welfare projects, much of which is squandered on people perfectly able to work, yet finding the prospect irksome, this idleness encouraged by an administration more concerned with its own beaurocracy and red-tape than it is with executing the task at hand. For example, a woman with three children, from three different fathers, is given free housing, plus assistance for herself and her three children, until they are eighteen. No part of the system is given the task of finding a way in which she can work while her children are cared for. In other words, the system is designed to offer free money to those who fulfill certain, all too rudimentary, requirements. And these requirements are determined by a form, filled out with help from a ‘social services officer’, and not by any investigation of circumstances. The result is a country overwhelmed by debt and social chaos, one in which the rich get richer on the backs of the middle-class taxpayer. Another example: Paris is now a city of 60 million inhabitants, twice the population of Canada, the second-largest country in the world. This is a consequence of immigration policies resulting from the misguided, and ever burgeoning, Euro Zone, which differ slightly from the punishments of colonialism and empire (in which the conquered were, naturally, entitled to citizenship in the conquerors’ nations). An economic union between advanced industrialized countries, like Britain, France, Germany, Austria, and the Scandinavian nations, made sense. To devise a common currency, among such countries, even made sense. But to include such places as Romania, Spain, and Greece – not to mention others on the list – was sheer idiocy. The consequences of this folly are now all too evident, and may well result in the dissolution of the whole union. The resultant waves of emigration to welfare havens, like France and the U.K., are causing severe social unrest. The erudite, and much misunderstood, British politician, Enoch Powell, predicted this back in the sixties, when immigrants from Pakistan, India, and the West Indies, began swelling the population of London, and other cities, like Birmingham. Powell stated that this would lead to racial warfare, and he was right. Unfortunately, Powell gained support from unsavory neo-fascist elements, like the National Front, and the Skinheads. Diana Macleoud, daughter of the great English politician, Ian Macleoud, once told me that her father, who was a great friend of Enoch Powell, told him that he was stirring up neo-fascist sentiments and racism with his views, and was regarded in some quarters as a new Sir Oswald Moseley (whose pro-Nazi Blackshirts had once terrorised the streets of London during the years leading up to World War II). Powell, Macleaoud had told his daughter, was appalled at this news, and had no intention of provoking such sentiments. He kept his views to himself thereafter. But his predictions were right. In a country where unemployment is high, there will always be resistance to an influx of immigrants seeking the same elusive jobs.

In Canada, we are faced with a similar, yet also utterly different, situation. While it behooves us to take in refugees from such nightmares as Syria, Somalia, and so on, we need to ensure that these refugees will not clog the major cities with self-enclosed communities increasingly hostile to the rest of the population. The current anti-Muslim feelings, promoted by some media, all but guarantee this. “I and all schoolchildren learn,” wrote W.H. Auden, “that those to whom evil is done do evil in return.”

Although our country is vast, and we desperately need more people to help pay the taxes, this influx of immigrants and refugees cannot be allowed to settle in the major cities. Where then should they go? The Harper Government’s obsession with eradicating the national deficit – a sum so paltry that most U.S. congressmen could pay it off, with a little help from their friends – ignores the more important concerns of infrastructure, especially within cities. To accommodate hordes of immigrants and refugees, besides providing work for those welfare vampires sucking our tax blood, there need to be enormous projects, not unlike the Pharaonic Pyramids, to occupy thousands profitably, and for many years. The opening-up of the North, thanks to Climate Change, also provides opportunity for an abundance of similar massive projects. It is, I suggest, the job of a government, not to balance books, but to dream big. To gaze into a distant future, rather than at the next election, or bottom-line.

I left Toronto four years ago, for personal reasons, yet also because the city I knew for thirty years was becoming just another overcrowded metropolis. It seemed to me that someone had decided the function of cities was to grow, and grow, and grow. Is there an example on earth of a city that has benefitted from excessive growth? Ottawa still strikes me as a reasonable place, an environment in which it is still pleasant to live. Montreal, however, from which I am 90 minutes away, is culturally vibrant, to be sure, yet also a chaotic hell for the driver, and, in addition, a place redolent of the kind of racism pervading some British cities. The unlamented ex-premier of Quebec even cited immigration as the cause of the terrorism afflicting Britain. She was not entirely wrong, though extravagantly unaware that her own anti-Islamic non-policies were the real causes behind such home-grown terrorism.

Quebec claims to be a non-multicultural society, within a multicultural Canada, yet such notions are as antiquated as the guillotine. The future of this country, which includes Quebec, and always will, relies upon some intelligent thinking by whomsoever is in control of it. Allow in as many immigrants as possible, by all means, but distribute these people across this enormous land, rather than allowing them to create mini-nations within every province – ones that will, someday, harbour the same separatist idiocies that continue to cripple Quebec’s future. You leave your country for ours, you leave your nationality behind. You swear allegiance to our Queen and Country, and that oath is binding. Anyone breaking it, I suggest, has lost their right to live here.

In the same way, anyone living on welfare, while being capable of working, is a tax-vampire. As someone who now lives on a monthly disability pension – ‘lives’ being a scarcely appropriate term – I can honestly say that I would take any employment of which I was capable, if offered, in order to pay my way. Why is there no organization to find work for those on welfare? We do not wish to find ourselves in the disastrous state which Britain now faces, do we? Unpopular as it may be – among those who don’t vote anyway – a plan of work-fare makes eminent sense, and ensures a future not over-burdened by idlers, encouraged in their idleness by a dysfunctional system. Philanthropy when it was a private endeavour, focussed on the needy, not the greedy. With our enforced system of philanthropy, via taxation, it is surely the right, and duty, of citizens to decide who deserves assistance, and who does not – just as it ought to be our right, by democratic vote, to decide if our taxes are well-spent on $40 billion-worth of warplanes for a military we cannot use effectively, nor can afford. I believe it is the right and duty of every Canadian citizen to report on suspected abusers of welfare, as it is to decide how and where their tax dollars are best invested. We cannot, and ought not try to compete with the U.S.A., which can no longer even uphold the role of Global Cop, to which it once believed itself elected, let alone cope with its domestic social and economic chaos.

I still remember when the Maple Leaf button assured one safe passage through the world’s disaster zones. Canada then meant equitable dealing, unbiased politics, and decent, humanitarian concerns. These qualities are worth all the biased, tough-guy posturing we hear today; and they are, and ought to remain, the essence of this wonderful land. We stand on guard for thee—and the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.